Anthony DeCosmo - Schism

General Hoth raised his hand like a school boy in class.

Brewer nodded and Hoth asked, "I need to understand exactly what that means. Are you telling us that we ultimately report to Dante Jones?"

Sometimes dealing with Hoth drove Jon crazy. The man had a streak of lawyer in him. He not only lived by the book; he ate, slept, and shit by the book, too. He thrived on order and the chain of command, the types of things that were not so clear cut in the new world, even more so in the midst of the current power transfer.

Jon, however, told him what he felt to be true: "Yes, in the sense that Dante Jones speaks on behalf of the President. We all report to the President, now."

Casey Fink blurted, "That does not make me feel so good."

"I'm sorry about your feelings, Casey, but things have changed. We have to give this time, got it?"

"Easy, Jon, we're all giving it time," Shep said. "But it seems to me there are a lot of people sitting at this table who don't have fond feelings toward our new President. That's going to take some time getting used to."

Jon heard, you gave in too quick; you handed it all over without thinking it through.

"These are tough times," Jon said with a tremble of defensiveness in his voice as he paraphrased Evan Godfrey's words. "What the people out there need now are institutions and things, not just personalities and Generals. You can see it already; a bunch of labor problems that were driving us nuts just two weeks ago have gone away. We have to give this time."

"Does that mean we're not going to invade Mexico?" asked Kristy Kaufman over the speaker phone.

Jon raised his voice, "We're going to wait and let the new government settle in. We're going to concentrate on defense for a bit. Once all is said and done, I expect the war to continue. But we can't rush things. I'm asking for patience, people. Just give this a chance."

– The short gray-haired I.S. officer named Tucker repeated to Ashley, "Man, we've talked about this for two days now. It's time to go. I have orders to follow." Ashley stood in Trevor's old office on the second floor shaking in one part anger and one part fear. "And I told you two days ago that I don't want to leave here. This is my home." JB ran out from the master bedroom to his mother.

Tucker spoke to the boy, "Hey kid, why don't you tell your mom how much you're looking forward to going to the beach? Didn't you spend summers with your dad down there?"

Jorge Benjamin Stone stuck out his lower lip, narrowed his eyes, and told the man now in charge of their security, "You mean my father? Yes. Every summer. I expect we'll go again soon. How is the arm, Tucker?"

Tucker instinctively looked at his forearm. "Hey, it's fine I-what do you mean?"

"Listen," Ashley said to the brute who inherited Ray Roos' job. "I do not see why President Godfrey cares where we spend the summer."

Jon Brewer and General Jerry Shepherd walked into the room.

As had been the case ever since Evan had ascended to the Presidency nine days ago, Brewer refused to look Ashley in the eye. She, however, always searched for his. She knew that Jon Brewer held a lot more power than he realized. She knew that if any hope remained for Trevor's vision, it remained with Jon, especially now that Gordon Knox had died in a house fire. "What's the problem?" Brewer asked as JB ran to Jon's leg and gave him a hug. "Sir, I have orders to transport Mrs. Stone and her child to their summer vacation home." Shepherd cocked an eye and asked, "Now why is that?" Tucker answered, "Death threats, General. Apparently there are some people out there who want to hurt Trevor's family."

The last part of Tucker's answer played sourly on JB's ears. He glared at the I.S. man, pulled away from Brewer, and retreated to his mother's shadow.

"Death threats?" Shep scratched his head. "Well, now, that surprises the heck out of me."

Jon gently waved his hand as if to calm the situation and turned his attention to Ashley, still not quite looking her straight in the eye.

"Is there really a problem with going? I mean, maybe it'd be for the best. There isn't going to be much security around here now that everything important is moving down to D.C."

JB asserted, "But you'll still be here, won't you Uncle Jon?"

After a pause he answered, "Well, I'll be working out of my house for a while and with Omar in his work shop. Then, I guess, I'll be headed down to D.C., too, to work in the Pentagon."

"Jon, this isn't about security," Ashley said. "This is about Evan Godfrey hiding away any reminders of the way things used to be. He wants people to forget about this estate. He wants people to forget about me and you too, Jon."

"Ashley, we just have to give this time."

She stared at him for several seconds, but Jon refused to look back at her. Ashley then let out a frustrated huff and said, "Okay then, we'll go. I'll take my son and we'll disappear down to the shore. Just like you, Jon, but you're going to disappear right here under a mountain of filing and busywork while Evan Godfrey turns Washington into everything we hated about the old world. I suppose I can't stop that, but maybe someday you'll wake up and realize that you've created a real problem, and you're the only one able to solve it."

"Ashley, please," Jon nearly pleaded. "I'm trying to do the right thing here."

Before the conversation could progress, Tucker jumped in, "Your things are already packed, Ma'am, and the car is waiting."

Ashley took a big, angry step toward the door but before she stormed out she stopped, turned, and gave Jerry Shepherd a big hug.

"I'll miss you, Jerry," she said loud enough for everyone to hear. Her warmth and familiarity surprised him most of all. As she hugged him tight, Ashley placed her lips to his ear. "Send Nina Forest to see me, quietly." His expression wavered for a moment but as she drew away he smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I'll miss you too, Ashley. But I reckon we'll see each other around soon 'nuff."

JB grabbed his mother's hand and, after stopping to gather a stuffed bunny and blanket from the boy's bedroom, they left the mansion.

– The trees of the Medicine Bow forests had once been favorites of the Arapaho and Cheyenne for crafting bows. In the post-Armageddon world the jagged mountains, deep woods, and myriad of lakes and ponds throughout the Medicine Bow wilderness of Wyoming provided sustenance and cover for another tribe who felt at one with nature, albeit one from another world.

Captain Dustin McBride spent three months searching for the elusive band of alien "Red Hand" warriors, finding dead campfires, garbage pits, and animal carcasses but unable to engage.

In fairness, weather and the turbulent events of recent months forced numerous delays upon the 1 ^ st Cavalry. From bad April snow to General Stonewall McAllister's death to the assassination of Emperor Trevor Stone, Dustin's pursuit stopped as often as it started.

Nonetheless, Dustin begrudgingly gave the enemy his due. The Red Hands/Feranites lacked fire arms and body armor, moved almost exclusively on foot, and used only the most primitive of tools. Yet for all they lacked, they easily outclassed humanity when it came to living, moving, and hiding in the wild.

However, for the first time Dustin felt the quarry within reach. In fact, the Feranites must have sensed the pursuit, as evidenced by the ambush party left behind to delay Dustin's force.

Captain McBride stood on a rocky slope gazing across Lake Marie at the Snowy Range Mountains with the red sash around his gray uniform fluttering in the wind and a Stetson sitting half-tilted on his head. Those mountains across the way offered a magnificent, foreboding sight: walls of gray rock that could have passed for the battlements of God's castle.

The main body of the Feranite tribe he followed waited somewhere on the far side, after having sacrificed several dozen of their number to delay the pursuit.