The Called: Chosen (The Called Series Book 2) (13 page)

His days at school playing and learning with his friends, his first car, his first job. Everything was flying by at a rapid pace and leaving his mind. After just a few more seconds, he saw his wife in her wedding dress. How beautiful she was on that day…The day he was drafted to war, all of the killing…everything gone. It all ended with his last memories seemingly flying out of a window, never to return.

The shaking stopped and he just laid there with drool running down the side of his cheek and onto the table. There was nothing there…his mind was completely empty and only functioning at a basic level.

“Great”, said Adnan. “Now, let’s get those new memories in there. I have a plane to catch.”

One of the men pulled up a file that had every programmed memory that they decided to give him. They ran the program and all of them flooded his brain. He once again shook, nearly pulling an electrode off of him. After a couple of minutes of this, the process was finally done. The man known as John Robertson was no more.

They took all of the electrodes off of him and took him out of his restraints. Bahar walked up with a guard next to him.

“Do you remember your name young man?” he asked gently.

“Yes…It’s Kyle…Kyle Graves.”

“Very good”, said Bahar. “You are at a government treatment facility. You have sustained injuries from the time you spent as a captive of the Christians in New York. We managed to rescue you and bring you back here to recover.”

“I remember”, said John. “They were terrible and relentless. When can I get back to work? I want to go find these people and make them pay.”

Adnan smiled. “You have always been a great World Council soldier Mr. Graves. I like your tenacity, but you still have some healing to do. You can rest up here for the next week and we will turn you loose with your own team.”

“I can’t wait.”

The surgeon came out of the room and headed toward William. He stood up and shook the doctor’s hand and asked, “How is he?”

He had a grave expression on his face as he began to explain the President’s condition.

“He is still alive, though he is in very critical condition. The bullet severed one of his main arteries and punctured his lung before tearing through muscle and nerves in his back. We managed to stop the bleeding and administered donor blood to him.”

“Can I see him?” asked William.

“He is in recovery and you are free to go in and see him, but I want you to be aware that he isn’t awake and may not be awake for some time. He is in a comatose state at this time. Most people with this type of trauma come out of it within hours, while it takes days with others. His body and brain need time to heal.”

“Why would he be in a coma? He didn’t have a brain injury did he?” asked William with concern.

“No, he didn’t. However, he did flat line on us three times. His body and brain were both deprived of oxygen and blood for periods of time. We helped put him in this state in order to help him heal a little faster before he is awake. Even after he is awake, he won’t have full operation of his faculties back yet. It could take months for him to regain some of his motor skills. This had a similar effect on his brain as a stroke victim would have. It will just take time.”

‘Time isn’t something we have right now’, William thought to himself.

“Alright…thank you doctor”, said William. “I’ll send for Vice President Donnelly. I’m sure he will want to know this information.”

William grabbed one of the Secret Service agents and asked him to find Donnelly and have him come down to see the president and discuss how the government would need to carry on with Liam in his current state.

He dreaded the exchange and what was to come. The Vice President was not a born against Christian like Cain had become. He was still firmly entrenched in the current ideals of world government and held Assad in high regard. It was going to be harder before this happened to the President, but now it would make it nearly impossible to go back to the way things once were in the United States.

William went ahead and walked into the recovery room where Liam Cain lay. He looked better than he did when he went into surgery. The white, ashy look had been replaced with more color in his cheeks.

He walked up to Liam and placed a hand on his shoulder; leaning over toward his ear and whispering.

“Mr. President, we need you to come out of this really quick. If you don’t bounce back from this within a few days, then I’m afraid that Donnelly and Assad will see to it that this country never becomes what it used to be. It will all be for nothing.”

William felt awkward speaking to a man who was lying unconscious. ‘Maybe he can hear me’, he thought. ‘It’s worth a shot. He needs all the motivation to wake up and get better that he can get.’

The door popped open and William almost jumped out of his skin. In walked Vice President Donnelly.

“How is he?” he asked.

“He is still in bad condition”, said William. “He is in a coma right now in order to allow his brain and body to heal over the next few days. He nearly died three times and didn’t have enough oxygen or blood going to his brain. It could be a very long road to recovery.”

“That’s too bad”, said Donnelly. “Well, at least he is alive. That would have been terrible to lose the President.”

“I agree”, said William.

“I do want to discuss with you the possibility of me acting as the President until he recovers and is able to resume his duties”, said Donnelly.

“Alright. Well, I think it is too early right now to do anything in the way of swearing you in as the acting President. The man is still alive after all”, said William.

“Yes, he is alive… but he is incapacitated. First of all, Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 says that if the president is, because of ‘Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office’ then the Vice President gets the job.”

“Well, I guess that would put you exactly where you want to be then wouldn’t it?” asked William harshly.

“Are you saying that I wanted this to happen?” asked Donnelly. “I’m offended that you would even entertain that notion.”

“It’s just convenient that this is all happening right now in light of the announcement that we made today. It makes me wonder who caught wind of it beforehand. You know as well as I do that the shooter could have been a government plant. I’m not ignorant of all of the cerebral reconditioning that had gone on with soldiers over the past year. It wouldn’t have been that hard.”

“That’s an amazing theory, Mr. Bernhart. It’s very intriguing to me that a man in your position as third in line would be accusing me of such subversion. I’m not sure what it is that caused a man as intelligent as Cain to defect to your side, but I will find out. I will do whatever it takes to make sure that you and your constituents, even President Cain himself, doesn’t threaten the state of national security because you want to be isolationists who cares only for themselves.”

“Do what you must”, said William. “But, let it be known that there are several of us in this country from the very top to the bottom that are willing to fight for our sovereignty and freedom. That’s what we were founded on after all; life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Those things don’t really exist in the world government. The dictator won’t allow it.”

―――――

The riots had started almost immediately after the press conference at the White House. It was more subdued perhaps because of the President being shot and nearly killed, but there was definite unrest all over the country. People took to the streets to demonstrate their disdain for what they felt was Cain being a turncoat; a traitor to the new way of doing things.

The effect was felt the most in cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Detroit, and San Francisco but in smaller towns all across the country it was all people talked about. Although a minority, in the south and most western states, there were a lot of people that flew American flags and supported the move by Cain to take their sovereignty back.

Full-fledged battles hadn’t erupted yet due to the uncertainty of the presidency and whether this decision would be carried out or not. The uncertainty was the perfect tool to be used in the hands of Assad. While the world waited on the United States to make a move, he used the violence in America to make a point.

He was on screens all across the globe as he had been many times before; indoctrinating the masses with fear toward anyone who would dare defect and try to become individuals. It was suggested that individuality was dangerous. Outliers were not welcome and that included entire countries. There would be no world power except for him. He convinced many that it was the only way for world peace.

Like a glorified snake oil salesman, he shamed the president and those in the United States that would be such rebels against the world government:

“No, citizens of the world, true freedom is not in the sovereignty of your country. It is in fact in the unity of the world. Every person from every walk of life and every country under one banner…the banner of peace and prosperity. What you have seen take place in the United States over the past twenty-four hours has been the price of leaving that protective covering that I provide as the leader of the World Council. The rioting, the confusion, the hatred among people…all of those things come from a bigoted mindset that should have been put to rest long ago. It is still running rampant in certain parts of the world though; especially in the United States. It is not supposed to be this way. It has also been made known to me that Britain would also like to follow in the footsteps of the U.S. If this is the case, I would like to issue a warning to you and anyone else who wants to defy the World Council. Your desire to disrupt the new world order will not be without consequences. We have enough people in your own governments and citizenry that are more than capable of keeping your country where it is and that is part of the World Council. If you choose to continue to defy me, there will be an attack that will cripple your infrastructure and make you desolate as a nation. I do not enjoy using force, as I am a peaceful man. However, I will protect my believers throughout the world.”

This only fanned the flames in both the United States and Great Britain. Jails and hospitals were full and fire departments were continuously working in dangerous areas to put out fires. Local and state government buildings had to be protected by National Guard forces and the military had Washington, DC in lockdown per Jay Donnelly’s instructions.

Vice President Donnelly went on television and gave a speech, updating people on the condition of the President and the current state of affairs across the country.

“President Cain is in a medically induced coma at this time. He is in critical condition and it could take him days to wake up and months to function again. He may never be able to carry out the duties of President of the United States due to his current and future physical and mental state. With that being said, the Supreme leader Samyaza al Assad has placed me in charge as acting President until further notice. My first order as President is to institute martial law in every city across the United States with a population of one-hundred thousand or more. This will lift once the violence and looting stops. You will only be allowed to go out during the day. Anyone caught out at night will be imprisoned and fined. If you do not cooperate, the police and military units have authority to kill. Please be mindful of this and as always, we appreciate your cooperation.”

William Bernhart sunk in his chair. There wasn’t much he could do now, he thought. He wasn’t sure if he needed to create a hostile takeover with the other supporters in the government and military or if he needed to just go into hiding with his constituents. It was very clear to him that both Assad and Donnelly had no more patience for opposing viewpoints and he couldn’t hide behind his title or position in the government.

The rules of the Constitution no longer applied. The law was whatever Assad says it was at any given time. He spent the rest of the afternoon gathering his belongings and calling up every person he knew to call in the government to see what could be done. He decided to go to his secluded cabin in West Virginia where he could think and pray. He was the only person who knew it was there and that would come in handy for him in the coming days.

The game had changed drastically and every move would put him and many others at risk of death. ‘This is it’, he thought. ‘The time of tribulation that the bible talks about. I never would have thought it would have happened this way.’

―――――

The van carrying Maggie, Chaim, and Commander Murray was flying through the streets on the southern outskirts of New York, heading straight for the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. Murray was on the phone communicating with each unit leader as he drove down the road.

It still hadn’t sunk in that they all had lost their home and even probably a dozen lives during the bombing and subsequent pursuit by the World Council forces. It was Chad Murray’s job to hold it all together when difficulties came up and he was doing a fine job of it.

His analytical and self-critical mind just couldn’t let some things go. He wondered to himself if there was any decision he could have made along the way that would have changed the outcome. Even though he only had a few minutes to react, it was still a trait of his leadership to question himself.

They kept looking in the rearview mirror and in the sky wondering if they would pick up on them moving from the city. The one mistake that the World Council forces made was that they didn’t have enough air support set aside for the task. The bombers had already moved out and a small ground unit was making its way through the empty bunkers, but no further planes, drones, or helicopters were within sight.

The inexperienced forces of the World Council were still trying to get their methods together and strengthen their position in the United States. Finally, Murray decided that they were very fortunate to have escaped and not have anyone pursuing them outside of the city.

“Do we have a plan?” asked Chaim.

“Right now, we don’t have anything set in stone. We do have some brothers and sisters that have lived in the Appalachian Mountains for quite some time. We are going to go and see if they can help us get on our feet and begin a new life there. We will need a short term plan to have some families housed with some believers there and we need a long term plan to build small cabins for each family on the land. We are going from the city life, getting all of our resources from the black market to living completely off the land. It will be a big change and a learning curve for everyone.”

“You mean I get to grow my own squash now?” asked Chaim jokingly.

Joshua maintained a serious demeanor. “Yes, that’s correct.”

“Okayyyy…” said Chaim; obviously expecting more of a light hearted response.

“Listen, I am just a little on edge”, said Chad. “We are going to be going through Philadelphia, Baltimore, and then into Washington, DC before turning to the west and heading down through the mountains. All three of those cities are experiencing major riots right now and although it ties the hands of the World Council forces for us right now, the last thing I want is to run into an angry mob.”