Savior Part 2: Son of Eden (The Savior Series) Page 16

  “That’s right, you pathetic bastard! I’ll give you a reason to fear me!” I bellowed as the General’s eyes widened with terror as he realized that no one could save him from me. The twenty Secret Service agents that surrounded me with their guns drawn didn’t even register as a threat to me. All that mattered in that moment was teaching that prick a lesson—and everything else was just background noise.

  “Release him, Reaper!” Wells ordered as blood tricked from the General’s nose and his eyes rolled into the back of his head.

  “I’m gonna gas him!” one the Secret Service agents shouted as he withdrew a gas grenade from his hip.

  “You stand down, son!” Wells barked before the agent could arm the grenade. “Ace, get in there before he kills him!” Wells continued.

  Ace immediately leapt into action, sliding across the table and darting toward me with astonishing quickness. I tried to swat him away with my left hand but he easily slipped under my arm and quickly delivered several pressure point attacks to my neck and abdomen before I could react. My right arm and leg were instantly paralyzed and I toppled to the floor while Ace stood guard over me as the crowd of Secret Service agents closed in around us.

  “Get your hands off of him!” Ace yelled as one of the agents attempted to restrain me.

  “I want that filthy alien in chains right now!” General Thompson growled as the Secret Service agents helped him to his feet.

  “That’s not going to happen, Frank,” Wells said calmly as the feeling in my right leg and arm finally started to return.

  “Dammit, if you won’t take care of him I will!” General Thompson grumbled as he withdrew a pistol from a nearby agent’s hip and aimed it at me.

  “Frank, what in the hell are you doing?!” Secretary Montgomery shouted.

  “What’s it look like I’m doing? You saw what he did to me!” General Thompson barked.

  “Frank, if you pull that trigger the only thing you’ll do is piss him off more than you already have,” Wells warned. “Now put that thing away and get the hell out of my sight before you piss me off too—and if you think Reaper was rough on you, you haven’t seen a damn thing yet,” Wells warned.

  A few uneasy moments of silence passed before the General finally handed the pistol to a nearby agent and silently scoffed in my direction as he headed towards the exit.

  “The President’s going to hear about this,” General Thompson said as he begrudgingly trudged past Wells.

  “I’ll let you know if I lose any sleep,” Wells quipped, while across the room Ace reached down and helped me to my feet.

  My heart was still racing and my legs were tingling as the effects of Ace’s nerve attack wore off but I managed to hobble back to my seat at the end of the table without falling to the floor again.

  “If anyone else wants to antagonize The Reaper you can get the heck out of here as well. That damn kid is the only hope this planet has and I’ll be damned if I stand by and listen to any of this alien nonsense. He’s an American, dammit. End of story!” Wells said firmly as he took his place at the opposite end of the table. There was slight clamoring as the rest of the group took their seats back at the table but no one objected to Wells’ statement—at least not where we could hear it. “Now, where were we?” Wells continued.

  “With all due respect, Director, I’d like to know how we’re supposed to know that this plan of yours will work considering the fact that your main asset is… unstable, to say the least. No offense, of course,” Secretary Montgomery said as he glanced in my direction.

  “Reaper’s fine and besides, he won’t be by himself. We’re assembling a team to—”

  “I told you I’m not fighting The Greater with a team,” I said firmly. Wells clenched his jaw out of frustration as he cut his eyes over to me.

  “It sounds like there may be a monkey wrench in your plan, Wells,” Secretary Montgomery remarked as they all stared at me.

  “We’re all confident in Reaper’s abilities, however we were entertaining the idea of adding some additional support when he challenges The Greater given that the Anokian laws allow it,” Wells said, obviously hoping that I would keep quiet.

  “I don’t need an entire freaking team to fight one guy,” I repeated. “I’ll consider fighting with Ace but that’s it.”

  “Reaper, we’re gonna need help,” Ace declared, to my surprise.

  “Are you kidding me?” I asked.

  “I’m afraid not, bud,” Ace admitted. “He’s a hell of a lot stronger than I thought he would be.”

  “So you don’t think we can take him?” I asked.

  “Just trust me, Reap. You haven’t seen what he can do yet, bro,” Ace said. “He’s even stronger than you are and he had this… energy that came out of his hands when he attacked. It was hotter than fire and when he hit Tango with a single wave of it, it nearly killed him.”

  “Wait a second, you mean Tango the Stranger? What in the hell does he have to do with this?” I asked.

  “Tango and Charlie have agreed to fight for us in exchange for getting their sentences commuted,” Wells said. “I understand your reservations given their ties to your brother’s organization, however their talents have proven quite useful thus far and frankly we’re at a point where we can use all the help we can get.”

  “Is this some kind of joke?” I grumbled. “And I supposed Tango and Charlie are the other two members of this team you keep talking about, huh?”

  “That’s correct,” Wells admitted. I thought about objecting but I simply clenched my jaw and shook my head out of frustration. I wasn’t sold on the idea of needing an entire team just to take on one man but I certainly wasn’t willing to waste any more of my time debating about it with someone as stubborn as Director Wells.

  “What sort of contingency plan do we have in case your team can’t neutralize The Righteous before the Anokian fleet arrives?” Secretary Montgomery asked Wells.

  “I hope it doesn’t come to this, but we’re prepared to move all essential personnel as well as their immediate family members to our base on the dark side of the moon if worst comes to worst.”

  “You’re talking about abandoning Earth?” Howie asked.

  “No, I’m talking about surviving,” Wells said firmly. “My hope is to have neutralized The Righteous before the Knights of Eden arrive, but if we fail to do so we won’t stand a chance at fighting back. Hiding out in the moon base will be our only option at that point.”

  “What about our families? Are we supposed to just abandon them?” Howie asked.

  “All essential personnel will be allowed to designate four family members that will also be given safe passage to the moon base once I give the order to evacuate. I’ll have my assistant, Cynthia contact you all with the details.”

  “So, let’s say we can’t stop the aliens from invading and we all hide away on this secret moon base. What then? Are we supposed to just stay up there until they leave?” Secretary Montgomery asked sarcastically.

  “Then we figure out what to do from there, Simon. I wish I had a better answer for you, but the reality is we don’t have a lot of options,” Wells replied.

  “What about this girl? Are the Anokians really capable of using her to resurrect their Goddess on Earth?” Secretary Montgomery asked.

  “They were able to summon the entity before so I wouldn’t doubt their ability to do it again,” Wells admitted.

  “And if they bring Her back how do we stop it?”

  “We can’t. If they bring Her back, we’re finished,” Wells said firmly.

  “Just how powerful is this thing, Wells? You’re telling me there’s nothing we can do to stop it?”

  “We’re talking about a being with the ability to defy the laws of physics, Simon. The only way to stop Her would be to separate Her true form from the physical vessel that She attaches Herself to—and we don’t have nearly enough firepower to even think about taking that thing on.”

  “But hasn’t it been done before? The
Equillian Federation was able to destroy the Goddess’ original vessel using the Guardians, if I’m not mistaken. At least that’s what it said in your files, Director,” Howie said.

  “What in the hell is a Guardian, Wells?” Secretary Montgomery asked.

  “The Guardians were an elite squadron of state-of-the-art android soldiers created by the Equillian Federation in order to turn the tide in the war against the Anokian Empire. The Federation seized a significant amount of Anokian-Steel from several of Eden’s moon colonies throughout the course of the war and once they had enough they used the nearly indestructible element to create what many believed to be the perfect soldiers—a squadron of thinking machines that were nearly impervious to damage and equipped with a hive mind AI that had predictive software so powerful that you literally couldn’t successfully attack them the same way twice. Those machines were so lethal that a single Guardian was capable of destroying a thousand men in an instant and even the Knights of Eden were no match for their might once the Equillians unleashed them.”

  “And you’re saying they were powerful enough to destroy a God?” I asked skeptically.

  “Absolutely,” Wells said firmly. “She took out quite a few of them as well, but in the end even the Goddess of Eden Herself could not withstand the power of Equillian ingenuity. During the battle one of the droids was able to convert its mass into anti-matter and when it collided with the Goddess’ vessel at nearly light speed the reaction was catastrophic—both the Guardian and the Goddess’ vessel were completely destroyed. The Guardian program had helped to tip the balance away from the Anokians but they also led to the deaths of billions of Anokian and Equillian citizens on that day. The sheer power of those machines made the rest of their Galactic Council nervous and eventually the program was completely decommissioned after a refugee hacker managed to upload a digital copy of his consciousness into one of the Guardians—which he used to nearly destroy an entire planet.”

  “Well that’s just great,” Secretary Montgomery said sarcastically. “How in the hell is a decommissioned program supposed to help us?”

  “The program was decommissioned after the Galactic Counsel passed legislation that outlawed the use of AI controlled troops in Andromeda Space. However, the laws made no mention of other galaxies. This all happened around the same time I found out about The Righteous and The Greater being transferred to the prison here on Earth so in order to beef up security I pulled some strings and got one of the Guardians that was slated to be destroyed transferred here instead.”

  “Due to the fact that this thing may end up saving our lives, I’m going to ignore the fact that you basically just admitted that for nearly twenty years, you’ve secretly had a machine on this planet that was powerful enough to destroy us all.”

  “The president knows about the Guardian, Simon, and that’s all that matters. But it’s all irrelevant at this point because the Guardian is no longer an option,” Wells said flatly.

  “What do you mean it’s not an option?” Howie asked. “To me it sounds like our only option.”

  “The Guardian was compromised by one of my former agents,” Wells answered as he glanced at me. After a few seconds I realized that he was referring to my birth mother. “She used a virus to corrupt the android’s AI and programmed it to free The Righteous and his followers. Thankfully we were able to trigger a remote shut down function before the Guardian could kill us all, but by the time we were able to execute the command The Righteous had already escaped.”

  “Well where is the Guardian? Can’t we fix it?” Secretary Montgomery asked.

  “It’s still at Area 51 right now. I’ve left it offline for all this time because we were never able to reverse the damage done by the virus. If we turn it back on who knows what could happen,” Wells replied.

  “Why don’t you let me take a look at it?” Howie asked.

  Wells stroked his chin as he pondered the idea. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” he finally replied, to Howie and Secretary Montgomery’s dismay.

  “What do you mean it’s not a good idea? You’re always telling me this kid is some kind of technical genius. If he can get this thing back online and give us a shot at killing this Goddess I think we should take the chance,” Secretary Montgomery protested.

  “What do you mean, kill her?” I suddenly asked as I realized killing the Goddess would also mean killing Monica.

  “I meant exactly what I said, son. The Anokians mean to unleash a being upon this world that poses a threat to our entire existence. If we have the means to destroy it, we need to take that chance,” the secretary replied.

  “And you expect me to just stand by and allow you to kill her?” I demanded, glaring at him as blood rushed to my head.

  “I think we’re focusing on the wrong issue here. We should be working toward preventing the Goddess’ return, not preparing for a battle that would likely destroy us all. Even if we successfully brought the Guardian back online there’s no guarantee the Earth would survive the battle between it and the Goddess. The explosion that destroyed her last vessel was big enough to rip our entire planet in half,” Wells interjected.

  “You make a valid point, Director. However, I still think a fully functioning Guardian would give us much more of a tactical advantage than simply hiding out in the moon base if worst comes to worst. I’m sure that I can get it back online if you give me a shot at it,” Howie said.

  “I’m inclined to agree with the boy, Wells,” Secretary Montgomery added.

  “Fine,” Wells said begrudgingly. “Echo, you can take a look at the Guardian strictly as a contingency measure. However, your primary focus should remain on assisting with locating The Righteous. We are running out of time and we need to find him and The Greater as soon as possible.”

  “How long do we have before the Anokian fleet reaches the Milky Way Galaxy?” one of the other joint chiefs asked.

  “They’ve already arrived,” Wells admitted.

  “Jesus Christ, Wells! Are you kidding me?!” Secretary Montgomery exclaimed.

  “No. It’s been a little over two weeks since they arrived.”

  “And you didn’t think that was important enough to tell the president?” the Secretary fumed. “How long do we have?”

  “They’re in the galaxy but judging from their movements they are still searching for the location of Earth. The original distress beacon was incomplete and there are billions of planets in this galaxy. Without the exact coordinates of Earth they’re basically looking for a needle in a hay stack right now,” Wells assured.

  “How close are they?” I asked.

  “They’re a little over three light years away. Most of their ships are capable of traveling at 150,000 times the speed of light so it wouldn’t take long for them to reach us if they were able to pinpoint our location.”

  “How exactly are we supposed to reach this moon base if they show up before you have a chance to take out The Righteous?” Secretary Montgomery asked.

  Wells nodded and one of his advisors walked around the table and handed each of us a strange device that was about the size of a double A battery.

  “The large wormhole generator on the moon base is still disabled at this point but the smaller ones remain functional. The device in your hands is a piece of Equillian Tech known as a wormhole beacon. They are linked to the smaller wormhole generators on the moon base as well as the one at Area 51. If we have to relocate to the moon base, we’ll have to use these to get there,” Director Wells explained.

  “What’s a wormhole?” I asked as I stared at the small device in my hands.

  “Echo,” Wells said as he nodded to Howie.

  “A wormhole is a fold in space-time that—” Howie began but he paused when he noticed the puzzled look on my face. “Think of it as a sort of portal that allows you to instantly travel from one place to another. I imagine the beacon would send a signal to the wormhole generator which would in turn create a wormhole that connects the location of
the generator with the location of the device. Once the connection is established you should be able to instantly travel between the two locations by entering the wormhole. In other words, these devices should allow us to make the 239,000 mile trip from Earth to the moon in just a couple of seconds. Does that sound about right, Director?”

  “That’s correct. And be sure to keep these devices safe as you will not receive a replacement should you happen to lose it.”

  We all nodded silently and studied the small devices as Director Wells stood and straightened his tie.

  “Echo, Agent Wallace will escort you to the location of the Guardian. You’ll have access to all the data we have on it in the lab so you should get started immediately.”

  “Absolutely, Sir,” Howie said as he and one of Wells’ agents stood and headed toward the exit.

  “Echo,” Wells called after Howie.

  “Yes?” Howie answered as he stopped and faced Wells.

  “Before you turn that thing back on I want you to be absolutely sure that it’s no longer compromised. That machine is capable of killing every living thing on this planet so I don’t think I have to remind you of how important it is to exercise caution.”

  “Understood,” Howie confirmed, before turning and exiting the room.

  As I watched them exit, a part of me hoped that Howie wouldn’t be able to bring the Guardian back online. If we failed to stop the Anokians from resurrecting the Goddess we would have no choice but to use the Guardian against Her. I knew that not doing so could possibly result in the end of the world but I still couldn’t stomach the thought of allowing Monica to be destroyed—even if her death meant the rest of the world was safe.

  After I had discovered my abilities the concept of fear almost seemed obsolete. Most conventional weapons were useless against my extremely dense skin and I had been strong enough and fast enough to overcome almost every opponent that I had ever gone up against. Still, as the rest of the group slowly stood and filed out of the room, I remained seated at the table, trembling in fear as they passed me. It wasn’t the thought of my impending battle with The Greater or even the possibility of losing Monica to the Goddess that scared me. What frightened me the most was the fact that the entire world was counting on me to save them, yet I wasn’t mature enough to put the salvation of the planet over the safety of just one person. I saw Ace staring at me from the doorway out of the corners of my eyes but I continued to stare at the floor and pretended not to notice him. I knew he would probably ask “what was on my mind” but the last thing I wanted to do at that moment was talk about my problems. Talking wasn’t going to fix anything. We could have talked for hours about the situation and, at the end of the conversation, nothing would have changed the fact that in order for me to complete my calling, in order to save the world from certain doom, there would come a time when I had to choose between saving Monica and saving the world.