FROM ABOVE - A Novella Read online

  FROM ABOVE

  By Jeremy Robinson

  CLICK HERE

  to discover more Jeremy Robinson novels

  at his Kindle-optimized E-book store!

  FICTION by JEREMY ROBINSON

  The Antarktos Saga

  The Last Hunter - Pursuit

  The Last Hunter - Descent

  The Jack Sigler Thrillers

  Threshold

  Instinct

  Pulse

  Origins Editions (first five novels)

  Kronos

  Antarktos Rising

  Beneath

  Raising the Past

  The Didymus Contingency

  Short Stories

  Insomnia

  Humor

  The Zombie's Way (Ike Onsoomyu)

  The Ninja’s Path (Kutyuso Deep)

  Table of Contents

  FROM ABOVE

  Samples:

  CALLSIGN: KING

  THE LAST HUNTER

  Copyright Page

  INTRODUCTION

  FROM ABOVE is a short story written years ago, before my first novel was published. I’m offering it for free because I think it represents the pacing, humor and action found in many of my full length novels, though not necessarily the content. FROM ABOVE is much more sci-fi than most of my novels, which could be better classified as action-adventure with sci-fi elements. Think Indian Jones with military, mythologtical monsters and non-stop action.

  I hope you enjoy this quick tale. If you’re interested in the full length books, just follow the store link below. Thanks!

  -- Jeremy Robinson

  CLICK HERE

  to discover more Jeremy Robinson novels

  at his Kindle-optimized E-book store!

  FROM ABOVE

  When my arm came off, I knew something wasn’t right. It wasn’t the pain, because there wasn’t any, it was the way it detached from my body—as though a small portion of the world was suddenly freed from the pull of Earth’s gravity. It rose up, cut clean, still clinging to my C130 Magnum, and disintegrated, piece by piece until nothing was left. But not just my arm; a perfect circle of the warehouse was carved out as if by a giant, invisible cookie cutter. Everything within the warehouse and the ground beneath that was inside the affected radius simply floated free and then disappeared—atomized. There was no explosion, no twisting of metal or bursting of pipes, it happened as silent as a mouse fart and was over in seconds.

  As far as I could tell, I was standing at the edge of ground zero. Another foot forward and I would have joined the three perps I had cornered in the warehouse. Poor bastards were either in deeper than The Authority thought, or they did something to really piss off God.

  I looked up and saw the sky; at least it looked clear during the day. A hole, fifty feet wide had been carved into the roof of the warehouse—one of several warehouses I had been checking for Dretch production. Being a narc wasn’t my idea of important police work, but some of the hot shots up-town didn’t like my style. Of course, that would all change now.

  Peering down into the hole, created by whatever invisible force was at work, I came to the realization that this was going to be a big case, maybe the biggest ever. And with me as the only survivor, I’d be back in business.

  A tingling in my arm tore my attention away from the gaping hole and thoughts of the future. A stump wiggled below my shoulder. I swore I could still feel my arm moving, but the smell of burnt flesh confirmed my suspicions. Whatever had taken my arm had also cauterized the stump, and it happened so fast that my nervous system didn’t even register the catastrophic wound. What was worse, my leathers were ruined.

  I decided that I’d find out who took my arm and make sure they paid for what they did. At the very least, they could buy me a new Tac-suit.

  That was a year ago. Shit.

  Sure, I’m up-town. I’ve got a new synthetic limb that puts my old arm to shame. But I had to buy my own damn new Tac-suit, and I’m no closer to finding out who put a mile-deep hole in the Earth. The tech-boys tell me it came from an object in orbit, which makes finding the source near impossible. Back in the twentieth century, the human race started putting things in space. Three thousand years later and we haven’t stopped. At night it’s impossible to tell what’s a star and what’s some yuppie’s space-winni.

  A layer of crap, a half mile thick, surrounds the Earth on all sides and bulges at the middle, like the rings of Saturn. And with almost as many people living up there as there are down here, finding out who or what owes me for this Tac-suit is near impossible. The fact that only three wanted felons and my arm were taken makes this case a low priority. Until someone decides to take another potshot at the Earth again, I’m grounded. Not that I’m complaining. My new partner is a fox.

  “You on Dretch or something, Priest? Watch the freakin lanes.”

  Rehna has a way with words that I always enjoy.

  I twist the wheel and dodge some old lady driving way too slow for air-trans. She should have stayed on the ground with the rest of the simps. Damn people, afraid of technology. When the human race took to the skies en masse it gave us room to breathe and new freedoms that led to a technological renaissance that lasted for thousands of years. Cities grew up, thousands of feet tall. Vehicles took to the air, traveling faster and safer. Life sped up. Got better.

  But not everyone took to the air. Some, afraid of change, stayed on the ground—living slow, unproductive lives; hugging trees, driving cars with wheels and sniffing the damn daisies. Aren’t many simps left now-a-days. Good thing too.

  “Daydreaming again?” Rehna asks me with a smirk.

  “Not about you, so don’t get your hopes up.” She’s gonna love that.

  “Do you want me to land and beat you like a school girl?” Her face is turning red. She’s either embarrassed or about to shoot me. I decide to find out.

  “Keep talking. I think I’m fallin in love.”

  “That’s it.” She shoves me to the side and I see her take the wheel, but it doesn’t quite register in time to stop what happens next. We’re hurtling straight for the ground. My instincts tell me to take the wheel back, to scream, but I know Rehna. She’s not suicidal.

  Our air-trans mobile unit comes to a stop five feet above the ground, face down. If it were a civilian unit we’d be a smudge on the pavement, but these sleek new mobile units can stop on a dime and cruise at nearly the speed of sound. It’s sleek and smooth, the way I like my women, but I can’t say I like the light blue color. Kind of Nancy if you ask me.

  The hatch opens and I fall five feet onto the pavement. She knew I wouldn’t be wearing my belt. I hear Rehna’s boots hit the pavement behind me. A second later I hear the hum of her C130 warming up. We have a winner. She’s gonna shoot me. Now I know I’m falling in love.

  “On your feet,” Rehna tells me.

  I stand and turn to face her; damn she looks hot in a Tac-suit. I gotta remember to thank the man who designed them. They’re projectile proof, which is nice, as most perps can’t afford C130s. In a pinch can even protect the wearer from the depths of the ocean or the vacuum of space. Not that I’ve had occasion to test either claim. The point is, in most cases, they’re nearly indestructible. But the hot laser Rehna’s packing will cut through me like a slab of lard. I admire the curves of her body, which are accentuated by the tightness of the black Tac-suit. Her belt hangs loose on her hip...My eyes linger.

  “Ugh. That’s it,” Rehna says. She’s losing patience with me. Her C130 falls to the ground. Her belt falls next. This is getting interesting.

  Rehna swings high and then low, missing both times. She’s fast, I’ll give her that. But I’ve got ten years experience on her, and I can scan her like an unsec
ured porn server.

  “This is stupid,” I say, but I don’t think it goes through.

  I duck two more swings and a third catches my arm. Too bad for her, she picked the wrong arm. Cling! My synthetic arm is hard as steel, and she hit it with enough force to knock out a Rhino. Her thick glove keeps her fingers from shattering, and she lets out little more than a stifled grunt. She’s tougher than I thought. Her fist comes at me from the other side. I feel a breeze on my chin as her knuckles skim past my face. Too close.

  I step back and prepare to end a fight that should have never begun. I told The Authority adding women to up-town was a bad idea. Of course, they didn’t listen and now I have to teach Rehna a lesson. One punch to the side should do. Don’t want to ruin her pretty face.

  As I clench the fist in my human arm, a slight aberration in my vision catches my attention. My memory surges back to the warehouse. I saw the same distortion right before I lost my arm. My eyes track up. A wavering visual phenomenon, like heat rising from hot pavement, cuts straight through the center of a ten thousand foot behemoth, constructed a thousand years ago.

  Whack! My check burns with pain after Rehna’s punch connects. But my eyes don’t leave the sky. Rehna must have noticed, because I don’t feel a second punch—good thing too, the first almost broke my jaw. What a woman.

  Then it happens. Just like before. Gravity ceases to exist. Half of the behemoth and what looks like miles of other buildings come loose and float toward the sky, turning to dust as they move. Then it’s over.

  Down the street, I see a hole like the Grand Canyon, but I can’t see the other side. It’s beyond the horizon. Then I hear the screams; folks panicking, shrieking in fear. We kick into gear and head for the mobile unit. Rehna’s in and buckled up in seconds, but two nearby noises catch my attention. Both are whiny—one from above, one from below. I turn to the second and see a little girl, the daughter of some simp probably, but still just a kid.

  “Priest, move it! The whole thing’s comin down!” Rehna sounds panicked. That’s not good.

  I look up and see what remains of the behemoth begin to crumble. I run for the girl, arms stretched out. The mobile unit’s engines are loud behind me. Rehna’s on the ball.

  The girl must sense my urgency because she’s running for me now. I scoop her up like a football and look over my shoulder. Rehna’s coming on fast. Thank God she left the hatch open. This is going to be close.

  I toss the girl back, and she lands hard in my seat. Probably hurt like hell, but at least she’ll live. Can’t say the same for me though. Let’s hope Rehna’s reading my mind and doesn’t want to kill me.

  The mobile unit is on my heels when I jump into the air. I feel the closed hatch sliding beneath me, then the hard metal of the rear casing. I dig my mechanical fingers into the metallic roof and feel a tug as Rehna hits the accelerator, making a beeline for the edge of the city.

  Like a falling redwood, the solid building begins to topple above my head, its shadow looming and blocking out the sun. My face begins to sting as dust moving past at one hundred fifty miles-per-hour scours my skin. Rehna must be able to see what I’m seeing. We have ten thousand feet of twisting metal and cement to outrun. As we hit the two hundred mile-an-hour mark, I think about how much of a bitch paper work for today is going to be back at up-town. Then I remember there might not be an up-town left.

  We hit four hundred miles an hour, and I’m not thinking anything. My face is burning like its being held against an open flame, and the skin stitched to my synth-arm feels like it’s going to tear off. The wind is so loud in my ears I don’t hear the explosion as the building hits the ground behind us, leveling miles of city blocks and destroying several other buildings.

  The mobile unit slows to a stop somewhere outside of the city. I don’t know where, wasn’t really paying attention. My forward momentum carries me over the roof and I slide across the hatch, landing on the pavement.

  I look up and see Rehna leaning down above me. “You still alive, Priest?”

  “Been worse. Help me up.”

  I stand to my feet and see my reflection in the mobile unit’s slick paint job. “Damn.”

  “What is it?” Rehna asks me.

  I look at my Tac-suit, torn and shredded on my body, hanging like a limp corpse. “Now they owe me two Tac-suits.”

  Rehna smiles.

  With most of up-town reduced to atoms there isn’t anyone left to report to. Hell, I might be the highest ranking cop in town. All city-bound lines of communication are inoperable, so I turn to the next best source of information. The dashboard sat-link blinks on and is instantly filled with the image of a screaming woman. She appears to be reporting on the wave of destruction that just ravaged my city, but she’s incoherent. Useless.

  “Channels one through fifty, news filter priority one.” The sat-link responds to my voice like an obedient dog, filling the screen with twenty three thumbnail feeds. I scan the images and listen to the mix of voices.

  “English only.” One by one, images disappear. Only five remain when it’s done. Three screens show women reporters crying their guts out. Another displays a man wailing like a stuck pig—embarrassing. The fifth shows an aerial shot of the carnage, something had carved a clean, perfectly round hole in the center of the city, miles wide and countless fathoms deep. Millions of lives have been lost.

  Rehna gasps. “My God.”

  Women...

  The kid is sitting in Rehna’s lap, staring intently at the screen, eyes wide. Kid’s taking it all in stride. Probably not old enough to be an emotional wreck yet.

  “Track five, audio only. Enlarge.” The image of the destruction fills the screen.

  The voice of a reporter speaks calmly over the feed. “Once again, as it did a year ago, a sinister force from orbit has struck the Earth. The source of the devastation is still unknown and with The Authority headquarters destroyed, chances are, we will never know where and when this evil force might strike again. Scientists studying the clean-cut hole of last year’s attack could not identify what kind of weapon was used, only that it is far more advanced than anything in the World District’s arsenal. Could technology finally be turning on—”

  Before I have time to react, the kid reaches out and messes with the sat-link controls. We lose the feed.

  “What the hell, kid? Don’t touch this shit,” I say, while attempting to readjust the controls.

  “Move your damn hand,” the kid barks at me.

  I stop and give her the coldest stare I can muster—sends most mutts running scared. But the kid just gives it back to me.

  “What’s your name, kid?”

  “Well, it ain’t kid.”

  I wait.

  “Gawyn.”

  “Well, Gawyn. I ain’t letting no simp mess with my mobile unit.”

  “Good. Cause I ain’t no simp, old man.”

  Old man? Kid’s looking to get a close up look at my knuckles talking like that. I clench my left fist. Then I feel a squeeze on my shoulder. Rehna’s glaring at me. “Let her play with the freakin sat-link, Priest.”

  I smile. “There you go talking dirty to me again.”

  Gawyn goes to work. Her fingers are a blur on the screen, working the controls masterfully, faster than I could even with the synth-arm. My eyes widen with every half second, cause that’s all it takes for her to access The Authority’s satellite mainframe. She’s no simp. She’s a damn cyber-genius.

  “What are you doin, kid?”

  “The anti-matter pulse came from orbit.”

  “Anti-matter pulse?” Rehna’s as confused as I am.

  “That’s just what I call it. I detected its energy field twenty minutes before the pulse. That’s how I got out of the target area in time, but just barely.”

  “You can detect it?” I ask, knowing it’s a dumb question.

  “Duh. Any kid with an old 40-Gig system and a sat-link could detect it. But you have to look for it. Auto detection won’t pick it up as mor
e than a temporary heat-spike.”

  “And you were looking for it?”

  “Since last year.” The kid’s fingers continue across the controls. She breaches several protected servers and accesses classified surveillance systems. “It’s the most kick-ass weapon since the beginning of time.”

  The kid looks me in the eyes. “You’re must be lucky or something. Missed you twice now.”

  Rehna and I look at each other. “You know who I am?”

  “Who doesn’t. Your wrinkly face was pasted to every sat-link transmission for a month... Of course, not everyone has been tracking you for the last year. You know, for all your research, you didn’t find much.”

  I look the kid in the eyes and try not to blink. “You’ve been spying on me for a year?”

  “It’s not like it’s hard, you know.” The kid smiles. I have one of the most secure systems in the city. She probably sees it as a playground. Damn kids today. “You’ve been trying to find out what happened that day...what took your arm, and your Tac-suit. You’re obsessed with Tac-suits.”

  I’m losing patience. “Get to the point.”

  “When I detected the heat spike, I came to find you. The anti-matter pulse cut the engines off my hyper-scooter. Almost got me too, and I crashed just outside the target area. That’s when I found you. I knew that you, more than anyone else, would take action once I told you what I know.”

  I raise an eyebrow. It’s all I’m willing to give.

  Gawyn taps one last button on the sat-link. A diagram of Earth orbit and every piece of space junk currently above the city blinks onto the screen. One of the objects is highlighted with a red circle.

  “And this is?”

  “How’d you ever become a cop?”

  Kid’s a wise ass. I like her.

  Gawyn rolls her neck and speaks quickly. “I figured that if the antimatter pulse fired on this city again that it was probably in a geosynchronous orbit above us.”