ESCAPED

Get him! Don't let him jump down the cliff!", An agitated voice of a furious man wearing a red beret, standing a few meters away from a small truck, under a tall on a mountain top, shrieked out in sheer agitation into his walkie-talkie which he held close to his right ears while gazing at an escapade with a black binoculars until the escaped soldier eventually succeeded in his wild run from the hunters who saw him fall below a colossal cliff, diving down to the farthest floor of the tall cliff where the dense snow-clad evergreen trees could hardly be seen by five men at the top.

"He's gone, sir",

Another voice retorted from his walkie-talkie with a buzz.

"Damn it. Wrap it up, boys and head back to base!",

He ordered, shrieking into his walkie-talkie once more.

"Copy that, colonel ",

He switched off the transmission and returned back to his jeep where two armed soldiers and another soldier sitting on the driver's seat behind the wheels, were waiting for him to come back for a ride back to headquarters down the sloppy mountain. One of the two soldiers whom he found sitting at the back seat with his comrade, had his entire body including his uniform shrouded with a grassy cloak and his hefty rifle with a narrow end tilted to one side of the vehicle. They both adjusted themselves as soon as the colonel met them with the sniper at the extreme end of seat at the rear and saluted when he joined them at the back seat.

"Murphy, take us back to camp",

"Right away, sir",

Murphy replied and quickly turned on the engines of the jeep having no roof before steering the vehicle, drifting down the

hill through the forest path from whence they had come in pursuit of the escapade a few hours ago. The colonel adjusted his beret as the vehicle raced down the hill so that it won't get blown off by the rushing wind that kept slapping his face including the others who were with him at the back of the truck. The bumpy ride was getting intense for the colonel to handle and he quickly tapped the reckless driver in front to keep them from hitting a tree nearby.

"Godamn it, slow down horses. You really don't want to get us killed, do you?"

"No, sir"

"Then drive slowly"

He retorted taking his eyes off the driver and looked in another direction. At that moment, the sniper at the other end of the back seat, suddenly spat something into the woods as the wind spun around them because of the speed at the way they were going. Murphy eased his foot on the brakes and retarded the speed of the vehicle to a barest minimum enough for the passengers to relax profoundly without having to worry that they might get into an accident while heading back to camp.

"That's more like it"

The Colonel said to himself feeling a bit more comfortable at the back seat.

"Will he survive, sir?"

"Who?"

"The fugitive"

"He'll damn survive the fall, alright"

"But the cliff is about two hundred feet high above the ground"

"So?"

"So he has little chances of surviving that fall"

"Not likely"

The colonel replied with a firm resolve that got the two men puzzled. Even Murphy at the front was a bit surprise of the colonel 's stark refusal to accept the Sniper's point of view.

"What makes you so sure, sir?"

Murphy questioned with his ears eager to hear what the colonel had in mind with his eyes still focus on the bush path as he drove his passengers through the forest.

"Because he isn't entirely human, that's what"

"Then what is he?"

"Didn't you fellas know?"

The sniper and the other soldier sitting next to him in the middle, suddenly looked at each in other in disbelief and returned their enthralled faces back to the colonel .

"No, we don't"

The sniper replied.

"Me neither. Did you, Murphy?"

"No, Raph. Not even a clue to who he was"

"It seems you guys weren't told about the new recruits we brought to camp last summer"

"You mean those elite soldiers from Alaska"

"Yes, dumbass"

"They looked human to me"

"Me too. I never saw anything odd in their behavior the entire time we were in camp together"

Raph replied.

"Which squad was he, Murphy?"

"The Hornet squad, I suppose"

Murphy replied with a joke which got the sniper and Raph laughing violently but they were careful enough to keep themselves from rolling out of the vehicle.

"That's not it, black fool. He was part of the M19 specialist"

"A what now?"

"A specialist team trained artificially to survive extreme conditions and to endure pain"

"You mean that they are indestructible"

"Exactly and the escaped recruit is a humanoid clone like the rest of his squad"

"I bet he must have metals covering his internal organs underneath his skin"

Raph chuckled with a dry joke.

"No, he doesn't"

"What?"

"As far as I know, their skin was pretty much similar to a human but mechanized to withstand tough metals especially bullets"

"How come we weren't briefed about this?"

"Because it's classified information and strictly confidential"

"I don't believe this, they even ate with us and nobody suspected that they were a bunch of artificial beings created in a lab"

"Believe it or not, it's the truth"

The colonel replied.

Murphy quickly retarded the speed of the jeep as soon as he saw that they were approaching the main camp where he and his passengers could see some armed soldiers stationed just outside the left corner of the main gate, in front of the barbed wired fence.

"Why are telling us if this is top secret?"

"Because we ought to know we'll be up against once we find this rogue"

"That's good to know"

The sniper retorted.

"Now, you guys should keep this between us"

"We will, Sir"

"Sam, Don't go tell anyone what we just discuss until an order comes from the chief"

The colonel whispered.

"Got it"

They ended their discussion as soon as a two soldiers standing idly at the gate, equipped with their rifles, just outside the encampment, spotted them arriving with them from the left side of the valley down the forest path but another truck returning from the pursuit as well reached the gate first after driving on the main route that led through the jungle.