by EE Isherwood
“I’m dressed like this because we snuck into one of your bases, hacked your servers, then got out without a scratch. We would have gotten away with it, too, but my team was killed in a traffic accident last night. Now, it’s just me.”
The man laughed. “If you really are a Marine, say something only a Marine would know.”
Kyla listened as her friend rattled off a series of curse words, each dirtier than the next. It would have been funny if she wasn’t in the process of giving herself up. Thinking she might be able to help, Kyla stuck her head up. However, she only saw the other woman’s cropped haircut. The men were still hidden.
The man laughed. “Yep, you check out. You’re definitely not with the invaders. What unit were you with, Marine?”
“Aren’t you with the invaders?” Meechum snarked.
“Hell no. We’re Americans, too. Why don’t you at least tell us what unit you were with.”
Meechum replied instantly. “F division, U brigade, sir.”
“Fair enough. You can come out of there. None of us are going to shoot, as long as you do it nice and easy. Then we’ll see what’s what.”
Kyla’s heart leapt, thinking it was all a trick. It wouldn’t be hard to fake being a real American so the battle-tested Marine would give herself up without a fight. As she watched, Meechum moved forward, out of her sight. As much as she wanted to defend her friend, caution made Kyla wait where she was. “Dang, this better not be a trap,” she whispered.
Two minutes later, Meechum called, “Dudette! We’re good. Come on out.”
She waited for a few seconds, wondering if they could have forced her to say the words, until she assured herself it was impossible. There was no way the Marine would give her up unless it was truly safe.
After walking the same path along the shoreline as her friend had taken, she came out of the brush to find a group of about ten soldiers waiting for her. There were a few trucks in a small gravel parking lot, but no military vehicles.
Her eyes went to Meechum. She’d been relieved of her weapons but didn’t seem upset about it. Her rifle, pistol, shotgun, and a couple of knives were on the ground beside her. The woman waved her to come forward, which she did.
In seconds, men had taken her two rifles, the bag, and pistol. One of them checked out her wound while another man came over to talk to her.
“I’m Colonel Avery, United States Army. You’re safe, but we have to get away from the enemy operation at the powerplant. We’re going to take you for a short ride.”
Without her weapons, there was no point in arguing. She and Meechum hopped in the bed of a pickup truck with two of the soldiers. They rode into the dawn, giving her a sense of hope they would make better time toward Uncle Ted. However, after about twenty minutes, the driver slowed and went down a dirt path into dense tree cover.
“Last stop,” the driver said quietly out his window.
She and the Marine hopped out.
Avery was back. He spoke mostly to Kyla. “As I said, I’m Colonel Avery. These men I’m with are Task Force Yankee, a recon team probing behind the lines of the Blackout forces. We asked your friend here what you two were up to, but she wasn’t very forthcoming, even under threat of court martial. Would you care to tell me what you two were doing by the powerplant?”
She respected Meechum for doing her best to hide their mission, but if these men were with an allied force, they would be best suited to stop the attack on her uncle.
She turned to Meechum before saying a word to the men. “I need to tell them why we were going after my uncle, okay?”
Meechum shrugged. “I can’t divulge my mission, but you have every right to tell them about your uncle.” She emphasized the word uncle, giving her a clue what she wanted.
Kyla returned her attention to Avery. “My uncle was part of our group. We attacked a base in North Dakota. We hacked their computers. Turned off the nuclear briefcase for the US missile arsenal. Now, he’s headed to NORAD to attack the Blackout headquarters and finish the job.” She had a thought. “Is that really what you call them? Blackouts?”
“They always seem to wear black. It’s what everyone on the outside has been calling them.”
“Oh, okay. Anyway, separate from all that, I contacted Rammstein Airbase in Germany using the tablet you confiscated from me. Don’t put the battery back in, by the way. I took it from the enemy. They’ll track it.” She paused to let her words sink in. “A general there said they were going to nuke the base at NORAD and put an end to the Blackout’s HQ. That’s all fine and great, but now my uncle is heading right for the bullseye and he doesn’t know what’s coming. Me and my friend Meechum were on our way to warn him. Of course, if you had a phone we could use…”
The colonel frowned. “I’m afraid I can’t help you there. We’re on total radio silence until we clear enemy territory. Based on what you’re telling me, we won’t be going out anytime soon.”
She was devastated. “Then let us go. I have to find him.”
“No can do. I believe you two are Americans, but we can’t let you out of our sights. Command is going to want to know about survivors. So far, you two are the only friendlies we’ve located.”
It was terrible news. “We’re the only two you’ve seen? That can’t be right. There must be others.”
“I can’t tell you where we’ve been but suffice to say, we’ve crossed many states. No one was out there, except for the Blackouts. Even they’re hard to find, given the size of the country they’re trying to take over.”
Meechum cleared her throat. “Dammit, you boys just refuse to help a woman in distress. How disappointing. Unfortunately for you, sir, you’ll want to change your mind.”
“Why is that, Marine?”
Meechum glanced over to Kyla as if she was about to do a bad thing. When she looked back to Colonel Avery, she stood at attention. “Because her uncle is traveling with the President of the United States, sir.”
Eastern Colorado
As the sun rose over the plains, and Ted drove them far from the scene of the attack, he thought they were in the clear. As with almost every other place they’d visited on the way south from Montana, there was nothing around them but grasslands and the occasional farm. If there was one bit of difference, it was the introduction of gentle, rolling hills. They couldn’t quite see from one horizon to the next. It was ideal for Ted, as the uneven terrain shielded them from being seen from afar.
“A storm’s brewing,” Emily remarked, seemingly bored after the excitement of the drive out of Fort Collins. Far to the east, probably over Kansas, a towering thunderstorm shuffled across the sky. As a pilot, he’d seen many similar storms from the air and was glad it was so far away.
“It won’t come here. It’s moving east.”
“Still, it’s pretty windy,” she allowed.
The wind was becoming a factor. The SUV presented a solid wall for the wind to strike, and it constantly pushed them toward the opposite lane of traffic, though there were no vehicles coming at them. He kept his speed between eighty and one hundred, which helped them cross the featureless tracts of prairie as fast as possible. Soon enough, they reached the interstate.
“This is I-70,” he said, not slowing at all. “I saw this numerous times while flying cross-country. If we turned right, we’d go directly to Denver. Since Colorado Springs is about an hour south of there, we can push on for another hour or so, and then turn west again.”
“You remember all that from your flying?” She sounded impressed.
He was about to come back at her with a pithy comment, but a strong gust of wind slapped against them as they crossed the bridge over the highway. His adrenal gland spit out an emergency supply of go-juice as he held onto the wheel. “Holy crap!”
Emily grabbed onto the door handle.
Once across, the wind settled down to the way it was—abusive, but not deadly.
She laughed. “I guess you were right. The wind is coming from the west. There’s no
way the big storm can reverse course.”
Ted held the wheel with determination, sure another gust was about to strike at any moment. He maintained that belief for ten or fifteen minutes before relenting and lowering his guard.
In one small town, he used his supplies to siphon gas. It only had three streets—the main two-lane they’d come in on, and then ones to the east and west of the roadway, creating a little bubble of civilization about a hundred yards square.
“Welcome to Nowheresville,” he said, walking past her window.
“This place doesn’t have a name?” Emily asked.
“Don’t know. I guess old town names don’t mean anything these days. We can call it whatever we want.” The wind came up again. Since he was out of the cab, he took the brunt of the gust, and a ton of dust and dirt, right in the face.
“If we stick around, I might call this place Dustburg.”
As he finished up, he happened to look down the road in the direction they were headed. At first, he thought he saw movement, but continued vigilance revealed nothing.
“We should get moving,” he said nonchalantly to Emily, who’d remained in the cab.
“You need me to drive?” she replied.
“Naw, I’m used to long periods of boredom like this. On some flights, I’d spend sixteen hours in my little ride-along desk, doing nothing but waiting for the pilot to get sick.” As much as he’d been anxious to get into the big chair back then, he was now anxious to return to those simple times.
“Well, I’m here if you need me. When we cleaned that house, I threw extra food in the back.”
“Uh, half-thawed chicken?” They’d pulled out all the food they’d shoved into the engine bay. For his part, he threw it on the garage floor, since it had been ripped and spent time in contact with the greasy motor compartment.
She chuckled at him. “No, silly, I meant the other place. The soccer-mom house. We have Twinkies, remember?”
He perked up. “How could I forget?”
Ted closed the gas cap, stowing the can and hose, but gave one last look at the road ahead. This time, the roadway wasn’t empty. A motorcycle came over a rise in the pavement. Then several more appeared behind the leader.
“Crap! We’ve got company.” The men on the bikes were less than a mile away. There was no logical reason for he and Emily to fear them, however. They were all supposed to be on the same team.
“What do we do?” Emily sat up straight and reached in the back for her rifle.
Calmly, and without any haste whatsoever, he climbed inside the cab and shut the door. He rolled the window down and held his hand out, as if instantly bored of waiting. His insides went into Slinky mode, bouncing and hopping in random directions.
“This isn’t going to be pretty,” he said with a raspy voice. The wind and dry air, plus fear itself, coated his throat like sandpaper. “We have nowhere to hide. No backup. These guys aren’t techs or newscasters. They’re soldiers in the same uniforms as us. If they ask us anything beyond how’s the weather, they’ll figure out we’re imposters. They might already know who we are…”
“Tell me what to do,” Emily said, displaying remarkable calm.
He went over the plan in the sixty seconds he had left. As expected, the group of seven riders pulled right up to his SUV. Ted waved, ensuring they saw his black uniform. Theirs were black, too, and their hogs were the same model as the guys back in Minot. The guys with flamethrowers.
“Have your rifle close. We’ll only get one chance,” he said quietly.
NORAD Black Site Sierra 7, CO
“Wake up! Feeding time!” The man’s shouts were followed by metal banging on metal.
Dwight woke up under the office desk. He’d taken his cot and laid it on its side, then dragged it in front of the opening. It made him feel the comfort of confinement and safety in the overnight hours, even while in the strange place.
When he emerged from his hole, the lights had come on automatically, and a tray of food was already at his door.
“This is really great service, huh, Poppy?” After he’d said the words, he scanned the office for his imaginary bird. He’d spoken to her out of habit.
He stretched on the walk to the door, feeling well-rested and ready for the day. As he got there, he remembered exactly where he was, which hit him in the face like a crème pie.
“My memory is all coming back,” he said aloud.
“That’s great,” Jacob replied from across the hall. “Then you’ll be looking forward to getting sick again today.” He sighed loudly. “We both will.”
“I do remember it all,” he said with awe. “I was in a shipping container. Then you found me, provided some food, and put me in a new suit. I stole a motorcycle. I watched a dam break apart. Then I—” He halted, realizing his revelation was incriminating.
Jacob laughed. “Yeah, say it. Then you killed those men. You might as well admit it. They already know everything. They’re always listening, and you talk in your sleep louder than you do in the day.”
“Poppy, is this true?” He checked the office, knowing she wasn’t there, but still unable to throw off the habit of talking to the one friend who’d stuck with him through it all.
After a short pause, he continued speaking to Jacob. “I don’t regret it, you know. It was all a misunderstanding, but I know who and what you are. You people are evil.”
“How do you figure?” Jacob shot back. “Because we took control from the country doing the most damage to the planet? Is it because we want to erase every trace of you people from the land, to return it to a pristine state where humanity can co-exist with nature? Is it because we value science and order above the chaos of whatever it was you Americans did to this continent?”
His mind was clear, but the newfound insight didn’t make him any smarter, or change his past. After his one tour overseas, he’d curled up into a ball as he’d done under the desk. For most of the previous ten years, he’d lived within a few city blocks of his cardboard spread back in San Francisco. It left him with little knowledge of the news at large or what was taking place in the world. It was as if he’d jumped into a time bubble and emerged a decade later with no additional wisdom. He could not dispute anything Jacob had said about the land he’d once fought to defend.
He tried to shift the conversation, as he often had to do for tourists when they wanted to engage with him, rather than simply give him his handout. “You really believe in your cause, don’t you? How’d you get started with David?”
Jacob was silent for a few moments. “Well…I met his people while working in a hotel in Thailand. They said they were looking for executives who could manage a lot of visitors. Inflow. Feeding. Uniforms. The whole lot. The only requirement was I had to attend David’s seminars. Back then, he went by the name Jayden Phillips. He sold all those self-help books, you know?”
“Sure,” Dwight lied.
“Anyway, I was going nowhere, and I didn’t have anything to lose, so I went. Needless to say, the seminar changed my life. I met others who thought like me. Others who believed the Earth needed to be fixed and it could be done by fixing ourselves in David’s perfect image. His methods seemed extreme, but, as you can see, it worked flawlessly, as he promised.”
Dwight leaned against the door to get a better look at Jacob. The guy still had faith in whatever he’d been brainwashed to think in those classes. If Poppy was there, she’d tell him he was dealing with a true believer. Someone who, even in the face of a painful death, thought his killers were acting correctly. Nothing Dwight could say would ever get him out of his mental prison.
He flexed his fingers. Instead of being stiff and painful after years of hard drinking and living six feet from his personal open-air latrine, his entire hand moved as designed. Without pain.
Still, being healed wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. It came with the understanding of the trouble he was in. The punishment he was up against.
A guard came down the hall, looking ri
ght at him. “Breakfast is over. It’s time for your morning walk.” His laugh was menacing.
Dwight took a deep breath, desperate to not show how scared he’d become at being back in the real world.
CHAPTER 19
Eastern Colorado
Ted was a warfighter and knew it was a serious matter to take a man’s life. As he sat waiting for the enemy bikers to drive up to his truck and park, certain a fight was coming, he should have been reflecting on the violence he was about to inflict on them. However, his mind was bothered by an inane question.
Do I shoot through the door and break the glass, or shoot above the frame so I can roll my window up later?
Emily breathed fast, getting ready for the attack in her own way.
The lead biker parked about six feet from Ted’s spot. He took off his helmet, hopped off his ride, then came up next to his window.
The man waved. “Hey, how’s it going?”
Over or under?
He chose over. Ted raised his borrowed Beretta above the door’s frame, pointed it at the guy’s chest, then squeezed the trigger.
The man’s eyes grew to the size of baseballs.
Ted braced his wrist, but the boom never went off.
A split-second of problem solving revealed the pistol had failed to fire. He’d already primed the weapon, so it wasn’t a loading error. It must have been a dud cartridge.
The whole team of bad guys hadn’t grasped what was happening, since the first shot hadn’t alerted them. The man opened his mouth to yell as Ted reached for the slide to kick out the bad round and—
Emily’s rifle appeared in front of him, aimed at the man. The AR wasn’t shockingly loud, but it was two feet from his head, and he already had a headache from his fall in the kitchen. When it went off, he was the one who yelped in pain.
The man went down.
“Thanks,” he shouted, ignoring the power drill churning inside his skull, instead prepping his weapon while praying it worked.
Ted aimed at the nearest man. He was maybe ten feet away. The guy had been looking away from the truck, talking with his buddies, and wasn’t yet ducking like some of the others. His back presented a huge target.