Part 2

"We had all but forgotten about the fighting in the excitement of learning and exploring our abilities. We had forgotten other things too. It was at this point too that Brian and his brethren reminded us that there had been another 'missile' when they had arrived, perhaps displaying that they too could keep secrets and behave in a slightly devious manner similar to humankind. In all the excitement and hubbub it had been forgotten by many of us, although we're sure that the CIA had perhaps not forgotten entirely, instead encouraging us to hone our abilities, as usual with an ulterior motive.  

"What the CIA didn't know was what the other UFO had contained, although Brian and his brethren quickly briefed them and brought them up to speed. The other ship had contained another alien species. The other species who'd come down at the same time were similar to the Anou, but far more aggressive and warlike. They were the ones who had crippled Brian's ship, although theirs had also been seriously damaged in the process. Shortly after that we began to get information filtering back to us that showed just how much that would change things.

"They had survived too.

"While we'd been secreted in our mountain fastness, the war had finally halted just north of the 38th Parallel in the summer of '53. The promise of the Soviets not to intervene – well not directly anyway – had been honoured and finally we had fought the North Koreans under the leadership of the ever secretive Kim Il-sung to a standstill. A cautious waving of white flags had followed and a meeting between the Korean/Chinese forces and the UN representatives had been set up. It was then that their secret was unveiled.

"The other aliens had integrated with the Koreans but, rather than becoming symbiotes as they had done with me and the others, they had done so as invaders. They had utterly taken over their hosts but retained their memories, knowledge and abilities. Quickly reading the situation, they had taken over the senior members of the Korean and Chinese governments and whilst pretending to parlay under the flag of treaty had used the situation to kill many members of the senior UN staff in one fell swoop before re-mobilising the combined might of the Korean and Chinese forces to head south of the 38th Parallel and invade South Korea.

"With the sudden loss of their leaders and caught unawares by the surprise attach, the UN forces were unexpectedly on the back foot and were swept inexorably southwards in disarray. Then Russia abruptly renounced the UN utterly and sided with China and Korea, simultaneously a small group of elite enemy soldiers appeared on the battlefield, able to move like ghosts, taking out command centre after command centre before disappearing like wraiths into the night. Chaos was born.

"During this, we continued to mutate and hone our new abilities, although the changes were slowing as time progressed and the melds began to stabilise. In an attempt perhaps to give us some sort of label, the CIA decided to assign us the somewhat grandiose title of Earth Defence Force, even going so far as to produce a rip off the original Lord Kitchener poster of 'Your Country Needs You' with 'EDF' stamped across it. One of the technicians who was a huge comic fan coined us 'supers' although we ourselves preferred the term Melds. The latter name stuck thankfully and suddenly a race of superheroes was born. It was at this point that the CIA decided the Melds should be used in the field and my mentoring days were abruptly halted as the team were reassigned to other duties.

"I was left behind.

"I can only assume that as the only non-US citizen and illegal prisoner, I was still not fully trusted and could not be freed for fear of setting off a diplomatic incident with the UN and UK. As I remained in pampered comfort, the other Melds were deployed into a world swiftly descending into the deepening darkness of another world war, the fighting enveloping more and more countries. South Korea fell, followed quickly by the other island states. China took Japan and then the combined forces of the east moved south to take out the Australian and New Zealand forces who were still staggering under the losses of their troops during World War 2. Russia quickly secured its borders and massed its troops east towards Alaska and Canada and along the western borders of Europe. World War 3 had arrived and the western world was threatened by the gathering storm clouds of war.

"Thankfully for my sanity at the time, the telepathic communications between us all seemed to have no limit to their distance. I was used as an unwilling relay for information to US command. Several of the group had developed the ability to conceal themselves by bending light, or by morphing their form to take on the shape, texture and appearance of their surroundings. They were deployed as spies in the field to try and ascertain the extent of the integration of the alien species into the opposition forces. Others were deployed to shore up failing battle lines, as assassins or in some cases as weapons. Megaton was regularly dropped from planes to land on strategic targets, his invulnerable bulk pulverising enemy targets before he rampaged through the enemy lines spreading terror wherever he went.

"It was the covert Melds who first suggested the assimilation by their ancient enemies of not only Kim Il-sung, but Mao, Stalin and many of the important Generals or leaders of the opposing forces. Whispers of information also confirmed the presence of the elite alien enhanced squad of soldiers that still ripped through the remaining shreds of the UN forces, whispers all too quickly terminated in some instances.

"One particular breed of enemy soldier became a source of dread to the Melds. The Extractors, who did just that, terminating all the Melds they found with brutal efficiency before extracting the crippled symbiant from the cooling brain pan of its host to enable further study and extraction of information. We lost too many, too quickly.

"I felt the death of every single one General, can you imagine that? Can you imagine physically feeling every one of your brothers and sisters die, their pain, their panic? Can you imagine seeing mental images of their loved ones both human and alien flash before your eyes, knowing that you would never see them again and that their families would be left bereft? Even the supposedly indestructible Megaton has gone General. Buried in darkness for long enough to deplete his energy after a building collapsed on him, he was captured, crippled, tortured and his head opened while both he and his symbiant were still alive. He was the best of them, a man with a heart as big as his strength. But there are no more to kill now though are there, sir?"

The last word was spat at the man with the triple stars on his shoulders and Bron reached over once more to lift the glass of water from the table beside him, his hands shaking in anger. He looked up at the scribe who had stopped writing minutes before, tears streaming down her face as he'd described the deaths of his comrades. He made a curious motion with one hand and the tears lifted from her skin leaving her wide eyed, the tear drops dancing gently around in the air before dropping to the floor in a gentle saline rain. A clean handkerchief lifted from his pocket, floating across to present itself to her and she lifted it from the air, nodding her thanks.

"Tears: my dear lady I am sorry I have upset you but I'm glad to see that you still have the facility to cry. So many others don't, like the General here..."

Bron looked over at the General and smiled faintly before twirling a finger, sending a tendril of water looping up from the glass that he still held, a miniature cobra rising from its glassy basket to the call of the mental song that hypnotised it. He clicked his fingers, dropping the water back into glass in a mini-waterfall that exploded back out of the glass in a small mushroom shaped cloud before looking over with a smile at the still hypnotised scribe who watched open-mouthed at the demonstration of his telekinetic powers. He turned abruptly back to face the General however as he heard the unmistakeable click of a hammer being drawn into position on a revolver.

"Ah, thinking with your gun as usual I see. Have you been sent to eliminate me then, or did I finally manage to penetrate that overly thick skin of yours?" said Bron mildly.

He frowned and watched as the hammer moved imperceptibly back as the trigger finger tightened. There was a small gasp of indrawn breath from the watching scribe and then an explosion as the hammer struck the end of the bullet in the chamber. As the smoke cleared, the scribe gasped again, her hand flying to her mouth as she watched ripples spread across Bron's face, the area where the bullet had struck seeming to flow back into place, rebuilding the features in watery landscape before solidifying back to their original shape and form. Guards rushed into the room, weapons levelled at Bron and waiting for the order from the motionless and impassive General. The senior man's finger tightened again, but this time, the hammer moved back into its original position seemingly of its own accord as the General's finger pressed impotently on the now immovable trigger, his gun still pointed at the man in uniform opposite him. Bron frowned again and the soldiers began to slump gently to the floor, unconscious to a man.

"You are out of your depth, sir," Bron said, his expression darkening, lifting a hand to show the bullet held between thumb and forefinger.

As the last of the soldiers was lowered gently and silently to the floor, their weapons stacked neatly in a pile, the General gasped as his right sleeve abruptly dipped, and a pile of dust poured over his crisply ironed uniform onto the floor at his feet. For a few seconds, a ghostly outline of an arm remained hanging in the air as the water that had been extracted from the General's arm hung shimmering in position the gun still held in its liquid grasp, and then that too gently pattered to the floor, the gun floating soundlessly back into it's holster on the man's hip as Bron flicked the bullet to the ground to join the remnants of the General's arm.  

"I have sealed your stump General and removed the pain, shall we continue? Madam, when you're ready?"

White, shaking and cradling the remnants of his arm, the General nodded and Bron took a breath before continuing with his monologue, sending the scribe scrabbling for her pencil with trembling hands.

"That was the point you and your fellows panicked wasn't it General, when the Melds died? Truman started the war, but I suspect that on your advice Eisenhower tried to finish it and deployed the nukes to try and recreate Hiroshima. If you'd asked anyone who'd served in Japan we would have told you that it was a mistake. If you'd asked any of the Melds, they'd have told you the same thing too. But God forbid we should argue with those who push the buttons. Millions have died thanks to you General; you and your trigger happy colleagues. And now you show me pictures of utter destruction; the razed cities, the sprawling dead and burned remnants. To what end? To garner my support for your cause, to convince me that the enemy is still the enemy?

"But the pictures of the dead that you show me are not of the enemy are they General? They're our dead. Alien technology was harvested, used and was able to fling our own weapons back at us. Then lightening fell from the skies and cities burned as bastardised technology and weapons desecrated American soil. Alien technology has given them machines that can fly across the world in the blink of an eye and rain death on your cities. The hallowed American soil despoiled by war.

"And so at the last you come to me; the prisoner, the lost man of war. Only when they are knocking on your very door do you admit that you need help. What do you want me to do General, put out the fires for you?

"It's sad, the meld has meant that although I can control water, all water, the only thing I can't do with it now is cry. I am the most powerful of my race. I can evaporate lakes and boil the water in your blood; I can part the Red Sea, change the tides and create a flood of biblical proportions.

"If I so choose.

"And so we get to the point of this little conversation and recording session: I'll do as you ask General even though you probably don't believe me. I probably would have tried to kill someone like me too, someone of dubious loyalty and questionable sanity, someone with nothing to lose other than the remnants of their pride and memory.

"I will cleanse the world of the bad men and bad things that have brought us to this. I give you my word both as a gentleman and a senior member of the Anou race.

"But I ask you this sir, where do I stop? Who am I to judge who is the enemy?

"I was the first, now I am the last: I am also the only hope for mankind.

"So, I suggest that if you believe in any sort of God, you should get down on your knees and start praying General.

"The tide is changing, I hope you can swim old boy..."

~~~ The End ~~~

The 38th Parallel

by

Gavin Wilson

Wattpad EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

Gavin Wilson on Wattpad

The 38th Parallel                    Copyright © 2012 Gavin Wilson.

All rights reserved.

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