Broken Worlds Super Boxset (82 page)

“
Ahhgg!
” Luis screamed.

He’d been hit in the shoulder and collapsed to the ground, dropping his gun and clutching the wound, which bled profusely. A member of his team tried running toward him but was immediately taken down by a bullet to the head, leaving Luis alone, wounded, and under fire.

“
Go!
” Luis said, gesturing for Alex to run.

Alex peeked around the corner and got a good look at both sentries before his cover was blown and he had to duck back behind the piping. Both sentries had abandoned any sense of making it out alive and had positioned themselves next to one of the explosive devices Alex recognized. All he needed to detonate the explosive was to create a powerful enough shock to set off the detonator. A bullet wouldn’t do it, but the gas pressure from the surrounding pipes might do the trick. He gripped his rifle firmly, took a deep breath, and sprinted from his cover to Luis’s aid.

Flashes from Alex’s rifle struck like lightning as he focused the concentration of every bullet he fired into the cluster of pipes around the explosive the sentries were blatantly standing next to. The sights of his rifle bounced around the target over fifty yards away as Alex tried to steady himself on his sprint over to Luis.

Just before he made it to Luis, with bullets whizzing past him and the burn in his muscles, along with the line of concentration in his mind, reaching a fever pitch, the rifle and his arm went rigid, lining perfectly with the pipe right next to the patch of gray explosive just above the heads of the Class 3s. It was only a single bullet, but it was perfectly projected, and when it impacted the pipe, an explosion of pressure ignited the C-4, and the explosion that followed wiped out both sentries, and a volatile mixture of steel, fire, gas, and fuel flew into the air as pipes and support beams collapsed, burying what was left of the sentries in a metal tomb.

Alex grabbed Luis and propped his left arm over his shoulder. “This place is rigged to blow. We need to get the hell out of here.”

Both men hobbled forward, with Alex supporting the bulk of Luis’s weight. Alex kept his eye out for any sentry who might have tried to follow him, but he knew most of them had already evacuated the area, waiting for the final call from the two sentries left behind, who were now buried under a mound of steel. Once the other Class 3s realized what happened, they’d detonate the rest of the charges and crumble the entire compound to nothing but bits of dust.

Whoever wasn’t dead, but wounded, was still where they’d left them by the conversion unit. There were over twenty men who were barely holding on to their lives. There was no way any of them would be able to make it out of here on foot, and reinforcements were still who knows how far away.

“Wait here with your men,” Alex said, easing Luis down for him to rest. Luis winced, still clutching his shoulder, which had yet to properly clot from the bullet wound.

“What are you doing?” Luis asked.

“The trucks are still parked on the perimeter wall.”

“You won’t have enough time. You’d have to drive all the way around to the front entrance to get inside.”

Alex grabbed a few of the spare claymores and firing wire the soldiers had brought with them. “I’ll make my own entrance.” Scraping the bottom of the well for whatever energy was left, Alex sprinted back through the container fields. He wasn’t sure how much time remained, but every second wasted was one more for the sentries to blow the refinery.

Without breaking stride, Alex catapulted himself over the wall and immediately collapsed to his knees on the other side, where he reached for the claymores. He plugged the wires into the fuse wells and planted the tiny, pronged feet into the dirt and nestled them right by the wall. He unrolled the wiring one hundred feet, covered his ears, and then hit the detonator switch.

Chunks of rock, concrete, and earth blasted into the air and rained down in hail-sized balls. The resulting gap was barely enough for the width of the truck, but Alex fired up the engine and barreled through. He kept the accelerator pressed to the floor and weaved around the different structures and piping, at times almost tipping the truck to its side from his speed and sharp turns.

Alex slammed on the brakes and the tires screeched to a stop right in front of the group of wounded soldiers. Those who had enough strength to at least carry themselves to the back of the transport immediately did so, while also trying to help their brothers-in-arms to safety.

“C’mon, c’mon, we gotta go!” Alex said, helping one of the soldiers into the back of the truck. Once everyone was loaded, Alex jumped behind the wheel, with Luis riding in the passenger seat next to him.

A cloud of black smoke ejected from the tailpipe as Alex turned around and headed back toward the wall. He wasn’t sure how far out the Class 3s placed the bombs, but he wanted to put as much distance between them and the explosions as he could.

The first explosive sounded from deep within the refinery, most likely centered in the distillation center, which triggered a chain reaction that pursued Alex with a fiery obsession that only took a few seconds to catch up with him, culminating in the tanks around him exploding.

Alex swerved the truck hard right, then left, then right, dodging the random detonations. He was driving through a minefield, and there was no way to know where the next blast would occur.

The gap in the wall was in sight, and the heat from the blasts around them cooked the inside of the vehicle. Alex sped between two containers that detonated simultaneously, sending vibrations through the truck and shattering the glass along with his eardrums. The containers cracked open, which exposed the fuel inside and ignited from the incendiary blast, triggering another massive explosion that caused the top canopy of the truck to catch fire.

“Hang on!” Alex said, gripping the steering wheel tightly as the gap in the wall grew closer, and seemingly smaller than it had before. Alex lined up the truck as best he could, and as the five-foot-wide truck passed through the five-and-a-half-foot-wide hole, Alex could hear the scrape of concrete against metal as the left side of the truck skidded across the wall’s jagged edge with barely enough space to make it through.

Alex slammed on the brakes and quickly got out to help the wounded soldiers out of the burning truck before it consumed them. The explosions from the refinery continued to spread, as secondary explosions, caused from exposed pipes, gasses, and fuel, sent the refinery up in flames and smoke.

That refinery was the source where millions of gallons of crude oil were converted into usable fuel every year. It had taken years to construct that facility, and in one fell swoop, Gordon had leveled it to the ground in less than sixty seconds. That’s all it took. The burning refinery in front of Alex told him one thing: Gordon knew he was going to lose, and he was going to bring down everything around him.

The room had been silent for almost an entire minute. The news of the events in Texas weren’t just devastating for the war, but also for the country. The images on the projector were those of ashes. With the inevitability of defeat approaching, Gordon had taken a scorched-earth policy, ordering his men to torch everything on their retreat back to Topeka. Gordon had now surrounded himself in a ring of fire, which was growing out of control.

“Fucking coward!” General Mears said, slamming his chubby fists into the table. The rest of the joint chiefs joined Mears in his frustration, and it wasn’t until Frizen spoke that the rest of the room finally calmed down.

“We’ve accomplished our objective,” Frizen said. “Gordon is completely cut off from the rest of the country. He has no supply routes coming into Topeka, and what’s left of his forces are there with him in the city. I need to know what our resources look like for the final push.”

General Mears did his best to compose himself, but the red in his cheeks had run so deep, it looked as though they would remain permanently stained that way. “The boots on the ground are tired but are still well stocked with supplies. Our biggest enemy besides Gordon right now is fatigue. But I’ll tell you this,” Mears said, pointing his finger at the burning images of towns, cities, and people, “there isn’t a soldier in the field right now who doesn’t see what Gordon’s doing. And there isn’t a soldier out there who isn’t foaming at the mouth to bring this bastard down.”

The rest of the joint chiefs nodded in agreement. Frizen had to brief the president in less than twenty minutes, and when he walked into the Oval Office to deliver the news of the loss of three refineries in Texas, as well as the devastation in Oklahoma City, Jackson, Mississippi, and countless others in the south, he wanted to make sure the president knew his military had a plan of action on how to end this reckless, trigger-happy tyrant’s tantrum.

“All I need to know from you, General, is that your men will be able to handle the situation,” Frizen said.

“Yes, sir. They will.”

“Very well. I’ll inform the president while we prepare for the invasion.”

Frizen tucked the stack of papers under his arm and headed out of the war room. The conflict was almost over, but they’d now reached the hardest push. There was a reason Frizen had wanted to cut off Gordon’s supply routes and choke him out: Topeka had tens of thousands of Coalition troops, and while Topeka didn’t have an extensive population that would create many civilian casualties, the men in those sentry uniforms were still citizens of this country. With the Coalition’s resources dwindling right in front of them, Frizen was hoping those individuals under Gordon would surrender. Many of his units gave up easily enough with every farm camp and community the soldiers invaded, but the closer they drew to Topeka, the more loyal Gordon’s men became.

It was there in Topeka where they were given the lavish comforts the rest of the country were denied. There were sentries and Coalition officials who lived better than the president, and without anyone knowing their names. But once the military road into Topeka had flipped the Soil Coalition over to expose its scaly underbelly, there wouldn’t be any other places for the creatures clinging to life underneath to hide. All they would be able to do is scurry off before the heel of a boot squashed the last bits of life out of them.

***

The tip of Gordon’s cigarette had worn down to the nub. His office had transformed itself into a smoky bar, complete with empty beer bottles and cans. A bottle of vodka lay on its side, slowly rolling back and forth in an ominous cadence on Gordon’s desk.

With the cigarette threatening to burn his skin, he finally snuffed it out in the massive pile of ashes that had gathered in the ashtray and left the nub to lie with its brothers in the growing graveyard Gordon had created.

Gordon watched the fading smoke waft into the air, clouding the room with a darkness and stench that soaked into the walls and floor and himself. Gordon placed his hands on the arms of his chair. Everything in the office was his, but for some reason it felt foreign, and anything that wasn’t familiar to him these days was burnt to the ground.

The smell of smoke and ash had spread beyond his office walls to the world outside. Every square mile his men gave up to the United States military was one more square mile of scorched earth he left its victors. If Gordon couldn’t control it, then he burned it.

There was a knock on the door, and Jake’s figure appeared through the cloudy haze. “I think Sydney’s stalling.”

Gordon reached for the open pack of cigarettes on his desk and pulled out the last one with the ends of his lips. “Of course he is. He knows once he’s done, I’m going to kill him.” He tilted his head to the side as his lighter torched the fag, and he took another long drag, letting the fire smolder in his throat and lungs. “But he also knows he’s the only one besides Todd Penn who can put that information together.”

“So you’re just going to let him play us like that?”

“What the fuck did you say to me?”

Gordon pushed himself off his ass and walked around the desk to where Jake stood and blew a puff of smoke straight into his face. Jake didn’t flinch, and Gordon didn’t expect him to. There wasn’t any doubt that Jake could kill Gordon if he wanted to. Fighting had never been his strong suit. Words were his gift. That was why he’d always surrounded himself with men like Jake and Dean. They were the blunt instruments with which he wielded his authority, and in turn he kept the instruments well tuned and content. And for the same reason Gordon wouldn’t kill Sydney, Jake wouldn’t kill Gordon. Because Jake knew that when the United States military came knocking, Gordon would be his only way out.

“I just don’t think it’s a good idea to make him believe that,” Jake answered, attempting to alter his tone but with the inclination of not trying very hard.

“That’s your job. Not mine.” Gordon returned to his seat and propped his feet up on his desk. Jake left to leave Gordon alone to continue his bonfire of carcinogens and shut the door behind him on his way out.

The laptop remained closed and at the corner of his desk, and Gordon had the sudden urge to fling it across the room. But he couldn’t. That computer was the one link to the outside world that offered him an escape route, and with Dean reporting to him that the military was beginning their final push toward Topeka, he just hoped that call would come sooner rather than later.

***

The smoke from the fires at the refinery had yet to slow its enthusiastic rise into the atmosphere, giving its very best to try to block out the sunlight above them. Nelson had estimated that nearly seventeen thousand barrels of oil would burn, raining a black ash over the surrounding area.

Alex stepped around the makeshift medical tents, attending to the wounded, and looked down at his arm, where the flakes of black had gathered. He smeared his fingers across the greasy specks, and they smudged into fat streaks against his skin. Alex grew more and more fixated on the streaks until he tripped over something that broke his concentration. When he looked down, he saw an exposed boot sticking out from under a tarp.

The ground that surrounded him was covered with at least twenty tarps of soldiers who had been killed and pulled from the wreckage of the refinery. Underneath each tarp was the face of a man who’d given his life for the cause of bringing the end of suffering to others. That was the underlying goal of the entire operation against the Coalition. The black ash covered the tarps in a speckled darkness, giving their forgone bodies the same level of bleakness as their eternal rest.

This is what Gordon wanted. There couldn’t have been any other reason for it but that. Whatever dark, twisted disease had consumed him wanted to spread, and the pandemic had begun.

“You’re making this harder on me.”

Alex turned to see Luis with his shirt off and a patch over his shoulder. As Alex took in the size of Luis, he was thankful the beating didn’t continue when they first met. What Luis lacked in height, he made up for in width.

“How’s the shoulder?” Alex asked.

“I’ll live. You helped save over thirty men today.”

“It should have been more.” Alex looked back down at the number of tarps over the bodies.

“I did that to them,” Luis said, lost in a trance, staring down at his fallen comrades. “I led, and they followed.”

“You did what you had to,” Alex replied.

“No. I rushed it.”

“They were going to blow that refinery no matter how many soldiers showed up, and no matter how long they held it. It was always going to come down.” Alex walked over and placed his hand on Luis’s good shoulder. His fingers slipped from the slick oil specks that rained over them.

It was appropriate, the shadowy haze they were all being blanketed with. It was a slow process, letting the darkness take you. It was barely noticeable it at first, just a few flecks here and there. It’s a light drizzle that you don’t think will amount to much, but after a while, it grows.

That’s what Gordon had done to the country. It had been nothing but a light drizzle of deceit for the past three years, but in that time, the face of the nation had changed. Piling up, day after day, week after week, month after month, was the steady rise of filth that came in the form of the communities where citizens were forced to labor at the cost of their freedom. It sprouted in farm camps where those who were deemed troublesome or guilty were sentenced to work off their indiscretions in the harshest conditions at the cost of their dignity. And it had caused more bodies to be buried and burned than lives it saved.

“I’m going to kill him,” Alex said, looking down at the thickening blackness on the tarps below them. Before Luis could say anything, Nelson came running up to the two of them, attempting to balance the laptop in one hand and smearing the black muck collecting on his glasses.

“Guys, I think I found them.”

Luis immediately snapped out of his stupor and snatched the laptop out of Nelson’s hands. “Where is she?”

Nelson tugged at the laptop and pried it from Luis’s grip. “They didn’t register them under any names, but I managed to trace two deliveries to farm camps in Topeka.”

“Are you sure it’s them?” Luis asked.

“I can’t be one hundred percent, but the timestamps are around the same times Emma and Todd would have arrived. And seeing that these two were the only pieces of data entered that didn’t have a name associated for that date, I’d say it’s safe to say it’s them.”

“How close are they to the capital?” Alex asked.

“Well, that’s where it gets tricky. They’re not in the same farm camp.”

“What?” Luis asked.

“Emma is stationed on the outskirts of the city, but Todd is stationed almost directly in the downtown district.”

Luis immediately left and headed for one of the trucks. Alex chased after him, but when he placed his hand on Luis’s shoulder, he jerked it away. “Luis, wait.” Alex jumped in front of him and forced him to a stop. “Listen. You’ve just been shot, and we’re in Texas.”

“Then I better leave now.” Luis smacked his non-wounded shoulder into Alex, knocking him out of the way, and when Alex grabbed Luis’s shoulder again, he twisted Alex’s hand off, almost breaking his arm in the process. “I have to get her back!”

“And how do you expect to do that? By yourself?” Alex asked, rubbing his hand, which felt like it had been broken in half. “There’s a reason the military saved Topeka for last. It’s a fortress.” Alex watched the realization wash over Luis as the sprinkle of black ash continued to cover them in a fine layer of charcoal. “Todd and Emma are there because of me. We’ll get them out together.”