4: Chloe – Fall

The throb in my jaw pulsed in time with my heartbeat. The impact had knocked me out cold, but instead of circling stars and birds, all I saw in my mind was a thick mustache and a firing squad. God only knows how long I was out, but when the setting sun seared through my lids to light my way out of that nightmare, I fell right back into the world that caused it.

Grit cut into my flesh, glued in place by dried blood. I winced, blinded as much by the light as its absence.

Chloe? Sleep, a voice whispered in the back of my head. Stay here where it’s safe.

“No. I have…to be professional… to do.”

Not now. Close your eyes. Be reasonable.

“If I listen…to my Voice of Reason… never have got to where I am.”

If you open your eyes, you’ll wish you never had.

I was probably right. I never lied to myself.

“But…is big break.”

You wake up, the only break you’ll feel is the one in our jaw.

As soon as I thought that, my jaw throbbed even harder.

“Thanks for the reminder.”

The pain brought me round and the voices in my head unified in a single word.

“Ow.”

I took a deep breath, then gagged. Smoke was everywhere, forcing a hard cough and hyperventilation, repeating until I hurled the remains of a buffet lunch down a previously white blouse. I spluttered and retched, but breathed easier then, and no longer felt guilty about that second fudge sundae.

I bit the bullet and forced my eyes to stay open. The soldiers had left me sprawled out in the dirt under rags of the razed equipment tents. Two columns of smoke into the sky, making a frame for a bullet-ridden canvas splattered with blood. A decent auctioneer could probably fob it off as an action painting, even raise a small fortune if the artists were named to the right crowd.

I rolled onto my ass and winced, for the first time in my life grateful I hadn’t been blessed with wide hips or top heavy endowments, and begged the throbbing in my head and the tilting world to take a break.

Bodies lay in heaps on sodden red earth, stripped of all their tools and half their clothes. I was surrounded by the dead and left to join them, with nobody there to save me. Nobody coming to.

I buried my face in my knees and rocked on the spot in a self imposed straight jacket, trying my damn best to ignore it all, even managed for a while, until as the sun vanished behind the horizon, taking its heat. The shakes were easy to ignore at first, but when the shivers became tremors I couldn’t, a jingle caught my ear. A quiet sound, but deafening in otherwise silence.

I rose to see and collapsed with a scream. A chain, steel or titanium or some industrial alloy, was welded to my ankle. Either it was a sloppy job or my captors had a sadistic streak. Links were fused to my skin and I stifled a sob and bit my lip. Of course they wouldn’t use anything as simple as a lock.

My scream transitioned from pain to fear and anger in a breath, and then back to pain as the blisters and welts tore open by the taut links. I lost my balance, even half seated. Then sobbed as I pulled the chain towards me to avoid another unwanted rip. It snaked off to a bolt in the earth, at the foot of a black pyramid. And next to it lay a phone.

A goddamned phone.

I scrambled for it, pleading with it to please have power, please, for love of fuck all, have power, and when the screen glowed, I laughed and cried all at once.

Then the background caught my eye, a message scrawled in red.

Play me ^

A bloody arrow pointed to only app on the screen. I ignored it to search through the settings. Every app was gone, though, save two.

Assholes.

I hit the first and a video played. The mustachioed soldier grinned into focus.

“As I said, Miss Heralds, I expect professionalism, but it seems like so many of you media types, you must find your motivation. Well, I have generously provided some. Please direct your attention to the triangular device in front of you.”

I eyeballed the pyramid.

Mustache twirled. “As you have covered these in your most recent stories, you know how many there are and where they are located. What you may not know is why, but I will enlighten you.”

His face disappeared and reams of information scrolled up with accompanying diagrams. The video ended with instructions on how to proceed.

“When you are ready, please press the other app and the pyramid will transmit your broadcast live across the world. The camera is at the top of the Pyramid. Think of it as our all-seeing eye. We are watching you, even now. Make our Foundation proud, Miss Heralds, and make history.”

Our foundation. Kinsley. The bastards had set me up. An opportunity, the break I’d been waiting for all my life. A request through my editor, by name. My goddamn dream come true. Only the dream turned sour.

I’d been covering the pyramids, devices thought weird but harmless until last night when one showey up on the Whitehouse’s lawn. It leaked just enough radiation for investigators to take it seriously. All attempts to understand it had resulted in the same glowing message on its touchscreen chassis.

Warning

Detonation may be precipitated.

Suddenly, the locations these pyramids had appeared in didn’t seem quite so Lighter-Segment. Nuclear explosives left in plain sight at the most frequented tourist traps of the world, and here I was chained to one at the holy heights of Tel Megiddo. Or as those in the know called it, Armageddon Hill. An apt name now I knew what the device was.

Behind the pyramid, the reserve stretched out, a dark spot in the deepening night, while at its edges shone light. Civilization, an hour’s walk, close enough to taunt my isolation. As views went, there wasn’t a more beautiful spot to witness the end of everything. But that didn’t stop the tears from falling. This wasn’t what I’d signed up for.

I let loose a strangled scream, louder than before, long and hard and primal and beyond reason. Beyond control, it lasted longer than the breath feeding it, past the point my lungs were depleted and every muscle in my body screamed back in stitches. The strain led to sprains and the sprains became spasms. The cry cracked into wracked sobs and dry heaves.

This was it. I was going to die. Years committed to turning my life around, the effort and memory crapped on by a choice of vocation. Relationships and contacts made obsolete in an instant. The Foundation’s funding furthering my education and career, a debt I’d never repay. Lives ruined and wasted, ended, and for what? One real report? My first that wasn’t an injured duck relearning to fly or a Easter egg hunt for underprivileged five-year olds?

I clenched my fists. I clenched them hard enough to draw blood.

“Fine. You want professionalism, you asswipe, you’ll get professionalism.”

I wouldn’t die like this. If I was going out, it’d be as nothing less than a world class reporter. I could still do it. This one story would launch my career, catapult me into the realm of A-listers and be the high note to end it on, all in one stroke. And I’d make it fucking spectacular.

I grit my teeth and spun on a heel. Skin tore as the chain pulled taut, but determined not to let myself or dignity fall, I caught my balance and held the grunt in my throat. The bomb had a camera and its builders had already proved their morals were perverse. Of course they’d be voyeurs, too.

Then the pyramid flashed and a countdown appeared on its faces, illuminating the hilltop in cold digital green.

I tapped the app on the phone. A recording icon flicked up. They wanted me to reveal their dirty secret to the world. Who was I to disappoint my upcoming fans? I pointed it at the bomb and tapped the app. One button, one function. One live report.

A harshly lit screen appeared on the pyramid, showing my beaten face caked in mud and blood and grit, and fuck knew what else. It took me a second to recognize who I was. Sweat and tears ran down a face that had been through wars. Good. The world would see what I’d sacrificed for this moment.

I held the remote up, brushing the microphone with my lips. Then one long, deep breath. No time for hyperbole, no bullshit, no need to smile.

Showtime.

“Good evening,” I said.

My voice was barely a whisper, and cracked on the last syllable. I swallowed, tasted blood, and continued with a stronger resolve.

“This is Chloe Heralds, live at Tel Megiddo, Israel. I’m surrounded by dead soldiers and I’ve been chained to a nuclear bomb. And there’s less than six minutes left on the countdown.”