Daybreak Zero

^{ABOUT THE SAME TIME. THE FORMER RIVERSIDE BAPTIST CHURCH, IN THE FORMER MONTEZUMA, INDIANA. 11:45 PM EST. SATURDAY, AUGUST 16, 2025.}

They unblindfolded Steve Ecco to walk him through the pileup of wrecked cars at one end of Reeder Park. He knew where he was because the memorial statue for the Second Iran War was so distinctive that Ecco had memorized it as a landmark, since it was less than a mile and a half from the still-intact US 36 bridge.

He smelled the river and the trees. Oh, crap, crap, crap if I could just get loose and run at my old pace, if they didn’t have any guards on that bridge, I could be on my way home; plenty of woods on the other side, all I’d have to do is follow the highway and turn south of the burned-out zone—

The stylized cross on this big, new, glass-and-steel building meant it was a church. Big hands pushed him through the doorway, then toppled him from the top of the stairs down into the basement. He wasn’t able to swing his head into harm’s way this time either; all he got was a couple more bruises on his chest and shoulder.

The guard at the bottom kicked him on the tailbone, hard enough to hurt, not hard enough to do much damage. His legs were already numb, and they didn’t bother asking him to stand; they just jerked him to his feet and threw him onto an old mattress.

Two men came in. The older, heavyset one had a huge bushy white beard; the younger, slimmer one was the sort of nondescript guy that used to work at some store you went to now and then, whose appearance you couldn’t remember by the time you were back in the parking lot.

Bushy White Beard was addressed as “Lord Karl.” Apparently Steve was important enough for the lord and his number one henchman to deal with personally. He did his best to collect his thoughts while the two men had a late supper brought in, and ate it, leaving him tied, facedown, and hungry. He was also desperate to urinate, and the diarrhea from the bad food and tainted water of the last couple of days was worsening.

He was startled to realize he’d fallen asleep, and at first he couldn’t recognize what he was feeling; then he realized someone was cutting away the bonds on his wrists and elbows.

They flung his arms out to the sides, and flipped him over. Karl and his man stood over him, and Karl said, “Show him, Robert.”

The man bent, grabbed Ecco’s hand, and laid it on the floor, pinning it with his foot, grinding with agonizing force on flesh just beginning to revive from numbness. He grasped Ecco’s thumb with a pair of pliers, raised a hammer, and smashed the thumb with it, again and again; Ecco screamed at the first blow, struggling to pull his hand back, and a strong guard pinned his head to the floor, holding his face toward where Robert was smashing at his thumb, pulling his eyelids open, forcing Ecco to watch.

The battering went on until Robert said, “It’s about all fell off now.”

“Now,” Lord Karl said, as Ecco gasped and sobbed, “that was just to explain to you what kinds of things we do if people don’t answer questions. So you probably will want to establish a basis of trust, by telling us everything you can, as quickly as you can.”

He’d been ordered to spill everything, anyway, if he was tortured; Heather had specifically said, You don’t know a thing that could really be of any use to the enemy. Trade everything about us to save your ass, Steve—no heroics if you’re captured. Spill your guts, right away.

They hadn’t even asked first.

“I understand,” he said. “I’ll tell you everything.”

Karl said, “Tell us the name of everyone who works for the RRC, what they do, and describe everything about them you know. Everything. Start with that big fat O’Grainne bitch.”

He described Heather head to foot, told them what her office looked like, gave them directions for finding her window and door in the Pueblo Courthouse, dragged out everything he could remember about her. Every so often Karl would say, “Got that?” and a young woman’s voice would read back everything he had said, strangely verbatim, including the places where he stammered and babbled frantically. Her voice was flat, occasionally noting prisoner gasped for breath, prisoner sobbed, and, one time, reading back a passage when Karl had impatiently stamped on his ruined hand, prisoner screamed here.

After her last little reading, Lord Karl said, “I’m sleepy. Got the solder?”

They poured the hot, silvery liquid over the stump of his thumb, and let his hand go; he hurt his other hand and chest trying to clutch the burned, shredded flesh to himself, as if he could comfort it.

Lord Karl said, “Robert, let’s sleep in tomorrow; we’ll start again after breakfast. Ecco, you have nine more fingers, ten more toes, two more eyes and two more lips, and of course your dick and balls. Poor you. Poor poor poor you.”

^{THE SECOND NIGHT AFTER. THE FORMER RIVERSIDE BAPTIST CHURCH, IN THE FORMER MONTEZUMA, INDIANA. 6:30 AM EST. SUNDAY, AUGUST 17, 2025.}

Steve Ecco was awakened by the girl who had been recording his words and repeating them verbatim. “Please, I know you’re in pain,” she said, “but they told me I can give you a drink of water for every two pages of shorthand I take.” She lifted his head, gently, and poured some into his mouth from a narrow-spouted garden watering can. “I can always say I misunderstood,” she said, “but you gotta help me average this out, they’ll want a lot of pages if I give you a lot of water.”

He looked around. By the light through the dirty windows it must still be early morning. On the other side of the solder, his phantom thumb was still screaming with pain. Before he could stop himself, he glanced sideways. Pieces of his thumb still lay beside the mattress.

“I’ll tell you anything you want,” he said, hating the way his voice felt in his throat.

He told her everything about everyone at Pueblo, knowing they would use the information, somehow, hating himself, but doing it, every throb of his thumb telling him he had no resistance left. Every so often she paused and gave him a drink of water; the clean, welcome taste brought him to tears.

Ecco had always hoped and dreamed of being the kind of man who would assess the situation and prepare to make a break for it. He forced himself to try; his hands were no longer tied and though his left hand could not bear the slightest pressure, and was probably infected—burns are dirty, crushing wounds are dirtier—his right was at least partly recovered. He sat up while he continued to talk, and felt at his feet; they’d pulled off—no, cut off, there was a dank, slimy band of leather around each ankle—what was left of his moccasins, and wound a short piece of chain through the remaining loops of leather. He could probably work free with just his right hand, but it might take time, and he was afraid; what if she yelled and brought in more guards? What if they came before he had escaped, but when he had undone enough so they noticed?

He stroked a finger over the chain and the leather band, willing himself to have the kind of nerve that the heroes in his favorite books did, and while he did that, he described Izzy Underhill in minute detail, knowing perfectly well that he might be helping them, if they took Pueblo, to find her and put her severed head on a stick so they could dance around it.

He tried to be inconspicuous about squeezing his feet together to give himself slack; then he felt a tug and saw that the shorthand girl’s left hand was holding the chain to help him slip one loop of it. He pushed through and kept talking, telling them about where Chris Manckiewicz hung out with his printer Abel and his reporter Cassie, and probably helping them figure out how to assassinate all of them if they wanted to. (Crap, Manckiewicz is a big guy and brave as a lion, Abel Marx is a giant with a bad temper, but little Cassie Cartland is a five-foot-one seventeen-year-old; way to go, Ecco.)

He worked another loop free, again with the shorthand girl supplying the spare hand he needed, and earned more sips of water. Toward the end, Robert came in and sat watching him; he made himself not look down at the loosened but not yet untied chain by his feet. Robert moved closer and listened harder; he’s just trying to make me afraid, Ecco thought. And I don’t know if he can make me any more afraid than—

A slave woman came in, carrying a hibachi of glowing charcoal. At Robert’s direction, she set it near enough Ecco’s feet so that he could feel its warmth. Robert dropped a handful of old screwdrivers blade-down into the charcoal.

Ecco babbled faster, terrified and weeping. The screwdrivers were glowing when Robert said, “Now tell us about your ex-wife and your three children. I know they’re in Santa Fe and your ex-wife is named Kyla, and you have two boys, Travis and Cooper, and a girl, Willow. Tell us what they look like. Tell us what would make them sure a message was from you. Tell us everything about them.”

Ecco felt a great surge of relief in his chest; he had just found out there was something he would not do. “No,” he said, and then repeated, “No.”

“We already know everything you are going to tell us. You won’t hurt them by telling. All you’ll do is show us that you cooperate one hundred percent.”

He dug his index finger against the ball of solder where his thumb had been, and relished the pain. “I won’t.”

“Last chance. I won’t ask you again. Tell us about your family.” Robert’s hand stroked up his thigh, as if they were lovers. “Can you feel how warm them screwdriver’s getting? Think about that here.” The squeeze was surprisingly light.

“I won’t tell you that,” Ecco said. Courage and strength seemed to surge into him. He knew now he would end horribly, but not badly.

Robert said, “I’ll do as much as I want whether you talk or not. Then you’ll talk, Mister Ecco, but only when I decide you should, after I’m done.”

Here we go. Just like the dentist’s office except I gotta hope for a chance to kick the dentist in the balls.

By the time Robert said, “Time for lunch,” Ecco said, “No. No. No,” because now it was all he would say.

^{ABOUT AN HOUR LATER. ATHENS, TNG DISTRICT. 1 PM EST. SUNDAY, AUGUST 17, 2025.}

The radio tech gave Cameron Nguyen-Peters the thumbs-up and tapped the windup timer, which showed the standard hour. “Hey, Heather, it’s me. Okay to talk now?”

“More than okay!” Heather’s voice hissed and crackled; the encryption gadget didn’t work as well in daylight as it did at night. “So you know it’s a boy, Leonardo Plekhanov Junior, who I’m calling Leo, and he’s healthy as a moose, and the best baby ever born?”

“Absolutely. Arnie told us all last night, of course, when he sent it out on the secure channels. I didn’t call then because I thought you’d want to sleep.”

“I did,” Heather said. “But to tell the truth, now I’m bored. Tired, but bored. And Leo’s amazing and wonderful but not a great conversationalist just yet.”

“Well, he will be, if he takes after either parent. Tell me everything about him.” Cam leaned back and listened; Leo sounded like every other baby, but Heather sounded great.

In the secure radio room, the big, slowly rotating spindles of plywood cams, the beer-bottle capacitors, and the big spark coils looked like a 1920s mad-scientist’s lab. A hundred years of progress to be back where we started.

Heather finally wound down and said, “All right, have I put you to sleep yet?”

“Not a bit. This is great.”

“Since when is a lifelong bachelor interested in babies?”

“Since I started taking an interest in the future, because that’s who’s going to live there.”

“Yeah, but even the best baby in the world only has so many little toes and eyes to describe.”

“Twelve, I believe—”

“Twelve? Oh, ten toes and two eyes. For one moment I was hoping I hadn’t miscounted. But yes, you’re right.”

“I’m an ex-baby myself.” He had been trying to think of a smooth transition to what he most wanted to say, but there wasn’t any, so he said, “Sorry to bring in business, but I wanted to thank you for the help from our mutual friend.”

“Business is a great thing to bring in, and I take it our friend let you know we’re secure here?”

“Yes, but I’m afraid they’ll notice if we talk too often. So I’m afraid I’m taking advantage of your big occasion—”

“Hey, like I said, I’m bored stiff here. And you just gave me an idea. I’ll send you a personal letter in the next mailbag—for sure they’ll open that—and start off about how much more we need to talk. Since they probably know we dated years ago, I think I’ll pretend I’ve got a crush on you, Cam. You play back. Talk about me enough to bore the people around you. That should give us an excuse to chat more often.”

“All right, great idea, as long as I’m not expected to be convincingly romantic.”

“I’ll just be so besotted I won’t notice your sheer ineptitude. Now what’s on your mind, Cam?”

“Bottom line, I’m losing out to Grayson and the reverends. He’s taking directions from his father-in-law, pulling competent officers out of posts near here, replacing them with people with the right religion, and rotating them out to our frontier with the Lost Quarter. Which I can’t really object to because we sure as hell need them out there, but it also means my coup insurance is disappearing. There’s forced prayer, strictly Post Raptural, at parades and reserve exercises now. The last editor at the Weekly Insight who wasn’t Post Raptural is not only gone, but was explicitly fired for being the wrong religion. And guys who’ve been Republican since Reagan are being thrown out of their party for not praying right. And I object, and object, and object, and—nothing. They just keep doing it.” Cam wasn’t just embarrassed, as he’d expected to be; he felt as humiliated as if he were admitting he’d spent his inheritance on whiskey and whores and had to ask his best friend to make his rent for him.

“Cam, I know all that. Besides our mutual friend I have plenty of other sources, open and not. Look, we’re completely on the same side here. We’ve got to find a way to either knock Grayson out of the game, if we can’t get a deal with him that will put America back together, or bring him back into it and playing under the same rules as the rest of you. So we’d be in this together, even if you weren’t a friend.”

Cam felt funny in his chest; it had been a long time since someone had just said they were his friend. Fine dictator I make, he thought sadly. Worrying all the time about whether people like me.

There was still more to admit. “The truth is, I don’t know what will happen while I’m out of Athens.”

“Well, then bring Grayson along; he’s your deputy, he should be with you anyway. And if his followers pull a coup while you’re here, just stay. I’ve got ten jobs that you’d be perfect for.”

“Such as?”

“Well, babysitter for the world’s best baby comes to mind. He just made the most amazing face.”

^{THE FOLLOWING NIGHT. THE FORMER RIVERSIDE BAPTIST CHURCH, IN THE FORMER MONTEZUMA, INDIANA. 12:35 AM EST. TUESDAY, AUGUST 19, 2025.}

“You’re not going to live much longer,” the shorthand girl told Ecco. “Do you think water would be okay for you?”

His face hurt terribly. “Don’t know, but I’m thirsty.”

“Let’s try, but let’s be careful. I’d hate to hurt you any more.” She gave him a sip from the watering can; it felt good, and his guts at least did not rebel immediately. “More?”

He nodded. He wished he could see her, but the last thing he had seen—or ever would see—was Robert bringing the hot screwdriver down into first his left, and then his right, eye. They had broken his ankles and knees with sledgehammers, and branded the soles of his feet, before their rampage across his body was done; his last fantasy of escape was done with.

She gave him more water. He made his mouth shape the words, “Do I need to answer more questions or tell you stuff?”

“I’m here on my own,” she said. “I just wanted to ask you something.”

“Better ask soon,” he said. He was so tired and fading so fast, but he didn’t want her to leave him alone.

“Have you been anywhere near Pale Bluff, Illinois?”

It clicked. “You’re Pauline Kloster,” he said, very softly, barely breathing. “Carol May asked me to look for you.”

“Is she okay? Where is she?”

“Back in Pale Bluff.”

“It’s still there? They told me it was all burned.”

“It’s still there. And it’s nice,” he said. “Pretty. It’s summer; the orchards are so green, it smells so good.” He started to cry. “I was there two weeks ago. It’s like you remember. Get moving, now. Get home, Pauline, leave now.” He fought down the impossible words that formed in his heart—and take me with you.

“I don’t even know where I am,” she said.

“You’re in Indiana, northeast of Pale Bluff, not far north of Terre Haute, on the Wabash. Go home now. They’re worried about you, they want to see you.”

He felt desperate—she wasn’t understanding; she was unbound, unhurt, all she had to do was slip out and run.

“They told us it’s all tribes all the way to the Mississippi.”

“No, no… the Wabash is the line, sorta, and that’s the river we’re on now. There’s a bridge… about a mile north… it’s US 36. Get across it. It’s all trees and hills on the other side, lots of woods to hide in, keep running, they might chase you for a day or more, but keep moving. Do you know your way to Pale Bluff from 36?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Go now.”

“Can’t I do something for you first?”

“What’s the name of the boy that tricked you into coming over here?” he asked. “What’s his name?”

“Eric, but I haven’t—”

“Okay, I’m gonna say you got a message from him and ran off to meet him. Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll look in the wrong direction. Now go, Pauline, go.”

He was so afraid she’d delay further, and he might break down and ask her to kill him, but he felt her lips brush his forehead and then she was gone. He rolled, found the watering can, bit down on the spout, and drank the last of it.

^{5 HOURS LATER. THE FORMER RIVERSIDE BAPTIST CHURCH, IN THE FORMER MONTEZUMA, INDIANA. 5:30 AM EST. TUESDAY, AUGUST 19, 2025.}

When Robert came in to slap Ecco awake, he had slept only fitfully; he tried to sleep on his back with his head tilted back, so that maybe he could choke on blood or a loose tooth, but no luck.

They didn’t ask him about Eric, or Pauline, or anything about Pueblo; he wasn’t sure what they did ask him about. He just tried to say “no” five thousand times, telling himself he’d surely be dead before he got to five thousand, but he kept losing count and having to start over.

Eventually they gave up and just finished things.

“Paint him with hot pitch,” Karl ordered. “So he’ll last. Put him on a post in the middle of the road, on our side of the US 36 bridge, facing the other side. Have a light hand with the tar on his face and do what you can to keep that expression; it fucking makes me jump, you know.”

“They gonna be able to tell who it was?” Robert asked. “With that tar, he won’t look white.”

“They don’t need to know who it was, as long as they know it was a man and we didn’t like him.” Karl was in an expansive, jolly mood. “Any word on the steno slave?”

“I’ve put trackers after her; bet your ass that Mister Asshole In Pine Tar here told her where she was and that she wasn’t far from home.”

“I figured as much,” Karl said, pulling at his beard the way he did whenever he wanted to make sure that everyone understood that any good ideas Robert had, and carried out, were still to Karl’s credit for having chosen Robert.

Robert nodded. “Hey, I had an idea for going home. Let’s let the crew work our boat upstream each day, and you and me hunt and then meet the boat upstream; that way we don’t have to hang around for all that hard work, and we can make a real vacation out of it, hunting and fishing the whole way, but we have the cooks, the bitches, and fresh game every night.”

Karl laughed in pure delight. “Damn, Robert, that’s why I keep you around, you’re my idea man.”

^{2 HOURS LATER. NORTH OF SUMMIT GROVE, INDIANA. 9:30 AM EST. TUESDAY, AUGUST 19, 2025.}

Pauline woke to the sounds of dogs and men. She rolled off the cot and crept across the floor of the cabin; in the daylight she could see it was an ordinary fishing and hunting shack like her grandfather’s, with outdoor junk lying in heaps where the plastic holding it had rotted. In the dark, last night, she’d just followed a trail, looking for somewhere to rest.

She crawled to the window, staying low, and peered out cautiously. The sun was well up.

She heard the men shouting to the dogs. She knew them; two of Castle Earthstone’s scouts—she’d taken dictation for their reports. They were not close yet, but they would be.

Pauline felt like punching herself in the head; the night before she had gone just a few miles before holing up to rest and savor the feeling of safety and freedom.

Well, nothing for it now, but try, as Aunt Carol May used to annoy her by saying. She looked around; nothing useful right out in the open and no time to pick through the cabinets. She went out the back door, running downhill away from the trackers.

Fishing shacks are located near water, and water runs downhill, she told herself. Sure enough, at the bottom the owners had piled logs and rocks into a creek to make a pond. She waded across and upstream; it sounded like they were getting closer, and wading was slow, so she only went up the creek far enough to be out of sight of the pond, and then a few more yards to a pipe-and-board bridge, where she climbed out and followed the one-car track that ran through it, heading south because that was the way back to 36, and from 36 she could get home.

^{9 HOURS LATER. CASTLE LARSEN (JENNER, CALIFORNIA). 4 PM PST. TUESDAY, AUGUST 19, 2025.}

Bambi Castro had always thought the area around the mouth of the Russian River pegged the meter for gorgeous: the deepest green on the California coast, the wide rushing river, the beaches and hills, like a movie image of Eden unspoiled. Flying at the Stearman’s low cruising ceiling, she could just see a few columns of smoke still rising from the ruins around the Golden Gate, far to the south. Someday soon, some poor bastards will have to go in there to take a look, and I don’t envy them.

She swept wide over the ocean and came back in across the beach, touching down about as well as anyone could on underfilled greased-linen tires.

She tried to pretend that she was irritated about being called off her regular route, but the chance to fly into one of her favorite parts of the country and stay with one of her best friends rendered her irredeemably cheerful.

In his office, though, one glance showed that Quattro had been worried sick about something. Little bits of torn paper littered the desk; four half-filled water glasses sat among the paper snowstorm; and he lurched more than stood when she came in.

“Is there something wrong?” Bambi asked.

“I’ve never been this scared before in my life,” he admitted. “Bambi, will you marry me?”

^{ABOUT THE SAME TIME. ON ILLINOIS HIGHWAY 1, JUST SOUTH OF THE RUINS OF MARSHALL, ILLINOIS. 6 PM CST. TUESDAY, AUGUST 19, 2025.}

Pauline Kloster felt like she was jogging through icy fog, and the cool damp as the road passed through shadowy woods threatened that as the sun sank, the night would turn cold. I’d prolly suck at this anyway, even if I’d had food and sleep.

She had been running or walking constantly since leaving the fishing cabin, afraid to take time to forage. Besides, the abandoned stores and homes in this country had been thoroughly picked over. At least she’d had plenty of water from creeks and ponds on the way; a few months as a Daybreaker slave had given her trot-proof guts.

She’d wasted the lead time Ecco gave her; she hated herself for that. As soon as she crossed that bridge she should have run all night, as far and fast as she could, right down the middle of the paved roads, so that the afternoon thunderstorm would have erased most of her scent, and maybe waded up and down some streams, anything to put the dogs off.

Three times this afternoon she’d waded from one bridge to another she could see along the stream; each time put the dogs off, but only long enough to let her walk instead of run for an hour or so, because the slow process of working along a streambed cost precious distance and time.

Around the next bend in the road, she found Harry’s Chop House, a ruined roadhouse. She hadn’t heard the dogs or men in about an hour; perhaps there would be some unlooted food, or something she could use. She staggered up to where the door hung off its hinges.

The kitchen, pantry, and bar were looted down to the last bite; a big pile of empty potato-chip bags lay in the dust in one corner, testifying to how thorough everyone had been.

But there was a two-pound box of cayenne pepper. She tore the top off, dumped it on the soles of her moccasins, threw handfuls across the floor, and went out the back door and along the frontage road, scattering cayenne behind her for a mile or so. At least the damned dogs will be sneezing their heads off.

Just at dusk, she found a dead fawn in the ditch, and dragged that behind her till dark, finally towing the deer’s remains into a borrow pond, swimming across to come out on a storm culvert. The dim blue moon was coming up as she regained the road and resumed her travel; perhaps she’d just wasted time, but maybe she’d slowed them down.

But long before the moon was overhead, she heard the distant baying; prolly I can’t put’em off, ever, totally, ’cause they know where I’m going and there ain’t really no other way to get there. Though her body from the waist down was one big streak of pain, she had picked up her pace. All I can do is get there first.

^{2 DAYS LATER. BRIDGE ON THE LITTLE WABASH NEAR WYNOOSE, NEW STATE OF WABASH (PCG) OR ILLINOIS (TNG). 5:12 AM CST. THURSDAY, AUGUST 21, 2025.}

By morning twilight, Pauline thought she’d gained some ground, after the dogs and men had flushed her in the middle of the night; she’d started out almost in bowshot of them, diving out the broken window of the abandoned Subway when she heard them, but she’d doubled around and lost them, zagged over to another road, and probably put a solid mile between herself and them.

The gray light let her see the sign: ENTERING WYNOOSE IL.

Her heart sank.

When she had gone off with the tribe, on their way out they’d sacked and burned Wynoose. That was when they chained me, after I tried to run away.

If I had known, one mile before we came here, back then…

If I had realized where I was the first day we were at Montezuma…

If I had just kept moving after getting away…

She’d rather have gone around Wynoose, but she needed that bridge. The Little Wabash is much smaller than the Wabash, but in this hill and ridge country, the Little Wabash’s channel was often narrow and its current swift, and if she got in trouble trying to swim it, she didn’t have any energy or strength left to recover.

Twilight brightened. Many charred buildings gaped, their insides gone, but with concealment for fifty men behind those black, ruined walls.

She passed among the dreary black shells of Wynoose at as much of a run as she could manage. Thick, leafy trees closed in around the road, dense and still black as if some of the night had stuck to them, but a pale red light was reaching down to the road.

She was hurrying down the slope to the bridge when the arrow struck her calf. She cried out and staggered; another arrow flew through the space where she had been.

She broke the arrow’s shaft off with both hands (oh God no oh God don’t shoot me in the ass), leaving its point in her calf, and tried to run on, despite the searing pain shooting up her leg. Another arrow passed an inch from her head, but she was going to cross this bridge, cross it, one more river to cross—

She heard them running behind her, and the click of the dogs’ toenails on the pavement. She was going to take at least one fucker with her—make them kill me now, not what they did to Steve Ecco.

The bridge deck was under her feet now, the other bank just a sprint away, if she could only sprint instead of hobble. She heard the man’s breathing behind her—

A flash from the opposite bank, a thud and moan behind her. She gained a step on her pursuer; another flash. The other man behind her screamed.

She heard a clatter of dog claws on the bridge behind her, and then a yelp as something sailed past her; more yelps, and she realized someone over there is throwing rocks at the dogs. She hobbled forward, and a man burst out of the brush by the opposite bridgehead and ran toward her, still chucking rocks, his slow-to-load gun slung over his shoulder.

The dogs yipped at each other, broke, and ran; prolly dog-ese for “I didn’t sign up for this.”

The man raced past her, but she knew by the coonskin cap who it was. She looked back and that tripped her. Sitting up, she watched with satisfaction as Freddie Pranger finished off the first, unconscious Daybreaker with a hatchet blow to the forehead. Pranger walked up to the other one, who was still clutching his torn belly, planted his boot on the man’s neck, and as the man shrieked “Please!” Pranger whipped his hatchet over his head and brought it down in a deep chop into the back of the man’s skull.

Pranger wiped the ax on the dead man’s pants and hurried back to Pauline. “Was’at all’at was chasing you?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, then, let’s fix you up and get you home.”

Poor old Freddie looked so bewildered when she started to cry, but she couldn’t seem to stop to tell him it was okay.

^{3 DAYS LATER. PUEBLO, COLORADO. 11 AM MST. SUNDAY, AUGUST 24, 2025.}

It had been a colder, wetter summer than anyone in Pueblo could remember, so the old Pueblo Courthouse’s lawn was still green even in August, and volunteers with weedwhips had been needed to make it presentable, but the dense green was pretty; the blue sky and crisp air, more like October than August, was delicious; and it could hardly have been more perfect for Bambi and Quattro’s wedding.

Heather was easily the most comfortable person there; they’d given her a chair, with a pitcher of water and a glass beside her. Leo was continuing to show promise as an extra-quiet baby, occasionally squirming just enough so she had an excuse to look down and gently touch his face; otherwise, she had about fifteen words to say at the appointed time and could just sit and watch the crowd. Gee, other than the watch and militia on duty, I think the whole town must be here.

Colonel Streen performed the ceremony; they were going to miss him, as the TNG was sending him over to the former Cedar City to head up a joint punitive expedition against tribals who had set forest fires, smashed irrigation systems, and burned out some isolated homes.

To maximize the political benefits, Arnie had written a short speech playing up hope for the future, union between people and among peoples—not heavy-handed, relying more on the context of the scenery, because, as Arnie said, you didn’t have to look far in Colorado to realize it was the state where “America the Beautiful” was written.

Larry Mensche stood proud and tall beside Quattro. He’s such a changed man ever since he brought his daughter back; he was already our best, but now he’s sort of… magnificent. Weird. Larry seemed like kind of an average FBI agent, dead-ended, had his last promotion, serving his time out… and now his name’s going to live with Kit Carson and Daniel Boone… .

Bambi looked great in an antique wedding dress, and Quattro was splendid in his tuxedo; at least the fashion for all-natural materials across the last fifty years or so had left some good clothes in good shape.

Heather rose and said the brief sentences Arnie had created for the matron-of-honor speech; there were more speeches than was normal at a wedding because this was a major news event and news went out via the Post-Times, so the more words to report, the better. To her relief, Heather got the words out without stumbling, sat back down, and was done with her active part. This might be the longest break I’ve taken without being asleep since we came to Pueblo.

At last the ceremony ended with three volleys from the honor guard. (Love, honor, and shoot the right people…, Heather thought.)

For the reception, Quattro had brought over a boxcar load from each coast—jars of pickled and dried fish from Washington, coffee from Lisa Fanchion’s fleet, dried and canned vegetables from California, molasses from Florida, sweet potatoes from Alabama, oysters from the Gulf, and beer and wine from everywhere. Quattro had contrived to give the whole town one big unrationed meal, sharing about as much happiness as he could. “That’s Patrick and Ntale’s fourth trip through the chow line, by my count,” Heather observed.

“I counted six,” Jason said. “But I might’ve missed one. Patrick said that when Ntale’s wedding comes up, he’s going to be as rich as Quattro and throw a feast like this—but bigger, and with chocolate.”

Arnie grinned. “It’s what I told you, Heather. Heroes. It’s a rough world nowadays, and kids can’t get by anymore on mere role models—they need heroes.”

“Maybe Quattro could adopt a characteristic slogan,” Heather said.

Arnie laid a finger on one cheek. “Let me guess. Anything as long as it’s not the mail must go through.”