by P. T. Hylton
“Yes, sir.” Now that there was a real crisis, she felt everything else slipping away. It was almost a relief to have a straightforward, save-the-city mission. No politics needs. Yet something bothered her about all this and she couldn’t resist the urge to bring it up. “Sir, how did the water-collection system and the backup system go down at the same time?”
The skin around Fleming’s eyes creased as his face scrunched up in annoyance. “I think you know the answer to that, Captain Goddard.”
“Because you dismantled the backup and used the parts for Resettlement.” She wasn’t going to let him off the hook, not without at least saying the words.
“Yes,” Fleming admitted. “I shouldn’t have done that. Lesson learned. Thankfully, this problem will be resolved within twenty-four hours, assuming you and your team do your jobs.”
“We’ll do our jobs, sir. If the parts are there, we’ll get them.”
“Good. Remember, this doesn’t go beyond this room. I don’t even want you briefing the GMT on it until you’re in the air. I’m counting on you two to help us avoid a citywide panic.”
After he’d dismissed them and they were headed out of the Hub, CB said, “Man, as much as that guy likes to shout about his every success, he also likes to reduce every one of his mistakes to a whisper.”
Alex couldn’t disagree.
She said goodbye to CB and headed back to her quarters. She then sent a message to the team telling them to report to the hangar at oh four hundred hours. She didn’t include any more details and they knew better than to ask. She lay down to attempt a few hours of shuteye, and unlike most nights, she drifted right to sleep.
Five hours later, she was in the hangar, prepped and ready for the mission. The team arrived, confused and sleepy-eyed, but they geared up and boarded the away ship.
“No briefing, Captain?” Chuck asked.
“Nope.” Alex didn’t elaborate. Knowing when to shut up was one of CB’s best tricks and one she was trying to learn.
Just as she was walking over to grab her pack, she saw Firefly approaching. He waved hello and trotted over.
“You’re here early,” she said.
“Yeah. I hear we have to handle Fort Sterns on our own today. Fleming told me.”
Alex frowned. Apparently, she and CB had to keep their secrets, but it was fine for Fleming to blab to his buddies. “Yeah. You’ll have to check the buildings yourself.”
“Ha. I’m not worried.” He stood there awkwardly for a moment, just looking at her. He looked even more haggard than usual. His hair looked like a comb hadn’t touched it yet that day, and a razor hadn’t found its way to his stubble in a week.
“I should go,” she said. “Urgent mission and all that.”
“Stay safe out there.”
“You too.” After a moment, she pointed at the table. “That’s my bag.”
He looked back, apparently realizing he was blocking it. “Oh sorry! Here.”
He handed her the bag, and she took it. “Good luck, Alex.”
She grinned. “Luck? Luck is for card players. I’m with the GMT.”
With that, she turned on her heel and marched to the away ship.
CB entered the Hub an hour after dawn. This time, he wasn’t heading to Fleming’s office, but to the badge headquarters. He, Fleming, and Colonel Kurtz would be addressing a select group of badges to prepare them for the possibility of rioting if news of the water-collection malfunction got out.
Fleming and Kurtz were both there when CB arrived.
The councilman smiled when he saw CB. “Ah, here’s the Colonel. We can get started.”
“I’m not late, am I?” CB asked, a bit annoyed at the implication.
“Not at all,” Fleming said. “Prompt as ever. Must be that military training.”
CB exchanged an annoyed glance with Kurtz. The colonel over the badges looked nervous this morning. Maybe he suspected his badges wouldn’t take the news that they might soon be facing a riot very well.
“We’ll be meeting with them in the holding area,” Kurtz said. “Aside from General Craig, that area’s empty now. We can say it’s a training exercise if anyone asks.”
“Excellent,” Fleming said. “Let’s get to it.”
Fleming led the way down a long corridor that led through the administrative section and to the portion of the building that served as the jail. Kurtz held the door for them as they entered the corridor, ushering CB through in front of him.
As they walked, CB considered whether he might be able to get some time alone with Kurtz after this briefing. The previous night’s dinner had convinced him they needed to be ready to move on Fleming. They might not have much warning. CB had to be sure Kurtz and his badges would be ready when the time came. They should probably work out some sort of signal so they could quickly—
“Colonel Brickman,” Fleming said, interrupting the thought, “do you remember the last time we were down here together?”
That surprised CB. Fleming wasn’t usually one to bring up the past. Not unless he was talking about his victories, anyway.
“I do,” CB said, his voice grim. “You had me thrown in a jail cell.”
“Yes. That’s right. Remember our conversation that day? The deal we made?”
CB felt a strange tingling sensation on the back of his neck. Something wasn’t right here.
“I agreed to let you go to the surface to rescue your team,” Fleming said. “In return, you agreed to help make Resettlement happen.”
CB glanced ahead down the hallway. It was empty. His pulse was racing now. Fleming was about to do something, reveal something…but what?
Fleming continued, “I held up my end of the agreement, and because of that you were able to bring most of your team home. So why is it you’ve decided to betray me rather than follow through on your end?”
They had reached the end of the corridor and the threshold to the jail area. CB was almost panicking now, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Then he saw it.
At the entry to the jail area, there was a mirror mounted near the ceiling, angled down at a forty-five-degree angle. Presumably it was to give badges a full view of the area. CB looked into it now, and what he saw was so unexpected, he almost shouted in surprise.
Colonel Kurtz was pointing a gun at the back of CB’s head.
CB lunged to his right just as Kurtz fired. The bullet missed by inches and ricocheted off the metal wall up ahead. Fleming looked back at them and gasped. Then he ducked out of the hallway.
CB was already in motion. Spinning, he grabbed Kurtz’s wrist hard, then ducked down and pulled, flipping Kurtz through the air over his back. The badge colonel slammed into the ground and the wind rushed out of him.
Reaching down, CB ripped the gun out of the man’s hand and put it to Kurtz’s temple. “What the hell’s going on?! I trusted you, you son of a bitch!”
Kurtz gasped, trying to catch his breath.
Before he could, two badges appeared, coming through the door Fleming had exited, guns drawn.
CB dove toward the ground, but this time he wasn’t fast enough. The taller of the two guards fired, and the bullet clipped CB’s arm.
Adrenaline surged in him and he gathered himself. He only had a moment, he knew. If he didn’t act quickly, he’d either be dead or in a jail cell very shortly.
With a cry of pain, he leapt to his feet and dove across the hall, opening the door to an office and stumbling inside. He slammed the door shut behind him and turned the lock.
Knowing the lock wouldn’t keep them out long, he looked frantically around the room. There wasn’t much to help him. A desk. A cabinet. A window. But they were on the fifth floor of a six-story building, so jumping didn’t seem feasible.
Wait. This was a corner office. And that meant…
As soon as the thought hit him, he sprang back into action. He grabbed the cabinet with his good arm and pulled with all his might, sending it crashing to the floor in front of
the door. Maybe that would buy him a few more precious seconds.
Then he raised the gun and fired at the window, shattering the glass. A moment later, he was through it and on the ladder that served as a fire escape.
Up or down? He needed to decide fast. Getting to the ground would be the path of least resistance, and it would give him more mobility. But they’d expect him to go that way. If he could get to the roof, he could jump from building to building the way he had when he was a kid. All while they were searching the streets below.
That settled it. He was going up.
He reached the roof and hauled himself onto it just as he heard a ruckus in the office below. Sounded like they’d gotten past the lock and the cabinet.
“He shot out the window! Get some badges onto the street!”
CB lay flat on his back, breathing hard. His arm throbbed where the bullet had clipped him, but the bleeding was more troubling than the pain. The arm was already slick with blood all the way down his hand. Taking off his shirt, he quickly tired it around the wound, hoping to stop the bleeding.
He needed to get up, get moving. He need to be as far away from here as possible as quickly as possible.
He was just starting to rise when he heard Fleming’s familiar voice coming through the window below.
“What the hell, Kurtz! How do you miss from three feet away?”
“I didn’t expect him to tense up like that, sir. If you’d have told me you were going to taunt him, maybe I would have—”
“Don’t you dare turn this back on me, Kurtz. This is an important day. A very important day. And now, on top of everything else, I have the colonel of the GMT running loose bleeding all over our streets.”
“He won’t get far, sir. My men are on it.” Kurtz hesitated a moment. “What are you going to do about the GMT, sir? When Alex finds out what happened, she’s going to come after you.”
CB could almost hear the smile coming back into Fleming’s voice when he answered.
“Don’t worry about the GMT, Kurtz. They’re already as good as dead.”
26
Alex was still rubbing the sleep from her eyes when Owl launched into her facts.
“We are nearly to the ancient city of Denver. Also known as the Mile-High City, Queen of the Plains, Wall Street of the West, Cow Town, Broncoville, and Queen City of the West. I hope you like it.”
Patrick touched his radio. “Are you kidding me with those facts, Owl? That was literally just a list of nicknames.”
“I had no time to research, so I had to use the almanac on my tablet. Cut me some slack.”
Patrick shook his head in disgust. “I’m just saying, we’ve been exclusively going to Fort Sterns for the last three weeks or so. I was craving some fresh facts about a new location.”
“By the way, shouldn’t New Haven be the Mile-High City?” Chuck asked.
“Ah, that one I can answer,” Owl replied. “New Haven’s cruising altitude is twenty-seven thousand feet, which would make us the Five-Mile-High City.”
Alex kept her eyes on the window as they approached Denver. Visiting old cities always made her feel nostalgic for a time she’d never seen, a time when humans had walked the surface.
Places like the Colombian rainforest and Fort Sterns seemed so alien, like areas humans had once visited, leaving behind only some old buildings and tools when they’d gone. She could feel the mark of humanity upon them, but they didn’t feel human.
Cities were different. Even after all these years, even though nature had reclaimed whole swaths, swallowing them in seas of greens and browns; even though the cars and buildings were so deteriorated, it was sometimes difficult to imagine what they’d looked like back when they were new. Even with all that, Alex could always feel the deep humanity of the place. The cities wore it like a fingerprint cast in concrete. It was like an apartment whose residents had stepped out for the evening.
Being in cities made the pre-infestation past feel real. These had been human beings no different from her or the people on New Haven. They’d had families. Jobs. They worried about mundane, day-to-day stuff the same way she did. And most of them had died horrible deaths. Many of them were still out there experiencing the hellish half-life of a starved Feral.
Seeing all this only built up her resolve. She wouldn’t let such a thing happen to her people again. When the time for Resettlement did come, they’d do it right.
Owl set the away ship down in an open lot next to a dilapidated three-story building and the team got out. Chuck and Owl started preparing the rover while the rest of the team disembarked.
The water-treatment facility was in what had once been an industrial area, so there were a lot of open spaces that had once been parking lots. Due to the dry climate, the city was not as overgrown as most Alex had encountered.
They made their way to the front entrance of the building and discovered it was locked.
“You want to find another way inside?” Ed asked, raising his gun. “Or should I use my key?”
Alex considered that. “Time’s of the essence. Let’s get this over with as quickly as possible and then get back to New Haven. Use your key.”
“Excellent,” Ed said with a grin. He fired, blowing the door open.
Through the doorway, they saw the dim interior. This place had windows, but not many.
“Looks about as bright and cheery as our usual targets,” Wesley remarked. “Just once could we go on a mission to a sunny rooftop or something?”
Alex cracked a smile. “Where’s the fun in that? You want sun, you should have stayed airborne.”
They were just about to step through the doorway when Owl spoke in their headsets, her voice tense.
“Captain, we’ve got a problem. The batteries are missing from the rover.”
Two minutes later, the team was back in the cargo hold of the ship. Alex frowned as she stared at the rover. “I don’t understand. How could this happen?”
Owl shook her head. “Me neither. Brian’s team has a checklist they run through before every mission. They should have made sure that the batteries were fully charged. If they’d done their jobs, they’d have noticed the batteries were completely missing.”
“Maybe they were going to replace them and forgot to install the new ones,” Chuck guessed.
Something clicked in Alex’s brain. “No. That’s not it.”
Time seemed to slow as everything came into focus. Fleming hadn’t told Jessica about the water-collection problem. Last night, Alex had wondered why he’d called the GMT before Jessica, but she hadn’t given the question the consideration it deserved. Maybe it had been her tired mind or maybe Fleming had just done that good a job of selling it.
She realized now what she should have realized then: there was only one reasonable explanation for why Fleming had called the GMT before the Director of Engineering.
“There’s nothing wrong with the water-collection system,” she said softly.
“Wait, what?” Wesley asked, confusion clear on his face.
Alex looked at Owl. “We need to radio New Haven and tell CB it’s time for us to make our move. Fleming is sure as hell making his.”
“Is someone going to tell us lowly peons what’s going on here?” Patrick asked.
“Hang tight,” she said as she followed Owl to the cockpit. “I’ll explain soon.”
Owl slid into the pilot’s seat and punched the radio to turn it on. Nothing happened.
“You gotta be kidding me,” she muttered as she pulled the panel off the front of it. “Circuits burned out.”
“Seems an odd coincidence,” Alex said.
Owl hit another button on the control panel. Then she hit it again. And again.
“Alex, we’re in real trouble,” she said, her voice quivering.
“Why?”
“Because that button is supposed to start the ship.”
“So we’re stuck?” Ed asked. “On the surface? With no way off?”
“That’s ab
out the size of it,” Alex said. Looking at her team gathered, the shock on their faces, she had to fight the urge to be sick. It was her fault they were here. If she hadn’t been outmaneuvered by Fleming, if she hadn’t been goaded into hurrying the team out to a mission without doing her due diligence, this wouldn’t have happened.
And now they were trapped. In the old state of Colorado.
“Sarah must have been the one to do the pre-flight checks,” Owl said. “Damn it all, why didn’t we think of that? We should have seen it coming.”
“With this many enemies, it’s hard to keep an eye on all them,” Wesley said.
“Here’s what I don’t understand,” Chuck said. “If Fleming wants us dead, why not just rig the ship so it would crash? Or, hell, blow it up like he did with the council?”
“Fleming’s an asshole, but he’s an asshole who’s strapped for resources,” Alex explained. “He wouldn’t want to lose the ship.”
“Holy shit,” Patrick muttered. “So he’s going to wait for us to die and then come get the ship? That’s cold.”
“That he is. I underestimated just how cold. The good news is he underestimated us, too. We’re not done yet, and we’re not going to die tonight.”
The team looked at her, surprised.
“What, did you think we were going to give up? The way I see it, we have two possible outs. One, we wait here and try to survive the night. Maybe hide inside the ship. Then tomorrow when Fleming’s people come to retrieve it, we put the hurt on them and steal their ride back to New Haven.”
“Huh,” Wesley said. “That would mean surviving the night and hoping the Ferals can’t find a way into the ship.”
“And that Fleming will send the crew down tomorrow,” Chuck added. “Could be he’ll wait a few days to make sure we’re dead.”
“That’s exactly why I don’t like that option,” Alex agreed. “As for the other option… Owl, how far are we from Agartha?”
Owl raised an eyebrow. “Too far to walk, that’s for sure.” She pulled out her tablet and began tapping at the screen. “Looks like about eighty miles.”
“And how fast can the rover move when it’s fully functional?”
