Fireworks

by James A. Moore

  He was doing his best, God knew he was trying not to let them get hurt. But every fool who walked away from the protection of his home was begging for grief. An hour after Osborn's death, Mark Anderson sent out patrols with loudspeakers, warning everyone back into their homes. That was his last effort on their behalf.

  So the car going over the side of the lake was just one step too many. Anyone not in uniform who was caught outside would get one warning. If they didn't come peacefully, they'd just have to accept the consequences.

  And if the 'copters caught sight of anyone out of a uniform, they were to shoot to kill.

  So far, over a hundred people had surrendered. Twice as many were already dead, and Mark suspected the worst was yet to come.

  Thinking about the long list of people his soldiers had arrested, and reflecting on the abilities of the conditioning experts, he wondered who was getting off easiest. The people sent here weren't supposed to make his life easier. They were here to clean up any details he might miss. Little details, like, what to do with an entire town of eyewitnesses. He'd spoken with the man in charge of the reconditioning project. He understood exacdy what the ten painfully mundane people were all about.

  The man in charge of the group, who went by the stunningly original name of 'Mr. Smith,' agreed with him on one aspect: the fewer people killed, the better. Anderson wanted to see the people left alone, left to pick up their lives and, if necessary, compensated for their vast inconvenience. At worst, he wanted them relocated and given new identities. The Witness Protection Program had worked along those lines in the past-albeit with willing participants-and he couldn't see why it shouldn't be done again. With a little work, their records could be altered and the names they'd had in the past could be erased from existence.

  Mr. Smith didn't quite agree. There would be no compensation. There would be no hopes that the people of Collier could keep a secret. Instead, they were going to get a special treatment created in the interest of, oh, and this pan just plain hurt, 'National Security.'

  As he thought about the situation, as he sat back down at his desk and poured himself another cup of tepid coffee, Colonel Mark Anderson knew what was happening to the people being held in the Collier jail and at a few of the houses they'd been forced to commandeer.

  They were being reprogrammed. Their entire recollections of everything that'd occurred since the Fourth of July were being erased and replaced with all-new memories, custom-designed by Mr. Smith and his cohorts. The people from out of town who were now being held in Collier against their will were also getting special treatment. They'd remember all the gory details of being held hostage by a fictitious mad man with a life-threatening nuclear device hidden somewhere in the town, and for fun they'd also have crystal-clear recollections of the threat of a plague hanging over their heads.

  The world's most wanted international terrorist, Amir Hal Densalid, was nothing but a sham. A ghost created to point the blame at someone else when the government needed to hide a secret.

  He was also a great excuse. If things went any farther than they already had, the government was fully prepared to detonate a small warhead with a very short half-life. The area would be clean of radiation within a week. That was all the time ONYX would need to clean up all the details of a situation gone hideously wrong. All evidence would be destroyed, and there would be no witnesses left.

  Mister Smith and his friends had an answer for that problem, too. Because, with a little extra time, they could erase the entire history of every citizen of Collier. The people would still live, safe and secure, well fed and well taken care of for the rest of their lives. They'd just be someone else entirely. Someone very much like the person each of them had been before the transformation. The major differences would simply be a new name, and new faces to replace the ones that were so important to them right now. The United States of America was a big country; losing a few thousand people all over the nation wouldn't take any effort at all.

  The people would still be alive, but their lives would be lies generated to make them forget what had been stolen from them. Techniques perfected over the last fifteen years made the re-creation of a person as easy for the conditioning experts as it was for a master chess player to trounce a novice opponent. Chemicals and suggestions, with a little torture thrown in on the side: in its own way, the entire idea was just as bad as murder, but sounded kinder to the people in charge of the ONYX Project.

  Personally, Anderson thought he'd prefer death to what the prisoners were enduring. Death seemed less terrifying.

  3

  Crawling past the ruined walls wasn't all that difficult. Jack'd had plenty of practice moving over rough terrain, as had every other member of ONYX. The efficiency with which they tore through the house was testament to the extensive training each of them had endured for the privilege of being a part of the elite fighting force. There was no remorse for the damage to the house. There was no regret for the destruction of the numerous rare and even priceless antiques that decorated the palatial home. There was only the urgency to find the threat to ONYX and eliminate it.

  While Jack preferred the idea of doing his work without any bloodshed, he understood that there might well be a need to kill. They soldiers moved through the building, each squad taking a different level of the mansion. They were a little short-handed; the death of Corporal Walker and the severe injuries to his squad made the job more time-consuming, but otherwise didn't hinder them. One man from each of the remaining squads was left outside to tend to the wounded. In Jack's case, he left Pendleton. The man was simply too shaken to work as an effective soldier at the present time.

  Given a choice in the matter, he'd have stayed behind himself. Despite the ability to function well under stress, Jack kept thinking about the names Colonel Anderson had mentioned earlier. One name in particular: Peter Donovan.

  Seeing Karen had been awkward, but it was something he could survive. Seeing Pete wouldn't be too bad, but what if Pete decided to fight back? What if Pete was one of the men who'd been killing his companions? What if Pete drew a weapon on him? Would he be able to do what he had to do in order to survive?

  Jack just didn't know, and he wasn't looking forward to finding out.

  Jack and his two remaining squad members checked every room of the third floor. They were cautious and they were thorough. Jack even had the forethought to check the attic, but found that there was nothing in the narrow area save pink fiberglass insulation. They were professional and efficient, just as they'd been trained to be. There was no one home, no sign of a hasty departure.

  Jack breathed a sigh of relief and reported to Evans. Evans, for his part, acknowledged the success and then ordered them down to the basement.

  The momentary relaxation that had crept into Jack disappeared again, replaced by that same sense of dread he'd had since first seeing the house. He acknowledged his orders and the trio moved down the stairs, going to the one place on the property that hadn't been covered yet.

  Never one to shirk his responsibilities, Jack led the way down into the bowels of the house. His lenses compensated for the darkness, and in less than a second, he could see clearly, despite the lack of any illumination. The stairs were solid, made of hardwood. He checked each one as he went, making certain that no tripwires were waiting to set off another unpleasant surprise.

  Two doors greeted him at the bottom of the long staircase; one to the left and one to the right of the oak-paneled wall that faced him. Jack took the one to the right, ordering the other two men to handle the one on the left. There was no attempt to simply turn the knobs on the doors. Steel-toed boots cracked wood and finally broke locks. All three men drew back from the entrances to the rooms, fearful that an explosion might come their way. When nothing happened, they entered their respective areas.

  Jack got lucky. In the room beyond the door he'd chosen, five men and one woman sat in plush furniture or stood around a pool table. He recognized Lucas Brightman immediately. Despite th
e fifteen-plus years since he'd last seen the man, there were few changes in the way he looked. He was old, withered and bitter, the very picture of Ebenezer Scrooge. The only things missing to make him fit the part were the sagging nightgown and cap, they'd been replaced by an expensive looking summer suit. Brightman was sitting in a leather chair that fairly swallowed his slight body whole.

  Jack scanned the rest of the room, taking in each of the people there. In the seat next to Brightman was a portly woman with silver hair and too much makeup. Like Brightman, she wore clothes that spoke of money. Her face was tear-stained, and her overly dressed lips trembled on the verge of a scream. Like as not, she was the old man's wife.

  Sitting across from the elderly couple, a very large man stared at him with eyes as cold and dark as a winter night. His face was lined, but his features seemed almost young despite that fact. His dark hair was slicked back, and for all the world he looked like he belonged behind the desk of some small business, or perhaps on the road selling vacuum cleaners. This face he knew, but not from town. Paul Summerfield looked exactly like the picture of him that Anderson had held out for all of them to see earlier that day.

  A greasy looking man with long, even greasier looking hair looked his way. The man's facial expression switched from a sneer of annoyance to a look of uncertain, watery fear even as Jack took him in. He'd known the man once upon a time. He used to be an occasional player during the summer time baseball games behind the church. Sam Williams had changed from a crew-cut bearing kid with freckles and pimples into wasted life. He had the look of a burnout, the sort of person one tended to cross the street to avoid having to see too clearly. Worst of all, his freckles were gone but the zits still remained.

  Billy Tidwell was next. Aside from growing about a foot in height and losing some of his hair, he looked just like he had as a kid, down to the dusty tennis shoes on his feet. Billy was one of the few kids in town that everyone picked on. There was something about the way he ducked his head and avoided looking directly at anybody that just demanded mistreatment. That too had not changed. Billy stood perfectly still, except for the head bobbing, with one hand on a pool cue, and the other picking at the crack of his butt. Well, one other thing about him had changed; his gut was even larger than when he was the local fat kid.

  Lastly, Jack saw the face he'd dreaded seeing. Peter Donovan was leaning over the billiards table, braced for a shot. He looked at Jack too, but his look of annoyance didn't change when he saw who'd entered the room.

  His crewcut hair was the same. Pete's face was still strong and handsome. Everything else about him was different. His lean body was hard, wiry and well-tanned. Tattoos ran across both of his forearms, including a swastika. He wore a black T-shirt and tight, black jeans. The frozen snarl on his face was an expression Jack would never have believed his blood-brother capable of producing.

  Jack's throat went dry, and he looked at the gathering before him with absolutely no idea of what he was supposed to be doing. He should have known, he had known, but all of his orders just went away as soon as he looked at Pete.

  Pete made it a little easier for him by goosing his memory. "Well," he demanded, "are you gonna just stand there all fuckin' day, or was there somethin' on your mind?"

  Jack reeled inside. He thought about long past baseball games, about the way Pete used to have of smiling, like his goofy grin said there couldn't possibly be anything wrong with the world. He thought about the two of them sitting in the diner as kids, scraping up the money to share a banana split, and about how they used to camp out in the backyard and pretend that they were explorers, or soldiers, or castaways stranded on a desert island. He closed his eyes and then he shook his head.

  It was like a light switch went off in his skull. One second Jack was reeling from the sudden onslaught of childhood memories and glimpses of the past; the next his emotions seemed to shut down. All the anxiety was gone, and his path of action was clear. Whatever doubts he'd had about how to face Pete Donovan evaporated.

  "All of you. Up against the walls." One hand leveled his firearm at Pete's chest, the other flicked the toggle on his jaw line. "Get the hell over here. I've got six people in here."

  The other two didn't bother to respond verbally. He heard them come up behind him, and felt himself relax the smallest amount. It only took a few minutes to round them up.

  Jack took care of frisking the group while his two companions kept them well behaved. Peter Donovan had a tranquilizer gun strapped to his ankle and buried inside his boot. Jack removed the weapon, and pulled a set of ten rubber-tipped darts from a small package taped to the inside of his other boot. Donovan called him several names while he quietly did his duty. He accused him being a nigger, a nigger lover, a sonuvawhore, a kike bastard, a wop, and finally a pig. Jack removed a pistol from Sam Williams' pants, and a large knife from Billy's belt. He told himself he felt nothing, and remained calm.

  Lucas Brightman carried nothing more lethal than a money clip. The same went for his wife, unless you counted the diamonds that glittered from her earlobes. Jack suspected those could do some serious harm if thrown-the weight alone might just be lethal. Paul Summerfield carried the other dart gun. He also had over thirty of the loaded darts in his pants and strapped to his ankles. Unlike Peter, Summerfield said nothing at all. He simply stared with his dead eyes, and made Jack want to run screaming from the room.

  Instead of fleeing, Jack carefully unloaded each of the weapons. He removed the clips from the pistols and then took the bullets from the clips and emptied the chambers of each weapon. He took removed the gas cartridges from the tranquilizer guns, and he slid the knife into his own belt.

  Then, while all eyes were on him, he reported to Evans that there were six prisoners in their custody.

  And while he waited for Evans and the rest of the soldiers to show up, Jack Calloway spent a few minutes beating Peter Donovan within an inch of his life. He broke Pete's nose and jaw with one well-placed roundhouse kick to his face, and then he got down and dirty all over the man. He cried while he did it, silently mourning the death of his youth. It took three men to pull him off Donovan's bloodied form. It took five minutes to calm him down.

  4

  The war for dominance in Collier ended very abruptly. The last of the Collier Militia was paraded through town in handcuffs, dragged down each residential street, while Colonel Anderson walked alongside them, explaining the new rules to everyone who cared to listen.

  In truth the battles had all been fought by that point. Once the aerial support started shooting anyone outside of their homes, the vast majority of Collier's citizens and extended guests beat a hasty retreat. Anger is a powerful weapon; it can drive a person to amazing acts of courage and stupidity. Mortal fear is a great defense against anger, however, especially when anger is literally the only weapon available.

  Or, in other words, anger can't stop automatic rifle fire. Most of the people clued into that in record time. The few who didn't catch the general drift got added to a list of the dead that was already far too long for anyone's comfort.

  While Peter Donovan and his associates were marched through town, Colonel Mark Anderson explained that they would not be killed. He also explained that the people receiving medical aid in the high school would not be killed.

  Then he clarified those statements, adding that he could and would change his mind if anyone at all acted out. Just to make sure his point got across, he left the bodies of those killed during the riots brought on by Frank Osborn's death exactly where they fell. For forty-eight hours, the people of Collier got to watch their friends and loved ones bloat and roast in the summer sun.

  Speaking with Anderson later the same afternoon, Jack Calloway learned how much the Colonel hated doing that. There just wasn't any choice left. Jack had never seen a man look more haunted.

  During the two days of silence, Jack watched several people taken away by other soldiers. He also saw two cars and several tons of dirt removed from the lak
e's dry bed. He even helped with the removal of the dirt.

  A week behind schedule on what was supposed to be a rush-job retrieval, the people from Project ONYX were finally getting down to business. Jack told himself he just couldn't be happier. Life was finally going back to normal.

  He probably could have believed the lie too, except for a single piece of paper. Dirt-stained and scorched around the edged, the pale green page was covered in a feminine script. At the bottom of each page was a name and an address. The name was Karen O'Rourke Donovan.

  He stared at the paper for several minutes before letting it drop from his fingers. He went back to work, scraping the dirt away from the base of the silvery disc thrusting upward from the lake, and did his best not to think about Karen.

  He avoided wondering if she had disappeared from her house yet. He didn't let himself wonder if she'd been killed during the fighting in town. He didn't acknowledge the last name of Donovan that had been added to her own, and he most certainly didn't think about how beautiful she'd looked when he saw her the day he found that boy's dead body tangled in the razor wire.

  He worked mighty hard at staying away from thoughts of Karen, but she kept popping into his mind just the same.

  So, later that night, he went over to Karen's house. He didn't think about it much when he knocked on the door, either.

  He never said his name. He never gave her any reason to believe she might know him. He simply waited until her saw her sleepy, cautious eyes peering from the narrow crack she opened in her door, and asked her if she was any good at keeping secrets.

  Two hours later, Karen Donovan and all of her houseguests left her house. They never returned.

  5

  Getting the group out of town was easier than he'd have ever guessed. The main reason no one managed to get in or out of Collier was the razor wire. It was reason enough, God knew, but with the number of injured and dead soldiers in town, the guards of the perimeter weren't quite what they should have been. At least not on this side of the barrier. How many soldiers wearing regular uniforms were on the other side of the perimeter was anyone's guess.