No Future Christmas (25 page)

She finished her shift and hurried home.
“Computer on.” The
monitor lit up and a deep, male, mechanical voice said, “Hiya, doll.
Whatcha
got for me?”

Nancie Rutherford said, “Go to site Four Square.” The
holographic monitor flashed and a website came up.
Radical rhetoric spewed from
the anti-Fearsome website.
Nancie’s fingers flew over the keyboard and in less
than a minute she had passed the sentence she’d read earlier that evening to
the world.

* * * * *

Loud voices came from behind the door.
Four angry men each pointed
fingers at the other.
“Find out who’s spreading this garbage,” Robert Cranston
ordered as he waved a slip of paper at the others.

“Why?” Donald Carson asked in a snide voice.
“We know you’re
setting us up to take the fall.”

“We need to do something,” whined General Glen Tillson.

Cranston turned on the little weasel.
“Tillson, get some
balls.”

“Look, for God’s sake,” said Layton Kendall.
“We’re turning
on each other like a pack of starving wolves.”

“One of you three,” Cranston pointed a stubby finger at the
men, “told someone that you were a member of The Society.
A family member, a
wife, a mistress.
Now that person has gone and plastered it on the worldnet.”

“Now see here, Cranston,” bellowed Carson.
“No one would do
that.
The secret’s been in our families for generations, like it or not.”

“I don’t like it,” Cranston said.
“First we have to stop it
from spreading on the worldnet, then we have to find out who among us is a
traitor.”

Chapter Fifteen

Mike dug for hours on the old computer with no results.
He
stood up to stretch his sore muscles and groaned having forgotten about his
stiff neck.
It seemed that in the twenty-second century the medical industry
still couldn’t fix whiplash.
Although the Pain Away helped.
He ran his fingers
through his mussed hair leaving a few spikes.
He felt like hell and knew he
looked it.
His broken leg had mended with some lingering soreness.
Thankfully,
his ribs were completely healed.
No more sucking in his breath when he sneezed
or laughed.

Three days had passed and word about the CEOs had reached
the main websites.
The worldnet hummed with speculation.
The news media
reported that demonstrations were planned outside the buildings of the four
corporations the next day.
Wild rumors circulated that the CEOs had gone underground
to avoid the negative publicity.
World Starbucks everywhere were full of people
drinking coffee and gossiping.

Time had run out for those who protected the corrupt leaders
of the world.

A beehive of activity buzzed inside The Subversive
headquarters in Switzerland.
Voices commanding computers on and off were heard
all day long, shouts across the room updating everyone of the latest progress
drowned out the sneezes and coughs of everyday living.

Mike needed fresh air to clear his head.
He walked to the
door with barely a limp and opened it.
A bitter blast blew in.
“Close the
door!” someone shouted.
Mike did but not until he’d sucked in a few deep
breaths.

“How’re you feeling?” Shauna asked.
She wrapped her arms
around him and nuzzled his neck.

“Lousy.
I can’t find a thing.
No hint that anyone inside the
group is,” Mike glanced around the room and lowered his voice, “against us.
I’m
frustrated.
You’d think that going back twenty years would show something.
I
feel as if I’ve failed your parents.”

“No one could work the old computers like you.
We’re lucky
to have you.
If you didn’t find anything then there’s nothing to find.” Shauna
grabbed his hand and pulled him into the room.
“Mom just made fresh coffee.”

The explosion and the alarm happened at the same time.
The
window that Mike and Shauna had just been standing in front of blew inside the
room showering shards of composite material over the nearby workers killing
them instantly.
Screams and shouts followed.
People ducked from the shrapnel
and ran toward the interior of the building.

The loudspeaker blared.
“Emergency.
Emergency.
Invisi-shield
penetrated.
All hands calmly walk to underground escape chute.” Douglas
Wentworth kept up a steady set of instructions.
“All computers have been
erased.
You know the drill, people, we practiced it.
Keep calm.”

Mike and Shauna ran to the office where Douglas and Louise
were controlling the escape.
Mike slammed the door open.
“What happened?”

“The only thing we can come up with is someone found the
code to the invisi-shield and disabled it.
Our mole sold us out to the Global
Guardians.” A blast came from the other room and part of the building
disappeared.
Other blasts could be heard indicating that the Guardians were
systematically destroying every building in the compound.
“Better get to the
chute.
We don’t have any time left.”

Mike turned to Shauna and froze.
He sucked in his breath,
his knees weakened and his heart raced.
Winston Carty held a laser gun to her
head.
Tears ran down her cheeks but a blazing anger radiated from her eyes.
“Winston.” He’d kill the man.

The name caused Douglas and Louise to glance up from
gathering the last of their documents.

“Winston?” Douglas wore the look of a man enraged.
His face
had reddened to the point it looked purple.
“How could you?”

“We treated you like a son,” Louise stated.
One hand was
balled into a fist, a mother ready to kill to protect her offspring.

“No.
Never.
You treated me as a charity case,” Winston spat.
“You felt sorry for me.”

“We made you head of correspondents for
The Real Truth
,”
Douglas said.

Winston pulled Shauna closer to him, pushed the laser gun
into her temple.
“A title in name only.
Every time I came to you with a
suggestion on how to infiltrate the Guardians you stifled me.
Then, when the
organization was up and running smoothly, you ignored me.” Winston laughed.
His
eyes lit with mirth.
“I tipped off the Guardians about your activities.
That’s
why you were arrested.”

Shauna gasped.
“You sold out my parents?
They could have
been killed!” Shauna tried to turn but Winston’s hand tightened around her
waist.
The gun pushed harder into her head.

Mike knew they were out of time.
This little discussion was
for the benefit of the Global Guardians.
Winston’s explanation gave them time
to land so they could be captured.
He waited.
When the time was right he’d make
his move.

“But you were tortured,” Louise said.
“Why would you
collaborate with the men who tortured you?”

“Yes, I was tortured.
I wanted to die to escape the pain
they inflicted.
It cemented my hatred for you both.
I made a deal with the
Guardians that if they let me go I’d find you and lead them to you.”

Mike saw the gun relax at Shauna’s temple.
Winston seemed
lost in his memories.
He took a step closer to the man.

“What did you get out of it besides your freedom?” Douglas
asked.
“How much did they pay you?”

“Enough to live the rest of my life in peace without being
hassled.” Winston shoved Shauna forward but kept his hand on her arm.
The laser
gun dug into her skull again.

“So how did you find us, Winston?” Douglas glanced at Mike.
Mike imperceptibly shook his head and moved still closer.

“Your darling daughter led me right to you.” Winston sounded
like a man in an insane asylum.
“All she had to do was tell me you were alive
and I set the steps in motion to seek you out.
Didn’t she do a great job?” He
leaned forward to kiss Shauna playfully.

Mike moved so fast no one saw it coming.
He knocked the
gun-hand away from Shauna’s head, the gun going off in the confusion.
Then he
tackled the man and pummeled him, not realizing he was out of control.

Shauna grabbed Mike’s arm.
“Stop it.
He’s no threat anymore.
We have to get out of here.
Mike, stop it.”

It took a moment for the rage to drain away.
When he’d first
seen Winston hold the laser gun to Shauna’s head he’d gone crazy with fear.
Anger replaced it when the story unfolded.
Mike hauled Winston up and shoved
him toward Douglas.

“Leave him,” Douglas said.
“We need to go.”

Shauna held Winston’s laser gun on him and said, “What a
sad, pathetic man you have become.
I’m ashamed to ever have thought you a
friend.”

“You’re surrounded by Global Guardians, you know.
You can’t
escape.” Winston laughed and coughed spraying blood from his mouth.

“Then where are they?” Mike asked.

Winston pulled out a device and waved it at them.
“They’re
waiting for my signal.” He pressed a button.

The room shimmied, the walls bulged.
Mike hauled Shauna
toward the escape chute.
Douglas grabbed Louise.
The Wentworths made it to the
chute first and disappeared into the blackness.
Mike and Shauna were right
behind them but the explosion tore the building apart, starting from the
shattered front and working toward the back.
The shuddering and shaking caused
the trapdoor in the chute to close with a clang.
Mike shoved Shauna into the
hole for the chute but they had nowhere to go.
The building shuddered one last
sigh and Mike threw his body over Shauna’s as the walls crumbled and the roof
exploded.

When the dust cleared Mike raised his head.
No one.
Where
were the Guardians that Winston said were outside?
Why hadn’t they stormed the
rubble to find them?
“Shauna?
Love, are you all right?”

“Except for every muscle in my body being bruised I’m fine.”

Mike hauled her from the hole and hugged her.
They looked
around.
Winston lay dead on the floor next to an overturned desk.
Cold wind
blew through the destroyed building and snowflakes fell, already covering the
destruction in a blanket of white.
Mike shivered.
“Come on.
We need to get out
of here.”

“Where are the Guardians?” Shauna asked.

“I don’t know but let’s not wait to find out.”

They ran toward the landing zone.
Not a lime green uniform
in sight.
They grabbed the nearest skycar and took off.

* * * * *

“What do you mean they escaped?” Robert Cranston hollered.

Layton Kendall shuffled his feet and wrung his hands.
“Look,
Cranston, give me time to explain.”

“You imbecile,” he roared.
“The leaders of The Subversives
escaped a planned operation where all of their buildings were blown up?
I’ll
have your head for this.”

“Robert, let the man explain,” Donald Carson interjected.
“Calm down.
We’ll get them, sooner or later.”

“We don’t have later!
The world is demanding an explanation
about our ‘secret’.” Cranston whirled on Kendall.
“You’ve been the weak link
all along.
You pussyfooted, lily-livered weakling.
It’s your fault mass
humanity is demonstrating.
Look at how they’ve surrounded our buildings.
How’d
you let the Wentworths get away?”

Kendall’s mouth opened and closed a few times.
His Adam’s
apple bobbed.
After putting the desk between him and Cranston he said, “Our
inside man led us to their hidden compound.
He deactivated the code for their
invisi-shield.
The Guardians bombed the building into rubble.
But the man,
Winston Carty, was to give us a signal to land when it was all clear and he
never did.
When the Guardians realized the man hadn’t lived through the
explosions, they prepared to land.
But not before a skycar raced into the sky,
flashed by a hovering green and white and then disappeared underneath its
invisi-shield.”

No one spoke for some time.
The smoke from Cranston’s cigar
hung heavy in the room.
Cranston punched a button on his desk and said in an
unnaturally quiet tone of voice, “Send him in.”

A tall man entered wearing a hat pulled low over his eyes.
He glanced at the four men in the room, nodded to Cranston and approached
Layton Kendall.
He swung the man around to look him in the eyes and plunged a
long, thin needle into his heart.
Kendall’s mouth opened, his eyes widened in
shock.
He slid to the floor dead before he hit it.

“No one makes a mistake like that and lives to tell about
it,” Cranston said.

* * * * *

The world demanded an explanation.
Demonstrations continued
until the leaders of The Subversives made an appearance on the worldnet
surrounded by a new police force not associated with the Global Guardians.
Louise and Douglas Wentworth explained about the secret organization named The
Society and how there had been enough oil in the world all along.
They
explained how the Fearsome Foursome created a shortage to drive up prices and
line their pockets.

Once word of the colossal greed hit the streets the world
financial market nose-dived.
Circle Planet Communications stumbled and
shuddered.
Planet Healthcare Systems soared because of all the injuries that
needed to be repaired due to the riots.
The Global Guardians were disbanded,
the corrupt Guardians arrested by a temporary police force that had been put
together by The Subversives, trained, ready and hoping for this outcome.
The
corporation was forced to close its doors after two-thirds of the men and women
quit, their ideals destroyed.