Jacob cannot see the bullet, but he can see the gelatinous ripples as it pushes through waves of energy, angling down from the distant white tower.
He jumps to his feet, his Hunahpu mind dissecting time and distance Jacob!
Jacob’s heart skips a beat. He sees her standing in the twentieth row, an azure-eyed vixen whose fluid movements, as she approaches, separate her from the rest of the crowd.
Lilith… please – not now!
You deserted me!
Gelatinous ripples widen as the bullet appears.
I came here for you, Jacob. I’m offering you a last chance.
Ignoring her tantalizing presence, Jacob leaps A bucket of crimson explodes from Jacob Gabriel’s black suit as he and former President Ennis Chaney tumble sideways off the dais.
Pierre Borgia smiles, then turns suddenly at the elevator bell signal. Reaching into his pocket, he fumbles to load another. 50-caliber exploding round into the chamber.
Dominique steps out of the elevator.
‘You?’ Borgia slips the bullet into place, his finger at the trigger. ‘I should have killed you and your wacko patient when I had the chance!’
‘You tried. Now it’s my turn.’
Borgia raises the rifle barrel – as Dominique’s flexes her right biceps, commanding the microwave pain- cannon to fire.
The blast of searing heat separates assassin from gun, sending Pierre Borgia writhing on the ground, his nerve endings sizzling.
Desperate cries rend the crisp November air.
Waves of onlookers at the west end of the park drop for cover. Secret Service agents sweep President Rallo into an awaiting vehicle. Congressmen and guests disperse, some for their limos, others for the interior of the Lincoln memorial, where Secret Service agents huddle around the bloodstained body of Jacob Gabriel.
Rabbi Richard Steinberg grips the white-haired youth’s lifeless hand and prays as a dozen news hovercams jostle for airspace overhead.
A terrified physician pushes through the throng. With quivering fingers he gently unbuttons Jacob’s suit coat, revealing an undergarment drenched in blood. He shakes his head.
The horrified crowd yields to an ambulance. Word carries with the panic: ‘The other Gabriel twin’s been shot! Jacob’s dead!’
Seconds later, the insanity of the moment is interrupted by screams coming from the park’s east end as a window shatters atop the Washington Monument and a body-the body of Pierre Robert Borgia-hurtles through the air, splattering like a sack of scarlet flour at the base of the Monument below.
A wisp of thought, in the consciousness of existence.
Jacob?
Where are you, son?
Where are you…
PART 6
‘To succeed is nothing, it’s an accident.
But to feel no doubts about oneself is something very different: it is character.’
There is no security on this Earth, this is only opportunity.
21
The pelican balances on a wooden piling, struggling to preen its feathers. Like most of the other coastal scavengers, the bird no longer actively hunts for its meals. The shallows are devoid of fish, the marshes long paved over. Processed food sustains it now-all the scraps it can eat.
The pelican’s beak opens and closes in spasms, gasping insufficient breaths of hot air thick with body lotions, perfumes and the unmistakable scent of human perspiration. Mau-Mau music-a blend of calypso and rap- blares from hundreds of speakers situated around the Teflon-coated fiberglass pier.
A final gasp and the pelican drops from the piling, its lifeless form splashing upon the olive-colored, gasoline-tainted surf twenty-five feet below.
Another scorching Saturday afternoon in late autumn… the inner harbor at Biscayne Bay once again transformed into a human beehive of activity.
Moving inland from the piers is a latticework of inflatable walkways and air-supported bridges that weave in and out of hundreds of stores and eateries. Shoppers and sunbathers, families and students, locals and tourists, representing a multitude of races, religions-and colors-flock to the trendy mall-park.
Skin color in the 2030s is now a matter of choice, the once-popular tattoo replaced with ‘body-dipping.’ Developed by dermatologists in response to the alarming rise in skin cancers caused by the continued deterioration of the ozone layer, ‘dermo-shields’ were originally designed as clear body applications featuring an SPF-50 ultraviolet skin protector designed to wear off in 90-120 days. Unfortunately, very few people under the age of sixty sought out the preventive treatments.
Six months after its development, an enterprising group in Australia introduced color to the formula, and body-dipping became an overnight sensation.
Clinics opened everywhere. Clients could select from a multitude of flesh-toned colors, including Caucasian, Bohemian-Tan, Chinese, African, and American Indian. Dermatology became a fashion statement, racial discrimination ultimately ‘confused.’ Even better, the four prescribed annual ‘dips’ were covered by all three levels of the FMC (Federal Medical Coverage).
More radical applications quickly followed, designed to appeal to the sought-after age twelve-to-twenty demographic. Clinics introduced ‘rainbow-shields,’ and a new race of ‘alien-adolescents’ invaded the schools, their epidermis stained from head to toe in shades of greens, blues, violets, reds, and yellows. When this fad led to increases in gang-related violence, municipalities and states instituted laws forbidding rainbow dips to anyone under the age of eighteen.
The Mau-Mau music slips into prerecorded ocean acoustics. A family of African-Americans, stained Bohemian-Tan, pauses along one of the catwalks to observe the activity below.
