 
Zero Hour: Where are our Children

(A Serial Novel) Episode 5 0f 9

By Gary Sapp

Copyright 2014 Gary Sapp

Smashwords Edition
Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Table of Contents

Our Story so Far

Louis

Thomas

Chris

Roxanne

Xavier

Serena

Angel

Seth

Thomas

Chris

Sneak Peak at Betrayals

Dedication

Nest Egg Publishing Note

Nest Egg Presents: Where are our Children

Where to find this author online

# Our Story so Far:

While incarcerated as an inmate at Calhoun State Prison in southwest Georgia, Xavier Prince, the leader of A House in Chains, confronts Michael Davenport; a man that he believes has knowledge of what turns out to be the 411 attacks upstate in Atlanta. Serena Tennyson and her Pandora associates carry out the highly coordinated, highly lethal attacks weeks later against the Andrew Young Youth Center, The Fox Theatre and the mayor of the city itself, Ernestine Johnson. On her deathbed, rotting away from a yet to be identified poison, Mayor Johnson enlist the aid of Thomas Pepper, a freelance reporter, to find out the answers to the three questions that every Person of Color in America wants to know. The FBI recruits a renowned Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Angel Hicks-Dupree to consult on the crisis in Atlanta—and after a confrontation with her husband, Dr. Seth Dupree, she reluctantly agrees to help. Her childhood friend, Special Agent Christopher Prince, turns out to be one of the hostages being held at the Fox Theatre. Meanwhile, his half-brother, Xavier, is confronted with his own problems as a siege breaks out at Calhoun Prison on the eve of his scheduled release. In the meantime, Christopher Prince escapes the theatre alive, but immediately faces a new predicament when he receives a series of text messages that his 20 year old stepdaughter has come up missing.

Roxanne Sanchez, formerly of the FBI's training program, is now a private detective and has been hired by Chris' ex-wife Denise to find her daughter Erica. Roxanne can tell from her conversations with both parents that they are hiding a deep dark secret from their time together as a family. Serena Tennyson show up at Thomas Pepper's townhouse looking to confess on his blog for her role in the deadly 411 attacks as well as present a new warning to a House in Chains and all People of Color: Xavier Prince and his organization is to stand down or face a new round of attacks centered at Atlanta's children. The FBI, led by Agent Prince, capture her, but not before paying a high price in casualties. Xavier learns of a plot to kill him upon his exit from Calhoun Prison as a volatile siege and riot takes place. Serena sees a series of frightening visions including the much prophesized Whirlwind coming to fruition. Yet, it is in real life where she is traumatized after being nearly raped by an APD police officer. After she and Thomas Pepper give separate but hotly contested interviews with the bureau, she escapes in a series of daring synchronized stages that leaves Christopher Prince and the FBI befuddled. After celebrating her freedom with her closest Pandora agents Serena instructs an increasingly fragile Louis Keaton to begin rapturing Atlanta's children.

Chris and his ex-wife, Denise Prince, meet for lunch to discuss Roxanne's search for Erica. The FBI Agent is promptly refreshed to the fact of how volatile his complicated relationship still is with her. Both parties are also reminded of the hostility that existed in their household that aided in their dissolution...and the catastrophic secret that has yet to be revealed to the general public about an event that occurred many years ago while they were still together. In the meantime, Roxanne Sanchez is far closer to finding their missing daughter than they both realize. The private detective's tenacious search leads her to the Carver Housing Projects...just in time to witness the Peacekeepers launch a major offensive to liberate its citizens from underneath the rule of the Choir Boys. Xavier Prince and his Circle had decided that this community would no longer wilt under the oppression of thugs, drug dealers and gang bangers. Roxanne makes two starling discoveries while barely surviving the incursion at all: She meets a self-proclaimed Pandora mole named Joseph Champion and finds Erica Lovings dead body in a dumpster. At the same time, Chris and Angel began investigating staged crime scenes that they question whether they unlock secrets of the past, or disclose clues to future abductions. Chris learns of his step daughter's death and travels to Denise's apartment to tell her the horrible news in person not knowing that Seth is secretly on the premises as well. Louis names Moses Jackson, the first of his new child captives, his general, and instructs the boy to watch over the other children he plans to rapture from Atlanta's streets. And then, under increased pressure from Serena, Louis reveals a startling revelation of his past that so enrages Pandora's leader, that she takes the time to journey to his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, to avenge a terrible wrong.

Thomas continues to fend off threats from retribution from both elements of a House in Chains and Pandora as he continues his final preparations for announcing his findings in front of a national TV audience. One of the most frightening aspects of his investigations is the discovery that America's first Black president was not assassinated by a sniper's bullet, but killed by the same unidentified poison as Atlanta's Mayor, Ernestine Johnson. Even more unsettling to the blogger is that Serena herself is feeding him such vital information. Their relationship grows ever odder, ever more intimate. Upon Serena's request, he meets with her and she discloses the physical remains to Thomas of Templeton Healy, the uncle of Louis Keaton who she took a brutal vengeance against for his past indiscretions against Keaton as a boy and other Memphis residents over a number of years. After a testy interview with Muhammad Clark, the other perpetrator during Atlanta's first round of child abductions, an emotional Chris tells Angel the entire truth about the time he spent with Keaton while kidnapped. He was never sexually abused unlike the other captives who were taken. He was given the responsibility of watching over the other youngsters by Keaton. Yet, the emotional trauma that Chris suffered knowing the other boys were killed specifically because of his escape has continued to trouble him even to this point of his life. Seth and Denise show up at the agent's hotel room with Chris' ex-wife believing beyond a reasonable doubt that the two old friends have resumed a sexual relationship. Desperate and heartbroken, Denise commits suicide by throwing herself out of her apartment's window while Seth is helpless to do anything but watch. After her funeral the two Prince Brothers have an impromptu reunion with both men concerned about the other's decision making and general welfare moving forward. Roxanne had been following Seth and confronts him with her findings and rationale behind her decision that his estranged wife must die for her role in this crisis—and that she is the one that must kill her.

# Louis

He was a bad boy having a party.

And when he was right, really right, no one had ever partied harder.

He was Aristotle, he was Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and he was Michael Jordan on the basketball floor.

And he was starting to feel really right again. And he wasn't done yet.

An hour ago, Louis Keaton snatched Keven Mathis off the corner of Mitchell St. and Baker Court as the boy had walked out of one of the mom and pop convenient stores up there. He'd driven the F150 nearly up the front door and yanked the 13 year old right under those poor saps noses without being seen. He plucked the boy off the dirty asphalt underneath the thick haze the way a killer whale throws all of its tons on a sheet of ice to nab a seal in Antarctica. The way an old man pluck's a gray strand of nose hair out of his nostril when he thinks the old lady ain't looking.

He'd gotten him, but it had turned out that this kid wasn't his cleanest catch...that's for damned sure.

Young Keven liked his treats and that wasn't a lie. His pockets were loaded with peanut butter cups, taffy, sticks of Bubble Yum, and a min can of Mountain Dew if Louis needed proof. This kid should weigh 400 pounds. He may have if we waited another week to grab him for sure. Louis finally got the F150 in gear and going again, controlling his speed as he drove the old girl down the raggedy street. He looked the part of a normal citizen, no different than any other man whose wife or girlfriend had sent him on a quick run to pick up something from the store.

He got his prize back to the sanctuary at last. Once inside, Louis rubbed the boy's chin and jaw. Young Keven had the rough brown skin that reminded the older man of the bark of the sycamore trees back home in Memphis. When Louis threw Kevin into one of the closets, the handling that all knew recruits got until they settled down, all of the boy's treats came spilling out of his pockets and on to the floor.

Again, this one was far from a perfect catch. He wasn't Moses Jackson. He damned sure wasn't Christopher Prince reincarnated. Yet, he will have to do. He would have to do indeed.

Louis gagged him, roped his hands behind his back. The boy fussed into the electric tape covering his mouth until the little booger cried himself to sleep at last.

Young Keven wasn't the only one crying in the room. We are such a pussy. Aloud Louis Keaton said: "I can't do this...I won't do this anymore." He said it out loud to separate his private thoughts from that other part of him. His personal voice was growing more urgent. "I'll run away from here. I'll start over somewhere else. I won't let Serena Tennyson or her people find me."

Are we all shook up? Louis heard the other's voice asking him, Hugh's voice dripped with sarcasm. The other's voices loud and clear enough now in Louis' ears to make him think that he himself had vocalized it; Let us go. We can do this alone. Thanks for coming. We can take it from here.

Louis slid himself into the opposite corner of the room until the brick wall greeted him from behind, halting his retreat. "No. Why don't you go away? I don't need you. Nobody needs you here, Hugh. Just leave me alone."

We're wasting time, idiot. And we've waited long enough. Hurry...it's time to take what is rightfully ours. There are six other boys here in the sanctuary. It's like its Christmas Eve all over again and we're going to open one present early. Hurry...the Dragon Lady will be here soon. Serena will come to spoil all our fun

Louis began to slowly inch himself back across the floor to where the sleeping boy lay still sleeping. The sound of his boots sliding along the hard floor sounded like sandpaper and caused him to wince and grit his teeth. It was a glorious noise. It had drowned out Hugh, at least for the moment.

Young Kevin must have sensed what danger he was in. The boy swam up out of his nap and began jerking about in his bondage like someone suffering from a seizure. The duct tape continued to muzzle his cries. The security detail that had been assigned to accompany Louis and the other boys had become real lax over the past few days with all of the inactivity and endless waiting. We can always count on the pitfalls of human nature helping us out can't we? They didn't even hear Louis when he'd driven up. The two of them were either napping themselves or maybe they were playing on their phones. It would feel so right. Louis ran his right hand over Kevin's coarse mane of hair, down the nape of his neck, followed the slightest curve of the boy's back...until he'd reached lower...

Louis cried again after it was all over.

There was a smoky breeze flowing in from the window. Despite the stench Louis opened it as far as it would let him so that the air would help dry his tears. "I promised I wouldn't hurt any of you." He apologized to boy who had cried himself to sleep once again. "I had given my word to myself that I wouldn't touch any of you yet."

Well, once a liar, always a liar. Hugh said to him. And yet, keeping promises was never our specialty was it? Man that was wonderful. They are right when they say that it is just like riding a bike...that you never truly forget how. It's been so long...too damned long. We got a cigarette? Maybe we could bum a Newport off of Xavier Prince?

Louis heard the sound of unabated laughter.

He wasn't entirely sure anymore whether it was his own physical merriment...or the glee of the other from some deranged area of his mind.

"I tried." Louis Keaton buried his wrinkled face in his hands. He glanced out of the window into a full moon's light, his resolve now broken, his energy spent.

We knew that how we lacked the courage to this through to the end. We knew this day would come again. The other's voice cracked in hesitation for an instant. We always have

"You've never forgiven me have you, Hugh?" Louis asked the question.

Forgive us...why should we do that.

"Because I tried to save you," Louis fought back a fresh round of tears. Dr. Angel Hicks-Dupree had told him long ago that this day of self-reckoning would finally come. "I was just a little boy myself, Hugh, and I did everything that I could to save you. Don't you remember?"

Hugh Keaton and Louis Pope had hit it off almost from the first cloudy Memphis day that they'd met. They couldn't be more on the opposite end of the physical scale: Hugh was husky for his age, built like a bump on a log. Louis stretched out long and lean like a greyhound and pale from not going outside much before he'd met Hugh.

They were the two peas in the preverbal pod to say the least.

They would play together from sunrise to sunset. Hugh and Louis would run around nearly dehydrating in the blazing heat of the late afternoon...until the evening thunderstorms or the pop of the street lights churning to life chased them indoors only to start the process towards the next day's renewal of activities.

By time the season had called out for bummers, calf length boots and Thanksgiving turkeys to awaken from their yearlong slumber...a tearful Hugh had let his best friend in the whole world in on his little dirty family secret. Hugh had remembered not planning to tell him. It was something that just kind of fell out of his mouth one quiet night before Louis' parents called him in for supper. The other boy cried at the horror of what Hugh had told him about him and Templeton's special Uncle to nephew relationship. There was a human sense of comfort and relative safety when you are sheltered under the umbrella of company and fellowship.

Even Louis Pope knew this to be true.

After the telling of the tale had concluded itself, Louis dried his eyes at last and showed the steady resolve of a young man that he would never live to become.

Louis Pope got his long lanky legs beneath him and headed for home before his parents called him this night. Hugh had instantly regretted telling him about Uncle Templeton. Louis had to think that he was some type of freak. Only bad kids were molested by their uncles. Louis must have thought that Hugh was either a liar or a pervert. Now Hugh had risked losing his best friend in the world forever because he disclosed this terrible secret to another kid who was powerless to do anything about it anyway.

In all the years that have passed, Hugh Keaton never forgot the look on Louis Pope's face as he stopped in the middle of the street and looked back at him before he left for home that evening.

And he never forgot what he said.

"I'm going to tell my folks what you've told me, Hugh." Louis' smile was a sympathetic one. "You're the best friend that I've ever had. I'm not to let anyone ever hurt you again. I won't leave you behind."

It was the first and last lie that Louis Pope would ever tell his friend Hugh Keaton.

He did leave Hugh—long enough to tell his mom and dad, with a 12 year's attention to detail, what his friend Hugh Keaton had told him was going on in his family's trailer. Over the next few weeks cops from the local sheriff's office would venture out to interview Uncle Templeton or Lisa Healey—Hugh's mom, or Hugh himself. Hugh had never been more encouraged. The boys continued to play every day that the winter weather and the holiday break allowed them. Louis informed Hugh that some police pals of his dad told him that their office was close to making an arrest. They also told his dad that his family's testimony would be vital to any charges sticking against Templeton Healey. Without their testimony, any case otherwise would be Hugh Keaton's word against his uncle. And Templeton had his allies down in the department as well. It scared Hugh—at least a little—that there was a chance that his mom might get prosecuted too. Where would he live if his mom went to jail? But when Louis said that his parents liked him well enough to consider adopting him if the state incarcerated his mom also...Hugh knew with all certainty that his luck and his life were finally going to change for the better.

It was now the morning of Christmas Eve...and the next day would be the greatest Christmas that the boy, Hugh Keaton, would have ever known.

And yet, this same Hugh Keaton awoke Christmas morning to the smell of something burning and he instinctively somehow knew that his fairytale ending was going up in flames as well.

He could hear the fire crackling in the air as if someone were playing a percussion instrument in his ears. Whatever was burning it was very nearby. It was extremely close. He just knew it to be true. Hugh jumped up from out of his bed and sprinted through his uncle's trailer. When he opened the front door everything from directly in from of him due North looked to be as it should have been.

And then he peered over his far left shoulder...to the single family home where Louis Pope and his parents lived.

Their home was engulfed in flames.

Louis screamed aloud as he ran barefooted out in the snow as fast as his plump little legs would carry him. It was no way that anyone inside that burning inferno had got out in time. It was no freaking way.

Hugh fell to his knees in the snow about 20 feet or so from the scene of the fire.

He screamed again.

He cried out for Louis and his parents who were burning inside.

And then he turned up the volume as he screamed...for himself. He knew that his great opportunity for escape—his final chance of living a healthy, normal life had gone up in flames with the murder of the Pope family. Hugh remembered what Louis had told him when he said that his family's testimony would be vital to any charges sticking against Templeton Healy.

As three fire trucks rolled in, Louis turned and looked back to the trailer where he had lived. He shook his head violently at that proclamation that had bounced around in his head. For anyone to call what he had going on in that shack of existence life was the cruelest joke of them all. He saw his Uncle Templeton standing in front of the door, an ugly but triumphant smile beginning to play on his thin lips. He flicked a lighter... the flame rising time and again... until the boy could no longer stand to watch. Finally, Hugh's stomach churned and he threw up last night's supper into a pile that bled color into the blandness of the white snow. And even at that distance, even with all of the commotion all around him, Louis could read what mouthed off of his uncle's lips into the frosty air. Merry Christmas, Nephew. Tonight you will receive your greatest Christmas gift of all. You've earned it

Uncle Templeton had his gift unwrapped and waiting for him later on that night. And he made his mother sit in on this session as well. The boy had nearly sprung up trouble with the law he spat. She would either watch him fuck her son or she would witness as he killed him for all the hassle he'd drummed up. Templeton kept feeding his special Christmas gift to his beloved nephew night after night after night...for weeks on end.

He told Serena Tennyson that he never knew for certain when the boy who was Hugh Keaton, died during that span. He did know for certain that the Louis persona—what little he still believed to be gentle and decent about this world had been born while he kneeled in his filth of his own vomit that cold Christmas morning. And yet, he was even more convinced that his Uncle's vile personality had wedged its way into his brittle mind as the new Hugh Keaton sometime or the other while he poked him from behind that night. He was about strength through force and manipulation.

And so Serena had heard all she had cared to hear from his lips the other day when she had first visited him and Moses here in the sanctuary. And Oracle had stormed out of there and traveled West with Shooter and a handful of other agents and unleashed a Whirlwind that Memphis would not soon forget. The petite woman dressed all in black shot and killed four former policemen who had long retired to their pensions with knowledge of the Hell that Keaton's uncle had unleashed on that—the holiest of all days all those years earlier.

His uncle Templeton had entered the Pope's home unseen through a back window. He then overwhelmed Louis' father shortly thereafter and beat the man to a pulp. Still enraged, he bonded both parents together at the wrist to two of the dining room chairs. And since they'd been so damned interested in a man's private affairs...then he would let them see firsthand how a Healey handled his business with his nephew. Bound and helpless, the Pope's shared a front row seat and could only watch while Templeton Healey sodomized their son...

And yet, friends and neighbors, the hell of this tale was still on the back burner you might say.

Templeton told Serena—before she killed him—that he remembered pouring gasoline on seemingly every inch of floor space in the Pope's living room for good measure, torching the place and leaving all three behind powerless except to watch...and burn as their home blazed around them.

Keaton still failed to understand why Serena spared his mother—though Oracle forced her to stay and watch as she methodically tortured her brother for nearly 12 hours before killing and eventually burning Templeton Healey's remains until there was nothing left of him but charred bones and memories of an old man begging for his pathetic life between screams of agony—

"Louis!" He was back here in the present again and it was Serena Tennyson screaming at him here in the sanctuary. "What in the hell is going on here?"

Danielle Rohm shook him by his shoulders. "Answer her, Louis." She looked at young Kevin lying naked and...violated in a fetal position in the closet. And now the shit really hits the fan. "You disobeyed a direct order, Louis. You weren't supposed to...my God, what have you done?"

Louis felt a goofy smile forming on his weathered face...just like the one's his Uncle Templeton used to wear when he was being particularly mischievous.

But a molested 13 year boy lying naked in a closet was only the beginning of his troubles late this evening.

Moses Jackson and the other five boys had gone missing.

Serena Tennyson cursed. And then she dialed her cell phone, telling the party on the other end to issue a Code Red. The hostages had escaped and they needed to take appropriate measures to get them back before they were seen by the general public.

The two guards were unaccounted for as well. Louis decided that they either they were out looking for the children or they had decided to try to escape Serena's wraith for allowing this breach of security to happen in the first place.

Serena planted one hand on a slim hip and paced back and forward again to she had returned from where she started. She exhaled audibly. She looked as if were taking all of her self-discipline to hold her temper.

"We agreed that you would wait until I signaled you to initiate physical contact with any of the hostages." She said to him her lecturing tone that she did so well. "You've compromised much of our leveraging position with a House in Chains and the FBI. You're...lust has jeopardized our entire operation here."

He raised his knees to his chest and cocked his head ever slightly left. "I have done just that, Serena. What I have also done is simply raised the stakes. The Rapture alone had grown stale." He said. "Calm down, woman. Sadly, you and I know that Moses Jackson and the others are still virgins. They still have value to you."

The three of them drove up the length of highway that separated the Sanctuary from the outer fringes of the city four times. Rohm drove five to ten miles over the speed limit. Serena stayed on her cell, scanning side streets, alleys, wooded areas and shadowed corners looking for the boys. It was dark once they reached Fulton County and Atlanta's city limits.

Riding shotgun, Louis Keaton got a different perspective of the city that had served as his personal playground of pleasure. This area had become a smorgasbord for pain and suffering and despair since he and Muhammad Clark had last preyed on these sacred grounds. Still, it is our Kingdom, Keaton thought. It is our kingdom and our rules. No one, not even Muhammad Clark had done it better than we have.

He relaxed, sitting his hands behind in head and laid back on the seat, smelling the seat's fine leather and the funk fumigating from underneath his arm pits. He stretched out totally, kicking his boots on the seat, perfectly content, perfectly tranquil unlike he'd ever felt in his life. He felt no worries, no stress. He was different somehow. He was better.

And his rapid fire changes hadn't gone unnoticed by the Oracle.

She looked back him once...and again just before she clicked her phone to the off position. She then turned her attention to Rohm.

"Make a left turn here at the next intersection."

"Are you sure? I don't think that we should—"

"Do it, Rohm."

He said without being asked his opinion: "Rohm's right, Dragon Lady. We are wasting time." The car screamed past a pack of young men and women of color dressed in khaki suits and sneakers. The Peacekeepers were out in force tonight, casing neighborhoods that the APD dared only to go in with an army in tow.

Serena seemed to consider implications of any rash decisions that she might make. "Alright," She said to Rohm more than to him. "Rohm, get us back to the highway, right away. The only way that those hostages made it nearly this far is if they reached the interstate and picked up a ride after leaving the sanctuary. Moses Jackson is a bright boy to be sure...but he would need to be a miracle worker to get them that far without a map or a guide."

After Rohm spun the vehicle around, Serena took one final glance at the downtrodden neighborhoods they were leaving in their rear view mirror and then found his eyes. She glared at him. She frowned at him. He only smiled back in return, the new and improved Keaton no longer intimated by her, before he closed his eyes completely and relaxed once again.

She answered a call she relieved on her cell phone on the first ring.

"This is Oracle, what is it?" She listened to this party on the other end for a time and then shut the phone off again.

With his eyelids still closed he asked her: "More trouble, Dragon Lady?"

"Apparently you aren't the only fool who showed weakness in performing your duties tonight."

"Do tell," He said.

Rohm stopped looking at traffic she was pulling out into long enough to peer over at Serena. "What happened?"

"One of those two security personnel that were in charge of watching the sanctuary shot and killed the other. The running theory coming from the others we left behind there after we went in search of those missing is this: He had been engaging in conversations and showing signs of discontentment with Pandora's mission and his role specifically in it over that past few days." She rubbed her forehead, the stress taking its toll. "When he heard the Kevin boy suffering from Keaton's transgression he knew he had enough. He used a silencer, killed his partner and left his body in another part of the building where our people found him a few minutes ago. And then he set the hostages free."

Louis smiled. "Sometimes things go wrong." He licked his thin lips. "And sometimes I've seen them go so terribly right."

But then he had a thought that must have snapped him back to at least a semblance of reality. "Do your people think they can find them?" He asked in sudden concern. "Just like you said, they don't stand much of a chance on foot of reaching the highway and civilization. They must be found. We need to get Moses and the others back safely."

And then just as suddenly...Louis Keaton broke out in a song. He began to croon an old Elvis tune of yesteryear and began to howl when the tune moved to the choir verses of the track.

"Excuse me," Serena snapped at him. "Louis Keaton, are you alright? Are you in need of some medical attention? What in the hell is going on with you?"

"I've never felt better, Dragon Lady." And he had not. He could never remember feeling so whole before. He sat totally erect in the backseat of the car until he was practically nose to nose with Serena. "You do know that she was right about me all along. She's always been the only one of those shrink types who has truly understood me...my nature."

"Who are you talking about?" Serena wanted to know.

"Angel, of course," He said as if it were a manner of public record that everyone on the planet knew except these two dullards riding in the car with him. "Dr. Dupree-Hicks has always understood what my potential was. She's always known that someone had to reach my true self."

Serena pulled a gun from the glove box and placed the barrel of it on his temple. "You will answer my questions right here and now or you will die, Louis. What in the hell are you talking about?"

He tilted his head downwards ever so slightly, to guarantee any shot the Dragon Lady squeezed off would be a lethal one for sure. "This is but a hiccup to you and your Pandora organization achieving its ultimate goals, Serena. Your people are highly trained, highly skilled and ruthless. Those children will be found. It is a simple matter of time and space."

He felt her pull the gun away. She looked momentarily confused. Rohm had had enough this escapade so she slid the car over into the emergency lane and stopped the car. "Oh. My God, Louis," She said unnecessarily. "You've changed."

Serena searched his blue eyes and the rest of his face for clues that Rohm's hypothesis had merits. She seemed to find what she looked for at last. "Hugh...Rohm, I think we are now in the company of Hugh Keaton at long last."

He sat all the way back in his seat once again. He put his hands on the back of his head, closed his eyes and exhaled long and deep. "Dr. Dupree-Hicks was so damned right about me." He said. "But I think I should validate both of your points by . . . agreeing. I am most certainly back. Hugh Keaton is back again for the first time."

He actually saw Serena smile.

He sat up abruptly again and said, "Don't pat yourself on the back too hard, Serena. You've been trying to reach this persona for so long, to suit your needs. I just want you to remember that Angel always warned you against playing doctor."

"You are here...Hugh. I would name my efforts as being successful." After a long minute of silence between the three of them, Serena's cell phone rang once again.

She said into the receiver, "That is not the entire news that I wanted to hear, but I will accept this at least for a start. Code Red is still in effect until that final child is found."

Serena told Hugh and Rohm what she had learned: Mathew Clifton had decided to try to find his way home alone. He was still unaccounted for, but Moses Jackson and three of the boys had been tracked down with the security guard who tried to aid in their escape. The boys were scared. They were cold and hungry, but otherwise had been found unscathed.

The security guard who had betrayed Pandora was shown the error of his ways with a bullet launched into his brain by Serena's command.

"It makes no true matter whether Mathew is recovered or not." Hugh said exhaling his relief that Moses and the boys had been found. There only two scenarios that can happen to Mathew and they both benefit you and Pandora."

"How so," Serena asked him.

"Regardless to whether he is miraculously discovered or if he dies out there in the wilderness, you will have placed even more pressure on Xavier Prince and the Circle to comply with your demands so that the other boys can be released. You will have achieved an appropriate amount of escalation of hostilities in the short term regardless."

Serena nodded, seeing the same scenario playing out in her own mind as well.

"What about the other boys," Rohm asked. "Why didn't they follow Mathew instead? Why stay together at all...especially with a man that they were unsure that they could trust to lead them home?"

Hugh's smile grew large and disingenuous at best. "There is a human sense of comfort and relative safety when you are sheltered under the umbrella of company and fellowship." Hugh Keaton said. "Even the scared, the cold and the hungry knew this to be true."

# Thomas

A shapely production intern with South Pacific Islander features led Thomas Pepper by the elbow into Studio A of the superstation. She politely asked him to wait in a corner of an entanglement of cameras and cords and promised to return for him in five minutes.

He nodded at her and watched the woman disappear back into the door from which they'd come. Her bosses had already done they're round of thanks and appreciations again for him choosing their network for his important announcement.

Studio B was well lit though a wee bit to warm for his liking. Thomas' tie fit too snugly around his neck, enough to feel as if it were beginning to choke off his breathing. He was sweating gallons underneath his armpits and he had maintained a dull headache since before dark.

He stole a deep breath...the studio unleashing the stench of polished wood, mop and glow and a fresh paint job on the nearby wall. It was a big and potentially prosperous night for this station as well. One of the executives smiled as he walked through the door and squeezed his right hand. Tonight's director, a man that Thomas had worked with in the distant past when he was still at the Times, welcomed him back. Thomas asked for a bottled water—anything to wet his ever drying mouth. The director was more than happy to fetch it himself.

He'd spoken underneath lights and in front of camera's like this and in studio's just like this one a hundred times before—why was this do damned different? Because, you idiot, tonight you join a rare list of men and women who potentially hold the fate of tens of thousands of your fellow countrymen in your hands...or mouth rather.

His pants were squeezing him around his waist if he needed a reminder. Every eye in this studio and many throughout the country and the entire world would be watching him and listening to what he had learned. He was the savior or the Judas depending on one's personal view.

The intern had returned. Everyone else on the set was taking their collective places. She flashed him all five fingers of her right hand reminding him that there were only five minutes before they went live. So that meant that he had less time than that to do what exactly...to change his mind...to run away from his word to Mayor Ernestine Johnson. Would he ultimately save more lives by walking right back out the door from which he came—or telling all that he'd learned, especially in the past 24 hours or so.

And was it more important to him save his reputation...or maybe save his own life?

"Mr. Pepper," The intern's face had lost its pleasantness. She was old enough to understand what was at stake too. "They are ready for you."

"Okay," He felt his fat head nodding. "I'm ready."

She grabbed him by the elbow again—and to his surprise—wrapped her arm in his. You are too young and far too single for my taste, young lady, but I thank you all the same for being the instant friend that I so badly needed at this moment. She walked him over to a specified area where he would be standing in front of a blue screen. The producers had promised that the digitally enhanced image that the viewers would be something both neutral in color and in definition. You are but the messenger, he reminded himself. Others have dictated the message.

He'd worn one of his favorite tan suits in anticipation of the blue screen turning out to be a panoramic view of the city's skyline after dark.

"It's a brave thing that you are doing," The intern whispered to him just out of sight of the others. "Still, I don't envy you this task."

He nodded his thanks to her.

She left him there and another woman showed up seemingly out of nowhere...or had he been unconsciously checking out. She finalized his makeup and propped him in anticipation for his moment.

She told him that if his suit caught on fire that she wouldn't piss on him to put it out.

The lights blinked from red to yellow to green...and finally settled on a solid green when she had left him behind.

Thomas Pepper waited.

He thought about his father's last sickly days on this earth like he thought about him most days. He remembered how the Alzheimer's had eaten his brain cells and the cancer's had settled for the rest of his body. Thomas recalled the taped recording words of Saul Pepper—his father for him before the damning effects of the Dementia set in for good. The recording told him that he'd forgiven Thomas mother for leaving him and his children to fend for themselves when his illnesses had taken a turn for the worse. Saul figured that one long traumatic bout with his older sister's terminal condition had been enough for his mom. She wasn't going to suffer through another. Screw the rest of you, Thomas had always envisioned her saying when she finally left without even the decency of a phone call or a goodbye. How they dealt with this latest family crisis was a business for each person to tackle on their own.

And it wasn't until right here...right now that he realized that he'd never forgiven her or forgotten her decision. I never have forgiven any of them. That is why I openly look for married women to sleep with. I don't openly hate these women or want to destroy what they have...but he did hate the ideology behind the institution of marriage itself.

And now what will you do with this knowledge you've gained, Thomas, whether it was his own or Saul's voice he could not say. Is it too late for me to turn away from the only behavior I've ever known?

He saw the intern hold a single finger...a single trembling finger up at him now.

And were those tears in her eyes.

And just as suddenly Thomas had tucked Saul and his mother and the memories of the distant past away to face again another day; He now remembered the most recent past...and the woman who had become center stage in his life today.

Serena Tennyson...aka Helen had his other alias—Arnold meet her at yet another baby's wing of Atlanta's Memorial hospital on the far East side of town this time.

And though Thomas had yet to figure out the why in all of this...he had learned that the Intel she was feeding him was accurate and up to date.

The intern lowered her finger...and her head; it was Showtime or No time for Thomas Pepper. And like the old woman's grandmother there would be no turning back once this gigantic informational ball got rolling downhill.

"Good evening. For all of you who may not know me—my name is Thomas Pepper. You will be shocked as I am to hear myself say that I am not quite sure where to begin this evening actually. First, I am happy to help to give credence to the rumors that have been circulating on various blogs and message boards all across the internet the past few hours: I was given specific permission from the highest powers of Atlanta's Police Department that one of the six missing children as indeed been found. Mathew Clifton was taken to one of the many police sub stations on the city's Southside by a man who had claimed to be a dissident of Pandora. He had asked for political immunity. He had been turned over to the FBI and was en route to the national headquarters to be debriefed. This man's name and identity were being kept anonymous for his safety and the well-being of the federal agents who were assigned to escort him there.

"I speak of this in past tense...because he died of some type of poisoning about an hour after he showed at this substation with young Mathew. This is not...I repeat, this was not the same poisoning that was inflicted on Mayor Johnson. I will ask all of the viewers to be patient with me for I fully intend to address her particular issue as I move further in my dialogue with you.

"As for this anonymous Pandora agent, the doctor that treated him said that his death was from strychnine poisoning. At the moment they were unsure when or how he was inflicted with this deadly toxin, but once it was 'turned on' as one doctor called it, this man's life came to a quick and agonizing death."

"As far as Mathew is concerned, he was treated at an undisclosed hospital for dehydration. He is in serious but stable condition. There were no visible signs of ...inappropriate scarring in around his genital areas. Mathew did mention many of the probable Pandora suspects by name including Louis Keaton, Danielle Rohm and Serena Tennyson."

"Subsequently, a Good Samaritan wrote down the license plate of a car that had been continually loitering in predominately Black neighborhoods in the hours just before Mathew and this now deceased Pandora agent showed up at the police station. The plate matched a rental car of Lacy Peters who through the aid of surveillance at a Hertz Rental Car is a fake name being used by no other than a dark haired petite woman who always wears black clothing: The same Danielle Rohm that was mentioned by name by Mathew Clifton. She is a ruthless assassin. She is also the woman who I strongly believe murdered my housekeeper when she showed up unexpectedly at my townhouse to clear the premises when Serena made her impromptu visit to me some time ago now."

"Now, let us move along to the more ominous news that I have learned in my research, interviews and my conversations with former Pandora agents, sympathizers...and Serena Tennyson herself. I will share this information with you in the reverse order that most People of Color—and many Americans period, would like to know."

"This Whirlwind, by Serena Tennyson's definition is a purging of this city...and the Black Race by fire. When I questioned her on the how...Miss Tennyson failed to be specific. She did tell me that she would use the city's design and geography against its citizens. She claimed that many would suffer and die in this purging. She said that Atlanta had been burned to ground once and that it could be again. I, like most civilized people in this nation, would side with spirit of Xavier Prince and how his people have visualized their future. We have seen an example of a House in Chains' resolve when they liberated Carver by any means necessary. I would caution the Circle not to underestimate the resources and the long reach of Serena Tennyson and her Pandora associates. We need only to look at the massacre of the former Memphis police personnel and the fiery death of Louis Keaton's uncle, a man named Templeton Healey that Serena's vengeance knows no boundaries or limits."

"In our two conversations she also failed to disclose who this Caretaker was. There were several things that she did say...and more importantly to me through my observations that are a great deal more revealing about this man who was the founder of Pandora. This Caretaker's final wishes that he expressed to Serena is that he wanted this matter resolved with a House in Chains—and all People of Color with as few casualties as possible. Serena Tennyson has the upmost respect for this man which also tells me...which tells something very important about this man's character. Serena told all of us from my townhouse that true hatemonger's—people like James Carter, Michael Stanton and Luna Belle have no place in Pandora's view of the coming world order. If that is truly the case, then the Caretaker could not have been a hatemonger himself. He had to have a caring, if not misguided since of purpose, driving him and his beliefs. In fact, I am so absorbed with my theories on the Caretaker, I almost certain that we would all be shocked by who this man's true identity was. I certainly emphasize the word was because I am certain that he is dead. I believe that he died within the last five to ten years. If he were alive, then we would know and see far less of Serena at the forefront of Pandora Operations than we've been subjected to."

"The matter of Mayor Ernestine Johnson's death is a deep and personal level to me. As many of you already know, I was summoned to her suite and witnessed the final hour or so of her life myself. I know that she died a crippling and undignified death. The poison ate at her. Several independent agents from various disease control centers have identified the likely strain of the virus. They have affirmed that it attacked its victim's central nervous system. Our Mayor was the first target of this aggressive toxin. We do not know the nature or the disposition of it nor do we know if it is a legitimate threat to the general public. We do now know that President Adolphus Sweet died in the same manner. I've said that Mayor Johnson was the first target...and she was just that. The president was shot by an individual named Joseph Champion, who was a former agent, operating outside of Pandora's chain of command. Mr. Sweet did not die of his wounds due to being shot. This virus that was lying dormant in his system was somehow...activated...and he died the same agonizing death that Mayor Johnson did. What is more disturbing is this: The Disease for Control Center here in Atlanta was contacted when the Presidents condition quickly eroded. The then Vice President knew the truth. The Director of both the FBI and CIA also knew. And certain high level people within the disease control center had to know as well. What do they have to hide? Why are they hiding it? Are they coconspirators or merely incompetent in their duties?"

"I leave you with to take these facts as I have given you to do with as each person feels necessary. My independent, non-biased investigation into these matters is now closed. I have completed this process as a promise to our esteemed former mayor. I alleviate myself from any liability from whatever A House in Chains or other groups or individuals may do with this information. I will refrain from taking questions from my brethren in the mass media now or in the near future."

"And with my last word I'd like to remind each and every one watching, listening, or scrolling through a transcript of this presentation... there is a deadly government issued virus being used against US Citizens. Whether you are Black, Brown or White this fact should trouble you. Thank you for your time and attentiveness. My name is Thomas Pepper. Where I go I hope the truth is never far behind."

He stepped away from the stage at last and walked past a mass of reporters who were blocking his path.

He welcomed the silence that greeted him as he neared the ready room in an effort to retrieve the rest of his belongings. The intern had tears in her eyes, but greeted him with a smile nonetheless. He noted that another mass of reporters were retaking their place again as they had done before he made his speech.

"Why are they still hanging around? I told them that I would not be speaking to them today. I'm sure you guys have a panel of talking heads to go on the rest of the night with their so called expert opinions and analyst, but those kind of events don't usually draw this type of crowd—"

"Look over there, Mr. Pepper." The intern pointed a long manicured nail to the other side of the floor of the building. "The next speaker is coming—there she is right now. You almost missed her."

Lucy Burgess.

Thomas stormed past the intern and nearly sprints over to where another underling is walking Lucy into the studio where this night had begun for him an hour ago. I won't play second fiddle to anyone in this town, not even you Tommy Boy. He remembered Bernard Lott telling him in his office. But he had met with Lucy since then...he'd slept with her since that night... and she had said...

"What are you doing here, Lucy? I thought we agreed the other night that you wouldn't do this."

Lucy gave her overbite a workout when she smiled fully. "I told you that I would think about it, Thomas." She straightened out his tie for him. "I never promised you anything.

Thomas grabbed her arm with some girth. "What do you know about Chris Prince? Is it truly worth the lives you are about the risk to reveal this terrible secret about him?"

"I guess the audience will have to make those decisions on their own, darling." She kept the smile, but loosened herself from his grip. "You've had your opportunity at telling your version of truth—and the repercussions that maybe born of it. It's my turn, darling. All is fair in love and war. We had love the another night...at least our version of it, now it's time for a little healthy competition."

The underling looked unsure of what to do next. "Five minutes, Miss Burgess."

Lucy told the younger woman that she would be ready and asked her to allow Thomas and her a moment alone.

Afterwards Lucy said: "You were wonderful the other night, Thomas. And I mean that—"

"Lucy—"

"Let me finish, Thomas." She said with a serious look on her face that Thomas Pepper had never seen before. "As I was saying...you were wonderful the other night. You were passionate. You were energized. You were the Thomas Pepper that I've always known, but you were also the man that I knew that I would never truly have. The other night is the way that I want to remember us."

Thomas smirked. "So you are ending it?"

"No," She said "We both are. You are done with me, Thomas, and you don't even realize it yet."

"What are you talking about, Lucy?"

"Bill officially served me papers today." Lucy's face took on the sad look that she'd shown him at the mayor's estate when she first stated her martial problems to him. "In six months I will be officially a single woman. And single women have no use in your life."

"Lucy—"

She put a finger on his lips...and rubbed them with some affection. Was that mist in Lucy's brown eyes or was that a trick of this room's lighting. "And I'm done with you, Thomas. I just told you that you were wonderful the other night. You were passionate." The underling held up two fingers so that they would clearly see it. "But you committed the one unforgivable sin that even whorish married women cannot forgive."

He searched his memory banks long and hard but frowned when the appropriate withdrawal of recollection escaped him. "When your moment of pleasure crossed the threshold towards ecstasy—"

"I called you, Serena."

"You called me by that bitch's name."

The intern chimed in: "We are ready for you, Miss Burgess."

"Well, duty calls me, darling. No hard feelings." She held out her hand as her smile highlighting her glorious overbite returned for Thomas one final time.

Thomas tried to hand her back the hotel key she'd given him but she told him to keep it as a symbol of what they'd had if for no other reason she could think of.

She stood on her tippy toes and kissed him with some affection on his left cheek. "Together we will live forever...yet apart." She left him in his silence, but looked over her shoulder at him after only a few steps. "Remember, darling, where Thomas Pepper goes—the truth is never far behind."

# Chris

Special Agent Christopher Prince's business cell phone rang.

"Damn, Christopher," Angel's voice sounded distant in the receiver. "You are a hard man to reach. Turn on your TV."

"I've already saw Pepper's press conference, Doc. The shit about the president is incredible, but otherwise I don' think he really enlightened anyone to anything that the FBI doesn't already know—"

"I'm not talking about that news conference. You need to be tuned in to what's being said—and who it's being said about right now."

"What channel?"

"Any of them...all of them, you should just pick one."

He apparently had missed whatever Angel was flustered about. A bushy haired brunette was wrapping up her evaluation of Lucy Burgess' information about...him and his personal life. He saw pictures of himself, pictures of Denise and Erica flashing across his 52 inch screen in full HD. They were certainly much older photos, especially of him. He still had hair on his head and face and he was probably ten to 15 pounds lighter around his middle.

The one word that was flashed up on the screen describing his family at that time was: Dysfunction.

He bit his lip. He cursed. The next byline read: A Key FBI Agent at the center of the 411 investigations was once taken off duty himself for alleged molestation charges against his then minor teenage daughter. One of the commentators said that while nothing was ever proven, there were already legitimate concerns to whether this man should have taken the lead on these cases anyway. He is the brother Xavier Prince. Agent Christopher Prince's mind might tell him to be loyal to the bureau but where does his heart lead him? It is the old adage...blood versus water.

The bushy head woman spoke up again. She hesitated to dismiss these molestation charges so easily. She told the others to remember what Thomas Pepper said to them all before Lucy Burgess spoke. If the United States government was in a cover up in a president's death, what makes anyone think they wouldn't protect one of their own who was a pedophile? She went on to say that this man, Chris Prince, was a victim of sexual assault himself. And everyone knew how those types of behaviors recycle themselves. A boy goes from being abused to manhood of being an abuser. This pattern had been proven before.

The other commentator wasn't finished however. He asked the panel how stable could Chris actually be? And then they showed Chris in a shouting match with the bystanders who were lined up at the crime scene where he and Angel hypothesized about the black action figure and what it represented. Then they replayed his throw down with Muhammad Clark at the prison down state. The editing left out the portion for viewers to see Clark grabbing him first before Chris retaliated. Finally, someone had sold the Times some still photos of his face burrowed in frustration with one of the doubles of Serena Tennyson when he and Angel had caught up and bumped the car she was driving. One of the commentators warned the audience against allowing children to see the stills they rolled across the scene next. They showed the dummy Serena pinned under the car bleeding to death. The last photo was of him clenching his fit and gritting his teeth.

He looked angry.

He looked like a man on the verge of losing his control.

"How in the hell did this happen?" Chris yelled into the receiver and instantly regretted it. "Why would anyone leak this type of information now? I told you that very few people know about what truly happened because of Erica and her lies."

Angel snorted. "It wasn't me, Christopher." She said in a defensive tone. "I swear that it wasn't."

"Yea...I know that, Doc. I'm sorry that I yelled—"Chris' personal cell phone beeped. "Look, someone's ringing me on the other phone. I'll call you right back."

"Make sure you do." She said. "I want to help you get to the bottom of this."

He hung up the business phone and answered his personal one on the third ring but no one was home. Damn, I probably took too long with Angel. It rung again, Chris caught it on the first ring, but again Chris was only greeted with silence. He even answered it before it could complete one ringing cycle and yelled hello into the receiver. This time someone was laughing between breaths of saying something humiliating and degrading about him being trimmed up by Keaton all those years ago.

Now his business phone was ringing.

"Anything you have to say to me," He yelled nearly at the top of his voice. "I want you to say it in person. Don't hide behind a cell phone."

"I won't need to." Agent Sheridan said to him almost conversationally. "I already have you on the phone, Agent Prince."

Things were getting worse with each passing minute.

Chris exhaled long and deep. "I'm sorry, boss." Chris tried to keep his top lip from trembling. "I've got a lot going on over here."

"Of course you do." Sheridan's tone softened some. "That's why I called you, however reluctantly, with this ounce of bad news myself." Chris bit back bile knowing what was coming next. "I've come to conclusion that it is time to take you off any case affiliated with 411."

Chris could have guessed that this day would come. He appreciated the fact that Nicholas Sheridan was man enough to tell him personally.

It didn't soften the effects of the blow one Goddamn bit.

"What?" Chris asked in an exasperated voice. "What in the hell are you talking about, Sheridan? Don't do this to me, man, not now."

"At times like this I have to look out for the integrity and the best interest of the bureau, Prince, you know that." Sheridan explained to Chris as he spun around and switched the cell from one ear to the next. "No man is bigger than this organization is, especially now. If our positions were reversed I would expect you to do the same."

"This is about that report that just went down on television isn't it?" Chris asked the question that he already knew the answer to. "Sheridan, you people know the truth about all that shit that went down. Internal Affairs cleared me of any wrong doing."

"I know that better than most, Prince, or have you forgotten that I was with Internal Affairs at that time. I led the investigation." Sheridan said and before Chris could reply he added: "I didn't know you at a personal level or particularly liked you then, Mister. But I didn't believe what that kid or your ex-wife were saying about you. I didn't believe it because that's what the evidence, or lack thereof, told me to believe."

"Then why are you—"

"You should know why you are no longer fit to wear that shield, Prince." Sheridan said in a gruff voice. "I will say this one last time and you will stop hearing me and Goddamned listen this time: This is bigger than you or me as far as I am concerned. We have a potential crisis in streets of Atlanta and many other metropolitan areas staring us in the face. Did you listen to Thomas Pepper's speech or did you just hear it? Somewhere well above our pay grade Americans are asking for the resignations, if not the arrest of people in this organization that you and I both know, for covering up what truly was the cause of President Sweet's death."

"I heard it, Sheridan. I listened to what Pepper had to say."

Sheridan continued as if Chris had not spoken at all. "And as much as that tees me off, the fact that the emergence of this information...this evidence soils our reputation further. At this moment no one even knows where Deputy Director Rice is. Two or three people that I trust with my life have told me that they disagree with Thomas Pepper on one point: They believe that the Caretaker is still alive. They believe that Raymond Rice and the founder of Pandora are one and the fucking same. " Sheridan must have stopped long enough to calm himself and breathe again. "For what it's worth, I have temporarily been put in charge of the bureau until I am dead or this crisis has passed. And I have decided that my first action is to save what's left of our name and reputation. Don't make this into a pissing contest, Chris. You know that this has evolved well past all of that. If the people that we still serve with stand any chance of survival in the coming days and weeks, we can't allow the slightest shadow of doubt to be raised over our agency...or any agent investigating our cases."

Chris hesitated one second before he said: "Damn, Nick, can't you see that I want to help."

"You will help. You are helping, Chris." Sheridan cleared his throat. "Special Agent, Christopher Prince of the Atlanta Field Office, you are officially off of the 411 case and any associated matters. Have I made myself clear, Mister?"

"Yes, sir, Agent Sheridan, you have."

Sheridan gave him a few lines of scripted company speak thereafter concerning his right to hearing with union representation at the earliest convenience of both sides for the business of having him reinstated. He was being suspended without pay and would also be subject to having his health insurance being paid by the company for 60 days as well. Finally, he was instructed to turn in his two bureaus issued handguns and shield to the field office—that he used to run.

Chris threw his cell phone across the room and it broke the mirror below a cabinet. He kicked over his sofa and shattered three photos of him in various stages of his career in law enforcement. He broke the glass of several of his paintings and tore several more to shreds—until he reached Hoshi's portrait.

He sat down on his tiled floor with her painting in his hands. How could I have failed so miserably, Hoshi? He asked the woman in the picture. Was there anything that I could have done differently? He had been alone so long...even through his married years with Denise. He'd lost his childhood to a monster named Louis Keaton. He'd lost his teenage years when his father, who he had adored, was taken from him in an automobile accident. And then all the joy that a young man could know was stricken from him when his dearest Hoshi had wrapped her car around that telephone phone after the infamous parent-teacher conference she'd attended.

Tears came to his eyes...and Chris Prince let them come. They weren't tears of frustration for losing his job. They were the latest in a long line of tears that had been shed for losing the precious woman in this portrait. If he had ever needed proof that Hoshi Givens was the only one that he'd ever truly loved up until now then the evidence, as Agent Sheridan had stated it so clearly to him, was rolling down his face while he sat on this floor.

He had finalized both the large and small details of Denise and Erica's funerals without shedding a tear.

He had viewed Denise's body, or what the morticians could piece back together again, and didn't cry once.

He had attended his ex-wife's funeral. He'd listened to the pastor give a powerful sermon about Jesus' death and resurrection...and a final commanding prayer for her at the graveyard...

And Chris Prince never offered up even a snivel.

And yet, the mere thought of Hoshi had driven him to emotion.

And then thirty or so minutes after that, he thought about Roxanne Sanchez.

What am I ever to do about you, Roxanne? She was a beautiful woman who had perhaps an overabundance of fire burning in her. Just as my dearest Hoshi did; sure, she was wild and untamed around the edges. And yet, he knew that there was an attraction between them. He had first felt it when she was in the FBI Training Program years ago. Chris had wisely kept business...and any potentially personal affairs separate.

He was pleasantly surprised when the fire quickly had rekindled itself when he saw her again for the first time in years at Centennial Park.

And then she showed up before the funerals and the heat between them had turned up considerably—

Chris doorbell rang.

He got to his feet and slapped the safety off of his weapon. He hoped he didn't have to empty the bullet chambers of his gun before he turned it in to Alex who ran inventory over there.

Whoever in the hell was on the other side of that door was had better be more than friendly tonight after what he had been through already.

Chris opened the front door to his house with his gun down near his side.

Benjamin Scott:

He was long and in wondrous shape for a man nearing 65 years old. He still bothered to shave every day, still colored his hair and wore a suit most every place he went and liked to date 30 year olds.

"Good evening to you too, Christopher," He said with eyes trained on the barrel of Chris' firearm in his face. The younger man knew that his father's lifelong friend carried at least two guns on his person at all times as well.

"Damn, Scotty," Chris put his gun away, gave his normally quiet neighborhood a once over and followed his guest inside. "What are you doing here?"

Scotty had stopped after he broke the threshold...failing to find an adequate place to rest his weary dogs. He finally gave it up, pushed his hands down into his pockets and grinned at his host. "Oh, I guess I was in the neighborhood." Chris flipped the couch back over and both men sat down on it. "I hope you don't mind me coming by without calling. You never answer that damned cell of yours anyway."

Chris shifted his eyes...what he always did when he tried to lie. "Uh, I was just going out for a bit." I hadn't got any better at it. "I'm in a bit of a hurry."

Scotty gave the room a once over. "I see, Old Man, we are all in such a hurry these days. Oh, I miss the olden times."

"Look, Scotty—"

Scotty's gaze turned serious and focused. "I had the feeling that you could probably use some moral support right now."

"Yea," Chris finally admitted after a moment. "Yea, you're probably right. You should excuse my manners. My father taught me better than this."

"Yes, he did," Scotty's smile was as warm as a summer's day. "And we won't mention anything else about it, Old Man. And I always thought this place could use some redecorating anyhow. It looks that you took my advice quite literary."

Chris leaned back on the couch, settling in. "Since I was little boy, I've never known you to ever do anything at random. You don't live nearby, yet you walked over here this time of the night to speak to me. I think you used that time to think long and hard about what you wanted to say to me. I'm here, Scotty. You have my attention. What do you want?"

"I want what I always want, Old Man?"

"I'm not in the mood to solve one of your puzzles, Scotty, not tonight. Spit it out."

"Alright," He rested his arms on his knees. "I loved your father like the brother that I never had. You know that I chose never to marry. There won't be any little Scotties running around the streets of Atlanta anytime soon. You and your brother Xavier are all the family that I know, all the family that I will ever know." He looked to the ceiling and then found Chris' eyes once again. "The love that I had for your father produced a pack that I hoped I have honored. I gave him my word that if anything ever happened to him that I would watch over the two things that he cherished more than anything in the world."

"I imagined that either one of us have made that an easy promise to keep."

"You imagine correctly, Old Man." If Scotty's smile was a summer day, then his laugh was the thunderstorm on a summer's evening. And then just as suddenly his look went deadly serious. "A storm's coming." He said and on cue the wind howled outside of Chris' front window. "This storm is going to threaten to sweep both you and Xavier in its wake. And look at me...I'm an old man now, I don't know how much longer that I will be able to keep my word to your father."

"It's not your fault." Chris pointed at the panel continuing to offer muted words on his television. "And you are wrong about one thing, my friend, the storm is already here."

Scotty stood up, straightened his jacket out, and pointed at the screen. "You think that I'm talking to you about these tall tales and fables that have been perpetrated against you by a second tier reporter on a modern day which hunt?" He circled the room and came back to he was originally standing. "That was an illusion of truth, Christopher. I am talking about real truth; the type of earthshaking truth that Thomas Pepper claims that follows him around. You are on the cusp of learning a truth so wondrous...and yet, so very tragic, that you will never look at the opposite sides of the same coin the same ever again."

Scotty took two long strides, stepped over some more debris and opened the front door.

"Why won't you tell me?" Chris asked his father's dear friend. "Why didn't you tell me before now?"

Scotty held the door handle but offered no explanation and no other movement for a very long time. He finally opened the door and the stench of burning brush rushed into Chris' living room. "Because I gave my word, Christopher," Scotty offered as if his explanation made all of the sense in the world. "Pepper aided somewhat in answering the three questions that every Person of Color in this country wanted to know...I will tell you that the one question that you've asked yourself your entire life is soon to be answered." He walked outside of the door and looked in Chris direction one final time. "All of your adult life you've dreaded the lies about your past would come back to destroy you...when it has been the truth all along that may be the most damning. You will need to be strong."

And Benjamin Scott walked away and took Chris' truth with him.

# Roxanne

She slapped Chris across his cheek.

He said: "What are you doing, Roxanne?"

What was she doing? "I'll ask the questions here. Who are you Chris Prince?" She threw a series of blows that he fended off with relative ease. "What kind of man are you? What kind of man?"

She unleashed another volley of rabbit punches, slaps and when those failed to connect she clawed at his face with her fingernails. In the end she could not have said how many punches landed. She could not say if she'd wounded anything more than the man's pride.

Roxanne only knew that she was only faintly aware of the half a dozen or so patrons seated in Walter's Bar and Tavern where she had found Chris about four blocks from his home.

Chris finally caught hold to one of her wrist and pulled her close enough to him for her to smell his breath. Smartly, he guarded his family jewels and pushed aside one girlish trick after the other as if it were child's play.

His mouth was near her ear. "One of the local papers dug up Erica's phony accusations against me. That's all they were, Roxanne...accusations. The FBI was aware of them, investigated, cleared me of all wrong doing and dismissed it." He got real close and sneered in her ear. "I think that you should do the same."

Roxanne tried one final sucker punch when he released her...but he blocked it, reversed their positions in an instant and pinned her against the bar's counter. The bar's owner looked half amused half nervous about what he was seeing, but hadn't acted as if he were going to call the law, yet.

"I should have known something shady was going on," Roxanne said, trying to work her arms and torso from Chris 'clutches. So this is how we spend our first date, Chris. I know that you are somewhere below the border laughing at me, Victor. She felt her arms...all of her tiring. "When I first saw you in the park and told you that your step daughter had gone missing...you acted the part of a cold fish."

"Well, now you know why. And anyway, Erica had always been trouble. I wasn't surprised that the possibility existed that she'd put herself in a position to get herself killed."

Chris released her with a warning glance that said: No more, Roxanne. He turned back to whatever he was drinking and slid the miniature glass down to the bartender for a refill.

Roxanne said: "Are you saying that the young woman that you helped raise deserved to die? Are you telling me that she had earned that bullet lodged in her brain after nearly being strangled?"

"No...of course not, Roxanne," Chris sat down. "But I refuse to be one of those parents who get in front of the TV cameras after my child is killed denying any knowledge of their child's despicable activities. Erica lived a reckless lifestyle. She pissed on and pissed off a lot of the wrong people. It was bound to eventually catch up with her."

"She was young, Chris. People her age make mistakes."

"They do. Erica was vindictive and manipulative...and not without a hell of a lot of effort trying." The bartender slid the brown colored alcoholic drink back towards his customer. It took two swallows for Chris to get it down. And the frown etched on his face, immediately told Roxanne that had little to no experience with alcohol. Men and their vices, She had such high hopes that he was above such trivialities.

"I didn't know that you were a drinker."

"I didn't either," He spun around in his chair to face her. "I promised myself to never touch this stuff. I made it all the way until tonight before I finally broke that promise. My whole life has been about maintaining control. I've watched Xavier teeter on the edge of losing it because of it. But I didn't pester him. I let him find his own way. We both needed to after what happened to the old man. You see, Roxanne, the great and reviled Isaac Prince was taken from his beloved sons by a drunk driver. The man who killed him was three times over the legal limit when his car crashed into my dad's. He had scotch and soda...ginger ale in his system at the detox."

"So that's why you all ways drink the ginger ale. It was your way of honoring you father's memory, yet never forgetting that alcohol had forced someone else to lose their control."

Chris nodded but held his finger up summoning another drink all the same.

He said: "And where in the hell do you come off judging me anyway. I found out about the questionable methods you used to find your way to Carver. You threatened people. You assaulted two others specifically. Councilwoman Vanessa Davis is far from a saint, but the woman deserved better than to be nearly tortured by you in her own home."

In her mind's eye, Roxanne could see how that entire episode played out. But who dared argue her results was either a liar or a fool. She hoped that Chris Prince was neither. "I did what I had to do...no matter the ills that Erica Lovings was involved in while she lived; she deserved to be treated with some respect and dignity after she died. From the moment Denise hired me...I knew that she was dead. I can't tell you how, but I knew. It didn't change the fact that I wanted her found as if she were going to walk through your ex-wife's door with me. So if I took a few liberties to gain information to her possible whereabouts, so be it."

"So because you don't wear a badge and don't have to answer to any authority figures, you feel that you don't have to show...restraint."

"I did what I had to do, Chris."

"You crossed the line, Roxanne."

"You're insane, Chris." She said. "And what's worse is that you are clueless. You're a member of that Mickey Mouse Club called the FBI and you think that know everything about law enforcement and investigation. And don't try to tell me again about how I should handle my business. You don't know what you're talking about. You don't having a fucking clue what I've been though."

The bar grew very quiet after Roxanne had finished her tirade at last. Roxanne felt her temples throbbing and she could feel her pulse racing in her ears.

"I understand a lot more than you might think." Chris said.

Roxanne didn't want to understand. In the deepest depths of her mind she knew that was being said on the TV about Chris wasn't true. Yet, she wanted to be angry. She wanted to be argumentative. She was a little hurt. That's all she ever the emotions she seemed to know...anger and hurt.

"Do you understand that Carver would have gone a lot smoother for me if your brother hadn't decided to wage his own private war campaign in there? It was just a matter of time and the Choir Boys would have been ousted. I had to get the information about Erica before her trail went cold."

"Who doesn't have the clue now? Roxanne. You want to talk about limited windows of opportunity, well Xavier saw an opportunity to liberate those residents and he did do. No one gives a damn about the tenants trying to raise their families in that hell hole."

"But you do care?"

"I do. My status as a FBI Agent causes me to mute a lot of what I say about what goes on in Black communities. But I am sick to death of hearing these same neighborhoods talk about our problems as a people...single mothers, guns, drugs and the lack of employment opportunities among the ever growing list of difficulties. I know Xavier has performed well as the One. But I can't help but think that we've missed some openings to make things better for People of Color. Like I said, I am sick to death of talk." He said and rubbed his forehead. "Everyone is interested in talk because the very nature of it is simple enough. I want to see someone be proactive. Solving problems is a lot more difficult than just talking about solving them. When it came to Carver, my brother and his people solved a problem. I'm interested in resolving problems as well. I'm a licensed protector of this community...or at least I was."

Was...Roxanne wondered what else had happened to Chris since Denise's burial.

"What if what the Peacekeepers accomplished in there was nothing but a temporary solution?"

"Maybe it will turn out to be a fact, though I highly doubt it." Chris downed another shot and his eyes lost much of their focus. "Maybe you are right, Roxanne, maybe the drugs and the drug runners will return. But I believe that when you ignite the light of hope...sometimes that hope burns a lifetime."

"You believe that."

"Yes, I do." Chris said. "How did you find me anyway?"

Roxanne exhaled. "An old friend of your father promised him that he'd watch over the two things that were most precious to him. He said that you and your brother, Xavier, are making that increasingly difficult on him as he gets older." Roxanne showed Chris Benjamin Scott's picture next to his number on her phone. "He asked if I could lend him a hand tonight."

"Scotty did that huh?"

"Yea, he did." Roxanne nodded. They both took in the quiet moment. The others in the bar had gone back to their own conversations and their drinks. The bartender looked even more relaxed and assured that he won't need to call his insurance carriers tonight. He offered her one on the house tab. Roxanne blew the old bartender a kiss but kindly shook her head no to his gracious offer.

Chris rose to his feet suddenly...and kissed her deeply.

Roxanne returned his kiss in full.

"I know for sure that I killed at least one of the Peacekeepers at Carver." The confession came from her suddenly and without preamble. "Councilwoman Davis, Carver, I did it...I did all of it for you, Chris." Roxanne said in a voice that was nearly a whisper.

Chris rested his forehead against hers. She could feel him nodding and muttering something under his breath. "I have to go," She finally heard say aloud enough for her to hear. "I'm falling in love with you, Roxanne."

Roxanne heard the bar door shut behind him after he left. Roxanne wanted to move but she could not. She wanted to wake herself out of this dream but could not accomplish that either. This is a nightmare. The bartender leaned his elbows on his counter and flashed a mouthful of his rotten teeth at her.

He told her congratulations and that he had seen stranger things in his time.

"Then I was right about you all along, Chris." Roxanne mutters almost to herself in the spot that the man of her dreams had just vacated. "You are insane, Chris. If you are truly falling in love with me then I have to ask you this question: How could you love a monster?"

# Xavier

There had been a flurry of venomous activity heightening already enflamed racial tensions since Thomas Pepper's announcement.

Four female young women of color beat their white classmate to death outside the victim's dorm room in what local authorities called an unprovoked attack. There had been a SUV full of Black teenagers shot at by a middle aged White man over loud music and the threat of violence from the young men parked next to him in front of a convenience store. Two different lethal shooting incidents between White police officers and young Black men were making second page headlines as well.

Three Admirals in the Peacekeepers had informed Xavier Prince that another of Atlanta's missing children had been found safely. Unfortunately, those reports had proven erroneous. A group of the Peacekeepers themselves had been fired upon in a drive by shooting that had left one member dead and two others in serious condition. Witnesses believed that it was car load of the Choir Boys using the aged tactics to strike back at a House in Chains for all they had lost at Carver. And finally last night, a Pandora sympathizer physically attacked Warren Washington outside a NAACP convention downtown. The Circle member successfully fought off his attacker and eventually killed him with his own butcher knife.

Warren and Quincy Morgan briefed Xavier on how and where they disposed of the man's body. The One had been spending an evening out with Grace Edwards that might have turned into one that was in if not for the late night cell phone call from Percy telling them what happened.

They had been meeting here on Broad Street at Five Points for a bit over an hour when Xavier finally said to others gathered together with him: "How do you respond to insanity?"

To his mild surprise none of his Circle responded immediately. Quincy grinned as he knew the obvious answer but tossed his penny once and again without speaking. Warren shifted his one good eye—the other one covered with an eye patch. The ex-athlete had killed his attacker, but the engagement may have cost his at least partial sight in his left eye. Percy stroked his bald head, but hadn't looked up yet. Grace flipped the page of the notes she was taking.

Finally, Warren sat all the way up and said aloud: "I'm not sure I understand the context of your question, Number One."

"Then you should break the question down to its base...to its lowest common denominator." He said without anger. "It's a simple question, guys. Don't overcomplicate this. We are a Circle. My father asked those who served under him the same question many years ago—in this room." Xavier stood up. "How do you answer insanity?"

Percy stopped rubbing in his head, but still didn't meet any of the other's eyes. "You meet it with equal insanity."

Xavier pointed proudly to where his Number Four was sitting. He thought they, the other members of his Circle knew the answer, but Percy showed the courage to answer him...even if he had been wrong.

"Yes, equal insanity it our only option now," He nodded as he said it. "Yes, I think it is time."

Grace dropped her pen on top of her notes and looked over her eyeglasses at him. "Are you proposing what I think you are, sir?"

"I am."

"Scar," Quincy flipped the penny high into the air and snatched it out with a smile.

"Oh my, God," Percy found the crease he'd rubbed into his head and began caressing it again.

"Scar," Xavier had said again for himself and for Warren in case he'd somehow had missed it. "Grace, I want you to contact your sources within the press and leak it that I have an announcement for 12 A M. I specifically want the fact of an announcement itself and what time it will be to be a guarded secret...at least for now." He rolled up his cuff and checked his watch. "It's 8 P M now. I don't want the media to get wind of this until around 10. I want plenty of speculation...and buzz we can generate to happen in a very short controlled burst."

Warren stared at him with his one good eye. "Are you sure about this?"

Xavier flashed the man his hardest glare. He pulled a toothpick from his stash and stuck it in his mouth. "At midnight, I will announce that our House in Chains will give the authorities 24 hours from that point in time to return the 5 remaining children to their families. A former Circle member solicited Thomas Pepper's services and he had provided us with all of the intelligence and hard evidence we need to justify our response. I'm done sitting around waiting on Pandora. It is time for us to take the offensive against our enemies."

Percy looked as if he had a question lodged in his eyes. "Xavier, what if the children are found before tribulation's hour is unleashed but they...but they are found in less than ideal conditions."

Xavier shifted his weight from one leg to the other. "Give us an example Percy."

Grace spoke up instead. "What if we find that any of them have been beaten...or that they've been sexually abused?"

"Your afforded mentioned conditions are unacceptable to me, Grace," He gave the room a once over. "They are unacceptable to our Circle."

"Here is another scenario," Quincy stopped tossing his coin long enough to pose his question. "We have somehow retrieved the children into our care, but one or more of them die from one aspect or another from their ordeal—"

"That is unacceptable to us as well."

"We do want these children returned alive." Grace kept her tone respectful, but serious. "Our first goal is to bring these children home alive to their families...sir."

He nodded after a moment of muted thought. "Of course I want them back alive," He said if any other thought on the matter was ridiculous. "But I want them to be left unharmed physically. It will already take these boys decade to mentally store away what they have already been through. I'm not unreasonable, Grace...not yet anyway, but we will demand more from the authorities in compensation if the children are returned in anything less than ideal condition."

Grace returned to writing her notes, satisfied with her leader's reasoning. Scar was something that could not be undone...once it was started.

Quincy Morgan looked intrigued with the idea of compensation. "What do you have in mind as a payment, Number One?"

"It is more in line of who I have in mind." Xavier replied.

"Alright," Warren said. "I'll take a stab at that one...Hugh Keaton in the flesh, or Danielle Rohm would be an early Christmas present."

Xavier nodded. The Circle was getting at the core of his thought process at last. "Those two would be nice for starters," He put his hands on the table in front of all of them. "I was thinking along the lines of finding out the identity of this Caretaker."

Quincy laughed.

"Did I say something funny?"

"I wish you were, Number One." Quincy tossed his penny up a single time. "You were correct when you mentioned insanity during this entire presentation of yours. Serena will never give you or anyone else that man's identity while she lives. If Scar is what you truly want out there...you are guaranteeing yourself that it will come about asking that question right there."

"So will you carry out my orders, Quincy?" The One had been surprised and a little disappointed that his Number Two hadn't questioned him further in matters of state concerning the incursion of Carver. "A few days ago you questioned my decision to go into armed conflict with the Choir Boys to take Carver back."

It was Quincy's turn to look to all the others. He slowly got to his feet. "I am prepared...and most willing to carry your orders to the letter if you can do one thing, Number One."

"And what is that?"

"I haven't always agreed with you or your methodology that controls your decision making. But I know one thing that is for certain: You are not a liar, Xavier. You have never done so the members of this Circle. I don't think that you know how to do so. I'm going to ask you to look me in my eyes and tell me that this decision on Scar has nothing do with what has been said about your brother Chris." Quincy put his penny away. "Scar is the nuclear option. Once it is unleashed, most of the responsibility and most of the burden of the operation falls on my shoulders. I can live with that. I can also live with the consequences and the scrutiny that is sure to follow...the eternal scrutiny."

"And so you think that I haven't thought this all the way through?"

"What I think, Number One is this," Quincy cast a large lean silhouette over his leader. "I think that Lucy Burgess untimely revelations about your older brother carry the potential to cloud every decision you are making in the short term."

Xavier swung his head around. "Do the rest of you share Quincy's fears?" Xavier waited semi patiently for answers. When no one spoke he answered his own question by asking: "Do any of you believe that I have the capacity to exercise better judgment about such a lethal matter without me casting emotion out of the equation.

Percy spoke up first. "You've never given us a reason to doubt your motives before, sir," He stood up. "I support this decision with every fiber in my being."

Warren shifted his one good eye back from Quincy to Chris. "Things change, Percy...people change, especially under the strain that our One has been under. Quincy's concerns...are my concerns."

Xavier inhaled deeply. He knew there would be resistance from these two but...what if one of the others failed to support his call to action. "Alright, I tell you again...we are governing a House in Chains in a civil manner the way my father once did. It may even be more so that way now. The Circle of Five was initiated by me so that I could not rule our House as an absolute authority with the four of you impotent to challenge my rulings on any matter. The next leader of this house may choose to rescind the privileges that Circle enjoys and become an absolute ruler like my father was. I believe that a majority rules." He sat on the table and folded his arms. "I have heard from Percy and it verifies to me that we have two votes for unleashing Scar is our conditions aren't made by the Zero Hour we impose on Pandora. We also have two voices against the offer as I've presented it." He spoke to Grace Edwards without looking at her. "Your vote, once again, is the tiebreaker, Grace."

Grace methodically removed her eyeglasses and laid them flat against her notes. When she looked up she'd found four sets of male eyes locked on her as if she were sitting there nude. Xavier felt for the position he had put this woman, for he was beginning to have true feelings for, the terrible burden he was lying at her feet. And how will these feelings in their infancy stages change if you vote against me, Grace? Xavier Prince thought back to what he had asked his brother Chris in that stinky bathroom after Denise Lovings' funeral. He knew that he was going to lose a part of her no matter how she voted. If she mouthed a no the change would be obvious.

And if she had voted with her leader, Grace Edwards would watch her deadly plan roll out for the entire world to witness. Society as a whole would condemn Scar and all of the lives, on both sides, for which it claimed. And what the Circle itself would see when it visualized the future—

Grace voiced her support for unleashing Scar.

Four hours later, Xavier Prince concluded his short speech on the grounds outside the Fox Theatre by saying: "...I can't answer all of the questions to how we exactly got to this point. What has happened over the past hours, the past weeks and through all of the years has brought People of Color and all of our enemies to the brink of conflict. What has been perpetrated against our people is unforgivable. Yet, the Circle has considered every alternative. I can only best give my best answer to the most rotten choice of scenarios. And I know that someone once told me to stand on the side of what is righteous and true. If civic authority fails us, then 24 hours from now we will all learn how righteous our cause really and truly is. We will teach Atlanta. Our nation will learn this lesson. The whole world will be educated."

Xavier Prince looked out over the crowd of well over 10,000 people strong who had attended to hear his words in person. "Brothers and sisters, what do you see when you visualize our people's future?"

The crowd, slightly disjointed in their response, but powerfully all the same said back to him: "We see nights filled with misery and pain."

This reply grew louder...and louder...and louder still.

Xavier began to stomp where he had once stood still.

And 10,000 People of Color stomped with him.

# Serena

She watched the flames rise in front of her as the night of the vipers rolled on.

Xavier Prince appeared first. He casted a silhouette of pride and insolence that even his burning would not destroy. She could smell the charred flesh of a dead child charred and blackened to the bone. The sound of Rohm's gun firing a round into the back of the head of one of the agents who had betrayed her...betrayed Caretaker's vision caused the embers to pop and flicker in anticipation.

The flames suddenly swooped up, chastising Serena Tennyson like a child who'd gone astray. Xavier was still standing and had cemented his otherwise feeble frame against her will. Where did I go wrong? Caretaker had once told her to be happy that it was the younger Prince Brother she was facing and not Chris. He had said that Xavier would fold as the stakes grew.

Perhaps they both had misjudged him.

Could even her great mentor been wrong—

"Hey there, Serena, I'm sorry to disturb you." Rohm had eased up behind her without the older woman knowing. Tonight, the baby faced assassin was dressed...as she dressed every night before. Tonight her black outfit almost looked oblique on her body. "I thought that you could use the company." She must have seen something in Serena's eyes. "Perhaps I was wrong."

"Rohm," Serena surprised herself by reaching out for the other woman's hand. "Danielle...I'd like you to stay. Your company would be appreciated. Today has been the longest of days."

Rohm squeezed both of Serena's hands with her own.

"I'm here for you, Serena. You can talk to me. You can trust me."

"Trust has never come easy for me. I have my faith...my flames...and little else."

"You are our leader. All great leaders share the same similar path of isolation and loneliness. I know that you have to measure every decision you make with so much thought and care. You have some of the same responsibilities that our Savior did."

Serena nodded once. She was no closer to believing in Rohm's god or any other tall tales or superstitions, but some things were better yet unsaid. Since the day that her father voluntarily sacrificed himself and her mother to the flames, Serena had known nothing else but the Dragon's way.

And what she saw...who she'd seen in Memphis had certified all of her faith and personal sacrifices as well. All of the others were fools. I am the only one blessed with an unshakable sense of purpose and resolve to see these last days to their end.

Rohm was asking her a question for the second time. "I asked you what you saw." The Dragon's flame reflected in the young woman's eyes. Serena shifted her weight. There is much reflection of the flames in your eyes, Rohm. Shooter was full of fire no doubt. There is much reflection...much fire...but little understanding.

Serena still wished that Rohm had been her—

"I see order." Serena said aloud. There would be time for all the reflection she could stand after Xavier and his brood was put out of her misery. "On the horizon, behind all of the uncertainty and ciaos we are sure to face, I see the gift of order as a reward for our work and resilience."

"That sounds like wonderful news, Serena. Yet, you seem sad somehow."

Serena said: "The order that I seek...that the Dragon commands, usually comes at the highest price. I had hoped to avoid having to unleash the full wraith of the Whirlwind. I'm begging you to surrender, Xavier. Your people will never be seeing life the same after the Dragon's version of Armageddon. Serena wondered if Rohm could see the fear etched on her face as well. Your people won't survive the Whirlwind that others have planned for you.

"The hour grows late. The opportunities grow faint and unlikely that we will be able to contain the Dragon's wraith much longer. The Whirlwind is coming, Rohm. And sooner than any of us had anticipated."

"Will we all burn, Serena?"

Serena shook her head. She could not expect a nonbeliever to totally understand the inner workings of something so extraordinary. "The Dragon comes to feast, Danielle. Eventually, we all are given to the flames."

She felt a chill in her shoulder blades in spite of standing here directly in the path of warmth and graciousness. "Tell me, Rohm, did you feel any sorrow or remorse when you killed Thomas Pepper's maid a few weeks ago?"

"I guess that I could best describe my feelings best as an indifference," Rohm told her. "Until I joined this organization...until I met you, killing was nothing more than a job to be executed as efficiently and quickly as I could squeeze the trigger."

"And now," Serena asked. "You looked specifically at me when I ordered you to execute the second man we discovered had a hand in aiding the traitor in the hostage's escape attempt. I saw an expression of hardened resolve on your face as you blew the man's brains out of the back of his head from point blank range."

Rohm's thin eyebrows rose and she smiled. "I consciously hadn't realized I was doing that. Like I've said before, Serena, I've changed my outlook over the past few months. I believe in you. There isn't much that I wouldn't do for you."

"And if I ordered you to kill all of the remaining children, tonight, while they slept?"

Rohm didn't hesitate. "I would feel as if I was doing God's work. As long as I believe in you..."

"You believe it to be God's work?"

Rohm smiled again. "Why do you act so surprised, Serena? I believe you to be a modern day Prophet. I believe this with all of my heart and soul." Danielle Rohm grabbed Serena's hands once again and gave them another squeeze. "You've gone far and beyond what any reasonable person would do to maintain the peace between Pandora and...them. You were captured. You were nearly...you could have been seriously hurt. And yet, Xavier Prince has pushed his people to the brink of disaster...while spitting on your graciousness. Just look at how he dared to threaten you with a timetable for you to release these children to authorities. Who the hell does he think he is? I'll tell you...he alone is a threat to everything that is good, honorable, and holy in this world."

"And if I ask you to eliminate Xavier as that threat?"

"I would only ask you why you failed to honor me with that task at an earlier date."

Pilot said: "Let's hope that particular course of action won't be necessary at this point." Either woman had heard him enter. How long have you been standing there? My sense of awareness has been poor to say the least since my return from the bureau's custody.

Pilot...Raymond Rice, Deputy Director of the FBI, looked as if he were carrying suitcases under his eyes. He also looked and—smelled as if he'd aged 20 years over the past three weeks. Serena knew that carrying on this charade as the leader of the FBI had taken a toll on him. One of Thomas Pepper's main source of information for his reports—her had provided him proof that Pilot and Rice were one and the same.

Serena told herself over and again that she did it to test him. Caretaker had picked this man...even over her...to lead Pandora from the shadows in the days before his death.

And yet, Serena knew that Thomas wasn't the only one involved in all of this interested in truth. The truth of the matter is that Rice had not told her the real deal behind Adolphus Sweet's assignation attempt. He didn't tell her about the connection between Sweet and Ernestine Johnson.

And he damned sure failed to tell her about what his version of the Whirlwind consisted of.

She was not above the pettiness that could engulf the most reasonable of human beings.

She had betrayed his identity to Thomas Pepper because he had betrayed Caretaker, Pandora and her first.

He was saying: "To murder Prince now would martyr him. We don't need more distractions do we, Serena?"

"I'm prepared to keep all avenues and options open at the moment."

Rohm must have detected the icy tones that this conversation was rapidly falling into. "You two must have hundreds of items to discuss. I should go."

"No, you should stay," Serena said to Shooter, but never took her eye off of Pilot. "Caretaker wouldn't seal any option no matter how bleak the operation looked over the horizon. He wouldn't panic and neither should we. I recommend that we stay the course that we outlined from the onset."

"Do I need to remind you that your precious Caretaker indeed panicked? When Xavier Prince saw his brother Chris passing the family's house, he stopped him from going back. Caretaker not only had those children killed—he cut their throats himself."

"It was a dastardly act, I agree," Serena said carefully. "But he took all of the responsibility for his failure and depended on no one else to do what had to be done." Just like my father had.

"And who will take the responsibility for two of your own Pandora agents betraying you, Serena. So far we have one child nearly killed and another missing. That first child tried to commit suicide. And that maniac of yours molested one of those boys before it we gave him permission to." Rice said. "And somehow Pepper got the lowdown on my identity, so I'm out of the game. So don't lecture about any of this, Serena. I want you to remember that any action against Xavier Prince unifies everyone against us."

Rohm chimed in: "We can still prevail."

Serena reached into her purse and pulled a compact disk from out of it. The CD reflected against the fire. "We will prevail."

Rice studied the disk at her fingertips and exhaled audibly. "You made the recording."

"I did, before we even launched the 411 attacks." She replied, careful not to smudge the disk with her fingerprints. "I've always considered this as a fallback position, sir."

Rice asked for the disk and she gave it to him freely. She had dozens of other copies if she needed them. He played it on the player sitting on the desk nearest him as she knew he would. Serena had worked with some of Pandora's most talented electronic people to edit the content to get everyone up to current events and cleaned up the audio as well.

The production opens dramatically and to the point by revealing the true identity of the Caretaker, which everyone in this room knew would take the starch out of the opposition. And those who are angered are subject to errors in thinking and judgment.

Soon after, it revealed a firestorm of detonating pipe bombs and other various explosives on the city of Atlanta—her Whirlwind.

Later on it showed in detail, Pandora's involvement in the initial Atlanta Child Murders. A voice over explained how Pandora was heavily influenced by Muhammad Clark's activities in the months before their operation began.

Serena told Rice after he had finished watching that she planned to give the CD to Xavier Prince in exchange for his word that he would surrender himself and the Circle to them and disbanded the current version of a House in Chains.

A heavily edited version of the disk was to show the first round of kidnappings 30 years ago and the ultimate firestorm of the Whirlwind that was still to be released on the general public. Raymond Rice listened to her in vested silence before he handed the CD back to her. "We've proven our point, Serena. More importantly, we've proven that our cause if just and fair. There are millions of lives at stake from sea to shining sea if this escalates anymore. We have reached an impasse. This far and no further, Serena, I mean it."

"Of course," She said, taking the disc and storing it into safe keeping. His actions tonight had proven a dozen of her theories. He does not know that I am the source of Thomas' information. He is playing the role of a peace lover, but he knows his call for inaction will enable Xavier to act...and then Raymond Rice will unleash his version of the Whirlwind on People of Color.

And you will die, Xavier Prince.

You and all of People of Color everywhere will die.

Serena shook her head.

To what...she could not say. "My plan leaves the most important decisions to them. I think that you fail to see that our adversaries have been seduced by a calling that he does not have the will or means to finish."

"On that we agree," Ryan nodded his head. "And you've taken bold steps before."

Serena felt her head shaking again. "They were necessary steps and this time is no different. My plan gives Xavier his victory. Our price includes that he will have to surrender himself and all he finds precious to have it."

"Everything that has come before, even when Keaton snatched Chris Prince and all those other boys the first time is a campfire in comparison to what we are facing now, Serena. There would be no backing down, any retraction."

Serena said: "I think my plan is the correct way to proceed. I won't let you down, sir. I won't let the Caretaker down."

Rice lowered his head. "We've already done that." He moved on to the other matters at hand. "I've been told that you and Rohm took care of the traitors at the sanctuary."

Rohm explained to him quickly and efficiently. She added that they were close to retrieving the Clifton boy when the APD lucked up and found him first. Rice asked them the next obvious question to whether either of them believed that their little paradise had been compromised.

Both agreed that it had not.

"Tell me about Keaton," Rice asked them. "To think that I've known the man for the better part of 30 years and yet I still don't know him; I got your text earlier about this transformation that he's undergone. You said that he is truly Hugh Keaton now. You think that the Louis persona, a far less intrusive personality has been pushed into a recessive state."

"I do," Serena was glad he understood her diagnosis the first time. "Dr. Hicks-Dupree conclusions, when she was with us, turned out to be on the money after all. She repeatedly said that the key to our investment reaching his full potential was to dig past the exoskeleton that Louis was. Louis turned out to be little more than a kindhearted boy who Keaton's uncle gave to his own version of the flames."

"Caretaker briefed me on some of the same suspicions many years ago." Ryan said. "But I would be cautious with him, even though it seems that you have him reined in. If I remember correctly, Angel warned you that a third persona, one that no one, including the doctor herself, could predict how it would behave or react to the stimuli that Keaton has been presented so far."

"I remember her words."

"I only want to know if you are still in control of this Hugh personality."

"I am."

"I'll hold you to that, Serena."

"I'm fully aware of my responsibilities to Pandora...and to you, sir."

"Now that I've been released from my own double life, I will be more engaged in what goes on during our operations moving forward. It starts right now. If and when you release this CD to a House in Chains, I expect hourly briefs from that point on."

"Yes, sir," Serena said.

As the former Deputy Director of the FBI spun to leave the flames behind them all seem more agitated than any time before. It's like hellfire. She'd caught the scent of freshly burning flesh as if it were roasting next to her. At first she thought, however foolishly, that it was the draft rushing in from the opening and closing of the hotel room's door.

And then for the briefest of an interlude, Serena wondered if Rohm could see what she saw as well. The gaze on the other woman's face must have been like the one she had when she first discovered the flames for herself shortly after her father sacrificed him and her mother to the Dragon.

"Oh my, God, Serena," Rohm said. "What has happened? I've never seen your flames react this way before. I don't understand what I'm seeing here. I want to but I can't."

"Quiet, Rohm,"

She went to the floor screaming at the top of her voice. Tears streamed down her face.

"Serena, are you alright?" Rohm asked her. "Are you hearing my voice? Can you tell me what is going on with you?"

After a moment the older woman said: "The Dragon is calling out to me like never before." She said through her tears. "She is warning me that this is my final chance to avert her scorching Atlanta again. This is my last chance to maintain order." Serena searched deeper...saw...him. "Why didn't I see it before, Rohm? Why didn't I see him before now?"

"Who are you talking about, Serena?" Rohm fell to her tears, wanted to be closer to her leader. "I want to be your right hand, the way you were his right hand...the Caretaker. Point me in the direction where I can be the most use to you."

Serena heard the younger woman, but all of her focus was on the flames...and the figure of a man who existed just behind the hellfire. "I've been so blind, Rohm? The answer to all my queries lies with him. I've only needed to pursue him all along.

"Well then, we will find him," Rohm said. "Xavier Prince will be dead within the hour if you wish it. A hundred of his Peacekeepers won't keep me from killing him." Rohm rose to her feet, but Serena grasped her by the wrist and then her elbow and denied her the opportunity to stand totally erect.

"No," Serena said and shook her head continually for emphasis. "Don't you see, Rohm, Xavier Prince is not the key to dousing the flames of the Dragon's Whirlwind. He never was."

"What?" Rohm looked dumbfounded, but that was alright. Serena Tennyson was the Oracle and yet she had not seen it for herself until moments earlier. "I've always thought that you believed that Xavier Prince was the key to staving off Armageddon...if he is not, then who is, Serena?"

Serena felt...a smile crease her thin lips through all of her tears.

Perhaps the Dragon wouldn't resurrect her flames on Atlanta after all.

Perhaps the Whirlwind would be avoided...and the end of all things not as terrible as they had all imagined it would be.

Perhaps they could all avoid being given to the flames.

"We must find the other Prince Brother and quickly, Rohm." Serena Tennyson said when she found her voice again at last. "I know now that Christopher Prince is the key to all of our salvations."

# Angel

"That son of a bitch must die." Special Agent Nicholas Sheridan said into the musty air that made up the main conference room of the Georgia Bureau of Investigations building in downtown Atlanta.

Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree heard another agent she'd met just a day earlier, Barry McTavish, slide his chair out from the table, get a cup of coffee and sit himself back into his seat. "Which one are you talking about, sir?" He asked.

"Both," Sheridan said without smiling to the dozen agents occupying the room of agents.

They all had watched both Xavier Prince's press conference from outside the Fox Theatre and examined the DVD production that Serena Tennyson had sent to the field office and the re airing of it on the evening news. The stress of the impending situation had taken its toll on everyone involved. The manhunt to find Atlanta's missing children was one of the largest in the history of the mainland. Angel herself had returned with one of the search parties led by Agent Blue empty handed. No one could ever say that the younger woman wasn't passionate about her work. Yet, Tabitha whispered to her that she had all but admitted defeat when it came to finding the remaining missing boys. Apparently, Serena had them safely tucked away in a little corner of the world where no one would find them—at least not alive.

Mathew Clifton was recovering nicely, however, and was nearing a release from the hospital. But either he truly didn't know or was choosing not to share any intimate details of his abduction. Angel had seen cases like his a thousand times before. He will come around. She thought. He'll be of help to the FBI but unfortunately not in enough time before A House in Chains' Zero Hour passes and all the consequences that arise from that.

So we have one Prince Brother causing trouble and the other in trouble.

Some of the agents standing here in this very room had complained to her about how Christopher had been treated by their superiors at the bureau. They said that an agent with his record and his years of service had deserved more benefit of the doubt. The bureau should have been more loyal to this man, especially considering how many former FBI agents were responsible for this mess they were in the first place.

Blue planted her hands on her hips, ever impatient. "What are your orders now, Agent Sheridan?"

"First, I want you to give every note, every lead you, the doctor and Agent Prince collected in your investigation of those crime scenes to Felder."

Angel took a step towards the man who looked as if he had German measles. She was sure that Sheridan would assign her to Felder and anyone else he assigned to the agent's team. Good enough, she thought, although he wasn't much of a conversationalist, he had proven to be more than competent in his duties. He had two degrees in the social sciences and it would help her that she wouldn't have to dumb her analyst when she articulated her opinions.

Felder asked: "And what else, sir?"

"And study the data they've accumulated and string together something...anything feasible so we can try to figure Keaton's next move. I want to know what that monster's thinking before he does. Get your team together. Thanks to our friends in the Circle, we have less than 24 hours left."

"Yes, sir,"

Sheridan then turned his attention to Agent Blue. "In speaking of a House in Chains, I'm placing you in charge of a task force responsible for finding the leaders of a House in Chains—the Circle." He said.

"Sir," Blue nodded but a question was forming on her face. "Even if we find them it won't be easy to acquire warrants for their arrest, it is a Sunday."

"Normally that would be an issue," Sheridan agreed with her. "But with me standing in as the acting deputy director, I've been on the phone with several judges already who have are prepared to help us anyway they can; even on a Sunday."

"Alright," Blue said. "Get warrants. Get something on the Circle. Bring them in. Check, check and check. I'm on it."

Sheridan then said: "Agent Dooley?"

"Serena Tennyson?"

"Serena Tennyson."

"I'll find her, sir."

The other agents in the room all seemed to be scrambling to gather their belongings ready to disembark in a half a dozen directions. Angel called out to Felder asking him to hold up a minute, she needed to fetch her personal belongings out of one of the briefing rooms.

"Agent Felder," Sheridan said. "You have your orders. We are on a tight time schedule. You are free to leave."

Angel made her way to in front of Sheridan was standing. "I don't understand. I thought my experience and expertise would serve you best by continuing to assist Felder in his investigation."

And as long as Angel lived, her redemption was possibly still at hand.

She was alive.

Sheridan took a deep breath. "Your services are no longer required, Doctor."

Angel felt a stab of pain in her chest.

"What?" She asked him. "Tell me you're not taking me off of this case, Goddamn you, Sheridan. I won't be dismissed by you when I can still make a difference."

"I am doing just that, Doctor." Sheridan stood at full height over her. "I'll remind you of what I told you when we first met back at that café in Macon. I was given an order to solicit your services. The man who issued that order has been ousted as the deputy director of this organization because he is a member of Pandora. Your presence in this investigation has always been a potential liability to me. Now with the truths that has already has been revealed to the world about Agent Prince and Serena Tennyson, two people you have had friendships with—"

"Don't do this to me, Nicholas."

She reminding him that she had been right about Serena's escape plans before Deliverance was initiated. She'd dissected the evidence in piecing together the crime scenes that Keaton or whoever had left behind for them to find. Her theories about Keaton and his transformations into something more were proving accurate.

She deserved the chance to see the rest of this to its end.

"And I won't dare disagree with any of your evaluations. You've been damned good." He said. "My question to you is what you can do for me now that justifies me jeopardizing what little credibility this agency has left."

Angel parted her thick lips to speak, but the words ran and hid at the back of her throat."

"Sheridan said instead: "Agent Reed?"

"Yes, sir," The last remaining agent who had dandruff flakes on the shoulders of his dress shirt stood up.

"You are personally in charge of watching over the doctor until I give you new orders that she can exit this building. I can't spare anyone else. She is to be treated with courtesy and respect, but at no time may she be allowed to leave this room without supervision."

Angel folded her arms and raised her eyebrows. "And if she does try to escape? What happens then Agent Sheridan?"

"Agent Reed, I want you to choose a non-lethal target on her body—and shoot her."

"Yes, sir,"

Sheridan seemed to exhale and turned to leave. He opened the door—

"You are making a grave mistake, Sheridan."

"You're right, Doctor." Sheridan said, but he glanced at his Rolex and not at her. "I probably am at that. What I do know for sure is that the world that I've known and loved is 20 some odd hours away from coming to a very bleak, a very tragic end. None of my formal training has prepared me for any of this the way that it has unfolded. I'm now down to doing nothing or doing what my gut instincts tells me. I'm choosing the best decisions that I can manage from the little I have to work with left. Dismissing Christopher Prince was my choice. Leaving you behind is another. Good bye, Doctor."

Thirty minutes later Angel found herself glaring at the pint of whiskey she'd taken out of her purse and placed on the coffee table in front of her.

She had her pistol out as well.

She'd given consideration to shooting Agent Reed, but had put that idea aside—at least for the moment. For now, she settled on dousing the lights and had stripped off her jacket and heels. She hid the pistol out of sight. Whatever Reed was doing, he hadn't interacted with her since Sheridan's exit and that was fine by her. She'd had her damned fill of the FBI and their protocols anyway.

Angel unscrewed the cap on the whiskey and the mere scent of it nearly overtook her. What do I have to loose now anyhow? She hadn't changed her ways and drunk during all her spare time away while here in Atlanta and served her duties well. She wasn't the one who let Christopher down. And where are you anyway? What had he gone through and more importantly—what solutions did he come up with since they'd spoken minutes after Lucy Burgess' announcement on live TV.

She threw the whiskey bottle at the window with her bottle taking the brunt of the contact and losing that battle. Agent reed stuck his head in the doorway and asked if she were okay? Angel told him to fuck off and keep all of his remaining questions to himself.

Why did she speak to that man like that?

Why did she have these streaks of virtual evil?

Why had she'd been so mean and distant to her husband Seth...

Most importantly, why in the hell would she shatter her last bottle of booze like that?

Angel crawled over to where the last of the liquor rested on the broken glass. Who knew how long she'd be locked in here with Reed? She wouldn't be able to leave and get any more liquor anytime soon. What was she thinking? What in the hell had she done?

Her eyes searched frantically from broken glass to broken glass looking from enough of it to quench her needs. Sucking it off of the carpet itself would be disgusting. It was expeditiously running down the cracked mirror like an animal trying to escape a predator—escape her. She stood quickly and started to snatch just a tiny bit with her tongue, but that would be so degrading, but she needed the hit so very badly...

She found a smooth spot on the glass and slid down it without cutting herself in the process. She sat on the floor for a long time and cried unlike she had in years. She remembered her husband again. You always broke first...you always cried first, Seth, that's why I never had to.

Seth.

Where was Seth?

For the first time since she left him in their bedroom, she wondered where her husband was and what he was doing.

She reached into her pocket book and called her husband on her cell phone. Seth didn't answer her call...

...he didn't answer her fifth either.

The pistol:

She'd stared down the furious fervor of death before. Others had tried to take her life.

And she had failed in an attempt herself.

It was a death by rights. If only she'd showed true courage and placed a shot in her temple during that attempt. Instead, she'd chosen the cowardly act of swallowing pills that left her only with a stomach ache and Seth to swoon over her for a week after.

She would not make that mistake again.

She grabbed the gun, opened the magazine to make sure each chamber had a bullet in it and stuck the barrel between her teeth.

She felt a little sorry for Agent Reed who'd have to hear the shot and discover her messy remains.

Although she'd tried to contact Seth a few minutes earlier, she was more indifferent about her husband's feelings. The other doctor in this relationship was a good man who deserved far better than the years that she'd given him.

As for Christopher...she'd miss her best friend most of all. He too had deserved better than her friendship. The explanation she'd given him about her suspicions about Keaton and Erica Lovings only scratched the surface of a very complicated...very complex relationship she had with the most wanted man in Atlanta.

Roxanne Sanchez had seen through it somehow—though through what extent Angel didn't know.

And I will never know.

Angel's cell phone rang.

She ignored it.

A tear ran down her cheek.

The cell phone rang again.

Delays, she thought, there are always delays when you have business with life and death.

Angel answered it without looking at who was calling her.

"Dr. Hicks-Dupree," A woman's voice. One that was not recognizable to her and barely audible. She sounded as if she had been crying. "Is this the Doctor?"

"It is," She said in her best professional voice. "I apologize to you madam. I'm not taking on any new patients in the near future."

"I don't know what you mean," The other said. "I told you people that my baby would return as he had. Mathew is safe, thank God. He's recovered somewhat from his escape from Pandora...

Angel sat up and put her gun down. The word going around the room a couple of hours ago was That Mathew Clifton had mended from a physical sense, but had been tightlipped ever since he had regained consciousness. Perhaps he was ready to step up and aid authorities in leading the FBI to the other children the way Christopher had done 30 years earlier. Angel's mind raced with all of the possibilities.

"It was a miracle, Mrs. Clifton. And it's one that can help the FBI perform more miracles in turn by paying it forward. There are more lives at stake. Your family may be able to help. Are you calling from home right now? I can send—"

"No, you won't be sending anyone over here." The other woman said in a frightened voice. "I'm taking all of my children and we are leaving the city tonight."

"You're leaving?"

"You heard me. We are Katrina survivors, Doctor." She said and Angel noted her Cajun accent for the first time. "I've learned that standing your ground when the levies are unstable and a killer storm is coming is the wrong thing to do. By this time tomorrow Atlanta is going to be a war zone. God has given me a second and third chance to get my family—all of my family out. I'm going to do just that."

"You are right about a war, Mrs. Clifton. The reappearance of Mathew may have stayed the inevitable off for a while longer. If he has something useful to say publicly, cooler heads may prevail and this confrontation may not happen at all." Angel tried to reason with her. "Listen to me, America needs to see your child alive and well to assure it that this has any chance of working out for the better. The FBI is still searching for the others. You may buy them valuable time—"

"I don't trust the FBI."

And no person of color probably should. "Then you should trust me. You called me, Mrs. Clifton? I'll be very blunt here: Deep down, you know that your family running away from all this is a death sentence for all of your friends and family that you leave behind."

Mrs. Clifton said nothing into the other end for a very long time. Angel used the absence of conversation to put on her jacket and shoes...hoping for the very best.

Her mind raced.

She had to convince this woman to stay here in the city somehow.

"What if I came to you?"

Angel knew that the idea would probably work better anyhow. It would save her time...save all of them time. "Would that be better for you?"

"No, it won't, Doctor." Mrs. Clifton replied just as bluntly. "You are asking me to risk everything I love on too many assumptions. I don't even know if that Serena woman is going to try and seek retribution against my family. And I've refused a House in Chains involvement because I believe their presence makes our situation worse not better." But before Angel could interrupt her, the other woman added: "I'll give you to dark, Doctor. No longer than that to reach me."

"I'll be there." Angel said and disconnected the line.

She checked the gun's chamber one last time.

She would prove to Nicholas Sheridan that his instructions could indeed be followed to the letter by her.

She would find a non-lethal spot on Agent Reed's body and shoot him...twice.

As long as Dr. Angel Hicks- Dupree lived...as long as she breathed, she knew that the possibility of her redemption was still at hand.

She was alive.

She opened the door to the where Agent Reed was reading through a magazine.

She was alive and this man was in the way of an appointment she had to keep.

# Seth

Atlanta residents were abandoning ship like rats on the sinking Titanic.

He was riding shotgun in a stolen car next to Roxanne Sanchez when he got his first intimate look out of the window as they drove past parts of the inner city. The eased through one neighborhood slow enough for him to hear one family praying as they held hands in the front yard. The oldest male figure was asking God to help those who conflict to turn away from their hostile ways.

A half a dozen shot gun houses had the grills out. Dr. Seth Dupree surmised that perhaps they were preparing themselves for a loss of power in the nest night or two.

Roxanne Sanchez drove on and looked ambivalent at best, her pistol resting on the seat between them. Seth could only remember the uncertainty in the days before Y2K and the weeks after 911 where people openly took preparations, awaiting disaster to befall them.

Another family was boarding up their windows. Two others were squeezing the last of their belongings into a minivan before hitting the road out of the danger zone.

He could see I75 up and to his right in the distance lined in both directions with unmoving cars.

The Zero Hour was nearing but the exodus had already begun.

This is serious, Seth's mind told him.

This is the calamity that your beloved wife helped create. Another voice said as an answer to the first one.

Seth had given up calling her and in fact he had finally ditched the phone before Roxanne had returned from her conversation she had with Christopher Prince at some bar on the other side of town. As for the phone, he never really cared for the things, but understood the need and use for them, especially in his profession.

The sweat was building on his brown, despite the cool night and the two of them riding with the front windows half way down. The wildfires were as ambivalent as the Latino woman sitting next to him. They rolled on.

And yet it wasn't every day that a man was riding to where his wife was with the thought of killing her rattling around in his brain. Well, perhaps he wasn't going to do the deed himself, but the curvy assassin dressed in tight black jeans was. Angel had hurt him so many times before. And she had disappointed him countless times more than that, his heart aching with the mere thought of it.

But it was her part of the events going on here—in real time that had caused him to consider such vile methods of dealing with her.

He remembered a specific conversation the two of them had about eight months ago. She had told him in confidence about Pandora's mandates. He remembered because it was one of the few times his wife had really opened up to him about anything really.

Angel had admitted to at least understanding this Caretaker's mandates—his words. She understood Serena's vision...even if she had not embraced the methodology she was willing to carry out to achieve all of her goals.

And Angel had told him that it was her professional desire to see Louis Keaton conquer all of his personal demons by any means necessary.

So did you train him to do...to do what he's done? Angel.

And could he train his own mind to accept the fact that she had to be stopped by any means necessary as well?

"Let me out."

"Relax, Doctor," Roxanne said without taking her eyes off of the road. "We're almost where I think she is—"

"Roxanne, I want out right now. I can't do this."

"Just sit back," Roxanne said, her voice growing impatient and testy.

Seth snatched the pistol off of the seat, pulled it out of the holder and had the barrel targeted between her dark eyes in seconds. "All I want from you is for you to pull this car over and let me out of it." He said to her. "I swear to you that I will kill you if you don't have us pulled over to the curve in the next ten seconds."

Roxanne toed the gas instead. "She doesn't deserve your loyalty."

"I know. She doesn't deserve my love either, but I still love her all the same."

"Look around you, Seth. All of this ciaos...all of this suffering and fear is directly linked to her. You're wife help create much of this mess that you see before you right now."

"I know that too, Roxanne." Seth focused on his breathing as Roxanne finally slowed the car and pulled over. "In a far more perfect world than the one you and I live in, she deserves to be judged by a jury of her peers...and eventually by a higher power."

"We're living in an imperfect world, Doctor."

"So very true," Seth nodded, but held on to her pistol anyway. "I don't think you are wrong about most of what you feel about Angel. I certainly can't control what you do after I'm out of this car. Still, I won't accept the added responsibility of murdering her without knowing all of the facts, Roxanne. I won't."

After the car came to a full stop Roxanne faced him down. "Well, I guess that means that you will have to kill me, Seth. I am willing to take on that responsibility that you mentioned. Someone has to stop her. I'm going to stop her once and for all."

Seth methodically unbuckled his seatbelt, got out of his seat and closed the door without taking his eyes off of the car's driver. He only had a passing familiarity with guns so he takes his time removing the clip from this one using the very techniques that this woman had taught him earlier in the day.

He sat the hardware back on the seat from which it came empty and tossed the clip into the backseat. He knew that she was probably armed with a smaller gun strapped to her ankle or something like they do in the movies, but he was willing to take the chance that she wouldn't kill him in cold blood, especially now that any threat he posed to her or her plans had been removed.

"This stuff is yours. I won't try and stop you." Seth let out a chuckle. "And my wife is pretty resourceful. I wouldn't count her headstones too quickly if I were you."

Seth began to back away from the vehicle.

Roxanne's face remained stoic. "Have you ever seen what a war looks like, Seth?"

"I'm a surgeon, Roxanne. I've treated many patients who have suffered gunshot wounds and knife induced trauma."

Roxanne sadly shook her head. "You're not answering my question." She looked at the neighborhoods that served as a perimeter around her car. And then she found his eyes again. "In a few hours this neighborhood and neighborhoods just like it across the city will be a hell on earth. I don't think you are prepared to see the ugliness in humanity manifest itself it right in your lap. Most people aren't."

"You're probably right again." He could visualize it all and it frightened him. "I'm a doctor, Roxanne. I can help. Somewhere I could be of assistance to someone in need. We are going to achieve unity as a community as a country. I still believe that."

"Then you are a fool."

"Maybe I am at that."

Seth turned to leave. If Roxanne chose to shoot him or run him over for that matter, so be it.

Instead, he heard her say: "She'll let you down in the end. The ones we love the most always do."

Seth twisted back around to face his wife's potential killer one last time. "She's my wife, Roxanne." He announced to her as if she already didn't know that as a legal fact. "My pack is gone. Everyone who I ever have loved is dead already. Angel's all that I have left."

"What about you, Doctor? What about your life?"

"What do you mean?"

The Gray man thought that he saw a flash of sadness flicker in her dark eyes. In all honesty he didn't know her well enough to tell.

"I mean that you won't survive the night out here. You won't live long past the Zero Hour once the unrest begins."

Seth surprised them both by...grinning.

"I'm tougher than you give me credit for, young lady."

"No you're not. None of us are."

And with her final statement Roxanne Sanchez spun her tires as she drove off. Seth watched her speed though the neighborhood until he could see the angry red of her taillights no more.

Would Roxanne carry out her threats against his wife?

Should he have stopped her?

Was Roxanne right about everything when it came to Angel?

The only answer that he had ready had been to the newest question forming in his thoughts: I am alone out here. What am I to do now?

You keep on keeping on, Gray man.

Yet, one block later he watched from behind a shed as three black men drug a white man out of his car at a stop sign and began beating him. They bashed his head with bricks and sticks and kicked at his lower extremities until the man was unable to defend himself further.

He took a single, giant step in their direction...to do what exactly when he arrived he could not say. He'd thrown away his cell phone and had no way of calling the cops to assist the fallen man.

The worse part of the altercation was watching another young black family cheering on the beat down as if they were at some type of sporting event.

It was if the world was a fabric that was ripping at the seams.

Everything that he though was good and wholesome about this country and more importantly its people was coming apart.

The little beacon of light that the rest of the world had both admired and begrudged about the greatest nation on the planet was soon to be doused by its people's citizen's blood on its streets.

I don't think you are prepared to see the ugliness in humanity manifest itself it right in your lap. Roxanne had told him just a short while ago. Most people aren't.

He'd been so naïve.

He'd been so encased in a box: He'd been sheltered from the real world's problems by hiding behind his work, his troubled marriage and the images and memories of his past.

He had dared utter the words unity to Roxanne.

And now he was seeing the much prophesized split in the country's unity happening before his very eyes, even before the Zero Hour dawned on the city.

So Dr. Seth Dupree didn't see the shadows rushing to approach him from behind until it was far too late—

He felt the crack upside the back of his head though.

And all of the light he knew in the world went out.

# Thomas

Where in the hell were these people taking him?

Four Peacekeepers had walked into Vera Café in south Atlanta, announced their presence and immediate intention to Thomas Pepper where he had been seated alone in a booth nearest the window, smacked him upside his head in front of the overflowing lunch crowd, blindfolded him and tossed him unceremoniously into the back of a car.

He'd felt the first tinge of anger bypass all of his fear when he could feel his elbows and knees burning from the bruising of being dragged across the floor of the café. It was still far too soon if he'd erred in contacting a friend of a friend of a friend of Grace Edwards to arrange a private meeting with the Circle. He had a get-together with this person serving as an initial contact at a local pub. She assured him that his message would be relayed through the proper channels. Thomas believed it came to pass because his life had gotten progressively worse ever since.

And now he had been manhandled and kidnapped.

He had grown hot during the transit. Perhaps his captors could tell because they ripped his jacket off of him. He let off a series of curses at that: That jacket had been expensive. Cursing at them had proven to be the latest in a long line of mistakes on his part. A rough pair of fingers worked a gag over his big mouth with duct tape before they pushed him to his feet.

Whatever the destination was...they'd appeared at long last to have reached it.

After three or four dozen steps he heard Grace Edward's voice telling him to calm down. She warned him against making trouble, especially here. He'd had asked for an audience with the Circle and that request had been granted. She instructed one of the Peacekeepers to remove the duct tape from his lips and the rough pair of fingers had returned and ripped the tape from his mouth. He had lost some skin from his lips and mouth from the deal but was otherwise unharmed.

Well, he was safe for at least for the moment.

Everything and everyone grew silent.

Thomas Pepper thought that they might kill him them, but someone pulled the hood off of his head instead. His eyes struggled to refocus themselves even in this compact room with the very low lighting it was offering. He tried to take in his surroundings as quickly as he could: The tallest and brightest skinned man in the room wore an eye patch but was otherwise instantly recognizable to him as Warren Washington, although Thomas never had called himself a sports fan. He knew the slender woman wearing braids as Grace Edwards of course. There were two other men and women who were dressed in Khaki suits, sneakers and donned in skeleton masks. They were members of the Peacekeepers no doubt.

Yet, seated directly in front of him, was a squat man whose eyes bared the stress that only the man who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders would know. Thomas had only seen Xavier Prince on television over the last couple of years. That much time and that much distance had caused him to forget what a small presence the other man ushered. But your legend grows with every passing minute doesn't it, Xavier?

The room seemed to only be lit by candles and the smell of incents only verified that conclusion to Thomas.

Xavier Prince sighed deeply. "You shouldn't have come here, Thomas."

Thomas caught the other man's meaning. The larger of the two men didn't have the luxury of time on his side so he got right to it. "You wouldn't have seen me any other way, One, and you wouldn't have admitted me if you weren't the least curious to what I had to say."

"Don't you think that you've said enough already."

"What was that?" Thomas stood at his full height. "What are you talking about?" He waved a thick, accusing finger at the Peacekeepers most likely responsible for bringing him here under heavy duress. "And where is all of this animosity being directed at me coming from anyway?"

"You haven't begun to know animosity from my people yet, Thomas."

Thomas took a step forward and halted his progress as quickly as his bulk allowed him to. Grace grabbed his left arm while two of the Peacekeepers trained their guns at his temple. Warren struck him across the back of his neck for all his troubles, putting him on his knees.

Thomas wanted to believe that the tears misting in his eyes were originating from the physical pain he was feeling. He spat blood on the floor. He gathered himself as quickly, as gracefully as his large frame allowed him, eventually picking himself up off of the floor. If Xavier ordered his Peacekeepers to kill him, he would be damned if he were doing anything but standing on his feet when he took his last breath.

"Have you forgotten that Mayor Johnson, a once valued member of your Circle, recruited me to answer the three questions that every Person of Color in this country wanted to know?" Thomas said to one and all who would listen. "I granted an honorable dying woman her wish to the best of my abilities." He glanced over his left shoulder to where Grace Edwards was standing. "You have the premiere intelligence operative in this hemisphere working for your House, but it was I who provided most of your information. Your Zero Hour would probably lack credibility without my investigation giving you and your cause the ammunition to impose such a threat on Pandora, the FBI and the general public as a whole."

"Thomas—"Xavier started to say.

"Grant a dying man his final words if you will," Thomas dared to interrupt a king in his own court. "You do plan to kill me don't you? That is the only endgame you have in store for me isn't it, Xavier? So far, all I've earned for my efforts is to be held hostage in my own home, threatened in every way imaginable by two deadly organizations, questioned and accused by the feds and now this."

Xavier sat back in his seat. "You have not been without choice, Thomas." Xavier laughed. "It's not as if anyone held a gun to your head."

Thomas took a cautious step closer. And then another. He stole as many small footsteps as a man who wore his large shoe size could manage without tripping over them. He felt someone shadowing his steps from behind—it was Warren.

"I've been used by all of you." He swung his arm around in an exaggerated half circle for effect. "I've been living in a path of daggers. A House in Chains and Pandora has both used me to gain sympathy for your causes."

"No, you haven't been used, Thomas." Xavier stood and surprised Thomas when he met him half way. "You've provided a valuable service to a nation who truly needed it. You've exposed all of the ugly truths for everyone who isn't still wearing blinders to finally see for themselves. No one in this country can deny that racism still exist here even after the election of a Black President into their White House."

"When you speak of truths, Xavier, you sound as if you're talking about something specific."

"I am, Thomas." Xavier nodded. "You helped remind everyone that Black people and White people in this country hate one another." He said and then lowered his voice. Thomas could smell the staleness of cigarettes on the man's breath. "Sure, we now live in some of the same neighborhoods, attend the same public schools and churches, serve the same Master...but underneath all of the courtesies, niceties, and good faith rhetoric, a deep seeded mistrust and hatred almost at the cellular level, still remains."

"Okay, Xavier," Thomas matched a House in Chains leader's low tone with one of his own. "So there is great work that remains, there are bridges to be gapped. We should all remember the words of great men like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—"

"I will, Thomas." Xavier replied and squeezed Thomas' sore shoulder with some affection. Whether it had merit or not, Thomas could not say. "I've memorized all of Dr. King's words and Malcom X's, I can recite all of the great words from all of the great men who have passed on to a better life than this one, including my own father."

"And what conclusion have you reached?"

"I've concluded that the 411 has been inevitable since the day Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. I realized that the Rooster was capable of the Rapture from the day Martin Luther King died from his gunshot wound. And I now know that the Zero Hour...Scar and the Whirlwind will descend on us all—"

"You mentioned your father," Thomas said. "Isaac Prince was indeed one of those great men like you spoke of before. He wouldn't have let this end this way. You have power, Xavier. I want you to put the past and a possible future aside for a moment and remember that you have influence of events happening right now. Don't give up, Xavier, don't you ever give up on your father's dream of peace and tolerance between our two peoples."

Xavier stepped towards Thomas—and straightened out his tie and brushed the dirt off of the shoulders of his shirt. "You should keep to the truth, Thomas; it is what you do well. You should leave Fantasy and Science Fiction to lesser writers. You've provided my House with truth. We won't forget that. Now go, Thomas, leave this place. You don't belong here."

Xavier showed him his back but the truth teller wasn't finished with his business yet. It took Warren and two other Peacekeepers to restrain him from running up on Xavier from behind."

"You never asked me why I asked to meet with the Circle." Thomas managed to say before the larger of the two Peacekeepers began working him over.

He saw Xavier glance at Grace, who looked as uncomfortable as she could look at that moment. He held up a hand and the latest beating stopped. The petite man pimped more than walked back to the spot where Thomas had fell to his knees.

Xavier stuck a toothpick in his mouth.

"Alright, Thomas, enlighten me. Why did you risk your life in asking to see us here?"

Thomas tone neared a whisper as he told Xavier that he needed to reach into his pants pocket for something—that was not a weapon.

Xavier Prince seemed to mull it over a moment and eventually nodded his head in approval. Warren's one visible green eye shifted from one end to another. Even Grace had stepped closer, almost standing in between her leader and Thomas in case the truth teller had indeed been proven a liar after all.

Thomas Pepper pulled out a key card and presented it to Xavier.

"A key," Xavier asked, truly curious at the other man's meaning. "What is this supposed to unlock, Thomas?"

"Whatever chamber that houses your heart's greatest desires, Xavier." Thomas said quickly before he changed his mind about his own Whirlwind he was about to unleash. "I've given you a personal focal point for you to unleash much of your aggressive energy towards. You have something to pour 400 years of hatred...and vengeance upon at last."

Xavier frowned and then he raised his eyebrows which Thomas found difficult to see either motion in this reduced lighting. "Who will I find on the other side of this door you've given me the key to, Thomas?" And when Thomas only answered with a smile the other had grown impatient and raised his voice as a result. "Tell me Goddamn you, Thomas."

"Lucy Burgess."

"What?" It was Grace Edwards who had spoken into the silence first.

Xavier only stepped closer until he and Thomas were nearly one. "Why would you do this?"

"Lucy is staying at this hotel downtown. She is alone. She is vulnerable. She is an extremely easy target." Thomas nodded towards where Grace was standing but had eyes only for her leader. "I'm sure Grace would have located her sooner or later. I'm guaranteeing you that it is sooner."

"Why would you do this?" Xavier asked him again.

The two men stared at each other for how long a time Thomas could not say. No one else said a word. No one moved. Thomas could feel his heart fluttering in his chest. He was unsure of what would come next. He didn't break his gaze with Xavier. To do so at this moment would show weakness. Men were little more than wild animals when you got down to their core. And the strong always kill the weak in the wild. It was not a manner of cruelty; it was the way of things...the way of the wild.

Xavier broke his gaze first. He turned the key, pinched between his index finger and his thumb over and over again.

Sometimes even the predator doesn't know he is being preyed upon.

"You want something," Xavier said. "You've given me this woman because you want something in exchange for her life that you've placed in my hands."

Thomas didn't hesitate.

"I'm asking you to extend your Zero Hour deadline 12 more hours."

Warren shifted his one visible green eye and shook his head. "That is out of the question."

Thomas never took both his good eyes off of the Circle's leader. "Have you been outside lately? You've already proven your point, Xavier. The public is frightened to death. What's 12 more hours to you...half a day longer until the end of the world as we've known it? We'll all see the American version of Armageddon live and up close soon enough."

"Don't listen to him, Number One." Warren said. "You know he's in bed with Pandora—with Serena herself, he's trying to buy them time to counteract us."

Xavier told the younger man to shut his mouth.

"All of this is supposed to be about getting those children back to their families isn't it? I'm asking you to give the authorities one last chance to find those boys. I have a reliable source has mentioned to me that the FBI has dispatched a team specifically tasked with bringing in Serena Tennyson before your original time frame runs out as well."

Grace said, "I'm sure those same efforts are being used to round up members of the Circle to."

"I'm sure they are, Miss Edwards." Thomas admitted as much. "But the point is this: I don't know what you and your people are prepared to unleash on the public in response to those children not being found, but I'm sure there is no way from you to pull back from the operation once it begins. Mr. Washington is correct in his assumption that I do know Serena Tennyson at a more personal level somewhat. She is terrified of this Whirlwind that she has planned for you. If she is afraid then you should be afraid, Xavier." He said. "We spoke about great men. I have no doubt that someone will utter the name Xavier Prince someday in a conversation just like the one we were having. I implore you...I beg you to give sanity more time."

"Alright," Xavier nodded his head once.

Thomas neared tears. "Thank you."

Thomas looked to Grace to escort him out of—out of wherever they were. She locked her small arm in his and began walking him forward. Xavier dug a cigarette out of his pack. Warren and the Peacekeepers stood in shocked silence until the Circle member moved to put the hood back over Thomas' head.

Thomas saw Xavier's mouth part to speak before the bag pushed him back into a state of darkness.

"Ernestine once told me privately that she considered you an immoral man, Thomas Pepper. But I remember that she said that men like you were amongst the most trustworthy because they knew exactly who they were. They knew what they wanted." Xavier said. "She was right about you, Thomas. And because of that I have a greater respect for you right at this moment than I ever did before now. You honored my friend's memory."

"Respect?"

"You gave up the life of this reporter before you asked me for the extension. You couldn't know if I would have accepted your terms or not. I don't think any reasonable man would have. I respect your boldness, your courageousness and your audacity. Only an immoral man could have even attempted to pull off what you have pulled off."

A half an hour later Thomas had been returned to the street where the café from which this entire episode had originated. For the most part it looked like a normal Sunday night crowd of people drinking, eating and shopping before setting off to a another work week.

Thomas looked as far as his eye could see. He saw Grace Edwards doing the same. Eventually their eyes met. Could we possibly be thinking the same thing, Grace?

Thomas believed that many people in this crowd must think that if any rioting or social unrest comes to Atlanta that it would likely be centered in predominately Black neighborhoods as it did during the Rodney King and President Adolphus Sweet riots of years past.

Grace handed him what was left of his torn jacket. She told him to bill her for a new one.

Thomas said: "I hope for your sake that Xavier doesn't trust Warren or any former members of the New Black Panther Party."

"We don't." Grace said. Thomas wondered—and not for the first time—was there any scenario or condition that this woman hadn't covered to its most minute detail. "I'm aware of the danger that they represent to my Number One and I've taken the precautionary steps to deal with those threats."

"I'm sure you will." Thomas folded his jacket over his arm and began his preliminary search for where he'd parked his Jaguar. "Excuse me for being blunt, Miss Edwards, but I know your work. And I must admit I'm a bit surprised that you haven't had Warren eliminated already."

Grace smiled. "You aren't the only one who has had to deal with what seemed to be unprovoked physical confrontations in the streets, Mr. Pepper. How do you think he got that patch over his one eye? I'm sure that I count on you keeping that information from being quoted again on your blog."

"Of course," Thomas suddenly felt even less comforted. Just that small detail that Grace had disclosed to him reminded him what lethal company he was keeping at the moment.

"Thanks for arranging the meeting with your Number One. Well, I guess that I should go while I still have the chance. I don't want to be active on anyone's hit list."

"Until you handed Xavier access to your colleague Lucy Burgess," Grace said conversationally. "You were near the top of his."

# Chris

The administrator of the Atria Busch Assisted Living Center, a Black woman with her pants squeezing her hips and her eyebrows painted on her forehead, greeted Christopher Prince as he entered the building. She told him that Helen had informed her of his impending arrival and started to escort him through a series of doors and hallways towards the back.

Chris had shrugged her niceties off. He instructed her in no certain terms to point to where this woman 'Helen' was. When the administrator failed to answer right away and the look on her face transformed from a considerate one to a confused one to downright conflicted one at Chris' tone and disposition—Chris pulled out his shield. I'm already in plenty of hot water for not turning in government property in a timely manner so what the hell. He informed her that he was acting on behalf of the FBI and demanded that she point him in the direction of the woman who had invited him and leave the two of them to their business.

Ten minutes later Chris found Serena Tennyson wearing a guise of this created persona named Helen waiting for him in a back room.

She was wearing a dark wig and darker shades. She began to open her mouth to greet him...when he backhanded her.

He had his weapon drawn but down at his side. He'd walked into this facility prepared to fight a dozen or hundreds of Pandora agents that had been sent to ambush him. What would my death matter now? He still believed that all life was precious, especially his own, but perhaps he'd been destined all along to go out with a bang.

Christopher Prince had searched his whole life for a sign that he would receive absolution for all of his past sins.

He now doubted that this sign would ever come.

So why not check out by his own terms? And if he had enough skills left and if he were terribly lucky, perhaps he'd take some of these Pandora bastards with him into the afterlife and let a higher power sort their irreconcilable differences all out then.

By the time Chris had kicked Serena in her lean side a second time something clicked from just under the surface of his conscious that told him that she indeed had come alone.

He began to tire nonetheless.

The adrenaline that he'd entered this room with had abandoned him. He then had an absurd thought. At least you won't have to worry about losing weight any longer...he was surely a dead man when Pandora came for their retributions.

"Agent Prince," Serena found enough energy to roll away from his abuse. She sat up quickly and arched her back against a nearby wall. "Listen to me; I can't stop you from killing me."

"I think that's the first thing that you've ever said that I totally agree with."

A cleaning woman who smelled of cheap perfume and talcum powder rolled her cart around a corner. She stopped the cart's squeaking long enough to take a peek at what was going on.

Chris flashed his invalid shield again. "You are potentially interfering with a federal investigation, lady. I would mind my business if I were you."

After the cart squeaked off Chris holstered his gun and approached the sitting Serena once again. He revved his right foot back with the full intention to place kick a tremendous shot to the woman's forehead—when she implored him to stop with the palm of her hand.

"Agent Prince," Serena cried out. "Allow me the final word before you carry on."

"What could you possibly say that I would want to hear, woman." He lowered his gaze. Serena's fit build had been the only thing that had saved her from true injury already. He could kill her at any moment. He had promised himself that if the opportunity had presented itself that he would do just that. "I would think that you were far too proud or far too arrogant to beg for your life, even after all of those you've willingly destroyed. And again, there is nothing else you could possibly say that I want to hear—so let's get on to the business of getting you to your flames in the afterlife."

"Why don't you try me, Agent Prince?" Serena asked him. "What do either one of us have to lose by listening to what I have to say."

Chris squatted down, but kept his distance. She was still Serena Tennyson. And no matter how helpless she appeared, he considered her armed and dangerous until after she exhaled her last breath.

"You are the leader—or at the least—one of the leaders of a racist organization that has killed hundreds of innocents and threatened thousands more. You've befriended a man who once kidnapped me and now is likely molesting young Black children like he did to those boys who were captured with me." He caught his breath and willed himself to dial his emotions back a notch before he collapsed from hyperventilating. "You've tried to have my brother killed. Now, I'm sure that you had a lot to do with discrediting me by aiding in releasing lies about me into the street at this precious hour."

Serena's laugh held no humor. "I have been busy haven't I?"

"You know what..." Chris cocked his gun and pointed it at her. A crowd of onlookers must have heard what was going on and had gathered inside the double doors. He heard them muttering, chattering and whispering. Someone specifically spoke his name, but just as importantly, three or four voices mentioned Serena Tennyson's name aloud as well.

Good information for his defense lawyer to use in his murder defense months down the road.

Serena Tennyson was far too dangerous to allow her to keep living.

Christopher Prince had decided to kill her tonight.

"You are the one empowered here, Chris." Serena said in her indoor voice. "My life is truly in your hands. But so is his location. If you act foolishly then it will be the most selfish act you've ever committed. You'll be hurting yourself and your brother Xavier. Your brother would want to know the truth as well."

It was Chris' turn to laugh without humor necessary to make it genuine.

"Alright," Raindrops of sweat poured down his bald head. He wiped it with the butt end of his gun. "Alright, we'll do it your way, Serena. We will hear one more line of your precious bullshit before I send you off to Hell."

"I know where your father is."

The world went silence.

The world went still.

"Good God, woman," Chris managed to say at last. "Do you have any common thread of decency at all? Is there no limit or shame to what you will say or do?"

Serena eased her way to her feet. She straightened out her blouse and slacks. Chris heard her crack her long neck. "I can take you to him, right now if you wish. He's nearby."

"Is there any thread of decency pumping through your veins at all?" Yet, Chris found himself waving his gun at her to lead to wherever she was trying to take him. He would have killed her at the mere suggestion of this impossibility but Scotty's words were ringing in his head as if he were at the Vatican on an Easter Sunday: I am talking about real truth; the type of earthshaking truth that Thomas Pepper claims that follows him around. You are on the cusp of learning a truth so wondrous...and yet, so very tragic, that you will never look at the opposite sides of the same coin the same ever again."

Leave the dead alone.

He wanted to tell both Serena Tennyson and Benjamin Scott.

"I would, Chris," He must have told her after all. "If only he would leave me alone."

"Go to Hell, Serena."

"I have." She said. "A part of me does every time I look into my flames." Serena nodded her head. She gazed at Chris but he could tell that at least a piece of her spirit was well outside these walls.

She reached her hand out to him.

"Join me,"

"Stop this, Serena," Chris warned her and slapped her hand away. "Stop this right now...if you quit this mockery, then I won't kill you, I'll just turn you over to Agent Sheridan of the FBI."

"There is no treachery here on my part, Chris. There is no betrayal awaiting you beyond these walls." She said. "Come with me now. I assure you that you will be safe."

"Why are you torturing me?"

But Chris followed where she led.

She turned and walked towards him in the smallest strides that her long legs allowed her. He had his gun out with the barrel trained on her forehead. She continued her approach. He could have shot her. He should have shot her. He targeted her neck, her chest, her flat stomach as she continued to approach him...

She reached him at long last and pointed the gun down at the floor. She didn't try to take it from him. She did not respond with some type of weapon or offensive of her own.

The onlookers...observed what the two of them were doing on, unsure of what they should do to counter it.

"No more threats, Chris. There is no more need for false bravado or innuendo from either one of us. If you want to see your father, then you should come with me."

And so he did just that.

Chris followed Serena out of the nursing home into an old schoolhouse directly behind it that had closed decades ago. He kept his weapon to his side, decided to leave it there and not train it on her unless she gave him reason to. Anyway, his chance to kill her without passing another conscious thought had passed never to return. Even without his official title he still thought of himself as an agent of The Federal Bureau of Investigations. More importantly, he was the proud son of a mother and father who had taught him that all life was precious. And he still thought himself an honorable man.

And yet he'd given his opposition the opening she'd needed to have him killed at any moment.

The old schoolhouse stank of mold and mildew when they arrived on its grounds.

Worse, it seemed to Chris to be something beyond simple staleness that he couldn't immediately recognize. Serena shielded her face against obstructions as she walked through the darkness as if this dead place was a second home to her. She opened a door to what Chris only could call the main office, stepped over an old broken desk and continued to go wherever Serena led.

Chris felt his emotions riding the rollercoaster from anger to fear to curious and back again. Whatever was going to happen to him, he decided to let the scene play itself out. He cursed himself for allowing himself to lose control of this situation back at the nursing home. And yet, another part of him said any so called control had been lost when he agreed to meet this woman in the first place. Even when I was kicking her senselessly...she was in control of me, all along.

Serena finally halted her progress at the principal's office and turned around to face him.

"He told me that you loved hot dogs."

"What? What did you say?"

"When he took you to the baseball game...he told me that you loved hot dogs. You loved to eat them and down your food with ginger ale. You had so much to eat and drink that night in fact that you had to rush to the bathroom before you left for home. He counted on that and you did not disappoint."

"Shut up," Chris screamed at her. "Is this what all of the fuss you've been making? I know you have skilled intelligence people, Serena. I know that they fed you this information. No one ever said your operatives weren't good at their jobs."

Out of nowhere a light flicked on.

The sudden brightness nearly blinded him and he pointed his gun in her general direction in case this was it—and this meeting with his father was to be on the other side of life and death with his ambush and murder all along.

Serena did nothing.

She relaxed her muscles against a far wall.

An old projection movie began playing on the chalk board that was in the office.

Chris recognized himself and his father walking down the concourse towards the restroom on the third deck. How did they capture this image?

"You've used CGI technology," Chris dismissed what his eyes were clearly seeing. "Somehow you recreated the setting and used animation of myself and my father to fill in the rest of this imagery."

Serena shook her head. "The Braves were terrible that summer like they were most of the summers during the middle to late 1970's and into the early 80's."

"I've told you to shut up, Serena." He started for the door, but the images felt so real that the picture kept bringing him back to see more. "I won't listen to this."

"Then maybe you should only watch, Chris."

And so he did as she asked once again.

Two more projections popped up to the right and to the left of the first picture. These new angles showed his abduction by Louis Keaton just as if he were narrating to story to Angel all over again back at the motel down state a few days ago. Keaton approached him from behind and it was even more frightening to watch the Chris of his childhood being snatched from a third person point of view. He felt a shiver run down his spine as he watched his father actually follow him into the bathroom two minutes after he entered—

And watch the door for intruders as Keaton took him.

"No," Chris said with a small voice. He pointed his gun at Serena once again. It seemed the thing to do. "I'm through playing games with you, Serena. You said you would take me to my father not show me these heavily edited old documentaries fresh from the Pandora archives."

And before she could answer him Chris added: "What is so special about this old place? And what is that smell?"

"I know that you don't want to, Chris, but you'll need to trust me for a small while longer. Your father is here. You need to open one more door and you'll be with him again."

And so he followed her into a conference room that was adjoined to the Principal's office. This room proved darker than either one that they'd occupied before. He even asked her why it was so very dark in here. If she had another light to switch right now would be a good time.

And whatever that horrid smell was it nearly overwhelmed him.

She snapped on a light that had no business existing in a building as old and as decaying as this one.

A skeleton was seated at the head on the conference table and stared up at him.

Serena spoke quickly. "I've kept my promise to you. Say hello to your father, Chris."

He fired a round in her direction—intentionally missing her, or so he told himself.

Glass shattered behind her.

Serena Tennyson had ice in her veins for she barely moved at all.

"I should kill you where you stand. You are truly a sick woman. It's no wonder you reached Keaton. This isn't my father's remains. It can't be."

She slowly pulled a folder of documents out of a drawer and pushed them towards Chris. He only glanced at them at first...and then gave them a wider birth. There were records of a body that had been dug up and placed in the driver seat of the car to look as if his father had been killed by a drunken driver.

Next he saw a second official document that appeared to be death certificate marked ten years after he and everyone else was led to believe that his father truly died. Dental records had been provided matching the new date deceased date. Isaac Prince's fingerprints were available. The DNA lab reports had been ran and rerun by a formal friend of his who had abandoned the bureau—like so many others—for Serena Tennyson's Pandora.

"I've always thought it was more than noble of you to never to have taken a drink of alcohol in remembrance of the manner that you thought your father was taken from you."

"Isaac Prince was killed in a car accident." Chris said in a demanding tone. "You've doctored most of this information somehow and forged the rest. Scotty drove to the home where I was living with Xavier and his mother. He told us everything that happened."

And Serena quoted Scotty's words of that fateful day as if she'd scripted them herself.

"Why would Scotty lie to me?" Chris felt the tears begin to fall; the truth of it all...his Whirlwind setting in. "What is the meaning of all of this deception?"

"Your father sacrificed one of his lives so he could pursue his other without further interruption." Serena said. "I must admit that his choice is not one that I could have emulated. That is why he is one of only two human beings that I can factually say that I not only adored—but loved as well."

"What?"

"Your father, Isaac Prince, is one of the answers that every Person of Color in this country wants to know. Your father was the founder of Pandora. He was the Caretaker."

There is a prolonged silence.

Chris opened his mouth to speak but he only tasted mothballs.

And so Serena spoke to him and for him.

"He told me many years later that he was surprised at the paths that his beloved children had taken: You chose to go into law enforcement as he had done between seasons as a House in Chains founder. Xavier took a more direct path in his footsteps—although the incident at Princeton probably nudged him over that preverbal edge into the role of the One."

"I don't want to hear anymore." But Chris scooped up the available documents anyway as he back peddled towards the door from which he came. "I want you to stay away from me. If you come near me again I will kill you."

"Xavier doesn't possess your strength." Serena continued on as if Chris had never spoken at all. "I've done all of this...shown you all of this in hopes that you will share this information with your brother. If he knows the truth about your father's secret life and identity as the Caretaker, I know that he will stand down from the threats he has carelessly made against me, Pandora and his country. You will recover from this as a stronger man. But this information will destroy the very foundation of their House."

"I asked you to stay away from me."

"I need you to do this for me, Chris." She moved towards him. He couldn't find that damned door handle. "The Whirlwind can only be avoided if Xavier stands down now. And I believe that this Whirlwind will be far worse than even what I've seen in my flames. There are other factors involved that are even out of my influence. Grace Edwards listens to Xavier. The Circle listens to her. Make your brother listen to you."

Chris halted his retreat long enough to say: "So you're using me to get to him."

"I'm empowering you so that you can finish what your father started. He wanted to keep the peace and for two races ever at odds to remain tolerant of each other. He wanted your people to take pride in themselves and their communities. He wanted to avoid the slaughter of innocent young Black men and women by a superior force. He sacrificed you in an attempt to stop it 30 years ago."

"No," Chris said. "I don't think so. I can't help you. I need more answers than the ones you are providing." He gave the room a once over. "And I'm not entirely convinced that I believe any of this."

"I understand," Serena said as a concession. "You should go see Benjamin Scott. He knows the truth that I've been telling you about your father. Go. There isn't a lot of time left."

Chris turned to leave, found the door handle at last, and heard her call his name one last time.

"You should hurry, Christopher Prince. Everything rest in your hands now."

A half hour later Chris found himself parked outside Scotty's apartment in East Atlanta.

"Scotty," Chris yelled for him half way up the walkway. "Scotty, where are you at you bastard?"

Scotty pulled up one of his bedroom windows with all of the composure and calmness that Chris would never have even under the best of circumstances.

"Come inside, Christopher." He said. "I'll put on some tea. Come inside. We'll talk. We need to talk."

"You lied to me. You lied to Xavier." Chris waved the folder full of documents up high where his father's dearest friend could see them. "You've kept this hidden from us for years."

Scotty folded his hands in front of him and searched the sky for answers that higher powers weren't going to provide for him tonight. Instead, he waved Chris up and the testy younger man finally agreed."

Sitting on Scotty's sofa a few minutes later, Chris glared at the steam rising off of his own cup of tea.

Scotty sat next to him. "Serena must be pretty desperate to risk disclosing this damning information to you now. Xavier's Zero Hour threat really hit home."

"So you are telling me that all of this bullshit that I'm holding in my hands is true." Chris said. "These death certificates I have with me; this dental work in this file. She told me that my father was the Caretaker."

Scotty nodded to everything he was saying. "I know that none of this will be easy for you to understand, Old Man."

"I thought that my father loved us."

"He did."

"I thought that you loved me and my brother as well, Scotty."

"I do." Scotty replied and moved closer to Chris. "But I loved your father even more. He and David Hicks were the brothers that I would never have. Isaac wouldn't have gone through with this full transformation after Keaton's failure with you and the other boys if I hadn't given my word to watch over you and your brother after he was...gone."

"You told us he was dead, Scotty."

"No, I told you that he had left us. I'm not trying to mince words with you, Old Man. But I did not lie to you."

"Did my step mother know?"

Scotty shook his head. "I disagreed with the harsh, unfathomable steps he was taking. I hated it. We argued. Our arguments eventually came to fisticuffs. We argued some more. Those conversations only hardened his resolve. It only made him more determined to see his long term plans through."

"What plan?"

"Your father wanted to avoid the eventual conflict that we now find ourselves mere hours away from. He felt that his sphere of influence was limited as the leader of a House in Chains. He felt by working behind the scenes in his new role with Pandora that he could influence policy from the opposite side of virtually the same coin."

"So he orchestrated the first round of the Atlanta Child murders."

"He did."

"He sacrificed me, Scotty." Chris said. "He freely and willingly gave one of his own sons to a madman and a pedophile."

Scotty hesitated, measured his response, said: "He did just that, Old Man. He profiled Keaton for years before approaching him. He'd first arrested him on some petty exposure charge five years before. He knew that Keaton wouldn't touch you. I can't tell you how. I won't try to convince you otherwise. And yet, he knew."

"So my own father, this Caretaker persona, was the brainchild behind these abductions. What about Muhammad Clark?"

"I know that his parallel operation was one that Clark had perpetrated for his own personal, sick gains." Scotty backed off of his belligerent tone though when he said: "Clark had struck at least a half a dozen times when some local and national papers first started publishing stories about the ignition of a race war as the motive for the crimes. Your father jumped on that idea—and made it so. You were allowed to be taken soon after." Scotty sipped at his tea. "Keaton made you his general just as his psychological profile suggested that he would. He wanted you to watch over the other children, to keep them safe, protect them from outside forces that could harm them."

"And yet, if Keaton poked them in the meantime it would be okay."

"Your father was trying to save a generation of his own race the best way he knew how, Old Man. He was so confident and assured in what he was doing that put you up as collateral against its failure."

Chris sat his head in his hands. "Oh my God, so when I didn't return to the place where we were being kept when Xavier saw me passing through our neighborhood—"

"Your father...your father killed those children himself. But just as he could ask no one else to sacrifice their child to Keaton...he could not bestow the dishonor of those boys' murders on anyone else in Pandora. He alone went back to that residence and cut those boys throats and burned their bodies." Benjamin Scott paused as emotion bested him for the first time during this conversation. "I know it means nothing to you now, Old Man, but Isaac Prince was never the same man after that. A piece of the man I'd known for decades truly did die that day. It set back his entire cause from both sides of that preverbal coin that we spoke of before. I believe that it was in those days afterwards that the plan for his first birth rights and name to die so that he could finish his work of saving lives was born."

"I don't think all of that matters a hell of a lot to me, Scotty." Chris said. "How could my own father do this to me...to his family?"

"I watched your father evolve into many things over the years: He was a cop. He was the Civil Rights leader. He was a bad husband...but not in the manner that you're thinking." Chris could tell that Scotty had another story to tell but it would have to wait for another day. "But if I have to describe one word to describe him even all these years later then I would use one word—selfless."

Chris stood. "Is that supposed to help me forgive him?"

"No, it should not, Old Man." And Scotty stood as well. "Just be reminded during your worst bouts of anger in the days to come that Isaac Prince wasn't going to ask anyone else to sacrifice anything he wasn't willing to sacrifice himself."

"My God," Chris said again. He had the strength to mutter nothing else.

"Years later, a young woman who'd fled the ideologies of the FBI and witnessed great sacrifices in her own young life became his prized student. He made her give her word that she would carry out his wishes when advanced age or death no longer allowed him to." Scotty sipped at his tea again but remained standing. "When you chose law enforcement he was proud of you but..."

"But what, Scotty,"

"He was profoundly disappointed that you didn't follow his footsteps as the absolute leader of a House in Chains. He counted on you and Serena to work this racial epithet out in a more reasonable manner. He loved your brother; never question that, Old Man. Yet, he never thought that Xavier had the drive or the ambition or the discipline to pursue leadership of the group he'd founded. That gap in years of leadership led directly into the organization having to absorb the New Black Panther into the House just for its financial survival. Xavier continued to drink and to whore...so your father began to plan 411 with Serena Tennyson and Raymond Rice."

Chris found himself pacing the hardwood floors of Scotty's apartment. The older man sat down again to better sip his tea and then said: "And now you are allied with the truth, Old Man. What will you do with it?"

"I wish I knew."

Scotty finished his cup at last and stood again. Chris immediately stopped his pacing. They found each other's eyes. Chris wanted to hate this man with all of his heart nearly as badly as he wanted to kill Serena Tennyson earlier tonight but just like hours ago he wondered how he would live with what he'd done.

Benjamin Scott had been more devoted to his father than most married couples were to each other. And he had been a wondrous mentor for himself and his brother Xavier over these years when they had no one else to turn to.

And yet their relationship as he once knew it was gone forever.

A change was coming.

And Chris Prince's life was going to change, yet again, forever.

He heard his personal cell phone ring. He gave the number lit up in its ID placement a once over, expecting to be Angel or Roxanne trying to reach him. He glared at the number a ring longer. He didn't recognize it, but whoever it was had been blowing his number up over the past few days. He couldn't even tie it to Serena Tennyson any longer, since she called him only once from another cell number, trying to arrange her fateful meeting that they had earlier.

He started to disconnect it and thought what the hell?

"Hello."

"Christopher Prince, My God, did I finally reach you."

Chris absorbed the sound of the man's voice on the line for a second...the inflections finally connecting with him after a bit.

But why would his personal physician contact him at 11:30 at night?

"I do apologize for calling you at this hour, but I've I haven't been able to reach you for weeks now. I don't understand why don't you ever answer your phone, son?"

"It's alright, Doc." Chris bit back a curse. He was in no mood to be dressed down by anyone tonight. "If it's okay, I give you my word that I'll give you a call during normal business hours. I have a lot on my plate—"

"No, I'm sorry son; you most certainly will not be doing that." Gideon said. "I finally have reached you and I refuse to hang up until we have spoken."

"Look, Doc, if this is about my physical that I had the other week, I'm sure we can set up an appointment—"

"You don't understand, Christopher. It is vitally important that I begin consultation with you immediately."

"Consultation," The syllables soured on his tongue as he said it. He felt his stomach ache. "What are you talking about? What exactly do you need to counsel me on, Doctor Gideon?"

"Come in tomorrow and we'll talk son." His private doctor said. "I'll clear out my morning schedule if you like. I wanted to speak to you to get your attention and now I have. But I would prefer not to disclose sensitive patient information over an unsecured line."

"What is it, Doctor?"

Gideon cleared his voice, using the extra minute to gather himself.

"Two of your blood test that you took the other day showed some disturbing tearing in the lining of your adnominal wall. I think that they are damned peculiar. So I took the liberty of ordering a more detailed examination so that I could be absolutely certain."

"I don't like what I'm hearing here; so that you could be certain of what, Doctor?"

Scotty put his tea cup down. He couldn't hear the conversation but must have read the lines of dread in Chris' face word for word.

"You've been a patient of mine for years, son. I won't discuss a diagnosis of a patient like this by phone."

"Doctor Gideon, talk to me," Chris yelled into his phone. "I'm begging you to tell me what is wrong?"

"The walls of your stomach are collapsing at an accelerated rate. It's cancer, Christopher. You're intestines aren't providing a defense. You're being eaten alive from the inside out. You've wrongly thinking that you're gaining weight when in actuality your middle is swelling from the infection."

After Chris calmed himself, he said: "You're telling me that I'm dying from the same cancer that killed my mother?"

Christopher Prince had searched for a sign that he would receive absolution for all of his past sins.

"I am saying just that," Doctor Gideon told him. "I'm sorry. It pains me to add to your misery by telling you that at this accelerated pace the cancer's spreading, that you have less than six months to live, Christopher Prince."

He now doubted that this sign would ever come.

End of Episode 5

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# Sneak Peak at Betrayals

Judas is unchained.

While several players in this contest of survival act as the betrayers—one will perish as a perfect storm of treachery and betrayal blossoms on his doorstep.

And his demise changes the game forever.

Unforeseen alliances will form, while long friendships and unions will brittle and crumble into dust.

Roxanne Sanchez finally confronts Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree, carrying all of her pain—and her vengeance with her.

In the meantime, ciaos begins to reign supreme across the country. Generations of distrust, disclosure and discord between the nation's two predominate races explodes into an epitaph of unparalleled violence and murder on an unprecedented scope.

A violence that both Dr. Seth Dupree and Thomas Pepper will witness at the most intimate level imaginable.

# Dedication

As I've said before, this one is for...well, for me. This tale has been in my pipeline for a long time.

Nest Egg Publishing Note:

This was a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are use factiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

# Nest Egg Presents: Where are our Children

Episode 1: 411 (Available Now!!!)

Episode 2: Deliverance (Available Now!!!)

Episode 3: Rapture (Available Now!!!)

Episode 4: Past Prologue (Available Now!!!)

Episode 6: Betrayals

Episode 7: Scar

Episode 8: Tempest Rising

Episode 9: Whirlwind

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Episode 1: 411 (Available Now!!!)

Episode 2: Deliverance (Available Now!!!)

Episode 3: Rapture (Available Now!!!)

Episode 4: Past Prologue (Available Now!!!)

# Where to find this author online:

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