So I'm going to assume that Ben and co. live in Washington, DC. Correct me if I'm wrong, please.
Jedi'Pirate Jaeh, I knew about the missile stuff because I went to Google and typed in 'missing Hydrogen bomb', hoping that something would come up. And it did!
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Jianguo
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I'd watched people get shot before. What was it, one, two days ago I'd shot someone myself, I'd shot Briggs. I remember how Briggs stumbled back a few feet, and how when I got him in the neck he dropped immediately, eyes crazed, no-one home.
Riley had his arms up shielding his face. I couldn't pinpoint exactly where the bullet hole was but there was already a fair amount of blood running down his wrists. I wondered if he would realize in a moment that he'd been shot, if the first three seconds after getting hit with a bullet would pass in unaware bliss. Maybe the blood on the floor would be his first hint.
No, no, the blood on the floor was coming from Tomas's gun. Tomas's hand, in fact. It looked like the gun had exploded, and Tomas was left holding the handle and a splinter of the top slide.
The remnants of his gun slipped from his hands and hit the ground with a dull plasticy clatter, pathetic after the noisy assault on our ears from the gunshot.
I remained frozen, confused, as Ben scrambled the last three feet over to Riley, who was slowly lowering his arms. Tomas watched as blood spurted from his hand, which was now missing the last two joints of three fingers.
If time had slowed down after the gunshot, right now it sped up, making up for its lost moments.
Tomas whirled around and lunged at Crandon, knocking his aimed gun out of his hand. Crandon met him full force, and, being about a head taller than Tomas, knocked him to the ground. Somehow Tomas ended up on top and now had a knife clutched in his left hand. I could hear Ben talking frantically to Riley in the background, Riley responding quietly, and then Crandon cried out in pain. Before I could move to help Tomas had bounded off of Crandon with feline grace and was out the door.
What now? Chase Tomas, help Crandon, help Riley? Tell Ben and Riley what was going on? Contact the organization?
Lock the door.
I locked the door behind Tomas.
"Jianguo," said Crandon from the floor. I knelt by his side, looked for the stab wound. It was through the stomach. He had his hand over it but copious amounts of blood were still finding ways through his fingers and under his hands. I didn't know what to say.
"I shot Tomas…" he said, and I understood then, Crandon had shot Tomas's gun hand. I looked up briefly at Ben and Riley – Ben looked relieved, Riley looked shocked, but they were both alive. Back to Crandon.
"Look," he said, an edge of desperation in his voice and behind his eyes. "I think I understand what's going on now. You and Ben and Riley, what you did." I almost felt guilty now, because he knew I'd betrayed him. He had a small smile on his face as he said, "And you were the one that conked me on the head. Thanks for not shooting me."
"Hey, I always liked you."
"But before, before me and Briggs left, Finn called, had a question about something or another. About the Blackwells."
"Blackwells?" came Ben's voice. He left Riley's side and crouched on the other side of Crandon.
"Yes. Tomas… what was it, Tomas told Finn to move the Blackwells, told him that you, Jianguo, had issued the order. But then…" Crandon's eyes unfocused for a moment and he took a breath. I looked at the large puddle of blood he was now laying in and had no doubt he was getting dizzy.
"But then later, when Tomas picked me up he told me how he'd made that up so Finn'd follow orders. So one of our guys went to pick the Blackwells up and brought them back here."
"They're here?"
"Yes. Jianguo, Tomas said he wanted them here so he could use them later. I think he meant like for leverage."
"Oh good God. That's probably where he's going right now. Do you know which room they're in?"
"No."
"Okay. Crandon, thank you, thanks for saving Riley. I want to talk to you later. I'm going to find the Blackwells. The mister is a doctor, he can help you." I stood up.
"Ben, do what you can for Crandon. Riley," I said, and hurried to his side,
"Are you ok?"
"Yeah, I've just got pieces of gun stuck in my arms. I'm good." I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or actually trying to sound tough, but there was a lot of blood on his lower arms. I couldn't be bothered with that now though.
"Okay, listen. I had been trying to alert the organization that there was an unauthorized attempt at detonation, but it didn't work because, as you can see, this isn't in code anymore. I don't know why, maybe they haven't gotten that far with the codifying, maybe they never bothered. I don't know. But now that Tomas is gone, we shouldn't alert the organization. We don't need them on our tails. I don't know if there's anything you can do right now, just sit tight, I'm going to go look for Tomas."
"Uh, okay… good luck…" I was almost to the door, when I stopped and turned around.
"Oh, and Riley, I'm not related to Tomas."
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Ben
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Jianguo unlocked the door, stepped outside, and closed it.
Riley stared at me.
I stared at my hands. They were shaking. If anything was chaos, this was. This was some premium high-entropy here. And if the universe was anything to judge by, there'd have to be a pretty big disaster for anything to fall back into order again. A disaster on the order of everything is destroyed.
I dismissed the thought that harmony couldn't possibly be found after an event like this, and turned my attention to Crandon. How awkward. I didn't even know the guy, he'd held me and my friends at gunpoint. But going back, he never really looked or sounded like that much of a bad guy. And he'd just saved Riley's life. I wanted to ask him just why it was that he'd decided to turn on Tomas. But the guy was dying. I didn't want to make him explain it. It didn't matter anyways, did it?
"Thanks, Crandon." He nodded. Closed his eyes. His hand on his stomach was absolutely crimson. I didn't know how to treat stab wounds but I did know how deadly they were, how much more damage they did than guns. Makes you wonder why people invented guns in the first place. They did less damage, and isn't that what people liked doing to each other, damaging each other?
"Crandon," I ventured, feeling slightly guilty, wondering if this was the entirely wrong thing to discuss with a dying man, and hoping it would keep his mind off of his probable impending death, "how much do you know about this whole bomb-the-world plan?"
"A bit. Like Jianguo said, maybe three H-bombs, a few dozen fissions."
"Where are they?"
"All over. A lot are at the base in Nevada. Some are in the Dakotas."
"Where are the H-bombs aimed?"
"Oh let's see…" Crandon took a breath and winced, paused. Riley came over and knelt by my side. "I think… one is aimed at DC. Another at the center of New York City."
"Oh Jesus, Riley," I said, sitting back. Abi and my parents. Riley gave me a worried look - no doubt he knew what I was thinking. Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse. When will I learn that things can always get worse? At least Riley wasn't back on the East coast for me to worry about. Yeah, he was right here, and probably had a higher chance of dying here than there.
"Riley, do you have Jianguo's cell phone?"
"No, why would I have his cell?"
"I don't know, you did once. Shoot."
"Why? Ben, you weren't going to call Abi, were you?" Yes, I was. He knew it, too, so I didn't need to say it. I wanted to talk to her. I wanted to tell her I loved her. I wanted to tell her to get out of there, and to take my parents. I wanted to talk to them too!
But then they'd suspect. They might bring it up to officials. Well, I'd tell them not to! But… maybe I just wouldn't tell them anything.
"Ben, you can't call them. Besides the fact that there's no cell phone to do so with, what would you tell them?"
"I'd tell them I loved them, Riley." Didn't he have anyone he wanted to call and tell them how much he loved them? How much he'd miss them? How sorry he was that he failed the human race?
"Ben, they already know that." I glanced at Riley. He looked tired.
"I know, Riley."
"But, you know, nothing's been set off yet."
"How do you know that?" He didn't reply. I felt kind of bad for squashing his attempts to make me feel better but I couldn't help it.
Crandon's eyes were closed. He looked as if he was concentrating on breathing.
"Riley, that's… about six-hundred-thousand people plus… 8.2 million in New York. That's… that's…"
"8.8 million," Riley said.
"8.8 million dead right away, from those two H-bombs. Plus countless more from radiation and burns. That'd wipe out all of DC and all of New York City. The White House in DC, the president would be dead, the Pentagon, FBI headquarters-"
"The Spy Museum," Riley added sadly.
"And the CIA headquarters, the Washington Monument… The Museum of Natural History. And in New York, good grief, Manhattan alone… the UN headquarters, Empire State Building, World Trade Center Memorial, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine…"
I heard some banging noises from a few doors down.
"Crandon, can you remember where the third was aimed?" Crandon's eyes squeezed shut tighter, then opened, unfocused.
"Ah… don't remember… Somewhere foreign. England, maybe. But they weren't sending those off first, they… they were going for the military bases first. You know, like southern Nevada and California. All over, they've got them… trained on the spots. So they wouldn't deploy… the troops. Aft-…" Crandon took a sharp breath, and I could hear more banging around down the hall. Tomas and Jianguo fighting? Who would win?
"After that, they were going to go secure arsenals with more missiles. The organization has people working for places with missile stockpiles, all they've got to do is send the message, and the places will be secure. That would… that would put more than 6,000 missiles in their disposal."
"Oh lord," sighed Riley, and he stood up and walked over to the controls.
"Crandon," I asked, "Why didn't Tomas just ask you for all of this information?"
"I don't think he knows I know."
"Alright, how are you feeling?"
"Tired."
"Looks like the bleeding's gone down," I told him, which was a complete lie. There was now so much blood everywhere I couldn't tell if the pool was growing or staying the same size. He looked pale.
"Hang in there," I said, wondering if he'd be dead the next time I went to check on him. I went to Riley, who was staring at the screen, which still asked for a location.
"What did Jianguo tell you before he left?"
"He said – ow!" Riley exclaimed as he gestured over the screen. He drew his hand back and drops of blood appeared across the keys. "He said that he'd been using the code, which Tomas can't read, to try and alert the… Ben, what are you doing?"
"Looking at your arms again. Hold them up."
"Seriously, I'm fine."
"You have pieces of gun stuck in your arms."
"And yet, I'm fine."
"Look at the burns, those are at least second-degree."
"You know, Ben, thanks for the thought and all but I'm pretty sure my arms aren't the top priority here. Ow, stop! What are you doing?!" I had poked the burned skin and now wiped my bloody fingers on my pant leg.
"Making sure those weren't third-degree."
"What?" Riley asked, looking very confused indeed.
"Third-degree burns don't hurt."
"Well I wish they were third-degree then. Besides, what would you have done if they were? We can't do anything right now."
"You said 'ow' when you extended your arm over the screen. I'm worried you've got a piece of the gun embedded in your nerve. That could be very damaging if we don't take it out."
"What are you, set on making me cry? My elbow, Ben, remember? The one that you think is broken slash twisted slash fractured?"
"Ah."
"I bet you'll be wanting to yank the pieces out anyways?"
"No, we should leave those in until we've got something to wrap around them. I'm guessing at least one of them is lodged in an artery." Riley pulled a face and sat down in the chair.
"Ew," he said, scrutinizing his arms. After a moment he looked startled and distant, then sat up and looked at me.
"Um, anyways, so Jianguo was trying to alert the organization that someone was trying to screw with them. But that screen came up in English so Tomas was able to read it, figure out what was going on, and you know the rest." I took a seat in the left-hand chair.
"So Tomas wants to blow everything up?" Riley asked. I nodded.
"Why?"
"Don't know. Don't really care. I guess he just hates humans."
"And the organization hasn't started this big… blow-up-the-humans plan yet, right?"
"We don't know. I don't think so. I'm not sure who would have told them. You know… It's not as if they think Jianguo was going to steal you and go tell the police or FBI what was going on. The rest of the organization knows that Jianguo wouldn't do that, because Jianguo knows that that would equal bombs going off everywhere, something that Jianguo apparently doesn't want."
"So…"
"So there's still no real threat that people are going to become alerted as to what's going on. No-one but the organization and us knows about it."
"And the president."
"And him, but he's not going to say anything. And he really doesn't know what's going on."
"So…" said Riley, "It's likely that they still have no idea any of this is going on? Maybe the organization thinks that everything is still going as planned."
"Yeah, if this system right here is purely computerized. If not, someone somewhere is wondering why they just got a message that said the organization's security is being threatened or their network is being abused."
"I wonder if there's a way to cancel it."
"Careful."
"I know, I know." Riley scrolled down a bit on the screen and, miraculously, came upon two options. Trigger Dreamland Authorization and Cancel Alert. Riley let out a short laugh, and arrow-keyed the enter bar until it was on top of Cancel Alert.
"What's funny?" I asked.
"Dreamland is the code-name for their emergency plan. It's also another name for Area 51, did you know that?"
"No, Riley, I'm pretty sure you're the only person in the state of Utah that knows that." Riley hit 'enter'.
PLEASE ENTER CANCELATION PASSWORD
"Crap."
"What, you can do that, can't you?"
He pointed, indicating a tiny timer that had started, counting down from ten seconds. His fingers flew across two keyboards, and I swear he must have gone through seven windows in six seconds, copied five things and pasted them somewhere or another, come back to the screen, typed in a password, and stopped the timer at 0 seconds.
"Holy… that was faster than that alarm at-"
"Yes, thank-you, I know I'm awesome. Autographs after the show." The next screen showed what was displayed before the screen in plain English, coded text sprawled across in four options. Riley scrolled down again, and came across an option that was coded.
"This is Base 46, come in Base 48."
We both froze. There was a speaker embedded in the control board, a button next to it that was labeled 'talk'. Another base was speaking to us.
"Base 48 come in, please. We caught a signal about possible breach in network security from your area. It was canceled just a moment ago, we're just checking in to see that everything's sound. Everything sound out there?"
I reached over to press the 'talk' button. I leaned over.
"Yes sir, sorry about that. Slip of the keystroke, you know."
"What were you doing with your hands on the keys?" I paused. Riley was gesturing wildly to Crandon, who was mouthing something.
"Casting," he managed to whisper. I pressed the button again.
"Casting," I repeated, trying to push down the worry that Crandon may be giving us away.
"I see. Any hits?" I looked at Crandon. He was shaking his head no.
"Nope. None." What the heck was casting?
"Good. Don't slip anymore. And don't let the jackalopes in, I've heard there's been an uprising. Later, 48."
"Okay." I took my finger off the button and let out a whoosh of air.
"Man, that was close. Thanks, Crandon. Definitely wouldn't have been able to-"
The door popped open and before anyone even entered the room, a knife flew through the air and buried itself in my knee. I shouted, fell to my other knee, was aware of someone entering and locking the door behind them. Riley cursed, the person kicked me in the head, and I fell over backwards, watching the light fixture dim and listening to Tomas's fading voice.
"Jianguo is now dead," he was saying. "Crandon is bubbling away there in his own blood. I'm seeing a trend here. The trend is don't mess with me or I'll kill you. Got that, pansy?"
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Hmmm… this chapter was supposed to be semi-fast-moving but I think it turned out kind of slow-moving. Ah well. I feel as though we're nearing the last few chapters, here, but I could be wrong. BORK!