Agent on the Run (The Agents for Good)

by Stanton III, Guy

Jane nodded abstractly, as she studied the device before her.

  I spoke up, as my hands were being cuffed together by one of the other goons, “So I’m guessing that device isn’t for disrupting the mind control devices that you have manipulated members of the Agency with.”

  The man who’d praised Jane came to me and lifted his gun to my head, “You are of no further use to us.”

  Darn! Where was my girlfriend when I needed her?

  I almost felt the bullet blow my brains loose, when Jane suddenly spoke, “I would like to further use this one for pain testing First Officer.”

  The man with the gun to my head glanced to Jane questioningly before shrugging, “As you wish Doctor. Bring him!” The headman stepped out of the room with the device held securely against him, as if it was the only thing he cherished in life.

  Jane stepped out toward me and I longed for the bullet that I’d been about to receive, as my mind filled with the many atrocities that this woman had done in the name of science. How could I have been such a fool to let this woman get the upper hand, when I’d known from the first day that she wasn’t to be trusted?

  I glared my hate at her, as I was held securely in place by three of the suited men. Her hands reached up to then glide down my chest, until further down past my waist she gripped my maleness through my pants and said, “I am so looking forward to our time together in the lab, as I deconstruct you and then build you back up into a creation of my imagination.”

  My mind filled with the images of what had been done to the demented gorilla monster and I felt revulsion rise up in me at the thought of ending up like it or made into something worse.

  Jane let go of me laughing, “Take him outside. Have him transported to the lab that has been set up for me. I’ll begin his transformation as soon as we land.”

  I was jerked out the door by the guys in suits, as I watched Jane arm a bomb detonator to take out the apartment with all of its technology.

  ‘Come on Flicker!!!’

  There was still no response from my girlfriend. I felt hope fading fast, as I was herded outside into the sunlight. There was a sudden shriekingly loud sound that kicked up a dust storm within the town as windows shattered at the sudden appearance of a flying vessel that looked like it belonged in outer space.

  My jaw dropped in astonishment, as I took in the alien looking vessel that landed not too far from us in a parking lot. It pivoted around presenting us with the rear of the vessel from which a gangway lowered down, as the vessel continued to hover just above the pavement of the parking lot.

  I was roughly shoved forward toward it, and all I could think was that the Agency and for that matter the entire world, had a lot more to worry about than just a few mind controlled board members. This level of technology was beyond anything that anyone else surely had access to on the planet. How had the remnants of the Code people increased in technology so fast?

  I didn’t know how, but they had. I had to do something about it, but what?

  As I stepped on board the sleek craft something was jammed into my neck and I passed out moments later.

  The craft with its cargo of individuals now loaded roared out over the town causing even more shattered windows and fractured nerves, as people ran to and fro in mass panic at the sighting of so alien a sight as the ship was to them. The vessel once it cleared the ground, rocketed upward into the atmosphere at a lightning pace, as it started out on its path of leaving Earth’s atmosphere altogether.

  The vessel had a target that shone brightly ahead in the gloomy darkness of space, the moon. It was a fast trip, as the vessel locked its coordinates on the moon base that had been three months in the construction of and had only been completed the previous week.

  An abrupt jar stirred me partially out of the delirium I was in. With a grunt of pain I felt myself being dumped onto a stretcher of some kind and then I was picked up and carried roughly along. My eyes peered open, my brain thick and foggy, as I struggled for full consciousness to make sense out of what was happening.

  I was being carried down a long hallway. Occasionally windows appeared in the unbroken corridor. There was something outside.

  I squinted and focused waiting for the next window. My jaw fell open partially, as I realized that what I’d seen before was Earth!

  I wasn’t on the planet!

  Consciousness came back to me in leaps and bounds then, but I kept it to myself doing my best to make it look like I was still groggy and half knocked out. Doors opened ahead of us and a large domed space opened overhead.

  It was hard to keep my sense of awe to myself. How had they done all this?

  I was pretty sure that if I was looking at Earth out the window then the structure I was in had to be located on the moon. Who could have guessed that the Code had gone into space in order to hide from the heavy retribution acted out against them by the survivors of their harsh rule upon the Earth?

  I saw the guy with the anxious trigger finger break off with most of the group following on after him and his glowing metallic blue device, while I was taken off elsewhere on the stretcher. I really didn’t want to think about how I might have just been penciled in as humanity’s best last chance for freedom. Even more than that I didn’t want to contemplate on the fact that I may have just handed over to the enemy what they needed to turn the tide of war.

  Yeah it had been a bad day. To top it all off it looked like my girlfriend had ditched me or worse yet wasn’t able to come to my aid. Things were bleak no matter what way you looked at it.

  I seemed to have arrived at wherever my stretcher bearers had been intent on taking me. I tensed my muscles in preparation to attempt to take the two of them on, when they unceremoniously dumped me off the stretcher. Before I could recover from the surprise of that they were both at me kicking viciously.

  Oh it hurt! What kind of hard implemented organ and spine massage doesn’t?

  I was gasping for breath and feeling like I was dying by the time they hauled me up off the floor and slammed me down on top of an exam table. My arms and legs were quickly fastened to it and my two assailants left the room leaving me alone in the lab.

  I tested the restraints. I wasn’t getting out of them.

  “Way to save the world Utah!” I said out loud in a self-deprecating manner.

  “God I could really use some help right now!” I said in a humble plea for the miraculous to occur.

  The door opened and I glanced up to see Jane walk into the lab.

  My head fell back against the table, as I stared up at the ceiling, as if I was looking into heaven. My thought was, “Really God? Look I know I’m in danger of repeating Job’s sin by asking this, but why when I call out for help do You send me the one individual who wants to playfully cut my manhood off and turn me into a mechanical vegetable?”

  Jane was by my side at the table and she was smiling, “I assure you honey that removing this is the last thing I would ever contemplate doing.” She finished with, as she patted my trousers.

  Okay so that was downright creepy! She apparently could read my mind to, which was just great!!!

  Jane moved from out of my sight and I prepared for the worst to begin. The restraints suddenly released me and I lay there for a shocked moment before I rolled off the table and onto my feet turning to stare at Jane as I did so. She was still smiling, as she came up to me.

  She handed me a gunish looking device and said, “Just pull the trigger like you would a gun and give these to Flicker when you see her.” Jane finished, as she handed me a bag of small round discs such as I had on my head.

  I took the bag not knowing what to say. Jane wasn’t a traitor?

  “It will all become clear in time Utah. Now follow me.” Jane said, as she started out from the laboratory.

  I followed on after her, as I prepared to drill anyone that showed with the death ray looking blaster I held in my hand.

  Jane headed out from the lab and down a ser
ies of glistening technology laden corridors. We came to a partition door and through the glass pane I could see a lot of people gathered in what appeared to be a central control room.

  Everyone was very busy in their assigned tasks. Did Jane hope for us to sneak through the hustle and bustle type atmosphere without going noticed?

  I doubted the success of that, as I was the only black person I’d seen in the place so far. I was about to say as much when Jane turned to me and said, “Wait here a moment. You’ll receive further instruction from Flicker.”

  Jane turned back to the access door and I hurriedly asked, “What are you going to do?”

  “Clear the way.” Was all she said before she went through the door and into the busy control room.

  Clear the way?

  I watched Jane step into the center of the space and then her hands came up with what looked like two halves of a stick. She jammed the two pieces together to form one unbroken rod and there was an intense blue explosion of color that had an electric like feel to it that engulfed the control room.

  The access door was blown off its mounts and I was knocked to the floor, as the acrid electrical smoke from the other room poured out into the hallway.

  Coughing I got back up to my feet and stumbled into the room that Jane had entered. Everything electrical within the room was fried and it was dark except for some emergency lighting here and there. The people were all dead, only for the fact that they weren’t people. They were the most artfully crafted true to life machines I had ever seen in my life.

  It was as if I had just walked into an old Terminator movie. The explosion of blue electric flame hadn’t done much damage to the structure of the room, but everything electrical, as well as the people like machines, was blown apart and charred. Walking through the smoke hazed scene was otherworldly to say the least. No pun intended.

  I found what was left of Jane. Just like everyone else in the room she hadn’t been human. She’d just been a mirage of a human. Everything had been a mirage of deceit. What the heck was going on here?

  I knelt down and moved around the blown open fuse panel partitions of what was left of Jane’s metallic skull. I saw something of interest. Behind one plastic yet believable and still intact ear clinging to the metallic skull was a round disc. Everything went quite within me as I saw that disc.

  I felt the positive emotion that Flicker was in my thoughts before I felt the framing of her question, “Are you okay honey?”

  I felt both intense relief at knowing that she was alive and anger over how I had been duped by her.

  “You have a lot of explaining to do honey!” I stated with mind felt intensity.

  “I know I do, but your reactions had to be authentic for this to be pulled off.”

  “You were in control of Jane the whole time weren’t you?” I asked, as I quickly put things together.

  “Yes, I’m sorry that I deceived you!”

  My thoughts ran over what I’d been made to think by the Jane persona, as to what I was to have been created into under her knife. “I should give you the spanking of a lifetime!” I gritted out, even as I felt my embarrassment flush my face with hot blood.

  “Is that a threat or a promise?”

  “Oh it’s a promise!” I affirmed.

  “Okay then, if it will make you feel better, but you’ve got to let me into the facility. Preferably before my oxygen runs out!”

  Concern took over within me and I quickly got to my feet and asked, “Where are you?”

  “I hitched a ride on an outer compartment of the vessel that brought you here.”

  I shook my head; so much about all this was absolutely crazy. I had just gotten back to the states from tangling with a bionic gorilla intent on raping my girlfriend and feeding himself with my flesh, only to walk into the realm of a science fiction novel complete with evil robots and death ray blasters. Things couldn’t get any worse, at least I hoped not.

  “I’m coming for you. Can you direct me?” I asked.

  “Take the hall beyond. Follow it to the end and make a left. Go straight through an open gallery to the hall beyond that one. Go down it and make a right and you’ll see me in a pressure chamber. Engage the pressure lock and open the door once the atmosphere has stabilized.”

  My brain scrambled, as I tried to copy all that down. “How much air do you have?” I asked.

  There was a slight pause, which was telling, before she responded, “I don’t have much. Please hurry!”

  I took off running. The hall beyond was still lit up unaffected by the blue explosion and peopled with oncoming first responders. I lifted the blaster and gave it a try. Oh cool!

  I probably shouldn’t react that exuberantly to killing several somethings with a few clicks of the trigger, but they weren’t human so it wasn’t too bad of me, was it?

  The weapon really was cool. With every squeeze of the trigger blue jolts of energy shot out and encased my intended victims causing them to falter and pitch forward in a mass of burning wires and blown circuits.

  There sure were a lot of these robot things, in fact I was really beginning to hope that this weapon didn’t have some kind of recharge function coming up, because the attacking robo girls and boys were not happy at all.

  Crossing the open gallery was an experience. I just held the trigger down and commenced mass robotic destruction. I gained the other hallway and tore down it unimpeded. I made the right and I saw a glass panel head. It was the pressure chamber compartment and Flicker dressed in a spacesuit was collapsed on the floor!

  “Flicker!” I exclaimed, but I got no reply.

  I jammed away at the probable sequence of buttons on the display and the chamber began to pressurize. I waited in anxious frustration for the atmosphere to equalize before I ripped the hatch door open and began dragging Flicker out of the small room. She had to weigh a ton!

  Fumbling, I managed to get her helmet off. Her features were cold and still.

  “No, you come back to me!” I yelled out frantically.

  I propped her head back and forced her lips apart and breathed air into her, as I barely controlled myself to keep from blowing to forcefully and hurting her lungs. I gave her another breath and then I started chest compressions, which was made difficult by the bulky suit she wore.

  I was about to give her another breath, when I was torn away from her and hurled out across the hall to slam into the adjoining wall. Glancing up I saw my assailant was one of the human robot kinds like Flicker, only of the walking vegetable variety. In a word the situation was not good!

  I ducked out away from the wall, as a metallic fist pulverized the material of the wall where my head had just been. In my lunge away from the wall I tumbled down the hall and came up with the blue ray gun. Flipping over onto my back I let the fast approaching robot have an energy blast, only to my horror it didn’t work!

  The gun fired and the blue electric cloud coated over the robot man like it had the others, but there was no sparking or sizzle of fuses blowing. Apparently the blaster didn’t work on this kind of robotic creation. What a shame!

  What a dirty rotten shame I thought to myself abstractly, as I was flung through the air helter-skelter for the second time. I skidded off the ceiling and dropped ten feet to land hard on the floor. I shouldn’t still be conscious, but desperation drove me to be.

  I crawled as best as I could the remaining distance to Flicker. I had just reached her, when I felt the sworded arm of the robot stab down through me anchoring me to the floor. I winced at the gut rending pain, but I lifted my fist and slammed it down hammer like onto the center of Flicker’s chest.

  Flicker flew upward with a gasp of air and then screamed out at the sight before her and moved at the speed of light. Dimly through the shock I noticed the robot’s bloody electrical sparking head roll off to the side of me.

  “Asta lavista buddy, say hello to my girlfriend!” It was odd the things one thinks up, when one is dy
ing.

  Someone was saying something. I glanced up to see Flicker. Her face was awash with tears, but they didn’t diminish her beauty at all.

  “I love you.” I managed to say before I just couldn’t hold my eyes open any longer.

  Flicker clutched Utah to herself and cried out desperately, “Oh God!”

  She didn’t care about destroying what the Code had become anymore. All she cared about was the man bleeding out in her arms. She had cut the robot’s blade off and it still remained within Utah. If she’d removed it Utah would have bled out in seconds.

  Flicker didn’t know what to do. Cradling Utah’s tall frame gently in her arms she got to her feet and headed for where the space vessel was. Maybe she could get back to Earth and get him to a hospital, but bitterly she knew he’d never make it. What else could she do though?

  She made it to the open gallery, but standing in the middle of the space she could bitterly see that she could get no farther than this. The humanoid Code manifestations had retreated in order to preserve their number, but they had brought in reinforcements to do their work for them. Ringed around the whole open gallery where the robot warriors of her own engineered kind. There was simply too many of them to even attempt to resist against.

  Flicker knelt down and tenderly laid Utah onto the floor and with one last glance around she folded her metallic fingers together, “My man is dying! Can’t you do something about this Jesus?”

  A vision overwhelmed her then. She was in a field of wildflowers and all of her looked real, even though she still knew the parts of her weren’t. She didn’t understand it. Suddenly she was walking through the flowers and a little girl was beside her laughing. The girl’s skin was a soft chocolate in comparison to the vanilla tone of her skin. The little girl took off screaming, “Daddy! Daddy!” Flicker looked up to see a man coming through the flowers toward them. It was Utah only it wasn’t. The man’s name was Sean. Utah was Sean? The girl jumped into the man’s outstretched arms crying out joyously in her jubilance at being in her father’s arms. The girl turned back to her and cried out for her to come along too. Flicker started to move forward, as she stared into the little girls blue eyes that were a match for her own. What did all this mean?”