“No way,” Dante replied, genuinely interested in what Jeff was talking about for perhaps the first time in their short friendship. “How many? Did you see who it was?”
“No idea who,” Jeff shrugged. “But it was two men and two children – one guy made it out much further than the others, but he gave up pretty quickly once we started shooting at him!”
“You shot them?”
“Yeah,” Jeff grinned again. “Only with the rubber bullets. Didn’t have my proper rifle on me otherwise they wouldn’t have gotten away so easy. Either way I think we scared them off. They won’t be coming back around here in a hurry.”
“Nice one, Jeff!” One of the other men, Parker congratulated his friend. “I knew all these fences and walls wouldn’t be enough – we need proper protection in place. We need to get lookout towers and people armed at the entrance points.”
“I agree,” Jeff nodded. “I thought the bridge would be fine unprotected, but if people are willing to try and swim it then we need to step things up a level. Word must have really gotten out about the stronghold we’ve got here. It’ll be those useless New Yorkers all begging for someone to hold their hand and tell them how to keep safe at night.”
The other men erupted into laughter at Jeff’s suggestion, Dante quickly joining in to keep face but internally filled with dread over what he’d just heard. He couldn’t afford to put too much thought into it in the presence of Jeff and his friends. But if they started shooting at people trying to get into the city then Austin could be in a lot of danger. It didn’t sound like the group that Jeff had shot at the day before had been his husband. Dante was certain that Austin would try and approach the city alone. But it wasn’t a good sign. Things were getting worse by the day in Poughkeepsie and Dante wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep this up.
“You figure we can do that?” Dante asked, forcing himself to not get too distracted by his thoughts. “The lookout towers and such?”
“I don’t see why not,” Jeff replied nonchalantly. “This is our city now; we can do what we want.”
Parker cheered in response, downing the last of his beer bottle and flinging the glass out onto the road where it shattered. The group of them laughed and cheered again, Dante fighting against the lump that was forming in his throat. He needed to get out of there and get home before he blew his cover or reacted the wrong way. Tonight had been a mistake. He was starting to feel sick at Jeff’s actions and he didn’t want to be in the man’s presence any longer. If getting into Poughkeepsie was getting more and more dangerous, perhaps it was time Dante started thinking about how to get his family out instead.
“We can make this place a fortress!” Parker bellowed, cheering again as the two other men returned carrying another case of beer. “This city is ours!”
The six of them hurrahed in agreement, each taking a drink and raising their glasses. Dante joined in with the celebrations. In that moment, his mind was made up. It was becoming too much of a risk to keep his family in Poughkeepsie. He couldn’t wait around for Austin any longer and hope that his husband would turn up and save them. He needed to get out and he needed to do it quickly.
Chapter 19
The bunker was just about ready to initiate stage two of the attack. After checking their satellites carefully, KW had confirmed that all the vessels were in position and waiting to strike. There wasn’t going to be any resistance, those located near the infiltration points didn’t suspect a thing, going about their post-Trident lives like normal. No one knew that the ships were poised and ready to strike, spreading the leader’s reach across the world and taking away any country’s hope of fighting back.
“Are they all in position?”
DM flicked a couple of switches in front of him and lit up more screens around the room, showing the various views from each deck camera. He nodded. “We’re ready to start as soon as we get the signal. Do we have a countdown?”
“Not yet,” KW replied, still waiting to hear the final instruction in her ear piece.
The five of them in the bunker weren’t directly involved with this next stage. They were tasked with being the eyes and ears of the leader, reporting back all the information and ensuring everything was executed perfectly and precisely. This was what the attack on Trident had been leading up to. This was how they were going to finally become the one dominant global superpower, stronger than all the others put together.
The Chinese government had never had the strongest naval fleet. This shortfall had hindered them on a number of occasions. While they had direct access to America across the Pacific, their ports didn’t boast the best locations to plan an assault from. If they wanted to approach anywhere in Europe by water, they were placed in an awkward situation.
One thing the US had an abundance of however, was perfectly located islands which could be transformed into naval strongholds. Pearl Harbor was the crown jewel of them all and something that their current leader had been fascinated by his entire life. It was no surprise that this was his endgame. Where their neighbors in Japan had failed before them, China was determined that they would succeed and take control of the largest naval fleet in the world.
“Okay,” KW held her hand up and brought the bunker to silence, signaling to those around her that she was receiving information. The communicator she wore in her ear crackled, the leader’s voice eventually carrying through and giving the order. He didn’t mince words – he never did. His instruction was short and to the point, not a trace of emotion or uncertainty present in his voice.
“Do it.”
“We’re a go people,” KW said. Streams of code and instructions were inputted into their super computers and then gradually the vessels on the screens started to move again. Soldiers emerged from below deck and one by one, they started carrying out the final stages of the leader’s great plan.
Chapter 20
Jessie woke to the sound of her stomach grumbling and forced herself to get out of bed and start her day. She wasn’t in the mood to work that morning, especially not now that so many people had chosen to up and leave with Dennis and his cronies. She still found it hard to believe what he had done. The speech, the blatant disregard for his fellow islanders and their futures. It was an incredibly selfish move and yet not only had Dennis stood on the stage and announced that he was leaving, but he had actually managed to convince a number of people to go with him, too.
Kauai had been damaged more in that moment than it was when they first found out about Trident’s collapse and people fled the island itself. It hadn’t been easy for those that were left behind, but they had banded together and made things work because they had no other choice. Dennis deciding to leave had stuck a sharp knife into the middle of all that unity. It had caused a rift in their new regime and put doubt into people’s heads about whether they had made the correct choices.
Now about a quarter of their already limited community had parted ways with them, heading to the northern most part of the island to form a smaller and more selective group on their own. The islanders had been forced to choose where they wanted to live and not only that, but some of them had then chosen to leave and been told no.
That was the thing that had caused the most damage, Dennis somehow seeming to know exactly how to tear their lives apart piece by piece and enjoy every second of it. He only wanted the elite to join him, his reason for leaving made plain and simple: he didn’t want to be doing work for people who he didn’t believe were pulling their weight. There were some people who had announced they wanted to leave, too, that Dennis had turned down. He told them to their faces and didn’t mince words, declaring that they weren’t important enough to be a part of his new society in the north.
Now those people were forced to remain with everyone else, walking side by side with the very people they had announced they wanted to leave behind. It had caused huge divides and torn apart friendships which had lasted many years. Families had come to blows with one another, the opposing opinion
s making fathers walk away from their sons and daughters turn their backs on their mothers. It was horrible and it made everyone’s life a little bit worse every time it happened.
Jessie had hardly seen Art since all the drama, the demand for a man with his skillset increasing as Dennis took almost all the other engineers to the north with him. Art was stretched thin and forced to take on jobs that he wasn’t properly trained for. That put him in danger, increasing an already stressful workload. He had already left for work long before Jessie woke up that morning.
Jessie’s role in new Kauai island life had also changed. Now, she worked in the fields to help grow and harvest crops. She also helped in the kitchen with the cooking and serving of meals, too. Her days were long and arduous, leaving her little time to enjoy the moments she could share with her family.
Above everything else, she worried about the safety of her two young boys. Their situation had remained mostly stable. The support system the leadership council had put in place for children, ensuring they were taken care of, gave them a sense of normality in an otherwise bizarre world. They attended classes and helped around the island where possible, depending on their capabilities. Both Zayn and Axel seemed to be coping well and maintaining a structured routine.
It was just the quality time with their parents that they missed out on. Jessie could see that they were both physically safe and strong, she worried about how they were coping on the island. She tried to speak to them about their feelings as much as possible and spend each precious moment she could eke out with them. It was the only thing that pushed her to get out of bed in the morning. She was excited to spend even a few short minutes with them both over breakfast before she started yet another long and grueling day.
“It’s not fair that we have to go to school again today,” Zayn groaned as he sat in the kitchen eating breakfast. Jessie helped herself to a protein bar and left it at that, despite knowing she needed more energy for the type of day she had ahead. “It’s a Saturday.”
“I know darling,” she replied with a wry smile and a shake of her head. “But it’s the best thing for you both at the moment, especially with your dad and I needing to go to work.”
“But why can’t we just stay home by ourselves? It’s not like we’re going to get into any trouble.”
“It’s not about keeping you out of trouble,” Jessie tried to reason with her eldest son. “It’s about keeping you both safe and knowing where you are. I’m sure there won’t be as many classes today – Martha knows what day it is, it’s her weekend too, after all. Just give it a chance baby, for me, please?”
“Alright,” Zayn sighed, aware that he didn’t really have much of a choice. “Can we all hang out tonight though, mom? Just the four of us?”
“Of course, sweetheart,” Jessie smiled, though she wasn’t aware whether Art would be home in time to do that. “Whatever you want.” She wanted her sons to have hope at least and knew that Arthur would do everything in his power to get home in time to be with his family.
“Are you both ready?” Shoving another protein bar into her back pocket, Jessie picked up her bag containing a large water bottle, her gardening gloves, sunhat and other gear for her day in the fields and looped it over one shoulder. There wasn’t exactly a time that she needed to be at work for, but she knew she needed to pull her weight now more than ever.
After dropping them off at the school gates and kissing them both firmly on the forehead, she tugged her sunhat out of her bag and put it on. Even though it was still early in the morning, the sun was beating down with a ferocious heat and she was already prepared for a very sweaty day.
Art’s work with the island’s plumbing was on her mind as she chugged from her water bottle. The heat made her thirsty before she had even started work. One thing that they all thankfully still had was clean drinking water. The purification systems actually still worked and supplied running water to their faucets from the many springs on the island. She vaguely remembered Art mumbling about a complication with the sewage plumbing lines and the purification system as he joined her in bed the night before. She had already been half asleep by the time he arrived, but she could remember the concern in his voice and a few choice words he had spoken to her. If Kauai lost clean water, then life would quickly get a thousand times worse for them all.
“Morning, Jessie!” Kitch called out to her as she walked into the farmyard, waving in greeting with a smile on his face. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”
“Boiling!” Jessie called back, impressed by Kitch’s cheerful attitude and determination to always be the first one out in the fields each morning. She’d only been working with him for a couple of days, but she could see why he had been voted onto the leadership council despite only being nineteen years old. He was focused and driven, approaching any problem which faced him in a logical manner and never letting his inexperience or uncertainties get the better of him. He was a good person to work beside and helped make the job bearable, even if Jessie still couldn’t understand how it was a profession people chose to go into.
Passing Kitch by and heading to her spot overlooking the ocean, Jessie dropped her bag and picked up her shovel from yesterday. The view was certainly better than it had been in any of her previous jobs, the vast expanse of the ocean stretched out in front of her and the sunlight twinkled off the blue surface. The mysterious ship still sat a ways out. Conversation about what it was had really died down over the last few days. The islander’s focus more on their own lives and how they were going to deal with being split in two.
Jessie wondered about it as she worked, the monotonous action of digging up soil so that it could be replanted with faster growing crops giving her plenty of time to think. She pondered why the ship had arrived in the first place and why it had stopped so close to shore. It seemed strange to have made it so close only to stop at the last moment.
The thought of all the people who were at sea or away from home when they heard about Trident’s collapse made Jessie realize how lucky she had been. At least she was with her family. She could only imagine what it would be like to live through a disaster and have no idea where your loved ones were or if they were even still alive.
The snippets of news which had been streamed on television and online before all the power went down had given her an insight into what it was like in bigger cities across America. She feared for her parents and brother in New York. While it was a problem that couldn’t be rooted in one place, New York seemed to have taken the brunt of the riots and chaos in the immediate moment of discovery. People’s anger was targeted to the Trident building where her brother worked. The brief call Jessie had shared with him and her parents at least informed her that they were safe at that point.
It had now been well over a week since she’d received any news from anyone outside the island. There was no method of contacting the mainland and no way of finding out how the rest of the world was coping. It was strange after growing up in such an easily accessible world, the answer to any and every question only a mouse click away. To go from that to radio silence and total ignorance of what was happening was a weird feeling. The best way Jessie had found to deal with it was to believe that things were rebuilding and eventually the small collection of islands that made up Hawaii would be brought into the loop of recovery as well.
The stream of thoughts that ran through her head changed with the wind as she carried out her work. As the hours dragged by her shirt began to stick to her body with sweat, the sun scorching her bare skin and causing her to pant from the effort. Being out in the middle of the day was never something that they advised in the peak of summer on the island, but she didn’t have much of a choice. She paused for a swig of water and pushed her shovel into the ground, resting back on it to relax her back.
As she stared out to sea, Jessie squinted at the ship over her water bottle. Narrowing her eyes, she could’ve sworn she just saw someone walking around on the deck. Perhaps the sun was getting to her and she was
hallucinating, but for the first time since it had arrived, the ship looked like it was occupied. Recapping her water bottle, Jessie wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand and adjusted her hat slightly. She focused on the ship and narrowed her eyes once more, trying to figure out if she was actually seeing what she thought she was seeing.
“Hey, Kitch!” She called over to the nineteen-year-old. “I think there’s people on that ship.”
Kitch laughed, standing up to his full height and glancing briefly out to the ocean, before looking back at Jessie and walking toward her. “Give it a rest,” he smiled, “we’ve been watching that thing for days and no one has seen a soul. You sure you’ve been drinking enough water?”
Rolling her eyes at him, Jessie laughed sarcastically. “I’m serious. Have a look. Just at the back there.”
Raising her arm to point, Jessie prodded Kitch to take a closer look at it. She watched his face, pinpointing the exact moment when his expression changed and he saw what she thought she had seen.
“I knew it!” She announced, looking back to the ship again to confirm. “You see them too? There are people. What do you think this means?”
“I don’t know,” Kitch shook his head slowly, not taking his eyes off of the vessel. “It doesn’t make sense. If there’s been people on board this whole time, why would they only reveal themselves now? What’s changed?”
“You think something’s happened?”
“I don’t know,” Kitch shrugged. “But it doesn’t feel right to me. I need to go and tell Jamie, I think.”
“Really?” Jessie was starting to feel more nervous than excited now, taken aback by Kitch’s reaction and wondering whether she should be fearful of the people on board the ship. “Do you think it’s dangerous?”
“I don’t know,” Kitch repeated. “It’s worth mentioning. Can you stay here? Keep watching it? I doubt that anything major is going to happen, but just in case.”
Wipeout | Book 3 | Empty Vault Page 14