GENERATION Z THE COMPLETE BOX SET: NOVELS 1-3

by Peter Meredith

  Jenn could practically read their thoughts and, sure enough, one after another they all agreed to go. She was about to say something when Jillybean dropped the hammer: “Since I can’t ask you to fight against your old friends, you will be weaponless and under guard the entire time.”

  Just like that, the gleams died and more than one whispered: “Weaponless? Is she crazy?”

  Not completely, thought Jenn. Jillybean had bent them over a barrel of their own making. An amphibious attack was one of the most difficult military operations. It took perfect timing, overwhelming firepower and surprise. They had none of these. It was one of the reasons Jenn had turned down the chance at putting her name on what was likely going to be a fiasco.

  Even with Jillybean planning the attack, Jenn was afraid they would suffer murderous casualties. Yes, she had her fancy scopes and her smoke bombs, but this time things weren’t going to be so easy. The biggest trouble they’d have would be the wind. All day long it had gusted mightily, swinging around from either the north or the west, and then it would die away altogether.

  Without a steady and gentle wind, the smoke bombs would be almost useless and if the wind died at the wrong time—Jenn could easily picture the wooden ships floating helplessly on a soft swell fifty yards from the island as the Corsairs raked them with machine gun fire. The three, thin-walled boats, crammed with frightened people would be perfect targets. It would be a slaughter of epic proportions.

  “We’ll need only five of you per boat,” Jillybean was saying to the Corsairs. “I will be leading the attack in the Tempest. Miss Rebecca will take the Rapier.” She paused, casting a sidelong look toward Jenn before adding, “And Jenn will take command of the Red Pill.”

  Jenn is commanding the what? Jenn thought, trying to keep her face neutral. Jenn doesn’t know anything about commanding a boat in a desperately foolish night attack—is what she wanted to say and if anyone else had said it, she wouldn’t have argued. No one did. Her crew of corpse-carriers only nodded their heads as if Jenn Lockhart had been leading attacks every other day since she was a toddler.

  “Now who wants to serve their queen properly?” Jillybean asked. Unsurprisingly, none of the Corsairs raised a hand. “What about you, Dustin? Are you or are you not a Queen’s man?”

  He wore a look that a weasel trapped by a dozen bloodhounds might wear. His eyes darted around, as if trying to see somewhere to run to.

  Ten-year-old Aaron Altman sneered at him and scoffed in his high, piping voice, “What do you expect, he’s a Corsair. I’ll fight with you, my Queen. I only have one arm, but it’s a pretty good one. I got two Corsairs yesterday.”

  “I always knew I could count on you, Aaron,” the Queen said, smiling at him. “A one-armed child is willing to fight for me. The question is, can I count on those adults who’ve knelt before me?” She refrained from glancing in Jenn’s direction. If she had, she would have seen Jenn glaring furiously. Instead, the Queen gazed expectantly at Dustin and his Corsairs, with a look that was a direct challenge to their manhood.

  “I’ll go,” Dustin Heilman said. The rest mumbled something similar.

  “Great. Choose fourteen others to go. We attack at midnight. Until then, carry on.” With a flourish of her long coat, she spun and began marching away.

  Jenn hurried to catch up. “Thanks for volunteering me. The Corsair gets a choice, but you just assume I want to go?”

  Jillybean kept walking. “Who else was I going to ask? Nathan Kittle? Manny Lopez? Miss Shay? Sorry, but we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel here, and we need Alcatraz. Yes, we have Treasure Island, which is the key to holding the southern part of the bay open, but we need Alcatraz. It dominates the northern part of the bay and it’s the only island in the bay that we can actually defend, long term. It’s the key to driving the Corsairs out of the city once and for all. They have to realize it as well, so we need to take the island before the Corsairs move to reinforce it. We need to take it tonight.”

  “So, what’s the plan?” It was a simple enough question, yet it stopped Jillybean in her tracks. She looked around with wide eyes; her mouth opening and closing. Jenn looked at her in alarm. “You do have a plan, don’t you?”

  “I-I do, but it’s the wind.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Everything is dependent on the wind and it’s being…noncompliant.”

  It was like a cold stone dropped into Jenn’s stomach. She knew their few advantages relied on the wind acting as an ally. Just then the cold wind had died completely away. “What do we do if it doesn’t, uh, become un-noncompliant?”

  “We attack anyway,” the Queen answered, her eyes spinning and looking very dark. “We don’t have a choice, Jenn. I know the casualties will be heavy, but it’s a necessity of war.”

  Jenn’s worst fears about Jillybean were coming true. She was on the verge of destroying the last remnants of what Jenn loved. Jenn’s one choice seemed to be following through with her threat and telling everyone the truth about Jillybean—but what if they didn’t listen to her? Or what if they didn’t care? Or what if they did listen and she was put in charge, for real?

  The thought was so frightening that Jenn couldn’t think straight. Before it had all been conjecture and bluff. Now it was real. “Necessity of war, right. Look…I need to use the bathroom. I’ll see you later.”

  She left Jillybean and hurried to the clinic, where she told a grey-faced Stu Currans and a hissing Mike Gunter, everything.

  “She’s right,” Stu said, to Jenn’s utter amazement. “Sorry, but it’s true. We need Alcatraz. She’s right about that. She’s just wrong at what price we should pay to take it.” Jenn’s mouth fell open and Stu smirked at it, saying, “Donna’s been doing a bit of eavesdropping. Eve is threatening to go through with the attack, ‘no matter what.’ We don’t think Jillybean is going to be able to control her for much longer.”

  Mike whispered something that sounded either like “jail” or “sail.” Jenn assumed he had said sail, however Stu said, “Colleen found an armory-like room that will double as a jail. I think we should wait to the last moment before we take her. It’ll ruin morale if it gets out.”

  It suddenly sunk in that they were going to arrest Jillybean. Jenn had known it was a possibility and yet she still found her guts twisting into knots over it. “Does that mean I’m going to be…” The word queen wouldn’t come from her softly opened mouth.

  “I hope so,” Stu said.

  Mike nodded and then went down on one knee. He kissed both of her hands. He tried to smile, only it turned into a grimace and he touched his throat, apologetically.

  Stu watched this without an expression on his washed-out face. He didn’t look like he had the energy for any expression beyond endless sadness. “I guess I’ll second it to make it official.” He tried to get out of his bed, but Jenn stopped him. She let him kiss her hand from his bed, not to lord being queen over him, but mainly to make an official clean break from Jillybean.

  Jenn left with their kisses still warm on her hand. It was pretty much the only thing she could feel as she went back to the chore of moving bodies. Thankfully, the work dulled her mind and the hours passed quickly until it was nearly time to board the boats.

  There were almost fifty people huddled in the cold around the docks and despite the chaotic winds, they were all in great spirits—all except the Corsairs, who stood off to one side guarded over by a few stern-faced women. Jillybean’s eyes were even more chaotic than the wind. The stress of the coming battle had her twitching and jumping at shadows.

  Just before midnight, the wind died down so that the black sails and the great white and gold flags sagged or tossed morosely back and forth. This was a sign to Jenn and she decided to give Jillybean one more chance. “Call off the attack. Or at least postpone it.”

  Jillybean shook head to toe before mastering herself. “No. That’s a decision we make once we’re in position. All we need is fifteen minutes of good wind and the island will be ours.”


  Donna overheard this and she hurried up. “Your highness, there’s a bit of an emergency in the clinic. It’s Stu. I think he’s going to kill himself.”

  This had to be the signal. Jillybean didn’t hesitate and ran, leaving Donna far behind. Jenn followed, but more slowly, trying to wrap her head around the fact she was about to be queen. The first time she had assumed the role, her anger had carried her through the initial stages. Now, she had only the certain knowledge that she was doing the right thing in arresting the girl who had, for a short time, been her best and only friend.

  The deed was done before Jenn could get there. With Stu distracting Jillybean, Mike had slapped a pair of handcuffs on her and then gagged her before she could even think about screaming.

  “I’m sorry,” Jenn said to her. “But this is really for the greater good.”

  “Now it’s your turn, my Queen,” Stu said. Confused, Jenn turned to Stu but before she could question what he was talking about, Mike had put a pair of cuffs on her as well. “What the hell are you…” He then gagged her as well.

  Chapter 21

  Stu Currans

  “Sorry,” Stu told Jenn as he locked her in the cage along with Jillybean. “We knew you’d throw a fit and we can’t have that.”

  Unlike Jillybean, her hands were cuffed in front of her; she pulled the tape from her mouth and demanded, “A fit about what? The fact that you just made me queen a few hours ago and now you kidnap me? Why would I throw a fit about that?”

  Stu didn’t have the energy for this. In fact, he didn’t have the energy for much of anything. It had only been twenty-four hours since he’d allowed most of his blood to pour out of him and although he’d had six liters of fluids pumped into him and had eaten close on a gallon of soup, he was still very weak.

  He cast a quick look at Mike as he said, “Never mind about what. We’ll release you when we get back.”

  Jillybean snorted and began shaking her head, but it was a full two seconds before Jenn’s eyes shot wide. “When WE get back?” she cried when the words finally sunk in. “Where the hell do you think you two are going?” The young men shared a guilty look and then both shrugged. “No! You can’t go. Neither of you. You’re both too hurt. I-I forbid it.”

  Another snort from Jillybean was easy for Stu to translate: They don’t respect your authority, Sister.

  Since everyone still thought that Jillybean was queen, Jenn didn’t really have any authority. “It’s for the best,” Stu told her. She looked to Mike; he had his eyes averted. “Locking you up was his idea,” Stu told her, “so don’t bother trying to change his mind. He loves you.”

  The three words hung awkwardly in the little room, much like a grand piano hanging from one leg by a spindly length of twine. It was as if everything could come crashing down at any moment. It had happened to Stu. He had been madly in love one moment and the next…

  He shook his head to clear it. Love was the last thing he wanted to think about just then. There were Corsairs to kill. “Come on, Mike,” he said, wishing to get out of there as fast as possible. But it wasn’t fast. Jenn was begging Mike to stay, her fingers grabbing his shirt through the bars. The tears in her eyes made her seem so young, so delicate.

  Jillybean had parked herself on a crate of ammo and was staring over her taped mouth at Stu. There was a weight of meaning in those eyes, but Stu refused to read them. He turned to Donna Polston, who was digging in a leather and rhinestone studded purse that had to have cost a thousand dollars back in the Before. Now, it was filled with apples, some quite mushy. With only one good hand, she was making a job out of the extraction.

  “Watch her,” he told Donna. “She’s tricky.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” she said, finding the least wizened apple in the purse. “The last time I took her for granted, she burnt down our hill. That won’t happen again. I have more than apples in this purse.”

  Stu glanced in and saw only apples. “Impressive,” he lied. “Mike, let’s go. I’m sorry, Jenn. People are going to start asking questions and if they find out about all of this, your reign will be over before it begins.”

  She went to kiss Mike again, when Jillybean nudged her shoulder and said, “Mmmhph. Muh-muh!”

  “Don’t let her say anything,” Stu snapped. “She’s got a poison tongue.” Jenn, looking somewhat stunned, started to nod in agreement. Jillybean became even more emphatic with her motions. She seemed to be trying to make some sort of connection between Jenn and Mike, jutting her chin at each in turn.

  Stu saw that Jenn was beginning to waiver. “Don’t,” he said—too late.

  Without the least inclination towards gentleness, Jenn ripped the tape from Jillybean’s mouth. “You better not say a single ugly thing,” Jenn warned the Queen as she worked her mouth around, “or I promise you I will bash your head in, cuffs or no cuffs.”

  “I just wanted to wish Mike good luck. And to tell him not to jerk his head violently around. You can yell as much as you can stand it, just do your best to keep your head as straight forward as possible.”

  Mike bobbed his head as way of saying “thank you.” He then glanced pointedly at Stu. When Jillybean said nothing, Jenn cleared her throat, loudly.

  “Oh, right,” Jillybean said. “Goodbye, Stu.”

  “That’s it?” Jenn cried, and then swung her cuffed hands like a bludgeon, hitting Jillybean in the shoulder and knocking her back a step. “Goodbye? You are such a bitch!”

  Jillybean, her eyes as clear as a bell, asked, “What do you want me to say? Do you want to me to tell him good luck when he’s only going on this mission to kill himself? Okay, fine. Good luck, Stu. I hope you get shot in the face this time.”

  Stu jerked as he felt the cold edge of embarrassment. He wanted to deny the charge, after all, it was only partially true. He wasn’t exactly suicidal, he just didn’t care whether he lived or died; it was a small but important difference in his mind. And who better to lead the attack than someone with that mindset?

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” he snarled. “I’m not all broken up over you and I’m not suicidal. I’m leading the assault because I care about my people. I’m trying to make sure they don’t die unnecessarily.”

  “Then call it off altogether,” Jillybean replied, hotly. “Any assault led by a man with a death wish and backed up by another who is practically a mute cripple is doomed to failure. You want to blame me for all of this, fine, but tonight the blood will be on your hands.”

  In his rage, Stu could feel his thin blood racing, but not in a good way. His left hand was completely numb and his right felt soft and weak. His head had become light and now the floor seemed to be tilting like a slow-motion see-saw. He needed to sit down, which would be all the confirmation Jillybean would need. She would turn smug and condescending, while at the same time Jenn would use his weakness as an excuse to break down Mike’s determination.

  If he sat down, Jillybean would be out of the cage in two minutes.

  “This is why I didn’t want you to take off the tape, Jenn,” he said, hiding his weakness behind an I’m so over this look. “She’s desperate and she’s spinning lies. I bet that’s not even her. I bet that’s Eve.”

  Jenn pulled Jillybean around, stared briefly into her face and declared: “No, it’s not her. This is Jillybean and she’s right. You look horrible and Mike…Mike, please don’t go. It’s battle. You’ll move your neck and you’ll rip your stitches, I know it.”

  “And then you’ll fix me,” he said in his whispering voice. “But if you get hurt, who will fix you? Don’t you see this makes sense?”

  It did make sense to her, but it was no consolation. Her misery was so great it looked as though she was the one who might collapse. Her tears were coming nonstop and her chest began to hitch, yet she surprised Stu by nodding and standing as tall as she could.

  “You’ll have to take care of Stu, as well,” Jillybean said, coldly. “I don’t want to touch him ever again. He’s already been a waste of
my time.”

  This finally began to pump some much needed rage-fueled adrenaline into his system. “The feeling is mutual. I’d rather die than have you anywhere near me.” With a last glare he left the armory, not quite storming out; he didn’t have the energy for storming anywhere.

  So how am I going to storm Alcatraz Island? “It’ll work itself out,” he mumbled under his breath as Mike caught up to him. Mike cast a look at him out of the corner of his eye so Stu walked straighter, not wanting to show the smallest amount of weakness.

  In no time the two were at the docks where fifty anxious people stood in a brittle frightened silence. These weren’t fighters. The last of the fighters had died the day before. These were the leftovers. But they would have to do.

  “What’s going on?” Rebecca whispered as the two came down the wooden dock. “Where’s the Queen? Is everything all right?”

  Stu raised his voice so that everyone could hear him. “The Queen can’t join us. I will be leading the attack and Mike will be taking Jenn’s place.” This was greeted with a dozen more questions as well as a good deal of alarm, which was understandable. So far, Jillybean seemed unstoppable. Everything she touched turned to gold, while Stu’s track record was mixed, at best.

  “Maybe we should wait,” Rebecca said. Before Stu could squash the idea, everyone was calling for the attack to be postponed.

  Everyone except Shaina Hale. She shouldn’t have even been there; she was no fighter. A soft, shaky fawn was a better descriptor. “W-What about Jenn? She can see the future. What did she say?”

  He couldn’t go with the truth. No one wanted to hear that. They wanted to know what the signs had told her and just then there was a fine sign, blowing gently from out of the north. “That we should look to the wind for guidance.” It felt as though this was only a quarter-lie. He pointed and, with dog-like obedience, the group turned to look into the wind.