Apocalyptic Shorts (3 page)

I remove my knife from the girl’s chest and shove it into its place just below my waist. I look around, trying to come up with a plan in case I have to take on more people like them.

This place have sublevels, but I can only hope that the meeting is not holding in one of the sublevels, but rather up here, where I can easily find Ra Argadus. I hear footsteps approaching. I take a peek from the corner and see two armed soldiers coming. I stay quiet with my back on the wall. The first soldier comes out of the corner, I hit the handle of my gun to his face, and he drops cold. I immediately grab the other guy’s gun and yank him up over me with it. He hits the floor, wincing with his mouth opened, wanting to scream, but the sound barely comes out. I take his gun and clasp my hand on the shoulder. I lift him up with the grip, making it a lot more painful.

“You gonna tell me where the meeting with the aliens is holding.”

“Aint telling you shit.” He blurts, his teeth covered in blood. I tighten my grip on his trapezius more, and I feel his shoulder bone cracking within my grip. He screams.

“O––okay, I––I’ll tell you. The meeting is holding in sector C room number eight.”

I frown. I have no idea where that is. “Where? This floor or below?”

“This floor, this floor.” He says with his teeth clenched.

I let go of his shoulder, he drops and stumbles, I grab his arm and yank him up as he falls. “You’re gonna take me there and for the sake of your mother, you will take me exactly where I want to go.”

He nods. I release his arm. He leads the way and I follow. I know putting him in front could get him killed, then I would have to get someone else to take me there, but I intend to keep him alive as I may not find another person as cooperative. We go on and every time we meet armed men, I shoot them down. As we move from hallway to hallway, I keep praying we don’t meet anyone like those kids. I see a door with ‘Sector C’ above it. The soldier opens the door while I lurk behind him. In the corridor are five human soldiers and the two arbitron soldiers that came in with Ra Argadus. I see three grenades in the small bag on the waist of the soldier that led me here. I take two. I remove the pins and toss them across the floor to where the guards are standing. I grab the soldier’s arms and dive out the door with him as the grenades go off, I save him.

I look at him, his hands on his ears blocking out the bam. “You better run,” I say. He shudders to his feet and runs without looking back.

I get up and drop the gun in my hand. By now, the human soldiers are certainly dead. But the arbitron soldiers on the other hand are not near that easy to kill, not with a human-made grenade. I push the door slowly. As my eyes see the inside, hot plasma and innium bullets fly at me. I duck and pull myself back away from the door. I take a deep breath and count;
one, two thr––
I dash into the room and release a force blast at the soldiers. The force throws me back, but I roll up as soon as my back touches the floor. The soldiers are knocked down, stunned. I move to them before they can recover, take one of their guns and blast them dead.

Finally,
nothing
stands between me and Ra Argadus.

The double door to the meeting room is barely holding now. I throw my foot at the door, one of the two doors fall off and the other opens. I walk in. In the room is Rainbird, Ra Argadus, the Vice President of the United States and two guys in military uniform that I don't know. Entering the room, with the five of them hiding in one dark corner of the room, I feel like death. On the table is a lit cigar. I pick it up and shove it in my mouth. One of the few things I’ll miss when I’m gone, the cigar. I inhale with the cigar hanging in my mouth, I make a small opening on a corner of my mouth and let out a gush of thick white smoke. I remove the cigar and tap it till ash falls from it and scatters as it touches the table.

“Cyders Kaige.” Says Argadus, staring at me like I’m a ghost. “You are supposed to be dead.”

“I know.” I put the cigar in, inhale deeply and put it out again, thick smoke follows, flowing toward them, but disappearing before it gets close. “You see Argadus, normally I would start asking questions, so many questions. But I happen to be in a rush to get off this planet, and I need you in the ship. So we either gonna do this the easy way or the hard way, the choice is yours. But I beg you Argadus, choose the hard way.”

With the look on his face, I can tell he was in on the conspiracy against me, but I'm not surprised, I never liked him anyway, and although has always pretended to like me, because of Hanther, but I’ve always known he’s a deep bastard.

“Mr. Vice President,” I say, smiling, “doing shady deal with aliens, why am I not surprised?”

I drop the cigar and kick the table away from the center of the room, the screeching of its stand dragging across the floor briefly filling the room. I move toward them, going to get Argadus. I expect him to fight back, not hide in a corner like a coward and wait to be taken. Surprisingly, Rainbird steps forward. I stop.

“What now kid?”

“You want Ra Argadus, you’re going to have to go through me.” She says.

The voice, the words, the confidence, I’ve seen it before in the hallway. She’s not dumb, she meant what she said.
Shit!
She’s one of the advanced humans.

“Well well.”

I raise my gun to shoot her down, two of the chairs in the room fly at me and the gun flies out of my hand. I activate my force field before the chairs can touch me. The gun hits the force field shield and bounces back at me, I grab it. Without hesitation, I fire at her and she deflects every shot and at the same time throwing things at me with her mind. A strong force smacks at me, sending me into what's left of the door.

Rainbird, she is way better than the first two kids I battled. If I am going to take her down, I’m going to need to come up with a plan fast. I take two guns from the floor beside the dead soldiers, I throw one at her and charge toward her immediately. She deflects the gun and before she can settle, I throw the second gun, she deflects it too and by the time she is ready to focus on me, I’m already in front of her. She raises her right hand, I grab the hand, push it to her side and grab her neck. I roll to her back and I kick the back of her right leg. She drops on her bottom, my fingers still around her neck.

“Don’t
make
me kill you.” I say, with my teeth clenched.

She breathes in and out, her chest rising and falling, trying to catch her breath.

“Ra Argadus is a guest on my planet,” she says, struggling to get the words out. “And I am responsible for anything that happens to him while he’s here. Hurting him will severe my relationship with the people he represents.”

“And what relationship is that?” I ask. Then it occurs to me. I have known there is this evil deal going on, but I haven’t bothered to find out what the deal really is.

“It’s classified,” she says.

“Yeah? Classified my ass!”

Four tentacles grow out from the back of my suit, one clips to her forehead, one to the back above the neck and two go to the sides of her head. I begin to download her memory. Ra Argadus tries to make a move, I raise a gun at him and he stays down.

Five minutes later, I’ve learnt everything Amy knows about herself, even those she can’t remember, also everything she knows about the arbitrons and their mission here, but she doesn’t know much about it, she doesn’t care, as long as she and her kind are not going to be involved.

They call themselves Mutants; people with advanced genes. When her father discovered what she is, he kept her isolated through her childhood, believing he was protecting her. When Amy reached the age of eighteen, she decided she wanted more than being kept away from the world, and when her father refused her what she wanted, she lost temper and tore the man apart with her mind. She covered the story and took over her father’s business. When she discovered there are many others like her, she searched for them, found them and brought them together to help them.

After years of hiding from a squad set up by the government to find isolate all mutants away from the normal human population, they decided it was time fight back. They were ready for war. That was when the arbitrons showed up. They intended to conquer Earth, but they feared they may have a hard time conquering the mutant population, so they decided to make a deal. Ra Argadus offered to provide everything needed to terraform Mars plus wealth, Amy agreed, and everything was delivered. The Mutants are migrating permanently to Mars, leaving the arbitrons to do with Earth whatever they want, and the American leaders, believing that Earth has already been lost, are bargaining for a city on Mars.

Mars has been terraformed, and every Mutant on the planet is beneath my feet, in sub-levels of this structure, this spaceship, getting ready to fly to Mars.

I stare at Ra Argadus, he knows that I have learnt everything Amy knows.
“What do you want with Earth?” I ask. He looks down. Whatever it is he’s hiding, there is no point hiding it anymore. I know way too much now, and he’s going to try and kill me for it. If he tries, he will fall.

“Project El-Trion,” he mutters.

“Project
El-Trion!
You’re going to destroy an entire race of sentient life forms for a
project?
The project was forbidden by The Elders. Why would you want to go against The Elders and resurrect it?”

“Because it is the only way we can stand up to them, The Elders and they know it.” He says.

Project El-Trion was green lighted by The Elders seven hundred Arbitrus-years ago, and Faoun, one of our planet's moons was going to be home to the project. It had to do with creating living organic weapons with cosmic powers, and have them fight our wars for us, but the project was later terminated by The Elders for unknown reasons. The Elders are the incredibly powerful beings we know absolutely nothing about, but have been directing the affairs of our race since the beginning. Some say they created us, but it doesn’t matter. We are sick of their leadership and we want them gone, but they are so powerful, that despite our super-advanced technologies, we still don’t have what it takes to stand up to them. But this project, El-Trion would change that, and they know it.

If the motive behind resurrecting the project is to rebel against The Elders, I totally support it. But what they intend to do with Earth, they intend to use the planet as the factory which means every life form, plants and animals and microorganisms will be destroyed and broken down to non-life state. This I do not agree with. Maybe it is because I have spent three years with them, and I am so much into their style, or it is because The Elders forbade such atrocity or it’s that what’s bad is bad and this is super bad, I just can’t agree to it, and I will do everything within my power to stop them, even if I have to reveal their plan to The Elders.

I detach my tentacles from Amy’s head and she falls, exhausted by the memory surge caused by the probing.

“Argadus, you can find another world void of sentient life forms. Why does it have to be Earth?”

“You think we wanted this too? It wasn’t easy for us either. We searched vastly beyond Earth, but the worlds we found are all habited. We figured the humans are weak, and they will be easy to conquer quietly, it's why we chose them, and it is the most logical choice and you know it. And besides, this star system is not The Elders radar, they won’t know a thing until it is too late.”

“As much as I support your intention toward The Elders, I will not allow you to destroy the humans.”

“It is already too late, the first stage has begun.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Why do you think I’m here? I’m here to see things through. To see the Mutants leave, and see our plans set in motion. It is already too late Cyders, you cannot stop it now.”

I take an arbitron gun, grab Ra Argadus’s neck and throw him at the wall. I power up the gun and put it to his face. He watches as the gun comes to life, gathering energy, preparing to let out a blast at his face. In seconds, Argadus is covered in sweat, his chest pumping.

“Tell me, Argadus, what have you done?” I yell.

“The first step,” he swallows hard. “The sprayer, the sprayer, it’s in the atmosphere.”

The sprayer is a drone ship for spraying cities, a whole planet with gas when needed, usually to release a global antidote for airborne plagues. Now they are using it to spray some kind of evil gas on the humans.

“What does the gas do?” I demand.

“You will have to see for yourself.”

I power down the gun. I raise my hand to strike him, but I pause. “One more thing. Why did The Governors wanted me dead?”

“Because Cyders, you knew too much, and the redemption program had recorded three failures at that time, and they couldn’t risk it with you, especially when it is you Cyders.”

I stare at him for a moment, then I hit him so hard he passes out. I throw him on my shoulder and walk out of the room. I carry him into the ship and lock him in a light-cell in a corner. I move to the ship’s main control and power up the engines. I fly the ship and this time it flies because Ra Argadus, the primary object of the active mission is onboard.

The ship takes off and I fly into earth’s orbit. I search the system for information on the sprayer and the gas, I find nothing that could help counter the effect of the gas, but I find the sprayer-ship's programed path. I follow the path and find the ship. I fire everything I've got at it, but its shield remains active and strong.

I clench my fist, angry. I open the light-cell, pull Argadus out of the cell and slam his back to the wall. I jam my fist to his face and he coughs out of his slumber with a bleeding nose.

“I found the sprayer-ship. How do I stop it?”

“What?”

I slap him hard on the face. “How do I stop the sprayer-ship?”

“You can’t. There is only one person with access to the sprayer-ship’s command system,”

“Lemme guess,” I growl. “He’s not onboard.”

“No he’s not,” he shakes his head.

I toss him back into the cell and seal it. I fly the ship side-by-side with the sprayer-ship and maintain the same speed with it. I set my ship on auto-pilot. I open the weapon chamber and take two C-3 plasma grenades. The sprayer-ship’s shield defense should allow me through because I’m arbitron. But if anything has changed in the last three and half years, then I could be wrong, and my plan could fail utterly and lead to my death, but it's the only way I can think of, and I have to try.