Sapphire Still

The first Freeze (F1) took place in the morning hours of Wed. May 21st (the first Freeze I know about, I mean). K* pulled that one off himself, and from what I’ve pieced together in the months leading up to F3, it went something like this:

Tues. May 20 (1400 local): K* boards a flight from *** to Dulles.

Tues. May 20 (2200 EDST): K* lands in DC, rents a car in the terminal and travels to the vicinity of Number One Observatory Circle (VP res).

He waits the night parked near the corner of 36th & Mass. [I don’t believe he made any preparations for the day ahead. For all the sophistication of his science (or magic—I’m still not sure which), K* cares little about the physical challenges his operations will face. His passion is manipulating time, not logistics.]

Wed. May 21 (0700 EDST): K* logs on to the live feed of Today. He waits through the morning’s headlines, into some jokes and banter at the desk from Craig, Sheinelle, and Savannah (nostalgically out of retirement for Dylan’s month-long absence)—the image of these three about to be cemented in the American consciousness as THE moment that began unraveling everything.

Wed. May 21 (0723 EDST): K* takes up the amber heat latch (HL1) and holds the moment in his palm, his thumb stroking the clasp. This is the time. He flips it open and unleashes Pandora.

*FREEZE 1 (F1) INITIATED*

Wed. May 21 (0723 EDST + ~00:01): K* approaches the VP residence on foot, over the naval base’s security fencing and across the lawn. He makes his way to the first guard he sees, posted at a service checkpoint some distance from the house beside the frozen reflection pond. The guard is well Froze too. K* checks the guy’s eyes for any sign of recognition or understanding. Deep hazel. Vacant. Froze as the rest of him. As the rest of the world. (Now we know people weren’t conscious for F1—no confusion or dreamy recollections afterward. It’s as if these hours just never happened. Because, for the rest of us, they didn’t.)

Wed. May 21 (0723 EDST + ~00:15): K* takes a crowbar to the glass in the front entrance door and begins what turns out to be an unexpectedly easy search for the VP—Froze on the foot of his bed, thankfully seated and dressed for the day. (The adjoining corridors had been heavily occupied at the moment of F1—an inconvenient variable that would inspire K*’s ghastly staging of F2—and K* spent a good deal of his strength physically moving SS agents and residence staff to carve out a path for the VP.)

Wed. May 21 (0723 EDST + ~00:45): K* exits the residence, lugging the VP behind him by the ankles, dragging him through the shards of glass from his break-in and then down the front steps with no mercy—head making hard contact on each step. (The VP wasn’t a pawn for K*; after the ‘28 election, he was a target.)

Wed. May 21 (0723 EDST + ~01:35): K* dumps the VP in the back of the rental and departs on the drive from DC to New York. [To this day I don’t know how he physically managed to haul the VP off the base. What I know is what he learned:

1) Latch-holders maneuver Froze Land as usual. Things we set our hands to respond as they should (glass breaks, water spills); everything else stays Froze (birds and even planes suspend in midair).

2) Injuries sustained while Froze show their impact upon Wake-Up, so work gently if you need the Froze to survive unharmed (though now in F3, we never do).

And 3) Never lose physical contact with the latch (HL). Not ever. Hold it in your mouth if you need to while working—constant contact. Keep the clasp open. Always.]

Wed. May 21 (0723 EDST + ~05:45): K* pulls up to the curb of the Today Plaza on 6th & 50th—the car beat to shit from 200 miles of shoulder-driving up silent interstates packed with Froze vehicles and side-scraping the entire length of the Lincoln Tunnel. [The damage that materialized along his path remained a mystery to the general public following Wake Up 1 (WU1).] K* drags the VP across the Plaza near to where Carson is standing Froze, ever waiting to do the birthdays. Still.

Wed. May 21 (0723 EDST + ~05:55): K* shatters the primary Plaza-view window behind the three Froze Today anchors and sets a fourth stool alongside them. He slumps the VP into the seat—the back of his suit shredded from the dragging, glass in the head, leaves in the hair. It’s about to happen.

Wed. May 21 (0723 EDST + ~06:05): K* departs Studio 1A and heads a block east to The Jewel Facing Rockefeller Center. He steps into one of the hotel’s several entrance alcoves so as not to appear out of nowhere, and unceremoniously snaps the latch closed and the world back to life.

*WAKE UP 1 (WU1) INITIATED*

Wed. May 21 (0724 EDST): K* approaches the front desk of The Jewel and checks into a room. (Later he told me he passed a houseman posed with his broom-vac, motionless. K* panicked. Still Froze? But then, no, not really Froze. Only staring stunned at the lobby TV.)

K* goes to his room and sleeps.

***

WU1 didn’t go exactly as K* had hoped, but it had its impact. The brutalized Vice President of the United States appearing out of nowhere into the midst of a Today Show segment rang global alarm bells (and became instantly meme-able, albeit frowned upon by the Twitter hive for the grisly gif’s poor taste).

The VP was badly injured, incoherent and bleeding onto the shocked Today crew. The control room was so bewildered as not to think to cut transmission for a solid 20 seconds.

Of more chilling consequence was the fact that a national security breach on this scale could take place without the world’s best intelligence agencies pulling up a single answer. (Congressional hearings served only to fuel the public’s tabloid interest in the incident, while further undermining the progress of more competent internal inquiries.)

K*’s paranoia that the abandoned rental car would connect him to the VP’s abduction led to his not returning to ***. Instead he laid low with P* at his place in *** for the months following WU1—his madness expanding and his focus lasering in on the coming year’s election.

K* had come to the insane notion that a POTUS of his own choosing ought to be installed—the public no longer capable of participating in the democratic process as far as he was concerned. The Today debacle had been a signal to the nation of his power. A high-profile warning of what he could unleash should his demands not be met. K*’s plan for F2 was already planted—sprouting, fruiting, rotting in his mind.

Tues. Feb. 3 (20:00 EST): SOTU Address/F2

I hadn’t planned to watch the State of the Union, but K* called me that morning and asked that I do. My blood seized. I knew that, some weeks earlier, he had sent a letter to the Office of the Vice President (cc: Speaker of the House) claiming responsibility for the abduction the previous spring, including some subtle details that—had the letter reached anyone who took it seriously—would have triggered an intense security response for the SOTU. Alas, it was ignored, apparently.

In the letter, K* called for POTUS48’s resignation, his withdrawal from November’s election, and for the current Speaker to be installed as acting-POTUS. He gave the vague deadline of “before the next SOTU,” which would turn out to be Feb. 3. The last night of the Republic, really.

I log on for the speech. Sweating. Stiff. Sick. This would be the end.

The entrances begin. Applause. Hand-Shaking. Reaction Shots. Stupid Smiles. The VP looks no worse for wear, fully recovered somehow. The Speaker looks stalwart—nervous maybe. I’d gone through F1 unaware, along with the rest of the world. I’d soon be in F2 just the same, but this was worse. So much worse knowing the next thing I’ll see is Wake Up 2 (WU2)—its horrors finding a path to me even now.

POTUS48's speech is underway. Blather. Nonsense. Nothing he has in mind to say will matter soon.

He makes a jab he knows will land well with his own party. But not with K*. I know not with K*.

And there it is. Standing ovation from POTUS48’s half of the chamber.

Wide camera angle over the House Floor as a light mist of

Blood blasts from the cluster of POTUS48's party revelers, as, all at once, their frames go

Limp and crumble into a heap grotesque.

Long Silence. Gasping

and then

Pandemonium in the chamber. POTUS48 and VP are down. The Speaker (now-POTUS49) looks askance up into the gallery, gripping…something. The gold of that something’s delicate clasp catches the light.

Heat Latch 2 (HL2) in his red fist.

***

It’s been so long now for the latch-holders.

HL1 (amber): K*

HL2 (ruby): Speaker/POTUS49

HL3 (emerald): P*

and HL4 (sapphire): me.

No surprise F2 detonated the national time-bomb that had been ticking for decades. Speaker/POTUS49’s term lasted 9 days before the mayhem and rage took over the streets, and everything went to anarchy.

By the time K* approached me with the fourth latch and an invite to enter his madness, my outlook toward him had changed completely.

I said yes.

I said yes because what else could I do? K* was going to initiate F3 with or without me. I could be part of it or, in an instant, Wake Up alongside everyone else into some fresh new hell I wasn’t prepared for, that would further loosen our collective grip on reality.

The plan for F3 has been simple: K* supplied us with a list of every county in the nation that had gone for POTUS48. He split the list four ways and sent us each to go out from place to place, house to house, and kill every Froze we find. Well, not kill exactly. No one can die here. Instead we inflict a wound likely to become mortal upon Wake Up. Whenever that happens. If that ever happens.

It’s madness, truly. Whether I’m punishing the Froze for the past or freeing them from K*'s future, I still don’t know.

What I know is we opened the latches together one year to the day (to the minute) of F1—Fri. May 21 (0723 EDST)—and have been at work ever since. When I get hungry, I eat. When I get tired, I sleep. I’ve entirely lost track of how much Froze Time has passed. Decades for sure. Moving on a century? We’ve found we don’t age here. And the food never goes bad. Split up across the nation, it’s always Fri. May 21, 0723 EDST (for K*), 0623 CDST (for S/P49), 0523 MDST (for P*), or 0423 PDST (for me).

So it’s always still here. Always dark. Always quiet. That pre-dawn sapphire blue sky over every frozen pond. Whatever world we were working for, I’ve long forgotten. But I have purpose still. From town to town and house to house. Until the day we reunite somehow. Mission Accomplished. All four of us at once, at 0724 EDST, snapping the world to hideous life again.