Death of Innocence (Surviving the Fall 4)

“We are incredibly blessed to have all of this stuff.” Mark gestured out at the property and barns behind the house. “I doubt there are many people who have all of this after what happened.”

“You’re probably right. We’re living halfway normal lives right now, for the most part.”

“Yeah.” Mark scratched his head and shifted in his seat. “I guess I just wanted to say that I understand. If we don’t defend what’s ours then somebody’s just going to take it away from us. There’s nobody out there to stop them.”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Right. Well… I get it.” Mark nodded.

Dianne smiled wistfully at him and stood up to give him a hug. “Thanks, kiddo. Are you okay now? You’ve been kind of stand-offish the last couple days.”

“I think so, yeah.” Mark started heading off of the porch and back down towards the lake. “It’s kind of a lot to think about though, you know?”

“Try not to think about it. Just relax and enjoy yourself.”

Mark nodded and turned to jog back down to join his siblings. Dianne watched him go before sitting back down in her chair. The smile she had forced for Mark’s sake withered, turning her face into a mask of sorrow.

The Event had robbed her of her husband, of normalcy, of the everyday lives of her and her children. It had shattered her world and forced her to adopt a kill-or-be-killed mentality that was beginning to bleed over into her children. Jacob and Josie had remained mostly untainted by what was going on. Mark, though, was different. She was glad that he understood what she had done but his understanding was the source of her sadness. In his understanding came the loss of more of his innocence, stripped away from him before she was prepared for it to happen.

As Dianne sat and thought about what was happening to her family, another thought floated through her mind that she had picked at on and off for the last two days. The man she killed had mentioned that he was tasked by someone named “Rogers” to gather supplies and that there was more than just the one other person involved. If this “Rogers” person happened to wonder where his missing man had gotten to, he might send more people out in search of him. That, in turn, could lead to a very messy situation at the homestead.

Try as she might, though, Dianne couldn’t think of anything they could do to fortify their house and property more than they already had. The house was boarded up, the animals were kept indoors or under close guard when they were outside and the children were under strict instructions to keep their voices low whenever they were outside playing.

She had already been giving Jacob and Josie refresher instructions on how to use some of the smaller, more balanced pistols in the house in case worse came to worse. The idea of using a portion of the tunnel as a firing range to help Mark practice without worrying about attracting attention above ground had occurred to her, but only if she could figure out a way to ventilate the space. There was a lot still left to do and Dianne had no idea how much time was left to do it all before action would take the place of preparation.

One fact burned in the center of her mind above all others, though: there would be no quarter or surrender given to anyone who tried to invade. If more people arrived at the house looking to steal and kill, Dianne would do everything in her power to keep her family and property safe.

Chapter 18

Three days after the Event

Somewhere in the Wyoming wilderness

The flat plains, rolling hills and sheer mountain cliffs are covered in lush green vegetation in spite of the early winter season. Pine trees dot the landscape with swaths of dark green, carving out enormous sections of the rolling hills and mountains and filling them with an impenetrable cover of soft needles. Gentle waves lap at the shore of wide lakes fed by trickling creeks and rushing rivers. Upstream, in the mountains, still-melting snow adds to the volume of water rushing down the mountainsides.

The stillness of the late morning air is broken by three MV-22 Ospreys screaming through the air, their horizontally-aligned blades pulling them forward at three hundred miles per hour. They follow the features of the terrain below, cutting through tree-covered valleys and soaring above lakes and vast unbroken fields.

Flying only a few hundred feet above the ground, each Osprey has its rear door open. Half a dozen Marines stand near each open door, their harnesses the only things keeping them from tumbling to their doom. The Marines scan the ground behind them while the pilots scan the ground in front. Radio contact is constant between the three Ospreys as they update each other in real time.

Their search for the Boeing 747 designated as Air Force One has been going on fo

r sixteen hours and there is very little solid information to go on. A garbled radio transmission was received seventeen hours ago from the pilot and co-pilot of the aircraft, announcing that the plane was plummeting towards the earth. The reasons for the crash are not known to the Marines, but one of the Secret Service agents on board the lead Osprey has privileged information.

An inadvertent activation of the 747’s backup communications system opened the computer systems of the aircraft to communication with the outside world for eleven seconds. Damocles took ten seconds to discover the communication connection, exploit it and insert a copy of itself into various firmware on the plane before the backup communications system was switched off. Twenty minutes after infection the aircraft began to malfunction in the skies over Wyoming and started its swift descent to the ground.

With no solid information on where the aircraft went down, small groups of aircraft that were not infected by Damocles have converged on Wyoming. They scour the state in miles-long grids, searching for any clue of its whereabouts. The sight of smoke in a long, flat valley comes over the radio and the three Ospreys break off from their search pattern and head for the location. No external navigational data or communications over any system except locked-down and encrypted voice-only communications is allowed and the pilots rely on their training and paper maps to guide them.

It takes fifteen minutes before the Ospreys spot the smoke. The lead aircraft, carrying the Secret Service agents, slows down while the other two break off and increase their altitude to get a visual confirmation on the exact location of the crash. The lead Osprey’s rotors tilt into the vertical position as it nears the location, turning the aircraft from a plane into a massive, awkward helicopter. In a clearing a few hundred yards from the crash site the Osprey sets down into the soft grass.

Before the blades can even begin spinning down the Secret Service agents and Marines deploy from the back of the craft. They sprint across the field and head for the nearby woods. A hundred yards inside the woods the broken and battered nose of the 747 leers at them. The cockpit windows are smashed and broken, the metal is dented and torn in multiple locations and one of the reinforced wings was sheared off long before the main body came to a rest.

The Secret Service agent in charge barks orders at the Marines, ordering them to fan out across the woods and begin searching for anyone who escaped the wreckage. He and the other agents descend upon the plane itself, accompanied by a pair of Marines and two medics. All of the doors and hatches on the plane are open and several bodies are lying on the ground around the aircraft. Fire has consumed much of the remaining wing and though fire suppression systems prevented the flames from entering the interior the plane is filled with thick acrid smoke.

The Secret Service agents move through the 747 swiftly, checking each compartment for the commander-in-chief. The small living, dining and lounge areas are all empty, but the President’s private office door is sealed shut. The agents force open the door and find a dozen people crowded together on the floor, many suffering from injuries ranging from superficial to serious. After determining that the President is not in the room the agents leave one medic to tend to the wounded and proceed farther down to the back of the plane.

In the rear of the aircraft sits a small chamber that is armored, padded and locked. A separate air supply is built into the room with enough oxygen to last for twenty-four hours. The room is still sealed shut and appears intact. The agents open an access panel on the outside of the room and the head agent enters in a long code. The panel glows green and several thick bolts inside the door disengage. The door mechanism slowly pulls the door open and the agents peer in to find the bloodied and bruised form of the President of the United States.

The medics rush forward and check him over before one of them turns back to the head Secret Service agent. “He’s alive. Pulse is weak, though and his breathing is bad. Smoke probably got in here when they crashed.”