Last Call America- Last Call Before Darkness Falls

by Debra Tash

  “Will you stop and look at me?”

  He pulled up his trousers. “If I keep lookin’, sure enough I’ll be rattlin’ the springs again.”

  “Please listen to me, Jason.”

  He finally set his attention on me again.

  “Whitman knows about the weapon they’ve been developing here. Knows it’s fully operational now. And he knows the rebels control it. All your talk about how the Feds have starved and underpaid the Services. Show them and the people of this country who’s responsible for what’s about to happen. Put it in Whitman’s hands to pull the trigger and even more will come over to the rebellion. Think what it’ll mean when people know the president received a warning. That he could have stopped this weapon. What it will mean when he won’t give the order to stand down against the rebels and there are collaterals….” I swallowed. “He’ll be the one who let innocent people die. Jason,” I pleaded. “He’ll be called what he is—murderer. Not you.”

  A silent moment went by.

  “Don’t you see? It’s your opportunity to shape public opinion and use it.”

  He didn’t respond.

  Fear rippled through my flesh as he finished dressing. Just then, I knew our embrace had become something deeper—at least, for me—more of the spirit than the flesh. Just then, I understood that whatever direction Jason Poole went, the Feds would do everything they could to kill him. And if they did…what that would do to me.

  With the last button fastened, Jason grabbed hold of my shirt. “It’s time to get ready.”

  I didn’t take it.

  “They may be calling me crazy after today.” He flapped my shirt in his hand. “Now, get dressed, Honey Beck. We have a lot to do.”

  “It’s a mistake to tap the Feed, Commander,” Michaels warned Poole again.

  “The targets?”

  “Locked.”

  Dressed in fatigues, expression grave, Poole glanced over his shoulder at my mother. I stood behind her, clasping the handlebars of her wheelchair. Dr. Andrews was beside Mother, keeping an eye on his patient after their loud argument over her leaving her hospital bed.

  Maggie nodded, assuring the captain again she could handle Michaels’ concern. The shielding they developed at Hadley would hold. Our position would remain masked when we tapped into the Feed.

  Poole looked into the tiny camera hovering before him as Mother leaned forward and worked a small luminous screen. She gave Poole an okay sign, then settled back in her chair, out of breath. Monitors in the Command Center flickered to life as Poole’s image coalesced on them.

  “I’m speaking to you from a hidden base where the Feds developed a weapon of unbelievable power,” the captain began. “It’s the perfect killing machine and it was funded by your tax dollars. We captured this facility and deployed the weapon this morning, targeting a DHS base in Massachusetts.

  “It’s set to kill again.” He squared his shoulders. “The military, yours, has orders to shoot anyone suspected of being a rebel. You’re dead without trial. This is what the Feds are ordering my brothers and sisters in arms to do. Men and women who swore allegiance to the Constitution.

  “And now the weapon is set to fire on targets in and around Boston. There’s no avoiding it. There will be civilian casualties.” Poole’s gaze never moved from that camera as his hands formed fists at his sides to steady himself. “So, I’m giving President Whitman something he would never give us. A warning. I will—”

  The screens split; one side still showed Poole, while the other bore President Whitman’s image. The familiar face of our commander-in chief no longer betrayed his age. He was once more the cold patrician who would never let himself be bested by a rebel mob and their ragged leader. “So you’re tapping into the Feed again, Captain.”

  “And we’re sure you’re trying to cut it again,” Poole countered. “But before you do, I want to give you the opportunity to call a truce, Whitman. Stop your attacks on the American people. Give the order to stand down. And we’ll pull back the weapon.”

  The corner of Whitman’s mouth twitched.

  “You know what Charon’s capable of.”

  “Yes. We know exactly what you’ve used it for. And we are fully prepared to stop you from using it again.”

  “You have thirty minutes. If you don’t respond when we raise the Feed again, what happens does so on your watch, Mr. President.”

  Poole glanced at Mother again. She cut the Feed.

  “Incoming,” a tech announced from his station at one of the consoles.

  “When?” Michaels demanded.

  “Twenty-two minutes, nine seconds to target,” the tech answered.

  “How could they get a lock on our position if your shield is up?” Mother asked.

  “They must have used your tap into the Feed, like a honing signal,” Michaels spat. He fixed his attention on Poole. “It seems we don’t have a half hour, Commander.”

  The tech put the incomings on screen. They looked like a large flock of birds flying in tight formation.

  “You must have defenses,” Poole said.

  “We do,” Michaels answered. “The shell surrounding us is reinforced. And the most sensitive sections of our facility are deep under bedrock. We have fireflies, but they’re too slow to intercept tacticals. Most likely some of those incoming are nuclear.” He turned to a nearby console and pressed a button. “To be exact, fifty-three short-range warheads en route. Too swift for our conventional weapons to get all of them. Too many to scramble their trajectory. Some will definitely get through.”

  “Has to be everything they have within striking distance,” Hernandez said.

  “And enough to blow us apart if they hit all at once, Commander.”

  “The weapon?”

  “Locked on the DHS targets.”

  “Pull it back and knock down those missiles, then reset.”

  “Not so easy,” Michaels said. “We can re-task for a new prime. But it won’t expend all the energy buildup from our generators if the array isn’t allowed to finish its cycle once prime is hit. Expend all the energy on the remaining targets in sequence, and the buildup will wipe us out.”

  “Can’t you divert power?” Poole asked.

  “It’s one or the other once the energy cycle has started. This is a closed system to prevent sabotage,” Michaels said. “Either we deploy or begin a power-down. But the power-down will leave us practically defenseless.”

  “And to power back up?”

  “Complete. It will take close to an hour.”

  One of the techs from her monitoring station reported, “My calculations show changing energy allowances will vary field margins.”

  “Explain,” Poole demanded.

  “Variable margins mean we can’t control the weapon’s footprint,” Michaels informed him. “It may cause even more civilian casualties.”

  My hands slipped to my sides, my knees weakening.

  “There’s got to be another way,” Poole snarled. “Hernandez, what about our ground forces? Take rocket launchers and knock the damn things down.”

  “Something’s bound to get through, Captain.”

  “It may not be enough to blow us apart. But there’s still risk,” Michaels warned. “Some of our materials are unstable if not contained.”

  “Damn it! Give me a viable option!”

  I wanted to shout, Do something. This was my fault.

  “Knock down the missiles with enough discharge to permanently disable them,” Michaels said. “Then carry out the sequence. We’ll still be able to cripple their ability to launch another strike. And by the time they rearm and task long-range missiles, we’d have our shield up and scrambled. They won’t be able to get another lock on us.”

  “And the coordinates they have on this base?” Mother asked.

  “We can send an eraser thro
ugh their system to wipe them out. Just as we did as a precaution when we joined you. The process will take time, but not enough for them to stop it.”

  “And we can still mount our ground assault after the weapon deploys,” Sergeant Hernandez said. “I’m sorry, Captain, it appears you don’t have any other options but this one.”

  “We don’t have to deploy the weapon if it’s unstable,” Mother said, her frail hands trembling. “If you can mask our position. Throw them off—now.”

  “It won’t stop those missiles from hitting,” Michaels snarled. “They’ve a lock on us—now!”

  Sweat beaded on Poole’s brow. I made a move toward him.

  Andrews clasped my arm.

  “Fire the weapon!” I cried. “Deploy!”

  “Re-task prime target,” Poole ordered. “Deploy full array!”

  “As you say.” Michaels gave crisp instructions to his technicians. The prime target was set for the incoming missiles, while the other objectives were reapportioned the remaining energy. The sequence of death was set to begin.

  Deven Michaels looked in my direction, ice-blue eyes pinched at the corners, set jaw pulsing. Rage, suppressed and brutal, waited behind his gaze, and that rage focused on me alone.

  CHAPTER 18

  Tears fell from my eyelashes and slid down my cheeks. I tried to catch my breath as every screen glowed with an unnatural blue. The first wave permanently disabled the warheads. Stopped mid-flight, they whirled to earth in a death spiral. Some slammed into rooftops, breaking through to crush anything underneath them. More flashes of blue. Each objective in turn, methodical, relentless, leaving every DHS base defenseless inside Boston and within a fifty-mile radius around it.

  The second wave. The color of hell: a fiery hue. Red. One time an innocent shade; the hot summer beaches of childhood, sunshine glowing through closed eyelids. Red. Remembered Valentine treats, cherry candy, soft rose petals to tickle the nose. But roses have thorns. They prick, cause pain. Leave a splash of blood on the finger. Red, displayed on all the Command Center screens. The mark of death, robbing the essence of life from every living thing it touched. Red.

  A final map went up. The tech’s warning about margin stability proved correct. The weapon’s footprint varied around each target, some much larger, a few inside the wire. A number of them covered whole neighborhoods for blocks outside the bases, houses with no way of telling how many had been caught in its deadly reach when the color red descended on them. The whole operation took less than eight minutes. Such a short time to kill so many people. Thousands. And how many were innocents like Bradley’s son, fatalities stricken down by a merciless machine?

  My knees barely kept me standing as a terrible guilt battered my heart—a remorse that could never be vanquished. A hungry thing that ate at my being, chewing me down with regret. I should never have tried to spare Poole this burden, one he could bear and one I felt certain I could never survive.

  “Please,” I whispered as I choked down tears. Each additional death lay on me, needless waste I would have to account for one day.

  Activity filled the Control Center, people talking, electronic signals being sent. All of it melted into a buzzing sound in my ears. Swept away in a stream, I became a pebble of no consequence buffeted by surrounding forces. I tried to disconnect and shut them away before they smashed me to pieces. But they would not let me go.

  “Becky Baby,” someone said in an attempt to bring me into the moment. “Becky Baby, please.”

  My attention focused on Mother seated in her wheelchair as she strained to look over her shoulder at me. I remembered I’d been standing behind her the whole time. My grasp on the chair had released, and my arms were now clasped across my chest. The color had drained from her face again. Her hand trembled as she held it up to me and said in a soothing tone, “It’ll be all right, my baby.”

  Dr. Andrews nudged me aside. “I should never have let you talk me into allowing you out of bed, Mags.” He grabbed hold of the wheelchair’s handlebars with a harrumph and pushed. “It’s back to sick bay.”

  “No,” she protested. “The network’s contacting me. They want to mount full assaults. I can’t—”

  “Pipe down! I outrank you.”

  “No you don’t, Gilly,” she argued as he started to wheel her away. “Not in the militia. Not—” Mother gasped for air as she jammed a hand to her chest and wheezed. “Damn it.”

  Andrews stopped, signaled for me to follow, then hurried on. Mother reached out her hand. “My tab, Becky.”

  “Leave it!” the doctor yelled as he pushed her wheelchair through the doorway.

  I snatched the floating tablet and studied its flickering screen. Clearly it was streaming data, but jumbled in an unintelligible patchwork. About to power it off and head for sick bay, I paused when an argument broke out. Poole, Michaels, and Hernandez were huddled together on the other side of the Command Center. Their gestures were animated, voices unnaturally loud, yet not loud enough to make out what they battled over. I took a step in their direction and stopped, recalling the look on Michaels’ face.

  Once more I headed for the door, only to stop when I clearly heard Poole snap, “Those are my orders!” He stormed toward the exit.

  I stepped aside, afraid. One glance, a silent rebuke from him, and what was left of me would be trampled underfoot.

  “Commander, you don’t understand,” Michaels said, following close behind. “The other Charon facility is fully functional.”

  Poole stopped and faced him.

  “It’s true,” Michaels said. “Even Homeland Security doesn’t know. We conducted field tests last week. China Lake is live and in striking distance of the National Security Administration’s data center in Utah. Knock that out and you badly cripple the government’s intelligence-gathering capability.”

  “Well, your damn weapon is crap. We’re not deploying it again.”

  “You don’t understand. The fields were constant with every test. But we had to reset them so quickly. Redistribute the energy load in a matter of minutes.” He took a short gulp of air. “This wasn’t our fault, Commander.”

  I instinctively recoiled, cowering at those words.

  Poole hung his head, hands on his hips. After an uncomfortable moment, he lifted his gaze and looked at Michaels. “Even so. You’re the one who doesn’t understand. Without a solid ground force, deployment would be little more than senseless murder. It’s not enough to disable the Data Center. In a half hour it’ll be back online. The Feds can access it remotely. You have to blow the damn place to hell.”

  “If we could get the local militia to set charges and take out the facility,” Hernandez suggested. “It’s huge, but with the help of any armed forces, it could be done.”

  “They must have backups of the data.” Poole shook his head. “It just won’t work.”

  “Then take them out, too,” Michaels proposed. “Most are in Silicon Valley, making them in range. With enough of the system down, DC could never restore it.”

  “What about their defenses? We could be sending in people only to be slaughtered.”

  “Not if we take out the surrounding DHS bases along with the NSA center, Commander,” Michaels suggested.

  “You can muster that much power?” Hernandez asked with an eyebrow raised.

  “We can hook into the western grid. Even with resources down, we can glean enough power before they reroute it to execute the sequence.”

  “It’s almost unholy,” Poole mumbled, then paused, studying the head of the Charon project. “Still, we’ve no direct way of contacting the militias.”

  Trembling, I broached the few feet separating us and held up my mother’s tab. “Th-this may help you.”

  Michaels snatched it out of my hand and took a moment to examine it. “Ciphers. Definitely militia and coming in from all over the country. Put them under your
command, Captain, and we may just have a chance.”

  Poole gave them orders. “Michaels, you decipher that code and contact the militias. Hernandez, you start raising any regular units you think may have come over to our side and identify those who may be on the edge. I’m taking the field command.” He started to walk away.

  “You need to stay here, Captain,” Hernandez said. Poole stopped again, keeping his back to them. “Coordinate operations,” Hernandez added.

  “The sergeant’s correct,” Michaels insisted. “You can’t risk your life out there.”

  Poole finally turned and faced them. He gave Michaels a sharp look, then spoke to Hernandez. “You’re the better tactician. I can lead the ground force, David. If we get a foothold in Boston as planned, we’ll have even more people coming to our side. We’ve located enough armament and regulars, and with the base in Vermont, there may be a chance. Being in the field is where I belong and you know it.”

  “No, Captain,” Hernandez disagreed. “Not now. I can head the ground assault on Boston.”

  Hands planted on his hips, Poole hung his head once more as if thinking over what had just been laid on him. He groaned. “You have the command, Sergeant.”

  “As you say, sir.” Hernandez gave his commanding officer a crisp salute and walked off.

  “David!” Poole called after him.

  The sergeant stopped and peered over his shoulder. Poole returned Hernandez’s salute. The sergeant smiled before heading out the door. In that moment, I understood my sister’s growing affection for David Hernandez, a scholar turned warrior in this savage world.

  The captain went off with Michaels.

  Hopelessness sank deep inside me. I’d become mutilated already by this war, and now was being executed by my own silent guilt. Each of those innocent deaths rested on me, not Poole. I stood there trying to wipe away the renewed tears, willing them to stop as my stomach churned and a bitter bile rose in my throat. I needed a moment alone, someplace to mourn, someplace to put this awful day aside.