David Golemon - Event

He shook his head trying to clear it.

"Destroyer," Gus said aloud as he looked toward the sunrise, and it was never more welcome than it was this day, because that one word brought a sense of darkness to his soul.

Robert Reese was trying to hold his bladder in check. He had squeezed his eyes shut tight and was hissing between clenched teeth as it had been five long and agonizing minutes since he had begged and pleaded for them to let him urinate. The three men from the club whom Reese had seen on numerous occasions before this awful day had just looked at him and continued playing the same card game they had been playing all night. He had not seen the tall blond man in the eight hours he had been here.

"Come on, man, I have to piss, goddamn it!" he said, trying to keep his voice from having that whining tenor to it.

A heavy set man with a decidedly singular eyebrow looked over and spit his toothpick out, and it landed in Reese's lap. "You gotta piss, you gotta piss, whatya want me to do, hold it for ya?" he sneered.

Reese felt his bladder let go. He thought he could control it enough just to let the pressure off a little, but once he felt the warm trickle of urine soak his underwear and warm his leg and crotch, his bladder hadn't understood at all what the plan had been and it let loose in a flood.

"What the fuck is this?" the man asked, standing and sliding his chair back.

"Look, I just couldn't hold it," Reese said, feeling anger rise. Goddamm it , he thought to himself, someone is making a big fucking mistake. They obviously have me confused with someone else. They wouldn't treat an asset as valuable as an Event Group supervisor like this!

The man stood and started walking toward Reese.

Reese, through his embarrassment, fought with his restraints so he could get loose and strangle this son of a bitch. All he had wanted to do was to get paid for information the corporation had requested, and instead he found himself in some serious shit in a place that scared the hell out of him. Though his anger was blocking a lot of sensory input, he saw the man stop and look over his shoulder. He heard footsteps on the concrete floor, then someone patted his shoulder.

"Good morning, Mr. Reese," the same man he had spoken to last night in the club said in greeting. The brute quickly turned away and went back to the card table.

Reese looked up into that face again. The, man had changed clothes, was now dressed in jeans and a blue, button-down shirt.

"You've had an accident I see. Well, those things will happen at times like this."

"Wh... what... do you want?" Reese desperately tried to sound as indignant as he could, but it came out as a pleading, mewling sound.

The man smiled and patted him on the shoulder again and pursed his lips, then smiled.

"Oh, Mr. Reese, I want so much from you. And you know what?"

Bob Reese just looked up at the man who had made his life into this nightmare.

"You're going to tell me whatever I want to know," the man said in answer to his own question. Then he grabbed one of the chairs near the table and swung it over and sat in it backward, his tanned arms resting on the top of the backrest. "It's going to be hard at first, because you will want to resist. You will think to yourself, 'I'm a man, I should be able to hold out for a while,' but then"--the man looked at the spreading stain of urine on his captive's trousers--"you will tell me all there is to know." Farbeaux reached into his pocket and pulled out a small notebook. He opened it and flipped through a few of the pages. "Now I wish to know the reason for the Group's interest in this most bizarre episode. It must be the technology, am I correct?"

"Look, there has to be a mistake, I have always given you the best information, your superiors will be very angry that I am being treated like this."

"To start with, Mr. Reese, let me introduce myself. My name is not Tallman, it's Colonel Henri Farbeaux. Does this name ring a bell as you Americans say?"

The very moment the man mentioned his name, a slow, crawling coldness came to Reese and he literally felt the blood drain from his face.

The Frenchman smiled and patted Reese's right leg, then held his fingers up and rubbed them together, feeling the wetness. He smiled and gently rubbed them on his captive's shirt.

"To start the morning's festivities, Mr. Reese, tell me of this incident of yesterday in more detail than you did last night." Farbeaux paused a moment to light a cigarette, then blew the smoke toward the ceiling. "I understand from New York that Director Compton has declared an Event scenario. Would this have anything to do with his missing men back in '47, perhaps? But let's not get ahead of ourselves; let's start with this flying saucer, shall we?" Farbeaux asked, knowing that Hendrix had been alerted that the Black Team he had sent here was missing and had undoubtedly ordered another in. Farbeaux knew his time was short.

"Centaurus would never approve of you hurting me," Reese said hurriedly.

Farbeaux smiled. "Robert, I think we'll leave the company out of this one. I'm keeping the information you give me for selfish purposes. Besides, my friend, they have already ordered your termination by others; you're a danger to them now. Your only chance is to convince me of your value. Your reward will not be money, but your very existence. Surely worth the truth, is it not?"

Farbeaux once again patted Reese's leg, then reached out and brought up an unseen leather case and unzipped it. Inside, gleaming in the dim lighting, was a syringe. This he quickly and expertly plunged into a small vial, then he held the needle up and lightly pressed the plunger. A small, thin stream of amber liquid shot into the air.

"Let's begin, shall we?"

Gus was astounded at the scene before him. Scattered from one end of the high rocky valley to the other was what looked like the remains of a plane, a large plane. Material resembling tinfoil was spread in clumps and patterns that suggested it had hit pretty hard and dispersed over the wide area encompassing the valley. He slowly made his way down a small incline, over some large rocks, and entered the valley he had visited a hundred times before. He didn't notice it right off, but the feelings of being alone and afraid had ceased as soon as he'd gained a foothold on the rock-and debris-strewn soil. A slight breeze ruffled some of the metal and produced whispered whistles that seemed to penetrate to the core of the old man's being. The area reminded him of a ghost town, only this wasn't one made up of buildings and streets, but of wreckage on a mountain reputed to be haunted.

"Hello!" he called out into the valley.

Two pairs of eyes watched as Gus stood and waited for an answer. The large eyes of the small visitor were blinking rapidly in terror at the approach of the man. The other, smaller pair of eyes watched malevolently. They never left the man as he examined the wreckage. It growled deep in its throat. The small clear yellowish claws scraped the rock it leaned against.

Gus stepped farther into the debris field and carefully nudged a piece of the twisted metal with the toe of his boot It was maybe five feet by four feet and seemed extremely light. He bent over and ran a finger over the surface of the bright silvery material. It was cool to the touch despite the rising sun's reflecting off it. As Gus curled his fingers around it and lifted, he expected one end to come up, but when the entire piece lifted off the ground, he was so surprised he dropped it again. It seemed to float down and landed softly on top of his right boot. He jerked his foot out from under with a small yelp escaping his lips. He then nervously looked at some of the other bright pieces of material around him, and that was when he noticed that hardly any of the objects had escaped the violent crash unscathed.