What's that? No way!

Perception leads the way over the ridge as Valid follows rifle in hand. They hold the formation of closely packed single file. The pavement ended back one mile as they stepped over the curb into the brush. Now they dodged trees and avoided twigs when able to; however, not all sounds could be diminished. They were taking quick steps, afraid the truck would leave with the weapon and they almost climbed the ridge when the cannon fired again. They froze; both followed the arc of the plasma, almost in awe of its beautiful destructive power. Valid interrupted Perception with a radio pop and they were soon again moving. Both knew time was not on their side.

“Gotta move faster,” Valid gasped, “not sure when that thing will leave.” Perception responded,

“Trust me, they’re not going anywhere right now, they have to wait for that weapon to cool.” Plasma was indeed a powerful energy source, but the resulting heat from a cannon firing prevented plasma from being more widely used. All generals agreed on its capabilities and were nearly succinct on the fact that they didn’t need burned soldiers in battle. One injured soldier had to be taken care of by two others: that took bodies off the field of battle. Valid is the weapons expert of the two though, however plasma based weapons were not in her crash course. They needed results fast not an expert on all subjects.

“Ah, forgive me. Plasma based weapons are not a forte of mine,” Valid replies with a smart tone. At a young age, Valid took up a liking for projectile based weapons. She argued that beam weapons, although exempt from wind, reveal your position far too easily. Feeling that lean towards bullets led her to be the sniper she is today: sneaky and accurate with a deadly touch. Perception froze as his mind was cluttered with noise. The noise, while difficult to negotiate, always had a story.

“Simple,” he stated. Valid took a kneel next to him and she looked up.

“When is it ever simple ‘Cepty?” This was her nickname for Perception. They first met in Davenport, Georgia. Valid used to read for hours in this one particular coffee house in Davenport until her mind hurt. One dull night she passed the register to leave and she received a snide comment from the customer standing there at the register. The customer stated, “early in the night to be leaving, with a beautiful girl like you, can’t have that boring of a night.” Valid shot him a look as she opened the door to walk next door to her car. The customer followed as the Baristas gave odd looks. “Why you walkin away baby,” the southern accent poured out of his mouth, “the night is just getting started, I just arrived.” His arms now perpendicular to his hips gave him almost a welcoming body gesture.

“Sorry, I don’t respond the assholes,” Valid’s heart was pumping as they both were in the parking lot now. She noticed his gait increased almost to a run, while processing this he had already caught up to her. The customer grabbed Valid’s arm as to spin her around. She felt this and let him spin her, the momentum created allowed her fist to be thrown into his face. At the last moment, the customer ducked in front of her attempt to cause pain.

“Who the hell are you,” infuriated Valid tackled the man and straddled him. She was about to deliver a blow until he spoke up. Laughing, the man spoke.

“Wow, better than I expected.” Puzzled, she threw herself into a flip to right herself. He continued, “Not everyone can fight like that.” Valid felt the need to use “it”. She never quite knew what “it” was but despite that fact, “it” gave her great power to suck the truth from people she felt angered towards.

Clinching her fist towards him she used her ability, “who are you?” Perception didn’t want to respond but he felt this force grab his insides and tug; almost ripping his spine from his body, of course this was far from the truth. It compelled him to speak.

“I’m looking for you; in fact, I found you. I’m Perception.” She lets him go enabling him to speak for himself. Out of breath Perception felt like his insides were beaten. “You know, I could be mad at you; I’m not though because I knew this was going to happen as soon as you walked past me in the shop.” Thirsty for more information Valid thrusts out her hand towards Perception; he pleads, “I’ll tell you more, just don’t do that again; kind of hurts.” He elaborates on finding her, how he was looking for her. He’s been on the road for six months searching for her. Explains how his power affects him; explains the difference. “So I plead with you, come with me and you can learn how to harness your power.”

“How can I know you’re honest, you’re a stranger to me.” Valid locks eyes with him and drifts closer. She’s close now with her warm breath whipping at this chin. “So, how can I know?”

“Well, not sure what your test is.” Perception says this as his skin, sweating now, sticks to this shirt. Valid contemplates this new knowledge, and she decides to question.

“What test?”

“Well, most folks have a test,” he leans towards her, “a test for trust.” Eyes locked she speaks again and her breath, cold now, rolls to his ears.

“I’ll go,” she whispers.

Crouching behind the bush now, Valid annoyed, views Perception. “You done yet,” he looks up and shakes the cloudiness from his head. Knowing his “perceptions” are annoying to her, he quickly validates his vision.

“Five men on the other side of the truck,” he goes on, “in fact, I’m willing to bet they’re smoking or goofing around.” Valid sees the truck through her scope and confirms it. She sees the tops of the helmets of the enemy on the other side.

“Correct, should I bless them with my presence?”

Perception, always annoyed with her wanting to kill something, but thankful for her skill states, “well that’s not what we want right now, we don’t want a presence. I’m going to go down and grab someone, when I do that, come down. We’ll need you to tear the truth out of them Valid.” She nods and waits while Perception makes his way down the mountainside.

“Not lit up like our last area,” she mutters then flips on the night vision, NV for short, “always better.” She presses her headset and whispers into it, “God’s looking out for you.”

Happy To Be Here

The ship arrived overhead, and Valid immediately took cover as did Jarod. However, Perception did not, instead he stared at it. Shook his head and said "they already saw us, no point in hiding."

Responding, "I don't care it just scared me!" Valid was out of breath from yelling at him. The ship floated, and came to a stop. As soon as movement ceased the ship ejected a small craft. The craft, small and mobile flew towards Valid, Perception, and Jarod. Swift in its presence the ship stopped above them and floated down. Landing, the door flew open and out walked two figures. The three pointed weapons at them, but soon recognized the figures; general Frank and Commander Thomas. All slapped their legs together and gave the general attention.

Thomas quite annoyed about the attention but accepts it. "At ease soldiers" suprised at the fact that even knowing all three they give him complete respect. "I know right now you all are confused on what to do" he continues, "Valid's mission was to extract you all to this location." Nodding, Valid agrees to this statement. "You three work together seamlessly and we've called on you many of times to quell violence, enemies and other things" Thomas goes on, "we need something else of you." Interested, they all lean forward slightly. "Your names mean something as they correspond with your power," Thomas looks at Valid and winks, "Perception you can see things in other places and Valid you can rip the truth out of many a man." Looking at Jarod, "and you, well you're just an ogre and we love that." Thomas sums it up, "You three need to find an individual named Vitiate."


Jarod sees this pain, "what, a bloody man, you call us the best but we have to find a man?" Valid and Perception nod in agreement. Thomas stares at Jarod and makes him nod in agreement.

"Good, you all know your parts." Commander Thomas gets back into the shuttle and General Franks added something.

"Don't fail, we know you'll be fine." Franks hops into the shuttle with Thomas. The shuttle rises and jets back into the ship. Perception looks at Valid, laughs and walks to the gun box.

"You knew this was going to happen" Perception questions Valid, "but you were scared; nice."

The Store

Gunfire ripped through the metal leaving outward craters. Jarod, leaning around the car, had the foe in sight. An old jeep with a cannon, strapped to the back, let out shots bucking the jeep from side to side. Jarod, about to lean around and take a pot shot, was grabbed on the shoulder by Perception. "I wouldn't do that, unless you won't chicken soup for a face." Jarod looked at Perception and gave him an awkward glare, but when doing so a shell hit where Jarod would have leaned out. "Told yeah, Jarod you may want to start listening to me," Perception gave him the look of disappointment. When saying that, a large roar came from overhead, pushing both men's backs into the burning car. A jet shaped like a large V appeared, all black with no noticeable lines. The radio on Perceptions shoulder came to life.

"Two four two, Bravo six, we see your position," the radio yelled, "proceeding with counter strike." The aircraft ripped out a large missle from it's under-belly and then banked right. Streaming into the air the missle was vectored towards the Jeep. Seeing this, the pilots of the Jeep screamed the tires into the asphalt, but the action was little too late. All the men felt was the intense heat from the explosion as the Jeep was lit up, lifted off the ground for a half second, then dropped back down. Parts fell off, burning and smelting into liquid from the intense heat. "Confirm target was neutralized," the radio again belched.

"Target silenced Bravo six, thanks and good hunting," Perception announced. Relief filled both men, as the fight was over; however small, significant. "Just going to get harder from here out, hope your aim is good Jarod."

"Of course, bloody boys with the toy guns, no match," Jarod defending himself, cocked his large rail gun. "Time to get up and look at this store, cut the shut Perception, lets go." Mentioning his name, brought him back into reality. Perception viewed Jarod walking into the store, and he jumped to his feet, running into the store with him. Immediately when arriving they saw what caused the explosion, the shattered cylinder lay amongst the charred bodies. The charred bodies where small, lined up as to leave the store. It hit Perception like a shot in the head, this may not have been a store. Jarod called him over, and he knew what he had to do. Perception reached for the shattered cylinder; he dove into the depths of another vision.

He viewed the children, playing and laughing, going amongst others screaming and running. As he saw this, attention caught him, a man with a bag handed it to an elder worker. The man pointed at one of the children, and spoke to the woman. The woman nodding her head agreeably, turned and walked towards the child, she looked once again at the door to view the man. He was gone, not considering the gift anything substantial, the elder shook her head walking towards the child. The child ran towards her, seeing the bag was for him, and started to rip it open. His hands grabbed the bag, the bag blew a bright light and enveloped the child. In an instant, daycare was gone. Perception jumped back into reality with a cold sweat down his back, shuttering he looked a Jarod. "Fucking daycare, a bloody goddamn daycare!" He screamed towards Jarod, "children man!"

Jarod suprised by his outburst, "what happened?"

"This was a daycare, and a man blew it to shit." Perception tightened his fist as anger overwhelmed him. Another cold shiver took enveloped him as a whisper took over his body.

"Calm down, you boys can't hack this. Let me handle this one," the voice was cold as it drafted into his ear. Yet sweet and soft, like a bow string just plucked. Perception calmed when hearing this, knowing the sound of the voice.

"Ah Valid, who would have known, you showing up at such a scene," Perception turning and facing her, "so what's the news today?"

Valid, responding to the criticism, "well today we have a daycare torn to bits." Continuing, "tomorrow, who knows, maybe a school." Valid views Perception, and kicks her short red hair behind the ear. Looking downwards, Valid concedes and gets closer to Perception; touching his chest Valid continues, "I'm here for you all, here to help."

Responding, Jarod yells across the room, "or maybe you were just ordered here!" Valid gives Jarod a shot and looks at Perception again.

"Nonetheless, we gotta go." Valid reached towards her radio and called the dropship. "We have orders, something else has popped up," Valid insisted and walked towards the center of the street. Right then the dropship flew in, short stubby wings with the back wide open. The marine pointed the rear turret at them, they hop in the back and Valid, Perception, and Jarod sit down. Valid stares into Perception's eyes, "god I missed this."

"Missed what?" Perception questioned.

"Flying and killing with you, ah too much time spent away," Valid responded. The dropship banked to the right, and the marine let the turret rip loose. The pilot came onto the intercom, "folks seems we've run into some 'hostile' ground fire." The pilot laughing turned off the intercom, and Jarod had to add something.

"While you two love birds share memories," Jarod now smoking his cigar again thick with an accent, "we do have a fucking mission that I know nothing about." Cocking his head towards Valid, "Mind telling us what we are freaking doing?" Valid looked at him curiously, the ship bucked hard to the rear. The marine luckily was held on by a harness, Jarod was not so lucky. Jarod flew and hit the ceiling. Knocked unconscious Jarod started to slide out the back. Perception lunged towards his body, grabbing it before it went too far.

"Not so fast Jarod," Perception said grunting while pulling him back to safety. Valid looked at Perception and gave off a grunt, all while she held on for dear life. The ship, now turning was low to the ground, and it hovered above an empty parking deck. Losing altitude the ship slowly descended to a park. The marine viewed Jarod.

"Taking a little nap on the job." The marine laughed as Perception lifted him on his shoulders. They hopped out, the same time Valid pushed a large crate off the back.

"Weapons," she says, "kind of need them to blow stuff up." She smiled while saying this. Perception looked at Jarod as he gently layed him down on the platform behind a crate. He slapped Jarod in the face and Jarod woke immediately.

"What happened son?" Jarod looked confused and dazed. They both heard the cold sound of a sliding rifle bolt as it slid the bullet into the chamber.

Valid, holding her scoped weapon, smirked at both Jarod and Perception. "You boys ready to rumble, cause we have incoming." She pointed towards the sky, a shadow was casted on the ground around them as the ship came into view.

Barrier Court Road, or Is It Lane?

Jarod and Perception were both young partners in crime; they grew up together you know. Jarod grew to be a man with not many morals, a wild card one could say. An excellent marksman, but suave to know that sometimes brute force was the best option. Jarod was around six feet, weighing in at 220 pounds; many had made the mistake to think that was all hulk not genuine mobility. Lets just say, the local bars don't allow him in. He specialized in brute force, and was inducted into the program at the age of thirteen. They found no specialty in him, he was quickly revoked. However, he met a young man named Perception. He and Perception met one day in a store. It all started with Perception cutting in line.

"Hey, that's my spot sir," Jarod wailed. Perception was new to Jarod, and it bothered the boy, why he cut in line. Jarod reached for Perception's shoulder as to turn him around. As Jarod initiated he was stunned by his remark.

"Wouldn't quite do that right now," Perception exclaimed, "I know what you're going to do now: turn me around and wail me." Jarod, taken aback, withdrew his hand.

"How did you do that, just know my position?" Perception turned around and said this:

"I see a future together, you and I, a future bright with destruction and closeness." Perception closed his mouth and turned around again, waiting for the line to move.


Greedy for knowledge Jarod questioned, thick in his accent, "well how do you know that, we may be just runnin into each other." He felt strange, like this encounter was supposed to happen.

"I saw it," He turned around once again and approached Jarod. Standing an inch shorter one would think nothing like this would come to pass, but it did. The amazing thing is the fact that Jarod felt that this was true.

"Who are you?" Jarod once again questioning fate.

"I'm a future friend"

"Really, who says?"

"Fate, the name is Perception."

"Jarod," pointing to himself.

"I know."

"How?"

"I perceive, see into the future and other places." He goes on, "I saw you in a dream, your name and how we met." Jarod is now suprised, guess others did not wash out of the program. The, Noble Cause.

Looking at Perception, gun in hand, Jarod crouches behind a burning car. Hot to the touch, no matter, only cover for yards. The store, where the explosion racked, only meters away. Perception leading, was about to dash across the narrow alleyway, that's when the gunfire started.

Short Story

The Noble Cause

"So this cause is a noble one" Jarod says "one told throughout generations to the young ones, one can call all of them: children." That was what they used to be called: children. Now the upper class, the top, call them aliens. Creatures from the mother's womb, but they call their own children. Just not the lower class; the class below them is vile now. Jarod continues heavy in his drunken accent, "would you want to know what this, noble cause is?"

The man named Perception listens on, but is jarred back into reality by Jarod's cold breath. "Oh what's that again?," Perception not really caring what happens to the children. "I just need sleep, it's getting late," walking to the bedroom he turns around and says, "you know, what is this 'noble cause'?" Jarod, excited that Perception cares, wisks himself off the couch and towards Perception.

When arriving to Perception his eyes seemed fraudulent, "it's a noble cause because we will stop it all, stop all the violence and hate." He goes on telling about the dreams hes been having, and about how he is the greatest; how he will stop it all. Walking into the bedroom, Perception, collapses onto the bed while tripping over his night shoes. He doesn't care, as sleep soon overwhelms him.

The alarm sounds with the earsplitting ring of torturous bells on a Sunday morning. Groaning, Perception is jolted into reality and awakes with a long yawn. He flips on the television and the news once again, never missing a beat, reports the horrors of the world. Through the static the TV buzzes, "9:34 this morning, a young woman walked into a market and detonated a personal bomb strapped to her chest." He watches intently as the voice, heavy with a British accent, goes on, "there is no known motive at this time; however authorities cite the fact that the girl has close ties to.." The voice trails off as Perception gets ready for the day.

Saying to himself, "what will I do today?" He ponders this fact and the idea pops into his mind about how he could rob a bank. Chuckling to himself and walking to the door he says aloud, "Jarod, I'm leaving buddy!" Jarod is jarred into reality not knowing where he is. His orientation soon comes and realizes someone is calling his name. Recognizing the voice, he dresses and falls down the stairs all while sipping coffee.

"I'm here," Jarod exclaims, "no need for medics." Humored by his joke, he gets into the car. The car is an old 91 Toyota Tercel, with a green paint job lacking the critique of a clean car. Its previous owner was good to it, as it is almost new. They leave the driveway with Perception behind the wheel, Jarod lazily flops his head onto the window. Turning the car onto Barrier Court road, there is a block: traffic. He sighs at this new revelation, realizing he'll have to drive past this obstacle.

"Fucking traffic," Perception claims with his thick accent. Annoyed and rolling his eyes, he looks towards Jarod, "never ends you know, just keeps building up." Putting his head onto the window, he observes the traffic flowing every so slowly. Noticing people exiting their cars and running, he is alert and wakes Jarod. "What do you think," he says excited and eyes flaring. Jarod was about to say something, but the pressure from the shock wave was too great as the explosion from the store ripped the words out of his mouth. The windshield cracked and then shattered, Perception had enough, he bounced out of the car and headed towards the rear. Jarod did the same and joined Perception behind the vehicle. "You know, bloody traffic and the whole thing rips to shit," Jarod pops the trunk and reveals a cache of body armor, and weapons of some sort. Mostly assault rifles and grenades, with lots of ammunition. Jarod picks up a rifle, grenade, and armor; hands it to Perception. He arms himself as well.

Jarod takes a swig from the canteen, "so you ready for this?" he says.

Perception knows, it isn't water, "let me have some of that." He wipes the drink off his lip, as the liquid burns his insides, and gives the signal to go. They make from car to car examining the insides all while people fly by screaming. Some bloody others limping to safety.

"What the hell happened?" Jarod's musky accent shined through the chaos. Perception smiled all while they rushed to the next car. A wail sounded on the other side of this car. Both rounded the car pointing weapons at the sound. Both clenched their jaws tight, all while they simultaneously shouldered their weapons. They dropped a knee next to the boy, blood bubbling out of his abdomen, lifted him up until his lower torso dropped to the ground. Yelping, the boy closed his eyes and dove into the long sleep. "Better that he died you know," he rationalized his thoughts and tucked away his emotions.

"We need to move," Perception grabbed Jarod all while another explosion rocked Barrier Court.

So an Experiment with the Life

So, here we are at the wall. "Doesn't mean we can't try Jackson?" The boy asks, irritated by my presence.

"So an experiment has arisen for myself." I say, as I think quickly to come up with something else.
"What Jackson, an experiment?" He sits, head in hands, looks up and gazes."Why yes, mad science you know? Messing with those nuerons." I go on thinking of ways to go about this. Ah, Kelly Baker the other contributor, she recommended this for me.
"So how do we get around this wall?" He asks in vain. As I make him realize there is no getting around.
"Climbing. The only way, Kelly's going to help me." I look over, as she sits across the room staring at me.
Kelly goes on to say, "yeah, we think alike." Ah, good play my dear . My mind races to think of the next thing to say. I make it up.
"Yeah, this is an experiment. One to commit and challenge each other to having short falls, success, failures." I view her with those challenging blue eyes, as they never give in to anything. Except maybe love.
"I'll win you know," accepting this challenge she gazes on. "I always do Jackson, rowers always win." That smile gives me a wink, she disappears into the dark.
"Wow, a competition? Didn't know that, I'm not competing." I wonder, as the boy who is now silent goes with Kelly, why telling about life is a challenge. "Guess it is hard." One ponders about telling about a journey that is so great, that not even a story can capture it. I guess I'll try. I walk into the dark, following Kelly and the boy thinking and pondering for my next story.