According to my contacts in the CIA, things are about to get bad. The U.S. government is on red alert, preparing for an attack of some kind. Most think it is terrorists planning an attack similar to 9/11, others think it’s that political group, the Reformation, which has been quickly gaining members and planning to overthrow the election at the end of the year.
But I have the unsettling feeling that it has something to do with Crane. He’s planning something from within the safety of his freshly built walls, in his new utopia, the Phoenix District.
The Phoenix Project Book II
The Reformation
Prologue
Adam
I wait in line for my turn at the mail drop. There’s an old lady in front of me, her hair in curlers. She shuffles forward. I look down and see she’s wearing slippers and what could be pajama pants underneath her wool pea coat. Her back is coated in hair. Cat hair. I wait as she shuffles forward, allowing her to put more distance between us. The fat man behind me taps his foot and sighs, his breath blows on the back of my neck. He smells like fried food and stale cigarettes. I glance to my left noting the man at the post office boxes, a woman writing out envelopes at one of the tall counters. There is another line of people to my right, ten people, waiting to pay to ship their packages. None of them are who I’m looking for.
The old lady shuffles forward. I take one step. The fat man takes two, his gut practically pressing into my back. I control the urge to tell him to get off my fucking back. I can’t risk bringing attention to myself.
The old lady is gone, it’s my turn. I drop the thick packet into the international mailbox. Now the waiting game begins. Sitting on benches, leaning on walls, searching for my CIA contact. Black coat, eagle pin. They’re usually easy to identify.
I watch the people mill about. It’s loud. At least half of the people in here are having conversations on their cell phones. Two of them are women; yelling into their phones, dragging their children behind them. The city bus pulls up. I can see it’s been tagged with spray paint. A line of people get off the bus. I look at my watch. He should have been here by now.
A rusted van pulls up to the dumpsters across the street. There’s music blaring, a deep bass that vibrates the windows of the Raleigh Post Office. The back doors open, bags are thrown out, a chair, two lamps. The van starts driving away, the back doors still open, leaving a trail of garbage bags down the street. And then it’s like ants at a picnic. The homeless appear out of thin air, searching through the bags, tasting things, shoving garbage in their pockets. I didn’t think it could get any worse since the last time I was out of the District. I was wrong.
“What time is it?”
I look to my left and find the Fat Man has returned. He stares at me, expectantly.
“What?” I ask him.
“What time is it?”
I look at my watch, again. “Five-thirty,” I tell him. He stares at me. The rolls of his neck seem to rise and fall separately from his chest. “It’s five-thirty,” I repeat.
“That’s a nice watch,” he tells me.
I shift my gaze to the door as someone else enters the building. Not the contact. Fat Man stares at me.
“Can I help you?” I ask.
“You’re on my turf.”
“This is a post office, it’s public property.”
“It’s my turf.”
“You work here then?”
“They don’t pay me.”
He pulls a cigarette box out of his pocket, and tapping it in his hand he pulls out a smoking stick and places it between his greasy lips. I catch the whiff of grease permeating off him. I can only assume he picks pockets and robs cars.
“You goin’ to stay here.” He places the cigarette between his lips again. “You goin’ pay up. Give me the watch.”
“Get the fuck away from me.”
The Fat Man glares at me. This wouldn’t be tolerated in the District. Maybe that’s the one good thing about it. The Residents would never pull this shit. They all have jobs, none of them have time to loiter and loot. The Fat Man continues to glare - he thinks I might actually comply. I’d like to kick his ass. “In all seriousness, get the fuck away from me before I break your face.”
The Fat Man leaves, but his stench lingers. I move to the other side of the room and sit near the mail boxes. I pretend to read a pamphlet on shipping care packages to the troops. The pamphlet is a waste of money, complete bullshit. No one sends care packages anymore, no one cares, no one has the money to send anything.
After a few minutes I move to the far wall, leaning against a row of mailboxes. I wait. No one shows. This is unlike them. The President stressed how important this was, something must have happened. What could possibly be more important than getting an update on the Phoenix District?
I wait until dusk to leave. I walk to the train that’s hidden at the outskirts of the city. It’s ten blocks away, off a dead-end street, down an embankment, about a mile into the forest. The location is secluded, perfectly concealed by the dense southern foliage.
I have to wait until night to run the train. Those are the rules. Crane’s rules. And if I am to remain the District Runner, being the only one who is allowed outside the fence, I have to do what Crane says. So I sit on the steps leading into the engine car, trying to think of my next move.
I need to pass on what I’ve learned. For the past year I’ve been responsible for running the Volker faction, the sole policing force of the Phoenix District. Lucky for me, Crane found out I had military experience and I was willing to cooperate with his plans. That kept me off the medication, which kept me with a clear mind. Promotion to Sovereign was easy. There was no one else with my qualifications. Well, there was one person, he’s dead now. I thought getting Crane to trust me and figuring out his plans for Phoenix and the residents would be the hard part, but it wasn’t. It all seems a little too easy, how it all flowed together. The setup, assigning the leaders, initiating their outline from Japan. They were organized, perfect. It still amazes me.
There was only one hard part. Staying away from Andie.
I hear the crisp snap of a dried stick. It causes the birds chattering in the trees to go silent. Someone’s out there. I reach behind me, pulling my pistol from underneath the train car bench. There are more snaps, rustling, and then a soft thudding sound. I must not have been discreet enough when I came back here. The rustling gets closer. I click a bullet into the chamber of the pistol then leave the train car and walk around the side of it, preparing to defend myself. I make it to the far side of the engine car just in time to see someone stumble out of the brush, tripping over the train tracks and falling on the ground.
“Who are you?” I demand, raising the pistol to his face.
“Wait, wait.” he raises his hand, shielding himself. It’s then I notice his palm is covered in blood, his white shirt saturated. “You’re Waters, right?”
“Answer the question.” Just then the last of the evening sun glints off an eagle, pinned to his shirt collar. The contact. “What happened?”
“They found me. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t even think this was on their radar.”
“Who found you?” I ask as I reach out, helping him up off the ground. I’ve found it’s easier to get pertinent information out of a person on the run when the questions are simple, short, and to the point. I can tell he’s already losing focus.
The commotion of the forest around us ceases completely. The now-silent birds rise into the sky in large blooms further darkening the evening sky. There’s a deep rumble coming from off in the distance. I turn to the side, focusing on the sound as it gets closer, letting it bounce off my eardrum. I’ve heard this before, during training, and my time in Iraq. It’s the unmistakable sound of missiles flying through the air about to make impact.
“It’s starting. I thought we had more time.” The contact coughs into his hand, leaving splatters of blood on his palm.
“What do you mean?”
“I
mean the shit is about to hit the fan!” He coughs, harder this time. The blood stain on his shirt grows larger. “We need to get out of here. It’s too populated.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what you know. It’s bad enough you compromised my mission.”
“We don’t have time. It’s starting.” He continues, but I can barely hear him. The missiles flying through the sky are going to make impact soon. I look up to see white trails streaking through the hazy sky. A herd of deer run by us, thundering across the tracks in front of the train. The ground rumbles. I leave the contact and run into the engine car, punching in the code in to start the engine. As it rumbles to life, I click the safety on the pistol, tucking it into the back of my pants. That’s when I notice the contact has rounded to the door of the engine car.
“Who shot you?” I stand in front of the steps, blocking his path.
“It’s the Reformation.”
“The Political Party?”
Last I read they were plotting to overthrow the election this fall, forcing out the popular political parties who have run this country into the ground over the past sixty years. The United States has been floundering in a nasty recession, the worst since the Great Depression. That was evident from what I just saw at the post office. It’s not getting any better.
“They’re not a political party. That was nothing but a veil to hide their true agenda. This stems much deeper than we had originally thought. They weren’t planning on overthrowing the election. They’re overthrowing the United States.” He coughs, spewing blood out of his mouth onto the side of the train. “It’s the great American conspiracy. The President is involved, Congress, there’s someone in every county. I just haven’t figured out who is organizing it all. Someone is hell bent on starting the human race over and they’ve found the means to do it.” He looks to the sky and for an instant it seems he may be praying, but he’s just watching the missiles as they whistle overhead. Strange words mumbling off his lips. Blood-loss words. “We have to get out of here. It’s only going to get worse. The Districts are the only safe havens for those who were lucky enough to be chosen.”
The ground shakes harder. The missiles must be hitting closer to the city. The vibrations rock the train car, sending the Contact falling to the ground. I reach down and pull him up the steps by his arm, letting his weak body flop onto the floor of the engine car. I can already see plumes of smoke rising over the treetops, and the air is starting to smell like acrid smoke and sulfur. These are not the electro-magnetic pulse missiles that were used nearly two years ago. These are true missiles, meant to cause as much destruction as possible.
I throw the train into gear, taking no precaution against damaging the supplies I’ve collected for the District. The bins of grains and flour should remain intact. It’s the gasoline which makes me rethink throwing the train straight into high gear, the possibility of it sloshing out of the barrels or rolling over. Damaging the supplies could result in my position of District Runner being revoked, and then I’d truly have no way to communicate with my government contacts or with the outside world.
The train rolls, jerky and slow at first, but picking up speed in no time. Crane did a magnificent job rebuilding all the abandoned train tracks, making the travel in and out of the District discreet. I just hope they remain intact through the bombings, long enough for me to make it back. Because right now, I’m almost seven hundred miles away. I have to find Sam and Andie and get these supplies back to the District.
“How do you know about the District?” I ask.
“Districts,” He corrects me while wiping at the blood that drips from his nose.
“There’s one,” I correct him.
He shakes his head at me. “I’ve found three.”
Three. They’ve never told me there was more than Phoenix. “How did you find them?”
“It took a lot of digging. The year after the Phoenix quakes there were more, one in Florida and one in Arizona. At first everyone thought it was some strange seismic activity from drilling for oil or hydrofracking for natural gas. I’ve been reviewing the papers, the stories, firsthand accounts of the quakes, and everything started to come together. I’m surprised no one noticed it before. All the epicenters were within ten miles of a nuclear power plant. The nearby towns were considered total losses from the nuclear meltdowns, barricades went up, and travel restrictions were enacted. People moved away and tried to forget. No one wants to deal with radioactivity.”
What he’s telling me makes sense. It’s exactly what happened to Phoenix.
He continues, “It just didn’t make sense to me, three meltdowns in the U.S. within two years. Then I realized what they were doing, they pushed people away into heavily populated areas. Are you getting this, Waters? It was an elaborate plan. So the second bombings would wipe them all out in one fell swoop.” The contact lies his head down on the hard floor of the engine car taking a few shallow breaths. I watch a small puddle of blood start to collect underneath his side. Now my heart is pumping. The adrenaline is pulsing through my veins at breakneck speed. Before the creation of the Phoenix District, this was a game for me. A tangled mess to figure out, to unravel. There was always the option of escape for me, for Andie and Lina. But now that’s changed.
The contact starts coughing up more blood and holding the wound on his abdomen. I’ve seen plenty of men die from gunshot wounds, it happened all too often in Iraq. It’s evident that he isn’t going to last much longer.
As I pull away from Raleigh, I look out the front window of the car to see numerous white trailing clouds leading in every direction. I look back to the man on the floor. He’s right. There must be hundreds of missiles.
I was warned by the District engineer that running the train in high gear for an extended amount of time could permanently damage the engine. But right now, I don’t care. Crane can have my head for ruining the train. From what I can see, there won’t be any place to collect supplies from once the bombings are done. The maximum speed of the train is over 150 miles per hour. I leave it in high gear.
The tracks head northeast, towards the seclusion of the Appalachian Mountains. It only takes an hour to make it out of North Carolina and once we’re riding along the raised mountains the damage is clear. In the light of the full moon, thick smoke rises into the sky. In all directions the destruction is evident but the tracks remain clear, untouched. When the smoke is thick enough to fully block the moonlight, I can no longer see the devastation, but I know it’s there. I’m almost afraid of what the morning light will bring.
We travel all night through Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, until we finally reach New York. I never stop the train. Not once. And as the sun rises I feel like I’m back at war in the Middle East. Instead, this time the landscape is familiar, cool and green, not hot and gritty with sand.
The night hid the damage well.
Once the train gets to the suburb south of Phoenix I’ll stop. That’s where Andie’s brother Sam lives. If there is any way to get Andie to forgive me, rescuing her brother will do it. I feel like shit for finally telling her what I was doing in Phoenix, that part of my mission was to find her and bring her back to Phoenix, that Crane requested her for his project. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look on her face or the fury in her green flecked eyes. The control it took for her not to reach out and slap me for what I had put her through at the hands of Burton Crane.
I watch out the window, waiting for the right time to slow the train, the landmarks becoming familiar from my few trips outside of the fence. Once I pass the Finger Lakes region I know I’m close. I pull down on the throttle, dropping the train into low gear, slowing it. The tracks swoop around a small lake, near an old abandoned canal, then chugs up a large hill. From this elevation I can see the destruction of the city Andie and I fled so long ago. The hospital is demolished and the highway no longer stretches over the city but lies on it in a crumbled, dead mess.
The man on the floor of the c
ar groans. I was starting to think he had died during the night. I feel a small tinge of guilt for not asking his name, but names mean nothing now. I can’t help him.
“Do you smell that?” he asks, his voice weak and dry. “Do you?”
All I can smell is burning rubble, burning earth, and flesh, the blood dripping out of this man. It’s enough to make me gag. “Yeah,” I respond to him. “I smell it.”
“That’s the smell of a new beginning my friend. Remember it.” And then he is gone, pale and dead.
I reach down, checking his pulse. There is no steady heartbeat, only the sensation of cooling skin, a still body. Not a muscle moves in him. I search his pockets for anything I might be able to use. There’s a package of gum, a small pistol and a cell phone. I take the pistol and the phone, leaving the gum, his only token to pass on into the underworld. I roll his body out the side of the train car, watching it bounce away from the tracks and into the forest.
In less than twenty-four hours, the United States is in ruins. Now I have a change of plans. I have to find Sam. I’m hoping he’s still alive.
I open the phone and press the icon for the internet search engine. Somehow it still works. The phone must be connected to a secure tower, one that hasn’t been damaged yet. I type in Sam Salk, hoping that a white pages site will have his information. When the page loads, there it is. “Jackpot,” as Andie would say, his phone number and address appear on the screen.
--
I leave the train a few miles from the main highway. I take the guns and throw a handful of dried leaves over the pool of blood on the floor of the train car. Then I run. I haven’t heard any missiles hit since I made it to New York. All the damage must have been planned for the night when it was least expected, when people had the least probability of survival. Once I reach the suburb I can see the damage is bad. Stores, houses, cars, everything is in ruins and smoking. There are body parts, damaged cars, TV’s, soot covered dogs, broken children’s toys. I run around patches of crumbled pavement and gaping holes in the ground. They emit an eerie smoke in the bright morning light.
The Phoenix Project Series: Books 1-3: The Phoenix Project, The Reformation, and Revelation Page 27