The Snow Swept Trilogy

by Derrick Hibbard

  "We ended up just calling 911 and giving them the general area of the... incident," Sam said. "It wasn't an emergency, not when we got there anyway."

  "And you haven't heard anything from Heather?"

  Sam didn't say anything for a long time, staring down at the black screen of his phone as if trying to make a decision.

  "We don't know how this fits, and it could be just a coincidence, but probably not." Sam handed Ryan the telephone, which had a video queued. He continued, "This has been floating around on the internet for the last couple of hours. Cell phone video, crap quality, but it's causing some pretty big waves."

  Ryan pressed PLAY and the video began. At first, it was hard to see what was happening. Crowds of people were moving about, but then the image focused on a police officer dressed in SWAT gear trying to control the crowd. The officer carried a rifle, which was slung over his shoulder, and he was motioning for the people to get back.

  The camera turned its attention to something happening just beyond the officer. It looked like a cafe or small coffee shop in the lobby of a larger building. The seating area of the cafe was empty, except for a girl. She had dark, shoulder-length hair, pulled into a loose ponytail. She carried some extra weight, but carried it well. She was plain, but still very pretty.

  The officer threatened her with the gun. They were having some conversation, but it was too quiet for the phone to pick up.

  The officer shot the girl in the leg, startling Ryan. He almost dropped the phone as he saw the girl drop but then climb back to her feet. They continued talking, and it looked as though the girl were shouting. A second gunshot roared and the crowd was getting restless. The officer was shooting her point blank, in front of so many people.

  Ryan distinctly heard the girl shout "FIND MAE EDWARDS!" before the final gunshot, aimed at the girl’s head. The crowd pulsed with rage, angry shouts and cries of disbelief and protest getting louder and louder until it was static. Even the officer who'd been attempting crowd control before was staring at the scene that had unfolded in the cafe. He was just standing there, watching. The crowd pulsed to a breaking point, nearing a mob, and rushed forward.

  The image on the screen grew too shaky to see what was happening, a rushing mass of chaos. The video ended, cutting abruptly to black. The circular symbol for REPEAT appeared in the center of the screen, along with advertisements along the bottom.

  "What happened here?" Ryan asked, feeling sick to his stomach. He reeled with disbelief and disgust. The girl had been shot in front of so many people. Executed.

  "A girl was shot by the police in Chicago, in her early twenties, they're saying," Sam said. "It's all over the internet, popping up on news sites all over the world. They don't know the girl's name, but they’re piecing together what she said before she was killed. Clearly, you heard her mention Mae Edwards. That's your girlfriend, right?"

  Ryan nodded. "What happened to the officer who shot her?"

  "Well, that's the rub. And it's a good one too. The crowd killed him. Turned into an angry mob, and he fought back. They took him down like a suicide bomber on an airplane. Turns out, no one knows who the guy was. He wasn't a cop, and he certainly had no business shooting that girl. It was murder, plain and simple."

  "What do mean he wasn't a cop?" Ryan asked. Down, down, down the rabbit hole he fell, wanting desperately to stop falling, to hit the bottom of the hole at some point.

  "He wasn't a cop." Sam shrugged. "Everyone involved is pointing their fingers at someone else, but the gist of it is that Chicago PD got a tip on a known cyberterrorist who was about to cause some real world problems. A team was sent to arrest the terrorist. The team was to be commanded by a federal officer. It's one of the things they're trying to figure out, how the shooter fooled so many. Had to have help on the inside."

  Ryan exhaled, trying to fit the puzzle pieces together.

  "It was Heather, had to be," Ryan said, a dark despair settling over him like ashes. Ryan hadn't known Heather by name until just a few days before, and his relationship with her had been limited to the Lit Dragons. But even so, he felt as though he'd lost a friend. The despair slowly changed to a rising dull anger. Not only had they taken Mae, forced her into that tank and or whatever it was, they'd burned down his house and killed his friends. They were going to pay for what they'd done. Ryan didn't care who they were exactly, but they would pay. He handed the phone back to Sam.

  "We think it had to be her too. She had a computer full of stuff, apparently, but nothing has been released to the public yet. But it will. The public is angry about this and wants answers. Conspiracy theorists are coming forward, right and left. Whatever is going down, it's bigger than any of us expected or could have known."

  Ryan sat back in his seat, feeling heavy and down. Silence stretched for several miles as they climbed higher into the mountains. The sun was setting, and the shadows between the rocky cliffs danced and waned. Small flurries of snow began falling from the sky, and Dani switched on the headlights.

  Dani broke the silence and asked, "What happened back there?"

  "At the convoy?"

  "Yes," she said, but almost in a way that suggested she didn't want the answer. "What we saw... what we saw couldn't be explained. The helicopter, sure, but—“

  "I was inside the truck with Mae when it happened," Ryan said. "She did it."

  "What do you mean, she did it?" Sam asked.

  "I don't know, not exactly. She made it happen somehow."

  "I don't understand," Dani said.

  "Me neither," Ryan said.

  They passed a sign, welcoming them to a city known as the GATEWAY TO THE ROCKIES. The first mile and a half of the city was spread out, just houses here and there, but before long, they'd entered the main city, spotted with several high buildings in the center and thriving with crowds. It was a large city in comparison to the small towns they'd driven through, but by no means was it a sprawling metropolis. Nor could it grow much more than it already had. All around the city, tall mountains jutted toward the sky, nestling the city in something like a natural basket.

  With the darkening sky, more and more lights were flickering on and lighting the streets and buildings. To their left, an entire mountain was lit along large white paths cut through the trees.

  "What is this?" Dani wondered.

  "Resort town," Sam said and pointed to the mountain. "That's the ski resort there."

  "I know what a ski resort is," she said, scowling. "What I meant to ask is, why are there so many people here? This place is packed!"

  "With the ski resort," Sam said, "it's already busy during the winter as it is, but there's also this big political thing this weekend. It's been all over the internet the last couple of weeks."

  "The World Economic Summit," Ryan said, the realization dawning on him and the despair setting like a pit in his stomach. If Mae did here what she'd done on that barren highway, a lot of people would die. A lot of important people. Not to mention, if she was anywhere near the Summit, it would be next to impossible to get close. The security for the event would be insane, with an added layer of security protecting Mae from escaping. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that the attack on the convoy had been their last real chance of rescuing her.

  Ryan continued along logical lines of thought, which, like dominoes, toppled over to the next. He realized the full extent of such an attack and the ease with which it could be pulled off using someone like Mae. Common methods for attacks, like bombs or airplanes or guns, would be detected before they even got close to the Summit. But with Mae, they didn't need bombs or airplanes or guns. She was the weapon.

  I can do things... she had said, her voice quivering with cold and not a little sadness. She could do things, like wipe out an entire building and all of its occupants, and no one would know who did it or how it was done.

  Brilliant, really.

  Sam seemed to be coming to similar conclusions, although he hadn't exactly seen Mae in action, so he
couldn't know the full ramifications of an attack by her on a crowded building.

  "She's attacking the World Economic Summit," Sam said, his voice trailing with the realization.

  "No, they're using her to attack the Summit," Ryan corrected. "They kidnapped her, remember."

  "Do you know how they could force her to do those things?" Sam asked. "I mean, if she controls whatever she does, then maybe they can't force her."

  "I don't know," Ryan said, thinking. There had to be a way to get into wherever she was being held. But with the security, the armed guards, and the road blocks, even getting close to her was going to be difficult, if not impossible.

  "Pretty town," Dani said, driving along historic High Street. Old wooden and stone buildings lined either side of the street, all of which had been restored and preserved. The street was more a cultural landmark of what was, than a functional city, and it was swarming with winter tourists, bundled up and braving the cold.

  "Are we getting close?" Dani asked, and Sam studied the phone.

  "Getting close, but it looks like she's being kept in the new area of town, in those buildings." He pointed further down the street, which continued for several miles before coming to several large resort buildings—the functional center of town.

  They continued driving along High Street, coming within a mile of the resort buildings, until the traffic was at a standstill.

  "Can I see your phone?" Ryan asked, an idea suddenly occurring to him. He searched for information on the World Economic Summit and found the name of the resort at which it was being held. He swiped over to the Lit Dragon's app, depicting the map of the city and showing the resort where the Summit was taking place. But Mae wasn't there. At least, the colored dot representing his telephone, which was hopefully still with her, was not at that resort. It was at a building across the street.

  "Mae isn't there," Ryan said. "She's across the street, in a different building."

  "What? But if our theory is true, why keep her at a building other than the one where the Summit is happening? Seems like kind of a waste."

  "Think of all the people guarding the truck she was in," Ryan said, after considering this. "If you had all those people guarding her, would you want them going down with the building?"

  Sam nodded in agreement but didn't say anything. The traffic wasn't moving, and the snow outside was really coming down. Ryan took a deep breath.

  "So what's the plan, stan?" Sam asked. Dani shot him a scowl that suggested that he needed to grow up.

  "You guys need to hole up somewhere, away from all this."

  Sam turned, his face twisted with surprise. "Are you kidding me? We almost got killed back there. A bunch of our friends were killed, and you want us to sit this one out? I'm sorry compradre, not gonna happen."

  "That's the point," Ryan said. "You guys could get hurt, or worse. You have a baby, a life that is separate from all this. I can't let you get any more involved."

  "Well, that decision isn't really up to you."

  "And not to you either," Dani said to Sam, and then smiled back at Ryan. "He's right. We have a baby at home, and it would be stupid to go charging in, with absolutely zero guns blazing. No way."

  "What about Ryan?" Sam asked. "He'll be going in there alone."

  "Listen," Ryan said, "Sam, I don't think a fighting approach is going to work anyway. Our numbers won't matter, not this time, and your lovely wife is right. We don't have any weapons. Besides, you guys have done more than I could have asked for. I couldn't have done this without you, and what happened back there, the other players... I couldn't live with myself if something happened to you guys too."

  "It's all part of the game," Sam muttered. "Okay, say we do sit this one out. How do you plan on getting yourself killed?"

  "Knocking on the front door," Ryan said and grinned.

  Chapter Fifty

  "Dad, what are you doing here?" Mae asked. She was crying and the tears in her eyes made him look blurry, but it was him. Her father, whose body she'd seen in Miami, dead because of her ability, her deformity. Because at the end of it all, her power was a freakish deformity. Something had gone wrong in her brain, and her ability had been born. It was that explosion of power in Miami that had killed her dad. The man who'd held her on his lap as a little girl and read her stories, who'd tickled her back to help her fall asleep, who'd kissed her scrapes and cuts, who'd loved her in spite of her deformity. He was there every day during the experiments, helping her get through it. Teaching her how to deal with the pain and seclusion. He had been there, and she had seen him dead. But he wasn't dead. Here he was, kneeling before her. Older, yes, but it was him.

  He leaned in and kissed her forehead, then wrapped his arms around her tightly.

  "Oh, baby," he whispered. "I've waited so long for this moment, to see you again, to hold you."

  "But, you were..." She couldn't finish, a fresh bout of tears and sobs preventing her from saying it.

  "I wasn't dead," he said. "Hurt badly, yes. But I lived, and I'm still alive. I looked for you and your mom for years. I kept looking for you, hoping that one day you would come back to me. I wanted you to come back to me, but you kept running."

  "We thought you were dead," she said. "We didn't know, we didn't know."

  "I know, baby. It's okay, it's okay." He kissed her again, holding her as close as the restraints on her wheelchair would allow. "I'm just so happy you're here. Look at how much you've grown."

  "Daddy, but mom..."

  "I know, she did her best..."

  Morales laughed at this, crossing the room to the bar in the tiny kitchen and pouring himself a drink. Mae watched him as if just remembering that he was there in the room with them.

  "Dad?"

  "Yes, honey?" He pulled back and fixed her with a loving gaze that was all too familiar.

  "Why are you here?"

  "I'm here for you, baby," he said.

  "But, you're here with him." She nodded to Morales, who grinned. Her father, Harrison, stood up, but did not turn away from her. Instead, he looked down at her, the smile on his face disappearing as he spoke.

  "Mr. Morales here is one of my trusted advisors. I asked him to personally oversee your safe return."

  "He killed Mom."

  "Honey, I don't want to talk about that right now. The point is that you’re here, home with me. Your father," he said, and she now knew that his smile had been fake all along.

  "I'm not home," she said. "She was tied up, Dad, did he tell you that? She was tied up and they were torturing her before they shot her. Your wife."

  "Shut up," Harrison said, only a hint of anger in his voice. "I told you, I don't want to talk about that."

  "If not Mom being tied up and shot, then what do you want to talk about?" Mae asked. She tried to capture a hardness in her voice, to be as steely and cold as the man standing before her.

  "I want to talk about you, Mae," he said, kneeling again in front of her. "You are so incredible, a force of nature that defies everything! The power you hold will shape the world."

  "I'm your daughter," she spat back. "They put me in a tank so I couldn't feel anything. They kept me locked up for years!"

  "For your own protection, and to protect others. That's all." He raised his hands defensively. "That's all that it was. Mae, honey, your talents are awe-inspiring. With only your mind, you control the world. You, honey, you hold the secrets to the universe, to the marvels of man and god."

  "Dad," tears were coming again, but now out of desperation for a life and memories slipping away. "It's not like that..."

  "Honey, you can be so much more than this. Your future is wide open—you can be a force of actual change."

  "Dad, I don't want to kill people." The cries were stuck in her chest, a lump that she couldn't swallow.

  "You saw all those people when you came up?"

  She nodded.

  "Those are bad people, Mae, darling. Everything that is bad in the world, the social inequalities,
the wealth disparity, death and sickness, all of that is a result of choices made by men in power. Bad men who control the wealth and direction of the world. Honey, you can change that. By ending their reign—and don't be so naive as to think it is not a reign of blood—you end so much badness. So much evil. And from the ashes, order will rise. Ordo ab chao. Do you know what that means?"

  "No..." She tried to look away but he caught her gaze.

  "Order from chaos. Order. Equality. Peace. You are the agent of change, the catalyst that will make all this possible."

  "People will die, Dad! Don't you understand that? I am not a killer."

  "Morales tells me that you killed Dr. Whaler. Is that true?"

  "Dad, I—"

  "He was your doctor," Harrison said sternly, "and you killed him."

  "He wasn't trying to help me! He was..." her voice trailed off as she was unable to distinguish Dr. Whaler from her father. Dr. Whaler had conducted the experiments, unceasingly learning.

  "Did you kill him, Mae?"

  "Yes, but—"

  "Why?" His stern tone was replaced by that mocking love, as if he were trying to impart some knowledge to her.

  "He would have hurt me..." she said finally.

  "So, in your mind, Dr. Whaler was a bad man, and you wanted to stop him?"

  "But it's different. Innocent people will die."

  "How is it different, Mae?" He stared at the ceiling, his arms outstretched, like he was pleading with god. "Who are you to judge innocence? These men are the evil scourge of the earth and must be stopped. For humanity's sake, for the sake of all that is good. You and I, together, we will change the world by rooting out the evil. People will die, yes. Maybe even some good people, but it's never easy or painless to cut out the infection."

  Harrison turned suddenly, crossing quickly behind her and pushing her wheelchair to the wall of windows. He knelt beside her and pointed toward the sky. Through the scattered clouds she could see stars glimmering in the darkness.