World of Hurt Read online

  He smiled and leaned in close to me. “How’d you like my little movie?”

  I instantly put two and two together. The camera I’d seen him with and the footage uploaded to the internet. Dexter had done it! “Dude. That was you?”

  He placed a finger to his mouth and played it off. “You like?”

  “You could’ve got yourself killed shooting that.”

  “Nothing great ever came out of a comfort zone,” Dexter replied.

  “Yeah, well, it’s up on the ‘net, it’s everywhere.”

  “Thank me later. I made you famous, kid,” he said, laughing, entering an SUV as I followed Jezzy into another one.

  Once inside the SUV, we were seated next to two office workers who handed us what they called “After Action Briefs,” two stapled pages filled with bullet-points that described the events of the attack on The Hermitage (which was also available digitally on the intranet via our neural glasses).

  We were told that Vidmark and a number of military analysts had reviewed and critiqued the attack on The Hermitage and prepared the bullet-points in an effort to offer constructive criticism. I flipped through my brief as we were driven through the main gates of The Hermitage, headed out through what was left of Anacostia toward the D.C. Green Zone.

  * * *

  It was the first time in more weeks than I could remember that I’d been back “in the world,” outside either the prison or the fence that surrounded The Hermitage. My face was pressed to a window and I took in everything over the course of the twenty-minute trip to downtown Washington, D.C., which was not for the faint of heart. The sheer devastation in the suburbs was gut-wrenching and there were lingering signs of past mayhem everywhere: collapsed buildings, wrecked machines, roads and sidewalks warped and partially cratered, and what looked like the decaying remains of aliens, animals, and people.

  Not every country had suffered as much as ours had. I’d seen videos and heard reports about how the devastation varied slightly from country to country, continent to continent. Apparently, the scuds had a harder time pacifying places like England, and Russia, and China. Some people laughed and said that was because those countries had shitty weather, but I think maybe it was because a fat, happy America had gotten soft in the days before the aliens came. We were so used to sitting back and kicking people’s asses with the push of a button, that we couldn’t comprehend that somebody else might swoop down and do the same to us. I mean, a good portion of the population thought the alien invasion was staged, some kind of reality show, which tells you all you need to know. I remember watching the news and seeing tens of thousands of people crowding the streets, dressed in costumes and holding up wands and swords as if the whole thing was some gigantic Comic Con, seconds before the bombs started dropping.

  I shook of these thoughts and my eyes fixed on a raggedy band of survivors who staggered past outside, gimping down a dirt verge, bundled up in heavy coats, covering their mouths with pieces of fabric. Beyond them were more survivors, bivouacked out in the brush which had begun to take back civilization, the tarps and rags from their lean-tos and shanty-houses flapping in the wind. Still more of them, men, women, and children, foraged in what was left of Anacostia, stripping away the remains of the old world while the reconstituted military drove past or stopped, shouting through bull horns, doing their best to offer aid and assistance.

  The appearance of the soldiers was what struck me most. As had been the case with the soldiers guarding the wreckage of the downed glider back on campus, most of the troops outside seemed younger than me by several years, and a handful didn’t even look old enough to drive. They roamed about in small teams, drowning in their ill-fitting camouflage uniforms, clutching rifles that looked ludicrously large in their tiny hands. Most of them looked excited and terrified all at once.

  I knew at that moment that whatever had existed in the days before the aliens came, the old world I suppose you could say, was dead. That included most of the military, law enforcement, and the people that ran and tried to defend it. I’d encountered a few people during the occupation who said it was better that way. That the people in the days before were crooked and lazy and that the systems that were supposed to govern and repair everything were rigged and broken beyond compare. I don’t know about any of that, but I was surprised at how emotional I got, looking out the window, realizing that, for good or bad, things would never be the way they once were. Tears at the corners of my eyes, I turned away from the window and stared at my “After Action Brief.”

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, we crossed the Anacostia River, using what was left of the 11th Street Bridge, and began motoring past solar-powered digital billboards that said “See something? Say something.” Beneath the billboards were long rows of cement barricades manned by machine-gun wielding teenage boys and girls and green and white street signs on the edges of the road that reminded people about recent elections and newly-enacted anti-looting regulations.

  Jezzy tapped my arm and pointed and I looked across her, out through another window to see a stretch of twisted metal and strange, shimmering alloys, warped and fire-blackened that seemed to stretch for ten or more city blocks. The material lay in a pile that resembled a metal mountain and was fenced off and guarded by soldiers and cops, flanked by working dogs on steel leashes.

  “You know what that is, don’t you?” Jezzy whispered, raising her chin in the direction of the twisted mountain of metal.

  “Is that – is that where the alien fortress was?” I asked.

  She nodded. “That’s where the scuds were headquartered before Quinn and her Marines took it all down and forced them to surrender,” Jezzy replied. “That’s hallowed ground.”

  She was right. The entire area had been the site where the final, major battle of the occupation had been fought. A year or two before that final battle, the human resistance had tried to rise up. A terrible firefight called the “Solstice Uprising” occurred and the resistance was almost entirely crushed. It was only by some miracle that Quinn and the other Marines had managed to regroup and find a way to force the alien overlords to surrender. Once that was accomplished, the enemy fortress was blown out of the sky, though nobody had apparently thought far enough ahead about what to do with the wreckage once that was done.

  Because there was no footage of how the final battle went down, however, most of what we knew about it came from stories and rumors handed down by people who claimed to have witnessed the battle. Whatever had really happened, the people that took the aliens down, Quinn and her band of shit-kickers were definitely hardcore. I mean, less than twenty warriors taking down an alien fortress? Those mothers were certifiable badasses.

  Something caught my eye and I looked up to see the top of the wall, the structure that once surrounded downtown D.C., the Green Zone, visible up ahead. Once upon a time it had been a sight to behold, thirty-feet tall and made of fiber-cement reinforced with sheets of alien metal that were lightweight and non-combustible. But time, the elements, and a significant number of suicide bombings by the resistance had left the wall jagged and crumbling in places, though it still rose up into the sky over the city like the horns on some great beast.

  We drove through a hole that had been blasted through the wall and rumbled into downtown D.C. I’d been to the city a few times before, including during a field trip with my high school class, and I didn’t recognize it. Most of the white-marbled buildings and monuments I remembered were gone or defaced. There were reminders of the alien invasion and occupation everywhere, including structures still painted blood red (the alien’s favorite color), or emblazoned with the alien logo, a creepy image of what looked like a snake eating itself, tail-first (which purportedly represented oblivion, the present devouring the future).

  Our driver pointed out some things that still remained as we hooked a left on Fifth Street and drove past an old Metro (subway) stop and a series of buildings that once housed the city’s courts.

  The aliens had si
ngled out a number of groups after taking over the city, including politicians, scientists, and lawyers. Essentially, the folks they thought might be able to gin up opposition against them. These people were quickly put down or taken away (never to be seen again), though there were many who refused to shed any tears for the vanished lawyers. Buddha Blades had a different view and often remarked that you could tell how quickly a society is going downhill based upon how many lawyers there are. The logic being, in a stable society you solve disputes with a pen (and a lawyer) rather than a gun. Less lawyers meant more guns and more “extrajudicial justice,” which although potentially a super cool name for a rock band, wasn’t necessarily good if you’re trying to create a stable country. The fact that the judicial system was gone meant that it would probably be quite a while before we had a fully-functioning and stable society once more.

  We drove past what remained of the White House and headed up Wisconsin Avenue toward the National Cathedral, the city’s grandest church, which was where a portion of the newly reconstituted government was housed. We pulled onto a side street and exited the SUVs. I looked about and spotted teams of black-clad snipers manning the nearby roofs, holding long rifles and bulky rocket launchers.

  “Overwatch,” a voice said and I looked sideways to see Richter. He bobbed his head in the direction of the snipers. “The honchos are spooked.”

  “After what happened yesterday?”

  He nodded. “We weren’t the only ones that got hit.”

  I was surprised to hear this and wanted to ask about it, but the look on his face told me I should wait. Besides, I wanted to know why he’d come with us. Richter didn’t strike me as the pomp and circumstance kinda guy.

  “How come you decided to tag along?”

  “Maybe I just wanted to meet the POTUS,” Richter replied, using the acronym for the President of the United States.

  “Has to be more than that.”

  “Maybe there is.”

  “Care to share?”

  He shook his head. “All will be revealed, Danny.”

  I followed Richter’s line of sight up to Vidmark who was just ahead of us. He’d exited the lead SUV, looking sharp in his slate gray suit with a long, red tie, the kind of duds I imagined he used to wear all the time when he was running his companies. He pointed at the grounds and surrounding areas near the church which appeared to have escaped untouched during the invasion and occupation.

  “Brilliant idea, wasn’t it?” Vidmark said with a mischievous smile. “One of the few things the aliens ignored when they took over was religion. The scuds didn’t give a wink about the Almighty so they largely ignored the city’s houses of worship, which meant this was the perfect place to set up a resistance cell, and now a new government facility.”

  I walked alongside Jezzy and Dexter, the group moving across a lawn and a cement walkway, meandering under a clutch of trees that had lost nearly all of their rust-colored leaves. There was a chill in the air and the first official day of winter was only a day away. We moved beyond a low stone wall to the front of the cathedral. Off to the left, I caught sight of several young men and women, onlookers, who glanced up from their retro smartphones and wrist PDAs. The men and women looked back to their electronic gizmos and then pointed at us and laughed and waved. I had no idea why they were waving at us, but I waved back.

  “They probably watched the video online,” Jezzy said.

  “Told ya I made you famous,” Dexter whispered.

  We drew close to the front of the cathedral and Vidmark whistled and pointed to an area above the building’s impressive main doors.

  “You see that?” he asked, pointing to the architectural detail over the doors. “That’s called a ‘tympanum,’ a vertical, recessed space that forms the center of the pediment.”

  All of us nodded even though few of us knew what this meant. All I knew was that there was a very cool (and somewhat spooky) piece of art, a sculpture of some kind, above the doors. What looked like shadowy men and women emerging out of the shadows.

  “That’s called ‘Ex Nihilo,’” Vidmark continued, gesturing at the sculpture. “Those are half-formed men and women emerging from the great void, their bodies not fully freed from the stone. It’s a representation of God creating new life which is apropos given what we’re doing here.”

  Vidmark smiled and the main doors, as if on cue, were thrown open to reveal a group of men and women in suits. Some of the men, most of them older, carried automatic weapons and were whispering into nearly-invisible shoulder mics. They reminded me of the Secret Service teams you used to see trailing the President back in the day.

  There was a woman at the head of the group, tall and thin, her head crowned by a vigorous shock of perfectly manicured white hair. She raised a hand and smiled, then moved with the measured strides of someone used to giving orders and projecting power. Vidmark shook the woman’s hand. I had a vague recollection of seeing the woman before. On a video? In a newspaper or on TV in the days before the invasion? Vidmark turned, still holding the woman’s hand and smiled at us.

  “Everyone, I’d like you to meet the new President of the United States of America. The Honorable Michelle Landis.”

  The woman, President Landis, smiled warmly and moved between us, shaking our hands with both of hers.

  “It’s an honor to meet all of you,” she said. “I saw what you did last night in putting down the alien attack and I’m in awe of your abilities. That’s the reason I asked you here. I wanted to discuss how to better utilize your aptitudes, to help us defend the world.”

  “From what?” Jezzy blurted out.

  President Landis’s face clouded. “From the things that we believe might be coming.”

  6

  We moved into the church, passing dozens of stone carvings and hundreds of ornate sculptures that somehow had survived the alien invasion. My head was spinning the entire time because it all seemed like a dream. I mean, who would’ve thought that I, Daniel Deus, a former part-time crook and full-time nobody, would be walking behind the President of the friggin’ United States of America! And what a choice Landis was. If you could imagine a team of people, one of those focus groups they had in the days before, seated in a room trying to come up with a model for a female president, she would have been it. Her posture was ramrod perfect, her clothes immaculate, and the combination of her angular features and sculpted, snowy hair made her appear almost like a wolf in the light that daggered down through a wall of stained glass windows.

  President Landis talked as she walked, recounting how some, but not all, of D.C. had been hit hard during the opening of the alien invasion. “Initially, the aliens did not destroy the White House, Capitol, or even Wall Street.”

  “How come?” Billy asked.

  “They probably thought it was a waste of good ammunition,” Richter said.

  President Landis frowned and continued. She told us that while the White House was not initially obliterated during the invasion, the Capitol building was partially destroyed and over four hundred and eighty-five members of Congress killed, along with seventy-five percent of the city. When the aliens seized the White House to make a communications station, the building was blown up by a team of resistance suicide bombers driving ambulances and dump trucks full of explosives.

  “The most troubling thing is that the aliens were apparently here long before any of us realized it,” President Landis said. “They engaged in what some call ‘Special War’ or ‘Convergence.’”

  “Hybrid war,” Richter muttered.

  President Landis nodded. “It’s a mix of conventional and unconventional tactics. They flooded our cities with spiked drugs years before they invaded, planted fake stories, interfered with cyberspace capabilities, satellites, and our LOCs—lines of communication—turning countries against each other. And even though we were prepared for them to a certain extent, folks started getting awful paranoid. They wondered whether the alien threat was real and then boom, they hit us hard w
ith the most precise military assault the world’s ever seen and we’ve yet to fully recover.”

  “What happened to President Howell?” Baila asked, referencing the man who’d been in charge during the alien invasion.

  President Landis’s face screwed up in disgust. “President Howell and the rest of the

  Continuity of Operations personnel fled the city to ride out the occupation at the bottom of a mountain in Pennsylvania called Site-R. The Raven Rock complex. When the aliens found out where they were, they vaporized the mountain and killed the entire cabinet. I was the last one left. I’d just retired from being a Superiour Court judge and was the newly appointed Secretary for Veterans Affairs. I also had the good fortune of being out near Cumberland, Maryland, with my family, when the world ended. Under the rules of succession, I was the next one in line when the country began the reboot.”

  She continued to discuss the events that brought her to power and then I saw her lean in close to Richter. She’d flanked him and was smiling while listening to him whisper something in her ear. I chalked up their chummy conversation to the fact that Richter was a true, blue war hero. Guys like him, warriors who’d survived the occupation, were in seriously short supply.

  Vidmark was totally in his element inside the cathedral by the way, rattling off facts like a tour guide as we followed him. “The structure’s constructed of Indiana limestone,” he said, gesturing at the ceilings, the walls. “Built over the course of eighty-three years, it’s five hundred feet long from west to east and is the world’s sixth-largest cathedral.”

  It was all very interesting of course, but me and the other operators had more pressing concerns. Mainly, we had questions about what President Landis said back outside. About needing to prepare for what’s coming. I nudged Jezzy and tried to ask her what she thought about the whole thing, but she shushed me as we moved down a staircase.