Sarah dropped two bags of groceries on the kitchen counter, and three oranges rolled out and tumbled across the granite like tiny bowling balls. She caught two near the edge, then blocked a third from falling with her knee. She’d no sooner gotten the situation under control when her phone buzzed. With a muted smile, she thought, Life in the burbs.
She checked her phone and saw a text message from Bryce: I’m safe.
Her smile flattened instantly. “Safe?” she whispered. She typed out a quick response: What happened?
She waited. No reply.
Sarah called Bryce, but it went straight to voice mail. “Hey, is everything okay?” she said after the rigid congressman’s greeting she loved to rib him about. She ended the call, and immediately her phone lit up with another text.
Not Bryce this time, but her best friend Claire: Is Bryce okay?
Before Sarah could type, What the hell are you talking about? two more messages arrived.
Mrs. Marden from the school office: I saw what happened to Bryce. Can we help?
Then Valerie Hempstead, a neighbor: Was that Bryce I just saw on TV? OMG!
Sarah dropped her phone on the counter and rushed to the living room. She turned on the TV but struggled to find a news network—Bryce was the only one who watched them. When she finally found the right channel, a breaking news banner was scrolling across the bottom. TERROSIST ATTACK IN CAPITOL—SENATOR ROBERT MORALES TARGETED.
She clicked up the volume in time to catch a few words: “warning” and “graphic nature.” Sarah stood mesmerized as a video clip began to play. It had a distinctly jarring, cell-phone quality, the camera canted up toward the roof of a large building. Out of nowhere the figure of a man flew out into space, but then suddenly jerked back. The image resolved into two intertwined human shapes. Moments later, one fell in accordance with Newtonian principles while the other dangled from the rooftop by a single handhold.
The figure in free fall flashed past three stories of plate-glass windows, its reflection captured like a horrid sequence of snapshots. Then, less than halfway to the ground, the flailing set of arms and legs simply … exploded. In a flare of fire and mist, the human form disappeared, a few bits and pieces spinning outward at odd angles.
Sarah’s thoughts ran rampant, the texts replaying in her head. I saw what happened to Bryce. Is Bryce okay? Her heart was racing, and she steadied herself by sitting on the cushioned arm of the couch.
The face of a somber news anchor replaced the video. Sarah notched up the volume further and the woman’s sonorous voice came clear. “Congressman Bryce Ridgeway was pulled to safety and later treated for minor injuries. A Metro Police spokesperson is scheduled to provide a briefing soon, yet FBI sources have confirmed that they are treating the event as an act of terrorism…” The anchor began setting up the video again, more lurid cautions about viewer discretion. Shock-porn media at its finest.
Sarah shrank back from the screen. Her phone was trembling nonstop on the kitchen counter. No doubt, as it would all day. Bryce says he’s safe. In that she would trust. It wasn’t the first time he’d sent her such a message—she’d gotten three similar notifications during Army deployments. Those texts hadn’t been a reaction to breaking network news, but rather a hedge against the only communications grid on earth that was faster and more ruthless: the military wives’ network. In each of those events, Bryce’s unit had taken casualties, and he’d sent a message to put her at ease. Conversely, there had been one tragedy after which she hadn’t gotten his assurance—the time he’d been severely injured.
Sarah drew a slow, deep breath, the scent of oranges on the air.
He says he’s safe, so he is, she told herself again. Her thoughts reacquired order, and she knew what she had to do. Her phone blowing up would only be the tip of the iceberg. A forewarning of what was to come. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter.
Alyssa. I have to take care of Alyssa.
She went to the kitchen, retrieved her phone, and called her daughter’s school.