An officer bent down next to him, and Isaac could feel the quivering hands as he pulled his arms behind his back and began to fasten something cold and hard around his wrists. The officer looked up to see that many of his men were missing. He spoke into the device on his shoulder.“Where is everyone? Did you see anything?”A voice answered, “No, I was watching him. Wait a second.”The chopper ascended several feet.“They are all piled on top of one another behind that boulder! But he hasn’t moved! What is going on?”The remaining officers turned and looked around them for any sign of trouble. All of a sudden, the officer closest to the cliff went flying through the air over a small boulder and toward the canyon. He screamed as he plunged off the edge. The rest turned toward the cliff, clearly terrified. They kept glancing wildly back and forth from Isaac to the place where the officer fell. One officer caught sight of something yellow on the boulder for a split second before it vani
“They already know this location, so we will need to move the truck again,” said Mitch. “Normally, I wouldn’t go through this much trouble, but this vehicle can be very useful to us. It’s not like other vehicles as you might have noticed. This truck is pretty high-tech. It looks the way it does because it has reinforced armor plating and ballistic glass windows, making it capable of stopping bullets and small explosives.”Isaac was looking confused again.“Sorry, going too fast. Bullets are the projectiles people have been firing at you with guns, and explosives are things that go boom! Basically what happened to the helicopter.”“Helicopter?” Isaac asked.“Yeah, that thing they were flying back there.”“Not chopper?”“Same thing. Helicopter, chopper—a lot of stuff has multiple names. That’s one of the crappy things about English.”“Crappy?”“Bad. Frustrating. Annoying. Irritating. You see what I mean?” said Mitch, laughing nervously.Isaac turned to his creature and muttered somet
“This is called a mobile operating system or MOS. This specific device is called a holographic ring phone. Its main purpose is for communicating across long distances, similar to the radios you saw earlier, but those are much more short range. This can communicate with anyone anywhere on Earth. But it’s not just for communication. It can do almost anything you need it to. If there is one technology that advances so fast even people of today have difficulty keeping up with it, it’s the MOS. The light show it is displaying is called a holograph. Previous phones and mobile devices used a physical built-in screen, but the holographic screen is much more versatile and easy to use and isn’t bound to a specific screen size, as you just witnessed.” He turned to the image and said out loud, “Sketch pad.”The holograph went blank except for two small rows of symbols and colors across the top. He touched the image and, with a swooping motion, drew the letter A.“This is the first symbol in our a
“Well, I assumed they would take the weapons there since it is a weapons lab. But I know that at least most of the nonlethal treasure would have been placed in the museum.”“You assume? So the sword could be at the museum?”“I guess it is possible, but it seems unlikely.”“It’s worth a look. And we can take back my treasure while we are there. But first, we need to get some meat.”One day, about a week into training, John stepped in to watch as a trainer was working on hand-to-hand combat with the Analoya. Wilson and Kyle were partnered against each other as they often were. As the trainer said go, Kyle immediately moved in for the attack. Wilson countered with a high kick to the chest, but Kyle grabbed his leg and threw him to the ground. Wilson tried to flip around to Kyle’s back, but he was stopped by Kyle grabbing his arm and pinning him down face first. The trainer ordered them to release as John walked up to them.“You’re getting pretty good,” he said to Kyle. “Let’s see how you
There were two monstrous skeletons in the center of the room. He gazed at the larger of the two. It had a huge skull with long sharp teeth, long legs and tail, and short stubby arms.“What is it?” he asked in awe.“It’s a Tyrannosaurus rex,” she answered.He stepped over the rope barrier, hand outstretched.“Wait, what are you doing? You can’t touch that!” she said with a stern voice.He turned and snarled at her like an animal. She shrank back and stood in silence.Disappointment fell over his face as he reached out and touched the tibia.“Is this some kind of trick? What is it made of?” he asked angrily.“It’s a plastic replica. Real T.rex fossils are too rare and valuable to put on display.”“Where can I find a real one?”“I . . . don’t know,” she said nervously.“You’re lying. You have some here. Where are they?”“Please, you came for your treasure. Leave us ours.”“I just want one bone.”“What do you need it for?”“To bring it back to life.”She stared at him, dumbstruck. “You ca
“You look like you were expecting to hear Wilson’s name,” Kyle said with a trace of accusation in his voice. “Care to share with the class as to why?”Dutch was looking uncomfortable. “We had to get the word out to local media and police to be on the lookout, but we couldn’t exactly tell them to keep their eyes open for a reincarnated Aztec demon god. Wilson’s picture was the next best thing.”Kyle laughed harshly. “Wow. Good to know Wilson’s reputation means so much to the FBI. Don’t you think you should have talked to him about this first? Because you just painted a pretty big target on his back. Might make things a little difficult if he’s ever spotted while we’re out looking for the real bad guy, don’t you think?”“Wilson hears nothing about this, you understand me?”Kyle barked a laugh. “He’s going to find out eventually, but I’m not going to be the one to tell him his name is mud. That’s on you geniuses.”He got up and walked to the control room. John gave Dutch an “I told you s
Dutch and John arrived at the crash scene. Emergency responders had already been deployed to the area. The mangled bodies of Ink, Slingshot, and Steel had been lifted out of the canyon by helicopter, and they were now lying in body bags on gurneys, waiting to be transported back to headquarters.“How is Flint doing?” asked John.“You mean after being thrown from a moving vehicle or finding out his brother is dead?” answered Jolly grudgingly.“You need to have a little more respect for your commanding officers,” said Smasher.“Sorry, sir,” she replied.“He has a few broken bones, but he’ll be okay,” answered Smasher.“Did you get a chance to talk with him?” asked Dutch.“Yeah. He told us that there was no way that Isaac survived,” Smasher replied.“Are you absolutely sure?” asked Dutch.“Go look at the car. It’s barely recognizable,” said Smasher. “The amount of firepower they rained down on that thing ripped it to pieces, and the flipping out of control didn’t help Isaac much either
“I know a lot has changed over the past week, but it’s still only been a week. Things like this take years to get over, if ever.”“How do you do it? You seem to be doing just fine. I only knew two people there. You knew all of them. You lost your colleagues, your friends, and your students. You should be way worse off than me. How do you keep it together?”“Honestly, I don’t know,” said Kristen, shrugging. “I definitely blame myself for a lot of that, whether or not anyone else does. The whole field trip was my idea, and all the students were my responsibility. The pain is always there, and sometimes it feels unbearable especially when I’m alone. I guess I just channel it. As much guilt as I feel, it is nothing compared to the anger and hatred I feel toward Isaac . I’m sure, once this is all over, if we all manage to live through it, I will feel the full force of the guilt, but until then, I need to stop Isaac from hurting anyone else.”“I guess it just feels like it would be an insu