Motion along the fence caught Erin’s eye. “I think someone’s coming. Do they walk around on guard duty?”
“I guess they do. I have to get back in my tent until he’s gone past.”
Joy disappeared, and Erin carefully backed up ten yards or so. As she watched through her night-vision goggles, a man walked slowly along the fence, carrying an AR-15. Erin couldn’t shake the feeling that he could see her as well as she could see him, but of course without goggles that was not possible.
The guard having passed, Erin met Joy at the fence again. “Have they gotten into the gun safes yet?”
Joy shook her head. “No, but not for lack of trying. Those are some solid boxes you guys have. They were looking for a wedge and sledge—I’m pretty sure that’s what they said—but couldn’t find one. Actually, they were complaining that there was a lot of stuff missing. Adam was screaming at everyone and threatening to start shooting people. The guy is seriously deranged. Anyway, I think they’re going to try a swap now—Kevin for the keys. But first they have to find you.”
“They know Richard and Bill are out in the field, although they won’t know Bill’s status. We’ve gone radio silent, so they won’t have any more info. We can maintain silence—”
“I overheard them talking. Some of them want to take the ultralight up, find out where your group is, then drop a few of Kevin’s fingers down to them. Or if they can get communications with you, they’ll hurt him on the air, then make demands. These guys are seriously wackadoodle.”
“Thanks, Joy. We’re making plans, but it may take a few days. Hang in there.”
“You can’t just start shooting them through your gate?”
“As you said, they’ll hurt Kevin. They also might start shooting people randomly, sort of an eye-for-an-eye thing. We have to take them out all at once, and I’m not sure yet how we’re going to do that.”
“Got it. I’ll keep my ears open. Come by any time for updates.”
“Thanks, Joy. See you later.”
Erin backed away from the fence until she was close to where she thought the gate would be. A hsst and a sliver of goggle glow through the gate helped her zero in. In seconds, she was back in the warehouse.
Suzie turned off the gate at a command from Monica, then turned on the lights.
“Well?” Monica said.
“Guys with guns, led by Adam. About a dozen. They’ve got Kevin, and Adam is apparently crazy enough to hurt or even kill people, at least to hear him talk. This will have to be a surgical strike.” Erin shook her head. “I can’t believe I just said that.”
“Get used to it, buttercup. It’s a new world now.”
82. Counterpoint
August 13
Bill looked up as the pole-cam faded in. “Is this a social call?”
“Nope. It’s just one thing after another back in Rivendell,” Richard said. “The shitheads we were worried might try something, tried something. They’ve basically taken over the camp at gunpoint.”
“Well, that’s stupid. Now they’ll have to constantly guard everyone.”
“No one has accused Adam and his friends of being smart. Nasty and moronic is more their speed.”
“Okay. We have most of the weapons, though.”
“And they have a campful of hostages. Including Kevin. He was the only G.O. member in town because of everything else that’s happening, which probably explains their timing.”
“Great. Well, there’s not much more I can do at this point. I have another interview scheduled for this morning. Maybe if they take too long to come for me, I’ll get you to gate me into the lieutenant’s office.”
“And get yourself shot?”
“Probably not. But things have hit the fan. We need to turn up the heat.”
Richard nodded and motioned for the gate to be closed.
“Good morning, honored guest. Rise and shine!”
Bill opened one bleary eye to see Corporal Chavez glaring down at him. She was obviously enjoying this.
Block. Parry. Riposte.
Bill sat up, reached under the hard, wooden bench on which he’d barely slept—Chavez stepped back, while reaching for her sidearm—and pulled out a large foil bag, prominently labeled “NABOB Full City Dark.” He handed it to her and said, “Give this to your boss. Let me know when coffee is ready.”
He smiled as innocently as possible and laid back down. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Chavez staring at the bag in her hand. The guard at the door was also staring. Bill was pretty sure he could have walked right out and no one would have noticed.
Chavez turned and, with the bag held out in front of her like a live bomb, walked slowly out the door. The guard closed the door without once looking at Bill.
Game, set, match, he thought with satisfaction, and closed his eyes.
There was a knock, and Corporal Chavez opened the door. “When you’re ready, the lieutenant would like to see you.”
“Ready now,” Bill replied, and stood up. Much better.
When they got to Lieutenant Collins’s office, he was sitting in his desk chair, slumped back, slowly sipping coffee. The expression on his face said, in a way no words could, that this was not the same crap as yesterday.
Stevenson stood near the desk, holding a cup as well. He looked almost afraid to taste it.
Chavez saluted the lieutenant and made a beeline for the coffeepot. She poured one for Bill, one for herself, and indicated to the guard that he should help himself. The look on the guard’s face said he’d marry her right there.
“I gave the rest of the coffee to the troops,” Lieutenant Collins said. “Right now, if you ran for president, they’d all vote for you.”
Bill grinned. “Same thing I do every night: Try to take over the world.”
The lieutenant sighed. “I’m not even going to ask. About the reference, I mean. The coffee, I will ask about. Starting with, is there more?”
“Crap-tons,” Bill said. “As I’ve said on more than one occasion, I live not only for coffee, but on coffee. Plus we have the loot—er, salvaged merchandise—from the Walgreens, if you just want regular coffee.”
“Okay, Bill, I haven’t missed that you getting the coffee means you could have left by the same method. So I’m prepared to negotiate seriously. What are you looking for?”
“Um, well, we do have an immediate situation with some jerks who’ve taken over Rivendell and have crowned themselves kings, or barons, or something. We could use some help with that. Other than that, we don’t really have anything in the way of demands. Most of us would prefer to go back to the way things used to be. Failing that, we just want to survive. And save as many other people as we can find.”
“Do you still consider yourselves part of America?” Lieutenant Collins asked.
“Until someone tells us different. We’re not trying to secede, if that’s what you mean. But it also doesn’t mean we want to limit rescue to Americans. If we can get to the citizens of any other countries, that’s good, too.”
“What about coming back to this side, if and when?”
Bill considered his options, then decided to go with a blunt appraisal. “Best case, everything clears up, the weather washes most of the ash away, and ecosystems aren’t too badly damaged, we’d still be faced with a social and technological breakdown a couple of years deep. Our geology major gave us her guess that up to half the global population will be dead before we dig ourselves out.”
Lieutenant Collins didn’t look surprised at this statement. Slightly encouraged, Bill continued, “Worst case, the climate doesn’t recover for decades. We end up with sub-arctic tundra and bogs down to the tropics. In that case we could be back to pre-industrial-era populations. We might be able to come back within our lifetimes, but I’m not going to depend on it, and I’m certainly not willing to push it.”
The lieutenant nodded slowly. “We have a geologist in the refugee group, and he said something very similar.” He hesitated. “I’m going t
o make this optional for the troops. They can have an honorable discharge, effective immediately, or they can continue to serve. If they choose the latter, we’ll be on indefinite detached duty, protecting what could end up being the last known outpost of America. Until and unless we find others, then it’s up for renegotiation. Good?”
Bill smiled. “Good. I don’t think we’ll need a general vote, since we’ve always taken in anyone we find, but you’ll want to confirm your status with the Planning Committee.”
“Good enough. So how do we proceed?”
Richard’s voice came from a camera suspended in the air in the corner of the room. “First thing we need to do is get rid of Adam and his squad.”
Lieutenant Collins jerked as he spotted the small circle of differently colored air with a camera hanging in the middle. “Impressive. It’s been theoretical until now. That’s how they found you?”
Bill noticed that Private Stevenson was grinning from ear to ear. Some people just get it.
Richard continued, “We’ll bow to your expertise, of course, in getting rid of the infestation. But the first step is to get into the immediate area. If you have the vehicles, you can drive to our warehouse on this side, then we’ll get you across. After that it’s up to you.”
Collins turned to Chavez. “Corporal, see to it.” He turned back to Bill. “We have some personnel with sniper experience. This sounds like a situation where deadly force is justified.”
“Keep in mind that they effectively have a townful of hostages. Including our friend Kevin, who is the only person who really understands the gates.”
Chavez showed her teeth. “Leave it to us. These guys sound like they need killing.”
Bill’s eyebrows went up. “Jeez, you remind me of someone.”
Once a decision had been made, the Guard wasted no time getting ready. In short order, they had a caravan assembled, which consisted of three Hummers with mounted machine guns.
Bill pointed at the ordnance. “Kind of heavily armed for disaster management, aren’t you?”
Lieutenant Collins laughed. “Those are army units. There’s a whole story behind how we ended up with them. Maybe sometime I’ll tell you how I spent my summer vacation.” The lieutenant paused to look back at the hangar. “We’ve got some personnel carriers for the refugees. The staff I’ve left behind will organize them for transfer to your warehouse address as soon as we give the all-clear. I don’t want them anywhere near the action until it’s over, though.”
Bill nodded and climbed into the lead Hummer with the lieutenant.
The trip was uneventful. Even if there had been legions of looters patrolling downtown Lincoln, they wouldn’t have wanted to tangle with a fully armed and equipped National Guard platoon.
In very little time, they arrived at the address that Bill had specified. They stopped the caravan, and Bill, Lieutenant Collins, and Corporal Chavez got out.
The first thing Bill noticed were two corpses lying in the ash. From the look of them, they’d been there for about a day. The manner of death was graphically obvious, especially in the case of the one missing half his head.
Lieutenant Collins looked at Bill and raised an eyebrow in silent inquiry.
Bill swallowed to try to calm his heaving stomach, then looked away. “I recognize those assholes. I knew they were back, but I’m not sure how they ended up dead on the street. My money’s on Monica.”
Chavez raised her rifle as three people came around one of the buildings. “S’okay, Corporal,” Bill said. “They’re with us.”
“Hey, sunshine,” Monica called. “Brought a party, did you?”
Bill gestured to the corpses without looking directly at them. “Looks to me like you had one of your own. What happened?”
Monica glanced aside at Erin and the third girl. Bill recognized her as the blonde who had seemed very interested in Richard.
“It’s a long story, Bill. But these cretins apparently survived in Outland for a while. They killed Pete and Phil and took Erin and Suzie hostage. Fuckers needed shooting.”
Collins stepped forward. “These aren’t part of the group that’s holding Rivendell right now?” And as an aside to Bill, “This is who Chavez reminds you of?”
“No, different group,” Monica said. “Seems like all the cockroaches decided to come out at the same time.”
“So I understand you have some of these interdimensional gates that we can use for recon?” Chavez asked.
Monica tilted her head toward the warehouse. “Yep. C’mon, I’ll show you our hoard.”
“Remember, Corporal,” Collins said, “no night-vision assets, so we’ll have to do this the hard way.”
Bill and Monica laughed in sync. “Got that covered, too,” Bill said.
83. Counterstrike
Collins was sitting down with a coffee when Chavez came into the kitchenette. She drew a cup and sat down across from him. There was silence as she took a slow, appreciative sip.
“I can’t quite figure these people out,” Chavez said. “They don’t have the jingoistic chest-thumping attitude of preppers, but Holy God do they have inventory! Puts us to shame, honestly.”
“This Albertelli woman sounds kind of prepperish.”
“Yes and no.” Chavez paused to take another sip, then looked at the cup. “Damn, I could get used to this. Um, anyway, Monica is a product of an almost all-male household. Remind you of anyone?” She grinned at the lieutenant, and he chuckled. “So she’s learned to behave aggressively. Always push back, always pay back. But she doesn’t really have the paranoid streak you need to make a good prepper.”
“Rustad has that,” Collins said.
“Yeah, but for all the wrong reasons. To him, it’s a great big LARP campaign. I don’t think he even really believed we might shoot him when we were holding him. Nice guy, but he’s going to get a wake-up call someday, and it’s going to hurt.”
Collins was silent for a moment as he considered his coffee. “Bea, these people are organized and well-supplied. I’m amazed at the level of preparedness. But as you say, no real-world experience.” He looked at her over his cup. “I’m not prepared to write off the U.S.A. just yet, but in terms of hunkering down for a while, I don’t think we’re going to find better.”
“Agreed, sir. But with who in charge? Are we going to walk in and take over?”
“Let’s not borrow trouble yet. Take care of the immediate problem, then we’ll see if they have an overall organization that I’m comfortable with. And on that subject, what do we have?”
“Well, good news, they have night-vision equipment, so a night op is possible. Bad news, they don’t have enough gates for us to move in with a surgical strike. Intel from Albertelli and Savard says the hostiles are too spread out to take out all at once with a single squad. So we’ll need to cross over, move into positions while maintaining radio discipline, and hit in a coordinated fashion. Albertelli’s opinion of the head creep is that he’ll shoot civilians out of spite if he knows he’s under attack.”
“Got it. Do we have enough personnel to cover this?”
“Not experienced ones. We’ve got a couple of snipers for the outside guards. Couple of others who’ve been blooded, but most of our troops …” She shrugged. “Part-timers.”
“Suggestions?”
“Well, Monica, er, Albertelli wants to help.”
“A civilian? No way!”
“Seriously, sir, she just finished taking down two bad actors who kidnapped her friends. She’s past the freezing stage.”
“How’s her marksmanship?”
“According to her friends, scary good. And we really could use an embedded local to help sort it out if things go hinky.”
“Hmph. Okay, Chavez. Last resort, and only in a minimal-exposure situation. And if we have to go in hot, she steps back. Make sure she understands that.”
“Understood, sir.” Chavez opened a notebook. “Now, deployments. Here’s the layout …”
Bill unplugged
the cable from the portal box, and the view through the eight-inch gate wavered and died. “Okay, we’re clear.” After removing the night-vision goggles from his face, he pulled the tablet from the carrying case and poked at the control app. The glow from the screen lit up the darkness of the warehouse parking lot. “And properly shut down.”
Chavez removed her night-vision goggles and turned on a flashlight. “Four hostiles, two hostages in the shed. One is your friend Kevin, I think. This will require coordination. And both of the six-foot gates.”
“Which means we have to send the other squad through first, then move the gates,” said Bill. “This is getting complicated.”
Monica punched Bill in the shoulder. “Piece of cake, sunshine.”
“Monica …”
Monica gave Chavez a glance. “I know, Bea, I’ll take it seriously. Promise.”
Chavez glared back, then let her expression soften. “I think you showing up will have some psychological advantage, otherwise I’d put you on the sniper team. But I’ll pull you entirely if you give me reason to be nervous.”
“Got it. No grandstanding.”
The two women smiled at each other, and Bill rolled his eyes. “Jeez, get a room. OUCH.”
Monica spared him an evil smile as she withdrew the fist.
Schmidt couldn’t help the occasional swagger as he walked the perimeter. The sheeple were all in their tents, per orders from Management. He grinned to himself. Who would have guessed that an exploding volcano would usher in a chance to be a king? Well, okay, it was a pretty common post-apocalyptic theme. It was even discussed on the autonomist and revolutionary forums—what kinds of takeover would work best in different scenarios. And this was textbook. Almost, anyway. They could use a few more bodies in Management. Maybe after another week or two of being labor, more people would decide to request a promotion.
A noise, just outside the fence. Probably some stupid prehistoric animal, not smart enough to avoid the new top predators. Schmidt turned and pulled his flashlight out of his pocket, just as there was a pop—
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