In the last episode Ikeda shared several blunt truths with Adam, Bear, and Evelyn. Ikeda showed the group a holographic model of their planet’s demise. All too soon the whole of humanity was now likely to be extinct due to XenTek’s misuse of the Phoenix Collider.
Ikeda also shared with the group how those in power had devised an intricate system to keep the truth hidden behind a thick veil using a potent mix of brainwashing, propaganda, and powerful pharmaceutical drugs.
At the end of the episode Ikeda was give the group a full disclosure about who he was an where he came from.
Today Seth and Johann return. We all know this can only mean one thing...more trouble.
Welcome to today’s episode of Alarm Clock Dawn!
CHAPTER 16
Seth stepped out of the elevator and made his way down the hall of XenTek's medical wing. His Holo vibrated in the breast pocket of his blazer, and he hastily took it out, pushing up his tortoise shell glasses further on his nose to read the incoming messages. He started to push open the hospital room but hesitated, afraid of what he would see on the other side.
As the door swung open he discovered he was right. What he saw felt like a punch to the gut and he struggled to catch his breath. Seth walked slowly to Johann’s bedside, sat on a chair next to the bed, and covered his own face with his hands.
“Johann? Director Pfizer?” Seth squeezed Johann's cold hand. The only response was the rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor.
Johann lay there lifeless in the hospital bed, his eyes closed and fluttering beneath the lids. The look of him deeply disturbed Busby because Johann looked like he'd aged twenty years in the last few hours.
A nurse walked through the open door, making her rounds.
“What is your name, miss?” Seth asked her.
“Kimberly,” she answered as she kept her eyes trained on the syringe of clear liquid she squeezed into Johann's IV port.
“Kimberly, will he be okay?” he asked desperately as she disposed of the used syringe in the red biohazard container.
“We gave him a powerful sedative about thirty minutes ago just to keep him quiet.” She monitored Johann’s vitals. “If he had continued to rage on like he was, he would have hurt himself or someone else.”
“But will he be okay, I asked you!” Seth screamed as he shoved a metal cart near the hospital bed, slamming it into the wall.
Kimberly arched her eyebrows, smoothed her apron, and set the cart upright. “Only time will tell, Mr.—”
“Busby,” he said, finishing her sentence for her.
“Mr. Busby, I started my career as a triage nurse in the military, and I've seen this condition many times before with soldiers returning from battle but I’ve, in all my years, never seen it this severe in a civilian.”
“The director's body is perfectly fine, but his mind and nervous system went into complete sensory overload and shut down. Honey, only time will tell if he will recover.” She took another look at Johann, shook her head, and left the room.
As the nurse pulled the door shut behind her, Seth looked down at Johann. “What will we do now? You know, when I was younger, I idolized you. I learned to anticipate your every thought and need. All these years I've suffered through your tirades, your mistreatment. I've even stood by and witnessed you crush the will of others just for sport. I've bided my time, taken every abuse, waiting patiently. My God, now look at you. Turns out you're just a mortal after all.” Seth shook his head and sighed.
“I always knew the day would come when you would self destruct, you egomaniacal old coot. I just had no clue you'd take the whole planet with you. Two messages came through on my Holo just before I walked into this room. The first was that you signed the documents to make me CEO. The second was from Dr. Neiman, informing me that the last jump damaged our atmosphere even more than the first. He didn't go into details, but he said the consequences are dire and irreversible. He says the storms will immediately worsen. The planet is now taking what are likely its last breaths. We have a few months at most.”
Seth pulled out a chrome nine millimeter handgun from his breast pocket that he had begun carrying at the advice of XenTek security. He took the safety off the trigger and felt his face grow hot.
“Just hours ago with the stroke of the pen you made me the most powerful man in this entire world. I got to enjoy what should have been the happiest moment of my entire miserable career for all of five seconds. Your actions even denied me the joy of that. The worst part is, if given a chance, I might have been able to make things right. I could have corrected your mistakes and maybe even have saved the world. Now it's too late.”
Seth put the chrome handgun to his head and squinted. “I need a do over.”
“Wait!” Johann he cried out, his eyes halfway closed as he dragged his dry tongue across his parched lips and tried to swallow. “Don't do it, son. Everything you said is true, everything. I-I am a monster, but I am a monster with one more trick up my sleeve.” Johann attempted to laugh, and then a cough sputtered from his throat.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Seth asked, bouncing the handgun off his thigh.
“Come closer, son. My voice is weak.” Johann whispered.
Seth leaned in closer, turning his ear towards Johann.
“The machine—remember, it can be used to go backwards as well as forwards. You take a few people of your choosing into the past.” Johann closed his eyes and grinned. “And I would like to think I would be a member of that group.”
Seth took a deep breath as the frustration welled up within him. “Tell me, what good will this do? We would only be older versions of ourselves in the past. We'd be irrelevant and would have no real power to change anything. We would be saving ourselves and putting everyone else in greater peril.”
“You are quite correct but what we would have is the rest of our lives to live.”
Seth shook his head. “You are a selfish bastard. You’ll never change—I’ve had it. Enough is enough!”
CHAPTER 17
On the other side of Johann’s hospital room door, Nurse Kimberly took a slow sip of steaming hot coffee. She sat with her forehead resting against her hand, scribbling on her daily patient reports.
Suddenly, she heard a thunderous Pop!
She slid out of her chair and lay flat against the floor. Once she was on the ground, she knew the gunshots had come from Director Pfizer’s room as the distinct odor of gunpowder began to waft across the floor.
Her former combat training had conditioned her to respond faster than most would. She quickly crawled a few feet across the cool tile floor to the nurses station, picked up the phone, and pressed a red button on the keypad to alert security. “Gunfire on level 8, room 6321. Send security right away!”
Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for new episodes of Alarm Clock Dawn! The final episode including a ENORMOUS plot twist will be read by yours truly live at the first annual SteemFest in Amsterdam on Saturday, November 12th.
Alarm Clock Dawn is the first novel of a trilogy. The sequel entitled, Truth Is Stranger, will be published in the Spring of 2017.
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