Overthrown II: The Resurrected (Overthrown Trilogy Book 2) Read online

  OVERTHROWN II

  THE RESURRECTED

  Judd Vowell

  Original publication © 2017 Judd Vowell. All rights reserved.

  www.juddvowell.com

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-1547293872

  For Sara

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE: STILL ALIVE……………………………..1

  PART ONE: ESCAPE…………...……………………….5

  PART TWO: FINDING THE WILL……………...…..137

  PART THREE: STRIKE………..……………..……….189

  PART FOUR: COUNTERSTRIKE….………………..299

  PART FIVE: FINDING THE WAY……..…………...405

  EPILOGUE: REUNION……...…………………….…441

  PROLOGUE: STILL ALIVE

  I lived. I honestly don’t know how I did it. But I think I’m finally starting to understand why I'm still here.

  I have little memory of the time I spent alone. What I do remember is blurred and filled with horrible hallucinatory visions. A killing kind of disease will do that. It will reach into your brain and flip a hidden switch in some darkened basement room you didn’t know existed inside your head. It will make you see things that aren’t real and make you believe things that aren’t true. It made me believe that I was dead more than once. And in a way, I guess I was.

  But that was then, before my sweet son Henry came back to me. I wouldn’t have survived if not for him and his bravery. And that of his sister Jessica, too. Don’t think for a second that I don’t know that. Because every waking moment of this next life, I do. Still just children in my eyes, but they saved me. Somehow.

  So now I’m back, the second coming of Meg. I fought my own body’s battle and won, only to face a much bigger one: ANTI-. I’ve learned that the ANTs are strong, just like the cancer that wanted to kill me. But they can be beaten, too. We believe that faithfully, because we must.

  I’m new to the rebellion against the ANTs and the isolated worlds of electrified grids that they created. Jessica has made a name for herself among the Lefty rebels. She's become a sort of beacon to them, a source of inspiration and hope. Henry's role, on the other hand, is quieter and less defined. But they all know that he was the one who shifted the momentum of the war’s first battle, saving their rebellion from catastrophe with ingenuity and bombs. Then he was gone, like a savior ghost.

  There's one thing that I've learned since the Great Dark overcame us two years ago: family is truly forever. Even the family we’ve lost, but never forget. I think of my hero husband every day, and I long for his wisdom and wit. One memory has been popping into my head more often lately. I can see Gordon kneeling, teaching a much younger version of the twins a classic life lesson. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way, guys.” Served them well, I suppose, because they’re still standing. They’ve faced impossible odds and defied the probabilities of certain death. So have I.

  Which begs the question: how did we do it? These days, I don’t get caught up too much in the hows of life. I try to stay focused on the whys instead. Because once you can answer the whys of the world, the other questions become much less important.

  So why am I still here? That’s the real question, one that most of us have to face at one point or another. The complete answer is not quite clear yet, but we’re getting there. Just wait. You may see it like I think I can now, and then the rest of our worries won't matter anymore.

  PART ONE: ESCAPE

  1.

  J acob Marsh stood atop the bridge that overlooked the rebels’ Camp Overlord and watched Simone Vincent’s jeep speed away from him. It had been ten years since he had committed himself and his computer-hacking expertise to Salvador Sebastian and ANTI‑, but now he was wondering if his devotion to the worldwide revolution had been the worst mistake of his life. Simone, Salvador’s virtual right-hand woman, was suddenly acting manic, determined to hunt down the twin teenagers who had escaped ANTI‑‘s Sector 3 grid in Nashville the day before. And worse than that, she wanted them dead. She had made those intentions obvious.

  Jacob’s head began to swim, and the ANTs all around him on the bridge faded away. The memory of making love to Simone just hours earlier overtook his vision and thoughts. She had been warm and giving and vulnerable in those moments they had shared. But now something had flipped inside her, turning her cold and heartless. Maybe he had noticed that side of her before, subtly bubbling beneath a statement here or a comment there. And maybe he had decided to ignore it, especially after their attraction to each other had manifested in such a passionate way. His legs were about to give beneath him when the sound of Simone’s returning jeep grew loud in his ears, shaking him from his blinding bewilderment.

  Jacob’s vision cleared just as the jeep roared across the bridge and passed him without slowing. It was traveling so fast that he couldn’t see inside it as it went by. He thought he had seen Simone, with her long dark hair blowing behind her, but she appeared to be slumped over and holding something against her face. He couldn’t understand why they hadn’t stopped, why they had bypassed the battle at Camp Overlord without acknowledging that it was still fully embroiled.

  He hurried to one of the empty humvees on the bridge and leapt into the driver seat. Before any of the ANTI- soldiers could question him, he sped off, in pursuit of the jeep that was carrying Simone back to the grid.

  “What the hell is she doing now?” he thought to himself as he drove with purpose, still reeling from her drastic emotional transformation. The battle raged on in his rearview mirror, but his focus had shifted. He needed to confront Simone. He had to know why she was suddenly so vindictive, and why she had let it drive her to such violence.

  Jacob was also beginning to feel like he had been conned, by Simone and Salvador and the whole ANTI- mission. For years, he had believed in a philosophy that was starting to crumble inside of him. Salvador had told him that the ANTI- revolution was meant to create a more naturally peaceful society, one without man-made controls like money and politics and religion. But Jacob didn't believe that anymore. The darkness they had forced upon the rest of civilization now seemed to have been intentionally terroristic. The faith he had put into ANTI‑'s purpose was dissolving because its method was so horrific. And now Simone Vincent’s irrational hatred had him hurling toward complete disillusionment at a breakneck pace.

  The monstrous explosion from behind shook him from his heightened deliberation, just as it shook the humvee he was driving at almost full speed. He gripped the steering wheel hard, keeping the vehicle from swerving off the road. He looked in the rearview mirror, and although he was over two miles away, he could see the giant plume of black smoke rising quickly into the sky. Slamming on the humvee’s brakes until it came to a screeching stop, he inhaled a deep breath. Then he opened the door and stepped out, turning to look in the direction of the battle that he had just left behind. Something terrible had happened, and he felt in the pit of his stomach that the fighting was over.

  2.

  T here were three of ANTI‑‘s Omega XT soldiers in the jeep with Simone. She had taken the men with her to track down the twin teenagers as dawn broke that
morning. Like their counterparts stationed in ANTI‑'s electrified grids throughout the world, the soldiers were almost robotic in their behavior. Helmets and goggles and masks covered their heads and faces, and they wore dark military fatigues with tall black lace-up boots. They were elite in their training and experience, and brutal in their methodology.

  Simone had been injured badly by the bullet from Jessica’s rifle. Although the young girl’s aim was accurate, the scope that Simone had been holding to her eye had deflected the bullet just enough to keep it from killing her. The scope had exploded from the force of the shot, with shards of glass and metal embedding themselves into Simone’s face, while the bullet itself had only grazed her, slicing a shallow trench across the side of her head from the edge of her eye to just above her left ear. She had not been able to abate the blood loss as the jeep raced down the road toward the Sector 3 grid.

  “Goddammit!” she screamed in frustration and pain. “Can’t this thing move any faster?!?!”

  One of the Omega XT soldiers tried sternly to calm her down. “We’re going as fast as we can, ma’am.”

  She pulled the blood-soaked cloth from her face and stared into the soldier’s emotionless mask, her facial wounds pulsing and oozing. “Faster,” she demanded through clenched teeth. “Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he responded. Then he leaned up close to the jeep’s driver, relaying Simone’s instructions. The driver pressed his foot into the gas pedal stiffly, and the jeep picked up speed.

  ΔΔΔ

  The Sector 3 grid in Nashville proper was over ten miles from the rebels’ Camp Overlord. Simone’s clever plan to track Henry and Jessica had led ANTI- right to the rebel camp, and the battle to destroy it had begun not long after. When she decided to go after the two teens that morning, the battle’s momentum had already shifted to the ANTs. ANTI- soldiers had been able to breach the walls and fences that protected the camp. So she had no doubt that it would be overrun eventually, and that the rebels would be destroyed. She just hated that she was going to miss it.

  The jeep slowed as it approached the grid’s border. Simone sat up so that she could see why. “About damn time,” she muttered into the cloth she was still holding to her face. The pain from her wounds was now radiating down into her neck and shoulders, and she couldn't contain her frustration with the situation.

  The ANTs guarding the border stepped out into the street as the jeep’s driver eased the vehicle next to them. They exchanged words, and then one of the guards walked to the back of the jeep. He climbed up onto the bumper and peered inside.

  Simone’s face was throbbing, and her patience completely gone. “Let us in, goddammit,” she said, lowering the cloth. “Can’t you see I’m hurt?”

  “Of course, ma’am,” the guard replied. He turned to one of the Omega XT sitting next to Simone. “What about her?” he asked, motioning to Jessica’s limp body on the floor of the jeep’s bed. Despite her nearly fatal injury, Simone had been able to shoot the young girl as she tried to run. And now she had the girl's body to show to the captured rebel Anna, who was still being held prisoner inside the Sector 3 grid. Anna had refused to back down during Simone’s aggressive interrogations, but Simone thought the sight of the rebel woman’s dead daughter just might diminish her resistance.

  “Don’t worry about her,” Simone said. “She’s dead.”

  The Omega XT soldier next to Simone spoke up. “Actually, she’s still alive. We’re going to need a doctor...for both of them.”

  Even with streaks of dark blood covering her face, Simone's sudden look of astonishment was unmistakable. The girl had lived, and Simone couldn't believe it.

  3.

  J acob’s first inclination was to turn his humvee around and head back to the battle. Curiosity drove him in life more than any other stimulus. He couldn’t imagine what may have happened. Did the rebels have a bomb? And if they did, would they have used it and risked themselves by doing so? But then he looked closer. He could see that the voluminous smoke was coming from the bridge, not the camp that was two miles south of it. And yet, there was no way the rebels could have transported a bomb to the bridge in the midst of battle. He couldn’t figure it out.

  But did it matter anyway? There wasn’t anything he could do now. Maybe he could help some of the Omega XT soldiers who had almost certainly been hurt. But for what? Just so they could eventually inflict more pain and suffering on innocent people? His internal conflict was growing with every second that passed. He felt like his soul was tearing itself in two, with indecision clouding his logic.

  He jumped back into the humvee and slammed the door shut. With his hands wrapped firmly around the steering wheel, he closed his eyes and tried to clear his head. “Slow down, Jacob,” he said to himself. “Think of the long game here. Stay smart.”

  He put his fingers around the gearshift and pulled it into drive. “Simone first,” he thought. “Everything else later.” He pushed the accelerator so hard that the humvee’s wheels spun before they could grip the roadway and propel it forward. Then he held the steering wheel firm, guiding the vehicle on a line straight back to the Sector 3 grid.

  4.

  A NTI‑'s grid inside North America's Sector 3 was not unlike the hundred or so powered grids that dotted the world once the Great Dark began. Salvador Sebastian's plan for a new society had been simple: take over and contain large sections of medium-sized metropolitan areas, where his sixty million ANTs could live life as if the darkness had never come. There were restaurants and bars in the grids, parks and playgrounds. Culture continued, with theaters and museums. And people worked as they did before, but not for money. They worked instead for the common cause, for the eventual resurgence of a new world civilization where the fate of humanity would not be determined by a select few with engorged bank accounts and little conscience. In the eyes of his ANTs, Salvador was a hero for the everyman. And while the rest of the world had been surviving or dying in the dark for just over a year, Salvador's ANTs lived as if nothing had changed.

  ΔΔΔ

  The university medical complex that partially sat inside Sector 3’s grid was massive, encompassing eight city blocks. The portion of it that fell inside the grid’s borders contained a pharmaceutical facility and a fully-equipped hospital. Many of the ANTs were doctors and nurses, just as they had been before. After all, ANTs still got sick and needed surgery and required medicine. But unlike the rest of civilization, they were able to get help before their diseases and injuries got the best of them.

  The Omega XT drove Simone and Jessica to the doors just outside the hospital’s emergency room. Doctors and nurses met them there, with two gurneys waiting. They pulled Jessica from the jeep’s bed and carefully laid her down, then wheeled her quickly through the doors. Simone stood up and removed the cloth that was collecting blood from her face, watching the hospital staff in action.

  “This is ridiculous,” she said. “You’re just wasting your time, you know that, right?” she yelled after the personnel pushing Jessica’s gurney inside.

  “Come on, ma’am, let me help you down,” a nurse said to Simone.

  “Back off,” she snapped. She jumped down from the jeep and climbed onto the remaining gurney. She looked to the doctor standing next her, turning her head one way then the other so he could see her entire face. “What do you think, doc?”

  “I think we’ve got some work to do,” he replied.

  “Well, get to it,” she said. “I’ve got a victory to celebrate.”

  5.

  S alvador, still in ANTI‑'s unofficial capital in Philadelphia, received news of the ANTs’ retreat from Camp Overlord as soon as he woke up from a short but deep sleep. He had gone to bed a few hours before with a sense of reluctant confidence. Simone had been sending him updates throughout the battle, and it had seemed apparent that his ANTs were going to win. Still, he held great respect for the rebels, fighting back just as he would have if he had been faced with an unknown darkness. B
ut for his grand experiment to work, they would have to be sacrificed, like so many others. He was saving civilization, and the cost of liberation was high.

  One of his Sector 1 directors stirred him from a dream of Cuba that morning. It had been vivid, as so many visions can be in the lighter sleep of after-dawn. He had been on a tobacco farm in the rural Cuban countryside, plowing a field while rain poured down on top of him. A man who must have been his father yelled from a house’s porch, a great distance away from him. The man was shouting Salvador’s name in a familiar Latin-tinged voice. Each time he said it, it sounded closer, even though the house seemed to drift further away. Salvador dropped his plow and tried to run for it, tried to stay inside the fading dream. But soon he realized that the man calling his name was not the father he had never known, and he opened his eyes.

  “I’m awake,” he told the director standing above him.

  “There have been some...developments. You should come with me.”

  “Give me five minutes,” Salvador instructed.

  “Of course,” the director answered, leaving Salvador to himself.

  The dream was still fresh in his mind. He closed his eyes to recover the images of the short-lived fantasy. It had felt peaceful and simple, two feelings that his life had been without for longer than he could remember. But the dreamscape was gone, vanished into the recesses of his subconscious. He opened his eyes and sat up in bed. The needs of his new life had called. He stood and dressed quickly, then left his apartment for what he anticipated was bad news.