Overthrown II: The Resurrected (Overthrown Trilogy Book 2)

by Judd Vowell

  But ever since Henry had come back, no one. Not a hungry vagabond looking for food, not a group of “hunters” like they had faced on their journey, not even some of the rebels traveling to join the fight against ANTI‑. I was beginning to wonder just how quickly the world’s population could have decimated itself.

  It was during one of those afternoon ponderings that I heard a noise I hadn’t heard in two years. It was familiar, but unbelievable. I told myself that my ears were tricking me, that it must be something more natural, but it continued to grow louder. Chance had been lying next to me on the back porch, calmly resting, but the sound brought her to her feet, her ears perked to attention. It was the sound of trucks, rumbling along a roadway, such a solitary noise that it pierced the still air from far away. I hurried around to the front of the house, with Chance trotting next to me. We found Henry standing in the front grass, a rifle over his shoulder and binoculars held to his eyes.

  He must have heard us coming up to him, as he spoke without moving or bringing the binoculars down. “It’s them, Mom,” he said resolutely.

  “It’s who, Henry?” I asked.

  Without any change in expression, he answered me. “It’s ANTI‑.”

  13.

  T here were four military vehicles outside the farm’s gate, all a glossy black color, but stained with a long journey’s road grime. They were parked askew in front of the gate, spread out so that we could see each of them clearly. Their doors opened, seemingly all at once. The men that exited the vehicles were dressed alike, wearing black military-style fatigues and close-fitting helmets with masks so that their faces were hidden. I immediately thought of the Omega XT soldiers that Henry had described. That’s when fear washed over me.

  The soldiers moved into what looked like a formation, with six of them stationing themselves at the edge of the road and the others surrounding the four vehicles. Then another man appeared, sliding out of the closest vehicle. He wasn’t dressed like the others. Instead, he was wearing a stylish suit, dark but not as black as the Omega XT uniforms. Under it, he wore a stark white shirt and a tie the same color as his suit. He straightened his clothes as he got out of the vehicle, flexing his back and buttoning his coat. He looked unaffected from the long trip he had apparently taken. A professional traveler, I thought.

  Chance began to bark and growl at the men, even though they were still hundreds of feet away. I could feel Henry trembling with rage next to me. In my peripheral vision, I saw him remove the rifle from its strapped position over his right shoulder and raise its scope to his eye, all in one motion. I reached my right hand over to the gun and grasped its barrel, lowering it from its aim at the end of the driveway.

  “No, son,” I said softly. “Wait.”

  “Mom, let go!” He said it sharply, as if I was putting our lives at risk.

  “There’s nothing to fear, Henry. Not yet.” I squinted my eyes and watched as the man in the suit walked up to the edge of the barred gate. His gait confirmed what I already knew, the way he walked unmistakable. He moved with a barely-visible limp as if one of his legs was just a bit heavier than the other. I knew that walk too well, much better than Henry did. The Omega XT soldiers waited in position behind him, their hands on their weapons.

  “What are you talking about?” Henry said, his tone growing angrier.

  “That man at the gate,” I said.

  “Yeah?” Henry asked dubiously.

  “That’s your grandfather.”

  PART THREE: STRIKE

  1.

  A nna, Jacob, Jessica, Archer, and Laz needed to leave the deserted Camp Overlord quickly. With Salvador’s soldiers most likely following them, they couldn’t afford to spend much time exploring the aftermath of the rebellion’s first battle. Jacob asked Anna where the next closest Lefty camp was, and she answered northwest, near Kansas City. “It’s not only a camp,” she said. “It’s our home base.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Jacob said. “Let’s go.”

  Jessica hesitated as the others started walking back to their vehicles. She couldn’t take her eyes off her family’s motto that had been spray-painted on a battle-broken wall, seemingly transformed into a Lefty battle cry. Anna went back to her and put her arm around Jessica’s shoulders.

  “I’ve tried not thinking about them,” Jessica said. “But now I can’t. What if Henry survived? What if he made it back home? I know it’s probably not true, but what if it is?”

  “I think you should believe that it is true, Jessica,” Anna told her. “If you feel better believing that he made it, then believe it.”

  “I have to go home,” Jessica said urgently. “I have to see.”

  “You know we can’t,” Anna said. “We can’t risk it, and we don’t have enough fuel for a detour. We have to protect ourselves. We have to get to safety. If Henry and your mom are still alive, you’ll be with them again. But not now, Jessica. We need to go, while we still can.”

  Jessica dropped her head and began to cry. “I guess,” she said.

  Anna led her to the humvee and into its backseat, where Jessica laid down and closed her eyes.

  “She’ll be alright,” Anna said to Jacob as she got in and pulled the back door closed. “She’s too strong not to be.”

  Jacob got behind the wheel of the humvee while Archer and Laz loaded into the ambulance. They headed northwest from Overlord, on a path that would take them to Kansas City and the American Liberation Effort’s headquarters.

  ΔΔΔ

  They had traveled 260 miles before the ambulance ran out of gas. Jacob watched it slow down in his rearview mirror until it jerked to a stop. He looked at the gauge for the humvee’s secondary gas supply. It was still registering at just over three-quarters of a tank. That meant another three hundred miles, which would put them close to their destination.

  He eased his foot off the humvee’s gas pedal and turned the steering wheel until he was driving in the opposite direction, back toward the stranded ambulance. Jessica and Anna were asleep in the backseat.

  “Wake up, guys,” Jacob said.

  “What’s up?” Jessica asked as she sat up quickly and rubbed her eyes.

  “The boys are out of gas. Time to make room.”

  They had known this moment would come. The humvee was equipped with a reserve gas tank, and the ambulance wasn’t. They were on a desolate stretch of highway somewhere in southern Missouri when it happened, with the sun at its highest point in the sky. So far, they had seen no signs of pursuit from ANTI-. But Jacob knew better than to let his guard down.

  “Need a lift?” Jacob asked as he pulled up next to Archer and Laz.

  “Appears that we do,” Archer said.

  Jacob shifted the humvee into park and got out. “First, we’ve got to get rid of this evidence,” he said, pointing to the ambulance.

  “C’mon, Marsh," Laz said from the driver seat. "There's no way the Omega XT are still following us. Not this far outside the grid."

  “I know what the Omega XT protocol is, but let’s just assume that I also know more about Salvador than you do,” Jacob said. “We’re not taking any chances, got it?”

  Laz nodded, then opened the ambulance door and shifted it into neutral. Archer and Jacob pushed the vehicle while Laz steered it into the overgrown brush just off the highway. After they let go, it rolled on its own another ten feet until it was covered in limbs and leaves.

  “Happy?” Laz asked.

  “Yeah, I’m happy,” Jacob answered.

  They piled into the humvee and continued driving, trying to make it to Kansas City on the gas they had left.

  2.

  S imone woke to the sound of shouting voices and screaming sirens. “Why the hell do they need sirens?” she thought in a painful daze. “They’re the only goddam vehicles out here.” She blinked her eyes rapidly, clearing the cloudiness from her vision. The smell of smoke and gasoline burned the sensitive skin inside her nose. She lifted her head and surveyed her body, seeing that it was covere
d in broken glass but apparently unharmed. The only thing that seemed to be hurting was her head. The memory of her jeep spinning out of control and into a window-fronted building came flooding into her aching brain. Anna and Jessica and Jacob had escaped. She suddenly knew it with clarity.

  She raised herself up into a sitting position and began to look at the destruction around her. The jeep had crashed into an old department store that had been emptied by looters a year earlier, not long after the Great Dark began. Counters that once held cosmetics were broken, and racks where Ralph Lauren once hung were bare. She saw an Omega XT soldier’s body on the ground a few feet away from her, splayed and still in such a way that she knew he was dead. Then came a muffled moaning from the driver’s compartment of the jeep. She crawled toward it until she was next to the driver. His black goggles and face-mask were smashed, and he had a deep gash from the middle of his forehead down to his jawline. His nose hung sideways, sliced away from his face, and Simone could see parts of his skull through the wound. She thought she might vomit at the sight, until a paramedic appeared and took her mind away from it.

  “Ma’am, you alright?” he yelled.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” Simone said. “This one though, not so much.”

  The paramedic began to examine the driver’s face. Simone crawled out through the passenger door and stood, steadying herself before she started walking. Her head throbbed, and she still felt nauseous, but she recognized the symptoms. She had a concussion, something she could overcome considering the circumstances.

  “I need a ride,” she yelled to the paramedic.

  He pointed to the street outside, where a mix of military vehicles and ambulances were parked. She walked to the first humvee she saw, jumped behind the steering wheel, and sped off toward the Sector 3 grid.

  ΔΔΔ

  Salvador was waiting at the Sector 3 hospital when Simone skidded the humvee into the front entranceway. She leapt out of the vehicle and ran inside. She was searching the hallways for him when he surprised her with his typical calm.

  “Whoa, Simone, slow down,” he said as he caught her by her arms in mid-stride.

  “Dammit, Salvador, let go of me!” she demanded. “They got away! And they almost killed me doing it!”

  “Hold on. Take a deep breath. Tell me what happened.”

  Simone settled herself so that she could relate the events of the past half-hour. She told Salvador how the escapees had used their humvee to break through the border roadblock, with the stolen ambulance following close behind. How she had chased after them with two other jeeps, but somehow all three ANTI- vehicles had been taken out with one lucky spray of bullets. How Jacob and the rest of them had gotten away, traveling north out of the city.

  “C’mon, Salvador,” she said. “Give me some troops. Let’s go after them before they get too far.”

  Salvador contemplated the story for a moment before he spoke. “No,” he finally said. “Let them go.”

  “Let them go?!?!” Simone screamed.

  “For now, yes,” he said. “You and I have bigger things to worry about. We weren’t ever going to get very far with Anna and the girl anyway.”

  “And what about Jacob? He turned on us!”

  “I know he did, Simone. And I can’t tell you how disappointed I am about that. But I can’t say that I’m completely surprised by his actions. Let him run. There’s no getting him back now.”

  “You’re crazy, Salvador,” Simone said in frustration.

  “Not crazy, Simone. It’s just that I know something you don’t – I know exactly where they’re going.”

  ΔΔΔ

  Simone left the hospital just as aggravated as when she had arrived, but calmer. Salvador had told her that she needed a shower and a rest, and he was right. Even though she didn’t want to admit it, her head was still pounding. She couldn’t afford to be sidelined by injury on the next operation, whatever and whenever that may be. Salvador had been silent about what he knew, but transparent in how important it was.

  Her hotel suite was just as she had left it in the dark pre-dawn hours of that morning, when Salvador had called her to the hospital to help him decipher Dr. Raj Khurana’s scheme. They had figured it all out, but just a few seconds too late, and she had nearly died because of their delay. The young girl Jessica had gotten the best of her again, and it was enraging.

  The shower eased the pain in her head a bit. She lay naked on her bed afterward, only a warm and wet hand towel on her face. The months-old scars from Jessica's earlier gunshot wounds had healed, but suddenly ached under the pressure of the fabric. Simone's face would be marked forever, and even though just barely visible to anyone else, enough to always remind her of how close she came to death at the hands of the girl. And now it had happened again.

  She was almost asleep when she removed the towel, her tensions finally fading. Then she slept for hours, until it was dark again outside her window.

  She woke with a deep hunger in the pit of her stomach. She reached for the hotel suite’s phone and dialed the room service extension. Two orders of French toast and a cheese pizza arrived thirty minutes later. As she gorged her famished body on the heavy carbohydrates, she tried to read between the lines of Salvador’s dialogue from earlier. What did he know, and how did he know it? But more important to her, where the hell was Jessica going? Because the girl had become a sort of special project for Simone. And she didn’t plan on considering the project finished until it was eliminated.

  3.

  A rcher drove the rest of the journey to Kansas City. Jacob sat next to him in the front of the humvee, and they discussed the probabilities and possibilities of Salvador and his soldiers in the aftermath of their escape. Laz sat in the back with Anna and Jessica. The trip grew long in the afternoon heat. Jessica stirred a conversation to distract them from the uncomfortable silence of the backseat.

  “Laz sure is a weird name,” she said.

  He turned his head and stared at her for a moment, the world-weary soldier in him hesitant to talk about himself. Finally he spoke. “Alexander Lazaro,” he said. “We all go by last names, but mine was too long for the other grunts in boot camp, I guess.”

  “Ah, three whole syllables. Makes sense,” Jessica said sarcastically, then stuck out her hand. “I’m Jessica.”

  “I know,” Laz said as he took her hand in his. “I know all about you.” He leaned forward in his seat until he was looking at Anna. “You, too. We don’t go into any mission without knowing every detail about it.”

  Anna gave him a nod of acknowledgement, but that was all.

  “So you were Omega XT?” Jessica asked.

  “I was.”

  “What happened? What made you change?”

  Laz angled his face toward the window of the humvee. He allowed his eyes to lose focus, letting the blurred greens of tall grass and thick forest suspend his vision. “Choice,” he answered.

  Anna spoke up for the first time. “I don’t get it. You had a chance to choose sides a long time ago,” she said.

  Laz turned back to her. “Yeah,” he said, “I had that chance. But you never did.”

  ΔΔΔ

  The stadiums for Kansas City’s two major sports teams were located eight miles east of the city. It was a strange placement, considering most metropolitan areas large enough to host a professional football or baseball team built their respective venues in the heart of their downtowns. This strategy allowed for a city’s surrounding businesses to benefit from the influx of people that each game would bring, and for more tax dollars to be spent in those businesses. But Kansas City had done it differently, building Arrowhead Stadium for its football Chiefs and Kauffman Stadium for its baseball Royals right next to one another and so far outside of town that they existed in solitude, two giant fixtures of concrete and steel standing alone alongside a flat stretch of interstate. Alone except for a couple of hotels built nearby for visiting fans. The design of it all seemed unusual and somewhat foolish before the Gre
at Dark, when money and convenience mattered. But once the darkness came and a rebellion started brewing against it, the stadiums became the perfect site for an insurgent military installation. So perfect in fact that Lefty established their headquarters there. They called the base Camp Forager.

  The Sector 3 fugitives barely made it to Forager on the fuel they had left. Their humvee was running on fumes as they approached the midwestern camp. Archer had been watching the gas gauge closely for the last hour of the trip, anticipating the moment when the vehicle would lose power and shudder to a stop. But the moment never came. Instead, he pulled onto the shoulder of the interstate a few hundred feet from the camp and cut off the engine, proud of the vehicle’s performance. The prodigious stadiums loomed in the landscape through the windshield.

  “So how exactly do we do this?” Archer said to Anna.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “We don’t operate like you guys did. They’ll let us get close, then send a guard out. I’ll take it from there.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Jacob said. “I’d hate to have gone through all this just to get shot and killed on the edge of the promised land.”

  “Nobody’s shooting anybody today,” Anna said. “Now follow me.”

  She got out of the vehicle and started walking toward Camp Forager. The others did as she said and followed.

  The stadiums sat on the left side of the interstate as they approached, further away from the hotels that were on the right. As the group got closer, a loud airhorn sounded, freezing them. The sound had come from a structure that stretched from one side of the interstate’s westbound lanes to the other. The structure looked like a large mobile home, and it served as a barrier to Camp Forager from the east. Its aluminum door swung open and four men came out, all dressed in dark green military fatigues. They held assault rifles across their chests.