Daybreak Zero

^{ABOUT 3 HOURS LATER. CASTLE EARTHSTONE. 5:30 PM EST. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2025.}

Larry, Chris, and Jason waited for sunset in a cluster of trees, near a ditch to give them a covered retreat. Slaves and soldiers emerged from the main gate, followed by the technicians and the favored slaves, and then the lord and his “palace staff.”

“If we’d known they were going to do this,” Chris said, “we could’ve spared all that effort counting them.”

“At least they’re confirming our count,” Larry pointed out. They had spent much of the afternoon observing and counting, figuring out that there were quarters for about four hundred soldiers, though less than fifty seemed to be present; fifteen or so in the lord’s entourage; about twenty pump-and-windmill mechanics, overseers, and attractive women, in the hut Larry had dubbed the tech-and-trollop shack; and between eight and nine hundred emaciated, sickly slaves.

The whole population seemed to be gathering in a semicircle between the main wall and the outer gateway. Slaves ran to set up front-row chairs for the lord and his staff. Everyone else sat on the ground.

The bass drum beat faster, and other drums joined in. Slaves danced into the center area. This uncostumed daylight version was danced more than acted, but it was very recognizably The Play of Daybreak. Whenever the coincidence of wind and volume enabled them to hear a phrase, Larry or Jason or both would nod at the familiar words.

“Look at the way the audience is swaying to the drum,” Chris breathed. “Like a rock concert with hypnosis.”

Jason said, “Most of them spent years being hypnotized via the screen every night, sinking deeper and deeper into Daybreak, and now they—”

Jason didn’t know what moved beside him, but weeks of nerves and months of Samson’s training made him draw his short hatchet and chop sideways across the motion, splitting the hand holding the knife between the wrist bones before he knew what it was. He snatched back the hatchet, slapped the knife away with the flat of the blade, and backhanded up the arm and shoulder, using the handle running along the arm to guide him till the blade found the neck and bit deep into the carotid and windpipe. One out.

Jason kept his hatchet high behind his head, clearing into his turn with a cloud-hand.

Larry was yanking his commando knife back from a man’s throat. Two women had jumped onto Chris, one with arms wrapped around his throat in a half-nelson strangle, the other tangling his arms. They were pulling him over backward as he struggled to his feet.

Jason swung as Chris bucked forward, and struck the upper woman on the crown of her head, sinking his hatchet deep. Chris’s freed hands clawed back for the eyes of the woman tackling him.

She shrieked as Larry’s knife slashed into her thigh and cut upward, bringing a gush of arterial blood. She fell dying, but the entire crowd was now staring toward them. Jason and Chris whirled to plunge into the ditch.

Larry grabbed them by their collars. “No! This way!”

They ran for a clump of trees and bushes about sixty yards off. Behind them, Jason heard thrashing sounds—they must’ve been set to ambush us in the ditch, glad Larry spotted them, run, run, come on, run.

Larry dove headfirst among the bushes in a tsugari roll, and Jason followed; Chris plunged forward and prone, covering his face with his outturned hands. Things hissed and thudded among the low branches. Something spun and clattered down to the ground, hissing like a furious goose. Larry grabbed it, rose to his knees to throw it, and fell back prone.

Jason felt the boom in the ground, through his chest. Leaves and twigs showered his back. Beth, babe, if it’s a boy we’re naming him Larry.

“Up, run.” Larry jumped to his feet and they ran up a slope, across an open field, and around behind a lean-to shed. “Chris, right side, prone firing. Jason, same thing, left side.” Larry rolled away from the shed and took cover behind a low hummock.

Back toward Castle Earthstone, horns blew and people shouted. Jason sighted around the side of the lean-to. The soldiers from the ditch were running back to join the main group by Castle Earthstone.

“They’re organizing pursuit,” Larry said, softly. “Now, see the lord there?”

“Looks like Santa Claus throwing a tantrum,” Chris observed.

“He does. It’s a long shot, but these big heavy bullets tend to fly straight and hit hard even far away. On three we’re all taking a shot at Lord Santa there. If you see him react to the shots but he’s not hit, take another shot at him as quick as you can. If you see him hit, look over the crowd and shoot anyone you see giving orders and being listened to. Keep shooting till your magazine’s empty and your last round is chambered. There’s a long line of trees along an old railroad embankment about a hundred and twenty yards behind me. As soon as your magazine is empty with your last round chambered, get back behind the embankment. Switch magazines there. If you’re the only one that gets there, make something up; otherwise wait till we’re all there. Got all that?”

“Yeah,” Jason said, sighting about five feet above Lord Santa’s head, and hoping his guess was right for the long shot.

“Yep,” Chris said.

“On three. One, two, thr—” Crack.

Black-powder forms a gray, dirty cloud that obscures the shooter’s sight and gives away his position. In the long breath while the white blur with its burnt-sulfur stench cleared away, Jason considered the importance of the project at Pueblo trying to make a biote-immune smokeless powder.

The smoke cleared. The big, white-bearded man was on his back on the ground with a dozen people bent over him. Hit.

Larry’s rifle cracked, and Chris was working his lever; belatedly Jason worked his own and looked around. A young man with a yellow beard and dreads had jumped up on one of the seats in the elite section of the audience and was pointing toward Jason. Should’ve kept your mouth shut, dude. Jason pulled the trigger, worked the lever.

One of the soldiers was facing away from Jason and shouting to a group of people; Jason fired again, and this time the wind carried the smoke away quickly enough for him to see the man diving for the ground.

His sights found a woman leading a group with hoes and axes out of the crowd; he shot lower so that if he missed her he might hit someone behind. That was his four shots: one from the chamber and three from his four-shot magazine. One left. He worked the lever, rolled up, and dashed for the embankment.

Jason caught up with Chris as the older, big man was just clearing the rusty tracks.

Larry was there waiting. “Change magazines. They’re acting pretty confused down there. We need to get some distance before they think about using dogs. Best hope we have is to wade in that creek for a mile or two.”

Staying low, they ran down the hill. The sun was just setting, and there was plenty of light for them as they waded and splashed along the winding creek between the willows. Every hundred yards or so, Larry stopped them and they stood silently, listening; they had gone about a mile when they first heard the baying of the hounds.

“I used to like dogs,” Chris said. “I always put ‘dog-lover’ in my personal ads and dating-site profiles.”

“Well, if you can love’em after tonight, you are really a dog lover,” Larry said.

As the first stars came out, they moved along the grassy trace of a dirt farm road running east, surrounded by dense bushes, and slowed to a brisk walk; the sounds of the dogs and shouting had faded into the background. The grimy moon rose, revealing big dense bundles of berries on the bushes around them; Chris reached out, grabbed a handful, tasted one, and said, “Elderberry. This must have been a jam farm. They’re ripe.”

“Try not to get your hands sticky,” Larry said, “but that’s dinner. Put a few handfuls in your knapsacks and we’ll just eat as we go.”

The berries were tart and strong-tasting, with gritty little seeds that got between your teeth. They tramped on in the hazy moonlight, through the thick dew-soaked grass, headed east, deeper into the Lost Quarter.

^{ABOUT THE SAME TIME. CASTLE EARTHSTONE. 6 PM EST. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2025.}

Robert knew that Karl was dead before the old bastard hit the ground; half his face had been torn off and a spray of blood from his back soaked the grass around him. Robert felt for a pulse on the bloody neck just to be sure.

Major Carter, the garrison commander, jumped up on a chair, and yelled that he was in charge now. Robert was about to say, “The fuck you are,” and Carter had made eye contact, when Carter’s head suddenly went all lopsided and bloody and he fell down.

It looks like they are shooting everyone who acts like he’s in charge, Robert thought. He moved into the center of a crowd of frightened, weeping slaves, and said, softly, “Now everyone just stay back and let the fighters fight. You all come with me but stay all bunched up, and we’re just going to walk into the fort. Get everyone else to come with us if you can.”

Most of the slaves were inside or headed there when the soldiers from the failed ambush came back shouting that they needed the dogs. Robert was waiting for them at the main entrance, with the crowd of slaves between himself and the enemy guns. “All right, form up here, out of sight of their position. They’re shooting at anyone they see giving orders. Lord Karl is dead. Who’s the highest ranking of you left alive?”

Captain Nathanson apparently was—he’d been about fifth in command of the whole force, and Carter’s XO for the garrison here while the main force was away, so Robert said, “All right, then. Form your men up for the pursuit, Major Nathanson; you have my permission to take as many dogs as you need, and just leave me eight guards back here. Don’t keep going too long if you lose the trail, because we don’t know how many other attackers there might be, and this could be a trick. Good luck, Major.”

Nathanson saluted and started yelling orders; Robert turned to the nearest overseer. “Bernstein. Have the slaves put things in order for a normal day tomorrow, make it dead clear that that is what there will be, and lock down for the night. Tell the others you’re now my chief steward.”

Nathanson came back to him and snapped a crisp salute. “The Castle is secured, we’ve got the dogs, and the men are ready to start pursuit.”

“Good. Use your judgment from here on; just don’t be away too long, Major.”

“It’s captain, sir.”

“Carter is dead and you are in command.”

“Yes, Lord Robert.” Nathanson turned back to his men; Robert figured that deal was locked down. Double locked down if Bernstein figures out that chief steward isn’t a bad job either.

^{THE NEXT DAY. WARSAW, INDIANA. 6 PM EST. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2025.}

Warsaw, Indiana, was “the kind of pretty little town that sooner or later is used in a nostalgic movie,” Chris Manckiewicz said.

“Not anymore,” Larry said. “Wonder how long before someone figures out a way to reinvent movies? And I bet there are still paper copies of some of the old scripts around, especially the classics; you think anyone will make The Wizard of Oz, Saving Private Ryan, or Wish on an Emerald again? But when they do, they’re going to have way more than enough places to shoot historicals, for a long time.”

The three men were sharing the last of the venison jerky and the elderberries in the corner of a wrecked hardware store. “Isn’t it weird how many little towns are named after the great cities of Europe?” Jason asked. “Like every state around here has to have a London, a Paris, a Berlin, a Warsaw, and so on? I wonder if there’s anywhere named Pinetree Junction in Europe.”

“There’s not really much Europe,” Chris pointed out. “The North Sea bomb took care of everything between Stockholm and Naples, and Edinburgh and Moscow. There’s northwest Scotland and some of Wales and Cornwall, most of Ireland, some northern Scandinavia, and Spain and Portugal. I’m not sure that counts as Europe. It’s sort of the Lost Quarter of the Old World.”

“I wonder if that’s exactly what it is,” Jason said. “I don’t know how Daybreak could move people into it, but I bet it’s crawling with tribes, like the Lost Quarter here.”

The other two were staring at him; he shrugged, a little defensively. “Look, this is what Heather sent me along for, to have someone with some idea about the way Daybreak works. I mean, it isn’t just about breaking human civilization, it’s about making sure it never comes back. And to do that they keep hitting us with another wallop from another angle, so we never really adapt to what they’ve done before they’re doing something else. They took away most of electricity, plastics, and petroleum, and while we were still figuring out how we’d rebuild the tech, they knocked us down again with the huge bombs. Then while we were figuring out a decentralized way to reorganize civilization, the moon gun started knocking out radio. And we know they had their fingers deep in the whole Castle movement to break up the authority of the Federal government, and now we’re realizing the tribes are there to wipe out any civilization rebuilding—”

“You think the tribes were always part of the plan? They didn’t just happen?”

Jason nodded. “Remember the plan was always to be the last generation. The tribes were recruited from low-level Daybreakers, plus disoriented people, while the country was in chaos. They turned them into slaves and armies, and now they’re killing the slaves to build up the armies, and then hurling the armies at civilization—like that huge attack at Mota Elliptica. Take down the tech and kill as many people as you can doing it.

“That’s what Castle Earthstone is about. They’re gearing up for one big drive out of the Lost Quarter—and a pile of bodies and no civilization after. That’s why they don’t care if most of the slaves don’t make it to spring; now that they’ve served their purpose, it’s better if they die.”

“That implies,” Chris said, squirming for a better position, “that Castle Earthstone was always planned, probably years before October 28th, 2024. Is that too crazy?”

Larry sat still for the space of a breath, looking up into the air, as he did when he thought hard. “Just suppose Arnie Yang is right and Daybreak is one giant, malign intelligence, a mind much larger than our own, one that uses human beings in the way we use the cells in our body, bent on human self-annihilation and nothing else. You’d see things like Daybreak creating the Daybreak poets to infiltrate coustajam music so younger refugees would be already prepared to join the tribes, and to write the Play of Daybreak, and a hundred other things.”

“Now I know what’s been bothering me.” Chris looked stunned. “If we could hop on a plane back to Pueblo this second—”

“A big juicy steak, a long hot bath, and sleeping next to Beth,” Jason said.

“Yeah, but… what would we tell Heather about Castle Earthstone? That it’s roughly a battalion-strength fort equipped to fight at about a Roman or medieval level. Nothing behind it, really, just this one big fort in what used to be north central Indiana. But wouldn’t that be what Daybreak wanted us to say? While it prepared for something really big?”

“Like how big?” Jason asked.

“That’s its pattern. Big blows from unexpected directions. In the past six weeks there’ve been massive attacks at Castle Castro, Mota Elliptica, and Pullman; and Grayson’s Youghiogheny campaign won, but it took a fifth of the existing army to go a hundred miles into the Lost Quarter, and they took a beating going in and out. Apparently even in sparse, resource-poor areas, Daybreak can put together regiment- or even brigade-sized attacks. And the Lost Quarter has far more resources, and probably people, than any area we’ve been attacked from so far.”

Larry’s head bobbed emphatically. “That’s got to be it. Oh, shit, you’re right. We aren’t the brilliant scouts we thought. We sure as hell didn’t walk up the Tippecanoe Valley without being spotted; they stayed hidden from us, not vice versa. We have been fed, gentlemen.”

“Fed?” Jason asked.

“Intel slang. Sometimes when you identify a spy, you leave him in place and use him to feed disinformation to the enemy,” Chris said. “Yeah. If we got away, we were supposed to report that the Lost Quarter is empty, to help hide whatever they’re brewing for next spring.”

Larry leaned back, chewed on his jerky, thought some more, took a sip of water, and finally said, “Well, hunh.”

“Larry, from you ‘well, hunh’ means what other people mean when they scream, ‘We’re all gonna die!’” Chris observed. “Could you maybe share a thought or two with us?”

“Sorry, yeah, look, check me out on this. Suppose we do what they’ll expect and go south or west. We see nothing that we haven’t already seen, and go home and tell people there’s nothing big here. Or since Daybreak knows we’re coming, we get caught. Daybreak wins either way.

“So I’m thinking, not back the way we came. Head east, then north, right through the Lost Quarter, then out through the Provi bases on Lake Erie. Daybreak won’t know where to look for us, and whatever we’re not supposed to see is going to be up that way.”

“And we’ll run into way more trouble and walk a couple hundred extra miles,” Chris observed.

“Yep,” Larry said. “And we can put at least three miles, maybe five, into it before dark.”

^{ABOUT THE SAME TIME. PUEBLO, COLORADO. 6 PM MST. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2025.}

Still someone else’s turn, Heather thought. She looked over her big chart and thought, Four days of talking and I’ve added about two cards to this, and haven’t moved a line. Abundant noise and heat and not one trace of light or motion.

Well, maybe that would change tomorrow. Maybe both sides would realize that Harrison Castro’s little theft of their thunder was a way to show them all how irrelevant they were—and irrelevant is the one thing that none of them can stand to be. I hope.

She saw Graham Weisbrod coming across the courthouse lawn; good, it looked like Allie wouldn’t be along tonight, either. The big chart, still unchanged, slid back into place, and she picked up Leo, locked the office door behind herself, and went downstairs to meet Graham at her living quarters. A night of old times’ conversation, baby-inspecting, and nostalgic laughter was probably what was really needed, right now, anyway.

^{THE NEXT DAY. SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA. 3:30 PM PST. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2025.}

Pat O’Grainne had lived a long time, and it kept feeling longer, especially with this silly ceremony to get through. The one thing you can say for being in a wheelchair, it’s easy on your feet and the small of your back. All I have to do is not fall asleep. Though I wish I could. Heather is so gonna not like this, and I ain’t wild about it myself.

The crowd stirred down below. A horn group that sounded like an underrehearsed high school band played something or other. Guys in capes and plumed hats (what’s he doing, swearing in the Castle Castro Musketeers? ) went clumping down the aisle to the silly music, followed by Harrison Castro and a bunch of his officers.

At least their uniforms were plain black, with red berets; they merely looked like ninja Boy Scouts.

Please, God, let this be short.

No such luck. A bunch of guys stood up and talked about how Harrison Castro was the cat’s pajamas, the bee’s knees, the man, and the shit; how historic this, that, and the other was; and the long and short of it was that everyone thought Castro was a good guy and this was a big fucking day.

Oh, for a tall glass of cold beer. This is only the introduction.

The main event was four more drummy, stompy, horn-infested parades to bring the freeholders of Irvine, Laguna, Newport, and Castle Rand down the aisle. They lined them up in front of the dais where Castro stood, dressed up like he was going to a science fiction convention as a space mercenary.

Finally the four freeholders were sworn in as Knights Deputies, which was what Castro was calling his feudal branch office managers. He was also declaring himself the Earl of San Diego and Leader of the League of Southern California Castles.

The first time Pat had heard the term, he’d thought, Leading the League in what, balls or errors? No matter how many funny suits Castro put on, what he was, was a cross between an old-fashioned asshat contractor and a high-income biker. The old-style contractors Pat had worked for too often in his younger days had shouted constantly about how nobody was going to tell them what to do and that they were free and independent men, while mostly living off government contracts and lecturing actual shovel-jockeys about hard work. The alpha bikers had been dentists, lawyers, or accountants with enough money to buy the really awesome toys; they had been generous with drinks and advice, the gist of which was that if you were as smart as they were, you’d be them, so obviously what you needed was a stiff drink and some bracing advice.

Heather had asked Pat to send her everything he could remember about this ceremony, so he did his best to concentrate on Harrison Castro’s speech, the longest explanation Pat had ever heard for why smart rich people deserved to be rich because they were so smart, and were obviously smart because they were so rich. That night in his room, he used up half his candle ration for the week, and there were nine handwritten coded pages. It was cold, so he burned his scratchwork, and as the room warmed up, finally fell asleep, thinking about how all the movies had lied about what the life of a spy was like.

^{15 HOURS LATER. BLOOMINGTON, INDIANA. 9:35 AM EST. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2025.}

Roger put in his next-to-last magazine. Counting the one in the chamber he was down to nine rounds—eight, saving one for himself.

More than twenty tribals on the ground floor below him.

They could come up two staircases, one at each end of the concrete hallway, but he could cover both of those from his improvised fort at the central desk on the floor. They could set the building on fire and make him come down one staircase, but on his way down he’d have another chance to take one or two with him. When it comes to getting shot at the end of the game, everybody wants to be in the back row.

Angry shouting: “All right, follow me!”

Roger set himself. Just like rifle range.

The man lunged from the right stairwell. Point and squeeze. He fell over. Another clean head shot. They’d be so proud of me back in Pueblo.

He got the next one from the right staircase, then another from the left. He was down to one in the chamber, one in the magazine, one magazine to go. He fumbled the last magazine out of his pocket.

It was empty. He must have absentmindedly tucked it back into his pocket sometime in the last three hours of being chased around the U of I campus. It seemed really unfair that he had just lost count.

The two rounds left were what he had. In a few minutes there’d be another rush. He’d take one more with him, and then, remembering Ecco, he’d use the last round to take the fast dark exit.

Since it was almost over, he might as well go comfortably. He stood, stretched his legs, and treated himself to a long, luxurious piss into a drinking fountain drain. He could hear them arguing and squabbling below about who would rush him next.

The big room he’d had his back to was a chem lab; he smashed the window in its door with a chair. Downstairs, they yelped and whined “What’s he doing?” at each other. Wish I had the ammunition to invite them up to find out.

The supply closet was familiar territory; a year ago he’d been finishing his first year as a ChemE major.

Except for some strong caustics, the dry chemicals had been in plastic jars that had rotted. He swept the heaped-together powders, and the goopy remnants of the jars, into a dustpan, carried the pan down the hall, and emptied it just out of sight of one stairwell entrance. He went back and got more, putting that at the other end of the hall, dragging one body out of the way as if it were furniture. He wiped his hands on his pants, noticing he didn’t care that the man was dead but hated how grimy his skin and clothes were. Funny, before Daybreak the only corpse I’d seen was at Grandpa’s funeral.

Next he took the dry chemicals stored in glass, which were generally the most reactive, and poured them onto the tops of his piles. They were still arguing about whether they should rush him, and what it might mean that he was moving around up there.

Back in the supply closet, he set aside the strong acids. The rest of the liquids in glass were mostly complex organics, which had turned to something like cheese, but a few flammable solvents seemed all right; these he carried, bottles and all, to add to his piles.

Sudden scuffling downstairs. Shouting. Screaming.

Two shots.

RRC agents or maybe TNG troops; Daybreakers had no working guns. Roger froze and listened.

“Hey, don’t shoot.” A grinning Dan Samson burst from the stairwell. “Roger! I didn’t know Heather had sent you too! I surprised’em a little,” the big man said. “If we go now, I think we can shoot our way out—”

“Need ammo,” Roger whispered. “I have two.”

“Seven,” Samson said quietly.

“Let’s set off the surprise I’ve been fixing up and see if we can get out with just hatchets. What are they doing down there?”

“Trying to figure out what to do because you killed the big boss and two little bosses, and they’re afraid to go home and say they didn’t get us, and even more afraid to come up the stairs. Let’s try your idea. I’ve always loved surprises.”

A few seconds later, they hurled one jug of nitric acid to the far end of the hall; the mess of powder there foamed, fumed, burst into flames, and poured out dense blue smoke. They charged down their own stairwell, staying well separated, and at the first landing, threw the big bottles of hydrochloric and sulfuric acid up behind themselves, through the propped-open doors and into the piles of chemicals. There was a low, pulsing boom and more dark smoke gouted into the stairwell.

Holding their breaths, they plunged down the stairs. At the double doors Samson plowed into a Daybreaker sentry coming in, pinned her to the wall with the door, and chopped her forehead, twisting the blade to wrench it free.

Roger yanked the other door open and charged into the now-terrified group, slashing and thumping with his hatchet, and Samson was on them a moment later.

The surviving Daybreakers fled. “This way,” Samson said. They climbed through a broken window onto a low fire escape, dropped to the ground, and ran.

“Those were some pretty shitty soldiers,” Roger gasped, as they ducked between two buildings. Behind them, the chemistry building was pouring dense blue smoke from its lower floor.

“Those weren’t soldiers. They were slaves. Their leadership was three sorta-soldiers from Castle Earthstone. More afraid of their bosses than they were of us.” In the chemistry building, a window belched orange flame. “What did you do back there?”

“I have no idea. Where to from here?”

“Well, not back to that building. South, I think. Let’s go.”

^{17 HOURS LATER. PUEBLO, COLORADO. 12:30 AM MST. SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2025.}

“This is pretty senseless of me,” Allie said. She cupped her wineglass like a baby bird in her hand, looking at the two empty bottles as if they had just appeared from nowhere. “I’m just the tiddliest bit drunk, I’m going to have a hangover tomorrow for the conference when I really need to be patient with Graham, and I’m feeling so totally extremely indiscreet.” She touched the long red lacquered nail of her index finger to her nose and said, “Numb, numb, numb. Can’t feel a thing. Also num, num, num, dinner here was amazing, Arnie. I think in the new post-Daybreak world, if Olympia is the new Washington, it’s gotta be that Pueblo is the new New York. Better restaurants, smarter people, I mean what else could it be?”

“Well, Johanna’s What There Is is the place in Pueblo.”

“Yeah, and back in the day you’d have taken me to the place in New York, if I’d’ve even looked at you when you were teaching at that fancy school—”

“Columbia.”

“I know, Arn, just having fun with you.” She sighed and drank some more.

Watching Allie drink always excited him—many things about her did. She used to tease him that it reminded him of the only way he’d been able to score in college. Actually, he liked the way her deliberate sips always became deep gulps—not so much her lack of control, as her losing it.

He’d been staring. Cover that. “Where did you get red nail polish? I thought cosmetics were all gone—”

“The most expensive stuff was all natural ingredients packaged in glass. I just let it be known to some salvage crew heads that good things might happen if anyone brought me unopened nail polish, in glass bottles. One enterprising young man found some. So I have about a fifteen-year supply of nail polish—and he’s now a section head with a comfy desk job. And my source for a lot of good stuff. At least some things still work the way they always have.”

When they’d been dating, Arnie had worried that Allie’s liking for gifts and favors, normal in a political appointee, might screw him up with Civil Service rules if they got married.

She was smiling in the way that always sent his heart into his throat. “Arnie, babe, honestly, you think some simple favors would matter enough for Chris Manckiewicz to even print it, and risk losing nine states of subscribers?”

Too drunk to argue, Arnie sat back. “I’m just so glad to see you again.”

“I’m glad to see you again too. I didn’t realize how much I missed you.” She started a sip that turned into draining the glass. “Oops. Naughty.” She extended her glass to refill; her deep red nails reflected little stars of candle flames until he poured in the red wine, which colored the light around it so that her nails glowed like blood rubies.

^{40 MINUTES LATER. PUEBLO, COLORADO. 2:15 AM MST. SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2025.}

The watch was on the other side of town and Arnie was exhausted. He could just run, just this once, and it would be okay.

Less than two blocks from his house, Aaron was jogging beside him. “It must be nice to have a chance to visit with an old friend.”

Arnie tried to pretend the Daybreaker wasn’t there, wasn’t close enough for him to smell the man’s infrequently-if-ever washed body and clothes, wasn’t already causing the sort of fuzziness in his mind that he had now filled two notebooks trying to understand and analyze after the fact.

“Sometimes,” Aaron said, as if Arnie had answered him, “there is a harmless pleasure in learning something about a former lover.” Arnie picked up the pace but Aaron matched him. “Allie spends many nights sitting up alone, while the president sleeps the sleep of an old, tired man.”

Arnie ran faster still; Aaron matched him.

“Doctor Yang, you are thinking, ‘How would Aaron know?’ and the answer is that we have mutual friends.”

Only a block to go. Arnie flung himself toward his front door. Aaron was at his heels. In a final, gasping burst, Arnie leapt and whirled, put his back to his front door, drew his knives.

Dark, empty street.

He waited.

Nothing.

Finally he unlocked his door, went inside, locked it behind him, lit an oil lamp.

“She doesn’t sleep with Graham anymore. Not that it’s my business, of course, but it’s interesting,” Aaron said. He was leaning back in Arnie’s leather armchair, legs crossed comfortably, bouncing one leg over his other knee. “Doctor, doctor, doctus, docta, doctum, dock ta dock ta dock.”

Arnie wanted to speak, to shout, to scream and leap to the attack. Instead he was captivated by the way Aaron’s foot moved in the lamplight, up down, up down… .

Aaron said, “Been a long time, been a long time, been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely… time. So things have been happening. Do you know where Larry, Chris, and Jason are? Are they coming back across the Wabash?”

Arnie felt his head nodding. It was a tiny victory; he knew from having sneaked a look at Heather’s notes, on her desk, that Heather had actually instructed them to get out any way that seemed good. It wasn’t quite a lie to nod, and it wasn’t the truth either, but Arnie hoped, deep inside, it would turn out to be a lie.

More questions, as Arnie cooked a meal for Aaron.

Later, writing in his notepad, Arnie scribbled a whole page of I must never come home without the watch.

I must never come home without the watch.

I must never come home without the watch.

On and on, like Bart Simpson having a bad day, unable to think of another sentence. He took a deep breath and made himself write

I must remember—

Something about Allie.

Something hurt; he looked down to see the broken pencil, and some blood where the splinters had gone into his middle finger.

He fell asleep lying across the still-made bed, his notebook dropping to the floor beside him.

^{THE NEXT DAY. NEAR HAYSTACK ROCKS, JUST OUTSIDE WILLIAMS, INDIANA. 3 PM EST. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2025.}

“Hi, boys, what’s new?”

Roger sat up from his nap like he’d been electrocuted; Samson, sitting guard, slowly turned his head. “Deb, you could sure scare the shit out of someone that way.”

“That’s why I did it.” Debbie Mensche was grinning. “You guys headed to Bloomington, too?”

“No need,” Samson said. “We were there two days ago and nearly got killed.”

“And we got our missions done,” Roger said. “Or mission, actually. We each had one but it was the same one, and they didn’t tell us about each other. When we met up we found out we were compartmentalized, but we’d been sent on the same job, to check out the encrypted radio station in Bloomington.”

“Well, we’re three for three—that’s the mission they sent me on, and I didn’t know anything about you all.” That’s only a slight modification of the truth, Debbie thought. “So I guess we’re done and we can go home. How did you all do?”

Dan said, “I ran the whole way here, chased and shot at all the time. By the time I shook off my pursuers long enough to go into Bloomington for a look, Roger was already there.”

Roger nodded. “Luckily they didn’t notice me, so I could take my time picking through what was left of that radio station—troops from Castle Earthstone smashed all the gear with clubs and axes, killed the techs and their slaves, and set the building on fire. So all I learned was that there had been a station here, which we already knew, and we were too late to learn anything more.”

“At first I thought none of it made any sense at all,” Samson said. “But the thing is, just destroying the radio station—and that’s weird enough in its own right, it was their own people, why didn’t they just call them back in?—anyway, to shoot everyone and smash it up like that, it wouldn’t have taken even a platoon to do it, but they sent a whole battalion. And that reminds me a lot of the way they used so many more people than they had to to catch poor old Steve. So I don’t think that wrecking the radio station was the main mission; I think they were here to be the trap for us, and for some reason we don’t know, capturing our scouts and agents is insanely important to them compared to almost anything else.”

“Well, that would explain all the running and shooting I had to do on my way in,” Debbie said. “So you had the same experience, Dan, but Roger—”

“Didn’t see a single tribal till I saw fifty of them running at me when I came out of the burned-out radio station,” Roger said.

Debbie nodded, obviously thinking. “Has either of you reported in yet? Did they issue you a radio?”

Both men shook their heads.

“Do you think the other side has any radio detectors—this side of the moon, I mean?”

“No idea. Why?” Samson asked.

“Because I’ve got a disassembled radio in my pack and there’s a message I need to send to Heather.”

“Can it wait till tonight? I’d like to get further away and better hidden from the old trouble before I invite any new.”

“Fair enough. I’ll transmit tonight, then—but we’ll have to stop early enough so I have light to work by. Meanwhile, I’m thinking, the trail and road system in Hoosier National Forest would take us all the way down to the Ohio, and the last tribals I saw were headed back north on the roads. Let’s get into some woods where there’s plenty of cover and we have way better skills than they do.”

For the first hour they were in what had been farm country with many trees along streambanks, orchards in odd corners of land, and fencerows; just one summer without planting or harvest was already making it thick with low brush and tall weeds. Twice, they spotted patrols far off, but evaded them without trouble.

Two miles into the forest, when they stopped for a water break, Roger said, “I don’t suppose you can tell me how far we have to go.”

Deb looked up in the air while playing with her fingers. “Right around a hundred and five miles walking, and call it two swimming. A hundred seven, give or take.” The men were staring at her; she shrugged. “Family knack. I used to use it to keep track of stolen cars in Portland and hidden marijuana patches up in the hills. Dad’s the real freak. He’d’ve told you to the yard.”