by John Carrick
Late in the afternoon, Bobby noticed that the bronze shell casings had tarnished, accelerated by the oils in his hands, as he fondled at least one of the six cylinders almost constantly.
After returning home, Bobby approached his father, asking if they had any polishing products in the house.
Predictably his father asked, "What for?”
Bobby showed him the bullets.
Bobby's father felt his chest go tight. His breath caught in his throat. He looked at the naked shells. He felt consumed with energy and invigorated, just by the sight of the items in his young son's hand.
After a moment, Mr. Dunkirk didn't even know what it was that he was looking at, but he couldn't look away.
Bobby's arm grew tired. He lowered his hand.
His father stood in a daze, calm, quiet and distant. Bobby had forgotten what it was he'd asked his father for. The boy turned and left him in the hall.
A few moments later, Mr. Dunkirk snapped out of his trance and went to his own bedroom, overcome with fatigue.
Back in his bedroom, Bobby set the shells on his windowsill and settled in, watching them with mute fascination, as his father had. They seemed to speak to him; only he couldn’t say just what the message was.
Monday, June 29, 2308
On Monday morning, Bobby woke, dressed, ate breakfast and slipped out of the house. His father's car was already gone.
Bobby wandered down into the canyon, the bullets secure in his pocket.
Before long, he'd found a couple of the other neighborhood kids and shown them the shells. Together, they stood the shells on the bottom of the slide and took seats around them.
A pair of moms soon noticed their children and friends all sitting, staring at the foot of the slide.
They drifted over to investigate the strange phenomenon. By the time they were close enough to recognize the bullets, it was too late. They had entered the shells' sphere-of-influence and took seats on the wood-chip covered ground with the children.
Bobby noticed their arrival and considered the implications. He wondered if the adults would try and take his bullets. He wasn't afraid the other children might, but the presence of the two parents unnerved him.
A few minutes later, Bobby rose and picked up the bullets.
Several of the children rose with him, smiling, but not speaking.
Bobby smiled in return and walked from the slide toward the tree line a short distance away.
The crowd of children and adults followed Bobby from the playground into the overgrown forest.
They made their way down the pathways, wandering from gully to glen, until Bobby found a large, shade-ensconced rock.
Bobby climbed onto the rock as his disciples settled themselves around it.
Bobby stood the six brass shells on the smooth surface of the broad stone. It took him a moment to align them, but none fell or rolled away.
For the remainder of the afternoon, Bobby and his group communed with the debris - metallic flotsam, infected with a power never before encountered by modern men.
Mr. Dunkirk grew angry and irritable after his exposure to Bobby's bullets. He left meetings early and snapped at his staff. In the middle of the afternoon, he cancelled the remainder his schedule and rushed home.
Dunkirk arrived and asked after his youngest son. His older children, Evan and Anne hadn't seen Bobby, but guessed that he'd gone out into the forest. Mrs. Dunkirk was not at home, so Mr. Dunkirk decided to go looking for his son and those fascinating bullets.
Martin exited through the kitchen and down the tiered balconies at the back of the house. He stopped at the landscaping shed at the edge of the property. He hefted an old fashioned short-handled sledge. The ball of the hammer was a bit smaller than his fist, a heavy chunk of metal attached to the stout wood handle. It felt right in his hand.
Martin proceeded down into the darkening canyon. It took him the better part of two hours to stumble across Bobby and his silent entourage, sitting in the dark of twilight. He'd walked past them twice.
Quite certain they were alone; he came forward. No one turned at his approach. Bobby, facing his father from atop the rock, never even raised his eyes from the bullets.
Mr. Martin Dunkirk lifted the hammer high and brought it down with a thwack into the head of the woman to his right.
In her mid-forties and significantly overweight, Rhonda Tremaine's lifeless body fell to the side, her shattered skull pulling away from Martin's hammer with a sucking sound.
Martin raised the hammer again, bringing it down on the second woman. Younger, more attractive, but just as dead, Michelle Larson crumpled to the ground. Four more times that night Mr. Dunkirk raised his hammer, crushing the skulls of the children.
When he finished, Bobby raised his eyes, meeting his father's. In that single glance, it was clear that Bobby was the master of the bullets.
Martin could worship, but only with Bobby's permission.
The bullets would not permit any harm to come to their master.
The hammer slipped from Martin's grasp. Mr. Dunkirk wanted to sit with Bobby and the shells, but the corpses were in his way.
Bobby watched the reflections of moonlight on metal as his father carried the corpses to a narrow ravine a short distance from the glen.
Almost narrow enough to straddle, Martin dropped them and watched them tumble and crash forty feet to the bottom. Then he collapsed the sides of the defile around them, filling in the makeshift grave.
Finally, Martin joined his son in their silent communication with the infected bullets.
They were pleased with their ministers.
Bobby would remain their caretaker, seeking out converts during the day, and Martin would return at night, to keep the congregation small.
It worked for almost three whole weeks, until a previously planned family vacation upset their applecart of murder.
Chapter 25 – Camp Fu
Ashley had been assigned her own room. She was the only girl in a camp of over twenty boys. She figured Geoff had to share, but as far as she was concerned, he was still the lucky one. As soon as their bags were stowed, the children assigned to the martial arts camp were lined up outside the main practice hall. Ashley stood in the back, so not to stand out any more than necessary.
Three instructors stood at the front of the room. The tallest prowled back and forth, not speaking, just taking stock of the assigned group. Ashley guessed he was doing his two years of public service, as well as the two assistants who stood beside him.
"I am Citizen Shou. You may call me Sihing Shou. See-hing means senior student. This is Sihing Cleary and Sihing Lopez. We are here to help guide you through the challenges of the next few weeks. This is a mixed martial arts course, you will be taught many things, and you will be tested. But first, I'd like to know, do any of you have experience in the martial arts?”
About half the students raised their hands. Ashley didn't raise hers. Despite two previous summers of similar courses, she did not count herself as experienced.
"Now, how many of you have been hit, hard, in the face?" Sihing Shou asked.
At first several hands went up, but some were timid, uncertain.
"I mean hard, bloody nose, fat lip, black eye. How many?”
A few hands remained aloft.
Shou pointed to one boy and asked, "Who hit you?”
"My brother hits me all the time," he said, pointing at his brother, standing a few spaces away.
Shou and several others laughed. Ashley noticed that the boy, however, was not laughing. She suspected he was interested in how to put a stop his brother’s dominance.
"And you?" Shou gestured to another boy.
"My father," came the answer.
Shou pointed again. "A kid in my class.”
"Has anyone here ever been hit while in the ring?" Shou asked.
All the hands went down.
"When you are in a fight, if you are ever in a fight, you must fight for your life. It will be
at that moment when you are weak, tired, probably very hurt, that is when you must act to save your life. We will help you get to that place and teach you how to think while you're there.”
Shou walked along the front of the room. "Someone may come, an outlaw, the government, a king, they may take all of your possessions. They may steal your clothes, eat your food and burn down your house, but you can survive all of that. You may have nothing, but you will never be defenseless. Knowledge is the greatest power; it is something no one can see. It cannot be stolen or broken, and no one can take it from you.
“When you leave here, you will be in possession of new knowledge. You will know things you did not know when you arrived. You will have earned it, paid for it in sweat and blood, and it will be worth much more than money."
"This knowledge comes in the form two most valuable lessons. The first can only be studied in a controlled environment, since the lesson is about control. Every day, at three o'clock, we will have tournament style sparring matches. Everyone will participate. You can win by points, knock out, or submission, but that is not the lesson. That is just the place where you will have the experience I want you to think about.
"You see a lesson is not always learned in a single moment. It is something to be taken in and contemplated. Then it becomes understood.
“The match is not the lesson, it is just the framework, but within this framework, at some point you will be hit in the face. This is a unique experience, I promise you.
“The lesson is this. How, after being struck, does one remain composed? Can you ignore the pain and stay focused on your survival? Can you remain calm and aware?
“I'm not here to teach you how to hit someone, but rather, how to work through being hit. So, lesson number one is, Keep thinking through the pain.
"Now lesson two is much more difficult to learn. If you could master this, you would never have to learn lesson one. Number two is simple: Don't get hit.”
"Everything we teach you supports those two rules. Okay, now I want you to go get changed into your warm up gear. We're going to do some stretching and a little Tai Chi."
This camp was different from the other Martial Arts programs Ashley had attended. For one thing, she liked it.
Chapter 26 – The Oval Office
Monday, July 6, 2308
Dr. Fox and Secretary Croswell entered the Oval Office, greeting the assembled directors and citizens. The last time Fox had been here, under the previous administration of President Stagwell, he had given the President an amplifier. He knew that President Stagwell had handed the amplifier down to President Conway as part of his Oath of Office. Croswell had instructed the President in its use, but Conway and Fox had never discussed it.
For this meeting, the President was not in the room. Fox knew the men present, but Croswell made a round of introductions anyhow. Fox shook hands with the President's Chief of Staff, John Phillips, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Secretary of State, a few senators and Director Stanwood.
Fox sat in the open chair, the hot seat, as it were.
The other significant difference, Fox noticed, was that now, instead of the Micronix device, which he had carried for over twenty years, now Fox had the Metachron in his pocket. This device was different, but only slightly. In fact, the device seemed to have, or rather give him, a distinct approach.
"What the hell, Fox?" Phillips did not sound friendly.
"How are you, Mr. Phillips?" Fox asked.
"Seems there may be a couple of issues you failed to mention to us."
"Probably more than a couple," Fox said.
”How about you explain this business about detonating terillium?"
"It’s just a concept.”
"And two hours later the Epsilon Facility place explodes? Does that seem like a coincidence to you?”
"It seems unrelated to me," Fox said.
"Cut the shit. You know what we want," Phillips said.
"I suppose I do," Fox answered.
"So are you going to give it to us?" the Chief of Staff snapped.
Fox smiled, "Right here, in front of everybody?"
No one laughed or even smiled.
Fox swallowed. "It was an idea sir. It didn't work, thank God. Even if you introduced the transcript of the call as evidence, even if you could extradite Dr. Te, it was just an idea. It was never going to work.” Fox looked at Stanwood. "It might easier to convict me if I were pursuing this, that would really be treasonous.”
"There would never be a trial," Phillips smiled.
"Look, I tried with the interface. You saw what happened," Fox said.
"Try harder," Phillips said.
“How about you get me some real volunteers, not death row inmates.”
“You don’t sound very cooperative, doctor.”
"Do you realize what this cost? Not even in terms of actual human life, just in cash money? The installments were chump change. I spent more than that out of my own pocket.”
"We're not asking," Phillips said.
Fox looked him in the eyes. "Has it occurred to you that if God wanted you to know what I know, he'd have made you smarter?”
"He didn't make you President, and I don't think you believe in God.”
Fox remained silent, his lips a tight, thin line.
"I'm going to give you a week to think this over, Doctor Fox. You start again in a week, or you say goodnight. Do you understand?” Phillips asked.
Fox laughed. "Let me get this straight. You suspect I have the ability to detonate terillium… And your response is to threaten me? I contributed more in eighth grade than all of you have, put together.
“You want to lecture Me? You dare?
“I created the cyber-tanks that ended the war. Hell, you still use the Three-AM guards. I don't owe you anything, and I'm the last person you should want to threaten, let alone to try and kill.
“By your logic, if I had this power and you exposed yourselves as such ignorant bullies, I would be obligated, as a patriot, to kill all of you.”
No one spoke.
"If you have evidence against me? Produce it. You think I’m a traitor? Get a warrant. You consider me a threat to national security? I am National Security. I am the first among equals. Your job is to protect me.”
Fox stood and looked over to Stanwood, "This is you, isn't it? You're still bitter and so you convinced him to try and strong-arm me?”
Fox returned his attention to Mr. Phillips. "Sir, I regret to inform you, you've been played. When I have something worthwhile, something safe, you're the first person I'll bring it to. Until then, good day to you, sir."
Fox walked from the room.
Behind him, Phillips said, "What's he talking about, Stanwood? You two have history?"
Croswell burst into laughter.
Chapter 27 – Denali Café
Von Kalt waited until he and Stanwood were in the car before making his case. “Sir, I’ve been informed of new developments you should know about.”
“What’s that,” Stanwood asked, looking out the window.
“Sir, this morning Missus Fox and children left the home on transport shuttles, with luggage.”
“You don’t say,” Stanwood mused. “Let me guess, our teams lost them in traffic?”
“The shuttles… Yes, sir.”
“Well, that makes Fox about the nearest you can get to a flight risk, don’t you think?”
“I do, sir,” Von Kalt agreed.
“Very well, Commander. You have a green light. But until we get paperwork, this is a completely ‘off the books’ operation. Do you understand me?”
“I do sir.” Von Kalt smiled.
“One more thing,” Stanwood said. “I want him transferred to the old NASA facility out at White Sands. I’m giving you strict instructions and a direct order, once you take him into custody; keep him sedated until you get there.
“Before you get there, have all the Terillium, hell, all metal, for a ten mile radius pulled out. That means
no vehicles, no facilities, not even so much as a pen. If we’re going to take this seriously, there’s no sense in ignoring the number one threat. We’re talking about a guy who can detonate T256 with a thought.
“I would also recommend disabling the Doctor with some sort of airborne agent, maybe gas or something. Don’t try taking him by force, with guns, that would be a mistake. In fact, Director, I’ll be very impressed to see you again.”
Von Kalt blinked lazily and turned for the door.
“Oh, and finally,” Stanwood said. “Please take along a pair of gloves. No sense ending up like Pierce.”
Von Kalt turned to face his superior. “I’m telling you, Pierce pulled a flying squirrel. I bet a million dollars, he’s alive and well in Belize.”
“Just because you never found an impact point doesn’t make Pierce clever. His family certainly seems to believe he’s missing. If not, they are going to an awful lot of fuss, and losing their prominent position in the Republic, over what, a ruse?” Stanwood tapped his chin and stared at the ceiling. “No, it gains them nothing. If Pierce were alive and in possession of the Micronix, we would know about it, one way or the other.”
Stanwood glanced back to Von Kalt. “And you shouldn’t bet money you don’t have.”
Von Kalt exited the office as Stanwood leafed through the paperwork he’d been neglecting.
Monday Afternoon, July 6, 2308
Dr. Fox sat at an outdoor table at the busy cafe. The warm breeze smelled of rain, flowers and coffee. The people passing by had smiles and nods for each other, the goodwill that had started with the beautiful weather spread from one person to the next.
Fox blew across the top of his cup. He didn't recognize the tall man who approached his table. Fox himself was almost six foot, but the stranger was well over that. Obviously a federal agent, he was dressed in a sharp black suit, shirt and tie. Fox saw another across the patio and two more at the far entrance.
