What Tomorrow May Bring

by Tony Bertauski

  How could things go so wrong in ten minutes time?

  Two hundred plus Militants stormed Headquarters with a vengeance, executing twenty security guards in seconds and surrounding the crowd. The workers screamed and frantically tried to escape. To protect myself, I grabbed an executed guard’s gun and tucked it under my shirt and into my pants.

  That’s when I saw her. Kira must have followed and slipped in behind me. I froze as I tried to figure out how to keep her out of the clustered crowd and safe. Our eyes locked for a moment, and that didn’t go unnoticed by my father. He pounced on her faster than a cat on its prey.

  “Well, well, well…” My father pulled her beside him. “You must be Kira Donovan. Stick by me, and I’ll keep you safe.”

  “Let her go, Dad,” I said. “As my partner, she followed me here. But she has nothing to do with any of this.”

  “On the contrary. If you reported correctly, Kira is a coveted Original. The SCI has big plans for her and likely wants to keep her alive. That’s about as useful as anyone could be to us.”

  “Dad, no. You are not using Kira as your security blanket.” He didn’t reply but pointed his gun at her head.

  “It’s okay, Blake,” Kira said, her gold ringed green eyes showing infinitely more confidence than I have. “Everything will work out. I’m not worried.” She mouthed “I love you” to me. I paused too long, leaving her sentiments unanswered.

  “Move. Everyone to the atrium now!” My father yanked Kira with him.

  So, here I am, watching as the HQ employees are coerced into the atrium. Militants systematically look for Ten or Council pins and terminate wearers accordingly. In the chaos and panic, I ditch the crowd. Before I can climb the stairs to watch from above, I run into Brad Darcton. Behind him are hordes of heavily armed security forces.

  “This is not my doing,” I say to him. “My father has Kira with a gun to her head. You have to get her out safely. Please.” Brad tilts his head to the side as he weighs his options, one of which I assume would be to eliminate me on the spot.

  “How many men?” Brad asks.

  “Two hundred or more trained Militants. I didn’t get a good count. It all happened so fast.”

  “Is Ethan or my Cleave in the crowd?” he asks.

  “I don’t know. They have everyone in the atrium.”

  “I’ll do my best with Kira,” he states. “And you will answer for this later. For now, it would be helpful if you could think of something to divert your father’s attention.”

  “Yes, sir.” I start to creep up the stairs.

  “Careful,” he warns. “You’ll be a tempting target through all that glass,” referring to the glass mosaics that won’t hide my silhouette as I climb the stairs. Chills go down my spine. Despite the risk of being shot at, I creep up the circular staircase until I am safely behind a post and then get down on my stomach. I watch the scene through holes cut in the glass for spotlights to shine through.

  Brad makes a grand entrance, parting the crowd as he greets my father by name.

  “Hank, my friend. So good to see you.” Two hundred guns track his march to the center of the atrium.

  “Brad. Long time no see. I can’t say I missed you,” my father replies.

  “Wow. My feelings are so hurt.” Brad puts a hand over his heart. “What brings you and your friends to Garden City tonight?”

  “I thought a little reorganization of your government was in order,” my father responds. “And hell, the revenge is good too.”

  “Let the girl go, Hank, and let’s talk this out like two grown men,” Brad says. He starts to speak again, but a Militant fires a shot that hits Brad squarely in the chest. It sends him catapulting back a few feet, although I don’t see any blood. Body armor.

  “Hold off,” my father says to keep more shots from firing. “There’ll be plenty of time for that, and I’d like to do the honors.” It takes a minute for Brad to catch his breath and stand back up. In the meantime, while everyone’s busy trying to catch a glimpse of one of the Ten’s fate, Brad’s soldiers have the opportunity to surround the Exilers and disengage their safeties in unison.

  “Checkmate,” Brad says in a more belabored tone. “I believe you are outnumbered, my friend. I have endless reserves to take their places. It’s time for your men to stand down.” I don’t know where they came from, but Doc Daryn was one hundred percent right. The SCI’s illusion of weakness was the work of a master magician.

  “You harm anyone and your precious Original dies, and then you won’t be able to use her for your ridiculous purposes,” my father threatens. Kira is ignoring my father. Her eyes are trained on someone in the crowd. Ethan. If Kira ever questioned his true feelings for her, or if I ever doubted her feelings for him, both are crystal clear now. He looks ready to sacrifice his own life for her if needed. I watch him inch towards her. She appears to be waiting for his signal to make a move. Fabulous. She’s going to get herself killed.

  “Ridiculous purposes? Your son’s alive thanks to those ridiculous purposes. As for Kira, if you want to kill an innocent girl over your futile plans, then go for it. She has already provided what we needed to preserve the future of Thera.” Brad walks forward to meet my father face to face.

  “Don’t you dare bring up my son.” My father scans the crowd. Is he looking for me? He looks more scared than I’ve ever seen him.

  “Why? You don’t want him to know about his true lineage?”

  “I am his father,” my father says.

  “Perhaps, but your dear Cleave, who died in Exile, is most certainly not your son’s mother,” Brad states. “I bet you never mentioned that to him.”

  What? I stumble a little but catch myself before going headfirst through the glass. My mom—who I watched die in agony—wasn’t my real mother? He has to be lying. But then I think about the whole Assisted Pregnancy process, and it occurs to me that they could be implanting any embryos in the mothers.

  “Shut up or I’ll kill the girl.” My father presses the gun harder against Kira’s head.

  “Really? Because if finding out that you lied about his mom won’t kill your relationship, I really can’t guarantee your son will ever support you or your cause if you execute his girlfriend.” The look on my dad’s face is priceless as he tries to absorb that nugget of information. I guess I failed to mention that my relationship with Kira expanded beyond plain old partners.

  “Is that true?” my father asks Kira. “Are you involved romantically with my son?”

  “Sorry, I missed that. What are you accusing me of? I can’t hear with the gun shoved in my ear,” she quips. He keeps hold of her but shifts the gun ever so slightly away from her head and repeats his question. That’s just the opportunity I need to create a more significant diversion without risking her life.

  I remove the security guard’s gun from my pants, release the safety, and aim for the glass mosaic directly behind my father. Then, I pull the trigger and watch as thousands of shards of glass rain down on the crowd below.

  The diversion works. My dad loses his grip on Kira as he spins around to see the source of the explosion and starts firing shots wildly. Ethan tackles Kira, pushing her to the ground so he can act as a human shield. I see blood oozing from Ethan’s shirt. He may have been hit. By the time my father realizes the rain of glass was meant to distract him and jolts back around, Brad Darcton shoots my father. The force of the bullet puts a grapefruit-sized hole through my father’s heart. Dead on impact. His lifeless body falls to the floor.

  The execution of my father causes a domino effect. A Militant shoots Brad Darcton in revenge. Then one of Brad’s security personnel shoots the Militant. Brad’s still down, but I can’t tell where he was hit. Security forces rush and secure Brad’s body and the area. While there, they grab Ethan and Kira and whisk them out to safety.

  After that, it’s an all-out slaughter, with the Militants outnumbered at least five to one. I see some of the Militants drop their weapons and try to blend with
the HQ employees, but most get outed by residents who saw them with guns. When both sides start shooting at the glass in my direction, I scramble up the stairs to the third level, use my passkey to enter the floor, and run for the back stairs and down to the safety of the tunnels.

  The problem is that the tunnels are used to evacuate important SCI personnel to safety in case of emergency. I see a group of security goons escorting a group. I’m in the open with no place to hide. This group includes Ethan and Kira. Ethan’s shirt is off, and he’s using it to apply pressure to his wound. Showoff.

  “There you are,” Ethan says to me. “I worried you might have been amongst the injured.” To his security escort he adds, “He works with me. We were together in the crowd, but I lost him when I went for Kira.” Why would he help me? Guilt over his father killing mine?

  “I barely escaped. Two of those beasts were after me.” I play along.

  “Let me see your Headquarters passkey,” the security guard says. I show him, and he nods to accept me into their brigade. Kira starts to drag as if she can’t handle the hike, and within minutes, we’re at the back of the group. The security detail’s way more concerned about the Council members than us, so they leave us alone as we march.

  “You’ve got to get out of here,” Kira whispers to me. “Once they figure out who you are…given the number of dead up there…they’ll blame you.”

  “I know. I wasn’t exactly planning to run into company,” I respond. “I’ll ditch you at the next intersection. I know where we are.”

  “I’m sorry about your dad—about all of them.”

  “You were right about it being a futile cause,” I tell her. “I just had to try to help. But when I saw the way my father carried out his plan—by executing innocent people—well, I couldn’t support that. So, I got them all killed by bringing down that glass wall.”

  “That was you?” Ethan says. I nod. “Great timing. But, the deaths aren’t your fault. That would have happened anyway with the security detail surrounding the Militants.”

  “Maybe you are right and that the outcome was inevitable. Doesn’t make it any less hard.” I slump my shoulders, feeling the heaviness of the burden I’ll have to carry for the rest of my life.

  “Thank you. What you did…probably saved both our lives.” Kira brushes her hand against mine.

  “I’m sorry,” Ethan says to me. “About my father…what he did to your dad.”

  “Your dad paid the price of the conflict as much as my father did.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Is your arm okay?” I motion towards the wound.

  “It’s just a graze. I’ll be fine,” he says, though I can tell he’s gritting his teeth.

  “Time for me to take off,” I tell them. “I’ll see you soon,” I add to Kira.

  “Hope so,” she replies.

  And with that, I dash to the right and sprint to the next bend where I take a left and head towards the exit I found through the Council residence previously. I should have told her I still care about her, but until things settle down, I’m poison to her. It sucks to have to leave her in Ethan’s care, though. His perfect, nice-guy, risk-his-life-to-save-hers deal is pissing me off.

  Once through the trap door and into the residence, I listen for sounds. There are none. I check by the front door and see two decimated dead bodies, likely executed by my father. Seeing the couple conjures up images of the hundreds massacred at Headquarters. I splash some water on my face and grab the victims’ tablets so I can look for information and track time. Thankfully, the owners left their tablets logged on. After, I settle back into the closet and allow myself to mourn my losses.

  I find maps of the tunnels on Walter Hunt’s tablet, Walter being the homeowner. The maps prove to be useful since staying at a murder scene doesn’t seem too wise. It’ll be a while before officials finish with the mayhem at Headquarters and fan out to search residences, but with the number of forces that magically appeared out of nowhere, I can’t count on a long reprieve. After studying the maps, I decide where to go.

  My father had been right. The tunnels do extend all the way to student residences. I take the long way back to my school, hoping to run into as few people as possible in some of the outer tunnels. It’s eerily silent the entire way other than creaking and squeaking sounds. All security personnel must be at Headquarters, but there are plenty of rats and even some large bearded lizards to keep me company.

  When I reach the narrow tunnels that lead to school residences, I’m pleased to see small markings to indicate which trap door leads to which residence. It’s a sketchy hour to make an entry—middle of the day—but I don’t hesitate to intrude. The trap door leads to the back of the kitchen pantry, and as I swing it inward, the shelves and food move with it, leaving the door open so I can get back out. I remove duct tape from my backpack and tear off two mouth-sized pieces and then two larger pieces to secure hands.

  I tiptoe into the sole bedroom in the residence and am pleased to see the occupants sound asleep. I’m able to get the duct tape on without much struggle, but it does wake them both up. Thank goodness they’re clothed. After removing both their watches and turning on the light, I bring my finger to my mouth to encourage them to be quiet, and I motion for them to follow me. They look a little angry but comply. I lead them back into the tunnel where I’m fairly certain our conversation can be private and have them sit down.

  “I apologize for the midday invasion. But everything we say in our own homes is monitored by the government, and I wanted our conversation to be private. If I remove the duct tape from your mouths, do you promise to be quiet and listen to what I have to say? I’m not here to hurt you but to give you information that you need to know.” They both nod, and I remove the duct tape. From the shrieks they let out, it must’ve hurt to pull it off. Bummer.

  “Ow. What the hell, Blake?” Tristan yells. “You better start explaining yourself fast.” He looks like he wants to kill me. Get in line.

  “I will. It’s a bit of a long story, so just calm down.”

  “I’ll freaking calm down when you explain what’s so important that you need to kidnap us in the middle of the day and drag us into this nasty, smelly, dark place.” I’m glad I duct-taped his hands together as his knuckles are white. I think he’s angry.

  “Did you ever wonder why you guys are called Second Chancers?” I ask. Both shake their heads sideways to indicate they don’t. “Well, it’s time you both partook of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.”

  “Huh?” Bri says.

  “You both have very interesting pasts that you can’t remember. So, I’m going to fill in the gaps for you. Starting with the fact that you lived and died elsewhere before being given a second chance here on Thera.” I tell them everything, start to finish, as best I know from what Kira has told me about them, including the pertinent details about what they did to her on Earth. Bri soaks it all in, but Tristan looks skeptical throughout.

  When I’m finished telling them the whole story, Tristan chimes in first. “It all sounds like a bunch of crap you made up.”

  “No, I think he’s telling the truth,” Bri says. “I got chills. The whole thing rings true.”

  “You got chills because it’s freezing!” Funny. It’s a humid eighty-five or ninety degrees in the tunnel but to a Theran that feels cold.

  “What if we really did all that stuff to Kira, Tristan?” Bri says. “We’d deserve to die for it.”

  “He’s just trying to give us a guilt trip over Cleaving before they had a chance.” I watch them banter back and forth for a while before inserting some well-needed advice.

  “Well, don’t take my word. By all means, spread the news, gather your friends, and go ask the folks in charge at Headquarters about it.” I encourage them to take action.

  That should keep the remaining Ten and Council members occupied while I figure out my escape plan.

  “For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everythin
g you gain, you lose something else.”

  —Ralph Waldo Emerson

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Kira

  “You asked to see me?” I enter Vienna Darcton’s executive office on the sixth floor of the Headquarters. An armed security guard delivered me here. He made sure to take me past the masses of dead bodies on the way up—an object lesson in the perils of rebellion. The blood, body matter, and stench struck me like an oncoming train.

  It has been twenty-four hours since Ethan saved me, and we were evacuated to an underground stronghold. Since then, security forces have secured the city, and city officials have returned to Headquarters to assess the damage.

  The commander of the security forces briefed officials in the stronghold. Only three of the Ten remain. Sixty percent of the Grand Council members were executed—either within their homes or at Headquarters before security forces intervened. Fifty-seven additional innocents lost their lives; Cleaves of the Ten and Grand Council members, Headquarters employees, and city residents who were caught in the crossfire when the battle expanded beyond the Headquarters building. Two hundred seventy-seven Militant Exilers perished. Others were wounded and captured.

  Everyone within the city had been tracked down and afforded the opportunity by security forces to present proper credentials, proving they were Garden City residents. If they couldn’t do so and no other resident could vouch for them, interrogations, followed by executions happened on the spot. Those who were vouched for by Cleaveds, friends, or family await confirmation in lockup. Whether Blake is alive or dead, I have no idea. He disappeared in the tunnels with a promise to see me later. The security commander didn’t mention specifically searching the tunnels which are only accessible by official passkeys, so I’m holding out hope.

  “Yes, Kira. Please have a seat,” she says. I sit in a lush green velvet guest chair in front of her large mahogany desk and admire the view of the canyon lights. While I wait for her to explain why she summoned me, I chew on my finger. She looks at me in disgust for my nervous habit. “We’ve been unable to locate your partner, Blake, despite our city-wide manhunt. Do you have any idea where he might be?” Thank goodness. He’s still alive.