The Terrorist (Lens Book 3)

by J B Cantwell

  THE TERRORIST

  LENS BOOK 3

  J. B. Cantwell

  Copyright © 2019 by J. B. Cantwell

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Visit www.jbcantwell.com to join the J. B. Cantwell mailing list and receive the collection of Aster Wood: The Lost Tales and Lens short stories for free. Sign up today!

  Contents

  EPISODE 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  EPISODE 2

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  EPISODE 3

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  EPISODE 4

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Also by J. B. Cantwell

  EPISODE 1

  Chapter One

  Seventeen.

  That was the exact number of people I had counting on me. Trusting me. Following me. Waiting for me.

  3 a.m.

  I ducked through alleys, dirty places where the poorest of the poor made their fires and protected their food, hiding it behind their bodies, hoarding it whenever it was possible to find a little extra here or there. They found their sustenance at the back entrances to the grocery stations. Crushed boxes. Smashed produce. Even chocolate that had melted in the sun.

  I wondered if my group would be able to do the same thing, or if we would have to fight for our place in line for the ruined food.

  Right now, a handful of crumbs was sounding awfully good.

  I ran on. No cameras back here.

  “Where do you think you’re going, girl?” one man called out to me as I passed.

  I cringed. I didn’t want the attention. I couldn’t see his designation, had no idea if he was a criminal or a free Green.

  I doubted free. Orange was the name of the game back here.

  I stopped at an intersection and looked around. There were no lights; it had been ages since something so luxurious as street lights had been powered in Brooklyn.

  That was fine with me.

  No lights, no record. No cameras, no eyes watching me. Watching us.

  I imagined some man, half asleep at his post, monitoring the streets. Maybe they had infrared sensors in the cameras. Or maybe the cameras didn’t work at all, were just a farce meant to keep the citizens in line.

  I hoped it was the latter.

  I dashed across the street into the next alley. It wasn’t far now. I was still ten blocks from home, but that was south, and I needed west. I didn’t want to be too close to her. Mom may have been helpful during my last visit, but that didn’t mean she still would be. Sober. Drunk. I had no way of knowing. And if I showed up, she might not be so secretive with the authorities a second time around.

  Five more blocks to the water. Four. Three. Just two more until my boots filled with the sludge that washed in every day from the Hudson.

  No bridge. No wall. No way to stay dry. Just a slowly encroaching flood. Soon, it would all be underwater. One big storm and all would be lost.

  My boots hit water.

  I looked up. No windows in this alley. I briefly wondered how deep the water got before the next block. But this was no time for wondering. I was invisible to anyone with a lens, but that made me a target. And not your average target; a terrorist. I had dared to throw down the chip that had ruled my life for as long as I could remember. It was as good as treason in the eyes of the government. But then, a lot of my actions in recent years were treasonous.

  I waded through the water, which thankfully didn’t go past my ankles before the next block. I wondered if the tide was in or out. The only way to find out was to wait a few hours, and that was time I didn’t have.

  I kept moving, across another street again and into the next set of buildings.

  The water was up to my boot-line now.

  Fire escapes down this alley. As if a fire would even happen in these sodden buildings. Two small windows at the top, but with no way to reach the metal escape ladders to get to them.

  There must be a way.

  Water to my shins now.

  The next block.

  Up to my waist.

  I turned the corner, hugging the wall against the current. There had to be a way inside.

  Boarded up shops. Graffiti.

  This is the end.

  No. Not for me. Not for us.

  At a cracked window I looked around. No lights on anywhere. Nobody living up above, not in this part of town. And the store front, boarded.

  I took off my jacket and tied it around my elbow. Then, with several quick jerks of my arm, I bashed the glass in. My elbow protested at the use of force, and then there was still the matter of the plywood board behind the glass. If only I’d brought an ax. But a few swift kicks from under the water knocked it down. It was just as soaked and ruined as everything else, and it was easy to break.

  I peered inside.

  The store had been ransacked ages ago, and was now just an empty shell of what it had once been. A pharmacy, it appeared. I brushed away the broken glass and crawled inside, landing in the watery muck. The boards and glass were not enough to hold back the flood. Not in these parts.

  And it was cold. Already my lips were chattering. This wouldn’t work. It was too far down.

  Don’t give up. It’s just scouting.

  I found the back door to the place and pushed it open. It led to a delivery alley, but behind that was another building I recognized from the brick. It was the one with the fire escapes up too high to reach.

  But there were stairs on the inside.

  With just a flight of climbing, I was out of the water. I stopped briefly to empty out my boots. I had found a new pair in one of the many houses we had hidden in over the past week, but while they were way better than the enormous ones I’d been assigned to at the Burn, they were still big and clunky.

  I sat on the stairs as the mud and water spilled out. Then, tying them back on, I turned and started up. Floor 2. Floor 3. And on Floor 4, I exited the staircase. Several locked doors awaited me as I moved down the hallway. But there was one that was already ajar.

  It was beautiful under the light of just the moon. The unlocked door led to an art studio with a giant atrium in the center. Light would come in through the top once
the sun was up. The plants all the way down at the bottom were dead, drowned years ago, sludge. But the glass was still intact.

  I walked over to a small bathroom with a sink and tried the tap. A few sputters of brown water sprayed into the basin, but a moment later a nearly clear stream emptied out, cleaning the pipe. I cupped my hands under the flow and took a sip. It tasted of copper and chlorine, but it was drinkable.

  I walked back over to the atrium and sat down, peeling off my boots and socks again. My feet were white with cold.

  It had taken me three hours to find this place, but dawn would be breaking soon, and I didn’t have enough time to get back to the group. I would have to stay here for the day and head out later once darkness fell.

  I lay down on the old wood floors and looked up at the twenty foot ceiling. I wondered what kind of rent a space like this would demand on higher ground. Unimaginable for people like me, even when I had been a Green. No, people would’ve had to share a space this size in order to afford it.

  As beautiful as it was, it would be tricky trying to get in and out without getting drenched.

  But I could worry about that in the morning. My eyes fluttered closed as the stress and exhaustion of the night overtook me.

  It was a good place. We could make it work. It wasn’t so unlike the Stilts, though a measure more private. No outside eyes would see us moving about in here.

  As sleep took me, I rested easy, safe in my old neighborhood, a plan in my head.

  It was good.

  Then I woke up.

  He was standing over me, a man with a long gray beard and tattered clothes, eyes rimmed red. He held a long club in one hand, ready to strike.

  I held up my hands in defense.

  “Wait!” I said, bracing for a blow.

  “Wait for what?” he asked, his voice gruff. “You don’t belong here.”

  “I’m sorry,” I cried, sitting up. I felt the gun against my thigh, hidden from this man.

  The sun had risen above the city, and a soft beam of light was shining through the atrium windows.

  “I swear. I’m just looking for somewhere to stay.”

  He lowered his club, but only slightly.

  “This one’s taken.”

  Taken?

  I stood up, frowning.

  “It’s taken? But there’s nobody in here. The taps haven’t been used in ages.”

  “This building is taken.”

  “By whom?”

  “Me. Now get out.”

  “Please,” I pleaded. “There’s a group of us. We all lost our chips when we escaped from the Burn. We need somewhere to stay.” I rubbed my sweaty palms against my military issue pants, feeling the gun in the cargo pocket.

  He squinted at me.

  “The Burn?”

  “Yes. We all started a riot. A lot of us got free, but we needed to get rid of our chips so we wouldn’t be tracked. We can’t be out in the world, you know? It’s not safe.”

  He seemed to make up his mind, then. He raised the club again.

  “Sorry, sister,” he said, holding it like a baseball bat. Whatever plans he had for that bat wouldn’t be pretty.

  In a flash, I reached for my gun and cocked it, aiming it at the man. His squint turned to wide eyes, but his mouth stayed grimaced.

  He dropped the bat to the floor.

  “Listen, girl,” he said, backing up a couple steps. “I don’t want any trouble.”

  “Then maybe you shouldn’t be threatening me with a club the size of my arm,” I said, moving forward as he retreated.

  I wanted to tell him that we were coming whether he liked it or not, but what good would that serve? He’d probably just call the Guard on us, who would await our return.

  I had to win him over.

  I lowered my weapon.

  “I don’t want things to be this way,” I said. “There’s plenty of room here.”

  He glared. “I don’t want you and your group here mucking up my situation.”

  “Your situation?”

  He took another step back. “I’m the only one in this building, and I want it to stay that way.”

  “Well, where else do you suppose we should go? We need a space big enough for all of us, somewhere that we can defend.”

  “Defend? This ain’t it, honey.”

  I paused. Then, “What if we could help you? There are eighteen of us, including me. We can help you get food and clothes and—”

  “Eighteen?” His tone was incredulous. “You’ll have the Guard on us all in no time. You honestly think that eighteen people can come and go from this place without being noticed?”

  The Guard on us all.

  “I’m counting on it.”

  He snorted. “You’re wrong. I’ve been here for ages, and the only thing that’s kept me alive is the quiet in here. Eighteen more and we’ll all be caught for sure.”

  “So I guess it’s a lose-lose for you. You can call the Guard on us and lose your building that way, or you can let us in without any trouble and have to share it.”

  “There’s plenty of places,” he began, “and—”

  “And we need a place now. Today. My people are weak and starving. Let us stay, and I promise I’ll look for some other place once we get everyone in here safe. It’ll be a trick for us to sneak in, even in the dark. Maybe you’ll get lucky. Maybe we’ll get caught before we even get here.”

  “I’ll call the Guard on you. I will.”

  But I was willing to take the chance. I called his bluff.

  “Fine.” I picked up his club and sat back down, my back against the atrium window. “Call them.”

  He stared at me, unmoving.

  “Oh, I see,” I said, taunting him a little. “You don’t have your chip, either. So you can’t call. And if you somehow figure out how to do it, if they find out about you, you’re as dead as the rest of us. Either that or the Burn. Or what’s left of it.”

  I rested my head back against the glass. I was still exhausted and wished he would leave so I could sleep more before nightfall.

  “Then again,” I went on. “How do you know that we won’t call on you?”

  He crossed his arms.

  “You’re a piece of work,” he said, kneeling down and sitting before me.

  I guessed he was tired, too. Or maybe just lonely.

  “Exactly how did you get out of the Burn? That ain’t nothing. I should know.”

  I let myself relax a little.

  “Like I said. There was a riot.”

  “Yeah? But what started the riot?”

  I paused. Then, “I guess I did.”

  “A tiny little wisp like you started a riot?”

  “Well, I didn’t exactly murder anyone. I just got the crowd riled up. They did the rest.”

  I thought back to the week before, to the carnage that we’d left at the place as we made our escape. How many dead? I didn’t know.

  We were both quiet for a time.

  My eyelids were growing heavy, and I was starting to drift away. Then, he jumped up and took the club from where I’d stowed it beside me, backing away several feet once he had it firmly in his hands. I put my hands back on my gun.

  “You stay away from me,” he warned.

  “Fine. Tell me where you stay, and I’ll make sure we stay out of your hair.”

  He didn’t say anything, just backed up into the doorway, club raised. A moment later he was gone, sprinting down the hallway toward some home I didn’t know.

  I got up and crossed the room, finding an old wooden chair and jamming it underneath the door handle. Then, I sank down behind the door and let sleep take me.

  Chapter Two

  I woke up and realized that night had already fallen. I cursed under my breath and reached for my sodden boots.

  I had to find another way into this space. My feet were dry now, but it would take a day or two for my boots to dry completely. We couldn’t all be walking around half drenched if we wanted to survive.


  I made my way into the hall and looked around. The man was nowhere to be found. I started trying door handles, but all were locked. At the end of the hall a small window, long broken, led to a fire escape. I peered over the edge and realized that the ladder was missing from this floor.

  Then I saw something curious.

  A rope.

  I climbed out onto the fire escape and was greeted by a pleasant surprise. The man I had seen earlier was disappearing around a corner, and he had left behind him a rope ladder that stretched from the second floor to the ground.

  I raced down the stairwell, suddenly eager to follow him. On the second floor I was greeted by a wide-open window. I climbed out and turned, testing the rope with one foot. It held. I was high up, though, and the descent made me nervous. I tried to imagine the whole crew making this climb every day, but I couldn’t.

  It would work for tonight, but that was it. We could use this entrance if we were so lucky to have it available when our group arrived. But what if he’d already made it up to the fourth floor? Surely, he would have pulled the rope ladder back up to the fire escape.

  We would likely need to swim in like I had earlier, at least this first time. We would have to come up with a different plan once we were in.

  The ladder swayed as I held tight to the rope rungs. I tried to remember boot camp and realized that I was holding my breath. I let it out as slowly as I could and started down again.