Citizens Awake

by Robert Boren

  “If they get control of that road, we’ll have a constant flow of enemy fighters coming in,” Sid said.

  “Yep,” Ji-Ho said. “Very bad. Must stop.”

  “What about Julian?” Garrett asked. “If we move a bunch of our people away from here to attack Jamul, the bad guys from Julian will move in and attack our loved ones here.”

  “We have to move them away,” Ji-Ho said, “but no worry yet. We can leave enough here to defend for now. Should dig in, though, like they have in Julian.”

  “What good is Julian doing them?” Angel asked.

  “Interstate 8,” Garrett said. “It’s vulnerable. Not enough resources to protect it if they attack and take control. They want to open both I-8 and Route 125.”

  “And we can’t let them do that,” Sam said. “When do you expect the info we need for the first attack on the UN base?”

  “Tonight or early tomorrow,” Ji-Ho said, “so relax for now. Rest up. Gonna get crazy again soon.”

  There were murmurs around the room.

  “When are we doing memorials for John and James?” Sarah asked, leaning against the wall by the door.

  “I say we try to do them late tomorrow,” Tyler said.

  “I second that,” Ryan said.

  “Fine with me,” Ji-Ho said. “I’ll leave you to your planning now. Need to rest.” He struggled to get off the stool, Trevor and Kaylee rushing to help him.

  “He’s not in good shape, is he?” Erica asked under her breath.

  “No,” Sam said. “We need to protect him.”

  ***

  Daan Mertins sat on a couch in the posh office of the Chancellor at UC Santa Cruz. A very uncomfortable academic sat behind the desk. Saladin sat in a chair close to the door, an exasperated look on his face.

  “I can’t believe you fools can’t handle a little resistance,” Saladin spat. “You guys are as bad as Sable was.”

  “Zip it, skippy, or I’ll yank your leash,” Daan said, sitting up straighter. “Chancellor Wilson, did you know that Dean Lambert was dipping his wick in that damn coed?”

  Chancellor Wilson loosened his tie, his double chin sagging in relief. “This specific girl? No.”

  “Oh, so there’s been more, huh?” Daan asked.

  “Please, let’s stop the bullshit,” Saladin said. “We heard the tape of your conversation with him, Daan. He offered her to you, and you took it to a worse level.”

  “What’s he talking about?” Wilson asked.

  “Daan here likes them about five years younger,” Saladin said.

  “Knock it off,” Daan said. “I mean it. If we get Dean Lambert back, I’m gonna gut him for those tapes. Did you get all those damn things away from the police?”

  “Yes, and we washed down the scene too,” Wilson said. “This is not what I signed up for.”

  “Hope you washed the body,” Saladin said. “If his DNA is inside her, it’ll start a real mess. The press is friendly unless there’s a sex scandal they can pounce on. They just can’t help themselves.”

  “We’ll deal with this ridiculous freedom of the press after we’ve consolidated our control over the population,” Daan said.

  Saladin laughed. “Yeah, I’ll believe that when I see it.”

  “I’ve had enough of you,” Daan said, pulling his phone out of his pocket. He walked away, having a hushed conversation.

  “Don’t you know it’s rude to talk on the phone while there are others in the meeting?” Saladin asked.

  Daan slipped the phone back in his pocket. “Rank has its privileges. I was just talking to your boss.”

  “About what?” Saladin asked.

  “I just suggested that you should be involved in the set-up of the new base in Capitol Reef.”

  Saladin snickered. “I’ve already discussed it with him. I’m going there anyway. You had nothing to do with it.”

  “True, but I got it moved up. You need to be away from here while we solve this problem. More heavy-handed crap like you pulled at that abandoned prison isn’t going to help us. Remember what that led to.”

  “What are you talking about?” Wilson asked.

  “Sable’s assassination,” Daan said. “This idiot took that upon himself. Didn’t know that all that data was going to get released as a result.”

  “It was a minor problem,” Saladin said. “We got past it.”

  “And I want to get past this one, too, so you’re out of here tomorrow morning. Go pack.”

  Saladin stood up, sneered at Daan, and left the room in a huff. Wilson looked like he wanted to hide under his desk.

  “Relax, Henry,” Daan said. “You’re not in trouble. Neither is he, really, but we need him out of here before he pulls some stupid stunt that makes things worse.” His phone dinged. Daan looked at the incoming text message, his eyes wide.

  “What?”

  “My factory is under attack,” Daan said, heading for the door in a panic.

  {10}

  Captives

  T he choppers on the roof of the Mertins Administration building started their engines as gunfire raged around them, explosions going off on the floor below. One of the choppers leaned as the roof over the big conference room started to collapse, the chopper sliding sideways down into the building, exploding in a huge fireball. The other two choppers tried to lift off. Commandos approached from the far side of the roof, unsteady as the building shook, trying to get a bead on the closest chopper with their RPG. Then machinegun fire erupted from the third chopper, cutting down the team, the RPG falling to the composite roofing.

  “Back off!” shouted a voice over the headsets. The commandos running to take the place of the first team dived behind cover as more machinegun fire came at them.

  “Don’t worry about the choppers,” the voice on the headset cried. “Nobody from the building was able to get on. This is just the chopper crews trying to save themselves. Concentrate on officials running around. The routes to the roof have all been destroyed.”

  “Roger that,” said the leader of the second team, who peered over the edge of the roof. “Van trying to escape below. You see it?”

  “We’re heading towards it, but still a lot of snipers. Take out if you can.”

  “You got it,” the commando said, getting up, sprinting towards the RPG, picking it up. Blood dripped off it as he ran to the side of the roof. Machinegun fire started again from the chopper, the commando bobbing and weaving through what little cover there was while the other commandos fired their M-16s at the windshield, killing the pilot and copilot. The chopper went out of control, slamming into the third chopper, both of them exploding.

  “Shoot that van,” shouted the man on the headset.

  The commando aimed the RPG and fired, hitting the van, exploding it in front of the gate.

  “Nice, that blocked their exit,” the voice over the headsets shouted.

  “Glad to be of service,” the commando said. “Crap, get ready. There’s a line of vans headed our way.”

  “Where’d they come from?” Jules asked over the headset.

  “Alpha One, good to hear your voice. Nice job on those enemy choppers.”

  “Where they come from,” Jules repeated.

  “Oh, sorry sir. Coming on Route 17, good clip. I see about twenty of them.”

  “Vans only, or military vehicles?” Jules asked.

  “Vans… no, wait. I see two Gaz Tigrs.”

  “Okay, we attack,” Jules said. “Everybody hear?”

  “I got you, partner,” Tex said.

  “Yeah, we heard you,” Robbie said. “On our way. You want us up on the freeway?”

  “Yes, going wrong way,” Jules said. “I be there quick.”

  “Be careful, chief,” the commando said. “We’re almost done here. Killed all of the leadership.”

  “Oh, crap, more choppers,” the commando on the roof said. “Scratch that. Those are TV choppers. They’re filming.”

  “Leave them be,” Jules said. “Ivan need f
ootage for show.”

  Several people on the radio chuckled.

  ***

  Daan sat in the passenger seat of the van, at the back of the convoy, his first lieutenant driving with a headset on.

  “We shouldn’t go in there so fast, boss,” the lieutenant said. “In fact, you shouldn’t even be here. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Shut up, Hans,” Daan said. “That’s my place.”

  Hans’s eyes squinted as he listened to a message coming in. Daan noticed.

  “What?”

  “I got intel from the lead,” Hans said. “The entire leadership bought it.”

  “What about the choppers?”

  “The ones on the roof? Destroyed, but the leadership had no chance to get up there anyway.”

  “And the two I sent to help?” Daan asked.

  “Destroyed before they got there. Shit.”

  “What?” Daan asked.

  “The new UN base got destroyed,” he said. “by an overwhelming force of citizen fighters aided by MERCs. The ammo storage blew. I told you we shouldn’t put it inside, even temporarily.”

  “This is Ivan,” Daan said. “I’m going to skin him alive.”

  Hans looked forward, afraid to say anything, then his eyes grew wide. “What the hell is that?”

  “What?” Daan asked, looking up from his cellphone screen. He froze, sweat breaking out on his forehead. “They’re coming the wrong way on the freeway? What are those things? They look like buses.”

  “That one has a mini gun on the roof,” Hans cried. They both watched in horror as the two Gaz Tigrs at the front of the convoy exploded in a hail of lead.

  “Dammit, all of those things have mini guns,” Daan said. “I thought that was only a prototype.”

  “What? You knew about these things?”

  “We nailed one in central California, remember? And that damn Ji-Ho had one in the south. Almost wasted it, but he limped away.”

  “Oh, the battle in Julian,” Hans said. “Sir, we’d better turn around now.”

  “Yes, do it,” Daan said. “Go to the alternate location.”

  Hans slowed quickly as several vans in front of them blew up, then made a sweeping u-turn as machinegun fire ripped into the roof of the van, going through the driver’s seat, guts and brains slamming into the front windshield as Daan sat horrified. He held on tight as the van went out of control, rolling onto the driver’s side and sliding to a stop against the center divider.

  “Hans!” Daan shouted, struggling to climb out. The door was jammed. He grabbed Hans’s rifle and shot through the passenger side window, then scrambled out and ran off the freeway as the other vans were blown to bits with mini gun fire and grenades.

  ***

  “That got them,” Robbie said, watching the UN vans burn on the road ahead. “Should we go check them out?”

  “That’s a negative,” Ted said over the headphones.

  “Yes, Ted right,” Jules said. “Retract weapons. Turn around, head north on this road. I send text with GPS coordinates for each coach. All separate RV parks. We reconnect before rescue operation. Nice work, everybody. Turn off headsets when text come.”

  “Wow, that was a rush,” Morgan said, her face flushed. “I could get used to this.”

  Robbie glanced at her, smiling. “Yep, gets your blood up, that’s for sure.” He got the rig turned around, and retracted the weapons systems.

  “I wish we could pull over right now,” Morgan said.

  “Why?”

  “Guess,” she said, shooting him a sexy grin.

  “Oh,” he said sheepishly. “Yeah, I could really get into that now, but it’ll have to wait.” Both of their phones dinged.

  “Watch the road,” Morgan said. “I’ll look up the destination by GPS coordinates and guide us there.”

  “Hope we don’t run into trouble on the way.”

  “Just drive casual,” Morgan said as she looked at her screen. “Ah, there we go.”

  “Where?”

  “Way east,” she said. “Take the 280 to the 680. I’ll guide you after that.”

  “What’s it near?”

  “It’s southeast of Livermore,” she said. “Looks like a pretty rustic place.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “Just over an hour, if we don’t run into any problems,” she said.

  “I doubt we will, from what we heard about the attack on the UN Headquarters.”

  Morgan snickered. “Yeah, why would those morons put so much ammo in their headquarters? Seems pretty stupid.”

  “I suspect it was temporary, and we lucked out. Where’s everybody else going?”

  “All over the damn place,” Morgan said. “We’re a good sixty miles from the nearest of our friends.”

  “Who’s closest?”

  “Cody and Allison,” she said. “Ted’s about eighty miles.”

  “Where’s Jules?”

  She looked at her screen for a couple minutes. “Someplace called Dublin. You aren’t still worried about him, are you?”

  “No,” Robbie said. “How’s he going to handle the folks that don’t have the apps?”

  “Every coach has a laptop with the new app, remember? It’s got the normal long-range app on it too.”

  “But not the short-range app,” Robbie said. “That one might be the most important, since it doesn’t require LTE.”

  “I’m looking at that matrix of coaches and people that Shelly put together. There’s only two coaches that don’t have leadership people in them.”

  “I know, Justin and Gil,” Robbie said. “Text one of them and see if they’ve been sent the apps. If not, I need to get on the horn with Jules.”

  She nodded, moving her fingers on the screen, sending a text. “I sent a broadcast to the two of them.”

  “Good,” Robbie said, hands gripping the wheel. “Here comes the 280.”

  “It just turns into the 680, by the way.” Her phone dinged. “Text from Justin.” She smiled. “He got the apps.”

  “Gil?”

  “Not back yet,” she said. “Give it time.”

  “Okay.” He made the transition to the 280. “This road is deserted.”

  “Not surprising,” Morgan said. “Wonder if we’ll see any checkpoints?”

  “Not on the freeway. Do we have many surface streets to deal with?”

  “We go from the 680 to a much smaller road. Route 84. Looks like it goes through the residential part of Livermore.”

  “Freeway, or highway with stops?” Robbie asked.

  “Looking.” She focused on her phone for a moment. “Crap. Big street, but there are stop signs and such.”

  “Are there other ways there?”

  She looked closer. “Not better than this way. There’s mountains we have to go around after we leave Livermore. No shortcut that I can see, at least with a road vehicle. We should trust Jules, though. I’m sure they thought through these spots.”

  “Hope so,” Robbie said.

  They rode silently for a while, the freeway transitioning from 280 to 680, then going into rugged terrain.

  “Really deserted out here,” Morgan said.

  “Yep. Wish we still were towing the Jeep. We’ll probably need to get some food.”

  “There’s quite a bit of stuff in the freezer,” Morgan said. “I checked before we took off this morning. Plenty of food in the pantry too, but some of it might be bad now. Wouldn’t trust the loaf of bread that’s in there.”

  “At least we can tell by looking.”

  “It won’t be long before we hit the beginnings of Livermore,” Morgan said, looking at her phone again. “What do we do if there’s a checkpoint?”

  “Fight our way through, I guess,” Robbie said. “We’re sure as hell not letting them search us.”

  “We’re probably dead if it comes to that,” Morgan said. “How can we outrun anybody in this thing?”

  “We have a lot of firepower,” Robbie said, “but you’re right. It�
��ll be tough. You know it’s possible that we’re being tracked via satellite right now. All of us.”

  “I don’t think so,” Morgan said.

  “Why not?”

  “They would’ve found us at that winery,” she said. “Think about it.”

  “Good point,” Robbie said. “Thanks, that makes me feel a little better. We’re getting into town.” He slowed as the road went from freeway to highway. The side streets were nearly empty, with only an occasional car or truck. There was a semi rig ahead of them and a couple of cars behind them. Robbie’s eyes kept darting between the mirrors and windshield, as Morgan looked nervously out the passenger side window.

  “So far so good,” she muttered under her breath.

  “Traffic light ahead,” Robbie said, rolling to a stop.

  “Look, there used to be a checkpoint here,” Morgan whispered. “See the barricades over there?”

  “So why is it not running now, I wonder?”

  “Maybe because of that big shindig we messed up in San Jose,” Morgan said.

  They cruised along, going through several lights, and then Robbie’s eyes lingered more on the rearview mirrors.

  “What?” Morgan asked.

  “We’re being followed by a cop.”

  “Oh no,” Morgan said.

  “Don’t get upset yet,” Robbie said. “There’s a big difference between a cop and the UN.”

  ***

  “No luck?” Erica asked. Sam put his cellphone and the address book down on the coffee table in front of the couch. He shook his head no. Mia was sleeping next to them on the couch, her head on Sam’s lap. Most of the people had left the house after the meeting, and it was quiet.

  “Should we take her home?” Sam asked.

  “Home?”

  “Our coach,” Sam whispered.

  “Oh, let her sleep,” Erica said. “She’s still recovering from the trauma. You okay to sit there for a while?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” he whispered, petting Mia’s head tenderly. “Poor girl.”

  “Want a cup of coffee?” Erica asked.

  “Sure, thanks,” Sam said. Erica got up carefully and walked into the kitchen. Garrett and Anna were there with Clem and Sarah, all of them looking exhausted.

  “Hey,” Erica said as she went to the coffee pot.