by Gary Sapp
boys and Christopher Prince was standing…and he saw his generals together for the first and last time.
Hugh Keaton knew that there is a human sense of comfort and relative safety when you are sheltered under the umbrella of company and fellowship.
Even Atlanta’s missing children knew this to be true.
Serena
So poor Louis Keaton was now dead;
Serena Tennyson touched the glass in front of the department store down here in Centennial Olympic Park first with her fingernail and then the skin on the palm side and rubbed it with some affection. She was far from alone. She was parked on the sidewalk in front of nearly 40 or 50 people who’d camped out and were watching a national telecast of the morning news.
This store is relative undamaged considering both the earthquake damage and looting that occurred along this block. The looting and petty theft had been the norm during the late night hours overnight. Perhaps the sunlight and a least a minimum presence of the an APD cell that called themselves Protect and Serve, who were still performing the duties as they were sworn to, had discouraged such reckless behavior.
And perhaps, just perhaps, the people of Atlanta had grown weary of violence all together.
She felt something for Louis. She really had. He had lived as such a misunderstood individual—ultimately even by her. He had grown much since she’d been in charge of his original training…and yet he had ultimately disappointed her at the same time. He could have grown into such more. That disappointment she felt extended to her seeing Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree on the news feed as well. Sure, they’d shared a certain kinship of course. Now she was seeing the other woman balling her eyes out national TV for a known pedophile was proving to be unsettling to say the least. Perhaps the doctor would have felt the same level of discomfort at my own emotional display when a known professional killer Danielle Rohm died when the earth underneath her swallowed her up whole.
She didn’t see Christopher Prince on camera. That fact wasn’t a real surprise, especially if Nicholas Sheridan was running the FBI now that Raymond Rice’s betrayal had been exposed for the entire world to see. She was faintly interested if her old adversary was still alive or had the night claimed him as well. She was betting on his survival. She was counting on it. He had proven a resilient if not stubborn opponent just as his younger brother Xavier had been.
The Caretaker would have been so very proud of his offspring.
She looked on. She used her slim figure and her elbows to carve out just enough room to breathe her own air as the crowd grew expeditiously larger every few minutes. She saw Moses Jackson and three of the other surviving boys being escorted to and lowered into unmarked vehicles. When one of the boys looked back at the camera, his appearance brought out boisterous cheers and applause—and even tears from those people directly behind her. People of color were hugging one another. Others who looked like her were praising their God. Hours ago, you people may have been at each other’s throats. Now they were interacting as if those hours had been years and even decades ago. Suddenly the cheering had become so fierce, so emotional that Serena could barely hear herself think.
And she needed to think.
Oracle had been out of contact with her associates for hours now. She did know that her suicide agents would have all but exhausted their use over the city by now.
There was only one command left for her give:
Whirlwind.
The strongest gust of wind she’d felt this morning whipped past where she and the others were standing. Is this a portent of what is to come? At this moment she was torn to whether or not to unleash the Dragon’s version of Hell on this city. She looked around her and over the horizon. The conditions couldn’t be more perfect—or riper from cataclysmic damage to the city’s already frail infrastructure from the coming firestorm if she’d plotted it herself. The rioting had started the process. The earthquake had certainly hastened the destruction. And it was an act of destruction that if her flames hadn’t anticipated.
And now the storm of the century, as some meteorologist was calling it, this wind maker of epic proportions was descending on the city.
And where are you right now, Thomas?
Parts of her wanted to abandon all that was coming and seek Thomas Pepper out. And yet, she wondered if reappearance in his life would ring destruction down on him as well. She’d been the common thread in the deaths of all the people she’d been associated and even grown to care about.
She’d lost her father and mother.
She’d lost Caretaker and the regent.
Louis Keaton was gone.
Even Danielle Rohm had died.
So what would happen if Serena found Thomas Pepper alive? She’d already introduced mayhem and destruction into his life when she commanded Shooter to kill both his maid and his assistant.
Why would you want me, Thomas?
An older woman brought her back to the moment as Serena felt her squeezing her thin hand with her wrinkled one. Serena looked back at her sharply—she’d never been comfortable with human contact…and yet when looked into the older woman’s eyes and saw the smile lighting up her ancient face—
Suddenly the people on this particular strip of sidewalk in this small corner of Atlanta began to dance in the streets. Someone had turned on boom box. The music wasn’t tuned to any music that remotely fit her taste, but she couldn’t deny the upbeat rhythm that the song was generating through the speakers.
Serena pulled her hand out of the other woman’s grasp—only to have it grabbed again this time by a boy no older than the children that she had kidnapped and locked in a hole with a predator. She felt the slightest shiver of…
Is that regret that you are feeling, Oracle, or is it remorse?
Maybe it was something that she couldn’t put a name to, but she continued to feel something unsettling rattling at the pit of her stomach as if she could possibly throw up. She hoped that wasn’t the case. She couldn’t recall eating her last meal. It must have been days ago. And upchucking right now might be particularly unpleasant as a result.
The music still played. Everyone still danced, some of them freelancing while huge numbers of people looked as if they were performing an almost choreographed number as they stepped and spun around and repeated it nearly as one.
The older woman hadn’t given up on enticing her. She grabbed her free hand and at long last Serena gave up on distancing herself from either of the stranger’s grip. The track changed over to something more to her liking and as fatigued as she had been…she felt her hips and her feet moving to the beat until she discovered her body moving with the beat.
Maybe…just maybe Atlanta hadn’t been a city too busy to hate.
Maybe it had been a city too busy to hate for long.
It is a pause and effect, she thought.
She bit back a smile but she could feel it on her face.
She danced.
She still had resources available to her. Perhaps she would use them to find Thomas Pepper and hope that he wasn’t among the many ruins that the city had to offer.
Perhaps…in time…he would have her. Perhaps Serena Tennyson didn’t have to be alone again. Perhaps she would age like all other human beings aged.
Perhaps she could avoid the prophecy that was witnessed to her when she found herself locked in a holding cell downtown during Deliverance.
Maybe I don’t have to give this city to the flames.
She’d been determined to avoid the version of Whirlwind that forces outside of her command wished to unleash on this city and the country at large.
Perhaps it is not too late for me to call back my own flames.
She knew that she would have to spend the rest of her days peering over her shoulder, making sure that the FBI or any reminisce of a House in Chains was not there to subject her to arrest or revenge.
She could survive though. She could flourish.
Serena Tennyson felt her hands being passed around from one person in this la
rge crowd to another and then another and she stopped just long enough to have a private dance with each one. She’d grown dizzy and drunk on the crowd’s energy, its good nature and its love.
And then she felt the cold steel of cuffs biting at the skin around her wrist.
After a moment Serena went to her knees after two attempts at escape failed her. She didn’t look up at first…she could not. She would not. Finally, she did look skyward and saw three—maybe four uniformed officers peering down at the prize that they had so neatly wrapped up. The officer nearest to her had cuffed her to his own wrist while the woman on the left side of her waist did the same action with her other wrist. Just by chance, she glared back at the huge TV screen they’d been watching minutes earlier—and saw her face taking up most of the screen with the words in smaller print below it saying: Serena Tennyson, leader of Pandora, is wanted for crimes against humanity.
After a moment of hesitation she began to scramble. She pulled against the cuffs but that only managed to force the steel to bite into her wrist and arms further. She screamed in both agonizing pain and grief.
That moment passed.
Serena surprised herself how quickly she had regained her self- control, all those years of training her mind and body to be disciplined were paying dividends. She felt her pulse slowing and her heart was no longer pounding mercilessly in her chest.
A hand full of other uniformed officers moved into the scene and used their own bodies to shield her from the