DO NOT THINK ABOUT HIM.

NOT UNTIL THIS IS OVER.

I inhale. In, out. In, out. I shut it down.

I briefly squeeze Vera’s shoulder and get into the front seat of the Humvee. It is a familiar spot for me. I close the door and Vera gets into the backseat. The driver door opens and Uriah climbs behind the wheel.

He looks at me, serious.

“Are you ready for this?” he asks.

“It’s just another level in the game,” I shrug.

He smiles faintly.

“That’s one way of putting it,” he comments. He hands me a stack of papers, written by hand. It is a mission roster. I skim through the names of the people on my security detail… Chris, Uriah, Sophia, Andrew… but I do not see Alexander Ramos.

“Alexander isn’t on this mission,” I state.

“Apparently not.” Uriah replies. Then, quietly,

“That won’t be easy for Sophia.”

“Welcome to war,” I say, echoing Vera’s words.

“Where is the station from here?”

“Just a couple of miles,” Uriah answers.

“Where’s Manny?”

“Ready on the flight line.” He smiles. “He’s dependable like that.”

Good old Manny.

I trace my finger along the door handle as we wait for the all-clear signal to move out. We roll out in convoy formation. Ever since the missile hit the Capitol Building, it has been painfully obvious that Omega has the ability to breach our security whenever they want. I don’t know what’s stopping Omega from leveling this entire city to the ground. The knowledge that they might strike again is frightening.

“Your security detail will be on the train with you,” Uriah explains. “If Omega finds out that we’re sending a legitimate senator to negotiate California into the Alliance, they’ll try to kill you.”

“They’ve tried to kill me plenty of times before,” I comment.

“This is different. You’ll be a bigger target.”

“That makes me feel so much better.” I bite my lip, thinking of the repercussions this will have on the rest of my life. I’m already known to them as a Militia Commander… but this is a different level of fame, so to speak. With fame comes a higher spot for me on Omega’s kill list. And people like Harry Lydell will be all too happy to try to take me down.

“Don’t worry,” Uriah says, seeing the look on my face. “You’re going to be fine.”

“It’s not me I’m worried about,” I reply.

And that’s the truth.

I’d rather be killed than lose this war.

I’m worried about our survival, not mine.

We wind through boulevards that have been secured and blockaded. I watch the buildings roll by, empty edifices now turned into part of the massive National Guard and militia fortifications. The boulevard dips under a huge underpass and we pop up by the Sacramento Courthouse, a large skyscraper with blue windows. To the left is a large, antique brick building.

The sign out front reads, Amtrak, and beside it, a new sign has been erected:

We pull up through the parking lot — a maze of barricades and militia patrols. We stop at the front. Taxicabs used to sit on the curb here and wait for passengers who needed rides to their hotels. Now it is a military loading zone.

I open the door. Uriah and Vera exit with me. I cast Vera a glance, gauging her mood. She is as steely as ever.

I walk inside the station. The ceilings are huge, and every footstep and word echoes in the hollow chamber. Rows of old, wooden benches line the room. A huge mural of the breaking of the ground for the first transcontinental railroad is painted across the far wall.

I see Chris with militia members in the far corner of the station. He sees me enter and says a quick few words to the men around him, then walks toward me.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he asks, gesturing to the vaulted ceiling.

“Yes,” I agree.

“Hey, boss,” Uriah says.

“Lieutenant True,” Chris nods. “Lieutenant Wright.”

Vera doesn’t respond. Both Uriah and Vera head toward the other side of the building, leaving me alone with Chris.

“What was she arguing with you about this morning?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.

Chris shakes his head.

“It doesn’t matter right now,” he says.

“It does to me.”

“Cassie…” He sighs.

“Is she being a pain?” I demand. “Because I’ll tell her to knock it off if she is.”

“Her mother just died. Cut her some slack,” Chris answers.

“I know that. I held Angela’s hand while she was bleeding out on the sidewalk.” I take a sharp breath, realizing that my words came out harsher than I had originally intended. “I’m sorry. I’m just… I’m a little nervous, I guess. This whole negotiations thing has me wound tight.”

“You’re not the only one,” Chris says.

The thought occurs to me then that I should ask him right now about his wife. His former wife? His current wife? Whatever she is or was, I need to know the truth. Manny told me not to worry about it, but…

“I couldn’t find my father,” I say instead.

Chris’s expression conveys shock.

“Did you search the whole hospital?” he asks.

“Every room,” I answer. “Every bed. I didn’t see him. He’s not listed as a patient.”

For the first time in a very long time, Chris looks genuinely sad.

“I’m sorry, Cassie,” he says. “I’m so sorry.”

I blink back tears and stare at the ground.

“It is what it is,” I state, hollow.

“If I could fix it—”

“—But you can’t.” I swallow a lump in my throat.

“Nobody can.”

I tighten the strap of my backpack and nod toward Uriah and Vera, standing in the corner of the train station. Andrew is waiting there as well, and Sophia has popped up, too.

“Let’s go,” I say.

Chris says nothing. He merely nods and studies my face. So I stay in front of him. I don’t want him to see the hot tears burning in my eyes. Not today. I’m the Senator now, and I have to maintain the appearance of being totally calm and in control.

To me, that is irony at its cruelest.

The back of the building opens to a sprawling parking lot. Across the lot there are loading platforms for the Amtrak trains, but the directional signs have been removed, replaced with National Guard instructions and warnings. There are old Amtrak cars on the track, painted muted shades of brown and green, blending with the earth. There are anti-aircraft guns mounted to a flatbed car and men with machine guns and RPGs.

“This locomotive survived the EMP?” I ask.

“Not entirely,” Andrew explains. “Most diesel engines are hybrids — a combination of electric and diesel — and this one wasn’t any different. The National Guard retrofitted some of the locomotives to make them entirely diesel. This is one of them.”

The engine is a dull brown with dark green patches. By the time we reach the loading dock, the engine is roaring to life and the National Guard is busy assigning troops to the train.

“We’re in the middle car,” Chris says. “Your security detail will be spread out throughout the train.”

I nod, understanding.

My security detail is made up of Uriah, Andrew, Chris, Vera and almost two dozen other militiamen and women who have volunteered for this mission. It’s intense, knowing that all of the people here are risking their lives for this mission– but I know it’s not for me. It’s for the safekeeping of California as a whole. For the survival of our country.

If I think of it like that, I’ll be able to get through this, I tell myself.

The doors on the train open. I step up inside the train. The flooring and the walls are gray. The tables are gray. The seats are gray. In fact, everything looks gray.

“I don’t like the windows,” Vera comments.

The windows have been reduced to small gun ports with steel plates welded over them. The roofs of the train cars have been covered with sandbags and armed men. There is a rail car ahead on the track loaded with guns and soldiers. I peek through the small slit of a window and search the skies for Manny’s biplane. I can’t see him, but he is up there somewhere. Nearby.