The Last American

By Steven Burgauer

SCIENCE FICTION
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HIGH FINANCE; HIGH DRAMA; HIGH STAKES!!

The wolf is finally at the door!

Overextended and no longer able to defend herself, America finally succumbs to the forces of evil gathering around her.

A secret, underground army tries but is unable to put down the rebellion. Holocaust is upon the land.

This is the story of one family's heroic struggle to beat the odds and to keep the hope of freedom that is America alive.
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"Political intrigue, murder, sex, and a country on the brink of disaster. Burgauer combines all the elements in this futuristic story that gets better and better with each page."

Ken Behrens . . . WJBC radio


Steven Burgauer lives and writes in Illinois, along with his collection of torture instruments and Medieval killing tools.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 19, 2005
• ISBN: 9780595822805

Steven Burgauer

Steven Burgauer, BiographyAvid hiker, Eagle Scout, and founder of a mutual fund, Steven Burgauer resides in Florida. A graduate of Illinois State University and the New York Institute of Finance, Steve writes science fiction and historic fiction.Burgauer’s The Road to War: Duty & Drill, Courage & Capture is based on the journals of an American WWII infantryman who landed at Normandy, was wounded and taken prisoner by the Nazis.A member of the Society of Midland Authors, Steven is included in The Dictionary of Midwestern Literature, Volume 2: Dimensions of the Midwestern Literary Imagination.Some of his SF titles include The Grandfather Paradox, The Railguns of Luna, The Fornax Drive, and SKULLCAP. Other books of his include The Night of the Eleventh Sun, a Neanderthal’s first encounter with man, and The Wealth Builder’s Guide: An Investment Primer. Steven contributed to the zany, serial mystery, Naked Came the Farmer, headlined by Philip Jose Farmer.His work has been reviewed in many places, including LOCUS, SCIENCE FICTION CHRONICLE, the PEORIA JOURNAL STAR, the EUREKA LITERARY MAGAZINE, and PROMETHEUS, the journal of the Libertarian Futurist Society.A review of The Railguns of Luna from the prestigious SCIENCE FICTION CHRONICLE (June 2001):Steven Burgauer writes old style science fiction in which heroes and villains are easily identified, the action is fast and furious, and the plot twists and turns uncontrollably. His newest is the story of a crack team of military specialists who discover that the brilliant but warped Cassandra Mubarak is planning to use advanced scientific devices to seize control of the world. To stop her, they must infiltrate her heavily guarded headquarters and rescue the fair maiden in distress. This is action adventure written straightforwardly and not meant to be heavily literary or provide pithy commentary on the state of humanity.Don D’AmmassaWhen Steven lived in Illinois, the State of Illinois Library included him in a select group of authors invited to the state’s Authors’ Day. He has often been a speaker and panel member at public library events and science-fiction conventions all across the country.His website is: http://sites.google.com/site/stevenburgauerhttp://midlandauthors.com/burgauer.html

Book preview

Copyright © 2006 by Steven Burgauer

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse

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1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

ISBN-13: 978-0-595-37907-1 (pbk)

ISBN-13: 978-0-595-82280-5 (ebk)

ISBN-10: 0-595-37907-9 (pbk)

ISBN-10: 0-595-82280-0 (ebk)

To Opa Siggy,

who knew enough to get his family out in time,

when it really mattered.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

PART I

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

PART II

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 45

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

TRAITOR

Fall 2398

East China Sea

Dark storm clouds hung low over the water, blotting out the moon. Beneath them, on the rolling deck of the sleek ship, a dark-haired saboteur crept stealthily along the gunnels. He was not a big man or a smart man, and he wore a close-fitting wetsuit beneath his poncho to protect his scrawny body from the elements. A six-inch-long stainless steel blade hung from a sheath at his webbed belt. On his back he shouldered a leather rucksack. Clutched in his sweaty palms he gripped a long-range locator equipped with a waterproof magnetic casing.

The ship, a Phantom class frigate named Intrepid, lurched from side to side in the developing storm. The cloaked figure hugged the wave-splashed deck. He was looking for just the right spot to slap the cold, leaden-colored device onto the ship’s composite-steel bulwarks. The locator’s radio signal would broadcast the ship’s exact location—longitude and latitude—to the enemy’s global positioning satellite orbiting thirty thousand kloms over the western Pacific. It would render useless much of the fleet’s advanced-warning radar by blanketing the area with resonating emissions. One fact about sea warfare was never-changing: the threat is over the horizon. Nothing can be seen, and everything is reduced to mathematics.

The saboteur, a junior officer in the United States Navy, crouched in the ebony shadows of the forwardmost lifeboat. He stared out across the dark water. Barely visible in the distance, off the starboard bow, were the running lights of the lead missile-boat. Plying the choppy waters in the Intrepid’s wake lay the other boats—the battle cruisers, the airchop carriers, and the rest of the fleet. Overhead, the eye-in-the-sky drones maintained their vigilant watch over the strike zone, their laser sensors scanning the long Chinese coastline for any hint of enemy activity. Every three seconds they completed a sweep, their ultra-sensitive monitors programmed to pick up any telltale heat plumes or heightened radio traffic or ominous troop movements. Pacific Command received the datastream on a real-time basis.

Together with dozens of other naval and air force units spread out along the coast, the U.S. flotilla was moving to enforce President McIntyre’s blockade of the Chinese mainland. By interrupting the flow of essential matérial into and out of certain key harbors dotting the eastern seaboard of China, President McIntyre hoped to finally bring Overlord Ling Tsui to heel, a project which was long overdue. Ever since the horrible death of his father thirty years ago, Overlord Ling Tsui had been engaged in a desperate, nonstop battle to consolidate power over his father’s empire. And now that he had decisively snuffed out the last of the opposition forces, Ling Tsui was hellbent on reasserting Chinese hegemony over the Pacific, a goal President McIntyre was determined to thwart.

The saboteur paused, now, to let the uncooperative moon slide behind another cloud. His stoney face was resolute, his emotions dulled by mood-altering drugs. Surely, after all the terrible wrongs he’d committed, he would have felt some remorse.

But, he did not. In fact, the man seemed downright unfazed. Unfazed that by his treasonous act he would soon cost the lives of so many of his countrymen. Unfazed that, before the night was over, thousands of American sailors would be resting lifelessly at the bottom of the bay. Unfazed that what he was doing might change the course of the war.

Yet, instead of being filled with guilt, this man was filled with pride. He had executed each step of his heinous plan with cunning precision. In his rucksack was several days’ worth of provisions he’d stolen from the galley. Also an inflatable life raft he’d taken from the emergency rescue locker. It was woven from ripstop Kevlar. That made it small, lightweight and nearly indestructible in the water. The tiny onboard motor employed squid technology for propulsion and was even submersible for short periods of time.

So far this evening, he already had the blood of one man on his hands. There would be more before the night was over. Just moments ago, he’d slit the throat of the ship’s signal officer and disabled the Intrepid’s comm. It was a messy business, slitting someone’s throat, and the blood had sprayed across his wetsuit. He’d tried to wash it off before putting on his poncho, but it was still there. He could smell it now, even in the night air.

With the comm knocked out, he should be able to operate with impunity. Once he activated the long-range locator—and assuming its signal wasn’t jammed—the gps dataflow would allow the wing of Chinese airchops lying in wait off the Asian coast to home in and attack the over-confident American fleet. By then, if everything went according to plan, he’d be over the side in his inflatable, motoring away from the ship.

Camouflaged, now, by the shadows, the saboteur imagined what the high-speed attack of the enemy airchops would be like. How the killing machines would hug the water as they approached. How their short, stubby wings would glisten in the rain. How their overhead rotors would slice effortlessly through the night. It would not be a pretty sight. These highly maneuverable, flying war wagons were armed with dozens of self-propelled Phalanx armor-piercing rounds. They were the latest addition to the Chinese arsenal. Each Phalanx projectile possessed multiple homing capabilities, thermal, infrared, and echolocation. The Chinese would leave behind nothing but twisted metal and charred bones as they bushwhacked the unprepared contingent of American ships. It would be as lopsided a naval victory as any since Lord Nelson sank the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile near the end of the eighteenth century, the worst naval disaster since the sinking of the Spanish Armada in 1588.

Of course, it wouldn’t be as one-sided as all that. The saboteur was letting his imagination run, fueled no doubt by the drugs he devoured like candy. The Americans were smart; they’d fight back, and fight back hard. Every single one of their battle cruisers was equipped with auto-tracking deckguns. These technical marvels were quite adept at taking out airchops. Then there were the robotic gatling guns. They were capable of knocking down any Phalanx projectiles they picked up on radar. Plus, the Americans had air support of their own. And the ship’s comm wouldn’t be out forever. Sooner or later an assistant signal officer would come along and get it up and running again.

No, the battle wouldn’t be all that lopsided. But all things considered, the technological improvements the Chinese had developed for their warbirds would make them nearly invincible. The auto-tracking deckguns would find the Chinese airchops a difficult target. Their exhausts were cooled by lightweight, superconducting magnets affixed to their tails, and their bodies were built from stealthy alloys. The incoming airchops would be cold to infrared and transparent to radar. And, while a thick swarm of stealthy warbirds advancing from a single direction would show up easily on radar as a black hole in the sky, in small scattered groups of two or three, the airchops would be able to approach to within several hundred meters of the fleet without being detected—and then only visually.

The saboteur was just about to make his move, when the bow of the Intrepid was suddenly bathed in the glow of a searchlight. Reflexively, he pressed himself flat against the slippery deck, cursing his stupidity. He should have anticipated this. With tensions running high, Captain Daniels would have ordered a regular sweep of the fo’c’sle. One more dumb mistake like this and the saboteur might find himself in the brig—or worse.

Drugs could do strange things to a man’s mind, and Deludes were no exception. Alter reality. Give strength where there was none. Make things funny that really were not. As the traitor lay motionless on the cold, metal deck waiting for the powerful beam to swing past, he began to snicker.

For some reason, the saboteur found the whole thing amusing. Even if he were to be apprehended now, it wouldn’t change a thing, not one damn thing. The fleet would still be sunk and his debt to Overlord Ling Tsui would still be paid. In fact, considering all the terrible things he’d done in the past year and a half, it might have been a relief of sorts to be suddenly arrested and thrown in the brig. His list of crimes was long. He’d polluted his body with all manner of debilitating narcotics. He’d played around with women, one in particular. Committed grand larceny. Stolen things.

But the topper was what he’d done recently, stolen the secret code book from his grandfather’s dying hand and turned it over to the Chinese. Through this one single despicable stroke of cowardice, this man had not only sold out his country, he had also jeopardized the old man’s political legacy. Few had done worse.

Now, as the sweep of the searchlight swung swiftly away, the poncho-clad man resumed his crouch and slid silently forward towards the bow of the frigate. He wasn’t nearly athletic enough to describe his advance over the slippery deck as being catlike, but he did move quickly.

Then, suddenly, he stopped in his tracks for a second time. Only meters ahead of him, in the spackled moonlight, was the glint of an electronic weapon. Although the weapon was small, barely sixteen inches in overall length, he immediately recognized it for what it was, a M-25 force gun, standard issue for an American serviceman. The bridge had posted a forward lookout, maybe two, on the forecastle, and the saboteur had practically stumbled over the poor fellow in his haste. It was his second big mistake of the evening.

Who goes there? the slender sailor asked in a startled tone. It was difficult to make out the man’s features, but he had a pair of nightvision goggles perched on his forehead. One hand gripped the safety tether that kept him from going overboard, a necessary precaution in these seas.

Just then, as if to emphasize the point, another rush of waves crashed against the hull of the Intrepid, rocking her from side to side. Both men were knocked slightly off balance.

The saboteur moved slowly out into the open from the shadows where he’d been hiding. Though he nodded in a friendly way to the other man, he didn’t utter a single word. He knew what he had to do.

The saboteur edged closer to the sentry. His manner was nonthreatening, almost chummy. He didn’t want to spook the man before he had a chance to act. In fact, he smiled his best smile, and extended his hand, as if he meant to shake with the other man.

The sentry spoke. You gave me a bit of a start there, Lieutenant. I wasn’t expecting company. Are you on duty tonight?

The saboteur stayed silent. He moved a step closer, his eyes fixed on the business end of the man’s force gun. In the hands of an experienced serviceman, an M-25 was an awesome killing machine.

What’s that you got there? the sentry asked, motioning with the barrel of his gun to the locator clenched in the other man’s hand.

The saboteur knew he was running out of time. Even the greenest of recruits would soon recognize the device he was holding for what it was. After all his efforts, all his skullduggery, all his planning, his treachery would be for naught if the locator were to now be confiscated, before he could activate it.

The saboteur hurriedly slid his palm around the edge of the apparatus until his fingers made contact with the cold metal switch on the rim of the housing. Without a sound, he slipped the switch into the ON position. Instantly, he felt the reassuring throb of the machine as it began pulsing out its deadly message to the anxiously waiting wing of enemy airchops.

I say again, what you got there, man? the sentry repeated, raising his stubby weapon towards the saboteur in menacing fashion.

Moving quickly now, the saboteur flung the magnetized locator forward towards the bulkhead on his right and simultaneously lurched his scrawny body to the left. Then, pivoting to one side, he swept his right foot between the guard’s ankles, knocking the unprepared man to the ground.

The sentry’s weapon clanked noisily against the deck. In the same instant the saboteur popped his stainless steel blade from its holster at his belt and drove the razor-sharp cutting tool deep into the other man’s gut. He gave it a vicious twist, then grunted with quiet satisfaction as his hand filled with warm spillage. The blood from the lethal abdominal wound spurted halfway up his arm.

Now came his escape. He’d have to move fast. It wouldn’t be long, now, before the Overlord’s airchops locked onto the locator’s radio beacon and commenced their attack. He didn’t want to still be onboard when that attack began.

The saboteur clipped his mechanical descender to the cable and vaulted over the side of the ship, riding the cable down towards the churning sea below. Though burdened by the weight of his rucksack, the man couldn’t afford to jettison his load. What was strapped to his back was his only means for a safe getaway.

By the time the klaxon sounded from the battledeck, signaling that one of the crew had a visual on the lead airchop, the saboteur was already hunkered down in the inflatable life raft he’d been carrying with him in his rucksack. The onboard motor was running at high rpm’s.

The sound of the squid technology was a rapid PING PING PING in his ears. He was hoping to put some distance between himself and the Intrepid before she was hit. On the horizon, he could see a menacing blotch swelling ever larger against the sky. It was the vanguard pair of assault airchops approaching the flotilla at high speed.

Battle stations! the P.A. barked. Battle stations! Battle stations!

Suddenly, legions of sailors could be seen scurrying to their posts on Captain Daniels’s orders. But, with the ship’s comm smashed and the signal officer not responding to his page, Daniels couldn’t put into service any of the standard protocols for warning the other boats of the mortal danger, which lay just ahead of them in the night. He thought to use blinker lights, but then ordered a spread of incendiary globes launched into the cloud-rimmed sky. They would light up the heavens like nothing else could, alerting the other boats of trouble.

Daniels had a responsibility; and if anything separated a captain from a member of his crew, it was his ingenuity, his ability to improvise, his aptitude for turning a hopeless situation into a fighting chance for life. Daniels had those qualities, and he put them to work now.

Knowing how critically important the next few minutes might be for the survival of the fleet, Captain Daniels ordered the auto-tracking deckguns be brought online, then settled on the unusual course of action of using his boat as a decoy. Maybe, with some fancy steering, he could lure the pack of airchops away from the main battle group.

The Intrepid was a fast boat—a frigate—a vessel uniquely suited for rapid advance scouting. When its hydrofoil wings were fully extended and its diesel turbines throttled up to full power, the Intrepid was capable of skating across the water at speeds approaching that of an airchop. Surely, if Daniels gave the order to engage the foils, they could outrun the marauders. The ever-present risk was that, unlike a double-hulled destroyer, the Intrepid was not heavily armored. It could not withstand a direct hit from a weapon as lethal as the Phalanx. Still, he had to try.

The bastards were just sitting there waiting for us! Daniels rasped through clenched teeth. Next to him, hands on the wheel, was his helmsman, Commander Watson. Behind him stood his aide, Ensign Fitzwallis. Off to the left was the recon officer.

Daniels barked out his orders. Evasive maneuvers, Commander.

Watson’s face was grim as he calculated the odds.

That’s an order, Commander—punch it.

Watson gripped the wheel and threw the throttle to FULL. He loved the feel of those giant turbines under his control.

The boat surged forward and began to rise up out of the water on its foils. The Commander started to run the Intrepid through a series of high-speed, zigzag maneuvers intended to prevent an attacker’s air-to-ship missiles from locking on to her. Though much of the hull was constructed from high-tech polymers specifically designed to avoid detection by a magnetically homing or heat-seeking torpedo, most of the bulkheads and much of the deck was still made of steel. It couldn’t be helped—steel was strong, it didn’t burn and was eminently cheap.

Captain Daniels rapped his fingers nervously against the nav-console. His jaw was set. He tightened his safety harness as the frigate swerved frantically from side to side under Commander Watson’s steady hand. Neither of them flinched when a wing of enemy airchops roared overhead at low altitude.

How could they have known our position? Daniels quizzed his helmsman. It was a rhetorical question. He didn’t expect an answer. Nor would Commander Watson offer one—the traitorous truth was self-evident.

Now, just off the starboard bow, the lead missile-boat could be seen launching its first set of countermeasures.

And why the hell didn’t the signal officer pick them up on his scope?

The helmsman didn’t answer that one either. He tightened his grip on the wheel and leaned into the next turn.

Captain Daniels turned to the Ensign standing directly behind him. Fitzwallis had been the Captain’s personal aide since his first days at the Academy. Now the Captain gave him an order.

"Fitz, I want you to go down to the signal officer’s quarters right away. Find out what the hell is happening down there."

Aye, aye, sir, he answered bravely, vacating his usual spot at the Captain’s side.

As Ensign Fitzwallis scurried away, the worried look on his mentor’s face said it all—this would be the last order Captain Daniels would ever give him. There would be no opportunity later for final farewells.

The auto-tracking deckguns were now making themselves known. Each round of deadly ammo sounded like a muffled clap of thunder as it exploded into the night sky.

Captain Daniels kept to the matter at hand. He still hoped to gain the attention of the fleet without needlessly drawing enemy fire. The first of the megaflares he’d ordered were now being launched into the moonlit shroud.

As an offensive weapon, a megaflare would have limited usefulness against an attacking airchop. But the baseball-sized globe filled with lyddite-gel would serve to focus the fleet’s eyes on the sky in a way no other means at his disposal possibly could. Upon reaching its apogee, high in the air, the megaflare would shatter into a thousand fluorescent fragments, illuminating the night sky and perhaps blinding a few unlucky airchop pilots as well.

Within moments of the first globe being lofted skyward, the night was bright as noon. Two of the incoming airchops broke formation and turned to confront the newly illuminated frigate.

From the battledeck of the Intrepid, machine-gun fire pounded into the sky, strafing one of the stubby-winged fighters and driving it flaming into the sea. Yet, even as the rat-a-tat of gunfire filled his ears and the downing of the airchop sparked a ray of hope in his heart, Daniels sensed a certain futility to the process.

The second airchop continued to close on their position. Captain Daniels eyed it closely. He spied the telltale flash of ignition as the fighter dropped a Phalanx torpedo into the black water from its metal undercarriage. A magneto-powered electronic cannon gave the 205mm self-propelled shell its initial pulse. The cannon was driven by the airchop’s engines. Unlike a conventional torpedo, a fully-submerged Phalanx could lift itself out of the water again if its target was skimming the surface on hydrofoil wings, as the Intrepid was. The only defense was the ship’s robotic gatling guns.

The helmsman swung the wheel hard to avoid the inevitable collision. Deploy primary countermeasures! Daniels shouted to the recon officer, who manned the P.A. I repeat—Deploy primary countermeasures!

Daniels wondered if it wasn’t already too late to launch a battery of cm’s against the intruder. By now the jet-propelled torpedo would have locked on to the composite hull of the ship. Even with the Intrepid’s great speed, it was anybody’s guess whether she could outrun a Phalanx at this range.

Pfft, Pfft, Pfft…

Rapid-fire gunfire. Bullets ripping into the water, spit from the mouth of the robotic gatling guns.

The Phalanx drew closer at high speed. Daniels girded himself for the inevitable impact.

May death come quickly, he thought. May his men not be made to suffer. May he have bought the fleet enough time to retaliate.

The gunner’s mate reported in. Cap’n. Sparky confirms ‘pedo lock.

Copy that, Daniels acknowledged calmly. Deploy secondary countermeasures. Helmsman, sound the alarm. Collision! Collision! Sound the alarm.

Daniels grabbed the rail as the craft lurched to the left. He silently ticked off the seconds until the next report. It wouldn’t be good.

Captain Daniels knew the fate of his own ship was sealed. But he found solace in the launching of the megaflares. They had had the intended effect, and the fleet was fighting back. Within moments of the first flare reaching its apogee, the battle cruisers had begun their counterattack, launching a wave of nuclear-tipped missiles against strategic targets on the Chinese mainland and catapulting their own wing of airchops into the fray.

Radar shows secondary cm’s not holding. Sparky says more ‘pedos in the water. One has acquired signal. Closing fast.

How long?

Eight. Maybe ten. Seconds.

Give the order, Captain Daniels snapped as Commander Watson took the boat through another set of high-speed turns.

Yes, sir.

The recon officer nodded as he punched the button on the P.A. It broadcast over the loudspeakers in the public areas and into the headsets of every member of the crew.

Now hear this. Now hear this. All hands on deck! By Captain’s order, all hands on deck! To the lifeboats. By Captain’s order, to the lifeboats! Now hear this. All…

In that moment the Phalanx projectile slammed into the hull of the Intrepid with the force of a one-megaton bomb. A millisecond later there was a blinding flash and a deafening detonation. The blast wave, spherical in shape, accelerated outward at thousands of meters per second, and, within moments, nearly all evidence of the ship ever having been there was gone.

The tragedy was played out on a larger stage—it didn’t end with the sinking of just one swiftly-moving frigate. Through the long night and into the morning, wave after wave of Chinese warbirds swooped down upon the flotilla from the muddy sky. What began as a surprise attack ended as a travesty.

This was one of those cases like Pearl Harbor or the World Trade Center, where the enemy was more lucky than smart. The Americans had been taken by surprise; that was most of it. But they had also sorely underestimated the Chinese, both in firepower and duplicity. In sum total, an attack force of nearly twenty-eight hundred airchops was mounted against the U.S. blockade, more than in any other sea battle to date.

It was not a one-sided affair, not by any means, even if the saboteur had imagined it as so. The U.S. forces, though initially caught off guard, actually become progressively more adept at knocking the enemy warbirds from the sky as the night wore on. Indeed, the airchop losses were so horrendous that at one point, just before dawn, it looked as if the Americans might repel the onslaught.

But it was not to be. The situation continued to deteriorate. By the time the sun had risen fully above the horizon the next morning, it was clear that the bulk of the American fleet had been pounded into oblivion, decimated by the sudden attack.

Most men died at their posts. Some managed to jump clear of their ships into the seething water. Many of those died from shark attack. All in all, thousands of American lives were lost that night and all because of one arrogant, self-serving traitor.

Given his head start, the saboteur was able to survive the attack—but just barely. Early on, his inflatable life raft had been strafed by bullets and sunk. He himself had been wounded. By the time he washed up on shore—his arms locked around a hunk of wood just large enough to keep him afloat—the man had endured so many days of deprivation at sea, he was free of the blue-devil addiction that had led him down this destructive path to begin with. He would not be able to shake off his other addiction so easily, for there was nothing in this world he coveted so dearly as money.

In this man, Overlord Ling Tsui had bought himself a faithful, if not cunning servant for life.

PART I

CHAPTER 2

CAMP NA-CHA-TAN

Sixteen Months Earlier

Northern Wisconsin

The two young men had been hiking in silence for nearly an hour. Though they’d barely exchanged a single word since they left, their lack of conversation was not to be taken as a sign of anger. They had not had a nasty fight or unpleasant disagreement.

Rather, the paucity of words that passed between the two young men was more out of respect for the wonderful weather and beautiful surroundings, than to anything else. Their silence was a sign, perhaps, of contentment or pleasure, certainly not one born of apathy or irritation. Each fellow knew—without vocalizing the sentiment—that it was much too fine a day to risk ruining it with mere words or idle chatter. The sun, temperature, clouds, breeze—all just right. If a world existed outside this place, that world didn’t concern them. Whatever responsibilities adulthood would bring, hadn’t arrived yet.

The taller fellow led the way through the forest. His mop of unruly brown hair shifted from side to side with each step he took. Like a lot of guys his age, Samuel Matthews had broad shoulders, narrow hips, and a pair of long muscular legs peeking out from beneath his khaki-colored Scout shorts. Behind him, struggling to keep up, was his best friend Siegfried Tonneli, though he preferred it if his buddies called him Ziggy. The two were a study in contrasts: Sam, tall and lanky; Ziggy, short and squat. Sam, clearly of northern European stock; Ziggy, obviously with roots somewhere in the Mediterranean—Sicily, if his late-night stories were to be believed.

After all the rain they’d been forced to endure these past three days, this morning’s cool, crisp air was a welcome change. Even so, it was too soon in the season to get their hopes up for a hot, dry summer. Spring in northern Wisconsin invariably came much too late; invariably, it lingered into June far too long. This far north, the onset of summer was all too often a cold and muddy affair punctuated only now and again by a splendid day like today.

The subject of sunshine had come up this morning at breakfast over pancakes. Along with several other staffmen, Sam and Ziggy had been bugging the Director for a few hours’ leave to enjoy the nice weather.

Boss, we all need some time off. Everyone’s been working too damn hard. This, from Ziggy, his mouth full of toast.

Camp Director Tovas was a tall man, even when sitting down at the table, eating breakfast. He towered, now, over Siegfried Tonneli.

Ziggy, I’d love to give you guys the day off—I really would—but I can’t. Opening day is less than two weeks away and we still have a long list of work projects to finish up before the kids get here.

Sam joined in. So did several of the others. Come on, boss—it would be a crime to waste a great day like this one on work projects. We’ve been fighting the rain ever since we got here.

Yeah, keep working us this hard and there’ll be a mutiny for sure. You looking to get yourself GA’d, boss?

Is that a threat?

You know that it is.

Director Tovas would not be intimidated. If you birds don’t like your current work assignments, I can always have you cleaning latrines instead.

Then Tovas changed his mind. He stood up at his place, fork in hand, and made an announcement to the gathered staff:

Okay, guys, Christmas in June. Everybody has the morning off. See you all back here at noon.

With a hoot and a holler, Ziggy bounded out of the messhall and halfway up the trail. Sam chased after him, with the rest of the staff close behind.

Director Tovas shouted after them. Don’t forget! Be back in camp by noon! Then he just sat down and laughed. For once he’d be able to finish his pancakes in peace and quiet. Every day at Na-Cha-Tan was an adventure!

Let’s do it! Ziggy shouted to his buddy. The boy’s natural enthusiasm for life was infectious.

I’m with you!

They only had the morning, but that ought to be long enough. Plenty of time for the two of them to explore a part of Camp they’d never visited before. Director Tovas had told them about this wilderness area, four nights ago, as they made their way around the south end of the lake to their cabin that first night in Camp. They had arrived late in the day, grumpy and tired after a long trip north that began in the suburbs outside the Chica dome.

The drive up from the city had taken seven hours, five of them on the auto-road, the other two the old-fashioned way. In case you’ve forgotten, an auto-road is lined with sensors to keep a vehicle on the pavement and at a safe distance from other vehicles. It is the perfect blend of impossibly high gcar-insurance premiums, cutting-edge laser technology, and super-accurate gps tracking. The old-fashioned way requires two hands on the wheel and one foot on the accelerator.

Normally, the ride wouldn’t be too bad. But the Director’s gcar wasn’t large, and for this trip it was filled to overflowing. Sam, Ziggy, Sam’s older brother, plus one other boy—along with all their gear—were crammed in there, not counting Director Tovas himself. It was a warm day and the A/C wasn’t up to the job.

Somewhere in hour four Sam had fallen asleep, lulled into unconsciousness by the drone of the gcar’s tires against the pavement. He dozed off and on throughout the afternoon. Yet, the instant Tovas began the torturous trip down the gravel road into Camp—his gcar bumping and lurching with each pothole it struck—Sam was jerked awake. He quickly rolled down the window and, with a smile upon his face, drew in a deep breath of cold, pristine camp air.

It was already dusk when the four of them arrived at the camp gate. But even in the gathering darkness, Sam could still make out the silhouette of a primeval forest glowing in the evening sun. Staring out the window, he let his imagination run.

Shadows took on supernatural shapes, now—elves, trolls, griffins, what have you. Sam wasn’t sure, but for a moment he thought he saw the Great One’s reflection in the still waters of Lake Na-Cha-Tan. And why not? If indeed there were a God—a Great One—where else would he be? Wouldn’t He, after seeing what Man had done to his cities—the squalor, the crime, the desperation—wouldn’t He have given up on Man by now and ventured out to live in the wilderness instead? Surely, Na-Cha-Tan, of all God’s places, would be the sort of place God would choose to live. Surely, having gone to this much trouble, He would have chosen to dwell here until the end of His days.

Heh, boys, heads up, Tovas yelped in his tinny voice.

The gcar sputtered to a halt before their shuttered cabin. Not many vehicles circa 2397 could long stand the punishment of these prehistoric roads, and the Director’s gcar wasn’t much of a prize to begin with. Now, as he turned the motor off, it sounded perilously close to gasping its last breath.

The cabin wasn’t much to look at. Certainly not for boys accustomed to the creature comforts of a modern, middle-class American home. For other young men their age, young men who rarely ventured outside their plastic life inside the dome, the cabin they stood before now might have appeared dreadful, drab, even boorish.

But to these young men, their two-room, wood-frame haunt for the summer was heaven on earth. Nestled by the lake in a stand of virgin pine, their secluded summer hideaway afforded them a measure of privacy uncommon in their century.

To begin with, the structure was elevated off the ground, a stack of cinder-blocks at each corner and in the center. This unusual arrangement made sense for two very good reasons. Not only did being propped up off the ground discourage forest animals from hibernating inside during the winter months, it also prevented the building itself from washing out and rolling over during the spring melt.

The place had six windows, each dressed with a colonial-style wood shutter, plus a tattered screen door. The door rode on a spring-loaded cylinder and automatically slammed shut with a bang every time someone went in or out. The cabin itself was furnished spartanly inside, with nothing more than an aged oak desk, a deteriorating table lamp, four lumpy cots, and two timeworn clothes cabinets. The interior walls of the place were splattered with graffiti and punctuated here and there with holes and other small abuses suffered in the long course of the building’s many years of service to the camp. The roof was covered in asphalt shingles, spotted with growths of lichen and moss. It leaked in a heavy rain.

Yet, despite all these shortcomings, it might as well have been the Taj Mahal, as fast as the four Scouts bounced out of the gcar that night and eagerly began unloading their gear. Along with Sam and Ziggy, the passengers included Sam’s older brother Lester and their oversized friend Delbert Carr, nicknamed GCAR, to reflect his awesome girth.

Tovas was as excited as his charges to have finally arrived. We’re here! he sighed, unfolding himself from the driver’s seat.

Director Tovas was a tall man, and as he stretched his long arms and spindly legs in the cool evening breeze, his face suddenly twisted into a look of disgust and surprise.

Damn! he swore. The first mosquito of the season had gotten him through the shirt.

The boys laughed, for to hear their boss curse one would have thought the man had never been bitten by a mosquito before. Then, to watch him squirm with discomfort was comical in the first degree.

Let’s face it, it’s a law of nature. A curious law perhaps, but a law nonetheless, one you can take to the bank:

The very first mosquito prick of the season has to be on the back, between the shoulder blades, at a spot where it’s physically impossible to reach, no matter how long the arm.

Make no mistake about it, Director Tovas had long arms. The man stood well over six feet tall, had thinning black hair, and a cheesy-looking moustache. His slenderness bordered on gaunt. Friends called him Stovepipe, a reference Sam didn’t understand, but applied nonetheless.

The laughter died away. Stovepipe hadn’t been the only one to suffer the indignity of a mosquito bite. Within moments, the entire group was swamped by a horde of bloodthirsty mosquitoes—Na-Cha-Tan bombers in camper-speak. Of course, by the end of the summer, the bites of these two-winged zingers wouldn’t faze them a bit. But now, before they’d had a chance to build up immunity to the toxins injected by these pests, the itches accompanying the first wallops were excruciating.

Home again, Sam murmured happily, doing his best to ignore the buzzing bombers. Truth was, there was something about Na-Cha-Tan, something which made each return deeply satisfying.

As Sam stood beside the cabin with his friends, reveling in his freedom, he tried to put a finger on what that special something was. A spell, perhaps? A bit of black magic left behind by some tribal medicine man? Or was it something else, something less mystical, something more tangible? The incongruity of a clump of paper-birch amongst a stand of towering pines. The rustle of an easterly wind coursing through a forest of quaking aspen. The unchanging hue of a spring-fed lake. The sandy hills echoing with the sounds of laughing Scouts.

Home again, he repeated, this time with more reverence.

For an instant, the setting sun flashed a patch of brilliant orange against the pale blue sky, then it was dark, dark as pitch. The crickets revved up their song and a bullfrog belched from somewhere down the shore.

Doesn’t the lake look inviting? Ziggy said, thinking of warmer nights ahead, when a midnight skinny dip meant the close of a good day.

If you think this lake is beautiful, wait ’til you visit our bog on the other side of camp. I might give you some free time later in the week.

Stovepipe reached down and picked up a long twig. He twisted it in his hand, trying to reach the mosquito bite lodged in the center of his back. He began scratching furiously at the swelling between his shoulder blades.

Stovepipe continued. The bog is on the shores of a wonderful spot the loggers call Muskrat Lake. It’s on the other side of Grasshopper Valley, barely an hour’s walk from the East Camp messhall.

Why the name Muskrat?

Some silly old song—Muskrat Love, or something like that. I don’t really know. Here, let me borrow your e-pad.

Sam always carried an e-pad and stylus with him wherever he went. He pulled the set out of his back pocket, now, and handed it to his boss. Stovepipe used the stylus to sketch a crudely drawn map into the memory of the e-pad. He simultaneously rattled off instructions as to the best route to take out to Muskrat Lake.

As Stovepipe drew with one hand, he scratched his back with the other. Suddenly, in the middle of his explanation, he stopped dead cold and let out a sigh of relief—the man had finally scratched the welt on his back long enough with the stick to dull the itch.

Ah, that feels better. He handed Sam back his pad.

Now it was four days later. After leaving the messhall this morning, Sam and Ziggy had set out on the trail with Stovepipe’s hastily drawn e-map in hand. They hiked south along the shores of