Blue Plague: War (Blue Plague Book 6) (12 page)

Chuckling, Bruce answered, “Well, I can’t say I wouldn’t have earned it.” Angela kissed him and left the bathroom.

Stephanie turned around, wrapping her arms around Bruce. “I love you with all my heart, but I can’t disappoint Debbie. She gave me everything that I’m happy for. I hope you understand. Angela feels the same way,” she said, laying her head on his chest.

Bruce wrapped his arms around her. “I understand. Even now, she is trying to keep me happy even though y’all are driving me insane.”

“You insane?” Stephanie blurted out leaning back to look at him. “My hormones are so out of whack I cried for ten minutes because someone left the toilet seat up in the command vehicle today. I don’t know why, but I did,” she told him.

“I’m sorry, baby,” Bruce said laughing.

Stephanie pulled Bruce, leading him to the bed. Angela sat up. “Did she tell you she cried about the toilet seat today?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Bruce admitted.

“Stephanie, you don’t have to tell him everything,” Angela said.

Stephanie looked at Bruce. “Angela cried because PJ wouldn’t use his spoon.”

Angela’s bottom lip started quivering. “I just wanted him to use the spoon. It’s not that hard. He makes such a mess,” Angela whined with tears welling up in her eyes. Bruce pushed all the kids over and went over, picked up Angela, and laid down in the bed, pulling Stephanie to him.

Wrapping his arms around both of them, Stephanie started crying with Angela.
I’m going to go insane; there is no helping it
, Bruce thought. The two started squeezing him tight, making him smile.
Oh well. It’s not like I have anything better to do
.

Chapter 10

The next morning after breakfast, they dropped the kids off at school and headed to the command bunker to go over their areas before the meeting. When they walked in, they found everyone else doing the same thing. The tempo of the base was increasing the closer January got, and it was only two weeks away.

At 1000 hours, Jake stood. “Well, everyone, let me get started,” he said, walking over to the monitor. On the screen, a map of the United States came up. “Okay, these are the active government sites we know of so far,” he said, and several red marks came on the screen. “Pennsylvania, Maryland, Tennessee, Area 51, Alaska, and Washington all have active sites. None are in contact with the ruling government now. Area 51 and Pennsylvania were in contact but separated several months ago. Why? We don’t know.”

Adam raised his hand, and Jake nodded at him. “It may only be a rumor, but we were told Groom Lake or Area 51 was at odds with the President. Over what I don’t know. We were told they were overrun before I left Colorado. Pennsylvania is under a renegade general who thinks he is a god now.”

“That makes a lot of sense,” Matt said, working on his laptop.

“What about the other sites?” Bruce asked, looking at Jake.

“Don’t know. We are looking through their systems, but it’s a lot of information. Area 51 has some good people there, so we are being real careful. We let two NSA satellites come online, and all the sites went apeshit up linking to them. This let us in their systems, and we are now doing a complete takeover like the government site we own,” Jake said.

“What can they see with those satellites?” Bruce asked.

“They both are orbiting, but we have it fixed so they can’t see anything we don’t want them to see. They think the Navy slipped up and has control of them. They are all trying to take them over real quiet, but we own them. We just needed a faster way to take over their systems,” Jake replied.

“I like that,” Bruce said, nodding.

“Next, we are getting actual locations of gangs from the radios now. The green dots are reported gang locations,” Jake said, and suddenly, they sprung up all over the map.

“That is not good,” Mike said. “Map looks like a Christmas tree.”

“Remember, these are only reported gang locations. We are still checking them out. It could be a group that is just weird or someone pissed off at them,” Jake said.

“How many is that?” Willie asked.

“Three thousand four hundred and twenty-two,” Matt answered.

Giving a low whistle, Carl said, “Damn, that’s almost a half a million bad guys with just a hundred each.”

“That’s why we are starting to check them out, starting close and moving out. It really isn’t much of a surprise that none are near us thanks to the radio broadcast. The closest is a hundred miles north of Memphis. This is a gang confirmed yesterday,” Jake said, and a few of the green dots changed to orange, and one turned white.

“The ones that are now orange are confirmed gangs. This group in Florida, represented by the white dot, is not a gang. They are one of the weird ones. No one is being held against their will, but everyone is smoking some serious dope. We have video of a group passing around a three-foot joint. They are on a shit load of boats and stay in this bay and have a field of several hundred acres of pot growing. They are just a bunch of real happy people,” Jake said.

“How do you know then if they are not a gang?” Bill asked.

“Two days ago, they all moved out into the Gulf and moved to a beach and had a pretty wild party. The beach was on a barrier island, so they looked comfortable. There was no rape unless you count the three women who started stripping one of the guys down, but he didn’t look like he minded. There are kids there, but the party didn’t start getting really wild until they went to bed late at night. They fish and hit greenhouses and orchards to survive,” Jake answered.

“Damn, a rolling endless summer,” Bruce said, grinning. “How many are there?”

“Hard to tell, but all the boats are cabin boats, and some are huge, closer to yachts. I’m guessing close to two thousand,” Jake said.

“Well, they will run out of fuel before long,” Mike said, feeling sorry for them.

“I don’t think so, Dad. We saw them move up to Mobile and take on some crude oil. I think they are refining it.”

“Cool,” Bruce said. “How did they get reported as a gang?”

“They use drugs,” Jake answered and Bruce shrugged not caring about that. “We are going to check each site out, but as you can see, it’s going to take some time. Now, the Navy has done two scouting missions this year: one on the east coast, the other on the west coast. We know they came ashore each time, but we don’t know why or for how long. On the east coast, they landed south of Charleston, and on the west coast, north of Portland. The group on the west coast did pick up some survivors in Alaska. Over two hundred.”

“How do you know this if you didn’t see them?” Nancy asked.

“We finally finished hacking into their systems a month ago. We had their nuclear ability taken away a long time ago; then, we were able to get into their satellites then in the subs, erasing the computer guidance for the missiles. We are still going through the database, but the trips here undoubtedly were top secret and not just lying around. From the time they left Australia, it couldn’t have been too long, like only a few days at the sites, but there is not much at those sites.”

“Can they shoot a nuke at us?” Ted asked.

Jake thought about it and shrugged. “I guess they can, but it wouldn’t work. We had the codes long ago and used those to shut down the systems. Then, we burned out the firing boards for nuclear detonation. The sub on the west coast that tried to launch a missile shot it out, and it fell right back in the water.”

“So they can’t plant mushrooms around us?” Ted asked.

“Well, if they took one of the warheads out and rewired it then flew a plane over and dropped it on us, they could,” Jake said.

“They could also fix the missile to follow gyro stabilization,” Matt added.

“You know, boys, sometimes, you really piss me off,” Ted said.

Stephanie looked at Ted. “Ted, what they are trying to tell you is the Navy would have to go old school to do it or basically rebuild the missile.”

“Oh, okay,” Ted replied, liking that answer.

Looking at the map, Bruce asked, “So they were going to nuke a mega horde?”

“Yes, in Oregon,” Jake said.

“What did they think when it didn’t work?” Mike asked.

“They knew the warheads had been erased, and the government did it. A memo was put out not to use them anymore in case they detonate at launch,” Matt said.

“You can do that?” Bruce asked.

“Oh yeah, that is one of the safety procedures you can enact,” Jake said.

“Can’t they just reboot them?” Willie asked.

“Yes, but that can also activate one of the detonation protocols,” Jake said.

“Glad I never had to be around those damn things then,” Willie said.

Jake looked at everyone then hit the switch, and the screen showed the now familiar group in Colorado. “Our friends are fully loaded,” Jake said as Matt started pulling up photos inside the compound. “They are going over the attack every day, and the morale is improving but not much,” Jake said, then a picture of a man came on the screen. “This is Lt. Colonel Fredrick. He is the one that is going to defect to us. The troops love him, and he seems to be a rather nice guy.”

“Hold on. How do you know that is the one who is going to defect? Gene would never put that in a computer no matter how well it’s controlled, and he has not even told me,” Bruce blurted out.

“Well, Dad, Gene doesn’t know how to hang up an iPhone, and we heard the conversation they had as they walked the perimeter. Fredrick wants to kill Givens, the President, and Homeland outright and just grab everyone and run down here. Gene talked him out of it but didn’t tell him the plan,” Jake replied.

“Have you told him you know yet?” Bruce asked.

“No,” Jake answered.

Bruce smiled. “Good. I want to,” he said, then his smile fell off. “Jake, the nerd patrol knows to keep their mouth shut, right?” he asked.

“Really, Dad?” Jake said. Bruce shrugged shyly. “Dad, they know what’s at stake, and to be honest, most were hackers before, and to do this as a job is a dream come true. I really think it would take a lot to make one talk.”

“That was a good briefing, son. Thank you. Anything else?” Bruce asked.

“No, we will update each day,” Jake said, heading back to his chair.

Shuffling some papers in front of him, Bruce looked up, “Willie, when are you heading out to warn those groups in the path?” he asked.

“When I leave this meeting,” he answered.

“You take care, and don’t cause any damage,” Mike said.

Laughing, Willie said, “Bruce is staying here.”

“How long until you’re back?” Mike asked.

“Tomorrow night at the latest.”

Bruce stood. “Good, I will have the battle plan ready then,” he said. “Alright, Paul, lay it on us,” Bruce said, heading for the coffeepot. The meeting continued for another hour, then everyone walked out with Willie and the rest of Omega telling them bye. Only Bruce’s crew was staying behind, and even though he wouldn’t admit it, Bruce was resentful seeing Omega leave him behind.

As they walked back to the house, Danny walked over to Bruce. “Not cool seeing your team leave without you, is it?” she asked.

Nodding with a regretful sigh, he said, “No, sweet pea, it isn’t.”

“Well, now you have a little bit of what we felt when you left us behind,” she snapped.

“Danny, you have to learn this. I’m sorry. I need others that can lead if something happens to me,” Bruce answered.

Danny froze. “Daddy, don’t ever say that again to me,” she whispered.

Bruce wrapped his arms around her. “Baby girl, it’s a possibility you have to accept. That is why you have to learn how to run the show along with the others. Part of me really wants you to stay here and be safe, but like commanding, you have to learn how to fight a war. I’m very proud of you, and thank you for teaching the rest of the family. The only way you learn to fight is to practice and get in the shit.”

“I can’t lose you, Daddy,” she said as she started crying.

“Hey, I have no plans on going, but this is a war, and you have to expect it. Think about me worrying about my kids out there fighting with me,” he said.

Danny looked up at him with tears running down her face. “Daddy, when you left with Buffy wanting to die, I knew what you wanted to do, and I thought I was going to die. Momma was right to make her go with you. I would’ve either let you leave or went with you. Either way, I would’ve joined you, Daddy,” she said.

Bruce’s blood froze hearing her say that. “Don’t worry, baby; that part is over, Daddy is back,” Bruce said, squeezing her tight.

“I can’t lose my mom and my dad in this crap,” she sobbed.

“You have the rest of the family, baby, and you, like your brothers, must stay strong to lead them.”

Angela and Stephanie had stopped with them and listened. They were now both crying as they wrapped their arms around both Bruce and Danny. “Will you two stop? My hormones are real bad today!” Stephanie bawled.

Danny looked up at Bruce. “Daddy, if my hormones are that bad, I’m only having one kid,” she said.

Throwing his head back, Bruce started laughing. “Your mom said the same thing when she was pregnant with Steve,” he said.

“I don’t think I could handle crying that much,” Danny said.

“You don’t know the half of it, Danny. I can smell stuff no human should have to smell,” Stephanie whined, putting her head on Danny’s shoulder. “I don’t know how dogs can handle smelling this much of the world. Then, my God, why do my boobs have to hurt when the wind blows on them? I have increased two bra sizes and looked deformed, and my bladder is getting smaller,” Stephanie wailed.

Danny let go of Bruce and hugged Angela and Stephanie but looked at him. “I mean it; if it affects me like this, you only get one grandchild from me.”

“Hey, don’t look at me. If I had to push a watermelon out of my body, I wouldn’t have any kids,” Bruce confessed.

Gasping in shock, Stephanie looked up at Bruce. “Watermelon out of my body!” she yelled.

Bruce looked at Stephanie then Danny and Angela. “Ah, yeah Little Red. The baby has to come out.”

“Nobody said anything about a watermelon,” she wailed, burying her face in Danny’s shoulder.

Angela looked at Bruce with tears still on her face. “Don’t say anything more, Bruce.”

“I thought she knew,” he said.

“It’s not the size of a watermelon,” Angela snapped, crying.

“You may only get grandkids from the boys, Dad,” Danny told him hugging the two.

Bruce and Danny led the two to the Center and sat them down to eat. Several looked up, seeing them crying, and Bruce and Danny just motioned for no questions. Millie ran out with their plates of food she cooked for them. Neither one wanted to eat, so the kids and Bruce fed them.

When they finished eating, Bruce convinced them to go and take a nap with the kids, which they agreed to. When they left the Center, Bruce just sat back in his chair in bewilderment. Carroll looked at Bruce and started cackling. “What’s so funny?” he asked.

“You’s sitting there looking like you seen a ghost. Bruce, they’s both with child, and they feed off each other. Don’t be comparing them to Debbie. A woman has moods when she be with child, but two together, it’s too many feelings close together. I had two sisters at home pregnant, and we all wanted to move until the childs was birthed.”

“Well, that explains a lot then,” Bruce said.

Buffy looked at Bruce. “How does that explain anything?” she snapped. “You become an adult and you go crazy. I think it sucks.”

“Buffy, it’s not that bad,” Bruce said.

“Oh yeah, because you can’t see how y’all act. I can, and I don’t want to be one,” she said, getting up.

Bruce stood and left with her, trying to put her mind at ease. The only thing he heard was it started at sixteen. Not sure what the hell Buffy was talking about, he just asked her to go and talk to her friend Julie. Hugging her before she left, he watched her run off. Looking up at the sky, he said, “God, I don’t know what you did to the other side of the human species, but sometimes, I think they are totally separate from men.”