Dale looked upon these people of commerce, creatures of money and schemes.
Well, he’d show them a scheme they had never imagined.
**
Cutter peered down at his watch. It was eleven fifteen. He opened the small bag and removed the little transmitter. It wasn’t much to look at. Just a palm-sized box with a single button and two indicator lights: a red one to show power, and a green to let you know that the signal was operating. Deftly, he peeled the fresh battery clear of its plastic seal and inserted it. For a second, he closed his eyes, not wanting to know if it was operating. Then he looked.
The red indicator was on.
He sighed, not exactly sure if it was out of relief or resignation.
Risking a quick look, Ron peeked to see what was going on across the way. He could see people moving down the hallway on that floor, but no one that he recognized. They all seemed to be strangers and the newly arrived soldiers. He ducked back below the wall and the desk and resigned himself to forty-five more minutes of silent waiting.
**
At eleven fifty-eight, the Colonel was giving some of his new wards a tour of the control room. Most of them, he was not surprised to see, had opted to tour their quarters and the kitchens and pantries set up to provide them with comforts. They would not be, he knew, disappointed.
“This is where we were able to control the GPS that keeps us all connected and centered. And this is how we have been able to compile all of the documents that have secured us all so solidly and legally and rightfully to our rightful places.” Dale smiled and one would actually have thought he believed what he was saying.
“You did an admirable job of it,” Ronald told him. “We couldn’t have done it without you, and we can never quite express our gratitude for all that you have done.” He bowed then. And at that signal three of the very well-armed and very well trained soldiers stepped forward and seized Lord Dale.
The Colonel pretended to be surprised. “What’s this?” he asked.
“We can’t have two chiefs,” the Ronald informed him. “Take him away,” he ordered, dismissing them. As they pulled the Colonel out of the room, the power suddenly went down. Without so much as a flicker, the lights failed and the screens went blank and the ventilation system ceased to breathe warm, dry, comfortable air on them. It was eleven fifty-nine.
“What’s going on?” Ronald was addressing a soldier who was standing in front of one of the computer terminals.
The soldier had a small radio to his ear. “It’s the airport,” he said. His face painted in horror. “There’s been an explosion. The nuclear generator. It’s been breached!”
“Jesus,” someone said.
“Can we get the power back up? What about the diesel generators?”
The Ronald turned toward the Colonel who silhouetted in the doorway, sunlight streaming in, centering him between two now-condemned soldiers. He was reminded of something from his youth, but he couldn’t quite recall what it was.
**
The minute hand swept north. It was noon. High noon. Unseen at his post, Cutter rose from his hidden spot. He pushed the button.
The green indicator lit up.
A soldier in the Trust Tower actually saw Ron standing, appearing from the clutter of the ruined office. That soldier lifted his rifle, prepared to fire. But Ron was already turning and was out of the office and racing down the hallway.
As the carefully planted and perfectly placed tons of explosives went off.
Lord Dale had been a trained sapper in his day. The best of the best. He was as good as any demolition man on the planet.
The Trust Tower would go down, and it would take these dregs of the one percent with it. He was smiling at the charges went off and the might structure began to fail. The screams of those horrible folk were music to him when the light went out of him.
**
In the garage, Jean and Oliver waited. They’d heard the explosions and the sounds of utter destruction that had followed those muffled thumps. But Cutter had told them to hold still and not risk coming out. They had to wait until he returned or two hours had passed. Beyond that, they needed to flee without him. The soldiers and the pilots who were left would come out of their base at Douglas like angry bees. They would be eager to establish themselves as the new power in the city and they would be pissed off and thirsty for revenge.
So they sat, and they waited.
Half an hour after the explosion, they heard something scrabbling at the door to the garage. Earlier a couple of deaders had stumbled past after they locked themselves in. Perhaps it was that. Maybe they’d have to fight their way out of the garage when it was time to leave.
But there was a key in the lock. It was Cutter!
He opened the door and stumbled in, closing it behind him.
“You look like a ghost!” Jean stepped toward him.
Cutter looked at down at his hands. In fact, he hadn’t stopped running since he’d activated that simple radio signal. The sound of the explosions had been surprisingly muffled as he’d raced down the hallways and out to the street. But the roaring of the vast, tumbling structure behind him that been deafening. He had ducked his head and run as fast as he was able, racing down the street, trying to outrace the massive clouds of choking dust that had billowed out of the falling mass.
With thoughts of stories of what had happened to people who had breathed in the toxic dust of the Twin Towers in New York, Ron had run faster than he had ever thought possible. A couple of times he had feared his knee would give out, but time had knitted the damage and adrenaline had added strength to his body. Far quicker than he would have thought possible, he had emerged from the choking cloud, pausing briefly to look back at the destruction.
All that remained of the Trust Tower was a hill of rubble and steel and a boiling cloud of concrete dust that was already beginning to settle. Dale had been right: he was one hell of a sapper. He thought of how long the man had toiled, planting all of those charges. But it had been a matter of just going about his business, day in and day out. After all, the only other inhabitant of the place had been a mad hacker absorbed with his task on the upper floors.
“Rest in peace,” he had said to the giant grave.
The rest of the journey had been uneventful. He’d seen only a few deaders, their attention taken completely by the sight and sounds of the collapsing structure blocks away. He hadn’t bothered to take them out and they had made no movement toward him at all. In less time than he had anticipated, he was back at their hidden garage, ready to get his family out of the city.
“If anything is left of that private army, they’re going to be very angry,” Ron said.
“Do you think any of them are out there?” Jean was already at the corrugated door, ready to swing it up. Ron was in the vehicle, ready to start her up. Behind him, Oliver was in the back seat, buckling himself in. “Let’s go,” he yelled. And Jean lifted the door, prepared for whatever might be lurking on the other side.
Nothing. She turned, climbed into the passenger seat. Ron accelerated the SUV out of the darkness of the garage and they emerged into light, the vehicle seemingly being driven by a phantom.
They drove out of town, headed north and east.
“We’ll stick to the roads as much as we can,” Jean said. She had the maps she and Ron had prepared. Her compass was in her hand.
“Have you checked the GPS?” he asked.
“They don’t work anymore,” she told him. “They all went out right after the building went down. Oliver said he saw a couple of meteors in the sky. I think they were some of the satellites leaving orbit.”
“The Colonel said he and that crazy bastard Lieber had rigged it that way. The programs he’d set up were designed for catastrophic failure of the GPS. It is no more.” Ron did look to the sky, wondering if it had completely worked.
“Why did he do that?” Oliver’s voiced piped from the rear.
“To keep the jets out of the sky. The hel
icopters too, I think. They can probably still fly them, but not right away and not without reprogramming the onboard systems, if ever,” he added. “And anyway, Dale told me that we shouldn’t go out to the airport. No one should. The first thing that happened was another charge he’d set on a timer. He took out that portable nuke plant they had out there. I don’t think anyone who was out there is doing well right about now, and no one should go messing around there. I think it’s all contaminated and will be hot for some time to come. I really doubt we’ll see any of that hardware in the sky.
“So all we have to do is head northeast.”
“We’re really going there, then. The place you talked about.” Oliver leaned back, trying to relax, peering around at the laden interior of the vehicle.
“Yes,” Jean told him. “We’re really going there.”
**
In the end, it had been far less trouble than Jean had feared.
Five days of driving had taken them to the rolling farmlands south of Raleigh. They had used their maps and compasses and dead reckoning to get close to their target. Leaving the SUV stashed in a ruined barn, the three of them had set out on foot until they found the place.
When last Jean had seen it, the house had been occupied by a dozen of the creeps who had murdered her father for it. It was the amazing house that he had conceived and worked and built with his own hands. When she and Ron and Oliver had crept through the surrounding forests to find it, there were only five people there. That was all that had remained of the thieving monster who had slain her father. It was just the man who had pulled the trigger, his wife, and three of his accomplices. The children who had been there when she’d been chased away were gone. She didn’t even want to know what had happened to them. It didn’t matter.
Her father’s fields had mainly been allowed to go to weeds and scrub. These folk hadn’t been the kind to work the land. And now they were nothing but fertilizer.
It had seemed some kind of justice that the pistol her father had made was the one that fired the bullet into his killer’s head. She’d made him face her when she pulled the trigger, his eyes filled with fear, his throat choked with it.
Later, after the bodies had been buried, they had gone through the place, taking stock of what was left and what they would have to replace or make.
“The idiots ate all of the seed stock,” Jean told them. “I guess they either couldn’t make anything grow, or didn’t feel like working the fields. So they ate all of the seeds we kept for growing. Or let the mice and chipmunks get to what they didn’t eat.”
“That’s okay,” Oliver reminded her. “We brought seeds with us.” It was true.
“We’ll go back and get the car and bring it in and unload it. We still have one spare left if we get another flat. We have about twenty gallons of fuel left, too.” Ron looked around, surveying the place Jean’s father had made, knowing that it would serve them well.
They would protect it, and it would keep them safe.
He swore it.
Read on for a free sample of Euphoria Z
One year ago…
“We are coming for you, you bastard!” The shout echoed through the forest. They’d been stalking him and now they were very close, but only because he’d allowed it.
Cooper had decided when and where to make his stand. He remained calm, waiting patiently for them to come to him. He slowed his breathing and remained perfectly still.
They were hunting him in one big group, all eight of them, trying to scare him and flush him out. But he knew they were scared of him. He could hear it in their voices—the tense whispers, the angry orders.
Do they really think I’m dumb enough to face all of them at once? He was going to do this Rambo-style and pick them off one by one.
“We know where you are, man!” A different voice, closer to him.
Know where I am? So ridiculous, he thought. One of his hunters fired a few shots.
“Save your fucking ammo!” the leader screamed.
Cooper hugged his gun close to his chest, vertically so his body hid it from view, and pressed his back against the giant tree. He was deep in a primordial forest. The waterfalls, colossal fir trees, large ferns, and moss-covered rocks were beautiful but also made for excellent concealment.
Sweat trickled down his back and legs. Something tickled his neck, but he ignored it, hoping it wasn’t a biting insect. The coarse bark clung to his gear. A movement to his right caught his eye, but he remained as still as death hidden between two large ferns.
His heart raced. Eight to one odds were insane, but he was determined to walk away from this alive. He let one enemy pass him by, then another, and then two more.
The attack stunned them. He dropped three of them before they could even figure out where he was. The fourth made an attempt to return fire but took one square to the chest for his valor.
Cooper halved their group in seconds and was sheltered from the other half by the giant tree. He smiled as the remaining four panicked.
“Get back here, damn it! He’s right there!”
Cooper heard at least two of them running away and chuckled. If he’s yelling at them, he’s not looking for me, he thought. He leaned out and took a quick shot. He hit the faceplate of the leader’s helmet. He was actually aiming for the center of mass, but a headshot made him look way cooler.
“Fuck!” The teenager pulled his helmet off so he could watch the rest of the battle. He was amazed and a little frustrated. Cooper always won at paintball, but this was ridiculous. Eight to one. Unbelievable. He would have accused him of cheating if there had been even a remote possibility that Cooper could’ve cheated.
“Come on, he’s right behind that tree.”
“You are dead, Harlan,” Cooper said calmly.
“I’m a zombie.”
“Zombies can’t talk.” Cooper smiled. He could hear the other two trying to circle around and flank him. There was one more behind him and to his right, unless Norman had learned to fly. Norman was incapable of walking silently.
“Rush him, Fatty!” Harlan yelled.
“He’s going to shoot me,” Norman whined.
“Not if you shoot him first.”
Cooper hated that everyone called Norman Fatty. It was just mean. Everyone got along, but kids could still be immature and cruel.
“Norman, is your gun pointed at me?” Cooper spoke to the trees, making his voice sound as if it came from everywhere.
“Um, no.”
“It should be. Aim it right at the tree. If I come out from either side, you can easily shoot me.”
“You won’t be mad?”
Jeez, Norman, he thought. “I’ll be dead! You’re a great shot. Just because you can’t walk ten feet without resting doesn’t mean you can’t win this.” Cooper smiled. He liked to dig at Norman sometimes, but both of them knew it wasn’t ever to be cruel.
“Ha, ha.” Norman raised his gun and zeroed in on the tree. He knew Cooper would help him, but he wouldn’t hand him the victory. Cooper would do his best to win, and he probably would. Norman actually felt scared.
“Don’t forget…wait.” Cooper fired and hit one of the stalkers that had gotten too close. The other stalker hung back, far back, and took a few blind shots at him.
A paintball zoomed over Norman’s head. “Hey, friendly fire! Watch it!”
A faint “sorry” came from the distant undergrowth.
“Norman, don’t forget to take cover,” Cooper coached him.
Norman stepped a few feet over and behind a thin young pine.
The dead leader guffawed, “You need a tree a shitload bigger than that, Norm.”
“Shut up,” Norman said, but even he saw the humor in it—he was easily four times wider than the tree.
“You look like an elephant hiding behind a stop sign.” Harlan was his own biggest fan and laughed the hardest at his own jokes.
“At least my nose doesn’t look like a penis,” Norman chuckled. He’d been waiting
days to use that one. He knew Harlan was sensitive about his nose. That shut him up.
Cooper was smiling too. Harlan could be such an idiot.
The second stalker suddenly charged, firing blindly. Cooper watched calmly as paintballs hit everywhere but near him. The stalker ran out of ammo about thirty feet from Cooper.
“Oh shit.” He threw himself to the ground dramatically. Then, “Ow.”
Everyone chuckled at that.
Cooper walked quietly toward the stalker, keeping the tree between him and Norman. The stalker was frantically trying to pour more paintballs into the hopper of his gun when Cooper appeared before him. The failed reloader slumped in resignation.
Cooper squatted, placed the barrel of his gun a foot from the stalker’s chest, and whispered, “I will make this quick and painless.”
“OK.”
“Any last words?” he asked.
“Come on, just do it.”
“Would you like to leave a message for your loved ones?”
“C’mon, dick, shoot me.”
Cooper fired and skulked back to the tree.
“It’s just you and me now, Norman. Are you ready?”
“Yeah, bring it on.” He tried to sound confident, but his voice cracked.
“Are you sure? What side of the tree will I come from? Am I still behind the tree? Maybe I’m behind you.”
Norman wanted to turn his head to look, but he knew Cooper was just trying to mess with his mind. He kept his eyes locked on the tree about three feet above the ground. He saw movement to one side and ducked as a paintball whizzed past him.
“Good eye, Norm!” Harlan yelled.
Norman looked back where he’d just seen Cooper. He scanned the area, no sign of him. He was startled as a loud thwack made his chest plate jump. A green splat appeared right over his heart. He was amazed to see that Cooper had managed to move several yards away from where he had been, completely undetected.
“Aw, man.” Norman acted disappointed, but he was actually elated. He’d never come this close to winning at paintball, which was a huge deal when Cooper was stalking you.
The Coalition: Part III 2% Solution Of The Dead (COALITON OF THE LIVING Book 3) Page 12
