And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.
Revelation 8: 12
Southpark Meadows, Austin, Texas
The gargantuan fireball dropping from the sky passed over the festival and landed well north of Austin in the suburb of Liberty Hill. But the headliners, Dantalion’s Water, fled the stage in a panic and sparked a mass exodus from the grounds. Refugees with nowhere to go were being crushed and trampled by horrified fans before Joan’s eyes. She leapt from behind stage, grabbed a microphone and urged everyone to remain calm. Her words had little effect, so she started singing on her way to the piano. Almost instantly, as though hypnotized, the crowd calmed and turned to watch. She finished her song and explained to the crowd. “This has all been prophesied in The Tome of Artemis. It says: ‘Fear not! A new age is dawning! The world will soon come to know a new peace! An age of equality and enlightenment! An age of harmony with the spirit world! An age where women will no longer live in fear of patriarchal domination! Where religion will die off in favor of truth! Behold! I come in light and fire!’”
The crowd clamored with chants of “Hail Artemis!” Joan calmed them again playing John Lennon’s “Imagine”.
Sherriff Clint Chody of Williamson County watched the television in disgust.
“That little witch just said she’s gonna end Christianity. Not on my watch. I’ve had enough of those hippies in Austin. Those pagans called down that fireball. This ends now!” Chody spat the words with a heart full of hate.
The problem was, astronomers had not seen the fireball coming and no one could find a point of impact.
But the sky over Liberty Hill was covered with a black aetheric cloud. When people looked up, it was like they were staring into the abyss. And the abyss was growing.
Within an hour Chody had an official order from President-for-life Trump to mobilize all local Police, SWAT teams, and National Guardsmen and they converged upon the festival with guns drawn.
The concert had ended and Joan was helping at the free food tent when Police surrounded the camp and set up barricades.
Barron grabbed her wrist from behind and pulled her into the darkness.
“What are you doing?” she cried. “That hurts!”
“I can get us out of here! Come with me!”
“Not without Felix!” Joan yanked free and stumbled through the flashlight beams and darkness back to the tent.
“Joan! I already brought him to the car! Come back!” He struggled to keep up with her fighting through the undulating mass of fleeing refugees.
“Felix!” he heard her scream.
“Fuck!” Barron cursed as he caught up to her under a pale tent light. Felix was violently vomiting blood and thrashing on the grass.
“Felix! No! What happened?”
Felix pointed at his mouth as his chest heaved in a death rattle.
His eyes grew wide in horror at the sight of Barron over Joan’s shoulder. Then the eyes went dark.
“We have to go now!” Barron grabbed Joan violently and dragged her to the stage and beyond fighting all the way.
“You don’t understand! They’re religious zealots! They’re going to burn everyone as witches! We have to get out while we can!”
Joan sobbed and impotently allowed herself to be stuffed into his black limousine. A Police motorcycle pulled beside them and Barron rolled down the window and flashed something in his wallet. From there the officer weaved the two through the crowds and out of the complex.
Joan was in complete shock. But she had the sense to start filming the scene through the window until Barron saw her.
“What are you doing? They’ll see you!”
Joan put the phone away and sat thinking. The Police were escorting them out. He wasn’t really afraid of them. But why lie? And what else had he lied about?
As they pulled away from the venue and onto the dirt road leading to the Interstate, Joan asked, “What happened to Felix?”
“What? How should I know?”
“Why was Felix always so afraid of you?”
“He was a scaredy cat. What do you want from me? What’s with all the suspicion? I took you in and have been nothing but a gentleman!”
“How did you come to be in the hotel lobby right after I left my apartment?” Joan moved her hand toward the door handle and pushed. It would not open.
“Joanie… we’re going too fast.”
“My father called me that. And I never told you that name.”
In desperation for anything at all that might give her an advantage, Joan slammed open the glove box. A black .9mm pistol dropped onto her lap and she snatched it up, spinning it deftly around to aim it at Barron’s temple.
“Stop the car.”
His jaw hardened but he kept driving.
“Fine.” Joan aimed the gun forward and blasted out the windshield.
“What the fuck!” Barron was blinded by flying glass and swerved onto the shoulder spinning the car in the dirt.
Barron quickly regained his senses and stood in front of the headlights peering into the darkness. Joan was nowhere to be found.
County Jail, Beaumont, TX
Six Weeks Later
“Well! If it isn’t the Governor! It’s like I’m a prophetess or something, huh? Why are you slumming it here, Governor?”
In six weeks the black cloud over Liberty Hill had spread to engulf almost all of Texas. And along with it came a plague that baffled all the scientists and sent the rest of America and the world into a panic. Joan’s prophecy was coming true and it was causing worldwide panic among the patriarchy. Everywhere the cloud spread, males had lost the ability to fire guns. Most reported extreme loss of strength. And there were even reports of the genitals of rapists turning necrotic and crumbling to black dust. It was this phenomenon that had finally drawn Boudikka back to her home town in Texas.
“I was hoping you could answer some questions for me. I hear you’re well connected with the Mexican cartels.”
“It’s no secret. I mentioned it in that interview.”
“So you did.”
Boudikka watched suspiciously as Gama’s eyes kept darting back to the camera on the ceiling above.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Nothing. I just…”
“Governors don’t typically handle investigations. And I already told the cops the perv hanged himself. I never touched him.”
Gama sat across from Boudikka with his back to the camera and pulled a note pad from his jacket.
“Do you know how the cartels are reacting to the plague?”
“Is that what they’re calling it? I call it justice.”
“Ok but…”
“I have been separated from my crew since I came to Texas. I wouldn’t let them come under the cloud with me. Just in case.”
As she spoke, Gama lifted the pad to reveal a different question in bold black: “IS THERE A SLAVE COMPOUND FOR IMMIGRANTS UP NORTH?”
Boudikka stuck her tongue in her cheek and leaned back. She tapped once on the table with her fingernail, joining it with an almost imperceptible nod.
“So, if I can get you in contact with your team, you can provide Intel on the Cartel invasion plans? That information could be worth a pardon.”
Gama flipped a page on his pad: “DO YOU KNOW WHERE THE CAMP IS?”
She tapped again.
Ten minutes later, Gama was strong-arming the deputy and slamming a stack of official documents onto his desk.
“You’re to remand her to my custody immediately on orders from President-for-life Trump himself! You heard her! She has vital intel about a Mexican invasion! I want custody and I do mean immediately!” he shouted.
Another ten minutes and they were outside the courthouse walking towards a pristine cherry red Lamborghini.
“Nice wheels. Gonna uncuff me after we get in?”
“Company car. And hell no.”
They hadn’t gotten fifty miles out of town before the deputy was informed the papers were fraudulent. Squad car lights appeared in Gama’s rearview mirror.
“Now we find out if this rod was worth what the taxpayers shelled out for it.”
“You’re not gonna escape them on the interstate! Get onto the backstreets!”
“They can’t use helicopters in the cloud! We can outrun them!”
“How many cops have you successfully evaded? Get off the fucking highway!”
A few hours later Boudikka began to feel dope sick. They ditched the car and jacked another. The owner of the car they stole had obligingly left his full wallet in his console. Gama rented a hotel in Amarillo so Boudikka could kick her habit in relative comfort.
“How you doing?” Gama knocked on the bathroom door. Boudikka kicked the tub and cursed perfusely.
“What can I do?”
“It’s no good anymore. Help me to bed.” Gama heard the water draining. He opened the door trying to keep his eyes to himself. She had been soaking in scalding hot water in an attempt to push any kind of endorphins into her brain, so her skin was as fiery as her hair. She crouched like a crone as he wrapped her in a towel. She lunged at the toilet to vomit but nothing came. She shivered as he helped her into bed.
“We have to give up and take you to the hospital. We’ll just give fake names.”
“Everyone knows our faces by now if they didn’t before.”
“Well, you’re no good to me dead.”
“Opiate withdrawal doesn’t kill you. It just makes you want to die.” Boudikka crawled under the covers and kicked and rocked and growled through the night.
The next morning Gama brought breakfast . Boudikka sipped her hot tea, still wearing only the towel and said weakly, “So tell me about your Mom.”
“Wow. A conversation? Feeling better?”
“Its day four. Time to be past this shit. Talk.”
“Mom’s name is Mary. She was… she is my rock. My superhero. Dad was cool but she raised us. And always had ways of making as much money as Dad while she did it. She turned groceries into dollars and fed us with the rest. She taught us to read English from the masters. Twain and Steinbeck and Dickens while my friends were reading comic books. I wouldn’t be Governor today without her.”
“You think you’re still Governor?” Boudikka chuckled.
“The news said the lieutenant has taken over duties but they haven’t replaced me yet. They think maybe I’m your hostage.”
“So why do you think Mom is in this camp?”
“They arrested her as an illegal immigrant. I visited her in jail and she told me these rumors. I was trying to get her out but they moved her and told me they had no record of her ever being there. The same cop who had guarded her in jail! Lied to me. Like they wanted to rub my face in it.”
“Jesus.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Yeah, yeah. I don’t see how you still have faith after all this.”
“What is left?”
“Oh. You’re hoping to see your wife on the other side. I guess that’s sweet.” Boudikka smiled.
“I… I have dreams about her. I think. It’s not just her. I can’t imagine those poor kids just being gone. But what about you? Why did you go back? You had to know they had that house staked out?”
“I do now. I don’t know why I went. It was stupid. When I heard about the rapists and pedophiles… I had to see for myself. Make sure he was being punished for what he did to me.”
“He raped you?”
“Pfff. To put it lightly. I was a runaway at 14. He lured me in with food and shelter and held me hostage for ten years with drugs and brainwashing.”
“He put you in a cage?”
“Dude. I was a child. He didn’t need a cage. I was terrified to walk out the front door. The very same door those pigs caught me outside of. They knew exactly what he did to me and never did a thing. To him. Patriarchal bs, just like that goth singer said.”
“I’m very sorry that happened to you. And I guess I understand a bit more why you became what you are.”
“What am I? A ‘murderer?’ That’s what you called me, right?”
“I’m sorry for that too.”
“Sorrys don’t fix shit. I’m gonna shower off this stink once and for all. Then let’s go find your Mom.”
The Oval Office
Washington, DC
Six Weeks Earlier
“I can’t believe this. I should have sent Eric. I never thought you’d be dumb as your brothers. What am I supposed to tell Bernard? Have you learned anything of value?”
“She kept referring to some supercomputer intelligence named Charlotte. Said she was responsible for making her famous. Like she has control over the internet or something. She said the elites have their own internet that’s infinitely better. Like the advanced technology Ivanka told you about.”
“Charlotte. Ok, what else?”
“There’s some kind of compound they have. It created Joan. She’s actually only two years old. The cabal normally keeps their children there, but Bernard took Joan away. She said there were many others like her. Genetically perfected. She’s very strong and heals almost instantly.”
“Are you bullshitting me now?”
“Dad, she showed me!”
“Where is this compound?”
“That she didn’t know. Or wouldn’t say. She just said it was secret. Didn’t like to talk about it.”
“And that abomination?”
“I fed him the cat food Bernard gave me. He’s gone.”
“The body?”
“There wasn’t time.”
Donald slammed the phone down.
“Jackass.” Barron muttered as he drove out of Texas.
