Apocalyptic Visions Super Boxset (99 page)

“Well, it’s really not that hard. With the satellite feed, I was still able to track your movements, and I could see the ship from the same images, so all I had to do was a simple broad scan of the frequencies until I—”

“You still don’t get that when I ask those questions, they’re rhetorical, do you?”

“Rick is gone, and so is Global Power.”

Sarah winced as she plugged the bullet hole in her calf with a bundle of gauze she pulled out of a first aid kit. “Yeah, I know. I stopped the bombs, though.”

“Vince is on his way back from Moscow now. I’ll have him pick you up on the way. You need any medical attention?”

Sarah glanced down at herself, taking in the amount of blood that had managed to make its way out of her body and onto her clothes. The scrapes, cuts, and bruises decorated her in a painful blanket. The internal pressure was almost too much to bear.

“Nothing I can’t patch up myself.” The answer was nonchalant, but Bryce couldn’t see her almost passed out sitting down.

“Well, I’ll have Vince put a package together anyway. You gonna be all right until he gets there?”

“Oh, yeah. Just me and Captain and Tennille.” Sarah dropped the radio, and the captain continued his verbal assault, but she knew Bryce wasn’t listening anymore. She shifted in her chair and spotted a bottle of tequila behind the first aid kit.

“You wouldn’t happen to have any ice and salt, would you?” The man responded in gibberish, and she popped the top off the bottle and took a swig. “I’ll take that as a no.”

The moment Sarah set foot on the chopper that took her to the jet that had a direct flight to Chicago, she snatched Vinny’s phone and called her brother. To her dismay, it went straight to voicemail. “Benny, it’s Sarah. Hey, call me as soon as you get this, all right?” She didn’t bother calling more than once. She didn’t think she could take it if he didn’t answer again. HQ didn’t have any field agents to spare to perform a house check at her brother’s, so all she could do was sit and fidget as the doctor stitched her up and plugged an IV into her arm.

The moment they touched down, she rushed to her brother’s house, but when she opened the door, no one was there. The cars were still in the driveway, everything was still neatly tucked away, but no one was home. She went straight back to HQ, where both Bryce and Mack were waiting for her. She could tell their expressions were worried, but she didn’t know why.

“Did you already do it? Did you already get them to a safe house?” She was out of breath, panting, even though the jog over had been light, easy. Neither of them answered. “Where are they?”

“Sarah, we don’t know how they found them,” Bryce said. “There wasn’t any trace linking Ben, Becca, and the kids back to you.”

“What happened, Bryce?”

“Demps. He has them.”

All her senses went blind with rage, overpowering the pain still coursing through her body. The yell that penetrated the floor of HQ was primal, ancient. It had lain dormant for years, and now it was awake. It was angry. And it was in control.

From the rooftops of the apartment complexes, you could see the decay of the Chicago neighborhoods in broad daylight. Rusted cars, sagging roofs, bars protecting broken windows, boarded-up doors, graffiti spray painted in reds, yellows, greens, and whites. The alleyways and streets were littered with trash, broken bottles, used needles, and the smell of people too tired, hungry, and weak to dispose of their business in what conventional plumbing was left in the city.

With the exception of the blaring horns, the sporadic gunfire echoing down side alleys, and the shattered cymbal-like crash of store windows, the city was quiet. The hum of generators had finally ceased after four days. The gas stations hadn’t received a delivery in more than a week, and anyone who wasn’t out of the city by now was most likely causing problems for anyone with a gallon of water or fuel.

Agent Sarah Hill gently kicked both her legs off the side of one of the six-story brick apartment complexes in the West Side of Chicago. Only a few light scars still rested on her face, which was covered in a thick coat of sweat. Her sleeves were rolled up all the way to her shoulders, exposing her toned, muscular arms to the afternoon sun above. Her black jacket rested in a folded half next to her. A .45 Colt 1911 pistol hung on either side of the dual-shoulder holster. The belt she wore held four extra magazines of ammo along with two small yet very powerful C-4 explosive devices, which she had found very handy as of late, and a small lock-picking set.

Sarah reached for the bottle of water and took a few gulps then poured a little bit into her hand and dabbed the back of her sun-drenched neck. While the all-black, high-tech Kevlar woven fabric that comprised her shirt and pants made for fantastic field gear, it did little to cool her in the blazing heat.

“You know, you should really get into some shade,” Bryce said.

The small black dot on the inside of Sarah’s ear connected her to her support agent, Bryce Milks, who was able to view all her movements through their agency’s satellite hovering more than five hundred miles above the Earth’s surface.

“And you really need to get a girlfriend,” Sarah answered, watching a group of men gather at the end of an alleyway. “You did get rid of those toys you had at your apartment, right?”

“Okay, first of all, they’re models, not toys—”

“Wait!” Sarah said, stretching out her arms as if he were there in front of her to make him stop. “Can you hear that? It’s the sound of your sex life screaming out in pain.” Sarah cupped her hands over her mouth, giving her a slight echo, and lowering her voice. “Help me. Please, help me.”

“All right, so when was the last time you went out on a date?”

“What are you talking about? I go out on dates all the time. I’m on a date right now, in fact.”

“With whom?”

“Crime,” Sarah said, squinting her eyes and looking out into the Chicago skyline. “We should talk to Mack about making an action figure based off of me. Those things would sell like hotcakes.”

“Yes, I can see it now. Sexually promiscuous, foul-mouthed Barbie doll. Mothers will go nuts for those,” Bryce replied.

“I’ll have you know I’m a fantastic role model.” Sarah looked back down at the gathering group of wild-eyed individuals and watched one of them remove a pistol from the back of his jeans, while the rest wielded crowbars, knives, and large pieces of wood. Their slow, methodical path seemed to be set toward a convenience store down at the end of the street that still had most of its windows intact. “I’ve got a mob heading east on Superior Street.”

Sarah swung her legs from the side of the ledge back to the roof, grabbing her jacket and seamlessly sliding her arms into the sleeves on her jog to the fire escape. She jumped down each flight of stairs, the metal grates rattling with each impact, until she finally landed on the asphalt of the alleyway.

“That’s the fourth one today,” Bryce said. “People are getting desperate.”

“People do some crazy shit when they get hungry. Hell, I once broke a cash register at a Rally’s because they were out of fries.” The mob circled the store, screaming their threats to the frightened owner through the windows. Sarah cracked her knuckles as she closed in on the mob. “Did you call it in?”

“Yeah, but it’s not doing any good. The cops stopped answering calls two days ago.”

“Good thing I’m here, then.”

“Remember, no guns.”

“Yeah, yeah, I remember. Don’t shoot civilians who are deliberately breaking the law. It’s like you don’t think I ever read the mission docs.”

Bryce paused a moment before answering. “That’s because you don’t read the mission docs. You always have me give you a summarized version.”

“Tomatoes, tomahtoes.” Sarah scooted up on the back side of the mob, examining each of them. Height, weight, weapon of choice, clothing, and any weak points she could exploit. She stood there for a good sixty seconds with none of them noticing until she tapped one of the men in the back of the group on the shoulder. He spun around, sweat dripping down his face, squinting from the glare of the sun flooding his eyes. Sarah smiled. “I’m here for the neighbors-fighting-neighbors convention. Is this the line for the sign-in sheet?”

The man looked her up and down and elbowed his friend next to him. “John, you see this bitch?” John turned around and gave the same angry, empty-eyed squint that his buddy did. “I’d get out of here if you know what’s good for you, sweetheart.”

“Funny, I was just going to say the same thing to you.” Sarah punched the one named John in the face first, causing him to drop the crowbar in his hands, which Sarah caught with her left hand then brought to the side of his friend’s knee hard, knocking him to the ground. Their moans and curses caused the rest of their fellow looters to turn around. The one man wielding the pistol immediately aimed his gun at her, but she didn’t flinch; his hand was shaking. She took a few steps into the mob, gripping each end of the crowbar across the back of her shoulders. The men around her kept their distance, still eyeing their whimpering colleagues on the ground. “So, here’s the deal, boys. I get that it’s hot, and you’re hungry, tired, and frustrated, but instead of destroying that fine Chicago establishment of commerce, you’re going to go home. Or head to a relief center. Because if you don’t, you’ll be joining your two friends back there.”Sarah gestured to the two men, now staggering or crawling away. She watched the constipated faces of twelve fully grown men as they struggled to determine whether they wanted to take their chances with the five-foot-seven, 125-pound woman in front of them. “Well?” Sarah asked.

They all looked back at one man, whom Sarah determined was their “leader” and the brains of the operation—and who just so happened to be wielding the pistol—waiting for their orders. All of them were crouched low, poised to strike if the order came. All the while, Sarah couldn’t stop staring at one of the men’s tattoos. She tilted her head to the side and scrunched her face, trying to figure out what the hell it was. She pointed her finger at it. “Is that a skunk on your arm?”

“Get her!”

The skunk-tattooed man lunged first, and Sarah quickly swung the tip of the crowbar across his face, sending three teeth out of his mouth and his body to the ground. Two more assailants with pocketknives jabbed the air around her stomach as she swiveled left and right, avoiding the blades. She gripped both ends of the crowbar and brought the side of it down against their forearms, cracking bones and forcing them to release the knives from their hands. She kept the same grip on the crowbar and shoved the piece of iron into the top rows of their teeth.

With four of their group down, the remaining eight—minus the fearless leader—circled Sarah with what was left of their gumption, each of them jerking nervously, jutting their knives, bats, and sticks like Neanderthals prodding a saber-tooth during the dawn of men. Finally, one of them broke ranks and entered the circle of death, where Sarah jabbed the end of the crowbar into the man’s eye, and he dropped to the ground, moaning in pain.

Another lunge came from behind. Sarah ducked, missing the swing of the bat, and swept the man’s legs out from under him, where he joined his comrade and received a swift crack across the jaw from the crowbar’s end. Both men gripped their injuries, acting as though their hands would be able to heal their wounds as long as they kept hold really, really tight.

The remaining five bum rushed her with a variety of punches, kicks, swings, and jabs, which she blocked and counterstruck. Except for a fist that managed to land on the tip of her chin—to which she immediately retaliated with the crowbar to the groin—she didn’t have a scratch left on her. When she was done, all but the leader were crawling around on the asphalt, trying to escape any further punishment.

The pistol shook in his hand, and he finally dropped it and put his hands in the air. “It’s not even loaded, all right?”

Sarah took a few steps forward, making sure to step on as many hands, arms, and legs as she could on her way over to him. She patted the end of the crowbar in her palm in an ominous cadence until she was standing right in front of him. “I knew it wasn’t loaded.” Confusion spread over the man’s face as he slowly took a step back. “Because if it was, I would have shot you before you left the alleyway. Now, are you going to be doing this again anytime soon?”

The man shook his head. “N-no. No, I w-won’t.”

“Good,” Sarah said. “Because the next time I see you, or any of these thugs, thinking you can muscle your way into getting whatever you want, I won’t be taking it easy on you.” The man nodded, and Sarah smiled. She stood there for a moment, letting the suspense build along with the man’s trembling. “Boo!” Sarah jerked her head forward, and the man flinched then sprinted as fast as he could in the other direction while the rest of his men joined him in the full retreat.

Sarah twirled the crowbar in her hands, chuckling to herself at the sight of the goons running with their tails between their legs. She dropped the crowbar, and the piece of iron smacked into the concrete with a sharp clank. The store owner came out of his shop, looking at her as if he’d just seen a ghost. “I don’t think they’ll be back anytime soon.”

The old man didn’t have much hair left on his head, with the exception of a few wisps of white that fell across the very top. His hands were crooked with arthritis, and he walked with a limp and a hunch in his back. He gently took Sarah’s hand and held it between his wrinkled and calloused palms. “Thank you.” He spoke with a slightly broken accent that she couldn’t place.

Sarah didn’t respond with anything else. She found herself staring into his eyes, and she couldn’t figure out why until she realized that they were the same color as Ella’s. She quickly pulled back her hand and started running. The increased speed of her jog accelerated her heart rate, her breathing, and the sweat forming on her face and under her clothes. She could hear Bryce’s voice echoing in her ear, asking her if she was all right, asking her what she was doing, but she just kept running.

Move. Just keep moving until you find them.