Without Warning
February 13, 2066
Saturday
A surprise attack on the NAE kills many, when a bomb goes off inside the Summit hall. Dr. Richard Key and several other NAE personnel are killed. Among the dead are Senators and Youth Reps.
Chase Key comes back with a message to try to prevent the attack from occurring. The building suffers some major damage, but no one is killed the second time around.
7:48 a.m. Rhythm is at her seat in the conference and chat's with Ezel until the meeting starts.
Rhythm- It?s the day before Valentine's day and everyone is either happy about the upcoming day or upset about it. So how do you feel about it Ezel?
Ezel- I don't really care, it's just a day.
Rhythm- Oh, your upset.... Aren't you celebrating it with Polo and going to the dance?
Ezel- Nope. I'll just watch a movie that night.
Rhythm- I'm sorry, I thought you two were dating.
Ezel- No, Polo is going with Quasar to the dance.
Rhythm- And no one else snapped you up?
Ezel- I'm not a piece of meat.
Rhythm- I know, I just hoped everyone would be going to the dance tomorrow night. I asked Anoki and Crystal, but they don?t want to. Union and Epic are ditching it too. I thought everyone would be happy to go.
Ezel- If you and Equinox want to you just go to the stupid dance. I know you spent a lot of time organizing it.
Rhythm- And isn't that a reason you should go?
Ezel- Not without a date!
Rhythm- Old fashioned.....
Ezel- It's a Valentines day dance..... isn?t it?
Rhythm- Yes.... but you would still have fun.
Ezel- I'll have fun watching an old movie.
Rhythm- Fine.... I'll talk to you later.
Rhythm turns away from Ezel and Ezel sighs and rolls her eyes. Rhythm has been hounding all of them for the past several days about her dance, some have caved into her demands.
LATER: 9:08 am Dr. Richard Key is at the podium discussing refugee camp trauma on young children?s minds. His speech has lasted nearly ten minutes already and he still has a lot of steam. The whole N.A.E. is in attendance with FUTURE PEACE, Blake, Chase and the Youth Reps in their seats listening and taking notes from the speech.
R. Key- In the camps the children see death all the time. The ill in many camps are not that far away from the healthy and where the children play. These people have fled disease, political unrest and death only to find it again in a refugee camp. Almost every camp in existence has these same conditions. While no one starves, there is horrible violence in the camps. There isn't enough policing to protect the refugees from each other and the outsiders who would want to hurt them. Children witness beating and other forms of violence and hatred. All of this needs to stop. Better barriers need to be put in place and the refugees need to be supplied with better security and housing. The children also need counseling. With all that they have seen many are severely traumatized and this trauma may lead to violence also if it is not treated.
9:11 am. An explosion rushes through the summit. Windows crash out and the structure crumbles in on itself. There is chaos as the hundreds of people in the summit hall begin to all yell at once. People drop under their tables and cover their heads as large chunks of concrete, marble and glass fall. The telepaths are overwhelmed with the flooding emotions of everyone in the summit. All of Paris felt the explosion, no one is aware of what happened. People scream into communication devices and to each other. As the building stops rumbling the cries of victims ring out from the darkness. Emergency lights come on and the aftermath is seen by the witnesses.
Chase is tucked up under Anoki, crying and clinging to him tightly. Anoki lifts his head to see the eyes of his friends under the table with him. Blake is stricken with fear and still as a rock. Crystal and the other peacekeepers are all, all right. They got under the massive oak tables before any debris hit them. As they pull out from under the table to help anyone else and make sense of what just happened. Union calls out to Anoki to keep Chase away. Anoki looks over to the podium and sees Dr. Key strewn out on the floor in front of the podium with a pool of blood surrounding him. His head was ripped open by a falling piece of masonry. Anoki immediately hugs Chase close keeping her head in his chest, almost suffocating her. Equinox goes over to his guardian and reaches down to him. He checks his life signs, but feels nothing. He is one of the dead. Equinox turns around to see the Ambassador to Chile also dead.
People who can, flee the building in droves. Anoki tries to get Chase to leave with him but she pulls away from him and goes to the body of her father and weeps over him. The peacekeepers endanger their own lives by helping the fallen to get out and returning into the weakened structure. Some of the Youth Reps also help to get others out. In the end the death toll is high. Twenty-three Ambassadors and senators are dead thirty-two aids and officials as well and nineteen Youth Representatives, among them are Quasar, Aqua and Aurora. Aurora died when a beam fell on her as she was trying to help a fellow Rep get out. Quasar and Aqua died instantly as debris fell on them.
The heavily shaken survivors line the Paris streets and look up at the shattered hopes of world peace. Sirens wale and onlookers line the alleys and windows to view what happened. Soon the mourning sets in as the rescuers begin to help the wounded and pull the dead from the building. The twelve peacekeepers are unable to udder a word. Chase cries and cries but too is silenced, in shock.
Equinox soon has a panic attack as he realizes that he has his guardian's blood on his hands. The crimson and grey matter that had spilled from Mr. Key's head is all over his hands and front of his uniform. The once strong young man collapses in grief and convulses, expelling everything inside of him, washing himself in vomit.
Tears and blood flow like ancient rivers and cries sound out from the souls of everyone. No one knows what happened or why, but the immediate concern is for the injured and dead. The heroes are now powerless and the strong, weak as babes. All of this happened without warning.
* * * * * * * * * * * * The Messenger* * * * * * * * * * * *
February 9th, 2066.
Rhythm is very busy planing the Valentines day dance for the Youth Reps and FUTURE PEACE. She has been hanging up posters since last week and is now resorting to reminding people individually to attend.
That evening in the Key home in Paris, Chase is in bed asleep when a flash emits from her body and she begins to glow. She wakes up tossing off the thick blankets to see herself. A young woman leaps out of the bed in the little girls night clothes and runs into the bathroom. Chase has metamorphosed from five to a young adult. She looks at herself in the mirror and grins. Her plan has worked. She finds some of her mothers clothes in a spare room and sneaks out of the house undetected.
She goes to the peacekeepers to give her warning. The young woman first encounters Blake who has been up late studying. She approaches her and he sees her as a stranger but is polite.
Blake- I don't know you, so why are you here so late?
He suspects she might be Sirin.
Woman- I need to talk to you and the other peacekeepers. I don?t know how long I will be here.
Blake- What about?
Woman- I have to warn you.
Blake- Warn us of what?
Woman- On the 13th there will be an explosion in the NAE summit.
Blake- A bomb?
Woman- You have to tell the others....... The bomb somehow slips past the screenings and the bomber never warns anyone. It'll go off and kill many people, including Quasar and other people you know.
Blake- How do you know this?
Woman- I am Chase, I came to warn you.....
Blake- You cannot be...... from the future?
Woman- Get Crystal, Anoki and Union, the others can verify me.... but you should hurry I don't know how long I can maintain this state.
Blake- Okay!
The others are called and come and meet the supposed grownup version of Chase. Crystal and Anoki need little convincing, they know her mind anywhere.
Crystal- You are Chase, your mind is like a fingerprint. How are you able to time travel?
Chase- I'm not, not really. I projected myself back in time. I'm still in the future. This change in appearance is a façade.... I came to tell you to stop the bomb.... It'll kill a lot of people including my father.
Anoki- Dr. Key?
Chase- Something from the ceiling falls and kills him.
Union- But we aren't supposed to alter the future, if it happens it is supposed to happen.
Chase- No, it wasn't supposed to happen...... You know that we as peacekeepers are unique from regular people in many ways. Our expanded brainpower and intelligence is a number of evolutionary steps into the future of mankind. And you, the twelve of you and myself are not the only ones. SCAR is out there and a person far worse than all of them together exists whom seeks to destroy the world. If my father dies on the 13th at 9:11 am when the planted bomb goes off not only will he die with the other people, but PEACE will die as well. Evil things are at work to keep you from succeeding in world peace. And powers of good were able to help me to come back to warn you.
You helped to train me to do this.
Anoki- Why wouldn?t we go ourselves?
Chase- You can't, it is my unique ability.... I had to do this. The chain of events that will otherwise happen will destroy all of you.
Crystal- How do you mean?
Chase- Some of you will go insane, rebel, and fall to your own destruction.
Blake- Then the future you come from is bleak?
Chase- No one is happy..... I have been fighting for six years to reestablish the NAE and Youth summits. The world is in chaos and the leadership is strung out around the globe. Paris is a wasteland of shattered dreams......... Blake, you die young. All of you do.
Crystal- How do you know?
Chase- I went into my own future and I saw your deaths. I saw the day FUTURE PEACE ended and the dark army took control of the world. The bombing is only part of what is to come, but it is part of the end.
Anoki- So even if we stop the bomb?
Chase- You will face other obstacles. But you will have time to stop them...... With the bomb you, no one had warning. I am your messenger.
Rhythm is very busy planing the Valentines day dance for the Youth Reps and FUTURE PEACE. She has been hanging up posters since last week and is now resorting to reminding people individually to attend.
|NEXT|
Mabus: The Anti-Christ (Rated R for Violence)