Minus America Box Set | Books 1-5

by Isherwood, E. E.

  “I think I saw it flying over there, by that hill.” She tried to use distant objects as the places where the bird might appear. It gave Dwight a long distance to cover before she had to change her story, and it gave her a long way to walk herself closer to the back door of NORAD. She was now determined to get him back to the other people.

  “I have another confession to make,” Dwight offered as they walked in the pine forest.

  “What?”

  “My brain is not acting right. Yesterday, I swear I could solve math equations in my head. I could name all fifty states and their capitals. I could even tell you something interesting about the states I’d been to. Starting last night, things have become muddled in my head, like I was back in San Francisco. I can’t name hardly any state capitals, my recall of where I’ve traveled is whack-a-do, and I swear I keep hearing Poppy cry out in pain from deep in the forest.”

  “You’re probably just distraught from losing…I mean, having your bird fly away. It would be painful and chaotic for anyone to lose a pet like you did. I’m sure once you find her, things will turn out for the better.” After telling the man a lie about seeing his bird, she’d fallen through the thin ice of truth. Now everything she said to him was a lie. Anything to keep the tour moving forward. Once she made it back, and had support from other adults, the truth would make its recovery.

  “Yeah, I hope that’s it.” He sounded as if he really believed her, which made Tabby feel terrible. She could almost reveal her game to the sane version of the man, though she fully expected the crazy guy to return a second later. He’d said himself he wasn’t acting right.

  After walking most of the way to the next landmark, they heard engines. While she wasn’t an expert on ATVs, she did recognize the distinctive whine of the same motors they’d walked in front of the day before. Mostly likely, the same two guys who’d captured them were now looking to round them up.

  “Come on, we have to make it to those trees,” she said in a demanding voice, picking up speed. Dwight followed, and they made it to the grove of evergreens as a pair of all-terrain vehicles came over a nearby hilltop.

  “Hold up,” she said, not sure it needed to be stated.

  “Is Poppy here?” Dwight asked, looking around. “You said she’d be here.”

  Tabby wanted to scream at the guy and ask him if he could really be so dense. However, the search party was too close to have Dwight do something unpredictable, such as yelling at her, calling her a liar, then storming off in the direction of the campground. It wasn’t what Dwight had done to her, but she’d seen five-year-olds do that exact thing when they didn’t get what they wanted back in Bonne Terre Mine. Whenever a toddler would throw an epic tantrum, her father used to joke those outbursts were why he got into tourism in the first place.

  “Hang out here for a second. I’ll tell you in a minute.”

  It seemed to calm him down. As the ATVs came close, and then started off into the forest again, she breathed in relief at their luck. As the motor noise left the scene, she knew Dwight was going to ask more questions.

  “I’ll tell you what I know, but you have to keep up with me. I’m running that way.” She pointed in the direction she hoped was where Pike’s Peak was located. It had been visible during some of their walk, so she’d kept it in front of them, but a couple of times, she’d actually walked away from it. She admitted her sense of direction was a lot better inside the dark mine her parents ran. Or she simply knew them so well she didn’t need directions at all.

  She jogged from the thick trees into the pine-covered floor of the forest. As long as she only heard the chirping of birds and hiss of wind through the pine boughs, she figured she was doing all right.

  “This better be where she is. I can hear Poppy calling for me. You better tell me where she is!”

  Of course, there was also the mad screaming of a raving lunatic.

  CHAPTER 18

  Wild Horse, CO

  Once safe from the broken dam, the helicopters had ferried Kyla and the surviving soldiers deep into the Grand Canyon for the night. The next morning, after she had awakened from her repeating nightmare about the dam, Avery informed her they were going back to NORAD. He’d told her his unit in Alaska had eyes on people who’d escaped out an exhaust port on the safe western side of the mountain.

  As they flew closer to the bunker, the satellite operators told them the escapees had made it to Colorado Springs and were heading east into the plains. When it was reported they were arriving at a small airport, she was convinced it was her uncle.

  She’d never been more relieved than when she saw Uncle Ted come out from behind that construction junk. Once together, it felt as if they’d never been separated. After a few much-needed hugs, they were all business. The enemy didn’t take family reunion breaks, and neither could they. However, she did have one piece of personal intel he’d want to know about.

  “Unk, you should know London got blown up by a nuclear bomb.”

  He stopped cold. “Are you serious?”

  Emily closed ranks with him. She looked at Kyla. “Tell us everything.”

  Kyla deflected to Avery.

  The colonel corroborated. “She’s right. It came over the channel from our base up in Alaska. They picked it up from NATO. A big one was touched off over London because David thought countries weren’t kicking out Americans fast enough.”

  Uncle Ted looked at her. “I’ve got to check on Priscilla, but not right now.” He rarely talked about his ex-wife. For Kyla, she had some fond memories of meeting her Aunt P, but it had been five years since she’d even thought of her.

  Emily seemed to understand. She motioned for the colonel to continue.

  Avery jumped in. “So, what do we do now that we’ve joined forces?”

  “We’ve been thinking about flying into the enemy base at Lamar,” Uncle Ted replied to him, steadying his tone. The new soldier seemed to outrank her uncle, though Emily outranked everyone.

  “Well, we now have two more birds for your air flotilla,” Avery said with humor, “but I don’t think we’re set up for an invasion.”

  “We had three,” Kyla chimed in, wanting to be a part of the important meeting.

  Avery frowned. “We lost our third pilot back at Hoover Dam. These two women saved the rest of our lives. They saw the laser sighting for what turned out to be a kinetic hammer weapon. It came down before we all made it off the deck, though if we didn’t have that warning, we all would have been dead.”

  Meechum stood next to Kyla, saying nothing. Some of the color had returned to her skin, and her arm was functional again, but she still didn’t look too good.

  Her uncle took a deep breath, as if he was out of ideas. “The best we could come up with was to find a plane large enough to carry us all, and then try to blend in with other traffic and land in Lamar. We figured if we took off from an enemy base, they’d be less inclined to shoot us down.”

  Emily spoke up as if he’d missed something. “Our other plan was to take over one of their autonomous solar platforms and hide on it as it landed in Lamar. They’d never suspect people were on board, since they’re computerized. It’s more complicated than a regular plane, but it’s still a plan worth discussing.”

  Uncle Ted looked really tired. “We’ve been wracking our brains here.”

  “How would you get one?” Avery asked, interested. “You’d never be able to steal one on the ground because it’s automated. The tower would notice it. You’d almost have to steal it in mid-air.”

  “Wouldn’t that be funny,” her uncle replied. “We’d have to steal a plane capable of going to sixty-thousand feet, then all jump over to it, and then force it to land. If we got really lucky, they’d fly it to Lamar where we saw the other ones.”

  “It would take superheroes,” Emily lamented. “That’s why—”

  Kyla interrupted. “You could take it over using one of their tablets. I have one, in fact.”

  Everyone turned toward her. />
  “Seriously. I was able to hack into their system to control their animal drones. I’d imagine it is the same process for controlling automated aircraft in the sky.” Kyla sensed the flood of protests coming. “They aren’t a very sophisticated people. They made their software in a hurry, and they dumbed it down so it would be operable by Tommy Terrorist out in the field. I’d bet anything those airships are controllable the same way.”

  She had no idea if it were true, but it seemed perfectly logical.

  Avery appeared surprised. “You don’t have one. We took the tablet from you. It’s still in my chopper. However, you told us not to plug in the battery or it could be tracked.”

  Kyla gave him a sheepish grin. “And did you plug it in?”

  “Of course not. But even if we wanted to, we couldn’t find the battery for it.”

  She pointed at him and made a finger-gun. “Boom. You don’t have it because I didn’t give it to you.”

  Uncle Ted seemed to understand. “Where did you hide it, Kye?”

  She’d been thinking of the rustic retreat ever since leaving it.

  “The last place you and I talked.”

  Wild Horse, CO

  “Can I see you for a second?” Ted asked of his niece. She immediately followed him out of the cramped little building. When they were alone, he said, “Why wouldn’t you destroy that thing? Throw it and the battery in the lake. Step on it. Anything but leave it intact.”

  “Hmm, I thought you were going to tell me you were getting the belt.” She tried to be funny, and he wanted to laugh, but so much was on the line.

  “Not now, Kyla. This is serious.”

  She huffed. “I don’t know. I guess I was pissed you and Emily left us in that cabin. Believe me, when I told Meechum about the tablet, she was mad at me too, but her concern was keeping me from chasing after you, not breaking the thing to bits. I’m not even sure she ever asked what I’d done with it.”

  “You took it apart and left the battery there?” he asked, exasperated.

  “I knew the tablet would be inoperable without the battery. It was a custom design you don’t simply pick up on the shelf of a Best Buy. I knew I couldn’t endanger our mission anymore, so I essentially broke it in two pieces. If, as has just happened I might remind you, we needed it again, I would know where to go. As long as the enemy didn’t come snooping, the battery should still be where I left it.”

  He rubbed the stubble on his neck, sweating with the humid heat of the overcast day. Going to the cabin would be a risk, no doubt about it, but so would any other encounter where they tried to get one. They only had one day left before the rest of the world ran out of time to kick out the Americans, and he wanted to avoid whatever bloodshed was going to result from that deadline. If he knew exactly where to find one close by, he might have tried for it. However, it was entirely possible the only people who carried those tablets were the nerd herders up in Minot, North Dakota.

  “Okay, let me see if Colonel Avery can get us to the cabin.” He was about to walk back in, but Kyla grabbed his arm.

  “Thank you for trusting me. I know I did a bad thing by keeping that tablet, uh, twice, but I knew it was a valuable resource. I only wanted to be useful to you and the prez, you know?”

  His mood softened for a few moments. “I know. And, in the spirit of openness…” He switched to a whisper. “Emily and I are engaged.”

  Kyla squealed. “I knew it! I’ve been right from the get-go! You and her were an item for a long time before we met at the lighthouse.” She stood back, breathing hard, as if already planning for the wedding. “This is amazing. I’m going to be related to the president. How cool is that? Will I be the first niece? What—”

  He cut her off. “Kye, stay with me.” He chuckled. “You were right. I fell for her pretty much the first time we kissed. But—”

  “When? Tell me everything.” Kyla acted as if she’d tuned into a soap opera and was about to get the recap of the last episode.

  “Not right now, okay? I’m supposed to be out here angrily yelling at you.”

  “Sorry,” she said, seemingly properly chided.

  “You’ve given us a valuable leg up on David’s people. Our focus right now has to be on getting your battery, then you’ll have to wow your future aunt by controlling a plane and landing it.” He suddenly turned toward the airstrip. “Though we’ll need a bigger landing field.” It was the next challenge, not his current one. He kept talking. “So, let’s go back inside and get a flight plan lined up for Avery’s helicopters.”

  She held her breath for a few seconds, then released it. “I can do that.”

  Ted was going to go back in, but he had one more item to add. “If it’s all the same, I’d like to not make a big deal about Emily and I. We’re trying to keep it under the radar, if you’ll accept the terrible pun?”

  Kyla’s smile lit up her entire face. A Cheshire cat grin that spoke to her unpredictability. In the moment, she reminded him a lot of his sister. A woman who would lay down her life for a stranger but would also mischievously hide a battery in a remote cabin on the off chance it might be needed later.

  “I can’t make any promises,” she said, walking right by him.

  Pike National Forest, CO

  Following Tabby was the most painful period of waiting Dwight had ever suffered through. On one level, he knew she was lying to him each time she said his bird was over the next hill, or around the next bend. But there was also a part of him who wished with all his might she was telling the truth. That one of those times Poppy would be there, waddling toward him as she’d done a million times before.

  When he’d admitted his returning mental problem to her, he’d hoped it would encourage her to stop the confusing game and simply end it, but she never did. She kept running and promising. Never letting him see his bird.

  Eventually, she took him alongside a well-traveled road.

  “This is where we had to walk in front of those ATVs yesterday. I can see our footprints in the dirt.” She pointed to the road, which caused him to scurry ahead. She chased him. “We don’t want to be seen, Dwight.”

  “I have to see if Poppy went through here. You said footprints are in the dirt. Maybe she used those same prints to return to where we were found? It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  She called out from behind him. “Oh yeah, I guess you could be right. But please hurry. We have to go back in the woods.”

  Dwight paced in the middle of the dirt track, pointing to footprints, but he didn’t find the one he was looking for. After he’d searched for about a minute, the girl tapped his arm.

  “Come on. Please. We have to get off this road before they see us.” The sounds of engines weren’t audible as he listened, but that wasn’t the only way a search party could find them. There were dozens of men at the campground. They might have set out on foot to find them. Or, he realized, maybe some of them were going to use Poppy to lure him.

  “A few more seconds,” he said, shaking his arm to push her away. It was critical he found Poppy first.

  “Fine,” she said with finality. “If you won’t listen, you can get captured. I think I hear them coming. I, however, will be at the bunker exit, which is just up the road a little way. It will give me some time to hang out with Poppy by myself.” The girl didn’t wait for a response. It truly surprised him to watch Tabby run into the pines.

  “Wait!” he cried out, giving chase.

  He figured out she’d been right. The sound of engines was growing. He stood and listened when he got to a small overlook next to the head of a ravine. In front of him, a large mountain rose. Was it Pike’s Peak, which Tabby had mentioned was her North Star?

  Dwight went back into the woods, but soon spotted the girl. “Where is she? You’ve tricked me this whole time. I want to see her!”

  Their eyes met. He was getting ever angrier, but she seemed to be laughing at him. Before he could say anything else, she turned and ran deeper into the woods.

>   “Wait!” he shouted, giving chase.

  It took fifteen minutes to race through the featureless pine forest. Every small rise brought him to more trees. More pine needles. More towering lodgepoles. Always her calling out or mocking him for being slow. She had no idea what it was like to live a life on the streets. He couldn’t keep up with a fit thirteen-year-old. Or was she older? He couldn’t recall.

  Soon he recognized the glade where he’d come out of the drainpipe. The dirt path was close by, as was the NORAD exit. Tabby was standing there looking defeated. When she saw him approach, she raised her hands in surrender.

  “I was joking!” she declared, moving close to the tunnel exit.

  Dwight got to within about twenty feet, but he was so winded he couldn’t even talk. He leaned against a tree trying to catch his breath. He glared at her, though. He’d dredged up plenty of glare since there was no Poppy.

  Now he was absolutely, positively, not-a-joke certain she’d been lying to him.

  He had no idea what he was going to do next.

  CHAPTER 19

  Glendo, WY

  For a man who’d spent a lot of his recent career being a backup pilot, Ted figured it would be easy to ride along on the Little Bird. However, when he realized how low the pilot was going to fly them, he immediately wished it was him in the cockpit, where he’d have control of the situation.

  He spent the next two hours scanning ahead for power lines.

  “Uncle Ted, that’s the electric plant where Meechum and I escaped from the convoy. My God, it’s all gone.” The pilot flew them through the piles of metal and brick wreckage. Barely high enough to see over the debris.

  “David’s Legion is spreading their destruction over the land. It makes no sense,” he yelled over the wind, “why they would destroy a perfectly good power plant.”

  Kyla made a “I don’t know,” face, which was enough to understand her in the high winds. She seemed a lot more comfortable on the bench seat bolted to the outside of the tiny helicopter than he was.