10
1517 Words
"My toes are turning black."
Cynthia sent the text message to the main group chat at six in the morning.
"Someone send a car for us right now," she demanded in the next text. "We are trapped in the hotel lobby."
Malcolm read the desperate messages from his plush king size mattress. The bunker climate control hummed a steady seventy two degrees.
He threw off his heavy silk sheets and stretched his arms. He had slept for eight solid hours without a single nightmare.
Outside his titanium walls the city of Brighthaven was a frozen graveyard. The temperature was negative eighty two degrees. Millions of people had died in their sleep last night.
He walked into his spacious bathroom and turned the silver shower dial. Steaming hot water cascaded over his shoulders.
He stood under the hot spray for twenty full minutes. He used premium cedar body wash and let the thick lather run down the drain.
In his previous life he had suffered in the dark for a month. He had scavenged for melted dirty snow just to take a freezing sponge bath.
Today he was wasting pristine hot water just because he enjoyed the feeling.
He dried off with a thick heated towel. He put on a pair of loose cotton pajamas.
Malcolm walked into his massive modern kitchen. He opened the industrial refrigerator and pulled out a thick slab of A5 Wagyu beef.
He tossed a block of rich garlic butter into a hot cast iron skillet. The meat sizzled aggressively as it hit the pan.
The rich smell of seared steak filled the warm air. He watched the fat melt into the hot pan.
He plated the meat and poured a tall glass of expensive imported red wine. He carried his hot breakfast into the primary entertainment room.
He sat down on a massive velvet sectional couch. He picked up his new wireless gaming controller.
A massive one hundred inch curved screen flickered to life on the reinforced wall. He loaded up a popular racing simulator.
He took a bite of the tender steak. The hot meat melted on his tongue.
It was a flavor he had dreamed about during his agonizing starvation in the previous timeline. He chewed slowly and savored the extreme luxury.
His phone buzzed repeatedly on the glass coffee table.
The Brighthaven cell towers were currently running on their temporary twenty four hour backup batteries. The digital grid would die by tomorrow morning.
Until then the internet was still active. The Brighthaven Elite group chat was in a state of chaotic panic.
He opened the secure application and watched the text messages scroll rapidly across the screen.
"We burned the lobby chairs for heat but the fire is dying," Mr Sterling typed. "My wife is unconscious."
"My private driver froze to death in the parking garage," another billionaire heir complained. "How am I supposed to get back to my estate?"
"Money is not working," a wealthy boutique owner wrote. "I offered a man ten thousand dollars for his coat and he stabbed me in the arm."
Then Victor Hargrove sent a mass message to the group.
Victor and Caroline had barely survived the night. They had broken into a small maintenance closet near the hotel garage and huddled together for warmth.
"Everyone needs to remain calm and stay in place," Victor typed. "I just got off the satellite phone with the state governor."
"The military is mobilizing a specialized rescue convoy right now," Victor lied to the chat. "They are prioritizing VIP citizens and elite tax brackets."
"Are you sure, Victor?" Mr Sterling asked desperately.
"I am positive," Victor replied. "My family has massive defense contracts. We are at the top of the evacuation list."
"We just need to survive until noon," Victor added. "Gather any remaining supplies and wait for the helicopters to land on the hotel roof."
Malcolm chuckled around a mouthful of seasoned steak.
There were no rescue helicopters. The military bases were already buried under ten feet of solid ice. The state governor was likely a frozen corpse sitting at his desk.
Victor was desperately clinging to his dead authority. He wanted to feel important while his blood turned to sludge.
A private direct message popped up at the top of Malcolm's screen. It was from Caroline.
"Malcolm please answer me," Caroline wrote. "My fingers are numb. I cannot feel my legs anymore."
He read the message with dead eyes. He took a sip of his red wine.
"I was wrong about everything," Caroline typed rapidly. "Victor is useless. He has been crying in this closet for hours. He lied to the group chat about the helicopters."
She dropped her arrogant wealthy facade. She resorted to playing the pathetic victim to save her own life.
"I hauled all those crates for you," Caroline begged. "I helped you build that beautiful sanctuary. You owe me at least a warm blanket."
He watched the typing bubble appear and disappear as her frozen fingers struggled to hit the correct keys.
"I treated you badly in the past but we were married," Caroline wrote. "I still love you Malcolm. I made a terrible mistake."
She sent one final desperate plea.
"Just let me inside the first security gate," Caroline pleaded. "I will do anything you want. I will be your servant. I will pay you back a hundred times over when the snow clears."
Malcolm stared at the glowing screen. She still thought the snow was going to clear. She still believed her family money held value.
She had locked him on a freezing balcony without a second thought. Now she wanted him to play the merciful savior.
Malcolm did not reply to her private message. He refused to give her the satisfaction of a direct conversation.
He stood up from the velvet couch. He held his plate of sizzling Wagyu beef in his left hand and his glass of red wine in his right.
He looked down at his thin summer pajamas. The bunker thermostat glowed a bright seventy two degrees on the wall behind him.
He held up his phone and snapped a crisp high definition selfie.
He navigated back to the Brighthaven Elite group chat. There were over two hundred wealthy socialites and business owners currently active in the channel.
Malcolm uploaded the photograph.
He typed a single caption underneath the image.
"Victor, how is that concrete box looking now?"
He hit send.
The picture materialized in the main group chat.
The frantic scrolling of messages instantly stopped. The chat went dead silent for a full sixty seconds.
Hundreds of elites were huddled in freezing dark rooms. They were burning trash to stay alive. They were watching their own skin turn black with severe frostbite.
Now they were staring at a high definition image of a man in thin cotton pajamas. He was eating premium steak in a warm climate controlled bunker.
The silence shattered. The chat exploded with blistering outrage and n***d greed.
"Where are you?" Mr Sterling demanded in all capital letters. "Send us your GPS coordinates right now."
"He is in the warehouse," Cynthia typed frantically into the chat. "The ugly concrete warehouse in the city center. He has heat and food inside."
"Let us in right now Drayton," a ruthless hedge fund manager threatened. "I will pay you ten million dollars for a single room."
"I will wire you fifty million for a plate of that hot food," a desperate socialite begged. "My children are starving."
"You have to share those resources," another CEO demanded. "It is illegal to hoard survival supplies during a state of emergency. I am calling the police."
Malcolm took a slow sip of his red wine. He watched the wealthiest people in the city abandon their dignity. They were offering their entire fortunes for a single piece of meat.
He remembered Victor tossing a ten thousand dollar check onto his chest like a piece of dirty trash.
"My father is a federal judge," a young heir typed into the chat. "When the military arrives I will have you executed for treason Drayton."
"There is no military," Malcolm typed back casually. "There are no judges. There is only the ice."
"Victor said the helicopters are coming," Cynthia argued. "Victor promised us."
"Victor is crying in a maintenance closet," Malcolm responded. "He lied to keep you quiet."
Victor did not respond to defend himself. The accusation hung heavily in the digital chat room.
"Malcolm please listen to reason," Mr Sterling begged. "We are civilized people. We can negotiate a fair business contract for your supplies."
"I am not running a charity," Malcolm replied. "You all laughed at my concrete box yesterday. Now you can freeze outside of it."
"Keep your loose change," Malcolm typed as his final message. "Paper money makes terrible toilet paper."
He sent the text and watched the chat erupt into fresh threats and agonizing curses.
He locked his phone screen and tossed it onto the sofa.
He picked up his controller and unpaused his racing game. He had a lot of free time to kill.
- Writer
