BIRTHRIGHT Book One: The First Key

Chapter 4

A rocky river canyon cuts a jagged and violent gash east to west into the moonlit desert. The sheer cliffs narrow on either side to a point and come to an unexpectedly abrupt end in the west, leaving the desert to carry on being an inhospitable and wasteful expanse as if the canyon and the river itself hadn't even existed.

This is not a natural land formation, it smacks of the touch of man.

Like the final stent of a collapsing artery, a six story compound, complete with a helipad sits at the western point of the canyon, an immense waterfall crashing behind. The water rages off the cliffside hydro-electric dam into the darkness. This compound is very much off the grid and self-sustaining. The enormous fence locking it away from the outside world is broken only by a single security booth armed with a massive turret canon.

Roaring down the canyon, the sound of its powerful engine echoing endlessly off the cliff sides, the General's black Humvee nearly disappears on the only road through the pitch-dark riverbed.

With a blinding flash, a dozen or more spotlights along the massive security fence all cast precise beams of pure white illumination onto the Humvee as it drives up to the gate and the turret. The truck slows as the passenger-side window goes down, revealing an exhausted looking General Forest.

"General." the single lieutenant at the security gate states through his salute. The General is saved from needing to respond as the deafening roar of jet engines cut the silence of the desert. The General only nods; the cacophony is impossible to speak over, but neither man is surprised by it.

Overhead, the military airship carrying Alex and Isaac soars into the canyon with the effortlessness of a pilot accustomed to this challenging canyon landing. As the Humvee passes the security checkpoint, the Airship's vertical jets fire up, seemingly doubling the already impossibly loud sounds.

The airship comes to a soft landing as the engines cut out on the brightly lit helipad. Silence has nearly returned to the desert for a moment, save for the rumble of the General's Humvee.

Colonel Murphy disembarks the airship and approaches the Humvee as it drives up beside the helipad. He opens the door for the General as the vehicle rolls to a stop and the engine cuts out.

"Med team Delta is ready for your daughter, General." the Colonel reports as the General marches past him. "How delicately would you--

"Delta? This is my daughter, Colonel..." the General's stern expression betrays the quality of his father-daughter reunion.

"Alpha through Gamma are prepping for the specimen sir, Delta is all we have in reserve."

"Just get it done." the General's face goes from stern to angry without even looking at him. "Now."

Not breaking stride, the General dismisses Murphy and continues to walk toward the Airship, squinting as his eyes adjust from the Humvee's tinted windows and the desert night to the lights of the helipad. As he does, six military medics in head-to-toe bright orange hazardous material suits file out of the military compound toward the helipad.

The Colonel gestures to them, and they split into two groups of three. Three for the airship and three for the Humvee.

As the first group of medics arrives on the helipad, the cargo door to the airship is already sliding opening with a hydraulic hiss. The light from the helipad pours over Alex's unconscious body, splayed out on a simple military stretcher.

His face is an unrecognizable mass of swollen, bloodied bruises. And the rest of him hasn't fared much better: blood soaks through the tattered remains of his clothing and, with the exception of his hands and feet hidden within his clunky metal braces, it's hard to see a bone that doesn't look broken.

Behind him, Isaac sits nearly motionless in shadow, eating an apple.

The first two medics grab the stretcher at each end. With a massive effort, they barely manage to lift Alex and the stretcher. It's as if they're carting away a three-hundred pound man. Considering the difficulty Alex had with the weight of each of the metal braces, the stretcher very well might weigh that much.

As they struggle with the military stretcher, the third medic mills about the other two, taking a reading of Alex with a handheld device. He stares at his medical instrument with confusion, stopping dead in his tracks as they cart Alex off toward the compound.

Isaac steps out of the Airship, less sure-footed than usual, though not noticeably. His mind is still on fire as he struggles to harness the technology that courses through his veins without the aid of his specially designed chrome glove.

"He wouldn't break, General." he reports, in between bites of his apple. His hunger has been out of control ever since he accepted the alien technology.

"Not for lack of trying, Harris." The General winces at the sight of a bloodied and bruised Alex as he passes him. Isaac's taste for violence exceeds even a four star general. "He'll survive that?"

Isaac jams the rest of the apple core into his mouth before he can answer. Nodding his full-mouthed response, he reaches into his coat, pulling out a glowing green vial.

"Guaranteed." Isaac manages past a mouth still full of apple bits. He swallows hard as he hands the vial to the General. "Inject him with this while he's out. It'll help with information extraction."

"Truth serum?" the General asks, his curiosity piqued.

"Something like that." Isaac's response trails off as his attention is diverted to the activity at the Humvee where the second team of haz-mat medics are only now arriving.

The first medic to open the back door and gets kicked in the gut as Tia lunges out to freedom. The second medic, reacting faster than the first, manages to grab her extended leg and inject it in the calf with a syringe.

But he doesn't react quite fast enough.

Tia smashes the third medic's glass visor into the second, and leaps out of the truck, running toward the medics still carrying Alex.

She's made it. Freedom, and Alex is only a few metres away. Sprinting as fast as she can, she manages to catch up with the medics carrying the stretcher.

And she's horrified.

Alex is dead.

Her vision begins to darken at the corners as the world becomes blurry. Each step takes more effort than the last until, after three clumsy strides, Tia collapses onto the dusty ground unconscious.

The General looks on, horrified. "Delta team". He shakes his head.

Without missing a beat, Isaac strides over to Tia on the ground, and tosses her over his shoulder like a potato sack.

"I need to hit the DeCon chamber, anyway." he says like a football player after a well won game.

"Right." the General is slipping into a state of perpetual shock and awe.