She gave him a beaming smile.
“I’ll bring the small stuff tomorrow. I won’t worry about the furniture until the end of the month.”
Before they went to bed, John watched Cassandra try to contact her stepbrother again without success, as she had done every night since the first airwar sighting.
“John, I’m worried about Chunky.”
“You said yourself he’d be out of communication at times,” he said, rubbing her back in a comforting way.
Cassandra, looking somewhat reassured, fell asleep in his arms.
John lay awake, troubled by thoughts of scenes he would again be experiencing at work the next morning.
CHAPTER 5
THE COLOSSUS
John spent most days in the expanded triage area of the local hospital ER. The city had a higher daily death toll and injury rate than other areas. Resistance to the confiscation of firearms was great in Central Florida. Attacks on airwars in Orlando were more frequent than other large cities. He fully understood local feelings on the repeal of gun rights. Although he turned in his shotgun and reluctantly even his childhood BB gun, which he doubted would have any impact on airwars, a defiant individualistic streak made him hide the Judge, his 45-caliber pistol that could fire a 410shotgun shell. Even with death as a deterrent, some mandates were too misguided.
The airwars numbered few in Orlando, but all acted aggressively. Lists of the dead and injured were located on the “posting wall,” an outside wall of the hospital running its entire length. A makeshift canopy ran the total span protecting hundreds of sheets of paper held in place with duct tape from the rain. Due to large numbers of victims, the posting organization was simplified into male and female sections, then into children, adults, and elderly.
The posting wall started near the hospital entrance and John hated passing it. He personally complained to the hospital’s chief administrator, Mr. Goldman, about its placement. Early before his morning shift, John visited Goldman in his office on the top floor of the hospital. Goldman, a short, thin man, bald on the crown of his scalp, sat behind an oversized mahogany desk. He never directly looked at the person he was speaking to and sometimes even closed his eyes as he spoke.
“There’s nothing the hospital can do,” said Goldman.
“Well,” said John, “it’s morbid having the posting wall near the entrance. It’s one constant scream of grief. Everyone who visits the hospital is exposed to it.”
“I’d think you’d be used to screams,” said Goldman.
“In the ER it’s unavoidable,” replied John, “but the posting wall is like an endless public funeral you can’t escape from attending.”
“I think what you need is a bit more compassion, Dr. Long.”
“Compassion? I would think it would be far more compassionate to give the grieving families a bit of privacy.”
Goldman looked out the window as if studying the cloud formations. “Dr. Long,” he said, “the posting wall is an ASC requirement. Please don’t forget ASC provides exclusive funding for airwar treatments and related services.”
“Well,” said John, “if they’re funding the wall, it would be far cheaper to post results on the Internet. The posting wall is not only inefficient, but labor-intensive. Why don’t you point that out to them?”
Goldman turned and looked directly at John for the first time.
“I have and ASC doesn’t care.”
“That’s ridiculous. Why would ASC not care about cost?” asked John, then he paused in thought, “. . . Oh, I get it. Orlando is being punished by ASC for not being in lock step with their policies. That explains the barrage of videos about the wall we’re subjected to on local news.”
A blank stare from Goldman confirmed to John he was correct.
“Why don’t you just stand up to ASC and take the posting wall down?” said John, “You know tempers are always flaring around the wall. People accuse each other of being anti-airwar, militant terrorists. ASC just wants a scapegoat to explain the aggressive behavior of airwars in Orlando. The posting wall is only a tool against the militias.“
Goldman fiddled with papers on the desk and didn’t look up.
“Dr. Long, I won’t bite the hand that feeds this hospital. You have to admit it’s blatantly apparent that other cities like San Francisco, which has virtually no attacks on airwars, have fewer human deaths.”
John pulled out his cell phone, pushed a button, and spoke into the phone, “Colossus—San Francisco.” A web page appeared on his phone and he said smugly, “It says here there are now over 100 Colossi in the Bay Area. I think I’ll take my chances here in Orlando.”
Goldman leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, “Dr. Long, I’m well aware the Colossi first appeared in San Francisco, but you know as well as I ASC refers to them as placid. I don’t know if I believe Colossi are fully mature airwars as ASC scientists do, but unlike common airwars, it’s clear if you leave them alone they leave you alone.”
“Well, to me, Colossi are massive adult airwars growing to three-hundred meters,” said John, “and an accident waiting to happen. Everyone knows what happens if you tick them off. Remember the Zimbabwe video?”
Goldman shrugged, “ASC only shows that video as a warning to restrain citizens from attacking Colossi. With as many attacks on airwars around here, I’m quite glad there are no Colossi locally. An attack on a Colossus would be devastating to our community.”
The Zimbabwe Video was widely circulated by ASC to emphasize the placid Colossus’s aggressiveness, if attacked. The video opened with a swarthy, shirtless villager heaving a machete high into the hydrogen sac. The throw was an impressive feat in itself as the sac was, at a low point, fifty meters off the ground. The machete pierced the membrane of the sac and a tiny slit became apparent. The man stood in defiance, picking up another machete and now holding one in each hand.
He was trying to save the only object of value he possessed, his goat, now currently entwined in one of the black peripheral tentacles of the Colossus. The goat’s bloodshot eyes bulged and mouth frothed. The only sign of residual life was a twitching hindquarter. The man decided to make a stand. It had a ridiculous quality, like an ant shaking a fist at a shoe stepping on it.
Although the injury from the first machete was comparable to a paper cut on an elephant, the reaction from the Colossus was severe. A tentacle snapped out and wrapped around the man’s right forearm. The man screamed in agony as thousands of meganematocysts entered his skin. The airwar’s meganematocysts were like bigger versions of the jellyfish or sea anemone stinging organelle, the nematocyst. Their hair-width points were barbed and hollow, injecting a man with painful poison. When an airwar struck, the thousands of meganematocysts would fill a man with more venom than the bite of a diamondback rattlesnake.
The man spasmodically dropped his machete from his right hand, but held fast to the one in his left. He began hacking wildly at the other approaching tentacles. A spray of sweat mixed with tissue fluid from the creature flew in the air. For a moment he fended off the black tentacles of the outer curtain. Flopping about his feet were a half-dozen writhing tentacles. The now truncated, main branches reflexively snapped upwards in the sky.
Then the tentacle, still wrapped around his right arm, yanked upwards, forcing him to balance on his left foot. He couldn’t deliver a direct blow, and severing the tentacle was his sole chance for escape. Another tentacle flanked him and slid in behind. As it contacted the machete-wielding arm, it coiled