Anthony DeCosmo - Parallels

When the nasty work completed and the gunship flew away, Stonewall led his group forward much to the delight of the besieged staffers who had endured hours of virtual captivity. Their radios and radio operators, it was learned, had been destroyed by the initial charge of the over sized hostiles.

General McAllister noted that while this may have seemed as if it were merely another battle in the post-Armageddon world, the negligence that had forced the fight may have made it something more ominous.

A sign of things to come.

– General William Hoth stood outside of the Union Terminal building, a 1930’s vintage art deco railway station converted into the Cincinnati Museum Center back in the days when history and social studies held enough interest to draw nearly a million annual visitors.

Of course the goodies inside had long ago been looted or destroyed. Instead, the museum now hosted technicians and maps and communications gear, having undergone yet another transformation, this time into a hastily-constructed command post.

This newly-opened post and the old structure it occupied stood on the southern stretch of Cincinnati with the Ohio River and the Kentucky border a short distance away. In other words, near the heart of what had once been the third-most populated city in the state of Ohio.

As recently as twenty-four hours ago, reconnaissance assured that Cincinnati remained a well-populated metropolis, but populated by Mutants, Rollers, and Goat-Walkers. Furthermore, three more Roachbot slaughterhouses existed within the city limits.

Yet General Hoth now stood on the southwestern side of the city, having gained control of the entire metropolis at the expense of one Bradley vehicle crew incinerated when a rookie Apache pilot mistook them for a Roachbot.

Somehow, the entire population of Hostiles within the city limits of Cincinnati had disappeared in a matter of hours, without a trace. When his tanks rolled into town, they faced no opposition.

Just…gone. Poof.

The General had never seen anything like it.

No…he corrected himself. In point of fact, not only had he seen something just like it long ago, he had experienced a similar disappearing act himself.

The hostile forces of Cincinnati had been plucked from the Earth in the same fashion that the human ark riders of early Armageddon had been snatched from highways and baseball parks.

In the years since the invasion, those missing humans began showing up, just as Hoth himself had reappeared on the grounds of West Point.

"So the question is," Hoth spoke aloud to no one. "Where-or perhaps even 'when'-have these things gone?"

– Dante Jones-Chief of Internal Security-sat alone in the conference room in the basement of the estate. Brewer had left mere moments before after asking-actually shouting-a series of questions and accusations.

Why are we having these problems with Internal Security? Get your people in line. Stonewall nearly got killed out there yesterday! This isn’t the first incident!

Dante's responses?

It’s not just I.S., everyone is confused. I can’t control every last station commander. This won’t be the last incident, either, unless you start telling people who is in charge around here because it sure as Hell isn't Trevor Stone!

In truth, Dante was not sure what he could do, or even what he should do. After all, could he blame the people for wanting answers? Did Brewer and Knox actually believe the whole 'secret mission' story would work indefinitely?

With Trevor gone, Dante felt his loyalties pulled in several directions. Yes, he felt obligated to maintain the cover story due to his membership on the military council. Yet he felt a responsibility to the Senate, the body to whom Trevor himself had given oversight of I.S.

He placed a hand over his eyes and sighed.

"You okay, boss?"

The voice startled Dante.

"Oh, man, Ray, shit you scared me."

Ray Roos-Chief of the I.S. detachment for the estate grounds-joined his superior officer in the conference room.

"Sorry ‘bout that. You a little jumpy? Sure you are. Heck, we all are these days."

Ray stood alongside the table and waited for an invitation. Dante motioned to one of the empty chairs. Roos placed his Mp5 machine gun on the table top and relaxed.

Dante said, "We had another security unit abandon a post yesterday. They walked away from a supply depot in Tennessee. Some people got killed because of it."

Roos said, "Well, if I can speak my mind, I don’t like the idea of our boys holding sway over some of them depots that are further out. That’s the army’s job don’t you think? I think so."

"You know the drill, Ray. Internal Security gets whatever shit jobs the military doesn’t want. But we never had guys walk away from posts like this before. You know what I mean."

Roos nodded. "I know. But a lot of our guys haven’t been doing policing for a long time. You know that. Of course you do. With the big fella…" Roos hesitated as he tried to pick the right words. "With the big fella…off somewhere, well, you probably noticed that things are slipping up real good like. Yessir. You have noticed that."

"Hard not to notice, Ray. Trevor went running off and now we got to clean up the mess."

Roos cocked a finger toward Dante but in a friendly, casual way.

"Say, weren’t you and Trevor buddies before ‘all this’? You were, right?"

Jones answered ‘yes’ with the nod of his head.

"What was he like before the whole shootin' match got turned downside-up?"

Jones grew a hint of a smile. "Trevor? He was a good guy. He always treated people pretty much the same. He was the type of guy you could count on to keep his word and all."

"So, you could see this whole thing coming with him being the big leader and all? Sort of natural-born?"

Dante laughed. "Are you kidding? He was a care salesman, man. Look, he was definitely not mister take-charge. I mean, when we were in high school I had to lead him around or the guy was like socially, lost. See, couldn’t really even talk to girls. Didn’t know what he was going to do with his life. I mean, he was a good guy but he was lost half the time."

Jones snickered as he remembered. Ray joined in with a polite chuckle of his own.

"Seems like you were taking care of him back then, huh?"

"Yeah, well then he met Ashley. Then the two of us took care of him, I guess."

Roos said, "Must’ve been strange reversing roles and all. Yeah, that had to be strange."

"What’s that mean?"

"I mean, in the old days you were leading the way. Then all of a sudden the world goes topsy-turvy and he’s the one leading the way, and you’re following."

Jones scratched his head and admitted, "Yeah. That was kind of weird. I guess I got used to it. I figure we all had to get use to a lot of different stuff."

Dante drifted into memories. Roos remained quiet for a few moments but opened a new line of thinking, one that brought Jones to the edge of his chair.

"You got to know, sure you know, that all of us in I.S., we follow you, Mr. Jones. No doubt about it. You’re a good guy and you always do right by us. You’ve got our loyalty. I think I can say that matter-a-fact on behalf of most of the guys."

Dante's eyes narrowed, a little. "Oh, well, so what does that mean to me?"

"Well, it means a lot of people out there trust your judgment. Maybe you don’t realize that. Maybe you’re too humble to let yourself see it. But I.S., folk, we trust you. After that stuff went down at New Winnabow, we all saw how you helped smooth things out. None of us wanted to be firing water cannons on protestors, you know that. Sure you do. That’s why you worked so hard to find a solution. You and that guy, that Senator guy."

"Evan Godfrey."