Surge Forward

by Nate Castle

  He unscrewed the cap of the vial trying not let Jack or the others see what he was doing. Him and Carter, lay there on their stomachs waiting for Jack’s next orders. And then suddenly it began happening. One by one, each of the men, including Carter and Hank began coughing. The cough became steady and then stopped, followed by each man fainting and falling to the ground. At this point Logan knew it was his time to intervene. He needed a mask to protect him from the fumes, but didn’t have time to locate one.

  Shelby, already one step ahead of him said, “Give me your shirt,”.

  Logan pulled his t-shirt off and gave it to Shelby, who ripped a long strip of it. She placed the piece that she ripped over Logan’s mouth and nostrils and tied it around the back of his neck.

  “Do the same for me,” she said.

  It wasn’t perfect, but they hoped they would have partial protection from whatever substance had caused the men to pass out. Logan had found some large nets in a storage closet while looking around the building. He wasn’t sure if they were for humans or possibly animals, but he grabbed as many as he could carry and hustled outside to where the group of men lay motionless. Shelby knew what he was going to do with the nets, so she grabbed a few from him to assist. They simultaneously placed nets over Jack and his four men. The nets weren’t your run of the mill hardware store purchase, these things were the Ferrari of nets. There was a button that they could press once the net was in place which would allow for the net to create tension and tighten itself, basically creating a vacuum seal. Now, the men were trapped in nets that they would not be able to get out of without the assistance from someone outside.

  “Hank must have really been banking on the fact that we would come out from the building when everyone passed out,” Logan said.

  “He knew you’d figure something out!” Shelby said.

  7

  There’s No ‘I’ In Team

  “I’m gonna call for somebody to pick us up, this is getting ridiculous!” Christina said.

  They had spent the past hour trying to get the alien craft out of Armor Mode and back to its normal appearance so that they could fly it, but hadn’t had any luck.

  “Somebody picks us up and then what, we just leave the craft parked on the roof here?” Noel said.

  “I don’t see much other choice,” Christina said, “And besides, in a round-a-bout F’d up way, this was the overarching plan. To find a tall building in NYC and land the craft on the roof in order to achieve the highest visibility.”

  “I’ll make the phone call, since I was the one who fouled up,’ Garrett said, “And I’ll tell them to bring some volunteers that can monitor the video feed and also keep this craft secure.”

  “With what phone?” Christina said.

  “Leave that to me,” Garrett said.

  He returned to the cabin of the craft. Noel and Christina remained on the deck, taking in the breathtaking views of New York and the surrounding areas. Garrett came back a few minutes later with a few ‘tools’. One resembled a tire iron, but had three rounded purple spikes coming from the end of the pole. Another tool looked like a hand drill, but the drill bit was varying thicknesses and shapes as it went further down, and there were three triggers to run the drill instead of one.

  “I’ll be back in a bit, I’m gonna find a phone,”Garrett said.

  “I’m coming with you,” Noel said.

  “Me too,” Christina said.

  “The more the merrier,” Garrett said, “So y’all aren’t that mad at me after all?”

  “I’m pissed off at the effects of your curiosity, but can’t fault you too much. You’ve gotten us this far. Noel or myself probably would have made the same mistake at some point,” Christina said.

  They had climbed down the craft to the roof of the building, making sure to throw a rope over the side so that they could climb back up the craft when they returned. They made their way towards a stairwell door and Garrett pulled the handle. Like he suspected, the door was locked, so he lined up the drill with the keyhole and pulled the trigger. The first trigger that he used didn’t do anything so he tried the second one.

  Puhhhh—pop

  The drill engaged so quickly when he pulled the trigger, that it caused a recoil and Garrett was sent flying back, landing on his rear end.

  “God damn. I’ve shot plenty of guns in my life, but never experienced a kick-back like that one!” Garrett said.

  He walked back to the door and saw the drill had done its job at least; it had punctured a large circular hole in the keyhole, eliminating the need to use a key. Garrett reached his hand in the hole and pulled towards him, opening the door from the inside. The three hustled down a flight of stairs and reached a second door which was also locked.

  “Try a different combination this time, maybe press two triggers at once,” Noel said, referring to Garrett’s use of the drill to breach the door.

  Garrett, not seeming too worried about the effect of another recoil, tried Noel’s idea, which worked out beautifully. By pressing trigger one and two at the same time, the drill acted more like a drill and slowly created a hole in the keyhole this time.

  “Thatta girl Noel, keep them ideas comin’!” Garrett said.

  They were now in a long hallway lined with glass doors on either side. It was hard to tell what kind of company office they were in, but it must have been something important because when Garrett tried to breach one of the glass doors, he determined that the glass was all bulletproof.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this, who needs bulletproof glass in their office?” Christina said.

  “They must be trying to protect something. If I had to guess it’s either something highly illegal or classified to the point where it could affect national security if it leaked out. Not that it matters now,” Garrett said and followed up with a little chuckle.

  There was a reception desk at the end of the long hallway, which was not surrounded by bulletproof glass. A logo on the front face of the desk read ‘NolaCorp’. There was a landline phone on top of the desk as expected. Garrett picked it up and started to dial Carter’s direct line.

  An automated voice on the other end said, ‘Please enter 15 digit employee code’.

  “It won’t work unless I enter a code,” Garrett said.

  “Dial 9-1-1. They would be foolish to not allow emergency calls to be made without an employee code. I think all 9-1-1 calls are still being routed to the White House main line, like they were after the attack,” Christina said.

  He picked up the receiver and tried it, this time successfully.

  “What would I do without you two lovely ladies,” Garrett said.

  He stood there for a moment until someone at the White House picked up on the other end. He started talking, ‘Yeah, we have the craft in NYC, but can’t move it…yeah it’s a long story…can you get Carter to pick us up?….Ok, well where is he?….Also we’re gonna need a team of about 20 to come here and run security and video monitoring…ok, beautiful…what’s the ETA on that?… 3 hours is doable I guess…yeah i’ll check back in 1 hour to get a status update….thank you…’

  He placed the receiver back on its holder and turned towards the girls, “Someone will be here in about three hours to get us,” he said.

  A Zyrgian alien craft left its Yosemite headquarters, heading towards the White House. At maximum speed, the craft could arrive at its destination in about five minutes, but the trip would end up taking over an hour instead. The aliens in the craft wanted to fly slower so they could survey the rest of the country during the flyover and gather intel on spots of weakness, and status updates on rebuilding projects that the humans were working on. Inside this particular craft were the group who had infiltrated themselves into the San Quentin prisoners’ bodies. Their appearance looked like normal humans. Their chosen language for communication in this particular situation was English. The Zyrgian’s were extremely smart and had learned ten of the most common languages spoken on Earth, prior to coming. The
y would have chosen to speak their native language, Zyrgios, but that would require they be in their normal physical state. Zyrgios was a fast spoken language due to the fact that the Zyrgians had two tongues. The tongues would work together to make words and tones in a rapid-fire fashion. Imagine being a drummer with only one drumstick versus being a drummer with two drumsticks. The one with two drumsticks would be able to play the drums much faster.

  “The solution to our problem is putting the humans to sleep so that we can go and destroy the crafts and other evidence,” one alien said.

  “Using the Norytypoxal vials?” another responded.

  “Precisely. We release the gas to everywhere around the White House. It will put everyone who inhales it to sleep, and that will give us approximately two hours before the affected humans wake up from their artificial sleep,” the first alien added.

  “Ok I will set up the Argwerial exit tube. Should I set the pump to release a steady flow of Norytypoxal or in bursts?”

  “Let’s do a steady flow for the square mile around the White House, and then bursts for the rest of the surrounding area. I want to make sure the gas hits all of the humans on the White House property, so that we don’t have to engage in a fight when we get there. We have a pretty comfortable supply of Norytypoxal, so we should still have some remaining after gassing the area. ”

  “The line keeps ringing. This is not good, someone always picks up,” Garrett said. He called the White House after 90 minutes to check in on the status of their ride.

  “Something must be wrong over there, maybe it’s as simple as the phone line is down. But we need to get there and check it out,” Christina said.

  “And just leave the alien craft unattended?” Noel said.

  “She’s right Noel, we have to get back to the White House. We’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed that nothing happens to the craft while we’re gone,” Garrett said, “C’mon follow me.”

  He led them to an emergency stairwell where they proceeded to walk down 86 flights of stairs. About 20 flights in, Christina said, “What about the elevator?”

  “If it gets stuck for some reason, there will be nobody for us to call to get help, we’ll be trapped in there, “Garrett said.

  “Well I’m not cut out for this Iron Man type-shit, so I’m gonna risk taking the elevator,” she said.

  Garrett and Noel followed her through a floor entrance door to a bank of elevators down the hall. Once inside Christina pressed the button that read “L”, assuming that it would take them to the building’s lobby. The door shut, and the elevator was in motion. It made it down to the 27th floor before coming to a stop. They waited for the door to open, but it did not. None of the buttons they pressed seemed to work either.

  “Well isn’t this just fantastic!” Garrett said with a lot of sarcasm. He then pushed up on the ceiling panel and moved it out of the way so that he would have enough room to climb up there.

  “Boost me up,” he said to the girls.

  They interlocked their hands together, creating a platform that Garrett could step up on and reach the ceiling. He then grabbed onto a metal beam above the ceiling and pulled himself up. He was now on top of the elevator.

  “What now?” Christina said.

  “I’m gonna get us some lunch, what kind of sandwiches do you want?” Garrett said.

  “Really? I’m not that hungry…” Christina said.

  She was gullible.

  “No Christina. What do you think I’m gonna do? Get us out of this elevator, obviously,” Garrett said.

  You could sense a bit of anger in his voice. He had just told Christina why they shouldn’t use the elevator in the first place, and now they were trapped inside one. Without saying another word, he began climbing up the elevator shaft, looking for a way out. There would need to be an access point soon because he didn’t have it in him to climb the steel cable more than about two stories.

  Christina and Noel waited in the elevator for what felt like forever, but was only about twenty minutes. Noel was curious about what Christina felt for Garrett, so she asked her straight up, “Are you into Garrett?”

  “I don’t know yet. What I do know is that I wouldn’t mind spending more time with him though,” Christina said.”

  “Great. This is like an episode of the Bachelor. The girls all line up, and fight with each other for the attention of the same guy,” Noel said.

  “Under normal circumstances, I would say you can have him. But as you know, there aren’t too many good looking guys out there since the alien attack, so I’m not ready to let it go just yet,” Christina said.

  Noel had to hand it to her, she spoke what was on her mind, and didn’t beat around the bush. Noel didn’t mind a challenge, what she didn’t like was not knowing what she was up against. Now that she had a better understanding of where Christina stood, she was ready.

  “Alright girly, game on!” Noel said.

  “Game on?” Garrett said, as he unexpectedly pried open the elevator door from the outside.

  He now had both girls wondering if he had heard the whole conversation from outside the door, or had just caught the last sentence.

  “How did you get out?” Christina said.

  “Well I climbed a steel cable to a vent and then crawled through the vent until I was in the ceiling of the 29th floor. From there it was easy. I found a squeegee in a janitorial closet, and rigged it up so that it could be used as a pry bar to pry open the elevator door for you lovely ladies,” Garrett said.

  “You’re so brave, Garrett, I don’t know what I would do without you,” Noel said, and leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek.

  “This time around we are going to take the stairs, it’s not up for debate,” he said.

  8

  Twisted

  “Logan, he’s waking up!” Shelby said.

  They had been huddled around Hank’s body for the past thirty minutes unsure of what they should do. Logan knew that Hank was alive, because he checked for a pulse, but it was a question of how long would it be before he woke up. There really wasn’t much else they could do besides wait, so it was a relief when Hank’s eyes started fluttering. Not long after, Carter and the prisoners woke up too.

  “Hank, you made it buddy!” Logan said and extended his arm for Hank to grab ahold of.

  “Yep, it was a bit unorthodox, but it got the job done,” Hank said. He was now on his feet.

  “What the hell happened?” Logan said.

  “I thought Jack and his men might kill us, and the only way I could think of to even the playing field was to release this toxic gas into the air. I found vials of it on one of the alien crafts six months ago. Whatever it is, it’ll put you sleep within a matter of seconds,” Hank said.

  “Hmm, you might be onto something here. There has to be a practical use for this chemical,” Logan said.

  “Maybe, maybe not, but the main thing is it got us out of a tight spot,” Hank said.

  “What about these derelicts? Leave ‘em here or kill ‘em?” Logan said.

  “We take ‘em with us,” Hank said.

  “Huh?” Logan said, he sounded confused.

  “We bring ‘em back to the White House. They can be useful to us. Obviously we won’t let them roam free, but we might be able to use them in a hostage situation at some point or put them on the front lines of a battle. You know, make them do the dirty work for us,” Hank said.

  Carter who was now also on his feet joined the conversation.

  “If we get creative we can transport everyone back to the White House in one trip,” he said.

  “By creative do you mean, suspend the prisoners from the sides of the chopper, since they are in nets and all?” Shelby said.

  “Way to think on your feet, Shel-baby,“ Logan said.

  “Alright boys, let’s boogie,”Carter said.

  “Thanks again for your help Carter, and also understanding from my cryptic phone call that we were in trouble,” Logan said.

&nb
sp; Carter nodded and the crew headed towards the chopper. Carter extended five ropes out and attached them to the nets that Jack and the other prisoners were wearing and lifted the chopper off the ground.

  It wasn’t long before they were back at the White House. What Logan was really craving was some alone time with Shelby. Their vacation to Nantucket had been cut short. He wanted to escape to one of the tents and not come out for a few days, get away from all the madness. From a distance the White House grounds appeared to be normal, but something didn’t seem right when they exited the chopper.

  “Why is it so quiet around here,” someone said.

  “Let’s check the R&D tent first, that’s always where the most activity is,” Logan said.

  Him and Hank raced the couple hundred yards to the tent. There was no security team waiting outside. Inside, there were numerous bodies laying on the floor. Hank knelt down next to one and checked for a pulse.

  “He’s alive at least,” Hank said.

  Logan did the same to another body, “So is mine,” he said, “Do you think it’s that toxic chemical?”

  “I sure hope not because if it is, that means we got another alien attack on our hands,” Hank said.

  They slowly paced through the room, inspecting the damage.

  “Fuck me!” Logan said. He was standing in front of one of the alien crafts, but it no longer resembled a craft. The metal frame was blown to smithereens, and the wiring looked as if it had been through a campfire.

  “Humans couldn’t have done this, it had to be the aliens,” Hank said.

  They continued walking towards a workstation that had a bank of computers and lab tables. The computers were missing from their normal locations.