by Mark Wandrey
“Well, let’s experiment,” Leo said and rubbed his hands together.
“Not so quickly,” Osgood cautioned, “we don’t know how much damage we can cause by just screwing around.”
“Well, we need to make progress. Can we risk it yet?” Leo asked Mindy.
“I don’t know,” she lied. She knew without a doubt that the mystery woman knew what she was doing, and the sequence was safe. The last thing she wanted was this group realizing that she was considering an act of treason. “Who knows where this thing could go, and we can’t find out without sending someone through. We could end up with someone floating in space, or at the bottom of an ocean.”
She'd successfully started an argument that began to grow of its own accord. Mindy stood on the outside and offered an occasional 'innocent' comment. After a time, she retrieved Harold's notebook computer and retreated from the dome back to her tiny office. No one even noticed her leaving. Once there, she used the completed translation and the image of the new icons she’d taken to decipher the new ones.
There were eleven new symbols, each with no obvious meaning. The alien language was a study in vagaries. Now with the translation complete she knew why she’d been having such fits trying to translate it. Harold must have lucked upon the correct sequence of character keys. Ten of the eleven symbols represented the numbers one to ten and associated them with a secondary meaning of site, or home, or maybe territory. The eleventh symbol was different and its translation was much more specific. “Outworld.” But what did that mean, really? She didn’t have to think for long, the answer was right in front of her.
Turning back to her own computer she started firing off e-mail messages one after another. She worked fast and when she was done, she slipped back into the dome to continue acting like an innocent bystander. She got back just in time.
“Ah, there you are, Mindy,” Osgood came over to put an arm around her shoulder. “I want to thank you for having the guts to just go for it; I think you are certainly earning your place on the team. But I think we’re going to have a top level meeting to talk this over and see just how far we’re willing to go down the rabbit hole.”
“Do you want me there?”
“Uh, yeah, listen, I don’t think that’s a good idea. You see, Hipstitch is going to be there and he’s not happy with what your friend pulled the other day.” Mindy’s face darkened and he quickly moved on. “So look, we’re going to have this meeting and we’ll meet in your office afterwards, okay?”
“Sure, whatever you think is best.”
“Excellent, see you soon.” Mindy returned to her office and waited for a goon to show up and arrest her. The e-mails she’d sent started getting replies almost right away. As she responded to them, she didn’t bother to conceal what she was proposing. If they were going to stop her, now was the time. When no one showed up with cuffs, she plotted her next moves with impunity.
Billy was surprised to receive an e-mail from Mindy at his desk. He read it quickly, looking around the hectic command center to be sure no one else was watching over his shoulder. Afterwards, he read it again. What his bride proposed was simple in word but frighteningly complex in deed. “Not asking too much, are you?” he asked quietly even though she could not hear him.
Billy made the message disappear off his desktop and went back to work for a few minutes so he could think. He was in charge of a hundred patrolmen when he came off the street, now scarcely forty remained on duty. No one tried to look for them, there was no reason to. The end was close, no one cared any more. Still, the police valiantly fought to maintain a semblance of order in the burning city, and against all odds they were succeeding.
After he’d had time to think over her message, a few ideas began to occur to him. The first couple he dismissed out of hand. Another he gave serious thought before discarding it as well. Finally, he came to the conclusion that the only way to pull this off was with help. He wrote Mindy back with his proposal and explained what he would need to accomplish it
In a darkened Manhattan penthouse, an exhausted Kadru looked up at the chime of her computer announcing she had a new e-mail message. Though not an unusual event in days gone by, it was not common lately. When she returned from that final attack, she said goodbye to those friends she was still in contact with, then closed the e-mail accounts. Since then, her computer had been silent and she was alone.
The physician that had given her the death sentence obligingly also gave her enough prescription painkillers to see her through to the end. The e-mail chime brought her back to consciousness and she realized the last batch of drugs was wearing off. Why she hadn’t just swallowed an entire bottle weeks ago she didn’t know. Something was making her hang on.
Wearily, she rolled over and got to her feet. The bathroom was only ten steps away, but it took her almost a half hour to reach the commode and relieve herself. The trip back was made more quickly, though through a growing mist of pain behind her eyes. She noticed her ankles were wobbly and her toes numb. The doctor had warned her of this. It was the first sign of the end. For a while she’d considered trying to make it to see the end of the world. A dying cancer patient, reclining in a patio chair on the balcony of a multi-million dollar Manhattan condo, watching the planet die. You watch too much Bollywood, she chided herself.
As Kadru stumbled toward her bed she caught sight of the computer. Of course it was the best money could buy. When you made millions from computers, it paid to own the best. The screen continued to obediently flash a note that a message was waiting. The pain was growing, but still manageable, so she let curiosity get the better of her and sat in front of the display.
“I didn’t close the Followers account,” she said with a horse chuckle. From under the desk she found a bottle of water in the little fridge. She almost wasn’t strong enough to open it. After she’d sipped some of the cool liquid she felt better. She was about to delete it and return to her painkillers when she saw who it was from. He deserves for me at least to read it, she thought and did just that. Afterwards, Kadru sat back to think.
Victor wasn’t there to do what the sender was asking, but she was. There are a few of us left, she knew. She’d stopped at the temporary shelter on her way to her apartment just long enough to give the man in charge of the soup kitchen all the cash she had. A couple dozen of the faithful had been there, mostly the too young, too old, the newest or the sickest. It was a shame because they would all have been made whole in Heaven once they met Vishnu. Still, they were loyal followers.
He isn’t one of us, she thought, but he is a good man. Several times he could have led the authorities to us, and each time he kept our secrets. The computer offered her no more insights so she got up and walked toward the bed.
I am not the one to ask for help, Kadru decided, and picked up the pill bottle. She removed the childproof cap with some difficulty and looked inside. Twenty gleaming white pills rested there. She’d been taking two of the powerful narcotics every six hours to push the pain away. The doctor said that more than five would likely be fatal. She shook out ten of them and stared at them, instruments of a woman’s fate. Such tiny things to end all of your existence. A glass of water from the filtered cooler nearby, a couple gulps and the pain would be gone for good. She’d read about the overdose effects months ago. First a little dizziness, then sleep, then within an hour, complete respiratory failure. A quiet and painless end.
She put the handful of pills to her mouth, then stopped. Her hand hovered there for an eternity. Finally, she picked up the bottle and returned nine of the pills. Her brow furrowed with pain, she swallowed the one pill. Two pills had been making her catatonic; perhaps one would reduce the pain and still allow her to function.
In a few minutes, the knife of agony in her brain began to recede. Having become used to the numbing effects of the drug, she felt a deep disappointment as some of the pain remained. It’s not too bad, she decided and stood back up, I can handle this. A tear ran down her cheek as she st
ood on wobbly, emaciated legs and tried to come to grips with the pain. “I c-can handle it,” she sobbed and walked back to the computer.
Volant got up from his computer with some effort. The crutches remained where he’d left them as he walked carefully to the trailer door and stood on the steel porch. There was furious activity around the half-dozen temporary warehouses in the near distance. The game was almost up, that much was obvious. The moves he had ordered today told the story as effectively as the action nearby. He’d worked intelligence for most of his adult life, and he’d never done the kinds of things he’d done today. For a moment, bile stung the back of his throat. The list of people he ordered to be killed, graves that there would be no time to fill, it was all there in his mind’s eye. He justified it by telling himself that they would all be dead in less than two days anyway, so what difference was it to the grand scheme of things? Now that the deed was done, there was no comfort to be found in those thoughts.
“What the hell is going on?” Steve Bradley yelled as he came running around a nearby trailer.
“They’re getting ready to make the big move,” Volant said calmly. “Want a beer?”
“No I don’t want a goddamn beer, and I’m not talking about all this shit!”
Steve was pissed, that much he could tell. The younger man received another promotion yesterday, but it would seem the shine was off. “So what are you talking about?”
Steve mounted the stairs and came face to face with Volant. They were both the same height while Steve gave up a good twenty pounds to the older man. Volant tried not to let his concern show. He’d been through a lot more of the shit recently than this young, fit man.
“I was just trying out my new security access and found a sheaf of orders you sent to a group of so-called agents that I bet almost no one knows about. They’re a fucking murder squad, and you’ve been killing people left and right. Good God, Volant, I’ve worked under you for years and seen some major shit but this…”
“Kinda seems over the top, doesn’t it?”
“Over the top? The President was killed a few hours ago and I think you did it.”
Volant turned and went inside. “Come in so we can talk,” he said over his shoulder.
“Talk? What the fuck is there to talk about? The President and half the Cabinet are dead. An entire FBI headquarters in Seattle was blown to hell!”
“Would you come in here already? You’re freaking out the neighbors. You do have a security clearance to be concerned about.” Steve looked around, realizing how loud he had been, then followed Volant inside and closed the door behind him.
“Did you or did you not have the President killed?”
Volant popped his small fridge open and put a couple cans of imported beer on the table before sitting down heavily in one of the chairs. He may have left the crutches behind but the leg braces were still there and they made his thighs ache. “Have a beer.”
“I’ll have an answer!”
“Fine,” Volant popped one of the beers open and took a long drink. It helped clear the bile from his throat and make it easier to say what he needed to say. “I’ve ordered more than a few people dead today.”
“Was the President one of them?”
“Yes,” Volant said, looking at his lap. “What are you supposed to do when someone threatens the security of our nation at such a critical moment? This might be our last chance to survive.”
Steve’s face was ashen and there was sweat on his upper lip. He looked close to losing it. “You don’t kill the President. We’re sworn to protect him!”
“That’s the Secret Service. We’re sworn to protect the nation and the President was about to take actions that would have shut us down.”
“We’ve been operating outside of Presidential discretion from the beginning, haven’t we?”
“I didn’t know until a few days ago, but yes. The President was never informed of what we have here. It was deemed that to allow the President into the bag would have compromised any serious effort to utilize the Portal for national preservation.”
“He’s the President!”
“And what is that supposed to mean? Do you have any idea how security clearances work? Do you think the President knows everything? You had a higher clearance than him even before you were promoted. Damn it, the shit the President doesn’t know could fill volumes, and do you know why? Because every four to eight years we get a new one. So this one decided he was going to shut us down a couple days before we are about to preserve an important cross section of our nation. What would he do then? Put it up for a vote to see who gets to go? Maybe himself and all the cronies he can lay hands on. Maybe he’ll decide we shouldn’t use it at all until that fucking asteroid is rammed down our throat and it’s too late. I did what I had to do; I did what I was ordered to do!” Volant pounded his fist on the desk for emphasis. It made his hand hurt, and spilled his beer, two things he instantly regretted. “And I’d do it again.”
“You and Hipstitch have it all under control, don’t you?” Volant stiffened at the mention of the military commander. “Oh, I know how you two have been working together. I don’t have your level of access, I don’t think anyone on Earth does, but I have enough eyes and ears to know he’s playing you like a puppet. National security my ass, I’m sickened by the very notion of having to kill a President because a lard ass general decided he was in the way! You’ve perpetrated a military coup and figure no one will ever know about it. Well, I think I’m going to do something about that.”
“Don’t get crazy on me,” Volant said as the younger man turned to the door, “there’s too much at stake here to play Boy Scout.”
“You were so worried that the President would choose the wrong people to go through the Portal that you had him killed. Well, I’ve seen the lists that your buddy Hipstitch put together and I think you killed the wrong man.”
Steve grabbed the door handle but froze at the sound of a hammer being cocked. He slowly turned around to stare down the barrel of Volant’s trusty Sig Sauer. “What are you going to do, shoot me too? Don’t you have enough blood on your hands yet?” Volant cocked his head and waited. He didn’t have to wait long.
Steve was younger and decidedly faster on the draw. Volant admired the smooth motion of the younger man slipping to the side, his arm snaking under his jacket to pull out his weapon. Not bad for a kid with little field time. The movement only took a split second before Volant was seeing the other man’s gun come up toward his own head. But he’d been in more than a few gunfights himself. He crouched down and to the side, his stomach crying out in pain. He held his fire a split second until Steve stopped moving. A pair of pistol shots rang out.
Two agents ran up to Volant’s office in response to the gunfire. They found him sitting in his chair drinking the beer he’d offered his friend. There was a bloody gouge in his right arm that he hadn’t noticed. On the floor was the former NSA Assistant Sector Chief with a bloody hole in his chest. The man’s dead eyes stared at Volant in surprise.
“What happened, sir?”
“A slight dispute in the chain of command,” Volant said and crushed the empty beer can. “We seem to have an opening in management, is either of you interested?” Both men shook their heads and backed to the door. “Get someone in here to remove Mr. Bradley.” As he tossed the can in the trash, he felt the wound in his arm. He looked down at it with a detached appraisal, noticing the blood running down the back of his hand and dripping on the floor. “And get a medic to see to my arm.” When he was alone, he looked down at the dead boy. “I wish you hadn’t made me do that,” he said and stretched to get another beer from the fridge, “You gave me no choice.” Steve had nothing to say. “What was I supposed to do?” Volant yelled at the body. Somewhere in the back of his head he realized he sounded a little hysterical.
A
couple of men were moving Bradley’s body onto a stretcher. Volant was watching the paramedic stitch his wound closed. He’d cut the sh
irt, of course. But the bullet and blood had already ruined it anyway. He was about to ask the guy if he needed a shot or anything when night turned into day outside. The windows blew inward with an unholy roar and the paramedic fell to the floor screaming in pain. Volant got up and went to the door. Portal City was coming alive with the sounds of gunfire and explosions. In the sky Volant could see the insect-like outline of attack choppers. “Shit just hit the fan,” he said. Volant went into his office long enough to retrieve his tactical vest, extra gun and magazines from the filing cabinet before going back outside. “Time to dance!” he laughed at the night. With one last look over his shoulder at his dead friend’s staring eyes Volant walked out into hell.
May 20
The attack choppers fell on the city in seemingly endless waves. The skies filled with anti-aircraft rocket and gun fire while buildings exploded when downed craft crashed into them. Still more buildings were blown up as military targets by the attacking forces. The attack was organized with only a few hours’ notice from dozens of different military units. The same ammo dump was hit three, four, even five times as target redundancy was the name of the game. But this was just what Hipstitch planned all along.
Just as the attacking force's commanders were about to move past the perimeter defenses and launch an assault on the much more heavily defended Portal City, a new force arrived. Hundreds of new helicopters, all fresh and fully armed, swooped down on the surprised attackers and began tearing them to pieces. The few thousands souls still hunkered down in the Big Apple watched by dawn’s early light as civil war came to the city.