1
Boston, 2115
It sounded as if someone followed him.
The echoes of his hurried footsteps against
asphalt caromed high off the glass-and-steel buildings, the tall structures hurtling
the noises, amplified and just as artificial as his surroundings, back his way.
He immediately shifted his confusion, his momentary disorientation, to the side
as he wondered from just which direction the people coming for him came. With a
slight gasp that he seemingly had to pry out of his throat, he looked over his
shoulder every few steps, skirting puddles. He grit his teeth and kept going.
An elusive shadow, one from which he wished to escape, held his heart in an
iron grip, one that did not loosen even as it thumped against his inner
breastbone. His gun, a Sig-Sauer antique used by the Secret Service a century
prior, was in his coat pocket, but he did not draw it for fear of being seen—or
recognized for his true self. Halfway through the passage, he pulled his long
gray trench coat tighter about him. The air was swollen and heavy, and inside
this tight, manmade chasm, it felt even more oppressive to the government paper
pusher. The tiny hairs on the back of his neck, the ones the coat’s collar didn’t
cover, stood up with droplets of dew-like perspiration hanging off the ends. He
smelled himself, the aroma curling up from his body and dancing inside his
nasal cavity. He suppressed the need to vomit, for whether the fetid stench was
truly from his body or from fear, he did not know.
His lip curling, he put his head down and
walked toward Downtown Crossing, away from the area known a century and a half
ago as Scollay Square. It was only natural that Bostonians had returned to
calling that neighborhood by its proper name, long after revolution had taken
the city by storm and cut off what had been deemed progress—the pathetic brick
wasteland known to generations as Government Center—returning the city to its
true roots. He used a somewhat roundabout route, walking through a neighborhood
once affected by blight in the middle of the 21st Century and renovated within
the past fifty years to its more modern, 22nd Century look. He ducked right,
turning onto Spring Lane from Devonshire, and with a quick turn, allowed his
eyes to dart back and forth across the narrow expanse. He saw nothing behind
him, save a few cars sliding around Dock Square. He wondered when their minions
would jump him. Doing so here would be the first thing he would expect; it was
a darkened alley. He leaned against a steel cornering post, and without
thinking about it, he swallowed his spit. He grimaced; the inside of his mouth
had the taste of metal. He felt a stitch developing in his chest. Even as he
rubbed the flesh over his heart, he took heavy gulps of air. He needed to get
away—and quickly.
Here, practically at the foot of historic
Beacon Hill, he was too close to them. He bit back a curse as he pushed away
from the building, eager to put plenty of space between himself and his
pursuers. Another puddle stood in his way. He sidestepped it instead of
splashed through; it had rained earlier today, and puddles were sure to be
found throughout downtown.
“Got to get to Washington,” he breathed as
he stalked away. “They need to know. They need to prepare. They need to
respond.”
He took one more look over his shoulder, then
made the left-hand turn onto raucous Washington Street. He saw no one, just
like before.
For some reason, one that he couldn’t
begin to explain, that didn’t ease his growing anxieties. He reached into his
pocket and flipped the safety off with his thumb.
The man tried to regulate his breathing
and his heart rate even as he walked south along Washington. He also tried to
keep his gait even as the growing crowds milled about in this refurbished and
expanded Combat Zone. The old historical monuments along this stretch had burned
ninety years prior, replaced by dance clubs and bars. It was late at night, and
the scantily-clad revelers of both sexes paid him no mind—for a while. No one
even looked twice as they headed into the clubs, presumably for uncontrolled
debauchery. He wondered if he looked like a pervert to them, what with the
trench coat and all; one then yelled to him.
“Flash us, Silver Surfer!” he crowed.
He ignored it. Some, he saw, crinkled
their noses as he approached, giving him a wide berth as they stepped out of
his way.
He caught a whiff of fresh marijuana on
the air as he slipped past Franklin Street, and received a face full of blue-gray
smoke as he meandered through a group of partiers congregating in an outdoor
tavern. He inhaled deeply, coughed once, and within moments, he felt lighter in
the head and in the heart.
“Maybe we should go back eighty years and
rethink that whole making weed legal thing,” he muttered. “Damn, that was fresh
off the plant.” He slapped his lips together; his mouth had turned arid.
He shook his head as soon as he made it to
the Downtown Crossing subway stop on the Inner Belt Rapid Transit system, as if
he tried to remember his task through the fog. He pulled his thin phone out of
his pocket and held it up to a scanner next to the gates. The gate immediately
beeped, his electronic currency proven. Servos and gears whirled as the doors
slid apart, thudding into the jambs. He headed downstairs to the station proper,
his steps rapid.
Within a minute, and after many furtive
glances around him, he found himself on the North-to-South Express train,
headed back the way he came. He had figured that the easiest way for him to
evade the target’s security detail would be to walk as far away from the
nearest subway stops to the factory, all while they searched the surrounding
area: there were plenty of places in the old Faneuil Hall Marketplace for him
to give them the slip. He only stayed on that train for one stop, getting off
at State Street and transferring to the East Boston Express Line. He saw no one
waiting for him on that platform, and he let a long breath leave his lungs: He
had hoped they wouldn’t think of delving underground to search for him, and he
was right—at least so far. Walking toward the platform’s edge, he saw blue
paint, faded and cracked, covering the walls on the eastbound half of the
station. His heart raced as he waited for the next train, for he knew that at
any moment, the target’s lackeys could enter the station from above, capture
him, and drag him off to the factory for some aggressive questioning. A few
minutes later, a train pulled into the station from Scollay Square up the
street. He boarded, thankful that the IBRT’s trains ran on time.
The train’s doors snapped shut. To his
ears, the sound resembled the closing of a tomb.
He swallowed hard.
“Next stop, Aquarium.”
The man nibbled his bottom lip as his
anxieties returned in full force. His heartbeat matched that of the wheels
turning underneath him. He didn’t know if he was alone, if there were any other
passengers in other compartments. He hoped he was. He had an important message
to send, and no one in the city save himself had a security clearance high
enough to read it. If anyone got on at this next stop, he would have to wait a
little longer before doing what he had to do. Security, as it was, was
paramount.
As it turned out, no one boarded when the
train made its last stop in Boston proper. Once the train slipped away from
Aquarium Station and into the tunnel underneath Boston Harbor, he sighed again
and pulled out his government-issued tablet, turning it on with a light press
and a swipe of his index finger. It was the approximate size of an ereader, but
this one wasn’t for books. He immediately rested it in his lap before touching
his email folder. It burst open, and after touching for a new message, the
screen shuffled once. The email screen looked like a digital index card. He
began typing with two fingers, the tips bouncing off the screen.
Alisha,
It
is as the Bureau has feared. The targets have done it, and it’s only a matter
of time now before they execute their plans. I have only just escaped, and I
write to you from the subway. I write fast, for the reasons we have privately
discussed. If everything we have hypothesized comes true, I will not be around
much longer. I fear that they are on to me, and I shall die by their hand. Even
as I sit here and type this, I can feel cold, anxious sweat pouring down my
face. It is only a matter of time, Alisha.
You need to alert the higher-ups immediately.
He wiped his brow and brought his fingers
back to the tablet, where he resumed typing—until he noticed that the screen
had mysteriously turned silvery-white, as if he had smudged it. He felt a drop
slip off the tip of his nose a second later, then another, and then saw, as if
his eyes had finally deceived him, that silver liquid rapidly covered the
screen. He tried blinking his confusion away.
But that was half a moment before he felt
his flesh grow numb, as if he had mistakenly plunged himself in a barrel of ice
water.
“Strange,” he said as he rubbed his
fingertips together. “I can’t feel them.”
The numb feeling continued growing,
spreading across his flesh until he couldn’t feel his hand any longer. He
brought his eyebrows together.
“What the devil—?”
He didn’t realize that as he spoke, his
speech grew slurred. He didn’t even recognize it as his own.
Only a few seconds had passed since he had
touched his face, and he soon felt his eyes widening and watering, the flesh
freezing as if paralyzed. The tablet dropped to the subway floor as he tried to
stand up, but instead he fell atop the device as spasms quickly wracked his
body. Something—his mind told him that it was the tablet—snapped.
“What’s—going—on?” he breathed, his voice
raspy. His breath choked him, his lungs squeezing with the force of a python.
He then felt a jabbing pain somewhere near his bowels, just before he felt an
unnatural fluttering in that same region. “Oh, fuck.”
A flatulent chorus soon filled the train.
Feces filled his pants a split second later.
“God,” the man whispered, closing his eyes
for what he figured was the final time. He couldn’t tell if his lips moved, or
if his words came out in a garbled rush. To his ears, it all sounded as if the
words came from under water. “God, help me, please. Stop them, whatever you do,
stop them. Stop the Ch—”
His plea went unanswered, his vocal chords
undone.
The message on his tablet went unsent.
***
Here's what the readers are saying about THE LONE BOSTONIAN:
"This was a thrilling story. I was gripped from the first page, and
couldn't put the book down. The idea was an interesting one, and one
that could so easily happen which makes for unsettling reading! I felt
for Terry as he made his perilous journey to find other survivors, and
his devastation at losing everything that mattered to him. The pace was
spot on and the ending was brilliant. A good sci-fi thriller that kept
me glued to the page."
"Excellent dystopian novel, that goes a lot further than the last one
I've read by this author, Redeemed. Instead of just destroying an unjust
societal system...well, Sean Sweeney takes it on in a big way. Well-written
and capably plotted, it was a pleasure to read an novel like this that
didn't have any frickin' zombies, or marauding hordes, or even
survivalist nutcases - just interesting characters and proper
storytelling. It brought to my mind visions of a modern Pat Frank or
Nevil Shute. Definitely recommended!"
"If you've read Sean Sweeney's books before,
you'll not be disappointed! If you haven't, I suggest you start. Fast
paced, twists & turns are his hallmark and this book had them. I'm
hoping for this one book to turn into a series. Terry and Brianne CAN
be continued!"
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