The Click
Prologue

(In The Future)

It began slowly, according to all the articles appearing on television and the Net,

like the upward seepage of water from a small crack in a pipe below ground. And then without warning, like a total failure in the pipe, an explosion of illness, then death, spread from city to city, from village to village, across the Earth; citizens of the world on the streets coughing, vomiting, dying. Many of the more fortunate who needed to venture out wore masks as they weaved around deceased bodies yet to be picked up by the caravan of mortuary trucks that carried with them bright orange body bags. The citizens still living but too weak to move from the streets, sidewalks, and even the gutters were attended to by medics and paramedics who were also knocking door to door hoping to help those who couldn’t help themselves.

Before the Plague people were living longer and dying of old age, most of them in their late nineties and older. Humanity had cured cancer, heart disease, most infectious ailments—and many old age catastrophes like dementia. By then the fanatic religious right making up the Coalition United for Theocratic Oversight, the Cūtocracy, had successfully infiltrated the legislative bodies of much of the world, including the United States, institutionalizing many of its theocratic policies within what were once secular democracies. They prohibited the highly successful use of stem cell reproduction to correct birth defects and dismantled all the international programs scientifically regulating weather. Indeed, any technological advancement that placed man above God, at least according to the Cūtocracy, was considered sacrilegious. The most dramatic of those policies were the absolute banning of abortions and birth control, and the insistence on large families. The combination was synergistic, devastating, and inevitable—severe overpopulation.

Spider Rooms as they were named for the seemingly infinite number of leg-like clusters of antennas on their rooftops housed gigantic processors in just about every

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country. Those processors operating the most sophisticated software bounced digitized information from protolyte to protolyte circling high in outer space and ultimately into and out of computation shells across the planet. The most powerful people of the world were connected, concerned, and asking the same questions: Where are all those souls to live; how are they to earn a living; what are they to eat? The left wing populists had no miracles, the right wing Cūtocrats no cures, and the politicians had no talking points.

Eventually, all the nations of the world raced for the little bits of land and resources that remained, and began staking their claims. First the Chinese, then India, two of the four economic superpowers, followed by the other two, the United States and Neuropa, both fighting polarizing internal political battles focused mainly on border control—keeping out the riffraff, and escalating budgets. They all had nuclear warheads rusting away in readily accessible silos. A touch of the button could have easily solved the problem of overpopulation. A gigantic boom here, a mushroom cloud there, and presto, less heathens to abort God’s children and decimate the Good Books, at least according to the religious orthodoxy.

But alas, world order was restored, sensitive trigger fingers anesthetized, and overpopulation at least temporarily curbed by the plague’s deadly virus quickly dubbed the ERAM virus, Earth’s Revenge Against Mankind, or sometimes merely ERAM-V. The water in most places carried the deadly virus, but sometimes it was the air. The righteous, encouraged by the Cūtocrats, branded it the hand of Heaven avenging all those abortions in dark alleys, hidden halfway houses, and the back rooms of the rich, all those malignant murderers of the innocent—and their renunciation of the Good Books. The Godless ones and liberals in general repudiated such demagoguery, insisting that the great lady of nature recoiled against a worldwide population boom playing havoc with her creation. And so it went, in churches, on street corners, barbershop, salons, and on the Net.

With time and deliberate action on the part of all nations, the plague relinquished its hold on humanity but not before a startling twenty percent of the world population fell within its grip, approximately 1.7 billion people worldwide, leaving 6.8 billion inhabitants on the planet.

Well before that devastating plague was more than a bothersome influenza in areas around the world, a small segment of the scientific community examined the virus, the likes of which had never been seen before. They recognized its virulent nature right away—that it could and more than likely would rear its ugly head on a large scale and continuously replicate itself if not eradicated once and for all. A super vaccine had to be developed.

An alliance of powerful Cūtocrats within Neuropa and America, as well as India and China, both of which had a growing Ecclesian population thanks to a thriving economy, began meeting in Rome on a regular basis to monitor the virus’s progress. Considering the size of the Church of the Ecclesia, all its succeeding supreme ministers, lovingly referred to as smotecs, participated both financially and politically. Finally, that alliance between the Cūtocracy and then Smotec Innocent II, who kept a low profile, recruited a large number of carefully selected invitees to meet in a Chinese village only accessible by air and rail. Within that village stood a complex of concrete buildings the color of sandstone located deep within the shadows of the Great Wall of China. It was only after the helicopters landed that the invited guests, prestigious medical doctors, scientists, and politicians, all loyal to the Cūtocracy, were able to see the complex and understand the high technology grandeur operating within its 300,000 square feet of laboratories, offices and manufacturing facilities.

Not long after, regardless of the time of day, under the supervision of those invitees and the long arm of the Cūtocracy, the workers within labored to develop and produce a vaccine, and all the time the Great Wall’s shadow and surrounding landscape hid their effort from the skies above.

Over a period of two years and well after the ERAM-V plague had done significant damage but long before it had completed its task, the Cūtocratic alliance concluded its development of the ERAM-V vaccine and began manufacturing it at their Chinese hideaway.

On a sunny day in the spring the Cūtocracy headquarters in Rome became the destination for a string of solar powered hydro-pneumatic limousines hovering inches above the ground, each carrying one or more members of the all-powerful Cūtocratic council including High Minister Charles Sheen, Emissary to the Supreme Minister of the Ecclesian Church, Smotec Innocent II. Trying to avoid the others arriving at the same time, the High Minister had his Limo glide around the corner and drop him off at the side entrance. From there he entered the headquarters carrying a large purse.

By the time he worked his way up six flights of stone stairs, out of breath even though he rested at each landing, Minister Sheen now eighty-six years old entered the reception area on the Council floor. The receptionist, a young woman conservatively dressed in grays and blacks and wearing weighty looking glasses, waved him into the conference room where it was clear he was the last to arrive. Everyone else had already taken their places around a large, elongated mahogany table. Along the center edge at the far side sat the Council Chair from the United States, a young fat man in a three-piece suit. To his left sat India, then Canada, and so on. There were fourteen members in total representing the entire world. Minister Sheen’s seat to the right of the Chair awaited his arrival.

He nodded to the others as he limped around the table and took his seat, carefully holding on to his purse. He knew why he was there and didn’t like what was coming. The agenda for this emergency meeting merely set forth the meeting time and the requirement that all attend and cast a vote. Days earlier, each representative was contacted individually, in secret, and apprised of the details, or so he was informed. They were also told how to cast their votes.

The Council Chair called the meeting to order and declared it was time to vote. No discussion was allowed. He started with India to his left and went around the table. India voted YES, Canada voted YES, S. America voted YES … and so it went. Sitting to his right, High Minister Sheen heard China’s YES vote, then Neuropa, the same, as if the word YES was a mere echo within the room. It was his turn, the last to vote given the chairman only voted to break a tie. All eyes were on him, clearly assuming he would make the decision unanimous. The high minister bit his lower lip, slowly opened the purse in front of him and took out a document. He stared at it for a moment, as did the others, then held it up.

“Gentlemen, I have here a Smotecal Decretum executed by Smotec Innocent instructing me to vote NO. I am sorry but we cannot make the Council’s decision unanimous.”

The stares from the others turned to disbelief, then anger. The room echoed those sentiments like all the yes votes that preceded them until the chairman from the United States BANGED his gavel insisting on silence. He glared at Minister Sheen for a moment, then BANGED his gavel a second time. “Nevertheless, the measure passes. Thank you all for attending,” he announced and shoed everyone out but not before eying the high minister as if he had committed the most dastardly deed.

Back in the Chinese village within the shadows of the Great Wall, Jonathan DeCarlo, tall, thin and black with Ethiopian blood running through his veins, took large strides across the complex grounds studying a clip chart of the previous week’s vaccine production. After entering Manufacturing Building A2 that housed all types of processing equipment, conveyers, tubes, computation shells, and control panels, he practically danced from one station to another talking to operators over the noise of equipment that ran day and night. His name and Cūtocracy had been threaded into the shirt pocket of his uniform which was sandstone in color with light and dark greens and browns scattered about in order to make him less visible from the Protolytes whizzing through space, those floating brains that made instant communication and computation possible while at the same time searching for anomalies on the ground like forest fires, earthquakes, and invading armies. All the nations on Earth had them, as did the United Nations, as did the Cūtocracy.

Jonathan climbed the opened staircase and finally reached his office door with a large sign printed across it: J. DeCarlo, Director of Vaccine Production. Exhausted and desperately in need of a break, he fell into his desk chair and closed his eyes, only to open them wide upon hearing a tap on the door. A blur across his vision caused him to squint. Commander Ginger Fly, around thirty years old, short and stocky, poked her head in, seemingly agitated. She too wore a similar camouflage uniform with her name and Cūtocracy on the pocket.

“Ginger?

Shut everything down … now!”

“What?”

“That’s an order. And destroy the stockpile.

“But I’ve spent the last six weeks, 24/7, building it up.”

By the time Jonathan finished his declaratory rant, Ginger was gone. He could hear her all the way down the hall. “Orders are orders. Do it now!”

For a moment he just stared at the empty open door as if she were still there, as if he could talk reason into her, then shook his head and looked for his scud, a device he was fascinated with, a hand-held best friend that just about everyone on the planet took for granted. While scud was an acronym for Satellite Communication Utility Device and did just about everything except reproduce, most people were not aware of what it stood for, especially since the term ‘satellite’ was an archaic reference to the earlier version of the protolytes of present day. They only knew it could communicate with anyone on Earth both visually and audibly, even holographically, and could access dozens of search engines with the tap of a finger or the sound of one’s voice. Jonathan had to have the latest and greatest scud available and was the first in line to purchase the most recent version.

After replaceing it, he called his foreman and barked out the bad news. The foreman knew better than to question his instructions.

Later that night having slept restlessly for at most twenty minutes he shook

himself out of a dream he couldn’t remember and jumped up from his chair. After racing

down the opened staircase painted a high gloss gray steel, taking two steps at a time, and through a now silent processing facility void of operators, he left the building and practically jogged across campus under a moonless sky. He entered Administration building A6 and bounded up several flights of similar opened stairs before approaching Ginger Fly’s office assuming she would be there. She was a workaholic. Across her partially opened door was printed: Ginger Fly – Chief Operations Attorney. Her office lights were on.

Just as he poked his head in, a clerk walked by. “If you’re looking for Ginger, she was rushed to the hospital with a burst appendix.”

Appendix? Jonathan didn’t know anyone who still had one these days. Taken aback by the news, he watched the clerk walk away without thinking to ask for details. Instead, he stepped into Ginger’s office and reached for the light switch when he saw her safe ajar. He went to close it but a red bound diary entitled “Top Secret” practically falling out got in the way. He hesitated, looked back into the hall, then rushed over to close the door.

After returning to the safe, he pulled out the diary and opened it. A document entitled Smotecal Decretum fell to the floor. He looked around, read it, first slowly, then again even more carefully. His teeth began chattering. His shoulders tightened. He could feel his temples pulsating. His fingers seemed to graze the gold seal, real gold he was sure. He swallowed hard then read through the diary.

“Jesus!”

He looked at the wall clock. It was one-thirty. He could practically hear the second hand ticking. After kneeling at the opened safe for a while deciding what to do, he finally shut it with the diary and Smotecal Decretum clutched within his fingers.

“Jesus!” he repeated as if somehow a call to the Ecclesian savior was going to do something to help a black Jew from Ethiopia, actually from Mumbai and parts unknown.

One thing was for sure, he couldn’t stay where he was and he had to get those documents out ... to Juliette, somehow, and hopefully he had at least a couple days before they were discovered missing. Draped in a shroud of urgency, he turned off the lights in

Ginger’s office and scurried onto campus with the consequences of his thievery held tightly under his shirt, against his belly, as if they might otherwise be seen by the protolytes thousands of miles up.

His apartment was only ten minutes away. He would pack some essentials and think about how he planned to pull all this off, especially since no one could leave the village without permission and an authorization pass. The only thing he could think of at the moment was to jump a supply train on its return to Beijing and buy a throwaway scud. He had to reach Juliette and make arrangements … papers, cash, a scud … a new identity. DanSheba had to have people in Beijing and she would know how to contact them.

He hurried back to his office and checked the supply train schedule. One was due in at six in the morning. That meant it would be out by seven, giving him less than an hour to sneak on. How was he going to do that?

Less than fifteen minutes later he was back at the apartment trying to think it through while rummaging through drawers looking for the most important things he could carry in a backpack. Time was running out and he knew he wouldn’t be back. They could trace him to his scud if he used it. He left it on the nightstand, which meant leaving his credit-app, his only source of ready cash. He would have to get knew papers, a new scud with a credit app tied to the new papers, and a line of credit. He would for sure need Juliette for all that.

By the time he packed, the lack of sleep dominated his thoughts. He was facing a long day and still hadn’t figured out how to steal his way onto the supply train. He looked at his alarm clock. It was now almost three o’clock. He set the alarm and closed his eyes.

Seconds later, it seemed, the alarm woke him out of a pleasant dream, his sister’s wedding day in DanSheba, at the Rose Garden. That’s where most DanSheban weddings took place. As comforting as the dream was, he had to shrug it off, quickly. How was he going to get onto that train? He’d have to wait and see.

As he reached the service yard carrying a bulging backpack, the train was just floating in on a stream of compressed gases. Hidden behind a low fence he counted six cars quietly drop to the ground as if they were on invisible tires slowly losing air. He remained hidden within the shadows of the fence watching only the last three being unloaded. Both local staff and train people from Beijing surrounded the cars making it impossible to get close without being seen. Just when his stomach became hostel, he noticed the rusty orange crane behind him. A huge dark green metal bin of trash dangled from its long arm at least thirty feet from the ground, and no one was around it. While constantly keeping an eye on the activity around the train just over the fence line, he backed up slowly, jumped onto the crane, and looked for some type of release mechanism. It had to be the gear to the driver’s right. He pushed it forward and jumped from the crane as the bin fell, CRASH. A billow of smoky dust filled the yard, allowing him to return to the fence without being seen. At the same time, everyone from the train hurried to the crane.

Jonathan raced the other way, reaching the last car while the dust was settling. He climbed in and rushed to one end where he found large empty containers stacked on top of one another, hopefully left there for the return trip. After working his way through and behind them, he crouched down and waited. He could only imagine sneaking out from the car when it reached Beijing and into the hands of the Cūtocracy. They would shut him up for good and generations of people to follow would … He couldn’t go there. It was too frightening.

From behind thick layers of cardboard he could hear the final call, then the door SLAMMING closed and locks sliding in place. It was at the moment he realized he would never return. All the days and nights, the sweat, the highs and lows. And just when he began feeling sorry for himself, he realized what he had done; had been part of, and he did everything to keep from vomiting into the boxes that held him captive. Fortunately, the need to sleep calmed his stomach and overwhelmed his sense of guilt.

Once the train arrived in Beijing, the downward thump of the train’s wheels onto the tracks below woke him from a momentary snooze. Escaping without being detected was easy given the crowds at every platform and no Cūtocrats in sight. He had changed his clothes on the way and blended nicely with the civilian population. With the little bit of paper money he scrounged up in his apartment he purchased a scud, then made his way toward the seedier part of the city and found a cheap hotel near the Beijing Amusement Park. For the next couple of hours he talked several times with Juliette and another DanSheban living in Beijing, a professor of Far Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem on sabbatical at the Beijing Institute.

Three days later, Jonathan DeCarlo and the professor were sitting across from one another in Jonathan’s hotel room. He hadn’t left there since talking to his sister. The professor gave him a passport in the name of British businessman Raymond James, an airline ticket to New Delhi and then Mumbai, credit issued by a bank owned by the DanShebans, and additional paper cash. The flight was leaving the next morning and the professor would pick him up at 7 am. In the meantime, the professor took the Top Secret Diary and Smotecal Decretum Jonathan had stolen from the safe and passed them on to another DanSheban with instructions to make sure they reached Juliette. The next morning, right after Jonathan was safely in the professor’s automobile heading to the airport, he called Juliette to let her know.

Beautiful Juliette Shiffler was tall, thin, and not quite as black as Jonathan. She was also seven months pregnant. On a cold dreary afternoon in Firenze, sick with worry, she stepped into the Banco Monte dei Firenze holding a leather valise and hurried to the vault doors. She hadn’t heard from her brother since the call he made from the automobile heading to the airport and tried calling him and the professor continuously but to no avail. Heartsick or not she knew the valise and its contents had to be locked up for safe keeping. What was to become of the information Jonathan stumbled upon would have to play out later.

She approached the vault door, dialed in a code, and looked into a dual eye scanner while pressing her right hand against a palm reader. A green light beam flashed past her pupils followed by the lock CLICKING open. She hesitated, studied her surroundings wondering who might be watching, then entered and quickly went to her

safety deposit box. Again she looked around. She was alone near the back of the vault. No one seemed to be paying any attention. She withdrew from the valise the red diary containing the Smotecal Decretum and placed it in the box. Once she made sure the box was locked in place, she left the vault and passed through the bank lobby trying her best to avoid eye contact with the bank manager who now stood nearby staring at her.

“Thank you Ms. Shiffler,” she heard him say as the main doors automatically opened. After stepping around dying bodies on the sidewalks and streets and making sure she wasn’t run over by paramedics speeding from one emergency to another on cushions of air, she managed to reach her own vehicle. During that ordeal she passed window after window containing large screen displays reminding people that a vaccine was coming. Pamphlets with the same message littered the streets. On one corner in front of a government building she practically walked through a hologram the size of an elephant declaring that the Coalition United for Theocratic Oversight was beginning to manufacture the vaccine.

Less than an hour later Juliette Shiffler found herself at home in Greve, around thirty kilometer south of Florence, staring down at nothing in particular, Jonathan’s favorite book clenched tight against her chest as she stood on a cold stoop leading up to the stone house. Rooftops in the town square were visible beyond the trees, although impossible to see through the wetness that filled her eyes. “Water, water, everywhere, and all the boards did shrink. Water, water, everywhere, nor a drop to drink,” she mumbled, suddenly loosening her grip on Coleridge, dropping it from her hands onto the pavement below. She sobbed. Many of her dear, dear friends gone, as if whisked away by the hand of a vengeful magician—and her brother, where was he? The plague swooped in and took few prisoners. Juliette, one of the lucky ones residing in Greve, managed to survive. Other towns and cities throughout the world may have fared better, especially the larger cities, but none escaped the touch of death—none escaped the albatross.

Juliette Shiffler thought about all the publicity on the upcoming vaccine and then about dear Jonathan’s discovery. She had reason not to be immunized. The next morning

she packed her things and went into hiding, back to DanSheba, praying she would soon hear from her brother.

It was summer in Italy which meant Smotec Innocent, the Supreme Minister of the Ecclesian Church, was vacationing in in the Smotecal Palace of Castel Gandolfo, and that meant High Minister Robert Sheen would be there also even though he hated the place.

The palace was built in the 17th Century, during the long standing era of Catholicism, and had been the summer spot for all the popes starting with Pope Urban VIII. Because Innocent, at present ninety-six years of age, was the youngest Supreme Minister to begin his reign within the Church of the Ecclesia and the longest Smotec to occupy the office, he had spent more time there than any of his predecessors, both the early day popes and more recent smotecs.

To most critics his lengthy tenure brought with it an abrupt turn to ultra-conservatism from what had been liberal minded thought resulting in the fall of Catholicism, indeed Christianity in general, and carrying over into the new Ecclesian reign. God intended him to put on the brakes, and he did so with great relish, almost immediately starting with the all-out banning of abortions and birth control even though the Earth was already in the throes of a population explosion like none in its history. Of course he could not have implemented either policy without the help of the Cūtocracy. And the Cūtocracy could not have thrived without the financial backing of Smotec Innocent. Together they undid the liberal progress that had been continuing under the first three Smotecs, Gregory, Ramon, and Francis, and only diminished slightly thereafter. While Innocent could not stop all growth in technological innovation, he and his predecessors after Francis managed to slow it down many-fold and he in particular banned certain existing technologies deemed an affront to the All Mighty, as well as those considered possible weapons against the Church and the Cūtocracy. The protolytes continued to fly, the net continued to deliver data, but upgrading either was seriously stifled.

Minister Sheen knew all that. After all, he came into office as Smotec Innocent’s first lieutenant fifty years earlier. At the moment he happened to be in town sitting on the patio of an outdoor café overlooking Lake Albano. With a cup of coffee in one hand and his scud in the other hand, he was listening with tight jaws, then abruptly barked out his demands.

“Enough excuses! I need to know how it happened. … … You already told me it was the Cūtocracy, but who, damn it? … … Well just get back to me with something positive.”

The Minister disconnected and called his server over for another cup of coffee and some sweets. He was procrastinating. The smotec said he was available all morning and the morning was almost gone. After drinking a third cup of coffee and leaving most of the sweets, he paid the check and hailed a taxi. Within fifteen minutes he was in the palace drawing room waiting for His Sacredness to appear, hopefully in a good mood he thought as he tapped on the golden chest covered with rubies and emeralds he used as a crutch to help him stand straight and remain confident.

“So?” the smotec snarled after entering the room and before the door behind him could close. Clearly he was not in a good mood.

Sheen hesitated and before he could respond, the smotec held up his hand in a gesture of silence. “I know, stolen … by the Cūtocracy, but that’s not enough. Why would they?” Innocent was referring to the Smotecal Decretum he had executed to make it clear he was not going along with the Cūtocracy’s insane measure they passed at the last council meeting.

“To hold it over you. At least that’s what my informants tell me.”

“And now some people took it from them. Do you realize what this could do to the Church … to me?” Merely uttering those words caused Innocent to swipe a tightened fist across the closest vase, causing the priceless relic to CRASH to the floor.

“Apparently one person. A Jonathan DeCarlo. We could go public with the Cūtocracy’s plan?”

“Are you crazy? We were part of that plan or at least we financed it. No! Find the Decredum and do whatever it takes. This Jonathan DeCarlo and anyone else who’s seen it must go. Is that clear?” Without another word, Innocent stormed out of the drawing room leaving his top minister shaking as he picked up the broken pieces of vase. Sheen knew in his heart that the smotec was thrilled with the plan they had voted against but didn’t want his fingerprints on it.

Jonathan DeCarlo did not make it to the airport with the professor. Just before arriving, and after each one disposed of his scud, they were picked up and thrown into an icy dungeon deep within the heart of Beijing. Through days of brutal interrogation he maintained his innocence, insisting he didn’t know what they were talking about. He had no knowledge of a missing diary. Then suddenly the interrogation stopped and he was left alone for what seemed like days, in the dark, with only a pitcher of water and cracker crumbs that became magnets for rats the size of cats. Throughout the ordeal he thought about the professor and prayed he didn’t talk. What could he say? They didn’t have the diary or the Smotecal Decretum, Juliette did. Then it hit him … far worse than all the pin pricks, water soaked rags, and chain stretches he managed to survive. If the professor told them about Juliette. She was in danger!

“Christ, what did I do?” he blurted out. Hopefully she had the sense to get the hell out of Italy and return to DanSheba. Hopefully!

The next thing he knew, several of his captors dragged him up hundreds of crumbling steps past cells reeking with the rancid prophesy of death. After being passed off several times, he found himself on a super transport flying several inches above its tracks at two hundred miles an hour heading toward … where? He wasn’t sure. The two soldiers who never left his side carried nano-wave cadmium blue super-laser guns hidden within the breast pockets of their maroon and gold uniforms. Normally, such hideous firearms were reserved for much higher level officials in the military and only on a need

to have basis. In the case of the two soldiers, they carried them legally, or so he was warned, due to the importance of their mission.

After transferring trains three times, they arrived in Italy, in the Rome station during the early morning rush, along with General Somebody who joined them on the last leg, and were greeted on Platform 23 by a civilian official the general clearly didn’t like. He was there to pick up the prisoner for the Cūtocracy, the official exclaimed harshly as a man who thought he knew how to take charge might.

The official then turned to the prisoner. “Jonathan DeCarlo?” he barked in a high pitched voice that contradicted his large frame and heavy beard, a voice that gave Jonathan confidence.

“You know who I am, you bastard.” Jonathan stepped toward the official with his cuffed hands raised, causing the general to step between them. Rather than wait for a reprimand, the prisoner spit in the general’s face, something he had been waiting to do to someone ever since they dragged him from the dungeon.

The general stepped back, slammed Jonathan across the jaw with the butt of his super-laser gun and wiped the spit from his face. The next thing Jonathan knew, a long, narrow barrel pressed tight against his temple.

At twenty-four year old he stood six feet three inches thin, extremely tall for his people, and like many claiming an Ethiopian ancestry he had dark eyes and dark hair that seemed to blend seamlessly with his coal black skin. What he didn’t have was a red bound diary of sorts and a certain document the authorities desperately wanted.

The civilian official pushed the general away. “Are you crazy? We need him alive.” The general shoved the official back and raised the butt of his gun threatening to use it once again. The two soldiers stepped in to keep them apart.

Seeing his opportunity, Jonathan slithered down the platform like a lizard on flat ground dodging crowds of passengers stepping off and on recently arrived and departing trains. ZING, ZING, ZING, he could practically feel the rays of blue light shoot past him as both soldiers took aim. POOF, POOF, POOF, passengers on his left practically disintegrated. He had often wondered why those C-B super-laser guns were outlawed.

Now he knew. And that made him race even faster into one of the standing cars after wedging between exiting passengers. Once inside the train, he plowed through standing humanity in order to reach the last car and escape out the back. By then, the two soldiers were in a good place to take aim and began firing once again. By the time the official reached them, a side wall of the caboose was dripping with melted metal. More people died including the train’s conductor.

Jonathan jumped onto the stairs of a bridge draped across the tracks between adjacent platforms and raced over it. He could hear the two soldiers close behind, but with his hands cuffed, it was hard to run much faster and they were closing the gap, but no longer shooting. Just when he thought they were going to reach him, he leaped onto the far track ahead of a train that he didn’t see coming. WHAM!