by Mike Arsuaga
When the movie ended, she coaxed the children to the car. They relented after a quick tour of the new Space Museum.
“That’s my Uncle Charlie,” Jimmie pointed out when they stood in front of the model of the first Mars expedition. A group of tourists nodded politely before moving to the next exhibit.
She’d arranged to move with the children to her old apartment at the Headquarters complex in Orlando, enrolling them in the local corporation school. For security reasons, she told herself. The truth was that the worst arguments over whether he should take the last shuttle for Mars took place at the Rocket City home. Now that he was gone, she saw no reason for returning to the house, now contaminated with memories of their bickering.
On the ride back, she sat with arms folded, in deep thought. The kids lost themselves among the pull-down videos. “Pick one that teaches you something,” she argued weakly. “To make up for the half-day of school you missed.”
Of course they didn’t listen. The driver smiled into the rear view mirror at the little drama.
On the way, the car stopped at their school. Both children’s reading and math skills were two years above their grade level. Ed’s father had been similarly precocious.
“Aw, Mom, do we have to?” they both complained when the limousine pulled to a smooth stop.
“You promised not to fuss about going to school if I took you to see Dad off. I let you finish the movie you wanted to watch, remember? Now, be good children and go with Leanna to check in.”
With not too much grumbling or stalling, they traded the gloomy green-tinted interior for the bright, noontime sunlight. The driver led the children away. She walked between them holding a small pink hand in each of hers.
After the stop at school, Lorna told the driver to bring her to work. At her approach, Thomas glanced up from a computer monitor. “What’s up?”
“Ed left.”
Returning to the screen, he said quietly, “It’s for the best.”
Getting a grip on herself, she said, “I know, but that doesn’t make the pain any less.”
Thomas raised tired, rheumy, blue eyes. “I appreciate the sacrifice you made. You were very unselfish. I hope my brother will come to understand.”
“How’s Mother Sam doing?”
“She lives. For that, everyone’s grateful. I told you that last week she recognized Great-pop, didn’t I?”
“Yes, dear brother, you did,” she answered gently, and retreated to her desk in the next room. After settling in, Lorna stared out at him. Her reply from before bore a twinge of sadness.
Poor, forgetful old fellow.
The news stream trickled from the monitor on the facing wall. Wars, riot, and mayhem sprung up everywhere. The whole world seemed hell-bent on tearing itself apart before any CME had a chance to.
Thomas joined her, approaching silent as a kitten walking on a feather mattress. Peering over her shoulder at the footage of the war in Asia, he said, “The situation appears pretty bad.”
“Western China and the East India provinces are on the brink again. They’re threatening each other with nukes.”
“Sadly, I think the threat hanging over all of us causes this irrational behavior.” He sat.
Lorna offered him coffee.
Displaying the smirk little old men do so well, he refused. “Most of the world is going mad in the belief we’ll all be dead in a few months. Since there’s nothing to be done, they’re reckless.”
“Well, it’s not like they have anything to lose.” Lorna reached across the desk, taking Thomas’s small, cold hands. “I’m so grateful for your company.” She cherished the time they spent together. Too soon, he would join his sister. Hell, probably they all would.
Thomas returned her hand squeeze. “My father and step-mother, Rebecca, were Christians. They believed in a loving God who watched over all of us. I didn’t embrace the faith, but I’ve seen enough to understand there’s something more at work in our lives than random occurrence. Great-pop, during his days as a professor of mathematics, wrote a paper on the subject. I guess what I’m saying is a loving god would be irrational to let things end like this for all of us.”
* * * *
Ed had been gone for six days. Lorna hoped that he might call. Even if he had nothing to say to her, there were the children.
From the outer balcony of her apartment, Lorna saw the crowds gathering on the streets below. When at full strength, they moved, swaying across the pavement. A single, brownish mass bore down on the headquarters building. Dozens of hand-lettered signs peppered the crowd. The common theme among them accused the corporation of conspiring to save The Others at the expense of humanity. Five, even two, years earlier, the corporation couldn’t pay people to be interested in the threat. With regret, Lorna remembered Ed’s unsuccessful attempts in 2104 to get government funding to develop safer ways to transport humans to Mars. It had been an election year, and the politicians feared the consequences of cutting entitlements and pay raises for government workers more than earthly annihilation.
A hybrid servant set up breakfast for three on the patio. “I see the children are in,” she said. “Breakfast together will be special.”
Lorna surveyed the settings. “We’ll need four places, Tina. Thomas always joins us on Thursdays.”
The brunette recognized her mistake and curtsied quickly. “Right away, ma’am.”
Tina may not have been the brightest light on the tree, but her dependability and trustworthiness more than compensated. The growing resentment over the limited access to Mars, made keeping human employees dangerous. At least six member families had been murdered by their servants in two years.
Quickly, she set a fourth place.
“Come to breakfast, children,” Lorna cried across the apartment.
Sammi arrived first. Jimmie always took the time to put his things away, while his sister left her toys where they lay. “Mommy,” she asked. “Are we going to school today?”
Lorna glanced at the turgid heave of the crowd below. In the next block, at the edge of an overgrown, abandoned park, news trucks lined the curbside. “No. At least not until the demonstration breaks up.” On the street, a knot of police, backed by corporation security, formed a blue line between the crowd and the building entrance.
“The situation appears grim.” Thomas entered the balcony, holding Jimmie’s hand. “There’s more down there than the screamers and sign-wavers.”
“If my old police crew helps us out, we can hold them.” Lorna spoke as head of security. “But I hate the thought of bloodshed.”
Thomas served each of the children a portion of scrambled eggs. Jimmie piled on the ketchup, ready to use the whole bottle if Lorna didn’t stop him. Sammi made a condescending face at what she considered her brother’s childishness, seasoning her portion with a dainty sprinkle of salt. Thomas served himself from the egg dish, offering Lorna the beef rollups.
With everyone served, Lorna resumed the conversation. “I hope they learned their lesson after the attack on Rocket City.” A summer ago, a crowd of a thousand had breached the first perimeter. The heavier defenses of the second held them, but all the large homes outside had been looted and burned before security regained control. “We must have killed at least a hundred.”
“The damned Tenth Legion’s still at it,” Thomas said bitterly. He took another mouthful of egg, chewing with precise, almost mincing, jaw movements. “Did you hear? They murdered a lycan family in western Canada last week.”
Lorna rolled her eyes in the direction of the children, a signal not to talk about such things in front of them. Enough of that filled the news streams. Sammi had nightmares.
Thomas covered his mouth. “Sorry,” he had time to say before a howl from hundreds of voices on the street below announced the crowd heaving forward.
Behind a convex crescent of plastic shields, the police-security coalition absorbed the weight of two thousand bodies. Flanking them, other officers fired tear gas and rubber b
ullets. When the first ranks fell, the crowd hesitated. Individuals clutched themselves where the bullets hit or wandered aimlessly, blinded by the tear gas. Those farther back surged over the fallen ones, trampling a few.
Jimmie lunged for the railing. “I want to see.” Without hesitation, Lorna pulled him back.
“No, Jimmie.” He struggled without success against her lycan strength. Sammi buried her head in Thomas’s chest, crying.
“Go inside with Uncle Tommy,” Lorna ordered.
The crowd took great losses, but kept coming. Injured and tear gas-blinded people covered the ground. Some didn’t move. The blue line retreated toward the headquarters entrance. A single shot rang out above the indistinguishable mob noises. A police officer fell out of the rank. Two pairs of hands reached from behind, pulling him from danger. The police drew weapons.
For a second, everything stopped. During the pause, someone in charge of the police detachment used a bull horn to ask everyone to stand down. The crowd considered the proposal. Seconds later they surged forward, propelled by a howl from thousands of throats.
“Get the children to the panic room,” Lorna said to Thomas. “I’m going to the operations center.”
With a sound of air being squeezed off, the six-inch steel door sealed them in. The police opened fire just as she headed down the hall. Four employees manned the operations center. Two of them sat before consoles, monitoring security cameras around the property. A third was a communications technician. The watch captain completed the group. The room, silent except for the buzz of electronic equipment, gave Lorna the chills.
“What’s the status?” Lorna asked upon entering. She stared beyond the watch captain at a closed circuit picture of the entrance. The crowd had withdrawn, leaving fifty or so dead or wounded on the brick cobblestones. Their blood seemed almost black on the brick-red pavers.
“Things are quiet for now. They retreated to lick their wounds.” the watch captain said.
Lorna scanned the monitors. “Don’t get locked in on the main entrance. Make sure our rovers check the other possible points of entry. This may have been a diversion.” The CCTV monitors showed the first of the news crew trucks taking advantage of the lull to push back into camera view.
By afternoon, the crowd had grown to over ten thousand. They gathered at the abandoned park. Interspersed among the hundreds of signs appeared emblems of the Tenth Legion. “I guess now we know who’s behind this mess,” Lorna muttered bitterly.
An hour later, the mayor called to tell Lorna he planned to withdraw the police protection. “I can’t put my police department on regional television shooting civilians in the streets.”
“What about us?” Lorna shot back. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”
The mayor sighed. “You should talk to them. Maybe you can work something out. I’m sorry. We can be of no more help.” Then he hung up.
Lorna put the receiver down. “We’re on our own.”
Everyone in the room looked from one to the other. “If they breach security, none of us will be safe,” the watch captain said.
“Set me up on the general speaker. Anyone who wants to evacuate when the cops leave is free to go.” Feeling panic lapping on the edges of her consciousness, she thought of Thomas and the children in the Panic Room, probably playing “Crazy Eights” about now.
Is this the way it ends for us?
Lorna remembered how, while Cithara’s predictions may have served to save The Others along with humanity, nothing in them guaranteed her personal survival.
From his console, one of the technicians spoke. “There won’t be many left to defend this place.”
In other times, such input from a low level employee would’ve resulted in unspoken disdain for the presumption, but considering the circumstances not now. Lorna touched the young vampire’s shoulder. “Everyone who stays knows there’s no surrender, and none of them are going to turn on us.”
After making the announcement, half of the staff accompanied the departing police contingent. Outside, the crowd sensed weakness, and like a predator smelling blood, began to close in. Security cameras showed the dark mass pouring through and around the park like molasses. They piled up at the edge of the trees in the late afternoon sun. The weight of their numbers pressed the vanguard toward the headquarters entrance.
Thinking about Rocket City, she inventoried their assets in her mind. There were two cargo helicopters down for maintenance. Earlier, she ordered them made airworthy, no simple task. “Get an update on the status of the copters.”
The watch captain snatched up the phone. Lorna sensed his appreciation of her penchant for ideas that, so far, kept them a moving target. Silently, she berated herself for not thinking of restoring the craft before all this began.
“The assholes are at it again,” someone said, referring to the news feed. “The announcer’s almost begging them to attack.”
“Are you surprised?” Lorna asked. “If it bleeds, it leads. We’re now an expendable minority.”
“Here they come!” the watch captain cried out.
The entrance monitors showed hundreds of people trotting ahead at a determined pace. Many had weapons. Lorna had set the kill zone at two hundred feet, the minimum range she needed to stop the assault while still giving the mob a chance to reconsider the attack.
“Oh, my God, those are helicopters!” shouted one of the operators, pointing to a rooftop camera image.
“They’re coming from the direction of Rocket City,” Lorna muttered under her breath. Aloud, she added, “How did they repair them so fast? Open a secure circuit.”
As the bulky, olive drab flying machines neared, Lorna realized they were larger models than the two being readied at Rocket City.
The helicopters didn’t land on the rooftop as she expected, but hovered over the mob above weapon range. “What in the hell are they doing?” Lorna wondered aloud.
“Ma’am,” said the communications technician. “I have the OIC of the helicopter flight.”
Lorna snapped the headset from the technician’s hand. “This is HQSEC,” she said sternly, using her call sign which was known through the corporation. Only one other outranked it. “Who authorized your flight?”
“This is MEGFLIGHT-1,” replied an unsteady, youthful-sounding voice. “The OIC told me to say he will tell you after he scatters some riff-raff littering up the area in front of the HQ.” Pausing, he added. “And, ma’am, the OIC hopes this will be all right.”
Lorna opened her mouth to give the pilot what for when the watch captain said, “They’re dropping something.” Returning the headset to the technician, she turned to the events unfolding on the security cameras.
Black pellets fell from each of the aircraft, detonating about a hundred feet above the ground in a brief orange flash. A spreading white blossom of smoky vapor drifted earthward. The mob slowed to a stop. Several individuals looked up. The first tendrils of smoke reached the ground. Anyone they touched fell over and lay still.
After the first of them fell over, curiosity turned to terror. Screams and panic filled those closest to the smoke. They dropped their weapons, attempting to reverse direction, but they could go nowhere because of the pressure from behind. In a minute or two, the matter became moot when everyone collapsed in a heap.
“HQSEC, this is MEGFLIGHT-1,” the helicopter pilot said. “JEHOVA recommends you evacuate your people to the top floor unless you want them to take a six-hour nap and wake up with a splitting headache.”
JEHOVA! That’s Ed’s call sign.
“This is not funny,” Lorna snapped, and then to the technician, added. “Tell them using the Chairman’s call sign can result in termination.”
Before the technician could speak, the voice Lorna thought she might never hear again said, “Tell HQSEC, if she’s around, the Marines have landed. All of you will be coming to Rocket City.”
* * * *
“I got to the Moonbase,” Ed told her later, in the privacy of the
ir home at Rocket City, as they lay on the great, round bed. “The day before we were to jump off to Mars, I was still in conflict with myself and decided to seek another opinion.”
Lorna sat up in surprise. “Another opinion? Who?”
“One I rarely consulted in the past because of his unpredictable passions, but who I gained a new respect for after our adventures as jungle guerrillas.”
“Are you talking about Donatello?”
Ed chuckled. “Heavens no. I brought my vampire nature into the conversation.”
“And what did you learn?”
“He said, while the logical course of action, to continue to Mars, was clear, neither the Chairman nor his Shadow would be of no use to anyone or anything without you and the children, end of the world or not. He advised to for once, let go of the reins and put the colonies in God’s hands.”
Lorna snuggled closer to her two, now three, Eds. “I want to know more about this third side of you.”
“Then you forgive me?’
She answered by clutching one of his hands on both of hers. There they stayed for the better part of an hour, basking in the simple pleasure of each other’s presence, until Lorna stirred. “Seriously, what’s going on with the colonies?”
“On the trip down from the moon, we had detailed conversations. Great-pop and Cynthia became Great-mom’s legs. To quote her, my niece and Great-pop have “manned up” to deal with the situation. He’s threatened to relieve Ethan and Toby and place them under Cynthia unless they end the bickering. Beyond that, all we can do is hope for the best and we survive past 2107. We’ll spend a lot of time talking on the stream until Great-mom can resume her duties. The doctor predicts many decades ahead for her, and a return to work in three months.” He smiled. “In three Earth months, that is.”