The explosion was accompanied by a bright blue flash and then I was flying through the air. And not in a cool, Superman fashion, either. It was more of a pinwheel/barrel-roll/oh-my-gosh-that-hurt-so-bad kind of flying through the air.
I landed on my back and skidded a ways before hitting something hard. Groaning, I felt it with my hand. Concrete. I’d hit concrete. Wait- didn’t Chloe say the safe house was made of concrete?
All thoughts of the flash grenade forgotten, no it wasn’t a blow-your-legs-off kind of grenade, I rolled onto my stomach and tried to get to my feet, which was accomplished with the aid of the wall in front of me.
“Chloe?” I called.
Then a red dot appeared on the back of my left hand, which was resting on the wall. Someone, a man somewhere in the whiteness of snow, shouted in Russian and in seconds more and more red dots appeared, only these were crawling all over my body like insects.
The next belt of Russian I heard sounded harsh and like it was addressing me. Not knowing what else to do, I held up both my hands, placing them behind my head. When my fingers laced together, I felt the cold of my glove and remembered why I was there in the first place.
Where the snarkys was Chloe, anyway? Had I alone survived the flash grenade and her corpse was freezing in the snow somewhere I couldn’t see?
I didn’t have time to dwell on this long because my attackers materialized from the white blusters of wind in front of me. Man, the visibility was literally about twenty feet. Also something that Chloe could’ve mentioned before she had me out here freezing away in my awesome $186,000 suit but since she also could have been dead at the time I shook the thought from my mind.
There were seven of them total and, dude, but were they awesome looking. I’m going to attempt to describe a few of these hellions for you.
The first thing that jumped out at me were the helmets, wicked looking things with smoky eyes that glowed florescent red with a hose coming from each side of the mouthpiece and running behind their shoulders, attaching to something I couldn’t see. They all wore body armor which- get this- also had sections of it that glowed the same florescent red of the eyes. Veins of the light pulsed up and down the muscular looking arms and legs and all met at the center of the chest piece, which illuminated a symbol in yellow instead of red.
Uh oh. I recognized the symbol instantly.
It was a hammer and a sickle crossing.
I gulped. This day was turning out to be a bad one. The seven demonic looking men were now standing in front of me which gave me a chance to get a good look at their hardware. The guns they were all sporting were like nothing I’d ever seen before and, just as I had hoped deep down inside, they looked freakishly from the future.
“Государство ваше название, гражданское лицо.” One of them told me, his voice laden with static from the mask.
“I don’t speak Russian,” I told him, shrugging my shoulders while keeping my fingers laced behind my head.
I don’t know if you’ve ever had the chance to speak with a Russian Darth Vader, so let me tell you, they’re hard to read. Not seeing the face was one reason behind it and the language barrier wasn’t helping matters.
“Английский язык?” I heard another ask.
The man who’d addressed me first was the only one of the soldiers who never took his glowing red eyes off me while the other six glanced at each other and exchanged Russian questions and answers to one another. I could tell they were puzzled by something. Well, at least the six jabber-mouths were, to be sure. The man who’d decided that a staring match was in order wasn’t partaking of the confused talk and I was starting to feel more nervous about my little shenanigan.
Then Mr. Stare held up a clenched fist, silencing his chattering platoon. He took a step toward me and I involuntarily took a step back, or would have had I not been up against a concrete wall as it was.
Mr. Stare was close to me now. The smell that emanated from the suit was a mixture of a little motor oil and a fried motherboard with a hint of gun powder. He stared at me and I returned the menacing stare right back. Although, now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t feeling the least bit threatened by me.
What can I say? I gave it my best shot, I guess.
His right hand reached for his helmet and I could hear gears gyrating and whining as he did so. It was actually so futuristically nerdy that I got chills when I heard it and instantly knew that if I didn’t get killed by the dude in front of me, I was definitely going to ask him where I could pick up a suit of my own before heading home.
Mr. Stare tapped a button somewhere on the right side of his helmet and with a resounding hiss and a little cloud of steam, the face part rose from the chin and I got my first real look at his face. When I realized what was happening I had a few last minute thoughts of what I wanted this soldier from 2340’s face to look like.
And I was not disappointed.
The first thing I noticed was that his left eye was gone and had been replaced with what my fan boy mind could only discern as a cyborg one, which glowed yellow. The right eye seemed to be normal but there were several dark rings around both sockets, indicating that he probably spent more time wearing his mask than not.
His skin was ghostly white and his features, which were hard to notice because he seemed to not have eyebrows, were pretty blank. For a Soviet super soldier, I mean.
Reaching toward me with an armored hand pulsating with red glow, he touched my face, the cold metallic fingers causing me to draw back quickly and banging my head against the stupid wall.
“Английский язык?”
Dude, I was really getting tired of all this Russian.
“Look, I said I don’t speak Russian!” I said in agitation, “English, okay? Savvy English?”
For those of you who were around at the beginning of my story, you might be thinking of saying, “But Jericho, doesn’t your glove decipher languages for you?”
I really hope you guys remember that because right then, in the snowy hills of 2340 surrounded by ferocious hell troopers making demands in another language, I, your adorable story-telling amigo, Jericho Johnson, did not.
I’m not going to waste time telling you how ticked I was at myself when I thought of it way, way later because, honestly, what’s the point?
(And it wouldn’t have mattered by that time, anyway. But you’ll see that in a minute).
Apparently Mr. Stare wasn’t too thrilled about my getting short-fused with him if the slamming of his mask and shouting of orders at his men was anything to go by. The seven of them stalked away from me about fifteen feet and turned around, cocking their rifles.
Death by firing squad seemed to be the only thing on my menu right then and let me tell you, it wasn’t looking appetizing in the least. “Hey, c’mon, guys!” I said, holding my hands up higher in the air, “We’re all warm-blooded mammals with opposable thumbs here, right? Why all the hostility?”
Then a female Russian voice came from behind them and they all turned away from me.
Yes. Chloe to the rescue.
Except that just when I thought little miss Russia had finally come to save my sorry butt, the platoon parted a little and I got a look at what I thought was Chloe.
My shoulders sagged when I saw it was just another one of the red troopers. The seven men started speaking to her--I guess it was a her, I mean, it sounded like a her, anyway, but the cyborg suits weren’t exactly the most flattering as far as a woman’s figure was concerned.
Just saying.
They pointed to me, explaining the situation of the freezing billionaire that they were about to use as target practice. Nodding, the newcomer stepped into line and leveled her rifle at me.
Wow. I know I’ve already told you guys how much the day was starting to stink but, man, a firing squad? Really? In the snow?
Gosh.
I closed my eyes and turned my face away. “I can’t believe my sushi t
acos are going to go to waste…” Those were my last words before I heard the first gun fire
Chapter 13