Rise of Aen (16 page)

Who was he to interrupt her healing and her new life? Her husband was long gone and he was the furthest thing from what she needed. Aen was frustrated; love is an impossible emotion to suppress. His mind began to race and think about what ifs and unrealistic situations. Painfully, Aen wondered if true happiness would ever be there for him again. Aaron Foster and all that he was no longer lived. All his dreams and possible futures were gone. But realizing this and actually dealing with it were two different
things.

To Aen, it was painfully obvious he was still, and possibly always would be, linked to his former family. The love he felt for his wife and daughter wasn’t something that one could simply walk away from. But how does one start over? How does the pain of heartbreak go away? Once, Aen thought the answer was time, but obviously that wasn’t it. After not seeing her for so long, all the familiar pangs of love, lust and comfort washed over him. He wondered if he lived a thousand years if his feelings for her would ever
change.

Krista, his one great love. As she stopped and chatted with a friend on the street, he continued to watch her every move. Her beauty was staggering to him. In all this time, the only thing that had changed was that her ring finger now lay bare. The ring! Aen often wondered what happened to his wedding ring. Krista’s was obviously in a box at home, hidden away to hide the emotions it brought with it. But his, where was
his?

Had they cut it off him and simply thrown it away? Was it in some kind of storage locker in that dreadful mountain building? Or had someone taken it and claimed it as a trophy or souvenir? There was no way to know….except maybe kicking in the door of the project that spawned him and pillaging it until he found his forsaken treasure. And if he did, then what? How would having the ring help him? How would it help her love him
again?

There was no way he would win, in any scenario he thought of. The greatest love of his life was right in front of him, but it might as well have been on the other side of the planet. Happiness; at least in the form of his wife and family; was unattainable and he highly doubted if he would ever feel that way about anyone
again.

Aen stood up, whispered a sweet goodbye to her—one that she would never hear—and vanished. Below, Krista looked up to where Aen had been as she felt her heart pull her eyes there instinctively. It had been a long time since she had felt a draw like that on her soul. A smile drew on her lips, a warm feeling gripped her heart as she thought of her beloved husband looking down on her from above. It was comforting and unexpected, but more than welcome. It had been hard on her the last while, but she was back on her feet. Emotionally, she was far from moving on but at least she was able to try. To her, happiness seemed to be right around the
bend.

Nile Valley Basin, Egypt

The desert sun beat down on him relentlessly, but Aen hardly noticed it, his body immune to temperatures and their affects. Over the last few months, he had begun experimenting with his newfound powers in down-times. Here in the heart of the Egypt was one of those times. He had found the Lyarran burial site along with the artifact he was after and now awaited the arrival of the hunter team that he encountered a few weeks ago in
England.

So he sat in the pile of limestone rocks, waiting for his adversaries while lifting and stacking rocks of varying size. One, two, and sometimes three at a time, he stacked the rocks with his mind. Patience was never his strongpoint, and he had to keep his mind occupied as he waited for them to find him once more. He had a rock, about two feet in length, lifted to eye level when an idea hit him, so Aen decided to try something different. While holding it afloat, he gripped it with his mind and began to squeeze it; imagining there was a giant vise winding tightly around it. Aen felt his heart accelerate and pour energy through his body, but saw little happening to the
rock.

Then, he saw portions of it begin to crumble and fall away. It was working! He reached out with his hand and imagined it held the rock and quickly closed his hand into a fist. Immediately, the chunk of limestone exploded and crumbled to dust! He was about to pat himself on the back when he heard the shuffle of boots around him; they were
here!

With a quick referral to his gauntlet sensor, Aen rose and readied himself against his next trial. This time he would face them head on instead of employing
stealth!

“I count eight of you, Avery Wilson; did you lose your nerve from our last encounter?” Aen hollered into the wind as his voice echoed off the canyon
walls.

“Subject 54, you are surrounded with no strategic means of escape!” a different voice shouted. “Surrender is your only
option!”

Aen smiled fiercely, they sent the man he most wanted dead to apprehend him; this was almost too good to be true. He looked around the canyon rim and noted the placement of four snipers along with the four more at the entrance that meant to block his
escape.

“Surrender?” Aen laughed at the voice. “What would be the fun in that, General Taylor? They must have been desperate to find me if they sent
you?”

“Our mandate is to bring you back alive,” the general shouted, “Don’t make me go against
orders!”

“You have nothing to threaten me with, Jenson.” Aen began to walk towards the entrance way as he felt the first sniper round strike his left shoulder. To his surprise, he felt nothing as the body armor he was wearing—thanks to the ingenuity of Caretaker—absorbed the impact and the bullet simply glanced off. “You already killed me once, and I highly doubt that you or your freaks have the means to do it
again!”

With his right hand he reached up and thought of grasping the general by his fatigues and raised the man into the air, telekinetically. As Taylor’s body was pulled from his feet, four rounds in succession struck him hard; one impacting him in the side of the head. But Aen didn’t even flinch as the round simply struck his flesh as if it were iron and flattened before falling harmlessly. With his hand still clenched, he pulled it close to his body to bring the man he detested
closer.

“Hello, good doctor.” he snarled as they were face to face. “Your monster would like to speak to
you!”

“Do what you want to me, our people aren’t afraid of you and your race!” Taylor spat back. “This is our world and we will beat
you!”

Another shot rang out and clipped him in the back; his armor absorbing it as well. With his other hand, Aen grabbed a large limestone boulder and hurled it in the direction of the sniper sending the hybrid soldier scrambling for cover as it struck the rock face and
shattered.

“Not too bright, these freaks of yours.” He almost laughed in the general’s face. “You would think they would take fewer chances with you so
close?”

“They know what needs to be done and they are better prepared than you think!” the older man said with a sly smile on his face as a blade came flying through the air and sliced into Aen’s shoulder, stopped only by the hilt. With his concentration lost, Taylor was dropped to the ground and he scrambled backwards to get clear of the hail of knives that rained down on the
creature.

One by one, they struck Aen and sunk into his body; a few he was able to deflect away with his T.K., but there were too many hitting home. Sinking to his knees, Aen doubled over as more than twenty blades stuck out from his
body.

“Not so tough now, are you?” gloated the general triumphantly. “My ‘freaks’ are armed with blades forged from the very metal of your people’s ship. Obviously you aren’t immune to your own technology!” He turned to his men and barked; “Put a few more in him then get in there and scrape him up; we got a plane to
catch!”

Three more knives struck true to the prostrate target with little or no reaction. Aen sat unmoved, but surprisingly unhurt. The knives had cut right through his armor and cut into him deeply, but had done no damage whatsoever. In fact, he had to restrain himself from laughing as some of them actually tickled. He heard footsteps approach him and suddenly Aen got the idea of becoming the proverbial
IED!

Waiting for the perfect time, Aen sent light pulses of energy out from his heart to use as sonar as he kept his eyes shut to better sell the ruse. Four different soldiers were approaching and he readied himself by applying the slightest of pressure to the knives from the inside of his body and lightly pushing outwards. At last, he felt a hand on his shoulder and he pushed hard with his mind to trigger the
blast!

—

Taylor’s heart pounded in his chest like the engine of a freight train; the thing he created was insanely powerful and it had him at his mercy for a brief moment. Now it was over, the plan had succeeded and the target had been neutralized. Taylor stood where he had retreated to, twenty or so feet above the motionless monster, and watched four of the hybrids fetch their trophy when he saw the light well up from him. Before he could warn his troops, all hell broke
loose!

With the effect of a flash-bang grenade, a pulse of pure energy flooded the canyon and all the knives once buried in the creature now shot out in all directions. The four soldiers near the epicenter were thrown backwards, their bodies strewn with blades and rock as blood poured from them. Each struck the canyon wall lifelessly and burst into flames from the immense heat from the blast. Taylor and Wilson took cover in the nick of time—Taylor wasn’t fast enough, a shard of a knife tearing through his right shoulder. They waited for the blast to subside before glancing carefully from their cover to assess the
situation.

Both men saw the target standing, seemingly unharmed, and staring back at them in a scene that looked to be from a Hollywood movie. It stood in the midst of hot glass, the rock and sand melted, and smiled back at them. Taylor’s eyes quickly scanned the area, and he was shocked in every aspect of what power had been displayed. Molten rock dripped from the walls around them, falling with a steaming hiss as it struck the mostly smooth canyon
floor.

“And poor Doctor Frankenstein looked over all the destruction, the reality hitting home that it was all by his hand,” the creature said with an evil grin. “You chase the wrong enemy, Jensen, and in doing so you are preparing for the wrong battle. Run back home with your tail between your legs, for the next time we meet will be the last moments of your
life.”

“I created you,” Taylor sneered back as he stood defiantly, “And I will be the one to destroy
you!”

“How did that go for Doctor Frankenstein?” Aen retorted. “Think before you challenge something you can’t beat!” He smiled at the two soldiers before disappearing into thin
air.

Wilson realized he was holding his breath and exhaled deeply, almost gasping for air. “How the fuck do we fight him?” he asked as he struggled to catch his breath. “I mean, look at this place! He’s like a fucking atom bomb and we’re nothing but a party
favor!”

“I’m not sure, Avery.” Taylor replied in a distant voice. He had hoped this thing hadn’t figured out how powerful it could really be. When they had snuck up on it and observed it struggling to stack rocks with its mind, he’d been sure it hadn’t. But now, the complete devastation of the desert canyon was a testament that they were standing in the path of an out-of-control freight train, and he had no clue on how to stop
it.

Himalayan Mountains, Mount Kailash, Tibet

“You look to be very pleased with yourself,”
Caretaker droned at him in the Lyarran bunker.
“But I wonder why you persist in fighting these people. They cannot harm you in any way, yet you fight them as if they are a dire
threat.”

Aen was busy shedding the heavily damaged armor he wore—trying to get it off proved to be a task in and of itself, the bodysuit in shambles from the blades and the
explosion.

“Sometimes, wrongs must be made right,” he replied as one of his gauntlets fell to the floor with a loud clunk. “Those creatures shouldn’t exist, and because they were made from me it is up to me to destroy
them.”

“I would believe that, had you not seemed so intent to murder this General Taylor fellow. It is obvious you are wild with
revenge.”

“And why shouldn’t I punish them for what they did to me?” Aen spat back; his anger
growing.

“They did what they did to save humanity. There is a storm coming, Aen, one that will test this world and
you.”

This was the second time Aen had been told of something dark and foreboding. He was tired of all the prophetic talk and was eager to finally get
answers.

“And what kind of test am I to have now that will push me more than this? Tell me, oh all-knowing Caretaker! Because in comparison to being kidnapped, tortured, remade into an alien, killed, reborn and losing my family, nothing will test me more!” He was so angry he was panting. Emotionally he had been bottled up for so long that he was overdue an outburst, but this was only the tip of the
iceberg.

“You call me a Harbinger, but of what? What am I supposed to be? Why was I the one that had to lose everything to be this?” he continued to rant. “Nothing could be worse than the pain inside as I watch my wife live life without me; to love her as I do without being able to express it! Nothing could be worse than watching my daughter yearn for her father as she cries at an empty tomb every week! So what is there that will test us
all?”

Caretaker was quiet, contemplating if Aen was done venting or not. It had surmised that it was only a matter of time before he broke, and it was worried how bad the emotional trauma had truly scarred him. So it waited what to it seemed like an eternity to answer; which in the real world was four seconds; to
respond.