"I think we've maybe got enough for four hours."
"It's going to be light by then," John said. The eastern sky was beginning to become lighter, but it was still a dark gray without a hint of rosy hues. "We're not going to be able to escape in broad daylight and if we stay in this tunnel too long, we're going to get caught, too. I can hear dogs. You think they're going to find us?"
"Maybe," said Sarah. She hunched down next to John and peered into the yard. "Is it hopeless?"
"I don't know." He was surveying the soldiers with a grim look.
A niggling thought twitched in Sarah's mind, a warning alert that what she was witnessing had some sort of issue about it. She was drawing a blank as to what, however. "Something isn't right down there," said Sarah. "I can't put a finger on it, but something about that scene bugs me."
"I know," said John. "I spotted it first thing. I think Indigo was right: I'm hard-wired to be a perfect soldier. I instantly sum up a situation with a militaristic intelligence. I didn't even know I knew how to do that."
"Well, what isn't right?"
"Look at the vehicles and the soldiers."
"Yeah?"
"No flags. No insignias. No emblems of any sort."
"What?"
"There are no American flags anywhere. Not on sleeves, not on the vehicles, not anywhere. There are no markings to identify any country anywhere down there."
"So?"
"You've seen the same movies as I have. I don't think the U.S. Military goes anywhere without designations or flags flying. I'm too far away to tell if the writing on the vehicles is English or not. I don't think it is, though."
"You think we're in some foreign country?"
"Maybe," said John. "That might make sense. We were only allowed to watch television brought in from a satellite dish. We were never shown where we were on a map, not even when our tutors were teaching us geography. We were never allowed to see a newspaper. Indigo never saw a newspaper or a town name sign when she would go to the town down the road."
"So?"
"It doesn't make sense," John's mind was wheeling, trying to put pieces of a puzzle together. The picture he was getting was fuzzy, but it was the base idea of a theory. Non-American military, strange vehicles, a remote location...What for? Something clicked in John's head.
"This is going to sound stupid, but I think that maybe town was a set-up. I think it might be a military outpost made up to look like a town."
Sarah shook her head. "You sound like some crazy conspiracy theorist. We rode here from our American homes on a bus. We have four seasons with wicked cold winters, so if we're in another country, we're in Canada. Big whoop."
"We might be," John agreed. "But, I still don't think this is any sort of American government military. Look at the weapons."
Sarah glanced at the soldiers she could see. She could make out the black steel rifles with the wooden stocks and the graceful, curved clip sticking out of them. She shrugged and looked at John quizzically.
"Kalashnikov's. AK-47's. They're not American weapons. Russian, originally. They're favored by paramilitary groups because they're cheap, light, and accurate. They're also easy to pick up at gun shows or on the black market. This has to be a militia outfit. It's not the official army of any country."
Sarah's brain was trying to follow John's train of thought. "We're not American?"
"I don't think we are anymore. I think America doesn't know what's been going on here. We might be in America, but if that's the case, then these guys are underground. The government probably doesn't know they exist. A military group like this, with massive funding, a full arsenal of weapons, and fleet of vehicles that's still hidden from the government has to be paramilitary, and what do paramilitary groups try to do in third world countries? We read about it online every so often, usually in smaller African nations."
"Military coups?"
"Exactly. They try to take over."
Sarah's eyes were dinner plates. John could see in her eyes that she was putting the pieces together. She gasped. "You're saying that you think we are some sort of project that is an attempt to overthrow America!"
"What else would it be? America has the biggest guns in the world, one of the largest armies, the most resources, and the means to keep up supply and communications for a long war. I could see how that could make some people upset."
"But why?"
John had it figured out. John loved his history textbook, he loved seeing how the past had a direct influence on the present and the future. Maybe it was part of his new genetic hardwiring. "The Second Amendment."
Sarah's mouth gaped. "Say what?"
"The Second Amendment, the Right to Bear Arms, was put in place by a government who realized that if it hadn't been for the personal munitions of the militias and minutemen, they would not have had the ability to combat England's armies. Therefore, they instituted the Second Amendment to allow citizens to have a means of protecting themselves against intruders---even armies of the government itself. It was supposed to be a check-and-balance against the military power of America becoming too cocky and becoming like the British soldiers."
"That was well over two hundred years ago! Times have changed!"
"Of course they have, but don't you see it? America has nuclear weapons, bunker-buster bombs, laser-guided missiles that can hit a target the size of a teacup from five hundred miles away. A homeowner with a deer rifle can't stand a chance against that."
There was a long silence between them. "So they build super weapons. Something the government doesn't know about and can't know about," said Sarah.
"The government keeps tabs on dangerous chemicals like plutonium and uranium. If there are weapons-grade mass-destruction components out there, the government can probably track them. But people..."
"People are harder to track."
John didn't feel a need to elaborate any further. It had been scratching at his brain since he first saw the soldier with the Kalashnikov. He felt in his gut that they were still on American soil, but probably hidden someplace that the government would never look. Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. He remembered reading that the terrorists who had orchestrated the World Trade Center attacks had been living in America for some time prior to that fateful morning. He also knew that there were functioning anti-government militias in America, but usually they were run by anarchist country nutballs who had read one too many Ayn Rand novels. What if someone with a militia mindset, but real military brains got together with some rich people who were a little perturbed at the government's rampant spending and didn't agree with their foreign policies? Was it too far-fetched to think that they might get together, pool their monies, and invest billions in a project to help create a new breed of soldier that could combat a heavily armed army? Regular weapons weren't enough and even if they got a nuclear weapon, they couldn't nuke a country if they still intended to live there afterward. An army that could take down the government had to be fast, light, lethal, and efficient. It had to be able to hide or blend in to the populace, strike without warning and make precision attacks on single targets with a minimum of disturbance. Most of all, they had to be able to adapt and accomplish things without the military hardware that the government possessed. The hardware needed to arm a regular human army big enough to take out the US Military could never get into the United States without the FBI, the CIA, or the NSA knowing. However, if the army didn't need hardware---if it could use anything...
John looked at the sharp stick and he could feel the exact throwing motion he would need to hurl it into a man's neck from a distance of twenty steps. His brain ran him through the motion. It would be too easy. Sick realization dawned on him like a ray of light.
"We were meant to stop the government."
"What government?"
"The government of the United States of America. We're thinking, capable soldiers, right?"
"Right."
"So, we were taught all about America's in
justices in the last thirty years. Remember that one tutor they brought in to teach us about the invasion of Iraq? And remember how he showed us the fourteen things fascist nations have in common?"
The light seemed to dawn on Sarah. John saw her eyes light up. "And we had to find examples of a country that it worked for outside of 1940's Germany!"
"I think we all chose Italy, right?" said John. "But, those rules would have worked for America, too. Think about it. The flags, the patriotism, the finding a scapegoat to blame troubles on, the Patriot Act---They were trying to teach us that America had supposedly turned fascist on its base and were duping the people."
"So, they want to go to war against the government."
"They make us go to war to prove that the government is vulnerable and that small groups of people can take out major targets, the president perhaps. Once that happens..."
"It's open season on America."
"Terrorists will come out of the woodwork, won't they?"
"And they'll be controlled by whomever started this army down there."
"Chaos."
"Anarchy."
"And once that ends, once the government is replaced by the group that funded us, they are free to begin to take over other countries because America, the World's Policeman, is no longer functioning."
"Without the world's army, there'd be no one to stop them."
"If you watch a guy knock out a five-hundred pound weightlifter, you don't step up to that guy. This would be the same thing: We take out America---who would dare to stop us?"
Sarah slumped back against a tree. "This sounds like five pounds of crazy in a four pound sack, John."
"It is," he agreed. "But it fits! You see that it fits, right?"
"It does, but it's also crazy. You sound like a rambling, paranoid conspiracy theorist. It doesn't prove anything, John."
"It might someday. I just need to find proof."
"What if it is the U.S. government doing this to us? They wouldn't want insignias and flags all over stuff if they were doing some sort of illegal operation inside American soil."
"The AK's, though. U.S. troops don't use AK's!"
Sarah fell silent for a long while. She watched the troop movement and watched the helicopter spin lazy circles in the north, just over the tops of the trees. "Do you think Cormair knew?"
"He had to have known."
Sarah's lips tightened into a line. "He knew and he was willing to turn us over to a terrorist cell operating inside this country with aspirations to take America down."
"If I ever see him again," John seethed, "he's going to answer some questions."
The noise in front of the Home suddenly doubled. Soldiers began shouting and a few blasts of machine-gun fire rang out.
"Something's happening," said John. "You don't think that they found us, do you?"
"No look!"
A grotesque blob of something that once looked human bolted from the doorway of the Home and ran to the side of an all-terrain truck. He hunched down, gripped it, and suddenly stood up. The truck was picked cleanly into the air and hurled into the side of another truck, flattening it.
A few bullets struck the beast in the arms and he yelled out in pain.
Sarah recognized the cry instantly. She blanched. "John, that's Andy!"
Sarah watched in absolute shock as she watched Andy toss the truck. She didn't see the fun-loving guy she had known for ten years, the guy she split popcorn with on movie night, the guy who used to make stupid hats out of cardboard to make her laugh after she endured surgeries; instead, she saw a massive bulk of a human, a living comic book beast of ridiculous, over-pumped muscles. She saw several of the soldiers draw their weapons, but Andy charged forward, scattering the soldiers like bowling pins and smashing through the wreckage of the trucks.
"We have to help him." Sarah felt suddenly sick.
"How?"
"I don't know!"
John frowned. "Rushing in like idiots could get us killed. Right now, it seems like Andy knows what he's doing. Hang back for a second and see if he needs us."
The dog handlers released the two Malinois and they took off like bullets, baying and snarling in anticipation of the attack.
"I'm going to help!" Sarah hissed. She began darting through the trees, ducking low branches and leaping over shrubs. The first Malinois hit Andy's forearm, sinking its teeth into his wrist. Instinctively, Andy flung his arm and the dog was forcibly thrown thirty feet across the lawn. It landed hard and tried to get up, but its hind legs wouldn't work.
From inside the tunnel behind her, Sarah heard Holly scream. Her animal senses: She probably "heard" the dog's pain when it landed, Sarah thought. John would have to deal with Holly's trauma. Sarah was only concerned with Andy at the moment.
The second dog, witnessing the first dog's punishment, fell back to barking at Andy in an intimidating manner. Soldiers were beginning to swarm toward the front lawn. The helicopter rushed to the scene, bright, white illumination flooding the lawn from the massive halogen spotlight.
Sarah could see the tree line and she knew she was going to have to do something when she got there. She started glancing left and right, scanning for weapons. She wondered if she could sneak up behind a guard and steal his gun. They had been taught hand-to-hand combat. At one point, a former Israeli Mossad agent came in for several months to teach them all Krav Maga. She knew how to disarm a man with a gun, even a soldier.
She leapt over a bush and landed hard on her left heel. A shockwave of pain shot up her left leg, all the way through her pelvis and stomach. When her right leg landed another shockwave of pain blasted through her, this one more intense. Her knees buckled and she fell forward, crashing through the scrub at the tree line and sliding into the clearing. Sarah rolled with the fall, trying to find footing again, but when she tried to stand, ripples of electric anguish rolled through her legs making her lower body feel like it was being dipped into flames. A terrifying thought flashed through her brain: It was a transformation. She was changing, just like Posey, just like Andy.
Her ankles felt tight, like the skin around them was going to explode; her feet were jerked into rigid angles. She couldn't even flex her toes. Her leg muscles felt like they were twitching, a thousand muscle spasms a minute. Pain bit into her with sharp teeth. Her Achilles tendons tightened and her feet pointed involuntarily. A split-second later, muscles around her shins inflated and jerked her feet back to a ninety-degree angle. Her hips were alternately burning and going numb. Her groin muscles were in spasm and her lower abdominal muscles were contracting violently.
Down at the yard, several soldiers drew tasers and fired on Andy. He fell to his knees, screaming. Someone ran out of the Home to help him. Sarah saw a long ponytail and white coat. She saw Dr. Sebbins try to run through the soldiers, but one grabbed her and threw her to the ground.
Sarah pushed herself up with her arms and willed her legs underneath her. They hurt; she had never known pain like this, but it wasn't a time when she could sit and complain about it. Andy was being attacked. Dr. Sebbins was being attacked. They needed her help. Sarah started to stumble, her legs on autopilot, lurching awkwardly like a tin man. Her arms flailed wildly, trying to gain balance. Her left leg thrust forward, followed by her right leg. Suddenly, she felt a distinctive hard click in her hips and the rest of the world slowed to a crawl. She was in the yard in a heartbeat, and past it in another. She shot straight through the action and all the way into the forest on the opposite side of the yard. Everything was a blur, flying past in the blink of an eye. She was moving so fast that she couldn't even take in a breath. Tears streamed from the corners of her eyes. Her eyes felt dry and she wanted to squeeze her eyelids shut. She could barely think. When she finally was able to gain conscious control of her legs and forced herself to stop, she was several hundred yards away from the Home. Her face stung from where bugs had hit her. The skin on her upper arms was scratched and bloody from the tree branches. A stick had gashed her forehe
ad and a line of blood ran down the right side of her nose and to her lip where the salty, metallic taste surprised her. Her legs hurt less, but they still ached like she had just finished a marathon.
She turned around and focused on the men with the guns. At least seven rifles were being trained on Andy and Dr. Sebbins from what she could see. Sarah started to run again and the click in her hips happened. She went from a stumbling jog to blinding speed in an instant. She angled her body slightly and ran between Andy and the soldiers, slashing a hand out at the barrels of the guns. It felt like she punched flaming spears, but the guns flew out of the hands of the soldiers, many of them broken from the impact of Sarah's speed.
The soldiers recoiled, falling backwards with expressions of shock and fear. The only glimpse of Sarah they saw was a blur of color.
Sarah stopped herself at the tree line again. She looked down at her hand. The palm of her left hand was swollen and red. Her middle finger looked strange. She touched it and it hurt a lot. It was definitely dislocated, probably broken. Speed had its disadvantages.
John and Holly broke through the tree line next to Sarah. "What's happened so far?" said John. He had a thick, pointed stick in his hand.
"They've surrounded Andy. I broke their guns, though."
"How'd you do that?" Holly asked.
"I ran really fast," Sarah said. "And I mean really fast." She curled her left hand into a fist, manually bending down her middle finger and gritting her teeth through the pain. "My abilities finally manifested. My legs are killing me."
"How do we get Andy out of there?" Holly asked. She squinted down at the yard. "It looks impossible."
"Let me see if I can help," Indigo's voice broke through from the trees behind them.
John glanced over his shoulder at her. "Can you move any of those soldiers or lift Andy?"
"No. But, I think I can move some of the lighter stuff. Maybe I can throw dirt in their eyes or something."
"That might help," said John. "Here's the plan: Sarah, I want you to sprint down and get Dr. Sebbins to safety. Bring her back here, but take a roundabout way. Go around the Home. Hide in shadows as you run. Don't give them an open look. I don't want soldiers running directly to us. Holly, do you think you might be able to bring some animals?"
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