The Missile 2
Copyright© 2025 by Zen Master
Chapter 6: Once More Into the Breach
Saturday morning they were in our driveway right after 8, and Cindy came to the door to get me. I was ready, and we spent a few minutes dumping all my stuff in their trunk before I got in the back seat again. Mom and Elaine were up to see me off, so Cindy and Elaine got to talk for a minute. Mom stayed inside and Mr. Jeffreys stayed in his car, though, so they didn’t talk. No matter, I was sure that Mom would go straight to call Mrs. Jeffreys after we left.
When I got in, Mr. Jeffreys said “Good morning” and asked how I was, but as soon as we were on the road he asked “Okay, tell me about Matt’s wound.”
“Sure. Understand that only Cindy got a good look at it before she started healing it, but maybe the surgeons can tell you more. Your left upper arm, that’s your bicep. It got shredded down to the bone from about the middle down to his elbow, maybe farther. Cindy said her spell could stop the bleeding and help with the pain, but she couldn’t actually FIX what was torn up. I bet it hurt enough to give him trouble thinking straight.”
“So, why was he the lookout?”
“He wasn’t supposed to be. Cindy was our lookout, since she’s not really a combatant. He’s a Fire Mage, and he was supposed to be behind me and Eric and George, just watching for anything to our sides. If anything leaked past us, he was supposed to kill it or at least keep it under control until one of us could get it. Well, one got squeezed between Eric and George while they were busy, and he couldn’t stop it. One got between me and Eric, too, but Margie kept it away from her until I could get to it.”
“Anyway, he apparently whiffed, and the damned thing jumped up and found a weak spot in his armor. George killed it, but now Matt had a messed-up arm and he couldn’t use his staff any more. Cindy doesn’t have any combat training, either, but she still had both arms so we had her back us up with her staff and we put Matt in the middle as our lookout. Eric called him our overwatch.”
“Does Eric have military experience?”
“Yes, he said he was in the Army but somehow the US didn’t get in any wars while he was in, he doesn’t know what went wrong there. Sir, last night Cindy said you had been in combat?”
“Yeah, I’m a Marine. No longer active duty, but I’ll always be a Marine. And, yeah, I’ve seen the elephant.”
I knew what that meant. It came out of the Civil War, and it meant that he’d been in combat, dealt with the noise and confusion and terror, and seen men fight and die.
“So, Matt had one simple job, to watch our backs. I’m not sure I should be mad at him about it, but he blew it. I expect that he was watching our fight with the ones in front of us, and the big one, the ‘Boss’ monster, snuck up on us from behind. That was specifically WHY we had someone supposedly watching our backs, to warn us if that happened so that we could concentrate on the main attack instead of constantly looking around. I don’t know if it was an accident that he was headed for Cindy or on purpose for some reason, but Cindy was definitely the smallest and weakest of our team, and it was almost on her when Matt warned us. I still don’t know how I got to it first, but I met it in the air and we both landed on your daughter. It was dead, but it still probably hurt.”
“How big was it?”
“Bigger than me, much larger than the other ones. The rest of them were medium-dog sized, like a collie or a shepherd. There were some smaller ‘kits’, as well, but this one was easily 150 or 200 pounds.”
“Cindy said you cut its paws off and brought them out, to show people.”
“Yes. I cut its head off, too, but it wouldn’t save in my inventory. The paws did.” I looked at Cindy. Not everyone needed to know about that fang.
“Can I see them, when we stop?”
“Sure, wherever they have a bathroom. They’re still bloody and dirty. You know? Maybe I should wash them and see if they stay like THAT.”
After that we talked about school and stuff. I told them about me making a scene back when school started about not being allowed to play baseball anymore, and that seminar Cindy and I had gone to, and the offer from ALPRA to try a training run. It was all stuff he’d heard before, but he wasn’t adversarial any more like the first couple of times we’d talked. Dating Cindy might have been my idea at first, but he’d had to accept that she was the one driving it now. And I had put my own body between hers and danger.
When we pulled into the address we’d been given, it was a sheet metal fabrication shop. The parking lot wasn’t that big but there was still room for a few more cars. Mr. Jeffreys pulled into a spot, Cindy and I put our packs on and grabbed our totes full of clothes and armor, and we went in to the “Customer Entrance”.
Eric, Margie, Matt, and Matt’s parents were there already. Apparently we were using their customer waiting room for our setup area. I checked in with Eric and Margie, and then went to check on Matt.
Cindy was already there, checking his arm. It looked fine to me, but how would I know if all the stuff under the skin was right? Matt said he was fine, now, so all I could do was accept that he probably knew how he was doing better than anyone else.
Once we were sure he was okay we could pay attention to Eric, Margie, and the guy they were talking with. Since this particular Portal was inside a building used by a business, ALPRA had contracted the business to monitor it. Hernán the shop supervisor was the responsible person, and he had a schedule of people who were supposed to watch it around the clock. If there was an eruption they weren’t supposed to do ANYTHING except call for help, so they spent their time in the shop’s office where they were fairly safe.
This had been one of the originals, appearing more than a year ago. It had just been there one morning when they opened up. It looked scary but it didn’t do anything. They’d poked it with sticks, steel, aluminum, every material they could find, and it didn’t do anything.
So, one of the guys had touched it. Nothing there. He waved his hands around. Nothing there. Another couple of guys had done the same thing. Nothing. The fourth, guy, though, when he touched it he disappeared. THAT was when they’d called the cops. They had ended the day with it being guarded by the National Guard, because there were hundreds of them all over the country. Thousands were eventually found, and more all over the world.
Their guy had never come out again. He must have been one of us ‘Weapons’, and whatever was in there was too much for him. So, the Army had guarded it, not letting anyone near it as they sent teams in to explore them all.
Eventually, one night, some giant centipedes had come out of it. They got a couple of the Army guards, but the rest of the guards had killed them all. The next morning, the news was that it had happened around the world, and before long the connection had been made. It only happened with Portals that hadn’t had people enter them yet. Or, in many cases, someone had entered it but never came out again.
The Army had had to give up control of all the Portals to the PRA, but the PRA didn’t have millions of soldiers to watch them with. So, they had contracted with the shop to at least watch it. They could do anything they wanted in the shop, but they had to have someone on premises, not right next to the Portal where he could get surprised, but somewhere he could see the Portal and sound the alarm if anything came out.
Hernán said that was about it. These days, every week and a half or two weeks, a group of crazy people like us went in there. Sometimes they came out badly injured, and sometimes they’d lost a man, but there hadn’t been any TPK’s, ‘Total Party Kills’, yet. There was a Blue portal up in Guntersville that had killed more than one group that went in, but not this one. Apparently, if you knew what you were doing, giant centipedes weren’t that dangerous. Although ... he wasn’t sure about the wisdom of taking us kids in there.
I smiled and got there before Eric could. “We’re not sure, either, but the Portal System gave us weapons. We’re teenagers! Of course we’re going to use them! So, the PRA is trying out a training program. Some of us go in the easier Portals with Divers who can keep us alive if we don’t do anything too stupid, and maybe we’ll learn enough to be safe on our own. It’s sorta like making us take Driver’s Ed before we can get our Learner’s Permit.”
Hernán looked at me for a few seconds, then at Cindy and Matt. “Son, this car doesn’t have seatbelts. And some of the other drivers are really crazy. Do you have any idea what you’re getting into?”
“Yeah, that’s the big question. Still, if you never put it in gear and pull out of the parking lot, you’ll never learn how to drive on the Interstate. We’ve got to come up with a way to teach the kids before they kill themselves, and we’re the test class.” I turned to Eric. “Have you heard from George? He’s pretty important to our front line.”
“Yeah, I got a text from him earlier. He’s on his way and should be here soon.”
I nodded. “Good. So, should we all start getting dressed?”
He nodded back at me. “Yes, I think so. We’re going in.”
“Awesome!” Then, back to Hernán. “Do you have a locker room or something we can use, that’s out of your way?”
He laughed. “Yeah, but it’s got a security camera. The lady will probably want to use one of the bathrooms.”
Cindy disagreed. “I’m not taking everything off! The locker room is fine. If we have to, I’ll have my Dad or Sam hold up a blanket or something.”
Mr. Jeffreys offered “I can do it. I don’t think that we need to give Sam a heart attack.”
Cindy cocked her head. “Dad, you’ve seen me before, when I was little. Sam needs to get used to seeing me the way I am now. I’d hate for him to have a heart attack on our wedding night. Let’s break him in slowly! I’ll keep my t-shirt on this time.”
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