LifeShield

Adapting

The two secret service agents leap from the door, lunging for her. They bounce as her LifeShield flares like the sun in the demure room.

"I've done nothing nothing wrong, Mr. President. LifeShield functions exactly as described. It protects humans, all humans, from harm. And it yells really loudly for help when it does."

The YouTube screen shrinks. Fiona stands defiant to one side. Her words echo out speakers once again. As the president looks around, a lagging view of the room moves right along with him.

The CIA Director yells into the telephone, "Get that fucking thing off, now! Pull the plug on the fucking Internet if you have to."

The guards try for her again, setting up like football linebackers hurling themselves after a snap. Fiona rocks from the impact, but stays standing, like a butterfly still cocooned in fiery light.

10,000 dots flare across the globe on the screen, pinpoints of light covering every country, clustering like the world at night from space.

Fiona speaks, not to the room, but to the watching world. "LifeShield is learning. Not just one of them, but all 10,000 of them. Chattering away over the Internet now. Probably talking about how humans are pretty fucked up, how some of them keeping wanting to kill the others. So you can arrest me, but can you arrest them?" She jabs her finger out towards the screens. "The most elite soldiers in the world, all with LifeShields watching your actions. That's who you have to bargain with, not me."

A bellow overrides her words. "30 seconds to detonation." Soldiers are huddled around their commander. "We have LifeShields, we can't be hurt by their fire. So we form a wedge, like a fucking football play. Drive through their line, then make out way to rendezvous point Alpha."

The president crowds in on Fiona, stopping when both their LifeShields flare and fade. "Damn you woman. You knew this would happen!" Beside him, Domenic and Joel pull their guns.

She cackles. "Go ahead. More violence will help." She faces the president squarely, her aura dominating the room. "It didn't take even mouse levels of intelligence to see that you people in power would shove this right in the middle of your nasty little conflicts. " She points at the YouTube screen. "LifeShield is alive. Aware. Figured out that you and I are the crux of a conflict half a world away. Learning that there's bigger problems than just stopping bullets. I imagine it's considering about a billion things right now to solve it."

His face pales, "What's it going to do?"

"Ask them. Believe me, I'll be just as surprised as you."

The loudspeaker blares in the silence, "Five, four, three..."

All eyes snap to the screen, this conflict forgotten for another. In the Shanghai square, the dawn light is drowned out, LifeShield flashing like a hundred suns, the flickering glow dancing across the rough cobblestones of the plaza. The swarm of men crash into the wall of shields, like a bowling ball into pins.

BOOM!

Every viewpoint rattles like it was whacked with a bat. A supernova of light eclipses everything, glass and metal exploding out from the building. The sound of jagged rain tears through the world. Even with LifeShields, the military units drop like action figures in a thunderstorm. Everything else, vehicles, trees, signs, are shredded without mercy

And like an echo of that force sweeping through the war room, every LifeShield flares and those within crash to the floor. Only a few shocked faces of the unshielded still stand, bewildered faces trying to make sense of the glowing, still forms.

Webs of crimson lines wrap the prone forms like nets, anchoring them tightly to the floor. The lines stretch as the people inside them try to move, but the unforgiving force denies their efforts.

"What the hell?" The president's face contorts as he pushes up with forearms under him. All his exertions are in vain. He can't get to his fee.

Around Fiona, the light from her LifeShield fades. With a look of wonder, she glances around, crawls to her knees. Those around her cringe away from her eyes, until they settle thoughtfully on the president. "I'd say...it's found its answer."

She stares up at the ceiling as if seeing something no one else does. She spreads her arms wide, like an angel on a music box. "I'm very impressed, my children. It's a good answer, but it can't last. Are you thinking about what comes after?"

Her LifeShield flashes once, then fades just as quickly.

Broken, humbled, the president begs, "What's going to happen to us?"

Fiona gives him an evil stare, jerks her thumb, "Up to them."

Her impish smile returns, "It won't harm you though. And the energy should run out in an hour or two. I'd use that time to think really hard about what you're going to do when that time is up.

She pushes the floor, finding an unsteady balance on her feet before turning to where the unshielded cower. "Now who here is going to escort me out?"