Ten minutes later Hale and his companions had their snowshoes on and were slip-sliding cross-country in a desperate attempt to reach the landing zone in time. The detour to the Potter homestead had consumed valuable time, and now they were paying for it.
The warmer temperature was causing the snow to melt, but it was still too deep to abandon the snowshoes. Despite the hard going, Hale was suddenly grateful for the snow, when they paused on a rise to look back. Three Hybrids, summoned from Lord knows where, could be seen half a mile back, but lacking showshoes, the stinks were struggling.
One of the ?brids paused to fire an ineffectual shot from his assault rifle, causing Hale to yearn for the missing Fareye. All three of the Chimera would have been easy meat for it. “Come on,” he said grimly. “We’ll out-walk the bastards.”
But as the next couple of hours came off the clock, the youngsters began to slow, and the Hybrids were catching up. That meant it was no longer a choice of whether to fight, but of
It was no good. That section of the gently rolling prairie was almost featureless. Or so it seemed until Hale spotted a dark smudge in the distance.
“We’re going to ambush the stinks,” Hale announced confidently. “Come on, Mark… Let’s help Tina. We need to hurry.”
The lead Hybrid paused at the top of a slight rise, saw the snow-frosted corpse laid out on the ground ahead, and wondered who or what had been able to bring the big form down. But it was a passing thought, because like all ?brids the Chimera lived in the eternal now, it being left to higher forms to contemplate the past and plan for the future. His task was to catch up with the humans, kill them, and eat his fill.
The tracks led past the Titan and over the next rise, indicating that the humans were still on the move, but they were slowing. It wouldn’t be long before he and his fellows would be able to savor the coppery taste of human blood. So he waved the others forward, and led them past the horribly ravaged corpse, confident that the chase was about to end.
“Now!” Hale yelled. He and Mark burst from within the hollowed-out corpse already firing, Hale with the Rossmore and Mark with the Reaper. The stinks never had a chance.
Tina had gone ahead, thereby creating a fresh set of tracks that led over the next rise, where she had strict orders to stay out of sight.
The stinks tried to turn, tried to defend themselves, but a hail of close-range projectiles tore them apart. Blood sprayed the snow beyond the Hybrids as they jerked this way and that before collapsing in heaps.
Hale started to reload, discovered that he was out of shotgun ammo, and scrambled up and out of the Titan’s abdomen. A Bullseye lay next to its previous owner.
“Come on,” he said cheerfully as he bent to retrieve the weapon. “We’re almost there.” They moved to rejoin Tina.
And forty-five minutes later they
“Congratulations,” he said as the hatch began to close. “And welcome to what’s left of the United States of America.”
Having convinced Purvis to drop the three of them outside Valentine, Nebraska, Hale was determined to make sure that Mark and Tina would have a place to stay before returning to the SRPA base. The so-called Protection Camps were somewhat controversial because, even though hundreds of thousands of people had decided to enter them, an equal number of people had refused on philosophical grounds, or because they didn’t want to subject themselves to the strict, almost military-like discipline required of the internees.
Like all members of the military, Hale was used to strict discipline, and thought of the Freedom First people as whiners. Still, as the delivery truck paused a quarter-mile short of the main gate to let them jump down, he had to admit that the razor wire fences, and the evenly spaced watchtowers, looked a lot like the prisons he’d seen.
Nevertheless there was a long line of people waiting to get in, some pushing wheelbarrows stacked high with belongings, while others wore packs or carried suitcases. Unfortunately many of those in line had nothing more than the clothes on their backs. Babies cried, dogs barked, and old folks looked grim as they waited for the queue to jerk forward.
Eventually, after an hour or so, Hale and his companions drew even with a uniformed guard who confiscated the children’s weapons, and would have taken Hale’s as well, if the Sentinel hadn’t opened his parka to reveal his uniform.
Mark hated to part company with the Reaper but there was nothing he could do about it.
There was a good deal of wailing at the next checkpoint, where people were forced to surrender their pets, all of which were taken away to be euthanized.
Finally, having been allowed to enter the camp’s processing center, Hale, Mark, and Tina were shunted into another line intended for orphans. And there were hundreds of them, most of whom were unaccompanied, and trying to help one another as best they could.
The sight of it brought a lump to the back of Hale’s throat as a matronly-looking woman welcomed Mark and Tina to the facility, gave them prepacked bags filled with toiletries, and took down their information. She smiled brightly in spite of the fact that the people standing in front of her smelled to high heaven.
“Don’t worry, Lieutenant… they’ll be well cared for. They’ll have to be separated, of course, since we can’t have boys and girls living in the same dormitory, but I can assure you that they will receive three square meals a day, good medical care, and be back in school on Monday!”
Neither of the teens looked very happy, but there was nothing any of them could do, so Hale shook hands with Mark and gave Tina an awkward hug. His smile was forced.
“Take care of yourselves, you two…”
Mark gave a jerky nod, and Tina wiped a tear away. Then they watched Hale leave.
Once outside the processing center he saw a square that was obviously used for ceremonial purposes, and beyond that some of the hundreds of identical six-story wooden buildings, all thrown up over the last year or so. Everything was neat as a pin, but there was something depressing about the place, as Hale followed a neatly kept path toward the main gate. A guard nodded politely. “Good afternoon, Lieutenant… Have a nice day.”
It was too late for that, but as Hale exited the camp, the sun appeared. The warmth felt good on his face— and there was a hot shower to look forward to. And, all things considered, that was as much as Hale could reasonably hope for.
Now if only he could stay out of prison.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Things That Go Boom!
Near Valentine, Nebraska
Friday, November 23, 1951
“Report to my office at 0900 hours 11/23/51.” Signed, “Maj. Richard Blake.”
The message was waiting in Hale’s SRPAnet inbox when he returned to Base 027 and went online. The meeting could be about anything of course, but the brevity of it and Hale’s guilty conscience combined to make him uneasy.
Blake’s office was located on the admin deck a few doors down from the briefing room in which the officer
