into a microphone..
Jamie stood, trussed, restrained and held by two pairs of hands, the hood still firmly pulled over his head.
“Sorry, take the hood off of him,” the general commanded.
Jamie was momentarily blinded by the lights. As his vision cleared he saw he was in a large bay with white walls, a tiled floor and four drains near the center of the tile floor. At the far end of the bay, thirty feet up, was a large glass observation room where the general and Commander Halle stood side by side.
“On the table behind you are a standard issue 9 mm side arm, five bullets and a standard issue field knife. In ninety seconds this room will have twelve turned Kensington virus carriers in it. They will all have your cell number, email accounts and glasses.”
“Glasses?” Jamie asked.
A pair of goggles were strapped onto Jamie’s head and the lenses lit up with a standby notice that his data stream experience was being customized. Jamie felt the hands release the restraints and the soldiers ran backwards out of the bay, securing the door behind them.
Jamie spun around to see the table. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Survive,” the general snapped.
There was a loud alarm noise, a red light flashed and at the far end of the bay a double door appeared as a seam in the far white wall. Then they came in. They were shuffling slowly. Their movements were oddly grotesque, like a parody of walking and living. Some, whose skin was gray and cracking from the tension, groaned. Others who were still mobile, but devoid of the colors of life, spoke; all of them had panels and even the most wizened fingers were racing across the screens spelling out messages.
“Damn it,” Jamie groaned, as the first message appeared on his glasses.
It was a classic flame from his sister about her childhood, their parents, her marriage and her family. Except it wasn’t his sister but was one of the twelve people in this room, whose name was Sally. Another message appeared, this time via panel text. It was an ‘angry ex’ rant. The author was named Phil and he was berating someone, not Jamie, about the way they were treating him. Soon the messages were coming in back to back. The goggles let him know he had texts, emails and social media awaiting his attention. He tried to press his eyes closed but he could feel the messages and hear the groans and the verbalized hatred of the shuffling, texting monstrosities he was locked in with.
“They can go on forever,” the general pointed out. “You can’t.”
Jamie turned to the corner table. He struggled to walk the short distance to it. He picked up the gun, released the clip and placed the five bullets in the clip. He returned the clip to the gun, drew back the receiver and the first round was chambered. He picked up the knife in his left hand. It was heavy, the blade was long and double sided, coming together at a point.
“My mother still doesn’t understand what a bitch she…” A texting figure complained.
Jamie whirled about, placed the gun against the thing’s forehead and hesitated.
“My ex-husband is an abusive, bullying…” Jamie fired.
The thing’s skull exploded and it crumbled to the floor, still texting its message. Jamie stamped the phone out of the dead thing’s hands. Then he moved forward. Four more shots, four more of the things dropped, heads gone, hands still typing away. Four more phones destroyed under Jamie’s boots.
Jamie felt the pressure of the messages ease slightly and he moved into the thick of the remaining seven. With violent precision he punctured each skull with his knife, then kicked away the phones until they were all in the far corner.
“What was the time on that?” the general asked.
“Two minutes seventeen seconds to destroy all twelve and their phones,” a soldier reported.
“What is he doing now?”
“Cutting off the hands, sir. “
“Get him into debriefing and get him a uniform,” the general said. “We’re going
Serenity King, Pepper Pace, Aliyah Burke, Erosa Knowles, Latrivia Nelson, Tianna Laveen, Bridget Midway, Yvette Hines