Bryce rubbed his forehead with both hands and let off the brake to coast forward fifteen feet. There was another possibility that he didn’t want to consider. What if his father wasn’t referring to his own pride at all? What if William’s last word had been a warning?
Proud.
The brake pedal thumped against the floor and the car jerked to a halt. As much as he wanted to deny it, Bryce knew he had arrived at the truth. With his last word, William had been trying to warn him about the consequences of pride. Because pride had driven William away from his wife, and pride had separated Bryce from his mother and siblings.
William hadn’t called for the chaplain because he feared death, he did it because he regretted the void that had opened in the midst of his family. William hadn’t been on speaking terms with his wife or with Janet. And yet, they had been there at the hospital by the time Bryce arrived. William was trying to bring the family back together before he died.
And Bryce had missed it because he’d been too proud.
There was a blur of color to his right, and suddenly his sideview mirror was gone. A truck had mounted the shoulder and was scraping against vehicles in the far-right lane.
“Seriously?” Bryce said out loud. “A hit and run?”
He lifted up his phone and was about to call the police when it began to ring in his hand. The caller ID displayed the strange eleven-digit number he had seen before. On a whim, he answered.
“Hello?”
“Bryce? Oh, thank God. Are you alright?”
“Eric?” Bryce took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Did…did you hear about Dad?”
“Yes, and I’m sorry, but this isn’t about that. Are you near the city?”
“Kind of. Why?” Bryce raised an eyebrow. “Did you fly in?”
“The broadcast. Did you see the broadcast?”
Bryce wasn’t sure what to say. His younger brother was usually as unshakeable as an oak. “I—I’m in the car. What broadcast? What’s this about?”
“Get out of there. Do what you have to—jump out and run if that’s what it takes. Just get away from the city. I can’t be sure where it’ll happen, but any big city is a potential target.”
Bryce’s shoulders relaxed a little. He’d heard through the grapevine that Eric had become a doomsday prepper, but he didn’t know his brother’s paranoia had gone this far. “I’m on my way out of town. Don’t worry about me.” It was the most civil tone he had taken with Eric in years. Clearing his throat, he went on. “Listen, before Dad passed, he told me something, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot.”
The phone was silent. Bryce took a deep breath and continued, worrying his courage might falter. “You and I…have had our disagreements. And I’m sorry I haven’t stayed in touch. I’m sorry about a lot of things. I think that, before Dad died, he was trying to get the family back together again. That idea would’ve made me sick yesterday. But now that he’s gone…” His voice was starting to thicken. He stopped short to keep from crying.
“I understand,” Eric said. “And you’re right. We’ve all been apart for too long. I’m sorry, too. I do love you, Bryce. I always have. I told myself that you needed space, but I was lying to myself. And…and I’m sorry it took Dad’s death to make me realize that.”
Farther up the road, a minivan was weaving from side to side, trying to squeeze through traffic. Then, with a screech of rubber, it knocked aside a compact car and mounted the shoulder.
“Listen…” Bryce said, frowning,” I’ve got to go. Traffic is crazy right now. Thanks for calling.”
Eric’s voice deepened. He sounded like a soldier again. “Do everything you can to get away from the city, got it? And call me at this number when you get home.”
“Sure, no problem.” Bryce flinched as a motorcycle zipped past, missing his fender by inches. “Take care, Eric.”
He ended the call and glanced over his shoulder. A man and a woman were running, hand-in-hand, between the rows of vehicles.
“What the hell has gotten into everyone?” he muttered.
Concern gripped his heart in a vice. After talking to Eric, he was eager to clear the air with Janet and his mom. Because it was what his dad would have wanted. And because Bryce had been wrong. Thumbing his phone, he brought up Janet’s number and dialed. He stared at the screen, waiting for the call to connect, but it wouldn’t go through.
Maybe the conspiracy theorists were right, he thought. Maybe the world really was falling apart.
He ended the call and dialed again. Nothing.
He scowled at his phone and dialed again, willing the call to go through. Then a blinding light reflected off the screen and he cried out in pain. He turned his head away, but the blinding light seemed to be coming from everywhere.
“What the hell is—”
But his words were cut off by a deafening boom and the sound of splintering glass. Pain erupted across every square inch of his body at once. His joints twisted inward, and he began to shriek.
Behind him, Chicago had vanished in a ball of fire. But he didn’t see the explosion or the ensuing cloud of dust and debris. All he saw before the end came was his left hand turning to ash.
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Elizabeth Janson hunched over her fifth plate of food in the buffet-style restaurant that claimed to have the “best country cookin’ in town.” Two teenage boys sitting with their family kept looking over their shoulders at her. Then, in order to get a better view of the woman with the bodybuilder’s physique, they moved to the other side of their table and watched her practically without blinking. They leaned in and whispered to each other, but Janson heard every word.
Their words and laughter didn’t bother her. She had heard it all before. “Is that a man...or a woman?” “She’s gotta be on steroids.” Or “Why would she do that to herself? Doesn’t she know she’d be prettier if she wasn’t so…manly?”
They had no idea what she had become. She was no more woman than she was man. After undergoing extensive genetic and cybernetic enhancements, she no longer considered herself human. But it didn’t matter; she didn’t need to be human to have a purpose. And she certainly didn’t need the approval of a pair of hormonal teenagers.
She lifted her half-empty glass of water and drained it in three large gulps, then she wiped her lips with the back of her hand and stared down at the table. Though she could hear every word spoken in the building, her attention was focused on the tinny voice of an anchorman reading the news. The anchorman—Max Whitman—was based out of a news station in Chicago, but the headline story was about the ongoing riots in Baltimore. He spoke of vast crowds gathering in the streets, massive civilian evacuations, and fires that hadn’t stopped burning in more than three days.
Sweat gathered around Janson’s collar. These riots were no coincidence, just like the terrorist attacks at the U.N. Headquarters hadn’t been a coincidence. Katharos, a terrorist organization she had been fighting for months, was making a comeback. The organization’s leadership, Emily Roberts, Lukas Woodfall, Audrey Stokes, and Borya Tabanov were either dead or running for their lives. But their crippled organization was clearly still capable of wounding and killing innocent civilians. And now, it appeared they had rallied a force strong enough to threaten Hillcrest itself.