Skyfire (28 page)

              Trent felt his ankle grabbed. He lost his balance, falling face-first on the floor, barely breaking the fall with his right forearm.  “Fuck! Karl!”  The grip felt the same as when the soldier had attacked him at Firebase Liberty.  Screeches and pained groans followed as his assailant clawed up his back.  Without hesitation, Trent grabbed the assailant’s arm, brought it down elbow-first onto his right shoulder and rotated to position himself on top of the attacker. 

              “Oh, shit!”  Karl ran towards Trent.

              “MotherFUCKER!”  Trent had adrenaline working for him.  He  stepped over his attacker’s left leg and placed his right knee on his belly, pushing aside the man’s flailing arms.  He then snaked his right leg along the man’s abdomen and mounted him. 
What now, fucking shit-heel?  You’re haircut’s stupid. 
Trent entered a trance–like state.  He instinctively postured up and punched downward with alternating strikes. 
Left.  Right.  Left.  Left.  Right.  FUCK!  MY GODDAMN HAND!   
Trent transitioned to alternating elbow strikes.  He kept going for what seemed like forever.  The hissing and screeching was now masked by gurgling blood.

              Trent was back in the dusty red compound with the dead goats and Jameson. 
I’m losing it.  Am I dead!  Is this what happens before you change?  You start seeing your own personal nightmare? 

              “Baby, go into the room at the end.  Stay in the present moment.  Don’t let your mind wander.  You must keep going.  Don’t doubt yourself!” 

              “Emma, where the fuck are you?  Is this real?”

              “Concentrate.  The shack.  We’ll work together.”

              “How did I get here?  Why am I in a uniform?  I don’t get it!”

              “GO, TRENT.”

              Trent’s stomach dropped.  He was terrified.  He knew this shack.  It was from his past, but he couldn’t pinpoint it in his present state.  “Baby, I’m in a uniform.  Where’s my rifle?  I can’t do anything without a fucking rifle!” 

              “Honey, you need to shut up and go into that shack.  Trust me, baby.  I love you.”  Emma’s last sentence had an odd metallic tone, similar to the low-pitched hum he’d heard during the first blackout with Jessica. 

              I’m doing this.  I’m doing it. 
Trent saw that the small padlock on the shack was undone.  He took a deep breath and slowly pushed the door open.  Inside it was pitch black. 
Fuck it.  I’m scared to death of heights and being shot at, but I jumped out of planes and ran into gunfire.  This ain’t shit.  Right?

              “Go in, Trent,” Emma once again prompted.

              Trent stepped inside. 
What the fuck?
 
This room is bigger on the inside than on the outside! 
He shook his head and tried to refocus.  It didn’t work.  Finally, something clicked. 

             
“This is my next thing,” Trent said.

             
“What do you mean?  You’re on the right track,” said Emma.

              “This is my next thing.  I haven’t been this scared in fifteen years.  It almost feels… good.  I know what I need to do now.”

              “That’s why I married you.  Good luck, baby.”

              “Wait! Don’t go!  I need you to-” 

              “GO!”  Emma’s voice dissipated into a metallic, low-pitched hum.

              Trent felt a jolt of adrenaline he hadn’t felt in years.  He proceeded into the large, open room.  Dark, featureless, vibrating bodies hung from meat hooks.  They swayed back and forth, reddish moonlit ash falling on their skin.  Some of the bodies lay on the ground.  Upon closer inspection, they weren’t just shady and dusty.  They had the same fractal appearance as the golden-spiral pattern hovering above the financial district. 
Holy shit.  I get it now.  I’m in their goddamn world!  Why would an advanced intelligence’s world look like a mix between a meat packing plant, Iraq, and a warehouse?

             
Trent heard moaning in the back of the room.  The moonlight barely illuminated his path.  He slowly stepped over the dusty fractal bodies lying on the ground and approached the moaning. 
This is so familiar.  Why can’t I place it? 
The moonlight presented the outline of what appeared to be a bed with someone lying in it. 
I can’t see anything!  What the fuck am I doing here?  Emma! 

             
“I need light!  Please, give me light!”  Immediately a beam of dark red light shone on the bed.  The bed was still obscured by dust, but was now slightly visible.  A man in a traditional white Arab dishdasha lay in the bed with leather straps binding his wrists and ankles.  The straps were tightly fastened and ran underneath the bed to prevent the man from moving.  The man writhed in pain, whimpering.  No recognizable language came out of his mouth.  He appeared to be sixty to seventy years old.  His teeth were rotted and the stench of his bad breath filled the room, complemented by the smell of the soiled bed and excrement-covered clothing. 
Holy shit, I remember now.  I’ve been here.
 

              A man tapped Trent on the shoulder. He spoke Arabic. Trent, for some reason, understood perfectly.  “What will you do this time?” the man asked.

              “Who the fuck are you?”

              “I’m you,” replied the man.  He was in his forties, dressed in pristine clothes designed to show his wealth.  He had the arrogance of a sheik who simply patronized the most recent invading army. 

              “Fuck no you’re not!  You’re that guy who lived in the ‘1 March’ neighborhood of Baghdad who was torturing his own father!” 
OK,  be like Emma.  She’s a complete hippie.  Keep an open mind.  This is happening for a reason.

             
“Silly American.  We went through this a decade ago!  This is not torture.  This is the compassion of Allah, the one true God of Heaven and Earth.  I feed him and give him a place to sleep.  He’s crazy.  What else do you do with crazy people?”

              “That’s right.  Your name is Sheik Abdullah.  We meet again.  How’ve you been?”

              “I’ve been fine, Lieutenant Hughes.  How is New York City?  Not so good right now, I’d imagine…” 

             
This motherfucker. 
“Careful, Sheik Abdullah.”

              “Or what?  You’ll do nothing again?”

              “You do realize you’re inflicting pain on this man?  How can you do this to your own father?”               

              “My friend.  We discussed this before!  Come inside, we’ll sit down and have tea and discuss this.”

              “Fuck your tea!  This man is a human being!  Your own fucking father!  What the hell is wrong with you?  How can you profess to be a servant of the God of Love?”

              “He is crazy.”

              “He is deaf, blind, and can’t speak!  That doesn’t mean crazy!  I bet he wasn’t before you got to him.  You turned him into this because it was convenient.  Don’t fucking talk to me about God’s compassion, you little shit!  There IS no god!” 

              The man stared back at Trent.

              Trent’s eyes began to tear.  “I’m taking you with me.  I might not know what the fuck to charge you with, but your ass is going to Abu Ghraib, scumbag.”

              “On what authority you stupid, young, weak American?  You have nothing.  This is how we deal with those who should be dead!  This man is lucky I didn’t kill him when he became useless!  He knows the way of things!”

              The old man urinated in his clothing.  He wailed like a child.

              “You fucking piece of shit.  Abdullah, he’s in there!  YOU made him into this!  Your own father!”

              “OK, Lieutenant.  So what are you going to do?”

             
So we’ve distilled it down to this, have we?
  Trent looked around.  He looked at his hands.  He looked at the uniform he wore.  He looked at the sheik and then again at the man writhing in pain on the bed. 

              Emma returned.  “Honey, what is the right thing to do?  I promise you’re not a monster like you think you are.  You have a chance to fix this.  Time is NOT what you think it is.  Don’t worry about what everyone else will think.  Don’t worry about your career. Don’t worry about your soldiers not thinking you have what it takes to do what’s needed.  Don’t worry about anything except the compassion you should have for this poor, poor man.  You know what you need to do.  Harness your demon and become an angel for this man.  Turn your curse into a blessing.  I love you, baby.”

              “Abdullah, you’re coming with me.  You know that AK next to your closet on the right side of your sitting room?  The one that’s irresponsibly locked and loaded and leaned against the TV where you play your shitty Syrian MTV?  Yeah, well, you shot at us with it, and now you’re going to jail forever because I fucking said so.”

              “You amateur!  I’ve seen you be crueler than THAT, Trent!  Come, now!  Put your money where your mouth is!” 

             
Fuck.  I’m doing this, aren’t I? 

              “Trent, honey, you KNOW what you need to do.  Harness your demon.  This is your chance.”

             
Fuck it. 
Trent looked the sheik in the eyes.  The sheik smiled, as if he knew what was about to happen.  With lightning-fast speed, Trent dropped his right knee. 
Magical “X,” right between his legs. 
His knee hit the mark perfectly, putting Trent’s head and right shoulder up against the sheik’s waist and upper thighs.  Trent grabbed the sheik’s lower thighs behind the knees and exploded upward with ferocity.  The sheik flew up three feet in the air and then came crashing down on his left side.  Trent mounted him above the waist and began delivering elbows.             

              “Is this what you wanted?  Is it?”  Tears streamed down Trent’s face as he bludgeoned the sheik with alternating elbow strikes.  The sheik could only gurgle in response. 
What am I doing?  My elbows are starting to hurt.
  The gurgling stopped.  The man’s head was an unrecognizable pile of swelling, blood, and brain matter.  Trent stared down at the corpse, breathing heavily.               

              “You did it!  Now help this poor man!”  said Emma.             

              Trent ran over to the man and unbuckled the straps.  The man sat up, hugged Trent and wept. 
Why the fuck am I crying too?  This is just some dirty haaji!  I don’t get like this around these animals!

             
“You always knew, Trent.  Always,” said Emma.

              “Knew what?  Why can’t I see you, baby?  Where are you?  Please…”

              “You’ve always known that we’re all just people.  Why do you think coming home was so hard for you?  People like you aren’t meant to go around hurting people.”

              “I just killed this man with my elbows!”  said Trent.

              “What man?” 

              The sheik’s corpse faded into the dusty fractal darkness.  Trent was now standing over empty space. 

              “What the hell is going on, Emma?”

              “If it isn’t this hard to do violence, you should never be in a position to do violence.  Violence is a tool that needs to be employed with the utmost circumspection.  You have the skill set to do violence and the circumspection not to go around imposing your will on others just because they’re weaker.  It’s supposed to be hard to hurt people, baby.”

              “I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore.  Can’t we just go back to the way things were?” 

              “Trent, listen.  You need to be strong.  You can’t stop fighting yet.  You need to pick yourself back up and move on.  A lot of people are counting on you.  Think more highly of yourself.  Do you have any idea how many people look up to you?”

              Trent was silent.

              “You think of yourself as a drunk trying to repent for sins to a god that doesn’t even exist.  You do realize all the weight that comes with the territory, right?  Not everyone can carry the burden.  You are normal.  Everything is going to be OK.  Just keep fighting.  I’ll always be with you.  Always.”  The reddish light coming through the dust transitioned to a lighter blue.  A new, unfamiliar feeling began to replace the looming dread Trent had felt every second of his life.  The storm outside began to subside, and the dusty figures on the meat hooks dissipated into nothingness, just like the sheik’s corpse.

              “Baby I have one question.”

              “What is it, my love?”

              “Where am I right now?”             

              “You’re wherever you want to be.  Forgive yourself, learn from your mistakes, and move on.  I love you.  Aim your demon, baby.  Truly release yourself.”

              With that final thought, Trent was thrust back into the Hall of Armored Dinosaurs. 

              “Trent, stop it!”  Karl grabbed Trent by the armpits and dragged him away from the mess that was once a human being.  This time the human didn’t disappear.  It was simply a bloody pile of meat with a caved-in face.