“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.”
Chapter 21
NOW
The soldiers marched down the dim hall with an easy, even stride. They were two of the older recruits, both in their thirties and specialists. A year of guard duty with nothing more challenging than a handful of exes had relaxed them, but they still paused when they turned the corner and saw the darkened hallway.
One of the fluorescent tubes flickered for a moment, then went black again.
“Dead light,” said one soldier. He nodded at the office door. “The colonel’ll be pissed the next time he works late. Remember to tell maintenance.”
“You remember.”
“It’s your turn to write up reports.”
“Asshole.”
“Hey, you lost fair and square.”
They turned the corner, still trying to pass off their paperwork, and Stealth dropped down from the ceiling.
The colonel’s office was locked with a Medeco3 deadbolt, but she had seen schematics of the tumbler mechanism at a seminar in Las Vegas several years earlier. Six minutes of work and she was inside the reception area of Shelly’s office. The door closed behind her without a sound and she re-engaged the lock.
Her fingers skimmed the adjutant’s desk. She looked at letterheads and printed emails, paged through the appointment book and the desk calendar. She considered the computer. Based on the personal items on the desk and in the drawers, she was confident she could break the adjutant’s password in less than ten attempts. However, there was little chance the materials she needed were on his hard drive.
The inner office door was not locked. She paused to listen for overt movement or heavy breathing, signs of someone working or even sleeping. If there was anyone in the office, they were making a point of being as quiet as her.