Chapter 5 : CutOff One Head

A long time ago it seems now
Rivertown, Before TEOTWAWKI

“Let’s go kill us some vipers.” Chad said. “I have a need to even up the score after they tortured/interrogated me, then killed me. They ruined my day!”

“I’m with you.” She agreed.

Chad spread his pinions and clawed for altitude. He was effectively invisible. He could NOT be seen by the naked eyeball at more than arms length. He and Akatsuki flew silently toward a nest of vipers. They had blood in their eyes and murder in their hearts.

It turned out to be simple. They wafted in on the breeze. When they positively identified the Viper Building Chad found a safe space for his body and hid it. Then Akatsuki hovered low over the entrance to the viper building. When the door opened she wafted inside unseen.

Once inside Akatsuki was Queen. She had inherent access to all wireless and was thus in her element. SSmoke could be as large of a Computer as she wanted it to be. Cracking codes was trivial. With the built in SoulStoneSoftWare, Hacking the system was about as hard as looking through a plate glass window. It would have been hard NOT for her to find what she desired and she did not resist the temptation. Within seconds of access to the system she knew where she wanted to be.

Slow but surely she approached their objective. The control room in which Director McCarthy was proceeding over a SWAT strike on their friends.

The SSmoke was still bending light round her. She was camouflaged like no other. Akatsuki transformed into another shape and drifted toward the door. It wasn’t long before it opened. She drifted in unseen.

A short time later the door opened and people exited screaming. An invisible Akatsuki exited also. Very shortly she was outside.

“That was quick.” He said “ Get him?”
“I certainly did. His head is in the bag. I saw no reason to mess around with him. I nipped his noggin off. Let’s go.”

***
months later

The head of the Viper was dead. One would think that Viper itself would then die. One would be wrong. That’s not how government secret agencies worked. These kinds of Vipers are like Hydras in that they grow a new head and become more powerful if the old head is removed. The Viper agency was part of a government department therefore if Viper was removed the department’s funding would suffer. That could not be allowed to happen.
A new director was selected by the Administrator. He was given Carte Blanche and an increased budget. Considering the weather problems it was deemed unnecessary to bother the Senate with something so minor as a confirmation. His job was to determine what his job was and then to carry it out as he saw fit.

Director McCarthy hadn’t left any records that he knew of. He didn’t trust them. McCarthy was a spook and knew full well that the only way that a secret could be kept between two people was if one of them were dead. All of his secrets had been kept when he died he would have thought. As far as he was aware and as far as he was able to control it he was correct. Unfortunately McCarthy’s paranoia had not kept abreast of the latest technology.

The room in which the director died was kept under armed guard at all times. The guard was rotated quiet frequently so that they were always alert and they were videoed while on duty. Any later review of the video would identify anyone who’s attention flagged. Those individuals were replaced. No one entered the secure conference room without a separate armed escort. The door guards stayed at the door. The janitors, for example, were shadowed by additional guards who were VERY suspicious of their every move. All of the guards knew all of the other guards personally.

When the cleaning, or other service was done the service personnel were escorted to another room in which they removed all of their clothing and were decontaminated as if they had been exposed to Haz-Mat. Their clothing and the trash were burned in an incinerator in the very same room.

Immediately prior to any use, the room was ‘swept’ by guards using the very latest multi-spectrum, full channel detection units. The detection equipment itself was carefully monitored and kept secure at all times.

The room was deep underground and built inside a hi-resolution well grounded Faraday Cage. Those who used the room were confident that nothing could get in or out unnoticed larger than pollen.

That was actually true.

Unfortunately there were millions of pollen sized optical receptors embedded in the paint. The system was totally passive using nothing but ambient light. The light entered the receptors and was routed out of the room via undetectable hair thin glass fibers to a node hundreds of feet away. There the very faint light was converted to a full audio/video signal. The Administrator didn’t like anyone keeping secrets from him not even his Directors. He’d had the system installed off budget and without anyone’s knowledge. The workers who had installed it had been involved in a tragic, fatal accident, in fact the whole company had.

So sad.

When he wanted, the Administrator could monitor the proceedings. He had an excellent view. He might as well have been sitting in a lounge chair in the middle of the meeting. It wasn’t VR but it was damn close.

That fatal night the Director was halfway thru a meeting regarding a SWAT team operation when the he lost his head, literally. The video showed his head twitching to one side, then lifting off his neck in a fountain of blood. The head then vanished from sight.

Upon examination of the neck cut it was discovered to be very precise. What ever had cut his head off had been so sharp that the finest surgical steel scalpel might as well have been a chainsaw by comparison.

For months afterward, the video had been folded, spindled and mutilated in the lab. Finally it submitted to their tender loving ministrations and showed them what they wanted to see. An indefinite, indistinct, unclear, ill defined, hazy, faint, nebulous, amorphous shadow of something, was observed to bite off the director’s head.

The video showed the shadow of a shadow then floating near the ceiling, avoiding all contact with people until the door was opened, then it too, vacated the room. Additional ministrations to all of the pertinent video monitoring sites for the rest of the building showed the same thing. The hazy, indistinct, barely detectable, shadow casually made it’s way to the front door.

When the door opened it was gone.

The new director had been given carte blanche, or he thought he had it, to solve the mystery. In addition to the video he had two other pieces of information. One was a damaged audio recording. Someone had recorded that meeting but the data card had been trashed.

***

“Sir. I believe we have a breakthrough concerning the alien tech.”

“Oh?“zzzzt,,,ssssss,zzztttttzssszsssss”

“We zzzzt ssssss,zzztttttzssszsssss RiverCity. zzzz ,ssssss, zzztttttzssszsssss dragons.”

“Dragons?” zzzzt,,,ssssss,zzztttttzssszsssss “zzzzt,,, ssssss ,zzztttttzssszssssssame thing?

zzzzt,,,ssssss,zzztttttzssszssssschecked out.”

“Send in tzzzzt,,,ssssss,zzztttttzssszsssss to do zzt,,, ssssss,zzztttttzsss”

That was it. Alien Tech and Dragons.

The other thing he had was a vault for which he had no combination. It was one of the Agencies strongest smart vaults. If it thought it was being cracked it would detonate and not only destroy it’s contents but trash two city blocks as well.

Alien Tech? Dragons? The Director felt that his duty was clear. The vault must be opened. The city blocks must be sacrificed if need be. Too bad about the people who lived there.

It had been difficult to find someone to try. So far no one had survived the job interview. The new director wasn’t taking no for an answer. Eventually he’d find someone.

He always did.

***

Eventually, using the latest in MicroElectronicMechanism Technology the contents of the vault had been removed, taken to the roof of the building the vault was in and transferred to a helicopter. Unfortunately a proximity device had been overlooked. The contents of the vault weren’t in close ENOUGH proximity so the explosive charge detonated.

The helicopter almost made it clear. It was a near thing. Unfortunately no one survived, either onboard the chopper or for a three block radius around the secret vault. The explosion was more powerful than predicted. The contents of the vault were somewhat the worse for wear but were not destroyed.

The contents of the vault were deadly all by themselves.

One piece was just a staff that looked like a stick or a rod. It was a little over a meter long and appeared to have no particular significance and hadn’t looked important at all until it had been triggered and cut in half at the waist three people who had been standing in proximity to the person investigating it. That had been messy in the extreme.

At first glance another item had looked like a collection of sticks connected to a bowl or a pan. Close investigation was pending.

One other piece appeared to be a leather jacket. Close investigation was pending.

The final item closely resembled a motorcycle helmet. Close investigation was pending.

Several agents had been summarily executed for refusing to investigate. The new director finally was forced to concede that his pool of employees was getting shallow so he switched to tele-operated robots like he should have been using from the beginning.

Currently he was waiting for the second batch of robots. The first batch had been destroyed while performing close investigation of the Alien Tech.

***
“Director?” a nervous agent stuttered.

“Yes, what is it? Can’t you see I’m busy?” the Director replied.

“The computer kicked this out” the agent said “It gave it a .09% probability of being involved with the Alien Tech.”

“WHAT?” The Director fairly screamed “Why wasn’t I notified earlier?”

“It was just discovered five minutes ago.” The Agent explained. “No one in the computer section would bring it to you.”

“Oh?” The Director looked at the Agent closely. “And just who are you then?”

The man started to answer but wasn’t given enough time. The director shot him down like a dog. Secret’s are only secrets if one person knows them.

***

“Director” the voice on the radio was partially obscured by the sound of the helicopter.

“Yes, what is it?” The Director replied.

“The results are inconclusive” the voice on the radio said. “The exit ramps off the bridge to the island are gone. That explains the missing lawyers. The island is gone too. The water is much higher now that it was then. The island is probably flooded and not visible under the murky water.”

“Very well” the director said. Something wasn’t right. He contemplated the situation for a while. Best to not take any chances.

He contacted the Administrator and presented his plan. The Administrator was easily convinced and contacted the Secretary. The Administrator presented his case to the Secretary, he lied a lot. The Secretary was somewhat reluctant but in the end was won over. He finally agreed and contacted a subordinate. It didn’t matter if the subordinate agreed or not. Eventually a Coast Guard Captain received new orders.

The USCGC “Sentinel Class Patrol Boat, Horatius” was assigned Temporary Duty to Viper. The Horatius was to receive it’s new OverSeer at it’s present base in Paducah Kentucky, very soon. After he arrived it was to proceed with all haste upriver to the former location of Flint Island.

The Captain was instructed that this was a Super-Duper-Sekreet Mission. He was to do what he was told to do, regardless of what he was told to do, ask no questions and never to speak of it afterward. He was also informed that his two new passengers were armed and would remain so.

The ships secret mission was to discover the Alien Tech, only no one was allowed to know that. The ship’s compliment, including it’s captain was just given orders to follow the orders of the two Agents, Special Agent in Charge:Klink and Secondary Agent Reporting, Gaoler Ensign, Shultz.

The Captain almost winced at that. The Bureaucrats were at it again. They were revising the rank structure and devising pretentious ranks. One would think that with a global disaster they could find better use for their time.

It turned out that Special Agent In Charge was roughly equivalent to the Captain’s rank. Since a ship may only have one Captain the Special Agent was given a courtesy promotion................. to Colonel.

Even moving only somewhat faster than an old man walking with a cane the Banana Slug had already passed Paducah, in the fog, mostly submerged and unnoticed long ago. The smokeship was heading south, the coastguard ship was going north.

“There’s nothing down there Sir.” The Diver said “Except for a car with two bodies in it.”

“Just out of curiosity what’s the town look like PO?” the Captain asked.

“There is no town Sir.” The diver explained. “Other than that car there’s nothing but gravel and mud for hundreds of yards upstream and downstream.”

“The GPS indicates that there was an island here with a small town on it by the name of ‘Flint Island”. the Captain Persisted.

“It’s not there now Sir.” The Diver repeated.

Colonel Klink said “Find that town, Captain. First we’ll go up river until the water is too shallow. If it’s there we should see it. If not then we’ll turn around and go down river until we find it.”

SARGE Shultz said nothing.

***

The trip upriver had been hell. The rain and the fog continued. The water continued to rise and Barges, and other vessels, had began to break free of their mooring and drift downstream. A number of times the Horatius had been hit by drifters. Luckily they had only been fiberglass sports-craft, flotsam or other debris. It hadn’t done the Horatius any significant harm. So far there had been no major damage but the risk was increasing. If they had been hit by a barge or a commercial vessel it would have been a different matter.

***

PO’s Douglas Tick and Paul Griffin were trying to see through the dense fog. Colonel Klink had ordered them onto the deck to keep a ‘close eye out for flotsam and derelicts’. Each of them had boat hooks in hand that they’d acquired of their own initiative. The USCGC “Sentinel Class Patrol Boat, Horatius” advanced at at barely steerage speed. The slow easy burble of it’s large Cat’s were barely audible. The fog soaked up sound as well as light so the two had little worry that they would be overheard by the two Vipers inside the cabin.

“Can you believe this?” Doug asked, he desperately wanted a cigarette. “We have FLIR and Radar and yet they send up here to “observe”.

“I’m still trying to get past their names” said Paul, he was an old Swabbie, almost due to retire.

“Klink and Shultz?” asked Doug. “What’s unusual about that?”

“Oops...look at that.” Doug said, dropping the subject of names. Suddenly he bellowed loudly enough to rustle the hair on Paul’s head .

“ Attention the Helm! Hull off the Port Bow! Closing slow!” Doug had spent many years at sea. He had a powerful set of lungs. His shout was LOUD.

He and Paul stepped briskly toward the capsized pleasure boat hull which had suddenly appeared out of the dense fog. It was barely ten foot away and closing when they used the boat hooks to fend the lighter weight plastic hull away from the Horatius.

“Perhaps FLIR and Radar doesn’t work so well under these conditions against plastic pleasure boats.” Paul said after the floating hull had passed.

***
inside the ship

“Cough, Cough Pardon me Sir” Shultz discreetly attempted to get Colonel Klink to wake up. It could be embarrassing if the Captain of the Sentinel Class were to discover him asleep on deck.

“There! Listen Sir” Shultz said.

Not at all faintly could be heard “ Attention the Helm! Hull off the Port Bow! Closing slow!”

“I hear it Shultz” Klink jerked away. He almost fell out of his seat.

“I know nothing” Shultz told him. “Nothing.”

“Um” Shultz started to say.

“What IS it Shultz?” Klink asked in exasperation. “Spit it out”.

“You needn’t be so nervous sir. You should rest, perhaps take a nap. There are highly trained sailors who are on alert and watching for danger in person as well as the electronics.” Shultz said.

“Really?” Klink said “I suppose so. They’ve been doing this for some time. It’s their skin too if we sink.”

“Yes Sir. ” Shultz said “That’s normally the way it works.”

“Well that’s an excellent idea Shultz” Klink said “I am a bit fatigued. I’ll be in my bunk”.

He left.

“The USCGC “Sentinel Class Patrol Boat, Horatius” burbled downstream at about half a knot above steerage. Little did they know that they’d passed within a hundred yards of the Banana Slug which was hiding underwater in a Meander Elbow.

Chapter 6 : Hunting

The Banana Slug was slow. A child in an inflatable duck pool toy could swim faster. Shelby swore that it was THAT slow.

Watching it move had all the thrilling excitement of watching paint dry. On the other hand, they didn’t know where they were going so why be in any big hurry to get there, and how would you know anyway?

Many of the residents took the opportunity to go fishing. Time spent fishing does not count toward total life-time hours, any fisherman could tell you that.

Leaving the SmokeShip would have been a security risk for everyone involved so no one did that. No one knew what the risk of detection was but it was definitely higher if people were outside than if they were inside. No one went outside. They used avatars designed to look like local animals to catch fish. There was a run on Avatars. Joshua was handing them out to those who didn’t already have them, children mostly. Oddly enough Joshua did very well with children. He couldn’t be rushed either. He took as long with each child as it took.

Joshua was also a Mage. NO ONE wanted to piss off a mage. So if Joshua wanted to take a long time with each ‘customer’ that was just fine with everyone.

“Why can’t I have a pink Hello Kitty, flying a red and yellow bi-plane, with twin wing mounted Gatling guns to go hunting ducks?” Sabrina Periwinkle asked.

-To Be Continued -

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All Illustrations are from pixabay