Kendra walked in to the room a minute later, saw Mixon lying on the couch, and shot Walter a look.
“Is that who I think it is?”
“That’s what Franklin just asked me, and the answer is yes. The gunship got her when she was taking out the soldiers. She probably got a hundred of them before it got her.”
“Small dent, there must be a hundred thousand, and that’s just the ones here. We’re almost out of fighters and those things can knock you and her out. I don’t know what else we have.”
“We’ll figure something out. They have to be controlled from somewhere. If we find—“
He never finished his sentence before he was knocked ten feet across the room and fell unconscious. Mike was standing in the doorway with the small pistol still extended.
“You people really should have more security at the entrances,” he said, still holding the pistol out.
“And you shouldn’t just barge in here uninvited and start shooting,” Curtis said, entering the room from another door. “You’re outnumbered, and that little popgun just knocks people out. Come on Franklin, you and I can take him.”
Curtis took three more steps and Mike fired again, hitting him in the middle of the chest. He fell on the spot, a smoking hole in his chest, and breathed his last.
Franklin started toward Mike. “Why you little...”
“It’s not worth it,” Kendra said, restraining him, “He has us outgunned.”
“For now, but he’ll pay for that,” Franklin muttered through clenched teeth, “He’ll pay.”
32
Cassandra McCormick had spent the whole day cleaning the house and was still not quite pleased.
“Mike honey, can you keep the dogs off the kitchen floor? I just mopped it for the third time,” she said to her husband.
“Okay, I’ll put them in the bedroom. Just give me a sec.”
A moment later, the dogs safely in the bedroom, he wheeled in the living room and parked his wheelchair next to the couch where she was sitting, leaning over and giving her a peck on the cheek.
“The house looks great. I’m sure everything will be fine.”
“Yeah,” she replied, “but your writer friend is bringing his wife, and he said she’s a real clean freak.”
“It looks fine. You’ve worked your butt off all day. The house looks great. What time is everyone coming?”
“We said 7:00, but I haven’t heard back from Christy. I’ve tried her cell and her landline, no answer. It’s not like her to not return calls.”
“She has a landline, a young girl like her?”
“Yeah, can you believe it? Anyway, she hasn’t called me back, and she hasn’t answered her phone for two days. I don’t know what to make of that.”
“I’ve got to run to the store. I can swing by and check on her. She’s in the old house out on Tranquility?”
“Yeah, the old farm house. You can stop and check on her? I’d appreciate it. I can just finish up here while you’re gone.”
“The house looks fine. I’ll be off, then. Just let me get my legs.”
“You left them right there by the closet. Don’t be too long.”
Mike found his two prosthetic legs and his crutches, took a minute attaching them, and then went to his car, modified to be driven with hand controls for the gas and brake. He stopped at the store, made his couple purchases, and then headed down Tranquility Pike toward Christy’s house. Five minutes later he arrived at her house and parked out front next to her car. He took his crutches and made his way to her front porch, ringing her doorbell but not hearing a ring inside. He knocked, waited a minute, and knocked again. Still no answer. He went back toward his car, thinking to grab his phone and try her number again. Her car was there, so why wasn’t she answering the door?
On his way to the car, he noticed a light from the back yard that he had never noticed the other times he had been there. It was weird, like a patch in the back yard that wasn’t the same color. It took him a few minutes to walk around back, and when he did, what he saw stopped him in his tracks. There was a large opening in the back yard that lead into a tunnel disappearing underground. The opening looked to be at least twenty yards across.
He approached the opening, what looked like a door that slid back under the grass, and saw that the tunnel was huge and had a gradual downward slope. Something in the back of his mind wasn’t too sure he should be going in there, but his curiosity got the better of him and he walked slowly down the slope. After about two hundred yards, he came into a large hangar full of craft like nothing he had ever seen before.
“What the...Air Force doesn’t have anything like this,” he said to himself. He walked slowly past each one, convinced more each moment that he was looking at spacecraft, until he came to the other side of the hangar and saw an elevator. He pushed the button, but nothing happened, so he searched until he found a door that opened onto a stairwell.
“Great, stairs. Why can’t that elevator be working?”
Then he walked back to the elevator, noticing something he hadn’t seen before. There was a panel next to the button. He walked closer, and the panel lit up, scanning his face. It turned green and the elevator button beeped.
“Darn thing knows who I am? That’s weird.”
He pressed the elevator button, and it opened. He got in, pressed the next floor above him, and waited.
Franklin walked over to Curtis’ body and grabbed his hands.
“Wanna give me a hand here?” he asked Kendra.
Kendra came over and grabbed his feet and they started moving the body.
Mike pointed the pistol toward them and said, “Leave him where he lies as a warning to the rest of you.”
“You know, you’re a right bastard,” Fiona said.
“Oh, I do assure you, my birth was legitimate.”
“Oh, stop
