Caleb knew what was coming.
Throughout Founders' Hall sat every person of importance on The Island. In the front row were the generals and the distant relatives of the Founders, a group who had recently begun petitioning for their "entitled" seats on The Island's leadership council. They sat in front of an empty stage.
Behind the curtain that wrapped around the curved stage, stood President October Carnegie with Miho Walker and Agent Alberto Flores. Flores carried a large gym bag from which Miho was procuring makeup that she dusted over the President's face.
“You sure about this, Miho?”
“You look pale, it helps."
“Right. The speech, how long is it?”
“You didn’t read it?!” she said dropping the makeup brush to her side in disbelief.
“Is the teleprompter broken?”
“No, sir.”
“Then who cares if I read it? How long?”
“Short. You talk about hope and union with the rest of mankind, you introduce Bragg and welcome him and the pregnant women. Then you talk about our secret campaign against the mutants...”
“Wait, we don’t want to admit that!”
“We don’t mention the bad parts. Just in general, a plot against the mutants, as a sign of unity,” she sighed.
“Yeah, okay. It won’t be hard to sell it either, the working together, and the underground plot. I mean, it's kind of true.”
And like that, he saw it. October found the truth in the lie and accepted it. He thought it was beautiful, the way that reality could change. The way the will of a strong man like himself could change the world.
"They're all gone now, Miho. My Uncle Sage, my Father, the Founders, Jacob and even Nestor… they are all gone now and I am in power. I have power that is nearly absolute and am about to welcome the envoy of the last remaining resistance into my power," his smile grew as he thought of it. "I've won. How do I look?”
“Like a king, sir.”
“I do, don’t I? Yes, I no longer look presidential, I see that now. I see God’s Will. The people don’t need a president, they need a King!” he cried.
"The tunnel dwellers are outside," Flores said as the message came to his earpiece.
Miho nodded, smiled at October and then walked through the curtains with him. October stopped in the middle of the stage and stood at attention as Miho continued on. She nodded to the camera crew as she passed and they turned, following her with the camera to the main door, the little red light blinking above the lens. The image of the doorway lit up across the screens of the Island Women's and Military barracks, and into the Tunnel Hall where even Mary finally grew silent and watched.
Miho opened the doors and stepped aside as a recording of the National Anthem of the United States of America played over the loud speakers. All in attendance stood at attention, the envoy froze respectfully in the doorway, the women in a line up front, Bragg towering behind. As she saw the camera pan over the crowd and turn back to the stage, to the proud and singing October, Miho moved beside Bragg.
"Find an excuse not to be here. You shouldn't be here, Bragg," she whispered.
"Jacob needed me too. I'm the only one who…"
"What did I tell you about Jacob and Carnegie?! They don't care about you, they aren't capable to see good men like you, I can, and I'm telling you to leave. Pretend to be ill or anything else, just do not walk through this door. If you do, I can't protect you."
Bragg looked down with a bemused look on his face. It was a look that Miho had received from men all her life. Big men and powerful men, even servants and drivers gave her this look of condescending amusement. It was a look that came to men when brought face to face with the confidence of a woman. She sighed and turned away from Bragg. The song ended and the envoy stepped into the room. Miho closed the doors and moved around the crowd as October began to welcome the envoy. She continued her walk behind the curtain to where Flores was waiting for her with her gas mask.
Chapter 103
***
"I don't claim to be innocent in all that has happened. What I claim to be innocent of: is malice. Malice for any other living soul," October crooned into the microphone. "The late Jacob Rothschild would have you believe that things are simple, they are not. Sacrifices must be made. Unpleasant decisions must be made and must be made based on the information at hand at the moment of greatest need and that is what I did. I made the hard decisions."
October paused for effect and passed his smiling gaze over the room, which is when he first noticed the women. Four of the pregnant women were now walking slowly down the aisles. Bragg and one woman were all that were left on the stage with October. October briefly glanced back at Bragg, whose confused expression matched the feeling behind his own plastic smile.
"I uh… I uh..," October struggled to regain his place on the teleprompter which sat there frozen.
In the Tunnel Hall the people watched enraptured, even those who had been part of the Mutant Army didn't know what would come next, other than what had been promised by Jacob the first night in the big white tent: "a new beginning."
Behind the curtains, Miho glanced down at her tablet screen where she watched a security camera feed that showed a single boat coming ashore, unnoticed. The military had been ordered to their barracks to watch this historic event. The drones that patrolled the shore had been grounded on the order of the President - an order that had been communicated to the drone technicians by Miho Walker.
"I uh… well… I was the man in charge. I was the leader. And I led," October felt the anxiety lessen as he fell back into the speech, only to have his attention again broken by the presence of the fifth pregnant woman, now standing beside him. "I uh…"
The pregnant woman double checked her watch, smiled sweetly and kissed October long on the lips.
"This, Mr. President, is for my three children that died in your nuclear holocaust," she said softly.
Outside of Founders' Hall, Jacob and his Shadow Army got off their boat and moved down the empty docks. They walked slowly up Carnegie Way towards Founders' Hall. The alarm on Jacob's watch rang out. He stopped, checked the time, just to be sure, and then reached into his pocket and pulled out a small detonator with a picture of a smiling pink cat on its side.
"Boom," he said simply and then pushed the button down.
Inside Founders' Hall, the pregnant women exploded into large clouds of gas that filled the hall. The crowd, the President, Bragg, the military, the potent women in their barracks and the survivors in Tunnel Hall all gasped in shock, but, it was only those in Founders' Hall whose gasps filled their lungs with infectious gas.
There was a momentary, choking, silence in Founders' Hall that was only broken when Miho's laugh carried out from behind her gas mask as she moved through the curtain and walked slowly to center stage.
October, doubled over choking, looked at up at her, the questions he couldn’t force through the toxic gas in his lungs, were in his eyes. She ignored him and walked to the podium in the growing chaos. Bragg moved to rise from the ground as he coughed, but Agent Flores, wearing a gas mask, appeared on the stage and placed a firm hand on Bragg's shoulder to stop him. Miho moved up to the microphone and continued her giggling as the last of the gas dissipated into nothingness. Once the appropriate amount of time had passed she removed the mask and smiled down on the choking audience.
“Remain calm. You can relax. You can know that it’s over. The war that began centuries ago is over. The gas in your lungs is an airborne version of The Shot, the same poison you gave to your own people. The effect will be the same. The same mutation that you’ve heard of on the mainland is now pulsing through your body. It's true. It's real. It's all real. The hunger that you are soon to feel growing deep inside you is real. But, before you panic at that, understand that we, those of us who follow Jacob Rothschild, have a cure, an antidote," she paused and turned and looked at Bragg. "Though, some of you will refuse it."
She frowned at Bragg
and then turned back to the audience, still ignoring October who was now forcing himself to stand up straight.
"We intend to sell it to you. The price will be high, though not fatal… but, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. For the time being let’s start somewhere simple. Just go ahead and kneel.”
She turned to October, her smile fading into viciousness, as she repeated the command.
"Kneel, Mr. President."
And whether it was fear, or sickness, the gas choking his lungs, or simply a habit ingrained over the years, October Carnegie did as Miho told him - and kneeled. Miho turned back to the camera and smiled.
"Welcome to a new beginning. Welcome to the New World Order."
Chapter 104
***
The doors of the hall flew open. Jacob and his Shadow Army walked in.
"Jacob?" October hissed, his face turning up from where it had been pressed against the floor.
"Hello, October."
"You did all this?"
"No. You did a lot of it."
"You're dead!"
"No. Um… no, I'm not," Jacob said with a crinkling of his brow. "That was a... you know… lie. I need you to figure this all out quicker, October. Otherwise we'll be doing this all night."
"Doing what?"
"Taking away the power of you and the Islanders and returning it to the people."
Jacob moved around October and stepped beside Miho. He looked into the camera and smiled.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Jacob Rothschild. I stand here as proof to those who don't yet believe it, that I do indeed have a cure," he held his inoculation scar next to his face. "And, it's yours. The cure is yours, a gift from me to you. And, news upon news, along with curing you of being a man-eating mutant, this cure gives you potency. So, you might just say, humanity is having a good day. To my friends in The Island military barracks watching this, fear not. You didn't know what was planned, and even if you did, what could you have done? No, no, no, for you we have a wonderful system all set up, to bring you potency as well, and unlike these monsters, for you, no kneeling required. Women of The Island potency barracks, fear not, no longer are you to be looked at as tools, or machines for making humans, you are free to love if, and when, and whom you wish. To my friends in the tunnels beneath Los Angeles, tomorrow looks to be a beautiful day, go out and get some sun. Hello America, go ahead and smile, this is supposed to be fun."
An Indian turned off the camera and as the little red light went out Jacob sat down on the edge of the stage, next to the kneeling October.
"I win, October. Nobody likes you."
October's body shook as he began to cry with high pitched sobs.
"I don't understand, you're the son of Rothschild and a Moreno," he whined. "I'm the son of a Kennedy and a Carnegie. Our bloodlines go back intertwining like a vine for centuries, before Caleb, from the birth of the modern era! You and I share blood. We are practically cousins! We went to the same boarding schools, colleges, we were in the same military unit… we're practically brothers by shared experience, if not by blood. How could you do this to our kind?"
"A girl," Jacob said lighting a cigarette as the Shadow Army led the choking audience out of the room at gunpoint. Miho sat down beside Bragg and put an affectionate hand on his stunned shoulder. Flores, after a nod to Miho and Jacob moved off to join his fellow Shadow Army members outside.
"A girl?"
"She died in the name of everything that we aren't, October. She died fighting everything that we've done to this world. Those bloodlines that some ancestor of ours bought or married into, they were long ago tainted, turned from blue to black with the sins of greed. We are now paying for the sins of our fathers and the sins of our grandfathers and the sins of our own black hearts, brother."
"No. I am, Jacob. I'm paying for it. The Islanders are. Not you."
Jacob laughed and stood back up.
"For twenty years I have been hunted and called traitor. You poisoned me and doomed me to die. I wandered the wastes with the curse of your hunger for power poisoning my blood and you say I didn't suffer?! My love gone, daughter gone, friend gone," Jacob kicked October in the face so hard that blood came pouring out of his nose. "But, you are right, it's not enough, not near enough, not after what my father did and his father before him. Rest assured, before this is over my penance will be paid. Of course, you won't be here to see it."
Jacob knocked out October's front teeth with another kick.
"Please, have mercy!"
"Oh October, please," Jacob roared with laughter.
"How can you laugh? How can you be so cruel?"
"You know what your problem is, October? I mean, yes, you're cruel and stupid, fat and lazy, weak and hateful, dishonest and incompetent, but I can forgive all that. Your problem is that you just have no sense of humor."
October grew still. His vision blurred. His hands balled into tight fists and distantly he heard himself scream as he rose to his feet and charged at the blurry form that was Jacob Rothschild. As the towering bulk of October charged forward, the small lithe frame of Jacob gracefully ducked under large outstretched arms, stepped to the left and kicked at the side of October's knee, breaking it with a loud crack. October fell to the ground with a scream. His vision returned as Jacob leaned down and looked into October's face. Jacob laughed and kicked October in the face hard.
Jacob's laughter and the sound of his own eye-socket breaking were the last things October heard as he passed out from agonizing pain.
BOOK FIVE
***
Jacob's story was the more important one. He was, arguably the greatest man of his time, and so his is the greater story. But, like all great men's stories, it's complex in its morality. At the end of great men's stories you're always left wondering, how much of it was luck and timing? How much of his success was really just reckless indifference for those around them that happened to pay off?
Nestor's story is easier. He didn't do much and he said less. He was a man who moved across a place, things tried to stop him, he moved past them and when he got to the end, he disappeared. The reason people like the story of Nestor Bravo isn't because it's that important. It's because his story is, in the end, exactly the same as theirs.
- President Nevers, "Thoughts on The Art of Ruling"
Chapter 105
***
The screams began as a whisper on the wind, carried over the walls of the fortress to the little computer room in the high tower. The screams turned into a roar so slowly that the two soldiers in the tower didn't even notice the exact moment of the change. One moment the screams were a hiss easily ignored, the next they were all that there was. People can learn to turn off constant things. It's when the constant goes silent that people start to take notice.
It was when the screams stopped that Nestor knew the end had come.
He sat up in the middle of the night and listened to the new silence. His hand reached out instinctively for his gun as he peaked over the window and glanced below.
"Well, will you look at that? The army's here."
"Ours?"
"No, theirs," Nestor said and then spat onto the ground to his side.
"Shit. Weren't the other Alpha's supposed to have killed them?"
"That was the plan, but you know what they say about plans. Don't suppose you could speed this up, rich boy?"
"Sorry, Nestor, you're gonna have to kill them all."
"We only have a hundred bullets."
"How many of them are there?"
"More than a hundred. Don't suppose you could hurry that up, do you, rich boy?"
"Sorry, Nestor. We're gonna have to die."
Nestor nodded, took aim and killed a soldier who was glassing the tower with binoculars. In the silence that followed his shot he heard the hum of the computer's fan. He glanced at Jacob who stared at the screen, cigarette resting handsomely in the corner of his mouth.
"Shouldn't you be typing?"
"That's not
how it works."
"In movies, hackers always type fast."
"In movies the heroes always live."
Nestor laughed and killed another man below them. For the next ten minutes things stayed the same: Nestor shot the occasional soldier who showed more than a half an inch of vital organ while Jacob endlessly smoked, unblinking.
"Nestor, my girlfriend is pregnant. I haven't told anyone."
"I didn't know you had a girlfriend."
"I do. Her name's Christy. She's amazing. She's carrying my child."
"Congratulations."
"Thank you, Nestor. I would have liked to have seen my child. That would have been a lot of fun for me."
Nestor only nodded and then put his eye back to the scope.
When the laughter first started Nestor flinched, thinking that someone had crept into the room behind him, but he found that it came from Jacob. Jacob's smile had grown large as he laughed, tears in his eyes.
"What's so funny, rich boy?"
"We're gonna die so horribly. Do you realize that?! Do you realize how horrible it's gonna be when they kill us?" Jacob said through his hysterics.
"I've never heard you laugh like that. Hardly ever heard you laugh, actually. That's funny to you, rich boy?"
Jacob turned to Nestor, eyes watery with the tears of laughter.
"Didn't you always say I needed to work on my sense of humor, Nestor?"
Nestor smiled at Jacob who turned back to the computer and replaced the cigarette into his mouth. Nestor watched his quietly chuckling friend for a few more moments before looking back down at the advancing men in the courtyard below. Nestor focused on his breathing and looked for the point of most vulnerability. He saw the place where his bullet would kill the most men and then squeezed the trigger and put it there.
Monsters of the Apocalypse Page 23
