Chapter 681 - 320: Attack
Pittsburgh South District, in front of the Brooklyn Community Pharmacy.
The midday sun was obscured by heavy clouds. Only a few pale rays of light managed to pierce through, spilling onto the street below.
Leo Wallace stood on the steps at the entrance of the pharmacy.
The pharmacy had a small storefront, and half the neon tubes on its sign were broken.
A handwritten notice was taped to the display window: [Insulin and antibiotics now in stock. Claim with Red Card].
Although the pharmaceutical giants’ embargo against Pittsburgh and its surrounding cities was still in effect, Leo had used the Industrial Revival Alliance’s resource coordination and his personal connection with Evelyn to reroute a shipment of emergency medicine from Canada and South America.
The shipment had entered the city late at night through the Inland Port’s docks and had now been distributed to community pharmacies across the area.
Leo was here today to make an appearance.
He needed the citizens to see that even with the pharmaceutical giants blockading the city, he, the Mayor, still had ways to keep the pharmacy shelves stocked.
Hundreds of citizens were crowded in front of the pharmacy.
They clutched bags of medicine they had just received, but their eyes held little gratitude. Instead, they were filled with the doubt and anxiety stirred up by the media.
"Mr. Mayor!"
A man in a worn-out jacket from the crowd held up a newspaper. It bore the sensational headline: "Wallace’s Betrayal."
"The paper says you’re siding with the Republican Party now. Is that true?"
"And some people are saying you’re just picking a fight with the pharmaceutical companies! That you deliberately rejected the normal supply channels just to show off your Mutual Aid Alliance!" a woman shrieked. "My son almost died at the clinic! Are a few votes really that important to you?"
The reporters’ cameras and microphones were practically jabbing him in the face.
Leo looked at the crowd.
They held the medicine he had procured, yet they parroted the lines his enemies had fed them.
He took a portable megaphone from a police officer standing nearby.
SCREEECH—
"I know you’re angry."
Leo’s voice was remarkably calm in the wind.
"I also know you’re afraid."
"You see people on TV calling me a tyrant and read in the papers that I’m a traitor. They tell you that I’m the one who cut off the supply chain, that I’m the reason your children can’t get medicine."
Leo pointed to the handwritten notice on the pharmacy window, then to a man clutching a vial of insulin.
"But look at what’s in your hands."
The man instinctively glanced at the plastic bag in his arms. Inside were two vials of insulin.
"That’s medicine. Life-saving medicine."
Leo’s voice suddenly rose.
"The people who curse me in the papers, the people in Washington who accuse me of being a radical—did they send you any medicine?"
"They thought that as soon as the pharmacies were empty, you would storm City Hall and tear me to pieces."
"They thought that by manufacturing panic, you would give up your dignity just to survive, that you would crawl back to the old health insurance plan that eats up half your monthly salary!"
Leo took a step forward, glaring at the crowd.
"Look at these people trying to shut you up. They are the few. They hide in their skyscrapers, behind their carefully crafted liability clauses. They use bullshit like ’market principles’ and ’logistical adjustments’ to cover up their greed."
"They aren’t gods. They are parasites clinging to your backs."
"They tell you that healthcare is a commodity, a privilege only the rich can enjoy."
"But I’m telling you, healthcare is a sovereign right! It is the birthright of every person who lives in this city, who sweats for this city!"
"We built this Mutual Aid Alliance not to pick a fight with anyone, but to survive! So we no longer have to be thrown out of hospitals for not having money! So we no longer have to wait for death because of a claim denial!"
Leo scanned his surroundings, his gaze sweeping over the silent majority.
"I know you’re used to enduring, used to being ignored, used to being sacrificed. But today, look at the medicine in your hands. We fought for that ourselves. We earned it with our unity."
"The power of the silent is infinite. As long as we stand together, as long as we refuse to play by their rules, they are nothing!"
"Tell Washington!"
Leo raised the megaphone as if it were a banner.
"We will not surrender! We will not—"
Just then, a commotion suddenly erupted from a previously quiet corner to the right of the crowd.
A middle-aged man in a gray jacket, carrying a black plastic bag and keeping his head down, forcefully pushed his way through the people around him.
He moved quickly. People were shoved aside, some shouting angrily, others turning to look.
The man paid them no mind.
He rushed all the way to the foot of the steps, stopping less than five meters from Leo, and raised his head.
His eyes were bloodshot and sunken.
Then, he pulled a black handgun from the plastic bag.
"Liar!" the man roared.
BANG!
The first shot rang out.
The bullet struck the stone pillar next to Leo, sending fragments of stone flying and cutting a bloody line across his cheek.
The instant the gun went off, Leo instinctively twisted his body to the side.
His first reaction was to reach out and push a little girl standing in front of him out of the way.
The crowd instantly erupted into chaos.
Screams, cries, and the sound of shoving melded into one.
In a single second, the once-orderly plaza turned into a chaotic hell.
BANG!
The second shot.
This time, the bullet didn’t miss.
Leo’s body jerked violently. A spray of blood erupted from his left arm as his shirt was instantly stained red, blood dripping down his sleeve.
The immense force of the impact threw him sideways.
The man tried to fire a third shot.
𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂
But he wouldn’t get the chance.
Frank, who had been standing nearby, let out a beast-like roar.
He lunged forward, tackling the gunman and sending him flying.
The gunman fell to the ground, his handgun skittering away.
Several police officers rushed over and pinned him firmly to the ground.
"Don’t kill him! Don’t kill him!" someone shouted.
But in the struggle, the gunman somehow produced a small knife and plunged it viciously into his own throat.
Blood gushed out.
The gunman twitched a few times, then went still.
It all happened too fast.
From the first gunshot to the gunman falling, only a dozen seconds had passed.
On the steps, Leo staggered.
He clutched his left arm, his body swaying as if he could collapse at any moment.
Several bodyguards and staff members rushed up, trying to force him to the ground and shield him with their bodies from any potential follow-up shots.
"Mayor! Get down! Get down, now!"
"Get a doctor!"
Ethan scrambled over, looking frantic.
A few bodyguards tried to shield Leo with their bodies while forcing him into the bulletproof car.
"Don’t touch me!"
Leo’s voice rang out.
Though weak, it carried a chilling fury.
He pushed away the bodyguards’ hands, pressing down on his bleeding left arm.
His pale face was expressionless, but his eyes were terrifyingly bright.
"Mayor, you’ve been shot! You need to get in an ambulance right away!"
Ethan stared at the blood constantly dripping from Leo’s sleeve.
Leo glanced down at his arm.
Blood was trickling through his fingers, splattering on the gray pavement.
Adrenaline was coursing through his body, masking the pain.
He raised his head.
The citizens who were still fleeing stopped in their tracks.
After a moment of shock, the reporters instinctively turned their cameras toward the blood-soaked man.
His face was ashen, his forehead covered in a cold sweat.
But he stood his ground, like a wedge driven into the steps.
He bent down and picked up the megaphone that had fallen on the ground.
SCREEECH—
The entire square fell silent in an instant.
Those who were screaming, those who were running, those who were crying—all of them stopped.
They turned their heads to look at the figure on the steps.
The figure that was bleeding, yet still standing.
Leo raised the megaphone.
He looked at the gunman lying in a pool of blood, then at the terrified citizens, and finally, his gaze locked onto the still-rolling camera lenses.
"Is that all you’ve got?"
Leo’s voice thundered across the square.
"It’s not enough!" he roared.
"This isn’t enough!"
"You think one bullet is enough to shut me up? You think a little blood will make me back down?"
Leo took another step forward, planting himself at the very edge of the steps.
"Look at me!"
"I am standing right here!"
"I am the Mayor of Pittsburgh! I am a son of this city!"
"You can shoot through my arm, you can kill me, you can spill my blood on this soil."
"But!"
Leo’s voice rose to a fever pitch as he screamed with all his might.
"You cannot kill the will of Pittsburgh!"
"You cannot kill this city’s determination to live!"
"As long as I am standing, as long as I have breath in my body, I will never let you rats hiding in the gutters destroy our home!"
"Come on!"
Leo threw his arms open, exposing his vulnerable chest.
"Try another shot!"
"See if you can break my spine!"
No one fired. No one spoke.
In that moment, time seemed to freeze.
Every camera lens was fixed on that figure.
The figure whose shirt was stained with blood, but whose gaze set the entire city ablaze.
CLICK.
A Reuters photographer instinctively pressed the shutter.
The image was captured.
A gray sky, gray buildings, gray steps.
Only that splash of crimson—jarring, scorching, like a burning flame.
Leo Wallace stood there, like a martyred statue.
The camera captured Leo’s eyes, locked on the Southern States.
In those eyes, the entire old world was burning.
In that moment, he did not fall.
And for decades to come, he would forever remain standing in that instant.
The wail of an ambulance siren finally rose.
The megaphone slipped from Leo’s hand.
His body swayed, then finally fell backward.
Frank caught him.
In the final second before his consciousness faded to black, Leo saw the sky.
The clouds had parted.
A beam of sunlight landed right on his face.
It was warm.