by Auri Blest
Seth pressed a button on the explosive that he had attached to the door for the countdown to begin. He was the last one out and the only one that heard the screams.
Around the corner from what was left of what had been our home, four military cargo trucks pulled up in front of us. “Get in!” the driver yelled.
Seth raised his gun. “No!” The others had formed the circle again behind Seth.
“Either get in and live or stay here and die. Whatever you decide, do it quickly!
12
The Director placed her hand on the control panel outside of her office and the glass doors slid open. General Cain walked in first, armed and ready to fire his weapon. Six security officers followed.
The office was empty. The conference room was on the left, to the right was the Director’s seating area, and beyond that, her desk and credenza. The entire office was decorated in mid-century modern furniture—a stark contrast to the rest of the base.
They searched the adjoining rest area but found no sign of her. The security team was ordered to stand guard outside the office. As the office door slid shut, the Director walked to the back wall and pushed a panel. The panel slid to the right to reveal a hidden room. Cain’s eyes widened.
The Director turned back to him. “Stay here.”
She walked into the room and over to the large hexagon-shaped table in the center across from where Dawn stood fidgeting with her arm. Behind the table was a computer station that rivaled NASA’s mission control center.
Dawn waived her hand across the table and a hologram of an enormous fortress rose. A wall that appeared to be four hundred feet high surrounded the entire city. The wall was made up of twenty-foot by twenty-foot cement blocks and some type of force field energy shield ran between the blocks. It was a barrier of energy particles that no one could pass through.
Cain’s curiosity got the best of him. He snuck in and stood in the shadows of the entrance. He watched in amazement. The scale of the fortress was staggering. These were IMO plans that he hadn’t been privileged to know.
Dawn waived her hand to the side, and another image arose. She ignored the Director and continued swiping and waving images at an incredible speed.
She’s a robot, the Director thought. “Have you learned all that you came here to learn?”
“I didn’t come here. You brought me here. I see that your technology has made a quantum leap.”
The hologram showed a futuristic unmanned mass transport system and flying vehicles that seemed more like streamlined jet skis.
“This fortress that you’re building, you think that it will keep you safe.”
“It will keep the population safe…”
“Keep the population safe?”
“Every ruler wants to keep their people safe,” the Director exclaimed.
Cain thought the Director was being very careful with her words.
“Hmmm… The same people that you’ve been poisoning?”
“Excuse me?” k`1`2
“You’ve been poisoning them for decades through the water, foods, cosmetics, medicines… Killing them off as you saw fit. You could cure their diseases; instead you let them die.”
Cain leaned in closer noticing the even tone of Dawn’s voice.
“This government and the one before it has done what was best for its people,” the Director defensively replied.
“Your government decided on which segment of society it wanted to reduce and then poisoned them accordingly.”
“Are you saying that we’ve committed genocide?”
“I’m saying that you developed cures. However, you cared more about profits than helping humankind. To profit millions of dollars from the cure, you had to see that a large enough percentage of society contracted the illness. Much of this was done through vaccinations, then toiletries and surprisingly scented candles. Very impressive.”
Cain didn’t realize that he was slowly shaking his head. Years ago, there were rumors about building materials causing illness, but scented candles? He almost laughed at the thought. And what did she mean? She’s accusing the government of choosing populations of people they wanted to poison and kill off?
“Then your greed really kicked in. You realized how much could be made if you didn’t provide the cure. Instead, you would receive millions donated each year for research and millions of dollars for the treatments produced by your pharmaceutical company.”
The Director slammed her hand down on the table and started to interject, “How dare y—”
“Providing cures would collapse the medical system that your family largely owned. Yes, I know who you are,” Dawn continued. “You did provide the cure to a select few who had the millions of dollars to meet your price. Their healing was proclaimed a ‘miracle.’
Your government kept society blinded to its real plans by steering their focus. You used the media, television, and social media to keep society infatuated with monetary success and material possessions. Focus was placed on sex, body image, debt, extraneous political issues, racial divide…. Shall I go on?”
Dawn focused on one section of the hologram and studied the skyways that attached the buildings of the fortress. She didn’t wait for a reply. “These were just distractions while you worked out your true agenda.”
“Which is?” the Director asked.
Dawn tapped a building on the hologram and an image of a lab moved forward and rotated one hundred eighty degrees.
“Your definition of an ideal. A genetically superior society under your full control.”
The Director started to say something but paused. “You think we are your enemy, but we are not. We can be allies—”
“Your trust is in power and war,” said Dawn. “Your army will fail you.”
“You don’t know my army. In fact, my army should be arriving here any minute with what’s left of your friends. Maybe then you will be more inclined to work with us.”
More like work for us, Cain thought.
Dawn began to walk towards the open panel to exit the room. “We have nothing more to talk about. And, your army—they’re already dead.”
At the open panel, Dawn reached her arm out into the shadow and touched the right side of Cain’s forehead. “Remember,” she whispered.
13
The cargo trucks traveled toward Interstate 95 South, making their way out of the city. The backs of the trucks were covered in green canvas so that no one could see inside. They had no trouble moving throughout the city because they were in IMO vehicles. No one would bother a convoy of military vehicles without suffering the consequences. Any IMO police on patrol would assume that they were on special assignment.
In the back of the last truck, Darryl sat next to the young soldier. He was still in a state of shock. “What was that?” he asked. “It was like zombie apocalypse in there.”
“Oh yeah? Did they look like zombies to you?” Darryl asked.
The soldier shook his head.
“They weren’t zombies,” Darryl stated, peering through a gap in the canvas of the cargo truck.
“Then what?”
“Something much worse.”
Darryl examined the young soldier. He wasn’t sure that they should have brought him along. Although, if they hadn’t, he was certain to have met the same fate as the rest of his team. There’s no better time than the present, Darryl thought. “So, what were your orders back there?”
The young soldier stared at the floor. “To capture you and bring you in alive for questioning.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Something about you guys being enemies of the nation. Am I your prisoner?”
“You were a prisoner long before you came across us, and you didn’t even know it. No.”
The young soldier looked at him quizzically and breathed a sigh of relief. “Who are these people?” he asked while pointing his thumb behind him toward the front of the truck.
“I don’t know. They sure aren’t the IMO.
”
“No, they aren’t.”
“I believe they were sent to rescue us.”
“By your leader?”
“By our protector.”
Seth wasn’t sure who these people were, but he didn’t think it a fluke that they arrived just in time to rescue them. He massaged his forearm; his muscles ached.
“Quick, put this on,” the driver said as he tossed him a black IMO combat uniform shirt and cap.
Seth followed his gaze. There was an IMO barricade a couple of blocks ahead of them. He quickly dressed.
A soldier approached as the truck came to a stop.
“Field medics transporting wounded soldiers from the counter attack, sir,” said the driver.
“There’s been a counter attack?”
“Yes, sir. You guys need to get in there. It’s a total battlefield.”
“Don’t I know you from somewhere, soldier?”
“I’ve seen you on base, sir.”
“Why hasn’t anyone radioed for help?”
“Our boys are capable, but there may not be anyone left to radio, sir.”
The soldier eyed the driver. As he was about to speak, the explosives that Seth had attached at the back door of the building went off.
“Holy crap,” the soldier yelled as smoke plowed through the area. “Get an update from Coronel Mitchum,” he yelled behind him as he waved for their trucks to be let through the barrier.
As they drove around the corner, the driver gave a sigh of relief. “Whew, that was close. They must have been trying to catch any of you that made a run for it from the building.”
Seth glanced over at him. “I’m Seth.”
“I know.” the driver smiled.
“How?” asked Seth.
“Because you were the leader. She said that you were second-in-command and would be leading them.”
Seth pointed at his chest. “Me?” He shook his head. “I’m not second-in-command. I’m over the Stabilizers.”
“It was you that got them out of there. Did you leave anyone behind?” The driver glanced down at the blood-stained cloth wrapped around Seth’s hands.
“I would have given my life for them,” Seth responded.
He patted Seth on the shoulder. “You, my friend, are a natural born leader. Dawn saw it in you. Like she said, you are second-in-command, an Ascendant, and I am over the Stabilizers.”
“How did you know to come for us?”
“We received a transmission from Dawn an hour ago stating that we needed to get to Alpha House for pickup.”
“You mean Dawn’s okay? She’s alive?”
“Of course.”
“But we saw—”
“Friend, in this day and time, don’t trust anything that you see. Everything’s an illusion.”
The driver removed the black IMO cap that he had been wearing. Seth stared at him.
“Hey, aren’t you that singer? Raymond?”
Raymond shrugged and sighed, “Yeah, before the day of awakening we were a lot of things.”
They drove along in silence for a while, both remembering the world before that day. Seth broke the silence. “So, what’s your story Ray? Mr. six Grammy having…”
Raymond smiled. “Hater. If you’re going to state facts, get it right. Eight Grammys,” he laughed. “You first. How did she find you?”
Seth thought for a moment. This is the question we all ask each other. We all want to hear about each other’s jaw dropping encounter with Dawn that changed our lives.
“It was after the day of awakening. The IMO had already outlawed any type of group gathering, but we ignored it. We should have taken them seriously. We were in the practice room of the concert hall at the university. I had been directing the choir in rehearsal. We were preparing for a revival.”
“A revival? After the day of awakening?”
Seth nodded. “Yeah, we thought we could pull it off. People were searching and starting to believe. We were trying to reach whoever we could.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, we were a bit overzealous. Let’s see… We were practicing an old song by Hezekiah Walker. It was fitting because everyone had already lost so much. We were all still in a state of shock.” He thought out loud, “It’s funny how when you start talking about something from your past, you begin to remember things you hadn’t thought about in years. I just remembered the smell of the rehearsal room.”
“True.”
“The song was ummmm…” He tapped his forehead. “Oh yeah, ‘How Much We Can Bare.’ We put our own funky modern twist on it.” he laughed to himself.
“I remember that one. You guys went way back. You play keys?”
“Yeah.”
“Wouldn’t you guys be heard?”
“No, the room was soundproof.”
“Let me stop interrupting. Go on.”
“Dawn burst through the door yelling, ‘Who’s in charge here?! Who’s in charge?!’ No one answered. Seventy people in there and she walks up to me and asks if I’m in charge. I nodded, speechless, because I didn’t know what was going on and because—Can I be honest?”
“Please,” Raymond said.
“She was hot.”
They both laughed.
“‘You have to get out of here. The IMO is coming to arrest everyone,’ she said. They all began running for the exit, almost trampling each other. She touched my arm and said, ‘This way.’ I yelled for everyone to take the back door with us, but they were already running in a panic.
I don’t know why, but I followed her. We came around to the other side of the hallway that the others were racing down. Everyone charged down the stairs. She grabbed my shoulder and said, ‘Follow me.’ I watched this woman leap over the banister and drop down to the banister below it. At first I was like, ‘Are you nuts? I can’t do that!’ But I did it. I climbed over the banister, hung over the edge, and mustered up the courage to let go. I could drop down to each level just as she did, but it wasn’t me. There was a force that was almost catching me each time that I dropped. When we reached the bottom, the IMO were coming through the front double doors gathering up the group. We escaped through the back door.”
“Did she ever tell you what made her come there to warn you or why you?”
“She said that she was sent there to save all who would follow. There were two of us who responded to the call, so to speak.”
“What happened to the ones that were captured?”
Seth stared out of the passenger window. “You know what happened to them.”
Raymond nodded.
Seth removed the IMO gear he had been wearing. “Wait, can you still dance like that?”
“Dude, really? That’s what you’re thinking about right now?”
If they had been at home Raymond would have had him in a headlock. They were instant friends, more like brothers. It’s rare, but sometimes you meet a person and you connect. It’s like you have known them your whole life.
“You’re a lot shorter than you look on television,” Seth laughed and then abruptly stopped. He realized that he hadn’t seen Jade board the last truck after helping the others in.
Jade had that way about her. She would often slip away without the others noticing. This wasn’t the time for one of her disappearing acts. They could have her.
Ray noticed pain creep up on Seth’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“Stop the truck.”
Raymond radioed the other three cargo trucks and they all pulled over. He and Seth grabbed their rifles and jumped down out of the truck. “Hurry,” Ray said. “We need to keep moving.”
Juan jumped down from the back of the second truck. “Que paso? Why are we stopping?”
“Just checking on everyone,” Seth said.
They ran to the back of each truck and searched for Jade. Upon reaching the fourth truck, Seth held his breath. He lifted the green flap of canvas and peered in. His eyes darted back and forth across each face.
“Doc, is the
re anyone behind you?
“No.” she replied.
Seth felt as if a dagger had just gone through his heart. Jade wasn’t in any of the trucks. He placed his hand on his forehead and spun around. No man left behind, he chanted in his head. No man left behind.
They had stopped at an intersection. He looked down each street as if he expected Jade to appear. Raymond looked too. Seth turned and faced his new friend, who sighed and held out his right hand. “Second-in-command just like she said.”
Seth shook Ray’s hand and wrapped his left arm around Ray’s right shoulder slapping him on the back. Ray handed Seth his rifle, and, without saying another word, turned and ran back to his truck. Seth watched the four IMO cargo trucks roll away until he couldn’t see them anymore.
If Jade was alive, he would find her.
14
The Director watched as Dawn walked out of the office, her anger rising by the second. Why are my security officers just standing there? What did she do to them? Where is Cain? She walked along the side of the table where Dawn had stood and tried to gather her thoughts.
How do you react when someone stands before you and tells all your secrets, not to mention the government’s top secrets that few of those at the top of the organization even knew?
She wasn’t proud of all that she or her family had done but she had sacrificed more than anyone would know to become a Director of the International Military Order. It was the equivalent of being the president of the United States except that the United States no longer existed. Now there was only North America, and she ruled over all of it. She had a plan and was prepared to make even more sacrifices to become Empress of the IMO, ruling over all continents. There was just one person that stood in her way.
She touched her earpiece. “Send more security and get me Coronel Mitchum.”
“Director we have been trying to contact you, but there has been too much interference in the signal. Coronel Mitchum’s whole platoon is gone.”