Free Bugging Out by Noah Mann

extent of what has begun happening. It came to us from a family returning to Denver after attempting to join relatives in Missouri.”
    Jim sat motionless for a moment as the segment queued up. Then he was gone, replaced by video of a long line of vehicles creeping eastward on Interstate 70, fleeing Denver in slow motion, brake lights blazing, something ahead impeding the flow of traffic.
    Then it appeared. The reason for the slowdown. A helicopter, sweeping low in the distance ahead, seen through the windshield of the car from which the images were being recorded.
    “Daddy, what is that?” a little girl asked, unseen in the video being shot from the front seat of a vehicle.
    “It’s just a helicopter, baby,” her father said, a conflicting mix of reassurance and worry in his voice. “Keep recording, Jess.”
    “Okay, okay,” a woman answered, her voice mostly breath.
    Beyond the windshield, the helicopter lumbered off to the side of the road and swung sharply around, its nose pointed at the line of cars, the whole of it hanging there like some menacing insect.
    “What’s it—”
    The woman never got the rest of the question out as the helicopter began to spit fire, a glowing jet of tracer rounds arcing over the line of cars. The woman screamed and the video jumped, just glimpses now showing the helicopter slipping back and forth, spraying fire from the cannon that hung beneath its nose like a misplaced stinger.
    “Daddy!”
    “Stay down!”
    More quick flashes of the moment, recorded for whatever posterity mattered. The car lurched forward and bounced off the road, across the dirt median, turning fast and accelerating back toward Denver. The camera swung around now, shooting past a bawling child in the back seat, capturing the line of cars set afire, the helicopter laying a deadly carpet of shells along the roadway, cutting off any hope of escape from the city.
    And then the video ended, and Jim Winters was back on screen, looking into the camera, quiet rage in his gaze, the cut of his jaw quivering slightly. He was gritting his teeth. Holding back. Crafting some measured commentary.
    In the end he simply spoke more of the truth.
    “Whatever happens,” he began, “there can be no doubt after seeing what you just have that the government, our government, no longer represents the people. It no longer—”
    A sharp hum interrupted Jim. He quieted and glanced upward, then behind, just in time to see the monitors that displayed the bright red rectangle still blocking other stations go dark. Then the space around him dimmed. Lights were going out. He turned and looked into the camera again, but said nothing as the feed from Network Five turned to static. All that remained of my connection to the outside world was electronic snow on the television.
    For half an hour I sat and stared at the interference, waiting, hoping, even praying that the station would be back up. A simple power failure it could have been. Or...
    Or, possibly, the fact that Network Five had broken through the Red Signal had piqued the interest of those pulling the strings. Men and women of power who watched as the rogue station broadcast what could not be allowed. What could not be disseminated.
    Slaughter.
    But it was worse than that, I thought. Maybe the station had been put out of commission by the government, but what it had shown, what had been recorded on the highway east of Denver, told more than just horror. More than sanctioned murder. Because I saw something in it that Jim Winters had not mentioned.
    The helicopter strafing the road bore no markings. It had been painted solid black.

Eleven
    I walked down my driveway to check the chain I’d secured across it and caught sight of something as I tugged on the sturdy barrier. Something through the trees. On the distant slopes, bolts of light from the setting sun painted the mountains as they did every day. But not like this.
    A ten minute hike and climb up the hill to the south of my