Confusion

            How did I get here?

            I find myself standing in a house I do not recognize at first. The air is gray and misty, as if I were in a dream. I press the button on my headset to check my vitals and it appears that I’m in good health. My nano-bracelets seem to be functional as I imagine a line-gun and watch it materialize in my right hand. The company that makes this nano technology on my head and wrists claims that the only flaws to their devices are the downfalls of the human imagination.

            My headset is a slender piece of aluminum, reinforced with the very nanobots that it creates, gently wrapped around the back of my head from temple to temple. The kitchen that I find myself standing in reminds me of my friend Tyler’s house. Yet it appears trashed and dirty, like a robbery has taken place.

From the hallway comes a noise that, at first sounds like a woman’s whimper. I look to the hallway entrance and see a fleshy surface begin to crawl along the wall, spreading and twitching. A disfigured woman’s body peeks its head and shoulders out from the entrance. My stance widens and I point my gun at its legs. Blood and mucus seem to flow from its face as it sniffs the air and slowly turns its head in my direction. BOOM! A line of nano-particles ejects itself from my gun and soars, in an instant, across the room, peeling off a corner of the couch as it flies, and burns directly through the creature’s legs, sawing them apart. The creature falls to the ground in a loud and wet thump, and one can hear the air being knocked from its lungs.

I then recognize the creature as my friend’s sister, or at least what once was. Her arms snap and bend above her head and she begins to violently crawl my way. She screeches and screams a gargled scream as she fights her way across the floor. In an instant, I imagine my line-gun growing; and that’s exactly what it does. In a blue haze of nano-particles the gun gets bigger and I grasp it with two hands. I fire another line, this time much wider, and it tears through more of the couch, hitting the leg of the computer table before crushing through the top of her skull, through her waist, and finally slamming into the hard carpet.

There is finally silence. BEEP. A hologram appears before my eyes showing me a distress signal. It’s Tyler. His location isn't far from his house, and I can only imagine he was trying to outrun whatever is going on before he got caught up. I press the button on my headset to close the hologram and I see, outside to my left, that more of those things have heard the commotion and are breaking through the back door.

I hurry through the kitchen to the laundry room and close myself in. Their screams and grunts get louder, and I can hear their destruction come to an end. The only thing left to be heard is the quick footsteps of them running my way. I pull the washer over in front of the door and begin rummaging through the cupboards above the microwave. BANG! I flinch as the door separating us nearly shatters on impact. They scratch and claw at the door that is soon to break. But no matter, I find what I’m looking for: A kerosene tank used for a camp stove top that I shove into the microwave. The door shatters and a disfigured arm flies through, grabbing at anything. I press the potato button on the microwave and let myself into the garage.

The keys to the truck are on a hook. I open the garage and jump into the truck, a nice Ford truck with a reinforced roll cage. I remember that it was right after the incident at the beach that his father bought the truck. Everyone was scared that what happened there could happen anywhere, and car companies made a fortune assuring you that their vehicle could keep you safe. In times like these, I sure hope they weren't selling us crap, like usual.

The engine roars to life and I punch it in reverse. Halfway up the driveway the laundry room door blows off in a fireball. A plume of black smoke clears to reveal two charred and mangled bodies atop a shattered washer. I get on the street and bring up my hologram again.

            “Locate Tyler,” I say.

            “Locating Tyler. Coordinates updated” the voice whispers in my ear.

            Hologram gone, I begin my decent down the road when suddenly I am blindsided with, what feels like, a rhino. It might as well be a rhino, but more ugly and deformed. Wouldn't you know it, those car companies were right in planning for the worst. The beast that rammed the truck looks exactly like what appeared in L.A all that time ago. My driver side window is shattered and the truck is pushed up against a four foot brick wall, nearly trapping me in. The beast recedes away from the vehicle to gain strength for another blow. Quickly, I reach into the breast pocket of my vest and grab a flash-bang. I pop the key and toss it from the driver window into the open street. The beast grunts and takes its stance. It twitches to run right as the flash-bang goes off. In a violent roar it takes off down the street, and I use this as an opportunity to make a break for the back yard of the house I’m stuck in front of.

Inside the glove box of the truck is a small red tab that says “DO NOT PULL,” but that’s exactly what I do. On the stereo screen comes a ten second countdown. Man, these things don’t give you much time. But, then again, in this situation, I don’t have much anyway. I open the truck door and slide out onto the ground. I land hard on my knee and curse to myself. Down the street you can hear the nostrils of the monster huffing away, and I understand that I have even less than ten seconds before it finds me. I jump the brick wall gently and, wouldn’t you know it, the damn truck door slams closed. The monster down the street turns suddenly and gallops to the vehicle, but by that time I am already half way over the fence. I hear a loud and continuous beep as I hit the cold concrete of the back yard, and the beast roars one last time before the truck explodes in a grand fireball of steel and glass.

The blast shocks my senses for a moment and I crawl to the back door of the house to gain shelter from the falling debris. Chunks of meat and metal are seen raining down in the glow of the flames out front. I jiggle the handle to the back door but it is locked. No matter, Hex Corp was full of some of the most brilliant minds of my generation. All of the kids who got labeled as mush-brained, and got yelled at for staring at computers all day ended up opening up the world’s most innovative technology company, that happened to also discover the full power of nano-technology. They also happened to make a cool little gadget that I take from my right pants pocket and stick in the keyhole of the locked door. The key glows red to indicate the door is locked, and slowly fades to blue when the door is unlocked; which it now is.

I imagine a Smith and Wesson 1911 with a silencer attachment, and that’s exactly what forms in my hand. The nano bots spring from my wrist bands in a blue mist and, in an instant, the cold metal of the gun rests heavy in my hand. Slowly, I creak open the door and crawl inside, closing the door behind me. But as the door closes, it again happens. A bright, but almost unnoticeable flash signals around me and I freeze, holding the door knob as a point of reference. I slowly turn around, and I have yet again been transported somewhere new. This phenomenon is unknown to me, at this point, and I must say that it is wearing on my nerves.

I recognize this house instantly as my old friend, Jordan’s house. Again, I find myself in the kitchen. I outstretch my hand and point my palm to the ground to see my destination and a blue line illuminates for only me to see. It leads out the front door. But before I can make it through the kitchen, my headset alerts me of a presence in the house. It appears friendly, so I open a line of communication.

“Is anyone there?”

Silence. I hear a rustling in the house .

“If there is a friendly out there, My name is Anthony Amell.”

Almost immediately I hear a voice.

“Anthony? No f*****g way, you’re alive?

“I believe so,” I say, “who is this?”

“It’s Jordan. I’m in my room, do you know where that is?”

“Yeah, I know. I’ll meet you half way.” I tell him

“Roger.”

I run through the living room in a crouch and meet Jordan at the entrance of a long sun room that he claims as his own. He is fully geared up and holding a sizable machine gun that looks much too tactical to be legal in the arms of a civilian. But, to be fair, we haven’t always been civilians. His hair is longer and blacker than I remember it from our high school years together. His goatee flourished into a dense beard that makes a perfect point at the ground beneath us.

“Hey man, How ya holding up?” I ask.

“I’m good. The house is secure but the perimeter outside is all hostile.” He replies.

“Ok ok,” I say, mulling over my chances on the outside.

He warns me of the creatures he’s encountered and questions whether I know what the hell is going on, to which I have an answer: “No.” We discuss our plans of action and where is safe. He plans on staying in his house, a locked fortress now because of his ability to secure any location with the power of his computer and monitoring systems outside. He tells me that he has the ability to keep the things away by sending high and low frequency sounds to far distances using an outside speaker system he had set up months before. I ask him if he saw any of this coming, and that’s why he put the system up, but he only grunts to himself and mumbles incoherent words about the government and Hex Corp.

“Those are some nice gloves,” I say about a pair of very tactical looking gloves he wields. I had seen those gloves in a Science magazine the month before, in an article entitled, “Where Technology Will Be in Ten Years.” Jordan always seemed to be ahead of me when it came to that stuff.

“Oh, these things? Yeah I know a guy who knows a guy; that kinda thing, ya know?” he says. “These things have saved my a*s a few times, here and there.”

I ask him to hold his hands out so I can see them better. My headset does a scan of the gloves and the bands on my wrist begin to spray. The nano-bots zigzag back and forth up my palm and around the back of my hand, leaving behind a pair of very tactical looking gloves.

“What in the actual f**k just happened?” He asks.

“Hex Corp’s Temple Band, that’s what. I’m surprised you don’t have a pair.” I tell him.

“Nano-tech, huh? Can’t be trusted.” He says.

I reach into a long, thin pocket on my pants and pull out another headset to hand to him. Almost jealously he puts it on his head and I can see him staring at the hologram that only he can see. I know that I needn’t tell him anything about the headset, for he might already know more about it than I do in the ten seconds he has worn it.

My headset beeps again and I’m reminded of my destination. Jordan hands me a thin black pen looking device that he pulls from his breast pocket.

“Here, this thing will come in handy for you if you’re going out there. Just press both ends, throw this bad boy one way and run the other. It’ll get you out of a hairy situation, trust me.”

We fist bump, like old times, and part ways; him to his safe zone of glowing screens in the depths of his room, and me to the front door of his house and eventually into the cold night air.

I quietly unlock the front door and step through into the mist night. With a death grip I cling to the knob as I close the door, hoping not to be transported, yet again, in a weird flash of light. I am lucky this time. The door closes and I insert the key that turns blue, and lock the door behind me. Before walking away, I take from my left cargo pants pocket a small, dome shaped device. I peel the sticky part off the back, place it on the door, and walk away quickly. A three dimensional red line grid slowly forms, encompassing the entire porch. Within an instant it is again invisible to the naked eye. If a creature of any human size happens to make its way to the front door, it will be instantly vaporized by the field of lasers, heating up to a degree that would boil two tons of water in five minutes (Or so Hex Corp claims). Still, knowing Hex Corp, I wouldn't test that claim. I begin to make my way down the long drive way, shrouded in a tunnel of trees, toward Tyler’s location.  

 

Author's Note

I barely had control of how this story went. My mind did its own thing as I was half asleep, and I just remembered it so I could write it down.

Reviews

[Kat]

Very nice start! I love the suspense. Keep up the good work! Interesting how this all came from a dream. It reminded me a little of The Matrix.