At the Aviton Elementary School, the police had established a perimeter. Most of the building’s teachers and students had evacuated, and were waiting outside in organized formations. They were all anxious and afraid; the teachers did their best to console the crying children, but some of them were weeping over the crisis as well. As time passed, the children’s parents arrived at the scene, rushing to their aid frantically.
Ten minutes after the evacuation, the Sentinel arrived. Everybody recognized the hero, clad in his long leather jacket, wearing a metal helmet with a visor on his head. Beneath the jacket, the Sentinel’s body was half-metal; his arms and legs were completely robotic, while cybernetic implants kept the vital organs in his upper torso protected beneath his remaining flesh. Strengthened by these enhancements, the Sentinel was renowned for his speed, strength, and agility. For the past ten years, he assisted in resolving over two thousand criminal cases.
As soon as the Sentinel arrived, the crowd of children and adults applauded and cheered for him. He walked through the police perimeter, and recognizing him instantly, the patrolmen let him pass without challenge. Striding directly to the police chief, the Sentinel addressed coldly, “I am here. What’s the situation?”
The chief explained, “The station got an anonymous call at 10:36 today. It was an automated message, so our dispatch almost dismissed it as telemarketers. But every phone in the station rang with this same message, so we had no choice but to listen. The message said that this school has a bomb in it. There’s no indication of where it is in the building, or when it’ll go off, or anything! There are a number of goons inside the school; they tripped the fire alarms to start the evacuation, and once they had the building all to themselves, they fortified the hell out of it. I’m guessing they planted the bomb once the building was clear.”
“That wouldn’t make sense. Why plant a bomb in an empty building?”
“There is one child unaccounted for,” the chief replied, pointing to the other side of the police perimeter. A couple looked at the Sentinel with desperate eyes; it was clear to him that it was their child at stake.
“All this for a single child?” the Sentinel muttered to himself.
Shrugging, the chief remarked, “Who knows what goes on in the minds of these wackos? If I had to take a guess, I’m thinking this might be the work of Ray Synche, the nutjob who tried to bomb City Hall.”
“Synche may have the ability, but I can’t imagine he’d have any motive to bomb a school. My instinct tells me that James Nevidan is behind this. If so, then there could be much more to this than he’d have us believe.”
“Why him?”
“After foiling his attempted bank robbery, he might want to demand a ransom to make up for his losses. At the very least, he may want retribution against me.”
“Well, whatever the case is, we gotta act fast. Listen, the bomb squad will be here any minute. In order to get them in, we’ll have to get past the armed thugs first. A firefight here in the street will be too dangerous, especially with all these kids behind the perimeter.”
“You want me to take out the resistance first,” the Sentinel guessed.
“Well, that would make our jobs a hell of a lot easier!”
“Give me five minutes.”
Turning toward the building, the Sentinel started walking toward it. His visor emitted a scanning field that penetrated the walls. With a direct connection to his brain, the visor allowed him to memorize the layout of the building, and where all his enemies were. To reinforce his knowledge, the visor highlighted the floor plan and the positions of the henchmen.
At the front windows of the building, a group of armed men broke the glass and aimed their guns at the Sentinel. They were assault rifles: a common weapon for street gangs and professionals alike, and they offered no clue as to who hired these men.
Before the henchmen could open fire, the Sentinel launched himself toward the nearest window. His cybernetically-enhanced legs propelled him through the opening at high velocity; his body slammed into the criminal standing there, pinning him to the floor.
Panicked, the other thugs turned to the Sentinel and fired at him. Dozens of bullets rained on him, but the Kevlar weave beneath his leather jacket kept him protected. After punching the enemy he had pinned down, the Sentinel rushed into the nearest shooter. His hands grabbed the enemy’s rifle; his mechanical fingers crushed the barrel and rendered the gun useless. With a powerful jerk, the Sentinel shoved the butt of the gun against the attacker’s face, knocking him out.
Moving to the next enemy, the Sentinel swung the broken gun like a club, and smacked the thug in the cheek. The blow was strong enough to knock the man against the wall and knock him unconscious.
Turning to the hallway, the Sentinel jogged deeper into the school. Halfway down the corridor, another group of henchmen jumped out from an adjacent classroom and tried to ambush the Sentinel. Sensing their attack, the hero jumped and closed the distance between him and his enemies. Landing in front of them, the Sentinel punched the first enemy; his metal fist knocked the man out immediately. The second enemy aimed his gun at the Sentinel’s gut, but the Sentinel threw his arm up and knocked the weapon out of his hands. Kicking the man, he sent him sprawling into the henchman behind him, and both bodies tumbled to the floor.
Further down the hall, more goons rounded the corner and dashed toward the Sentinel, bearing guns and knives. From his jacket pocket, the Sentinel pulled out a small metal rod. Twisting its shaft, the rod extended at both ends and became a staff.
Two henchmen came at the Sentinel, slashing their knives at him. With one stroke, the hero knocked both blades out of his enemies’ hands. Twirling the staff, he knocked one enemy back and whacked the other in the side.
Pushing past them, the Sentinel moved toward the gunmen. They opened fire; the Sentinel’s visor calculated the bullets’ path and velocities, and inputted them to his brain. To avoid the gunfire, the hero ducked and rolled, clearing the distance between him and his enemies. Jumping up in front of his enemies, the Sentinel swung his staff and knocked the guns out of their hands. Then, he jabbed at both enemies and knocked them to the floor.
Rounding the corner of the hallway, the Sentinel sensed one more enemy. He was a burly henchman wielding a minigun. For a moment, the Sentinel wondered where these criminals would have gotten a hold of such a weapon; to acquire the gun, it would have taken more wealth and connections than a common criminal could afford.
Once again, the Sentinel’s visor calculated the gun’s trajectories and rate-of-fire, and fed the information directly to his mind. Instinctively predicting every bullet’s path, the Sentinel paced his stride and started swinging his staff.
After warming up, the gun’s rotating barrels started spitting bullets at him. The steady stream of fire lanced at the Sentinel; each bullet ricocheted off his staff as he twirled it. Scores of bullets snapped at the staff and were deflected to the walls; large bullet holes exploded along the posters, lockers, and bulletin boards along the walls. Only a few shots zipped past the staff, impacting harmlessly against his bulletproof jacket. Unaffected by the gunfire, the Sentinel walked up to his enemy, deflecting bullets the whole way.
When he was upon his enemy, the Sentinel whacked the enemy’s minigun with his staff, knocking it out of his hands. With an upward swing, the Sentinel slammed the staff into the man’s jaw. The painful attack made the henchman stagger and cry; the Sentinel hit him on the back of the head to knock him out.
His visor indicated that all enemies were taken care of, and the hostage was being held in the school’s auditorium. Walking to the end of the hallway, the Sentinel opened the doors and entered the large room.
The Sentinel spotted the hostage on the stage ahead of him; it was a little girl no older than ten. She was bound in a chair and connected to a large mechanism; the apparatus contained barrels of gasoline plastered together with C-4 explosives. The Sentinel’s visor highlighted the presence of a radioactive isotope, and he feared this was a “dirty bomb.”
Moving to the stage, the Sentinel reassured the weeping girl as he looked over the bomb. He noticed that the straps holding the girl’s arms were directly wired to the bomb’s trigger; he could not risk moving the girl without setting off the bomb.
Above the girl’s head, a monitor robotically extended out. When the screen came on, James Nevidan’s face appeared. The Sentinel recognized the wealthy gangster’s face from a number of previous encounters.
Scowling, the Sentinel said, “I had a suspicion that this was your work!”
James replied smugly, “I’m flattered that you recognize my work.”
“What do you want?”
“Revenge. What else? Ever since you came to the scene ten years ago, you’ve been nothing but trouble for me and all the people I work for. Just out of the blue, you got some fancy cyborg implants, and you think you can run this city?”
“I don’t run it. I protect it!”
“We do too!”
“What you did was mere racketeering!”
“We maintained a balance on the streets. You disrupted all of it; it’s because of you that we had to take serious measures! Every time we robbed banks, terrorized public offices, took hostages, it was all in reaction to your actions! You backed us into a corner, so we did what we could to survive. We still won’t let you take our city!”
“The city belongs to the people! Not to the mafia, gangs, or the Triads!”
“But we’re the people too. Who protects us?”
At that time, the bomb squad entered the room. Rushing to the stage, they immediately started looking over the bomb.
Nevidan beamed, “Good, the gang’s all here, so we can get this party started! Listen carefully: there is enough explosive power to level this entire city block, and shower radiation on the rest of the city. Your bomb squad cronies should confirm this, so you know I mean business.”
After examining the bomb, the squad leader confirmed, “It’s the real deal. If we fail, we’ll all fry and take out everything around us.”
Nevidan continued, “Told you so. The bomb will go off if you try to tamper with it. It will go off if you try to save the girl. But more importantly, it will go off when this number reaches zero.”
A single number appeared on the screen: 1,000. Nevidan explained, “This clock is connected to the straps on the girl’s wrists, and are measuring her pulse. It will count down with every heart beat. The only way to disarm the bomb completely is to kill the girl. There’s a little something under the chair to help with that.”
“You’re asking me to murder an innocent child?” the Sentinel challenged.
“It’s either that, or let the bomb go off, destroying you and everyone outside. That is your choice. It’s time to see how all those special supersoldier implants the Army gave you work in figuring this one out.”
“How do you know about that?”
“I got my connections. Frankly, your origins are a minor detail; just keep in mind that I may leak out what I know to the press if you manage to walk out of this alive. It’s a heck of a story, hearing about how an Iraq-war veteran with no arms or legs got these highly experimental implants that turned him into a rogue superhero. But that story won’t nearly be as interesting as hearing how you murdered an innocent girl to stop this bomb from exploding. There will be an uproar, you can count on that!”
“I won’t kill this girl!”
“Then you’ll all die. No matter what you decide, you lose.”
Nevidan ended the transmission, and the countdown started. With each heartbeat in the little girl’s body, the number dropped at an alarming rate. In the course of a minute, it plummeted from 1,000 to 915.
The bomb squad wasted no time in working on the bomb. They tested the machine’s panels carefully, trying to determine how it was rigged. They didn’t dare take off its panels yet, fearing that the casing was directly connected to the trigger.
While the squad examined the machine, the Sentinel watched the countdown. As frightened as the girl was, her pulse raced, and the numbers continued to drop. Trying to comfort the girl, he assured her, “Everything’s going to be all right. We will get this bomb disarmed, and nobody has to die today.”
Through her tears, the girl sobbed, “I’m scared.”
“So am I,” the Sentinel admitted. “We’re all scared. But together, we can work through this.”
One of the bomb squad members cursed, and exclaimed, “This thing’s too tightly constructed! He’s got the casing rigged to the trigger!”
The squad leader encouraged, “There has to be a way. What about the straps on the girl?”
Examining the straps, the policeman determined, “It’s a closed circuit. If we break it, it will trigger the bomb.”
Still crying the girl bleated, “I want my mom!”
Glancing up, the Sentinel watched in panic as the counter dropped to 600. Turning back to the girl, he assured, “Your parents are outside, waiting for you. I will return you to them, I promise. What’s your name?”
“Emily,” the girl sobbed.
“Well, Emily, you know who I am, right?”
Nodding, Emily replied, “You’re the Sentinel!”
“That’s right. There hasn’t been a fight I haven’t won. And I won’t lose you.”
Feeling calmer, the girl smiled, and her pulse slackened. The countdown slowed with it, remaining just over 500.
Pulling out a small PDA, one of the bomb squad members asked the Sentinel, “Say, can your visor hook up to this? You could X-ray the machine for us.”
The Sentinel nodded, and allowed the policeman to hook up the device to the side of his visor with a firewire. Scanning the machine, the visor fed a full schematic of the machine’s circuitry to the PDA. Examining it, the policeman said, “Just about everything here sets off the bomb. Every panel and every wire makes a closed circuit that can’t be broken.”
“Can’t we trick the machine into thinking that the girl is dead?” the squad leader asked. Hearing the question, the girl cried again and her pulse skyrocketed. The counter dropped to 350.
“How do you expect to do that? We can’t remove these straps.”
“There is no other way,” the Sentinel declared. “The bomb is only disarmed when the machine no longer feels the girl’s pulse.”
“So what? Can’t we just fiddle with this thing, to make it stop feeling her pulse?” The policeman asked, touching the straps on the girl’s arms. As soon as he tried to move the straps on the chair, the monitor flickered, and a red light blinked on the machine. Everybody immediately backed away from it, fearing that the bomb would go off.
“Don’t do that again,” the squad leader spat. “We can’t risk it!”
200 heartbeats remained. The Sentinel ordered, “There is no more time. I have to do this. Leave us.”
Cursing the bomb squad leader had all his men leave the auditorium. While they evacuated, the Sentinel reached beneath the chair and pulled out a case that was set there. Opening it, he saw a syringe inside. His visor indicated that it was filled with sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride: all the same compounds as used in lethal injection executions.
As he took the needle in his hand, Emily cried even louder and pleaded, “Please don’t kill me! You promised to bring me back to mom and dad!”
“I know.” Reflectively, the Sentinel added, “I think I made a promise, both to you and this city, that I simply can’t keep. I have to do this, or else hundreds more people will die.”
“I don’t want to die!”
“I’m sorry,” the Sentinel stammered.
As Emily wept heavily, her remaining heartbeats plummeted to 100. With perhaps one minute left, the Sentinel brought the syringe to her arm. His robotic hands trembled violently, and he started sobbing beneath his visor; it was as if his body was having a negative reaction to his own actions.
With a deep breath, the Sentinel tried his best to choke down his tears and control his hands. With a quick jab, he pierced the girl’s veins and injected the chemicals. The girl cried harder, but her voice gradually fell silent. Her brown eyes became glassy and vacant as her life slowly came to an end. The Sentinel watched as the numbers on the screen crawled from 85, to 50, and then to 37. When the girl’s pulse finally stopped, the counter showed 13.
The Sentinel’s visor confirmed that the bomb was diffused; sensing no pulse from the girl, the power was shut off. Ripping the straps off of the chair, the Sentinel lifted the girl’s limp body up and carried her out of the building.
Stepping outside, the Sentinel was greeted with dreadful silence. The crowd of children, parents, teachers, and policemen watched him as he descended the school steps with the dead girl in his cyborg hands. Approaching the girl’s parents, he handed the body to them. Wailing, they wretched the girl from his grasp.
Suddenly, the crowd outside the perimeter erupted in mad shouting. The policemen struggled to stop the mob from rushing forward and attacking the Sentinel. In the midst of their angry cries, the Sentinel could hear accusations of “child killer,” “murderer,” “fiend,” and “villain.” Their violent fury intensified, and the crowd started throwing things at the disgraced hero.
Emily’s mother started screaming at the Sentinel, “You murderer! How could you? You were supposed to save her!” She broke down in tears, cradling her dead daughter in her arms.
Turning to the Sentinel, the police chief regretfully declared, “I’ve heard about what happened. I’m sorry, but you’re under arrest for the murder of Emily Stanford.”
“You know what happened, so you must know why I did it.”
“Yeah, I know. You may have saved the city, but the fact remains that you killed a little girl. The law doesn’t have any exceptions, even if you are our hero. I have to arrest you.”
Regarding the outraged crowd and the approaching policemen around him, the Sentinel concluded, “It seems that James Nevidan has won; he has destroyed my reputation as this city’s Sentinel, and Aviton will belong to him and the Triads.”
“Look, it doesn’t have to be this way,” the chief reasoned. “Get yourself a good lawyer, maybe they’ll cut you a deal, especially after the years of service you’ve done to this city!”
“No. All it takes is one innocent death to undo everything I’ve done before. I have been beaten, and I am no longer a hero.”
Violently surging forward, the crowd barged through the perimeter and charged toward the Sentinel. The policemen at the perimeter were overwhelmed, and some were beaten down by the mob. The men behind the perimeter aimed their guns at the crowd, but hesitated to fire; they were quickly swarmed by the crowd and shoved to the side.
They circled the Sentinel, shouting at him and crying out for proper justice. He brandished his staff, jabbing at the mob to keep them at a distance. He twisted the shaft, and a blinding light shot out from the staff. While the crowd was blinded and disoriented, the Sentinel darted back to the school building and scaled its wall. With his cybernetic arms and legs, he was able to push himself far up the wall and grab onto the ledge of a second floor window. Pushing himself up further, he made it to the roof, and started running.
That was the last anybody ever saw the Sentinel. News of him murdering Emily Stanford spread through the nation like wildfire; the hero was publically condemned and eventually forgotten. The Sentinel abandoned his status as a hero, and returned to being a common citizen; one of many veterans with prosthetic limbs, and nothing more. He watched solemnly as the crime syndicates of Aviton reclaimed their territory on the streets, solidifying their power and fortune.
The incident would become known in the city’s history as the cause of the Sentinel’s demise. Despite the outcome, the Sentinel never regretted his decision.
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