Forces of Destiny

by Robert Maxwell

  Ashley asked, “What is the origin of the Arc Light classified program?”

  Matthew said, “That information is classified need to know which is why I do not have access to that answer. In light of these extraordinary events all of you have a need to know about the intent of the Arc Light program. In my training, I was given a hint that the program is at least a decade old but that is simply a guess in the dark. The covert funding available to the program was unprecedented using funding from covert black ops government budgets, major corporation profits were donated to the program but a handful of carefully recruited entrepreneurs, and several of the most lucrative black market illegal operations were taken over to divert funds to programs that would ultimately support the Arc Light program. Only a few people have ever received what is coded named the ‘origin briefing’. My commander had not received it but their commander did and tried to convey its intent was to unequivocally show why everyone at the highest level was dedicated to the success of this program. I am sorry but this is all I know.”

  Matthew clicked the computer to bring up a ground surveillance video of a rocket launch from a launch site in a mountain base.

  Matthew said, “It is unknown with the information I have on this command computer if the current President received this extinction event warning. We do have a communications log entry that shows the President was able to launch a classified payload from the Vandenberg air force base in California. I have no further information about what was in the payload or its trajectory.”

  Matthew turned off the computer screen.

  Matthew said, “This is the end of the extinction protocol briefing I know from the command computer we retrieved. The Arc Light program’s highest priority mission was to prevent an extinction level event from occurring and once it did occur to ensure the survival of the human race. The Arc Light insurance policy against an extinction event was the Eden base which is now destroyed. We are the precious scraps of what is left of the last generation of humanity. Take time for yourselves to process all this and we will meet again when we arrive at our destination. Remember to have faith in yourself and each other at all costs.”

  Matthew was done answering questions because he had nothing left to tell them. They now knew everything he did. He wanted to give them time to process the horror he laid out in front of them. He turned around and went into the cockpit closing the door.

  David, Ashley, Jason, and Ben sat in silence realizing the briefing only offered a confirmation of how bad the apocalypse was upon the planet and that there were no answers to an uncertain future for the survivors.

  Jason looked at Ashley who was making no effort to hide her emotional shock. She was just staring blankly at no one, lost in her thoughts.

  Ashley in shock looked down at her cargo pocket and just stared at it. She finally pulled out a smartphone that had a cracked screen from her left cargo pocket. She turned it on, entered her password, and clicked on a video named Grace’s fourth Christmas. As it played it revealed her four year old niece Grace with blond hair and cute smile with a youthful innocence picking out very carefully what she would wear for her trip to the magic rainforest trip she always asks Ashley to take her on.

  Ashley not caring about what anyone thought of her said, “What if..”

  Ashley broke down crying not able to talk. Her emotions of loss regained themselves enough to express her pain out loud to share because it was too much to keep to herself any longer.

  Ashley said, “What if my little niece is alone out there? What if she is falling asleep in terror each night not knowing if anyone will find her? How will she eat? She is just a little girl.. I have to…”

  Ashley’s years of carefully forged emotional armor would not hold any longer under this extreme loss. She broke down completely falling to her knees crying uncontrollability. The absolute core knowing in her survival instinct screamed at her in horror that she could not protect this little girl’s innocence. It was tearing any shred of strength she had left through this whole ordeal of death.

  Ashley could remember Christmas leave home from a long deployment almost not believing she was back in civilization where someone was not trying to kill or rape her. She would look into the innocence of her niece’s eyes and find her own innocence that had been so carefully hidden away.

  Ashley just looked at the video of her niece where Ashley sat in front of Grace showing her a children’s book where the cartoon animals of the rainforest got ready for bed each night talking to father sun and mother moon. Grace asked Ashley if she had been to the rainforest which Ashley told her yes. Grace with her wide eyes of wonder asked if Ashley would take her to look for father sun and mother moon as they slept under the stars.

  Ashley watching the video remembered that moment where she had to stop thinking of all the danger those images brought up in her mind of the real rain forests she has been in to hunt men on classified missions. She remembered shutting out those thoughts about past classified missions to stay focused on Grace’s innocence and excitement of reading the story book.

  Ashley continued to watch the video as Grace got to the end of the book where the page said how important it was to save the rainforest because the moral of the story in the last line of the children’s book said, “When it is gone, it is gone.” Grace turned to Ashley in the video and said, “It’s important that we all protect the rainforest.”

  The video stopped and with it, Ashley stopped breathing. The tears dripped down from her beautiful cheeks as her emotions of grief overwhelmed her body as it shook in waves of sorrow. Ashley had hope throughout the whole mission no matter how bad it looked. Now Ashley’s hope for her niece’s survival died in this moment. If by some miracle her niece was still alive, it would not be for long. Ashley could not bear the pain of that thought anymore so she forced herself from decades of emotional discipline to accept that the end of this video would have to represent her niece’s final goodbye, her niece’s funeral. Ashley prayed silently with a purity to God begging for mercy for her niece as she wept in pure sorrow. Her soul with raw faith pleaded in a silence to God for any mercy in this horror of a world to shield the innocence of her niece.

  David had been holding back Jason tightly by the arm the moment he made a move towards Ashley to comfort her. David wanted to give Ashley time to fully grieve. He knew from first-hand experience that a warrior that deadly did not break down often but when they did, you did not break and interrupt their concentration of sorrow pouring forth from them. It was a delicate balance. David could now see Ashley was totally broken down emotionally and needed to be held. David let go of Jason and gave him a simple nudge towards Ashley.

  Jason stepped forward and stood in front of Ashley not knowing if she wanted to be touched. Ashley looked up at Jason and went softly into his arms weeping with a depth Jason could now physically feel. Jason could feel her emotional pain in his heart. Jason sent Ashley the deepest divine love he knew how to connect to. He held Ashley in his arms to care for her broken soul knowing this was the closest to a funeral they were going to have for humanity.

  ECHO MISSION : THE LAST HOPE

  Colorado Springs, Colorado Seven Miles Northwest of Cheyenne Mountain Complex

  Chapter 8

  Matthew hovered the black jet over a small mountain side that was painted green with huge Blue Spruce trees of Colorado Springs. The jet was on the North side of the Mason water reservoir seven miles northwest of Cheyenne mountain complex. He looked at his map display and saw he was at the exact GPS location given to him but he did not see a base of any type. Being only seven miles northwest of the now offline and radio silent Cheyenne Mountain complex made him think, this could be a mini backup emergency base to the Cheyenne Mountain complex but where is the entrance?

  The communications display screen on the cockpit instrument panel showed the text message, “Your aircraft identification beacon has been confirmed, provide voice authentication of your identity and the response code on this current en
crypted frequency. The challenge code is Alpha two niner Golf Six Zulu Zulu November, over.”

  Matthew looked at the challenge code twice and said, “This is Brigadier General Matthew Knight, the response code is Odin Zeus Athena Grid niner eight niner Oden, over.”

  Matthew looked out of the cockpit windows and look at the ground camera on the instrument panel as he waited. After two minutes he saw on the ground camera a small patch of trees tilted over liked they were being cut down by a lumberjack. As the trees parted Matthew could see a aircraft hangar elevator rise up in the air as the hanger doors disguised with fake Blue Spruce trees completely parted. Matthew landed the jet on the hanger and four walls on the platform rose up to prevent the aircraft from rolling off the platform as it lowered back into the base.

  The team exited the jet into a compact hanger with their rifles at the ready.

  Matthew said, “The communications screen in the cockpit briefed me. This is a completely computer automated emergency top secret shelter that is equipped for twelve Cheyenne Mountain command and control team members. No one is present and communications with the Cheyenne Mountain complex is radio silent. The Arc Light artificial intelligence computer analysis is the complex has fallen. This top secret shelter was on a need to know basis but nothing is safe from any intelligence leaks from Tom.”

  David made his way over to stand next to Ben. David raised his hand to stop Matthew’s briefing and said, “Excuse me for a moment.”

  David turned to face Ben and looked at him for a few seconds without saying anything. David then said, “Tom is dead partly because of you Ben. This is what going too far with killing towns to contain the contagion did Ben. You pushed a weak human being to revenge, poisoning their mind with an eye for an eye. He is responsible for what he did betraying us but your actions made him think Arc Light was a rogue black ops program. That Arc Light was an immoral threat to humanity that would stop at nothing to accomplish its mission. You were given complete power free of civilian oversight and you crossed the line and broke the law committing crimes against humanity. You went over the moral edge and killed innocent people and you knew it.”

  David cleared his mind completely of mercy preparing for the next few seconds that would unfold. David looked over Ben’s shoulder quickly in surprise he yelled, “No! Stand down,” acting as if someone was coming towards Ben. This caused Ben to look over this right shoulder slightly. In that tenth of a second instance, David gave Ben no chance as he leaped forward striking Ben underneath the chin four times with a blur of open palm strikes pushing Ben’s head back further each time driving him to the ground. Ben’s body was literally pummelled backwards until it violently fell to the ground. Wasting less than a half a second David threw his body weight into his right leg as he kicked Ben in the back of his head. Ben’s vision blacked out for a fraction of a second and literally saw stars but even in his dazed state, Ben blocked David’s second kick but David’s third kick crushed Ben’s fingers against the ground, one move ahead of Ben’s dazed blocks. Ben tried to roll away from the kicks but did not get six inches before David kicked Ben three times quickly in the back of his head with all the leveraged weight his body could muster. The first kick dazing Ben but it was the final two kicks that knocked Ben out cold.

  David looked down at Ben unconscious and his hand started to move unconsciously to his fixed blade knife as his eyes looked at Ben’s neck. David thought, the monster of killing I’ve let live inside me knows Ben deserves to die.

  David stopped his hand from grabbing the knife as his consciousness internally faced the monster of killing inside him and said out loud to himself, “God damn it Ben! you deserve to die ten times over for all the despicable crimes against humanity! But I am no longer going to be trapped in your world of kill or be killed. You are no longer in control. The cycle of killing stops here!”

  David could feel the compassion of his wife Linda living within him and it made him feel closer to her than he ever had. He wished she was still with him to share his coming to peace with the monster inside him, taming it until he eventual discovered how to heal it completely.

  David knew after an adult lifetime of killing that the monster inside him had broken him just like the broken men he killed. Human beings don’t kill others until they become broken by their survival instincts.

  David took a pair of flex cuffs out of his back pocket and tied Ben’s hands behind his back. Ben was still unconscious as David took out a pair of leg cuffs and hogtied Ben’s legs to his hands so he could not stand or fight. Ben laid there helpless against anything David decided to do to him. As David was taking off Ben’s pistol belt, Ben snapped out of his unconsciousness struggling against his constraints. David drew his knife and held it to Ben’s waist and ordered, “Quit moving, you have one chance to listen.” David seeing Ben remain still started cutting Ben’s pants off of him. They were most likely full of hidden compartments with escape tools. David cut Ben’s underwear and shirt off of him until he was completely naked and no longer concealing any weapons or escape tools. David rolled Ben on his side and looked at him for a moment not saying anything.

  Ben looked at David wondering how David would kill him? Ben looked at the knife in David’s hand and guessed David even in his anger still had some mercy and therefore it would be a bullet to his head maybe by his own handgun as a form of symbolic justice. A justice where he who lived by his sword would die by his own sword.

  David did not move the knife in his hand. In fact David wanted to continue to kick Ben for his short sightedness that most likely contributed to the fall of humanity. This man alone could not bring down humanity but at this point with only a handful of people left to help the world, Ben did enough to make its spiral into an apocalypse worse. David could now understand what Linda was trying to teach him about the short-sightedness of killing even when it seemed like the only realistic survival option. Survival at what costs? Surviving at the cost of causing events to lead to the death of humanity with an eye for an eye revenge. There was zero doubt in David’s survival instincts that Ben deserved to die for killing 25,000 people even if most had a slim chance of making it. That was up to fate to decide who lived and died, not one man driven by the need to survive at the cost of other’s lives. But Linda was right that you have to stop running to killing as the easy way out and take the path of the nearly impossible but nevertheless the only chance for humanity to rid itself of the vicious cycle of destruction. David would place his faith in keeping Ben alive with the hope there was some spark of redemption in his dark soul. Not killing Ben would be a huge risk but a monumental step forward for David’s humanity to possess the power and moral authority to kill but to only use it when all other difficult options were exhausted. David had lived on the razor’s edge in combat, he had no problem living on the edge in the transformation beyond blindly being so scared that only killing seemed like the safest way out.

  David and Ashley dragged Ben to an empty sleep quarters room and threw him into a corner and hog-tied his legs to his throat. Ben then dragged out every item in the room while Ashley guarded Ben as Jason and Matthew watched not wanting to get in the way of David who was seething with anger.

  David held up Tom’s smartphone and played a video of Ben ordering to kill all the civilians in the town of Colby Kansas.

  David said, “Under the authority if the uniform code of military justice and Arc Light protocols, I as your commanding officer sentence you to the following for your crimes against humanity. You are immediately relieved of your security clearance and your command. You will be transported in an automatically piloted prisoner of war UAV to Alaska with a lithium battery based tracker permanently attached to you. This sentence will be carried out when our mission tempo allows that window of opportunity. Disable the tracker connected to your body and it will explode. You’ll be given extra batteries to replace the units main battery over the years. Lose those batteries and you will die. If you manage to get past the explosive charge and l
ive then we will hunt you with all the high tech tools you have used yourself and we will kill you. If the high-tech tools fail we will track you the old fashion way and kill you. Come back into our sight and we will kill you.”

  David looked at Ben in silence shaking his head in disgust.

  David said, “I get it, Ben, that you were giving humanity a chance by slowing down the contagion but you don’t get to belong to the Arc light program that is trying to save humanity by proving to all of us that you won’t hesitate to immorally kill civilians that get in the way of your perceived mission. All of us here have killed but now I realize killing only provides a short term gain and if there is any other chance besides killing even if it is having faith, then I will take it. In order to fight the monster of killing I have to let a small part of that monster live within me to strike down darkness but to allow that monster to overwhelm me means I have lost my humanity and become the monster I was hunting. Maybe you will see that one day Ben if you survive long enough.”

  Ben’s eyes cut into David with the anger of a trapped animal that had been betrayed by its family. A confused animal that killed his own kind. Ben did not understand how dangerous he had become. Long ago he had lost any internal moral compass of right and wrong in order to complete the mission at any cost. Ben knew better than to say anything as he lay there naked and hogged tied.

  David looked back at Ben with a true sadness and stated, “Don’t let the fantasy of revenge of coming back to kill us consume your mind Ben, you will need everything you have to find redemption within yourself for all the families you have killed under the illusion of it was for the good of humanity. The humanity inside you is numb right now Ben. I truly mean this brother when I say may God have mercy on you long enough for you to find your lost soul. I personally hope you do Ben.”