Walking an Endless Path Pt. 03

Six more aliens burst out of the surf, screeching at the others. They slowed their charge as they saw Joe standing above the lifeless body of their comrade. They warbled nervously as well.

"Boy, I'd love to know what the hell you guys are saying!" Joe grumbled.

He felt it before he heard it. The sound rippled along his skeleton, and this time, it hurt. Then came the odd sounds. A portal was opening.

The six screeched at the first three, who gathered up the body and quickly dragged it back into the water.

Joe sagged down to his butt and sat in the sand, waiting for someone to tell him what was happening. The vibration from the portal was doing bad things to his insides, which had shown such good progress in healing. Stinky came forward and scanned him. It chirped at Hack and Slash, and they scooped Joe up and carried him a few feet back to put a rock outcropping between him and the portal. The vibrations were greatly reduced in the rock's shadow, and he immediately felt better. The Greenies were unhappy and screeched at the machines but couldn't make them leave the spot where they hovered.

Minutes later, Joe saw some new aliens walk from the jungle toward them. These guys were taller than Joe but skinny and covered in short but unruly black fur. Their only clothes were black belts with various pouches strung along them and what looked like multiple knives in sheathes. They had very long fingers and toes, and their faces were dominated by huge round goggles with black lenses. Joe got the impression their eyes were equally large and probably sensitive to the light, hence the goggles. They had small pointy snouts and many sharp pointy teeth, which they were showing to the Greenies. Their large ears swung this way and that as they chittered back and forth at each other.

Joe thought they looked a bit like tall, skinny bush babies. Maybe they would talk with him.

There were easily two dozen new aliens on the beach, and they milled around, looking everywhere. They stayed away from Joe even though they knew he was there. His shirt was next to him as he sat on the ground, so he slipped his phone out covertly and got a few pictures of the two groups. He secured it back in the shirt's pocket.

One of the bush babies stepped forward, pulled a device out of a pouch, and pressed a button on its side. A telescoping spike shot down from its base, and the alien jammed it into the sand. To Joe, it looked like a microphone and stand. Maybe it was Karaoke Night, he thought. The furry alien pressed another button, and the device beeped. A sphere of rippling air expanded outwards to encompass the entire group. As the ripple passed over Joe, he felt a spike of pain in his head and a burst of vertigo. The discomfort diminished to a dull throb, but the spinning sensation took some time to pass.

The warbles and chitters around him started to stick in his brain. He was startled to realize he was beginning to understand the words behind them. He looked at the device. It was a translator!

"Where is weapon!" barked the bush baby leader. There was grumbling from other members of his group.

"You are as stupid as you are ugly! You must wait!" squawked the lead Greenie. It was wearing a necklace of what looked like fish fins to Joe. A symbol of its leadership?

Joe could see this negotiation would end badly if this was how it started. The Greenies were vastly outnumbered but looked at the more formidable bush babies with utter disdain.

"Many Vershoo die to bring you the Fahrchar. You promise to create ultimate weapon to destroy Kel-Fahr forever. We wait very long. Every day, we move to not be found by Kel-Fahr. Very long we do this. We hear Ello get weapon. Vershoo wait no longer. Ello give weapon now."

Joe made some assumptions. He guessed the bush babies were the Vershoo but needed some context to identify the other names.

"Kel-Fahr rule for as long as recorded history, and you cannot wait time needed to complete weapon? Stupid and ugly!" the Greenie leader sneered. "The weapon sits before you." It pointed at Joe.

"Weapon? What the hell?" Joe thought.

The Vershoo looked at Joe. All of them. Joe felt very uneasy with that many black goggles pointing his way.

The Greenie made a clicking noise, and a dozen more of his people climbed out of the water. The first one was carrying a silver tube in one hand and a clear glass ball in the other. Something small and black was inside the ball. When he reached his leader, the alien handed him the silver tube. The leader pressed the tube's end against the glass ball under the black creature. There was a hollow thump sound, and the glass disappeared like a popping soap bubble. The black, squirmy thing was now stuck to the end of the silver rod.

"Do you recognize this?" the Greenie spoke directly to Joe for the first time. Joe couldn't tear his eyes from the tiny, squirming black creature, so he just shook his head.

"It is final piece of the incomplete Fahrchar that bonded to you," it said.

Joe suddenly remembered his Dad's story about how he'd shot the black creature with a shotgun, and a piece tore off. The Greenie was telling him that the writhing thing at the end of the silver rod was that same piece. They must have collected it when they came back through the portal to hide the evidence of their visit. But how could it still be alive?

With a sudden motion, the Greenie raised the rod and fired the creature onto Joe's chest.

Joe tumbled back in reaction and sprawled on the sand. Some of the Vershoo made noises that must have been laughter.

"We've seen Fahrchar consume victims in flame, but this is not a weapon to destroy Kel-Fahr," the Vershoo leader said angrily. The Greenie did not respond but continued to watch Joe.

Joe tried to pull it from his chest, but it was already bonded to his skin. It was slowly merging with him. The pain was intense, and he couldn't help but scream. Joe's mind exploded in static. His hearing cut in and out, as did his sight. His sensation of touch became overly sensitized to the point where he could feel the individual grains of sand he was lying back on.

Most terrifying was the sensation of another presence forcing its way into his mind, pushing Joe aside. It felt ancient, vast, and cold. Its will was terrifyingly overpowering. Joe felt insignificant and ephemeral next to it. He started to compress inwards under intense mental pressure. It was crushing him, extinguishing who he was.

Then Joe thought of his family.

The faces of his mom and dad and his sister Amy surfaced as he felt himself shrinking. Amy's unconditional love for him was so enormous he couldn't be as insignificant as the presence was trying to make him. His mom and dad loved him unconditionally, too. He recalled the night he'd been told he wasn't completely human. He'd never felt so alone than at that moment. It was his moment of deepest despair, yet his family had shown him he was important to them, one of them, loved. The strength he got from that was boundless.

Joe dug in and held firm and felt the collapse suddenly stop. He began to push back and kept building on that pressure.

Sensing it was losing ground, the invading mind made a sudden thrust, but Joe gave nothing back. He thought of how this invader was trying to destroy the love he got from his family and felt his rage building. He poured that energy into his push, and for the first time, he felt a crack form in the vast glacier that was the alien mind. Where its mind was cold, Joe's was red hot. He borrowed that imagery, recalling the time when his body had absorbed the blasting heat from the inferno of the buried alien base. He'd overheard a few Soldiers calling him a Fire God that day. In his mind, he became that and pressed his scorching fingers into the crack of the glacier. Joe bellowed his dominance and tore the ice mountain in two with a thunderous crack. He stepped forward and found the true shape of the invader, a small, black amoeba that trembled in fear. He picked it up in his glowing fist, hearing it hiss and sizzle against his scorching hot flesh. It screamed as he crushed it between his fingers. Recalling his hunger, he ate the cooked meat, taking all its energy.

Then it was over. The pain was gone. Joe felt energized like he'd never felt before. Every cell in his body was tingling. He opened his eyes, black from the rage still bubbling inside. He got back on his feet and realized everyone was silent, staring at him. Stinky chirped and scanned him. This time, Joe didn't feel nauseous afterward. He didn't feel the beam at all! Stinky made a warble sound, and the Greenie leader barked with a sneer.

"It is complete! The weapon is primed," he said smugly.

"I'm NOT your weapon!" Joe snarled.

His voice struck the minds of the Greenies and Vershoo like a physical blow, and they all rocked on their feet.

Several of the Vershoo screamed and ran back into the jungle, and half of the Greenies made for the safety of the water at a sprint.

"You made a... Kel-Fahr?!?" the Vershoo leader screeched incredulously at the Greenie.

The Greenie looked at Joe like he was considering something disgusting he'd stepped in. "No, not Kel-Fahr. Something far more savage." It turned to the Vershoo and smiled. "You now have perfect weapon against Kel-Fahr. You will see. Get it to Kel-Fahr homeworld." Then it turned and walked back into the water with the rest of the Greenies.

Soon, Joe was alone on the beach with the stunned Vershoo.

They looked at him. He looked back at them.

The leader worked up the nerve and walked up to Joe. He examined him closely, then stepped back.

"What are you?" he asked.

"I'm human. I'm from Earth," Joe said.

"Hooman? What means you are from dirt?" he asked belligerently.

"Human. Not dirt, Earth. Is that coming through the translator?" Joe explained. That burst of energy he'd felt after the merging dissipated, so he sat on a nearby rock. He picked up his shirt, gently shook the sand off, and put it on. He patted the pocket, confirming his phone was still inside. The fishing spear he made was resting against the rock as well. His few possessions were accounted for if these Vershoo would take him away.

He made the eating gesture to Stinky and was relieved to see it move off into the jungle.

"How do you control the Tik?" the leader was back to asking belligerent questions.

"Tik? Is that what you call these machines? I just make gestures to them like the one I just made for eating. I'm hungry, so I asked it for food," Joe explained.

The Vershoo leader stepped up to Hack, touched a sequence of controls, and both powered down. "We go now," he said.

"But I haven't eaten. It'll slow you down if I don't get enough to eat. Where are we going? Can you take me back to my planet?" Joe said in a rush.

"NO! Too many have perished in our mission to stop now. We must put you on Kel-Fahr homeworld and escape with our lives, if we can. I curse the Ello for this trickery. They promise us a weapon and leave us with you. They, more than any other, know the enemy. I don't understand how you can be weapon, but I have no choice," he raged. He stomped back to the translator and yanked it from the sand. Instantly, its communication field collapsed. The words the Vershoo were speaking became meaningless chitters again. It made angry gestures at Joe, then stomped up the beach into the jungle.

Several Vershoo gathered around Joe and pushed him to follow. He grabbed his fishing spear and used it as a walking stick, hoping they wouldn't see it as a weapon and take it from him. They let him keep it.

Joe looked for signs of Stinky but thought maybe it had also been shut down. He did manage to snag a few mushroom stems as they walked toward the portal. Joe felt its vibrations in his bones the nearer they got, but at least the pain was gone. With one last look at what he now assumed was the Ello's home planet, he followed the Vershoo through the black surface of the doorway.

Chapter 2

General Dan MacAvoy stood in an observation room watching Russian scientists carefully dissect a piece of alien hardware they had collected from deep in a remote forest. He could look down into three separate and isolated labs from this elevated position. In each was a single machine secured to a workbench. All three had suffered fall damage from being knocked from the sky by an EMP burst. The hope was to find at least one of the three in sufficiently intact condition so it could be used to activate a Light Gate, as the General had begun calling them.

The General had been informed that they needed two machines to initiate a Light Gate. This was determined by carefully reviewing the footage they'd recorded of the incident at the Neumann's farm.

The U.S. Army retrieved a fully functional machine from a fishing village on the Alaskan coast. It was the slow one they'd lost track of as it crossed the Bering Sea during the initial invasion.

In preparation for opening a Light Gate, they installed the captured machine at their base of operations in Glennville, North Dakota. This was the site of the original incursion, and based on the quality of the gravity field in that location, Special Agent Rachel White identified it as their best chance to open a Light Gate of their own... once they had two working cylinders. She was onsite now decrypting the device's communication process and was making excellent progress based on the last report he'd received. Pokey, as it had been dubbed by the research team, was a particularly chatty cylinder. Cut off from the others, it appeared to be assisting the agent as long as it was kept on the trickle feeder.

Now, the Russians were trying to get their own cylinder functioning. From the splash of sparks coming from the interior of the one they had just opened, they weren't too successful. He wasn't sure why they decided to start with the one that already looked like a patchwork of different machines. He recalled Joseph referring to this one as Frank, as in Frankenstein.

Growing impatient, he turned to his Russian counterpart and made a suggestion. "General Koskov, may I suggest you ask your team to concentrate on the unit with the scorch marks. We've identified this one was used to open a Light Gate before, and it looks like the least damaged of the three."

"Please, General MacAvoy, be patient. Our top scientists have determined this is the proper order in which to investigate the machines. The knowledge they gain from reviewing the more damaged ones will ensure their success when they reach the most intact."

A sudden explosion ripped through the lab below. Chunks of the opened machine flew across the room in all directions. Some shrapnel tore through the bodies of three top scientists, killing them instantly. Others suffered lesser injuries, but none escaped unscathed.

Additional men rushed into the room with fire extinguishers and started to put out the flames. One blasted the burning remains of the machine with an extinguisher, and a second, smaller explosion rocked the room. More men died.

The two Generals looked down at the carnage below with dismay. A klaxon rang, and an armored panel suddenly slammed over the window.

"What's going on?" General MacAvoy asked.

"Radiation leak. We must leave the building," Koskov said stiffly as he led them to the exit.

"We detected no radioactive elements in the machines. Where is the leak coming from?" MacAvoy asked on the way down the stairs.

"The explosion has ruptured some pipes under the lab. Gas is leaking into the room. It has been contained, but we've lost the people in that room," Koskov said, a grim expression on his face as they rushed down the stairs.

As they entered the hall, MacAvoy saw the door to the third lab containing their best and only chance at opening a Light Gate. "General, we must get some men to bring the third machine out with us. There's no leak in that lab, right?"

Koskov glared at his counterpart. "There is no time. We must leave, and I won't put any more men at risk for this." He turned and stormed away.

MacAvoy watched him leave in frustration. He stepped over to the door to the lab and pressed the button to open it. The heavy steel door slid into the wall. Standing in the entrance, he saw the cylinder sitting on the table. Heavy chains held it in place. Looking around to ensure he was alone, he activated his cell and called Rachel White. She picked up on the second ring.

"Yes, General?"

"I'll make this quick. There's been an accident at the lab, a radiation leak, and they're evacuating the building. I've lost faith they'll be able to get the machines working. The most intact one is the scorched one Joseph called Burnie. It's chained in place, and if I don't get it activated and mobile, we will not likely get the second machine for activating the Light Gate. Have you been able to get Pokey to give you activation codes?"

"Maybe I have something better than that, General. Put your phone on speaker, turn up the volume, and point it at Burnie," Rachel said.

Seconds later, a series of rapid chirps issued from the General's phone.

He waited, the quiet of the building behind him beginning to eat away at his nerve. The radiation leak was foremost in his mind.

A squeal from the machine in the room made him jump. Lights came on, and the unit fired off a string of beeps of its own.

A response came from the General's phone then Rachel's voice returned. "General, please evacuate the building. Burnie will take care of the rest." MacAvoy needed no further encouragement. He hung up, tucked his cell away, then made a beeline for the exit, catching up with the stragglers. As he exited the building, he saw Koskov waiting in his car.

A Soldier ran a Geiger counter over MacAvoy's body, but it remained quiet. He got into the car with Koskov.

"I take it by your empty hands you found no one willing to risk his life for a machine?" Koskov said condescendingly. The car lurched forward and quickly sped away from the building.

MacAvoy glared at the Russian. "Perhaps you don't understand the importance of our ability to control a Light Gate of our own. Until we can do that, we are at the mercy of those who can. I have to get back to the States. When your team gets one of these machines working, let me know. You can drop me at the air base."

He could tell the Russian General was pleased by the notion of his leaving. Almost as pleased as he was to leave.

Two hours later, MacAvoy was relaxing in his seat of the private executive jet the Army had requisitioned for his use, flying over the Bering Sea. The flight back to Anchorage was uneventful, and he maintained radio silence.

Once aboard the Hercules transport heading for Glennville, he placed an encrypted call to the base there. He reached Director Roger Bannon.

"Roger, any developments?"

"Yes, the package made its way to US Carrier Harry Truman stationed off the coast of Japan. Apparently, after it left the Russian base, it picked up a second package, the unit designated Rusty, which may have been hiding not far from the base. The escape path of both appears to have gone undetected. Our satellites detected considerable activity around the base, so the Russians know one of their captive units has escaped. I assume you may be getting a call about that sometime soon. Which ones did they have?"

"Units Frank, Patch, and Burnie," the General replied. "It was Frank that exploded when they attempted to disassemble the badly damaged unit. Patch was also heavily damaged from the fall. Only Burnie showed minimal structural damage."

"Right. The crew of the Truman were told to expect delivery of one package and were surprised to receive two. The carrier is currently making its way back to the States. When it gets within range, the packages will be flown to an air base in Washington State and transferred to a flight to Glennville. They have been quite cooperative. Agent White has made great strides in communicating with Pokey. I really wish we'd given these units numbers. I feel damn stupid using these silly names," Roger complained.