Overwatch

by Riley Flynn

  “I got one,” said Miles Freeman. He was in his thirties and shared the backseat with two fifty-ish women, Patti and Rebecca. “What did the former band teacher say to the former professor?”

  Hutchinson braced for impact. “Regale us, Miles.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Hutch.”

  The group sat for several long moments as the white horizon sat unchanging outside their windows. Finally, the hiss of breathy laughter broke the uncomfortable silence as Jai began snickering. Despite the insanity of the situation, or, perhaps, because of it, the rest of the unlikely group joined in, giggling stupidly in the cold.

  We just might survive this yet, Hutchinson thought.

  Two hours later, Hutchinson’s optimism was almost gone. The snow had reached the truck’s windows and the storm showed no signs of letting up.

  “We can’t just sit here,” he said. “We’ll die. Plain and simple.”

  Patty shook her head. Wisps of her mousy curls bobbed underneath the edge of her ski cap.

  “We have body heat in here,” she said in a tone that suggested it was the end of the argument. “If we go out there, we’ll die. We don’t even know where we are!”

  “We have no idea when this fucking storm is going to end,” said Miles. “What happens if we end up totally covered in snow? We’ll be warm, but won’t be able to get out. And eventually we’ll suffocate.”

  Jai’s eyes widened. “I can’t suffocate, man. Seriously, I can’t handle that. I’d rather die out in the snow.”

  “All I know is we have to do something before I lose my shit,” Ed grumbled. “I can’t keep sitting here.”

  Hutchinson turned to face Rebecca. He was almost certain she had some sort of developmental disability, but he wasn’t going to exclude her because of that. For better or worse, they were a team.

  “What do you think, Becks? We should all have our say in this.”

  Her eyes shimmered with the promise of tears and her pudgy cheeks were crimson, despite the relative warmth inside the cabin. But she kept it together.

  “I don’t know,” she said simply. “I worked at Dairy Queen before. I don’t know what to do in the snow; I always took the bus in winter. This is too hard for me.”

  “You see?” said Patti. “What are we going to do with Rebecca if we leave?”

  Hutchinson’s eyes narrowed. “First of all, Becks is capable of far more than she or you seem to believe. Second, there are snowshoes in the back under the topper. It doesn’t take any particular skill to use them; if you can walk, you can snowshoe.” He turned to Rebecca again. “You can walk, can’t you, Becks?”

  She gave him a wan smile. “Yes, I can walk.”

  “Very good.” He nodded. “We’ve established that Rebecca is physically capable of accompanying us, if we choose to go. So: do we choose to go? A show of hands should suffice.”

  The four men raised their hands. Patti glared stubbornly and Rebecca seemed uncertain. Finally, she held up a mittened hand to make it five to one.

  “All right, then,” said Hutchinson. “It would appear we’re going. Obviously we won’t force you to go, Patti.”

  She sighed bitterly. “That’s no choice at all. I can’t stay here on my own.”

  “I think it’s the only choice,” said Ed. “We might die out there. We will die in here.”

  “Agreed,” said Miles. He reached through the sliding window behind his seat that led to the truck’s bed, which was covered with a fiberglass topper. He pulled out the first set of snowshoes, almost hitting Patti in the head, and passed them to Ed.

  “We’re really doing this?” Jai asked.

  “It would appear so,” said Hutchinson. “For better or worse, our destiny lies out there.”

  An hour later, the snow hadn’t let up and Hutchinson was cold and exhausted. He kept himself in reasonable shape, but he would be sixty on his next birthday and he hadn’t been able to find any of his blood pressure medicine for weeks. Struggling out of the truck’s windows had been a predictable shit show, but the snowshoes did their job, keeping them from sinking into the waist-deep snow. Still, the lack of visibility kept them from being able to find the highway. The compass, at least, still worked, so they knew they were heading south. But they were still at least twenty miles from Colorado Springs, and darkness was beginning to gather.

  “This is it,” Ed huffed from beside him. The scarf around his face, like Hutchinson’s beard, was crusted in ice and snow. “We’re not going to live to see tomorrow.”

  Hutchinson had believed for decades that all philosophy students were born cynics, and he was no exception. He was, in fact, proud of his cynicism—if not for it, he would never have survived the collapse and come as far as he had in the world that had replaced the old one. Cynicism had made him who he was, and it had led him to this moment.

  But he also knew he needed other people. And this was the group that the fates had led him to at this point in time. Or, more accurately, had led to him, and it was imperative that he keep them moving. They might die in the attempt, but Elwood Hutchinson would be goddamned if he didn’t do his all to get them to Colorado Springs. The future hinged on it.

  He held up a hand. “Let’s take five,” he panted. “And Ed, I’d appreciate a bit more optimism from you. Take a tip from the Book of Job. The worst that can happen is we all meet our maker, and then we’ll have the opportunity to give him or her an appropriate amount of what-for.”

  They huddled together, the women both massaging their thighs. Hutchinson himself pressed his palms into the small of his back and bent backwards at the waist in a futile attempt to allay the dull ache there. The three younger men seemed to be handling things the best, but even they were breathing heavily. The snow had begun to taper off, but, in a final Job-ian irony, the darkness would soon rob them of their visibility again. They were lost in the wilderness, and the dark was filled with wolves and mountain lions these days.

  “How long…” Patti huffed. “How long do we go?”

  “’Til we get there,” he said. “Or until we drop. Whichever comes first.”

  “Dropping…sounds good…”

  Hutchinson tried to think of something witty and encouraging but his brain was having trouble making its usually easy connections. He wondered vaguely if this was what dementia felt like. He was even starting to hear things. A low, droning rumble that sounded like a never-ending fart. It had to be the blood rushing through his aural canal, like when you held a seashell to your ear.

  “We can’t stop now,” he said. “The sun isn’t even down. Everyone knows the best parties… don’t get started… till after midnight…”

  To the south of them, the fading sunlight flickered off the surface of the snow.

  Wait, that couldn’t be right. The sun was in the west. And it was almost below the horizon.

  “Do you hear that?” Rebecca asked, straightening and craning her neck. “It sounds like the old bus I used to take to work before they had the quiet ones.”

  “Guys,” Jai said tentatively. “That light. That light is coming towards us.” He turned to them, his cold-reddened face naked with hope. “You see it too, right? That light is coming this way!”

  Hutchinson blinked away the frost from his eyelashes as the others gathered around Jai, pointing in the direction of the expanding yellow glow. The sound wasn’t just in his ears; he realized now that it was a diesel engine.

  Time seemed to stand still as the light got closer and the snorting engine got louder. Eventually they could see a plume of exhaust rising into the deepening twilight. Exhausted as he was, all Hutchinson could think about was Job. After all his suffering, Job ended up praying on behalf of his friends, and God rewarded him for it.

  Shit, he thought blearily. Now I have to start believing in God. His hand reflexively pulled the all-but-forgotten flare gun from his coat pocket and pointed it toward the sky. He pulled the trigger and watched as the rising clump of strontium nitrate and other chemicals lit up the area aro
und them as bright as day.

  Tears were flowing freely among his companions as the form of the Sno-Cat became clearer, until finally its headlamps were the only light anywhere. The sound of the engine and the clanking tank tracks as they tore through the snow seemed incredibly loud in the emptiness that surrounded them. He felt Patti’s grip on his arm and looked down to see her red, tear-streaked face looking up at him.

  “You were right, Hutch,” she sobbed. “You were right. You saved our lives.”

  Before he could give that any thought, he saw two shadows emerge from the Sno-Cat’s cabin and hop down into the snow. They emerged into the light of the headlamps and Hutchinson saw they were wearing slightly different winter gear than he and his companions. And helmets. And they had rifles slung over their shoulders. One of the men was black, the other white, and both had thick but well-kept beards.

  The white one stepped forward and held up a hand. His blue eyes seemed to glow in the glare of the headlights.

  “Hello!” he called over the noise of the engine. “I’m Capt. Jackson Booth, Special Forces out of Colorado Springs. This is Lt. Lambert. Don’t worry, you’re safe now. We’re here to help.”

  What happened next would have been unthinkable to Hutchinson even twenty-four hours earlier. It was something he hadn’t done in years, not even when the Eko virus was wiping out billions and ending civilization as it had been known up to that point.

  Prof. Elwood Hutchinson, the cynic of cynics, the smartest of the smartasses, the man with big plans, began to weep like a child.

  2

  “You really should stop beating yourself up, sir,” said Jax. “No one could have predicted this.”

  The heavy-duty Sno-Cat rumbled its way through the darkness along Highway 25, headed due south following the path it had plowed on its way north from Colorado Springs. The six passengers were snug in the seats of the rear cabin, which had been designed to carry double their number. Ruben drove while Jax sat in the swivel jump seat, talking to their new charges.

  Elwood Hutchinson looked like a cross between John Lennon and a Klingon: tall, wide-shouldered, with tangled dreadlocks above round, horn-rimmed glasses. His beard came down to his collarbone and was pure white, in stark contrast with the deep auburn of his wild hair. Jax guessed he could be anywhere between fifty and seventy years old.

  The man gave him a crooked grin. “I suppose you’re right, Captain. Now that meteorologists are no longer a thing, I don’t imagine any of us can take the blame for being sandbagged by Mother Nature. Not that weathermen were any screaming hell at prognosticating, even before the world went tits up.”

  Jax smiled. The guy had the vocabulary of an academic and the style of a storyteller. And, surprisingly, more stamina than the rest of the group, all of whom were clearly younger than him and yet looked utterly exhausted.

  “I would have done the same thing, sir,” he said. “The sky was clear this morning. We didn’t see the storm coming in from the north until it was almost on top of us. I’ve never seen a blizzard move that fast. Then again, I come from East Texas by way of the Middle East and Germany, so I’m not exactly an expert on winter weather.”

  “Neither am I,” said Ruben, who had grown up in Los Angeles. “But I know this much: it bites the big one.”

  “A man after my own heart.” Hutchinson’s voice had a deep, gravelly tone that Jax associated with a great-uncle he’d once had who drank dark liquor and smoked a pipe. “On an unrelated note, please don’t call me ‘sir’. It makes me nervous, like I’m at an audit or something equally horrendous.”

  One of the women—she’d given her name as Patti—leaned forward in her seat and squeezed Hutchinson’s arm. Her hair was a tangled riot now that she’d taken off her ski cap.

  “We call him Hutch,” she beamed. “And I, for one, think he saved our lives.”

  Hutch leaned forward and tilted the knobby thumb and pinky of his right hand toward his mouth like a bottle. “Patti drinks,” he said in a stage whisper.

  She slapped his shoulder before settling back in her seat and closing her eyes. The other woman, Rebecca, had already nodded off beside her. The three other men were sitting with their eyes closed, breathing deeply.

  “All right, then. I’m Jax. The man at the wheel is Ruben.”

  “A great pleasure, gentlemen,” said Hutch. “I mean that. I’ve never been one to worship a savior, but I’ll happily shine your boots as a token of my appreciation once we reach civilization. At least I assume we’re headed into a better situation than we left?”

  “You are,” said Jax. “As for the rescue, it’s all in a day’s work. We picked up your ditched truck on a regular drone patrol once the snow finally stopped, so we headed out. There’ve been quite a few people who’ve made the trek from Denver already.” He grinned. “Although most of them didn’t head straight into the storm of the century.”

  Hutch shook his head. “I fear we’ll never live that down. Children will learn about it in history class decades from now. The new Valley Forge.”

  “If it helps,” said Ruben, “I forgot all that stuff the minute I graduated.”

  “You and half my students.”

  “You’re a teacher?” Jax asked.

  Hutch shrugged. “I was a professor in the philosophy department at the University of Colorado at Boulder. These days, it would seem I’m just a piss-poor tour guide. Not much call for people in my game. I can picture myself sitting on the streets of Colorado Springs with a cardboard sign that reads ‘Will analyze your ethics for food’.”

  Jax snickered at that. This guy would be a riot at parties, he thought. We can use more people like him.

  “But I’m more interested in the future,” said Hutch. “You confirmed that we’re headed for civilization? I sold my companions on the idea that the military presence down south had to make for a better environment than the one we were leaving behind.”

  Jax nodded. “Cheyenne Mountain complex is still functioning and we’ve got about thirteen hundred military personnel active. We’re still doing a census—this weather isn’t helping, obviously—but our logistics people estimate about fifteen thousand civilians. For the most part, they’ve kept the peace.”

  That wasn’t entirely true, of course, but he had no inclination to go into the details of the shit he and the rest of Echo Company had dealt with in the months since the collapse. These people would learn all that in due time. Right now, all they needed to know was that Colorado Springs was safe. It was the cradle of the new republic and, in a very real sense, America’s only hope for the future, as far as Jax was concerned.

  Hutch peered at him intently. “Fascinating. Is it military rule, then? Terrence Fletcher talked about that right before things got really bad. That the national guard would be in charge.”

  “Not exactly,” said Jax. “All military personnel have been absorbed into the army, with President Raines as the commander-in-chief.”

  “Of course.” Hutch nodded. “Logistics would demand it. But what about civilians? What can my friends and I expect?”

  “We’ll provide housing and supplies. We have power running in a few parts of the city, so electric heat is the order of the day. A few people have chosen homes with wood heating, so that helps on the power load.”

  “Blessed heat,” Hutch sighed. “We’ve been relying on whatever propane we’ve been able to pilfer. I haven’t been truly warm through the night for months. But you say people had ‘chosen’ their houses?”

  “A lot of people joined work crews to help remove corpses from homes and public buildings and bury them. It took months, but we got a few dozen neighborhoods cleared. Civilian volunteers got the first choice of cleared homes that had been connected to the grid.”

  Hutch arched an eyebrow under his glasses. “That sounds suspiciously like government to me.”

  Jax thought the sarcasm in the man’s voice was a bit sharp. “As close as we can get, anyway.”

  “The grid, you say. From the so
lar plant at the Air Force Academy, yes? It’s operational?”

  Jax nodded. “To a degree. It’s severely limited, but we haven’t overloaded its capacity yet this winter.”

  “Assuming this storm doesn’t do it,” said Ruben. The tracks the Cat had left were covered in snow again, but still clear enough that he was able to follow them. To the right of them, the headlights revealed the universally recognized golden arches, meaning they had reached Woodmoor. “About twenty-five miles to go.”

  “Ah yes,” said Hutch, glancing out the window. “King’s ‘Golden Tits of America’. An argument in favor of the collapse.”

  Jax couldn’t hold back a chuckle. “I don’t know, I could go for a Big Mac right now. Or a Whopper.”

  “Or a chalupa,” Ruben sighed. “Or a beef n’ cheddar. Hell, I’d even go for a gas station corn dog.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” said Hutch. “I was a vegetarian for a couple of decades before things went for shit.”

  “What about now?”

  He shrugged. “To be honest, I can’t recall why I made the decision in the first place. Starvation does an excellent job of quashing self-righteous arguments. But back to our housing discussion—civilians get better homes in return for service, you said. What about the indolent?”

  Jax had to think a moment to remember the meaning of the word. “There are people who don’t exactly pull their own weight. They’re housed in apartments in the downtown core. Not that everyone there is indolent, as you say; some people choose to live there instead of the suburbs.”

  “Huh,” Hutch grunted. “And you military folks? Are you at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex?”

  “The majority of us bunk there. Some of the officers have chosen rooms at the Army HQ, a golf resort on the west side of the city.”

  “I’m truly looking forward to observing the dynamics of this new society,” said Hutch. “I’ve had a bellyful of watching people fighting for survival—it’s less interesting than one might think.”