by Robert Boren
“Temecula here we come,” Seth said, glancing over at Angel.
“Think we’re gonna make it?”
“Yeah, but keep your eyes open, and keep the AK handy.”
“Sure will,” Angel said, eyes scanning the dark street.
***
Robbie woke up next to Morgan. The sun was up, but beach overcast made the light dim in their room. Robbie reached for the TV remote.
“You’re turning on the TV?” Morgan asked as she stretched.
“Just wanted to hear about the checkpoints,” Robbie said. “Think you’re going to work today?”
“Sparky said to wait for his call,” Morgan said. “You think the authorities are going to clamp down on us?”
“That’s why I wanted to turn on the TV,” Robbie said. “They ought to have something about it by now. It’s almost nine in the morning.”
She nodded as he clicked on the TV. It came up with video of one of the checkpoints. “That didn’t take long.”
“Yeah,” Robbie said. “Crap, there’s a tank sitting there. See it?”
“I was afraid of that,” she said, sitting up on her elbows to get a better look. “Turn it up.”
Robbie nodded and pointed the remote at the TV.
“…further violence at the checkpoints will not be tolerated, according to the regional governor.”
“Who the hell is the regional governor?” Robbie asked.
“Ssshhh,” Morgan said.
“Thanks to the video cameras which were at all checkpoint locations, the regional governor’s office has a record of all cars which went through the checkpoints while they were disabled. Any vehicle who went through the checkpoint at a time not pre-approved will be contacted for questioning.”
“You see, this is why I’ve been against all of these cameras everywhere,” Robbie said. “They can be used against the people if a bad element takes power.”
“They’re going to see me go through early,” Morgan said, face tearing up. “Maybe we need to get out of here.”
“How? We can’t get past the checkpoints.”
“So far no arrests have been made in the checkpoint attacks, but the police and UN forces are rounding people up for questioning at this hour. You are advised to cooperate.”
“They haven’t used that tone before,” Morgan said.
“We haven’t attacked them before,” Robbie said. “Somebody’s liable to show up here.”
“Maybe not,” Morgan said. “They don’t know where I am. They only know about the old address.”
Robbie smiled. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“In other news, the state government has declared martial law in the rest of the state after the fighting last night at various enemy supply depots.”
“You think they’ll be able to enforce that?” Morgan asked.
“I doubt it,” Robbie said. “They’ll have a tiger by the tail. They have no idea.”
“Authorities continue to search LA County for Ivan the Butcher. So far none of the leads have panned out.”
Robbie chuckled. “They won’t find him.”
“You sure this guy is worthy of hero worship?” Morgan asked.
“Well, maybe not, but he’s on our side at the moment,” Robbie said. “Maybe I ought to get on the net and do a little searching around.”
“I’m ready to get up,” Morgan said. “Why don’t you do that while I rustle up some breakfast.”
“Okay,” Robbie said. He got out of bed and threw on some clothes.
“Go ahead,” Morgan said. “I need to take a quick shower.”
“Okay, sweetie,” Robbie said, going out the door. Gil was climbing the stairs as he came out.
“Hey, man,” Gil said. “You see the news? Damn checkpoints are back up, and they declared martial law in the rest of the state.”
“I know,” Robbie said. “What are you gonna do?”
“Get ready for work, I guess,” he said. “This sucks.”
“Don’t bring attention to yourself,” Robbie said.
“How’s Morgan doing? Worried about the comments about their surveillance cameras?”
“They don’t know she’s living here,” Robbie said. “Actually, they don’t know I’m living here either. They’re probably wondering why I didn’t make it through the checkpoint from Gardena yesterday.”
“What are you gonna do?” Gil asked.
“Check out the internet,” he said.
“It was down earlier,” Gil said. “Might still be. I finally gave up.”
“Are you kidding?” Robbie asked, rushing to the kitchen table. He started his laptop and then turned back to Gil. “When did you notice it was down?”
“Right after I got up,” Gil said. “Maybe it’s just LTE. That’s the only thing I tried.”
Robbie saw that the laptop was finished booting up. He sat in front of it and clicked on the network icon in the lower right-hand corner of the screen.
“Dammit,” Robbie said, pushing his chair back from the table. “The Wi-Fi is working, but we’re not connected to the internet.”
“Maybe you just need to recycle the modem,” Gil said.
“Yeah, maybe,” Robbie said. He got up and headed for the bedroom. “I’ll do that now.”
“What’s up, babe?” Morgan asked, watching him walk in as she was drying off in the bathroom.
“Internet’s messed up,” Robbie said. “I’m going to restart the modem.”
“Oh,” Morgan said. “Hope that’s all it is.”
“Yeah, me too. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been taken down on purpose. They probably think we’re using it to plan attacks.”
Robbie unplugged the modem and counted to thirty, then plugged it back in and watched.
Morgan came out into the bedroom. “Well?”
“Takes a few minutes,” Robbie said.
“Gil still going to work today?”
“He’s getting ready now,” Robbie said, eyes still on the modem lights. “Crap, it’s taking too long. I’ll bet it’s shut down.”
“How about LTE?” Morgan asked.
“Gil said it was down when he tried it earlier,” Robbie said. He pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and took a look. “Same thing here. No LTE. Not even 4G.”
“They’re locking us down,” Morgan said, scared look in her eyes.
“Certainly looks that way, doesn’t it?”
Chapter 15 – TOW Missiles
“Almost there,” Sam said. “See the road?”
“Yep,” Connie said. “Took less time than I expected.”
“Sid’s slowing down,” Clem said. “So’s John.”
“You still planning on looking at the main camera?” Connie asked.
“Yeah,” Sam said.
“Won’t that tip off the bad guys about where we are?” she asked. “Maybe give them a clue to where we’re going?”
“It might,” Sam said.
“Use the enemy phone,” Clem said. “That’ll throw them a curve ball.”
“It might enhance their ability to track us,” Sam said.
“I doubt it,” Clem said. “They probably didn’t plan for this contingency.”
“He might be right, honey,” Connie said.
“Okay, I’m convinced,” Sam said. “Look, Sid just turned onto the road. He’s stopping at that parking lot up there, for the housing development.”
John pulled up next to Sid. Sam parked next to Sid on the other side, and everybody got out.
“Massive development,” Clem said, looking out over the houses under construction.
“Looks like all this craziness has shut them down, though,” Sid said. “Look at the tumbleweeds and dirt around that place over there. Nobody’s been working here for a while.”
“What now?” Sarah asked.
“You guys haven’t activated your phones yet, have you?” Sid asked.
“No, not yet,” Sam said. “Was getting ready to. Clem suggested that we use the enemy phone.�
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“Not a bad idea,” Sid said. “I have another suggestion. Let’s drive into Ramona. Make it look like we’re taking route 78 northwest into Escondido.”
“And then we back-track southeast,” Sam said. “Damn good idea. You know how to get there?”
“San Vincente turns into Route 78 after you cross Main Street,” Yvonne said.
“You didn’t have your phone GPS on, did you?” Clem asked.
Yvonne chuckled. “No, I did it the old-fashioned way. We had a map of the area. You know, a paper map.”
Sam laughed. “Glory be. Let’s go. I’ll follow you guys. Pull over when you see a secluded spot.”
“Make it near a gas station so it looks like we’re on the way,” Clem said.
“Actually we should all gas up anyway,” Sid said. “Anza Borrego is a long way off. Not a lot of services around there. We might even want to pick up some food.”
“Okay,” Sam said. “Lead the way.”
They got back in their vehicles and drove away, rolling through the dark, quiet streets.
“Hey, look at that,” Connie said, pointing to a work crew at the first big intersection. “Are they putting together a checkpoint?”
“Kinda looks like it,” Clem said.
“Dammit,” Sam said. “I’ll bet the idiots in Sacramento took advantage of the situation and made martial law state-wide.”
“Never let a good crisis go to waste,” Clem said. “They don’t have the people to cover it if we resist.”
“And resist we will,” Sam said, hands tightening on the steering wheel.
“Hope we don’t get stopped,” Connie said.
“They’re not ready yet,” Sam said. “We’d see more presence here. UN and other authorities.”
“There’s Main Street,” Connie said. “Look, they’re putting up a checkpoint there too.”
“Son of a bitch,” Sam said. “Sid’s pulling into that big gas station.”
“Good, they have a store, and it’s still open,” Connie said.
“Maybe we ought to figure out a better way to get back on the eastbound road,” Clem said. “Don’t want surveillance cameras to see us backtracking.”
“Yeah, I agree,” Sam said as he pulled up to the pumps. He got out.
“You see those checkpoints being set up?” Sid asked. He put the gas nozzle into his Jeep and walked over.
“Yeah, I saw them,” Sam said.
“I’ll gas up, so you can take a look at the park,” Clem said.
“Thanks,” Sam said. He pulled out the enemy phone and slipped the battery back in, then waited for it to boot up.
“I’m going to the bathroom, honey,” Connie said. “I see Sarah and Yvonne heading in that direction. We’ll hit the store on the way back.”
“Okay, sweetie,” Sam said.
John walked over after he started the gas flowing into his truck. “Those were checkpoints going in, weren’t they?”
“Yep,” Sid said.
“We’d better find a different way to backtrack,” Sam said. “Crap, forgot, I need a code to access this damn phone.” He shut it off, then fired up his own phone. After it was ready, he opened the browser and punched in the IP address of the camera.
“I agree, we don’t want to go past those two checkpoints again,” Sid said.
“Oh, God,” Sam said.
“What?” John asked.
“Heads,” Sam said, tears running down his cheeks. “Look. They focused the camera right on them.”
“No,” John said. “That’s Harry. Ryan’s next to him.”
“Son of a bitch,” Sid said. “Don’t let the women see this.”
“Should I pan around?” Sam asked.
“Yeah, might as well see how bad it is,” John said.
Clem walked over. “What’d you see?”
“They’re all dead,” Sid said. “The heads are on display.”
“Oh no,” Clem said. “Here comes Connie with groceries.”
Sam grabbed the phone and panned the camera. “Most of the coaches are smoldering,” he whispered.
“You get into the camera?” Connie asked. Sarah and Yvonne were following her with more groceries, looking nervous.
Sam just nodded yes.
“Oh no,” Yvonne said. “They attacked, didn’t they?”
“Yes,” Sid said. “We can’t go back.”
“What if we can help?” Sarah asked.
“We can’t, honey,” John said, pulling her close. She began to sob in his arms.
“What are we gonna do?” Connie asked.
“Regroup and attack,” Sam said, anger in his voice. “They’ll be sorry they did this.”
“You best be turning that thing off,” Clem said.
“Wait, I want to see,” Connie said.
“No you don’t,” Sam said. “They mutilated the bodies.”
“Oh, God,” Sarah said, running back to the truck. John followed her.
Yvonne had a look of determination on her face. “I’ll go get the map. See which way we can avoid the big intersections.”
“Good idea,” Sid said. He watched as she hurried to their Jeep.
“She’s strong,” Clem said.
“Stronger than I am most of the time,” Sid said. “We don’t have a place to live anymore.”
“We’ll deal with that,” Sam said. He took the battery out of his phone and then slipped it back into his pocket.
“You’re going to keep that enemy phone?” Clem asked.
“Yeah, for you,” he said.
“For me?” Clem asked.
“So you can look at it. Perhaps figure out how it works. Reverse-engineer it.”
“I don’t know if I can even get into it,” Clem said, “but I’ll try.”
“Olive to 7th Street to Ashely to Gem,” Yvonne said, pointing at the map to Sid and Sam. “Make a right on Gem, then a left back onto San Vincente. If we’re lucky, they haven’t started any new checkpoints south of us.”
“This is great,” Sid said. “No major intersections. Good chance there’s no cameras.”
“One can only hope,” Clem said. “We’ve really allowed ourselves to be put in a box with all this surveillance.”
“We’ll put a stop to that when we finish this war,” Sam said.
“If we win,” Clem said.
“Oh, we’ll win,” Sam said. “Let’s get going.”
***
Ji-Ho was at the wheel of the massive Prevost motor home, Kaylee in the passenger seat. Emma was sitting behind them on the couch, craning her neck to see out the windshield.
“Good, there’s nothing blocking the 91 freeway,” Emma said.
“Yes, hope no roadblocks on freeway,” Ji-Ho said.
“The others still behind us?” Emma asked.
Kaylee moved her head so she could see out the passenger side rear-view mirror. “They’re behind us.”
“Good,” Emma said.
The walkie-talkie clicked. “Ji-Ho?”
He picked it up off the dash. “Trevor. You away?”
“Yeah, we’re on Artesia, just past Normandie,” Trevor said. “You see the tank at the intersection of Artesia and Western? They’re using it to bolster the checkpoint.”
“I miss,” Ji-Ho said. “We come up Vermont, turned right onto freeway.”
“Good,” Trevor said. “We skirted around it. Surprised we got away with that, but I don’t think they have all the people they need to man the checkpoints yet. How you set for fuel?”
“Full. You?”
“Three-quarters of a tank. Plenty to make it into Temecula.”
“Very good. We better get off. UN may listen to radio channels.”
“Good point,” Trevor said. “Checked out your home security yet?”
“Tablet running,” Ji-Ho said. “Alarm will go off when they show. Place not easy to break into. Downstairs windows all triple-layer Lexan.”
“You’ve been expecting something to happen,” Trevor said.
“Bye,” Trevor said. Ji-Ho put the walkie talkie back on the dash.
“Wish we had more of those,” Kaylee said.
“Not secure,” Ji-Ho said. “Slightly better than phone only.”
“You mind if I go sit with Emma for a while?” Kaylee asked.
“No problem,” Ji-Ho said.
Kaylee got up and moved to the couch, next to Emma. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself,” Emma said. “You doing all right?”
“Not really,” she said. “I’m scared to death. You?”
“Same,” Emma said. “We’re going to get caught.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Kaylee said.
“We’re just a bunch of kids,” Emma said.
“My uncle isn’t. He’ll take care of us.”
“Wish I had your confidence,” Emma said. “What if they have checkpoints set up in Temecula?”
“They can’t get it done fast enough. We’ll be there in less than two hours. Been there more than once.”
“What time is it now?” Emma asked.
Kaylee reached for her phone, then stopped. “Crap, can’t use my phone.”
“There’s a clock on the microwave,” Emma said. Can’t read it from here.” She got up and looked. “Just past midnight.”
“I’m surprised we’re not tired,” Kaylee said.
“I’m not, but it might be a good idea for you to keep your uncle company, just in case. We don’t need him nodding off while he’s driving.”
“In a few minutes,” Kaylee said. She watched as Emma came back to the couch.
“This thing is really stable,” Emma said.
“Yeah, it’s a land yacht,” Kaylee said. “Built like a tank, too.”
“How many does it sleep?”
“I don’t know,” Kaylee said. She was silent for a moment, pulling her knees up in front of her on the couch and putting her head on them.
“What?” Emma asked.
“Do you think you’re gonna be with Seth forever?”
“That’s an odd question,” Emma said.
“Do you have long range plans?”
Emma sighed. “No, not really. He’s a good boyfriend. Not sure if he’s who I want for a husband.”