“Is everything ready on your side?” Allison talked on the phone.
“I was about to ask you the very same.” Hedgiest responded on the other end.
“We are protected in here. The dome is shielded. How about you?”
“Oh, thank you for your concern. We are in the designated area.”
“You wouldn’t be the same without your precious free thinking head. Just make sure that only you, the Secretary and the Board of Directors are there with you, no residents allowed.”
“I personally made sure of that. Don’t worry. The town of Brokenville will also embrace the new era.”
“Get ready to pop the champagne.”
“I will.”
Allison put the call on hold.
“Hedgiest and the others are shielded.” She informed the Chancellor beside her. “Everything’s on schedule.”
“Good.” He answered. “Then, I believe we shall proceed.”
Forrester turned to the engineer sitting by the workstation directly in front of her.
“Punch it.” She commanded.
The engineer typed her keyboard frenetically and turned her chair around. Other workers dispersed around the large structure shaped like a dome also typed commands. Algorithms and programs came to life at an extremely high speed, rolling down several monitors.
Indicator lights illuminated the indoor environment, turning the place into a giant Christmas tree. They provided a beautiful spectacle of colors, although that was not their intended purpose.
Big monitors descended from the ceiling. They resembled gigantic televisions and turned on automatically. The screens showed a group of children in a square room, all sitting in chairs placed in a way to form a spiral that finished on a center seat occupied by Amy.
Each chair backrest bore a pair of cylinders fixed on top. A rigid needle protruded out of each cylinder. The children’s arms were connected to one another by tubes that also reached inside their skins, straight to their veins.
Electrodes rested on the children’s chests and heads. Their hearts and brains activities were closely monitored by a team of doctors sharing desks with the technicians and engineers.
“Can you see this?” Allison asked on the phone.
“We’re receiving loud and clear.” Hedgiest replied.
Once again, she put down the cell phone.
The children also had her arms and legs strapped to their respective chairs.
“Why do we have to be stuck in here?” A kid asked Amy telepathically.
“Just focus and everything will be fine.” Amy tried to reassure him.
“Those straps hurt!” A little girl complained.
“Focus on me.” Amy responded. “I’ll try to ease the pain.”
Amy was the oldest child. The ages of the other children varied, ranging from five to twelve.
“Commence.” Allison nodded at the engineer.
More typing followed, and the two cylinders of each backrest moved forward, revealing they were longer than they appeared at first. Such motion caused the needles connected to the cylinders to pierce the children’s napes beyond skin and flesh, all the way to their brains.
“It hurts!” A little boy wept.
“It will pass, honey.” Amy said, but also twisting her face in pain.
In fact, the pain only lasted for a few seconds. Very fast, a mild sedative kicked in and the children could open big, rounded eyes to the gorgeous cosmic dance unveiling to their very minds. They felt like they were floating in space.
“Children, allow me to proudly present the Big Mambo King.” Allison announced.
The big screens in the dome also showed the magnificent satellite gently making its rounds around the globe. It resembled a gigantic conga with solar panels and antennas, hence the name.
However, to the children’s eyes it was a dream coming true, a toy they waited so long to play with, amidst tests, probing and a totally denied childhood. And the final, ultimate impression surpassed their most demanding expectations. All the propaganda surrounding the big event of their lives so far had paid off.
The heart monitors only registered normal body activity.
The Big Mambo King relayed data to smaller satellites that encompassed the planet as a whole, called backing vocals. Those in turn fed information to antennas strategically positioned in several areas of the globe, in such a way to cover not only highly populated zones, but also the remote ones. In other words, they were everywhere.
“Alright, now’s the tricky part, ladies and gentlemen,” Allison warned “a single failure and the children’s hypothalamuses will blow up sky high, even higher than the satellites.”
“We’re keeping an eye on them.” The head physician assured.
More keys were typed, lots of commands entered. The logic of the many algorithms took charge once again.
All of a sudden, all instruments monitoring the children’s health blinked and pulsed like crazy, all readings went off scale.
The young ones closed their eyes and shook harshly.
“What’s happening?” A technician asked urgently.
“It’s too much data!” Another one answered.
“They can handle it.” One of the doctors stepped in. “They’re young.”
Even with their eyes closed, it was possible to see the children’s pupils running around the sockets like stunned beetles.
“Stop it!” Amy managed to scream.
Allison leant toward the emergency stop red button on the panel in front of her.
“Just a little bit more…” The lead engineer said.
“I’ve never seen readings like this in my whole life.” The head physician said. “Any regular brain would have bled to death by now.”
“STOP IT!” Amy’s voice echoed again. “They are suffering! They are going to die!”
Allison extended a hand near the red button.
The Chancellor observed everything in a calm contemplation.
“Just a little bit more…” The lead engineer insisted again.
“They can’t take it anymore!” The head physician alerted.
The children’s monitors were beeping loudly. Amy tried to say something, but the words choked in her throat. Each and every muscle of her body trembled and twitched.
That was when the straps tying her to the chair disappeared, so did everything else. She floated through time and space, a sensation of peace and calm invaded her soul, while vivid images flowed around her eyes, like a movie.
She could see soldiers advancing to enemy territory, in a time and place she never imagined could possibly exist, not even in her wildest dreams. Everything looked rough and primitive. Even so, flying machines whirred their way into clouds of dust, dropping bombs on a barren area.
Orders were barked and names mentioned, but nothing she could distinguish in the emptiness of nothingness. One name hit her mind like a hammer, though – Mitchell. But she did not know anybody by that name.
The images changed to heroic feats in days of old. Brave warriors fought terrible monsters in a civilization heading for destruction. The word Sarah popped up.
Suddenly, the background of her existence turned into planets and stars. Amy flew through outer space like a ship. She sailed around constellations and galaxies, supernovas and suns. The beauty was exquisite, the extraordinary spectacle as infinite as the universe.
But all romanticism got lost when she came near Earth, her home planet. A turbulence of anguished thoughts broke into her brain like an angry mob. She tried to block them, but could not stop the horde from coming in. Her head was a washing machine, mind spinning faster than an automatic dryer.
So many sad people that had been given all chances for happiness, but wasted them all in pettishness and false notions of values, simplicity lost in complicated desires and unnecessary aspirations, all wrapped up in ribbons of foolish ambitions.
Amy wanted to pity them, but they were causing her pain. She could only guess if the other childre
n were living similar experiences, savoring the same bitter taste of opportunities lost in an impossible pursuit of perfection.
In Devasta Land, a group of men came back to the big patio of the university, dragging big angry walking cadavers by long metal clubs attached to dog-collars around the corpses’ necks.
“This better be good.” One of the men complained to his leader. “We lost a lot of good brothers in this little cattle drive of yours. These sons of bitches are even tougher than we thought. The tear gas did nothing at first. We have to use all of it. We went out there as an army and only this bunch made it in one piece.”
“You got enough of them.” The Owner said. “And you know this is going to be good. Have I ever let you down when it came to fun and recreation?”
The man smiled and signaled the others to take the snarling Destructors inside the improvised corral.
The Owner waved a hand toward the prisoners.
“Time to walk the doggies!” He said.
The men watching the captives put dog-collars around the necks of Ike, Ivy and Jill. The dog-collars had long metal sticks attached to them. The three prisoners were released but could not stand up. Their captors forced them to crawl on all fours like babies, pulling their necks up and down with the sticks, then to the left and to the right, nearly suffocating them.
Ike was having a real hard time copying with the extreme pain in his right shoulder, bearing only a bandage to patch up his arrow wound.
“Come, doggie, come!” The people around shouted and laughed.
“Shall we start the party?” A woman in rags asked.
“Before our pets have a chance to unload their necessities?” The Owner responded. “That would be cruel.”
The man dragging Ike got the message. He smiled and pulled his prisoner to the pole where he was tied up before.
“Come on, boy!” He said to Ike. “Do your little business. Don’t be shy. Pretend it’s a hydrant.”
Ike was confused and suffering, not knowing what to think, left alone what to do.
“Come on now!” His captor insisted. “We haven’t got all day!”
The man hit the back of Ike’s head with a club. Ike knew there was no right answer to his situation. Anything he said or did would just get him even more beaten up and humiliated. His mind was slowly obliged to accept the fact he would have to pee in a pole like a dog.
Ivy and Jill could do nothing but crying and praying.
Suddenly, every single person in the square patio brought hands to temples and screamed in terrible pain.
Joshua and his natives had to do the same at the other side of the huge stone walls. The corralled living dead looked up, as if mesmerized by some object lost in the skies. The mutant dogs howled like wolves.
“We did it!” Allison gasped with wide open eyes. “I can’t believe we did it! It is right there, millions of them!”
“Give or take one or two insignificant glitches, the procedure was successful.” The lead engineer informed.
The children’s monitors were beeping smoothly again, showing only normal readings. They seemed to be sleeping peacefully, but still strapped to chairs and connected to needles.
Allison walked to the Chancellor.
“No more progress meetings, no more giving satisfaction to anybody!” She spoke excitedly. “Politicians, chiefs of state, presidents, world leaders, all at our beck and call, not to mention the majority of the planet’s population, and not a single shot was fired, not a single drop of blood was spilled…”
She had to stop to collect some air.
“And to think that those military folks wanted to reduce Condor City to debris” Allison continued. “What a waste of such industrious town. Now, all we have to do is knock on their door and get in. They will be a great addition to our efforts, same as Lily Master. I gather she’s also our puppy now. ”
“Congratulations.” The Chancellor said, looking with genuine admiration at his so hard-working director, with a strong vein for success. “Let’s celebrate!”
Lily was alone in her new quarters. She carefully made her bed and neatly organized her weapons on shelves, everything like daddy taught her. Clothes, she just had the ones covering her body. No pictures or portraits, only the memories in her mind. And daddy was all around them, along with the life they could have had.
The room was cozy and warm, even with a diffuse light, courtesy of microscopic bacteria. No idea how the temperature was kept. The people that built and maintained those underground caverns had done an extraordinary job.
A cupboard with drawers, desk and chair also had their places in the small, but very ingeniously conceived room.
Lily took a deep breath. She looked at her zombie-killing gear, taking turns between the boomerang and the dismounted hockey stick resting inside the sheath. She thought of her training in zillions of martial arts techniques.
She walked to the mirror and looked herself in. The person staring back at her was a total stranger.
Sounds of a scurry called her attention and she opened the door. She found Mate standing by his neighboring quarter, with the same question mark face.
Trisha was about to run past them, but the Australian held her arm.
“What’s happening?” Lily asked her.
“Communication from outside,” Trisha replied “not very common and surely not good.”
They went together down the great avenue and met with Zomboy and Hank in the entertainment room.
Zomboy grabbed the handset of an old radio sitting on a table.
“Zomboy, you there?” said the voice on the other end amid distortions.
“Joshua, my man” Zomboy responded. “What’s going on?”
“Something just happened.” Joshua answered. “And it must be big. My men and I felt like a billion souls were walking on our graves, not to mention the damned fucked up headache, pardon my French.”
Zomboy turned to Hank “An energy pulse of some sort?”
“It’s possible.” Hank replied and walked to a workstation.
“Are you okay now, Joshua?” Zomboy talked on the radio again.
“Yes. Whatever it was, it only lasted a minute or so.”
“Okay. Keep me informed.”
Zomboy put the handset aside.
“Our antennas have just been hit by a storm of electromagnetic waves like I’ve never seen before.” Hank stated his report.
“Do we know the source of this?” Zomboy queried.
“Nope.”
“Then I settle for what it did.” Zomboy said.
“Slim, Dylan!” Hank called his engineers. “Get your asses in here and man those stations.”
The two zombies promptly took their respective seats.
There was a crowd outside waiting for news.
Trisha lit a cigarette.
“Where did you get that?” Mate asked surprised.
“A little bonus Joshua can also smuggle from the jerks.” Trisha answered.
“You should be careful with those.” Mate advised. “They may kill you.”
“I make the jokes around here.” Zomboy said.
“Sorry.”
The three living dead engineers working on the stations looked at each other in turns, their deep eyes sinking in gloominess.
“So?” Zomboy questioned.
“It seems it happened, boss.” Hank reported.
“We knew this day would come.” Slim sighed.
“What?” Lily queried. “What happened?”
Zomboy fixed eyes on her.
“Something we feared for a long time.” He said. “Right now, the Undertakers say jump and the whole world says how high.”
“Man! That was intense!” The Owner said and finally managed to stand up.”
“Where’s the guy?” One of the brothers asked.
In fact, Ike was missing. Even Ivy and Jill turned heads looking for him.
“Right here!” A woman shouted and dragged Ike to the Owner’s feet. “Your pet d
ecided to take a little walk.”
“And it’s going to be his last.” The Owner said.
“What do you think it just happened?” Another man asked.
“I don’t know and it doesn’t matter.” The Owner answered. “Let’s just get this over with before it happens again. How’s the herd?”
“Uneasy and starving!”
“Good. Take the dogs to the rock.”
“What do you mean?” Lily questioned.
“When we undertook our little rebellion against this place and the crooks in it, we took a little time off for some exploration.” Zomboy answered. “And we came across some very sensitive information spread around a few classified documents, something they were planning for the future and is now coming to fruition.”
“Such as…” Lily said.
“World domination” Hank responded. “According to our analyzers, the atmosphere outside has just been bombarded by a massive signal. And judging by its monstrous amplitude, it went global, probably using satellites in space and antennas on Earth; and from them to everybody’s head.”
Apocalily Series (Book 2): The Almighty Lady of Tomorrow Page 16