Simon Redfall kept his head down and eyes low as he took a seat in the general admission section of the sold-out National Execution Center in Washington, DC. If it weren’t for his long hair and unruly beard, certainly one of the twenty-thousand blood-starved fans would have recognized him before the start of the most eagerly anticipated event in pay-per-view history.
A sprawling stage with a lavish red curtain was the focal point of the venue and built specifically for the government’s new Execution Channel, dubbed EC1. The arena featured sweeping sight lines to give those in attendance a perfect view of the dying criminal who would soon be unveiled for the world to see. Every detail of the inaugural event had been planned and refined to ensure wide, cross-section appeal and massively high broadcast ratings. Nothing was left to chance, not when the most hated mass murderer in modern history was about to draw her last breath with all of humanity watching and cheering.
The US government had partnered with StarBright Networks to squeeze every last dollar from what was sure to be a media feeding frenzy. The government's take of the revenue split was reported to be somewhere north of four billion dollars, and that didn’t include the bonus profits from the new global wagering tax being levied by the world’s governments on thousands of betting houses across the planet.
The over-under line on the official execution time was initially set at three minutes, eight point two seconds by the wizards in Las Vegas. However, Simon hadn’t been following the betting line since it was first published, so he didn’t know the current odds of this inaugural event.
The National Execution Center, or NEC as it was called on the street, was designed like an upscale Broadway theater, but on an enormous scale. Simon counted at least thirty-two ultra-high resolution TV cameras and several dozen members of law enforcement, meaning he’d better keep a low profile if he had any hope of remaining anonymous and making it out of the auditorium alive.
General admission seating was located in the balconies and divided into three progressively wider sections, each with a clear view of the ultra-high resolution jumbo screen mounted above the stage.
Below him were two VIP sections of different sizes. The larger, unprotected area on the left was reserved for friends and family of the innocent victims, while the smaller, bullet-proof glass cubicle on the right was for the expected handful of supporters of the condemned, in this case, a middle-aged business woman. Not your typical mass murderer, but one nonetheless.
The lights in the theater began to dim as theatrical, heart-pounding music rose up through the impressive surround-sound system, sending those in attendance into a chanting frenzy. A plush, red curtain opened from the middle, then a single spotlight found the Master of Ceremonies walking to the front of the stage with a wireless microphone in his hand.
The jumbo video screen above the platform flashed his name in eye-catching white letters: Clarence Williams, III.
Red, white and blue lights flashed in a rotating spiral around the stage, sending a chill of unwanted patriotism into Simon’s spine.
Mr. Williams waved to the crowd as he walked to the center of the stadium’s platform and stood in front of the execution chamber—a twenty-foot square metal box built with a single, one-way viewing window along the front.
“Citizens of the world,” Williams said, his voice booming through the PA system, “the NEC and the G20 countries of the world welcome you to the greatest show on Earth!”
The crowd cheered in response, with raised fists pumping in the air.
“Let’s get started,” he said in an emphatic voice, raising his hand and pointing an index finger up to the video screen. “We all know why we’re here today, but I’d like everyone to take a moment to pay their respects to the victims of this most heinous crime. Please direct your attention to the StarBright screen above me and offer a silent prayer for each of those who’ve been lost.”
The music waned and the crowd fell silent in an emotional hush when a video began to play on the jumbo screen. A panoramic sweep of the camera showed dozens of bodies, each lying motionless on the street in pools of their own blood. Men, women, and children—all dead—an entire busload of visiting scientists and their families gunned down without mercy.
The video stopped twenty seconds later, focusing on a single face—a tiny brunette girl the world had come to know as Deena Davis, a beautiful six-year-old who was gunned down while clutching her pink teddy bear. The corpse next to her was that of her pregnant mother who’d been ripped in half by the perpetrator’s AK-47, exposing more of her belly than should have been allowed for public viewing.
Simon looked away, unable to keep his eyes on the infamous footage, feeling a gut-wrenching pain that had become a near-constant companion for the past two years. He’d seen it countless times, as had most everyone in attendance, he figured. It had been the lead story on nearly every newsfeed he’d watched since the mass shooting happened. There was probably only a handful of people across the entire planet who hadn’t memorized every detail of the carnage, all of it captured live by the swarm of news crews on scene that warm summer day in Washington, DC.
The music started again, and so did the crowd, pushing through the emotional fog suffocating the auditorium.
MC Williams swung an arm up, bringing the house lights up along with it.
“StarBright Networks is proud to present to you, live, this afternoon, the execution of a vile, despicable criminal. Right here, in the execution chamber behind me, is the woman who slaughtered sixty-four innocent men, women, and children, and did so in cold blood.”
The crowd roared, chanting for action. “Die! Bitch! Die!”
Williams continued, raising his voice. “Those of you in preferred seating, please bring your attention to the viewing window behind me. Citizens in the balconies, please keep your eyes locked on the StarBright display above. And to our billions of viewers watching from around the world, don’t move from your television! This is the moment you’ve all been waiting for! . . . Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you Public Enemy Number One, the most hated terrorist in modern history!”
Then the MC said the name of the criminal: “Tessa Jane, wife of Simon Redfall!”
The knot in Simon’s stomach doubled in size when he heard his beloved’s name being broadcast to billions of live viewers, bringing home the grotesque reality of the moment.
The lights inside the chamber beamed on, showing the weary face of a slender blond woman strapped to a vertical stainless steel table.
The crowd cheered and stomped their feet in unison, keeping with the beat of the theatrical music, while the video feed zoomed in on her tearful eyes. Each time the stadium shook with foot-pounding thunder, it felt like a nail being driven farther and farther into Simon’s heart, condemning him to wander the halls of anguish alone.
Until now, everything Simon had been through since the killings happened felt like a waking dream—a horrific quagmire from which there was no escape. He’d been forced to watch his life unravel one thread at a time, feeling as though he was watching a sick, demented play through someone else’s eyes. Someone who was never married to the love of his life—a suburban, well-educated wife who went off the rails and killed a busload of dignitaries and their families.
He hadn’t planned to be here today to witness Tessa’s execution. In fact, only four days prior, he was traveling on foot, making his way to the next town in Oregon, where he’d find yet another vacant cardboard box in an alley to sleep in before continuing his volunteer work at the nearest shelter. But out of nowhere, an unseen force rose up and stopped his wandering quest of penitence, turning him around and bringing him here to Washington. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it was something powerful inside that he couldn’t control.
At first he thought this unexpected voyage to DC was brought on by mounting remorse for what his wife had done. However, after careful reflection during the long bus ride to the East Coast, he decided it had to be more. He’d certainly accumulated his share of regret over the years and knew how to handle guilt, especially back when his days were consumed with running his former security conglomerate, Ghost Works, LLC.
The NEC’s music continued, picking up its beat. So did the crowd, working themselves into an even bigger fury as the MC pranced around, leading the bloodthirsty mob like an angry cheerleader.
Simon wasn’t sure how he’d feel after his wife of two decades was brutally killed on stage, but he felt compelled to be here. His own personal nightmare was about to end after a grueling twenty-four months in the making. All the while, his insides had been locked in a permanent struggle between love and hate—tearing him apart in the process. His love affair with Tessa began blissfully in high school and hadn’t taken a single moment off in the years that followed. But that all changed in a heartbeat one bloody afternoon in the nation’s capital.
Simon swung his eyes to the attendees below him in the two reserved VIP sections. But his attention wasn’t on his wife’s side of the family. It was on the families of the victims. His wife was guilty. He knew it and the world knew it. There was no denying what happened and who was responsible. Her monstrous crime had been caught live and from multiple angles by the cameras covering the scientific conference and its arriving VIPs.
The same set of videos had also gone viral across the Internet, which was now privately owned and operated by StarBright Networks, a wholly owned subsidiary of Indigo Technologies. The spread of her disgrace had unified the entire planet, giving the opportunistic media plenty of ammunition to crucify his wife—and him right along with her.
The pressure across Simon’s chest tightened even more as the lights in the execution chamber began to flicker, grabbing everyone’s attention like last call at a neighborhood bar.
The image on the video screen changed to show a wide-angle shot of the condemned—his wife, the slayer of women and children.
Simon couldn’t tear his eyes away.
Tessa was crying hysterically, knowing a painful ending was near. Her arms, legs, and torso were pinned the table but her head was not, and Simon knew why.
The USA Today newspaper had run an extensive series of articles quoting various StarBright ratings analysts and technicians, who outlined the scientific process behind the new execution system. The network had found through the testing of various focus groups that pay-per-view sales and the betting pools would be exponentially higher if the inmate could move her head and make eye contact with the cameras situated around the chamber. And they’d be even larger if the audience could hear the criminal beg, plead and scream for mercy.
As a result, StarBright’s motivated construction crews had spent the past few weeks installing far more cameras and microphones than originally planned, hoping to reap the windfall as ratings skyrocketed and wagers mounted.
Congress and the White House had sanctioned this new revenue stream, hoping that public executions would become the new national pastime and generate the pile of money needed to keep the country’s multi-trillion dollar budget shortfall in check.
Simon knew a desperate US government would resort to almost anything to keep the doors open, but what surprised him was how quickly the rest of the world jumped on board. The approval of live PPV executions raced through the various governing bodies across the planet without a hint of opposition.
Of course, it helped that the recent passage of legalized prostitution and across-the-board gambling had generated trillions of new tax dollars worldwide, another development Redfall never saw coming. Those newfound bounties were needed after the spend-happy politicians burned through the generous cash reserves created by global marijuana sales the year before. In hindsight, betting on PPV executions was the next logical progression of the cash-starved governing bodies, each looking for every penny they could find.
Just then, a dated photograph of his wife appeared on the stadium screen, bringing an outburst of boos from the crowd. It showed Tessa standing on the lawn of the White House, wearing an elegant evening dress and perfect makeup. The snapshot caught her smiling and in mid-applause as the President hung a lifetime service medal around Simon’s neck.
He remembered the glorious day well. It was back when his professional life and his marriage were on cruise control, enjoying the pinnacle of success. It was also the one and only time the commander-in-chief recognized his years of dedication and support to the intelligence community.
However, the memory faded into a painful sting when a virtual flame appeared on the jumbo display and set the photograph ablaze for all in attendance to see.
His eyes darted left and right, checking to see if anyone might have noticed him in attendance. It didn’t appear so. He figured everyone was too enthralled with the theatrics being put on by the NEC for anyone to notice the second most-hated person on the planet sitting nearby.
Of course, it helped that Simon looked nothing like the clean-cut, successful businessman he’d been before Tessa had gone insane. He now had long hair and an unkempt, scraggly beard, and wanted to keep it that way until after the execution. He was glad to be flying under the radar, feeling the anger and bloodlust of the people around him. If they knew who he was, they’d tear him apart like a pack of hungry wolves.
His eyes turned to the video screen, seeing Tessa fighting like a wild animal. Her hair was flailing about her shoulders and neck, even though it had been trimmed to network specifications: long enough to make her appealing, but not so long as to obscure her eyes. Eyes were the key, the analysts had determined and reported in the national paper.
Then Tessa’s eyes found a camera in the corner of the chamber and she stopped moving. Her body relaxed, and an eerie calm spread across her face. She licked her lips, cleared her throat, and spoke directly into the camera.
“Simon? Simon? Are you there? It wasn’t me, honey! I didn’t do it! You have to believe me! Why don’t you believe me? I could never do something like this. Never in a million years.”
Simon clenched his jaw, holding back the desperation pounding at his chest. His heart wanted him to sprint through the angry horde and set her free, but his logic couldn’t reconcile the evil she’d unleashed upon the world.
The woman in the chamber isn’t my Tessa, he told himself. Not anymore. The Tessa he knew and loved—the woman he’d been married to for twenty-plus years—the person he trusted above all others—was dead and gone, lost somewhere between the folds of heartache and disgrace. A wickedly dark force had taken control of her soul, forcing him to stand firm in the balcony and let the world’s revenge take center stage.
“Are you ready for sentencing to be carried out?” the MC asked the crowd.
The crowd roared and continued to stomp their feet, each time with a sharp clap of their hands.
Someone near Simon yelled, “Die! Die! Die!”
“Now, before we get started, I have a very special surprise for all of you in attendance and for all of you watching at home today. Our amazing chemists have made some ingenious changes to the process that we think you’ll like. Instead of a calm, quick, mostly-painless death, your government and the governments of the world have given their blessing for a more entertaining process. Our new lethal injection system has been redesigned to provider a longer, more painful kill time. Just as it should be! No mass murderer of innocents should ever get off easy with a quick, painless death. Am I right?”
Cheers and applause rose up, then a unified chant roared around Simon, “Kill! Her! Now! Kill! Her! Now! Kill! Her! Now!”
“Well then, I won’t keep you waiting!” the MC said, touching a hand to his ear. “Citizens of the world, I have word from our technicians in the control room that all systems are ready—let the countdown begin!”
The number “10” appeared over Tessa’s image on the giant screen, then changed to “9”.
The crowd joined in—reminding Simon of the chant on New Year’s Eve in Times Square when the new year’s ball is dropped.
The volume grew as the countdown continued:
8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1…
The numbers disappeared from the display and were replaced by giant letters that flashed:
COMMENCE EXECUTION!
The crowd went wild at a sudden close-up of Tessa’s face, just as the injection was pushed into her veins by the automated delivery system.
A digital timer appeared in the upper-right corner of the video feed, showing the seconds tick by now that the process had begun. It was labeled as the OFFICIAL EXECUTION TIME.
USA Today described the injection process as a mix of lethal compounds administered in small, arbitrary increments to lengthen the process and randomize the time of death, all of it geared specifically to maximize both her suffering and the network ratings.
Simon winced when Tessa’s head began to thrash back and forth and her blue eyes went wild with fright. Her full, pink lips contorted in a feral display of anguish as spittle flew from her lips. She moaned and cried out under a torrent of sweat and tears streaming down her face.
“DIE, MURDERER, DIE!” the crowd yelled as a mixed chorus of cheers, whistles and boos echoed off the walls of the arena. The public had been waiting for this event with bated breath, and the execution had been marketed to perfection—StarBright Networks knew what it was doing.
Tessa opened her mouth to speak again, but her body twitched and a gurgling noise rose from her throat. The process was now in full swing, ravaging her body from the inside out. The cheers and jeers from the live audience grew in volume and intensity at the sight of her grimacing and drooling. The spectators around him were all on their feet, waving their arms in the air and shaking their fists.
Simon tore his eyes from the video screen and scanned the crowd below. Behind the families of the victims sat invited government and network VIPs, each with popcorn and beer in their laps, cheering with the rest of the crowd. Everyone in the first level of the stadium seats had a perfect view of the one-way window into the execution chamber.
Emotions were at a fever pitch in all directions, and he assumed the same was occurring all around the world. He imagined scores of drunken spectators in bars, homes and off-site betting houses throwing their money down—in officially sanctioned locations. The wagers were all in virtual currency, of course, except in the seedy, black market betting parlors where old school paper currency passed between the rough, calloused hands of hardened criminals, drug addicts, and down-on-their-luck outcasts.
Everyone was betting on one thing . . . How long would it take until the end?
The end of his wife and the end of his marriage.
Two minutes? Three minutes? Five minutes?
The official timer in the upper corner of the screen kept ticking, tracking every second that scrolled by like some twisted scoreboard of the damned. When Tessa’s life eventually came to an end, fortunes would arrive for those with the precise wager that matched the official execution time—down to a tenth of a second.
The light in the execution chamber faded and a red glow surrounded the gleaming steel table. A single, soft white spotlight illuminated Tessa’s face. Her skin began to grow pink as small purple sores appeared on her cheeks and neck. The image on the screen panned back to reveal her entire body.
She was clad in a tight white athletic bra and matching tight white shorts, both chosen to maximize the bloodbath that was about to begin. Two more chamber lights ignited and then panned up to show her body more clearly. The blanket of purple sores began to erupt, first on her arms, then her legs and torso.
Simon gulped with hands shaking, hating himself for turning his back on her. But she’d left him no choice. All that was left to do now was to stand with the others and watch the criminal die. Then his torment would finally be over.
Tessa rolled her head to the side and found her voice again, though it was thready and uneven.
“Simon,” she pleaded through the obvious pain, “Simon . . . help . . . me. I love . . . you, darling with . . . all my heart.”
His heart stung, but his feet never moved while the crowd screamed despicable insults at her.
More sores appeared and spread across her face and chest, getting larger as her skin changed color from pink to dark red. Then her body began to shake uncontrollably. Her eyes went bloodshot and her arms and legs began to swell like inflating balloons. The swelling filled her torso, then her face and head. The skin of her face stretched tight, distorting her features into a sickening, clown-like grimace.
The theater shook as the audience in the balconies stomped their feet and chanted in unison, “DIE! DIE! DIE!”
The boils across her body had grown and merged together, making her skin purple from head to toe. A moment later, they began to split and crack—first on her chest as blood seeped through the clean white top she wore. Then her forehead began to break apart, turning her face into something less than human, her body expanding around the straps holding her in place.
Then it happened.
She exploded from the inside out, sending a shower of blood and gore outward, covering the inside of the one-way glass and all of the cameras in the execution chamber with a viscous pink and red film.
“Official execution time: four minutes, thirty-two point zero four seconds,” the MC announced at the same moment 4:32:04 flashed in bright red letters across the video screen.
Streaks of blood and bits of flesh dripped down the chamber window, giving the families of the victims and the rest of the witnesses around the world what they needed most—closure. Simon never looked away, wanting the ghastly image to burn into his soul as a reminder. A reminder of what can happen when your focus wanders and you lose situational awareness. Yes, even in a loving marriage, diligence is needed on multiple levels. Not just with focusing your love and dedication, but watching for changes in behavior and motivation.
Simon stared at Tessa’s family huddled together in the protected chamber down in front as he made his way past the other people in his row. The murderer’s sister, mother, father and cousins each had their heads down, buried inside an emotional family hug. His former in-laws were obviously grief-stricken and dumbfounded, unable to process the horrifying spectacle they’d just witnessed.
He took a moment to send a stream of compassionate thoughts to them from his elevated position in the balcony. What had happened wasn’t their fault, it was his. He should have noticed the changes in his wife. He should have stopped her from killing all those innocents. After all, he was the world’s most famous intelligence expert, and yet he never realized that a swell of evil had taken root in the marital bed next to him.
The path out of the theater was slow going as he worked through the cheering and applauding band of spectators milling about and congratulating each other. Simon was careful to avoid making eye contact with anyone, just needing to find the exit and let his nightmare end.
The rest of his plan was simple: slip away into the nothingness that was his future.
