Emily felt herself trembling with a manic need for reassurance of any kind, but she knew she would get no satisfaction here. She pulled herself free from the guard’s grasp and raced back upstairs in hope of finding a working V-plat. Arriving back at the entrance to her room, she found Dorian Lee helping Billy and Nanner lug a despondent Jasmine from the floor.
Emily broke through them, grabbed Jasmine by the hand, and pulled her up. She turned off all the screens still running images of carnage, Rashid’s confession, and Templeton’s announcement on a loop.
“Patrick’s on his way back,” she panted as she bee-lined for the nearest V-plat, swiped her card, and asked Operetta for a call channel.
“OmniComms welcomes you back, Ms. Goldbloom,” Operetta greeted sweetly. “We regret that outbound call channels are unavailable from this location, but please stand by for an announcement from the Domestic Security Service.” Operetta evaporated, replaced by the image of a svelte, olive-skinned man, adorned in a military uniform. Emily recognized him immediately, and her stomach ached in response.
“Fellow citizens, my name is Xavier Mosino, Governor of the Desert Plains Territory. I come to you on this fateful day to address the terrible events of the past week and the heinous murder of my uncle, our beloved Chief Regent. I want to assure you at this moment of uncertainty and fear that you may disregard the earlier message from the Senator of Oregonia. For your safety and well-being, I have assumed the Regent’s Chair, and I will convene the Senate for a full investigation while we finally restore order.
“I call on all remaining fighters to lay down your arms or face the combined force of the Domestic Security Service, returning Expeditionary Forces, and government militias—all of which are now under my control. My government will soon transmit a list of all citizens who must appear at the nearest MAC or security station immediately.”
When the message started again, beginning its own loop, Emily sat down beside Jasmine and rubbed her back gently—as much to console herself as to console her friend. Her head throbbed. She glanced up at Billy and Nanner, who still stood gawking at the screen, visibly as befuddled as she was.
“Operetta: Activate GEO. Base map topographic. Roads layer. Cities layer.”
Several anxious seconds later, an oversized image of the Commonwealth spread out from the V-plat before them. Emily signaled Billy, Nanner, Dorian, and Jasmine to join her at the edge of the map.
“Operetta,” Emily said at last. “Find Camila and Alias Goodwell Junior and plot their location.”
It’s a long shot, but why not?
“Camila Goodwell cannot be plotted on GEO,” Operetta replied.
“Hail Camila Goodwell for video chat,” Emily said, hoping against hope.
“Please stand by . . . Please stand by . . . We regret that outbound call channels are unavailable from this location. I can offer you other entertaining content on other channels—”
“We’re going to find them as best we can, one by one,” Emily said to Jasmine. “Where was the last place you know Alias was?”
Jasmine wiped tears from her eyes, trying to recover her resolve. “Last I heard, he was in Desert Plains, near Austin.” Jasmine looked to Billy and Nanner for confirmation. “Ben and Felipe were with him. But my dad said they were gonna summon him back to Park City and then come here.”
The two mercenaries stood stoically, saying nothing.
“OK,” Emily agreed, drawing waypoints on the most direct route between Austin and Park City. She paused for one anxious instant as the mark on Salt Lake City pulsed yellow on the map, recalling images of ongoing destruction there.
Emily paused again to consider the best route from Park City to Harrisburg, knowing Rashid’s public indictment would send her family in the direction of God-knows-what.
If they haven’t already been detained, or caught by a mob.
“Ben had orders to get Alias back to back to Park City,” Nanner interjected. “Then get back to Sherman’s base camp.” Nanner paused and traded uncertain looks with Billy, who shrugged his shoulders permissively. “Here, in Lolo Hot Springs.”
Emily and Jasmine looked at them, curious about the pause and the odd phrasing, but chose to move on.
“Ooookay,” Emily shrugged. “Put it on the map.”
Nanner leaned in and traced the almost straight shot up the old interstate 15 to 90, illuminating the most direct path between Park City and Lolo Hot Springs, Northern Rocky Mountains Territory. Looks of relief appeared on their faces, until they tensed up again when Emily and Jasmine’s expression soured.
“Butte,” Emily muttered. She had been to the Butte work site a dozen times over the past year, but its colocation with the PetrolChurch facility was now ominously clearer to them all.
“What about your Dad and Shay?” Jasmine said.
“I had a really short talk with them right after they left.” The memory of her last conversation with her father flooded her mind.
The signal during her last call with her father had been staticky and unstable—and she had no idea how long comms would last—though she was grateful Patrick had given them a special device that raised their chances.
“Daddy!” she had shouted, hardly able to believe her luck when he answered.
“Hello Little Lamb. Are you safe?” His image faltered for a second.
Am I safe? she wondered. It was something that she hadn’t really considered since the hellish flight out of Arlington. I have no idea if I’m safe. Prob’ly not. But she was too excited to worry about herself, and she wasn’t going to squander these moments by prompting her father to console her.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“A lil’ outside Pittsburgh,” Shay answered.
Pittsburgh? They’ve only gotten to Pittsburgh? That’s not even to the first cache.
Emily welcomed the news that they were safe, but when they flickered again, she realized that she didn’t want to hear anyone’s voice but her father’s.
“Daddy,” she pressed, “are you in trouble? Where’re you going next? Are you going on, or coming back? Have you heard from mom or Aunt Nessa? What do you—”
Her father held up a single finger, bidding her to slow down, as he had done for as long as she could remember. She took his cue and stopped to take a breath.
“We had to hunker down for a bit, Buttercup, but we’re OK. Still got plenty of supplies, and we’re not far from the next cache. We’re gonna - - - - - -.
Emily’s heart pounded as they started to flicker and give way to static, but she didn’t move for fear of missing a word.
“- - - - - - the route mom’ll prob’ly take - - - - - if we’re lucky - - - - - - full comms come back - - - - - - touch n’ go - - - - - - your still in the safest - - - - - - you and Dorian - - - - - - if things go south - - - - - - hear me?”
“Daddy, I can’t make out—”
But they were gone before she could finish. She had never known her father to say so many words at once, and it made her sick that she heard so few of them.
The same sick feeling returned to Emily now, as Nanner’s voice snapped her out of the memory. “Did you say just outside Pittsburgh?”
Emily hadn’t even been aware that she’d been recounting the story aloud, so she just nodded.
“The next cache?” Billy added. “What caches?”
“Operetta: Plot my father,” Emily demanded, rubbing her forehead.
“Finding Christian Goldbloom,” Operetta replied. But the outcome was the same. No GEO. No comms.
Emily gazed at the holographic avatar, feeling the stares of Jasmine, Billy, and Nanner.
“Last I heard,” Emily added, shifting the subject, “my mother, uncle, and cousin were in Troy.” They all knew where Troy was from their many visits to the church and its construction site. Nonetheless, Jasmine leaned forward to light it up on the map.
Emily hesitated to consider Billy’s request for information on the caches, but she recognized that her best chance o
f ever finding her family again rested on them, and they would need to know everything if they were going to help her. They were technically just there to protect Jasmine, but she also knew Nanner carried a torch for her cousin Victoria, and Rashid’s broadcast meant all bets were probably off between the mercenaries and the Goodwells.
She looked at Dorian for affirmation, and he nodded his approval.
“I don’t remember exactly where they all are,” she stammered wanting to punch herself for not paying closer attention during Shay’s lectures. “They radiate out from Troy Township. Northward along the old 55.”
Dorian Lee leaned in to plot a few of the caches on the map.
“Southward along the old 44,” Emily continued as Lee added more dots. “Eastward along the interstate 70—that’s the path Shay and my dad are taking to get back to Troy.”
They’d only gotten to Pittsburgh, she reminded herself. And there’s a shit-show between there and Troy. They’ll never make it all the way.”
Emily then realized the real question she had raised by plotting where their loved ones likely were, and the myriad dangers confronting them. They all took a half-step back from the map, trying to take it all in and weigh the options.
Where’ll Jasmine wanna go? Emily wondered. Park City? She has to know that’d be futile. Oregonia, where Carlos might give her shelter? Not after Templeton’s speech. And she’ll never make it all that way on her own. There’ll be a thousand check points between here and there—a thousand spots where she’d prob’ly get caught—then raped, enslaved, or killed. Stay here, like her parents said? Not if the Baumgartens are in as much trouble as it sounds.
Billy and Nanner’ll wanna get to Lolo Hot Springs to find Ben. If I can convince ‘em to take the southerly route, we might catch up with Dad and Shay. Then maybe link up with mom, Vic, Nessa, Tim, and Joshua. He might think that’s not too far outta the way.
She doubted she could convince Nanner to stay with her family beyond that—though Victoria would make it tempting, and all their odds of surviving would go up even longer.
Emily parted her lips to launch her bid to convince Nanner and Billy to follow the southern route, but she stopped herself in seeing Nanner doing the same math, discreetly following his own finger along the path.
That’s it, she willed him to think. Over the mountains, through Appalachia and into the Great Lakes Province. The Old Route 70 westward. Carefully past Pittsburgh. Skirt the ring roads of Columbus and Dayton, and onto Indie. You could then split off and go north—or maybe help us run the gauntlet through St. Louis to Troy. Either way, you’ll have to cross the Desert Plains Territory to Lolo Hot Springs. And if Alias got stuck in Park City, that’s the path you gotta take.
It then sunk in that this was also the path she had to follow, and the thought made her tremble.
She would leave the Baumgarten Estate, probably brokenhearted, soon after Patrick landed from whatever disaster had unfolded in Winnipeg. She wondered for a moment if Patrick would come back at all. She loved him, and she knew he loved her. But Mid-Atlantic Province would be under siege in days, if not hours, and his family’s entire empire would be at stake. Their fledgling relationship—the relationship she’d wished for forever—was no match for that. And it couldn’t match up to the stakes facing her and her own family. She hoped he would at least marshal enough firepower to help them make it. But she would make the trip west with or without him, and she tried to bury the thought that she might not ever see him again.
She would also make the trip with or without the muscle of Billy and Nanner. That realization layered fear on top of her sadness at the thought of losing Patrick, and her stomach clinched. She could end up in the Wilds again without Shay’s armed escorts. Without her first real love. Without trained soldiers. Possibly without enough supplies. Maybe with just a fugitive and a drug-addict at her side. Even before the upheaval, the trip was farther than anyone would ever care to go. Now, it was more travel on the embattled roads of the Commonwealth than she cared to consider.
She swallowed a heavy weight in her throat and grabbed Jasmine’s hand. She looked into her friend’s red eyes, she and felt herself tearing up. But Jasmine’s look was resolute, and Emily looked down to see that Jasmine’s other hand was already interlocked with Nanner’s. She then sensed Billy shuffle up behind them and felt one of his giant hands land softly on her shoulder. She noticed Dorian Lee already scurrying around the room, gathering up her things and shoving them in a duffle bag.
At that moment, Emily realized that it was decided, without a word. Cleaved from the ones they loved, they would leave together and stay together as long as they could.
* * *
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Fire, Ruin, and Fury (Embers Saga) Page 61