Chapter 13 - The Grand Performance
Vance stepped out into the center of the railway switching yard alone.
The wind off the canal whipped his torn uniform shirt around his ribs. Above him, the drone’s searchlight locked onto his chest with blinding, surgical accuracy. Down the access road, four black SUVs skidded to a halt in a synchronized line, their high beams pinning him in a cage of white light.
Clarissa stepped out from the lead vehicle, flanked by four armed security contractors. A high-resolution live camera on a gimbal was already balanced on a tripod beside her, beaming Vance’s face to three million people who believed they were witnessing the climactic episode of The Runaway Officer.
“End of the line, Arthur,” Clarissa’s voice boomed through an acoustic bullhorn. “Drop the evidence. The audience is getting bored with the chase. The algorithm demands a resolution. You turn the drive over, you serve six months for stunt endangerment, and we wipe your debts clean.”
Arthur Vance stood in the center of the crosshairs. He did not run. He pulled the pin on the magnesium flare.
A blinding sphere of crimson fire erupted from his hand, illuminating the entire rail yard in terrifying, blood-red relief. The glare blew out the digital camera sensors on the drone, turning the livestream into a washing smear of distorted pink and white static.
“You want dialogue?” Vance roared, projecting his voice toward the camera lens with every ounce of diaphragmatic power he possessed. “Here’s your dialogue! The boy isn’t an asset! The girl isn’t a character! You turned their lives into clickbait, and you called it entertainment!”
Through the glare of the flare, Clarissa saw movement along the hillside. Her eyes narrowed. “The girl,” she snarled to her guards. “She’s at the tower! Forget him—stop that signal!”
The guards surged forward, but Vance hurled the burning flare directly into the leaking fuel tank of an abandoned freight tanker behind him.
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The explosion did not kill; it blossomed into a wall of roaring orange fire that spanned fifty feet across the main rail junction, cutting the search party off from the base of the transmission hill. Heat washed over the gravel, forcing Clarissa and her men back into the safety of their vehicles.
Behind the wall of fire, half-blinded by smoke, Vance turned toward the hill and began to run.
