Chapter 1

I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

-J.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Claire wasn't sure what she was supposed to do. She kept the fake smile plastered across her face and waited, fidgeting, while the customer stood stock-still and stared at the little television in the corner. She couldn't help but notice how yellow his teeth were, considering how wide his mouth hung open.

"Sir? What can I get for you?"

The man didn't respond, and Claire was getting frustrated. She turned to see what was so damn interesting, and saw a young black woman sitting behind a newsdesk. The volume was always turned off in the coffee shop, so the closed-captioning was flickering words across the bottom of the screen. The woman sat off-center, and hovering above her shoulder was a computer-generated graphic proclaiming DOMESTIC TERRORISM in a suitably exclamatory font. It reminded Claire of a comic book title, then her brain kicked in and she realized what they were talking about.

"Mike, where's the remote for the TV?"

Mike was the manager, and was perched atop his stool in the corner, 'managing' while he played with his phone. He looked up, eyes wide, and stared at Claire.

"Jimmy said there's something big going on!"

His tone was an awed whisper, and Claire couldn't help but scowl at him.

"That's why I need the remote! They're talking about it on TV!"

Mike glanced up at the TV and swore quietly under his breath. He came up to the counter and crouched down, fumbling through the boxes until he found the remote. He pointed it and turned the sound on before he stood up. The newscaster's voice started up mid-sentence.

" ... communication at this point. It's unclear whether these events are inter-related, but the coincidence of the timing would be immense. We're still awaiting any sort of formal word, but no comments have been forthcoming from Washington. Joining us via satellite is retired General Norman Barton. General, thank you for joining us. Can you offer us any theories as to what might be occurring here?"

General Barton's prunelike face replaced the DOMESTIC TERRORISM graphic, hovering in midair as he spoke.

"Thank you, Priscilla. These acts simply cannot be anything but a coordinated effort. The scope is simply too broad, and too well-executed in each case, to be anything different. The shootings in Texas in particular spoke of a thoroughly well-planned action. To what purpose these events could be attributed, there's simply no way to know at this point."

"General, in your opinion, are we dealing with some sort of militia group, or possibly a sleeper cell of some kind?"

"I regard both of those options as somewhat unlikely, but anything is on the table at this point. I do expect that at some point someone will step forward and take responsibility for these heinous actions."

The General's image disappeared, and the camera panned to put the news anchor at the center of the screen. Claire glanced around, realizing that the coffee shop had fallen completely still. Every eye was on the little screen, and nobody was moving.

"To recap for those just joining us, a series of attacks have occurred across the United States. Six different attacks have been reported, and rumors are flying about the possibility of several more. There is still no official word at this time, but we can confirm some of the details.

In California, there was a shooting in a courtroom. In Virginia, there was some sort of explosion in a prison. In Colorado, a massive fire took out an entire block of storage buildings. In Nebraska, there was a shooting in a school lunchroom. In Florida, three street performers were brutally murdered. And last, and possibly most troubling, are the events in Texas. We go live now to Austin, where our own George Linton is there on the scene. George?"

George appeared in the box recently vacated by the General as the camera resumed its off-center orientation. Behind him a large white building was visible, and he held one hand to his ear, nodding as he listened to the anchor's time-delayed words.

"Thank you, Priscilla. As you said, we're here on-site at the Capitol Building here in Austin, Texas, and we're awaiting some kind of word. Details are very sketchy at this point, but sources have informed us that there were a large number of near-simultaneous shootings before dawn this morning. We don't have numbers at this point, either of victims or casualties. We can say, though, that the FBI is on the scene at a number of different locations, state-wide. Reports have been coming in to BNN from residents of a number of outlying towns, claiming helicopters and agents on the ground are, in the words of one man, "like ants at a picnic". So while we have no official word at this time, there's obviously something big happening. We'll be here monitoring the story, and we'll let BNN viewers know as soon as any more details emerge."

"Holy shit..." murmured Claire.

Muttering had sprung up at the tables in the shop, and Claire felt a strange sinking sensation in her stomach. She had been in New York when the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center had occurred, and the thought still made her queasy. If this was another terrorist attack, maybe some sort of sleeper cell; She shook her head, attempting to clear it and stared up at the TV, waiting for more information.

Martin Rodriguez was exhausted. He had been busy as hell all day, and hadn't even been able to catch a break for lunch. He gratefully flipped the sign on the front door to CLOSED, and slumped into his faded grey chair. He took off his Martin's Garage hat and flung it to the desk, then flopped his head back, staring up at the ceiling. He was hungry, tired, filthy, and in desperate need of about three days of uninterrupted sleep.

He'd had no luck so far replacing Todd, who had quit on him out of nowhere a week before, saying he'd met a girl, and they were going to move to Oregon or something like that. Todd had been a good mechanic, and a good kid, but not the brightest firefly in the jar. The problem was, though, that it was hard to find a good mechanic willing to work at a tiny little single-bay garage any more. Martin couldn't afford to pay the big bucks, but he had steady work.

The phone rang on the desk, and Martin didn't answer. He was trying to decide what he was going to do first, and casually thinking that he might already be doing it. It wouldn't be the first time he'd slept at the garage, after all. The phone ceased it's caterwauling, and Martin stretched, long and deep, feeling his muscles quiver with the effort. He threw his feet up onto the desk and leaned back, closing his eyes.

The phone rang again. Martin opened one eye and glared at it for a long moment, then heaved himself forward and grabbed the receiver. A small business could not afford to lose customers.

"Martin's Garage, Martin speaking."

Martin listened to the voice on the other end of the line for a moment, rubbing his forehead. His eyes shot open, and he jumped to his feet a moment later.

"You're sure? Who told you this?"

Another moment passed as he listened, then he swore and slammed the phone down. He snatched his hat off the desk and ran for the door.

The table was a deep brown, and highly polished. Each of the chairs around it was filled with a stern-visaged man, and every eye was on the new arrival. Chris (never Chrissy) Tower was simultaneously the youngest and first female head of the FBI. In her early fifties, she was a slender, handsome woman with a deceptively easy smile.

"Gentlemen, nice to see you all."

There were no empty chairs, so she stood, a burgundy attache case in one hand, as a man near the head of the table stood and beckoned her over. She recognized almost all of the faces, but there were a few new ones. The man who had stood was Bill Tucker, the President's chief of staff. He was the President's right-hand-man, and everyone knew it. Bill held out a hand, and Chris shook it. He stepped back and offered her his chair, but she shook her head with a smile.

"Thank you for coming, Chris." Bill said as he pulled his chair to one side and sat back down, leaving Chris at the head of the table.

"Of course, Bill. Happy to oblige."

"We'd like you to give us your summary of the events of the last 36 hours, if you would please."

Chris set her attache case down on the table, put her hands on it, and leaned forward. She let her gaze travel across the collected faces as she began to speak.

"Gentlemen, what has happened to this point is as troubling as it is profound. A series of highly professional, and lethal, attacks has occurred. Initial indications are that we are dealing with a sizeable group, despite the fact that the methodology of the attacks vary from site to site. We can safely assume it is a single group because a number of the attacks were carried out simultaneously, necessitating careful coordination. In addition, the attacks have occurred across almost the entirety of the continental US, which also would imply nothing more than a fairly significant group of individuals working in concert."

"Are we talking about terrorist activities here?"

Chris glanced at the speaker, a man she didn't recognize, before answering.

"I'm afraid that term contains a rather large number of possibilities. At this point we can't rule anything out, however. To this point, there have been seven confirmed attacks, running the gamut from bombings, arson, knife attacks and a sniper. The victimology is still being worked on, but there's some indication that these might be some sort of vigilante movement. The Death Row bombing, the Texas killings and the sniper out in California, in particular, would seem to be along those lines, but we can't line the rest of the victims up with that line of thought yet."

"As of this time, we have over fifty separate teams deployed, the majority of them in Texas, where we have a team working each crime scene. Resistance from local law enforcement in each case has been negligible, so our people are the ones exclusively handling this. There are not any leads at the moment, but a large amount of data has been coming in to the FBI labs, and we're making every effort to analyze that data as quickly as possible."

"Are they done? Will there be any more attacks?", Bill asked. Chris smiled at him, but it was a cold thing, and Bill smiled back uncertainly.

"Sorry, Bill, I didn't bring my crystal ball with me. We have no way of knowing if they are done, whoever they are. There could well be more attacks, and if there are, we'll process those as well. I'll be sure to keep you all posted. Is there anything else, Bill? Gentlemen?"

Murmurs to the negative and a few shakes of the head were her only response, so she picked up her attache case, unopened, and strode to the door.

At 8:30 PM, precisely, Times Square went dark. Every street light went out, every building went dark, and instant chaos erupted. Cars and buses honked angrily and screams sprang forth from people too used to terror, and who had been on edge for too long. Panic ensued, and there were numerous car crashes, a few people got knocked over, and things were well on their way to getting out of control, when a green light came on.

The light originated from the very top of One Times Center, the largest of the digital billboards located in the area, and spread slowly across the screen, illuminating more and more of the square, until it reached the bottom. As everyone watched, letters began to appear.

L

E

G

I

O

N

0800 EST

"How the hell did they DO it? That's what I want to know!"

Mike was cranky, and this guy was pushing all his buttons. It was cold, it was late, and Mike wasn't in the mood to take any shit from some snot-nosed FBI douche. Mike had been with the maintenance company that served most of the buildings in downtown New York City for twenty three years. Times Square was his usual route, and he knew most of the buildings there inside and out. He'd been halfway through his second beer, well on his way to a productive night out, when he'd gotten a call from his supervisor, saying that he was needed immediately down in Times Square. Thirty minutes later he's standing on a street corner, freezing his nuts off, and this trenchcoat-wearing spook is all up in his face.

"Look, asshole! That building's damn near empty, OK? There's a drugstore at the bottom, but for the most part it's a hollow shell, you get me?"

"So what're you trying to say?" asked Jason. The man's accent made it hard to make out much of what he was saying, when you coupled it with the wind and the traffic noise. Although somehow the cusswords came across crystal clear.

"I'm SAYING that it woulda been fucking easy to pull off! You hit the grid for Times Square, just pull the fucking plug. Then you have some kinda fucking generator or some shit up in the fucking building, and you plug the billboard into that, and you can do whatever you want with it!"

"Just that easy?"

"No it ain't fuckin easy! I'm just trying to dumb it down enough for a fuck like you to follow along. I'd write it down for you, but I didn't bring a fucking crayon with me."

"Very funny. Look, how do we get in there? I need to send a team up to find out how exactly they did it."

"There's access through the drugstore, in the back, or if you're really fuckin Superman or some shit, there's access from the roof. Now, we done here?"

"Yeah, we're done. Thanks."

"Go fuck yourself.", Mike said, stomping away.

Jason Thompson shook his head. It was going to be a long night. He'd already had three panicked calls from FBI HQ, plus one from the director herself, who claimed she was en route. He'd taken a moment to go splash on some after shave when he heard that ... it never hurt to impress one's boss, after all. He'd been the Senior Agent in Charge for the New York Metropolitan Area for less than a year, and he was actively trying to figure out how to leverage this situation into a cushy job at Quantico. Something with an assistant and a window, for starters.

Chris listened to her cell phone as she received Jason's report from Times Square. When the speaker stopped, she hung up without a word and slipped the phone into her jacket pocket. She hurried along the tarmac and climbed into the waiting Gulfstream plane. The door came up behind her, and she made her way to the back of the plane, where she was stopped by a Secret Service agent.

"Oh come on, really?"

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I have to check your bag and your person."

"I'm already ON the plane, isn't it a little too late for that?"

"No ma'am. I could always throw you out a window."

She eyed the agent, whose face had no expression at all. Finally she smirked a bit and handed the man her purse.

When she was cleared, she opened the door to the rearmost portion of the cabin and took a seat across from Bill. He smiled at her wearily, and she nodded to him.

"Any update?" he asked.

"Just got off the phone with one of my agents in Times Square. He claims power was restored, but the billboard's message remained. He said that on one of the vacant floors, they've located a fairly odd apparatus linked into the wiring of the building. At least a portion of it looks recognizable as a computer interface of some kind, but he said he hasn't seen anything quite like it before. Regardless, it's undoubtedly what they're using to keep that message up."

"Have they attempted to access the computer at all?"

"Not yet. They're waiting on a tech to arrive on-scene to take a crack at it. There's been some discussion about just pulling the plug, but nobody's sure yet if that's a good idea or a bad one."

"Did they call in one of your FBI techs?"

"That's right, one of the senior ones in the Northeast, why?"

Bill rubbed his chin a moment, then grinned.

"Call them off. I've got the right guy for this one."

"Oh, you do, do you?"

"Oh yes. Let me make a quick call while you call off your man."

Chris watched Bill for a long moment, then made the call. He finished before she did, and loosened his tie before continuing the conversation.

"So, any progress made on this Legion name? Do we know who they are?"

"Unfortunately, no. Apart from a few different biker gangs who use some variation of the term, there aren't any records or reports of a group referring to themselves as Legion."

"Legion implies ... what? Like a militia or something?"

"Something like that, I suppose. It's certainly a military term. Throughout history various armies have used the term Legionnaire as opposed to Soldier. I'm fairly certain no current armies employ the term, however."

"What do you think the reference to 8:00 means?"

"One would assume it means that's when something significant will occur. And with a group that appears to have proven itself capable of wholesale slaughter, practically anything is on the table."

Jason was standing on the rooftop of One Times Square when the helicopter landed. He lamented what the wind was going to do to his hair for a moment, then charged in to take the Director's hand. She took it with a quick smile, then rushed past him. Jason scurried along behind her, and Bill followed along a few steps behind, flanked by two of the SS agents from the plane.

Once they were clear of the racket, quick introductions were made. Jason of course knew who Bill was, and started imagining himself with an SS earpiece, possibly guarding a member of the First Family ... This could turn out even better than he'd hoped! The Director suggested they make all haste downstairs, and they headed for a metal door leading to an interior stairway as they heard the helicopter's engines start to rev back up.

It was five stories down to the area where the equipment had been found (and had been considerably more than that coming up ... Jason's legs still ached). When they reached the appropriate floor, Jason pushed open a fire door and led their little group into a wide unfinished area, with no interior lighting. A huge window across what appeared to be the front of the building let in all of the lights from the active Square below, though, so it was easy to make out the details.

A number of large metal columns protruded from the concrete floor and extended through the concrete ceiling. Bill's hard-soled shoes clattered noisily as they walked, the echoes disturbingly loud. Silhouetted against the window they could see three forms standing in a semicircle around a group of darker shapes sitting on the floor. Each of the men seemed to be straining to stand as still as possible, and Chris knew that her presence had been announced.

"Relax, gentlemen," she said as they drew close. None of the guards seemed to move, but there was an audible exhalation from one mouth. Chris gave a slight smile and then turned to regard the equipment that the men were guarding.

There were five metal boxes, all with rounded corners. Three were lying directly on the floor, one was stacked on top of one of the floor-dwellers, and there was one at an angle, propped up against another of the boxes on the floor. They all appeared to be the same size and shape, and there were cables running between them, though there didn't appear to be any sort of indicator lights or control panels to hint at their purpose.

"You said something about a server?" Chris asked.

Jason rushed past her, talking quickly.

"Yes ma'am, I did. It's over here. We didn't notice it at first, but when I was securing the area, I managed to discover-"

"Thank you, Agent. You've done well." Chris interrupted. She could see what he was talking about. Sitting on the floor between the boxes and the window was a sixth, smaller box. It, too, was connected with cables to three of the adjoining boxes, but this one had a visible, recognizable screen, as well as a few different ports on its face.