Origin Z by Tony Hartzell

Author:Tony Hartzell
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
Published: 2016-02-25T07:00:00+00:00

THE WANDERING DEAD

Rocky wasn’t making much progress. It had been two hours of pushing and pulling toward the library. She had made this walk before, and it was ten minutes, tops, on any other day.

The announcement from Congress was supposed to be more than an hour ago. People were monitoring the news through social media and streaming live newscasts. Helicopters were not allowed this close to the political center of the country, but many small drones with cameras were hovering over the crowd. She spotted one of the operators and got a glimpse of the immense crowd from above. It was a spectacular achievement by the organizers to get this many people into one place.

The operator turned the camera to a podium at the top of the stairs leading to the front doors of the Capitol Building. National Guard soldiers and DC cops were starting to push people back from it, forming a line to keep a perimeter, with a dozen Secret Service agents posted around the podium.

Congressman Joe McDowell—people called him Joe Mac—stepped up to the microphones. He was Speaker of the House and known to be a brazen opponent of the president. About a dozen other senators and representatives gathered behind him, all of them cronies in the same political party.

When he patted the air with his hands, the crowd of millions did the impossible and went silent enough that you could hear the hundreds of clicking cameras and a few shouted questions from the press corps.

“Thank you all for coming out today. I know that you all have been waiting on a decision on the Mercy Act.”

That brought a cheer from the crowd, which the congressman once again patted down. After about sixty seconds, it was quiet enough for him to speak again.

“After long hours of debate—and points on both sides of the issue were considered—we have not come to a satisfactory agreement. We will continue our debate when we return from the fall break in two weeks.”

The crowd sucked in their breath like someone getting ready to blow out a candle. Then there was a buzzing sound, hundreds of thousands of person-to-person conversations. Like waves, the buzzing got louder. The congressmen realized the trouble they were in now and turned to start jogging toward the doors of the Capitol Building. The Secret Service was following and trying to look in every direction at the same time.

The buzz rose to a roar. The crowd surged toward the single line of soldiers and cops. They were pushed back easily. You could hear the clacking of riot batons hitting the tops of their shields and the heads of the now-enraged crowd. When the soldiers started going down under the human tsunami, you could hear the assault rifle gunfire echo off of the surrounding buildings.

Rocky heard screaming all around her. There were screams of anger, screams of pain, and screams of the dying. People were being trampled by the surging throngs of protesters. She almost went down several times, clawing at shirts and arms to stay standing.

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