No Other Choice by T L Payne

Author:T L Payne [Payne, T L]
Format: epub
Published: 2021-09-19T00:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

Cayden

Day Six

The soldier standing in the turret turned from left to right as the Humvee exited the apartment complex behind the two other military vehicles. Cayden didn’t quite understand what was happening. It was pretty clear to him that it was something significant. The soldiers had cuffed his dad and Isabella like they were criminals. He hadn’t been cuffed, but he’d been separated from them. After being placed into the Humvee, he got distracted by the soldier standing in the Humvee’s turret.

“I ain’t going to lie, this ride is sweet,” Cayden said. “How does it still work after the EMP?”

“There aren’t any electronic engine controls, electronic braking, or circuitry that could fry with the electromagnetic pulse,” the soldier seated to his left said.

“Awesome,” Cayden said. “Does the other stuff up there work too?” Cayden pointed to the screens and other high-tech equipment attached to the dash.

“Nah. The EMP wiped those out,” the soldier said.

Cayden thought about his computer and gaming console. It was hard for him to imagine a life without them. As they drove through the neighborhood, Cayden saw people pulling furniture and household items from their flooded homes and piling them at the curb as if everything was normal and someone would be around to pick them up soon. Did they not understand that life wasn’t returning to normal? He wondered if they even knew that the country had been attacked and the lights weren’t coming back on.

When the Humvee pulled onto the road leading to the retailer outlets, Cayden got a real sense of the devastation. Other than the vehicles that had been shoved out of the roadway, nothing had been cleaned up. Electric lines and metal sheeting littered the sides of the road and nearby parking lots. Cayden gasped as they passed a body half-buried in the debris near the intersection.

“You might want to cover your eyes, kid. It’s pretty bad out there,” the soldier to his left said.

Cayden tried to imagine what their lives would be like now without modern technology. If they weren’t able to get the lights back on soon, it would look a lot worse because all the people who’d survived the storm would start starving to death.

If the military weren’t able to fight back the insurgents, they might not live long enough to starve. Cayden wasn’t sure how they’d fight back without their modern equipment. The soldiers looked like they could handle themselves. The soldier to his left looked young, maybe only eighteen. A mere five years older than him. He wasn’t as muscular as the two soldiers in the front. Cayden couldn’t tell how old the soldier in the turret was, but the man had arms bigger than Cayden’s thighs.

Cayden glanced at his own skinny arms, wondering how much he’d have to work out to have muscles like that. He’d gone to the gym a few times, back when his dad still cared what he looked like. He’d stopped going after Cayden’s mom died though, recently, he’d bought a stationary bike and some weights and started again.

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