by Justin Bell
“But, still,” Rita replied. “What’s the point of all of us going? If things fall apart, what use will I be? I can’t fire a weapon.”
Krueller slowly folded the papers back together, then held the makeshift map in his lap. “Insurance, my dear. The fear is if we don’t all travel, there is a possibility that some individuals could conspire to sabotage the mission. Detonate the device prematurely for whatever reason. We need to be sure we’re all one-hundred-percent committed to the same cause.”
“I believe we all are, Gerard.”
“As do I,” Krueller replied. “Which is why I imagine no one has any qualms about travelling to the Summit.”
Kramer leaned back slightly. “Fair enough. However, I suspect with so few direct entry points, security may be difficult to bypass.”
“I’m not concerned. As long as we get within thirty miles, the detonation will have the desired effect.”
Rita and Hyun Ki glanced at each other for a moment, but tried hard not to linger in each other’s eyes.
“Do you disagree with this?” Gerard asked, his eyes narrowing at Hyun Ki.
“No,” Park replied. “The premise makes sense.”
“Excellent, then we are all agreed,” Krueller said. “We’ll leave a small security detail here at the warehouse to make sure things are secure. Beyond that, everyone will go to the Summit together.”
Kramer nodded her agreement, her mind already working on how soon and how secretly she could slip away to ensure her own safety. After all, if she was going to be the leader of the free world when this was all said and done, she needed to be alive and kicking.
***
As it turns out, Jacques had been right. There was room for the horses.
It was an abandoned department store, wedged into the bottom level of a three-story building near downtown Philadelphia, a wide and expansive place that had been cleared out of its shelving units, cash registers, and pretty much everything else. The result was an open area with room for the steeds to roam around while the rest of them converged in a corner office, tile-floored and squared off, to talk about what might come next.
“They’re going to need something to eat soon,” Winnie said, looking back at the horses. A few of them were snuffing at the floor and tapping their hooves as if trying to dig up some kind of edible morsel out of the ratty and threadbare carpet.
“So, what happened to that other guy who was with you?” Jacques asked, looking around. “Wasn’t there a black guy? A sheriff or something?”
Phil nodded. “Yeah, that was Clancy. We lost him, unfortunately. He’d taken a bullet before we even ran across you in Chicago. Unfortunately, a chest infection took a turn for the worse.”
“Oh, man, that’s awful. Sorry to hear that,” Jacques said.
“It’s been very tough for Brad especially,” Rhonda replied, looking past Jacques, her eyes lingering on the smallest boy in the group, the one trailing a short distance away from the others. The kids had drifted from them, standing about 20 feet away, talking among themselves while the adults had their own conversation. “He lost his own parents shortly before then, too. He’s in pretty rough shape mentally right now.” Rhonda’s eyes scanned the whole wide room, lingering on doors and windows. She focused on a pair of doors in the far left corner, which seemed to lead from the main room to a wide hallway connecting this store with a few other stores or offices on this bottom level of the building.
“We’ll be all right,” Swift said. “We’ve been here for almost a week and haven’t seen another soul.”
“So, tell us a little more about this conspiracy,” Jacques asked. “Because I feel like we’ve ended up in the middle of it, and we have no idea what’s even going on.”
“We don’t have a whole lot of information,” Rhonda replied. “But I can say that Liu and Orosco seem to have stumbled upon a domestic operation that facilitated the import of the North Korean suitcase nukes.”
Swift shook her head. “I was afraid it was something like that.”
Rebecca nodded. “We traced the scheme back to some kind of joint operation between Ironclad Security, Consolidated Tool & Die, and a collection of various domestic militia movements, who apparently all conspired alongside the North Koreans to facilitate this whole thing.”
“Good lord,” Jacques said. “Ironclad security helped us with support staffing at the Chicago barricade. There were dozens of them there at one point.”
“Let me guess, they pulled back shortly before everything collapsed?” Fields asked.
Jacques seemed to be deep in thought. “I can’t say for sure, but I will say out of all the injured and dead I saw, they were all government agents, no Ironclad operators.”
“So, anyway,” Rhonda continued where Fields left off, “they began redistributing some of the hardware in recent months, and shipping things to a warehouse in Philadelphia.”
“Also, some known…” Rebecca paused for a moment, glancing at Rhonda in attempt to avoid offense, “some known instigators and militia members have been confirmed to be in the Philadelphia area, which seems like a pretty big coincidence.”
“Agreed,” replied Jacques.
Agent Swift pressed fingers to her chin and looked at the two women. “This warehouse… do you have an address?”
Rhonda looked over at Phil, who was already fishing some of the paperwork out of the duffel bag. He handed it over and Swift glanced at the numbers printed there.
“Yeah, this is the place,” she said, mostly to Jacques. She lowered the paper and turned toward him. “This is the same warehouse we had orders to place surveillance around until the orders were suddenly rescinded.”
“That was right before Kramer up and vanished, right?”
Swift nodded.
“So something is definitely going on around that warehouse?”
“Yes. In fact we have reason to believe they may be planning something against the First National Summit,” Swift said.
“The what?” asked Rhonda.
“You haven’t heard of the First National Summit?”
“Should we have?”
Swift and Jacques exchanged glances, then looked back at her. Jacques spoke. “Basically, the president is gathering the remaining state leaders, all of them who are available anyway, and planning a big Summit meeting. Starting to develop a plan for rebuilding our core infrastructure. International aid has come pouring in over the past couple of months, some significant air drops, deliveries to port along the East Coast, enough supplies to really start a concerted effort to rebuild. These supplies have been stockpiled while the government works on a system of distribution and allocation.”
Rhonda’s face visibly brightened. “So there’s a plan? And there are actual supplies?” She looked over at Phil who was smiling broadly as well. A light at the end of this long, dark tunnel? It seemed almost too good to believe.
Jacques shrugged. “That’s the word on the street. I’m not as connected with the government pipeline as I used to be, you know, since they tried to execute me, but that was the last I heard.”
“So what do we do?” asked Phil. “What can we do?”
“I say we hit the warehouse and mess it up,” Angel said, the first time he’d spoken in a long while.
“We have to play this close to the vest,” Rebecca said. “We can’t tip our hands. Ironclad is too big and too tough an opponent to risk blowing our cover early.”
“So what do we do?” asked Phil. “Just sit here and wait? Wait for them to set this thing off? I mean, we knew they were planning something, right? We need to stop them.”
“Nobody disagrees with that, Phil,” Rhonda replied. “But we need to play this smart. Smart and careful. We go charging in there with guns blazing, we all end up dead and they’re free and clear. What good does that do anyone?”
“So instead we sit here on our hands, and they blow the Summit up, then send a radioactive cloud our way for good measure?” Angel asked. “Sounds to me like we
’re damned if we do, damned if we don’t.”
“Nobody is saying we need to sit on our hands,” Rebecca replied. "We just need to be careful.”
“She’s right,” said Rhonda. “We don’t just have our lives in our hands here, we have our kids—” she looked over toward where the kids had been sitting, but the floor was empty. “Where are the kids?”
***
Max pushed through the double doors, out into a common hallway, leaving the sprawling, emptied department store behind. Off in the distance, the adults remained standing, huddled in a group, talking through the current state of the world, and Max couldn’t bring himself to listen any longer.
Brad followed him out into the common area with Winnie and Tamar close behind, all four kids suddenly feeling out of place in the middle of the adult discussions.
“What is this, some kind of shopping mall?” Winnie asked, looking around at the surrounding shops which bracketed the common hallway woven between them all.
“Looks like it,” Tamar replied, veering right down the tile hallway, peeking in various glass windows as he went.
“Anything interesting?” Winnie asked.
Tamar shook his head. “Most of ‘em are cleared out. I think this place closed down long before any bombs blew.”
“So what are we doing in here?” Brad asked as they walked down the hallway a short distance. “What’s the point?”
“Give the adults some space?” Winnie replied, turning toward them. “Give ourselves some space?”
“Didn’t you hear what they were saying in there?” Brad continued.
“What do you mean?” Max asked.
“Them,” Brad said, gesturing back toward the department store. “Talking about that warehouse and taking it slow. Trying to decide if it’s worth taking the chance.”
“We need to be careful, Brad,” Winnie replied.
Brad shook his head. “There’s no time to be careful. The time for being careful is over, okay? Gone. The adults had their chance with this world and they blew it. It’s up to us now.”
“Dude, where is this coming from?” Max asked.
“Where do you think?”
Tamar walked up to him, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Look buddy,” he said, “I know things have been tough for you lately.”
“What do you know about it?” Brad spat. “You’ve barely been here.”
“Brad!” Winnie shouted. “Tamar is a part of the team. He’s put his life at risk just like the rest of us.”
“None of you guys get it,” Brad replied, turning away.
“What’s going on, Brad? What don’t we get?” asked Max, his voice growing more concerned.
Brad looked back at him over his shoulder. “You’ve got your mom and dad. You’ve got your family unit. Everyone I know just keeps on dying.”
“Hey, I’m still here, buddy,” Max said, taking another step. “We’re friends, right? You’re a part of our family, like it or not.”
“I know it’s rough, man,” Tamar said. “I know what it’s like to lose the ones you love, okay? I lost mine.”
“Then you should understand why we can’t just sit here and wait for something to happen,” Brad said.
“So, what? We should run right over to the warehouse and get shot at?” Max asked.
“I don’t know, but we gotta do something, don’t we? If there’s a chance they’ll be detonating another device we owe it to ourselves to do something about it. We’ll be the ones inheriting this planet!”
Max and Winnie flashed each other a concerned look, then Max looked back at him.
“You’re right, Brad, of course. But we won’t get anything done if we don’t work together. One-hundred-percent together, all of us, including the adults.”
“They don’t seem to need us lately,” Brad snapped back.
“Okay, look, Brad,” Winnie interjected. “I know you’re struggling. We all are. The only way we get through this is together, okay? We need to work together.”
Brad glowered at her, but didn’t reply.
“She’s right, bud,” Max said, putting a hand on his back.
“That’s easy for the two of you to say,” he whispered. “Everyone I try to work together with is in the ground.”
“So what am I, then?” Max asked opening his arms. “What am I to you? We’ve done nothing but work together ever since this whole thing began, right? I think we work pretty darn well together, actually. I consider you a friend. A brother.”
Brad looked at the floor.
“Look,” Max continued, “I know the loss of Greer was tough. Really, really tough.”
“He was like a dad to me, man, after my real dad died. He looked after me. Talked to me. Treated me like a person, not some broken kid.”
“I don’t think you’re a broken kid,” Max replied.
“You might be the only one.”
“Brad, you’ve got nothing to prove to any of us,” Winnie said. “We know what kind of person you are, okay? How tough you are.”
“Man, I’ve only been with you guys for a short while and I know how much butt you kick, kid,” Tamar said. “Put me to shame, brother.”
Brad didn’t reply, he just stood there with clenched fists, looking down toward the floor, his chest moving in even rhythms with his breathing.
“You okay?” Max asked. “Like really?”
Brad didn’t look up. “Yeah, I’m okay,” he mumbled.
“So this is where you went off to?” a voice echoed from the doorway and the kids all snapped their heads around. Phil emerged from the empty department store, looking at them through narrowed eyes. “Everything cool out here?”
Brad remained stoic and Max pressed a palm to his back gently. “Yeah, we’re cool,” he said.
Winnie and Tamar nodded and made their way toward him, squeezing past him and back into the store. Max followed them, with Brad lingering behind.
“Sure you’re all right, Brad monster?” Phil asked, looking at him. “You looked a little intense for a minute there.”
“I’m fine, Mr. Fraser,” Brad replied, head down, and made his way past Phil and into the store. Phil followed his progress with his eyes, but once he caught up with Max and fell back in with the group, he relaxed and let his gaze linger elsewhere.
“It’s getting late, boys and girls,” Rhonda said as they neared the place on the floor where the adults had been chatting. “We should grab some shut eye. We’ll try to get up early in the morning and look for someplace nearby that might have some chow. Win, can you check on the horses, make sure they’re shackled up?”
Winnie nodded and angled left, Tamar following behind.
“Max, can you check the doors?” Rhonda asked, nodding toward her son and Max nodded back, heading toward the perimeter doors to verify they were secured. Brad stood there watching as Rhonda turned away, walking to Rebecca and Angel who were checking through the duffel bag, pulling out weapons and ammunition.
He stood there for a few moments as a hustle bustle of activity wove around him, his hands hanging low at his hips, looking very much alone.
Chapter Seven
Even before a single suitcase nuke had decimated the first United States city, Tamar Davis had been a light sleeper. With his father already a victim of the mean streets of Chicago and him being the supposed man of the house with his mother and younger brother, Tamar had already felt a wealth of responsibility even in his early teenage years. Every gunshot, no matter how far in the distance, every car that slowed down just enough as it crossed past his apartment, and every knock on every door that was or wasn’t his brought him rushing out of whatever sleep he may have been in, no matter how deep. Once he’d lost his family and been indoctrinated into the Orphans, his sense of awareness while sleeping had only sharpened.
Lonzo had put him on watch in the most frequent rotation because he had the uncanny ability to awaken at the slightest noise, and it was a slight noise that awoke him this early morning. The thre
adbare carpet floor of the abandoned department store hadn’t been all that comfortable as it was, and his sleep had been light. A thin curtain laid over him, never truly engulfing him, but only cloaking him slightly. The light squeak of one of the glass doors brought him firing from sleep, and he lurched into an upright seated position almost instantly, supporting himself on one arm as his head whipped toward the sound.
Through the narrowed glare of his eyes he could see one of the glass doors in the corner of the large, vacant room just starting to ease its way closed, and the shifting motion of a figure moving through the interior hall they’d been standing in only a few hours before. His heart rammed as he swung his head around, glancing for any sign of anyone else being awake, but all he could hear was deep breathing, and he knew time was already short. Scrambling to his feet, he looked over the prone forms of Winnie, Max, Phil and Rhonda, counting them off one by one, then looked over toward Angel and Rebecca who were both on the floor near the tiled area of what used to be the employee break room, back when this place had walls. The duffel bag lay on the floor by Angel’s head.
The new members of the group, Julie and Pietro were laying down apart from each other over by where the horses milled about, all with their heads bowed. Tamar nodded, verifying what he figured was the case and bolted toward Angel and Rebecca, hesitating for a moment as he passed by Winnie and Max. He bent and very nearly touched Max’s shoulder in an attempt to shake him awake, but as he glanced toward the door the figure was being swallowed by the darkness outside and he knew he didn’t have time.
Continuing his charge toward the break room, he lowered down and swept a pistol from the duffel bag in one smooth, quick motion, then shifted right, dashing over the carpeted area to the door ahead, then pushed through with his shoulder, trying to be as quiet as possible. A moment later he was out in the hallway and moving on the balls of his feet, shifting his weight to keep his footsteps quiet, even as he was moving swiftly, somewhat in a martial arts fighting posture, using his expert balance to shuffle forward with as little noise as he could.
