Anarchy Chained: Alpha Thomas

by JA Huss

  We both take a moment to appreciate the joke.

  We made it. They threw everything they had at us, and we made it.

  I turn both of us around and look at my friends. Case is healed already. Lincoln looks charged with adrenaline and satisfaction as he looks around the city.

  “It’s not exactly how we planned it, is it?”

  “No,” Case laughs. “Not exactly.”

  “There’s still time,” Sheila says. “The program is still running. I made the necessary adjustments. They didn’t mess with it.”

  “You mean couldn’t mess with it,” Lincoln sneers. “I made that shit bulletproof.”

  “Where’s Iziah?” Sadie asks.

  “Over here,” he calls. He’s standing over Randy Shits’ body, tugging on his shirt. He takes a knife out of his pocket and starts cutting it off, then holds it up for us all to see.

  “Anarchy,” I say.

  “Anarchy,” Case and Linc repeat.

  “It belongs to us, motherfuckers.”

  “You ready then, asshole?” Lincoln asks me. “Finish what we started and all that good shit?”

  I take one more look around the city. Remember it the way it was.

  It was nice, once. The unknown voice inside my head is back.

  Yeah. I think it probably was. But it’s not now.

  No, she agrees.

  Thanks, Yasmine.

  You knew?

  No. But I figured out just now. I’d know you anywhere. But what I don’t understand is… why you helped me break free. Especially after I killed you back at the hospital.

  Because, dear Thomas, there’s a saying that goes a little something like this: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

  Are we enemies? I ask.

  Until death do us part.

  She fades away after that. I don’t know where they go when they leave me. The dead memories. And I don’t know if that’s all they are. Just memories. If she was just a memory she’d be no help at all. Maybe I’m just insane. Maybe I’ve been chained to the anarchy in my head for so long, I don’t know the difference anymore. Or maybe I just need to get used to the fact that I’m whole again.

  At any rate, Sadie and I follow Linc, Iziah, and Case over to the warehouse where Sheila and the little helicopter are waiting on the roof. We take the stairs up, slowly, since I’m definitely in need of a nanite upgrade, then pile in. Linc and Case are up front. Iziah and I are squished into the back, and Sadie sits on my lap.

  All five of us look down on our city as we ascend into the sky to wait things out up in the mountains, wondering what will happen when our plan finally takes hold.

  People start to wake up. Just like last time when the Red Robber had Case in his grips. At least that threat is over.

  No more Blue Boar.

  No more Red Robber.

  But Prodigy… yeah, those motherfuckers are still out there. But in a few days, it will be impossible to hide from the justice we’ve unleashed on Cathedral City.

  EPILOGUE - THOMAS

  “Welcome to the show, Mr. Brooks. I’m sorry you couldn’t be here in person, but we’ll take a satellite feed if we must.” The reporter smiles at me. “As long as we don’t lose transmission.”

  Haha. Funny. Don’t quit the day job, honey.

  Be nice, Sullivan, I chastise him. “No chance of that, Miss Manchen,” I growl out. “SkyEye is the most reliable service this city has ever seen.”

  I give her the creeps because she leans back in her chair at my dangerous tone. Creeping is my main superpower and I like it. So I’m keeping it.

  She clears her throat and says, “The whole city’s wondering just what it is you’ve unleashed on us. Can you explain it a little better? We’ve all watched the statement you gave earlier this week, but still…” She cocks her head. “It’s so… weird.”

  “Is it weird?” I ask her back. “Is it really? I mean, in my mind, it’s just the next logical technological step.”

  “But I think everyone was under the impression SkyEye and ToyBox were developing a… kind of virtual reality game. Something educational. Something that involves the history of the city.”

  “Well,” I say, smiling. “I think if you look closely, you’ll see that’s exactly what we’ve done.”

  “You think this is a game?” she asks, her tone incredulous.

  “Why not? It’s got all the makings of a game.”

  She huffs out some air, ready to be a little more confrontational. I bet she’s thankful for this satellite feed now. Makes her feel brave to have creepy me on the other side of the screen and not sitting four feet away. “It’s an invasion of privacy.”

  “Is it?” I ask again. “Is it really? I mean, we didn’t force people to buy the ToyBox console. Or the SpyGlass tablets. Or the glasses.”

  “But you did give the phones away for free.” She raises an eyebrow at me. Like she’s about to get the upper hand.

  She’s not. “We did. After the district attorney hacked into the banks, shut down the power, contaminated the power plant, and blew up all the city’s cell towers. How could I not give them away, Miss Manchen? How? I’d be a heartless bastard if I didn’t come to the rescue of Cathedral City. I love this place. Dearly. It’s my home. The only home I’ve ever had. The only home I will ever have. I’m just trying to take care of it and the free sat phones were just the first step. I have many plans for this city. I’ve just begun to leave my mark.”

  Just the first step in our little coup d’état, you mean?

  Shut up, Sullivan. But I like having him around. He’s funny. And cool. And easy-going. Which means I’m all these things too. At least in private.

  Miss Manchen scowls, undeterred. “So the fact that you had software running on those tablets and consoles, as well as the free phones, that maps every user’s facial characteristics and puts it in a database… that doesn’t bother you?”

  “Why would it? Everyone signed a release. They gave us permission. We’re just trying to do what’s right.”

  “With your game?” she sneers.

  “Well, technically, the game belongs to Case Reider and ToyBox.”

  “Your software then?” She’s losing her cool now.

  “The software belongs to Lincoln Wade and Wade Industries.”

  “So you take no responsibility for what’s happening out there?”

  “Oh, sweetie,” Sullivan interjects, speaking out of my mouth. “We take all the credit.”

  Manchen recoils. “What?”

  “We’re proud of our product, Miss Manchen.” I put my hand out—off camera—and Sadie places a set of SpyGlasses in my palm. I put them on my face and Manchen looks like she’s ready to bolt. But we’re live on air. I told them I’d only do the interview if we were live. And I’d only do it with Manchen.

  Because I know her dirty little past. And everyone else knows it now too.

  That’s what SpyGlasses do. The facial recognition maps everyone who comes into your field of vision, tags them, then displays every piece of dirt Sheila could gather on them. Every newcomer who enters our little city nestled among the tall mountains is also tagged. By license plate as they pass through the tower’s invisible magnetic field. Or through cameras in the bus stations. Or the airport security.

  No one gets through unless they have a tag. If they don’t have a tag… well, that just makes it easier to spot the criminals.

  Manchen gathers herself. Straightens her chin. The dirty deeds she’s done are displayed above her head in red letters. The towers take care of the broadcast. And if people are out of range of the towers and have a SkyEye phone or a SpyGlass tablet, those devices will tag them too.

  Manchen’s secrets are not as bad as some, but we did find a record of her working as a stripper in college. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Manchen probably made a great stripper when she was young.

  “Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people in Cathedral City have been fired from their jobs over this little invasion o
f privacy.”

  “Maybe they deserved to lose their jobs? Ever think of that?”

  “Mr. Brooks. If you’re not socially conscious enough to realize this is indeed an invasion of privacy, then I’m afraid you might not belong here among the citizens of Cathedral City.”

  “Well,” I say. “We’ll have to agree to disagree. I’m not out to invade privacy. That wasn’t our objective. Our objective was to open eyes. And we’ve done that.”

  “To the detriment of society.”

  “Says you,” I reply.

  She shakes her head at me, unable to believe what she’s hearing. “Look,” I say. “Information gives people power. They then use that information to make decisions. Decisions based on fact.”

  “Your facts,” she snaps.

  “My facts are accurate, Miss Manchen. If anyone has a dispute, we have a hotline. And we remove all mistakes from the database.”

  She sighs, clearly done with me. But I’m not done with her. Because she just doesn’t get it.

  “People always say they want the truth, right? Well, here it is. The truth is ugly, Miss Manchen. No one cares if you were a stripper in college.” She gasps, unable to believe that I just went there. But why not? It’s on fucking display everywhere she goes. She can’t turn it off. The only way for people not to see her dirty deeds now is to take the glasses off.

  But it’s all too new. They won’t take them off. Not yet. Not until they’ve had their fill. Not until they feel comfortable with their neighbors, and friends, and bosses again. But one day they might.

  “Life is nothing but one long string of mistakes,” I say. More to the camera than to the reporter. “Everyone makes mistakes.”

  “Yes,” she agrees. “Everyone does. But they shouldn’t have to be reminded of them.”

  “You can’t see your tag unless you look in the mirror wearing the glasses. Don’t wear them in the bathroom, Miss Manchen. No big deal. So you made some mistakes. There’s five million people watching this program right now. If they’re wearing glasses they’re seeing all kinds of shitty things I’ve done. It allows them to form an opinion about me.”

  “My opinion of you is very low,” she spits out. “And I’d bet most of the audience agrees with me.”

  I shrug. “So what? I can live with that. And my best advice for everyone watching is to learn to live with their mistakes too. One day, Miss Manchen… one day we’ll all wake up and decide we’re done with the glasses. We’re done with the truth. And we’ll put them away. We’ll learn to trust each other again. And that’s why I did this. There’s no trust in this city right now because it’s filled with liars, and criminals, and deadbeats who think they’re cheating the system. But they’re not now, are they? We know who the liars and cheats are. We get to decide who we’ll forgive and who we won’t.”

  “It’s virtual vigilantism,” she sneers.

  “People are a force of nature. You can’t control them, even when you think you can, you don’t control them. Because the collective is made up of individuals and everyone gets a say in the matter. SkyEye and ToyBox aren’t about judging people, Miss Manchen. It’s about forgiving people. Including yourself. And then moving on. Bad guys are real, yes. But the good guys are out there too. And isn’t it great that now we can tell the difference?”

  I take my SpyGlasses off and hand them to Sadie. Then I reach out to the camera and switch it off.

  Sadie climbs into my lap and plants a kiss on my lips. “That was perfect.”

  I have a crooked smile for her. I don’t give one rat’s ass if people like what we did. But four hundred seventy-two people on the Cathedral City payroll were fired this week.

  “It’s a very good start,” I say. “But enough of this bullshit. We’re tired. We want to take you to bed.”

  She winks at me. Us. Because Sullivan is still here. And that side of me is one kinky motherfucker. I wouldn’t get rid of him for anything now.

  He might’ve started out as chaos. And yeah, I thought being chained to that anarchist bastard was a punishment. A sickness.

  But I’m getting used to his chaos.

  And I have discovered… I don’t mind watching.

  An evil laugh bursts out of our mouth as Sadie takes our hand and leads us towards the bedroom.

  We’re ready, I decide. We’re ready for the revenge to be over. We’re ready for things to sort themselves out down in Cathedral City. And we’re ready for Sadie Scott to make us happy.

  Because happy, ya know? Happy is the only thing that counts.

  Yes, we’re a bad guy. The SpyGlass tag above our head proves that to anyone who’s interested.

  But we’re thinking about getting out of the supervillain business.

  Anarchy might have to live on without us.

  Happy is the only thing that counts.

  END OF BOOK SHIT

  Welcome to the End of Book Shit. This is the part of the book where I get to say anything I want. Well, this trilogy is done. That’s not to say that I’m done with this world because I’m not. Not at all. I feel like I’m just getting started. The third book in a trilogy is always awesome for me because I know the world, I know all the main characters, and usually I’ve set up something big and it’s like putting the all the leftover pieces of a puzzle together so that the readers can see the “big picture”. I think I did that with Chained and I’m very happy with how it turned out.

  Since this is a superhero story and was written in the “spirit” of comic-book tradition, I’ve left a few things dangling. And I did that on purpose. So if you’ve got questions about parts of the story you can bet I’ll be answering them in another book… eventually. Questions like – What about when Lulu pricked her finger on the SpyGlass window at the ToyBox office? Or, in this book – what’s the deal with Yasmine?

  So if you have a leftover question, don’t worry. I’ve got a plan for it. ;) Three books is really just a sample when you’re building a world like this. I don’t have any idea how many books I’ll write about supervillains falling in love, but six at least. That’s a good starter guess. And I probably won’t write more than one a year after this because I have to squeeze them in as personal projects and I have two personal projects in addition to the supers to write next year.

  One thing I really did try and develop in Chained was the connection to Junco. There was that little nod to tunnels under the city. There was no green gas in any of the Junco books but what’s that gas do anyway? Ha, another question. I’m pretty sure it’s come up again at some point. Also, the reporter at the end – if you’ve read Junco you’ll recognize her last name.

  I think the coolest thing about writing a superhero world is all the crazy tech I was allowed to put in with no explanation. Lol Green gas, for one. And the super cool (or maybe super disgusting) way some of these characters can heal themselves. Or how about those “gates” in the tunnels? What the fuck is up with that? Overkill, anyone? Did you ever see that movie Galaxy Quest with Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver? And they’re deep inside their ship and have to run the gauntlet between these giant crushing, hammer thingys. And Sigourney Waver (Gwen) says:

  “What is this thing? I mean, it serves no useful purpose for there to be a bunch of chompy, crushy things in the middle of a hallway. No, I mean we shouldn’t have to do this, it makes no logical sense, why is it here?” -Gwen

  “‘Cause it’s on the television show.” -Jason

  “Well forget it! I’m not doing it! This episode was badly written!” -Gwen

  lol. I love that fucking movie. I might to go watch it right now. But the reason the gates are there is because it’s a superhero book and things don’t necessarily make sense if they have great visuals. The chompy, crushy things in Galaxy Quest just make life difficult. And so do the razor-sharp gates. I think that’s probably the best thing about writing this genre. It’s all about the visuals.

  I took a little non-scientific poll in my ARC group after my ARC readers finished with Missing and aske
d them if they wanted Randy to be a good guy or a bad guy. They overwhelmingly said bad guy, so here he is. Well, there he was. I’m kinda glad to get rid of him. But we have so many people left to bring back into the story, we won’t miss him. I’m pretty sure that Chief O’Neil will come back. He reminds of the Penguin so much, I can’t not bring him back.

  But anyway… I hope you had fun with this series and I hope you come back next year and check out the next one. I will have Atticus’s story, as promised. And he will be sexy and fun. So thanks for taking a chance on this series and high-five if this was your favorite book of mine this year!

  Oh, and if you want to hang out with me on Facebook you can join my fan group, Shrike Bikes. I’m in there every single day just shootin’ the shit with readers. Just request to join and one of us will add you to the group as soon as we see it.

  Thank you for reading, thank you for reviewing, and I’ll see you in the next book! (His turn, bitches! His Turn is coming in just three weeks!!!!)

  Julie

  JA Huss

  About the Author

  SEE ALL HER BOOKS HERE

  JA Huss is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than thirty romances. She likes stories about family, loyalty, and extraordinary characters who struggle with basic human emotions while dealing with bigger than life problems. JA loves writing heroes who make you swoon, heroines who makes you jealous, and the perfect Happily Ever After ending.

  You can read her writing craft and marketing articles at her website and chat with her on Facebook and Twitter. If you're interested in getting your hands on an advanced release copy of her upcoming books, sneak peek teasers, or information on her upcoming personal appearances, you can join her newsletter list and get those details delivered right to your inbox.

  JA Huss lives on a dirt road in Colorado thirty minutes from the nearest post office. So if she owes you a package from a giveaway, expect it to take forever. She has a small farm with two donkeys named Paris & Nicole, a ringneck parakeet named Bird, and a pack of dogs. She also has two grown children who have never read any of her books and do not plan on ever doing so. They do, however, plan on using her credit cards forever.