Day One

by Kelly deVos

  Toby and a couple of other soldiers arrive. My stepbrother wears the uniform of the Provisional Army of the New United States. Navarro glares at him. If there was ever something that expressed the fact that there is now Us versus Them, it’s our new clothes.

  We have to wait in lockdown for about an hour with all the alarms going off and announcements played over the loudspeaker while Rosenthal is escorted to the Perun. When that’s done, the rest of us are able to board. I’m given a waterproof backpack with two e-tablets, a laptop and basic rations like water and trail mix. There’s a small pocketknife. Navarro has a bag full of camera equipment slung over his shoulder.

  “What about weapons?” I ask.

  Amelia frowns. “You’ll get a gun when you need one.”

  It ends up being me, Navarro, Toby and Amelia walking together to the sub. I’m sort of relieved to be saying goodbye to the white hallways, the stuffy environment, the same sandwiches for lunch. But we were safe.

  We’re heading back into the unknown. And there’s something else. Today, we land in Washington. I’ll be a couple hundred miles from my brother. I’m going to rescue Charles.

  Except, what if I fail?

  I fight off a shiver.

  I have to get my brother back.

  I can’t fail.

  Today, they’ve turned the lights on around SEALAB, revealing a sort of blue desolation in the area around the station. There’s something beautiful about it though.

  Amelia stops in front of the ramp to board the Perun. “Copeland wants me up in the control room. Remember what I told you. We’re looking for engagement here.” She turns to Navarro. “Send me as much footage as you can. It will help the team to have options.”

  We enter the Perun, and it’s exactly the way it was before. Two soldiers guard the pathway that leads to the front of the sub. Rosenthal is probably that way.

  She doesn’t tell us where she’s going or where the team will be. Amelia gives me an awkward hug. “Well, this is it.”

  We won’t see each other again.

  I try for a smile, but I’m pretty sure what I achieve is an odd mixture of terror and tension. Amelia casts me one final look, like she’s rethinking the whole arrangement. The guards press their backs against the steel support beams to make room for her to squeeze by.

  Our commander, Captain Toby Novak, leads me and Navarro into the same room we arrived in. We even strap ourselves into the same seats. This time, Toby sits in our row.

  “Hey, Captain America,” Navarro says. “Are you going to tell us where we’re going?”

  This had been the stumbling block in our discussion. Copeland withheld the location of the facility that would receive the Perun. While we know we’re headed to Washington, we don’t know exactly where.

  Our plan is to get away. But it would help to know where we’re running away from.

  Toby stays silent.

  Sigh.

  “MacKenna was right,” I say. “You are one of them.”

  “Cape Disappointment,” Toby says through clenched teeth. “The Spark has constructed a dock and receiving facility there. I think it’s Rosenthal’s idea of a joke, actually. With sea levels being what they are, the cape is difficult to access and almost under water. So, naturally, that’s where they built the marina.”

  This is where we really needed MacKenna. She had all the background information.

  Sigh again.

  “Where in Washington is that?” I’m forced to ask.

  Toby shakes his head. “On the border. A little north of Portland.”

  I should have paid more attention in geography class because I don’t know much about the Pacific Northwest. Dad’s evac plans always focused on going south.

  He understood what they were building at AIRSTA.

  And trained us to get away from it.

  “We have to stay buckled in our seats.” Toby makes a show of trying to relax. Trying to conceal the tension and seem like his old self. “They want to come to the surface quickly. The Perun can make it to Cape Disappointment and depressurize us in about four hours.”

  “What’s going to happen when we get there?” I ask.

  Toby shrugs. “The general says they’ll have ground transport organized for us when we arrive. The operation is supposed to go down tomorrow night, so we won’t have a lot of time to hang around the dock.”

  Navarro and I exchange a look.

  When we get to the marina, we have to be ready to go.

  Toby yawns and stretches his arm over his head.

  Something tells me that I shouldn’t ask, but I have to. “Do you have any idea where MacKenna is?”

  Toby freezes. His shoulders tense. “The general told me she was trying to get to our father. Apparently, he sent her back to Fort Marshall. To wait until...”

  “Why would she do that?” I ask.

  “Until what?” Navarro asks sharply.

  “I don’t know.” Toby pulls out a binder from his own bag and buries himself in reading.

  I’m not even sure if it was me or Navarro he answered.

  “Four hours, huh?” Navarro says, yawning himself.

  “Yep,” Toby says, not glancing up from his reading.

  We travel on in silence.

  * * *

  It’s a pretty boring trip. We mostly talk about how we’re either too hot or too cold. I power on one of the e-tablets. Navarro and I play hangman and tic-tac-toe. One good thing is that they gave Navarro a watch with a calendar.

  Which is how I know it’s Tuesday.

  That our games of hangman average four minutes.

  And that all hell breaks loose at 3:26 p.m. PST.

  First, the yellow warning lights that are all over the place begin to flash. Then an alarm sounds. Then tons of announcements over the intercom. Specific people being called to specific locations on the sub. We must be coming up fast, because I’m freezing and my stomach is turning over and over.

  Whatever else happens, I absolutely don’t want to puke.

  Toby is already unbuckling his harness. “I’ll find out what’s going on. Wait here.”

  “Did they warn you this would happen?” I ask.

  I’m alarmed by the expression on Toby’s face. “I don’t think this is supposed to be happening at all,” he says.

  He’s out the main door before I can object or ask any more questions. I have a little more sympathy for Terminus, because it’s taking everything I’ve got not to barf all over my brand-new hero outfit.

  Breathe.

  We’re bumped up hard, and the straps of my harness dig into my shoulders. There’s a clank and scraping metal. It’s the same as before. But not exactly the same.

  Something hit us.

  Navarro cranes his neck in every direction, as if he thinks whatever’s pounding us might push through the metal walls and into our small room.

  Don’t stand around waiting to die.

  I unsnap my buckle and grab my pack. “Come on!”

  “We need to get the hell off this thing,” Navarro says.

  My father never made us drill for what to do when the high-tech submarine you’re riding in is under attack. I push open the door, and there’s absolute mayhem in the cramped hallway. The lights flicker and the tile floor is slippery and wet.

  We’re taking on water.

  Soldiers shout instructions to each other, a mishmash of words I barely recognize. But there’s one sentence I do understand.

  Deploy the lifeboats.

  We squeeze along the hallway, searching for Toby and hoping that some plan will present itself. Soldiers give us odd looks as we pass, and I’m starting to think we might have been better off in the waiting room. Things must be really bad because Rosenthal is at the end of the long passageway with soldiers moving all around him.

 
; Copeland stands behind Rosenthal. It’s the first time we’ve gotten a look at him since MacKenna went missing. He’s just as cold as ever. “Sir, we’re deploying two lifeboats full of armed personnel to draw their fire,” he says. “Stay down once you’re in the boat. Our first priority is getting you safely to the transport.”

  The Opposition is in the marina.

  Shooting at us.

  There’s another hit, and I’m barely able to brace myself. From behind me, I hear a bong that sounds like Navarro’s head knocking against a metal beam. My heart lurches.

  “You need to stop hitting your head,” I say, turning around. The nasty cut he got from that rock in the river outside Fort Marshall has finally begun to heal.

  “Thanks. I hadn’t thought of that,” Navarro says, rubbing his forehead. “Good thing you’re the brains of the operation.” He whirls me around so I’m facing forward.

  As the Perun pushes on toward the marina, I see everyone has congregated at a steel ladder that leads to an escape hatch. The soldier at the top is talking into a radio, trying to time the release of the hatch door with the moment we reach the surface of the water.

  Toby is making his way toward us, moving with more ease than I’d expect, through the cramped space.

  He’s got guns.

  I’m sort of grossed out by the excitement that pulses through me at the thought of having a weapon again. But they’re modern, trackable, DNA-A guns.

  “Good. You’re here,” he says, handing me an M4-DNA-A carbine rifle. I’ve never fired one of these before. Toby also gives me three magazines. That’s ninety shots. It must really be a mess out there. I press my thumb onto the DNA pad on the mag. A small green light appears on the plastic, meaning the ammo can be used. And any bullet I fire can be traced back to me.

  “These are already programmed?” I ask.

  Toby nods.

  Great. I guess Copeland’s people have our thumbprints and DNA.

  “What’s going on out there?” I ask.

  “What’s going on,” Copeland shouts from farther up the hall, “is that we’re under attack. All convo not mission critical needs to stop. Now. Even for civilians.”

  I guess our little fake hero squad doesn’t count as an actual operation.

  The noise level suddenly gets a lot louder.

  The hatch is open, and a new symphony of the pops of rifles and the bangs of antiaircraft guns fills the sub, echoing off all the metal. Toby gives Navarro the other carbine.

  “Sooner or later, I’m going to need a decent weapon,” Navarro says.

  Rosenthal catches my eye and gives me a small nod before disappearing up the hatch.

  Toby has kept a silver, weird-looking, futuristic handgun for himself.

  I point at it. “What is that?” I yell over the noise. Except before he can answer, I already know.

  It’s a plasma rail gun.

  Something outside explodes, and a bright light floods the hall. More water wells up around my boots. We need to get the hell out of the Perun before it becomes our sinking grave. Copeland moves into the hatch, and we press close to the open door.

  I’m surprised he doesn’t say something to us.

  While we wait for the soldiers to clear the hatch, I do the only thing I can. Focus on what’s in front of me.

  I point to Toby’s gun again. “Gun companies were supposed to stop researching those. They’re supposed to be illegal.” Back when the military used to build these things, they made large guns that could fire projectiles at up to 560 miles per hour, pierce all known kinds of body armor and efficiently deliver bioweapons. The only saving grace was that they weighed a ton and you had to be superman to cart one around.

  The Spark has a version that fits in the palm of your hand.

  Cold dread almost overtakes me. Who knows what other weapons were out there?

  Toby frowns. “Yes, it’s a rail gun. The Spark was concerned that The Opposition was gearing up for war. They had to do something.”

  What else did The Spark have to do?

  Navarro shakes his head in disgust. “Typical,” he yells. “The Spark regulates everybody except themselves.”

  Toby ignores him. It’s our turn to enter the hatch. He goes first.

  Soldiers I vaguely recall from SEALAB form a line behind us.

  Navarro inspects the rifle. “Okay. You remember Dan Hassle’s lecture at PrepperCon, right? SPORTS?”

  Toby’s feet pound on the metal ladder. Navarro ushers me up next.

  “SPORTS...yeah...of course,” I say. Who could forget old man Hassle screaming, Are you prepared to join America’s army? at the top of his lungs. I put my thumb on the authentication pad on the gun to activate the weapon.

  I place my foot on the first rung of the ladder. The bottom of my boot is wet, and my leg nearly slips off. Gripping the bars tight with my arms, I pull myself up.

  Rung by rung.

  Breathe. Breathe. And...

  SPORTS.

  S = Slap the magazine.

  P = Pull the charging handle.

  O = Observe any round in the chamber.

  R = Release the charge handle.

  T = Tap Forward Assist.

  S = Squeeze the trigger.

  The closer I get to the hatch door, the more things get impossibly loud. There are crashes, gunfire and screams coming from all directions. A boat motor cranks on and then another.

  I stick my head into the late afternoon in the Pacific Northwest. For a split second, I think I’m looking at a sunset. But my face heats up and I realize.

  It’s a wall of fire.

  Someone must have spilled fuel into the bay, because a blaze has spread along the surface of the water. There’s so much commotion that the water is rolling in small waves and carrying the fire along with it.

  Waves of flames.

  We’re in a kidney-shaped bay with the ocean at our backs. The Perun is about a half mile away from the shore, which is covered in long green reeds that sway in the breeze. A wooden dock is barely able to poke out from all the vegetation, and the water threatens to swallow it up. Above the wild part of Cape Disappointment that the sea is trying to reclaim, there’s a dirt road with dozens of vehicles on it and an old lighthouse. Soldiers duck behind car doors and fire at each other. It’s almost impossible to tell who’s for us and who’s against us.

  It’s probably about four o’clock, but the sun is behind thick blue-gray clouds, creating a gloomy scene and making it hard to pin down the time.

  The sub is barely above the surface of the water, and it seems to be sinking. Several other soldiers are crouched on top, trying to stay low as they fire weapons. Three motorboats speed toward the shore, and the soldiers draw fire away from the group. That has to be Rosenthal’s entourage.

  Toby’s splashing around and when I make it up there, the water hits my knees. He shouts at me to join him at the side of the Perun closest to the dock.

  “Stay down!” someone screams.

  I duck as a bullet grazes my hair.

  If I don’t survive, they’ll kill my brother.

  My pants are soaked with water that is shockingly cold.

  With Navarro on my heels, I slosh along and pretty much fall into an inflatable boat. Our boat doesn’t have a motor, and I’m almost hit in the face with an oar as we get situated in the raft. We’re all barely inside and have paddled less than five feet from the sub when the Perun is hit by an antiaircraft gun.

  A wide piece of steel explodes from the sub and hits our raft, tossing us all into the bay.

  My rifle is knocked out of my hands and lands in the water with a plop.

  Salt water burns my nostrils and eyes as I plunge below the water’s icy cold surface. My heavy jacket fights against me. I struggle to the surface, and when I finally emerge, I can barely force air into
my tight, freezing lungs. I have no choice but to shrug out of my pack.

  As I manage to doggy paddle, I scan the mayhem for Navarro. His head pops above the surface a few seconds later. Fumes from the fuel floating on the surface of the water create a toxic stench. I gasp and splash frantically, Navarro swims in my direction. Progress is slow as he avoids paths of fire and waves push him farther from the beach.

  Navarro really isn’t a good swimmer, and he’s hung on to his weapon.

  “Come on. Come on,” I pant as he reaches me.

  I end up tugging him along toward the shore, not to the dock, but to a spot shrouded by long, wheat-like grass that the wind is whipping into a fury. Tufts at the top of the stalks poke me in the face.

  Navarro scales the grassy, rocky surface first and reaches down. I take his hand, and he helps me out of the water.

  We kneel down for a second, shivering. On the opposite side of the bay, a group of soldiers flank a rock, surrounding a silhouetted figure who can only be Rosenthal. They’re drawing heavy fire from several large, black SUVs in the dirt road, about fifty feet away. I don’t see Toby anywhere. I hope he’s okay.

  I’ve got scrapes on my hands and arms and face. I flop back onto the muddy earth. I’m wet and filthy. My brand-new clothes are stained and ripped.

  So much for my hero outfit.

  More gunfire.

  Dad’s voice rings in my ears. Don’t stay there waiting to die.

  I sit up, trying to remain hidden in the grass.

  Navarro is looking in the other direction. He picks up his rifle and leans toward me. His breath on my face is the only warmth I’ve got. “There’s a car up there. By the lighthouse. Let’s go.”

  I glance that way. He’s right. The lighthouse looks abandoned, and there’s a lone SUV parked near a squat building that’s probably a maintenance shack or something.

  “It seems almost too easy,” I whisper.

  “What? You want to go search for a car that’s harder to steal?” he says.

  “We should go that way!” I say as I point to the gunfight.

  “Are you serious? For what?” Navarro says.

  “Rosenthal!” Who else? What would MacKenna say if I let her hero get shot? Assuming Mac is even alive.