Shades of Justice: Chapter 8

 The pool, the gym, the football field, the library, the computer lab, the auditorium and the student parking lot. All totally destroyed. The kids breathed a sigh of relief when they were teleported back to the ground, and Raptarus’ body disappeared. They all went their separate directions as they heard sirens coming from every direction.

By the next morning the local news had announced that school was canceled for the next week at least. The emergency crews had worked all night and found no bodies. There was no mention of the spaceship or any possible evidence of the aliens that may have been left behind. By the afternoon the Feds had arrived and taken over the entire campus. They pushed back the local and national news to the apartment buildings across the street from the school. By night fall there were chain link fences around the perimeter of the school campus and the way to the end of the football field. Giant work lights had been placed on generators and crews in hazard suits were sifting through the rubble. These developments had sent the news crews into a piranha like frenzy, hungry for information. By sun up 

the next day the fences had been electrified and warnings were posted every ten feet.

Even with all the news coverage and army of Feds crawling around the campus Warren found himself standing at the top of a hill on the edge of the small forest on the distant far side of the campus. The electrified fence was only another ten feet beyond the hill, then the half of the football field that had escaped total obliteration, the debris that used to be most of the high school crawling with feds, then the parking lot, the perimeter fence and in the distance the rabid media scrambling for content. He couldn’t see much but stood on the hill anyway and watched the circus with his hands in the pockets of his zip up hoodie.

“What did you lose?” Sonya asked, finishing her ascent of the hill to stand next to Warren.

“My laptop, you?” He asked.

She sighed heavily, a mixture of sadness and anger. “My car.”

“I lost my phone. Somewhere in the library.” Kelly offered sitting on the ground next to Sonya.

“You dumb dumbs know we’re gonna get caught right?” Dante said loudly from forest side of the bottom of the hill.

Gordon emerged from the forest. “Caught saving what we could of the school and the rest of the town, how dare we!” He snarked as he and Dante scrambled up the hill.

“You’ll forgive my fear of the cops.” Dante offered once they had reached the top.

Warren shook his head “At this point I’d be more worried about the feds.” He pointed to the large operation that had taken over the school.

Dante sat down hard. “Doesn’t matter how you slice it, it’s all pig to me.” He quipped making the others laugh.

Gordon kicked a small rock down the kill toward the electric fence. “How about we worry about this crap when there’s something to worry about?” He offered.

Sonya nodded. “I’m with Gordon, and thanks to Dante I’m ready for breakfast, anyone else wanna come?” she asked.

Gordon pulled a set of keys of out of his Letterman jacket pocket. “I borrowed my dad’s SUV, lets go.” He said making his way down the hill toward the tree line.

In a moment Warren was the only one left on top of the hill he took one last look at the operation on the high school campus. He kicked a rock toward the fence in frustration. “I needed that laptop.” He grumbled and then followed the others down the hill.

On his cloaked command ship in orbit around Earth, the shard of possibility in Raptarus’ eye socket had allowed him to hear the shades discussion and Warren lamenting his lost laptop. Raptarus paced back and forth as he considered his next move. The shard of possibility filled his mind with ideas. 

“Techology is an incredible tool, almost magical in its power over the daily lives of these pathetic humans! Perhaps It might be possible for me to help the poor Evergreen Shade with his technology conundrum!”

Raptarus held his right hand over his left eye where the shard of possibility was when he move his right hand a beam of pure empty blackness shot from his eye socket and hit the floor. When the empty blackness dissolved it revealed what looked like a giant super computer with bundles of cat5 wires that made up its arms and legs. There were buttons and interface panels that were lit up in magical like symbols and runes and the giant computer monster’s face was a horrible rendition of a flat screen monitor that projected a sixteen bit eyes and mouth.

Raptarus clenched his fist as he looked at the monstrosity before him. “Hexa Decimal! Go to earth. Terminate the Shades of justice and bring me their heads!”

Hexa Decimal’s flat screen face disappeared to show a command line prompt that echoed Raptarus’ demand. “Terminate program initiated!” The face returned as it laughed. “Getting rid of the shades will be easier than defragging my hard drive!” He bragged.

Raptarus’ punched a command into the nearest console interface. “Then go, and do not fail me!” He said, teleporting Hexa Decimal to Earth.