Apex (14 page)

A line of bright light shot past him that halted him in his tracks. He recognized it as the laser fire the aliens used before he
’d sent them into space. But could any of them have survived what he did to them? He doubted it.

And when he finally saw where the shot had come from, he knew he was dealing with something altogether different.

A couple hundred feet ahead of him stood a metallic golden colored robot.

It started to run at him and then it left the ground and flew towards him at lightning speed. Its gun had a serrated edge and Jack instantly recognized it for what it was. It doubled as a sort of sword.

The robot was upon him before he could react. He flinched as it brought its gun-sword through his midsection at an angle. The sword went through, so that meant his super tough flesh was no match for the strength of the robot or the might of its sword.

He waited for the pain to reach him and he wondered what it would be like to die
from such a horrific wound. His only solace was that he’d probably bleed out before he hit the ground.

But nothing happened. When he noticed the scenery flicker before his eyes, he knew he’d done it again. He had subconsciously phased in and out to avoid being sliced.

He wheeled around on the robot. It still had its back to him, sure of its victory.

Jack teleported half of it into the sky and watched the lower half fall over. Fluid, dark and slick, gushed out of the lower half of the robot. Jack looked up in time to see the upper half fall towards him, and
he was able to get out of the way at the last second.

It fell with a sickening squelchy thud. It twitched and then it went off-line.

But Jack was starting to have his doubts about it being a robot at all. He felt around inside the open cavity and when his hand came out with warm entrails, he knew this was a living creature in a mechanized suit of some kind.

He found a latch and unhinged the faceplate. Inside was the mangled face of an alien.

Jack stood up and stumbled backwards. He reached down and wiped his hand on the grass to get the alien gore off of it.

He was lucky he’d seen the attack coming. He guessed that he’d be dead right now had his powers not intervened
on his behalf. He was pleased to find that he wasn’t getting faint because he had a feeling there were more mechanized aliens in town and he’d need to be on his A-game if he was to survive.

But mere survival wasn’t all he had on his mind. These bastards killed his mother. He would have his revenge on as many of them as possible before they killed him. If he could take them on one by one, he’d have a chance. If they ganged up on him, especially in those super fast robo-suits, he was screwed.

He felt that low rumble of Earth beneath his feet again so he left his handiwork behind and took off at a trot.

Stampede

Scott yelled, “Run,” but all that did was draw the attention of the big ugly dinosaur-like monsters.

As soon as the first one charged them, the others followed closely behind. But they weren’t just following the leader; they were trying to beat it to the prey. And there was a seemingly endless supply of the things.

Blood trickled down Scott’s cheek when he erected an invisible force field twenty feet ahead of him. The first beast hit it at a frightening speed. It’s head made an audible cracking sound and twisted to the side. Scott almost screamed out of pure elation when it fell on its belly and twitched. But it recovered before its fellow beasts caught up to it and it started to gnaw on the transparent wall. Scott felt the gnawing as though it was coming from within his own marrow. Or maybe he was just imagining it.

Another beast reached the wall and rammed it. But this one didn’t bounce off with a head full of stars; this one pushed and pushed and eventually fell through the barrier.

The gnawer’s mouth clamped down on thin air and they both looked around wildly, trying to figure out what happened to the wall.

Their attention spans were short though, and they soon remembered why they were charging in the first place. Three approaching beasts barreled right into the backs of the confused two in the lead and they all tumbled together. Scott might have laughed at the absurdity of it all under a different circumstance.

Just as they thought things couldn’t get any worse, more of the monsters joined the stampede. It was impossible to see anything beyond the wall of alien monsters now. All the buildings were blocked in the distance, and the sky was blotted out from all of the kicked-up dust.

They knew with certainty that they were doomed when the robots returned, hovering over the scene like harbingers of death, fifty feet above them all.

But then Scott had an epiphany. He remembered the sight of these same troops when they’d landed. They looked to be afraid. They’d brought these monsters with them, but they were terrified of them. And what had they done to ensure their own safety: They’d taken to the sky.

He only had a moment to act before the roiling stampede picked up speed once again.

He said to Melanie, “We need to get into the air. Those robots are safe up there; we will be too.”

“But then the robots will kill us,” she said breathlessly, her eyes out of focus, her voice soft and distant.

“Just do it. You take those people over there,” he pointed at a group that equaled about half of the bar crowd, “and I’ll take the rest.”

“I don’t know if I can do that, Scott. I don’t know if you can either. You’ve never tried to use your power to levitate before.”

That wasn’t true. He had tried to use his force field to carry himself into the air, and he’d failed miserably. But there weren’t any other options.

“We have to try or we’ll die here in less than a minute.”

“What about the kids in the basement?”

“Shit.” He wanted nothing more than to flee, but he was no coward. He wasn’t about to get himself to safety, only to leave a bunch of kids behind, defenseless.

“Do we hav
e time to get them out here?”

Melanie didn’t have to answer that because the stampede was now upon them.
The time to act had passed.

The last thing any of them saw before the wall of monsters blotted out the sun, was Molly rushing at the beasts like a crazy person with her fists raised and rage on her face.

Battle 

Jack didn’t willingly teleport, but he did it anyway. What he saw when he reappeared made his brain do somersaults. It made no sense. Had he teleported to hell, or through time?

A vast wall of
hideous dinosaurs was bearing down on him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Melanie’s compact figure facing the same formidable wall of terror. She was trembling and crying. There was no way this was still present day Earth. But stranger things had happened lately.

Heat seared his skin and he knew Dan was trying in vain to stop the rushing beasts with his flames. He saw an entire leg simply fall away from one of the monsters; that had to have been Scott’s doing.

Then he saw Molly’s body tumble end over end beneath the huge feet of the stampede like a rag doll. She was clearly dead
; crushed to death beneath the monsters.

This was it. This was the end.

Then he saw Melanie again, falling to her knees, sobbing as death rushed her.

The sight of her tears brought forth something foreign in him.
His powers took on a frightening, uncontrollable quality.

He screamed, “Run! Everyone, run. Now!”

Scott turned and saw him for the first time. Blood streamed down Scott’s cheeks, but even through the grotesque mask of his own blood, Jack could see a glimmer of hope on Scott’s face at the sight of his friend.

He heard a loud sob mixed with joy, a sound he’d never heard in his entire life
, come from Melanie when she saw him too. Her powerful emotions were so diametrically opposed that they almost cancelled each other out.

She got to her feet and every living person on the street started to float into the air, with her in the lead. Her hands swelled and turned red but she was doing it, and just in time. Jack’s powers couldn’t be held back a moment longer.

She yelled down at him, “There are kids in the basement of the bar. You need to protect them.”

Molly’s dead body was the last thing Jack saw before his vision went black.
He heard his mom’s voice calling out for him, distant and muffled. That could mean only one thing; he was going to join her in death. His powers would rip him apart, and anyone or anything near him too. But what about the kids in the basement? He had to keep them safe. He would welcome death greedily if only he could find it within himself to be so selfish.

He felt a type of euphoria that was all hatred and violence.

His vision came crashing back before his body wilted. The stampede was just a couple of feet from him now. His powers had peaked and he’d managed to stay conscious. He didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. But the powers still demanded a swift and vicious release so he gave in to them.

The closest two beasts blew apart, into fine bursts of particles. He knew in his heart that he’d somehow teleported their atoms apart. Just like before, he didn’t know how he’d done it, and he didn’t dwell on it because he was in imminent danger from the rest of the stampede.

Luckily the dusty remains of his two victims created a cloud. He thought he’d be able to lose the stampede in their blindness, but when three of them emerged through the gray dust, he saw for the first time, that none of them had any eyes. They weren’t blinded because they were already blind. So it afforded him no reprieve. They could still sense him somehow.

T
hen those three lead monsters vanished like a light being turned off. He wasn’t sure where he’d sent them, but he imagined it was far beneath the Earth’s crust.

The ground still rumbled from over a dozen approaching beasts.

A shaft of light hit him on the hand. It didn’t go through him but the pain from the burn stunned him. He looked to the source of it in time to see several floating robots discharging their weapons at him. He also saw several more attacking his floating friends. That solidified his resolve. He had to make quick work of the stampede if he stood any chance of killing the armored aliens before they killed his friends.

He looked back to the dust cloud but it was being pierced by
many oversized reptilian heads.

Jack concentrated despite the absurd distractions. He blinked and a noise that resembled thunder, only louder, came to him just as every giant beast disappeared from sight.

Report

Second in command, Fillo, reported the impossible. “The men insist that the anomaly is being caused by a human. He’s able to move matter with his mind instantaneously.”

“That’s impossible. He’s hiding the device on his body. Just kill him and take it from him.”

“He already dispatched with all of the Rancunts. The men are fighting him but from a safe distance.”

Angrily the commander said, “You’ve been telling me that these men are bloodthirsty maniacs. You’ve been trying to get me to cut them loose and let them have some fun. And now that I’ve done just that, you’re telling me they’re not up to the challenge?”

“They’re up against something they don’t understand. The Rancunts are all gone and their weapons only seem to wound the human.”

C
ommander Davok scratched his chin. He’d been waiting for the right moment to show his uppity second in command just what he was made of.

He said, “So his
body is impervious to other matter? But antimatter will negate his strength. It’ll vaporize every cell in his body.”

Fillo
wrinkled his brow. “It’ll do more than that. It’s not even equipped to fire in atmosphere. It’ll blow the operator’s hands clean off before vaporizing everything around.”

“Then send a cadet and don’t tell him what he’s firing.”

“The cadets are here to witness the action, not to participate.”

“Every one of them knows how to fire a weapon. That’s all we need.”

“Then I’ll do it.”

“No you won’t. You just said it was dangerous. I’m not putting you at risk.”

Second in command, Fillo, took a deep breath and took the moment to look at the situation objectively. His commander had a way of jumping in with both feet that upset him. But he also had an infectious energy that sometimes tricked him into agreeing with whatever harebrained plan he came up with. Antimatter was a ludicrous solution to a problem they didn’t even understand.

He said firmly, “This is a stupid idea. We need to notify command of the situation and fall back.”

“You don’t give the orders around here. Pick a cadet and weaponize the antimatter. That will be all.”

“Yes sir.”

The first thing Fillo did before following his commander’s orders was to notify command of their predicament, covertly of course. Unfortunately, the message would take years to get to its destination, so if he hoped for orders to take control of the ship, they wouldn’t come in time.