by Dina Rae
“You out yet?”
“I’m trying to find a side exit. There’s flames and smoke. Complete chaos. We all came up from the basement. I can’t breathe. Just need some time…”
“C’mon, Jax. Plenty of time to breathe once you’re out of there. Stay with us. They are letting a few people out of the building, one by one from that main entrance. A shitload of security is blocking them all like a wall. Like they have to leave in a single file line or something. Exit east. I am one block away with a car.”
“Which way is east? I don’t exactly have a compass handy.”
“Most of the west side is blown up. That might help you get your bearings,” Camden said.
“Okay. I can feel the cold air. I see a dim exit sign ahead of me.” Several minutes passed.
“Jax?”
“Raph, I’m okay. Found it. Just walked outside. Annihilate the building if possible. I’m standing by a green dumpster and six or seven limos. Some Peacekeepers just pulled out with one of the limos. I can still feel the flames. I might be burned. My shoulder is throbbing. It’s so smoky…” she replied.
“I see you. Look for a four door self-driving cab approaching. It’s red. Run towards the cab when you see it. I’ve got to make a few turns…”
“I see you.” Jaxie took off her heels and sprinted across the street. She dove into the backseat. Shots fired from a group of Peacekeepers as they ran after my cab. The car was sprayed with bullet holes, just missing both of us. From the opposite direction, an SUV raced towards us with a rocket launcher similar to the one Sai used. My heart was about to explode.
“Camden, our nine lives are up! We are sandwiched in between two sets of Peacekeepers! Destroy and abort! They got me and Jax!”
At a snail’s pace, the cab continued to creep along Massachusetts Avenue as the SUV gained distance, ready to shred us up into a thousand pieces with their launcher.
No more Patriots, no more vigilantism, no more coups…We were so close. Oh God, I know I have been a terrible believer, but I need a sign, something to show me that You’re on our side…
As I saw my life flash before my eyes, the entire SUV blew up. Seconds later, the squad of Peacekeepers closing in on us by foot exploded. Limbs and body parts littered the street and sidewalks. My self-driving cab kept plodding along. Jaxie and I hugged each other in gratitude, and then I remembered the others.
“Camden? Did you just…”
“No, not me.”
Sai and Brick also did not take credit.
“Then who?” I asked. No one replied.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Raphael
Someone from somewhere just saved our lives. My self-driving cab drove off, and instead of feeling grateful to God, I racked my brain for answers on who came to our rescue.
“Holy shit!” Camden screamed in the mic. “Someone just saved your ass! You both okay?”
I looked at Jaxie and she nodded as she examined her arms and legs. “I’m fine. Jaxie’s got some bruises, but she seems okay. You think Wendy came through for us?”
“I doubt it, man. She doesn’t know a damn thing about blowing up Peacekeepers! You and Jaxie are the luckiest sons of bitches I ever knew! Listen, Sai will be right behind us. Brick and I are headed back this minute. We did all of the damage that we could do,” Camden said into the mic.
I sighed in relief despite hearing more booms within the background. Slowly, I turned around. The hall turned into rubble and was encircled with flames. Smoke rose above the city. Sirens blared in the distance. Despite the pandemonium, Jaxie and I plugged along at thirty-five miles an hour per the speed limit programed into the self-driving cab.
“Was that noise from the drones?” Jaxie asked.
“No. That was Sai. She finished what Camden and Brick started with her rocket launcher. Do you think we might have overdid it? There’s no foreseeable way other than divine intervention that we are getting away with all of this,” I said.
“Have faith, Raph.”
“Maybe I should have faith. We just dodged death. Or maybe it was luck. Neither of them ever seem to last very long. This time I will to try to turn it over to God. I’m just scared. They will want our heads for this.”
“You all saved my life. Why? You could have killed them all! I think they were planning on gang raping me. Yeah, rape would have been the best possible scenario I can think of. Oh, dear God. Worst case, I could have been sacrificed…might have sacrificed me to the bull. It was so horrible…” Jaxie stopped talking and moaned like a wild animal stuck in a trap. I never heard such an inhuman sound spew from a person. Several minutes passed, and she wouldn’t let up. I put my arm around her for comfort, but that had no effect.
We pulled off of the highway and into a residential neighborhood before leaving Boston. I paid with the credits on one of my counterfeit unit cards, doused the interior of the car with lighter fluid, and then set it to flames. Jaxie and I walked a few miles in the freezing cold. I gave her some socks, gym shoes, and a sweatshirt I had in my gym bag. Her sobbing wouldn’t stop. Once we were officially out of the city, Wendy pulled up in a stolen Peacekeeper Jeep. We got in and headed for her bakery.
“I want to thank you back there for saving our lives,” I said.
“What? For picking you up off the highway? Just following the plan, Raphael,” Wendy said as she sped along the highway.
“No. Downtown, maybe twenty minutes ago? Jaxie and I were goners until you blew up Peacekeepers coming after us from both directions.”
“Don’t know what you are talking about. I’ve been sitting here for the last three hours.” Wendy looked at Jaxie with pity and said, “What the hell…” I glared at Wendy and shook my head. Wendy nodded. “Okay then. Whatever happened, whoever saved you, it must have been one hell of a night. I’m calling it a victory. It’s all over the news. A terrorist attack at the new capitol. Dozens are dead and dozens are injured,” Wendy calmly stated as she exited off the highway into Brookline.
“Turn on the radio,” I said.
Wendy turned up the volume so that we could hear over Jaxie’s hysterical weeping.
After months of an extensive renovation, a party of an undisclosed amount of people took place here tonight at what used to be called Boston Symphony Hall. Dozens of Peacekeepers patrolled the building and its connecting streets since dawn this morning. At approximately nine-thirty-eight, loud, thunderous sounds came from the building and fire broke out. Shots were fired from all directions. Official death and injury counts have not yet been released. Without any confirmation, stories of an attack….
The station went into white noise and then silence. Wendy uncomfortably glanced at Jaxie, and then me. Her watery hazel eyes were filled with questions. I shook my head, silently telling her to lay off, if just for a moment. The footage from Jaxie’s purse didn’t catch a whole lot of what was going on. Her purse…
“Jaxie, snap out of it! Your purse?” I yelled.
She quit crying and froze in terror. “Oh, whew! Now I remember. I left it in the cab.”
I tried reversing the night’s events. Yeah, she really had it with her when I picked her up in the cab. The cab burnt to the ground, as I imagined her purse and cell phone. She was wearing the hairclip with the other camera lens.
“Was that your registered cell? Or your disposable?”
“Registered. Oh, I just thought of something. I don’t have to talk to the prince in case he calls.” Jaxie wiped away the last of her tears. “I hope you vaporized him and everyone there. I just thought of something. My microchip was in that purse. It’s not inside of me like it’s supposed to be. He’ll know I had it removed.”
“Yes, he will. But you can bullshit your way out of that, perhaps? Maybe you could claim that it made your arm itch or you had a rash? I don’t know. But that’s the least of your problems. It does make you look suspicious. Regardless, you know he’ll come looking for you. Those soldiers who mysteriously blew up before our very eyes saw you. Maybe
that is where it ends, but they were probably communicating like we are, via wireless mic. However, it’s an easy explanation. You ran away from an exploding building. Who wouldn’t, right? I ducked down. Maybe I wasn’t seen.” I continued to rationalize the evening aloud, but doubted that the two women heard a word.
“Please shut up, Raph. You said that you prayed to God to save us back there? Well, I’m praying now too. I pray that all of those demons are burning on their way to hell. I pray to God that they continue to burn with the devil watching over them, increasing their pain.”
Wendy smiled. “Now that’s the Jaxie I know and love. Be careful, girl. You almost sound like a religious zealot.” Wendy took Jaxie’s hand as she drove. “Nothing wrong with believing in God. Especially since you just saw the devil.”
“Wendy, you’re a believer?” I asked.
“I was raised Jewish, so I already know there’s a God. Recently, I came to believe in the Son.”
I nodded. The Bible was not a bunch of old stories. “Chad is also religious. I shrugged off his sermons. Not anymore. For the record, I became a believer back by what’s left of the Boston Symphony Hall. We watched Laurie and his friends partake in a ceremony that only the devil would approve of. But there were many parts that we couldn’t see. The room was dark and the camera lenses weren’t at the right angle. We weren’t there. Jaxie saw it. Please, Jax, tell us what hell looks like. We have to share this with as many people as possible. You have started other cells. They need to know as well. Yes, we are outnumbered, outsmarted, out-weaponed, and outmaneuvered. Yes, we won’t win. But maybe others will take up our cause…We can’t roll over now.”
“We’ll need every able-body that we can get. Did you see it? The bull? They called it Moloch. And then there were owls, I’m guessing twelve, one for each Elder, but not all of them would come out of their cage. Then the fire started. There was a little boy…Oh God.”
Wendy pulled over on a side street. “Take you time, honey. You are safe right now.”
“There’s more to it. I haven’t been completely honest. I’ve held something back. You see, I knew Laurie would be interested in me. Not because of my looks, but that didn’t hurt. It’s my lab results that got me into his world.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, dumbfounded.
“Aysa was so beautiful, but she wasn’t born that way. She might have mentioned she had some small flaws. A cleft.” I nodded as she spoke. “That’s really a lie. She had a lot of flaws. That’s why she put off having children for so long. You kept on pushing. She came to me for information.”
“You’re a computer engineer, director at Fogle, what the hell do you know…”
“I’m a designer baby,” Jaxie interrupted. “Look, Aysa…oh, God, our beautiful Aysa was deformed. I once saw a photo of her when she was a little girl. Physically, she was a monster. Internally, she should have died before her first birthday. She undergone twenty-six surgeries before she was ten years old. My parents made sure that their second child didn’t have to go through all of that. When I showed up for his trials…I knew he’d be interested if he saw my genes. But that was the unknown variable. I had no idea that he would be the one to look at them. I got lucky. We all got lucky.”
“What makes your genes so special?” I asked. My stomach fell to the ground and I felt dizzy.
“I am the very best of both my mother and father. Every limb, organ, nerve, tissue, all of them are unblemished. I was designed with the best chances for survival in everything. If he was curing cancer for his friends or building super humans for new world soldiers, my cells would come in handy. If he was into cloning organs, again my cells would be his go-to. What I didn’t know was that he wanted me for his bride. Maybe that was part of his clinic’s genetic family search. He used others’ genetic information to find the best mother for his heir…”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
Jaxie launched back into hysterics. In between sobs, she muttered, “Once we are safe. When we are back at Wendy’s and with Camden, Brick, and Sai, I will fill in the blanks from tonight’s ceremony.”
We let Jaxie cry. It was all we could do. She needed to get it out without our need for trying to make her feel better. Wendy drove back to the main road and fiddled with the radio. White noise hissed across all of the channels. She gave up and shut the radio off. Jaxie continued to cry, but turned the radio back on and continued searching for any channel. The distraction calmed her down. Jaxie finally landed on a station with lots of static and a human voice.
“This is something. Let me turn up the volume,” Jaxie said.
…a terrorist attack. More static. If you are listening to me, then I somehow broke through the blocked waves and white noise of our new government. What was going on at the Boston Hall Symphony? Why were there so many Peacekeepers guarding the place earlier this evening? More static. Why was the place attacked? Are there heroes among us in this brave new world? Heroes who refuse to bow down to a New World Order? Heroes. Not terrorists, like they are being portrayed on the main stream media, or shall I say the monopoly main stream media. The rest of our voices are censored. If anyone can hear me, I’m ashamed of myself. Ashamed that I do not know these heroes and did not help. Please, those of you who can hear me, call in. I need to know if I am being heard. Lots of static. You know, for all of her faults, I still love America. I love capitalism and free speech and justice… Static. It’s better than…than this Hell that has formed. If you are listening, if my broadcast is audible, then please someone call in and let me know this is working.
“Raphael, you got to call,” Jaxie demanded. “Use your disposable.”
Wendy interrupted, “No! Voice decoding is almost as accurate as DNA and fingerprinting. He’d be screwed. Any audio file, any recording…For God’s sake, Jaxie. He used to be on television! It would take this New World Order a whole five minutes to figure it out.”
Wendy jacked up the volume. “Shhh!” she yelled.
A caller. Thank the Lord! Some of you are listening! What is your name?
John. John sounded older, Wendy’s age.
I am praying for these vigilantes and true patriots. Like you, I’m ashamed that I am not helping them. I am so ashamed that fear has stopped me in my tracks. I lost everyone-my daughter, my grandsons, my wife, my sister, all gone. I stayed back to take care of our dogs while everyone went to San Francisco to visit my sister…Now here I am, seventy-four years old, with nothing. And I’m still too chicken shit to help these people. I might be the only one listening in, but I hear you, Matt. And if these heroes as you rightfully call them are listening, mi casa, su casa. Static and then a dial tone.
John? John, we lost you. Sorry, but another caller has popped up on the line! I can’t believe this! I am getting through the radio waves! Hello. Who am I speaking with?
Will.
You sound young. How old are you?
That is of no consequence. I just want whoever is out there to know that tonight was about self-defense, justice, and our God-given rights. We have a patriotic duty to fight. But we can’t win by ourselves. These people are demonic.
“It’s Brick. He needs to get off of the line!” Wendy yelled.
We are protecting this country, this world from them. They are the problem. Laurie and his --------. Static.
Hello? Are you there? Who is Lori? Is Lori a ‘he’? You said ‘his’. His what? Who is Lori? Wait, Doctor Stephen Laurie? Is there another Laurie? Static. White noise. No more reception.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Jaxie
I couldn’t go home, not tonight. What if the doctor came looking for me? What if he tried to call? I thought of my phone. It was destroyed inside of the self-driving cab. Relief. I was not that good of an actress. Doctor Laurie was a demon, if not the devil himself. Maybe he died inside the ravaged building. I imagined debris piled up on top of him, suffocating him, and then killing him. Maybe he burned to death. I smiled at the two scenarios. B
ut this man would be spared. He was inhuman, immune, and probably immortal. His experiments gave him the ultimate edge and turned him into a modern day vampire. So were the Peace Elders.
Before it got so smoky, I saw a few people catch fire, but burns seemed more of nuisance than a death sentence. One of the owls burned to death. The distorted screeching and smell of burnt feathers kept on replaying in my head. The mass crowd of Moloch worshipers crawled out of the building like cockroaches. They, too, looked demonic. Was that my imagination or was that who they were? Max’s dark brown eyes swirled with flames as he headed up the stairs. Was any of it real? Or was my mind playing tricks on me? The carved up boy was real, or wasn’t he? I no longer could tell fact from fiction.
Once we all met at Wendy’s apartment right above her once-owned bakery shop, I poured myself a large glass of whiskey and repeated what I knew with the rest of my Patriots. I started with Aysa and ended with my dress pulled down to my waist.
Raphael didn’t hide his hurt and confusion, but then he was never told about Aysa’s deformities. If he had known Aysa’s secret, would he have loved her like a woman? I doubted it. Not even Raphael could look past her natural born appearance.
My sister was one of the lucky ones. Our parents were wealthy. What happened to poor children who were born with deformities? Their lives were defined by disgust and pity. Some suffered an even crueler fate-death. In fact, my father told me the doctor who delivered Aysa offered to put her down only weeks after she was born.
“From what you tell us, your parents were good people. Compassionate. In love with their child. Who would want to go through that a second time? Now there would be no options. All children born imperfect would die, unless their parents were part of the inner circle. Maybe that’s part of what Laurie does. He fixes the imperfect through his lab of horrors. He might still want you, Jaxie. Maybe he doesn’t know you are involved with the attack. Everyone was running away. It’s not over yet,” Wendy said.
