Guardian

My head. The pain. It hurts bad.

I must have stood up too fast, playing under the wooden bar in the house. I remember having the Hot Wheels on the bar stools, then would nudge them gently to get them rolling in order to watch them pick up speed before they crashed onto the hardwood floor. It was really cool. Seemed like the bigger trucks crashed the hardest on the floor. The race cars tended to bounce more - some times they would even roll away from the crash zone.

My leg had fallen asleep, so I jumped up to straighten it. At only eight years of age, I didn't realize I was too tall to stand all the way up while playing under the bar. CRASH! My head smashed into the bottom of the bar! I hit the floor a second later.

My head. The pain. It hurts bad.

I wonder if mom will hear me down here? Surely she heard the noise.

Wait. I am hearing other noises now. I am not under the bar anymore. Heck, I am not even eight years old anymore! Talk about a wicked flashback! I had totally forgotten about that childhood head smashing incident.

Now I remember. That KPA-Nano hit me with his fist. He knocked me out. Now, where the heck am I?

I slowly opened my eyes and began to focus. I am laying on my back. My Nanosuit is disabled or powered off. Some dude is looking at me.



Crud. It's General Kyong. The leader of the Korean People's Army (KPA). I guess I figured I would get to meet him sooner or later. I didn't count on not having a fully functional Nanosuit at the time, though.

Looks like I am in the same general area that I was before. At least the noises sound the same. The scent smells the same. I am certainly still in that mine. I am almost afraid to look around - thinking they might have me strapped to one of those machines - so I can face the same fate as Aztec, Jester and Prophet.

They picked me up and led me down the stairs. When I looked around, I saw that I am less than 5 meters from both of the remaining US scientists - including Rosenthal's daughter, Helena.



There are a few KPA guards as well. I didn't even have to look down to notice that all my weapons were gone. I wonder if they found the SCAR ammo I left inside my suit? Surely not. After all, I had to protect the final rounds from my fallen teammates.

With a guard focused on me and both scientists operating the machines around the room, Kyong started talking about wanting to use his stolen find to gain World Power. This was going to be a weapon of the Korean People's Army. A weapon to finally get past China, the United States and anything the United Nations has to offer.

He wanted to get the ball rolling now. He wanted to send power into the machine. Helana Rosenthal did not want to obey the command, but did not speak up. The other scientist urged Kyong to reconsider, that there would be no way to control the machine once it was fully powered on. They had not figured out how to control the machines yet.

Kyong refused to listen. Instead, he put a bullet into the outspoken scientist. Not wanting to find a similar fate, Helana began to send tons of power into the machine. It began to emit massive amounts of light. Commander Kyong became overwhelmed with excitement as he faced the machine.



What he didn't realize is that the power helped to jump start my Nanosuit. I could feel the device begin to run through the pre-power up sequences. None of the surrounding guards realized my suit was coming online - as their suits were already fully functional and they were overtaken by the display of light filling the room. Within about 30 seconds, the suit would be online.



When my suit powered fully online, things got really ugly - really quickly. One of the guards was knocked down by some falling machinery - as the machine was starting to come to life. The other was taken down by Helena. I made a beeline right toward Kyong.

I could have picked up a weapon, but this was personal. Kyong was the force behind three good Special Forces teammates of mine who were killed in the line of action while trying to rescue innocent American scientists. So, I put my suit into strength mode and went after him using only my fists.

Kyong grabbed a machine gun, but never got a chance to use it, as round after round of punches met his unguarded head. Without a firing a single shot, I personally eliminated the KPA commander.



With Kyong out of the picture and the room still out of control, I need to evacuate the area before Helena gets hit by some of this falling debris. I am not sure what we are going to do, but I am 100% certain that my way in was just collapsed shut.

I need to figure out what I can do to get us out here. I will be back in touch soon.

Nomad ... signing out.

Evacuate Helena

The mine was really starting to collapse all around us. From what I could tell, only Helena and I were still alive. At least, we were the only two moving around at this point. If we didn't do something, we wouldn't be alive much longer.

The rumbling and the noises reminded me of an avalanche I survived while skiing in the Back Bowl of Vail about 7 years ago. I had decided to take a vacation in Vail, Colorado for the first time in my life. If you do the math backwards, you'll probably remember why I had to spend some time relaxing - after some serious world issues were resolved.

At any rate, the scariest thing about the whole experience is how it came up upon me so quickly and the noises that I heard just before I became trapped in the snow. The weather was perfect and the snow was great on the double black-diamond Back Bowl area. But what I didn't realize is that the increase in temperatures and wind were the preconditions for the avalanche that soon arrived into the area.

Before I knew it, I heard the sound of snow coming down from the elevation above me. I would guess the wall of snow was probably 15 feet high, which is far taller than I am. The closing speed appears to be faster than my current rate of speed. The sound was a scary, throaty roar.

I moved toward the edge of the racing snow, but the edge seemed to keep extended outward. The wall of snow closed in on me. I unhooked my ski line that was very red in nature. I never figured I would need the emergency/rescue gear, but that appeared to be incorrect. Now, I am still skiing toward an edge that is not in sight and I have a long, bright red tail behind me - in the event that I become buried in the snow.

Well, the wall of snow hit me and it hit me hard. It knocked both skis off my feet and sent me down the hill very quickly. I used swim motions to try and keep going with the flow, but eventually I became covered in a blanket of snow.

I remember hearing that after 15 minutes, less than 10% of people caught in an avalanche survive. First things first, I bore out a big area. I needed to maximize my area and get some space for air. But the area had to be big to avoid the edges of the snow from freezing and locking me into this snowy grave.

With a big area around me and plenty of air for now, I sat idle and did some thinking. Which way was up? The last thing I needed to do was dig myself deeper from the top. After sitting idle for a few minutes, I felt the gyroscope of my body work with the gravity of the Earth to help me realize which way was up.

I took a deep breath and began to push in that direction. Just when I thought I would reach the top, I was greeted with more snow. But I kept pushing. From what I could tell, both of my legs were okay, so I used them to my advantage.

Since you know that I survived the story, the end of the story was more of the same. I kept pushing and pushing until I found a way out. That is what I plan to do to get me and Helena out of this mine.

I saw an elevator shaft. Maybe up is the answer, since looking around tells me that down is not the answer - unless we go down into that machine. Who knows what's in there!

So, we moved into the elevator shaft and started heading upward. Helena looked a bit worried at this point. I cannot imagine what she's gone through since being detained by the Korean People's Army (KPA) and Commander Kyong.



The elevator managed to flow upward about two stories before it stopped working. Something hit the engines or the shaft and now we are jammed. We are too high to jump down. Not sure what we would do once we were down anyway.

The mine area was really starting to fall apart.



Just then, we saw an opening in the mine. I could see the sky outside. If we had a VTOL we could fly out of here now. Otherwise, we need a miracle, because I cannot jump that high - especially holding another person. The Nanosuits are not that powerful yet.

The pilot from one of the VTOLs radioed me. They are going to drop in and evacuate us! There's our miracle!

I could now see the VTOL and the line it dropped to rescue us. The sound of a VTOL is always a great sound! Especially when you think you've reached the end of the line.



We managed to get Helena on the line with the rescue team. They pushed the rope upward and toward the VTOL.



Just after I saw her board, I saw the rocks come down hard on the elevator. Before they hit the cage, I knew there would be no way I was going to be rescued from this mine via the VTOL. Instead, I was about to hit the ground hard, surrounded by this metal cage.

My only hope will be to find another way out. I have a feeling I am going to get to see more of that huge machine soon.

I will be back in touch as soon as I can.

Nomad ... signing out.