After the Wave

Chapter 15
Wave Bye Bye

Chapter Description: The End.

Chapter XV: Wave Bye Bye

President Laurel Zimmerman, having been elected to her second term just weeks prior, stood behind a majestic outdoor podium, a grinning but bashful Peter Manning to her left.

“What we have here, my fellow Americans,” she began, “is a prime example of initiative, ingenuity, and bravery. With great passion did he implore his immediate superior, Master Sergeant Steve Gutierrez, to move on not a hunch, but the culmination of 50 years of obsessive research that spanned the globe.

“Peter Manning is a humble and modest young man. I can already guess what he’s going to say: ‘Well, everybody has to fly a fighter jet into the vagina-shaped opening of the scorpion’s tail of a multiple-eyed, pus-dripping mutant that used to be a government research facility once in a while.’ How true those words are. We all have those moments in our lives.

“But that he saved humanity from a second Wave -- one that promised to be far more destructive and even deadly -- is a history textbook chapter unto itself. The United States Air Force has already promoted him to Master Sergeant, and it is now my pleasure to present him with the Congressional Medal of Honor.”

MSgt. Manning blushed as the smiling President placed the ribbon around his neck and shook his hand.

Peter stepped up to the podium and gave the microphone a few taps. “Well, uh... I’m not much of a storyteller, so I’ll make this quick.”

He hoisted up two children into either of his arms-- one boy, one girl, both sucking their thumbs in nervousness.

“These are my parents,” Peter said. “For half a century I’ve treated them like children, out of some sort of misguided quest for vengeance. But the fact is, they’re still my parents... and though we didn’t always see eye-to-eye -- especially now -- these two people built me from the ground up. This medal is just as much theirs, if not exclusively so.” The pilot set his tiny parents back on the ground, and they hid behind his legs out of reflex.

Peter continued. “The Wave did some horrible things to us all those years ago. Supernatural things that can’t be undone. But we work with what we have, and we should be happy to do so.

“We go on.”

the end of

thanks for reading. -lt