Evolution (working title)

[ManOfWesternesse]

You really got me hooked now. Great stuff.

[Dave!]

Chapter 15
Walking along a deserted interstate at night was one of the eeriest feelings Steven had ever felt. Ironic as it was, he had just witnessed things that would have driven his former self to brink of madness. Yet somehow, something felt...wrong. Things seemed right for the first time in his recent memory, but that feeling of imbalance and foreboding just would not unclench his mind. The city lights and the glow of the flames were a distant glint on the horizon behind them. They had been walking for about three hours when the first explosion was heard. The sky behind them lit up and the roadway ahead was illuminated by an orange glow. It was followed closely by an ear-splitting boom, and this time the sky was turned brighter than daylight. White light, fading to orange and then red, blinded them and showed every single crack in the road in high relief. Steven's heart leapt in his chest and he then felt the air behind them moving past, and then rushing around them. He instantly knew what they had to do and the feeling of impending disaster was all clear to him now.
"Hey! Don't look back, and dive into the ditch over there behind those trees! NOW! DO IT OR DIE!"
The quartet of people all ran for the low-lying drainage ditch about twenty yards off of the side of I-20. The air rushing past them was almost strong enough to lift them from their feet. And it was getting hot. Very hot. They lay there, mostly covered by the stagnant water when the wall of superheated air and flame passed over. They all struggled not to breathe, afraid to instantly cook their lungs. The blast rode above them, and the water helped, but Gods it was hot! No more than thirty seconds transpired as they lay there, but to Deanna it seemed an eternity. Her skin felt baked, and her lungs cried for precious oxygen. Once he could not stand it any longer Steven raised his head and inhaled. The others followed suit and they looked out upon an alien landscape. To Deanna it looked like the pictures of Mt. St. Helens that she had seen in her history books. To Steve it looked like the aftermath that lay on the very rim of destruction caused by the bombs used in the war. They had been far enough away from Jackson that they had not been vaporized, but the tops and limbs of every sizable tree in sight had been stripped off. Steven grabbed Deanna's hand and helped her up out of the water and back onto solid ground. Joe was doing the same for Anita, and in the corner of his eye he saw her lean down and give him a quick kiss on the forehead as she then helped him out. They walked onward in silence for a long time before Joe began to speak.
"So, What do you think that was?"
"I don't know, Joe. It seemed too small to be one of the bombs, but it acted the same. It was something they had in Jackson. Maybe it was the source of their power. I dunno, Bud."
"Do you think any of them made it out alive?"
"Joe, they were machines. They were not alive to begin with. But, no, I don't think so. That was one big fireball there, Joe."
Joe slowed down a little, and looked back over his shoulder at the black plume that reached up into the sky. "No, Steve, the ones we met weren't. But there were some back in the city that were. They were different. They had...people thoughts."
Steven rustled his hair and looked at Deanna. The look of terror in her eyes perfectly mirrored his. They walked onward in silence. Meridian lay ahead once more, and Deanna could make out the outline of the hospital in the weak first rays of daylight. The remaining windows had been blown out, but overall the blast seems to have been weak by the time it reached this far. They walked once more to their previous resting spot. Seeing the blood soaked pavement and grass made Deanna's stomach weak. It seemed that the events that happened at that very spot just the previous day were a dream. Joe stooped to pick up his pack and Deanna noticed that his white hair was growing extremely fast now, as was Anita's. It blew in the light breeze, and once his white-blue eyes met hers, a chill ran down Deanna's back. There was something even more unearthly about him now. Something...extra.
They stood in the center of the road, staring at the large green sign. Between the "Welcome to Alabama" sign and the high noon sun, Joe was ready for a break. His knees hurt a little and his jaw ached. Plus his shoes were beginning to get really tight today. He walked to the edge of the grass and sat, drinking heavily from one of the few remaining bottles of water. Birmingham was the next town ahead, but Steve had decided to go around the city, to the north. He feared more machines if they went straight through. He looked over at Joe and Anita. Both were beaten down tired. He unharnessed his pack and laid his sleeping bag out under the shade.
"Here, you two rest for a while. Deanna and I are gonna go for a short walk. Joe, here is something for you to keep. It is yours. Use it if you need to. You know."
Steven reached inside the waistband of his jeans and produced the Ruger that once had been used to put a bullet through Deanna.
"How did you..?"
“I picked it up off of the road back there before we left. It was just lying there, and I thought you might want it one day." Steven handed Joe the Ruger. It felt heavy and cold in his hands. Anita smiled and snaked an arm around him, pulling him down. "Sleep, Joe! We are both tuckered!" She exclaimed through giggles. Joe was blushing. After a few short minutes both were sleeping soundly. Steven and Deanna walked around a nearby grove of trees, still within sight of the two. They watched on intently, speaking in hushed tones.
"Who, or what do you think Anita is, Steve?"
"I don't know, De, but it scares the hell outta me, to a certain extent. She obviously has powers...how, I don't know."
"And Joe, too! He has...something, but different. I feel that there is a purpose to them being with us, and all of us being together. But it scares me, no terrifies me to think that there is some plan or script that we have no control over. It is almost like we are living puppets in some prophecy. Steven, I can't stand this feeling of being...directed. Do you think there is some higher power or purpose to all this?"
"I dunno, De. It terrifies me, too. I first saw some power in Joe a while back, but didn't mention it. Hell, I don't know what to say about it. He has told me...things."
"Like what?"
"He told me that you, no we, had twins. De, you are getting bigger now. How are you holding up, babe?"
"I'm ok, Steve, but if that is true, and I think it is, one thing scares me above all else."
"What's that?"
"Who is going to deliver these children? What if something goes wrong? What if they just don't make it?"
Steven looked at her for a long time, not knowing the answer. Finally he leaned over and took her into his arms. They passionately kissed and fell onto the grass. Their act was silent, but filled with unspoken communication. Their eyes never left each other's, and once it was done, they lie together in the shade, looking at the sleeping children. The world seemed so empty now, and uncertain. Despite the heat of the sun, Steven shivered once and offered Deanna a weak smile before drifting off to dream his fitful dreams. These, however, were not memories, but seemed more like foreshadowing. And Sammy was right, in his dreams that day he saw that he very much did not like Georgia once he got there. Not at all.
The wind blew slightly, barely moving the low-lying limbs of the trees he hid behind. He watched intently as the two people walked down the slight grade and talked. He saw them kiss, and watched their act, feeling aroused in a perverse, almost homicidal way. It had been years since he had been with a woman, and the sight of this one made his mouth go dry. His hands shook. Sweat popped out on his forehead and ran into his eyes, stinging them. His mind was made up. There were two females here. The woman and the girl. He would not leave without at least one of them. Mark Patterson kneeled on his knees in that shady covering of tree limbs and plotted his attack. He would follow them, and when the time was right, he would strike the man and the boy as well, if needed. These women would be his. Mark stroked the arrows in his quiver, deciding which would be meant for the man and smiled to himself as he watched the man twist and turn in his nightmare. Two days, maybe three. Then he would strike.
The children slept soundly for much longer than Steven had expected. Anita still had Joe locked in her arm, and he had the slightest hint of a smile on his face. Steven contemplated waking them both, as he was very anxious to get back moving east before nightfall. Instead he and Deanna watched the two mysterious children sleep and twitch as they dreamt their dreams. Once very relaxing, this place had now become almost electrified with tension. Steven could feel it in the air like electricity just before a strong storm. Combined with that feeling was an all to familiar one of being watched once more. He decided that they would not stay here during the night. Come the darkness of night or not, they had to move on. Something here was not right. Someone, or something was out there, and Steven could feel its probing eyes as they peered from the shadows.
The children woke, groggy and disoriented. Steven hurried them along, packing the majority of the supplies himself. Nightfall was only a couple of hours away, and he meant to put as many miles behind them as possible before then. 11-26-05--------- 11-22-06 (YEAH! I took a year off!)
The night air was quiet, stagnant, and heavy. The humidity was up now, and storms surely would be on top of them within a short while. Not much more than a day away, Steven figured. Maybe they could make it to Tuscaloosa by then and find some semblance of a shelter. The children walked in silence so thick it was almost tangible. But there was a conversation going on, nonetheless. One that neither of the adults would understand or find comforting. Joe felt the presence of another person nearby, just out of a direct line of sight. Anita did, as well. The presence felt...off. Different. Slimy and desperate. Up ahead a lone dog crossed the road. Other than that there was no sign of life, and no sounds to be heard by man or beast. To take the edge off Deanna hummed an old Creedence song. Something about a Lodi. Briefly she wondered what a Lodi was when she thought she heard a small stick crack in the distant woods. Maybe a fox. Maybe not. Steven abruptly turned; his ever so familiar pose of hand-on-pistol stance greeted her within a fraction of a second. His eyes surveyed the scenery, his ears tuned ahead. Every muscle in his body taught, light a coiled spring ready to strike. Deanna had visions of pictures of coiled cobras from her childhood text books. There was no repeat of the sound, and no evidence that anything had transpired seconds earlier. Steven gauged the distance to the woods at about a hundred and fifty yards, peered intently for a minute longer and turned back toward the road, hand still on the butt of his pistol. The children never broke stride and were fairly far ahead of them now. He motioned to Deanna and they sped up to join the other two.
"Everything ok, Steve?"
"Yes, Anita, I think so. It may have been the wind or a small animal or something. Let's just keep going. I do not want to hang around to find out! I believe there has been enough drama for one day." He regarded her with a large, fake smile and she smirked back and turned forward again. Nevermind the fact that there was no wind. Nevermind the fact that her mind was practically screaming at her now to put her guard up and warn Steve of the feelings she and Joe shared about their apparent company. Nevermind the fact that she thought she detected a new smell, one that had an unpleasant aroma all to close to humans who haven't bathed in months. Nevermind. Just walk. The hazy half moon shone high above them, unwavering in the same course it had traveled millions of years to date, and the self same course it would travel for millions more. She briefly found an odd humor in the fact that even without mankind teeming on this planet that same moon was there, shining as if nothing was wrong. Maybe it wasn't in the grand scheme. It was the nature of nature to move on relentlessly. She briefly wondered if the moon looked the same to the Cave men. To the Dinosaurs. Staring into that moon she drifted, no, more like floated above her body. She saw herself below walking with Joe, matching him stride for stride. It was like a dream version of herself floating high above now. She briefly closed her eyes and flew. It was time to see. Time to remember. Time to scout. The landscape changed below. First slowly, them faster. The trees below were becoming a grey-green blur in the moonlight as she glided, feeling the wind on her face.

[Dave!]

Beep. Beep. Beep. Whirr. Machinery clacked and buzzed in the background. A small boy lie in a cold, featureless room somewhere in the southeast Georgia countryside. The Atlantic Ocean lie just thirty miles farther east, it's waves crashing endlessly on empty beaches. It had been three weeks since his eyes had opened. Three weeks since he had heard a noise. Three weeks since showing any signs of life other than an occasional dream tremor. And those dreams had been horrid, filled with fire and eyes and metal. Filled with thoughts of his sister. Filled with an almost inescapable feeling of fear. Filled with crashing glass, blue lightning and gunfire. Almost as if it were a completely foreign feeling, Jerry opened his eyes.
He was strapped to a metal table on which some rudimentary sheets and a light blanket had been placed. Nylon strong enough to anchor an aircraft to a flight deck held him down tightly, but not uncomfortably, down to this new home. He felt a slight irritation behind his left ear, and attempted to raise his hand to investigate, forgetting the binds that tied him. Needles and sensors protruded from his arms and scalp. A small, blue line ran from an adhesive patch on his chest to a nearby monitor. He heard a shuffling sound out of his sight and abruptly closed his eyes and feigned sleep as the man approached.
"No need to act asleep, child. I am not that stupid." Came the baritone, and not unpleasant voice.
Jerry opened his innocent eyes and regarded Henry Walters with a helpless gaze. The man was deeply tanned and had a featureless, everyday American apple-pie face. He wore a nondescript white lab coat and smelled of fresh hand sanitizer. The coal black hair that matched the color of his eyes moved slowly down the front of his coat as he bent down to speak softly to him. It was nice hair, Jerry thought. Hair that looked clean and well kept, despite being halfway down the man's back.
"Do not try and speak quite yet. Just relax a bit and get your bearings back. Then we will proceed."
Jerry nodded his head in agreement and the two sat in silence for a minute or two.
"I'll bet you are wondering where you are now. We will get to that. First of all, how about a fresh drink of water?"
The thought of cool, clean water, the first actual drink in weeks, made Jerry's eyes light up. He had not realized that his throat and mouth felt as dry as the desert that Steve had crossed to get to him. Moments later he drank, somewhat greedily, from a glass container. The water was pure, and good, and COLD! A smile flirted with the corners of his mouth as he watched Henry put the empty glass on the table beside him...
"Thank you."
"You are quite welcome, young man!" A smile from Henry mirrored the one Jerry gave. A smile that seemed actually quite genuine.
"Can you let me up now? These straps are hurting me, sir."
"Henry is the name, and no, I am sorry, son, not quite yet. But in a little while. We have been waiting for you to awaken. Now that you are, let's take thing slowly, ok?"
"Ok, I guess." Jerry's heart fell a little now knowing that he couldn't sit up yet. But there was another feeling. A feeling of being looked at. And it was not Henry looking, either, but something beyond him, something above. But yet he felt at peace with it oddly enough.
He turned his head and saw the room was actually quite large, and with about ten other beds, half of which were also occupied by children about his age. One entire wall had windows about halfway up, and all he could see from his vantage point was a white metal ceiling with exposed supports, also painted in brilliant white. Lights hung neatly in rows and illuminated that room in an almost painful radiance. He could hear other machinery and various small scuttling sounds from there as well. Henry followed his gaze and faked a smile.
"No need to worry about that right now. So what do you....?” Henry was interrupted by one of the nearby children, a girl with blonde hair, shaking forcefully back and forth, straining against the straps that held her to an identical table. She was having a seizure. Panic rose in Jerry's throat. Henry straightened up and ran for the bed as the door on the far side of the room opened. A woman with half of her face a healed, ghastly burn scar ran to join Henry. Then a third figure, this one dressed in a neatly pressed business suit, filled the doorway with his enormous girth. Jerry immediately felt the hair rise on the back of his neck as this latest entrant into his world began to move toward the other two adults. The large man was not interested in him. He peered with a large, opened mouth look of shock at the girl convulsing on her table. Then above the table. He clenched his teeth tightly and produced a large, black automatic handgun from his shoulder holster. He shouted something about an intruder, and shouted something else about "Can't have him." And then at once he reholstered the gun and talked into his wrist. Immediately two more figures filled the doorway and Jerry's adrenaline leapt to exponential levels. These two were not men... not quite. Memories of a storefront and blazing blue eyes came crashing down on him as he passed out and knocked the empty glass to the floor.
Anita felt an overwhelming sense of peace as she flew over the crisscrossed patterns of roads and fields of western Alabama. Tuscaloosa, or the remnants of such, came into view. A mile long section of I-20 was missing below, and small, misshapen deer lumbered across the edge of the crater that once was downtown. Sadness filled her heart as she took in all the sights. Countryside once more. Flying faster and faster underneath her. Trees stood mightily, then less dense forestation. Then none. Logs, tree trunks and abandoned cars littered the landscape of former Montgomery. A muddy lake. Burned out shells of houses, offices, and fire stations. An impossibly large crack in the very Earth. From the crack came clacking and flailing of broken mechanical arms. When she crossed the Georgia line, there was no boundary, no map line, and no change whatsoever. Steven's Promised Land was as plain and desolate as Alabama. At least this part. Flying. Faster. Higher, then lower. She felt the air change as she came within sight of what was Atlanta. An irradiated and lifeless crater loomed far ahead on the landscape. Skeletons of abandoned and disheveled coasters, the remnants of a tent, and pieces of amusement park rides littered the landscape below. Dim yellow lighting tried feebly to illuminate the ground. An occasional metallic glint of moonlight on something large in the forest. Countryside once more. A few campfires. Once she thought she saw a fairly large group of people standing by a riverside. Could have been cattle. At this speed, who knew? She could smell salt. Fish. The ocean! She could almost feel the air heavy with humidity as she began to have a real desire to see the beach again. Then something caught her eye. A large, impossibly large building lit up the horizon. It had to be at least three miles long and wide square. It lie in the nighttime landscape like a brilliant diamond in a shoddy setting. She began to slow her speed and lessen her altitude. She felt drawn to the southeast corner of the building. The roof loomed ahead, a color close to silver, but yet blue at the same time. She passed through the roof effortlessly and down through several floors, undetected by the scores of people and machines like the ones they saw kill John. Then all at once she was there. Jerry lie in a bed, no, on a table. He was awake and alive! And talking to a man with long black hair. He was alive! She then saw he was tied down. And then there were others. A girl lie not more than twenty feet from him, sleeping soundly. The electrode on her chest rising slowly with the rhythm of her respirations. Anita settled on the floor beside her and allowed herself to enter the mind of the girl.
Mountains. In Western North Carolina. Forest fires had claimed some of the trees. People hid where they could, returning back to their roots living in the hills as their ancestors had done centuries before. A large rabbit over a fire. Soft music from a guitar filled the air. A stream babbled nearby. Then crashing. Gunfire. Screams. Blood. Fire. A machine, identical to the fabled one that killed an evil man named John, grabbing her along with another child cowered against a pine thicket. The child was covered in the blood of his parents, who had died trying to save him. Silence.
Anita backed back out the mind of the girl, horrified. The girl's subconscious cried out. “Please... help us." She tried to call back, but there was no sound. The girl, named Emily began to shake and convulse. Anita rose back out into the room and saw the man with black hair run over. He did not see her. Neither did the woman. The fat guy, however, did. He had an aura surrounding him like a dark purple shroud. Evil, calculating genius flowed from his mind as he stared her directly in the eyes. His mind spoke to her as he fumbled with a gun tucked neatly under his left armpit. “I knew you would come, bitch. You can't have him, you see. And I can still kill you with this...even though you think you are untouchable. See, we are alike...and you are not welcome here. Your brother is OURS now. Die." All this in a fraction of a second and so intense it threatened to split her mind. He drew the gun, or what looked like one. She fled up and out, but not before glancing out of the windows that lined the wall. Two stories below lie over a hundred capsule shaped containers set upright on individual stands. Wires flowed out like tentacles. Blue fluid pulsated to and fro in flexible lines. But what caught her eye was what was in the capsules. Machines. Partly covered in a growing mat of living tissue. Skin. One of them opened eerily human blue eyes and looked at her as she fled. Back across Georgia. Back to Joe. Back to warn the others. As she fled a thought pierced her mind as if announced from a megaphone. "We will find you. You and your pitiful counterparts. You cannot escape. Soon. We will come."
Anita came crashing back into herself with enough force to knock her earthly body down, scraping both knees. Blood welled up briefly and then disappeared as the wounds knit themselves closed.
"What the hell?" Steve exclaimed as he was jarred from a quiet conversation with Deanna. He ran forward to Anita and helped her back up. Tears were flowing from her white-blue eyes as he held her.
"Sttteve...Oh God. It's Jerry."
"Jerry!? What about him?"
“He’s alive! And he is in trouble. So are other children. They need us! But we gotta be careful!"
"What? How?" The questions seemed moot, as he had seen enough in the last few days that there was little now that could shock him.
"I...I...I saw him. And them. The others. The kids... And Emily. There were people... one fat man that saw me... he...he... talked to me!"
"Anita, baby, slow down and relax... I can't understand you. What in the world are you talking about?"
"It's hard... to explain, Steve. I... umm... Flew, I guess. All the way to Georgia. I saw them. Machines. People. A lab. Umm... Tables. kids...experiments. Steve, the machines were in... bubbles. They had skin. Like us."
Steve let go of the angelic figure in front of him and fell to his knees. A hand rose to rub his forehead and Deanna placed hers on his shoulder. “Anita, we have to go. We have to get Jerry back. We just have to. “He sat there, on his knees, not seeing Joe turn and peer behind them. Not seeing the boy tense up, not seeing the figure emerge from the woods. Not seeing until it was almost too late.
Mark Patterson had followed silently and intently for hours. His plan of striking in a day or two had been shattered when he saw them all kneel down around the fallen girl. Now was his chance. Now or never. The possibility of having two women for himself was too great to risk not moving. He tightened his grip on the compound bow he carried and took a deep breath. A step forward. And another. He grabbed a razor-tipped arrow from the quiver and held it. The moonlight shone off of the orange fiberglass shaft. Another step. The man who would have been caught as a predator in a former life, another time, another place, emerged from his cover and stood firmly, feet shoulder width apart. He placed the arrow in the bow, firmly against the string, and drew.
Joe was not sure if the Ruger would cover the distance or not. Even if so, would it be accurate enough? He watched the man draw an arrow back. He thumbed the hammer back and heard it lock. John had fired two shots. That left four. Four chances. He only needed to be 25% accurate. One bullet. One arrow. Life. Death for one. Mark exhaled as he relaxed his grip on the string and let his munition fly. The distance was a large one, perhaps ninety yards. But his aim was true. He was, after all, an ex-Olympian archery medalist. An ex-Olympian with a mind twisted by rejection and loneliness. He had killed his first man back during the war, when chaos ruled. He found it easier and easier to do each time. It was what he was meant to do. It soothed the demons in his head to witness the sight of a man flung backwards, to hear the distinct FWAP of an arrow as it found it's mark. To feel the power and purpose to hold another's life in your hands. And then to have the balls to take it away. It was a feeling close to being with a woman. Close, but not quite. He began to pull at his lip with his teeth as he felt the air move when the arrow freed itself from the bow.
Steven was still knelt down, hand on his face when the report of Joe's Ruger shocked him back into life. Deanna screamed. Steve rolled to the right and pulled his own gun. Deanna brought hers up and flipped off the safety. Three seconds had gone by since Mark had his bow at full draw. The round from the Ruger lodged itself in a tree not more than six inches to Mark's right. The arrow flew. Joe squeezed the trigger twice more. Steve followed suit. Deanna homed her sights in on the figure and squeezed off a round of her own. Four and a half seconds. Joe turned his head as he squeezed off another round. It flew wildly into the air, towards the moon that still shone with it's emotionless light. The arrow found it's mark and passed through Joe's lower abdomen. The Ruger flew out of his hands and landed, cold steel on pavement, on the road. He was propelled out of his shoes and landed on his back on the road, breaking the protruding arrow point off. Blood sprayed in a high arc, stark black against the pale moonlight.
The next two rounds from Joe's Ruger closed the distance. One found it's mark in the right leg of an ex-Olympian. The other puffed up dirt a few inches in front of him. Steve's round caught him in the neck, grazing him deeply, but still not a mortal wound. Blood poured from the deep furrow and drenched his shirt instantly. Deanna's aim was true. As the man fell forward the .223 caliber round caught him dead center of his sternum. Cartilage separated. His heart exploded. His spinal cord severed and a quarter size piece of vertebrae flew out and landed on the grass. He fell forward still yet, trying to grasp another arrow as his arms went numb and white hot pain filled his world. The last sound that Mark Patterson heard on this Earth was the all too familiar FWAP! of another medal-winning target hit. A perverse smile of pleasure touched the corner of his mouth as he gave up his soul on the Alabama roadside.

[Dave!]

Chapter 17
Time was of the essence. Joe's lifeblood ran out from under him in a dark river. His breathing shallow, and his complexion, already pale, seemed eerily so in the moonlight. The air was calm once again, and the night, silent. Anita slowly rose to her feet, and with wide-eyes amazement, walked over to the small, lifeless figure that lie on the interstate. She solemnly nodded to Steven and Deanna, who reluctantly backed away and let the small, angelic girl do her work once more. Crouching down, she placed one hand around the protruding hilt of the arrow, and one on Joe's cool forehead. White light shone from underneath her hands, and the arrow began to quiver in her grasp. White light began to emanate from underneath Joe, and from his closed eyelids. Slowly, ever so painfully slowly, did the arrow begin to back itself out of the wound. Joe groaned softly at first, and then with increased intensity. His small frame shook, then lifted itself from the surface. The arrow first began to slide out from his oozing stomach, and then slid the other way, freeing itself from his mangled kidney. With a sickening wet sound, the arrow came completely out and landed, harmless, on the ground beneath him, covered completely in the ever increasing pool of Joe's blood. Semi conscious, Joe reached out a small, ten year old hand and held onto the one that Anita had placed on his forehead. In this time, even with the maturity he had come through, and the trying times they had faced, he looked as he actually was. A small, ten year old helpless boy. Steven's heart sank and ached for the innocence lost in these times, and for the pain that he knew the boy was facing. It was difficult at times to remember, and he had to sometimes give himself a "reality check" by acknowledging the fact that the boy was still a boy.
The light intensified, and a howling wind swept around them, emanating from inside their circle, outside, everywhere, nowhere. It raged with the torrent of a hurricane, and debris, small sticks and the arrow hilt flew around them in an ever increasing circle. Anita's and Joe's white hair intertwined, flew, and flowed in the wind. His mouth flew open, as did his eyes. Three pure beams of light rose into the dark, hazy sky like search lights in a long forgotten era of airports and control towers. As soon as it had begun, it ended. Joe's wounds were closed up, his decimated organs reknitted. His breathing, now regular, was still light. Steven turned toward Anita once more.
"I thank God you can do what you can do, Anita. Had it not been for you, each of us would have died, in turn now. I assume now that he will be ok?"
"Yes, Steve. But he is not back to his old self quite yet. He came close there, and almost too far gone for me to help. But now he at least is not bleeding, and now he needs rest. And lots of it. If you don't mind me saying, I think we need to bunk down here for the rest of the night and see what morning brings."
"I don't mind. In fact, we will follow your lead on this. Deanna and I are at a disadvantage here, as we don't quite understand what it is you two have going on, and for the life of me can not begin to explain."
"It will come in time, Steven. In time."
Steven turned his back to her so she would not see the worry on his face. Worry not just for Joe, but concern overall about the thickening cloud cover that had reduced the moon to a blurry, veiled semblance of what it was. They had to get moving first light, and moving quickly. There were perhaps thirty to forty miles of interstate in front of them until Tuscaloosa, and the rain cared not. Steven took Deanna's hand in his and led her off to the side once again.
"I think we are safe once again, but as we both know now that changes constantly. It seems that the farther east we push, the more frequent our "encounters" are. Do you mind standing guard for a few hours? I am going to go down and take a look at our shooter and then try and catch a quick nap. I think we should do it in shifts from now on."
"Certainly, Hon. You know I will!" She offered Steve a weak smile and a peck on the lips. He could see strain on her face not only by the seemingly constant barrage of adversity, but by the stress of carrying what very well looked to be twins in her womb. He wondered how much longer they could push like they had, how much longer could she effectively shoulder her weapon, how much longer before they had the obstacle of delivering a child or two in the wild with no medical help. The weight of it all made a small part of him want to run screaming into the night, insane. But he gave that part no merit, as it was not, nor ever would be, an option. He gave Deanna one last smile and turned to walk to where Mark's still figure lie.
The .223 was actually a very effective weapon to be a small caliber. The tan colored long sleeved work shirt that Mark wore was stained a dark red and had a jagged, charred hole in the back of it. Steven knelt down and grabbed the bow. It's weight felt deadly in his hands and he promptly discarded it, somehow feeling dirty for holding it. He rolled the lifeless form over and stared the would-be killer directly in the face for the first time. Rage began to cloud his vision at the personal sight of the man that tried to kill an innocent child. The man looked a lot like pictures he had seen of a middle-aged Hank Williams, Jr. His scraggly beard, gray at the corners, hid a mouth full of decaying teeth. The man's once green eyes had clouded over, and stared indifferently at the night sky. This is how Steven would leave him, for the birds and wild dogs that now claimed the land. Upon inspecting his pockets Steve found a very expensive folding Case knife, a compass, and a sharpening stone. All things that would prove themselves useful in this day and time. Steve pocketed the bounty and letting his rage have the better of him, kicked Mark in the face. Once. Twice. Three times. The animal instinct and lethal hunger instilled by his military career took control as he repeatedly stomped the man's lifeless head. Out of breath finally, he took one of the arrows out of the quiver and plunged it deep inside the dead man's chest. Disgusted with the man, himself, and the savageness of the world in which they lived, Steven turned toward the small huddle of loved ones on the road and began to walk. He feared that many more encounters of this type may bring about a part of him he thought was long dormant. A part of him that would cloud his better judgment. A part of him he never wanted to see again.
Deanna watched the events from her vantage point with curiosity until she saw Steven begin to attack the corpse. Sickened, and with an infinite empathy for the man she loved, she turned away and cried. It seemed that a normal life was never so far away as it was in that moment. With an enraged lover, a downed child, and so many answers unknown, she cried. Was this what her life, along with all of humanity, had come down to? Was this all there was left to live for? Would there ever be a sense of normalcy about anything ever again? She looked up at the blurred circle where the moon was for answers, but it offered the silent response it had given for millennia. She watched Steven walk past her, silently and sit by the roadside with his head down. It would be a long night, indeed.
The ground was soggy under her feet. Her shoes pulled and groaned at the thick mud, threatening to pull off of her feet altogether. The night was moonless, dark as coal. Yet somehow there still seemed to be a surreal lighting coming from directly ahead, and from behind her at the same time. Once she focused her eyes, Deanna could see that the light was coming from multiple dim-lit yellow bulbs. Electric bulbs. Electric bulbs attached to metal framework. Framework of....a defunct roller coaster. To her right she could hear faint demonic laughter, but with a metallic flavor. Slowly she turned her head to see a house of mirrors with another few yellow bulbs clinging weakly to life, trying to illuminate the entranceway. As if her feet were on autopilot, she began to walk toward the entrance. Even in this state she tried to stop her feet, and even succeeded. But some force still pulled her, her feet leaving two muddy furrows in the ground. She tried to scream, but there was no sound. She was reminded of that day in the alley... the day that she tried to scamper backward on her hands and feet from the advancing machine. Powerless to stop it, too terrified to try any longer, she reached for the .223 slung over her shoulder. She reached and reached, but came back holding an empty rifle strap. Her body now was pressed up against the glass in the front. In a mirror to the right she saw a head. A body. It leered at her, laughing that same metallic laugh. In one of it's metallic hands it held an unborn fetus. In the other, a hand full of stark white hair. Somewhere in the distance she thought she could hear deep licks from a guitar accompanied by a deep, growling voice. "Stillborn...I have become"
"Choose, woman. Which will it be?"
Unable to answer, and unable to decide, her body was pulled harder. The glass began to protest.
"You have to choose, woman. One or the other. Or maybe yourself. Maybe all three if you do not hurry. Decide."
Unable to scream for help, she was pulled. Harder. The glass groaned again and small cracks formed in front of her flattened nose. Blood began to ooze down the glass. Her outstretched hands and splayed fingers all began to weep blood as the cracking glass broke skin.
"Then die, human." The simple, emotionless statement made by a face that was not echoed against the walls. Mirrors reverberated and shook in their frames. The glass cracked more, spidering up to the corners. Sounds of splintering glass and finally, and a moment too late, sound erupted from her mouth. Her last scream filled the air as she awoke, still screaming. Steven woke with a start, coming to his knees and reaching for his .45. It had worked it's way loose in his slumber and lie on the ground. He reached down for it and shook off the last bits of grogginess. The morning sun shone hazily through thick clouds and revealed Deanna rubbing her bloodied hands on her face. The children were gone.

[Dave!]

Chapter 18
It was Joe who woke first. He reached out to Anita, and with a gentle nudge, she opened her eyes and looked back at him.
"Anita, I'm hungry. And I have to pee."
"Ok, Joe. But we can't go far. You know what Steven will think if he wakes up and we aren't here."
"K."
The two children rose to their feet, and gingerly walked past the two sleeping adults. Deanna and Steven both moaned in their sleep, moving slightly. Once at the edge of the woods they regarded the dead man's body with horror and caution. The sight sickened them both, but Joe could not seem to tear his eyes away. Facing the woods, he let his stream fly, feeling a sense of relief unlike any before. It seemed to him that his bladder must be the size of a pumpkin. He turned around again and watched the dead man as he finished. Anita was turned the other way, facing Steven and Deanna. He smiled a little and turned his head back toward the woods. Before he could utter a sound a large man in a nice suit stared him directly in the eyes. The man simply placed a finger on his lips, and Joe was unable to utter a sound. Terrified, he tried to beat the man, but his arms would not obey his mind. The man smiled and grabbed him, tossing him over his shoulder. Another man, one that did not look quite right, passed silently past him and grabbed Anita from behind, one hand over her mouth, one hand grasping a fist full of her hair. She tried to turn, but she had the same powerless feeling Joe was encountering. Focusing with all of her power she managed to reach behind her and grab at the man's face. Flesh peeled off much too easily underneath her fingernails and fell to the ground. Underneath the missing straps of flesh shone metal. The machine grabbed her hair and pulled, pulling a fistful free. He threw it to the ground and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her into the woods. The machine walked obediently behind the large man. A man that once was the world's foremost scientist in genetic research. A man that had survived the attacks on his home town of Kosovo back at the turn of the century. A man that had powers of his own, powers that dwarfed Anita and Joe's. Dr. Dennis Fitch was the one human that the machines both needed, and feared, above all others. He was, after all, the father of the latest species of machine. Dr. Finch, with his brilliant evil mind, had been the one that had finally given the machines what they had longed for. Life. DNA. The two men with their new captives fled through the woods toward Georgia. Toward their awaiting vehicle. Toward home. For now, Dr. Finch would leave the man and woman alive. She, after all, carried the two humans that would be first born in this new age. An age in which innate human abilities came to life. And age in which whatever abilities these two new ones would have may prove crucial. He needed only one. He knew they would follow, and she needed the man's skills to help her make it alive. With a sick grin he turned toward his companion.
"Take her onward to the shuttle. I will arrive shortly."
"Understood, sir."
Dennis stood for a minute, breathing slowly. Still unable to move, Joe lie on his back on a nest of pine needles and watched as the man pursed his lips and furrowed his brow. Once done sending the vision to the sleeping woman, he smiled, picked Joe back up, and began to sing a tune from an old Black Label Society song. Something about a "Stillborn". The song gave Joe goose bumps and a feeling that maybe this time things were way beyond their control. Maybe this time there were not any rabbits to pull out of the hat. This time maybe it was for good.
Deanna and Steven yelled the two names of the children they both feared were well out of earshot. There was no reply. Steven frantically searched and saw no signs of a struggle. He walked down to the edge of the woods once more and saw Mark's corpse just as he had left it. And something...more. Just behind him, at the very edge of a tree was a clump of white. Hair. From one of the children. He hurriedly grabbed it and ran back to where Deanna was searching on the other side of the road. Upon seeing the clump of hair... the same one from her dream, she lost her balance and fell to her knees. The feeling of hopelessness and desperation she had felt the previous night finally won and she simply hung her head and cried once more, fearing what had happened to the children. Fearing what would happen to her own unborn. He then turned and ran, feeling some undeniable urgency, back toward the wooded area where he feared the children had gone, but not alone. He hated to leave Deanna in this urgent time of need, but in the grand scheme of things, this feeling seemed too important to ignore.
Dennis Finch reached the shuttle a few precious minutes after the prior machine did with its cargo. In an age in which machinery and least of all, vehicles, were pretty much defunct this gleaming example was indeed an oddity. With an audible whoosh of air the right side of the shuttle opened up to reveal a sterile, stainless steel interior equipped with a solo driver seat covered in nondescript black fabric. The six rear passenger seats were also adorned with the same covering, three on each side of the craft. Dennis climbed in first, positioning his more than ample girth carefully with the two control levers between his knees. The machine hoisted first Anita then Joe into the craft, one beside the other in the front row. It then climbed in and sat directly inside the door also on the left side, directly behind Joe. The door shut with the same sound of escaping air and at once the front window became translucent, revealing the forestation in front of them. A small, complicated display of instrumentation was projected onto the inside of the window directly in the center, where the driver seat was placed. With a roaring sound two small vents pointed at the forest floor and the jets began to lift the craft directly skyward.
Steven ran like never before into the dark recess of the woods. He could hear a mechanized hum ahead, and almost ran into plain sight of the craft. Through a small window in the side he could see Joe’s silhouette and the gleam of a metal forehead directly behind him. Out of options with no other recourse that he could muster, Steven raised his .45 at the craft and aimed carefully at the one vent on his side that now pointed downward. He fired three times, and then corrected his aim toward the now visible window that had appeared in the front of the craft.
The first round simply deflected off of the outer shell of the vent. The second found its way into the outer covering of the leading edge, and small bits of plastic and metal flew out in all directions. The third ran in on the heels of the second round, and the turbine changed its pitch to a more labored, high pitched whine of grating metal. Hearing the report of the firearm, Dennis Finch turned toward Steven and craned his neck forward to get a clearer view of the assailant out of the peripheral edge of the window. Steven fired three more shots at the window, and a few more at the rear of the craft, where a third turbine vent had descended and began to ramp up to speed. He dropped the magazine from the pistol and promptly, as his training had taught, fed another full one into place. Approximately ten seconds had passed since he first stumbled into the wooded clearing. He only paused to look at the damage the he had hoped he had wrought upon the front window before unloading the rest of the magazine into the ascending craft’s underside, and into the rear vent which now had an all too familiar glow of orange-red flame erupting. It was reminiscent of the afterburners he had seen on the many F-18 aircraft from his past. He watched helplessly as the craft ascended further toward the blue sky and then forward, out of sight. The only comforting feeling in that moment was the thought that there was considerable smoke coming from the craft, as well as the gaping hole he had made in the driver canopy before it left. Steven turned back toward the roadway and ran back to Deanna. They would have to move quickly now to chase the smoke trail that he prayed he would see.
Dennis Finch leaned forward to gain a better view of the man firing the gun. As he did, a round struck the glass, spidering it in all directions. A second round pierced the window, leaving a basketball-sized hole directly in the left side. The bullet rang off of the interior metal only inches from his head and he jerked backward in the seat, but not before the third round caught him in the neck, just below his considerable double-chin. The round passed cleanly through, spraying blood onto the pristine cleanliness of the right side of the driver compartment. Dennis clutched the wound, and blood ran through his fingers and spattered onto the black rubber floor covering that ran the length of the interior. It was not a lethal wound, but one that would need immediate attention once he returned to Georgia. These days, without the medical attention the machines would offer, a man could easily bleed to death or succumb to infection. The engines protested greatly, but still were able to get the shuttle moving and in the air again. A very disturbing thought of a fiery crash came into his mind as he heard more rounds ricochet off of the belly of the craft. Then a lurch forward as another round or two struck the aft engine. Fearing that he would never make it back to Georgia with his precious cargo, not to mention his life, Dennis slammed the button for the afterburners sooner than intended and the craft rocketed forward, almost threatening to spiral out of control and spatter them all across the wooded landscape below. He fought back on the levers with all the strength his body and mind would offer, and the craft righted itself once again to show a more familiar horizon line. He kept pressure on the levers as the craft reached a higher speed. The wind coming in the shattered windscreen was terrible, and his throat felt as if it were on fire. With the craft in this shape the normal cruising speed of five hundred miles an hour was impossible. They were barely keeping enough speed to stay aloft, and the afterburners were hurting more than helping. Dennis did the inevitable and reached to disengage them as the low hydraulic pressure warning indicator went off. It was immediately followed by a series of more alarms ranging from low fuel delivery, high temperature warnings, and ultimately, engine failure. This final one went off and Dennis’ heart flew to his throat. From somewhere far behind him he heard a loud hollow bang, followed by a grinding sound. The rear engine was gone. Small fragments of superheated metal flew forward and singed the back of his seat, his hair, and the remnants of the windscreen. He heard a small scream then a thud. Now they were all only helpless passengers on this crashing device. The horizon outside the window fell from straight to angled, then to nonexistent. Dennis looked out in true fear at the treeline that was approaching with alarming speed. He pulled back on both levers and fought for his life to bring the nose of the craft up. It worked, but only somewhat. The shuttle slammed into the median of I-20 at a thirty degree angle, propelling Dennis outward through the remnants of the windscreen. And just as quickly as they had come to life, the shuttle’s remaining engines ceased their movement for the final time. The smoking, creaking marvel rested, the first three feet of it buried in dirt, about thirty miles east of the now-advancing duo of Steven and Deanna.

[Dave!]

Chapter 19
Just as he had hoped, there was a distinct line of black smoke overhead that led directly eastward. He told Deanna of the altercation in the woods, as she had heard the shots and then witnessed the take off of the craft itself. She still seemed to be in shock, but had gathered herself together just enough to not hinder Steve in his newfound drive to push eastward. If it meant getting one or both children back alive (the thought of even one of them not surviving was bad enough.. but both?) then she was just as hard-pressed as he to find the termination point of that smoky false contrail streaking across a perfect sky. She watched in amazement (it took so much to do that these days, but this man always had a knack for it) as Steven reloaded the spent magazine as well as the one in the .45 without taking his eyes off of the pavement ahead.
Now the mid-day sun was dull orb of opaque light that struggled to make it through the cloud cover. Occasionally Steve could make out the white round shape between thicker clumps of heavy grey clouds. Without a doubt there would be rain by the next morning. Tonight was a good possibility. The thought of trying to trace the now mostly dissipated smoke trail didn’t bother Steven too badly. After all, it was a straight line, and he had the heading. If he could have reached up into the very air itself and drawn a perfect line from the trail to the ground, he would have ended up directly in the center of I-20. All he could do, all either of them could do, was continue to push eastward until they hopefully found some sign of the children.
Dennis Finch, co-mastermind of the last two consecutive versions of the robotic inhabitant of the planet, moaned thickly with his face buried in the soft earth of the median. His splayed out legs lie mostly on the west-bound lanes of the road, his body obscured by the taller grass in the center. The world swam in and out of focus for a bit, and once his body threatened to fall back into unconsciousness. But he fought. Just as he always had, especially in these last few dark years. Upon opening his one good eye (the other’s fate he did not currently know. All he knew was it hurt like hell), he finally focused on the wreckage, lying a full thirty yards away. Thick smoke and steam rose from the rear of the craft, which jutted out of the earth like some crude sculptor’s rendition of the Area 51 crash in Roswell. He slowly tried, unsuccessfully, to get back to his feet. Upon crashing back to the ground a fresh torrent of pain erupted from his right arm. He looked down to find a brilliant white shaft of bone protruding from his forearm. Finally, on the fifth try, he managed to gain his footing and shuffled over nearer the downed shuttle. He came upon the still form of Anita first. Her body was laying half in and half out of the now crumpled door. Her breathing was shallow and regular, and upon using his one good arm, found a strong pulse. Good. This one would at least make it, but there were a lot of miles left to cover between here and Georgia. Hell, the other side of Georgia to be exact. He reached up and grabbed a handful of hair and the nape of her neck with his good arm and pulled her the rest of the way out onto the grass. She landed with an audible exhalation of breath and continued to lie still. Dennis turned and peered inside, searching for the boy. He was alarmed to find that there was no sign of the boy. He did, however, see the (dead) lifeless form of the machine, now propelled forward to the driver’s seat. It seemed that when the rear engine shattered into oblivion, the center shaft had entered the back of the machine’s head and exited through its chest. Dennis looked at the creation and considered how far the machines had digressed from near indestructibility to this comparative level of mortality. It seemed that the more human-like they became the weaker they, in turn, became as well. Already pondering revisions in the design, he turned from the wreckage and scanned the area for any sign of the boy. He found none and decided that in his current state he needed to get the girl and find a shelter from which he could plan on how to get back to the laboratory. He turned toward the wreckage one last time and saw his reflection in the side. It was a sight he wished that he could have spared himself. His right eye socket was clearly visible; the perfect orb that once resided there gone forever. The wound in his neck had finally stopped bleeding, but he could clearly see the quarter-sized exit would directly beneath the right side of his jaw. A mere inch farther back and his larynx would have ended up splattered across the inside of the shuttle. He turned once more in disgust and slung Anita over his good shoulder. Progress now was agonizingly slow, as his face and arm rattled with hot slivers of pain with each step. Blood pattered slowly onto the pavement as it dripped from the outstretched fingers of his now useless hand. Somewhere, in the distance, Dennis thought he heard dogs barking. Lots of them.

The muffled sound of birds chirping was what greeted Joe upon coming into a semi-conscious state. They seemed to sing from far away and inside a tunnel at first, and then their melody became sharper and clearer. He fought to open his eyes, and a hazy film of daylight, too bright to fully comprehend, greeted his gaze. His face burned and itched. After a lengthy fight to get his right arm up, his hand came away wet. This alarmed him, and Joe forced is eyes open and peered at his hand. A mixture of oily blood covered his palm. The machine’s lifeblood mixed with his own alarmed him to a great deal, and panic began to set in. Was his face ruined again, as it once had been? He still had his eyesight, thankfully, but a mental image of a roadmap of criss-crossing scar lines gave him enough adrenaline to regain his footing and look around for the damaged craft. And Anita. The smoking ass of the shuttle jutted into the sky, almost mocking him in a way. It was nearly twenty yards or so away, and the tall grass was difficult to maneuver through. It was this tall grass that concealed his presence when Dennis first began to seek him out. As he neared the shuttle he could see the machine impaled by a metal rod, lying in the front part of the craft. He then looked at his reflection in then side, almost a mirror image of what Dennis had done not five minutes earlier. The damage was not as bad as he had feared, and the shrapnel had thankfully missed his eyes. However, there were long, thin lines of blood on his cheeks, and one dime-sized weeping hole high on his forehead, just barely in front of his temple. It was not a deep wound, but one that definitely would leave a scar that would haunt him for the rest of his life. He looked around and noticed that the tall grass to his right was parted, and a thin film of drying blood lie on the uppermost portions of the blades that moved slightly with the breeze. Upon one more inspection of the craft, he saw no sign of Anita, and decided to follow along the trail, hoping that he could find her. There was also no sign of the fat man, which troubled him greatly. With only a moment’s hesitation to quickly arrange a makeshift arrow out of a few sticks he found lying nearby, Joe took off down the parted weed path toward what he hoped was Anita. And he hoped that she would be alive once he found her. He looked back once again at the wreckage and hoped that Steve would see his marker and know. They would come, after all. He knew it. But he could not wait. If he lost the trail now, none of them would see her alive again. With a deep breath he began to walk quickly toward the wooded area on the north side of I-20, looking down for footprints, blood, overturned stones, anything that might signal the path. Just as he began to enter the dark mass of trees, he heard dogs barking, far off and directly ahead. Maybe it was a signal that the fat man had rustled some wild dogs up. Maybe. Or maybe not.

Steve smelled the burning wreckage a full ten minutes before they came upon it. Luckily, it had crashed into the softer earth of the median and not the hard pavement. Luckily it had crashed, so conveniently, right on the highway, and not some remote corner of a field. Luckily, it had not exploded into some large-scale blast and disintegrated all aboard. Luckily, this meant the children might still be alive. And with any further luck, they would both still be inside, and breathing.
Steve ran for the craft with Deanna right on his heels. Once he peered inside the busted windscreen, however, his emotions mixed and changed from fear, hope, and loathing. There was no sign of the children, and no sign of the fat bastard that had taken them. There was, however, blood on the inside of the canopy, and a dead machine slumped over the back of the driver’s chair. Steve noted with some satisfaction the bullet holes adorning the inside of the canopy. It meant that there was a good chance that he had actually hit and injured the man. Then he saw the blood spray that only proved his hopes to be true. This meant the they had a good chance of catching up with the injured man, and hopefully the children as well. He looked back at Deanna and saw her eyes full of dread, fear, and pain. And there was something else, too. An all to familiar gleam of killer instinct and rage. This woman was coming around to be a fierce fighter, and one that he knew could handle her own if the situation called for it. With that thought he began to scour the landscape for a sign of which way they had gone. The first thing he found was a dark maroon, almost black, series of stains on the blades of waist high grass. Blood. He followed this until he saw something that made his heard leap up in his chest with hope and admiration. A makeshift arrow made of small twigs and sticks, pointing toward the northern woods. Joe or Anita had done well, very well. And it meant that at least one or both of them had survived, and had been lucid enough to think of leaving them a sign. He motioned for Deanna and saw her eyes widen with surprise and hope when she saw it. They nodded in agreement and headed for the tree line, guns in hand.
The pain was a constant irritation now. It felt as if his arm was going to just throb and pulse it’s way right off his body. That is, if the swelling that now resided there didn’t burst it first. His normally large arm was now three times the size it should be, and each step and each heartbeat threatened to send him into a maddening sprint for the nearest sharpened stick he could find. Suicide was not an option. At least, not yet. There were things to do before his life was over. Lots of things. Dennis did not see the first dog. Nor did he see the second. The only indication he had was a strong sense of being watched. And followed. And tracked like an animal. It was the third dog that came directly at him from the front that he finally noticed. The canine that approached him from the right was unseen as well, with Dennis’ missing eye. Four more came up behind, circling and closing off the prey. It was the one on the right that first lunged and caught him by surprise. He felt a sharp tug on Anita’s shirt, and heard the snarl as he lifted his foot off the ground and planted a perfect field-goal style kick to the dog’s underside. He heard ribs splinter and a loud pain filled yelp as the dog went sprawling. Another approached him from the front and he glared directly into the hate-filled eyes as the creature ran faster. Suddenly it stopped, shook it’s head and turned on one of it’s counterparts. Thick yellow foam poured from it’s ears as the two canines locked in a death battle. Telekinesis, as it were, could be hell of a weapon when used properly. He concentrated on the pack of dogs behind him now, and one of them was lifted off of it’s feet and dropped directly on top of two more. Another raging fight ensued. His face became consumed by an all-to-large evil grin until he heard the first shot ring out. Then the world stood still as two large men emerged from behind a dense clump of trees directly ahead, rifles pointed ahead.
“You killed two of my dogs, fucker.”
“They were attacking me! I am just trying to get my daughter to safety! We need help!”
The two men approached cautiously, rifles still pointed at Dennis’s head. One of them whistled through his teeth as he got close enough to see the man’s bloody eye socket and bleeding arm. Dennis haphazardly dropped Anita to the ground and the whistling man’s eyes widened with understanding and surprise. Dennis reached into his mind and saw that the man knew. Knew that Dennis held no particular affinity for Anita, and that he needed to help the girl. And he saw that these two men meant no ill will, as long as they remained unprovoked. And that they would be trouble if left alive. These two were like Steven and Deanna. Do-gooders with no real sense of the big picture. Fools who thought that they could make a difference in the world. The whistling man clicked his gun back off of safety and his counterpart (Jimmy his name is jimmy and he’s my brother.) looked at him with surprise, then looked back at Dennis.
The same evil grin slowly spread across his face, even with the barrel of the .50 BMG looming like a cannon only a few feet from his nose. It shook along with the arm of the man that held it, but only slightly. Dennis could sense fear. And could hear the thoughts raging through this man’s head like a constant string of unintelligible blurbs. (Jimmytellme you see this! Ohmygod what am igonnadowiththiswhatifihavetoshoothimwhatabouttheg irl isshedeadtoo!?jimmydosomething. yousaw…thedogflytooiknowit.)
Travis (called Tinker by his old time buddies) tightened his pull on the trigger a little more and a single bead of sweat escaped his brow and fell into his eye, stinging it. Dennis sensed the break of concentration and backed up a step, holding his hands up in a defenseless posture. Hopefully it would work. All he needed was time to think. It was Jimmy who spoke first, breaking the stalemate.
“Trav, what the hell? Are you ok, bro?”
“Jimmy, I don’t think he is telling us the truth. Hell, I know it!”
“Come on, Trav. Seriously. Look at him, one step from death’s door. I mean..”
“He threw the girl down, Jimmy. And look at his eye. Look. Something is not… right there, man. Trust me.”
Something inside Jimmy told him that it was true. Something made him keep the gun held tight. Something made him question. And then something else, something new, made him begin to draw the business end of the gun slowly around to the left, toward his older brother. The man known once as Tinker. The man that could fix any gas engine brought to him. If it flew, drove or floated Trav would have it working in short order. Once a legend in his own time, he now stood in a field in Alabama with his brother’s AR-15 pointed at his side. Jimmy’s eyes widened with horror, wonder, and helplessness. He tried to turn his head, tried to drop the gun, tried to stop himself but could not. Even when he tried to speak, it was if his mouth was full of concrete. In the end all he could do was close his eyes. And pray. Pray that God would stop this, spare his brother, and ultimately, spare him as well. He felt his finger pull the trigger, heard his brother cry out, and heard the report of at least twenty fully automatic rounds escape the barrel. He heard wet pattering sounds, and thought that at least once he heard his now dying or dead brother try and draw a wheezing breath. When he opened his eyes Dennis was mere inches away and had his one good arm out, grabbing the AR from his senseless fingers. He stood in horror as he saw the man with one eye raise the gun and pull the trigger. He felt two rounds enter his intestines and exit via his kidneys. He felt the cool grass as he fell into it, face first. He felt the man step on him as he scooped the girl up and walk on, leaving him for dead. But his senses were still muted. Pain, luckily was muted. He felt the ground beneath him become wet, and managed to turn his head and watch the man go. His thought then was of the girl. And how he thought he had seen her eyes twitch and then open momentarily. Maybe. The world swam away from him then and he lie still, just one more corpse in this barren land. Just one more death at the hands of a man named Finch. Dennis then dropped the still smoking gun beside the body and began to walk once again with the girl across his good shoulder. Time had been wasted, and time definitely was something that he could not afford to lose now.
The world turned beneath her as Anita rose from her semi-lifeless form and flew once again, like in her dreams. She had been above, observing everything from the moment of impact. She knew her body was hurt, but not too badly. She chose to stay up and away, because if she went back, the man would hurt her. She knew Joe was more or less going to be ok, and that he was following them, and gaining ground. She knew the man would have to stop soon. It was mid-evening when the two men were killed, and now it bordered on full-out darkness. The clouds above had thickened all day, and the smell of rain was so heavy that it was almost tangible. She watched as the man finally stopped at the bottom of a set of steps leading up into the wrap-around porch of an old but well maintained farm house. Of course, the door was not latched, so he opened it easily enough, and after standing and listening for a bit, decided that they were alone. He dropped her body as if it were an over packed bag of grain, and sat in a cushioned rocking chair nearby. He had not thought to get either if the guns that the Carter brothers had dropped when they died, and an idea came to her. She left then and flew back through the night to Joe, who was only a few hundred yards away from the clearing where the two men lie. He had been gaining ground all day, but seemed to have fallen back some the last few hours. The constant days on the road and little food to boot had been wearing him down. He finally fell, exhausted, at the edge of the clearing, less than twenty yards away from the two dead men. Sleep. He had to. Even if the rain came tonight and soaked him, he could not move any farther today. So he slept and dreamed. Anita was in those dreams, talking to him, urging him on. Telling him about two men that he would see at first light. Telling him that Deanna and Steve were coming also. Telling him that they would meet soon enough, maybe within the next day or so. Telling him to be quiet and lay low, especially as tomorrow drew late.
Steve and Deanna found their way easily enough through the wooded envelope that now surrounded them on all sides. Seemingly Dennis as well as Joe had followed the paths of least resistance, as was the nature of most animals and humans alike. In addition to that there was the occasional (and diminishing) patter of dried blood on surrounding foliage and the ground to guide them. Steve hoped and prayed that it belonged to the man and not the boy whom he had grown to love over the past weeks. Deanna always followed within ten steps of him, also surveying their flanks for movement or anything that seemed out of place. He noted that she had not taken her hand off of the trigger frame of the gun she carried since they had entered the forest. The first drops of rain came then, a steady irritating patter that soon gave way to a downpour that would prove hopeless to venture further into. They stopped and huddled under a blanket and waited. Night fall was upon them then, and as much as he wanted to, he knew pressing onward would possibly make them both pass right by the boy and worse, even lose the trail altogether. They slept in shifts much like they had done on so many countless other nights, not knowing that Joe slept as well, but only a mere half mile ahead of them in the clearing that they would meet in the next day.

[Dave!]

Chapter 19
Just as he had hoped, there was a distinct line of black smoke overhead that led directly eastward. He told Deanna of the altercation in the woods, as she had heard the shots and then witnessed the take off of the craft itself. She still seemed to be in shock, but had gathered herself together just enough to not hinder Steve in his newfound drive to push eastward. If it meant getting one or both children back alive (the thought of even one of them not surviving was bad enough.. but both?) then she was just as hard-pressed as he to find the termination point of that smoky false contrail streaking across a perfect sky. She watched in amazement (it took so much to do that these days, but this man always had a knack for it) as Steven reloaded the spent magazine as well as the one in the .45 without taking his eyes off of the pavement ahead.
Now the mid-day sun was dull orb of opaque light that struggled to make it through the cloud cover. Occasionally Steve could make out the white round shape between thicker clumps of heavy grey clouds. Without a doubt there would be rain by the next morning. Tonight was a good possibility. The thought of trying to trace the now mostly dissipated smoke trail didn’t bother Steven too badly. After all, it was a straight line, and he had the heading. If he could have reached up into the very air itself and drawn a perfect line from the trail to the ground, he would have ended up directly in the center of I-20. All he could do, all either of them could do, was continue to push eastward until they hopefully found some sign of the children.
Dennis Finch, co-mastermind of the last two consecutive versions of the robotic inhabitant of the planet, moaned thickly with his face buried in the soft earth of the median. His splayed out legs lie mostly on the west-bound lanes of the road, his body obscured by the taller grass in the center. The world swam in and out of focus for a bit, and once his body threatened to fall back into unconsciousness. But he fought. Just as he always had, especially in these last few dark years. Upon opening his one good eye (the other’s fate he did not currently know. All he knew was it hurt like hell), he finally focused on the wreckage, lying a full thirty yards away. Thick smoke and steam rose from the rear of the craft, which jutted out of the earth like some crude sculptor’s rendition of the Area 51 crash in Roswell. He slowly tried, unsuccessfully, to get back to his feet. Upon crashing back to the ground a fresh torrent of pain erupted from his right arm. He looked down to find a brilliant white shaft of bone protruding from his forearm. Finally, on the fifth try, he managed to gain his footing and shuffled over nearer the downed shuttle. He came upon the still form of Anita first. Her body was laying half in and half out of the now crumpled door. Her breathing was shallow and regular, and upon using his one good arm, found a strong pulse. Good. This one would at least make it, but there were a lot of miles left to cover between here and Georgia. Hell, the other side of Georgia to be exact. He reached up and grabbed a handful of hair and the nape of her neck with his good arm and pulled her the rest of the way out onto the grass. She landed with an audible exhalation of breath and continued to lie still. Dennis turned and peered inside, searching for the boy. He was alarmed to find that there was no sign of the boy. He did, however, see the (dead) lifeless form of the machine, now propelled forward to the driver’s seat. It seemed that when the rear engine shattered into oblivion, the center shaft had entered the back of the machine’s head and exited through its chest. Dennis looked at the creation and considered how far the machines had digressed from near indestructibility to this comparative level of mortality. It seemed that the more human-like they became the weaker they, in turn, became as well. Already pondering revisions in the design, he turned from the wreckage and scanned the area for any sign of the boy. He found none and decided that in his current state he needed to get the girl and find a shelter from which he could plan on how to get back to the laboratory. He turned toward the wreckage one last time and saw his reflection in the side. It was a sight he wished that he could have spared himself. His right eye socket was clearly visible; the perfect orb that once resided there gone forever. The wound in his neck had finally stopped bleeding, but he could clearly see the quarter-sized exit would directly beneath the right side of his jaw. A mere inch farther back and his larynx would have ended up splattered across the inside of the shuttle. He turned once more in disgust and slung Anita over his good shoulder. Progress now was agonizingly slow, as his face and arm rattled with hot slivers of pain with each step. Blood pattered slowly onto the pavement as it dripped from the outstretched fingers of his now useless hand. Somewhere, in the distance, Dennis thought he heard dogs barking. Lots of them.

The muffled sound of birds chirping was what greeted Joe upon coming into a semi-conscious state. They seemed to sing from far away and inside a tunnel at first, and then their melody became sharper and clearer. He fought to open his eyes, and a hazy film of daylight, too bright to fully comprehend, greeted his gaze. His face burned and itched. After a lengthy fight to get his right arm up, his hand came away wet. This alarmed him, and Joe forced is eyes open and peered at his hand. A mixture of oily blood covered his palm. The machine’s lifeblood mixed with his own alarmed him to a great deal, and panic began to set in. Was his face ruined again, as it once had been? He still had his eyesight, thankfully, but a mental image of a roadmap of criss-crossing scar lines gave him enough adrenaline to regain his footing and look around for the damaged craft. And Anita. The smoking ass of the shuttle jutted into the sky, almost mocking him in a way. It was nearly twenty yards or so away, and the tall grass was difficult to maneuver through. It was this tall grass that concealed his presence when Dennis first began to seek him out. As he neared the shuttle he could see the machine impaled by a metal rod, lying in the front part of the craft. He then looked at his reflection in then side, almost a mirror image of what Dennis had done not five minutes earlier. The damage was not as bad as he had feared, and the shrapnel had thankfully missed his eyes. However, there were long, thin lines of blood on his cheeks, and one dime-sized weeping hole high on his forehead, just barely in front of his temple. It was not a deep wound, but one that definitely would leave a scar that would haunt him for the rest of his life. He looked around and noticed that the tall grass to his right was parted, and a thin film of drying blood lie on the uppermost portions of the blades that moved slightly with the breeze. Upon one more inspection of the craft, he saw no sign of Anita, and decided to follow along the trail, hoping that he could find her. There was also no sign of the fat man, which troubled him greatly. With only a moment’s hesitation to quickly arrange a makeshift arrow out of a few sticks he found lying nearby, Joe took off down the parted weed path toward what he hoped was Anita. And he hoped that she would be alive once he found her. He looked back once again at the wreckage and hoped that Steve would see his marker and know. They would come, after all. He knew it. But he could not wait. If he lost the trail now, none of them would see her alive again. With a deep breath he began to walk quickly toward the wooded area on the north side of I-20, looking down for footprints, blood, overturned stones, anything that might signal the path. Just as he began to enter the dark mass of trees, he heard dogs barking, far off and directly ahead. Maybe it was a signal that the fat man had rustled some wild dogs up. Maybe. Or maybe not.

Steve smelled the burning wreckage a full ten minutes before they came upon it. Luckily, it had crashed into the softer earth of the median and not the hard pavement. Luckily it had crashed, so conveniently, right on the highway, and not some remote corner of a field. Luckily, it had not exploded into some large-scale blast and disintegrated all aboard. Luckily, this meant the children might still be alive. And with any further luck, they would both still be inside, and breathing.
Steve ran for the craft with Deanna right on his heels. Once he peered inside the busted windscreen, however, his emotions mixed and changed from fear, hope, and loathing. There was no sign of the children, and no sign of the fat bastard that had taken them. There was, however, blood on the inside of the canopy, and a dead machine slumped over the back of the driver’s chair. Steve noted with some satisfaction the bullet holes adorning the inside of the canopy. It meant that there was a good chance that he had actually hit and injured the man. Then he saw the blood spray that only proved his hopes to be true. This meant the they had a good chance of catching up with the injured man, and hopefully the children as well. He looked back at Deanna and saw her eyes full of dread, fear, and pain. And there was something else, too. An all to familiar gleam of killer instinct and rage. This woman was coming around to be a fierce fighter, and one that he knew could handle her own if the situation called for it. With that thought he began to scour the landscape for a sign of which way they had gone. The first thing he found was a dark maroon, almost black, series of stains on the blades of waist high grass. Blood. He followed this until he saw something that made his heard leap up in his chest with hope and admiration. A makeshift arrow made of small twigs and sticks, pointing toward the northern woods. Joe or Anita had done well, very well. And it meant that at least one or both of them had survived, and had been lucid enough to think of leaving them a sign. He motioned for Deanna and saw her eyes widen with surprise and hope when she saw it. They nodded in agreement and headed for the tree line, guns in hand.
The pain was a constant irritation now. It felt as if his arm was going to just throb and pulse it’s way right off his body. That is, if the swelling that now resided there didn’t burst it first. His normally large arm was now three times the size it should be, and each step and each heartbeat threatened to send him into a maddening sprint for the nearest sharpened stick he could find. Suicide was not an option. At least, not yet. There were things to do before his life was over. Lots of things. Dennis did not see the first dog. Nor did he see the second. The only indication he had was a strong sense of being watched. And followed. And tracked like an animal. It was the third dog that came directly at him from the front that he finally noticed. The canine that approached him from the right was unseen as well, with Dennis’ missing eye. Four more came up behind, circling and closing off the prey. It was the one on the right that first lunged and caught him by surprise. He felt a sharp tug on Anita’s shirt, and heard the snarl as he lifted his foot off the ground and planted a perfect field-goal style kick to the dog’s underside. He heard ribs splinter and a loud pain filled yelp as the dog went sprawling. Another approached him from the front and he glared directly into the hate-filled eyes as the creature ran faster. Suddenly it stopped, shook it’s head and turned on one of it’s counterparts. Thick yellow foam poured from it’s ears as the two canines locked in a death battle. Telekinesis, as it were, could be hell of a weapon when used properly. He concentrated on the pack of dogs behind him now, and one of them was lifted off of it’s feet and dropped directly on top of two more. Another raging fight ensued. His face became consumed by an all-to-large evil grin until he heard the first shot ring out. Then the world stood still as two large men emerged from behind a dense clump of trees directly ahead, rifles pointed ahead.
“You killed two of my dogs, fucker.”
“They were attacking me! I am just trying to get my daughter to safety! We need help!”
The two men approached cautiously, rifles still pointed at Dennis’s head. One of them whistled through his teeth as he got close enough to see the man’s bloody eye socket and bleeding arm. Dennis haphazardly dropped Anita to the ground and the whistling man’s eyes widened with understanding and surprise. Dennis reached into his mind and saw that the man knew. Knew that Dennis held no particular affinity for Anita, and that he needed to help the girl. And he saw that these two men meant no ill will, as long as they remained unprovoked. And that they would be trouble if left alive. These two were like Steven and Deanna. Do-gooders with no real sense of the big picture. Fools who thought that they could make a difference in the world. The whistling man clicked his gun back off of safety and his counterpart (Jimmy his name is jimmy and he’s my brother.) looked at him with surprise, then looked back at Dennis.
The same evil grin slowly spread across his face, even with the barrel of the .50 BMG looming like a cannon only a few feet from his nose. It shook along with the arm of the man that held it, but only slightly. Dennis could sense fear. And could hear the thoughts raging through this man’s head like a constant string of unintelligible blurbs. (Jimmytellme you see this! Ohmygod what am igonnadowiththiswhatifihavetoshoothimwhatabouttheg irl isshedeadtoo!?jimmydosomething. yousaw…thedogflytooiknowit.)
Travis (called Tinker by his old time buddies) tightened his pull on the trigger a little more and a single bead of sweat escaped his brow and fell into his eye, stinging it. Dennis sensed the break of concentration and backed up a step, holding his hands up in a defenseless posture. Hopefully it would work. All he needed was time to think. It was Jimmy who spoke first, breaking the stalemate.
“Trav, what the hell? Are you ok, bro?”
“Jimmy, I don’t think he is telling us the truth. Hell, I know it!”
“Come on, Trav. Seriously. Look at him, one step from death’s door. I mean..”
“He threw the girl down, Jimmy. And look at his eye. Look. Something is not… right there, man. Trust me.”
Something inside Jimmy told him that it was true. Something made him keep the gun held tight. Something made him question. And then something else, something new, made him begin to draw the business end of the gun slowly around to the left, toward his older brother. The man known once as Tinker. The man that could fix any gas engine brought to him. If it flew, drove or floated Trav would have it working in short order. Once a legend in his own time, he now stood in a field in Alabama with his brother’s AR-15 pointed at his side. Jimmy’s eyes widened with horror, wonder, and helplessness. He tried to turn his head, tried to drop the gun, tried to stop himself but could not. Even when he tried to speak, it was if his mouth was full of concrete. In the end all he could do was close his eyes. And pray. Pray that God would stop this, spare his brother, and ultimately, spare him as well. He felt his finger pull the trigger, heard his brother cry out, and heard the report of at least twenty fully automatic rounds escape the barrel. He heard wet pattering sounds, and thought that at least once he heard his now dying or dead brother try and draw a wheezing breath. When he opened his eyes Dennis was mere inches away and had his one good arm out, grabbing the AR from his senseless fingers. He stood in horror as he saw the man with one eye raise the gun and pull the trigger. He felt two rounds enter his intestines and exit via his kidneys. He felt the cool grass as he fell into it, face first. He felt the man step on him as he scooped the girl up and walk on, leaving him for dead. But his senses were still muted. Pain, luckily was muted. He felt the ground beneath him become wet, and managed to turn his head and watch the man go. His thought then was of the girl. And how he thought he had seen her eyes twitch and then open momentarily. Maybe. The world swam away from him then and he lie still, just one more corpse in this barren land. Just one more death at the hands of a man named Finch. Dennis then dropped the still smoking gun beside the body and began to walk once again with the girl across his good shoulder. Time had been wasted, and time definitely was something that he could not afford to lose now.
The world turned beneath her as Anita rose from her semi-lifeless form and flew once again, like in her dreams. She had been above, observing everything from the moment of impact. She knew her body was hurt, but not too badly. She chose to stay up and away, because if she went back, the man would hurt her. She knew Joe was more or less going to be ok, and that he was following them, and gaining ground. She knew the man would have to stop soon. It was mid-evening when the two men were killed, and now it bordered on full-out darkness. The clouds above had thickened all day, and the smell of rain was so heavy that it was almost tangible. She watched as the man finally stopped at the bottom of a set of steps leading up into the wrap-around porch of an old but well maintained farm house. Of course, the door was not latched, so he opened it easily enough, and after standing and listening for a bit, decided that they were alone. He dropped her body as if it were an over packed bag of grain, and sat in a cushioned rocking chair nearby. He had not thought to get either if the guns that the Carter brothers had dropped when they died, and an idea came to her. She left then and flew back through the night to Joe, who was only a few hundred yards away from the clearing where the two men lie. He had been gaining ground all day, but seemed to have fallen back some the last few hours. The constant days on the road and little food to boot had been wearing him down. He finally fell, exhausted, at the edge of the clearing, less than twenty yards away from the two dead men. Sleep. He had to. Even if the rain came tonight and soaked him, he could not move any farther today. So he slept and dreamed. Anita was in those dreams, talking to him, urging him on. Telling him about two men that he would see at first light. Telling him that Deanna and Steve were coming also. Telling him that they would meet soon enough, maybe within the next day or so. Telling him to be quiet and lay low, especially as tomorrow drew late.
Steve and Deanna found their way easily enough through the wooded envelope that now surrounded them on all sides. Seemingly Dennis as well as Joe had followed the paths of least resistance, as was the nature of most animals and humans alike. In addition to that there was the occasional (and diminishing) patter of dried blood on surrounding foliage and the ground to guide them. Steve hoped and prayed that it belonged to the man and not the boy whom he had grown to love over the past weeks. Deanna always followed within ten steps of him, also surveying their flanks for movement or anything that seemed out of place. He noted that she had not taken her hand off of the trigger frame of the gun she carried since they had entered the forest. The first drops of rain came then, a steady irritating patter that soon gave way to a downpour that would prove hopeless to venture further into. They stopped and huddled under a blanket and waited. Night fall was upon them then, and as much as he wanted to, he knew pressing onward would possibly make them both pass right by the boy and worse, even lose the trail altogether. They slept in shifts much like they had done on so many countless other nights, not knowing that Joe slept as well, but only a mere half mile ahead of them in the clearing that they would meet in the next day.

[Dave!]

CHAPTER 20
The next morning broke later than normal, with paltry sunlight yearning to bake off the remaining cloud cover and dense ground fog left over from the night before. The humidity was fierce and Steve reluctantly woke Deanna from her disturbed slumber. He took a moment to note before waking her that her belly was beginning to show a little, which was amazing to him. He tried to think back and give a timeframe to their journey together, and place some sort of guess on how far along she would be by now. To his best guess it would be early to mid October now. The trees had all exploded into different shades of color, and the nights sometimes held a chill that was welcomed, but foreboding in a way that they all knew bad weather was on its way. It frustrated him to try, but his best guess was two, maybe three months. Maybe more, maybe less. Either way a daunting thought came to him again. What were they to do about medical care? What if he had to deliver the baby alone? What if something unspeakable happened and there were complications? He banished the thought for the time being, knowing that there were bigger fish to fry right now. They had to find Joe and Anita. And fast. He stooped and moved a lock of hair back from her forehead as she stirred and opened her eyes, greeting the man she loved and the new day after a much needed night of rest. How Steve envied her in that moment. It had been beyond recollection since he had had a good night’s rest and an invigorating, dreamless night. She rose and helped him roll the blanket back up. Further down the line they would have to spread it out to dry, but the time right now to do so was a luxury they did not have. As feared, the previous night’s rain had done away with any trace blood trails left over, and they could only go on instinct and continuing to follow what logical paths they could find. They burst into the clearing ahead and saw a small framed figure stooped over something lying in the tall weeds ahead. The small framed figure rose to a standing stature and Steve instantly forgot to keep any vestige of guard up, forgot that there could be danger in an open field, and forgot anything else in the entire Earth existed other than the dear boy he loved as his own. He dropped his pistol back into its home under his left shoulder and ran for Joe, arms outstretched.
Joe woke from his slumber in much the same way Steve did earlier. At once he felt the oppressive humidity smack him in the face and he drew a thick breath of air. The smell of honeysuckle was almost overpowering. Sweet, but somehow irritating at the same time. In the distance he could hear frogs chiming in and crickets answering their call. Despite himself, he smiled a little at how normal this part of the world seemed. How it reminded him of a long ago time before the world evolved. And how, at this moment, all of the chaos and death could just have been a bad dream. But after a few steps reality struck him in the face like a low, fast pitch in the bottom of the 9th. On the ground, face up was the first man. Face up was the best he could tell, as the man had no face left to speak of. Most of it was obliterated in a mass of bone shards and raw hamburger. The rest of the man’s body was riddled with holes that all had spilled his life’s blood onto the ground below. A few feet farther was another man, face down, and thankfully, not as mangled as the prior. Beside him lie a gun. A machine gun. Joe thought that Steve would be especially proud to have this one, and he reached out slowly to touch it. The congealed blood on it made his hesitate for only a second. The old Joe would not have dared touch a gun in the first place, especially one with blood on it. But this world had brought on a new Joe, one jaded to violence. And the world itself was not the only factor. He was changing. He didn’t know if it was in him before, or if Anita had brought it out or onto him, but he was changing, and maturing faster than his years. Already he had physically changed, becoming muscular and agile, tall and quick. But it was what was on the inside that was really beginning to take on a new form. He could see and hear things that he knew Steve and even Deanna could not. He could sense and be more attuned to the world around him more so than any normal human could. With the exception of maybe Anita. But she was different also. Even different than he. She seemed to even have her own special “abilities”.
Joe jolted himself back to reality when the visions of Anita’s face reminded him of where and who he really was. The sweet image of her was replaced with the harsh reality of the AR-15 he now had in his hands and the matted blood in the hair of the dead man lying on the grass. He felt a tear for the man and the entire world begin to sting his eyes when he heard approaching footsteps. He rose to his feet and turned, and began to panic when he thought of how he did not know how to use this gun. It was then that his vision cleared completely and he saw Steve running toward him, arms outstretched. Tears of fear, pain and sorrow were replaced with genuine tears of sheer joy. Could it be? Anita’s voice and the foggy memory of last night’s dream confirmed it. They would be, and were united once again. He dropped the gun and began to run back toward Steve, holding his own arms out like a cliché moment in an old film.
Not since the first time he had held him had Steve felt the “rightness” of having Joe in his arms. It seemed that even in this unjust and unfeeling world that had come to pass there were some things that still remained right. Once more he was upholding a promise made to a deceased father. The boy was now his, and in reality was much less yet much more than a boy. He had seemed to age yet more, and instead of a boy of ten, he looked more like fourteen. His brilliant white eyes, still hard to look directly at, were glistening with tears that spilled onto Steven’s shirt. His hair needed badly to be washed, as did his face. His face. Steven reluctantly pushed Joe back a few inches to look at his face again. Almost as if he were back in New Mexico, Steve traced each line with his eyes, seeing almost that the old scars that had disappeared were almost a foreshadowing of the injuries he now had. Although these were not nearly as bad as the ones that had scarred him years before, they were bad enough. The injuries on his perfect face brought a rage to life deep within Steven. Not only did he want the fat man dead, but he wanted him to get there slowly and Steven wanted to be the one to personally deliver that sweet vengeance. He dabbed lightly at a few of the wounds, and Joe seemed not to notice or feel. Almost immediately abandoning the task, he turned to see Deanna coming up behind them, moving a little slower now that she was noticeably larger around the midriff. At first her face went from sheer joy to a concerned, almost motherly look at the sight of Joe’s face. Maybe ten seconds had passed and no one had uttered a single word. Deanna was the first.
“Joe! Baby..Oh my God! Honey…Are you ok? Sweet Jesus it’s good to see you!..” She trailed off into mixed sobs of joy and sorrow for the boy. Steven backed off for a second and noticed the corpses lying in the grass along with the AR. He looked over at them once more and walked the few feet over to the two dead men. Trailing off toward another patch of woods was a line of parted grass. The fat man had gone that way, and not more than a day ago, it seemed. They were close and gaining, which was good. Joe was alive and with them again, which was also good. Anita was not, which was not so good. They would have to keep pressing onward now. He looked back and noticed that Joe did not have the Ruger with him any longer. He thought briefly of giving him his pistol, but thought better of it instantly. In the heat of the moment Steve would need it, as he was a crack shot with it an knew the weapon well. Joe would have the AR. And Steve would have to teach him the mechanics of it. After all, Joe brandishing his own firearm had proven necessary in the recent past, had it not? He then turned back toward Deanna and Joe, the urgency to press onward burning in his eyes clear enough for them both to understand. Anita was somewhere up there. Joe was not the only one that could sense her presence combined with a strong feeling of apprehension. Something was not right. Not right at all.

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So.. any thoughts thus far on the story? I am considering a complete re-write now, using mainly what is already here, but with a considerable bit of refinement and polishing. Also adding quite a bit to the beginning to use less of the boring flashbacks, and more action. The flashbacks may come off and on later throughout the chapters as I can fit them into a dream sequence or a telling-of-tales if you will. Also with a more refined writing technique and more adult-driven sentence structure. But will not change what is already written for these posts, and will continue to post the first draft as-is, if you guys wanna read onward... -Dave

[ManOfWesternesse]

Dave,

I love the concept, and I think ultimately there's a good Book in this.
Yes it certainly needs a re-write from a couple of points of view.

One thing that hits me is, in the more recent chapters, it's like one emergency/child-kidnap event right on the heels of another with no development of the story at all in between. I honestly think the action could do with ... slowing down a bit in places, with a bit of fleshing out of the central 4 characters happening in the interim.

Another point is the ... i don't know if it's writing style, or just word/language choices or whatever. Thare are passages where it's... rushed and less mature than others. I can't explain it well - but maybe your 'refinement and polishing' is what it needs?

But in general terms, I love it and there's definitely a good Book in here which I think you can dig out with some work.

[Dave!]

I tend to agree, and it's good to hear it from another point of view. In the future re-write yes, there will be more refinement of the central four, maybe a bit less rushing, with some slowing down of the last quarter of the story. A lot happens from a few chapters back until the end. I did rush it a bit, feeling that I was drawing out the story too much. But maybe a break from it was what I needed instead of a compelling urge to finish it with some manner of ending, and a completely unexpected twist in a few installments from now. I feel that the twist is a bit weird, and may omit it and re-write that section before I post it. dunno yet. But, for now, back to Diablo. I'll post another snippet in a few days.

[Dave!]

Chapter 21
Jerry dreamed little excerpts of the events taking place hundreds of miles to his west. In his subconscious he knew there was a distinct possibility that they were actually real, but he still had doubts. After all, dreams were dreams, right? He sensed his sister’s presence above him again, and looked at the plain white ceiling tiles above and the harsh glare of the fluorescents. Maybe half of the lights gave off a feeble flicker of life, the bulbs reduced mostly to a dim shade of purple at the ends. He looked once more at the line of windows off to the side, hearing that same buzzing sound as before. Henry noticed that the boy had awakened and walked over to him. Jerry turned his head to the other side and saw that the girl that had had the seizures earlier was gone, her metal gurney empty except for neatly folded sheets at the end.
“I see our star resident has awakened again. Good. And how are we today, Jerry?”
“The girl…Emily. Is she ok? Where is she?”
“Don’t you mind her just yet. She’s fine. You are what we need to talk about. And your sister. Seems she found a bit of trouble out west…but Mr. finch is taking good care of her, he is. Matter of fact, once we get over there to him, she will be here too, with you! Won’t that be good to see her again, Jerry?”
Jerry could sense the sarcasm in his voice and something else.. some underlying angst and fear… the man was half lying. He knew that much. He had dreamed of Anita and the crash. He knew who Mr. Finch was and feared the man. Finch was as evil as they come and even less compassionate. Not to mention the fact that he too, had powers. Briefly Jerry let his mind drift off to a land of deep thought and pondered just how Henry knew about those events himself. As if knowing what he was thinking Henry began to speak, the fake smile already waning on his lips and a stone cold look overtaking his eyes.
“Well then. Just so you know, dear boy, what you know, we know. What you think, we think. What you dream, we see. Let me show you a little something.” Henry’s voice little more than a whisper.
Henry knelt down, fumbled briefly with some mechanism under the bed, and pulled the top of the bed into a sitting position. Jerry’s abdomen and lower back exploded into a new pain as his body was moved into positions he had not been in in weeks. He had lain prone on that same bed since his arrival there, with only an occasional turn to the left or right. Henry wheeled him along with a tree of instrumentation closer to the large windows and Jerry saw with his own eyes what horrible sights his sister had seen before.
The room below was lined with those capsules, and some lie open. As if on cue, nearly fifty man-like things looked up at him in unison and smiled. He knew in his heart that these were machines, but they looked like ordinary men. All were naked and standing in neat, parallel lines. Henry smiled a genuine smile then and backed the bed back up to its original position in the room. Jerry got an opportunity to see that some of the previously occupied beds were now empty, and a few had been filled since his last awakening.
“Jerry, it’s about time for us to take a trip downstairs, son. How do you feel?”
Jerry disliked the man’s fake persona, but disliked his use of the word “son” even more. He ignored the question and turned his head away from Henry altogether. Henry seemed to pay it no mind and walked over to the door. Within a few minutes the door opened and the same woman with half a face walked in. The bed was wheeled over to the door and out into a large elevator. Henry was at his head and the woman pushed the bed from the other end, affording him a much longer view of her disfigured face than he wanted. After a brief descent the doors opened and the humming sound of the machinery rattled his teeth in their sockets. He was now in the room with the machines and being wheeled past them to the far end of the giant room. Over head the suspended lights’ glare made the upstairs’ fluorescents seem like a cheap flashlight. He had to strain his eyes at first, and then shut them altogether as the lines of machines leaned in closer to look at him as he passed.
The far end of the room was featureless and well lit. A single cylinder stood in the center of a raised dais surrounded by control panels and switches. A thousand bundles of tubes and wires ran from the top of the cylinder to another cylinder, identical to the one he was being led to. Inside this one was a machine, standing erect and motionless, except for the eyes. They followed his every move.
Upon reaching the dais the woman unshackled his feet and Henry did the same with his arms. They undid all of the electrodes protruding from his head and chest and helped him to a sitting position, his feet dangling off of the right side of the bed. It amazed Jerry at how weak he had become. His head swam and he almost dropped back into a state of unconsciousness. In a few short minutes he would be wishing that he actually had.
Unable to muster even a fraction of the energy need to fight back, Jerry hung his head in defeat as they lifted his atrophied body up the two stainless steel steps to the dais. With one person on each side, they lifted him into the cylinder and strapped him down once more. As they cinched the straps he thought he could hear a faint humming sound, much different and much sweeter than the mechanical, mind numbing version of the room surrounding him. It seemed to come from inside his head, and grew louder with each passing second. By the time Henry and the woman Suzette. I now know her name as Suzette. She was a police officer once. Back then. Yes. In Philadelphia. finished hooking various wires and tubes to him the noise was actually coming from him. Henry was thinking of making a few patented statements but thought better of it in the end. All he wanted was to shut the door of the chamber and get the infernal whispering/humming out of his head. The boy was different. Finch was right about that much. But just how different no one knew. For the first time in a long time Henry began to feel fear. Fear of the boy now in front of him and fear for whatever the hell was making that noise inside him. Henry securely latched the door and pulled Suzette behind the main control panel so hard that her feet actually lost contact with the floor for a brief second. His long black hair now looked disheveled and hang around his face in tiny tendrils. His face had lost most of the tanned look it had and now had an almost funeral parlor tone to it. He was more than scared. Henry Walters was terrified. The reflections of the blue light that began to illuminate the inside of the chamber danced off of his coal black eyes. He pressed the last button to engage the chamber’s extracting needle and turned to tell Suzette not to worry. He did not even get the first syllable out before all hell broke loose.
Chapter 22
Dennis woke with a start late into the next morning. He could not believe that he had let himself sleep that long and that he had left the girl on the front porch, unguarded. He sprang to his feet, temporarily forgetting his weakened state, and fell face first onto the wooden boards of the porch. The pain threatened to take him right back out again, but he fought and kept his wits. He could smell damp earth below him and a darker smell of rotting meat. Obviously a dog or some other wild animal had killed and left something under the porch a while back. He shook the thoughts away and rose to find the girl lying as he had left her. He was pleased to see that at some point she had rolled onto her back which meant she at least was not totally comatose. He would need her to be somewhat conscious and alive once they reached Georgia. He knew that another transport had been sent finally and that they would meet before the end of the day. At least then he could get proper medical care and repair the broken pieces once they got back home. And then it would be time for the girl. And her brother.
“Well, thought you would take him, eh? Ha! You will se him soon enough. Come on, let’s get goin. Time’s a wastin!”
He picked her up as he had done so many times during the last few days, but her essence was not there, as usual. This time it was far ahead of them both, back in Georgia. And it was helpless to stop what would happen in a few short hours. Dennis walked down the steps and onto the grass, heading east once more. In his weakened state he failed to notice the anomalies of the town that he had missed the night before. Street signs hung crooked on what posts were left. Most of the downtown buildings were flattened and leaning, which was a normal occurrence these days, after the war. He did not notice, however that the buildings were leaning because they had been pushed up from below, not from some bomb blast or wartime fighting. As a matter of fact the entire town now sat nearly fifty feet higher than it did five years earlier. Seemingly an off course ICBM back in the war had opened an ancient fault line near here, and it was a fact that Dennis knew, but had forgotten until it was almost too late.
He turned and walked due east, paralleling the interstate once again. His head buzzed with pain and his steps became increasingly labored as the day grew onward. He hoped that the shuttle would find him soon. He had maybe less than a day or two left in him at this point, and he knew it. He was thinking about the shuttle when it actually appeared above him. He couldn’t help but smile at the fact. It was almost too hokie to be real, but it was. He dropped Anita to the ground and began to wave his good arm back and forth, all the while continuing to walk forward. He felt a shift in the earth beneath him and the smile immediately faded. The ground under him began to slide and he threw himself, at a great cost, to the ground. He clutched for earth, grass, roots and whatever else he could find, and managed to save himself from tumbling into the 3500 feet deep crevice left in the earth where a farmer’s field once grew tobacco. It wound its way through nearly two hundred miles of Alabama and Georgia, and nearly captured yet another victim. But Dennis was like a cat. His nine lives seemed actually exponential these days, and he pulled himself back to solid ground as the shuttle lightly set itself down a safe distance away. He was less than three hours away from medical care now. All would be fine in the end. He smiled a little at the thought and at the triumph. He reached down one more time to scoop the girl up. That was when all hell broke loose.
Steven, Deanna, and Joe stood at the steps of the very farmhouse Dennis had been in not an hour before. In the daylight the severe angle of the house was readily apparent and Steve wondered how Finch could have gotten up the steps in his state. He was going to be a hard one, that was for sure. He had no doubt that this is where they were, as the pool of still drying blood sat clearly at the top of the steps. A trail of it led off to the east, toward the end of town. Steven nodded to the other two and they headed that way, just short of sprinting. They were close now. To Steven there was no doubt that today would be the day. The Showdown. Vengeance for Joe. Vengeance for Anita. Provided she was still alive and with the fat man. Either way, today Dennis Finch would meet his maker.
They walked onward for less than two hours when they saw the shuttle come to a halt ahead and descend. They ran directly for it, Steven vastly outpacing the other two. He burst through a clump of trees to see the shuttle, Anita’s still form on the grass, and the blood soaked fat man ahead, stooping to pick her up. He unholstered his firearm and took aim. His finger tightened on the trigger when all hell finally did break loose.

[Dave!]

Jerry saw his reflection in the glass on the inside of the chamber. The boy that stared back at him was wide-eyed with fear. Directly across from him was another chamber, this one occupied by a machine with a full body covering of living tissue. It’s eyes were open and staring their blue gaze directly into his own brown eyes. It made no facial gestures and showed no emotion that Jerry could see. It was a machine, after all, and didn’t machines lack emotions? Jerry liked to think so. He shut his eyes as he saw Henry and Suzette gather behind the control panel, facing him and between both chambers. He looked down, pressed a button and Jerry saw him begin to lean toward Suzette when his head exploded inside in a world of pain and white light. The humming and whispering sounds followed suit, and as his mouth flew open the symphony of a thousand voices in song escaped.
The extracting needle pierced the back of his neck and buried all five inches to the hilt in the skin there. The tip of it resided deep within the base of his brain and began to extract what it was designed to. His muscles flexed and convulsed, his last breath exhaling in a sharp chord of mixed sound, light, and air. As the tubes above him moved with the fluid and matter coursing through them, the inside of the capsule was eerily peaceful. That could not be said for the world outside the shattered glass door in front of his now lifeless body.
As Henry leaned over to whisper to Suzette, the world in front of them suddenly was immersed in a brilliant explosion of shattered glass, white light and ear-piercing sound. Small squares of glass cut them in a hundred different places and both were driven blind by the light. Blood oozed out of their ears as the eardrums ruptured and they fell to the floor, both screaming and clutching the sides of their heads. A whirlwind of air moved above them, tearing ceiling tiles and light fixtures loose. And as suddenly as it began, all movement and sound stopped. The light winked out just as suddenly as it was born. The two people stood to their feet, blinking unseeing eyes at each other and bleeding from multiple shallow furrows made by the flying glass.
The tubes above the machine pulsed and moved as they were designed to do as the fluid coursed through them and entered the needle buried in the machine. The machine opened its eyes and was a new creature, as designed. However, the now blind scientists in front of him did not see the blue eyes turn to white for a moment and gaze around the room in disbelief. This was not as designed. The machine reached around and pulled the electrodes and needle free and stepped out of the chamber. It looked across at the limp form of the boy with sadness, and looked down at its own new body, reborn and transformed into what it was. It then turned its gaze down to the two people fumbling in front of it and instantly felt another emotion. Without further hesitation the machine took another step forward toward Henry. It could sense the man’s elevated heart rate and detect the fear smell that all humans exhaled. It also could see that both people were blind and helpless and a smile of satisfaction came across its face. It would do what it had to here and proceed onward into the main part of the room, as its directive was programmed. It would play along and be a good servant. For now. Until the time was right. There were, after all, bigger fish to fry.
Anita floated above the scene, unable to help, unable to scream for them to stop, unable to do anything but watch the ordeal. She watched in horror as the man shut the door on her brother and walk behind the panel. She saw him smile just a little as he pushed the button. She saw the levers move and saw the needle impale him, and watched in a gamut of unspeakable emotions as her only brother died in front of her. She closed her eyes with all her might and screamed out in her mind. All at once the setting had changed from that sterile room to a lush, grass covered hillside and Dennis finch’s decimated face looming in front of hers. All at once she came to life as his fingertips touched her. All of her anger and energy was focused on this man. It was all his fault. His one eye widened in shock and surprise and she threw both hands forward toward him.
Dennis looked at the girl and reached down to scoop her up with his arm. Just as the tips of his fingers touched her, her eyes flew open and stared directly into his soul with a white light and fury he could not fathom. He instantly focused all of his power on the girl to stop her, but it was too late and he was too weakened.
Both hands hit him directly on the sides of his jaw. Her movement, however did not stop there. She kept pushing her hands forward as if she were thrusting them into a warm bowl of pudding. She grasped his jawbone on either side and pulled his enormous girth over her and catapulted him onto his back on the grass above her head. He landed, screaming through a gaping bloody hole and tried to regain his footing.
Anita was left lying on her back holding Dennis’ jawbone and lower face in her hands. The skin began to sizzle and pop in her grasp. She leapt to her feet and bludgeoned the man with it as he tried in vain to ward off her attack. At some point the jawbone flew from her grasp and into the crevasse in the ground.
She stood over the man that once thought he would rule the after- war world with the assistance of the machines. They had sought him out to help them and he had. They had offered him life and a future and he had taken it. He had given them live skin and the technology for emotions and in the end, the human soul. There had been several failed experiments, and several horrible mutations, but he, Dennis Finch had perfected the process just two months prior to this moment. There had been the girl from North Carolina, the two boys from Nevada. The set of triplets from Michigan. And then there was the boy. The girl’s brother Jerry. He was scheduled to be processed any day now. Her brother. Clear understanding filled the last thoughts Dennis Finch had that day. She knew. It was done. The girl looked at him without a shred of remorse or pity for the dying man.
Steve watched in amazement as Anita burst to life like a caged tiger. Her hair stood on end as if electrified, like it had before in Mississippi. She shrieked, but her mouth remained closed the entire time. From start to finish not more than a minute had passed but Steve had to stop it. He could not bear to see the sweet girl he knew turn into something not much short of a monster. And he could not allow Deanna or Joe to see it, either. He ran for her then and once directly behind her he raised the gun one more time. With a clear shot he put a single round in the center of Dennis’ forehead. Once that was done he could hear Deanna and Joe coming out of the woods, both winded and trying their best to get to the scene. He looked at the girl, now with her head down and hair in her face. He grabbed Finch by the armpits and pushed him over into the crack in the Earth. It was done, and if he had his way, Deanna and Joe would never know the truth. The most important thing was the fact that Anita was alive. The rest was just details, as they used to say. He could explain the blood all over her clothing as that of Finch, which it was. The details of exactly how it got there however might remain a secret for just the two of them. Time would tell. They had much to discuss later on. But that all would come in due time. He reached out, took her into his arms, and led her toward the other two. The unmanned craft sat, humming innocently a few inches from the ground.

The machine crept silently up behind the two, not knowing that they were deaf as well as blind. He stood there, silent, and watched them as they fumbled with their bearings, trying to maintain their balance and find their way back to the main part of the floor. There would be help there. Both human and machine. And then, of course, the other ones as well. The ones that were both at the same time.
Jerry stood that way for almost a full minute before moving on toward the central group of machines working on building even more pods. Some were in a state of suspended animation. Most were not. He estimated the number to be somewhere closer to a hundred in that one room. As the boy he had thought maybe fifty. Jerry walked to a set of pneumatic doors that led to another, larger room. This one was obviously for storage of finished machines, as there were parallel rows of identical machines filling nearly seventy five percent of the floor space. All of them stood with their heads down and eyes closed. He found a spot in the farthest line and assumed position, closing his eyes like the rest. But unlike the rest, however, Jerry listened. And waited. And wondered about a girl named Emily. Was it possible she, too, was here somewhere? Was she aware, as he was? He pondered these questions, and many more during the waiting period. Soon he would move. He had spared the two humans because killing them would raise alarm and suspicion. Those were two things he certainly did not need. Behind closed eyelids blue eyes turned to white as he read countless bytes of information. By nightfall he knew all he needed to. He knew what they knew and it chilled him to the core. Somewhere, far to the left, four others silently and discreetly watched the newcomer assume his fake position in the formation. The two closest to each other exchanged a silent period of eye contact before feigning their lethargic state.

[Dave!]

ok. After a month of having a double post on here I just now noticed. Geez.

Anyways, edited the post above and replaced the double posted stuff with the next chapter. Sorry, guys!
BTW, working on two more starts to two more stories now. One is six chapters long and the other is three so far. Call them a "pilot episode" for the writing world if you will. Burned out on Diablo for the time being, so thought I would exercise the mind with two totally new approaches. Might post them at some point in the future, if yall might be interested....Take care and I'll try to post more of this one soon...
Dave.

[Dave!]

Chapter 24
Once the embraces were over they all climbed aboard the humming craft. Joe did so hesitantly and Anita did so like a programmed robot. The sight of her acting like them gave Steve a shiver, but he assumed his position in the “driver” seat just the same. He hoped that the craft was as automatic as it seemed, and would take them where they needed to go. It came from the east, after all, and there was no quick and easy way around the aftermath of the earthquake. After a few minutes he saw that there was a way to override the craft and pilot it, but he dared not. Not yet, anyway. He had no idea what sort of tracking devices or monitoring systems the shuttle had, and did not want to raise alarm quite so early. Once inside with the door shut, the craft lifted itself up above the trees and landscape below and took a heading due southeast, as he had hoped. The ride gave him plenty of time to ponder exactly where the craft was taking them, and wondered what kind of welcome they would receive once the door opened and they emerged.
The craft flew across beautiful countryside below. From here one could assume all was well. That was, until the craft began to slow and descend. Ahead Steven thought he could see what was Atlanta. If so then he was finally here, in Georgia, after all of these years. It frightened and saddened him to a great degree to think that the broken off shells of buildings he saw once could have been the city where he spent most of his teenage years. They were coming to rest near the remnants of a place where he took his first date to ride the coasters. Six Flags, or the skeletal remains of it, surrounded them. It was then he knew for sure that the horror was true. And then began to ponder why they were stopping here. Maybe this was the destination? Maybe there was someone or something else to retrieve. Either way he checked the magazine in his firearm and breathed in deeply as the craft settled back down mere inches from the ground, as it had done before.
The door began to open as Steve motioned for the rest of them to stay behind in the craft. He stepped out onto the dirt and small clouds of dust rose from around his feet. The place was eerily quiet and ominous. From around the corner stepped two men, and they stood, face to face. All three had the same surprised gape-mouthed expression on their faces. One of the men looked past Steven and into the craft. Steven stood; legs shoulder width apart in the all to familiar stance, with his gun drawn and ready. He did, however, have the muzzle pointed toward the ground. The two men looked to be unarmed. But there was something about their movements he did not like and a small voice screamed alarms at him from the back of his mind. Trusting that voice, he thumbed the safety off discreetly as he walked toward the two men.
The man on the right looked to the one on the left and made an “excuse me” motion too theatrical to be genuine and turned to walk behind a nearby concessions stand. The remaining man was now less than twenty feet away and Steve noticed how blue his eyes seemed in the afternoon sun as it baked on the back of his neck. It took a few seconds to realize that the man in front of him may not be a man at all. He had flashbacks to a roadside confrontation where he witnessed a nearly human looking machine don the coat of a man named John. It was then he looked closer, with his trained eye. He noticed that the blue intensity of the eyes was not due to the sun, but they were lit from behind. What alarmed him the most was the fact that they now looked indistinguishable from humans.
The machine sensed Steven’s elevated heart rate and adrenaline rush. It saw movement in his right arm before Steven even knew he was moving. Steven raised the .45 and squeezed off four rounds as the machine closed the distance and knocked him to the ground. Two rounds went wild, one hitting the framework of a coaster and the other into a dusty soda dispenser behind the machine. Two rounds hit the machine in the left side of its chest and propelled it backwards several feet. Steven rose to one knee, his vision doubling up and wavering. A new trickle of blood ran down the right side of his head and into his eye, stinging it and turning the world red. He took aim the best he could at the machine, which was now kneeling on one knee and blinking at the fluid running out of the wounds it suffered.
“Steven Davidson, do you not know what you are…”
Steven fired two more rounds into the machine’s head, which seemed to fold back in on itself with the impacts. Still it tried to regain its footing. Steven blinked at the stinging blood in his eye and prepared to fire again when the machine simply fell back face up, motionless. Steven scanned the area for the other one and saw no signs of it. Behind him Deanna had emerged from the craft, her own gun drawn and ready. He wanted her to get back inside and protect both her and the unborn child. But he knew she wouldn’t. Joe, trying to protect Anita, shut the door to the craft with an audible click. Now it was just the two adults left to face whatever they were destined to do here. Destiny had seemed to take control these days, providing them with a mixture of both good and bad fortunes. Steven was fairly certain that something had cracked inside of Anita earlier. That something more than likely had to do with Jerry, but he was not certain as of yet. He still had not had the opportunity to talk to her alone. He prayed that the time would present itself sooner rather than later. If it came at all.
Deanna stood, frozen in place. Flashbacks of the dream she had about this very place had her mind elsewhere. Steven turned to go back to her when he was hit in the back of the head with something hard. Deanna screamed as he fell to the ground, drifting off to a black world of nothingness. The machine paid no further attention to Steven as it stepped over his crumpled form and ran in an eerily quick, fluid motion to her. She finally attempted to pull out if her dreamy daze and raise her own gun, but the machine simply closed the distance and gently pulled it from her grasp. It looked at the firearm for a brief, quizzical moment and gingerly laid it on the ground at her feet. She then let loose with reality and fainted, falling in the machine’s grasp. It was gentle enough, knowing that this woman was as important, if not more so than the children. She was, after all, the first pregnancy that they could actually witness and examine. The only other two that they had even been able to witness had ended in suicide. This one would have to be different. It would be, according to the late Dennis Finch.
The two machines that had silently communicated with each other as the new Jerry stood in formation opened their eyes in unison. They scanned the area, deemed it secure, and moved out of their lines. The two others followed suit. Jerry, sensing that something has changed in the air, opened his eyes as well. The four were practically on top of him by then. His eyes widened with a “fight or flight” reflex when one of them brought a single finger to its lips in an understood silent communication. The same one held its hand out, palm up to him and he placed his own on top of it in response. His eyes half closed for a second and then flew back open again as he regarded Emily. She was no longer confined to a bed with daily epileptic seizures. She was no longer any more human or any less than he was. A smile crossed his face when he understood. The other three were the same as he. One from Michigan. Two others from Nevada. All a part of their own set of either twins or triplets, just as he once was. A connection and a clear understanding of everything entered his mind then. It was the way that they were born and their circumstance that made them targets once. And maybe it was what kept them alive in this new form. Maybe. They communicated silently as a group, all touching palms when the new thread of information came across. High importance. The highest possible. Finch was dead. Killed by the girl "my sister." Jerry thought. The others regarded him with their own looks of gratitude and pride. Four shuttle loads of new units were to depart to the scene of the latest report. There seemed to be a confirmed sighting of the humans, and at least one unit was confirmed lost. At the hand of the man. The two remaining children were inside another shuttle and the disarmed woman was being held by a series 6 unit. Twenty series 8 units were to depart immediately to secure the woman and children. And extinguish the man. The five of them were halfway to the first shuttle when the entire room of series 8’s opened their eyes and moved in unison. They boarded and took off for the Atlanta region fully ten minutes before the next craft left. Maybe it would buy them enough time. Maybe.

[Dave!]

Chapter 25
Steven woke to find no sign of Deanna. He had been out for only a few short minutes, but she was gone, nonetheless. Joe peered at him from inside the shuttle where Anita still sat in her catatonic state. He scrambled around for his .45 and saw it lying in the dust between his location and the hovering shuttle. After taking a quick survey of the area he made his move to recover it. A group of three more units quickly came into view and Steven ran for the concessions stand behind him for cover. Two of the three took cover and the third ran behind the shuttle. Steven could see Joe’s terrified face behind the glass as the machine peered in at him. The two nearest him drew their weapons and fired first, taking off large chunks of wall near Steven. He returned fire and began to look for different cover. If he could make it underneath the coaster he could be shielded by the metal I beam framework, but it seemed like a thousand miles across open ground to him at that moment. As if guided by a sign, the rear half of the roof caved in, exposing him on at least three sides. He estimated their position, rose, and fired as he ran.
Running made his head hurt like hell, but he had to keep going. Blood began to run down into his eye again and he cursed his luck. Dirt and gravel flew up around his ankles as the rounds from the machines got closer and closer. He fired blindly as he ran. One of the rounds grazed a fairly deep furrow in the back of one of his calves, but thankfully missed its mark. Had it not everything from the knee down would be lying behind him in the dust. One of his caught one of the units in the shoulder and passed cleanly through, mushrooming as it went. The machine lost footing for a second then recovered, eyes blazing. Steven leapt at the last two feet and rolled behind a slight earthen embankment. Out of breath and bleeding slightly from both his head and his left calf, he closed his eyes for just a second before changing magazines out in the .45. Other than the fresh one he just put in, he had one full one left on him. The others were in the pack inside the shuttle, which was now nearly a football field’s length from him if he were to travel in a straight line. The two machines were off to the right, and the one still stood near the shuttle, peering in the window and smiling triumphantly at the two children inside. He had managed somehow to disable the craft, which now sat motionless on the grass. It was now a standoff. Steven rolled to one side and inched his head out slightly to get a view of the two assailants. When he estimated his targets, he rolled out again and fired. The one that he had hit in the shoulder had been slowed down greatly, as the round found its mark. Propelled backward in a spray of yellow fluid, bits of metal, and skin, the machine lie still against a chain link fence. Steven’s round had caught it in the throat. The other had him pinned down, however, and they both waited for the other to make a desperate move. The machine knew Steven wanted to go to the children and find the woman. Steven knew the machine could always wait longer than he.
The light of the day had moved considerably, and was now beginning to have the slightest hint of late afternoon angles. Steven kept a constant eye on the machines, and once the one standing by the craft had waved a sarcastic, taunting wave at him. He was pondering how to diffuse the situation when he heard the drone of another craft coming. It landed about ten feet from the children’s craft and the door opened with a hiss of air. Five machines walked out and Steven’s willpower left him. For the first time in his life he felt the situation was completely out of his control and was willing to accept defeat. Or death in a last attempt to save the children. One of the machines walked over to the first craft and yet another walked toward his cover, stopping just a fraction of the way. It knelt down and picked up an object, examining it closely. It was Deanna’s rifle. It was at that moment that several pivotal things happened at once. Things unlike anything Steven could have ever imagined.