Minus America (Book 3): Rebel Cause

by Isherwood, E. E.

  Nice going, general mayhem. You really impressed the VP with this op.

  He put his hands up as the helo closed the distance and then hovered at the close end of the runway. It put him in the terrible position of praying they were good guys. As a man in a Navy uniform got out, he let his guard down a tiny bit. A Marine woman followed, and a heavily-armed seaman in fatigues came last. They hunched over until clear of the rotors, then they jogged his way as the Seahawk lifted off again. Its starboard door gunner never let him out of the crosshairs.

  The Navy man was a ship’s captain, based on his all-white uniform. He held his white service cap until the rotor wash faded. “Are you Major Ted MacInnis, US Air Force?” He held out his hand as if to shake. Ted wasn’t about to mention he’d been promised a promotion by Emily. There were proper channels, even in the Apocalypse.

  Ted took the courtesy, though he didn’t like the rifles pointed at him. “We’re on the same team, right, sir?”

  “It depends. I’m Captain Van Nuys of the USS John F. Kennedy. When this business kicked off, someone put a bag over my head and tossed me in a lower hold. This Marine found me.” He pointed to the woman, who wore the name Meechum; a name Kyla said was her friend. Then he motioned to the seaman. “This man with me is on my personal security team. Other than them, I trust absolutely no one.”

  “Probably smart,” Ted allowed. After being betrayed by John Jefferies and that asshole Ramirez, he knew where the captain was coming from.

  “Probably? No, it’s smart, Major. I need you to get smart too and tell me where the vice president has gone.” He paused for a moment. “I need to know right now.”

  Van Nuys undoubtedly always got what he wanted—it was one of the perks of skippering the most expensive weapon in the US Navy—but Ted wasn’t in the Navy. He lowered his AR but kept it under his arm. “Sir, I’m doing what I think is right to protect the women traveling with me. You’ve already met my niece, Kyla Justice, but you haven’t met the other woman I was with. She’s my sister, Rebecca. She bears a passing resemblance to the vice president, so I could see why you would say that, but it isn’t her. Sir.”

  The captain studied his eyes, searching for any trace of the lie he’d tossed out there. However, he seemed to make a decision and waved to his two backups. “Guys, lower your weapons.”

  The seaman and the Marine both dipped their barrels, which seemed to take everyone down a notch on the stress scale. Van Nuys leaned against the fuselage of the red and white airplane he’d been testing. “Major, I appreciate what you’re doing out here. You’re one of the first people I’ve met on the outside. Hell, other than those bastards at Newark, you might be the only person alive within a thousand miles.”

  “Sir, these forces aren’t just in Newark. I saw them in DC, Harrisburg, and lots of them were inside New York City.” He didn’t mind giving away that detail. If the three people in front of him were with the enemy, they’d already know where they were deployed. If, however, they were on his side, they’d need to know where to avoid the enemy.

  “Good to know. When we get things up and running at full strength on the carrier, we’ll pound these guys so far into the ground, they’ll only be able to feel the furnaces of Hell.” He took a deep breath. “However, until then, I should tell you we’re searching for the vice president because she’s the only one who can lead our rump forces left here on the fringes of America. I’ve got the JFK and Iwo Jima with me, but we’ve lost contact with the rest of the fleet. We think it’s that David guy. He turned the whole world against us.”

  Ted and Emily had watched the speech on TV the night before.

  Van Nuys went on, “If we don’t get some real leadership, the enemy is going to pick us apart one by one. When your niece told us she saw you and the vice president, I was sure we’d finally gotten our act together. We were finally going to fight back.”

  “I saw what you did in New York, sir. You delivered some good payback.” He felt marginally better about the man; why would a bad guy shoot up his own team?

  “I was playing defense, Major. I had to protect my extraction helo. I risked my men to save your niece, which turned out to be a good thing, especially since she claimed to have seen the vice president.”

  “No,” he insisted, “it was a case of mistaken identity. Kyla is with her mom right now. I told you—”

  Van Nuys held up a hand. “Yes, I know. It wasn’t her. Why don’t we get on the chopper and go back to the JFK where we can further debrief you? Then, when you’re comfortable with our operation, maybe you’ll tell us where to find your niece and her mother. We’ll bring them in however you want. Remember, we’re all on the same team.”

  “No, we’re not, sir. He’s lying.” The short-haired Marine pointed her rifle square at Ted’s chest.

  Chicago, IL

  Tabby and the kids rode the stolen bikes through endless blocks of the Chicago cityscape. At first, they passed taller skyscrapers and apartment complexes, but the height of the buildings decreased as they got further from downtown. Later, they made it to a monotonous section of strip mall storefronts for sandwich shops, payday loans, and autobody shops. The seemingly endless repetition, along with the utter silence of what should have been a bustling city street, threatened to drive her mad.

  “Will someone say something,” she requested. “Tell me what you were learning in school, or if you learned anything when you came to the Bonne Terre mine. Anything. I want to hear it.”

  Peter laughed a little. “You mean before the place caught on fire? I learned some people have really shitty jobs in this world. I mean, who would want to work in an underground mine, with dynamite, while always worrying if the whole place was on the verge of collapsing on your head? Not me, thanks.”

  Tabby knew what he meant, since she’d been there on the tour, but she could only think what the mine was doing in the present time. It was as silent down there as it was on the street in front of her. For a few pedal strokes, all she wanted to do was turn around and somehow blow up those drones. Incur a small financial penalty upon the terrorists as payback for the larger toll they’d dealt to the country. Her anger only lasted another block. The silence was broken by panting animals.

  Three dogs walked in the middle of a cross street almost next to them. She didn’t know the breeds, but they were medium build, mostly dark-colored, and didn’t look like they had leashes or collars. Once they saw her, the creatures dropped their happy indifference and instead came at them like barking sharks.

  “Go!” she screamed, immediately standing and pumping the pedals like a madwoman. Audrey and Peter followed her lead, standing and pedaling, but the dogs were at least twice as fast in their initial burst of speed.

  The leader went directly for her. She allowed Peter and Audrey’s bikes to stay out front. What kind of protector would she be if she left the younger kids in the dust?

  Knowing there was no avoiding it, Tabby swung her foot in a clumsy kick toward the dog’s snout. “Take this!” She missed its head but clipped the side of its neck. The dog veered right at the last possible second, as if realizing it was dangerous to bite at the metal contraption and the person attached to it. However, it reoriented while sprinting and appeared to search for a way to nip at her again.

  Her effort to protect the teens was only partly successful. The other two dogs passed Tabby and zeroed in on Audrey. “Get them off me!” the girl screeched.

  Tabby looked down to her own attacker. The little beast snapped at her shoe each time it circled the crank. She tried to kick it again, but the move cost her speed. The next time her foot came around, she kept pedaling. That should have been the end of it, but the mutt wouldn’t back down. As it continued to lunge at her, she got more pissed off than scared, and she wanted to fight back.

  Don’t mess with us.

  Tabby summoned all her pent-up anger about Donovan’s murder and drew it into her lungs. She let the bike coast while bending over toward the canine’s face, then let it
all out with a primal scream. “Bad dog!”

  The mutt spun aside and lowered its tail, as if surprised into submission.

  Seeing the opportunity open, she pedaled as fast as her lungs and legs would allow and quickly caught up to the other two dogs, creating a wedge between them and Audrey. They seemed surprised to see her and drifted aside, then they dropped back. Maybe they were lost without their leader.

  “Out of my way,” she snapped at them.

  After a few seconds of believing she’d made it, the first dog was back on her heel. It rubbed its teeth against the sole of her right foot. It was wrong to think it, since she was a dog lover at heart, but her patience snapped like a dry twig.

  “Sonofa!”

  She pulled the brakes on the handlebars and skidded to a stop. The change of pace seemed to catch the dog by surprise, and it slid past her. The other two mutts halted when the leader did, and the trio regrouped—shaken and confused, but not beaten. The barking started up as they closed in on her. However, the delay allowed her to pull the pistol from her waistband.

  I could kill you all.

  For a few seconds, she reveled in the thought of taking control of the situation. It was completely within her ability to end this threat for good. The dogs, for their part, didn’t seem to understand that their fate was tied to the object in her hand. They barked relentlessly, as if psyching each other up to go in for the kill.

  Yet she couldn’t hurt them. Instead of blowing them away, she aimed the pistol in the air and pulled the trigger. The explosion seemed louder than any other gun she’d ever heard, including the drone machine gun back at the TV station. It scared her almost as much as it frightened the dogs; their claws seemed to dig into the asphalt for how fast they accelerated away from her.

  Peter and Audrey circled around. By the time they arrived, she had the gun back where it belonged. “That was awesome,” Peter announced, tapping the pistol in his police belt. “Can I shoot the next ones?”

  “I didn’t shoot them,” she croaked. Her emotions had lost their compass. Her sadness at losing Donovan was as deep as her anger at being forced into a situation where she had to threaten dogs, of all things. She desperately wanted someone to appear who was in charge and could make sense of all that she’d seen the past few days.

  Peter replied, “Well, I don’t mind shooting bad dogs. Unless you thought they were good ones?”

  She didn’t know. They could have been the worst dogs in the world, or saints. She’d come into their territory. The unfamiliar city of Chicago. “We have to get out of here, like, right now. Let’s check these cars next to the street. I’m sure one of them has keys.”

  Audrey straddled her bicycle as she stood by Peter, but she stepped a bit closer to Tabby. “Can I give him my shotgun?”

  Tabby was surprised but accepting. “Sure, you can do whatever you want. Is everything all right?”

  The girl smiled weakly. “I’m a mess, Tabby. I don’t think I could have shot those dogs, even if I needed to. If Peter can, I’d rather he have this.” She unslung the weapon.

  “All right, Peter, it looks like Audrey is giving you a present. Don’t let anyone steal it, like the last one.” He’d let Gus the sewer worker take his, but if Audrey wasn’t up to using her weapon, the smart play was to give Peter another chance.

  Peter wheeled up with a look like he’d been given an important gift. “Awesome! Thank you. I’ll call this Audrey Three!”

  “Call it whatever you want,” Audrey sighed.

  Peter got serious. “I swear I’ll protect you, babe.”

  She smiled. “I know you will. Thanks.”

  The two kids exchanged the gun while Tabby looked around. When they were done, the young girl rolled back over to her and acted like she was letting her in on a big secret. “Tabby, I don’t want to scare you, but my meds are in the cooler back in your car…”

  “Oh, no,” Tabby replied immediately. Her car was still at the door of the Sears Tower, probably surrounded by enemy soldiers.

  “Shush,” the girl complained. “We can’t go back. You know that. I’m just telling you, so you understand my issue.”

  “There has to be somewhere we can go to get more insulin, right? A pharmacy or whatever.” Tabby scanned the street, already on the hunt for one.

  “I’m fine for now. Let’s get back home, like you said, then we can deal with it.”

  She gave her a once-over. “Are you sure? We can do this now.”

  Audrey nodded. “Out of here. Then we worry about me. Do you really think we’re far enough from downtown to get in a car?”

  She had to make an educated guess. “I think we’ve put enough miles between us and them. There aren’t any robots flying around out here, and we should be far enough from where we last saw them in the city. I don’t know about you guys, but I need to make some real time. I want to go south, toward home, and I don’t want to meet any more animals.”

  Audrey and Peter shared a look, and some form of silent communication passed between them. Audrey seemed to speak for them both. “We’re ready to go.”

  “Start checking the cars,” she replied.

  I want to be home before sunset.

  CHAPTER 10

  Montauk, NY

  “I thought our reunion would have been a little bit longer,” Kyla said as the engine sounds from Uncle Ted’s stolen van faded in the distance.

  The forest was thicker here than by the lighthouse, so she had a little trouble keeping up with the older woman. However, once she remembered Emily had been through there before, she followed in her footsteps and managed to keep pace.

  “I’ve only really known your uncle for a few days, but he seems to know what he’s doing. I trust he’s got a plan for today, too.” She held a young sapling branch so it wouldn’t shoot back in Kyla’s face when she walked by.

  “Thanks,” she said as she grabbed the branch and guided it safely to her side. “Yeah, Uncle Ted is pretty intense. I think my mom secretly hated him because he always seemed to have his life together.”

  Emily laughed. “Yeah, I can see that about him, but Ted isn’t perfect. Trust me. I’ve seen him make plenty of mistakes. I just hope this isn’t one of them.”

  She noted the informal use of her uncle’s name. Was it appropriate for a vice president? Her dress code didn’t seem presidential either. The blue jeans and black tank top made her appear like a soccer mom at the match rather than the second-most important person in the American government. Her rich, brown hair was frizzy at the moment, though held together by a black headband.

  “What’s it like to be the vice president?”

  “Boring,” she replied without a pause. “Lots of glad-handing and chairing of big commissions, but it all amounts to nothing. As vice, I had no real power of my own. I think people treated me like royalty because I was the first woman in the office, not because they particularly liked me. Hell, your uncle didn’t even vote for me.”

  Kyla chuckled as she walked around a thick tree trunk before rejoining Emily. “I have no doubt of that. Mom and him were on opposite sides of politics, as you probably could guess.”

  Emily brushed a stray leaf out of her hair. “Well, all that’s gone. None of it matters. However, I’ll tell you a secret only me and your uncle know.” The pair walked close together as Emily spoke quietly. “The president is gone. Your uncle is the one who confirmed it. I’m the new prez. Fun, huh?”

  Kyla whistled softly. “Some general overseas said everyone was gone in the line of, what’s it called, secession?”

  “Succession,” Emily corrected.

  “Right, the line of succession. Out there, they don’t know you’re still alive. That explains why they been acting all weird, like they’re lost without anyone up top leading them. Even the captain on the carrier seemed keen to have you around once I told him I saw you in Central Park. Naturally, they’d want to rescue the woman who would be our president.”

  “Did they tell you that?” Emily
asked.

  She shrugged. “Nobody told me nothing,” she said, “besides the fact I needed to find the vice president because people’s lives are in danger.” Kyla briefly wondered what Meechum would think of Kyla abandoning her. She was certain the Marine wasn’t tied up with any of the bad guys, but maybe other Marines were. That would put her friend in danger. A few steps later, she came to the realization Meechum probably wouldn’t care one way or the other. The tough-as-nuts woman would go on being a Marine, kicking ass, doing what it took to fight the good fight.

  Kyla wanted to fight the good fight, too.

  “Hey, they took my rifle away back there, though they didn’t take this.” She cradled the M9 pistol on her hip after lifting the hem of the Marine top, which she’d left untucked. Van Nuys wouldn’t have found it unless he patted her down, and she didn’t suggest he try. Kyla gestured to the rifle slung over Emily’s shoulder. “You got another one of those? I’d feel a lot better having a big one.”

  Emily laughed out loud. “I don’t have any extras, but did you know your uncle’s coffee table was a gun-storage locker?”

  “No way,” she gushed in reply. “I’ve sat at that thing a million times. Are you serious?”

  “I’m serious as a—” Emily stopped and held out an arm to halt her, too.

  “Ladies,” a man’s voice called out. “I’ll kindly ask you to put the rifle on the ground.” They’d reached a clearing next to the boat, but a sailor stood on the deck. He pointed a military-grade rifle at her and Emily. Did he hear them talking all the way in?

  For a split-second, she thought Emily was going to go into superhero mode, rip the rifle off her shoulder, and start firing. However, she carefully pulled it over her shoulder, holding it by the strap, and set it down in some weeds. Emily said, “We don’t want any trouble.”