LITMIR.BIZ

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aura along the edges of the black airwars. The aura appeared similar to the corona discharge seen in Kirlian photography. The first group of five passed over the horizontal bodies without incident. As one in a second group began to reach the water ’s edge, three large solid black vans screeched to a halt on the road next to the lake.

      Several militiamen, wearing fatigues with American flag armbands and their faces covered with black sock hats, jumped from the van. The men and women all carried automatic weapons. In unison, the group aimed at an airwar and released a deadly hail of projectiles into the airwar ’s hydrogen sac. The airwar ’s sac immediately caught fire, but not before hundreds of coal-black juveniles released into the air.

      The terrorists continued a stream of fire into the air and juveniles were popping and disappearing like bubbles in the wind. John counted; he could only detect three floating out of range. The burning carcass made John smile even though he knew three more would replace it. Still, he had to admit he enjoyed the show. The “passive warriors” had begun to sit and were screaming profanities at the militia. John thought, perspective is the only difference between a hero and a terrorist.

      As he continued to watch, John felt a deep vibration. As sound added itself to the vibration, he realized it was a large, gray Apache helicopter. He looked forward to seeing more burning airwar carcasses, but the flying vehicle passed several of the black monstrosities without engaging them.

      The “terrorists” were back in their vans as the helicopter approached. Two rockets abruptly fired from the helicopter. One directly hit the middle van, which immediately exploded into a fireball. The other hit the sidewalk, shearing off a hydrant, which resulted in a strange scene of smoke and fire surrounding a fountain of water.

      The other vans, wheels shrieking, sped away in opposite directions. The helicopter followed the left van, creating unusual vortexes in the smoke and spraying water as it passed. Then both the pursuer and pursuee went around a building and were lost to sight, but machine gun fire could be heard for the next few seconds, followed by one explosion.

      Most of the “passive warriors” were now sitting or standing, watching the end of the spectacle. They all seemed to turn as a single unit as one solitary scream pierced the air.

      A twenty-something, red-headed female wearing nothing but an orange headband and a peace sign necklace was entwined in tentacles, but she wasn’t screaming. Her mouth was making movements like a goldfish out of water. No sound, only frothy sputum came from her lips. The scream came from her tall blonde friend who could pass for a runway model. She also wore an identical headband and necklace and stood less than five feet from her entrapped friend.

      The scream was short-lived as tentacles engulfed the blonde. From that point on, it was madness. On one side floated scores of airwars, on the other was the lake, and sandwiched between were hundreds of “passive warriors.” The passive warriors, now no longer passive, were running helter skelter, naked and panicked.

      It was a phantasmagoric dance of black with orange. Adding the running, naked bodies to the dancing colors made John think the sight would have been quite comical, except there were injured and dying people everywhere. John, for a few moments, disassociated himself from the scene, but a shadow passed over him and he realized he was in grave danger himself.

      As with the passive warriors, his position was also between the airwars and the lake. Unlike the others, John ran toward the lake. For him, water was safety. He could easily swim out to the middle, outflank the airwars, then run to safety. He kicked off his flip-flops as he was running and stripped away his light blue shirt. He was still wearing surfing shorts, and this wouldn’t slow him down too much in the water.

      As he ran into the bluish-tinged water, he noticed airwars were floating above the lake, tentacle tips barely touching the lake surface. The airwars weren’t in his planned escape path, though. As his head dipped below the water surface, the screams behind him seemed to vanish into a muffled background of moving water.

      The water enveloped his body, which gave him a sense of security that he didn’t feel on the land. He remembered a poster Cassandra had given him for his birthday, a picture of a swimmer doing butterfly. The inscription read, The meek may inherit the earth, but they’ll never rule the water. The thought of Cassandra and his loss began fueling a raging anger. He lifted his head to get a directional bearing, but all he could see was an advancing curtain of black tentacles. The tentacles parted somewhat, revealing a red inner layer.

      With a defiant curse, he put his head down and swam straight forward, infuriated, toward the red. He had no plan. He was only enraged. He felt a tentacle pass over his back. He waited for stings, but none occurred. Tentacles loosely grabbed at his extremities, but the wetness of his body, coupled with slime on the tentacles, allowed him to release himself easily.

      It was dark in the middle of the airwars tentacles, not pitch black, but like dusk. Only a small amount of reflecting light passed through the hundreds of tentacles.

      Then he heard a sucking sound. A bubble gum pink tentacle with linear striations its entire length, dissimilar to other tentacles, was touching the water ’s surface. It was the diameter of a fire hose, and the base flared like a funnel. The tube’s expanded end engulfed water, and a peristaltic wave carried the water as a one-foot diameter bulge up the tube. It looked like a hanging boa constrictor that swallowed a basketball, and the basketball was ascending through the inside of the snake.

      This must be the central siphon, thought John. He grabbed the tube and figured if he was dying anyway, why not agitate the creature along the way?

      A bolus of water entered the end of the tube just below where John wrapped his arms and now his legs. If I can’t kill it, at least I can make it thirsty, thought John. Instead of blocking the bulge of water, the swelling pushed him up the slippery tube. Riding the wave was like sliding up a fire station pole. After a relatively quick sixty-foot ride, he almost lost his grip when his body slammed into what felt like a giant sac of wet flour.

      He looked over. It was a lifeless, naked man seemingly suspended in air adjacent to the siphon tube. The blow caused the body to rock back and forth in the cradling red tentacles.

      As he passed the body, he looked up and realized he was nearing the end of his ride. The airwar siphon ended in a water storage chamber that resembled a giant pink cow’s udder covered with thousands of narrow elongated teats. It was the size of a large bathtub. Adjacent to it was a large deep purple sphincter, slowly dilating. The sphincter opened into a purple sac-like structure, slightly larger than a minivan.

      On the opposite side was a translucent white five-foot tube, six inches in diameter, which looked like a corrugated drainage pipe. It hung from what appeared to be fleshy bellows the size of an extra large sofa. The tube maintained a pipe-like appearance by rings in the wall along its length. It reminded him of a giant trachea. In man, rings of cartilage support windpipe walls to keep the lumen from collapsing. Air rushed in and out of the tube each time the bellows compressed.

      John realized, when the traveling bulge finally entered the water chamber, he would slide back down the siphon until he hit the next bolus of water. He doubted he’d be able to maintain his grip if this happened. As he reached the base of the water chamber, he let go with one hand and grabbed the air tube.

      Between rings, the translucent membrane was compressible. He pressed down and in with his fingers, getting a grip on one of the rings. The membrane was flexible and didn’t tear. Although rubbery in consistency, it wasn’t slick like the siphon tube.

      As the water entered the chamber, the bulge disappeared, and he started sliding back down. His grip on the air tube stopped his downward progression. He released his other arm and got another handhold on the air tube. Now he lay at an angle under the airwar, hands gripping near the top of the air tube, legs wrapped around the siphon tube.

      He gave a couple of tugs on the air tube and it seemed to be able to support his weight. In one last move, he released his legs and swung entirely to the air tube. He pressed his toes between the membranes above the lowest ring. The bottom ring was thickest; he could rest his entire weight on it securely. He hung there for a moment and thought, now what?

      He

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