Altered Ch. 05

"Why? Brandon, we're supposed to be best friends!" he hollered.

George turned to face him in confusion and only eeked out a "Whaa-" before Brandon turned towards his partner and shot him in the back. George's suit's power cell was hit by a bullet and it caught on fire.

I increased Brandon's fear so that he dropped his weapon and cowered, dropping to his knees with his hands raised over his head as if someone was about to strike him. I stood up and walked over to George and felt his pulse, he was still breathing, the Kevlar he wore under his suit saved his life. Too bad he threatened my family - I grabbed him by his neck and quickly snapped it. The fucker was trying to kidnap three pregnant women, my family, he was dead without a second thought.

I walked over to Brandon, who was still cowering, and I disarmed him, stripped him of his suit and Kevlar vest. I didn't bind him as I had other plans for him. I didn't have time to read his whole mind so I asked him questions to get him thinking about the right things.

"Who do you work for?" I barked.

"S- Cyber Mercs!" he bellowed.

I saw that that was a subsidiary of a parent company called Global Dynamics. Global Dynamics was nothing but a front for the Illuminati, they advertised that they were the leading provider of cross cultural training, and expatriate services amongst other things. This man was laughing in his head because he thought they were a joke.

"By expatriate services they mean body guards for Americans overseas both crooked and clean. By cross cultural training they mean human trafficking and slave training," Brandon thought bitterly.

"Who is leading this clusterfuck?" I asked angrily.

"That psychic weirdo down by the highway."

I saw a picture in his mind of who he was referring to and he wasn't thinking anything contradictorily.

"How did you find us?"

"I don't know all the details but some dude named Mike reported in, he's a tracker - whatever that means."

"Fuck! How did I not know about this, I read his mind!" I thought frustrated.

I would have to get answers from him later, I had more important things to worry about. I had to wait until they made their move, I had land mines and other traps setup that even with my bullet resistant skin would fuck me up royally.

"What's your specialty Brandon?"

"Sniper, well spotter really, but I'm training to be a sniper."

I started manipulating Brandon's mind, filling it with lies, truths, paranoia and his deepest fears. Luckily, he was already paranoid by nature so it wasn't hard to do. I made him believe that the people down at the highway were infiltrators and some of them were cops trying to bust up his group.

"Brandon, I've been sent from the head office to take care of this mess. Can I count on your help?"

"Fuck yeah, boss! I got your six."

"I'm gonna need a distraction, give me a minute to get down slope then take as many out as you can, starting with that psychic traitor."

"Hoorah!" he barked and set up his sniping perch.

"Fucking asshole used to be a Marine too. They say once a marine always a marine but I don't think that should apply to him," I thought angrily.

One thing about these mercs, they were well equipped. I grabbed four grenades and strapped a backpack, filled with the invisibility suit, to my back. I hauled ass down slope and hid behind a tree at the lip of the drop-off down to the highway.

I knew the shit would hit the fan any minute, I heard the sound of helicopters incoming. Part of me was excited, these fuckers thought they were going to surprise us with overwhelming force. Shock and awe is a fine plan against an enemy less technologically advanced but when the defenders have millions of dollars to spend on defense the attackers were bound to get shocked and awed. They were about to be in a world of hurt and they didn't know it. Besides, who doesn't like watching explosions?

With a whoosh, the brace of rockets were revealed as the stingers left one after the other hunting their targets. My mother was trained to wait for them to get within range such that the copters wouldn't have time to react and her training paid off in spades.

The horrible sound of explosions and helicopters crashing all around the area must have been heard for miles around. That would get the real authorities attention, even bribed and corrupted authorities would have to answer for three military attack copters being shot down over populated soil (although sparsely populated). It was another clusterfuck in the making.

"Go, go, go!" someone commanded from the impromptu command setup on the highway.

"Crack! Crack! Crack!" Brandon's bullets rained on their parade.

I circled the tree I was hiding behind, pulling two pins, tossing a grenade to the left and right into cover clusters that the people in charge were running towards. I saw a lady dressed in white with half her head blown off lying in the middle of the road. I turned my sights back towards Brandon, my shot tearing a hole through his ear and out the back of his head. I leapt into the fray, pulling my rifle and spraying targets stupid enough to get in my sights.

I went from target to target, these were the smart ones, the leaders, none of them would live.

A couple of them begged for their lives and I asked them, "If I were to try and murder your pregnant wife, what would you do to me?"

Some of them tried to lie, but their mind told me the truth, they'd have shot me dead.

"If I were to come to kill your pregnant wife I would have you kill me. Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you," was the last thing they heard.

"Boom! BAM! BABOOM!"

I saw dust clouds rising into the air as the perimeter mines were going off all over the place. The claymores and other traps were drowned out by the earth-shattering explosion. Bodies were torn to pieces, limbs were thrown about. I even saw a head rolling downhill.

"Mines, spent, Sir!" my mom hollered out of my earpiece, with a touch of sarcasm. "We evacuated the cabin, Nate!"

I felt some relief that they were safe in the command room in the bunker. There was no way into the bunker once it was closed except through a hatch door that could only be opened on the inside. The hatch lead to an underground cave that had a stream flowing through it. From there it led to a path that wound down to a valley four miles below. The cave entrance was wide enough to fit an ATV through so during the warm months I stored two just inside the entrance and when it started snowing I swapped them out for snowmobiles.

"Want me to bust out the miniguns?" I heard Robin cry gleefully.

"Bust them out?" I laughed. "Yeah, just be careful not to shoot me!"

"Don't worry we see you on scope, we'll keep the guns out of your vicinity!"

"Thanks, babe!" I yelled.

I ran down the slope from the highway towards the cabin, bouncing off of trees and flying up in the air in huge leaping arcs. I saw the mini guns bursting out of the side of the cabin and with a loud blaring buzzing sound they sprayed all sides taking out more survivors of the traps. Dust and dirt filled the air acting like a smoke screen.

I saw a squad of troops that were in a minigun blind spot and they quickly advanced to the storage doors of the first floor for both cover and breach. They were setting charges to get inside when I dropped down on them like a panther from the trees.

Blood sprayed everywhere as my KA-BAR sliced necks, into the sides of Kevlar vests between the ribs. I waded into the midst of them making them shooting at me difficult to do without shooting their comrades. I couldn't assume any loyalty with these evil men so I kept moving, holding dying soldiers in front of me as shields.

One soldier got wise and pulled out his pistol and started firing indiscriminately. He shot more of his comrades than me, and with me he got in only two shots that were deflected off my skin.

My adrenaline kept me from feeling any pain as I kept up the slaughter.

The shooter finally saw that his tactics were ineffective and he turned tail and ran.

I grabbed one of the dying soldier's rifles and shot him in his legs, not having time for a headshot. He fell to the ground with a cry of agony and unfortunately, he also crawled within range of the turrets and he was quickly put out of his misery.

I then hunted down the survivors, one by one.

"Boom!" I heard the house shake.

"Nate, they used RPGs and handful are breaching the inner sanctum," Tracy warned. "Northside."

There wasn't any way to get to the bunker once it was sealed, so I wasn't worried about it. We were going to destroy the house after this anyway. We just wanted enough time to get a few things out.

"Did you get the IDs and important stuff?"

"Yes, Nate, just like we practiced."

"Good, light it up then!"

I prepped the house just for this day. I lined the inside with thermite and the outer walls were lined with a special space aged polymer used for fire suppression. The house turned into an instant kiln turning everything inside molten. There would be no real evidence left in the house after that. The girls and I could change our fingerprints so we had my mother wear special translucent covers over her tips, so that when the time came she would leave as little evidence behind as possible.

Most of the weapons were moved to the bunker once it was completed and there were only a few cases of bullets in the first floor that soon caught fire.

The fire department was busy putting out the fires started by the shot down helicopters. Luckily the cold and snow kept the fire from spreading into the trees before they could put them out. By the time they reached our cabin, it was only a burnt-out husk.

I hid a cache of weapon in a few trees around the property. I was pretty well armed already but I needed something less lethal for my next task and I found my compound bow and arrows still intact.

"Girls. Load the gear and meet me at the rendezvous."

A half hour later the girls came driving up the valley to our rendezvous where I stored an escape vehicle near a fire trail. We loaded up the SUV with our gear and we took off for a safehouse deeper in the Rockies.

It took us four hours to get there and the car was as quiet as a tomb the whole way.

Finally, Tracy broke the silence, "Did we HAVE to kill them all?" she sobbed.

"Yes, we talked about this before. If we didn't kill them and instead simply escaped, then they would have that many people to hunt us down immediately. Also, there aren't infinite soldiers that they have available. If we take some of them out now, they will be more cautious with us in the future. I doubt they have a backup team ready to go right away and the REAL government will have to investigate the 200 some odd bodies posing as ATF agents strewn across the forest floor. There will be a coverup but the coverup will take time, which will give us time too."

"Do you know how they found out about us?"

"No, but supposedly Mike had something to do with it. Once you girls are all settled in, I am going back to Grand Lake to hunt him down. Do you have the flash drive with the footage?"

Tracy looked like she was about to cry, "Here!"

"Come here," I beckoned, holding my arms out.

All three women rushed into my arms sobbing. I stayed with them until they seemed to calm down.

"I know I looked like a monster out there, but they wanted to kill you or worse capture and torture you. You girls remember what they did to you... That's not happening again, not if I can do anything about it."

"We know, but you DID look scary as fuck," Robin whispered, but I saw a look of pride in her eyes.

I changed my face to look like Mike, I did it off of memory so it wasn't perfect, it would at least pass for family. I loaded up my gear into the SUV and took off.

The fall back cabin we were in, I leased from a known mountain man. I pre-paid him cash to lease it for two years since he lived away from civilization and only came into town every six months or so. He only had contact with the outside world then.

The cabin itself was a bit rustic. Water was fed in by a nearby stream, and when it got cold like this and the stream froze over we had to get water via buckets full of snow. The toilets were located in outhouses about 20 yards from the cabin. I installed a motorhome type bathroom inside one day I came up here, so if we did get stuck in the snow we would still have somewhere to go. There were three bedrooms and I had solar panels installed so we had electricity, as long as the snow wasn't blocking it. Most of the heat came from chopped up wood stacked on the side of the house and the cabin had a huge pantry that was fully stocked with enough to eat for three months. There were no towns for a hundred miles in either direction, however there was a general store about five miles down the highway.

The drive back into town had me seething. I was itching to catch up to Mike; he was arrogant enough to stick around. After all, there was no reason to think I knew what he did. The darkness I saw in him I mistook for grief, obviously that's not the only place it came from.

I got to town early in the morning and I asked around for Mike saying I was his brother. I knew a lot of people in town but with my new face no one knew me. Some of the conversations were awkward because I became too familiar with a few of them. Most took it in stride because they were more focused on getting their "grieving" friend Mike some family comfort.

I got some coffee at a local coffee shop when I saw on the news the clip about the blind prophet who predicted that the police would hang Lisa; there were back and forth discussions about police corruption in Grand Lake. There were rumors abound to some sort of firefight in the mountain a few witnesses described seeing the after effects of a massacre. Others described seeing multiple attack helicopters being shot out of the sky by some sort of missiles. The firefighters that put out the helicopter fires and the cabin fire had an immediate gag order place on them where they would be held in contempt of court if they talked about the events of that day. The cover up was beginning as the FBI was denying and fudging the facts saying that a military helicopter crashed in a training exercise.

Luckily, I had footage to dispute what they were saying. One of the reasons I came to this coffee shop, was the fact that they had a public computer they let their customers use free of charge. I uploaded the surveillance camera footage of the firefight as well as my body cam footage and the drone footage of the attempted helicopter attack. I also edited a shortened version of the video that included a monologue explaining my side of the events. The video showed that Mike was involved in this somehow and ended with a high definition footage of ten random mercenary's fingerprints.

I went on to explain that although I did slaughter all 200 plus involved in the attack, I was not a terrorist. They attacked first without warning or provocation and I was defending my family. The surveillance footage showed sniper bullets hitting the bulletproof glass of our house long before we activated our traps.

The fingerprints would be damning; it would point out that the mercenaries did not work for the government and contradicted what spokes holes were already saying to save face. I uploaded them to the Ataruian dark-websites first and had a script to upload the videos a day from then so that the people trying to cover this up would have more time to put their feet in their mouths.

"Hey, Bob!" the barista declared.

It took me a second to react and remember that that was the name I was going by.

"Yes? What's up?"

"You were looking for Mike, earlier right?" she asked and I nodded. "Well someone just saw him pull into the used car lot near Middle Park. Want me to call over there and let them know you are coming?"

I looked at her name badge and said, "No thanks Julie, I would like to surprise him if you wouldn't mind."

I saw a nervousness to her so I decided to read her mind, "You said Mike was where again?"

What she answered didn't match what she thought, she thought about how Mike asked her to give me that story.

"Can you give Mike a call back for me please?" I asked, filling her mind with confusion and a sense that it was her idea to call him.

I fed her the idea to let him know that some guys were heading his way and to ask him where he was. I then put it in her mind to ignore me and have the feeling that I had already left.

"Hey Baby, I forgot to tell you. Some FBI guys came in here and I overheard them say they were looking for you."

"Nice improv," I thought.

"Where are you?" she paused to listen. "I told them you were heading to Lisa's place to get a few things."

He was over at Backstreet Steakhouse, Julie was supposed to go with him and had her bags packed and waiting in the breakroom. Poor girl, not sure how she was so easily duped. Hopefully he was telling her the truth about him being at the steakhouse.

I drove over to the steakhouse and parked beside Mike's truck. I pulled out my knife and flattened his tires. Then walked over to the entrance and spotted two sheriff's SUVs parked off to the side of the restaurant.

I walked in and was greeted by a friendly teen, "How many?"

"Bar," I curtly answered, pointing over to the bar so she knew I knew where to go.

She just nodded and leaned against the greeter's podium bored. It was the middle of the day, too early for dinner too late for lunch; there wouldn't be a lot of people inside. There was some loud country music blaring over the radio but I could hear Mike's bellowing laughter followed by that of two other people I couldn't see as the bar was in a different room of the restaurant. Once I walked into the bar area, I saw the Sheriff (Jim Brown) on one side of Mike and a deputy who I didn't recognize on the other.

They didn't even look up at me as I sat down at the end of the bar. I was steaming mad, but I knew I had to hold my temper if I was to get any information out of him. For a man who just lost the love of his life Mike was jovial. And for a man who just had to deal with three downed attack copters and a sea of dead bodies right outside his town, Jim was in good spirits too.

Mind reading is just like watching a movie, there are a lot of details remembered and a lot forgotten such that it is condensed down into the most interesting parts. I didn't read all of Mike's mind, that would have been impossible, it was more like watching something on fast forward and pausing at interesting parts. I saw no evidence of Mike ever being a tracker which didn't seem likely since it would have been an important part of his life. I figured the only way Mike could have fooled my mind probe was if he was schizophrenic and I was probing down a part of his mind that he wasn't even aware of at the time.

So, I decided to probe his mind once again. The man at the bar laughing with no conscience was most likely the tracker. Once the probe began, I saw that sure enough I was right and I saw something that surprised me - knowledge of tracking. I didn't know how long I could invade his mind so I "downloaded" the knowledge before he got wise and tried to shut me out.

Tracking was way more interesting than being able to see different types of auras, there was a component of tracking that gave them their name. They had the ability to touch someone and establish a temporary link with them, allowing them to track them like a bloodhound. And, like a bloodhound, they had the ability to sample someone's DNA and track them by following the trail they leave behind. The trail was an invisible cloud that we all give off just walking around like the character Pig-Pen from the Peanuts. This invisible cloud is what a dog smells, the only difference is that trackers are able to see the clouds and track their prey. At least that was this trackers understanding of the whole process.