by Doug Felton
The auditorium was in downtown Richmond, Virginia, which wasn’t the safest city in America. Oh wait, it’s not America, we’re called the New World now, Zeke corrected himself. And we’ve got ourselves a hot young queen. Zeke let that thought linger.
Turning his attention back to his surroundings, he knew his manager wasn’t happy with him leaving without security, but Zeke knew there was no one on the streets of Richmond who could hurt him.
The pain in his head continued as Zeke walked. Nothing cured the headaches, but getting away from people seemed to help.
Richmond was a city still trying to rebound from the Pittsburgh Virus; as a result, it had plenty of empty buildings and dreary, unkempt streets. After a half-hour of walking, Zeke found himself on one of those streets. The smell of rotting trash was pungent when a breeze blew. As he approached an alley between two brick buildings, he heard angry voices combined with the sound of someone being beaten.
Zeke stepped into the shadow of the alley. A hundred feet away, two men were beating a third man who was curled up in a ball with his hands over his head.
“Please. I’m sorry,” the man said between blows. “I’ll do anything.”
One attacker kicked him hard in the stomach while the other hit him in the head with something he had in his hand.
As the beating continued, Zeke just watched. Somewhere inside of him, an instinct told him to stop this, and he could have, easily. No matter what the man had done, he didn’t deserve to be beaten to death in an alley. But the impulse to save the man was like a distant memory, something he might have listened to once, but not strong enough anymore to compel Zeke to interfere.
Instead, he chose to watch. He’d never seen a man die before. How long would it take? Were their blows strategic, or were they swinging and kicking in a blind rage, hoping to eventually kill the man? Zeke decided they had killed before, and that they knew what they were doing.
After several minutes, they stopped and watched the man. He wasn’t moving. When they had apparently decided he was dead, they looked up and down the alley both ways, checking for prying eyes. When they saw Zeke, they stiffened in surprise. He didn’t try to leave when both men charged him, swearing as they grew closer. The guy holding the weapon reached Zeke first. It was a baseball bat, and he swung it at Zeke as soon as he was close enough, but Zeke caught it with his left hand, yanked it from the man’s grip. He flipped it into the air, catching it by the handle, and swung it at the man’s head. It connected with a bone-crunching crack, and the man fell to the ground.
His partner arrived a second later and had pulled a knife. He jabbed at Zeke with it, but Zeke caught the blade with his bare hand. Twisting the knife out of the man’s grip while blood seeped from his hand, he threw it down the alley and looked at his hand. The cut healed before his eyes. The attacker looked at Zeke with wide, fearful eyes.
“Who are you?”
“Someone you don’t want to mess with,” Zeke said. He could have killed the man where he stood, but there was no reason. He killed the first man for the experience of it. Watching them beat their victim made him want to try it. But there was no reason to kill this man. So, he said, “I’d leave if I were you.”
The man left without another word. Standing alone, Zeke examined the body in front of him and then the one in the alley. He noted the wounds the killers had inflicted. If they’d had his strength, it would have been a much quicker process. But still, Zeke could learn something from what he’d seen.
After he finished looking over the corpses, he walked back to the arena, whistling a tune. His headache had eased, and Zeke was ready to get back to work.
Chapter Eight
Present Day, March 2080
The airship set down on a landing pad at Zeke’s Pittsburgh house, but only after Song had a mini-explosion en route. Failures were stacking up the trip, and Raisa could tell she was fighting hard to regain control.
When Zeke didn’t respond to Song’s questions, she pulled her gun and leveled it at him. “Tell me where this airship is taking us, now, or I will consider this a hostile act toward the queen and take necessary action.”
“Whoa. Easy with that,” he said, his hands out to his side in a conciliatory gesture. “We’re heading to my house. It’s very secure. I’ve got a couple of hundred acres and the best security money can buy. It will give us a safe place to figure out what’s going on.”
Zeke’s public image as a pretty-boy who liked to party didn’t reveal this calm, calculating side. He seemed more in control of the situation than Song, and maybe that’s what bothered her.
The landing pad was behind Zeke’s house and was large enough to handle a military-grade airship. When they landed, a private security team in suits met them, guns drawn, eyes scanning the skies and perimeter of the property. Commander Song was uncomfortable with armed non-military personnel around Raisa, but she kept it to herself long enough to get her indoors.
Raisa had assumed the Palace impressed Zeke when he came to the state dinner, but seeing his house, she wasn’t so sure. They crossed a bridge spanning an enormous pool that looked like a small lagoon with a waterfall. Inside, they discovered the pool extended into the house as well. A doorway led to what looked like a subterranean cave with a river running through it. The difference being this cave had ionic columns, a grand piano, and a stone staircase leading to the main floor.
Entertainment must pay well, Raisa thought.
One flight up, Raisa found herself in the formal living room of the mansion, an open space of almost a thousand square feet. It looked like a hotel lobby. More columns and a vaulted ceiling opened to a thirty-foot wall of windows that looked out on gardens and more natural wooded areas. Turning and standing with the windows to her back, Raisa took in a second-floor balcony that ran the length of the living room. The balcony itself looked big enough to host a small reception.
Once inside, Zeke’s security team holstered their weapons, causing Commander Song to quit clenching her jaw. “Whatever happened back there fried our comms,” she said. “I need to contact my people on the ground and at the Pentagon.”
Zeke nodded but said, “Commander, you’ve got a leak. I’m happy to let you use whatever equipment you need but think about it, someone leaked the information about the Ten Thousand to the press and the information about the motorcade route. Do you really want to give away the queen’s location without knowing who the leak is?”
Raisa said, “And whoever it is, they’re probably responsible for the note at the state dinner. This is a coordinated effort. It has to be.”
“Point taken,” Song said. “We’re safe for the time being, but we can’t stay here long. We need to talk to someone we can trust to get you out of here. And right now, I need some intel.”
Zeke started to activate a monitor in the living room, but stopped and put the palm of his hand to his head with a slight groan.
“What’s wrong,” Raisa said, “Another headache?
He nodded. “It’ll pass.”
Raisa wondered how someone like Zeke, an immortal, would get headaches, but chose not to bother him with it at the moment. After a minute, it eased up, and he smiled and acted as if nothing had happened.
“We need to know what’s going on,” he said as he activated the monitor.
Raisa watched the news feed, shaking her head. “They’ve got it already?” she said.
A shaky video showed Raisa running toward the airship, stopping at the ramp, and being pulled on board. The video replayed several times while a news anchor spoke over it. “We are just seeing these images for the first time, which appeared to show Queen Raisa boarding an unidentified airship at Settler’s Cabin Park. The video was taken by a jogger in the park who posted it online minutes ago. Because of the poor quality of the video, it’s hard to verify that that is indeed Queen Raisa and whether she is voluntarily boarding the airship or is doing so under duress. The man behind her, wearing a New World uniform, appears to be holding a gun. A
nother man is running in front of her, but he is mostly blocked from view, so we cannot identify him. It does appear at the end of the video that the queen is physically pulled onboard. Again, the details are unclear at this point. What we do know is that the queen’s motorcade was attacked this morning on I-376 in Pittsburgh, and her personal transport never arrived at the site of her meeting with Mayor Colton Reeves.”
The looping video shrank to half the scene, revealing two people sitting at a news desk, ready to discuss the events of the day. They repeated what little they knew incessantly, noting each time the unprecedented nature of what had happened.
“We can trust Alexander,” Raisa said after they’d watched the video a dozen times. “We need to contact somebody we know we can trust. We can trust him.”
“But who can he trust?” Zeke asked. “Unless he commandeers a ship and flies it here himself, he’ll have to let several people in on it.”
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Song said, ignoring Raisa and Zeke’s conversation. “Why the attack? They had to know the transports were armored. That kind of explosion wouldn’t be fatal on its own against an armored transport, but there was no follow-attack. Their goal couldn’t have been to knock a transport over. So what was it?”
“Terrorists always have the same goal,” a member of Zeke’s security detail said, the team leader by the looks of him. He had a shaved head, a thick neck, and a piercing gaze. “They want to disrupt and control our lives through violence. And look at what they’ve accomplished; the queen of the New World is hiding out in a private home afraid to contact her own government.”
Song was shaking her head. “Their goal has got to be more than chaos. The chaos has to serve a purpose.”
The news feed drew their attention back when the anchor said, “A video has just been released claiming credit for the attack on the queen’s motorcade.” The anchor touched a hand to his ear and said, “Do we have that yet? Yes, yes, I’m told we have the video, so let’s see it now.”
A figure replaced the anchor, wearing a dark suit with a blue open-collared shirt set against a dark background. He stood relaxed, his hands clasped in front of him. He looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties. Raisa knew his face but couldn’t place him, like someone famous from history. He had dark hair and an impressive build. When he spoke, the hint of a smile touched his eyes.
“Welcome to Pittsburgh, Your Majesty.”
Raisa’s blood turned to ice in her veins.
“It’s a digital avatar,” Zeke said, studying the image.
“A what?” Raisa asked.
“A digital image that someone is using to mask their identity. Stand in front of the camera, and everything you say and do is mimicked by the avatar. It’s not new technology, but this guy spent some money to make it look like the real deal.”
“How do you know it’s an avatar?”
“You can tell if you know what to look for. Besides, Tom Cruise died forty years ago.”
Of course, the movie actor. Alexander would have recognized him right away. He loved century entertainment.
The figure on the screen continued, although his pleasant expression didn’t match his words. “Truthfully, we don’t want your kind here. You have deceived the people of the New World by keeping ten thousand immortals a secret. Had we not revealed the truth two days ago, your subjects would still be in the dark.” He leaned toward the camera and winked. “You can thank me later.”
“So what is it you want, you S.O.B.?” Song whispered.
Zeke said nothing but seemed to be listening intently to the digitally-masked speaker.
“Since we cannot trust our leaders to do the right thing, we had to take matters into our own hands. I hope our demonstration today has impressed upon everyone in Her Majesty’s government how serious we are about this. So, listen carefully, this is our one demand. It’s simple, really; remove the Ten Thousand from among us. I don’t care what you do with them, just get them out of here.”
“Fat chance,” Song said.
He continued, “We will not allow our grandchildren and great-grandchildren to be ruled by an aristocracy of immortals.”
Lieutenant Simmons, Raisa’s driver, spoke for the first time, “Where do they come up with this stuff?”
“It’s partly our fault,” Raisa said. “When there’s a vacuum of information, people will fill in their own details. We should have been more upfront about the Ten Thousand.”
“You’re not going to do what he says, are you?”
Before Raisa could respond, the avatar on the screen continued. “Oh, by the way, we know who they are. So if you don’t do what we’ve asked, we’ll know. And just to show that we’re not bluffing, I’ll tell the world the name of one of the Ten Thousand. And if you don’t start removing them soon, we’ll release all the names.” The handsome figure on the video flashed a smile that, in any other situation, would have been charming. Everyone in the room froze in place, waiting for his next words. “Hudson Phoenix. Fifty-six Greenbush Street, Pittsburgh. Good luck.”
“Oh, no,” Zeke said.
Raisa turned to face him. “What?”
“Hudson is one of us. He was in the group you were going to meet today.” Zeke motioned to someone who brought him a comm unit. He put it in his ear and stepped away.
“What do you make of that?” the anchor asked a guest who had joined him on the set; professor somebody who was an expert in something relevant to the situation.
“This is a most surprising development,” the man said in an understated tone. “If this person attacked the queen’s motorcade, then it appears she is safe somewhere, or at the very least, he believes she is. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be contacting her like this.”
“Or he’s lying,” the anchor added. “But assuming she is safe, what should she do in response to his demand?”
“That is a good question. If she doesn’t remove the Ten Thousand, and I’m not even sure how she would do that, but if she doesn’t, it appears their names will be released to the public.”
“We don’t know if this Hudson Phoenix is one of them or not,” the anchor interrupted. “This may be an elaborate hoax or a bluff.”
Zeke stepped back to the group. Raisa looked at him with a questioning expression. He shook his head, concern etched on his face.
“No, you’re quite right,” the professor on the set said. “But if he’s not bluffing, and the queen doesn’t meet his demand, every one of the Ten Thousand will be exposed. And given recent developments, I am afraid that might put them in danger. On the other hand, if she does what he says, then she is giving in to the demands of a criminal and terrorist. I don’t envy her this decision.”
All eyes were on Raisa as Zeke muted the news feed.
How did this fall apart so quickly? Just a few days earlier, she’d hoped to integrate the Ten Thousand into society without much fuss. Now she was hiding in fear and considering the demands of a terrorist. How could I have been so naïve? She knew there would be pushback, but this was way beyond pushback. And she never believed a terrorist would have help from inside her government.
Her face flushed hot with anger. “I want to know who’s behind this and how they’re getting their information,” she said, facing the group.
“We’ll need to get back to the Palace,” Song said. “We’re deaf and blind as long as we’re here.”
Raisa nodded. “Get word to Alexander and fill him in. Tell him it’s important no one else knows where we are. He can get an airship to the airport here. At the airport, he can give Captain Deeson our coordinates, and he can get us home.”
“Your comms aren’t encrypted, are they?” Song asked.
Zeke pointed to a guy who’d been standing to the side by himself. “Are you kidding?” he said, answering Song’s question. When she held his gaze, he added, “Yes. They are.”
“Scott heads up my tech team,” Zeke said. “He can answer your questions. Heck, half the time, he’ll anticipate t
hem.”
Song nodded. “Good. But if these people are as sophisticated as they appear to be, then I’m not giving our coordinates, even over an encrypted comm link.” The Palace staff had received implanted microchips that synced with government-issued earpieces and forward optic contact lenses, giving them control over audio and visual communication with their thoughts. It was great new tech, but unless the link was encrypted, it could be monitored by hackers.
“What if we give the longitude of our location to Alexander and the latitude to Captain Deeson on two different digital wave frequencies?” Raisa asked. “That doesn’t guarantee anything, but wouldn’t it reduce the risks?”
“It would,” Zeke said with a smile. “I like the way you think. If you didn’t already have a job, I’d hire you for my team.”
Raisa smiled back. For the first time since the attack, she felt as if they weren’t on the defensive. She motioned to Song. “Make it happen.”
Song followed Scott to a communications center, and Raisa sat in one of the white leather sofas, letting the overstuffed piece of furniture hug her for the moment. But the moment was short-lived. Raisa opened her eyes when she heard Zeke swear. He was holding a tablet as he sat next to her on the couch. It showed a busy urban street somewhere in Pittsburgh. On the corner was Chiarelli’s Pizza, an Italian restaurant.
“That’s where Hudson works,” Zeke said. “How in the world did they find him so fast?”
“Where’s this coming from?” Raisa asked.
“It’s being streamed live. Maybe from a body cam? I’m not so sure easing restrictions on the intranet was such a good idea.”
Raisa ignored the dig at her media policies. After the virus, the New World Council decided not to trust the other provinces, creating an intranet, separated from the world-wide-web. Ashwill used the move to control the flow of information in and out of the province, even before the New World became its own nation. There were challenges in the courts, but the federal government didn’t have the willpower or resources to enforce a court ruling. Thanks to the resolution her father authored two years earlier, no one ever did.
