Wealth of Time Series Boxset

by Andre Gonzalez

  “You know if Strike lives this will never cease. Whether it’s you or some future Commander, the people will expect an idea for getting her back.”

  “I know that, but I have my sights set on bigger things. We can end this war today if I can just get some support on these bombs.”

  Funny enough, the number two in charge had to give the final approval for deploying the bombs after authorization from the Commander. Julian technically had more influence on the decision as Strike’s number two, compared to now as the Commander. Goddamn checks and balances.

  But maybe he was closer now. Strike would never have authorized a bombing, even on the tragic day after Chris was shot and rose from the dead minutes later. Sure, the barricade went up and likely made the bombs useless, but why not give it a try? Or at least have a discussion? The worst case scenario was them stuck in the same exact position.

  “A bomb will never be dropped under my leadership,” she had told him when he first brought it up.

  Now that the closed-mindedness was out of the way, Julian only had to convince Bill to approve the bombs. Bill was just as peaceful as Strike, but he had an open mind.

  “Sit down, Bill. I want to discuss this.”

  Bill sighed, crossed his arms, and dragged himself back to the seat across Julian’s desk. In the past, Bill could’ve stormed out of the room without a word, but Julian was now the Commander, leaving him no choice but to do as requested.

  “Thank you,” Julian said sharply. “Let’s get the first matter out of the way. We don’t need any tension. You and I are still friends and will continue to work together like we always have. I’m not here to boss you around, just to get shit done.”

  Bill clasped his hands on his lap, one leg bouncing as he stared at Julian with heavy, exhausted eyes. “I don’t want this power to go to your head. I’ll be here to support you every step of the way, but please don’t overstep any boundaries.”

  “With all due respect, Bill, there are no more boundaries. I’m the Commander.”

  “Yes, we know that. But it doesn’t give you the right to become a dictator. Don’t lose your values.”

  Julian had met Bill when he was first recruited by the Road Runners. Bill saved Julian, more than he’d ever know, after the complete collapse of his life. Julian was a prodigy in his life before the Road Runners, leaving no wonder as to why he was sought out after he received the Juice from Chris.

  Julian had risen as a shining star throughout high school, finishing as valedictorian and leading his football team to their second consecutive state championship as their quarterback. Scholarship offers flooded his mailbox, both athletic and academic. Deciding to enroll at Harvard ended up as the decision that shaped the rest of his life.

  He didn’t continue with football at the collegiate level, wanting to focus on economics in his schooling. But he remained in shape, and even got talked into running the Boston Marathon in 2013. Always up for a physical challenge, Julian trained every single night to get into top shape for the famous marathon.

  Like everything else in his life up to that point, the training came naturally. He reached a point where he ran 15 miles every day after class. At nineteen years old, Julian had quickly found himself in the best shape of his life. He ate chicken and vegetables every single day for the four weeks leading up to the marathon, leaving nothing to chance. He passed on parties, drinking booze with his roommate, and made sure to get eight hours of sleep each night.

  Everything led up to a successful day on April 15, 2013. He started with the 10:40 a.m. slate of runners, taking the morning to relax, stretch, and mentally prepare for the grueling task ahead. Always an analytical person, he projected four hours for him to complete the race, not bad for a first timer, but well off the mark of the winners who typically clocked in under two and a half hours.

  He didn’t join the race to win. There were plenty of runners who dedicated their lives to a chance at victory. Julian popped in his earphones and listened to the four hour playlist of songs he had created to carry him through the race. He maintained a steady pace that he had found to work, and focused on his breathing, letting the cool air fill his lungs as he timed his inhales every five seconds.

  The race passed in a blur, and as he approached the finish line with a few minutes to spare before 3 p.m., everything changed forever.

  The finish line waited over 100 yards away. Julian had taken out his earphones to hear the roaring crowd cheering on everyone who finished the race. People lined the sidewalks, jumping and waving at the hundreds of strangers who ran by on the street.

  An explosion boomed from the left sidewalk, gray smoke immediately rising and filling the air, clouding the view of the upcoming finish line. The ground shook, causing Julian and many others to lose their footing and fall with their hands splayed out. His first thought was that an earthquake had just struck.

  By the time he got back to his feet, a second explosion rang out, this one much closer as the thunderous force sent everyone flying through the air. Julian’s ears reverberated as he threw his arms over his head to shield it from what felt like dozens of hailstones showering over him. He had fallen back to the ground.

  He looked up to see blood speckled across his legs, as if he had just received 100 small paper cuts across his flesh. About thirty feet away was a sight that would never leave his memory. A man lay on his back, arms splayed to his sides as he cried and shouted to the skies. Both of his legs were gone, cut from the knee down where blood oozed like a river onto the asphalt.

  “Somebody help me! It fucking burns!” the man had shouted, his shrieking voice lost in the commotion of hundreds of other people shouting and stampeding to safety.

  Julian shook his head free of the shards of glass, crawling toward the man, but not moving. Each movement he made sent a jolt of pain down his back, all but paralyzing him. After five attempts to push off the ground, he gave up and rolled onto his back, looking to the smoke-filled sky and praying this wasn’t how his life ended.

  Life didn’t end that day, but a new beginning waited on the horizon. Julian walked away with no serious injuries, merely a couple of broken ribs and bruising throughout his whole body. While this all seemed innocent on paper—and nothing compared to the man who lost his legs and the countless others who never made it home for supper—the recovery led Julian down a dark path of painkillers and an opioid addiction that would haunt the next three months of his life.

  Until he met Chris Speidel.

  112

  Chapter 19

  “Let me tell you why you should give the green light to the bombs,” Julian said, sitting up stiffly. He had his cell phone on the desk, a software running in the background to record this conversation, needing at least one soundbite he could work with. “For starters, we’ve been sitting on these bombs for how many years? Are we ever going to use them?”

  “They’re intended to use in defense; not to proactively drop.”

  “I know that, and I understand why. Dropping a bomb can easily get regular people in the middle of this mess. But, Bill, we’re in the middle of nowhere, the fucking North Pole. These aren’t nuclear bombs, so it’s not like we have to worry about any widespread harm to civilians. We can drop hundreds of these bombs and no one will even know.”

  “So you want to drop them on the mansion?”

  “Precisely.”

  “You know it’s barricaded with thick steel. Dropping a bomb would be a waste and do nothing but escalate this war.”

  “Or it can end this war. We’re going to have a small window of opportunity when those barricades go down. The rest of our people are going to be released at some point in the next couple of days.”

  “How do you know this?” Bill asked, staring at his young counterpart with suspicious eyes.

  “We have an insider, and that’s all you need to know. I think we need to act quickly because no one knows how long this barricade will stay up once its closed again.”

  “He’ll have Comma
nder Strike in there. We need to get her out of there before any bomb is dropped. I won’t approve it otherwise.”

  “I think we can make that work. So you will approve the dropping of a bomb on Chris’s mansion?”

  Bill sighed and crossed his arms. “Yes I will—”

  Got it! Julian wanted to jump out of his chair for obtaining the recording he needed, but kept cool while Bill finished speaking.

  “—but only under that one condition. If you can actually pull it off, then what can stop me from saying no?”

  “Thanks, Bill. I knew we’d be able to come to an agreement. Shall we toast to our future as the leaders of the Road Runners?”

  “Perhaps tomorrow. I don’t remember the last time I’ve slept, and it’s time for me to take a day off.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Go get some rest.”

  Bill nodded and bowed out of the office in a hurry, leaving Julian alone to stew in rage.

  They both knew there was no chance of getting Strike out of that mansion. Julian had to bite his lip over the past few months as he watched Bill desperately try to win Strike’s affection. Bill had the unconditional and blind loyalty of a puppy toward Strike, so it was no surprise for him to make such an outrageous offer.

  Julian was also a step ahead, knowing Bill had cornered him with his proposal. If Strike actually escaped the mansion, she would immediately return to power and could override any decision implemented by Julian. And she would never approve of a missile strike on the mansion, even if it was confirmed empty of any Road Runners.

  They deserve each other, Julian thought, trying to think of a way out of this virtual handcuffing of his plan.

  He had the conversation recorded and could edit it to force the approval. To get to that stage, however, Bill needed to be completely out of the picture.

  Julian leaned back and reflected on the difficult decision that now stood between him and his destiny as the Commander who killed Chris.

  You can’t stop this, Bill. There are too many moving parts, and this train has already left the station. Get off the tracks or else.

  Julian tried to shake his head clear of evil thoughts, but they wouldn’t leave. No, he didn’t necessarily want to see Strike dead, but he also didn’t want to see her alive. The Road Runners were in better hands now, under his guidance, and the population would see that soon enough.

  “I just need to drop this bomb and end this war. Then they’ll make statues of me and crown me as the best Commander ever.” He looked at the office walls, dozens of portraits of past Commanders staring back at him with smug expressions, and years of failure hiding behind their eyes. “I can be the one. Someone has to be.”

  The pictures were in chronological order, leading up to Commander Strike, her portrait slightly larger than the rest to signify her current reign. In her picture, she had pursed lips, a cocked eyebrow, and long blond hair slung behind her shoulders. Her blue eyes pierced Julian, daring him to complete this side project he had been working on behind her back. She had to have known. Even though she was afraid to take chances, there was no denying her intelligence. She rose to power because of her mind and ability to communicate with people, traits that Julian needed to work on to add to his arsenal of talents as a strategist in the war against the Revolters.

  Julian smiled and pulled open the desk drawer to retrieve a silver revolver. He spun the cylinder to ensure no bullets were loaded, cocked the hammer, and pointed it at Strike’s portrait with a widening grin.

  “We can’t go on with you. I’m sorry. I know you didn’t get us into this mess, but you’ll never get us out of it. I have to do it.”

  He squeezed the trigger, a faint click leaving the revolver that trembled in his hand. Strike’s portrait continued to stare at him, showing her disappointment with his sudden rise to corruption. Julian giggled, knowing tomorrow her portrait would be changed to a smaller version to make room for his own face. Tomorrow was the public ceremony where a big speech was expected, outlining his vision for the rest of the term. Julian had the unique opportunity to serve longer than the standard two-year term. Since he was succeeding Strike in her absence, he was technically finishing out her term, which had another year left. After that he could run for the following election and be solidified for another two years in power.

  If he could get the bomb dropped within the next three months, his popularity would soar and easily carry him through the next election, leaving him to guide the Road Runners not only through the end of the war, but also the transition into peace that followed.

  “I have to do it,” he said again to Strike’s portrait before loading the revolver and standing from the desk. “And there’s not a damn thing you can do to stop me.”

  He cackled one final time before departing the office and turning down the hallway to Bill’s office. The main floor had a handful of Road Runners scattered about at their desks, monitoring the screens, searching for a way to break Strike free. The majority were already sound asleep, snoring on the pull out beds underneath their desks.

  The leadership team sometimes slept in their offices, but always tried to make it home at the end of the day. Bill’s office waited three doors down, and if he was in there, Julian would try to talk him into going home. And if he wasn’t there, Julian would head straight to his house for a nightcap.

  He reached the door and rapped on it with a shaky fist. He’d never considered himself a nervous person, but with history looming on the other side of tomorrow, a pressure had bubbled up within himself that made it impossible to sit still.

  No answer, so he knocked one more time for good measure. Julian checked behind to see if any of the other Road Runners were paying him any attention and was pleased to find they weren’t.

  He tried the door knob, and let himself into Bill’s empty office. The computer screen splashed blue light across the office’s back wall as the only source of light. The couch had not been turned into a bed and all the lights were turned off.

  He went home.

  Julian hadn’t expected this to be so easy, knowing anything with Bill was always an uphill battle. The sight of the abandoned office created a fresh wave of nerves that fluttered from his toes to his throbbing temples. The revolver pulsed in his waistband like it had a life of its own.

  Go to his house. The stars are aligned for all of your dreams to come true. Don’t mess this up.

  Julian nodded, stepping back into the hallway and gently closing the door to avoid any attention. Those who worked were too involved in their screens to see what was going on right in front of them. Keep looking for Strike, he thought. You’ll never get her out of that mansion.

  Julian retreated down the hall back to his new office. In case any wandering eyes had noticed him, he needed to put some time between his visit to Bill’s office and his departure from the building to avoid any suspicion.

  “Fifteen minutes,” he said after closing his office door and pacing around the room. “Fifteen minutes and I’ll go to Bill’s house. Ask him if I can come in and talk a little more. He can’t send me away; I’m the Commander.”

  No matter how many times he said it aloud, the ring of his new title never grew old, making him grin every time.

  Stop stroking yourself and prepare for this meeting. You can’t take that gun.

  Julian stopped mid-step at this realization. If he planned to get away with murder, he had to think smarter than shooting Bill with a revolver that only a handful of people had access to, let alone knew about.

  “Fuck,” he barked. His plans were about to get messy, but his mind had already been made. He shuffled to the desk and frantically pulled open all of the drawers until he found a pair of gloves that belonged to Strike. He pulled them over his hands, stretching them to their limits as the stitching in the seams made cracking sounds.

  “There,” he said, examining his gloved hands under the lights. The technology in the future could identify a fingerprint within a matter of minutes, and if a highly rank
ed official of the Road Runners were to show up murdered, they would certainly send all evidence to the future to try and solve the case. “I think we’re about set here, Commander Strike,” he said to her portrait, patting it with the black gloves.

  Julian closed all the desk drawers and arranged the papers on the desk in a neat pile, not wanting to leave a trace behind of his flustered presence. He tapped Strike’s picture as he left the office, sure to turn off the lights and close the door silently before slipping out of the building into the night.

  113

  Chapter 20

  Martin tugged at his crotch for the hundredth time as he sat in the passenger seat, Gerald driving him from the apartment to downtown Denver. Ralph had assured them the outfits in the suitcase were authentic for the times, but Martin wasn’t sure if it was a prank or if men’s testicles had shrunk in the last 40 years.

  He wore faded jeans that leeched to his legs, waist, and groin, to go with a silky, shiny purple shirt that would surely glow under the city’s bright lights at night. As if everything needed to be tighter, a belt fastened around his hips that matched his polished black shoes. Leather gloves covered his hands while a gray scarf wrapped around his neck to conceal his glowing skin.

  I feel like an idiot, he thought.

  Martin had rarely dressed up throughout his prior life, but understood the correct times and places to do so: weddings, funerals, rare nights out to fancy restaurants he couldn’t afford. But for a casual stroll through the city, this seemed a bit over the top.

  With the slums of their neighborhood far behind them, the van slowed as it approached the towering skyscrapers. Martin looked up at the handful of new buildings he didn’t recognize, his stare working down to an electric fence standing twenty feet tall and wrapping around the perimeter of the city. The street narrowed to one lane that entered the city through a checkpoint of armed guards.