by AJ Rose
* * *
SERGEANT VANESSA “NESS” MIDDLER stood stoic, staring off into the distance at the beginnings of civilization on the outskirts of Denver, approximately fifteen miles away, in the mostly quiet afternoon. She missed nothing, from the veins of clogged highways that no longer shivered with the movement of cars, to the overall dead atmosphere one would not expect of an area with roughly three million people. To her, it looked like a beast, fat and temperamental and in need of taming.
Gathering herself to be one of its tamers, she turned on a booted heel and hit the stairwell of the air traffic control tower of Denver International Airport, which had been commandeered by the Colorado Army National Guard within thirty-six hours of the power grid failure. Around her, civil engineers were busy constructing the workings of a long-term on-site base for Ness and her comrades, flown in the day before from California and other western states in response to the national emergency. It was controlled chaos, which she ignored as she hoofed it across one of the runways to the hangar milling with soldiers and officers. Nearby Buckley Air Force Base served as HQ and housing for command, but they hadn’t had the room to support all the incoming.
Mustering with the rest of her platoon, Ness took her place in the ranks for their first briefing since arriving in Denver. Lieutenant Daniel O’Neil—who was not to be called Lieutenant Dan if a soldier wanted to see the dawn of the next morning—stood at the front, a map of the city pinned to a corkboard beside him with suburbs sectioned off.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, his voice echoing oddly in the cavernous building. There were only a few private planes of the single-engine variety stored here, and the noise bouncing off the metal walls wasn’t ideal. “As you are well aware, more than half the United States has suffered a devastating blow to the power grid from an unprecedented terrorist attack. We have been tasked with the partial evacuation of the citizens of the city of Denver and surrounding suburbs in order to concentrate the population for purposes of supply distribution, medical intervention, and protection. The outage in Denver is not complete, with the western suburbs having electricity and the north and eastern areas dark. Southern parts of the city are sporadic, and crews are working to stabilize their infrastructure.
“President Galloway and the governors of the affected states have declared martial law, and we are here to carry out those orders.” He turned and used his capped pen to point to the areas on the map relevant to their platoon’s assignment, rattling off Teams Charlie, Delta, and Echo’s grids before continuing. “Team leaders have been furnished with more detailed maps of their assigned grid. Your orders are to conduct a block-by-block search for civilians in their homes, in public spaces where they may have taken up with neighbors, family, or friends for purposes of self-protection, or wherever they may have built themselves defensible positions in the sixty-eight hours since the crisis began. They will be scared, possibly in need of water, and while the number of injured goes down the farther away from Washington, D.C. we get, there’s still a chance of wounded needing immediate transport. Medical response teams will be shadowing you as you search, and they are responsible for the sick and injured and all related decisions. Battlefield triage is in place until we get more supplies from the West, so medic teams, conserve your resources where you can. The rest of you, that includes ammo.” He looked pointedly at the sixty or so men and women in precise formation before him. “Remember, these are American citizens, and we are not on foreign soil. Do not fire your weapon unless first fired upon. Each team will have a mirror team from Buckley Air Force Base sweeping your grid with you, so we know more of what to expect from certain areas of the city. Because of the incomplete outage, we’re working from the inside out, trying to get the biggest areas in the black evacuated first. Refugees are mostly being sent to the Pepsi Center in downtown Denver. Smaller shelters will be noted on your map. Local police are handling civilian protection at the Pepsi Center until we can implement a more permanent solution for housing. They will not be on the streets, so any and all civilian interaction will be through us. Any questions?”
The silence indicated two things to Middler. One, they were all still reeling from the news that the country they’d been sworn to protect from every threat had suffered such a devastating attack, and two, they were ready to get down to business. The information was clear, as was their mission: get in, get the people out before chaos overtook the population, and keep everyone safe.
Battlefield triage, Ness thought, her stomach turning over. That was always the part she was grateful didn’t fall under her orders in disaster deployments such as this or the earthquake in Haiti in 2010: having to decide on the spot if someone could be helped or not. The hard choice had to be made and never second-guessed, and she was thankful someone else did it.
Lieutenant O’Neil said, “Squad leaders, go over the target areas with your teams and stick to the timelines outlined on your maps. Sweeps begin at oh-six-hundred, so tonight, rest up, get some hot chow, and be ready. We are the first eyes on the ground of the aftermath, so anything could happen. Dismissed.”
They waited until the lieutenant took his leave, and then fell out.
“Sarge,” Corporal Chris West called to Ness as the large formation broke into smaller groups in the hangar, low murmurs of the other squads doing better against the reverberation of sound. Behind him, Ness’s Team Echo, nicknamed Shockwave, followed. Corporals Roger Brown, Donovan “Donnie” Scanlon, and Matt Burgess circled her with West once they reached a spot far enough away so as not to be distracted by Charlie and Delta.
Ness planned to brief them and check her equipment first thing, then grab a bite of what could be her last warm meal for a couple days. They’d return to base each night, once the sun had set, relief provided by night sweep teams, according to the instructions she’d already received with her map. She was prepared for any contingency, however. It had served them well in the past.
“Echo’s responsibility is a wedge from downtown, moving east,” she said, pulling from her waistband the map she’d been given, already in its cloth sleeve with the plastic overlay for protection from the elements and multiple handlings. Pointing out their grid, they went over her plan for their section, the timeline they were meant to adhere to in order to get the civilians to safety in as expeditious a manner as possible, and covered what equipment she thought they’d need.
Ness was tall for a woman, at five foot eight, but compared to her team, she was the shortest. She was also the fiercest, and one look at her usually precluded mistaken assumptions about her capabilities. Her arms, sporting a couple tattoos, were easily as muscular as some of the more wiry men in the platoon, and her shoulders were broad. She was solid, not an ounce of fat on her, but nowhere near as dainty as one would expect a woman with her body fat percentage to be. Her shoulder-length brown hair was always tied back in a ponytail, and her intense green eyes were a shade close to sea foam, an unusual color that stood out in her tanned face, giving her an eerie, almost ghostlike stare. She unnerved people but not her boys. They’d been through too much shit in their tour in Afghanistan to be anything but brothers and sisters in arms.
“West,” she said, indicating the man to her left. “We’re sending you and Scanlon on point, with the rest of us at your six, to enter residences. Closer to downtown, there will be high-rise offices and apartment buildings. Even if it means finishing those buildings faster, we do not split up. We’re to gather as many people as we can reasonably protect from each area, and rendezvous with a transport team, who will take them to designated shelters around the city. Our main shelter is the Pepsi Center, but we aren’t the only team funneling there, so each transport drop, we need to check with the truck teams to make sure we’re not at capacity. Once we reach capacity, we’ll be able to tell our refugees where exactly they’re being taken as we conduct the sweeps. Sick and injured go with the medical response teams. Any questions?”
“What sort of weaponry are we facing here, do we kn
ow?” Scanlon asked. He was a brute of a man, six four if he was a foot, and bulky, though quick. His black hair and brown eyes gave him a brooding air. He and West were their stealth members, though in comparison, West was more the type one would think of as sneaky. He was wiry, only a couple inches taller than Ness, but he moved with the slick grace of a wildcat and had the air of a man who knew it.
“We’re on the edge of a large wilderness area, so any number of small arms and hunting rifles are possible,” Ness answered. “These people are more used to living off the land than in other places. The prevalence of private gun ownership is larger here than it would be in, say, Pennsylvania. Remember what L.T. said. These are Americans. Refugees. Chances of hostilities are lower than our last deployment, and we’re more likely to run into violence stemming from fear rather than hatred.” She paused. “That does not mean this will be a walk in the park, boys. Intel tells us there’s been an uptick in gang violence and territory wars all over the country. The local law enforcement has been spread too thin, trying to police three million people who are slowly coming to realize the danger they’re in. Buckley Law Enforcement is shoring up the local police. In a riot situation, there are no reinforcements from other cities, because those other cities are facing the same panic. The Guard has been responding with local units, and we are here to supplement those units and evac civilians per our orders. Whatever we have to do to get them out and to the refugee camps. Got it?”
“Yes, Sergeant,” they answered in unison.
She looked at Burgess, the most reserved man on the team. “We’re meeting our mirror team from Buckley at oh-five-thirty, so we need to be ready for whatever local intel they can provide. Today, choppers did a couple flyovers to scout areas of heavy rioting, but there’s nothing. Because Denver is partially dark, the locals seem to be handling it better compared to the news from other cities. Doesn’t mean our zone is exempt, though, so be watchful.” Burgess nodded in acknowledgement, his dark eyes serious in the rich depths of his black face. He was one of the smartest men she’d ever known, and his calm, unflappable presence reassured her and made him a damn good soldier at her back when the shit hit the fan. She’d jump on a grenade for her entire crew, and they’d do the same for her, but there was something more to Burgess’s calm that soothed the entire team’s nerves, and she was grateful for it.
“Burgess has comm on this one, and we all have our assignments, so let’s get to the mess for a full plate of food and ready our equipment for roll out at oh-five-hundred. Full packs on this, guys. I don’t want any surprises.”
They nodded, and she wrapped it up then, shoving the map back in the waistband of her pants. They moved off as one toward their racks, since they bunked in the same large tent with two other teams.
“Too bad the power’s out, ain’t it, Chris?” Scanlon asked, nudging West with his elbow. “Never been to Denver. Would have been fun for us to hit some clubs. I’ve heard Colorado is one of the healthiest, most active states in the country.”
“Not that that helps you any, Donnie.” West replied. “The girls here could probably kick your ass with their mountain-climbing pinky fingers. Classier.”
Donnie grinned. “Hey, everyone looks the same naked, right? Class don’t matter so much when you take away all the ’spensive clothes.”
“Donnie, if everyone looks the same to you without their clothes on, you’re not picking the right people,” Roger Brown chimed in. He was sort of the team mediator when Chris and Donnie butted heads. They may have been best friends, brothers, but they were very similar and often hot-tempered.
Still laughing, Donnie pointed at Roger. “That’s not what that set of twins Chris and I picked up on leave three weeks ago thought. Those girls left walking funny and smiling.”
“Hallelujah,” Chris agreed, fist-bumping Donnie.
“I suppose you’ll be going to the med tent for more penicillin in the next few days?” Burgess asked, brow raised. “I’d like to remind you when the fix-it shots run out, that’s it. Nationwide shortage on drugs, given most of the manufacturers are dark.”
Ness shook her head as they reached their racks, their banter forgotten as they set to checking their gear.
If I didn’t love them all so much, I’d probably have killed them by now, she thought with a chuckle before her focus trained on the mission they faced.
* * *
* * *
“Clear!” Roger Brown called as they reached the final apartment in a building in downtown Denver.
“Okay, move out,” Ness said, happy to be leaving the high-rise with too many places to hide and too much opportunity for them to get split up. It wasn’t their last skyscraper by a long shot, but the next block held a series of street-level shops with living quarters above them. Not as many units per building, and not as many blind spots.
The medical and transport trucks idled at the curb, and the mirror sweep team from Buckley AFB led a family of three from the building across the street, the mother carrying a child of no more than four while the father shouldered two large duffel bags. They looked haggard but relieved as they were loaded on the truck ferrying people to the Pepsi Center. The arena had been commandeered as a refugee shelter, and most everyone Ness’s team had evacuated in the ten hours since they’d begun working their grid seemed relieved to know where they were being taken.
The guns they carried seemed to reassure the refugees as well as scare them into cooperation. The children were fascinated and asked a lot of questions, while the adults were mostly just wary.
The leader of the Buckley team had a brief conference with the driver of the transport truck, and the heavy rumble of the diesel engine roared as the truck moved off with its precious cargo. Another truck, idling farther down the road, moved up to take its place. They’d learned early on it took less time if the transports followed them along the street so they had less distance to walk the refugees. Field medical units comprised of both army and civilian doctors and medics remained nearby to handle any injured or sick people for transport to hospitals or temporary centers for the less critical. Truck teams patrolled on foot to ensure safety while the sweep teams walked refugees out of the buildings and got them on-board. In some of the apartment buildings, they’d managed to evacuate whole floors at a time, the residents cooperative if a little skittish in the face of uniformed soldiers knocking on their doors and informing them they couldn’t stay in their homes. So far, neither Echo nor the other street team had faced any resistance.
The hardest part was attempting to answer people’s questions without explaining how extensive the power outage was. No juice to pop on the Internet had cut off most people’s access to the outside world, and the majority of them hadn’t a clue their city wasn’t the only one affected. Ness and her men had taken to reciting the same information over and over.
“The outage is widespread in the city of Denver, so we are moving people as a precaution to a large temporary facility to make access to food and water and medical personnel easier. Power may not be restored as quickly as we’d like, so please come with us and when the crisis is over, you’ll be permitted to return to your homes.”
It was true, and as long as they didn’t say the crisis wouldn’t be over for many months if not years, most everyone let the matter go and followed instructions. The promise of bottles of water in the trucks was decent incentive, too. People’s taps were still running, but many of them knew not to drink it after a while. Water treatment plants had ground to a halt.
On the next block, the first sign of trouble was the shattered glass of a jewelry storefront, the cases within smashed to smithereens and the lined tiers inside them void of any valuables.
“Chris,” Ness said in a low voice as they approached the door leading to the stairs, which climbed into the living area of the building. “Keep an eye out,” she said, her eyes conveying her suspicions more than anything else.
West acknowledged, and while he and Scanlon climbed the stairs, Ness and Roge
r kept their weapons trained on the street, covering their six. Once the upper landing was secure, Chris and Donnie waited for Ness, Roger, and Matt to join them, firearms pointed at the floor. Sweat trickled down Ness’s back, sticking the cotton of her drab green shirt to her skin. In the dim hallway, she could see this was the only floor above the shops, unless the units in them had stairs to upper floors. There were four apartments, and they moved to the first two and knocked. No one answered.
They tried the other two in the hopes that those who answered their doors rather than having a sweep team kick in would be more cooperative, and they’d rather evac them before barging in on everyone else. But it looked like for this building, either no one was home, or they were going to have to forcibly remove the residents.
Roger and Ness’s eyes met, and she tipped her chin to indicate forcible entry was his responsibility. Using hand motions, she ordered Chris in ahead of her and Matt behind, leaving Donnie to guard the door with Roger in case anyone emerged from the other apartments at the noise.
The slam of the door into the wall behind it reverberated through the hall, and the team moved quickly, guns at the ready as they covered the unit, searching for residents. After a few minutes, it was clear the apartment had been abandoned, picked clean of anything useful, only furniture left behind. Had the tenants already evacuated only for the vandals to come along later like vultures, scavenging for valuables, or had they taken everything with them? Ness wondered. It wasn’t pertinent, but the empty feel of the place gave her the creeps.
The next unit had much the same story, as did the third, but shouts from Roger and Donnie brought Ness, Chris, and Matt before they could clear it.
“Drop your weapons!” Donnie roared over the screams of children and shouts of three men guarding the open door to the fourth apartment, all with pistols aimed at the soldiers.
