Blade
This story was written for a school project. I've been writing parts of this story since I was 8, so it is still subject to change.
CHAPTER 1 I woke up to the sound of my alarm. It was 8:00 O’ clock a.m., my hour. My friends think I am crazy to set my alarm in the summer, and I probably am, but everyday my Dad could come home, so I like to be up.My Dad is a C.E.O. of a big, world-wide company, AZ-Tech, and he is always going on business trips. He never knows how long he is going to be gone, and this time he has been gone a month already. He missed my 16th Birthday even!Every day I get up at eight and wait for him. I am glad we have a big front yard so that I can play football with my friends and still watch for him. Mom has been a wreck, he hasn’t called since three weeks ago, but at last we have not heard anything bad. She is still going to kill him when he gets home though.I got out of bed and went over to the computer. Three unread emails, spam, spam, and...What’s that? From AZ-Tech? Why would I get an email from them? If it was my Dad he would have sent it from his own email, not the company’s.I was just about to open it up when the doorbell rang. My friend Ryan knows that I get up at this hour, so if he is up, he comes over. It’s nice having a friend that lives across the street, most of the time. He is a little wacked, but he’s got a pool.As I was walking down the stairs I saw my brother, Kris, still in the same spot he was in last night. Kris loves his X-Box. My mom wishes she never got it for him in the first place. He plays it for days on end. When he gets a new game, he never stops playing it until it is completely beaten. If it has a multiplayer mode he gets to the highest level possible by the end of the week.Kris just got Frontlines: Modern Warfare. Over three days worth of campaign, and over 400 multiplayer levels, the biggest game ever made. He has been playing it for over two days straight.I was right; it was Ryan at the door. He had Joe with him too. We had the oddest friendship. I was the “normal” one, Ryan was the smart one and the Joe was the funny/skateboarder one. Kris hands out with us sometimes when he is not playing a game.“Hi guys,” I said to them. They had a football with them, so I think I know what we are doing.“Sup,” Joe said in his “cool dude” way.“Yo Nick,” Ryan said as his voice cracked. His voice cracks, but it never really changed.“Playing football?” I asked, although I already knew the answer.“Yeah,” Ryan said.A day of random games, sports, and other things with my friends. My brother even poked his head outside for an hour or so. He must have won the game or something.We all went home at around 9:00 p.m. I came inside and turned on my computer. Time to read the email, I thought. Then I am going to meet Joe on the computer. To: Nick Blade From: AZ-Tech Corporation([email protected])
Subject: Must Read Your shipment is in, come to our building ASAP to pick up your order. NOTE: AZ-Tech takes pride in having a strong customer support. We take the time to write out each in individual E-Mail sent out. Well…that’s odd, I thought as I read it again. I didn’t order anything from AZ-Tech. If I did, wouldn’t the email have come from marketing? I should scan my computer. It could have been a virus. Deleted. After the scan I texted Joe to meet me on the computer. We were just about to start playing a game together when I heard something. It sounded like the window opening. I spun around in my chair to see what it was and I slammed into a fist. Everything went black. CHAPTER 2 When I came to I was laying on my back, my head hurt. My room was all thrown apart. My computer was smashed. I got up; my head was really hurting now. It was three in the morning and yet all the lights were still on in the house. The last think I remember I was playing on the computer, now I feel like I was just in the U.F.C. I walked out of my mess of a bedroom. The whole house was just like it, all torn apart. I walked to Kris’ room. He was out cold. He had his controller still in his hand, so he wasn’t sleeping. I walked down the stairs. Mom was out too. She had a big bruise on the left side of her head. She was lying on the couch. Whoever broke in must have snuck up on her. I wondered what I looked like, if I had a big bruise too. I took out my cell phone and dialed the numbers 9-1-1. “Nine-one-one, what is the emergency?” The operator said in a board voice. “Someone broke into our house. They knocked us all out. I am the first to regain conscious” I said. I was getting scared. What if they came back? I thought. “What is your location?” The now nervous sounding operator said. I could tell that she had never gotten a call that was really anything more than the occasional cat in the tree. “378 Ripplebrook Lane.” “We will send people over right away,” the operator concluded. Five minutes past and the cops showed up with the paramedics, and some strange people in black. Strangely my dad’s boss, Bruce Wright, came. While the cops were searching the house for evidence the paramedics were helping us. They bandaged up my head first because the cops needed my help. They asked me questions like: “what time was it when the intruder came?” and “what were you doing when the intruder came in?” and other generic, meaningless questions like these. Then my dad’s boss came over. “I have some questions for you Nick. Come over to my office tomorrow.” “Wh…” he cut me off. “Just come over.” CHAPTER 3 We spent the night at a Hotel. The cops wouldn’t let us stay at home. They needed the scene undisturbed for evidence. The people at the hotel weren’t too keen at us showing up at 3:00 a.m., but when they saw the cops with us we got our room pretty quick. None of us slept the rest of the night, we were all too shaken to sleep. We were all better though so it was okay. The phone rang at 7:00 a.m. It was the Chief of Police telling us that evidence has been collected and we could return home. It was 8:00 by the time we got home, and it was 10:00 when we finally got the place clean again. No thanks to Kris. He went to play X-Box. My mom couldn’t remember anything from the incident and she wanted to know what happened when the cops arrived. I told her about how my dad’s boss was there and how he wanted me to come to his office today. I told her about how the cops and some strange people in black had showed up. She went to bed after I finished explaining. I went and took a shower, got dressed, and got in my car. Time to see what my dad’s boss wants.__________________ AZ-Tech, one of the most prestigious computer part manufacturing companies in the world. You can’t find a computer without one of their products inside it, and my dad is on the board of administrators. Fifth in charge of the entire company, or so I thought. When I got there the guard at the desk told me to go to the fourth floor, that I was expected. The fourth floor was one giant room. There were two doors behind the desk and the carpet was so fluffy that I could only see half my shoe. I started to wonder around the office, looking at all the expensive artwork on the walls when one of the two doors opened. “Ah, Nick, thanks for coming,” he said in an ominous voice that almost made me wish that I didn’t come. “I want to tell you about your father and his job here. You see, he is not what you think he is. Follow me and I’ll show you.” At this point he was really starting to creep me out. My dad is an executive. What is he talking about? He started to walk to one of the doors. I was a bit hesitant but I followed. He led me through the same door that he came out of. Inside it looked like the “War Room” from the movie Dr. Strangelove. It was a blue-lit room; it had big TVs with maps and radars, and lots of people on computers. AZ-Tech was not a computer past company after all. I looked at Mr. Wright for explanation, and with a sly smirk he simply said “welcome to command.”CHAPTER 4 We started to walk down the stairs. “This is where we direct people on missions.” “Wait, back up a bit, who are you? Where are we? Where’s my dad!?” I screamed the last part at him. I was so confused. What was this man talking about? “We are standing in the headquarters of the N.A.T. You will have never have heard of them, and with luck it will be disbanded after the war. We are the National Anti-Terrorists. We are like the FBI. We handle the most deadly terrorist leaders, and weapons dealers. “Your dad is one of our best agents. He and he squad was pursuing Muhammad Aldin, a terrorist weapons manufacturer. We lost contact with them two weeks ago. Our last message from him was garbled. We could only hear gunfire and he said something about a traitor. He said who it was, but the transmission broke. We do know that it was one of his squad.” “So my dad was…is…?” “Yes,” he sounded almost mechanical as he said it. “So why are you telling me this now? Why was I never told before?” I demanded. “We are forced by the government to remain secret, your mom only thinks that he is in the FBI, we need you to finish what he started.” “But I’m just a kid!” “Yes, and that is why we need you. People tend to not notice kids, so that you can go places adults can’t.” “Yes, but kidnappers, and weirdos, and …” “We wouldn’t send you in alone. That would be stupid, and more importantly illegal. We will send you in with one of your dad’s squad members. He was on vacation when they were sent out. You may be actually familiar with him as he was your dad’s friend. James Myers.” July 3, five weeks earlier A hot day, humid, and laughter in the air. A great day for a 4th of July party. A great big yard, full of people, some I know, some I don’t, all wearing bathing suits with red, white, and blue stripes. People were running around, talking, and kids with squirt guns fighting each other on the play set. My dad was grilling; Kris was on his X-Box. It was a great day. “Nick, get the hotdogs out of the fridge, we need them now,” my dad said. “Get your brother out here too! He’s missing all the fun!” James yelled from inside the pool as three little kids did cannonballs into it. “Okay,” I yelled back. James was my dad’s best friend. He was almost like family to u. I went to Kris’ room first. He reluctantly got out of his bean bag set and went to join the party We got on the helicopter. Our destination: Aaroth, a city in Pakistan. Our only lead was that they were trailing Aldin, and their last known location was around here so we decided to look around and see if we can find any trace of them or Aldin. As we got out of the helicopter the hot Pakistani sun hit me like a hammer. The air was hot, almost musty, and dry. Back in LA it was hot, but being on the coast, it was never dry. As the chopper lifted away I could hear the yell of the merchants trying to sell their wares. James had an awkward silence around him. He felt responsible for letting his squad get captured, even thought he wasn’t there. He felt like if he was there he could have helped. He had not said much since we met up. He did, however, say something now, “Follow me, and stick close. I’ve been here a few times myself and I know that this is not the kind of place you’d want to get lost in without a weapon.” We made our way through the bustling city of Aaroth. We seemed to wander for an hour, but James knew exactly where he was going. It was dark when we arrived at a hotel. It looked empty, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Inside the hotel it was packed, people everywhere. We walked up to the clerk at the counter. “Hello, how may I help…” he was cut off as a man came out of a curtain behind the clerk. “James?” he asked in a surprised voice. “What are you doing back so soon?” So soon? I thought, was he here recently? “Hello Moham,” James said, “I need a room, you got the usual?” “Yes we sure do,” the Innkeeper said as he handed James a key. “Third door on the left,” he said with a creepy smile. The room is small, but it looked clean. There were two beds in the room and there was a bathroom with a shower. We could hear every noise outside of the room and I had a feeling that tonight was going to be a very long night. It was twelve a.m. I was woken up, not by a sound, but by a lack of sound. It was perfectly quite. I could not hear any noise outside the room anymore. There was no lights flickering in from under the door. I got up and found my way over to one of the lamps in our room. I turned it on, no light, no nothing, the power was cut. I could hear James snoring lightly in his bed. I went over to him and woke him up. “Wha,” he muttered, still half asleep. “Something is not right,” I said quietly. “The power is dead and no sound is coming from the rest of the hotel.” He sat up quickly and looked around. “Oh no…” CHAPTER 5 James got dressed and we grabbed our stuff. We opened up the window and climbed out. We hid our stuff in the bushes. James climbed back into the room after we hid our stuff. He took up a position near the door, while I remained outside. James was waiting for somebody to come into the room, and thirty minutes later someone did. The door slowly slid open. As a man in all black crept in, James followed him as he went into the room. When the man realized he was being followed, it was too late. James got him into a headlock, and I came running back into the room. James brought the man down and removed the black mask. It was the Innkeeper. “What are you doing in our room?” James yelled at the man. The man gave him a wicked smile but did not say a word. “Who are you working for? James yells at him.” “I think you know,” the Innkeeper said, then cackled wildly. James knew he would never get any information out of this man, so he tied him up and duct taped his mouth shut. I took his cell phone so that he could not call whoever employed him. We brought him into the next room over and locked him in. We then went back to our room. James went to take a shower while I went back to sleep. I was almost out when I felt the cell phone ringing in my pocket. I pulled it out, it was the Innkeeper’s phone. It was saying “Unknown Number” on it. I answered it anyway. There was an evil sounding man on the other side. He sounded familiar, but I could not place it. “Are they dead yet?” “Who are you?” I yelled back at him. The line went dead. Chapter 6 I told James what had happened when he got out of the shower. He seemed quite shocked at the news, but he also seemed excited. He told me about a device he had that could locate where the call came from. I gave him the number and he plugged it into a little machine that looked kind of like a GPS. The machine clicked and whirred and finally a little map showed up onto the screen.“ It came from inside a warehouse,” James said. “It’s only about a mile from where we are, we should go there now.”The warehouse looked old, rundown, and abandoned.“Is this it?” I asked James.“Yes, not sure why anyone would go here though….” He responded.We pushed open the door. Inside was as old looking and rundown as the outside, except for the fact that there were cases of weapons everywhere. The place was empty, but it showed signs of recent use.James bent down and rubbed his finger over the dust on the ground. “It is volcanic ash,” he said after much thought. “They may be using a volcanically active mountain as a place to store weapons, nobody would ever check there.”“Or make them.” I added.Off of the main room was another small one. We went in it. There were two things inside: A letter and armed bomb. CHAPTER 7 The bomb was counting down from thirty seconds. Someone knew we were coming.“I’ll try to disarm the bomb, this place is good evidence and we don’t want it destroyed,” James said quickly. “Start reading the letter.”Twenty five…Twenty four…Twenty three…“There seems to be no way to open up this bomb. It must be controlled by a remote. I won’t be able to disarm it.”Fifteen…Fourteen…Thirteen…“Grab the letter and let’s get out of here before this place blows up.” James said.Ten….Nine…Eight…“Quickly out the door we are almost there!” I yelled.Three…Two…One…Just as the bomb exploded, we jumped through the door and slid on the ground. The whole place was up in smoke in seconds. I heard a couple crackles as the guns and ammo exploded from the heat and I think I may have heard a grenade or two go off as well, but we made it. I opened up the letter.Mr. Aldin,Your shipment from Arill Island shall be arriving tomorrow.“It looks like we are going to Arill Island.” I said. CHAPTER 8 Arill IslandTwelve hours, fifty seven minutes later. Arill Island is a tropical paradise. Warm, seventy two degrees all year long. Perfect weather and all in all, a perfect place to live. When we arrived I already had an idea of where this weapons factory is. Arill Island is famous for it’s volcano. It has been almost constantly spewing out magma since 1972. The locals built a wall around the volcano. On the volcanic side of the wall, they dug a trench to send the lava that is constantly coming down the volcano to the water. Only once had the wall failed. In that time the entire Island was destroyed. Some rich man had bought the Island and turned it into a vacation hotspot and still the volcano flows. I think our factory is somewhere near the volcano. Somewhere on the other side of the wall. The only way to the other side of the wall is by boat, and then it is like walking through a mine field. If there is a weapons factory on the other side then there may be a helicopter pad on the volcano. James, with his military connections, was able to call in a helicopter and we were up, flying high above the Island within the hour. Flying up above the Island really shows how much the volcano dominates it. There was surprisingly, two wall/trench things. One, where it should be, separating the Island from the volcano. The other formed a circle around a bunch of trees, and a tiny glint of metal. We found our helicopter pad. CHAPTER 9 We took the helicopter up again that night. There was one tiny light indicating where the pas was. We landed and checked out the area. It was a small, oasis-like area, there was a stairway leading down. There were no guards. I found it quite odd that there were no guards, but it sure did make our lives easier. There was a door at the bottom of the stairs. I opened the door, it was unlocked. I was starting to get worried. This is strange I thought. No guards and no locks either. This man Aldin is very overconfident or it’s a trap. At the end of a stairway was a hallway spanning out in two directions. “I’ll take the left, you take the right,” James said. The right path had many twists and turns, leading me to sneak along a wall at every turn. Still no guards, yet I was cautious. The passageway opened up into a big room. It was square and very hot because lava dripped down the walls. I was on the top level in this three story room. The ground level had a big tabletop computer. There was a man standing over it. He was covered in shadows, so I could not see who he was. He was talking to someone. “My factory’s income is up by 37%. This “plan” has given me millions of dollars. But you wouldn’t care about that,” the man said. He was the man from the phone! I walked around to the other side of the catwalk. I could see who he was talking to from here. It was three men, bound and gagged. One of them was my father. CHAPTER 10 My mind was racing. My father was thirty feet away from me. The man had left now, but my dad and his unit were still there. I looked around trying to see if there was a way for me to get down there. There was a side passage leading off from this level. I went to it. It was dark. The only light was coming from the lava dripping down the walls of the passage. “What kind of madman put their secret lair in a volcano and leaves the lava to drip down its wall?” I said to myself. There is a light coming from the end of the pass. As I walked out I was blinded for a second. Then my eyes adjusted then I saw I was not in the room with my dad. I was on a bridge leading to an Island in the very middle of the volcano. The shadowy man who I saw before was here, and with the moonlight coming in from the top of the volcano, I could see who it was. It was James. CHAPTER 11 July 11, Four weeks earlier The moonlight shone like a diamond in the sky, lighting up the yard. Kris had just beat a game, so he was outside throwing the football with me. Dad was on the deck. He had just gotten an email from work. After he read it he looked up at me and called me over. He said to me “I have to leave again. But I need you to remember something for me. If you ever get mixed up in my job, remember the word “BLACK”.” He then got up and walked away to pack before I had a chance to ever ask him why. James was standing there. He had a look of insanity about him and he had a strange device behind him. He also had a shot gun in his hand. “Nick, how good of you to join me. You have something that I want. You see the device behind me is a bomb. I am going to use it to destroy the world. To do that I need three things. I need your dad’s fingerprints. I got that when I captured him. I need his keycard. I found that when I ransacked your house. Now I need a keyword, known only to you and your dad.” I was angry. It all came together now, that word my dad had told me back in July was what he wanted to know. BLACK. I now know what must be done. I ripped a piece of metal pipe off the railing. I ran at James and swung it at his head. He brought his shotgun over his head to block my attack. Just barely he managed to block it away. He was surprised. Good, I thought. He was holding the gun by the barrel so he couldn’t shoot it at me. I swung the pipe down at his legs. He blocked it. “You betrayed me!” I screamed at him and struck again. “You betrayed my father!” I yelled even louder. I knocked his shotgun into the lava, he fell over. “You betrayed the world,” I said, now surprisingly calm. I had the pipe pointed at his head. “You betrayed yourself.” I took out my cell phone and called up Mr. Wright. “I caught your traitor.” The End
Subject: Must Read Your shipment is in, come to our building ASAP to pick up your order. NOTE: AZ-Tech takes pride in having a strong customer support. We take the time to write out each in individual E-Mail sent out. Well…that’s odd, I thought as I read it again. I didn’t order anything from AZ-Tech. If I did, wouldn’t the email have come from marketing? I should scan my computer. It could have been a virus. Deleted. After the scan I texted Joe to meet me on the computer. We were just about to start playing a game together when I heard something. It sounded like the window opening. I spun around in my chair to see what it was and I slammed into a fist. Everything went black. CHAPTER 2 When I came to I was laying on my back, my head hurt. My room was all thrown apart. My computer was smashed. I got up; my head was really hurting now. It was three in the morning and yet all the lights were still on in the house. The last think I remember I was playing on the computer, now I feel like I was just in the U.F.C. I walked out of my mess of a bedroom. The whole house was just like it, all torn apart. I walked to Kris’ room. He was out cold. He had his controller still in his hand, so he wasn’t sleeping. I walked down the stairs. Mom was out too. She had a big bruise on the left side of her head. She was lying on the couch. Whoever broke in must have snuck up on her. I wondered what I looked like, if I had a big bruise too. I took out my cell phone and dialed the numbers 9-1-1. “Nine-one-one, what is the emergency?” The operator said in a board voice. “Someone broke into our house. They knocked us all out. I am the first to regain conscious” I said. I was getting scared. What if they came back? I thought. “What is your location?” The now nervous sounding operator said. I could tell that she had never gotten a call that was really anything more than the occasional cat in the tree. “378 Ripplebrook Lane.” “We will send people over right away,” the operator concluded. Five minutes past and the cops showed up with the paramedics, and some strange people in black. Strangely my dad’s boss, Bruce Wright, came. While the cops were searching the house for evidence the paramedics were helping us. They bandaged up my head first because the cops needed my help. They asked me questions like: “what time was it when the intruder came?” and “what were you doing when the intruder came in?” and other generic, meaningless questions like these. Then my dad’s boss came over. “I have some questions for you Nick. Come over to my office tomorrow.” “Wh…” he cut me off. “Just come over.” CHAPTER 3 We spent the night at a Hotel. The cops wouldn’t let us stay at home. They needed the scene undisturbed for evidence. The people at the hotel weren’t too keen at us showing up at 3:00 a.m., but when they saw the cops with us we got our room pretty quick. None of us slept the rest of the night, we were all too shaken to sleep. We were all better though so it was okay. The phone rang at 7:00 a.m. It was the Chief of Police telling us that evidence has been collected and we could return home. It was 8:00 by the time we got home, and it was 10:00 when we finally got the place clean again. No thanks to Kris. He went to play X-Box. My mom couldn’t remember anything from the incident and she wanted to know what happened when the cops arrived. I told her about how my dad’s boss was there and how he wanted me to come to his office today. I told her about how the cops and some strange people in black had showed up. She went to bed after I finished explaining. I went and took a shower, got dressed, and got in my car. Time to see what my dad’s boss wants.__________________ AZ-Tech, one of the most prestigious computer part manufacturing companies in the world. You can’t find a computer without one of their products inside it, and my dad is on the board of administrators. Fifth in charge of the entire company, or so I thought. When I got there the guard at the desk told me to go to the fourth floor, that I was expected. The fourth floor was one giant room. There were two doors behind the desk and the carpet was so fluffy that I could only see half my shoe. I started to wonder around the office, looking at all the expensive artwork on the walls when one of the two doors opened. “Ah, Nick, thanks for coming,” he said in an ominous voice that almost made me wish that I didn’t come. “I want to tell you about your father and his job here. You see, he is not what you think he is. Follow me and I’ll show you.” At this point he was really starting to creep me out. My dad is an executive. What is he talking about? He started to walk to one of the doors. I was a bit hesitant but I followed. He led me through the same door that he came out of. Inside it looked like the “War Room” from the movie Dr. Strangelove. It was a blue-lit room; it had big TVs with maps and radars, and lots of people on computers. AZ-Tech was not a computer past company after all. I looked at Mr. Wright for explanation, and with a sly smirk he simply said “welcome to command.”CHAPTER 4 We started to walk down the stairs. “This is where we direct people on missions.” “Wait, back up a bit, who are you? Where are we? Where’s my dad!?” I screamed the last part at him. I was so confused. What was this man talking about? “We are standing in the headquarters of the N.A.T. You will have never have heard of them, and with luck it will be disbanded after the war. We are the National Anti-Terrorists. We are like the FBI. We handle the most deadly terrorist leaders, and weapons dealers. “Your dad is one of our best agents. He and he squad was pursuing Muhammad Aldin, a terrorist weapons manufacturer. We lost contact with them two weeks ago. Our last message from him was garbled. We could only hear gunfire and he said something about a traitor. He said who it was, but the transmission broke. We do know that it was one of his squad.” “So my dad was…is…?” “Yes,” he sounded almost mechanical as he said it. “So why are you telling me this now? Why was I never told before?” I demanded. “We are forced by the government to remain secret, your mom only thinks that he is in the FBI, we need you to finish what he started.” “But I’m just a kid!” “Yes, and that is why we need you. People tend to not notice kids, so that you can go places adults can’t.” “Yes, but kidnappers, and weirdos, and …” “We wouldn’t send you in alone. That would be stupid, and more importantly illegal. We will send you in with one of your dad’s squad members. He was on vacation when they were sent out. You may be actually familiar with him as he was your dad’s friend. James Myers.” July 3, five weeks earlier A hot day, humid, and laughter in the air. A great day for a 4th of July party. A great big yard, full of people, some I know, some I don’t, all wearing bathing suits with red, white, and blue stripes. People were running around, talking, and kids with squirt guns fighting each other on the play set. My dad was grilling; Kris was on his X-Box. It was a great day. “Nick, get the hotdogs out of the fridge, we need them now,” my dad said. “Get your brother out here too! He’s missing all the fun!” James yelled from inside the pool as three little kids did cannonballs into it. “Okay,” I yelled back. James was my dad’s best friend. He was almost like family to u. I went to Kris’ room first. He reluctantly got out of his bean bag set and went to join the party We got on the helicopter. Our destination: Aaroth, a city in Pakistan. Our only lead was that they were trailing Aldin, and their last known location was around here so we decided to look around and see if we can find any trace of them or Aldin. As we got out of the helicopter the hot Pakistani sun hit me like a hammer. The air was hot, almost musty, and dry. Back in LA it was hot, but being on the coast, it was never dry. As the chopper lifted away I could hear the yell of the merchants trying to sell their wares. James had an awkward silence around him. He felt responsible for letting his squad get captured, even thought he wasn’t there. He felt like if he was there he could have helped. He had not said much since we met up. He did, however, say something now, “Follow me, and stick close. I’ve been here a few times myself and I know that this is not the kind of place you’d want to get lost in without a weapon.” We made our way through the bustling city of Aaroth. We seemed to wander for an hour, but James knew exactly where he was going. It was dark when we arrived at a hotel. It looked empty, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Inside the hotel it was packed, people everywhere. We walked up to the clerk at the counter. “Hello, how may I help…” he was cut off as a man came out of a curtain behind the clerk. “James?” he asked in a surprised voice. “What are you doing back so soon?” So soon? I thought, was he here recently? “Hello Moham,” James said, “I need a room, you got the usual?” “Yes we sure do,” the Innkeeper said as he handed James a key. “Third door on the left,” he said with a creepy smile. The room is small, but it looked clean. There were two beds in the room and there was a bathroom with a shower. We could hear every noise outside of the room and I had a feeling that tonight was going to be a very long night. It was twelve a.m. I was woken up, not by a sound, but by a lack of sound. It was perfectly quite. I could not hear any noise outside the room anymore. There was no lights flickering in from under the door. I got up and found my way over to one of the lamps in our room. I turned it on, no light, no nothing, the power was cut. I could hear James snoring lightly in his bed. I went over to him and woke him up. “Wha,” he muttered, still half asleep. “Something is not right,” I said quietly. “The power is dead and no sound is coming from the rest of the hotel.” He sat up quickly and looked around. “Oh no…” CHAPTER 5 James got dressed and we grabbed our stuff. We opened up the window and climbed out. We hid our stuff in the bushes. James climbed back into the room after we hid our stuff. He took up a position near the door, while I remained outside. James was waiting for somebody to come into the room, and thirty minutes later someone did. The door slowly slid open. As a man in all black crept in, James followed him as he went into the room. When the man realized he was being followed, it was too late. James got him into a headlock, and I came running back into the room. James brought the man down and removed the black mask. It was the Innkeeper. “What are you doing in our room?” James yelled at the man. The man gave him a wicked smile but did not say a word. “Who are you working for? James yells at him.” “I think you know,” the Innkeeper said, then cackled wildly. James knew he would never get any information out of this man, so he tied him up and duct taped his mouth shut. I took his cell phone so that he could not call whoever employed him. We brought him into the next room over and locked him in. We then went back to our room. James went to take a shower while I went back to sleep. I was almost out when I felt the cell phone ringing in my pocket. I pulled it out, it was the Innkeeper’s phone. It was saying “Unknown Number” on it. I answered it anyway. There was an evil sounding man on the other side. He sounded familiar, but I could not place it. “Are they dead yet?” “Who are you?” I yelled back at him. The line went dead. Chapter 6 I told James what had happened when he got out of the shower. He seemed quite shocked at the news, but he also seemed excited. He told me about a device he had that could locate where the call came from. I gave him the number and he plugged it into a little machine that looked kind of like a GPS. The machine clicked and whirred and finally a little map showed up onto the screen.“ It came from inside a warehouse,” James said. “It’s only about a mile from where we are, we should go there now.”The warehouse looked old, rundown, and abandoned.“Is this it?” I asked James.“Yes, not sure why anyone would go here though….” He responded.We pushed open the door. Inside was as old looking and rundown as the outside, except for the fact that there were cases of weapons everywhere. The place was empty, but it showed signs of recent use.James bent down and rubbed his finger over the dust on the ground. “It is volcanic ash,” he said after much thought. “They may be using a volcanically active mountain as a place to store weapons, nobody would ever check there.”“Or make them.” I added.Off of the main room was another small one. We went in it. There were two things inside: A letter and armed bomb. CHAPTER 7 The bomb was counting down from thirty seconds. Someone knew we were coming.“I’ll try to disarm the bomb, this place is good evidence and we don’t want it destroyed,” James said quickly. “Start reading the letter.”Twenty five…Twenty four…Twenty three…“There seems to be no way to open up this bomb. It must be controlled by a remote. I won’t be able to disarm it.”Fifteen…Fourteen…Thirteen…“Grab the letter and let’s get out of here before this place blows up.” James said.Ten….Nine…Eight…“Quickly out the door we are almost there!” I yelled.Three…Two…One…Just as the bomb exploded, we jumped through the door and slid on the ground. The whole place was up in smoke in seconds. I heard a couple crackles as the guns and ammo exploded from the heat and I think I may have heard a grenade or two go off as well, but we made it. I opened up the letter.Mr. Aldin,Your shipment from Arill Island shall be arriving tomorrow.“It looks like we are going to Arill Island.” I said. CHAPTER 8 Arill IslandTwelve hours, fifty seven minutes later. Arill Island is a tropical paradise. Warm, seventy two degrees all year long. Perfect weather and all in all, a perfect place to live. When we arrived I already had an idea of where this weapons factory is. Arill Island is famous for it’s volcano. It has been almost constantly spewing out magma since 1972. The locals built a wall around the volcano. On the volcanic side of the wall, they dug a trench to send the lava that is constantly coming down the volcano to the water. Only once had the wall failed. In that time the entire Island was destroyed. Some rich man had bought the Island and turned it into a vacation hotspot and still the volcano flows. I think our factory is somewhere near the volcano. Somewhere on the other side of the wall. The only way to the other side of the wall is by boat, and then it is like walking through a mine field. If there is a weapons factory on the other side then there may be a helicopter pad on the volcano. James, with his military connections, was able to call in a helicopter and we were up, flying high above the Island within the hour. Flying up above the Island really shows how much the volcano dominates it. There was surprisingly, two wall/trench things. One, where it should be, separating the Island from the volcano. The other formed a circle around a bunch of trees, and a tiny glint of metal. We found our helicopter pad. CHAPTER 9 We took the helicopter up again that night. There was one tiny light indicating where the pas was. We landed and checked out the area. It was a small, oasis-like area, there was a stairway leading down. There were no guards. I found it quite odd that there were no guards, but it sure did make our lives easier. There was a door at the bottom of the stairs. I opened the door, it was unlocked. I was starting to get worried. This is strange I thought. No guards and no locks either. This man Aldin is very overconfident or it’s a trap. At the end of a stairway was a hallway spanning out in two directions. “I’ll take the left, you take the right,” James said. The right path had many twists and turns, leading me to sneak along a wall at every turn. Still no guards, yet I was cautious. The passageway opened up into a big room. It was square and very hot because lava dripped down the walls. I was on the top level in this three story room. The ground level had a big tabletop computer. There was a man standing over it. He was covered in shadows, so I could not see who he was. He was talking to someone. “My factory’s income is up by 37%. This “plan” has given me millions of dollars. But you wouldn’t care about that,” the man said. He was the man from the phone! I walked around to the other side of the catwalk. I could see who he was talking to from here. It was three men, bound and gagged. One of them was my father. CHAPTER 10 My mind was racing. My father was thirty feet away from me. The man had left now, but my dad and his unit were still there. I looked around trying to see if there was a way for me to get down there. There was a side passage leading off from this level. I went to it. It was dark. The only light was coming from the lava dripping down the walls of the passage. “What kind of madman put their secret lair in a volcano and leaves the lava to drip down its wall?” I said to myself. There is a light coming from the end of the pass. As I walked out I was blinded for a second. Then my eyes adjusted then I saw I was not in the room with my dad. I was on a bridge leading to an Island in the very middle of the volcano. The shadowy man who I saw before was here, and with the moonlight coming in from the top of the volcano, I could see who it was. It was James. CHAPTER 11 July 11, Four weeks earlier The moonlight shone like a diamond in the sky, lighting up the yard. Kris had just beat a game, so he was outside throwing the football with me. Dad was on the deck. He had just gotten an email from work. After he read it he looked up at me and called me over. He said to me “I have to leave again. But I need you to remember something for me. If you ever get mixed up in my job, remember the word “BLACK”.” He then got up and walked away to pack before I had a chance to ever ask him why. James was standing there. He had a look of insanity about him and he had a strange device behind him. He also had a shot gun in his hand. “Nick, how good of you to join me. You have something that I want. You see the device behind me is a bomb. I am going to use it to destroy the world. To do that I need three things. I need your dad’s fingerprints. I got that when I captured him. I need his keycard. I found that when I ransacked your house. Now I need a keyword, known only to you and your dad.” I was angry. It all came together now, that word my dad had told me back in July was what he wanted to know. BLACK. I now know what must be done. I ripped a piece of metal pipe off the railing. I ran at James and swung it at his head. He brought his shotgun over his head to block my attack. Just barely he managed to block it away. He was surprised. Good, I thought. He was holding the gun by the barrel so he couldn’t shoot it at me. I swung the pipe down at his legs. He blocked it. “You betrayed me!” I screamed at him and struck again. “You betrayed my father!” I yelled even louder. I knocked his shotgun into the lava, he fell over. “You betrayed the world,” I said, now surprisingly calm. I had the pipe pointed at his head. “You betrayed yourself.” I took out my cell phone and called up Mr. Wright. “I caught your traitor.” The End
