“Who says?”
“I just read it on the town alert feed. There are soldiers headed this way right now.” She shook her head in incomprehension. “How could this be happening?”
Fossen’s wife, Lynn, appeared in their doorway holding a case as well. He grabbed her by the shoulders. “We’ve got to go, hon. I’ve got my things downstairs. Let’s move!”
He brought them down through the kitchen, where he rolled up the cloth containing pieces of the Korean War-era, M1 Garand rifle he’d been cleaning—the one his father had given him. He also grabbed a sealed can of 30.06 ammunition dated from 1958.
“C’mon, out the door!”
As his wife and daughter headed out the mudroom door, he took one last look at the family house, then turned off the lights and joined them out in the drive near the garage. It was still dark out, but as Fossen and his family got into the crew-cab pickup, they could hear the rattling of distant machine-gun fire.
Lynn covered her mouth. “God help us. . . .” She looked at her daughter.
Jenna looked back at them both, slowly shaking her head. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. . . .” Tears started flowing. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for this to—”
“Jenna, let’s not even talk like that.”
Both of them got in and he rapidly had them moving down the long gravel driveway. “Jenna, I need you to give me some idea where these people are. Are there reports of them between us and downtown Greeley?”
She wiped her tears and started clicking on D-Space as Fossen drove at high speed down to the road.
“If we move quickly, we’ll be fine. They’re coming in from the east and south. . . .” She paused. “But there’s also another force reported coming in from north and west.”
“Yes, all right, but we can make it to town?”
“Yes.”
Fossen glanced to them both. “We’re going to be all right. We’ll get to the storm cellars at the elementary school just like we planned. We’re going to be all right.”
As he looked down the road, he could see the lights of Greeley just a few miles ahead. There was thunder in the distance and the lights suddenly went black.
At the sound of tornado sirens Ross sat up in the motel bed and reached for his HUD glasses on the nightstand. He tried to turn on the lights, but they didn’t work. A glance at the digital alarm clock confirmed that the power was out.
So much for local power generation.
He threw on his black Nomex flight suit and computer belt as the system logged him on. The sirens were winding down now, and he could see hundreds of darknet call-outs beyond the walls and hear the voice of Floyd_2, an ex-army officer that the darknet had automatically selected as civil defense commander, based on his reputation score and skill set. His voice came in over the public comm channel in mid-speech. . . .
“—need everybody to those storm shelters. Security drones show helicopters and a light armored force converging on Greeley from all four compass directions. Everyone, please get to the middle school storm cellars. Ex-military folks and hunters, you have your assignments. We’ve only got a few minutes. I’m going to project the location of the choppers onto layer six, and I want all tagged enemy objects placed on that layer, too.”
Four bright red call-outs appeared some ways off to the east, identified as Helo 1, 2, and 3.
Floyd_2 paused. “Everyone move quickly but calmly to the middle school storm shelters. You can see the video surveillance overlays on layer five. It looks like these people are heavily armed. We’ve got summons in for infrastructure defense and equipment, but it looks like there are a lot of darknet towns under attack tonight. So I think we’re on our own for the time being. Let’s look out for one another now.”
Ross could hear the voices of people outside moving through the darkness. The hushed voices of parents. The worried, high-pitched voices of children.
Then Floyd_2’s sudden urgent shout over the channel. “Incoming!”
An explosion tore a hole in the air nearby. Its shockwave hit the front of the motel like a solid object, blasting out one of Ross’s windows and shaking the whole building. Ross hit the floor and pulled blankets down on top of himself from the bed as glass continued to rain down. A layer of previously unseen dust had lifted off of everything and hovered in the room as a choking cloud. There was another explosion somewhat farther away that made Ross realize his ears were ringing. Dogs were howling and car alarms had gone off throughout the town.
The second explosion was followed by the crackling of distant gunfire in an indeterminate direction. Possibly every direction. Ross peered up at the jagged edges of the front window with its imitation, snap-on window frames. He could see guttering orange light and shadows across the street. Flames. But the sky between the curtains looked tinged with its own glow. Possibly dawn—or more flames farther off.
Ross listened in the darkness of his room to the gunfire, between which he could hear people screaming. And now the sound of helicopters. Not the deep, booming thump of Bell Rangers that he remembered from Building Twenty-Nine. No, these choppers had a high-pitched buzz to them that was soon followed by the sound of ripping fabric. Then more screams.
He could see the call-outs of dozens of nearby operatives racing past beyond the walls. Obviously headed for the middle school. He could hear their voices over the public darknet comm channel as well, and a series of jagged lines adorned each call-out as they spoke. It was like a surreal first-person game.
[Beavertail]: “Three Helos coming in from the east. They’re using miniguns!”
[Yardil]: “Thanks for the fucking news flash, Darrol!”
[Floyd_2]: “Cut useless chatter, Yardil!”
[Knockwurst]: “ASVs coming in across the fields. East and west. Half a mile off.”
[Needleman]: “I’m on the west side. What’s an ASV?”
[Knockwurst]: “M1117. Armored car. Gun platform.”
[Needleman]: “Holy shit, I’m pulling back to B-twelve.”
[Vorpal]: “Sniper fire at the barricades on the thirty-eight. North and south. We’ve got casualties!”
[Beavertail]: “Get stragglers into the storm shelters. We’ve got snipers on the east and south sides. They’re taking up positions in the abandoned cars on the edge of town.
[Vorpal]: “I knew we should have moved those fucking things!”
None of it sounded good. Before Ross was fully dressed there was a pounding on his motel room door. Through the wall he could see a call-out that read OohRah. It was Sheriff Dave Westfield, a recent member and second-level Constable. He had also been a marine in his youth.
“Rakh! You okay?”
Ross grabbed his things and opened the door. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
OohRah held an M16 rifle. “The feed says we’re being hit with Hellfire missiles. It’s time to get to the middle school.”
Ross could see that the building across the road was engulfed in flames. It had been a machine shop—one of the local fab labs. A family lived on the second floor. Now there was no second floor, only a ground floor with doors and windows belching flames.
The sound of a helicopter was approaching.
OohRah rushed into Ross’s room. “The feed says the missiles are coming from a gray Cessna 208 Grand Caravan that left a decommissioned army airfield north of St. Louis.” The tearing sound was heard again. Then the chopper passed low overhead.