The Road Home

by Robert Boren

  “No, not really. We’ll be okay. After this next town, we’ll be going into Texas.”

  ***

  Kelly was driving his truck through the eastern side of Clovis, the rig rumbling over a harsh bump in the road. Brenda stirred, looking at him, then out the window.

  “What town is this?” she asked, her eyes groggy.

  “Clovis,” Kelly said.

  “We’re almost to Texas,” she said. “Bright sun. Surprised I slept as long as I did with this shining in my face.”

  “Been a little hard to deal with, but it’s higher in the sky than it was an hour ago.”

  “How far are we going?”

  “Lubbock,” he said, “another three hours or so, according to the text that Eric just sent.”

  “Wish we could go faster.”

  “You and me both, honey,” Kelly said. “Can’t wait. I’m Texas through and through. Glad to be getting back.”

  They cruised through the final few miles, farm land on either side of the road. Kelly could see a multitude of vehicles in front and behind.

  Brenda brought her phone to her face. “Wonder if anybody’s been calling about a place to spend the night in Lubbock?”

  “Don’t know, honey,” Kelly said. “Maybe not. One person driving, the other sleeping. Makes that hard.”

  “I’ve slept enough, so I’ll take a look,” she said. “Know how long we’ll be there?”

  “Not really,” Kelly said. “Probably depends on what’s going on in Dallas. There’s still a battle there, from what I’ve heard.”

  “Can we make that much of a difference?”

  “Hell yeah,” Kelly said.

  “There are a lot of RV Parks in Lubbock,” Brenda said. “How sure are you that we’re heading on to Dallas?”

  “It’s what I’m expecting. I’d say run it past Jason, but he’s driving while Carrie is sleeping. Probably won’t answer very fast.”

  “I’m gonna assume we’re going that way, then. There’s a place just past Lubbock on Highway 84. I’ll call them.”

  Kelly nodded as she made the call, having a hushed conversation, her brow furrowing. “I’ll get back to you,” she said.

  “Uh oh, problems with their prices, or do they not have open spaces?”

  “They’ve got plenty of spaces,” she said, “and I don’t care what it costs.”

  “What, then?”

  “They’ve been watching the apps, now that everybody’s got them. There’s a large enemy force headed for this end of Texas. Everybody’s nervous about it.”

  Kelly shook his head. “Figures it’d be a bumpy ride getting into Texas. Are you checking the apps?”

  “Looking now,” she said. “Shit.”

  “Where?”

  “Coming south on Highway 385,” she said. “They’re not in Texas yet, though. Hell, they aren’t even to the Oklahoma panhandle yet.”

  “They could go a number of directions from that road,” Kelly said. “No guarantee that they’ll head right into Lubbock.”

  “That’s not totally true. Remember what we did to I-25 and the other roads in New Mexico. They’re gonna be heading south through Texas because of that.”

  “But that doesn’t mean they’ll attack the cities in this region.”

  “The smaller ones might be in danger,” Brenda said. “There’s a couple hundred thousand enemy fighters on the road, and they might need to forage. A small city might be open to plunder.”

  “We need to discuss this,” Kelly said. “Send a broadcast text. Maybe we can pull over to the side of the road someplace.”

  Brenda nodded and did that.

  “Here comes the Texas border,” Kelly said. His phone rang. “Dammit.” He struggled to get it out of his pocket, and hit the speaker button just as they passed the Welcome to Texas sign.

  “Yeeeeehaaawwwww!” came over the phone speaker.

  Brenda cracked up. “Gee, wonder who that is?”

  “Junior, you’re nuts,” Kelly said. “I ever tell you that? And yeah, I’m glad to be back too, but I’m a little more refined about it than you are.”

  Rachel laughed in the background. “Oh brother.”

  “It’s great to be home, man,” Junior said. “Finally. Where are we stopping?”

  “Watch for a broadcast text from Brenda. We have some things to chat about. We’ll probably need to pull over or something.”

  “I’m about to send it,” Brenda said.

  “Then I’ll get off the line,” Junior said. “Later.” The call ended.

  “He’s so crazy,” Brenda said.

  “I know, but I feel the same way. You can take the man out of Texas, but you can’t take Texas out of the man.”

  “Or something like that,” Brenda said. “Text is away.”

  “Good,” Kelly said. “Hope things get easier for a while.”

  “Texas is still a mess, honey,” she said. “Oh shit.”

  “What now?” Kelly asked.

  “Give me your phone.”

  He fished it out of his pocket and handed it to her. She input the pin and moved her fingers on the screen, looking more and more worried.

  “What is it?” Kelly asked.

  “The apps just went dead,” she said. “All the enemy icons are gone.”

  “Where?”

  “Looks like everywhere,” she said, her eyes filled with horror.

  Chapter 26 – Long Live the Republic

  Maria was looking at the high-res app on the PC in the console room, when the icons disappeared. She re-started the app, but the icons were still gone.

  “Hey, guys, something’s wrong,” she shouted. Hendrix rushed in with Ramsey.

  “What’s the matter?” Hendrix asked.

  “Something happened to the app. All the icons went away.”

  “What was that?” Nelson asked, rushing in with Dr. Schultz.

  “The high-res app,” she said. “It quit working.”

  Hendrix pulled the phone out of his pocket and loaded the long-range app. “Dammit. Nothing on the phone version either.”

  “We’ve gone blind?” Ramsey asked. “That’s not good.”

  “Tell me about it,” Maria said. She refreshed again, and the icons appeared. “They’re back. Look!”

  “Thank God,” Hendrix said, refreshing his phone app. “The icons are back here too.”

  “You know, this happened once when I was watching my phone,” Ramsey said. “A few days ago.”

  “You didn’t say anything?” Nelson asked.

  “No, I rebooted my phone and they showed up when I got the app loaded again. I have to reboot this sucker about once a week or it goes haywire.”

  “Yeah, my phone does that too,” Hendrix said, “but this was something else.”

  “I agree,” Nelson said. “It happened to the PC program and the phone apps at the same time, and I didn’t see any of us reboot our phones, either.”

  “Why were you looking just now, Maria?” Dr. Schultz asked.

  “There’s some weird things going on,” she said. “I went on to see if the enemy fighters were still going north from the gulf coast, then looked around more. There’s a big group leaving Denver, heading west, and somethings going on around the Grand Canyon as well.”

  “This is bugging you more than the normal enemy troop movements,” Nelson said.

  “Yeah,” she said. “There’s a large group heading south from Colorado, and I’m afraid they might be heading for Texas.”

  “Dammit,” Nelson said.

  “Oh, and there was a large group building in central Mexico, too. I noticed it early this morning.”

  “I saw them last night,” Nelson said.

  “You didn’t say anything?” Hendrix asked. Nelson shook his head no.

  “I didn’t either, because they weren’t heading this way,” she said. “Now they’re gone. I haven’t been able to find them anywhere.”

  “They must have moved someplace,” Hendrix said.

  “
Think they’ve got a bunch of lead-lined vehicles?” Ramsey asked.

  “That would take a lot of vehicles,” Nelson said, “Unlikely they could pull it off. Semi-trucks aren’t all that big.”

  “Maybe lead-lined railroad cars,” Dr. Schultz said.

  The console beeped, startling everybody in the room.

  “Shit,” Ramsey said, shaking his head.

  “I’ll get it,” Maria said, rushing over to start the meeting. Gallagher and Wallis came up on the screen.

  “Gentlemen,” Nelson said. “What’s on your mind?”

  “We’ve got a special guest,” Gallagher said. The console beeped again, and General Hogan appeared.

  “General!” Nelson said. “So good to see you. We’ve been worried.”

  “Sorry, couldn’t be helped. I’ve got a lot to tell you. Have a little time?”

  “Of course,” Nelson said. “You know why the apps went dead a little while ago?”

  “Yours came back up, didn’t they?” Hogan asked.

  “Yeah,” Hendrix said. “What was that?”

  “The enemy has been changing their encryption routine, trying to knock us off their feed,” Hogan said. “They did it a few days ago, and again today.”

  “I thought so,” Ramsey said. “Noticed it a few days ago. Thought it was just my phone needing a reboot.”

  “Our programmer knew they’d try this when they figured out we could see them,” Hogan said. “The app will adjust automatically after they make the change. Can take a minute or two, but the app learns, so it should get faster and faster each time they try it.”

  “Interesting,” Nelson said. “Glad we have code in place to protect against that.”

  “Yes, it was essential,” Hogan said.

  “Was that the main thing you need to tell us?” Wallis asked.

  Hogan chuckled. “No, that’s the least of it. And by the way, all of this is top secret, understand?”

  “Yes sir,” Nelson said.

  “Good,” Hogan said, taking a breath. “Okay. First, Saladin is dead. We’ve got him in the freezer, at the Kansas base.”

  “Really?” Wallis asked. “How? We still see his icon in Capitol Reef.”

  Hogan chuckled. “Tricky bastard cut out his chip and put it into one of his dead fighters, to allow him to escape our attack.”

  “But he didn’t escape, right?” Hendrix asked.

  “Right,” Hogan said. “He was in the big cave at Capitol Reef when we sent several fire bombs in there.”

  “Burned him to a crisp, huh?” Ramsey asked. “Good.”

  “He was still alive,” Hogan said. “We brought him back to the base, but he was so badly burned that we couldn’t save him. We pumped him for info, and got one tidbit you need to know about.”

  “What’s that, General?” Nelson asked.

  “They may try to release weaponized Small Pox.”

  “Oh, crap,” Maria said. “You don’t look worried about it.”

  “I know why,” Nelson said. “During the terror attacks of the early 2000s, we began to stockpile vaccine for that. We’ve got gobs of it, even here in Texas.”

  “Yep,” Hogan said. “I wouldn’t start passing it out just yet. We have a feeling that statement might have been bluster, but keep it in mind, just in case. If it starts to appear in the population, we’ll have a large logistical job getting everybody vaccinated.”

  “There’s more, isn’t there?” Gallagher asked.

  “Yes,” the general said. “You might have noticed that a very large group of enemy fighters disappeared from central Mexico earlier.”

  “I did,” Maria said.

  “We were just trying to brainstorm what they could’ve done,” Ramsey said. “Maybe more of the lead-lined vehicles.”

  “Keep that in mind,” Hogan said, “they’ve tried that on a much larger scale than we thought they could against my forces, and they might try it with you guys. That’s not what I was going to tell you, though.”

  “Go ahead,” Nelson said.

  “We used tactical nukes on the forces down there,” Hogan said.

  “Nukes?” Hendrix asked. “Really? Why?”

  “They were killing off too many of the US Army forces down there,” Hogan said, “and we had bigger things to worry about, so we pulled our forces out of the way and let them have it. They’re no longer a threat.”

  “Whose decision was it to do that?” Hendrix asked.

  “It was a joint decision between the acting government in Washington DC and the government of Mexico.”

  “My God, Mexico went along with that?” Hendrix asked.

  “They saw the handwriting on the wall,” Hogan said. “Nobody liked the idea, but we didn’t see any choice.”

  “There’s always a choice,” Hendrix said.

  “Well, that’s one for the historians to deal with,” Hogan said, “and the battle over it will rage long after we’re gone, I suspect.”

  “Probably right,” Nelson said. “There’s something else.”

  “This is the hard part,” Hogan said. “We’ve got the US Air Force and Navy back on line, and they’ve been helping us a lot. They took out what was left of the big militia in Williams, Arizona, and they’ve also been bombing a corridor along the Canadian border that was a new route for Islamists to cross into the states.”

  “What’s hard about that?” Ramsey asked.

  General Hogan cleared his throat. “You will need their help in the gulf, and you’ll get it, but there’s one giant condition you have to meet before they’ll join in.”

  “I think I know what’s coming,” Nelson said.

  “What?” Hendrix asked.

  Hogan smiled. “Texas will need to renounce the Republic and declare that they are re-joining the United States.”

  You could hear a pin drop in the console room.

  “Do you understand?” General Hogan asked.

  Nelson nodded yes. “General, it was always my intention to re-join the union, just as soon as the enemy was rooted out of the Federal Government. Have they been?”

  “Yes,” he said, “Completely. We’ll be holding off-schedule elections, of course, but the enemy is gone. There are problems brewing though, just so you know.”

  “What kind of problems?” Nelson asked.

  “The EU and the UN don’t want to give up on their globalist plans. We might have to fight them.”

  “We’ll kick their asses,” Gallagher quipped.

  “I know, but things can get out of hand in a hurry,” Hogan said. “So I wanted to mention it. If you’re back with the USA and we declare war on the EU, you’ll be right in the middle of it.”

  “Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Nelson said. “I’ll prepare to make a formal announcement in the next few hours. You can pass along the promise that we are re-joining the union, effective immediately.”

  “Perfect,” Hogan said. “I’ve got to go. We’re still trying to track down some folks. First priority is a certain Belgian we all know and love.”

  Wallis snickered. “Not sure I’d put it that way. Go get him, General Hogan. Let us know if we can help.”

  “Thank you,” General Hogan said. “Good bye.”

  His face left the screen.

  “Wow,” Wallis said.

  Hendrix grinned with relief. “How does it feel to be demoted to a governor, Governor?”

  “Suits me right down to the ground,” Nelson said.

  Chapter 27 – Field Hospital

  The battle in Dallas had settled into street-to-street fighting, the Texas patriots rooting the enemy out of downtown buildings. Kitten had been working eyeball to eyeball with Dr. Patel. The new location for the field hospital was in the downtown area, now cleared of enemy fighters, between Elm Street and Pacific Avenue, east of Market Street. Fighting was raging to the north and east, some of the enemy troops fleeing south, stopped by a huge citizen army who’d just entered the city via I-45. The field hospital was getting more victims from the
riverbed disaster than from the fighting now.

  “Kitten!” said a man, being wheeled in on a gurney, covered with mud and bloody wounds.

  “Doug!” Kitten cried, rushing over.

  “Your dad?”

  “He was still alive last I heard,” she said. “They moved him twice – last was to one of the few hospitals still operating. They’re worried about his brain. His head made a lot of hard contacts in the water.”

  “He held my hand until we were spinning too much,” Doug said.

  “Where are you hurt?” Dr. Patel asked, coming up behind Kitten.

  “I’ve got a bullet wound on the upper left arm. It’d be worse if not for Kitten’s dad. He put the tourniquet on shortly before the water hit us.”

  “Yes, that was good,” Dr. Patel said, looking. “You didn’t get injured in the water?”

  He chuckled. “Hell, I’m bruised and battered all over, but don’t feel anything too serious.”

  “Hey, man,” said a wiry young Hispanic man, handling one side of a stretcher. “Where’s your buddy Alex?”

  “Julio!” Doug said. “I’m so glad you made it. Alex is in the hospital.”

  “I’m his daughter,” Kitten said.

  “This man spotted for the mortar,” Doug said as Dr. Patel peeled back his wet clothes, searching for other injuries.

  “Did you really?” Kitten asked. “You guys saved us. Our bus got shot up by the snipers on that tower. We were pinned down until the mortars blasted it.”

  “Your dad, a guy name Mark, and I fired the mortar,” Doug said proudly.

  Julio’s expression went grim. “Mark didn’t make it. Went head first into something hard. Split is skull clean open, man. It was horrible.”

  “Oh no, I’m so sorry to hear that,” Doug said.

  “I hope Alex is gonna be okay,” Julio said. “Guess I’d better get back to work.” He rushed away.

  “He’s good people,” Doug said. “So was Mark.”

  “Kitten, you can clean Doug’s wound, then put a dressing on it,” Dr. Patel said.

  Kitten nodded as she walked away, then got to work.

  “Where is Alex?” Doug asked.

  “He’s at a small hospital on Harry Hines Boulevard,” she said as she worked. “The ones close by here were all attacked by the enemy.”