Dark Road (25 page)

Dan and Marissa lowered their pistols slowly, almost in unison, and it seemed like it was just the last straw for both of them. If Dan hadn’t tied his EMT kit to the back of his backpack he would have dropped it—then again, he’d nearly dropped it a mile or so back, too.

The flashlight on the side of the road turned off, and Dan assumed that meant the weapon wasn’t pointed at them anymore since he’d briefly seen they were mounted together. Then he heard boots on the road approaching them, and voices, and assumed the soldier was talking on a radio.

“Roger, out,” he said as he came up to them and stopped just out of reach, and out of the line of fire from his partner.

“My name is Sergeant Blackwood. There will be a Humvee to take you back to the town we’re patrolling the perimeter of in about five minutes.” He said. “It’s not going to be the most comfortable ride in the world, and I’m going to have to ask that you either give me your firearms or you empty and safe them and I zip-tie them to their holsters.”

“You can’t have them, but an empty weapon is a hammer.” Marissa said.

“True, but a dead person is carrion, and dead parents make orphans,” Blackwood said. “I’m not joking. I cannot and I
will
not allow you into the Humvee with loaded or capable firearms; nor will I allow you to continue to the park until morning, and I can’t leave you here since I’m on patrol. I’m not going to handcuff parents in front of their children, since I have three of my own. I’m trying to give you a choice.”

Dan very slowly raised his 9mm, keeping it pointed in a safe and non-threatening direction, ejected the magazine, put it in his right front pocket, and did the same with the round in the chamber. Blackwood put a zip-tie through the magazine well and out through the ejection port, and handed it back.

“Ma’am?” He asked.

Marissa finally gave in and did the same and got her pistol back about the time the Humvee showed up.

…

“Good,” Staff Sergeant Rebecca Patterson checked her watch, “morning…” the look on her face made it obvious she was fishing for names.

Dan and Marissa both had to wash down the oatmeal they were eating before they could answer—and couldn’t believe they were doing it with fresh milk. They had tried to get the girls to wake up long enough to eat, but both of them refused and went back to sleep, which was a testament to how exhausted they were. “Dan Clark, Sr.” Dan said reflexively, and then blushed. It had been a habit for the last two years and this was the first time in months that someone had asked him his name.

“Marissa Clark,” Marissa said. “The older one is Rebecca; we call her Bekah. She will
not
respond to Rebecca. The younger is Jessie; it isn’t short for Jessica. We figured we wouldn’t make the same mistake twice and just shortened it to begin with.”

“I was the same way growing up,” Sergeant Patterson said. “It wasn’t until I got married that I started going by Rebecca. My husband thought Bekah was a kids name and refused to call me that. Funny how times change.”

She looked down at a pad of paper and flipped through a couple of pages, as though she didn’t have everything she needed to know already memorized, and then started asking questions.

“So, what brings you out this far, on foot nonetheless?” She asked.

“Long or short version,” Dan asked.

“Mid-length,” she said. “If it’s too short I’ll ask for details.”

Recounting the story took about forty-five minutes with questions thrown in, and then the Sergeant excused herself to make a call—presumably on the radio.

When she came back, she needed clarification on one point that she had chosen to ignore—and both Dan and Marissa were grateful for that—but apparently whomever she’d called was insisting on an answer.

“I will try to be delicate about this because I have children myself.” She started.

“Our son passed away just before his second birthday,” Marissa said with just a touch of heat in her voice.

Dan was stunned. He also wanted very much, all of the sudden, to be anywhere but here. She wasn’t close to the breaking point, she was beyond it.

“We don’t know why or what it was, but we couldn’t save him—even though Dan had the only medical training in the neighborhood.” Marissa was close to tears. She reached out and took his hand without looking at him.

“Does your commanding officer need specific details of how he died, or was that enough?” She asked bitterly.

“No ma’am that will be fine.” Sergeant Patterson said. “The Major, she’s a fine woman, none finer—even though she’s never had children of her own.”

The rebuke, mild as it was, had the effect the Sergeant had hoped for. It had taken some of the sting out of the request for more information about the family, and the fact that Dan was a Sr. without a Jr.

“We have a half a dozen empty houses in town at this point that we can set you up in for the evening, or for a couple of days, or longer even—if things work out.” Patterson said. “We have a bath house you can use before bed, and we would ask that everyone take a shower before you go to bed. The housing may be temporary and I’m sure you understand. The girls can be an exception this evening if you want to use a sleeping bag for them.”

Dan and Marissa both nodded. They doubted they were the first ones to be staying in the house and figured they wouldn’t be the last.

“The houses have clothes you can use while you do laundry if you need to, as well. Most likely Joel, or his wife, will be down sometime tomorrow morning, if that’s ok with you.” Patterson said. “Do either of you have a preference?”

“Not really.” Dan said. “I would say we knew both Joel and Rachael equally well. We had Maya babysit once for us in the afternoon right after Daniel was born and everyone wanted to be at the hospital.”

Sergeant Patterson made a mental note that they were either good name droppers or they most likely actually knew the Taylors, at least a little bit.

“At this point, I’ll go ahead and show you to the house and then your guard for the evening will be able to escort you to the showers.” Patterson said. “I won’t lie to you, you will still be under guard, but I won’t be asking for the firearms. I assume you will want to shower one at a time and one of you will want to stay with your daughters.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

“I need the communications tent at 22:00 today,” Mallory told Wilson as he walked into the command tent.

“Absolutely. Do you need any assistance or are you set?” Wilson asked.

“I’m fine, I just have to…” Mallory paused. “Wait, you’re not even going to ask why?”

“No ma’am.” Wilson said. “If you want me to know, you’ll tell me.”

“Plus you’re in charge of comms and you can just change the playback loop from thirty seconds to six hours.” She added

Wilson grinned. “Exactly, but I won’t be doing that, there’s a big red blinking light when we’re archiving so that would be really obvious.”

Mallory snorted. “Well, thank you for that. At the tail end of the ARCLiTE orders was a request to be on the air at 22:00 today.” Mallory said. “No reason given, not even a hint.”

“Could be they just want to see how everyone is handling the integration with the civvies?” Wilson offered.

“I guess we’ll find out at 22:01.” Mallory said.

…

Mallory was waiting for her turn to check in to the ‘conference call’—as she had taken to thinking of it over the last few days. Eric and Bill were both in the communications tent with her, and listening to the ‘net.

“More to the point,” Eric continued the conversation they had been having since that afternoon, “a lot of their
suggestions
are just flat draconian. They take militaristic to a whole new level.”

“Agreed, which is why you two are here.” Mallory said. “I need more than one set of eyes looking at everything, and more than my cynical brain thinking about whatever gets said tonight.”

“Why even bring up things like indoctrination techniques or disinformation campaigns?” Bill asked. “Who even thinks of that crap at a time like this?” He was obviously seriously disgusted, and had been since he got thick into the supplemental material.

For what felt like the thousandth time in a week Mallory said, “I don’t know, but I don’t see how any good can come of it in the long run. You two are on mute and if they are going alphabetically we’re coming up, so I need to pay attention.”

Both men nodded, and less than a minute later Mallory keyed the microphone. “Major Mallory Jensen, U.S. Army National Guard, Nashville and Promised Land Natchez Trace, TN reporting. I authenticate…”

…

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Colonel Olsen began, “The reason for the timing of this conference call is so that it can take place at the same time across the continental U.S. without breaking into the routine of the installations in any one time zone. When I spoke to some of you last, things were looking up. Many of you were already making great strides in relations with the civilian populations around you and had begun to establish working relationships to procure necessary long-term supplies.”

“This nation is faced with a crisis, a crisis the likes of which mankind has never known. The challenges before us require decisive leadership and sure, swift action. We developed ARCLiTE and included the supplemental materials in response to this historic crisis, and as a roadmap to assist you in this critical time of rebuilding.”

Colonel Olsen continued. “Unfortunately, despite the heroic efforts of our brave men and women in uniform, ARCLiTE and, indeed, the very principles it was based on—mutual assistance, co-operation, long-term sustainability—all are being threatened as this nation is under attack from within.”

Mallory and Bill were career soldiers, and Eric had planned to be—right up until he didn’t feel like he could make a difference anymore. They were reading between the lines, or at least trying to. Colonel Olsen was saying all the right things, but his dialog still fell flat. Prior to any engagement the Commanding Officer always gave some sort of pep-talk, even if it was just blowing smoke.

It always started with how great things had been, how things had been going so well and
we
had been doing a stellar job, that
we
hadn’t done anything wrong. The
other guy
, however, had just royally pooched it and now all bets were off, and so now we had to go be the pointy end of the stick…again. It got you pumped; it made you feel like you mattered, somehow, because it wasn’t your fault, and damn it you were going to go smack down the little prick who had messed it all up.

This, on the other hand, this just seemed so…sterile. It seemed scripted and bland and, like, well like he didn’t mean a word of it.

“Since I last spoke to you we’ve been continuing to monitor the traffic that utilizes the sat-com systems, as well as being contacted a number of times directly. The integration of the military and civilian populations has been an almost universal failure. As a result, we find ourselves in a dire position; one where we are forced to take steps we hoped would never have to be taken on American soil.”

The look of stunned incomprehension on all three faces in the tent would have been comical had it not been so serious.

Mallory didn’t wait to be invited for comment and decided that statement needed to be challenged. She hit the mic button and said, “This is Major Jenson and that is a negative.”

She waited for a rebuke, or at least a reply, but got none and then realized that the transmit light had never come on when she tried to send. She hit the mic button again, and once again the transmit light didn’t come on. They were locked out of the conversation, as were the rest of the participants most likely.

The Colonel continued, “The supplemental material that was transmitted along with the original ARCLiTE orders was simply informational. It was, unfortunately, woefully lacking in the detail necessary for implementation. Each of you is currently receiving additional orders that are Eyes-Only for yourself, and possibly your next in command.”

“ARCLiTE still stands, but the scope has been modified. You are still under Autonomous Control for what will be a long term engagement. Integration with the civilian population at this time is no longer the objective.”

…

“How much longer is he going to go on?” Eric asked.

Mallory glared at him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t bring my agenda. I’m sure there’s an intermission where we can all get up and walk around though, Eric.”

Bill tried not to laugh, which got him his own glare.

“This is just so much garbage!” Mallory said. “I spoke with eleven groups earlier this week and not one of them mentioned anything like what the Colonel is talking about. In fact, a couple of them have been in contact with over two dozen additional installations and bases, and from what they say, things were going as well as or better than here.”

“So,” Bill said, “what does that mean?”

“It means,” Eric answered, “that someone, somewhere, is making a power play. It could be the Colonel; it could be the President or the Vice President. It could be just about anyone.”

Mallory held up her hand for silence.

“I repeat,” the Colonel went on, “we are trying to prevent anarchy and an insurrection. We are trying to maintain order. That was the purpose of the extension to ARCLiTE and the integration with the civilian population. Now that it hasn’t worked out as planned we will regroup as just the military, but we will continue to maintain order. That is all.” And with that, the ‘net was closed and there was silence.

“An insurrection, against who?” Eric asked.

“Well,” Mallory said, “He’s using all the right buzz words, I’ll give him that.”

Bill looked at Mallory with a questioning look on his face.

“He’s planting seeds and not doing a half bad job of it.” Mallory said. “Insurrection, revolution, anarchy. You’re right, Eric, insurrection against who or what? There’s nothing to revolt against except for us, maybe, but that really would lead to anarchy. I’m sure there’s some crackpot Majors or better out there who would love nothing more than to be Captains or higher in a new regime, and what better way than to fall right in line with whatever the new guy in charge says needs to happen?”