Forget Me Not

Demonstar Black finished climbing the last few rungs, to the top. But there was something round and heavy, blocking the exit. He pushed it outwards, and shoved it aside.

He was somewhere near Yonkers, and the sky was a maze of black alien alloy, purple glyphs, and bluish pulses.

Somehow, he'd gone in the wrong direction. Both squads were supposed to rendezvous at Central Park, Manhattan. His clothes were fully drenched in the nasty sewer water. So that explains the condition of his phone. His phone wasn't waterproof.

He saw nine planes travelling in a row, aiming for the giant obstacle hovering in the sky. WHOOSH! The F-15s homed missiles at the Kor Ondrone, and let them off. Each missile clearly hit the Ondrone's body, but not even a scratch was to be seen.

The thing was now almost the size of New York. Looks as if 'expansion' was its hobby, or something!

More jets joined in, arriving from the west.

Hmm, Brother Black thought to himself, if I can head off to the west, I might find some aircraft carriers. I might need a skiff to get there, but I'll manage that. I just need one of those damn planes, and fly it over the huge o-drone, and land on its top. No one's ever been to the top. Who knows how vulnerable the thing is, on the inside!

Without even turning back once, he sprinted off towards the western docks. A pity; he should've looked back. He left his M4A1, behind.

***

What goes down, must come up.

Cooper Black learnt it, the hard way.

He dropped down a pipe, leading to a floodgate. He grabbed hold of the grooves on the wall, and steered himself towards the rungs.

The two floodgates had been closed on both sides, so the pipe was at one end, and the ladder-like rungs, on the other. A little water remained stationary, deep below. The grooved walls were actually the floodgates. In short, imagine a rectangle, top-view. The longer sides were the floodgates, and one of the shorter sides was the pipe, and the other was the ladder. Clear picture, now?

One small wrong step, and he'd plunge deep below, and never come up, again. There were some red alarm lights turned on, so it wasn't hard for Cooper, to notice the greyish slime, at the very bottom of the floodgates.

The grooves helped, but not much. At some points, the grooves were covered with cement, blocking the path ahead. And Cooper was no Prince of Persia, that he could move along the ledge and make the jump from one floodgate's grooves, to the other opposite one. The gap between them was too far apart; about 8 meters. There was no way he'd risk a 'grab ledge' act, that'd make him die, here, in this dark, smelly, and suffocating place. Something told him, that there wasn't a regular supply of oxygen, down here. He had to get the hell out of this place, ASAP. But how?

He noticed that there was a small, yellow button, near the rungs. If he could press it...

"Hmm...nice button. Can't wait to press it!" he took out a 9mm pistol (emergency use only). He checked the magazine. Only 6 bullets, and one shot.

With his right hand hanging from the groove, he aimed the pistol at the button, using his left hand. After some careful estimations, he fired at will. Two bullets hit the metal rungs, three hit the wall, and only one hit the square bit of plastic, a.k.a. the button.

There was a sudden whirr, a mechanical whirr, as some shafts of light entered the floodgates, from above the rungs. Great! So the button was only for opening a trapdoor-like hatch?

He slowly slid along the groovy ledge, and stopped when the groove was occupied by the cement. He tried pushing it away with his hands, but they were too hard. Last chance: jump onto the rungs. He did, and he survived.

But the rungs started moving upwards, automatically.

"What the hell?" Cooper Black looked up and saw some arms lifting the iron ladder up and out. Ironical, huh?

Cooper Black shifted his backpack to a comfortable position, and got his...his...oh, damn! All his guns were lost. Now the only thing he had left, were his fists. So he got his fists ready. If his suspicions were correct, his fists would be very helpful. He saw bright light, at the top.

"Is it morning already?"

He was about to punch, when he saw what it was.

It was daylight, almost noon. The sky was clear; without any clouds. Except for one: the K.O. If he'd indeed punched, he'd have punched a colonel.

Two soldiers pulled the last few rungs, along with a human attachment. The military's reaction wasn't any different. A few Marines set had set up MG nests, surrounded by sand bags, near the area.

"Hold your fire! Halt!" the colonel commanded his troops. "That ain't no zombie, that's a human cowboy, if I'd ever seen one! Come 'ere, you! What's your name?"

"Blackburn, Cooper Blackburn," he answered as ordered, but still the two Marines grabbed his arms, while two others joined in, to remove the backpack, and explore the contents. "I'm one of the good guys, sir. Please... um... release me."

"Good guy, huh?" the colonel dumped the contents of the backpack. "So where exactly are you headed, carrying so much ammo, and firearms?"

"Where'd you think?" Cooper pointed at the UFO. "Me and my pals are going up there."

At this word, everyone burst laughing, even the colonel, himself. Meanwhile, Cooper counted the number of soldiers around him, and also spotted an AP tank, between the MG nests.

"You-you think-you think we're gonna believe this nonsense stuff?" the colonel became serious. "Now enough chit chat, terrorist scum! Tell me where are the nukes."

"What nukes?" Cooper sounded confused. "I know nothing of nukes. But ask me all you want to know about the UFO thing," he wished he hadn't spoken the last sentence.

"Aha! So you're one of the Project SATAN spy agents, eh? Gentlemen, take this intruder to the lockup, if you don't mind."

"That's it! I've had ENOUGH!!!" Cooper Black roared, and snatched a M4 carbine from one of the two soldiers, before diving forwards, and hiding himself behind a flattened news van. He reloaded the gun, and performed a dive-barrage, sideways. He dived and shot away at the Marines, not caring about his own kin. The colonel burst with blood, flesh, and tattered bits of military uniform. Cooper dodged the incoming rush of bullets, as all the Marines in his area began shooting at his body.

Cooper dived again, and shot at the MG nests, but the soldiers were highly-skilled, too. He hid behind a concrete blockade, as he reloaded his assault rifle. Then his eyes caught sight of a package in front of him. Lying on the ground, next to the blockade, was a box with the Symbiocyte emblem on top. He brought it close, with the end of his gun, and opened it. Two S-shaped blades gleamed in the sunlight.

"Cool! Now let me try this," he wore the extra gloves that came along with the blades, probably as a free accessory. He threw them at the two Marines who'd pulled the rungs out. Their necks cleaved in half, and a spray of blood painted the faces of some other two Marines standing behind them, in crimson. The first two's heads flopped backwards, to create a kind of red smiling mouth, at the front of their necks, that grew wider and wider, and finally dropped off. The beheaded bodies, followed by, and dropped lifelessly. The two blades operated like boomerangs, returning back to the owner, who'd thrown them.

"Ha, ha! Magnoblades!" Cooper grinned, as the blades safely landed on the palms of his hands. "Now for you two!" He sent the magnoblades rotating like a fidget spinner, and hurtling towards the other two Marines, the red-faced ones. (It's not that they're red 'cause they're embarrassed; they'd got the tinge from the previous victims' blood, remember?).

The two Marines watched in awe, shock, and horror, as the magnoblades sunk deep into the flesh of their bellies. When they were fully sliced, the blades returned back to Black, by re-entering their bellies again, and also carried a small, red lump at its edges.

"Hmm...these might be your appendices, right?" Cooper asked the two Marines, now half-paralyzed. "Well, too bad, your books don't have any appendices; all it has, is a big, bad THE END!"

The bodies dropped onto the dusty asphalt. Their stomachs, and intestines gushed blood, and greenish bile. There was a mushy liquid pouring from the split stomachs, which seemed to be enzymes, hydrochloric acid, and half-digested food. From the widely-cleaved intestines, yellowish clay-like substances squeezed out, which figured out to be half-formed feces (shit).

"Ha, ha, ha! Look at you, miserable weaklings!" Cooper Black taunted, at the dying corpses. "You're dying, and rotting like--uh, oh--" the MG nests' soldiers opened fire. Cooper Black dodged the attack, by diving towards the news van, again.

He was just about to face the MGs off with the M4 carbine, when the news van went up in flames.

"Whaawwooh!"

He didn't know what was the cause. Was it the MGs? Was it the RPGs, on the balcony of a 6-storeyed hotel? Or was it the sniper, crouching on the rooftops of a nearby Auto-repairs garage?

All he remembered was the mind-shattering boom, and his body went flying off, towards an electric pole, before he blacked out.