Calm Act Box Set (Books 1-3)

by Ginger Booth

  I didn’t know the war had begun.

  21

  Interesting fact: Probably the largest ongoing meshnet before Project Reunion was guifi.net in Spain, with about 30,000 nodes. The rural meshnet’s popularity was driven by low Internet availability and high broadband prices.

  “Adam!” I cried, latching onto his arm when I finally found him again in the throng. The fireworks signaled the end of the party. Thousands were moving toward freshly-cleaned tenders and ferries, to bear them back to their assorted ships in the harbor and their well-earned beds.

  “How do I get back to Emmett’s ship?” I begged him.

  He put an arm around me to draw me close to talk. That was a rowdy crowd. “What ship?” he asked.

  “Um,” I reported.

  Adam laughed. “Which captain?”

  “Er,” I suggested.

  Adam laughed even harder. He was the most drunk I’d ever seen him, and he was sky-high from the rousing success of his after-party and the whole Thanksgiving operation. “Just tag along with me, Dee. We’ll figure something out.”

  “I heard somebody say destroyers are moving up the Hudson,” I told him worriedly.

  “None of our business,” Adam admonished me, briefly solemn. “Me Coast Guard. Dee civilian.” He tapped a finger to his nose, then mine as he said it. His grin popped back up like a cork when he saw another officer over my shoulder. “I need to talk to that guy!” I held onto his hand like a lifeline, toddling along behind him through the crowd.

  Eventually Adam learned that indeed Emmett’s destroyer was no longer in New York Harbor. Whether it had sailed up the Hudson River, with or without Emmett, he refused to ask. In any event, I couldn’t go back to my ship, so Adam brought me along to his.

  We eddied out of the throng in the ferry terminal, and ducked into a back stairwell of the authorized-personnel-only variety. Adam was probably the most authorized person in the city these days when it came to the ferry terminal. We took the stairs down from the public levels. He needed a flashlight to wend our way through some echoing empties and creepy chock-fulls, then out along a dark lesser dock. There we found an over-sized houseboat-tug. Powerful enough to budge a tanker, and all kitted out as a home for its owner. Leave it to Adam.

  “I had a Coast Guard boat,” he confided in excuse. “That’s still around here somewhere. But they keep getting called. Go back to Greenwich. Go down to Jersey. Just never here when I needed to sleep, you know? This boat is sweet! I’m taking it with me back to Connecticut.”

  “It moves, too?” I asked, enchanted.

  “Sure! Hey, aboard! We waiting for anybody?” He gave me a hand up the ladder.

  The merchant marine commander I’d met earlier stepped out of the wheelhouse above, mug in hand, to call down, “Nope, you’re the last.”

  “Let’s head to mooring to sleep,” Adam directed. “All ashore that’s going ashore.”

  “Spoilsport,” the man returned.

  Soon two Navy women emerged from the house. They scurried onto the dock, still adjusting their clothing, so Adam could cast off. “Evening, ladies!” he called cheerily in farewell. The boat thrummed to life as though I was standing atop a Moon rocket. It took those massive engines a matter of minutes to gently move several hundred feet and tie off to a mooring pole. Adam let someone else deal with that, and drew me inside.

  The six beds in the living room slightly marred the charm of the large combo living-dining room, with galley along the side, all over a beautiful wooden floor. No one was sleeping – the onshore party had simply moved on board. Even without the girlfriends, there appeared to be twice as many people as beds, all rowdy, music blaring.

  “Half hour to lights out,” Adam yelled over the music.

  Variations on ‘Aw, c’mon, Skip!’ assailed him, as he drew me across to the galley. “We’ll see,” he yelled back. “Meet Dee Baker, Colonel MacLaren’s girlfriend. She got stranded here.”

  “Well, finder’s keepers!” called out one guy with enthusiasm, leaning back on his chair to ogle me upside-down.

  Adam mock-hit him. “Not like that.”

  “No, you idiot,” another guy said. “MacLaren’s gone up to fight Pennsylvania at West Point, I heard.”

  Someone clicked off the music. All eyes turned to Adam. “That true, Skip?”

  Adam pointed at the man who’d mentioned Pennsylvania. “Dog-house,” he informed him. “Way to go on operational security, bonehead. And did his girlfriend need to hear that? No.” Unsurprisingly, this did little to distract the intent eyes focused on Adam, including mine.

  “Hell,” said Adam. “Dee, want a drink? I’m having coffee. We’ve got scotch and brandy.”

  “Coffee’s good,” I said softly. “Adam? Did Emmett go into battle?”

  Adam shook his head. “Hope not. Doubt it.” Fortified with coffee mugs, he turned back to the room full of engineers, their eyes still hovering on him. Actually, three more had climbed down the stairs to wait on his answer, one a woman.

  “OK, listen up,” Adam said. “Here’s what I know. Just before the speeches outside, Pennsylvania attacked what they thought was Camp Upstate, at West Point. The real Camp Upstate quarantine is safe. West Point is a decoy infantry garrison. Armed to the gills. Their second surprise, I hope, is naval support. Four destroyers headed up the river to provide backup. The enemy came in with air drops and attack helicopters. I don’t know how many. This is all inside the Apple Skin. A clear violation of the Calm Act, in every way. I don’t know how the fight is going. The attack was entirely airborne, no troop columns spotted on land. Yet. That’s all I know.”

  Inevitably, his ‘that’s all I know’ invited a babble of questions. I got mine in first. “Adam – Commander – is Emmett – Colonel MacLaren – is he in the fighting at West Point?”

  Adam re-introduced me, for anyone he’d missed. Then, “The answer is no. I’m sure Colonel MacLaren is following events closely. But General Cullen is in command of the New York borders.” He raised a finger. “And General Cullen does not update the Coast Guard and Merchant Marine on his actions.” A measure of how keyed up we all were, this got a big laugh.

  “While we’re on Project Reunion,” Adam reminded them, “we report to Colonel MacLaren. I spoke to the Colonel before he left. We have no orders. So for now, we sleep off our Thanksgiving turkey.”

  There were more questions, and Adam answered them. But he also told them to turn the music back on. He sat down with me at the table to drink our coffee and visit before bed. Not that I knew where he’d shoe-horn me in. There were now 16 people partying in the admittedly generous living room, most of them sitting on the beds.

  “Skip,” the merchant marine commander interrupted us, “Kate.” He tossed Adam the phone. “Hey, still at Governor’s Island?... You’re safe there, we’re safe here. Just fix the boat.... Keep me informed, where you are, just in case.... Yup, bye.” Adam tossed the phone back.

  I grinned at him. “Is your home always this much of a zoo?”

  “I put my foot down at light’s out,” he assured me. “Kind of a full house tonight, though, with the party.”

  “Skip, Niedermeyer,” the same guy held up his phone. “What, do you have your phone turned off?”

  Adam sighed. “I’ll call him.”

  “He says he wants us to pull out,” the guy said uneasily.

  “So get off the phone and I’ll call him now.” He did so. “Hi, John... That’s a negative... That’s quite possible. Emmett might want to speed up the evacuation... I report to Emmett... I still report to Emmett... With respect, sir – no sir.” He ended the call. “Always wanted to say that,” he admitted.

  I winced in sympathy. “Are you in trouble with Niedermeyer?”

  Adam nodded his head yes-and-no. “Gang, listen up!” he called. “The Coast Guard wants us to bug out. I said no. We report to Colonel MacLaren. We stand by Project Reunion.” Cheers. “We could be the last ones out of here,” he warned, “if we’re driving ove
rloaded ferry buckets of refugees.” Cheers and whistles. “All in favor?” Standing ovation. “Any opposed?” No one. “All right then.” He grinned at them, truly and deeply pleased.

  “Think you could sleep?” he asked me gently.

  I glanced at the time. Nearly 11, and I’d been up since 4 a.m. “I might just pass out on the table here soon.”

  “Let’s go, then.” He led me upstairs to his bedroom, a cheerful little chamber with a window, twin bed, and a big easy chair with divan. “You take the bed, Dee.”

  Once the lights went out, and sudden silence fell on the tugboat, I asked in the stillness, “Adam? Are you OK here? I wasn’t sure, for a while. I still care about you, you know.”

  “Yeah, me too,” he replied. He sighed. “Always will. I’m good. I wasn’t, before Project Reunion. But now, yeah. I feel like I can breathe again. When I saw that video of Emmett on the first day, calling Ty Jefferson a hero? I thought that was so corny. But I was nearly crying today, meeting the Hoboken leaders in person. The guy who renovated this boat – he towed barges full of refugees from Manhattan out to the Rockaways, to escape into Long Island. Then he got sick and died. But he really lived first. You know?”

  “Yeah. It is a city of heroes.” I understood exactly what Adam meant. My heart sang when I thought of these people, who never gave up. Under far more hopeless conditions than I ever had to face. Maybe I can be braver, too.

  “Cranky, cantankerous, rude New Yorkers to the end. Heroes.” He laughed softly. “Yeah, I’m fine, Dee. Having the time of my life. Emmett... He’s a hell of a commander. It’s an honor to serve under him.”

  “He says the same about you. Good night, Adam.”

  “Thanks. Sweet dreams, Dee.”

  I dreamt I was on the African savanna. Horny hippos reared on their back legs, to roar honking challenge upon each other.

  Adam joggled my ankle. “Rise and shine.”

  The honking hippos resolved into foghorns, as ships of the fleet greeted each other through sheeting, possibly sleeting, rain. I peered out Adam’s window and found the prospect entirely uninviting. I tried to slump back under the blanket. But another foghorn, seemingly inches from my eardrum, shot me out of bed like an electrocuted cat.

  “Your carriage awaits, Dee. Please get dressed. Before they honk at us again.”

  Adam had already skinned into naval cammies. He stepped out to let me pull mine on.

  “Carriage to where?” I belatedly thought to ask.

  But the boat-vibrating engine awoke to nudge us back to the docks. Much lower and closer to the water than my previous ships in this harbor, and with the tide going out instead of in, the rank smell of diesel, raw sewage flowing out of the city, and decomposing bodies was much stronger than last night, despite the clean-smelling rain. The heavy tug was also rocking just a little, in addition to the engine thrum. But most of all, I’d now gone two nights in a row without enough sleep. My nerves felt raw, my eyes gritty, my stomach queasy.

  I firmly told myself that Emmett and Adam did this day after day, yet the zealot fire of eagerness still burned in their eyes. Yeah, I wasn’t buying it.

  The tugboat bumped into the dock as I arrived at the breakfast table. Two passing people grabbed me to keep me from falling. My stomach noted that even parked, the boat continued to lurch up and down, and side to side, on sort of a diagonal.

  “Under way,” Adam suggested mildly, “you should always hold on to something.” He was polishing off the last scraps of cornbread and eggs over easy. “Especially when it’s slick out.”

  “Got it. Have any oatmeal, or cereal?” I asked. I couldn’t face eggs. I wasn’t reconciled to facing day yet.

  Adam handed me a bottle of dramamine. Sea sickness pills. “I don’t recommend you eat breakfast today,” he said apologetically. “You can keep the bottle. We don’t need it.”

  “You’re eating,” I accused.

  He laughed. No, I don’t suppose people who went to sea suffered much from sea sickness. Or at least, not when tied to the dock. “Come on. I’ll see you to your ride.”

  As we emerged onto the slick deck – Adam clarified that I should hold onto the boat, not him, as we both nearly went flying – I found a Coast Guard boat awaited on the other side of the dock, where a couple of impatient crew waited for me in the sleet. “They’re taking me back to Emmett’s destroyer?” I asked.

  Adam didn’t answer until he had me firmly handed onto the dock. “Camp Suffolk. Orders.”

  “What? No!” I cried. “I need to see Emmett again. I need my stuff! Adam, I was going to work here today with the meshnet programmers.”

  “Quarantine passengers for Suffolk are on their way, ma’am,” the nearest crew woman assured me, taking my elbow. She pointed down the dock.

  A party of Coast Guard crew and a half-dozen figures in hazmat-suited yellow approached slowly from the far end of the dock. One carried a giant floppy hazmat bag. After a moment, I realized that the bag must contain the three-year-old that one of the meshnet programmers had.

  “Oh...” I said sadly.

  “Skip!” Someone yelled behind us. “You gotta hear this!” He piped a broadcast out through the tugboat’s speakers. It took me a moment to recognize the voice of the President of the United States speaking. Yes, my mental processes were slow. But I’d only heard President O’Donnell speak once before, at the rush inauguration last Christmas after the previous president committed suicide. We knew he was hiding in an ark. We didn’t know where, until today.

  “My fellow Americans, I’m speaking to you today from the White House Ark at Raven Rock Mountain, Pennsylvania...”

  “The rat bastard,” escaped my lips in reflex. No one noticed my faux pas. They were too busy exclaiming worse.

  “...Last night, brave forces of Pennsylvania led an assault at West Point, New York. This action was necessitated by flagrant violations of the Calm Act, perpetrated by New England insurgents, attempting to steal territory from the beleaguered and defenseless people of New York City...”

  “Who the fuck is that?” Chas demanded from inside his yellow suit.

  “We need to get you squared away aboard, sir,” a crew member attempted. “You, too, Ms. Baker.”

  “Ms. Baker needs to hear this,” Adam countermanded. He put an arm around me.

  “It’s OK, Chas,” I assured him. “You’ll hear it later, on Amenac.”

  This wasn’t true, however. Only a few tens of thousands heard the actual speech live, at 7 a.m. eastern time, the day after Thanksgiving.

  O’Donnell was never elected, but he wasn’t a complete moron. His defense of Pennsylvania’s actions might have been persuasive outside the ‘chaotic insurgency’ of the Northeast. Except for the fact that everyone already knew about Project Reunion, because we’d been explaining and marketing it full tilt world-wide for a month. It was possible – even likely, given the way O’Donnell was cocooned inside Pennsylvania – that the man believed what he was saying. Pennsylvania’s invasion of the Apple was justified.

  And that would never do. While I spent a perfectly hideous day lurching through 70 miles of stormy Atlantic off of Long Island, too seasick to do anything but endure in a dramamine-doped fog, back home Lt. Colonel Carlos Mora and the Project Reunion team went on overdrive.

  22

  Interesting fact: On the Forbes 2015 list of the best colleges in the United States, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (Army) ranked #11, just after M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). The Naval Academy at Annapolis ranked #27, and the Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs #38. These liberal arts colleges were not only academically excellent, and free, but paid cadets a stipend of $10,000 per year.

  The meshnet programmer group was finally settled in at the Camp Suffolk quarantine, and I was dying to get to Major Cameron’s compound and collapse. Brave good intentions of us working on the meshnet together all day had not survived the sullen misery of seasickness and dramamine. None of us could think straight. We vo
wed to try again tomorrow – afternoon. Or maybe Sunday.

  “But you can’t go yet!” Tom Aoyama burbled happily, leading me back to his office. “I’m on the 6 o’clock news on Amenac! I did a video interview with Amiri Baz this afternoon!”

  I smiled at him as best I could, trying to look deeply impressed. The war correspondent did wow me, too. Was it only yesterday I’d spoken with Amiri at Midtown? My sense of time was warping. It was good to see Tom so happy, though. The Camp Suffolk quarantine had mushroomed in capacity since I’d last been there – just a month ago? Tom had gained 10 pounds, and looked clear-eyed and well. He adored the CDC team Emmett had sent him, and nearly worshiped Beth Spelt, his garrison commander, now promoted to major.

  Tom’s office was another dramatic turnaround. The sad little cot and all the clutter were gone, providing open space around a proper little conference table. I sank to a seat beside Cam and Dwayne, and drooled at the smell. They were already chowing down on cole slaw and a huge casserole of gratin potatoes, crusted brown and oozing with good Wisconsin cheese, washed down with sweet apple cider. This was the first I’d eaten all day, and it tasted divine.

  Major Beth Spelt’s voice boomed over the loudspeaker, reminding everyone of the special Amenac broadcast in 10 minutes. Apparently the entire garrison and quarantine were expected to watch.

  “Oh, Dee, I spoke to Emmett,” Cam told me, when his voracious eating slowed and his mind was again available for such things. “We won, at West Point. HomeSec is still interrogating the prisoners. But he expects they’ll double down.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “Pennsylvania will attack again,” Dwayne translated for me. “Harder next time.”

  Obviously, I wanted to hear more about that.

  But Cam asked, “Did you really sleep with Adam Lacey last night?”

  I groaned. The entire effing fleet knew I’d slept in Adam’s bed last night. Apparently we were the joke of the day, providing levity in an otherwise rattling time. Perhaps we should have thought of that last night. But it seemed completely reasonable at the time. “I slept. Adam’s a friend. Emmett left me stranded on Staten Island. So I stayed on Adam’s boat.”