Booming thunder and pouring rain rocked the L.A. night like a hurricane. White lightning flashed across the black sky, illuminating the dark clouds rolling by. Below the rolling heavens soared long, flowing streams of light that were hovercars in flight, below which sparkled the kaleidoscope of colors that was the wicked city spread out in a brilliant canvas of colors. General Logan stared out his window, watching the storm pass in a rush, leaving rainbows glowing in the mist. Frowning in the gloom, he decided to leave the room.
He strode down the corridor, entering his office and reclining in his chair, activating his personal log recorder.
"General's log, date 12-19-2103. Today marks the thirty-year anniversary of the end of the nuclear holocaust. What history termed a victory for the U.S. I don't see that as winning. In madness, like nuclear war, there is no winning, only degrees of losing. But we came out lucky compared to China. If it hadn't been for the last minute perfection of our laser satellites that shot down the majority of their missiles, we'd be history. Ironically, today also marks the two-month anniversary of the elimination of all our satellites in space by the new technological superior superpower, Congo, Africa. For any future soldiers puzzled by the specifics of what history recently termed the 'Star War,' I'll explain a bit.
"Sixty days ago, a network of new satellites abruptly appeared in space out of nowhere, as if some titan was stringing up Christmas lights. These satellites, termed the 'Star Sentinels,' have a glowing photosphere exterior, beneath which is a broad mantle of turbulent material with immense convective cells tangled with ropes of magnetic flux, the huge cells swimming about like whales in a sea of plasma gas. Flux tubes running from the fusing core fire photon bursts powerful enough to punch holes through a planet and accurate enough to pick off any amount of airborne ships and missiles. The satellites are, in essence, tiny replicas of our own sun, and our laser satellites' firepower had no effect on the Sentinels. Our entire space program in orbit was wiped out, along with all other nations, so Congo controls the stars.
"Regarding the appearance of the Sentinels, we theorize from spy reports rather than sensor data that a cloaked ship was responsible for stringing out the Sentinels. But the ship left no ionization trail or warp stream, no anomalies at all. Our own cloaking technology is based on hologram shielding with light bending, sensor deflecting construction which still leaves some trail to sensors, but whatever did this has us greatly outmatched in technology. Congo claimed responsibility and made demands of a single world government under their dictatorship control.
"Naturally, we stalled them and allied ourselves with Russia, sending in swarms of covert ground forces which attempted infiltration of the enemy's Edoki Forest and ended up slaughtered. The Ndoki's outer reaches are nearly impenetrable—swampy, thorny jungle. The inner region is still a primeval place, but has cellular chemical factories, biological computing and communication centers, solar energy receptors and fusion generators, genetic labs, military and civilian structures and machinery. It's an ancient Eden imposed upon by modern man. Even a decade ago it remained untouched by technology. Now it's enveloped in mass bio-engineered vegetation that secretes a deadly, fatal bacteria symbiont of extra-terrestrial origin. The bacteria quickly penetrates our protective suits and exo-armor, and even eats up droids' positronic processors, given time. It digests foreign substances like an acid.
"Our best biochemical, biological and agricultural experts have no solution. Defoliants and chemical toxins are harmless to the vegetation's versatile metabolism that transforms them to food faster than agricultural warfare invents new molecules.
Biological weaponry is mutated or domesticated. Arson attempts are smothered by carbon dioxide output or a more sophisticated gaseous fire retardant excreted by the plants when self-oxidizing fuels are used. It even isolated and diluted isotope-laden molecules in laced nutrients pumping them out. The DNA is guarded by enzymes that destroy it at the first bit of cellular disruption, and we haven't figured the enzymes out either. It also releases a bio-chemical alarm when intruders enter the region. The natives are sprayed with long-term retro-virus bacteria that neutralize the fatal bacteria, but we haven't been able to steal a sample or analyze and synthesize by autopsy of native bodies. We can't get in the region by land, air or water. Even our recent desperate attempts to smuggle nuclear bombs near the region were thwarted.
"We believe these revolutionary leaps in technology are gifts from an alien entity claiming to be the resurrected Allah of the Moslems. Spies in the region report this messiah to be a black Christ that can morph into an incandescent angel, and his ship is an immense sphere of light. He preaches to the masses, and his message meshes with the view of the more radical Moslems—that being that all other races are inferior meant for servitude or extermination. He claims millennia ago he gave the white man power of the planet and now that things have gone to hell, he's returned to give the black Moslems power. Mixed races in the region are given the choice of slavery or death, and we've managed to recruit a few spies in this fold. Many locals have attempted assassination of the entity during its sermons, and the weaponry had no effect on him.
"Through analysis of a holoscan done by one spy, we've learned some disturbing facts. The alien is a carbon-based life form of human physiology enveloped in an invisible force-field consisting of electromagnetic and hypersonic waves of ultra-high amplitude heterodyned. Also, the scans revealed the alien's DNA matched that of the samples in the shroud of Turin, where Christ's body was laid in death and on the crucifixion spikes. So, either he's the same Christ crucified millennia ago, or a genetically engineered clone. This raises many controversial questions amongst the atheist and religious military personnel, and many scoff at the natives being duped by a false deity, but since most Americans still worship Christ, I say we shouldn't throw stones in glass houses. It's my belief this alien represents a highly advanced species that perhaps sought to steer mankind down a chosen path millennia ago and is angry with the results, so he's back to change the power order of the planet for a new age.
"We've learned in six days the messiah will commence a satellite siege on all superpower nations that don't comply with Congo's oppressive single world government demands. We've also learned where and when the messiah's next sermon will be. We've perfected a tiny neutrino-atom that we believe will blast apart, or at least initiate searing internal heat in, the alien's force field, pushing him out, open to an assassin's shot. I selected Nemesis for our assassin.
"Nemesis is a genetically engineered Neanderthal, the sole survivor of a score of them created from DNA procured from deceased specimens excavated from an arctic glacier. The flaw with the others was accelerated cell decomposition. Later perfected Nano technological nanobots programmed selected cells in him not to die with a chemical signal, while letting the cells that must die to guard against uncontrolled growth—tumors, etc.—to die. We achieved immortality with him. In engineering Nemesis, we knew we had the DNA of a primitive entity physically superior to Homo sapiens in muscle and bone strength, with animal-like heightened senses but diminished intelligence. His greatest asset to us is the unique brain we created, adding dietary and chemical additives, and nanobots that secreted the cytokines to unlock the blood-brain barrier and cellular adhesion molecules that formed quasi-synapses with neurons. We rendered his neurons embryonic, so they were less defined, like a fetal brain, moving about, forming new synapses, everything part of a tight feedback loop the mutant neurons controlled by molecule secretion, which also rewires nearby synapses. It's our greatest success in viral weapons rewiring parts of the brain. It's phenomenally faster than the normal way neurons encode behavior and memories. Electromagnetic data beams generated with hologram imagery of athletic and military skills were pumped into his fertile mind, and the mutant motor neurons allowed him to manipulate his central nervous system. I watched him surpass an Olympic gymnast's and karate champion's skills in weeks and move on to swiftly surpass his instructors in the Green Beret, Navy seals, fighter pilots and more. By simply watching complex physical actions, he could manipulate his central nervous system to duplicate them. In two years of life he's gone from a babbling baby into a five-foot-eight-inch, 210-pound marvel of nature with extraordinary agility and superhuman strength.
"We beefed up his nearly impervious immunity system, generating thousands of killer T-cell clones and puncturing bones, injecting marrow stem cells with retrovirus that failed on Homo sapiens supersoldiers. The vegetation emitted no bio-chemical signal when exposed to him, and seems to have an organic intelligence regarding him as just another animal that prowls the region, so he can withstand the bacteria about 100 hours before adverse effects occur.
"He's gone in to shoot the messiah during his next sermon. Provided Nemesis actually defies all odds and makes the hit, we have to hope that the computers monitoring the Star Sentinels are on board the alien ship, and that there's no other crew aboard, and the computers need final approval to fire on airborne detected threats, and that we can penetrate the shields with an air drop. That's a lot of ifs, but we're desperate. For all our sake, let's hope this succeeds."
Nemesis exerted his thews in a surge of strength that snapped the handcuffs' chain link. Catching his captors by surprise, he delivered a karate chop across the throat of one soldier and crushed the skull of the second with a flying side kick. Landing lightly, he slapped away the knife his final foe thrust at him and broke the burly fellow's neck with a quick chokehold. Calmly he snatched up a dagger in the dirt, and stun club, irritated his captors carried no harder weaponry. The sensors' scanner, monitoring the hall, caught the sudden action and fired a bright white stun beam at him which he dodged, hurling the club, which shattered the system in a shower of sparks. Footsteps pounding down the winding dark corridor behind him alerted him of onrushing guards, likely armed with blasters. He fled through the underground labyrinth, eventually stopping to hear a steel door slam shut behind him with an ominous boom of doom and the mocking laughter of sadistic soldiers. He soon understood why.
Stalking through the stygian gloom using his phenomenal night vision enhanced by biochip implants that saw into the infrared light spectrum, he encountered grisly carnage in a stinking hell of half-buried rotting human body parts and skeletons split open, the marrow and bones gnawed on. Frowning at the pungent stench of rotted flesh, he froze, sensing danger. Obviously something big and carnivorous in the catacombs liked the rancid human flesh of prisoners. He smelled his foe despite the distracting odors; his highly sensitized olfactory brain pathways worked as a filter to identify the dangerous scent tickling his nasal membrane receptors. The predator's pheromones were distinct, and rapidly converged on his position.
Something huge shuffled in the darkness, abruptly appearing around a corner. The mutant Silverback gorilla approaching him towered fully seven feet tall, even shuffling about on all fours. The dark fur covering its gargantuan frame stank of urine and feces, and the long ivory fangs seemed to glow in the gloom. Nemesis froze, knowing his own scent to be near indistinguishable from the symbionts in his sweat glands digesting all scent molecules. The pet, genetically engineered gorilla, mutated from vegetarian to carnivore, spotted him and beat its breast in a staccato beat challenge, roaring ferociously to freeze him with fear before charging in, scuttling forward at a phenomenally fast rate.
Bracing himself, Nemesis selected his stab sight and pounced, piercing the beast's breast with the dagger that sank to the hilt in the mighty heart. Black gore spurted in his face and he was hefted high in the grip of an earthquake that wrenched his body to the breaking point, tumbling him on the floor, smothering him in its crushing embrace, the saliva-soaked fangs chomping hungrily for his face held back by the Neanderthal's braced arms that were swiftly bent in. Abruptly, the beast's body shuddered, the teeth snapping shut millimeters from the man's nose.
He broke free and rose victorious, looking down at the predator that uttered a few harsh breaths before dying. He stood on wide-braced legs, panting, with his torso aching in agony. His phenomenally strong muscle and bone structure had allowed him to survive the brief manhandling that would have torn a homo sapiens in twain.
Pushing his protesting body into action, he dogged the ape's back trail, following its lingering scent and hot footprints. Minutes later his delicate nostrils detected foliage, and he followed the beacon out into the night in what was a large outdoor rec area for the ape. He slipped through the brush like a ghost to spy on the surroundings beyond the fifteen-foot-high electrical fence.
A pair of cannon trenches manned by four men each lay on the rec-yard exterior near a high stone wall lined with a couple of gun towers, beyond which a hovercraft patrolled the perimeter in a steady circle. He spent some minutes in thought and commenced using his knife's serrated side to saw through a slim sapling that felt firm but flexible.
His luck on the mission thus far had been poor. His spy contact had been discovered and tortured for information. The ambush set for him he'd sensed and evaded, but he had the bad luck to cross a clearing where a gunship swooped down, stunning him with a barrage of bolts. Had he been able to take weaponry along, he'd have been able to shoot the ship down, but since the vegetation detected foreign objects, he'd had to go in buck naked.
Captured, he made no attempt to fool his foes. Such action would only delay him too long and spell failure for the mission. So he confessed he was the American assassin they sought and answered all their questions truthfully, which was verified by their mind probe and lie detectors. Satisfied at his cooperation, they didn't bother to torture him other than a superficial beating before feeding him to the ape.
Finishing his improvised pole for vaulting, he made his move. Like an Olympic pole vaulter, he sprinted at the fence. Accustomed to delivering kicks twelve feet high through his karate expertise, it was an easy hurdle for him. Landing catlike on all fours near his foes he tore into them like a tornado. The knife flared to life in his hand, licking out in savage swipes that slit windpipes. He slew several in seconds, but his fourth foe spun, leveling a gun. Nemesis kicked the barrel aside before plunging his blade in entrails, hefting his foe high before dashing him down broken and dying.
He spun the cannon on its tripod, unleashing a bombardment of blue bolts that mowed the men in the adjacent cannon trench down. He laced the heavens with fire, picking off the gunship, which burst into a fireball plunging to the earth in a fiery crash. Coolly he swept his line of fire across the fortress wall, peppering the gun towers, riddling the inhabitants even as a few began strafing his position. Finally, he directed a stream of beams into the wall, collapsing a section. Snatching up some weaponry from the slain soldiers, he fled for the opening. He was running full speed when the eight-foot-tall robot sentinel dropped from the sky by jet-back right in his path, leveling twin assault blasters burping blue fire. Running too fast to stop or dodge, he vaulted high above the droid's fire, his handgun erupting in a burst of beams that stitched the droid from chest to face, felling it. He sailed over it and leapt over the wall rubble, hurling a grenade that tossed a trio of soldiers high, bodies buffeted by the blast. A mutant hound pounced out of the smoke cloud about to take him down. His snap shot sheared its skull apart. Sidestepping the flying body he fled into the foliage.
Nimbly the Neanderthal slipped through the thorn bush, moving with instinctive ease as his ancestors had when they prowled the same region millennia ago. His flat feet carried him afloat over marshes that would have sucked other men down, and his elongated, ape-like hands allowed him to travel through the treetops like the Silverback gorillas of the region. The Ndoki Forest means Sorcerers' Forest in native lingo. The natives had believed it a place of evil for eons and none had ever lived in its boundaries. The outer reaches were marshes that sucked a man down like a live thing, and wall-like thornbrush ripped flesh like razor wire while swarms of stinging, biting insects ate a man alive. Trampling feet in the muck and ooze brought up swamp gases that stank like the bowels of hell and little sunlight penetrated the leafy treetops, veiling the forest in shadow, and the air radiated an eerie, ominous undertone that disturbed the soul.
In this undisturbed ecosystem, unchanged since the age of dinosaurs, the same vegetation that had existed millions of years ago still grew, and strange animals still undiscovered by man roamed. The millions of acres, representing the last truly virgin jungle on earth, had finally been developed less than a decade ago when the Muslims came, following signs sent by their alien Allah, who gifted them with the materials and knowledge to build. Even now, the majority of the Ndoki remained pristine—only now, genetically engineered predator animals and bio-engineered vegetation were mutating the ecosystem.
He spent several hours slipping through the jungle, following an internal instinctive map to the site of his second contact, unknown to the first agent. Waiting and watching, he paused to ponder and study his reflection in a puddle. The Neanderthal's infancy to adulthood had occurred in weeks, his aging stopped at age 26 by the nanobots' programming his cells' survival. In his short two years, he'd been more than the obedient automaton weapon the military wanted him to be. Most of his time was filled with a strict schedule of training and testing, learning skills and knowledge, but he'd managed to squeeze in the free time to learn surfing and sex with the beautiful babes on the beach. He'd felt ashamed of his hairy body and had all body and facial hair permanently removed, revealing his smooth, Indian bronze skin.
His body was enormously muscular, and facial features attractive in a rugged fashion, the high cheekbones and jawline almost brutal in their thickness and the eyes impossibly, ominously dark, and the once jet-black straight hair now a spiked, dyed blond for his own vanity. Despite all his acquired skills and knowledge, his mentality was still somewhat adolescent—obsession with sexy women, surfing, fine food and drink during free time—but entirely focused while on duty.
He spotted his contact stealthily stalking along, carrying a compound bow, her lean, muscled, waspish-waisted, long-legged, busty-bosomed frame adorned only in a tube top and G-string with a pack over her back. Alert emerald eyes darted about under long, dyed, fluffy, flaxen hair. He smiled, pleased with her exotic beauty. The cruel slave brand on her thigh spoke of her motivation in assisting America's assassination of the alien. Nemesis knew her to be a bitter escaped revolutionary intent on the overthrow of the new racist government oppressing her people.
Above her loomed an immense spider web from a mutant spider that escaped from a local genetics lab. A dark shadow suddenly enveloped her and she looked up in horror at the huge, hairy devil descending upon her on a silken strand. She dodged and bent her bow, losing a shaft that sped straight and true, sliding through the monster's body like a hot knife through butter. Clicking its mandibles, the spider still scuttled her way, intent on the tasty morsel she presented. Quickly she pincushioned the predator with two more arrows. It rolled in a ball, legs kicking. Nemesis lowered his gun, impressed at her performance, and stepped out, saying, "I want sex."
Caught off guard but recovering quickly, she responded, "I don't sleep with any man on the first date."
"That's okay. I'm willing to go out with you twice," he said.
Nodding and smiling at each other now that the code words were exchanged, she asked, "Something must have happened to the other agent, hey?"
"Ran into a few snags," the Neanderthal conceded. "Is the sermon still on?"
"As of an hour ago, yes, but we better hoof it. We don't have a lot of time."
She tapped her watch.
"Lead the way. I'll enjoy the view," he smiled.
Eyeing his dangling manhood, she said, "Be careful not to step on that thing," and trotted away. Grinning, he chased her shapely buns of steel.
The couple wasted no time in idle chatter. There was a strong sexual tension between the two, but no time for small talk. Ayesha slew two sentries silently with her bow and Nemesis appropriated a high-power crossbow from one as they infiltrated the village and took a prone position atop a roof.
Sometime later, tens of thousands of black soldiers and citizens gathered on a vast, burned-down veldt. An immense sphere of light that shut out the stars and dwarfed the land descended to hover like a sun. An angelic incandescent entity soaring on gossamer wings floated over the masses, morphing into a black Christ with golden wings clad in a white robe. The deity's worshipers dropped to their knees in awe and
Nemesis carefully settled his crossbow crosshairs on the floating foe. On the tip of the bolt was the tiny white-gel energy weapon he'd kept hidden in a false back tooth.
The crossbow thumped, releasing the bolt that smote the messiah full in the chest. The forcefield erupted in a fiery flash, the hologram-holding molecular cohesion dissipating, revealing a burning small humanoid figure. The religious fanatics howled in horror. An instant later Nemesis's second bolt tipped with an explosive broadhead transfixed the torso of his foe and rained gore on the believers below as the alien's body burst like a red paint balloon.
The starship computer linked with the alien's mind obeyed his last request, commencing its self-destruct program. Nemesis and Ayesha risked a glance back as they fled into the forest and had a split second to see the explosion that lit the world on fire.
In distant space, a short, slim, grey skinned, hairless humanoid with a huge head and enormous dark eyes studied his long range sensor readings aboard his saucer shaped starship. He sighed in almost human fashion as he watched Earth explode from the nuclear blast. A second grey skinned humanoid that looked almost identical to the first one entered the room.
“The humans blew their world up,” the alien grey at the console informed his arriving companion.
“We always knew they would,” the other alien grey replied.
End
Bio:
Tom Kropp’s work has appeared in The Horror Zine, Short-Story Me, Blood Moon Rising, Dark Harbor, Chiron Review, Churches, Children and Daddies, Down in the Dirt, Flash Phantoms, Lowlife Lit, The Listening Eye, J Journal, Evening Street Review, Conceit, Spontaneous Spirits, Bracelet Charm, Spotlight on Recovery, Muscle and Fitness, Outdoor Life, Woodworker’s Journal and many other magazines. His play Jailhouse Confessions was performed at the Kennedy center in Washington, DC in 2019. You can find more of his writings at tomkropp.wordpress.com. He has many novels published with currently numerous audiobooks and eBooks available free at Google Play Books and Smashwords.
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