Tuesday, January 13, 2009

EPISODE 14. AS QUIET AS YOU CAN



Episode 14
AS QUIET AS YOU CAN

They were right on top of me.
I kept as close to the shadows as I could, barely breathing so I wouldn’t make a single sound.

One of the aliens stood a few feet away. It kept turning its head in different directions while electronic chatter came from its helmet. I was sure that it was a radio connection of some kind that kept them in contact with one another. If not, then that was their language. A grouping of static filled squarks and pings. I was so close to it that I could make out moisture on its suit. Beads of water slowly streamed along its black skin suit. It was strange, and made me second guess whether or not it was an outfit, or part of them.

The ship overhead rumbled ever so quietly. However, whatever I could see of it through the clouds was massive. It was a massive obsidian ship, probably the size of an aircraft carrier, just floating in the sky above us.

At that exact moment, my tracker flashed to show four more red dots blinking north from us in the same location. I wanted to scream. Not now.

On cue, the helmet chatter changed. Questioning tones filled their broadcast, with undercurrents from several different troops chiming in. They had to be talking about the blips. They had to have similar tracking devices. They had to have been deciding what to do.

I raised my head again to look down at the two troops below me. They stood there awaiting new instructions. One of them kicked a stone in a very human manner, almost like he was bored with the delay. Then the talking changed again, and the troops started moving in the direction of the red blips.

I stayed motionless watching them. Several more met up with the two below and began walking together in a new formation.

I held my breath. The further away they got, the more freedom of movement I had. I listened to the sound of their footsteps. I looked at the tracker. Two of the four blips had vanished from the screen. But, two remained, one of which was fading in and out. Then without any explanation, they both vanished.

I looked down at them again. The ground troops stopped moving. Well, at least they were as confused about the red lights as I was.

But it gave me a stupid idea. I reached into my bag and pulled out my blocker, opening the back of it the same way that Carlos had. The last of their ground troops were now a good half mile away from me, with the tail end of their ship hovered above. I peered through the clouds to make out what I could only assume were their engines.

“Please let this work,” I thought to myself as I hit the green reset button on the back of the blocker.

The device blinked off, and as it did a new red dot, representing me, appeared on the tracker’s screen as the device re-set itself.

Again, right on cue, the ground troops stopped walking at the same time that my red blip disappeared.

“Okay, Motherfuckers. Figure something out,” I whispered while wiping the sweat off of my brow.

I positioned myself with the “Big Gun” pointed at their men for over fifteen minutes while their helmets chattered on about what they were going to do. I figured that I’d fire down at them until I was overwhelmed, and if it came to it, I’d just empty the big gun at their ships engines until the whole damn thing came down on top of all of us. I just prayed that none of the red blips came back on the screen for long enough to confuse them.

After a few more minutes I heard their helmet chatter change again as the entire battalion resumed their original course. Hopefully they thought it was a glitch. I don’t really care, just as long as it worked. Minutes passed, and they still continued west. Twenty minutes later, I finally pried my fingers off of the “Big Gun.”

I stayed in the same position for the next hour, not daring to move while silently watching their troops walk away into the distance before I picked up my things started running over the broken terrain again.

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