Quantum Theorem

by James Wallace

  Gidget held up a closed fist and I bumped it with mine as Bri spoke quickly to his wife and kissed her. “I’ll be with you soon babes.”

  “You better bring my Sasquatch back to me Dan, or there will be hell to pay!” Athena snarled in a playful tone.

  Bri stepped up to my side as Athena turned right and disappeared between two trees and out into the brush. Bri patted my back and hunched his shoulders. “So, what’s the plan Boss?”

  “My original plan was to ride the electric bike to the hospital, grab Kell, and head toward home. You wouldn’t do well riding bitch on the back of it.”

  Bri scratched his head as he thought. “Why don’t we go check on Johnson and see if he wants to join our little hunting party?”

  I thought about it, and it started to make sense. “No plan survives first contact with a Sasquatch.” I said.

  “I concur. Lead the way Boss.”

  I first moved back to the bike and hid it deeper in the brush covering it with a green poncho from my bag and threw handfuls of dirt and leaves on it. I didn’t want it to learn how to ride on its own and leave me, I really liked that bike. Bri and I had been in Afghanistan together and knew how to read each other. I took point and moved off as the big Sasquatch followed behind me and slightly to the left, his AR-15 at low ready. The gun looked like a plastic toy in his massive hands. We stayed off the trail deciding to stay in the brush and out of sight. The night was cool as a light mist fell coating everything in a shine of humidity. I would stop every klick or so and lower myself to my knee. I would wait for a full minute or more, testing the environment around us with all my senses for danger. As we came to the rear of Johnson’s shop we stopped inside the brush as we surveyed the area around it. The area was a mess, compared to what it usually looked like.

  The windows had been bashed in and the front metal security door was torn off and lying to the side. Something bad had happened here, the one thing I took as a good sign was there was no blood or spent brass to be seen. I raised my sightline and surveyed the flat top of the garage and caught a slight movement. Someone was on top of the garage, probably more than one. I turned to Bri and relayed through hand signs what I had discovered. I then explained to him my plan and he nodded his head in agreement. I broke out of the brush on my stomach crawling inch by painful inch toward the back of the garage and the ladder that was bolted to the side. It took me more than five long minutes to make it, but I did with no new holes.

  Bri, signaled that everything was clear, and he started moving to my position. It took less time for him since he was so damn tall. He got to his knee and pointed his AR out to the woods we had just crawled from; he would cover our egress and protect my ass. I slid off my rifle and handed it to Bri, it would be too cumbersome and might bang against me as I climbed and give me away. I would have to rely on my hands, Karambits, and pistol for what awaited on top of the garage for me.

  I ghosted up the ladder. Taking my time to be quiet and not transmit my presence through vibration up the ladder. My head reached the top of the ladder and I inched higher till just the top of my head and eyes came up. I found my friend Johnson, bloodied, unconscious, and tied up with bungee cords. I looked around again till I saw the two strangers lying on their stomachs behind sniping guns. I couldn’t tell the kind of gun from my vantage point, but the snipers looked like they knew what they were doing. They were pointed out toward the main road providing overwatch for someone. I took my time surveying the roof and looking for traps or anything that could give away my presence. That’s when I saw the clear filament in front of me stretching across the lip of the roof, right in my way. I followed the filament and found it connected to a simple noise maker. Three Pepsi cans with marbles probably in them connected to the filament. All I had to do was push on that filament and the cans would fall alerting the men, who would then turn to me and fill me full of lead. I used my Karambit to cut the filament, and then I climbed to the top of the roof.

  I didn’t have a suppressor for my Glock so shooting these assholes was out of the question unless I wanted their comrades to show up and shoot my ass. I guess I would have to do this quietly. I checked on Johnson and one of his eyes popped open. He looked right at me and recognition and amazement filled his expression. I brought my finger up to my lips to quiet him. He nodded his head. I made a quick decision and crept over to him. I used my Karambit to cut his ties quickly freeing him. He silently thanked me; I used my hands to tell him to stay where he was. I moved like a ghost gliding over the roof till I was closer to the two men. They were so close together that there was no way to take one out without the other sensing me. I would have to switch tactics and go for violent action loud and hopefully quick. I slipped my other Karambit out and now had one in each hand. I jumped into the air landing on the man to the right’s back. I buried the Karambit into his back and rolled to take on the other man. He was awfully fast and was already on his knees, a pistol coming out and in my direction. I slapped the gun out of his hand with my left and brought the Karambit out swiping against his right forearm. I kept the Karambits as sharp as scalpels, and the edge parted his skin and muscles easily. Yellow fluid gushed from the wound as the man scrambled backwards to get away from me. I gave him no quarter and moved toward him, but also side stepped to my left cutting off his escape to the ladder. He was bleeding badly, but made the only decision he could, he let go of his arm and pulled his own knife out prepared to fight me.

  No one ever really wins in a knife fight. It was impossible to be fast enough to evade being cut, unlike what you see in all of those bullshit Hollywood movies. He came forward and I moved to stay to his right where his arm was weak and still leaked blood from the damage, I’d inflicted on him. He didn’t have much time left from the blood loss he was suffering. I knew he would come at me fast in a last-ditch effort to take me. His head dropped for a second and then he snapped it up and came at me. He let out a guttural yell that really didn’t make much noise. I stopped his left hand with my right forearm and dropped the Karambit from my right hand and caught it with my left, I continued upward in an arc and buried the knife in the man’s stomach. The blade stopped buried into something hard covering the man’s stomach.

  “Shit!” I growled. Realizing he was wearing ballistic armor, which didn’t stop my blade from getting him but only allowed the tip to cut him and then become stuck. Another thought hit me as I realized his partner was probably wearing the same armor and was about now to kill me. The man read my eyes and saw the connections I was making.

  A hand snaked around my neck from behind me, I knew something bad was about to happen. I acted on instinct and brought my prosthesis up and delivered a kick to the man’s knee in front of me pushing him back to the small lip around the garage. I didn’t see what happened to him as I spun to deal with the man behind me. I turned just in time to watch a blade come down toward my face, I was gonna die, no question about it. The only thought I had was “Sorry Kell.”

  A black scarred hand appeared and wrapped around the man’s knife hand’s wrist and stopped the blade an inch from my face. I didn’t waste a moment as I brought my hand up palm open and shoved it under the man’s chin and pushed back. Simultaneously I brought my foot up and then down on his foot as hard as I could. The knife disappeared out of his hand. Then his his eyes glazed over as the blade came through his larynx. I pushed the man back and he fell to the ground. Johnson stood behind him a smile plastered on his face.

  “Looks like you needed help.” Johnson said.

  “Looks like you both needed help.” Another voice came from behind me.

  I turned to find Bri standing there with the other man’s throat secured in his hand and his feet scraping against the garage roof. I walked over and quickly checked the man’s pockets basically robbing him of all his treasures. With that done Bri exerted pressure until the man stopped breathing and went limp. Bri grimaced in disgust and dropped the body to the ground.

  I made my way over to the man Johnson
had killed and went through his pockets, finding things that didn’t make sense. He had a cellphone which looked different than anything I had seen before, he had food I had never heard of, his pistol was strange. I had never seen a design like it before. It had two barrels one on top of the other, and the magazine took up half the gun. The pistol also didn’t have a trigger I could find.

  “What the fuck is going on Boss?” Johnson asked.

  “I’m not sure, hold on,” I moved over to the long guns the men had been using. First thing was they were made of material I was not familiar with. It felt like a heavy dense metal, but when I lifted it, it was lighter than any gun I had ever carried. It couldn’t weigh more than three pounds, and that included the scope and all attachments and magazine. I put my eye to the scope and was flabbergasted. This thing was extremely hi-tech. by using buttons on it I could switch between different settings like infrared, night-vision, extreme distances, and what looked like X-ray. This thing made my dick get hard from its technology. I really wanted one but was afraid they could be used to home in on our positions. I did the smart thing and decided on hiding them somewhere away from the garage and check on them later. The two soldiers we killed were weird also. First their eyes were strange, the whites were the pupils and the sclera that was supposed to be white were a bright yellow color, and there was something about their skin color. It was also unusual, instead of a cream skin color it was a dull white. I moved back over to Johnson and Bri, scratching my head over what I found and explained my findings.

  “What?” Bri asked.

  “I need to see this,” Johnson walked toward the corpses with Bri in tow.

  The two men took their time looking over the bodies of the enemy and their belongings. Bri shook his head as he came back over. “I have never seen anything like those weapons.”

  “Fuck the weapons, what about those guys?” Johnson asked.

  I let the two try and digest everything that had happened to us in the last couple of hours, before I interrupted their silence. “Look guys, I have no idea what is going on. But I do know that these asses killed the Mayor and have taken over our town. I need to get to the hospital and get Kell. What are your plans?”

  Johnson and Bri shared a quick glance before answering. “We’re with you; we got your play Boss.”

  “You two owe me nothing, go take care of your families I will get Kell and meet you back at the ranch,” I turned to descend the stairs when a hand came down on each shoulder.

  “I already sent Athena and the kids away to your place. So, I got nothing better to do than continue with you,” Bri answered.

  “Yeah, and Christine is on the East coast with the kid,” Johnson hunched his shoulders and sighed slightly.

  “You two still having marriage problems?” I had thought they had worked things out.

  “She wouldn’t go to counseling and even changed her name to hyphenated. She is now Christine Quinn-Johnson. So, I guess we are close to divorce. I might as well be the adult on your little fun side trip.”

  “You got a weapon?” Bri asked.

  Johnson bent over and picked up one of the slick new weapons. “I’ll take one of theirs.”

  I shook my head no. “Not going to happen. We have no idea how to use those things and they might be trackable. Do you still have those pistols I gave you in the garage?”

  Johnson looked deflated as I explained my reasoning for not using the strange guns. “Yeah I keep it in a half-used barrel of oil. You do understand that you are an asshole, right?”

  “I make sure to tell him every time I see him man,” Bri patted my shoulder.

  “Let’s leave the bodies here, but let’s hide their weapons. We can comeback at a later time and see if they are still here.” I picked up one of the rifles and made my way down the ladder.

  Bri and Johnson came down next and we stashed our loot into the trunk of an old broken-down Mercedes parked in the back of the garage. We then worked our way around the building and to the front Bri and I checked our corners and made sure the area was clear, before letting Johnson make entrance into his business. We followed him as he picked his way through the mess the soldiers had made. Johnson made a Beeline to the rear and two blue barrels. Johnson pried the lid off with a crowbar and placed the lid on the ground. He slid on a pair of gloves that went all the way to his elbows and then plunged his hands into the oil. He stood up grasping a hard-plastic case and put it on a nearby table. He flicked the latches open and lifted the lid exposing a pair of oil bronzed Sig Sauer 1911 .45s. With an etched picture of a Spartan warrior on the grips. I gave them to Johnson as a birthday present the year before.

  I picked one up and dropped the magazine, it was empty. I looked over to Johnson and raised my eyebrows. He read my expression and moved over to the garage’s safe. He brushed the dust and garbage off the safe and spun the dial back and forth inputting the combo. He lifted the handle and slid the door open. He removed a couple of things, including two boxes of ammo for the guns.

  “You know the rounds belong in the gun, right?” I asked.

  “My boy has been in the shop a lot and I didn’t want him to find them.”

  “Oh, because he is going to get inside the oil drum take out the box and open it up and use the gun? I think that is a very unlikely situation.”

  “Yeah, well Christine didn’t like the guns.”

  “You need your balls back man,” Bri chuckled.

  I took the boxes of .45 ACP and quickly loaded the four magazines that came with the Sigs. I have literally loaded thousands of magazines and have the calluses on my hands to prove it. I picked up a dirty messenger bag from the ground and tossed the two spare magazines into it along with the leftover rounds. I slapped a magazine home into each of the Sig’s wells and handed them over to Johnson. He pulled the slides back and chambered a round into each one. He tucked the pistols into his jacket pockets and slid on the messenger bag over his shoulders. I shook my head at his actions.

  “Nothing like a sweater pocket for a quick draw.”

  “The holsters you gave me are at the house.” Johnson made an excuse.

  Bri jumped in on the banter. “So, the pistols are in the barrel of oil, the ammo is in the safe, and the holsters are at your house. How does any of that make sense?”

  “Well once it is said out loud it does sound stupid, but it made sense when I did it,” Johnson lowered his head and shook it in shame.

  “We are wasting time, follow me,” I left the garage and bolted for the brush and foliage.

  We moved through the forest avoiding the trails as we made our way toward the hospital. I maintained the lead position since I was the only one still trained to do so. Bri had been in the military with me, and even though Johnson had also been in the military he served in the Air Force and didn’t have the experience we had. I made sure he stayed in between Bri and me. I knew Johnson could shoot, but he was the weakest of the three of us.

  Abruptly, I stopped in my tracks and lifted my fist up, the sign for the men behind me to stop. I heard an increasingly loud buzzing sound. I moved down to one knee and checked on Johnson and Brian to make sure they followed my lead.

  The buzzing sound took on more of an engine sound as whatever it was got closer. I raised my head up to the night sky and stared at the stars. As I did that the stars started disappearing, as a dark grey aircraft went by slowly. I tried to make out the shape and couldn’t match it with one I had seen before. I was shaped like a double axe head with a spike in the middle. It wasn’t as big as the flying wing B2 Spirit bomber, but close. Johnson moved up to my side.

  “I was in the Air Force for most of my life and never saw anything like that before,” Johnson pointed at the plane and shook his head. “That and I can’t tell what kind of propulsion it is using. I don’t see a jet engine or rotors.”

  “That and what is with that sound?” Bri asked.

  I watched the craft fly on, rapidly picking up speed till it disappeared. “Never seen anythi
ng move that fast or accelerate like that. This is getting weirder and weirder boys.”

  “Man, we are only about a hundred yards from the hospital’s west parking lot, let’s hurry this shit up,” Johnson pointed further ahead and between a group of trees. The white marble of the hospital’s main building could be seen.

  The three of us walked faster throwing caution to the wind, hoping the sound of the hospital’s generator would mask our approach. The three generators were the size of locomotive engines in their plastic and metal housing. We stopped just inside the protection of the forest and surveyed the parking lots and rear entrance of the building. I closed my eyes and pulled up a diagram of the hospital I had in my head. I had been there more than enough times to know every nook and cranny, and the blind zones of the cameras.

  I opened my eyes and pinned the guy’s in place. “I am going inside; I need you guys to stay out here and secure this position. I am going to find Kell and exfiltrate out here, so we can move off back into the forest. If everything goes tits up, just make your way back to the farm, I’ll meet you there. Got it?”

  Bri and Johnson displayed their emotions on their face. They were not happy about my plan. “Tell you what little man, we are staying right here. If and when you need a diversion like you always do, we will provide one.” Johnson answered.

  “I don’t have time to argue with you guys, it’s midnight, so give me fifteen mikes to find Kell, and then I’ll signal you guys from that window,” I pointed to the fourth-floor window of a room.