Daybreak Zero

^{2 DAYS LATER. PALE BLUFF, NEW STATE OF WABASH (PCG) OR ILLINOIS (TNG). 5 PM CST. MONDAY, AUGUST 4, 2025.}

Steve Ecco felt reluctant to put his pack together before going for his last meal at Carol May Kloster’s. He’d come to like Pale Bluff. The neat frame houses and little brick shops, surrounded by dense, wet apple orchards were easy on the eye. Kids here didn’t have that haunted, lost expression so many did back home. If you didn’t notice the lack of electricity and powered vehicles, you could almost imagine you were back in normal America.

This part of the mission was supposed to be a milk run, anyway. Now all he’d have to do was the part he’d been dreaming about all his life.

Shit, I’m scared.

One more time, he inventoried his pack, shuffled through the folder of coded transmissions for Carol May, and made sure he’d left nothing important in the big duffle that he would pick up here when he returned.

On his way to early dinner at Carol May’s, he had to stop twice to take info from people who had finally decided to subscribe to the Pueblo Post-Gazette, and some other people waved as he walked up Chapman Avenue.

Technically, he thought, Heather was right, that this is lousy tradecraft; you shouldn’t have a guy who has operated more or less openly under his own name do a covert op in the same area. But now that I know them, I kind of like the feeling that these are the people I’m really working for, and that what I’m doing is for all of them. And I’ll be careful. Jesus God, I’ll be careful. He wished he didn’t feel quite so concerned about losing bowel control.

Carol May had baked fresh apple sourdough bread, and stuffed and roasted a good big rabbit. “The neighbor kid knocked Mister Bunny off with a rock,” she said. “And saved at least one deserving cabbage in the process. Pegged him on the first throw, straight to the head and dead as dead, as the kids like to say. The skills the kids pick up now that there aren’t video games!”

Toward the end of that wonderful meal, Carol May said, “I know you’ll be up early, so I’ll let you get away quick to get as much sleep as you can. But I wanted to ask a favor of you. My niece Pauline went off with a tribal boy when one of the tribes came over here for about a month early in the spring.”

“With a tribal?”

“He had two good qualities: he looked good with his shirt hanging open, and he wasn’t local.”

“She wanted to leave?”

“Like water wants to run downhill. She was only back here on Daybreak day because she’d been expelled from IU and she’d come back here to lick her wounds. Her mom died a few years back, and my brother wasn’t the kind of guy you go to when you’ve really taken a fall. I’m as much family as she’s got, but she was about due to have another run at the world, and then she got trapped here, and that bunch of bush hippies was her first ticket out of town. Anyway, it was a damn stupid choice, and I told her so. I thought she’d come back after the tribals burned and looted Wynoose on their way back across the Wabash, but maybe by the time she knew the score, they wouldn’t let her go. Or I suppose maybe she always wanted to smash up a small town. Live in one all your life and the thought occurs to you now and then.

“Anyway I wish I knew what happened to her. So—don’t take one step out of your way or one chance you don’t have to, but if you happen to hear anything about a Pauline Kloster—”

“Of course,” Ecco said. “When I get back, I’ll drop you a short note—even if it’s just to say I didn’t find anything.” Good, one more promise means one more reason I can’t funk the whole damn thing.

Carol May told him everything she could remember about Pauline, the boy, and the band of tribals. “Stenography?”

“Well, it’s what I do and I’m proud of it, but I have to admit, it’s a trade like being a blacksmith—”

“Say no more. I’ve spent all my life trying to be a mountain man or a cowboy or something. And think about all the obsolete occupations people did for a hobby, before Daybreak, that are now the most in-demand skills we have. Steam trains, sailing ships, blacksmiths for that matter. I guess if the tribe keeps any written records over there—I kind of think they don’t—she’s probably useful and conspicuous. Anyway, you’re right, I should go. And thanks for everything.”

He was embarrassed by how good it felt that she hugged him and told him to be careful, so much like the way his mother used to send him off to the first day of school.

^{5 HOURS LATER. PALE BLUFF, NEW STATE OF WABASH (PCG) OR ILLINOIS (TNG). 11:15 PM CST. MONDAY, AUGUST 4, 2025.}

“’Fraid I can’t let you have any more time to sleep than this.” The soft voice was like the touch of a dream departing; Ecco opened his eyes to the shadowy shape of Freddie Pranger.

Having slept fully dressed on top of the covers, he sat up and reached for his pack. “Hope I don’t sleep like that where I’m going.”

“You won’t. The body knows when it’s somewhere safe and when it’s not; you slept deep because you could. Need to use the chamber pot before we go?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be in the hallway.”

Ecco made himself comfortable, rinsed his face in the washbasin, and swallowed the cup of lukewarm strong tea with extra sugar and powdered milk he’d left out for himself. He slung up his pack and slipped into the dark hallway.

They took the northwest road out of town; after a couple of miles they turned onto an abandoned farm road, following it to a creek that flowed into the Little Wabash.

They made no sound. The dirty old moon, rising later, smaller, and dimmer every night, almost gone now, seemed only to deepen the shadows. Ecco’s attention constricted to the dim, shadowy path beside the creek.

At last they stood beside an old highway truss bridge. “Cross this bridge,” Freddie Pranger said, “and follow the river road east.” He stuck his hand out, and they shook. “Stay scared so you come back.”

“No problem staying scared,” Ecco managed. “Thanks for everything.” He looked back after he had crossed the bridge; Pranger, of course, had evaporated. At the turn onto the road, Ecco began a slow jog, one he could easily maintain for the scant few hours until the treacherous dawn came crawling into his face over the eastern horizon.

^{THE NEXT DAY. PUEBLO, COLORADO. 6:15 PM MST. TUESDAY, AUGUST 5, 2025.}

Beth had been waiting since she’d gone to see MaryBeth Abrams at lunchtime, and had told herself that she needed to be patient and nobody should be hit with really surprising news first thing when he came in the door. And I don’t suppose we should call it surprising, either, should we? I mean, it’s actually kind of natural.

In the interim, she tidied things up, and since there was a fresh cabbage, and some nice jerked grouse, she invented a kind of nice little soup and made up some soda bread to serve with it. Hunh, that smells good if I do say so myself. I’ll have to remember that.

She hoped this wouldn’t be one of the days when Jason stopped for a beer at Dell’s Brew with his workmates.

He was actually a few minutes early, but by that time their little place was tidier than it had ever been, the soup had been reseasoned to perfection, and she’d thought of four clever ways and two gentle ways to break the news to him. Nonetheless, the moment he closed the door, she blurted, “I’m gonna have a baby.”

^{8 DAYS LATER. ON THE WABASH, ABOUT A MILE AND A HALF NORTHEAST OF THE FORMER DARWIN, ILLINOIS. 11:42 PM CST. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13, 2025.}

Ecco constantly told himself that the five days he’d spent so far on the Illinois side of the Wabash wasn’t cowardice or procrastination. Arnie Yang had worked out pathways around the known areas where others had died or been lost, away from the farms and little towns that had been attacked, which Ecco had memorized; the map was as clear in his head now as it had been back in Pueblo.

He’d made it to the Wabash in two days, and started by observing the big bridge at Mount Carmel from a safe vantage point in the ruins. Three hours of steady, patient watching had revealed at least four watchers on the other side, all focused on the bridge. They’d all been relieved at regular intervals. Whatever was over there, it was organized.

Between sunset and moonrise he’d departed the charred wreckage of Mount Carmel and headed north. The next morning, from the east-facing upper window of an apartment over an old carriage house in Patton, his binoculars had revealed two different five-person patrols, one in the early morning and one in the afternoon, on the far side of the river. They were dressed like thrift store barbarians or Conan the Hippie, with spears, hatchets, and clubs. He’d slept through most of the day and departed, again, in the dark.

He’d moved farther north and east, staying close to the river except for a long trip around the burned-out area opposite Vincennes. Moving only when it seemed safe, watching the east bank constantly, he’d found every standing bridge watched, every dock and landing burned and blocked, and patrols no more than a few miles apart. He had to hope Heather was right that this was a tight barrier but not a thick one, so that a few miles on the other side of the river the land would be mostly empty, because if it was like this for any distance inland, he didn’t think he had a prayer.

Under the trees in a wooded bend of the river, just upstream from the ruins of Darwin, Illinois, he’d spent the day establishing the key facts with binoculars. The landing directly opposite him, a little cut-out docking pool, had been blocked with logs and the dock itself burned, but seemed unguarded. No bridges spanned the swift current for several miles downstream, so if need be he could float for miles while he looked for a safe, inconspicuous place to come inshore. Cover was abundant, with at least a few hundred feet of trees on each side of the river. About a half mile downstream a narrow, slow side channel, well-wooded on both sides, sliced the other side. If he missed that side channel in the dark, he had miles more distance and hours more time to land among trees.

Tonight the moon would rise almost two hours after the end of twilight, more than time enough to float to the other side, with extra time to try to move far enough east to be beyond the Daybreaker patrols. He’d crept down in the dusk and verified that there was a hole maybe twenty feet across by a dozen feet deep where he’d be able to slip in quietly.

Faint stars glowed above the trees on the opposite bank. Time. He descended to the hole. Too bad there’s no way to take a boat over; I hope the jars keep my powder dry and I don’t need the gun too quick. He made sure that his gear was roped to his waist, and then swiftly whipped five old pillowcases, one at a time, through the air, over his head, and into the water, and tied them off. He pushed off, floating on his back, head held up by his pillowcase float, and his bag of supplies resting on his belly.

I look just like floating debris, he thought. Please, God, I look like old junk that washed into the river. Anyone who sees me will see I’m just a pile of floating crap. He’d lined up three stars and two trees with distinctive shapes downstream; if he could manage to kick his way into the current between them, he’d be in the side channel he was aiming for.

The warmth of the water was pleasant; he’d grown up in the Rockies where running water is freezing cold all year. In the humid night, low fogs, some only a foot deep, drifted along the surface, cloaking him.

He kicked hard but kept his legs well under the water. Fogs rolled across him, darkening the river to a void except for the stars directly overhead; then a clear patch would roll by and he’d catch sight of his stars and his target trees.

When trees were on both sides of him, he turned over. His feet found the muck at the bottom of the shallow channel. His foot caught in something and pulled his head under for an instant, but he shook loose, waded a few more steps, and found a pebbly, rapidly rising surface. Trying not to splash, he waded with his pack held above his head until he was waist deep. At last he stepped from a patch of sloppy muck between the tangled roots of a cottonwood, and put both feet on a muddy bank. Checking the stars, he walked due east.

Something slammed the back of his head. As he stumbled, his head was pushed down and a rope wrapped in three quick turns around his neck.

There were so many of them.

He tried to lie down and make them kill him, but they just shoved a spar between his elbows and back, and pulled him to his feet.

“Stephen Ecco,” a voice said, behind him. “We were wondering if you’d ever find the courage to come over the river.”

Four big men lifted him by the spar on his back; the pain was bad enough if he went the way they pushed him, and agonizing when he didn’t cooperate. They ran him that way, hour after hour, as more tribals joined the group and took turns holding up the spar. At dawn, his feet felt like a bloody mess, but thrown onto his face in the dirt, he couldn’t really inspect them.

As his cheek pressed the damp dirt and he lay where he had been thrown, one thought drove him to keep testing his bonds, looking for any direction in which they might loosen: Someone had betrayed the mission. He had to escape and tell Heather.

THE NEXT DAY. IN AND AROUND THE FORMER TERRE HAUTE, INDIANA. 5:30 AM EST. THURSDAY, AUGUST 14, 2025.

They were trying to confuse him, but they couldn’t hide the Wabash or the sun; Steve Ecco knew he was going upstream near the river. Either they didn’t realize how many clues they’d let slip, or they didn’t care that much.

Now it was a party of at least twenty people; three of them, he’d pegged as “officers,” though he heard no titles used—a woman and two men who took turns deciding things and giving orders. Another seven he’d designated as “guards,” who followed the orders of the officers and gave orders to all of the rest. The numerous remainder must be slaves; they only received orders and spoke only when told to.

Well, if I do escape, I can report that much, anyway.

At dawn of the first day of his captivity, as gray light began to leak in around his blindfold, he was in a stretch where the road or trail was jammed with obstacles. He tried running headlong, hoping to hit something and get a concussion or a broken neck, or perhaps fall into water and drown. After he’d lost count of his collisions with trees and was staggering, hoping that the next tree or the one after might put him out, they unblindfolded him, braced him up, and forced the bar between his elbows and back again. For the next hour or more they left the blindfold off but again used the spar to push him onward, until the road was clear of felled trees and broken automobiles.

During that brief period of vision, in the brightening gray light, he saw a WELCOME TO PRAIRIETON sign, and another sign for Indiana 63. So he was just south of Terre Haute, close to the east side of the river; they were running him across the bend where the Illinois-Indiana state line begins to follow the Wabash.

Later, when the sun was full up, but still to his right, the road was mostly clear again, and shamefully, he agreed not to make them use the spar, so they re-blindfolded him. A while after that, they ran him down to the river and gave him a cup of water.

Lukewarm river water was wonderful. The next cup of water had been thoroughly dosed with whiskey; they followed that up with some lukewarm soup, probably beef vegetable out of a can, mixed with more whiskey, and then another draft of unspiked water.

When they shoved him into the bottom of the boat, lying on his back in the puddled water was only uncomfortable for a moment before exhaustion, whiskey, and the relief of the food and water sent him off to sleep. Twice he half-awakened when guards screamed at the slaves.

They dragged him out of the boat at about noon, to judge by the feel of the sun. As they pushed him to run again, he noted they were still going upstream, still on their side of the Wabash.

At that mountain man convention I went to they said a keelboat was lucky to make fifteen miles a day upstream, so since that was maybe a third of a day, they probably just hauled me through Terre Haute. Does that mean there are good guys in the wreckage, for me to look for if I escape? Or was it just too hard to run a blindfolded guy through a smashed ruin that size?

He ran for much of the afternoon, still north along the Wabash, very close to the border. This forced run had shredded his feet and ankles, and burned up his reserves; he’d need a long head start to get away from them, now.

With the sun still high in the sky, they stopped so a fresh party of officers, guards, and slaves could take over. It was a longer stop; the replacement party, while waiting for them, had built a fire, and heated food from cans. They gave him a big bowl of oatmeal laced with rum, more water, and some soup/whiskey mix as well. He fell asleep again, dimly aware that they were carrying him down to another boat.

^{ABOUT THE SAME TIME. ATHENS, TNG DISTRICT. 3 PM EST. THURSDAY, AUGUST 14, 2025.}

Cameron Nguyen-Peters had chosen Terrell Hall on the former University of Georgia campus for his executive office building for what seemed like good, sensible administrative reasons: it was an administrative building with a few big and many small offices, old enough so that it had plenty of windows for natural light. If he had thought about the front entrance at all, it was only that the protruding, windowed bay over the covered stairs might be a good place for the eventual President of the United States to give a speech.

He had not thought at the time that the chapel, across the quad, faced it directly, so that the two buildings could also be seen as rival positions—let alone in enmity. But back then, the Post Raptural Church hadn’t existed yet, let alone demanded recognition as the First National Church of the United States.

“The best guess we’ve got,” Grayson said, his face tired and strained, “is that there are about seven thousand people in the quad at any one time. Most of them are from outside Athens and some of them walked three days to get here. There’s probably twelve thousand overall, but some of them are always off getting food or catching a nap. There are probably two thousand watchers around the other side of the building, so slipping out quietly is not an option.”

The chanting rose and fell in long, slow waves of a minute or more. “At least in the daytime they don’t need torches for light,” Cam observed, “so they don’t have them right there, to give them ideas.”

“If they want to burn the building in the daytime, they’ll find something.” Grayson shrugged. “And sir, I don’t agree with you about anything, but I don’t think you’re a coward. If you do what I’m suggesting, I know it won’t be because you’re giving in or because you’re afraid.” His small smile was almost a wince. “Though I seriously doubt that you care what I think of you.”

“Well, you might be wrong about that,” Cam said. “All right, the country is already torn in half; we can’t have a civil war in the strongest remaining part.” He handed Grayson a short, bulleted list and said, “Here’s what I’m going to promise to do. Is it enough? Will it get the mobs out of the streets and the people back to work? And will it get the Post Raptural preachers to stop enflaming their followers?”

Grayson scanned it and said, “Yes. I think it will. I can sell this to Peet and Whilmire. And sir, again, I don’t think you’re selling out. Changes had to come. It’s a new time in a new country.”

“Yeah, but our oath is to the Constitution of the old country,” Cam said. “Whatever happens to me, General, don’t forget that.”

“I don’t think I ever could, sir. ”

The techs had cobbled together a crude PA system and kept it wiped clean of nanoswarm, though they pointed out that how long it would last was anyone’s guess, and therefore it would be better to speak sooner rather than later. “No reason to delay any further, then.” Cameron moved forward to the mike; there was a squeal of feedback that quieted the crowd, and he began. “My fellow Americans, I have—”

A shot caromed off the windowsill above his head. Cam froze, his mind blank, but Grayson moved forward, stepping between him and the mike. “If you’re going to shoot anybody today,” he said, firmly, “let me request that you shoot me first, so that I will not have failed in my duty to my civilian superiors.”

Silence descended on the crowd. Grayson stepped aside, and Cam advanced to the mike. Forcing himself not to hurry, he read off the points: he would reconstitute the Board, naming enough reverends to it to give it a Post Raptural majority; Army and other federal institutions could, if the local commander preferred, fly the Cross and Eagle banner; the First National Church of the United States was hereby proclaimed the official church, but all other non-subversive, non-seditious religions would be tolerated; the Temporary National Government would seek a restored American sovereignty over the whole territory of the United States, under a restored fully Constitutional authority.

“And finally, please join me in this very short prayer.” He let them fall silent and bow their heads; then he said, “God bless the United States of America, and restore our country to us, in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen,” as Grayson had told him to do. The crowd cheered madly; it was several minutes before, to Cam’s relief, they began to drift out of the quad.

As Cam trudged upstairs to his personal apartment, he felt as if he dragged a huge, invisible cross. A late lunch and a nap might be in order. What do you do when you’ve lost completely but you can’t just slink under the porch?

At the door to his private apartment, Colonel Salazar was waiting for him. Cam knew the man slightly, as one of the perpetual staffers who inhabit the mid-ranges of any bureaucracy. He was slim, well-muscled, of average height, deeply tanned and black-haired, and other than an immense Saddam Hussein mustache, he had no distinguishing feature anyone could have named. “Sir? There are a couple of things you should sign off on—it’ll just take a moment.”

“Sure, come in,” Cam said. Another minute of delay for the lunch and the nap wouldn’t matter. Probably he’d forgotten to sign some of the pile of executive orders he’d hammered out with Whilmire and Grayson earlier that day.

As soon as Salazar closed the door, he said, “Something you need to know, sir. General Grayson knew that shot was going to hit up above the window. The incident was staged.”

Cam blinked. “Well, that’s consistent with Grayson, and the people around him. Thank you for telling me.”

“Information with the compliments of Heather O’Grainne, sir. If you ever need to communicate with her in a secure channel—”

“I won’t hesitate to contact you,” Cam said. “And my thanks to Heather—”

Salazar saluted and was gone.

As Cam put together a sandwich, and watched the demonstrators pouring out into the streets, celebrating the victory of God and the Constitution (at least as they understood either), he thought, Well, it’s still total defeat, but it’s not so bad when you don’t feel all alone.

^{THE NEXT DAY. NEAR THE FORMER TECUMSEH, INDIANA. 3:45 PM EST. FRIDAY, AUGUST 15, 2025.}

They’d kept Ecco running for most of two days, usually blindfolded, getting him drunk and dumping him into boats from time to time. He deduced they were cutting off long bends by running him across them, but only when they could keep him on this side of the border, and for some reason it was important to keep him close to the Wabash.

At mid-afternoon, Ecco vomited on one of the officers, which was the high point of his day. They let him have a whole wonderful sweet quart or so of unlaced water, and sit and rest while a runner went for a boat. He sat, breathed, and took stock; pressing his feet against his bare calves, he could feel even through the soles of his moccasins that his numb feet were swollen and wet; maybe he’d broken some bones under his instep.

If he got free, he wouldn’t be able to run far or fast; at best he might only be able to force them to kill him. His arms had been bound behind his back for most of the time; even with them free, he doubted he’d manage to roll out of a boat to drown, let alone try to swim for it.

As they waited he felt that the slope was steep in front of him, and the smell of water was strong. He went limp and tried rolling down the bank. Drowning’s gonna feel like shit but—

Rough hands stopped him; he stayed limp, feigning a faint. A slave woman was beaten for not having kept a grip on him.

“That bank’s pretty steep.” It was the woman officer they called Sunshine. “We’re not supposed to let him see where he is, but it’ll be a lot easier to move him into the boat if he can see.”

Jacob, who seemed to be the CO, grunted. “Let him go down without the blindfold, but put it right back on him.”

They unblindfolded him and walked him down the slope; he saw the water tower for Tecumseh, across the stream. Ecco remembered that the town constable had been assassinated there, and a series of fires had been set; what was left of the population had evacuated westward, with stories about rocks and arrows from nowhere and drumming and singing in the night.

They tied him into the boat, but since they left him sober, he was able to rest and think. Who could have betrayed his mission? Some of the people who had known couldn’t be suspects. Not Carol May Kloster or Freddie Pranger, let alone Heather O’Grainne.

Had one of the ex-Daybreakers that they studied at Pueblo reverted to Daybreak, and learned about his mission?

Some spy in Pueblo who just put things together? Their main communication system was having hungry teenagers run notes between desks; what messages might have been intercepted with some smooth talk and a fresh hot pie?

Dr. Yang? Please, not a guy who’d always treated him with the friendly deference that a man of action wants to see from a smart guy… especially if it’s a fake man of action like me, Ecco thought, bitterly, for the ten thousandth time.

He kept composing the message, with no idea how he could send it:

He fell asleep in the gently rocking boat, and when he woke again, no light was leaking around his blindfold. Sunshine ordered him to climb out and to run; she had to have three slaves lift him, but after some kicking and slapping, he ran, despite the scalding pain in the balls and heels of his feet, and the wracking ache of breathing through sobs.

^{THE NEXT DAY. PUEBLO, COLORADO. 8:30 PM MST. SATURDAY, AUGUST 16, 2025.}

Heather was exhausted and she felt like someone had been beating on her guts with a flat shovel for a few hours, so it was almost a relief when MaryBeth switched over from “Come on, push” and “Breathe, Heather, breathe” to “One last push!”

The next sensation was like uncontrollably having the mother of all bowel movements three seconds after making it to the toilet. She watched the lamplight flicker on the ceiling and thought, Kid, you’re not ever going to hear from me that you felt like a giant turd.

Everything—the pain, the exhaustion, the sheer sense of force—became too intense for her to focus; then suddenly, it was merely painful and she was just exhausted and needed to sleep.

“Hey, sweetie. You passed out and missed the first yodel.” MaryBeth Abrams stood beside her, stroking her face with one hand, holding a little wailing bundle in her other arm. “Say hi to Leonardo.”

“Leo,” Heather corrected her. “He’s Leonardo Plekhanov Jr., but he’ll be Leo at home. I just hope his friends don’t give him any horrible nicknames.”

“Well, right now he’s working on being called ‘Noisy.’ Let’s set him up to feed and see if that’s what the matter is.”

He promptly stopped yowling and went to work, contentedly nursing. Well, Leo, now you’ve done it, she thought, looking over his tiny, perfect body. Mom’s going to have to fix the world; it just isn’t fit for a boy like you.

^{30 MINUTES LATER. OLYMPIA, NEW DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA (FORMERLY IN WASHINGTON STATE) AND PUEBLO, COLORADO. 8:15 PM PST/9:15 PM MST. SATURDAY, AUGUST 16, 2025.}

Ever since high school, at the beginning of each month, Allie had written out a list that began a year from now, copying, crossing out, recopying, and changing as the world and her goals changed. In August 2024, I don’t think I’d’ve typed out “a year from now I will be the First Lady,” or “I’ll be waiting up to hear about Heather’s baby,” let alone “and it’s Lenny Plekhanov’s.”

Graham Weisbrod (my husband the president, okay, I couldn’t have guessed at anything last year) asked the technician, “So do—”

The technician held up a hand. “QSL, Pueblo, loud and clear, go to encryption as previously selected in five, four, three, two, one…” She tripped off the pendulum-clock contraption that turned three eccentric plywood cams at different speeds, adding noise to encrypt the signal; in Pueblo, an identical cam set would take it out. The tech talked to her opposite number to ensure that voice was intelligible, handed headsets to Graham and Allie, and said, “About an hour, and you’ve got a nice clear channel right now.”

A very tired, weak-sounding Heather O’Grainne said hello. Graham seemed to settle into his chair in the radio room as if he’d suddenly dropped thirty years and was back in his office, falling back into the old close friendship with Heather instantly. Allie felt childish for feeling left out, as if she were a little girl kicking the ground with a plastic sandal and complaining to Papa that, Well, but Heather is my friend too and Graham is my mentor too. And she could practically hear her father saying to be a patient child, a wise child, one who others would want to have around. Which was your subtle Khmer way, Papa, of telling me that people didn’t really want me around.

She tuned out most of the discussion of the sentimental wonders of perfect little ears and toes; she’d seen babies turn grown people into idiots before. This was no more interminable than any other baby, any other time. As Graham and Heather ran out of things to say, Allie realized that, lost in her own irritations, she really hadn’t heard much of the conversation. She sincerely wished Heather a quick recovery and welcomed little Leo to the world, sat patiently while Graham did the same in much more time and with many cutesier words, and fought down sighs of relief and impatience.

Arnie came back on the line. “I’ve dropped the patch through to Heather’s room, but we’ve got a good clear channel up and running on crypto, and about forty minutes left on it, so is there anything you all would like to talk about? We’ve got most of the section heads for RRC someplace in the building, and it would only take a minute to get one of them in here.”

Graham said, “Heather keeps us very up-to-date, so thanks, but I guess we’ll just say good night.”

He lifted the phones off his head without bothering to get Arnie’s acknowledgment. Or to consult me. Allie said, “Arnie, if you don’t mind just talking, just to talk, we never get time for it on the regularly scheduled crypto radio.”

“Sure,” Arnie said.

Oh, good, he sounds happy. She nodded at Graham, keeping a straight face at his irritated expression. Looking forward to a Saturday night game of Bang the Pretty Girl, were we?

Outside the courthouse, Pueblo would be dark, buzzing with the threat of Aaron, and besides, Arnie was lonely.

Before he could even wonder what to talk about, Allie said, “Geez, Arnie, it’s August, remember how last year the big issue was whether to go to Maine or to the Virginia beaches for our vacation?”

“Oh yeah. And we thought it was such a nuisance to have to take the train to Boston and then rent a car—”

“And then we had so much fun,” she said. He’d forgotten how musical her voice became when it was soft and low, across a table in a café, or with her head on my shoulder sitting on the beach and watching the waves, or in bed.

The conversation ranged through a dozen shared experiences, nearly all of them things that had been routine before Daybreak. They both agreed that it felt good to talk about it, and that they shouldn’t do it too often.

“I try not to think about the old days too much,” he said. “Phoning for a pizza at midnight, flying to Paris, my old Porsche… tonight I put all my time into thinking about typhus among the tribal population this winter.”

“Bad?” Allie asked, suddenly alert.

“Bad. Very bad. It’s spread by lice, and bathing is plaztatic, not to mention hard to do out in the woods, especially since with all the soot in the air, this is gonna be the coldest winter since 1816. One case of typhus anywhere will spread through that whole population this winter.”

“Won’t that solve some of our problem for us?”

“Well, sort of. It’ll hit the tribes harder than it hits civilization, and if our brewers can make enough tetracycline—”

“If who can what?”

“Tetracycline stops typhus cold, and you can make it with a yeast, kind of like brewing beer. We’ve got a pilot plant running here, and if it works, you and Athens both get a crash course in brewing the stuff. Once we have it, some of the tribals might even surrender to get treatment, especially mothers with young kids. But even if it’s mostly on their side of the line, I don’t like all that unnecessary suffering and dying. Hey—there’s only about five minutes left on the encrypting cogs. Gee,” Arnie said, “it was great to bat ideas around. Like old times.”

“You romantic devil. Reminding me of all the good times in the relationship and using it to segue into typhus, antibiotics, and mass death. You haven’t lost your touch. I remember how you rubbed lotion into my legs while talking about the shifting attitude matrix on tax policy,” Allie said.

“Funny thing, I remember the legs more than the policy. God, things in the old days were nice,” he said.

“Yeah. Oh, crap, Arnie, we don’t have much time and I’ve enjoyed this so much. Listen, if you’re not doing too much on Saturday nights, can I call you? Just to talk, old friend to old friend? Sometimes I just need to blow off some steam. I’ll send you a message to set it up, regular channels, but save me next Saturday night.”

“Sure, I’d like to have someone to talk to, too. We’ll talk next week.” The cams came to a halt as he was speaking; he wasn’t sure whether she’d heard the last of it.

Darcage was waiting for her, and grabbed her on the back stairs from the radio room to the suite she shared with Graham, pressing a hand over her mouth gently for a moment. “Just so you don’t scream from being startled. I wanted to discuss something. We very much approve of your idea of a back-channel contact with Doctor Yang in Pueblo, and we’d be happy to coordinate.”

“Coordinate what?” she asked.

“We don’t have to be enemies, you know. You must realize that once the Tempers are done with the tribes, they will turn on you, and we are better fighters—”

“About three thousand of yours couldn’t take Pullman against five hundred of ours. You die bravely. As for winning, not so much.”

“Wait until all the cowardly gunpowder and artillery are gone.” The man’s face was contorted with rage, but his hand stayed at his side.

“They’ll never be gone. We make them and we’re going to keep making them. I’ll talk to anyone, that’s what my job—”

He was gone.

Why didn’t I shout for help?

Arnie was almost home when Aaron said, “She’s very unhappy, you know.”

“Who?” Arnie asked, turning to face the shadowed figure.

Aaron’s face was completely lost in the dark void under the blanket. “She’s very unhappy. She will dream all week about talking to you again.” He vanished backward into the shadows.

Arnie heard the watch nearby. They’d want to know why he was standing here in the middle of the street and the middle of the night. He ran, silently, to his front door.

^{ABOUT THE SAME TIME. CASTLE CASTRO (SAN DIEGO). 9:20 PM PST. SATURDAY, AUGUST 16, 2025.}

Harrison Castro was proud that they’d managed to build a radio voice encryptor to hack into high-level communications between Athens, Pueblo, and Olympia and the various ships and substations. He knew that objectively he would be better off listening to everyone and not letting them know he could, but it was also high time to make sure they couldn’t ignore him.

With a perfect excuse, he had brought Pat O’Grainne in here, and was now enjoying showing off the machine.

“We doped out all hundred or so of their eccentric cams, and then we just set up our mechanical scanner.” He pointed to the three ten-foot-long rotors, each with a hundred disks. “Every time we get a rotor right, the signal audibly becomes easier to understand. So we tune along one rotor to find the closest to intelligible, then along the next, then along the third, then back to the first, until it leaps out clearly. Do that long enough with enough messages, and eventually you can recognize the code they’re using right away, and read all their traffic.”

“You do know I never learned enough math to balance a checkbook, right? To me it looks like three giant camshafts and a bunch of guys with Walkman headphones hooked to an old phone plugboard,” Pat said.

Castro chuckled. “Pat, I like you. Okay, here’s the actual story: I don’t really give a damn about most of their secrets—we’re practically our own country down here nowadays—but I want them to know they don’t have a chance in hell of pushing me around. Now let’s call Pueblo, so you can say hi to your grandson.”

Harrison Castro himself spent only half a minute congratulating Heather and welcoming Leo to the world, and then he put Pat on and let the sentimental babble flow until Heather admitted to being tired.

Later, in his room, Pat told Heather what he really thought—not about Leo, because they had both agreed he was the most marvelous thing that ever happened, but about Harrison Castro. He made extra sure to destroy the original.

^{ABOUT THE SAME TIME. PUEBLO, COLORADO. 10:50 PM MST. SATURDAY, AUGUST 16, 2025.}

Heather understood perfectly well that Harrison Castro, in the guise of letting her father talk to her, had directly challenged her by letting her know he was listening to Federal encrypted radio, and also established that the freeholder of an important Castle could get access that an ordinary citizen couldn’t. Sure, before Daybreak, the CEO of Microsoft would have been put right through to any Cabinet secretary, probably to the President. But a Castle freeholder cracking Federal high-security communications and just coming on line—as a precedent, it blows.

Dad no doubt understood that too. Certainly his next covert, encrypted letter would give her a better picture of what was going on at Castle Castro. She’d never found much of a way to tell him that though he’d been kind of a loser at having a career and a fraud as a biker, he’d been great at loving his daughter and being a spy.

Besides, she loved talking to her father, because besides celebrating Leo, he understood how much she needed to talk, and cry, about missing Lenny, and about Leo never knowing his dad. That had really helped.

So, she thought, drifting off, Castro’s asshole gesture could wait for later. Then, as so often happened when she told herself a problem was for later, she had an idea. If she could—

The nurse came in. “If you don’t expect anyone else to call, it’s about time for everyone to rest.”

“I didn’t expect the last call.” Heather brushed at Leo’s little face and said, “Looks like he’s already starting on that rest thing.”

“We’ll put him right here—see, if you sit up, you can see right into the cradle—and we’ve got people in the hallway; just call or ring that little bell beside the bed if you need help or if anything worries you. You try to get some sleep.” She quenched the oil lamp; dim moonlight still filtered in.

Heather leaned up. Leo’s breathing seemed to be strong and steady. As she watched her son sleep, she was already formulating her note to Dave Carlucci, who ran the FBI West Headquarters a few miles from Castle Castro; although she had not quite formulated it, she had a smile as she fell asleep that would have frightened anyone who knew her well.