by Jordan Ervin
“Do you know what is happening?” Sigmund roared. “We are losing this war today! While Lukas hides safely in a bunker, armies to the east and west batter down our gates. We are on the verge of losing Houston, Shreveport, and New Orleans, and you want to waste my time to tell me you lost a man?”
“No sir,” Rendell said. “I believe I know where he is going.”
“Where?”
“Fort Harding,” Rendell said. “The outpost to the north you instructed us to seize before ordering us to stand down.”
Sigmund hesitated, his lust for vengeance nearly overpowering his capacity for reason. You should have killed Adam when you had the chance, Sigmund said. Had you followed Lukas’ advice, the Patriarchs would have never fractured. You wouldn’t be sitting here in the middle of nowhere as your army stood on the brink of defeat! “No,” Sigmund said. “When this is over—when we have Lukas in our hands—we will find him and reward him properly.”
“That’s just it, Sigmund,” Rendell said. “As much as you hate Adam, I believe Lukas hates him more. Adam might prove to be just the right bait to bring Lukas out of the rock he’s been hiding underneath.”
Sigmund hesitated, his mind racing as he gazed wordlessly at the monitor. He’s right. If you capture Adam, you might just be able to use him to stop Lukas’ advance. You might be able to buy enough time to find the White Shadow Prototype and the Scorched Earth codes. With those in hand, you’d be more than a simple man.
You’d be a god.
“If the Texans advance, can you hold Little Rock?”
“We will die trying,” Rendell said with the nod of his head.
“Then leave only what it takes to make the Texans think you’d still put up a worthy fight,” Sigmund said. “Send everything else to Fort Harding. Do whatever you can to capture Adam Reinhart and then burn that base to the ground. Leave none alive. I don’t want it standing for another group of rebels to use against us.”
“We have a wave of two thousand Recruits already on the road awaiting further instruction,” Rendell said. “The other waves will be shortly behind them.”
“Good,” Sigmund said. “Deploy them now and have all other Recruits follow as quickly as possible. Including you, Victor.”
“What?” Victor said, his uninterested eyes jerking up with surprise. “But shouldn’t I be—”
“More competent?” Sigmund interrupted, his gaze narrowing in anger. “More willing to obey, knowing what awaits you should you disappoint? I think yes.”
“Haven’t I proven myself?” Victor protested, his eyes watering with hatred and fear. “I have nothing more to give!”
“Maybe you’re the twig that breaks the camel’s back, the single man among thousands that ensures our victory today.” Sigmund paused, a light smile of amusement splitting his jaw. “Besides, you still breathe, which means there is always more you could give. If you don’t agree, then I can always jog your mind with a few seconds under.”
Victor paused before shaking his head in defeat.
“So be it,” Victor said, glancing up at the camera. “May someone fill your veins with the horror you’ve dished out freely, and then may you live forever.”
As he turned and walked away, the smile faded from Sigmund’s face. Victor’s words echoed in Sigmund’s mind. He knew if he lost the war, a fate worse than Victor’s final wishes would be his forever.
Chapter Twenty-two
Thrum the Drums, Oh Ye
Lords of War
“The fleet will be entering Breton Sound in three minutes, my Sovereign.”
“Good.” Lukas shifted uncomfortably in his wheel chair as he attempted to rub the twitch from his eye. He glanced to his right at Maria and smiled, reaching over to grab her hand. Her withdrawn gaze slowly descended, regarding his fingers as they attempted to interlock with hers. She smiled halfheartedly before looking over at him—the workings of a slight smile beneath her black, silky mask softening her eyes.
“It will be okay,” Lukas said, patting the back of her hand. “It ends today.”
The smile in Maria’s eyes slowly disappeared, replaced by a bitter indifference as she pulled her hand free. Lukas sighed, the twitch returning as he refocused on the object of everyone’s attention.
Nearly twenty massive monitors fixed together to form one giant screen; the entire wall served as an overview of the battle that would seal Lukas’ fate one way or the other. The command room in the basement of the White House had been modified to operate without nVision technology, relying on the older command and control systems that had been used to effectively wage war for decades. A dark gray map with white markings revealed New Orleans and the surrounding region. Red icons and text displayed the known Patriarch defenses while new intelligence continued to populate the map. A massive green cloud indicating the Imperium’s fleet of thousands of drones, dozens of troop carriers, and three retrofitted AWACS crawled across the bottom of the screen, approaching New Orleans from the south. Combined, every machine and man symbolized the best of the Imperium’s might, penetrating Sigmund’s stronghold as victory neared.
Lukas glanced over at Jacob, nodding his head with an appreciative smile. Lukas’ North American military had nowhere near the necessary Yellow Jackets to pierce Sigmund’s heart, but Jacob had followed through with his word and routed thousands of fresh Yellow Jackets across the Atlantic. Combined with the old NATO aircraft Jacob had seized in Europe and Lukas’ Praetorian Legion, Lukas had doubted he would lose the battle. Still, his eye twitched uncontrollably. The entire day was a dangerous gamble, exchanging his slow campaign of dominance for a surprise death blow. Lukas had pushed all his chips into the pot, hoping his monster hand would destroy the enemy at his doorstep and win him all the lands east of the Mississippi.
But if he failed, it would leave the Imperium wide open for retribution with little more than a few hundred battered Yellow Jackets and the Sovereign Guard to defend his crown.
“Are you going to make the announcement?” Jacob asked, bending down to whisper.
“Soon,” Lukas said, rubbing his eye again with frustration as he glanced at the fifty top ranking officials in the room. They had been arranged in stadium seating at the rear of the control room. Now, each man and woman behind Lukas spoke with those beside them as they gazed upon the giant screen.
“Do not worry,” Jacob said with a reassuring smile. “I have come to believe you were born to win this day.”
“I sincerely hope you’re right,” Lukas said, muttering a curse as his eye twitched again.
“Hope?” Jacob said, pausing and cocking his head with amusement. He turned to Lukas with a confident beam. “I suppose hope will come with victory. Eventually, the Republic of Texas will join us, as will the rabble that gathers in the west. And after this continent…you’ll have the world. They will all come to see the hope you give them—be it through diplomacy or conquest—and they will thank you for what you have achieved. But hope is and will be a dream for them to cling to. You, however, will cling to something else entirely.”
“Which is what?” Lukas asked, fixing his eyes on the green cloud of death that approached Sigmund’s naval fleet.
“Fate,” Jacob replied, smiling again. “I had hoped all that had transpired would not have dulled the trust in fate you once held so dearly. You see, throughout history there had been men who had seen it in themselves to unite the world. Still, they all failed because they were not destined to succeed.”
“And you think I am destined to unite the world?”
Jacob paused, glancing up at the screen as the horde of Yellow Jackets began to rip through the weak blockade. He smiled and nodded his head, looking back over at Lukas as he pointed to the screen.
“If I thought otherwise, I would be there now—standing beside Sigmund as a cloud of death approached his shores. But I am no fool. I am a man who has seen tomorrow. I know what will come of this world. I know the fate that awaits humanity. Therefore, I will now and forever stand with you, my Soverei
gn.”
The howl of Adam’s bike hummed in his ears, competing with the ever-present drone of rushing wind and his silent whispers of resolve.
Almost there.
They had raced north for nearly thirty minutes—the yellow tones of a rising sun to their right, a rancorous army at their backs, and their one hope to see America live again swiftly approaching. Adam was a modern day Paul Revere, guiding his steel horse onward to warn the last remnant of a dying dream.
As they rushed over a short bridge, Adam noticed the glint of sunlight on steel in the distance. The glimmer quickly drew closer, now no more than a mile away, and Marc began to slow his bike. Adam followed suit and soon they were both riding at a fifteen mile an hour crawl half a mile south of the gate. Their pace was a jarring creep compared to the rocket blast that it had been moments before and Adam began to wonder what Marc was doing. Marc pulled up ahead of Adam and slowed to a complete halt fifty yards from the blockade. He paused before raising himself upright, his hands in the air. Adam tensed and did his best to mimic Marc as he quickly realized what he was doing. The surge of adrenaline and the days of little sleep had clouded his mind. He had thought they would ride up to Fort Harding and be welcomed in as valiant brothers in arms.
It hadn’t dawned on him that they would most likely be greeted with crosshairs centered on their chests.
A wall of steel shipping containers stretched across the two highway lanes, stopping near the tree line on the side of the road to prevent any vehicles from passing through. At least thirty armed men crouched atop the wall, their heads half concealed behind sand bags. Two holes tunneled through the long wall; gates of passage on each side of the highway, they were both blocked by four heavy-duty trucks.
Above the wall rose an American flag, waving lightly in the morning breeze.
“Turn the bikes off and keep your hands where we can see them,” a man cried out over a megaphone.
“We need to speak to whoever is in charge!” Adam shouted. A gun blast flashed against the morning sky from atop the wall, causing both Adam and Marc to flinch. The man with the speakerphone lowered a smoking pistol, raising the megaphone once more.
“I said bikes off and hands in the air…now!”
Adam reached down and turned his bike off, careful to keep his other hand as high as he could. When their motorcycles were off, Adam raised his hands back in the air and cleared his throat.
“You have to let me—”
“Now I suggest you two leave the bikes, turn around, and walk back to Little Rock,” the man atop the wall cut in. “We don’t want your kind here.”
“We’re not Patriarchs,” Adam said, stepping off the bike as he shouted. “We were prisoners. We escaped this morning and came here to tell you there is a massive army heading this way. You need to get ready!”
“Our scouts south of here reported you two twenty minutes ago just north of Little Rock,” the man replied. “They would have said something if there were others coming.”
“There are thousands coming!” Adam shouted. “There’s a column of fifty semi-trucks filled with mindless soldiers and they’re just the first wave!”
“Like I said,” the man on the wall began. “If there was an army coming our way, we’d know. I suggest you heed my warning and get the hell out of here before we take more than your bikes.”
Adam paused, glancing over at Marc. If it was true their scouts saw them on their bikes just north of the city, then surely they would have seen the line of trucks as well. The only explanations were that the Patriarchs had halted their attack or somehow hidden their advance. That, or something was concealing them. Something….
Adam’s eyes went wide as he realized what the Patriarchs were doing.
“Listen,” Adam began, keeping his hands raised as he stepped forward again. “I am Adam Reinhart. I’m the congressman that helped expose Lukas Chambers last year. I was in DC when this war began and they held DC by deploying a device that could scramble all external communications. If the Patriarchs have this same technology then they can use it to conceal their attack. So please, will you please let me speak to someone in charge?”
The man on the wall paused, the sounds of wind in the trees and birds in the air dominating the stillness. Adam stood there, hoping his words had swayed the man. Instead, he received the last response he was hoping for.
“Bullshit,” the man on the wall finally said.
“We’re almost out of time!” Adam shouted, taking another step closer. “If you let me in I can explain everything. I’ve got nothing but a bow, a machete, and my friend has a pistol. There’s nothing—”
“I don’t care if you tried to walk in here naked,” the man replied. “No one comes in without going through a ten day quarantine. Last thing we’re going to do is let you enter with the flu and wipe out half our base.”
“You won’t have a base in an hour if you don’t arm every man, woman, and child behind this wall!” Adam bellowed, his anger rising like a freshly-taped oil well.
The man paused, glancing to the side and speaking with someone. After a minute of standing there silently, glancing behind him as Adam awaited the arrival of his end, the megaphone cried out shrilly.
“Alright,” the man replied once the feedback had dissipated. “I have someone from command coming and you can speak with him when he arrives in twenty minutes.”
“We don’t have twenty minutes,” Adam argued, stepping forward again.
“You’re lucky you’re getting anything but a bullet to the heart,” the man replied. “Now shut that big mouth of yours, keep your hands where I can see them, and know that if you take one more step, the only thing my friend Tyler will be coming here to see is us scraping your dead ass off the road!”
Adam glanced behind him before muttering back a curse. He was so close to what he had sought for months and now helpless to protect it from the horde of fiends that were closing in. He wanted to shout and argue, but even he knew the only thing left to do was wait.
Sarah opened her eyes to the scent of roses as she awakened in her dimly lit room. She smiled and reached over to grab the bouquet that rested beside her, unfastening the attached note. She unfolded the tiny piece of parchment and threw her legs over the side of the bed.
A dozen flowers for the loveliest rose. Left early to walk the inner grounds. Will be back for breakfast.
~Eric
Sarah smiled, raising the flowers to her nose and breathing in their aromatic bliss. She looked down at the note and read it again, thinking of Eric as she stood from the bed. Sarah reached down and grabbed the folded jeans at her feet. As she gripped them, her tiny Bible tumbled out of the back pocket. Sarah reached down to pick up her Bible and an unexpected voice deep within her boomed, striking her like a sorrowful tempest.
Thirty-five comfortable years spent soaking up the Truth…only to abandon it all after four months of trial!
Sarah hesitated before clutching her Bible and rising again, her gaze fixated on the leather binding. The leather was worn and the pages were dotted red from Judah’s wound in Memphis. It had been tattered, battered, and frayed—a perfect symbol to embody her own brokenness.
Her eyes remained fixated on its cover and she began to think of days long ago, dating Adam as a young woman. They had dated for nearly a year and a half, never expressing their love in more than a kiss before the day they wed. Now, with the love of her life gone a few months earlier, she was already crawling out of the bed in which she had freely given herself to a man she barely knew. She shook her head, failing to stifle the shame that suffocated whatever joy she had felt.
Oh, Sarah, she thought, wiping a tear away as she glanced at her image in a bedside mirror. Look how far you’ve fallen.
She was almost taken aback by the truth in her inner voice, condemning her for what she had done. Sarah tried to argue against her sudden admission, but she couldn’t seem to defend her actions as she gazed at the book in her hand. She knew she had begun to fal
l in love with Eric, but it was all so very different from the relationship she had shared with Adam. One had been full of God while the other was not. She sighed as she set the note down on the bed. More fears and uncertainties screamed at her as Sarah began to open the only thing she knew would bring her comfort.
But Sarah paused, her thumb holding the leather flap half way between apathy and revelation.
Sarah wanted to drink up the Word of God, but she felt unclean and unready. She realized in that moment that her days of reading scripture for comfort were gone. To open her Bible now would be to expose herself to the hard truth it contained and she wasn’t yet sure she was courageous enough to face those demons.
Sarah retracted her hand quickly as though she had held it out near the fangs of a venomous viper. She took a deep breath and wiped a lone tear from her face, eyeing the Bible once more before donning her jeans and tucking the book in her back pocket. Sarah walked over to the door—entering the hallway quietly, hoping to forget her memories of depravity and the promises of truth until she was ready to face the confusion that boiled within.
Judah watched Alexandra sleep as he quietly sat in the corner of her room. He had drifted in and out of slumber all night, a shotgun draped across his lap as he quietly guarded the woman he treasured most. He had hoped his presence would have allowed her to experience deep sleep again and she hadn’t stirred for twelve hours. He smiled, rising to his feet and walking over to her bedside.
“You’re beautiful,” Judah whispered as he brushed her dark hair from her face, though she continued to sleep. He rose and walked over to the door, opening it while he thought about bringing her breakfast in bed. As he reached the bottom of the stairs, the aroma of coffee hit him. He walked into the kitchen and nodded to his mother. Sarah leaned up against the counter, sipping from a blue and white porcelain mug.
“Morning,” Sarah said as Judah walked over to the coffee pot and began to pour himself a cup. “Since when have you started drinking coffee?”
