Chapter 1: Happy Fuckin' Holidays

The bright light of the welder cast harsh, jumping shadows upon the walls of the garage. Sweat dripped from Brent’s mask as he joined angle iron and tubes of steel to one another. Focusing so much on his work, he didn’t even notice Brad’s attempts to get his attention.

“Dude!” Brad yelled from the door. “Yo! Brent!... Damn it!” He tried walking over towards him but the blinding flashes of light made it hard to navigate the clustered garage.

Eventually Brent stopped welding and lifted his mask, looking in Brad’s direction. “What’s up?”

“Some crazy shit went down! Somebody set off a nuke in London. The news said that there’s North Koreans coming in hot in the North-West and there’s a whole army rounding up in Mexico right now.”

“What? Are you fucking kidding?” Brent put his welding torch down and moved toward Brad.

Brad pointed to the door as he spoke, drawing Brent’s attention toward the door. “No fucking joke dude! This shit is hitting the fan! They’re reporting about it on the news, check it out.” Now that he had taken a break, he could hear the faint sound of the television all the way from the garage.

Through the door was the living room of the three-bedroom home. Large, military-style plastic crates lined the walls of the already clustered living room. The only lights in the room were the television, the cherry of Ian’s cigarette and the laser from Cole’s MP5. Ian, Cole and Matt were sitting in various spots, all with their eyes glued to the TV news.

Images of a nuclear explosion flashed while a marquee scrolled across the bottom of the screen reading, “A nuclear bomb was detonated in London around 4 in the morning. The casualty rate is estimated to be 4.7 million. Reports show that Russia, India and Germany all possess Ion Canon technology and have launched individual variations of the Space Based Ion Cannon. These foreign SBICs have not shown to be operational but are maintaining steady orbits. Canada joined the war today, sending over a third of their military to help defend United States borders which are now less then 70% controlled by American forces.”

“Once again, viewers, we are doing everything we can to keep you updated on the situation.” the anchorwoman spoke as the image changed to her and her colleagues sitting at the news desk. “Everyone here at Action News 3 and I hope you viewers at home will join us in a moment of silence for everyone effected by the tragedy that occurred today.”

As the TV went silent the room stayed the same. Everyone was staring at the TV, the only jaw not dropped was Ian’s as he took a drag from his smoke, and even then, it was only for a moment. Cano, dirty and greasy, entered the room dance-walking to the music playing on his headphones. He got about half way through the room, and in mid robot move, he looked at Ian as he unwittingly flicked the cherry off of his cigarette onto his leg. Cano chuckled to himself for a second as he pointed at Ian’s leg. Ian looked at him, only moving his eyes, and then down at the cigarette and back at Cano. He pointed at the TV. Following Ian’s finger, Cano looked at the TV only to see footage of the nuclear explosion.

As he took his headphones off, he heard the anchorwoman’s nervous voice quake, “Because of the nature of this global emergency and its possible effect here in Tucson an emergency meeting will soon be taking place at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, we will now go live to Jodie in the field. Jodie?”

The camera cut from the news desk to an attractive blonde reporter, walking quickly to keep up with several men in military uniforms. “Yes, thank you Alexis. Moments before the emergency meeting starts I stand here with General Treeber. General, what do you expect to happen in this meeting and how much of it will focus on army gathering to our southern border?”

“I expect we will be at our highest level of alert by sun up at the latest. I also expect we will be able to finally get these planes in the air again. This war has made all of our resources run thin, especially manpower. As of right now I am recollecting troops to fully prepare us for what may be to come. The southern boarder is becoming our top priority. Luckily the Canadians joined us in defending the North-West so we may have more available troops than expected. Also, the National Guard and Border Patrol have more units in route and depending on this meeting we could rendezvous with them in less than 12 hours.”

“Davis-Monthan is one of the largest airfields in the world is it not? How long will it take to get all these planes operational again?”

“Davis-Monthan has the largest congregation of mission capable aircraft. One of these ‘sleeping’ Raptors could be brought out of hibernation, checklist tested, fueled and ready to fly within 20 minutes. With the right manpower it would take less than 3 days to put the thousands of planes here into the air. At full capacity it, without a doubt, could single-handedly defend the southern boarder and give massive support to those fighting on the north-western front.”

“That’s excellent, General. Do you have any words on the reports of other nations launching SBICs?”

As Jodie spoke to the general a strange electronic humming noise grew more noticeable. She reached at her ear piece and the microphone power box attached to her hip. “We seem to be having a little feedback, hold on lets see if this can be fixed real quick.”

Cano was sitting on the floor now, watching the news jaw dropped like everyone else as something dawned on him. His skin drew pale as he spoke, “That noise. I’ve heard that noise before. That static...it has a pulse! Shit! This can’t be happening! Where is it?” Cano jumped up and ran out the front door, onto the street. He spun in a circle gazing upward as he spun in circles running up the street.

Cole and Ian chased after him. “It’s not what you think, it can’t be!” Ian yelled, looking up with him.

“What? What the fuck is it? What the fuck are you looking at?” Cole asked frantically, he was out of breath and completely confused.

“Dude!” Cano replied to Ian. “You were never on the ground…you don’t even know how the sound differs!”

“Well what the fuck should we do then?” Ian asked Cano as he grabbed his arm, forcing Cano to stop and look at him.

“No one has told me what the fuck is going on!” Cole screamed at the top of his lungs as he caught up to the two.

“The noise, that electronic humming, I first heard it in Chubut.” Cano responded, also winded.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Cole yelled.

“In Chubut he worked on the Ion Cannon,” Ian interjected. “Remember?”

Cole quieted down rapidly only murmuring, “Oh fuck…”

“The electronic static you heard on the TV had a pulse; it’s the same thing that happens when the Ion-Beam first contacts the opposite pole as it charges to fire. The only sound it makes is that pulse and it only gets faster until it becomes a single dull note.” Cano explained as they walked up a street, searching the sky. “That dull note’s frequency will gradually get higher and higher until eventually it will increase past the capacity of human hearing. You know it’s about to fire when you can’t hear it anymore,” Cano explained.

“Ok, so what the fuck are we looking for?” Cole, slightly panicked, asked while spinning, holding his arms in the air and looking straight up.

“A beam,” as Cano spoke, a thin bright blue straight line of light suddenly appeared to the south spanning from the sky to the horizon. The pulsing, as Cano said, turned into a dull note and with that, the three froze as the unbelievable happened, Cole still holding his arms to the sky. The beam darkened to a purple as it grew larger, then it split into three smaller parallel beams that seemed to spin and rotate around one another. Bulges began running down the beams from the sky; they were in sync with the static melody heard on the news a few moments ago. A bubble, close in color to the beams, grew at their focal point. Its exterior looked to have a liquid property to it, like drops in a pond; ripples were formed across its surface. It grew larger and brighter and was mildly translucent. Outlines of the structures within it were recognizable for seconds, if that.

“Holy fuck!” Cole only took a moment’s break from being paralyzed by awe and fear to put his hands down. “How much bigger is that thing going to get?”

“Hopefully not much!” Cano and Ian responded in unison.

“Are you seeing this shit out here?” Cano snapped back as he pointed to the south.

While running, Eric saw the beams and the growing bubble, only to mutter, “Oh crap.”

As the bubble stopped expanding its color began to flash. Red lightning shot about within the bubble’s ‘skin’, all throughout the air force base. Where the lightning and ‘skin’ contacted each other was the origin of the many ripples. The low volume, high pitched tone gradually faded beyond the capacity of a human’s hearing as the lightning went from red to white and became much brighter than anything else.

“This is wild,” Cano said as he put the welding goggles that were around his neck over his eyes. “Careful boys, this is gonna’ get bright.”

The intensely bright lightning projected the new found white energy outward, flooding the ‘skin’ of the bubble making an intensely illuminated surface that looked solid like a huge light bulb. The entire bubble, in which can only be described as the opposite of a flash of light. Everything, including the light imploded directly toward the focus of the beams. It was as if a massive vacuum had been released within the bubble. The entire city of Tucson was instantly without electricity. The beams descending to Earth were now extremely bright and shot back into the sky. A gust of wind struck from the North as the four felt the sensation of a massive vacuum pulling in matter and light from all around them making it hard to stay standing.

“Dude!” Cole yelled looking at Cano.

Ian and Cano continued looking toward the sky, Cano only was able to say, “Wait a…” when suddenly a massive cylindrical beam of light shot down from above, striking the ground, delivering what looked like a luminescent shockwave that expanded about one and a half times the diameter of the bubble.

What was left of the base maintained a blotchy violate glow, as if infected within. Davis-Monthan Air Force Base was obliterated. The affected area and bubble were around ten miles in diameter and the damage looked to range from mild to completely obliterated depending how far or close something was from the vertex, respectively.

The men stared for a few seconds, attempting to grasp the event that just took place in front of their eyes. Cole broke the silence as turned to his friends and pointed to the wasted Air Force Base, “Holy fuck man. That was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen! We gotta’ get the fuck out of here!”

“Cole’s right,” Ian said. “We need to move.”

“Fuck, he's right!” Cano exclaimed. “Damn it! I knew shit was gonna’ hit the fan, I just never expected it this soon!”

“At least we’re prepared!” Cole interjected. “Now get the fuck in the house!”

“We aren’t going to get any sleep tonight, are we?” Eric asked with a confused and disappointed look on his face.

“Damn you all! Let’s move move move!” Cole yelled at the other three as they stood, staring at each other in disbelief. He ran to the house, slapping them on the shoulders as he darted by.

They were all quick to follow Cole into the house. Cano and Ian ran while Eric took an extra moment to gaze at the crater that was Davis-Monthan.

“We have to finish the mount right now! We need to have DealCo by tomorrow.” Cano huffed as he ran back to the house.

“It’s going to take another few hours for everything to get packed anyway,” Ian responded, winded from running. “We should post a scout there ‘cause this place is going to become a mad house real quick. I’m pretty sure the power plant was in the blast radius for that, this is more than conditioned power outage when relating to the electron soup effect.”

As they drew closer to the house they heard the sounds of yelling.

“We need to take charge here real fast and get them moving or it’s going to be a cluster fuck all night.” Cano said to Ian as they approached the front door.

“I’ll back you up on whatever,” Ian said. “Who do you want to scout and post up?”

“I’ll do it,” Eric said, winded from the quick sprint. “I kinda’ wouldn’t mind being alone for a while.”

“Word,” Cano said.

“I know how you feel man.” Ian stated as he grabbed Eric’s shoulders, he looked at Cano and said, “Let’s get this done.”

Cano nodded at Ian and Eric and entered the dark loud house. Everyone in the room was screaming about what happened and what will happen. There were even screams from other rooms. Cano grabbed a flare, took a deep breath and sparked it as he yelled louder then everyone, “Hey! Shut the fuck up and pay attention! If you like it or not this shit is going down. If you want to yell and scream about what just happened, fine. Fuck. Me too! But we at least need to get shit done while we do it.” Having grabbed the attention of the group, people began calming down and gathering around Cano and the flare light. He walked around the room as he spoke, grabbing things like the MP5, turning off the laser and putting it away. His voice became much quieter, more sincere. “The last few months have been pretty fun and exciting. Developing plans, playing with guns, creating gadgets, it’s all been great but now it is time to act. I have no choice but to begin stage two of the Apocalypse Scenario…tonight. With this power outage we must take DealCo by sun up or we could loose a large portion of our stock. We have six hours. We have planned this together for months, since the first signs of war, but now more than ever I need the truth. Who is with me?” Cano went silent looking each of them in the eyes.

“I am,” Topher said.

“Yea me too!” Brent exclaimed.

“I’m pretty sure we all are,” Ian interjected; he then looked around the room. “If anyone isn’t speak up now.”

“How do we know that no one is going to come?” Brad asked. “I mean wont the National Guard be sent down or something? If we get caught taking or holding DealCo they will think we are enemies for sure. I don’t want to get shot by my own country.”

“I wish I could tell you for sure,” Cano said, “unfortunately that isn’t possible and I’m not going to wait around for them not to show up and rescue us. There is an army gathering less than 200 miles south of here and our major military base just got destroyed. We are without power and will probably loose water soon. To me, if I think from a military mindset, Tucson is already lost. If anything they are just going to try to fortify the boarder, unless that gets struck too. We have to play this by ear for a little bit until we know what’s going on.”

An awkward silent moment passed and suddenly Brad spoke, “Ok well I’m with you, I think we’re all are,” everyone nodded their heads with Brad. “So what do we need to do?”

Everyone in the room stared at Cano, quick to react he began delegating. “Alright Brad, first we need that mount done so you and Brent can finish that up. Make sure it functions when free also.” Cano pointed to the plastic crates around the home. “We need to pack all this shit up and make sure we get everything in the Box Truck. We’ve got to remember to put the not-immediately-necessary items in the back so we can unload fast. I trust Topher and Cole can take care of that. Ian and I will go through the final checklist and help them with loading the Box Truck. All of that will take us a good hour and with how fast things are getting crazy I think we should send at least one person to scope DealCo. The city won’t sit in awe forever. Once people start freaking out it’s only going to get worse. Eric and Matt should take the two-ways and scout out our route to DealCo. Try and find some high spots like billboards or roofs to get a premium view and remain unseen. Take binoc’s and a forty-five, just incase.”

“Once they complete and attach the mount and its components and we’ve loaded the Box Truck we’ll head to DealCo immediately. We’re going to have to start ‘Plan-B’ now thanks to power outages.” Ian interrupted as Cano started walking back to the laundry room where a generator with ‘Plan-B’ spray-painted on it sat. “Sorry.” Ian gave him an unnecessary apology then continued addressing the group, “Based on what Matt and Eric tell us we will collectively develop a final arrival plan. The Box Truck must go to the rear door. If roof entrance is necessary it will take at least two. Once the back door is opened we’ll back it in so Ian and the generators can go the cooling units immediately. I will set up the two generators and before Ian is set up it will take two people to ready the fuel. As Ian sets up, the rest of us will focus on collecting goods and eventually start the ‘remodel’…any questions?” Ian looked around at everyone shaking their heads ‘no’.

A new level of seriousness flooded the home as they, for the first time, realized how real this all was and how much more real it was about to get.

“Alright troops!” Eric proclaimed in attempt to dampen the reality bomb that just exploded all over the house. “To your stations! Let’s Go! Go! Go!”

With slight hesitation everyone eventually started their assignments. Brad and Brent ran off into the garage and began welding away. Topher and Cole started packing up the gadgets, guns and tools that cluttered the home. Matt and Eric had a two-man strategy huddle and set off separate ways. They routinely checked in with Cano and Ian who organized and filled the Box Truck. They talked over strategies based on the latest updates from the scouts and were surprised at the lack of notice by the citizens living in that area.

As the sky brightened from dark to dawn, the group completed the necessary tasks with a swiftness unseen before. A few cat naps were taken, but with productivity high they would soon be ready to go.

Matt and Eric both reported that people seemed to not even know an Ion Cannon struck their city not more than 5 hours ago. They barely even wondered why the power was off or how come the water pressure was dropping. A few miles down the road complete and total chaos was brewing. Soon, like a tsunami, the overwhelming terror born from the revelation of last nights events will ascend from the deep and engulf the public in chaos. For now, luck was on their side. Everyone was more than relieved to learn that the takeover would be a silent and stealthy one.

With everything packed up and ready to go, Brent and Brad invited everyone into the garage to unveil their creation, Matt and Eric couldn’t join for obvious reasons. A tarp was draped over a large object.

“Behold!” Brent yelled as Brad pulled the tarp away, “Let the awesomeness astound you!”

The SUV he unveiled was missing the back half of the roof. In its place was a large gun mount holding a fifty caliber machine gun. It was harnessed to the vehicle by swiveling shock mounts and stabilized by swing arms that attached it to the roll cage running throughout the vehicle.

“The mount will easily be removable with just two men,” Brent stated. “Three preferably if the fifty cal. is attached. With the addition of these wheelbarrow wheels and tires, the unit’s mobility has exponentially increased.”

As Brad continued waving the large machine gun around, the phrases ‘sweet’, ‘awesome’ and ‘holy fuck’ were repeated frequently as the group admired the work they had done and congratulated them for it. The unveiling pumped a positive energy into the group, so abundant that while they were all looking at the SUV, Ian started jumping up and down yelling, “Let’s do this! Let’s do this! Let’s do this!” and jumped into the car. Everyone lead by example, harnessing that energy, pumping themselves up and hauling off to their vehicles. The time for action was upon them and they knew it, they had known it and they were overly prepared for it.

“Matt!” Cano’s voice shot into the two-way radio, “Matt! We are leaving in 30 seconds. Everything still clear?”

“Rodger that, clear on my end, see you in fifteen.” Matt cracked back through the radio.

“You all packed in Ian?” Cano spoke over the radio again, “We got the clear form Matt.”

“Yes,” Ian said, “and I heard that. We are all on the same channel you know.”

“Just makin sure you’re paying attention.” Cano tried to be sly, it didn’t work. He looked at Brad, who was sitting next to him, and up at Brent on the turret. “You guys ready for this?”

“Yea man,” Brad sincerely responded, “We have your back all the way man, we know what we have to do.”

“You guys rock.” Cano said as he started the SUV. “Awesome job! One day this thing's gonna’ save our asses, mark my words.”

“Consider it an early Christmas gift from us,” Brad said, giggling and smiling.

“Ha!” Cano laughed with him. “Wow, I totally forgot it’s almost Christmas. Thanks guys!”

“Yeah man,” Brent chimed in, laughing with them. “Happy fuckin' hollidays! The world’s completely gone to shit!”

A crackle over the radio interrupted them, “You ready to do this or what, Mouth?” Ian spoke as if aggravated by how long it was taking them to get on the road.

“Yea! Cool yer jets man!” Cano barked back, laughing still. “Alright. Eric, we are en route to your location first. Once we get there we will pick you up and meet up with Matt across the street from DealCo.”

“Actually,” Matt chimed in over the radio. “If you guys go in through the neighborhood to the north it looks like a back-alley goes through almost directly to the rear of DealCo.”

“Awesome!” Ian interjected. “Cano, how about we take the truck directly to the DealCo to meet with Matt and begin this while you pick up Eric?”

“Sounds good guys,” Cano excitedly replied. “We’ll see you there.”

The group departed the house; everyone was in high spirits considering the events that took place earlier in the day. A haze of emotionally shattering thoughts clouded the minds of the group but their bond held them firm. Though doubts and worry lingered in their minds, these feelings were subdued through laughter and friendship.

The Box-Truck was the first to arrive at DealCo; they took the back path Matt suggested. He met up with them as they backed up to the building's rear entrance. Cano, after picking up Eric, pulled up next to the Box-Truck a few minutes later. Everyone exited the vehicles, most engaged in small talk about everything that took place already that day while others looked around and studied the doors and other access points while crafting entrance methods in their heads.

Prologue - Midlogue 1: Chubut Files