The Universal War

  Chapter 12: The Plan Unfolds

  “Unplug the machine,” Draktos told one of his shadows as he walked down the hallway in a quickened place, hurriedly walking towards the runway.

  As he opened the door at the end of the narrow hallway and walked toward the runway in a noticeably quick pace, his shadows followed close behind him.

  “Is the jet ready?” Draktos asked impatiently.

  “Yes,” one of the multiple shadows around him responded, “we are working on loading the machine into the jet.”

  “Work faster!” Draktos demanded. “Nothing can ruin my perfect day!”

  “We are working as fast as we can,” another shadow explained, “but the shadows that are unplugging your machine are also trying to take the spare parts around it. It is to our understanding that you never finished the machine.”

  “The last steps must be completed at the island,” Draktos replied, “it is the only way for the machine to work.”

  “Very well then,” the shadow responded.

  When Draktos reached the end of the airfield, he got inside the big black loading bay doors at the back of the jet, sitting down on the benches on either side of the small room, waiting for his machine to arrive.

  ...

  Garion couldn’t help but feel Rebolto was on a roll with these predictions. He had fallen into another trap.

  “There has to be a way to escape this cage,” Purstan told Garion. “We can’t just sit here while Draktos is out doing who knows what!”

  Garion sat in thought for a moment, wondering about any way out of this contraption. He shouldn’t have been so stupid. He should have realized that the President of the United States doesn’t just meet an alien, talk for two hours then invite him to train at a top-secret facility. He should have been more cognizant. He should have predicted this right from the start. Now he was trapped in the same jail cell as when he was first captured, probably just to mock him. Then the idea hit Garion like a lighting bolt. Literally.

  “If this is the same cage as that ship,” Garion thought, “then the flaw in the cage that led to my escape must be the same as well.”

  “There is a way out,” Garion told the team, getting up from what seemed like hours of thought, “it’s just that someone’s going to get injured over it.”

  “When it comes to injury’s,” Tyrone offered, “I’m made for them.”

  “I hope so,” Garion told him. “So here is the plan.”

  After a few minutes of whispering (so the shadow watching them doesn’t hear), Garion was ready to attack. Reminding Tyrone of the battle plan again, they prepared to charge into the blue electric coils blocking their path to freedom, ready to tackle them down.

  “OK,” Garion counted down, “Three...two...one!”

  At once, Tyrone, Garion on his back, charged at the electric coils, running at them with such speed and intensity Garion was starting to become afraid of injury. As they passed through the electric jail bars, Tyrone felt the surge of 10,000 volts flow through his rocks, heating them up to the boiling point. Refusing to stop in pursuit of triumph, he kept pushing until they made it all the way through the bars, Tyrone collapsing once the task was completed.

  “Stay here,” Garion told Tyrone as he ran towards the stairs.

  “I don’t think so,” the shadow whispered.

  Garion heard the click of a few buttons, and before he knew it he was in a tropical rainforest, surrounded by thick trees, wildlife, and the sound of animals all around him. The smell of the newly dropped rain was familiar to his middle school camping trips, as Nirem remembered cooking hot marshmallows over a fire. But he knew this was no camping trip.

  “Hello?” Garion shouted throughout the forest, hoping his echo would be picked up by any of his teammates.

  “Can anyone hear me?” Garion tried again.

  No answer.

  “Where is this?” Garion muttered as he trudged through the leaves, scouting ahead for any sign of his team.

  Searching this exotic jungle, he started to hear some sort of growling from a distance. Heading toward the sound in hope of finding any sign of his teammates, before Garion knew it he was surrounded by three ferocious lions. And they all looked very hungry.

  ...

  “Sir,” the pilot asked through the P.O. system, “are you sure we should be venturing into this type of territory? There have been many bad rumors about this place.”

  “Don’t worry” Draktos assured him through another P.O. system button, “a jet like this will be able to handle anything.”

  “I hope so,” the pilot muttered in response.

  Then, the question bothering the whole flight, the pilot asked, “Why do you need me to pilot your plane? Can’t you get one of your sick...creatures to do it?”

  “Well,” Draktos responded calmly, “my ‘sick creatures’ aren’t as familiar with operating a jet of this stature. Well actually, they aren’t familiar with operating a jet at all. A man of your ranking though must be familiar with this jet. You, in fact, set the overall record for fastest round trip with a jet like this. So, how about you just keep flying this plane and maybe you will get to be reunited with your family again.”

  “Please,” the pilot responded in despair, “they didn’t do anything wrong. Don’t involve them in this. I didn’t even do anything wrong!”

  “Exactly,” Draktos responded, “you did everything right. Which is why we couldn’t ignore you.”

  With that, Draktos let go of the P.O. button, and stared outside into the world beyond.

  Looking out the window, Draktos saw the blue, murky waters of the Atlantic Ocean touch the sun in the horizon. The waves, flowing more gently then a summer’s breeze, crashed onto the ocean’s surface like a tsunami, it’s hard and violent thrash causing the water around it to ripple. As Draktos looked out the window, he mostly paid attention to the sun, the giant circular ball of light that’s fate would soon be in his hands. Marveling at the thought of the sun’s life in his power, he then realized he had to concentrate on the task at hand.

  Turning back towards the machine, he continued to work on the interior wiring inside of it, connecting and then reconnecting every wire, making sure that no calibration is off, that no malfunction occurs during the initial launch. Just a few more wiring connections, and the dream would have been completed.

  “Green to green,” Draktos told himself. “Yellow to yellow. Now I just need to screw those in, tie some knots around here and....”

  As Draktos finished up the last of the wiring, making sure red connects to red and yellow connects to yellow, he took his screwdriver and nailed metal plating to the cylinder-shaped part of the machine.

  ...

  The three lions started to close in on Garion very fast. Their growling seeming to be louder than an earthquake, the lions didn’t seem to be that patient. Their bright yellow mane helped add to the affect, as Garion remembered a TV episode he watched where the superhero saved the kids from the zoo they got stuck inside, as the lions closed in on them fast. This time though, Garion couldn’t rely on anyone but himself.

  He noticed their sharp, vicious teeth glowing in the sunlight, making them seem ten times scarier. Then Garion realized that there was no way that was sunlight.

  Looking up into the sky above him, he saw the virtual room’s glossy panel’s, seeming to glow in the sky.

  “Of course!” Garion thought. “We never left the virtual room!”

  As the lions were just about ready to pounce, Garion shouted to his team, “These are all just projections! Don’t worry about the wild animals, focus on finding the shadow and taking out the control panel next to him!”

  About 15 seconds after the announcement, he heard the screams.

  Seeming to come somewhere towards his right, the person screaming was undoubtedly terrified, as the screams echoed throughout the room. The fear that resonated in the scream was that like no other; sounding as serene as a
roar of a wolf on a full moon, yet powerful enough to break glass. Sticking like a tattoo in Garion’s brain, it caught him completely off guard as he attempted to trace the source. Even after the high pitched sound, bits and pieces of her voice could still be heard calling for help, as whatever killer that lurked in these forests finished their duty with her. Once the noises stopped, even the lions stayed quiet for a moment. Garion then heard a lion roar in the distance.

  Garion was already a good 10 feet away from the lions once he gained consciousness of his current actions. Darting from tree to tree in an attempt to loose the ferocious beasts, Garion knew he had to find a safe spot and fast. He knew he had to find someplace, anyplace where he could hide.

  While Garion was darting from tree to tree, he heard the footsteps behind him started to gain pace, so he looked around for anything; a hole in a tree, a pit in the ground, even a large rock. He knew he only had seconds before the ferocious, now obviously tangible objects lunged at his body and consumed his flesh. Running for dear life, Garion knew he had to act fast, but didn’t know how to. In the end though, none of these came to use when Garion started to hear a rattle in front of him, and the rattle seemed to be coming closer fast.

  The second the rattlesnake lunged out at Garion, he grabbed it in midair. Remembering his teachings in science class about how to hold a snake, he grabbed the mouth shut, holding onto the slimy, reptilian body with his other hand.

  Waving the snake at the approaching lions, they seemed to stop dead in their tracks, the realization of the animal Garion was holding seeming to be comprehended into their brains.

  “That’s right!” Garion shouted towards the animals. “You better be scared!”

  The next thing he knew, Garion was head first in what seemed to be a bucket of ice cubes. Looking up onto the new environment, Garion wiped the snow off of his face in amazement.

  Around him everything was purely white; no contrast in colors, no variations, no patterns. A simple white blanket seemed to be spread across the entire immediate area, covering everything in sight. The cold immediately rushing through his body in a surge of energy, Garion knew he had to move, that he had to find shelter through the snowy blizzard and freezing winds around him. Amazed at what he was seeing, Garion stumbled through what appeared to be 10 feet of snow, trudging along looking for any sort of safe house.

  About 20 steps into the walk though, Garion collapsed onto the snow, screaming, “What kind of virtual room is this?!”

  “I expected ‘The Almighty Gatekeeper’ to be smarter than this.”

  Garion, shocked to hear any sort of response, asked, “What the hell is this?”

  “Well, isn’t it obvious?” the shadow responded. “This is no ‘virtual’ room. This is a real room! Everything you see here is as real and living as the false hope you have inside of you that you are going to make it out of here alive. Of course, you probably have already noticed that with the death of your frozen friend. It’s funny, actually, this is probably the one environment where she could have served an actual purpose.”

  Anger boiling up inside him, Garion asked, “So are you trying to tell me that we are actually in some frozen wasteland?!”

  “All this room is,” the shadow responded, “is a giant teleporter. Made to bring in actual scenario’s from around the world, to train soldiers by putting them in the real environments without them ever leaving home. You see, this room teleports the entire environment here, so we don’t have to venture out into enemy territory. In this case though, we are just using it to hold your team.”

  “Wherever you are,” Garion shouted, “we will find you! And, rest assured, we will kill you!”

  “Good luck,” the shadow taunted right before clicking the P.O. system off.

  ...

  The plane started to lightly shake as it reached the island, the slight tremor being of no disturbance to Draktos, who continued to stare out of the window in awe.

  The pilot seemed to ignore the turbulence as well but, as the plane got closer and closer to the island, the plane started to shake more violently by the second.

  “Sir,” the pilot asked in concern, “are you sure that these rumors about the island aren’t true?”

  “Oh yes,” Draktos responded calmly, “the rumors are very true. Nonetheless, we keep going.”

  The pilot, stuttering, replied, “S...s...so do you mean that...all of the planes...the boats...all really vanished?”

  “Will that be a problem?”

  “Of course not,” the pilot responded, his sturdiness and decorum immediately coming back to him. “We shall continue with our current course.”

  “Damn right you will,” Draktos muttered as he went back to staring out of the window.

  Suddenly, the plane started to shake more violently then ever. Draktos, immediately falling out of his seat onto the hard, cold floor of the plane, grabbed for his machine with a grip that seemed tighter then Earth’s gravity itself.

  Draktos looked around the plane, trying to find something sturdy to grab onto. But the problem was, nothing was sturdy: not only were Draktos’ tools flying off of the benches they were seated on, but the physical benches themselves were jagged loose, roaming freely around the plane. The entire plane itself seemed to be shaking like an earthquake; it felt as though a toddler with a temper tantrum decided to take his anger out, except they were the stress reliever.

  “We can’t take much more of this!” the pilot screamed through the now barely audible P.O. system. “We’re going to crash!”

  “Keep going!” Draktos yelled.

  “Are you mad?!” the pilot responded back.

  “You either keep going, or you die in this storm!” Draktos exclaimed. “Moving forward is your only hope of survival!”

  The pilot, fearful for his own life, started to push the lever on the plane up towards the sky, praying that this will work. As the plane started to slowly venture away from the murky waters below him, the storm ventured on without a pause.

  “Here we go!” the pilot yelled to himself as he clicked a big red button covered with a seal reading: FOR EMERGENCIES ONLY.

  The plane suddenly seemed to go into hyper speed, its speed instantly increasing to miraculous speed in just a matter of seconds. Draktos, now being pushed towards the front of the plane, felt the speed intensify tenfold, seeming to instantly pass through the treacherous storm with ease. As the plane passed through the last of the storm in a mere 6 seconds, the hyper speed quickly died out, along with most of the engines fuel.

  “We are about to loose fuel,” the pilot told Draktos, “and I don’t see your island.”

  Suddenly, through the horribly dense mist and fog that seemed to surround them, the pilot saw something. Just a glimpse, but it was something. Veering down a bit more towards the surface, the pilot was able to make out the shape. It was a tree.

  “It...it...exists!” the pilot stuttered in joy. “It exists! The island exists!”

  Draktos, hearing the pilot’s stutters of joy through an accidental click of the P.O. button, smiled as the plane started to land on the surface of the island.

  As the plane touched ground after what seemed like centuries, the pilot opened the cockpit door in joy.

  “The island exists!” he screamed in joy. “It actually exists!”

  Stepping out from the darkness of the plane’s storage compartment onto the warm sandy beach, Draktos looked around at the beautiful view.

  To the right of him were mountains glistening as far as the eye can see, and to the right of him was a forest that seemed to be thicker then a stack of hay on a farmers farm. All around him the island was completely peaceful; the serenity evident throughout the island was amazing. Draktos felt like he could grab a hammock and retire here. He found it amazing how the humans couldn’t have figured out such a place of importance existed inside a few minor energy fields.

  After all of these years, these humans couldn’t figure out the obviou
s truth of the Bermuda Triangle. These pesky humans weren’t even able to venture out into that type of territory. Draktos had done his research though, he had seen the connections. The major pulses of energy coming from this concentrated area, Earth being in the exact center of the TLS. So now, after a few minor adjustments, he could finally concentrate that energy. He could finally use The Bermuda Triangle, the source of the TLS’ energy, as a portal. His shadows will soon finally learn what it feels like to be on the other side of the coin.

  “So how do I get home now?” the pilot asked, interrupting his thoughts.

  “What do you mean?”

  The pilot, fear rising in his stomach, responded, “You said that I could go home to my family.”

  “Wrong,” Draktos responded, “I said you could be reunited with your family. And I am always a man of my word.”

  With that, Draktos shot an energy ball at the pilot, instantly knocking him onto the ground. Kicking his body aside, Draktos then started to pull his massive machine outside from the dark interior of the plane’s storage facility, dragging it towards the sand.

  When he finished pulling the machine out, Draktos took off his cape, grew his two legs, and carried the machine (being about the size of Draktos himself, with double the width), into the dark forest.

  ...

  Garion couldn’t take it anymore. So many different environments, so many hardships to trudge through. From a muddy swamp filled with crocodiles to the endless Saharan Desert, Garion was ready to collapse and die. As he walked through the desert, he kept looking hopefully for any sign of his teammates, any sign that they could still be alive.

  All he saw though was endless sand, hopelessly spread out on hilly terrains. He walked up each hill hopeful, and down each hill with sorrow in his eyes. He started to develop a pattern for it, as if he planned to do this for the rest of his life. Finally, Garion collapsed on the floor in pure agony.

  “Why are you doing this to us?!” he shouted to the sky.

  Standing there, he let all of his emotions that he had been bottling up for the past month spill onto the desert. In that desert for everyone or no one to see, Garion started crying. Each tear hitting the desert floor representing a hardship that Garion had to go through, he let his emotions pour out through him and screamed the one thing that had been on his mind since Harold’s death.

  “I didn’t ask for any of this!” Garion screamed this time not to the shadow, but to the sky, to anyone willing to listen. “I didn’t ask for my ‘destiny!’ I didn’t ask to save the universe! This is unfair!”

  With that Garion went back to staring at the desert floor and moping, the tears continuing to drip down from his tentacle-filled face on to the hot desert floor below him.

  Suddenly, after what seemed like ages of crying, Garion noticed the sand below him start to sink. The sand slowly started to recede into the Earth, as if the entire room was a bathtub and someone had just pulled the drain. Looking around him, Garion noticed all the sand starting to follow this maneuver; sinking down towards the earth, receding away from the above.

  He then started to hear chatter from the shadow on the control panel somewhere above him: “It’s the virtual room. It’s losing power faster then ever.”

  There was a long pause and then another voice, probably another shadow, responded, “The virtual room isn’t losing power. Something else is gaining power.”

  “What are you trying to say?” the shadow working the control panel asked with a familiar voice.

  “I am trying to tell you that someone is stealing the power in this virtual room to use it for their own necessities,” the other shadow responded.

  “Can you pinpoint who exactly is taking our power?”

  “Yes, the stealer seems to be located in the Bermuda Triangle.”

  “Why the hell would someone in no man’s land want our energy? How did they even get it to begin with?”

  “I’m not sure, but however they got it, this virtual room won’t last longer then a few more seconds. We should get out of here before Garion’s team escapes. He’s already mad enough that one of his teammates is dead, and we can’t be his stress reliever.”

  With that the voices stopped, and Garion stopped crying, knowing it was over.

  ...

  “Yes, yes!” Draktos screamed in joy.

  The energy transfer had just finished. He now had all the energy he needed to power his machine. All he needed to do now was flip the switch and wait.

  “Welcome to hell, Garion.”

  Draktos clicked the button with the power symbol label on the front and, after a few seconds, the hole in the cylinder-shaped part of the machine started to produce some kind of dark energy. Within seconds, a beam of purely black shot into the sky above him and touched it, seeming to spread across the entire horizon. The blackness seemed to simply consume anything standing in its way: the clouds, the sky, even the birds were all swallowed by the blackness that was now being spread all over the world like a virus, soon to turn every living and breathing humans day into a never ending nightmare. Now all he needed was Garion.

  Draktos sat back on the ground, looked up at his machine, and a big grin grew upon his face as he turned from tangible to intangible in about 4 seconds.

  ...

  They were all staring over her body. She was beautiful in a way; her hollow shell seeming like a statue ready to fight, her lifeline’s head severed close to its body. It felt as though the team could simply carry out Nelkima’s hardshell and place it as a memorial in her honor. Obviously though, they didn’t have time for that.

  “We have to move,” Purstan told the team. “Whatever Draktos is planning is big.”

  “He fooled us right from the start,” Garion suddenly blurted out, still staring at Nelkima’s body. “Even from the first attack. He needed that attack as an excuse to visit us, to invite us for training. And training was obviously the path to us walking into our own cage, and being helplessly trapped, looking for a way out that doesn’t exist while Draktos is out probably on his grand scheme.”

  Garion then looked up at the team in sadness.

  “No one plans this big for some sort of simple attack. At least, not a simple attack. There is no way whatever Draktos’ device is going to be simple. That machine, whether we like it or not, is somehow going to break to TLS with me still being alive.”

  The whole team looked at Garion at shock, as he looked back down at Nelkima.

  “Now she’s dead, and it’s all my fault,” Garion whispered.

  “Don’t say that....” Purstan started.

  “Say what?!” Garion screamed in retaliation. “That my teammate is dead because I thought those beasts were holograms? That I let an innocent teammate die because of my impatience and my inability to think before I spoke? What shouldn’t I say? That this isn’t my fault? That it’s the lions fault?!”

  Purstan simply looked down in despair.

  “There’s nothing we can do to bring back Nelkima,” Purstan told Garion, “but we can still avenge her. We can still take down whatever Draktos’ scheme is. For Nelkima.”

  “For Nelkima,” Garion repeated.

  With that, the team ran outside the virtual room, through the abandoned hallway, and outside through the narrow door leading to the runaway, only to see the blackened sky above them at 2:30 P.M.