Might's Odyssey (The Event Book 2) (9 page)

Seconds stretched in minutes and minutes into hours and still he traveled. He saw no more threats and for that he was grateful. The digital countdown on the touch screen surface of the onboard computer kept counting down the miles.

The onboard computer had not been kidding when it said that Rikley’s base__ in the dark sector was far. The way things stood, he did not think he could reach it before the end of the day.

A frown hardened his even features as he thought that. Looking around the barren landscape, a sigh burst from his lips. Everywhere was dark and gloomy. How was he going to be able to tell when the day ended or begun?

His joints were aching and his stomach rumbled with hunger. After traveling a few hundred more kilometers, he reached a decision. Pressing the brake of the hover cycle, it gently slid to a halt beside a rocky escarpment.

It was the only visible landform for miles around. There was a hollow cleft in the side of the pile of rocks. It was wide enough for a man to hole up and probably spread a tent to keep him hidden from the elements.

He powered down the hover cycle lifting the large sack strapped to its back off it. Walking over to the rocks, he dropped the sack and opened it. Rummaging in its depths for a total of five seconds, he removed a rectangular box shaped container.

There was a large red button on the side of it. He set it down carefully beside the sack and pressed the red button. A loud hissing sound rang out for a few seconds before a greenish blue leather material popped out of its sides and spread out in a wide circle.

It covered twenty feet in a flash and sprouted upwards like a plant bursting out of the ground with its branches reaching for the sky. This upward growth continued for another ten feet on all sides before it stopped. Then the four corners connected on the top by an overlapping layer of green leather.

When he was effectively sealed in, there came another whooshing sound, like the compression inside a submarine or an airplane. A second after this happened, the air-conditioning kicked in.

Might stole a glance at the two buttons on the side of the tent to his right. One was red and the other green. After the air from the air-conditioning kicked in, the red light went off and the green light came on.

Nodding in satisfaction, he unclasped the helmet of his hazmat suit and took a deep breath of the clean somewhat sweet scented air pouring into the tent.

Opening the sack again, he brought out a sleeping bag and spread it out. When he had done that, he removed the hazmat suit leaving only a body fitting cotton shirt with no sleeves and a pair of cotton trousers. Sighing deeply, he stretched out on the sleeping bag, yawned and stared at the roof of the tent.

His thoughts drifted. They were random, not confined to any train or thing. He briefly considered what he would find at the Rikley’s communication base. When nothing came to mind, his thoughts drifted to his Amnesiac companions.

Three he knew were dead, but his thoughts centered on Swift. He could not help wondering where he was and what he was doing. Did he think about him? Remember him even? On the other hand, maybe what Mordecai told them at Gethsemane had just been a ruse. Who knew? Maybe Swift was dead, swallowed by whatever force existed in the city of light.

Nephilim was a dark and twisted place. Who knew if the other worlds and realms were any different.

The shaking of the earth beneath him roused him from his grim thoughts. It shook intermittently. Almost as if something heavy was walking in his direction. His eyes narrowed and he sat up slowly, clenching and unclenching his fists.

A small square box of light started to blink on the side of the tent to his right. His frown deepened and he rose up, creeping towards it. The green leather surface of the tent became transparent within this square box of light.

He put one eye to the transparent patch and peered out. The sand covered wasteland was the same except for one thing. The loose sand was shaking violently.

His eyes narrowed when he realized he could not see the hover cycle anywhere. It was not where he left it. He stared at the spot more intently; he had left it just outside the Aziomle survival tent. There was now an empty where the hover cycle had been.

A small opening in the tent to his right close to his knees widened as he reached towards it, stretching his hand out to touch the area where he had parked the hover cycle. His fingers closed around the front of the cycle. A sense of relief filled him. It was there but merely invisible. That meant it had activated its adaptive camouflage feature. The question was why?

The answer came about a second later. The only reason it would do that was if a threat was coming. The shaking of the earth grew louder and more intense. That meant whatever was coming was almost upon him.

As he pulled his hand back in, his eyes centered on the outside surface of the tent and they narrowed. The tent too was invisible, covered by some sort of adaptive camouflage.

He ducked back into the tent and the opening sealed itself, leaving just the transparent patch for him to peer through. Five seconds later, a huge foot smashed down ten feet away from where he was.

His eyes widened in shock at the size of it. The foot was twice as tall as he was and four times as broad. It was metallic looking with large scales on it, which shone like steel.

His eyes traveled up and he saw a giant creature whose head seemed to be nestled in the clouds. Its body was huge and muscular with four-mile long wings riveted to each shoulder. The edges of these wings were serrated and sharp looking, the edges glinting dangerously. Dull red eyes scoured the surrounding landscape drifting over the rock escarpment and even his tent in long measured sweeps.

Might held his breath as his heart started to race. A gut wrenching minute later, the giant eyes drifted off into the distance and the thing walked off, heading in the direction of the darkling’s and the dríe-gons. The shaking in the ground faded until it disappeared completely.

His breath came out in a whoosh as he sank back into the tent and the transparent patch disappeared.

“What was that?” He asked barely aware that he had spoken out aloud.

“That__”
A mechanical voice began
. “__ was one of the Higuan giants.”

The voice came from within the tent. It sounded exactly like the voice of the hover cycle’s onboard computer.

“What is a Higuan giant?”

“Robotic entities. No one knows where they are from. They came into earth at the same instant that the ether-tome crossed over. These giants are the most powerful creatures in the ether-tome’s forces. The only creature next to them in power is the ether-tome.”

“How many of them are out there?”

“It is unclear how many there are. During the war, almost four hundred were counted. That number is likely to have doubled now. No soldier or military unit ever admitted to killing or even wounding one. Missile and drone strikes had little effect on it. That should give you a sense of how powerful they are.”

That thought for some reason did not put Might at ease. If that was the case, he would have to do his best to avoid them whatever the damn things were.

Feeling hungry, he returned to the sleeping bag and slid into it, pulling the sack of supplies close to him. He pulled out a couple of cans of food and started to eat. Taking a sip of the water he had gotten from the biosphere, he was surprised to discover that his terrible thirst was instantly quenched. 

His eye narrowed as he looked at the container in his hand. The nomads said something about an engineered liquid. Could this be one of such liquids? It probably was. It would definitely have taken much more than a sip to quench his thirst.

The food too quickly filled him. He barely consumed half of a small can of food before he began to feel stuffed. Closing the can as carefully and effectively as he could, he lay down and closed his eyes.

He began to feel decidedly sleepy drifting off a few moments later.

A strange voice spoke into his subconscious. “Come out of this Might__ I need you out here with me__ the event draws near__ my wife does not believe me__ no one believes me__ I dunno whether__” The words faded away slowly and then__

A sharp pain exploded in his chest. Might cried out in pain and sat up rubbing his chest. The pain was so debilitating that he could not sit up for long. He collapsed on his side gasping for breath.

This pain was immediately followed by faintness and a feeling of weightlessness. His vision started to get fuzzy and darkness loomed. Fear surged on his insides. Was this it then? Nephilim was going to triumph over him. It failed with Swift, but it was determined not to fail with him.

Just when he thought he was dead for sure, the pain started to recede. Still gasping he sat up slowly. By the time he was up, the pain had completely disappeared.

His closed eyelids slowly fluttered open, his puzzled eyes scouring the tent.

“What just happened to me?”

A cold silence greeted his question.

Gbenga stood some distance away watching as the doctors pounded Might’s chest in a bid to revive him. Tears filled his eyes and spilt down his cheeks.

“Please God if you are truly there, don’t let him die__” He muttered under his breath.

The pastors kept insisting that God hears every single word a man speaks. And when we pray he always does quick to answer us. Gbenga could only hope that they were right, because with the way Might looked now, he knew it would take a miracle to save him.

The chest pumping stopped and the doctors stepped away from his bedside. Gbenga’s heart began to race. Was he dead?

As if hearing Gbenga’s unspoken question, the eldest of the doctors turned to face him. He was a tubby man with a white goatee dressed in brown slacks, which had a white shirt tucked into it. His gleaming somewhat sad eyes were hidden behind large medicated glasses. 

“Mr. Akintunde, your friend is stable now. We were able to revive him.”

Gbenga heaved a sigh of relief. “But doctor what caused his cardiac arrest? One minute I was talking to him and the next he was shaking and thrashing as if he was being electrocuted.”

“We are not completely sure yet. We have to run a couple of tests. I will let you know as soon as we are done.”

He and his team disappeared mere seconds after he had finished speaking. Gbenga sighed and walked forward slowly, stopping when he stood beside Might’s bed.

A heavy silence engulfed the large room. Outside he could hear noise as the doctors and nurses raced around gathering the necessary equipment they needed to begin their tests.

His eyes grew sad as he looked at steady rise and fall of Might’s chest. His inner emotions became so heavy that he could barely hold up his shoulders. He did not know how much more of this burden he could bear.

Reaching down he stroked Might’s cheek blinking away his tears as he did so.

“I will be heading to Surrey tomorrow__” He paused waiting for any change in Might’s breathing. None came however. Sighing, he continued.

“Gerald Summers is going to give a lecture there. I am hoping I can get him alone. If I can, I will try to persuade him not to go along with his plan to unveil whatever it is he wants to unveil at the G8 summit. If I am lucky, he will listen and the event can be avoided all together. I refuse to even consider the possibility of what will happen if I fail to convince him.

“Just wish you were awake to go with me, could use the company. It’s getting mighty lonely doing all this on my own.”

He paused looking down at Might’s still body. As usual, there was no sign Might heard what he said. Sighing again, he turned and walked out of the room closing the door firmly after him.

In the long hall outside the door he saw half a dozen doctors heading his way, leading them was the elderly man with the goatee.

“You leaving?” Goatee asked with one eyebrow raised.

“Yes I am. I have some business to attend to. See that you keep me abreast of his progress.”

“Will do__” Goatee said hurrying towards Might’s room.

Gbenga turned and headed for the hospital’s exit.

A hard frown roughened Might’s face as he crouched in front of his hover cycle strapping the sack of food to the back of it. When he had it secured, he rose up picking up the minigun as he did so. His frown deepened.

Where to put the minigun now was the problem. He probably should not have been so quick to snap the chain that secured it when he battled with the darkling’s.

A speculative look came on his face as he examined the material the sack was made from. Hmnnn…. It could work. Tearing a long strip off it, he tied one end of the strip to the barrel and the other to the handle.

Swinging it over his shoulder, he held the gun like a backpack. Satisfied that it would hold, he climbed onto the hover cycle. He gunned the engine and waited for the onboard computer to boot up. It did after fifteen seconds and the coordinates of Rikley’s communication base came on the screen. Revving the engine of the hover cycle aggressively, Might sped off into the distance.

The gloom around him lightened as he traveled. To his far right, almost at the opposite horizon, came a snowy white light. His face hardened as he looked at it. He could only hope that it was not another threat. He was so not in the mood right now.

“Weather conditions around here are very erratic. You could have sunny skies one minute and the desert could become a frozen wasteland the next second.”

“What do you think is responsible for this?”

“It’s unclear. You do not have to be concerned about it though. The hazmat suit you are wearing should protect you from the cold.”

“Should?”

“Eighty five percent certainty. Had it been any of the other biomechanical suits you picked, the cold would most likely destroy it making you vulnerable.”

Might shook his head at the computer’s words. Eleyon was right it seemed. Thank the gods that he had had the good sense to obey.

White gloom flooded the entire sky and before long, everywhere grew bitingly cold. From the temperature gauge on the touch screen of the hover cycle, he saw that the temperature had slipped below minus forty degree centigrade.

The yellow flood light beams of the hover cycle’s lights burst out illuminating two hundred feet ahead. The reinforced glass pane in his helmet misted up. He wiped it desperately with his glove so he could see ahead.

It was little help. Revving the engine more, he sped towards the horizon much faster. The sand grains resembled brown snowflakes. Icicles formed everywhere. He knew what that meant of course. It was getting colder.

A large crater loomed up ahead. Unlike the more than two dozen others he had seen on his travels, this one was almost ten miles across, and black smoke billowed out of it filling the gloomy blue black sky.

Heaviness filled Might’s spirit as he looked into the gloom. The desolation around him could dampen even the most cheerful of souls. He steered the hover cycle towards the crater, his eyes scouring the landscape with long measured sweeps.

He knew he had to be on his guard. It would not do to be caught unawares.