The tanker truck roared down the street, trailing gasoline from gashes in its side that Jason hacked with an axe. Gasoline splattered over the asphalt as the tanker picked up steam a block away from the Department of Health. Jason gunned it, and thought that now would be a great time to have an air bag, but they hadn’t been invented yet. Gas poured from the sides of the tank, which resembled a watering can sending streams of gasoline outward in multiple directions. Jason suddenly veered to the left, causing a car in oncoming traffic to swerve to avoid the tanker truck hurtling toward him.

The truck plowed through the front doors of the Department of Health, knocking out a good section of the wall alongside them. Several tons of vehicle rolled over chairs in the lobby, and one of the tires popped when it was pierced by a metal chair leg. The truck continued, smashing through the front counter and slamming into the wall at the far end, crumpling up a half dozen filing cabinets. Jason hopped down as employees screamed and ran off.

“Out the door! Get out now!” Jason shouted. He went to the back of the truck and dropped the spigot, at which point gasoline began streaming out of a three-inch wide pipe and pouring over the floor. Jason moved to the doorway, walking through a puddle of gas

A wave of employees started running down over the steps from the upper floors, headed toward the gaping hole in the wall where the door once stood.

Jason lifted both automatics and aimed it at the crowd. “Not you! Quitting time isn’t until five o-clock!”

The mob persisted, and Jason opened up with both guns, something he hated to do, not because he didn’t want to shoot the bastards on the upper floors, but because of the possibility of gunfire igniting an invisible cloud of gas rising from the floor. The employee at the lead pitched forward and tumbled face first, sliding on her belly over the stairs until she came to rest on the lower stairs. Another employee dropped where he was and crumpled up into a ball on the steps, while the others turned and ran back upstairs, including one who had to crawl because of the slug in his leg. Jason ran to the door, splashing through puddles of gasoline, which streamed from the sides of the tanker truck, soaking desk tops and splashing over the floor. Someone’s sandwich on the floor ballooned to twice its size after it soaked up gasoline like a sponge.

Jason holstered an automatic, then removed the lighter from his pocket, struck it, and threw it into the lobby of the Department of Health from where he stood at the battered doorway, which resembled the entrance to a cave. The lighter ignited the cloud of gasoline before it even hit the floor, and the unexpectedly powerful blast blew Jason out onto the sidewalk, sending him airborne He landed on his back and skidded a short distance, so that he came to rest with his head hanging over the edge of the curb. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Jason,” he thought, “you’ve never blown up a building before.”

Lying on his back on the sidewalk, Jason saw flames engulf the ground floor of the Department of Health building from floor to ceiling. The flames flickered out of the building like an enormous red and orange blanket that wouldn’t fit inside. Jason got up and dusted himself off, then walked off with his head down as sirens and firetrucks could be heard approaching.

By the time the firetrucks arrived, and the police appeared to maintain order and keep gawkers from crowding emergency responders, flames were visible in the second and third floor windows. Employees gathered at the upper third floor windows, shouting for help, while some screamed in their panic. A mechanical ladder began to rise from the one of the firetrucks, but stopped, frozen in place.

The fireman in the basket being raised by the ladder looked down and shouted to his crewmates, “Hey George, Larry, what the hell happened to the ladder?”

“We’re on it. Something’s jammed,” George shouted back.

Other firemen formed a ring, holding a circle canvas, standing at the base of the burning building, which sent flames towering into the sky. Anybody still inside the building needed to get out now, before the flames consumed the last remaining pockets that the fire hadn’t yet touched. “Jump! We’ve got you!”

A woman shakily clambered over the window ledge and could care less if she raised her legs while wearing a skirt and flashed everyone three stories below her. One of her high heels fell, and slowly revolved until it bounced off of the canvas circle and landed in the landscaping at the foot of the building. Looking down, the woman’s face was lit on one side by the brightness of the flames, and her hair closest to the flames simply melted from the heat. With a scream, she jumped.

The air blew up her skirt, exposing her pantyhose and underwear, so she used her hands to push down her skirt. She spun slowly, striking the canvas circle on her slide, but slipped through it like a ghost, as though the canvas wasn’t there. Her body struck the sidewalk with an audible thump that could be heard over the shouts, and the breathy roar of the flames, and the honking of horns as trucks arrived from distant fire districts.

A fireman crawled under the canvas to where the woman hit the sidewalk, then popped up through a gash in the safety ring. He shook his head no to signal that the woman hadn’t survived. He then picked up the edges of the ripped canvas and studied them. “It’s been cut!”

A screaming man jumped from the third floor and landed in a trimmed shrub in the landscaping. He was still for a moment, then thrashed, kicking his legs and flailing his arms to work his way out of the shrubbery he was stuck in. He flopped to the ground, then shot up to his feet. “I’m alive!” he shouted.

A single round from a .45 rang out, and the man crumpled to the sidewalk, then rolled over into the gutter.

* * *

It was dark now, and from the St. Michael’s Shelter, Jason could see the flames still burning from the Department of Health. He stayed close to the wall as he descended the steps toward the basement. He paused on one of the lower steps, while remaining back in the shadows. The first thing he noticed was the lights were on, and the gas burners were gone, which meant that the power had been restored. The kitchen had been reopened, so the men formed a line at the serving window, where Maureen and Sister Mildred stood, ladling food onto the men’s plates. Even from a distance, Maureen was beautiful, and her bright red hair made her stand out.

Jason thought of the scene in City Slickers, where the novice cowboys ask the tough old cowboy played by Jack Palance if he’d ever been in love. Jack Palance answers that once he saw a beautiful young woman standing in a dress at sunset. He watched her and realized, “it wasn’t ever going to get any better than that,” and he left.

“You should have pursued her,” Billy Crystal says, “she could have become the love of your life.”

“Oh, but she is,” Palance replies.

When Jason and Maureen kissed on the Ferriss wheel, their relationship peaked, and Jason could pursue it, but having Maureen linked to him would only cause her trouble. Maureen also had a troubled past, something that was easy to forget because she was achingly beautiful.

Sister Mildred and Maureen were happy, and the men were happy. Jason could announce himself, but that would only make him a target, make everyone in the church and the shelter a target, a candidate for collateral damage. As far as the world knew, Jason was paralyzed, abducted, and gone. It was best if things stayed like that. With Jason out of the picture, there was no one for the mayor to retaliate against, and Jason was free to come and go as he pleased.

Jason was going to go underground, stay hidden, and fight from the shadows. He was going to take down the mayor, one way or another, and put an end to all the Mitral lunacy that was crippling the city, and that had resulted in Dwight, along with who knows how many others, being poisoned to death.

“I will kill the mayor, I swear it.” Jason began plotting his next moves as he climbed back up the stairs and sneaked off across the dark grounds of the St. Michael’s Shelter.

* * *

“Man, they screw you on airport drinks.” Jason’s grandfather took another drink of his Meyer’s rum and soda.

“I hate to see you go, Gramps.” Jason drank a diet Coke because he had to drive back home. “You saved my life when you got me to go in to get tested for hemochromatosis.”

“I’ll be back. You’ve just got to get to zero.” Gramps looked up at the flight schedule display.

Jasion realized that by “back to zero” his grandfather was referring to the fact that with the debt hole that Jason had dug for himself, moving to zero, to no debt, was a step upward. “I told you when you first showed up with the game, I thought it was crazy, thought you had gone senile.”

Gramps laughed. “I’ve doubted my own sanity a time or two.”

“But you and the game have got me through this year of teaching, and I’m only halfway through.” Jason tried to stay upbeat, didn’t want to be morose for his grandfather’s farewell, but the weight of it all, the stress of teaching, of living alone without a girlfriend, and little hope that he’d find one, seemed like it would crush him. “It’s going to be tough when you’re gone.”

“We’ll stay in touch. And now you have hope. You’re not going to teach forever—there’s a way out.” Gramps patted Jason’s shoulder. “The key is, you’ve passed the red pill test. Once you take the red pill and decide that you don’t want to be a slave anymore, then you’ll find your way to freedom.”

“A slave? Seems kind of overdramatic.” Jason grinned. “What’s that, though, your third drink? I suppose you’re entitled to get a little overdramatic.”

“People think slavery, and think chains, the whip, hoeing cotton, the lot. But the sneakiest form of slavery is one in which you sign onto.” Here Gramps pointed a finger at Jason’s chest. “No one made you sign onto all that debt, you wanted it. Yet you might as well be Houdini, smiling with the chains wrapped around you and threaded through the cemented tires. People will live decades, their whole lives in debt, and never get free. Then you get married, and you’re happy, thrilled, to sign up for a lifetime of slavery, working, paying bills, supporting kids who may or may not have been your idea, who may or may not be biologically yours. And while you will always work, your wife will be free to work, work part time, or not work at all as she sees fit.”

“Born into bondage, into a prison that you cannot taste, or see, or touch.” Jason quoted the scene from the movie Matrix, which was one of his all-time favorites.

Gramps looked up at the screen. “That’s my flight. I’ll be back, don’t worry. Get to zero, and someday you’ll be free.”

Jason watched his grandfather pack up and wheel his suitcase across the airport. He vowed that whatever it took, he was going to work his ass off and be free of teaching, that he’d be some place where he’d have a girlfriend, even if she wasn’t super beautiful; if he wasn’t alone, that would be good enough.

* * *

Celia stepped out of the hospital and walked to the cab in her white uniform, looking beautiful as always, especially now that she had her mask off.

“Mind if we share a cab?” Jason asked as he stepped from behind a pillar.

“I’d love that,” she replied with a smile.

Jason opened the door for her, and took her hand to escort her inside. He then went around to the other side, where he climbed in. She scooted up close to Jason, and threaded her arm through his.

“Wilmington Heights,” she told the taxi driver.

Jason brushed his hand across her tan face, and gazed into her brown eyes, then kissed her. Her lips were soft, and her tongue delicately probed his tongue.

Jason Whitlock must die.