He set her down with a pat. She ran back to her mother, excitedly relaying their conversation.
While the public filled the walkways and gawked at the latest act of war, he ducked down a side street to avoid being noticed again. When he was on the streets in uniform, as he was now, and sometimes even when he wasn’t, people approached him. Often, it was just to thank him for his service, and occasionally with requests for specific items paired with promises it would be worth his while if he brought them back. He was a minor celebrity, a Santa Claus of the post-pandemic era.
By midafternoon, he sat in a bar, eating a hamburger. In front of him sat the first of many beers he planned to consume before he passed out.
He perpetually worked for the Resistance. The few days he spent inside New Atlanta’s walls was no exception. Few friends to the Resistance had access to the bar the National Guardsmen frequented after shift. Those who did wouldn’t be caught dead there. Too dangerous. He didn’t care. He liked to take advantage of the power-drunk National Guardsmen, who always got a little sloppy when pumped with free shots.
Raising his arms and feigning more intoxication than he actually felt, he shouted “Another round for the house!” His role in this crowded bar filled with Guard was easy. Keep them lubricated and keep them talking. Getting information from them was like taking candy from a baby. “Hey, where’s that guy?” Rock snapped his fingers a few times. “Uh, Irish, red hair, about four feet tall?”
Jason, a lanky kid who’d been a gold mine on previous nights of drunken intel gathering, laughed. “Shaugnessey?”
“Yes, that’s him.”
Jason leaned in. “He’s one of the missing.”
“Yeah, missing the ability to hold his liquor.”
Jason didn’t laugh. “No.” He looked over his shoulder, darting a glance at the men nearest them. “Guard are going missing,”.”
“Since when?”
“Nobody’s really sure when it started. So many people disappear in New Atlanta, but Guard command noticed about six weeks ago. Put us through training on how to increase the chances of surviving an abduction. Since then, five or six more have dropped off the face of the earth.”
“The Resistance?” Rock asked, though he knew it wasn’t.
“Don’t think so. We think someone is fixing to take over and is getting rid of the obvious wild cards.” Jason raised his arm. “Be right there,” he called to a group entering. “Hey. I’ll talk to you later, man.”
“Yeah.” Rock slapped him on the shoulder. “Later.”
Rock stayed, buying drinks and talking up the enemy for hours but heard little else he could pass along, so he headed home.
After a short drive, he entered the enormous house and dropped his bag on the kitchen island. After opening some windows and praying for a breeze, he pulled out one of the books he’d stolen. The Modern Clinicians Guide to Hypnotherapy was a training manual. He dropped it back into his bag and grabbed Privileged Information: Top Secret Mind Manipulation During the Second Cold War and Keeping Secrets. He kept Privileged Information.
Slightly buzzed and utterly exhausted, he settled on the couch and read until he could no longer keep his eyes open.
* * * *
“No!” Rock jerked awake. His raw bellow had provided escape from the nightmare but released only a tiny part of the desperation bottlenecked at the base of his throat. He struggled to catch his breath as air heaved fast and raggedly in and out of his lungs. Touching his hand to his chest, he found he was soaked with perspiration, not the thick pool of blood in the dream. Twenty-four hours in New Atlanta was all it took for flashbacks to invade his head. They were always a problem in the dead quiet of this house. So much easier to avoid the demons when they were drowning in the noise of the Amber Zone. He swung his feet to the floor and attempted to leash the rampage every muscle of his body was primed to let loose.
His heart raced and hands shook, spurred by the unspent adrenaline saturating his system. It was no small task, but his body eventually settled.
He stood, drawn to the solitary kitchen light illuminating the center island and casting long shadows on the cream-colored walls of his great room. He filled his lungs, pulled his shoulders back and rolled his neck before letting the breath go. He never slept well inside the city. This place was toxic, with the stress of imminent danger never leaving until he was outside the walls again.
He walked to the rich dark wood cabinets lining the back wall of his kitchen and grabbed a glass. With trembling hands, he filled it with water, leaned against the counter and downed it.
The nightmares made him pissed all over again. Then they made him hurt to the depths of his soul. Sometimes he thought the torment of Emily’s absence would never leave him, remaining as his hell on earth eternally.
Surrounded by the prison of slick granite counters and monstrous stainless steel appliances, his temper rose. He hated this fucking house. He detested his life and loathed the man he’d become since he’d been forced out of the Amber Zone.
“God dammit!” He flung the glass at the far wall. A satisfying crack, then exploding shards sprayed the kitchen, tinkling as they hit the floor. Rock clutched the edge of the counter, trying to rein in his fury. His bare feet against the tumbled marble tile filled his vision as he forced himself to regain his composure. During his year in the Emerald Zone, he’d only been inside the city walls for a handful of weeks, but even that was too much. Every second since he’d been condemned to this home had been miserable. He’d never even bothered to walk upstairs, preferring to sleep on the couch in the living room whenever forced to be inside his lavish prison.
Rock sat on a high stool at the island and stuck his earbud in his ear. “Call Dad.” He thanked God his dad didn’t give a flying fuck their conversations broke the law banning communication with Amber citizens. “Let them listen. Let them try to do something,” his father had shouted through his earbud when the new injunction had been put in place. “They all can kiss my ass.”
“The dream again?” his father asked in a rough, sleepy voice.
“Yeah.”
“It’s been a while since the last one. I thought maybe you were done with them.”
“Me too. I got my next assignment today. Go date is July fourth.”
“Jesus,” his father hissed. “That fucker is messing with you.”
“He’s good at the game. My job is different too. I’ll bodyguard the woman who runs the Fine Arts and Artifacts Program. I’ve got a couple of months to train her before we go to DC.”
“The new assignment explains the dream coming back after so many months.”
“You think?”
“Being responsible for a woman. The anniversary of Emily’s death as the go date. Hell yeah, he’s stirring things up, fucking with your head.”
“So, same shit different day.”
“Yeah, son, same fucking shit. Have you met the woman yet?”
“Yeah, briefly.”
“I saw a video highlighting the mission the other day. It’s been on steady rotation in the feeds. She was in it.”
“Laila?”
“Yes.”
Rock could practically hear his father rolling his eyes. It bothered his dad that he left women relatively unnoticed since Emily’s death.
“In the interview,” his dad said, “she seemed certain she knows where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution are being stored.”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
“She’s