BZRK: Apocalypse (BZRK 3)

Minako McGrath, who had been kidnapped and taken aboard the Doll Ship, was one of the few to escape entirely. With the help of an ex-marine, former gunnery sergeant Silver, who’d been aboard that floating horror show, she made her way back from Hong Kong to Toguchi, Okinawa, one step ahead of the Hong Kong authorities.

But she found some changes when she finally reached her home. Her Facebook and Twitter accounts were closed. Her Internet access—in fact her whole family’s Internet access—was blocked.

Then her mother was called in to see the commander of the local base where Minako’s father—himself a U.S. marine—had been stationed before he was sent to Afghanistan and killed. She was told quite simply that if she could keep her daughter quiet, her family would be safe and her late husband’s official military service record would remain unblemished.

There was no direct threat. Just that promise. Just the carrot. The stick was only implied. The general looked sick to his stomach going even that far, but marines obey orders, and it was clear that he was passing on an order that came from very high up the chain of command.

Having been saved by one marine, and honoring the memory of her father, upon hearing the ultimatum Minako nodded solemnly and raised a hand in salute.

“Semper fi,” she said.

A week later Minako’s mother, the police chief of their little town, was offered a civilian contract to work in security on the base, at a seven-hundred-dollar-a-month increase in pay.

Minako got a Vespa motor scooter.

And from that point on Minako discussed the Doll Ship only with her marines-supplied therapist, who duly shredded all records of her visits and prescribed Prozac.

Despite the separate efforts of the Chinese and U.S. governments, Google searches for various conspiracies were up in the last month.

Way, way up.

Possible suspects included the Illuminati, the Church of Scientology, Anonymous, the Freemasons, the Roman Catholic Church, the Bilderberg Group, Iran, China, the CIA, the NSA, the DEA, MI5 and MI6, Mossad, Agência Brasileira de Inteligência, Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur, the Russian Federal Security Service, and, of course, space aliens.

With far fewer searches: the Armstrong Fancy Gifts Corporation.

And with only a handful of searches, most as a result of accidental misspellings: BZRK.

There was no change whatsoever in searches for “Lear.”

FIVE

Plath. That was her name again. Plath, not Sadie.

She’d been back in New York for just thirty-six hours, sleeping the first half of that.

Plath was provided by the weather with a perfect disguise to move about the streets of New York. It was freezing and the faux-fur-lined hood of her coat along with superfluous glasses and her newly blonde hair made it very unlikely that anyone would recognize her.

She had taken a cab to the Tulip. The Armstrong headquarters was not a place where she could take any, even slight, risks of being recognized.

But she had gotten out and walked the last block to the Freedom Tower. It soared up into low-hanging clouds. One hundred and four stories of defiance to replace the lost World Trade Center towers.

She had not yet been born when the towers fell, but she had seen the video. They’d had a unit on terrorism in school.

The Tulip was not as tall as either the World Trade Center or the Freedom Tower.

She had distinct memories of the videos of that day, September 11, 2001. Funny that she recalled them so clearly. But there it was, playing over and over in her mind.

The jets.

The initial explosions.

The spreading horror of billowing smoke.

Two hundred people leaping to their deaths rather than die more slowly of smoke and flame.

The awe-inspiring, horrific collapse as the melted, hollowed-out building fell.

Find and kill the twins. Destroy all AFGC records. Kill or wire all AFGC scientists and engineers. Their technology must be obliterated.