Part 10 - May 20 Boston

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Briant Coleman had raged around his office for hours, unable to override his personal security systems. His legs trembling, he finally slid down a wall to sit on the floor. Exhausted, he scanned the wreckage of his office. In his rage, he had thrown or destroyed most of his expensive furniture and artwork. How was he going to escape the safety of his penthouse to contact the outside world for help?

He looked at his hands and the raw, painful blisters. His arms throbbed, and the muscles in his back were tight from having used the mace to hack at the doors barring his escape. He was stuck in his secure tower, 200 stories above the center of Boston. He had this building specifically built to exceed the height of the Burj Khalifa, which stood at 160 stories and had held the record for the tallest building in the world until 2026. Now he was trapped above the world in his fortress.

Once he had caught his breath, he focused on the door to the emergency stairway. He took a deep breath and wrapped a couple of towels around his injured hands as he continued to attack the door to the only escape available to him.

It took another hour, but he finally chopped through the door to his private emergency stairway. Now he faced the walk down all 200 stories—over 3,690 steps—to get out of this custom-made prison. He scowled. I just had to make my building 40 stories higher than anyone else.

He started his journey down out of his tower. He exited the stairway on the floor directly below his and tried the elevator. His anger flared again, and he punched the offending door, regretting the action immediately. Shaking his abused hand, he turned his back on the elevator door and stomped across the hallway to his personal secretary’s desk.

He leaned over the counter and demanded, “Alice, get Dr. Veer on your desk-holo.”

He waited for a response, but she just sat there in her chair, unresponsive. He glared at her; his first reaction was to tell the fat cow off. How dare she sit there and ignore me. Her job was to carry out my orders at a moment’s notice. If it hadn’t been for the fact that she was so damned good at her job, he’d have fired her on the spot.

He leaned over and knocked on the desk in front of her. “Hello! Anyone home?” he snarled at the woman.

She didn’t move—not even a twitch. What the hell? He bent down and looked into her face. She stared at the screen in front of her, her hands set to the keypad as if ready to type in some information.

Coleman glanced at the screen—it was blank, just like the screen at his desk. What the hell has Veer done? I’ll strangle the little geek. He yelled at the woman, “Alice, snap out of it!” but Alice Freeman didn’t respond.

“God-damn it, you bitch, answer me.”

Coleman lost his temper and started swearing; he even slapped her face when she would not respond. He pushed her body away from the desk and tried to use her computer and phones, but still no response. He stormed away from the desk and back into the stairway.

He continued his descent, stopping at each floor on the way down. He stopped at one office after another, only to find all his employees in some state of frozen stupor. Several floors down, he stopped at a security station and pushed some of the security personnel off their chairs, still ranting, raving, and swearing. He tried to get their communication devices to work without success.

After what felt like a lifetime, he finally made it to the ground floor and found the main lobby of his building full of the bodies of the people he had unknowingly doomed with his greed and lust for power.

He scanned the area, staring at all the bodies scattered across the white marble floor. He slowly walked down the central stairway and onto the main floor, stepping around and over the bodies. Staring in horror at all the bodies, he finally backed out the front door of Coleman Towers, panic starting to set in and take control.

He then turned to view the sidewalks and streets, which were covered with more bodies. Cars and taxis sat motionless in the streets, their passengers slumped back in their seats or over the controls. Coleman scanned the scene and started to scream.

He ran down the middle of the street, trying to escape the unresponsive bodies.