Ghost Flyers-Original fiction

[Skeet]

This story was my very first venture into the world of writing in 2001 long before the dreaded 9-11-2001 disaster. Boy, as I look back I see how much I have learned! I didn’t have a clue! But I was willing to try and this quick short story was the result. It is sci-fi but an original story. It has been expanded a lot since then and I intended to make a short novella of it ala ‘twilight zone’. Then I started the ‘Ruination’ and ‘Universe of Change’ series. This will be a dark, horror type story.

I would like for you to read this and evaluate it in terms of interests, quality (yeah, right-this portion is not as important yet) and of course practicality. Over my winter break I will rip this apart and probably do a full novel while I’m still doing fanfiction.

First is this worth pursuing? What defense would you come up with in trying to defend against something like this? What suggestions would you have on improving this? (Not style as I have changed radically there). You people have read tons of stories so you have a feel about what is or is not acceptable in a story like this.

As a horror story I believe that it would have potential, but I am prejudiced here so I don’t fully count.

Please: opinions, comments suggestions and critiques would be appreciated. Thanks.
AlbertG



Ghost Flyers
ASSUMPTIONS: Second draft
< Feb. 21, 2001@uic.edu>
Secretary Thomas Schenck:
(Year: June 2005)

In my excitement I handed (well actually, I almost threw) the report, to President Kenilworth before I even sat down. And in his eagerness, he almost snatched it from my hand, which was in itself unusual, as I considered him the personification of control. Few things really faze him, not even when his son had that life threatening surgery two years earlier. A few minutes later, he gave it back and motioned for me to read it to the others. Normally as Secretary of State, I wouldn’t do this but these were hardly ‘normal times’ and we were on a tight, tight schedule. Besides decorum was at a minimum since we could be under attack at any moment.

They weren’t going to like what I had so say.

I hadn’t been this shaken since the attacks began, so to keep from humiliating myself, I took a deep, deep breath, wet my lips and begin to speak. “Mr. President, Senators, ladies and gentlemen, I am reading to you case number AGR211 of the ISAR (International Shark Attack Reports), classified as an unprovoked shark attack on June 23, 1995. A large shark believed to be Carcharodon Carcharis, or Great White, attacked and killed Jeanette Stanback, age thirty four, in three to four feet of water at Volusia County beach, in Volusia County, Florida, eight-fifty p.m. eastern standard time. Conditions at the time, temperature: eighty-two degrees F, with moderately choppy water and visibility at one half mile. Several eyewitnesses’ reported seeing the shark pulling the victim into deep water. However, the primary eyewitness, a twelve-year-old boy, was the only witness reportedly to have observed the shark actually striking the victim. He insisted that the woman was at least twenty feet from the edge of the surf during the time of the attack. He also stated that the blue colored shark seemed to float across the beach, almost like a plane -that was his exact description- to strike then pulled the struggling victim back towards the water. Due to his description of the shark, its color, and other improbable statements, his account was considered to be the result of trauma induced hysteria and discarded.

“Initial investigation presented no concrete evidence of an attack, but the victim’s car, parked at the Volusia Beach Recreational Parking lot and subsequently vandalized two days later, was taken to the Volusia City police pound. Continuing investigations placed the victim at the beach during the time of the attack. Other than the victim’s purse found some thirty feet from the surf, no evidence of a body was found. ISAR investigators concluded that, despite the boy’s eyewitness account, the victim must have been attacked in no less than three feet of water, within five to seven feet from the beach, grabbed and pulled into deeper water.”

The conclusion was obvious and it was this realization that frightened me so very much. I took another breath and continued. “They were wrong. Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, this report is evidence of the first known, or should I say documented, Ghost Flyer attack.

“They’ve been with us for years.”

* * *

“My God”, I whispered as I looked into the mirror for perhaps the fifth time. Carefully, I fingered the top-secret report in my left hand while trying desperately to keep my right from shaking. If anyone had told me that I would have aged this much in three years being Secretary of State, I would have laughed in their face, politely of course, but in their face nevertheless. But now, I was laughing at myself and I wasn’t sure if it was because of the expanding horror of it all or because I was slowly losing my sanity. “My God, what have we done?” I whispered again.

They call this the Freedom SL1 building, designed for high-level security in case of civil unrest for branches of the Executive, Military, Judicial and legislature. I must admit, for a security enclave it is truly gorgeous -a perfect example of our tax dollars at work. Freedom SL1 was sound proof, radiation proof, resistant to electromagnetic pulsation, with four-foot titanium re-enforced walls covered with the latest stealth materials. This donut shaped place couldn’t quite handle an atomic blast, but then it wasn’t designed to. But it could handle everything else, or so we hoped. Our NORAD Mountain facility proved to be a deathtrap and no one wanted to be inside a mountain of stone when the Ghost Flyers were hunting. Now they’re assuming that this facility will do better. Personally, I couldn’t imagine any place would be considered safe anymore with these things loose.

In the Executive restroom, I read the official reports once more while trying to relieve myself. In the last three days over four thousand people had officially ‘disappeared’ due to Ghost Flyer attacks in the United States alone. It’s a load of bull. The actual count must be at least three to four times that amount. At this time we have no true idea how many people were killed. Every country in the world has united against this threat even though most of them still have no clue as to its true nature.

There was a plague loose upon this earth.

One of my aides, ever searching for me of course, tracked me to the restroom where I had secreted myself. I hope he’d come to relieve himself also, but no such luck. Quietly he announced himself. “Mr. Secretary?” For some unknown reason, I laughed. Well actually, it was more of a giggle and when he got no answer, he said a little louder, “Secretary Schenck? They’re waiting. The meeting is beginning.”

“Oh? I’ll be there in a moment.” I turned to my aide and looked into the young man’s worried face. “You know that I didn’t always look like this,” I told him. “I mean look at me. I have the face of a sixty-year-old man in the body of a fifty-year-old. I guess that’s what happens when you're faced with the end of the world.”

My trusty aide said nothing, but his face was aghast, literally paling before my eyes. “I see I’ve made your day, haven’t I?” I laughed again as we walked out the door towards the inner chamber hall. Two security guards and several scientists accompanied us through the large double doors.

What a sight! Every single individual from the President on down to the junior aides carried weapons. Paranoid Army Rangers provided security for the members at this meeting and for once they were more concerned about what could slip in as opposed the average person with a forty-five strapped to his or her side. Everyone was tense because an attack could occur from any direction, at any time, in any place and the resulting death would be very unpleasant.

-So much for us feeling secure.

“We’ve really fallen into the toilet this time,” I said to no one in particular. I was beginning to talk to myself out loud, always a bad sign. Sitting down, I opened the secured folder in front of me and began re-reading the report. Next to me sat Dr. Harriet Lasurdo, Head of Marine biology at the San Diego Institute of Maine Studies and next to her was Dr. Gene Porter, the leading expert in the newly developed Portal Technologies, Inc. Sitting near the President were the Chiefs of Staff, General Sandstone, representatives of the CIA, and two high-ranking FBI officials? There were others, but with the exception of Dr. Craig Lawson, from Chicago, I didn’t know who they were, yet. To the right of President Kenilworth sat Dr. Han Shang Tsiao, Director of the Colorado Lancet Particle Accelerator Lab, the place where this nightmare began fifteen years ago. I judged him to be in his fifties, bald (bad toupee) with large bloodshot eyes. He shifted constantly, unused to carrying a firearm, but too fearful to set aside.

“Wise man,” I thought as Dr. Tsiao began.

“I’m sure everybody’s read the detailed report by now, so I’ll present a quick summation. Approximately fifteen years ago we activated our newest particle accelerator. At that time, if you remember, several scientists were concerned and theorized that we could unintentionally create a miniature Black hole that would suck the planet into its gravity well when we powered up. That didn’t happen,” he said.

I could hear the contempt in his voice. Those same scientists had almost shut the project down before it began and he had fought tooth and nail against that, finally discrediting them in order to complete the project. It was the better political fights I’d seen in a long time. Obviously, the man was still carrying a lot of bitterness.

“We didn’t destroy the world,” he said, laughing slightly. “What we did unintentionally create,” he continued,”was a portal or doorway to another world, the greatest discovery of our time. From our initial studies we believed that this planet was essentially another Earth located in a parallel dimension, as opposed to simply some distant planet in our own galaxy. We named this planet Aquaterra since it appeared to be a mostly water-covered world. We accidentally discovered that we could transport objects through the doorway on a one way trip to the planet by simply moving things through the portal’s event horizon.”

Accidentally my foot. They had begun throwing objects through the portal just to see what would happen.

“In order to study Aquaterra,” he continued, “and learn more about this planet, several unmanned subs were transferred through the doorway, but were immediately lost to us, as we were unable to establish two way communications with them. Looking directly through the portal, we could receive images transmitted from the subs, but we couldn’t transmit instructions and thus, we eventually lost contact. But what we did observe astounded us.

“And of course, we needed to see more.”

“Yes, yes, that is old hat. It’s all in the report,” the President said. “Are you trying to tell us that these things are from Aquaterra? How did they get here?”

President Kenilworth voiced exactly what I suspected. These creatures had to be from Aquaterra. “We believe that these creatures are not from Aquaterra,” Tsiao sighed. “Please remember that our technology is limited in this area. It was a whole New World and we couldn’t explore it properly. There was unimagined aquatic life there. There were simple fish, other things we recognized, and then there were animals that we’re still trying to catalog. Eventually we used one of our modified submersibles programmed to act as a stationary satellite next to the exit horizon, while we decided how to proceed with the explorations.

“Since the portal is one way, a manned expedition was out of the question. So we decided to use Carcharodon Carcharis equipped with the newly developed cataract eye cams, nicknamed CEC. When connected to the shark’s nervous system, CEC’s ran on bioelectric energy and as long as the shark was alive, the CEC’s would function. CEC range maxed out at over 300 kilometers and could be picked up by the sub. The images were displayed on a continuous screen which we could physically see and record from the event horizon.”

“You used animals?” President Kenilworth screamed. He’d beaten me to it. They used animals. “What kind of animals? Sharks!” I couldn’t believe they would do something like this. I was shocked as Tsiao answered the President’s questions in the affirmative.

However, a moment later, I remembered that scientists were especially weak when it came to exploring new realms. Also, this is exactly what some covert government agency would do. Something about a possible threat assessment. Besides we really did want to know what was on the other side.

Meanwhile the President was raving. Obviously no one had told him about this, and now he was about to receive the Big Stick because of those omissions. I felt a little sorry for him, but at this point, I was more concerned about being eaten.

“My god man,” the President hissed. “What about the environmental impact of sending our animals into their world?” We could have sent a plague to that world! And why were Great Whites used?” I noticed that the President began to calm down. I never ceased to be amazed as to how he could do that. “Why not some smaller animal?”


Dr. Tsiao cleared his throat before continuing. I guess he was nervous and he should have been. I would have been if I were in his rapidly shrinking shoes.

“It was assumed," he continued, “that Carcharodon would probably not survive more than a few days in this new environment. But because of their size they would have a better chance against any unknown predators that we hadn’t previously seen. It was assumed that they would have increased range, and we would therefore see more of this New World. Five were sent, two survived the transit and lived for about two years,” he said proudly. He turned looking at the President squarely in the eye, justifying his actions in the name of science.

Fool.

You know, I’m constantly amazed at how quickly I change my opinions these days. Now, if he were smart he would tactfully redirect the subject.

“We kept that part of our explorations quiet so that the environmentalist wouldn’t tie us up in courts for the next ten years,” he said, still defending himself. Moreover, the man was right. The potential for cross contamination would be unbelievable. No self-respecting biologist, environmentalist, scientist or whatever, would have sanctioned a project like that without considerable environmental impact studies. But there was another point and I remembered it well. We, the People, needed to see what was on the other side. We needed to know.

“In any case,” he continued, “the experiment was such a success that we sent over fifty sharks through the portal. For some reason, only twenty-two made the jump. The others were lost, or so we believed. It was assumed that that they were lost in some void but they weren’t. About eight years ago, imaging discovered a dolphin like species that appeared to be the dominant life form on the planet. It was being attacked by a Carcharodon variant, very similar to one of ours”.

“That’s when the military got involved.”

I had to say something. “So, you're telling me we started a war with these dolphins?” My voice was cold, cold.

“Cetaceanoids,” Dr. Lasurdo said, correcting me. I liked this woman. She was smart and pleasant. A quite attractive blond I must say, even if she was a little short. And her voice didn’t grate on me like Tsiao’s. “No, we didn’t. The sharks did. Thousands of them.”

That floored me. But due to the numbers, it couldn’t be ours. It wasn’t our fault and that made me feel better.

“Excuse me, thousands of them?” The President couldn’t believe what he was hearing and neither did the rest of us. “I thought that we sent only about fifteen?” I hate it when he says ‘we’. ‘We’ didn’t cause this horror, although ‘we’ had to clean it up. I’m glad ‘we’ didn’t cause this mess. “They couldn’t have multiplied that fast,” he said as he squeezed his fists until his knuckles popped. “What did you people do?” What gave you the right to infect that planet with one of the most dangerous creatures on Earth?”

Dr Tsiao snapped back as if slapped. “We didn’t, Sir,” he answered indignantly. “The sharks we assumed were dead were still alive in the void. Those sharks that attacked the Dolphinoids are not the Carcharodon we sent over.”

“So what happened?” The President’s voice had become a low growl and he took on a menace I hadn’t been aware of before. “Did the dolphins modify the sharks and send them back to us? Are we in a state of war with another planet?”

“No. We believe that there are life forms in that void between the two worlds that somehow joined and mutated those Carcharodon, causing the problems we have now.” This Carcharodon variant is totally different from our own marine species.”

“Then it is our fault,” I murmured. Dr. Tsiao evidently heard me because he gave me this dirty look as though I had personally accused him. He was right and I did feel this way, so I did the only thing I could at this point in time. I stared at him back with an equally dirty look.

“Mr. President, everyone,” Dr. Lasurdo said, “we have three video clips to show. The first one was taken eight years ago.”

[Skeet]

I remember seeing those images a lifetime ago. There was this shining jewel-like city, with the dolphin-like creatures swimming everywhere. They were fellow intelligent life forms. That city was the main reason why we sent so many probes to their world. We had attempted peaceful contact. With their presence, we knew we weren’t alone.

It was magnificent.

But these fools sent sharks. Lord, save us from well-intentioned scientists!

Meanwhile everyone turned to stare at the wall-sized screen. Dr. Lasurdo cleared her throat and began. “One of the second set of survivors, USGW13, swam to within 3 kilometers of what can only describe as an underwater city, created by the Cetaceanoids. They were already under attack and we surmise that those flashes of light are energy weapons of some sort, possibly laser.”

The beams were extraordinarily bright and I wondered just how much heat was being generated as they defended themselves. And if they took chances boiling their own life support it showed how truly desperate they were. This wasn’t encouraging at all, not at all.

“Notice the bluish energy bubbles surrounding the city?”

“Yes,” General Sandstone said. “It’s the same thing as those seen around the New York and Chicago areas. Those are definitely dimensional phasing of the sharks.”

“They’re not sharks and we must stop thinking of them as such,” Harriet responded harshly, and she was absolutely correct. I resolved to think of these things as alien predators. Then she added, “to think of them as such is to sub-consciously place them into the marine category and this species is certainly not limited to aquatic environments. These creatures are multi-dimensional, variable corporeal, apex-class, predatory organisms.”

“Then what do you want to call them, Anti-corporeal organisms, ACO’s?” It was obvious to everybody who’d seen that stupid little exchange that General Sandstone understood what Harriet was describing. But his need for short idioms was getting the better of him. He seemed rather please with the name he’d just given them. I guess it gave him some measure of control in an otherwise untenable situation. Maybe he wished to break some of the tension in the room. I believe that we should just call them ‘Ghost Flyers’ like everyone else but we won’t, because we’re the Government.

“I don’t know. Oh forget it, call them intra-dimensional organism!” Her voice squeaked. It would have been funny if the situation hadn’t been so dire. “As we have seen, those ‘bubbles’ protect them from direct contact with weapons used by the Aquaterrans. It also allowed them to shift into their world. And ours also,” she added. “In our world, sharks and dolphins are natural enemies. I speculate that these intra-dimensional organisms found the perfect feeding ground and went for it.”

I watched the exchange with some amusement. All this information and we’re trying to access blame. We’re responsible for the destruction of a race but we’ve spent more time categorizing these things than we have mourning for a race we are responsible for destroying. We committed genocide. But since they’re just fish, we really don’t consider them worthy of consideration since we’re now in their position. We’ve become the equivalent of shrimp dinners.

Turning, I observed the President furiously typing into his PC. Is my glorious leader going to order a nuclear sub, along with the crew, packed with nuclear weapons, on a one-way trip into the void? I wonder how we’d stuff a submarine into the accelerator portal in the middle of Colorado. That would make an interesting project. Meanwhile Harriet was continuing and I now had to force myself to again concentrate on what she was saying.

“If we can penetrate the protective bubble, then evidence indicates that we can hurt them.”

“The Cetaceanoids appeared to have fairly sophisticated weaponry, which didn’t do any good, because they were still overwhelmed.” The General rubbed his face as he continued. “Right now, we’re doing as well as they did.”

Which meant that anything we did was worse than useless. Rather than voicing that depressing comment I changed tack instead. “I have a basic question," I said. “We talked about it before but the answer wasn’t clear. There were only twenty-eight sharks or so and eight years is not long enough to create an army to overwhelm a dolphin civilization smart enough to equip themselves with energy weapons. We’re missing a few points here ladies and gentlemen.” By their looks no one had a clue as to how this happened which didn’t surprise me, but it didn’t matter, since I wanted them to focus on the source of these creatures. This was such an obvious point that I was surprised that they hadn't considered the ramifications of these Ghost Flyers literally out-producing us.

“I will answer your question, Mr. Secretary, shortly when we discuss the autopsy reports. These intra-dimensional organisms are different from anything that exists on Earth,” Dr. Lasurdo replied. “We believe that they were modified in the void.”

“You mean mutated, don’t you,” Dr. Lawson asked. This was the first time he had spoken. He was a professor from University of Illinois at Chicago. He appeared a quiet man but he had the most intense eyes I had ever seen. But the way he said that one statement indicated to me that this man needed to be listened to. When the time came.

“ No, not in the sense I believe you mean,” she responded. “I would say it was more like a genetic restructuring, maybe even genetic engineering that occurred in the void itself. I believe that we can preclude this being a natural occurrence.”

Then he asked another more basic question. “Then what is the void and what’s in it?”

Dr. Porter answered this time. No doubt about it, the man was a genius but I suspected he was just a tad too young for this project. The man simply tried to hard to please us when what we really wanted someone to get the job done, which in this case was to permanently close the void off from Earth. “The void is described as that area which exists between Earth and Aquaterra. We assumed that it was simple, empty space but subsequent testing, due to the crisis, have caused us to re-evaluate our initial assumptions. We have discovered that the void is hostile to organic life, but the Great whites obviously survived their experiences for a significant period of time. There are previously undetected life forms present in the void that have somehow joined with the Great Whites, converting them into these organisms we see now. The process in which this occurred is unknown at this time. It could be a form of symbiosis, in which the Great Whites could free the creatures trapped in the void and they in turn would allow the Great Whites to survive and manipulate the void as we’ve see. The void entities may simply be acting from instinct, joining with the marine creatures to explore outside their environments.”

“That’s a pretty big leap of logic!”

“But it seems to fit our hypothesis at this point in time,” Tsiao said. “The Carcharodon variants can manipulate the void and phase into our world at will and there is a reasonable probability that they got this ability from the beings located in the void. These beings may have for the first time, discovered an existence outside the void and began investigating it, joining or engineering the Carcharodon variants to do so.”

“But, is such a thing possible?” I asked.

“If they do it, it is.”
________________________________________________________________________
“Can we communicate with these beings?” The president asked, which was a good question. If we could, any more bloodshed could possibly be averted. I thank God I’m not in his shoes at this time. He looks more stressed now then he did when we discovered that that certain strain of the AIDS virus had mutated into a highly virulent, contagious, airborne organism in southern Bangladesh. I remember the pain in his eyes we he ordered those villages sterilized.

“No. Not at this time.” Dr. Porter answered quietly. I noticed that each time he spoke, his face flushed and those piercing blue eyes simply made his nervousness more pronounced. As I watched him I realized that this is a man who should never play poker. I realized that I had to focus on what he was saying again. That was becoming harder and harder to do. “They’re almost completely outside our frame of reference and there’s a good possibility that they are not intelligent, as we understand intelligence to be. Personally I suspect these creatures are not intelligent. We are dealing with million year old instincts modified by unknown alien life forms.”

“Whether they are or not, intelligence is not a factor here,” Dr. Dr. Lawson said. I watched him as he took the measure of everyone in the room. Being the only African American in the room, he kind of stood out even though he seemed like an average college professor to me. I did know that Dr. Tsiao didn’t like him because of their earlier arguments of instinct versus intelligence. And that Dr. Lawson had observed the Chicago attack first hand across from John Hancock Building. They fought over perceived theory versus observed fact. It was a small thing really, but small things can make people adversaries for life.

Egos! What can I say?


“Don’t assume,” he continued, “that because these animals are similar to our own in that they’re simply mindless beasts that we need to prevail against.” Looking directly at the President, he eased into his explanation. I suppose he felt some comfort in that. I wish I could feel that way. “Let me explain what I mean,” he stated. “Paleontologists assume that because the large apex predators such as Tyrannosaurs and some of the newly discovered species from Africa had relatively small brain cases they were relatively stupid. This is another one of those logical but foolish assumptions based on limited knowledge of bone structure and theory related to our present knowledge and understanding. The dinosauroids survived millions of years with those tiny brains. We believed that man uses approximately twenty to twenty-five percent of our brainpower. It is just as likely that those dinosaurs could have used their smaller brains more efficiently, possibly fifty to sixty percent. How would that have affected their intelligence? Would they be able to do math? Probably not, but who really knows? There could have been species that were intelligent enough to perform math. Paleontologist may not have found the remains of those species yet.”

Indeed, he had a point.

“In any case, these sharks have only to be smarter than the prey they’re hunting. If we can’t defend ourselves against them then our so-called intelligence will mean absolutely nothing. We can’t hide and at this point we can’t fight back and right now that makes them genius. ”

“Gentlemen,” Dr. Lasurdo said, again pointing to the screen. She wanted us focused on the present situation, not speculative theory, at least not at this time. “The second video clip was recorded three weeks later. As you can see, the dolphin species have discovered the satellite sub. Our experts believe that they were trying to communicate with us.”

The clip showed two Dolphinoids staring intently and mouthing frantically into the video lens system. They looked much like our species except their eyes appeared larger and their front ‘fins’ ended with what appeared to be true fingers and dual thumbs. They had dual blowholes and their eye ridges looked thicker. They also didn’t seem to have that perpetual smile that our species seem to have. There was, of course, no sound but for the life of me they appeared to be screaming. Then one of the creatures proceeded to thrust a form of written script at the lens. The script was on some type of portable computer monitor. That is was some sort of computer was unmistakable. And for some reason that hurt me even more because they were capable producing of such things. The ocean water was crystal clear so the video was able to record a flash of movement behind the two dolphins. We saw three more dolphins each griping some type of apparatus. They appeared to be guarding the two Dolphinoids that were trying to communicate with the sub. Suddenly all of them became agitated and the screen momentarily blanked out as laser fire erupted from what were now obliviously weapons. The two Dolphinoids desperately resumed pointing at their script. A moment, later they disappeared in a flash of blood and teeth.
Again I was stunned at the ferociousness of the attack. I felt my heart trying to seize up. I knew that this was some type of primal response and I didn’t like it one bit. How could the rest of these people see something like this and not be frightened to their cores?

Meanwhile, Dr. Porter’s face flushed with realization. “My God! They were trying to surrender! They thought we were responsible. “They blamed us for the war!”

“And they were right,” I stated flatly. !” Even an idiot could see that. At the very least they were trying to communicate with those they considered their conquerors. I could see that it made him sick. Good. Due to National Security, he’d never seen those tapes. I felt sorry for him, but I was touched at his reaction. He had feelings for something outside himself. We would need that in the future. “It wasn’t our fault but we are most definitely responsible for this, this genocide.” That was the best word I could come up with. It seemed appropriate.

“Gentlemen, that’s in the past now. It’s the present we have to be concerned about,” Dr. Tsiao said again, pointing to the now blank screen. “This third video was taken two days ago during the attack in Chicago. It’s the first confirmation of the enemy we’re fighting. We don’t have an accurate count as of yet, but it’s estimated that between four to five thousand people were taken. The unofficial count may be five to six times that high. We’re…not sure yet. ”

“This is also where we acquired our first and so far, only specimen,” Dr. Lasurdo added quickly cutting Dr. Tsiao off. I saw that he really didn’t like that. I also saw that she really didn’t care. She nodded and the video resumed.

“The woman speaking was videotaping by the old Water Tower on Michigan Avenue when the attack begin at four-thirty p.m., daylight savings time, during the height of rush hour.

The clip began in front of the old Water Tower, one of the few surviving buildings from the Great Chicago fire I remember; two children were smiling playfully, waving at their mother. Almost a dozen people passed by, then a few dozen more. People were everywhere. The woman made a quick three hundred sixty degree scan of the area at Michigan Avenue near Chicago Avenue then, capturing hundreds of fast moving people going about their business on that partly sunny day. She then zoomed in on her oldest daughter, about eleven or so. She and her sister were cute kids. Both were brunettes and even strangers could tell they were related to one another. “Heather,” the mother said from behind the camcorder, “move over closer to the plaque so I can get both you and it in the picture, okay?” The child smiling, immediately began moving, and then froze. Her eyes went wide.

I couldn’t believe how quickly her face drained of color. To the camera’s right, there was a scream and the mother’s jerky movement tracked the sound. The auto focus locked in just as a thirty foot partially visible shark-like creature seemed to glide almost one hundred feet vertically, then performed a graceful back flip circle back to snatch a man who appeared to gagging inside a bluish bubble. Both shark and man disappeared as the video froze. People were running everywhere trying to get away from the area of attack. That was one thing about those Chicagoans, they didn’t wait around staring, and they moved and moved fast.

“Oh my God! Are they flying?”

Dr. Porter was right. They did seem to be able to fly and if they weren’t, then they were doing a great imitation. I’d read the report, but to actually see it! I had this sudden need to go to the bathroom but Harriet had begun talking again and I needed to hear what she had to say.

“No, it’s swimming inside what we’re referring to as a void bubble,” Dr. Lasurdo continued. The way she said it, she could have been talking about the weather. She had no emotion, no inflection in her voice at all. That bothered me. “This intra-dimensional organism …”

“Ghost Flyer,” I said. She ignored me and kept talking.

“…Didn’t completely enter our dimensional plane,” she completed. She used her laser pointer to show us the thing we’d miss. Both the man and fish were partially transparent. “It’s literally in phase mode, using the bubble as life support and anchor to its home dimension. In other words, it’s still at home ‘swimming' and using the bubble as a portal to ‘see’ into and partially function in our world. When it targets something then it phases itself more and more into our world and surrounds the target using that same bubble, pulling that target into its home dimension. It’s probably using some sort of bioelectrical signal to home in on the victim.

“As you can see, the bubble has enlarged so that the man was affected by the void’s toxicity. Notice again, that the creature never completely phased into our dimension but rather brought its victim into its dimensional interface, then simply phased completely back home. This seems to indicate that the creature is capable of extending and manipulating the void bubble. As we study them more we’ll learn more about this ability in the future. Now to continue.”

[Skeet]

The video unfroze.

Another swiftly moving bubble appeared with another even larger Ghost Flyer cruising in the center, its pectoral fins reminiscent of jet wings picked off a young woman and disappeared almost instantly. I estimated the creature to be at least thirty five to forty feet long. Much bigger than our native Great White. They looked like jets.

The video froze again.

“Notice,” Harriet continued, “that the pectoral fins are approximately three times the size of our marine sharks. This altered species has only three-gill slit pairs, but they’re s-shaped and the eyes are much larger. Also notice that it’s ghosting through buildings and concrete. This one had so much control that it phased its victim at the instant of contact and then immediately phased home. From start to completion the attack lasted three seconds.”

“My God,” I whispered again. I was visibly shaken and from what I saw of the others they were also. This was something that touched all of us on a primordial level and most of us remembered the shark movies of the eighties. But this? The creatures ‘swam’ through air as easily as normal sharks swim through water. They were, in effect ‘invisible,’ until they ripped into you. They phased through metal, rock, concrete, wood, and water. For all practical purposes we couldn’t touch them unless they wanted us to.

This modified forty-five on my hip was useless. At least against them. But there were other purposes…

Dr. Lasurdo had already motioned for the clip to continue. Again, I forced myself to watch. “Notice the formation of multiple bubbles…and now the multiple attacks. We postulate that the creatures are extending the voids to track targets, much like whales and dolphins use sonar to catch prey. Combined with their bio-electric sensors and God-knows-what-else, they have the ability to hunt anything anywhere on this planet.”

The woman’s camera now lay on the ground. All of us heard something to the effect of, “Heather run!” however the rest was lost in the ever-mounting screams. Even with the camcorder positioned on its side, we could see swarms of the creatures ghosting from under the sidewalk, through buildings, people being dragged through concrete blocks being phased to their dooms. The little ones, some no larger than four maybe five feet seemed to have more difficulty hunting their prey, but I guess, they just need more practice.

The clip ended. Almost immediately, another clip continued from another point of view. This was the helicopter clip from Eyewitness News, spliced together with the first. It showed the John Hancock Building surrounded with multiple bluish orbs continuously penetrating the building. We saw people breaking unbreakable windows, falling thirty, forty stories to their deaths. Several never hit the ground as they were scooped up and carried away. The ones that did hit splattered upon impact and the younger Ghost Flyers viciously fell upon the remains. The building had been a living tomb. We heard screams everywhere. There were close to a thousand bluish orbs of various sizes penetrating and exiting the building.

The video froze again.

Thank God. I was ready to throw up like my young aide standing next to the exit.

“We confirmed hundreds of these creatures in just that small area alone. From eyewitness accounts, including Dr. Lawson’s, the attack descriptions appeared to be the classical shark from behind strike pattern in most cases. But there also appeared unique hits, characteristic to the individual attacker in question. None of them phased into our reality completely, probably due to the fact that they would simply flop to the ground. The animals are completely acclimated to their home environment and Earth might as toxic to them as the void is to us. In most cases there was very little blood at all, in others…” There was nothing more to say about that. The evidence spoke for itself, so she changed to the other point she needed to make.

“In the Chicago attack, one of the creatures targeted a policeman. Bullets had no effect until physical contact with him was made. He was almost bitten in half, but in his spasms while inside the Ghost Flyer’s mouth,” she said, very dryly, I might add, “he managed to discharge two bullets while they were both in synchronous phase. The bullets caused the animal to reverse phase and it hit the ground, jerked around and slowly died in our atmosphere. It couldn’t ghost back, which seems to indicate that the specific organ damaged by the two rounds controlled or at least aided in phasing. We’re concentrating our studies on this now.”

I noticed she said ‘Ghost Flyer’ instead of ‘intra-dimensional organism.’ I’m glad because it really was easier to say. For some reason that made me laugh at little.

“Subsequent studies and autopsy have shown that the creature was pregnant with thirteen pups,” she continued, “instead of one to three, as in normal marine sharks. It possessed both male and female sex organs. Also present were several additional organs whose functions are not understood at this time. It is not an oxygen breather. The gills were radically restructured and the mouth structure is enhanced. The teeth have been modified with multiple micro hooks, and are more spiral-shaped. The teeth are far more efficient in holding and tearing prey.

“The pups were still alive when we got to them so three hours later. With the parent deceased, they were still old enough to begin to attempt ghosting on their own. They weren’t born yet but we still had to be careful, as you can imagine. One actually succeeded momentarily before it died.”

The fact that the unborn pups survived their mother’s death by three hours indicated to the others and myself that these things were indeed some tough customers. And by the way Dr. Lasurdo used the phrase ‘before it died’ made me suspect that she had something to do with its demise.

She finished and pointed to Dr. Porter who cleared his throat again and started speaking. “This is the next and most difficult of our problems, Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen. Void time is different than our world’s time. We have recorded instances where for each hour here, two days pass there. And that time rate varies from moment to moment and area to area. Some areas have relative times in which one minute may be equal to several months! But at the same time, it takes exactly sixty-two point seven three seconds to port from Earth to Aquaterra. This time frame is a constant for us. However once in the void, those sixty-two point seven three seconds may actually be several weeks. “

“After five years,” Harriet continued, “there were tens or even hundreds of thousands of these Ghost Flyers, which participated in the Aquaterra attacks. And that’s a conservative guess. These creatures are multiplying at a rate we don’t understand and can’t predict. We can’t kill them unless we can touch them and at this point in time we can’t. They’ve destroyed Aquaterra and now that the food is scarce there, we’re next on the list. The dinner bell has ranged and we’re the main course and not just us either. We’re talking all the animals and edible sea life. We’re something they can consume, something that’s unable to fight back.”

“Turn off the Accelerator,” someone said. I couldn’t say who.

“The Ghost Flyers have never used the portal to move between Earth and Aquaterra,” came the response from Dr. Porter. “They do it independently. Once the void aliens recognized the portal pathway, they were able to modify the bio structures of the sharks to allow their creations to travel on its own. We have no idea how to replicate this.”

Dr. Porter took another breath and plunged in again. “We have a more pressing problem. Since these Ghost Flyers exists in a time reference that’s different from ours. This means that they need to feed according to their needs and so if, let’s say Shark a, eats a meal and then eats another meal two days later, this may mean six days, six hours or even six minutes relative time! . It won’t matter whether its land, sea or bedrock these creatures will feed and feed until there’s nothing left.”

I keep thinking over and over that, Oh God, maybe I should just blow my brains out now and get it over with, as he continued. “Aquaterra may not have sufficient food left for them and now they’re hunting here. They will feed constantly, multiply constantly, in relative time zones we don’t understand and can’t predict. In a year, what’s happening outside now will be nothing compared to the slaughter that will happen unless we do something.”

“Then what can we do?” I dreaded asking that question, but I had to know. So did everybody else.

“We’re exploring several avenues at this time,” Dr. Lasurdo said. The way she said it indicated that she didn’t have a clue as to what if any of these so-called avenues would work. I saw it in her eyes, in the President’s eyes, and even in the eyes of all those defiant military Heads.

We couldn’t kill what we couldn’t touch.

Dr. Han Shang Tsiao, my self appointed adversary, began speaking about something or other. He was speaking so low that several of us had to strain to hear him. But whatever was said made the President go ballistic.

“I’m not taking the blame for this mess!” I was impressed that the man could whisper so softly and make it sound as loud as the end of the world. I was intimidated and it wasn’t even directed at me. “You sent those sharks to Aquaterra without my or my predecessor’s permission! Environmental Health and Safety protocols should have been followed, but you rushed and killed an entire Eco system and now that same disaster threatens us. People are dying all over the world! Pretty soon, they’re going to want someone to blame and its not going to be me, or my Administration! Make no mistake; I will hang you out to dry before I let that happen!”

“Sir”, he insisted, “eventually, the other nations are going to discover the connection between the Ghost Flyer outbreak and the Particle Accelerator and soon after that somebody’s going to drop a nuclear weapon on top of it and it’ll be war.” Han Shang was sweating, clearly not wanting this confrontation but I guess he was desperate. I know that I wouldn’t want to be named as the man who destroyed the world.

In a room filled with hard looking people General Sandstone’s gaze had no competition. He was about as no nonsense as you could get. “He may be right sir. If they find out that we started this, cooperation will be non-existent.” “The military is on full alert. Martial law is about to be declared. We need something to focus the people on. They don’t understand the enemy we’re fighting. None of us do, but we must tell the people something.” Either we take responsibility now or we place that responsibility somewhere else.

“We can tell them that Aquaterra has invaded us and these creatures are their shock troops.” Han Shang’s suggestion was most subtle. He was a good politician. “Who could disagree, those mindless creatures?”

President Kenilworth looked at him, with several others following suit. The seed had been planted. And I bet that several others had thought of this possibility as well.

“They are Carcharodon variants,” Dr. Tsiao snarled, looking at me as though I was supposed to jump to his defense, “a product of millions of years of evolution and recent genetic engineering. They have no true minds. They are simply hunting us for food. No one will communicate with them, or the void aliens. We can’t even communicate with them, so I don’t see a problem placing the blame in the now extinct Aquaterrans. The void dwellers are not in a position to complain either. This exercise could possible solve several problems at once.”

I used to be afraid to die and now I’m almost afraid to live. I could see it all now. We wouldn’t solve the problem, so we would do the next best thing; play politics while the world burned. We were doomed. “I might as well blow my brains out now,” I said to no one in particular. “Anyone want to join me?”

* * *

June 2013
It was cold on the mountain that the young man had chosen to spend the rest of his life on. The constant cold and hunger was getting to him and the few fellow survivors in what was once called the USA. His only true possession that he’d kill over was his diary and a dying ink pin. Huddle next to the small fire he wrote into his treasure.

“It’s been eight years since that meeting occurred between my father and the leaders of the world. He was the Secretary of State protected by the most secure facility in the world. It didn’t even slow the Ghost Flyers down. Now this mountain we’re on provides some protection because the Ghost Flyers don’t like to come up so high. But it is only a matter of time. They are pushing us ever higher and it’s only a matter of time. They will come.

“I don’t know the details but the submarine project didn’t work. It seems that they were never able to stay in the void for more than sixty-three seconds. They fired the nuclear weapons into the void but it didn’t seem to do much good. They made it to Aquaterra now with no way to get back. Maybe the Ghost Flyers will leave them alone now that that world is mostly devoid of animal and marine life, or maybe not. I only know that our world is a bluish red haze of teeth and death. Several countries are completely destroyed, entire populations committing suicide in nuclear flame, or eaten into oblivion.

They’re eating us into the Stone Age. Most of the people are gone and the sharks are worse than ever since their food supply is dwindling and their numbers constantly increasing. Some people have said that the Ghost Flyers are eating themselves to extinction. It won’t help us, but I hope they do, because I pray that they never make it to some other world.

“What can I say? In our eagerness, we made a mistake.”

There seemed to be a bluish sphere about a mile and a half at the base of the mountain, below his party’s campsite. He placed his diary underneath his coat and started climbing.

Fin


As I said, ala Twiightzone. Comments and critiques please. What you tell me will help me to reshape this story. Thanks again. And yes, I am still on vacation until the endo of next week. Afterh july 4th it back to work on TWS. Take care, people.

[ACE Albert]

Holy CRAP. That is one good but scary story!

Please do flesh it out and make it a novel when you *gasp* get some time

Really a great premise. Although - one has to consider that those dimensional 'shields' of the Flyers has to have an upper limit in terms of strength; if you direct enough energy against it it's gotta collapse. (If it didn't have an upper limit not even the Death Star would be able to kill one of those things...) So if it's not impenetrable maybe microwave weapons? Neutron weaponry?

[Skeet]

Originally Posted by ACE Albert

Holy CRAP. That is one good but scary story!

Please do flesh it out and make it a novel when you *gasp* get some time

Really a great premise. Although - one has to consider that those dimensional 'shields' of the Flyers has to have an upper limit in terms of strength; if you direct enough energy against it it's gotta collapse. (If it didn't have an upper limit not even the Death Star would be able to kill one of those things...) So if it's not impenetrable maybe microwave weapons? Neutron weaponry?

This was just a small fun project done to practice my skills before I got serious with the Ruination war. But no one had the the technology to create enough microwave or neutron weaponry in time to do any good. The sharklike creatures basically 'phased' half in and out of whatever dimensional strata they were in. For the most part they were completely phased - until they attacked.

Sadly there was nothing this world could do and there was a distinct possibility that if they learned how to interface with other dimensions then they would start dimension-hopping across the multiverse.

A bad thing indeed.

[ACE Albert]

Originally Posted by Skeet

...there was a distinct possibility that if they learned how to interface with other dimensions then they would start dimension-hopping across the multiverse.

A bad thing indeed.

Yeah, the possibility of these creatures dimension hopping across the multiverse was something that came to my mind - how would the ST universe, or SW universe, etc. fare against these creatures? Dimension hopping across the multiverse would be a logical extension of their 'current' abilities to hop between 3 dimensions - they already do not need to rely on the accelerator wormhole to do so. Would their dimensional 'shields' be invulnerable to all known sci-fi weaponry? If so, would the Q at least be able to stop them? What would happen if the Death Star destroyed the world these things inhabited? Would they survive the destruction of the world? Would they ever be able to travel to other systems (i.e., right now they can phase between dimensions but they haven't demonstrated any way of going to different planets or star systems)? Perhaps could they turn their dimension shifting into some sort of tunnel to warp through space?

If they were confined to a single planet then most space-faring sci-fi cultures would not be decimated by these creatures, even if they were impervious to any weapons; if they developed the ability to travel between star systems then would even Gridfire stop them

All in all a very interesting premise that could be taken quite far.

[Zarathos]

I'm not a fan of horrors and they dont make me 'gasp'. and not the 'US' horrors - I think people here fear different things then people on the other side of the globe. Ghosts, Vampires, Alien attacks etc were never part of our culture.

But still it's a good story. Too detailed (smells Clancy ), but good one.

There is only one butt sticking ut of the bush. Bio and Chemical weapons. Neurotoxins implaneted into humans so that when 'shark' eat some, it dies or release it in the void. Or humans infected with shark killing viruses. Even sending a virus bomb into the void. Hell, even infecting whole Earth with it - so that each time shark phase in it catches a clod or something.

[Singh]

Fuck. This was scary. It's like Jaws taken to the next level

Fricking good story, I say! If this was your first venture, then know that you've put everything I've ever done to date to shame, really!

[Skeet]

Originally Posted by ACE Albert

Holy CRAP. That is one good but scary story!

Please do flesh it out and make it a novel when you *gasp* get some time

Really a great premise. Although - one has to consider that those dimensional 'shields' of the Flyers has to have an upper limit in terms of strength; if you direct enough energy against it it's gotta collapse. (If it didn't have an upper limit not even the Death Star would be able to kill one of those things...) So if it's not impenetrable maybe microwave weapons? Neutron weaponry?

Finally got back to this. The dimensional shields werent really shields as much as bubbles of space that allowed the shark entities to survive in what would be consided hostile space. There was a lot more to this story such as the people running down the John Handcock building stairs in the dar while trying to keep from winding up food and the Military's errors in using the 'Bomb' with Chicago as ground zero. The story would have ended the same in any case. Mankind lost their fight and every living them went with them. In other dimensions well...

Singh: Thank you. You know, eating the wrong things can really stimulate the imagination! Some of those dreams while suffering from stomach flu...you have no idea. remembering them is the challenge.

Forgot to mention: Sharks have an extreme resistance to quite a few diseases and as such that would take too much time in order to use the correct biotoxin ot disease. Plus you would have to remember that these were not 'sharks' any more than those were dinosaurs in Jurassic park'. They were approximations. These so called sharks were shark/alien hybrids. Lots of study (quick and accurate study I might add) would be needed to be done and time was something these people did not have...

[LRH]

An awsome story.

[Fenris Ulfric]

Definitely creepy on a visceral level. The most gut wrenching thing, I think, had to be the attempted alien surrender and the sheer desperation relayed by that event. I could definitely see this made as an episode of the new Outer Limits (rather than Twilight Zone, as the Outer Limits likes to wax apocalyptic).

One of the story-elements that bugged me a bit, though you said was originally to be expanded upon, was the implied lack of ability to do anything to stop the attacks. The simplest that comes to mind are "beef bombs" - big ol' bloody cuts of beef attached to a satchel of high explosives. Shark bites, then *boom*. More 'advanced' versions could use living animals (if necessary) and small nukes. Once the nuke was phased through into the local hunting ground, I suspect the results would be spectacular (imagine the flash and compression wave popping out of every phasing-bubble in the attack). Then again, by the time one is desperate enough to set nukes off in one's own cities, it's probably already too late...

Overall, it's a nice little story that I probably shouldn't have read at four in the morning.

[Zeronet]

pretty good stuff, though i'd point out the stuff about the human brain seems to echo the popular misconception that we only use 10% of our brain..