Once out on the street, Abby looked up and down the sidewalks and saw a tremendous thing. People were pouring out of homes and businesses and gathering in groups. Some were armed, but most carried only a scowl and a heart for battle. Hector’s message of open revolt could not be ignored now by even the most timid of souls, not after witnessing what the president had done. They were out for blood and justice, and no fear of death could hold them back now.
Abby couldn’t help but flash a small grin of pride. The objective towards which she and all the rest of the ReFounding Fathers had striven was finally being realized. But this feeling fled after a moment as Abby steeled herself for a battle. Whipping the crowd into a rebellious frenzy had been the easy part, now they actually had to overthrow the government and the president’s DAS force.
As hundreds poured into the street around Abby, and thousands more throughout District 2, DAS agents arrived. Just up the road, three black SUV’s screeched to a halt and DAS agents hopped out, all dressed for battle. They spread out along the street, blocking the way to District 1, but they did not open fire yet. The sheer size of the crowd was intimidating, and they didn’t want to fire the first shots.
One of the agents stepped forward with a bullhorn, and he commanded the crowd to disperse. But the mob moved forward still, closing the gap between themselves and the agents. Abby herself walked near in the middle of the mob with her improvised medical kit, preparing to treat casualties as soon as the violence started.
“Disperse!” the agent with the bullhorn yelled again, and he motioned for his agents to raise their rifles and prepare to fire.
Some in the crowd began to falter as the threat of death was now imminent, but the mob kept going. They shouted and cursed at the agents in the dying rays of sunlight, daring them to fire into the crowd.
BANG BANG BANG BANG!
A barrage of rifle fire rang out from a nearby window, and two agents fell dead.
The agents swung their weapons up to return fire, but a few in the mob sensed that now was their opportunity to charge. A Molotov cocktail was hurled from the front of the crowd and it struck one of the SUV’s, igniting it and catching on fire the two agents who stood near it. The remaining agents sensed their danger and tried to flee, but the mob was already on them. They got off a few shots, and some from the crowd fell dead or wounded, but hundreds more overwhelmed the agents.
Abby rushed forward to a nearby casualty, a young man who’d been shot through the leg. He was bleeding, but the blood was a dark crimson color and oozed out of the wound rather than in spurts, which meant his femoral artery was intact. Lucky guy, Abby thought as she stuffed gauze in the exit wound and then wrapped a dressing around the man’s leg. Illuminated by the burning vehicle nearby, Abby inspected her work and nodded to herself once.
Standing up, Abby looked around for another casualty to treat, but for just a moment she was struck dumb by the sheer violence around her. Most of the crowd continued up the street toward District 1, as the few dozen in the front ranks who had initially charged was more than enough to handle these few DAS agents, and handle them they did. One of the agents had been fighting off three assailants until three more came and knocked him down. He was pinned to the ground while a woman grabbed his pistol and emptied the mag into the man’s face and neck at point blank range.
Several of the agents were beat to death, and long after their spirits fled their bodies, the mob continued to beat and abuse the corpses. One agent behind an SUV had put up a valiant last stand but he was taken to the ground by a large man. The two wrestled for control of the rifle until the large man bent down and bit into the agent’s throat, actually drawing blood. The agent screamed and tried to shove the man off of him, but the man kept biting, tearing, chewing on the man’s throat, trying to rip open his carotid artery as more people came up, kicking and stabbing the agent until he finally stopped moving.
“Zombies,” Abby thought as her mind strayed. She had not seen a zombie in years, but that large man, whose face was now covered in the blood of another, bore quite the resemblance. Abby shook this off and turned towards another casualty to treat.
The remaining agents were all killed in similarly gruesome ways, including one who’d been forced into the burning vehicle and trapped inside. The putrid scent of burnt flesh filled the air.
As Abby finished treating another casualty, she checked to see if any of the agents were alive and treatable, but they were all dead. She shook her head at the violence. She understood the mob. They were angry and out for blood, and until they could get their hands on President Arthur, these agents would have to serve as foils for their wrath. She understood, but she didn’t approve. Some of those agents probably would have surrendered, given the chance.
But it made no difference. They were dead now, and it was time to keep moving, to keep up with the mob.
***
“What have you done?” Cyrus growled.
“I hacked into your military’s satellites and crashed them,” Camille replied. Her body quivered in fear, a biological reaction that could not be helped. But her voice carried strength and solace in it, a brave and deliberate choice by the young Senegalese woman. Her family had fled violence in their home country when she was just a young girl and came to America. Her parents had tried to save their daughters from death at the hands of violent men, but it seemed that now, sixteen years later, violence had found them anyway.
“You crashed them?” Cyrus repeated.
“Literally, yes,” Camille said. “As we speak they are burning up in the atmosphere. Your drones are useless now. That space tech was so old I could have hacked it in my sleep.”
Cyrus trembled with rage, a kind of anger he’d not felt since he killed that stupid scientist. He took a menacing step towards the young woman, bearing his teeth like a rabid dog.
“Why, you…. you… ” he stammered.
Camille held her ground. She was afraid of what Cyrus would do to her, but she refused to flee.
Cyrus pounced.
He knocked her to the ground, landing on top of her. Camille fought back as best she could but she was no match for Cyrus. Pinning her down with his body weight, he wrapped his hands around her throat.
“You should not have done that,” he said to her. “Didn’t you just see what I did to that bitch Victor?!”
“Dad, enough,” said Derrick. He strode forward, closer to his dad. Camille may have betrayed them, but after watching that terrorist’s broadcast, and seeing for himself what his father had once done, he wasn’t feeling particularly patriotic anymore.
Cyrus glanced up. He’d forgotten Derrick was even in the room with them. He sneered at his son and said, “Stay out of this, boy.”
Camille continued to struggle as her lungs burned, but Cyrus refused to let up.
“That’s enough, Dad!” Derrick yelled. “Just let her go!”
Cyrus paid him no heed as he pressed down on Camille’s throat, sensing that the end was near. Her kicks and punches had become weaker, and her eyes were ballooning from their sockets. Smiling, Cyrus opened his mouth to taunt her as she died, just like he’d done to Victor.
But he didn’t get that chance.
Derrick seized a lamp from off of the desk and crashed it into the side of Cyrus’s head, knocking him over to the side and off of Camille, who scrambled to her feet the instant she was free. Coughing as she sucked air into her aching lungs, Camille fled from the room, slamming the door shut behind her just as Cyrus recovered his senses from the blow to his head.
“You… stupid boy,” he groaned.
“Fuck you, old man,” Derrick replied, sitting in the chair at his dad’s desk.
Just then the door to the office was thrown open, and a breathless DAS agent rushed inside. “Sir!” he exclaimed, but he stopped when he saw the president lying on the ground. “Uh, sir?”
“Just fucking spit it out,” Cyrus said as he got up to one knee.
“Sir,” the agent said, “mobs a
re forming. Huge mobs, thousands of people. And they’re heading this way.”
“Well that’s why I have people with guns, now isn’t it?”
“Should we reinforce the wall, sir?”
“No. Let the soldiers handle that. You and your men rally here, and defend the White House. I want gunships in the air and tanks on the front lawn.”
“Yes, sir!”
The agent hurried from the room to relay these messages as Cyrus turned to Derrick.
“You’re DAS, aren’t you? Get the fuck out there, boy,” Cyrus said.
Derrick glared at his father before rising from his chair and giving a mock salute. “Right away, sir,” he said. And then he left the room.
Chapter Forty-One
Abby and the mob in which she’d found herself advanced on the wall protecting District 1 as darkness descended on the city. Members of the ReFounding Fathers had met them along the way to distribute torches, ladders, and weapons, including several rifles.
Now armed with more than mere pool cues and kitchen knives, the mob grew bold indeed. Some chanted messages of resistance against an oppressive government while others gave full-throated war cries. Every home and business in District 2 had emptied itself, and the mob’s ranks swelled.
One of the ReFounding Fathers shoved a rifle and two magazines taped together into Abby’s hands, but she handed this off to the woman next to her. She had no use for that anymore. They met no more DAS agents after the first encounter, though they had spotted a couple dark SUV’s speeding towards District 1. They must be abandoning the district, Abby thought.
The wall loomed in front of them, striking an oppressive, impregnable image. As the mob grew near, dozens of soldiers dressed in riot gear sallied forth from the gate and formed up in front of it, preparing to square off with the throngs of rebels.
A tall man dressed in a smart uniform stepped through the ranks of soldiers with a bullhorn. Abby could tell by the way he carried himself that he was an officer. He lifted the bullhorn to his mouth and said, “Disperse! You can’t take the wall! Disperse! Save yourselves!”
The mob shouted and jeered and the front lines began to charge. But the officer gave a signal to his men on the wall and bursts of machine gun fire sailed just over their heads, forcing the mob to halt in its tracks, a stone’s throw from the wall with an eerily empty, no-man’s-land between them and the soldiers.
Abby looked around herself. The high spirits of just a moment ago had been cut to ribbons by those machine guns, and she didn’t blame them. They were armed and could put up a good fight, but this wall posed a serious challenge. Maybe they could scale it with the ladders, but not before hundreds of people died. The mob still yelled and chanted, but they would not advance another step. The officer was shouting into his bullhorn again.
“Go home! I don’t know what’s going on, but you need to go home! This isn’t worth it! You will all die here tonight unless you go home!”
Some few in the crowd seemed to heed the officer’s words. Abby noticed several people were no longer chanting their slogans or shouting defiance. Proud looks had crumbled into fearful glances. One person turned to leave, and that was all the motivation a dozen others needed as more put down their weapons and turned their backs on the wall.
Abby shook her head. She couldn’t allow this to fail. After tonight, Hiamovi and Hector would be hunted down and killed. The ReFounding Fathers would never again pose a challenge to the government. No, this rebellion had to succeed right here and right now.
Even if it took a martyr.
Abby pushed her way through the crowd, past fearful folks and stubborn fools still shouting at the soldiers. Blazing torches guided her path, and in a moment she was in the very front ranks. She took a deep breath, blew it out, and began to walk forward alone. Every soldier within sight snapped their attention to Abby, and a hundred gun barrels now swiveled toward her.
“Stop! Stop right there!” the officer commanded.
Abby did not stop. Her gait was slow but confident, and she held her arms out at her sides to show she wasn’t armed. She drew closer to the soldiers.
“Halt! Or you will be fired upon!” the officer yelled. He signaled one of his men again, and a machine gun burst hissed past Abby.
This time she did stop, and out of habit she checked herself for wounds. Her heart was pounding in her chest as she stood there alone between the mob and soldiers until she could hear nothing but her heartbeat. Indeed, everything else fell silent. There was no more jeering and shouting. Everyone watched with baited breath to see what Abby would do now.
“That’s your last warning shot. One more step will get you killed,” the officer said. Abby was close enough and the evening air had grown quiet enough that he had no need for the bullhorn.
Abby licked her lips, balling up her hands and then relaxing them. This might be it, she thought. This might be the moment and place of her death. She glanced around herself, getting a good look at her surroundings. Well, this looked as good of a place as any to die. She turned to look at the mob behind her, and they looked to her as a group of sports fans do when a member of their team is about to take the game-winning shot.
Abby gave them a smile before turning to face the wall again.
And then she took a single step forward.
And nothing happened.
The officer turned to look at the man who’d fired the warning shot earlier and gestured like ‘what are you waiting for’. The soldier up in the tower shook his head.
“That’s far enough! Stop!” the officer yelled at Abby.
But she took another step, and then another.
“Open fire!” the officer yelled to his soldiers.
A couple soldiers sighted in on Abby with their rifles, or braced themselves against their machine guns. The soldiers in front of the wall shifted nervously on their feet. But no one fired. No one found themselves capable of gunning down the young, unarmed woman, showing strength of character and bravery that the entire mob of thousands behind her could not.
Besides Abby’s impressive show of courage, a few of the soldiers had caught snippets of Hector’s speech before being ordered to the wall, and uncertain talk among the soldiers spread like floodwaters. They had jobs to do, but now they were less sure about to whom they owed their loyalty.
Still alive, Abby took another step forward.
The officer, angry that his commands went unheeded, dropped the bullhorn and strode forward to meet Abby, taking long, purposeful strides. Abby stopped and stood still, her arms still out at her sides. The officer drew his sidearm, came within arm’s length of Abby, and shoved the pistol against her head.
“Leave. Now!” he barked.
Abby didn’t move. She fixed her steel grey eyes on the officer, meeting his heavy gaze with her own.
A tense moment passed, and the officer, now whispering so that only Abby could hear, said, “I’ve got a family to feed, that’s all this army is to me. If I let you pass, my family and I will be arrested. Please just go.”
“After tonight there’ll be no one to arrest you, I promise,” Abby whispered back. “Look at the mob behind me. Either you let them pass, or you gun me down in front of them and then they will force their passage. Both paths end the same, but only one is bloodless.”
The officer wavered. He chewed on his lip. “I don’t like the government either, but we –“
“Then move,” Abby interrupted. “A revolution is happening with or without you. Now I’m walking up to that gate and demanding entrance. So get out of my way or kill me already.”
The officer wrapped his finger around the trigger.
“I have to do this,” he whispered.
“So do I,” Abby replied.
With that, Abby slowly turned to the side so that she could walk past the officer. He turned with her, gun still pressed to her forehead. Then she stepped forward, and the handgun traced a line around to the side of her head. She continued forward, and the gun now fell
away from her. The officer stood there motionless, unable to pull the trigger on Abby. With a sigh, he hung his head in defeat and holstered his pistol.
Abby, fighting hard to not burst with excitement after cheating death twice in as many minutes, now walked right up to the soldiers dressed in riot gear. “Please move,” she said to the two in front of her.
After watching their officer back down to Abby moments ago, the men felt like they had no choice but to do likewise. They stepped aside, and Abby made her way between them, their ranks opening like the Red Sea that Moses parted. She walked right up to the gate and stood still, waiting.
Waiting.
Nothing happened.
Then there sounded a metal, mechanical clang, and the gates swung inward.
The mob, now far behind Abby, gave a mighty cheer and rushed forward, storming through the gates and into District 1. Many of the soldiers, moved by Abby’s courage, joined the mob, bringing their weapons with them.
“This way to the capital!” one of the soldiers yelled. “Follow me!”
The mob roared with delight, and they followed the young man.
Abby joined the mob again, making herself lost in the midst of it. She didn’t want to lead it, nor did she want to be made a hero. All she’d done was provide a catalyst for the movement. She’d averted bloodshed for the moment, but it was now inevitable that dozens, or perhaps hundreds, would die tonight.
And Abby would do her best to save as many of those as she could.
Chapter Forty-Two
Though their main grievances lay with the government, and with President Arthur himself, many in the mob took this unique opportunity to break into and loot the homes and buildings of the wealthy elite in District 1. The ReFounding Fathers did not condone it, and they (including Abby) put a stop to any such looting if they happened upon it. But the mob was tremendous in size and sanity was giving way to impulse. Expensive cars were battered and flipped on their sides and homes and buildings were set ablaze while Senators were dragged from their homes and beaten with a vengeful wrath.
His Name Was Zach (Book 2): Her Name Was Abby Page 44
