The Last Mile Trilogy

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The Last Mile Trilogy Page 33

by Jacqueline Druga


  Tate asked, “And they’re below?”

  The man nodded.

  Tate tossed his weapon behind his shoulder. “Let’s clear that debris.”

  <><><><>

  Nick had just used the key to unravel the metal strip around the can of Spam. He was getting quite used to it and, actually, feared being borderline Bishop addicted. He was saving the turn keys and had just placed the latest one in his back pocket, when he saw his mom. Nick rose slowly to his feet. “Parker,” he called out.

  Parker came over from the bus. “What's up?”

  Nick pointed.

  A smoky cloud behind her, Robi walked toward them leading an enormous group of people while Tate drove the Humvee alongside at a slow pace.

  “Mom!” Nick called and then ran toward her.

  Parker followed suit.

  “Mom?” Nick asked. “What … what’s going on?”

  Robi stopped walking.

  Parker questioned, “It’s nowhere near inhabitable is it?”

  Robi shook her head.

  “Mom? What are we gonna do?”

  Exhaling, Robi said, “I’m not quite sure. We may have hit the last mile of this trip, but definitely not the last mile of it all.” She inched toward Parker, “This is what remains out of three hundred.”

  “Jesus.” he gasped.

  From out of the Humvee Tate approached and lowered his lips to Robi’s ear. “I’m gonna rustle up Greek and Travis. We’ll head to town and get transport. Keep watch, OK. It still might not be safe.”

  “OK.” Robi gave a nod.

  “Transport?” Parker asked. “God, Robi, are we taking on all these people? We can’t take on all these people.”

  “What choice do we have?” Robi asked. “We came all this way to find civilization. To find people. Why? Nick tell me why?”

  “We have to join forces. We have to prepare,” Nick replied.

  “Exactly,” Robi stated “We came all this way for people— and we found people. It isn’t exactly what we expected or hoped for. But we did it, we’re here. Now we have to come up with a plan. We have to forge ahead. We have to find protection, sanctuary, shelter and get our act together, and fast.”

  Robi saw the look on Parker’s face, a mixture of disappointment and defeat. "What? What is it?”

  “Robi,” Parker whispered, “we came for an army of fighters. We need an army of fighters, you know that.”

  “Nah,” Robi shook her head, “we need an army of hope. This may be it. We may or may not be all that’s left but I’m not giving up— and you’re not giving up. I bet none of them are willing to give up either. As long as there is one of us standing, then we have to believe man has a standing chance…because this is far from over. She took a moment to study the faces of the newcomers, dirty, scared and injured. “This is only the Beginning.”

  NOVA

  Book 2

  May 1st

  AP – Today NASA, in conjunction with the Federal Government, launched their one year lottery that is expected to generate enough revenue to save the space program.

  The one dollar lottery tickets are numbered based on the order in which they are purchased—the number on the first ticket sold will be 1, the number on the millionth ticket will be 1,000,000 and so on. There is no limit to the number of tickets that may be purchased by any one individual. There is also no limit to the number of tickets that will be available for sale. Tickets can only be purchased in the United States.

  The sale of lottery tickets began this morning at 9:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) and can be purchased until 7:00 PM EDT May 31st.

  On June 1st, a computer will randomly select four winning numbers from all the tickets purchased. The winning numbers will be announced that same night at 8 PM EDT during a televised press conference.

  Each of the four lucky winners will receive a four day, once in a lifetime ride on the space shuttle Galaxy.

  NASA expects the lottery to generate somewhere in the hundreds of millions.

  CHAPTER ONE

  May 31st

  “Allow me to introduce to you the crew of the Galaxy.” Jon Grant, the director of NASA, stood at the podium and with a nod acknowledged the four men seated to his right. “As you know, until after the drawing tomorrow, none of this should leak. I have your names,” he continued, smiling at the hand-picked group of reporters before him.

  Grant was a slight built man, graying at the temples—the stereotypical image of a nerd. But he was a lot tougher than most people guessed based on his physical appearance.

  “Commander of the mission is Lt. Col. Reese Gray. Col. Gray has manned and commanded several shuttle missions.”

  Col. Gray stood, nodded and sat back down. In his mid-forties, the second oldest of the crew, Gray was a former marine, ruggedly handsome and with a quiet air of confidence.

  “Pilot, Lt. Col. Ken Kelly, US Air Force.”

  Kelly stood as well, smiled, and waved. He was thin and boyish in looks despite the fact that he had two good years on his commander.

  “Mission Specialists on this mission will be, Capt. Paul Lockhart and Dr. David Hawk.”

  Lockhart, the youngest of the crew, was obviously new to and impressed by the media attention. He stood, smiled shyly and took his seat. David Hawk, however, was nothing like the other crew members. He had been in the military, but left to pursue his passion as a scientist at NASA. Shorter than the others, he was more than likely chosen not just for his skills but for his size. Since they had yet to determine the weight of the four winners, they were no doubt playing it safe. But another factor heavily influenced the selection of Dr. David Hawk as a member of the crew.

  “Are there any questions?” Jon asked and motioned for the Galaxy crew to join him at the podium.

  A reporter stood. “Is it true that the lottery was the brainchild of Dr. Hawk?”

  Jon gave a nod to David. “Want to take that?”

  “Yes.” David said as he leaned into the microphone, nodding to Jon and then to the reporter, his single word response the answer to both their questions.

  Always a man of few words, David had also felt the vibration on his hip.

  Jon chuckled and, then noticing that David was reading a text message, added to his response. “It is true. Dr. Hawk did come up with the idea for the lottery when we were faced with having to make major cut backs to the program.”

  Another reporter asked. “It’s estimated that roughly a half of billion people have bought tickets. This lottery has turned out to be a saving grace for the program, has it not?”

  “It has, and we expect ticket sales to sky rocket over the next several hours as the sale winds down.”

  Col. Gray leaned forward. “Let’s not forget that it is not just Americans buying tickets. People from all over the world are getting into this lottery. I have heard they are paying fifty cents more to get people over here to buy their tickets for them.”

  Ken Kelly added, “And then there have been reports of millionaires such as Thaddeus Hall who purchased something like eight million tickets.”

  Reese Gray tilted his head toward the microphone. “I think it was seven million, but if he wins that’s still a lot less than the other millionaire paid NASA for a flight on the shuttle some time ago. Then again, we may not know for weeks if he won or not. Imagine how long it would take to go through that many tickets.”

  Ken Kelly laughed. “I’m sure he has every number logged on a computer somewhere, Reese.”

  Jon pointed to another reporter. When he did he noticed David was getting up, he held up his finger. “Dr. Hawk?”

  “Um, I’ll be back.” David said and lifted his phone to his ear as he walked out of the press conference.

  “Steve,” Jon pointed at another reporter. “What’s your question?”

  <><><><>

  It probably wasn’t the most appropriate time to make a phone call, but since it was Martin Burgess who had left the text message, David knew it was important. Not that they
didn’t speak regularly, but Burgess knew he was in a press conference. Plus he was curious as to the meaning of the strange text message.

  He stepped off the stage and into the back hallway. “OK, obviously this is big,” David said when Burgess answered the phone.

  “It is. Did you get my text?”

  “Yes, but it was one word. What the heck is going on?”

  “Think of the word.” Burgess said. “Then come to my lab.”

  “Think of the word . . . Jesus, Martin, it was a bunch of letters.”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  “Yes, it was. Martin. Was the T9 turned on?”

  “What in the world is a T9? I’m sixty eight years old David, and this text messaging shit is new to me.”

  “Well, what was the word supposed to be?”

  “I can’t tell you, I want to be dramatic,” Burgess replied.

  “And I’m in the middle of a press conference.”

  “Oh, shit, I forgot.”

  David closed his eyes. “I’m going back in now.”

  “I’ll resend the text correctly. Then come straight to see me.”

  “It must be big.”

  “Could be, I think.”

  “Talk to you soon.” David regained his composure, running his fingers through his hair which he noticed probably could have used a cut. No sooner did he close his phone and prepare to step back out on the stage, when his phone beeped.

  Burgess’ text message was coming through.

  Thinking to himself, ‘what can be so big,’ David flipped open his phone and read the one word.

  His heart sunk.

  Going to see Martin Burgess after the conference was now definitely a must.

  <><><><>

  Thaddeus Hall was a millionaire by the time he was thirty years old. So for nine years he’d had the opportunity to invest and make his fortune grow.

  He had done just that.

  He invented a mop attachment which sold like mad thanks to As Seen on TV infomercials. Amazed, Thaddeus put his inventive brain to work and became one of the king inventors of products featured on the As Seen on TV shows.

  The ‘guru’ of inventions some called him.

  Recently named one of People magazine’s top bachelors, Thaddeus seemed to have it all. But for Thaddeus, having it all meant a trip on the space shuttle.

  He had purchased, seven million, three hundred thousand, four hundred and, seventy-two lottery tickets.

  “Seventy-three,” Mila said and smiled. She was his housekeeper of ten years and actually more of a mother figure. Mila handed him the ticket. “I bought you this one while I was at the grocer. The line was short.”

  “Ah, Mila, I thank you.” Thaddeus stepped from behind his desk, a desk that was layered with odd toys from the past and other stuff. “That is really sweet of you. Let me give you the dollar.”

  She smacked his hand. “No, it is my gift. You treat me very well. I want you to win.”

  “Wow, 7,300,473 tickets. I feel like this is the winning one.” Thaddeus looked down at the number. “Holy smokes, it’s up to six hundred million plus.”

  She nodded. “You are gonna win. I feel it. You will get your dream.”

  Thaddeus smiled. He conversed with Mila a bit more, and then called his secretary who had the awesome task of logging all his tickets into a database. He’d have to get her the ticket so she could file it for easy ‘find’ like the other tickets.

  Had they had to manually search it would take weeks, and that was too long. The government was only giving winners two weeks to claim their seats or they’d call another ticket number.

  Thaddeus couldn’t have that. He had to have the winning ticket.

  It was a dream of his since he was a boy. Like the other millionaire had done in the past, he had even offered NASA a large sum of money for a ride in the shuttle, but they had declined.

  That sucked.

  So Thaddeus bought and bought lottery tickets.

  For as hot as the world thought Thaddeus to be—or as much as people believed he had it all, Thaddeus was not the man the public thought they knew.

  The suave, debonair man who stepped with class from the limos and flashed his perfect smile for cameras was a front.

  Thaddeus wasn’t that man. He wasn’t comfortable being that man.

  The attention was fun.

  But the truth be known, ‘Thaddeus the millionaire’ was still ‘Thaddeus the nerd’ who had buried himself away as a child playing games like Dungeons and Dragons. As a teenager he had started a petition to bring back the mullet.

  He was that strange.

  Hell, he was still on line playing D & D, he just made sure no one knew it was the famous Thaddeus Hall they were playing with.

  He would be disappointed if his number was not called, but he had a ‘back up’ plan ready. He would offer one of the winners a huge sum of money for their winning ticket.

  People joked that he could possibly end up with two or more seats on the shuttle, a definite possibility given the number of tickets he held.

  Thaddeus vowed that if he held more than one winner, he’d make them redraw. He only needed one seat. After all, he couldn’t be the only one with this dream. Others had to share his passion.

  He felt confident he would win and he would know for certain in less than twenty- four hours.

  <><><><>

  Lucy Montgomery was too old to play with toys, so the thirty something woman claimed it belonged to her ten year old son. Truth was the toy was hers. She made motor mouth noises as she flew the shuttle in front of her two year old daughter as she sat in her highchair.

  “Houston this is Galaxy,” Lucy said in a deepened voice. “Lucy Montgomery has been such an asset to the flight.”

  Tabitha giggled. “Funny.”

  “Yeah,” Lucy said. “Mommy is funny. Mommy’s gonna win that lottery isn’t she.” She touched the shuttle model. “Mommy will sit right here.”

  Her son Ben came running into the kitchen. “Can I play with the space ship now?”

  “No, honey, this is Mommy’s. You can have it if I lose. But I doubt that will happen.” She smiled. “You can look at it though.”

  The back door opened.

  Her husband Doug walked in and set his bag down on the counter. “Playing with the shuttle again, I see.” Doug was a big man, burley with a down-to-earth construction guy appearance, quite a contrast to his petite wife.

  “I can’t help it. I’m so excited.” She walked over and kissed him.

  He reached into his jacket and pulled out lottery tickets. “Fifty more, babe.”

  Lucy shrieked. “Doug! Thank you!” She hugged him. “I thought you said we couldn’t afford to buy any more. I know we bought . . .”

  “No, Luce.” He held out his hand. “Guys took up a collection, thought we should buy you a few more.”

  She grinned widely. “This is so great. This is like the third time the managers did this.”

  “You know why, right? They want you to win because you’re like the only one who will wear that Sears pin on the outside of your space suit.”

  Lucy fluttered her lips. “And you know I will.”

  “Yeah, and then maybe I’ll land that general manager job for the Cleveland division of Sears.”

  “You will. I believe in you.”

  “And I believe in you.” He smiled. “Now go file these. OK?”

  “Ok.” Lucy gripped the lottery tickets. She’d place them in the latest shoebox in which she kept her tickets filed numerically.

  “Luce?” Doug called out as she started into the bedroom. “How many are you up to now?”

  “This makes four thousand sixty-five.”

  Doug gave a ‘thumbs up’ as she left and walked over to the baby. He kissed his daughter and with a whispering high toned voice said, “Four thousand tickets. Daddy could have bought a dream TV set with that. Yep. But . . . Mommy’s gonna win. Yes, she is.”

  “Dad,” Ben asked. “Can I
play with Mommy’s space ship?”

  “Sure.” He handed Ben the shuttle and, as Ben darted off, he went back to the baby.

  <><><><>

  There was something about going to see Martin Burgess that made David feel as if he were going to see Dr. Frankenstein. It was probably because he had to climb six flights of stairs to get to his top floor lab. Slightly out of breath, David finally entered the office portion of Martin’s lab.

  Martin was his mentor and he was busy examining two computer screens when David plopped down in the chair. “If you didn’t smoke, those stairs wouldn’t bother you,” he said as he spun around, his gray hair tossed some, and his reading glasses propped on the end of his nose. As he chomped and chewed, he extended a carton of fries from McDonald’s. “Hungry?”

  “Yeah, thanks, I missed the dinner coming here.” David grabbed a few fries, shoved them in his mouth and then cringed. “Uh, they’re cold.” He grabbed the waste paper basket and spit them out.

  “That was gross.”

  “No, they were gross.” He kept spitting as if more would emerge from his mouth.

  Like an excited child, Martin rubbed his hands together after he set down the box of fries. “So what do you think?”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am. I have the data to show you. Want to review it?”

  “I’ll take your word, but I’d still like to see it.”

  “As you wish,” Martin said and grabbed a folder that was two inches thick and handed it to David. “I’ve copied it all for you.”

  David released a ‘whew’ and said, “A lot.”

  “I like to be sure.”

  “When do you think?”

  “Not when, if. If it happens, which you and I know is a big ‘if’. Time frame is a couple months to a year. So it could happen before this Galaxy flight or after. Perhaps maybe even during. Wouldn’t that be a spectacular sight!”

 

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