by J. J. Holden
The couple trudged away without looking back. Choony was left to stand in the road, wondering what to do. After a moment, he turned around and headed back to camp to tell Jaz what he had learned.
* * *
Ethan’s system chirped with the distinctive high-pitched alarm that indicated an unauthorized access attempt. A new window popped up on his screen: “Authorize file deletion?” He moved to click “cancel,” but it was too late. The hourglass popped as files vanished. Another dialogue box popped up.
Fine. Asshole. From his USB drive, Ethan launched two programs—one to essentially “target lock” the intruder, and the other to backtrace. They ran on the toggle, not in his virtual machine that was being hacked. Hopefully, the split second the two connected to get the target lock wouldn’t be enough for the hacker to realize what was going on and hack the USB drive, too, but Ethan had a spare one just in case.
While the tracer ran its routine, he focused on saving his virtual machine. He turned off file sharing, but it wouldn’t do any good—whoever was in his system had admin-level access. He went into his customized control panel, into Admin Rights, and clicked “remove access” and then “all other users.” For three seconds, his system was blissfully without activity. Then more files popped up with a deletion query. These were system files, he saw. If he didn’t stop this attack, his whole VM might crash.
He couldn’t cut the connection physically yet, either, as that would neuter his tracer programs if cut before they installed somewhere else. Instead, he spent the next ten minutes frantically trying to counter the hacker’s moves. If this had been his main system, he might have had a chance, but this was his virtual machine. It wasn’t set up as well or as securely. At almost exactly the ten minute mark, his VM crashed. It was still running, but it had become a barren wasteland without applications or data. Shit.
A moment later, he got the alert that his tracking program had found a server along the hacker’s path. It installed itself there and continued to track. Ethan was frustrated that he, Dark Ryder, had been hacked, but he had kept his system alive long enough for his counter-attack to install elsewhere—probably only seconds before he crashed. With a sigh, Ethan manually turned off his internet connection and went through the process of safely destroying his virtual machine. The faux computer-on-a-computer closed with finality.
Now he had nothing to do but get a new virtual machine set up again, figure out how he had been hacked and how to close that barn door, and then wait for his bloodhound to sniff out the hacker’s actual location. That could take minutes or hours, if it succeeded at all. He was confident it would, though. He had coded that program himself, so it wasn’t yet out “in the wild” on the internet. With the way antivirus software worked, the chances of any system noticing it, much less stopping it, were remote.
He leaned back in his chair. Was this a real attack, or had it been only a warning? He had no doubt that Watcher One was his attacker, but had no idea why he’d attack like that. It was so obvious, so blatant. Anyone who could monitor Watcher One’s system remotely would have seen the brutal hack, as it lacked any finesse.
Or maybe that was the point? Did Watcher One know he was burning down a virtual machine, and not Ethan’s real system? In that case, it would have been both a real attack and a warning. Why Watcher One would warn him, he didn’t know. And what was the warning? Obviously, he’d have to mask his internet activities much better in the future, whether it was a warning or the real deal.
The worst part was that he couldn’t bore a hidden connection to Watcher One and sound him out about it—if it had been an earnest attack, that would alert him that Ethan was still up and running.
Dammit, Ethan hated this cloak-and-dagger bullshit.
* * *
Nestor careened through the streets of Uniontown driving a liberated Humvee as his gunner eliminated random U.S. soldiers who came into view. He had to get the fuck out of town and rejoin his troops, who were even now fleeing north. The town’s defenders were giving the Mountain invaders hell, but most of it had already fallen. It was only a matter of time before the rest fell, too, and he didn’t intend to be there when that happened.
“I feel for the defenders,” Ratbone said, sitting in the passenger seat with his rifle, scanning ahead for threats. “Brave.”
“Yup.” What else could Nestor say about it? The Uniontown defenders were indeed brave. Soon they’d be dead or captured, though—courage meant little against armored vehicles when all you had were rifles and a couple of stickybombs. Nestor’s people had taken out two Bradleys with those stickybombs by destroying the tracks. They weren’t dead units, but with the battle lines flowing quickly, immobile was just as good as dead. That had happened several minutes ago, and of the squad who had accompanied him, only Ratbone and his gunner remained.
Ratbone said, “So now what?”
Nestor glanced at Ratbone and saw his jaw was clenched tightly, muscles standing out. Nestor said, “We’ll head north, link up with our survivors and head toward our fallback area in Lawson Heights. Hopefully we have the gas to make it.”
Nestor saw he had half a tank. It should be enough, but he couldn’t be sure what the miles-per-gallon was on a Humvee, nor how many gallons it held. What’s half of “X gallons”? He didn’t know.
Ahead, three U.S. soldiers stepped into the road. They spotted him coming toward them and when he didn’t slow down, they opened fire. So did Nestor’s gunner. The Humvee’s ass end bounced high into the air as they drove over the corpse of a bullet-riddled soldier. Ha! The suspensions on these things really were amazing…
Ratbone nudged him as the vehicle shot down the road and out of town, leaving the carnage behind them. “Lost our gunner, boss.”
Nestor glanced back and saw that the gunner position wasn’t empty, but wouldn’t be in use again until they got a new, living gunner. The old one had a gaping hole where one eye had been. “At least he died quickly.”
Ratbone grunted in agreement, but neither spoke again for many miles. Nestor knew he wouldn’t be the last casualty of this war, and resigned himself to the task ahead.
* * *
1400 HOURS - ZERO DAY +376
Carl stood atop the hastily-erected rubble wall that blocked the bridge to Harrisburg. Liz Town had lined the road that led to the bridge with wooden Xs, and strung many of the Harrisburg dead to those as a warning to others who might seek to cross with less-than-golden motives. Lizzies were tough and pragmatic, but they had ensured everyone they strung up was already dead—Liz Towners were tough, not sadistic.
The Harrisburgers who continued to resist after the town fell were killed quickly. Those who didn’t resist were kept alive if they had skills or a good story about how they had been forced to abide the town’s raider government. Those who didn’t resist but weren’t useful, and had no compelling stories about their unfortunate circumstances, had been shoved across the bridge to survive or die on their own.
Yesterday, a horde of Free Republic refugees had arrived at the far side of the bridge. A battle between them and the Harrisburg exiles had taken place, but it was short and bloody.
Now Carl looked across the bridge at a sea of Free Republic citizens, people who were allies of the Confederation and in desperate need.
And there was nothing he could do for them.
Sunshine stood next to him. She and her Sewer Rats Band had volunteered to take over most of the Harrisburg defenses and looting, and Mary Ann approved. Carl didn’t really like it, but the other Bands were happy to put distance between themselves and the Sewer Rats. Sunshine seemed happy to put distance between herself and Carl. Win-win for everyone but Carl himself.
“You called for reinforcements,” Carl said curtly. “You seem to have them under control.” His tone was all business.
In a tone mirroring his down to the inflections, she replied, “Not if they come across all at once. They’d overrun us without Liz Town reinforcements. Thank you for sending them. You needn�
�t have come, yourself, though.”
“I needed to see for myself what is going on here. As the Speaker’s right hand, it’s my job whether I want to be here or not.”
She paused, then said, “I’d rather you weren’t here, Carl.” Her voice had lost its edge a bit, sounding less stiff and formal.
Carl glanced at her and saw that she gazed across the bridge, not at him. Part of him longed to just sweep her into a kiss. So much time wasted, and now that they could be together—as equals—she wanted nothing to do with him. “I still don’t understand why,” he replied.
“We’re not going over this again. It is what it is.” Her voice became hard again as she added, “So what will we do about these people?”
“They’re allies. We’ve sent all the food we could spare, without asking to barter. It’s all we can do. Their problems are their own.”
“When the Mountain and the Empire show up at our doorstep, it’ll be all of our problem. We should arm them, take them in, and make use of them.”
“You got enough guns and ammo? Your whole food allotment wouldn’t be enough to keep this many people fed.”
In the distance, two men began to walk across the bridge, heading toward them.
Sunshine replied, “No, but if we supplied them with a week’s worth and stripped the armory, we could send them to fight. We’d probably be able to feed whoever survived.”
Carl nodded. It wasn’t a bad idea, but it had one fatal flaw. “Until they turn those guns on us to get more food and to get away from the enemy barking at their heels.”
The figures were now halfway across the bridge, Carl saw. They didn’t look like anything special, just two guys. They didn’t carry rifles or other weapons that he could see.
Sunshine grunted. “Maybe. Or maybe they’d stand beside my Band and fight for the Confederation. The enemy is coming. Once Lawson Heights falls—which it will, eventually—there’s little between there and here to slow the enemy down. If we fall here, there’s nowhere any of us could run that’s safe.”
Carl shrugged. She was right about having nowhere else to run, but it didn’t matter. Liz Town would fight to the end. He changed the subject a bit. “People are dumb. They panic. This crowd will do something stupid, mark my words.”
The two figures approached the rubble wall just below Carl and Sunshine. Carl waited for them to say something. After a long, awkward span, the shorter of the two men said, “Greetings, Liz Town allies. We’ve been sent to make some requests.”
Carl let out a sigh. Of course they wanted more. Everyone did, these days. “We’ve given you all we can spare, and more.”
The short man replied, “I understand that, and we know things are rough all over, but—”
The taller man interrupted him. “Dammit, we need more food. We got kids here, hungry. You sit up there and I know you got food. You traded with us all the time, now you turn your backs?”
The shorter man shrugged. Apparently he had nothing to add.
Carl said, “I can’t give you what I don’t have, mister. I think the wagon loads of food we sent over were more than you’d get from anyone else, and you know it. We got hungry people here now, too.”
Sunshine nudged him with her elbow. Almost whispering, she said, “This will turn ugly if you don’t recruit them. Look at the tall one.”
Carl did so, and saw the man’s face was turning red. He held his hands in fists at his sides. Sunshine could be right…
“Listen,” said the shorter one, “we got guns, of course. Everyone alive does. We’d like to join you. Be a Band, or whatever you call your divisions.” He looked up at Carl. “We could be the Roadrunner Band. Better than watching us die out here. We could be useful.”
The taller man was silent and stared at Carl on the wall. No doubt he was waiting to hear the response before doing something stupid. Carl could just tell… that man was itching to do something stupid.
Carl considered his words carefully. “Mister, we’d love that. You’re our allies. But we don’t have supplies enough to go around. We could put out the word and gather them, perhaps, but it’ll take at least a week I’d guess. You want to be a Band? We can talk about that when supplies are here.”
“A week is a long time for kids to go hungry, mister.”
Carl nodded. “In the meantime, it would go a long way toward convincing our people that yours mean well if you sent your able bodied people back into the Free Republic to fight the Mountain.”
The taller man said, “See? I told you they’d want us dead before they gave us more.”
The shorter one nodded at his friend, then said up at the wall, “Mister, that’s good except for the part where all my people die fighting them while you sit on your wall. I don’t think I could convince my people you had their interests in mind.”
The taller man spat, then muttered something Carl couldn’t hear.
Sunshine whispered, “Carl, do it. Better more friends than more enemies.”
Carl glanced at the big cargo trailer that now protected the only break in the wall that blocked the bridge. The mob could climb over it pretty easily, given a little time, but the wall itself formed an arc from riverbank to riverbank, curving around the end of the bridge. He decided that he’d have to concentrate fire from the wall down onto these people if the mob approached.
To the men below, Carl said, “I do have their interests in mind. That’s why we sent you what we could. If you don’t appreciate that, feel free to send the food back. But although I care what happens to your people, I have my own people’s interests in mind even more. I’m sure you understand. We’ll do what we—”
“Bullshit,” shouted the taller man, “you’ll leave us out here to soak up the Mountain King’s bullets and slow them down. You think we’re stupid? Let us in, take us in. Do it or we’ll let ourselves in, mister.”
Sunshine spoke up unexpectedly. “That would be stupid, sir. That only puts you between two enemies—”
“Fuck you, lady. You don’t want to help us, fine. What happens next will be on your hands.” He spun on his heels and stormed back toward the far end of the bridge.
The shorter man looked at his associate go, then turned toward Carl and shrugged. “Sorry, mister, but he’s right. I don’t know how this will look tomorrow, but I do know we’ll both be worse off for it. I tried to get this done peacefully, but I’m sure I just lost control of this situation.”
He then turned, shoulders slumped, and trudged away toward his own people.
With a heavy heart, Carl watched him go. “Sorry, Sunshine. We just can’t let everyone starve to keep these strangers alive for a while. I thought you’d have learned that by now, seeing as how you survived the Dying Times.”
Sunshine let out a long, frustrated breath. “It looks like those times aren’t yet over, Carl. I’ll go spread the word, I guess. I need to get more Rats up on this wall, set them up for a battle.”
Carl nodded. “I hope it doesn’t come to that, but once they want to take what we won’t give, they stop being our friends. Let’s get ready for the suck. It’s coming soon…”
- 11 -
1500 HOURS - ZERO DAY +376
ETHAN WENT THROUGH the data he had gathered, scrolling slowly down the screen to get an overall sense, the Big Picture. Over the past two days, he had waited patiently while his bloodhound program, which was really a worm—a program that installed itself at each waypoint—sifted piles of log file data as it slowly spread from node to node.
It would usually have taken months to track Watcher One, because there would have been thousands or even millions of other servers online. Since the EMPs, very few remained, and those weren’t monitored as well as they once had been. Some of his worms had been discovered and removed, but his program just went back in and kept reinstalling them when it could. A few were tough and well defended, but proliferation had gone by quickly and most of the servers left online with outside access had been infected. He had enough nodes to get the job d
one.
Ethan not only had Watcher One’s presumed location now, he had found a number of new servers he wasn’t aware of before. Some were only online at specific times each day. He had all that data, now.
And Watcher One really was in Virginia, just as he had guessed from their earliest post-EMP contacts. It showed up as being some dink town outside of Fredericksburg, deep in ’vader territory under General Yi.
Ethan had been tempted to try to break in and burn down Watcher One’s systems, but he resisted the urge. It was better, he decided, to know where his enemy was and to have that knowledge as a hidden Ace up his sleeve.
Grinning like a fool, Ethan closed one laptop and went to the other, next to his HAM radio. It was that time of day when he had to prepare for communications from other survivor groups around the country. Work before pleasure. He had all the time in the world to gloat later.
* * *
Cassy stood next to Dean Jepson looking at a battlecar’s toasted wreckage. “So, how long do you figure it’ll take?”
Dean spat into the dirt. “Bah. Y’all want miracles. I ain’t an engineer, you know, I’m just good with my hands. All yer children ought to be learning this stuff. I ain’t gonna be around forever, you know.”
Dean was a grumpy old man, but a wiz with his hands. And the kids loved him, even if he did mostly yell at them to stay out of his way. In between yelling, he snuck them candy and other treats that were hard to come by. They must have cost him a fortune in trade, so everyone politely pretended not to notice, and they tolerated his gruff-old-man routine.
“True. You really are old, Dean,” Cassy said, trying hard not to grin.
“That’s what I said, ain’t it? You want to hear about them cars or not?”
