Chapter 2 - Termination of MarsH2-3(2) - Cards
The boy ran into the room. The man sat slumped in one of the chairs as the boy trotted over to him and asked, “What does this mean?”
The man became focused again and he sighed, “Xenos.”
The boy looked up, “What do we do?”
The man looked down and saw the boy’s eyes glowing a dim green. His eyes opened wide as his pupils dilated at the sight of the glowing eyes. He grabbed the boy’s shoulder, “Kid, run to the bunker under the basement stairs. You can do that for me. Yes?”
As the boy nodded, dim streaks of green light trailed behind his eyes. The man pinched the floating light as the boy exited the room. The light scattered as he pinched it and the man’s hand started shaking, “Shit. It’s started.”
He quickly stood up and walked into his bedroom. He felt the wall and knocked it lightly, “Here.”
Winding back his arm, he punched the wall pulverizing a section revealing three small metal briefcases which he threw out on the ground. One red, one blue, and one black. With all three briefcases, he sprinted down the basement stairs to the bunker and chucked them into the cramped space.
Ducking into the bunker he looked around in the dark, “You good kid?”
Laying on the ground was a pool of glowing green liquid coming out of the boy’s mouth. The man stood there shocked, “He’s drooling ether? How saturated…”
The man sighed and shut the bunker behind him before moving the five bolts across and flipping the electromagnetic locks. Placing his palm on a green computer panel, the locks tightened.
He closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall.
He felt something poke his face and he opened his eyes again and saw the boy, “You want to do something?”
“Mhm.”
He fished out a small cardboard box with a strange pattern on it. Thin yellow rectangles came out of the box, each with a number or letter on them. He looked at the boy, who’s eyes had stopped glowing, “Ever play poker?”
“What’s poker?”
The man laughed, “It’s an old pastime of mine.”
The boy picked up one of the slips of paper, “What’re these?”
“It’s cards. Here, let me teach you how to play.”
“Where did you get these?”
Stolen story; please report.
Gaius frowned, “A buddy told me to hold onto them for him.”
Before The Luna raid a few thousand years ago.
“Hey dude! Take care of these for me.”
The man turned around and caught the fresh pack of cards, “I got you Buddy.”
“You better keep 'em for my discharge party!”
The man nodded with a smile, “Yeah. I’ll put it in my stash.”
Buddy winked at the man before spinning around and walking towards the armory. The man entered the command module and overheard the general arguing he yelled, “We’ve been hit by five missiles! We need to go on the offensive!”
“Not yet, we’ve intercepted ninety percent.”
The general pointed at the radar, “I’m sending out division 72.”
The man’s blood ran cold from the words. Buddy was in division 72.
The advisor pointed at the general, “That’s a stupid suicide mission! Are you crazy?”
“No, I’m not. These are sacrifices for the greater good!”
“Bulls-”
The man turned away while covering his ears. His vision clouded over as he could hear ringing welling up inside his eardrums. The ground shook and the man looked up at the radar.
Hundreds of orange dots locked onto the army base started traveling inwards from the edges of the radar. He blinked a few times, but they didn’t disappear.
The general dropped into a chair and screamed into the speakers, “Hostile forces inbound. Prepare for impact.”
The man locked eyes with the general and it suddenly started to dawn on him what had happened as the green rectangles on the radar turned black.
An air raid siren started waking up the sleeping man. He breathed heavily as he looked around him. The boy was still sleeping on the ground. He looked down and took his pistol out of his holster. Brushing his thumb over the scratched-out names he gave a sad smile.
He felt the burnt grip of the pistol and remembered the time the pistol saved him from a nuclear blast. He sighed; the past wouldn’t happen again. What was the point in remembering the past?
Scooping up the brief cases he clicked the buttons on the handles opening them. Inside the black suitcase, a thin body suit that he quickly slipped into along with a few primitive pieces of power armor. However, he only had enough armor pieces for his upper body. He had to use the pieces for the upper body to carry the boy and the other weapons. He took the eight tennis ball sized energy cores and put them into the pockets of his power armor.
Finally, he removed a small dark blue dagger and a thin white cylinder and slipped them into a pocket on his chest.
He removed a glowing blue repeater rifle out of the blue briefcase. Inside the case was also three full cartridges of plasma which he quickly threw into his pockets.
In the remaining red briefcase was a charge rifle along with three single use reactors. He quickly checked and saw a working reactor was already loaded. Nodding to himself he attached both rifles to the back of his power armor on the two back shoulder sockets.
The man looked up at the low ceiling and thought about what he should do. A red panel appeared in front of the man. A voice spoke, “Terminating Mars habitat number two section three. Quarantine and evacuation will be conducted in district one.”
The images of people frozen in anguish from the article documenting Mercury’s purge flashed through his mind as he heard the words. He winced as he stumbled towards the door.
He glanced at the boy who was still sleeping and tapped the red panel next to the door. He slammed into the keypad 4, 7, 6. The magnets released the bolt as the man winded his arm back and punched the door and bolt out of the bunker’s frame ripping out part of the door frame. The door squished something on the opposite end of the basement and grey liquid sprayed across the entire back wall.
He scooped up the boy in his left arm and exited the room. The basement was littered with fleshy spheres and large green veins that sprawled out from them. Grey eyes appeared from the flesh and stared right at the man as he exited the bunker.
Shouldering the repeater rifle in his right arm while balancing the boy in his left, he put the closest ball of flesh within the holographic sights.
*Pop*