by Gary Sapp
we’ve wasted enough time as it is.”
Standing on these hard wood floors for long periods of time had recently started his lower back and feet to ache. He put one hand on his side and continued to stand despite his discomforts. “What could you possibly want from me, Serena?”
“I’ve had you followed. I know that you spoke candidly with Mayor Ernestine Johnson before her passing.”
“Ernestine who,”
“Don’t fuck with me, Thomas.” Serena stood. She drained the last ounces out of her water bottle, walked over and dropped the empty plastic into the recycle bin, retrieved another from a pack she brought with her. “I’m sure you and the city’s former mayor spoke at length on several matters, including the three questions that every Person of Color in this Color wants to know?”
Thomas laughed, a sickly sound that he hoped drowned out all of the anxiety and fear he was actually feeling at the moment. Yes, Thomas, they may even try to kill you. They might at that, but he had made a promise to the dying woman. He tried to push the conversation in a different direction. “So if I’m guessing correctly, you are here to use me as a propaganda tool in denying portions of what has transpired in this city over the past 36 hours?”
“You have it backwards actually,” She sipped at her water bottle, looking as if she were savoring its taste. “And I’ll let you get away with changing the subject only long enough to verify that Pandora, under my orders, did launch all three attacks that the world has come to know as 411, as these operations began on April 1, 2011.”
“Why do you need me to confirm this for you, Serena?” Thomas asked. “Through whatever channels you chose to use, your people already established that you perpetrated these offensives to the media.”
“You’ve been an esteemed journalist a long time, Thomas. You know, as well as I do, that those channels do serve a purpose,” She glided over to where he was standing. He wanted to step away, but found himself paralyzed in a single block of space. She put a hand on one of his shoulders. “But when America hears these same words utter from my lips, and when they see my face today they will know once and for all that everything they’ve feared is true. That’s why I am here today.”
“You’re talking about my online show. You’re going to appear on my blog.”
“Two million hits a day. I surely don’t miss an episode.” Serena took another hit of her water and pushed her red hair out of her pale face. “I’m going to give your viewers…I’m to give the whole world all the truth they can handle.”
For the first time since he saw this woman sitting uninvited in his home, he felt a rousing of curiosity that thrust some of his fear aside. Maybe this doesn’t have to be a deadly invitation after all. He folded his arms, relaxed his breathing, deciding that it was ill advised to push his luck any further. And I’m interested in how much you truly know about what is said during my coming and goings. Serena had more than enough resources at her disposal to have him followed, no doubt that she knew that he’d been asked to the mayor’s estate and subsequently to her chambers to confer with her before her unfortunate passing…but you don’t know what was said between us or you wouldn’t have asked.
“There are three questions that every Person of Color in this country wants answered.” He echoed what she had said a few minutes earlier.
Serena nodded once. “Who killed President Adolphus Sweet? Who is the Caretaker? And, of course, what is the Whirlwind?”
He imagined he was struggling to keep the shocked look off of his face. “Are you going to tell the audience the answers to those questions today?”
“No.” She replied without anger. “I will say that once the answer to one of the first two questions is revealed, the other two answers almost will reveal themselves. I’m hopeful that it won’t come to that.”
“You’ve already shown that you have the power to stop me from learning the truth, Serena.” He said cautiously. “My question to you, is will you stop me?”
“I’m hopeful that it won’t come to that.” She said again and then quickly added, “Our time together grows short, Thomas. May we begin this interview?”
“I record the show from a studio in my basement.” He flashed Serena his best goofy smile. “I’m sure you already know where it is.”
“Of course I do, Thomas,” Serena waved her arm towards the appropriate door and his nerves flared up again. “It’s in your best interest to go first.”
The studio is a box shaped room which is more wide than big in its owner’s eyes and he kicked himself again for not having it painted beyond the bland white it was originally assigned. He also could have had piped the central air and heat down here but decided against it at the time to save a dime. Serena went about shivering almost immediately, sitting her water bottle down for the first time. He had to fight against his own instincts and not give her his jacket top, unknowing of how Pandora’s leader would take to his gentlemanly offer of goodwill.
Instead he got down to the business at hand. “I don’t normally operate this equipment myself. It might take me as long as 20 minutes to half an hour to set up everything.”
Serena pulled a stopwatch out of her pants pocket, synchronized it with the time on her wristwatch and pushed the top button. “30 minutes, Thomas,” She sat on one of the two stools he used in his interviews. “I’m holding you to that timeframe.”
If Serena had made that last statement as some implied threat, he hadn’t had the time to concentrate on it. Instead, he glared at a nearby magnetic calendar he had stuck on a makeshift bookshelf over by where his main camera rested on a lanyard.
“What is it, Thomas?” Serena asked. She looked more comfortable sitting atop this stool than she ever did in his easy chair. “What’s wrong?”
Thomas sat back on his own seat without looking back at it, dumbfounded. “I have a maid, her name is Eloise.” He glared back at the calendar to be sure. “She comes in once a week to clean the townhouse for me.”
Serena rubbed her shoulders for warmth. “Again, Thomas, you haven’t told me anything that I already don’t already know about you and your life. She is scheduled to clean this place tomorrow.”
Thomas slid his stool nearly on top of Serena. He dared put his hands on hers so she could not back away from him. “Did you know that Eloise needed to clean a day early this week.” He ducked his head, searching his memory banks for confirmation of what his mind was processing. “There was something…maybe a midweek vacation with her husband who had requested some days off.”
“I’m sure that she told you the last time you slept with her, Thomas. That is what you do with her after she finishes cleaning—“
“She has a key.” He dared lurch his head closer “She normally would have been here by now and she’s never late. Where is she, Serena? Is she being detained as well?”
For the first time since this particular conversation has been struck, Serena’s expression flashed blankness at Thomas and caused him to blink rapidly in panic.
Then he watches Serena tilt her head ever so slightly to the right. If he weren’t sitting this close, sitting so dangerously close to her, he might not have noted the small movement.
“Are you hearing this?” She said with a hushed voice into some type of communication device clipped to her collar. He had never noticed it was there before now. “Roger.” She listened to what the party on the other end had to say. “Contact, Shooter. I need this data ASAP.” She paused. “Understood; Oracle out.”
Still locked in by his vice grip on her stool, Serena leaned in towards Thomas close enough that their lips were close enough to touch. “I’m sure we are well within the 30 minutes I gave you to ready us for this interview, Thomas.” She said in a low voice that reminded him who was in control here. “Shall we begin?”
Serena
The field leader of Pandora watched one red light flash above the largest of Thomas Pepper’s tabletop computers. He’d finished the setup with still over six minutes to spare. Well done, Thomas; It
was time.
Thomas’ intro played with its usual dramatic flair, one Serena Tennyson though was full of preamble, but contained very little true substance. I might fault his methods but his madness hold much merit, his popularity and most importantly to her, his ratings didn’t lie. That is the specific reason that I am sitting in this icebox of a room.
“Please introduce yourself and state the purpose of your visit to my program today?” Thomas asked and took his seat beside her.
She glanced one final time at the stopwatch hanging from a nail just out of sight of the camera. She had set it for the exact time that this broadcast would begin. She had committed the remainder of the countdown to memory. The FBI would have this transmission signal decoded, itemized and her exact location transmitted to local law enforcement within minutes. She had that much time…and little more, to honor one of her final promises made to Caretaker before he died two years ago.
After you enact 411, give a moment’s pause, so that your adversaries have one last chance to save their selves from destruction. She remembered as if the greatest man she’d ever known had said it to her just yesterday. Allow them a chance to save face, allow both sides to back away from the brink. Remember the sacrifices that I have made, Serena. I order you to save as many lives as you can
“Serena…are you still with us,” Thomas was