Vending Machine Lunch by Roadbloc Read Free Book Online

immediately.
    “Good lord,”
muttered Jack, lost for breath, “He’s said it.”
    “Erm- and why
is that Mr J?” asked Jordan looking genuinely concerned.
    The Enforcers
had reached J, and were now handcuffing him.
    “Hurr- well,
you see Jordan, I can’t take no for an answer. The only answer I
will accept is- yes.”
    “Well, I’m
afraid I’m in no professional position to honour your proposition.
I don’t think anyone is actually, so I’ll tell you what, why don’t
you get your little neo-friends to honour it. After your lifelong
prison sentence.” And with that, Jordan left the podium, the
Enforcers began attempting to drag J away, and the causal chatter
in the room began again.
    “Ha. Hurr- Mr
Jordan? You will say yes. You will honour my proposal. You all
will. It’s not a matter whether you agree, it’s a matter of when
you will agree-” J managed to say before being dragged off the
podium. The microphone dropped from his handcuffed hands and
scraped on the floor.
    “Wait!” this
time it was both Jessica and Jordan who said it, the casual
chatter, yet again, stopped. Jordan signalled with his hand to the
Enforcers to give J the microphone. A weedy looking Enforcer picked
up the microphone and held it in front of him.
    “Why?” asked
Jordan.
    “Ha! There is a
large section of this land which is susceptible to flooding. And
for as long as we all can remember, the Ares Flood Defences have
been protecting this large section of the land from the outside
waters. You don’t need me to tell you the percentage of this land’s
population that will die if the Ares Defences were to- fail. So
here is the prognosis. If the leader isn’t overthrown and me put in
his place by six...” J paused, “...boom!”
    The rattle off
his handcuff chain as he attempted to mime an explosion with his
hands, echoed in the silent room.
    Jordan
cursed.
    The silence was
followed by an almost instantaneous uproar, people either shouting
threats, panicking or furiously trying to exit the building. The
Enforcers dragged away J, who was licking his lips and chuckling to
himself, to an awaiting cell in an Enforcer building not far from
the House of Speakers.
    A sense of
panic descended on the room. Jessica turned to Jack.
    "Go," she said,
"Go get your family and get them out of the area. Don't tell them
anything, don't let on anything. Just get out of here and get your
family safe."
    "What about
you?" asked Jack, through the noise of the rapidly panicking amass
of speakers.
    "It doesn't
matter about me, just get yourself out of here. As fast as you
can," said Jessica, she then moved her lips close to Jack's ear,
"Do it for me. I've not nothing to lose."
    "I was warned
never to dip my pen in company ink," Jack whispered back, hugging
her close.
    Jessica
chuckled sadly. And with that, she pushed Jack away, and yelled
through the noise of everyone else, "Go!"
    Jack turned and
joined the painful looking bottle neck at the exit. Jessica slowly
looked around at the scene. In the blink of an eye, things had
turned from potential chaos to actual chaos. It was heart-breaking
for her to see her land slowly tear itself apart. A sudden wave of
nausea hit her, she had to get to the convenience cubicles.
    She turned and
made her way to the cubicles, which were positioned in a small
room, accessed behind the centre of the Speaker benches. Sitting
down in a cubicle, she quietly wept for some time. Until she heard
a male voice in the cubicle next to her.
    "Jessica?" It
was Jordan's voice.
    "Jordan?" she
replied, trying to snuffle down her sobs.
    "We need to
sort this out you know," he said, his voice reverberating off the
cubicle walls.
    "We do?"
    "Yeah. Listen,
yourself or myself could attempt to quash this alone, however, I
doubt either one of us would succeed. We need to utilise our
resources, we need to team up. We need to, work together for once,"
he said.
    "You just want
to stop the press from getting hold of this don't you?" said
Jessica,