Carrie Vaughn - Discord's Apple

“Evie—”

Take a deep breath, count to ten. Like father, like daughter. “You can buy next time.”

After a moment, he put the bills back into his pocket. “Okay. My ration book is on top of the microwave. At least take that.”

She’d have to make sure to really stock up, so that next time didn’t happen for a while.

Hopes Fort had seen its heyday when her grandparents were teenagers. The sugar plant and steel mill had been in operation then. They closed down after World War II. Work dried up, and most of the agriculture became unprofitable. None of the buildings downtown had been constructed later than about 1960.

Another high school classmate who hadn’t left town was a manager at the Safeway. Evie had caused a mild scandal after graduation when she went to Los Angeles for college. Most people who left town went into the military, or if they went to college at all it was to one of the state universities before moving to the Denver suburbs to raise their 2.5 kids. Everyone was convinced she’d get shot on the L.A. freeways within months. They wanted to know if she’d have to wear a bulletproof vest to go to class.

She traded a few pleasantries with the manager, who asked how Frank was doing. Evie said fine because she didn’t want to explain in any more detail—and more than that, she didn’t want to start crying.

The store was almost empty. Many of the shelves were also empty. Evie piled her cart with what she could, mostly canned staples and dry goods. She pushed her cart to the only open checkout lane and started unloading. Between her father’s ration coupons and her own, she was able to cover the haul.

A man stepped into place behind her. She felt bad that he’d have to wait while the clerk rang up her cart. He only had a candy bar on the conveyor belt.

He stood too close to her. She inched forward, away from him. And he inched forward, right up to her again. She tried to ignore him.

“You’re Frank Walker’s daughter,” said a voice in her ear.

She turned around to stare straight at him. He might have been a classmate from high school; he seemed about the right age. But she didn’t recognize him. He looked back expectantly. Slightly shorter than she, he had an olive complexion, tanned, with dark eyes and brown hair, thick and tousled. Clean-shaven. He wore a blue felt pea coat over a white oxford shirt, unbuttoned at the neck.

“You a friend of my dad’s?”

“Not really.”

“Then how do you know that?” She took careful note of his features and tried to interpret his casual smile. She wondered if her father had reported his prowler to the police, or if he had gotten a description.

“It’s a small town. Not hard to find things out.”

“What do you want?”

“I only wanted to meet you.”

The clerk glanced up, then returned to swiping food over the sensor. Each item passed with a beep. Evie turned away from the stranger and dug in her pocket for her debit card. Strange, definitely strange. Strange the same way that guy in the duster back at the house yesterday was strange. His look was likewise unplaceable, his accent unidentifiable.

She paid as quickly as she could and started putting the bags in her cart. The man paid for his candy bar, walked past her and out of the store without a second glance. She sighed, relieved.

He was waiting for her at her car, standing by the rear bumper, hands in his pockets, watching for her. She stopped, gripped her cart hard, and considered going back into the store and calling the police.

Before she could make a decision, he came toward her and spoke. “Can I help you with your bags?”

He was short, and while she couldn’t judge his build under the coat, she thought she could take him if it came to that.

“Are you stalking my dad?” she said.

“Not at all. But I am looking for something. I think it might be in your father’s basement.”

“That’s it, I’m calling the police.”

“Please don’t, Evie.”

Her heart pounded. He wasn’t threatening her. He didn’t move any closer. He spoke kindly, with psychotic calm. The neighbors would say how nice and quiet he always seemed.

“Who are you?”

“Call me Alex.” He raised his hand, as if offering it to be shaken, but paused midmotion, hand outstretched, elbow bent, gaze studying her. Then he turned and walked away.

Civil defense posters decorated the outside of the supermarket. They were the same ones she saw everywhere in L.A.: the wickedly surreal poster of the bug-eyed face emerging from a cloud of gas demanding, DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR MASK IS? and the shadowed figure stalking behind a quaint family home, labeled REPORT STRANGERS! It seemed a little laughable finding them in Hopes Fort. Nothing ever happened here, no one knew the town existed, it surely wasn’t a target. But the schools still ran attack drills. Evie knew where her gas mask was: in its bag under the front seat of the car. In L.A., she carried it everywhere in her backpack, like everyone did. Here? It would be like locking her car doors in the driveway.

But as Johnny said, the rules were still in effect, even here.

She pulled onto Main Street and stopped at the police checkpoint. Johnny wasn’t there today. The deputy in charge was about twenty years older and surly.

She rolled down her window and offered her ID. “Where can I find Johnny Brewster?”

“Back at the station. Pop your trunk, please, ma’am.”

“You have the phone number?”

“Yeah.” The guy had to look in every single grocery bag.

“Can you give it to me?” she said after the pause made it clear he wasn’t going to answer.

He looked her up and down, then glanced at the California plates on the car.

“Look,” she said. “We went to high school together. I just have to ask him something.”

Finally, he gave her the number and let her through the checkpoint.

She dialed the number into her mobile phone. “Johnny? It’s Evie.”

“Hey, what’s up?”

“I just had a run-in with somebody, and I wondered if you knew him. He said his name was Alex.” She told him about the encounter and gave him the stranger’s description.

“That doesn’t ring any bells, but I’ll keep my eyes open.”

“Thanks.” Report Strangers! Damn straight.

Evie stayed up late that night, tucked half under the covers of the guest bed, laptop perched on her lap, amazingly enough, and delved into the adventures of the Eagle Eye Commandos.

Crammed in the back of the unit’s Blackhawk, Sarge and Matchlock were arguing about weapon caliber again. (“.60 all the way.” “Overkill, man. That’s so inelegant. You wanna do this pretty, don’t you?”) In the cockpit, Tracker and the pilot, Jeeves (as in “Home, Jeeves”), rolled their eyes. Talon—Captain Andrew Talon, hero of this outfit—reminded them that they were on a mission and asked them to be quiet. He ordered them, really, but with Talon, it never sounded like an order. It was like he was asking a favor, one gentleman to another, and you couldn’t help but want to comply.

The plan was for Jeeves to drop off the others near Moscow, retreat outside of Russian radar surveillance, then return to pick them up in six hours. Sarge and Matchlock were ex-Special Forces, with specialties in covert ops, sniping, demolitions, the whole nine yards. They covered the landing and their entry into the city perfectly. Talon brought up the rear.

Tracker, the intelligence expert, moved watchfully ahead of Talon. She kept her blond hair tucked under a black bandanna and smudged her cheeks with paint. Sexy, if you liked that sort of thing. Tracker was the embodiment of some of Evie’s more outlandish teenage daydreams.

They had just started on their route to the Kremlin when they heard a plane, the drone of an engine sailing overhead, Dopplering to a higher pitch as its altitude decreased, faster and faster. A moment later, a massive explosion rocked the world. A pillar of flame erupted from the aptly named Red Square; then the shock wave hit. The four soldiers dropped to the ground and covered their heads.