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The First Moments
Date: 5 August 2007, 9:34 pm
Okay…simple mission…infiltrate…kill everything that moves… stop the terrorist plan. Simple…
"Adam…hey…dude?" A voice crashed sergeant Halkinsons' train of thought.
"Hmm?" he snapped back to full attention.
"I was just saying," Thomas groaned, "that everything I said before was very important…but apparently…you didn't hear shit!"
"Yeah…that's whatever you were talking about for you." Adam replied, drifting completely out of his mind.
"Don't let him get to you Tom…he's going in alone…he might not survive…I'd be the same way if I was in his situation," Lieutenant Patronski glanced at the mental wreck that Adam had become. "In fact…he's probably already doing better than I would be."
Adam just sat there staring at his MN-66-I Pistol; suddenly he looked up and asked,
"So how does this thing work again?"
Tom sighed,
"It uses your body heat to recharge a small potassium chloride-tungsten composite cell which transfers into to small bolts of energy, and basically…it can't run out of ammo as long as you're alive."
"I see," Adam wasn't the least bit amazed by the new technology. "What else?"
"Well…" Tom scratched his head, "its also got a new thing called a bio-cell…it uses your body's natural electrical energy as a means to energize a secondary firing mechanism, one that's at least a hundred times more powerful than a single shot, but it takes a while to charge."
"Huh?" Adam squinted at Tom "what?"
"Ugh…" Tom grunted at Adam's lack of a vocabulary, "it means that if you use it long enough…it makes a big boom…do you understand that?"
"Yes…I'm not a total idiot," Adam rolled his eyes.
Tom sighed and looked at his PDA…
"We're thirty seconds out…better get ready."
"I'm ready," Adam jumped to his feet, and was immediately thrown to the deck by the deceleration of the P-436 Albatross. "Uhhh…you didn't see that…" Adam's face reddened as he looked over the edge into the sand below.
"Don't forget…" Tom added, "That new armor is still very much in the prototype stage…it might have a few kinks."
"Sure…" Adam hopped out of the flying drop-ship and hit the sand running. His helmet's half-visor adjusted to the glare, and displayed a small marker to indicate the location of the facility where the terrorists had been hiding.
"Good luck sergeant" the Lieutenants voice crackled over the radio.
He was only about half a click from it…but it would take some time to get there, even at a dead run. To his surprise it didn't take long until he came up on the lip of the crater where the facility was situated, it was a long way down, and it was a longer ways forward. A mechanism clicked on his armor, Adam looked back to see a pair of long spines wind out of his armor's 'supply pack' the spines extended silently for a moment, then they hummed to life with energy. The energy formed into a solid shield and took the shape of a wing; apparently this suit could do a little more than the designers had told him. Adam stepped off the edge of the crater, and the wings caught the air quickly and guided him towards the abandoned facility.
Adam suddenly realized: I just put my total faith in a suit that still has kinks…if those had broken off or something…I would be dead!
As he was gliding towards the facility he heard a snap,
"Oh shit…" Adam cried as his left wind snapped off, and he fell forty feet to the sand below. He landed hard and bounced several times, rolling in the hot golden sand. Adam leapt to his feet with amazing agility despite being knocked around like a rag-doll.
"Hey…how am I alive?" he asked himself. He rapped on the suit with his knuckle, and laughed,
"I love this thing, the little kinks are worth it."
Adam looked up to see the plant was close, only a few dozen meters away.He ran to it full speed. when he neared the edge of the plants perimeter, he looked around quickly and jumped onto an old fuel silo. Adam began climbing up the side of it by way of the rusty worn out ladder bolted to it. He needed a better vantage point; a seventy foot tall silo would do nicely. He reached the top quickly, and he used the built in magnification in his visor to scope out the old oil refinery. It was totally empty, but by the sound of rumbling engines, he could tell that was about to change. At least fifteen SUV's rolled past the silo, unaware to his presence. The midnight black vehicles formed a three by five formation and parked near a silo on the opposite side of the refinery grounds that Adam was on. Each SUV only had two people in it, which seemed awfully wasteful, but Adam was glad they didn't invite more friends to the party. Another, louder engine roared from behind him, the next vehicle was a long semi, with a warhead on the back, a SCUD-launcher. There wasn't just one, either, two more of the colossal green trucks followed the lead truck. The last vehicle followed the three SCUD trucks, it was a dark van with a large satellite on the back, it was probably the missile guidance truck, and that meant it was priority one. Adam drew his pistol and opened up on the crowd that had spilled from the SUV's.
The pistol was relatively quiet, but by the rate of people clutching their chests and dropping, it was effective. The pistol hissed and a blue bolt of fire leapt from the barrel, executing one of the SCUD truck drivers. The remaining men had located Adam and had opened fire on his silo. Refined kerosene spewed from the silo and splashed the dry cracked pavement below. Adam grabbed the ladders' hand rails and glided down the opposite side of the silo. When he hit the bottom, he had holstered his pistol and un-slung his rifle, an MA11-C. The rifle wasn't as silent as the pistol, in fact it downright roared at fully automatic, but it was more effective against multiple targets. Men in dark suits ran for cover firing their handguns, and were cut down in mid-stride by the .45 caliber magnum rounds. For their sake, the rifle had a shallow clip of only 40 rounds, but it was a quick and easy front loader, and soon enough, more lead was tearing through the SUV's and the men hiding behind them. When the valley was quiet, Adam moved toward the van, his handgun at the ready. He forced to heavy door open, and pointed a gun inside.
"Freeze" he yelled at the computer tech tapping away furiously at his computer, "I said freeze you son-of-a-bitch" Adam pistol-whipped the man in the back of the head, and he fell out of his chair and landed on the vans' plastic-lined floor.
Adam hit the small switch on his pistol, and the barrel split open and let four prongs protrude from the vents. A small triangle of blue laser light formed on the man's forehead.
"I told you to freeze…" Adam said patronizingly as he squeezed the trigger. The bio-cell moaned and emptied a red bolt of fire into the man's head. "Wow…it is powerful."
The computer the tech was working on beeped, and it was just loud enough to get Adam's attention. Adam stepped up onto the van and looked at the screen.
The timer read: 00:1:36
"Well shit…this probably doesn't have a 'save the world' button…so I better think of something else" he laughed at his idea of a 'save the world' button.
The answer came in the form of Micro Atomic Radioactive Bio-Layered Explosive System, or M.A.R.B.L.E.S., a tiny spherical explosive about the size of a ping pong ball. He pulled a small jar from a small holder under his 'supply pack'. He popped the jar open and pulled a handful of the small explosives from the wide-mouth. He dropped two under each SCUD truck, and then proceeded to dump the rest of the 'marbles' around the refinery under fuel-silos and pipelines. He knew he only had about 30 seconds left, so he ran, at maximum speed, from the facility, he flipped the 'marble jar' over and put his thumb over the detonator attached to the bottom. Just a few more feet and I should be safe, unless those are nuclear warheads, in which case I'm dead no matter what. God I hope they're not nukes.
Adam dove for a small crevice in the sand, and he hit the detonator. A small flash lit the edges of the crater, and a thundering bang echoed through the whole valley, secondary explosions sounded as fuel tankers and silos erupted into flames and blew shrapnel across the refinery. Adam decided to look, so he leaned forward, exposing just the top of his head, he could see what was once a large facility, now it was a metal graveyard, and the souls of all the men he had killed for his country clawed for the air, burning bright orange and roaring for freedom. Adam stood and moved towards the facility, he had to make sure the targets were all down. Without any fuel left, most of the fires died, but some had managed to make their way to the SUV's and what was left of the SCUD trucks and continued to burn. A large crater had been blown in the concrete floor of the large facility. A flat steel plate sat on the bottom of the crater, completely unharmed. This is strange…that thing should be burned right through, maybe it's a storage container or something, but it still shouldn't be that tough.
Adam shot at the plate with his pistol and the rounds simply glanced off. He walked down the sloping edge of the crater and came close enough to touch it. But the plate took the first step; it reached out and touched him. Adam fell backwards as a large metal pedestal rose up and touched his hand.
What the hell is this, some frickin' alien or something? The pedestal rose about 3 feet high, and two small wings spread from the sides. The small wings glowed bright white and they produced a small holographic screen and a single circular icon appeared below it. The screen fuzzed from static to an image of empty space, the camera kept switching, from one point in space to another, when the camera landed on a random planet, Adam hit the icon, and it pulsed from cool blue to a fiery red, and then began flashing. I wonder if that was a bad idea…
The pedestal retracted back into the large metal plate, and the whole plate started to rise…lifting the ground beneath his feet. Adam yelped and ran up the side of the crater, he got to the top and could see the pavement cracking around the metallic plate, he got to the edge of the crack and managed to jump over before it lifted. The plate rose about forty feet in the air, and chunks of concrete and pavement started to break off and fall around Adam. Sergeant Halkinson covered his head and ran. it was a bad idea…a really bad idea. Adam got clear of the falling debris and spun to look at the 40 foot tower. The pavement on top was completely gone, it had all fallen off, and the flat top started to open, it looked like a demonic metallic flower, and what it did definitely wasn't going to be good. The tower reduced its height until it was down to only about 5 feet tall. And the flower opened completely, it looked a lot like a sattelite dish. Originally being only about 30 feet across, it nearly doubled its width by opening up.
A small cylinder protruded from the center, and it starting attracting particles to its core. The cylinder started to hum, and Adam was instantly worried, he looked at the structures base for something supplying power to it, and he found something. A thick Super-conductor cable, if he could cut that, it would stop this 'thing' from working. An energy blade popped out of his wrist, and Adam dove for the cable. The structure fired, and a wave of energy blew his wrist-blade into a fine haze, and knocked him out for a few seconds. He came back to consciousness, and he couldn't move, his armor's joints had fused from the high-energy radiation.
Oh this is bad...
He heard the familiar roar of an Albatross coming in close, and hoped they came to pick him up. The heavy craft landed in the cracked and burned courtyard and from the sound of it, a few dozen marines spilled out. Adam cried out in despair, and a marine came close to him. Adam heard a radiation counter squeal and click; he was as hot as a reactor technician. His vision started fading, but whenever he closed his eyes, bright colors would keep him from going to sleep, which he really felt like doing. He felt lightness in his stomach as several marines hefted him and carried him back to the Albatross, Adam tried to say thanks, but he couldn't breathe. Tom grabbed Adams arms and pulled him on board.
"You're okay buddy; just…stay with us…"
Adam nodded weakly and tried to keep his eyes open. But I'm totally fine aren't I? I mean…I don't feel anything…I'm just tired…
Tom, with the marines' help, towed Adam to a Cryogenic Freezer, so they could keep him alive until they could get to a hospital. Adam remembered seeing the inside of a glass panel surrounded with metal supports, and then darkness overwhelmed him as the freezing process took place.
Trieste (part 2)
Date: 8 August 2007, 5:34 am
"I think he's gonna wake up…" a muffled voice announced.
Adam opened his eyes, but a dense mist and his own tiredness crowded his vision.
"Yeah…he's awake alright." the voice laughed.
Adam moved his arms, they hurt like a bitch, but he moved them. He pushed his palms up and hit glass, thick, cold glass.
"Vent the Freon-gas!" the voice yelled.
"Yes sir, venting now" another, more digitized feminine voice responded.
The cloudy mist that obscured Adams vision faded, and the image of a young man standing right in front of his glass prison appeared.
"Do you want to tell him or should I?" the man turned to look at the computer terminal behind him, where a beautiful, and scantily clad, woman sat. He recognized her voice as the one he heard earlier as she spoke.
"You tell him, Phoenix, you've probably been waiting for this for a long time."
"Thanks Trieste, Well….uh….Mr. -err…."
"Halkinson." Adam was glad he could remember his own name.
"Right….Halkinson….I don't know how to put this exactly, but….welcome to the future." The man grinned, but he looked like he wasn't kidding, "crack the case!"
The glass panel shuddered and groaned, and then it lifted up and out of the way. Adam jumped up, and then dumped out of the tube face-first. Trieste giggled at Adams clumsiness.
"Try to take it easy pal," Phoenix said, "You haven't used your body in five-hundred-and-some years."
"Come again?" Adam cried, still lying on the floor, "FIVE HUNDRED?!"
"Yeah, you were frozen in…uhhh…"
"Ugh" Trieste groaned, "September 23rd, 2009"
"Right….thanks Tri…welcome to the year 2547" the man groaned, and extended his hand to help Adam from the metal floor, "I'm Shaun by the way."
"Shaun Phoenix?" Adam asked, as he lifted himself to his feet, "Your name is actually Shaun Phoenix?"
"Ya…why?" Shaun squinted.
"No reason….its just a little….weird" Adam couldn't say what he wanted to say, it didn't feel right to say "Phoenix" was such a lame-ass name that it wasn't a surprise that he wasn't ever going to be famous, it just seemed too fake. "I'm Adam, Adam Tyler Halkinson."
"Come on…I wanna make you crap yourself…" Shaun grabbed Adams arm.
Adam reluctantly followed Phoenix across the large room, which was filled with many more cryogenic-tubes. Shaun pointed at the beautiful girl sitting on the edge of the computer terminal, Trieste. Adam extended his hand to shake hers, and she humored him by extending hers as well, when his hand passed through hers, Adam jumped backwards. "What the hell are you?" He cried.
"I'm Trieste, his sexy assistant." the woman laughed pointing at Shaun. "They picked me because no human girl would ever put up with him for longer than a few minutes."
Adam laughed at her sharp humor, and Shaun glared at her.
"Shaun…" she laughed and folded her arms over her chest, "quit staring!"
"Ha ha Tri, very funny…" Shaun said sarcastically, "now uncross your arms; you'll want to give our guest a good look."
Adam blushed, "that's fine, and I think I can take a few more minutes without seeing anyone topless"
Trieste smiled at him, "You're one of the non-perverted ones, and I like you already"
Even though he was already blushing, he reddened even more, thirty seconds in a new world, and he had a girl who liked him.
"Alright, enough fraternizing," Shaun said, "let's get you to the military training camp, right through here."
Adam looked around, Shaun was pointing to a hollow space in a wall, no doorway in it or anything. Suddenly lights winked on in the top and bottom of the hollow spot, and a green haze filled the hollow opening. Shaun stepped half-way through and grabbed Adam's arm, pulling him into the green mist. The next thing Adam knew, he was in a completely different room. It was white, and all along the walls hundreds of different weapons, ranging from tiny, easy-to-conceal pistols, to Man-sized rocket launchers and back-pack sized bombs.
"Pick what you want, go test it out over there in the 'play-ground'" Shaun said, "someone will get you eventually"
Shaun shook Adams hand and stepped back through the teleporter. Adam looked at the buffet of carnage set out around him, he had unlimited choice. He immediately ran to the rifle area, a whole wall stacked with different long-guns. He grabbed rifle with a scope and a small ammo counter, and pulled a large chrome-plated pistol from the rack behind him. Adam stepped into the 'play-ground' with his rifle at his shoulder, ready to kill. A cardboard target popped up from behind a wall, and he took its head off. Another popped up in a window; he removed its arms, and put a bullet right through its heart. This rifle was great, a healthy combination of firepower, stopping power, and accuracy. To humor his 'targets' he slung the rifle and pulled the pistol from his holster. When a target popped up, he shot it, and the round blew a fist-sized hole in the targets chest, maybe using the pistol wasn't the way to be nice to his targets; it seemed to do more damage than the rifle. Adam walked through most of the training area with the pistol, opening large gaps in the heads and torsos of the cardboard targets. When he got to the end, he hit the small button labeled 'finish' and he heard what sounded like digital applause, from a single person.
"Very good," Trieste appeared before him, clapping, "and I can't wait to see what else you can do…" Adam caught her wink, but immediately dismissed it as just a clever joke.
An Artificial Intelligence construct coming on to me? Now who's crazy?
Adam nodded, hoping the A.I. wasn't actually attracted to him, hoping, praying that it was just a clever program to make the construct seem more human. Trieste put her hand on his shoulder, or as close as she could without going through him.
"Follow me, Adam…" she turned and led him to another teleporter, and Adam couldn't help but looking, she had a very nice body, and with what she was wearing, or wasn't wearing for that matter, it made her look all the better.
"Why thank you," she said.
"What?" Adam asked.
"Oh come on now," she giggled, "just because I'm facing away, doesn't mean I'm not tracking your eye movements, and your heart and respiratory levels. You like me don't you?"
"Aww hell," Adam rolled his eyes, "yes…but keep in mind I've been alone for a few years"
"Five hundred and thirty eight years," she corrected him.
"I meant years that I was conscious," he said with a sigh.
Trieste turned to face him, and Adam immediately looked at the ceiling, just to avoid making eye contact, and then the inevitable outcome of looking a bit lower than her eyes.
She giggled and walked around him. Inspecting his body, and that's when Adam realized he was only wearing underwear. He winced and tried to cover himself.
"Oh, it's much too late for that." Trieste smiled at him, "I took at least a hundred pictures, and you know what, I'm saving them."
Okay...it's not just a clever bit of programming.
"You'd do well in the Marine Core, Inner System Defense Division; you're well suited to armed combat, and this planet's gravity," she said matter-of-factly, then added "and you have a cute butt."
Adam tensed at the last few words, an A.I. had just commented him on his ass, and she's awfully forward for an A.I.
"Wait…" Adam asked, "this planets gravity?"
"Well….we didn't exactly move five-hundred years in the future without developing a bit of space-travel technology," she said, "we've explored several galaxies outside of this one, and found many inhabitable planets. The one you'd be suited for is called Satyr; it's a farming planet, one we share with the Alliance."
"Huh?" Adam squinted, all this information, something about an Alliance, what happened in the last five-hundred years? "What's the Alliance?"
Trieste sighed deeply, and her chest puffed out, nearly slipping free of the thin scraps of cloth keeping her decently clothed. "The Alliance are a group of Aliens that have some sort of religious standing with our planet, after a large signal pulse was sent out into space by some sort of foreign technology, the aliens came to Earth. There was a bit of a negotiational war, but nobody got hurt, and we developed a partnership. They agreed to trade their technology for our different cultures and our teachings of what we've learned about our universe."
"I see," Adam said, taking everything she said,
"Alright," Trieste said, "we better get going before someone thinks I'm trying to keep you all to myself."
Trieste stepped up to another teleporter, and faded right next to it. Adam knew he had to step through, but he wondered where he would end up next. The green haze filled his vision, and Adam felt gravity leave and return as suddenly as the blink of an eye. He appeared in a large closed dome. Dozens of lights illuminated the empty flat grounds. The two brightest spotlights shone on a white sheet that covered something over six feet tall. Trieste reappeared in front of him and walked him to the sheet, as a few people stepped through a door to Adams left, Trieste immediately moved to cover Adam, he was after all, still in his underwear. Among the group of five people were a scientist, a grizzled old man in a naval suit, and three standard soldiers. Trieste formed a holographic sheet to cover Adam from the waist down, and she stepped out of the way. The scientist opened his lab coat, and pulled an elastic-composite body suit from one of the deep pockets on his white coat. He tossed it at Adam,
"Put this on….you'll have to take off anything you may have on now."
Again Trieste stepped in front of Adam, and he quickly pulled the stretchy black suit over his feet, and pulled it up to his chest. He found the arm holes and slipped into those as well, when he adjusted himself to the suit, it felt quite nice, and it fit snugly up to his neck. The scientist grabbed the sheet covering the object Adam noticed before, and ripped it off. Underneath, a suit of armor, but far more advanced than the one the three marines who were nearby wore. This was tougher, less bulky, more efficient, and it had a full helmet with a chrome plated visor.
"This," The scientist waved his hand at the suit, "is the product of fifteen years of calculations, studies, and testing. It is the best armor known to mankind, developed from reverse engineered alien technology."
Trieste leaned over to Adam,
"Here comes the best part."
"You, as an experienced armor tester from the twenty-first century, will be the first to test it," the scientist smiled. "Good luck soldier."
After nearly a half-hour of putting on the armor piece by piece, Adam started to get restless, but he tried to remain still as the scientist and the three marines assembled his 'second skin'.
"Okay…we're done….hit the charger." The scientist ordered.
A small blue bar appeared in the corner of Adams display on his visor, it filled up slowly, but as it got to half-way, he could feel his joints loosening up. Adam clenched his fingers, and he could feel the extra power he had now, the extra force he could produce.
"Now that you're nearly fully charged," the scientist walked a bit closer, "we need to find you an artificial intelligence to be your partner for life."
Trieste glowed for a moment; she jumped and put her hand in the air, yelling,
"I want to, I want to!" when she landed, her cloth straps snapped, and for a second she turned bright red before she spun around and 'fixed' the straps by re-coding them. She had a right to be embarrassed, everybody saw what happened, and she wasn't as willing to be so open in public anymore.
"Trieste, you seem to be a viable candidate for his armor, as soon as he reaches full charge, up-link yourself to his armor." The scientist said.
"Yes sir," the A.I. saluted, but kept her other arm across her chest, making sure she wouldn't slip out again.
As soon as Adam's suit beeped to indicate a full charge, Trieste faded, and he immediately felt her presence inside his armor and mind, it felt like warm chocolate was poured over his body, and he shuddered it off.
"Even your mind is sexy…" Trieste said from inside his mind, as she appeared in a small screen in the corner of his visor. "I'm going to love it here, but I might have to move some things….tell me if you have a stroke." Her little quip worried him.
"Can she read my mind?" he asked the scientist. "Or screw with my brain functions?"
"Well," the scientist scratched his head, "she cant mess with your brain functions, but she can tell what you're thinking, I wouldn't think anything too bad around her, cause, she may like you, but she's nasty when she's pissed off."
Adam looked at the little image of Trieste show-dancing in his little screen.
"That's good to know…"
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