Countdown to Destruction

He dropped back down from the tree and hurried after them. After spending two hours in the trees, the one thing he saw was a lack of any kind of sound strategy. The hunters worked in concentric circles and their paths rarely crossed. This left huge gaps in their coverage in the area. Getting back to town would be easy.

Freedom bounded forward, covering five or six feet with each step. He suspected he would find the mayor and their device somewhere downtown. He just needed to make it there without being—

“There he is!”

Freedom turned to see a pair of over the hill and overweight locals running towards him. Both men held shotguns as they struggled to get close enough for a clear shot.

Freedom bounded toward them. Neither man expected their prey to come towards them. As they struggled to raise their shotguns, Freedom dropped down in front of them. He sank his right hand down in to the dirt as he landed. As he stood upright, he raised the hand and threw the dirt in to the nearest of the charging men’s face. The man fell back a step as the dirt got in to his eyes and blinded him. Freedom rolled towards him and in only a second had the blinded man between himself and the other hunter.

He yanked the shotgun in the blinded man’s hand up. The stock of the shotgun crashed in to the man’s jaw. He fell back towards the ground while Freedom held on to the gun. Before the other hunter realized it, Freedom had the shotgun aimed at his chest.

“Please just drop it,” Freedom said. “I’m not in the mood to gun you down, but I will if it comes down to you or me.”

The hunter dropped his shotgun.

“Good. You’re not a complete fool. On your knees.”

A panicked expression appeared on the aging man’s face, but he reluctantly dropped down to his knees.

“Good,” Freedom said. He promptly brought the stock of the shotgun down on the back of the man’s skull. The man dropped to the ground, unconscious.

Two down, way too damn many to go.

*****

“Out!”

Light flooded the back of the delivery truck as the rear door slid up and open. Two guards held MP5’s at the ready as the third stumbled off the truck and back to the ground. He was apparently the speaker for the group.

“Move now,” he yelled. “I’m not going to let some tar baby and a race traitor ruin the day of reckoning for me.”

“Do what he says,” Tilby said to Iniri. “We don’t have any other choice.”

“But the malice. They’re radiating it. They want—”

“Shh. Trust me. We’ll find a way out of this.”

Iniri nodded. Tilby stood and offered his hand to help her up. She followed him out of the truck. The automatic rifles followed their every motion.

They stood in a loading dock. The area wreaked of animal feces and dirt, and layers of grime were imbedded in the concrete floor. Waves of apathy and despair flowed from somewhere deep within the building.

“A meat packing plant,” Tilby said from behind her. “Pretty nasty place for an execution, even for this lot.”

“Shut up! Get both your asses inside!”

Iniri felt the tip of a guard’s rifle push her farther inside. We’re going to die here. Even Tilby can’t fight an entire building full of these goons, especially without any weapons. She could feel the sense of dread from Tilby. He knows it too, doesn’t he?

A ripple passed through Iniri’s empathic field. She stumbled forward as the sudden shock overtook her. The presence wasn’t’ quite human and it was very, very angry.

And it was moving very, very fast.

Iniri let herself smile as two guards yanked her back up right.

Their leader grabbed her by the chin. “What’s so funny, bitch.”

She chuckled. “You’re all going to pay for what you’ve done.” She laughed out loud.

Tilby stared at her in disbelief. “Iniri, now maybe isn’t the best time for this.”

“Just rust me, Edward. She looked back at the loading doors. “The new arrival should be here right about—”

The freight truck suddenly lifted straight up from the dock. “—now.”

“What the hell?” The guards turned as light flooded in from outside. The truck shifted again before suddenly flying away from the building. The Neanderthal easily pulled himself up and through the open dock door.

“Open fire!” The lead guard yelled. His men followed his orders but the bullets striking him only served to annoy the Neanderthal even more.

The Neanderthal charged forward. With one open hand he batted away a guard. The man flew across the dock and smashed hard in to the wall. Iniri could hear his bones splinter at the impact. The second gunner turned to run, but Tilby’s foot shot out to trip the man. The guard stumbled and fell face first on to the ground. His MP5 fired as he fell, sending a barrage in to his commander’s abdomen. The commander cried out as he fell back to the floor. Blood flowed freely from the bullet wounds.

Iniri rushed over to the man and immediately put pressure on the wound. Tilby retrieved the MP5 and then moved to stand over her. “Let it go, Iniri. He’s a goner with that wound. I need you to see to the big guy. Work your mojo on him.”

Iniri nodded. She turned to the Neanderthal. The massive gray man breathed heavily and his eyes darted around franticly.

“Shh,” she said. “Be calm. We’re all going to be all right.” She sent out a wave of relaxation out over the massive man. The Neanderthal dropped to his knees. He smiled, almost looking drunk.

“Good,” Iniri said. “We will be out of this soon enough.”

A gunshot from behind her made Iniri jump. She turned to see Tilby standing over the guard with a gun in his hand. The guard’s forehead sported a new bullet hole.

“What did you do?” she said.

“He was a goner, but that wound would have taken hours to kill him. I put him out of his misery in exchange for the location of Patton.”

“You killed him in cold blood.”

“He didn’t have any hope of rescue, so I made him a deal. Information for a quick death. He was glad of it, I think, when he accepted.”

Iniri shook hi head. Her skull ached. “What have I got myself in to?”

“Hopefully,” Tilby said, “this will be the end of a very long week. We’re going back to Tudor, rescue Freedom, and end this once and for all.”

Iniri looked back to the Neanderthal as the massive beast-man sat on his heels. He gave her a quizzical look.

“What about this guy?” she said.

“We’re going to need all the help we can get. With this brute, we might just get out of this alive.”

*****

Freedom’s path took him back towards the field where this debacle began. His return trip brought him near at least three more pairs of hunters. He remained under cover and none saw him as he passed.

I feel like a damned ninja, he thought. He scurried up in to a large oak tree to get a better view of the clearing.

Where the gaggle of hunters stood before, only a pair of guards, far past their primes, stood. Neither man was under sixty and they shared a bottle of Hawkeye Vodka between them. A nearly empty bottle.

Freedom looked around. This is too easy. But he couldn’t see any sign of surprises as he surveyed the area around the men. Where does that leave the mayor? He wouldn’t abandon his men in the wilderness without him, would he?

It hit Freedom like a bullet. He spent so much time working to find anything, that he never thought to look for what wasn’t there. How do twenty men get in to the middle of the woods without any sign of transportation? No cars, no trucks, no motorcycles or ATVs. The answer: they don’t. Which means they were hidden somewhere nearby.

And I know just the two old drunks to ask.

Freedom bounded off of the tree. He arched his fall to bring his boots down squarely on the nearest drunk’s back. The man crumpled under the impact. Freedom pushed himself forward and let his momentum bring his fist in to the other man’s gut. The drunk crumpled under the blow, but Freedom yanked him upright by his flannel shirt.

“I’m tired of this hunter and hunted bullshit,” Freedom said. “You’re going to tell me where I can find your boss the mayor, and I won’t beat you to a pulp.”

The other man moaned behind Patton. Freedom twisted and brought his foot up, then back down between the drunk’s shoulders.

He turned back to the man in his grasp. “We got a deal?”

The drunk nodded his head furiously. He pointed to a particular dense part of the forest behind him. “There’s an old shed back there. It leads to the silo.”

“Silo?”

“Where we keep the device you came to destroy. But you won’t succeed. The rest of this town will hunt you down.”

“I’m sure they will try. I need to know anything else to get inside?”

“Just a key.”

“You got one?” Freedom said.

“No, but Jed does,” the drunk said. He nodded towards the other man.

“Thanks, you’ve been a great help.” Freedom brought his fist up in to the drunk’s jaw. The uppercut left the man sprawled unconscious beside his friend.

Freedom walked over to the other man, bent down, and patted him down until he found the man’s keychain.

Now I just need to hope the old drunk was telling me the truth.

Key in one hand, shotgun in the other, Freedom walked in to the woods on the far side of the clearing. Only a few steps past the scrub, he found the building nestled against a gnarled pine tree. He would have missed the outhouse-sized structure if he hadn’t known it was there.

The door was a series of wooden boards, tethered together by multiple steel joiners. A padlock secured the door to the rest of the steel structure.

After several failures Freedom found the right key and popped the lock open. Thank God for weak willed subordinates, he thought.

Freedom winced as the door creaked open. A metal staircase led in the ground and darkness.

They may have heard me, I don’t have a damn clue where I’m going, and all I’ve got to defend myself is a second-rate shotgun. Not exactly ideal conditions for a raid.

Freedom started down the stairs. Screw it. It’s time this is over.

*****

“Get her awake, damn it!”

A slap across the face brought Annabelle fully back to consciousness. She recognized the man who slapped her as the gunman from earlier. The bastard shot me! She struggled against the steel strips that held her body upright and her hands at her side.

“Trigger, leave our guest alone. You’ve awakened her quite nicely.”

Annabelle turned to see the gleaming grin of Atlas. The smiling man walked to her side. He wrapped his hand around her chin and forced her to look at him. His breath smelled like sulfur as he spoke.

“Be calm, dear girl. You’ve proven yourself far tougher the most of your kind. Which is good for our friend Liberator. He can deal with your friends instead of sacrificing himself here.

“You see, the next step of the World’s plan is the utter destruction of the political power center of this corrupt nation. The bloated swine of Washington, D.C. will be burned in righteous fire.

“But the ray uses psychic energy and therefore needs a human focal point. But a normal human’s body would burn out far too quickly from the power surging through it. But someone with your recently increased stamina will work perfectly.”

“I won’t help you, you bastard!” She tried to pull away from Atlas but his grip was like iron.

“Willing or unwilling, it doesn’t matter. All I need is a person of strong will and strong body, and you fit both qualifications quite nicely.”

“Damn you! I’ll kill you, you bastard!”

Atlas released his grip. Annabelle spit in his face. “I will kill you!” she cried.

Atlas pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his face clean, his expression never showing a hint of anger. “I’m sorry, young lady, I think not.” He turned to Trigger. “Get the system up and running. Our little lady will fry tonight and take all of Washington with her.”