Apocalyptic Visions Super Boxset (237 page)

***

The sewing machines hammered away in a unified rhythm as the community members ran the pieces of bland, bulky fabric across the mechanical needles that stitched the seams together. Drops of sweat rolled down each face of the workers and landed on the clothes they sewed. The heat from the number of bodies combined with the machines’ relentless motor made Emma sopping wet before lunch.

When the whistle sounded for their twenty-minute mid-day break, they all rushed to the meal station to collect their daily food rations. Slops of tomato mush and blocks of synthetic mineral and protein gels lined the trays as community members wolfed down their fodder. Emma found a seat next to three others sitting on the edge of Main Street.

“I wouldn’t feed dogs this shit,” Ray said, letting the goop slide from the makeshift ladle used to shovel what the Coalition passed as “food.” Ray was shorter, almost as short as Emma, but his mouth had always distracted people from his height. “You never see sentries eating this garbage.”

“It could be worse,” Nelson said, taking a bite of his protein gel. The thick, black-framed glasses slid down the bridge of his nose and he pushed them back up, smudging his lenses in the process. Out of the four of them he was the thinnest, but that was a burden he’d had long before the soil crisis.

Emma sat down next to Todd, the only one of them with his shirt tucked in and his sleeves neatly rolled up his forearm, exposing his thin forearms, which accentuated the strong, sturdy hands they were attached to. Todd picked at his food and Emma leaned in.

“You need to eat something. You don’t want to draw attention to yourself,” Emma said.

Todd picked at the meal on his plate and then dropped the ladle. He scratched his left ring finger, a habit he had yet to break. Emma grabbed his hand and squeezed. “I still haven’t gotten used to not wearing it,” Todd murmured.

“Me either,” Emma answered.

One of the sentries made his way down to where they were, making sure nobody was sneaking extra rations, and Emma quickly released her grip on Todd’s hand. Once the sentry had passed, she picked up the ladle and stuffed it back into Todd’s palm. “Eat.” Emma nudged Todd’s arm and he reluctantly took a bite from one of the gels.

“Well?” Todd asked once the sentry was out of earshot.

“He didn’t say much,” Emma answered.

Ray ducked his head low as he leaned over Nelson’s lap and whispered, disrupting their conversation. “You think you’re gonna bring the new hunter in on this?”

“I don’t know,” Todd answered. “I’ll have to feel him out.”

“We’ll need to do something soon,” Nelson said. “The results of the tests should be done by the time we take our next trip out to the lab.”

“And we need a way to message the others,” Emma added. “None of us can do it. We miss roll call at the factory or a curfew check and they’ll have this place swarming with more sentries than we did last month after the blood tests.”

“I’ll figure something out,” Todd replied.

The sentry moved back into range where he could hear them speak, and they went silent. They sat there in the dirt under the shade of the rusty awning outside of the meal station, chewing on their synthetic replacement meals with their mouths watering at the prospect of the future that was so close they could taste it.

***

The Wyoming dirt under Alex’s boots left the same trail of footprints as the dirt in Kansas. And just like Kansas, the fields here were dead. A part of him wanted to believe he’d find some remnant of life out in the vastness that this countryside provided, but found no such promise. There wasn’t a corner of this country that GMO-24 didn’t turn into the faded grey ash that he now trudged through.

Alex was told to keep heading west and that he’d know when he’d reached his destination. After walking for almost four hours, he’d seen no such sign. Then, a gust of wind that sprinkled his cheek with some of the dead earth also carried the rumble of an engine. He looked south and he could see a truck cresting the top of a small hill.

Alex adjusted the strap of the rifle over his right shoulder and rubbed it gently. Even through the fabric of his shirt he could still feel the mangled, disfigured flesh underneath. The Humvee came to a stop and two men stepped out.

The first was Jake, his hair shaved down to the nub and his black leather jacket concealing the pistol underneath. He had the face of a street thug and the brains of a deviant. The second man was small, mouse-ish. He walked behind Jake with his head down. Alex couldn’t place his face, but he felt like he’d seen him before.

“You’re late,” Jake said.

“Well, it’s hard to find your destination when your only directions are head west,” Alex replied. He pulled the empty magazine from the rifle and tossed it to Jake, who caught it without breaking eye contact with Alex. “And if you want me to do this, I’ll need bullets to hunt. It’s going to look odd if I’m brought here as the community’s hunter and I don’t bring back any game,” Alex said.

“Fine,” Jake answered, tossing the magazine back. He snapped his fingers, and the rat-like creature behind Jake handed him a picture, which he extended to Alex.

“Who’s this?” Alex asked.

“Your suspect. Todd Penn. He’s the one we think planted the soil we found. His community was the closest in proximity to the location of the soil, and when his blood samples were drawn at the inspection last month, his nutrition levels were through the roof.” Jake snapped his fingers again and the tiny creature behind him handed him a briefcase. Alex opened it and found a small laptop and a thumb drive with an exposed USB port. “Tell him,” Jake said, grabbing the rat from behind him and shoving him forward.

“The computer is for communication with your old community per your request, and I took the liberty of downloading each of your community member’s nutritional files on the desktop so you can keep track of their results,” the rat said, fiddling with the tips of his fingers and keeping his head down while speaking. “The battery should last at least three days, and that’s if you keep it on all the time. If you run it thirty minutes a day, it should last you for up to a week.”

“And Meeko has one of these as well?” Alex asked, holding up the computer.

The rat nodded. “You can message him whenever you like. Both are connected to a satellite link since you won’t have any other form of connection.”

“And make sure you send us a message when you find something,” Jake added. “I’ve alerted the sentries to your situation, and I think it goes without saying that you need to make sure the other community members don’t see you with that.”

Alex stuffed the computer into his sack and dropped the briefcase on the ground. The rat picked it up, and Alex caught a good look of his face when he came back up. “Wait. I do know you. You worked in one of the seed silos.”

“He’ll be analyzing the data you send us,” Jake said. “The good scientist has informed us that whoever fixed that patch of soil we found couldn’t have done it without some serious processing power. When you find the lab, just stick that USB drive into one of the computers you find there, and it’ll take care of the rest.”

The rat scurried back into the truck and Jake took a few slow strides until he was only inches away from Alex’s face. Jake stood a few inches shorter than Alex, but the air of arrogance that surrounded him suggested that Alex was the one looking up. “I just want to make myself clear that if you don’t get this done, I’ll personally slit the throat of every single member of your community back home. Then I’ll cut out each of their eyes, shove them in a plastic bag, and send them to you at whatever farm camp Gordon will stick you in. That way, no matter where you go or what you’re doing, the eyes of everyone you cared about and who depended on you will be there to judge your final, miserable days on this planet.”

The Humvee’s tires kicked up a puff of grey dust as it drove away, which drifted through the air and added to the layer Alex was already covered in. The Coalition had him cornered, and right now the only way to get out was to play their game.

The moment the Humvee came to a stop at the sentry depot where Jake and Sydney were stationed, forty miles south of the community where Alex was located, Sydney scurried out the door and into his lab.

One of the Class 2 sentries came out, and Jake tossed him the keys to the truck. “Make sure you lock it up. I don’t want anyone taking any joy rides.” The sentry nodded and Jake grabbed his arm, “And I want you to put a bug on his communications,” nodding to Sydney, “Anything that he sends or anything he receives, I want to know about it. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

Jake pulled a phone out of the inside of his jacket and dialed a number. He paced around in the hanger while it rang. Finally, Gordon picked up.

“Well?” Gordon asked.

“He’s got the equipment. Now it’s just a waiting game.”

“Good. Any trouble from Sydney?”

“No, but I’ve got a wire on him in case he tries anything.”

“I don’t need him getting anywhere near his father, so make sure he doesn’t make contact.”

“You want me to keep digging on Todd Penn?”

“Yes. If Alex doesn’t deliver, then I want a contingency plan.”

“Understood.”

***

The white glow of the office’s fluorescent lights illuminated a map of the United States that took up every inch of the table it was spread out on. Red dots broke out in clusters along the Midwestern states and a few states in the south. Gordon ran his finger from Kansas all the way to California, and by the time he made it to the west coast, the red dots were nowhere to be seen.

Dean Grout, Gordon’s Chief of Sentries, stood on the opposite side. His rounded, boulder-sized shoulders hunched forward and the table creaked under the strain of his weight as he pressed his gorilla-like palms flat against the Atlantic.

“The coasts will present a challenge,” Dean said.

“What do our resources look like?” Gordon asked.

“Ammunition stockpiles are solid. We still have a lot of the weaponry left over from the Army acquisition from two years ago, and we have sentries stationed at the refineries in Texas. The Coast Guard has a few ships in the Gulf of Mexico, but they don’t have the range to cause any trouble. And even if they did, the collateral damage wouldn’t be worth the risk. They need those refineries as much as we do.”

“And men?”

“Our biggest concentration is in the Midwest, more specifically here in Kansas, but we have almost no one in the northeast or the west coast.”

“What about in terms of numbers?”

“Combat ready?”

“Yes.”

“Two hundred thousand, but that’s including the soldiers we acquired through the Army. The Navy still has enough firepower to pose a threat, and the aircraft we have are strictly transportation with the exception of a few Black Hawks we managed to get our hands on.”

“If I can get us the jets, can we take out their ships?”

“Depends on who we get to fly them.”

Gordon’s fingertips dragged across the edges of the map as he walked the north border and down the eastern seaboard to Virginia, where he circled Washington D.C. with the tip of his nail. He bent his knees until his eyes were level with the table.

“All right. We’ll see what the President has planned first. No need to show our cards just yet,” Gordon said.

Dean trailed closely behind Gordon as the two walked toward the administrative building reserved for the President’s staff located in Topeka. The weekly meetings had always been a point of discontent, but lately it had escalated to the point of viciousness. Both Gordon and the President could see the long wick that was attached to the ordnance of war.

Jared, and his old watchdog Marcus that growled whenever Gordon got too close, had already taken their seats at the table when Gordon and Dean walked into the conference room.

“Always have to be at the head of the table,” Gordon said, taking a seat at the opposite end from where Jared sat. Dean took the chair to Gordon’s right, and its legs seemed to buckle when he sat down. “So, what do we have today?”

Jared’s shoulders stretched as broad as the table before him and looked as though they would break free from the suit in which they were encased. His face was decorated with the same controlled, statuesque reserve that had commanded so many conference rooms in his days in the weapon’s industry. His fingers were laced together comfortably in front of him on the table’s slick surface. “The farm camps will be moving away from the Soil Coalition’s control and into federal jurisdiction.”

“On whose authority?” Gordon asked.

“The President’s.”

Gordon leaned back in his chair, smiling. “And how does the President plan on accomplishing that? Every farm camp from Topeka to Wyoming is under the control of my sentries. My men. The only authority they recognize is mine.”

“Gordon, food production is down, you have yet to find a cure for the soil, and we’re being pressured by China to begin debt payments. The President believes it’s time for a change.”

“Change is what got us here in the first place, Jared. It didn’t work out then, and it won’t work now.”

Gordon kicked his chair backwards and stormed out of the room with Dean stumbling behind him. Once they were away from the prying eyes and ears of Jared and his staff, Gordon turned on Dean, shoving his finger into the man’s muscled chest. “I want patrols doubled at every farm camp, and I want our reserves put on active duty and watching our supply routes. You tell them to blow away any unauthorized force that tries to interfere with their work. Understand?”

Dean nodded and immediately started calling every squad leader on his phone. Now that Gordon knew the President’s position, he could maneuver his men. The first chess piece had been put into play, and now it was their move.