The Invitation(61)
The world watches as the scene in Miami reaches its grim conclusion. Vice President Conner, along with billions who have been seeing this spectacle unfold, watch President Myers and seem to sense something imminent. Unexpectedly, Ken Myers now begins walking away from the chair where he has passively sat since this incredible drama began. He walks past Vice President Conner and the Linesian android without looking at them. When he reaches a point some thirty feet away he stops and looks out into the crowd. He sees the van parked no more than two hundred feet away, the same van that arrived only several hours before. He knows his assassin is ready.
The sole occupant of this van is a man whose personal demons have pushed him over the edge. At the center of Todd Keniston’s silent rage is a seething anger at his wife. From his darker side a sick plan for twisted revenge waits for the moment to strike back at a wife’s betrayal. He thinks to himself, she’s going to know that this is what she drove me to. She’ll have to live with that for the rest of her life. He removes a picture of his wife from his shirt pocket, and looks at it intently. In seething bitterness, before tearing it up he says 'this one's for you bitch.' The time is now 1:15 a.m. The President looks directly at the van, and then turns his head sideways and remains completely still, offering himself to the sacrifice. The image of the President’s cameo profile is now visible both as a massive projected image filling the night sky and universally broadcast on nearly every television being watched throughout the world.
For Kathryn Myers her nightmare reaches its apex. She feels a stabbing pain in her abdomen, and in agony lurches to one side in her sleep. She sees the final killing thrust, and the copious flow of blood.
At the same time the television a few yards away from her shows the President suddenly falling to the ground, and the ensuing mayhem that quickly follows. An audible shockwave of gasping disbelief sweeps over thousands of onlookers in Olympic Stadium and reverberates around the globe to the countless millions watching. The President has been shot. The Vice President is first to his side, and then an emergency medical team quickly surrounds the President in full response mode. Shock, uncertainty, and the panicked anguish of the moment is seen on many faces. As the President is put on a stretcher and carried to a prepositioned medical station, those who see him react with despair, and some come away in tears. Seeing the President carried away the Vice President looks at the Linesian android still standing only a few yards away, and pleads for help.
“Please, our President’s been shot. You can help. What you did for the Congressman, you could do for him, please. He’s dying.”
No response is heard. Instead, the Vice President sees the alien creature with whom he’s just had a nearly two-hour conversation dramatically change its form. With bedlam still surging around him, the Linesian bipedal android now starts getting smaller, and what formerly looked like a humanoid body with arms, legs, and hands becomes a round featureless blue liquid, as it begins to stream back into the surface of the spacecraft where it’s reabsorbed, as if they were the same material. As this happens, the enormous image projected across the night sky, where the incredible scenes of man’s catastrophic future visually commanded a planetary audience for two consecutive nights, simply disappears. Then the spacecraft changes its appearance. Its surface becomes iridescent and begins to shimmer. It then slowly and silently begins to rise until it’s twenty feet in the air. Many in the crowd cry out, hoping it won’t leave, but when the craft quickly climbs several hundred feet, it’s departure is obvious, and within a few seconds it’s no longer visible.
In silent, stunned amazement people seem lost, as if nothing in their world seems familiar anymore. As the Vice President is whisked away, those remaining feel a sense of emptiness and emotional desolation. They fear the worst for their President, and recoil to think this terrible act would happen in the way it did. As the ambulance carrying the President speeds away, some people are consoling each other, some are praying, some are crying, and others simply stare ahead in general disbelief, not knowing what to think. Moments later an official voice is heard from a loudspeaker.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we strongly recommend that at this time you go back to your homes, your hotel, or wherever you’re staying. We have not, I repeat, we have not been given any information about the President’s condition. We know you’re anxious, and uh, so are we, but there’s nothing we can do but pray. So please, if you would, in a calm, and orderly way just go back home at this time. Thank you.”
Very few in the crowd of thousands respond. Stupefied expressions of sorrow and wearied amazement seem to plead for something more to happen, but as minutes pass only the cooling wind of a Florida night makes its presence known. With the moon still brightly lit near zenith, a broad bank of storm clouds can be seen moving up from the south. This with the sound of distant lightning is what finally begins dispersing the crowd. All originally came to see the President signal the start of the Summer Olympics. Instead they became first hand observers to the most consequential thirty-one hours in recorded human history. As the sharpening sound of thunder gets closer, more people begin to leave. Only those of official duty remain in the area which is now a crime scene.