The Deadliest Earthling Read online

  “A gravity generator?”

  The Eagle nodded. “I was fleeing in a stolen Anunnaki craft, and the Anunnaki were close to catching me. They managed to shoot me down, but the craft remained intact. That left me with a dozen Anunnaki who knew they had the Eagle surrounded. As vulnerable as they are when landing, I should’ve been able to kill plenty, but I had no weapons.

  “I considered my options and decided on one. I triggered the craft’s gravity generator to its maximum levels. I stripped down to a tank top and pants, lay flat on the ground, and waited. Little by little I felt the pressure hit me. Imagine flexing all of your muscles at once. But instead of eventually relaxing them, you contract them more and more until it feels like they’re about to burst. I had a migraine so bad, I thought my head was literally being crushed.

  “When the Anunnaki tore open the craft’s roof, they didn’t expect the intense gravity, and it sucked them in. Given their weight, they were dead on impact. Of course that left me alone to experience my insides grinding against themselves. I began blacking out, my consciousness drifting away. I could’ve given in right then. But I fought it. And a good thing. A couple of minutes later the generator gave out, and a rescue team showed up. My leg was permanently damaged, and I needed a new liver and kidneys, but I was alive.”

  Johnny crossed his arms over his chest, tilting his chin up, his mouth opening. The Eagle nodded at his show of surprise and continued. “I always believed perseverance was the only real reason the Anunnaki didn’t beat us. We should’ve given up hope as soon as we learned they’d traveled billions of miles. That type of technology suggested they’d have force fields and ray guns and motherships. Only they didn’t. Their technology was more advanced than ours, but not by much. They didn’t have all the futuristic weapons we’d feared from movies and cartoons. Once we overcame that propaganda, the morale of our soldiers skyrocketed.”

  The only noise came from the couch as Johnny sat up.

  “You really think something I saw out there might help us?”

  “It’s the best we’ve got right now,” the Eagle said.

  Not exactly encouraging, but that’s why he decided he would answer. It was honest. He gave her everything he could remember about the failed mission. From his injured arm to waiting under the board to the dead man.

  The Eagle raised her head and let her gaze fall to him.

  “Not too bad, was it?” she asked gently. “Worth a drink, I’d say, but I want you completely sober for your next mission.”

  “My next mission?”

  “That symbol the Anunnaki wore on the shoulder cloths came from Fort Bloodhound.”

  Fort Bloodhound. He’d read about it once in his history class, but he’d never seen the symbol before. It sprang into existence like New Bagram, a city of former military personnel who became resistance fighters. But after years of harsh winters and infighting among the leaders, resisting the Anunnaki became the last of their concerns. In fact, they ended up striking a deal with the Anunnaki. In exchange for food and supplies, they would rat out other resistance fighters and offer services to the Anunnaki.

  “You sure you want me there?” Johnny asked. A lot of Anunnaki stopped by the city to enjoy the good will aimed at them. He figured that’s where the flickers got the armbands.

  “You’ll fit in well with Orun playing your Anunnaki overseer.”

  His shoulders dropped, and he scratched his head even though it didn’t itch. He didn’t know how he felt about Orun leading the operation. He couldn’t exactly trust him to help out if it came to combat or an emergency of that sort.

  The Eagle interlocked her hands over her lap. “On the subject of perseverance, I haven’t witnessed such a good example of it since Orun.”

  “I thought you said perseverance helped humans.”

  She nodded. “When you’re dealing with another sentient species, sometimes they share the same traits.”

  “So how did he show perseverance?”

  “Training a boy who hated his guts. He could have left this planet anytime, if he really wanted.”

  She must’ve been referring to Orun’s personal warp gate. He’d told him about it once or twice.

  Johnny opened his mouth, but found himself speechless. He’d never really even thought about how Orun felt playing the strict drill-sergeant type with him. What Dagos hinted at disarmed him. He shoved the sentimental hope out of his mind. Orun had spent six years making it clear they weren’t friends or anything close to family. A few days wasn’t going to change that.

  He tapped his finger against the couch, determined not to betray any more of his feelings. Instead, he focused on this new mission. The fact that Anunnaki with a Fort Bloodhound shoulder band showed up in the Ascendi’s place implied they weren’t just run-of-the-mill soldiers. They were probably picked out by the Ascendi. So there was the chance they’d spoken with the Ascendi Major at Fort Bloodhound. If not that, Johnny figured they’d find some kind of clue there relating to the Ascendi Major and Minor’s whereabouts.

  “Me and Orun, then, huh?” Johnny asked.

  “Unless you’d rather give Orun the Conifer and let him go off and have all the fun.”

  Johnny folded his arms and wryly responded, “I wouldn’t be much of a Keeper if I did that, would I?”

  Slowly the Eagle turned to the kitchen door. A slight crack revealed an eavesdropper.

  “An old habit you picked up with the church?” The Eagle raised an eyebrow.

  Morris opened the door, a goofy look on his face. “Oh, oops, you’re discussing important business. I’ll just close this and go back to eating.”

  In a sudden motion, the Eagle flung her cane forward, launching it between the door and the frame.

  “Oops, I misplaced my cane. Bring it over, would you, Morris.”

  Clearing his throat, he stepped out of the kitchen, and delivered the cane. A faint smile crept over the Eagle’s face. Johnny got the sense she enjoyed tormenting Morris.

  “Thank you,” she said, tucking her chin at him. “Have you ever been to Fort Bloodhound? Lovely this time of year.”

  Chapter 25

  Orun accepted the designators and placed a small bag of gold powder in the Naga’s palm. A brown cloak hid most of its body, but Johnny could still see the smile on its haggard face, revealing a set of small white square teeth.

  A former soldier who learned he stood to make a better living selling contraband than fighting humans. Even with Anunnaki patrol forces, these kind of rogue markets thrived. There was just too great a demand for weapons and supplies in the region.

  Part of him suspected this one would try to double its profits by selling them out to Anunnaki soldiers. Orun had deemed it a necessary risk, though. One the Conifer mitigated by slightly altering the appearance of his face. After the incident two nights ago, the Anunnaki would’ve recorded his face and spread it all across the World Tree.

  He hadn’t bothered altering their clothes. Dirt spotted his olive-drab shirt, kaffiyeh, and jeans. Morris’s white thobe and grey pants were also stained. And Orun’s brown thobe blended in with the austere colors of the region. As a whole, they wouldn’t draw much attention.

  They hurried away from the dark storefront and past countless other vendors littering the streets.

  Johnny turned his focus to the designators as Orun slipped one to him and one to Morris. He pulled up his long sleeve and wrapped the designator around his left wrist. It was cold and tightened to fit perfectly.

  “What’s happening?” Morris asked, referring to the chaos breaking out among the miniature geometric signs of the designator.

  “It’s adjusting itself,” Orun said.

  “We can trust these, huh?” Johnny said, tapping his designator.

  “They work for millions of Anunnaki every day.”

  “And how far are we from Fort Bloodhound?”

  Orun had pretty much left them in an information blackout since the day before. They had traveled ten miles north from
Kandrazi to this village, and Johnny still only had the faintest idea what their operation entailed.

  “Five.”

  “Five hours?”

  “Five days.”

  No wonder he hadn’t told them. He didn’t want their morale to drop to zero. The Anunnaki were no doubt closing in on Kandrazi when they left. Five days didn’t exactly give the Eagle good odds, even in that bunker. And it meant they were that much closer to Easter. To missing the deadline for delivering the Conifers to that Zacharia guy.

  “Shouldn’t we buy camels or something?”

  “No. We’ll be fine.”

  Orun’s nonchalant tone resolved nothing for Johnny. They followed the gravel road to a small wooden bridge and crossed the flat wash of yellow shrubs.

  The barren landscape served as a glass ceiling for Johnny’s excitement. The fact that they were ill-prepared for a week’s journey through the desert only made things worse.

  And how could he and Morris find any useful information if Orun kept them in the dark as to what they were looking for? Only a few hours in, and the mission was shaping up to be a failure. He wouldn’t be surprised if Orun wanted him grasping at straws. Maybe as a kind of twisted punishment for failing to capture the Ascendi. Impatience boiled up inside Johnny.

  “Look, I’m the muscle of this mission, so why don’t you spill it?” Johnny grumbled. “Tell me you’ve got something better than hiking a week to Fort Bloodhound.”

  Orun’s smile was full of cunning. “If you wanted to know the plan, all you had to do was ask.”

  To Johnny’s dismay, he strolled off and lowered his head before he could rephrase his question. Watching him there, Johnny got the sense Orun felt exactly the way he looked. Like a weary, old man in the middle of nowhere. And Johnny felt like an idiot for jumping to conclusions.

  “You’re the muscle, huh?” Morris said in disbelief. “What about Orun?”

  “He can’t do anything violent against the Anunnaki,” Johnny frowned. “Politics of the universe sort of thing.”

  Morris shifted his jaw. “Well, the good book does say the Lord works in strange and mysterious ways.”

  “It isn’t God making these rules,” Johnny said, fighting back a laugh. Meanwhile, Orun toyed with his designator, arching his back and leaning his head from side to side.

  “So if God isn’t behind this, how come the Anunnaki are trying to unearth the Ark of the Covenant?” Morris asked.

  Johnny turned his head slightly. “Ark of the what now?”

  Orun’s body gave off a series of pops and bone cracks.

  “Ark of the Covenant. I heard the Eagle talking about the Anunnaki trying to restore a weapon that would give them mannadium. I knew that sounded familiar. So I thought back to the tale of the Israelites living off manna in the desert.”

  “That’s a Bible story, right?” Johnny said, clearly not moved by the tale. He shuddered as the cracking noises from Orun’s body got louder.

  “And it’s not the only one. Ever heard of the stones of fire? There were twelve of them. And the ancient high priests had to collect all of them to summon the Ark of the Covenant. Sound familiar?”

  Morris must’ve heard the story of the Anunnaki using the Conifers to “awaken a great power.”

  “You might want to check your math. There are only four Conifers. Not twelve.”

  Orun’s body gave off mildly disgusting, squishing noises. Probably organs reshaping and muscle tissue expanding.

  “Yeah, that’s what I figured you’d say. Interesting note: The twelve stones were grouped into four sets. Now imagine over the past couple of millennia the twelve were combined into four stones.”

  “And why would the high priests do that?” Johnny asked wryly. He held up a hand. “Let me guess. They were trying to make it easier to gather the stones?”

  Morris pursed his lips. “Isn’t that how technology progresses? Whatever’s more convenient is what goes. Maybe the twelve stones were ancient batteries to power up the Ark. Over time they could’ve created four stones that had the energy of twelve.”

  “Yeah, well unless the Bible has a way to stop this thing, it doesn’t help us any,” Johnny said, still not really believing Morris’s interpretation. Out of the corner of his eye, Orun’s frame grew.

  “Maybe we should ask someone who’d know,” Morris said, motioning to Orun.

  Johnny hesitated. The whole notion seemed silly to him. He didn’t know why, but it felt too farfetched. Especially given that his parents and his instructors made it clear the Anunnaki first arrived on Earth in 2012. He wasn’t going to bother Orun with it.

  Johnny thought the heat was tricking his eyes, but looking at Orun, he was larger. His thobe had stretched with his body, gaining a mesh texture more akin to Anunnaki clothing. And compact metallic boots had replaced his sandals. And he was now back in his Anunnaki form.

  The sight of a full-fledged Anunnaki sent waves of unease through Johnny.

  Orun raised his hand to his large serpentine head and spoke in Nebirian. The gears on Johnny’s designator went to work and emitted a loud ringing. Morris’s expression turned to alarm.

  “Just a security check,” Orun said.

  “Security check for what?” Morris asked.

  Johnny instantly thought of the body-mapping system Naga scanners used. After the incident in Kandrazi, they would have his face on file, but thanks to the Conifer’s special property, if he used a hologram to change his appearance, which he was, the mapping system would detect that new appearance. As long as he used the Conifer, he could bypass any Naga scanners.

  He turned to his cousin. “We call them snake holes. They’re similar to wormholes, but technically different.”

  “Huh?”

  At that, the ground started trembling. Johnny tried to adjust his footing as the shaking grew. He couldn’t. The dirt rose a few inches, or rather, they sank. The inches ripened to feet as if the ground itself wanted to swallow them.

  Suddenly, he flew through the earth at a thousand miles an hour, dozens of vivid colors swirling around him. Immense pressure closed over him, making so much as opening his mouth impossible. A tremor ran through his legs, jostling his knees, and the whole thing stopped. Something soft but solid moved beneath him. He had landed on Morris.

  Johnny staggered up and waited for the ground to stop twirling. When his vision adjusted, he saw Morris clutching his wrist with a pained look.

  “Not the worst accident that’s ever happened with these things,” Orun said. “Is it broken?”

  “I don’t know. It’s numb.”

  “Give me your arm.”

  Orun clutched Morris’s wrist and nudged his power rod in his other hand. While a mini-storm of the Khepers sank into his deacon cousin’s skin, Orun looked to Johnny. “What about you?”

  “How do you Naga get around in these things?” Johnny asked, half suspecting Orun had tried to kill them. His heart pounded from the ride. He wiped the sand off his clothes and checked that the Conifer was still altering his face.

  “You handled it well for your first time. It should be even better on the way back.”

  “The way back?” The best thing Johnny could say about the snake-hole trip was its brevity. “I’ll take a camel.”

  “Look at the bright side. We’ve sliced five days off the trip,” Orun said.

  “Right.” Johnny massaged his head. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate it. The notion that Orun had helped them so immensely just proved hard to believe.

  Morris gazed around the barren sand.

  “And Fort Bloodhound…”

  “I believe the Bible teaches patience is a virtue,” Orun said.

  Twenty minutes later, they descended a ridge, and a large village came into view. Wooden structures, green and olive drab tents, and grey gravel. Johnny couldn’t help but stare in longing. This was the closest thing to New Bagram he’d seen since its destruction.

  Orun cleared his throat. “According to the World Tree, the
locals here observe a ritual called the Ascendi’s Trial. Humans may attempt it to seek the Ascendi’s favor. If they complete the Trial, the Ascendi appears and offers to give extra food and supplies to the candidate’s family in exchange for their service.”

  “What is the Trial?” Johnny asked.

  “That’s what we’re going to find out.”

  Cinderblock walls surrounded the village except for an open chain-link fence on the east end. As they approached, two human guards eyed them.

  Stepping around children kicking a red ball, they made their way past barracks-style buildings and young men doing military drills.

  They resembled freedom fighters, but Johnny reminded himself they were loyalists. It sickened him to think that anyone could genuinely side with the Anunnaki over their own species. Heck, over their own planet.

  As if he weren’t bothered enough, he heard a series of tones alternating from whirring hums to high-pitched ringing. When it didn’t pass, he decided it was either the start of hearing loss from too many days at the firing range or a poor attempt at music.

  They headed right to the cinderblock building where the noise emanated from.

  “Can you believe this is music?” Johnny asked his cousin.

  “Might as well play a ram’s horns.”

  They cringed on entering. A tall man handed them pieces of white cloth and pointed to their ears. Johnny figured they were to manage the noise and stuck them in.

  Once that was fixed, it wasn’t a half-bad atmosphere. Light flooded in through an all-glass ceiling onto tables, a counter, and shelves of alcoholic beverages. A bar. The Naga probably received a discount, because flickers filled most of the seats. Instead of their combat suits, they wore light mesh robes. Their breathers were small, just metal plates over the right side of their chests.

  Then Johnny realized this wasn’t a drinking bar as much as a basking bar. The Naga were here to take in sunlight. They only drank alcohol as a means of dehydrating themselves and increasing the potency of the sun’s rays on their bodies, giving them a mental high.