by Gary Sapp
and valor as his men had taken scores of Blackstreet with them into eternity. More importantly, Penrose’s men had eliminated a handful of snipers that had been casing two buildings from above. Rohm had been wrong—thankfully—about other APD battalions’ merging with this one. In fact, Serena was more than happy to tell Shooter that they’d overestimated their enemy’s numbers and organizational capacity period.
Or perhaps they were more effective as the aggressor where they could use emotion and sense of purpose to drive an enemy out…but lacked the direction and aptitude to wage a defensive campaign against the likes of Pandora.
But finishing what they had started wouldn’t be easy.
Serena’s forces had met resistance from an unexpected source: A group of civilians who had called themselves the Book Worms. Their numbers were around 20 and they were former librarians who had banded together to defend the building and street from any and all comers. They were far from efficient with their attack and disorganized and lacked proper training. But Serena admired their gall and their courage.
It was an honor to order her people to kill them all.
By the time they’d reached the zone of Peachtree, Serena’s people were tired and they had a limited amount of ammunition and supplies. And yet, not only was Blackstreet surprised at Pandora’s initial counter attack, they were caught completely by surprise when Serena’s supportive cell came out firing with all guns.
And then Serena made the most difficult order of them all.
Xavier Prince, the Circle and the Peacekeepers had taught Serena and her Pandora associates a valuable lesson during their outlandish missions in the operation that they had called Scar.
They had taught Serena that there were no lines that were beyond not being crossed in the effort to win a war.
And if Xavier’s people could kill civilians in unpresented numbers using an unpresented and crude manner—
She could surely order her people to respond in kind.
So three of your junior operatives sprinted towards Blackstreet’s final stronghold of nearly 12 to 15 officers and ignited the explosives on their chest as both men and structures exploded in a fiery hell storm worthy of Serena’s Dragon.
Serena smile faded as soon as she looked behind her.
Danielle Rohm had been shot.
Serena fired off two or three more rounds as Blackstreet stragglers who had tried to outflank her people from the rear. Oracle was more frantic than she would have ever thought as she rushed over to the area where Shooter was nearly flat on her back.
She did calm her breathing with some effort when she arrived to where the woman in black was lying.
Honestly, after a second and then a third glance, Rohm looked to have suffered more than a flesh wound in her side as the bullet had went in and then immediately had passed through and out of her. When Rohm had actually mouthed the words that she was okay it caused Serena to breathe even easier. The man who had taken over for Penrose sprinted over to where the two women were and asked for permission to retake the building that would serve as a Pandora command center for as long as they held this zone. Serena happily gave him that order.
Twenty more minutes and this battle was all over.
Serena Tennyson commanded Rohm to seek medical attention for her wounds no matter how minor she thought they were, as well as the other dozen or so operatives that had various injuries like the one Rohm had suffered through to more life threating ones.
Then Serena walked with a hand full of her victorious operatives inside their old new home to inventory what weapons and information that the APD battalion had left behind.
They had completed their mission.
They had retaken the zone.
She gave her next command: She instructed two operatives to begin to access the damage to the computers that they’d set up and to get the communications array operational once again to that they could get back in contact with other Pandora cells throughout the city and beyond. Louis Keaton’s whereabouts was the obvious top priority. She wanted to know if he and those boys had cleared the mountain retreat or not.
Again, Pandora had learned from the Circles ’deviousness. They had released their own suicide agents into the field. The gloves had indeed come off.
But.
But if she thought all was lost and she were to unleash the fiery inferno upon the city…Oracle’s vision of the Whirlwind, Serena wanted to be absolutely certain that events had left her with no other choice—
And then Serena heard Rohm screams above the cries many others.
Serena ran out of the building as fast as her long legs would carry her.
And then she saw it.
It looked as if an entire acre of land had disappeared that was a part of historic Peachtree street as the earth had opened up—and a gigantic sinkhole had taken its place.
She carefully but quickly worked her way to the top of it ignoring the pleas from her subordinates not to venture down below.
Serena didn’t lower herself down…what she saw below her…told her that it was far too late to help anyone who’d fallen into the sinkhole.
Danielle Rohm’s body was torn, twisted and broken unlike any human body Serena Tennyson had ever seen before.
Serena leaned over the edge just enough so she could wipe the dirt and tears from Shooter’s eyes.
Those eyes…Danielle Rohm’s nearly lifeless eyes fixed themselves on Serena above her.
Serena told her stupidly that it was all okay; she told her that she would be okay. She didn’t bother checking on the other operatives whose bodies were just as torn, twisted and broken as Rohm’s. Most of their fates were already sealed. Rohm lived on. For a few seconds that she had left, Rohm lived on.
Rohm reached her hand up until Serena leaned over further and grasped it with her own.
Danielle Rohm, the Shooter, the woman who all dressed in black could only whisper what she meant to say.
She told Serena something that she would always remember.
And then she told her something that she would never forget.
And then the young woman died a painful, agonizing death.
And Serena Tennyson found herself orphaned once again.
Seth
The Georgia Dome’s Westside Club Section had served at a triage center of operations even before the earthquake had hit the city.
It wasn’t designed for this. It was massively understaffed and the refugees kept pouring in not only from Metro Atlanta, but from rural Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama in search of medical attention, food, water, and a place of safe refuge.
It would have to do until something like that could be provided.
Dr. Seth Dupree was more than thrilled to be helping others inside its walls however. It had seemed as if it had been forever since he’d what he’d actually been trained to do—surgery.
It wasn’t actually. He’d performed two minor and one major procedure with the late Denise Prince assisting during the Carver mess. He had to laugh inwardly; he thought at that time that the Peacekeepers siege on that housing project had been the single biggest farce of his life.
Oh how much of the world—and his opinion—had changed since then.
He looked at the clock. He’d been working for what…four procedures and 12 hours straight since he’d found his way here via one of the few operating Marta’s in the city. Two other members of his original team had been killed in separate incidents since the Zero Hour’s inception. A stray bullet had taken one; the after effect of the earthquake had claimed the other. And yet, these people who he’d never worked with now were excellent and professional and dedicated to their craft despite the many different things that had befallen them and their families over the past days.
The emergency lights flickered off and then on again.
“Teresa,” Seth hoped that was the name of the young woman who smelled of body wash. “Get that electrical crew up here again. We can’t risk having these power fluctuations’, especially right n
ow.”
“I did earlier, Doctor, just before—“
“Do it again, please. We either need consistent lighting from the primary systems that they set up or they need to concentrate their efforts on getting the damned battery backups going. I know that this triage center was originally designed to function from surface level. I know that our little groundbreaking event has made that design less than palpable. We’ve got to make what we have work for us. If I remember in our training that they should have designed the electrical systems to bypass primary conduits and piggyback directly off of the Georgia Dome’s secondary power grid.” He stopped the surgery and talking a moment to catch his breath. “We should have at least three more hours before all these primary systems shut themselves down. That increases the risk to what we are doing here. I’m not going to lose any patients because of loss of power at a critical juncture.”
“Alright, Doctor, I’ll head right over to their holding area.”
“Good, you do that. And Teresa,” Seth replied as she turned around with the door handle in her hand.
“Tell them not to have me to have to come up there. I can be a very dangerous man when I want to be.”
Seth’s sly attempt at humor brought a smile to the young woman’s face. Two other nurses laughed out loud and Seth’s one moment of lightheartedness had relieved much of the tension in the room that he himself probably was responsible for creating.
And yet the chemical release that laughter had provided had only served to tire him out further.
He shook off his weariness and threw