Attribution

by Christine Horner

  Apparently, that was the message Stenberg had intended as he waited for the demanding, hungry people to regain control of themselves.

  They stood on tables, kicked over chairs, and threw champagne glasses as they screamed, for they had won the world. “Greedy bastard!”

  Stenberg calmly stepped out from the center of the waterfall speaking without magnification. As soon as his guests realized they couldn’t hear what he was saying, the room settled.

  “Do you see any of them here tonight?” Stenberg waved his hand, pausing until you could hear a pin drop. “I said, do you see any of them here tonight? I don’t.” The charismatic General looked pensive, pausing as if not sure what to say next. This, too, was scripted, but only he knew.

  No one dared move.

  “In as much as any single man or woman would like to take credit for the greatest victory ever realized, no one in this room shall be given credit.” His voice amplified once again, he spoke soberly. “Instead, we remember history’s secret societies as the unseen saviors of the world, our guiding lights. Ladies and gentlemen, if not for these brave souls, you and I would not be standing here today.”

  Images of epic battle scenes, the clash between good and evil, played in front of Stenberg’s chest like a pop-up flip book as he narrated.

  “The Knights Templar, Rosicrucians, Freemasons... The Illuminati, Elders of Zion, Skull and Crossbones, Bilderbergs... Ahead of their time, they held onto but one extraordinary quest, unflinchingly playing both the hero and the villain so that one day, yes, one day, their heirs could reap immortality.”

  Stenberg stopped. The fantastical hologram show disappeared. The dazzling gold and silver diamond waterfall dried up leaving an ordinary man standing underneath an ordinary spotlight.

  Stenberg’s hands clasped behind his back, no one knew what to do. Had the show ended? A technical glitch? Should they applaud?

  Suddenly, the platform Stenberg stood upon exploded into aurorean light. The military uniform he wore magically transformed into a seamless white high-collared tunic and pant with silver trim. His upper arms decorated with bands of golden leaves, a gold sphere emblazoned over his heart revealed why they were there.

  “The moment of triumph has come. It’s you and I who will launch planet Earth’s Unified. One. World. Government!”

  Young surveyed the room as he applauded vociferously. If there was a single unsold soul present, he couldn’t see one.

  After a few long moments, Stenberg impatiently raised his hands to stem the disorderly celebration and table beating. “I’m going to let you in on a little secret.”

  Stenberg paused dramatically as if about to reveal the secret to eternal life. “Immortality is achieved when the singular I is sacrificed for the collective I in service to and for humanity—not on the world stage, but behind it.”

  CHAPTER 68

  “Sacrifice? Pray tell, whom in this room is suffering the malady of self-sacrifice, General?”

  Like an apparition, Truby stepped upon the stage causing the audience to cry out in shock, multicolored lights undulating around her feet like fog. Rationalizing this was part of the show, no one stopped her.

  Truby took full advantage. “The twisted doctrine of sacrifice has been used by the ruling class to control the disempowered since the beginning of time. There’s a reason author Ayn Rand railed against vertical hierarchies that call for the sacrifice of and by the individual,” Truby laughed heartily.

  “We live on an abundant planet that provides everything we need. Working in harmony with nature instead of destroying her, where is the sacrifice?” Truby wagged her finger, “Oh, no, you are manipulating the truth to serve your own agenda.

  “You’ve got it all wrong. It’s the delicate balance between individualism and collectivism that prevents abuse of power,” Truby admonished. “We only need to sacrifice greed, exploitation, slavery, inequality, selfishness, exclusivity… Shall I go on?”

  Next to the man whose face had gone nearly as white as his suit as he restrained himself, she looked shabby in her too small jacket over disheveled and dirty clothing, yet Truby’s presence was commanding. “General, you don’t get to decide the future of the planet without the rest of us,” she concluded.

  Stenberg’s true feelings were nobody’s business but his own. Over fifty years of military service, he wasn’t about to show them now. He’d learned to improvise and deal with surprises like the best of them. In fact; he was the best.

  “But, my dear, we’ve been doing it for centuries, millennia even. If it weren’t for us, the human race would have destroyed itself and the planet many times over.

  “Even a few decades ago, you elected a man for president as destructive as any of history’s darkest men. Who was he but the Jungian shadow of your deep-seated fears, self-loathing, and cowardice!”

  Truby took a deep slow breath to steady her nerves. This was going to be the interview of a lifetime.

  If fate had dealt her a winning hand, it was now up to Truby to lay her cards in the correct order. How these fortuitous circumstances had come together at the chiming of the bell was truly miraculous.

  Truby pulled from her inner reserve of strength. This was for Claire and Devlin. And now her son, Hemmy. “Yes,” Thomas Ruby Hatchett or Truby acknowledged simply. “It was an embarrassing moment for those claiming a moral base. But as America’s political Arab Spring, it woke many people up to the diseased parts of themselves. In the end, we came through it better and stronger.”

  In the audience, General Frohm boiled. It should have been him on that stage and not soft Stenberg. This is what happens when you allow a single compromise instead of showing the world who’s boss. You lose the war with a lone surgically-placed strike. Frohm wasn’t going to let that happen. The only reason he hadn’t jumped on stage and choked the life out of the intruder with his bare hands was that it would solidify him as the devil to Stenberg’s carefully crafted image as a savior, white and gold uniform and all.

  Frohm snarled at Young, “Get your ass on that stage like it’s your last supper!”

  Young froze for a moment. And do your dirty work, he thought. Then he realized this was his debut as a senior officer of the GSC Unified One World Government.

  Young dressed himself in his biggest smile before appearing on stage to place an arm on Truby’s shoulder. “If I may General Stenberg. Ladies and gentlemen, a bit of living history. This happens to be the parent of one of the child genius architects of WREN.”

  The elite applauded cautiously, whispering to one another.

  “General Young, you and I have a lengthy if not contentious history together, do we not?” Truby now had two tigers by the tail. Beginning to sweat, where was her backup? “You see, we both knew each other when I was Thomas Ruby Hatchett, founder of the Hatchett Report. Contrary to PNN reports, I’m not dead.”

  There was an audible gasp from the audience.

  At General Frohm’s table, Cane blurted, “Where’s security?”

  “Mr. President, I—”

  Frohm squirmed before leaping from his chair to handle things himself. He felt his belt for his firearm, breaking into a sweat. His entire career, even his manhood, was now at stake in the blink of an eye. The only two situations he had ever felt cocky enough to cast his weapon aside was when he was making love to a woman or taking a shower. Even then, it was within reach. But, there had been a third—tonight. Frohm had made an egregious miscalculation, failing to prepare for anything and everything. The city under lock down, additional security in the ballroom’s tower shouldn’t have been necessary. He had to stop the disaster in progress.

  “You two. What are you waiting for? Get that woman off the stage!” Frohm ordered. “And do it peacefully.”

  Zedd and Hector stood side-by-side against the wall in their formalwear, Taser sidearms attached to belts. Eyes forward, hands by their sides, it was as if nothing more than a fly had just buzzed the perimeter.

  Frohm blinked. Had he stutt
ered? He looked around to see if pigs were flying before inhaling sharply, preparing to launch a deadly weapon of another kind. When Frohm was through with these two, he’d personally ensure they were rotting in some Ebola infested hospital in Africa, begging for mercy.

  “I gave you two lowlifes a direct order.” Frohm strode forward.

  Suddenly Zedd and Hector disappeared, the hologram closing. Flesh and blood Zedd grabbed Frohm on the shoulder causing him to swing around wildly, fist set to flail.

  “Sir!” Zedd’s eyes conveying real fear. “Please come with us immediately.”

  “We think it’s a nuclear device,” supplied Hector. “We don’t know what to do.”

  “Intelligence idiots,” he snarled. “Of course you don’t know what to do.”

  Frohm felt the same fear he’d seen in Zedd’s eyes jolt his gut. The word karma popped into his brain before he quickly exchanged it for China. Deal with this, then deal with the woman on stage. Crisis was his specialty.

  Zedd and Hector quickly led the General to the nearest utility closet to show him what they’d found.

  “What the hell?! That’s a—”

  Frohm swiveled to grab one of the men’s tasers, but Hector and Zedd easily pushed the much older man into the closet.

  “Idiot!” laughed Zedd as he high-fived Hector.

  The General could scream “traitors” and bang on the door as much as he wanted for the attached hockey-puck-sized soundproofing device ensured no one would hear it. It was Truby’s next words that put lightning into their reflexes.

  “I have a little something of my own prepared just for you.”

  Hector and Zedd practically dove for their hidden computers. “Linking,” said Zedd.

  “Is that alright with you, Terrance?” Truby asked politely.

  “C’mon, c’mon!” Hector counted backward.

  “I’m sure it’s quite provocative.” Young seethed inside wondering where Frohm had disappeared. Frohm was apt to be the wild card to be feared. “But we really don’t have time.”

  Someone in the audience began to clap slowly.

  Both Young and Truby braced themselves.

  Heads turned as a woman stepped from between the tables into the light. “Hold on. Let’s not rush things, shall we?”

  Truby unclenched enough to breathe again, “Madame Vice-President Flores, thank you. General Stenberg, thank you for your passionate introduction on self-sacrifice. But I think you omitted something, don’t you?”

  It was time.

  Truby was going to change the way the planet orbited the sun, or they all were about to crash and burn. Hopefully, her past track record wasn’t an indication.

  CHAPTER 69

  Truby used her journalist skills to fill the longest fifty seconds of her life, adlibbing by recapping the accomplishments of the child geniuses. Finally, a rotating “The Hatchett Report” hologram appeared horizontally in front of her, Young, and Stenberg, circling them half high.

  “That’s lovely. Thank you,” said Truby. “Who made those sacrifices? Not the elite, no. Occasionally, you die in battle or throw one another under the bus, but it’s always been the slaves, and the working class sent to war on your behalf, conscripted by force or too impoverished to refuse,” Truby’s voice gained.

  “Innocent women and children left to pick up the pieces of shattered lives, broken economies, corrupt politics, and religion.” Truby paused before continuing the same way she began—calmly, logically. “This is all of human history in a sound bite. This is what we have lived and died for over and over and over again. Like a bad dream that won’t end so you could have this moment.”

  An image of General Chen next to a waving President Zhang appeared to Truby’s left covering Young. Truby unclenched a little more. “Oh, look. There’s China’s President Zhang. Thank you for being here tonight and for being so willing to be humiliated in the name of global dominance.”

  At her table, President Zhang’s unyielding face belied her rage. General Chen hung his head. Knowing all eyes were on his President, he wanted to run for his life, but he didn’t dare.

  “And yes, better late than never, but I did receive your message, General Chen. Thank you for that,” Truby added with pleasure.

  She had to stop Stenberg from formalizing G.S.C. Resolution 25h-2 at all cost. Truby suspected only Flores kept her from being immediately and violently swept off the stage. She noticed Stenberg push what was probably a panic button on his BioID several times, but his expression told Truby there was a problem.

  Both Stenberg and Truby knew if order broke down among the penthouse elite, what they had collectively worked toward for many centuries might disintegrate as a bloodless counter-coup within a coup. All three people on the stage knew the fine line they stood upon, less than a gold fiber’s breadth. Each calculated and recalculated the next move.

  A looping time-lapse of humanity’s struggle for survival played in place of the circling waist-high “The Hatchett Report” to signify master control was ready.

  At a table, GSC Secretary-General Punam Arya leaned over to whisper into President Cane’s ear.

  He instantly stood. “I demand you get off that stage immediately!” Cane cried.

  “She will remain!” V.P. Flores defied her president. “You couldn’t get rid of me, and you’re not getting rid of her!”

  “No, no, I won’t be getting off this stage, Mr. President,” said Truby, Flores’s boldness inflaming her determination. “We are about to go live to all the good people around the world who’ve been waiting for the latest news.”

  “You’re bluffing!”

  Zedd and Hector appeared briefly to salute the President. He was thoroughly confused. Why weren’t Stenberg and Young doing anything to stop Hatchett? Where was Frohm?

  “Happily, I’m not,” Truby said. “Even your fast flickering images fade away when exposed to the light, Mr. President. Without transparency, true equality and real freedom don’t exist. Cadence?”

  For the first time since Thomas Ruby Hatchett had become Truby Claire Goodman, she felt the unstoppable power of the feminine and like a “good man,” performing in perfect symphony.

  Cadence’s hurried voice came through the penthouse audio system from her location. “PNN master control secure. We are a go.”

  Numbers appeared in the rotating hologram, first ten, then nine.

  Global leaders, dignitaries, and elite began to panic and flee unexpectedly.

  “Stay in your seats, please, ladies and gentlemen,” cajoled Truby. “This won’t be nearly as fun without you.”

  Just then, a wolf howled from the far corner of the expansive ballroom. Like popcorn, other wolves in varying timbers joined the first. Even Truby was caught unawares. The elegantly dressed would-be-escapees froze.

  Pouring through the ballroom doors, off-gridders, and campers in all manner of DupliCity hats, t-shirts and leisure wear quickly guided their charges back to their seats. Hands were held or placed on shoulders to ensure they stayed.

  “Gentlemen, your services are no longer required,” Truby commanded, shoving Young and Stenberg off the stage.

  They resisted until a burst of heat from Zedd’s two misappropriated hummingbird drones flitting nearby caught the two military men’s attention.

  “You can’t stop us!” spat Stenberg. “General Young, call security on your BioID, mine is busted.”

  “I already tried,” wailed Young. “Cane! Arya! Anyone! Call security now!”

  Zedd let out a wolf whistle causing Young to jerk his head up. Zedd raised his shoulders innocently. He had sent out a small electromagnetic pulse that had disabled the BioIDs before hacking into the ballroom’s multimedia center.

  Truby was amazed how easily she commanded the room. Who were these people, but ordinary without their armies and believing masses? Three seconds remaining, Truby took a deep breath to compose herself. The house lights over the guest tables brightened. Global elite covered their faces with hands or napkins
.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Truby’s peripheral vision caught sight of Rose waving her arms frantically from the doorway of the ballroom before sending her an air kiss. Truby smiled to see Pete, Studebaker, and Hemmy arriving.

  “Welcome to a special simulcast of The Hatchett Report Live, in partnership with PNN. I’m Truby Hatchett. We are at the top of the world in the fabulous DupliCity Family Fun Amusement Complex Waterfall Tower in North American Sector M9-48B, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.”

  Flores remained standing, a vindicated smile plastered across her face as she listened.

  “The tower was miraculously undamaged. World leaders have gathered here to make some very special announcements. For a little historical perspective, let’s go back to WREN’s early days.”

  Truby stepped offstage as her original report on the controversial global water superstructure that Zedd, Cadence, and Hector had pretended to post on the darknet ran full screen in its entirety—this time unimpeded. By the sound of some of the reactions, not even those on top of the world had been given full disclosure.

  “Do you finally recognize your teammates?” asked Pete with a glint in his eye.

  “There’s you, my son, Studebaker, Princess Rose, the devil, and his brother…”

  “The butterfly effect,” said Hector.

  “Yeah, you can thank Cadence for knocking our two thick skulls together,” concurred Zedd.

  Without Cadence masterfully convincing Hector, then Zedd in the GSC security vehicle they flew in after taking Truby away that they could become global superheroes in less than thirty minutes, she wouldn’t be there. The woman had skills Truby would never understand. Or maybe it was something more.

  The irony. Truby’s final source was courtesy of her own child who was about to drop a global coup attempt bombshell.

  “Somebody’s been patiently waiting to see you,” said Pete.