Home Planet: Apocalypse (Part 2) (19 page)

I sent a HUD text to Laetitia.
Fifth floor lobby. We enter in NE corner. Wall to left with old elevator shaft. Entrances to conference rooms twelve through four o’clock. Immediate right is entrance to old indoor pool. Minimize exposure time in open lobby, but neutralize all targets to secure our rear.

She gave the signal to say she understood.

I eased open the left door and counted four guards—two at twelve o’clock, two at three o’clock—then relayed this via HUD text to Laetitia.

We were ready and I counted down, me on the left door, Laetitia on the right. We pushed open the doors and engaged the targets simultaneously. I took out the two at three o’clock, dark red stains blooming on their white coveralls. As they fell, a man and a young boy entered from the far doors seemingly in a hurry to get to the Games. The boy pointed at the dead guards and the man stopped to look in disbelief. From my right, I could hear the crowd jeering and shouting. We entered the lobby and calls of alarm came from the open door to our immediate right as guards saw their fallen comrades. One raised his rifle toward Laetitia, who’d already taken down one of the other two. He got three quarters the way to horizontal when I put a round in the side of his head. He fell backward, but fired into the ceiling. Laetitia hit the third guy and I was ready for all hell to break loose, with guards coming at us from all directions. But the noise of the Games continued without interruption as we entered the final corridor to the pit. The men’s locker room was nearest—on our left fifteen feet away. That was the place I’d awaited my bout three days prior. But I didn’t want to go that way. Once we left the corridor and entered the arena, it’d be one big firefight. We needed to neutralize the guards and get to Valdus without shooting any civilians. And that meant taking the
far
entrance—the one Valdus and his entourage used. It lay up ahead on the left another sixty feet past the locker room.

We dashed up the plain, concrete corridor to the makeshift doors, which opened outward. They were nothing more than a pair of hinged sheets of ply with circles cut for handles. We peered through the handle holes, identifying targets. I could see the back of Valdus’s head through several rows of well-dressed men and undressed harem girls. Once we opened the doors, we’d be right behind where they sat. There’d be guards immediately inside the double doors on both sides. We had to move fast. At some point, reinforcements would be at our back.

With the raucous crowd chanting, “Kill her! Kill her!” on my mark, we did two things. First, Laetitia started dropping guards viewed through the door handle-hole. Few spectators seemed to notice at first. At the same time, I sent a grenade though the other handle-hole, closely followed by a second. I crouched down, shielding myself from the blast and moments later the stun grenade burst. Immediately it dampened the chants to nothing, which morphed into screams and cries of panic. Laetitia continued shooting guards, unfazed by the flashbang. The delayed timer ran its course and the second stun grenade erupted just before we burst into the packed room. The next twenty seconds were a blur of close and medium-range takedowns. And then a hammer blow, deep and powerful, struck me. I was hit. The shooter caught me dead center in the chest armor, knocking the wind from me but doing no lasting damage. I ducked behind Valdus’s cowering entourage, hiding between the bleachers. The shooter popped his head from the inside the changing room and that was the last thing he ever did.

The sounds of gunfire fell silent, but screams and panic filled the room as the people started making for the exits.

“Secure Valdus!” I ordered Laetitia.

“Acknowledged,” she said, and she pushed her way through the VIPs toward the crouching despot. Two well-dressed lackeys—still recovering from the flashbangs—tried to impede her. Both suffered her wrath as she smashed her rifle butt into them—one in the gut and one in the face.

I took out my .45 caliber pistol and fired three shots into the ceiling.

“Quiet!” I shouted at the top of my voice.

With another two ceiling shots from the handgun, they complied.

Scared-looking VIPs parted as I strode toward the pit. Suppressed sobs broke the hush. I reholstered the .45 cal and jumped down next to the two mismatched figures. A fatter, uglier version of Baltan, sporting a bushy red beard, was in the center just feet away. He stood behind a kneeling young woman that reminded me of Myleene, her face one of pure terror. The brute clasped her long, dark hair with one hand and wielded a sword with the other. I didn’t have to guess what he was planning on doing with it.

“Drop the sword, tough guy!” I said angrily, pointing my rifle at his head.

He might have been an asshole, but he wasn’t stupid and he dropped the blade.

“Now, let her go and move over there.”

He complied, jogging to where my barrel directed.

“Now lay face down. You move, I shoot.”

Again, he complied and I helped his frightened victim to her feet. She ran to the ladder and got out of the pit.

Laetitia had Valdus by his scuff of his neck by the pit’s edge, his fearful-looking entourage frozen on the bleachers behind. For the first time, the arrogant smirk had left his face, now he glowered at me, defiant and angry.

“Right, now listen up people,” I called. “Nobody move. You won’t be harmed—unless your name is Valdus—as long as you do not resist. This place needs a new leadership—”

Valdus’s voice boomed out. “How dare you come here and—”

I shouted over him. “Laetitia, shut him up would you please?”

She nodded, picked him clean off the floor and whacked the side of his head with her palm, dazing him into silence.

Then from nowhere a fat Baltan-wanabe came barreling from the locker room with a knife. Onlookers fell over themselves to move out of the massive guy’s way.

“Woman! You have insulted the Great Marshal! Now you will
die
!”

I smiled crossed my face.

You don’t know who you’re dealing with.

Before he reached Laetitia, she threw Valdus into the pit, where his shoulder smacked into the hard concrete floor. The assailant was coming at her, knife raised and at considerable speed. With his teeth gritted, he went for the kill, but met the iron grip of her hand on his wrist. She held his wrist with the knife aloft as he tried to punch her with his other hand. She grabbed that wrist too, so he went to kick her, but quicker than the eye could see she landed a devastating kick to his groin. His instinct was to fold, but Laetitia held him suspended then twisted his knife hand. He cried out and dropped the knife and she kept on going until the bone snapped. Bored of toying with the two-hundred sixty pound attacker she picked him up above her head like a particular light barbell, then tossed him fifty feet through the air to end of the pit. He hit the deck with a sickening thud and didn’t get up. The crowd looked on wide-eyed as the tall, lithe superwoman scanned the humans in her midst for new challengers. There were none and whatever authority we’d lacked before we’d now cemented firmly in place.

“Does anyone else want to try?” I said, scanning my audience’s reaction.

No one said a word. Good, I had their undivided attention.

“Now you’re listening, let me tell you a story, a story about the once-great nation in which this city stood over half a millennium ago. Your language and the ancient items you
mine
from the ice originate from this nation, a nation called the United States of America. It wasn’t the only advanced country of its time—there were many others around the world—but it was the one that ran this city. The city of Los Angeles …”

I told them how things used to be. How there was a justice system and however flawed it was, it had to be better than a tin-pot dictator deciding people’s futures on a whim.

“And in the United States a supreme law ruled the land—the Constitution. Many centuries ago, I swore an oath to uphold that constitution and now I want it reinstated. It’s not for the good of me—we’ll soon be out of here—but rather for the good of you and all of your future generations. This may take many years and I know some of you folks may not read too well, so we’ll talk you through the Constitution right now, then we’ll write it down for you. It’s important you listen because afterward, you’re gonna vote on it.”

I knew most of the Articles and Amendments, but not all I’m ashamed to admit. Laetitia’s database did, though.

“Laetitia, please can you explain?”

“Certainly, Mr. Luker,” she said, still holding a miserable-looking Valdus.

I watched him as she spoke loudly and eloquently. It looked like all his worst nightmares had come true and he’d fallen into a wordless funk. Good, he deserved it and as long as his words returned in time for his interrogation then I was fine with that.

Whereas most audiences in 2070 would’ve been bored with an explanation of laws, to their credit the people of Angels City were not. But it wasn’t surprising given how it could change their lives. Or maybe twenty-first century attention spans just weren’t very good. Forty-five minutes later, Laetitia-the-speaker was done. There were no questions, but nods and smiles had started to appear from some of the citizens.

“Now you’ve heard about the Constitution—and I hope you liked what you heard—I’m looking for someone to stand for election and another to organize the voting. And don’t worry, Valdus and his deputies aren’t eligible. They’ll play no part in this city from now on.”

If they were listening, they should now know what voting and elections actually were.

The crowd parted and an old bearded man with gray hair and tanned skin came forward to the edge of the pit. It was Cortez.

“What are you doing here? I thought you fled south,” I asked.

“I did, but then I doubled back here. You see, I left some very special people behind and I couldn’t have that. Under Valdus, if you do something he doesn’t like, even your family is not safe.”

“Well, you can change that now. So are you standing for election?”

“Yes, it would be my honor.
All
of the people need a voice. I can represent them.”

Another guy came forward as a candidate and then a middle-aged woman volunteered to run the nascent electoral commission. I had to applaud their bravery. These were just the fragile seeds of democracy and justice and there were no guarantees. But I had to try.

***

Laetitia and I stuck around while they organized the vote. Additional guards arrived every now and then, but Laetitia’s hold on Valdus and a few quiet words from the people soon persuaded them they’d be on the wrong side of history should they try anything. The vote, then the count, took place and Samuel Cortez became the first president in over half a millennium. Okay, he was interim president and it was just a local election in truth, but small acorns and all that. His first order was to have all guards swear an oath of allegiance to the Constitution. Next, he had Valdus’s deputies taken to the cells to await a judge and jury trial.

Only the limited size of the place and having a decent percentage of the populace in one place allowed all this to happen so quickly. It was late in the afternoon when the crowd started thinning out. We couldn’t stay and oversee things forever. These people needed to do it for themselves. Maybe they’d succeed, maybe they wouldn’t, but at least Valdus was out of the picture. He wouldn’t be staying to face trial and, despite my urge to the contrary, I didn’t plan to shoot him either. I had other plans.

After shaking hands with Cortez and some of the others, we went to leave.

“Ready?” I said to Laetitia, who nodded and pulled Valdus up by the scruff of his neck.

“Get off me!” he protested, some of his vitriol having returned.

“It’s okay, Laetitia, let him walk ahead as long as he promises to be a good boy.”

She let him, go and he glared at her.

“
Well
, Valdus the not-so-great?” I said, placing hands on my assault rifle.

“I will comply,” he said, wearily.

“Okay then,” I said cheerfully, “let’s get going.”

Valdus walked toward the changing room and the exit out of there with Laetitia and me behind. As we entered the fifth floor lobby, several guards and over a two dozen citizens looked on. No one made a move to intervene and there were several hollers of support from the usually voiceless people. Perhaps we had initiated real change. Only time would tell.

We walked briskly toward the far exit, but when I looked, Laetitia was no longer by my side. I turned around. She was still only a few paces out of the changing room, shuffling along, her footsteps intermittent and labored.

“Are you okay?” I said, running over to her.

“My energy state ... I have switched to low power settings,” she said without emotion. “Valdus, he’s getting away.”

Her eyes left mine and fell on the place I’d left him.

I spun around to see the double doors swing shut in his wake.

“Damn! He won’t get far.”

And I started sprinting after him. But before I arrived the sounds of a scuffle grew as three men—two ordinary citizens and a guard—bundled him face-first and back through the doors.