But he didn’t mind the taste that much, and barely noticed as he finished the device and carefully straightened from his table to fit the little makeshift circuit board into its casing. He popped a battery into the back of it and gave the trigger an experimental press.

  Sparks leaped between the two forward contacts, a lower-power taser on its own. Combined with the tiny coil, it was enough to knock out electronics just beyond arm’s reach. Not much, but there also wasn’t much else for him to do.

  He closed his eyes and yawned, tilting his head sharp to one side to crack it. It gave a satisfying snap that sent a shiver down his spine. It was only then, after staring at the board for so long, that he realized just how dark it was in the shop. He checked the time on his phone, which was no longer drawing power off the solar panel on the roof. After eight, and clearly dark.

  He leaned back in his chair and reached for the array of car batteries behind him to pull a cable free from its resting place, then swiveled around to remove the clamp from the panel and replace it with the battery. A pair of light bulbs he hadn’t even noticed going out came to life as a few bright sparks leaped between the cable and the contact.

  The light was nearly blinding after so many hours in relative darkness. He squinted and rubbed his eyes, then turned back to his table and looked around for the silicon board he’d been cutting pieces from.

  It was gone, though. He blinked, frowned, and had to stare at the empty spot for a moment before remembering he’d used the last of it. “Darn. Well… that’s it, then, I guess.”

  The battery on his soldering iron was almost dead anyway. He switched it off and set it carefully aside, then lined up the short-range units. He’d managed to squeeze a dozen out of what he could find. Not bad. Not ideal.

  With a sigh, he carefully tucked them into his jacket pockets everywhere they would fit, then grabbed his radio from the far end of the table and tuned it to Samuels’ channel.

  Nothing. He frowned, turned it over, and power-cycled it. The light didn’t flash. Dead. He opened the battery casing and pulled out the pair of old d-cell batteries and tossed them into the bucket with his other spent batteries. He had more, he was pretty sure, and went to the wall where he kept the others, all sorted by size.

  The d-cell box only had one left and he grunted irritation as he grabbed the AA box and collected four of them. They weren’t all that useful for anything else.

  As he returned to the table to rig them into the radio, though, he paused. In the silence of the shack, he heard the crunch of hard-packed dirt and gravel, just outside his door.

  He licked his lips and set his radio down on the table’s corner. It was too light inside, and too dark outside, to see any shadow across the door’s bottom where it wasn’t quite flush with the floor. He waited, then pressed himself close to the wall beside it, listening. There was another series of crunches. Slow, like someone was creeping carefully along the outside of the building.

  Holding his breath, he resisted the urge to ask if someone was there. Surely it was someone friendly, right? Except, the hair on the back of his neck lifted and his chest tightened with panic. There was no one he could think of that would need to sneak around his shop. He found himself glancing around, looking for a weapon, but he’d never had—or ever fired—a gun and didn’t need any kind of blade for his work except for a set of metal shears.

  Those were in reach, but as he moved to grab them, he spotted a long-handled wrench and picked that up instead, hefting it in his fist. Probably no need for it, but better safe than sorry.

  The handle on the door gave a soft click as whoever was on the other side turned it so slowly, he heard the mechanism inside engage. His pulse seemed to pound in his head and behind his eyes, until there was a faint halo around his vision, throbbing in time.

  His lungs screamed for air, pumping hard as he lost control of his panic. He held himself rigid to keep from diving beneath the table. If someone was trying to sneak in, they couldn’t mean anything but harm. He raised the wrench over his head.

  A second later, the hinges gave a faint squeal, and the door flew open all at once. The muzzle of a gun pushed through.

  There was no thought. Just sudden, overwhelming animal fear. He brought the wrench down on the gun, then gave an undignified howl as he raised it and struck the helmet of the black-clad person holding it. A man, his voice sharp with shock, cussed and slammed against the edge of the door frame.

  Diego let his body take over and shoved past the man. An Apex agent? Had his radio died before the incursion officially began? He took off at a sprint away from his shop, shouting at the top of his lungs. “Somebody! Anybody! They’re here! At the tech shop, they’re—”

  He was cut off as his feet flew out from under him. He landed hard, face-planting in the dirt. Pain exploded in his nose and he heard a rough, wet crunch there. It was distant, though, far away like it was someone else’s pain. He wheezed as he scrambled to push himself up, but something hard struck him between the shoulder blades, pinning him down. “One civilian alerted,” a man’s voice said above him. “Code black recommended.”

  Somehow, in the midst of it all, Diego felt the bite of the short-range EMPs in his pockets digging into his stomach where he lay on top of them. He squirmed under the boot on his back, breathless and still trying to shout as he shoved his hands into the pocket. His knuckles scraped on the hard earth under him, but he got his fingers around a pair and pulled them free.

  “Don’t,” the man above him warned. He reached down and grabbed the back of Diego’s jacket, pulling hard to flip him over.

  Diego twisted the two parts of one of the EMP devices, breaking the thin tape that held them together, and as the man raised his rifle he pushed the battery unit into the coil and mashed the button.

  It was nothing spectacular. Just a flash of sparks inside the unit as the battery discharged. But the agent above him jerked to one side, slapping at his ear as he cursed. He recovered almost instantly, leveling the rifle at Diego’s chest.

  Diego twisted, throwing himself forward enough to jam the second battery unit’s contacts against the agent’s calf, the trigger already depressed. Electricity arced between the prongs as he met resistance. The agent gave a high-pitched, short-lived shout of pain as the muscles in his leg contracted suddenly. He fell back, the finger on his trigger twitched enough to fire off a shot before he struck the ground.

  The battery discharged completely in a matter of seconds, not really meant to function as a proper taser. He scrambled through his pockets for another unit, but had barely managed to get it free before the black-clad agent was up on his side, his snub-nosed rifle swiveling around toward him.

  He wasn’t fast enough. All he could do was squeeze his eyes shut.

  A gun fired. Diego’s body jerked hard, flinching. Funny. He’d thought that getting shot would hurt more.

  Someone grunted as they pulled at his jacket sleeve. “Diego! Are you injured? Look at me, kid.”

  He opened his eyes to see Caleb Machert kneeling at his side. Confused, he looked around. The Apex agent. Sprawled across the ground, his rifle near his open hand. “I… I thought…”

  Caleb patted him down, opened his jacket, and felt around his chest and stomach. “No blood. Are there more? Did you see more?”

  Mutely, Diego shook his head. He wasn’t shot. Wasn’t dead.

  “This is Caleb Machert, we’ve got… hello?”

  Diego looked up at him, then down at the spent EMP device still clutched in his fist. “I set off an EMP,” he said, his voice hollow and strangely echoing, like he was talking from several feet away. “It… it’s close range… but…”

  “It’s fine.” Caleb dragged Diego roughly to his feet with a pained grunt. “We need to move. Can you fire a gun?”

  “I don’t… I don’t have a gun,” Diego muttered. “I tried to run, I—”

  Caleb pressed a handgun into his grip, closing his fingers around it. “Hold it with both hands,” he said urgently. “Finger off the trigger. Only fire if I tell you to.”

  As Diego dropped the spent device, Caleb gave a quiet groan as he knelt and picked up the agent’s rifle. He stood with some effort and turned it over, flicking some switch on it twice before he pulled the magazine free briefly before snapping it back into place. “Follow me and stay close behind me, okay? Don’t fire unless I tell you to, no matter what, understand?”

  “I… I do,” Diego stammered. “What’s happening?”

  Caleb’s face turned stony and grim. “We’re under attack, kid.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Springfield, CO

  Tuesday July 31st, 9:00 pm MST

  The retort of gunfire sent a rush of goosebumps across Pete Camby’s body. He paused as he turned the corner toward the library where the town council was gathered to coordinate with their respective teams, and waited for another shot. Anything to indicate something was wrong.

  Another shot followed and his gut twisted with sudden worry. He looked toward the library, a shiver taking over his hands as he lifted his radio. “This is Camby,” he said. “Anyone else hear that or am I losing my mind out here?”

  Almost immediately a response came back. “Just a misfire,” a man’s voice said. “Stand down and stay off the channel. Radio silence in effect. Over.”

  Wincing a little, he put the radio back and shook his head. He was drawn taut as a guitar string, practically vibrating with stress. A series of acknowledgment clicks came over the radio, various lookouts giving non-verbal signals that they’d heard the message as well. With a groan, he raked his fingers through his hair and realized he hadn’t showered in just over a day. It didn’t help.

  He continued toward the library, trying to shake off some of the fright the gunfire had given him. Last thing he wanted was for President Daniels to see him shaken. Not that anyone could blame him, he supposed.

  It didn’t look good. There could be over three hundred Apex agents out there, just waiting to hit them hard. How they were supposed to deal with a force of that size, he didn’t know. Didn’t have to know, since there were others like Machert and Samuels who were the tactical thinkers here. Not that much different than how things had been at the White House, at least in terms of his relative role to everything.

  Except, this wasn’t like being in the oval office or the war room listening to reports of unbalanced conflicts happening across an ocean, continents away. It was here, around the corner from him. From all of them. In their faces.

  There was no distant strategic command monitoring everything by drone or satellite, ready to give them direction using intelligence gathered from a better vantage point. It made the walls around Springfield seem like the edge of a dense, vast forest, within which anything could be hiding and ready to spring on them without warning.

  He only realized he’d started wringing his hands as he approached the library doors and had to take a moment to get a handle on himself.

  As he did, there was movement in the corner of his eye. His head snapped around. There was nothing there, just the far corner of the library building, where a scraggly bush about four feet tall twitched in the slight breeze. Jesus, he was literally jumping at shadows.

  Except…

  He rubbed the side of his neck, glancing from the bush to the door and back. It was nothing, he was sure. Just his overactive, overstressed, panic-ridden brain playing tricks on him. All the same, it was like a hook in his stomach, pulling and twisting on the off chance it was something more. He left the doors and crept toward the corner of the building.

  The shadows there were only noticeable from the faint, distant glow of lights coming from the postal building across the street. Other than that, it was almost pitch black, the night covered by the perpetually cloudy, starless sky. He had a small flashlight at hand, but worried about turning it on.

  Springfield was almost entirely dark, specifically to cut down visibility in case Trusk flew drones or something over the town. There was just no telling what Apex had at their disposal.

  He drew close to the bush and brushed it with his fingers as he leaned to peer around the corner of the building. Nothing there. He shook his head and rubbed his exhausted eyes. Of course. If Apex had moved in, the whole place would be on high alert. He looked down the lightless corridor for a moment longer and started to turn away.

  A pinprick of red light caught his attention. He froze. Something was blinking near the ground about halfway along the library building’s outer wall. Chewing his lip absently, he tried to search for some sign that anyone was nearby, but if there was, they could have been as close as six feet and he probably wouldn’t have seen them unless they moved. Something about that blinking light worried him, though.

  Careful about his steps, he trailed a hand along the wall toward the light, trying to be as quiet as he could out of sheer paranoia. When he reached it, he knelt and drew out his flashlight.

  The light spilled across a device that couldn’t have been anything but an explosive. At first, he doubted what he was seeing. It was a tiny thing, covered in a casing so none of the interior was visible, with a compact, nearly flat rectangle on top, smooth and unmarked, with a tiny LED light on one side blinking red.

  He breathed out a curse as he stood, scrambling back a few steps as the reality of it finally grabbed him and drove him to get away. He almost ran, expecting it to go off in his face—but it was against the library building. The council room was directly on the other side.

  He tugged his radio free to warn everyone that Apex agents were already there.

  The radio had barely reached his mouth when something struck him hard in the back of the head. Shock blazed bright and hot before a wave of dizzying blackness deeper than the night swallowed him whole.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  LANA

  Springfield, CO

  Tuesday July 31st, 9:00 pm MST

  “Just a misfire. Stand down and stay off the channel. Radio silence in effect. Over.”

  Lana stared down at her radio for several seconds, waiting for more. Nothing came, just a few clicks of acknowledgment. She sent hers in as well, but didn’t put the radio away.

  Samuels had spread the new volunteers out across all of his teams, but most of them were inside the town. No telling how many of them had barely handled a firearm. A misfire wasn’t out of the question.

  All the same, something just didn’t feel right. The spacing between the two shots, maybe. Like someone had fired, and then been fired upon in return.

  “Who was that?” Derek asked from behind her, dusting his hands off from having finished with the EMP device.

  Lana glanced back at him. “Just someone reporting about a misfire.”

  He tilted his head a bit to the side. “Yeah, I heard. Who was it?”

  “I don’t…” Lana looked down at the radio in her hand. The unsecured radio.

  Anyone on the channel was supposed to identify themselves, no exceptions.

  She muttered a curse and raised it again. “This is Lieutenant Machert. Repeat that last message. Who reported?”

  There was no answer.

  She repeated herself.

  Static.

  Her stomach sank. Even if whoever reported in didn’t answer, someone else should have at least acknowledged or replied. As Derek moved closer, she switched channels to the evacuation band. “This is Lieutenant Machert,” she said, glancing at Derek. “Checking comms. Acknowledge, any team.”

  They both waited, staring at the radio, for a full thirty seconds before she tucked it away and pulled her rifle around to the front at the same time Derek did. “Ten miles out is too far to jam communications.”

  “Someone got in,” Derek agreed, finishing the thought. “What’s the move? Samuels’ people may already be on it.”

  Her jaw clenched as he looked around at the twitching lights in the area—her team, busy finishing up with the kill box set up. If they pulled out of the area, the EMPs would still go off when the eastern Apex forces came through, but it would only slow them down instead of terminating a battalion.

  But if there were Apex units already inside Springfield, it wouldn’t even matter.

  Her instinct was to pull her people out and return to the town. Even as she thought it, she heard her father’s voice in her ear. “You must be more thoughtful. Don’t make rash decisions. Weigh your cost and reward.”

  More than that, she had people under her command now. Most of them had very little training. Not enough to engage hostiles in an urban environment, where civilians might be hurt by stray fire. What was the right call to make, here? Trust Samuels’ people to deal with it? Even with comms jammed, his teams had to have heard the gunfire.

  “Hey,” Derek said quietly, almost a whisper that no one else nearby might hear, “take a breath.”

  Lana did, nodding. The tension in her gut was unbearable, tearing her in two directions that both felt critical.

  “You have an instinct. Push past the panic and fear. It won’t go away, but you can step outside of it.”

  With a loud swallow, she closed her eyes and tried to do that. It wasn’t her that was worried. It was someone else. Someone on a movie screen or standing a few feet away.

  If they stayed, and someone was inside tearing things down, the Apex forces could sweep in during the aftermath and clean up. If there was no one inside and this was just a comms failure—which, given the slapdash way her father and Thurmond had to set up the tower, was possible—then the battalions were still ten miles out, with IEDs and ambush parties to deal with on the way. That wouldn’t be quiet. It was five minutes to Springfield’s walls, five minutes back.