Blitzkrieg: Origins of the Prime: A Superhero Spy Thriller (25 page)

Tom leapt, startled, and quickly turned to glance over his shoulder when he heard the explosion of Nazibots. He smiled as he realized Axel had just blasted a large swath of them. Axel was clearly feeling better. Tom turned back to the Nazibots in front of him and continued to fire his rifle. He was down to his last magazine and wanted to take care with his ammunition. He still had his sidearm, but once those rounds were exhausted he’d be left to rely on his bayonet. He was a normal human, not one of the prime humans as Sava Ruslan had referred to them, and did not relish the idea of hand-to-hand combat with armed robots. Tom took careful aim and plugged another robot, then another. They were moving in closer and closer and he kept firing. He was as conservative with his rounds as possible, but eventually exhausted his supply of M-16 ammunition and slung his rifle over his shoulder. He reached for his sidearm, drawing it as the Nazibots closed in.

Tom felt a stun blast impact his chest. It stung and made his legs feel like jelly. He dropped to one knee, but thanks to the insulated suit, he recovered quickly. As he recovered he realized that the Nazibots were getting too close. He raised his pistol and chambered a round just as robot arms reached for him. In a flash he saw two arms and a head fall to the ground and Alena was suddenly between Tom and the Nazibots, slashing and chopping at them. Her intervention gave him enough time to take aim and begin to fire. Once she had thinned out the enemy enough that Tom could protect himself, she was gone as quickly as she had arrived. Tom silently thanked her before pulling the trigger twice, dropping two Nazibots in their tracks. He stole a glance at Dawn who still lay unconscious on the floor, and hoped she was alright.

***

Dawn sat on the floor of the giant cage which hung high above the ground, leaning back against its bars. She had tried to open the gate, but it had held tight. The bars were strong, much too strong for Dawn to bend or break them and too close together for her to squeeze through. She could see and hear the fight between her friends and the Nazibots, but she could not communicate with them. Somehow this cage held her completely enclosed and cut-off, both mentally and physically.

Dawn lifted her head and narrowed her eyes. How could she be contained physically when her physical form was not here? She looked down at her hands. They were there just like normal, all ten fingers accounted for, but she knew that they weren’t really her hands. She pushed herself up to her feet. She was not really inside of a cage. In fact, there was no cage at all. It suddenly occurred to her that Arnulf wasn’t holding her prisoner. She was holding herself prisoner. Arnulf was simply tricking her mind, like placing someone in a circle and telling her if she stepped out of it she would die. Arnulf had convinced her that she was confined, but she knew that in reality she was not.

Dawn squeezed her eyes tight and told herself that her body was not here, that the cage was not here. She opened her eyes and could still see the cage and her own physical body. Perhaps that was asking too much. Her mind was not quite ready to ignore what her eyes had told her was real. Perhaps she should try a different tactic.

Dawn closed her eyes again and this time she concentrated on the spot on the floor where Arnulf had entered the door. She told herself that she was not in the cage, but rather standing in that spot. She concentrated on being on the floor, imagining what the surroundings should look like when she opened her eyes. “When I open my eyes, I will be there,” she whispered to herself. She slowly opened her eyes and almost jumped for joy when she realized it had actually worked. She then turned to the location in the blackness where the door had magically appeared for Arnulf. She stared at it and concentrated on it opening. “Open,” she whispered. Nothing happened. She concentrated harder. “Open!” she shouted. She smiled broadly as the door opened bathing her in light before she stepped through into another room.

The door closed behind her as she stepped into what could only be described as the bridge of a futuristic space ship. Sitting in the captain’s chair watching the battle outside take place on a giant movie screen was Arnulf. He did not notice her enter as he was too consumed by the spectacle before him.

Dawn needed to take over the controls of the base, but she didn’t really know how to go about doing so. She decided on the old fashioned approach, assuming that whoever sat in the captain’s chair was captain of the ship. That meant she had to dislodge Arnulf, situate herself in his place, and take control while preventing him from being able to retake the chair. No easy task for sure. How could she do it? In the movies the good guy always snuck up behind the bad guy and hit him over the head with something. Dawn glanced around the room, but did not see anything she could use for that purpose lying about. She wished with all of her heart that she could find a baseball bat. She turned her head and to her great surprise, noticed a wooden bat propped up against the wall in the corner.

Dawn crept over to the bat and gently lifted it, trying to stay as quiet as possible. She raised the bat up over her head and began slowly and silently stalking toward Arnulf. She took each step with great care, fearing what would happen if he realized that she was there before she was able to slug him. She finally stepped to the spot just behind Arnulf’s chair and was just about to swing downward when he spoke.

“What are you doing with that rattlesnake?” he asked her without turning. Dawn’s eyes shot to the bat in her hand and realized that it was no longer a bat at all, but a hissing rattlesnake ready to strike. With a squeal, she dropped the snake and leapt back. The snake coiled and watched her as she cowered near the wall, its tail shaking the rattle menacingly. She hated snakes. Hated them more than anything.

Arnulf stood and walked around the back of the chair. He stepped beside the snake, reached down, and grabbed it by the tail. It did not strike him. He flung the snake at her as if were a whip and she released a scream of terror. She felt the snake’s mouth clamp around her neck, but when she opened her eyes she saw that it wasn’t a snake at all, but rather a long leash. He had put a leash on her just as he said he would.

Arnulf laughed. “Come pet,” he said and yanked the leash, jerking her to the floor. “Heel,” he laughed as he patted his leg. Dawn looked up at him, her face a mixture of terror and disgust. “What made you think you could defeat me, Dawn?” Dawn didn’t speak. “I have been preparing for this moment for decades,” he explained. “I meditate, focus on the ship, focus my thoughts on the forms I could take in this place. Focus on creating any environment I wanted. To turn any object into what I want it to be.” As he spoke, he gave the leash a tug. “But, the CIA gives you some drugs, experiments on you as a little girl which gives you some interesting abilities, and you think you can match me?”

Dawn looked at him surprised. “Oh yes, I know all about it,” Arnulf smiled. “I know how you became Psion, where your powers really came from. But you are still loyal to the government that did this to you. Unlike these ingrates,” he said waving at the battle on the movie screen. “I offered them infinite power, but they turned against me. And here is Dawn, still serving the government that experimented on her. Your loyalty is unquestioned. That is good. I want loyal servants like that. And yes, you will serve me, Dawn.” He licked his lips. “When I’m done with your friends, you’ll beg to serve me. And I’m not talking about just up here,” he said as he tapped the temple of his head. “I’m going to put a leash around your real physical neck and you’ll thank me for it.”

Her real neck? Arnulf’s monologuing had reminded her that this wasn’t real. For all of his bluster about spending decades training himself to master this place, he was still unable to separate himself mentally from the physical world. He needed an actual captain’s chair for his body to sit in. He used a cage and a leash. He transformed himself into a dragon. He held on tight to the physical world because he did not understand any other way.

That was the trick. That was the way to defeat him. She had to separate her mind from the illusion of the physical. But how? Dawn turned her head and peered at the giant movie screen upon which Arnulf watched Axel, Rolf, and the others battle for their lives against a seemingly never ending wave of enemy forces. She saw her own body, her real body, lying in the center of a circle they had formed around her to protect her and each other. She stared at the screen as she pushed her self to her feet. That unconscious body on the video screen was her actual physical form, not what stood in this room and there was no leash around its neck. That meant the leash did not really exist. In fact, this room did not really exist.

“Who told you that you could stand?” Arnulf sneered. “Get back down on the floor where you belong!” he shouted as he yanked the leash expecting to pull her back down. However, instead of pulling Dawn back to the ground, the collar flew off of her neck as if passing through thin air.

Dawn turned her head to look at Arnulf. He stared at her wide-eyed, his mouth agape. “This is the end for you Arnulf,” she said stoically. Suddenly, Arnulf was lifted into the air and pinned against the wall.

“Axel,” Dawn said and heard him answer. “Get ready to fry Arnulf. Give it all you’ve got, I’m bringing down the walls.”

“No!” Arnulf shouted. Light began to fill the room as the walls came down in the physical world. Arnulf reached into the holster on his hip and quickly drew his pistol and fired. Though the bullet could not harm her, it still startled Dawn and caused her to release her mental grip on Arnulf. He fell, sliding down the wall, landing on his feet and he leapt to the captain’s chair, slamming the palm of his hand on a cartoonishly large red button.

Arnulf cackled. “If I’m going to die, so are you!”

Dawn knew he was right, she could feel that the ship had begun the self destruct countdown. Then she disappeared.

***

The Nazibots moved in closer and closer. There were just too many of them to defeat. Tom was out of ammo completely and using his rifle and bayonet to fight hand-to-hand. Their protective circle had retracted inward so far that they were dangerously close to stepping on Dawn’s unconscious body.

Alena continued to fight fiercely out amongst the Nazibots. She danced from one to the other at blinding speed, stabbing and slashing and narrowly avoiding their stun blasts. She swung one sword to the right, the other to the left, and two robots collapsed as their heads rolled away from their bodies. She charged deep into the horde of Nazibots, slaying as many as she could, as quickly as she could. However, like a hydra, it seemed that two would arise for every one she slew. How could they possibly defeat them all? Suddenly, Alena was hit from behind by a stun blast, knocking her to the ground.

“Lena!” Alexi shouted as he tried desperately to reach her, to save her from the crush of robots. There were too many blocking his path and no matter how many times he swung his mighty hammer and no matter how many Nazibots he destroyed, the attackers just kept coming and coming.

When Alexi shouted Alena’s name, Axel glanced over his shoulder and saw that she was down. He saw Alexi helplessly attempting to fight his way to his sister. Axel wanted to help. He wanted to scorch a path to Alena, scoop her up in his arms and carry her to safety, but there was nothing he could do. If he abandoned his section of the circle, it would collapse. He turned back to the fight raging against the bots before him, though it was Arnulf he really wanted to fight. It was Arnulf that Axel yearned to kill.

As if on cue, Axel heard Dawn’s voice in his head. “Axel, get ready to fry Arnulf. Give it all you’ve got, I’m bringing down the walls.”

Axel did not understand how that was possible. How could Dawn bring down the walls? It did not matter. He trusted Dawn and she told him to be ready, so he would be ready. He turned to face the wall that stood between him and Arnulf. Suddenly, it started to lower. Axel drew the surrounding energy into him and began to glow with a blue aura. He would not use all of the energy he had though. He did not want to make the same mistake as last time and be left with no energy at all and thousands of Nazibots to deal with.

As the protective walls opened Axel saw Arnulf standing before him, his body old and frail as if he had been inside for decades instead of hours. The base had released him, the organic material no longer bonded to his body. Arnulf stood alone. He glanced down into Axel’s eyes and Axel hesitated for just a moment as he stared at the old wrinkled and dying face. Axel almost pitied him, but then he noticed the hatred burning in Arnulf’s eyes, the evil that drove men to conquer and destroy. With a cry, Axel released his full charge at Arnulf. He heard the briefest of screams as Arnulf was struck, his body burning to a crisp before it collapsed charred and lifeless to the floor.

The Nazibots suddenly stopped coming. Instead they turned and walked away, melding back into the walls from whence they had come. Alexi ran to Alena. She was bruised and scratched but had suffered no overly traumatic injuries. Her brother helped her to her feet. “Are you alright?” he asked as she leaned against his massive form.

“Yes,” she said softly. “Just weak.”

Axel stepped up to Arnulf’s body and squatted down to stare at the remains. Not much was left, just some remains of charred muscle tissue and blackened bones. Axel smiled, finally confident that he had finished Arnulf for good.

“Run!” They all heard Dawn’s voice echoing in their heads this time. “Arnulf set the self destruct, this entire place is going to blow!” Everyone glanced at one another.

“Well, didn’t you hear the lady?” Tom shouted, no longer doubting the voice speaking to him. “Let’s move!”

“Rolf, get Dawn!” Axel commanded and his brother nodded before running over and scooping Dawn’s body up into his arms.

“Can you walk?” Alexi asked Alena.