Chapter 17 – First Moves

Last time on Beyond the LAN: a fight to the photo finish, as a room full of dark elves vented their displeasure at seeing our heroes in their territory. Gunblaze, blasted with lightning; Jupe slashed on the arms; Butress distraught over the carnage. And as Engma fed, it was revealed to him that more was going on in the mountain than just a lone hostage situation.

********

Earth – 2 weeks BA (Before Apocalypse)

Agent Ghost fumbled with his lighter until he got a flame and brought it up to his cigarette. Inhaling deeply, he sighed then returned his attention to the dark road, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. He glanced at his partner in the seat beside him.

“What’re you reading that thing for?” he asked.

Agent Joscelyn looked up at him then lowered her bible.

“Remember what Grandma said about the Ring of Solomon?” she replied, chewing on the end of a pencil. “It says here it was a ring given to King Solomon by an archangel that gave him power over any angel or devil. Says he used it to build Jerusalem.”

Ghost shrugged. “So? That’s none of our business. We only have one concern right now, and that’s Wasser. I can’t believe you listened to anything that old woman said anyway… I don’t know what the boss was thinking sending us out to see her.”

Joscelyn sighed. “Ghost, aren’t you the least bit curious about how she knew about the Angel? About BICIP? Hell, she even seemed to know about the boss! I don’t even know about the boss….”

Ghost wagged a finger in her direction. “I know too many people who know too many things they shouldn’t, Jos,” he began, “and the best way to handle them is to pretend you didn’t hear.”

Joscelyn shook her head. It was useless arguing with Ghost about anything, so she wasn’t about to reveal that she felt something funny about the old woman, that there was more to her than she revealed.

But, being hardheaded, she pressed on. “What about what she said about knowing who we work for? Or better yet, what we’re working against? Do you ever think about that? That God’s probably pretty pissed off at us hunting down his angels? Most of the other guys in BICIP are atheists, so they just pass it all off as unexplained supernatural phenomena, like ghosts and aliens and stuff. How do you do it?”

Ghost gave her a slight smile. “You are asking me if I believe in God?”

Joscelyn shrugged. “Well?”

Ghost took a drag off his cigarette and exhaled through his nose, clicking his tongue absentmindedly for a moment. Then, after several seconds, he focused on her and spoke.

“My pop used to tell me a story about when he was in Vietnam. His platoon was doing slash-and-burn detail across the country, running people out of their villages, destroying supplies, shit like that. One day after a particularly bloody conflict his platoon was scouting around a large hill. Suddenly, there was a deafening thunderclap and a golden light seemed to pierce the sky, and there were angels dive bombing the whole area, swooping down and calling out curses, calling the soldiers butchers, telling them to repent, throw down their arms, no more murdering, etc. Half the platoon shat their pants and ran, the other half dropped their guns and went into fits of religious fervor.”

Ghost grinned. “But my pop just climbed up that hill, looked right into that rift and all its angels, and shaking his fist at the sky he yelled… ‘Mind your own goddamn business!!!'”

He tossed his cigarette out the window. “There’s a God… and there are angels… but God doesn’t care about us. He put us here then moved on to something else… you think a world like this really has a God looking out for it?” He paused as his attention moved to passing a car. “Now his angels are another matter. They think they’re the intermediaries for the divine, that we should worship them and drop to our knees whenever they show up, that they’re just as great and holy as God.”

Ghost gave a derisive snort. “They’re just another chance creation of a God who just wanted to see what he could make that day… and we got enough problems with the human race to worry about angels getting involved. So, if you’re asking me; do I believe in God? Yeah, I believe in him… I just don’t like him very much.”

Joscelyn turned her head back and looked at her bible. “Geez… Mr. Bitter.”

Ghost gave a laugh. “So, what about you, huh? Why do you keep this job even though it’ll likely send you to hell when you die.”

The blonde shrugged. “Well, I’m a Buddhist.”

Ghost looked at her. “Is that supposed to explain everything to me? You’ve seen angels, how can you still be a Buddhist?”

Joscelyn raised a finger in protest. “Actually, I’ve never seen an angel. I’ve seen plenty of demons, though.” She thought back to her experience in Siberia, where a mage had accidentally opened an inter dimensional gateway at the bottom of an oil well, spewing minor demons all over the countryside. They had to call in a BICIP strike team to clean up the whole mess.

Joscelyn thought for a moment. “Buddhists believe there are a lot of unexplained things… but it’s not our business to try and figure them out. As to why I’ve got this job… well, the pay is great and there’s a wonderful 401K plan.”

Ghost shook his head. “You’re not a Buddhist.”

Joscelyn gave a small smile and raised an eyebrow at him. “What do you know about it?” Then she threw her hands up in the air and sighed in defeat. “Oh, I don’t know, I just never think about it. I’ve never come up against an angel so it’s never been an issue with me. You don’t have to worry about believing in something if you’ve never seen it. Now demons… like I said, I’ve seen demons. It’s easy in a world like this to believe in demons. There’s a demon on every street corner, in every house. But angels? You’d be hard pressed to find an angel anywhere nowadays.”

Ghost turned to her.

“But we’re going to find one now. What are you gonna do when you come face to face with the Angel of the Apocalypse?”

Joscelyn shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out when it happens. Besides, at this rate we’ll never find him… right now we’re going all the way back to Colorado to tell the boss we don’t know anything.”

They zoomed past a green road sign. Joscelyn pointed a finger.

“As a matter of fact,” she began, “you just missed the turnoff for the airport.”

“We’re not going back to Mt.Marshall,” Ghost said flatly. “We’re going to New York.”

Joscelyn narrowed her eyes. “New York? Why?”

Ghost pulled out another cigarette. “You really wanna go back and tell the boss we haven’t found anything? Besides, there’s a guy who doesn’t exist in NY who owes me a favor and probably knows a lot about the Angel of the Apocalypse…. ”

The man brought the cigarette to his lips, and the car dwindled out of sight into the night.

*********

Acadia – Cycle of the Pine

“We have a deal, then?”

The evening was unusually bright as the setting sun bounced its orange rays from the low-lying clouds. The wind, cool and brisk, whisked through the long black hair of The Fallen. He was eyeing the swirls and symbols that were stitched on the robe of the man he was talking to. The man, his back to the fallen, silently gazed out over the land his host’s mountain overlooked. His long white hair a stark contrast to that of Arzenal’s.

“You can guarantee victory?” the man finally said.

Arzenal made a fist in the air. “I can guarantee destruction!”

The creature walked around to face his companion. “What of the Council?”

“Fah! The Council is only my puppet to play with. Whatever my will is its will. Whatever I need, they give.”

“That is good.” replied Arzenal. “Because if you fail, the other elves will exact…”

“If this fails, it will not be because of the dark elves!” retorted the man. He turned to look Arzenal in the eyes, his dark skin contrasting the orange glow of the sky. “It will fail because of your lust for conquest over these stupid humans!”

“Ender. These…humans…are the ones that destroyed my home planet. These humans are now infiltrating the Twins. These humans are starting a Gatherum amongst their fellow humans. If you want their filth to continue to grow in strength and in numbers, then you sit on your ass and wait for them to come and take you away.”

Arzenal stared down into the valley. “Myself, I plan to eradicate them.”

“Hmmph. You had better have your warriors ready at the agreed time.”

“I’ll ask this again,” said Arzenal, “we have a deal?”

Ender turned toward the bleeding sun.

“Yes. Yes, we have a deal. The dark elves will be ready.”

**********

Deep within the Twins – Cycle of the Pine

“Kirk rules!”

“Are you crazy? Picard can get out of any situation.”

“Yeah….by talkin’. Kirk uses his dick to get out of tough jam.” Jupe stood up and grabbed his crotch. “Klingons? Gonna dick ya! Romulans? Here’s a large one for you! Wimmen? Heh. Kirk was, after all, the MAN! And Kahn got the biggest Kirk dick there ever was!”

I waved my hand in front of my face. “Excuse me, is anyone there? I can’t see you guys for all the testosterone that’s running about.”

“Heh heh.” cackled Jupe. He scratched his belly.

Gunblaze held up a gauntleted hand. “But, Picard could woo any woman with his voice.”

Jupe deadpanned Gunblaze. “Talking’s for pussies! Women don’t want you to talk for hours to them. They don’t want friggin’ poetry. They want some timing. You say the right word, do the right thing at the right time, and most importantly…in the right places, the woman is putty in your hands.”

I leaned over to HS. “Jupe is, after all, the Romance god.”

HS nodded in reply. It was a nice distraction that Burnsy started and stirred the pot now and then after our first battle with the creatures in the mountain. While we did not suffer any catastrophic losses, I could tell that Butress was not in the right mindset after he, in his mind, was forced to burn dozens of elves.

We had found a medium sized natural cavern that had only one entrance and exit. Butress had created a magical wall of stone that hid the passage from any intruder. Had they discovered the fake stone and passed through, Butress would have noticed and given us plenty of time to prepare for any defense. If they somehow passed undetected, Burnsy had set up wire traps that would cause burlap sacks with metal shrapnel in them to explode at head level.

We were eating our dinner rations and as Butress started to heal our more pressing wounds, the words ‘Star Trek’ popped up and opened a can of worms.

Gunblaze took his boots off. “But the Next Generation Enterprise was much cooler.”

“Feh.” I said. “Battle scars! Did you ever see that Enterprise with chunks and burns on it? No! Kirk’s Enterprise got its ass kick many times and came back for more!”

“That’s cuz Kirk was such a shitty navigator that he always got hit!” retorted Gunblaze.

“Hey, now,” said Burnsy pointing a shaky finger at Gunblaze, “Sulu did the driving of the Enterprise. You don’t dis my man Sulu.” His voice started to shake. “Don’t mess with Sulu!” His eyes started to well up with tears as he looked around at each of us. He balled his hand into a fist and beat his chest twice. He extended two of his fingers to make the ‘peace’ sign.

“Hey homeboy!” hissed Chuck. “You and your ladies wanna keep it down? You’re practically giving our position away!”

That settled us down and Burnsy squatted down next to me.

“You alright?” I asked as Burnsy wiped his nose on his shirt sleeve.

“Yeah….*sniff*…he was, he was messing with Sulu, man.”

“I hear ya.” I patted him on the shoulder for comfort.

“He’s just had a hard life, you know? Sulu’s gone through some hard times. But he persevered. Never got the ladies. But he drove that ship out of so many tight spots. Always did it smiling too. Sulu’s the man.”

We all looked into the flames of the small fire we made. Soaking in the quiet time and a little reflection was always good for a man before bed. And then, Lil Skold’s voice squeaked out from behind us.

“Troy had boobs.”

We continued to stare into the fire. Reaching down I latched onto my drink and raised it the air. Looking around, my friends were doing the same.

“Troy.” We said in unison.

***********

Windhaven – Cycle of the Pine

Evening meant a time for coming home after a hard day’s work with the land. The farmers from the northwest were coming in from tending the fields, the fishermen were docking their boats ready to take home a portion of their catch to feed their families. Shops started to close, and merchants were locking up wondering which smell in the air was their dinner cooking. Children were coming inside from playing out in the streets.

Normally a calm serene feeling would exude from the city itself. A lazy no worries attitude would accompany folks as they would stop to talk to each other about the day’s catch or the news that came from the Queen. A pleasant tip of the hat, a friendly smile, children chasing each other and laughing.

But no longer. Oh, certainly hate didn’t seep outwardly from citizen to citizen. But there was a tense feeling; one of uncertainty, a hesitancy of sticking around in one place after dusk. A doubt that they were safe and secure. Doubts that the queen wanted to turn the other way.

“You have no evidence?” asked the queen as she sat stoic, unmoving on her throne.

The Captain of her guard was wringing his hat in his hand. “N-no, your majesty.”

“You have no witnesses.” she now said this as a statement knowing the response.

“No. My queen.”

The queen stared at the man…waiting.

“We know they come at night. They take only children.”

“How many, Captain?”

The wringing became quite intense.

“How MANY, Captain?”

“Um, we- we are up to three…three hundred…your majesty.”

The captain got on his knees, his head bowed down.

Astrid put her hand to her forehead and rubbed it. Looking back at the soldier, she stood up and walked down to the captain. He was starting to sob uncontrollably. The queen wafted her robes so they would spread out around her and allow her to kneel down to the captain.

“Captain. Captain look at me.” He did so and revealed tearing streaks down his face.

“Captain, do you have children?”

“Huhnhuuh. I have, I have, had, two…two girls, huuhhn.” He continued to wring his hat.

“Did they take one of yours, too?” All he could do was nod and cry.

The queen put her finger underneath the captain’s chin and slowly made him look her in the eyes.

“Captain. Here’s what I need of you. I need you to take this energy,” she put her other hand on his wringing hands, “I need you to take this strength,” she moved her hand from his chin and put it over his heart, “and I need you to take this courage,” she moved both her hands to the side of his face, “and find me the person who is doing this. For me, for you and your family, and for Whitehaven.”

This calmed the man down and the wringing had ceased. The Queen stood up and addressed her officers.

“I want triple the patrols after dusk. Teams of four. No man patrols alone! I don’t care if we don’t sleep at night as long as our people feel safe enough that they can rest.” She sat down in her chair. Several beats passed without movement. She straightened her back, “Do it!”

The guards flew into action and scurried out of the chamber.

After they exited, she held up one finger. An officer who was standing behind her throne leans over her shoulder.

“Find them and bring them back.”

“I am not about to leave your side.”

“You will obey what I command.”

The officer walked around to face her. “You may die if you are unprotected!”

“You think I don’t know that?! You think I’m wishing for death by letting you go? Three hundred of my people…my CHILDREN have disappeared. It has to stop!”

“I will not go!”

“PACK.” the queen looked around the empty room. “Lieutenant. You must go. I am ordering you to go. They are our only hope for survival. Swallow that pride of yours of being some sort of superhero and face that. You can’t save the world by standing behind me. Get in front and get the bastard doing this.”

The soldier looked the queen in the eyes.

“Besides,” she said, “You being my personal bodyguard since my birth, you will know when I die. You will feel it.”

PACKAGEMAN stood up. “Will be a day that I die too.” As he walked away the queen watched his red cape waving in the air and slumped to her throne when he was gone.

“Good luck, and may the wind be at your back.” she whispered and looked up towards the sky. “Find them.”

***********

Mrs. Bradshaw wondered where her son Sean had gotten to. Cleaning and drying the dishes without him was such a chore and she really did like his company. She walked downstairs into the family room where the fire sparked and snapped away. No sign of him.

Looking out the window she saw him sitting in the dirt street. Smiling, she wiped her hands on her apron and walked outside. She walked ten paces to reach him and knelt.

“What are you doing, little one?”

Sean drew some lines into the dirt with a stick.

“Looking at the stars.”

Mrs. Bradshaw looked back behind him at the sky.

“*Sigh* I loved doing that when I was a kid. Such a calming effect it had on me.”

“Mommy?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Why doesn’t the sky over there have any stars?”

Mrs. Bradshaw turn to where Sean was pointing and saw the black sky visibly moving. Pulsating and expanding, the black wall which extended as high as the eye could see down to the horizon and inched ever closer to Whitehaven.

“Oh…oh my. Oh my! Get in the house! Come on! OH! OH MY!!”

Mrs. Bradshaw’s screams were echoed across the land as walls of darkness made their way into towns, farms, and cities alike. Going forward as planned, by their master, the Fallen.

Standing atop of his mountain, Arzenal smiled with revenge written upon his teeth. The sun had gone down, and it was his moment.

“The extermination…has begun.”

-Next, let the hunt and games begin as our heroes delve deeper into the mountain and discover some nasties in “Discoveries”!