If you’re looking for a shorter story to provide you with an entry point into the Our Cyber World series, allow me to recommend Active Shooter.

In this prequel to Pink Ballerina we meet Andre Esperanza shortly after he thwarted a terrorist attack on Los Angeles International Airport. The short-lived fame that follows leads him to a network interview with Bridget Suarez and to a business relationship with art dealer Lucia Fuentes. During this brief period, he will have to fight to keep his past buried, his nascent career as a photographer going, and his search for beauty in art and nature alive.

Check out the chapter 1 excerpt below to see whether you’d be interested in reading on…

The lights in the studio signaled the impending start of the interview. I wore a mask of makeup and everyday man pleasantness, seconds away from ratifying my instant fame as someone able to execute carnage. Network morning show anchor, Bridget Suarez, smiled at me with a raised eyebrow, her green eyes flashing with a relax-we-got-this spark. Her confidence, her ebullience at having landed an exclusive interview was infectious, though I seemed inoculated to it. No matter how much I tried to appropriate it, I felt only apprehension.

“In 3, 2, 1,” someone cried out from the studio’s shadows.

Bridget let one second pass then snapped into action. “This morning we are talking to Los Angeles photographer and math teacher, Andre Esperanza, who has become a hero to many after intervening to thwart a terrorist act.”

I forced an awkward smile, reproaching myself for agreeing to the interview after a week of self-imposed silence and refusal to discuss my allegedly heroic deeds with the media. A week. That’s how long I’d lasted. In this age of instant, yet fleeting fame and unabashed self-exposure, I’d purposed to resist the enticement to relish the superficial publicity and fleeting accolades. And I lasted one week.

“You haven’t given any interviews until today,” Bridget Suarez said. “Why the reluctance?”

“It wasn’t modesty,” I replied.

“You didn’t want the attention.”

“We all want attention. I didn’t need it.”

She paused for an instant, her expression suggesting this interview’s initial trajectory was deviating from her original plan. “Do you fear prosecution for your actions?”

“That’s a question for the authorities, I guess.”

“But you are cooperating fully,” she said.

“Sure. I have nothing to hide.” I left it laconic, per our agreement to skirt potential legal ramifications of my actions. She got it. Time to move on.

“By now most Americans have seen video clips capturing what transpired in LAX one week ago today. I’d like for us to play them while you recount what happened, in your own words. Is that okay with you, Mr. Esperanza?” she asked as if I controlled the video that had already started to play in one of the monitors, the same footage looping incessantly on every news channel for the past seven days. “Tell us what comes to mind, what you are thinking moments before the shooting starts.”

I am standing in the Terminal 4 security line, ready for another interaction with TSA agents, one that will likely involve a pat-down since as a matter of practice and principle I avoid the body scanner. I once more curse the indignity of having to half-disrobe and walk on filthy floors with socked feet. “Thank you Osama and Mr. shoe-bomber,” I snarl inwardly.

Out of a photographer’s habit, I explore my surroundings. If I had an assignment here, what would draw my eye, what are the gifts in this scene that would make a compelling photograph. Not the dreary architecture, maybe the people around me, though their deadpan expressions seem hardly photogenic.

As I serpentine through the security line I notice a man just to my left, bending down, setting down a guitar case, opening it, lifting an instrument of a different kind.

“Gun!” I shout. “Everybody down, gun!” I manage to get out before a single gunshot rings out.

Then it starts, the first burst from different guns farther away, as far as I can tell, coming from two other shooters, firing as they cut past the TSA station. The first shot found its mark in a LAPD officer whose bulletproof vest didn’t protect him because it is not a hat.

The first shooter will now be looking for me. I know. That’s what I would do, flush out the meddling guy yelling “gun!” Since I’m hiding behind a mass of cowering humanity, he doesn’t spot me and moves on.

I can’t stay here. I need to get to that downed LAPD officer, not so that I can check his pulse or triage his wound, but because I need his radio. And his gun. More than anything I need his gun.

Through a crease in the crowd I see the first shooter I spotted, now walking into the terminal, trailing the other two. I make a run for the officer. Outside the terminal I hear a blast and more gunfire. From this I estimate the shooters’ accomplices are holding the line out there. LAPD officers will not come to our aid in the near future.

Another explosion sends glass flying into the terminal by the time I reach my target. I won’t have to feel guilty about not tending to his needs. Not much of his head remains. While terrified travelers watch me, I grab his gun, half in his hand, half in its holster. Next I clip his radio to my belt, then turn him over to rip off his shirt and undo his bulletproof vest’s Velcro straps. Before I can put it on, I see shooter #1 returning for me.

He’s also wearing a vest. I don’t have a head shot from my vantage point.

Through the TSA tables I can see his legs striding toward me. Just like a photo, I tell myself. Frame, focus, wait, take the shot. I aim at an opening and when his legs get there I take one shot. His knee buckles in flash of red and he screams. I leap over the table, taking another shot at his head. He collapses, and I keep coming because his vest and his rifle are now my top priority.

Seconds later I am wearing his bloody vest, drying off a bloody rifle on the dry parts of his clothing. I sling his backpack over my shoulders, which from the weight of it I guess contains more ammunition, and maybe something else.

More bursts of gunfire ring out from beyond the TSA security point. They’re going deeper into the terminal, like a circular saw through red meat, headed for a plane, whichever one is loading now, I’m guessing, because they would have timed the attack to coincide with its boarding time.

Into the police radio I say, “Andre Esperanza in Terminal 4. Going in after 2, repeat 2 active shooters.”

I run into the terminal, crouching as I go, passing bodies, discarded luggage and crimson streaks on the floor from those who have dragged themselves or have been pulled along to safety. The radio crackles and I ignore it, lower the volume lest it give away my location to the shooters. It’s buzzing now, letting me know dispatch is trying to contact me, but I have to keep going to reach the shooters before it’s too late.

I see them now, one firing at a pinned down LAPD officer who won’t be able to resist much longer. The other shooter comes out of a gate’s waiting area and spots me. The brief moment of hesitation during which he tries to convince himself I am shooter #1 will cost him his life. I drop to one knee and fire one, two, three rifle rounds. The first and second shots hit him square in the chest and stun him. The third shot finds his left cheek.

Now shooter #3 will be coming for me, angry because his plan is seconds away from falling apart. I expect him to shoot at me, just letting it rip. For a second I point my gun at him, knowing I don’t have a clear shot. Though I cannot see his eyes at this distance I sense he’s making the same calculus. He lowers his gun, reaches behind him, and with and underhand release hurls an object my way. I jump and dive to my left seconds before a boom and a cloud of dust fill the confined space. Lights flicker, threatening to go dark.

I reach a counter and parapet behind it, waiting for him to come for me. Will he?

The radio buzzes again and I pick it up, raising its volume. “Andre Esperanza here. One active shooter remaining. Repeat, one active shooter remaining.”

“Mr. Esperanza. Are you with the LAPD? If not, get off this channel.”

“I am a passenger in Terminal 4. I’ve put down 2 of 3 shooters. One remains active and at large. I’m going after him.” I say this and what comes next not anticipating what play this exchange will get in news reports but knowing I need to move. He hasn’t come for me, but this conversation is giving my position away.

“Mr. Esperanza, are you a Federal Marshall?”

“I’m a substitute math teacher at Vermont High,” I reply, aware how ridiculous that sounds.

“If you’re not with law enforcement, you need to stand down.”

I hear screaming, more gunfire, more desperate screaming.

I ask, “How soon until officers get in here?” I get only silence. “They’re being held back by gunmen with explosives, right?” Another pause follows. “By process of elimination, that leaves me.”

“How were you feeling at this moment, Mr. Esperanza?” Bridget Suarez was asking me back in the studio where instead of gun powder and the acrid scent of spent explosives I smelled her perfume. “Most of us would feel discouraged, despairing that the police was at best minutes away.”

I considered her question as I stared into the surveillance video and the white-gray cloud diffusing through the terminal. “At this point I’m not feeling. I’m just reacting. I know I need to move.”

“And you do just that. Walk us through what comes next.”

I rush out onto the main walkway, sliding across the floor as I aim the rifle down terminal. Through the subsiding white cloud of smoke and dust I see only a wounded LAPD officer, holding his position in a blood-drained stupor. Before I charge up the hallway I deal with short-lived doubt. Should I be doing this? In active shooter situations, the last thing you need is a cowboy mucking up the situation. When law enforcement finally breaks through, they’ll be coming for me. In fact, right now they have no idea I’m not one of the gang. To them, watching me in the surveillance video, I am just another gunman wearing a bullet-proof vest and a black backpack, wreaking havoc among the innocent.

More screams and moans pull me into the terminal. I approach the place where the voices are coming from and slide along the floor toward an electronics kiosk I hope will provide me some cover. As I slide, I hear the clinking of spent casings brushing against my pants. Turning to my right I see several bodies, contorted, some still moving. Some moaning, some sobbing softly.

“Help,” someone says weakly.

Beyond the bodies I see an open door. Its swipe and cipher pad have been shot out. I walk toward it, rifle pointed at the door, my eyes looking to and fro clearing the room unnecessarily because I know shooter #3 has run into the jet way. Outstretched hands silently beseech my help; I must ignore them. I stop at the entrance of the jet way, unload the backpack, and unzip it slowly. I should have checked its contents sooner, I tell myself. For all I know, I could have been carrying a couple of ticking bricks of C4. Instead I find ammunition and two flash-bang grenades.

I leave the backpack, stuffing one flash-bang grenade into my cargo pants’ side pocket. Inching forward into the jet way, I advance quietly until I see him around a bend, attaching something to a plane’s door which I’m guessing a quick-thinking flight attendant latched closed. Another look at what he’s doing, and I note he’s sticking dollops of putty and wiring them together. He’s setting up explosives. I shoot him in the back twice, and he falls.

“And that’s when you radio the police,” Bridget said now in the bright and increasingly hot studio.

“Yes, I hail them on the radio, identifying myself again. I tell them all three shooters are down.”

“You think it’s over now.”

“I’m hoping it’s over, but I suspect there’s a good chance it’s not. Those guys whose job it is to hold the line and keep the LAPD out of the terminal are probably still out there.”

“Tell us what you do next.”

The dead shooter’s phone is ringing. He’s not answering it, and they’re going to figure out his buddy needs help, that he probably didn’t finish the job. They’re going to fall in and come to his aide. One, two, three explosions echo through the terminal, a shock wave traveling from the outside in. I hear shouting, the same word, or rather, I realize, a name, repeated over and over again.

I rush out of the jet way and grab the backpack. As soon as I get to the main walkway I unpin and toss a grenade toward the front of the terminal, sight unseen. Then I see them, three more gunmen, trying to take cover just before it goes off a few feet from them.

I need to hold them until the LAPD and whoever else with a gun and ability to use it makes it in here. I unlock a kiosk’s wheels and pull it into the middle of the walkway, then I turn it over and it crashes down, my makeshift barricade. I aim my rifle and look for movement, firing single shots as soon as I see them. The first figure comes up and drops awkwardly after my first shot, then the second. I shoot each, down where they fell twice more between the legs, where they’re not wearing any armor. The third figure is out of view, maybe still reeling from the flash-bang. For good measure, I toss the second grenade, and it goes off just right where I felled the two shooters.

Now I wait, still aiming my rifle down the walkway, seeking out the first sign of movement. Then I hear a shot, followed by a second shot, not aimed at me, but at a door, I think. He’s shot another door and is going to make his way to the plane via the tarmac, climb up to the jet way and finish rigging the bomb. I realize I must run back to the jet way, but if the two downed gunmen are only partially disabled and get up to rejoin the fight, I could be trapped in there.

I wait a few seconds, looking for any signs of life. Seeing none, I run back to the jet way, just in time to hear more gunshots, this time coming from outside, getting closer, until I hear one tear through the lock of the door giving entry from below, right at the plane’s own door.

I raise my handgun and steady my breath, aiming at where I anticipate an average height man’s head will appear. But he’s smart and pokes his head down low. I shoot it anyway, twice, and he falls back outside.

That’s when I hear it, heavy steps coming fast. I turn, drop on my stomach and level my rifle at the jet way’s entrance.

“LAPD!” someone shouts at me. “Drop it!”

I spot their uniforms and SWAT gear and comply, saying, “Don’t shoot! I’m a passenger. I talked to your dispatcher.”

Seconds later, they’re kicking the rifle and handgun away and handcuffing me roughly. Only now do I consider the severity of what I’ve done, and that maybe I am in more trouble after the shooting than I was during it.
. . .