Anthony DeCosmo - Schism

Her head swirled, not from the enhanced night vision of the goggles but from the scope of the task before her. Ashley's son kidnapped, Gordon Knox dying, and Trevor Stone…alive?

Maybe.

They needed to hide where Gordon could be looked after and where she could contact people who could expose the conspirators and knock Evan Godfrey from his perch.

Nina pulled off the goggles and consulted a small monitor screen displaying an electronic map. Her hands and feet wobbled but held the craft on course a few meters above the ocean. Rain drops splashed on the windshield that seemed pointed at a wall of black.

She scanned the map and considered. As she reached a conclusion, the bulkhead to the cockpit slid open and Ashley walked in. The first lady of The Empire rushed to Hauser. "What hit us?" "A missile." Hauser stirred. "Rich looks like he'll be okay," Ashley said. "But Gordon needs help, fast." "I know." Ashley knelt alongside Nina in the co-pilot's chair. "How long have you been flying these?" Nina said, "As far as I know, today is the first time." Ashley’s eyes bulged. Nina went on, "I've thought of somewhere for us to go; someone for us to meet up with." "Can you trust this person?"

Nina thought about the days she had spent fighting the Hivvans in North Carolina. She thought about Mutants taking hostages, about clearing Wilmington at the head of a massive Hunter-Killer team, and about meeting Denise for the first time. She thought about other things, too. Things that once held promise only to turn to disappointment.

"I hope so."

– Dawn came but with no fanfare; a ceiling of gray clouds remained stuck overhead in a gloomy quilt, turning the sun from bright to dull like light hidden behind curtains. The rain still fell but with little enthusiasm; nothing more than a soft drizzle sprinkling into puddles remaining from the night's more impressive downpours.

Jim Brock crossed the living room of his small home, careful not to wake the sleeping baby in the first bedroom or the teenager in the second.

His biological clock did not allow him to sleep in, not on a day that promised a lot of activity. The Wrightsville Beach Community Club had scheduled a cleanup along the south beaches in the morning and Jim planned to attend a luncheon of 'Concerned Citizens' to discuss the changing political landscape and, of course, to celebrate the end of the war.

On top of that came the needs of an eight-month-old daughter as well as a fourteen-year-old boy, and Jim had promised his wife a Friday night break from diaper changes so she could attend practice with the newly formed Wilmington Oratorio Society.

As hectic as his scheduled sounded it did qualify as a "normal life," the idea of which once seemed a fantasy in a world where aliens occupied most of the globe, monsters lurked in the swamps to the south, and where a young man had crowned himself Emperor and sent his armies marching off to re-conquer the world.

Brock had often told his day care kids in the old world and his students in the new one that two wrongs did not make a right. That and the usual, ‘the ends do not justify the means.'

Thoughts of Emperors and Empires drifted through his mind as he examined the front page of the North Carolina Reporter. He read the Reporter and not the Wilmington News because he found the latter to be far too militaristic.

Brock shook his head in disappointment as he sipped hot tea at the breakfast counter and glanced over the stories on the front page.

FUGITIVES AT LARGE; REWARD OFFERED. SECRETARY'S DEATH LINKED TO DISGRUNTLED MILITARY AND INTELLIGENCE OPERATIVES. PRESIDENT ASSURES NATION SECURE. FINANCIAL MARKETS WAVER IN CONCERN OVER POLITICAL STABILITY.

"Some people just don't know how to live without war," he thought between sips.

A series of soft thuds interrupted his musings over headlines, politics, and conspiracies. He realized those thuds came from his front door. Knocks, actually.

Brock set his mug on the counter top and gazed at the door curiously. He knew the people of Wrightsville Beach liked to attack the day early, but so soon after dawn?

Nonetheless, he stepped from the kitchen, crossed the living room, and opened the front door. Outside, the rain splashed intermittently on the long sidewalk curving through a landscaped lawn with a stone garden and a small but well-trimmed dogwood tree.

In his doorway stood a woman covered in drizzle, her curly blond hair matted flat and a waterlogged ponytail drooping behind to her shoulder blades. She wore a soldier's uniform and carried a rifle.

The sound of a visitor stirred Jim's wife awake. The petite brunette drifted into the living room tying a powder blue robe while trying to suppress a yawn. She squinted and, when seeing a soldier, asked in a voice one part annoyance and one part fear: "What is this, Jim?"

Brock stared at the blue eyes he had once found very mysterious. Yet what surprised him most of all was not her appearance at his front door, but how her shoulders slumped and how those mysterious blue eyes struggled to stay awake. He recalled her to be a confident, strong woman but on that morning in the rain at his door step she appeared anything but. "Nina?" The woman at the door muttered humbly, "Hello, Jim."

Jon Brewer stood behind the desk staring out the closed balcony doors down at the front lawn. He saw a pair of K9 sentries walking the fence, one of his wife's assistants driving out the main gate, and a hot July sun reflecting off the lake

He spoke into the phone, "Dante, I'm in the dark out here. Maple's dead, Gordon was dead and now he might not be? You want me to report any contact with Captain Nina Forest because you think she's up to something and two of her team are under arrest on suspicion of anti-government activities? Things are going on and you're not filling me in. I don't like it."

Dante's voice wavered across the long connection stretching from Washington D.C., to the lakeside estate in northeast Pennsylvania.

"Jon, man, relax. You know as much as I do."

"Really? Do I? Wow. That's a real pile you're trying to shovel at me. The newspapers seem to know something. Half of them are talking about some kind of military coup in the works. Well let me tell you, I am the military and there's no such thing going on. Something stinks. And I'm getting pissed off at sitting out here all alone. I'm getting pissed off with having nothing but paperwork getting thrown at me."

"Hey, whoa, easy Jon. Here are the facts. Someone kidnapped Maple down here in D.C., back on the first. Three days later he turns up dead outside of Trevor's tomb up there in your neck of the woods. Those two guys from Nina's team were a part of that. They aren't saying' much." "I want to talk to them." That took Dante off guard. He stumbled. "No, hey, I mean Roos has got them in a high-security spot interrogating them." "Those two men are military. Ultimately they're under my command." "I'll talk to Evan."

"What's he got to do with it?" Jon's anger-his first real wave of anger since long before Trevor's death-grew. He could almost hear his wife suggesting he watch his temper.

No, this is one case where she would want me to lose my temper.

Jon went on, "I thought this was about not having one man in charge? You’re telling me that I can't talk to my soldiers without Evan's approval?"

"Hey, easy does it, Jon. I understand, man. I hear you. But there are a lot of people talking a lot of shit. Some folks say they saw Gordon Knox alive again, that he was with Nina Forest. What's that make you think, Jon? What do you think Evan thinks about all this? He sees Knox still alive, maybe, and running with military people who were close to Trevor and then one of Evan's Secretaries ends up dead. Don't know about you, but I'm starting to wonder if there aren't some people cooking something up."