But I haven’t.
I run at Valentino, knocking him down onto the concrete, right as the gun has been fired. Another gunshot goes off, this time from the police officers as they chase down the skull-masked man who’s running away, past Dalma, who’s hiding behind an overflowing trash can. She’s terrified, I got to get her out of here too, we all got to bounce.
But I can’t move.
I feel like high-pressure air is inflating my chest, threatening to explode so fiercely it’ll pulverize my bones. There’s a burning pain between my shoulder blades, and I don’t know if a bullet hit me or not. Maybe I haven’t noticed because of adrenaline, or how fast life has been changing and ending since midnight. I want to pat myself down to see if a bullet caught me, but sharp pains are running up my arms, it’s like someone is dragging knives along them—up and down, up and down, up and down. I’m going into cardiac arrest, this is the kind of heart attack that I’ve always thought of as seismic. I try massaging my chest and sitting up to dull the pain, but it’s too miserable, and I fall on my back, my face next to shell-shocked Valentino’s.
Did I just save him?
If so, by changing his fate, did I change mine too?
Am I going to die instead of him?
Or will we both die by the end of this day?
Joaquin Rosa
12:07 a.m.
“This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper.”
That iconic quote by the poet T. S. Eliot is the first thing Joaquin Rosa thinks about after hanging up with Valentino Prince. He already knows how he’ll tweak it for his memoir:
This is the way the first Death-Cast call ends, not with a whimper but a bang.
Joaquin fully expected some whimpering after telling the first Decker he would die today, but instead there was a bang—a gunshot. Many gunshots, to be precise, each one making him want to jump in his seat as if he were being hit by all the bullets. He’s safe, mercifully, but he can’t say the same for today’s remaining Deckers who may be victims of this attack.
Is Valentino Prince a victim, or is he the attacker?
Solving that mystery isn’t Joaquin’s job.
Removing mystery from the equation of death is.
Joaquin jumps out of his seat, turning to the heralds who have been waiting in the wings for his command. “Begin the End Day calls,” he says, doing his best to keep his composure. The call was private, so no one else heard the gunshots, but it won’t be long before it’s pieced together that an act of violence occurred moments after speaking with the first Decker. He knows that Death-Cast will be blamed for this, scaring off the investors he needs to go global with the program.
The heralds look like ghosts as they float across the room in their white button-down shirts and light gray slacks and ties. Joaquin prepped them to look cool, calm, and collected, the very image the world needs to see to understand the strength and professionalism of the people on the other side of these phones and computers. He releases a deep sigh as the heralds take their seats, switch on their monitors, and get to work.
One look at Naya and Joaquin knows his wife senses a disturbance. He’ll clue her in after the media has been dismissed, but he’ll have to be fast because once all those reporters and photographers have their phones returned to them, they’ll discover the attack and everyone will blame Death-Cast.
He can’t ever say it out loud, but he knows that one person’s ending is simply a contribution to this company’s beginning, and not a result of Death-Cast’s existence. No matter what anyone says.
As Joaquin looks between the heralds and the photographers, there’s one thing at the forefront of his mind: There’s an undeniable frontrunner for the cover of his memoir. After all, there’s nothing like the bang of a gunshot to get a man’s life flashing before his eyes; he just hopes the camera caught Joaquin’s reaction.