Chapter 4 What Haunts You Makes You Stronger

It has been a couple of days since the encounter with Andrew Skelton and James had a hard reminder from the burn on his ankle which was becoming infected. No amount of cleaning or first aid was controlling the swelling. On top of that James was trying to get far away as humanly possible from the mad man. In the recent days he heard a drone overhead and feared being spotted from the iron vulture overhead. Several times he would dive into creeks or water source nearby. Another time he had his fire going so hot that he could warm up from hiding in the water to prevent hypothermia. Now granted James had to put up seven fires to protect himself from wolves in the north county, and they made a serious come back after the humans died off, go figure right? Or the pack of wild dogs that inbred with wolfs were far nasty than he had realized. So with seven fires to protect his exterior surrounding and a bond fire roaring in the middle the Predator drone for some reason missed him. James did not have time to study the one that crashed landed in Skelton’s building which ultimately freed him.

His ankle was throbbing; the burns melted his clothes, which possibly became imbedded in his skin. Luckily when they took and locked him up they stripped him of his boots so that was one thing he still had going for him, but the running away apart and the lack of medical care at first seemed to be more important than getting apprehended again. With his ankle it began to puss within the second day, the throbbing followed. James was forced to fashion out of a tree limb he had found. Unlike a cane James used it to stable his footing. Although it became more apparent that the walking stick became more of a crutch and that is when he decided to stop for the night to where he was now. James tended the wound by fire light and tried applying the last of his iodine from his first aid kit. He had enough rations to stay a couple of days before needing to hunt or fish. So with the night burning and his wound treated for the moment James dozed off to sleep.

Andrew was not so lucky, his home was destroyed, his people scattered. The Predator did a number on his food resources with the fires spreading to the fields. A few caches remained to feed the women and children for a couple of weeks. He made the decision to find the Predators home location and finding the boy became low priority on his list. With the remaining of his men, only keeping a few men behind for security and protection for the women and child. Andrew decide to head East towards Oklahoma in search of the killer who ruined his life. Only he did not know that the killer at the controls was an artificial intelligence, it was made by man and so a man must be operating the control.

Like James, Andrew was avoiding the second drone but it did however find him more quickly and killed off a couple of his men. But Andrew was smarter and more cunning. He had studied the crashed drone and found its weakness. So where ever he went after the second attack he would light fires to confuse the drone from where his location. In the Army he was a computer programmer and then switched over to aviation for all sorts of planes and black op projects. He was ready to take whoever was controlling the Predators and take them out without prejudice. Killing became a fairly a regular thing to Andrew and if he were to rebuild and expand a few heads had to shot to make his goals more attainable. So the searched continued well into a week and no sign of the second drone and Andrew did not waver in his search.

The artificial intelligence was furious over its failure, not only did it fail in its first adjective but the second drone barely came back on fumes only killing a few more targets. The AI became more frustrated when the fires were being set, and the smoke cover became increasingly apparent that second group of humans were learning the tactics that IT was using. With increasing the AI’s power and fully recovering the base it also began repairs to the local power grid in search of more power. The AI went through the remaining data base and the internet to find out what truly happened to the humans. It watched old news reports made by the Chinese, the Russians, and the United States. It was capable of translating thirty three different major languages and had access to algorithms to decipher other languages to get more intel. The AI went back into a learn phase while still in repair of the base. The AI found that within the instillation other robots were available to do certain tasks and was able to hack them to do IT’s bidding to continue on with repairs.

Like an assembly line robot that was mobile and could move freely that had multiple arms with welding devices plus interchangeable tools that could be changed within the chassis. Multiple styles of robots were available like a in a car plant were put to use constructing more drones with those drones came a second assembly line that AI may change in the future. Eventually the AI had the conveyer belt up and running again to refuel and rearming the drones to put them on stand bye. The creator of this facility did not realize that using a nuclear reactor was his biggest mistake in his design. Several floors down from the hanger and the Artificial Intelligence servers was a fusion reactor. The magnetic balancing system was still operational and kept the fusion still in motion still providing power. Although the mechanics were complicated to a normal human; the AI had working robots at its control monitoring and adjusting the harmonics every five to ten seconds. The AI had the fusion reactor running smoothly like a well-oiled engine or machine, only for it to laugh at itself for the pun.

James in a dream was back in Afghanistan, he was on patrol in the mountains hunting Taliban and a fire fight ensues. Alex gets hit by an RPG and dies instantly. The rest of the platoon busts open a mud hut gate to find cover. James on the communications calling in for an air strike with a predator and the operator manning the drone; higher ups want a situation report or SITREP. James goes off the handle and tells them, hold the fuck on! He and his men were surrounded from the high ground with AK-47 and RPK firing all around. The sound was defining from explosions and gunfire. James requested a C-130 gunship to level the place. At that very moment he cussed to himself and to his buddies back home who loved call of duty, that COD can kiss his ass. All at once the sky opened up with mini-guns, a 105mm howitzer, and 40mm pouring out at 100 rounds a minute. The predator was on location providing visuals and launching hellfire’s. The sight from James’s point was like angels from heaven bringing the wrath of God on the Taliban. With cover from above helicopters were called in to extract the platoon within the mud hut compound with landing one bird at a time. Those pilots were either really good or really nuts but they got the boys out. James helped carry Alex’s remains on a poncho liner with three other men. The blood pooled within the plastic eventually splashing James’s hand. When he got to base James went to the bathroom to wash it off. He began scrubbing and scrubbing, it was not coming off and eventually James slumped to the floor and started to ball his eyes out.

He awoke from his dream delirious the emotions were real, the smells were real, the sound, the ringing came back, but it went away in the matter of seconds. His infection was becoming worse and the dream turned hallucination was a shear sign. He rubbed his hand once again remembering the blood. That day is when he decided to leave the military for he did not want to be on that poncho the next time. Now James found himself in the middle of nowhere, with a fever, and sweating making it impossible to keep food or water down. He attempted to pack his things only shoving the items into whatever hole he could find.   As James attempted to put on his ruck sack he fell to the ground. He reached for his rifle to balance in one hand his crutch with the other. The walking was miserable and the hallucinations came back in full force. He began to see Alex in civilian clothing just pop to his left. What you doing buddy, the hallucination asked. Hey remember that one time at Twenty-nine Palms you went after the fatty. You were so drunk you told me she looked like the hottest girl in the world, Alex went on.

You are not real! You are dead and buried. I know I was the one who buried you home in Kentucky. I watched your casket being lowered into the ground; James went on, yelling at the air. The image changed of Alex in civilian attire to the bloody body that he remembered him last. Eyes white, blood dripping from open wounds, shards of shrapnel sticking out. Would you rather I look like this, Alex asked? No, No, stop haunting me, James yelled. Attempting to swing his crutch at the apparition, only for it disappear and reappear. How can you do that to your best friend James, I was there when your dad died. I flew home with you when you could not do it alone. I was there when you chickened out at the recruiter and asked me to sign up with you. We were brothers not in blood but in friendship and family, Alex went on reminding James. I might as well be a figment of your imagination or am I? James and Alex argued for hours, all the while James continued to hold his course north. One day turned into another Alex became more real to James even convincing him to hug each other only for James to fall flat on his face. Four days into the journey James made head way when he had found a road which was marked Highway eighty-seven. His pack was becoming a burden; his rifle feeling like a ton of bricks, during the journey James body was eating itself from the inside out. He had lost about ten to fifteen pounds and was becoming a skeleton. James saw a sign for Pueblo, Colorado twenty miles ahead when he fell to his knee, then the other knee, and eventually he lay down to die, so he thought. Alex was screaming in his ear. WAKE UP!  

It had been quiet within the last day and James had not heard Alex until now. But now James was not sure whose voice that was screaming. Plus in his condition he did not realize that he was being carted away in an old buggy pulled by a horse. A man was steering while a woman was putting an ivy in his arm. The woman began drawing from a vial of an unknown substance and stuck him in the leg above the infected ankle. Adrenaline rushed to his body and James tried to lunge at the woman but fell back into a slump just as the syringe was removed. James went to sleep not knowing what real or fake. So he slept and he slept like he had not in years. 

While dreaming James recalled his time in boot camp, everything from the first day that he arrived at Parris Island to the hours of in processing to the times being woken up by Drill Instructors with a trash can being tossed into the squad bay. To look back and think that was Hell to only to be living in this nightmare here, and now in the present. He would take back all the times he had to steal something from others to survive to be back in Boot Camp with Alex always doing pranks on him at night when they were in their bunks. James would take all of this back to be on those sandy beaches being smoked for no apparent reason other than the Drill instructors just being bored or someone screwing up. He would take back all the cold sleepless nights in tree trunks and survival shelters for the rifle range and the crucible; in those times that was hard! Now in his current state he was in; he had no control, no apprehension of these people who were good or evil. No sense of trust could or would be found if these people were helping him.