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.
