Isolation-#Wattys2015

Excerpt 35- Heavy Metal

I sat down in the doorway, letting the launcher fall to my side as I watched the ballistic misses carry their deadly cargo into orbit. The glow from their exhaust was still lighting up the entire launch platform. For the first time in my life, I had failed a mission.

"We lost", Alcatraz sighed, "it's over, Martin fucking won."

"We haven't lost just yet", Mike said looking at him.

"How?", Alcatraz asked, "Martin just killed 360 billion people."

"Were still kicking aren't we?", Mike said, "we can still find a cure."

"Say we find a cure", I interjected as I watched the missiles disappear, "we get it to so many people...how?"

Mike didn't answer me.

"That's what I thought", I said using my FAL to push myself up.

Sometimes when things go wrong, there isn't anything you can do. There will be times when even the baddest juggernaut super solider can't withstand everything the enemy has thrown at him or her. When this happens, all you can do is sit back, catch your breath, regroup, and figure out how bad the situation really is.

"Lets get back to the lounge", I said as I turned around. About halfway through the doorway, it slammed shut, almost cutting me in half. I turned around, facing the missile pad as Martin;'s voice came over an unseen loud speaker.

"No", he said, "as entertaining as it is to watch you fight, it's time to deal with you. Permanently."

There was a sound like a diesel engine starting up. The ground began shake as the black launch pad was bathed in LED light from mounted poles. Then I heard it. That terrifying hum that I had heard down in the Kojak.

"You see", Martin said, "this whole time I've just been buying time, I needed to keep everyone distracted while I cleaned house, it was working just fine until you showed up Skyline. You don't seem to understand that your arrival had forced me to accelerate my time table and finish one last project."

The hum began to get louder as the shaking intensified, I could see the huge concrete wall in the back began to crack and chunks began to fall away.

"What the fuck!?", Alcatraz whined, 'what is that!? What is making that sound!?"

"IDrive Rock Crusher drills", I gulped, "there must be three or four of them coming."

The back wall gave away to reveal what I could only describe as a fortress on tracks. The giant tank was about 15 feet tall and 20 feet wide and had 5 huge IDrive Rock Crusher drills mounted to the front that were flared wide open, showing their hardened tungsten, diamond coated cores. LED lights were mounted behind the drills on this one and it's paint was jet black while the drills were red. The exhaust was blowing black smoke as if it were an 1800's train and the engine was making so much power that the vibrations were causing the ground to shake. It was so heavy that it rolled over boulders the size of a dog house reinforced with rebar and crushed them flat as if it were a bulldozer rolling over a coke can.

"Nope", Martin said, "just one. Meet the HS-2200. The most powerful tunnel boring machine ever built by man, designed it myself. Now please, die."

The radios cut off as the five drills closed up and bored their way into the concrete of the launch pad. The vibrations were so bad we almost couldn't stand up.

"Scatter!", I shouted, "give it as many targets as possible! Our only chance is to knot it's drill lines!"

Quickly as we could, we dispersed. The tank, how ever, wasted no time in producing a square box with about nine smoke grenades in it. It shot all nine of them into the air, turning the launch pad into a smoky gray mess. Because of this, I was almost too quick to assume that whoever was operating the tank had thermal vision, which would only complicate matters further.