Nothing happened.
Her hand hadn’t budged. Through her spinning vision, she reached her other hand down to take over. Sophie’s arms spasmed in every direction but the one she wanted. The needles slipped from her grasp, slowly rolling away.
“Not like this!” Sucking in a gulp of contaminated air, the warrior heaved herself upright. With a growl, she popped the safety caps and slammed all four autoinjectors into her leg. Through her mushy brain, Sophie vaguely recalled that the drugs should be administered one at a time. Would the antidote still work?
The near lethal dose of atropine kicked in first, flooding her nervous system and overpowering the enzyme-blocking Sarin toxin. Which made things even worse. Every one of her nerve endings lit up, on fire from the inside out. Sophie bit most of her tongue off while she flopped around and fought the urge to pass out.
A few seconds later, or a couple of years by Sophie’s time sense, the anticonvulsant agent joined the party. The high-grade Valium snatched her from hell’s doorstep and body slammed her into heaven. Sophie was content to soak in the bliss and lie there forever.
At least until someone ripped her now useless mask off. Dietrich hovered over her and kicked any weapons out of reach. He dangled handcuffs above her face. Sophie couldn’t see his eyes through his gas mask lens, but she could sure feel the hatred radiating out.
“You’re going to regret this for a long, painful time.”
His eye exploded. Sophie didn’t flinch at the blood soaking her face. She couldn’t twist her exhausted head to look around, so she tested her voice.
“Let me guess, he outlived his usefulness?”
The banker edged closer, lowering her borrowed hand cannon. “You know, I’ve never fired a gun before. I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Not half as satisfying as controlling your own army.”
She kicked Dietrich’s body, more playfully than in spite.
“Oh, I could have used him a bit longer, but I owe you. Wiping out all these troublesome witnesses and getting both sides to bomb the base so thoroughly that they’d never find a loose nuke… Brilliant! Better than my plan.”
Sophie snickered. “So is this where you explain your grand scheme?”
The banker’s eyes twinkled behind her gas mask lens. “Sorry honey. This is the real world. No monologues, no cavalry coming to the rescue and the ‘good guys’ sure as hell aren’t going to win.”
She leveled her weapon. “Of course, there is a certain honor among thieves. You won’t have to suffer through his twisted games. The least I can do is give you a quick death.”
The banker’s handgun barked six times, three of the poorly aimed shots striking Sophie in the chest and stomach.
Between her worn-out nervous system and a potent cocktail of drugs coursing through her veins, Sophie only felt some mild stings. She managed to raise a hand and run it over her torso. Did she imagine the whole thing? Her glove came away drenched in blood.
Guess not. Sophie dropped her hand, but it landed on the satchel still strapped to her hip. She had lugged that heavy sack around for nothing. Just like all her hate.
Sophie grinned as her heart slowed. She flipped the flap of the satchel open. Her father always made fun of her impulsive need to hoard stuff. She couldn’t wait to shove this story in his face. With her last ounce of strength, Sophie Kampbell snaked a finger in the bag and twisted the detonator, not bothering with the delay fuse.
The plunger shot an electrical pulse into the ten-pound sack of plastic explosive. Six feet away, the banker cocked her head at the girl’s final whisper.
“You better not be down there waiting on me, daddy!”
Afterword
“Is peace in the United States really so ridiculous? America put itself back together once before. What’s so different this time?”
Jessica wagged her finger at the president. “The world’s a bit different today than in the 1860’s.”
“I don’t buy into all this pessimism. If the Israelis and Palestinians can live together, surely we can find a way.”
Jessica struggled for a rebuttal. Now that the Second American Civil War had finally ended, the country slowly turned its attention back to the rest of the world. Only to find a strange new landscape after the worldwide withdrawal of all American military forces and most foreign aid for more than a year. Nowhere were the changes more shocking than in the Middle East.
Once Israel’s most powerful benefactor abandoned them, they were forced to take negotiations seriously. On the same token, without any American influence restraining Israeli zealotry, the Palestinians found themselves far more vulnerable than usual. The terrorism game became too risky. For the first time in, well, recorded history the two sides sat down and bargained in good (enough) faith, without any foreign interference.
“That’s a fair point, sir, but the final Middle East armistice is only a month old, just like our own. Some say it’s too early to break out the champagne. From the Mideast to the Midwest, people are still dying.”
“Ms. Sinclair, you can’t compare the two situations. After everything our nation has been through, these infrequent revenge killings are a breath of fresh air. We face no serious threat to long-term peace and reunification. We only fought for a year and a half. As bad as it’s been, we don’t have a hundred generations of hate to bury like the Jews and Arabs.”
Over Jessica’s shoulder, her producer interspersed stock footage from the last Israel crisis a few months ago. The unprecedented treaty was no happily-ever-after peace plan. The Israeli military withdrawal from the Golan Heights was messy enough. Things only got worse after the forced evacuation of the most contentious Jewish settlements. So many of the ultra-conservative settlers were armed… and so few were willing to leave voluntarily.
Most humbling of all, formal recognition of the Palestinian state was a tough sell in Tel Aviv. The peace deal sparked some of the worst rioting in Israeli history. Even culminated in a bloody, almost successful military coup.
On the Palestinian side, Hamas didn’t take kindly to being branded a terrorist organization by their own kin. The weeks of bloodshed that followed the great “Jihadi purge” rivaled anything the Bible predicted.
Still, when the smoke settled, the mass graves were filled in and UN peacekeepers arrived, drawn from non-Muslim and non-Christian nations in Asia, the two sides settled into the first legitimate peace since the Bronze Age.
Jessica shifted gears now that the president had the upper hand.
“Well, it must be much easier for you now. With so many of the old Congress members murdered by insurgents or banned for representing URA states, 90 % of the Senate and House are brand new members. Everyone knows they look to you for guidance. So, does this mean you support the new Congress’s plan to outlaw the Republican Party?”
He shrugged. “With all due respect to my former coworkers: fuck Congress!” Beep
The producer wasn’t on the ball and hit the censor switch too late. The profanity from one of the most carefully spoken politicians of all time took him off guard.
“Mr. President, that—”
“I’m a private citizen now. I can say what I want. Look, just like the last civil war, politics had little to do with this conflict. We could have swapped the parties in power and still had the same bloody outcome. This is just a blatant attempt by the winners to exploit their success. They won’t get away with it.”