Seconds later, the power shut off, throwing Tabby’s subterranean world into absolute darkness.
CHAPTER 2
Newport News, VA
“I assume your weekend was as exciting as mine?”
Kyla Justice heard the question from her fellow coder, but she wanted to think of something exciting, if fake, to say in reply. Her partner, Ben Parker, knew she spent most of her weekends doing the same thing she did during the week: programming.
“I met someone,” Kyla said with a dab of mystery.
Ben stopped typing on his laptop and looked over. “That’s not what I meant, but— Get out! Where did you meet him?”
As she thought it through, it wasn’t a lie, though she didn’t have to explain their meeting was in the virtual world. She’d met an in-game character in one of her video games. They’d talked about their real selves for about sixty seconds, then it was back to killing the bad guys. As best she could tell, the male avatar on the screen was being played by a real gamer dude from the Midwest. Somewhere well over the horizon in terms of going out for drinks, like she wanted Ben to imagine.
So, she let the thought dangle for a moment, then cut it off. “I don’t really want to talk about him. We have to keep focused on these readings. The captain is moving the ship today and our jobs are on the line if this reactor containment monitor goes on the fritz again.”
The USS John F. Kennedy was the Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, but it shared the same problems as every ship launched in the past five thousand years. It had kinks, bugs, and weak structures that needed to be patched. And that was only the computer code. The mechanical pieces had their own issues.
“That was your code, not mine.” Ben laughed.
“That was our code,” Kyla corrected. They worked for the same contractor. “But I’ll tell you what. If you double-check what I’ve just entered, I’ll tell you all about my new man.”
“Yeah, okay. I can work with that. Let’s—”
Kyla’s ringtone went off. Phone calls were frowned upon by her hard-ass bosses, and the Navy bosses weren’t too happy about it either, but everyone took calls. It wasn’t a big deal.
“It’s my uncle,” she said. “He’s a big shot pilot for the Air Force.” She hit the green button. “Hello? Uncle Ted? What’s up?”
“Kyla, thank god. Listen. There isn’t much time. Where are you?”
“Time for what?” she replied. It was exactly like Uncle Ted to be dramatic.
“Kyla! Listen to me! There’s been a disaster. Your mom called and said I had to come get you. Where the fucking hell are you?”
She held the phone away from her ear like he’d burned it with foul language. Something was really jacked up.
“For real? I’m doing a job on the USS John F. Kennedy. Why?”
Uncle Ted didn’t reply right away. There were sounds like he was in a busy flight terminal or something, so it was hard to understand what was going on.
“Uncle Ted? You there?”
The noise on the other end continued.
An overhead claxon sent Kyla six inches off her chair because it came on with unnatural suddenness, and she’d been focused so intently on the phone. The blaring signal prevented her from easily hearing or speaking to her uncle.
“What the fuck is that alarm for?” Ben had to lean over and yell to be heard.
Kyla shrugged.
“Should we check it out?” Ben yelled again.
She waited before responding. The ship went through a million tests every day, it seemed, as the shakedown crew readied the carrier for sea trials. One day, it might be stress tests on the electromagnetic catapults. The next, the engines growled for hours.
The chances of the emergency claxons being an actual emergency were relatively low, because they were in port testing everything from the nuclear reactors down to the toasters. However, Uncle Ted did mention a disaster. Was he for real? She tried him again.
“Uncle Ted? Come on. Talk to me.”
His tone suggested he was serious, but his lack of follow-up made her wonder if it was bad timing on the part of the alarms. It canceled his ability to tell his punch line.
Ha, ha, Kyla. I’m kidding. I just called to say I’ll be in Newport News next week.
That was the type of immature stuff he sometimes pulled. Mom, too.
The phone’s screen showed the line had gone dead. She tried calling him back, but the line didn’t connect. She immediately dialed her mom, but that refused to connect, too. Sometimes working low in the ship made service unreliable.
“Damn,” she thought.
After a full minute, the alarms on the ship turned off.
Kyla put her finger in her ear as if to rub away the pain. “I’m glad that’s over with. What a suck-ass test. I bet my uncle will call back in a few.”
They waited for a minute or two to see if the captain would make an announcement about the alarm, but it soon matched watching paint dry in terms of excitement.
She planned to dial Mom when she was on lunch; she’d probably put Uncle Ted up to his joke. In the meantime, she figured it was best to keep working. Deadlines didn’t care about alarms.
Ben was already furiously tapping at his keyboard, leading by example.
They worked for another ten minutes before the older man turned away from his computer.
“So. That was a weird interruption, huh? What were we talking about? Your dating life, I think.” Ben laughed.
Her belly clenched at the thought of having to explain she hadn’t really gone on a date. “Yeah, we—”
A sailor ran by the door but skidded to a halt and backed up. “What are you two doing in here? Having a father-daughter brunch? Get your asses to a battle station. We’ve been fucking attacked!”
“Seriously?” Ben asked with disbelief.
“The alarm was real?” Kyla gulped. Though completely inappropriate in nature, she was glad the sailor saw them as father and daughter. Ben was a lot older than her. And married. And not her type.
“Yeah, it was real!” The sailor gasped for air. He looked around for others. “On second thought, you two civvies might want to stay in there.”
Kyla trotted to the door in case the sailor wanted to shut them in. “We don’t want to be stuck in here.”
“Yeah,” Ben added. “If there’s an attack, we can’t be down here at the bottom of the damned ship. What if it sinks?”
The young sailor panted and looked like he wanted to leave. “We’re in port. We can’t sink. Word is spreading: something killed everyone on the upper decks! Crew areas. Hangar. The bridge! All toast. Be glad you two are down here.”
The man ran away without a further word.
Kyla and Ben shared worried looks.
She glanced at her phone.
Maybe Uncle Ted hadn’t been screwing around.
Air Force Two
Ted felt as useless as a fifth wheel on a motorcycle. He sat among high-level security and communications people engaged in frenzied threat assessments. His lame job remained being backup for the pilot of the plane, and that outcome was less likely than ever now that things had gone wrong.
“I’ve got someone on the ground, ma’am.” The Air Force liaison held up his hand.
“Go ahead, son,” the VP replied dryly.
“It’s the USS John F. Kennedy. They’re sitting in port at Newport News, Virginia. I have a Marine on the line.”
Ted launched out of his seat. “My niece is on that ship!” He held up his phone, as if it were proof.
Ms. Williams glanced at him but went right back to the other officer. “A Marine? Where’s the captain of the ship?”
“I tried. I think we’re lucky to get this guy. Would you like to talk to him?” The Air Force officer made it sound like he wanted her to say yes.
She took the handset. “This is Vice President Emily Williams. Who is on the line?”
A loud bang came out of the speaker before the man replied. “The vice president? Hol
y fuck! We’ve got a shitstorm here! We were attacked! Decks of Navy were just wiped away. We have bad guys coming down for the rest of us!”
“Where is the captain?” she replied in a businesslike tone.
More cracks blared from the speakers, but there was so much it came out like white noise.
“Did you get that?” the Marine yelled in the phone. “Send us more fucking shooters!”
“Marine, I need you to stay calm—”
Ted desperately wanted to ask about Kyla, but now wasn’t the time. Even family had to take a back seat to matters of the nation.
“They’re here!” the Marine replied.
A few moments of gunfire was followed by silence. The line went dead.
“Ma’am, my data shows a Fleet Anti-terrorism Security Team was already training on that ship,” an advisor relayed. “That’s why you were talking to him. A platoon of FAST Marines should be able to handle anything.”
Ted wasn’t so sure. He’d heard “regular” Marines weren’t big fans of those specials.
“Anything…” Emily echoed. She remained in the middle of the aisle for half a minute, like a schoolteacher worried about her pupils, but then she seemed to come to a decision.
Ted punched the button for Kyla on his phone, but it wouldn’t go through. He was angry, but not shocked; system overload was expected during times of crisis.
“Tell me who’s left.” Ms. Williams pointed at an Army officer. “Is Europe still online?”
“Yes, ma’am. I hear bases in Germany, England, the works. I even get traffic from bases in the Middle East.”
“Good.” She then pointed to a Navy woman. “What do you know about our fleets? Is the attack on the JFK local or fleet-wide?”
The woman looked at her screen, then to the VP. “So far, I’ve heard from Sixth Fleet in Naples and Seventh Fleet in Japan, but I can’t raise Fleet Command ten miles away in Norfolk. Still trying.”
“Excellent. Keep on it. I want a list of every ship and command you talk to. This could be important. Start with bases on the East Coast. We have to know who is still operational below our feet.”
Emily strode down the lane and stopped next to John at his Secret Service console.
“Mr. Jeffries, have you heard anything from the president?”
He looked up and shook his head. “No, ma’am. I’ve been pinging every phone number I know. There are no agents answering anywhere near POTUS.”
“Are you sure he was in the nest?”
It was slang for his home turf in the White House.
John nodded. “Unless someone kept me out of the loop, his schedule says he is hosting some children this morning to talk about school lunches and whatnot. He should be there.”
“Good, I want—”
The plane tipped sideways before anyone could think about holding on. It was a lot like being on an innertube going into a high-banked water flume.
A second later, every alarm on the plane went back into panic mode.
Poor Sisters Convent, Oakville, MO
“Sister Rose, would you be a dear and go prepare the heirloom seeds? I believe today is the day we will plant them in the greenhouse.”
In her previous life, she was known as Becky Hatcher, but after she accomplished her novitiate and chose to live her life inside the convent, Abbess Mary Francis assigned her the name of Rose. Fitting, since she enjoyed working with the soil.
Rose bowed to Mary Francis, rather than respond by voice. When she advanced to full member of the order, she accepted the vow of silence, which she took seriously. Except for one time when she woke up shouting after a bad dream, she hadn’t spoken a word for almost a year.
She believed it was her cross to carry.
The underground cellar was a cool, dry storage area perfect for keeping the seedlings, but there were many other supplies down there, too. The nuns tried to be as self-sufficient as possible, so there were work tools, stockpiles of personal hygiene items, and pallets of Bibles. Those they gave to anyone who came to the front door.
There were also small casks filled with wine. Most of those sat up in the front, because they were often needed for the daily mass. Sister Ann had the large frame and muscle mass necessary to move them, much to Rose’s relief. Even the act of looking at them wore her out.
To make money to support their order, the nuns planted grapes and ran a small in-house winery. It perfectly complimented the tiny bakery where they made bread for dozens of churches in the area.
She walked beyond the casks to find what she sought.
“God, please help us plant and harvest a crop for your glory.” While she didn’t talk aloud, she always talked to God in her heart. “But first, please help me find them.”
The long shadows of the dark chamber made it difficult to see, but she had the patience to let her eyes adjust. Modern conveniences, such as flashlights, were frowned upon by the abbess, and Rose had never crossed her.
She looked on the small shelves where she expected the seeds, but they weren’t there. It was almost completely dark in the corner of the basement, so she took a few minutes to meditate with her eyes closed. When she finally opened them, her vision had adjusted some more, and she saw the small storage bin.
“Ah ha!” Her day was back on track.
Rose secured the large cup and popped the top. About a hundred small seeds were inside. All she had to do was drop them in water, remove the duds, and present the rest to Sister Mary Francis. She would order Rose and the other sisters into the greenhouse with tiny picks and shovels, like they do every year. Other vines, which they’d prepared in the previous months, would then be transferred to the vineyard.
Sister Rose held the container to her bosom and cradled it in prayer.
“Please help us to have another bumper crop.”
She turned to go back toward the distant light, but an unusual sensation made her stop. The hair on each arm stuck straight up, as if magnetized by the roof.
“Oh my,” she thought.
Her only defense was prayer, and she wielded it with the same certainty as a trained martial arts expert. After a minute or two of communing with her holy defender, she felt prepared to continue.
“It’s been too long since I was alone like this,” she thought.
She carefully clicked off the light switch and closed the heavy metal door. There was no reason to lock it because there was nothing of value inside. Wine, bread, and seeds. Who would want any of that?
Sister Rose had almost forgotten her moment of anxiety in the darkness, but when she came back into the common room with her earthly treasure, a similar feeling of dread washed over her, and she almost dropped it.
Her sisters were gone.
Abbess Mary Francis had been sitting in a wooden chair between the kitchen and community area. Her religious habit now draped over the chair—as if she’d undressed and placed it there. But there wasn’t enough time for that, to say nothing of the impropriety.
Sister Ann had been in a lounge chair reading the Bible. Her simple clothing was in her place. Rose also noticed her shoes and socks were left on the floor.
The convent wasn’t known for practical jokes, but Rose supposed she might be witnessing the first in its history.
She was careful to set the seeds on the kitchen table, as the abbess would not approve if she dropped it, no matter the reason why.
Rose could not call out to end the prank, though she thought about it. This was so out of character as to be scandalous. How did they coordinate such an activity?
Rose walked into the oversized kitchen. She fully expected to find her leader, or Sister Ann, or at least someone else who didn’t know about the joke. However, when she went into the room, her skin crawled again.
There were more abandoned piles of clothing.
CHAPTER 3
Air Force Two
The mammoth VC-25 jet was the reinforced version of the commercial Boeing 747, but even with its military-grade enhancements, the wi
de body seemed to strain during the violent turn.
Ted clung to his seat during the maneuver, losing his phone with the bone-jarring turbulence, but he had other things to worry about when the VP tumbled in with him. She’d been standing by the Secret Service desk before the surprise turn. Now she was practically in his lap.
A plane-wide announcement followed.
“This is the flight deck. We are under attack. Out.”
Ted commended the man’s calm. He sounded like he did this every day.
He immediately recognized the sound of chaff and flares being dumped outside. His flight team had dropped them numerous times in the simulator. The countermeasures were designed to fool missiles and blind radar, like an explosion of confetti might make it difficult to see a balloon.
The jet swung from one banked turn to another. Now, he and the VP were on the high side, looking down at the computer operators on the starboard row. He held onto her waist, assuming she wouldn’t want to go tumbling away.
“Let me up,” Emily ordered.
“Oh, sorry, ma’am.”
She got back on her feet, but immediately did an impression of how she could epically fail a field sobriety test.
Ted reached out again. “Careful,” he hollered.
She shook off his hand. “I’m fine, pilot.” She lunged a few steps and grabbed the edge of John’s Secret Service desk.
“Get me someone in the line of succession,” she cried out. “I need to know who is still alive!”
“Ma’am!” John responded.
Because of the words she’d used, Ted assumed she was giving up. By telling the world she was dead from a missile strike, it would be easy for the next person in line to know they were getting bumped up in the line to the presidency.
“Listen, people, as far as we know, I’m the only one left alive in the upper government. Once we get out of here, we have to stay in the game until we know who’s left. Got it?”
He’d underestimated her again. She wasn’t giving up; she was fighting back.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied. The others did, too, though some were still next to their seats, rather than in them.
Minus America Page 2
