Minus America (Book 3): Rebel Cause

by Isherwood, E. E.

  Rebel Cause:

  Minus America

  Book 3

  E.E. Isherwood

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  Copyright © 2019 by E.E. Isherwood

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Illustration by Covers by Christian

  Editing services provided by Mia at LKJ Books

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  CHAPTER 1

  Long Island, NY

  Ted and Emily had risen with the sun, snuck a bite from the cupboard of the stranger’s apartment, then immediately jogged a couple of miles to escape the sprawl of New York City. He thought being on foot would reduce their chances of being seen by searching aircraft. However, as the morning had heated up, he’d found a small four-door Nissan, and they’d been traveling in air-conditioned comfort for the last hour.

  “Thanks for making me breakfast,” Emily remarked.

  Since they’d been in someone else’s apartment, he was left to the mercy of whatever was in the pantry. His first choice was the frozen waffles he’d found in the freezer, but the idea was crushed since the power had gone out overnight. His backup plan was the family-sized box of Tot Pop’s cereal. The milk was still cold inside the darkened refrigerator, so he’d poured a bowl for them both.

  “If the power is going out for good, it may be some time before we have milk and cereal again,” he said from behind the wheel.

  “That sucks.” After a short pause, she continued, “Why do you think the power went out when it did? I thought nuclear power plants would go on forever.”

  He tilted his head toward her, not sure if she was being serious. If his sister had said such a thing, a woman who wouldn’t know the difference between a coal power plant and a nuclear one, he wouldn’t think anything of it. However, Emily was probably the President of the United States. She should know the answer to simple questions like that.

  Emily smiled as if she’d heard him thinking. “What I mean is, nuclear power should have lasted longer than forty-eight hours. A coal plant would shut down as soon as the coal stopped feeding in, say a matter of hours. As far as I know, New York never got its proposed Long Island wind farm up and running. That means the power going to the television last night was from a nuclear source. I want to know why it shut down overnight.”

  He guided the stolen car on the two-lane road, always mindful of the derelict vehicles blocking the lanes. For a few seconds, he thought of his sister again. Silly, ditzy Rebecca. He’d watched her neighborhood burn last night. Conceptually, he knew everyone in America was probably gone, but also knowing he’d never hear his sister’s laugh again killed him inside.

  “Well, Madame President, I’m impressed. You seem to know quite a bit about power generation on the East Coast, including the status of yet-to-be-built wind farms in these parts.”

  “And?” she replied.

  “And the answer is, I have no idea why we lost power. Maybe a tree branch fell on a wire. Didn’t that knock out power for the whole East Coast a few years ago? Or maybe the assholes leading this shitshow went out and turned things off. If I were in charge, I’d want to conserve as many resources as I could, rather than waste running televisions inside empty apartments.”

  Emily seemed to think on it, and it made him reflective, too.

  Who were the people invading America? He’d watched the broadcast by Jayden Phillips—or David, as he called himself now—but that only gave him the face of the beast. There had to be millions of people behind him. Those arriving planes didn’t appear out of thin air. They had to be waiting for the precise moment of the attack in order to get there so fast. Same with the ships. How did they get into port immediately after the attack?

  For all he and Emily had discovered, the enemy still had no name. No base of operations. No place where America could point a finger and fight back. He and Emily had surmised Jayden was currently in Colorado, at NORAD, but even that was a guess. The extent of his battlefield intelligence was Newark being overrun. New York was getting there. And the only good guys around were on a ship over the horizon.

  They were silent for the bulk of the ride toward the end of Long Island. The forest-lined road was flat most of the way, but they’d gone over a gentle hill before coming to a small tourist town stuffed with cars.

  “Oh, we’re here,” Emily said with excitement. “This is Montauk.”

  “It looks like we’ve driven into Disneyworld with all this traffic.” The area was quaint, with tasteful motels and tourist storefronts, but his focus was entirely on the vehicles as he drove around several pileups.

  “We have to decide if we’re going out by sea or air.” She pointed to an upcoming roundabout. “Left is the marina. Right will take us around the lake to the airport.”

  Ted drove along the shoulder, then went onto the grass inside the giant traffic circle. Based on how the cars were parked, there’d been a traffic jam taking place at the moment America was attacked. Going into the middle was the best way to avoid it. The delay gave him time to think, but he still wasn’t sure what to do.

  Emily spoke up when he didn’t say anything. “I say we get on a plane and go find your niece. I know that’s what you want to do.”

  Ted gripped the wheel. It was, in fact, what he’d been thinking. How did she already know him so well? However, it wasn’t the professional thing to do.

  “No, if you have a seaworthy boat, we’ll escape Long Island and head north. We should be able to hug the coast, avoid our overhead friends, and put some distance from the men looking for us. Once we get far enough north, we can hop into a plane and go west.”

  She grimaced. “You still want to take on NORAD all by yourself? You know I could be wrong about the broadcast coming from a replica of the Oval Office. It might not have come from NORAD at all. Maybe there’s a duplicate somewhere else made just for this invasion. Ted, that’s not out of the realm of possibility for someone who can destroy our whole country in only a few minutes.”

  The next choice he made could mean life or death for lots of people.

  Chicago, IL

  Tabby stood on the elevator as she came up from the Bonne Terre mine. The clanking and herky-jerky of the hundred-year-old lift was somehow comforting, despite the threat of it falling apart under her feet.

  The cage doors opened, and Mom and Dad stood there with scowls on their faces.

  “What?” she asked with surprise.

  Mom tapped her foot in an ageless sign of maternal impatience. “Did you forget something, young lady?”

  Dad craned his neck to look behind her.

  She turned around, but the elevator was empty.

  “Where’d they go?” Tabby asked with confusion.

  “You left your people, Tabitha. What’s the first rule I taught you down there?”

  Her shoulders slumped. “Always come back with the same number of tourists you left with.”

  “And how many did you lose?” Dad spoke with more anger than concern, which was totally unlike him.

  She glanced all around the large elevator, hoping someone was hiding. That took about two seconds, leading her to an answer she couldn’t avoid…

  “How many?” Dad repeated.

  “I’ve lost all three!” she yelled out loud as someone jostled her shoulder.

  “Tabby? Are you all right?” A yo
ung teen boy knelt next to her. He wore a blue track suit with red sneakers, as if fully prepared to start soccer practice.

  “Donovan?” Her eyes darted around the observation deck of the Sears Tower, and it all rushed back. They’d come there last night after a long day on the road trying to reach Mom and Dad at the edge of the disaster. However, after almost two days of hoping and praying, she’d come to the conclusion they were dead, like everyone else.

  Her heart skipped a few beats, then seemed to have trouble regaining its rhythm. Much like in her dream, she had a cosmic revelation. It wasn’t the three teens who were gone forever. It was her parents.

  “Dang it. I didn’t want to wake up from my dream.” She sat up on the small padded bench.

  “I’m sorry,” Donovan drawled, “but you’re going to want to see this.” He stood up and motioned for her to follow him to a corner. “Just peek around.”

  When she got there, she saw a scene that might have been from her nightmare.

  Audrey and Peter were on the floor together, behind another bench, about twenty feet away. The suspicious side of her wondered if they’d slept there all night, though it didn’t look very comfortable. However they got there, they couldn’t move from behind it or they’d be seen by the investigative white robot floating outside the window.

  “How long has it been there?” she whispered.

  Donovan took a quick peek around the corner, then leaned closer. “I don’t know. Pete caught my attention. He woke me up. When I came around the bend, I saw it and where it had them.”

  She held her bangs to keep them from giving her away, then she looked around the corner again. “It must know we’re here. It isn’t moving.”

  “Maybe it’s sent for backup,” he suggested.

  Tabby crouched against the wall. “Hey, Audrey. Peter. Can you hear me?”

  “Yes,” Peter gushed. “What should we do? This thing won’t go away.” Quieter, he added, “It must have seen us.”

  She thought back to her dream about getting out of that elevator and seeing Mom and Dad. It seemed so real, and it still lingered in her memory as if it was. It might be the last connection she ever had with them. She put herself back in the dream, desperate to ask Dad what she should do. He always had the answer, no matter the question. How did he do that?

  “Tabby?” Donovan sounded worried. “We’ve got to help them.”

  “I know.” There wasn’t much she could do about the drone outside, but she could get her people on the move. Keep the tour on schedule. She knew how to push these kids.

  “Guys!” she called out to Audrey and Peter. “On three, I want you to run to me. We’re getting out of here before more of those things arrive. Get your stuff ready.”

  She stood up again, content she was making the right call. There was no point in waiting if they’d already been spotted. Escaping the building was the priority.

  “We’re ready!” Audrey exclaimed.

  “One, two…three!”

  Tabby peered around the corner, unafraid to be seen. The hovering drone seemed to fight against the wind, but otherwise didn’t leave its position. The black orb underneath was undoubtedly a camera. By the time she’d finished studying the drone, Peter and Audrey came rushing around the corner hand-in-hand.

  She waved her arm. “The elevator! Go!” she ordered. The clock was ticking. The drone operator would report movement, more would be sent, and eventually people would show up to capture them. Or worse.

  “We have to hurry,” she said with as even a voice as she could muster. Her heart raced beyond her lung capacity, making her take short, uneven breaths. However, she did everything possible to hide her fear.

  Peter pressed the button over and over but seemed agitated immediately. When he punched the button with his knuckles, she gently shoved him aside. “What’s up?”

  He pointed. “The light isn’t coming on.”

  “Shit,” she said quietly. “The power’s out.” There were no lights on in the observation area, but the bright morning sunshine made interior lights unnecessary. If the power was out in the building, the elevators would be out, too.

  “The stairs!” she said in a high-pitched voice.

  No one remarked on her obvious panic. They went a few paces to the right and opened the fire door to the stairwell. She noticed a knocking sound, a little like a jackhammer, followed by the crash of glass. It couldn’t be coincidence that it seemed to come from around the corner where the drone had been stationed.

  “Go! Hurry!”

  They all went in; she slammed the door and took a deep breath. The three kids stood on the landing with her, as if afraid of starting down 103 floors and an untold number of steps.

  “What are you waiting for?” She expected a drone to tap on the door at any second. Like any good science fiction movie, it probably had heat-seeking equipment to see her standing against the cold, metal slab.

  Tabby took the lead and went down the first flight.

  The kids soon followed. Donovan caught up to her and went ahead, two steps at a time, which she didn’t mind. He was the sports guy in their group and probably wanted to show off. Peter was the heavy-set kid; he and Audrey lagged behind.

  After five minutes, her calves burned. A short time later, Peter lodged the first complaint. “I have to stop,” he chuffed, nearly out of breath.

  The boy did have a few extra pounds but didn’t look unhealthy.

  “He wants to stop for his girlfriend,” Donovan taunted from a flight below. He kept one hand on his pistol as it sat securely in his police utility belt.

  “No, I don’t,” Peter replied in leave-me-alone singsong.

  “I’m not stopping,” Audrey interrupted, continuing down the seemingly endless steps. “I can make it.”

  After another ten minutes of continuous motion, Tabby wondered if she should make them stop for their own good. Her legs were aching, and her calves felt like they were actually on fire. How were the kids keeping up?

  “We’re almost there!” Donovan shouted.

  Tabby glanced wearily at the plaque noting the floor number. They were still on the twentieth floor. It didn’t feel close to the end.

  She decided to let the athletic boy lead. If no one else was going to halt, neither was she.

  At ten floors to go, she had to wobble from flight to flight. Her legs were jelly.

  At two floors to go, she leaned heavily on the railing to compensate for her pain. Peter and Audrey lagged a few floors above her, though she saw their hands coming down the railing when she looked up the narrow gap to the floors above.

  “We’re there!” Donovan shouted.

  She barely heard him over her own footfalls. Each plodding step brought her closer to the end, and she could finally taste it through the pain. At the same time, she couldn’t portray too much weakness, though the struggle made it seem as if she was dying a little inside. Faking positivity was high on her mind as she rounded the last landing and saw Donovan holding the door at the bottom.

  “See? We made it,” he said, breathing heavily.

  “Yeah, we—” she started to say.

  Bursts of red exploded from his chest, followed by the echo of muffled gunshots.

  She caught herself on the bannister to stop, though her sweaty palms made her trip down an extra step or two. Leaning forward, she was not more than twenty feet away from her young friend.

  Donovan looked right at her with eyes that said, “Tabby, help me.”

  He then crumpled against the door, dead.

  The shadow of a walking horse-drone appeared in the doorway.

  CHAPTER 2

  USS John F. Kennedy, south of New York City

  Meechum led Kyla deep into the belly of the aircraft carrier, one ladder at a time. The trip through the claustrophobic interior reminded her a lot of the day before, minus the shooting. Most of the empty uniforms were gone, too; Van Nuys had asked the remaining crew to spend every free moment gathering them into piles, out of respe
ct for the deceased. They’d all worked on that until near midnight.

  “Where are we going?” Kyla asked for the third time. Meechum had practically pulled her out of the rack, where she’d spent an uncomfortable night of sleep. The hasty wake-up didn’t seem normal, even for the dialed-to-eleven young female Marine, so Kyla remained vigilant for trouble.

  She’d kept Carthager’s M9 semi-automatic Beretta pistol in her waistband. It made her feel a little like one of those gangster rappers, but it fit snug and stayed in place, aided by the few extra pounds she could never lose around her midsection.

  “We’re here,” the short-haired woman replied while pointing to an open doorway. The Marine went in without further comment, and Kyla followed like she wasn’t quite sure this wasn’t a setup.

  A man spoke up. “Over here.”

  “Sergeant Carthager?” she replied in a low voice, though no one else was around.

  “Take a seat,” he ordered.

  She did as requested, mostly because it seemed like she was in a spy movie. She’d been brought all the way down here to talk to a guy who had passed her in the hallways multiple times over the last couple of days. Why he needed her to sneak around to meet him was unknown.

  He got right to it. “Listen, we heard what you told the captain yesterday. That it was your uncle down there, and the VP was with him. Are you absolutely sure it was the both of them?”

  “I’d bet my life on it. I even texted my uncle on the flight out to confirm.”

  “But was it her? You have to be one hundred percent sure.”

  Yesterday, she’d had her doubts, but lying in bed gave her plenty of time to reflect on it. The pinned-up hairstyle matched the vice president’s. Same color hair, too. She was about the right height and figure, from Kyla’s recollection from television. Back when her ticket was voted into office, you couldn’t look at a screen without seeing the first female vice president. Uncle Ted’s mission was to fly her plane, so it stood to reason he’d die trying to keep her alive. “I’m one hundred percent, sir.”