Last Atlantis: Blink, Book 1: An Alternative History Alien Invasion Science Fiction Series by Brandon Ellis & Max Wolfe

Author:Brandon Ellis & Max Wolfe [Ellis, Brandon & Wolfe, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

39

ANDREW

Parallel Dimension AT-104

Atlantis

As Joel lay motionless on the forest floor, I reached out and shook him. “Joel, come on, buddy. Wake up. You there? Can you hear me?”

I glanced behind me, just in case. No one came. Only darkness and the changing hedge beside us, morphing into flowers, the limbs elongating.

I about hacked up a lung, my eyes watering. “It’s getting harder to breathe.”

Jennifer knelt beside me. “Don’t panic. The stress could inflame your airways more. Easy breathing, all right?” She scanned Joel’s still form. With a careful touch, she checked his pulse and ran her fingers over his forehead. “We need to bring him back, Andrew.” She slapped his cheek. “Joel, you’re fine. You just shut down for a second. Needed to recalibrate. Joel, you there?”

Working together, we positioned Joel onto his side. Jennifer coughed and spit up something nasty.

My eyes ached as pressure started to build behind them. I shook Joel, but he was out.“Wake up, man.”

He bolted upright, his face covered in sweat. “What happened?” He wheezed.

“You blacked out,” I said. “Look at me.” Ever see someone with a bad case of allergies? I mean bad. No swelling, but I’d be surprised if he could see anything.

He rubbed his face. “I what?”

The air grew denser, heavier; weighted down by the miasma emanating from the mutating vegetation. Every inhalation felt like an effort as we helped Joel to stand. My chest tightened, and I let out a spattering of involuntary coughing. It sounded harsher and more painful than I intended. I bent over, my stomach in pain and my lungs on fire.

Jennifer wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “We gotta get out of here.”

“My nose won’t stop running and breathing feels like I’m sucking air through a wet cloth,” Joel said, his face flushed. “It’s getting worse, whatever this is.”

Groaning wood and crunching bark filled the area. A buzzing pierced the sky. It initiated as a faint sound but heightened, edging nearer.

“Over there,” Jennifer pointed.

Emerging from the canopy of twisted leaves and unnatural blooms were a dozen hover drones. Their rotors cut through the air with a high-pitched whir, combating the denseness that settled around us. Small and agile, they brimmed with various blades and cutting instruments.

The drones approached the growing hedges, their blades whirring more to life. They moved as if programmed to combat this kind of overgrowth. As the first set of blades made contact with the mutated vines, the blades caught and snagged, becoming entangled in the pulsating growth. The drones performed their jobs, regardless, their multiple cutting arms buzzing as they snipped and trimmed the out-of-control foliage. The machines were almost surreal in this moment, like gardeners unaware they tended to a battlefield. Their efficiency was almost hypnotic as blades spun through the thorny vines and mutated bushes, chopping them down to more manageable sizes.

Each drone moved with a goal, their sensors no doubt identifying which branches extended too far, which vines wormed their way into areas they didn’t belong. As

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