Turn or Burn (7 page)

Yeah, I didn’t doubt the Singularity, and oddly enough, I didn’t dread it, either. Nor did the people who I heard talk that day.

The media section in the back right was overflowing with reps from local and national outlets. The room comfortably held about two hundred people, but at least fifty more were squeezed in there. Each row was elevated above the one before and looked down at the table centered on the small stage. Five panelists sat there behind their name tags, looking back up at the crowd. Above the stage, a projector displayed the title of the panel:
How Living Well Past 100 Will Change Everything, From Health Care to Finance to Relationships to Faith.

I was just blown away by the fact that people really wanted to live that long. It was easy to imagine that the human race could figure it out, just not
why
they would want to. Give me seventy, and I’m pulling the cord. Life ain’t that good.

Dr. Sebastian had chosen a seat about halfway up, and he was waiting excitedly with his small Apple laptop resting on the countertop in front of him. Ted sat next to him, doing his best not to attract attention. I was at the top of one set of stairs near the door, Francesca at the other.

The moderator finished introducing the speakers, and people clapped with admiration. As one member of the panel began to address the first question, I noticed a thirty-something woman with dirty blonde hair looking around the room. She sat two seats away from the doctor. She didn’t appear to be paying attention like the others, and I watched her for a few moments. She redirected her attention to the panelist currently speaking. A general rule of thumb in this situation is that you don’t need to worry as much about women. It’s mostly men who kill people. She was slightly questionable, but nothing to sweat about.

I reminded myself that the last thing I needed was to let my PTSD get the best of me. Make a move on this girl, and I’d be in the spotlight. I knew I could easily fall into the trap of pulling a few false alarms and getting scrutinized for it. Then I’d be scared to speak up when something went wrong. And someone might die. It was a balance I had to find, and a little confidence would go a long way.

I kept looking around as I half-listened to some philosopher type go on about how followers of certain faiths would have to reexamine and reinterpret their beliefs, just like they’d done when evolution became more accepted. My mind was attempting to wrap around that one when my eyes went back to the woman. She sure was fidgety. But she was trying not to be. Like she was trying to keep herself together. She was holding her shaking leg, attempting to keep it from moving. I didn’t like it.

I took a few steps forward, passing a couple of the latecomers. I tried not to get in their way as I got a closer look. Now the woman had her right hand in her lap under the counter, and she was digging her middle fingernail into the cuticle of her thumb in an extremely aggressive, painful-looking manner. Those were the signs we looked for.

Was she just an anxious person? Had something happened to her earlier to provoke such a response? Or was she there to cause problems? Only one way to find out, and that was to get her up and out of there. Ask her a couple questions.

I felt the heat, though. I’d already appeared paranoid in the doctor’s neighborhood when I thought I’d seen something in that window. Really didn’t want to do that again. I’d been doing this for more than a decade, though, and I felt something inside of me. Some sort of agitation. Something was wrong.

I had to go with it.

I looked up at Francesca who was eyeing me from her position at the exit door on the other side. I nodded down at the woman and then made my way. Reaching the row where Ted, Dr. Sebastian, and this young lady were sitting, I slipped past the backs of two people and reached out for her. Her leg was now moving like it had a motor in it, bouncing up and down on the ball of her foot. The philosopher type was still waxing on, saying that new religions would surface as a result of the Singularity.

The woman had on a khaki jacket cinched tight by a large belt at the waist. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and I noticed she’d been quite liberal with her makeup that morning. I tapped her on the shoulder, and it scared the hell out of her. She jerked back like I’d shot a gun next to her ear.

I said in a whisper, “Can I borrow you for a minute, ma’am? Real quick.”

Her reaction wasn’t comforting. Behind her bluish-green eyes, I could see her mind racing to make decisions. The muscles in her arms and hands and neck tensed.

I stuck my hand out again and motioned with two fingers for her to come.

The battle in her mind subsided, and she nodded and began to stand.

I knelt in the aisle so as not to be in anyone’s way and waited for her to collect her things. Watched her carefully.

Then she jerked at the belt holding her jacket too quickly, and I started for her. A couple screams erupted as I threw my hands at her, grabbing her shoulders. By then, I really hoped I wasn’t overreacting. My shattered ego couldn’t have taken it.

I caught a glimpse of steel as the jacket pulled away from her body. She had a gun. I pulled her backwards and she fell into the seat. Her hand came up holding a little Smith & Wesson, and it was coming toward me. I grabbed her arm and blocked any further motion, and she fired the gun into the ceiling.

The room turned to chaos.

I slid my right hand up her arm to the gun and ripped it from her grip, then stepped over the back of a seat to get into her row. I tumbled on top of her and fought her swinging hands and kicking feet. My hand went instinctively to her throat with my free hand, the other one still gripping the gun. The woman’s shirt had pulled up from her waist, and I noticed some kind of strange mark, like a branding, on the right part of her stomach. Funny, the things you notice in the frighteningly quick seconds of battle.

As I choked her into submission, a shot rang out, and blood splattered onto both of us. I whipped around as Ted collapsed to the ground.

“
Ted
!” I yelled. At that point, I had no idea how bad he was hit, but it looked like a headshot. Things were moving to quickly to be sure.

What I am sure about is that my hopes of ever being the warrior I used to be were obliterated in those few seconds. A paralyzing sensation overcame my body, and my mind went to mush.

In a haze, I looked up. Another woman was there, holding a smoking handgun. She’d shot Ted and was now aiming her gun at the doctor. Fighting with everything that I had, using what I’d learned over the past year, I found some control. No one else was going to die.

The woman didn’t have time to pull the trigger again. I placed a bullet at center mass and her chest exploded. Her gun flew into the air as she dropped back against the table and slid to the ground.

“Stay down!” I yelled to the doctor, who was only a few feet away from me, lying on his stomach.

“Francesca! Where the hell are you?”

“Coming!”

Still holding the first attacker by the throat, I raised my head and looked around. Francesca was working her way through the last of the crowd as everyone fought to get out the door.

“Clear the room!” I yelled to her.

“On it.” She began to move from row to row, ensuring there was no one else waiting for the right time to take a shot.

That’s when I felt something wet dripping onto my arm, and the woman I was holding went limp. I looked down. She was drooling white foam. I felt for a pulse in her neck. There wasn’t one. She was dead.

“Ted,” I said, “you with me?”

He didn’t answer.

“Ted, you okay?” Keeping my eyes peeled for more trouble, I moved on my knees toward him.

Half his face was missing.
No, he wasn’t with me, and he wasn’t okay
. One of my oldest and dearest friends was lying flat on his back, unrecognizable, blood flowing out of his dead body. I’d seen his brother the
exact
same way, and I could have prevented both of them from dying.
I could have fucking stopped it!

A waterfall of rage and confusion and delirium dumped on top of me, and it was almost too hard to handle. My hearing and vision went first. Then the muscles in my shoulders turned to rocks, and my fingers locked into the shape of claws. God help anyone or anything that was close by, because I wanted to break and throw and kick and punch and destroy it all.

I finally let out a yell that shook the building. That release led me to black out.

When I came to seconds later, I was rocking back and forth.
No
, I told myself.
No, no, no. You get your act together. You are a soldier, Knox.

Finding strength, I dug deep down and brought myself back.
The body obeys the mind. The body obeys the mind
. And it did.

I took Ted’s hand and put my face up to what was left of his. “Say hello to your brother for me,” I uttered. “I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry.”

As cops poured into the room, the three of us worked our way out the door. Holding Dr. Sebastian’s arm, I screamed, “Private security! Two female shooters down. There may be more. They’re after the doctor here. I have to get him out.”

Dr. Sebastian was in terrible shock, as anyone not accustomed to violence would have been. We had Ted’s blood splattered all over our bodies. But once we were out of the room and working our way toward an exit, he said, “My family…please make sure they are okay.”

“I’ll call them,” Francesca said, walking next to us. She dug the phone out of her pocket and dialed. “Dervitz, evacuate the family. Someone went after Sebastian. We will reconnect soon.” She hung up.

We found a set of stairs on the other side of the floor and were able to disappear before too many cops got involved. We knew it was only a matter of time before someone stopped us and kept us from leaving. I couldn’t have that. We weren’t going to lose anyone else.

Breaking out the door into the parking garage, we found more chaos. A line of cars was trying to work its way to the exit as people ran by them, desperately searching for safety.

Francesca and Dr. Sebastian piled into the car. I checked underneath and made one circle around just to make sure we didn’t have any surprises waiting on us. I was at about 60 percent of my old self, but my survival instincts were helping fight the PTSD. We had to get out of there.

I hopped into the driver’s seat and got us moving. The cars were backed up trying to make their way out. I took a left and drove under the sign that said
Wrong Way
, and it worked. I noticed some other cars following me as I began to circle around the ramp.

“I need you to take care of my family,” Dr. Sebastian said again from the backseat.

Francesca turned around to face him. “They’re okay,” she said. “Will is moving them, and we’ll have you guys together very soon.” He thanked her.

Francesca turned back around. In times like these, you don’t notice the beauty. You notice the strength. No tears. No wailing. No confusion. No shock. A strong woman paid to protect. Francesca Daly was one hell of a woman, and I needed to put a little effort into respecting her. She was a soldier, and she was on my side, and I was thankful for it.

“What do you think?” I asked her, inching further into the traffic. “Probably need to get out of town.”

“Assuming they’re after the doctor, which we really can’t be sure about, I agree with you. Where do you want to meet the others?”

“Get them on I-5 North. We’ll figure it out from there.”

As she called Dervitz again, I spun through the radio stations trying to get a little more color on what had happened. I found a local station talking about the scene and let it play. They didn’t know much. The first shot had been fired less than fifteen minutes ago.

We finally made it out of the garage and onto the main street. It appeared that most of the protesters had no idea what had happened. They were still everywhere, marching and shouting and holding up their signs. Truthfully, I wanted to shoot them all. A bunch of damn clueless, clock-punching commoners. They were no different than the two women back there. Ted was dead because of
them
.

Ten blocks away, we finally reached clear streets, and I steered toward I-5. My mind went to what had happened. Two female shooters. Were they after the doctor? Had to be. How had they gotten weapons into the building? And more importantly, why? This would be an FBI profiler’s wet dream. Two young white females teaming up on an organized assassination.

“Daddy, daddy!” they said, running toward our SUV. Luan Sebastian and Dervitz were right behind them.

At that point, I decided to call the FBI and ask them to take over. The taxpayers would foot the bill now. Not our job anymore. The Sebastians would pay us for services rendered, and the contract would be terminated. Free of the deep ties Francesca and I shared with Ted, Dervitz hit the road, off to work his next gig.
Bon voyage
, dude. We don’t need you anyway.

I wasn’t going anywhere.

“I’m sorry about your cousin,” I offered, as we got onto the highway headed back toward the Convention Center. I knew the lead detective wanted us back there immediately.

“He was your friend, too,” Francesca said. I could hear the pain in her voice.

“Yes, he was. More than that. I owe him way more than that.”

“You were the one who said it from the moment you showed up. We shouldn’t have let the doctor go in there.”