168 Hours- Zero Hour

by Raylan Kane

  “What are ya gonna do when those stop workin', bro?” Dennis's buddy, the second-baseman Scott Rodmeier asked, half-joking.

  “I don't even know what you're talking about,” Dennis said. “It's not possible.”

  “Whatever, bro. Straight to the minors. The mighty King, down he goes. I'll cry for ya, man.”

  Dennis gave him a shove and walked over to his locker just as their manager walked in, ready to quickly address the squad before they walked out to the field.

  MICHAEL JANVIER & ELIZA CHAMPION

  AMETHYST CAY RESORT

  TURKS AND CAICOS

  12:05 PM LOCAL TIME

  Gazing out of his villa at the turquoise water and white sand before him, Michael Janvier was taken by surprise when a uniformed resort employee entered the room behind him to retrieve what was left of breakfast. Michael frowned slightly then waved his hands in an outward motion as if to rush the staff along carrying plates of half-eaten eggs and fruit out of the villa.

  “Yes,” he said, lacking patience, “go.” He glanced at his cell phone laying on a gold side table and contemplated calling his agent in New York, then decided not to as he heard Eliza turn off the shower. He walked into the spacious en suite wearing only a robe. Eliza Champion, also an “A” list actor and his lover, though that was not public knowledge. Yet. She quickly grabbed a towel when she saw him and wrapped herself.

  “I was going to join you,” Michael said.

  “Were you?”

  “I was.” He put his arm around her and leaned in for a kiss.

  She kissed him and patted his beard. “When does this go?” She said, referring to his thick facial hair.

  “Reshoots in six weeks, you knew that.”

  “Six weeks,” she said in an exasperated tone. “Did you call Eli?” She walked to the mirror, leaned in close to it and wasn't pleased to notice slight redness in one eye.

  “Not yet,” Michael replied. “We're back in a week.” He stepped over to her again and pulled at the back of her towel.

  Eliza smiled slightly and stopped him. “Not right now,” she said.

  Michael, annoyed, sniffed and turned away. “What did you want to do then?”

  “Was thinking of checking out the shops.”

  “You want me to come with you?”

  “Only if you want to.”

  “They don't make disguises good enough.”

  “You think it would be that bad?”

  “Please,” Michael said, “the vultures would be out for just one of us. For both? A nightmare.”

  “No one knows we're here together, thank God.”

  “Could you imagine?”

  Michael's phone buzzed to life in the other room. He whisked in to pick it up, seeing his agent's face on the display. “Eli,” he said to Eliza before answering. “I swear the man's psychic.”

  After two minutes of what sounded like pained conversation, Michael hung up. Eliza was in the walk-in closet getting dressed. “That didn't sound pleasant,” she said. “Is it about the production credit?”

  “Yes, and he wants me in Paris next week to meet with a financier.”

  “Is this for that new project?”

  He smiled condescendingly at her. “You know I can't discuss this with you right now.”

  She pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow. He knew what that look meant.

  “You know that, right?” He said.

  “I guess,” Eliza said, and she sighed. “Okay, fine, yes - I know. But it's not as if I'm begging for a role. I was genuinely curious.”

  “We'll do a project together,” Michael said, “maybe after the world finds out about us.”

  “I would rather avoid that.”

  The comment took Michael aback, it stung him a little, but he wouldn't let on. “Me too,” he lied.

  “What else did Eli say?” Eliza said, “you sounded annoyed at the end there.”

  “He's worried about the weather.”

  “The weather?”

  “Something about a tropical depression near Africa. These things have a habit of becoming hurricanes or something. I don't know. Whatever,” Michael said, waving the notion away. “He already knows, we'll have left this place well before it's an issue. I'm not worried, but I guess he is.”

  “That's what makes him Eli,” Eliza said.

  “Indeed.”

  BOB ANGEL

  HENDERSON CONVENTION CENTER

  NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

  11:05 AM LOCAL TIME

  Bob Angel hated giving speeches. He read over notes he'd transposed onto blue index cards while his leg jiggled, seated at the Henderson Convention Center's cafe in the main lobby. Noticing his shaking, he tried to relax, remembering what his therapist had said about taking himself too seriously. He tried to make light of his nerves. Too much espresso, he told himself. Though really his nerves had been getting the best of him since the night before when he'd checked into his hotel.

  It was the third year Bob had attended the Titans of Emerging Tech conference, the third straight year he'd been asked to deliver one of the key speeches for the event, and his first visit to New Orleans. Taking the last bite of his croissant and noticing he only had an hour left before he was to speak, Bob sped up his reading not admitting to himself that none of the words were registering in his brain. He began to murmur the words out loud when he noticed someone looming nearby. He looked up to see a pretty young woman standing next to his table. She was smiling and Bob knew that she recognized him, he was after all, the biggest name of the high profile conference invitees. Bob smiled, unsure of what to say to the woman. A billionaire with his own powerful tech company or not, he was still not the best in social situations.

  “Are you here for the conference?” He said.

  “Yes,” the young woman tried her best to remain composed. “I'm so excited to see you here. Like, you literally have no idea.”

  Bob liked the attention, but then felt a pang of guilt, knowing that if this had been anyone else or say someone not this attractive he would have probably brushed them off. “That's nice of you,” Bob said. “I'm just like everyone else, I assure you.”

  “Hardly,” the young woman said, almost scoffing. “You're Bob Angel. Aren't you?”

  The question and her tone threw Bob off kilter. Perhaps there was more to this exchange than he'd realized. In response to her query he nodded, but before he could say anything else to her the woman brandished a can of mace and began to spray it all over his face, also hitting his throat, and coating the front of his shirt.

  “Capitalist pig!” She screamed.

  Two security guards appeared from nowhere and tackled the woman before she could completely empty the can onto him. Bob fell backward, screaming in pain as the sticky liquid scalded his skin and burned his eyes. Shocked onlookers had stopped what they were doing, frozen with fear. A few members of the Convention Center staff rushed to Bob's aid. The young woman, now being held by four guards, kicked and flailed. “Fascist!” She hollered while being dragged towards the exit.

  Bob grabbed at his face and felt the burning sensation on the palms of his hands too.

  “Mr. Angel,” said a woman kneeling over him. “Try to stay calm. Paramedics are coming.”

  He drew in deep breaths, his mind racing. His mouth had filled with saliva and mucous. His nose ran all over. He had difficulty swallowing.

  “They're on their way,” the woman tried to reassure him. “Any minute now.”

  “Okay,” he said, tears streaming from his eyes, “okay.”

  DASH Q

  INDEPENDENCE ARENA

  KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

  11:05 AM LOCAL TIME

  “Yo, Dash, you want next?” Solomon Reid, one of Dash Q's bodyguards walked to the singer covered in sweat after having just finished a game of pickup basketball in one of the backrooms at Independence Arena.

  Dash looked at the man and then back at his phone, a bored expression on his face. “Nah, man,” Dash said, “I
'm good.”

  “Oh, right,” Solomon said, “you got that interview, don't ya?”

  Dash glanced to his right to the man seated in a folding chair next to him, his backup singer and best friend T.J. Grant. “T.J.,” he said, “why don't you go? Go play, man!”

  “Naw dog,” T.J. said in a funny voice that caused Dash to laugh, “I'm tired.”

  “You haven't played ball since we was in Boston,” Solomon said. “You scared.”

  “I ain't scared,” T.J. said, “tell him D.”

  Dash laughed. “You might be a little scared. Solomon's gotten real good. He's been practicing since Europe.”

  “By the end of this tour I'm gonna turn pro,” Solomon said. “Believe that.”

  T.J. rolled his eyes. “Now I'm gonna have to take you down,” he said, “just for that comment alone.”

  Dash held out his arms. “Nah, wait. Wait. After sound check, alright? I need my boy fresh.”

  “Alright.”

  One of Dash's assistants, Kelsey, appeared at the far end of the massive area. “They're ready for you,” Kelsey shouted, her voice echoing through the cavernous room.

  Dash jumped up from his folding chair. “Kelsey! Kelsey! Kelsey!” Dash shouted back, mocking an echo noise with his voice. “I'm coming, coming, coming!”

  “Don't shout, dawg,” T.J. said in a joking tone. “Protect that voice. That's the gold, brother.”

  Dash giggled, as he always did at pretty much everything T.J. said, funny or not. He wasn't looking forward to being interviewed for a local television crew, but he accepted it as part of the job and the people around him always did a good job of keeping the mood light.

  “Wish me luck,” Dash said, quickly wiping wrinkles out of his silk shirt and adjusting his fedora.

  SUBJECT 736

  DARPA FACILITY 88, “THE CLOVER”

  1.5 MILES UNDERGROUND, 20 MILES SOUTHWEST OF ATLANTA, GEORGIA

  12:05 PM LOCAL TIME

  Eric Chen could barely keep his eyes open. He leaned back in his office chair so far that it nearly tipped backward causing him to snap upward, alert once again. His co-worker Tim Ernestine, dressed in a white coat, noticed the move as he entered the room from the lab.

  “Nice one,” Tim said checking the monitors and looking at the gargantuan specimen laying on the other side of the thick glass, strapped to a gurney, dozens of wires protruding from his heavily-muscled, naked body. “You ever heard of sleep?” Tim said, “it's the new thing everyone's talking about.”

  Eric chuckled. “Tell that to my baby girl. I feel like I haven't slept in months.”

  “You look like it too. Take a vacation for crying out loud. Maria too for that matter.”

  “Would if I could,” Eric said, “but who would help you take care of big boy here?”

  “I'm sure they'd find someone,” Tim said, chuckling, “a trained monkey perhaps.”

  Eric wheeled his chair to the right, double-checking the synthetic human's vital signs. He had been working on the top secret project for nearly two years, instrumental in ensuring the lab-created human matured to full size in good health and with minimal problems.

  “Colonel Ward was down here yesterday,” Tim said, annoyance in his tone.

  “Oh yeah? How'd that go?”

  “About as expected. The Pentagon wants the timeline moved up.”

  “What's Alice say about that?”

  “Her hands are tied. Up to the Subcommittee now.”

  “What a mess.”

  “You said it.”

  Under a small group of Senators and Pentagon officials, the special project to build a genetically superior super-soldier was nearing completion. The government had given the hush-hush 'go ahead' to start the project nearly fifteen years prior, but the lab culture hadn't been grown from a fetus to the full-grown fourteen foot tall male laying in the deep underground facility until almost thirteen years later.

  Eric continued watching the dormant giant's heart rate. They'd had the super-soldier in an induced coma since his inception, never once taking the risk to wake him. The idea was to prove growing one of these super-sized genetically superior humans was possible, with the aim of gaining approval to then perhaps clone him, begin a line of mass production and eventually replace non-synthetic humans on the field of battle altogether.

  “How's he looking?” Tim said.

  “Strong as ever,” Eric said, “probably still dumb as a post though.”

  Tim chuckled. “You're not wrong there.”

  LIN CHOU

  XIANGFENG DENIM FACTORY

  SHANGHAI, CHINA

  12:05 AM LOCAL TIME

  The foam mattress was not thick enough to give Lin Chou any comfort on the hard metal slab bolted to the factory dormitory's concrete wall. Her hip ached as she laid on her side doing her best to put the pain out of her mind so she could get at least get a few hours of sleep before 4:30 wake up time. Lin knew her mattress was not as thick as the other six ladies she shared her room with, but she was the last to visit the outlet store on Jinhui Road and the thin pad was all they had left. She hadn't had a decent night's sleep in over a year. Every night she tried harder and harder, focusing on her breathing, focusing on everyone else's breathing. But the bright beam of white light shining through the curtain-less window, the hardness of her sleeping surface, the growls of her hungry stomach. It all combined to often put her into an insomniac's trance, her thoughts drifting back to the farm where she grew up in Hunan Province, walking through fields of hemp and tobacco with her mother and father. Lin and her sister both left for the factories in the larger cities however, where the money was better, if still not great. Lin always sent half her pay back to her parents.

  A cool breeze pushed in through the window giving Lin a chill. She pulled her blanket over her shoulder and the back of her neck. On an upper bunk attached to the opposite wall, Lin noticed one of her flat mates, Bai, rise and throw her feet over the side of the metal slab.

  “Someone else is awake,” Lin said softly.

  “You are always awake, young one,” Bai said, weariness in her voice. “I have to eat.”

  “Now? It's so late.”

  “My stomach aches.” Bai lowered herself until her bare foot touched the edge of the bunk below her, careful not to nudge the lady sleeping there. She stepped to the cold concrete floor and crouched beneath the window on the back wall pulling an electric kettle from a plastic crate.

  “Noodles?” Lin said.

  “Yes. Would you like some?”

  “Please.”

  The other women stirred, but did not wake. Bai turned to the small sink, even with the tap turned all the way only a small trickle of water flowed. She filled half the kettle and plugged into the room's only outlet. The other plug was occupied by an adapter that allowed four of the flat mates to have their phones plugged in and charging at the same time. Their phones were their only life line to the families they'd left, often hundreds of kilometers behind.

  With the kettle reaching a boil, Bai unplugged it and poured the hot water into two ceramic mugs containing dried noodles. She handed one of the steaming mugs to Lin.

  “Thank you,” Lin said.

  Quiet as mice, the two ladies sat in the gray twilight sipping from their mugs, waiting until the water would be cool enough to pick out the noodles with their hands. Spoons would have created too much noise, enough to have alerted the dorm guards and perhaps get them formally written up or worse have their kettle confiscated.

  “Will you sleep after this?” Lin said.

  “I will. But I know you will not. Not for two more hours.”

  “It is always this way.”

  “Not when you're older. When you leave here.”

  Bai, at age twenty-six, was closer to leaving the factory than Lin who'd only just turned twenty. The work was hard on the hands and wrists. Fifteen hours a day of fine snipping and cutting of loose threads on denim jeans and jackets. A lot of pulling, tightening, clipping, sewing. The l
ong hours and lack of nutrition took a brutal toll as the months and years wore on. This reality created a high-turnover among the young workforce. It was rare to see a woman working in the Xiangfeng facility past the age of twenty-eight. By then you were considered ancient and you looked the part, bags under the eyes, crippled hands barely capable of grasping a railing. Most would return to their homes, hopefully with some semblance of savings, to live out their years in relative poverty raising crops, supplemented by the increased income they'd had before. Better that than staying on the farm through your twenties and living in absolute destitution.

  Bai drained the rest of the water. She stowed the kettle away and set the mugs carefully on the floor beneath the sink. She stepped on the lower bunk again and hoisted herself up, cautious enough so as not to bump her head on the concrete ceiling only a few feet above her bunk.

  “Will you leave the city after this?” Lin asked.

  “No,” Bai answered softly. “I will stay.” She laid down on her thick mattress and pulled her blanket under her chin, closing her eyes, her stomach settled.

  “Sleep well,” Lin whispered.

  “I wish the same for you, young one.”

  Lin laid on her back, crossing her arms across her chest. She stared at the bunk above her and thought about the farm.

  LISA JACKSON & GARRETT TIGNISH

  BUCHANAN NUCLEAR GENERATING STATION

  BUCHANAN, NEW YORK

  12:05 PM LOCAL TIME

  A burgundy minivan rolled to a stop at the west end of the giant parking lot in front of Buchanan Nuclear Generating Station, a nuclear power plant 30 miles north of Manhattan. Lisa Jackson, an investigative reporter with the Hudson Tribune-Press, exited from the back of the vehicle, followed by photographer Garrett Tignish. They were collaborating on a story about safety and security at the plant after an anonymous whistleblower had posted videos online purported to show lax safety standards inside the facility and talked of workers there being plagued by a host of health issues that had allegedly been covered up by Manhattan-Franklin, the energy conglomerate in charge of the station.