Brothers In Blood: For Country

Family Feud... With Lasers

A grandmotherly woman was waiting in the terminal for her daughter to come back. her sons watched the planes landing and taking off, asking insistently, “Is that Mommy’s plane?” Then from behind them, they heard someone calling. “James! Kyle!” The boys turned and saw their mother running across the room towards them, followed by a group of strange men. Rachel picked up her sons and held them tight, kissing their cheeks as they giggled and kissed her back, their small arms wrapped around her neck. Their grandmother inspected the men who had followed her over. She looked Mac over and walked right up to him. “You the father?” He was taken back by her directness, but answered her back the best he could.
“Ma’am, if they‘ll have me, than I am. If they don‘t want accept me, I‘m married to Rachel and hope that someday they‘ll learn to accept me.” The old woman smiled and threw her arms around him, crying, “Finally someone who won’t run out on her! God must have sent you! Welcome to the family, Kevin!”
She took his hand and walked him over to the bench where Rachel and James and Kyle were enjoying their reunion. Kyle saw him coming. “Mommy, that really nice man is here! The one who gave us the truck!” he smiled and reached for Mac’s hand. “Does we gets to live with you, mister Mac?” Rachel let Kyle go to Mac and went quiet. Mac seemed very nervous, holding the child, talking to him. “Kyle,” he said, “how would you like to have a daddy?” Kyle thought over the prospect for a minute, then looked at James. “Can he be James’s daddy too?” Mac reached for James and Rachel handed him over. “Yeah, he can be James’s daddy too. Boys, I’ve got a question for the two of you. Its a big question, a gynormus question, okay?”
The two boys nodded vigorously. he looked into their trusting eyes. “James, Kyle, can I be your daddy?” They sat there for another minute, considering the question. James shrugged his little shoulders, “You can be my Daddy, Mister Mac!” Kyle blurted out, “And you can be my daddy too! Wait til we tells Mommy that we got a Daddy!” They squirmed out of his arms and ran back to Rachel. “Mommy! We’s got a Daddy! Now you don’t have to be lonely anymore! Mister Mac is gonna be our daddy!” Rachel acted surprised and excited by the news, ecstatic over her son’s acceptation of Mac as their own. Mac leaned over her, tears streaming down his face. The boys crawled over him, grabbing his belt, his shirt, trying to pull themselves up on top.
“Daddy, whose these guys you brought with you?” James finally noticed the seven men standing around, watching the proceedings. Mac quickly extracted himself from Rachel and picked up his son. “These are your uncles, James. Do you want to meet them?” They nodded, but Kyle had some hesitation. “Daddy, is that man made of chocolate?” He was pointing at Mista D. D started shaking, then swooped in on the boy, laughing out loud. “I ain’t made o’ nothin’ you ain’t made of, Kyle, m’ boy. I is juss like you, juss a little darka. I is yo Uncle Donald!” James had run around the men, looking them all over, then walked up to Custer.
“Are you a cowboy?”
Custer picked up the boy and held him over his head. He said, in his best John Wayne voice, “I’m the baddest, roughest, toughest cowboy this side o’ the Pacific Ocean, pilgrim, an’ don’t you ever forget it. You call me Uncle Hank, got that partner?” James giggled. “I bet my Daddy’s tougher an rougher an badadder than you, Uncle Hank.” A chorus of ooh’s went around the group. Jack rocked back on his heels, “That kid just called your bluff, Custer. Looks like you got a fight on your hands.” Mac looked over at his sons, running freely around his brothers. “Rachel, we got to do something about these kids of ours. I haven’t been their father ten minutes and they’ve already got me in trouble.” She looked back at him. “And you’re loving every minute of it, aren’t you?” “That I am, that I am.” Then he noticed Uncle Joe handing James a grenade. “That better be one of your toys, Joe, or security’ll be all over us.” Grandma gave the boys a sideways glance, her lip turned up at the prospect of her grandchildren playing with, even fake explosives. “Did you play with those things, Kevin?”
His eyes took on a faraway look, a look of remembrance.
A long day of just sitting around, doing nothing. The squad had camped over by a pond, full of exotic jungle fish and bacteria that would rot them the second it touched their stomachs. Their job was to watch enemy supply lines and to destroy any trucks that came by. They had six crates of grenades and a lot of time on their hands. It had been six days since the last supply chopper and another was coming in two with another load of grenades. Odaul stood up, and with his best red neck accent proclaimed, “I goin’ fishin’, anyone wanna come along?” He grabbed a case from one of the open crates and walked down to the waters edge. Everyone followed just to see what would happen. Odaul proceeded to throw four grenades, one right after the other into the water. Sploom! Sploom! Sploom! Sploom! water and fish erupted from the surface. Everyone grabbed a case and they spent the rest of the afternoon grading throws and explosions in proximity to the water. Mac grabbed one and took a long piece of string, strapped down the handle, and tied a line to the pin. he threw it out and let it sink into the middle of the pond. Then he jerked the string and waited. he took a few steps back, behind everyone else. King gave him a strange look, them went back to lobbing his own. Then it happened.
Everyone heard the noise and saw the water start rippling, the dead fish start dancing. A geyser erupted from the center of the water and sent a wave three feet high speeding towards shore. Everyone but Mac had their pants soaked by the wave. King looked back at him, wiping off the residue from a fish that had managed to get caught in his hair. “So that’s why you moved.”
Grandma saw him laughing and turned to her daughter. “Is he okay?”
Grenade baseball. That was fun, using dud grenades as balls and slamming them to the stars with rotting hunks of wood. They played it for days at a time, only stopping when their eyes failed to stay open. And like any baseball players, they broke a couple of windows. The supply sergeant was the best though.
The squad had been ordered to stay at a base near an airfield, somewhere where the plants were green. No names, no nothing, they had no idea where in the vast jungle they were. But there was a field. Not a perfect field, just a gapping hole in the foliage, adjacent to the compound. Even then, the squad was showing signs of division, but for the time, they were blue-blooded American boys playing ball. GD was pitching, in a no rules, all out homerun derby. Mac picked up the log and pointed towards the sky. “This ball’s goin’ Cloud Nine!” GD pitched and Mac swung. The grenade arched over the sparse tree line and everyone’s eyes turned to watch it. There was a glimmer through the trees that had been annoying them all morning. Then the glimmer disappeared. The sound of breaking glass and a guy screaming “Grenade!” sent them scattering, with Mac still holding the bat. The sergeant withheld toilet paper from the entire base for three days before some of the higher-ups overrode him.
Mac shot back into reality. Grandma was staring at him, Rachel looked worried, and his kids were clueless, pulling on his belt, calling for him. The rest of the Tribe was just watching. Memory trance was the term they used when someone went off. Uncommon but not unusual. It happened to all of them a couple times a year.
“James,” he bent down and looked his son in the eye, “James, these things like Uncle Joe gave you are very dangerous. Only play with the ones that Uncle Joe gives you, okay, and throw all the other ones you find away, because they hurt people, okay?” James nodded. ‘Good thing Grandma don’t know I’ve got dozens of these stashed at the house,’ Mac snickered inwardly.
Grandma had only been prepared for her daughter and son-in-law, so she had just brought her five-person Honda Accord. The boys looked at it warily, then headed for the rental desk to get a van for everyone else. “We believe that, as Americans, we support ourselves and out country by driving American brand cars.” Jack put the bill on his credit card from Uncle Sam, and they followed the little old lady back to her house. the property was easily big enough to accommodate a platoon.
An elderly man met them on the front stoop, along with a well-dressed man in his late thirties. Rachel pointed to him, before they got out of the car. “Kevin, that’s my brother, Thomas Kumble. They used to call him T-Rumble in high school.” Mac turned cynical, then looked the man over again, appraisingly. “Why you telling me this?” She took a deep breath, holding it as she collected her thoughts. “He’s been playing surrogate father to the boys since I left for New York, and he didn’t want me leaving or getting married without his approval. Don’t provoke him, I don’t want either of you to get hurt. Try to be cordial to him, please?” It was exasperating. Mac lolled his head to the side and rolled his eyes. “I’ll be sensitive to whatever issues he has with me. Anything else I should know?”
“He’s a staunch liberal, vice president of a company that specializes in outsourcing and overseas trading.” He pasted on his biggest, fake ‘this-is-the-best-news-I‘ve-ever-heard smile. “Wonderful.” Rachel shot him that “Dear...” He sat up straight and ruffled the kid‘s hair. “I’ll do my best to get along, but I’m just worried about how some of the other boys, especially Jack might feel about you’re brother’s business dealings.” “What?” “That coupled with jet-lag and mental stress from the past few weeks...” “What kind of problem would Jack have with my brother’s business?” “Tell you about it later.” Rachel turned around in her seat and pushed him back into the seat. She ordered James and Kyle out of the car, while she had a quick talk with Daddy.
“You’re not leaving this car until you tell me. What’s up with Jack and my brother?” Mac slid down the seat until his knees were pressed up against the back of the driver. “Jack got hauled into the United Nations office the day before we met up again in New York. They told him their plan to cripple us by taking control of the major port cities, starting with NYC and running down the east coast. On the west coast, they were planning on using private companies to move the majority of American manufacturing power outside of the country, to places like Asia and South America. Those guys we’ve been fighting? All part of a task force sent to capture key ports and take out any opposition. New York? The main invasion force. They were supposed to move south from there after completing the takeover.”
He looked up. “Rachel, have you ever heard of New World, or heard your brother mention it?” She shook her head, so Mac dove a little deeper. “To the best of your knowledge, has your brother had any meetings with UN officials?” She put her hand up to her mouth and nodded. Mac reached out his own hand and pulled hers to him. “But let’s forget all that, baby, and let’s enjoy our wedding night.” She came closer to kiss him, when her door opened and a hand yanked her back.
“Who is that man?” Thomas was in the height of his rage, and Rachel was feeling the brunt of it. “Who is he? How could you do that? Just go off and get married like that?” Mac got out of the car and stood up, towering over the enraged brother. “Steal my sister, huh, punk? Just decided to take her for all she’s got then leave her again just like everyone else? I’m giving you a month before you disappear, never to be heard from-” Thomas found that it became very difficult when someone was holding his face against the gravel driveway.
Mac let him up and stepped back. “Don’t want to start off like this, Tom, I’m never gonna leave her and you questioning my resolve is a question of her decision to accept. Any question of any decision of hers is a question of her honor, and you damn well better never question her honor in front of me. Because there will be Hell to pay if you ever hurt her or insult her in any way. Got that?” “Don’t patronize me, slime ball, You call me Mr. Kumble. And for my sister to have fallen for traitor like you, she can’t have much honor left anyway.” Jack sensed violence coming and rushed over to the two near-combatants. He arrived just in time to hear Thomas call Mac a traitor.
“Hey now!” Jack jumped between the two. “Mac, chill out, and you, shut your trap before it gets you in deep shit. How is he a traitor, you don’t even know him!” Tom’s breathing became rhythmic, deep, rasping. “That... man has taken up arms against progress.” Jack started getting edgy. “What do you mean by.. progress?” Rachel screamed and ran inside the house.
Tom’s eyes went completely dead. “Progress, Mister Lynch, is the removal of corrupt systems and nations in exchange for newer, more idealistic ones. American democracy has become a fascade, a false nation hiding behind the shell of its former self. The future lies just beyond the downfall of these United States.” He raised his left hand in salute to a flag flying in the yard. “All Hail the New World! One world under one Government, equality for all people! Stand with me, brethren and crush anyone who shall stand in our way!”
Jack looked ready to strangle Tom. Mac looked towards the bushes. “I know this sound’s awfully cliché, but I feel like someone’s watching us.”
“And you would be right, McNaughton! New World has satellites monitoring every square inch of land that makes up this pitiful country! Patriots nothing! This country shouldn’t even exist! Just like you shouldn’t exist! Good bye, gentlemen, see you in Hell! You can thank Reagan for this one, fools! Should have made better choices! America dies soon and nothing you do can stop it!” he turned and streaked off for the woods. In the evening sky, something was glowing and getting brighter. It took all Mac had to keep his friend from taking off after the fleeing monster, and even more to keep himself from giving chase as well. “Jack, we’ve got to get them out of here.” The earnestness of the plea pierced Jack’s raging mind and he turned and ran to the house.
Inside, James and Kyle were playing with Lego’s on the floor in the living room, oblivious to their mother’s hysterics in the room above them. The relative peacefulness of the first floor was interrupted slightly, by two full grown men crashing through the screen and glass storm door and yelling for everyone to get out. Kyle grabbed for his favorite stuffed animal and James reached for an action figure. They didn’t understand the reason, but Daddy was telling them to move, so they moved.
In orbit, a single satellite was starting up. The vacuum of space gave it a disturbingly peaceful appearance, if it had not been for the laser weapons that slowly protruded from the earthen most point. Lasers that were glowing, slowly getting brighter, easily visible by any stargazers who happened to be out that night. The weapon powered itself up, small jets making corrections in position, according to the coordinates its masters fed it. A little spot, somewhere in Ohio, a house. A house with enemies of the New World government.
The Secretary General of the United Nations was wiping the sweat off his palms as he watched his ‘security guard’ arm the laser. Incredible, like nothing the former Soviet Union had even thought of. A beam of light, capable of immediate and complete incineration of a specific target. “Comrade Junter,” he said, “Is the satellite capable now of functioning on its own?” Junter glanced at the screen. “There is nothing more we can really do except wait.” “Good.” That was the last thing Warren Junter heard. No living witnesses. The Secretary General wiped the prints off the gun and threw it out the window. Junter’s body followed it.
The alley below was a buzz with activity. A homeless teenager, known on the streets as Crazy was fighting for his life against another man, almost twice his age. The man was hungry and drugged up. And Crazy looked like he might taste good. Crazy fell to his bruised knees, and put his hands above his head, then closed his eyes so he wouldn’t see the knife drop. There was a loud thud and the knife fell to the ground next to him. He peeked through his fingers and saw another man, looking rather flat, lying on top of his attacker. A metallic clatter almost sent Crazy into a panic attack until he saw the dented gun that had landed nearby. Crazy gathered up his belongings and hurried off into the city. This place was nuts.
Mac picked up James and Kyle and ran with them out to the car. Grandma was trying to keep up, screaming for some explanation. “What’s going on, Kevin!” He pointed to the sky, and the ever brightening point, then pushed the boys into the car. “Get in, Ma, take the kids and go! head into town or something, just get out of here!” Mista D came out, an unconscious Rachel draped over his shoulders. “She wouldn’ leave wid out you, brotha.” “Chloroform?” The light from the rising moon reflected off the shaved sides of his head when he nodded. Mac took his wife in his arms, kissed her, then laid her in the passenger seat then screamed for Grandma to take off. “Tell her I’ll be back!”
He watched as the taillights disappeared around the bend then turned back to the house. The van still worked, and the rest of the boys, carrying Rachel’s father, were exiting the building like it was on fire. The sky suddenly exploded and a beam of light shot down, no thicker that a telephone pole. It hit the roof and sent timbers flying, burning. Everything was burning, consumed by the terrible energy from space.
“It’s an old part of the Star Wars defense system!” Custer pointed overhead. “Those freaks must have found someway to get it to work.” His eyes widened as he watched the path of the beam. “Boy’s its following us.” The beam was now working its way around the yard, making a beeline for the van. Scud jumped put of the way and scrambled as fast as he could away from the death ray. It followed him, slowly catching up to him.
The space around the earth is filled with many things. Nuts and bolts, chips of paint, rocks, debris from dead satellites, dust, an apple perpetually in orbit. These objects circle the earth at incredible speeds, making them extremely damaging to things that get in their way. A screw the size of those that hold together glasses can cause breaches in even a NASA shuttle. In space there is no oxygen, so oxidization cannot occur. A single piece, broken off of Apollo 13 during its ill-fated journey was still as bright and shiny as the day it left the surface. One piece in particular, a fragment of a bolt blown off in the onboard explosion was speeding on a never-changing orbit. It had been years since it had collided with anything solid. It passed over the Canadian Shield at fifteen times the speed of sound.
Jack started the car and screamed for Scud top jump in the back. All the others piled in and watched as the beam followed them. They tore through the dark streets, trying everything to elude it. Joe watched suddenly had a revelation. “Scud, strip!” Everyone looked at him like he had finally lost it. “Scud, its tracking us through you! We got to find the bug and get rid of it!” The beam was drifting slowly away, but it soon adjusted to the ever increasing speed the van was moving at.
The bolt drifted silently onward, towards absolutely nothing, when something appeared in its path. A satellite. The bolt was a force of nature, a hailstone falling from the heavens to smash something manmade, like a car windshield. The bolt struck the main body of the satellite, scrambling all the circuitry inside and severing the power source from the rest of the vessel. The bolt passed through the wreckage and continued on its flight, a little slower and spinning a little crooked, accompanied by flecks of steel and aluminum.
The beam was twenty feet away. GD had found a recent scar that Scud couldn’t account for on his leg. They opened it and reached in. A sliver of metal, an inch long and a quarter inch wide had been hidden under the skin. They threw it out behind them and watched as the beam eagerly gobbled it up. Then it flickered and disappeared. They stared and Jack pulled over to the side of the logging road. They walked back to the trail left by the death ray. “I guess this means they think we’re dead.” Scud limped over and looked at the blackened earth. “This some crazy shit.” he snorted. Jack grinned. Mac laughed out loud.
The Secretary General of the United Nations watched as the computer relayed success. The tracking device, and its host and his friends had been destroyed. All dead, killed either in the explosion or cut down by the beam itself. Then the computer lost contact with the satellite. He smiled and closed the window and ran a magnet down the side of his computer. No traces.
They drove carefully back to town, Grandpa relaying the events via cell phone to his frantic wife. They passed a body, still burning in the logging road. A wallet had fallen out. Joe picked it up as the van crept past. It was Thomas Krumble, killed by the same progress and for the same cause he had sought to further. He handed it without speaking to Mac, he looked over it and handed it to Grandpa. Grandpa took one look and threw it out the window. The lights of town came into view, the glaring neon and softer street lamps a welcome sight. And it was an even more welcome sight, Rachel and the kids standing outside a motel, waving them down.
“Do you always have to drug me?” She glared at Mac. He moved closer, took her hand. “It’s the only way I know to keep you out of trouble.” He gazed into her eyes. “Not much of a married life, huh? Less than 48 hours into it and you’re husband is running off with his buddies, while you’re drugged in the back seat of a car. Still with me?” She smiled and pulled his head down to hers. Grandma came out and took the kids into their room, where they would stay with Grandma and Grandpa for one more night. The rest of the tribe made their reservations. As Jack walked to his room, he slapped Mac on the back. “Have fun, you two!”
Mac carried Rachel over to their room, then glanced back at Jack. he winked then closed his door.