“No,” she added defiantly, though her voice faltered. “I could lose everyone.” She gulped. “I could end up here, with no family at all.”
Her father stepped toward her again and pulled her in for a hug. She broke down and cried into his chest with a sorrow made worse by the agonizing sensation of his tears falling on the part in her hair.
“Em, we have to get your mother and brother and bring them back here. …And Aunt Nessa, Vic, and Uncle Joshua too. I can’t do that without Shay. …It’ll be OK,” he whispered. “We have good plan. You’ll be safe, and we’ll be back together soon. I need you to be safe while we’re gone.”
After what seemed like forever in her father’s arms, he reminded her of the family’s excruciating prepping over the past year—for just this kind of situation—and she pulled herself together enough to let him continue.
“OK,” she hiccupped, wiping the tears from her eyes, “Let’s hear this plan then.”
Shay and her father had long been planning for contingencies to escape from Troy Township—just in case. It had always struck her as a pain in the ass, since they were the safest they had ever been behind the township’s fortified walls and even traveling between work sites. But they were determined to be ready for anything, so they rationed and stockpiled everything they earned, bought, or bartered—currency, food, guns, ammunition, water, fuel. Hoarding was illegal in the township, so they risked everything to do it, and they hid their stores in the afueras, outside the walls, to be ready for a hasty retreat along multiple escape routes.
She was never allowed on the excursions to the caches, but she imagined them to be like the family’s storage room back in Paola, where her parents prepared for their eventual escape from the Desert Plains Territory. Hundreds of cans and boxes stacked high. Beans and vegetables. Cereal and dehydrated soup. Biotein starter packs and flavor pouches. Drought oat biscuits and crackers. Large bottles of filtered water. Solar cells and drums of fuel for Oscar and Bambi. Guns and bullets. Lots of bullets.
She hated the idea of prepping—and the memories it invoked, and she resisted giving up any of her meager earnings to help buy the supplies. Of course, she had always felt a little guilty for resisting, and with what she was hearing now she wished she had contributed more.
Her father led her over to GEO, where Shay put an affectionate, reassuring hand on her shoulder before illuminating the caches they had placed in the afueras of Troy and throughout the Wilds beyond. There were dozens—more than she had ever expected—radiating in nearly every direction along the few passable motorways left from the High Times.
“And here’re some of the other caches I put down myself over the years,” Shay added, grinning his crinkly smile. More dots appeared on the map, and she felt the first modicum of relief since walking in the door.
“If we leave befer dawn, I reckon we can make it as far as Wheeling. That’s here.” He pointed to a dot on the map where he had a cache. “Just outside o’ town, actually. Pretty safe. We’ll hunker there tomorrow, then make for Hooven—just here.
“Be gone ‘bout six ’r seven days, I reckon,” he summarized, stroking his beard as he stared at GEO. Her father rubbed her back gently.
“How bad is it?” Emily had to know.
To her surprise, Senator Baumgarten gave a nod to Bully, who stepped in to explain. Her father shifted uncomfortably.
“We still don’t know everything, and we’re learning more by the hour. But we have reports of heavy fighting all across the Commonwealth, especially the Desert Plains Territory and California-Sur. Most of it seems to be around the MACs and the refugee camps, but a lot in the urban shanties too.” He made his own gesture at GEO, and a series red splotches appeared on the heat-map. Emily gasped before leaning in to study Shay’s proposed route, which ran through several of the conflict zones. She found Troy Township, clearly inside one of the splotches. So was a third of the Mid-Atlantic Province.
“This is where the fighting is?” she asked in disbelief. “…It’s everywhere.”
“The data isn’t complete,” Bully replied. “And we’re really not sure what we’re dealing with.” She detected Baumgarten squirm from the corner of her eye. “But I’m not going to lie to you. We haven’t seen anything like this since the Water Wars.”
“Six days tops. There and back,” her father reiterated. “And we’ll be well armed and supplied.”
“An’ if we don’t go, Lord knows what’ll happen to the family,” Shay inserted.
“You’ll be safe here, Emily,” Senator Baumgarten inserted. “We’ll triple your security and keep you closer to the estate.”
Patrick already made me this promise.
“And if it takes longer for them to get back,” the senator continued, “you’ll stay here with us—for as long as necessary.”
“Sir,” Bully said softly, leaning into the Senator. “If Patrick and I are gonna to get to Factory Five, I need to excuse myself.” His voice was tense.
“Where is Patrick going?” Emily interrogated.
“Yes, of course,” the senator said to Bully, before forcing an accommodating smile for Emily. As he patted Bully encouragingly on the shoulder. “He’ll be fine, Dear.”
Emily cast a glance at Dorian, who had said nothing. He caught her eye and offered only a look of resignation.
There’s nothing I can say or do, she lamented.
So she nodded her reluctant agreement and choked back another wave of tears.
“You’re leaving before dawn?”
Her father answered by bringing her in for another embrace and placing a gentle kiss on her forehead. He was still emotional about it, which worried her more than anything.
“OK then,” she sighed. “Let’s get you ready.”
Chapter 42: Reconnaissance of Ruins
(Patrick Baumgarten)
Patrick Baumgarten encountered Chadwell “Bully” Bladstone on his way to the war room. He offered Bully a cursory smile and turned to enter the main doors. But Bully had other ideas, grabbing Patrick firmly by his arm.
“Not that way, Dipshit,” Bully grunted. “You’re with me.”
“Oooo-K. Where we goin’?”
“I’ll give you the sitrep on the way. I’ll just say now that you’d better find your savvy quick.”
Bully didn’t say another word as they made their way through the mansion and into the courtyard, which bustled with soldiers and officials. Half a dozen guards filed in behind them as they piled into an autocar and sped toward the tarmac, where three assault ships rumbled, and a flock of drones buzzed overhead.
Patrick followed Bully onto a large bull-shark jump-jet, outfitted with rockets and machine guns. Inside, Patrick found more soldiers, checking their gear and weapons. Bully bid Patrick to sit down at a small table on the far end of the ship, where Gajah Mada sat waiting.
“You remember Gajah,” Bully said, eager to avoid lengthy introductions.
Patrick had only heard of Gajah, their new assignee from the Indian Army, fresh back from a shit storm in Indonesia.
“Of course,” Patrick replied, acceding to Bully’s clear desire to skip pleasantries. Gajah obliged as well, standing up half way to shake Patrick’s hand before returning to his seat. Gajah gestured to the portable V-plat on the table, already showing a GEO rendition of the Commonwealth. Patrick sighed to himself, having already seen the maps of the still-uncontrolled areas in the Mid-Atlantic Province and the strange new conflict zones across the Commonwealth. At first glance, the map on GEO looked unchanged.
“This was yesterday,” Bully grunted. He swiped over the V-plat console, layering new points on the map. “This is today.”
The Desert Plains Territory was almost completely aglow, with splotches of trouble radiating westward into the Southern Rocky Mountains Territory, the High Desert Territory—as far as California-Sur Province. Eastward into Ozarks Province, Great Lakes Province, and Appalachia Province. Southward as far as the Southeast Coast Province.
There’s something terribly wrong, he realized. It wasn’t supposed to go down this way.
Bully recognized the epiphany on Patrick’s face. “Good,” he said condescendingly.
“We can’t hail the Chief Regent—or anyone in the Federal Administration. Nothing from the Minister of Internal Security. The Commander of the Expeditionary Force has gone radio silent. The Commandant of the Domestic Security Service too. Only a few provincial Senators have responded to our calls. None of our allies have answered.”
Patrick put on his OmniComms glove, hovered over GEO, and drilled down on Park City.
“Alias ain’t there,” Bully said, exasperated. “We think he’s about . . . here.” Bully drew a large ellipse spanning from the Austin to Colorado Springs.
“So, basically we have no idea,” Patrick sighed.
“It’s pandemonium,” Bully said matter-of-factly. His initial shock at the situation had long since passed, and he was quickly becoming impatient with his student. “You wanna worry about one person?”
Patrick shrugged off the tone, as he usually did, and zoomed in on the brightest area in Bully’s ellipse. With a flick, he summoned everything the MediaStream had: news reports, aerial-drone and street-based security camera feeds, and illegal social media streams. He stared in disbelief at the videos of smoke and fire. People running, shouting and screaming. Corpses. The crackle-pop of gunfire and the thuds of explosions. One drone feed after another panned over the scene, only to go dark moments later.
“This is a Migrant Assistance Center,” he said in disbelief.
Bully leaned in. “And this is a refugee center,” added Bully, panning GEO northward to a similar scene of bedlam. “And this is Los Angeles.”
“We have rumors of dirty bomb detonations in three cities,” Bully sighed, revealing a thread of emotion, but gathering himself back together in an instant. Gajah called up the chemical, biological, electromagnetic, and radiological sensors.
Patrick looked up at Bully, dreading whatever would come next.
“Most of the country is dark. But our sniffers have picked up chem signals at several spots in Desert Plains Territory. Possibly a few more in western Ozarks Province. Probably Gas. Not sure what kind.”
“I don’t see radiological,” muttered Patrick.
“Like I said, rumors. But we’ve got issues closer to home.” Bully panned back to the Mid-Atlantic Province. “We’ve lost contact with Factories Two, Five, and Seven.”
Patrick leaned in again and stared at the map to figure out where they were headed. “Factory Five,” he stated. Bully grunted affirmation and passed Patrick a duffle bag stuffed with battle fatigues, boots, and a combat helmet.
“Gear up.”
A tense hour later, the lights in the airship’s cabin turned orange, and Patrick climbed into a small jackrabbit reconnaissance car fastened to the cargo hold of the airship. Gajah followed, and their coterie of guards piled in just before the airship began its stomach-turning descent into the old airport near the abandoned Virginia Tech University.
They touched down in the middle of a rain-soaked runway, another bull-shark assault ship landing beside them. Gray and white clouds misted over the distant foothills. A small dragon-fire jump-jet circled overhead, flanked by a flock of aerial drones.
The rear gate of Patrick’s bull-shark opened, and their jackrabbit leaped down the ramp and into the muggy air outside. The second bull-shark released a second jackrabbit, followed by a snake-eater attack vehicle, gun turrets already swiveling.
“Go get ‘em boys,” crackled Bully’s voice over the V-plat as the bull-shark thundered skyward again for overhead sentry duty.
Patrick Baumgarten directed the small convoy up the runway to the main entrance of Factory Five. Slowing at the entrance, Paul noticed debris strewn across the puddles on the concrete foundation where the guard shack had been. The gate to the compound swung freely on its hinges.
“Bully, do you copy?” Gajah muttered into his mic. “Is the air cover in place?”
“Roger that. We have visual on you. Drone deployment complete. Initial reads show nothing, apart from a few small fires inside the Hub and a couple of the out-buildings. LIDAR shows no mines in the courtyard. You are clear to pass the gate.”
“Great,” Patrick replied, reluctantly. “Merge feeds from Drones 1 and 2 to our GEO. We're moving to the Hub.”
The snake-eater in front of Patrick’s jackrabbit raced ahead, through the smashed gates and into the large gravel courtyard beyond. It slid to a stop in front of the main entrance to the Hub, a long, two-story concrete building under the skeleton of the old control tower. Four soldiers jumped from the rear of the snake-eater and charged the front door, weapons ready. Patrick pulled in behind the snake-eater, unloading their guards, who trained their rifles on the windows and roof lines of the buildings around them.
“Team A, proceed inside. Secure the lab and command center.”
Inside the Hub, the troops’ crackling voices whispered over the radio.
“Security doors to the admin room open. No visible activity. …Security doors to the fabrication lab open. No visible activity. First floor clear.”
With that, Patrick and Gajah got out of the jackrabbit and made their way into the Hub, finding the admin room and fabrication lab all-but destroyed. Every wall, floor to ceiling, was stained black. Small fires still burned inside smashed electronics consoles. Water dripped and dribbled through a massive gash in the ceiling, splashing into large pools on the floor. Papers, charred and wet, were strewn across the floor, along with chairs, desks, and monitors. The overhead lights flickered occasionally, offering little assistance to the morning sunlight peering through the high windows.
In the half-light, Patrick glimpsed two legs peering out from behind a console. Hesitantly moving closer for a look, he made out blood-soaked jeans and gold-glittered sneakers before hearing the sickening snarl of two feral dogs feasting on the body. The sight of them growling and tearing at the leg caught Patrick off guard. He heaved and wretched onto the wall next to him before regaining his composure and signaling for a nearby guard to shoot the dogs.
That would have been a good thing to mention, he thought.
Gajah, a battle-hardened man with a reputation for valor, tried not to make eye contact as Patrick wiped vomit from his chin, as did the team of guards in his posse. They made their way into the next room and found several more bodies. Patrick couldn’t tell if the mangled remains resulted from the attack or from a previous feasting of the dogs. He nearly vomited again, but he choked it back to save face.
“Bully. Admin office and fab room are a total loss. Headed into the command center.”
“Roger that. We’re circling above. All drones are in position and sensors functioning properly. Nothing to report.”
Patrick and his guards walked to the steel double-doors that led to the command center. The lead guards switched on lamps mounted to their helmets and drew their rifles as they entered the dark hallway beyond the doors. Padding down a small flight of stairs, overhead lights flickering, the team arrived at a security bulkhead. Its biometrics security camera dangled from the wall by wires, hissing and spitting sparks. The security doors were, again, unsealed and ajar, so the team moved slowly to the next bulkhead. Another wrecked security camera. Gray smoke filtered out through the last set of double doors from the command center. A factory guard lay dead against the wall. The air heavy with smoke, they pulled on their gas masks and stepped into the dim, battered room.
A total loss, Patrick thought to himself. Four more bodies. Reluctantly, he walked to each corpse to check its face. He felt a macabre relief to find only strangers.
“Put an automatic sentry there in the corner,” he ordered his guards. “Another here at the door. Let’s get back to the surface.”
Emerging from the ruins to the misty air, Patrick pulled off his mask and spoke into his arm-Plat. “Everyone check in.”
“Team B at the warehouse. Three dead. E
verything’s burned. The rear of the building is ripped wide open. Half the structure collapsed. Two vehicles in the rubble. Nothing salvageable.”
“Team C outside the machine room. Sir, you should come have a look at this.”
“On our way,” Patrick replied. They got back into their jackrabbit and whirred across the compound. “Bully—”
“Already there. From up here, looks like thruster tracks—big ones. Bull-shark must’ve landed and taken off here. …None of ours would ever use the spot.”
Patrick’s jackrabbit pulled up next to Private Kim Daily, who was crouched next to the wall of the main building, examining a small steel canister. She scanned the object with her wrist-plat before handing it to Patrick with a raised eyebrow.
I can’t wait to see Emily, he thought, trying to take his mind off his macabre work.
Patrick felt another small wave of nausea as he reached for the canister. “Explains why the fight was so one sided,” Gajah asserted.
Patrick raised his arm-plat to his lips. “All teams rendezvous at the drop point. Bully, meet you in the courtyard. Bring a delivery drone. We need an object scanned and sent to Harrisburg for replication and analysis.”
Patrick returned to the runway in front of the Factory Five building to find Bully’s bull-shark and the small robotic aerial drone waiting. Kim handed Bully the canister with a knowing look.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Bully groaned.
Patrick leaned forward and whispered, “Scan it, send it, and let’s get our asses back in the air.”
Bully nodded in agreement. “Alright people. All eyes peeled, weapons hot. I want the site secured with automatic sentries and mines in ten minutes. Then we pick up and get the fuck outta here.”
Patrick followed the jackrabbit up the ramp and into the belly of the bull-shark, where he sat down next to Gajah. He took a deep breath as he tried to call his father on the V-plat. No luck.
Fire, Ruin, and Fury (Embers Saga) Page 47