State of Rebellion (Collapse Series) (11 page)

Great.

She says nothing. I say nothing. Obviously this is going to be awkward.

The truck fills up with more people. We simply can’t fit any more passengers. The back gate in the truck goes up, sealing with a loud
metallic boom. My heart accelerates and Sophia jumps, grabbing my arm. I’ve never been big on being trapped in confined spaces. Especially with a ton of people in a truck, moving down a mountain in an active warzone.

There’s a first time for everything.

It’s getting stuffy fast back here, and as the doors continue to slam and militiamen and women keep piling into the trucks, I suddenly wish Chris were here. As our commander, he’s in the lead Humvee with Angela. I chose to stay with the
Freedom Fighters
in the transport trucks. I didn’t want to leave Sophia alone.

But I’d rather be with Chris.

The convoy roars to life. The trucks roll forward, diesel engines roaring to life, spitting strong fumes, the hard suspension of the vehicles hitting every pothole in the road with a bang. It
jars my teeth. With nothing but dark walls and human faces to stare at, the jerking, rocking motion of the truck is enough to make me seriously carsick.

I am aware of the exact second we cross Camp Freedom’s boundary line. The convoy speeds up, reaching the amazing speed of 15 miles per hour. Sophia and I share a sad, meaningful glance.

“Goodbye, Camp Freedom,” I whisper.

She nods, tears glistening in her eyes. But she doesn’t cry.

If Vera overhears me she doesn’t say anything. She just sits silently, her lips pressed together in a thin line. Maybe leaving the camp is just as hard for her as it is for me. I don’t know. At least she didn’t have to leave her mother behind.

Goodbye, Dad…

Goodbye everything.

The central valley is something I haven’t seen in a long time. After being a guerilla war fighter in the high mountains and foothills for months, the open space of farmland is disorienting. Everything is wide, bright and magnified. The trees are spaced far apart. No more pines, cedars or lodge poles. No more scent of mountains, of forest.

This is just hot. Heat and dryness. And stillness, as if the land itself is waiting for something patiently.

Orchards line the side of the road we take to Fresno. Most of the trees are dead. With no water and no farmers to care for them, they’ve been killed in the summer heat. The fruit basket
of the world is looking pretty fruitless, even with all of the slave labor Omega is using – or
was
using – to harvest crops and get food to their invasion forces.

I realize that this is one of the first signs of weakness I’ve seen from Omega. If they had a firmer grip on the central valley, this farmland would be utilized. With a Chinese army on the way, they’ll need food and water. And I’m not seeing a lot of that today.

Good news for us, bad news for them.

We hit the outskirts of Fresno in about three hours. The roads that the convoy takes are backcountry dirt avenues and boulevards woven between abandoned orchards and farming property. Colonel Rivera gave very specific instructions and coordinates that allow
navigation through enemy territory without being spotted by scouts. We hope.

Growing up in Culver City, I didn’t have much of a reason to travel north to a place like Fresno unless I was visiting relatives or going on a school field trip. It looks nothing like I remember. As we roll into town, I look out the back of the truck, studying the scenery as we flash by. Gas stations, strip malls and cracked asphalt. Dead trees. The foul stink of long-burning fires eating through piles of rubble. Fast food restaurants with shattered windows and broken doors. Billboards covered with bright, vulgar graffiti.

Not the most beautiful tourist hotspot in the world.

“It’s not right,” Sophia mutters.

“What’s not right?” I ask.

“This. Being out of the trees. In the open.” She shakes her head. “I don’t like being exposed. It makes me nervous.”

“We’re all nervous,” I reply. “We’ll adjust.” I smile with confidence I don’t have, then change the subject. “You know, my dad and I used to take vacations up to our cabin in the mountains. We’d stay up there during the summer and then go back to Culver City. It took me a few days to adjust to all the cement and pollution in the city after being up in the wilderness for so long. This is like that.”

“It’s a
lot
different,” Vera says suddenly. “Because this isn’t like coming back from vacation. This is just going from one warzone to the next.”

I meet her cold, blue-eyed gaze.

“We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto,” I answer.

“If you only had a brain,” Sophia adds, and we both stifle laughter. Vera flushes bright red and curses us under her breath. Ticked? Maybe. But she had it coming.

And that’s all we say. I’m in no mood to get into a pointless argument with the ice queen today. Besides, we’re almost there. Even against the pale moonlit sky I can make out street signs still hanging from rusty streetlights. Just a few more minutes.

Our convoy rumbles ahead, never stopping. Never hesitating.

“We’re here,” I say.

“The linkup point?” Sophia asks.

“Yeah.” I stand up, walking to the rear of the truck. I step onto the back gate and stand
there, one arm on the truck wall to keep my balance. The outriders on motorcycles and quads buzz past us, checking point and flanks for danger. I know that Manny is somewhere high above us, watching for danger from his vantage point in the sky. “Standby,” I say, turning to Sophia.

The truck is slowing down. Not too much. But enough. “Just stay put.”

A convoy of National Guard vehicles and troops are waiting at the far edge of a former Wal-Mart. The parking lot is a sea of dead vehicles. Weeds are growing through cracks in the pavement and sidewalk. Our outriders on the small vehicles roar back and forth in front of us, giving us the all-clear to move ahead. From here I can see the lead Humvee that holds Chris and Angela blazing the path for the rest of our
vehicles. Our convoy heads straight towards the National Guard forces behind the building.

I keep a firm grip on the truck’s handholds, praying under my breath that we’ll make it to the base in one piece. We’ve been safe so far…but that doesn’t mean something couldn’t go wrong from here to there. I hold my standing position, unable to force myself to sit on the bench and stare at the wall until we get there. I need to know where we are.

After a steady ten minutes of following the National Guard forces, we pull away from the city a bit, staging on the outskirts of town. There are empty fields here, clustered with half-built construction sites and scattered debris.

Up ahead, a chain-link fence stands around a burned out building marked
Poison Control Center
. The back of the edifice has been
blown up. Black smudge lines the cement. There’s not a lot of glass left in the structure.

The convoy slows to a crawl while a heavy steel gate swings open. We follow the lead vehicles to the rear of the building. The road slopes, dipping into an underground parking garage. The door rolls up just enough to fit the vehicles under the ceiling. The sound of the engines echoing off the walls is deafening.

And then, without warning, there’s a blast from a siren – three times. The convoy halts. I help the guards unlatch the truck’s tailgate. Militiamen and women leave the transport quickly, eager to stretch their legs.

Vera gets up, wordlessly hands me my backpack, and leaves the truck. I swing it over my shoulder, wondering why she bothered to hand me
anything
, and wait for Sophia. We stick
close to each other, and I’m vaguely reminded of being rounded up out of a semi-truck not so long ago when I was imprisoned in a labor camp with Sophia...I look at her and she gives me a halfhearted smile.

“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing,” she says.

“We’ve been through this before.”

“Mmm hmm.”

“At least we’re not enslaved this time.”

“Never again.”

We’re here by choice. When I step off the truck, my boots hit blackened cement. The ceiling is high above us. About two stories high, actually. Pipes and support beams wind their way across the ceiling. We’re inside what looks like a giant garage, lit by white lights powered by generators. Our men are leaving the vehicles,
looking around the place with dazed expressions on their faces.

What is this place?

It’s been a long time since some of these people have been inside a building. Many of them have been living in the mountains since the day the EMP hit. Confined spaces can be pretty shocking after that kind of lifestyle. It’s an adjustment for
me
. It smells so…
urban
. Diesel fumes, gasoline and hot metal.

Large white lettering is painted across the far wall.

SECTOR 20

I meet Chris’s gaze from across the room, a silent agreement echoing between us: This is going to be a lot different than fighting in the mountains.

You know that feeling you get when walk into a room full of strangers and nobody looks up to say hello to you? That’s how I feel when I walk into the barracks for the first time. Women are everywhere – all ages, but mostly between fifteen and thirty years old. It’s an interesting scene. I feel no fear, no nervousness. I’ve been through too much for that. I simply
am
. We are all here for one reason, for one purpose. And that unifies us.

Women from other militia groups that were staying at Camp Freedom are among the new arrivals here. Vera is bunking three beds over. She avoids my gaze, and I remember that she handed me my backpack on the truck. A simple gesture. A kind gesture, even. Coming from her, I have no idea what the motivation was behind it. She notices me watching her and looks
up. She opens her mouth as if to say something right as Sophia decides to intervene. “I’ll take the top bunk,” she announces. “That way we can be next to each other.”

“Sounds good,” I agree.

Vera clenches her jaw. Whatever she was going to say remains unsaid.

Sophia assembles her gear on her bunk.

“There’s no ladder,” she says. “This is criminal.”

“It’s not so bad.”

“I guess. As long as you don’t mind me bouncing off the bottom mattress when it’s time to get up in the morning.”

We both laugh. After we settle in we check out the bathrooms, which are no more than a huge hall of showers separated by thin plastic curtains. There’s a dressing room, a row
of sinks and a long line of mirrors. I leave, not wanting to glimpse my reflection. I’ve had enough stress today without having to look at my face, too.

“This is a little more crowded than the barracks at Camp Freedom,” Sophia says. “I’m used to sleeping in a room with just our militia.”

“If we could sleep in Kamaneva’s labor camp, we can sleep anywhere,” I reply. “We could sleep on the concrete floor with the rats.”

“And then there were the ones that didn’t sleep at all.”

And the ones that didn’t wake up in the morning.

We both pause, chilled by the memory of our imprisonment. I physically shake myself and lean against the bunk. “So,” I say. “Let’s go find
out what the next step is. I’m not going to sit around and wait for Rivera to give me an order.”

“Okay,” Sophia shrugs. “But Rivera’s not in charge of what we do, is he? We get to use their weapons and equipment, but we answer to our militia leaders.”

“But
which
militia leaders? There are a lot of different groups here.” I look around the room. The ages, sizes and ethnicity of the women here are very diverse. I wish I knew what everyone’s story was. How did they get here? What happened to them after the EMP? Why are they fighting in the militia?

Their story is a lot like yours,
a little voice says.
That’s what unites all of you.

“The commanders have called a meeting.” Vera brushes past us. “Your presence is
requested
.”

I fight the urge to make a smart comeback.

Sophia and I head out of the barracks, down a long concrete corridor that descends further beneath the ground. It smells musty, but the temperature is nice and cool. Two gigantic steel doors are at the end of the hall, guarded by soldiers. Sophia and I follow Vera through the doors, entering a vast concrete chamber. There’s a long table, sturdy chairs and maps on the walls. It looks like a top secret briefing room from a spy movie. It’s unimaginably large. Vera, Sophia and I can only stare at everything, awed.

Colonel Rivera is sitting at the head of the table. Chris and Angela are there as well. Derek, Max and Alexander have showered and dressed in new National Guard uniforms. Chris is wearing
combat pants and a brand new jacket, his beard freshly trimmed. He looks
clean
. He looks
great
.

Me? Not so much. I need new clothes and a shower, too.

“Have a seat, ladies,” Colonel Rivera says.

If he notices that I’ve brought Sophia with me to a bigwig meeting, he doesn’t show it. Chris doesn’t question her presence, either. We’re all on the same side here.

“Here’s the situation, folks,” Colonel Rivera begins. An unlit cigar is clenched between his teeth as he talks. “You
Freedom Fighters
need to establish a solid chain of command, with one command officer to interface directly with me. How you structure that chain of command is up to you, but I recommend that you establish Officers and NCO ranks that parallel ours.”

“NCO?” Sophia mouths.

“Non-commissioned officers,” I whisper.

“I’ve got my own platoons outfitted and mission ready,” Rivera continues. “You need to move ahead and get yours squared away.” He grinds his cigar between his teeth, glowering at us. “Well? Which one of you fine guerilla warfighters is going to be the Militia Field Commander?”

The room remains silent. Then all heads turn towards Chris.

So we
are
picking a single commander today. Somebody needs to state the obvious. “Chris,” I say.

Angela fixes me with a cold stare, turning back to Rivera. “I agree,” she replies, a thin smile on her lips. “Chris has the practical experience and background for this task. He will be a fine field commander.”