4-1-1: Where Are Our Children (A Serial Novel) Episode 1 of 9

by Gary Sapp

his actions…and actions still to come, he realized that he’d crossed a threshold that he would never be able to return from.

  Chris didn’t let that fact hold him back.

  A second guard had recovered from her initial surprise long enough to get her semiautomatic pointed in his general direction. He sprinted at full speed towards her, used his momentum to slide beneath where she was standing and snapped a bone in her left leg, while dislodging her firing weapon from her grip in one swift motion. He had kicked himself back on feet in a split second. He balanced his frame and the accursed added weight around his middle on one leg, while crushing the soft tissue around her throat with the other.

  Chris bent over, winded and cursed himself for his damned gut slowing him down. My lapses in discipline in maintaining healthy eating habits over that past few months may cost me everything today.

  Chris took a deep breath and got to his knees, semiautomatic in tow and nearly crawled from room to the next as he caught the scent of tear gas that was beginning to sting his eyes. The fountains, Chris stood erect, taking his chance with inhaling more teargas for the sanctuary of the fountains on the far side of this area. He washed his face while the water flowed over his baldness down into his shirt. At least Luna Belle had enough decency to allow us all to redress after she’d discovered a dozen more of the hostages who had taken the mark and were segregated from the other People of Color.

  Chris whipped his head around in time to see scores of Mobility Team members swinging in on ropes to the floor level. If these guys were the local unit, then they were Romeo Kendall’s boys and he knew personally how damn well trained they were. He knew he was going to be in a tight spot trying to escape this place in one piece, but felt better in his gut that these men were going through the hellfire with him. Bless you, Romeo. He took a quick glance behind him. I owe you one.

  Kendall’s unit was making relative short work of a half dozen female guards over by the East Wing. A couple of the desperate women even grabbed a hostage or two as a human shield, but Chris saw the sniper’s red beams, death rays as bureau guys sometimes called them, light up an inch or two of the female’s foreheads, as a deadly round of gunfire followed in haste. One hostage dropped with his kidnapper and Christopher’s heart sank…only to watch the middle aged woman roll herself off of the dead Pandora Agent, and resume running away, screaming.

  This wasn’t supposed to be a prolonged event at all, Chris surmised, watching the females being shot to death, one by one, soul by soul. Stanton’s people weren’t inept; they were ill equipped to deal with a prolonged siege, or the probable federal incursion because of that siege.

  I don’t need any more motivation to find and bring you to justice, Stanton. He thought. But your moronic thought process that brought this unnecessary loss of human life…this rapture, as Chris sometimes called it, upon us all makes you all the more expendable.

  Special Agent Christopher Prince arrived near the booths that housed the ticket box office near the front entrance. What he saw there sickened him. He saw the first casualties of the siege three days earlier and the odor reeking from the bodies punched him the gut as well. At least ten People of Color had made a quick dash for this exit when Pandora’s gunfire intentionally drove the herd of humanity in towards the dead end. The exits had already been chained and when the people had panicked after learning of it, they’d reversed course and ended up here, in this room. Stanton had the carcasses piled in an undignified matter, one on top the other.

  The air around Chris grew thicker with tear gas. He could find no more water fountains or anything else for that matter, to shield his self against the fumes. Chris suffered through spells of choking and coughing that took turns gnawing at his ability to move or concentrate. Sporadic gunfire could still be heard from the other wings of the building. The cries coming from the mouths of the victims had elevated itself to being the most dominant…the most tedious noise most of all. He held his weight up with one hand against a door’s opening, while he used his other hand to cover his nose and mouth with a scarf he’d picked up off one of the dead bodies. How many more will die tonight before this madness had run its course.

  And then for the first time, since this rapture had begun, Chris wondered exactly where Luna Belle and Quincy Morgan were. Was the Sargent at Arms of a House in Chains and brother’s third in command still alive or—

  Someone or Something struck him over the back. The object, thankfully, turned out to be weighty and not sharp and didn’t tear into his skin as well. He twisted his torso as quickly as the pain and his added weight allowed him to allow his vision quicker access to his attacker or attackers. I can still dance with you, bastard. Chris back hurt like hell. Please let it be only a single attacker, he prayed. Even in his weakened state he should at least be an equal for any of the female guards that may have survived the assault team’s initial onslaught.

  But Agent Christopher Prince’s luck did not hold.

  Benny Stanton had found him.

  Chris searched high and low for the weapon that had been knocked away from his possession when Stanton had struck him in the back.

  He rummaged in front and behind him for a possible retreat to allow himself a minute to inhale some clean oxygen through his lungs so it would flow up into his brain, so he could gather his thoughts and retool his strategy from retreating and surviving to how to launch an impressive counteroffensive.

  He searched for a sign that he would receive absolution from all of his past sins.

  All he found was that Benny Stanton had killed a Mobility Team member and was wearing his head gear, which insulated the other man’s lungs from the poison of the tear gas. Stanton would enjoy having enhanced vison thanks to the Virtual Vision Technology installed in each of those helmets as well. And my predicament on gets worse from here, he crouched into combat position, he’s in ex ATF Operative, meaning he’s received at least the same amount of combat training that I have. And worse of all, the bastard was in shape and wasn’t carrying around a spare tire around his middle.

  With the odds weighed against him, Christopher Prince stepped on the dance floor first, hurling himself at Stanton. That was a bad move. Stanton used Chris’ own momentum to throw him against a row of chairs to the near side of the ticket concession stands. It didn’t take rocket science, or his personal doctor, for Chris to instantly know that his already aching back had been damaged further. There was a tingling sensation in the thigh areas of his right leg that was nothing to write home about either.

  “Piss on you,” He screamed at Stanton.

  “I’m going to kill choo.” Stanton replied back.

  “Why don’t you come over here and let me untie that twisted tongue of yours, Stanton.” Chris picked himself off of the floor. “I’ll be happy to do it for choo.”

  Mocking Stanton had at least succeeded in angering Stanton to the point of the other falling into stupid mode. He pulled the helmet aside and threw it at Chris, who easily side stepped it. Stanton dove at him with an attack that was part clumsy part stiff.

  Chris sprinted at Stanton and made his second attempt at a slide and tackle that had worked successfully on one of the female attackers a few minutes earlier. Stanton didn’t leave his leg as exposed and vulnerable as the woman did…and the other man tried to counteract Chris move with a slide tackle move of his own.

  Chris won the war of attrition. He got to his feet faster than either man would have thought humanly possible. He used Stanton’s frame for partial balance and unleashed a left jab and then right cross that returned the tactical advantage back to Chris…at least for the moment.

  Whether it was from Chris’ punches or tear gas beginning to wear on him, Stanton withered more quickly than the special agent might have hoped or prayed for. This had better work, our song is nearly done. Chris called up the last of his energy reserves and let a series of lefts and rights that found their targets on Stanton’s cheeks, jaws, lips, eyes, and nose.

  And then Chris spun in
a 180 degree circle and unleashed a judo kick maneuver he’d saved for last.

  And the dance, at last, was at an end.

  Chris didn’t get to enjoy the fruits of his labor, however. He collapsed on top of Benny Stanton. He fought off unconsciousness with every fiber of his being, as he had fought for his life since the sun had set in Atlanta’s evening sky.

  He fought off the memories of being taken by Louis Keaton all of those years ago.

  Chris cried. He lost all control of his muscles. He threw up. Well…at least…my back…has…stopped hurting…

  And yet his eyes focused long enough to see Quincy Morgan.

  The unmistakable silhouette of the member of The Circle walked with some urgency over on the Westside of the room. Or are my eyes…or mind…playing tricks on…me. A second figure slowly came into full focus, one that was even more slender and far more feminine than the first one. It was Luna Belle. He was certain of it. Unless you two…have joined me…in eternity, he thought.

  Belle had a long butcher knife in her hand and repeatedly tried to stab Morgan with it. She swiped at his sternum, at his face, and finally at his throat. As he dodged each blow his grin he was wearing on hip lips only widened. He possessed no weapon of his own, except his own extremities of long legs and