Broken Worlds Super Boxset (69 page)

The cloudy skies cast Everett Naval Station in a melancholy haze. The limited amount of sunlight that the overcast sky above let through was just enough to let you know it was still daylight, but not enough to break through the minds of the vacant-eyed wanderers that Jake passed. The bodies here seemed to move a little slower than the coastal towns of San Francisco.

Jake had watched the area for a few hours since early in the morning and from what he could see, the Naval Station was fully staffed and properly guarded. He popped another caffeine pill into his mouth to ward off the heaviness of his eyelids and continued the caffeine high he’d been riding for the past thirty-six hours.

Aside from the dark circles under Jake’s eyes and the slight twitch that had developed at the corner of his mouth, the lack of sleep hadn’t dulled his focus. Inside that station were answers to questions that he wanted, and there wasn’t anything that was going to stop him.

After a quick scan of the rest of the perimeter, Jake determined that the fastest way to get what he wanted was to walk right through the front gate. He took off his jacket, then removed his holster and tucked it under an old oil drum in a thick layer of brush fifty yards from the base and away from any prying eyes.

Jake put his jacket back on and cracked his neck left, then right, relieving some of the pressure on his neck and back. He cracked his knuckles and stepped out of the thick brush and marched toward the front gate. Upon his approach, one of the guards stepped out of the station.

“Can I help you, sir?” the soldier asked.

“Yeah, I think you can,” Jake answered, then quickly threw his fist into the soldier’s nose, breaking it. The soldier hit the ground hard. Immediately after throwing the first punch, the other guard aimed his rifle at Jake, who put his hands behind his head and went down on his knees.

“On the ground!” the second soldier commanded.

Jake complied as the soldier he punched slowly pushed himself off the ground. His blood-soaked and disfigured nose was centered between a very angry pair of eyes.

Once the cuffs were thrown on, Jake was escorted onto the base and taken to a room in one of the main office buildings. The entire base seemed to be covered in a mixture of rust and algae. The pavement under Jake’s feet was cracked and worn. They passed a large field of dirt, but Jake noticed a few white lumps arranged in a diamond pattern. With no grass or clay, it took him a minute to realize it was a baseball field. The chain-link fence that wrapped around it had long since buckled, and the stands where spectators watched the game had collapsed.

The interior of the buildings weren’t much better. Faded cubicles and old computers filled the offices, but one thing that Jake noticed was the lack of personnel. There was hardly anyone inside, with the exception of a few officers walking through the hallway.

The two MPs that had taken Jake inside the building shoved him inside a smaller room, then cuffed him to the table, which was cemented to the floor. “Hey! I want to speak with Commander Claire, understand? Tell him it’s about his sister!” The MPs slammed the door shut, locking Jake inside.

Jake tugged at the cuffs now chained to the desk. The obligatory investigative calls would be made and once it was found out exactly who Jake was and who he worked for, he hoped that it was enough to get the Commander down here in person. If not, then the addition of throwing his sister’s name around would most definitely have caught his attention.

With no clock on the wall and no watch on his wrist, Jake wasn’t sure how much time had passed before a stout, clean-shaven, green-eyed officer stepped into the room by himself. Before the officer shut the door, Jake could see another cluster of soldiers behind him in the hallway. The name on the front of the officer’s uniform read “Cmd. Claire.”

“You don’t want your bodyguards in here with you, Commander?” Jake asked.

“I don’t think I’ll need them, Jake.”

“So, you did your homework before coming to visit.”

“Well, it’s not every day a high ranking member of the Soil Coalition punches one of my guards in the face, and then asks for me by name.”

Commander Claire kept his hands behind his back. The stance exemplified the superiority of an officer with the remnants of a soldier who had served on the front lines.

“What do you want?” Claire asked.

“Your sister.”

“You should choose your next words very carefully.”

Jake took a seat on the edge of the table, his hands still pulled low from the cuffs. “It’s interesting to me that the daughter of a lieutenant general, and the sister of a commander in the United States Navy, is stuck in a Soil Coalition community in the middle of Wyoming, with no records of her past in our databases at all. So what is it? The two of you have a falling out? She fuck one of your buddies?”

The blow that struck Jake’s face knocked him off the table and sent him flat on the ground. He wobbled on the floor, disoriented. He could feel his lip and cheek swell up at the point of contact. When he pushed his face up from the floor, drips of blood splattered underneath him. The commander was fast.

Before he had the ability or coherence to pick himself up, Commander Claire yanked him off the ground and slammed him on the table. Jake gripped his hands around the commander’s wrists, attempting to peel him off, but failed.

“I’ll make this real simple for you,” Claire said. “If you ever come back here again, I will have you shot on sight, do you understand?”

Jake’s vision blurred and the commander’s face had multiplied three-fold. The throbbing pain in the back of his skull eroded any ability to determine which one to focus on.

“And if you ever talk about my sister again, I won’t just kill you…I’ll make you hurt.”

The front of Jake’s face went completely numb, but even with all of the pain that consumed him, he still felt the final blow from the commander’s fist that caused everything to go black.

***

Luis marched out of the room, leaving Jake’s motionless body in his wake. “I want that piece of shit out of here now.”

“Yes, sir.” Two MPs entered to retrieve the body, and Luis stormed out of the building and into the cool, wet air. The rainclouds above were misting rain. Water droplets collected over his knuckles, mixing with the blood still lingering there. He smeared the red off until it was gone. He tightened his fist, the bones in his hand cracking from the pressure, then continued his march through the rain to his office.

Deeper within Everett Naval Station, sparks flew from the tips of welders working on dozens of trucks and tanks. Luis passed his men and headed for a small building with a communication satellite attached to the top of it at the very back of the base. When he opened the door, the two other soldiers jumped to attention. “At ease, I need the room.”

“Yes, sir.”

The computer screens the base used looked like they were from the early nineties, but that was the way Luis had designed it. Once the soil crisis hit, most funds were immediately allocated to efforts that kept food production up. Any military bases that were not considered top priority were stripped of funds and resources. Luis tried to combat the problem by giving away gear that was deemed as “high value” but in reality could be substituted with older models. He sacrificed computers for the sake of welding tools, guns, ammo, and tanks. It was a decision he was comfortable with.

Luis logged out of the previous soldier’s account and entered his own information. This computer had a program, which utilized the satellite and could send encrypted data to any other satellite connection in the world. And there was one specific connection that he needed to reach in Wyoming.

***

Alex spent the day in his room, blaming the alcohol from the night before for his condition. But that wasn’t the case. He couldn’t stand looking at them. Not anymore. Not after what he’d done. He’d kept the door shut and the blinds pulled closed and spent the hours looking over the messages that Meeko had sent him. His eyes had glazed over from looking at all of the lines of words.
Words of trust. Words of hope. Words of friendship and kindness and-

He slammed the laptop shut and was about to shove it back under his mattress when he remembered he needed to conserve the battery. When he opened it back up, his thumb was on the power button when an email came through. It had no sender listed. When he clicked on it, the screen went black and white and the words that appeared told him to immediately head to the meeting spot. It was from Sydney, and it said that Jake wouldn’t be there.

Alex tucked the laptop hastily under the mattress, grabbed his sack, and rushed out the door. He had to slow his pace to a brisk walk after he realized he was running. He impatiently twitched his fingers back and forth during the checkout and once he was in the open field, he broke out into a sprint.

The message wasn’t meant to be seen by anyone except Alex. Sydney must have sent it encrypted because he was being watched. Maybe he had something that they could use? Maybe he was able to get something on the Coalition. Or it could all be a ruse. But Alex wouldn’t find out unless he went, and there would be plenty of time to contemplate his decisions later.

Despite Alex’s vigorous attempts to continue the sprint the entire way, he had to settle for a quick walk, with intermittent spurts of running. But after three hours of travel, he saw the Humvee parked between two hills and he found enough energy to sprint the rest of the way.

Alex almost collapsed from exhaustion when he made it. Jake wasn’t with Sydney, but he still had a sentry escort. The hopeful expectation of what would happen during their meet slowly began to fade.

“What took you so long?” Sydney asked, stepping away from the sentry and the Humvee. “I almost couldn’t keep him waiting here for much longer.”

“Where’s Jake? What’s going on?”

“Listen, I don’t have much time. How close are you to finding their lab?”

“I don’t know.”

“If you can get me the soil data, I will be able to get it to my father.”

“Who’s your father?”

“Jared Starnes. He’s the liaison to the President for the Soil Coalition, and there isn’t anyone that wants to bring the Coalition down more than my father.”

“Why are you doing this now? Why wait so long? What’s happened?”

“The Coalition and the President are at war. They’ve already started reallocating what resources they have in preparation to choke each other out. Gordon has kept me from my father because I know about the soil, and he doesn’t want me telling him about it. Whoever has that data will control the fate of the country. That’s what Gordon’s trying to do.”

“Christ.”

“Jake is away on some trip, and I’ve been able to convince the brutes watching me that it was his idea for me to come out here. Luckily, he hasn’t been picking up his phone, but I don’t know how much longer that’s going to last. If you can give me the data before he gets back, then I can get it to my father.”

“If you can get your father to send a unit of Special Forces to my community to ensure their protection, then I’ll get you your data. But not until I know they’re safe.”

“I’ll try, but we may not have that kind of time.”

“Will you be able to send me another message like you did? Without them seeing it?”

“Yes.”

“Then message me when you as soon as you have confirmation and proof from your father.”

Alex didn’t want to waste any more time talking. He turned to leave, and before he was out of earshot, he heard Sydney yell for him. He stopped and waited for the tiny scientist to catch up, and once he did, it took him another minute to catch his breath.

“Look I uh…I just wanted to say. Thank you. For before. At the seed silo. You saved my life.”

And just as clumsily as Sydney arrived, he left. All Alex could think about now was that he might be able to save both communities. He just had to hurry.

Emma pounded away at the keyboard, entering the data from Todd’s work, referencing them against the blood samples that she pulled from him the day before. The results really were remarkable, and from everything she’d seen so far, the blood was still stable and healthy.

“Em!” Nelson said. “You need to come and look at this!”

Todd and Ray were quick to join Emma in her rush over to Nelson’s computer. The four of them gathered around the small screen, the glow illuminating their curious faces.

“What is it?” Emma asked.

“It’s from your brother.”

All four pairs of eyes scanned the message, then, all together, their jaws dropped immediately. Ray was the first to speak. “Well, what the hell are we gonna do?”

“He wouldn’t have sent this if it wasn’t urgent,” Emma replied.

Todd paced around in a circle, rubbing his chin. Emma walked over to him. She cupped his face in her hands. Her voice was soft as she spoke. “We can do this. It’s time.” She felt his hands fall on top of hers, then he brought them to his lips and she felt the warmth of his lips on her skin.

“We still don’t have someone who can deliver the messages,” Ray cut in.

“What about Alex?” Emma asked. “I know he could do it.”

Ray rolled his eyes. “Emma, I’ll admit that the guy showed balls against the sentries. But this isn’t some duck he’ll be hunting out there. And even if we can trust him, there’s no guarantee he’ll be able to find the drop off locations. He doesn’t know this area as well as Billy did.”

“The markers should still be there,” Emma said. “It wouldn’t be hard to map it out for him, even if it’s his first time.”

“And what happens if he gets caught by a sentry unit on patrol?” Ray asked, perking up in his seat. “He’ll most likely be searched, and what is he gonna say when the sentries stumble across the messages?”

“If he does get stopped, it’s the same alibi as Billy. He’s a hunter stretching north in search of game. There aren’t any restrictions on hunters and their mobility so long as they don’t violate any of the regulations,” Emma said. “And the messages would look like nothing more than garbled nonsense.”

“If we bring him on, then he needs to come all the way,” Todd said. “Is everyone okay with that?”

Emma and Nelson nodded quickly, and eventually Ray gave a nod with an added eye roll. “All right then,” Todd said. “I’ll bring him in.”