In The Afterlight

“That was me drinking from my canteen, dumbass,” Gonzo said. “Jesus, dude. Did you leave your balls in California?”

I shushed them, and then shushed them again when one of the girls started complaining about having to pee.

“I told you not to drink that much water on the drive,” Sarah told her. “You never listen to me.”

“Sorry I don’t have the bladder of a freaking sloth.”

“You mean camel,” Sarah corrected.

“I meant sloth,” the other girl said. “I read somewhere they only have to go once a week.”

I rolled my eyes heavenward for strength, wondering if this was what Vida felt like every moment of every day.

“Status?” Cole’s voice was clipped in my ear.

“Same as an hour ago,” I said as I pressed my earpiece. “Nothing so far, over.”

We’d taken the two SUVs down to this barren stretch of Interstate 80 and were dropped off on the side of the road; Lucy and Mike turned the cars around and drove them back to Lodi. Cole and I had mapped out the sweet spot on the highway in terms of distance from the camp. Just far enough from the camp that no one would notice the vehicles making a quick stop. But the only cover we had to hide in was the wash running along the cracked asphalt. We curved our bodies to fit its shape, and waited.

It was another ten minutes before my ears picked up on the faint hum of a distant engine. I knew I hadn’t imagined it when the others began to squirm, trying to get a better look at the lip of the wash. A few seconds later, the first pinpricks of light appeared—headlights that grew in size and intensity, slicing through the darkness.

I glanced down the wash—and there it was, three bursts of light from a flashlight. Ollie had been stationed there to check the markings on the truck. It was the right one.

Zach slapped my back, the excitement bringing a grin to his face. I felt it like a jolt of electricity to my system and flashed a smile back at him as I stood.

I walked out into the middle of the road, hands shaking only a little bit as the semi-trailer truck barreled down the road. I held up my hands as the headlights blinded me—I couldn’t see the details of the driver behind the windshield, but I saw the quick movement as his hand went to strike the horn. I let the invisible hands in my mind reach out blindly, feeling for his, stretching, stretching, stretching—and connecting.

The truck rolled to a stop three feet away from me.

There was a flurry of movement at my left as the makeshift tact team came scrambling up from the wash, moving toward the rear of the truck to open the trailer and jump inside.

I pushed the earpiece as I jogged around to open the passenger side door of the truck’s cab. “We have our ride, over.”

“Fantastic. Proceed with second phase.”

The driver was frozen behind the wheel, waiting for his instructions from me. I searched through his memories and teased one up from the week before, of him making this exact ride in. I pulled that to the forefront of his mind and said one word. “Drive.”

I crouched as low as I could in the cab, drawing the black ski mask down over my face. I pulled myself up to look over the dash periodically to make sure we were still heading in the right direction. The truck driver had been blasting some rap music that was angry and pounding enough to set me on edge, so I reached over and switched it off, missing the exact moment the gray, sun-bleached two-story structure and its ten-foot fence came into view.

“In sight,” I said. “Everyone good at the back of the bus?”

“Peachy,” was Zach’s reply. “ETA?”

“Two minutes.”

I took another steadying breath as we turned and headed off the highway onto a dirt road. The two PSFs at the gate dragged the thing open as the driver, a thick-waisted, bearded man in a short-sleeved button-down, went through the motions of turning the truck and reversing through it, his face blank. A tarp was spread out over the loading area adjacent to the main building. There were already flatbed carts out, waiting for the supplies to be unloaded. Two PSFs were sitting on them, smoking, but threw the cigarettes away and stood as the truck backed toward them. The others, having secured the gate, were hurrying back over as I took one last deep breath.

“We’re in—prepare for action,” I said. “Two PSFs positioned at your door, two more coming around the back.”

“Silent and fast,” Cole reminded us. “Ten minutes starts now.”

A fifth approached the driver’s window, calling out a, “Mornin’ Frank!”

I pushed the image of Frank rolling down the window into his mind, leaned over him, and, before the PSF’s eyes could so much as widen, had my gun pointed directly at his face. He was young, around Cate’s age, maybe. At the sight of me, he lost the easy smile on his face. His whole body pulled back in alarm, and he reached for his rifle.

“What the fu—”

“Hands where I can see them.” I couldn’t control Frank and the PSF at the same time, and Gonzo and Ollie eliminated my need to. One of them cracked him on the back of his skull with the butt of his own rifle, and the other had him facedown in the dirt, gagged and secured with zip ties. He was hauled behind the truck, where four other limp forms were already propped up.

I knew some of the kids hadn’t understood why we’d run through this so many times, but I think, now that we were here, they saw the answer in how smoothly we assembled into formation. The real benefit of simulations was to train your nerves to behave, to make something like this feel as normal as waking up and walking to the showers each morning. It seemed to have worked—even as we approached the door the PSFs had left open and quietly stepped inside of the building, the group felt as steady as stone to me. We certainly looked menacing enough, dressed in all black and wearing ski masks.