Charlie stood paralyzed on
the platform as he watched Mr. Angelopoulos disappear down a flight of stairs.
Suddenly the lights in the station came on full bore with a dull thud. The
bodies spread out around him began to move. He picked up the suitcase and
was surprised how light it was. He held it in his arms. He brought it close to
his face. There wasn't a thing about it that looked in the least out of the
ordinary. He fingered the latch and pressed it gently then quickly set the
suitcase down shivering at the very thought of opening it. He’d have to do a
lot of thinking before he tried that. Of course, if he were looking death in the
face, he wouldn't hesitate. He picked it up again and held it close. Whatever
it was, it was a gift from someone who had saved his life more than once. Whatever it was, it was his now.
He wove his way through the stirring Homeland
Warriors and followed an exit sign down a corridor lined with ads and
Homeland Security posters covered with shattered glass. He took a passing
glance at one intact that caught his reflection and stopped in his tracks. He was astounded. His
prematurely gray hair was now brown. His brown eyes were blue. His nose was
larger, his chin squared. He sported a thick mustache. He fingered it. My God, he thought. That devil/angel wasn't kidding. What the hell is this, more holograms, more hallucinations? Nothing
about his life made sense after running in to that railroad station twenty-four
hours ago. He’d been delivered from death by a wizard with a suitcase full of
monsters, a suitcase that had the power to level a platform full of Homeland Warriors
and an appetite for private railroad cars, a suitcase that had transformed his
appearance, a suitcase he now held in his hands. He remembered Mr. Angelopoulos’s
proclamation. He no longer belonged to himself. Charlie hadn't thought he meant
it literally but he realized he had no choice. What's the point of questioning reality no matter how unreal
it may be when the alternative is death? He shook himself and tried to slow his
racing thoughts. Had the riots hit here? Could he get transportation to
the port? Were the ferries still running? If the streets were calm, he might
have a chance. If they weren’t, all bets were off. He had to get to an isolated
island in Puget Sound and lay low. Then he could try to
contact the resistance, if there was a resistance left after a crackdown that
the state would certainly slam on the country with everything it had. The
upheaval and the occupations hadn’t been anywhere near as quick and as
explosive as this. The State would fight for its life and snuff every other
life that even came close to getting in the way. If and when they managed to
get control again they might just use this as an excuse to cull the population.
That threat had been ingrained in every servile’s head for decades. But that
was a world away. He had to think about now. He had to think about himself. He
doubted if he were Homeland Security’s top priority at the moment and his new
appearance would buy him some time. He took a deep breath and walked on. What
was he going to see when he stepped out on to the streets of Seattle? A smile
crossed his face. The corridor opened suddenly on to a grand arched interior.
It was empty with the exception of a dozen local police getting up off the
floor by the entrances shaking their heads and looking around with bleary eyes.
He hurried past them.
Charlie stepped into the night then jumped
back to dodge a pair of technocrats rushing by clutching their virtual
helmets on their heads. A crowd of screaming serviles closed in. He could hear agonizing
pleas as the crowd piled on top of them. He saw the flash of knives. A roar
went up as the virtual helmets emptying streams of blood were lifted
triumphantly. A sudden flash of floodlights lit up the street. A deafening
staccato of assault rifles shattered the air. The crowd flew apart in every direction.
Charlie hit the dirt, rolling himself into a ball behind the suitcase as rounds
crashed around him. He could feel the suitcase vibrate as it took several slugs. Then all went quiet. He could swear an angry growl emanated from
the suitcase. Moans filling his ears were rapidly replaced by excruciating
screams. He leaned out from behind the suitcase to see Homeland Warriors,
thrill burning in their faces fanning out over a carpet of twisting serviles
and finishing them off one by one. Suddenly another volley exploded. Homeland Warriors fell among the serviles or whirled around spraying shots in all
directions. The station doors flew open and a flood of security poured out. Charlie saw something shoot through the air and ducked behind the suitcase. A
huge explosion blew the suitcase against him. The shock wave shoved him against
the wall of the station. A hail of body parts and a rain of blood poured
down. For a moment there was silence then once again the air filled with the tortured
sounds of agony but this time quiet, a few moans, some weeping, last gasps. The
air reeked of smoke. It reeked of blood. The suitcase growled with rage.
Charlie peeked over the top. The last of the floodlights began to flicker
out. An arm hanging on the suitcase fell to the ground. A head rolled against
his knees. Its wide eyes stared into his. Then he caught something moving
through the clouds of smoke. An empty wheelchair jerked and coasted through the
carnage in his direction. It had an umbrella mounted over it. What next, he
thought, a baby carriage?
He looked at the wheelchair and realized it was no ordinary
wheelchair. It was an antique sporting an umbrella, and it wasn’t just rolling
along. It was pushing itself over the bodies. He looked even closer and saw
that it wasn’t empty either. There was a very small figure in the seat, its
arms straining at the wheels, an unnaturally small figure, not that of a child
but of a little person or a handicapped person. After cresting a pile of
corpses, it plunged down the other side and raced toward him coming to a spinning
stop right in front of him. A female voice cried out.
“Hey there! You alive?” A young woman’s head
graced with a handsome face looked down over a withered body and a pair of
twisted legs. Her clothes were covered in blood. Blood dripped down from the
umbrella. “You are alive! Well thank goodness! Get up off your touche and give
a girl in distress a hand. I gotta get the hell outa here before these dip
shits decide to drop another Hellfire on us. Would you look at this? Blood
everywhere! That was one hell of a bug splat. Jesus Christ! Look at me! I’m a
mess! Now move it!”
Charlie rose to his feet and picked up the
suitcase. Oh shit, he thought, another freak in an antique. “Who are you?”
She rolled her eyes and waved a hand. “That’s
better. Start pushing. God, I can hardly breath with all this smoke!” She pulled a lever under the wheelchair’s arm and the
umbrella folded and slid behind the seat splashing them both with blood.
“What’s with the suitcase? I’ve never seen one that big in my life, no pun
intended. What are you, some kind of weirdo? Keep pushing! Push faster! Over
there! Over there! See that escalator? We’re going down there. I’ll lock the
wheels on the top step. Can you believe the metro is still running? Not for
long. Where you going?"
Charlie heard the wheels lock as
he slid the chair on to the top step. He set the suitcase at his feet,
leaned back and used all his strength to keep them both from falling down
into the subway. “Isn’t there an elevator?”
“If you think I’m gonna get into a little box
when the power is going out all over the city, think again. And how would you
like to watch the doors open to a firing squad of Homeland Warriors?”
As they descended, a stream of wild-eyed
serviles rushed up the ascending escalator. “Don’t look at them!”, commanded
the woman in a stage whisper. “They’re already dead!”
The address system boomed. “Attention, citizens
of Seattle! The Homeland has been attacked! Terrorists are on a rampage!
A state of emergency has been declared! Stay at home. Stay in your barracks. Do
not leave. Anyone encountered on the streets by Homeland Security will be
arrested or shot!”
“Shot? Shit! See what I mean?”, hissed the
woman. She looked upward at the arched ceiling as they skidded off the
escalator. She raised her arms and spread her fingers. “Dear lord, I beseech
you! Let the streetcars be running!” A roaring explosion of gunfire from the
street above echoed in the station followed by blood curdling screams. A dozen
bodies rolled down the escalator. She pounded the chair’s arms. “Shit, shit,
shit! Please, Lord. Let the streetcars be running!” Charlie felt a hand grab
his. “Pray the cars are running! Pray, suitcase boy, pray!”
More gunfire blasted. He heard the shouting of
Homeland Warriors. He heard their boots stomping down the escalators. “Please,
God!”, he yelled. “Bring us a streetcar!” A slow moan of rushing air
grew louder. A gust of wind blew through his hair. A streetcar raced into
the station and pulled to a stop.
“Get us in quick!”, the woman yelled as the
doors flew open. Charlie threw the suitcase on to her lap and launched himself
against the wheelchair. The doors slammed behind them.
He looked back through the windows to see Homeland Security warriors flooding
onto the platform. Several lifted their weapons. Glass shattered around them.
The streetcar took off. Charlie dove
for the floor.
The car flew into the tunnel. He pushed himself
to his feet and checked himself for any wounds. He saw the car was full of dead
bodies save for a terrified servile couple holding each other in a seat next to
them. Gunfire rang out and they both collapsed dead in a heap. Two Homeland Warriors burst forward and swung their assault rifles at him. He saw an arm jerk in the wheelchair below him. One of the the warriors dropped his weapon and pulled at
a knife in his throat as he fell to the floor. Charlie picked up the suitcase. It launched like a rocket out of his arms and
nearly decapitated the other one before boomeranging back to him. All went
silent save for the air rushing through the shattered windows. Charlie felt
something pulling at my shirt.
There was fury in the woman’s eyes. “What the
hell did they open fire for?”
He tried to wipe the blood off the suitcase. “I
don’t know, lady. What difference does it make?”
“We were no threat. We were getting on the car.
They shot at us from the platform, they shot at us in the car. They just wanted
to kill us. My God! You don’t think they’ve started a cull, do you? Get their
rifles!”
Charlie bent over the bodies of the Homeland Warriors,
pulled the weapons from their hands and tossed one to the woman. She caught the
rifle and flipped it, checking the chamber and the magazine. He followed suit
with the weapon in his hand.
She rested her rifle butt in her
lap and rolled toward him. He stepped aside and
let her pass. He followed her through rows of bleeding bodies. Suddenly a hand
whipped out from behind a seat and yanked the rifle from her. She slammed her
hands on the arms of the chair and launched herself on to her assailant. Charlie
dropped the suitcase and leaped onto the seat in front of them. He looked down
at two women fighting for their lives. They rolled off the seat to the floor
flailing and jerking like a couple of spiders in a hole. He jabbed his rifle
butt on to the back of the neck one of them. His companion twisted free of her
limp attacker and pulled herself back into her chair. She looked up at him,
nodded, grabbed the assault rifle from his hands and careened through the car.
He followed her to the first door forward. The driver was collapsed over the
instrument panel smeared with blood. The train slowed into a blacked-out
station. The doors opened and she rolled through them turning a wheel with one
hand, straining her eyes in the darkness and jerking the rifle back and forth
in the other hand. At the bottom of an escalator she looked back at Charlie. He
grabbed the suitcase, rushed through the closing doors to her and pulled her on
to the bottom step. They slowly ascended into a deluge of pounding rain.
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