Arizona, Ft. Huachucha
The phone was ringing; oh God, how he hated that noise. It was like an icicle driven deep into the pain of his hangover.
Lt. General Williams snorted, at least last night had been interesting; there was a "give us more money and projects!" dinner between the military services and some congressmen. A few Air Force pukes tried to (and he was probably thinking through beer goggles which, face it, he had partaken of too heavily last night) make a case for their branch getting control of some "directed energy weapon" testing for fighter craft. Jesus Fucking H. Christ, couldn't they call it a laser? Like, you know, normal people? It had been hilarious and painful to watch, at the same time... though the beer had probably helped with the hilarity. The Air Force had lost that project to the Navy and their UASs and ship based testing.
He technically hadn't been needed at the "function" if you could call a backyard B-B-Q that, but he had still been required to go since Ft. Huachucha was "spook central" and held the Army's Electronic Equipment Proving Grounds... he preferred the fact that the Cavalry was there however. He still had his Stetson and spurs from his time as a Cav officer. Damn Intel pukes, pussy fairyboys...
The phone still rang, eliciting another cold pain from his hangover.
Dry swallowing a few aspirin, he picked up the receiver, "This is General Williams... Oh! Sergeant Deepneau! Or is it Mrs. now?... Yes ma'am... What?... You want what!... A nuke!... How the hell did he get it on the plane?... Who else knows of the situation on Flight 1407?... Did the President approve this?... Fuck!... What about the air marshals on board?... That's how the information was recieved?... Where does he plan to blow it?... Shit fire sonova bitch!"
He slammed the phone down in it's cradle, "FUCK!"
Plane over the California-Arizona border
The unseen hands continued to crawl over him, tormenting him. The pharaoh shoved Yugi as gently as possible away from the mental controls that commanded their shared body.
"Things may get bad soon," he said.
Bruce snorted awake, making his beard ripple, "wazzit?"
The pharaoh nodded, "Something has grabbed hold of my location through my soul."
"Are you sure?" One eyebrow raised in a quasi-skepticisim.
"Yes, something bad is likely to happen."
Bruce leaned in and lowered his voice, "Is there anything we can do?"
The pharaoh paused, not for lack of an answer, but because Yugi had waken up and was starting to struggle against his control of the body. Quiet! Something bad is about to happen because of us and I need to find a way to stop it!
Us? What do you mean? Who are you! What are you doing!
Hush, in time. Needless to say, we are in a bad position right now. It will take all of our guile to worm our way through this mess.
"Yugi? You alright?"
The pharaoh blinked, "Yes. But I fear that there is nothing we can do."
Ft. Huachucha
"ROOM! ATTEN-SHUN!"
There were a few gasps as General Williams walked into the cramped room filled with all the UAS pilots on post. They hadn't been expecting someone this high up the food chain.
"At ease." He looked at them with a pitied look in his eyes, "Men, I feel sorry for you. Because this mission is twisted all to fuck." He paused, unsure of how to word this, "I need volunteers to shoot down a civilian aircraft with 142 innocent souls aboard... 125 of which are American."
More gasps.
"Now I don't expect anybody to volunteer for a mission this bad without knowing why... The State Department has identified a Japanese national connected to Aum Shiryn... Shurin... what-the-fuck-ever, has managed to somehow sneak a black-market nuke aboard a 747 and plans to detonate as its landing in Phoenix. This information came from an Air Marshal on board the flight that says the man has barricaded himself in the cockpit with a RC detonator. I'm asking for volunteers to kill 142 civilians to save some hundreds of thousands more. I hate it, hate it to hell, but it has to be done or else Phoenix and the areas around it become radioactive slag, Tucson will die from fallout... and Bin Laden will look like a small thinking pussy."
The General grimaced, "I hope that there's only one plane."
Every hand rose to volunteer. A Predator was sent to intercept within a half-hour.
Arizona- 20,000 feet
Yugi looked at his watch, one more hour on this plane and then he would demand explanations of this Bruce guy and whoever was taking control of his body. But his "other him" was certain that something bad would happen before that hour was up. Because of that feeling that felt like very bold hands exploring him. A small twinge turned his attention to his bladder, he hadn't gone to the restroom since LA. He got up to head to the plane's rest"room", squeezing his way past the flight attendant in the aisle.
He had almost made it to the the door when the plane dropped, throwing him against the ceiling, knocking him out.
Back in Virginia, the five psychics winced as their viewing target fell unconcious; pinpricks of blood leaked from capillaries on the surface of their brains, they were not used to being suddenly cut off from a remote viewing session. They immediately tried to look for him again.
The Predator had ascended from the clouds underneath the doomed 747, pulling up from behind. On one wing was a sidewinder missile, on the other an experimental weapon that was called by the eggheads that designed it a "directional EM cannon". The cannon hummed as it fired unseen waves, frying the circuitry aboard the plane, lights, communications, the "detonator" that triggered the "nuke"...
The engines.
The disabled craft started to coast towards the ground in an elegant fall. This would kill the plane, but not the "bomb".
Then the missile fired, streaking towards the dying plane, connecting with the center point on the belly. It exploded upon penetration of the cargo hold, hoping to destroy the "bomb's" components. It also split the plane in half in quick-lived fiery tongues. Immolating around a fifth of the passengers, including the area where Yugi had sat not a moment previously.
Instead he got sucked out of the gutted plane along with rows of burning, screaming passengers. The screams and smoke roused the pharaoh. He opened Yugi's eyes and beheld the ground standing eager to catch his fall.
The psychics started to grin, Oh! Wasn't this exciting! They were going to witness someone's death firsthand!
The mental gropings intensified and five phantasms manifested themselves, hanging off of him and fondling him like a harem.
I didn't know that they were going to do this.
Very intriguing that they would go to all this trouble for just one kid.
"Who are you?"
He can sense us!
Disconnect, quick!
The phantasms started to fade, the pharaoh's anger burned against them, "NO!" he yelled over the rushing wind. He reached out with his mind and grabbed them, bringing them back to the material plane. "You will answer my questions!"
Shit! Shitshitshitshit...
We're screwed.
The pharaoh reached out with his hands and brought the manifestations together into one area. "Why are you watching!"
We were ordered to.
Mr. Mulder asked.
The pharaoh marked this in his mind, hoping that he would get a chance to use it. The ground was looking quite unforgiving. Even the glint of a lake didn't offer any hope here.
"Where is this Mulder!"
Virginia.
Virginia.
Virginia.
Virginia.
Virginia.
Virginia
Wild seizures racked the five inhabitants of Bay Three as medics tried to render aid through the flailing limbs, blood leaked from their eyes, noses, and mouths as capillaries burst under pressure and teeth tore at their own tongues and lips. Inarticulate screams came forth, broke only cries of "Power! Power!"
Falling in Arizona
The manifestations screamed at him, the pharaoh ignored them and looked at how close the ground was.
Frighteningly close, he about to hit it in a few seconds.
The pharaoh flinched, instinctively drawing the essences of the manifestations around him like a cocoon.
WHUMP
In Virginia, the psychics crumpled.
The pharaoh opened his borrowed eyes, feeling the sun's heat on his back, surprising since he shouldn't have been able to do anything at all. He and Yugi should have been nothing more than a bloody jelly pasted onto the desert. A thought of him being spread across a piece a toast shot through his mind, this jelly is Yugilicious!!!
Lunacy.
He rose among the sage, dirt, and rocks of the desert. A translucent, light pink syrup coated the immediate area around him, what was left of the specters possibly. Despite being alive and (for the most part) uninjured, his body and mind ached.
A high-pitched, mechanical scream from above.
The pharaoh looked up and started to run, cursing all the while. The front half of the plane crunched down on it's nose not ten feet from where Yugi and the pharaoh had landed. Other debris fell in a lethal hail; laptops, shredded aluminum, seats- some with the passengers still inside, cell phones.
The pharaoh put his arms up to protect his head, bits of foam and cloth and metal rained down upon him, some on fire and singing him.
Another monstrous crunch as the tail section landed.
Then all was still save the pitter-patter of foam and other debris, then that too ended.
The pharaoh looked back at the twisted burning wreckage and shuttered, someone wanted him dead very badly.
He looked around, trying to get his bearings, nothing man-made... that he could see at least. Water then, he would have to find that first. The lake that he saw on the way down would be good.
Tull, Arizona
Allie Brown woke up from her nap with the sound of screaming metal from the other side of Yellow Lake. She groggily ran to the living-room window, ignoring the pain that shot up her leg when she barked it on the corner of the coffee table.
A mushroom cloud of smoke and dust was slowly rising in the air. Already the fire department had engines speeding there with sirens blaring, Sheriff Avery and his deputies was likely speeding there as well... he always seemed to be where the action was before anyone picked up there phone to dial 911. (Even though he was what? Pushing eighty? He was freakishly spry for an old fella.)
Allie thought for a moment, Avery and his boys (and one girl counting Susan Delgado) would probably buy the fire department a few rounds at the bar tonight depending on the difficulty of sorting out whatever just happened, she had to be ready to keep Sheb's, the bar she owned, open past closing time.
When she got to her bar, she noticed that some vandal had spray-painted Hail Discordia! along with a red eye on the side of the brick building.
A few hours later, the first Army convoy rumbled past her bar with Humvees and Strykers, heading in the same direction as the explosion had occurred. That unnerved her, why was the Army coming in combat vehicles. She got a look at some of the soldiers inside the Humvees, they were wearing body armor and held assault weapons.
Why?
The FBI and the general public would also ask that same question a week later when the town of Tull, population 413, had become Tull, population 0, in the space of a single night...
Crashsite
Deputy Delgado stopped the convoy at the junction between the Interstate and two ruts that formed a rough road that led near the crash site. Surprise and puzzlement obvious on her face, she walked up to the lead Humvee as a man with Captain's bars stepped out the passenger side. "I'm Susan Delgado. How can I help you boys?"
"Captain Avery ma'am and we're..."
"Avery, really? Are you related to our Sheriff Avery?" Susan interrupted
"No. Anyways, we've been ordered to secure the crash site and to help the local authorities."
"Why is the military interested in this?"
"That's classified ma'am. But we brought medical aid as well."
Deputy Delgado harrumphed, "Thank you, but... if you told me you'd have to kill me? Please..."
The captain laughed, "We're not the CIA ma'am, we'd just make you sign so many pieces of paperwork that your arms fall off."
"Hrm..." she, got her radio, "Sheriff, the military's coming."
The radio crackled, "What? What was that Susan?"
"Their's a bunch of Army guys here to help with the plane crash."
"Let 'em in."
Yugi came to looking at a flat desert plain surrounded by badlands, gray-green sagebrush grew for miles in every direction with scattered cacti and yucca. The sun getting low in the sky.
What happened? He asked of the other him, the scary him.
The plane exploded and we got sucked out into the sky. Factual and to the point.
What!? How did we survive something like that?
Several spirits came to me while we were falling to torment me and I somehow made them protect us instead.
How about everybody else, are they alright?
Yugi...
Come on! Somebody has to be alive! We have to help them!
The Pharaoh froze; true he was bound to the other passengers of the plane, he was sure that the attack had been directed towards him after all... but if he went back to the site, someone might come by to finish the job. No, we cannot risk it.
But, the people!
whopwhopwhopwhopwhopwhop
The pharaoh dove into the sage as a wave of helicopters passed by overhead, flying towards the crash. Where did they come from? And were they for him, or the other passengers?
Will be taken care of Yugi; besides, if they aren't after us, we would just get in the way.
Yugi sighed, Alright, but I don't like it.
Agreed.
The pharaoh did spare a glance back however, he had been walking for hours, only a thin wisp of smoke marked the plane crash from this distance. He could hear the reeds of the lake rustling in the wind, hear tongues of water lapping up on a stony shore. He knelt down by the lake, cupped his hands and drank greedily.
What are you? Yugi asked, not who, what. The boy did not trust him entirely and the pharaoh didn't know whether to be hurt or to be pleased that Yugi was not as naive as he appeared.
I am the spirit of the Millennium Puzzle, other than that I know only two things... That I was once Pharaoh, and thus was a god; and that I'm around 4000 years old... give or take a millennium.
Anything else? Do you have a name?
No, unfortunately I have no memory of anything before you completed the puzzle... however, the first people I encountered through you called me Yami. He looked around, Night is coming, we need a place to sleep. We can palaver later.
Why do you think people are after us? The question was sudden.
I do not know, Yami said, but if I were to guess, someone either noticed the Millennium Puzzle or my actions through you.
What do they want?
I imagine that only they can answer that..
Virginia
"Ed!" George bust in his office like he was a convenience store robber.
Really, Edward thought, we have got to make him less exuberant. He lifted his head off his desk, "What is it? And why is it important enough to wake me up after a 48 hour day?"
George spoke with the same gusto, the same chutzpa, that he showed when case 3102 first came to them, he always was like this though, "One of the squints recognized one of the Domino school's hostage takers!"
"Oh really?" Ed raised an eyebrow in suspicion, "Who?"
"Robert recognized the guy from a recent trip he took to New York. The perp was a homeless guy that lived around 61st Street and Lexington Avenue."
Ed could barely hold the intrigue on his face, "Homeless? He's wearing some fancy duds for a hobo ain't he?"
"Yessir Mr. Mulder."
"Find out why."
"Yes sir, and uh... Ed?"
"What?"
"Go home," George said, "You're doing no one any good by being tired. And at least you can get a nice bed there."
Ed nodded, it was true, "Good idea, I'll be back around tomorrow night. Hold the fort till then."
"Yessir."
The sun felt odd on his skin, the kind of feeling you get when you've been indoors for a long stretch and you're cold and warm at the same time. His car, an old Crown Victoria, waited for him on a gravel lot.
He climbed in and turned the key.
The bomb that had been hidden in his car detonated, the explosion could be heard for several miles.
Baltimore
Bakura stepped off the plane and stretched, flying was not good for him, rather tiring. Now he was on to a hotel, it was close to midnight and he still had to gather information about DC and this President and House committee that wanted him. He took out the IDs again, and marked whatever information he could off of them, again... He had almost memorized them.
He placed them back in his pocket and walked on, scouting out info about train schedules, and grabbing maps. Above him CNN played the same three video clips about a plane crash in Arizona while the Anchor and an "expert" talked about it using mostly fluff to fill in time until they got more information about it. Thankfully the TVs were muted though.
Then a new picture came on, Bakura nearly ignored it, then froze when he realized what the picture was of.
The Millennium Puzzle hung around a boy's neck.
He started to read the closed captioning: Yugi Moto, a Japanese national that was involved in a hostage situation at his school and the murder of his grandfather was confirmed to have a seat on Flight 1407. At this time it is unknown whether he is the perpetrator or victim of this bizarre series of events.
Bakura kept watching as the boy's, Yugi's, photo was replaced with a CGI clip of the plane breaking in two over Arizona.
"Yugi Moto," Bakura whispered to himself, "Hello pharaoh."
And now a session of:
Electriceel speaks!
Sorry that this chapter is a week late (as Electriceel has been trying to update every weekend with around six pages), but Electriceel was at a class being held at Ford Island, something about Counter-terrorism, kinda boring. But, Electriceel recently got a Kindle, which is how Electriceel is writing this now. In a UH-60. Surrounded by a bunch of crazy mofo's that like to jump out of perfectly good helicopters connected to nothing but a rope. No Electriceel is not air assault, one of them just invited Electriceel to view one of their training exercises. Electriceel likes to keep his feet on the ground and is thus in the Cavalry down here at Schofield. Long story short, Electriceel leads a very... spontaneous life that he can barely plan for, its planned for him by people much higher up. So Electriceel will try to update as often as possible. (Also Electriceel doesn't know whether he is advertising for the Kindle or the Army, so you can take it however you like. That the Kindle is badass enough for a soldier, or that the Army doesn't suck out your soul and replace it with a serial killer's.)
And, this is directed to Hikari Kame, Unfortunately Electriceel only has time to just present the story and nothing else (the Kindle should help somewhat with that though) however, the next chapter is reports of the Shop's MiBs following what happened over the past "two days". Along with a few clarifications to what happened and lots of things to muddy up the waters even more.
Until then, Fare thee well!
