Daybreak Zero

^{ABOUT THE SAME TIME. ATHENS, TNG DISTRICT. 12:30 PM EST. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2025.}

“I think some people are starting to wonder if we’re dating,” Cameron said, setting down the picnic basket.

“Well, if we are, then I’m mad because you never take me anywhere.” Lyndon Phat looked down at the pieces of tissue paper that Cam dropped into his lap as he began to unpack the basket. “By the way, I appreciate the chance to eat something good, and your friendship flatters the hell out of me.”

“Glad to hear it, because you’re about the only friend I’ve got locally.”

Phat nodded, looking down. The first tissue contained the simplest message:

The second tissue spelled out the planned extraction, told him to memorize it, and stressed that he might be the only member of the group who knew the plan.

The third was a set of directions for—“And this is for later,” Cam said, handing him a paper bag; in it there was a baguette, and a glass jar of jam (or at least the thin outer layer next to the glass was jam; the instructions told Phat what to do with the thing in the inner jar).

Their eyes met; the two men sighed silently, because they genuinely had enjoyed the conversations, and no matter what, this would be the last.

^{THAT NIGHT. ATHENS, TNG DISTRICT. 11 PM EST. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2025.}

They had pretended to sleep on the train, sharing a big couch in a private compartment, while Larry briefed them via squeeze code. The essential information boiled down to expect trouble; don’t resist the fake arrest; expect to get the rest of the script from Cameron Nguyen-Peters; and if anything went wrong, make as much noise as possible, improvise, free General Phat, and run.

“That’s a lot of light up ahead for nowadays,” Jason said, quietly, as they neared the Athens station.

Larry and Chris leaned across him to look where he pointed. “Orangey and flickering, so it’s torchlight,” Chris said. “Not good. I don’t think they’re holding a parade for us.”

As the train neared the station, silhouettes swept by on both sides of the tracks, and the train whistle blasted over and over. The dark human shapes, backlit by torches, thickened into a wall of heads above bodies, faces flaring out of it in the flickering, uncertain light, like snapshots of angry ghosts.

At the platform, backs covered with Rorschach camo blocked the view through the windows. “Soldiers standing three deep,” Jason said. “And the crowd sounds like bears.”

Their conductor leaned in. “They said to ask you not to sit too close to the windows, and wait for someone to come to you.”

Outside the praying and singing was growing louder, and some objects thudded against the side of the train car. “Is there a next station we could maybe go on to?” Chris asked.

“It’s a spur line,” Larry said. “To get off it we would have to back up. Which can be pretty easily blocked.”

So far, no gunfire had punctured the angry rumble of the mob outside, and what was hitting the train sounded like rocks or bottles, not shots. “I like the singing better than the shouting,” Chris said. “They don’t throw stuff when they sing.”

Cameron Nguyen-Peters came in. “This is going to be a nuisance. We need to make a public display of arresting you all as spies. You will be going to a discreet high-security facility and the man you came to meet will be there. My assistants will bring along your bags separately.”

He paused for a moment as the shouting and screaming outside rose to a crescendo and then quieted. “That’s our cue. General Grayson is speaking to the crowd. He can usually persuade the Post Raptural crowds to behave, at least for short periods of time. He’s defusing the situation for public peace, and he’ll do what it takes to protect you. He knows what your mission is and supposedly he’s down with it—but if he’s going to stab us in the back, it’ll be tonight, so stay alert and trust him only as much as you have to. For this ceremonial arrest, just try to look like the general has overwhelmed you by his sheer force of personality.”

As they waited in the shadow to go onto the platform, while General Grayson prayed at length, Larry muttered, “Who’s the low-rent Madonna clone beside him?”

“His wife,” Cam said. “Ten times smarter and fifty times more dangerous than he is, and don’t forget it.”

The prayer finished with the Post Raptural coda—help us during this Tribulation to make Your chosen nation fully fit for Your return. There was wild cheering, but Grayson held his hands up for silence. “Now we are about to proceed with a difficult moment, my friends, and I am depending on each of you to be calm, reasonable, and fair. These men believe they are carrying out their duties in accord with their oaths, just as sincerely as I believe I am keeping my oath. I, and the other competent authorities, must have the freedom and time to investigate and reach an impartial conclusion that will stand the scrutiny of God and man. To do that, we must have quiet and order. So I’m going to ask you to return to your homes after you see these men taken into custody. Rest assured we are dealing with any danger they may pose to God and country—but we are doing so fairly and dispassionately. Now, will you please all join me in the Pledge of Allegiance?”

It was no mere recital; the crowd seemed to speak in one passionate voice:

“I am going to find a way to crucify that son of a bitch,” Chris whispered.

“Gotta let me help,” Larry whispered back.

“He doesn’t believe it himself,” Cam pointed out.

“I don’t care whether you’re a bear yourself, don’t feed the bears,” Jason said.

When the three men moved forward into the light, the crowd fell into a deep silence. Grayson publicly ordered Cam to take them into custody for questioning. Cam declared he would hold them according to Grayson’s orders, and came forward to take Larry by the elbow.

As they passed out of the light, Grayson was urging the crowd to go home. A few little bunches of them were striking up hymns or chants, but it didn’t seem to be contagious. A long flight of steps led down along the solid brick wall of the power plant, plunging into deeper darkness.

“Why was he willing to do that?” Larry asked quietly.

“Because it means I’ve been publicly seen taking orders from him, now,” Cam explained. “That’s worth a great deal to him. Look, time’s short, here goes. Two blocks from here, I am going to lead you into a dark area behind an old classroom building. I will appear to just be taking a shortcut across a lawn. You will silently turn away from me and follow the row of magnolias to the north; at the edge of campus there’s a dark patch where you can run across to a warehouse. North and west of the warehouse there’s an old bike trail. Follow it about half a mile to a frame house by the east bank of a creek—if you cross a bridge you’ve gone too far. In that house are men I’ve assigned to the job, loyal to me and the United States. Give them the password ‘Four larks and a wren.’

“If by any chance you are arrested that’s the place you will be taken anyway, and the guards will free you as soon as the arresting party leaves and you can give them the password. They will release General Phat to you. He knows the extraction procedure, which is—”

“Stop were you are,” a voice said from the shadows. Cameron walked on and was gone. Chris felt his arms pinned; beside him Larry and Jason struggled. Pistols cocked, and Chris felt the press of the muzzle at the back of his neck, pointed a little upward in the executioner’s angle.

“Prisoners, hold still while we secure you.”

Bags went over their heads instantly, bars slipped between their backs and elbows as neat as knitting, and choke ropes slipped over their necks like a period onto the end of a sentence. Chris recognized Grayson’s voice when he said, “Follow me to the secure facility. They’ll be held there till morning. No noise and forget this the moment we’re back.” Hands turned him around a few times and then guided him into a new direction; he sensed the others beside him. “Prisoners,” Grayson said, “if you pick up your feet and obey your handlers, you won’t get hurt on your way there.”

Chris noticed that nothing had been said about after they were there.

^{THAT NIGHT. ATHENS, TNG DISTRICT. 12:20 AM EST. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2025.}

Mama had taught Jeffrey Grayson to “get good stuff that’ll last.” He’d had his first pair of good Italian shoes at the age of twelve. His first car had been a mechanic-approved used BMW. Mama’s first personal assistant had still been with her on the day she retired, they had had two cooks—mother and daughter—in all their time in the big old stone house, and the gardener’s grandfather had worked at that house. You knew you could count on quality shoes, cars, and people.

Unfortunately, what he was doing right now required low-quality disposable people, and they were behaving just like it. A squad of first rate MPs at the facility, and maybe a half dozen Rangers with him, and Grayson would have no worries.

These dopey misfits were obviously enjoying the feeling of being Big Tough Bad Guys. Parker, the closest thing Grayson had to a reliable subordinate, had to remind Ethan twice to keep his finger out of the trigger guard; probably it scared the shit out of the prisoners to hear that.

At the secure facility, it was worse. They didn’t even know how to straighten up and behave right—instead of saluting, standing at attention, and carrying out the orders quickly and crisply, they sort of waved their hands at their heads, looked around the room, and hunched and slumped as they put the prisoners into the rooms. They drawled like clerks at a 7-Eleven.

As soon as the prisoners were shoved into their cells and locked in, Grayson pulled off his ski mask and said, “There is one more empty cell and we’re going to have one more prisoner. You all on guard, stay on guard. Arresting party, go get the last one and bring him in—as gently as possible, give him the chance to come with you voluntarily, and you are by no means to use violence; if he just walks past you, let him.”

God I hope they remember what they are really supposed to do. But at least they took off quickly, ski masks pulled down, running in the right direction, and beyond that he’d just have to hope.

“For the record,” he said, loudly, so that the men in the cells could hear him, “it was necessary to arrest this party because the Reconstruction Research Center at Pueblo has been penetrated by Daybreaker and other subversive elements, and we became aware that this purported scouting expedition was actually an attempted prison break by Lyndon Phat…”

The speech went on, sounding more and more lengthy, flat, and phony to Grayson himself. He wanted to just cut it entirely and tell everyone he’d be back later, but he had to drive on through the excruciating, repetitive speech, because he had to be seen here, after giving orders for which he would have independent and even hostile witnesses. There must be no question of either what his orders had been, or that he had been here, when—

Distant gunfire. It began as a few shots, then erupted into what sounded like a brief firefight that trailed off in ones and twos within a minute.

“What is that?” Grayson demanded. Not staying for an answer, he ran into the night as the last shots punctuated his exit.

^{ABOUT THE SAME TIME. ATHENS, TNG DISTRICT. 12:40 AM EST. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2025.}

If I’m not being stabbed in the back, Cameron Nguyen-Peters thought, then Grayson did that perfectly; we told them just enough to make sure they’ll accomplish the mission, and to cover Grayson and me if things go to shit. And the only catch is that if Grayson is backstabbing me, I’ve just given away every advantage I had. Well, they always say that if you want someone to be trustworthy, you have to start off trusting—

An explosion tore through the downstairs, shaking the building, throwing him to his hands and knees; the coffee in its fine cup flew across his immaculate desk. Plaster spattered on the back of his suitcoat.

Gunshots downstairs, and shouting. He didn’t recognize any of the voices. Probably the intruders were killing any of his surviving, wounded loyalists.

The shaking of the building frame must have jammed the window, because it wouldn’t budge when he yanked at it. He kicked it in the center as hard as he could—it was bulletproof but secured with just a few screws in case of something like this—and it fell away. He stepped over the windowsill, out on the fire escape.

A man had been waiting for him by the window, and as Grayson turned, he was facing into the muzzle of a Newberry Standard carbine.

“You don’t want to do this,” Cam said, softly.

“Shut up.”

“Grayson can’t afford any connection to killing me; do you want to be one of the few living witnesses? Do you think he won’t dispose of you, like he’s disposing of me?”

“He said not to talk to you because you’re a slick liar.”

“Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?” Careful not to move his head, with only the light from the oil lamps in the office behind him, Cam studied every detail of the man, trying to make his gaze friendly and sympathetic. No anger. No pity. He’ll pull the trigger if he sees either.

Pudgy, out of shape, lines too deep in his face, slumping like he wanted his ass out of here, the man wore a long untucked homespun shirt; his belly bulged over too-small Levi’s. Of course. Grayson couldn’t have gotten a regular soldier for this job.

“Do you love your country?” Cameron asked him.

“What kind of a question is that? Would I be here doing this if I didn’t?”

“I was appointed by the last serving president of the United States,” Cameron said quietly, “and I appointed Grayson to his present job.”

“Who says he has anything to do with this?” Something defensive in the man’s tone.

This was going the wrong way. Try something else. “If he didn’t, I’m very glad to hear it. Someone sent you. Loyal American citizens don’t come armed to attack their government unless someone has been telling them stories.”

“What makes you think Grayson… I mean—”

“He was usually honest with me up till now. But if you’re going to kill me, can’t you tell me what it’s about?”

The man’s eyes rolled up and away, slightly, toward his low, broad-brimmed hat. He’s thinking about that, he’s thinking—

“Hold it!” the man shouted, not at Cam. Cam did not turn around, but felt another man behind him on the fire escape.

All my life I’ve depended on finding the smart one and talking to him, but sometimes the smart one can’t—

“We ain’t spoza talk to’im.” The voice behind him was expressionless. “He said he’d get us talkin’ and we wouldn’t do it.”

“Maybe—”

“Aw, bullshit, Parker. Think think think, talk talk talk, all the time and you never wanna do nothing.”

On the last syllable, the world roared, and Cam felt an immense shove high on his back. Falling forward, trying to catch the fire escape’s railing, he barely formed the thought Don’t.

As he clung for a moment to the railing, a fragmentary image of the ground below was the last thing that ever crossed from Cam’s optic nerve into his brain. Then Parker shot him in the head. The world disappeared into an unbearable bright light and roaring sound.

Denny kicked the reeling body hard, and it tumbled over the railing, off the fire escape, thudding to the pavement below. “Hey Parker, hey motherfucker, we got the fucking Natcon! We’re fucking famous. See, when it’s time to do it, you gotta do it. Motherfucker! Famous!”

Parker looked down at the gun in his hand as if it had just appeared there. He wanted to say something, or have a thought, but nothing came. He descended the fire escape slowly, as if in a drunken stagger, with Denny beside him, slapping his back, slugging his shoulder. “Got him, hey, we got him. Motherfucking famous, Parker, we’re motherfucking famous.”

General Grayson was waiting for them at the bottom, with three regular soldiers that Parker hadn’t seen before now. Grayson had been crouched by the Natcon’s body; now he stood up, an expression of horror on his face.

Now is when we’re supposed to point our weapons at him and he’ll back away, and then—but he didn’t say there’d be other soldiers. Parker felt more than thought, So this is what it felt like for the Natcon, and tried to make his mouth open to say, Please! I’ll never tell anybody! and tried to frame the thought that they had to talk, that Denny must not point that gun.

But beside him, he felt Denny’s gun swinging up, just like in practice. Then the general’s pistol was up, and firing.

^{ABOUT THE SAME TIME. ATHENS, TNG DISTRICT. 12:40 AM EST. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2025.}

“Four larks and a wren,” Larry Mensche said, loudly—but not nearly as loudly as the wild laughter from the guards. “Fuck you,” one of the guards said. “We even knew that would be your fucking password, but we ain’t none of those guards. You got the wrong guards. You stayin’ where you stayin’.”

On the surface of his mind, Chris thought, I am deranged by this. I am mad. I cannot comprehend the failure of the plot. What do I do?

Deeper down, he thought, Thank God you couldn’t be in broadcast news without getting some actor training.

Chris drew a deep breath and tightened his vocal cords. Make’em jump. Sound like a gut-shot cougar. He screamed, “Four larks and a wren, four larks and a wren, four larks and a wren.”

The guards roared with laughter. So far so good. He wailed it, sobbed it, chanted it, and kept it coming. “Four larks and a wren, four larks and a wren.”

“All fucking right,” one of them yelled, “that’s enough, you know it ain’t gonna work, you poor stupid bastard, cut it out.”

He stepped up his volume and energy, driving his voice till his throat was raw and his ears rang from his own volume. “Four larks and a wren, four larks and a wren, four larks and—”

The guard burst in, shouting, “Shut up!” and reached for Chris’s collar.

Chris reached over the man’s arm, gripped the little finger, and yanked back, turning the arm over and extending it. His left hand, fingers compressed into a spear-hand, jabbed along the man’s extended arm and over the shoulder to strike his throat with crushing force. Chris grabbed an ear, pivoted forward so that he went up the man’s still-extended arm like a swing dancer coming back in, and slammed his right fist into the man’s already-crushed larynx.

He felt his opponent’s body go limp. Ecco, Samson, thanks. Chris pulled the pistol from the guard’s holster.

This wasn’t any weapon he knew, but it didn’t matter; the next guard through the door was still unsnapping his holster when Chris swung the gun by its barrel backhanded into the man’s chin. He followed him down as he fell over, and used the gun like a hammer on the man’s forehead, twice.

Chris backed away on the opening side of the door, and lunged forward when it opened and the third and final man came through. With the gun jabbed against the man’s temple, Chris screamed “Open all the doors now!” like a movie psycho.

The man raised his hands above his head. “The keys are in my pocket, you’ll have to—”

The man was staring at the gun and never saw Chris’s foot sweep; with a startled cry, he fell backward, and Chris raised the gun high and brought it down with all his force on the top of his head, and then on the face.

With the keys from the guard’s pocket, Chris unlocked Larry’s cell, and Jason’s. Behind them, a door clicked open; General Phat came in with his hands up. “Don’t shoot, the irony would be too much for anyone. I thought with all the action going on, it was time to use the screwdriver Cam had smuggled to me last week as a just-in-case,” he said. “I need to grab something and then we need to be on the road west, now.”

Outside, torches and lanterns, whooping and shouting, filled the campus a few hundred yards away. “Wish we knew if that was a good thing or a bad thing,” Larry said.

“If it were a good thing, Cam would already be with us,” Phat said. “That’s either his failed diversion, or he lost his gamble. We’ll have to say our prayers for him while we run.”

“One more thing to check,” Larry said. “Chris, hand me that gun you took off the guard.”

Gingerly, Chris did. “I didn’t feel any safety and I wasn’t sure I could figure out—”

“Yeah. It’s a Newberry .65, bastard child of a horse pistol and a modern automatic.” Larry pointed it into the air and pulled the trigger; it dry-fired. He pulled out the magazine. “Not loaded. So they weren’t supposed to kill us, so Grayson doesn’t expect to hear gunshots.” He darted into the main guard room, rifled the desk, found eight full magazines. “Works just like the Newberry Standard rifle,” he said. “Bigger slug because it’s a smoothbore. Accurate to about arm’s-length compared to anything you’re used to. Massive stopping power if you do manage to hit anything. Let’s go.”

As they hastened along the dark road, Larry said, “Cam said you had the plan.”

“Such as it is,” Phat said. “We’re going to cross this bridge and follow the maintenance road onto the abandoned golf course, out onto a big flat stretch of fairway. Once we are there, I’ll use this gadget in the jar to call in help. Meanwhile, for a bigger challenge, you will be laying but not lighting a triangle of three fires, about a hundred yards apart.”

“Has it been cold enough to send all the snakes to ground?” Chris asked.

“Not being a snake, I wouldn’t know. I’d avoid sticking your hands down holes or under bushes.”

“Also,” Larry said, “our gear is gone; I don’t suppose you have anything we can light a fire with, assuming you do want them lit eventually?”

General Phat chuckled. “This is the first time since I was twenty-one that I’ve been glad I smoke.”

^{ABOUT 3 HOURS LATER. ATHENS, TNG DISTRICT. 1:15 AM EST. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2025.}

Jenny had never looked more beautiful than she did in candlelight; she had been waiting in his favorite nightie to give him a hero’s welcome, and he’d accepted enthusiastically.

Now he sat cross-legged and upright on the bed, catching his breath. Jenny lay gasping like a trophy marlin. Pity that the only men I actually killed were those pathetic stooges, he thought. I would have liked to see old stone-faced Cam-boy beg for his life… .

The thought of Cam screaming, the real memory of his slack dead face, Jenny’s spill of blonde curls across the pillow, and the sheen of sweat on her big breasts, started him again. He sprang onto Jenny, pinned her, pushed her legs apart.

She squirmed and cried out; this was past the point of her pleasure. He knew she was sore, and he knew too that she would not only forgive him but come to treasure the memory, as she had their wedding night and the other triumphant nights when he had been like this. Teenage-boy bragging resounded in his mind: she’ll walk funny for a week, she won’t be able to sit down—

Her cries of pain and fear brought him to another climax. She curled away from him. “No more, please, baby. I hurt.”

Instantly remorseful, he brought her ointment, stroked her hair, soothed her while she cried about how scary he was. She clung to him; he rubbed her back. If ever he had really made anything his own—

Pounding, then shouting, at the door.

He rolled from the bed, yanked on sweater and pants, put his boots over his trousers, and threw the door open. Reverend Whilmire and Reverend Peet stood there, escorted by four soldiers with rifles.

Whilmire said, “We have an emergency. The Pueblo spies and General Phat are gone, two of their guards are dead, and the medic doesn’t think the third one will regain consciousness. Did you know anything about their escape plan?”

“Only that Shorty Phat was supposed to be the guy that knew it, and if we kept them all locked up it wasn’t going to matter.” Grayson grabbed his coat from the rack; it was freezing outside. “Are any troops in motion yet?”

“We told the sergeant that brought us the news to alert the officer of the watch. He sent back that he’s bringing Second Battalion to Terrell Hall, and he’s also activated the lockdown plan, so there will be troops at the airport and railway station—and on every bridge, ford, and road—in a few minutes.”

“How long ago?” Grayson was solving the problem already; airport locked up, trains locked up, guarding the roads would slow them down, moonless night so horses couldn’t move much faster than a healthy man could walk. “How long ago?” he demanded, again.

“Sir, the message from the officer of the watch came back eighteen minutes ago, sir,” the sergeant of the escorting soldiers said. “And the situation at the facility was discovered about ten minutes before that.”

Grayson nodded. They have at least forty minutes’ head start, but not an hour. The Pueblo spies and Phat had to be within a couple of miles; call it three by the time he had his troops—a long head start, but if they were hiding somewhere to await pickup, maybe.

“Two of you men come with me,” he said. “I’ve got to go to Terrell Hall and take command. Reverend Whilmire, go wake up the Board, drag them into a meeting, no matter what the actual numbers are it’s a quorum, and vote in a temporary declaration of martial law. To expire in two weeks—if we haven’t salvaged things by then we’ve lost anyway.”

“I’d only slow everyone down,” the Reverend Peet said. “I’m going home to bed to let younger people cope with this. Reverend Whilmire, you have my proxy.”

Most useful thing I’ve ever heard Peet say, Grayson thought. “Mine too,” he said. “Good luck.”

As he ran, the sergeant and one soldier at his heels, he thought, Ask me for anything but time. Supposedly Napoleon said that. For the first time, I really understand him. He ran down the road, faster and faster as his eyes adjusted to the starlight, everything forgotten but the need to be there now, now, now.

^{IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARD. ATHENS, TNG DISTRICT. 1:35 AM EST. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2025.}

Abner Peet had waved off the offer of a soldier to see him home safely. Whilmire and Grayson, he thought, without real disapproval, had certainly fallen for their own act. It was true, of course, that there were dangerous, violent people afoot in the capital tonight, but it seemed to have slipped the general’s mind, and Whilmire’s, that they were the dangerous, violent people, and the enemy were hunted fugitives.

There might be material for a sermon in that idea, though of course he could not use that particular example. The tendency to become obsessed with… well, of course, it was all in the Bible, just as everything else was, motes and beams, and—

“I came as soon as I knew you needed me,” Naomi said, falling into step beside him.

And that was why I sent the soldiers with Whilmire, Peet thought, things making sense at last. “It’s a frightening night,” Peet agreed.

“What are you afraid of, Abner?”

He was startled that she called him by his first name, but it seemed more comforting and familiar than presumptuous. She asked again what he was afraid of.

After a moment he said, “That it will all come back. That I’ll wake up and the Rapture won’t have happened, the cities will be full of crime and evil, all the good work we’ve done will be undone.”

“Is there someone out there trying to do that tonight, Abner? Our scouts heard shooting and explosions and saw fires, and we didn’t know what it was, so I came in to find you and see if we could help.”

“We thought we had caught some of the worst of them, we thought… we thought we had them locked up—”

Her breath hissed in. “What were they doing? What has happened?”

As he explained it to her, he had the strangest sensation that he was surrounded by a crowd of warm, dirty bodies, all listening intently, but when he finished telling her everything (should I really have told them about who killed the Natcon and why?) they didn’t seem to be there anymore. There was only Naomi, resting her hand on his arm and saying, very gently, “You have done the right thing, you’re helping to bring about the final triumph, you have served your Lord well.”

He felt lost but happy; bewildered but safe. He drank in the frosty air that reminded him that Thanksgiving was only two days away, and Christmas just around the corner after that, and in the glow, something made him ask, “Are you an angel?”

But there was no answer. He opened his eyes fully; he was standing in a windswept deserted street, and except for the stars and a few flickers of distant flames, in the deepest darkness. The shouts far away had nothing to do with him, he knew, so he went home to sleep.

^{3 HOURS LATER. ATHENS, TNG DISTRICT. 4:45 AM EST. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2025.}

General Phat took the radio from his ear and sat up straight. “Jason, is your stick still burning?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Time to light the fires; they’ll be here in about twenty minutes.”

Jason pulled the smoldering stick from the little heel-dug trench where he’d kept it under wet leaves, leapt to his feet, and waved it overhead, shaking off the ash, bringing the embers to a bright red glow. On his third swing, flames showed again; a few more swings and it was blazing. By then Larry and Chris, at the two other fire points, were showing bright flames too.

Jason slid the burning stick under the little teepee of kindling. For tinder, he’d come up with a dried-out bird’s nest and pine twigs fuzzed with a steak knife from the guards’ kitchen, to eke out the crumpled pages of Thucydides. The blazing stick set it all off in a yard-high eruption of flames, engulfing the small teepee of deadwood sticks within the larger teepee of broken pine branches.

Jason looked up to see that Chris’s fire was jumping up even higher; Larry’s was ignited, but burning low and smoky.

“That’ll be enough fire to bring’em in,” Phat said.

In a few minutes, Larry and Chris joined them; this was the upwind fire, the easiest one for the helicopter to pick up from.

The war leaders of six tribes squatted on the hillside. Every few minutes, a scout came back from crawling down to where the four men built had three fires and now waited to light them. All night they had been telling their followers, wait, wait, of course we will kill the men, but we can also destroy whatever is coming for them, have a last glorious chance to smash some of the old plaztatic technology. Grumbling, the soldiers listened, obeyed, and continued to prepare for the attack.

One torch blazed up; two more answered; the fires themselves were lit. “This is it,” the senior war leader said, and they all stood up to give their war cries.

Before the last whoops and shrieks from the leaders were over, the hillside was dense with the silhouettes of fighters rising from their hiding places, and the cat-screams and bear-roars of a human wave gathering to pour down the hill toward the three fires.

Grayson looked out from the roof of Terrell Hall with some satisfaction; he didn’t know if they’d succeeded yet but he’d done all he could. At least now he had competent troops. He saw the three fires blaze up, marked their place on the map, and by the time that he reached the bottom of the stairs, he could hear the distant helicopter. In the quad, he shouted, “Major!”

“Sir!”

“Form up! We’re going to the old golf course north of campus, we’re running, and we might have to fight when we get there.”

“Right, sir. Bravo Company, up in the van; Delta Company, rearguard; Alpha, Charlie, and Echo, in that order, main body. We move in one, weapons ready.”

It was much less than one minute. With Alpha Company, in the lead of the main body, Grayson raced north along the old brick walkways, across the street, and into the abandoned part of town.

“What are we going to find, and what are we going to do, when we get there?” the major running beside him asked.

“We’ll get there about the same time as a helicopter from the Bush lands—I hope. There are some dangerous people, menaces to national security, who are there. I’m not sure what side the helicopter is on; the plot reaches very high up into our military. We don’t want to fight our own men—we’ve had enough of that already—but we can’t let the men on the ground get away, either.”

“Are they the spies from Pueblo, sir, the ones we busted last night?”

“Some of them.” Inspiration struck Grayson. “One of the reasons I want them is to question them about the Natcon’s murder. I don’t think they did it but I think they witnessed things that might give us a clue. So we can’t let them leave for Pueblo even if they’re innocent.”

“I’ll pass the word along, sir.”

Grayson continued at a swift jog; the cold bit at his toes and seared his lungs. Don’t slip and bust a leg on the bridge, he thought, that would be one irony too many.

“What the fuck is that?” General Phat blurted.

“Tribals, close, coming this way,” Larry said. “We can’t stay by the fires, we’ll be silhouetted.”

“The helicopter—”

“Talk to them if that gadget still works, but come on.”

Chris and Larry dragged Phat, almost by main force; Jason backed a few steps away from the fire, trying to put it between himself and the oncoming wave. “I’ll be along in a minute,” he yelled.

I think I owe this to the cause, he thought. Could have been me out there howling like a nut and dying just to kill other people; as Daybreaker poet I was all set up for it. Instead I got a nice clean comfy world, if you don’t mind the company of so many billion corpses. He hoped he was far enough back not to be readily visible; black-powder pistols made nearly as much light at night as they did smoke in the day, but he wanted to get off at least one shot before they knew where he was. Besides, I want to try something.

Dark shapes swarmed on the far side of the fire. “Mister Gun!” Jason shouted at the top of his lungs. “Mister Gun lives! Mother Gaia is a lie, Mister Gun lives!” Chanting, the tribals had entered the firelight in a solid wave. Jason pointed into the thickest part of the crowd and pulled the trigger.

In the split second of silence, he let the Daybreak poet he had once been merge with what Larry and Debbie had brought back about The Play of Daybreak, and shouted, “Mister Gun rises from the dead! Slay them all, slaughter them, Mister Gun is mightier than Mother Gaia!” He fired again, then bellowed, “Mister Gun!” as he fired again.

The crowd faltered, whimpered, tried to raise its chant, and that gave him a moment to swap out magazines. “Mister Gun!” a voice cried behind him—Larry, of course, he saw what I was doing!—and another shot lashed into the milling Daybreakers. One with a spirit stick stumbled and fell.

“Mister Gun slays your spirit stick!” Blam. “Mister Gun shits on your spirit stick and breaks it!” Blam. “Your spirit stick is dead!” Blam. Jason fired at the end of each scream.

Now Chris was shouting about Mister Gun, too. I swear, Jason thought, reloading with his last magazine, if I somehow get home alive, I am organizing the First Church of Mister Gun.

It had delayed the human wave, made it falter when it might have swept across and killed them all, but they had only had forty rounds to begin with, and those were almost gone. “Jason,” Larry said, quietly. “Back up with us. Phat’s got the chopper coming into the center of the triangle. It’ll be here soon. We just have to hope—Mister Gun! Mister Gun, feed on the tribes, rape Mother Gaia, Mister Gun!” He shot into the crowd; Jason used up his last magazine doing the same, and then fell back with Larry and Chris. Chris was almost shaking with laughter. “I didn’t think humor was called for here, but my dear sweet God I wanted to shout that Mother Gaia swims out to meet troopships.”

“Not long now,” Phat murmured, as they joined him. “The chopper—Right!” he held the little radio to his ear. “Yes, in the center, that’s us!”

Chris listened hard. “An H-92. It’s a distinct sound. Jocking a camera in Eritrea, you couldn’t mistake them for anything else. I always followed that sound, it meant Navy, and that far inland, Navy meant Marines—”

Phat was shouting instructions into the radio; they heard “Mister Gun” a few times before the helicopter roared over them. Its searchlights swept outward, revealing hundreds of tribals milling in confusion.

“They’re not afraid of guns,” Jason said. “Not out in the real world. They’re afraid of Mister Gun. Mister Gun lives in the part of them where Daybreak lives.” Phat repeated that into the radio, loudly. The searchlights swept a second time.

“The light hasn’t touched us,” Jason pointed out.

“No need,” Phat said, “they have us on IR, and why show anyone where we are? They just have to look around for a second first.”

“What are they looking for?”

“Trees, bad ground, bad guys,” Phat said. “If I was flying what’s probably the last working chopper in the world on what’s probably its last mission ever, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to get ambushed—let alone run into a tree, or sink in a swamp.”

The helicopter crept forward toward the milling tribals. Its loudspeaker thundered, “You have not respected Mister Gun! Mother Gaia cannot save you! Mister Gun must punish you!”

The machine guns blasted into the tribals, who had been staring into the searchlights. Some fell; the rest fled. The searchlight winked out.

The helicopter descended to ground height, and the four men ran to it, diving forward, letting the crew drag them in by the arms. “That everyone?” the crewman shouted, as he pulled Jason aboard. “How many of you?”

“Four.”

“Got the last one, sir.”

The door slid shut behind him, the crewman pushed him into a seat, and the helicopter went up the way Jason had imagined a rocket might. “The skipper isn’t about to lose this thing to ground fire at this point,” the crewman said, apologetically. “We have every luxury we could snag from the Bush that wasn’t too big and heavy. How about coffee and ice cream cones?”

So the rendezvous had been the old golf course; Grayson had been able to put watchers on every road, on the railroad tracks, and at the airport, but there had simply been too many open, grassy areas to cover on foot, and he hadn’t been willing to risk the few trained cavalry ponies trying to cover the territory. And honestly, he couldn’t have imagined that Bush would be in league with Pueblo; just one more proof that you could never trust those Navy bastards. Rum, sodomy, and the lash, he quoted to himself. Especially sodomy. Which is what they’re doing to me and the whole TNG.

He heard gunfire ahead, and shouting. Ahead of them, above the low rise, he saw the helicopter against the stars, descending beyond the hill. Then brilliant electric light, unintelligible shouting and loudspeakers, and machine guns—real ones, firing fast and without the slow hollow claps of hand-turned black-powder guns.

“Pick up the pace and expect a fight,” he told the major.

They had covered only about two hundred yards more when Grayson saw the helicopter rise vertically and fly away to the northwest.

“Did they get away, sir?”

“I don’t know, Major. I think we’ve got to go take a look. But—”

Gunfire from the van.

The main body plunged into the ditches on either side, all in the dark shadows of the trees in starlight.

A messenger was at Grayson’s side. “General, Bravo captain says we plowed into the flank of a big party of tribals, and Second Platoon, out front, is fighting them; First and Third are moving to flank. He thinks they were going somewhere else and we just ran into them—”

Grayson was shouting again, sending forces around on each of his flanks, firming up his center with his rearguard, and driving them forward to find and massacre the tribals. Frustrated by failure and betrayal, he exulted in the volleys and single shots and the screams in the dark. And either these tribal fuckers stopped Phat or they didn’t, but I was too late and too slow, and that makes me mad, and by Christ I’m going to make them pay for making me mad.

When Athens was tiny, winking red fires far behind, Chris asked, “I don’t suppose anyone would care to tell us where we’re going?” He had consumed his ice cream cone with more reverence than he had ever shown the Host as an altar boy.

The Marine captain said, “Well, they told me to get you to anywhere with a runway, and take all the fuel I wanted because Bush was dying of nanoswarm, and didn’t have biotes yet, so we’ve got an extended-range Superhawk II here. Theoretically I could run all the way to Columbia, Missouri or so, but to be safe, we’re just going to Pale Bluff, Illinois, which should be friendly and has an airfield.”

“My ex-wife and my son Sam still live there,” the pilot added, “which is why I volunteered for this mission, it’s my chance to get back there. You might have heard about it if you ever read that Pueblo paper, or listen to the radio stations that read it on the air.”

“I might at that,” Chris said.

“So poor old Bush is gone, and that’s the last carrier, isn’t it?” Phat said.

“Yes, sir,” the Marine captain said. “More coffee all around for the guests, please, Chief? And for everyone? And there’s more ice cream, guests go first but I don’t want one drop of that wasted. We’ve got a while ahead of us, these things are fast but not that fast. Randy, let me know when you want me to take over and fly for a while.”

As they flew on to the northwest, the pilot revealed himself as a man who liked to talk. Jason decided that in light of his second bowl of ice cream, he could listen for a week if he had to. The pilot said, “Funny that the old Nimitz-class carriers outlasted all the new Ford-class ones, but those Fords were bad-luck ships from the beginning—the Ford herself set a record for going aground that I don’t suppose any carrier could possibly match, the terrorists sank poor old Franklin Roosevelt the year she was launched, W was zapped in the South China Sea EMP and then eaten by nanos, and, well, who the hell decided to name a ship after Jimmy Carter? It was like they were asking for what happened to it. But the Nimitzes kept right on ticking for most of this past year. Bush was the last, though, and in twenty years no one will remember there ever were aircraft carriers at all. I guess if Sam dreams about the sea, he’ll dream about commanding a ship-of-the-line.”

Phat cleared his throat. Very softly, he said, “Do you know who I am? Because you came here to rescue me.”

“Uh, no, sir, I don’t, and I didn’t mean any offense—”

“And none was taken. Lyndon Phat, known to those who do not wish to live much longer as ‘Shorty,’ general, U.S. Army, at one time the commander of military forces for the TNG, and as soon as I get to Pueblo and announce it—candidate for president of the United States in 2026. Which I will win, if for no other reason than that I will be damned if I’ll lose to that slimeball Grayson. And as for that ship-of-the-line, by the time Sam is your age, he’ll be bucking for a berth on the expedition to the moon, to shut that Daybreak gun down. Depend on it.”

“We all like to fly, sir.” They flew on through the silent dark. Hours later, dawn raced out from behind them and illuminated the mountains. Recent snow, and wood smoke rising from hundreds of chimneys, made it all look like a Christmas card from a hundred years ago.

^{THAT AFTERNOON. ATHENS, TNG DISTRICT. 3 PM EST. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2025.}

Grayson had slept until almost two; Whilmire, sitting across the table from him while he ate an enormous mid-day breakfast, said, “Well, it’s not any surprise to me that you have excellent taste in wives. Jenny issued a number of remarkably brutal threats about what would happen if you were not allowed your sleep, and having known her since her birth, I knew enough to take them seriously.”

“Daddy,” Jenny said, “I’ve got a husband to take care of.” She squeezed Grayson’s biceps. “And the next president of the United States.”

“I was going to ask if that was still on,” Grayson said, “because it seemed to me, after last night—”

Whilmire smiled. “Actually, things are better. First of all, as far as anyone in Pueblo can prove, you and Cameron Nguyen-Peters were trying to free Lyndon Phat, and the Natcon was killed by people blocking your plan. I’m sure the public will have their suspicions, but for public consumption, you come out looking like a fair man so devoted to the Constitution that you’ll risk your own life to restore it. Second, the actual interference with the escape came from a surprise assault by tribals that you defeated in battle. Of course, again, that O’Grainne woman won’t believe us, she’s not stupid, but our friends have every reason to keep believing us, our enemies were not going to anyway, and the people who just can’t make up their minds have an excellent reason to lean our way, because we’ve got the more appealing story. And to top it all off, problems between the Post Raptural Church and the government will be diminishing very shortly.”

Grayson said, “I realize I’m less doctrinaire about the Constitution than Cam—”

“Oh, I know there will be less truculence from the government side, but there will be far less pressure and hassle from the Church side.” Whilmire looked professionally sad. “I am afraid that Reverend Abner Peet has found it necessary to step down.” At Grayson’s startled expression, he added, “We’ve put together a story about the stress of the job. Confidentially, what happened is that the militia, pursuing tribals who were trying to flee through town after your battle, discovered he was harboring a wounded tribal girl in his house, and when they tried to arrest her, Reverend Peet assaulted them. It emerged that she was hiding in his house because she knew he would hide her, and that the relationship had been a close one for some months. It would appear that poor old Doctor Arnold Yang was not the only person Daybreak had found a way to.”

Grayson peered at Whilmire, looking for any reaction or feeling, and saw none. “You know, I never really liked either man, and I tried to tell myself that the reason Arnie Yang could be sucked into Daybreak was that he was too interested in it, and besides he was a liberal elitist who thought he was smarter than all of us, and since I didn’t like him anyway… well. I didn’t like Peet, either, but you sure can’t say he was vulnerable because he was too smart. Or too impressed with his own cleverness. And looking back, I wasn’t being fair to Yang, just being scared about what it meant. Daybreak is going to try to take over all of us, at least if we’re potentially useful, I mean, and it doesn’t just want to kill us. And Daybreak could probably succeed with any of us; nobody’s immune or secure against it.” He shook his head, looking down into his coffee cup, not wanting either his political partner or his wife to see how shaken he was by the thought.

“It’s a lesson in caution for us all. So Reverend Peet will be staying at a secure facility while we try to understand what happened to him; we can’t let Pueblo be the only outfit that understands how Daybreak works in the individual mind. Unfortunately the girl went into a seizure, lost consciousness, and died, to some extent of her wounds.”

“So with Reverend Peet out of the game, the new head of the Post Raptural Church is, uh, you, sir?”

Whilmire spread his hands. “There was really no one else with my knowledge or experience, and at a difficult time like this, we need a steady, skilled hand on the job. Not to mention a prepared mind.” He leaned forward. “And your life is going to become easier because I believe the Church needs to liberalize on several issues, and I’ll be pursuing that both within the Church and on the Board of the Temporary National Government. It is my belief that we have to respect the fact that our people are independent and diverse, which are my polite words for cranky and mixed-up, and therefore the Church cannot expect full obedience yet, which is my very discreet way of saying that even down here, we are overrun with unbelievers and secularists and nutcases from the cults, and they will go off like a bomb if we try to exert our authority too quickly, so we have got to lay low till we have the strength to make them do the right thing.

“For the time being, my church and your government will be tolerated as long as we don’t impose much on our people, especially as long as we don’t call attention to the fact that Mister Nguyen-Peters was our last link to legitimacy. We cannot even think of reversing anything he agreed to. So since we cannot beat them, I suggest we join them. Ease up our grip, you know? Let people have one old-fashioned roistering anarchic election, let our supporters see the leftists run loose, to remind the Christian Americans how furious it makes them to have God and the flag disrespected. For every recruit the other side gains by being able to say and print whatever they want, they will lose five people into our column, from people hearing socialist anti-God crap they never wanted to hear again. Look at the map—a religious conservative candidate, especially if he can become popular in Wabash and Superior, can win in a landslide, with long coattails. The losses of last night are truly nothing compared with the chance to put in a legitimate, Constitutional government of principled religious conservatives to lead us for the remainder of Tribulation.

“So, General Son-in-Law, there is nothing to worry about, which is the real reason why I didn’t object to letting you sleep. Things are better than could be hoped for. You’ll still have your expedition, your victories, your fame, and your campaign; we’ll still defeat the Provi liberals and socialists, whether they run Weisbrod or Phat, and especially if they run both. You’re still going to be president. And that’s why I came here to tell you personally. We all have our duties, and some are pleasant.”

^{THAT NIGHT. OLYMPIA, NEW DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 10:30 PM PST. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2025.}

“You do realize you are taking a huge risk by being here,” Allie said, coolly opening the closet door in her bedroom to reveal Darcage.

It was the first time she’d ever seen him at a loss for words.

“Did Daybreak tell you to try again even though you hadn’t been able to get in the last four times?” she asked. “Didn’t that make you worry that Daybreak might be sacrificing you?”

“It would be an honor to be sacrificed for Daybreak.” He stood, a little dignity returning. “I am deep-trained,” he added. “You know what a seizure is like in someone who is only partly recruited. You know how much worse it is in someone like Ysabel Roth. You cannot take me prisoner without sending me into a seizure that will be fatal.”

“That’s what Daybreak finds it useful for you to believe. Stop being melodramatic; if I wanted to catch you, it would have been guards, not me, that opened the closet door.” She perched on the edge of her desk, crossing her legs and letting her skirt ride up. Hunh. I’d get more reaction out of a gay zombie. Interesting.

“Your husband the president, and all his security people, must surely know that you are meeting me and what we are talking about,” Darcage said. “Perhaps I should just allow myself to think that I am hopelessly caught and my death would be best for Daybreak.”

“You could do that and you might die before our people sedated you,” Allie agreed. “Why don’t you?”

“It would be better to hear your offer first.”

“Come back through the rear entrance at 10 a.m. sharp tomorrow morning. Don’t dress tribal. No tricks. If they find a weapon on you they’ll kill you right there. You have an appointment with me. I will tell you how Daybreak can be useful to me, and you will carry the message back to Daybreak, which will then either decide to be useful, or not.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Daybreak won’t. Now go. Guards will take you out by a secret route.” The door opened and two of the President’s Own Rangers, their ears swathed in gauze, came in, nodded, and grabbed Darcage, pushing and shoving him along, none too gently.

Graham came in and said, “Well, we listened. I suppose I should be alarmed at how convincing you sounded.”

“Just part of the job,” she said. “Tomorrow morning will tell the tale, and as you heard, there’s not much to analyze about the conversation. Early bed tonight?”

“I’d like that.”

As she brushed her long, thick black hair, Allie watched herself in the mirror and thought, Everyone keeps me in the game because they think I might work for them. But who do I think I’m working for? She saw only her own smile in the mirror.