CHAPTER 16
~T-minus 58:45~
"Kiyama Hill" was the somewhat grandiose (if technically accurate) term for the highest point in Patmos, located on the outskirts of town just within the limits. Here, the land rose up gently - so gently that an outsider casually walking through the field would be excused for missing it entirely - until it reached an elevation just high enough to give an overview of the town and the surrounding landscape. In another age this had served as the focal point for various local events, ranging from barbecues to local music festivals to revival meetings. These had thinned over time, but the death blow came with Joshua Jameson's announcement of the site of his lab, located less than a mile north of the hill. Sensing that this would not be a feasible site for the future, planners of these events either canceled indefinitely or moved them outside of Patmos, where they soon lost any connection to the town. In time the hill was neglected and allowed to vanish beneath a thicket of brambles and weeds, forgotten by all but a handful of stargazers until they were driven away by lab security.
Perhaps Will Scarborough was the only one left who had any fondness for Kiyama Hill. To him, it was almost a sacred place, one inhabited by the spirits of his childhood memories - but more than that, it was the perfect spot for his party, the last party that there would ever be. First, it overlooked the lab, and whatever the end of all things was going to look like, it would be most impressive at the source. Second, it was one of the only places in town free of Jameson's electronic eyes.
This second trait made it useful for another purpose - the interment of his "historical preservation chamber," a final reminder of the world of men left over for whatever species might someday claim the ruins. Lab security had a fine view of the northern slope of the hill but it was just steep enough to obscure their view of the south, so anyone keeping to that side was simply not their concern. Provided he worked with haste, he could finish and make a stealthy retreat without any additional hassle.
Will's companions were few, for he needed few: Merely a shovel, a sled to drag the capsule, his phone, and the reassuring voice of Joshua Jameson, newly crowned enemy of Patmos. With discontent spreading rapidly across the town, the country, and even the planet, the old man was spinning as he never had before. He went off script for his daily broadcast, reaching desperately for any defense, any reed that might soften his fall:
"...There is a general lack of understanding of safety protocols among the general public. I do not put the blame on you - your own lives are hectic enough without studying the minutiae of power plant maintenance. No, I place the blame firmly on the Fourth Estate. In their zeal for ratings, the press have taken to reporting on rumor divorced from fact and context. Consider this: When our project was announced, we had to submit it to a state board and then to a federal board to ensure that it met every standard. Since the start of Rudra's construction and testing, we have welcomed three federal safety boards and seven international boards to study our protocols. We have been investigated an average of once per two months by outside parties since the start of the project, before the lab was even fully constructed. Internally, we run daily checks of every component of the engine and match them against computer models. Not one of the thousands of tests has suggested anything in line with the fears spread by the mass media."
"I acknowledge that many of you have reasons of your own to doubt my words, but I pray that you can trust your own judgment. What reason would I have to commission a project that I knew to be dangerous? What motives would lie with the United States government, or the other private investors? And most importantly, why would Dr. Richter promote a project that he believed might cause a catastrophe? Even if you lack trust in me, you must sure admit that he had no motive at all."
Glancing up from his work, Will spotted Sara coming up the hill, a camera bag over one shoulder. "So you decided to come up after all?" he said, pulling out his earbuds.
"Tell yourself that," said Sara, kneeling to retrieve her camera. "I'm up here to get a better shot of the protest."
"There's a protest?"
"You really do get tunnel vision, don't you?" Sara tipped her head toward the lab as she locked her zoom lens into place. "Take a look."
Will dropped his shovel and walked to Sara's side. "Wow."
What had started as some idle talk at a diner and a coffee shop and a few petty acts of vandalism had blossomed in short order into something grander and far more organized. The lab was engulfed by clusters of protesters, their ranks half-encircling the fortress-like perimeter. This was the same eclectic group that Will had seen earlier - young and old, outsiders and lifelong residents, all united by a chorus of outrage. The crowd was only growing, groups of people parking their cars haphazardly on the prairie and spilling out to add their voices to the din. Just inside the perimeter, the lab guards checked their submachine guns and adjusted their next-generation body armor - special equipment called out by the head of security, likely for its intimidating effect, though the sight hardly pacified the crowd. Then there were the reporters, men and women from those news outlets who had been invited on a tour and were now being held at bay, caught up in a wholly unanticipated story.
"Look at all of them," said Will. "There have to be…two hundred people down there."
Sara rose to one knee and brought the viewfinder to her eye. "Closer to two-fifty, maybe even three hundred, I'd say. They're trying to bring in more people from out of town, so it might clear four hundred by the evening."
Will chuckled as he appraised the crowd. "Shit. I really didn't think those guys had it in them."
"You'd be surprised what people will do when their lives are at stake. And it's not just here. There's a protest in New York at Jameson Enterprises HQ, and word is that damn near every Jameson office in the country has a few people out front." Sara adjusted the lens, pushing her vision into the facility itself. "Shit, they must have called in more guards for this."
"Probably scared that these guys are gonna tear down the gates and come in."
"These people aren't like that. Hell, if anything..." Sara lowered the camera. "...And here comes Aaron Bellamy. The guards are just a cheap show of strength, that's just like him. I bet he's pissing his pants over this - after all the strings his dad pulled to get him the job, they've gotta be watching him extra close."
"Good enough reason to stay away, says me." Will picked up his shovel and returned to his hole. "I wouldn't test those guys. Who knows what they'll do if they're challenged."
"What, you're afraid now?" Sara adjusted the lens on her camera. "Damn it, I'm too far away. I'm getting a better position."
"Don't go down there. You don't want to get shot, do you? Sara? Do you?" Will twisted his head to see Sara halfway down the hill, sprinting for the crowd. "Wait, don't do that!" He tried to give chase, but gravity made a mockery of him. Like most people, Will badly underestimated the decline of Kiyama Hill and gained momentum at an unexpectedly fast rate. As he passed Sara (who seemed a bit startled, at least from the fraction of a second he could see her face), he stumbled, nearly falling over his own feet, recovering and then stumbling again. He was out of control, wheeling madly into the crowd.
Ahead of him, he could hear a tinny voice rising up over the murmur of the protesters. "And I ask you: Did any of you vote for this? Did anyone here sit down and decide 'I'd like to let an oligarch run a dangerous experiment in our backyard'? Did you agree to that? Because you're paying for it, don't forget about that. You're the ones paying to be monitored. You're the ones paying to be shaken down and lied to. Isn't that how it always goes? Any time we the people need something, Uncle Sam can't find the money, but I tell you he opens his wallet wide when one of the masters of the universe wants a new toy. He opens that walled wide when the capitalist class has a big idea!"
Will came to an abrupt stop at the source of the voice, pitching over onto his hands and knees at the man's feet. He paused mid-rant, staring along with the rest at the new arrival. Though he was used to being noticed, Will had seldom felt as conspicuous as he did when he rose to his feet. Before him was the speaker, a young man with a neatly trimmed beard, a miniature amplified attached to his belt, a microphone in one hand.
"Brother, you look familiar," said the man, silencing his microphone. "Might you be Will Scarborough?"
Will sized up the crowd before he answered, taking note of the mutterings. "...Yeah."
"Yeah? Doug Wellstone, nice to have you here." His eyes darted into the crowd. "You with her?"
Will traced Doug's gaze to Sara, who was elbowing her way into the crowd. "Not really."
"Sorry, brother. For a minute there, I thought you might be a friend of Roderick Butler's."
"Who?"
"Never mind." Doug flicked the switch on his microphone and tossed an arm over Will's shoulder. "Friends, we have a special guest. This here is William Scarborough. Now, you newbloods might not know him, but the old hands do. This guy has balls of steel. In the face of corporate intimidation and police brutality, he stood up and let everyone know what was coming. Even when we made fun of him, he would not still his voice." He held the microphone up to Will. "Say something to the people, brother."
Will's eyes darted from the microphone to the crowd, all staring straight at him. "Uh...Looks like I was right all along?"
Burst of applause erupted from the crowd. "He's right," said Doug. "We were asleep, and Will Scarborough's eyes were wide open. In fact, since he was so far ahead of the crowd, I think we owe him a few minutes of our time." He removed the amplifier from his own waistband and affixed it to Will's. "Come on, brother. Share with us."
"Uh, I don't...well, okay." Will gingerly took the microphone as though he wasn't sure what to do with it. "Well...I don't know so much about corporate fat-cats or police corruption or government spy cams - although I'm definitely against that last one. I really don't like those at all. But one thing I know is that people should tell the truth. And when you're powerful and your decisions affect other people, then you're really obligated to tell the whole truth." He pointed at the lab. "They should have told you the truth from the beginning."
The applause returned, louder this time and spiced with shouts of approval. Will felt himself relax, the oratory coming more smoothly as his natural panache returned to the surface.
"Now, I don't want to blame the scientists or the techs, or any of the other regular people who happened to work in there. What I hear, they were in the dark just as much as we were. Not everyone who works at the lab is an asshole, I imagine most of these guys really thought they were doing good." Glancing back at the gate, Will saw Aaron glowering at him. "Hey, here's a guy I know! Aaron Bellamy, head of lab security. You might remember him from that big trivia fiasco from a few years back, the one where they really made him look the fool. Say 'Hi,' Aaron!"
Aaron flipped Will the bird. "You're going to pay for this, Scarborough."
"Ooh, guess he's upset with me. He's really a very smart guy, though. It's not his fault he lost. Hell, maybe if they'd let him win, he wouldn't be so eager to commit genocide in small town Illinois."
"Tell us about the fascists!" yelled someone from the crowd. "Tell us about the pigs!"
"The cops? Oh, don't believe what you hear, that was overblown. Just a couple of officers doing their job, which in this case happened to involve taking orders from one particular hard-ass son of a bitch." From the corner of his eye, Will caught Aaron holding up three fingers, a sinister grin on his face. "And there he is! Hey, got more fingers this time. Guess we're friends again, huh?"
Will's voice vanished into a burst of static, the amplifier coughing up raw noise. Doug was at Will's side, fumbling with switches on the device. "Sorry everyone, technical difficulties."
"Hey, no problem, I can just talk over...uh..." Will spotted a cluster of people staring at their phones and arguing. "...Guys, what's up?"
"Signal's dead," said one of them. "People are trying to call and we're getting cut off."
Doug checked his own phone. "Damn it...anyone else getting a signal?" A chorus of "no"s greeted him. "They must have some kind of radio frequency jammer in there."
"A signal jammer, huh?" Will scanned the reporters milling around the production trucks, taking note of the technical crews fighting with the equipment. "Hey, you guys getting a signal?" One of the reporters shook her head. "Wow, I guess you're right."
"That can't be right, they can't jam all those frequencies at once," said Doug. "Man, what kind of military-grade shit do they have in there?"
"You know what? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter! We've got everything we need right here!" Will shoved the microphone and amplifier into Doug's waiting hands and lifted his own voice over the chatter of the crowd. "Look, everyone, we've got plenty of people here. And hey, I've always thought we relied too much on electronic entertainment, anyway. Back in the day, they made their own fun, and maybe we should try doing that. How about some impressions? All right, I've got one I've been working on..."
In a display of adopted ostentation, Will cleared his throat, puffed out his chest, and began to speak in an exaggerated avuncular voice. "Good evening, friends, neighbors, heathens. This is Joshua Jameson." There were scattered laughs and cheers from the crowd. "As you know, I have doomed the sinful human race to extinction by holy fire. I fully expect to be raptured away to heaven before that happens, of course, but the rest of you are free to burn down here on earth before your one-way trip to hell."
"Now, I'd like to say something about Dr. Richter, my main man, the genius who brought me the tool of your purification. I first me him in a chat room for supervillains, and I was very impressed by his ideas. We hoped that he could speak to you himself, but it can be bit difficult to understand him through the bouts of maniacal laughter. Also, I'm afraid that his secret lair in the Antarctic doesn't get wi-fi."
"And now, let me introduce my old friend, Mr. Zhang. Now, those heretics in the media have spread a lot of lies about this dear man. First, I strongly refute the suggesting that he's killed more people than you've ever met. Why, if you stop for a moment and consider how many...uh...how many..."
The laughter in the crowd quickly subsided as all eyes drifted from Will to the gate at his back. Following their gaze, Will spotted a new arrival - a vehicle, a heavy truck with a satellite dish-like object mounted on the roof. Aaron was leaning out of the passenger door, bullhorn in hand.
"Attention, degenerates," said Aaron, the malice in his voice not lost through the distortion. "You have thirty seconds to disperse or we will disperse you."
Sara ran to Will's side, snapping pictures wildly. "Get moving, Will. If this is what I think it is, you don't want to be here."
"Yeah, like I'm afraid of that twerp."
"Damn it." Sara fled at once, discarding camera accessories in her wake.
Will threw his arms wide, hefting his chin toward the truck. "Hit me with your best shot, Aaron. I ain't budging. Come and move me!"
Aaron continued staring Will down, but the rage was gone from his eyes - there was something more insidious, something subtle and wicked and cruel. He exited the vehicle with a shrug and a wave and took a few steps back, arms crossed, running his tongue along his teeth. For a moment, Will thought that the device (whatever it even was) had malfunctioned, or the operator had lost his nerve. There was nothing to suggest otherwise - no light, no vibration, no sound. The first sound he heard was a scream to his rear, then another, then more and more. Will could feel his skin growing warm with tension as he anticipated what was to come. Then it was warmer, and warmer still, and he could feel an ache creeping up from within, a sense of panic, an ever-growing pain. People were running around before him, patting at their skin and clothes as though they were extinguishing invisible flames - and then he knew why, for he could feel the same thing. At first he tried to endure it, to demonstrate his toughness against this invisible weapon, but it was hopeless. He was being cooked from the inside, burned by flames that felt absolutely real, so real that he was ready for his skin to blacken and peel back. There was nothing to do but run - run away from the source, flee and hope that the agony didn't chase him. He didn't even know where he was running, he barely registered his surroundings, though he could swear that he heard a laugh - Aaron's laugh - as he escaped.
Perhaps it was instinct that drew Will back to Kiyama during his flight, or perhaps it was simply happenstance, but that's where he found himself when sense returned to him, lying in the sticker-filled grass on its slope. He ran his hands over his arms, feeling for injuries, but found none - no burns, no scorch marks, nothing to tell the tale of his ordeal. The pain was gone, merely a memory - but not a memory easily lost, not something that he would soon forget.
"Are you okay?"
At length, Will became aware of a figure standing over him, carrying a camera bag in disarray and sporting a look that spoke more to contempt than compassion.
"Sara?"
"I told you not to stand there."
"And I told you not to go down there." Will forced himself to a sitting position. "Am I burned anywhere?"
"You're fine," said Sara. "I've heard of these things. Supposedly, they don't cause any permanent harm, although that's only if you want to believe the military."
"You know what that was?" said Will.
Sara pulled out her camera, studying the pictures she took. "It's military tech. Same with that radio jammer, I'll bet. How do they get all this stuff, anyway? Jameson's connections run a lot deeper than I thought."
Pushing through the lingering pain, Will turned his eyes back to the hill. "Did anyone take my preservation chamber?"
"It's fine." Sara put her camera into its bag. "You need a hand getting up?"
"That's okay, I can manage." Will winced a bit, then looked back at Sara. "Hey, who's Roderick Butler?"
"Huh?"
"Someone down there mentioned you and asked if I knew Roderick Butler. Who's that?"
"No one. Nothing to do with this." Sara slung the camera bag over one shoulder. "I'd better get going. So had you, you don't want the Jameson people to find you up here?"
"Who's Roderick Butler?"
Sara waved to Will as she walked away. "See you, Will. Try not to get shot before Sunday night."
Will raised to his feet, giving the once-over to Jameson Labs, looking for Aaron or the old man or anyone who might help him make sense of the world. There were only a handful of guards shedding their heavy equipment and returning to their normal patrols. It was a blessing - the capsule wasn't in the ground yet. That was what mattered; it was the only thing that mattered, in fact. His pain would soon be gone, but his work was going to outlast him.