by J. L. Bourne
As we quietly entered the fifth, we were met with another postapocalyptic landscape. Like the lobby, windows had been blown out, but burn scoring marks and explosive damage replaced the bullet holes from the lobby. Looked like a dozen RPGs went off inside.
We stepped through the rubble of the office, walking over at least two badly decomposed corpses before reaching the other stairwell and eventually the top floor.
Here it was undamaged, with all but one window still intact. A bird had made a home in a cubicle near the open window and was protesting my presence as Maggie and I surveyed the area around the covert entrance to the Champagne Room.
After we were sure all was clear, Maggie went into one of the offices and closed the blinds out of habit. Just like the played out movie trope, she slid a large bookshelf out of the way, revealing a door. After entering her code, the familiar click of a maglock released and we were inside the SCIF.
Maggie slid the shelf back over the opening and secured the SCIF door before flipping a switch, illuminating the dim emergency lights.
“Champagne Room has battery backup, trickle charged by panels on the roof. We are fully command center capable here, but any RF and we get the Flanker treatment,” she said.
After clearing the floor to make sure we weren’t sharing the SCIF with anyone, we piled our kit in a conference room and sat down for a moment. The speed still had me wired, and I’m a lot bigger than Maggie. I can only imagine how hopped up she was.
“Time to get what we came for. Ready for another layer of the onion, Max?”
—————
Inside the defunct but still secure Delmay Glass company front building remained a few interesting items . . . the last holdouts from the CIA’s book of dirty tricks.
One of the items I recognized from Syria.
The box that was carefully placed and wired in with the dozens of other gray boxes at the Syriatel cell and data tower we infiltrated. This one wasn’t painted like the one we deployed. I suppose one of the people in the Delmay unit was paid to research the color scheme of junction boxes inside the cell tower buildings of various countries and paint them to match.
Maggie carefully went over the set-up routine for the device. Using a black marker, she wrote the wiring setup on the outside of the box. She stuck the box onto the metal workbench with a clang. I’d forgotten the device had a magnetic strip on the back for easy mounting. After pulling the plastic battery barrier, she switched the thing on and began entering settings, referring to a manual that was inside. Afterward, I watched her carefully enter a code twice before stepping aside.
“Okay, your turn. Enter the exact code you entered in Syria. It has to be exact to work,” Maggie said.
I entered my six digit code twice; it wasn’t hard to recall, as it was my childhood home phone number minus the first number from back in the day when people still had landlines. The device blinked eights in all six windows before going dark. Maggie secured the power on the box and placed it back in the bubble wrap it was stored in, the Cat6 cables still neatly folded and wrapped with rubber bands.
“Why don’t we hook this thing up now?” I asked Maggie.
“Do you want the capital region to have cyber and grid first?” she responded, making me feel pretty stupid.
She placed the device in my pack before summoning me to follow her across the hallway to another storage room. It took a while to get the door open, as my fingerprints weren’t as easy to read as Maggie’s. The lights in the SCIF began to blink, prompting Maggie to tell me that reserve power was about to deplete.
“We need to get this door open before that happens or our job’s gonna be a lot harder,” she said as I attempted to press my thumb at different angles onto the glass over and over again.
Finally, the biometric gods relented and a series of thumps indicated that the giant door was unlocked. It took both of us to swing the door open, as under normal circumstances it was assisted by an electric motor.
Inside the vault were stacks of vacuum sealed cash and other odds and ends. The item in the center of the room was what Maggie was after. It appeared to be a piece of carry-on luggage. She extended the handle and pulled it out of the vault and into the conference room with the rest of our kit.
After laying it flat, she unzipped the case, revealing a control panel with Cyrillic markings.
“Maggie, what the fuck is this thing?” I asked, moving in for a closer look under the fading emergency lighting.
“Well, Max, I guess the best course of action is to just tell you outright. It’s a false flag weapon. This is a portable nuclear device. The weapons-grade uranium in the core was sourced from Russian uranium mines so that if we ever needed to use it, the core material would trace back to Russia. If our agents were apprehended prior to employment, all the markings would indicate Russian origin. This thirty-kiloton device’s only function is to start a war.”
“Why the hell didn’t someone secure it? How is it still here?”
“Max, there wasn’t anyone left to care, or anyone that knew about it anyway. Besides, all the nonproliferation resources were probably focused on the thousands of other first-strike weapons. No one was going to bother with a little suitcase nuke.”
“Well, what’s our plan now?” I asked, already knowing what she was going to say.
“Very simple. We replace the NAI’s C4 with a portable nuclear weapon.”
“No, Maggie. That’s taking it too far. We’re already responsible for enough destruction. Innocent people could die. Children,” I said.
“I don’t give a shit about their children!” Maggie snapped. “We’ve come all this way to eliminate those bastards, and you wanna quit over collateral damage?”
She was seeing red.
“Do you know how they disposed of all the bodies, Max? Do you?!”
“No, I don’t.”
“They pushed them into a fucking landfill with a bulldozer—the ones lucky enough to be buried, that is. The rest they just dumped in the ocean. Millions. That’s on them, and that’s on me.”
I was stunned, numb. The government let so many people die . . . only to dump them in the ocean like common trash? History will remember the entire executive, legislative, and judicial branches as nothing short of war criminals.
So there it was, then. Maggie and I were the ones that started the calamity; it seems somehow fair and fitting that we be the ones to usher in a new era. One where America can start over, without the grip of tyranny and corruption that thrives in this den of serpents.
SUMMIT
Summit Eve
The night before the summit. Using the Delmay tunnel, Maggie and I exfiltrated into the darkness. At the edge of the empty overgrown lot, I tossed my shortwave antenna, tied to a rock, over a branch above my head. Making sure the radio would not transmit, I tuned up the known NAI frequencies for an update.
After a few cycles of gibberish that meant nothing, I heard the words I was looking for:
“There will be no Christmas this year.”
The summit was still happening.
I gave Maggie a thumbs-up and we continued north to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. We’d changed our clothes to better blend into the surroundings. My SBR was tucked under an overcoat and Maggie rolled our piece of carry-on luggage, playing the bag lady part very well.
The Woodrow was dark and foreboding, strewn with abandoned cars on one lane with the other lane cleared off. I could see where someone had tossed the cars off the bridge into the water on one side to clear a passage back and forth between Virginia and Maryland across the Potomac. The concrete and steel guardrails on the side were marred with steel marks and grazes where something had manhandled the vehicles into the abyss. We skipped over onto the cleared lane passing under the Maryland governor’s welcome sign suspended across the middle of the span.
I thought to myself how the unregistered short-barreled M4 personal defense weapon with a silencer attached under my coat had made me a double felon—even in
the best of times—as I stepped over the invisible state line that separated the commonwealth from Maryland.
Add those two felonies to the hundreds of others the all-powerful, all-knowing state says that I committed. Fuck it. They were going to murder me or bury me under the prison anyway.
It took most of the night to reach the District proper. The Federal Reserve Building was where the summit was going down. New world order powers were meeting to cut up what was left of the United States and they were doing it tomorrow, under the ever-watchful gaze of the money changers.
—————
Maggie insisted on picking a specific tall abandoned apartment building in the grid down area of the District. After her intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the Delmay underground, I didn’t question her overwatch choice. Even on the ground from the dark zone, we could tell that the power was still very much on inside the heart of the District.
This wasn’t a makeshift fusion center. The Federal Reserve perimeters would have hundreds of cameras trained upon it and would be wired to detect even the slightest movement or seismic activity.
—————
I honed my B&E skills, easily defeating the ground-floor padlock with one of many tin can shims I’d constructed on the way out here as extras to replace my real shims.
We were inside. The place smelled of rotten food and dead animals, and we could see why as we worked our way to the top.
Corpses lay strewn about, frozen in death, clutching fatal gunshot wounds. The bullet marks on the walls inside the stairwell told the story of a gunfight in which both sides sustained casualties. The corpse at the bottom of the steps still had his pistol, along with the one at the top. We stepped over the decomposing mess and continued on to the top, where I had to once again use a shim to defeat a padlock in order to gain roof access.
It was a rather cold February here in DC, but a small fire would have been too risky. Based on our maps, we were five hundred meters from where the powered-up microgrid had been put in place, likely unconnected to the outside. Maggie and I began to surveil what we could, but the distance to the target was a little too far to ascertain watch rotations or other security habits and movements. With my binos, I could barely make out that the perimeter guards were carrying long guns.
The area we inhabited on the top of the building was mostly surrounded by the eerie blackness of a disabled grid, eaten from the inside out by the NSA manufactured super worm. Only the lights from the federal microgrid punctuated the postapocalyptic scene all around us.
One thing that caught our attention was the IR laser activity from the rooftop of one of the buildings adjacent to the Federal Reserve. Likely a team of night vision capable snipers were nested there, something we’d need to deal with.
Uncharacteristic of Maggie, she asked me to take the first observation period and that she’d tap in after a quick combat nap. She sweetened the deal with a single-serve package of instant coffee she’d been saving since Arkansas.
I gladly accepted her bribe.
—————
Goddamn Maggie.
I awoke to the bright sun of first light, half frost-bitten, near the rim of the apartment-complex roof. I had a splitting headache and the canteen of coffee I was drinking while I stood lookout had tumbled over on its side, the contents spilled out onto the tar roof and frozen solid.
I tried to stand up and wasn’t able. Maggie was gone, no sign of her. The only thing left was my kit leaning up against the roof access hatch. I tried to work my paralyzed leg muscles, stretching them to the point of pain. They weren’t working right, so I had to drag myself over to my kit, yearning for the extra canteen I kept inside. After reaching my pack, I flipped it over on its side and climbed up on it to get myself off the cold roof for a minute.
After struggling with the bag’s zippers, I rammed my freezing hands into the pack, hoping to bust my knuckles on the canteen so I could find it. After a few grueling minutes dealing with the pain of a throbbing headache and near freezing appendages, I found the canteen and drank deeply. This gave me the strength I needed to find the small bottle of ibuprofen. I was so desperate to kill the pain, I popped three into my mouth and chewed them like candy before washing the dust down with another drink.
My legs started to come back after about fifteen minutes of flexing and massaging. I finally stood, wobbling, and instinctively felt for my short-barreled carbine. It obviously wasn’t where I left it, as I’d have felt it crawling over to my pack.
Scanning the rooftop, careful to stay low enough not to be seen, I saw it leaning barrel up against the edge of the roof. Something yellow was attached to the handguard.
A Dogpatch map was affixed via rubber band to my gun. Somewhere Maggie knew I’d find it quick.
I hastily pinched the rubber band from the gun and unfolded the old theme park map.
—————
Dear Max,
I know you’re angry right now, but you need to understand a few things. YOU are not part of this system. It didn’t make you. I am. I knew full well what we were doing in Syria, and accepted it. I am this system, the same system that murdered millions, including my own daughter. You’ve fought for redemption since the start and have little for which to be ashamed.
The worm device is in your pack. I suggest you activate it in NAI territory. If you follow the instructions I’ve left for you, the effects of the worm will be —————————————.
The nuke doesn’t have a delay fuse. You know, dead agents tell no tales and all. I never told you, as I didn’t want you to try any of your hero guilt bullshit. It’s my right. My charge. You’re free and clear, Max. Sleep well knowing that this decision was mine and mine alone.
I’d have killed you anyway if you tried to stop me, and you know it.
If you’re reading this, you don’t have much time. Get out.
—Maggie
—————
I stood atop Delmay as the blast rocked the District. A searing flash, followed by a small but distinguishable mushroom cloud rose up above the trees on the horizon as the sonic boom of the blast eventually vibrated Delmay’s elaborate but already fractured glass face.
Maggie had sacrificed herself to slay the beast, along with all of its ticks and fleas, in one fell swoop.
I’ve read her letter again and again, more than I’ve read anything in my life. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have my serious doubts over what she had done. Hell, I might have hesitated. Maggie knew. After all, she trained me. One thing is certain: if it was vengeance Maggie wanted, she got it in thermonuclear spades.
I suppose I’ll point my boots west and start moving. I’m bringing the grid back online, but I won’t start here in the remnants of the hydra-headed beast.
This place will never, ever deserve it.
ARKANSAS TERRITORY
March
Every day I ride.
My life has been a blur since I witnessed the blast on the Delmay rooftop. When I first wake up in the morning, small outlines of high-order nuclear detonation can be seen, overlaid against whatever I’m looking at, burned and scarred into my retinas. Not in my direct line of sight, but just outside—a forever forget-me-not. Something to put Maggie back into my head every time I open my eyes.
A few days after escaping DC, I found an old motorcycle inside a workshop next to a small farmhouse. This was a few miles outside of Quantico, Virginia. It’s not much, but it gets me farther west every day. Closer to Arkansas, closer to the objective. Closer to Savannah the Arkansas territory, at least that’s what I’m calling it now, as there is no more United States.
I think of Maggie every day. I reflect on her . . . sacrifice. I cry most days I’ve run into raiders on two occasions.
I didn’t even give them a chance.
There isn’t much of the old me left hanging on.
Every day I ride.
—————
January 1
Northwest
Arkansas Free Press
* * *
LIGHTS ON IN NWA
Engineers with the NAI have restored power to the majority of Northwest Arkansas. Washington, Benton, and parts of the adjacent counties currently have power for twelve hours per day, NAI officials confirm. Citing computer performance issues as the main causal factor, engineers were able to stabilize the grid control computer’s operating system. Timely for NWA citizens, this windfall comes to us just after the provisional government’s unconditional surrender, reverting power back to the individual territories. Incarcerated officials won’t confirm the reasons for the unexpected pivot; however, staffer plea bargain testimony points to the nuclear explosion that occurred last February. The attack remains under investigation by adjacent territory officials.
Tune in on 1030 AM nightly at six for more on this, and for provisional government trial coverage.
January 25
Northwest Arkansas Free Press
* * *
NO POWER FOR BORDER TERRITORIES
NAI engineers have been unsuccessful in their attempts to bring grid power back online for any of the border territories, sources confirm. Eyewitness accounts of the issue have been streaming in via radio since the NWA power and data grid was restored. Residents of border territories have been bringing their personal electronic devices across the territory border to get them back online. Witnesses report that their devices function as designed while inside the NWA grid zone, but Barbara Kelly of Joplin, MO, tells us her account of what occurred when she recently attempted to take her phone and laptop back across the border:
“They work just fine when I’m in Bentonville, but as soon as I cross back over that line, they start acting up again, just like they did before all this.”
Robert Victor of Huntsville, AR, reports, “I brought my dang electric car across the border to charge her up. When I drove her back into Madison County, she just stopped workin’, left me stranded all night.”