Run
A novel by Marilyn Bostick
The Prologue to Run can be found here.
Chapter One
It was time to leave. Four p. m. on a Saturday was late enough. She rolled away from her desk and got up from her chair, walked out of her cubicle, and over to the printer to retrieve the report she had printed out. As she stepped up to the printer she felt her foot kick against something that made a thud as it came up against the wall behind the printer. She went down on one knee and looked beneath the printer. She saw a computer disc case lying near the wall. She crawled half way beneath the table, the printer was sitting on, and reached for the case. She stood and opened it. There was a disc in it. She closed the case, picked up her report, headed back to her desk, and slipped the disc into her briefcase.
Outside the office she walked to the elevator that would take her to the below ground parking garage. On the second level she walked from the elevator to her red Mustang convertible, and drove out in the direction of the I-Seventeen and home. Her home was located in Glendale about an hour drive away on the weekdays, and on the weekends about fifteen minutes. During the week the drive was nothing short of nerve wracking, but on the weekend it was a breeze. She made it to her gated community in record time. She lived in a planned community that could boast a golf course, pool, tennis court, gym, and a small café. She rolled up to the gate and pushed the button on the remote. Seconds later the gate opened, and she drove through.
She has a three-bedroom house with a kitchen, living and family rooms, dining area and two baths. This slice of heaven contains her longtime companions Spooky and Sprite small, mixed breed, dogs and her son Derrick. Her name is Nina Peral. She’s thirty years old, five feet, nine inches and has long naturally curly brown hair. Her eyes are brown and her figure is slim with an athletic build. She has an Accounting Degree, likes to golf, and swim. Nina works for the state of Arizona as a Business Systems Analyst; which in layman terms means that she helps computer programmers, and the user community, design and implement financial systems. She likes the job just fine, and it’s usually routine in its own way, and this Saturday when she put in her requisite over time it was no different.
As she steps up to her front door she can hear her two small companions barking in excitement at her arrival. She opens the door and Sprite, her Corgi and Dachshund mix, runs out to greet her, and begins to jump up and down. Spooky, her Chihuahua mix, remains in the house, but howls his pleasure at seeing her return. She calls Sprite into the house and closes the door behind her. Nina wades through her little welcoming committee into the kitchen where she places her briefcase, and purse, on the table then bends to pet the dogs. She lets the dogs out through the sliding glass door and calls for her son.
“Derrick! Derrick!”
She walks into the family room and over to the stairs then yells up for her son.
“Derrick!” Her son isn’t answering.
“He must not be home,” she says aloud.
She walks back into the kitchen to fill her single serve coffee machine with water and her favorite coffee grounds. While the coffee is brewing she turns to the sliding glass door and lets the dogs in. She takes a seat at the table and reaches for the newspaper. The dogs lay on either side of her chair. After reading a short article the coffee is ready. She stands to get her coffee and as she reaches for the cup the phone rings. She grabs the cup of coffee, and answers the phone. She can see by the caller ID that it’s her closest friend Theresa. They’ve known each other for fourteen years. Theresa is her very quirky and funny best friend.
In the past they have double dated, camped, golfed, made trips to Las Vegas and numerous other escapades. They also spend the holidays together. No matter what is going on in their lives they have a standing date for New Year’s Eve.
On one memorable double date their dates had taken them to a neighborhood bar after dinner. When the bartender had asked them for their drink order Nina gave hers, her date gave his, and then Theresa’s date turned to Theresa for her order. Unfortunately what came out was, “I would like a cock please.” The stunned silence that followed was quickly filled by her date coolly saying, “I believe she would like a Coke.” He had handled the situation so smoothly they managed to get their drinks and find a table without anything unfortunate being said in return by the bartender. Later when Nina had the chance she asked Theresa if she had meant to ask for a Coke. She had replied that indeed she had.
In the time they’ve known each other there has been only one New Year’s Eve they hadn’t spent together. Nina had spent days trying to get in touch with Theresa to make plans for New Year’s Eve, but wasn’t reaching Theresa or receiving any returned calls. When the New Year rolled around there wasn’t any Theresa and no celebration. It was the first New Year they hadn’t spent together in twelve years. Nina was fuming. Three days later she finally gets a call. Theresa had good reason for not being there. She had taken an unscheduled trip to San Diego. Theresa said she had been seeing signs, signs telling her to go to San Diego. Once there, and realizing what she had done, she admitted herself to the psych ward at the nearest hospital. Theresa had spent her New Year dealing with a melt down. She was eventually diagnosed as Bi-polar. With Theresa there was never a dull moment.
Nina answered the call, “Yo what’s up?”
After a few minutes of chitchat and checking up on each other she ended the call returned to her coffee and the newspaper. The front page was awash with reports on a train bombing. The picture was devastating, the carnage unbelievable. She scanned through the rest of the paper then set it aside and reached for her briefcase. Her curiosity getting the better of her, she wanted to check out the disc she had found. She opened the briefcase pulled out the disc and looked at it. There was no label on it. They only way to check it out was to pop it into her computer. Before she headed upstairs she grabbed the phone, then took inventory; coffee in one hand, disc and phone in the other, and the dogs following behind. She believed she had everything she needed so she headed upstairs.
Upstairs in a bedroom, she had converted into an office, was her computer. The dogs chose to lie near her feet under the desk. Once the computer came up she slipped the disc into the drive. Not knowing what would be on the file made it difficult to determine how she would open the file. Since most discs contained word documents the most likely option would be the word processing program she had on her computer. She clicked Start, selected the word processing program from the array of programs available. Once the program was opened she accessed the disc from the file menu. There were two files on the disc neither one of them labeled. She clicked on the first one. It took her a couple of minutes to understand what she was looking at. It was programming. She scanned through the programming. Someone had made a copy of a computer program. Not being a programmer she couldn’t read it all, but was able to make out what looked like dates and dollar amounts. It looked complicated, and she couldn’t make out what its function would be. Adding to the mystery was the fact that the program looked similar to information carried in one of the financial systems she was assigned. She exited the file and opened the second one. It was simple, it contained only one bit of information and that was a letter. She began to read;
Anarchist
This movement was born of the need for action, dramatic action. The present method of political representation in this country cannot continue as is. The destructive and brutal tyranny of the United States government is undeniable. The existing government must be overthrown by revolutionaries acting in the name of the people.
Our goal is simple. To bring down the tyrannical government of this country by capturing political power through protracted armed struggle based on guerilla warfare. When the present government breaks down, we will be ready at once to take its place. This party will bloom great and strong from the blood of our people. It is in the name of the struggle that you are invited to uphold your opposition to this government. Do as you have been instructed.
Apostate
Very strange. She sat back in her chair to ponder the contents of the file. What had she found? Was this serious? How did something like this wind up in a state office? How were the letter and the programming connected? She couldn’t begin to answer those questions. The phone rang disturbing her ruminations. She looked at the caller ID and saw that it was an out of area call. She answered the phone but the caller hung up.
After disconnecting from the hang up she turned on her printer, and printed out a few pages of programming. She opened her desk drawer and pulled out a flash drive. She copied the information from the disc to the flash drive then exited the computer. The flash drive she put in the top drawer of her desk the copies she had run on her printer she put in a folder, and slipped the original disc in with them. She decided to call Theresa back, and invite her to a dinner out, and have her take a look at the contents of the disc. Theresa also works for the state of Arizona. She is a programmer for one of the financial systems the state currently uses, and one Nina happens to be responsible for. Nina rang her up and Theresa answered on the first ring.
“Hello?”
“Hi Theresa it’s me. What do you do? Do you sit on that phone?” Nina asked then laughed.
“Yes I do. Can’t afford to miss a call you know. What’s up?”
“Want to meet for dinner? How about five thirty at Jimmy’s Place?” Nina asked. “I have something I want you to take a look at. I hope you haven’t eaten.”
“Haven’t eaten,” Theresa replied. “I was just in the kitchen getting ready to cook something up, but I’ll meet you for dinner instead. That sounds better than eating alone. Five thirty it is, I’m on my way.”
“Cool see you there,” Nina said and they both disconnected. She took the file with phone downstairs with her. She wrote a note for her son, said goodbye to the dogs giving them each a bone, and then headed out the door.
Standing at the window he decided that it looked like things had gone well despite the two late explosions. They returned to the SUV and drove back towards the train station. From where they were sitting they could see enough of the destruction so it wasn’t difficult to determine that they had caused the maximum amount of damage for what they had to work with. It was time to head back down to the valley; there was more work yet to be done.
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Marilyn was born and raised in Arizona, starting out in a single wide, 2 bedroom, trailer with her father, mother, and older brother. In first grade Marilyn fell in love with books and the love affair continues to this day. She's always wanted to be a writer because she has many, many tales to tell. Find out more at http://marilyntbostick.zxq.net_____________________________________________________
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