The Woman on the Beast Read online

  Just like every redneck who had ever won the lottery drove off in a Lambo and suddenly pretended he didn’t know any of his poor friends, people would always be people. And Atticus knew better than anyone, that people were total assholes.

  He’d have to make sure to tune into the news because pretty soon a whole lot of rich people were going to feel beyond violated – like rape victims.

  Now they would need the tax dollars of all the poor people to fund a war.

  They might force the working class people to form large armies to fight for freedom, fight against terrorism, or whatever threat they made up to cover up the fact that really they were just mad because all their dirty money had been stolen.

  Terrorism, Communism, Marxism … any ism would do.

  Now, they were almost as poor as everyone else in the world. How tragic.

  Of course, they still had the money in their legitimate, visible bank accounts, and so they were still technically not poor.

  However, just the possibility of being poor was sure to light a big angry fire under there asses enough to start bombing the guilty countries.

  Using his Skelton’s Key power to alter the government security information in all countries, he created secret fictitious military bases in all countries that he intentionally placed in areas containing rich people. That was easy, since the rich had a way of keeping the poor far, far, away. Of course he left out Sterling Heights, Mississippi and all cities within a 1,000 radius, but that was just to protect his own ass.

  A lot of rich people just lost a whole lot of money.

  Now SOMEBODY was gonna PAY, and PAY BIGTIME.

  THE PRESIDENT’S BIG MISTAKE

  Unlike Haiku, President Mason Matthew’s was only human and humans made mistakes.

  He didn’t realize that Haiku’s weapons of mass destruction were designed for prevention, not cure. They could target stockpiles of chemical weapons, they could assimilate data worldwide to track suspects, but they couldn’t do much after the fact.

  His weapons were not designed to blindly bomb cities at the expense of civilian casualties. Haiku’s weapons were smart weapons controlled by synthetic android brains programmed to avoid civilian or children casualties at all costs.

  Because GPS locations and worldwide data were constantly changing, his smart weapons needed time to assimilate and process data changes.

  Had President Matthews activated the smart weapons even one week earlier, catastrophes worldwide could have been avoided, but like any good father, his first priority had been rounding up his family members and sheltering them to safety underground.

  Once biological weapons and suicide bombs had spread to thousands of destinations worldwide, changed hands multiple times and began cropping up in the least expected destinations, Haiku’s weapons could not assimilate the data changes in time to prevent the catastrophes, especially considering the added processing time it took his weapons to compute Atticus’s fictitious changes.

  In an unexpected twist that even Haiku could have never predicted, Atticus sent fictitious information to hostile nations that implied all United States military arsenals were hidden beneath country clubs.

  Because Atticus’s changes were invisible and untraceable, Haiku had never been quite as surprised as the day he witnessed Ebola break out in the richest communities in the United States via loyal No Surrender Squad members who had been living abroad for years.

  Terrorists typically targeted New York Subways, World Trade Towers or NFL games.

  To see every country club in the United States turn into Sierra Leone in one day was a surprise that left jaws ajar throughout the nation.

  News outlets listed the following neighborhoods as being currently quarantined for Ebola outbreaks: Rockdale Estates/Cutler Bay Estates, Pine Crest, Florida; Greenwich Country Club, Greenwich Connecticut; Orienta; Mamaroneck Village, New York; Cherry Hills Country Club, Cherry Hills, Colorado; Murray Hill/Heathcote, Scarsdale, New York; Indian Hill Club/Woodley Rod, Winnetka New Trier Township, Illinois; Merrywood/Knollwood, Millburn Township, New Jersey; St. Louis Country Club, Ladue, Missouri; Round Hill, Greenwich, Connecticut; Buell Mansion, Cherry Hills, Colorado; Holmby Hills, Los Angeles, California; John’s Island, Indian River Shores, Florida; Rumsun Country Club/Waterloo, Rumsun, New Jersey; Belle Harbor, Greenwich Connecticut; Burning Tree Country Club, Greenwich Connecticut; North Beverly Hills, Peavine Canyon, Beverly Hills/Peavine Canyon, Beverly Hills, California; Jupiter Island, Florida; Woodhill Country Club, Orono, Minneapolis; Fisher Island, Miami Beach, Florida; The Highlands, Shoreline, Washington; Everglades Golf Club, Palm Beach, Florida; Stanwich/Conyers Farm, Greenwich, Connecticut and Bonnie Briar Country Club, Mamaroneck, New York.

  The No Surrender Squad purposely did not use mass air contamination methods like Anthrax spores as they relied heavily on their loyal spies already staked out in the West to continue to release the biological weapons in the Freedom Forces countries. They couldn’t risk mass air contamination that would also kill their spies. Fortunately for the No Surrender Squad, the United States had always been the joke of the world when it came to airport security and immigration laws.

  While the nations of the No Surrender Squad had been amassing nuclear technology for years, it was still not advanced enough to fire a nuke across an ocean without it detonating midway.

  They were experts at terrorism, but they were sticking to what they knew best – biological and chemical warfare.

  There wasn’t enough money in the world the people of those rich neighborhoods could pay even one physician to enter the contaminated area because just like the United States was famous for their lack of airport security, its citizens were also known for being prone to save their own asses and look out for number one at the expense of all others.

  Meanwhile, the No Surrender Squad lost complete control of central command in the Eastern world, which resulted in thousands of jihadist suicide bombers randomly detonating in any destination they chose.

  6,000 suicide bombers detonated themselves in one day killing 10,345 people in the major metropolitan areas of London, Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Toulouse, Leeds, Bristol and Marseille.

  The No Surrender Squad attacks were far too random and spread out for the Freedom Forces to possibly retaliate appropriately.

  It was a helpless feeling for President Matthews as he realized he’d dropped the ball on using weapons that could have prevented mass casualties if only they’d been activated in time, but as a result of the insidious hacker’s invisibility, no one had any clue concerning times or locations of possible attacks.

  Haiku’s only words of comfort to President Matthews were, “Mr. President, we did the best we could.”

  It just wasn’t possible to track any hacker who could invisibly make large-scale communication changes throughout the military intelligence of nations worldwide.

  Haiku was smart enough to realize his own genius technology had been used against him, and so instead of wasting time trying to predict unpredictable and random attacks, he instead prioritized ushering the innocent to safety underground as quickly as possible.

  ASHLEY’S ESCAPE

  The day Haiku called President Matthews and told him of the intelligence security breach, he immediately began hunting down all of his family members and forcing them underground for their protection.

  His 18-year-old daughter Ashley had been studying abroad in France and did not appreciate being suddenly forced underground when there had yet to be any attacks.

  She found her father’s overprotective actions to be as suffocating as the underground tunnels his security forces bullied her into entering against her will.

  She didn’t appreciate captivity one bit, or the fact that she was surrounded by a team of security guards day and night, and she vowed to escape from the moment she’d been confined in an underground tunnel system that aggravated her claustrophobia and made her feel as if she were buried alive in a coffin.

&nbs
p; Furthermore, she was nearly inconsolable over the fact that her security guards refused to take in her fiancé, Stefan. The underground network was top secret and other than Haiku, President Matthews trusted no one.

  Day and night she racked her brain, plotting her escape in order to be reunited with her fiancé and all her friends who still had the luxury of sunshine.

  The entrance she came through in France had already been sealed off for security reasons, and she was not allowed to travel throughout the tunnel systems, but rather was forced to stay in a private bunker for her own safety.

  My own safety? I’m in prison; that’s what I’m in. This is mother fucking solitary confinement. I might as well be a serial killer.

  She resented being the President’s daughter because she couldn’t even go shopping at the mall without being surrounded by a team of armored vehicles and stalwart men with highly trained sets of skills like Liam Nielson from Taken.

  She thought she could escape all the suffocating “security measures” by studying abroad in France, but the security team was right on her heels as usual.

  Miserable. That’s what it was. Absolutely miserable.

  She was not even allowed to leave her bunker. She had her own bathroom and kitchen, but they had taken her cell phone and her laptop. Furthermore, she wasn’t even allowed to watch television. No satellite communications devices were allowed underground and she noticed even her body guards were using walkie talkies that looked like they came from the old show military show M.A.S.H.

  After three weeks, she felt as if she were going completely insane and began looking for weapons.

  Her bed had a wooden nightstand that was a possibility. She also noticed her bedside lamp could possibly be heavy enough to be used as a weapon. She would have been hidden with the rest of her family but the tunnels in the United States had not yet connected to France and her father felt as if any travel above ground was too dangerous.

  That’s just great! The rest of my family has a hot tub, a pool table, an arcade, steaks and day spas in their bunkers, and I’ve got canned food and metal army spring bed.

  Now that she was “safely” contained in her prison cell coffin, she could think of nothing else but planning her escape - night and day. Two heavily armed body guards were at the door of her bunker at all times and rotated so that she was guarded 24-7. Because they were underground in top secret tunnels, the body guards stood outside her door and occasionally showed up to their shifts with a cup of coffee. There were only twenty other military officials underground and once the tunnel entrance was closed off, Ashley was considered to be in highly secured environment.

  But Ashley was no dummy. She knew there had to be a way to get supply trucks in and out. There was an entrance and an exit somewhere.

  “Come on, guys. You gotta let me out of here one day,” she begged. “It’s been three weeks. I’m really going insane. I really am. You’re going to find me in here dead one day. I can’t live like this.”

  “Sorry, Ashley. President’s orders. We’re trapped down here, too, you know.”

  “But you don’t have schizophrenia!”

  Ashley had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia at fifteen and all of her horse-tranquilizing medications were shipped to her bunker once a month.

  Ashley felt like anyone who’d had to go half of their life surrounded by armored guards would have developed such a disorder.

  Taking twenty military men and trapping them a mile underground until further notice had a way of sometimes creating tensions between the male egos, and Ashley hoped that eventually an opportunity would arise and allow her to escape.

  It was three more weeks before opportunity finally arrived. She was startled from her nap by the sound of loud yelling, and intense fighting could be heard echoing down the tunnel.

  She knew that when male egos were confined, they would always start clashing eventually, and so she had been preparing for such a time. Using her heavy lamp, Ashley had pulverized her tranquilizer, Seroquel, into a powder so fine it was nearly invisible.

  Being that the guards were just as bored as she was, they argued over who would go help diffuse the argument.

  Finally, the higher-ranking guard won, and hurried to help diffuse the action.

  Ah ha! I only have one guard now!

  While the guards were under direct orders not to let Ashley leave her bunker, they were not cruel enough to shut the door. Her father knew being trapped in a room by herself with a closed door would seriously aggravate her condition, therefore he allowed for her to keep an open door as long as there was a guard on either side of the doorway.

  The guards really didn’t have it much better than Ashley since a mile underground was not exactly the epitome of adventure and their love of danger was the reason they had taken the jobs in the first place. As the weeks rolled on, they finally pulled up chairs to either side of her door and began to slump their shoulders as they reclined back in the metal chairs.

  Now, the only remaining guard had set his Styrofoam coffee cup directly under his green metal chair.

  Ashley turned the radio up just enough to not raise any suspicion. She turned the shower on to give the false impression that she was busy. She crept to entrance of the door, dropped to her hands and knees, and crouched so low her head was below the seat of the guard’s chair. She was eye-to-eye with the coffee cup and tightly gripping the bottle of pulverized medication in her left hand as she craned her neck around the doorway slowly. The guard was on the right side of the door and craning his neck to try to get a glimpse of the fight.

  She would easily be able to escape to the left if the remaining guard were to suddenly feel drowsy.

  She hated to take advantage of him, but weeks of solitary confinement had a way of altering one’s moral compass. In a flash, she dumped the powdered tranquilizer into the cup beneath chair, hoping it would appear to be powdered coffee creamer floating on the surface.

  On more exciting assignments, the body guards rarely drank coffee, but lately they had been chugging pot after pot out of boredom.

  She dumped enough tranquilizers in the guard’s coffee to take down a circus elephant.

  Furthermore, the steaming coffee quickly disintegrated the powder.

  The guard might have noticed a light film on the surface of the coffee, but he lifted up the cup to his mouth while keeping his eyes glued on the hallway dispute, which was continuing to escalate.

  She knew better than anyone that Seroquel hit like a ton of bricks.

  It’s only a matter of time, big boy, and you’ll be Sleeping Beauty.

  Sure, she had risked his life with the possibility of overdose, but her only other option was to overdose herself.

  That was definitely a solid plan B.

  Like clockwork, after fifteen minutes she heard the loud snoring of the guard as his head fell back against the wall and left the entrance to her bunker completely unguarded for the first time ever.

  She slipped out slowly and quietly to the left, wearing all black and moving along the wall in the shadows the tunnel created. Since the championship fight had everyone’s attention on the right, she had no choice but to go left and hope to find an empty supply room.

  Adrenaline pumping, she slid along the wall in darkness until finally she came to an entrance on the left that branched off from the tunnel.

  She peered around slowly.

  An empty supply room! Score.

  Only having twenty people didn’t require large amounts of supplies, meaning the supply rooms were typically full of unopened boxes and completely unguarded. Supply shipments were rather infrequent, but she would be willing to hide in a crate for a year if that’s how long it took for a supply truck to arrive.

  It didn’t take long to find a big enough crate to hide in being that she was only 5’0 and 95lbs. After nearly thirty minutes of being human cargo, she heard a commotion like no other as the guards realized she was gone.

  All Hell broke lose as all twent
y men began accusing each other of being responsible for her disappearance.

  “She’s nowhere down here. She must have already escaped out of the supply truck exit. Notify the French military base IMMEDIATELY,” she overheard a guard bellow into the walkie-talkie.

  Maybe the fact that fifty crates and boxes were stacked along the wall waiting to be opened whenever someone needed more blankets, guns, or coffee was what made her hiding place go unnoticed, but Ashley believed they didn’t check the supply room because it was human nature to assume the worst case scenario, which was clearly that she had already escaped.

  The search was immediately moved above ground giving her ample time to find supply boxes with weapons and ammo. Since her overprotective father had forced her to learn how to load and fire a gun at the age of 11, she was officially armed and dangerous with a small .22 when two days later her ship finally came in.

  She knew a .22 wasn’t much more powerful than a BB gun, but she also knew one could still shoot an eye out.

  Two days and fourteen painful body cramps later, a large green military supply truck finally pulled into the supply room.

  Oh thank you, Jesus!

  One soldier began wearily unloading boxes so heavy they should have been carried by two men.

  After stacking his last box on the very top, he leaned down to roll in the truck ramp.

  He nearly peed his pants when a metal gun suddenly pressed so hard into his temple, it was clear the owner wasn’t in a good mood.

  “Don’t move or I shoot.”

  She cocked the trigger, “and believe me, I know how.”

  He froze with both hands still on the ramp.

  “Take out your walkie talkie and turn it off. If you raise it to your mouth, I will shoot off your hand.”

  “Who are you?”

  When he spoke she realized he was French, and she let out a sigh of relief that he could speak English even though her French was nearly at conversational level.

  “Don’t worry about that. I’m a hostage and I need to get out of here fast! I haven’t eaten in four days, and so my trigger finger is very itchy. Now, drive me out or else, French Fry.”