Rebel Heart

by Ford, Lizzy

  “When does this come off?” Brady asked, indicating the two fracture-snaps.

  “Tomorrow,” the nurse said as she reappeared with a small tray of food. Brady’s stomach roared at the scent of real food. “You can leave in another week.”

  “He leaves tomorrow,” Tim said before Brady could speak.

  “Very well, sir.”

  “I’ll need a team. Five men, from our unique pool of soldiers,” Brady said, exchanging a look of understanding with the Undersecretary. “We’ll have to risk flying past the river if we want to find her.”

  “They’ll be here in the morning with enough supplies and ammo to take out Texas,” Tim said.

  “And I need a micro with all emerops facilities between Tennessee and Colorado marked.”

  “You’ll have one in an hour.”

  “Sir, I need you to approve his release at the desk,” the nurse said. “And you, Major Brady, need to eat all you can if you plan on walking out of here in the morning.”

  Brady grunted in response and dug into the steak on the plate before him. He’d wolfed half of it down by the time the two left him alone in the room. He was weak; he could feel it. He’d have to catalyze his healing with adrenaline and other drugs.

  While he trusted Dan, he couldn’t help feeling that Lana was more capable of fending for herself than they gave her credit for, if only because she knew how important it was to keep the Horsemen safe. She’d been learning how to defend herself and watching how his people operated for a few days before the accident. Someone as bright as she was would figure out a way to get somewhere safe.

  At least, he hoped she would. Brady ate until he was too stuffed to eat more, his mind racing.

  Precisely at six the next morning, he strode through the medical facility’s maximum security barriers. His body didn’t feel right, but he had enough drugs with him to get him through a couple of weeks, when his body would be fully healed. He emerged from the thick steel walls into the sunlight. A smile spread across his face.

  Tim stood in his black fed uniform, comfortable with the soldiers eyeing him. Dan and Elise were there with three others. Brady had no doubt Dan had chosen the team; the cheerful man was nonetheless shrewd when he needed to be.

  “Before you leave,” Tim said, stepping between Brady and his team, “I’ve briefed your team already. The decision was made at levels higher than mine that we are sending in everything we have in three days. PMF are spreading the word to the populace to hole up in the underground railroad. We’ve gotta crush this before it wipes us all out.”

  “We’ll be back by then,” Brady said.

  “You must be. This isn’t something I can influence.”

  “You can influence anything, Tim, so I assume this is your idea and your window.”

  Tim’s smile was faint. “The politics are changing slowly. Seems someone ordered hits on a few key politicians in the way. I can influence everything on this side of the Mississippi.”

  Brady didn’t ask. He didn’t want to know what Tim did behind the scenes. Tim moved closer and lowered his voice.

  “What your grandfather planned with mine so long ago is about to happen. If we don’t act, the country will be split by civil war. The era of fractured power and corruption is about to end. It may not happen peacefully.”

  “You always have my support,” Brady said. “Just let me do what I do best.”

  “I’m counting on it. Do you have anyone you’d rather I not purge?”

  “All of my men.”

  “Very well. Good luck. Bring back the Horsemen. And, be careful. I need more than your brawn, Brady.”

  Brady nodded and stepped around Tim. Their world was about to get messier. Tim had been prepared for this day by two generations of ambitious men who intended to see someone of their bloodline in the seat of power. Brady didn’t care for power, which was why he’d always gotten along with Tim. Even so, he knew Tim was as vulnerable as any man to the siren song of absolute power. His grandfather had an almost subservient relationship to Tim’s, but Brady had left the shadows on many occasions to remind Tim of what really mattered when the politician’s ego started to get the best of him.

  “Dan,” Brady greeted his friend warmly and shook his hand.

  “Lookin’ alive. I wouldn’t say good,” Dan replied. “I brought Elise.”

  “I see,” Brady said, looking over Lana’s blond friend. Even Elise’s usual disdain for the regular military was welcome. Her critical gaze swept over him with a frown. “Let’s go.”

  “We thought we’d start at Lana’s house,” Elise said as they all walked towards the awaiting helo. “She lived near the bridge. If she survived, she would’ve probably gone home.”

  “We searched it from top to bottom,” Dan added. “Nothing. It was bombed out about a day after the helo went down. Still, that’s gotta be the starting point. She’ll have left some sort of clues behind.”

  “She doesn’t have our training,” Brady said, pensive. “I calculated the nearest emerops from there. There are three within about a week’s walk.”

  “Yeah, we know that now,” Dan said with a look at Elise. “The feds weren’t very forthcoming with that information. We could’ve tried to track her if we knew, but we didn’t until two days ago. Tim released the locations to everything east of the Mississippi. We’ve mapped about twenty possible routes to the three facilities. From there, it gets more confusing. Each facility is within three days’ walk of three more facilities with another twenty possible routes.”

  “We have Elise. Elise knows her better than anyone,” Brady said with a glance at the blond woman. “So we go back to the beginning. We’ll figure out which route she took and track her.”

  “Maybe she’ll beat us to Colorado.”

  “Not on foot she won’t.”

  “You’re underestimating her,” Elise warned.

  “For her sake, I hope so,” Brady said.

  “My friends,” Dan said in a softer tone, “I don’t like saying this, but be prepared for the worst. Chances are, she didn’t make it out alive.”

  Brady and Elise exchanged a grim look. Neither spoke. Brady’s chest had tightened at Dan’s words, and he felt fear for the first time since he was a kid in basic training and had his first brush with his own mortality. The small team boarded the helo and lifted off. Brady focused on the micro, trying to figure out where Lana might’ve gone. At last, he set it down and gazed out at the terrain below. Dan was right. There was no real way to know which route she might’ve taken. He hoped there was some clue at her home.

  Chapter Thirteen

  LANA PICKED HER WAY through the forest and stopped at the edge, peering at her destination. She’d slept only when they were safe inside the emerops facilities and downed anti-sleepers between. Thus far, none of the emerops facilities had been in a town. That this one was in the middle of a town—even a tiny one—made her nervous. After ten days of walking, she needed a rest, now that she’d made it to the river.

  The emerops facility was across a field and a road then down a few blocks in the ghost town that was the city of Randolph on the eastern shores of the Mississippi. Lana’s heart pounded as she left the forest. She’d traveled nonstop, sticking to narrow country roads and the forest to avoid both people and zones marked as having any sort of radiation fallout from the nuke strikes.

  All the cities along the Mississippi River had been marked as contaminated to some extent. Randolph was the smallest of them, so she’d picked this town to cross the River rather than the larger ones south along the Mississippi.

  Jack sat beside her. Lana sipped water. Her shoulders had ached the first week, and she’d traveled through a hazy world of discomfort and fear. She’d run into no one in her two weeks and grown comfortable in the forest with Jack. The idea of possibly running into people whose alliances she couldn’t predict made her queasy. However, she needed to get to the emerops facility in the town and then cross the bridge across the Mississippi. Once she did th
at, she could risk contacting Tim on her net and pray he reached her before Greenie or anyone else found her.

  Because her Guardian wasn’t coming this time. The ache of loss had faded a little over the past two weeks, but she still cried herself to sleep at night.

  With a deep breath, Lana left the forest. Jack loped ahead of her then paused to wait at the center of the field. As she reached him, she heard a sound that jarred her. A military transport rolled from the main road leading out of the forest a few hundred meters away towards the town. Lana froze, hoping they didn’t notice the lone figures in the middle of the field.

  People emerged from the buildings that looked abandoned. Surprised, she watched a few men and women meet the transport in the road just outside town. Soldiers dressed in PMF grays and others in the fed’s black uniforms began unloading the transport, tossing cases of rations to the ground.

  A few glanced her way, and Lana braced herself. Only one stared longer than a second. She held her breath, expecting them to charge her. No one did. Lana started forward again and circled the transport, puzzled by the mix of uniforms. She’d thought at first maybe the PMF scavenged the fed uniforms.

  “Refugee?” one of those who had emerged from the town asked.

  “Yes.” Her word came out a croak after two weeks without speaking. Lana cleared her throat.

  “Follow Kelli in.”

  A short brunette waved her over. Lana followed, unable to take her eyes off the soldiers.

  “Where you coming from?” the brunette asked.

  “Eastern Tennessee. The rebels are bringing supplies?” Lana asked.

  “Rebels and regular military. They’re all there is now. I heard everything is fine out west, though.”

  “Why don’t you just cross the river?”

  “The bridges were all destroyed, and the old barriers from the war are back up.”

  Lana sighed, her mind quickly turning to her alternatives.

  “The government pretty much abandoned us,” Kelli said, tone hardening. “We found their emergency back-up supplies here. It’s all that’s kept the people alive.”

  Lana’s second plan was foiled. As they walked into the town, they were greeted by people calling out to Kelli. The brunette waved in return and led her through the small town to a boardwalk lining the wide, slow-moving Mississippi River. The size of the river made Lana tick off one of her alternatives. There was no way she could swim it. Even if she did, the feds had thrown up walls on the other side that looked like they could withstand a nuclear blast.

  Kelli led her into a building. “We keep a record of everyone who comes through. Just need your thumbprint.”

  Lana gazed at the micro on a table, hesitating. “Could I possibly use the restroom first? I’ve been walking for a while.”

  “Down the hall.” Kelli said and pointed.

  Lana went, trailed by Jack. She ducked into the bathroom and pulled out her micro. Tim had said not to mess with anything, but she’d heard the anger in Kelli’s tone when she mentioned the feds. Lana hacked into the federal system, changing her own profile. She tucked the micro away and returned to the foyer.

  Kelli waited by the door, gazing out at the river. She and the others appeared healthy, which surprised Lana. Lana pressed her thumb to the screen, relieved when the new info she’d entered popped up.

  “Nice to meet you, Lana,” Kelli said, looking over her shoulder. “From Asheville. That’s a long walk.”

  “It was,” Lana agreed.

  “You look it, too. But you’ll be fine here. We divided up the buildings into small apartments. Everyone stays in the city or under it. It’s safer here, and the supplies are dropped off every day about this time,” Kelli explained. “Follow me.”

  “So you haven’t tried to cross the river?”

  “Why would we? For all we know, the reports we hear are false and the whole country is like this. In any case, my husband, Mike—who was voted to be the liaison with the soldiers—isn’t likely to let it happen. Neither will the soldiers.”

  It’s not like this over there, Lana thought silently. She trailed Kelli, who walked to the main street again.

  “We turned those buildings into a makeshift hospital. They’re the only ones with electricity. We’re building a bigger battery to store the energy we generate from the river, but …” Kelli shrugged. “It’s not as easy as that. No one here had the skills. For now, just the hospital has power.”

  “I still can’t believe the PMF and army are working together,” Lana said.

  “PMF has transports, army has supplies. Seems logical enough,” Kelli answered. “The Twelfth Army settled into Arkansas about a week ago. They were headed to Tennessee but we heard something bad happened, split the government at the top level. Someone sent them south instead of north. Good for us, though.”

  “Amazing.”

  “Where you been all this time? Under a rock? Anyway, we’ll put you in temporary housing until we have a place for you,” Kelli said. “This is your new home for now.”

  Lana looked at the building. Few people were out in the streets, but the front office area of the building held several women who had turned it into a living room. Mismatched chairs, crates, and one couch had been arranged in two circles around stacks of antique books and lanterns.

  “A few of us hunt every night for meat then have a bonfire to cook it up. Not bad for the end of the world, eh?” Kelli asked with a smile.

  “Only until the supplies run out,” Lana said in response. “What then?”

  “We planted crops in the field you walked across and a few others down the road. We’ll just have to protect them from others. We have a plan,” Kelli answered with confidence Lana didn’t share. Kelli greeted a few of the women in the room and led Lana into what looked like a former warehouse in the back of the building. The warehouse had been divided up with hanging blankets into a maze of hallways and personal rooms. Each room held a low bed or cot and two crates.

  “One for your stuff and one to sit on,” Kelli explained, ducking into one such room and holding up the blanket acting as a door for Lana to enter. “You’re responsible for cleaning your own clothes and linens. We have more blankets in the corner nearest the entrance. It can get chilly here at night. This is the most important thing.” She held up clothing covered in mosquito netting. “The bugs are bad here, and they have diseases. We all wear them.”

  Lana looked Kelli over more closely, noticing the clothing for the first time.

  “Questions?” Kelli asked.

  Lana shook her head. Jack climbed onto her bed and stretched out.

  “We have dog food, too. Tons of it. More than we have dogs,” Kelli added. “I’ll bring you some for him.”

  “Thank you,” Lana said. Kelli flashed a smile and left.

  So far, this wasn’t what Lana expected. Her room was tiny, and she heard others rustling in rooms nearby. She couldn’t help but feel surprised by the kindness and careful planning of the refugees who’d lost everything but electricity in one building. Of course, she’d spent the last twenty years in the competitive upper-class circles, learning how to keep out of the way of those who would use her to get to Mr. Tim. He’d urged her to hide herself away when she wasn’t at work with him, telling her tales of how bad the upper class was.

  On many occasions, she’d seen the duplicity and cold manipulation he’d spoken of. Usually, he was the one doing it, so she’d listened to him.

  She’d never wondered if the lower class was different. She had few memories of her mother and grandparents and never crossed paths with anyone from the poor class. If these people had been from the elite class, they’d have shot her on sight. Nothing in the town would be standing, because the elite hoarded power and anything that would give them influence.

  Even though her bed was a cot, she didn’t think she’d seen anything so appealing. Tired of puzzling over the world around her, Lana shrugged off the rucksack, pushed Jack over, and lay down with him. She didn’t e
xpect to sleep, not with the amount of anti-sleepers in her system. However, she fell into a deep slumber soon after she lay down.

  She dreamt of what life with Brady might’ve been like, away from the war and betrayal. The dream was sweet and short. When Kelli woke her, the warehouse was dark, except for the low light of lanterns like the one dangling from the ceiling into Lana’s room.

  “I thought you’d be hungry,” Kelli said. “Change into the mosquito gear and come on out.”

  Lana struggled out of bed, exhausted still. She changed and placed her micro and vault into her pockets then followed Kelli out of the warehouse, through the front office space and into the street. Where the street had been vacant during the day, they were crowded at night. Groups of people milled and moved towards the fields surrounding the town, guided by moonlight and the light of handheld lanterns.

  “It was a good hunting day,” Kelli said, excitement in her voice. “Five bucks. Big ones, too. Looks like you were good luck!”

  Lana said nothing but touched Jack’s scruff, nervous around all the people. She feared staying here too long and wondered again how she’d cross the river.

  They left the town and joined those in the field beside the river. Five bonfires had sprung up, each one with a massive spit turning a large deer in its center. A cool breeze swept over the river, and Lana shivered until they neared one of the spits, the one with the least amount of people there. Kelli greeted one of the men with a kiss and a quick hug before going to the woman cutting chunks of meat off the deer. Lana stood to the side, watching Kelli prepare two plates. Beside the spit were two kettles over smaller fires. Kelli ladled out the contents of the kettles onto each plate. When she returned, Lana identified rice and beans.

  “Enjoy,” Kelli said. She plopped a piece of flat bread over the top then sat down with her own plate.

  Lana hesitated then sat, watching Kelli use the bread in place of utensils to eat her dinner. She mirrored the movement, feeding meat to Jack as she ate. The meat was well cooked and tender, which made up for the lack of seasonings. The rice and beans were bland until mixed together. Lana found herself eating faster than she should have, hungry for real food after ten days of appetite suppressants and the dehydrated staples that she’d stuffed her bag full of. She had enough for a month, but after a few days, she found herself wishing for real food instead of the stale bars.