The Lost Canaries

Chapter 10: Rags to Revolt

"What's wrong?" I ask.

Fiona appears to have aged a thousand years when she peers back up at me. "Alert from DHS and the White House. Turn on the news... Any channel...."

Bradley fumbles for a remote and turns on a nearby monitor. The broadcast shows a dark street shrouded in smoke and debris downtown Chicago near Soldier Field. A thunder cloud blackens the night, drowning out the city lights. A voiceover coating the newscast states, "Three suicide bombers appear to have detonated explosives at Soldier Field this evening. Suspects are still at large. The bombers are believed to be anti-establishment militiamen and Red Dove sympathizers...." Fumes cloud the damaged stadium and adjacent streets. Throngs of people are scrambling to safety. Shrieks can be heard across the avenues. "And we are now receiving word of related shootings at restaurants within a half-mile of the stadium...." The news reel slices to police barricading behind armored vehicles in the street. Cops fire at armed men in homemade armor crouched along the sidewalks. "Two hundred and twenty-seven people have died with almost five hundred injured, but the death toll is expected to rise...." Cut to a metal barrier wrapping around the Mayor's Office. Emergency vehicles evacuating all government buildings. Sirens wailing along Michigan Avenue. Millennium Park ordering an evacuation of all its visitors. "Safety precautions have been put in place amid growing threats against the Governor's family by citizens claiming inspiration from the Red Doves. This is still a developing story, but many are already drawing similarities to 9/11 and the 2015 terrorist attacks in France...."

"We need the Secretary of Homeland Security on the line now!" Maddox orders an analyst.

"None of the refugees can see this," Fiona demands. "If we're lifting the lockdown here, cut all these feeds from the televisions. Black out the Commons Billboard..."

But then, out of nowhere, the Chicago bombing newscast fades to black. Static ripples across the screen. "What the hell happened?! Get the footage back!" Maddox hollers. The screen buffers, the dark square shifting as if unsure what message to broadcast. Then the innocent gray eyes of one Michael Rhodes loom out of the darkness, staring down at me for the first time in an eternity.

Everyone in the room gasps to the point where almost no air remains. My knees buckle. Bradley steadies me. I try to inch toward the screen, and the crowd of intelligence workers make a path. I stare up in shock at the other half of the legendary folktale now come to life. Back from the underground. Back from the dead. Stepping into the sunlight himself for the first time in sixteen years.

Michael's eyes hold the same gray as the day he left, but his face has become withered and pockmarked. His chestnut hair has faded to a salt-and-pepper shade. Michael stands in a dimly lit room at a scarlet podium. "Greetings, America. The world. I am King Tourtombee. I suspect many of you doubted I was even alive, or perhaps never existed at all. But this is folly, as my legend is all too real... for many of us.

"I want to thank my supporters, both already indoctrinated into our organization and those spreading our message around the country on their own terms like tonight's patriots in Chicago. While violence is despicable, the practice is necessary to force change; these abductions over the past decade and a half are essential sacrifices for our collective future. And I can assure everyone that all abductees are being taken care of here, and no one is being forced to stay in our nest. We are simply telling people what they already know. Enlightening them, if you will...

"My friends, you are allowing yourselves to suffer under the thumb of a neglectful government, exemplified by CANARY's repeated failures to offer their citizens even the most basic of protections. You may as well join the side willing to accomplish something and deliver on their promises. Our revolution carries on the legacy of successful uprisings throughout human history, but we will not waste time with peaceful demonstrations and suffer through a Bloody Sunday. We are the protestors, armed as soldiers, who stormed the Winter Palace during the Russian Revolution to topple their government. And in the footsteps of Lenin, we propose rule by the forgotten laborers, free from the Empire."