Ex-Patriots

Chapter 20 NOW

St. George pushed the last bit of toast into his mouth. He couldn’t remember how long it had been since he had butter. He almost felt guilty for eating it.

Across from him, Stealth sat before an empty plate with her arms crossed. She hadn’t made a sound since they’d been led to the officer’s mess for breakfast and sat down alone.

He pushed the plate a few inches away. “Are you going to eat anything?”

“No.”

“You didn’t eat anything last night, either.”

“As usual, George, your attention to detail is beyond compare.”

“You should eat something to keep your strength up. Might make you less grouchy, too.”

Her head tilted inside the hood. “You are making a joke at my expense.”

“In a good-natured way. You do need to eat.”

“I ate last night in my assigned quarters.”

“Ate what?”

“Food from the dinner with Colonel Shelly.”

“You smuggled food back to your room?”

“I did.”

“Weren’t you worried about someone watching you eat with all these cameras?”

“There are three in my quarters,” she said. “I disabled the two visible ones and allowed them to think I had not discovered the one concealed in the air vent. I ate with my back to it.”

“And then what? Slept in your uniform?”

“Of course.”

St. George stood up and stretched. “So you still don’t trust them?”

“I maintain a healthy skepticism, yes.”

A sergeant marched into the mess hall. “Good morning, ma’am, sir,” he said. “I have messages for you. Colonel Shelly has asked for a meeting with you at eleven-thirty hours to discuss reintegrating Los Angeles into controlled territory. Also Doctor Morris asked if you could join her in D lab once you’re done eating.”

“Where is that?”

“The far side of the complex, ma’am. East side, heading north. It’s the only tall building without satellite dishes on the roof.” He held a folded piece of paper out to her. “We also received a message from your people at the Mount. The colonel asked that you get any such communications as soon as possible.”

Stealth glanced at the sheet of paper and handed it off to St. George.

Just checking in. Hope things are going good with our new friends. Dark clouds here since last night, might even rain. Otherwise all good.

—— Hiram Eggplant Jarvis

“When was this received?” she asked.

“About twenty minutes ago, I think, ma’am.”

“Thank you, sergeant.”

He gave her a polite bow of his head and left.

The blank planes of her mask shifted. “We have a problem, George.”

“I kind of gathered.” He held up the paper. “Unless eggplant is Jarvis’s middle name, I’m guessing it’s a code?”

“It is, as I am sure the military has already deduced.”

“And it means…?”

“The message is authentic. Jarvis was to use the name of a vegetable we do not grow in the main garden as his middle name, rotating in a new name for each communication. Zzzap did not return to the Mount.” She strode out of the mess hall.

He took a few quick steps to catch up with her. “What?”

“Before we left I instructed Jarvis in a series of phrases and compromise words to use in any communications. References to the weather deal with us. The mention of the sun, or lack thereof, tells me Zzzap has gone missing.”

“I think you might be overreacting just a bit.”

“The message indicates he has been absent since last night. We were told on our arrival he had just left to return to the Mount. Since you did not see him there, the logical assumption is he went missing sometime after leaving Krypton Base. Assuming he did leave the base.”

They pushed open a double set of doors and stepped out into the morning sun. Stealth looked even more like a walking shadow in the brilliant light.

“Assuming he didn’t just go sightseeing or something,” said St. George. “He’s gone off flitting around the world before. You know what he told me the morning after the Fourth? He’s been thinking of flying to the Moon. Just to check it out. He was pretty sure he could make it there in under an hour.”

“He has always made a point of telling us where he was going and for how long.”

“Telling us, yeah. It might not occur to him to tell anyone else. Not until he gets back, anyway. You’ve got to admit, Barry can get a little absent-minded at times.”

She stopped walking and turned to him. “You do not find this disturbing?”

“A little bit, yeah,” he said. He glanced around and dropped his voice. “But I’m not going to declare war on the U. S. Army just because I feel a little disturbed. Do I disagree with some of their choices? Yes. Are they doing some weird things with the exes? Hell, yes. But it’s still America we’re talking about. From what Shelly was saying last night it sounds like the President might even still be alive and holed up at NORAD or something.”

“NORAD could be as much a trap as a safe haven if a single infected person was inside. Besides, Shelly did not say the President was still alive.”

“Yeah, but he also didn’t say he was dead, and he did say he was still getting orders from above.”

“I hope you are right, George. But there are too many people depending on us to not make contingency plans.”

* * *

“I don’t know,” said Danielle. She glanced up from the circuits she was soldering. “Maybe he’s just off checking out other cities or something again.”

St. George threw his head back and sighed with relief. “That’s what I said.”

The redhead bent to her work again. “Besides, what could they even do to him? He’s probably invulnerable to everything they’ve got on this base, even with all the super-soldiers.”

“Zzzap is,” said Stealth. “Barry is not.”

“Look,” said St. George, “we’ll ask the colonel about it again at this meeting. Until then, I think we need to let this drop. I don’t want to mess anything up with accusations and then have Barry show up half an hour later bragging he spent the night racing between Hubble and the space station. Okay?”

Stealth gave him a look he could sense through her mask. The one that meant she thought he was being foolish. “Very well, George,” she said. “If you feel this is the correct path, I shall defer to your judgment.”

Danielle finished her work on the circuit board, blew on it, and removed it from the small clamps. She lowered it into a box that resembled a small metal coffin and reached in with a screwdriver to fasten the board in place. “In happier news,” she said, “I realized something.”

“Please,” said St. George, “share the happier news.”

The redhead glanced at Stealth. “You know what I said yesterday about not wanting to do all these repairs and upgrades because I thought it’d feel like giving up?”

The cloaked woman gave a single nod.

“Well, starting this last night didn’t feel like giving up,” said Danielle. “It made me feel guilty.”

St. George tilted his head. “Guilty?”

“I should’ve been doing all this stuff months ago. It’s easy work. I had enough of the parts.” She glanced up from her work again. “And people were depending on me. That’s been stuck in the back of my mind all morning.”

Danielle pulled the screwdriver away and picked up a studded metal plate the size of a hardcover book. It had a shaft on the back that slotted into something inside the little coffin. There was a loud clack as it settled into place.

“Shelly was right,” she said. “I wasn’t supposed to be the one in the suit. But I volunteered for it. I wanted to be Cerberus, and that’s who I am now. And I think I’m needed at the Mount a lot more than here.”

“I am pleased to hear your decision,” said Stealth.

St. George rapped a knuckle on the steel box. “So what is this, anyway?”

The redhead gave a wicked grin. “It’s a new weapons mount to replace the one Peasy tore off. I’ve been playing with this thing in my head and on paper for almost two years. I might be able to have another one built and both installed by tomorrow.”

St. George smiled. “Just in time to go home?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I think so.”

* * *

“Colonel Shelly got tied up with some administrative things,” said Smith. Today’s suit was charcoal gray with a crimson tie. “He asked if I could go over things with you in his place.”

Stealth crossed her arms. “This meeting is such a low priority he could neither attend himself nor send one of his staff?”

“Is that a problem?”

Stealth glared at the young man for a moment. Her head shifted in the hood as she glanced at St. George. He could see the effort it took her to relax. “No,” she said. “It is not.”

“Good,” said Smith. “Thank you.”

“We’ve got a couple questions, too,” said St. George. “A few things we want to double-check with you.”

“Do you mind if we do these first?” Smith held up a clipboard covered with scrawled phrases and sentences. “I’ll answer anything you want afterwards. I’ve just got a lot of this fresh in my mind and I don’t want to miss anything.”

A twist of gray smoke curled out of the hero’s nose. “I suppose so.”

“Thanks.” Smith looked at his notes. “Now, what’s going to happen over the next few weeks is an assessment, just like I mentioned back at the Mount. The Army’s going to look at your defenses and make sure they’re adequate for the threat we’re facing. If they are, great. If not, they’ll help improve them. Odds are they’ll just leave you to keep running things the way you have. You’re doing fine, so why mess with something that’s not broken, right?”

St. George gave Stealth a cautious glance. “Okay,” he said.

“Can we depend on the Army for medical supplies and ammunition?”

“Resources gets more complicated,” Smith told her, “but medical supplies are a definite yes. That includes some food and vitamin supplements, as well. The military will do an inventory and see what you already have. They’re going to give you supplies for the Mount, but they’re also going to need some things in return, just so you know.”

Stealth shifted in her chair. “Such as?”

“Well, people for starters. They’re going to have a recruitment drive, just like they had when they rescued people from Yuma. The Army needs soldiers right now, and odds are there are a few thousand eligible people in your Los Angeles population.”

“Eligible,” repeated Stealth. “Are you initiating a draft?”

“No,” said Smith. “Sorry. Poor word choice on my part. It’s completely voluntary. But you figure even if ten percent of your people decide they want to sign up, that’s over two thousand people.”

“A generous estimate.”

“Actually, going off how the survivors from Yuma reacted, it might be low. I also understand from one of your security people, Sergeant Billie Carter, there are a number of Marines living in the Mount and the surrounding complexes.”

“Yeah,” said St. George. “About a dozen of them, counting her. Their platoon flew out to LA with Cerberus and stayed with us because…well, they didn’t have anywhere else to go. A few have died since then. We’ve also got seventeen National Guardsmen, two Navy guys, and a retired Air Force general.”

“Didn’t know about those last ones,” muttered Smith, checking over his list. He scribbled a note in the margin. “Anyway, point is they’re all going to be called back to active duty and returned to military command. It’s a stop-loss situation.”

“The stop-loss provision applies only to currently active personnel,” said Stealth, “and can only be enacted by the President.”

He shook his head. “Special provisions. They can pull back anyone who ever served if the situation calls for it. When martial law was declared, it went into effect automatically.”

“Unpleasant, but not surprising,” said Stealth. “Continue.”

Smith tapped a finger on the edge of the clipboard. “Okay, like I said, they don’t have any trouble leaving you in charge, but they want to make sure everything’s on the up-and-up.”

St. George sighed. “Is this about Christian Nguyen?”

“Sort of. The Army’s lawyers are going to go over how you’ve been running things, look at this government you’re putting together, and make sure it doesn’t violate anyone’s rights.”

“The Army has lawyers?”

“Oh, yeah. Tons of them. There’s three here on Krypton. They’re also going to take custody of any prisoners you have and give them a trial under the military justice system.”

“No.”

St. George looked at Stealth, and then his own shoulders tensed. “Yeah,” he said, “there might be a problem with that. Some of our prisoners are…special cases.”

“It’s not an optional thing,” said Smith.

“It is not,” agreed the cloaked woman. “Prisoners shall be released on a case by case basis. This is not up for debate.”

He reached up and gave his tie a small tweak. “I’ll have to talk with Colonel Shelly about that.” Smith flipped to another page of notes. “I think it’s also understandable that they want the Cerberus system.”

“Yeah, about that,” said St. George. “Thing is, we were just talking with Danielle and she—”

“She has decided to return to Los Angeles with us,” said Stealth. “And with Cerberus.”

“Ahhh,” said Smith. “That’s…that’s unfortunate.”

“Why?” Stealth shifted her hips and her shoulders tensed.

He took the clipboard in both hands. “The Cerberus Battle Armor System was developed under a DARPA contract, paid for with military funds. It’s government property. It stays here.”

Stealth took a step forward. Smith stepped back, bumping against the conference table. St. George set a hand on the cloaked woman’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Smith said. “I know you won’t believe me, but I didn’t want to play this card. I even went to bat for you guys. But the colonel’s firm on this. He wants the suit here and he wants her building more of them.”

“You might get the suit,” said St. George, “but not her. Danielle wants to come back to the Mount. She’s a private citizen. You can’t stop her.”

“Actually,” said Smith, “we can. She’s been a government employee since 2006. She’s been stop-lossed, too.”

“The stop-loss act applies to military personnel,” said Stealth,

“Thanks to a little clause in the Patriot Act, it applies to any government employee above a certain security level. The same badge that let her peek at all those other exoskeleton projects while she was building Cerberus is keeping her here and under Colonel Shelly’s command.”

“This is bullshit,” said St. George.

“It is also entrapment,” said Stealth. “We were brought out here under false pretenses for the sole purpose of seizing the Cerberus suit.” Her head tilted toward St. George. “As I tried to tell you.”

“Look, guys,” said Smith. “Guy and gal. You have to believe me, I didn’t think we’d ever need to talk about any of this. I thought Danielle would want to stay here at Yuma. I didn’t want to bring any of this up because I knew how you’d react.”

“We’ll fight you on this,” said St. George.

“You can’t. If you resist they’ll slap the ‘traitor’ label on you and have a court martial.”

“They can’t court martial us. We’re civilians.”

“Martial law,” said Smith. “What do you think it means? The Army is the law right now. They’re judge, jury, and executioner in any legal matters.”

“I’d like to see them try.”

“Look I know this seems like a bad thing at first, but you don’t need Cerberus in Los Angeles if you’ve got a platoon or three of soldiers stationed there. Heck, they could rotate in a squad of Freedom’s men and they’d probably be even more effective than the battlesuit.”

“Cerberus isn’t really the issue,” said St. George. “Danielle’s our friend. We’re not going to abandon her.”

“I’m sorry. I wish there was more I could do to help, but the colonel’s not going to bend on these points. I think you should—”

“What else is there?”

Smith glanced at her. “I don’t know what—”

“Your body language indicates continued reluctance. You have more to tell us.”

He sighed. “Yeah, there is. The other thing they want, the big thing really, is…” Smith rolled his shoulders and studied his shoes for a few moments.

“Yes?”

“Well…they want your power supply.”

There was a moment of silence. Then Smith felt the floor drop away from under his feet and the wall whirled around to slam into his back. The clipboard clattered away. His clothes were painfully tight. St. George had wrapped shirt, tie, and coat into his fist when he grabbed the smaller man.

“Where is he?”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Smith raised his arms as best he could in the twisted coat. He waved his palms. “I can’t…I’m not at liberty to say.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ripples of heat and smoke flowed out of St. George’s mouth.

“I’m under orders not to tell you.”

“We are giving you new orders,” said Stealth.

“Look, it’s not that simple. I don’t like it either, but you need to see the big picture. You’ve got to calm down and listen if we’re going to work together, okay? You want to work with me, right?”

St. George loosened his grip and Smith slid down to the floor. “I’m listening.”

“Thank you.” He brushed the bigger wrinkles out of his shirt, adjusted his tie, and picked up his notes. “I’d like to help you. I would. But it pretty much amounts to treason and treason can get you shot around here.”

“Are citizens being executed?” asked Stealth.

“No, of course not. Hell, the stockade’s full of people who probably should’ve been executed for the crap they’ve done. But that’s bad for morale. That’s how you end up with a rebellion. And none of that helps rebuild America.”

St. George cracked his knuckles. “Where is Zzzap?”

Smith sighed. “The important thing is he’s fine and he’s safe. No one’s going to hurt him. But he’s way too valuable to the military. He’s a walking reactor, for Christ’s sake, and if these people are going to rebuild America they need power.”

Stealth crossed her arms. “Has he also been stop-lossed?”

“No,” said Smith. “They’re detaining him as a person of interest.”

“Oh, come on,” snapped St. George. “This is ridiculous.”

“Colonel Shelly must realize if we decide to free Zzzap, there is little his forces can do to stop us.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” Smith said to her. “He’s got a full brigade of soldiers, plus Captain Freedom and his company of super soldiers. Heck, there’s two tanks here somewhere.”

“It would not be enough to stop us,” said Stealth.

“Okay, think for a minute. Think about what happens if you did get him and get away. Los Angeles gets branded hostile territory. No food, no medical supplies, nothing. And once they gather enough forces they’ll just come in and take over anyway. Then we’re back to court martials.” Smith shook his head. “You have to play ball.”

“Like you have?” asked Stealth.

“Yeah,” he said, “just like I have. You have to understand. America’s in pieces and these guys are the glue. They’re trying to save the country they swore to protect. It’s nothing personal.” He sighed and tossed his clipboard on the table. “Your best bet is just to go with it. Tomorrow the two of you will go home to Los Angeles. Everyone there will still think you’re heroes.”

* * *

St. George stalked along the fence line. A halo of dark smoke surrounded his head as he clenched his fists. “I should’ve let you beat it out of him,” he said. “If we knew where they were holding Barry, we could just break in there and set him free. The three of us could level this place. How could I be so damned stupid?”

Stealth walked alongside him. She’d said nothing since they left the conference room.

“You were right,” he said to her. “We shouldn’t’ve trusted them. Hell, Barry was right. The military always turns evil during a zombie apocalypse.”

“They are not evil,” she announced. “They are doing what they believe is right, in a way consistent with the training and orders they have received. I once held many of the same views myself. Over the past two years you have convinced me otherwise.”

“They’ve got Barry locked up somewhere and you don’t think that’s evil?”

“Is it so different from what we do? At the Mount he is often trapped in the electric chair for eighteen hours at a time.”

St. George shook his head. “He volunteers for that.”

“He volunteers because we have placed him in a position of unavoidable responsibility. By eating an apple and staying in the chair he can provide power to over twenty thousand citizens of Los Angeles for lights, security, cooking, entertainment, and more. If he leaves the chair, they will have none of these things.”

“It’s not the same.”

“It is, George,” she said. “It is why I had the chair built. Once it existed, I knew he would not fail us.”

“But that’s different. We’re on the fringes. We’re just trying to survive. This isn’t what it was supposed to be like. I thought…” He sighed and let another mouthful of smoke out into the air.

“What?”

He kicked at a rock and it skittered through the chainlink to hit an ex-soldier’s boot. “I guess I was like Danielle,” St. George said. “I always figured someday everything would go back to normal. Someone would drive up outside the gates and tell us everything was okay, we could all go home. I could go back to being a maintenance guy who got Thai food from the place on the corner and dressed up in a costume to fight muggers. You could go back to…whatever it was you did for a living.”

“I was a retired fashion model with multiple athletic championships and doctoral degrees,” said Stealth. “By most standards I was independently wealthy.”

“Wow,” he said after a moment. “You really are Batman, aren’t you?”

“You are avoiding the subject, George. What do we do now?”

“What do you mean?”

“We must free Zzzap and also ensure Danielle and the Cerberus suit return with us to Los Angeles. How will we do this?”

He stopped walking and looked at her. “We can’t,” he sighed. “I don’t like it either, but like you said, they’re not evil. They’re the good guys.”

“They seek to undo much of our work at the Mount and to bring a sizeable part of our population under their direct control.”

St. George glanced around. They were a few dozen yards from the closest guard tower. There was one soldier in it, half-watching them.

“It would appear we are between shifts,” she said. “There are minimal human guards on patrol to hear our discussion, and I have guided us away from the perimeter cameras and microphones.”

“Look,” he said in a lower tone of voice, “this isn’t some movie supervillain or something. It’s the United States Army, acting under orders of the President. It’s like Smith said, we’d be committing treason.”

“Would we? We cannot be traitors to a non-existent country. Are we still living within the United States?”

“Of course we are.”

“Geographically, perhaps, but a nation is defined by more than mere borders.” She turned to the fence and looked out at the dirt and scrub of the proving ground. Three exes were stumbling toward them out of the desert. “All of this land was once Native American territory, correct?”

He shrugged. “I guess.”

“Suppose an individual came to you claiming to be the representative of that territory. If they demanded you follow their laws and obey their commands, would you?”

“Are we on a reservation or something?”

“No.”

“Then I’d probably be as polite as possible but keep following the current laws as best I could.”

She nodded. “Just as you have at the Mount.”

They looked out at the sand for a few minutes. A trio of exes pawed at the outer fence. One was a topless woman with clotted filth in her hair. Another, an elderly man with one arm, had a pair of spectacles hanging around his neck by a chain.

“I feel sick.”

“It is understandable. You have spent the past two years awaiting the arrival of the authorities. Of someone who would relieve you of responsibility for the Mount. You have just realized no one is coming. You are the authorities. You are and always will be responsible for the people of Los Angeles.”

“And this isn’t freaking you out?”

“I have told you before, George, I am not an optimist. I have never expected us to be saved or relieved of duty. I accepted this responsibility two years ago.”

She turned and continued along the inside of the fence. St. George took a few quick steps to catch up with her. “You’ve already got a plan, don’t you?”

“You will go back to Danielle and get her to the workshop where Cerberus is being stored. In turn, she can direct you to Sorensen. I am certain he knows where Zzzap is being held. Once Danielle is back in the armor, we shall demand transport back to Los Angeles. If they refuse, we may have to steal it.”

“That’d be great if any of us knew how to fly a Black Hawk helicopter.”

“I do,” she said, “but I believe a basic M35 cargo truck will get us back to Los Angeles in four days at the most.”

“Okay,” he said, “what are you going to be doing during all this?”

“I shall give Colonel Shelly a final chance to present evidence of his claims that the federal government is still functioning and to convince me that his plan represents our best option. Barring that, I shall convince him to allow us to leave without incident.”

“Just to be clear,” said St. George, “when you say ‘convince him’ are you talking about attacking a U.S. military officer?”

“Of course not,” said Stealth.

“That wasn’t very convincing.”

“George, we do not have time for this. It is twelve-forty-three. You must endeavor to have Danielle at her workshop and Zzzap freed by one-thirty.” Her head turned to him within her hood. “Are you comfortable with this? I do not want to influence your decision.”

“You influence most of my decisions,” he said with a half-hearted smile. He took a slow breath. “No, I don’t feel comfortable about this at all, but sometimes the right thing to do isn’t the comfortable thing. And this feels right.”

“Then it must be so,” she said.

“How can you be so sure?”

She stopped and turned to him. “Because you think it is, and you are the only person I have ever known who always does the right thing.”

They looked at each other, and George realized an opportune moment had just slipped past him again. He cleared his throat and tried to brush it aside. “I hope so,” he said. “Six months from now I don’t want any of our people walking between fences like Bub there.” He gestured at an ex staggering along on patrol.

“Bub?”

He nodded at the ex-soldier with the dangling rifle. “Barry makes me watch a George Romero movie every other month. The zombie with the gun is named Bub.”

“I do not understand.”

“Don’t worry about it.”