Faster on My Own: Chapter 29
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Many of the pleasures of rule had faded away for Steven over the years. Power, rather than a thrill, became a brute fact. At all times it wafted off of him, attracting and repelling others whose heartbeats he could feel in one hand and stop with the other. The White House, which had become progressively more lavish over the many years– decoration based on his mother’s taste– disgusted Steven. The ostentatious display of the wealth he bled from the American people offended every aesthetic sensibility he had. A good movie poster and a decently patterned rug would have made Steven feel more at home, but the home wasn’t his. President for Life Steven Williams lived there, and he wanted nothing but the finest things in life to signify his status above the rabble. But the one activity that never got old was speaking to a raving crowd. He faced them from the balcony, the thousands of faces– many of them paid to fill the square, to be sure– gazing up at him, waiting for the first words to drip from his lips and splash onto the crowd.
“My people, my fellow Americans. Too long, we have endured internal threats.” They cheered. These speeches, though they always played well enough as long as the crowd was friendly, benefited from the balcony Steven had built on the Washington Monument. They could crowd around, while he spoke from the symbol of the nation’s first president. He thought he might rile up some confused liberals who still held on to patriotism, but no one complained when he did it.
“Soon we will root them out, and we will secure our borders against the foreign agents who want to infiltrate us, and bring us down to their pathetic level.” The rest of the world had condemned Steven’s human rights violations in the same breath as their corporations bought labor from Steven’s work camps. Any attempt to corral Steven would result in substantial domestic resistance.
“But they know, and we know, that we are greater. We were born greater, it is not merely our acts, or our deeds, but the blood pumping through our veins. And-” Someone tackled Steven as a bang sounded from the crowd. Thousands of people screamed as Steven’s back spasmed from the collision with the ground. As the pain shooting through his body subsided, he wondered if he’d discover that he’d been shot, one pain receding so the next could take the stage. But no pain arrived, and once he felt confident his back wouldn’t give out on him, Steven picked himself up halfway by grabbing the railing. The crowd was pulsing as masses of people ran in every direction, mashing together and breaking apart. One gunshot was all it took, and it didn’t even hit anyone. It was hard to see how Steven was going to turn them into a revolutionary class, but time can change people in unbelievable ways.
As he sat up, he saw Sam kneeling next to him, hand clasping a shoulder with blood pouring out. “Shit. Shit! Are you alright?”
“Just a gunshot, sir.” Sam tried to pull a hand away from her shoulder in order to speak on her earpiece, but grimaced and returned it to her wound. “If you don’t mind, sir, could you press on my headset so I can make sure whoever shot that dies.”
“Of course.” As he crawled over, he scanned the crowd. In the chaos of fleeing actors, he caught a glimpse of Charlotte, looking over her shoulder. He thought it was her, at least. It could have just been another forty-year-old woman at a great distance with long brown hair, but it could have been her. That group was at about the right moment for an assassination attempt. Though, Ashwin wouldn’t like that the bullet almost hit Steven. No, Ashwin would certainly want their final confrontation to happen in person. Steven grabbed the earpiece out of Sam’s ear, untangling it from a few strands of hair that came along for the ride.
“That’s unnecessary sir, I can still handle this.”
He ignored her, instead spoke as clearly as possible, despite his rattled nerves. “I want everyone up on the rooftops. Immediately. That’s where they’re heading.”
Sam blinked a couple times, confused. She leaned forward, exhaling sharply as she did. “Sir, no, that’s not the right order. Please, let me-”
“I’ve got this, Sam. Scramble the helicopters, I want eyes on whoever did this.”
“No, sir.” She pulled her hand away from her shoulder long enough for one attempt to grasp the earpiece, but Steven shifted further away from her and Sam’s hand closed on empty air.
“Please, you’re hurt. I can handle this sort of thing.”
“You need to keep everyone here. If they’re allowed to run into the streets there’s no catching them.” Sam bent over, head pressed into her bent elbow, and released a muffled scream.
“Oh. Looks like it’s too late for that. They got away, then.” Steven watched as the crowd poured into the streets, sprinting through cars that swerved and crashed. The chaos, endured mostly by a mob of people who would support his tyranny for a small paycheck, amused Steven, but his hands were shaking. Only once before had he been so close to death, but his survival then had been in his control, and his wits had freed him from the FBI’s grip. This time, luck–through Sam– saved him. There was no way he could have foreseen such an attempt on his life, at least any more than the general likelihood of assassination. Why would Charlotte try to kill him? He stared off in the direction she left, if it was her, as medics attended to Sam’s shoulder. She would be fine, they said. Steven muttered gratitude, but his thoughts ran down the streets with Charlotte.
#
“What the fuck was that?” Charlotte said, as she and Juan sprinted down an alley. Above, they heard thick army boots clapping against rooftops. Luckily they were part of a crowd, invisible in numbers.
Juan smiled. “Hey, I might’ve killed his number two. That’s still pretty good.”
“Not your aim, idiot.” Charlotte jumped to her side to avoid a man who had stopped running in order to cry. Talking and running at the same time left her out of breath, but she could not stop either. “Why did you take the shot at all?”
“What do you mean? We want to kill him.” Juan kept pace at her side, even as he looked up. Helmeted silhouettes peered down on them. “That’s not good.”
“No. We need to get out of here. Get behind me.” Juan fell back, and Charlotte sprinted forward until she saw a manhole. “There it is.”
Juan spun around and extended his arms, pushing the flow of the crowd around them. Charlotte liked how similar people became to a school of fish when it came time to panic. Even as they freaked out individually, as a mass they flowed in unison down the path of least resistance. Then a man tripped to the right of the manhole, and everyone else ran over him. Less like fish, in that way. She pried the manhole up and spun it off the entrance to the sewer. The smell of fermented sewage, stagnant since Steven had privatized their maintenance, announced itself.
“There!” A voice from above shouted. Juan jumped into the hole, colliding with Charlotte and throwing both of them from the ladder onto the concrete walkway.
Charlotte’s hip took most of the impact. She was about to yell at Juan when he pulled her out of the dim circle of light from above, just as bullets peppered the shape.
She writhed for a moment now that she was safely in darkness, but Juan didn’t let her have more than that. He slung her arm around his shoulder, and said, “How well can you walk?”
“Not very.” As she took a step with him, her hip seared.
“Too bad, we don’t have a choice.” Juan limped too. He’d sustained some injury, though Charlotte would likely never find out what. Too tough to admit pain, even as they lurched into the darkness like two children at their first three legged race.
“So, why’d you take that shot?” Charlotte said as they took the first turn they could find. The plan, since they’d been spotted ducking– or leaping, in Juan’s case– into the sewer, required them to get as lost as possible, so the soldiers couldn’t find and kill them. After a few hours passed, they’d climb back up and figure out where they were.
“Killing President Williams is the plan. It’s his dictatorship. We kill him, the whole thing falls apart. That’s our moment.”
“We’re not ready for it to fall apart yet, are we? How would we take control?” She didn’t like discussing the long-term strategy with Juan. He had a direct thought process, as far as Charlotte could tell. Identify the problem, eliminate the problem. If more problems arise, eliminate those. And he was right, of course. Killing Steven would have been the right thing to do, no matter what happened. But not the right way to get their revolution to seize power, even if Arnold thought so. She said as much to Juan, who pondered it as they limped down the sewer lit barely lit with dull yellow lights. Charlotte could only see where the light skirted the edges of Juan’s nose and where a few little sparks of light filtered through his beard.
As they rounded another corner, they heard the echo of boots, running. They flattened themselves against the wall and waited. The boots became louder, and Charlotte closed her eyes, clenched her jaw tight, and would have plugged her nose if she could. Louder, louder, the boots were getting closer.
Charlotte said, “How many do you think? Three?”
Closer footsteps. They only had a few seconds. Juan dropped himself onto the ground after retrieving his handgun. “Four. Get further down, make a noise in ten seconds,” he said.A flashlight shone past the corner. They were almost there. Charlotte walked heel-toe with her right foot and lurched her left along to avoid using her hip, both inaudible over the soldiers’ steps, down the tunnel. One, two, three. She looked back and the only thing she could see was the beam of light, brighter and more focused. Four, five, six. If Juan died, she’d have to run as far as her hip would take her. Assuming they didn’t just unload their weapons into the tunnel, which she’d never be able to escape. Seven, eight, nine. No, there was no getting away at all, was there? Charlotte turned around as the end of the beam came into view. Ten. She banged her fist against the side of the tunnel, which echoed into a cacophony Charlotte could barely endure. The flashlight turned and filled her vision with bright light. Her eyes stung and she dropped to the ground as gunshots fired again and again. Charlotte waited, overcome with certainty that one of the bullets would find her and that would be it. But they stopped, and the only sounds in the tunnel were heavy breathing. Hers, and someone else’s?
The flashlight was gone. Charlotte heard someone get to their feet and take a couple steps toward her. She could run, but could she get away? She was about to try when the person spoke. “It’s me.”
Charlotte exhaled and the adrenaline dropped out of her body. They were safe. Juan put his arm around her, and she lifted her bad leg off the ground. He said, “Don’t count so much on the future. Fifteen years ago, do you think anyone could have predicted this?”
Charlotte, excluding the one person who had, said, “No.”
“And their plans?”
“Ruined, I guess.”
“So you might be right. We probably need to wait until we’re strong. But going to a rally to find security vulnerabilities? No. I know how to get a gun into a crowd. And whenever I see evil like the president, I’m gonna shoot him. And next time it’s going through his head.”
“I would like that.”