Earth Zero: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Next Book 2) (2 page)

CHAPTER TWO

“So we hit them before they hit us?”

High President Abigail Murray looked up from the tabletop map of North America that marked cities long dead, her words echoing off the hard masonry walls.

A day would come when the map would be digitized on large screens in the war room, broken out by different interactive data sets and three-dimensional graphics, dotted with places the people had reclaimed. That distant day was what drove the president and her fellow survivors as they faced extinction.

The rebirth of a nation and its accompanying technology would have to wait, though. For now, the game plan for winning back the world rested on a creased sheet of paper dotted with wooden chess pieces. The red and white pieces had belonged to George Washington and were rescued from the Smithsonian Institute in the immediate aftermath of the Big Zap.

Murray didn’t know which dedicated public servant had paused in the panic of the solar storms to scavenge at the Smithsonian, but such sentimentality was rare. Most of those who didn’t drop dead from the bursts of plasma and electromagnetic radiation were too busy evading bloodthirsty Zaps to gather trinkets and mementos. Even the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution had been left behind, burned when the mutants finished the job the British couldn’t accomplish in 1814.

Oh well, we have new and better documents to replace them. Expressing the same sentiments as those fine documents but updated to fit the times. Updated to say what they should’ve said all along.

“Attacking now is our best chance,” Brigadier General Arnold Alexander said, his craggy face glowering beneath an iron-gray crewcut. “Maybe our only chance.”

Helen Schlagal, ranking director of the Department of Homeland Security, was the only other person in the room. At forty, she was more than a decade younger than Murray, but the stress of the apocalypse had added deep lines and wrinkles that made her seem like a sour older sister. Under the weak electric lights of the subterranean chamber, her eyes were hooded by shadow.

“We’ll have as many chances as we need, because we’ll never give up.” Murray doubted the general agreed with her assessment, but as long as she held the throne, his opinions didn’t matter. Still, she needed him, because he was a keystone of the old guard, and his rank and military experience gave comfort to the New Pentagon staffers. Alexander also lent Murray a certain legitimacy that she might not receive from purely civilian quarters. Civilization was a fragile structure in the best of times, and these were far from the best.

“We should defend what we have,” Schlagal said in a grating voice that was pitched nearly as high as a whine. “We’re building something here, and we have food, water, and shelter. We have kids growing up. It’s not so bad here.”

Murray scowled at the woman’s weakness. “So we just huddle in our caves and be grateful that the Zaps don’t even consider us as worthy of extermination?”

“As long as we hide, we live.”

“That’s not living,” Murray said. “That’s just dying slow.”

“And don’t forget, it’s not just New Pentagon,” the general said. “There are pockets of resistance scattered around, small groups of survivors counting on the cavalry to ride in and rescue them. They might not even know we have a government, but they’re waiting on
something
.”

“It’s called ‘hope.’ That’s what we’re fighting for.” Murray glared at Schlagal, who shook her head and stared down at the map. “Please continue, General.”

“We’re mobilized on multiple fronts,” Alexander said. He pushed one of the worn chess pawns a couple of inches across the map. “We’ve got Eighth Division sweeping south into central North Carolina, Fourth heading for Charlotte, and Sixth moving on Atlanta. Air surveillance shows Atlanta is mostly gone, but there’s evidence of new construction.”

Alexander slid a few black-and-white photographs across the table. Schlagal picked up one of them and studied it, acting interested. “Resolution’s not so good,” she said. “I can’t see much of anything.”

“Since the solar storms knocked out sat-com, we’re basically back to World War Two levels of surveillance,” Alexander said. “Handheld cameras shooting on film. That’s the best we can do, but the navigator reported a series of small dome structures there in the rubble. If you look along the road near the bridge, you can just make them out.”

Murray took the photo from Schlagal. She made out a series of circular shapes in the grainy photograph, but they might as well have been porcelain saucers laid out on a filthy kitchen counter.

“I thought the helicopters employed modern technology,” Schlagal said.

“There’s no ‘modern’ anymore,” Alexander said. “Telemetry and targeting systems are useless given the EMF turbulence. Even if we could transmit data, we don’t have any equipment on this end to analyze it. For all practical purposes, our birds are out there flying blind.”

Alexander barely disguised his contempt for Schlagal’s ignorance. Homeland Security technically fell under the authority of New Pentagon. Murray didn’t want Alexander to be in a direct position to seize power, so she’d split Schlagal’s department into a civilian branch of government. Schlagal oversaw what little judicial duties remained in New Pentagon and in the society they would build as soon as the Zaps were exterminated.

Murray defended Schlagal purely out of the political need for checks and balances, as well as certain personal reasons that Alexander wouldn’t appreciate. But Alexander and his officers saw Schlagal as a shrill gadfly biting everyone on the ass.

“We’re all working under limitations,” Murray said, attempting to broker peace.

“A few hundred people against God only knows how many mutants,” Schlagal said.

“It’s only a matter of time before the Zaps figure out where we are,” Alexander said. “If they don’t already know. Meanwhile, they’re getting stronger and we’re getting weaker.”

“Well, you’re the expert,” Schlagal said with a sneer. “But it looks to me like they’re building defensive structures. And now they’re using weapons we don’t even understand. How do we fight that with our limited resources?”

“Last I looked, we’re still the humans,” the general said. “The good guys. And this is our turf.”

“And we’re not alone,” Murray said. “We’ve still got allies in Russia, China, and Israel that we know of, and all those brave Americans scattered around the country and fighting to the death. We’re a long way from defeat.”

“Yes, but when’s the last time you heard from these allies?” Schlagal asked. “Three months? Four?”

Shortwave radio contact had been sporadic for years, but lately it had dwindled to almost nothing. The electromagnetic flux scrambled signals on the airwaves, equipment was breaking down, and alternative power sources were unreliable. Those failures hid a starker truth that none of them wanted to face: that maybe nobody was left out there to talk into a microphone.

“We will operate as planned,” Murray said. “We handle our little corner of the Earth Zero Initiative and trust everybody else to do their jobs.”

Her words sounded hollow even to her own ears. She looked at the cinderblock walls that were painted a reflective shade of white that had dimmed to an antique, chalky gray. This was one of the more developed parts of the bunker system in Virginia’s Luray Caverns, located some one hundred miles west of D.C. Other inhabited sections featured slick rock walls illuminated only with small strands of miniature bulbs fed by a solar-panel array and a network of microturbines. The power system was subject to brownouts during stretches of bad weather, and Murray had ordered rotating shutdowns of the grid during night hours in order to preserve the diminishing batteries.

Those conspiracy nuts that imagined the government would survive Doomsday in pampered luxury were off by a mile. We’re crapping in the bushes and plucking roaches out of our rice just like everybody else.

“Since we’ve lost field contact with our two divisions, we’ll have to trust them to follow orders and fulfill their mission,” Alexander said. “We’ll send in air support when we can. We have two Blackhawk helicopters out on sorties now. That’s all the fuel we can spare at the moment, but it should let our troops in the field know we have their backs.”

Murray wondered how much of Alexander’s faith was based on his pride. He was a career officer just as Murray was a career politician, and neither ever imagined they would be thrust to the top in one cataclysmic upheaval. Sometimes in the night, Murray shuddered at the fragility of their position and how much responsibility they now carried. Not that history would remember if she failed.

The threat of extinction was oddly freeing in a way. It allowed her to be bold and decisive. There were no elections to win and no real opposition to her power. The human race had been beaten into submission and she projected a sense of hope that, however forced or feigned, seemed to lift the spirits of those she led.

Maybe projecting optimism was her sole job description.

“And Washington?” Murray asked Alexander.

“I’ll take my mechanized unit and head that way tomorrow. We should reach our objective in two days. If any of the capitol’s still standing, we’re taking it back.”

“This is the capitol now,” Schlagal said. “My job’s Homeland Security, and the caverns are secure. Don’t let your red-white-and-blue hard-on lead us all to destruction.”

“Helen,” Murray admonished. “No need to get personal.”

“She can’t help it,” Alexander said. “She’s spent so much time in the dark, she’s starting to think like a rat.” To Schlagal, he added, “Get outside once in a while. Maybe you’ll get your priorities right.”

“That’s
enough
.” Murray’s bellow filled the chamber and likely carried to the people beyond the door. It did the job, as the two aides fell into a shamed silence. Softer, Murray continued. “We need to present a united front on this. People are scared. I mean, they’re always scared, but with all the troops on the move, the place feels abandoned.”

Schlagal’s eyes shone with tears, and Murray didn’t know if they were from self-pity or from worry about the dwindling citizenry she served. In pre-storm society, tears were a sign of weakness in a woman, but now they were welcomed as one of the last precious vestiges of humanity. Alexander’s lip curled in distaste, but he wouldn’t lower himself to ridicule her emotions.

We all have our individual reactions to fear. Helen weeps, Arnold flies into a rage, and me…I suppose I hang on to the past so tightly that I choke it to death.

Gen. Alexander moved around the tabletop map, glancing at the American flag draped on one wall like an antique tapestry. He hugged Schlagal, who sagged into his embrace and gave one last quivering sob before she regained her composure. “I apologize, Helen,” the general said with a solemn tenderness that none of his junior officers would’ve believed possible. “I reckon we’re all a little wired right now.”

Schlagal nodded and wiped her eyes, smearing her makeup. Murray had to smile at that. A woman’s pride was as potent as a man’s. It just wore a different mask.

“We’re done here,” Murray said. “Let’s go out there and comfort the people. But first, let’s close this thing the right way.”

They closed their eyes and lowered their heads in prayer. Murray invoked words and phrases she dimly remembered from Catholic school, hardly hearing herself reciting them. Earth Zero would certainly not be a Christian society and no doubt human differences would arise to divide them all once they reclaimed their world, but until then Abigail Murray intended to keep tradition alive.

She figured God would approve and, if it came to that, Satan would understand.

After they intoned “Amen” in unison, Alexander and Schlagal headed for the door. “A moment, Arnold?” she said, sparking a suspicious glare from Schlagal.

“Tactics,” Murray said, hoping her smile appeared more genuine than it felt. Trust was important among such a small inner circle, but there were some secrets Murray didn’t want to spread.

Gen. Alexander gave Schlagal’s shoulder a squeeze of reassurance, and the woman opened the heavy wooden door and slipped into the larger inhabited area of the cavern beyond. Alexander turned to face her, ramrod straight, feet apart, hands clasped behind his back so that his medals thrust forward.

A week ago, Alexander had personally overseen the execution of a married couple that had tried to steal one of the trucks. The punishment was necessary and lawful and had to be done in the most public way to set an example. Civilians were free to leave the outpost if they wished, but stealing from the government meant an immediate death sentence under Directive Seventeen. Alexander hadn’t flinched in that duty, and he would face whatever task Murray assigned him.

Not because he liked her or the guiding principles she’d put in place, but because he believed in duty above all.

“You have four days to get to Washington and back,” Murray said.

“Or Directive Eighteen,” he said, forcing his face to remain impassive.

“Directive Eighteen.”

He saluted and followed Schlagal out the door. He closed it behind him to leave High President Abigail Murray alone to wrestle with what was likely to be her final decision.

A final decision for all of them.