The blatant corruption was suffocating. Two officers grabbed my arms. I didn’t fight back physically—that’s exactly what they wanted, an excuse to use lethal force. But as they stripped me of my uniform jacket, leaving me in my white undershirt, they removed the transponder. It clattered to the floor, a sleek, black piece of DARPA technology that looked completely alien in this rundown station.
Vance picked it up, frowning. “What the hell is this? A burner phone?”
He pushed a button on the side.
Instantly, the device emitted a piercing, high-frequency screech, followed by a synthetic voice that echoed through the precinct: “Authentication confirmed. Operation Vanguard initiated. ETA: Four minutes.”
Vance dropped it like it was on fire. “The hell?”
Before anyone could speak, the precinct’s landlines started ringing. All of them. Simultaneously. The desk sergeant hesitantly picked up the receiver. His face drained of color almost instantly. “C-Captain? It’s… it’s the Governor.”
Miller snatched the phone. “Governor? Yes, sir, this is Captain Miller… Wait, what? Sir, there must be a misunderstanding…”
Suddenly, the lights in the precinct flickered and died. The emergency backups kicked in, casting the room in an eerie red glow.
“Power grid’s down!” someone yelled.
“No,” I corrected them, my voice cutting through the panic. “The airspace has been secured. Your communications are being jammed. You are officially operating in a blind spot.”
The twist of the knife came when the ground began to vibrate. It started as a low rumble, rattling the cheap coffee mugs on the desks, and quickly escalated into a deafening roar. Everyone in the room froze. It wasn’t thunder. It was the unmistakable, bone-shaking acoustic signature of four Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters hovering directly over the building.
Vance looked at me, pure, unadulterated terror finally cracking his smug facade. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything, Officer Vance,” I said, stepping forward as the windows rattled violently. “You declared war.”
The heavy steel doors of the precinct were suddenly blown completely off their hinges in a shower of sparks and concrete dust. Through the smoke, laser sights cut through the red emergency lighting like deadly green spiderwebs, all of them converging perfectly on Officer Vance’s chest.
