Traveler

[Spyder]

Traveler

Part 1

A brief moment of serenity ended as the ordinance continued to fall. The inhabitants that remained ran for what shelter they could find. Each settlement was systematically removed from this world by an ever expanding wall of fire, sparked by gifts from the heavens.

The world was eventually wiped clean of life. High above the victors surveyed the battlefield, ensuring that the destruction was complete. These were the final days of a war where the only foreseeable solution was the total annihilation of the opposite side. Foresight is hardly 20/20.

“Target destroyed, registering no more contacts.”
“The secondary strike group has reported in, they’re in position.”

“Receiving a transmission from enemy flag ship; They’re requesting a meeting in neutral territory, they want to send an envoy to Earth to discuss a ceasefire.”
“No response, they’ve had their chance. Order the strike group to commence bombardment of secondary targets.”

This was the battle that was intended to end the war. The war did end but not as expected.

Earth, 50,000 years later...

“My current long term goal is to find a job where the decisions people make are the result of good understanding and common sense. As I’m writing this right now I’m on a plane heading for Los Angeles. I was put here by someone in a monkey suit that seemed to think that I need specialist training that’s only available stateside. Firstly, I run a helpdesk. I spend most of my time reading pages out of a manual to some guy who somehow earns twice what I get but manages to get stuck on ‘press eject.’”

“Nick.”
He could have sworn that he heard someone calling his name. No matter, his notebook connected to the airline’s wireless network allowed him internet access, a convenient time waster. He did take a moment to ponder where exactly this internet feed was coming from. Who cares? It works, he’s not paying for it and it means he gets to watch animations of stick figures decapitating each other while a wealthy Nigerian businessman offers him 1/4 of Nigeria’s GDP and a container load of Viagra; In-flight services which simply aren’t available in economy class.

“Nick.”
He was sure that was a different voice that time, less feminine. ‘Oh yeah, that guy’ he thought.
“Yes?” Nick was conscious of the fact that he could come up with better conversational responses if he could actually remember that guy’s name.
“In-case you’ve forgotten, you need to have those filled out before we land.” The man next to him pointed to a stack of papers on Nick’s armrest.
“We’ve still got another ten hours. I’ll get to them.”
The man next to him huffed. “No wonder your department’s got problems” the man smirked and stretched back in his seat, as far as it allowed, unaware that his nickname had changed from ‘That Guy’ to ‘Random Asshole.’

Nevertheless, random asshole did have a point. Nick folded his notebook and placed the forms on top of the smooth lid. After a few seconds of negotiating his laptop, the stack of papers and the confined space he was ready to start writing on them.

“Dear Uncle Sam,” he spoke, “I am not a terrorist,” he provided a translated narration, “nor do I intend to cause any explosions greater then that required for demolishing a small office space.”

He pressed on with the rest of the first form before moving on to the next. The forms were mostly to do with immigration. All the company forms were stored safely in his notebook. What the benefactors of this excursion were interested in however were various reports he’d be required to make on his progress, hence the laptop they cheerfully supplied him with.

His mind began to drift, ‘Where the hell does this internet feed come from? Are there satellite receivers on this plane?’ He couldn’t help but wonder. ‘Someone else’s problem’ he reassured himself, resisting the urge to go unplug something.

“Can I get you anything to drink?” The Stewardess asked.
“An orange juice, thank you” He answered.
“She can serve beer.” His cohort reminded him, eyes unblinking.
“I know,” Nick paused, “just the juice thanks.”

A moment later a plastic cup filled with an orange liquid joined the clutter that was his narrow workspace.

The next form merely required a signature and the date. He quickly moved through the rest of them finding that much to his surprise most of the information was already pre-printed. All he had to do was fill in a few personal details, sign and then move on. His mouth dry from the cabin air, he took a drink and continued on.

The form at the bottom of the small stack was the one that gave him the most trouble. For a moment he wandered if he’d been given something else by mistake. The form was printed on standard US immigration stationary with the logos in all the right places, the perplexing feature was a hexagonal grid in the middle of the page with seemingly random dots and lines throughout.

His first thought was that is was some kind of logic puzzle. He chucked to himself that this must be some one of the US’s new age methods for weeding out terrorists. He replayed a scenario in his mind of an old man at a court house.

“Ladies and gentlemen.” The prosecutor held up a scrap of paper with random scribbles over it. “I hold here undeniable proof that the man attempting to enter our great country is none other then.” He pauses to make the moment more suspenseful. “Osama bin Laden!”
The bailiff forcibly removes the defendant’s facial mask revealing America’s most wanted man complete with beard and turban. “And I would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for those meddling customs officials and that sinful Stewardess too! Cover yourself you whore!”

“Can I get you anything else sir?”
His daydream was suddenly interrupted by the cheerful smile of reality. “Ah, no, thank you.” He stuttered.

After taking another glance at the sheet of paper in front of him he picked up his pen and connected a few of the lines to the dots. A lot like a kid’s puzzle, he thought to himself. The one difference being that if it was a kid’s puzzle it would have made sense to him after he was finished with it.

“Nick.”

“What?” He said to the man sitting next to him.
“What do you mean what?” The man asked.
Nick paused for a moment. “I’m sorry, did you say something?”
“Yes, I asked what do you mean what?”
“No, I mean before that.” Nick responded.
The man paused for a second, turned his head then looked at Nick through the corner of his left eye. “I don’t recall saying anything” he said with a look of confusion.

Nick thought about what he heard for a moment. “Never mind, I thought I heard someone say my name.”
“Well it wasn’t me” the other man said.
“Obviously” Nick’s attention returned to the weird, whatever it was.

“Well if it was obvious then why did you ask?”
Nick could see where this was going. “That’s a question I often ask myself” if he sounds cryptic enough with a random statement, maybe the other guy would mistake it for a strange pearl of wisdom and become confused enough to end the conversation.
The man turned his eyes forward, he briefly looked at Nick and slowly nodded as he refocused his attention toward the front of the plane. Nick smiled ‘Success!’

Failing to gain any sense of closure from the diagram, the conversation with random asshole, Nick filed the lot into his briefcase. He shut his notebook down and tried to get some sleep.

Moments of semi-consciousness brought brief glimpses of the time that passed while he slept. Someone said something about having seatbelts fastened and tray tables in their upright positions. Oh good, the flight’s finally over.

“Flight four-one-five now arriving at gate three.”

Airports provide a relatively simple function in any country, they serve as in intermediary to get people and their luggage from their car, taxi or bus to a plane and vice versa. What happens in between remains relatively unimportant as long as what goes in either side remains equal.

Nick moved his way through the loosely packed crowd of arrivals, suitcase in hand, filtering through customs and merging with the ordered chaos of departures moving in the opposite direction.

“Mr Stenner?” A man called out.
Nick turned around, there were two men, one about his height, dark glasses, short dark hair, tanned skin, unassumingly brown jacket, the other slightly taller, shaved head, blue shirt and a bad tie that looked like it was caught in a tug of war between red and green paint cans.

“Yeah?” Nick responded cautiously.
“Nicholas Stenner?” The shorter one clarified.
“Yes, that’s me” Nick spoke. Obviously company men, these two could be none other then Nick’s point of contact in the US. He was worried that they wouldn’t be here when he got off the plane, it wouldn’t be the first time a miscommunication has left him stranded at an airport, but not this time.

“Hi, I’m Mike” the shorter one introduced himself with a handshake.
“Hi, you can call me Nick. Nice glasses by the way,” Nick returned the handshake,
“Thanks, they’re prescription.”

“I’m Alex.” The taller one said.
“Hello.” Nick said as he shook Alex’s hand.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence as Nick paused to consider what to say next. “So... you guys are from the company?”
“Yep, we’re on pickup duty. You guys are staying at the Vista tonight, we’ll be taking you to head office tomorrow morning.” Mike responded.
“Hey that’s right,” Alex looked around, “weren’t you travelling with someone?”
“Yeah, umm,” ‘why can’t I remember his name?’ Nick silently lamented, “We were separated. I think he was stopped in customs, I’m not sure how long he’ll be.”

“Hmm,” Mike thought for a moment, “if that’s the case he could be a while.”
“Why don’t you two go ahead, I’ll wait for the other one and catch up later” Alex suggested.
“Alright then, Nick if you’d care to follow me, the car’s this way.”

As Nick turned to leave he caught sight of a young girl that had been starring right at him since he walked into the terminal lobby. She was about seventeen with neck length blond streaked hair, she was very thin possibly unhealthily so. She was just cute enough to make a twenty five year old feel slightly creepy for looking in her direction. The uncomfortable moment was reversed however when she smiled briefly at Nick before stepping back and merging with the crowd, disappearing into the masses.

“Creepy.” Nick said to himself.

He put the experience behind him as the pair headed for the door. The cavernous terminal building was suddenly replaced by the sprawling airport complex and a number of fast food establishments immediately visible from the exit, not that he hadn’t seen similar sights in other countries but somewhere he found a strange irony.

“Is that an Audi Q7?” Nick asked as they reached the car.
“It is indeed.” Mike said with a hint of pride in his voice, also somewhat impressed that the foreigner was able to instantly identify the model. Nick felt half pleased and at the same time hoped like hell he wouldn’t have to comment on any information that wasn’t available in the ‘Hit the monkey and win an Audi Q7’ pop-up add he saw on the flight over.

The doors unlocked and the pair entered the car. The engine purred into life and Nick resumed counting fast food establishments as they left the airport.

“Whoa, something’s up” Mike said as the sound of four police cruisers screamed passed in the opposite direction, sirens blazing and lights flashing.
“That’s not something that happens here?”
“Not at the airport, at least not often. Does it happen where you’re from?”
“I guess not, I guess it’s just something I was kind of expecting to see.” Nick nonchalantly remarked.
“Things here aren’t like what you see in the movies, at least not normally anyway.” He chuckled. Nick responded with a polite laugh.

They were half way to the hotel and Nick’s eyes were still focused on the numerous sights on the roadside between the airport and the city, mainly consisting of LA’s perpetual expansion. “Is the Hollywood sign visible from here?”
“Sometimes” Mike answers,
“What’s with all the low cloud?”
“Smog”
“Oh” Nick wished he had a better response for that in the same way he wished he could remember that name of the man he was travelling with. While Mike probably knows, Nick just couldn’t think of a way to ask without sounding like a complete idiot.

A phone rang; Mike reached into his pocket and drew out his mobile. One click flicked the keypad away from the screen. “Hello?” Mike answered with one hand still on the wheel.
Just hello? Nick thought it was odd but paid no heed, he was more concerned about him talking on his phone while at the wheel, this was often something Nick mention whenever he saw someone in another car doing it.

“Alright, I’ll do that.” Mike spoke into the handset before switching it off and placing it back in his pocket, his right hand returned to the wheel.
“There’s been a change of plans, looks like the hotel booking’s fallen through. I’m taking you back to the office until we can arrange something else.”

Back at the airport chaos ensued at the terminal as people were herded outside by the police. Alex was still inside, unnoticed as he carefully sneaked his way into customs during the initial calamity. No one as yet had any idea what had happened. There were reports of shots being fired but none of the evacuees could report seeing anything. None of the staff from customs had made it out and the cameras had all been cut.

Alex stepped through the corridor, the doors sealed behind while the police tried to determine what was going on. He entered the main customs area and was greeted with death. The bodies of men and women lay scatter over the ground. Customs staff, security, travellers, all dead. There were signs of a fire-fight, bullet holes riddled the walls, sections of the floor were blown apart, the fallen had sustained a variety of wounds, most were shot, some were two close to whatever caused the damage to the floor, and others were unrecognisable though the cause of death was clear.

Alex could feel his lungs labour as he struggled to breathe; who or what could have done this? He surveyed the bodies, he could hear the police moving around outside the sealed main doors. Out of the corner of his eye he saw movement. One man huddled in a corner, he whimpered as Alex approached. The man, much like everything else in the area was covered in blood.

“What happened here?”
“I, I don’t know.” The man stuttered.
“Can you stand?” Alex asked, the man seemed to not hear him, still fixated on the horrendous events that preceded Alex’s arrival.

“I, I don’t know. I, it was like I was watching it happen,” the man paused to take a deep breath, barely avoiding hyperventilation, “there, there were so many. All dead. They’re all dead, all of them. Dead!”
“Who did this?” Alex did his best to remain calm, he was better equipped at handling this situation then his appearance dictated.
“I, I, I, it was so fast.” The other man was almost in tears, Alex could see his emotional deconstruction progress the more he tried to speak.
“The cops will be here soon, stay here.”
“I, I was asked into the office, you know, they had questions and stuff.” The man’s breathing started to become slightly less erratic. Alex turned to find a way out, there was nothing more he could do here.
“They asked me about this package, it wasn’t even mine, I didn’t know what was in it!”
Alex stopped dead in his tracks, a small bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face.

“Those doors were sealed long before the cops arrived. The people here, they started dying. First it was the man in the office, then the woman outside, then the one at the other desk, then the man with the badge and then I went to work on the crowd. Panic is a wonderful thing and I had just the right tools to see the job done.”

Alex turned around, the man was on his feet and had a 9mm aimed between Alex’s eyes.
“You” Alex spoke, he could feel his body starting to tremble, he’d found Nick’s travelling companion.
“I don’t know if anyone’s mentioned this but that is a hideous tie.” With a smirk the trigger was pulled and the final shot entered Alex’s skull, killing him instantly. The man quietly disappeared moments after Alex’s lifeless body hit the broken floor. Not long afterwards, the seals were broken and armed officers filed in through the main entrance, securing the area. Those responsible for what lay before them were long gone.

[Falkenhorst]

This looks like it could be shaping up into something interesting. Please keep writing, because I look forward to seeing more soon.