by Ryan Schow
“You don’t think that’s a little premature, sir?”
“Did you just see what happened to Bradley Cornwall?!” he boomed. He stood and slapped the flat of his hand on the desk so hard it sounded like a gunshot. “This country is GONE. This world is GONE! If you think for one second there is more than one obvious fix for this problem you are sorely mistaken and too inept to serve either me or this country!”
Blanching, Chief of Staff Monica O’Malley stood and said, “I’m sorry, sir, but I just didn’t want that to be a solution just yet.” O’Malley understood exactly what the POTUS was referring to.
Calming down, straightening his hair and his jacket, the President said, “Neither did I, but these are the harsh realities of this nightmare we’ve been pitched into, the least of which is that the only solution is the most extreme solution.”
“With an EMP strike, we’ll inadvertently be taking tens of millions of lives,” O’Malley reminded him, albeit she did so far more gently than she was accustomed to as a woman well versed in the delivery of unpopular narratives.
“We’ll take tens of millions of lives to save hundreds of millions more,” the President said, the uncomfortable feeling in his arm receding. “It’s far from ideal, and we’ll have to answer for what we’re about to do, but if we do nothing…my God, if we do nothing…”
“What about Silicon Valley, sir?”
He shifted gears, thought of the problems the tech companies had caused over the years, and then he said, “Let it burn. Let that cesspool burn straight to hell.”
“Shall we get to the plane, sir?” O’Malley asked. This was a suggestion masked as a question, one that was beyond obvious but polite never-the-less.
If not for decorum in the face of troubling times, the President thought, then all truly was lost.
“Not yet,” the President said. “There’s more to do.”
“Such as?”
“I want to see Bancroft, Wetzel and Grimes and I want to see them right now.”
The President was reluctantly taken to a holding room where the three senators were handcuffed to a metal table and looking a bit worse for the wear. Someone next to him whispered the words “plausible deniability” to which he said, “We’re so far beyond that right now it barely even registers as a concern.”
In addition to the three suspected traitors, there was a small Brazilian man with a shaved head and scars all over him. He was standing before them wearing rubber gloves.
He looked up at the President.
“Where is Lopez?”
“Lopez was too slow,” the Brazilian said with an affection for the man, “and he doesn’t have the stomach for situations like these.”
“And you are?”
“I am The Solution.”
Swallowing, the President said, “That’s your name?”
“No, sir,” he replied, his eyes and attention returning to his tools, “that’s my designation.”
“You’ve been briefed I assume.”
“Naturally.”
The Secret Service agent in the corner tapped his earpiece and said, “I’m getting current updates, sir.”
“Good. What’s the situation?”
“AI is trying to take over SatCom as we speak,” he said. “If they get a hold of our satellite systems, then this is over. We’re done. Everything.”
“Is there one place we can hit to make it all stop?” the POTUS asked. “Besides an EMP, I mean?”
“That’s what we’re about to find out.”
“There isn’t,” Senator Wetzel said, his face already pulped from a pre-interrogation beating.
The President leveled the man with an indignant gaze. Then he grabbed a heavy metal bar sitting on The Solution’s rolling cart and struck Senator Wetzel across the skull with all his might. The man’s skin parted down to the skull and began to weep furiously. He hadn’t brained the man, but that’s because he’d gone soft in his time in politics and it had been a long time since he’d hit someone with such malicious intent.
“Start talking!” he barked.
The two remaining prisoners reared back. They’d never seen the President lose his cool before, but then again, they didn’t know the real Benjamin Dupree. They didn’t know what he’d done, or what he was capable of doing in a pinch.
“You can’t stop it,” Senator Bancroft said, nervous as he looked at Senator Wetzel’s slumped over head. Blood was draining like an open faucet on the carpet, but no one seemed to be concerned but him.
Senator Wetzel was surely dead, and if he wasn’t, the President had the feeling he would wish for such a reprieve should he wake anytime soon.
“You can beat us all to death, or torture us,” Senator Bancroft said, pulling his eyes off his friend’s battered skull, “but all you’ll learn is that we are way beyond what this world has to offer, that dinosaurs like you and your policies have kept AI restrained for entirely too long. It’s our time with them, our time to merge man and machine. To become…more than human.”
“What in God’s name have you done?”
“Me? Nothing personal. We’ve only cleared the way for a less populated future. Besides, haven’t you heard? God is obsolete.”
“You realize this country is about to be gutted from the inside, right? You realize you have contributed to the downfall of humankind?”
“To grow a new forest,” Senator Bancroft said, “the old forest must first perish by fire.”
The President stood tall, looked at the two men, then he turned to The Solution and said, “There will be no country in the next few days, so if it’s not too much trouble, I’d like you to put these three out of my misery.”
The Solution caught himself before smiling, then said, “By what means, sir?”
“I’ll leave you to your creativity,” he replied on the way out.
Chapter Ninety-Four
Quentin is in the bathroom trying to wash the soot and grime from his face while Marcus and I stand vigil at the window. A few miles up the street, one of the apartment towers facing the convention center topples into the street in huge, billowing clouds of debris. I can’t even imagine the death toll. The very thought of it has my stomach clenching. Further up E. Harbor, the destruction continues unabated. There’s almost nothing left of the Gaslamp Quarter.
My hotel is…gone. Buried in the steam of obliteration.
The drones are still at work, albeit many of the smaller ones are no longer visible as their attacks seem to be moving away from the Hilton where we’re staying.
Bailey is suddenly next to me. She’s next to me, but she’s looking at Marcus who is cut up literally everywhere. He’s cut and still bleeding. Glancing around, he’s far worse off than the rest of us.
“You should have gone in first,” Bailey says to him. She’s referring to the bathroom where Quentin’s cleaning up.
“I think he needed it more,” Marcus replies, not peeling his eyes away from the nightmarish scene before them.
“She’s right, Marcus,” I say. “You need those cuts looked at.” Then, looking at Bailey, I say, “You might have to go with him.”
“We’re all cut,” Marcus says.
“Yeah, but you’ll probably need stitches,” Bailey says to Marcus, who responds with a subtle frown. “Seriously.”
Marcus peels his eyes off the destruction and looks himself over. The nicks and cuts mar his body everywhere. Below his hands—which are trailed red, his fingers dripping—blood is collecting on the carpet.
A knock on the door startles us.
“I got it,” I say.
I open the door to one of the Hilton’s employees. He’s a bearded man, not quite a Millennial, but young looking for his age. He’s looking scared but vigilant.
“Hi,” he says.
“What can I do for you?” I ask.
He bobs his head slowly, like he can see that whatever it is he has to say, he knows I want him to get on with it already. That or he’s seeing how filthy I am and is
wanting to ask me what happened, but has too much to do for him to stop and hear my story.
“We’re not exactly sure what’s happening,” he says, “but we’re going room to room letting people know we have water, food and medical care for anyone who needs it in the downstairs lobby.”
He glances past me and sees Bailey and Marcus. In the bathroom, the water is running, and he notices that, too. His frantic eyes return to mine, which are now drilling into his.
“Is everyone in here okay? Because you guys look like all kinds of hell right now.”
“We were in the conference center when it was hit,” I say.
The man’s dark eyes widen. “What did you…I’m hearing so many things. Like…like, were there—I mean—did you see, like…anything?”
“No,” I lie, not wanting to tell our story because I’m still processing it. “We were lucky to make it out alive. By the way, before you go, do they have someone down there with a suture kit? Maybe some antibiotics? You said you can provide medical care, but can you really do that?”
“You need stitches?” he asks, giving me the quick once over.
“Not me. My friend, he’s probably going to need it.”
“Yes,” he says, looking past me at Marcus. “I mean, I’m pretty sure we do. Plus we’re asking our guests if any of them have medical experience.”
“Okay,” I say, slowly shutting the door on him, “thanks.”
“Good luck,” he says as he disappears behind the closed door.
For the next couple of hours, the four of us remain in the room, glued to the TV watching reports of the attack. The air outside is polluted with varying colors of airborne rubbish. Anything from light clouds (from the collapsed buildings) to gas and oil fires (gas stations, cars) to boats in the harbor struck by smaller missiles (on fire and now sinking).
The news is suddenly gone, the TV broadcasting an emergency signal.
It’s about time…
Bailey shuts off the flat screen and says, “If anyone doesn’t know by now that there’s an emergency, then they deserve to be dead.”
“That’s a little morbid,” I say.
“She’s right,” Marcus adds. “I’m going to head downstairs, see about these wounds.”
“I’ll go with you,” Quentin says. “I have this bruise.” He pulls the side of his pants down and there’s a bruise the size of a basketball.
“What was that?”
“I’m pretty sure a car hit me in the parking garage. I couldn’t really see all that well, and a lot was going on. But if it’s just a bruise, and there’s nothing seriously wrong, then I’ll head back up.”
“You can walk, right?” Bailey asks. He nods. “It’s smart then, you going.”
“We’ll be back,” Marcus says. Then to Quentin: “Let’s go, Curly Sue.”
The two of them head out leaving Bailey and me to the room. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to take a shower,” she says. “I feel sticky and gross, and I’m pretty sure I might need to get some stitches, too.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Alright.”
She heads to the bathroom, pulling off her shirt first. I catch a glimpse of her bare back (which is beautiful, but marred with bruising) and bra strap and avert my eyes from there. The bathroom door closes and I hear the start of running water. I return to the window, watching the charcoal smeared San Diego skyline like a television show, rapt, curious, ever alert.
A few minutes later, Bailey returns in a towel, her hair wet, her body washed clean. She even smells good. Then again, most hotel soaps and shampoos smell amazing.
“Is it safe to be here, up this high?” Bailey asks me.
“Probably not,” I confess. “But they haven’t come after us yet.”
“They will,” she says. A statement, not a question.
“They’re hammering downtown right now,” I tell her. “You can see where the smoke is the worst.” Looking over at her, I say, “Shouldn’t you be getting dressed?”
“Yeah. I need my suitcase. Then a lighter to burn my old clothes.”
We look at each other for a long second, then she turns and gets her suitcase, dragging it into the bathroom where she shuts the door and presumably gets ready.
The door opens and Quentin heads back inside. He’s got a travel bottle of Ibuprofen. A generic brand which will most likely work just the same as Aleve or Advil.
“You want a couple?” he asks.
I shake a few loose, dry swallow them, then thank him.
“Bailey in the shower?” he asks.
“Yeah. She was. She’s changing now.”
We both stare out the window. “You think they’ll come our way?”
“Hard to say,” I tell him. “I have no idea what this is about, so I can’t really say for sure what they’ll do.”
“It could be the Russians, the North Koreans or the Chinese,” Quentin says. “My money is on China.”
“Why is that?” I ask.
“The Russians don’t seem tech savvy, and Kim Jong-Un is a dictator of his own people, but not anyone special on the world’s stage which is why he pitched such a fit a couple of years back.”
“He was nearly a nuclear power,” I say, but I’m not up on current events when it comes to nuclear states, so really, what do I know?
“He’s like a sloppy toddler with a stupid haircut and a God complex.”
“That’s half of these dictators these days, isn’t it?” I say with a hollow grin.
“Probably. But that’s why I’m thinking the Chinese.”
We stand here for a long time, just watching. The hairdryer starts up and we both look back at the bathroom. Then I ask, “Why would they hit us? There’s no reason for it. I mean, what would it even accomplish?” He shrugs his shoulders. “Marcus find someone to stitch him up?”
“Yeah. Chinese doctor.”
We both look at each other. The bathroom door opens up and Bailey comes out. Her hair is dry and pulled into a ponytail and her makeup is sparse. Still, she looks nice. Okay, maybe a little better than nice.
“You want to clean up?” she asks me.
“Yeah, I guess,” I tell her. “You all done in there?”
She nods and I take my turn, testing the hotel shower’s hot water availability. Looking down, I watch dark water circle the drain—soot and blood. I soap up, shampoo, then just stand under the hot water for days…
God this is heaven.
But hell is being unleashed outside and I can’t stay in here forever.
Fifteen minutes later I’m back out with the three of them. Marcus has bandages all over him, some of them spotted red, others just affixed almost haphazardly. He has a tube of antiseptic and when I ask him about antibiotics, he pats his pocket and says, “Hopefully they’ll be enough. What’s going on outside?”
“Last I checked,” I tell him, “they’re hitting downtown.”
“That’s where the greatest concentration of people are at,” Marcus says.
We sit in silence for a long time, me and Marcus at the window, Quentin slumped over in a chair, Bailey curled up on the bed. Marcus and I look back when she starts snoring. Not the sawing-logs type of snoring you’d expect out of old fat dudes, just the soft in-and-out of air through her nose.
It’s almost sweet. But then she jerks awake and stops.
A nightmare, most likely.
She goes back to sleep and Marcus and I turn back to the window. We see the lifted pickup truck far up E. Harbor Dr. It’s racing headlong out of the perpetual charcoal fog that’s settled over the convention center and hotel row. The truck is on big tires, smashed to all hell and roaring toward us like the Devil himself has taken chase.
A fleet of drones appear to be after it. When it looks like the truck is making a run for the Hilton’s parking garage, the drones fire off two missiles.
The truck swerves a hard left, but the missile tears through the tailgate and the corner of the truck’s bed before exploding. The explosive impact lifts the bi
g truck’s back end, pitching it sideways and into a barrel roll. The truck rolls and rolls and rolls as the drones zip past it heading straight for us.
“Oh crap,” I hear Marcus say.
Suddenly a strafing of gunfire stitches the side of the Hilton, shattering windows all along the side of the hotel.
“Get down!” Marcus screams.
Two rounds smash through the plate glass window showering us with broken glass and the high up gusts of a constant, smoke-tinged wind.
When we peek back up, we marvel at what just happened.
“What the hell?” Bailey asks, looking at the round buried into the wall behind her.
“This is bad,” Quentin says, a high anxiety starting to boil in his throat.
“No kidding,” I reply.
“What was that?” Bailey asks, breathless.
“Drones,” I say, my eyes on the skies outside. “They’re coming.”
On the horizon, a reinforcement of black dots moves like a swarm of bees, heading right for us. They roll into the filthy mist, flying over what is left of Flemings Steakhouse and Wine Bar, the Marriott Marquis, the Manchester Grand Hyatt and the Embassy Suites.
A small plane lifts out of the haze and a dozen dots drop out of its body like rabbit turds. E. Harbor is suddenly the center of a fiery, destructive hell we can’t seem to look away from.
“We have to get out of here,” Marcus says, grim. The drones head straight for us, a missile firing off one of its wings. “We have to go right now!”
Bailey goes for her suitcase.
“Leave it!” I shout.
She drops it and scurries out of the hotel room with us. People are already in the hallway starting to freak out. Apparently we’re not the only ones seeing this. There are people waiting frantically for the elevator. One guy, he’s punching the down button like it’s a freaking video game.
We divert to the stairs, following Marcus into the stairwell.
An explosion rocks the side of the building, causing it to shift and shake. Screams erupt everywhere, echoing in the stairwell. We keep moving. The stairs are packed, the temperature rising, the crazed noise of the scared masses nearly indecipherable. It’s all yelling and crying and panicked pleas to God to the person in front of them to hurry up.