by Ryan Schow
“Hi, Adeline,” he replies.
She starts to cry again, which breaks my heart, and that’s when I tell her the biggest lie I’ve ever told her, the one even I wonder if I believe: “I’ll find them, Adeline. I’ll find them and bring them back home.”
“Veronica, too,” she says crying.
“Veronica, too,” I repeat. To Ice, I turn and say, “You want to be part of this family again?”
“I do.”
“Then I’m going to need your help.”
“I know, brother.”
“We need to get the kids, then we need to get the hell out of this city.”
“We’re on the same page.”
“If we don’t get out soon, though, we’re going to be trapped here,” I tell him. “You know that as well as I do. The window’s closing quick.”
I’ve been thinking about this non-stop these last two days. If we can’t get out, the rioting will keep us in. The drones will keep us in. The approaching weather will pin us down and certainly lock us in. As I run through one scenario after another, I keep coming back to this: if we can’t get out of the city, if we don’t snag that one small window, we’re trapped.
Simple as that.
I try telling myself this is only one scenario, that there are other possibilities, but none as true as this one. Fortunately we’re all in agreement. The problem is, we don’t have the kids. And the even bigger problem is, we’re on the clock and the countdown’s already begun…
Chapter Thirty-Two
Sacramento
Roque Dimas sat in the worst rush hour traffic ever. He was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel of a car that was not his. Next to him, the actress looked like she was going to pass out.
“Breathe,” Rock told her. He was speaking to himself as much as he was speaking to her, but she didn’t need to know that.
“That’s easy for you to say,” Amber said, her hair and makeup an absolute wreck.
“No it’s not,” he said. “But we’re in this together, so we should—”
The words fell short in the back of his throat. Up ahead, a fleet of drones dropped out of the sky and banked hard their way.
“Oh, no,” he whispered. “No, no, no, no, no…”
Not half a mile up, muzzle flash from four wing-mounted Gatling gun pods signaled the worst.
“Get out of the car!” Rock screamed.
Amber froze, her eyes on the horror unfolding.
“Go, dammit, get out!”
She finally opened the door and Rock leaned over the center console of the customized Lamborghini to shove her out. The second she went, he looked up in time to see the drones bearing down upon him. As fast as he could, and as uncomfortable and impossible as it felt, he straddled the center console and hugged it like his life depended on it.
The screeching rattle of gunfire tore two lines all the way up the front of the car, through the roof (pelting both seats), then down the back, fully incapacitating the brand new super car.
Outside, Amber couldn’t stop screaming.
Rock ignored her, grabbed the cell phone from his back pocket, called Fiyero. The line rang through to voicemail. He left a message because he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to make a call again.
“Yeah, hey Fire,” he said, breathless and tentative, his eyes on the burning Sacramento skyline, “if you’re coming this way, brother, you’d best be careful. This whole place is a kill zone right now. Not safe at all. If these drones don’t smoke me, then I’ll be in Loomis at the address I gave you. I’m kind of up to my eyeballs in it right now, and I’m not sure I’m going to make it. If I don’t, well then…you know, man. You know. Call me when you get this message. If you can’t get through, send a text. And if you’re in it, too, just…yeah…just be careful.”
He almost hung up, but he didn’t. Not yet.
In the gritty skies behind him, a burning 767 came barreling overhead, the engines roaring, the gutted fuselage on fire and spewing seats, people and burning luggage.
When the plane passed overhead and the noise subsided enough for him to hear himself think, he said the only thing he could think to say to his brother’s voicemail before hanging up.
“If I don’t see you again,” he said, his voice choked up, “I hope you make it, and I hope you have a good life. I love you, brother.”
Amber stood beside the car, bawling, appraising the damage. The custom Lamborghini was freshly wrapped in pearl blue with matte black striping, and it was dead where it sat.
Rock hung up the phone, suddenly seeing what the actress wasn’t.
“Get down!” he screamed as the next drones headed straight for them, opening fire on everyone not yet dead, the two of them included.
THE SAGA CONTINUES IN THE AGE OF HYSTERIA…
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Afterword
Savannah Swann. Yes. The girl the AI God/Maria Antoinette met outside Oren’s Hummus shop in The Barbarous Road, but also in Café Venetia on University Avenue in this book. Savannah is my first literary love. She is the main character in the Swann Series, which is set in Palo Alto and the San Francisco area in the same time. If you’ve read the series, you’ll know how she can be here, and honestly, I love Savannah too much to leave her out of this series! In The Barbarous Road, her cameo wasn’t planned at all, but for my loyal readers who crossed over from the Swann series, this was a fun surprise. For those of you who have not read the series, Savannah is a genetically modified teen from my first series (Swann), an Urban Fantasy/SciFi series that’s vastly different from The Last War series, but tends to get quite a bit of fanfare. Before you rush out to read it/buy it, please be warned, Savannah’s story is not post-apocalyptic fiction and it should not be read by readers sensitive to more mature themes, including violence, sex and some coarse language. In other words, Swann is by no means a “clean” series. However, for those of you who have read this series and loved it, and have been wanting more of Savannah, you’re welcome.
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Ryan Schow, The Age of Embers
