The DX Chronicles (Book 1): Not Against Flesh and Blood

by Brian Cody

“At the very least, he’s withholding a lot of information”, Erik furthered. “There’s no way he’ll be able to bargain for a deal once he’s shown what we’ve found. Nate, forward these emails to Lamback, maybe even send them to one of us just as a back-up.”

  “Wait”, Bryen called.

  “What is it?” David asked.

  “This one has a reply”, Nate continued. “What did the message say?” Nate asked as a third window opened, and a loading icon appeared.

  “‘And when will this game take place?’” Shawn recited as he lifted his mask and rubbed his chin.

  3.14 HOURS AFTER READING THIS MESSAGE.

  “What!?” David exclaimed, “Wait, Klinge, what does_?” The screen flashed and returned to the welcome display.

  “What?” Shawn asked as he reared up, “how?”

  “Klinge!” David called.

  “That wasn’t”—Nate paused as he typed the password and pounded the Return Key. The loading icon appeared but then vanished after a moment, with the textbox reading ‘Password Incorrect’. “What!?” Nate exclaimed as he typed again.

  “Maybe you spelled it wrong!” Shawn suggested as that message reappeared.

  “B-E-R-T-R-A-M”, Nate growled as he slammed his fingers into each key and then selected the Return Key. “What is this!?”

  “Caps Lock!” Erik exclaimed. “Maybe you’ve got Caps Lock on, or maybe it’s not supposed to be capitalized, or maybe_”

  “Caps Lock isn’t on; I capitalized it the first time”, Nate fired off as he entered the password a sixth time. “Bertram”—he spun to Bryen—”I’m spelling it correctly, right?”

  “You should be”, Bryen replied, his hands clasped together while he glared at the screen.

  “Then why isn’t…?” Nate slammed his finger into the Return Key, and the screen blackened. Then, in a flash, the uppercase pi appeared, illuminating the screen with its scarlet glow and hovering in the center of a similarly colored ring.

  “Something’s off!” Erik called as he backed from the desk, “I’m calling_”—the earsplitting blast of the alarm system halted him, and, as that chime sounded every half-second, the lights—the overhead fans and the lamps on the tables and stands—activated in one unisonous radiance and flashed in time with the alarm, increasing in brightness over thirty seconds before deactivating with the alarm. Replacing those wails and flashes was an earthshaking jounce that tremored through the house’s foundation but ceased a moment after.

  “What was that?” Shawn muttered as he dragged his mask onto his face.

  ***

  The perimeter around the house was cleaved from below. At the front door, a metal plate, five feet across, several inches thick, and of dull, black coloration, geysered from the earth, gored through the staircase, and locked in place along the doorway. Two more plates sprouted on either side of it, two more after that, and, with increasing haste, additional plates breached and eclipsed the outside of the first floor in a connecting line. Along the second and third floors, plates of greater variance in size and shape slid out of crevices along corners, nooks, and convexities to cover the windows and the walls in a similarly thick and identically colored alignment.

  As the final plates shot out of and locked in place along the back of the house, the hundreds of tiles on the roof commenced a series of clattering, rolling motions that replaced their matted hues with a beaming, platinum shine. Then, a zoom bellowed from the ground and resonated along the sides of the first floor before travelling through the second and third floors, and then pulsing through the roof. Immediately after, a golden-yellow light erupted along the house’s armor and glowed in a visible field.

  ***

  “There’s something covering the window”, Shawn exclaimed as he jumped out of the office and the rest of the group followed.

  “The doors; we need to check the doors!” Erik exclaimed as he stepped after him, the house having darkened. Nate darted down the hall before jerking to the right and sprinting for the house’s back-end. Before him sat a doorway; to his left, the kitchen; and to his right an empty dining room. As he crossed the gap between the end of the main hall and the back door, with an electric radiance around his fists, he wound back his right, lunged, and swung. The moment he contacted, a surge of golden energy erupted from the door, deflected his throw, and launched him back. He slammed into the corner of the hall, with the wooden partition caving behind him before he slid to the floor.

  Turning onto the main hall, David looked to Nate, while Shawn and Bryen jogged to the front door. David watched as Nate dragged himself to his feet while squeezing his right wrist. “Garcia!” David called as Erik jogged after him, “try burning through!”

  “Got it”, Erik replied as he jogged to the end of the hallway, stopped beside a rising Nate, and launched a blaze at the door. The same golden radiance flared into a gleaming pool that kept the flames from touching the door. Erik extinguished the small blaze, and the auburn glow disappeared.

  “What?” David grunted as he jogged to Erik.

  “Same thing at the front door!” Shawn called as he jogged down the hall with Bryen. “I wonder if we would have better luck with a window or something.”

  “No, that won’t work”, Erik groaned as he stepped towards the back door and turned to his teammates. “The entire house is now surrounded by a Fluctuating Current, Electromagnetic Force Field, and, if it deflected my flames that easily, I’d have to say that it has a pretty wide spectrum of influence. We’re up against a stable energy shield strong enough to take several tons of explosive force, and that’s a low estimate. It’s the military bunker of the future.”

  “Emphasis on ‘the future’”, Bryen remarked as he crossed his arms. “This is known to the public, but, from what I’ve read, it’s supposed to be just entering experimental stages. It shouldn’t be anything more than a concept on paper right now.”

  “Up until a few months ago, I thought the same with Super Suits”, Erik replied as he looked to the back door. “This proves the CIA’s initial suspicions: there’s someone out there more advanced than at least part of our government’s engineering wings; and, it seems, Arthur Grant was chummy with him-slash-her.”

  “So”, David began, “that means…?”

  “It means this was a trap, and we waltzed right into it!” Nate exclaimed.

  ***

  Lamback reared up from his love seat, grabbed his phone with his left, and, with his right, lowered the volume of the television anchors bellowing sports statistics at one another. He felt his phone vibrate again; yet, as he looked to the Caller ID, he found a private number. He answered.

  “Hey Dave, I just got the clearance to allow your assets to help with Grant’s case”, the speaker began, his tone humming and of a moderate pace. “However, in case they’re discovered, they are to wear the full armor, helmets included.”

  “Ha, funny”, Lamback chuckled as he stood. “Is this a prank? Did the CIA put you up to this? Are they still mad that I took their coffee machine?”

  “Uh, no…why?”

  “You sure? Because I got clearance hours ago”, Lamback replied.

  “Uh, you didn’t”, the speaker replied. “I’m just now receiving a written signature from the attorney general. He was out at dinner with his wife and wouldn’t be disturbed with anything less than another terrorist attack.”

  “Okay, Walsh, this isn’t funny”, Lamback replied as he turned to the television.

  “Dave, remember the rules I developed for you when speaking on government phones? No inappropriate jokes in English or in Portuguese, and-or no remarks about the bureaucracy. What I said were the attorney general’s exact words: ‘Do not disturb me with anything less than another terrorist attack’.”

  “Well…” Lamback spun away, his grin vanishing as the squeeze on his phone increased. “Hold on, I’m putting you on speaker”, he stated as he lowered his phone, pressed a button along the side, and exited the call screen. He selected his logs and then sc
rolled through his previous calls, to the one he had received during the early evening. As he opened the log, he found the number, which had appeared as ‘Private’ and was then replaced with ‘UNKNOWN’. “What?” he muttered.

  “Is something wrong?” the speaker inquired.

  “I’m calling Erik”, Lamback replied as he shoved his hand into the pile of magazines and yanked out another cellphone, slimmer than his first and bearing a touchscreen.

  “Do you want me to hang up?” the speaker inquired.

  “No, my request for a second cellphone was approved last month”, Lamback replied as he activated that device and scanned through his contacts.

  “They only gave you a second phone because you almost died and to keep you from asking for a raise.”

  “Hold on, I’ve got a dial tone”, Lamback remarked as he placed the phone to his ear, listened to the second and the third tone, and then heard the message:

  The person you have tried to reach is unavailable…

  “Crap!” Lamback roared as he slammed the phone. “We might have a problem!”

  ***

  “B-money”, David spoke as he inched towards the back door and tapped it with his right-pointer and middle fingers. A momentary bolt shot out, met his digits, and shocked him. “Do you think you could use your shadow to pass through this?” he asked as he stepped back and turned to Bryen.

  “Probably”, Bryen replied with a shrug. “I’m sure my shadow could disrupt the energy as long as it’s not a really high intensity, and I know it can make solid objects intangible, but I’ve never done both simultaneously. If anything, it might take a few minutes, because I’ve never done it before, and also because I’ll be working against an energy shield and a solid mass behind it.”

  “Well, quit being a Sally and get to it!” David exclaimed.

  “Maybe”, Bryen replied. As he inched towards the door, he eyed that entrance and his shadow with interchanging glances. He stopped a foot from the maroon-painted face, his eyes contracting and dilating as he adjusted his vision to discern the nigh-invisible, yellow layer. Simultaneously, he lifted his right arm, causing a tendril to rise, with undulant sways, to just below his open palm. Bryen then spread his legs and pivoted rightward. He motioned his arm to his side and spun, causing his shadow to curve horizontally and to contact with the door.

  In a flash, the tip of the shadow was dispersed as the guarding energy became visible in auburn pulses. Bryen twisted his hand to the right, causing his shadow to corkscrew and causing his shadow’s irregular edge to wind into a funnel that, over the seconds, drove back the energy shield. The yellow glow increased in radiance and growling volume as it was pushed away and the bare surface of the doorway was nudged into view.

  “All right”, Nate began as he, David, Shawn, and Erik watched Bryen lift his left and pull out a second extension, “while B-money does that, I’m going to re-try the password. If you guys leave, tell me”, and, with that, Nate jogged out of view.

  “What if we didn’t tell him?” Shawn asked as he stared at the amassment of lights and shadows.

  “I heard that!” Nate yelled back.

  “No, you didn’t”, Shawn retorted, while Bryen pressed his second extension into the gape and fisted his left, with that shadow undulating as it dissolved into the door. “Let’s do it”, Shawn suggested to David.

  “Dude, I’m_”—David paused, turned to Erik, and then glanced back.

  “What’s up?” Erik asked.

  “Turrisi—where’s Turrisi?” David asked.

  “Oh, shoot!” Shawn called as he stepped back. “I almost forgot about him.”

  “Turrisi!” David called as he turned and cupped his mouth, “Dave Turrisi!”

  “Turrisi!” Erik repeated.

  At the sound of his name, Turrisi tilted his head within the central hallway of the third floor and stood from his leaning posture, his rifle pointed towards an obscured skylight along the ceiling. Grunting, he lowered his weapon, about-faced, and dashed down the hallway, passing open rooms and coming to the spiral staircase at the end of the floor. He rushed down those steps, stomped past the second level, and descended to the first. After landing in the center of the first right hallway, he darted towards the connecting passageway to the second, while an extended, open gape appeared to his right. Turrisi glanced to that opening as the wall ceased, and he scanned over the dimmed, concave arrangement of a living room. He turned away after glancing over the silhouettes of a couch and a television, but his eyes gaped, and, with a hard stomp, Turrisi halted as he recalled another shape.

  “What?” he murmured as he turned to the living room, descended three steps, and looked to a set of objects within the living room’s center. Turrisi stared for several moments more, massaging the trigger of his rifle as he examined those objects. “Whoa!” he gasped as he jumped back, the backs of his feet striking the steps and causing him to stumble. “Whoa!” he repeated as he rolled to his front and jumped to his feet. “Crap!” he blared as he rushed for the kitchen.

  “I can say with ninety-eight percent surety that I’ve passed through the door, and that I’ll have passed the metal plate outside of said door in about thirty seconds”, Bryen called as he looked over his shoulder, his arms still outstretched and the energy shield held in place, while the circular gape, then two feet in diameter, trembled by Bryen’s plunging shadow.

  “Password still doesn’t work”, Nate called as he stepped into view.

  “Well, whatever; we’ll send someone back here to take care of that or something”, David replied. “Okay, so how are we gonna do this, B?” he asked as he stepped to Bryen.

  “Well, I was wondering if we should just send Nate out there”, Bryen began. “He could try to use his electricity to short out the shield or whatever’s powering it.”

  “Sounds good to me”, Nate proclaimed as he stepped forward.

  “Nope, Nate’ll ditch us!” Shawn interjected.

  “Hey, guys.” The group, sans Bryen, glanced back to Turrisi sauntering out of the third hallway with his firearm across his gut.

  “What’s up, Turrisi?” Erik asked as Turrisi stepped forward with a light grin.

  “Oh, hey, there’s a bomb with a five-ton yield in the living room”, Turrisi replied, his grin maintained.

  “Ha, that’s…that’s funny”, Erik replied with a point and a smirk, “but seriously.”

  “There’s five minutes on the clock”, Turrisi replied, his grin vanishing. By then, all but Bryen faced Turrisi, and, as the moments passed and the force field crackled behind them, those four focused on the gunman, smirking as they expected Turrisi to point his gun while laughing the words ‘Got ya!’ Ten seconds passed, and Turrisi’s solemnity remained.

  “Show us!” David proclaimed with a thrust of his chin.

  “Okay”, Turrisi replied as he started down the hallway. David, Shawn, Erik, and Nate remained in place, expecting Turrisi to about-face and start laughing, but, as he looked back and waved them on, they glanced to one another and started after him, catching up to him halfway down the main hallway and then following as he turned to the first hallway on their left, continued down to the end of that hall, and turned right into an open space. Turrisi dropped down three steps and turned to the left of that entrance where, as the others dropped behind him, he flicked a light-switch. The fluorescent light flashed as the group stood, the dark-maple floors, the silver walls, and the glass end-tables sitting on either side of the green couch coming into immediate view, but then, in the center of that room of twenty or so feet, appeared a set of three rounded, sterling cylinders, each a meter in height, which were arranged in a triangular formation and screwed to the floor by lengths of rebar, four per cylinder, which were several inches in diameter.

  “So…” Nate began as he stepped forward and sighted the clusters of wires snaking around the two front containers and combining into one mass along the farthest.

  “Timer”, Turrisi replied as he pointed to the contain
er on their left and towards a six-inch rectangular box which bore a crimson screen and three digits counting down from less than four minutes.

  “Yeah, but…” Shawn began, his breaths strengthening as he stepped back. “How…how do you know that it’s five tons?” he coughed.

  Turrisi walked to the farthest cylinder and looked to a stamp on the cylinder’s right side. “And I quote: ‘five-ton yield’.”

  “Huh”, David grunted as he crossed his arms.

  “What?” Nate asked as he stomped after Turrisi, read those same words, and backed away. “Yep, five tons.”

  “So…” Erik muttered as he glanced to David.

  “Am I missing something, or should we be panicking right now?” Shawn asked.

  “Let’s just say—hypothetically speaking—that we can’t go out through the back door”, David began as he looked around, “would I just be able to hug the bomb and take the brunt of the force? It should keep the house and the computer from being destroyed, and I survived that explosion on the Fifth Street Bridge with only some first-degree burns.”

  “Yeah, but it’s five tons though”, Erik remarked. “Do you think you’d be able to take that blast?”

  “I guess we’d find out if I had to”, David replied.

  “You know what, though?” Shawn began. “I’m really not savvy to telling your parents about your death.”

  “Instead of hugging it, let’s disarm it”, Nate suggested.

  “Okay, stop”, David called. “We technically don’t even have to worry about it. The house is A: secluded; B: shielded; and C: not ours to worry about once we’re outta here. Speaking of which…” David turned to the hallway and called, “B, how’s it looking?!”

  “And!” Bryen yelled back, his voice carrying over the drones of the energy field, “done?” he yelped.

  “B?” David called, “it sounds like you’re choking up there.”

  “Not choking; uh…crap”, Bryen called.

  “Did you shock yourself?” David asked.

  “No, well…almost; there’s a second electromagnetic current on the outside of the plate that I forgot to account for.”