Chapter 7
Edgar Latterndale rose from the
floor, his clothes soaked in blood, and stepped up to the platform. He held up
a large pistol and spoke, his voice lost in the dull roar of the ballroom. Merv Lemlin turned to stare down at
Latterndale, looked as if he were about to speak, and then was obscured by a
pulsing white circle.
“Shit.” Alice leaned forward and paused the
video. “Needs to buffer.”
“Nah,” John said, “won't do any
good. Their servers are probably
overloaded.”
They sat in John's cubicle,
surrounded by five of their coworkers, staring at the video on John's second
screen.
“Ten bucks says their servers
crash,” someone called from the back.
“It's not going to crash,” someone else
answered, “it's the state channel. They
have enough resources to handle this kinda thing.”
“Not something this big.” Alice shook her head and leaned back into her
chair. “I still can’t believe this
happened.”
Walter, a structural engineer whom
John had worked with over a decade ago, scooted forward between Alice and
John. “I heard that it was successful,
and the reason it’s taking so long to get an official statement is that they’re
trying to find a convincing body double.”
“No, this guy kept his camera on
the whole time, and you can see Latterndale getting pulled out.”
Walter shrugged. “I don’t know. Just what I heard.” He sighed. “Damn, it’s just so surreal, you
know? I mean, Kennedy was just a bullet
or three, all the theories aside. But
this? What the hell was this?”
“Just special effects,” John said,
refreshing the page in an attempt to play the video. “They know that whatever happened all the
conspiracy nuts’ll over-inflate it, so they’re doing the job for them. Whatever happened is really embarrassing, and
they don’t want anyone to know.”
“Like what?”
John shrugged while he absently
juggled a pen. “I don’t know. Maybe someone in upper management went nuts
and blew up the ballroom.”
“Why—no, how would they get everyone together in less than a day’s time to
film a cover up that is going to be leaked by AmeriNews?” Alice asked.
“Body doubles.” John lost control of his pen and watched it
roll across the floor.
“Alright,” Walter said, “for the
sake of argument, let’s assume that everything was real. This guy really could levitate things and
read people’s minds and stuff. You think
he’s telling the truth?”
“You mean about being made by us?”
“Yeah. I know we’ve done some pretty bad stuff in
the past but this...” he shrugged. “I
don’t know; it just seems so... North Korean.”
Alice rolled her chair back and
forth, her lips pursed in concentration.
“I don’t support what Lemlin did.
I’m pretty well anti-violence.
But I do think he was telling the truth; why would he lie?” She smiled, looking embarrassed. “I’ve already joined a pro-Defender rally for
this Saturday.”
John snorted. “Sounds like something my niece would do.”
“Well, she sounds pretty
smart—civically minded, at least. What
do you think, John? Did we do this or
not?”
John thought for a moment. He had seen some of the video and heard
Lemlin’s testimony; it all seemed too fantastical to be true. And when the White House made an official
statement, it would of course denounce Lemlin as some sort of foreign
agent. What was it that Rachel
said? If the government made an
immediate statement, it was a cover-up?
So if they’d waited this long… “He’s lying. It’s all part of his attack on the president,
to discredit him if he couldn’t kill him.”
“So I guess you’re a big government
kind of guy, then.”
“No, I just can’t imagine us giving
someone psychic abilities and then not exploiting it for everything its worth.”
“So you admit he really had psychic
powers?” Walter said, catching onto
John's phrasing.
“I’m still having trouble believing
that.”
Someone at the back of the cube
retrieved the pen and began to juggle it.
“Okay, screw the rest of the video; we all watched it earlier. White House have a statement yet?”
John turned back to his computer
and ran a search. “Nothing. Statement from the Pope about Lemlin’s
powers, though.”
Alice leaned forward. “Do tell.”
“Let’s see. Careful examination of scripture, consulted
with many religious leaders, da-da-da-da… Okay, basically it’s either a corrupted
revelation of God’s power or a show of the adaptive powers of nature; he hasn’t
decided.” He glanced at the clock in the
corner of the screen. “Ooh, and it’s
late and I forgot my lunch. I hate to
leave this conversation unfinished, but I’ve got to head out.”
Walter dropped a hand onto John's
shoulder. “First, update on that tower.”
“Yeah, sure.” John closed the web browser and opened is
SkyCrest file. “Alright, let's walk you
through this….”
The only remnant of the original
Sky Crest was the Central Maintenance Core, though it now stretched upward for
over a mile. Around it, was a
triple-helix spiral of colossal dodecahedrons, each containing multiple floors. In the gaps between the outer layer of glass
and the triple-helix were atriums stretching across several stories.
The shopping center that extended
from one side had become moat-like, encircling the tower’s half-mile wide
base. Twelve smaller towers projected up
from the pit to join the central tower as buttresses.
Walter nodded appreciatively. “Pretty nice....”
“Is it workable?” Alice asked.
John shrugged. “I ran stress tests. As far as the computer’s concerned, all it
needs is an underwriter.”
“Yeah...” Walter sighed. “Not likely to happen.”
“What's that mean?” the man behind
him asked.
“It means that with a major terrorist
attack on the president, the economy's going to take a nose dive, and luxury
towers are out of the question.”
The other man responded, and John
took the opportunity to slip out of the office.
He had walked for two blocks before
he realized he wasn't particularly hungry.
He just wanted to get out of the office, to digest the events of the
previous evening.
It was tempting to dismiss them as
fabrications. Psychic super-soldiers
were too fantastic to be real. To accept
them at face value would be a tremendous leap of faith, one John wasn’t sure he
was willing to make. For him, the
paranormal was a mixture of con men and credulous victims, the Bible was
exaggerated folk-lore, and extraterrestrial life was single-celled organisms
living in ponds on the moons of Jupiter.
That was life, that was normal. If he accepted at face value what had
happened, if the walls of that normalcy could be breached that much, what else
could find its way through the cracks?
Possibly nothing, he realized. Psychic super-soldiers didn’t entail…
unicorns, say. And, in all honesty, the
Defenders weren't entirely unanticipated;
he had seen the rumors online, the supposed legal foundation....
The government would be aware of
that, too. Maybe they were covering
something, or trying to pick a fight, and just used a convenient story everyone
already believed.
The sounds of a crowd on the
sidewalk ahead pulled John out of his thoughts, and he looked up to see a swarm
of people gathered outside an Army recruiting office, most carrying signs, and
several wearing crudely printed “Defend the Defenders” t-shirts.
One of the t-shirt wearers, a
frizzy-haired man wielding a megaphone,
was in the middle of a tirade. “—have
been victims of the military-industrial complex for too long! Who suppressed American workers in the 19th
century? Them! Who usurped South American sovereignty in the
20th century? Them! Who cut the legs out from under public health
care in the 21st century?
Them!”
Each shout of “Them!” brought an
answering chorus from the audience.
“And now,” the man continued,
“they’re hitting us where we live, screwing around with us on the genetic
level! Well, I say, ‘No more!’ No more of our children into the meat-grinder,
no more soldiers sacrificed to Them!”
If the man said more, it was
drowned out by fevered cheering from the crowd.
The uproar was loud enough to attract the attention of those within the
office, and the cheers turned to angry boos and curses as an officer came out
and began speaking to the man with the megaphone.
John had seen enough. He was just about to continue on his way when
a woman detached herself from the crowd and came to stand beside him.
“Hell of a show, huh?” she asked.
“Yeah….”
The woman was a little shorter than
John, pale and thin, with high cheekbones and short red hair. Despite the relative warmth of the day, she
was wearing a thick, dirty jacket. Her
smell caused John to take a step away.
The woman stepped closer to him again.
“So,” she said conversationally,
“you can spare a dollar, maybe?”
John decided to give her the
benefit of the doubt. “Sorry, I’m not
interested in donating.”
The woman laughed, a high-pitched,
grating sound. “Donate! Hah!
No. I’m not with them. No, no, no, hell no. Hah!
No man, lunch money. I’m hungry;
can you spare a dollar? Maybe three?”
“No, sorry, I don’t carry
cash.” He turned and took a few
steps. Behind him he could hear raised
voices.
“C’mon,” the woman insisted, “is
that any way to treat an old friend?”
John didn’t look back.
His indifference didn’t seem to
faze her. “C’mon, man, you seriously
don’t recognize me? It’s me, Cyd, c’mon,
you gotta recognize me!” She reached out
and caught his hand. “You gotta be
shittin’ me John; you gotta be shittin’ me!”
This time John did turn around. He stared
at the woman—Cyd—trying to figure out how she had known his name. Stolen wallet? No, she had guessed and gotten lucky. Had to have done. Behind her, the crowd was closing in on the
officer.
“Look, lady,” John began, trying to
retrieve his hand, “I don’t know where you think you know me from—“
“From the Program, John!” There was a crazed sheen to her eyes. “From the Program, back when we were
Defenders!” She wasn't loud, but she was
able to draw the attention of the crowd's fringe.
“You’re crazy!” John managed to
free his hand and stumbled back a few steps.
“Are you really a Defender?”
someone in the crowd asked as he made his way closer to John and Cyd.
“Hell, no!”
“Hell, yes!” Cyd declared.
“Me and John, we were EHUDs! I
wasn’t nothing special, but John here, Allen picked him to lead the
resistance!”
More people began to drift from the
crowd, pulled by the siren song of Cyd’s ramblings. John tried to walk away, but there were too
many people now. For her part, Cyd was
preening under the attention and continued on with her story that John was
called by God—or at least by His prophet, Allen—to destroy the hated military-industrial
complex.
Seeing that the crowd was now
turning itself onto a visibly uncomfortable civilian, the officer tried to
refocus their attention. When he grabbed
onto the ring-leader’s shoulder, the man with the megaphone swung around and
punched him in the face. The officer
clutched at his bleeding nose and stumbled away while the man with the
megaphone stared in shock at his bloody knuckles. Moments later he was tackled by several
soldiers who came rushing from the office.
As quickly as the crowd had turned
its attention to John, it now turned back to the chaos that had erupted in
front of the office. Some in the crowd,
sensing the inevitable outcome of the fight, hurried away. Others, among them Cyd, gleefully entered
in. Most, John included, stood in mute
fascination bordering on horror.
Some part of John knew he should
leave. Unfortunately, this part of John
had o motor control. The fight was
growing, and he had to dodge someone stumbling back towards him. Through the tangle of arms and legs, John
could see that one of the soldiers had been pinned and was being bludgeoned by
shoes.
A hand grabbed John, and he twisted
around, expecting to see Cyd again.
Instead he came face-to-face with a different woman. She was his height, with a flat nose and
straight black hair. “This way,” she
insisted, jerking her head away from the riot.
John didn’t argue; he followed when
she started pulling him away.
Pedestrians all along the street
were stopping to look at the commotion in front of the recruiting office, and
many pressed closer to get a better look.
John and his rescuer turned at the
first cross-street they came to, and the sounds of the riot quieted behind
them. They slowed and continued on for
half a block until they were more or less alone.
“Thanks,” John said, reclaiming his
arm.
“Don’t mention it.” The woman leaned against a building and took
a deep breath, her face flushed from their recent sprint. John didn't look much better. “I saw you just standing there and figured
you could use a little prompting.” She
pushed herself upright and offered John her hand. “I’m Naomi.”
He shook her hand. “John.”
“Yeah, I know.”
John nodded. “She was a little loud, huh?”
Naomi imitated John's nod, and they
both laughed.
“Jesus.” John pushed his glasses up on his head and
rubbed at his eyes. “An actual
riot. I—I never thought I'd see that in
this day and age, right in the middle of the city.”
Naomi shrugged. “People are people, I guess.”
“Yeah, but all this over something
that might not be true?”
Naomi chuckled and shook her
head. “Not a believer, huh?”
“I just—I mean, it's a lot to take
in, conspiracy theories aside, and all we have is video, which can be—” He was
cut off by a sudden sharp gesture from Naomi.
“You hear that?”
As soon as she finished talking, he
heard. The sounds of the riot, of
yelling, of glass shattering and large objects being thrown about, was rising
in intensity.
He nodded. “We should get out of here. Hey, I'll walk you home, okay, or at least
the nearest train station?”
“No, I'm up from D.C. for business,
and my hotel's clear on the other side of town.”
“What were you doing over here,
then?”
She shrugged. “Sightseeing.”
“Listen, we at least need to get
inside somewhere and wait this out.” He
gestured back to the street corner, where a steady stream of people was running
in and out of the fray. “There's a
pretty nice bar and grill about a mile from here, should be safe enough.”
Naomi nodded, and John led her at a
brisk pace away from the chaos.
They passed under the outdated neon
sign of The Gilbert Wallace some twenty minutes later, and were surprised to
see that it was almost deserted.
“Lunch crowd's out,” the hostess
explained, “and most people don't want to get caught up in the riot.”
“But you're still open?” John
asked.
The hostess nodded and ushered them
inside the brick-lined main dining hall.
The televisions over the bar all showed a live feed from the riot. The hostess led them to a large table near
the corner, and John had just sat down when he heard a woman call his
name. His stomach lurched as he flashed
back on Cyd, and lurched again when he saw the speaker rise from her table and
walk over to him.
“Oh, my God, it's really you.” It was Lucy.
John swallowed, feeling the cracks
in his wall of normalcy open just a bit wider.
She looked the same as he had seen
her the night he called—the only way he remembered her looking—but there were
signs of stress, a few extra wrinkles around her eyes.
He looked past her to the table she
had just left. A man sat there, wearing
an overlarge police uniform, glaring murder at John.
A sharp pressure bit into John's
arm. “Ow.”
Naomi released her sudden grip, but
deep fingernail marks remained.
Lucy had reached the table and was
now staring at him, chewing her upper lip.
“I... I didn't think it was
real. The phone call, I mean. It was just so....” Her eyes lost focus for a moment, then
snapped around, looking at Naomi, then back to John, and finally off to the
side, seeking her companion. She grimaced. “I'm sorry about that. I just, wow, it's just been so crazy, and I
really wasn't expecting to see you again—”
She stopped again, took a deep breath, and thrust out her hand to
Naomi. “Hi! I'm Lucy, I, uh, used to know John here.”
Naomi accepted the hand. “I just met him.”
“Really?” Lucy was now conspicuously not looking
at John. She chuckled nervously and
gestured back at the table she had left.
“Where are my manners? Please,
join us!”
John didn't want to. It was weird enough knowing about Lucy,
and he had come to terms with his missing past.
He didn't want her to be a part of his present. And then there was her boyfriend.... John looked back at the man, and found him
smiling good-naturedly.
The man's sudden shift in
temperament seemed to be having an effect on Naomi. “Can't say no to hospitality,” she said,
smiling. She stood and walked with Lucy
back to the inhabited table.
When John joined them a moment
later, introductions were under way.
“Shaun this is... Sorry, what was
your name again?”
“Naomi.”
“Right. This is Naomi. Naomi, this is my fiancé, Shaun.”
Shaun nodded, his mouth full and
chewing furiously.
“And this is John, my, uh... ex, I
guess.”
Shaun swallowed and nodded. “The dead guy.”
John's stomach clenched. He was offended that this man, this stranger,
had trivialized the defining event of
his life.
Why? he thought. I don't remember it, I don't even think about
it all that often. Why is this rubbing
me wrong?
“So you're a cop?” Naomi asked,
pulling out a chair and sitting. “You
planning on doing anything in the riot?”
Lucy sighed. “Awful, isn't it? As soon as word came on the news, everyone
pretty much cleared out of here.”
“We saw it first hand,” John
said. “That's how I met Naomi.”
“I'm not getting involved until I'm
asked to,” Shaun answered, ignoring John and sending another jab into his
bruised ego. “Extra cops on scene is
just more fuel on the fire.”
Naomi nodded and winked, leaving
John with the sensation that he had missed something.
They tried small talk for a few
minutes, then fell silent and turned their attention to the televisions. The riot had grown, blocking traffic and
turning into a looting spree around the edges.
Police were still trying for containment, but several officers had been
attacked and brought down by rioters.
The absolute focus of everyone in
the room was broken when Shaun's mobile began to buzz. He answered, had a hushed conversation,
disconnected, and stood. “I'm off. They need reinforcement, and they're refusing
to call in National Guard.”
Lucy jumped to her feet and hugged
him.
Shaun stood board-stiff. “Don't stay here. It's safe for now, but if this spreads, the
bar's a perfect target for looters. Get
home, lock everything you can; gun’s on the second shelf up in the closet. Stay away from the windows.” He pulled away from Lucy and strode to the
door, ignoring the nervous looks from the wait staff.
John noticed that in the moments
after Shaun's instructions, Lucy looked dazed.
After he was gone, though, she shook her head and seemed to notice her
two remaining companions. “I'm sorry, I,
uh, I have to go.” She grabbed her purse
and hurried out the door.
Now alone, John looked at Naomi and
noticed for the first time how uncomfortable she appeared. “I'm really sorry about that. I didn't mean to drag you into my personal
life—”
She held up a hand and shook her
head. “It's okay. I knew a Shaun once. He was a real asshole. Just... deja vu, I guess.”
John laughed. “Sounds like this one, judging by my previous
run-in with him.”
“I'm guessing Lucy didn't know
about any earlier meetings.”
“No....”
The hostess approached them. “Excuse me?
We're going to close. You want
anything before you go? No charge.”
John shook his head. “I'm good.”
No matter what he believed about the Defenders, there was no denying the
impact they were already having.
Honest-to-God riots, in the middle of the city. That somehow seemed less real to him than the
possibility of super-soldiers.
“I guess I'd better head out, too,”
Naomi said.
“Can you get back to your hotel?”
She shrugged. “This'll kill traffic for at least a couple
of days. I'll get a new room in the
opposite direction; I doubt corporate will begrudge me a second room, all
things considered.”
“Yeah....”
“And who knows? Maybe I'll be wrong and this whole thing will
clear up on its own.”
The riot had grown to cover more
than two square miles by the time Shaun arrived. He stood with a knot of onlookers who
gathered at the edges of the riot, alternately held back by police and by
simple fear of death. Sometimes an
onlooker would get brave and try to jump into the melee, only to be brought
down by one of the officers trying to contain the violence. Soon they were beyond the edges of the riot,
bruised and handcuffed.
The city's jails would be full
tonight.
Shaun worked his way to a nearby
police officers and showed his badge.
“Let me through.”
The officer let out a manic
chuckle. “Good, we’ve needed
back-up. Just catch anyone who tries to
get in there! Anyone who wants out can
go!”
“I’m here to fight, not to fuck
around.”
“What?”
Shaun opened his mouth to respond,
then caught movement from the corner of his eye; someone was using the
distraction to get involved. Shaun shot
out an arm and grabbed the newcomer, swung the man’s head into his outstretched
fist, then let him fall.
“I’m here to end this.” He stared into the officer’s eyes.
After a moment, she frowned and
moved aside. “At least grab some armor.”
“Don’t need it. Won’t say no to your nightstick, though.”
The officer sighed and surrendered
her weapon. “Stay safe.”
Shaun was already gone. He waded out into the chaos, subconsciously
feeling the bodies moving around him, police and civilian caught up in a
perverse dance, each participant moving to destroy their partner. He pulled out his own nightstick, swung both
of them, getting his mind ready for what lay ahead.
A curse rang out behind him and he
went low, thrusting one arm back, feeling someone crumple over the end of the
borrowed nightstick. He came up, around,
swinging at his assailant’s head. One
down, a thousand to go.
Someone must have seen Shaun’s
attacker go down, for another was on him already. Shaun smiled wolfishly, feeling his heart
race and his mind go black. This was
what he lived for. Before he could ever
hope to know what happened—if he even wanted to—his body was moving, whirling
its weapons through the air, striking once, twice, again, again, again. Six down.
Shaun continued swirling, continued
striking. Each strike landed true: point
of the chin, base of the skull, side of the head, kidney, solar plexus,
groin. As the injured and unconscious
began to gather around him, the police who could see him rallied and struck
back at the wild civilians who tormented them.
Inhibitions vanished, fear and professionalism replaced by ferocity and
bloodlust.
After some time—seconds? minutes?
hours?—Shaun realized he was stretching farther and farther for new
enemies, new victims. His mind snapped
back to the present, and he saw civilians running, screaming,
surging—away. The dance had ended, those
who had once led now fleeing from the floor.
Police stood still, not chasing
their vanquished enemies. They panted,
eyes wide behind armored visors. Shaun
knew that, whatever they might say afterwards, they had enjoyed what had been
done here today.
He certainly had.
This little victory, the
disengagement of these few combatants, was enough to end the riot. As these civilians fled, they spread panic,
weakened resolve, brought the rest down with them. Within a matter of minutes, the area had all
but cleared out and the few who remained were rounded up and arrested.
Finally, a collective sigh went up
from those who still stood, who had defended the peace.
Shaun stood apart, glaring down at
his feet, willing them to dance once more, to
return to the blackness that enveloped him.
A hand touched his shoulder and he
swung around, feeling the adrenaline surging again—
“Hey, calm down! It’s over!”
It was her, the officer he had taken the nightstick from. “You did a good job here.”
Shaun grunted and returned the
nightstick.
He began to walk away, no
destination in mind. He just needed to
do something to calm down.
Behind him were footsteps.
A reporter caught up to him,
trailing a camera man. “Excuse me! Sir!
Hi, saw what you did back there; it was great. Mind if I get an interview?”
Shaun stopped, every nerve
alert. This wasn’t like fighting, wasn’t
something pure and simple. But it could
be…interesting.
“Sure.” He smiled.
“What do you want me to say?”
No comments:
Post a Comment