Cheyenne Mountain, CO
Ted and Emily spent the night hidden in the offices of the underground bunker. To keep up appearances, he had to pretend to be disappointed they were taking a night to sleep, but he’d never been more ready to lie down. Even Emily’s direct orders wouldn’t have gotten him much further without some rack time. In the new day, with a few hours of sleep behind him, and before everyone else was up and moving, he was ready to go.
“What’s on your mind, soldier?” Emily asked from her spot curled up on a leather recliner. They both agreed the office probably belonged to a fancy-pants Army general.
“Don’t you ever sleep?” he joked.
“No. Not anymore. And I won’t, until we finish what we came here to do.”
He shook his head, glad, in a strange way, she was more keyed up to execute their mission than he was. “Well, I’ve been thinking about that. The girl in the blue outfit said they came from a secretive NORAD base in eastern Colorado. Lamar, right?”
She nodded.
He was glad Emily had been there the previous night. Even in the short time he’d spoken with the girl and her friends, he’d forgotten their names and where they were from. She was his backup recorder.
“We have to get out of this place and go there. David and his band of merry assholes will be waiting for us, but we’ll take them out. Disable their futuristic ray gun. Go into the deepest part of their mine shaft and grab Tanager from his jail cell. Then escape and link up with the world. Tell them no one has to kick Americans out of their country. Bing bang bong, easy as pie.”
Emily whipped her hair over her shoulder before looking at him. “Is that all you want to do? Aren’t you forgetting something critically important? What about finding Kyla and Meechum?”
He gritted his teeth. Of course he hadn’t forgotten about her, but it was too painful to think she’d been outside Cheyenne Mountain when the nukes went off. The chances of anyone surviving, even miles into the mountains, was remote. “Let’s take one problem at a time.” Carefully, he added, “I’m praying she’s out there.”
Emily reached out to him, offering her hand. “I’m so sorry.”
He took it. “Thanks. But let’s not dig the grave, yet. The very first thing we have to do today is figure out how to deal with David’s former allies in the other part of the bunker.” After a brief moment of hand-holding, he let her go. “Do you have any suggestions, Madame President?”
Ted expected her to wave off the designation, but she accepted it. “How many do you think there are? Can we lock them up?”
He scratched his growing beard. “I was thinking of pushing them out the front door.”
“Killing them?” she asked with surprise.
“What else? They’re the enemy. We can’t very well lock them up in here. If we’re going to survive for any length of time in this tomb, we have to consider our food supply, water, air, etc. Sharing those things with the Banana Republican Guard is not my idea of a good deal.”
“Still,” she pressed, “could you really push them out the front door, into the radiation? Is such a thing even possible?”
“Nah, but I guarantee they’ll starve before we do.” He thought about it for a few seconds, then hopped up off the ground into a guarded crouch. “In fact, it surprises me they haven’t already tried to get the jump on us.”
They looked at each other with concern.
He voiced what her eyes reflected at him.
“Who says they haven’t?”
Cheyenne Mountain, CO
Dwight woke up with his own bout of confusion inside the huge office. The tiny face staring back at him looked a lot like Poppy, but it wasn’t exactly the same. However, it was a Macaw, and it did seem to like being around him. The bird was on top of a lamp shade about five feet away.
“Poppy, is it really you? How did you get here?” His thought process was as clear as it had been in years. David had made him suffer with numerous diseases after going into the white cube, but all of that had been fixed, he thought, when he traveled to the new bunker last night.
Poppy squawked once as if she understood him.
“Of course, I recognize your voice,” he said to himself in a hush.
Looking around, he hit another patch of confusion. He’d slept on a comfortable couch and got the best sleep he’d had in years. However, sitting up, it looked like he was inside the Oval Office at the White House. A huge logo had been placed on the carpet in front of a large wooden desk, and TV cameras sat nearby, pointing to the empty chair behind it. Was he still dreaming?
“Wake up, Dwight!” he insisted, pinching himself on the leg.
“Yeow!” he complained. “I’m already awake.”
He stood up and headed for the glass doors at the front of the room. It was then he remembered he wasn’t in Washington D.C. but was instead still in Colorado. The NORAD bunker looked the same out the doors. In fact, it was the long, three-story office building where he and the others had gone last night.
His fellow prisoners were scattered around the lobby, all of them, he thought. It was as if most wanted to remain together throughout the night instead of finding branching offices done up like the Oval Office. He and Poppy had gone into the big office by accident, not to get away from the people, but to make sure his bird companion didn’t abandon him.
Done sleeping, he simply walked out the door into the lighted lobby.
“You awake?” a girl asked him.
“Yes,” he said glumly. “I slept like a president, though I don’t know how.”
“What do you mean?” a young girl with long, brunette hair replied. She was dressed like him, in his white-and-orange jumpsuit.
He turned to her, then scanned some of the others. The girl in blue was there, as was the heavy kid who obviously liked the girl who’d asked if he was awake. Jacob was curled up in a ball close by, though stirring. For reasons he couldn’t explain, the lack of activity rubbed him the wrong way.
“Are you all crazy?” he snapped. “Do any of you even know what happened to us?”
The girl in blue stood to face him. “What do you mean?”
He huffed. “We were inside one place, we walked into a white light, then zzzap!” He clapped his hands together. “We arrive here. I may not be all right in the h-head,” he stuttered. “Or maybe I’ve never been this tuned in.” After a second of calm, he continued. “But even I know what we saw back there is not possible.”
Dwight stood up straight. His back had never felt as good as it did right then. Not since he was a teenager, at least. The realization made him confident to keep talking. “We’re lucky as hell to still be alive, if we are…” He trailed off for a second. “But the technology of that place. If we ever get out of this bunker, we should run as fast and as far as we can. I don’t ever want to see the white light again.”
Many heads nodded in agreement. To his disappointment, the girl in blue did not. She seemed keen to do the opposite of what he said.
He turned to Poppy. That was usually the point where she would jump in and tell him he was being paranoid. As he took a few seconds to observe her, the Macaw sat as still as a statue. Only after he saw her blink did he turn to face the girl. Sure enough, as soon as he did, she spoke.
“I don’t want to go there either, but we’re with the president of the country now. She didn’t come out and say it last night, but I’d expect her to come in and ask us if we’d fight for her against David, Charity, and all those glittery-clothed people. If she does ask us to fight, and we can get out of this place, I’m going to volunteer to help. Someone has to pay for all this.” She waved her hand around the room, though she clearly meant the nuclear devastation and all the missing Americans, including her parents.
Someone applauded from close by. Dwight turned to see the female who said she was the president, along with a guy about his age who was dressed in a matching black uniform. The man spoke first.
“I’d make you a colonel if I could.” Th
e soldier stepped into the lobby. “We need more Americans like you. When there’s a fight to be had, you don’t back down.”
The girl nodded a little. “I won’t lie to you. I’m scared as hell.”
The female president turned to Dwight. “I won’t stop you from leaving, assuming there’s a way out of this mountain. But this young lady is correct. We need as many fighters as we can find. Otherwise, we may all die in this hole as prisoners of those men from Central and South America.”
Poppy was from South America. Maybe it wouldn’t be all bad?
To his great disappointment, most everyone else stood up as if to volunteer to go with the lady. At first, he thought about arguing, saying how dumb it was to do something you know is dangerous, but he caught sight of a blue-and-red streak outside the front door of the building.
He cocked his head toward Poppy, checking that she hadn’t moved.
Who had he seen out there?
CHAPTER 3
Cheyenne Mountain, CO
“Be careful,” Emily said, stealing a brief kiss after ensuring no one was watching.
“You think I’d go in there with guns blazing?” he joked.
“You might, rabbit. You might.”
He looked at her with shock. “A Bugs Bunny quote? Is there anything this lady can’t do to impress me?”
She giggled. “You mean being president wasn’t enough for you?”
He wanted to carry on joking with her forever. His fiancée, he reminded himself. But there was serious business that still needed to be done. “My plan is to go in there and find the leader. Maybe I can reason with him that we need each other to stay alive. Then I’ll come back in here and tell them we’re discussing it.”
His real plan was to gain intelligence about how many there were, their goals for survival, and whether they saw him as a friend or foe. With that information, he and Emily would be better prepared to handle them. In the interim, he’d gotten everyone into one of the office buildings and had them barricade the front doors. It was better than doing nothing while waiting for trouble to come for them.
“Go get ‘em, tiger,” she cheered softly.
He walked down the chiseled hallway toward what he saw as the front chamber nearest the sealed doors. It was the last place he’d seen all the men before running deeper into the NORAD facility. After a brief walk, he confirmed they were still there.
Once spotted, he walked toward the lounging men as if he was one of them. Since he wore the Legion uniform, he acted the part. “Ahoy! I have news!”
A few of the men stood up, including the heavy-set Mendoza guy who’d hit on Emily the day before. After hiking up his huge pair of pants, the man strode toward him as if in charge.
“Hablo Espanol?” the man asked.
“No,” Ted replied, fibbing. He knew a passable amount of Spanish, but he wanted the other man on his heels trying to interpret, not him.
“Fine,” the man complained. “I remember you from yesterday. Where have you been? I’m General Manuel Phillippe Mendoza. I demand to know why David brought us here under such threats, and then left us here all night after the accident.”
Ted almost choked. To call a five-fingered nuclear-powered punch at the front of the bunker an accident defied several levels of reality. After regaining his composure, he replied, “General, I assure you I am in the same boat. David ordered me here as part of the escort guard. I would not have come here if I knew there was to be a nuclear attack.”
It seemed to anger Mendoza. “It was deliberate? Are you saying you would have left us to our fates?”
He held out his palms in surrender. “No, of course not. What I’m saying is this, uh, accident has me trapped, too. If we’re going to get out of here, we need to cooperate. Pool our resources. That kind of thing.” He pointed back the way he’d come. “I have some civilians with me, too. They’ve agreed to help you.”
“Of course they will,” Mendoza said matter-of-factly. “We are here as honored guests. Conquerors of the failed imperial American empire. We’re representatives of the new people who will soon populate this abandoned land.”
Ted wondered if they knew David was even now tearing down the old United States, right to the foundation. It was a risk to play dumb, but he had to know more about the reasons the men had come to NORAD in the first place. He was almost certain the men had been betrayed by David, though he’d never tell them such a tale. It wouldn’t reflect well on him. “I’m sorry, I was under the impression the old stuff from America was to be destroyed. David ordered towns be burned. Cities be leveled. Power plants be scrapped. He’s in a place named Lamar, Colorado, right this very minute, doing all those things.”
Mendoza, and a plain-dressed man wearing aviator glasses standing close by, both frowned heavily. The round general untangled his red neckerchief from his neck and slapped it against his hip. “Destroying the country? No, you have it backward. We are here to resettle our population, taking the place of those citizens who were, how do you say it? Turned off.”
It was a clinical description for the effects of the mass-murdering superweapon David had used to unload America of her rightful citizens. It burned his insides to ignore the implications of the statement, but he was playing the part of asshole extraordinaire. A guard for David’s Legion. As such, he merely bowed, as if apologetic. “I may have misheard my supervisor.”
“Of course you did,” Mendoza crowed.
The other man behind the bigger guy barely changed his expression during the entire discussion. Ted wondered who he was, and how he fit into the enemy camp, but he didn’t dare try to go around the self-important general. He did nod to the guy, however, which was returned immediately.
“Now,” Mendoza said dryly, “we’ve been eating the dogfood we carried with us through the front door, but our trucks were parked outside. They’re gone. We’re ready for the milk and honey of this land. Bring us the steaks. Bring us the booze. And—” He pointedly looked behind Ted. “—I would very much like to see your partner again.”
Ted clamped his jaw shut.
“What?” Mendoza said with interest. “Did you hear what I said?”
He bowed a little, staring at the guy’s spit-shined boots, before letting out, “I did.”
The general dismissed him. “Then see it gets done. Me and my men may be trapped inside this dump, but it’s not an excuse to avoid celebration. This is America, amigo! It belongs to us. Why not treat it like we own it?”
The huge man yanked out a pistol, firing it three times in quick succession. The act surprised Ted completely, leaving him flat-footed and slack-jawed. Where the bullets went after striking the surrounding stone was anyone’s guess.
The men by the trucks snapped to attention.
Guns were drawn.
Threats were analyzed.
Ted put up his hands out of instinct. He’d made a choice to leave his weapon with Emily and the others, figuring if the enemy men took him prisoner, at least his friends would have an additional firearm.
But General Mendoza stood there laughing at what he’d done. He motioned toward the wall, where a large rat laid in a pool of his own blood. “That’s what I’d do to the first American I find out there.”
Ted was impressed at the dexterity of the overweight general.
He was less impressed with the dead animal on the floor.
There was going to come a time when that could be someone’s meal.
Ted excused himself, having clarity about the need for escape.
Cheyenne Mountain, CO
While the guy named Ted went to the front of the bunker, Tabby took some time to search other rooms in the office building. Audrey and Peter went with her, and she thought the guy with the bird was lurking around, too.
The first thing of note she turned up was a small candy bar. “Hey, Audrey, how are you feeling? You know, since you’re diabetic and all?”
The girl emphatically shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve never felt better. Hungry
, yeah, so I’d love that chocolate bar, but that’s about it. I think they fixed me when I was put in the white light the last time.”
Tabby didn’t trust such sketchy science. “Well, watch yourself. Tell me if you get light-headed or need to rest.” She tossed the bar to her young friend.
“I will,” the girl said as if becoming non-diabetic was ho-hum.
“I will, too,” Peter added, before walking into another room.
She followed, not sure how to take their indifference. Health concerns perhaps didn’t rank well after being shot across the state in a futuristic piece of technology.
“Hey, these are pretty cool.” Peter pointed to a large wooden display case hanging on the wall of an office. There were six rows of large coins displayed inside, each more colorful than the one next to it. “They have the name of military bases on them. I see the Pentagon. An aircraft carrier. Mount Weather. All kinds of stuff!”
Tabby wasn’t interested in coins, but she knew what they were. “They’re challenge coins, like the one that man, Ted, showed us.”
“You think anyone would care if I took one?” Peter asked. “There’s one here for NORAD. I might start collecting these for places I’ve been. You think they have one for the other base we were taken to?”
Tabby cracked up, glad to have the goofy boy back in her life. “No, they won’t have a coin for a secret bunker. You were in the Sears Tower, though. Look for it in the set.”
She knew they wouldn’t have it, but it gave her time to search a small cabinet in the back of the room. Once open, she knew she was onto something. “Jackpot! New clothes!”
The office might have belonged to a well-traveled military person, but she was also a woman. The civilian jeans and long-sleeved black shirt were perfect for someone who was going to spend time in the cool interior of the bunker.
“Do they fit?” Audrey asked with half-interest. “Are there enough for both of us? I’m not thrilled with my ensemble. It isn’t very flattering.” Like Peter, Audrey was studying the coins, though based on her roving hands, she seemed mostly interested in the boy. She’d also half-unzipped the front of her uniform shirt, revealing more of her chest than Tabby would have ever dared. Probably to impress said boy. It was quite the turnaround from when Tabby had first met them.
Minus America | Book 5 | Hostile Shores Page 2