Free Metal Boxes - Trapped Outside by Alan Black Page B

missile and Allie might be hurt. Butcher was injured. Menendez and Thomas were both hovering over him. Stone tried to stand and Numos pushed him back on his butt.
    Numos waved both hands over his ears.
    Stone thought, “ Well, at least I am not the only one who can’t hear.”
    Numos raised a bloody hand and offered Stone a thumbs up, giving it a little waggle making the hand gesture a question.
    Stone nodded trying to return the thumbs up, but two fingers on his hand were bent at odd angles. They didn’t hurt. He looked at the twisted fingers with odd curiosity. He nodded, more to himself than Numos, thinking he must be in shock. A normal human would be screaming and crying in pain. Then it dawned on him. His military nanites had already begun repairing the injury, numbing the pain. They couldn’t reset the broken fingers, but they would anesthetize the damage so he could continue to function.
    Numos grabbed his hand and snapped the fingers back into place. Stone screamed in surprise. He stopped when he realized that it hadn’t hurt. He wiggled all of his fingers. They worked. He flashed Numos a thumbs up.
    Numos turned and without a word, vaulted through the open space in the wall where the window used to be. He disappeared into the smoke and dust wafting through the courtyard.
    Something about the courtyard tickled Stone’s brain. Had he seen Allie in the courtyard? No. Jay and Peebee were there. He pushed to his knees and then to his feet. Thomas glanced up from Butcher with a questioning look on his face. Stone gave him a thumbs up. It had made Numos go away and he hoped it would have the same effect on Thomas, making the man leave him alone. It must have worked because Thomas nodded and turned back to help the doctor with Butcher.
    His ears popped. He heard a painful screeching and a distant wonking. He stumbled toward the corridor. The door was open, but the hallway beyond was jammed with what looked like second story rubble. He turned to the window, planning to follow Numos.
    He didn’t want to go outside, even into the courtyard, if bombs might still be falling. He couldn’t hear any explosions, but he could feel thumping vibrations through the floor. Outside was dangerous enough without someone trying to blow a person up. The courtyard was enclosed everywhere except overhead. It didn’t have a ceiling, but Allie, Jay, and Peebee were out there and they may be hurt.
    Stumbling over chairs, he was amazed to see a small single flower sitting on the floor, upright in its base, completely undamaged. Just as he reached the window, alien hands grabbed the window lip. A thick spike jammed through the wall. Stone shook his head in wonder. The walls of the compound were heavy titanium ceramic composite that should have stood up to most conventional weapons, not the size of the missile they were bombed with, but strong enough to deflect any breaching tool.
    The wall bowed out and with a shriek pulled away from the building. Stone grabbed a table leg as the closest weapon. Numos has been wearing a side arm. Butcher and Thomas were wearing hand weapons. He wondered why he only had a table leg. He heard screaming.
    A loud pop made his vision go blurry. He grabbed his knees to steady himself upright and realized he was doing the screaming. He stopped, picked up his table leg again and braced his feet as the wall gave way. Jay wonked at him, leaned a long neck into the room, huffed breath into his face, spun about and raced away. He could hear Peebee crying in the distance. He’d never heard the drascos cry, but there wasn’t any other way he could describe the noise. Clenching his teeth, Stone followed Jay out into the courtyard.

ELEVEN
     
    The smooth parade ground was gone. The dirt was furrowed like an ocean during a storm. The north side of the compound wasn’t there. It hadn’t just disappeared, it’d been shredded, twisted, and torn apart leaving behind a deep ragged hole. He could see pieces and chunks of