“No effing way,” the Marine remarked.
“Show it to me again,” Emily requested.
They all got as close to the screen as possible to see it happen. The newscasters were there one second, then gone the next. As they watched it over and over, it seemed less real to him, like someone had edited the tape.
Silence descended on them for half a minute. The instant of the attack was there, recorded for posterity, though it did them little good.
“Can you fast-forward the tape?” Kyla asked. “When you were rewinding, I thought I saw some other people, like when the place gets messed up.”
Ted looked at his niece. “Sure.”
He went forward again until he found the moment the anchor desk was shot. For a split-second of fast time, a group of young people sat at the desk, followed by the destruction of the set.
“Hey!” he barked. “You were right.”
Ted cued up the tape to the exact moment before the strangers appeared. When he had all eyes on the screen, he hit play. A pretty young woman came up to where the female anchor had been during the attack. She wore yoga pants with a white long-sleeve shirt; three long braids rolled off her head as she leaned over. She picked a lapel microphone off the chair, then shoved the woman’s clothes onto the floor.
“Hello? Is this thing on?” the woman asked to someone off the screen.
“I hear you!” a girl replied. “Your voice is coming through the speakers outside.”
The young lady stared at the screen for a long time but didn’t say anything. Ted recognized the look of someone who was in shock.
“Say something,” a young man’s voice insisted.
“Here we go…” The girl took a seat and motioned for unknown people to join her.
Two teen boys and girl closed ranks with the young woman in the seat, but they didn’t sit down. The dark-haired girl held hands with one of the boys; he was big-boned, though not overweight. The girl in the seat was younger than Kyla by a few years, but she seemed composed and didn’t hesitate as she spoke.
“My name is Tabitha Breeze. I’m from Bonne Terre, Missouri. I survived the poison gas with three students from Seckman High School.” The three others waved nervously. “This is Peter Ellison, Audrey Hampton, and Donovan Callaway. We’re here in the studios of Channel 5. Please help us evacuate.”
Poison gas? It was the first he’d heard of such a theory.
They watched the entire exchange, including an older pair of men who joined them. One of them looked old and filthy. The other was younger, with a blue sports cap. At the end, Ms. Breeze apologized for giving guns to the younger teens, though he sensed in her voice she was secretly glad to have weapons. He wondered about the two men and how they’d all found each other.
Everyone drifted off screen as the live shot continued, but he didn’t turn it off since the big number 5 was still intact. “Wait, guys. It’s going to happen.”
He held his breath despite himself. As the seconds ticked by, he was tempted to hit fast-forward again, especially since there were aircraft on the way, but he let it run in real time. Eventually, two or three minutes later, the distinctive crack of a shotgun rattled the camera. Kyla and Emily reacted to the intense situation by pulling back a bit.
“Was that a gunshot?” Kyla asked. “I’m sure it was,” she answered herself.
Still, Ted didn’t move. The number 5 was still intact. He watched, even as the others hovered behind him. “Wait for it,” he said dramatically.
It took another minute, but the rattle of a chain gun made the shotgun seem quiet by comparison. He imagined the young kids getting torn to bits by the war machinery, though there were no clues as to why those youngsters were getting tangled up with such weaponry.
The next part happened so fast he almost missed it. The young man in the blue hat ran behind the anchor desk. A moment later, the backdrop number 5 was eviscerated by bullets.
“Run!” Kyla shouted to the screen. The man’s blue hat hovered at the back of the desk, then the guy seemed to duck off screen.
A second later, a large mechanical robot paced by. Ted had seen a similar one before, in front of the White House. It stood as tall as a man’s waist and looked like a four-legged animal, if the creature was only made of metal. “Oh, man. They’re in some shit.”
“They have mechanical horses?” Kyla asked.
“I thought it was more like a robot cat,” he replied absently, unable to stop watching.
“Cat, horse, whatever,” Emily stated, “those children are in trouble.”
As he watched, the machine dropped its head so the chain gun mounted on its back had clearance to spit out untold rounds.
The horse-robot plodded off screen, presumably to follow the man in the blue hat. The video image returned to how it was when he’d first seen it. The big 5 was damaged. The wall was full of holes. No living people were in view of the camera.
“We’re not the only ones fighting for our lives,” Ted remarked.
East Saint Louis, Illinois
Tabby had made sure everything she did was average. She picked a boring-looking four-door car, gray in color, and used that to drive on the highway toward St. Louis. She did the speed limit and kept an eye out for any signs of walking or flying drones, giant snowplows, or strangers lurking around the shoulders. An hour later, as the sun was going down, she exited the highway in East St. Louis, intending to get one quick look at the bridge over the river. She was convinced it was the only place where they’d find trouble.
They drove around for a short time, searching for the perfect place.
Finally, with Deogee and Biscuit at her feet and the two teens close by, she studied the city from the rooftop of an old warehouse. It provided a perfect overview of downtown St. Louis and the highway bridge a little to the south of it. The city was ruined. Many of the tall buildings near the Arch were either filled with smoke and fire or had recently been burned. Ash rose into the sky beyond, as if the area on fire was much larger than the downtown. Still, her attention went to the interstate bridge to her left. From her vantage point, it was obvious there was activity at the near side of the span, and it wasn’t a bunch of people fleeing the inferno. “Look at the bridge, guys.”
“I see them. What are they?” Audrey asked.
“They look like giraffes,” Tabby replied. “There’s two of them, like they’re standing guard. One is in the middle of the eastbound lanes. The other is in the westbound.”
“You don’t think they’re protecting us from going into the fire, do you?” Audrey asked, full of doubt.
“No. They aren’t the same as the horse models with guns, or the floating ones with speakers. I think those are a type of guard model. Why else would they sit up so high?”
“I don’t care what they’re for,” Peter laughed. “Can we run them over?”
Tabby thought back to a recent visitor to her family’s Bonne Terre mine tour. The man had gotten up early to drive his family from across the state. They’d made it almost all the way there, but they’d hit a large deer a few miles before town. When they pulled into the parking lot, Mom and Dad took her outside to see the car. The front end had been mangled, and the glass windshield had a bloody hole on the passenger side. The giraffe model was a lot bigger than any deer, plus it was made of metal.
“No, that wouldn’t be wise,” she replied.
Peter huffed. “Then what do we do? We have to get over the river.”
“I know,” she said dryly. There were other bridges, some not far away. They could also find a boat. Perhaps that would surprise the invaders more than running over their sentinels.
Deogee nudged her leg, though she waved her off. “Not now, girl.”
“Do either of you know about other bridges to the south? How far do you think we’d have to go before we found another one?” Tabby was embarrassed to ask. She’d been driving for two years, since she turned sixteen. She should probably have a better grasp of the area.
Deogee growled, getting all their attentions.
“What is it?” she asked with a touch of impatience.
She had no idea what to make of the sound, or the dog’s odd behavior, but Biscuit behaved like Deogee was threatening her. Ears back, head down, tail between her legs.
“What the?” she asked.
It wasn’t Deogee scaring her. The sound of a flying drone carried over the air. It was getting closer. They were standing on the roof, in full view of the city—a mistake which only became painfully obvious as she turned for the door.
“Run!” she whispered.
CHAPTER 18
Minneapolis, MN
Kyla stood there as Uncle Ted flipped off switches and buttons up and down the row of terminals in the control tower. Some of them turned off the radar screens, but he got to one computer which seemed to control the runway lights. “Why are you doing that?” she asked. “Shouldn’t we be running?”
Once they’d seen the video of the girl, Tabby-something, and the robots shooting at her and her friends, she had a new respect for the enemy invasion force. They weren’t only blips on a screen or traitors on a boat. They’d come to America armed with a superweapon that erased all the people, and they were obviously using robots to clean up whatever was left. She wished she could go back in time and ask Ben if he knew about all this. He had warned her the bad guys knew how to survive.
“If we can delay them getting down here, we’ll have a better chance of finding a car and getting the hell out of Minneapolis. I’m shutting off what I can, but yes, we’re leaving immediately.”
“Just shut it all off?” she asked, looking at a nearby computer.
Uncle Ted nodded seriously. “Yes. Everyone can hit power buttons. Do whatever you can for the next sixty seconds, then we haul ass for safety.”
At the appointed moment, they all converged on the exit door. Her uncle seemed satisfied at what they’d done, but not all the way. “I can’t shut off the lights on the third landing strip. It’s either controlled from a second tower or is on a different generator.”
Emily smiled. “You did good. It’s almost black out there.” The city of Minneapolis was mostly dark, except for five or six fires burning in the night. The power feeding into the city must have failed over the past couple of days.
“Okay, go!” he insisted.
Kyla followed Meechum down the stairs. No matter how much she tried, Kyla wasn’t able to get the jump on the Marine, so she had to trail behind rather than lead.
They ran through the empty terminal, which was now almost completely dark, save for a few emergency lights. Even with that bit of illumination, she stepped on clothes left by fallen people—an act which gave her goosebumps no matter how many times it happened.
“Can we set up a decoy? Make them think we’re holed up in a room or a cafe?” Meechum spoke in a low voice as they passed more gates.
Uncle Ted cursed at himself. “I should have left the plane running. It might have bought us some time. As it is, I think our only chance is to run where they least expect. We have to get a car and get out of here before they arrive in force.”
“How long do we have?” Emily asked.
“If those jets come directly to this city, they were about thirty minutes out when we were up top. Now we’re talking about twenty minutes, tops. The chase plane who followed us is a lot closer. They could land at any time.”
She looked outside, hoping not to see a plane landing in the darkness.
They all had weapons, so she wasn’t as scared as she might have been otherwise. Almost getting her head shot off in Central Park had given her respect for what it meant to get into a gunfight, and she wanted to avoid it if at all possible, but she would fight hard to defend Uncle Ted, and Emily, if she had to. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind Meechum would do the same. The sense of camaraderie helped a lot.
Uncle Ted took them through a door that once had a jetway attached to it. Instead of the long walkway, there was a short flight of stairs. “We’re going that way.” He pointed to the end of the taxiway, which was a wall of blackness, even compared to the rest of the darkened city. “I think it’s a river.”
They ran alongside the terminal, dodging parked planes, luggage bins, and maintenance vehicles. As they neared the end of the building, she wondered if they were missing the obvious. The little flat-topped vehicles were a lot like the ones she’d seen inside the aircraft carrier. When she passed close to one, she halted.
“Hey, Uncle Ted, why don’t we take one of these?”
The rest of them stopped, and the clopping of feet stopped, too. That made it easier for her to hear the approach of a jet.
Minneapolis, MN
“How much fuel does this thing have?” Kyla asked from her spot on the back of the airport dolly tug.
Ted knew it didn’t have fuel; it had a battery. “We’ve got a good charge.” The low-profile design allowed for two people to sit in the front, and the other two could spread out in the small cargo bay. It had no roof, and only sat about three feet off the ground, allowing it to go under the wings of aircraft. It wasn’t made for long trips. “I have no idea how far that will get us.”
The first plane landed while they rode into the woods beyond the landing strip. They got lucky, however, when it came down on the lone runway with power. It was on the far side of the terminal, relative to their escape route. By the time they’d cut through a short stretch of woods and sped onto an urban bike path, they were beyond sight of anyone at the airport.
“This thing runs on electric,” he said over his shoulder. “I hope the battery charger was on until the last second.” It almost certainly wouldn’t have been one of the things on the generators. “Or that the kid driving it thought enough to put it on the charger at all, right, Kyla?”
He beamed a smile back to her; the moon provided enough light to see her teeth. Her mother had told plenty of stories about Kyla’s teen antics with electronics. Keeping her off the tech was a constant battle his sister hated to fight, but one he often told her was important. However, no matter how much he bolstered her, she couldn’t teach Kyla the importance of keeping things charged all the time. Was she still like that?
“You and Mom talked too much,” she deadpanned, before falling silent.
He thought she’d taken it the wrong way; he only wanted to kid around with her to keep everyone from thinking of how they were riding a piece of airport equipment down the middle of an urban bikeway in downtown Minneapolis. A few seconds later, and right before he was going to apologize, she added. “And she only told you the bad stuff about me, I’m sure.” Her light laughter unloaded the ton of bricks weighing down his chest.
“My sister told me a lot of things—you know how much she loved to talk—but she never had anything bad to say about you, Kyla. In fact, she could never believe her luck at how well you turned out, considering she was by herself.” He didn’t dare open the can of worms about her father. It was bad enough her mom was gone.
“Thanks, Unk,” she replied.
They rode the bike path in darkness for another hour. It remained paved and sufficiently wide for the small four-wheeled tow truck, but it couldn’t do much more than ten or fifteen miles an hour. When the path went below a bridge, he knew it was time to switch modes of transportation. He ran the cart under cover but didn’t drive out the other side. “We have to leave this here. If they somehow figure out we took this, they’ll have to find it on foot. The bridge will block them from above.”
“Smart,” Meechum replied.
Emily hopped out and came around to him before he could get out. “Will you let me drive next? You haven’t had a break…since last night.”
“Neither have you,” he said defensively.
She put her hands on her hips in a pose that all women seemed to know. “Are you going to let me or not? I could order you, you know?” Her smile was so big, he saw it despite being inside the dark tunnel.
Ted sighed. “You love playi
ng the presidential card, don’t you?”
“Hey, if I can’t rule over you, what good is it to be in charge?”
Outside, the distinct whine of jets echoed in the night.
“Sure. You can drive. As long as we get the hell out of this city.”
Folsom, CA
After Dwight and his partners burned several blocks of Main Street, a woman on a little scooter came through while blowing a whistle. When she had their attention, she pulled out a small bullhorn, allowing her to be heard over the roar of surrounding fires.
“Your presence is required at the next rally point. Your fire team leaders know the coordinates. Please leave this area immediately.”
The other burners secured their flamethrower equipment to their bikes, as did he, but the second he had it on tight enough, he started his bike and sped away from the raging fires. However, he had no intention of going far; what he needed was only two blocks over. Poppy had been looking all over town for him, and she led the way.
“You were wrong, Poppy. The store was an extra block over.” He didn’t hold it against the little bird. She’d gotten him close.
Poppy yelled back at him, but he didn’t think her bad language required a reply. He’d done his mission for Bernard and his people. Now it was his time. The liquor store was unlocked, as was everything else, which made it easy to get inside and go right for his favorite aisle—the biggest bottles with the highest alcohol content.
He picked up a plastic gallon-sized bottle of Tequila, ripped off the paper around the cap, then tried to unscrew it. His hands were trembling as if California was having an 8.0 earthquake, so it became impossible.
“Stop it!” he ordered his hand.
Poppy laughed. She sat on the checkout counter, perhaps wanting to see if he’d leave some money in exchange for taking the bottle.
“Shut up, bird. I know what I’m doing.” He threw the bottle on the floor in frustration. It bounced with a sickening sloshing sound, but it didn’t pop open as he’d hoped. While it spun around on the floor, he held up both of his hands, palms up, and couldn’t believe how much he was shaking.
Minus America Box Set | Books 1-5 Page 57
