Torch

by Tricia Copeland

  Shaking my head, I kicked at the dirt. “They’re not here. They sent these families to take advantage of an amnesty day. They wanted them at a random border crossing so they wouldn’t be detained and questioned.”

  Relaying all the information I had, I told them about the potential new plan for crossing the border. They agreed it sounded like a good one but worried for the safety of the families. We decided that I would approach Amelie’s and Mace’s families at breakfast and have them follow me to a vacant tunnel for the reunion. At least something good came out of the day. I tried to focus on the positive of eight more soldiers and a safer border crossing plan. Those two pieces had to up our chance for success.

  Mace rubbed Amelie’s shoulders. “We should get some sleep.”

  She shrugged him off. “I can’t sleep. I’m too wound up.”

  “I need a run.” I leaned over, touching my toes.

  They agreed to join me, and we wound through the group, looking for Turner. In the cave, we found him at the command center. I ran my hand across his back, but he scooted his chair forward, evading my touch.

  Pulling up a chair next to him, I leaned in. “I know this didn’t turn out like you wanted. It sucks that our dads are still in Port Orford. But we got three good things today.”

  His glassy-eyed stare met mine. “How are you seeing anything good?”

  Mace scanned the room and squatted beside Turner. “My family and Amelie’s family are here. Eight more soldiers. That’s a ten-percent gain, plus a safer border crossing plan. It’s the small things. Come run with us. Get some sleep. Things will look better in the morning.”

  “Fine.” Turner bolted up, sending his chair to the floor.

  I wanted to reach out, put my arms around him, reassure him that everything would be okay. He would hate that, seemed too angry to accept it. Did I believe that the day was a little bit of a win? My heart issued a thud. My father wasn’t coming.

  As we started our slow warm-up jog, my mind swirled with disappointment and worry. I felt the ache in my chest of missing my family, wondering if we’d ever be reunited. I focused on the sounds of the forest, my feet crunching the undergrowth, and my breath dragging in and out. Maybe it wasn’t healthy. I probably had major PTSD, but running was the only thing I had. I must keep moving, fighting.

  We ran an hour, washed in the pond, and let the night air cool our skin. Lying on my bear pelt, exhaustion took over.

  On T minus fort-two days I woke to sounds of banging metal, heavy footsteps on the cave floor, cries, yelling, and a whistle. Startled, I bolted up and reached for my pack. Taking a second to assess, I analyzed the sounds. No alarms. No need for panic. We had a hundred extra people milling about, kids, teens, all in shock mode.

  “Morning.” Sadie approached. “I was just coming to wake you. We need to assess food supply.”

  “On it.” I stood. “I need breakfast first.”

  We walked to the main hall, her expressing disappointment for the lack of additional soldiers but relief at securing a better border-crossing plan.

  “That hinges on the rumor of amnesty day actually being true.” As we reached the food table, I took a plate loaded with a slice of duck.

  Finishing the meat, I saw Amelie pointing to her watch and made an excuse to Sadie. Zigzagging through the crowd, I found Amelie’s mom, Leeda, and brother, Tomas, with breakfast plates. I took a deep breath and squatted down beside her.

  Leeda jerked away, but her gaze softened the next instant. “Sorry, I… Do I know you?”

  “Could you follow me? I need to talk to you in private.”

  “We’re not finished with our food.” Her eyes cut to Tomas.

  “That’s okay, you can bring it. He can come too.” Knowing how strange my face appeared, how unsettling it must be, I held her gaze, trying to appear honest and trustworthy.

  Tomas’s nose crinkled up. “I’m not a child. I’ll be fine on my own.”

  “You should both come. It’s important.” I looked between them.

  She nodded and stood, motioning for Tomas to follow us. Scanning the faces, I found Mureal and Bolton, Miles’s mother and brother. I repeated my request with them, and they agreed to follow me. We sidestepped through the crowd to the end of the tunnel, and I dropped my plate in the recycle bin. I proceeded into a narrow passageway, looking back to make sure they were following me.

  Leeda fell in beside me. “Do I know you? Where are you taking us?”

  “Please, trust me. I have someone you need to meet.”

  As we weaved through the tunnels, the noise from the group faded, leaving us with the sound of our footsteps on the sand.

  “Are you sure we should be going this far?” Mureal questioned.

  I passed the last electric bulb and slid my flashlight from a pant pocket. Reaching in my jacket pockets, I offered one to Leeda and Mureal.

  After three more turns, Bolton spoke up. “Hey, creepy girl, we’re not following you anymore.”

  Mace stepped into the tunnel ahead of us. “What? I’m gone for a few months and you forget your manners?”

  Amelie joined him and I backed to the wall. Leeda, Tomas, Mureal, and Bolton stood wide-eyed with dropped jaws frozen in place.

  Tears formed in Leeda’s eyes. “You’re alive?”

  Amelie nodded. “I’m alive.”

  Leeda closed the spaced between them and wrapped her arms around Amelie. “Oh my God, you’re alive.”

  Mureal and Bolton hugged Mace. Shaking, the women sat down on the dirt. Amelie wrapped her arms around Leeda and explained how we witnessed the attack on the ship, escaped the city, and made our way here.

  Water poured down Leeda’s cheeks. “I was so mad at your father for letting you be in that group, made Tomas quit, and now…” She used her sleeve to dry her face. “Can we contact your father and let him know?”

  “Maybe later. I’m so sorry.” Amelie hugged her mother and brother.

  On my other side, a similar scene played out with Mace and his family. My heart ached, wishing I could see Nave and Mom. I hated Butler for taking them from my father. Uncle Owen, I rolled my eyes, he would never be that to me again, only Cmdr. Butler.

  Leeda and Mureal reported their husbands stayed behind with the rest of the soldiers to man Port Orford. They had no information about what the leadership planned to do about the stalemate between their base and Butler. Believing the base might be targeted, the families left Port Orford to re-enter the UNS at other locations. Targeted, meaning blown to smithereens like our friends on the boat. My shoulders shuddered.

  I felt a hand on my arm. “Do I know you? Did you go to high school with Avia?”

  Avia. Her mother used her given name, and I realized how hard it might be for them to not give their secret away. Had it been a mistake telling them? Not reuniting them would be too cruel. How many times had I sat in her kitchen eating cookies? Jerking away, I pressed my back to the wall. “No, I didn’t know Amelie before. We lived off base until just before they closed it off.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean…” Leeda’s eyes cut to Amelie.

  “I don’t like to be touched.” I added the lie to keep her away from me. I hated being deceitful, but it was safer for everyone.

  Amelie stood beside me and patted my arm. “Jewel’s been a really good friend. She’s amazing. She taught me to hunt with a bow and arrow. We’re part of the food team.”

  Regretting my lie, I played the part and inched away from Amelie. “We have to make sure our identities aren’t compromised. No one can know who we really are, that we were at the site of the boat incident. We told the others Port Orford sent us here. That is the story. Everyone must maintain our anonymity. Do you understand?”

  I locked eyes with Leeda, Tomas, Mureal, and Bolton one at a time, trying to relay how serious our covers were. Each one agreed to keep the secrets. Seeing them happy and reunited ate at my psyche, and I left them to catch up. I traced back to the main passageways, thinking of the massive decisions
to be made. I found Turner in the command room studying a screen. I laid my arms on his shoulders and rested my chin on one.

  “Everything go okay with Amelie and Mace?” His eyes darted to my face.

  “Yeah, their moms were pretty shaken up but relieved.”

  “How are you?” He stared into my eyes.

  “Been better. Any word on a plan?”

  “River told me to call a leadership team meeting. We’re going to meet with the soldiers from Port Orford, pick their brains for any other information. I was stalling to give Amelie and Mace more time.”

  I slunk to the ground beside his chair and rested my head on the rock wall behind me. My thoughts swam with questions. Foremost, would Butler really let everyone in, no questions asked, no identification required?

  “Whoa, look at this.” Turner tapped on his keyboard.

  I stood to view his screen. The headline on a news site read: Pro Viral Cure Sharing Group Files for Protest License, Anti-Sharing Group Copies. The story indicated that a group calling themselves PVCS filed an application to conduct a protest on East Grand Avenue, which passes beside the capitol building for the T-minus-thirty date on the thirteenth of March. Seeing the filing, a second organization named Keep UNS Safe First applied for a protest license on the same day. The acting leader of the UNS, Cmdr. Butler, signed both licenses and hundreds of thousands of protestors were expected to flood the city for the event.

  “This is perfect.” Turner jumped from his seat. “They might as well roll out the red carpet for us. This is getting easier and easier by the minute. Easy border crossing, check. Distracted forces, double check.”

  “What’s going on?” Shooter approached Turner.

  He spun his monitor to show the rest of the group. Bouncing on his toes, he relayed the information about the protest. A pit grew in my stomach. Thousands of protestors provided a distraction, but those thousands of people, maybe even children, could get caught in the middle of a shoot-out.

  I closed and opened my fists. “We can’t do it. Too many people could get hurt.”

  “East Grand is on the opposite side from our entry point.” Turner crossed to the map, pinned to our makeshift two-by-four bulletin board.

  “You read the story, hundreds of thousands, people will be everywhere,” I countered.

  “Turner, go get the rest of the leadership team. I already asked you to do that. Jewel.” River held out a chair. “Sit down. The leadership team will discuss and figure out the best strategy.”

  With the eight additional soldiers from Port Orford, the tiny passageway grew packed. I pressed my back to the wall. The Port Orford team relayed all the information they had, all of which we’d already known save for the intel on amnesty day.

  One of the soldiers from Port Orford spoke up, indicating that the families were to cross into the UNS at different locations, preferably as far from the capitol as possible. “Bringing them here may not have been the best plan, but the Port Orford command was very clear that we must intersect with your group. They hoped you would be planning something and figured you may need help.”

  Turner motioned to the map. “What if we rearrange the teams, send the Utah crew back to their base with additional families from Orford, and the same for the Kentucky and West Virginia crews? They make their way into the UNS and to the capitol, and then we rendezvous on protest day. Then, magic, we’re in. Our lead team would be the only one to sneak over the border, and Butler’s forces will be spread so thin he won’t have the manpower to guard all of it.”

  “Hello.” I raised my hand. “You’re still forgetting all the innocent people who could be killed by a stray or not-so-stray bullet.”

  River cleared his throat. “I think we have all the information we need from the Orford team. Thank you, gentlemen.”

  The driver of the team saluted River. “Sir, if I may. We’ve talked about it and would like to be included in the operation. I know we haven’t trained with you, but we’re all good soldiers, and none of us have families here.”

  “We’ll take that under consideration.” River nodded. “No need for salutes here either.”

  “Sir, yes, sir.” Despite River’s instruction, the soldier saluted, spun on one heel, and slipped from the alcove, the other seven Orford soldiers following.

  River paced in front of the map. “Turner and Mace, we need you on scanning for leaks about amnesty day. If it’s happening, I doubt Butler would plan it for the same day as the protests. His men would be spread too thin. They don’t need IDs because they can run video-recognition programs on everyone who crosses. They’ll have their list, so we just have to pray our teams aren’t on it.”

  We decided any ex-Lovelock soldiers would be on the list and reassigned people according to their originating location and then by skillset, except for the leadership and tech teams. Since it would take thirty-six hours to get to Salt Lake, and we had no clue when the amnesty window might open, we assembled our people to disseminate the new information.

  Sadie approached me as the meeting adjourned. “I want to stay with our team. Daniel already made plans to meet us at the capitol. I’m going to take my chances and stick with the original plan.”

  I shook my head. “Going to Utah is the safest option. Get word to Daniel. Tell him to meet you at the Utah border crossing.”

  She placed both her hands on my shoulders. “You guys are my family now. I want to see this through.”

  Fighting tears and an urge to wrap my arms around her, I glanced down. Lifting my face, I nodded. “Okay, well, for our team, it’s pretty much the same plan as before.”

  “Ooh rah.” She held her fist up.

  At 0400 on day T minus forty-one, my alarm sounded. After rearranging the teams the prior day, we’d packed the vehicles for Utah. Hating that the day had to start that way, I roused Amelie and we ran our normal three-mile loop and doused off in the cool water of the pond before heading back to say goodbye to her mom and brother.

  I rounded back to command where Turner sat red-eyed and staring at the screen. “You should let me take over. How hard can it be?”

  “I slept.”

  “For how long?”

  “Mace and I traded off two-hour shifts.”

  “Like I said, you should sleep, like get real sleep. You’re not going to be any good to us if you’re sleep deprived. And for God’s sake, get out in the sun, do some PT.” I shoved him out of the chair.

  He rubbed his eyes. “Okay, but you know what to do, right? Check—”

  I swatted his hand away as he pointed at the screen. “I’ll wake you if there’s big news or in six hours, whichever comes first.”

  Sitting in front of a screen for six hours appealed to me as much as, I couldn’t even fathom, poking needles in my eyes maybe. But Turner and Mace needed sleep. With the exit of the Utah group, hunting could wait six hours. Besides, we had nothing else right then. No amnesty day had not been announced, and our coup plan hinged on them. What if it were a big farce? What if Butler planted the script to snare us?

  My mind swam with what-ifs. But I had to focus on what we knew. That was why I didn’t do tech. Too much sitting around searching for keywords, giving time for your brain to fill up with negative scenarios. I preferred being out in the woods, action jobs, to anything that resembled waiting. Even though I loathed killing animals, I would have given a lung for being in the forest hunting at that moment.

  I switched my attention back and forth between the satellite monitors, news feeds, and underground web they’d set up searches in. A song I didn’t recognize played from a radio behind me.

  “Turner said you were here. What are you doing?” Amelie’s voice made me jerk back.

  Setting a plate with a chunk of meat on it on the table, she sat down beside me. Behind her, Sadie sat on the ground, cradling her plate on her lap. I stood, offering her my chair. She waved me off, saying it kept her limber.

  Taking the seat, I turned to Amelie. “You saw Turner. He looks like the w
alking dead. He needs a break from these screens. Needs to sleep, eat, exercise somewhere that’s not here. I told him not to come back till noon.”

  She laughed. “Six hours in front of these screens and you’re going to need a straitjacket.”

  We discussed the food situation, and they said they would hunt after eating. Our stores had taken a small hit with the influx of people from Port Orford, but nothing we couldn’t recover from. They reported the West Virginia team would leave at sundown and the Kentucky team the next morning. My knee bounced, and I popped the last bite of duck in my mouth.

  “I hate our team being so spread out. Everyone is on their own. If we really are doing this, they’ll need at least fifteen hours to get to Des Moines from a border crossing in Utah. What if amnesty day falls on day thirty-one? It will be tight.” I picked up the CB radio and flipped it back and forth in my hand.

  Sadie stood and, taking my plate, set it on hers. “So, they’ll cross the border early and drive all day. We’ll figure it out. They have three trucks. There’s still time to reroute them. Don’t make yourself crazy. This isn’t all on you. It’s a safer plan with a better chance for success. Plus, we have eight more bodies. That’s ten percent.”

  “You’re right.” Pushing up from my seat, I folded the chair and rested it against the rock behind me. Movement would help. Noticing a box under the table, I set it on top and arranged the screens on top of it so I could stand and monitor all the sites. I put myself on a schedule, checking each item every fifteen minutes. Scanning the sites took ten minutes if nothing new showed up, and then I exercised for five minutes and repeated that pattern over and over. It helped me stay sane and feel like I was achieving something other than staring at a screen all day. I knew it was important, probably the most important job we had right then, but sitting idle didn’t work for me.

  Others—River, Shooter, Garrison, Ben, and Carl—came and went, and I stuck to my routine. Nearing noon, my stomach grumbled, and I crossed into the main passageway looking for a potential replacement candidate. Seeing Turner round the corner, my mood brightened. Even with scruffy cheeks, the sight of him made me happy.