Daybreak of Revelation

by A N Sandra

  “Where’s your dish soap?” Duane asked as he set the dishes by the tiny sink.

  “I’ll run the water and get it.”

  Like an old married couple, they worked together. Duane washing, and Helena drying and putting the dishes away. Peter and Christina did stay out of the way, and Helena enjoyed just being next to Duane.

  “All done,” Duane said when he handed Helena the last cup, washed and ready to be rinsed and dried.

  “Thanks for coming over.” Helena didn’t know what else to say. Every part of her body tingled just being this close to him without keeping busy with a task. Somehow their energy commingled so there was almost a buzz in the air around them.

  “We aren’t like Peter and Anne,” Duane said.

  “What?” Helena was startled.

  “I went to college with some of the smartest, prettiest girls in the whole world last year, and I would choose you over any of them.” Duane was looking at her seriously. His eyes sparkled in the dim kitchen light and Helena thought the rush of happiness would explode her heart.

  “None of them is a Garden Warrior, after all,” Helena said as lightly as she could. Hoping she didn’t sound like a dork, she went on, “I would choose you over any guy I knew in Dallas.”

  “That’s good,” Duane said. “I’m going to talk to your dad and tell him I promised not to seduce you and break your heart, but I didn’t promise not to court you and fall in love with you. So that’s what I’m going to do.”

  “Good,” Helena heard herself whisper.

  Duane bent over, and kissed Helena gently. His lips were warm and soft and a current of tingling electricity ran through her whole body from head to toe.

  “Goodnight,” Duane said. As if it were an afterthought, he looked back before he walked out the door. “Merry Christmas.”

  “Merry Christmas,” Helena answered.

  She watched through the window to see him walk home through the snow, but there wasn’t much light and she lost sight of him in seconds. The elated feeling she had experienced didn’t go away. She tried to calm down and read, but none of the books on her new e-reader could take her mind off the way she felt when Duane pressed his lips on hers. She replayed it over and over in her mind.

  “We are going to have a meeting at the Wilson’s house tonight,” Christina told Peter and Helena as they were cleaning up the school books and notebook paper they had left all over after doing school work.

  “Is everyone coming?” Peter asked.

  “Do you mean is Tawna coming with Ray and Lourdes?” Christina sighed. “No. We have something important to discuss and can’t be distracted.”

  “Can you tell us what we’re going to talk about?” Helena wanted to know.

  “We are going to discuss some ideas for our future,” Christina said. “Both the future of those of us living here, and the future of the people we wish we could save.”

  Privately, Helena was glad to be invited to such a discussion. Since her evening in the paint cupboard, she had wondered every time she cracked a book if that was the best use of her time. Shouldn’t she be swimming in the Mediterranean Sea before the virus overtook the world? Shouldn’t she be trying to make a last-ditch effort to alert people to the coming disaster? Maybe rent a plane with a sign flying behind it, announcing that the end was near?

  Was it important that she finish reading the book of Isaiah (although there was someone who understood the futility of end times—Helena was quite jealous of his holy purpose) and solve theorems that had answers? Shouldn’t she at least attempt to be a prophet herself and try to solve problems that didn’t have answers yet?

  “What’s for dinner?” Peter asked brightly, ignoring deeper thoughts.

  “Pizza,” Helena said. She grinned just a little. “I thought it would be a good night for takeout.”

  “If we’re getting takeout, I’d like Chinese,” Christina said longingly.

  “We had lots of stir fry when we had fresh veggies,” Helena reminded her. “Now we can have pizza crust that I take out of a bag and mix, pizza sauce that I take out of the freezer and spread, and pepperoni that I take out of storage and put on the pizza. Oh, and olives that I take out of the can.”

  “That sounds like takeout,” Peter admitted with a smile.

  “I’m going to get started,” Helena told him. She pulled on her boots and put her coat on, smiling just a little as she realized that the sun was out and there was no wind, so she almost didn’t need the coat. “This Texas girl almost doesn’t care that it’s twenty-two degrees,” She smiled to herself.

  Helena found the pepperoni in the storage building and smiled when Duane opened the door before she could leave. He had to have seen her enter and raced to catch her.

  “Howdy,” she said with a flirtatious voice.

  “Howdy, ma’am. Are you having Italian food tonight?” Duane looked at the pepperoni in her hand.

  “I am making pizza. Would you like to come have some?”

  “Your father gives me stink eye when I crash dinner at your house.” Duane smiled.

  “You never crash, you’re always invited,” Helena refuted. “He’s the one who turns up at dinner time and waits for an invitation.”

  “I do love pizza… but I would have to dine and dash because I have to help Mom get ready for the big meeting tonight.”

  “I’m glad I’m invited,” Helena said. “I’m almost sorry Ray and Lourdes don’t get to come just because their mom can’t act like a grown up.”

  “That is too bad,” Duane agreed, “but it’s unavoidable.”

  “Come to dinner.” Helena looked at Duane hoping she was cute enough that it would be hard for him to say no.

  Duane shook his head. “How could I say no?”

  The Wilson’s house was cozy, with bright paintings on the walls, several afghans spread around, and lots of potted plants. Helena wondered how Miss Jan had managed it, but Miss Jan was a magical person.

  “To be, or not to be?” Peter said as they all sat quietly for just a moment.

  “That is the question,” Joel Harris said.

  “The question we’d better answer,” Mr. Todd said. “I’ve been doing extensive research… are you ready to listen to what I’ve learned?”

  Everyone nodded. It was a bit like grade school, but Helena wanted answers enough to deal with it.

  “I think it’s too late for Calcutta, Sao Paulo, and Cape Town,” Mr. Todd started. “They were getting chipped before we even left Dallas. The virus will be released in those places first, and there isn’t anything we can do. Hong Kong is questionable. We might be able to help, but the culture there is very subject to authority. I think we have to write off Guangzhou, and Shanghai too. Europe is mostly chipped, but we could use some new guerilla media tactics I’ve been developing and try to convince enough people to rebel and get their chips removed to cause the Hollisters trouble. Africa is already at its lowest population density in generations. The virus was tested there among the general population. It’s not going to take much for Africa to go completely. There are large swaths of Asia that we could still warn through the Dark Web since there were issues with production keeping up with population. And even though most Americans have accepted the chip, there are areas we could still influence. The question is, should we try?”

  “Of course, we have to do that,” Peter insisted. “We don’t have any choice!”

  “I think I have a way to get around the internet safeguards the Global PAC has put up, but if I miscalculate, we could lead them right to our door,” Mr. Todd said.

  “What is the point of living when the rest of the world is dying?” Helena asked, quite curiously. “What would we do? Just be hunter-gatherer people in the woods until our ammo runs out?”

  “There is always the chance that you children could somehow find a way to join the new world,” Christina said quietly. “If we do something reckless and you die, the world will only be filled with those people who were willing to kill everybody
else rather than face their own problems.”

  “That is a very good point,” Miss Jan said.

  “When I first learned about the virus, I had my lab in Austin create the best vaccination they could with the information I had,” Christina said. “I am not completely sure it will be effective, but I vaccinated all of us—the lab staff from Austin and Dallas, and the lab staff in Chapel Hill. I vaccinated all the Wilsons’ living relatives, and Maria and her relatives too—”

  At this Helena jumped up, hugged Christina tightly, and kissed her cheek.

  “Enough,” Christina said lightly, though Helena could tell she wasn’t annoyed. “Most of those people won’t have the emotional skills to survive the chaos that’s about to occur all over the world for the next nine months. I don’t know how many of them will live.”

  “If you had the vaccine, why didn’t you just run around giving it out right and left?” Peter wanted to know.

  “The lab in Austin had the equipment to make small batches. I think we only ever made two thousand doses. My lab at the ranch couldn’t have made much at all. The factory in Dallas had been retooled for the chips. I used the available vaccine and left instructions with the assistant at the Austin lab to make more and stockpile it for this event. I don’t know if she believed the warnings I left. The leaders of this scheme were very careful to begin painting me as deranged. Natalie and Jase are probably making vaccine, but I don’t know how much they are making.”

  “I don’t know if I can rejoin the world later if we didn’t do everything we could to try to save it now,” Helena said.

  “I agree,” Peter said.

  Duane looked away from the group as though he were thinking intently.

  “Should we take a vote?” Joel Harris asked, since no one was looking at each other.

  “I don’t think we need to,” Christina said. She looked around the art studio at everyone, and everyone looked back at her when her gaze rested on them long enough. “We’re all in, aren’t we?”

  No one hesitated to nod.

  “All in?” Joel confirmed.

  “All in,” everyone said together.

  “Tomorrow, I need all hands on deck to put together the cell tower,” Mr. Todd said. “I’m going to need lots of help holding the pieces together to put it up quickly in the wind. Tomorrow morning we’ll practice here in the storage building, and then tomorrow afternoon we’ll suit up and take it to the top of the hill I’ve chosen and put it up again.”

  “You really need everybody?” Peter asked.

  “I do. I’ll need Ray and Lourdes also. This has to be a team effort to get it done as quickly as possible in the field. I don’t want any innocent bystanders to catch us doing this.”

  “I haven’t seen a single person outside of our group since we’ve been here,” Helena said incredulously.

  “Because people who live here aren’t seen when they don’t want to be seen,” Mr. Todd answered. “Most of them are hiding from Urban Relocation.”

  “You’re kidding,” Helena said. “Are you trying to tell me there are people here who see us, but we don’t see them?”

  “Not many,” Mr. Todd admitted. “But some. Most of them aren’t too different from the people we’re pretending to be. People who don’t have faith in the modern world. They skirt our meadow when they’re out hunting or trapping, but they are there. Answering questions about why we have a huge piece of high-tech equipment when our story is that we are religious preppers eschewing the modern world would not be easy.”

  “Oh, God!” Helena said. “Why didn’t I think of that before I ran through the woods naked for Samhain?”

  “Did you really?” Peter was shocked.

  “No, but I wish I’d thought of it.” Helena grinned.

  Duane looked mortified at Helena’s attention-seeking comment and she made a mental note to be more mature. But sometimes a girl wants to stir the pot, she thought. Other than Duane, no adult paid any attention to her comment.

  “Tomorrow,” Mr. Todd said firmly. “Nine o’clock. We’ll do a practice, eat some lunch, and go out in the early afternoon. My weather stations say that we should have a huge storm coming the day after tomorrow. It’ll last at least three days, so tomorrow is our shot.”

  Chapter 23

  December 26th, Kern County, CA

  The motor pool was an obnoxious place to work. Joshua had taken to using earplugs, but even so the sounds of engines, tools and echoing questions in the huge dark cavern grated his nerves. He’s spent years developing an ear for sound and everything that happened in the motor pool was void of harmony. The quarry had operated in a sort of rhythm, but there was no such cadence in the motor pool. Riley, the lead mechanic, liked to play bad grunge music while everyone worked and that added to Joshua’s discomfort. Fortunately, his work was usually done quickly, and he took every opportunity to escape the motor pool to get parts from the store room or find other welding jobs, so he was often able to evade the background noise.

  For eight hours a day Joshua worked in the motor pool, welding and doing whatever he was told to do. Another two hours a day he worked out in the gym (he was becoming very buff), and other than that he ate, practiced a guitar in the recreational area, and slept. He almost never saw Court or Brooke unless it was in passing. They were both pleasant to him when he did see them, but if they wanted to behave as if their LA adventure wasn’t important, Joshua could take a hint. He was an easygoing country boy… with an ancient powerful ivory box that made everything around him work better! Christmas came and went, and almost no one noticed. Danica and Bud had loved Christmas, so Joshua had been grateful that no one in the compound seemed to care.

  The IT people who worked in the desert compound were sure that the Hollister Foundation was going to set off EMP’s in strategic locations around the world sometime in the spring, so Curtis was making sure that the motor pool was full of hardened vehicles that would still work after such an event. Thanks to Curtis and his thorough approach to everything, there were some WWII era Jeeps that would not be affected by an EMP at all, and some vehicles that were being stored even farther below ground where it was hoped an EMP would not reach them. Other vehicles were being refitted with electronic components that should withstand an EMP blast. Even if those didn’t make it, the group of desert rebels wouldn’t be completely stranded without transportation.

  “Court needs to see Joshua in her office when you can spare him for a while,” Brooke’s voice was barely audible over the music and other sounds, but Joshua managed to hear her as he was tidying up his work area after finishing a project. He was sweaty and dirty. The last person he wanted to see while he looked like heck was Court, but he walked over to Riley and Brooke anyway.

  “Now is just as good a time as any,” Joshua told them.

  Without any more talk, Brooke nodded and left.

  Riley shrugged, and Joshua took off his coveralls and made his way to Court’s office after a detour to the bathroom to wash up as much as he could in a motor pool sink. The compound was humming with activity. No more work crews were going out since Court had decided it was just too risky to send people who might get scooped up for dam demolitions by Hollister Youth Foundation Placement Enforcement. According to Court’s sources, the high-risk project teams were swelling with people taken from crews in areas that were mostly finished.

  Joshua knocked at Court’s door and she called him inside right away.

  “I haven’t seen you for a while. How’ve you been?” she asked warmly from behind her tidy desk.

  Her words themselves weren’t magic. They were what anyone else might have said when they hadn’t talked to someone one-on-one for a few weeks, but Joshua was struck by how much her simple interest mattered to him. He realized that since everyone in the underground compound lived communally, there was very little personal interest shown between people because everyone was sharing the same experiences. Court was a leader mostly because she knew how to show sincere interest in people
reporting to her. Her words were genuinely caring, and after the Christmas that hadn’t really happened, they touched Joshua.

  “It’s a little boring around here, now that our caper is over,” Joshua admitted. “Are you planning another high-risk escapade?”

  “I am,” Court told him. “Are you in?”

  “Hell yes!” Joshua knew he sounded too eager, but he didn’t care. Being cooped up below ground even with sun lamps was just monotonous.

  “You don’t want to know what you’re getting into before you commit?” Court grinned.

  “I’m feeling impulsive,” Joshua told her. That was an understatement. “But I wouldn’t mind knowing.”

  “We’re leaving tonight for Las Vegas,” Court said, her grin spreading as she saw Joshua’s eyes pop.

  “Sounds good already,” Joshua answered.

  “We’re going with Brooke. We’ll wait there until we make a connection with an arms dealer… and then we’re going into the desert to buy a whole lot of illegal weapons.”

  “Super!” Joshua grinned recklessly. “How hard could that be? How could that go wrong?”

  “Exactly,” Court smiled. “Do you still have the clothes we bought for LA?”

  “Yup.”

  “Go pack. We’re leaving after lunch. I’ll let Riley know.”

  The truck Joshua had brought to the compound was the one Court had the motor pool pull for their excursion. It was washed and Brooke reached over the side to put her huge suitcase in the back.

  “This is registered to my cousin,” Joshua said. “We’re not doing a gun deal with this truck are we?”

  “It’s registered to Cody Wygant these days.” Brooke smirked. “Do you know Cody Wygant?”

  Joshua shook his head. It was still hard to believe that things like names on titles to cars or houses really didn’t matter anymore because the world was changing too fast. BJ would be livid to know he was making five hundred-dollar-a-month payments on a truck no longer registered to him, but really Danica was probably making the payments.