Deadly Portents

VOICE OF REASON

~1~

I awake in a daze, sprawled on the debris-strewn tiles of the former UN General Assembly building. The place is a blackened, weather-beaten shell. The terrorist attack of 2056 destroyed it before I was even born. Decades of rot have taken its toll, tearing sunlit gaps in the domed ceiling. A musty, sickening stench permeates the vast chamber. Only the rats hold congress here now.

I slowly rise, searching my gutted surroundings for any clue as to how I ended up in such an unfamiliar place. My computer-augmented brain purrs softly in my head as it postulates, calculates, and organizes a plethora of data in seconds. I study the Condemned signs and graffiti spray painted on the charred, peeling walls while its processors hum away.

A familiar tag catches my interest. The red fist raised in defiance has spread at a disturbing pace over the past few years. It's the symbol of New Way, a radical extremist group committed to bringing down the international governing body of the Order.

I've become quite familiar with the group since assuming my role as chancellor general to York City. Their revolutionary activities are a regular part of my daily briefings with the President.

The solitude and desolation stir me into a panic. Outside the secure walls of the Citadel, an armed escort always lurks in my shadow. I check my pockets. They're empty. My Wireband wrist PDA is gone as well. I probably couldn't use it to contact anyone this far from the city, anyway. Nobody felt the need to extend carrier service this far out into the badlands.

I roll up my sleeve to press the alert switch on the tracker embedded into my forearm. The fresh bandage I find instead covers its recent extraction. My cyberbrain calculates possibilities and quickly presents me with the most obvious scenario. The thought sends chills through my body.

"Somebody abducted me," I utter breathlessly. The revelation introduces a greater mystery, one whose answer I'm unable to discern, no matter how thoroughly I investigate my strange surroundings. Where are my abductors now?

"Hello?" I shout.

My voice echoes in the cavernous ruins of the hall. From somewhere high above, a startled bird takes wing. The rustle of its feathers as it soars into the sunlight is my only reply.

A low whine pulls my attention towards a wall devastated by a massive explosion. The gaping fracture reveals the decrepit ruins of the once-proud structures on First Avenue. The rickety matchstick towers, now partially consumed by twigs and leaves, stand empty, save for the wildlife nesting within their crumbling walls.

As I struggle to make sense of my situation, a mechanical shadow whirs past. An automated sentry drone. Even in this abandoned fringe of the city, enemies of the Order require our constant vigilance.

"Here!" I yell out to it in my loudest voice, stumbling over the detritus as I hurry to the opening. "I'm here!"

The whine of its servos lower in pitch as it hovers in place while its AI triangulates the source of the disturbance. I help by squeezing through the crack in the outer wall and running across the grass, waving my arms.

It's a stupid risk, considering the armed drone will attack any visible threat, but the prospect of rescue blinds me to the obvious. It swings to face me, the spinning barrel of its high-capacity repeater wailing as it threatens to unleash hellfire in my direction. I overlook the threat completely in my headlong rush into danger.

Stop, you idiot.

The stranger's voice shocks me so badly that I trip over my own feet and tumble to the ground. My clumsiness saves my life. The drone continues to track me warily, but allows its primary weapon to wind down. In a microsecond, it reclassifies the prone target in its sensors as non-combatant.