The Shattered Earth (Surviving the Fall 3)

Scattered throughout the room are dozens of high-ranking government officials, all in various states of distress. They are all dressed as though they have just come directly from D.C. and as they catch sight of the Vice President they all approach him and begin to pepper him with questions.

Before the Vice President can raise his hands and ask them to settle down, the man in the suit pulls the Vice President aside and hands him a sealed manila envelope. “T

he latest briefing, sir. We’ve severed connectivity with the outside world so everything’s on paper now.”

The Vice President opens the envelope and reads the single page inside. The color drains from his face as he reads farther down the page and by the time he’s done he is white as a sheet. “What can we do about this? Has the President been briefed?”

“We’ve temporarily lost contact with Air Force One, sir. We’re unsure whether or not he’s been briefed. As of right now, though, we have to assume that he hasn’t.”

“What about responses? Surely there are contingency plans?”

The man in the suit shakes his head. “No sir.”

Chapter 2

Las Vegas, Nevada

Rick watched the men outside the Humvees carefully as they walked south down the road. After the first three entered the restaurant and vanished from sight, Rick had kept his attention on the remaining pair as they went along, hoping that they wouldn’t turn around and see Rick and Jane in the median. Fortunately, though, the pair didn’t appear to be interested in situational awareness. Instead of looking around and checking for any signs of trouble, they merely laughed and jabbed at each other as they walked along.

After the pair stopped and entered another building down the road, Rick knew it was his and Jane’s best opportunity to get off the median and into cover. The two armed Humvees were the only visible threats, but all it would take is for one of the gunners to spot him and Jane and the two of them would be killed almost immediately.

“Are you ready to run?” Rick whispered to Jane and she nodded, her eyes wide in fright.

“What are you going to do?”

“As soon as both of the gunners are looking away from us we’re going to run like hell and try to get inside the casino across the street, okay?”

Jane nodded again, her face creased with worry. “Are you sure we’ll make it?”

Rick put on a brave smile, thoroughly unconvinced at his own answer. “Of course we’ll make it!”

There was no definitive pattern to how the gunners on top of the Humvees were rotating around and scanning the area, but after a few minutes of watching, Rick finally saw that he and Jane had a window. The gunner farthest away from them had shouted at his partner and pointed at something up the street to the north. Both of them swiveled to face it and Rick jumped up, pulling on Jane’s arm. “Let’s go!”

Rick and Jane ran full tilt across the road, heading for what used to be a collection of small shops in front of the towering casino. At one point the shops were a neon tourist attraction that had to be seen, but something had damaged them to the point that they were naught but a pile of twisted metal, concrete and broken glass.

As Rick and Jane began to pick their way through the maze of wreckage in front of the casino, Rick thought for a moment that they were in the clear. The metallic whirr and thud of the turrets spinning around and the shouts of surprise from the gunners proved that assumption to be incorrect.

“Hey!” The voice was distant but Rick knew instantly that it was one of the gunners shouting at them. “You two, stop right now!” The shout was followed almost immediately by a burst of machine gun fire that tore into a large slab of concrete and rebar. A plume of concrete sprayed over Rick and he pushed Jane forward, urging her to go faster.

“Come on! They’re going to shoot us if we don’t move faster!”

Without drivers, the Humvees had a limited range of fire on Rick and Jane, but in between bursts from their guns he could hear the shouting of the other five men as they ran back towards the military vehicles, wondering what was going on. It only took a moment for the men to pile back into the Humvees, start the engines and squeal the tires as they pulled around to head across the street towards Rick and Jane.

“Inside, quickly, quickly! Come on, go!” Rick didn’t even bother trying to be stealthy as he shouted at Jane, helping her climb over one last pile of debris that was in front of the casino entrance. A good fifty feet stood between the pair and the front doors to the casino. As they ran Rick cast a backward glance and saw that the Humvees were pulling to a stop at the edge of the road. One of them had a clear shot on the front of the building and Rick pulled Jane to the left to get out of the line of fire.

Lead tore through the air, shattering the few remaining panes of glass hanging in the front entrance of the casino and narrowly missing Rick and Jane. Rick continued heading perpendicularly to the entrance until he and Jane hit the wall of the building, at which point the Humvee on the road no longer had a shot on them.

“Come on, get inside!” Rick continued pushing Jane forward until he saw her stumble, at which point he caught her arm and held her up. “Are you okay?”

Jane turned toward him, her mouth open as she panted, trying to form words with which to reply. She mumbled something incoherent as another blast of fire echoed out. “Dammit!” Rick struggled as he hauled all of his gear and tried to support Jane as they moved closer to the casino entrance. Rick heard a commotion behind him and glanced back to see movement amongst the rubble. Unable to fire on the pair from the road, a few of the men from the Humvees had disembarked and were pushing forward to catch up to Rick before he could get inside.

“Come on, Jane!” Rick shook her by the arm and he felt her begin to walk under her own power again. With a final few steps they crossed over into the entrance of the casino through a broken window and made it inside. Rick steered Jane to the left, behind the wall and dropped his bags onto the floor. He grabbed the shotgun from the bag and whirled back around to face the entrance.

The first of the group to finish making it through the rubble screamed as Rick fired the shotgun. The buckshot spread out in a wide arc at the distance between the two, and while the man wasn’t mortally wounded, he clawed at his face and neck as the pellets pierced through his skin. He fell backward into the rubble as the rest of the group paused, suddenly reconsidering their pursuit of Rick and Jane.

While the group had been temporarily halted by Rick’s fire, he knew that they wouldn’t hold back for long. Once they worked up the nerve to make another move Rick figured that he might be able to take down one or two of them before they killed him. Got to think of something else. Rick’s eyes flicked across the interior of the casino, his vision slowly adjusting to the darkness.

The interior of the building looked like something had torn it apart. Half of the tables and chairs he could see were knocked over, large sections of the roof had caved in or cracked and the floor was littered with decorations and artwork that had been knocked off of the walls. The evidence of the earthquake that Rick had heard about was plain as day, but he still found the idea difficult to comprehend.