The DX Chronicles (Book 1): Not Against Flesh and Blood Read online

  NOT AGAINST FLESH AND BLOOD

  Brian E. Cody

  Not Against Flesh and Blood

  Copyright 2012 Brian Edward Cody

  ISBN-13: 978-1502904294

  ISBN-10: 1502904292

  All Rights Reserved.

  Disclaimer:

  The primary characters in this novel, though based on real individuals, are but imperfect caricatures exaggerated for this work of fiction. Said characters’ actions, mannerisms, and psychological make-ups should not be taken as representative of their originals.

  Contents:

  Essay

  August 2009

  Chapter One

  January 2010

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  February 2010

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  April 2010

  Chapter Fourteen

  May 2010

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  [A Novel]

  An Essay on (Super)Men

  For the entirety of recorded human history and across a thousand cultures and tongues, there persisted a few individuals marked as being different from common man. Called titans, gods, and then demigods by various peoples from times immemorial; and then witches and saints by the medieval Christians, they existed on the fringe of humanity, rarely making themselves known unless the situation called upon them or they themselves yearned for glory. Sometimes, they were valiant warriors proving to be the saviors of nations and peoples; other times, they were warlords voracious for foes whom they could proclaim worthy of their challenge; sometimes, monstrosities cursed and thirsting for blood; and, sometimes, those monstrosities’ fellers and the restorers of order. Regardless of their names, of their languages, or of their calling, they persisted, most often, with a title bestowed upon them; most often, they were called “heroes.” Their origins were debated, their myths told and retold, and their destinies predicted and sometimes foretold, but their nature remained as enigmatic as the faculties they bore.

  ‘They’re human’, proclaimed the theologians, ‘more human than modern man. The last few diminished remnants and weakened glimpses of the might that the first two human progenitors bore while they walked alongside of an omnipotent Creator…’

  ‘They’re human’, proclaimed the naturalists, ‘a better and fitter offshoot, able to use the totality of man’s cunning without the frailties within man’s body, and able to defend himself and then to survive in an increasingly hostile environment…’

  Scores upon scores of theories were formed over the span of humanity’s existence, and as the numbers of those individuals increased, and their acts became more fantastic, they gained acknowledgement through the centuries, through the birthing of nations, and through the founding of newer cultures.

  Then came the Second World War, when a crippled America struggled with the majority of its men overseas. They moved to maintain order and to preserve the peace of its citizens, and, until the 1950s, continued with greater praise lauded to them.

  They vanished.

  Some noticed, but, overtime, they were forgotten. Their existence was denied, and their identities were withheld, and, with other, more human problems plaguing the world in the succeeding decades, their stories became myth, and the heroes themselves—once endowed protectors—blended into normality.

  “For our struggle is…”

  August 2009

  Chapter One: Wednesday, 5 August

  “Turning off-road…now.”

  “Roger that”, he replied, while his ski mask rubbed across his radio and produced an undercurrent of static. He lowered the radio into a holster across from the passenger seat, where it jounced. He then looked past the dashboard as the three black SUVs in front of him dropped onto an unlit, dirt path that snaked into the forest. He then looked over his seat, past the three men sitting behind him with rifles clasped, and to three more identical SUVs following them. His own vehicle jerked and swayed from the uneven road, and he squinted as the headlights of the following SUVs flashed in front of him, while they also dropped onto the path.

  He lifted his radio and spoke: “Kill the lights.” In a simultaneous flash, the headlights of the seven SUVs deactivated, while the drivers reached to the tops of their heads and lowered the bloated shapes of night-vision goggles. “ETA?” he asked as he faced forward, reached to his right, and pulled out a semiautomatic handgun.

  “Ten minutes, sir”, the driver answered.

  “Good”, the passenger replied.

  “Sir, if I might add…”—the driver glanced to the passenger—”this is it. If our intel is correct, and if we’ve done everything right, this is it. By the end of the night, sir, you’ll have caught Richie the Worm.”

  “Russia, Brasil, even China—Richie had connections in a dozen countries with murky extradition treaties, but the place he chooses to set up shop in is a safe house in central Virginia… I almost feel slighted, but still…I look forward to it.” The masked man cocked his weapon and placed it in a holster on his Kevlar vest. He then pulled out a wireless headset from his left which he slid under his mask, pressed into his ear, and activated with a flick. “Handler”, he spoke into the headset. “This is ‘Senior’; confirm location of assets.”

  “Roger that, Senior”, a male voice, both groaning and sighing, replied. “Shooter, verify location…”

  ***

  “‘Shooter’ reporting in”, was muttered as the scope against his right eye was adjusted. “Currently in designated roost”, he added as he looked past a sloping, forested expanse to the peak of a graveled hill and the one-story building crowning it. “Two hundred yards southwest of enemy compound”, he finished as he focused on the floodlights hanging above the building’s doorway and painting the cream walls and green roof with a bland hue.

  “Shooter, can you confirm the number of individuals within the compound’s perimeter?” Senior inquired.

  “Roger that.” Shooter lowered his rifle to his side while the branch upon which he knelt jostled from his weight, and while small portions of debris fluttered to the ground fifty feet below. He stood, for a moment, to his 5'6" height before kneeling once more and spreading his legs. He lifted his rifle, causing it to slide against his vest, and motioned it back to his right eye. He zoomed. First scanning the building’s sides, he pinpointed one individual to its left. “One.” He motioned his rifle to the far right, pinpointing another diagonal to the doorway, “two.” He lowered his scope towards the edge of the clearing where a third individual appeared from alongside of the road while zipping his pants. “I count three—no, wait.” Shooter motioned his rifle towards the front of the building, where, from the doorway, exited a fourth individual. “Senior, this is Shooter, confirming four individuals on the outside of the compound.”

  “Roger that, Shooter”, Senior replied. “Handler, confirm location of second asset.”

  “Understood”, Handler replied. “‘Gerica’, verify location.”

  “No!” was groaned, while passing gusts echoed in the backdrop and intermingled with roaring flames.

  “I’m sorry?” Senior inquired.

  “With all due respect, sir and Handler”, was spoken, while susurrat
ing leaves intermingled with his words, “I refuse to be called by that codename.”

  “Out of the question”, Handler replied. “It’s the codename you were assigned, and it’s the codename you’re going to go by.”

  ***

  “It’s literally three letters from my real last name!” a slender 5'7" man dressed in a black ski mask and an all-black outfit exclaimed as he paced along the second-to-last branch of another fir tree.

  “Gerica, that’s not something you announce over a radio”, Senior replied.

  “And, again, it’s the codename you were assigned”, Handler continued.

  “Okay, fine”, Gerica huffed with a flail of his arms, “hypothetically speaking, if my last name were ‘Garcia’, I’d be pissed because the codename which the gold-standard of American law enforcement (that we call the FBI) has given me is literally three letters away from being my last name! Why can’t I be ‘Rufio’? I’ve put in the request half a dozen times! It works because (hypothetically speaking) if I were of Asian descent and had dark-tan skin, my resemblance would be pretty uncanny to the beloved film character.”

  “Gerica, we’ll discuss the pros and cons of radio communication with you, later; for now, confirm your location”, Senior groaned.

  “All right, sir; but you think about that name change.” Gerica looked ahead as he paced along the branch. While scanning the forest, the crepuscular horizon, and the obfuscate sky, he strode towards the branch’s edge, stopped as the branch jostled from his weight, and started in the opposite direction. “Yep, trees”, he muttered, the claps and clops of two yard-long cylinders hanging from his hips sounding with his words. “Oh, a hill.” He stopped and turned to the compound. “Yep, that’s it. I’m three hundred or so yards southeast of the Worm’s ‘cave’.”

  “You sound so sure of yourself”, Handler groaned. “Shooter, can you confirm Gerica’s location?”

  “Location confirmed.” Gerica turned westward and looked to the kneeling silhouette facing his direction from three hundred yards off. “He, like myself, is standing at the top of a tree a fair distance from the compound.”

  Gerica then waved and looked back to the compound. “Permission to engage the four guys outside”, he requested while crossing his arms.

  “Permission denied”, Senior groaned. “Gerica, I will not stress this again: you are here as back-up for the back-up. The only time you are allowed to act is if Richie the Worm somehow slaughters our entire force—myself included, because that would mean that I’m not around to deny your request. Now, can you locate the road?”

  Gerica turned from the compound, scanned the underlying forest, and pinpointed a linear break in the canopy. “Road located”, he humphed as he pocketed his hands.

  “And can you locate our convoy?”

  “I see one, maybe two puffs of dust rising six hundred yards from the start of Interstate 81.”

  ***

  “Good”, Senior replied. “That’s not us; we’re passing you now.” Senior turned to the driver and peeked over the dashboard to watch the increasing glow of the compound’s floodlights. He grabbed the radio while lifting the bottom of his mask, and placed it across from his mouth. “Activate lights, accelerate before coming to a stop, and form a semicircle no farther than ten yards from the front door.” As he finished, the three SUVs in front of him erupted with accelerative roars, while their lights flashed into activation. Then, one by one, the three vehicles jolted up a smoothened rise and positioned themselves at the bottom of the hillside.

  In unison, the four individuals outside of the building tensed as the three SUVs rushed into view. Before those men could move, the three vehicles slanted from the house and then swerved to a halt. The onlooking men stepped back as the passenger sides of the three vehicles were flung ajar and as the stomps of a dozen pairs of boots clamored along the ground. Two of those men reached for their pockets, but, at the same moment, a dozen firearms were slammed onto the hoods of the SUVs and aimed at them.

  “FBI—drop your weapon!” was roared half a dozen times from those officers. The ambushed men, dressed only in scuffed outfits with pistols on their sides, were still amidst the audible barrage, first glancing to one another and then looking to the line of high-powered rifles forward on them. Two, in breathless synchrony, fell to their knees, then placed their hands onto their heads, and then collapsed onto their stomachs. The third followed a moment after, while the fourth, even as the majority of those firearms and those vocal commands were focused upon him, remained still, shivering and gasping as his hands tingled. He reached.

  In the same instant that he grabbed his firearm, three separate shots, from three separate locations, were pealed within his ears. As he yanked his weapon from his holster, he was pierced, with those miniscule darts carving through his torso, and, as he felt them breach from his flesh, he found himself spinning and plunging. He fell.

  ***

  “That kid couldn’t have been older than twenty”, Shooter groaned as he looked to the body and the crimson spew emptying from it.

  “It’s always the young ones”, Gerica replied. “They feel invincible. To be fair, we do too.”

  “Shooter, fill me in”, Handler called.

  “Three guards have been apprehended”, Shooter replied as he watched armored officers drag the men towards the police line. “The idiot-fourth-one was nullified. The second and third waves are parking behind the initial wave, and it looks like Special Agent in…I mean…’Senior’… Senior is disembarking and making his way towards the front of the police line…”

  “Roger that…”

  ***

  “Get your riot shields ready”, Senior called. “Agent Hugo will lead the charge; assume that these men are armed and dangerous; if they do not comply, you have authorization from the United States government to shoot them. Go, move!”

  A dozen men bearing riot shields and pistols darted for the house and split into two groups alongside of the door. One officer wielding a battering ram then ran to the door and swung. In a clap of deformed metal and sundered wood, the doorway was forced ajar, and the twelve men stormed through the entrance and bolted down a thirty-foot hall.

  “Everybody on the ground!” one officer bellowed as he turned to a branching corridor on the left which held three more men, who dropped their firearms. The remainder of the group pressed on, with their interspersed stomps rumbling along the linoleum floor, the clanks of their shields echoing off of the walls, and the huffs of their breaths drawing towards a metal doorway at the hall’s end.

  “Battering ram!” another officer called as the group halted in front of the doorway. Once more, the officer carrying the molded iron rushed past the mass of shields, stepped to the entrance, and slammed it against where there would have been a handle. The entrance jolted, the metal cratered, but the door held firm. The officer swung a second and then a third time, but the entrance held.

  ***

  “The back door won’t budge.”

  Senior leaned back and huffed through his nostrils as those words pulsed through his radio. Looking around while standing at the head of the police formation, he lowered the radio, then, watching as the additional suspects were led out of the compound, he crossed his arms. “Use the C4.”

  “Roger that.”

  ***

  “Get the C4 ready!” the leading officer ordered. He turned back to the metal entrance. “This is your final warning! Explosives will be implemented if you do not come out with your hands on your head!” The hall silenced as the extraction team awaited a verbal response. After several seconds, a momentary clatter sounded beyond the doorway—the muffled taps of footsteps—but it was replaced by silence. Behind the officer, another stepped into view with a small container marked with a warning label. That officer crept towards the door and opened the container to extrude a portion of milky-white clay. He knelt to stick the clay to the surrounding doorframe but stopped as footsteps once more sounded beyond it. He stood and stepped back as
he heard the increasing volume of those paces, and he signaled to the officers behind him, prompting them to raise their weapons and inch towards the door. He stepped back, and they stepped forward. They maneuvered past him, placing their shields in front of him, and took a second step as the footsteps rose. They stepped a third time, and the lead officer inhaled. He stepped a fourth time—five feet from the door—but, before he could produce either an order or an inquiry, the door was blasted from its hinges.

  Three were mowed as the hundred-pound entrance slammed into and drove them to the floor. The remaining officers backed away, while, before them, a figure dressed in blue sprinted behind the loosed door, caught it by its sides, and darted.

  “Fire!”

  A semiautomatic blaze cannoned against but was repelled by the metal slab. The blue-dressed individual moved unharmed and undeterred, using that doorway to batter past additional men and to stomp over their outstretched and stunned forms, while the paces of two more sounded after him.

  “Pull back!”

  The remaining officers fled, but the door-holding sprinter kept pace with them; then, in a horizontal jolt, accelerated to mow down three more; then, as the remaining force came to the front entrance, the sprinter accelerated, wound back, and let fly.

  In a blast of strewn debris and spiraling bodies, the metal doorway tore through the front entrance, bounced for thirty feet, and landed alongside of pummeled officers. As the individuals within the blockade recoiled behind their vehicles, the assailant landed across from their lines and reared up. A man of average height and physiognomy, he stood adorned in a one-piece, form-fitting, cerulean suit with a discernible weave. He leered with fists clasped, while two more leapt and landed behind him, one also of average build, and the other of a more tone musculature; and with both adorned in the same outfit.