Future Winds (23 page)

Blinking his eyesight back into functionality, he could hear Scorpio’s systems coming back online as the drone flickered to life.

“Aries and Tyler,” he said in awe. “You journeyed into the pits of hell to save me.”

“You may very well be correct there old friend,” Aries said looking down at the floor below.

Tyler peaked over the ledge to see thousands of candles lighting the room below them. In the center was a pentagram painted in red. Each corner of the star had the severed limbs of a young boy staked into the ground: being his arms, legs, and head.

A few minutes passed as Tyler was paralyzed in a memorization of total shock and awe. Then five humanoid-like beings entered the room, forcing Tyler to react. He dipped low behind large rocks and watched the five humanoids wearing black robes. They carried skull chalices bearing their beverage of choice, blood. Taking a seat at each corner of the star, they sipped their drinks and kneeled in their designated corner to begin the bizarre ritual.

A sixth individual, this one wearing a stretched out leather mask made of another man’s skin, entered into the candle lit room from where he lingered in the shadows. He walked around the circle breaking off chunks of a sharp purple cacti and handed the portions off to the five participants. He gave each of the creature’s a kiss on the forehead. Then he consumed what was left of the final piece which was much larger than the rest of the other portions he had handed out. He too drank from his own chalice before kneeling in the center of the pentagram atop a pile of the boy’s organs.

Then the central leader began chanting in a foreign language that was harsh and coarse in tone. He ripped away his hood and lowered his mask of flesh revealing a grotesque face with many open wounds. As he chanted louder and louder, his peers began to join in the hectic screams of chaos.

“
Akudimatre Lakistivera Nahamadikinous, Akudimatre Lakistivera Nahamadikinous
,” they collectively repeated over and over, each time louder than the one before until one by one they fell back and hit the dirt seemingly unconscious. They were not dead, minute twitches and convulsions confirmed this to be true, but they also were not professedly there. After each follower in their respective corner fell back into their trance, the leader in the center rose to his feet, now screaming violently. Echoes of madness sliced through the room and Tyler felt as though he were being physically sapped of all of his energy in listening.

“
Akudimatre Lakistivera Nahamadikinous
!” the leader screamed before falling back onto the dirt. Aside from random twitches, he too was mostly unconscious now. They were in some type of trance or hallucination.

“What the hell is going on, Aries?” Tyler asked, terrified in witnessing the horrific ritual.

“They are astral projecting their souls into another dimension. Essentially, one that is within our own but so physically far away, that sidestepping reality with a celestial portal is an instant means of transportation,” Scorpio answered.

Tyler stood silent, trying to understand in his own head what exactly that meant before asking for it all in layman's terms.
They are projecting themselves into another universe via walking through dimensions?
That is perhaps the craziest thing I have ever heard!

“Is it so hard to believe?” Aries asked in reading Tyler's thoughts. “Do we not do something similar in you working through me via wireless telepathy?”

She was right, but this ritual lacked any technological grounds to be similar to what humans had achieved and yet was well beyond the bounds of reality in what human beings lived within. It was both simplistic and complex at the same time and something Tyler was not only terrified of but interested in understanding.

“Where have they gone?” he asked.

“There exists a race of celestial beings who live in pure nirvana. A high state of transcendence and freedom. They wish to visit them,” Scorpio continued.

“Like Buddhist?”

“Essentially. If you must relate them to something comprehensible in human history, you may substantially relate them to the ancient human religion Buddhism. Though they hold no link, past, or presently to humanity from what I can tell. They are in a sinless, desire less estate of existence. At least this is what I have gathered from listening to and translating the conversations of the creatures that dwell in these lands.”

“Why are they visiting them?”

“I am unsure. All I know is that while these demons have been projecting themselves across the universe for eons, they could not achieve communication with the Shik’ar without the sacrifice of a pure and innocent being who also lived presently within this dimension as a virgin. There was some form of temporal barrier that prevented them from accessing the holy race and the virgin sacrifice was the key.”

“So the pieces of flesh and limbs found in the pentagram, they belonged to a human sacrifice?”

“They abducted many humans from the assault using the Vai-Zik, the race of bugs you fought the day I myself was captured but the assault provided no such virgin. So they sent out Abram who collected a specimen worthy of the sacrificial ritual.”

“Abram is alive?” Tyler questioned, wrinkling his face trying to piece it all together.

It all felt like too much to take in. This was pure madness ascending upon the reality of man. Tyler quickly began to feel sick to his stomach in anxiety and hurled over holding himself upright by the knees as he vomited into the dirt.

“What if we stopped them?” Tyler suggested, wiping sick away from around his lips and struggling to again catch his breath. He felt slightly better after heaving out some of his insides. “What if we
killed
them while they were gone, out of their bodies?”

“I do not know,” Scorpio admitted. “I am no expert on their means of astral projection, but as for killing these beings, I believe they hold the power to resurrect each other, as well as reincarnate themselves within an empty vessel.”

“That’s,” Tyler clamored then paused unsure of what exactly to say, “Terrifying.”

“No, for them, this way of life and existence is the norm,” Scorpio added.

“How do you know this, if you were unconscious?”

“I was aware of my surroundings and fully functional to a degree. Just sapped of my power core. I was in a motionless state stuck in power saving mode while my emergency energy reservoir slowly ticked the remaining seconds of my life away. My time was spent listening to their conversations and evaluating their language. I believe I have their entire vocabulary mapped out, or at least close to.”

Tyler cautiously made his way down to the pentagram. The face of the boy who was sacrificed looked to be very young, perhaps in his early teens.

How sad
, he thought.
I bet they tore him to pieces while he was still alive.

Moving onto the beings who had left their bodies vacant for the time being, Tyler felt horrified in looking at their appearance up close. As if the entrails of a human sacrifice sprawled across the ground were somehow a walk in the park in comparison. Tyler felt it difficult to maintain a gaze upon them for too long.

How can one feel excruciating pain in the literal sense from simply looking at something?

Tyler then removed his belt of grenades and began stripping the string from it. Tying the threads together in layers to strengthen them into one solid cord, he then attached the string to each of his five grenades release pins. He positioned them so that a good pull to the left would release all five pins, then he jammed each of the explosives into the mouths of every outlying member of the ritual.

“Tyler, what you are doing is useless. All you will do is upset them and then they will seek another human sacrifice to restart their ritual. That is to say, if killing off their bodies actually interrupted what it is that they are even doing,” Scorpio warned.

Ignoring the bot, Tyler climbed up behind the rock they all initially hid behind, took cover and yanked on the line. Connected by the improvised cord, the pins silently drifted through the air towards him and fell to the ground clinking against one another.

“You might wanna get down,” he said covering his head with his arms as he kneeled behind the wall of stone.

Jason slowed down his hellcat as he approached the row of carriers behind the city under construction, Liberty.

Darkness began its creep over the land as a storm made its way through the outskirts of the city. Nature cared not for imaginary borders. These were but lines drawn in the sand by man. Nor did she take interest in the ongoing conflict against the two species pit against each other in war below. She had a song to sing and had arrived to sing it as thick, red lightning violently struck down upon Flare.

The intense breaks and crackles in the air forced Jason’s heart to skip a beat. He could pilot through just about any circumstance or scenario, but weaving about a storm such as this was suicide in and of itself.

Jagged lumps of stone aflame followed suite in freefall from the sky. They almost had a gentle appearance as they slowly fell, until making impact when they would all but disintegrate anything foolish enough to be standing below.

A cluster of construction mechs sat idle seconds before being rained down upon from the fires above. Quickly the metal vehicles were nothing more than scattered bits of broken ingot aflame in the dirt.

Pylons, constructed with the purpose of defense against the dangerous storms, were in place. But only a handful of the units erected their energy shielding that absorbed the balls of fire. Most of the structures were unmanned in the chaos against the insects below and the only shields online were the ones linked into automated computer systems.

The insects pushed their attack up against the carriers as the raging firestorm lingered in behind them. The storm pressed into the city, destroying structures and works zones with ease. It laid claim over the sea of dead bodies that were littered everywhere in puddles and pools of blood.

Jason spotted a couple hundred people pounding against different entrances of the front most carrier, New Horizon. Her doors were sealed shut, leaving what was left of the survivors outside to face the onslaught. These men and women climbed atop of piles of dead bodies, trying to escape from the bugs that hunted them with success. Jason shifted his aircraft’s wings into a position to allow himself to swoop down close to the ground. Halting his speed to be nothing more than a light drift, he began casting his weapons against a large crowd of insects and quickly the hordes were being fractured into separate piles of broken remains.

Jason spotted a large stone like creature fighting alongside the roaches that captured and smeared fleeing humans against the ground with such ease, that it was as if he were finger painting using the corpses as oils to his canvas.

Placing aim at the golem, who paid him no mind, Jason released a volley of firepower into the target. A plume of dust and smoke shot up into the air, and while clearing, Jason could make out the silhouette of the creature as it climbed to its feet still alive.

Now with its gaze upon Jason and his ship, the insects came to the defense of the stone golem, attempting to leap towards him. Jason reacted quickly to punch the aircraft's weapons systems into a state of overdrive and again he released an assault, this one much more powerful in its potency. When the smoke cleared, the creature of stone and the couple dozen insects that defended him were gone, vaporized into powder and dust.

Most of the insects were scattering and retreating as the fierce storm crept in closer, devouring everything left before it. The bugs that stayed in the fight looked to Jason for killing what was likely their commander, and well over a hundred took flight up towards the man in his aircraft.

Pulling back, Jason sniped countless from the sky, but there were too many approaching from separate angles, and very quickly he found himself flying blind as his hellcat was encased by insects who pounded and scratched at the hull of the ship.

The added weight compiling against him put the hellcat into a spin. He lost all control as he helplessly watched the insects smash their faces against the glass hissing and screaming at him with desires to disassemble the very fabric of his being. The sounds of more pelting against the craft as they accumulated on top was like that of raindrops being cast down from a hurricane.

The ship pitched backwards and soon the interior went completely dark as Jason watched faint trickles of light creep through clumps of bugs encasing the ship in their attack. The light hit his face in a strobe like fashion, which suggest the speed in which the aircraft twisted about through the air.

Closing his eyes, he began to silently pray. Apologizing to a higher power he never really believed in for the deaths of his comrades in his negligence. For living a life where acquiring and maintaining a legitimate friend was not something he had ever achieved. For never showing affection or building any sort of valuable relationship with another, and never relaying compassion for anyone other than himself. He had lived a life of self-narcissism and as the orbs of rock and fire began tearing through the insects that entrapped him, so too did they split open his ship, tearing through his body like a sharp knife through soft butter.

***

Hordes of Vai-Zik spilled through the holes they burned into the ship to gain entrance. Only this time, instead of entering with ease to face a healthy collection of unarmed sacks of meat and bone, they now exited the vessel to face a crowd of the humans armed and ready to fight.

Funneling through the holes, the Vai-Zik poured directly into the line of gunfire. Bodies accumulated high and in little to no time, the exits were fully blocked with the dead. A group of hunters dug through the piles of their dead brothers and sisters that clogged the way out. Even when one could manage to squeeze through, the sound of gunfire would suggest they made it no further, and only served to add another tally to the pile of dead.

They were completely trapped on the inside and teams began to split off in panic to find another way out.

“No!” Kio-Kai shouted, “Wait!”

But nothing could calm the frenzied swarm that dispersed into all directions.

“Grinders! To the wall. Burn through!” A young officer ordered of his unit.

They quickly obliged. At a panicked rate they spewed acid onto the wall faster and faster until sunlight began to poke its way into the ship. The hope of escape was short lived when the humans tossed their explosives in through the freshly cut windows.

A blast sent Kio-Kai to the ground. With his ears ringing, he struggled to regain his footing by trying to stand upright once more. The couple dozen units that were trying to break through the wall were now nothing but puddles of liquid on the floor. The humans were now firing their weapons in through the cracks and Kio-Kai backed out from the room of death.

One of the projectiles struck him through the belly. His heart was racing all too fast to allow his mind to stop and evaluate the wound.
How fast the tides of battle have turned,
he thought while watching his comrades drop at a radical rate. There was no escape. They were trapped on all fronts. Those that retreated into the hallways were gunned down and those that stayed shared the same gruesome fate.

A hunter, missing the lower half of his torso, crawled up against the wall, trying to claw his way out, helplessly getting nowhere while he bled out and slumped back down to the ground-- embracing death's cold advance on his existence.

This was never even a battle we were supposed to win,
Kio-Kai cynically reflected.
It was merely a distraction so that we might score something for the hand that feeds.

It was then, in this moment that Kio-Kai realized, the overlords were using the Vai-Zik to carry out their own will. This conflict was not a form of vengeance, it was perpetual war, a means of keeping tensions high, and order in place. United against a common foe, the Vai-Zik would have no time to reflect on their masters who worked queens like puppets via invisible strings.

Two more projectiles sliced with ease through his right leg, forcing him to pitch forward and lose his balance, falling to his knees. Struggling to stand, another projectile entered in through his belly, just inches away from the first. He wanted to fall back down and cry himself into the sleep of death. Perhaps in closing his eyes before meeting with the agent assigned his passage into the afterlife, he might see his loved ones one last time.

Just as all hope seemed lost, and his death an imminent fate to be shared with the countless already ahead of him on the journey laying lifeless on the ground, screams could be heard that were not of the Vai-Zik forces. It was the humans outside the vessel that attacked, keeping the Vai-Zik trapped within. Something was killing them and scaring them off.

The steady sound of rain began its heavy thumping against the structure's exterior and Kio-Kai was quick to distinguish the sound of rain from that of fire.

Inching towards one of the holes, he could see the humans scattering as most were engulfed by the spheres of rock and fire that pelted the ground from the heavens.

Squeezing through one of the holes, he looked up to the sky that was dark as night in the afternoon of day as fire and lightning blasted away at everything in eye sight. The world around him was engulfed in flame as he crawled towards one of the pits his army had arrived through.

Rolling forward, he fell into the tunnel, hitting bits of rock in his free fall down before thudding to the cold ground and crawling forward into the safety of the cavern.

***

“What are you still doing in here, girl?” a cold voice said cutting through the room as Aisha sat glued to the feeds before her of the chaos in the outside world.

Twitching in surprise, she jolted around to face the intruder. Her eyes were greeted with the menacing stare that belonged to a councilman whose name she did not remember. It was the leader of the group in the trial against Natalia. He was followed into the room by a little over a dozen other members of Citizens United.

“Get out,” he barked at her, his eyes piercing through her very soul. “And you, robot,” he said turning to Linus. “Get that corpse out of here,” he instructed, pointing over to Natalia’s decapitated body still on the cold floor.

Jumping out of the seat, Aisha made for the door, but in approaching the exit she stopped to turn and face the collection of elitists. They were finding seats around the table while bickering amongst each other and not paying Aisha any mind.

Linus had to wait for them to get out of his way before he could retrieve Natalia’s body. Two women even trampled the lifeless corpse, caking the heels of their shoes in blood so that they might quickly find a seat around the table.

Aisha engaged her stealth cloak and slowly observed the room from left to right. No one noticed and quietly she worked towards a corner of the room where she could lay low to listen in on the convention about to take place.

The lead councilman turned too late to catch her. Assuming she had left, he followed Linus to the door watching him drag Natalia’s corpse out. After the hydraulic door sealed behind the drone, the man punched in an override code which locked the exit from within.

“Everyone sit down and be quiet,” he yelled to the other council members who were still clucking about like a brood of hens.

“What of the fire?” a younger man squealed. “It’s raining down onto the ship!”

“This thing was made to withstand warping across the galaxy. A few fire pebbles are not going to penetrate her hull,” another man mocked with a laugh.

Taking the commander's seat at the head of the table, the lead councilman rolled his neck while beaming his gaze down before himself to type commands into the table’s computer software.

Aisha’s heart began to ache as a result of the power drain cast upon her by keeping her stealth cloak engaged. Rubbing her chest, she looked for something to take cover behind so that she might disengage it. Spotting a computer data tower in the far corner of the room, she scurried over and knelt behind the piece of machinery before returning herself to a state of one hundred percent visibility.

Sticking her face above the tower she hid behind, she watched as the large glass panel at the front of the room materialized into the hologram of President Walker sitting beside a bottle of scotch with a full glass in his hand.

“Well, if it isn’t the courageous leader of Citizens United, Miles Ivanok,” the president groaned upon seeing the leader of the council before him. “Tell me Miles, do you ring me to plead for help in dealing with the mess you find yourself in?” he questioned as he swirled his glass and took a drink.

“No, no, President Walker,” Miles laughed out with a sick smile. “The fight outside is actually coming to a close. Seems as though the environment of our new found home was gracious enough to cleanse us of the wicked that came knocking at our door.”

“Well Miles, it should go without saying that I have suspended travel to Flare,” he said, throwing back what was left in his glass down his throat before continuing, “No more carriers will be warped in until the city provides a reputable level of security. As you executed the best woman for the job, I do not foresee Flare being a viable option for our future any time soon.”