Wipeout | Book 3 | Empty Vault

by Richards, E. S.

  “Come on, Noah,” Samuel spoke to the youngest boy who wore a look of horror on his face, terrified by what was happening as he stood a few feet away from the river bank and tried to get his feet back on dry land again. “Take my hand, I’ve got you.”

  Mason had already made it back to more solid ground by himself and sat low amongst the grass, encouraging his younger brother and gesturing for them to hurry. Samuel didn’t have time to look back at Austin anymore, his priority needed to be getting Noah onto the bank and then both of the boys away from the water. Whoever was shooting at them appeared to just be firing warning shots around where they were standing for now, but Samuel didn’t want to risk them becoming more serious targets if they overstayed their welcome. They should’ve never come back to the bridge; it was turning out to be one of their worst ideas yet.

  “That’s it, Noah, easy does it.” Samuel tried to keep his voice steady and calm as he helped Noah across the last couple of feet of rockface before he could jump onto the river bank and fall into his brother’s arms. Samuel took the leap just after, landing and leaning forward so that his rucksack kept him weighted on the grass, instead of tumbling him back into the water. Looking back over his shoulder, Austin was just behind, the incoming fire still peppering into the water and rocks just around where he stood, but never close enough to cause any real damage.

  “Come on boys,” Samuel prioritized the children and got them to their feet, knowing that Austin would be following. “Head up through there.”

  He directed them through the path in the trees that they had reached the river bank by, sending the boys away from the water and hopefully out of harm’s way. Together, they jogged back to the same clearing from earlier: the one where Samuel and Austin had camped overnight and where they had waited earlier while Austin checked the coast was clear. Only once they were there and they could sit down again did their breathing start to slow and they gradually came to terms with what had just happened.

  Austin arrived just a few seconds behind and sank down onto a log, panting and quickly trying to catch his breath. They had just come under fire as a result of trying to cross the river. The people in Poughkeepsie had fired at them – even if they hadn’t intended any harm. It hadn’t mattered that they had children with them, children who lived and belonged in the city. Whoever was on the riverbank had only one thing on their mind and that was keeping them out. As the four of them finally calmed down it became very clear that getting into Poughkeepsie was going to be a lot harder than they had originally anticipated.

  Chapter 5

  Stage two was underway and if people felt like they had lost everything already, then they were in for an unpleasant surprise. Things were about to get a whole lot worse.

  KW sat in her designated workspace in the underground bunker and typed lines of code into her computer at incredible speed. Her eyes never even glanced down at the keyboard as she worked, watching only the screens as the numbers and letters appeared before her, always exactly as she intended them. She had hoped many more weeks would pass before she was uploading this information into her computer and preparing for the next stage of her country’s attack plan, but with things moving so quickly in the major cities across the world and humanity threatening to rebuild quicker than they had anticipated, they needed to act quickly or risk all their work on Trident being for nothing.

  Stage two was considerably easier from her point of view. It didn’t require nearly as much preparation and research into the technicalities of defense systems and cyber security. Cracking Trident had been a challenge, but one she and her fellow hackers had all enjoyed. A difficult hack to them was like running a big race or going for the winning touchdown in the Superbowl.

  The adrenaline was the same – the not knowing whether your next move would pay off and put you ahead or hinder you and leave you flagging behind. Hacking Trident had thrown up different obstacles with every turn, challenging all five of them in the bunker to do some of their best work ever. It may have been for a terrible cause, but at least it kept them excited and entertained while they were working on it. Phase two simply reminded KW of the horrible position that she was in and how dreadful her actions were going to be for everyone else.

  Still, she didn’t have a choice. Privately in her head and in the very few moments that she could steal in person with FM and DM, they were trying to plot an escape. They’d only had a few precious minutes in total to discuss their plans and knew it was unlikely to happen any time soon, but the thought was there and the idea was tempting enough. Beyond thinking about it though, there was very little KW could do. She had to still look like she was committed to the work and she had to continue to play her part, otherwise she would undoubtedly be found out and reprimanded. There couldn’t be much worse than being trapped in an underground bunker with no way of knowing when she would see daylight again, but every day KW reminded herself that it was better than death and that was all that kept her going.

  So, she continued to type. With every major country aside from her own in disarray, their security systems were unmanned and easy to take control of. It was nothing like hacking into Trident, this was more like cracking the password on a teenagers’ computer – something she had learned to do before she was even allowed out of the house without her parents’ permission.

  KW was doing the groundwork for her team on a global scale, but then she needed to shift her focus toward the United States. They were her country’s main rival and they were who her leader had requested she personally bring to the ground. China had been engaged in a cold war with the United States for any number of years now and with the new leadership her country had entered into in the last twenty-four months, the decision to bring the dispute to an end became of utmost importance.

  Many trade deals had turned sour over the years, the former President of the United States acting brashly and without consideration on one too many occasions. He hadn’t seemed to care how his actions affected the rest of the world and the longer he remained in office, the more strained and hostile the relationship between the two super powers had become. Unfortunately for her homeland however, they always seemed to appear less favorably in the media. No matter what the US did, China was always the one to watch out for, the one to be careful of. Perhaps it was their weapons arsenal or the regime which ruled their people – but after years of tormenting and scapegoating by the United States, their country had been blamed for so much more than it ever should’ve been.

  With the new leader elected, his thinking was simple: if they were going to be painted to be the bad guys in every scenario, then they might as well live up to expectations. Flexing her fingers as she remembered everything that had led to this point, KW continued to type.

  Chapter 6

  Lieutenant Walter Davies was just preparing to leave the precinct on another recruitment drive when there was a knock on the wall that captured his attention. In lieu of a real office, Walter was simply working on a desk in the corner of the break room, sifting through papers as quickly as he could to try and get a view on what government resource they had access to and if anything more was going to be coming. There was no door on which the officer standing in front of him could knock, but the woman stood politely and waited for him to be ready nonetheless.

  “Everything okay?” Walter asked the female officer, reading the name MacArthur on her uniform and remembering who she was. He was still getting to know everyone that was gathered in the precinct and with numerous people coming and going every day, he didn’t blame himself for not learning names yet.

  Jenny MacArthur nodded and smiled. “We’ve just had another group come back,” she started to explain. “Reports are really positive, most people are starting to side with us now and falling into line.”

  “That’s great,” Walter smiled, happy that things were turning a corner in the city. “Has the latest team left yet? I wanted to head out with them.”

  “I think they’re just packing up now,” Jenny repl
ied. “You’ve probably got time to catch them.”

  Stacking the papers on his desk as Jenny talked, Walter rose to his feet and prepared to leave. He was very passionate about this latest endeavor and yet had only been out once so far. He was keen to get back onto the streets and make a physical difference rather than be sealed into a desk job and a position of too much authority. He was grateful for the position he had risen to within the ranks, but there were days when Walter longed for his time as a beat cop again. There was nothing quite like walking the streets and getting deep into the daily lives of the community. For him, it was the reason he’d become a policeman in the first place and something he still loved about the job even now.

  “Thanks,” Walt spoke over his shoulder as he strolled past the woman and made his way out into the hall. “We’ll catch up again later, okay!”

  While Jenny looked like she had something more to say, Walter didn’t want to wait around to hear it. On a somewhat selfish note, he wanted to get back on the streets and back into the action. The sounds of people preparing to leave carried down the hallway and filled his ears, causing Walter to pick up his pace and dash to the weapons store to gather supplies.

  “Hey, hold up!” He called out as he neared the main entrance of the precinct, the doors just closing ahead of him. “Wait!”

  “Sir? Is everything alright?”

  “Yes, yes,” Walter nodded as he joined the group outside, made up of three other officers all in plainclothes like himself. “All fine – have you got room for one more? I’m coming too.”

  “Roger that sir,” a young officer Dixon replied. “We’re heading down into Brooklyn, that’s your neighborhood isn’t it?”

  “It sure is,” Walter replied with a smile. “Excellent. Sign me up.”

  “Great. Let’s head around back to the Chevy.”

  “What?”

  “One of the guys found it abandoned the other day,” Dixon continued talking as the four of them walked around the back of the police station to its designated parking lot where a glistening silver Chevy Silverado sat waiting. “We need it to get through the streets sometimes. It’s a bit of a mess and our wheels were getting beaten up trying to move stuff. This Chevy is in great condition, practically brand new and it’s got the horsepower to push things aside when needed.”

  “Don’t worry,” Josie, the female officer who was with them added with a laugh. “Once all of this is over, we’ll find the owner and return it to them, boss.”

  Walter smiled at the joke, not at all bothered how they had come by the truck and that they were using it, he was just surprised in general. “No, fair enough,” he shrugged. “I didn’t realize it was that bad out there, we’ve got to do what we can to get around. Come on then, who’s driving.”

  Standing next to the passenger side door, Walter waited for Dixon, Josie or the other officer, Huxley to take the lead. He had never worked with any of them before and was keen to see how they performed out on the streets. While Walter wanted to get back into the action himself, he still couldn’t shake his position within the force and his almost subconscious need to monitor how his team performed.

  “This baby?” Dixon asked with a grin, pulling the keys out of his pocket. “You don’t have to ask me twice. Come on, get in.”

  In the passenger seat of the vehicle as they pulled out onto the road, Walter felt happy with the team he was with. He was looking forward to seeing what Brooklyn was like, not having been back there since the news about Trident first broke. Hopefully they would be able to gather up a decent number of recruits and send them to their local precincts to help out and clean up the city. That was their mission: find enough people across New York who wanted to help restore order rather than destroy it, and work together to rebuild their city. Walter had no doubt that if they gathered enough momentum it wouldn’t take long to get things functioning again. The initial shock of what had happened was over now and the city’s residents were each trying to figure out a way to survive and get through it. Naturally they wanted a leader or someone to guide them and that was what law enforcement was there for – they had all sworn an oath to protect the city and its occupants and that is what each of them still intended.

  Driving slowly through the streets, it didn’t take Walter long to understand why the Chevy was required. It wasn’t like the roads were obstructed at every corner. In most cases, the streets were more abandoned than anything. Eerily quiet considering the city would normally be bustling with people and the roads gridlocked with commuters and cab drivers. Instead there was just rubble and garbage that floated around. Trash cans were knocked over and lay in the street, smashed glass littered the sidewalks and the telltale signs of former activity like a child’s bike or a man’s briefcase lay lost and forgotten in the dirt.

  “Where are you normally finding people?” Walter asked in a low voice, surprised by how desolate and still the city was around them. When he’d last been outside during all the action, fires burned and people rioted everywhere he looked. The city was full of noise and tension and anger over what had happened. Now all of that seemed to have passed and the world was instead left in silence. There was no one around to speak of. Everyone was hidden in their homes or among the vast numbers who had fled the city in panic.

  “Most are gathered in the parks or around the food banks now,” Josie replied from the backseat. “We find that’s the best place to go. Plenty still live in their own homes but the ones who have latched onto the sense of community seem more willing to sign up and try to help.”

  Walter nodded. One of the first tasks he had helped get off the ground was the resurrection of food banks throughout the city. The trouble was that the food for them was rapidly running out. With so many more people relying on them than ever before, the demand far outweighed the supply and they were beginning to struggle to keep them stocked. With no one working in food preparation or delivery, their resources were limited. They did what they could, but it was only a matter of days or weeks at most until their stores were empty and their options significantly reduced.

  That was one of the key reasons for the taskforces that were recruiting across the city. They needed to get the basic jobs and functions of society back up and running and they needed good people to volunteer to do this simply because it was the right thing to do. They had no way of paying people or guaranteeing that they would receive any reward at the end of it all. So, they were relying solely on the good nature of individuals, a slow and often painstaking process, but it was the only option they had.

  “So where are we heading?”

  “The rescue center, just outside of Williamsburg,” Dixon answered. “You know it?”

  “Yeah,” Walt replied, “sort of. I’ve handled a couple of disputes around there over the years.”

  “Rough area?”

  “Not really,” Walt considered. “It’s just home to some people who don’t have it as easy as everyone else. Suppose that’s everyone now.” He paused. “But that doesn’t make them bad folk.”

  “Well either way,” Dixon replied, “we’ve heard they’ve had some trouble with some of the kids down there. Break ins, trying to get away with the stuff themselves, you know how it is.”

  Walter hummed under his breath and nodded. There was an imbalance between the people who had everything and the people who had nothing. The scales had been tipping for many years and it was unsurprising that an event like this had finally sent them pouring over. Already Walter had come face to face with a few people who had fallen from their pedestals with the collapse of Trident. It was interesting seeing how people reacted to loss and more often than not it was those who had the most to lose who dealt with it in the worst manner.

  As they drove slowly toward the rescue center, Walter started to see exactly why they needed to step up their work throughout the city and act quickly. They were nearing the two-week mark of a world without money and the effects of starvation took much less time than that to show. Gradually, he star
ted seeing people lining the streets; young children who looked weak and frail. Their clothes hung off their bodies like they had been bought a size too big and they carried themselves like they were worthless, like they’d lost everything worth fighting for.

  It reminded Walter of scenes of famine and disease that he’d seen before. A devastation which he only associated with third world countries, now setting up home right on his doorstep. It was frightening to think that he lived so close to all of it. While he had been locked away in the police station, he’d allowed it to carry on in the background without even realizing the extent it had reached. Walter was incredibly glad he had left the precinct for this outing, shocked at how bad the situation in New York had already become.

  “Jeez,” he exhaled under his breath. “What supplies have we got with us? Do we have water and food that we can give to them?”

  Huxley shook his head in the backseat, an action that Walter just caught in the rearview mirror. “There isn’t enough boss,” he sighed. “We’re supplying the food banks with everything we can at the moment, but we can’t be handing out rations. There’s not enough to go around and it always creates more problems than it solves.”

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” Walter shook his head, struggling to find even one time over the last ten days when he had gone hungry. There had always been a meal waiting for him, a mug of coffee and a biscuit, a warm bowl of soup, something to satisfy his need. How could he be getting by so comfortably when not ten miles away children were wasting away from hunger? It hit him like a bullet that even after everyone had been stripped of their wealth, there was still a divide in society and somehow, he had ended up on the side he normally tried to fight against.

  “Let me out,” he suddenly burst out, unable to drive by any longer without trying to do something to help. “Stop the car, let me out.”