Abby heard the noise of small vehicles outside and tore her attention away from the TV for just a moment. Two men on motorcycles rode by, and they were throwing small bundles of papers in front of every business they saw. Abby and one other person ran to retrieve the bundle that landed on the doorstep of the bar and hauled it inside. It was printed emails, lab notes, and research papers, all from the President’s computer, about twenty pages in each bundle. A cursory glance at the pages corroborated the things Hector was saying, and they distributed the papers hurriedly as Hector continued.
***
“I’m trying! Please!” Camille insisted between tears.
“Try harder and find them!” Cyrus yelled. He was pacing in the middle of the room, watching the TV. He needed to know exactly what information they were sharing so that he could prepare reports with counter-information for release.
Derrick still stood in the far corner, arms folded across his chest. He was listening to the TV, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of his dad. He didn’t immediately believe what they were saying, but the way Cyrus reacted…
“Hundreds of thousands of people, killed in minutes,” the man on the TV insisted. “With power consolidated and a terrified populace, Arthur gave the command to abandon the East Coast and the South, where The Crisis had been worst. He knew that not everyone could or would leave their homes, which meant a smaller population, easier to control.”
“There are still Americans out there, even today. Arthur knows about them, and in secret he has been sending material aid out into the Wild, but not out of kindness. He is lying to these people, insisting that very soon the military will be sweeping across the nation to take back our lands. But the military has no such plan, and he is only trying to keep them out there.”
Camille continued typing away on the computer, trying desperately to defeat whoever had hijacked the TV signal. But he was good, whoever he was.
***
“Damn, this guy’s good,” Jay thought as he continued the virtual defense of his computer. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the screen for even a moment or else the hacker would win and they’d be killed. Hiamovi had even come from his position at the window to see what was going on.
“…and he is only trying to keep them out there,” Hector said. “Worst of all, my fellow Americans, President Arthur is trying to create the virus again. It is taking longer than before, however. That is because the success of the original project falls almost solely on the shoulders of one Dr. Victor van Raalte. A brilliant scientist, but he and his family were executed when he stopped complying with Arthur’s schemes.”
“Perhaps you do not believe me, and that is good. Skepticism is healthy. But what you will see next may change your mind.”
With that Hector nodded to Jay and Hiamovi, signaling for the video to be played. Jay, without missing a beat, hit ‘play’ on the video file, and in an instant the image people saw on their TV changed from a dim room to a well-lit laboratory.
***
“…Dr. Victor van Raalte,” Hector said on the TV.
“Uncle Vic?” said a man across the room from Abby. Everyone turned their attention from the TV for just a moment to look at the young man who’d said that. He rose from his seat, gaping at the TV with a fearful look.
The image changed, and they were now looking at the inside of a well-lit laboratory of some kind. A hand briefly covered the screen, as the device that was recording this video was adjusted. An old man’s face and shoulders came into view. He wore a traditional white lab coat over a striped, collared shirt and was fixing his glasses, his hands trembling.
“I am Dr. Victor van Raalte, and I am dead now,” the man said. “I regret all the work I’ve done on this goddamn project, but he threatened my family. This video will prove him to be the monster he is. He’s on his way.”
A moment later, a door in the far end of the laboratory swung open, and into view strode Cyrus Arthur in an immaculate black suit.
“Hiya, Vic,” he said, his tone and face deceptively cheery. “I heard we’ve got an itty-bitty problem down here.”
***
Cyrus froze where he was. He’d forgotten entirely that this video existed. He kept it for laughs at first, and then just forgot to delete it. For a moment he was lost in his thoughts and memories, being transported back years in the past and thousands of miles to the East, back in D.C. on the first night of The Crisis.
Then he snapped back to the present. He yanked his pistol out of its holster and whipped around to face Camille.
“Shut this down!” he yelled, brandishing the gun.
“S’il vous plais, s’il vous plais!” Camille screamed, reverting to her native French as terror took hold. “I am trying, please! You are asking me to do two different things at once!”
“Just –“ roared Cyrus, but he paused as some semblance of sanity returned to him. He supposed it made no difference if he regained control of the TV signal now. His focus should be on cleaning up the coming fallout.
“Just find them. Please,” he said in a tone that was calm but eerie. He holstered his weapon and strode back towards the TV with his hands on his hips. He should probably send Derrick out of the room for this, but the boy already hated him. Might as well show him the true face of his father.
***
While Jay continued to fend off the hacker, Hiamovi watched the video on one of the screens. He knew what it would show, but he had not seen it yet. Watching it unfold now, knowing what was in store for the next two minutes, was horrifying. But he had to see it for himself.
“Yes,” the old man in the lab coat said. “I’m out. I don’t care if you kill me and my entire family like you keep threatening to do. I have to do what’s right.”
Cyrus chuckled and said, “A bit late to grow a conscience, ain’t it? The disease is out there, people are panicking. Hell, I infected the President while he was on live TV telling everyone not to fear! Now that was a brilliant bit of theatrics. Come on, give me some credit.”
“There! There it is!” Victor cried, turning to face the camera. “You’ve all heard it, straight from the man himself! Vice President Arthur ordered me to engineer the virus, he weaponized it, and he sold it to buyers all around the world! I accept my role as a conspirator, unwilling though I was, but now you see the true villain!”
“Who ya talking to, Vic?” Cyrus asked, putting his hands on his hips.
“The world, Cyrus,” Victor replied with a triumphant look into the camera. “You’re on a live-stream video, you bastard. And you just told everybody that you’re responsible for this!”
Cyrus just shook his head, still smiling. “Oh Vic,” he said, “you’re a decent guy. And that’s why you shouldn’t have tried to outfox me.”
“What?” Victor asked. He licked his lips, and the elation of victory he’d felt a moment before drained from his body along with the color from his face.
“Yeah, that’s a real nice live-stream you got goin’,” Cyrus said, sauntering towards the camera. “Too bad I had my guys put a mass block on social media. Just a little icing on the cake to really throw people into hysterics now that their access to information and family relations has been cut.”
“B-but... ” Victor stammered, he turned around and sat in his chair, his face blocking most of the camera as he typed away.
“Oh yes, you and I still have access on our government computers,” Cyrus continued. “But that’s about it. All the regular folk you were trying to reach, ain’t none of them gonna see this.”
Victor was suddenly flung from his chair, hitting the floor off-camera. Cyrus had sucker punched him and now stood over the doctor, stomping down on the old man’s head. “I told you not to fuck me over!” he yelled. “I told you! I told you!”
***
“Ah!” Camille exclaimed.
Cyrus dashed back to his desk. “You have them?”
“Yes, sir. Yes,” Camille replied. Breathless and still trembling, she pointed out on
the screen the location of the signal interruption to Cyrus.
“Ha! Good work,” Cyrus exclaimed as he snatched the handset from his desk phone and punched in a number, turning back towards the TV.
“General, is that Reaper ready?” he said into the phone. “Good. Write down these coordinates.”
While Cyrus spoke triumphantly into his phone with his back to Camille, the young woman was working on the computer again, as quietly as she could. After hearing what that old Native American man had said on the TV, and especially as she heard what was going on in the video clip they were showing, she knew that God had placed her here for a reason. She had to play the role assigned to her, even if it killed her. That other young girl, Abby, had done it, so what excuse did Camille have?
She only hoped she could get it done in time.
***
“Shit! Oh, shit!” Jay said.
“Did they take the signal back?” Hector asked.
“Worse. They found us,” Jay replied.
Hector’s face fell. “Then we have perhaps only seconds until they blow us up,” he said. “Hiamovi, Jay, get out of here. I will stay until the end.”
Hiamovi opened his mouth to protest. “No way. I’m staying with –“
“That was an order!” Hector bellowed, his deep voice shaking Hiamovi and Jay to their bones. A tear rolled down his worn, weathered cheek, and he added in a softer voice, “An order from your chief, your elder, and your grandfather. Go now!”
Neither Jay nor Hiamovi could find it in their hearts to argue further. Hector’s plea was a passionate one, but also logical. Hiamovi hugged his granddad one last time, then took off running with Jay. They burst out of the front door of the house, and moved quickly up the street, getting as far away as they could, as fast as they could.
They heard it before they saw it. Both Jay and Hiamovi turned their heads and saw, in the distance, a gunmetal-grey drone descending from the sky like a soulless bird of prey.
“Granddad!” Hiamovi yelled.
***
Abby and the rest of the bar watched in horror. The savagery on display may have been years ago, but this video was being seen for the first time. The man who apparently was the doctor’s nephew had fled into the bathroom and could be heard vomiting through the closed door.
“I told you!” Cyrus shouted as he kicked the doctor again. He then bent down and hauled the old man up, pinning his head down onto the desk with one hand while he fished in his jacket pocket for something.
“You know what, I’m going to keep this video,” Cyrus said. Victor tried to get up but Cyrus had a firm grip on his white hair and smashed his head into the desk again. He finally pulled his other hand out of his jacket, clutching a garrote wire. He wrapped the wire around Victor’s throat and pulled it tight, lifting the old man’s head back so that the he was forced to look up and into the camera.
“I’m gonna keep it, and I’m gonna show it to anyone who so much as thinks of fucking with me,” said Cyrus. Victor’s hands clawed in vain at the wire, then groped for Cyrus’ face behind him, but he could not reach him. He kicked and bucked, trying to get free, but the wire was too tight, and Cyrus was too strong.
In the present, several people had stopped watching the video. They looked down at their shoes, or over at the wall. A couple even joined the man in the bathroom. It was a grotesque murder. Abby wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. She felt like she owed it to this Victor to watch, to know his pain so that when the time came to bring justice to Cyrus Arthur, she could do so knowing the full extent of his crimes.
“So get a good look at this fucking face, you in the future. This is what I do to traitors and cowards. And if you fuck with me, I’ll murder you with my bare hands and make you watch yourself die, like this stupid fuck!!”
Cyrus pulled Victor’s head up even further so that his face took up almost the entire screen. The doctor’s movements slowed, his eyes fixed in place, and then he was no longer moving. Cyrus checked his pulse, then threw him down to the floor with a crash. The silence that followed all the din of murder was eerie.
“Shit, probably shouldn’t have done that,” Cyrus finally said between shuddering breaths. He straightened his tie and said, “Don’t know how we’ll recreate that virus without him. I really do need to work on my temper.” He bent down to stare directly into the camera, then smiled.
The video ended.
***
Hector returned to his position in front of the camera to say a few parting words.
“I hope you all now understand the gravity of the crimes done to us,” he said, “and what kind of response is warranted. Though you must respond without me. I’m afraid they have found my location, and I have maybe seconds to live. And so I say, farewell.”
Hector walked over to a chair, away from the camera, and sat down to await his end. Just faintly, he heard somebody crying out from up the road. It sounded like Hiamovi.
***
“Goddamn right you only have seconds to live, fucker,” Cyrus said, watching the TV with a wicked smile. The Reaper drone had locked onto the target building and was preparing to launch its payload. He looked over at Derrick, still standing in the corner. His face was as white as a clean sheet, and he could not hide the shock in his eyes. But there was defiance there also, and that made Cyrus angry.
“This is how a man handles his business, son,” Cyrus said, gloating.
“And this is how a woman handles hers!”
Both Cyrus and Derrick turned to Camille in confusion just in time to see her stand up and hit the ‘Enter’ key on the computer with a dramatic flourish. “That was for my sister.”
“What have you done?” Cyrus growled.
***
Hiamovi watched in horror as the Reaper drone rose steadily into the air and then dropped, bearing down on the building in which Hector remained. Closer and closer it came, like an eagle descending on its prey. Its bay doors opened, preparing to launch a rocket.
And then the drone fell out of its descent, crashing to the ground like a tank dropped from the sky and erupting into a ball of orange flame, just a couple blocks down from Hector’s position.
Hiamovi and Jay exchanged glances, and without a word they both took off running back to Hector.
“Granddad!” Hiamovi yelled again as they neared the house. “Granddad!”
Hector appeared in the front door of the house. “What on Earth was that?” he asked as he stepped out into the street. All three looked up the road and watched for several seconds the burning wreckage of the drone.
“Was it shot down?” Hector asked.
“No, it just fell,” Jay replied. “It must have been hacked.”
“By whom?”
Jay just shrugged his shoulders.
“Very well,” Hector said. “Come, my boys. We must hurry. Things are set in motion, and we must now tend to events. If we are lucky, and with a lot of help, then the morning’s sun will rise upon a changed nation.”
***
No one in the bar spoke for several seconds after Hector turned his camera off, not even after the young man who was Victor’s nephew returned from the bathroom. Abby looked all around, from right to left, looking for a reaction. Any kind of reaction. Shouldn’t these people be rising up now? Where were the torches and pitchforks? Where was a Spartacus to stand and lead them in revolt? If that video wasn’t enough of a catalyst to spark the public into action, would they ever rebel?
But silence still hung in the air. So it was that everyone heard the sound of an approaching vehicle, and a few moments later the slamming of car doors. Three DAS agents, clad in black, strode into the bar with body armor, helmets, and weapons. Abby noted their faces and immediately hid her own. She knew two of them, and she didn’t know what they’d do if they recognized her.
“All of you are under orders to disperse!” the first agent called in a loud voice. “Go to your homes right now. Curfew is starting immediately. Disperse!”
No one moved. There were no brave postures, no rising as one to confront the oppressors. In fact, everyone inside the bar looked terrified. Fear reigned.
And from fear is born courage.
“I said to disperse!” the DAS agent yelled, and he struck the man nearest to him with the buttstock of his rifle, cutting his lip open and knocking him to the ground. The other two agents took flanking positions next to their comrade, keeping the crowd at bay.
“No,” said a voice in the corner. All eyes turned to the source of the sound. “I just watched my uncle die, and I’ll be damned if I take orders from Arthur’s jackboots!”
“Is that so?” the agent replied. He walked towards the man, his aura of command forcing those nearest him to make way without even realizing what they were doing. He got right in the man’s face, close enough that he could feel his mustache, and said, “Don’t think I won’t make a fucking martyr out of you, partner. That’d be the last mistake you ever made.”
Abby watched with anticipation, wondering if she ought to say or do something, and she forgot to keep her face down. “Hey, don’t I know you?” one of the agents said, pointing to her.
The whole focus of the bar now shifted on Abby, but before that situation could deteriorate, the man who had spoken first acted. With a shout he pounced on the agent in front of him, knocking him to the ground and trapping him under a table.
That was the spark Abby had been looking for.
Almost as one, the entire rest of the bar sprang upon the DAS agents, whose superior armament proved of no avail. The first man had his throat slit by Victor’s nephew wielding a steak knife. The other two raised their rifles to fire but never got that chance. They were overwhelmed, disarmed, and shot to death with their own weapons.
“Come on, let’s get that son of a bitch!” someone in the crowd yelled, referring to the president, and he was answered with an approving roar as they all filed outside, grabbing makeshift weapons as they went: knives, broken bottles, a couple baseball bats in the corner, and the bartender even handed out bottles of alcohol to be used as Molotov cocktails.
His Name Was Zach (Book 2): Her Name Was Abby Page 43
