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part #38 of Out of the Box Series Series
“This calls for more coffee,” I announced to myself and the Christmas decorations. Because those decorations really cared about me and my feelings. Well...more than anything else in the office.
I grabbed my phone and mug (again) and headed for the kitchenette with a weary groan. Arresting people was easy and fun. Why couldn't the paperwork part of the job be fun, too? Or less annoying, at least.
Halfway through my pour, the phone buzzed in my hand. I got my cup good and full, then set the carafe down. The coffee was okay, not great, a function of Augustus's austerity measures.
The caller ID read Owen Traverton.
Ever know one of those people whose mere appearance on your caller ID causes you to sigh, loudly and dramatically? That was Owen Traverton for me.
I'd met Traverton when he used his metahuman powers to shapeshift into a dog so that he could spy on me for people who were doing their level best to murder me and ruin my life. I'd sent him to prison for a year or so and then he'd gotten out courtesy of the soft, bleeding hearts of the Supreme Court who set down a variety of rulings about the treatment of metahumans in prison. Some of them I could respect, like giving us trials. Sure, it didn't work out so well for me the time I got tried, but that was more a function of government corruption.
Some of the so-called protections, though, were just dumb. Like the lack of ever-present suppressant use. I bet someone was regretting that one right about now.
I sighed as I looked at Traverton's name on my phone screen. He called from time to time, and I pretty much always let it roll to voicemail. He and I had shared an adventure in the closing days of my time in Minnesota in which we'd taken on a newly reconstituted Omega gangster franchise. It had been so fun I'd been driven to drink again, so my memories of Traverton were somewhat less than warm.
Needless to say, I shunted him to voicemail and shuffled back to my desk.
I was almost a whole sentence into my work when my phone buzzed again. Not with a news update, no. With a text message from Traverton:
Call me AS SOON AS YOU GET THIS.
I sighed again, pained this time, almost a whimper. “Does that really work on people?” I didn't even leave him on read, I checked the message in the notification, and slid my phone away.
Constructing sentences is hard. I whimpered again, but for different reasons.
My phone buzzed once more; just Traverton's notification showing up a second time. I cleared it and turned back to my work after spinning around in my chair three times and enjoying the blur of silver and red and green shiny bunting. No one had put up mistletoe. Smart. We were already skint enough without a sexual harassment lawsuit floating around the office. I tried to imagine how that would play out and I couldn't help but envision Olivia accidentally launching Scott through the windows.
Chuckling with that cheery thought in mind, I wasted another few minutes wishing I was in the field. Out arresting bad guys, making West Tennessee a safer place one scumbag in cuffs at a time.
But nooooo, paperwork had to be done. “Paperwork actually makes the world less safe,” I said to the empty room, because even though there was no one present to hear this incredible truth, someone needed to say it aloud.
PLEASE CALL ME WHEN YOU GET THIS, the phone buzzed again. “Traverton,” I muttered, all set to dismiss the notification.
Except...this one wasn't from Traverton.
I blinked, staring at the screen.
This one was from...Uncle Friday?
“Hm,” I said, and lifted the phone to call him. My mind raced with the possibilities; he had a variety of home control apps on his phone. Maybe he'd gotten a notification about a furnace leak, or seen something bad on the security cams around the perimeter. Sometimes he commended me on my dedication to my morning runs, or offered fitness advice like, “Stay away from soy proteins,” and the like. No idea what his issue with soy was. Probably some sort of latent anti-Asian sentiment, if his past personality was any guide.
Before I could unlock my phone, it started ringing again. This time, I only sighed a little as I answered.
“Hey, boss,” I said as I answered Ileona Marsh's call. “I'm deeply, seriously involved in that paperwork you wanted done, just at my other office.”
“I'm sure you're absolutely plowing your way through,” she said, sounding sincere as could be – surprisingly. “Have you not been watching the news?”
“Never if I can avoid it,” I said with a smile. Who needed that kind of drag in their life? “I stopped watching it around the time I quit drinking and my urge to get absolutely plastered went down by fifty percent or so. Why?”
“You might want to turn on the TV,” she said, an absolute ocean of regret just pouring out of her voice. “And just to be safe...maybe make sure there's not a bottle handy.”
Chapter Six
Amy Byerly
Como Park Neighborhood
St. Paul, Minnesota
December 22nd
10:56 A.M.
“I shouldn't have come back,” Amy Byerly said tearfully, staring out the window of the small house, trying to see something, anything at all beyond the occasional distant explosion against the Minneapolis skyline. As the crow flew, it was only five or six miles away.
“What is even happening here?” Paul Kerbow asked. He and Amy had been friends for years, their fathers business associates. They'd grown up running in the same circles, and yet never had anything happen between them.
But the minute Amy had to move to South Dakota to dodge the state's new anti-metahuman laws, Paul had apparently decided he just couldn't live without her.
Sure, he'd only visited her at first. But he worked, and really, Amy was such a small fish for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to bother themselves with. She'd worked with Sienna Nealon that one time, up north at the Byerly estate when things went hard south, but surely they weren't watching her because of that – she thought.
As it turned out, they hadn't been. The visit had gone just fine so far. Great, even – a little golf, visiting the Como Park Zoo, nights spent downtown at the best clubs, the greatest restaurants. After, they would retreat to Paul's lovely home by the shores of Lake Como. It had been a magical visit so far, really.
Until the first thundering explosion had jarred them out of bed this morning, and they'd looked out to find downtown Minneapolis's skyline looking dramatically different than when they'd passed out in each other’s arms at two A.M. last night.
“What is even happening?” Amy asked, checking her phone for service again. The power had gone out minutes ago, and with it the Wi-Fi. Paul didn't have a landline because he wasn't an old person, so they'd been forced to huddle by the window, watching the explosions with no idea what was going on. “Look! There goes another!”
And before their watching eyes, another tall Minneapolis building came plummeting to the ground in a plume of smoke and with a glow of blue light. “They're going so fast...” Amy whispered.
A roar in the distance was followed by a cloud of dust springing up in front of the house, as a home only a block or so away seemed to explode of its own accord. The sound was horrific; the crashing of wood timbers, a house giving way to something terrible and unseen.
“Come away from the window,” Amy said, already slowly backing up.
“Why?” Paul asked, turning to look at her. “What is i–”
A piece of something big and heavy shattered the glass and slammed into Paul, sending him lurching into the TV stand. Amy screamed, jerking away. Paul's slow groan drew her to his location as he stirred. Blood coursed down his face from a scalp wound, and his eyes fluttered.
“Paul? Paul!” Amy knelt next to him, panic rising in her throat. She wished her brother was here; Scott would know what to do. Even her father would be worth more in this situation than she was. Or Sienna. Anyone, really.
Amy clutched Paul's hand, felt for a pulse and found it, weak, at his wrist. “Paul?” she whispered again, as another terrifying crash sounded outside, but farther away this time, as if heading toward the lake on an easterly trajectory.
“The...hardline...” Paul said, his eyes fluttering. “Could hook a laptop into it...maybe...use it for a Wi-Fi hotspot.” His eyes were closed, but he was still breathing.
Amy thought about what he'd said. Even now, clubbed in the head by flying debris, he was thinking of her.
It was obvious what he meant, too. The TV stand where he'd landed had been broken wide open, and within it lay the cable modem bringing that sweet internet into the place. Amy didn't know much, but she knew about that.
Also, it had the only light on in the entire place. Everything else was shrouded in the haze of smoke or dust that filled the air, but the little green lights – and a couple reds – stood out.
Amy raced to the bedroom and grabbed her laptop. Reaching the modem and giving Paul a reassuring pat that was answered by a pained moan, she plugged the laptop into the modem and woke it.
A battery warning immediately flashed on the screen – 5%.
“No, no, no,” she said, pleading with some unseen god to roll back the clock. If only she'd remembered to charge it last night when she'd come home from the club. But it was late and she was drunk and Paul's hands were so warm and welcome on her.
The battery indicator flashed down to 4% as she watched, and there was no time for regrets. Something that sounded like a lion roared in the distance, and Amy fumbled with her phone, trying to connect it to the computer hotspot.
Success! A simple try of FindIt should tell her whether it was working or n–
It was! She lifted her phone, hurriedly searching her contacts until she reached the one she knew would answer.
“Hello? Amy?” Scott Byerly's voice rang through a staticky connection a moment later.
“Scott!” Amy breathed in something like relief. Pure terror still abounded, but a scintilla of relief flashed through her veins. “Scott, I'm–”
“Are you seeing what's happening right now?” Scott asked, talking right over her. “In Minneapolis? Just crazy. I can't even believe some of the videos and stuff that are popping up. I don't think this was a tiny little prison riot, I'm seeing buildings fall–”
“I know, Scott,” Amy said, as forcefully as she ever had, as though breathing her last into the phone, “I'm in the Cities right now.”
Scott's voice hardened. “Say what? No, Amy – you're at the house in South Dakota, right? With Mom and Dad?”
Amy shook her head slowly. “I came to visit a friend. I figured – figured I'd be safe. That they wouldn't be looking for me. And they weren't, but...” Another hideous crash in the distance heralded the fall of another building downtown, and an explosion of noise closer to her followed by the shrill caw of what sounded like an eagle sent a dagger of terror into Amy's heart. “...you're right, Scott. This isn't a little prison riot. I'm by Lake Como, and it sounds like a train is crashing through the houses here, ripping its way from Minneapolis to St. Paul. I don't even know what it is, but it's loud and things are collapsing and I'm so scared, Scott, oh, G–”
“Where are you?” Scott asked, his voice crackling in the background. “The address, Amy. Give me the address for where you are and – I don't know when I can get there, but I promise you I'll–”
The computer powered down, the screen going sudden black. “No! NO!” Amy screamed.
But it did not heed her, and the line was dead.
Paul moaned softly as another rumble in the distance, like thunder but so much worse, was followed by a bright blue flash that lit the haze bright as day for a second.
When it was done, the world seemed to settle into a hazy darkness, as though dusk had come before midday, and Amy was left sitting next to Paul in the dusty, open air of his living room, murmuring, “It's all right. It's going to be all right,” as she rubbed his back and dabbed at his bloodied head.
But she was now very sure with each additional explosion, each additional crash of a house being destroyed, and each roar of whatever animal or man or beast was in the distance, and each muffled scream that followed, that no...no, indeed it was not going to be okay, and maybe it never would be again.
Chapter Seven
Sienna Nealon
TBI Headquarters
Nashville, Tennessee
December 22nd
11:35 A.M.
“Do we know anything about what's going on in Minneapolis?” I asked, barely slowing down as I charged into the bullpen through the staircase. Because I didn't have it in me to wait for the elevator.
I'd dithered awhile at my office, trying to get a clear picture from cable news and the apps on my phone. But they were shoddy, piecemeal, and a mess at best. Finally giving up, I'd rocketed north to TBI Headquarters, hoping that someone here had better information, possibly something from the government.
Chandler rose from his desk the moment I barged in, looking as stricken as I'd ever seen him. “Sienna! Didn't think you were coming in today.” The way he moved to step in front of his computer told me he was hiding something.
I didn't walk like normal; I flew over cubicles and landed beside him. From here, it was easy to see what he'd been trying to hide.
Blurry, shaky video footage played on his computer of buildings falling in Minneapolis. I watched the Wells Fargo tower tumble down sideways, then the scene shift to separate video as one of the residential apartment buildings by the river followed. The screen shifted once more to a shaky camera shot from above, like a tower cam, and I realized it was the one at the State Fair. It was looking west toward Minneapolis, over the neighborhoods of St. Paul, where a cloud of debris seemed to be cutting its way across the map like an angry rhino ripping through the city.
“So...you've heard, then,” Chandler said, stepping aside so I could watch his screen. He'd jacked into a cable news feed, and I could see similar networks broadcasting on the computers of the other agents in the room; some watched in between stealing furtive glances at me.
“Hard to miss something like this,” I said, glaring at the events unfolding on the screen. “Why is everything so damned blurry?”
“They've lost power in the city,” Chandler said. “Err...cities.” He stooped to remove his headset, which was plugged into his computer, and after a squeal, I could hear the audio of the news report.
“...a scene of total devastation,” said the reporter, who had a very proper English accent for some reason, “...here in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. What started with an alert about a riot in the metahuman prison facility some twenty miles outside Minneapolis seems to have escalated into a full-fledged metahuman attack. We are hearing the sounds of destruction over the chopper blades – it is very loud, whatever is going on down there, and further – oh – LOOK!”
The camera moved dramatically, and suddenly I was looking at the skyline of downtown St. Paul. Smaller than Minneapolis by a lot, it was distinctive, with the First National Bank building's 1st sign having pride of place in downtown distinctiveness.
As I watched, the First National Bank building exploded in a flash of blue light that was vaguely reminiscent of a scene out of the movie Independence Day.
“...Have never seen anything like this, Laura, and I have covered disasters all over the world in my near twenty-year career,” the reporter was saying. “From the deserts of Iraq during the invasion to the civil war in Syria, I can honestly say that this is the first time I've seen a city lain completely asunder in a matter of hours. The devastation is simply incredible.”
The screen shifted back to Laura in the studio, and the signal was instantly a thousand times better, clear and crisp, as a dark-haired anchor in a bright red suit looked at the camera attentively. “Richard, we're going to have break for a moment. We'll be keeping you apprised of any events unfolding on the ground in the Twin Cities, but right now we have received word that in spite of the power outages crippling the city and their response, the Governor of Minnesota, Bridget Shipley, is about to go live with a press conference, which we are joining in progress.”
Bridget Shipley's smug face didn't look quite as smug today, or nearly as much as the last time I'd seen her, outside a Denny's in Hudson, Wisconsin. Her glasses were slightly off-angle, and she was standing in front of a podium with the Minnesota seal on the front of it. The state motto: L'Etoile du Nord was visible at the top of the crest: The North Star, I'd heard it translated. Being barely competent in English and even less competent in French, I'd always thought “du” meant “of.” As in, “The Star of the North.” It sounded more poetic to me, like Minnesota was some sort of shining beacon in the midst of the upper Midwest.
Less so, today.
“...fellow Minnesotans and to all who are watching from outside our great state, we have been the victims of a tragic turn of events.” She was reading straight off the page, no teleprompter, even, which told me that this was a seriously on-the-fly press conference. “At approximately 7:20 this morning, there was a breakout at the metahuman prison known as the Cube. Local police responded quickly, believing a riot was underway.”
She looked up and right into the camera. “We lost contact with the Cube at that time and local police responding on scene as well. We do not know whether they are dead or alive.”
“What the hell is happening up there?” Chandler breathed.
“At approximately ten A.M.,” Shipley said in that dull manner of hers, “witnesses reported that the Wells Fargo Center in downtown Minneapolis collapsed unexpectedly. Immediately thereafter, an unexplained power failure left our first responders with greatly reduced communications capacity. Cell phone towers are mostly offline, as is the internet in a far-reaching sphere stretching from Red Wing in the south to almost St. Cloud in the north; from Hudson, Wisconsin in the east to Watertown, Minnesota in the west. This has greatly complicated our emergency response.”
