Distortion Offensive by James Axler Read Free Book Online Page B

storage area. Grant pointed to the gate. “Take a look inside,” he encouraged. “It won’t bite.”
    Warily the plum-haired teenager worked the catch of the wooden gate, keeping one eye on Grant as the towering ex-Mag watched. “What’s in there?” he asked.
    â€œTake a look, son,” Grant said, a smile on his lips.
    Grant recognized the anticipation on Tony’s face, both excited and fearful, wondering if a trick was being played on him. When the boy didn’t open the gate, Grant reached over and pushed it gently until it swung open on a creaking hinge.
    â€œWhoa!” Tony uttered, unable to contain his excitement. “Is that real? What are they?”
    Two bronze-hued aircraft waited in the rough scrubland of the church hall garden. They were huge vehicles, with a wingspan of twenty yards, and a body length of almost fifteen feet. The beauty of their design was breathtaking, an effortless combination of every principle of aerodynamics wrapped up in a gleaming burned-gold finish. They had the shape and general configuration of seagoing manta rays, flattened wedges with graceful wings curving out from their bodies, and an elongated hump in the center of the craft providing the only evidence of a cockpit. Finished in a copper, metallic hue, the surfaces of each craft were decorated with curious geometric designs, elaborate cuneiform markings, swirling glyphs and cup-and-spiral symbols that covered the entire body of the aircraft. These were the Mantas, transatmospheric craft used by the Cerberusteam for long-range missions. They were alien craft, discovered by Grant and Kane during one of their exploratory missions to the Manitius Moon base. While the adaptable vehicles were mostly used for long-haul and stealth missions, Kane, Grant and Brigid had employed them on this occasion as robust workhorses, able to convey the heavy crates of rations in collapsible storage units that had been attached to their undercarriages for transportation to Hope.
    Grant chuckled as he answered Tony’s question. “They’re real, all right,” he assured him. “Me and my buddies flew here in them.”
    Tony turned to Grant, his eyes wider than ever. “You flew them? Are you some kind of spaceman or something?”
    Grant placed a friendly hand on the teenager’s shoulder and guided him closer to the Mantas as the early-morning sun played off their metallic shells. “No, we’re just like you, kid,” he said.
    Tony ran a hand along the wing of the nearest vehicle, touching the swirling patterns that had been engraved within its surface. “They’re beautiful,” he said.
    He had come down from his high, Grant realized, just an excitable kid once more.
    â€œDo you think you could ever fly one?” Grant asked.
    Tony beamed. “I’d love to. How fast do they go?”
    â€œReal fast,” Grant assured him. “You could cover the whole of this ville in five seconds.”
    Tony was amazed. His was a world of poverty and survival; he had almost no inkling that such wondrous technology existed. While he looked at the engines at the back of the Manta craft, Grant brought up the subject of the mollusks and learned that the youth hadfound them on the beach while he was down there with his girlfriend. They were both hungry, it seemed, so they had decided to try eating them. They tasted lousy raw, so Tony had cooked them, starting a fire like his father had showed him. That kind of stood to reason, Grant thought, and he quietly admired the kid’s adventurousness.
    A few minutes later, Grant and the fourteen-year-old entered the church hall to join the others as they, too, discussed the mysterious mollusks.
    Inside, Kane and Brigid had separately established that Pam had cooked and eaten the strange mollusks with Tony.
    â€œWe found them along the beach, near the old pier,” she explained.
    â€œWere they alive?” Brigid