by EE Isherwood
“Just tell me one thing, Bernard, and this is important.”
“What?” the man’s voice replied, sounding impatient.
“You’ve traveled with me for a long enough time. You’ve no doubt entered the spirit world with me. Did you ever see my bird Poppy?” He expected cursing, or laughter, or a sarcastic answer. What he got, instead, was a serious reply.
“I have seen her, believe it or not. She’s at your cell door right now.”
He whipped his head toward the cage door. Sure as the sunrise, Poppy waddled her way between the bars as she came into the room. The green, red, and blue bird had a long tail that dragged behind her.
Jacob laughed from around the corner. “They must have baked insanity into today’s treatment.”
Dwight ignored the bad man. Instead, he watched as Poppy walked the carpet for a few moments before she made a beeline for his half-eaten breakfast. She leaned over and lifted a soggy piece of cereal.
“Hey, that’s mine!” he snapped. “At least ask first, little lady.”
She ignored him.
He didn’t care too much about her thievery. Poppy was back. She was all that mattered. He’d give his bird the whole tray if he could, simply to say thanks for being in his life.
“If I have to die a thousand deaths to see my friend Poppy, I’ll do it willingly.”
Jacob cackled. “David’s cube works as advertised. I’m getting sicker by the minute. Going crazy, too. I don’t hear the person you call Bernard…yet. However, as God as my witness, I think I’m seeing your damned bird!”
Colorado Springs, CO
The military convoy passed through Capulin and Brent made his group wait an hour before they followed, since it was going the same way they were. Despite being vigilant for evidence of the other convoy, they never caught up to it. Now he and Trish were near Colorado Springs, looking at a new highway with a different set of vehicles cruising by.
“Where do you think this group is going?” she asked.
All the traffic was headed south, but it wasn’t the normal flow of the interstate. Every vehicle was a tractor trailer hauling an empty flatbed. Somewhere to the north, he assumed either Colorado Springs or Denver, those trucks had made their deliveries. Now they were deadheading to their next pickup.
“They could be going back to the Amarillo airport, for all we know. Wouldn’t it be ironic? They can pick up the scrap metal.” They both got a good laugh at the image.
They’d driven for a couple of hours since Capulin, putting them on the southern outskirts of Colorado Springs. By happenstance, one of the ex-prisoners had been born in the area and knew where to find Cheyenne Mountain. Andre had pointed to the area of green hills about ten miles away, where the flat terrain at the edge of the Great Plains met the early folds of the Rocky Mountains. To get there, however, they needed to wait for the interstate to clear out.
She sat with her boots up on the dashboard again. “First, we saw the convoy of military guys from other countries. Now we see empty flatbeds. You don’t think they had tanks on those things, do you?”
He shrugged at first, but as he thought it through, an answer emerged. “I don’t think they were tanks. Who would they fight here in the middle of literal nowhere? There are no American citizens—”
“Except for us,” she reminded him.
“Yeah, except for us. But we’re all the opposition we know of, and we have four Chevy Tahoes and a few pop-guns. They could take us out with a couple of missiles or even a five-dollar box of nails under our tires. A tank would be overkill.”
“I wish we had a tank,” she lamented.
“Don’t worry. For our purposes, a handful of fuel haulers will do a lot more damage than a tank ever could. More importantly, we’ll get away from the battle without taking fire from the enemy. That’s why I really enjoyed what we did back at Amarillo airport.”
She brightened. “I trust you, Brent. I’ve been with you on everything since you rescued me from Curtis and his gang back at my trailer. I guess I’m already tired of fighting.”
He thought again of Vietnam. Back then, they didn’t have the choice to be tired or not. They went out into the jungle, suffered through the rain, heat, and bullets, then kept doing it for two years straight. Still, as he sat at the wheel of his truck looking over the upcoming battlespace, he admitted age had caught up to him. He was tired as hell, too.
“We have one more job to do, Trish. If we stuff three or four tankers down into the throat of their bunker headquarters, I’m sure we’ll take out their base of operations. Then, this—” He pointed to the trucks driving by. “—will all dry up. We can get our nation back.”
Long knocked on this side window. He’d come up from one of the trucks waiting behind him. They’d parked in a small strip mall, keeping them hidden by the abandoned cars.
Brent rolled down his window. “What’s up?”
“Your bald friend Carter said he’s already spotted a tanker a little way up the road. I think we’ve got our first attack vehicle.” Long threw his thumb back, showing the direction.
“Excellent,” Brent replied. “We’ll need some time to gather our forces. If it comes to it, we’ll drive the trucks over the highway and ignore the rigs going south. The drivers probably won’t give us a second look.”
“Works for me,” Long replied. “So, we’re moving?”
Brent glanced over to Trish. “You ready for this?”
She dropped her legs from the dash. “As ready as I can.”
His mind went back to Vietnam one last time. Back then, he would have never considered going into battle with a pretty, young thing like Trish. Today, fifty years older, among his band of ex-cons, and the new guy Long, she was the only one he really trusted with his life. If this was the modern era of warfare, he’d have to get used to it.
“Let’s go kick some ass,” he exclaimed.
CHAPTER 22
Lamar, CO
Ted put on his happy face as he pulled up to the checkpoint. “You guys see that freaking huge plane?” If they’d missed the football-field wide piece of technology, they were the worst guards on the planet.
The guard came up next to his window. His rifle was on a sling, held in front of him. The guy was youngish, like those he and Emily had killed, but he sported a serious demeanor. “They’ve been landing here and taking off for days. We’re sick of them.” He spoke with an accent on his English, as if Spanish was his native tongue.
“Wow,” Ted replied, sounding impressed.
The kid gave him and Emily a cursory glance. “You’ll get sick of them, too, if you spend any time here in Lamar.” He motioned him to go through the checkpoint.
Ted almost asked if he was really free to go but caught himself. If he’d asked it, the man might have countered with additional questioning. Instead, he waved to the guy, and to the men standing nearby, then got the truck moving again.
A full minute later, he exhaled like he’d won a contest for holding his breath. “Holy shit! I didn’t think asking a stupid question was going to work.”
She half-turned to see behind them. “They aren’t following. I guess it wasn’t an elaborate ruse to capture us inside their…base? Are we in a base?”
There was no fence around the town, at least where they were. It appeared to be one of the dozens of eastern Colorado farm towns they’d been passing through, though it was much larger. As they drove the main road into the populated section, he realized it even had numerous stoplights.
“I think this is a central location, for sure. Look at that.” They passed a Walmart shopping center with live people going in and out. They were dressed in their black jumpsuits, driving civilian cars and trucks, and there were a lot of them.
The traffic on the road was similarly busy once they got into the central business district. They passed fast food joints. Auto repair shops. Tiny office buildings. All of them had a number of enemy workers coming and going. After driving for several minutes, he tried to s
olve the puzzle.
“I guess they could have come because it sits out here in the plains. Maybe this is where they wanted to start their peacetime activities. It would certainly be good farming. Without us Americans to farm for them, they’re going to need to create their own food supply.”
“Once the canned food runs out,” she added.
He chuckled. “Yeah, they’ll need a full-time crew collecting the cans, and it might last years if they only have a small invasion force, but it will eventually run out. Growing their own will put them in a good position to survive on our land…”
She picked up on his thought. “They’re planning to be here forever, aren’t they? This isn’t a fight-us-and-move-on operation.”
Ted experienced the urge to pull over and ask questions of any of the hundreds of strangers walking around the town of Lamar, but he was done taking risks. His sole focus was playing it cool, then getting out of the town so he and Emily could go underground. They’d find a map and pay more attention to what was ahead. Drive around big towns. Zigzag where necessary to cut down on the chances of interacting with anyone. It was what he should have done from the get-go.
They passed a parking lot filled with drones. It appeared to be a smaller, more compact unloading area than the one he’d seen in Fort Collins. In Lamar, they’d gotten them all off the trucks. A few dozen of each type of drone were waiting for their orders. Most were painted dull tan, like the color of the soil, hinting they’d been outfitted for eastern Colorado.
At the far end of the lot, a train waited with empty flat cars, suggesting some of the drones came in that way. Or were going out. He couldn’t say.
“They are definitely staging things from this central location. It’s a hub.”
“We should blow this place up,” she deadpanned.
They might have some luck hitting the local robot lot, but the town was a flat, sprawling urban area. Based on what he’d seen so far, it was miles wide, with dozens of places where the enemy would congregate.
“Save it for NORAD. They’re our primary target.”
After a few additional blocks of businesses, they went into an area of homes. A few were occupied, but they soon reached the edge of the inhabited part of the town. Foot traffic disappeared and no people were in the houses closest to the outskirts. He didn’t blame the enemy for sticking together inside Lamar.
“We’re almost through.”
When they emerged beyond the last homes, he got a good look at where the giant aircraft had gone. An airport had been created on a dirt field with the longest landing strip he’d ever seen, starting near the road and going off toward the horizon. Metal grates had been tossed on the dirt, providing a stable takeoff and landing platform for the big solar aircraft. The one they’d seen coming down was being taxied away from them as they drove by. It was on the other side of the runway, along with 767s, military transports, fighter aircraft, and other airframes usually reserved for passenger travel.
He tapped the side of his head. “This place messes up my brain. There shouldn’t be an airfield of this size way out here. A landing strip like this one is more appropriate for a commercial airport, or to land the space shuttle, not for podunk Colorado.”
She replied, “It’s like what we saw in Minot, North Dakota. We heard about the big attack at a Texas airport, right? We saw them swarming all over that airport in New Jersey, remember?”
“How could I forget?” He’d been driving the Camaro at break-neck speeds at the time; he would never forget New Jersey.
“Well, it looks like their primary means of invading us here in the heartland is by using our airports. Where they can’t find an existing one, they make their own. Ted, these people have put a lot of thought into this invasion. We’ve got to put a stop to it.”
Ted goosed the motor to pick up speed. Evidence of town ended almost immediately once they passed the far edge of the airstrip. A few last houses and one car wash went by, then there was nothing but grass and a few trees ahead.
“Aw, shit, not this again.” A checkpoint had been set up in those trees. Men in black jumpsuits came alongside the road, waving for him to stop.
“We have to see what they want,” he remarked, wishing he could zip through and go for broke, but knowing such a stunt would never work.
“One more time,” he said with deliberation. “We’re pushing our luck beyond its designed limits.”
Emily bumped him as she got out of her seat and crawled into the back, staying low.
“What the hell, Em?”
“I’m not going to put us at risk again. These guys are just going to wave you through, but if they figure us out, I want them to think we’re not the same truck as the one that recently came into town. They’ll only know there were two people at the first roadblock, and one at this one.” She’d tumbled her way into the far back cargo area.
It was too late to talk her out of it. He slowed as he reached the men, who were fifty feet in front of him. “I only see two,” he said, using his hand to hide his mouth from the guys. “One on each side. One Humvee. Left side. Empty, I think.”
“Understood,” she replied.
Like the last time, he rolled down his window and put on his tourist face.
The guy barely even looked at him. He waved for him to go through.
Ted smiled broadly, intending to make good on the wave, but a third man appeared from inside the black Humvee parked at the edge of the road.
“Wait a second!” he yelled to Ted.
His foot hovered between waiting and fleeing.
NORAD Black Site Sierra 7, CO
“Of course I want to escape,” Tabby replied to the president. “Don’t you?”
He laughed. “Oh yeah, but I’ve given up hope. These folks can’t be defeated, if what they say about erasing all our people is true.”
“It is,” she replied. “But you shouldn’t give up hope. You’re still the president. You can order attacks. Nuke them, or whatever. All we have to do is get you up top and back to US forces, wherever they are.”
“Oh, is that all?” He tried to laugh.
She did not.
“I admire your spirit, I really do. David put me down here, saying it’s the most secure prison he could find. However, if I ever left without his permission, he has a… I don’t know what to call it. A box of light? A machine of some kind—”
“I’ve seen it,” she said dryly.
“Then you know. If we leave and get caught, it’s into the light we go.” He walked through the entryway of his makeshift home, back toward the elevators and the window looking out into the ten-foot-wide tube. “Our best bet is to wait this out. I may be out of action, but I guarantee there’s a general or admiral overseas who’s putting together a rescue mission at this very minute. I know how those men think.”
“It isn’t hopeless to fight back. I came down here without seeing anyone. We’ll get in the elevator and retrace my steps. Instead of getting out at the station I started at, we’ll go to the very top. I’ve been there. We’ll arm up with pipes or wrenches. Whatever you’ve got down here. You can hit them over the head, sir.”
He stood by the glass, looking up. “It’s a great plan, but the call elevator button doesn’t work here at the bottom. You need a key to open the doors.”
“Well, that’s unexpected, but maybe it makes sense. If you’re in jail, they wouldn’t want you wandering around.”
“Like you,” he interjected.
“Yeah, like me.” She tried to find interest in the tube of flashing lights, but it was a bunch of conduits and wires, nothing too exciting. Except, almost by accident, she realized there was a ladder next to the window. The curve of the tunnel was severe enough she was able to make it out. “Hey, can you get in there?”
Tanager shot her a confused look. “Out there?”
She nodded.
“Well, yeah, actually. There’s a service hatch the tech guys have used to go in there. They don’t tell me why, of cours
e, but I’ve watched them do it. It’s right over here.” He pointed beyond the edge of the window to a place she guessed was directly next to the ladder. “You can barely make it out from here.”
Her next question was the most important. “Do you think the ladder goes all the way up?”
He cracked up laughing. “Your escape plan is to climb a ten-mile ladder? You might be able to do it, young lady, but I’m sixty-seven. I wouldn’t make it a hundred yards with the shape I’m in. Plus, you’d have to be in an environmental suit. It’s supposed to be several hundred degrees in there.”
She tried not to let his constant negativity beat her. “Where are the suits?”
“They have a closet full of them. It’s next to my living area. Trust me, none of this is going to make a bit of difference. Even if you did make it up to the top, inside or out of the tube, David probably has men guarding everywhere. You’d never make it past them without a gun.” He pointed at her blue outfit. “Especially being dressed as you are.”
A plan formed in her mind. She’d gotten Peter, Audrey, and Donovan out of the mine back home. She could get out of this one, too.
“Sir, with all due respect, I gave tours in a mine where I came from. If I say you can climb your way out of this mess, I guarantee you can. I’ll be with you the whole way. To raise our chances, we’re going to have on those suits. Once we get to the top, there’s no way they’ll know who we are. We’ll walk right on by.” She pressed her hands together with anticipation he’d agree to her plan.
As she waited, the elevator dinged, causing both to whip around to see who’d arrived.
“I’m afraid you’re going to be caught, my dear,” Tanager said sadly.
The door opened and a tall young man, dressed in blue, warily exited the car.
“Victor?” she said, both surprised and disappointed it was him.
Tanager shoved past her. “Don’t let the door close!”
CHAPTER 23
