Robison Wells - Blackout

She wasn’t a terrorist, but what was she? A criminal? A thief who just wasn’t stealing anything at the moment?

She’d be better, she promised herself, though it felt hollow. How could she truly be better when she didn’t have any reason not to be? There was nothing here to steal, nothing to gain.

When the helicopter touched down at the Salt Lake airport after a short flight, Captain Rowley directed them to a waiting truck. Another of the Lambda teams was in tow, an officer leading them. The other groups—including Nicole—were being sent elsewhere. Everyone had a different flight to catch.

Aubrey’s team and the second group loaded into the truck, which took them to a small commuter plane guarded by four soldiers in full combat gear. The plane was only sparsely filled—ten soldiers were relaxing, their packs and weapons in the seats next to them. When they saw Captain Rowley, they stood as much as they could in the cramped plane and saluted.

“Men,” the captain said. “These are our Lambdas. They’ll be joining us for the next couple of missions.”

The men nodded as though they knew what was going on. Aubrey recognized a few of them from the mission at the school. None of them seemed thrilled at the prospect of working with kids, and one of them openly grimaced at Aubrey and Laura—two small high school girls.

The Lambdas made their way to the back of the plane, to where seats were still open.

In a moment the captain and the other team leader were in the small first-class cabin, looking over some paperwork. The aircraft began to taxi without any announcement from the cockpit. Aubrey had only ever flown twice—on a school choir trip that she’d gotten a scholarship for—and this all felt new and weird. She missed having a flight attendant to explain what was going on.

“So you’re supposed to save the country?” one of the soldiers asked, turning in his seat.

None of the teens answered.

“I asked you a question, Lambda,” he said, smiling but grim. “Don’t forget that we outrank you.”

“That air force puke up front outranks you,” another one said. “The guy who refueled the plane outranks you.”

“I’m nineteen,” Laura said defensively. “I could join—”

The first man, a broad-shouldered guy with a square face and a scar along his chin, cut her off. “You could join, but you didn’t. You haven’t even made it through basic boot camp. You probably can’t do a push-up.”

“She can do a push-up,” Aubrey said. “She can do more push-ups than all of you combined.”

“Is that your superpower?” the second man said. “You’re Push-Up Girl?”

Aubrey wanted to say that Laura could break any of them in half, but she held her tongue.

“How about you, kid?” the square-faced soldier asked Jack.

“Just trying to help out.”

“Are you the one who is about as useful as my binoculars?”

Jack opened his mouth to answer, but the soldier laughed and smacked another man with the back of his hand. “They tell us we’re getting help and they send us a kid who can do everything that our equipment already does.”

“What about you, honey?” the other man asked Aubrey.

“She rolled her eyes!” the first laughed. “It’s going to be great working with kids.”

A voice from farther forward called back, “Shut up, guys.”

“I just was asking the nice young lady what amazing miracle she can perform.”

But before he could finish his sentence, Aubrey disappeared, and stood from her seat. His laugh faded a little into confusion as she climbed forward in the accelerating plane and took the man’s Beretta M9 from his gear. She removed the magazine, and then pulled the slide from the frame, just as she’d done a hundred times when target shooting in the hills of Mount Pleasant.

She reappeared in front of him, and dropped the three pieces of the gun in his lap.

“What the hell?” he shouted, grabbing at the gun. “What’s wrong with you, freak?”

“Don’t call me ‘honey.’”

“Hey,” someone called back, pointing angrily at Aubrey. “You do not touch weapons. That’s part of the deal.”

The exchange got the attention of Captain Rowley up front, who was hurrying awkwardly down the aisle as the plane bounced through the air.

“What’s going on?”

The square-faced man jabbed a finger at Aubrey. “She stripped McKinney’s sidearm. She was just suddenly here, with the thing taken apart.”

Aubrey was fully expecting the captain to tell his men to shut up and knock off their attitudes, but instead he barked at her.

“Is that true?”

“Well—”

“Yes or no, soldier.”

She was getting mad. “You told me I’m not a soldier.”

“You’re a Lambda,” he scolded, nearly shouting. “When you raised your hand a week ago and agreed to join the war effort, that put you in the army, and it put you under my command. You will respect these men and the orders they give you.”

Jack touched her arm and she shook him off.

The captain turned to face the other Lambdas. “You’re not here to put on a show, and we’re not here to baby you. If that’s what you expected, then you should have stayed in Dugway. There’s a war on, and if you can’t handle a little ribbing from your fellow soldiers then we can’t use you in this unit.”

He finally turned to the soldiers. “As for you, keep your mouths shut and your minds on our mission. We’re flying into hostile territory, and you can use that time to review our planning session. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir,” was the chanted reply.

He turned back to the Lambdas. “Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

AUBREY SLEPT THROUGH THE FLIGHT.It was only when the plane touched ground with a sudden uneven bump that she was jarred awake.

Jack was sitting quietly, looking out the window, one hand balled in a fist and pressed to his lips.

“Welcome to Seattle,” Rowley said, seeming to be in a better mood. “It’s one of the hardest-hit cities so far, and if you’ve ever been here before I think you’ll be surprised at what you find. I’m told the city center is a ghost town, and many of the suburbs are emptying out. Everyone’s heading inland.”

More military vehicles met them at the airport and drove them into the center of the city. They spent the day and night at a Marriott commandeered by the military. It was strange to see a Marriott surrounded by army vehicles. And not just Humvees, but some kind of big armored trucks. There were roadblocks on every street nearby, and some military personnel on the roof with enormous floodlights.

Aubrey and Laura were put in a room together, and the relative luxury felt like the opposite of everything they’d experienced for weeks. It had only been this morning when they’d woken up in the Dugway dorms, only this morning when Aubrey and Jack had kissed in the starlight.

That seemed like years ago. It had been before she’d really been inducted into the military, before all those deaths on the road. It was a different world now.

She wondered if her kiss with Jack was from a different life. Had she changed too much? She felt like a different person.

Laura let Aubrey have the first shower. By the time she dried her hair and went to bed, Aubrey was already mostly asleep anyway. It didn’t take much longer to drift away.

Breakfast came without them having to ask—it was room service, though it couldn’t have been the kind of room service the Marriott usually delivered—everything was in packages: boxes of cereal, cups of yogurt, and plastic bottles of milk. Still, it felt fresher than the MREs that they’d been eating for the last few weeks, and Aubrey was glad to get it.