Daybreak Zero (41 page)

THAT EVENING. PUEBLO, COLORADO. 7:30 PM MST. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2025.

Allie had always wondered how she’d handle a serious defeat, because she’d never had one.
Uncle Sam used to say I was his trifecta niece because even if I didn’t win, I always finished in the money. Wonder what he’d say now?

Sam and a big part of the family had chartered a wooden sailboat just after Daybreak and set off to the south, heading for “somewhere warm where the food won’t run out.” They had not been heard from since. Perhaps they’d been caught by the fringes of the big storm (but they should have been well south by then); perhaps they’d had a fire at sea from the EMP of the superbomb (but they should have found landfall by then); maybe they’d run into those first-wave pirates, the ones out of Florida and Bermuda, who had badly disrupted the southward exodus? (But they’d been well-enough armed and they should have been a match for anything roaming around.) In any case, she hadn’t heard from them since waving good-bye from the dock, and since her name was on the radio and in the
Post-Times
often enough, they should have been able to find her. Maybe they didn’t want to.
You are a big success girl but you are not a wise girl or a patient girl and people do not like you,
Papa had said.

Her thoughts went round and round; if she just had a friend to talk to, a friend who would have her back no matter what.

Sitting on the bed and looking out the window, she was amazed at how dark it was outside. She’d eaten nothing since breakfast, had moved only from armchair to bed to desk within her small room since she’d stormed out on Graham.
That dick less sycophant McIntyre stayed. Why didn’t I—

There was a soft knock at the door. “Come in,” she said, expecting Graham Weisbrod, expecting a fight—

Not expecting that pudgy, balding little man who had taken over Arnie Yang’s job. His name was—some piece of obscure oldies trivia, they used to play trivia in the bars in college—“Mister Hendrix,” she said.

“Yes. May I come in and close the door? This room is secure, and there’s something vital we need to discuss.”

“Oh, sure,” she said. “Sit down. I’m amazed that anyone discusses anything with me.”

“Don’t be.” He turned up the oil lamp on the side table. The orange light bathed both their faces and etched the shadows into high contrast. “You’re still one of the most powerful and important people on the continent. We would have to talk to you even if Heather didn’t like you and worry about you.”

“You’re blunt. Is that why Heather sent you instead of coming herself?”

“She said it would get too personal if she did.”

“Close enough. All right, obviously you have a message to deliver and you’re supposed to take back an answer. I’d better hear the message.”

Hendrix nodded, and said, “We found a note from you in Arnie Yang’s pocket. It was, um, intimate, though not explicit. Now, we have no great concern with whether it was a love affair or just the two of you sharing loneliness, but there seemed to be a strong Daybreaker element in the note—”

“Why do you think it was from me? I don’t remember ever writing him a note—”

“Your personal stationery and handwriting—”

“Do you have it with you?”

“I do. We have a copy, by the way—”

“I’m not going to destroy evidence in front of you. Give me some credit.” She held out her hand, looked at the note, and felt as if she’d been kicked in the belly.
Darcage. During one of those blackouts he induces, he must have told me to write this.

Allie had read the RRC’s top-secret, unredacted report on Arnie. She knew Hendrix would believe her if she—

The whole universe rolled down a stony slope, bouncing and spinning from stone to stone, and she fell onto her side on the bed. Hendrix was bellowing for a doctor, and then she felt strong hands pushing her out of the fetal position, soothing her, a warm voice. “Mom?”

“Wish I was, I could help you better.”

Allie looked up; it was Heather’s doctor, maybe the RRC’s doctor or Pueblo’s, they were pretty scarce and the world was pretty small. She was sitting next to Allie on the bed, smoothing her hair and face; it felt good. “Was that a Daybreaker seizure?”

“If it wasn’t, you’re a hell of an actor. You’ll want to sleep for a while, maybe, unless there’s something you want to say while you can.”

“Doctor—”

“Abrams. You can call me MaryBeth as long as you remember I’m the doctor, not your mom.”

“No problem remembering that, Doctor, I
need
a doctor. Can I sit up and have some water?”

Hendrix fetched her a glass. After drinking it all, Allie took a deep breath, and another. “Do I remember right, if I don’t sleep, I get about an hour where it’s easier to talk about Daybreak without having a seizure?”

“It seems to work that way,” MaryBeth said. “We don’t know why. But it might still hit you again. It’s not a guaranteed immunity.”

“All right,” Allie said. “Let’s try. I want to finish this. Got a pencil, Mister Hendrix?”

“Ready when you are.”

“My contact calls himself Mister—Mister—Mister Darcage, I have to not say Mister, say Darcage, just this skinny good-looking guy in dreads, and . . .”

She blurted the whole story into Hendrix’s notepad, weeping and sometimes feeling another seizure creeping toward her.
So now I know what Ysabel Roth went through. And why.
“Can I have something to eat? Uh, maybe a lot?”

As she finished eating, Heather turned up with a hug, and said she didn’t want to lose Allie, too. It was a while before Graham came in; her husband had insisted on being alone with her, and she hadn’t let the rest of them go until they promised to do things the way she wanted to.

When she was finally alone with him, Graham just held her; she felt like he might do this forever, and that would be okay with her. “I was so worried,” he whispered.

My husband loves me, my friends love me, thousands of good people depend on me, and I am going to hurt Daybreak so—

Not again.

The seizure was fully as bad as the first. As she came out of it, Graham and Dr. Abrams and Heather all looked worried sick, but Allie said, “Let me just sleep and heal,” enjoying the post-seizure luxury of thinking,
Daybreak, you have no idea what a big fight you picked
, and of looking up at people she could trust, till she drifted off.

2 DAYS LATER. REPTON, ALABAMA. MONDAY, OCTOBER 20. ABOUT 1 PM CST.

Before Daybreak, Repton, Alabama, had been a cluster of houses in the woods where a few hundred working people could afford land to build on. Since then the town had prospered due to the accidents of a hobby printer, who had established a small local paper; three fast-thinking local farmers, who had used refugee labor to put in vine cuttings of sweet potatoes over as much land as they could reach; and an alert local militia commander, who had been able to control and channel the refugee stream on US 84. Now it was almost three thousand people, mostly still in tent-roofed cabins, but eating, building, and gradually becoming a community.

On Monday afternoon, the old church bell rang, the signal for news to be announced at the old gas station that served as a makeshift newspaper office. The
Repton Vindicator
’s editor stood up on a crate to read the announcement that the government in Athens and the one in Olympia had both declared that whatever was elected in 2026 would be the real government, and enjoining everyone to accept it. She had wondered how people would react to it; the wild cheering answered that, and supplied her with a local angle for her Wednesday headline—

CITIZENS GREET “SATURDAY SUMMIT” ACCORD WITH JOY!

She used her ham set to relay the story to the
Athens Weekly Insight
. An hour later they called back to tell her that the story would be used and that she would be mailed fifty dollars of TNG scrip.
At least I can use that to pay taxes. If they ever get their act together enough to collect them, out here.

THE NEXT DAY. ON THE TRAIN TO ATHENS. 10:30 AM CST. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2025.

Across the hill and prairie country of eastern Nebraska, the train sometimes sped up to fifty miles an hour, when the tracks were clear and in good shape, but it spent much of its time standing still since coal and water were still mostly loaded in by awkward jury-rigs.
In 1880, anybody with money and reason could cross the country in about a week,
Cam thought.
I guess we’re at about 1870, when in a really urgent case we could get a train across the country, now and then, as a stunt.
In the still, frosty hour after dawn, plumes of smoke rose everywhere, from thousands of stoves and fireplaces. With the big machines and the banks gone, refugees coached by Amish extension agents were reopening small farms.

Grayson’s drive up the Yough Valley was about our finest hour,
Cam thought.
I won’t even complain if it makes the son-of-a-bitch president. I’ve worked for worse presidents.

A thin blanket of snow covered the land in front of him; good for the winter wheat, and thank all the gods that WTRC and the
Post-Times
had screamed since May that winter would start early, go deep, and leave late, so that the winter wheat was already planted. This next year would still be tight, but by next fall they should be past the risk of famine.
Jeez, a year ago the Ag Department guy had to explain winter wheat to me; I just knew I liked Wheat Thins with smoked gouda while I watched the Series.

At the knock on the compartment door, Cameron rose from his desk to shake Whilmire’s hand and join him at the table. A staffer carrying breakfast had followed the reverend in. While the two men ate silently, the sun pierced the overcast, sharpening the colors of the rolling brown land with its smears of snow and a few leaves still clinging to the trees.

“It might have looked this way a hundred fifty years ago,” Whilmire said, “with a big slow steam train crossing it. And on Sunday you hear church bells everywhere; we’ve got missions all over. Daybreak was hard, and we’ll miss all the good people that left in the Rapture, but it’s good to see a cleaner, more traditional world coming back.”

“With, I hope, a traditional United States re-established next year,” Cam said. “You said you wanted to talk about that at breakfast.”

“Last night I received a long message from Reverend Peet. We know you won’t come along with us on Biblical prophecy, of course, and you know, to the Church, that is very nearly as serious as that old Jewish professor not thinking we were in a war. So, frankly, Cameron, much as I like you personally, you and your administration will have to go in 2026. As far as we can tell you’re backing General Grayson, is that correct?”

“Just now he’s the most credible conservative candidate—”

“And my most credible son-in-law. I don’t know if he’s told you the offer we made him: we’ll back him if he promises you won’t be any part of his government.”

Poor Grayson. He was so embarrassed when he made himself sit down and tell me.
“I was going to retire and start a second career anyway. I already have applications in to either pitch for the Angels or fly for NASA.”

“That’s funny.” Whilmire’s voice and expression were flat. “We need a government to fit our Bible-based culture, a strong military ready for Armageddon—which will be very soon—and because one big part of the country will be ex-Provi, we have to have someone who’s not afraid to say what Weisbrod really is.”

“Oh, is it official that Graham Weisbrod is the Antichrist?”

Whilmire shook his head. “Absolutely not. The preachers who have been pushing that are Bible-ignorant and don’t know crap about prophecy. Weisbrod doesn’t meet most of the criteria in Revelations. I meant we need to call him out as a secular humanist, socialist, anti-Christian—”

“He’s Jewish, for God’s—”

“Exactly. And he has an outspoken atheist in his cabinet. And General McIntyre.”

“Norman McIntyre is the highest-ranking surviving American officer and a decorated combat vet, and—”

“And he should never have been allowed to be either. The only reason he was allowed to defile an American uniform is that Obama allowed perverts—”

“Defile? So now the uniform is like the cross or the flag?” Cam’s tone apparently froze Whilmire. “This doesn’t sound conciliatory; it’s more like your manifesto before another armed uprising.”

“Armed uprising? Those were merely vigorous demonstrations. When there’s an armed uprising, you’ll know the difference.” Whilmire let that hang in the air before ostentatiously switching to a smooth, flattering tone. “You know why you can never be a real ally to us. But it doesn’t matter what you call the people’s protests, really it doesn’t, because Reverend Peet prayed on it, and we’re committed to a peaceful election—which we will win, no matter what it takes. Reverend Peet believes a peaceful, uncorrupt, trouble-free election is the only way to guarantee the special position for the Post Raptural Church. We have to have a legitimate Constitutional government in place to amend the Constitution.”

“So, you’ll back Grayson because you think he’ll play ball with you,” Cameron said. “I’ll back him because he’s conservative and after working with him I know he’ll do a decent job, maybe out of pure ambition, but he won’t let himself be a bad president. But what really matters is what the people think, and to give them their chance to think, and make this a real election with real debate, next week I’m going to void all orders against blasphemy, obscenity, sedition, and disrespect for the armed forces and the flag.”

“We want you to go ahead with that.” Whilmire leaned forward, his red scalp showing through his iron-gray curly hair. His finger stabbed at Cam like a feinting copperhead. “Of course we’ll protest, we can’t be seen endorsing it, but it’s what we want. Let Weisbrod run against God, and the flag, and the Bible, and the Army—and remind people about how things were before Daybreak and the Rapture. It will pull them together for the Tribulation, and clobber Weisbrod at the polls.” He grinned at Cam’s discomfiture. “Besides, Weisbrod has already given us the presidency, and you’ve ratified it. Before Daybreak, the United States had about twenty-five conservative states, about fifteen liberal states, and about ten toss-ups. Now out of thirty-two states that are still calling in, twenty-three are conservative. And Graham Weisbrod has combined three liberal states into the New State of Superior, and three toss-up states into the New State of Wabash.” He leaned forward, his face almost in Cam’s, relishing the moment. “So here’s the précis: You, out. Grayson, in. Reunification, on. New States, definitely. Your opinions, irrelevant.”

After the door closed behind Whilmire, Cam reached into his bag and dug out the paperback Thucydides that he’d started reading at Lyndon Phat’s suggestion, but he found he had no better ideas than Pericles had. After a while a soldier came in to tell him that they had received a report of tribal activity in the area, so they were shuttering the windows and manning the turrets.