Day One

by Kelly deVos

  There’s nothing but trees as far as we can see.

  Charles pulls his own pair of binoculars out of his pack. He points to a patch of purple flowers. “We have to go there,” he says. “That’s where Dad wants us to go.”

  I squint in that direction. “Why?”

  “It’s checker mallow,” he says, in a way that makes me think I’m in for a long lecture on perennial plants. “Dad took me to see some once at the botanical garden. They plant it because it attracts butterflies, and—”

  “Okay, Charles,” I interrupt. “But why should we go over there?”

  “Sidalcea cusickii is almost extinct,” he says in his know-it-all professor voice. “You’d never find big patches of it like that anymore except in a garden. Dad planted it. So we would know where to go.”

  Navarro ruffles my brother’s hair. “Good to have you back, buddy.”

  Toby steers the car close to the chain-link fence that surrounds the clearing containing the pinkish-purple flowers. We all pile out of the vehicle and begin to search the area for some sign that my brother is right. That Dad wanted us to find this place. Navarro digs weapons out of his bag and puts a handgun in a side holster, then steps out into midmorning Oregon air. He opens the cargo area. After we climb out, Navarro unpacks some of the larger rifles.

  Outside, thick gray clouds roll by. The air is wet, like it might rain.

  Charles takes delicate steps through the rows of wildflowers that come up to his knees until he steps onto a wide piece of metal that covers an area about twenty feet wide. Some effort has been made to blend the door into the short grass.

  The six of us crowd around the metal slab.

  The wind blows my hair into a massive troll-like poof. As usual, the atmosphere gives Annika a glamorous edge. Amelia takes her camera out of her pack.

  “That’s a silo closure door,” Navarro says. He points at an area a few feet away from the metal. “I think that’s a handle. Probably for an entrance hatch. But if this missile is underground, then...”

  Amelia points her camera first at him and then at the metal door.

  Then we have a massive problem.

  “We have to check it out,” I say.

  “Uhhhhh...” Toby says, his face turning red.

  There’s a small steel box next to the hatch door. I open it and find an electronic access pad with a red light above a label that reads LOCKED.

  “Okay, Susan,” Navarro says.

  So now we’ll find out if this plan has any hope of success.

  I hesitate for a split second.

  Then.

  I press my thumb onto the pad.

  The light turns green, and we all exhale in unison.

  Navarro yanks the hatch door open and jumps back. We’re all expecting something to happen. Normally, whenever we show up someplace, people are waiting in line to kill us.

  Nothing stirs.

  We creep up to the open hatch door. There’s a long steel tunnel with a ladder that descends as far as I can see. It’s lit by green emergency lights.

  “That’s really deep,” Navarro says.

  Annika’s jacket blows in the wind, creating an action-hero silhouette. She wrings her hands. “You’re saying a bomb like the one that destroyed half of California is right beneath us?”

  No one has much of a reply to that.

  “I’ll wait here and cover you,” Navarro says, as he gestures for me and Toby to open the hatch. “We have radios in our packs.”

  “We have to go together,” Charles says flatly.

  I shake my head. If we’re going in, it will be better to have some hope of being able to get out. “He’s right. Someone should serve as a lookout and you’ll be safer here with Gus.”

  My brother frowns. “Mrs. Healy said we have to go in together.”

  We’ve been reunited all of two hours, and we’re already having an argument. “I don’t care what Mrs. Healy said, Charles. We have to follow the drill. We’re going into an unfamiliar area that’s under enemy control, and—”

  Charles sounds exactly like our father when he says, “Susan, I have to go.”

  I glance at the gray clouds rolling by.

  My brother stares at Navarro with his wide green eyes. “And Gus has to come. Because...”

  “Because what?” Navarro says as he loads his rifle.

  Charles sighs. “Because Dr. Navarro is down there.”

  Navarro almost drops his gun.

  I don’t know how we’ll all be remembered.

  I only want to make sure we’re never forgotten.

  —MacKENNA NOVAK,

  Letters from the Second Civil War

  MacKENNA

  When we show up, Dad spits out his coffee.

  He’s set up a command center about a mile from Los Alamos. It’s around eleven when Ramona takes me and Galloway alone in a single jeep, keeping the rest of her force out of sight and several miles away.

  Dad paces around his jeep and mutters about me being grounded...like that’s even a thing in the middle of an apocalyptic war. Ramona gets him calmed down when she explains that Copeland planned to have me killed before I could ever make it to the safe house.

  But he frowns at me. “You really believed that I’d march into certain death?”

  The way he’s looking at me.

  MacKenna Novak is the absolute worst.

  “You could have told me that you were in contact with Ramona. That you had a plan,” I say. I try to keep the guilt out of my voice.

  “I was trying to keep you safe,” Dad says. “For the plan to work, Copeland had to believe that you were following his instructions.” He puts a hand on each of my shoulders. “You could listen to me every once in a while.” He wraps me in a hug.

  After that, he gets to work.

  I gotta say... I’m kinda...impressed. Dad makes quick work of organizing teams using a combination of his original soldiers and Ramona’s people. By noon, there are jeeps heading out in every direction, circling the base.

  Lead: The battle for Los Alamos has begun.

  BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

  The Los Alamos National Laboratory used to be a huge research compound. In the twentieth century, the atomic bomb was developed here and for a while they did other kinds of energy research. It was mostly closed when The Spark developed the national solar power grid.

  He has a few soldiers set up a tent with a card table, some folding chairs and a giant orange jug of water.

  It’s around twelve thirty when Dad leaves our position. “I’ll be back as soon as we take the silo,” he tells me.

  “I’m coming too!” I say. I scramble toward his Jeep.

  He actually picks me up and carries me to the tent. He’s shaved, and his hair has been cut into a clean military crop. He’s in khaki fatigues with a NOVAK name tag sewn on.

  “You’re staying here,” he says, flatly. “That’s an order.”

  I’m about to put up one hell of a fight when I notice that Ramona’s remaining in the tent too. I definitely know she’s not planning on waiting out the battle from here in the middle of the desert. She’s got her own jeep and, no doubt, she plans to head out the minute Dad is gone.

  I make a big show of letting my shoulders slump in disappointment. “Promise me you’ll be back,” I say.

  “I promise,” he says.

  Ramona sits in one of the five folding chairs.

  About five minutes after Dad leaves, Ramona dons her cowboy hat. “All right, Miss Novak. Here is where I must take my leave.”

  I scramble up off my chair. “Okay. I’m ready. I need a gun.”

  “Like your daddy said. You’re staying here.” She pulls the tent flap open a couple of inches to reveal two soldiers.

  “Wait. Wait. What?”

  No answer.

/>   “You’re not gonna let me fight?” I demand. “Why did you even bring me here if you’re not gonna let me help stop Ammon Carver?”

  Ramona’s wrinkle-lined mouth presses into a frown. “I done told you, girl. I am gonna stop him.” She reaches in her bag and gives me an e-tablet. The kind that can publish stories online. The kind that real journalists use. “There are other ways to fight besides picking up a weapon, girl.” She holds the flap of the tent open so I can see the chaos outside. “Some of these people are gonna die doing what’s right. You’re here to make sure the whole world knows it.”

  An alarm begins to wail.

  With the e-tablet in my hand, I peek out of the tent in time to see a small building in the distance burst into red flames.

  The Second Civil War will have a story...and I will tell it.

  In this world, we will not fear death.

  We will be afraid of life without purpose.

  —PRESIDENT AMMON C. CARVER on the issue of Executive Order 17996,

  Declaration of the State of Rebellion

  JINX

  “We’re going live,” Amelia announces. She points a camera with a green light mounted to it right next to my face.

  There’s no time to argue.

  “And we’re live...now,” Amelia says, clicking a button on an antenna attached to her camera.

  The light flashes as Navarro says, “What? What are you saying?”

  Charles is already climbing down the hatch as I try to talk to him. “Peter Navarro? You’re saying Gus’s father is down there? Charles, why would you say that?”

  Annika pulls at the loose strands of her hair. “You’re saying that the prisoner I overheard my father’s people talking about is Peter Navarro? He’s still alive?”

  There’s no answer besides the clank of my brother’s boots on the metal ladder.

  I hustle into the hatch and make my own way down. I just got Charles back, and now he wants to disappear again into a deep, dark void.

  “Charles, Charles,” I whisper.

  A tap, tap, tap noise rises from the base of the silo.

  Navarro is next, and he almost slips on the ladder a couple of times. There’s still the issue with his eye, and clearly Charles’s pronouncement has freaked him out. He’s not doing as well as he’s trying to appear.

  We come to a landing at the base of the ladder. It’s darker down here, and I get my flashlight out. As Toby and Annika come down, I wave my light all over. It lands on a stainless-steel box. Like an elevator, but it’s been disconnected from the pulley system.

  The closer and louder we get, the more frantic and erratic the tapping becomes.

  Where the elevator doors would normally open, someone has welded a pair of industrial hinges and installed a strong black titanium lock.

  There’s somebody in there.

  Charles stops in front of the doors, clearly not at all surprised by this development.

  “Did Mrs. Healy tell you that Peter Navarro is down here?” I demand, waving my flashlight across his face.

  “Yes,” he says simply.

  Navarro runs his fingers over the door’s hinges. “Susan, can you get this door open?”

  The tapping continues in a steady beat. Tension radiates off Navarro’s body.

  This is wrong. All wrong.

  “Yes,” I say, slowly. “But...this silo is at least a hundred feet deep.”

  “What’s the significance of that?” Annika asks as she arrives at the landing.

  “It means it’s an ICBM. These dangerous, fanatical assholes built a cold fusion intercontinental ballistic missile,” I say, kneeling down and getting my laptop out of my backpack. I connect a cable to the lock.

  Toby is coming down the ladder.

  “I still don’t see—” Annika begins.

  Navarro continues to face the locked door. “An ICBM is essentially a bomb that’s strapped to a rocket. The bigger the rocket, the farther it goes. A missile that needs a silo this deep...”

  He should know. His father is a rocket scientist.

  “I’m not so sure this is a good idea,” I whisper. I can’t even really bear to say it loud enough for Navarro to hear.

  “Open the door, Jinx,” Charles says.

  Okay. Okay.

  I can code a simple electronic lock hack in my sleep.

  rbddat

  ORG $4000

  r_dat FCB 1 reboot pointer addr

  FCB 2 address $4000

  FCB 3

  FCB 4,5,6

  Crc RMB 1reserve a byte for check bits

  ORG $4100 start of our code

  CLRA

  Again SETA 1,$r_dat set reboot pointer

  INX X points to next number

  ADDA 0,X add next number to acc A

  INX increment pointer

  CPX #crc see if X points to sum location

  BNE again keep trying if response

  STAA crc store acc A in crcsum

  RTS

  END

  The pace of Navarro’s little speech gets faster. “...like we’re talking about going back to the nuclear area...like Titan II and...”

  The lock clicks, and I remove it and toss it onto the metal floor.

  I get ready with my rifle. “Stand back, Charles.”

  Rule one: Always be prepared.

  Slowly, slowly, I pry the elevator doors open with my fingers. I can’t stop myself from gasping.

  Looking back at me is an older, more gaunt version of a face I spend half my time staring at.

  Navarro’s mouth drops open. “Papa?”

  And right then it is so clear.

  Why The Spark and Ramona Carver and everyone else was so damn desperate to destroy this thing. Whoever has control of this missile is truly an angel of death.

  The Opposition wanted to fire it.

  And they all needed me to do it.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Peter Navarro says. And he’s looking right at me.

  “Papa, you’re alive?” Navarro asks.

  “Son,” Peter Navarro says. We all wait for him to go on. But he doesn’t. After a few seconds, he says, “You need to...”

  Peter Navarro is incredibly thin and his skin has an odd, gauzy texture. Like he hasn’t been outside in quite a while. He’s wearing a pair of baggy green sweatpants and a T-shirt with long oily stains all over the front. He eyes my gun. “The safest thing is to shoot me.”

  “We’re not going to shoot you,” Gus says in a horrified voice. “Does Mama know you’re still alive?”

  “No. That information would put her in great danger,” Peter says. “No time but...what happened to your eye?”

  I touch his arm lightly. “We need to destroy that missile.”

  “We can’t go into the control room together,” Peter says. His eyes widen in terror. Like I scare the absolute hell out of him.

  An alarm blares, and the green lights begin to pulse.

  “What is he talking about?” Toby yells, above the sound of the alarm. “And how is he still...” He trails off before adding alive.

  I sigh but force myself to be equally as loud. “The Opposition wants to fire the missile. My father and Dr. Navarro must have programmed the system to require both of them to launch it. They probably figured that Rosenthal would have one or both of them killed, making a launch impossible or extremely difficult.”

/>   “That’s right,” Peter says. “You obviously know that Dr. Marshall gave you system access in the hopes of giving The Opposition one less reason to have you killed.”

  Peter gives my brother a sad look. Beyond the silo, an echo sounds as a heavy door opens. “The crew is coming.”

  “Launch the missile? At what?” Annika asks.

  Peter Navarro looks very startled to see Ammon Carver’s daughter. But he answers her. “Both of the missiles have primary targets inside Russia.”

  A wave of shock washes over Toby. “Carver wants to start a war with Russia?”

  Peter Navarro nods. “Indeed. And he wants to blame Rosenthal for it.”

  In spite of herself, Amelia murmurs, “This is good stuff.”

  “No it isn’t,” Navarro snaps. “Papa. You’re scaring me.”

  I step in front of Peter Navarro. “Dr. Navarro, we have to go to the control room. I think I can take the software off-line.”

  His head jerks in my direction. “Once we get up there, they could torture us or trick us or manipulate us into firing the missile. Your father and I came up with this system, precisely so that would not be possible.”

  “Given enough time, The Opposition will probably figure out a way to fire the missile. What do you think will happen to us then?” I ask.

  The hatch door creaks open. Something silver drops from the opening.

  A tear gas canister.

  Thank God Ramona Carver considered this possibility. I dig in my bag for our masks. I’m shoving one on Charles’s face when I yell, “Toby! You have to hold that door. As soon as I get to the control room, I should be able to lock it down. Until then, shoot anyone who isn’t us.”

  “That sounds a little violent,” Charles says before I cover his mouth.

  “Annika! Go!” Toby tells her.

  “I’m staying with you,” she says, tugging her own mask on. She gets her gun out of her pack.

  Dr. Navarro motions for us to follow him through a huge steel door opposite the elevator that served as his prison cell. I tug Charles’s arm and drag him along behind me. Gus and Amelia follow.