“I also wish you’d see how badly she’s playing you. Both her and Chris. She’s living under his protection, for God’s sake. Protected by the very man you’re trying to kill.”
“She needs protection, or else all the Road Runners who know about her connection will be after her.”
“For good reason. Martin, don’t you think it’s possible that Chris, in all of his wisdom, has looked into his future and planted Sonya in your life from the beginning of your time travel? Or is it just a coincidence that she happened to be one of the first people you met in the past? He knew this moment would come, and he’s using your own emotions to spare his life. His love for her goes as far as she’s useful in keeping him alive. He won’t mourn her death, because he’ll be on the run looking for the next way to ensure his invincibility.”
“I don’t know—that all seems like a stretch. Chris is a smart man, sure, but there are a lot of gaps to fill in your theory. I just don’t see him putting in all of this attention to the details.”
“And I think he would. We’re talking about his life and power. Who wouldn’t go to ridiculous extremes to keep both?”
Martin nodded as he rubbed his temples. “I guess I can’t really stop you. Just promise me that decision will only be a last resort.”
“I promise I’ll do whatever it takes to protect this organization.”
Martin sighed. “Understood. Tell me more about this tunnel.”
He got off the topic as quickly as possible. They discussed the tunnel for the next thirty minutes, but Martin’s head remained distracted by how nonchalantly Gerald discussed killing Sonya. Deep down he knew it was the right decision, but that didn’t mean it was one he wanted.
While they carried on their conversation, Gerald’s voice faded into background noise as Martin tried to plan for what type of candidate would need to tail Chris.
They need to be perfect.
4
Chapter 4
Chris Speidel sat in his mansion office, having just hung up the phone with Thaddeus Hamilton, the leader of the Liberation. He gazed out the window to the snow-covered landscape, forgetting how much he had taken that simple privilege for granted. With the Road Runners’ office a pile of frozen rubble, he no longer had to worry of unexpected visitors to the mansion.
Needing less security at the property, he planted a couple of his guards around town, mainly keeping an eye on the airport where anyone would need to come through for reaching this remote part of the world. If the airport had no activity, the guards wandered around the small town, keeping an ear open to any chatter involving the Revolution or Road Runners.
It was always locals in town—no one actually traveled this far north unless they had specific business.
“A true time of peace?” Chris asked his empty office as he stood for a better view out the window.
Of course not. It may be peaceful in Barrow, Alaska, and even peaceful for most Revolters living around the continent, thanks to the Road Runners hiding like a bunch of frightened children. But change was coming, brewing like a vicious storm in the gray clouds where no one below could see. However, Chris was the experienced meteorologist in this shitstorm and he did see what was formulating.
“Martin Briar. Who would have ever thought?! The shy guy from Larkwood who only wanted to find out what happened to his precious little daughter.” He grabbed a cup of pens and pencils from his desk and sent them crashing into the wall across the room, falling onto the couch where Commander Strike had lain days before her public execution. “GODDAMMIT!”
He didn’t fear Martin directly—he feared no mere mortal—but the movement behind Martin, the blossoming of new hope like fucking azaleas in the spring, drew his concern. Even with no threats to his quiet mansion, Chris found himself with a constant sense of unease following him around like his own shadow. And it further pissed him off.
He’d taken plenty of peeks into the future to see what might come of the Road Runners’ new commander, but saw nothing of noted difference. However, the future felt different, almost still, and foreign, despite him visiting numerous times each week. Something was off regarding the whole situation, and he refused to trust anything until Martin experienced the same fate as the commander before him.
The proper steps were already underway to ensure this, a fact that Chris needed to remind himself often as his impatience grew with each passing day. Wars didn’t end overnight; multiple battles had to be won, the casualty number had to increase, all leading to a final surrender.
Tonight was the next step. His phone call with Thaddeus confirmed the evening’s plans to destroy the Road Runners’ office in upstate New York, not far from the old location that once housed the Council.
The Liberation had been staking out different locations to attack. With Road Runner security still depleted, they needed to strike before deciding it was time to stand up and fight—a certainty under their new leadership of Commander Briar.
Why couldn’t that chickenshit have won? Chris wondered. This whole thing would already be a done deal.
They had to work with the results, and committed to destroying more properties to keep the Road Runners in hiding. Eventually, they’d have no more buildings to meet in and would have no choice but to stay home with the lights off and the curtains drawn.
“That’s the kind of world I want to live in—a world with no Road Runners.” Chris returned to his desk and opened the software—Duane’s beautiful creation—that enabled him to hack into the Road Runners’ television stream at will.
He clicked the necessary buttons until his computer’s camera flickered to life, his face filling the screens of all Road Runner offices across the continent.
“Commander Martin Briar,” he started. “I sent you a congratulatory message and have not heard back. I don’t appreciate that. I know you’ll see this, so congratulations on your historic victory into the commandership. I’m sure the Road Runners will have no regrets in choosing a man who can’t even keep his own daughter alive.”
He paused and let out a manic howl, leaning into the camera to capture his gaping mouth. “Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, I wanted to let all of you little Road Runners know that we are coming for you. Aggressively. Within a month, you can plan to say goodbye to many of your offices, and in turn, many of your friends.
“I’m tired. Doesn’t it feel like we’ve been at this war for centuries? Can’t it just end already? You’re all ready for it, and so am I. Expect a swift end to the war within the year. We have the upper hand now and won’t stop until there is nothing left to destroy. Mark my words – you’ll wish you had gone with the guy who wanted to take you all to his secret island.”
Chris disconnected the video on that note and started giggling. He had never seen the consequences of his video streams, but always imagined Road Runners screaming and running around their offices in a panic.
How does he keep doing this? they surely wondered. Why can’t we stop this—it should be so simple!
Then they’d call for emergency meetings to try and dissect his message, looking for any underlying clues that might tip off, in this instance, where he planned on attacking next.
“You silly Road Runners will just have to wait and see!” he cackled, returning to the window to observe the world.
* * *
They agreed to no longer use suicide vests as they had done in the Barrow office—this was not some terrorist organization where people had to sacrifice themselves in order to further their agenda. Chris and Thaddeus had agreed on that much. Sure, the “Road Killers”, as they liked to call themselves, understood there were still great risks for carrying out their work, but death was no longer a guarantee as a result. These were the hired hands dedicated to killing Road Runners and setting their buildings ablaze.
There had been a meeting with the Road Killers, Chris, and Thaddeus, where they all gathered to essentially watch a quarrel between the two leaders. Thaddy didn’t particularly care how
these bloody messes were carried out. “Use any means necessary,” he had said. And Chris argued for the complete opposite, wondering why any leader with common sense would openly sacrifice members in a time where having a numbers advantage was crucial. “The Road Runners still have a massive population,” Chris had explained. “Every time we lose one of our own, they gain an advantage.”
Back and forth they went, the Killers watching like a tennis match. After an hour, they reached a half-hearted agreement. Bombs and arson were the preferred methods for any attacks, allowing for maximum damage to the buildings and those inside, while keeping risk to the Killers minimal.
Office size played a factor as well. Pulling off these feats in the bigger cities proved nearly impossible. Nearly.
Places like Chicago—which had multiple offices in the same city—Houston, Miami, and Denver, to name a few, were essentially off-limits thanks to the heightened security, but this left the smaller locations vulnerable to simple attacks: the upstate New York office, Sacramento, Branson, and Des Moines.
The Road Runners had no choice but to distribute their resources to their higher priority locations, but soon enough the Killers would find a way to attack even those.
Dylan Snoddy had been tasked with leading the efforts in New York, an office that housed twenty Road Runners. The Killers worked as a team, camping out a mile away from their target and preparing for a successful attack. Everyone was a specialist in their respective field. Ethan Saunders could hack the building’s security system, and either cut the camera feed or replace it with a still image of the building’s interior. Landon Jacobson built the actual bombs, while Frank Watts studied the building’s layout and blueprint to maximize damage. All of them worked around Dylan, who served as both the unofficial leader of this pact, and also the one who had to plant the bombs around the building.
His specialty was both stealth and acting. Should he actually be caught, he knew just the right things to say to get out of a potential mess. And if they weren’t buying what he was selling, no one in the group could break into a dead sprint faster than Dylan Snoddy, former college track star.
They had studied the building for the past two weeks, mainly tracking the activity of those who walked in and out, finding the best time of day to strike when the most people were inside. A two-hour window from seven to nine in the morning was the sweet spot. In their two weeks of observation they had only seen someone walk out two times, both instances to retrieve something from their cars in the parking lot.
This left Dylan practically free to roam the exterior of the building. The cameras had been frozen on still images, leaving him all the time in the world. They clearly had no concerns of being attacked in such a remote location surrounded by tall trees. Perhaps they believed the Revolution didn’t know about the location – a grave mistake, for the Revolution knew everything.
Dylan enjoyed having the trees. At seven o’clock, the sun remained low in the sky, and the trees blocked most of it, leaving it to look more like dawn on the office grounds. He had planted himself behind the nearest tree, four duffel bags piled next to him that he would soon deliver to each corner of the building. He had a couple of crowbars to barricade any doors that led out of the building, a decision that typically came on the fly depending on what he saw.
“You’re clear,” a voice crackled from the earpiece that communicated with their main hideout a mile away, a massive tent that housed antennas, monitors, and the rest of the team.
“On my way,” Dylan said, heaving the first duffel bag over his shoulder and starting his trudge toward the building. Each bag weighed thirty pounds, filled with explosives, leaving Dylan to carry one at a time to avoid being slowed down by any more weight. He had practiced his route a dozen times, learning how the bags swayed his body based on the smallest movements, like stepping over a rock, or turning the building’s corner.
With an aerial map to study, Dylan calculated the exact route he’d take to avoid being seen, running back and forth from the nearest tree and planting the duffel bags strategically on each corner of the office building.
The building ran one hundred feet long by sixty feet wide – not big on paper, but seeming massive now that Dylan was running toward it with a device ready to blow it to pieces. Sweat formed around his forehead and trickled into his eyes, burning as he blinked it away. The bag no longer felt heavy over his shoulder, thanks to the hurricane of adrenaline spinning throughout his body. He briefly considered carrying more than one bag at a time, but decided sticking to the plan was the surest way to get the results needed. This was no business to make last-second changes.
Fortunately, like all other Road Runner buildings, not a single window lined the exterior, with the exception of the double glass doors that served as the entrance. His route was planned to avoid the doors, but someone could always walk out, or pull into the parking lot later than the rest of their colleagues.
Planting the bombs was the top priority, barricading the door to only be done if everything went smoothly and the situation permitted. I can do it all, he thought as he reached the nearest corner and dropped the bag on the ground, sliding it against the exterior’s concrete surface. He brushed a quick stroke of his fingers along the wall, knowing it had been constructed to absorb a heavy blow, but having no chance to withstand what was coming. One down, three to go.
Dylan sprinted to the tree, slinging the second bag over his shoulder and running through the same routine, only this time to the next corner of the building. He repeated this process within two minutes, his final run taking him all the way around the building to avoid that damned entrance, and all the way back to safety at the tree that no longer hid bags, but only a couple of crowbars.
So far so good, let’s do it. He grabbed one of the crowbars and dashed for the building, this time headed for the forbidden front doors. As soon as the doors entered his vision, they swung open and a man on a cell phone stepped out. At first he didn’t notice Dylan charging in his direction, but after a double take and seeing the weapon, he dropped his phone on the pavement. “What the hell?!”
With a split second to make crucial decisions, Dylan looked through the glass doors, saw no one else present, and brought the crowbar over the man’s head, the sound mimicking that of a baseball bat connecting crisply on a home run swing. All strength left the man’s body as his head whipped to the side, blood flying from his shaggy black hair, eyes immediately rolling into his brain. He hit the ground with a dull thud, limbs splayed in every direction.
“Oh, my God!” Dylan gasped, rushing to grab the man’s ankles and pull him out of sight from the doorway. He ended up dragging him toward the corner of the building he had planted the first bomb, grunting with each tug, the adrenaline helping haul the dead weight of a roughly 200-pound man.
He dashed back toward the doors where he had tossed the crowbar, picked it up, and leaped for the entrance where he slid the bar through the two door handles, pulling it snugly with the hooked end so it couldn’t fall off with the inevitable banging on the doors that would soon begin.
Run.
The coast remained clear from that front entrance, but he still sprinted away like his life depended on it. “Everything’s planted,” he shouted for his earpiece to transmit. “Blow it up!”
“Copy that,” the crackling voice replied.
Dylan skidded to a stop, his shoes sinking into the earth that had been just moist enough to leave a muddy ring around his soles. The bombs were connected through a radio device controlled back at the tent. One push of a button would simultaneously detonate them, collapsing the four corners of the building and entrapping everyone while a fire would quietly engulf them all.
He had run at least 1,000 feet away from the building, looking at the office through the trees, staying behind one in case any flying shrapnel soared his direction.
“All clear,” the earpiece said, and within five seconds Dylan heard the rumbling boom, the ground vibrating as the bombs exploded.
5
Chapter 5
The next morning, Martin personally reached out to the other commanders and asked for their help in rounding up the best and brightest minds. It was time to really study his ability as a Warm Soul.
“If we can find a way to replicate my Warm Soul and implant it in others, we can end this war tomorrow.” He had said this on a conference call with the commanders, Gerald sitting across the desk as he listened with a balled fist under his chin.
“Commander Briar,” Commander Quang said, “We appreciate what you’re trying to do, but you have bigger issues at hand. This is detracting from your time to respond to the attacks from yesterday. Your focus is in the wrong area.”
“With all due respect, Commander,” Martin replied. “I disagree. We’ve exhausted the tried and true methods of responding to these attacks. Yet here we are with another. And there will surely be more. My goal is to remove Chris from power and put the Revolution in a position with no leader. As it stands, we have no ways of getting to him. I’m not going to sit here and authorize the same old things we’ve done in the past that never achieve results. We need to try something different, and if I have to sacrifice my body and time to do so, I’m game.”
“I appreciate your lofty goals,” Commander Quang replied. “But we have gone through these tests with Commander Blair. Nothing has ever been found. Warm Souls are the great and elusive mystery of our time-travel universe.”
“That’s no excuse to not keep trying. It’s either this, or I put myself in the line of danger by using my ability to get to Chris. Would you like to have another special election to replace a dead commander?”
“May I?” Commander Blair chimed in before Quang replied again. “Look, Martin, you don’t need any sort of approval to do this. We’re just suggesting it’s a waste of your time. It’s unlikely that anything new will come to fruition after more studies. The team who studied you initially has tons of files on their research, and they all point back to nothing. Again, do as you see fit, but it may be better to focus your efforts into a different game plan.”
Zero Hour (Wealth of Time Series, Book 5) Page 3
