FLASHPOINT
What prospers a man to rub salt in the wounds?
The border squirmed. Tiny figures passed one another on foot like a two-way pedwalk. Their expressions revealed nothing but strain and struggle. CEO Cain Aronoff sat on a bench tentatively staring through the barbed wire fence that separated two worlds. His cigarette burned down to the last column of ash, but he was too distracted to flick it away.
It’s only a matter of time, he contended to himself. He could sense the tension a mile away. Now, a feeling of guilt overwhelmed his prior ambitions. After all, his investment firm owned acreage on both sides; he didn’t plan to lose out on post-national land deals in the wake of the last few months of civil strife. Without a greater government to unify an otherwise polyglot citizenry, all hell had broken loose, and groups willfully splintered off into their separate clades and factions. The vacuum of ownership became a bargain bin for companies and foreign interest groups vouching for property. Of course, there was always the pesky insurgent, but the biggest risks yielded the highest returns.
And Aronoff was the first to dive into the free-for-all. However, the escalations in upheaval niggled his conscience when he watched stationed troops settle each outbreak with the cocking of their rifles. Peaceful disassembly never lived up to its name.
His cochlears hummed. He blinked out a rapid code. The image of his CFO appeared in his sight.
“Any news?” Aronoff asked impassively.
“You’re still there…basking in reverie?”
“I was waiting for you.”
“I suppose I am your keeper. But I’m warning you, things are getting hot everywhere, especially along the border.”
“Which one? There’s a new territory every day.”
“You know what I mean. Your coordinates are clear. Things aren’t looking particularly good in your neck of the woods.”
“You don’t think I see that?” Aronoff finally noticed the stub in his hand, took one last drag, and contemptuously tossed it to the ground, letting it simmer on the desiccated soils.
“I never doubted your attention to detail. But they’re getting restless wherever you go. Almost everyone’s been driven from their homes and towns they once took for granted.”
“Not my problem.” He regretted saying that, but the more callous his façade, the more others took him seriously.
“It will be when things pop off. Everyone here’s going berserk. And guess what? You’ll be a prime target. That fence ain’t gonna hold back a tidal wave of angry faces.”
Aronoff couldn’t deny that fact. Any reciprocant he spoke with in exovision clearly saw wherever he laid eyes upon. The joys of modern communcation. He fumbled for another cigarette.
“I’d stop smoking if I were—”
“Shut up. Give me the projections.” He shoved the butt between his lips.
“Um…okay, wait.” Distant cries of despair filled the momentary pause. The CFO returned. “Here we are. Quarterly valuation…slightly depreciated.” He pensively hummed.
“It’s temporary. We’re looking at the long term.”
“Of course. Of course. Things should stabilize in a year or two. Okay, here. We’ve got a few ocean fronts, so we’re looking at the very least—in let’s say three years projection—sixty to a hundred million per acre. And that’s just the property. A buyer’s hub!”
Aronoff grunted, lighting his cigarette. The lungful gave him a sense of security. But it was hard to stifle the mounting guilt burdening his conscience. He blew.
“Three years? They better hold out. The agreements were non-negotiable.”
“They are! And don’t worry. Our clientele’s loyal as eager cadets saluting every word we dictate. Don’t get me wrong, but—”
Aronoff shifted his attention. A roar swelled across the muddied knolls beyond the fence. Along the crossing, a flurry of transients began to push and shove the opposite queue, shouting expletives in different tongues and pointing accusatory fingers.
“Cole, are you there? Is everything okay—?”
He shushed the CFO.
The chatter of restless spirits multiplied, and the skirmish expanded, enveloping the entire pass. The troops moved in, barking and shouting orders, but their numbers were few.
This won’t end well. “One moment…” Cole said aloud. He promptly rose up from the bench, realized how riddled it was of scuffs and holes, and retreated back to his chauffeur waiting alongside the bus depot lot.
“I told you, Cole,” his CFO blathered on. “Keep me posted. We’ll talk la—”
Aronoff shut the feed, growing tired of staring into electronic voids rudely popping up in the natural world. He needed some level of privacy, alone with his mounting regrets. Was he showing signs of sympathy with those he used as civic pawns, or was it a passing muse, a gesture to quelch a minute of discomfort?
The chauffeur opened the limousine door and tipped his visor. Aronoff lumbered in, welcoming the feel of leather that embraced his widening girth. He puffed away, a creature comfort he wished to keep, especially in the confines of the car where the vapors would twist and turn like a mystical shroud.
“Might wanna step on it,” he mumbled with the cigarette dangling from his mouth.
His chauffeur buckled himself in, shifted the gearstick, and peeled out of the depot, away from the flustered crowds and into the throngs of traffic.
One problem for another… he thought as he gazed over the cranes and subdivisions of one of the last few stable enclaves of a once mighty nation, hoping the migrations wouldn’t spread into this region. But he assured himself the worst of tensions would eventually pass and his financial firm would go on eliciting vast sums of fortune, becoming a team player on an ever-shifting landscape. But the prospects still haunted him.
A ding. He swore under his breath. Opening the exo-message, he scanned away.
He swore again, louder than before.
Another skirmish fomented sixty kilometers north along the border. Aronoff froze.
The nuke plant! His thought outscreamed his own voice. That place should have been more secure than a military installation. To add to his stress, his firm lay a half kilometer away.
The brief continued. Several insurgents pummeled through the barricades and flooded the premises. Closed-circuit television revealed several guards and technicians barbarically stuck down. The violence intensified when new swarms of rioters joined the fray.
But…but why the reactor? Riots were a force of nature, a shallow emotional spasm, without reason or judgment. His heart skipped a beat, and he choked and gagged on his own smoke.
“The other way! The other way!” he shouted, dropping his cigarette onto the carpet.
“Where to?”
“I don’t know. Anywhere south of here!”
The chauffeur acknowledged, and veered onto the next exit. In the meantime, the car floor set ablaze. Aronoff opened the windows and stomped out the flames, thrashing and swearing. The chauffeur requested to stop, but he waved him off.
Once extinguished in a billow of smoke, he stared down at the blackened legion that muddied the carpet. Seconds later, an exo-alert bleeped away. Everything else was forgotten.
A warning flashed across his site in bold red letters: RADIOLOGICAL EVENT IN CARMEL-BY-THE-SEA.
A flurry of curses poured from his lips. His home. His family. His business. His trusty CFO. Contaminated! Stranded, along with his chauffeur now driving without aim or purpose, he pondered the circumstances, too shocked to react. Part of him surrendered, his guilt confirmed, and he wondered if divine retribution had played a role.
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