The Special People

Chapter 8

Isaac ’s arms retracted back to normal. He walked through the now silent room, stepping over body after body, searching for any survivors. Blue and red lights began flashing through the broken windows. Isaac turned to investigate, but on his way to the front door, he stopped to search the pockets of the man with the cobra tattoo. After he pulled out the keys to the green motorcycle, he walked out the front door, and he was met by an intensely bright white light. A strangely magnified voice spoke out sharply; the light was so bright he couldn’t see who was speaking, but he recognized one of the words they were using. It was the same word the officer had said to him earlier.

“Freeze!” the voice commanded. “Lie on the ground with your hands on your head!”

Isaac listened for a moment, trying to pinpoint the location of the voice. Another softer voice spoke to the first, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. He could tell there were at least two people behind the light, and he wasn’t going to give them the chance to shoot him like the others had.

With a jump, he flipped through the air over the light and landed behind an officer holding a weapon. He quickly grabbed the officer’s arm with one hand, causing the weapon to fire into the air; with the other hand, he clawed the officer under the jaw, leaving fatally deep gouges. He leaped toward the other officer who turned to Isaac , drawing his weapon. Isaac grabbed the weapon, flipped it around, and forced the officer to shoot himself in the head.

A voice came from within the vehicle, but Isaac couldn’t see anyone.

“I repeat—an ambulance is on its way. Did you get a fix on the situation?”

He noticed it was coming from some sort of metal device in front of the seats.

“What is the situation there? Have you located AZ152? I still can’t radio them in. AZ156, come in . . . AZ156, please respond.”

Isaac just listened in wonder and curiosity.

“Attention all units, contact lost with AZ156. Assistance is needed at Scrappy’s Bar and Grill off Highway 64. Repeat—that is three officers unresponsive at Scrappy’s Bar and Grill off Highway 64.”

Two more distinct voices came from the same device.

“This is motor unit AZ154. I am in the area and can be there in two.”

“This is motor unit AZ153. I am thirty seconds behind you, AZ154.”

Isaac reasoned that the metal box must be some sort of long-distance communication device, which must also have meant that the officers had called for reinforcements. It was time to leave this place. With how quickly everyone traveled here, he may have only minutes before a greater force of officers came for him. He mounted the green motorcycle, started the engine, and took off.

He followed the road, staying close to the canyon. Up ahead, another motor cop drove toward him. The motor cop looked at Isaac as he passed, slammed on his breaks, and flipped around to follow. Accelerating quickly to catch up, he turned his red and blue lights on and, pulling up on Isaac ’s side, tried to wave him off the road.

“Pull over!” yelled the cop over the roar of the engines.

Isaac ignored him and increased his speed. The cop accelerated to keep up.

“Pull over now!” he yelled more forcefully.

Another motor cop was approaching them up ahead. When she spotted the two motorcycles hurtling toward her, she quickly turned around to intercept them, turning on her red and blue lights as well. She couldn’t reach top speed fast enough though, and she lagged a few dozen feet behind as they flew by.

Isaac looked back at her, his eyes still a bright yellow. Baring his fangs, he flashed an evil grin at his newest pursuer. Caught off guard by this bizarre show of aggression, she loosened her grip on the accelerator and fell even further behind the others. Shaking her head and telling herself she must not have seen what she thought she had, she urged the motorcycle forward to catch back up, but they were too far ahead of her.

Isaac turned his gaze toward the first officer, whose eyes widened in fear as Isaac lifted his left leg and kicked his handlebars. The motorcycle jerked and flipped over violently, sending its unfortunate rider flying through the air. The female cop watched in horror as her fellow officer’s limp body was caught and dragged by the tumbling mass of metal. Abandoning any hope of catching this strange perp on her own, she slowed to a stop, allowing Isaac to get away.

The road curved away from the edge of the canyon, but Isaac continued straight forward. He drove onto a dirt road which led him down a hill into a basin. There were tents set up and large yellow vehicles with huge arm-like devices attached to them. Some had a large curved slab of metal at the end of the arm, giving them a scorpion-like appearance. He looked around at the basin walls. They had grooves in them as if they had been dug that way. The devices attached to the vehicles had teeth to match which meant they must be large digging machines.

In the far corner of the basin was an ancient building protruding from the basin wall. Isaac parked behind one of the large digging machines. He dismounted the motorcycle and walked over to the stone staircase at the base of the ancient temple. He climbed the stairs and passed through two large stone pillars at the top. Many of the glyphs were worn and faded inside and outside the temple. Nevertheless, he began to feel at home here. There were, however, things that didn’t belong—metal tripods with shiny squares on top and some kind of cord leading away from them. He followed the cords and found they led to another strange device. It had many metal parts, similar to the vehicles but without wheels. He examined the device and noticed a switch on the side. He flipped it, and the thing roared to life. White lights suddenly shone from the squares atop each tripod, and the entire room lit up, much brighter than any fire he had used in the past.

In the center of the room against the back wall sat a large stone throne with stairs leading up to it. Isaac climbed the stairs and sat on the throne. He closed his eyes and leaned back, reminiscing about his past life—the power he had wielded over the people, the riches he had possessed, the stones of power, the legendary blades. He opened his eyes. The temple today was empty, and the people of his time were gone. People were taller now and mostly pale skinned. In his time, he was the only one of his kind; now he wondered how many others there were like him. He was still much taller than anyone he had yet encountered, and no one else seemed to possess his abilities.

They may look like me, he thought, but they are no more extraordinary than the people I ruled over. This is to my advantage. I could blend in, build up an army in secret, and then take control.

He got up, walked down the stairs, and turned down a hallway to his right which led down several flights of stairs deep into the temple. As he walked through the ancient corridors, he noticed many of his booby traps had either been tripped or had objects placed in such a way so as to prevent them from being tripped, rendering most of them safe for intruders. This angered him. He carefully removed some of the objects from the traps as he moved. He wondered how far into his temple the intruders had gone. He moved carefully, using all his senses for any sign of anyone still around. He came to an open doorway and stopped.

This shouldn’t be open, he thought.

This was the entrance to his treasury. He walked into the room, watching carefully where he placed his feet, and looked around. The room was bare. Carved stone tables lined the walls. Silhouettes outlined in the dust indicated that the treasure had been removed recently. Carved into the wall were five small alcoves, each one containing an empty weapon mount. He eyed the one in the middle, and anger roiled within him.

“Where are the blades of power?” he hissed softly to himself.

He scanned every inch of the room, searching for any signs of treasure left behind, but found nothing. He went back and examined the entryway. The doorway was four feet deep. Flush with the entrance wall, a foot-wide crevice held a large stone slab suspended from the top of the doorway. The remaining three feet of doorway wall space was littered with small holes.

He took a step back and transformed his left arm into a snake which slithered along the ground and stopped in the doorway. The head of the snake pushed down on a stone tile on the floor, and several spears shot out from the small holes in the walls, overlapping and leaving no room for a person to be there and remain unharmed. He grabbed the nearest spear with his right hand and broke it off. Then he let up on the tile, and the spears retracted into the walls. He took several steps back, coiled his snake arm around the end of the spear he had taken from the wall, and held it out toward the doorway. He used it to press down on another stone tile and immediately let go. A pressurized spray shot out from the holes in the ceiling and dissolved the spear.

The traps are still working perfectly. How did they get through?

He wondered if the acid still affected him the same way. He walked over and bent down to look at the small droplets that had gathered on the floor. He yanked a few strands of hair out of his head and dipped them in the acid. The hair was undamaged, and if anything, it looked healthier than before. He touched the tip of his finger to the acid. Nothing. He stood up and smiled wryly.

At least this remains unchanged.

Frustrated and angered by the theft of his treasury, he continued further into the temple to find out if anything else had been taken. It quickly became apparent that the thieves had been very thorough; room after room had been breached and ransacked, and his anger grew with each new discovery. The mystery of the intruders’ safe travels through his temple was finally solved when, in one room, he found a large wooden plank laid out across the entrance floor to evenly distribute their weight so as to not step on any particular tile.