Overture

by Mark Wandrey

  Billy slid the M4 around and, lying flat, sighted and shot the man walking toward him in the legs. The .223 round punched a hole through the man’s thigh, and he went down, howling in pain. The discharge of the weapon under the bus was thunderous, and Billy felt like someone had jammed an icepick in his ears. He ignored the pain and shifted his aim. The other three men were staring at their fallen comrade in shock. Billy shot two more of them before the last one dropped out of sight behind his concrete cover.

  “It will do you no good!” the man he shot in the leg said. Billy looked at him, and he was looking back at Billy under the bus. His face was distorted in pain from the wound, but was also twisted with something else, something more powerful than pain. “We’ll take it back from you!”

  “Take what back?” Billy asked. “Toss your weapon aside, you’re under arrest.”

  “The portal to heaven,” the man said and brought his rifle up. It went off with a deafening roar, the bullet punching into the undercarriage of the bus a foot from Billy’s head. Billy shifted his aim and shot the man through the head.

  “Portal to heaven,” he said as he sat up, using the heavy rear wheels of the bus as cover. A couple of rounds winged off the concrete where he’d been lying a moment prior. “Victor, what have you done?” Billy had a deep sense of dread that this was all his fault.

  * * *

  Osgood was wandering from his trailer toward the food truck when the first shots rang out. He didn’t even pause, his mind filled with the day’s schedule. Abbot was going to file his first report this morning, and he was looking forward to reviewing it. Hardly a day went by when he didn’t hear the distant echo of a shot.

  But then there were more, and much closer. Someone ran by, and he stopped then followed the running figure. It was Mark Volant, and he’d never seen the portly government agent hurry before. Just before he raced out of sight, Volant reached under his cheap suit jacket and produced a handgun.

  “Oh,” Osgood said and raised a hand in question, as if the other man would stop his headlong race in response to the unseen gesture. A second later an echoing boom reverberated across the grounds.

  Men and women who’d stopped in their tracks, like Osgood, now looked around in confusion. The doors to a nearby NSA trailer burst open and disgorged a dozen men, all dressed in tactical armor complete with helmets and vests bristling with guns and ammunition.

  “Get to a safe area!” one of them bellowed at Osgood as they sprinted by. “Now!” another man bellowed at a clump of women who gawked at the spectacle.

  Another explosion rang out, this one powerful enough to shatter glass. It hit Osgood like a slap in the face. Debris flew overhead, tearing through the spring growth in the trees, raining down shredded leaves and branches on staff and researchers.

  The crowd broke. The loose group of confused and uncertain people transformed into a panicked crowd in an instant. Osgood wanted to run around in a circle, flapping his arms and screaming. There’d been a briefing by an NSA supervisor the day before on safety procedures and protocols. He’d spent the entire briefing reading a report by the materials team.

  “The portal dome,” he said aloud and headed that way without conscious thought.

  What had started as the random cracking of gunfire was now a constant roll. It reminded Osgood of heavy rain on a metal roof. It ebbed and flowed, once or twice becoming so intense it resembled white noise. Only this white noise had an intensity that hurt the ear and induced a profound panic he’d never before felt. It was like the feeling right after a car crash, but it went on and on.

  Who would be doing this, he wondered as he moved quickly toward the portal dome. It was only 100 yards from his personal trailer, yet it now seemed like miles. Twice, the trampled grass at his feet flew up with a “Whack!” as a bullet struck the ground. Once, a whizzing sound passed his head. He’d taken several steps before he realized a bullet had just missed him.

  The dome came into view around one of the big generator satellite uplink trucks. A woman was standing next to it, trying to decide if the truck offered sufficient shelter from the attack. She looked up when Osgood appeared and gestured for him to share the relative safety. He’d seen her before but didn’t recall her name, although she obviously recognized him.

  “Get into the dome,” he yelled. She glanced at him with a questioning look, and stumbled forward. Red blossomed on the chest of her white researcher’s lab coat, and she staggered, falling to her knees. She put a hand to her chest and looked at the blood in confusion. Osgood never heard the shot over all the others. He reached her just as she fell face first onto the ground. The back of her coat had a corresponding pool of red.

  He dropped to his knees, instinctively trying to lift her. She didn’t respond.

  “Someone help,” he yelled to a pair of men running by. They wore coveralls, but carried shotguns. They gave him a queer look and kept running. “Medic!” he screamed, and then almost laughed at the ridiculousness of it. Isn’t that what you yelled in the military when someone got shot? A puddle of blood spread from underneath the woman whose name he still couldn’t recall.

  He felt her neck, searching for a pulse. She was still, and his probing fingers found nothing. He watched her back carefully and found no sign of movement, no breathing. There was a hole in the center, a tiny, little hole. She lay perfectly still, and the blood stain on her back didn’t grow.

  Something tugged at the shoulder of his lab coat. Osgood looked up, expecting to see someone who’d seen him kneeling by the wounded woman and come to help. No one was there, but the shoulder of his coat had a neat hole the same size as the one in the woman’s back.

  “Jesus God,” he gasped, dropping the woman. He crawled under the satellite uplink truck. Now, all he could see was running feet, and the sounds of battle diminished. There were a few larger explosions, and one seemed quite close. He felt that one, even under the big truck. He cringed at each one, putting his hands over his head and shaking uncontrollably. The explosions were relentless, tearing at his very soul, trying to rip his heart out of his chest.

  The dead woman lay a few feet away, her head turned slightly in his direction. Her eyes were open, staring in death. She looked surprised and slightly confused. Death wasn’t supposed to look like this, Osgood thought.

  Then the firing began to slow, like the ending of a storm. The reduction in violence wasn’t universal, though. The shooting remained frantic to the east, but to the west and north it seemed less. He could hear sirens and screams. Screams of terror, screams of pain, screams of despair, and screams of anger mixed to form a kind of opera.

  “This is what hell sounds like,” Osgood said from under the truck. I’m losing it, he realized. Feet approached as two people ran in his direction. He was halfway out from under the truck when he realized they might not be the good guys—if there were any left in this fight—so he crawled backwards to the only safety he’d found thus far.

  The two people stopped at the woman’s body. They stood there for a long moment, seemingly oblivious to the slaughter going on all around them. One wore blue jeans and tennis shoes, the other khakis and hiking boots. Blue jeans used a rifle barrel to probe the woman’s body. Osgood swallowed as hiking boots kicked her.

  “She’s dead,” a woman said. Osgood gasped at the sound—he’d assumed the two were men—then his blood ran cold as he realized they might have heard him. Luckily, the sounds of weapons fire covered his pathetic whimpers. A bullet smacked into the truck, and the two people ran off, leaving him alone with the dead, nameless woman.

  Alone once more, he concluded he couldn’t stay where he was. With one last look of apology at the dead woman, he turned around and crawled toward the rear of the satellite truck.

  He was too fat and not used to crawling. He kept hitting his shoulders, head, and ass on the underside of the truck. At one point some sharp protrusion gouged a piece out of his head and he could feel blood trickling from the wound.

  Still, he man
aged to reach the back and from there, it was only a few yards to the portal dome. He looked both ways and started to crawl out from under the truck.

  It seemed to him to take forever to crawl out and get to his feet, and when he did, he stood for a long moment on unsteady legs. Fear, adrenaline, and shock worked together to almost make him forget where he was and what was happening. It wasn’t until a couple of bullets bounced off the side of the concrete dome that he came back to his senses.

  He shambled toward the dome. The second of the two bay doors was wide open, inviting him into the interior and its promise of safety. He entered, moving from the early morning light and the chaotic fight outside into the dimness of the portal dome, stopping a few feet inside to blink and allow his eyes to adjust.

  “Hands up,” a man said. Osgood took a half a step back, and a huge black man holding a military style rifle pointed the barrel at Osgood’s sternum. Osgood froze. He could see a dozen other men, all armed and all looking serious. Several had wounds. Lined up against the wall between the two doors were at least twice as many scientists and technicians, guarded by armed men and women.

  “Who are you?” Osgood demanded.

  “We’re the Followers of the Avatar of God, and we’ve just taken the portal to heaven back.” The black man, obviously their leader, took in Osgood from head to toe, and his smile slowly grew as he realized the importance of his captive. He moved the huge rifle barrel up until Osgood was staring down it.

  Sensing his own mortality, he finally remembered. Her name had been Melissa Myers, and she’d gotten married just last week.

  * * *

  It only took a few minutes for Mindy’s trusty Osprey bag to arrive on the carousel. In it was everything she had. Her apartment in Seattle had been depressingly empty. As she walked along the shops and newsstands of Terminal B toward ground transportation, she slowly became aware that the mood was anything but normal. Some people looked confused and others harried, but it was the ones who looked scared that caught her attention. When she reached the “No Return” point at the TSA checkpoint, she finally stopped to ask.

  “What’s happening?” she asked the uniformed man sitting there.

  “Terrorist attack,” he said and pointed. In a nearby sitting area, a news monitor showed a view of New York City, taken from a hovering helicopter. Dozens of plumes of smoke rose from the city.

  Mindy ran. She raced like an obstacle course runner, dodging confused commuters and panicking families with crying children in tow. She reached the stairs and went down them three at a time, heedless of danger to herself or others. People saw her coming, red hair flowing out of control like a contrail behind a jet, and got out of her way.

  She’d reserved a car. She flashed by the rental counter. All it took was a glance at the twenty-deep line to tell her how that would work out. She continued all the way back down the terminal and out the far end. As she’d expected, hundreds were also in the cab line.

  “Fuck,” she cursed under her breath and looked around in a panic. She had to get onto the island, no matter the cost. The helicopter shot on TV might have seemed random to many non-New Yorkers, but, she’d spent a lot of hours lately looking at images of the island. That view was over Central Park. The southern end of the park, to be precise, right where the portal was located. “Who would attack the portal?” she thought. “Why? It doesn’t make sense.”

  Mindy was considering heading back to the rental counter when something caught her eye. A man stood next to a black sedan parked just ahead of the area where cabs usually lined up. There were only a few cabs, and the hundreds of people trying to hire one were arguing over who got them. The man standing in front of the sedan looked at the mayhem with a bemused expression on his face. In the front passenger side window of his car was a logo, a stylized U inside a box on a black background. No one else had noticed him.

  Mindy walked over to him with a smile on her face. As she approached, he looked at her and cocked his head in a quizzical, almost comical manner.

  “Uber?” she asked. He smiled and nodded. Mindy pulled out her smart phone and opened the app. He pulled out his own phone and a second later then touched the phones against each other.

  “Get in,” he said after checking the screen, “Miss Patoy.”

  “Hey!” someone yelled. Mindy was turning her head to see who had yelled when someone grabbed her by the arm and pulled, hard. As someone jerked her backwards, her heel caught on the curb and she fell on her butt with a ‘whoof!”

  She was more surprised than hurt. She had enough padding to protect her tailbone from the imminent danger resulting from an unexpected sit down. She swore and looked up to see a man in a very expensive-looking business suit trying to bully his way into the back seat of the Uber car.

  “Sir!” the driver barked. “This car has already been hired.”

  “Yeah,” the man said and jerked out his wallet, producing a sheaf of hundred dollar bills, “by me. Now get in the fucking car.” The driver looked at the money and hesitated for the barest fraction of a second before shaking his head.

  “That’s not how this works,” he said and went to help Mindy up. “I’m sorry, ma’am.” When they turned around, the businessman was in the backseat of the car with a smug look on his face, that almost said ‘finders keepers.’ “Sir, you need to get out of my car, now.”

  “Drive,” the businessman insisted.

  “If you don’t get out of my car, I’ll call the police.” The man laughed, but the sound had an uncomfortable edge to it. Mindy glanced up to see a pair of cops walking over.

  “What’s going on here?” the older of the pair asked.

  “This hack is refusing my fare!” the businessman barked before Mindy or the driver could speak.

  “Is that true?” the officer asked the driver.

  “Not in the least,” he replied, “I’m an Uber driver, not a cab.”

  “Let’s see your permit,” the younger cop said. The driver went to the front seat of his car and retrieved a clipboard with several sheets of paper. He removed one with an official looking stamp and handed it to the officer who examined it with a critical eye. “This is in order,” he said and handed it back. “This gentleman in the car summoned you?”

  “No,” the driver said, “I have a face-to-face transaction with Ms. Patoy.” He gestured to Mindy and showed the cop his app. The businessman was starting to look aggravated.

  “I was in the car first,” he blurted. Cab etiquette stated that first seated got the ride.

  “That’s not how Uber works,” the driver said. The officers both nodded.

  “Very well,” the older cop said. “Sir, get out of his car.”

  “No, I was here first! He’s just letting her ahead of me because she’s got tits!”

  Mindy felt her face getting hot and her anger starting to rise. But she also saw the older cop’s head slowly turn to fully regard the businessman.

  “Is that so? Well, the reason we came over here is because we just happened to see you grab this young lady and throw her to the ground.”

  “She tripped!” he protested. “Look, I’m an executive at the Bank of the Americas. It is vitally important—” The officer cut him off cleanly.

  “What we witnessed constitutes simple battery. Ma’am,” he said to Mindy, “would you like to press charges?” The businessman’s eyes grew wider as he realized the position he was in.

  “And he’s refusing to leave my car,” the driver added.

  “Sounds like carjacking to me,” the young cop said and casually unclipped a pair of handcuffs from his belt. “You coming out of that car, or do we pepper spray you and add resisting arrest to the charges?”

  The businessman looked like a kid who’d just had his Christmas presents taken away and was about to cry. His face was red, and a couple hundred people in the nearby cab line were watching with rapt attention. He clearly didn’t want to budge, but he finally came out. The younger cop caught him by the shoulder, expertly
spun him around and pushed him over the rear fender of the sedan. He folded like cheap lawn furniture, giving out a strangled ‘oomf!’

  “I’m not pressing charges,” Mindy said, trying not to giggle at the panicked look on the man’s face. “I’m sure he’s sorry.” The businessman grunted noncommittally and the cop kicked his legs apart.

  “Is that so?” the officer asked. “I didn’t hear him say that.”

  “I’m very sorry the young lady fell,” the man said through clenched teeth.

  “He doesn’t sound very sincere,” the older cop said, and the man gasped and sputtered. Mindy let out a little laugh; she couldn’t help it. “What about the driver?”

  “What about him?” the businessman demanded. The younger cop responded by kicking his legs a little further apart, and Mindy wondered if the middle-aged man could do a split. One more mouth off and she might find out.

  “You occupied his vehicle,” the cop said with a straight face.

  “But we didn’t go anywhere!”

  “Doesn’t matter,” the cop said, and rattled off a series of numbers, likely some city code.

  “Fine, fine,” the man said, “I’ll pay him. Can I go?”

  The police officers first looked at Mindy. She nodded, and the younger cop gave her a wink. Then they looked at the Uber driver who just shrugged. They took the cuffs off the man who turned around, wallet in hand.

  “All I have are hundreds,” he said, fanning the impressive wad.

  “That’s reasonable,” the cop said, and quick as a cobra he nabbed two of the crisp bills. The man sputtered and coughed. The cop gave him a critical look, and the man fell silent as the officer held the bill up to the morning light and examined it, as if it might be counterfeit. The businessman looked like he was about to have a stroke. Finally, the cop handed the bills to the driver. “Now, go about your business.” The man fled without a backward glance or another word. The crowd in the cab line broke into spontaneous, boisterous applause.

  “He got off cheap,” the driver said.