The Rising

by Eli Constant

  When Mari was nestled in the lower bunk, Marty having moved to the higher, with pillows on one side as a soft barrier, Bethany slumped to the floor next to the bed, hung her head, and sighed deeply. “This is the first time I’ve felt even a little safe since everything.”

  “AJ says you’re from the district,” Juan said, lifting a pot of coffee and waiting until both Bethany and Scott saw it. They shook their heads that, no, they didn’t want any.

  “Yes. Cliff and I actually live in Bowie, Maryland. He had to go into work the day it happened. God, I guess he had to go into work because it was happening. He was supposed to have the day off. We had something to do for my nephew. Feels like a lifetime ago.”

  “I’m their nanny,” Scott broke in, “so I was with her and Mari the day everything went to hell. A huge Oktoberfest on the mall was happening when all this started. I was supposed to be there with friends, but when Cliff went into work, Bethany asked me to come to work. We watched it on the news as it happened. It was awful. People were trying to escape, trying to get away, but they couldn’t. And the subway system. Last we heard, that was the worst of all. A total death trap. I could have been in the middle of all that.” Scott’s face looked haunted.

  “There was a school doing a tour of the Capital. Six classes of young kids. Really young kids.” Bethany took a turn telling their story. “The last thing we saw on film was those things…those kids…jumping over the White House fence.

  DC was a disaster area.

  Juan and AJ listened intently as the duo spoke. When they paused for more than a few moments, AJ asked what she’d been wondering since first meeting them. She’d actually already asked it once and hadn’t gotten an answer. “What are you doing here? I still don’t understand. Surely there were better places for you to go.”

  Bethany looked at AJ. It was easy to see how exhausted she was. “It was the only place I could think of, the only place I remembered. Cliff used to say that Kirkland was an E4 base, one of the places that could support Air Force One and in an emergency; that they could land here. Every state we passed through, as the miles piled up and we got lower and lower on foods, I kept this stupid hope in my head.”

  “You drove clear across the country because Air Force One might be here?” Juan sounded incredulous.

  “No, I came more than fifteen hundred miles because my husband and Scott’s father might be here. It was the only thing we could think of, the only thing that at all made sense to do. There was no staying in DC. I don’t have any family near our home in Bowie. We tried to get through the city, tried to get to Cliff before he was evacuated. We couldn’t, not even with Two Penny’s and a secret service agent named Hank’s help.” Bethany started speaking quietly, but her volume had increased by the end, stress warping her voice.

  “Two Penny?” Juan questioned. “Sounds like a street name.”

  “It was,” Scott confirmed, his words sad. “We wouldn’t have made it out of DC without him. They got us nearly halfway before—”

  “Levar died trying to get us some food. Went into a large box store that seemed safe, but it wasn’t. It was a total ambush. They were just lying in wait, knowing someone would eventually walk through the doors. He’d told us to go if things went bad, to just start driving and not look back. Hank jumped out to save him. That’s the last we saw of them. You know,” Bethany let out a choked laugh that was more sob than anything else, “Hank wouldn’t have fit in that little POS car.”

  “Fifteen hundred miles with a baby,” Juan breathed, “I don’t know how you made it.”

  “We wouldn’t have without the both of them. The rest was luck and prayer.” Bethany turned away from the rest of the adults in the RV, she stood, climbing gently into bed and curving her body around Mari. Everyone else followed suit, turning away from conversation to commune either with dreams or their own thoughts.

  The morning broke in all of its splendor, like every other morning in the desert; bright, unbelievable colors fanning out over dry earth. AJ woke before everyone else and stepped out into the day to stretch. Juan followed moments later, maybe sensing that she’d woken up. All of them had fallen asleep at some point, no one standing watch. That had been stupid.

  It was chillier than it ought to have been, around 40 degrees or so, but the cold was refreshing to the duo who stood, looking towards the City. The wind from yesterday was still gone, just a memory, and I heard somewhere in the distance the cry of a predatory bird. It could have been peaceful, had the world been back to normal. By the time the group decided to head into the city, the sun was bright and sat on the horizon, a beautiful ball of fire sending rays streaming between buildings and making prismatic colors dance in any shadows that still existed fighting the sunshine.

  Juan drove this time, moving the RV deftly, but fighting to keep the trailer in check. They’d done their best to fix the hitch and ball but the damage from dragging it had been extensive. Now it jumped and jiggled like it had a life of its own and occasionally wanted to take a different course than the cumbersome RV. Juan didn’t see how AJ had kept it in check when they’d mad-dashed away from Clines Corner.

  “We need to leave the trailer. Navigating the roads is already going to be hard and this makes it twice that.” Juan slowed the motor home, coming to a stop. He grabbed the .38 and AJ followed suit, taking the shotgun.

  “I’ll help. Let’s make this quick.”

  Juan nodded, agreeing.

  They were only gone moments, wheeling down the support leg of the trailer and then continuing to crank until it lifted off of the hitch. They worked quickly, efficiently, with AJ watching the terrain like a hawk on the hunt while Juan transferred some of the necessities, like food, to the big rig. Juan and AJ hated to leave the stocked trailer behind. They took what they could, what was most important to keep them alive, in case someone found the trailer and raided it. It was necessary….

  Sometimes necessary shit sucks.

  AJ couldn’t help leaning over in her seat to find the growing-smaller trailer in the side mirror. Juan refused to look back. “We’ll come back and get it if we can.”

  “If it’s still here,” AJ qualified.

  The RV crept closer to the city. Residences and buildings became thicker, like a grove of trees planted too near to one another during the conception of their field so that when they grew larger they crowded one another. If the military still holds the base, then we can come back, AJ thought, not feeling confident. Shit, if they don’t, we’ll still come back…if we can. If we are even still fucking alive. Whether she’d admit it out loud or not, AJ had all but given up on the border patrol station. She just didn’t see how it could have held on its own. Anyone who got out would have gone straight to Kirkland. It just made sense to go straight there, to skip trying the station all together.

  AJ wondered if maybe the entrance of a baby on the scene had changed her willingness to take risks. There was already a child under their care, but Marty was a boy. He seemed less…breakable.

  “We should check Kirkland first, Juan,” AJ said, fighting not to retract her words as she said them.

  “What about the border patrol sta—”

  AJ cut him off. “As much as I want to go there, as much as I hope it’s still there, I doubt it is. We have to be more careful, go with the best bet and not just hope. I don’t want to lose anyone else.”

  Juan didn’t say anything in response, but he thought about what it meant to weigh hope against what was the best bet. He wondered how that would debase humanity more than the monsters.

  They drove towards the base, pushing their way through the city until they were close enough to scout out the situation at the base before getting any closer. There was nothing around, no Z kids, no danger. Ahote and his people had been wrong. AJ and Juan climbed atop the RV using the ladder attached to the back to the right of the hitch, leaving Bethany and Scott to watch the children. Marty had been nervous, not wanting to be left behind with the strangers, but Scott had comfo
rted him, offering to color and that had put the boy at ease.

  AJ raised the monocular to her eye, her heart thumping faster than normal. The base was fine, her fellow agents were there, the base was fine.

  But it wasn’t fine.

  It wasn’t fucking fine at all.

  Where the entrance of the base should be, a giant crater was instead. Shallow, enormous, and sending tendrils of smoke upwards like the land would surrounding a volcano as it began to heat and work towards explosion. Past that first crater were three more just like it. The devastation of the base had been total, without mercy. Kirkland Base was a smoldering wasteland. I moved the monocular slowly, looking around the craters for any sign of life. I did not find life though, only death.

  Bodies of various sizes strewn about like popped corn bursting from an overcooked bag, the guts and blood like the buttery grease that covers your fingers. Only this wasn’t yellow and salty. It was dark, sundried jerky and the blood were stains, waiting for the first rain to wash them slowly away. AJ’s hope withered within her body, caved-in and charred black. It burned until she held her own crater within her body. She did not even bother to wipe away the tears when they started to fall from her eyes.

  “Who the hell did this? Jesus Christo, there were families on that base, innocents. They couldn’t have possibly been all affected by this plague.” Juan did not ask for the monocular to see more clearly. He did not want to. The distance kept the details from being clear. That helped his sanity not shred to pieces.

  “Couldn’t be nuclear. There are still trees standing way on the outskirts. A nuke would have burned them all up. And if the area was that hot, we’d probably already be showing the affects as close as we are. It has to be conventional, but damned if I know what could do it. Maybe one of those bunker busters they’re always talking about. I just don’t know.” AJ was still looking through the eye glass. She spoke clearly, without any sign of sadness, but the tears contradicted that.

  “Why in hell did they do it? They blew up the whole fucking base, the whole base. It doesn’t make any sense.” Juan shook his head slowly. “It doesn’t make any damn sense. Hijo de puta!” He stammered out, his voice rising in pitch and his hands slapping against his legs in anger. “Dammit!”

  AJ finally lowered the monocular, her face well and truly soaked now. “It makes perfectly good sense, Juan. They had to contain it. They lost control and they were trying to contain it. I wouldn’t be surprised if we found a lot of other places like this.”

  “Jesus, who would wipe out a city to contain a disease?” Juan knew what he said sounded naïve, like a child’s lack of understanding of the world and the way things worked. But he didn’t care. He was tired of death, tired of brutality. And this smacked of both.

  “Only one man has the authority to make that call and it tells me that the Government is alive and kicking,” AJ said it like it was a positive thing. To Juan, it wasn’t.

  “The President?”

  “Yes, and that means that Bethany’s husband and Scott’s Dad are alive. They’re not here, but they’re alive. That’s something. If we can find a way to contact them, let them know that Bethany and Scott and Mari are with us, we can get help. I’m sure we can. If the SecDef can’t do something to save his own son, then there’s no hope at all.” AJ knew, and Juan knew, that she was clawing at sand, trying to pick out the singular grain of faith that would keep her going. Even if her optimism was as naïve as Juan’s disbelief that the U.S. government would blow up an entire base to contain the monsters, it was a thread of life.

  AJ and Juan climbed down from the RV, their minds already working towards their next move. Juan focused first on getting the trailer back; AJ’s mind went towards the mountains where she’d thought in passing that her fellow agents might have survived out in the wild. But again, a shot in the dark that would likely sail around hitting nothing.

  Scott and Bethany, already emotionally brittle from fighting their way across the country, crumpled under the news that the base was gone.

  “God. Oh, God…what do we do now?” Bethany looked down at her daughter who was suckling hungrily, filling her belly with warm, nourishing milk. “We have to find Cliff. I need Cliff. I just need to hear his voice. I wish I could just hear his voice.”

  “I’m sorry, Bethany. I know this is hard to handle,” AJ comforted the woman, ignoring her own vast disappointment.

  “Wish it was as easy as a phone call,” Scott said, rubbing at his eyes with his shirt sleeve whilst also coloring a sky blue with his other hand. “Wish I could just pick up a phone and call Air Force One. ‘Hey, Dad, Scott here. How’s the apocalypse treating you?’ But you can’t do that. By now they’ll have cut all communications and are controlling every word that goes in or out of that plane. I may be the SecDef’s son, but that don’t mean jack now. Everything is being routed through a single point for security. No call, emails, or text in or out without authorization and we ain’t on that list. So no Dad’s voice, no Cliff’s voice.” Scott dropped the crayon he was holding and ran a hand through his hair, sort of yanking softly at the strands before resuming coloring.

  “You seem to know a lot about the communications on Air Force One,” Juan commented, going to the kitchen and pouring a cup of day-old coffee. He drank it cold, absentmindedly. “Is that what you do, communications or something?”

  “No, my degree is in computer engineering. In a way, yes, I guess. It’s just a fact of life, everything is run by computers even communications. Trust me, if there is a way to get in, I could do it. It’s one thing to hack the White House Info page or the Government Accounting office. It’s quite another to hack AF One when it’s at Def Con. We’d have a better chance at launching an ICBM than…wait a minute. We may not know what they’re up to or where the hell they are, but they know everything that’s going on.”

  “What do you mean?” AJ moved to lean on the counter beside Juan, her nose crinkling slightly when she realized he was drinking the old coffee, not just old, but also frigid. Unwarmed, no sugar. That was just about hell in a mug for her. “They monitor everything; they know everything? Sounds a bit big brother to me.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean. Everything is pumped into the command post. It’s just filtered by importance. If it’s broadcasting, it’s being monitored. It’s that simple.” Scott set down his crayon once more and hopped up. “Guys, I think I can do this. I think I can reach my dad.”

  “And Cliff?” Bethany spoke, Mari over her shoulder now to be burped.

  “Yeah, Cliff too. All of them. The whole fucking Air Force One or whoever the hell is listening. I need my luggage.” Scott began pacing, looking for his bag. When he found the duffel, he unzipped it and pushed through the contents, eventually pulling out an iPad.

  “It’s the end of the damn world and you think an iPad is going to do you any good?” Juan tilted the cup back, the rim to his lips, and he drained the rest of the coffee, even crunching on the grains that had snuck through filter when it had been brewed.

  “Look,” Scott took on a teacher tone, like he was stood in front of a class of kindergarteners trying to explain the concept of gravity, “some of the servers may be down, but out there, somewhere, is a tower still going strong on its back-up power. We had to do this study last semester all about Points of Presences and the longevity of communications.”

  “And you think the generators are still running?” AJ asked, her face not unreadable now, but disbelieving.

  “Yes. Imagine light running through a glass rod, that’s fiber optics. The light transmits information, it’s constantly boosted, split and re-directed for different purposes. All this occurs at Points of Presences, or POPs. A lot of those send information to what is loosely referred to as a ‘CO’ or central office. A lot of these ‘CO’s are at cell phone towers and these cell phone towers project not only cell phone communications, but a lot of times internet. Or Wi-Fi. These POPs and COs have backup power and most have a minimum of a 7-day reserve
diesel tanks some much more. So as long as we can find one still running, me and my iPad can get back on the web.”

  Juan and AJ both wore similar expressions, but Bethany looked like she’d found a possibility worth clinging to. She spoke then, Mari giving a little burp right before her voice came to life. “Scott’s smart. Not just valedictorian smart, but Einstein smart. If he says he can do this, then he can.”

  “Fuck,” Juan breathed, setting the empty mug he’d still been holding on the counter top. “Any chance is better than what we have right now which is jack and shit.”

  “I didn’t understand a damn thing he said. Mechanics and computers. None of that means anything to me. But like Juan said, any chance is better than what we currently have.”

  Before Scott launched in a longer, more detailed explanation of what he needed and where might be a good chance to find a CO or POP, Bethany spoke, cradling Mari in her arms and wiping a dribble of milk from her daughter’s mouth using a thin yellow blanket printed with turtles. “If at all possible, could we try not to curse so much around Mari?”

  Juan and AJ looked at her. Scott didn’t, as if he was long used to her dislike of cursing. She wasn’t joking though, and Juan and AJ nodded. They each knew that they’d still curse, still spill out expletives when shit hit the fan, but for now, they nodded. Bethany was protecting the innocence of her child. And who the fuck could argue with that at the end of the world where nightmares were real and death wasn’t necessarily the end?

  AIR FORCE ONE

  The 747-8 was the first of the new Presidential planes to be put into service.

  It had extended range, better avionics, and a much more sophisticated command and control structure than its predecessor. It was the most advanced technological marvel of the 21st century and designed to keep all its passengers safe and sound through the worst possible scenario, for example: nuclear war. On its own, it could travel almost half way around the world, but with in-flight refueling it could stay aloft until food and water ran out, and that was a very long time.