A Final Message- Ch 1

The end of the world came on October 21st, 2157. Or rather I should say, the end of the free world. Our world. I don’t have much time to record this down, but I think it’s important enough that someone, somewhere watches this and knows what began just a few months ago. Just in case things get worse later. I’m hoping that this will help that someone somewhere to finish what I started. And I’d like to admit right now, that I’ve failed not only myself, but the free world. And I’m sincerely sorry.

Alright. So, it all began with a hacker and a Woman. The Woman had an idea. One so impossible that it would be… possible. No one even expected it. And that’s why it was so brilliant. And that’s why it only took two people to do it.
First the hacker. His name is Louis… I never discovered his last name. Louis the hacker discovered a way to hack into the robots guarding the white house. He shut them down. All of them. That’s when the Woman came in.
The Woman murdered the President in the middle of the night. She killed the first lady, then their children and everyone else in the damn white house. No one knew what was going on until it was too late.

My name is Zoë Greene and the rest of what I’m about to say is my own personal story. And honestly, most of it doesn’t have to do with anything, but I just want my story heard. Maybe if there’s still legit history books in the coming years my story will help write them…

Chapter one

I woke up in the middle of the night to my phone going off in an odd way. It was making this high pitched ring. A constant annoying sound and it was giving me a headache. I opened my phone, still half asleep, and the noise stopped instantly. On the screen was a message with no sender.

Go to your television.

I looked at the clock. It was about 3:48 I think, but I can’t completely remember because just then my TV turned on from in the living room. Intrigued, I went to check it out.
The TV was bright and it sort of hurt my eyes. It lit up the whole room, giving it a blueish glow. There was nothing on the TV at the moment . Just a blank, blue screen. I turned it off, and turned to head back into my room, but the TV turned on again. This time there was something on it.
A woman.
My first thought was that she was kind of pretty. I was tired. Then I wondered why she was on my television screen at- I looked- 3:54 in the morning.
“Hello. You may be wondering why I am on your television screen this early in the morning. Well, I won’t keep you wondering much longer. In fact, I’ll get straight to the point. From now on, I am your leader. Anyone who protests will be executed. Don’t believe me?”
The camera moved to the left of the Woman. Sitting on the floor in nothing but his underwear was a man. He was on his knees and his hands were behind his back. Probably tied there. His eyes were wide, but the rest of his face was calm, as if he were trying to tell the camera “Everything’s fine here people. Go back to bed,” and failing miserably.
The Woman walked into the shot and crouched down beside the man.
“This is Kurt Romano. He is the Chief of Police right here in Washington. Isn’t that right Kurt?” Kurt nodded. “Well, Kurt here just came in just a few moments ago intending on stopping me.” The Woman laughed. It was a deep, hearty laugh, kind of a chuckle. It was rich and pure and joyous. I couldn’t find anything funny about the situation. I was wide awake now.
“I’m going to make an example out of you Kurt,” the Woman said. She stood up then and walked out of the shot. When she returned, she was holding a shot gun.
Kurt began to lose control. He was sobbing, muttering something about his wife and kids. The Woman’s face had some emotion of glee. There was a smirk-like smile on her pretty face. Kurt continued to plead for his life, but the Woman wasn’t listening. She carefully placed the barrel of the gun at the very center of the top of his head. Kurt was shaking madly, tears streaked his pale face.
I was watching the Woman’s hand touching the trigger. I was pretty sure I was dreaming now. When I woke up, the TV would be off and I could make breakfast and go to work and go on with my life and no one would ever have to know about this dream. Not even me. I’d forget it all.
But as I watched the Woman’s finger close around the trigger, I doubted myself. And when Kurt’s blood and brains littered the floor and the Woman’s perfect cloths, I realized that this wasn’t a dream. This wasn’t a dream at all.

***

We were allowed to go back to bed once Woman explained to us how things worked in her world. But the sun was coming up and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I think I was in shock because I felt really confused. Maybe I didn’t believe what was happening and this was my brain’s way of coping with it. Or maybe I was suffering from PTSD. I don’t know, but something made me get up out of bed and dress for work.
Before the takeover, I was an airplane technician. I spent all my days as a workaholic, repairing jet engines and control panels for the army. I loved that job. It was great pay, busy work and I rarely had to be home. Home was depressing for me. I was happier in the repair hanger with only the sound of the radio from my bracelet and the gentle hum of the air vent.
So I dressed for work without thinking about it. And when I tried to leave my house, my door wouldn’t let me. It was auto-locked--something I didn’t even know existed--and kept spitting out the same repeated message. “You must remain within your household…Clearance will be granted shortly.”
Shortly turned out to be a three hour wait. In the meantime, I’d gotten a phone call from my sister Marina. She was also trapped inside her house. We talked about what had happened the night before (The same exact thing had happened to her) and decided to meet for lunch if we could get out.
Marina was very independent and had a relatively thin relationship with authority. When we had gone to school, Marina was always the one ditching class. Not because she hated school, but simply because she knew how to evade getting caught. So, naturally, when she discussed rebelling against the “new world order” the Woman had set up for us all, I knew that she would try to fall through. I didn’t tell her not to do it. I didn’t agree with her either, but I knew if I had asked her not to, she would do it anyway.
I was worried though. My sister was not afraid of getting caught. I hoped that she didn’t really have the guts to stand up to the Woman. It was too early to decide for sure, but I had a hunch that if someone could just take over America in a few hours, they wouldn’t be taken down by one little rebellious girl.
I wasn’t able to get out that day. And a text message from Marina told me she couldn’t either. I spent the day eating out of boredom and wishing I was at work tuning up some jet engine or repairing the motor on a blimp.
Before the take over, I was an airplane mechanic for the military. I repaired everything from fighter jets like the F-117A nighthawk to a helicopter to the most simple blimp. I spent most of my time there, but on the rare occasions that I was home, I would waste my time fitting together random bits of mechanical equipment.
The base was it’s own walled city connected to Tweedson by one long tunnel with gates on either side.
Being at home for that long was like getting caught inside a wall. I felt caged in knowing that outside, work and entertainment laid just a few inches away from me. I settled for staring out the window at the empty streets.
I went to bed early and woke up late. The first thing I did was try to open my door, found that yet again it was locked and spit out the same message it had the day before. I threw myself on the couch and turned the TV on. Every channel was a blank blue screen with no sound. More annoyed than scared, I called Marina. The phone rang for a long time and then Marina’s voicemail picked up. I left a message and also sent her a text.
About that time my TV came to life again. I’d left it on one of the blue screens but now the Woman sat at a desk in front of me. She was smiling again. That same sick twisted smile that she had painted on her face the first time she hit my TV screen. I didn’t want to see her again, so I tried to turn of my TV. The TV turned back on the second it turned off.
“You may start to notice your friends and family and neighbors start to disappear. That is because they’ve broken my rules already or have made no attempt to follow them. Others have just too bad of a history to simply be left alone. Just know that I will not tolerate this. You will do as I say. And anyone caught rebelling will be executed.” The Woman said.
A robotic voiceover played as the Woman smiled into the camera. “This has been a message brought to you by the Overlord of America.” And then the screen went blue again.
For some reason, this made me remember the internet on my identification bracelet. I pressed the launch button and a screen popped up in front of me. I’d set my homepage to Facebook and immediately read status updates asking people to let them know if they were ok and “Have you seen -insert name here-? They haven’t called me in a few hours!”
Others were cries of distress. They talked about seeing “squad men” going into houses with guns and hearing gun fire. People hearing struggles from the other sides of apartment walls. Screams and more gunfire.
I started to really worry about Marina. I feared the worst of what could have happened and it took a lot of will power to hold back tears. I told myself she wasn’t dead and tried to eat lunch. After that I tried to call her again, but the voicemail picked up on the first ring. Her phone was off. I sent her a message on Facebook and tried to imagine she was ok.
The internet stopped working at exactly 5pm that evening. The screen suddenly went blank, then a message appeared telling me I’d lost service. I’d never heard of such a thing happening, and I knew instantly that it was the work of the Woman.

Before the take over, Tweedson, Colorado was just like any other large city. Tall white and silver buildings lined the artificial rivers and roads where cars hovered feet above them at all hours of the day. The many walkways were made of recycled rubber and kind of bounced as you walked on them.
Crime rarely happened in Tweedson. At least that was what we were led to believe. Nothing was wrong about our community. Everything was perfect.
Again, we believed this intensely. For the government was controlling our minds long before the Woman showed up.

When I woke up the next morning, my door opened when I touched the pad. Sunlight greeted me, and the warmth on my skin was better than anything I’d ever felt. Everything looked beautiful and serene. Even the oxygen plants looked greener.
My neighbor, Kathy was outside soaking up sunlight too. She was an older woman. Her hair light and thin, was starting to grey. Her silver blue eyes were cast in bags and wrinkles. She wore a sweater despite the summer heat. She was much shorter than me and she seemed frail and breakable. She barely left the house. I only saw her maybe once a week with a large basket of groceries. She didn’t go everyday like most people did, she would stock up once a week so she didn’t have to leave as often.
Kathy’s back was turned to me. When I walked up to her she turned around. Her usually calm eyes were replaced with a wide fear and in the corners, confusion.
“Zoë,” She said. Her voice was shaky and somehow off.
“What’s going on?” I asked her.
Fear flashed through Kathy’s face and she hurriedly put a finger to her lips in the universal sign to be quiet.
“Even the plants have ears, Zoë,” She whispered quickly. “And they’ve messed with the robots.”
I looked around at the street. There were small clumps of people talking as they walked. A couple stopped to speak to another. One of the robots that normally floated inches above the rubberized walkways quietly and smoothly quickly floated over to them. I heard it tell them to continue moving and threatened to report them if they disobeyed. The group, immediately flustered, parted and continued their ways.
When I turned around, Kathy was gone.
I needed to go check on Marina, so I grabbed my little messenger bag and headed toward her house.
The robots left me alone as they always had, but I could almost feel them suspiciously scanning me as I passed them. I tried to remain normal, so they didn’t sense that I was up to no good, but the fear was slowly welling up inside me.
I felt numb. As if nothing had happened even though I was well aware that something had happened. I didn’t know what to think about it either. I wasn’t happy about what was going on, but oddly I felt at peace about it too.
I tried to clear my head. Something was horribly wrong. I couldn’t quite figure out what it was though. It was as if something was blocking my ability to rationalize anything.
I was lost in thought when I reached Marina’s apartment common. I had automatically gotten there from going so many times I hadn’t even missed a step despite my sudden confusion.
I pressed the buzzer on her door and waited for her to open it. I waited a few seconds more before buzzing it again.
She wasn’t answering.
Pressing the buzzer was like pressing a panic button on my own body. The more I waited the more nervous I got. Soon, I was pressing it in rapid succession. After no answers, I pressed the video call button.
“Marina? Marina where are you?” I spoke at the intercom. I had a strong urge to yell into it, but I didn’t want to alert the robots.
Finally, out of desperation, I tapped the door pad with my palm. The door slid open.
I stared at the open door for a moment as if expecting Marina to walk into view, but I knew she wasn’t there a long time ago. I was hesitant to go inside. Marina’s air conditioning whirred and cooled the area around her door. It was getting hot now being in the sun.
I stepped inside and the door slid shut behind me. The room was silent. Even the air conditioner had seemed to shut off. I shivered, not from the cold. I dreaded turning the corner into Marina’s bedroom. I imagined her body in a tangled heap on the floor. Stiff after being left for so long. Blood soaked into the carpet but long dried. Marina’s head; a mess of nothing.
I was getting nauseous, but cautiously, I pressed forward. I took a long time turning the corner, turning my body first, then my head and finally looking into the room. From where I stood, it was empty. Nothing but her bed and other roomy things. I walked in further and looked around. There were a few things miss placed. A book sat face up on the floor. Next to the book sat her favorite wolf figurine in several pieces.
Marina had grown pretty infatuated for wolves the last year or so. She collected as many figures are she could of them. Her closet was plastered in pictures of them. She always talked about getting out of the city and seeing them but she never made an effort to do it. It was almost as if she didn’t really care to sometimes. Like she was just saying because it made sense.
I left the wolf on the floor, but picked up the book. It wasn’t anything special. Just a copy of Animal Farm by George Orwell. I flipped through its pages, found nothing, and set it on the shelf the two objects had most likely come from. Putting the book back on the floor seemed silly.
The rest of the room seemed intact. Marina’s bed was unmade, but that was usual.
I stepped over the broken wolf and walked into the bathroom.
The blood stood out on the white tile floor almost ironically. The shock didn’t hit me till I was half way in the room, my boot nearly landing in a puddle of it. I stood there astonished and horrified and stared at it. I was imagining it. I had to be. So I bent down and touched it. It was dry, but it flaked off the floor as I pressed down.
“Marina…” I whispered into the tile. I stood up straight and turned to the sink. My reflection spooked me and I jumped.
I watched myself turn on the sink and wash my hands. My black hair was messy. The deep blue of my bangs jutted out in random ways. My hair was long and wavy. It would’ve looked just like Marina’s, minus the blue, but she had cut it months before into a shorter style. I had tried to stop her from doing it, but she didn’t listen to me much anymore.
I wash the little scraps of blood off my finger. When I turned off the water, I heard a beep. It seemed to come from the floor. I looked around, seeing nothing, then looked harder. Behind the toilet was Marina’s ID bracelet.
The holographic screen was up. A message was posted on the screen asking if I wanted to save the video. I tapped the YES option, then went back to play it.
Marina’s face filled the screen. Her eyes were wide. She looked upset and scared.
“Zoë… anyone,” She said. “If anyone gets this… When anyone gets this… I’ll be dead. I’m pretty sure they’ve come to kill me.”
There was a loud bang from somewhere in the apartment and some yelling. Marina jumped at the noise.
The screen jumbled and shook for a moment and there was audible snap as her bracelet broke off.
“I don’t have time to be thorough. They’ll catch me making this video…” Marina said staring into the camera.
“She can be stopped! The Blue Plaid. Find the Blue Plaid. And follow the pack,” Marina said. Her voice was getting shaky. Suddenly there was banging on her bathroom door. Marina jumped so much she almost dropped the bracelet. There was more shuffling on the screen as she placed the bracelet behind the toilet. The banging continued for a moment, then the splintering sound of the door breaking open.
“Found her!” Came a man’s voice.
“She was in the bathroom,” Remarked another man.
“Are you Marina Greene?” Asked a third.
“Yes,” Said Marina.
“We have an order of exicution for conspiring against the Great One,” Said the third man.
“Where’s your proof?” Marina demanded.
“We have the audio and video evidence,” The man said.
“How?” Marina Insisted.
“I am not qualified to release that information,” the man said. It was a mechanical statement like he’d said it hundreds of times before.
“Let me go!” Marina screamed. The sounds of shuffling and commotion were amplified by the bathroom acoustics. Every muffle, every grunt could be heard on the video.
There was a shreak. Marina’s shreak, then a gunshot so loud the sound cut off for a moment on the video. The sound returned just in time to catch the thud of Marina’s body hitting the floor.
I looked away from the screen. I was sobbing. I didn’t want to see anymore of the video. Unable to move, I sat on the toilet and let my tears slide down my face to the floor, rewetting some of Marina’s blood. The video possibly contained more information. I had to keep watching it.
There was talk about removing the body. Marina’s body was dragged a few feet or inches then lifted by someone. There was no indication where she was dumped.
“Search the house for anything that could lead us to them. Try to not mess up the place. Someone is bound to come looking for her,” the third man said.
“Should we clean the blood?” Asked some man.
“Nah. Let them know she’s dead. Have we found out who Miss Greene was speaking to earlier?”
“No, Sir.”
“Check her ID’d call list.”
There was a brief pause.
“Sir, she’s not wearing an ID…”
“What?” said three.
“Sir…”
“I heard you! But how is that possible?”
The voices were becoming faded. They were moving out of the room now. And some of the dialogue was cut out.
“…in the garbage incinerator.”
“…Not registering as… she didn’t destroy…”
The words became too distant to hear. After a while the mumbling stopped completely and silence washed in as the video had continued to record until it sensed no further movement or distinct sounds.
I stopped the video, still sobbing quietly and continued to sit on the toilet. I looked up at the door. How had I failed to notice the damage on it? The metal part where the lock was supposed to catch was hanging off. The wood was splintered on the frame. The door was dented deeply and the hinges were loose. I stood, interest deflecting my sadness, and ran my hands along the thick plastic of the door. What had they used to beat the door? Their guns? Special tools perhaps?
Marina had said to find the Blue Plaid and follow the pack. I had no idea what that meant or how that was supposed to help stop the Woman. I looked around the apartment, but failed to find anything useful.
I left in tears, still holding onto Marina’s Id bracelet.