“Call me Russ, then,” he said surprising himself. Russ usually made people call him sir or Mr. Tucker. “Russ,” automatically rolled out of his mouth instead.
“Never met a Russ before,” Clio said glancing back at the dead monsters one last time.
“Never met a Clee-O before.”
Lady barked and ran around both of them wagging her tail. “This is Lady,” Russ said as he bent down to pet his dog between her ears.
“I like her,” Clio said bending down to give her a hug.
Lady let out a lovable howl and dragged Clio over the dirt. The twelve-year-old let go and stumbled back to her feet. “I like her a lot,” she confirmed brushing the dirt off her knees.
It was a welcome vision.
The home was in front of her. Yes! Clio thought as they crested over the hill and saw the house.
Russ looked at the young girl. “There she is. Home sweet home, youn… Clio.”
“Thank God.”
“Told you it was close.”
Lady ran around the perimeter as if she was a centurion guard going out ahead of the emperor. After making a full lap around the house she galloped up the front steps in short strides. Lady barked and sat down, as if she were signaling that it was now safe to enter.
For those left standing, the home was well maintained. Clio noticed chickens and a pen with several pigs on the side of the farmhouse. The swine manure was stinky yet inviting to her in a warm way.
“Good girl,” Russ said after he went by his dog on the porch.
Clio bent down to give the dog another hug. “Good girl, good Lady,” she said as the dog started licking her face. Lady enjoyed the saltiness and the taste of her young skin as much as Clio enjoyed the new friendship and affection.
“Come on girl,” Clio said as she held the door open for a Lady. “Good girl!”
The screen door was heard closing behind the front in a muffled snap after it latched shut. Reinforced, the main door had been layered with extra boards. All of the windows were boarded up with crosses cut out of them big enough for a rifle barrel to fit through. Puncture holes were also peppered and drilled out to see what you were shooting at, Clio surmised. If need be, Russ was ready for war. He reminded Clio of her dad in that way.
She glanced down at her pistol. “Here, let me have that. Got a charger for it in the kitchen,” Russ explained as he took it from her.
Clio felt a little safer knowing the weapon that helped get her through the woods would soon be back online.
Several rifles were on a rack in the hallway. “I’ll teach you how to use those if you want,” Russ said, noticing Clio eyeing them.
“Ok… I guess that would be good, huh?”
“Always good to know how to handle yourself, young Clio,” Russ said.
Clio walked over to the display and ran her hands over one of the rifles. “Reminds me of my dad…”
“What, the guns?”
“Yes…”
“Well… your dad sounds like a hell of a man if you ask me.”
Clio ignored the compliment. Her dad was a hell of a man and he could handle himself, that was true, but she couldn’t help wonder what happened to her mother. “I’m worried about my mom,” she said.
Russ washed his hands in the sink and didn’t respond.
“I couldn’t see the RMB when I came out of the tunnel,” Clio stated. “It was too far away.”
Russ kept washing and talked over the running well water. “How far was it? The tunnel underground… how long you have to go…?” he asked.
Clio didn’t want to think about that horrendous passageway ever again. Snapshots of the darkness and the flashlight shining on evil things burst into her mind. Images of the monster she’d first encountered blinded her memories like an awful strobe. Hissing, she could hear the thing as if it were behind her at that very moment.
Russ dried his hands on a towel, glancing in Clio’s direction. “You ok?” he asked.
Clio turned around to ensure nothing was behind her. Tears streamed from her face as she looked away. “I wish I could forget that place. I wish I could forget all of this… I miss my mother so much… I…”
After walking over to Clio, Russ put his arm around her. “It’s ok, shh… shh… it’s ok now,” he said. The physical contact made him realize how much he missed his own family.
Twisting in his embrace, Clio turned and bore into the old man’s body and nuzzled as hard as she could. “Why did all this have to happen?” she asked with her mouth pressed to Russ’s chest.
“Say that again slower, young lady,” Russ said gently pushing her head away.
Clio looked up at him with swollen red eyes. “Why did this happen?”
He shook his head. “I don’t have the answer to that, Clio.”
Showing her first sign of moxie, Clio’s eyes shot anger. “Someone has the answer,” she said pulling away.
“Someone has the answer for everything I suppose,” Russ replied. He wanted to tell her something more, something useful, but he couldn’t. He didn’t know a damn thing about this war. He only knew what he saw.
“When can we go look for my mom?” Clio asked.
CHAPTER 20 - WELCOMED CY
“Is it possible for home to be a person
and not a place?”
― Stephanie Perkins
Alexandria, Virginia:
Sunset:
Dr. Pressfield had spent the greater portion of the last five hours pacing the living room. He’d check Cy’s progress on his computer and then go back to wearing a hole in the wood floor.
Each time Cy’s signal disappeared, Dr. Pressfield had a mini heart attack. Is he ok? Have Destroyers killed him? What’s he doing? I shouldn’t have done this… back and forth he worried.
Cy’s signal was close.
Dr. Pressfield walked out onto the front porch when it was less than a mile from the house. Marcus traversed the porch’s wood planks, pacing, shielding his eyes and scanning the horizon.
The sun peacefully settled over the street. Higher branches moved as a gentle breeze sifted through the leaves like invisible wheat. Only a handful of people remained in the homes along the neighborhood’s quiet sidewalks. Like most, Dr. Pressfield’s street was deserted and largely demolished. His house got lucky.
“I told you not to worry, Dr. Marc…”
“Ahh! Shit, Cy! You scared the bejesus out of me,” Dr. Pressfield announced after his cyborg came around from the back of the house.
Cy climbed the porch steps and let the backpack slide off his shoulders. Presenting it like a gift, he held up the pack. “Brought this back for you, Dr. Marcus...”
Dr. Pressfield grabbed the bag and didn’t look inside; he kept his gaze on Cy. Relieved, the scientist’s heart sang and his eyes watered. Thank God he’s ok… He couldn’t hide his love for this thing he’d created and, recently, gave up trying.
Cy gently hit the backpack. “It seems to be in working order,” he confirmed, brushing off the pack. “Maybe a dent or two,” he said, shrugging and smiling.
“I’m so proud of you, Cy,” Dr. Pressfield announced, looking inside the backpack. “So proud,” he said in a cracked voice, reaching in and giving it a quick once over.
Cy had never sensed such powerful emotions from Dr. Marcus before. The cyborg realized that his feelings were also strong… and new. They were foreign… His technology and his flesh joined together and burst in colorful explosion. The cyborg’s sense of self and his place in the world were never so apparent. Like never before, he realized who he was. Why he was here.
“I’m proud to have served you well, Dr. Marcus,” Cy said as Dr. Pressfield looked up from the generator inside the backpack.
Taken aback, Dr. Pressfield thought his cyborg was becoming emotional too. Can’t be, he thought, Cy’s not tearing up… that’s impossible… isn’t it?
Dr. Pressfield headed for the door. “Come on Cy, let’s go inside,” he said as his hand reached for the doorkno
b. Pausing, Marcus didn’t open the door… he turned back around to glance in his cyborg’s eyes again. He does look emotional, I’m sure of it. Dr. Pressfield let go the knob and spun to face his cyborg letting his body catch up with his head. “Cy… you ok?”
Cy pointed to his face. “You mean this Dr. Marcus?” as a single teardrop fell from both eyes. Two perfect tears rolled down the cyborg’s cheeks.
Dr. Pressfield searched for the correct response… “I’m… Cy, I’m not sure I know what…”
Cy reached up and wiped his face with both hands. “I’m ok, Dr. Marcus. This is more than ok,” Cy said, exposing his palms to Dr. Pressfield as if he were showing old wounds that had healed.
“This feels beautiful Dr. Marcus.” Cy retreated his hands to his sides, feeling the cool air against the wetness of his palms. “These are new feelings for me Dr. Marcus. I hope they return to visit me often,” Cy said, looking back down at his hands, clenching them, as if he’d lost something.
“I’m glad you’re experiencing them,” Dr. Pressfield responded, feeling weird for saying it.
“Don’t feel strange, Dr. Marcus. Thank you for all of the wonderful things you’ve given me. I feel so much beauty and it’s all because of you… you’ve given me life and I dream… I dream that there is so much more to come...”
Dr. Pressfield looked out and nodded with wonder before opening the door. I guess it’s possible, Dr. Pressfield thought, I’m not sure how? I guess it is though… he’s part human anyway… but I didn’t design him to be able to cry… to feel so deeply…
Dr. Pressfield searched the corners of his mind on how this was happening. Before his brain fried in meltdown, he gave it up. It’d been a long day and he didn’t have the energy. Marcus Pressfield had a hard enough time with his own emotions at the moment.
They walked inside the living room and stood near a sofa.
Dr. Pressfield suddenly realized Cy was soaked and filthy. “Run into trouble out there?” Dr. Pressfield said patting Cy on the shoulder, getting his palm wet.
“I guess you could say that, Dr. Marcus,” Cy said with a smile.
Marcus grabbed Cy’s soaking shirt and pulled it away from his cyborg’s body. “Looks like more than a little,” he said, letting it go and allowing it to snap back into place, deformed on the spot where he’d pinched the cloth.
“Did you know I could swim, Dr. Marcus?” Cy said rhetorically with a playful arrogant smile.
“Yes, wise-ass... I knew you could swim.”
“Ooh. Wise-ass… I like that one, Dr. Marcus.”
Dr. Pressfield turned around and began walking into a bedroom. “Come on, and let’s get you out of those cold, wet clothes.”
“I’m not cold, Dr. Marcus.”
Dr. Pressfield turned around and faced Cy, letting out pent up fear built over the last five hours. Bottled emotions fizzled out like a shaken soda pop when he spoke. “Yes, Cy, I know you’re not… but you’re making a hell of a mess… that water is getting all over this floor!” he said pointing down with an angry look.
Cy glanced at the floor with sadness. “I do apologize, Dr. Marcus. I’m very sorry,” he said with an extra pathetic frown.
Dr. Pressfield realized he’d overreacted. “Cy, no, hey… it’s ok. Nothing to be sorry about… I’m not mad at you… I…”
Cy looked up with a big grin. “I got you Dr. Marcus. I was practicing being a Wise-ass? Was my ass, as you say, wise enough…?”
Realizing that he’d been fooled, Dr. Pressfield shook his head. “Not bad, Cy… Not bad at all.”
“Does this mean you’ll keep me now, Dr. Marcus?” Cy said beaming from ear to ear.
“Perfect Cy... That’s what I call a real wise ass.”
CHAPTER 21 - DARKNESS THREATENED
“I think I’ll dismember the world and then I’ll dance
in the wreckage.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman
Atlanta:
Dr. Pavlov was consumed by his vengeful obsession and watched several split screens on a computer.
He played the footage sent to him by his Ker in their final moments. Tapping his fingers on the screen, he moved images back and forth, replaying them like a madman. His fingers spread out to enhance one particular image as he made the split screen disappear into one. He watched in disbelief at the sights of a young man moving like a panther. Springing like a wild beast, it appeared to be a twenty-something-year-old human. Impossible, Dr. Pavlov thought, seeing it evade and then dismantle his Ker with rocks, before snatching a weapon. He can’t be human… No man could move like that…
His mind wandered into the possibilities of an alien life form… then to the even more unthinkable…. Maybe God has sent his savior to kill me. “Stop it! You’re being ridiculous!” he scolded himself.
The images of the Marines wasting Destroyers in Coronado were troublesome, but he’d seen it before. He’d come to expect heavy resistance from RMB Pendleton. Soon enough, he’d take care of them. But this man… this boy was a new threat that haunted him. The recorded images he saw inside Washington DC and the Lincoln Memorial shook him to his core.
What is this superman? He could jeopardize the plan to wipe out the rest of civilization. Where did it come from? Pavlov searched his mind and came to the same answer over and over. The theory of Occam’s razor was enough to give him his only logical choice. The super human could have only come from one mind.
The superman carried the distinct ingenuity of someone he once knew – his old friend’s fingerprints were all over the wonderboy. Marcus Pressfield, he thought. “That crafty son of a bitch did it…” Extraordinary work Dr. Pressfield… I’ll see you again soon my old colleague - and your super cyborg…. “I look forward to meeting him.”
Dr. Pavlov liked to keep things in order. He liked to keep on task and on schedule. Just down the road was his next target, the new Capital, and first things must be first. He wanted to get at the Commander in Chief.
The President of the United States was taking residence in what used to be the Georgia Governor’s mansion. Leading a path to the new White House, West Paces Ferry Road was a few miles away from Dr. Pavlov.
When it was time, he’d stroll down West Paces Ferry Road to the old Governor’s mansion and finish them off.
He’d started the war from Georgia, and he was going to finish it from there.
Funny… Dr. Pavlov thought about how things worked out, the new Capital ending up in Atlanta. He’d taken it relatively easy on the state of Georgia; after all, it was still his home and destroying it, at least right away, didn’t seem necessary. Other than Columbus and West Point and a few other bases, he was soft on his home state. Meeting his wife there, Pavlov had many good memories of the place tucked away in the twisted corners of his tortured mind.
But the other States… Dr. Pavlov and his machines destroyed them without mercy.
At what remained of the world’s most powerful nation, he laughed. Goddamn monkeys… America’s leadership was nothing but a bunch of crooks; that’s how Pavlov saw it. Trying to hold on to what little power they had left, scared shitless no doubt, they were a pathetic group. The sorry ass groups of freedom fighters, (huh, the term made him chuckle) would be taken care of soon enough.
The surviving forces from Ft. Bragg and a few other bases took residence in Buckhead Atlanta, guarding the President from a close distance. All of the eastern bases were destroyed. From top to bottom, Dr. Pavlov’s Ker decimated and stamped out every major U. S. instillation other than Pendleton, Jackson and Lejeune. As only Marines are equipped to do, Camp Lejeune stormed to the aid of Fort Jackson, which is how it survived, later becoming RMB Jackson.
In some cases he only had ten or twelve Smartbots for each base. It was enough to take out the runways and infiltrate past the initial response given by shell-shocked Soldiers, Airmen, and Marines.
Dr. Pavlov’s continental U.S. teams of robots were armed before they went in for the kill. They needed to be locked and
loaded before waltzing across the perimeter of American military bases. He knew Uncle Sam could be caught with his pants down, but he also knew he’d fight back harder than the Euro trash forces did once he figured out what the hell was going on.
Among other things, striking at night was his key to success.
-First: the robots took out the surrounding power grids. That’s right bitch! Your lights are going out!
-Second: they hit most of the runways, leaving some intact. Oh, you wanted to use these so you could take off and run like cowards? Nice try fagots!
-Third: they took out the fighters and bombers other than those saved for later. You’re not going to like what happens after these joy riders get skyward!
-Fourth: level tanks, heavy ground artillery, and the armories - after securing a few choice items from them. Who’s the big gun in town now you pussies?
-Fifth: plant atomic weapons at the heart of the larger bases and detonate silos. Wait till these go off you goddamn monkeys!
-Sixth: mop up the remaining soldiers. How do you like getting wasted with your own weapons, you murdering thieves?
-Seventh: fly jets and bombers and unleash hell like they did in Europe. How do you cowards like being killed from afar? Who gives a shit, die bastards!
He planned on taking out the President and the rest of the government in broad daylight. His new and improved Destroyers weren’t ready yet, but the government didn’t pose much of a threat. They had light arms and a thousand troops… maybe; that was about it.
CHAPTER 22 - SHOES FILLED
“All men were made by the Great Spirit Chief.
They are all brothers.”
-Chief Joseph
Both Vulcan helicopters soared farther over the ocean than when they’d come in to rescue the SEALs. Exhausted from battle, they headed back home, no worse for wear.
Lance Cpl. Jimmy Woolridge sat back on the jump seat and looked down at the corpsman attending to the fallen SEAL. His color was coming back to that of the normal shade of a living person. Jimmy pulled out the picture of his brother and ran his eyes over it; he’d memorized every color and curve in the photograph. Thinking back to those memories of them that often invaded his mind; he realized they weren’t so perfectly outlined anymore.
Clio and Cy: The Apocalypse Page 10