Clio and Cy: The Apocalypse (21 page)

“People often believed they were safer in the light, thinking
monsters only came out at night.”

― C.J. Roberts

RMB Pendleton:

1:37am:

Lance Cpl. Jimmy Woolridge, as usual, couldn’t sleep. The
young Marine stood outside like he always did at night. Frustrated, but still
enjoying the quiet moments alone. He looked over the shadows of fallen trees
that were left from the storm. It blew hard the night before but everything was
for the most part, where it should be. His heart sighed,
last of the dip
he thought, pinching it out of the can and in
between his gums. It soured his mouth and the juices flowed. Turning his head
to spit, Jimmy noticed something.

Two Marines quietly did a roving patrol, not recognizing the
lights, if you could even call them that. They were barely detectible to the
naked eye. Lance Cpl. Woolridge noticed them though.

What is that?
The
lights appeared to be moving… far away from where he was standing. He rubbed
his eyes and spit again, squinting.
Probably
nothing
he thought, looking away. Jimmy turned his head and looked at them
again.
Goddamn, that is something… what
the hell is that…?

Those blue lights were real; he couldn’t deny it, seeing
them in the dark — plain as day. Although he wasn’t sure…
are those lights getting closer
? Blinking like a strobe on an
aircraft wing, they glowed but didn’t seem to change in size. Jimmy spit again;
maybe they are getting bigger,
wondering if they were even moving at all.
I
don’t know…?

His senses began to tingle. Spider senses were what he and
his fellow Marines called them. Lance Cpl. Woolridge didn’t alert the roving
patrol because they were far away from his position. He didn’t want to yell
across the grinder. No need to wake people up and scare the shit out of them if
it turned out to be nothing.
Can’t let
this slide though,
he thought.
Maybe
those things are getting bigger?
He spit again before heading toward Capt.
Bank’s berthing quarters.

“Sir… Sir…” Jimmy said, nudging his officer. Capt. Banks
rose up like the dead. He was in the middle of a nightmare and after popping
up, still thought he was in a bad dream.

The dream lingered until Capt. Banks realized the dampness
of his own sweat. As his eyes began to adjust, so too did his senses, pulling
him further into the real world, feeling his wet sheets. He thought that he’d
woken because, whoever was shaking him right now, saying “sir,” saw him tossing
and turning, wanting to save him from the obvious nightmare.

“Who’s it?” Capt. Banks responded.

“It’s me sir. Woolridge…”

“What’s going on Woolridge?”

“Need you to see something outside sir.”

Capt. Banks smartly got out of bed and then dressed. He
laced his boots and followed behind Woolridge, wearing only his t-shirt up top.
Under the twinkling stars of a clear, post storm sky, both men walked across
the grinder. The coolness blew the cobwebs out of Capt. Banks as he searched
for anything out of place.

Sure of it, Woolridge realized the lights were brighter and
more intense. “They’re bigger now sir,” Jimmy stated, pointing at them.

“Marine!” Capt. Banks shouted in a whisper at the roving
security watch. “Sir.” both responded as they hustled over.

“You don’t see that?” Capt. Banks asked, pointing off at the
glowing blue lights.

“I see it sir,” responded one Marine. “Yes sir,” the other
duty affirmed.

Annoyed, Capt. Banks looked at both men. “Everyone up!” he
ordered. “Don’t sound the alarm, but get every Marine on his feet in full gear.
I want them locked and loaded! Now!”

“Roger that sir!” they responded before heading off for each
barracks. “You too Woolridge!”

“Roger that sir,” Jimmy confirmed. Lance Cpl. Woolridge
headed for his barracks and then stopped.
The
SEALs
he thought and then headed to warn them.

Barging through the door, Lance Cpl. Woolridge flipped the
lights on. Some of the men began to stir when he walked to Petty Officer
Deines’s bunk.

“Hey, wake up. Hey sailor, wake up…” Jimmy said, shaking
Petty Officer Deines’s shoulder. Since he’d forgotten the SEAL’s name,
Woolridge didn’t know what to call him.

Deines rose up out of a dead sleep. “What…who is it?” the
SEAL asked, rubbing his eyes. “What time is it?”

“It’s Woolridge… guy from the gym.”

“What the hell is going on Marine?”

There are some lights outside and they’re coming our way.
“Lights?” Deines asked.

“Yeah.” Woolridge affirmed.

“What kind of lights?”

“Come on, wake up and get your gear on,” Woolridge
announced.

“Boom! Boom! Crash!”

Before the men were finished gearing up, the first shots
from the Super Destroyer’s railgun hit the base. The Marines shouted and
hurried in a panic as more shots were fired, shaking the world around them.
Running outside, the men wondered what in the hell had that kind of firepower.

“Boom! Boom!”

The Marines saw them and nearly shit in their pants. Flanked
by several Ker, like steeds from the apocalypse, four giant insects were in
sight.

“Contact left! Contact left! … Right! Contact right!”
Drowned out by the sound of combat, men shouted at the waves of mechanized
killers descending on them. Metal insects were splattering bodies with a single
shot.

Four Super Destroyers, which was all the Dr. Pavlov could
produce so far, were surrounded by dozens of Ker. The machine’s tracer rounds
zipped, blazing a path and lighting the sky amidst glowing blue eyes. As if
thousands of flaming arrows pierced through the darkness, men and machine went
to war.

The Marines and SEALs fired at will. The Ker went down from
the heavier weapons but the Super Destroyers kept coming. Capt. Banks stood his
ground after leading a group of men against the closest bug gaining inside the
base. The Ker flanked the metal insects as every Destroyer fired and moved
closer.

Burning through a fifty round mag, Lance Cpl. Woolridge shot
from his knee, as other Marines fired by his side. Their barrels smoked and men
were exploding into bloody vapor mist.

The SEALs noticed the fourth group of bots coming in. An
insect came from over the mountains as if it had crawled in from the ocean like
a sea monster. Imo limped out of the BAS and hobbled inside the barracks to
gear up. Shooting from the hip and aiming the best he could, he came out firing
while still dressing.

Woolridge saw Capt. Banks in the distance. The Super
Destroyer powered its railgun and fired. The air charged and the heavens
illuminated when its missile burned through the sky at eight times the speed of
sound.

Woolridge saw it happening in slow motion. “Boom!”

The railgun exploded projectiles into Capt. Banks and the men
around him. Jimmy felt the earth stop, experiencing every second as if it were
an hour. Gripped in terror, he didn’t scream, firing at the wave coming at him,
still trying to check for survivors out of his peripheral. Rounds bounced off
the giant bugs and the sound of ricocheting bullets tinged through the star
filled night.

Building and trucks burned behind the SEALs as they hunkered
down and unleashed all they had. The air charged in front of them. Rounds from
a railgun fired and killed every Navy SEAL except Petty Officer Deines. The
percussion smashed him to the ground. Woozy, he sat up and noticed the mangled
body parts of his comrades. No saving them, he knew it … and ran. Still wobbly,
he moved toward Woolridge, stumbling as if he was in a bad dream.

A Super Destroyer flipped a vehicle like a toy when it
descended next to the BAS.

“Where are the choppers?” Deines shouted in Woolridge’s ear.

“Keep ‘em hidden on the golf course!” Jimmy screamed just as
both men jumped out of the way of another railgun shot, aimed for a group of
Marines near them.

Men flew through the air in pieces of bone and sinew. Deines
and Woolridge landed from the explosion. Other than being deaf, both men were
unharmed. “Let’s go!” Deines shouted, getting back to his feet.

Heading for a Hum-Z, they took off running. Making it a
quarter mile away from the battle, the two men cautiously approached the
vehicle.

“Contact right!” Deines shouted, firing at a Ker.

Several Ker were assigned the task of staying along the
borders, just outside the fight. No one was to slip by.

Woolridge finished killing the Ker and watched it topple.
Having no clue which way to go, Deines fired the engine. “Which way!” he
shouted after putting it in drive. Neither could hear a fucking word each other
was saying. Deines pointed, yelling. “Go! That way!”

The lights of gunfire faded dim behind them as the Hum-Z
bounced over the terrain.

“If you still believe in magic,

you're subject to enchantment.”

― Toba Beta

Just outside Charlotte North Carolina:

“Jesus, would you look at that Cy.”

“I see it Dr. Marcus.”

“I don’t think we’re going to get through that,” Dr.
Pressfield said, holding his chin, thinking as he stared at a mountain of metal
automobiles blocking their path.

“My scanners detect that you’re correct Dr. Marcus.”

“Can we cut over? See if there’s another way Cy.”

“We can take this road over to 77 Dr. Marcus and then turn
in, and head south,” he confirmed, pointing at their vehicles navigation
system.

“Ok… do it,” Dr. Pressfield ordered, looking around
nervously.

On the road and towering like a monster fence, a wall of
cars was piled high. It looked as though they were dropped on the interstate
from a great distance. Vehicles were stacked, packed, and racked. Thirty feet
high, hundreds of them sat on top of one another in a metal dam. Cy backed up
and spun the steering wheel and then mashed the throttle. “Getting good at
this,” Dr. Pressfield said, smiling.

“I do like driving Dr. Marcus, most indeed I do.”

“You don’t say?” Dr. Pressfield queried. “I couldn’t tell.”

“Really Dr. Marcus?” Cy asked as if he’d
glitched
into a dumb blond. Dr.
Pressfield gave his cyborg a look.

“Oh, I get it Dr. Marcus. You were being rhetorical again.”

“Something like that Cy,” Dr. Pressfield said. “Something
like that,” he said softer, concentrating on the world around him, as if it’d
suddenly changed. He didn’t like being off the main road. Things had changed.
The surrounding environment became more foreboding the deeper they went.

“It’s ok Dr. Marcus, my scanners aren’t detecting Ker.”

“This place gives me the creeps,” Dr. Pressfield announced
as they drove under the shade of bending trees. Branches hung over the road
like grabbing tentacles and scraped over the vehicles surface, squeaking in a
high pitch as limbs scratched through the paint.

“I rather enjoy the change of scenery,” Cy confirmed.

“You would… But I don’t… Looks like the haunted forest to
me,” Dr. Pressfield shook deliberately and rubbed his hands over his shoulders.

“Don’t worry Dr. Marcus, there’s no such thing as ghosts.”

Dr. Pressfield leaned forward looking up through the
windshield. “You sure about that Cy?” he said casually.

“Positive Dr. Marcus.” Cy slammed the brakes as something
ran out in front of the Hum-Z.

“Jesus Christ!” Marcus shouted. “Thing scared the shit out
of me.”

“I surely hope not Dr. Marcus,” Cy said looking down at the
seat.

“Look at the size of them. The neck…” Marcus watched two
giraffe skip across the road. As the animals faded into the brush, Cy gently
hit the throttle and the vehicle moved forward. Slowly, they drove a few more
miles.

The wooded forest abruptly ended, opening into a field.
“This I can handle,” Marcus announced. They reached Interstate 77 and climbed
onto its runway.

Cy traversed the abandoned vehicles and continued south for
the satellite DARPA office, Charlotte NC.

The cityscape looked normal from a distance. Tall buildings
still towered in a magnificent skyline of manmade metal and architecture.
Charlotte had surpassed all of the southern cities as a thriving metropolis.
Long since the banking capital of the southeast, it had become the financial
powerhouse of the United States. New York was finally bested as the epicenter
of trading and paper stocks.

“It should be close.”

“It’s less than two miles away Dr. Marcus.”

The Hum-Z drove until it reached DARPA. “Guess I was wrong,”
Dr. Pressfield stated.

“It’s not hurricane proof, huh Dr. Marcus?”

“Doesn’t look like it,” the scientist affirmed, sticking his
head out the window.

“Most of the facility is underground though Dr. Marcus.”

Marcus Pressfield stuck his head back inside and looked at
Cy. “Yeah, you’re right. Better get a better look at her before I start a pity
party.”

“Her, Dr. Marcus?”

“Yeah, her.”

“Who?”

“The lab Cy… The lab...”

Instantly Cy got the context of Dr. Marcus’s usage of, her.
“I thought only ships were given female names or called, her?”

“Usually… but a man can name anything a... her. Should I
give you a woman’s name, Cy?”

“No Dr. Marcus. I like being a boy.”

“Man… always say you’re a man, Cy,” Marcus instructed after
slapping his cyborg on the shoulder.

“I’m a man,” Cy said in a deep voice.

Dr. Pressfield began to climb out of the vehicle. “Manly,
that’s it,” he said with his eyes fixed on the pile of rocks that used to be
DARPA.

“My scanners are detecting heavy energy output from
underneath,” Cy confirmed as he climbed out of the vehicle.

What a shame.
Marcus shook his head looking at the fallen building. “Well that’s good,” he
said, turning to Cy. “Can you find us a way in?”

“Working on it Dr. Marcus… There,” Cy pointed to a spot.

Marcus shrugged. “Looks as good as any I guess,” he said
following Cy to a pile of rubble.

Squatting down, Cy reached his hands under a boulder-sized
chunk of concrete. “Careful Cy,” Marcus said while grimacing at what his cyborg
was attempting.

Cy pulled, lifting the massive chunk of concrete and
released his grip, toppling over as it shook the ground. He went to the next
piece of rock and flung it out of the way, moving it as if he were a power
lifter doing a deadlift. “Come on Dr. Marcus,” Cy said like a kid heading into
an amusement park.

Dr. Pressfield followed down the revealed staircase. “How we
going to get through that?” he asked.

A heavy door sat between them and the facility inside.
Hurricane proof, it remained intact. “Stand back Dr. Marcus,” Cy ordered.

“Be careful,” Marcus requested, grimacing again. Cy began
kicking the door’s center. It dented with each strike. Cy smashed it with every
shot until the door began folding. After a final push kick, it flew inside,
landing bent and mangled, sliding across the lab. Marcus followed Cy inside the
high-tech space, more cautious than his cyborg.

“My scanners detect that everything is in working order,” Cy
affirmed with a smile. Dr. Pressfield’s eyes roamed the facility, smiling too.
Marcus looked down at his cyborg’s feet.

“Cy… you’re bleeding.”

“So I am Dr. Marcus,” Cy said as he looked at his foot. His
human flesh had been injured from kicking on the door.