Zero Hour Shifting Power

by David Berko

  Howard sat big and tall in his high-back, padded leather executive chair. The seat swiveled to the rhythm of the old man's impulses. Howard's desk was one giant touch screen. Every now and then he would activate the hologram protocols to use his electronic signature for RFA's (requests for approval). For those he would literally stamp his index finger into a virtual 3D biometric scanner--good enough for an impression.

  …

  A new figure darkened the doorway of the most important office in the land...and the world. It was the stranger from the lobby. There he stood, emboldened to enter the throne room of the Lord of the Ages.

  Howard didn't look up from his reading. His senses tingled though. His voice was low but precise: "I have been expecting you, Maxwell."

  The visitor noticed the cultic symbolism in the furniture and decorations of the room. The desk's base itself resembled the incomplete pyramid with the all-seeing eye in the top section. A glass tabletop surface sat suspended on the pyramid's apex.

  Maxwell bowed low to the ground and remained prostrate. “Your excellency, I am truly honored to finally have met you.”

  Howard's eyes looked up and met the prophet's: they were like red cinders.

  Maxwell didn't seem to mind. He had seen the transient look before from other members belonging to the Luciferean cult, Scorpion. He himself was a devout member of the secret society and worshiper of the Devil. His highest calling in life had been to spread the pack of lies he had received from a certain agent of evil and to then disseminate them through the media Scorpion had long- since controlled throughout the twentieth century and on into the twenty-first.

  “Our work is far from finished, Maxwell,” Howard thoughtfully postulated.

  “It all leads to Washington, next,” Maxwell said into the rug without meeting the Old Man's gaze.

  Howard's eyes sparkled. “Yes, Babylon is almost ready for her beast.”

  The prophet uttered his worship and praises in low meditative moans and groans. His toes stuck out from underneath his suit coat's rear flaps. His knees curled up into his naval section in a fetal position. The finishing touches to Maxwell's obsequious performance were his arms stretched out with hands steepled together like one would to pray.

  “You may rise,” Howard directed as he himself stood to his full height of 6'1".

  Maxwell rose slowly, ironing out the many wrinkles in his expensive suit coat. His red power tie looked worse for wear. However the man seemed to notice, adjusting it accordingly.

  “We are at war with the Woman and her Child,” Howard snarled.

  The prophet understood the Devil's biblical parlance to be referring to Israel and the Christ. The same fire that blazed in Howard--vehemence towards God's people, the Church, and the Seed of the woman--also burned out of control in Maxwell's heart.

  “My lord,” he began, “we have the great war machine of the West at our full disposal. Its economy isn't damaged goods like many would like to think. Your currency is almost ready to go into effect now that the worthless dollar has been discarded by the world's markets.”

  Howard already knew all this and more. But nevertheless, he liked to hear it anyway. He only had a short time to wage his war and he would do it with a vengeance.

  --

  San Bernardino, California

  The planning got into full swing at twenty hundred hours and everybody had a voice in the matters. Four screens hung on the wall that ran parallel with the table. On them appeared schematics of the sewage lines that ran below Damion's residence, the topography of the overlook the estate was built on with the site's variegated elevations accounted for, and in addition to all that, Monty had a simulation of a plane flying at an altitude of 35,000 feet with the paratrooper(s) getting the green light to jump when the moment was right.

  "A lotta things could go bust on this mission," Henry stated the obvious. "I don't like the drone angle one bit. What kind of weapons are we packin' on this sortie? Anyone?"

  The self-declared weapons specialist of the group answered Henry. “The drones are worrisome, but we's gots drone-killin' guns. Allow me to demonstrate....” Hassan said as he rose from the table. He came back a moment later with an ugly looking bazooka-esque plasma rifle. Equipped with a laser rangefinder--good up to two miles through any kind of cloud cover, fog of war, or the dark of night--the weapon could neutralize drones with a few well-placed bursts of directed energy. “Has anybody had any experience with using this guy?” the Sudanese warrior asked while patting its thick stock.

  Nobody spoke at first, however Allen's head dipped a little before he finally came forth with, "I used it when it was still part of an X-funded program a decade ago.” He cussed as he began to sing its praises. “It'll have to be good enough,” he laughed while bearing a golden tooth grin.

  Rodney who had been sitting in between barrel-chested Asef to his left and Hassan the tree to his right coughed a few times. He wanted to know who'd double tap the ex- Navy Seal body guard in the skull.

  "And the guards?” he began, “What kind of firepower do we need to eradicate their presence?"

  "Sawed-off, pistol grip, double-barreled twelve gaugers," the ex-Latin King thug joked.

  The humor was appreciated, but Rodney still wanted a serious answer. "So?" he persisted.

  "Silencer-tipped, nine millimeter semi-auto Magnum's would be fine for that," Asef offered.

  Rodney looked to his left at the man who just spoke. The man's stench disgusted him, but at least the Jordanian knew how to choose a good weapon. “She's a good firearm, homeboy,” he slurred, offering his fist to give knuckles with Asef Azizi.

  The other man half smiled and reached over to pound Rodney's fist. The two were developing a growing comradery as the evening's discussions wore on.

  Henry who had grown silent for some time clunked his gaudy ring into the table's surface to get people's attention. He cleared his throat briefly. "Time to group off into two's to plan our way of attack. I'm gonna tell you what's what. You got me?"

  Everyone silently nodded.

  Henry's tattooed arms peaked out from beneath his black leather coat. "I'm gonna take Gopher...yup, I decided to designate our target as that. Any man here wanna team up with me for that?" His beady eyes looked everyone up and down for any takers.

  For the most part the thugs looked away. Except for Hassan who determinedly locked eyes with the ring leader.

  Henry nodded his consent.

  "Asef and Rodney, you two are storming the front entrance. We'll work on the timing and diversion tactics in a bit."

  Both men were glad to be together. Rodney was excited to be chosen to take the body guards out. He had wanted that all along.

  "Monty," the gangster continued to delegate, "you will be the lookout and the cavalry in the sky to handle drones. Got it?"

  The Canadian bobbed his head up and down. He felt more than okay with his tasking. He would get to observe and report from relative safety up above the action.

  "That leaves Allen, who no doubt knows I've chosen to be our jumper."

  The drinker blinked a couple times and broke his deadpan stare at a spot on the table. "Sounds good, boss," he confirmed.

  Henry wasn't finished. There were still plenty of details to go over, but he soon became satisfied with their forward progress up to that point. "Ladies, it's been a delight to work with y'all," he sneered.

  No one felt like contesting. No surface tension or testiness existed among the six. From all appearances Scorpion chose the group tailor-made for the job.

  --

  Air Force One: Anchorage, Alaska

  President Alexander Toporvsky's heavily modified, re- configurable blue and white Boeing 747-300F sat on the tarmac by its hangar doors. Only a mere few hours after the security snafu, the leader of the FRN fortunately had clear skies to fly in at last. The plane was being fueled while bomb-sniffing dogs and the president's secret service agents searched all the cracks and crevices of the jumbo jet to check for anything that
didn't belong prior to takeoff.

  …

  Alexander sat in the middle seat in the back of his expensive limo. The motorcade rolled down Glenn Highway on its trajectory for the Merrill Field Airport which was hemmed in at the intersection of East 7th and Ingra St.

  The president immersed himself in total silence with his own thoughts. It had been his decision to roll up the partition that separated him from the rest of his crew compliment of six including the driver in the vehicle. Two other identical limos drove in the convoy that consisted of ambulances, police cruisers, armored personnel carriers...the whole package.

  Sirens, red and blue flashing lights, and a low rumble all announced the arrival of the leader of the free republic on his way to the biggest airport currently in the FRN. Merrill Field rose off the flat expanse it was situated on between the busy service roads that fed into the hub. It had a respectable hundred and twenty-five gates with a large terminal that stretched for a mile.

  Alexander looked out from his nuclear warhead-resistant coach. What he saw lifted his spirits. The sloping white roof of the massive terminal came into view. Its blue support beams and sheets of glass panels gave the facade its modern appeal.

  The motorcade breezed along since the streets were cleared of traffic. When they were within five minutes of the plane, the president's chief of staff Leonard Palmer buzzed his boss. "We've got some briefs from Honolulu that need going over. Would you be able to hold a conference call in the air, Mr. President?"

  Alexander was in a disgruntled mood that day but he didn't appear too put off by the news. He used his device and sent a signal back that communicated he approved of the meeting.

  The president slouched a little, his veiny hands resting on the empty seats on either side of him. One moment he had been thinking about his wife who had passed away a decade before from cancer when suddenly his lead agent on the detail, Dirk Simmons, came through loud and clear in his ear telling the commander in chief that Air Force One had finished being fueled and was ready for departure.

  "Thank you," Alexander managed to say back.

  His wife quickly crept back into his forethoughts again and a sadness filled his soul. He missed his best friend dearly. The Ukrainian man however knew his wife to be with her Savior safe inside the pearly gates of splendor.

  --

  S3, D.C.

  Two years after the Great Economic Collapse of 2039 and the Riots of 2040...Washington D.C. still wore a band-aid. The destruction from looters and riotous citizens and the ensuing issuance of martial law left the former capital city of a once-great nation in ruins. Many fires devastated the beautiful Romanesque Revival architecture Capitol Hill was famous for.

  However in the year 2041 an untraceable trail of money began to trickle in for making repairs and restoring the city to its former glory and then some. Worth noting was the hallmark transportation system, newly built, with stacked elevated tubes that had trams running through them at dizzying speeds. Consequently, that feat of ingenuity put D.C. out in front of the pack for innovative public transportation systems. They now could lay claim to the title of having the quickest and most efficient urban public transportation system ever. And it only cost a cool fifty billion.

  What really turned heads and increased chatter across the cables though was the lifting of the Heights of Buildings Act of 1910. The whole world wanted to see the soaring yellow cranes over the district constructing its supertalls faster than ever before.

  3D printing technology had come such a long way over the past several decades that the specs called for by the general contractors (of the biggest construction companies that descended on the city from all over) shifted away from traditional pre-fab materials and Portland cement in exchange for Contour Crafting* construction methods with gargantuan gantry frames rising one story at a time on cranes. A gigantic robotic arm with an extruder would print out carbon nano tube building material in trillions of layers that formed whole stories and eventually...skyscrapers.

  It was truly revolutionary. The groundbreaking methods cost far less than the former way of building the mega structures; best of all, the project completion time accelerated exponentially. Fifty story structures thought up by architects on their CAD software were built with electrical, HVAC, water and gas lines...everything up and operational, built to code...all according to a two month equation that saw the tower to its completion.

  …

  Getting around in Babylon

  A typical day in the former District of Columbia saw V2V (vehicle to vehicle) equipped cars that communicated autonomously with one another--flying through the skyscraper mecca and driving the layers of roads at ground zero.

  The city's residents walked the historic streets while gazing skyward at the towers under construction.

  Nature hadn't been fully abolished from the increasingly dense concrete jungle though. Little hanging garden wonders strategically dotted the landscape, adding warmth and texture against the carbon nano tube and lithium- disilicate facades most of the modern edifices had.

  Billboards, wall art, taxis...jumbotrons: all spewed the refuse from a media that had only continued its decline into the gutter. The lewd acts of debauchery and other carnal forms of twisted sexual perversion were displayed for the world to imbibe and partake in in the public square like never before.

  …

  No doubt this was the plan from the beginning meted out by Scorpion and the whole host of the Evil One. Babylon would continue to schmooze and adulterate all the merchants of the world doing business with her, but that wouldn't go unnoticed. The God of the Israelites and the Church would judge the wicked kingdom. However, things needed to get worse first before the apocalyptic, climactic events spoken of in the book of Revelation unfolded.

  --

  Beverly Hills, California

  A mosquito fat from the blood of its previous victims that night continued on its downward descent for the hairy forearm of one of the guards at Damion Westover's eighty- nine million dollar pad. What it didn't see coming was also its demise. A neoprene and synthetic leather gloved hand came clapping down with such force that blood spattered upon impact with the soldier's rough skin. The guard didn't so much as move a muscle under his armor.

  That night nature sang its song with the crickets chirping and the wild birds of the valley filling in the measures with their own notes, too. But the air wasn't entirely still. Something seemed out of place.

  One of the guards walking the circuit that took him past the corner of the east wing decided to halt and look heavenward at the twinkling stars. A strong breeze tugged at his helmet and forced him to drop his rifle to his side in order to fix the headgear that dipped below his brow. He grunted.

  Suddenly a swooshing sound caused him to whirl and scan the horizon for what made the noise. He pressed his rifle into his side with a finger inside the trigger guard, ready. Nothing, nothing...then, “What the—”

  The wrought iron gate that cordoned off the palace melted away. One moment it stood erect, the next...blown off its hinges and headed straight for the water fountain with the statue in the middle. An eardrum-splitting, spark-filled explosion ensued. The colossus anchoring the driveway burned in a twisted, charred heap of smoking metal.

  Before the situation could be assessed and made heads or tails of, planned chaos continued to rule and reign. Suppressive fire ripped the guards who were stationed on the periphery of the property to shreds. One by one they fell with a bullet placed directly between the eyes which looked an awful lot like an Indian meditation bead.

  James Heldgen foolishly ran from cover and almost got his head blown to bits by a salvo of tracer bullets aiming to incapacitate the top dog of Damion's security. Glass exploded behind him and the plaster from the mansion rained down into the courtyard. The big man stuck to his habits and training from his days as a Seal. He quickly dropped to all fours and army-crawled with his rifle cradled in his arms out in front. He clambered over to the nearest cover not a mom
ent too soon.

  “Alpha dog to Hell Hounds, sick 'em!” he squawked over the radio.

  --

  Air Force One

  The wind gusted over the aerodynamic blended wing body of the president's flying oval office. Its four mighty turbofans breathed in the atmosphere at sixty thousand feet. Per Alexander's request, the pilot charted a course for the capital in Hawaii at supercruise speed of Mach 1.6.

  The first thing the president did after he boarded was go to his suite and shut the door. No visitors for at least ten minutes was the unspoken rule. Light jazz music played in the background; the familiar smell of strong men's aftershave wafted through the air. It was Alexander's favorite scent...along with his wife's. The muffled sound of flushing and running water could be heard.

  His first five minutes were used up at the sink. Presently, out walked the slightly refreshed president. His dress shoes waited for his stocking feet by a low black love seat. The slender man rested in between the seam that ran down the middle, causing both cushions to slope inward and form a smile under his weight.

  With legs crisscrossed, the middle-aged president rolled his gray slacks up a little so he could fully stretch his navy dress socks before sinking his toes into the soles of brown leather oxfords. A quick downward snapshot revealed nothing too out of place with his shirt and tie. Across the room from where he sat a little hook on the bulkhead held his coat in place.