Chapter 19

Laura

I stood in the same blackness I had before, except this time there was a foreign feel to it that I couldn't place the reason for, I looked at the other me.

"Where are we?"

She looked at me.

"I think, in its head?"

We both looked around, at the blackness.

"what do we do now?"

The other me shrugged.

"At this point I know as much as you do"

I started to walk forward, the other me following, I felt resistance as I walked forward, I pushed on, suddenly the field changed, it was night time, in the desert, I saw the beams from pulse rifles streaking across the desert, I smelled burning metal. The burnt out hulks of tanks lay everywhere, I ducked as I heard the sound of a tank roll by, I looked over to see a military golem ripping the turret off the still moving tank, I had been dropped into a full scale war zone.

I heard the roar of drones flying over head, I looked up and saw them engaging maned jets, I saw 3 golems in battle armor running through the desert firing at the enemy lines ahead, it looked like the golems had been out numbered 100 to 1, but they where leaving a trail of destruction in their wake, all through my head I could hear tactical chatter, it was chaos, I couldn't make anything out, my sensors picked up a massive energy build up, I looked in the direction of it and saw a strange tank, I looked where it was pointing, I watched as it fired on one of the golems. I could see it disintegrate in the beam of the tanks main gun.

"whoa"

Suddenly the scened changed again, I was standing in a room filled with command chairs, the kind used to control the golems, I watched as one of the chairs suddenly came to life ejecting the young man in it, he fell to the floor throwing up, two people came running to him, one a doctor the other a tech.

"easy there son, your golem got destroyed" The doctor said helping him up.

"All we picked up was an energy spike, what hit you?" The tech said.

"I don't know, it was a strange kind of tank, I hadn't seen that type before" the young man said.

I watched the scene unfold, I figured by now I was seeing the young mans memories, I watched as the doctor helped him to another room to look him over, when he was done the tech came to debrief him, taking his report about the destroyed golem. The young man was dismissed and sent to his bunk, I soon found out his name was Ben Johnson, I watched as he ate and went to bed.

"this could get boring"

the other me said standing next to me, I shrugged at her watching the young man sleep.

As soon as he drifted off he woke up again his memory jumping ahead, he showered and ate, He was summoned into his commanders office, I watched the whole thing, as he was assigned to a new Golem in a Special Ops unit, it seemed that the enemy was getting arms from another country, he was assigned to a team to figure out who was providing the advance weapons.

Again the scene changed, this time I was with him in a jump jet heading to a small base in the middle of a medium sized town, I followed him off the jet to the meeting room where he was debriefed. The 4 man team operated from the town, they would leave from here and head into the enemies territory to do recon.

Suddenly I was standing in the desert outside of the town. I heard the roar of jump jets, looking up I saw older style manned jets streak over head heading toward the town, I watched as the jets dropped their payload on the town hitting several buildings causing them to collapse, I saw people running from the explosions.

"oh God."

I took off in a sprint toward the town, staying near the outskirts, I heard the jets circling above, I picked up com traffic as I moved into the town toward the buildings that had been hit.

// "Sir they hit the the communication tower!"

// "They don't even have a lock on us, they cant know we are here, no one should know about this, they are just attacking at random"

// "Sir we have to get out of here before they make another pass"

// "Sir we can draw them away from the town center, we can take them"

// "Officially we are not here, our mission is to recon the enemy territory, this is just a random attack, they don't know our base is here!"

I slowed as my sensors picked up the 4 military class Golems, I moved through the alleys approaching their location, I turned a corner, I could just make out their enhanced camouflage hiding them from sight, with out my sensors I would have missed them.

// "I just got word satellites have picked up old style tanks moving across the border toward the town, they are invading the town, this isn't because of us, we need to get back to base and evac"

// "sir the jets are making another pass"

I moved across the way from them, I noticed one of the 4 was the golem that attacked me, I watched them move from their position, they started moving to the center of the town, I followed behind them watching.

I looked up as the roar of the jets flew over head, I saw them fire their missiles at seemingly random targets.

// "Sir this town has no defenses they are attacking it for no strategic purpose"

// "Stay frosty, I just got word that a group of friendlies have just been dispatched to deal with these jets"

I watched as the group moved across a large town square, tailing them several yards back, we came up to a what appeared to be a school I could see children looking out the windows up at the sky.

// "Sir I am picking up two jets lining up for a bombing run ... Sir if they continue on their course they will hit the school"

I heard the roar of the jet engines approaching, I looked and scanned the sky, I locked onto the jets, they where right if they continued on their course they would have a good chance at hitting the school.

// "Sir?!"

I saw the jets lower to line up, the school was the largest target in their line of fire.

// "Fuck it, Johnson take the one on the left, Ill get the right, we have to do this in one shot, minimize the risk of detection"

I watched the two Golems drop their camo, and kneel, bringing their weapons up, I watched as the two Golems fired, the first jet burst into flames, the second one let its missiles go before exploding, I watched as time seemed to slow as they streaked toward the school, I saw the two Golems line up another shot, Johnson missed the first missile, the second one impacted the school, causing the building to go up in flames. I watched it all in horror, I saw Johnson drop his riffle and charge into the burning school.

// "Johnson get back here!"

I saw the three Golems look at each other before joining him in trying to save as many as they could, I heard the sonic boom of something approaching, my sensors picked up a tactile drone approaching, I looked over at the four Golems digging through the rubble, my blared a radiological warning, I looked around, suddenly there was a flash, I covered my face, when the flash cleared I saw a mushroom cloud at the far reaches of town, where the base was. I looked over at the 4 golems, I saw three of them grab their head and fall to the ground.

I watched as Johnson looked around as the shock wave over took his position, the scene changed, I was standing in the rubble of the destroyed town, I was following johnson as he wandered aimlessly through the town, he didn't to know what to do, I could hear his attempts to reach the base with no luck, was getting desperate, he had found the location of where the base had been, he was trying to dig through the rubble to find himself.

I blinked and found myself back in the empty space, surrounded by black with the other me, across from us stood Johnson, he looked confused, he walked toward us.

"Ma'am, do you know where we are?"

He spoke in a southern drawl, I looked to the other me, I raised an eyebrow.

"Soldier, do you know what happened?"

He looked around, then at me and my double.

"I am Sergeant Johnson Ma'am, I assume I died? is this purgatory Ma'am? Are you angels?"