Dark Days of the After Special Edition | Prequel & Book 1

by Schow, Ryan

  Shaking her head, taking his hand and crushing it in her grip, she said, “The hardest thing about teaming up with you is knowing you’re probably going to fail us all.”

  Chapter Seven

  By the time they got back to the hovel assigned to them by the Chicoms, Skylar was irate and Logan was wiped out. Everything hurt, his ear was still buzzing slightly from the explosion and subsequent gunshot, and all he wanted was to crawl in bed and hope tomorrow would turn out better than today.

  Instead, he walked in the front door and saw Harper standing there. He stopped, his jaw dropping, things in his mind both colliding and coming together at once. He knew by now that Harper and Skylar were associates in the Resistance. But how did she get into their home?

  “What are you doing here?” he asked unkindly. “You’re about to break curfew and get us all killed.”

  “I’m here the same way you’re here,” she said, pointing to their looped phones.

  “You need to get back for your unfettered hate.”

  “We’re leaving town just after midnight,” Harper said. Then, looking at Skylar, she said, “Did you tell him?”

  “Tell me what?” he asked, making sure the phones were still properly looped.

  All the electronics were set up on the same loop as his phone, each device running a pre-programmed feed. This allowed Logan and Skylar the freedom to go anywhere they wanted and not be under residential surveillance.

  Initially he set that up so he and Skylar could be romantic. They never were, but it turned out the setup was not a complete waste. They had some shielding from the invasive tech snoops tracking and recording everything for their big AI quantum computers.

  Two years ago it was formally announced that the systems they had in place not only tracked and recorded everything they did every minute of the night and day, they were told there was now enough space to store the entire life of everyone on the planet…for their entire life.

  The message was clear: follow the rules or it’s over.

  Being inside SocioSphere—a company set up to be a social media giant, not a tech giant—showed him how the converted system worked.

  In the end, perhaps that was his true value, he’d hacked them some privacy.

  “I have an address for you,” Skylar told him, retrieving a piece of paper and scribbling down a street name and number. “It’s where you’re going to get your vehicle and supplies.”

  “Whose address is that?” he asked.

  Skylar drew a deep breath, wiped the sweat dampened hair from her face and said, “It’s Pete’s address.”

  He scoffed hard and looked away, refusing to take the address from her. He couldn’t hold their eyes. Neither of them. Then, turning back to Skylar with some heat in his voice, he said, “Are you serious?”

  “I am,” she said.

  The heat behind his eyes could have fried an egg. Maybe it was the day finally catching up to him. Maybe it was his dead friend, the persistent noise in his ear, his tired body or the fact that he’d killed his first person. Whatever it was, the part of him he kept buried inside was coming out with a vengeance.

  Walking up on Skylar, feeling like he was towering over her for the first time, he said, “This guy beat the crap out of you for months, raped you repeatedly, tore away just about every last shred of humanity and now you want me to sneak into his house and steal his stuff?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” he barked.

  “Keep your voice down,” Skylar hissed.

  “Because the end is near,” Harper said, solemn.

  He stopped and looked at her. He knew Harper Whitaker’s face better than Skylar’s, better than his own. He knew every last pore, the exact color of her eyes, the lineup of her teeth and how her lips were always chapped. He’d watched her day after day looking for something, anything, just one hint of emotion—the tell.

  Now he saw everything he’d been looking for.

  Marveling at how she was able to turn herself off, and now back on—seeing that she had been doing this the whole time—he said, “What do you mean the end is near?”

  “The Chicoms are planning something. Not our oppressors here in California. The new regime back on the mainland. The signs are everywhere. Increased chatter, accelerated troop movements, the destruction of all the relevant infrastructure around the western state lines of California, Nevada and Idaho. Plus, they’ve officially regained control of The Port of Long Beach after the President took it back in 2019. The indicators tell us they’re planning on moving more troops in apparently. Or worse, something much larger.”

  “Why would they do that now?” he asked her.

  “Mexico is mounting an offensive into this country,” Harper said. “They’ve been ramming the border wall for weeks now and parts of it are starting to weaken. The Chicoms are apparently running out of ammo and expecting a full scale war.

  Just this week, New York submitted to the EU Army. That war is just beginning, though. The African Union Army has taken Florida, Georgia and South Carolina and are apparently marching up the eastern seaboard to confront the EU Army. The victor there is expected to push west, taking what it can before either China, Mexico or Canada claim it for themselves.”

  He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “Down on the southern border, the word is advanced forces from the Mexican Army are already in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas mobilizing. A friend of a friend of a friend said the Mexican Army is planning on forcing out the Chicoms before they get too big.”

  “What about the California border?” he asked, a cold feeling churning through him.

  “It’s still secure,” Harper said.

  “With all this going on, why are we leaving tonight?” he asked. “Harper can stay at SocioSphere. I’ll make sure she doesn’t get caught.”

  “My sources inside say she’s already burned,” Skylar said. “They’re going through Han’s system as we speak. If you want to come back, Logan, you’d better figure out a cover story for your little inquiry.”

  “What inquiry?”

  “To Tristan. The hacker Han used.”

  He felt himself starting to unwind, to get angry, to want to just take all his stuff and leave, go tell Ms. Yeung everything. Or maybe choke her to death and flee town.

  “Why can’t we do this in the—” he started to say.

  “We don’t have time to talk about this,” Skylar hissed. “Unfettered hate is in less than five minutes. Harper, you need to hide.”

  “Did you loop your unfettered hate?” Logan asked, suddenly aware of the time. She shook her head, solemn. Wow. “So this is it, huh? You’re disappearing?”

  “Yes, and you’re going to help me,” Harper said

  “No,” he replied.

  “Yes!” Skylar barked.

  He turned and stared at this woman he so desperately wanted to be in love with and he felt nothing but disdain. She’d tricked him. Made him think she wanted him for him. In the end, he’d somehow fallen into a world he wanted no part of. He just wanted to keep his head low, do what he needed to do to live as peacefully as he could. But there would be no peace. There would never be any peace again.

  “When they realize you’re not at work tomorrow,” Harper said gently, “when they see you and me gone, they’ll know you helped me…”

  “That’s why I’ll be at work,” he said.

  “And I’ll tell them you were working with her in an effort to weaken the state,” Skylar threatened.

  He looked at her, aghast. Had it really come to this? He couldn’t believe it had, yet it all made perfect sense.

  “Do you want to stay with Harper?” Skylar asked, fuming. “Because that’s your out.”

  “I still don’t know where I’m going,” he said, checking the clock. “We have three minutes until we’re live.”

  Dust motes floated through the air, the walls stunk of neglect and that stain in the carpet where the last resident had been shot and bled out stood in s
tark contrast to the rest of the floor. He could leave it all behind and be okay, but he didn’t want to be on the run.

  “I already told you,” Skylar said. “First Pete’s, then my Uncle Connor’s place in Oregon. It’s just over the border.”

  Two minutes.

  No one said anything. The women only looked at him, waiting for an answer. In that moment, he realized neither woman meant a thing to him now. They’d made him a traitor to the unelected government he was trying to hide from. He was now a killer, a liar and a fake.

  Between the two of them, he hated them both.

  “One minute,” he said.

  “Yes or no?” Skylar said, unmoved.

  Thirty seconds…

  Nodding his head, feeling the trap that he’d been put in, he reluctantly said, “Yes.”

  Dammit.

  Harper hustled to a closet while Logan stopped the loop on his cell phone and the surveillance grid inside their home went live.

  Skylar now had the TV on and the ugly, animated face of former Chairman Mao Tse Tung, was on the TV speaking as if his heart attack and subsequent death in September of 1976 hadn’t happened.

  “We are not natives to your land,” his voice said in weak English. “We lifted you from the chaos of uncertainty and graced you with order, accountability, security. No longer must you struggle to get ahead, or worry that you’ll fall behind. There is peace in relinquishing control. You do not have to think about, or feel, the emotions of the past, for these emotions can be so destructive. So long as you hate, you are not free. We allow you to release the hate as you come to terms with this simple fact: you are no longer American. You are now a product of The New People’s Republic of China. We do not promote hate. Neither shall you. Now dig down deep into your heart and scream out all that residual animosity, all the left over resentment, all that pale futility.”

  It was the way he said “pale futility” that drew so much ire. But on that day, in that moment, there was so much more to be rattled by, so much more to get enraged over. Han was dead. He killed a man today. Skylar was only using him, and had in fact, had ties with the target who was supposed to die for her treason. The target hiding in his closet.

  So when those two ugly words left the fake Chairman’s mouth, Logan dug down deep inside himself and let the demons out. So much abhorrence and revulsion roared forth, so much disgust for what had become of their world, it was shocking even to him. He looked at Skylar who was screaming, but not like him and he dug even deeper. She wasn’t a woman, human, his girlfriend…she was adoration gone wrong, a lie he tried telling himself over and over again, a pure and utter abomination.

  He turned and screamed in her face, causing her to step back, to finally take him serious. He was not a programmer, a snitch, a weak-sauce Will stuck in the friend zone pining for more than he deserved. He was a human being before all that. A person like anyone else struggling to find meaning in their life, hope for something greater, a place to find and give love.

  His throat began to get raw and tears sprung to his eyes, eyes that were now bulging out of their sockets. The cords in his neck pulled tight, his head thrust at Skylar, his mouth open as wide as could be, enough that the unbridled loathing had a way out of his throat, his belly, the very depths of his being.

  “Enough!” the fake Chairman on television snapped.

  Then, in a face soft with benevolence and compassion, the simulated mouth on the simulated face said, “Save some of these tender emotions for tomorrow. For now, sleep and dream the Chinese dream. And tomorrow, when you wake refreshed and ready to serve the state, go forth willingly and partake in the glorious, resplendent march of Chinese virtue.”

  Without a word, Logan went and looped the cell phones and every connected device and he said, “Give me the address.”

  “Are you coming back?” Skylar asked.

  “For you?” he snarled, his voice scratchy, the edge of his words chipped and ragged. “Hell no. For myself, perhaps, or perhaps I’ll stay in Oregon.”

  “They ruined my life,” Skylar explained, clearly moved by his directed outburst. “What did you expect me to do? Just take it?”

  He didn’t say anything. He just reached out a hand, palm up, wordlessly asking for the address.

  “I barely know you,” she said, still clinging to the slip of paper with Pete’s address. “It has only been two months. If I’m lucky, I won’t be dead by the time you get back. And I do want you back, for what it’s worth.”

  A flower of hope began to bloom in his chest. That unfolding paused, however. “What do you mean you’ll be lucky if you’re alive when I get back.”

  “She’s undercover,” Harper said, stepping out of the closet.

  He could not take any more of this. It was all becoming too much!

  “My God,” he said, understanding the gravity of it for the first time. These two weren’t just passive Resistance, they were hardened soldiers, dug in and risking their lives, but for what? With the EU and the AU Armies looking to clash and Mexico wanting to attack the Chicoms, they were stuck in the middle of a war that would claim millions of lives. What did they hope to do against all that?

  “Why are you doing this?” he asked Skylar. “How do you fit in here?”

  She crossed her arms, suddenly got very shifty, then looked down and away. “I’m sleeping with the Minister of Propaganda.”

  The bottom of him fell out, the question of their relationship answered. She could barely look up at him, and he couldn’t suppress the pain. He saw it in her eyes. She now knew what she was doing to him, how she’d devastated his heart.

  “I’m so sorry, Logan,” she said, sheepishly.

  Harper looked at him with a clipped laugh, then said, “You thought that she liked you? Is that what all this is about? Oh, boy…that’s priceless.”

  “Is that so hard to believe?” Logan asked, the remains of his dignity circling the drain.

  “Look at her, then look at you,” Harper said, halfway amused.

  “So I’m just a recruit, Skylar? Is that it?”

  She looked down, then at the clock. Finally she handed Logan the slip of paper with Pete’s address on it.

  “Every minute here is a wasted minute there,” she said, looking at Harper.

  He grabbed a lightweight jacket, then put on his boots and a baseball cap he pulled low over his eyes. Before leaving he grabbed a bottle of water, offering one to Harper as well. She took it.

  “So this is it?” Logan asked.

  Skylar stepped forward and hugged him, but he was not a willing recipient. When she let go, she brushed a strand of brown hair out of her eyes and looked at Harper.

  “Good luck,” Skylar said.

  Harper went and hugged her, then kissed her on the cheek and said, “I’ll see you when I see you.”

  “Take care of my family,” she said.

  Harper nodded, a glistening in her eyes. The last thing Logan thought when he looked back at Skylar was that she was sleeping with the enemy, and that she had ruined him.

  If she wanted a resistance fighter, by God she was going to get one. Starting with Pete. Fake Chairman Mao said to save the emotion for tomorrow…well he wouldn’t be holding on to it that long. Logan was saving up what hate was left for Pete. One of the human tragedies that sat in Skylar’s past like a speed bump, a pothole, a bear trap.

  They walked downstairs and out the front door. Curfew was in effect, and the foot soldiers were light that night. If he and Harper were caught outside, they would be shot without hesitation because breaking the rules under this regime was provocation enough.

  He almost didn’t care.

  “Stick to the sides of the buildings, watch your footsteps and walk light,” Harper said. He understood walking light. In training, when they were working to get their heart rates up, they were told to jump as high as they could, but land like a feather.

  They kept to the downtown buildings, the homeless in pens, snoring, farting, crying out in their slee
p. The stink was something else. He plugged his nose, but with the cool, heavy air, the stench seemed to hang around forever, never weakening, never dissipating. How they could live like that was beyond him.

  He quickly realized this was the route Skylar selected because this was the route the night patrol was least likely to walk.

  As he made his way between the skyscrapers and high rise apartments, he thought about what he was doing, what he was standing against.

  How did this happen?

  It all started after the 2024 election. The new President had feigned every last ounce of patriotism before selling out the nation.

  The writing was on the wall even then. After the upheaval of hatred that lasted from 2016 through 2024, America was keen to a con.

  The media did what it did best, though—it spun it’s own truth, as dictated by its handlers. America officially capitulated to the global world order.

  No one really knew when the occupation began, only that every aspect of society had been infiltrated for years. Hollywood, college campuses, government, the utilities divisions of every major city. They had it all. They even took over operations of the 5G network from Nokia, co-opted the tech companies, even crashing the US dollar.

  After the big tech companies and the cell phone manufacturers went to China for the zero percent tax, things like internet and cell phone privacy became a thing of the past. Little did most Americans know that by joining forces with China, they were relinquishing America’s right to keep their technology and their customer’s data private. The Communist state got everything: backdoors, passwords, personal data, pictures, bank accounts, everything. They owned our culture, our education, our privacy, codes to our military and our debt.

  When they moved on California, they invaded early, charging through the streets shooting people. The natives did nothing wrong, per se. The Chicoms were simply making a point. They were in charge.

  The local government was called upon for assistance, but traitors deep inside California’s domineering party warned the Chicom forces of a mounting resistance. The dissidents, along with a lot of innocent people, paid the price for treason. Wholesale slaughter unfolded in the streets for three bloody days. After that, the Chicoms went door-to-door in a gun and ammo confiscation campaign while dissidents and civilians alike were burned in the streets.