The Commissar stood in the top of the lead tank, thermal goggles to his eyes, while his division tore through the western edges of the Chilean rain forest. They skirted the mountains but never entered more than their foothills, as they didn't have the equipment on hand for such a journey.
Even in this uncertain territory those that seek omniscience can find the ancient ruined landscape from a past age that is hidden within the jungle, claimed by it.
The Commissar called for a halt and was handed a new pair of goggles, the latest development of modern technology, carbon-dating goggles. Not only that, but they were able to detect geometric patterns in underground structures, meaning that he could see the chamber running underground ahead of his tank, like a neon green road through his viewer.
He had no doubt there was a piece of the disc below.
"Shadow Corps, deploy."
The Commissar was confident in his troops and their abilities but he did not realize that there were others seeking the disc as well.
ReplyDeleteScratching their way along a dark and dusty corridor was the unlikely duo of Ernie Dunst and his pal Roky Royer.
"It can't be much farther to the underground pyramid", Roky whispere to his partner in crme.
"Keep crawling on your belly till we get there and shut the fuck up." Ernie was a very no nonsense guy. Ernie had sacrificed everything he held dear in the world to be here and his desire for the final piece of the disc was consuming him. In his backpack he carried the two other pieces to the disc and finding the final piece was the culmination of everything he had worked for and he knew the disc held the secret to what lay ahead for the world.
One of the corps, Sergeant Schlosson, approached his commanding officer, fearing his rath over the news he was about to share with him.
Stan VanHassle smile looked like the rising sun.
ReplyDelete"Well, Mr. VanHassle, what can we say? I've never seen such a perfect candidate before in my life."
The man sitting across from Stan was the CEO of Megacorp, the biggest media conglomerate in North America. How a man who's previous job experience included building manager, produce stock boy and insurance salesman was interviewing for Megacorp's Vice President of Marketing was a complex thing to explain.
Stan fingered the golden metallic disc in his pocket as he signed the paperwork for his new job. "Yes, 250,000 dollars a year will work just fine," he thought to himself.
After years of being fucked out of a dozen different promotions in a dozen different dead end careers, Stan was finally getting his piece of the pie.
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ReplyDeleteThe sweat stagnated in pools on the sloping face of Seargent Schlosson, his strident scare ameliorating his pale pallor, if possible.
ReplyDelete"Ssssssir...." he quavered, his quaking lip quite as soft and supple as summer suint, "there are two unidentified mehums in Location 1..."
This wasn't Seargent Schlosson's fault, but he had long since given up on the reactions of the Commissar being reasonable.
The angular jaw and nose of the man, jutting from his ornate military hat and stiff wool jacket, seemed darker, or maybe fear was sucking the light from Seargent Scholsson's slight.
Aaaaaarrrrrrrrraaauuuggghhaghakj!!!" he cried, and anyone nearby would think his voicebox had been surgically enhanced to produce a painful frequency beyond that of any normal human.
"Bringgg themmm tooo meeeeee!" he hissed.
Seargent Schlosson shot to attention, the sweat snapping off his face and sailing to the firmament. He turned and, without a word, his soldiers started double-timing it, through the last few meters of jungle, to a clearing.
They moved straight towards a gigantic head, with a decidedly sour expression on his face, mouth round and full of teeth, as if protesting something he just ate which didn't agree.
But at the base of his neck was a stairway, and that stairway lead down.
After several minutes of descending the stairway into darkness, Seargent Schlosson reflected on the briefing he had received before setting out on this mission to a remote and dangerous part of the world.
ReplyDelete"A Portal?" Surely, they jested.
"Yes," his superiors had said plainly. "An object gateway. This is the tech we've been perusing for the past decade, Sergeant. I don't think I need to remind you of the importance of success here.
After a minute or two of darkness, his platoon came upon a swirling vortex of metallic light in the shape on an ellipse.
"Move out."
The platoon stepped through the vortex and found themselves on the 14th floor of the Megacorp building in San Francisco.
It was one of the many boardrooms, and it was empty. A small round man sat hunched in the corner, holding his leather portfolio across his head, as if to cast away the witchcraft he had seen.
ReplyDeleteSergeant Schlosson quaked with fear, things were much worse than anyone had suspected.
"Commissar, it has been activated, they have transported to location Axis 4, sir, we are in pursuit."
It wasn't possible, the Commissar thought. How could these two nothings, these mehums, have activated a Portal?
But there could be no doubt about Sergeant Schlosson's location.
One thing was certain: if they could activate a Portal, they had more than 1 disc.
And they were after another, just as soon as they had stolen one out from under his very nose.
So they knew what they were doing, even before they got their second disc, if they were able to create a Portal, just like that. They had already known how to create one.
That, he thought, should also be impossible. He had learned much today, he must remember to teach in equal part tomorrow.
"Ffiiiind themm," he screeched into his radio, but Schlosson had already deployed his men, had begun to dash desperately to the elevator.
He entered a key and it dropped at double time, below the bottom numbers of the floor listing, seeming to take him several floors beneath the building, until the doors opened crisply to total blackness.
He touched a button and his visor displayed night vision. But there wasn't much to see, the defenses had all been activated, he could no longer see anything but a giant steel wall where a doorway had been.
It was one of the defenses, the ceiling literally falls to the ground, crushing everything but the disc, which withdraws into the floor.
But a flashing red panel next to the doorway made it very clear: the disc was gone.