Madam President ✓

37. It Never Ends, Does It?

Alex
3:01 AM

  "Can you look at her bank account to confirm the payment?" I ask Jeremy after filling him. Right now, less than twenty minutes away from the warehouse, he's under a time crunch- but he's Jeremy.

  "Should be simple enough." I hear typing in the back of the van. "All I need to do is- got it."

  Why am I not surprised?

  "Christ-" he says. "That is one rich kid."

  "Meaning?"

"She didn't even try to hide the transfer." Fucking idiot. You go through all the trouble of blowing up a government building only for that to be the thing that takes you down? "She's also spent... well over a million dollars on a website called ScienceLabs.Com."

  "Why does that name sound familiar?" I ask as I run a red light.

  "Congress has tried to ban it so many times the past decade but it keeps coming back under slightly different names. The main problem they have is that it allows customers to buy an unlimited amount of virtually any chemical or chemical combination they want, regardless of how explosive or otherwise dangerous. The house speaker.... Oh my god the house speaker introduced a resolution last month to ban the creator from ever owning a business or website. It failed because the progressive house members said it violated his right as a citizen to own said business and was bordering on authoritarian."

  "While they're not technically wrong-" I say. "God I wish that damn bill had passed. Here we are."

  I make a sharp turn down an otherwise inconspicuous dirt road, one of the only ones I've ever seen so close to the capital. The van bumps up and down more times than I can count- and leads to the clearing and exact building we're looking for. With the moss and greenery overgrowth, it gives off the classic old factory vibes. Bricks in some places are missing while others crumble, giving me doubts about going in there- but if she thought it was safe to be in it must be. Or maybe it used to be.

I shake the thought and get out of the van.

  Jeremy follows behind, and for a second we just stare at each other like "you first", waiting on the other to work up the nerve. I end up telling myself he's younger and therefore has more years ahead of him, so if I go my death won't matter as much.

  But then I crawl through a large hole in the brick and he's right behind me. Great. Now the only two people who know what we know are in the same building, feet away from each other. This never ends well in the movies.

  The warehouse where we are is virtually empty. We walk around it for nearly thirty minutes, finding nothing but dust, old furniture and powdery debris.

  Debris... debri.... POWDERY DEBRI!!

  I scream at myself in my head and bend down to pinch a small amount with my fingers. Sure enough, it's the same stuff from the bombs. I follow it to what looks like an old closet propped against the wall.

  Somebody didn't clean up after themselves very well.

  I pull on the closet door and it doesn't budge- of course.

I glance sideways.

  "Don't look at me-" he puts his hands up. "It's your turn, remember?"

  I roll my eyes, clench my teeth, and stare the door down. Motherfucker this is going to hurt.

  With the large open space, I have ample room to get started, and I end up almost thirty yards away. When I start running, Jeremy steps aside. I close my eyes to protect them- and then I go barreling straight through it and several feet down.

  I land on my back( ow) with deep cuts on my face from (stupidly) not covering it. When I push myself up, my fingers dig into the earth. I cough. The air down here is thick with the dust and dirt kicked up from my fall.

  "You okay down there? Anything explode?"

  "Nope-" but when I look around, I'm surprised nothing did. Before I can tell him to go, get out of here- he's descending the ladder after reaching through the hole in the closet door and unlocking it.

  His eyes widen, because we are looking at what we'd call the "Center of operations."

  Containers of various chemicals with the label "ScienceLabs.Com" are scattered everywhere, no attention payed to the literal chemical spills seeping into the soil.

  But what really catches our eye and what would do the same to anybody who knew what they were looking at are the hundreds of tiny little bombs in a neat pile.

  "Either..." Jeremy stands completely still. "She did all of this herself or some damn talented person managed to block the government of the United States."

  "English Jeremy."

  "If somebody else was building these with her they were probably smart enough to put a 'firewall' around any of their devices that would make them undetectable at first."

  "No-" I shake my head. "I still feel like she would have built them solo."

  "Nobody could possibly work that fast-"

  "Remember the Parker case from 2016?"

  "Yes...." He sighs. "A talented hacker got into the nuclear football in months, very funny. The physical act of actually putting these things together would be different though-"

  "We can't be sure about that." I reply. "Jeremy... there is a very high chance that the second either of us moves well get blown sky high just like Amber."

  "Then we might as well get it over with." He shrugs.

  "Agreed."

  Slowly at first, then like we're running for our lives- which we are, we run.

  We've gotten a hundred yards into the clearing, way past our car when we think we're good, and then I hear and feel the loudest sound of my entire life. It causes my physical pain, and I'm grateful we're as fast as we are.

We lay in the grass for a second, staring at the large, nasty smelling fires in front of us.

  "We stay until first responders arrive?"

  "We don't have much of a choice." He jerks his head towards the van- which isn't supposed to be flammable, in flames.

  The sirens take only seconds to get within hearing range, and the police are the first to get here. They don't ask question at first. Instead they just make a big deal about us getting further back and treating the gash on my face from that jump.

  "I'm fine, really-"

  "Oh my god-" I hadn't noticed Jane arrive and I stare in confusion as she gets out of her car. I thought she was still in the White House. "Alex are you okay?"

  She rushes to me first- and like a mother pushes my hair aside so she can look at the cut better. I move my face away.

  "I'm fine."

  "I'm good too, thanks for asking." Jeremy says. She rolls her eyes and hugs him.

  The she looks back at me.

"I assume you have enough to go to the president now?"

  I go over everything in my head again and simply nod.

  "Good." She says. "Fill me in on the way to the White House."