William H. Weber
SYSTEM FAILURE
Dedication
A special thanks goes out to my editor RJ, to the amazing beta team for all your valuable feedback and to the readers who make all of this possible.
Chapter 1
Day 6
It was still early morning when Nate and Dakota left Sanchez’s house. They stepped out into a gale of blowing snow. Ice pellets assaulted them, stinging their cheeks like tiny heat-seeking missiles. This was no time to go traveling. Mother Nature was making that perfectly clear. But with the exclusion zone from the Byron nuclear plant creeping ever closer, staying in Rockford wasn’t an option. A classic Catch-22—hunker down and let the approaching radiation slowly cook them from the inside or leave and risk being frozen solid by the elements. Fire or ice. For a range of reasons longer than the journey that lay ahead of them, Nate and Dakota had chosen ice.
After fighting their way to Sanchez’s garage out back, the two proceeded to saddle the horse, Wayne, and prepared to head out.
Back at the farm in Byron, Dakota had rather gleefully exposed the inadequacies of Nate’s winter gear. His cotton undergarments, heavy cotton sweater and thick parka had been conspiring against him, making him sweat during the long and arduous walk to the farm. She had suggested he layer his clothes properly, so his skin could breathe. To that end, Nate had found a light nylon windbreaker in Sanchez’s front closet, along with a pair of matching nylon leggings. The former he now wore under his parka, understanding that if push came to shove and they found themselves on foot once again, he could remove the large jacket and thus keep from overheating.
“It’s too bad we can’t use that,” Dakota said, pointing longingly at Sanchez’s Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
The visual of them trying to plow through the impossibly deep snow on a motorbike brought a smile to Nate’s lips. The shame in leaving it behind was just one of many. Then something on the bike caught Nate’s attention. He went over to get a better look and found a tanned leather rifle scabbard holster. Undoing the latches, he saw how he could attach it to the horse’s saddle. That way he didn’t need to keep the H&K G36 assault rifle slung over his back as they rode.
Nate touched the St. Christopher pendant around his neck and said a quiet thank you. At this stage, anything that could make their journey a little more comfortable and secure was more than welcome.
He turned to Dakota, who stood staring at him, strands of her dark hair poking out from beneath her red beanie. “All set?”
She glanced at the maelstrom just outside the open garage door. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
Their first stop would be her uncle Roger’s place in town. If Rockford’s now deceased drug lord Five was to be believed, he had questioned the man at some point, determined to learn the location of his secret bunker, a place apparently filled with loads of high-powered, military-grade weapons. While by all accounts Roger was intelligent, resourceful and clearly prepared, no man could dodge a bullet. The real question was whether Five had been telling the truth and, if so, what he had done to Dakota’s uncle after Roger had refused to give them what they had wanted.
Roger lived on the eastern edge of Rockford in a place called Cherry Valley. Dakota couldn’t remember the exact address, but described a quaint white bungalow on Hogan Street.
While the punishing weather was making their lives miserable―that went for Wayne as well―on another level, Nate was thankful for the stinging snow and high winds. Now that Five and many of his cronies were gone, a fresh power struggle was set to begin in this relatively small Illinois city. For a time, it would surely add to the chaos of crime and unrest already affecting the area and no doubt the country, but that was the price he’d been willing to pay. The good news, if there was any, was that criminals didn’t like the cold. When the weather was nasty, they tended to stay home. That was fine with Nate. So long as the weather stayed crappy, he was hopeful they might make it out of town before the powder keg blew.
It was close to an hour later before they arrived at Roger’s unassuming home. The structure was precisely as Dakota had described it, white and rectangular, laid out lengthwise from the road to a yard in the back. A single large bay window consumed most of the wall facing the street.
The snow and the wind had both slackened. Now the air was completely still, as though they’d stepped from a hurricane into an enormous walk-in freezer. The crack from a rifle sounded in the distance. Less than a second later, a series of shots rang out as if in reply.
“Let it begin,” Nate mumbled as Wayne brought them up the driveway.
Dakota leaned forward. “Let what begin?”
“The battle for Rockford,” he replied matter-of-factly. “You don’t just kill the local leader of a criminal gang without expecting others might rise up to take his place. I’m sorry to say, but doing the right thing, saving you from that monster, meant exposing the city to more turmoil.”
“People will die,” Dakota said in a low voice. “I feel bad.”
“Don’t,” he admonished her, his tone unconsciously dipping to match hers. “Better now than later. Better them than you.”
“I’m sorry to say that doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“Don’t waste your time on guilt,” Nate said. “What I’m trying to say is that you know how to survive. Many of these people don’t. The sad truth is most of them will be lucky to last until spring.” Sure, uttering such a thing was sobering and rather macabre, but that didn’t make it morally wrong or, more importantly, inaccurate.
Nate coaxed the horse past the front door and around the back of the house. The snow was deeper here, making it a little more challenging to get through.
“What’re you doing?” Dakota asked. In the distance came the continued rattle of gunfire.
“Probably isn’t smart to advertise our presence.” He dismounted, plopping down into a mound of powder. He then tied Wayne to the pole of a nearby clothesline.
“The fighting,” she said, still sitting on the horse, her lips slightly parted, her breath a plume of white vapor. “Sounds like it’s getting closer.”
Nate nodded as he helped her down. “All the more reason to hurry.”
They stopped before a side entrance. This uncle of hers was supposedly some hardcore prepper guy, which made him ask, “The house, is it rigged at all?” He rubbed his gloved hands together, blowing warm air between his fingers.
Dakota’s brow furrowed. “Rigged?”
“You know, booby-trapped. I don’t wanna kick this door open and have a sledgehammer swing down into my soft spots.”
She grinned for less than a full second before the expression disappeared. “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.” Her gaze was focused on a point behind him.
He spun and noticed the door behind a flimsy screen was slightly ajar. The faint imprint of a boot next to the handle was still visible. Nate’s pulse began to rise. It appeared one of Five’s henchmen had paid Roger a visit, or at least swung by with the intention of doing so. That certainly fit with what the crooked cop had told them in the last few minutes of his life. It didn’t bode well for Dakota’s uncle. Nate was beginning to worry who they might discover inside and what state they might find them in.
He drew his pistol and pushed his way inside, moving carefully through the clutter, checking his angles. To call this place a pigsty was an insult to pigs. Seeing it made the tiny hairs along the back of his neck stand on end. He stepped over a collection of empty cans. Most of the furniture in the living room had been torn up and flipped over.