Mercenary by Lizzy Ford Page B

something. I passed two large
rallies, one whose speakers were condemning the gods and another
whose leaders urged the world to have faith during the end of
days.
    On several blocks, the police and people
were clashing, and the acrid scent of tear gas was strong enough
for my eyes to water a hundred yards away. I tore down side streets
when the main routes became too violent or crowded, stair stepping
my way north. The closer I got to Silver Spring, the more I began
to see the war zone Cleon had described. It began with a woman
sobbing over the lifeless body of a man in the middle of the
street.
    I followed the trail of bodies riddled with
bullet wounds until I heard the active sounds of gunfire ahead.
    Rather than plough into it, I hid my bike
among the bushes of a small park and darted into the nearest
apartment building, taking the stairs two at a time as I went to
the roof. When I reached the top, I trotted to the nearest corner
to scout what obstacles were in my path.
    It looked like a tsunami was poised at the
northwestern side of the city. Instead of water, the wave about to
hit the city was made up of people and vehicles. They jammed the
roads, neighborhoods, and every inch of space between them in order
to seek refuge inside of Zeus’ protected city. The military had set
up barricades and armored vehicles, the police riot gear, and they
were both struggling either to slow or stop the surge of refugees
pouring into a city already on the brink of collapse.
    In addition, flashes of light from the
muzzles of weapons and the report of rifles, as well as the
occasional boom from a bigger gun - possibly from one of the
armored vehicles - originated from a point just north of where
Cleon claimed to be. Floodlights blazed along the edges of DC. The
Beltway, and every other road leading into the city, was a parking
lot.
    To the north, in Maryland, the skies were
clear as far as I could see, but to the west, over Virginia, from
the direction the people came, fire rained down from the heavens to
burn everything it touched to the ground. Everything within the
Beltway was safe. I judged the firestorms in Virginia to be maybe
thirty miles away, outside the Metro DC area.
    Adrenaline surged through me, and I stood,
mesmerized and grinning, as I watched the world outside of the DC
area end. How Cleon could find any opportunity in this disaster, I
had no idea. But the man was smart enough to capitalize on any
chance he found to better his position, especially now that his
primary complication – the Supreme Magistrate – was dead. Something
here had caught his attention for him to travel from the relative
safety of his home in northern Maryland to the city.
    My phone rang, and I answered it. I was
about to snap at him and tell him I was almost there when a scared,
young voice spoke first.
    “Mommy won’t wake up.”
    The words, or perhaps the voice, yanked me
out of my near-giddy state. Turning away from the chaos, I fought
the sudden tension of my body. My chest tightened, and my free hand
clenched in a fist. My primal side had already figured out what
took me a full ten seconds to register.
    “Sh…she said … if I got in trouble to call …
this number,” the child on the other end of the call was starting
to cry.
    “Tommy?” I whispered.
    “Y…yes. Can you … help us?”
    Everything.
    Just.
    Stopped.
    The voice belonged to my son, a six year old
boy I had never met or spoken to before this night, a child I had
willingly given up so he wouldn’t be infected by the sickness that
ran in my family full of lunatics.
    I stood, frozen, barely able to breathe, as
I began to understand the larger picture of what the apocalypse
meant for me. Cleon would have known this at once, but I usually
only saw what was in front of me. New York, the first city hit by
the gods, was where my ex and my son lived. I should have realized
their danger the second I heard the city had gone up in flames.
    “Where are you?” I asked after a