Rage Page 27

  “In our other bases we have more. If the Arks were to come up, having computers would be the least of our problems. The important thing is that we have all the data.”

  “And you’ll leave? Without reaching the Arks.”

  Marshall looked over to the I.T. guy. “No. I imagine Lassard will stay. Until he hears the Authority is at the door.”

  Raine looked at Lassard, too. Staying with the ship.

  This world isn’t just about deals.

  There was something else, besides the death, the brutality, the fear. There were people willing to sacrifice.

  Marshall caught his look. Neither had to say what it meant if Lassard stayed.

  Then the captain spoke.

  Asking what probably seemed a redundant question.

  “You’ll come with us?”

  Raine stood there. Then, shaking his head. “No…”

  He saw that Marshall didn’t believe what he was hearing.

  Then he explained.

  “There’s something I got to do first,” he said, the anger in his voice rising. This wasn’t just about Marshall and his Resistance anymore. This wasn’t just about the settlements and those who struggled to survive in the shadow of the Authority. This wasn’t just about orders anymore, about a mission.

  Not after what had happened only hours ago.

  “I will go to the Hagars. If Dan is to learn what happened to his daughter, he will learn it from me.”

  The ancient, time-honored military tradition.

  The lone knock at the door. The officer in a uniform standing there.

  The message conveyed before that door is even open.

  Marshall put his hand on Raine.

  “Yes. That makes sense.”

  “And then, Captain, I’m with you. To bring these bastards down. To try and save something out of this… very fucked-up world.”

  Marshall smiled. “Don’t think I could do it without you. Elizabeth can show you where we will be headed. Pretty far away. But we will wait for you.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll get there.”

  Is anger useful in combat? Raine wondered… even as he felt it building inside him.

  The death of innocent people who just wanted freedom, who wanted a life. The mindless and brutal slaying of Kvasir. The creation of an army dedicated to just one thing… killing. The fact that Loosum had to sacrifice herself.

  Yes, rage might be exactly the emotion needed.

  At that moment Raine also realized… he was no longer a stranger here.

  This was his world, as much as anyone else here.

  Marshall nodded his head at the big man packing things up. “Make sure Portman gives you any weapons you need. We also have a vehicle for you. Fast, even has some armor. But you know what it’s like out there.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Nothing else left to say.

  When finally-a whoop from behind them, from Lassard.

  “I got it!” Lassard turned around in his chair. Everyone in the room stopped, all eyes on him.

  “Must have been as they got all their systems on line, full power, and it let the drive with the program connect and execute.” Lassard was indulging in some analysis, an I.T. guy to the core. “But-”

  He grinned. “We can use their system to reach the Arks.”

  And if what Marshall told him was true, if Lassard was really as good as they thought he was, the program he had inserted would override the Arks’ systems.

  Resistance cells waiting, spread out over a hundred miles.

  Would the Authority be able to pounce on some of the Arks?

  Undoubtedly.

  But they couldn’t be everywhere. Lives would be lost, but now lives from the past would be saved. As well as information, learning, technology.

  Marshall spoke.

  “Okay, Mark. What are you waiting for?”

  Lassard held the gaze of the captain.

  “You mean… now?”

  “Hit the button. Get them up. And then we got to get out of here, blow this place up.”

  As though intimidated by the implication of what he was about to do, Lassard hesitated before turning back to his terminal.

  Had one key stroke ever had more importance?

  They all walked closer to him for the fateful moment.

  The I.T. expert took a breath.

  Raine sensed that Portman, standing next to him, was about to gruffly bark, Just fucking do it.

  It seemed to take that long.

  “Okay,” Lassard said. “Still… all good. And-”

  His fingers hit the keyboard.

  Nobody moved. Nobody said anything.

  Then the monitor started to send a wave of information flying across the screen.

  A last act for these computers before they were blown into more useless junk for locals to scavenge.

  “That’s it,” Lassard said, his eyes moving left and right as he looked at the screens. “It’s happening. Sweet God, it’s happening. ”

  Marshall looked at Raine, then over at Portman and Elizabeth.

  “Time for us to go.”

  They started moving as fast as they could out of the hideout.

  Lassard lagged behind, as if his eyes couldn’t believe what they were seeing, the result of his handiwork.

  “Lassard! Move it!” Marshall yelled.

  And finally Lassard backed away, stood up. He threw the switch on the timed explosive off to the side of his desk.

  He turned and picked up a pack that seemed empty.

  Hard for him to leave, Raine thought.

  Then the four of them started out, into the underground tunnels and warren of Subway Town.

  It wasn’t long-minutes, actually, after they heard the thunderous explosion behind them-that they came to the place where they were to split up. Marshall and the others one way, Raine off to a tunnel that led to where they had left a car for him.

  “Captain-”

  “Just remember we’ll be waiting for you, Raine. Don’t let us down.”

  Raine smiled. Elizabeth came up to him. “And when you come back, we’ll have to get the nanotrites out. For now, though, be glad you have them.”

  Portman stuck out his arm, a chunky finger jabbing the air. “And I want every piece of ordnance returned, Lieutenant. Resistance property.” Then Portman grinned-as close to a good-bye as he could get.

  Raine nodded.

  Without a word he turned and started running down the tunnel, one last mission before he could return to the three of them again.

  Before he could return to the battle, to this war that was now as much his as theirs.

  FORTY-FOUR

  THE RISING

  In each Ark-their computers never fully powered down-something registered.

  Each Ark had remained in communication with the others throughout the century. They even could take note when disaster befell an Ark somewhere, crushed by the shifting of a tectonic plate, or desperately struggling to emerge to the surface before being trapped by bedrock.

  But though linked, each Ark was its own entity.

  Each had dominion over its own planned time for emergence, its own response system to emergencies.

  That had been core to the Ark Project.

  No longer.

  Something new registered as each Ark continued to get signals from the other Arks.

  And the code being executed carried with it all the information needed for each Ark to act in self-preservation.

  A false reading of danger. Mimicked in each Ark’s computer, simultaneous, and not recognized as false. Danger-to which there could only be one instantaneous response.

  To rise…

  To begin what could be a perilous journey to an unknown surface.

  And all the Arks of what had been the government of the United States-the ones still intact, those not already surfaced, not destroyed or hopelessly damaged-sent a signal to the great bore machines that sat at each nose, rock-chewing machines that could screw the Ark
through any rock… to whatever world awaited.

  The Arks began to dig their way out.

  Some journeyed in a straight path, easily grinding through loose rock and debris.

  Others faced mammoth chunks of bedrock that required a steady, endless digging that to a human would have seemed hopeless, but to the lifesaving brain of the computer was merely what it had to do.

  Others became damaged during their emergence, crushed as rock shifted, quickly killing the still-sleeping survivors.

  But whether successful or not, all the Arks struggled to be born into this world.

  And as they came closer to the surface, as a reading signaled that the new world and the surface was only minutes away, revival systems began their process, readying the Ark passengers for what might have to be a quick exit.

  And outside, for these Arks, people waited.

  The Arks rose.

  Bringing with them to the surface something the people outside had thought an impossibility: a chance to fight back.

  Before these emerging Arks, they had been a mere resistance, with all the weaknesses and hopelessness that such movements can bring.

  Now, on this new day, it turned.

  It changed.

  It was no longer a resistance.

  It was a war.

  For all those who had lived in fear, who were imprisoned or brutalized-for everyone who hated the Authority with a rage that seemed to consume their lives-on this day…

  … it began.

  Dedicated to the entire team at id Software.

  Your creative vision and passion made this new world come to life.

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