EPISODE 12. RUN, NINJA. RUN.

Episode 12.
RUN, NINJA. RUN.

We stood on the old baseball diamond in Mc Carren park talking turns hitting bricks into the distance with a pipe. Neither of us spoke very much after watching those forty people die through the lifeform tracker earlier in the morning. There really wasn’t much left to say after that.

I kept an eye on the tracker for the rest of the day, checking it every ten minutes or so. I had too many questions that couldn’t be answered now. Who were they? How did they survive? Where were they coming from? Were there any more people out there?

Almost on cue, Carlos screamed and threw the pipe as far as he could, sending it crashing down on a fallen fence. Then he lit up a joint from his breast pocket and sat down looking completely exhausted.

“We’re doing this the wrong way…just sitting here like this. We need to re-think things, Carlos. We need to go farther out there and look for survivors, aliens, answers…I don’t know. There’s just no way that you and I are the only survivors of this,” I said to him.

Carlos stared at me. Even if he didn’t understand my words, he got my tone.

Right then, we both turned towards the life form tracker as it gave out its “bee boo boo” alert signal. I got up and looked at it.

There were seven red dots in the same area where the original forty had popped up. But, these were flashing in and out, like there was some kind of interference blocking their signals.

"Gente otra vez? Cuantos? Son aliengenos o humanos?" Carlos asked.

I showed him the screen. There were only three red dots showing now. Then a moment later, all seven were showing again, only to blink back out to a single one.

“This is fucking strange.”

By my estimates they were coming from somewhere near the Morgan Avenue stop on the L train, way out there in Bushwick again. I sat for a few minutes watching as the screen went blank again, only to pop back with five red dots.

I thought about it. It would take me between one and two hours to make it through the terrain if I hauled ass. However, if we were seeing these blips then it goes without saying that any aliens in the area with similar tech were probably seeing it as well.

Carlos and I both had our blockers on, so we were safe from detection excluding direct contact. The ships cloaking field also helped us out with that. But these people, If they were people, they didn’t have anything to help them. They were sitting ducks out there.

Carlos and I stood up at the same time.

“Shit. I’m going out there to see what’s up. If there’s anyone there, I’m going to bring them back here,” I said

"Que? Si vas a por ellos, voy yo contigo," Carlos demanded. "Porfavor espero que hay alguien que habla espanol."

“What? No. No. Carlos, you have to stay here with the ship. You stay, I’ll go.” I said, probably ten different ways to make sure that we understood each other. He didn’t like it, but he agreed.

I took a few minutes to quickly tape up my feet before packing up my bag. I took two of the laser pistols, seven blockers, and a length of sash that we had found in a hardware store.

Carlos ran over to me with a few more weapons.
“No. It’s okay,” I said, taking the big gun off the table. “I’m taking the big gun.”

He grinned.

We shook hands, and a moment after that I began running towards the direction of the fading red lights.