by Greg Cox
“Keep moving, people!” The crowd pouring into the shelter pushed Roberta to the far end of the chamber, not far from the colossal television screen. Claustrophobia threatened as her elbow room swiftly evaporated, leaving her packed in tightly with too many people and even more guns. The hubbub of hushed and excited voices blended with the tearful cries of confused infants and children, over the omnipresent hum of powerful, industrial-strength air cleaners. Roberta was disturbed to see, standing only inches away from her, a cammo-clad young mother balancing a swaddled baby on one shoulder and a gleaming Remington hunting rifle on the other. Yikes! she thought, taken aback even after her eye-opening stint at Fort Cochise. Hope she doesn’t try to burp the wrong one!
So many bodies crammed into even so generous a space rapidly raised the temperature to a sweltering level, forcing Roberta to unzip her jacket in search of relief. Whatever Morrison is up to, she thought, fanning herself with her hand, I wish he’d get on with it. She stood on her tiptoes, searching the faces of the throng for the hawk-eyed militia leader, but could not see the general anywhere. I wonder where he is?
Instead, one of Morrison’s meaner-looking lieutenants, a beefy ex-cop named Dunbar, seemed to be in charge. Rumor around the base was that Dunbar had been kicked off the LAPD for excessive brutality—which was really saying something these days! Roberta found it ominous that the thuggish enforcer was taking [296] the lead in this morning’s sudden mobilization, presumably with Morrison’s offstage blessing.
“All right, people!” Dunbar shouted to get the crowd’s attention. He stood on top of a horizontal weapons locker in the northwest corner of the bunker, just to the side of the blank television screen. His light brown hair had been cut short, army-style, while his broad shoulders hinted at a past as a linebacker. He clutched the grip of a Beretta automatic pistol in his one hand while holding up a megaphone with the other. “Quiet down! The general has something to say!”
The noisy chatter subsided, aside from a few crying babies, as all eyes turned toward the back of the bunker where Dunbar was standing. The overhead lights dimmed, revealing the bright white glow of the blank screen. Static crackled, and the televised image of General Randall “Hawkeye” Morrison appeared before the hushed assemblage.
Larger than life, Morrison was seated behind his desk, looking like a president addressing the nation. Old Glory, replacing the antique flag shredded during Roberta’s raid on the office two months ago, was stretched on the wall behind his head and shoulders. His silver mirror shades reflected the blinking red light of the video camera while simultaneously sparing his audience the sight of his freakish avian eyes.
“My fellow free men and women,” he began solemnly, barely audible at first, until an unseen technician adjusted the volume. “It is my unfortunate duty to inform you that our final stand against the rapacious appetite of the Beast has already begun. Early this morning, at approximately [297] zero-one-hundred-thirty; Mountain Standard Time, Freemen Clayton Porter and Butch Connors, acting on my orders, attempted to strike a heroic blow against the one-world state by attacking both ends of the so-called Eurotunnel between London and Paris.”
A few enthusiastic whoops and cheers rose up from some of the slower members of the audience, who clearly failed to pick up on the general’s doleful tone. Roberta herself held her breath, hoping that Seven had dealt with the threat just as effectively as she expected. The rest of the crowd waited tensely to hear what Morrison said next, holding on tightly to their guns and offspring.
“I have no doubt that Freemen Porter and Connors strove to carry out their duty to the best of their abilities. The Army of Eternal Vigilance is honored by their commitment and courage. However, as each passing hour brings no word of success overseas, nor any fresh communications with our valiant soldiers abroad, I must reluctantly conclude that the mission has failed and that our security has been compromised.”
Gasps greeted Morrison’s dire pronouncement, followed by muttered curses and sobs. Next to Roberta, the rifle-packing young mother bit down on her trembling lower lip, a single teardrop leaking from the corner of her eye. “Don’t worry,” she whispered hoarsely to her child, her moist eyes agleam with maternal fervor. “Mommy won’t let the Beast put his Mark on you.”
Roberta didn’t know whether to be touched or terrified. Maybe a little bit of both, she thought.
“Alerted to our intentions and military capabilities,” Morrison continued, “the enemy will surely [298] counterattack, probably before the sun rises. Knowing our resolve, they will have no choice but to obliterate us utterly, lest the last, lingering spark of our fearless resistance ignite an inferno that will ultimately consume them.”
“Let them come!” someone yelled defiantly, waving his rifle above his head. Others seconded his strident call to battle, flaunting their own weapons. “We’re ready for them.”
Oh my! Roberta thought in alarm, suddenly feeling as though she were literally standing in the middle of a powder keg on the verge of exploding. For a second, she almost forgot that, chances were, there were no evil black helicopters zooming toward Fort Cochise at this very moment; the threat was all in Morrison’s deluded mind—and in the minds of those who followed him blindly.
Not that it really matters, she realized. The situation was dangerous and volatile enough even without the added complication of a real-life United Nations strike force. Her mind raced through scenario after scenario, trying to figure out the best way to defuse the crisis—and keep the AEV from destroying itself, and possibly many others, in a blaze of gunfire.
Reacting to the belligerent war cries of his army, Morrison shook his head mournfully. “As much as my heart tells me to go on fighting, even against overwhelming odds, my head tells me that we do not stand a chance against the full fury of the Beast. Our adversary has had many generations to marshal its satanic forces, whereas we, for all our valor, are not yet ready to win this war.”
What’s this? Roberta thought, feeling an unexpected [299] flicker of hope. Was the general finally coming to his senses, more or less? She crossed her fingers, praying that maybe Morrison would instruct his soldiers to stand down and disperse. All around her, the gathered recruits looked puzzled and uneasy about the defeatist direction in which their leader seemed to be heading. Tough luck, Roberta consoled them, both silently and sarcastically. No revolution today.
Or so she hoped.
“But there is still a way,” Morrison declared, with a maniacal intensity that chilled Roberta’s blood, extinguishing her short-lived hopes of a peaceful resolution, “that will send a message to our enemy and inspiration to our allies. Over two thousand years ago, on a mountaintop in ancient Palestine, another band of freedom fighters stood opposed to the New World Order of their day, the fearsome Roman Empire. They were the Zealots and their mountain fortress was called Masada.”
No! Roberta thought, realizing in horror where Morrison was going with this. He can’t be serious!
“When the voracious Roman legions finally overran the mountain,” Morrison declaimed, his voice quaking with emotion, “they discovered that every one of the fortress’s defenders, over one thousand unconquerable souls, had taken their own lives rather than live as slaves to the Empire. Two millennia later, Masada is still remembered as an undying symbol of freedom and courage. Today, Fort Cochise will enter history as well.”
There’s a difference, you bird-brained maniac! Roberta thought angrily, tempted to blow a hole in the screen with her servo before Morrison could utter another [300] manic-depressive word. The ancient Zealots really were fighting an all-powerful empire out to conquer the world. Morrison wanted to sacrifice his troops to spite a global conspiracy that existed only in his fevered imagination.
She looked around worriedly at the faces surrounding her. Were Morrison’s people buying into this? She saw a few heads nodding in agreement, but more expressions of shock and betrayal. People turned to their neighbors in confusion, searching for confirmation of their ow
n doubts. A murmur of dissent, subdued, even surreptitious at first, quickly grew in anger and intensity. “The general’s lost it!” a middle-aged man near Roberta said, outraged indignation in his voice. His waxed handlebar mustache quivered with emotion; he wore a flak jacket over his khaki T-shirt and boxer shorts.
“Damn straight!” an auburn-haired woman in an ankle-length nightshirt chimed in. She looked to Roberta for support. “Do you believe this, honey?”
“Nope,” Roberta said honestly.
“I don’t know,” the woman with the infant said. To Roberta’s dismay, the tearful young mother looked genuinely undecided. “I don’t want anybody to put a computer chip in my baby’s brain.” She rocked the child gently as she spoke. “Maybe he’d be better off dead. ...”
“Don’t you believe it, sweetie!” the other woman admonished her passionately. “If you want to keep your youngster safe from the Beast, then praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.” She raised her voice so the whole room could hear her. “We won’t go down without a fight!”
[301] Dozens of other voices echoed her sentiments. Atop the green, army-surplus weapons locker, Freeman Dunbar shifted his weight uneasily, perhaps sensing the mood of the crowd turning against his leader. “That’s enough!” he bellowed into the megaphone. “Everybody, quiet down and listen to the general!”
He raised his Beretta in a menacing manner.
Big mistake.
Within a heartbeat, a veritable militia of muzzles turned toward the arrogant ex-cop. It dawned on Roberta that, if you were trying to organize a mass suicide, there were probably easier crews to control than a concrete bunker packed with trigger-happy gun nuts. For all his superpowered smarts, she thought, I think Morrison misread his own corps. She checked out the stubborn disposition of the crowd. These people aren’t just going to lay down and die. They’d rather reenact the Alamo than Masada.
If Morrison was aware of the brewing insurrection in the bomb shelter, he gave no sign of it. “I do not ask this sacrifice of you lightly,” he said from the screen, raising his hand to salute his soldiers, “but know that America—and the world—will never forget what we do here today.”
He raised a remote control from his desk and clicked a button, causing two things to happen almost simultaneously. The screen went blank and, several yards behind Roberta, a heavy iron door slammed down, trapping them all inside the bunker. Uh-oh, Roberta thought. This doesn’t look good.
The shocked militia reacted with an outpouring of fear and anger. An ugly mob stormed the front of the [302] shelter, dragging Dunbar down from atop the weapons locker and threatening him with bloody murder if he didn’t open the door immediately. “I can’t!” he protested helplessly, already sporting a black eye and busted lip. “Only the general can!”
At the rear of the bunker, other distraught militia members attacked the iron door directly, pounding on it with their fists and the butts of their rifles. “Let us out!” they pleaded with anyone who might be listening on the other side of the adamantine steel barrier, but neither their cries nor their blows had any effect on the unbudging iron. “Please, for God’s sake, get us out of here!”
Despite all the noisy tumult, a peculiar silence troubled Roberta. It took her a second to realize what was missing: for the first time in weeks, she wasn’t hearing the steady drone of the fort’s ubiquitous air cleaners. Ohmigod, she thought. No wonder Morrison had us all herded into this shelter. He wants to asphyxiate us! She kicked herself mentally for underestimating Morrison, and for not seeing this coming. How else do you exterminate an entire campful of heavily armed men and women?
For a moment, she feared that the insane general planned to take them all out with the same nerve gas he used in Geneva. Roberta sniffed the air nervously, but did not detect any sort of chemical odor. Nor were her eyes or throat burning in any way. Perhaps, she prayed, after several tense seconds passed, Morrison wasn’t willing to inflict that nasty a fate upon his own people. No, he’s just going to suffocate us instead, she guessed indignantly. What a sweetheart!
Was she just imagining it, or was the air in the [303] crowded bunker already growing thin? In any event, she knew that, without any sort of ventilation, the bunker would turn into an airless deathtrap in no time at all, especially with so many lungs to support. “The situation is officially out of control,” she murmured, her sotto voce observation going unheard amidst the general chaos. “Time to play my trump card.”
Gladly dropping her shotgun onto the floor (after making sure the safety mechanism was fully engaged), she pulled her servo from her pocket. A crackle of blue energy flickered as its twin antennae sprang outward. Roberta adjusted the collar ring on the servo’s midsection, setting it to just the right frequency, then fired off a single short signal.
Boom!
In actuality, stuck as she was in a soundproof bomb shelter with a throng of loudly rampaging hostages, she couldn’t really hear the explosive charge as it went off, elsewhere in the labyrinthine mines beneath the old ghost town, but she could readily imagine it blowing apart the electronic innards of Morrison’s imported force field generator.
It had taken her literally weeks of snooping, but she had finally discovered the hidden location of the high-tech, transporter-foiling device that General Morrison had horse-traded for with Khan. It had required even further late-night skulking to discreetly rig the generator to explode when she gave the right signal.
Now to see if all her prior efforts had truly paid off. “Three-six-eight to 194,” she whispered urgently into the servo, hoping she could once again contact [304] Seven. There was a seven-hour time difference between Arizona and the U.K., so hopefully Seven would have finished his business in the Chunnel by now, “Three-six-eight to 194, please come in.”
“One-nine-four to 368,” his familiar voice replied. Roberta breathed a sigh of relief. “Good to hear from you again.”
“Right back at you,” she told him sincerely. “Everything go okay over there?”
“The threat has been averted,” he assured her, confirming Morrison’s worst expectations. “What is your status?”
Roberta figured she could pump him for the full scoop on his Chunnel mission later on, after she dealt with the present crisis. “I need an emergency point-to-point transport,” she stated, zapping him the necessary coordinates. “But, first, there’s something else we have to do. ...”
All around her, frantic people were rapidly approaching the breaking point. Sobs, screams, vociferous prayers, and angry recriminations bounced off the concrete walls of the bunker, scraping at the frazzled nerves of Roberta and everyone else trapped inside the overcrowded shelter. She heard fights breaking out between Morrison’s steadfast supporters and those who felt betrayed by their onetime leader. Nobody had started shooting yet, but she figured it was only a matter of time.
An emotionally charged situation. Overwrought people. Too many guns. Roberta knew a potential bloodbath when she saw one, so she explained to Seven exactly what was required.
Within seconds, a distinctive blue mist began to permeate the stuffy atmosphere of the bunker. The [305] phosphorescent azure haze swiftly engulfed the interior of the shelter, like a heavy fog rolling in from some strange radioactive sea. The unnatural phenomenon momentarily hushed the crowd, that, unlike Roberta, did not recognize the static tingle of the mist against their skin. Unavoidably, however, it quickly became a fresh source of anxiety and alarm.
“We’re being gassed!” a horrified militiaman shouted, understandably if inaccurately.
“Nobody fire their weapon!” someone else shouted in a panic. “You could set the whole place off!”
Roberta regretted giving the frightened crowd one more thing to be scared of, but saw no way around it. The transporter fog was providing a needed function, which would increase everyone’s safety in the long run. Just hang on, folks! she urged her freaked-out neighbors silently. This won’t hurt a bit, I promise!
Fortunately, for the trapp
ed hostages’ peace of mind, the eerie blue mist disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, leaving behind a bunker full of confused and disoriented people. “What in Sam Hill ... ?” muttered the older woman in the nightdress.
“Transport accomplished,” Seven declared via the servo.
“Great,” Roberta said, feeling a whole lot safer all of a sudden. And none too soon; she found herself on the verge of gasping, taking deep, gulping breaths to secure ever smaller quantities of oxygen. Scanning the people around her, she saw many of the bunker’s other prisoners were breathing hard as well, some of them looking more than a little faint, particularly the ones she knew to be heavy smokers. The air’s already getting pretty thin in here, she realized. I’m running out of time—and oxygen.
[306] Unfortunately, her whispered conversation with Seven caught the ear of the anguished young mother beside her. “Hey!” she shouted harshly, eyeing Roberta with jittery suspicion. “What are you doing?” Hugging her baby with one arm, she swung up the barrel of her Remington until the muzzle was pointed directly at Roberta’s head. “Over here!” the militia madonna shrieked loud enough for the whole bunker to hear. “I’ve caught a spy or something! She’s talking to someone on her pen!”
Roberta instantly felt like Veronica Cartwright at the end of the 70’s version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, exposed and surrounded by pod people. A small arsenal of guns turned toward her, backed up by a sea of hostile, paranoid faces. “Put down that gadget, lady!” growled a surly-looking individual in full combat gear. Roberta recognized him as one of the militia members who was beating up Dunbar only a few minutes ago. “Hand it over or I’ll shoot, I swear it!”