Exiled Omnibus (2 page)

***

The crowds around a storefront in downtown San Diego watched the president's speech and lingered there for a few moments on the sidewalk after it was over. Some people shrugged and walked away, others started crying, but a few picked up rocks along the street.

They grasped the pieces of stone firmly in hands that swung back and forth in a violent cadence. Their footsteps got louder as they ran to the storefronts and the cars that lined the road. Greedy eyes looked longingly at the goods through the windows of the stores.

Finally, the first crash of glass broke the silence of the night, followed by hurried boots that crunched over the shards of glass on the ground. Sporadic echoes of similar crashes reverberated through the streets. Then, just as a thunderstorm starts with a only a few drops, a hail of stones, pipes, and fists rained upon downtown San Diego as the crowds morphed from spectators to participants in the frenzied rush of panic.

Shouts and screams filled the streets. They were cries of anger and fear, pierced with sharp howls of pain. The police in the area half-heartedly tried to control the crowds, but they too were now exiled members of a country that had abandoned them with no prospects of help.

There was no longer order, laws, or rules. Everything was about survival now, and that's what the people in downtown San Diego repeated in their minds after every smashed window, stolen good, and punch they threw.
I'm doing it to survive.

***

Smoke snaked its way up from the tip of the cigar loitering in General Gallo's hand. He brought it to his lips, inhaling the smoke as his cheeks puffed in and out.

“It looks like our congressman pulled it off,” Gallo said.

The general was surrounded by his officers. All of them turned to him with eager twitches. This was what they had been waiting for. It was time to strike.

“Our men are ready, General,” Colonel Herrera said.

“Patience, Colonel,” Gallo replied.

Gallo's eyelids were half closed as he peered through the wafts of smoke at his men. He ashed the tip of his cigar, and it crumbled to the stone floor.
“We'll let the Americans pull themselves apart, then when they're weak and tired, that's when we crush them. We are about to regain a part of Mexico's powerful heritage. Our nation has waited over one hundred fifty years for this. We can hold for a few more days,” Gallo said.

The men nodded, leaving Gallo alone in his office. Photographs lined the walls. The pictures of the men with Gallo included top Mexican officials, his family and estate, and an 1840 map of Mexico which stretched well into California, Nevada, and Utah. His eyes fell to the area of the map that was now Texas with a gaze that could have set it on fire. He took another drag from his cigar then rested it on an ashtray. The tip smoldered.

Gallo reached for his phone and dialed a number he knew by heart. There were a few rings and then a friendly secretary greeted him. “Gallo,” he said.

That was all the introduction he needed to utter. The phone rang again, and the general was greeted by a man's voice speaking at a low volume.

“I thought we agreed no contact until next week, General,” Jones said.

“I was calling to congratulate you, Congressman. It's not every day someone sentences forty million people to die.”

“I appreciate the felicitations, General, but now is not the time. The dust is still settling on my side of the line.”

“In our discussions, you said that Texas wasn't off the table.”

“I didn't say it was on the table, either.”

“Well, now it appears that it is most definitely off.”

“General, Texas was never guaranteed. Now, if you're choosing not to honor our agreement, then I would encourage you to reconsider.”

“Are you a student of history, Congressman?”

“I've had my share of schooling, General.”

“I have always been fascinated by history. What we can learn from it, what it teaches us. But throughout history, there is one constant that never changes. Whoever wins gets to tell their version of the story, and it’s the only one people listen to. I will honor our agreement, Congressman. You will still have the Mexican government's allegiance for your conquest in the south.”

“It's always a pleasure hearing from you, General.”

The line went dead, and Gallo smiled, setting the receiver down. He took a few more puffs of the cigar. Through the smoke, he watched the old map taunt him.

Brooke pulled the last screw out of the solar panel and lifted it off the plate, disconnecting it from the rest of the solar farm around her.

Most of the panels were completely useless due to months of neglect accompanied by sandstorms. The extreme heat didn't help, either. But she had managed to find a few panels scattered around that would still be usable after a little TLC.

The shemagh wrapped around her head only left room for her eyes, which were covered by sunglasses. Almost every inch of her was shielded from the sun. The steady stream of heat and ultraviolet waves was her biggest adversary at the moment.

She knew the risks working in this type of heat brought, but the only other commodity that was more precious than water was time. Every second spent at the abandoned solar station on the edge of the Mojave was one more second the president's troops had to further establish the new western border of the United States.

The chaos in San Diego Brooke had escaped from had started long before the president's speech. Once word broke out that the Colorado River was dry, people had started looting any resource station in the area. The small thread of civility that still remained was cut with the president's words.

She leaned the solar panel up against the side of her Toyota Land Cruiser 70 Series. Brooke had invested in the SUV for her engineering job at the solar power company. It was one of the best decisions she had made. The cruiser wasn't great on gas mileage, but with its live-action axle, four-wheel drive, and 5.7-L V8 engine, complimented with the thirty-two-inch all-terrain tires made navigating the sea of sand easy.

That car was one of her biggest advantages at the moment. There weren't many vehicles that could handle the terrain and punishment of desert travel, but hers could.

The solar panel she brought over gave her a total of six, which she thought was more than enough to provide power to a spare car battery she had found. It could come in handy for bartering or if something happened to the cruiser.

All she needed now was the copper wire to rig up the battery. Brooke pulled her sleeve up to check her watch. Lunch time.

Brooke covered the panels with a spare tarp she’d found. She didn't want to leave the panels in worse condition than they already were. Her feet sifted through the sand, sinking in and out as she trudged to the station's entrance.

Both her children were huddled close to the vents, attempting to stay cool with what little air conditioning the building provided.

“You guys hungry?” Brooke asked.

Emily, her nine-year-old daughter, nodded emphatically. John, her fourteen-year-old son, agreed.

“What do we have to eat?” John asked.

Most of the station had been picked over by both the company that used to operate it and scavengers looking for a quick score. But there were still some useful items. She had found some of the emergency rations that morning after taking inventory of the first aid supplies left behind.

Brooke picked up one of the MREs and turned it over in her hand. “Looks like beef stew and mashed potatoes,” Brooke said.

Emily and John frowned.

“Anything else?” Emily asked.

Brooke tossed her daughter the pack.

“Now's not the time to be picky, Em,” Brooke answered.

“Why can't we open up the food we brought?” Emily asked.

“I want to work through what we find here first. Once we run out of this stuff, we'll start digging into our own stash,” Brooke replied.

They had brought as many supplies as they could stuff into the cruiser, which was packed with filled portable water tanks, canned foods, and more MRE rations. There was enough food to last them a month, but the water supply would only get them through the week.

The three of them choked down their meals. Emily and John made a bigger fuss about it than necessary, but even Brooke admitted it wasn't the best.

“We'll probably be here one more night, so let's try and keep it fairly clean, okay?” Brooke asked.

“We still have to clean our rooms even when the world is collapsing around us,” John said, picking up the pieces of litter from their MREs.

Brooke pulled a piece of paper from her pocket with random items inked in hurried handwriting. John stopped his cleaning when Brooke extended the paper to him.

“What's this?” John asked.

“I need you to check how many of the items on this list we have. It could be a while before we get to see Aunt Amy in North Carolina, so I need you to inventory everything that's on there. If we don't have it, try and find it. The items crossed off are what I found this morning,” Brooke said. “Have your sister help.”

Brooke rewrapped her shemagh and headed back outside. She wasn't sure if it had become hotter during the thirty minutes she was inside or if she just got used to being in the shade, but the heat wave that attacked her when she stepped outside felt like it could melt her.

Her first step was setting up the cells to capture the light. It was June, so for her latitude, she needed to position the solar cells at eighty degrees. She propped up the four-by-five-foot panels to the appropriate angle then secured them together with clamps.

Once she was done securing the panels, all the wires hung off the sides, dangling and smacking into one another from the gusts of hot wind blowing from the west.

Now she needed copper, and lots of it. She picked up a hammer, an empty can she would use for a spool, and wire cutters. Under all of the decomposing solar cells around her was precious copper wire that would help her connect the panels to the spare car battery.

After two hours of dismantling a quarter of the field, the can was fat with copper. It was late afternoon, and she walked backed into the station, copper in hand, to refill her water bottle.

Both John and Emily had food, water, clothes, and equipment spread out on the floor of the station’s main entrance lobby.

“How are we looking?” Brooke asked.

“We have almost everything. It looks like the only thing we're missing is the pistol,” John said.

Brooke kept the gun on her at all times. She knew John could use it, but she didn't want to put that burden on him. At least not yet.

“Whatever the count is on the side of the boxes of ammo, make sure you subtract five bullets. I have them loaded in the revolver,” Brooke said.

She was impressed. She thought John would have walked through the motions of getting everything accounted for, but from the organization she saw, he seemed to be doing a good job.

“Thank you,” Brooke said.

“For what?” John asked.

“Helping.”

***

After three more hours of working in the heat, Brooke finally had the spare battery wired. She'd let it sit overnight and check the charge in the morning. She wiped her head and turned her attention to the spare tarp she had found to cover the panels.

Although it hadn't rained in southern California for almost two years, she wanted to prepare some rain catchers, just in case they'd get lucky with a storm running across the desert. It was a long shot, but she wanted to be ready.

Brooke found two old trash cans in the back. One of them was useless with a massive hole in the bottom, but the other was still intact, minus a few aesthetic blemishes.

A ledge jutted out from the side of the building and was close to two cacti of equal height. She pierced the closest cactus with a tent spike from her bug-out bag. She secured one end of the tarp she’d found earlier to the top of the cactus with the spike and tied the other end to its partner a few yards to the left. Then she hammered the last two corners of the tarp, which rose above the cacti, into the roof, creating a slope for the water to slide down and funnel into the barrel at the bottom.

Brooke made sure the tarp was secure then headed back inside. She pulled off the shemagh, panting from the heat. John and Emily had most everything packed neatly back up in their bags, with a few additions they had collected along the way. Most of them were tools, but John had managed to find two knives. Nice ones, too. Both were six inches in length and full tang. Their grips had worn off somewhat, but the blades were still sharp.

“Good job, guys,” Brooke said.

Emily collapsed against her mother, using Brooke as a support beam.

“I'm exhausted,” Emily said.

“Well, I think it's time for din—”

Brooke cut herself off. She could hear rumbling in the distance. It was faint but there.

“You hear that?” John asked.

The rumble echoed again. All three of them stood in silence, trying to decipher what was causing the noise. The hope on John’s face grew along with the booming outside.

“It's rain!” John said.

All three of them sprinted toward the door and burst outside into the fading light. Brooke looked up into the sky, searching the horizon for clouds, but was unable to find any.

Brooke looked west into the sinking sun and shielded her eyes as best she could. There, on the backdrop of a beautiful desert sunset, were black dots peppered against the sky.

“What is it, Mom?” Emily asked.

The objects grew larger along with the rumbling. A few minutes later, hundreds of fighter jets soared above them, littering the sky.

The boom of their engines vibrated her entire body. The station's windows rattled. The cruiser rocked gently from the supersonic speed of the jets above them. Brooke had never seen anything like it. It took five minutes for every jet to pass them. Even after the jets disappeared into the eastern sky, Brooke could still feel the thunder that lingered behind.

“Where are they going?” John asked.

They were just following orders. Called back to their country to protect its new borders. A part of her understood that, but the other part cursed the jetwash in the sky, which was the only thing they left behind.

Brooke knew federal authorities would be granted permission to cross the border, but not her. Her mind went back to her husband, Jason, who had served twelve years as an officer in the Marines. If he was still alive, they wouldn't be stuck in the middle of the desert picking through scraps to try and survive. They would already be in North Carolina with her sister, waiting for him to come back from base.

“They're going home,” Brooke said.

She just hoped that one day, they would get to do the same.