TWO
Sahara Desert. 1013 hrs.
Longitude X, Latitude X
Location: 17 km from Camp BaseEcho
ETA: 180 minutes
A desert gecko basked in the sun, camouflaged against the rocks. A rattlesnake lurked under the shade of a boulder. A tumbleweed rolled past. Old tyre tracks cut across the road and a second later, the bold hum of engines cut across. Seven Humvee 4-CT Armored Fastback TOWs rolled past, following each other in uniform motion.
HMMWV M1167 number two drove over a rock with its seemingly indestructible tyres on the right. The insides rattled. Casey groaned. "I friggin' hate the desert." He growled, looking out the window.
Bradley, clad in desert camouflage, a helmet, and holding onto an M16 rifle, smirking, scoffed at the other soldier. "But you hate everything, Casey."
The other soldiers listened in quietly, watching the interaction.
"Exactly my point," Lieutenant Casey groaned. "I don't like the sand and the sun unless it's on a beach."
"Well, this sure as hell ain't Malibu, Lieutenant," Lewis commented from the passenger seat.
The rest of the squad laughed while Lewis grinned, receiving a middle finger from the Lieutenant in the backseat. They settled back down again, when Bradley asked, "What are you doing in the desert, Beach boy?"
He shook his head at her. "My father-in-law didn't want me loitering around base so he sent me here."
The other soldiers wowed. Bradley grinned, her blue eyes glinting mischievously. "That or he didn't want you loitering around his daughter."
There was a chorus of low chuckles. Casey kicked at Bradley's boot. "Yeah, well, you and him can piss off for a thousand years because when I get back, Adam Junior would be bawling his eyes out."
Everyone shook their heads.
"See, now that's why he had you relocated," Bradley pointed an accusing finger at him, making him narrow his green eyes. "You're banging the Major's daughter!"
Casey sank into the seat, fuming as the crew started making fun of him.
1147 hrs.
9 km from Camp BaseEcho
"So how old are you, Bradley?" Casey raised his chin with a dry smile.
The others winced while Bradley tilted her head.
"Casey, don't you know you must never ask a woman her age?" Parsons laughed through the comm, manning the TOW missile launcher system mounted in an armored turret next to the M2 .50 caliber on the top of the vehicle.
"What woman?" Casey snorted. "This right here is a Burmese Python."
"Casey, you little shit!" Bradley snapped, kicking at her comrade's shin. She laughed. "The only snake here is your father-in-law."
The seven cars suddenly slowed to a halt.
"Alright, save the shit-talking for camp," Paxton spoke up, putting the car on neutral. "Look alive people."
They all straightened and sat quietly, Casey winking at Bradley before settling back, holding his rifle snug against his lap.
Two soldiers got out of the front car, holding their guns ready, their eyes squinted in the harsh sunlight behind their dark shades. They stopped seven meters from the front Humvee, looking down with confusion.
"Since when has there been a wall here?" One soldier asked the other one. "Did we make a wrong turn somewhere?"
His partner jutted his jaw to the sides and sighed. "I definitely don't remember it being here. But no, we definitely came in the right direction."
They both moved their eyes along the five foot high wall of bricks, cutting across the road for what could have been kilometers upon kilometers on either side.
"I don't like this," the first soldier said.
"C'mon," the second one nudged him and they reluctantly turned back.
1159 hrs
8.78 km from Camp BaseEcho.
1st Private Bradley walked up to Lieutenant Casey with an explosive warhead. She handed it to him and he took it, inserted it, winking down at her.
"Don't blow out your ears, Malibu Ken," she teased, wiping his smile clean off.
He turned to the wall, several soldiers watching as him and two other soldiers took aim at the roadblock.
"Make sure you light it up good, boys," Captain Asphalt said.
"Christmas has come early," Casey muttered to himself before pressing the trigger.
The RPG-7 hissed and shot out of the rocket launcher, spitting smoke behind him. It was followed by two more projectiles that hit precisely half of a second after it. Some soldiers cheered lightly. Casey and the two shooters stared smugly as the smoke cleared, fist bumping. But their smiles instantly faded when the smoke made way to reveal a still standing five foot high wall.
"The hell?" The captain spat. "Soldiers, y'all missed!"
"We didn't miss, Sir!" Casey shouted, his eyes narrowed at the wall.
A few minutes later, they lined the wall with explosives, detonated and the end results were still the same.
Smoke cleared. Dust settled.
The wall stood.
A soldier came to the captain and saluted dramatically. "Sir! I suggest we take what we can and continue on foot, sir!"
"Hit it again, Lieutenant."
"But, Captain—"
"Hit it. Again." He glanced at the soldier, prohibiting any further insubordination.
"Sir." The soldier turned away.
The TOW missile launchers blasted the wall, but not before the .50 caliber sprayed it with bullets, which also failed to make a dent on the dull-looking linear structure. That same soldier came back to Captain Asphalt again, chewing on the inside of his mouth with a "Reconsider" look.
"We're losing daylight and that wall's not coming down, Sir. Sir?"
They both glanced back at the men and few women who stood around, squinting in the sun.
"Let's call for a helo extraction."
"That's a negative on that, Sir. Radio died thirty minutes ago. We lost all contact with RavenHood."
They held each other's gaze quietly for a moment.
"Ugh. Round everyone up," Asphalt sighed in exasperation, adjusting his shades after trying the radio and getting nothing, not even static. "Grab as much ammo as you all can fit in your asses and jump that damn thing."
1238 hrs
Longitude ?, Latitude ?
Location: ?
ETA: ?
The sun stood high, shining hot and harshly as if ridiculing the platoon of soldiers trekking across the desert's face. Everyone was calm but a little on edge.
Everyone especially—
"That was no ordinary wall," Casey muttered, scanning the environment.
"No shit, Sherlock!" Bradley jeered.
"It withstood RPGs and hand grenades. The TOW missile launchers—and might I add it wasn't there last week?" Casey continued, everyone listening to him. "Hello? Is nobody gonna talk about the fucking wall?"
"Calm yourself, Lieutenant Casey!" Captain Asphalt snapped. "You're agitating the kids."
Casey sighed and simmered down, staring at his feet as he walked, pouting.
"We all think the wall is weird, but it's no cause for panic." The captain assured him. "Just an indestructible piece of brick."
Casey snorted to himself. Bradley punched his arm.
1240 hrs
Location: Sahara Desert(?)
ETA: ?
Distance Traveled: 7 km
Bradley narrowed her eyes at her watch. "This motherfucker broken?" She whacked it, took it off and jiggled it.
Casey, watching her, asked, "Something wrong, Burmese Python?"
The woman huffed and tossed the watch to him. "The thing's busted."
Casey caught it, magazines and extra ammunition decorating his vest. He wiped the sweat out of his eyes and squinted at it. "Maybe it's just an illusion," he glanced at his own watch. It read a minute ahead of hers. Frozen.
"There's nothing wrong with my eyes, ass-wipe!" Bradley sneered, clearly agitated.
Casey jiggled his own watch. And there was a desperate holler from the back of the line.
"Lewis!" Paxton's voice shouted.
Everyone turned back to find Lewis crumpling to the ground, Paxton shaking him.
"Lewis! Lewis—you drama queen, what's wrong with you?"
The rest of the squad watched. Lewis grabbed Paxton by the collar, his lips trembling, face blotched and sweaty. He struggled to speak, "H-help… m—!"
"Lewis!" Paxton yelled as Lewis's hand fell limp.
"What's wrong with him?" Parsons asked, his eyes wide with horror.
Paxton shook his head, closing Lewis's eyes. The soldier immediately started to shake in his arms a second later.
"Seizure!" Bradley shouted. "He's still alive! Medic!"
A soldier came running. Lewis started gargling, Paxton holding onto his limbs.
"Keep him steady," the medic instructed. He knelt down next to Lewis, Lewis who lurched forward, coughed horribly and retched. A green liquid spewed out of his mouth and splashed in the medic's eyes. The medic screamed, springing to his feet as the liquid corroded him, sizzling.
"Argh! My eyes! My eyes!"
Everyone jumped back, alarmed.
"Paxton, let him go!" Bradley shouted.
The man clung onto Lewis. "Goddamn it, Tony!"
And Lewis vomited again, the green stuff splashing Paxton on the mouth. He screamed as his mouth melted off.
"Argh!"
BANG, BANG, BANG!
Everyone gasped and watched as Lewis, Paxton and the medic fell limp. Bradley shot her eyes up Casey's form, his pistol trembling in his hands.
"What the fuck was that?!" Captain Asphalt shouted.
Casey turned to him, his mouth opening to say something. He and everyone went rigid when the captain grabbed his throat and coughed terribly. He reached out and everyone scrambled away in panic. He then fell to his knees, choking and gargling out green stuff.
"Captain!" Someone squeaked.
Casey shot him in the head immediately and he fell on his side.
"Casey, stop shooting people!" Bradley cried at the top of her lungs.
"It's the wall!" Casey cried back. "It's the fucking wall's fault!"
Everyone gasped but Bradley kicked his shin.
"The fuck it's the wall's fault. Soldiers are chocking on acidic vomit! And you keep giving them headshots!"
Casey stammered.
"Are we gonna choke on acidic vomit too?" Parsons squeaked, his brown eyes wide.
Everyone panicked.
"Holy shit! Are we all infected?"
"Crap, I got a kid!"
"I didn't pack any bases!"
"Toothpaste is a base."
"Everyone! I think I know what's going on," everyone shot their eyes to the soldier. Casey and Bradley shook their heads at him, waiting for his answer.
He waited till everyone was silent and sighed.
"I think we're in a radiation zone," he watched them gasp and throw frantic glances around. "Now, I always take a pill every few hours since Berlin. I took one the moment we hopped over the wall." He raised a finger and waited.
"Do you have more?" A female soldier asked.
The soldier opened his mouth to speak when he burped. He frowned. Everyone took cautious steps back, alarmed. He burped again, holding his chest, his eyes wide.
"That's not right," he mumbled.
Casey walked backwards, shaking his head. The radiation theory soldier coughed, burped horridly and then slouched over, throwing up green liquid.
"It's not fucking radiation!" Someone shouted.
Everyone started panicking. They scuttled about. Then one by one, they started vomiting green liquid. Bradley turned her head and found Casey running off.
"Casey!" She immediately went after him.
Behind, soldiers succumbed to the ground, coughing, vomiting and choking on the acidic liquid, some of them thrashing wildly like worms on a hot curb.
"Adam!" Bradley shouted after Casey, catching up to him as he slouched over, coughing. "Whoa!" She jumped back, thinking he was vomiting.
He raised his head, panting, his eyes wide with horror. "This is some messed up shit!"
"You... you're not puking," Bradley grabbed him by the collar, examining his face.
He shook his head. "Neither are you!"
They looked back and saw the figures of their comrades writhing around in the sun, retching sounds audible.
"It's this place," Casey huffed. "This damn desert!"
"Deserts don't make you puke acid!" Bradley shook her hands. "And how come you and I are the only ones fine?"
"Are we?" Casey wheezed. "Are we really?!"
Bradley pressed her lips together, her heart still pounding in her ears.
A few minutes later, the sound of their dying comrades faded. The two of them stood with wide eyes, listening for any signs of illness and ailment in themselves. Casey sank to the ground, dropping his head in his hands.
"I'm twenty-nine," Bradley blurted, swallowing.
Casey raised his head, defeated. "What?"
Bradley scoffed, clearly tired and still reeling, looking pale. "My name is Eve Bradley and I'm twenty-nine years old." She knelt in front of him. "I'm from Colorado."
He narrowed his eyes before a tired, dry laugh escaped his lips. "What, so you're Eve and I'm Adam? Neither of us is puking green shit because of that?"
"I don't know," Bradley scoffed, snuffling right after. "But what I do know… is that we were heading the wrong way. Something changed…" she sniffled harder, talking through the tears, fighting back the urge to cry out loud.
Casey watched her silently.
"Something put that wall there… something's making our chronometers useless and… something… a bug… virus… freaking pathogen has killed our friends. All thirty-three of them." She lowered her face, her shades hanging around her neck.
Casey watched her for a moment before he wiped a tear off her cheek with his gloved finger. She raised her red eyes to him and sniffled. He cupped cheek and pulled her closer.
Bradley resisted. "Casey, you're married." She covered his mouth.
"Yeah, and I'm about to die very grossly." He scoffed after freeing his mouth. He pulled her into his arms.
"Wait, Casey—!"
His lips swallowed her retorts. She stopped struggling after a few seconds, letting him kiss her. While they kissed, Casey opened an eye and studied her; tears streamed down her cheeks. A glinting object caught his eye in the western sky. A flying object. He softly broke from the kiss and hugged Private Bradley tightly.
The unidentified flying vehicle zoomed over them in a murmured hum.
"What was that?" Bradley murmured in his arms.
"Nothing," Casey whispered, holding her tightly.
The flying thing circled back, came to hover over the two people kneeling on the sand, holding onto each other like they were each other's lifeline, sand billowing up due to its presence. It was coated in chrome steel, the hull pulsing with blue light.
"Adam…" Bradley called, voice trembling.
"Shh…" he held her. "It's Malibu Ken, Burmese Python. And this... is just like hugging on a beach."
She chuckled wetly, clinging onto him.
The ship whirred loudly. A traction beam, brighter than the sun, lit them like a spotlight. They didn't move an inch as their atoms broke apart, getting sucked up by the traction beam. The port closed, the beam disappeared, and the ship whirred loudly before zooming off into the sky, its chrome body disappearing with a glint.