Angels and Operators: The Final Confrontation
Installment Seventy-Nine
Previous Installments (In Reverse Order)
You burst through the door from the basement into the deadening fluorescent light of Pierce's kitchen. He's perched in a wheelchair, frantically rummaging through a kitchen drawer. Pierce's human form appears haggard and emaciated. The lines on his face have deepened, crisscrossing their way across a landscape of waxy, pallid skin. Superimposed over his frightened, dull-eyed features are the mechanical insect traits of his true, Operator self. The human face seems panicked, but the buzzing, shifting alien face radiates only heartless malice.
“You think you have won, angel minion!” it screams, “but in moments, my compatriots will swarm here, reducing you, the woman, and the unborn warrior to atoms!”
Pierce reaches into the drawer, pulling out an alien communication device. It looks like a large cellphone with the writhing legs of a metallic praying mantis.
Before he can press its flashing red central button, you surge toward him. He jabs it at you, wielding it like a weapon. You hit the activation button on the makeshift stun gun and, knowing it will remain active even after you let go of it, drop it into his lap. Blue sparks fly. His graying head thrown back, Pierce's human form judders and twitches. The amorphous Operator features twist, turn inside out, and explode into a million flying pixels.
You step back. Pierce lies motionless in his wheelchair. Steeling yourself, you reach forward to touch his neck, seeking a pulse. Pierce is dead.
Blood drips from your forearm onto the dead man's denim shirt. The fabric of your sleeve is torn; a deep gash has opened the flesh of your arm. Confused, you look down at the floor. The alien communication device is gone. In its place, you see one of those ever-sharp kitchen knives, which hones itself every time it's taken out of its handle.
A noise draws your attention to the front of the bungalow. You hear the working of a key in the front door lock. Through a small frosted window you see a dark shape-Judy has come back!
Now what do you do first?
Under the hood
From the earliest voting there was little doubt as to where this was headed-going up to zap Pierce captured 60% of the vote. The next choice, using Dom's phone to take pictures of the torture den, was far behind with 20%. 13% wanted to call 911 about a torture den in the basement, 5% sought a verbal confrontation with Pierce, and only 2% wanted to call 911 about the presence of a gibbering madman in the house.