The Collective Protocol

by Brian Parker

  It seemed like the only news happening in the world was the animal attacks. There wasn’t any coverage of the famine in the Sudan anymore, hell it barely got a sentence on the scrolling news feed along the bottom of the screen. Reagan had also seen that Russia was massing troops to push back into either Tajikistan or Kurdistan, but she wasn’t sure which because there was no coverage of it. The only thing that seemed important to the American networks was the animal attacks in the south. She’d even switched over to the BBC last night in order to learn what else was happening in the world that wasn’t covered on her usual networks.

  Sirens blared outside her window and she risked a quick glance through the curtain. What the… Two police cruisers had blocked either end of her street and a pick-up truck with cages in the back sat in the middle of the road, directly in front of her house. Two men wearing heavily padded uniforms waddled their way out of the vehicle and removed long poles with loops on the end from the bed of the truck.

  The neighborhood’s unofficial mascot sat beside the road, happily scratching at her ear while the men advanced towards her. “Oh no!” Reagan screamed and ran down the hallway towards the staircase.

  “What in the world?” her mother yelled from the couch as the student burst through the front door.

  “Stop! Millie’s okay,” Reagan yelled breathlessly to the animal control officers. “She wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

  The two officers turned towards her. “We got a call about a stray dog in the neighborhood. Is this your dog?”

  “No… I mean, sort of. She belongs to all of us. Millie’s lived in our neighborhood for years and we all take care of her.”

  “Is it your dog or not?” the officer demanded.

  Reagan felt her mother’s arms slip around her shoulders. “Millie has to go sweetheart. It’s too dangerous.”

  She shrugged out of her grasp. “Did you call them?” she asked accusingly.

  “No! But I know why someone did. Domesticated animals with all of their shots seem to be immune to the disease. Millie doesn’t have her shots or anything. She could turn at any moment.”

  “Wait. You know that the dog hasn’t had its vaccinations?” the second officer asked.

  “We don’t know about before she moved into the neighborhood, but for the past three years she hasn’t gotten anything,” Heather Lockhart replied.

  “Okay, that’s it. We’ve been ordered to capture all wild animals. I’m sorry, Miss. The dog has to come with us.”

  Reagan nodded in futility and accepted her mother’s embrace. The animal control officers advanced slowly towards Millie. She stopped scratching and stood up to greet the two men. The dog’s tail wagged excitedly when they got within reach of her. She thought that she had two new playmates.

  The first officer decided that she wasn’t a threat and handed his dog-catching pole to the other, and then gently picked up the Border Collie. She squirmed at first, but quickly settled into his arms. He carried her to the truck and put her in one of the cages.

  “We’ll take care of her, don’t worry. We don’t euthanize any of the animals who have a good disposition and can potentially be adopted once this is all over. Have a good day, folks.”

  The men squeezed themselves into the cab of the truck and drove away with their police escort.

  “I’m sorry, honey. I know how much you love Millie,” Reagan’s mother comforted her. “Let’s go inside and have some tea, it will help calm your nerves.”

  TEN

  Johnathan Barnes huddled over the trash can and picked through the discarded carryout boxes for a delectable treat. He was hungrier than usual, but he’d grown to expect that over the years as the weather began to turn colder. It happened every fall and winter. His body needed more calories than it did in the summertime.

  He’d been living on the streets of New York for almost twenty years. The homeless man had been in and out of shelters, graduated from multiple reform programs and seen his fair share of charitable organizations trying to assist him and his peers. He’d seen some really tough combat as a medic in Iraq and experienced some truly horrific things that altered the way he thought. He was never quite the same as before his time in the military and he often reminded himself that he wanted zero responsibilities in this world.

  The Army had given him more medical assistance than he would have ever imagined possible, but in the end, it didn’t do any good. When he took the medication that the doctors prescribed, he felt like he wasn’t in control of his own body, so he refused to take it and he couldn’t bring himself to talk about what he’d seen and done in that far off place. They eventually kicked him out for being a head case and he’d lived on the streets ever since.

  He liked living out here, though. No one expected anything from him. He didn’t have any duties other than to take care of himself and stay alive. Hell, he even scrounged up enough money every once in a while to pay for one of the women who worked down on the corner. Life was good.

  “Aha!” he yelled excitedly when he found a half-eaten pastrami on rye. He looked at the wrapper, Carmichael’s Deli, the best on this side of town. It was still fairly warm and the grease from the meat hadn’t even congealed yet. He sat heavily on a bench beside the trash can and bit excitedly into the sandwich. “Oh, this is good!” he told a passerby who gave him a wide berth as he held up the sandwich for their inspection.

  The sandwich hit the spot and he leaned back in contentment on the bench. He stared around his little kingdom and belched loudly. The pastrami didn’t taste nearly as good the second time around. “Damn Carmichael’s,” he complained to the nearly leafless tree beside him.

  Something in the back of his head tickled and he reached behind him to remove the offending item. His hand grasped into empty air and he turned around to see what it was. Nothing was behind him. Strange, he thought. His head tickled again and he placed his hand on the back of his scalp.

  The tingling was coming from inside his head. The small tingle suddenly exploded into a full-on headache like he hadn’t felt in a long time. His vision began to go dark around the edges and then everything became fuzzy, like someone had dropped a veil over his eyes. He was used to mental lapses and escapes so he sat back and idly wondered where this one would lead.

  Without warning he stood up and walked drunkenly towards the corner of the building that he’d been sitting in front of. Hey, what gives? he tried to say, but realized that he couldn’t speak. His mind drifted back to his medical training so long ago. Am I having an epileptic seizure?

  While his mind pondered what was happening, his body moved, on its own. It was a strange sensation and he felt like he was in one of those 3D simulators that he used to go to as a kid. He watched helplessly as the brick and barred-over windows of the corner pharmacy slid by beside him. His body turned into the alley and he stumbled over a pile of trash and fell.

  He saw the ground rush rapidly towards him and his face smacked against the rough pavement between the buildings. Hmm, that’s weird. It didn’t hurt when I hit the ground. Maybe the pastrami was bad and I’m sick, he rationalized. Even if he was sleepwalking he should have put his hands out involuntarily to stop the fall. His body rolled to the side and his arms finally worked to push himself up off the ground.

  He walked halfway down the alley and saw another homeless man acting strangely. Johnathan bent and picked up an old brick before continuing into the alley. When he got closer, he recognized that it was Jim from 38th Street and tried to call out, but his voice still didn’t work.

  Jim stared at him blankly when he walked past him carrying the brick. Johnathan’s head angled downward and his body crouched down next to an old dumpster that he used to sleep beside several years ago until he’d been surprised by a dump truck one day. That was a mistake that he never wanted to make again. He tried to shout in alarm as his hand shot out and grasped a length of metal pipe from behind the dumpster.

  He heard the scrape of the metal as it dragged across the pavement, b
ut his body remained unresponsive as it stood up and staggered back towards the pharmacy. Somewhere nearby he heard the explosion of a gun fired in an enclosed space. As he walked, the former medic tried to determine if he was still holding the pipe, but his disconnected mind couldn’t make the connection to either bring his hand in front of his face or to look down. Instead, he stared straight ahead and walked rapidly in the same direction that Jim had gone.

  His body turned woodenly up the street. He heard screams coming from somewhere, but it echoed like he was underwater so he couldn’t determine where they were coming from with any accuracy. Johnathan’s head swiveled to look in the windows of the pharmacy. He saw Jim inside beating the shopkeeper with the brick. Oh my God! What is happening to me? he screamed in muted panic. Jim stood upright and turned towards him. Half of his face was missing and blood flowed freely from hundreds of smaller wounds across his chest where the pharmacy owner’s shotgun blast had hit him.

  Johnathan shuffled past Jim and the murder he’d just committed, his feet carrying him along the sidewalk involuntarily. A woman’s laugh made his head turn and he saw a young Chinese woman sitting on a bench talking on her cell phone. She noticed him walking towards her and her smile faltered, then turned into a sneer.

  “I don’t have any money, leave me alone,” she said and focused back on the conversation. “Oh yeah, some bum asking for money. You know how they won’t leave you alone unless you’re firm with them.”

  The metal bar lifted in front of his vision as his arm moved on its own. Look out! he screamed at her, but Johnathan already knew that he no longer had control of his body. The bar slashed quickly in front of his eyes and impacted against the side of her head with a sickening crunch.

  The woman crumpled on the bench and the bar struck once more to finish the job. Johnathan’s physical form moved on to find its next victim while he sobbed for forgiveness inside the prison that his body had become.

  *****

  “All patrols, this is dispatch. We need all available officers to the Times Square area.”

  “Dispatch, this is Patrol 39. That’s a big place, where am I going?” Officer Rollins asked.

  “Just get down there and begin helping where you can.”

  What? Rollins thought. “Dispatch, where in Times Square do you need us to go?”

  “Patrol 39, just get down there! We have hundreds of reports of violence from 42nd all the way up to 57th. It’s like the entire area just went crazy. Reports are that the homeless are attacking everyone they see… Be advised, we have confirmed KIA in the area.”

  Jimmie Rollins started to say something else in the radio, but another officer jumped in to ask for clarification on the situation. He reached over and flipped on his siren. “Hold on, Rob. I’m turning back towards the Square.”

  “Got it,” his partner answered from the passenger seat.

  He looked both ways and then did a U-turn in the middle of the road. The squad car almost got creamed by a delivery truck coming towards them in the opposite lane, but Rollins was an expert city driver and had been doing this a long time.

  “What are we getting into?” he casually asked his large friend as he sped through the streets, narrowly missing pedestrians and vehicles alike.

  “Don’t know.”

  Jimmie shook his head at his quiet partner’s typical monosyllabic words. If there were ever a time that he needed the guy to get excited, this was probably it. “Sounds like there’s an angry mob up there. Should we get our riot gear out of the trunk?”

  “Couldn’t hurt,” Rob grunted.

  They drove as fast as the traffic would allow them and ten minutes later they pulled up to a haphazard collection of police cars blocking the street. Jimmie threw the car in park and shut the engine off before popping the trunk.

  Rob beat him to the rear of the vehicle and was already picking up his chest rig. As they got kitted up, the officers looked around for a sergeant for advice, but didn’t see anyone in the immediate area so they hurried to finish buckling items into place.

  Gunfire echoed ominously from the surrounding buildings and the two men exchanged worried glances. The duo carried two of the department’s smaller ballistic shields, not the full-body ones typically used for riot control, but they’d decided that it would have to work and snatched them up.

  They trotted towards the Square and within half a block an officer that he didn’t recognize came stumbling towards them. He walked strange and jerking like a baby just learning to walk. Jimmie ran to him and saw blood streaming down the side of his face. A quick glance at his brass nameplate told him the guy’s name.

  “Hey, O’Keefe. What happened to you?”

  The officer stared dumbly at him for a moment. “Animals. Goddamned bums are animals,” he coughed.

  “Just stay here, man. I’ll get you some help.” Rollins tried to get through to dispatch, but there were too many people trying to talk on the radio at the same time. The net result was that no one was able to hear or say anything.

  “I can’t get through on the radio,” he stated. “Rob, I’m gonna keep going, can you take Officer O’Keefe back to the squad car and get him some medical help?”

  “Sure,” Rob answered and slid an arm under the injured officer’s shoulder to help him to his feet.

  Jimmie assisted the two men and helped to steady O’Keefe on his partner’s arm. When he was sure that they were stable enough to walk back to the cars he turned to continue in towards the sound of gunfire.

  “Hey!” Rob’s shout brought him up short and he twisted back around. “Be careful, Jimmie. I’ll come up to you as soon as I can.”

  He nodded and waved at his partner. Even that short exchange was more than he’d ever heard the man say in one breath. He hoped it wasn’t some type of premonition that the officer had that made him say so much.

  The feeling of dread settled into the pit of his stomach as he rushed towards the Midtown attraction and others ran headlong past him. Every step he took seemed to deepen the thought that he wouldn’t ever see his partner again. He passed several officers along the way who huddled up against cars or doorways in an effort to hide from the feeling of dread and despair that seemed to emanate from Times Square. After checking on a few of them, he decided that they must be paralyzed in fear. The same fear that he fought internally.

  He’d been fearless as a kid, served time in combat with the Marines before becoming a cop and been mugged at knifepoint on the subway. Yet, he’d never felt the level of fear that permeated the air of the Square as he finally pushed his way forward to a line of dark grey riot gear. The stripes of a sergeant peeked out between one officer’s shoulder pad and upper arm protection.

  “Sergeant, where… where do you need me?” he gasped. Just talking was a struggle as his mind screamed at him to flee before he was killed.

  The sergeant turned towards him with a grimace. “We need to get everyone up and moving into the Square,” she said as she gestured towards the iconic intersection. He followed her outstretched hand and could see three or four cops firing at what appeared to be homeless people armed with various implements.

  “Okay,” Jimmie replied and began going from man to man to encourage each of them to get up and help save the innocents in the Square.

  Finally, he and the sergeant had about ten officers willing to move beyond the relative safety of the group. Jimmie stood and tried to walk forward, but his feet felt like they were rooted to the ground. He fought against the fear that gripped his mind and lifted one foot and then the other. He was a New York City police officer and he was sworn to protect the people of this city.

  He pressed forward against the fear that threatened to cripple him and then he suddenly stumbled as if he’d passed through some invisible barrier. Once he moved past the barrier, the fear melted away and he was able to move freely again. He saw the look of shock on the other officers’ faces as they discovered that when they showed the courage to advance past the others, the crippli
ng fear disappeared for them as well.

  The sergeant yelled for them to go assist the officers who were fighting for their lives against a crowd of dirty men and women. They ran forward and stood shoulder to shoulder, pushing against the mob with their shields. Slowly, the homeless were driven back and one of the officers rushed behind the safety of their line.

  The tactic worked for less than a minute as the small line of officers was quickly bypassed and encircled. They were forced to collapse the line into a circle of riot shields. The homeless beat mindlessly against the impact-resistant polymer in an effort to reach the police officers.

  An arm snaked over the top of a shield and a metal bar crashed into the sergeant’s helmet. She shook her head and blinked tears from her eyes, then she shouted, “Open fire! We need to create space so we can get out of here.”

  “Are you sure, sergeant?” Jimmie grunted as a heavy body pressed against his shield.

  “Yes! Do it,” she answered and fired directly into the chest of a man in front of her. His lifeless body fell forward and continued to stay upright, suspended between the press of the crowd and the shield while his blood smeared across the white NYPD logo on the face of her shield.

  The other officers held their fire, expecting the crowd to disperse at the sound of gunfire. When they didn’t, two officers fired around their shields. Someone from the crowd reached out and grasped one of the pistols and yanked hard enough to send the officer off-balance. He lowered his shield slightly to catch himself and several pairs of hands grasped his helmet.

  The officer gurgled as the crowd pulled his helmet and the chinstrap choked him. He was helpless to do anything since one arm was trapped behind his shield and the other was extended into the crowd where they continued to work at prying the pistol from his grip. “Help him!” Jimmie yelled from the opposite side of the small perimeter. If that man went down, the entire line could collapse.

  The officer beside the trapped man fired point-blank into the face of one of the crazed offenders and he fell backwards into the crowd. It was enough of a reprieve for the officer to lift the shield back to chest height and he fired an entire magazine blindly into the mob. It created a momentary buffer zone where he was able to pull his arm and weapon back behind the safety of the shield.