Apocalypse's Prelude

by Carl Damen

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."

  Ken 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?"

  Ken stopped, instantly 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?"

  9

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 8

  "People want to give their opinions? Fine; it's their right. But as soon as they start throwing bricks, we'll throw back. We're not here to be passive; we're here to take down the bad guys before they get a chance to f*** with the innocent. That means I don't worry about who' who. I go in, I get the job done." Ken Wendleferce finished speaking and dissolved into a young Latina standing in front of a computer generated background.

  "I don't think I'd want him keeping my neighborhood safe." She turned her mouth into a sad half-smile. "For AmeriNews, this is Melana Ruiz—"

  The saving grace was that he hadn't smiled. He had had the presence of mind to keep his face somber, and not look like he enjoyed beating all those people.

  Any benefit this might have given to public opinion was completely obliterated by what AmeriNews had shown with the interview: a small tag labeling the man as PPD Officer Ken Wendelferce, Major, US Army, Retired. Suddenly he wasn't a trigger-happy cop beating on rowdy demonstrators; he was now the hammer of government oppression, slamming down on those who questioned the official story on the Defenders. The situation was made all the worse because, even eighteen hours after the attack, there was no official story on the Defenders.

  Edarus Latterndale sat on a bench outside of the Oval Office, watching the situation deteriorate on a screen mounted high up on the opposite wall.

  Beside him, Julia Telk sighed. "This isn't good…" Her eyes flicked to the closed doors of the cabinet room. "How much longer you think they can keep this up?"

  Edarus shrugged. "Who knows? If they screw up on this, we're all dead. But if they don't hurry up with something, we're dead anyway."

  "I still just say we admit everything."

  Edarus sighed; that was the option he and Julia had been pushing all morning. De-classify everything about the real E.H.U.D. program, admit their involvement in creating the Defenders, leave themselves at the mercy of the people. It would likely be better than the treatment they would receive if the Defenders got to them first.

  "Can't do it," Isaac kept insisting. "You think they'll let us off without serious jail time?"

  "They can't put us in jail!" Edarus insisted, again and again. "We haven't done anything illegal! Unethical, unconstitutional, yes, but not illegal!"

  "Perjury," someone had reminded them.

  Unfortunately, the president didn't listen. He insisted on labeling the Defenders a foreign threat, on rooting them out, killing them, and coming out looking the hero. Only Edarus knew how impossible that would be, and he decided he wouldn't be the one to say it. Let the stubborn old fool find out for himself what Mistaren was planning.

  Not for the first time, Edarus wondered if the stubborn young fool had any idea what the General was planning...

  "Alternative..." he found himself saying.

  Julia looked at him.

  "We drop the notion of having any claim to the Defenders; that ship sailed the minute Shara lost it. We treat them instead as an independent entity, and deal with them directly, in a First Nations kind of way."

  "No way Isaac goes for that..."

  "Forget Isaac. Charlton'll go for it, once Isaac gets impeached or resigns."

  Julia sighed and rubbed furiously at her temples. "Won't work."

  They sat in silence for a few minutes, then heard an incomprehensible flurry of sound as the door to the office opened and the stout form of Rosencrantz pushed through.

  "There's got to be a better way to block eavesdroppers. I'm getting a headache."

  Julia grunted.

  Rosencrantz leaned against the wall under the television and stared at the floor. "Alright, you guys have a convert. I was looking at some stuff, pre-AmeriNews, And it looks like Philly isn't the only one. We have L.A., San Francisco, Chicago, all the big cities protesting in some way. Smaller towns, we got local government denouncing us. Telethepee, Ohio just signed a declaration of secession."

  "So the public is definitely with the Defenders on this?"

  "Definitely. No words from oversees, but it's obvious where the U.N. will be."

  "And Isaac still wants to blame terrorists and ride this out?"

  Rosencrantz nodded.

  "Fuck this." Edarus stood and began walking away.

  "Where are you going?" Julia asked, standing as well.

  "Home. Just like last night. He won't listen, he won't hear me."

  Rosencrantz shuddered at the phrase "last night," but kept himself enough together to say, "C'mon he's almost got a statement worked out. Just a little longer..."

  Edarus stopped and stared absently at a portrait at the end of the corridor. "Amanda needs me..."

  When he got home the night before, he found Amanda, still in her blood-smeared dress, asleep in the bed next to Than. He had tried to waken her, to get her out and into her own room. She had resisted at first, and eventually Edarus lay down at the foot of Than's bed, determined to stay with his family even as he privately suspected that he had somehow lost the right to do so.

  Amanda's stumbling exit from the room woke Edarus an hour later and he followed her into their room, helped her out of her dress, into the shower. When she was done she sat on the bed, undressed, staring at the wall. Instinctively, Edarus knew he should do something to help. This wasn't the way Amanda acted; she was an actor, not a reactor. She was always busy, always ready for something new. Seeing her emotionally wrecked by what had happened just felt… unnatural.

  At some point he woke up, dressed in clean pajamas, in his own bed. He found Amanda downstairs, reorganizing the house, giving new orders to the maid, sending faxes and looking over client account files for work. The slow-motion Amanda from the night before was gone; she looked to be making up for lost time.

  "Edarus," she called as he came down the stairs. "I'm not going into the office today; I can write grants from home. I want you to go get Than; breakfast is in ten minutes; Dora has everything ready. We're going to have a nice family meal, then we're going out to my parent's place. They're on vacation, and they won't mind if we use the house."

  "What?"

  Amanda didn't stop moving. She moved to a wall screen, brought up a spread sheet full of figures, tapped at something, nodded, and moved over to a small mound of papers on the dinning room table. "It's been forever since we've gotten out of the city—"

  "We're not in the city—"

  "And Than won't be missing anything at school. It'll be good for the family to be together."

  She wasn't making up for lost time. She was trying to put as much time as possible between last night and the rest of her life.

  "Mandy, you know I can't—"

  Amanda stopped moving and stood stock-still, her bathrobe quavering from the force of her deep breathing. "Edarus." The name was ice cold. "You're a member of this family. You're not a sperm donor, not a pay check, not the goddamn SecDef. You're a father, a husband, and you will start acting like one."

  It came unexpectedly, triggered by those words, the accusation in them. Everything he had been holding back suddenly flooded in on him, and everything was swept away until he stood alone, holding that pathetic little pistol against the unknown, a spear against a tank. His knees gave way, and he slumped against the central is
land.

  Instantly, Amanda was at his side. "Shh, shh, its okay, you know I love you, its okay—"

  It wasn't. It could never be, not after last night. The Defenders were Mistaren's tools; how long was it before the General decided to bring them to bear against Edarus? How long before Isaac found out Edarus's role in last night's events? Amanda wasn't safe, Than wasn't safe; the whole world was under the gun now. And it was Edarus's fault. He had failed as a husband and a father; it was too late to try again.

  He fought back to his feet, pulled away from Amanda. "No. You take Than, go where you need to, to be safe, but I can't go."

  "Edarus, please, your family needs you—"

  "No, you need the person you think I am. Who knows? Maybe I'll become that person. But right now, right now I have to be practical. I can't be the person who makes you feel safe, I have to be the one who makes you safe."

  "Edarus, please—" There was a note of last night's desperation in her voice now.

  He was still in that ballroom, still hearing the shouts, the wet sound of pain. But now he was doing it, was stepping up to face the creature. He was more terrified now than ever before, but if he got through this, everything he had ever hoped for would come to him—

  "What I do today, I do for us." He grabbed Amanda's arms and forced her to look into his eyes. "You want me to be a husband? Let me protect my family, then I'll be back with you, and I will never leave again."

  Amanda said nothing, and Edarus wished he could be inside her mind, could know what she thought.

  After several moments, Amanda nodded. "Go. Fight the fight, face Lanlin again." At least she seemed to know what he was thinking. "But come back to us."

  He leaned down and kissed her. "I'll be home for dinner."

  Now, standing outside of the president's office, he checked his mobile. He'd be back not long after lunch...

  "Amanda needs me more than Isaac does."

  Both Julia and Rosencrantz nodded, then turned away from him and reentered the office, accompanied by another bark of incoherent noise.

  Edarus made his way across the mansion to where an armored car was waiting to take him back to his own vehicle, but stopped when he heard raised voices in the entrance hall. He paused and listened for a moment, then recognized the lightly-accented voice that was domineering the argument.

  "We will see him! He is the one at the center of the claims, and we will hear directly from the man himself!"

  It was the Iranian ambassador, Ahmad Mokri, a man Edarus had met in a professional capacity on several occasions. He might be exactly what Edarus was looking for.

  Abandoning his exit strategy, Edarus made his way to the entrance hall. Moments later he found a small group of well-dressed men and women of varying ethnicities and ages; all of them where known on sight, although he could only recall a few names.

  Ahmad stood at the head of the group, arguing with the president's chief of staff.

  "I'm sorry, Mr. Mokri, but I must stress again that the president is in a very important meeting—"

  "This isn't about his meeting, or even his country! This is a global issue, and will be addressed as such!"

  "I cannot simply—"

  Edarus smiled. If Isaac wouldn't listen to his own advisers, then a half-dozen irate emissaries should do the trick... and he would still be home in time for dinner.

  "Ahmad!" he called, summoning up as much charisma as he could.

  The chief of staff was quickly forgotten as Ahmad rounded on him, a smile beginning to bisect his face. "Ah, Mr. Secretary! I'm so glad to see you alive today! That was quite a display of heroism you put on last night!"

  Edarus suppressed a shudder and bowed his head. "Just doing what anyone would do for their country."

  Ahmad nodded gravely. "I would certainly hope so, yes, but perhaps this country was not in need of your heroics?"

  "Well, until we can find out the truth behind Lanlin's words, we should give the country the benefit of the doubt."

  Ahmad shrugged. "Which is whey we," he gestured to the small crowd clustered around him, "are here."

  The chief of staff stepped forward. "I'm sorry, Ed, I tried to stop them—"

  Edarus smiled in what he hoped was a pleasant manner. Based on the chief of staff's involuntary shudder, it wasn't. "It's all right. They have legitimate concerns. Hell, we all do. Maybe speaking with the president can help to settle those fears."

  "The president left clear instructions that he wasn't to be—"

  Edarus leaned in close, trying to stretch himself up even half an inch higher. "Look," he hissed, "I'm a cabinet member, an adviser to the president. Specifically, I help him in the defense of this nation. If that requires helping him through some… negotiations… I will certainly do my best. So don't push this, okay?"

  The chief swallowed and nodded. "I guess if you were to escort the—"

  "Can do."

  He turned back to Ahmad's delegation. "Ladies, gentlemen, if you'll follow me; I'll see what I can do about getting you in to see the president."

  He led them back the way he had come, only now realizing that no matter how Isaac reacted, he now had some important international allies in place for his upcoming promotion.

  As they walked, Ahmad talked. "It really would be a shame if Mr. Latterndale chose not to speak with us today. We are of course aware of how stressful last night was on him. On the other hand, the extra security measures we had to get through today…"

  As he spoke, Edarus remembered seeing a white tent set up outside of the entrance this morning. He himself had only received a wanding and a cursory pat-down, but he could only guess at what security measures outsiders had to endure.

  He didn't have to guess for long. "… The pat-down was of course expected, but the full-body scanners were perhaps a bit much…"

  Edarus stopped his followers next to the bench he had so recently left. "If you'll wait here, I'll see that the President is ready to meet with you."

  Through the door, through ten feet of incoherent, high-pitched babbling, into the small knot of people clustered in front of the desk.

  "—would make running this place fucking impossible! It would put a war on our hands, one we can't afford to—"

  "And if we just stick our heads up our asses, what then? Huh? You think they'll treat us any better?"

  "Look, maybe we should just go online, see which idea is the most popular right now—"

  "Shut up, Eli!"

  Rosencrantz had been wrong; they were no closer to a resolution.

  The President noticed Edarus's presence. "Ready to help us out here, or are you still saying we should sell out?"

  The discussion lulled as all eyes turned to Edarus. "I've reconsidered my stance, yes. I now say we acknowledge Lanlin and the rest of the Defenders, grant them asylum, and allow them to initiate the Q-bomb."

  "Q-bomb?" Rosencrantz asked.

  "Something Fendleton talked about," the president said, waving his hand dismissively. "Got the name from an old movie, The Mouse That Roared. Set up the Defenders as an unassailable super-weapon, and world peace ensues. This only works, of course," he glared up at Edarus, "if they're under our control."

  Edarus shrugged. "Doesn't matter to me; you won't listen to reason. Maybe you'll listen to international scrutiny, though."

  "The fuck does that mean?"

  "Shut off the voice boxes, we have visitors."

  Before Isaac could protest, Edarus walked briskly to the door, pulled it open, and gestured flamboyantly to the emissaries waiting outside. He heard the unintelligible babble end abruptly just before the emissaries stepped forward.

  "Mr. President," he called over his shoulder, "may I present Ambassadors Mokri, Ammanue—"

  "Excuse me!" Issac said, standing swiftly. "This is a private meeting, and uninvited guests are not..." He trailed off, glancing nervously from ambassador to ambassador. "Mr. Mokri," he said at last, "to what do I owe this pleasure?"

  Ahmad inclined his head i
n greeting, then frowned. "First, I would like to offer my condolences to the members of your administration who lost their lives in last night's unpleasantness."

  "I'll be sure to pass that along to their families."

  Ahmad nodded. "Secondly," he paused and grimaced. "Secondly, I would like to ask you about the validity of Mr. Lanlin's statements."

  Isaac glared at the man. "I'm afraid we're still trying to ascertain that for ourselves."

  Ahmad looked back at the others in his group. "So you deny his accusations?"