Free TORMENT by Jeremy Bishop

course, that’s not an issue now, is it?”
    The next screen showed Garbarino, still reassembling his handgun. “Garbarino has me worried. He’s the quiet type. Never says much. But he’s got a temper. Removing your sidearm, let alone disassembling it and reassembling it in view of the public is a huge breach of protocol. He’s no longer thinking about right and wrong. I guarantee you he’s already figured out that the president and me are no longer his bosses. And he’s distracting himself from dealing with what happened. Not a good thing.”
    He moved on to the next screen showing Chang talking with Elizabeth. “Frankly, Chang has surprised me. She cried for a long time, which is perfectly rational, then pulled herself together. She’ll be helpful, but she’s young and emotional. Elizabeth...” He looked at Mia. “I don’t need to explain her. Cute kid, though.”
    Mia smiled.
    “And that brings us to the brothers grim. And I mean grim as in depressing, not the fairy tales, though the line these two are spinning is just as morbid as the original stories.” Collins flicked another button, activating a directional microphone attached to the hidden camera. Paul’s and Mark’s whispered voices filled the room.
    “I don’t know,” said Paul.
    “I’m telling you... Did you see the clouds down there?” Mark’s hushed words were hard to make out. The next two sentences were a mix of slurred syllables.
    “Then how come we’re still here?” Paul asked, a little anger in his voice.
    Mark shrugged and spoke, but his words were once again unintelligible. What they could see was the Bible in the priest’s hand. He smacked it against his brother’s chest every once in a while for emphasis.
    Paul rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe.”
    Austin turned the sound off.
    “I see what you mean,” Mia said.
    “I’ve only caught bits and pieces of the load the priest is selling, but it’s no good. We need to keep paranoid religious talk to a minimum. Nothing freaks people out faster.” Austin turned back to the view of Paul and Mark and snorted. Mark was turning through the pages of the small Bible. “Wouldn’t you know it? The only print book in the world to survive just had to be the Bible.”
    Mia frowned hard.
    “What?” Austin asked.
    “That’s just sad, I guess. All the books on Earth are gone.”
    “That’s sadder than all the people on Earth being gone?”
    “No, just different. Books represent hundreds, sometimes thousands of years of accumulated history. Everything mankind has ever discovered or created was recorded in a book. Now it’s all dust.”
    “Not quite,” Austin said. “A digital copy of nearly every book ever printed is stored on board, along with data and information that’s never seen print. What do you read?”
    “Run for your life action stuff.”
    “Ugh, no thanks. I’ve had enough of the real thing.”
    “To each his own,” she said. “So...is there a point to all this? You told me why they’re not here, but not why I am here. Why are you showing me this? Telling me about the others? Why are you telling me about this...ship, or escape pod— ”
    “Earth Escape Pod.”
    “Whatever. What’s the point?”
    “Someone needs to be in charge.”
    Mia’s forehead scrunched tight. What the hell? “We have a president.”
    “Who’s no longer a president of anything. ”
    “We have you.”
    “People tend not to trust gun-toting ex-Secret Service men.” Austin opened his coat, revealing his sidearm. “It implies they don’t have a choice.”
    “Then lose the gun,” Mia said.
    “Not a chance.”
    “Why?”
    “Because there are three other people on board with guns, and I don’t know if they’re trustworthy yet. Like I said, Garbarino has me worried.”
    Mia could see his line of thinking. She wasn’t cracking up. Yet. She didn’t carry a gun. She was pretty, strong and had no previous affiliation with any of them except— “Elizabeth.”
    Austin nodded.