by Jacob Gowans
“Bobby John loves dancing!” He clapped his hands and stomped his feet. Seeing him so excited and joyful made Katie giggle.
Courtney strode up to the table somewhat breathless, two cups in her hands. She looked purposefully at Katie. “I got them. Give me the bottle.”
Katie licked her lips and gazed across the room to where Priyanka was dancing in a circle of friends with Mark Newcomer, Katie’s old boyfriend.
“Do you still have it?” Courtney asked when Katie didn’t move.
Katie nodded, but the pain in her gut returned. The bottle in her bag held the most powerful laxatives on the market. Two drops were enough to make Priyanka soil herself in less than three minutes. And the urge would come so fast and so hard that she couldn’t possibly reach the bathroom in time.
“If we’re going to do it—”
Katie looked once more at Priyanka, then at Bobby John. “Forget about it, Courtney. Let’s just have fun.”
The evening passed in a storm of laughter and dancing. Bobby John drew quite a crowd once he really got moving. His dancing consisted of waving his arms in the air wildly and shaking his prodigious gut, but he laughed and sang along with each song. As it turned out, he knew the lyrics better than Katie and her friends put together.
Midway through the night, the deejay quieted the music as the time came to announce the prom court. Katie and her friends shot each other expressions of excitement and anxiety. The president of the student body took the stage and presented the awards.
First was the Class Clown, then the Prince. It was the Princess award that Katie was worried about. If she didn’t win Princess, it meant she stood an even slimmer chance of winning Queen since Priyanka had been ahead of Katie at the last vote. “And the winner of Princess is …”
Katie took a deep breath and steeled herself for receiving the runner-up prize.
“Rachel Linn!”
Rachel shrieked. Everyone else gasped at the announcement, and Katie knew why. The vote was supposed to have been between Priyanka and Katie. Rachel taking second in the votes meant that either she or Pri had been a distant third.
The Prom King was announced: Priyanka’s old boyfriend, Zach Morris. Katie groaned inwardly, knowing that her chances of winning were now slim.
“And now … the moment you’ve all been waiting for … the 2053 Papillion High School Prom Queen is …”
Katie’s heart stopped beating for that moment. She wanted this. She wanted it more than anything. Please. Please. Please.
“Congratulations,” the student body president shouted. “Katie Carpenter!”
Thunderous applause erupted around her. Even Bobby John jumped and shouted, “Bobby John loves you! Bobby John loves you! Bobby John loves you!”
As she made her way to the dais, girls mobbed Katie with hugs and teary compliments, pulling her arm and gown in all directions. Even Priyanka hugged her around the waist. A video montage of Katie started to play on a large screen in front of the crowd while she pressed through the throng of bodies. Her eyes were on the film playing above, most of it footage taken by various students and faculty at events or during down time at school. When she was halfway up to the dais, she heard murmurings from behind.
“Oh my—”
“Is she really—”
“Slut.”
Katie looked around. What are they talking about?
She looked up at the video screen, but it only showed her making goofy faces with Rachel and Vivian during a pep rally. It wasn’t until she made it through the crowd to the steps that she noticed the cool air on her thighs, the lack of covering … My gown.
She wrenched her head around and tugged at her dress until she saw what had happened. Someone had cut a huge section out of it, exposing her entire backside. The giant video screen went live, her white panties flashing, contrasted by her tanned skin and dark dress. A large red spot like blood decorated her white underwear.
Her hands flew to cover herself, but her thin underwear left so much visible. Several more wolf whistles came from the crowd. Katie froze. Her stomach seized up and tears gathered in her eyes.
“Porn Queen!” one kid near the stage shouted.
“The Red Queen!” another yelled.
Laughter roared from her fellow students, those who had just voted her the queen of the prom.
Some chanted “Red Queen!” Others “Porn Queen!” For a brief instant, everyone around her transformed. They weren’t dancing and laughing. They were bleeding, dead, mangled. Blood splattered the walls and the floor. Pools and rivers of it. Then she blinked and the image was gone.
She blinked again, and ran away.
18. Speeches
Wednesday, November 5, 2087
“FIFTEEN MINUTES UNTIL the evening broadcast,” Thomas reported.
Commander Byron and his team took the parking garage elevator up to the lobby of the forty-story Continental Broadcasting Network headquarters in downtown Los Angeles. They wore casual clothes over light body armor with non-lethal neural impulsers concealed in their holsters. Commander Byron smiled as he remembered how Sammy had called them jolts when he’d been picked up in Johannesburg.
Byron liked the men and women on his team. All experienced and battle-tested. All focused on the task at hand. It was a well-planned mission. His father, Thomas, would bring his own team from the north entrance, while Byron’s group punched in from the south. Security would be quickly overwhelmed from both sides.
“Teams check in,” Thomas announced over the com.
“Strand Team in position,” Li said.
“Drake Team in position,” Commander Byron said.
“Duck Team in position,” Thomas said. “‘Remember, remember, the fifth of November. The gunpowder treason and plot.’”
“‘I know of no reason,’” Byron finished, “‘why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.’”
The elevators opened and Byron led his team out. The CBN building was bustling with shoppers and tourists who wanted to be in the building during the primetime evening broadcast. Most of them shuffled around the first floor which boasted a company museum and overpriced food and gift shops. In order to reach the elevators for access to the upper floors one had to pass through the security gate, quarantined off by walls of bulletproof glass three meters tall in the middle of the indoor plaza.
Byron’s team approached the south security checkpoints as though they were a group of tourists. From across the lobby, he saw his father’s team doing the same. “Drake Team ready to move in.”
“Standing by to intercept the signal,” said Li from Strand Team.
All at once commotion erupted at the north side of lobby. “Get down! Get down!” voices from Thomas’s team shouted. Every security guard on the south side closed their gates and ran to help out at the north end. Byron watched them, waiting.
“Now,” he said.
The two Psions on Byron’s team jumped the walls using mild blasts to help them, and fired their jolts at the backs of the security guards.
* * * * *
The sun’s last rays cast waves of blood red and navy blue against thick white clouds. The Los Angeles weather, despite the overcast conditions, was pleasant, even for November. The wind whipped Brickert’s hair as he stood in the open door of the stealth cruiser, Natalia next to him. They stared at the massive city, its skyscrapers stretching on for kilometers in both directions. Some of the buildings boggled Brickert’s mind, standing twelve hundred meters high and as round as a small lake. With its buildings of bewildering size, downtown Los Angeles was said to be the pinnacle of human achievement.
Li and the rest of the Psions waited behind Brickert and Natalia. “Thomas’s team is moving into position. Let’s go in three … two … one.”
One by one, Li’s team dove out of the cruiser toward the roof of the CBN world headquarters. Between their flight suits and their blasts, everyone managed a safe landing. Li injected a tube of blue goo into the lock, waited for it to set, and
shattered the lock. Once the door had been forced open, they made their way down a utility staircase until they reached the floor of the control rooms for the broadcast centers.
“Canisters in hand,” Li ordered.
Each member of the team held a small gas canister smaller than a deck of cards.
Li gave the signal and simultaneously his team slid their gas canisters under the doors of the control rooms to release their contents. The gasses worked quickly, rendering the men and women in the rooms unconscious before anyone could sound an alarm or disable communication between the building, orbiting satellites, and outside transmission towers. “The guests are sleeping,” Li reported to Thomas. “Headed to London now. Standing by to intercept the signal.”
“London” was code for the broadcast studio. Li’s team split three ways: two teams heading toward the east and west stairwells, while the third group remained, keeping the communications floor secure while hacking into the security channels.
Once Thomas and Commander Byron’s teams engaged security on the ground floor, a silent alarm went out to alert local authorities. Li’s team hacked and rerouted the signal while several of Thomas’s men used com jammers to prevent any outgoing emergency calls from tourists and CBN employees. Pandemonium was breaking out in the lobby, but no one knew about it. When Brickert and Li reached the doors to the main studio, they paused and checked in with the rest of the team.
“At the gates of London,” Li reported.
“Do it.”
Li nodded to his team. “Now.”
* * * * *
After securing the ground floor, Commander Byron and his father left most of their forces in the lobby to maintain order and assure no one left while the rest took the elevators up to meet Strand Team in the studio. By the time they arrived, Strand Team already had control of the floor. The news anchors, technicians, and cameramen had been escorted away to another room and locked inside while the resistance assumed operation of the studio equipment.
“Good work, Li,” Commander Byron said, surveying the room. “I like the precision and command you showed.”
Li grinned modestly. “I was trained well, sir.”
“All right everyone,” Thomas called out. “We have ten minutes to prep for the evening news. Just do what we practiced and everything will be fine.”
“Are you ready, Pop?” Byron asked his father.
“I feel like I’ve been preparing for this my whole life.”
“Are all systems secure?” Commander Byron asked over his com.
Strand Team confirmed that all systems were go for broadcast. Byron’s father took his place behind the news desk, donning a white shirt, a tie, and a suit coat over his combat pants that were hidden behind the desk. With slightly trembling fingers, Thomas placed his tele-prompter contacts in his eyes. After straightening his thick gray-white hair, he gave a thumbs up to the commander, who returned the gesture. “Do I look like a man born to read the news, Walter?”
“Well, you look better than you normally do.”
Thomas chuckled heartily. “Good enough.”
“One minute to air time,” one of the Elite said.
Commander Byron watched his father assume a serious expression as he cleared his throat and sipped water from a bottle. One of the female Elite working a camera counted down on her fingers to tell him only five seconds remained.
At one, Thomas turned to the camera and said, “Good evening. My name is Thomas Byron. I am a citizen of the Continental American Government, and lead a group known simply as the resistance. The aim of the resistance is to restore liberty and freedom to the CAG. I come before you with a warning that our government lied to its people regarding the multiple terrorist acts committed by the NWG. Not only that, but the CAG orchestrated and funded these acts against its own people in an effort to restrict our freedoms and liberties with the ultimate goal of achieving absolute control over our lives through an ambitious program called Project Orwell.
“And I have proof.”
Now, accompanying his father’s face on the screen, were images of evidence the resistance had collected over the years, pictures of purchasing documents, classified reports, and clips of video to entice the viewers to delve deeper.
“You may think I am crazy, dangerous, or perhaps some practical joker, but on the bottom of the screen you will see the addresses of websites you can visit which will show you incontrovertible evidence of our claims. Please take the time to read them, discuss them, and decide for yourself. All I ask is for your uninterrupted attention for the next few minutes while I reveal to you important facts—problems that our great nation faces—and present you with a solution.
“After reading the information provided, I hope you will reach the same conclusion I did: that we are no longer free.
“For the last two decades, our government has manipulated our people through fearmongering, terrorism, and isolation. It has made us think we need its ever-bloating power to survive. But mankind has survived long before governments were given power. We can feed and clothe ourselves. We can build homes over our own heads. We can take care of our own poor, hungry, and sick.
“A government is not a building, a man, or a gun. It is an idea to which we give power. Burn down that building, kill one man, dismantle a gun, and the government will continue if we let it. But once we collectively reject it and tear it down in our minds, we can start to build a new one. It has been done countless times in history.
“In six days we celebrate a holiday, November 11th, Armistice Day. The day tyranny was broken in Europe in 1918, almost one hundred seventy years ago. I invite you to join me on that day. We will march on the capitol in Washington D.C. and overthrow a government which has grown corrupt, insatiable, and blind. A power unrecognizable in character from what it was meant to be. I invite any member of our government who has seen our capital’s black heart to speak out and join us.
“I cannot do this alone. You cannot do this alone. But we are not alone. We are many. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, and millions, can do this together. The government can ignore me, it can ignore you, but it cannot ignore us all. If we stand united, bleed united, die united, our freedom is assured. There was once a promise we believed in. That promise was life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our liberty is vanishing. Without it our happiness will perish. And without happiness, what is life?
“We must fight together, not only for ourselves, but for our children. For our children’s children. And so on for generations until complacency sets in once more, and the world calls for a great and new generation to rise up and assume the mantle.
“Some of you may be thinking, ‘Yes, that is a nice idea, but if we do not win I will be arrested or killed.’ We do not fight because we know we will win. We fight because we know in our hearts we are right. And if we lose, we will die side by side if that is the price to be paid.
“Believe in an America restored. An America rebuilt. An America free. If you share my belief, my vision, and my hope, then join me on November 11. When the sun rises, so will we! This nation, God willing, will be renewed, reborn, restored to its roots: of the people, by the people, for the people, and will not perish from the earth.”
* * * * *
“The counter-insurgency team arrived moments after the resistance escaped the CBN station in Los Angeles,” the Queen, disguised as the fox, told the Council. She wanted to pluck their disapproving eyes out of their ugly heads.
“What do our analysts say?” one councilwoman asked. “Have the numbers shown what sort of effect we can expect?”
“I haven’t sought out an analyst,” the Queen answered.
Several Council members frowned. “That’s unlike you,” another man said. “You always run numbers in situations like this.”
“I didn’t feel it necessary. I think our chances of success are still quite high. In fact, I believe today was a boon more than a blow.”
“Explain.”
“A drone tagge
d the rebel atmo-cruiser, and we traced it back to their base in Glasgow. I’ve ordered the evacuation of our scouts who were already investigating the site as a possible location for the resistance’s operation. As soon as they have vacated the area, we will destroy the rebels. Our victory is assured.”
“What is the anticipated time of strike?”
“A matter of hours. We’ll have full press coverage of the aftermath. It will be painfully clear that this resistance is quashed and the war is all but over.”
* * * * *
A sense of elation permeated the resistance compound. Stage one of the plan, the mission to Los Angeles, had been a success. No casualties were suffered, civilian or resistance, and the website listed during the broadcast now reported huge traffic and downloads. Right now, it felt like winning was inevitable.
Yet there was no time for celebrations or parties; perhaps those things would come later. Brickert didn’t know how people celebrated winning a war, but a huge party—or at least a huge hamburger—seemed as good an idea as any.
Ten kilometers out of Saint Marie, he and Natalia lay on the grass wrapped in thick blankets. Li and Kawai were with them. They passed Li’s binocoscope around to view the moon, stars, and constellations.
“Where are Sammy and Jeffie?” Li asked.
“They didn’t feel like coming,” Brickert answered. “We left them back at the airport tower. I had to beg Sammy to let us borrow Lemon.”
“They never want to do anything anymore,” Natalia added.
“Go easy on them,” Kawai said. “Can you imagine what they’re going through?”
“I can’t,” Brickert said.
“But why do they want to be alone all the time?” Natalia wondered.
“I think being around other people,” Kawai suggested, “reminds them of … what’s coming. I don’t even want to try to wrap my head around what it’s like, preparing for a mission you know is going to kill you.”