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A message from the author:
Dear friends,
Please do take time out to visit my website http://www.fatalurgecarefreekiss.com/
Take care,
Amanpreet Singh Rai
Mishiida Alexander
“Nothing’s worse than being in love with a coward.”
Chapter Sixteen: Innocence Trampled
Science with all its’ logic, evidence and facts, has on numerous occasions questioned and trashed faith and belief. What a great leveller life is, the same faith and belief when associate with love, on countless other occasions belie all that science has to profess and leave the inquisitive minds blank with amazement. Faith and belief are empty barrels without love, just like love is a lost kitten without family when deprived of the other two. Love gives the one who experiences it, un-imaginable strength to overcome pain, hurdles and resistance, to ultimately triumph when all seems to have been lost. But what use is love bestowed upon a coward, a coward who ditches you for self when you are ready to forgo everything yours on their one wish. Cowards can never sacrifice self. Alas love’s first condition is giving up self.
Mishiida couldn’t fathom the realty the fading light of her eyes showed her, she had been ditched by the one she had just about learnt to trust, not long ago and not long after, not long ago from this moment and not long after her world had been last shattered. The pain of the metal stuck inside her body must have felt a lot more painful than what it actually was. But Alexander, he neither had a choice, or so he was made to believe, nor did he expect it to be so shocking and cold blooded. He wasn’t a coward, only a bit on the slower side as far as imagination and foresight goes. As he sat down at a bar for the first time in his life hoping to drown the violent noises of emotions raising a ruckus in his heart, he could have never expected the company he is face to face with at this instant.
“You?” a surprised query escapes his lips.
“Why, you were expecting Megan Fox?” Rick replies with a wacky smile as we turn around at look at him.
“I mean what are you doing here? And where were you when your friends were butchering an innocent being?” Alexander asks a bit agitatedly.
“Looks like you haven’t been listening to the news. I quit owing moral responsibility for letting your bellowed off the hook twice, or so they would have the world to believe,” Rick said with a bit of anguish in his tone.
“Listening to the news? I don’t think he’s even taken a shower yet sir,” Lieutenant Ken Pitbull speaks up from behind Ricks back as we notice him stretching his legs as he makes himself comfortable on the couch by the wall. He pulls out a cigarette and puts in his mouth and is about to light it when a harsh voice interrupts him, “Oye! You can’t smoke in here.”
As we look at the table by the side we see two burly men sitting there having beers. Ken looks at the two men, cigarette still in his mouth and another man sitting next to him lifts his hand from behind Ken’s head where it was resting on the back of the couch, gets up and walks around Rick’s table and straight to the table of the two men. He pulls a vacant chair by it back, pulls out a 9mm Colts from one pocket, a full magazine from another, puts the magazine in the pistol, tosses it on the table towards the man who had just spoken, sits down on the chair and puts his legs one by one on the table, his shoes sticking in the man’s face. He pulls out his cigarette case, opens it up and pulls out a cigarette and puts it in his mouth and pulls out a lighter and lights it. He looks up with his one eye, the other being hidden by the eye patch he is wearing, holding the cigarette in his thumb and index finger and takes a big puff and blows the smoke in the faces of the two men. There is pin-drop silence in the bar for the next few moments when finally Rick says, “Enough Corbett.” He gets up, grabs his gun and walks back to Pitbull’s side on the couch once again.
“So what’s the story?” Rick makes it short and crisp.
“Here’s your double martini?” the bar tender puts Alexander’s drink on the bar table.
“He won’t need it anymore,” Rick says to the bar tender and then looks at Alexander. Alexander takes his time but tells Rick all he knew about Mishiida and everything that happened behind Rick’s eyes ever since he met her.
“That man’s crazy. He shouldn’t have done that,” Rick shows his displeasure at Jerome’s method of accomplishing the task.
“You were no Buddha yourself! She clearly indicated she’s not here for destruction but did you let her go? You attacked her twice and she let you off each time,” Alexander doesn’t let Rick’s escape his share of blame.
“You are right, I did go overboard myself, in spite of a clear feeling what I was doing was wrong,” Rick accepts his mistake, “I knew it was wrong the first time we ambushed her at Morgan. The way she looked at me with her weapon pointing at my head, I saw it in her eyes, she was saying: Don’t try to stop me! Stay out of this!”
“If you knew it then why did you do it?” Alexander asks him, agony writ large on his face, “You were the one who could have talked with her and you were the one who could have made a difference to the outcome. Why did you not try it when it was still within your powers?”
“I got carried away! I guess I was trying to prove to Jerome, I am a better soldier. I made it an ego issue, to capture her at any cost. I made a mistake,” Rick is honest in his self evaluation. There is a bit of silence when Rick finally speaks again, “Look, you go back to your house and let me think about it as to what needs to be done, if anything at all needs to be done. Me and my team, we need to regroup and re-strategize. We’ll contact you when we’ve made some decision.”
Alexander sits there for a few moments looking at Rick and the gets up and takes their leave while Rick is now lost in deep contemplation. After a few minutes he too gets up and leaves the bar along with his men. We are meanwhile left standing in the bar alone, thinking as to what we should do now. We decide it’s time to visit our friends at RAAF base and have a look at what ordeals Mishiida is undergoing.
We make a dash for the make shift laboratory at the RAAF base and head straight towards Mishiida’s current lodgement but are distracted midway down the corridor by Colonel Jerome’s voice.
“I am sure these boxes contain Uranium, raw or enriched, I wouldn’t have a clue but the question is how do we open them?” Jerome can be heard saying as we enter a big room that houses Mishiida’s vehicle. As we enter, we notice she’s been stripped of all her stuff, her weapon and her gadgets in addition to her vehicle, and offcourse the two boxes she was dragging along.
“Colonel, I doubt if these boxes contain Uranium in raw form, these are simply not that big to contain anything worthwhile, but enriched, these could be enough to destroy a couple of cities or possibly more,” Dr Chris Green makes his judgement.
“Great doctor, now that we are on the same page, why don’t you show me the trick of how to open them,” Jerome has his own way of persuasion.
“Colonel, I agree whole heartedly with you but since it’s not raining today, I’ll leave it for the moment,” Dr Green is no less a romantic we realize, “Nah, seriously Colonel, I need some quality time alone with these things to figure out how and what about each of them.”
“Oh my GOD it’s pink,” Dr Kishore Rathe who’s standing next to Dr Green and has been watching and listening intently to what is happening, his attention is caught by the small dial on the side of Mishiida’s weapon lying on the table in front of them. Dr Rathe picks it up and starts inspecting it, giving special attention to its’ pink knob and adoring it as if a mother is looking at her child for the first time after birth. Jerome looks on at Dr Rathe and then looks at Lieutenant Mathew and Sandeep who are standing there as well, and then at Dr Green.
“Yes Dr Rathe it is pink but you cannot have it. It’s government property,” Dr Green comments.
“Is he,” Mathew finally asks but is cut short by Dr Green, “Don’t worry you are safe. He’s just crazy about pink but don’t worry, all men are safe. However do you have a wife?”
“Yeah! Why?” Mathew asks.
“Does she look pink cause if she does I wouldn’t invite him to dinner unless she is old enough to be changed,” Dr Green replies with a wicked grin.
“I think this might be some kind of power control,” Dr Rathe finally speaks about the knob he has been so keenly observing so far.
“How do you know?” Jerome asks.
“Well, if you look at the construction of the weapon it has got a trigger at the usual place and only one other knob which is this one and it can be rotated. Now if trigger is to fire, which we all know are laser beams, than the only function this knob would have is to control its’ intensity,” Dr Rathe says as he inadvertently points the weapon’s face towards us. We immediately duck and shout, “Hey man, don’t wipe our bums off this world yet!” Luckily he points it down again.
“If that is the case gentleman, than the only way to test sugar in tea is by sipping it,” Jerome says as he grabs the weapon from Rathe’s hand and walks towards a door in the corner of the room as everyone else follows him. As we step through the door we find ourselves inside an indoor shooting range. Without much ado Jerome stands right in the middle and takes aim, but before he can shoot Rathe interrupts him.
“Colonel, let me reset the knob to its’ initial spot. I think that was around at ten percent power,” Rathe says as he walks up to him, takes the weapon from his hand and twists the knob back to its’ original setting.
“What difference would it make anyway,” Colonel Jerome says nonchalantly and takes aim and shoots.
“Whoa! Whoa! Wow!” escape Colonel’s lips as he nearly takes a tumble, falling back five or six steps barely managing to stay on his feet as Sandeep and Mathew grab him from his shoulders. “Bloody hell, was it a recoil? Mutiny!” Colonel Jerome is exasperated.
“Look at that!” Dr Green speaks out as everybody turns their attention back towards the target end, where they should have been looking anyways but for the Colonels solitary tango. As soon as we all look towards the target end our eyes nearly pop out. The sand and cement bags lining the wall lay scattered away and around the entire length and breadth of the distal end of the room.
“Are you sure you had reset it to its’ original position?” Dr Green asks Dr Rathe.
“Wrong question! Why did you have to touch it in the first place?” Colonel Jerome roars.
“I am sure it was almost back to its’ original setting,” Dr Rathe replies sheepishly.
“Sir, should we try a higher setting?” Sandeep asks and Colonel turns around and gives him a look.
“Yes, I think we should,” Colonel Jerome says as he turns the nob halfway and hands it to Sandeep, “Go ahead, test it!”
“Sir, you are the senior pro and know better,” Sandeep tries to back out.
“Oh no, not at all, it’s not about senior or junior. You test it for me,” Jerome says again.
“Sir,” Sandeep is cut short in his speech by Jerome, “I insist. You go ahead and test it for me, test it for the country, test it for the entire humanity and besides it’s an order.”
Sandeep, left with no choice, takes the weapon from Colonel’s hand and walks to the target sitting spot. As he stands there, everybody steps back and away from him, including us.
Sandeep gulps down a big lump, takes an aim, and then closes his eyes and shoots. His shriek fills the entire room as he is lifted from his feet and tossed against the wall ten feet behind him, his body wiping off the surface as it slides down to the floor bum first. When he finally shuts his mouth, everybody turns back towards the target end and open up their jaws wide enough to show their entire dentine arrangements.
“Where’s the wall?” Dr Rathe asks as a few soldiers who were standing around in the compound outside slowly walk up towards the massive hole and have a peep inside to see what happened.
“She sure spared us,” Mathew says but quickly shuts his mouth as he notices Colonel Jerome turning around and giving him a questioning glare.
“I am sure they have a big defence budget,” Jerome quips as he takes the gun from Sandeep’s hand, “Dr Green, I’ll keep the weapon safe with me while you and Dr Rathe work on the rest of the gadgets and the two boxes, and try and get access into her vehicle or figure out how to dismantle it. We need to know what metallurgy and technology is working behind that all terrain craft of hers’. We need to know how and what takes them down before the rest of them arrive.”
“Sure Colonel, we are on it in the earnest,” Dr Green replies.
They all walk back into the other room where Mishiida’s gadgets and craft is housed as Jerome pulls out his mobile and rings up Craig to update him about the progress they have made as also the mess. We decide to have a look at what Dr Lucy is up to, so we sprint to her room.
As we enter Dr Lucy’s room we notice her getting her dissection box ready. As soon as she finishes it she pulls out her mobile and dials a number, “Colonel, I am ready, are you coming?” and after a pause, possibly after Colonel’s reply, and we guess it is Colonel Jerome she is calling, she says, “Ok Colonel, see you there in a minute.”
She walks up to Mishiida’s room as we follow her admiring her gorgeous figure and still wondering if she is really a scientist. Anyhow, as we enter the room behind her we hear a few footsteps rush behind us. It’s Colonel Jerome with Sandeep and Mathew.
“How are we going Ms Dawg?” Jerome inquires.
“Well Colonel, I’ll first try to open and take off her clothes but if that doesn’t work, I’ll cut them off,” Dr Dawg replies.
“Do you think your knives will tear apart what bullets couldn’t?” Jerome asks.
“I hope so but if they don’t, I am carrying with me the electric blade we generally use to cut open human skulls during post-mortem,” Dr Dawg replies.
“So you are going to strip her,” Sandeep asks.
“Yes she is and I want you boys to come with me into my room so that we can let Dr Dawg do her job quietly without any disturbance,” Jerome replies.
“Sir, this alien is dangerous. Who knows Dr Dawg might need some assistance. If you want us to, we can stay here with her,” Mathew speaks with an innocent looking face.
“Boys, get out, now!” Jerome sees through their game and leads them away. But we stay there with Dr Dawg as we want to know what this stone hearted scientist is up to with our beloved.
Dr Dawg closes the door behind the gentlemen and returns to where Mishiida is lying. We notice Mishiida’s chest rising and falling, slowly and very faintly. She is still alive, even if barely. Dr Dawg puts on ear muffs and pulls out a sand bag and pours a pinch of sand on to her wounds. “Don’t worry bitch, I won’t let you die,” Dr Dawg says, as the bullets lodged inside Mishiida’s body try to pop out. Dr Dawg uses both her hands to block their exit and then pushes them back in as Mishiida gives out a shriek, a very faint shriek compared to what we have become used to hearing so far, but still very painful.
“Now lets’ see how your dress opens up,” Dr Dawg speaks as she tries to figure out an opening for Mishiida’s clothes. She turns her only bangle left on one of her wrist, fiddles with the buckle box of her waist belt, but fails to make any headway with either of them.
“Alright bitch, looks like I’ll have to go manual,” Dr Dawg says as she pulls out a knife from her dissection box and puts it under the neckline of Mishiida’s clothes. She uses all the strength she could muster but fails to scratch either Mishiida or her clothes. She puts her knife through the tear in Mishiida’s clothes, where the first anti aircraft bullet had hit her during her second conflict with the army under Rick but fails to tear her clothes even over there.
“Damn it bitch,” Dr Dawg gets frustrated and puts her knife back inside her box and pulls out an electric drill fitted with a very sharp and mean looking saw-toothed blade. She plugs it into a wall socket and turns the power on. She puts the blade right in the middle and above Mishiida’s chest just where the neckline starts. She puts pressure on it until it finally cuts through Mishiida’s clothes and injures her skin causing a shallow abrasion. As Dr Dawg drags the drill down cutting open Mishiida’s dress she notices how the damaged skin she has just cut through is repairing itself instantly, although slower than what we have known, perhaps because Mishiid’a body is weak with all the fighting it is doing with the three bullet lodged injuries. Dr Dawg stops for a moment as she reaches Mishiida’s abdomen, leaves the drill at that place ripping Mishiida’s abdomen deeper and deeper while she walks up to her box and pulls out her knife again. She walks back to Mishiida, picks up her drill and quickly thrusts the knife into Mishiida’s abdomen as Mishiida screams out again. Dr Dawg observes the wound carefully as it stays open, struggling to heal but with no success. She pulls out the knife and instantly the healing process starts and in a matter of a few moments, the wound is healed and Mishiida’s skin is back to its’ glorious normal look at that spot. Dr Dawg realizes what we have known all along. She takes off her gloves and pulls out her mobile and makes a call again.
“Colonel, you would love to know this. Her wounds heal automatically if only there’s no foreign object sticking in them,” Dr Dawg explains it in concise terms, “So Colonel, next time if we get one of them, pump as many bullets as you want to and let them stay inside.”
She finishes the conversations and puts her mobile back in her pocket, her drill and knife in her box, puts on her gloves and starts pulling Mishiida’s clothes off her body. She pulls and pulls and pulls until she is finally midway. Then she pauses to catch her breath and starts pulling again. It takes her about half an hour to finally pull Mishiida’s clothes off her body along with her boots.
As Mishiida lies there in that cold white room, her pious body, injured but still radiant and fragrant like a rose giving that room a somewhat divine feel, we can’t help but notice her innocence at its’ pristine best. She is so beautiful, so pious and so innocent. We wish we were not just voyeurs but had the power to change the entire story, and we would have gladly done that in a blink of an eye. Alas, we are not the ones’ with a choice over here. We have to continue flowing with the story as it unfolds right in front of our hapless eyes.
Dr Dawg is meanwhile busy investigating Mishiida’s clothes. She pulls out a magnifying glass and look at their inside through it. We join her from behind her shoulders as we crane our neck above them and see it for ourselves. What we see surprises us as much as it does Dr Dawg. Nano-technology at its’ best is what would best describe what we see.
Very fine wires that on closer inspection unto their minute details appear to be very fine solenoid of varying colours can be seen interspersed into a semi solid gel like material making up what is Mishiida’s dress. Her belt buckle on the inside appears to be the main box from which two wires are originating, one travelling upwards and the other downwards. The one going below bifurcates into two, one for each leg while the one heading above does the same but then travels along the belt, its’ one end towards the left and the other towards the right. We realize, every time Mishiida used to punch in the codes, the wires would control the shape and form of the cloth by controlling the spread of the jelly like material they are made of, most likely via electromagnetic induction or something on similar lines. We also notice small flat heads interspersed between and connected to the wires, perhaps deriving power. Maybe they somehow used to co-ordinate with the electro-magnetic field generated by the miniscule solenoids and provided some form of protection against metallic projectiles. Perhaps these questions are better left for the experts to answer. We also notice how at the point where Mishiida’s clothes were torn by that first bullet there are damaged wire-ends. And that just about explains every uniqueness and aberration about her special attire.
Dr Dawg finishes inspecting the clothes and diverts her attention back to Mishiida who is lying their in all her innocence and beauty, looking every bit like a trampled rose. Dr Dawg pauses for a moment, as if contemplating something. She gives Mishiida a thorough scan from head to toes and back again. She keeps on looking at her as if admiring her beauty. Then she finally kneels down right next to Mishiida, puts Mishiida’s clothes on the floor and takes of her gloves. She bends over Mishiida balancing her weight on her two hands planted firmly on the two sides of Mishiida. Her breathing becomes heavy as we notice her pupils widen. She bends down over Mishiida and before we can drop our jaw into our hands she plants her lips right on Mishiida’s lips and gives her a deep kiss. We are yet to come to terms with the reality when she jumps on to Mishiida’s bed and literally starts wrestling with her body, kissing her wildly, biting her. Mishiida lets out a faint shriek of pain and Dr Dawg puts her fingers inside her wounds to make her scream harder with pain. When we finally manage to gather ourselves together, we frantically hop around the bed shouting, “Stop! Stop! Stop it you bitch! Leave her alone!” at the top of our voices and prostrating on our knees, gesturing with both our hands. But then who listens to us?
When she’s finally had her full of Mishiida which thankfully wasn’t too long, Dr Dawg gathers herself up and gets back on her feet, adjusts her spectacles with her knuckles and uses her finger tips to put her hair back in place behind her ears. She adjusts the hemline of her skirt, her lab-coat, kneels down and picks up Mishiida’s clothes and her dissection box, and leaves the room locking it behind. We are still standing there by the side of Mishiida, smoke coming out of our ears. It takes a few moments for the reality of what we just saw to sink in. “What a waste of such a hot chick,” we think to ourselves.
We look at Mishiida who has been visibly hurt by the experience she is not even consciously aware off. We decide we have seen enough and we cannot stand it anymore. We rush out of the door and are about to make a dash for the exit when we over hear Dr Dawg talking to Colonel Jerome in his room. We decide to snoop on them to get some more snippets. As we enter the room we realize Dr Dawg is explaining the secrets behind Mishiida’s attire to Colonel Jerome when suddenly their mobiles buzz.
“Looks like a message,” Dr Dawg says as she pulls out her mobile.
“I’ve got one as well,” Colonel Jerome says as he pulls out his mobile and is about to read it when Lieutenant Ron rushes in.
“Sir, you need to come to the control room, quick,” Ron says as he tries to catch his breath. It looks like he’s just made a dash faster than us.
“Why? What happened?” Jerome asks as Dr Dawg looks on.
“Sir, US President Arnold Walter Stallone, he’s on hotline along with your Chief of the Army Staff,” Ron pants out the big news.
“What?” Jerome stands up in attention immediately.
“I’ve got a message from the NASA about the same. Looks like its’ something really important,” Dr Dawg says.
“Lets’ find out,” Jerome says as he rushes out of his room followed by Ron and Dr Dawg. They nearly bump into Dr Green and Dr Rathe in the corridor.
“Colonel,” Dr Green is about to say something when Jerome cuts in, “Yeah, we’ve got the message as well. Lets’ go and find out what it is about.”
They all head to the control room where the screen facing us is showing a very concerned looking US President Mr Arnold Walter Stallone, flanked by the Chief of Army Staff and his defence minister.
“Good evening Sir,” Colonel Jerome speaks as soon as he enters the room.
“Good morning Colonel,” the President answers.
“What can I do for you Sir,” Jerome asks.
“Colonel, we don’t have time,” the President makes a crisp statement.
“What do you mean sir?” Jerome asks.
“General Kevin Snipes will brief you about the situation at hand,” Mr President gestures to the Chief of Army staff to take over from there.
“Colonel, we just got back in touch with the astronauts on-board the international space station, which was tossed away by our unfriendly visitor into an orbit a few hundred kilometres further than the original and many thousand miles away from it’s location at that time,” Chief of Army Staff General Kevin Snipes explains what is happening, “The good news is they are all safe. For some un-explicable reasons, they were all cocooned into air capsules while the station was tossed away.”
“Sir, I am glad my fellow men are safe,” Jerome replies.
“That’s the only good news Colonel, the rest is all very concerning,” General Kevin says.
“Sir, if I may, what would that be?” Jerome asks.
“Colonel, when they were tossed away they ended up at a spot from where they could snap Titan, the largest moon of Saturn clearly and the images they have sent us, well I’d rather show them to you than telling you stories,” the General gestures to someone behind the camera and the images of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon are flashed on the screen, one after the other as Jerome’s eyes open up.
“We don’t have time!” is all that Jerome says too as we all look on at the pictures with eyes wide open.
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