Chapter 9
Maria Ruiz wanted a slow news
day. She would come into work, look over
the daily rundown, and see that she was doing public interest, or covering a
small personal scandal, and had two, three hours on air, tops. Be home by nine, maybe go see a movie.
But no, every day since September Eleventh
had been a hard-hitting news spectacular.
Maria—and the rest of the AmeriNews crew—had been working nonstop for
two months, rushing from the Capitol to the White House to the Pentagon and
back again.
Now Maria was back at the steps of
the Capitol for the fifth—sixth?—major speech given by Senator Mitchell
Terstein. The first two or three had
been interesting, and the rest had been newsworthy, but they had become
repetitive. Maybe she could talk her
producer into letting her cover the impeachment...
“You almost ready to go?” Steig, her cameraman, was busy fiddling with
cables and flipping switches on his gear.
“We need to do a sound check.”
Maria sighed and began to recite a
short poem she used whenever Steig set her mic levels. While she spoke, she felt her mind drifting
away, lighting briefly on the irony that Terstein, once President Latterndale's
strongest supporter, was now his most vocal opponent. Had his support for the president only ever
been an act, or did he believe that the represented a need Defenders for a
fundamental shift in government?
“Okay, you're good.”
Her mind snapped back to the here
and now. “Great job, Steig.”
“Eh.”
She smoothed her hair and went over
a few last minute opening lines before she just decided to wing it and play off
the studio anchor.
A voice in her ear began counting
down: “Live in five... four... three...”
There was a moment of silence, then
she heard the voice of the anchor, even as the crowd behind her burst into wild
cheering.
“—now go live to Maria Ruiz.”
Maria held back a frown; he wasn't
giving her much to work with. The tally
light on Steig's camera flashed on, and she arranged her face into a look of
professional interest. “The crowd is
certainly excited today as Senator Terstein makes his way onto the steps of the
Capitol to give what will surely be a momentous speech.” Terrible intro, but it would have to do.
“And what do you think will be the
subject of the Senator's speech?”
For the second time in a minute,
Maria had to fight back showing emotion.
Why should she bother to speculate when the entire thing was about to be
shown live?
“Well, Jim, I'd prefer not to
speculate at this time. Why don't we go
ahead and see for ourselves?”
She turned and trained her
attention on the bulky form of Terstein.
He was pacing back and forth on the top step of the Capitol, working the
crowd and responding to the shouts of encouragement the crowd sent his way.
After a moment he waved his arms
and the audience quieted. “Why are we
here?” Terstein called out, gestured to
himself and the small group of guests gathered around him. “Why are you here?” He gestured to the crowd.
“I know why. It's not to see a show, it's not because you
had nothing better to do, it's not even so that you can say to your grandkids
'I was there! I was there during the bad
times, there when we were angry!'
No! You're here because you're
America! You're here because you are
the government, you are the decision makers! And let me tell you, there are decisions to
be made!”
The last few words were drowned out
by cheering, but Maria could have recited them in spirit, if not word for
word. This was the same sentiment
Terstein always started out with, convincing the people that they had any
actual power.
Terstein charged ahead, restating
again and again just what Latterndale and his cronies had done, just how terrible it all was. And now he was touching on the
impeachment... Maria sighed. Coffee
waited back in the van.
“But it's not enough to treat the
symptoms of corruption! You must root
out the corruption! And these people,”
he gestured at his guests, “these people are willing to help you! This is a global world, a world where brother
helps brother, sister helps sister.
While you, America, find and uproot corruption in your country, these
people are willing to help you!”
Terstein stepped back and gestured
to the man standing to his left. “This
is Ahmad Mokri, the Iranian ambassador to you, America. He is not you, he does not make decisions for
you. But he, and the nation he
represents, are willing to help you. He
has been working with the United Nations to find a way to help America return
to what it once was: a nation by the people, for the people, of the
people!”
He paused, expecting a cheer, but
received confused muttering. They came
to hear Terstein, and no one else. Maria
raised a eyebrow; this was different.
Mokri stepped forward and cleared
his throat. “The Defenders.” His voice echoed over the crowd. “These people, these victims of paranoid imperialism,
represent a great threat to your nation.
Not in terms of the actions they can perform, but in terms of the
governmental corruption they represent.
The people you have placed in the highest positions of trust have
betrayed you. They claim they are now
willing to police themselves, to clean the corruption from their own halls of
government.
“But as anyone knows, letting a
criminal punish himself is a useless task.
As my esteemed colleague Senator Terstein has already stated, it is up
to you, America, to make sure that this happens. The United Nations is ready and willing to
investigate those in high office, to find those responsible for this
miscarriage of justice.”
He paused and took a few
breaths. “But it is up to you. You must decide if you want the U.N.
to step in and help you. If you do, then
you must convince the guilty parties, those who are currently in power, to let
us in to help!”
The crowd exploded into cheers once
more, but with far less enthusiasm then before.
As the cheers died down, one male voice could be heard, clear and
loud: “Don't tell us what to do, you
goddamn sand nigger!”
The crowd was dead silent, and
Maria wondered if the comment had been picked up by any microphones.
“Maria!”
She jumped, and dug at her mic's
response button. “What?”
“What the hell is going on?”
“It's better if you—”
“Excuse me!” Terstein had retaken the front of the steps,
and addressed himself to where the offending comment had come from. “There is no need for that kind of—”
“Fuck off, nigger!”
This outburst prompted an
instantaneous response. People all
around the offender began to yell curses, to push together at the central spot
where they assumed the man to be. In
moments the sounds of struggle could be heard.
“People, please! There is no need for—”
“Maria! Back on you!”
Maria swung back to the camera.
“Maria! What's going on there?”
“Someone in the audience appears to
be picking a fight, Jim. There have been
racial slurs made, as well as strong language—”
She fell silent as a gunshot rang
out. Slow news day—she needed a slow
news day.
“Shots have been fired, Jim! Shots have been fired. Uh, uh, please stay with us here at AmeriNews
as we bring you live coverage of events here—”
She was a political correspondent,
not a beat reporter! She wasn't supposed
to deal with... with actual danger!
Terstein was yelling, but no one
was listening. The outer edges of the
crowd were dissolving away from the nucleus, but there were so many people that
movement was all but impossible.
“Steig!”
“Eh?”
“Handheld, now!”
Steig grabbed the camera, unhooked
it from its tripod and hoisted it onto his shoulder.
“We're going in.” Maria turned and began to jog the short
distance to the crowd, then tried, with little progress, to work her way
further into the crowd.
“Slow down, I'm losing you!”
She ignored Steig, confident that
he would find appropriate video, and spoke into her mic. “I'm in the crowd, trying to see if I can
find the source of the gunshots.”
As she spoke, she tried to ignore
her director. “Maria, damn it, now is not
the time for heroics. Do you hear
me? Pull out—”
She pulled the tiny speaker from
her ear; not what the director meant, but close enough.
The crowd pressed in around her,
and she thought she caught a flash of blood.
“I'm getting closer to the source of the gunshots. I don't know at this time how many are
injured, but I believe at least one person has been shot.”
Daytime Emmy, daytime Emmy, daytime
Emmy—
New screams broke out, this time
from the edges. She tried to turn, but
the crowd was too packed together. For
the moment, she was stuck in the crowd, pushed from every direction.
A moment later she felt the
pressure behind her lessen enough that she could turn, and came face to face
with an EHUD The soldier was surging
forward, his focus intent on the source of the gunshots. As he passed, his immense shoulder armor
pushed into Maria's chest, and she fell back, becoming tangled in the legs
around her.
The crowd, panicked above, was even
more chaotic below, verging on a stampede.
Maria tried to stand, to avoid being crushed, but kept slipping back
down whenever she pushed herself up. Her
arms were trembling, and she found it hard to breath. This was completely different from the
reporting she was used to.
A hand clamped down on her
shoulder, and a burst of adrenaline rushed through her. She was now able to rise and turn partway around,
and found the EHUD standing above her, trying to pull her to her feet.
The soldier spoke, his voice
difficult to make out through the screams of the crowd. “C'mon, ma'am, it's not safe.”
The helmet floated above her,
blocking out her vision of anything else.
The dead rectangles of eyes stared into her, through her, pulling her in
and dropping her out in another place, another time...
The soldier spoke again, his voice
different this time. “C'mon, you fucking
bitch. Again!”
He straightened, the helmet pulling
back to reveal the world around them: Dark, cold. The lowest circle of hell, poured from
concrete and lit only by a thin fluorescent strip recessed in the ceiling.
Maria sat on the floor, gasping for
breath, her chest bruised and face bleeding from the soldier's attack.
“Again!”
The soldier took another step back,
and Maria slowly rolled over and pushed up into a kneeling position. She didn't want to give him another chance to
hurt her. It was bad enough that she had
no clothes, that he could leer at her from the anonymity of his helmet. But she would not let him hurt her.
“You really think you can get out
of this?” Other words went unsaid. You're even stupider than I thought...
The soldier rushed forward,
swinging his knee upward and into her chin.
She jerked backwards, her own knees stretching painfully and her head
crashing down on concrete.
Basic training filtered past the
pain... Jaw, broken. Several teeth shattered, the back of her head
split. She wasn't sure what was wrong
with her knees, but she was certain that the joints were torn.
“Get up...”
No.
No...
“GET UP!”
No!
Get up!
Without meaning to, her leg shot
up, the knee jamming back into place as she kicked the soldier in the chest,
sending him flying backwards and into the wall.
As he slumped to the ground, Maria
screamed, letting out her pain, her shame at giving into what he wanted...
She let the scream peter out,
gasped for breath, searched out her body for the pain, tried to fix it—
“Good.”
The soldier stood over her again. This time, at least, there was a gash ripped
in his armor.
“Good.”
He leaned in, grabbed her shoulder,
pulled her roughly to her feet. She felt
her left leg dangling useless, felt cold air against the fresh wound on the
back of her head—
And felt someone behind her
supporting her weight. “Are you
alright?”
The room was gone; Maria was back
in the crowd. Around her was panic, in
front of her was the soldier who had knocked her down. He glanced her over, saw that she was able to
stand, and pushed deeper to where the shots had been fired.
Maria stood shaking,
unable—unwilling—to move. She thought
she didn't know what happened, prayed she didn't, but deep down knew what
had just happened to her.
Someone pushed at her, and she
began to stumble forward.
She knew what had
happened...
She felt a vibration on her arm,
and looked down to see her in-ear speaker jumping at the end of its cord. As soon as it was re-inserted, she heard the
chaos back in the studio.
“What the fuck is she doing? Steig, see if you can find her—”
“I'm trying to get this shot!”
“Fuck! Okay, get the shot, we'll try to get someone
out there—”
The speaker was back out of her
ear.
Around her, the crowd finished its
collapse into absolute chaos, but Maria was insulated from it by the chaos in
her own mind. She tried to deny what had
just happened, but with every step more memories—memories like the combat with
the EHUD—came to the surface.
By the time she had wandered out of
the Mall, she was confident in what she had been—still was.
A Defender.
Hours later, and Maria was standing
in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom. Her appearance—ear-length hair, healthy skin,
rumpled suit—once so familiar, now seemed hopelessly alien.
She saw another woman looking out
at her from the mirror: bald, naked, all traces of fat gone, flesh pulled tight
to the skeleton beneath. A rotted
corpse, wrapped in leather.
The Maria in the room untucked her
shirt and pulled it up, exposing a knot of scars that twisted across her
abdomen. She ran her fingers along the
scars, reading them like Braille, feeling the story written in her skin. The touch recalled a set of memories, dim and
growing dimmer...
At grandmother's house, four years
old. Gramaime's dog, a pit bull, rushing
at her, digging into her, pulling her apart--
No other memories of the dog,
though, just the one incident...
Another set of memories were
embedded in the scar; fresher memories, clearer. Not a child but a young woman, the woman
staring out of the mirror. Standing
then—now—in a dark room, red lights pulsing from the far wall. She crouched on the rough floor, feeling the
cold air surrounding her, chilling every inch of skin. Behind her was waiting, apprehension, hope
the test would go well. Ahead was pain,
confusion... hunger. In her was
nothing. She had been empty for such a
long time.
Green light flashed from the far
wall. Light mixed with sound as dogs
came tearing through a gate, yelping and yipping, desperate for the meat
crouched in front of them.
Maria knew what she should do, her
reaction bolstered by a year of near-constant training. But she chose to remain still, inactive. The only way out of this room was death: the
dogs', or her own. She had no desire to
kill again.... and her death might be an improvement.
The fear and disappointment behind
her arrived at the same instant as the dogs.
The largest in the pack—a golden retriever—rammed its muzzle into her
unscarred belly, teeth digging into virgin flesh, rubbing against the
liver. She fell, the rough concrete
biting into her back even as the dogs bit into her front.
A fog descended over her mind,
shutting out the dogs and the people behind her, until only two minds were left
outside hers.
The first mind was nominally human,
but its thoughts were identical to those of the dogs. It wanted—needed—her death, longing for it
and finding excitement at her pain. This
was the mind behind the armor, the one who had knocked her down again, and
again, and again and—
The other mind was the polar
opposite. It was calloused, yes,
unyielding, yet compassionate. It
brooked no rebellion to its will, but it was ready to help those who needed
it. This mind was Allen.
Don't focus on the dogs... Focus on yourself...
Don't want to... Just want to die...
NO! If you die, you've been a waste! There's so much in you... If you live, it will come out... If you live,
you will be so much more...
She couldn't say no. He believed in her, as she believed in him.
Everyone believed in him.
What do I do?
Find your strengths... Your arms are clear... Attack the biggest threat first...
Claws and teeth were locked into
her legs—painful, but not immediately deadly.
Old Yeller, though, eye-deep in her intestines—
All the pain, all the fear, wicked out to her fingertips,
stayed and built as an electric charge.
She swung her arms up and in, energy jumping from her fingers to the
dog's head. It pulled back, pieces of
Maria dripping from its jaws. She struck
again, felt the dog's mind give a brilliant flash before falling dark.
The two dogs on her legs sensed the
death of their leader and looked up, unsure if their prey was still worth the
risk.
Taking hold of this uncertainty,
Maria followed it back to the simple minds that generated it. It only took a single push and—she was free.
Not free yet...
Allen... Let me sleep...
You sleep now, you die... Take stock...
What do you have?
Allen...
What do you have?
She wanted to ignore him. Would ignore him, would fall back into
the void... But there was the other
mind, and she felt its disappointment in the pain not experienced, the grudging
contentment that at least Maria would not survive her victory.
If she died, this mind won. She couldn't allow it to win.
Okay, focus. What did she have? No strength, no energy, no
intestines—focus.
Dog meat. She had at least forty pounds of dog meat.
She felt the weight of the still
warm carcass laying between her legs, propped up on her belly. She pushed her mind in deeper, feeling the
fur, muscle, individual protein chains.
Acids broke off, microscopic bits came free and floated down to connect
to her, building bridges across the wound, bringing the sides closer, sealing
her stomach with a knot of scars.
There was a burst of rage from one
mind, a vortex of hate and disappointment.
And from Allen...
From Allen was pride.
And from Maria's own mind,
fear. She was scared.
Scarred.
How could she ever have forgotten
this?
“She didn't even have a dog, did
she?”
Back in her bedroom, Maria didn't
turn. She had been aware of the man
behind her for some time, but had chosen not to knowledge him yet. To do so would be to give in to the madness
begun by the run-in with the EHUD
She couldn't put it off any longer.
“She raised rabbits.”
The man nodded.
“How long have you been following
me?”
Rather than answering in words the
man—Vince—opened his mind to her, flooding her with a string of images,
emotions—
“Stop.”
There was nothing.
“I'm not ready for that yet. Just use words.”
“Suit yourself.”
In the mirror, she could see Vince
shifting, sitting straighter, bringing himself back to what had once been the
real world.
In that other world, the one
belonging to the Maria in the mirror, Vince had been a friend, an ally. Perhaps... lover? No, lover wasn't the right word. There was no romantic connection there. They had copulated—that precise, mechanical
word described the simple need fulfillment of their relationship. He hadn't been the only one to fulfill that
need. There hadn't been much else to do
in the early days of the program; it was that or give into the fear, the
survival-mode desperation.
As these memories fought their way
to the surface, they dragged another memory with them, a conversation with
Allen—
“Two months. I recognized you on TV almost a year
ago. That's what brought on the
memories.”
Maria continued to stare into the
mirror. She knew all about “the
memories.” The one now shining in her
mind was almost too terrible to think of.
“Some of the others found me. We've been going around, each of us finding
and following another, trying to bring back the memories as quietly as
possible.”
“What do you mean, 'quietly'?”
“Ashleigh.” His voice lost all trace of emotion. She took that to mean he was reeling from a
deep loss.
“She was in the Metro when she got
it back suddenly.”
“The Metro explosion.”
In the mirror, she saw him nod.
In the mirror, the other Maria
nodded, caught up in the memory that was ripping the real Maria apart. She turned away, truly looked at Vince for
the first time, saw more of him than a shape in the mirror.
His body was as she remembered it:
dark skin pulled tight over jutting bone.
His eyes had changed, though. All
emotion, all humanity had been bleached from them. Living the memories was one thing;
experiencing them again was a trial that none truly survived.
“How many of you are there?”
“Nine, now, but we've found at
least ten more.”
“What are you going to do with this
private army?”
Teeth gleamed out of the
darkness. “What Allen wanted us to do.”
In the mirror, the other Maria was
laughing.
“I don't think you really know what
Allen wanted.”
Vince shrugged. “Who ever truly understands a prophet?”
“Merv didn't.”
Vince jerked forward, his speed and
intensity startling Maria. “There was
something wrong with Merv. Someone else
got to him first. Used him.”
“Who would—”
“Who do you think?”
Maria nodded. “So you're building us back up, to fight back
on our own terms before someone else uses us.”
“'Fight' is a rather strong word,
but... yes, essentially.” The tension
past, Vince leaned back and sighed. “So,
you going to join us? We won't make you,
but chances are you're being monitored somehow.
They'll figure out you're not Lois Lane anymore.” What'll it be? Pretend to be human a little while longer, or
embrace your inner self?
Maria cringed at his voice—his essence—in
her mind, but she understood why he communicated this way. It was the way the EHUDs—the Defenders—spoke
amongst themselves. Vince knew what he
was.
Maria....
Maria knew she couldn't go with
him. Knew she might not survive the
night, if she listened to the memory that for now remained trapped in the
mirror.
“I need time to think about it.”
Vince frowned. What aren't you telling me?
Tomorrow... she
thought. Tomorrow I'll go with
you.... Tonight... tonight just let me
pretend to be human a little while longer...
Vince nodded, and then was gone.
Maria dropped into the chair Vince
had vacated. She warily eyed the mirror,
but it was empty. The other Maria had
already escaped.
The memory played again in her
mind, the other Maria reviewing it and laughing.
She lay curled up on the floor, the
naked bodies around her curled and sleeping as she was, metabolizing the
protein they had been rewarded with that night.
Stepping cautiously through the
field of bodies were the two minders.
One cold, malicious, eager for the Defenders to suffer. The other... Allen.
As he passed by her he stumbled
slightly, his boot gently grazing her back.
She was instantly awake, alert, although she dared not show it.
She couldn't hide anything from
Allen, though.
I want to talk with you...
relax... don't give anything away...
Maria let herself relax, and Allen
began to communicate, even as he continued to move through the room.
Mistlethwakey has a job for
you...
Fear and loathing flooded from
Maria into Allen; the General had been a dark god, the motivating force in her
life for the better part of a decade.
Allen was able to resist Maria's
emotions; he was one of only two who weren't beholden to Mistlethwakey's rule.
Focus.... He has a job for you... I have orders to program you for it...
That was even more frightening than
the thought of doing a job for the General.
She had done jobs for him before, had loathed them, but they had all
been more or less of her own free will.
Other Defenders hadn't been so lucky.
In the early days of the program some—the more vocal, violent,
vigorous—had found themselves brought low by the minders taking them over and
programming them to obey Mistlethwakey's will.
Allen had made no friends for his
part in the programming, but he had more than made up for it by what he had
done since then.
I won't program you to do
it... But I will ask you to do
it...
Fear fought with curiosity, and
curiosity finally won. What action could
be so horrible that General dared not ask his thralls to perform them, but
which Allen felt was important enough to ask of his supporters?
What do you want me to do?
There was a brief flare of disgust
from Allen. I don't want you to do
it.... Mistlethwakey is preparing for
something... He's using us for his own
game, possibly against the government...
I don't know why, but he wants you to kill the president...
The news was somehow
anti-climactic. The General didn't need
to program her for this. She had
killed before, was prepared to kill again.
One order, and the president would be dead by her hands.
And you want me to do this?
It... it may be
necessary... if we fail, if the Q-bomb
fails, we must strike back... killing
the president would be the best target...
Why me?
Mistlethwakey thinks—
No... You... You could have asked anyone to do
this... why me?
You're the only one I trust
enough for this...
What about—
The only one I trust will do
this...
Maria thought about that. If, in some theoretical future they were free
from this, were functioning as the Q-bomb, there would be no reason for her to
kill, ever again. But if that mission
somehow failed, if everything somehow went wrong, would she be able to sink
this low, to murder the president?
I'll do it...
I hope you never have to....
And then she was alone.
No, not alone... The other Maria was there, fully dressed,
healthy, staring mournfully out from the mirror.
She seemed to be pleading with her:
Things aren't that bad. We haven't
failed.
Yes, we have, Maria answered. We have not made ourselves known as the
solution, the end to war, to strife. We are
war, are strife. We have been
used, betrayed. There is no recourse but
to strike against them.
The Maria in the mirror continued
to stare as the real Maria prepared to go to war.
Security around the White House had
been extended for several blocks around the mansion. Maria approached the cordoned-off area with a
pair of soldiers patrolling the area, unaware of their impromptu third.
Their patrol pattern led them a
cross-street where they met another patrol that was making a long loop back to
the White House. When the second patrol
began their return, Maria was with them.
They crossed Pennsylvania Avenue,
reached the White House lawn, and then made the trek back to where Maria had
joined them. Maria continued over the
lawn, stopping only when she reached the main building. She found a small alcove, invisible from any
observer beyond the range of her control, and slipped inside.
Her mind stretched out and passed
through the confines of the presidential mansion, locating the President and
all his staff. The big man himself was
in the kitchens, nursing a tumbler of vodka, agonizing over the shambles of his
once glorious career.
It would be so easy to finish it
all right now—just a quick push on the right part of his mind and....
oblivion. She let the thought trickle
out and touch the president's mind. To
her surprise, he didn't reject it; he wanted to die.
Maria spent a few moments
contemplating what to do. While
Latterndale had been responsible for the legislation behind the program, he was
nothing more than a puppet for Mistlethwakey.
In fact, he had always been uncomfortable with the program, had tried
several times to stop it. He deserved
death, certainly, but a quiet, humane one.
But if Maria did that, killed him
in a way that could be mistaken for natural causes, he would be gone, the next
cabinet member in line would slide into place and there would be no change in
the status quo. It wasn't enough to kill
him; Maria had to make an example of him.
For that to happen, she would have
to make herself known....
There were no scramblers on to
protect the President from Defender assassins;
the same vibrational frequencies that wreaked such havoc on the
Defender's abilities also caused splitting headaches and nausea in unprotected
baseline humans. If Maria made herself
known now, it would take at least a minute for the scramblers to be
activated. More than enough time for a
death, less than enough for an escape.
A Secret Service agent walked past
her hiding spot, and Maria stepped up behind him, staying close as he conversed
with the armored Marine guarding one of the building's entrances, then slipped
in after him as he entered the White House.
As she stood by the door, she did
another mental sweep of the building. No
one had noticed her; in fact, they were all feeling exceptionally
confident. Since Lemlin's attack, they
had been on constant alert. But when nothing
had happened in the last two months, they irrationally believed that nothing
ever would.
She left the door—her best escape
route—behind and went in search of her target.
With each step she became more certain that she wouldn't be leaving on her own terms. One way or another, she would be martyred
with this action.
In a few moments she was in the kitchen,
staring across a marble island at the pitiful grey figure of the
president. She moved in on his mind,
opening him up and making him more talkative.
It wasn't hard; he had had quite a bit to drink.
“Hey,” she said.
He looked up, squinting at a familiar
member of the White House staff. “Oh,
didn't see you come in.”
“How are you feeling?”
Latterndale shrugged. “Going to hell in a hand basket; so as good
as can be expected.”
“And the impeachment?”
Latterndale sighed and looked into
his empty tumbler. “They're ripping me
apart in there. Didn't do anything
illegal, dammit, but they're just so sure that I was behind this whole
clusterfuck.”
She almost laughed aloud at his
self-delusion. It didn't matter to him
if what he had done was right or wrong; it was legal.
She took a step closer and leaned
on the island. “Who do you think I am?”
Latterndale blinked and looked up
at her, his head tilted to one side.
“What d' you—” He stopped and
opened his mouth, then shoved himself up from the island and stumbled away from
her. “Security!”
She felt it as his mind slipped
through the hole she had left for him, had recognized her first as the
AmeriNews correspondent, then as the monster that he had created. He felt so very guilty, afraid for his life,
wishing desperately that he had had the Defenders killed off—
No remorse. No wish he had never done the deed. Only a wish that he had covered himself
better.
She no longer had second thoughts
about what to do.
Minds around her reacted to the
president's summons; she didn't bother to stop them. Instead she reached out and felt the
president's intestines, laying like nested snakes in the bottom of his belly,
and pulled at them, shoving them past his other organs, through his diaphragm,
and up around his windpipe. She pulled
the coil tight, and the president's eyes bulged as air and blood-flow to his
brain were cut off. He fell to his
knees, clawing uselessly at the protrusion in his throat.
A moment later Maria's grip relaxed
as the high-pitched scream of a scrambler began to echo off the walls. She stood, hands in the pockets of her
sweater, as Secret Service agents swarmed into the kitchen. All wore protective earmuffs.
The first agent reached the
president and stopped short when he saw the unnatural bulges in the president's
neck and torso. Several other agents
began to stack up behind him, unsure of what to do.
Behind them all Maria stood,
hunched over, felt her head throbbing in rhythm to the beat of the scrambler,
slumped to her knees, screamed.
One of the agents entering the
kitchen noticed her, her reaction to the scrambler. He pulled out his pistol and aimed it at
her. “Get down!”
On the other side of the room the
president, now on his back, continued to scrabble at the ground, to kick and
twitch.
“We have a Defender!”
The agents closest to the president
knelt and tried to hold him still as he writhed. Those further back turned and leveled weapons
at the woman collapsed on the floor.
“We have a Defender!”
Despite the pain, despite the
constant assault of the scramblers on her every nerve, Maria pulled up one last
thought, which she forced on everyone in the building.
You fumbled the Football... The
Q-bomb has detonated...
