A Town Called America

by Andrew Alexander

  Inside the room, with the door closed, Mike set a large bag on the floor. From it he removed the homemade explosives, all on timers and all ready to go.

  The third member of the group was Chuck. He was seventeen, very thin, and had a gentle look to him. He was young, but as he’d grown up after the global collapse, Rick knew he could take care of himself. He had shown that on the refuel vessel when he had shot the M.M. soldiers. It was his job to move through the air shafts and set the explosives at predesignated points throughout the vessel. After Chuck gathered the explosives, Mike picked him up with little effort and lifted him into an overhead vent.

  Inside Chuck looked down at Rick and Mike and smiled. “No worries. I’ve done this before.”

  “When have you done this before?” Mike asked.

  “When you carry out a mission of great importance, you can’t talk about it. Sorry, but I’m sworn to secrecy. It’s hush-hush shit. Relax. I got this!” Chuck said, just before he disappeared into the vent.

  “That kid’s nuts,” Mike said, looking at Rick.

  “Perhaps, but he’ll pull this off. I’m sure of it.” Rick looked at his watch; nearly two hours had passed since they’d left the beach. “It’s just about time.”

  Moving fast, Rick and Mike left the electrical room and quickly made their way down the hallway, taking a series of turns until they ascended a metal staircase to the fourth floor, where they entered a small kitchen intended for ship’s staff. There they waited.

  Outside the cruise ship, near the hole that had been cut, the skiff, now empty, was floating unoccupied, away from The Gem of the Seas. The hole had been cut through the ship, and Billy’s group was now inside. The engine room was just down a corridor from where they entered, and the bridge was directly above them. Getting inside it would be easy; taking control of the bridge, however, would be more challenging.

  Billy’s men were armed with various guns, but they were under strict orders not to use them until he gave them the signal. In the meantime all three had swords they had trained with for months. Billy figured they were quieter than guns, wouldn’t run out of bullets, yet they were just as effective as any pistol at close range. He was still fond of his two revolvers, but under the circumstances, he was willing to make an exception.

  The skiff Robbie and his men were in had been in place for some time, waiting for just the right time, and then that time arrived.

  On the edge of an interior observation deck several stories up, three M.M. soldiers were looking over the railing at the refuel vessel below with binoculars.

  “What the hell is he doing down there?”

  “Hell, if I know. It looks like he’s…I think he’s dancing.”

  On the refuel vessel, L.J. was indeed dancing. He had turned on the CD player near the steering wheel, and to his amazement, it still worked. It was Metallica’s Black Album, and L.J. knew the song well: “Enter Sandman.”

  Although L.J. had hooked up the fuel tubes to pump the fuel from his vessel to the cruise ship, the end of the line wasn’t actually connected. A different tube was connected to the pump, and it was pumping the fuel not into the generators aboard the cruise ship but into the water between his vessel and the cruise ship.

  L.J. was dancing and shaking his head to the rhythm of the music he was lip-synching to. That was just how he was; he was a free spirit. Even in the worst of times, he always wore a smile and enjoyed life. That’s why Billy, Rick, and Robbie liked him so much. No matter the situation, he always made them laugh.

  The soldiers who were watching him didn’t know what to think.

  “He’s OK,” one of them said. “Look over there. Another one of our soldiers is on board with him. It looks like he’s helping with the engine.”

  That man was the one handcuffed near the engine-room door.

  “Yeah, they were having a problem with the rudder earlier.”

  Beep, beep, beep. One of the men’s watches chimed. When he looked down to check the time, the entire ship shook, as a massive explosion rocked it, causing the three soldiers to almost lose their footing.

  On the bridge the soldiers ran to their stations in a panic, trying to figure out what had happened.

  “Look—they’re four hundred meters straight ahead,” one soldier said, pointing to his monitor.

  The captain turned and rushed out the door to the deck outside the bridge. Looking through his binoculars, he clearly saw something in the distance that had blown up. Whatever it was, it was now burning, and the flames were consuming everything that was left.

  “Put the ship on high alert,” the captain told the officer standing next to him.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Robbie had rigged the skiff with explosives. After his group had jumped overboard, they swam to the hole that had been cut into the side of the ship and climbed inside.

  After Robbie’s team entered, Billy leaned through the hole and pulled up the ladder he’d left hanging from the ship. They’d been aboard the ship for only a minute when Robbie looked at Billy and grinned widely as he pushed a red button on a device he held in his hand.

  From where they were in the ship, the explosion was overwhelming, as the boom echoed off the steel walls. As everyone held their ears, Robbie laughed as his companions instinctively ducked. When the small skiff blew up, it sent smoke, flames, and debris in every direction.

  “Good to see you, Billy,” Robbie, said smileing.

  “Shut up,” Billy told him.

  Pulling out the swords from the sheaths on their backs, Billy and Robbie’s groups made their way to the engine room.

  The hallway to the right of where Billy’s team had entered the ship was narrow and sparse, but as they made their way through, it opened up to nearly double its size, with faded paintings and aged decorations dotting the walls.

  Billy, in front, led the group as Robbie took the rear, ensuring no one was able to sneak up on his group. Billy rounded a corner and looked straight down a hallway to the left. Making sure it was clear of people, he rounded the next corner, where he ran directly into three M.M. Soldiers. He literally ran into them, almost knocking down one of them and attempting not to lose his balance.

  One soldier stood looking in astonishment as he slowly pulled a cigarette from his mouth. The other two, who stood to the left and right, didn’t move.

  “Who the hell are you?” the soldier with the cigarette said, sizing Billy up.

  “Um, the cleaning lady?” Billy quipped.

  “You’re not really the cleaning lady, are you?” the soldier said, raising his pistol toward Billy.

  “Oh, man,” Billy said. “How’d you guess?”

  “So if you’re not the cleaning lady, I’m guessing you think you’re a ninja. You know what they say: never bring a knife to a gunfight.” He threw his lit cigarette directly at Billy’s face.

  Without hesitation Billy raised his sword and swung it in the air, cutting the cigarette in half, only inches from the man’s face.

  “Oh, shit,” the soldier said, as Billy came around low, cutting him just under the knees. Before the man completely collapsed to the floor, Billy lunged forward and pushed his sword through his midsection.

  The two remaining soldiers turned and sprinted down the long corridor, one stopping only to turn a knob on a door that was locked. Shaking the door handle in a frantic attempt to reach safety, the soldier turned his head just in time to see Billy throw his sword. It glided silently and gracefully through the air, spinning in a perfect motion, before it pierced the soldier’s abdomen.

  The remaining soldier turned a corner just before the rest of the group was able to catch up with Billy. They all looked at the bodies on the floor then looked back at Billy.

  “How do you always do that? You can be outnumbered ten to one, and you always come out on top,” one of his men asked.

  “I’m just lucky I guess and besides, I let one of them go,” Billy said, smiling, as he pulled the sword from the soldier’s body before continuin
g down the hallway.

  “Is he serious?” the man asked. “Did he really let one go?”

  “With Billy you never can be sure,” Robbie responded, smiling.

  The engine room wasn’t what one might have expected it to be. It wasn’t dark or dirty, with slaves pumping coal into huge burners, nor was it a small space cramped with oily machinery. On the contrary it was large, clean, and looked quite futuristic. It was an open space with a massive oval desk nearly twenty feet long. Monitoring systems for phones, fax machines, computer switches, and TV screens lined one long wall.

  On the left and right, six giant engines, all with safety railing around them, took up nearly the entire space. Tubes, pipes, wires, and controls went in every direction. Between each engine was a metal staircase that allowed operators access to the systems. To Billy it looked like a cross between a spaceship and the control room at a nuclear power plant.

  A few moments after he had entered the engine room, he spotted four unarmed men monitoring the control panels. None put up a fight as Billy and Robbie seized control of the systems. In a matter of minutes, all four engineers were in handcuffs, their mouths covered in tape. Billy was very clear when he told his group not to harm the men; he needed them alive.

  Immediately he went to work on the computer systems. He opened a large panel with servers behind it and traced the wires as he plugged various pieces of equipment into a number of slots. To the untrained eye, it looked like a giant mess of wires in complete disarray.

  “Give me two minutes, and the M.M. will be blind,” he said.

  “You’re sure they won’t be able to get their cameras working again?” Robbie asked, as Billy typed on a keyboard.

  “Nope, they’ll be totally blind.”

  “Good.”

  While Billy was working on the cameras, Robbie’s men were sealing the doors to the engine room. The same man who had cut through the outside of the ship was now welding the steel doors shut. There were three of them in all; the scaffolding above them had a door at one end, and the other door was directly across from the door through which they’d entered. That was the only one that would remain unsealed.

  On the bridge the soldiers were frantic, as they’d lost the use of all their security cameras.

  “Sir, should I sound the alert?”

  “No,” the captain said, then hesitated for a few moments. “If we sound the alert, we’ll have to report this to high command. Unless you want to go aboard the oil rig and explain this, we’ll wait. We can handle this issue ourselves. A few rogue men are no threat to this vessel.”

  “Roger, sir.”

  Rick had been waiting in that small kitchen when the explosion from the skiff shook the entire room, causing him to almost spill his coffee. Just before the explosion, he’d been searching through the cupboards, one after another. Then he found it: sugar packets.

  “Hey, this is like gold,” he said to Mike. “You know how hard it is to find sugar these days?”

  After ripping open two of the packets and pouring them into his coffee, he took all the remaining packets and filled his right pants pocket.

  When the explosion sounded, Rick told Mike that was the signal he’d been waiting for. It was time, and he needed him to get Chuck down from the vent because there was a change of plans. Rick had business to attend to. He explained to Mike that he needed him to tell everyone not to wait. He’d meet them all onshore after he took care of a few things. Against his better judgment, Mike agreed.

  Rick took a sip of coffee then spat it out. “Oh, God…this is salt.”

  Walking out of the room, Mike laughed and shook his head. A minute later Rick left the kitchen and was on his way to find Chris. He had an idea where she might be, but he didn’t have time to take any chances, so instead he was going to have the M.M. take him to her.

  After the explosion the captain finally decided to put the ship on high alert. Small round lights the size of a golf balls, located above every doorway and in every room, were flashing red.

  The M.M. soldiers were running to their posts as a prerecorded message was broadcast throughout the ship. “This is not a test. This is not a test. Proceed to your assigned places of duty, and await further instructions.”

  When the explosion went off, Chris was in her room, sitting in an aged high-back chair near a window. She knew the war was now at her doorstep, and even if she could leave her room, she’d just end up killing soldiers from the resistance, which she didn’t want to do. If that happened, any possibility of Rick and her reconciling their differences would die along with the soldiers.

  A radio on a small wooden table next to Chris had hummed just after the explosion. Commanders all over the ship were ordering their soldiers to do various tasks and requesting status reports, updates, and locations.

  Chris was listening to all the havoc that was taking place until she heard something that completely threw her off guard. It was in fact the last thing she’d expected to hear. The M.M. soldiers were reporting that a drunken man was naked and in the ship’s swimming pool. Chris knew exactly who it was.

  “Rick,” she said in disbelief.

  FORTY SEVEN

  After Rick left Mike, he headed straight for the pool. Several floors above the kitchen and down a multitude of hallways, Rick, after encountering several soldiers, saw the first sign that pointed the way to the pool.

  Following the faded plastic signs, he moved through the seemingly endless hallway. Around nearly every corner, he ran into soldiers. When he did, before the men could react, he cut them down with his sword, leaving a trail of bodies along the way to his destination. When the hallway finally opened up to the pool area, Rick looked around, and to his surprise, there were no soldiers nearby.

  Rick dropped all his weapons, except his sword, along with his clothes, on the pool deck. Naked he jumped into the cool water with the bottle of Captain Morgan he’d kept in his backpack. With his sword in one hand and the booze in the other, he climbed into a floating chair, where he sat and waited. If this doesn’t get their attention, I don’t know what will, he thought.

  Rick didn’t know where Chris was, but he did know that if he didn’t give himself up, he’d probably be killed, which was fine by him, as long as it happened after he found Chris and ensured she was safe. Sitting in the floating chair, with his feet dangling in the water, he wasn’t worried about his life as long as his two objectives were accomplished. First and foremost he needed to find Chris, and second, he had to ensure that the ship, its crew, and the oil rig were destroyed.

  Five minutes after Rick climbed into the pool chair, two M.M. Soldiers walked onto the pool deck and stood staring at Rick.

  “Hi, fellas,” Rick slurred. “The water is great. You should come in.”

  “Four-zero, this is one-three. Um, sir…it seems we have a situation at pool number two.”

  “One-three, what is the situation?”

  “Well, sir, it’s the drunken captain from the refuel vessel. He’s, ah…well, he’s in the pool, sir.”

  “One-three, escort him out of the pool and take him to holding. What’s the issue down there anyway?”

  “Sir, he’s…well, he’s not dressed, sir.”

  Listening to their conversation, Rick took a couple of sips from his bottle to try to hide his smile while he floated in the pool naked, making every effort not to laugh.

  Mike and Chuck had caught up with Billy’s group and were in the engine room with them.

  “All the explosives are set, sir. “It took me two hours to do it, but it’s done. Here. This is the trigger device,” Chuck said, wheezing and short of breath.

  “You did good, kid,” Billy told him.

  “Yeah, but…but I was shot, sir.”

  As the young man fell into Billy’s arms, Billy saw the bullet wound in his stomach.

  “You think I did good, sir?”

  “Yes, son, you did. I’m proud of you.”

  Chuck smiled, looking up at Billy, as his body fell
limp. Billy held him for a few moments before he laid him on a table and covered him with a coat. As strong as Billy was, he couldn’t hold back his tears. He wiped his eyes and said, “You know, I don’t even know his name.” None spoke a word; they all just stood in silence.

  In the pool area, after the soldiers got Rick out of the water and placed him in handcuffs, they led him to a stateroom that had been retrofitted to be used as a cell.

  In the engine room, Billy and Robbie heard soldiers outside trying to gain access.

  “They know we’re here,” Billy said, just as a flame from the other side began to cut through the door that had been sealed after L.J. and Chuck had returned.

  “Everyone get in that room over there, and close that door,” Robbie ordered.

  Moments after Billy’s men were in an adjacent room, with the door closed behind them, the door that led to the engine room fell to the floor after the welding had been cut. Gunfire instantly erupted, with bullets striking the computer screens, controls, and equipment; M.M. soldiers were shooting blindly into the engine room.

  Billy and Robbie were the only ones who had remained in the engine room when the soldiers poured in. Three, six, ten…they kept coming and coming until there were more than a dozen.

  Billy and Robbie had their swords drawn and were engaged in an epic fight that would be remembered for years to come—a fight that would appropriately be known as the Slaughter on the High Seas.

  Back to back, both men were destroying soldiers one after another. Robbie pushed his sword through one soldier and came around hard, hitting another over the head with the hilt, just before Billy ran his sword through the soldier with an under sweep.

  “Billy, the wall,” Robbie said.

  They moved toward the far wall, away from the door through which M.M. soldiers continued to pour. Once they reached the wall and had created some distance between themselves and the M.M., Robbie looked over at the soldiers, screaming as loudly as he could while revealing his sharp teeth and nails.