Last Call America- Last Call Before Darkness Falls

by Debra Tash

  Finally, I whispered a question. “Did you know?”

  He leaned back, turning slightly.

  “Did you know Poole ordered those DHS agents shot?”

  “Becky…your mother and I…well, we advised the captain. He had no choice.”

  I raised my head off his shoulder.

  “You have to understand what Mags and I did. She ran the department when I was reassigned to it. We set up profiles. Made certain who filled what post. That was our job. What we were mandated to do. There are personalities, Becky, born to kill. The government built bases to keep the population in line. Use force. Starvation. Control the masses and subjugate them. Others were designated for handling. That first base. The one we captured. That was a Process Center. An effective one, from what your mother pulled up on it. Over two thousand. Just over. Men. Women. And even some children. And especially those too old to be reconditioned.”

  I shrank away.

  “You have to understand. The agents at that base were chosen for that function. Were molded. There was no way to rehabilitate them. You can’t leave people like that at your back. Not in a war like this. Your mother and I knew what they were.” He sucked in a deep breath. “We created them.”

  My mouth went dry as I got to my feet. The doctor started to get up with me. But he settled back again, leaving me on own. I made it out of the chapel, again hesitating as I looked down the hall toward my room. Instead, I walked out of sick bay, stopping here and there to lean on the wall for support to save my failing strength. There was one place I wanted to be.

  When I found it, I was near exhaustion. Nothing but a white, cold space greeted me. The bed was made, the sheets clean and tucked in perfectly. No evidence Poole and I had ever been there…together. The door clicked closed behind me. I lay on that bed, nuzzled the pillow, searching for Poole’s scent but found no trace of him. My hand moved against the sheet, a blank canvas just like it’d been the day when I’d shared that bed.

  I wanted the green meadow, the feel of a warm, soft breeze on my face. I hungered for that sanctuary beyond our torn world where one could be at rest, far beyond yearning and want. A place where the ones I loved would never leave me. But the color had been drained from my existence and now I was encapsulated in that stark box. There would be no spring meadow for me. So I lay there in a cocoon of white all alone and without a flicker of hope.

  CHAPTER 22

  It felt so comforting as he stroked my hair, brushing aside wisps of it. The warmth of his fingers, not calloused but soft against my neck. My own hand moved, back and forth across a cotton field. Still half awake, I remembered…I’d crawled on top of this bed and fallen asleep. Those fingers tangled themselves in my hair. I sighed and rolled onto my back, his hand slipping free as my eyes slowly opened.

  There stood Deven Michaels looking down at me.

  I groaned as I forced myself to sit up. “Where’s Poole?”

  “Apparently not here.” Not a flicker of emotion on his face as he added, “In my quarters.”

  Despite being dizzy, I managed to get off the bed, wobbly but able to stand. “I’m sorry.”

  “Are you?”

  “Yes—you son of a bitch! Sorry for whatever fucking chip you have on your shoulder.”

  His mouth twisted up at one corner, the first hint of humanity I’d seen on the man’s face. “I’m sure you are.”

  Michaels motioned toward the door. I came around the bed, careful of each step on my unsteady legs. When my hand was on the lever, he grabbed hold of my arm. I prepared to muster whatever bit of strength was left in me to fight him off. But when I turned to face him, it wasn’t a cold, empty man I saw. Something brewed behind his ice-blue gaze, a vulnerability encased in the ridged frame of his existence.

  “I’ve had that fucking chip on my shoulder for a long time, Sanders. Right after I graduated MIT. Studied physics there. Excelled. In every class. Not bragging. Just telling you, I dreamed of the incredible. Saw possibilities. But damn it, I wanted…” He let go. “Ah, to hell with it.” With that, he pushed past me.

  “What?” I shouted at his back.

  He stopped. “I wanted the stars.” He chuckled as he turned to look at me. “Stupid of me. Instead of the stars, I got to create Charon. The most tidy killing machine in history. And it was your mother, Margaret Dunn, and her department, who pegged and slotted me.”

  “Shut up!”

  “Now I should shut up? The truth sure is unpleasant, isn’t it?”

  “She was my mother.”

  “She sure was. And now you know what she did.”

  Dr. Andrews’ words…that’s what their department did. They profiled…pegged and holed and slotted people into the career the government needed.

  Feeling faint again, I leaned against the wall.

  “Yes. You know all right.” He came close enough now I could feel his breath on my skin. “Her department harvested us. Like some Godforsaken crop. Just after we graduated. Young. Bright. Dreamers. They used us!”

  I trembled, but not from fear. Tears, more tears than ever. I covered my mouth with my hand and whimpered, “I’m sorry…so sorry…”

  His brow creased with puzzlement.

  “For you and h-her.”

  Michaels lifted his hand. To strike me, maybe. To dismiss me? I had no way of knowing. As he reached up that hand, the floor shook and bits of plaster rained down on us as a thunderclap rolled over our heads.

  It had to be a missile strike, strong enough it nearly knocked me off my feet. Michaels hurried to his footlocker and pulled out something resembling an old satchel. He slung its strap over his shoulder and opened the door wide, ready to bolt down the hallway.

  “Don’t leave me here!” I yelled, tottering. I didn’t have enough strength to make it out on my own.

  He hesitated, lips pressed into a thin line until he muttered a curse, and pulled me close. I looped my arm over his shoulder and leaned my weight against him. We shot into the hall. People hurried past as a high-pitched siren blared. Thin red lines of light flashed on either side of the ceiling and floor, pulsating to indicate the escape route.

  Michaels took me through twists and turns as more explosions, every minute it seemed, rocked the facility. Several people were bloodied by falling debris. By the time we made the Command Center, my fortitude was spent. A great deal of the equipment was missing. But my memory was as weak as my body, and yet…yes, equipment was missing, things just weren’t there. And Poole, where was Poole?

  Michaels dragged over a metal chair, sitting me in it just as the captain walked into the room. Poole looked at me for one brief moment, seemingly relieved to see me. Then his countenance grew distant, almost as if the last words we shared stood between us now. He joined Michaels in a quick exchange. The captain nodded once.

  My attention latched onto one of the vids. The scene outside the base played across the screen, showing chunks of asphalt and broken concrete scattered around pools of melted snow. Overhead, I saw a contingent of helicopters, long tubes mounted to their sides. A rocket shot out from one of them. More were fired. Some missed the base, almost as if they hadn’t a precise bearing on our location. A few took down buildings, while others blew apart houses outside the fence line. The missile fire became more frequent, some making their target to strike us. Every one of those helicopters bore DHS colors, red on black, and all of them seemed to be armed with enough firepower to break through the base’s concrete shell…something much more powerful than the old bunker-busters of the past.

  The next strike hit hardest. Thrown out of the chair, I landed on the floor and found myself momentarily stunned.

  Poole rushed over, slipped his arms around me, and helped me to my feet.

  “I’m okay.” My eyes turned to the damaged ceiling. “But—”

  “Don’t worry, Honey Beck. We aren’t defenseless.”
/>   I wanted to believe his reassurance. But with Hernandez still in the field and the length of time it took to power up Charon, I didn’t think we had much longer until DHS wiped us out. Poole didn’t sit me in the chair again. Instead, he kept his arms around me and shouted, “Fireflies!”

  “Primed, Commander,” Michaels said as he sat in front of the only console left in the room. So few people…their numbers had dwindled just like the number of consoles.

  “Deploy,” Poole ordered.

  Michaels tapped out something on the floating touchscreen before him.

  My gaze went to the vid again. Small square-shaped sections of asphalt popped skyward. I had no scale to judge how wide they were, but they were definitely small, a foot maybe in width and breadth. Round orbs swarmed out of their depths. Translucent, they reminded me of soap bubbles. The orbs zipped upward, faster than any bubble could travel. Thousands of them filled the sky. The DHS helicopters lifted higher, blades turning as they banked to clear the objects. The fireflies surged around their tail sections and exploded. Small flaming orbs blew away the helos’ tails, knocked them off balance and caught them on fire. Deadly minutes. It happened so fast. Soon, the sky was empty above us.

  “Commander?” Michaels asked as he looked in our direction.

  “The order is given,” Pool said.

  “As you say,” Michaels responded. He hit another spot on the screen in front of him. The warning siren went an octave higher.

  “What’s happening?” I asked.

  Instead of dragging me forward, Poole carried me toward the Command Center’s door. “We’re getting the hell out of here.”

  We traveled in a Humvee, larger than any I’d been in before. There were two bench seats behind the pair in front. It was heavily armed as if fitted for combat, but the interior was given more to creature comfort than military use, with deep leather upholstery, toasty heating, and entertainment vids. Red on black, it was definitely DHS, most likely for ferrying officers. Poole and I were in the middle, Tina and Michaels in the rear, with Dr. Andrews taking the passenger’s front bucket seat while an enlisted drove. Poole had his arms around me as I snuggled against his chest. I had no idea where we were headed, but for now, Tina and I were safe.

  We were exiting the compound through a tunnel. We made for a small caravan of refugees, intent on abandoning the underground base. Our vehicle led the way, with its headlamps sending illuminated cones of brilliance ahead to pierce the darkness. Either there were no built-in lights or they’d been knocked out in the raid. As the Humvee traveled, its sides and top scraped the walls of the narrow tunnel, forcing us to maintain a crawl.

  After a while, daylight shone ahead, glimmering through the windshield. I craned my neck to look at the welcomed sight, but reality wasn’t all that pretty. Devastation waited aboveground with the holocaust the fireflies had left in their wake. Patches of untouched snow remained, but most of the landscape was scarred with carnage. Wreckage littered the area—rotor blades, twisted metal scraps, whatever remained of the shredded helicopters and their occupants, body parts, human butchery. I clutched the lapels of Poole’s worn jacket and buried my face against him.

  He rubbed my back, soothing me, understanding somehow that I had already witnessed more death than I could take. “My Honey Beck,” he whispered and kissed the top of my head. “It’s war. In Boston, you were fool enough to run headlong into it. Could hav-ve,” his voice cracked. “Damn, you could have been…”

  I burrowed even closer, knowing I’d been a damned fool.

  When we’d traveled a little way, I braved another look. What had remained of the old air force base had been reduced to rubble. I tipped up my chin and looked at Poole. “They never knew exactly where to hit, did they?”

  “They had a good idea. They just couldn’t get a good lock on it. We kept deflecting their signals, resetting the frequencies. Anything long range and unmanned ended up blasting their own assets. But we also knew they’d eventually find a way. Even through the chaos and the growing resistance. Took them over five days to organize and get those helos here from their bases. Gave us just enough time.”

  I pulled myself up until I looked him directly in the eyes. “To do what?”

  “To dismantle Charon and move it to Icecap. Piece by piece as we evacuated personnel. Cloaked by the shields they developed here whenever a convoy was en route so the Feds couldn’t trace us. That’s where we’re headed. To the place where your mother’s farmhouse stood.”

  I was going home.

  A soft peeping sound came from a small yellow bundle perched atop our seat. I’d fallen asleep, and just like in that hospital room, I was greeted by this miniature barnyard inhabitant. Yet this was no hologram but Henry Junior himself. I smiled and yawned. “Tina, Henry’s a regular hunk.”

  She laughed. “He’s just stretching his legs.”

  “One day that rooster will have some mighty fine drumsticks,” Poole taunted as he smacked his lips.

  “Cannibal,” Tina chided. She scooped Henry up in her palms just as the Humvee nearly tipped over.

  “IED!” Andrews yelled from the passenger seat. “Man down!” the doctor cried as he tugged on the driver’s safety belt.

  “They’ve booby-trapped this road!” Poole scrambled as we careened out of control. He yanked aside the wounded soldier and took the driver’s seat. The enlisted was bleeding from a deep gash in his forehead.

  The vehicle finally stopped, the left side smashed in by the explosive, all four tires blown.

  “The column?” Poole yelled.

  Michaels looked at the tab in his hand. “Halted.”

  “Order them to go solo. Alternate routes. Scanners on full.”

  “Done,” Michaels reported.

  Poole studied the landscape through the front windshield, a forest of pines and bare trees. “They’re out there.”

  “I’m not reading anything, Commander,” Michaels said.

  “Covered by your shielding device?”

  “A possibility. We were ordered to surrender a prototype to our Central Command several months ago.”

  “We tripped their explosive device. What about our own cover?”

  “Spotty.”

  Poole leaned forward. “And they’re out there.” He went silent a beat, then asked, “Cerberus onboard this wreck?”

  Michaels hesitated.

  “Cerberus, damn it.”

  “It’s equipped. But the unit has never been tested,” Michaels informed him.

  “Will it knock out a remote shield?”

  “In theory.”

  “Power it up.”

  “But, Commander—”

  “Now!” Poole ordered.

  The three-headed dog of Hades. Cerberus was the offspring of its deadly counterpart. If this transport was equipped with it, then Michaels’ group must have developed a mobile unit.

  My sister scrabbled over the seat, Henry Junior still cradled in her hand. She slid close. The wounded soldier on the opposite side of me was unconscious now.

  “Full power and wide field,” Poole ordered.

  “Commander, the unit may be unstable with a wide field.”

  “If we wait for them to fire to get a lock, we’ll be ash.”

  “Captain,” Andrews spoke up. “You have no idea what that weapon will do.”

  “Save us or blow us to hell.” Poole sat erect, bracing himself. “Deploy!”

  I wrapped my arms around Tina as a sharp whining noise shot to an unbearable level. A blue wave flew out, swept around to form a huge circle, surrounding our position. Maybe thousands of feet in breadth, maybe less, I had no way of telling. Their shield neutralized, Michaels picked up the enemy’s position, hidden in a thicket.

  “Three of them,” Michaels continued reporting, never looking up from his tab. “Setting up what looks to be a ro
cket launcher. Neutralized but only for now.”

  The whining noise increased. “Second wave!” Poole shouted.

  Michaels tapped the small tab with his shaky hand. The second wave, more a thick rod of red light than a wave, undulated as it spanned the distance. It struck the DHS armored vehicle, fanned out to encompass everyone near it. The agents collapsed, their vehicle charred but not destroyed.

  “Damn thing worked,” Poole said as he stuck out his hand to congratulate the scientist.

  Michaels kept working his tab, frantic as he yelled, “The batteries! Feedback surge. Get out!”

  I kicked the door wide and latched onto my sister. We bolted and kept going as the screeching whine behind us increased in pitch. Adrenalin rushed through my battered flesh enough that I could break into a sprint with Christina in tow.

  Just as the Humvee blew, instinct had me push Tina down and cover her with my body. Moments went by. My sister and I were stunned, but unscathed.

  Poole bellowed, “Report!”

  Andrews, Michaels, each answered, “Here!”

  Tina and I pushed ourselves up. I realized I’d run the distance in my bare feet and hadn’t felt a thing. Even more incredible, that chick Tina clung to was still alive and unruffled.

  Cupping my hands, I shouted, “We’re here!”

  Then I realized we weren’t all that far apart. Poole was nearest, the wounded driver beside him. He leveled his gaze on Michaels as he wiped the grin from his face. “Son of a bitch. The damn thing sort of worked.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Instead of waiting for the DHS cruiser to become functional again, Poole had Michaels raise the nearest vehicle in our convoy. The ride proved uncomfortable as we squeezed ourselves into the transport. Tina, Michaels, and Andrews were in front, while Poole and I sat sandwiched between two people in the back seat. The wounded driver lay at our feet. We moved at a slow pace with the scanners set to full sweep to search for more booby traps. As uncomfortable as it was, at least we were headed for safety.