Jane's posture straightened as if someone had inflated her with helium.
“Nova, bring the sled up in cargo one. And tell Jane some jokes to keep her company.”
“Sled will be in cargo one waiting,” Nova said in her female monochromatic voice. “Jane, what do you find humorous?”
“Tell me something funny about your captain.”
Without hesitation, Nova said, “His snoring sounds like one of the garbage processing cylinders on the Atoll.” Jane giggled. “I’ve recorded him,” Nova added, without emotion.
“Nova!” Landon shouted.
Nova paused before saying. “I wanted to make sure you were not suffering from sleep apnea.”
Jane giggled. “Please play it.”
Landon exited the cockpit as the animalistic sound of his snoring came over the speaker system. The noise was drowned out by Jane’s laughter. On his way to the cargo bay, he forced himself to eat a meal bar and drink some water. As a soldier, he had to be topped off with rest and nourishment whenever possible to hedge against stress and situations where he may go without sleep or food. He grabbed a pair of goggles and his utility belt, which held a battle staff, emergency tools, emergency rations, and a med kit. In a sheath in his right jackboot was his handmade survival knife. An old-fashioned item he’d thought of as a tool more than a weapon.
When the cargo doors opened, the sled was centered in the large room. Its metal frame was reminiscent of the Harley Davidson motorcycle Landon once rode throughout the Blue Ridge Mountains in his youth.
The sled had handlebars like a motorcycle but sat on three flat pieces of metal. Surrounding the upper portion of the frame was a crystal cover that protected the sled from the elements and allowed it to go underwater. Landon loaded up extra rations and medical supplies, along with the exoskeleton, which folded into a small briefcase. He placed his 410 gauge sidearm in a shoulder holster, and two automatic rifles with spare magazines in the back storage compartment. Landon climbed inside the crystal enclosure and fired up the sled. The electric engine purred whisper quiet. He closed the door, and the display read one hundred percent power.
“Nova, secure the room and flood the chamber.”
The entry door to the cargo hold shut. A moment later, dozens of holes along the walls of the room opened and water poured in. The blue lights that lit up the room gave an unearthly glow to the dirty water as it rushed in. It was as if the ship was bleeding into the cargo hold. After the room was filled, he pressed a button on the sled’s display and a roof hatch opened above him. With a movement of his foot, the sled rose up and glided out of the room into the bowels of the dark lake.
The exterior lights came on, showing a liquid graveyard of decomposing body parts. No fish or living thing swam in this water. For a moment, he worried that the water would eat away at Nova’s titanium hull, it was so vile. The sled broke the water’s surface and hovered. He checked the controls and opened the throttle. The sled took off, spraying up a rooster tail of water.
An hour before sunset, Landon reached the outskirts of New Sacramento. He used the sled’s controls to scan for life signs and found dozens of human signatures a couple of miles away. The trees and shrubs were too low of a profile to hide the sled. He found the shell of what must have been a mansion decades earlier. A jerk to the throttle, coupled with the foot lever, allowed him to jump the foundation and settle into what once was the basement.
After the sled powered down, he stepped out, and the first thing he smelled was musty, stagnant air. Old toys littered the cement floor. He wished the house could talk. It would probably tell a story of a wealthy family caught unaware in the middle of a nuclear holocaust. The tale would end in death. It always did. Death, destruction, sickness, and misery. Humanity, in its hubris and quest for a socialist utopia, thought it could re-forge the planet through a fiery baptism.
Landon picked up a plastic doll with a torn dress. The object triggered memories from that quickening of the country’s past. Right before the wars began, he took his young wife and fled Virginia while all his family and friends stayed behind. It would be fine, they said. This too will pass, they said. God won’t leave us, they said. Yet they were all dead. Why hadn't he fought harder to warn his friends and family of the storm he’d seen coming? Why hadn't he fought harder to keep Kyle from going on this mission trip?
Landon swapped the girl’s doll out for a half-melted action figure resting on a rotted wooden bookshelf. Its hand was curled as if it was meant to grip something, a weapon. It was always a weapon. Maybe this family got out in time?
Something white in the corner caught his eye. He walked past what must have been a wet bar, and the action figure fell from his hand without a sound onto the dusty cement floor. The white things were human skeletons clutching one another. Two adults and two children. His heart broke for the fear they must have experienced. The basement location of the bodies told him they knew death was coming. Looking around he found nothing to indicate they were believers, which compounded the pain. He wept for the suffering they had endured before they died. He wept for his son, whom he might never be able to rescue.
“How long, oh Lord!” he screamed, realizing it was a combination of Psalm 13 and Revelation 6. He was crying out for himself and for the fallen saints. “I’m tired of this,” he pleaded. “How long?”
As if in answer, a passage floated into his mind from Isaiah 6. Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate.
“But there’s so much death. So much death,” Landon kept repeating between sobs.
Over the next hour he respectfully moved the bones into the backyard and buried them near a rusted playset, using a flat patio stone as a shovel. After a meal bar and water, he typed at the sled’s computer console. A small, metallic, baseball-size drone rose out of the back of the sled. It hovered over Landon as he programmed in directions. A moment later it took off out of the basement. He pinged Nova.
“Yes?” came Nova’s voice.
“How’s Jane?”
“Her pulse and heart rate are within normal—”
“No, how is she?”
“I’m fine,” came Jane’s voice.
“Sun’s about to set. I’m gonna explore a bit. I just launched a drone to go into the city looking for Kyle’s signature. Nova, I want you to launch all four we have on board.”
“They will be airborne in fifteen minutes and into the city within two hours.”
“Be safe,” Jane said, “and bring back my husband.”
“Roger that.”
He covered the sled with camouflaged netting and set off with his utility belt, sidearm, goggles, and an assault rifle with plenty of ammunition. In a prototype backpack, he carried a first aid kit, along with food and emergency gear. The entire backpack had smart technology, which extracted and filtered moisture from the air to keep the water bladder filled. He unfurled the hood component of his shirt and placed the mask on. The air filter in the mask revealed just how contaminated the atmosphere still was. It was like he’d exited out of a room full of smoke into fresh air.
He placed the goggles on and they automatically went to night vision mode with a near-silent click. He touched the side of the right lens and a small dot appeared in the upper corner, confirming that heat signatures would show up if he came across anything living. A small red blur of a rodent disappeared into a crack in the home’s foundation. With the gear working, Landon started toward New Sacramento.
The data pad on his left forearm showed that it was charged. The battery packs on the utility belt would give him personal shielding, and the data pad would also give him a small, circular backup shield, three-foot round, as long as it had power. Landon prayed that he would not have to activate either one.
Chapter Thirteen
New York 2040
The next morning, an explosion woke Josiah from his light sleep. The building moved slightly.
“Open daylight,” he said
, throwing aside the silk sheets.
The tinted windows in the penthouse bedroom cleared, revealing the gray early morning skyline of New York. Nothing looked different. Had he dreamed of the explosion? A moment later, flaming debris flittered down outside the windows. Josiah’s stomach dropped, as if following the debris toward the street below.
The speaker on his data pad chirped. “Coming up to get you.” It was Ross. “We're under attack. This isn’t a drill.”
Josiah panicked for a moment before he remembered all the reinforcements and safety measures the building had. It would withstand multiple attacks from a varied assortment of artillery and biological warfare. But why hadn't the alarms kicked in? He threw on a pair of dress pants, shoes, and a sweater, and grabbed his tablet. He wasn’t going to wait for Ross. Before Josiah left the apartment, he glanced one last time out the living room window. There were two sparks of light a few miles in the distance. Trails of smoke followed the flashes through the early morning skyline.
The tablet in his hand spoke in a calm male voice. “Warning. Incoming rockets.”
Any second the antimissile defense system lining the roof should shoot them down. He paused for what seemed like a full minute and nothing happened. The rockets were still fast approaching. Panic returned, and Josiah rushed out the door and down the reinforced emergency stairwell, which was the safest route in the building. Whoever was attacking the building was trying to target him, so the more floors he got between him and the penthouse living quarters, the safer he would be. His heart raced, and he felt like he was going to vomit. Josiah’s mind went to the Gray man who had died the night before. Was this the level of fear he had felt?
“Josiah!” a voice shouted from the top of the stairwell.
Josiah stared up several flights to find Ross at the stairwell entrance to his penthouse. He was in sweats and held a shotgun. He must have taken the elevator to the penthouse. “Ross, get out of there—”
A moment later, a fiery explosion engulfed Ross and the top floor of the building. Josiah kept moving as debris fell down around him. Ross' shotgun clanged down the center space of the stairwell, an arm still holding fast to it. Heat and smoke chased Josiah down the flights faster and faster. Sparks and flames rained down like swarms of fiery mosquitoes. He held the data pad above his head, which did little to block the smoking debris. A moment later, a small piece of concrete shattered the piece of technology. Josiah dropped the useless equipment and clutched his bleeding hand.
The smoke and heat forced him to exit from the stairwell onto a random floor. As soon as he entered the workspace he fell to his knees, coughing until he vomited onto the clean carpet. He was on a floor occupied by Spotlight News Agency. Empty cubicles lined the entire open floor plan. It was too early for employees to be there. Why had none of the defense mechanisms or sprinkler systems activated?
Josiah ran to the opposite end of the room where the south stairwell was located. As he passed by a computer terminal, he noticed the screen was running a program. He glanced at another terminal and it was doing the same. Someone was downloading the contents from all the computers remotely. Everything came into focus. The attack was a distraction. He tried to log in to several terminals but was locked out of everything. Thumbprint didn't work, nor his override codes. The building shook from another explosion above. He had to move.
Ten floors later he exited onto the executive living suites. Here is where Lewis, Carolyn, Jay, Ross, and several other executives had living quarters. Josiah pounded on Lewis' door, but no one answered. He tried Carolyn's door and received the same response. Where was everyone? He ran down the hall to Jay's door, which he found open a crack.
He tried to push the door open but something blocked it on the other side. He pushed until he could just squeeze through the gap. The cause of the blockage lay waiting for him. Jay’s body was sprawled out just behind the door. He was dressed in pajamas with a single bullet hole in his forehead. Someone must have knocked on his door, and when he opened it, they assassinated him; someone who had access to a gun and who worked for Josiah. Everything in Jay’s apartment was intact. It appeared more like a lab than living quarters. White digital boards covered the walls where paintings would normally be. Complex formulas filled every square inch of the boards. Outside the windows there were at least two dozen news camera drones flying around.
Fire and police covered the streets below. Josiah moved away from the windows to stay out of video feeds. He found Jay's tablet and exited the apartment. Back in the south stairwell, the air was smoke-filled, but every flight he went down allowed him to breathe easier. Josiah cursed himself. He had spent so much time reinforcing the building against any type of exterior attack that he had neglected contingencies against attacks from within. There were only two known escape routes: the roof helipad, which had been destroyed already, or a tram located under the street level that would take him to a safe room a few blocks away. This offsite control room was only known to Ross and himself.
Ross, and now Jay, were both dead. Lewis and Carolyn were missing, and he didn't know whom he could trust. He had to get to a safe place and collect his thoughts. Five minutes later he came out onto the security level.
“Josiah! You're alive?”
Josiah saw Felix loading a shotgun with ammo. “Felix, I've never been so happy to see you.”
“Where’s Ross? Last I knew he went up to find you.”
“He's dead. Got caught in the blast.” Felix's head slumped. “You're in charge now.”
Felix mumbled something under his breath.
“Wake up, Felix. I need to get out of here.”
A security guard shouted across the room to Felix, “Fire and police want in. So far we haven't unlocked anything.”
“Let them in,” Josiah shouted. The guard didn't listen and waited for Felix.
Josiah's eyes widened. No one had ever ignored his orders. He started to back away from Felix. How could he be so stupid to walk into this den of traitors?
As if he picked up on Josiah's epiphany, Felix said, “You were supposed to be dead by now.” He leveled the shotgun at Josiah's stomach.
“Don't do this!” Josiah shouted. The noise, smoke, people, and activity all fell away. At that moment, Felix's eyes told Josiah that he knew. He knew everything.
Josiah tried to run, but two guards he barely recognized came up to grab his arms.
A familiar voice shouted, “Hold him in place.”
Josiah knew it was Lewis before he turned around. Lewis was dressed in casual clothes. He shouldered a travel bag and walked right up to Josiah and punched him in the side of the head. It hurt, but even the man's punch was soft, Josiah noted.
“Always wanted to do that,” he said, holding his hand. “You should have taken the deal, Josiah.”
Fear and rage fought inside Josiah's mind. Part of him wanted to plead with Lewis, who was clearly leading a coup, but the other part wanted him dead for even touching him. He gave into the anger. He always did. “I’m gonna make you die a slow death, Lewis!”
“You're a fool,” Lewis shot back, years of pent-up anger now unleashed. “You know how many times I could have betrayed you over the years and didn't?”
“Doesn't matter,” Josiah shot back. “It only takes one time. Stop justifying your behavior, you fat, putrid excuse for a man.”
Lewis struck Josiah with the back of his hand this time. “You walking away from the Bradley deal assures me you’re insane.”
“It wouldn't have mattered,” said another familiar voice. Carolyn exited the stairwell with two backpacks. She handed one to Felix. “We need to get out of here. Let the fire, police, and Bradley do their thing.”
Josiah did everything he could to not look surprised. He never should have trusted a woman like Carolyn. Someone who could cheat on her husband was not to be trusted. “Traitors, all of you!” he screamed.
“Lewis, I thought you told me Josiah wouldn't survive the attack. Why am I looking at him?”
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“Shut up, Carolyn,” he said.
It was clear neither one was in control yet. They were probably waiting for Bradley to come in and assign a hierarchical chart.
Felix hit Lewis in the stomach with the butt of his rifle. Lewis crumpled over. “You shut up.”
Felix looked to Carolyn, who nodded her approval of her husband’s chivalry. Josiah took the opportunity to spit in Lewis' face.
“Get him out of here,” Carolyn said to Felix. “You know what to do.”
Felix grabbed Josiah's arm and spoke to the others. “I got this.” He proceeded to direct Josiah back to the stairwell.
“What's happening? Where are you taking me, Felix?”
“Shut up.”
“Don't trust Carolyn. Anything she told you is a lie.”
“You had everything, but instead you wanted more. I would have taken a bullet for you. I don't care how smart you are. You're a fool!”
Josiah tried to break from Felix's grip, but it was iron. He swung his free arm around to try to punch him, but Felix held up his rifle, which Josiah hit with a loud pop. He screamed in pain. Felix dragged his boss down the stairwell past firemen and police officers who would not stop no matter what Josiah pleaded. On the next landing Josiah fell down on purpose. Felix changed his grip to Josiah's foot and dragged him down another flight with this head and neck hitting every metal step.
Josiah screamed. The pain made the anger give way to fear. He was going to die. “What's Bradley paying you?”
“You'd be surprised. I told him I don't want a raise. I just want to work for a man I can trust and respect.”
Josiah managed to kick Felix's hand away and tried to scramble back up the stairs. Felix grabbed the back of his pants and threw him down the steps to the next landing. It was the basement level. The last time he had been down here a man was fired.
This is where he was going to die.
Chapter Fourteen
New York 2040
Mission Trip_Genesis and Exodus Page 8