Manny continues to talk with Arlene for a while. Chris takes me aside in the house and asks, “What’s Manny’s relationship with Arlene?”
“He won’t tell me.” I shrug. “Either he’s in love with her or they’re just really good friends.”
“Huh.” Chris plays with the ends of my hair. “Cassie, if Mexico and this Pacific Northwest Alliance are fighting Omega, that means we could actually stand a chance of winning this war.”
“I won’t believe it until I see it,” I say. “But it’s a nice thought.”
“Ah, ever the eternal optimist.”
“I’m being realistic. Omega’s got a million soldiers and chemical weapons,” I say. “Who’s to say that they won’t just get a nuclear bomb and kill us all?”
“Because something must be stopping them.” He knits his brow. “The threat of retaliation, possibly.”
“From who? Us? We practically have no military left.”
“I don’t know. But I’d like to find out.”
I press a kiss against his cheek.
“Let’s find out together.”
He grins.
When he smiles, I’m reminded of what Vera told me back in Los Angeles — about Chris having been married. I get nauseas just thinking about it. I want to know if the story is true or not. But I am afraid to ask.
Because I’m afraid of what his answer might be.
“Commander,” Manny says. He steps inside the house. His hair is as wild as ever. His leather duster is stained with blood and mud and grease. He’s a sight to behold — and I realize how much I appreciate this man. This crazy, brilliant pilot from who-knows-where.
“We’ve got a situation,” Manny continues.
My heart sinks.
Another situation?
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Sector 20 is radio silent,” he says. “Either Colonel Rivera never made it back to base or they packed up and moved.”
Colonel Rivera. The chief officer of the National Guard unit in Fresno.
I grasp the wall, dizzy.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I gasp.
“Easy, Cassie,” Chris warns, hooking his arm around my waist. “Have you tried contacting other Underground radio outposts? They might know.”
“Yes,” Manny replies. “Sector 20 just disappeared. If you ask me, that’s not a good sign.”
Obviously.
“What do we do?” I ask Chris, looking up at his face.
He doesn’t answer right away.
Finally he says,
“We go back anyway. And we find what we find.”
I hope it’s better than what we found here.
Chapter Fifteen
“Light bulb!” I exclaim.
I sit up straight, breaking the monotony of the sound of the engines. I’m sitting in the front seat of an armored Chevrolet Suburban. Chris is driving. Manny and Vera are in another vehicle. Uriah and Derek are in a Humvee, and Andrew is in the backseat, along with a ton of technological supplies and weaponry. We have been driving for two hours, and we have finally broken out of the Tehachapi Mountains. The valley is beautiful this evening, glowing with the orange and pink colors of the sunset.
“What are you talking about?” Chris asks.
“You said Harry was talking about going up north to some kind of a meeting,” I say. “Sacramento. That’s where he was going.”
“You don’t think there’s some kind of parley going down, do you?” Andrew comments. “Because who the hell would want to parley with Harry Lydell?”
“That makes sense,” Chris agrees. “But if Sacramento is a militia stronghold, he shouldn’t be anywhere near there.”
“What if the gathering isn’t just a meeting…?” I say. “What if it’s a negotiation?”
“That’s more likely.”
“And if Omega is negotiating, that means they’re getting weaker.”
“Which means we might be gaining the upper hand.”
I hope so. Either that, or Omega is stalling, waiting to make another move.
We don’t arrive in Fresno until early morning. It takes hours to rumble through Bakersfield and the surrounding towns in our convoy. As we travel through the darkness, I glimpse flashes of neighborhood subdivisions and shopping centers that have been destroyed in showdowns between militias and Omega. Scout vehicles and motorcycles have been sent ahead to clear the districts for us, but that doesn’t put my mind at ease. I close my eyes and try to sleep, anyway.
It doesn’t work.
When we arrive in Fresno, I instantly sense something different as we rumble down familiar boulevards like Blackstone and Ashlan. The distant sounds and echoes of gunfire are non-existent. I roll down my window a few inches. Nothing. The dead streetlight at the corner of Herndon and Blackstone has been knocked over. Two buildings have been totally destroyed.
“Something definitely went down while we were gone,” Andrew says.
“It wasn’t good,” I reply.
By the time we reach the entrance to Sector 20, I am expecting the worst. Andrew has been staying in radio contact with the rest of our team in the other vehicles, and their reaction to the current state of Fresno hasn’t been good, either.
The chain link fence around the base is broken. I swallow thickly. I haven’t seen this place since before we deployed to the Chokepoint to face down Omega’s five-million man army. Honestly, I never thought I would see it again.
I figured I’d be dead.
“The base has been compromised,” Chris states, stepping on the brakes. A huge chunk of the building is missing — blown apart. We stop the convoy near the front gate. I open the passenger door and walk to the property line. There isn’t a soul in sight.
Chris follows me to the gate.
“This was an attack,” he says.
“The base is probably still intact inside,” I surmise.
“Probably.”
“So what do we do?”
“We can’t stay here. Rivera is gone.”
“Where the hell would he go?” Alexander states, slamming his car door. “Why would he leave?”
Chris takes a moment to answer.
“Our best bet,” he replies, “is to keep moving.”
“And go where?”
“Sacramento.”
“Do you think that’s where Rivera went?”
Chris props his boot on the fence.
“There seems to be a correlation, don’t you think?” he asks, smiling faintly. “Sacramento is the place to be.”
“We don’t know what it’s like up north,” Andrew points out. “It could be totally hostile territory.”
“No,” Alexander replies. “The Pacific Northwest Alliance — whoever they are - has taken San Francisco, and Mexico is fighting their way from San Diego. I think our chances are better up north than here, actually.”
“But who’s going to defend the valley?” I say.
“Maybe that’s what the gathering in Sacramento will decide,” Chris answers. “We need to move now. Every minute we sit here is a minute wasted.”
I consider this.
“I agree,” I say. “I think we should go, too.”
It doesn’t come as a surprise to me that no one argues with the decision. With Sector 20 abandoned, what else can we do? It’s the only logical option that I can think of.
So we get in our trucks, our SUVs and our Humvees.
And we leave Sector 20 behind.
Again.
The northern part of California is uncharted territory, as far as I’m concerned. Fresno is as far away as I’ve gotten from Los Angeles since the EMP hit last year. As we drive beyond the city limits, a feeling of anxiety takes hold of me. I realize that without Sector 20, my dad will have no way to find out what happened to me or where I went. Likewise, I’m traveling away from him.