Chapter 5: Fireworks In November

Jeremiah went to the county jail to try and warn his father about the two police officers that arrested him. He hadn't spoken to him since the night of his birthday when the two police officers escorted him out of the hospital. Since his father had been shot in the chest, Jeremiah wasn't sure if his father would be in a jail cell or the infirmary ward.

He checked in with the Desk Sergeant. "I'm here to visit my father, Marcus Johnson."

The Desk Sergeant typed his name into the database computer. Something seemed to be off. "Sorry, there isn't anyone by the name of Marcus Johnson in our system." The Desk Sergeant proclaimed.

"What…?" Jeremiah questioned. "Maybe he's still recovering in the infirmary unit." He suggested.

The Desk Sergeant searched for his father's name again. "Nope! Nobody by that name in our system."

"That's impossible!" Jeremiah piped up. "Is there another place you guys would take somebody that was recovering from a bullet wound to the chest?" He inquired, still feeling puzzled.

"No. There isn't any other place we would take them. Are you sure he was arrested?" The Desk Sergeant asked.

At that moment, the Desk Sergeant realized who he was speaking with. "Wait a second! You guys are the ones that stopped the robbery at the bowling alley last week, aren't you?"

"Yes. On my birthday to be exact." Jeremiah replied. "Two police officers entered my father's hospital room that night and told my father he was under arrest for the murder of Anthony Rowe. Then, they escorted me out of the building."

The Desk Sergeant looked up the file on Anthony Rowe. "It shows in our files that Anthony Rowe died from a drug overdose. Apparently he had swallowed several pills before attempting to rob the bowling alley that night. It doesn't say anything about your father being arrested for his death."

"That's CRAZY!" Jeremiah declared. "I was there when the two officers arrested him!"

"Okay! Okay! Calm down!" The Desk Sergeant pleaded. "Who were the two arresting officers?" He asked.

"I have no idea. They didn't have any name tags on their uniform." He replied. "They were also at my high school today trying to get information about the incident that happened in the alleyway yesterday."

The Desk Sergeant checked to see who was working the alleyway case. "It says here, Smits and Rochman are working that case." He responded while picking up his walkie talkie, attempting to get a hold of the two officers. "Smits…? Rochman…? Do you copy?"

A few seconds of static had passed and there was no reply back from the officers. "Smits…? Rochman…? DO YOU COPY?" The Desk Sergeant repeated, finally getting a response.

"Yeah! This is Smits and Rochman!" They replied.

"I have a young man here by the name of Jeremiah Johnson. He is here to visit his father, Marcus Johnson, but his father isn't in the system, AND the kid says that you guys arrested his father for the murder of Anthony Rowe. What do you know about that?"

"We have no idea what you're talking about." They replied, causing Jeremiah to look confused and shocked all at the same time.

"What the HELL is going on here?! Jeremiah exclaimed. "How could they not know what you are talking about?"

"Okay! Calm down!" The Desk Sergeant once again urged. "Let me call the hospital and see if he is still there."

"If my dad was at the hospital he would have tried calling me by now!" Jeremiah declared.

The Desk Sergeant got on the phone with the hospital. After talking to them for a few seconds, they told him that Marcus had already left the hospital over a week ago. He turned to let Jeremiah know what he had just found out, but Jeremiah was already gone.


Jeremiah went to his mother's house to get the microchip. He wanted to find out what was on it. Perhaps it could help him figure out where his father might be. After grabbing the microchip, he wasn't quite sure what to do with it. It looked like something you might connect to a motherboard, but he wasn't sure. He knew of one person that might be able to help. He looked at the palm of his hand and dialed Valerie's number.

"Hello?" Valerie answered.

Jeremiah hesitated for a second.

"Hello? Is anyone there?" She asked again.

"Hey! Val! It's me… Jeremiah."

"Oh, hey! What's up?"

"Um… I have a favor to ask of you. Do you still mess around….with computers that is?"

"Yeah. Why? What's up?"

"I can't talk about it on the phone. Can I come over to your house? I could really use your help."

"Sure. Let me give you my address."


Meanwhile, at GothCorp, the leader of the Satan's Serpents walked into the room where Marcus Johnson was being held captive- tied up to a chair. Marcus was also wearing a blindfold and his mouth was gagged.

"Good evening, Marcus. The police are telling me that your son, Jeremiah, has been asking about you. Imagine his surprise when he found out you weren't in the county jail or the hospital. Ha ha ha!" The Serpent leader laughed, causing Marcus to grit his teeth and try to break free from the ropes that bound him to the chair.

"Now, now, now. Calm down. We haven't done anything to your son….yet. And, if you do as I say, nothing will ever have to happen to him… or his mommy." The Serpent leader declared while removing the gag from out of his mouth.

"What the hell do you want with me!" Marcus demanded to know.

"It's simple, really. All we are going to need you to do is…. blow up City Hall."

"Are you freakin' nuts!" Marcus exclaimed while trying to break free again.

"My, my, my…. You seemed to have healed up rather quickly for someone who got shot point blank in the chest." The Serpent leader noted.

Then, the Serpent leader stuck his thumb on Marcus's chest wound and pressed hard against it causing Marcus to wince in pain. "Hmm…. Perhaps you aren't as healed up as you are pretending to be."

"I don't care what you do to me- I'm not doing your dirty work! You are just going to have to kill me first!" Marcus declared.

"If that's how you want to play it…. But…. I just want you to know that my officers were at your son's school today. I heard he was getting banged up pretty good by the varsity squad. It would be a shame if we had to rough him up worse than they did- perhaps we could mess him up the same way one of my officers did to you at the bowling alley."

"You better not even LOOK at my son the wrong way, you Bastard!" Marcus threatened. "You think you are a tough guy! Why don't you remove this blindfold and show me your face?!"

"Are you sure about that? Most of the people that ever get to see my face end up in closed caskets. Especially goodie-tooshoos like you and your son." The Serpent leader declared while pulling the blindfold off of Marcus's face.

Marcus took a good look at the Serpent leader. "What the hell are you supposed to be- The Lizard King?!"

The Serpent leader knelt down towards Marcus and stuck out his tongue, revealing he had a forked tongue like a snake. "HIIIIISSSSS! Ah, Ha ha ha!... I'm your worst nightmare!"

"Now that you mentioned it, YOU DO kind of look like that Freddy Kruger mofo." Marcus joked.

SMACK! The Serpent leader backhanded Marcus, causing him to fall over in his chair.

Marcus felt the ropes loosen up when the chair hit the floor. He could almost feel one hand getting free.


Meanwhile, Jeremiah had arrived at Valerie's house and they were sitting in her room booting up the computer.

"Wow! You have a lot of tech in your room!" Jeremiah declared.

"Yeah. A lot of it was my moms. She's the one that taught me everything I know."

"I still remember that one time in fifth grade when you brought in some of your mom's computer hardware for show and tell. The teacher wasn't able to use it on his computer because it had a self-destruct command downloaded." Jeremiah recalled.

"Oh yeah! And the teacher's computer melted down in front of the whole class…. And then the teacher ALSO had a meltdown in front of the whole class." Valerie also remembered as they both laughed.

"Your mother must have had some VERY highly classified information on that thing. What did she do for a living?" He asked.

"She was like a facilitator of information." Valerie replied. "She worked for a security company, and she was so good, it seemed as if she had a supernatural way of physically interacting with computer information systems."

"Well, maybe she passed it down to you." Jeremiah stated.

"I wish. I can't even do half the things she could do."

"Well, I'm hoping you can do one thing for me…. I have this computer chip, but I'm not sure what to do with it. Do you know what it does?" He asked.

"Let me see." She said as she took it from Jeremiah's hand. "Oh yeah! I know what that is! It simply stores data. Mostly a bunch of coding." she replied.

"Coding?"

"Yeah, you know- a bunch of ones and zeros."

"Would you know how to read the coding?"

"I could give it a shot. Let me plug it into my motherboard."

"Awesome!" Jeremiah cheered.

While she was inserting the microchip, Jeremiah noticed a police scanner in the corner of the room. "Hey! Does that thing work?"

What, the police scanner? Yeah, it's on. I turned it down before you got here. It can get loud and annoying. You can turn it up if you'd like."

Jeremiah turned it up. He could hear the dispatcher rambling out 9-1-1 calls, along with addresses and a description of the call. A lot of it sounded foreign to him, but he was mainly listening for the two names of the officers that arrested his father- Smits and Rochman.

"Whoa!" Valerie blurted out, getting Jeremiah's attention. "This is some heavy stuff." She declared.

"What is it? It looks like a bunch of numbers."

"Yeah, it's a lot of numbers all right. A lot of money for a lot of military grade explosives. All going to GothCorp."


Meanwhile, The Serpent leader had picked Marcus up off the ground and reset his chair upright. Marcus could almost get his hand free. He had a plan.

"You know what? You hit like a bitch! What type of snake are you? Let me guess- a gardener snake?" Marcus toyed with the Serpent leader, trying to get him to come closer.

It worked. The Serpent leader clenched his fist, but before he could hit Marcus, Marcus stood up and swung the chair-

CRUNCH! smashing it into the Serpent leader's body, causing the Serpent leader to fall to the ground. Marcus hit him so hard that the entire chair shattered into pieces, and by doing so, setting Marcus free in the process.

Marcus shook the remaining ropes off of him and stumbled his way out of the room that he was being held captive in. He then managed to make his way to another room and lock himself inside.

The Serpent leader regained his composure and went looking for Marcus. GothCorp was a big building- he would need to call in reinforcements to help look for him.


Meanwhile, at Valerie's house, Jeremiah heard the dispatcher describe a call they received from 9-1-1. "Calling all units. There has been a break-in at GothCorp. Eye witness described a tall African-American male- mid thirties- about 250 pounds- entering the building. Be advised, the assailant may be armed and dangerous."

"GothCorp?" Didn't you say they are the ones who ordered all the military grade explosives?" Jeremiah asked.

"Yeah, it was." She replied. "What's going on?"

"GothCorp is the same place those two men from the alleyway committed suicide." Jeremiah recalled. "I have to go!" He declared as he put his coat back on. "Hide that microchip! I'll be back for it later!"

Seconds after Jeremiah left the house, a police unit replied to the dispatcher. "COPY THAT! This is Smits and Rochman! We are currently enroute to GothCorp! OVER!"


Minutes later, the two officers arrived at GothCorp and met up with the Serpent leader.

"That Son of A Bitch managed to get himself free from the ropes. I've already searched most of the building. There is only one room I haven't searched yet- Room CO4."

"Let's just shoot a bunch of holes in the room!" Rochman blurted out.

"Are you nuts!" exclaimed his partner. "Didn't you just hear what room the boss said?"

"Yeah! Room C04!... OH! ROOM CO4!" He finally caught on, realizing that Marcus had barricaded himself inside the room full of military grade explosives.

"Look- we don't have much time, boss. Pretty soon we are going to have 30 S.W.A.T members crawling around this place and breathing down our necks. I say, we blow the room! We can always get more explosives!" Smits suggested.

"Seriously? If we blow up that room, this whole building goes up with it!" Rochman retorted.

"You're right! Get the detonator ready! We're gonna light this city up like the 4th of July!"

Moments later, after placing the bombs near the room, and setting the detonators, the three men began heading towards the exit doors, when suddenly, they were surprised by Jeremiah, who had his face covered with his ski mask.

"What's going on here!"

Perhaps Jeremiah should have been more stealthy because the two police officers drew their weapons and began shooting at him.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! Bullets ricocheted off the metal walls.

"Whoa! Stop! Stop SHOOTING!" The Serpent leader demanded. "If one of those bullets hits the room with all the explosives, we are all dead!" He declared. "The guy in the ski mask ran off towards the back. I know another way out. It's right next to the security room. We can pull the security tape on the way out. Then, we'll blow this place up as soon as we get far enough away."

Moments later, Jeremiah made his way back into the room where the other three men were originally at when he first surprised them. "Dad?! Are you here?!" He yelled out, but he didn't get any reply.

Suddenly, he noticed the explosive devices that were attached to the wall. They were blinking rapidly.

"Crap!" He realized what was about to happen and he ran away from the room as fast as he could.

CLICK! KABOOOOOOM!