August 2076
Secret Lionheart Headquarters
Sierra Mountains
Republic of the Pacific

As he left his room, Alex noticed for the first time that it was dark outside. The hallways stretching away from the small room were quiet. He moved silently down the hall, stretching his sore muscles as he cautiously explored the darkened corridor. He could hear voices, somewhere off ahead, but each door he passed was closed and no sounds came from within whatever rooms lay beyond them. The hallway ended after he had passed about half a dozen doors.

“Took you long enough, Scope,” he heard a familiar voice from around a corner say. He found Jimmy, learning against the wall a few feet to his left. He was cleaned up and dressed in a uniform that matched Alex’s, though he wore a hat with ear coverings that draped nearly down to his shoulders. He tossed a matching hat to Alex. “Looks like Rourke forgot this.”

“Thanks, Jimmy,” Alex said sincerely. “It’s good to see you up and walking.”

“Not as good as it is for me to see you up,” Jimmy replied. “You gave us a scare. After the fight, well, it didn’t look like you were going to make it. A few of the guys said their goodbyes already, but I knew you’d pull through. Though it looks like you still have some healing to do.” He nodded behind Alex.

Alex turned and found himself staring at who he guessed was himself in the reflection of tall mirror mounted onto the wall behind him. He wouldn’t have recognized himself if he hadn’t been looking at the reflection. His hair had brightened a shade more, almost to a white blond that would have matched Sebastian’s. His skin was tan and weathered looking. Blotches of blue and green showed beneath both eyes and his nose was slightly crooked. He noticed the lumpy texture around his mouth for the first time.

“Yikes,” he said quietly. Then he turned to Jimmy and mustered as much of a smile as he could through the bruises. “Guess I shouldn’t jump out at anyone for a while, huh? It’s pretty dark in here, wouldn’t want anyone to think I’m the boogeyman.”

Jimmy chuckled and nodded, then motioned for Alex to follow him down the next hallway. The room Jimmy had been waiting in seemed to be some kind of fitting room. Alex glanced across the room and briefly glimpsed a weapons rack mounted against a column on the far side of the room. As they entered the next hall, Alex grabbed his friend’s shoulder and stopped him, turning the smaller boy to face him.

“Before we go on, Jimmy, I need to know. Who’s still with us?” Alex asked. He had been out for almost two weeks, as Rourke told it. He wanted to know what was left of his command. Jimmy stared at the ground a moment, a look of resignation on his face. He had been expecting this.

“Me, Shawn, Jorge, Rock,” Jimmy began, slowly ticking the members off with his fingers. “Avery, Rudy, Mike, Jackson, Phil, Dempsey.” He shook his head, in resignation, as if he didn’t want to continue.

“Cassie,” Alex replied quietly, a statement, rather than a question.

“Yeah, Cassie made it,” Jimmy replied. “Justin too, though he was sent back with the rest of the Pride team. Rourke had them escorted up to Oregon after we slipped across the border. He called it an escort at least. I’d call it an armed prison flight, but to each his own.” Jimmy smiled faintly at his own joke, though it did little to cheer him up.

“Where is Cassie?” Alex asked, still quiet. After what had happened at the crash site, the kiss, he had thought she would be the first one he saw when he woke up.

Jimmy seemed to want to be anywhere but with Alex the moment he heard the question. He slid his hands behind his neck, cradling the base of his head and leaning back, as if he were stretching. After a moment, he let out a breath.

“Cassie was at your side every day from when Rourke and his men saved us, all the way until we got you secured here, Alex,” Jimmy said, almost reassuringly. “We tried to get her to leave, or get some sleep. She didn’t even eat while she stayed next to you. Then, a few days ago, Rourke and Jorge checked you out, said there was a good chance you wouldn’t wake up. Cassie was beside herself, swore she would make the Council pay. She left that night, two days ago. We haven’t heard from her since.”

Alex nodded, staring at the ground along with Jimmy now. He had thought she would be there, thought she would wait for him to come back around. 

Cassie’s in this for herself, Samuelson, he heard Sebastian tease inside his head. No, she hadn’t left. She had carried on, for the good of the mission. He needed to talk to her, to sort through everything that had happened between them.

But now she was gone, off on some suicide mission for revenge. He had to find her before it was too late. Not that anyone had any idea where she had run off to. Alex tried to push away his deepest fears as they simmered just below the surface. If there was one thing Cassie Hawthorne was good at, it was staying alive.

“Thanks, Jimmy,” Alex said to his friend, completely sincere with gratitude. “Thanks for waiting up for me.” Jimmy brightened. With a burst of enthusiasm, he grabbed Alex’s arm and dragged him around the corner, saying, 

“C’mon, everyone else is waiting for us,” Jimmy said with a smile.

 Alex followed his friend as they continued around the building. Down a flight of stairs, Alex found himself jogging to keep up with Jimmy’s frenzied pace. He was still having coordination problems, his balance slowly returning after so much time off his feet. Jimmy slowed as they bounced down a second flight of stairs. The two turned left and moved down another hallway. Alex could feel the air getting colder. There was a slight wind as well, flowing against them. Faint scents of pine and snow wafted past Alex’s nose and he found himself growing less anxious and more excited.

They finally reached the end of the hall and began to climb a set of stairs that led upwards in a spiral. Four full turns later, Alex found himself watching Jimmy drop down off of the lip of a well that hid the staircase from a casual passerby. Alex slowly sat on the edge and gingerly hopped down to follow his friend. His boots crunched on the thin layer of snow beneath his feet.

“Jimmy,” Alex stammered, more winded than he thought he should be from such a short run. Clearly he had some work to do with getting his strength back. “Where the hell are you taking me?”

“What, you tired already?” Jimmy chuckled. His breath steamed out from his mouth as he spoke. “It’s not too much further, but if you really need me to, I think I can carry you the rest of the way.”

His laughter, combined with him miming an image of cradling a baby, gave Alex a warm feeling inside, even against the chill of the winter wind. He shook his head and laughed, taking a playful swipe at Jimmy, who ducked away and motioned for Alex to follow onward.

The weather was unseasonably cold for this time of year. Even at high altitudes, you tended not to see much snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains until October, or September at the earliest. But as Alex absorbed his surroundings, he found a green forest lightly doused in a white, fluffy coat of fresh snow. While not enough for skiing, it was enough make his boots slide in the dirt as he carefully followed his friend deeping into the woods.

“Must be more of the global weather extremification they kept talking about on the news,” Alex muttered as he trudged out into the cold.

“You say something, Scope?” Jimmy asked over his shoulder.

“Nah, nevermind,” Alex replied. “Lead on.”

Five minutes later, Jimmy held up his balled fist, a silent sign for Alex to halt. Alex, who had been keeping his eyes fixed on Jimmy, lest he get lost among the unfamiliar boles at night in the snow, immediately stopped where he stood. He watched as Jimmy slowly bent down and took a handful of snow, carefully shaping it into a ball as he rose back up. Then the younger boy cocked his arm, and hurled a snowball through the trees. He was rewarded by thump and a curse.

“Who’s the idiot that just signed his own death warrant?” a red faced and snow covered Dempsey growled as he turned around to regard Jimmy and Alex. His face was set in an angry grimace, but he brightened as he saw Alex standing awkwardly behind Jimmy.

“It wasn’t me, Master Sergeant, I promise you that!” Alex replied with a smile, hands up defensively. Jimmy just shrugged. 

Alex heard a few laughs as more members of the team popped their heads up. Smiles quickly spread as they came out of the woods to greet Alex in person. Alex shook hands and nodded appreciatively to each. Then he heard a crunch to his right, quickly followed by an intense coldness against the side of his face, accompanied by a slight sting.

“The famous Scope Samuelson, ambushed with a snowball,” Shawn laughed as he slung another frozen projectile at Alex. 

This time, Alex had the sense to duck. The snow sailed over his head and struck Rock, who had been waiting to greet Alex, square in the face. Rock let out a curse as the snow splattered across his face. But he didn’t lose his smile. Shawn climbed carefully down the snow bank and wrapped his hands around Alex’s shoulders in a fierce hug. 

“We missed you man,” he said seriously. “Don’t scare us like that again, right?”

“Right,” was all Alex was able to say. 

As he had lain there in the dirt, with Sebastian ready to shoot Cassie only feet away, Alex was sure that if he ever woke up, it would be in a cell and that even that time awake wouldn’t last long. Now he was back with his team, with his friends, with everyone he ever cared about who had survived this war. 

Well, almost everyone, he thought to himself. 

He looked back up at Shawn, and around at the faces of the rest of the team. Less than 20 of them left alive, from an original crew of over five times that. A startling realization, even with everything they had been through together.

“Come on over here, Scope,” Dempsey said, waving Alex and those congregated around him. 

Alex carefully made his way between the trees and slowly climbed up embankment Dempsey had settled on. Shawn helped him keep steady, obviously aware that even Alex would have some recovery time from his still healing injuries. When they reached the top, Dempsey motioned for Alex to take a seat next to him. The ground was cleared of snow and a portable heating unit had been set up in place of a fire. While they were in a secret headquarters, a fire outside would be a sure sign of a human presence in the forest. If anyone should see the light from a fire, well, it was better if no one asked any questions or came looking around.

“What’s going on, Church?” Alex asked his senior officer. “I know everyone was waiting for me to heal up, but why are we all sitting out here, not planning a counterattack?” 

Alex thought that, especially with Cassie gone and likely captured, the first thing they would do was try to mount some sort of rescue mission, or at least start figuring out a way to fight the new power in the West.

“This is why, Scope,” Dempsey said, pointing at a small radio propped up near the heater. Its antenna was extended to full length and pointed westward. Dempsey adjusted the dial and turned up the volume.

“The brave and patriotic Americans killed during the Constitutional Convention will be remembered by an eternally grateful nation. They died trying to protect our freedoms from a regime determined to rob us of everything we hold dear, executed in cold blood by rogue elements of the security personnel hired to protect them in the first place. As President of the Republic of the Pacific, I, Jordan Hawthorne, will bring these vigilantes to justice. These traitors will never taste freedom and when we have captured them, they will pay the price for betraying their nation. Nor will I allow the tyrants spared from the attack on the Convention to retake the reins of power as they seek to usurp this government of the people under the false flag of the old regime.

“If anyone has any information on the whereabouts of Alex Samuelson, Roderick Dempsey, or anyone else affiliated with Lionheart Security, do your civic and patriotic duty to your nation and report it to the local Army authorities. Under the Emergency Powers Provision, all private military companies operating inside the borders of the Republic of the Pacific are now officially designated as part of the Army of the Pacific. We’ve all seen the terrible cost of paying mercenaries to fight for us. Now we will restore the honor and standing of what was a once great America. We bear a new name and a new flag, but we are the same people, rising up from the ashes of war like the phoenix of legend.

“Stay wary, people of the West. We will abide. Justice will prevail. Victory will be won. Freedom will be protected. God bless the Republic of the Pacific.”

Alex was stunned by what he heard. It was true, what Rourke had said. The Council had succeeded in creating their own country out of the ruins of a broken America, with an army whose core was almost certainly members of what had just a few weeks ago been Pride Security. He shook his head as he rested it against his palms.

“It’s been on repeat broadcast for nearly a week, Scope,” Dempsey said. He clicked off the radio and the repeating message fizzled out. “We didn’t want to rush into anything, not with so few of us left. Cassie wouldn’t hear it, though. She slipped out at night, when the rest of us were asleep. She bypassed the security system, but reset it when she left, in case, well, someone tried to get codes or our coordinates from her.” Dempsey was quiet for a moment, letting Alex absorb the information. Then Alex snapped his head back up, a small smile on his face.

“Coordinates,” he said quietly to himself.

“What?” Shawn asked. Dempsey, Rock, and Jimmy looked equally confused.

“You remember the memory chip my Dad gave us when we escaped from the airfield?” Alex asked

“Yeah, we only managed to get that video file off of it, but it just had some weird hand signals. Nobody could figure it out, even Jorge who understands sign language,” Shawn replied, unsure of why Alex would even bring it up.

“Yeah, you would see just random signs, but my Dad and I have had a secret code we used to use when we hunted. It’s the same code he used to communicate with me in the interrogation room just before the breakout, like sign language, but modified,” Alex replied, giddy with the thought of what the message meant.

“And what do they mean?” Dempsey asked, genuinely curious.

“It means we have our next mission, gentlemen,” Alex said, struggling to stand. Shawn and Dempsey were instantly at his side, helping him keep some weight off his weakened leg. “Those hand signals represented numbers, in a specific order. Two long numbers and three short numbers. Numbers that reveal an exact location and a date. The Council said they wanted information on the whereabouts of me and the Sergeant here, but curiously nothing about Blake or Yoshito, who were the guys in charge. Considering they aren’t proclaiming that they killed them off, which you think would be a national holiday for the Council, isn’t it kind of strange that they wouldn’t be searching for the head of the company? We’re going to need to hack a satellite, Master Sergeant. You do that, and I’ll give you the coordinates to where we can find Commander Blake and Captain Yoshito.”

Next Chapter: Ch. 21 - Old Allies, New Enemies