Display of Power

Posted for the authors Huitzil and Inklesspen

Nicolae, having made his way around most of the table, now approached Harper, asking him to stand. After shaking his hand, as he'd done with all the others, he said, "Mr. Harper, you shall be introduced as the ambassador of the Great States of North America, stretching from the North Pole to the Panama Canal. I welcome you to the team and confer upon you all the rights and privileges that go with your new station. May you display to me and to those in your charge the consistency and wisdom that have brought you to this position."

Buck could hardly believe his ears. Just like that, Nicolae had abolished the United States, the same as he'd done for Ireland, Ghana, South Korea, New Zealand, Columbia, and even his home nation of Romania. What's more, Harper seemed to be the only one of these new "ambassadors" who'd even been a head of state!

Carpathia moved on to Buck, but this time he seemed to hesitate. Without waiting to be asked, Buck stood to his feed, holding his notebook and pen awkwardly at his side. The smile on his face felt transparently false as he shook hands with the man. "Mr. Williams, my friend," said Carpathia, "I thank you for coming here today, and I hope you'll fulfill your journalistic responsibilities here as well as you have in the past. This is a truly momentous occasion." As everyone applauded, Buck didn't know what to do or how to respond. He'd come here wanting to find out what Carpathia was doing, for his Global Weekly article, but now that seemed to be exactly what Carpathia wanted of him. What did God want? He realized he didn't have any idea. Still confused, he sank into his chair.

Thankfully, Nicolae had moved on. He gave a perfunctory thank-you to Stonegal for all the help et cetera et cetera and made his way back to where he'd started, near the door. He turned to the security guard posted there. "Mr. Otterness, would you please hand me your sidearm?" The guard didn't seem to find anything unusual in his request, but simply unsnapped his holster and handed the gun over.

Nicolae raised the .38 and cocked it. "Mr. Stonegal, I will not be needing your help any more." He fired the gun into the back of Stonegal's head. For a moment after the blast, there was a stunned silence, everyone in the room trying to comprehend what they had just seen. Then the screaming began; not just Hattie, but most of the people in the room. Another shot rang out, and Todd-Cothran, the first of the two men to have been named ambassador of Britain, fell to the floor. "I will have silence," the man with the gun said, not loudly. The screaming stopped. Buck hadn't even been able to hear him over the noise, but he knew just what Nicolae had said, as apparently had everyone else.

"I have made you rulers of the ten federations of Earth, but you will remember that I am in control here," he said. "This is my display of power. You may go outside and tell anyone you want what you just saw. I will not try to stop you. Shout it from the rooftops, if you like. You just saw the Secretary-General of the United Nations murder a man in cold blood for no reason, and there is nothing you can do about it. This world is mine."

Jim MacDonald Responds

Jim Macdonald from Making Light was kind enough to allow Right Behind to post his responses to the accident scene that Chloe stumbles upon in the third section of the Left Behind movie.

Apologies for the delay in posting.

Also, I took the liberty of adding a link in point 6 for understandability.

Jim says:

As multiple-vehicle MVAs go, that wasn't much of one.

Points:

1) Don't use your cell-phone while driving. Accident stats for hand-held cell use make it look like the equivalent of drunk driving.

2) That wasn't much of an MVA. The vehicles were widely spaced; there wasn't much body damage (one with a crumpled hood, nothing else). There was quite a lot of smoke, but it was the wrong color. Gasoline fires have black smoke. There seems to be quite a bit of sparking, much like what you see on the bridge in Star Trek when the engines canna take any more. What exactly is causing that I don't know. I'm not aware of anything on an ordinary car or truck that'll do that. If any vehicles are on fire, stay well clear and keep others well clear.

3) Stop your car as safely as you can. Turn on your four-way flashers. Grab your bag and boogie off the road, 45 degrees, heading upstream toward the flow of traffic, so the guy who slams into your car doesn't send debris into you.

4) Call it in to 9-1-1. Take the flares from your go-bag and flare out the scene. One flare at 100 feet (20 double paces), one at 200 feet, one at three hundred feet.

5) A police officer is on scene (or, at least, a cop car with its lights going is on scene). Find the officer; report in and ask for an assignment.

6) Go into a triage mode. I've discussed this in some detail elsewhere.

7) I note that the young lady first comes to a guy with a head injury who is guarding his left arm. That generally means he has some kind of arm injury. She grabs him by that arm. This is contraindicated.

8) There don't seem to be any serious injuries. Stay safe yourself.

More interesting posts about medical and emergency issues by Jim Macdonald can be found here at Making Light.