“Hey!” Samuel shouted as loudly as he could manage, the effort causing him to wince from the pounding in his head. “Hey! We need some help over here!” But no one came. “What in God’s name is going on,” he muttered a moment later, his cries completely ignored.
No one was coming to the aid of this woman and if things didn’t change quickly it would be too late for her. Reaching into his pocket, Samuel pulled out his cellphone and dialed 911, watching the woman carefully as he put his phone to his ear. She was choking, gasping desperately for air as blood filled her lungs. Just as a voice sounded out at the other end of the line, her body lurched somewhat and finally stilled for good. With his phone still pressed against his ear, Samuel stared at the now dead woman, knowing it had been too late.
Swallowing and ending the call he forced himself to look away from her body. Samuel had never seen anyone die before and it made him feel hollow somewhat, like a part of him had disappeared even though he had never laid eyes on the woman before a few minutes earlier. Blinking a couple of times, he looked down at his cellphone again, clicking the button on the side to light up the screen. In an instant everything changed; all thoughts of the woman vanished from his head as he read the alert on his screen. Trident Banking Corporation collapsed. Billions of dollars lost.
Samuel Westchester stared at his phone. That couldn’t be right. He clicked the button on the side again so the screen went black and then once more so it lit up again. But the message hadn’t changed. Trident had collapsed. One of the biggest banking corporations in the city – no, in the world – had gone down. Millions of people had their money with Trident. Samuel had his money with Trident. He had his job with Trident. Surely that couldn’t all be lost. Surely there had to be some sort of explanation?
Joining the throngs of people rushing through the street, he started pushing and shoving, trying to make his way to his office opposite the Trump Building. He had everything with Trident. He was just a few months away from making partner. This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not to him.
How much had he saved up over the years? He had thousands of dollars with Trident. Tens of thousands. Samuel had never been a greedy man, but he made a good living and he saved what he could. Each paycheck had added up and amassed to a quite substantial amount. That couldn’t now just be gone.
Rushing toward the building, Samuel forced himself to switch off from the horrors that were happening around him. Two separate vehicles both veered off of the road and slammed into buildings due to the drivers staring at their phones. In both cases people were crushed between the cars and the brickwork. Screams echoed through the skies like birdsong, a river of red quickly streaming through the cracks in the sidewalk.
It was impossible not to look. Samuel turned his head and saw the limp bodies of three figures who hadn’t managed to escape in time. Miraculously the driver had survived and was just stumbling from the door as Samuel moved past, the others not so lucky. One of them was a young girl who couldn’t have been more than fifteen years old. Her eyes remained open as she lay still just to the side of the vehicle. The impact must have killed her instantly. At least that meant she didn’t have to suffer.
As Samuel moved past the gruesome scene, the Trump Building came into view. But getting there would be another matter. The road and sidewalks were gridlocked ahead of him. Clearly everyone had had the same idea.
“Sorry! Excuse me! Coming through!” He tried to start his journey through the sea of bodies with his signature politeness and decorum, but by the end of it, Samuel was pushing and shoving as much as everyone else. At one point he barged past a woman and her child so ferociously that the young boy was knocked to the ground.
“Hey!” The mother spun round and shouted accusingly into the crowd, but Samuel was already on his way past the woman and away from the incident. Glancing back over his shoulder he saw another man bearing the brunt for what he had done, a shred of remorse catching Samuel off guard as he witnessed it. But by the time he had reached Trident’s building, any remorse or concern for anyone else had long faded.
“Let me in,” he shouted in a security guard’s ear. “I work here. I’m personnel.”
“No one in or out,” the guard yelled back, shoving Samuel into the crowd and standing firm in front of the double doors to the Trident building. “Everyone back off. Back off!”
“Look,” Samuel reached into his pocket and pulled out an ID card. “See? Samuel Westchester. Marketing Director. You have to let me into this building.”
“I don’t care what your card says, pal,” the guard sneered, taking Samuel’s ID and tossing it away into the crowd. “My orders come from the top and no one is getting inside. Not even you.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Samuel argued back. “You have to let me in. I have a right to know what’s going on!”
“Yeah!” A loud voice echoed from the crowd behind Samuel, pushing him forward slightly and making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. “We have a right to the truth! Let us in!”
“Yeah! Open the doors!”
“Let us in!”
“Tell us what’s happened!”
Before he knew it, Samuel was at the front of a riot, hundreds of people swelling up behind him and trying to break their way into the building. Trident was a secure place. There
