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Isaiah Jones vs the Sea (A 21st Century Odyssey)

‘Summoning the Golum of Ghana’

January 1st, 2121,

Marcus Garvey Port, capitol of the United African Alliance

formerly Accra Bay, Capitol of Ghana

“Motherland.” The old man said, squinting his emerald eye a bit, reading the title aloud. His mellifluous baritone echoed through the expanse of the empty stateroom of the now permanently anchored 100-year-old ‘Hemisphere’, once the largest sailing catamaran yacht in the world when she was first built in 2011, the 145 feet (44 m) long sailing catamaran now sat perpetually anchored, the crowning jewel floating in a VIP reserved slip in the center of the harbor directly in front of the Port Garvey Museum of African Arts and Letters.

Outside, he watched a pair of super cargo ships as they passed each other, their decks piled several stories high with freight. The multicolored steel cargo containers rose like impossible stacks of children’s blocks piled upon the deck as they silently glided beneath the great Franz Fanon suspension bridge that spanned the entrance to the Lake Fanon River just before the river entered the hollow ziggurat, while scores of crocodiles slept in shadow on the gentle slope of its concrete banks.

The mega-cityscape glistened as its monolithic structure straddled the expanse of the river; its great grey 100-story story concrete superstructures erected nearly a century ago by primitive first-gen robots now stood painted in garish psychedelic colors of the equator. Their towering poured cement walls 100 stories high were adorned with dancing lights of graffitied advertisements shimmering wet in a steady warm rain.

The unpainted sections of poured wall stood like the fossilized ribs of an anorexic pachyderm in strobing shadows across the bay. Across the river along the docks of old Free Town settlement, a distorted black funhouse mirrored reflection of the Unreal City from here he could see the glistening wet streets reflecting the neon lights of the bars, discotheques, and whorehouses.

A squad of bored street cops, decked out in the newest ultra-lightweight seven-foot-tall, three-quarter-ton, titanium urban assault Titan

21 model armored suits busied themselves chatting up the local streetwalkers, standing in the cover of doorways and store awnings. Older gas-powered fiberglass models, painted yellow with black and white checkered roof ‘Tro-Tro’ drones, were still in use over there.

They sputtered by, backfiring and belching clouds of blue-grey smoke. There were middle-aged transports as well as old first-gen hydrogen fuel cell, carbon fiber clunkers. A cornucopia of human misery was always on display along the docks’ narrow residential roads; legions of thieving junkies, homeless beggars, and orphaned gangs of bush babies lined the rain-slickened streets.

A small group of a dozen or so Chinese working girls all huddled together next to a congregation of cloistered nuns in ebon habits trimmed in bright white, waiting for the next auto-hoover bus underneath the shelter of the hinged solar panels that functioned as awnings for the myriad of the shore’s shop owners.

The great Port Garvey docks were constructed nearly a century ago when the AI MOTHER awakened to build the first Unreal City, a city of colossal 100 story ziggurats, harbors full of boats and ships of every size, shape, and color next to a floating ghetto, around a seaside ghetto, just across the river from the haute couture culture of the museum’s elite patrons. Isaiah headed across the room to the bookshelf on the portside bulkhead as a young girl in a white muslin linen dress and sandals entered, her hair neatly parted down the middle, secured with ivory ribbons into perfect little Afro Puffs. She has his large emerald eyes but otherwise looks exactly like her great-great-grandmother at that age.

He reaches out and gently touches the cover of a deeply tanned leather-bound novel, the first he had ever written, quite by accident, of course. That is why she was here this morning; the little griot wanted to hear the stories again. Hair in cornrows and dressing in the same white muslin linen ensemble he had long ago favored for formal affairs and dinner parties aboard his sloop Exodus.

Isaiah’s long white cornrows were still black in those days, before the 3rd great War or the two civil wars that preceded, nearly destroying the newly formed African alliances union. He looked down at the titanium cybernetic prosthetic grafted to his right leg just below the knee. Ocie looked down at his leg also, the child always fascinated by the robotic appendages’ pistons, gears, and wiring. She would get the toolkit and practice repairing it when he wasn’t feeling well.

There were newer carbon fiber ones covered with synthetic skin that matched your own, but she liked his antique first-generation cybernetic leg. Ocie reached out and touched the metal leg, always fascinated by its mechanized structure, the thick black cables that led up to his thigh disappearing beneath the skin where the sensors connected directly to the nerves in his body.

“Does it still hurt, Tata?” Ocie asked, looking up at him, her green eyes brimming with empathy.

“No, little Griot, not anymore.” He replied as an involuntary smile crept across his battle-scarred visage. Then, he began the story.

‘Summoning the Golum of Ghana’

“Sankofa teaches us that we must go back to our roots to move forward. That is, we should reach back and gather the best of what our past has to teach us so that we can achieve our full potential as we move forward.”

Prologue: ‘Proof of Concept’

War Pigs

“Generals gathered in their masses

Just like witches at black masses

Evil minds that plot destruction

Sorcerer of death’s construction”

—Black Sabbath

May 5th, 2030, Washington, DC, United States.

The Hiltons’ Promenade Room is filled with subtly Botoxed, spray tanned, bejeweled old money, capped toothed, power couples in designer evening attire, slowly dying of ennui and constipation sitting slopping shoulder to shoulder with the poor’s rubbing knobby elbows with the military’s big wig brass, the pentagons barred and stared blue collared hey big spenders. Tray Knots had worked as a defense contractor for the last 2 decades, he needed the US to get on board with his new war dog program to finance it before going into production. He was growing weary of the Pentagon and Washington dragging their feet, pleading poverty, while every other corporation in the nation was reporting record profits to their shareholders.

His shareholders at Knots Robotics Industries wanted a piece of the action, and tonight he was going to give it to them. After they watched tonight’s video, he was certain he would finally have the new defense contract secured, in order to continue the project at taxpayers rather than his shareholders’ expense, increasing the future value of their shares and his corporation. Tray Knots was an Oxford-educated engineer now in his mid-50s with greying blonde hair, tall and lean with Hollywood leading man good looks that had helped make him a top-earning salesman when he started Knots Robotic Industries.

He wasn’t kidding himself with all of the younger, fresh out of college kids out there; if he didn’t land this contract tonight, the board of directors would see to it that he retired early. The lights dimmed, a flat screen the size of the wall behind the stage lit up with the Knots Robotics Industries logo, levitating over a spectral fluttering American flag, stood the company’s red, white, and blue Southern Cross logo. Fade in and they see a pair of grinning camouflaged wearing army techs standing next to the original mechanical mule, a 4 legged jeep designed for carrying up to 500 lbs in its twin hardened saddle bags across the most rugged terrain, nicknamed Big Dog.

Next, they see the modified for combat versions with the new AI targeting system guiding the 3 mini-guns on its new harness, its saddle bags filled with 5000 lbs of ammunition. The three-gun-headed beast had a full array of infrared sensors as well as night vision, radar, sonar, ultrasound, and communications jamming systems. It could remotely open simple things like garage doors, cars, TVs, home doors, and business alarms, completely isolating any area they were released to roam. Flipper tech hacking local Wi-Fi signals.

Reload itself, picking up airdrops, and recharge with solar kites. After all of the shooting at dog targets and ballistic Jell-O with lab coat-wearing technicians adjusting its gun harness, a contraption built much like a steady cam rig supported the weapon as it three short-barrel mini guns whirled to life, spinning, firing 300 60 caliber rounds per minute into ceramic target discs mid-flight. When it was over, they all watched in horror and macabre fascination as the footage switched to a black and white grainy night vision outside of a village somewhere in the upstart new African independent nation’s borders. The war-dogs walk on rubber non-slip covered metal claws, they lower their backpacks, and detach their guns silently.

Now, the metal arms that held guns fold out, hidden 18-inch steel blades extended from their prehensile arms. The pack of a dozen robotic dogs silently trots into the farming town of one thousand four hundred and thirteen people and kills them all in their sleep without firing a single shot. They were metal and plastic quadrupedal ninjas, with machine gun attachments optional. The lights came up as Tray Knots straightened his tie’s Windsor knot, nodded, and smiled while the ghouls all rose to their feet to applaud him. He had given them what they wanted: proof of concept.

Isaiah Jones vs the Sea (A 21st Century Odyssey)

‘Summoning the Golum of Ghana’ pt 2 of 3

August 18, 2034, Franz Fanon River, 42 kilometers west of Port Garvey, Ghana,

Capitol of the African United Alliance/Year 2 of the 3rd Great War.:

Chapter 42: Summoning the Golum of Ghana

The Reluctant Warlord / Betzalel:

Birth and Baptism;

‘Second Coming’

“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

—W. B. Yeats

The Betzalel rose from the ashes of Exodus at the height of the 3rd Great War, a Conflict that began 10 years after Isaiah’s first voyage to Africa. The Western Alliances unpiloted hunter killers the Cerberus were the most fiendish weapon ever unleashed on the battlefields of an unsuspecting Africa, worse than biological weapons or chemical weapons or land mines or any other weapon that killed indiscriminately as a sniper in ‘occupied territory’: robotic warriors like their flying drones, the weapon of choice for cowards. The Western powers would be the first to field troops in fully powered tactical combat armored suits.

Their new Kevlar-covered armored suits were more than just bulletproof; they were powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack. Electric, but the first-generation armor didn’t have a very long battery life when powered up and used at maximum output.

Still, it gave the operator ten times increased strength with a top running speed of 74 kilometers/hour for about 20 minutes before the battery died. It still offered great protection even without a charge, but minus the increase in strength or speed. It proved to be enough, and when the western invaders attacked, they slaughtered our defenders, wading through the African Defense Forces’ ground troops like a scythe through dry grass.

The AI MOTHER, created a decade ago by Isaiah, collaborated with a team working clandestinely with AUA allies in Japan, hidden away in an old pipe fitting and machine and tool shop that specialized in titanium manufacturing techniques.

Their owner, Eiichi Taro, had constructed one of only three titanium hull sailboats other than MYC (Monarch Yachts Corporation: Monarch Ti-44 solent rigged sloop), the SS Exodus, in the world. The seven worked together tirelessly with the AI MOTHER to build the union’s first midweight Titan 21 tactical combat armored suits. They were light years more advanced than the simple Kevlar or steel plates currently in use as armor. With the help of allies across the globe, the AUA began to manufacture the new armored suits as fast as possible. The results were immediate; with the ADF on an even footing, the Western invaders were quickly defeated without a technological advantage on the battlefield, and the African forces made short work of the foreign marauders.

It proved to be too early to celebrate; the west was being pushed back, but then they began their bombing campaign targeting our titanium mining facilities across the continent in a brilliant if predictable move. The AUA did not lose all ability to manufacture armor, but they had lost all access to more of the precious titanium ore necessary to manufacture exoskeletons and plating for their troops’ Ti 21 armor suits, with the mines blasted shut by the devils. The destruction of so much infrastructure, along with the bombing of the Africans’ manufacturing facilities, they nearly succeeded in crippling the war effort. Without titanium for new armored combat suits, we would lose everything to the plundering invaders.

The Woman from Okinawa

“…God will be cut.”

-Hattori Hanzō

Isaiah had an idea he only shared with his most trusted colleagues, and he, along with Eiichi Taro and MOTHER, designed and built the first Heavyweight Titan Ti 24 tactical assault armored combat suits.

Isaiah was cutting the frame around the hatch. He was about to pick up his bottle of water when he noticed the bulkhead looked wrong from the aft corner of the galley. A panel had come loose from the wall during the transport, that should not have happened, but upon closer examination, he could see it wasn’t broken; it was on a spring hinge of some sort. He gave the panel a push, and it rotated back, revealing a hidden passage about six inches wide and 18 inches tall. Inside was what looked at first like a section of stainless-steel pipe, but it was in fact an urn that locked into catches at the base and top. An envelope was affixed to the cylinder with a heavy rubber band, and it had his name on it. He opened the envelope and read the familiar sprawling cursive handwriting of the late Beaumont Ulysses Johnson.

Dear Isaiah, ahoy my young friend, if you are reading this letter, then it means you have discovered that I stowed away on your ship in order to travel with you on your adventures at sea. I am sorry I had to lie to you. While it is true I did have a stroke, but there was more to it than losing mobility, as you can see. They found stage 4 cancer; it was in every organ except my brain. I knew I would never sail her alive, and I did not wish to burden you with all of this depressing big ‘C’ and death on your first solo voyage by asking you to take the urn containing my ashes with you, so I had the workmen build this secret cubby to stash my remains aboard the Exodus. I was lucky; at least I got to see her finished at the factory while I still had the strength to travel there.

The SS Exodus is the prototype Monarch Ti-44, the first of her lineage. (Note 1. Monarch Ti-44 specifications) The Monarch line takes its name from the butterfly. With the butterfly rigged black sails and a wind over the stern, she looks every bit like her namesake. When I was a child, they blackened the sky like storm clouds migrating south to Mexico. Now, I can’t remember the last time I saw a butterfly. Monarch is, of course, another word for royalty.

I am certain you would have made it across the Atlantic or around the world in whatever little boat you could afford, but I knew the moment they gave me my prognosis and told me I only had a few months left to live that I wanted you to have her. I remember when you first contacted me by email, asking about our company’s rudder and integrated keel designs, and arguing with me about the virtues of your precious catamaran over our monohull. You did not understand our company philosophy and why we refused to also make catamarans; you debated not just passionately but intelligently. The difference between our monohull boats and catamarans is simply a matter of philosophy. Catamarans depend on being able to outrun the storm, and our boats are built to weather the storm. No matter how good your forecasting equipment is, sooner or later, you are going to have to get caught in bad weather, and our ships are designed to ride the storm out.

I had no idea you were a child at the time you demonstrated in those letters a deep knowledge of nautical history, as well as shipbuilding, and every aspect of nautical engineering. For the longest time, I assumed that you were an old shipwright for some other company around my age, at least. Imagine my surprise when I learned you were only 6 years old. I knew 10 years ago that you were a born sailor. There are many good sailors out there with a vast amount of technical knowledge, but no instincts for the rhythms of the waves, wind, and the currents of the sea. You have the part that cannot be taught. The technical aspects, I am certain, you will learn in good time.

I have faith in you and your mission. Every man has faith in something, even if it is only in himself; then he is his own god. Faith has nothing to do with religion or God; faith is the engine that powers every great human endeavor. Faith makes you stand where others will fall, and faith makes you move forward when all hope is lost. Faith keeps you breathing when you are becalmed. Keep breathing, keep moving, keep getting back up, and keep the faith. The prototype Monarch Ti-44 Monarch is one of only four built.

By now you have figured out that the hull is titanium and that the true appraised value of the ship is not $200,000-$500,000 but between 10 and 10.5 million do not worry she is fully insured and there is a trustee for the ship to maintain her in perpetuity, so she will never be a financial burden. After you have read this, if you can put me back in my spot, I promise you will not hear another peep out of me; I will just relax and enjoy the rest of the voyage with you.

Godspeed, Captain Jones.

Your friend in spirit.

Beaumont Ulysses Johnson.

Isaiah gently carried the stainless-steel cylinder engraved with the shipbuilder’s name, date of birth, and date of death with him onto the main deck, sat down near the bow, and meditated while Eiichi looked on, confused by his weeping. Isaiah retrieved the urn. Eiichi asked, “What is that?” pointing at the silver cylinder Isaiah carried. “It is the remains of Beaumont Johnson, the shipwright who built Exodus and willed her to me before he died 12 years ago.”

He handed the letter from the late nautical engineer to Eiichi Taro for him to read to the group.

“I knew Beaumont Johnson, he told the group, the Monarch Ti 44 solent rigged sloop SS Exodus was more than just a ship, it was his dream; the culmination of a lifetime’s hard learned lessons sailing around the globe. He built her to make his final voyage around the world to every ocean and every sea. She was a nautical cathedral of titanium, a wave-smashing juggernaut that could survive in any seas or ride any storm. There will never be another like her.” He raised his cup filled with warm sake. “To Beaumont Ulysses Johnson! Godspeed!” They all raised their cups and drank in his honor.

Japan’s greatest living sword maker, Sumiko Hanzō, the daughter of the legendary sword maker Hattori Hanzō, spoke next with great solemnity. “It feels as if we are tearing apart the Eiffel Tower to make a cannon. Almost sacrilegious.” Isaiah continued slicing the keel off with a cutting torch. Eichi could not lose face; his honor demanded he volunteer his own titanium sailboat, the Titan Lady, to the war effort. Isaiah, understanding the significance of the gift, bowed respectfully. “Haisha moushiagemasu.” his 6-foot 2-inch frame dressed in his trademark white muslin attire. Humbly thanking him.

“I won’t waste your metal.”

They were six of the most serious men and women he had ever met, each as stoic as his ex-Marine father, one by one, each made a toast: to the ships, to Beaumont, and to the mission. The gunsmith was last, and after five cups of sake, they were all quite drunk now.

They decided that they would use the ashes in the metal, adding the carbon in his bones to strengthen the armor. As Isaiah reached into the urn, picking the bones for Buddha with willow and bamboo chopsticks, he found a small glass container the size and shape of a Mezuuzot. He had no idea it was in with the remains. The master gunsmith from the DRC, Ringo Tsoumou, read it to the drunken group of scientists, engineers, and mobster/monks. Beaumont’s Ulysses Johnson’s final prayer:

“Ruth 16: And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:” She raised her cup once more as did they all staring into the blazing forge. “I won’t waste your metal.” Arigatou gozaimashita! “I won’t waste your metal. Hanzō continues.

“Like the thousand-fold technique of the samurai’s sword, an undertaking of this magnitude calls for more than perfect technique; this weapon, too, will call upon the power of prayer in its forging.”

Ringo Tsoumou, the DRC gunsmith, pulled out an envelope stuffed with 30k yen tied with a black and white ribbon from her coat pocket, adding its carbon to the forge. Eiichi Imai left on wobbly legs and returned a moment later with incense and a bowl of rice. Isaiah stood the chopsticks in the rice. The saffron-robed gangster priestess knelt in front of the urn, chanting a sutra as the others came forward, one by one, and offered their respect to the legendary marine engineer /shipwright.

Each picked up granular incense from the bowl, held it to their forehead, dropped it onto the forge, then bowed to the urn before turning and bowing to Isaiah. “Doumo arigatou gozaimasu.” Isaiah replied, bowing deeply. The Seven-Scientist sworn to secrecy toiled away tirelessly for the next nine months, camouflaged by Eiichi Imai, whose metal-fabrication facility, Nissei Industrial Co., in Saitama Prefecture, Japan, has been supplying Japan’s shipbuilding industry with piping and other specialty parts since the late 1950s.

Isaiah Jones vs the Sea (A 21st Century Odyssey)

‘Summoning the Golum of Ghana’ pt 3 of 3

The African Defense Forces held their ground, but were stuck in a quagmire against the western alliance along the northern front against the combined might of the US, Israel, and Britain; after 10 years of watching the young nation they were finally making their move on the resources of the fledgling newly formed African United Alliance who had formed a single nation nationalizing the continents resources and economy under a single currency all guided by the sentient AI MOTHER constructed by a then 16-year-old Isaiah Jones, his Promethean gift of fire to his new home nation. Now, a decade later, a thriving young nation has come under attack just as the AI MOTHER predicted 10 years ago.

The roaming packs of robotic Cerberus had the ambushed 108th Light Mobile Cavalry Division and had them pinned down at the bend near the edge of the Fanon River in Ghana. The robotic patrols attacked after Sgt. Asante’s ground troops shot down a squadron of drones acting as the beast air support.

The mechanized war dogs swept in on them before they could even celebrate bringing down the predator drones. The four-legged mechanical abominations were called Cerberus; because of the three miniguns mounted on their backs with up to 5000 lbs of ammo in their armored packs fully loaded, they resembled water buffalo or hippopotami more than dogs. Originally tubular steel, plastic, and sheet-metal mules designed to transport troops’ heavy equipment in rugged terrain, this version had been modified for assaults, so the US troops called the heavily armored weaponized MK IIs war dogs.

They were secretly airdropped into the kill zone in unmarked freight containers that burst open, releasing the lethal cargo on the unsuspecting populace. They were programmed to patrol a preset area and kill anything larger than a house cat, indiscriminately. Men, women, children, heavily armed combatants, or innocent unarmed civilians, they hunted only in the local towns, villages, and cities. When they ran out of ammunition, they were resupplied with air drops. They were not remote controlled, like their predecessors, the predator drones; these were bots like a pack of maniacal metal Rumbas with mounted machine guns that only stopped killing when destroyed or turned off by their masters.

It was the arrival of the Betzalel that turned the tide of battle. The nine-foot-tall titanium-plated walking tank stood in the hatch ready for the pilot to land the tilt wing, tandem rotor transport as it passed low over the treelined jungle above the ADF’s 108th’s defensive position. Sgt. Asante looked up from the cover of a tree and stopped firing long enough to launch a flare from the 302-grenade launcher under his rifle barrel. The shell arched through the air, streaming smoke as the incendiary phosphorus burned, with red smoke trailing behind the projectile. The flare landed in a clearing a hundred meters west of his position in the tree line he and his fighters were using for cover.

The heavily armored battlefield transport tandem rotor tilt wing attack troop ships four bottom-mounted 44 cal M61 Vulcan gatling guns firing into the enemy position, her gunners laying down cover fire for the waiting Omega and the remnants of the embattled One-O Eight. The staccato pinging sound of bullets ricocheting off the heavy plates of the aircraft’s armored belly.

The bubble-gum chewing pilot, Cpt Beatrix Ovejero Torres, spotted the flare and opened the commlink to Omega squad as the four heavily armed fighters stood in the back of the transport waiting for the signal to go. Through the com, she shouted over the sound of the transport’s tilt rotor tandem blades, the steady roar of machine gunfire. Beatrix kept the big bird moving so the war dogs couldn’t shoot the rotors and bring the tiltwing tandem-rotor attack transport down.

“You know the drill, bucket heads. We need that LZ cleared ASAP, Lt!” Captain Torres shouted as she began to turn the aircraft. “Can’t start evacuating the wounded while it’s this hot, Papi! I’ll swing us back around and drop altitude to 300 ft. You and the rest of Omega squad are going to have to rappel down, sir!” At an altitude of 1000 ft, as they banked for a wide strafing turn at 25 knots, Isaiah stepped out of the port side hatch free-fall. The Ti-24 powered assault combat armor, one and a quarter-ton titanium nine-foot-tall Betzalel suit encasing him in the cybernetically enhanced attack platform. As the chopper flew low over the tree line, her four Vulcan autocannons blazing, tearing into the enemy ranks, Isaiah took a deep breath as gravity embraced him, the ground rushing up to greet him, he counted down…

“Between the desire

And the spasm

(one thousand 5.)

Between the potency

(one thousand 4.)

And the existence

(one thousand 3.)

between the essence

(one thousand 2.)

And the descent

(one thousand 1.)

Falls the Shadow”

IMPACT!

The one and a quarter ton bipedal tank slammed into the ground with all the subtle force of a meteor, a walking extinction event striking the earth sending seismic shock waves through the ground all around…the air swirling the jungle floors debris all around him, when the dust settled the Betzalel stood alone in the clearing between the advancing robotic four-legged monstrosities and the heavily wounded remnants of the 108th. He had their attention, and that was exactly what he wanted: to draw their fire.

Capt Torres shouted into the com. What the hell does he think he is doing!?

The heavily armored Lt. Ringo laughed. Buying us time! Capt. Torres, while he has their attention, brings her down; he’s still going to need our help.

The DNC weapons master grinned at the rest of Omega Squad. Alright, metal heads, it’s time to earn those fat ass ADF paychecks. Every slant eyed whore in Freetown gonna be crying if ya buy it out here Sarge. Yeah, well, if you don’t make it back, those lady boys will only have to worry about the priest blowing out their O-rings. LCpl Zadzisai and PFC Owusu both laughed. If either one of you dies out here the Freetown whore houses will experience a severe economic depression. Capt. Torres announce through the comm you two are feeding a dozen Chinese families with what you two spend raw dogging Freetown whores. The cabin and cargo bay both erupted with laughter we’re at jump altitude 500 ft get the fuck outta’ my cab assholes. Yes, ma’am, and thanks for Uber Capt. Torres. We’ll see ya in a dirty 30. Sergeant Ringo shouted as she stepped out of the hatch and repelled to the end of the drop line, releasing still a hundred feet above the ground. Detached from the dropline, she landed a few meters behind Lieutenant Jones with the rest of Omega on her 6, spreading out to flank Isaiah’s position while laying down cover fire with their HKs. The weapons master Ringo swung the big 60 from her back and opened fire with the tree cutter.

The air was choked with the cacophonous staccato song of machine gun fire coming from the big guns of the circling assault transport, the ADF/African Defense Force, and the packs of mecha directly in front.

PROOF OF CONCEPT Reprise:

There was an electric discharge like a crack of lightning, the smell of burnt ozone, and the hair on the backs of everyone’s necks stood up as the first shot charged the atmosphere as Isaiah fired the railgun. The mechanical Cerberus directly in front of him exploded into mangled, molten metal shards. He targeted another pack of war dogs coming at them 30 meters away from the west, near the tree line, with a dozen others. He fired into the middle of the pack, and they were all blown to smoldering slag pieces in a flash of electric light arc. The machines in front of his towering shield stopped firing as their primitive processors began to reassess the new threat.

One by one all the war dogs folded their hinged steel legs and lay down and lowering their guns and armored ammo packs to the ground, For a long moment the scene was eerily still, you could hear the sounds of the jungle, monkeys howling in the distance, birds take flight, an aged mud grey crocodile rolled over at the rivers edge, as insects buzzing songs rise to join the cacophony of wild noise for a few seconds before the armor-plated terrors all stood again. Now, having shed the bulk of their exoskeletons with their packs, each of the sleek Cerberus metallic war dogs rises, wielding three 18-inch steel blades held with the prehensile arms that previously held their mini-guns. They stood slender and silent, moving slightly in serpentine motion, the arms and tail slowly waving over the mechanized Medusas.

After fighting the 108th and now Omega squad, the hell hounds had finally run out of ammunition… as Sgt. Asante looked on in horror. He popped in a fresh clip, preparing to open fire. He wondered if they were better off when these damned things were just shooting. Betzalel braced the towering shield with his shoulder, readying his blade for their attack. The beasts were on him, their blades stabbing and slicing at him as his own tungsten carbide-edged sword ripped through their tubular steel and plastic armored bodies. With Omega and the 108th firing all guns into the horde.

Isaiah ran 3 steps towards the pack, then leapt as far as he could, launching the Betzalel 30 feet into the air as he rotated clockwise 180 degrees. He slammed into the ground at the river’s edge 100 yards away. The war dogs moved of one accord and charged after him as he took 2 steps back halting when he was knee deep in the muddy shallows at the river’s edge. Still standing in the muck, with the remainder of the 2 dozen war dogs in a simi circle surrounding him, he plunged his blades into the water and activated the swords’ tazers. The current fried the rest of the Cerebrus. Their smoldering husk collapsed, sending sparks and smoke wafting up into the humid jungle air…

It was over by sunset. Isaiah, every muscle in his body ached, drenched in sweat in the jungle heat, his armor and shield splattered with streaks of blood and oil, exhausted, he kneeled surrounded by the dead and dying to pick up a piece of debris from the smoldering rubble of the hollow victory.

He looked at the land around him, littered with hundreds of dead soldiers and enemy ground drones, the Cerberus. He plugged into the com of the Western Alliance. He turned the head once attached to a destroyed drone, the camera focused on his war wearied grim green eyes, two emeralds afloat in a sumi-cup, skin beaded with perspiration, hair in neat cornrows; he tapped the lens with the tip of a grimy armored finger. “Tap, tap, tap. “Hello, I know you’re in there. I can smell ya. If you want to fight, we can do it the old way, one-on-one, winner-take-all. Then no one else has to die. To make a thing like this…you must really be getting desperate. I’m getting bored playing with your toys.

Never send a machine to do a man’s job. He said, exasperated. You see, we’re not the same; I am not civilized like you; when I want a man dead, I kill him myself. If you want to kill me, next time, send something that bleeds. Just be sure it’s somebody you won’t miss.”

Sgt. Asante looked on with a grim smile behind the cigar. “Did they get all that, Sarge?” he asked the lightly armored cigar-smoking Ghanaian warrior beside him.

“Affirmative, that went out on all frequencies, LT.”

“Good, maybe we can end this madness soon.”

He stood and walked across the battlefield littered with the bodies of his fallen, occasionally kneeling to pluck the dog tags from what remains until he had a clanking metal bouquet of bloody petals, stamped with the name, rank, and serial number of his dead. He hurried to finish this grim business before nightfall when the carrion eaters crawled out of the bush.

The entire world heard his broadcast. Hundreds of ADF troops died that day, but thousands were saved because of the actions of the Betzalel the Golum of Ghana and the rest of Omega Squad. He did not want to fight; he was a sailor and a mathematician, and all he wanted was to sail away. All he dreamed of was the freedom of the sea. He wanted to sail his little boat. He still liked math, loved being an engineer like his dad, and loved building things.

That would be how the autistic kid from Texas who loved sailboats would fight from then on. He was the tip of the spear, and his soldiers would follow him to hell because of it. The politicians of the new African states were worried about his ambitions after his stunt after the battle. They didn’t like the idea of a warlord being popular with the people. Even though he’d never expressed any interest in political power, they recognized that he now had it. Some secretly hoped he would die; they could make use of him as a dead war hero, but now he terrified them, and they were his allies. The officers’ corps, as well as his family, disapproved of his style on the battlefield and attempted to reason with him, but Isaiah was resolute.

They were not there, listening to his troops scream in agony and cry for their mothers and pray as they bled out as the monsters advanced on their positions, spraying their bodies with bullets, literally tearing their bodies into pieces. Human bodies, our friends and comrades-in-arms, now lay all around him in disarray, in various states of disassembly and wretched pools of human blood and bile mixed with oil—the blood of machines. Over the torn intestine, spewing cavity of an empty human torso, all slashed, torn, bloody bullet holes, dismemberment chasms of human meat twisted in the smoldering metal wreckage. Nor did they ever see the look on the faces of our soldiers when their commander arrived and led from the front instead of in the rear with the gear.

“I know it sounds anecdotal,” he explained, “but the squadron fights better when I am there; we lose fewer fighters. I never liked the idea of sending other people to do a job I refuse to do myself; it always seemed kinda chickenshit if ya asked me. It just ain’t right, Aeon, and you know it.” He argued.

“I don’t see you retiring from active duty.”

“I didn’t say don’t fight,” Aeon said calmly. “I just said you don’t always have to take point,” she continued, trying to remain calm. “I fight because if we lose this war, we will lose more than our lives,” she said. “We will have lost our children’s legacy. The West will never rule here again. NEVER!” She said. And that was the last time they discussed tactics.

She knew his secret: that the gift of his eidetic memory was also his curse; he would never forget; he simply could not. He remembers everything; he remembers the nightmares of war forever, memories unfaded by time; it seemed like a circle of hell to her. She knew he did not fight for glory; he took no pleasure in it; he wasn’t wired like her. She reveled in the violence and found combat orgasmic, but as much as she hated to admit it, even to herself, he was right.

“Isaiah, I’m pregnant. And we can skip the fight. I am not leaving. I will not fly to Cuba to hide out with some…gangster or whatever this ‘Big Polly’ is to your ‘Naomi’ while you stay here and fight. I’m not being unreasonable; I will stop suiting up for combat, but I will stay in Africa and help in any way I can. So, fight good, keep us alive, Izzy.” He wrapped his arms around her, resolved to defeat his former native land.

In the weeks and months to come, the Betzalel’s unit recorded more combat kills than any other armored tactical combat suit unit in the ADF AUA command. A year later, the war was over, or at least they and their allies had driven the western invaders out of Africa. The West would make a play for the resources of Africa again, but for now, there was a shaky peace. There was a great irony they did not understand in the US: that Isaiah was about to share his new breakthrough in cold fusion with the US and his new adopted home before the West attacked. He still loved America; he just didn’t want to live there.

“Just cause I don’t want you at my table, don’t mean I don’t want you to eat.”

-Tupac

Isaiah and Aeon were both 28 years old. They had gotten married last year aboard the Exodus, the day before she was shipped to the armory in Tokyo to be disassembled and her metal forged into the new heavy armored suit, the Betzalel. They had their first child, a girl with her father’s sea-green eyes. They named her in memory of their old friend Penelope.

About the Author:

JD Cloudy’s poetry has disappeared in Fatfizz, Mad Swirl, Texas Beat Anthology, Danse Macabre, Du Jour, and Death List Five Magazine. He has won no literary awards, entered no slam competitions, and never completed college. He lives to write in Dallas, TX.