Milk Run

By Sean Klein.

Twenty-first century weapons could handle just about anything except first century insects. Sergeant Morgan McCray swatted wildly at a large mosquito, nearly dumping his dinner into the dirt. "Careful, Sarge," someone said, "this stuff's bad enough without ancient Chinese dirt as a garnish," McCray swatted another bug, looked up at the guys. They were grinning, except for Edward Chang, the biotechnician, who alternated between spooning rehydrated beef stew into his mouth and inspecting some sort of large mantis held in one hand with the other. "Hey, Chang," someone asked, "you gonna eat that? It looks better than this stew."

"Actually, I was wondering how we could apply some of these bug's features to the George project, " the scientist said without missing a beat. "Maybe you'd like to volunteer as a test subject?"

McCray knew they were nervous and let them joke a little more than he preferred. Even Lieutenant Salazar, the "official" leader of the expedition, had allowed his squad more leniency than the BuroMil establishment normally allowed. Nonetheless, this was a serious mission. McCray wasn't sure exactly how the new time machines worked, wasn't sure if they were all mechanical, but he knew they worked, and he knew they could give the Buro the edge successful military conflicts required for victory.

The soldiers were finishing dinner. They were an eclectic bunch. Hand-picked, McCray was sure, maybe by Bonengle himself. If not him, someone else high-up in the Buro.

Lieutenant Salazar was the son of Mexican immigrants who spent their lives in poverty, picking lettuce, strawberries, cotton, whatever needed to be picked in California's central valley, all so that their children could succeed. Only Salazar made it, mostly thanks to the Buro who discovered a talented young student at Fresno High and secretly guided his path through Westpoint (first in his class) then into the ranks of BuroMil leadership. Salazar personally, more than anyone present, had the most to gain - a promotion that would make him the Buro's youngest captain ever. "I need the best for this mission, " he had told McCray when they first met. "That's why you're on the list and why I picked you first."

"What makes you think I want to go?" McCray had asked. "I just finished two tours in the jungles down south. Already put in my papers for a training position stateside. I'm not up for another jungle somewhere else."

"This is different."

"How so?" Years of guerrilla combat had made McCray wary.

"The Buro's perfected time travel...."

McCray snorted contemptuously.

"It's true. I didn't believe at first either. I've seen it. They've been sending out surveillance teams for quite a while now. No contact or anything. Just looking around."

"And what do they want us to do?"

"Go back to China, sometime in the first century, get DNA samples for the biotech division."

"More monkeys?"

Salazar didn't answer, instead pulled a photograph from his attache case, slid it across the table to McCray. McCray took a look at it. "Looks like a bad loch ness picture."

The Lieutenant reached across the table and returned the photo to his case. "It's not. As near as we can tell, it's some sort of demon."

"They want us to get demon DNA?" McCray, skeptical.

"We go in. We get the samples. We leave. These people are still using spears and bows. It's a milk run."

McCray laughed. "Forget it. I'm not doing it." He rose from his chair and started for the door.

"Sergeant!" Salazar said, his voice raised slightly. "If you do this mission I can guarantee you any post you want, anywhere in the world." McCray's hand paused on the door lever.

Corporal "Gunner" Gunnarson finished eating, swirled water into his bowl with water from his canteen, used his fingers to do something that resembled washing the dish. Except for Chang, the scientist, Gunnarson was the most meticulous of the bunch. He had served with McCray shortly several years ago before being transferred to West Africa. He was their weapons and tactics expert, a man who knew a thousand ways to kill with weapons and a hundred more barehanded. Gunnarson stood, set his bowl on the log he was using for a chair. "I'm gonna set up the perimeter," he said, to no one in particular.

Salazar nodded, looked around the circle. "Spense, help Corporal Gunnarson." Natalie Spense, a blond all-American type from the country's midwest was their driver. She was one of the Buro's best, a veteran of several campaigns, including the Israel insurrection of 2034. Three flying fortresses went in, only Spense's survived; and that one just barely, a controlled crash that leveled several square miles of Tel-Aviv. No one had ever shot down a flying fortress before. Destroying two was a major accomplishment. Both Israel and Natalie Spense gained the respect of the Buro that day.

Tannenbaum arose, started walking into the brush. "Where you going, soldier?" McCray barked.

"Gotta pee, Sarge,"

"Orders are no one goes anywhere alone on this mission."

Tannenbaum muttered something under his breath. McCray scanned the group, "Heller, go with him. Take your fusion rifle also." Heller put down his dinner and followed Tannenbaum into the brush.

Salazar turned to McCray and leaned in towards him. "I don't know what they could run into out here." McCray didn t like Salazar's implied criticism but Salazar hadn't spent eight years in the Central American jungles fighting guerrillas, corrupt government soldiers, angry villagers, anyone local with a rifle and an attitude it seemed at times. The Buro had sent them into ancient China heavily armed but unarmored. No guns back there, they figured, so why burden them with kevlar?

McCray's thoughts were interrupted by gunfire. Hundreds of birds simultaneously took flight. Everyone paused, looked around. "Those weren't ours," Clark said.

More bursts of gunfire.

"Whose are they then," Salazar said. McCray sensed stress in his voice.

"Sounds like AK-47s"

Gunner ran into camp, Spense running several feet behind him. A second later Heller scrambled in from the opposite side. "They got Tannenbaum!" he yelled, "Cut him down!"

"Lock and load!" McCray yelled. The others were still in various states of disarray. Gunner raised his fusion rifle, gave the jungle a sweeping burst of bullets before it jammed.

Gunfire exploded from the jungle. McCray rolled to the ground. Clark and Odin were cut down before they raised their weapons. Gunner pulled the twin .45s he favored, dove for cover, shooting into the brush past Heller's falling corpse. Chang took cover behind the fallen log.

Figures emerged from the brush. Chinese warriors wearing bamboo armor, some with assault rifles, others carrying spears. McCray fired but everytime he killed one warrior, it seemed two more warriors took his place.

Gunner rolled onto his back. A warrior ran at him, AK-47 ready. Gunner emptied both clips into him, dodged the falling body, grabbed Clark's fusion rifle, tried to fire it at another warrior but was too late. The warrior plunged his spear into Gunner s chest. McCray screamed, emptied his clip into Gunner's assassin, turned to find himself surrounded by spear and rifle toting warriors. He didn't bother reloading.

Of the ten squad members, only four remained: Salazar, McCray, Chang, and Spense. The Lieutenant and Spense were wounded. Salazar had taken a round in the shoulder and was barely conscious. Spense had gone mano a mano with several of the warriors before being knocked down from behind. Apparently they hadn't expected her to put up such a fight.

"Who are you people?" McCray asked. His answer was a spear butt to the jaw. He tasted blood.

Another of the warriors pulled a piece of paper from his belt. "Quiet!" he read from it, in heavily accented English. He then started barking orders to the others in Chinese. Some of the warriors pulled rope from their belts and started binding McCray, Spense, and Chang. Their fusion rifles were confiscated, grenades stripped from their vests. Another warrior tended to Salazar with makeshift bandages. The Lieutenant couldn't stand on his own due to shock and blood loss. Others gathered equipment from the camp.

A jab in the kidneys from a spear told McCray his captors were done and he should start walking. "Where are you taking us?" he asked. His answer this time was a blow to the back of the head.

They walked for an hour before McCray's question was answered. He first saw it over the tree-tops. As they moved closer the jungle thinned and the temple he had only seen before in surveillance photos appeared before him.

As a child, McCray had seen photos of ancient eastern temples, overgrown and crumbling. As an adult he had visited Chichen Itza while on leave from his second tour of Central America. He and his buddies climbed the worn stone steps at dawn, drank beer for breakfast at the top. And now, so many years later, yet so many years earlier, ancient Chinese warriors were leading him into a neatly tended temple, ancient only to his twenty-first century sensibilities.

Inside, hundreds of candles lined the walls of the main hall. At the far end was an altar to a god long forgotten by modern society. The candles threw light and shadows everywhere, giving statuary of strange beings, if they could be called that, sinister aspects. One of their captors walked around to the far side of the altar, ran a palm over the wall, knocked on it when he found what he was searching for. A panel slid open, revealing a secret room. The four Buro soldiers were led inside.

The secret room was smaller than the main hall and dominated by a large circular pit in the center. The pit was ringed with square stones and contained some sort of thin blue-brown mud. Bubbles popped intermittently at the surface. McCray, Spense, and Chang were forced to sit at the edge. Salazar was dumped unceremoniously at McCray's side. Some of their captors piled their gear in the corner before leaving. A half dozen guards stayed inside.

"What's going on here?" McCray demanded. The guards didn't react. He raised his voice and demanded again, tried to stand. The guard near him barked something in Chinese, knocked him down with the butt of his AK-47.

Another panel slid open. McCray saw a man enter, his features hidden by the shadows. "Perhaps I can answer that," the man said. He stepped forward. The newcomer was tall, and not Chinese. He looked American or European but his words had a slight Latin accent. His clothing was almost modern but not quite twenty-first century. Probably late twentieth century McCray guessed - an expensive suit, silk tie, leather shoes. And sunglasses, despite the gloom in the chamber.

"Who are you?" McCray asked.

The man smiled as if enjoying his own private joke. McCray didn't like it. Spense looked distraught. "That's of little concern to you," he said, "call me Wheeler. Mr. Wheeler."

"How'd you get here?" Chang asked, "You're not local. To us or them." The scientist nodded towards the Chinese guards.

"You're very observant, Mr. Chang," Wheeler said. He was enjoying his audience. "I came here the same way you did."

"How? We only just invented time travel."

The man laughed. "They didn't tell you, did they?"

"Tell us what?" McCray asked.

"About the secret war."

"What war?" Buro conflicts were constantly popping up all over the globe. Some were lengthy, many lasted only hours.

"The only war that matters, Sergeant McCray, the war for control over places like this."

"You're crazy."

Wheeler shook his head. "I assure you, I'm not." He pulled a sleek black automatic pistol from his pocket. "Enough talk. Let's get on to business." He walked around the pit, stopped by Spense. "Our Chinese friends here create demons from this pit. I don't quite know how but I made a deal with them. Stop the Buro from destroying their temple and I get a few demons to take home. Catch is, the pit's gotta be fed." He pulled the pistol's slide back and chambered a round. "Natalie Spense. Buro pilot. You bombed Brazil in 2036. I'm going to lose two great-granddaughters because of you."

"Fuck you," Spense said.

"Careful with your language, Ms. Spense." The "Ms." was an insult. It didn't matter. Wheeler pulled the trigger and put a single bullet though Spense's skull. McCray gasped. Blood and other matter splattered over Chang.

"Damn you!" McCray yelled. He struggled against the ropes binding him.

Wheeler turned, pointed the gun at McCray. "You're next," he said, pulled the trigger.

McCray twisted away. A hopeless attempt, logic told him, but his soldier's instincts refused to let him die without a fight. The bullet slammed into the stone floor inches from his face. Fragments stung his cheek and forehead. He turned to avoid the next shot, saw movement nearby, heard Salazar shout "No!"

Wheeler's attention jerked away from McCray. Salazar lurched to his feet, let momentum throw him at Wheeler. He slammed into him, wrapped his arms around the man's torso. Surprised, Wheeler lost his balance and tumbled backwards to the edge of the pit. His gun dropped to the floor as he grabbed Salazar with one hand, the other flailing to restore stability. A moment of false equilibrium then both men plunged into the muck.

The guards gasped, astonished. One dropped his spear and ran for the door. He never made it. Half-a-dozen tendrils erupted from the pit. Three grabbed the guard and tore his head off. Others sought similar prey. The others started shooting or stabbing at anything that moved. McCray watched horrified as a huge distorted dragon-like head, supported by a fleshless neck of tendon and muscle, rose six feet from the pit. A nearby guard screamed as the demon bit into him, tearing out a huge chunk of torso.

McCray backed himself against the wall. Another column of flesh and slime appeared from the pit, grew itself a mouth, bit off the head of the first demon. From the stump three smaller heads grew. More tendrils appeared, some sprouting twisted appendages, gnashing tooth-filled mouths, or unblinking eyes. One of these tendrils wrapped around McCray, dragging him halfway to the pit. Eyes appeared, stared at him, sunk back into the demon flesh. The tendril stopped its pull towards the pit. Salazar's face appeared in the flesh. "Destroy this place," it moaned, before twisting itself back into the tendril. McCray felt the ropes holding him snap. Blood rushed back into his hands. The tendril released him.

Years of combat experience took over. McCray scanned the room, saw Wheeler's pistol, the scattered pile of gear the guards had taken earlier. Chang was gone, into the pit McCray feared.

He leapt for the gear, tried to ignore the screams and gunfire behind him, found the grenades near the bottom. He grabbed one, then an AK-47 dropped nearby. The bullets tore into demon flesh as he sprinted around the pit to one of the doorways. Mostly, they only slowed the creatures. Wounded tendrils merely regrew grotesquely. At the doorway, McCray pulled the pin, tossed the grenade into the pit, then ran.

He found himself back in the main hall. In the mayhem, someone had knocked over a rack of candles, starting a fire. People - priests, warriors, servants, ran about, some seeking cover, some trying to save the temple, some just in panic. A servant rushed past McCray then screamed as a tendril reached through the doorway and grabbed him. McCray turned, fired a burst into both, ran again for the main door, out into the night.

The grenade's explosion knocked him off his feet, lit the sky above him. Debris rained down. McCray scrambled back up and ran into the jungle without looking back.

He awakened to sunlight and a terrible taste in his mouth. Everything hurt. He stood, then vomited against a tree, holding onto it for balance until the dry heaves passed.

"Sarge!" he heard. McCray looked up, around him, saw Chang approaching from the brush.

"I thought you were dead."

"I thought you were dead, too. Especially after I saw the temple go up. I ran out after those things appeared. How you doing?"

"I'll live."

"Need help?" the scientist asked.

McCray stood, steadied himself without the tree's help. "Don't think so."

"By my reckoning, our transport's that way," Chang said, pointing into the jungle. McCray took his word for it. They started hiking.

"You know anything about driving one of those things?" McCray asked.

"A little. I think I can get us back."

"Buro's not gonna be happy. Milk run turning into a disaster."

"Maybe," Chang said, "maybe not." He pulled two sample vials from his pocket, both full. "I went back in last night. Our only real problem is getting home."

Last modified: September 19, 1996;