Step into a Morally Gray Zone with WE ARE 100 by Nathan Timmel
After losing his wife, Evan Francart is depressed.
He has an axe to grind with the pharmaceutical company that jacked up the price of her medications, but feels powerless against a billion-dollar corporation.
Then he meets Cassandra.
She shows Evan a way to both end his life and become a hero. With her guidance, Evan interrupts a company board meeting and blows the building sky-high.
,br>As FBI agents Susan Chamberlain and Michael Godwin discover, Evan is the first of many. Ninety-nine more like him wait anonymously in the wings, their targets just as personal as Evan’s: the prosecutor who lets rapists walk free, the inept surgeon who maims patients yet keeps operating, the phony evangelist preying on those seeking solace… and that’s just the beginning.
Will the FBI unearth Cassandra’s identity before all 100 have carried out their plans?
We Are 100 is a thriller, a fast-paced read that asks: what happens when someone of means organizes and weaponizes people at their wit’s end? The book toys with your moral compass. It makes you question whether or not the “bad guys” are really the villains, since they’re acting as vigilantes against actual evil.
“My name is Evan Francart,” Evan explained flatly. “And I want to make a statement.”
As he finished his sentence, the fire alarm went off.
Evan couldn’t help but smile wryly as he thought, Clever girl, that Janice. Fastest way to get people out of a building? Tell them it’s on fire.
Evan glanced out the window. Fourteen stories down, he could see people beginning to trickle out the front doors.
Michael interrupted his train of thought: “What kind of statement? If this is about money—”
Evan cut him off. “Everything is about money.”
He paused.
“But if you’re worried I’m here to take yours, that’s not the case.”
The flow of employees from the building increased to a nice, steady stream. This was good. Evan knew he would be remembered as a terrorist, and probably a murderer, but they were going to have to give him credit for protecting innocent lives.
Evan glanced at his watch. A few more minutes and the building should be clear.
“You know,” he explained to his captives, “for a company that prides itself on shredding documents in order to keep secrets, you’re pretty sloppy about letting just anyone take those documents to the shredder.”
There was no response, but Evan didn’t expect one. After letting everyone digest those words, he continued.
“That means that no matter how well you protect your secrets from the public, the press, and even your underlings, someone will always know what you’re up to.”
Evan stared hard at Michael.
“Look,” Michael began, “I don’t know what you think we’re ‘up to,’ but this meeting…”
Evan finished the sentence for him: “Is about acquiring a small company, taking command of their flagship drug, and raising the price so that you can receive bonuses while people who can no longer afford it, die.”
Evan took one last look out the window. The number of employees exiting the building had slowed to almost nothing.
He decided to give stragglers one more minute. “My wife was on Chlozopran.”
If every member of the board had been nervous a moment ago, everything that was happening to them finally sunk in. To put it in street parlance, shit just got real.
“My wife was on Chlozopran, and after you bought the rights to it, you jacked up the price, and over the course of two years we had to drain our bank accounts and mortgage our house to keep her alive. I’m guessing you’ve figured out how it all ended by now.”
“Look,” Michael Dexter began. His voice sounded almost sympathetic. Almost. “I’m sorry about your wife. Really. What we do here is to try and save lives. If we raise the price on a drug, it’s because of overhead. The money we make goes—”
“Into R & D?” Evan interrupted. “Is that what you’re going with? You need more money to make better drugs? OK, if there’s so much research going on, then why did you get a $15 million bonus last year? Bonus. On top of your already obscene salary. Why did Mr. Moore get five million? The bonuses in this room add up to almost $50 million. Your salaries are over one hundred million. Company profits last year came in at $200 million. Why can’t that number be twenty million? It’s still profit, right? If you’re in the black, what’s the difference between $20 million and $200 million? What’s the difference between $2 million and $200 million if you’re profitable?”
Evan paused again.
“The only difference, as I see it, is the amount of your salary, and bonus.
You want more, so you charge more.” Evan waited for a response.
None came.
“You charge more, and people die,” he concluded.
Evan reached under a flap on his cart. A button awaited his touch.
It had taken him three weeks to bring all the components to the building. Some parts stayed in his locker until he needed them; others were hidden in the nooks and crannies of the basement, places no soul ever wandered.
After last night’s shift, he’d remained at work, diligently putting everything together in the custodial break room. No cameras in there; no one pays attention to the janitors. In the lobby? Sure, were cameras everywhere in the lobby. But the lepers, the untouchables who did the grunt work for the kings? No need to keep an eye on the disposable people who don’t exist in your world.
Evan was surprised at how easy it was to assemble. A few wires, a trigger switch, and a firing mechanism. His benefactor had provided such clear instructions that even a child could have pieced it together.
Evan stared directly at Michael Dexter. Under the flap, his finger tapped the button lightly.
“And now you’re planning on doing it again. You want to acquire Metsger Pharm, just so you can own the rights to Diaphoneme. Once you own it, you’ll raise the price, and kill more people.”
He looked around at the others. “And you’re voting to let it happen.”
Evan thought of his wife one last time.
He didn’t know whether or not there was an afterlife, or if he’d be seeing her in it, but he knew this was the end of his time on this particular mortal coil.
“Well,” Evan sighed, nodding his head thoughtfully. “I hope all your second homes and tropical vacations were worth it.”
Evan pushed the button he had been caressing.
The explosion was so large it set off seismographs at Iowa State, the university thirty-plus miles away in Ames.
Two days later, Karen Jordan, a kindly grandmother living a quarter mile from the Glenback Building in West Des Moines, would find Michael Dexter’s finger on her kitchen floor. It was a present from her golden retriever, Molly, who found it while out “doing her business.”
About the Author
Nathan Timmel was born and raised in Wisconsin. In his 20s, he discovered stand-up comedy and is a professional joke slinger to this day. He’s been writing since he could hold a crayon in his right mitt, and has three works of nonfiction under his belt. Nathan currently lives in Iowa with his wife, dos kiddos, and their cat, Turtle, who only comes out at night. We Are 100 is his first work of fiction.
Connect on Instagram: @NathanTimmel
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