I look at the enemy, back at him, and nod.
“Be careful,” I beg him.
I throw my rifle over my shoulder and sprint towards the tunnel, sliding into the cement passage, scrambling deep into the concrete tube.
Uriah is gone, but Jeff is waiting with Sophia.
“Where’s Chris?” he bellows.
“He said he’d be right behind me.”
“Where’s Max?” Sophia says.
“Just go!” I command. “Run! Now!”
“But—”
“—That’s an order,” I hiss. “Get going!”
Sophia doesn’t press me any further. She turns on her heel and runs, disappearing into the blackness of the tunnel.
I linger at the mouth of the passage, waiting for Chris.
Come on, come on, come on.
Jeff clenches his fist.
“I’m going back out there,” he says.
As soon as he charges forward, a trooper lands in an animalistic crouch at the mouth of the tunnel. I see it before it happens, yet there’s nothing I can do to stop it. He’s too fast, and I have been taken by surprise.
He fires off a round, barely bypassing me, but he hits Jeff in the neck. Jeff stumbles for a moment and grabs his throat, shock registering across his features. I hit the wall and scream as Jeff falls backwards, his eyes wide open, his face pale and blank, hands grasping at his neck. A stream of satin blood blossoms under his collarbone. It takes a second too long for my shell-shocked senses to start working again. A second too late.
I turn around, locking eyes with the trooper for a split second. And I swear I see right into his soul. There is no regret on his face. Not a hint of emotion or regret for his actions. This is, after all, war. I cry out, furious, and raise my rifle without hesitating. Despite my shaking hands, I steady myself long enough to engage. I snapshot a round into the trooper’s head.
Right between the eyes.
He’s dead before he hits the ground, and I feel no remorse.
I kneel down and shake Jeff by the shoulders, shouting his name, trying to stop the bleeding by applying pressure to the wounds. His blood smears over the palms of my hands. His jaw goes slack. The light leaves his eyes.
“Jeff!” I plead. “Jeff, no! Don’t do this!”
I look behind me, hysterical, shaking.
Another trooper slides into the passage, followed by two more, then three. I barely manage to drive them back, bullets ricocheting off the walls. I have no sympathy for my enemy now. I feel only empty anger, painful loss.
I turn to Jeff.
He’s dead.
I have to go. I need to go.
I pull myself to my feet.
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “It’s my fault. I’m so sorry…”
I grope my way down the inky passage, tears streaming down my face. I’m sobbing as I run, straining for breath, straining for sanity.
The tunnel seems to go on forever, and as I run, the horror of the past few moments sinks in. I finally see a faint light in the distance, the end of the tunnel. I run towards it, leg muscles and lungs burning. I reach it and literally fall out of the tunnel, rolling down a steep embankment. When I drag myself up, the world is spinning and I’m slathered in mud and blood. It’s raining harder, and in the distance, the sky is burning orange and red. The sound of incoming jets once again rips through the air. Air Force.
They attack the enemy positions.
Too little too late.
We’ve already lost so much.
I want to wait at the end of the tunnel for Chris and Max, but I know that I’m being followed by Omega men. So I force myself onward, looking for Sophia and Uriah. Where are they? I follow the side of the interstate for an eternity, the Air Force streaking overhead, dropping their payload on the ground. How will they know who to attack? Our enemies are coming from the inside, too. They look like us.
Harry Lydell. He knew this would happen. He must have known they’d been planted a long time ago. How else would he be so confident that we would suffer? Why else could he get away with being so infuriatingly smug?
I climb onto the freeway, knowing that I’m far enough down the road that there are no more landmines here. Rivera’s forces have pulled back. They’re not even here. I’m alone. We’ve been left here…again.
Fury burns through my veins, coupled with the hollow sadness of Jeff’s death and leaving Chris behind.
He will come. He will come. They won’t kill him. He’s too valuable to kill.
Harry knows that. Right?
I have to keep moving.
The low stutter of an engine echoes off the side of the hills, audible to me only because I’m familiar with it. “Manny!” I yell, desperate. Standing in the middle of the freeway, mired in muck and blood and tears. “Manny, I’m down here!”
He can’t hear me. I know that. But yelling it feels good.
The outline of his old biplane appears in the sky, coasting towards me, using the freeway as an open runway.
“Sundog, this is Yankee,” I yell into my radio. “I’m right under you.”
“Copy that, Yankee,” he replies. “Show me some light.”
I flash my flashlight a few times, marking my position. The direction of his plane changes and he dips down, making a quick, emergency landing on the interstate.
“GET IN!” he shouts.
“I’m waiting for Chris!”
“THERE IS NO TIME.”
“I won’t leave until I know he’s alive!”
“Just get in the cockpit, Cassidy!”
I hesitate, guilt and fear twisting my gut. If I stay here any longer, I’ll die. Chris could have escaped another way. He’ll meet up with me. He always does. Sophia and Max and Derek and Uriah… they’ll meet up with me, too. I know they will.
I have to believe that.
I climb onto the wing and throw my legs over the side of the cockpit, hitting the seat with a thud. “What about everybody else?” I yell.
“I’ve got one passenger seat and you’re in it!”
Manny spins the biplane into a U-turn. I clutch the sides of the plane, squeezing my eyes shut. We gain speed, and suddenly the bottom drops out of my stomach, and I know that we are airborne. As we rise I begin to cry heavily. Great, heaving sobs. Chris is down there. Jeff is dead. Max is probably dead. Derek is missing. Sophia and Uriah could be anywhere.
Chris is down there. Chris is down there. Oh, God, what if they kill him?
I open my eyes, the freezing rain tears at my skin, making the situation just that much more unbearable. This is wrong. This is so, so wrong.
The plane rumbles on, and I’m numb to our surroundings and the time I spend in the air. At some point Manny begins circling and then we’re losing altitude. We land on asphalt, and I vaguely register that we’re at Headquarters. We’re back. There are very few troops here, besides the wounded that are being brought in. Our backup reserve of soldiers is being deployed and another convoy is moving out.
“Get out of the cockpit, Cassidy,” Manny says, killing the engine. His boots hit the wing and he grabs me by the shoulders. “Cassidy, don’t fade out on me, girl.”
No. This can’t be happening.
Loss grips my chest. Raw, painful. Real.
I slowly stand, bitter realization setting in.
Why can’t I just wake up from this nightmare? I wonder.
Because this is no dream. This is the new reality. This is the new world.
This is the beginning of the end.
Epilogue
A collapse. That’s what they’re calling it now. They won’t say what it really is. A takeover. An invasion. A systematic extermination. But I know. We know. Anybody that’s seen what Omega has done or suffered because of them knows the truth. This is no collapse. This is a war. A war that was designed to begin from the inside. Our society collapsed on itself because of our dependence on technology and that made us weak. And now here we are. Fighting to survive.