Homefront: A Story of the Future Collapse

by Matthew Gilman

  The lobby was empty. Furniture sat in a square for visitors waiting for appointments. Offices with glass walls and doors surrounded the lobby with doors leading to halls. Dallas took his compass out and faced north.

  “Sophie said he was on the northern side of the building,” Dallas said.

  “If he’s still here.” Budd was starting to wonder if this was a bad idea.

  Dallas moved down the hallway with Budd following. A security door waited for them and Dallas looked at the lock.

  “Grenade?” Budd asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Dallas pushed the lever and the door opened. “Fire safety measure. If the power is out and the backup generator doesn’t kick on, the door unlocks in case of a fire.”

  “But they have power.”

  “They aren’t running it through the entire building,” Dallas moved through the door and saw a luxury apartment. It could have been an office at one time. Corner office with the most windows overlooking the majority of the city to the north. The bridge to Seattle was in view.

  The two men didn’t notice the blonde on the couch until she screamed at the sight of them.

  “Woah this is a nice place.” Budd said, now looking over the rest of the apartment. From a side room the voice of a man was coming into the room. Choi appeared and dropped the phone that was in his hands. He turned around to run, but Budd ran after him and a second later Choi was being dragged back out into the living room.

  “General Choi?” Dallas asked.

  Budd kicked Choi’s legs out from under him, forcing the man onto his knees. Dallas stood above looking down at the man. “General Choi? That is your name?”

  Choi replied in Chinese.

  “I know you speak English,” Dallas said, staring the man in the eyes. “We’ve talked before.”

  Choi spit on Dallas’ shirt. An act of defiance that would cost him in the end.

  “Bag him,” Dallas said to Budd.

  The blonde on the couch was crying and screaming as Budd removed a black hood from his pocket. The blonde rushed at Dallas pleading not to take Choi. Dallas pulled his Berretta out and shot her once in the chest.

  “NO!” Choi yelled just before the hood was slid over his face and he was knocked unconscious.

  “Did you have to kill the broad?” Budd asked.

  “She turned herself into a threat while living as a traitor to her country,” Dallas said. “If I didn’t shoot her now the public trial and hanging would have been far worse.”

  “If we win this war,” Budd said.

  The two men carried Choi out of the apartment.

  A man approached from down the hall. Dallas recognized the uniform. It was Kelly. The fight with the Chinese man in the kitchen had left him beat up and bleeding.

  “You let that guy turn you into chop suey?” Budd asked, seeing the rags wrapped around Kelly’s forearms.

  “We got him?” Kelly had ignored the comment.

  “On our way out,” Dallas said.

  “We taking the elevator?” Budd inquired. “If you say the stairs I’m tossing him to the bottom.”

  The doors opened with the soft ding of technology greeting them.

  In the car garage basement, the Rangers exited to find the majority of the vehicles were gone.

  “Choi must have sent troops to the prison,” Kelly said, thankful that nobody was shooting at them.

  Dallas started to move towards the Humvee parked by the doors. Budd stopped looking at something, slack-jawed and eyes bulging.

  “Guys,” Budd said, grabbing their attention. “Guys.”

  “What?” Dallas said, about to open the door to the Humvee.

  “We’re taking the Caddy,” Budd said, running over to a black Cadillac SUV. “Wait here.” Budd ran out of the garage taking the door to the lobby. In the lobby he stepped over the bodies of the men Dallas and himself had shot while entering the building. Against the wall was a key box. Resting on a hook inside were the keys for the Cadillac Escalade. Running back into the garage, Dallas and Kelly stood waiting.

  “Can we hurry this up?” Dallas asked.

  Budd pressed the remote button. The doors unlocked and the lights flashed.

  “Heated leather seats, DVD player, tinted windows, and my guess is this bad boy is tricked out with Kevlar-lined doors and bulletproof glass.”

  Kelly smirked, impressed by the news. Choi was tossed in the back of the SUV and the rest of the men sat towards the front with Budd driving. The Escalade peeled out of the garage, clipping the front of the Lamborghini. Budd turned onto the street and drove to their rendezvous point.

  The smell of earth and humidity in the air told Choi he was underground. The walls were close; the room was small. The blindfold was tight around his face. He felt the nylon ties cutting into his flesh as he moved around.

  “He’s awake,” one of the voices said in English.

  “Where am I?” Choi said in English. The hood came off and the single bulb above his head blinded him. He looked down at the dirt floor until his eyes adjusted. The black combat boots told him the obvious situation. He was taken prisoner and he was going to be interrogated. As a Chinese officer he was prepared for the task at hand.

  “Who are you?” an American voice said.

  “It doesn’t matter who I am,” Choi replied.

  “Really? Because you seem to be a big deal back on the base,” the same voice said.

  “I’m an officer.”

  “We know. Who are you?” the voice asked again.

  Choi looked up and saw a large man standing above him. There were three men, but the one in charge was taller and broader. All of their faces were covered in charcoal or dirt, but the blue eyes gave away that he was white.

  “General Choi. People’s Liberation Army of China,” he said as he was trained.

  “So you are important?” another man asked, staring at him with his white eyes.

  “General Choi. People’s Liberation Army of China,” he repeated.

  “This is when things start to get messy,” the tall man said. He walked over to the wall and grabbed a pair of boxing gloves.

  Choi stared at them and thought about what was to come. “You wear gloves? That doesn’t hurt as bad,” he said, trying to gain some control of the situation.

  “The gloves are to keep me from breaking my hands. They don’t stop me from breaking your ribs.”

  Choi was worried. How long would this go on for? What did they want from him?

  “How many men are in your unit? What are your orders? What are your capabilities?” a shorter member of the three asked.

  “General Choi. People’s Liberation Army,” he said waiting for the first blow.

  The tall man finished putting the gloves on and punched them together in front of Choi. His breathing was heavy as he exhaled out of his nose. His chest puffed out and his veins popped out of his arms.

  An arm pulled back and disappeared. Choi’s head flung back and forth, but his brain continued moving as his head stopped. A few seconds later the room came into view. He had never been hit that hard before.

  “How many men are in your unit?” the short man asked again.

  “General Choi. People’s Liberation Army of China,” Choi repeated. His brain had let the training take over.

  The tall man continued punching the General for the next hour. Teeth fell out, one eye had swollen shut. When some of the ribs broke, Dallas stopped hitting him on that side of the body. Puncturing a lung would damage the intelligence they had captured.

  “I don’t know anything,” Choi pleaded.

  “Tell us something,” the short man said.

  “I don’t know anything. They don’t tell me anything. Plans are kept secret until we get our orders.”

  “That doesn’t tell us anything,” the short man said.

  “No, wait. I can tell you more,” Choi said, looking up at the tall man about to hit him again.

  The gloved hand slammed against Choi’s face and he ro
cked back and forth in the chair. Another fist collided and Choi was breathing heavy, dribbling blood from his mouth.

  “Who bombed us?” Dallas asked.

  “You did,” Choi said.

  “Fuck you.” Dallas raised his fist.

  “It’s true. We had no idea it was going to happen. You bombed yourselves.”

  “Go on,” the short man said.

  “The bomb goes off. Our government is freaking out that you are going to retaliate. We wait and see nothing happens. Then we go into Operation Sleeping Dragon.”

  “What the hell is that?” the short man asked.

  “It’s a plan that was made back in the 70’s before Mao died. He wanted a plan for China to take over as the world power if something ever happened to the United States. It was a contingency plan, we never thought it was going to happen. Then the bomb went off and we started to implement it a week later. At first we tried to knock out your power grid by hacking the system, but your Firewalls were too good. So we took the direct approach. We fired some nukes off your coast into the stratosphere and fried what we could. That appeared to do the trick. You started the downfall of your country, we worked to finish it.” Choi explained.

  “Who bombed us?” Dallas asked again.

  “You did. No one else did it. It wasn’t Al Qaeda or Isis that bombed you. You imploded on yourselves. Your greed and self-interest did yourselves in. Capitalism is a plague on society.” Choi realized his communist education kicked in towards the end of his speech.

  “If it was us, how did it happen? Who inside would do something like that?” the short man asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t. It came from the inside. There was no rocket. No jet to drop the payload. Ground zero was your Capital Building. It’s common knowledge in China. It was your people, no one else.”

  “Then why are you here?” the third man finally asked. He hadn’t talked the entire time. Now he was speaking and for some reason Choi feared him more than the others.

  “It’s our turn,” Choi said. “You have had your chance. You policed the world into your colonialist society. Putting everyone into debt. Enslaving nations except for the rich that could buy their way out. You didn’t care about anyone but yourselves. You ruled the world for the last hundred years when it should have been us. Your young immature country was at its peak for decades and you let it fail because you couldn’t get along. You argue amongst yourselves while your government falls apart and finally your sins caught up with you.” Choi looked at the men, who were thinking about his words.

  “If what you say is true then what does China want with us?” Budd asked.

  “Your resources. You shoot us when we cut your trees. We tried to take over your mines and you blew them shut so we couldn’t get your minerals or salt. You are home to some of the best farming land in the world and we have 1.2 billion people. Isn’t it obvious?”

  A fist collided with Choi’s face and he took a second to regain his composure. Dallas looked back at the two men and shrugged his shoulders.

  “What? I had to put him back in his place.”

  “Let’s get back on track. How many men are in your unit?” Budd asked again.

  “I don’t know,” Choi said. Another punch collided with his face.

  “The General of an invading force doesn’t know how many men he is in charge of?” Dallas turned to the other men. “That doesn’t sound right to me.”

  “Me neither,” Kelly said, standing in the background.

  “Most of our forces are in Los Angeles and San Francisco. That is where the big fighting is. I keep having my troops pulled to make up for the losses in those areas. What you are doing here is nothing compared to your people to the south.” Choi explained, spitting out some blood at the end. “You are an insect compared to the larger problem.”

  “You going to hit him or is it my turn?” Budd asked.

  “He’s talking,” Dallas replied, waving Budd off. “How many men?”

  “3000, last count,” Choi said. “We get air support when we ask. My job is to make sure the supplies continue to move out of the port.”

  “3000 ain’t much,” Budd commented.

  “Enough to keep you busy.” Choi looked around the room. “How many of your men have you lost?”

  Dallas clenched his fist. He already wanted to hit him for bringing up the air support. The memory of Clive’s death flooded back. Now it was being flaunted in his face. Dallas struck again, Choi’s head rocking back and forth.

  “I think we learned what we wanted,” Kelly said, looking at the broken man in the chair.

  “You sure you didn’t bomb D.C.?” Dallas asked.

  “I told you. It was your people. We just turned off the power. A greater weapon over time. Move in with the population dwindling down to nothing and keep the natural resources intact. Why destroy a country if you can’t reap the spoils?” Choi’s mouth hurt so bad he could only let the blood drool out. “We both know where this is going. Finish it.”

  “Fine,” Dallas pulled his pistol and for the second time that day executed somebody. That was how he thought of the blonde in the apartment. She wasn’t armed, she did come at him, but it wasn’t necessary. It was to send a message to Choi and everyone else that was working with the Chinese.

  The body was left in the basement of the auto repair shop. Who knew if Choi would ever be found? With the way the Chinese military worked the replacement was already on his way. They wouldn’t spend resources on looking for a man who was taken prisoner.

  “Let’s get back to camp.”

  The Escalade backed up from the garage and drove down the street, heading for the bridge. They had to get back to Seattle. There was still one part of their mission they had to accomplish. At the entrance of the bridge was the road block.

  “Time to test this puppy out,” Budd said, pressing the radio. DMX played on the stereo. It was a song Budd hadn’t heard since the late 1990s. “Yawl go make me lose my mind…” Budd shifted the Cadillac into drive and pressed the gas. The guards moved to the side and fired their AK-47s at the vehicle.

  The Escalade plowed through the barrier and cruised at 90 MPH down the pontoon bridge. On the opposite end was the second road block.

  “Kelly, you still have our toy?” Dallas said, looking back from the passenger seat. Kelly pulled the remote from his pocket. Budd slowed the Escalade down enough to prevent losing control of the vehicle when they punched through the line. The Escalade rolled like a tank with the added weight from the armor. Bullets started to fly at the SUV and the men ducked as the windshield became speckled. The paint from the hood flew up as the engine continued to roar.

  “Now you see why I grabbed this?” Budd didn’t flinch. The grill of the SUV was lined with stainless steel and Kevlar to protect the motor. The tires were designed to run flat when they were shot out. The roadblock was less than a hundred yards away when Budd hit the gas again and cruised at the line of soldiers trying to stop the SUV. The interesting thing was to see the armored SUV plow through the military barricade. The vehicle was made for the wealthy and privileged.

  “Where the hell was this, in Iraq?” Dallas said as the SUV pushed two Humvees out of the way and Budd continued to speed away into the tunnel on the opposite side. “Hit it!”

  Kelly removed the plastic cover and flipped the switch. The bridge erupted with steel and asphalt flying into the air. The sight of the explosion disappeared as the entrance to the tunnel disappeared around the curve of the tunnel. The men standing at the end of the bridge vanished as the road underneath them exploded. The bridge broke apart and sank under the water. Large sections of it floated out to sea while others sank, too water logged to float as they had before. The path from Belleview and Seattle was gone and the Chinese army had lost their immediate backup. The SUV was ditched later in the city and the men waited until nightfall to hike back into the forest. They still had no idea what happened with the prison break or if anybody survived. It would be two days bef
ore they would see if anybody made it back to the rendezvous point.

  Chapter 40

  After the excitement of the last two days the hike in the woods was an odd change of pace for everyone. Dallas couldn’t get the information that was revealed by the Chinese General out of his head. You did it to yourselves. The phrase repeated and drove him crazy with the thought that the country imploded on itself. If it wasn’t his own government then who else had the capability to build a bomb and then sneak it into the capital?

  “You think that guy was full of shit?” Dallas asked Budd and Kelly.

  “Hell, you know me,” Budd said. “I think everyone is full of shit.”

  “That’s because you’re full of shit,” Kelly replied.

  “Exactly,” Budd said, agreeing. “If I’m full of shit and I know everything I say is bullshit, why would I trust anybody else?”

  “Did you kill that guy in the lobby or was that my kill?” Dallas asked.

  “Now see, if I say ‘ya I put a bullet into a dead man,’ you think I’m lying because I can’t be trusted,” Budd said. “If I say ‘oh no sir he was still twitching and reaching for a gun,’ then I’m still a liar because it’s been established I’m a liar. It doesn’t matter what comes out of my mouth it’s all bullshit like that chink bastard. What you have to keep in mind is I did shoot that guy, dead or alive. That is the only fact you have. The other fact is D.C. was nuked and whoever did it is likely as dead as anybody else that was there. Does the answer matter as to who did it?”

  “I suppose not.” Dallas for once had to acknowledge Budd might have known what he was talking about. Of course when the conversation was over Dallas realized that nothing Budd said could be trusted, even when it came to the confirmation that the things he said were complete bullshit.

  Setting up camp, the men built a Dakota fire pit to hide the smoke and flame. The design was a pain in the ass in the northwest with the rocky terrain. Budd had experimented a few times with making rocket stoves that were essentially the same design but used other materials such as logs or rocks for the airflow.