State of Pursuit (12 page)

Privately, I feel like a combination of both.

I grab my gear and open the door to the hallway. The militia is getting up, gathering their belongings. It’s probably five-thirty. I find the stairs and enter the living room. Alexander is waiting, a grim expression on his face.

“Get a good night’s sleep, Ramos?” I ask.

He grunts.

Yes. That’s the Alexander I remember.

Uriah is standing silently in the shadow of the front door, tracing his finger down the length of a photo frame. His mood radiates depression. Under normal circumstances I would offer to cheer him up, but today I avoid him.

“All present and accounted for,” Vera reports, descending the staircase. “Can we just get this over with?”

“Getting antsy, Vera?” I ask.

“I don’t like sitting around here, doing nothing.”

I don’t disagree.

Manny suddenly barges in through the back door, tracking mud into the house. He looks wild and windblown – almost like he’s been flying.

“What are you doing out there?” I ask.

“Checking on the horses,” he replies. “They’re settled in fine. Katana’s comfortable.” He jerks his thumb behind his shoulder. “The stable’s just about as fancy as the inside of this mansion. Bloody horses are going to be spoiled rotten by the time we get back.”

“They deserve a little pampering,” I say.

“So do
I
,” Manny answers.

I chuckle, stationing myself by the front door. The militiamen and women begin trickling downstairs, geared up and ready to go. Derek and Andrew are
standing near each other, exchanging words in muffled voices.

“Well,” I say, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice. “This is it. We’ve made it this far. We can make it the rest of the way.”

There’s a murmur of agreement.

“You have your orders,” I continue. “We don’t stop moving. If we play our cards right, we’ll reach the prison today, and we can carry out our plan. Does anybody have any questions?”

Silence. There are a thousand questions to be asked, but in the end, only one thing matters: will we survive? I hope so. For Chris’s sake. For the
militia’s
sake. A lot is riding on this rescue mission.

To say nothing of the fact that if we
do
survive, we have to return to Fresno and face the wrath of Colonel Rivera.

“Let’s go,” I say quietly.

Solemnly.

Alexander opens the front door and we step outside together, into the pre-dawn. It’s a dark October morning.
Zero-dark-thirty
, as Chris would say. It’s cold, and it looks like the past week of fair, sunny weather is no more. The sky is cloudy. I smell rain.

“Commander?” Andrew says, falling into step with me.

We stand and wait as the gate rolls open. I stare at the empty street in front of us. Two expensive, abandoned cars are sitting on the side of the road. Leaves are piled in the gutters. The silence is like a physical weight on my chest. I feel overwhelmed with the forlorn atmosphere of this neighborhood – of this entire
city
.

“Commander,” Andrew says again.

“Yes?”

“Are you okay?”

I raise an eyebrow. Then I lift one shoulder in a halfhearted shrug.

We move, locking and loading, rolling out in patrol formation, moving from cover to cover in the dull lighting of the early morning hours. Because of the caution we must proceed with, every city block seems to take hours to travel through. In reality, it only takes a few minutes. I’m acutely aware that every building could be hiding an enemy. We all are. Our rescue unit moves through the neighborhood with the silence and prowess of cats. Our presence here should go completely unnoticed – if all goes well.

By the time we reach the urban epicenter of Los Angeles, the classy, abandoned neighborhoods are no more. What remains is the part of Los Angeles that I was more familiar with as a child. The apartment complexes,
the liquor stores crammed side by side with beauty parlors and pawnshops. Before the apocalypse, this was a bad area. It’s almost improved with anarchy. There’s not a soul in sight.

There is graffiti on the walls. Shapes and symbols in bright colors.
Semper Fi
is painted in yellow letters across a billboard for men’s cologne. Weeds are growing through the cracks in the pavement, twisting around rusty cars and dead streetlights.

“Red light,” Uriah mutters, standing at an intersection. The stoplights are bent, hanging at odd angles. A pile of rubble sits in the middle of the street. The back half of a strip of stores has been blown open. By the looks of it, it happened quite a while ago, too.

Wait a second.

I take a few steps closer to the back of the buildings. A deep crater is there. Black, charred, ashy soot is smeared along the remains of the structures. And in the center of the crater is a passenger jet. Or what’s
left
of it. It’s huge. The cabin alone spans the length of five shops. It looks like something exploded inside, causing the ceiling to rupture. The plane is sitting in two halves – as if it split right down the middle.

“This is one of the planes that went down the night the EMP hit,” I breathe. “I heard them go down. I
saw
the first one.”

“Nobody walked away from this,” Vera remarks. “They died on impact.”

“How many planes went down that night, do you think?” Uriah asks.

“However many got the brunt of the EMP’s attack,” I answer. “Some planes are protected from that kind of thing, and a lot of them were probably fine. But not all of them. Not
enough
.”

What a horrible way to die. Hurtling to your death in a metal box, in a room full of strangers. None of the people that died here would even know
why
they were going to die. They probably thought it was a bomb or a freak accident.

How many children were on this plane?

I shudder.

“We should keep moving,” I say. “It’s not safe to stop.”

I pull away from the decimated passenger jet, silently mourning the innocent civilians that died here. Everything within the city block has been totaled – destroyed by the explosion of the crashing plane.

I could have easily been caught in one of those explosions that night.

But I wasn’t. Why did so many people survive – and why did others die? Why did mothers and infants and children have to lose their lives? They were innocent. Why did Omega’s takeover require so much bloodshed?

It’s an impossible question to answer.

We find two more passenger jets within the next hour. All of them were either landing or taking off from the Los Angeles International Airport – or LAX, as it’s more commonly called.

Or
was
called.

I wonder if my mother survived the EMP?
I think.

Since Omega’s invasion, I have often wondered if my mother is alive. Where was she when the EMP hit? Did she leave the city? Did she escape Los Angeles before Omega attacked it with a chemical weapon?

Despite the fact that I was never close with my mother, it bothers me that I will never know what happened to her. And I guess that puts me in the same boat as millions of other people. People that have no idea what happened to their family members and friends.

Through everything, my focus was on two things: survival and finding my father. Once I found my father, survival was
still
my main focus. It still is, I guess. Only now I’m surviving for a
reason
. Surviving to fight Omega another day.

“Here’s what worries
me
,” Uriah says in a low voice, falling into step with me. “If Los Angeles was attacked by a chemical weapon, are we breathing poison right
now
?”

“Unlikely,” Andrew answers, overhearing us. “I’m betting that Omega used Sarin. We’ll be safe to walk through the city without dying of radiation poisoning.”

“What’s Sarin?” I ask.

“It’s an odorless, deadly poison,” Andrew replies. “Before the EMP, there was a lot of it being used in the war in the Middle East. It’s a popular way to attack people without firing a shot.”

“How long does Sarin last?” I say. “The effects, I mean?”

“On the body? It doesn’t take more than a teaspoon to kill you.” He shrugs. “It doesn’t really linger in the air, though. We’d be dead already if it were still here.”

“Good to know,” Uriah says. “We could be breathing in poisoned air.”

“That’s the chance you have to take, coming back into Los Angeles,” Andrew points out. “Besides, if Omega has set up headquarters here, it’s
got
to be safe.”

Good point.

Then again, Omega might know something that we don’t.

As we burrow into the heart of the city, I see signs of Omega’s presence. Posters and billboards have been covered over with the Omega symbol: the white O containing the continents of the world. One poster is taped to the inside of an abandoned storefront window:

UNITE

OMEGA REQUIRES ALL CITIZENS TO REGISTER

FOR THE CENSUS

REPORT TO GENERAL HEADQUARTERS

COMPLIANCE IS MANDATORY

Uriah says, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that registering for the census is a command, not a suggestion,” Vera answers. “Anybody left alive in this city is probably registering. There’s no such thing as flying under the radar once you give them your information.”

“If they don’t
already
have it,” Andrew says. “Omega could probably pull up information on every citizen in the state based on Facebook pages alone.”

“But the EMP wiped out the computers,” Uriah replies.

“It didn’t wipe out
everything
,” Andrew counters. “Remember, Omega’s got satellites and televisions and access to the digital cloud. The EMP was directed to wipe out
our
access to technology – not theirs.”

“So you’re saying my Facebook page is still accessible to Omega?” Uriah says.

“You had a Facebook page?” I remark, grinning. “What was your relationship status?”

He grimaces.

“Probably ‘it’s complicated,’” Andrew snickers.

Uriah whacks the back of Andrew’s shoulder, and I laugh for the first time in hours. But when you really stop to think about it, there’s a massive pool of information on the Internet that Omega could use to pull up information on anyone they want. That’s how they found out where my dad used to work. That’s how they knew Chris was a Navy SEAL.

The Internet. A scary place in more ways than one.

“I don’t know what book face is all about,” Manny comments,” but I never had one. And I’m glad I didn’t. Omega won’t be able to find anything on me.”

“They’ll be able to find something,” Andrew answers, “if they really want to.” He pauses. “And it’s
Face
book, not book face.”

“Facebook, book face,” Manny rolls his eyes. “Same thing.”

“Citizens that are enrolled in the census,” Andrew continues, turning to me, “have to report weekly to General Headquarters. They only get a certain amount of buying power in the stores, and they’re given mandatory Omega jobs. Otherwise known as slave labor.”

“How do you know this?” I ask.

“I listen to the Underground radio.”

“It sounds like Omega’s turned L.A. into a dystopian society.”

“Dystopian? No. It’s blatantly obvious that things are controlled by Omega,” he says. “They’re not trying to hide it. There’s no illusion. The
question
is, who’s really in charge?”

“So nobody can buy or sell without Omega approval?” Vera asks.

“You’ve got to have a registered Omega identification card to buy or sell
anything
,” he explains. “And even then you can only buy a certain amount. I don’t know what people are using for currency. The dollar is worthless.”

“They’re probably selling their souls, for all we know,” Vera says.

During the fourth hour of our journey through the city, we change our route. The signs of Omega’s presence are very strong here, and as we progress, I hear something in the distance. Voices? Machines?

We move through an alley. I stop, eyeing a fire escape at the back of an apartment complex. “I’m going to take a quick look,” I say. “Stay here and keep an eye out.”

“I’ll come with you,” Uriah volunteers.

Of course
.

I curl my fingers around the rusty rungs of the ladder and climb. The building is only four stories. I reach the top and roll onto the roof. I can see clearly in all directions from here. Miles of buildings wind across the
landscape in every direction. I can almost see the ocean from here.

Almost.

Less than three miles away, the signature circular skyscraper of Los Angeles towers above the ground. The windows over the top half of the building have been painted red. The white Omega O is visible in the center.

“I think we found General Headquarters,” I say, sick.

“That’s the beehive,” Uriah replies. “Wow. They didn’t waste any time making L.A. their home, did they?”

I shake my head.

Uriah remains silent for a few moments. Then, “Listen, Cassidy…about the kiss. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You’re right. You shouldn’t have.” I maintain my crouched position on the roof. In the distance, there is movement. Lots of movement. People? Probably.

Uriah swallows, resting his fists against his knees.

“I just…I care about you, Cassidy,” he continues. I glance at his face, hesitating. His expression is one of hope.

“I know,” I reply.

And that’s all I say. What else am I supposed to do?

I don’t want to lead him on. I
won’t
.

I jump over the ledge and climb back down the fire escape.

“Well?” Manny asks.

“There’s people,” I say. “A lot of them.”

“All survivors,” Andrew tells us. “But we can bypass them to get to the Holding Center. I think.”

“You
think
?” Vera snaps. “You’d better be sure. We can’t risk running into any more gangs.”

“Hey, I’m just going by Underground intelligence,” Andrew fires back. “It’s not my fault if we walk into a firefight.”

“It’s nobody’s fault,” I interrupt, silencing them with a look. “We’re going to stick to the plan and keep to this route until we get to the Holding Center.”