Daniels might have read it on his face because he smiled slightly and clapped Pete on the shoulder. “It’ll be fine. I’m okay, Pete.”

  “Of course you are.” Pete took a calming breath of his own. After so long together, it was no surprise Daniels could practically read his mind. “It’s just… it’s good to see you like this. In your element. When this is all over, people are going to need leaders. And… Well, sir, I don’t mean this in a bad way but… I think you might also feel like you owe a debt.”

  For a few seconds, Daniels’ expression hardened. He turned away, facing the door to the town square. As Amelie announced that he’d be coming out to say a few words, his shoulders slumped a bit, and he turned his head to look over his shoulder. “If ever I’m going to repay it, you’re going to be forbidden from retiring until it’s done. You think about that.”

  Even if the president said it like a warning, Pete still smiled, and stepped around him to open the door. “I’d never dream of it, sir.”

  There was a smattering of applause from the gathered residents of Springfield as Daniels stepped out and gave a casual, friendly wave. Pete followed him through the door and to the edge of the little row of cement benches around an old oak bare of leaves after the early windstorms. There he stood and watched as the man he most admired in the world stepped onto one of the benches and addressed the crowd.

  “I have to admit,” Daniels began, tucking his hands into his pockets—something that he never would have done in the old days, “when they asked me to speak, I said ‘no’, at first.”

  He paused, and the crowd hushed, waiting.

  The pause was long. Long enough that Pete thought maybe he really was crashing again.

  But then he gave a soft laugh, his head hanging briefly as he scuffed at the bench with one shoe. He looked up and sighed. “By now I’ve met most of you. I’ve met your spouses and children, or I’ve seen pictures of them and… given my condolences on your losses. You know the thing that I’ve noticed the most as I made my rounds? Hope. A whole lot of it. Hope in the face of something that, if I’m being entirely honest with you, just about took all of it out of me.

  “At first, I thought that hope came from relief. That after so many of you went through so much to get here, you could finally take a breath, and just that bit of rest is what did it. That maybe it wasn’t… Well, that it wasn’t real hope at all. Just relief.”

  Daniels shook his head slowly. “I was wrong, though.” He scanned the crowd, probably making eye contact with a few people near the front. “The more I got to know you all, the more stories I heard, the more I saw tears of joy and grief, and saw the way this community grew stronger with each new arrival, the more I’ve come to see that there’s less relief here than some might think.

  “Having food, and shelter, and at least a little security—it can help. But it’s not enough. The hope that I’ve seen in this place is more than just those things. It’s about this community. It’s about having neighbors and family amid an unimaginable crisis.”

  After another, shorter pause, he stepped down from the bench and began to pace, stopping in front of a tall, thin woman with hands still stained with soil where she’d been working at the grow tents. He put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her into a brief but honest hug. “Some of us have lost… everything. Just… everything that matters. The kind of loss that should break anyone.”

  The woman’s eyes teared up, and she gave the slightest nod.

  “But it hasn’t,” Daniels went on. “Somehow, it hasn’t. Now why is that? If any one of us were on our own out there, we’d break. Even if we had our own little garden or managed to hunt for food. Even if we had a fire, and a shelter, and we were well away from all of this. Because those things aren’t enough to thrive. For that, you need a community.

  “You need other human beings, and you need the joy and freedom that comes with having other people in your life. People who can be joyful, and share that with you. People who can comfort you while you grieve your losses. Friends and family who can circle the wagons when one of us is in need. That’s what we have here. That’s where the hope comes from.”

  He stepped back from the woman and exchanged a few private words with some of the other people gathered before he bowed his head and moved back to the bench, standing before it rather than on it. Not putting himself somehow above the others. He didn’t want a pedestal, it appeared.

  Daniels’ hands slid back into his pockets. “We’re going to ask you to take a vote here in a moment.” His voice carried easily across the hushed town square. “And I think our loosely organized ‘council’ expects that I’m going to tell you how to vote and how important it is. But that’s not what I want to say. Instead, I want you all to look around at the people closest to you. Your new friends, your new family. The family you all came here with, if you were one of the lucky folks that managed to stay together.

  “This evening, you need to vote your conscience. We’re all different here. For some of you, hope may be this, right here—all your neighbors gathered, making decisions together. For others, hope may be the promise of stability and a governing power that can keep you safe, whatever that means. Both of those things are okay. I want you to hear that from me, right now. There is no shame in wanting someone to make, and keep, the promise that you will survive whatever comes next.

  “And I’m also going to be honest about Apex. They have manpower. They have resources and infrastructure. They have everything we would need to ensure that we’re safe here. At least, physically. If we join Apex when they come knocking again—and they’re going to very soon—you are all but assured that you and your family will survive. That’s a tempting offer for all of us. It’s a tempting offer for me.”

  There were murmurs throughout the crowd at that, and a few sour faces. Notable from a man at the front of the crowd who had the obvious look of an ex-military type. Caleb Machert, Pete thought. He hadn’t met the man yet, but President Daniels had told him about the Marine, and about the way he’d spoken to the town council. “I doubt he’s the type to get into politics,” Daniels had remarked, “but he’s a natural. A man you can’t help but listen to. A capital-L Leader.”

  Pete watched Machert now, curious about his reaction to Daniels’ speech and whether he’d speak up. Instead, he folded his arms and continued to listen as the murmurs died down again.

  “I suppose I could tell you what they’ll take away in exchange for that,” the president continued somberly. “But we’ve had a long history in this country of making decisions based on fear. I’ve made decisions… based on fear. All I can tell you about that is that it’s almost always a short-term gain.

  “We run from the things we’re afraid of, but we only run as long as we’re being chased. When we run toward something, when we chase a dream, when we chase hope… we keep running. We run until we catch it, make it real. So let me instead tell you what we have to hope for.

  “What you’ve all built here is remarkable.” He smiled as he looked around at the faces closest to him. “I like to think I’m a late addition to all of this. I’ve only been here a short time compared to a lot of you. I don’t know what I expected when Pete brought me here. I was… paralyzed with fear. I barely remember the drive, to be honest. But then we arrived and all around me I saw love. Family. Friendship. Community. Support. People coming together and helping lift one another up. A kind of kinship that has been lacking in our country—in our world—for a long, long time.

  “When I look at Springfield, I see a dream of the future. Something precious and beautiful. Everyone here is free. There are hardly any laws on the books, as it were, but as I understand it, there hasn’t been so much as a single instance of petty theft since this place became a beacon for survivors. We all have plenty. We all share. We respect one another. We work hard, together, to make it through this. We have two models, if you will, about what we become when all of this is over.

  “The Apex model is faster,” he said gravely. “I can’t deny that. We go in with them, and the time it takes to see this country recover, even if the end product makes us nervous, is going to arrive sooner rather than later. Maybe a year. Maybe even months.”

  From the tone of the whispers and mutterings rising across the crowd, that was an attractive offer to a lot of people.

  But Daniels spoke up over the rising noise. “The other model, our model, of community and support, and sharing, and coming together to survive this… it’s going to take longer. Maybe a lot longer. Years. Decades. I don’t know, and I don’t want to sell you a dream that can never come true. Fact is… Springfield is still young in all this. Could be that it’s unsustainable. All I can say for sure is that it has limitless potential.

  “We start here, we find other communities. We build other places like this. We take our seeds and our livestock, and we spread out. We share the hope that we have here with others, as we can, as far and wide as we can. If we do that, we might fail. All of this could collapse. That’s a real risk, and one we all need to face and make peace with. But if it doesn’t fail… if it doesn’t collapse?”

  He trailed off, closing his eyes for a long moment as he smiled. When he opened his eyes, they were misty, as if he might openly weep in front of the people of Springfield. “If we can build this dream, and share it with the country, bring more people into it, show them what a life of hope and community can look like? This could be the place where a new kind of America is born.

  “A kind of nation the founding fathers hoped for, dreamed of, but never saw come to life. Out of the ashes of the old could arise something that will be loved and cherished by our children, and their children, and maybe by the world, for centuries to come. A place of hope and plenty. We could create the new American Dream, right here.

  “That’s what this choice is about. That’s what you’re voting on.” He held up one hand. “Do we take the short path with Apex? The short and certain path?” He raised the other. “Or do we risk everything on the slim—and it is slim—chance that we could build a nation of hope that most of us won’t live to see? I know it’s a hard choice. I know that nothing is certain either way. You all have a lot to consider.

  “All I ask is that as we cast these votes… we do so fully informed. We think, hard, about what happens next. About whether we’re prepared for the long haul, or not. I’ll leave you with that. Whatever we all decide, the one thing I can be certain of, the one thing maybe we can all be certain about, is that we’re in this together. That means something. Maybe it means everything.”

  As if the crowd understood automatically that Daniels’ speech was over, they erupted in applause and cheers. Even Machert clapped, stoic as he otherwise was.

  Once upon a time, President Daniels might have urged the crowd on, said a few final parting words, something to gin up a vote or at least keep everyone amped. Now, though, he only stood quietly, peacefully, for a few long moments before he went to one of the tables and cast his vote. The rest of the crowd surged after him, and in no time at all people queued in line.

  President Daniels wandered over to Pete, a weary smile on his face. “Not like the old days.” He shrugged. “Guess it’s easier when I’ve got talking points to stick to and a team of speech writers helping me out.”

  For a second all Pete could do was stare at the man. “Sir… that was the best speech you’ve given in the twenty years I’ve worked with you.”

  Daniels gave a self-deprecating kind of smile, waving the comment off. “Ah, I don’t know about that. But I appreciate the vote of confidence.”

  That was all Daniels would hear on the matter, in other words. But Pete couldn’t help but beam at his president. This was the Thomas Daniels he’d always known was there. A true leader, finally unshackled by politics and parties. Someone who spoke from the heart because his heart was honest. Because he really did have hope and the best interests of the people he led at heart.

  One day, Pete knew, if he had anything to do with it, Thomas Daniels would be President of the United States again. Whatever had happened before, whatever mistakes had been made, whatever sacrifices—this was the man people needed leading them into whatever came next.

  He left the president for the moment and cast his vote to stand together and resist Apex. Over the next three hours, the rest of the town voted as well. It took another hour to count the votes in front of the assembled crowd. It was nearly dark by the time the results were tallied.

  And, after a speech like that, it was no surprise.

  Unanimously, one and all, the people of Springfield voted to fight.

  They voted for the dream.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CALEB

  Springfield, CO

  Monday July 30th, 8:00 pm MST

  Barely an hour after the vote finished, Caleb stood in Diego’s tech shack with his old IT manager and his daughter. There was new energy in Springfield ever since Daniels’ speech. People were lively, excited. Already, plans were in motion.

  Samuels was overhauling security and up to his ears in people offering to serve. Amelie went to work right away organizing others to manage the children if and when an incursion happened. Thurmond had turned in for the night but intended to be up before dawn and on Caleb’s doorstep to start engineering their new comms system.

  And Diego had his own ideas.

  “So, I was thinking.” Diego drummed his fingers on the table as the words flew from his mouth just like the old days. “Apex is all tech, right? Like, they’ve got satellites, high speed communication, big data infrastructure, and as far as I can tell a lot of it is AI driven, which makes sense, right?”

  He took a deep breath. “Trusk was big into AI and I guess he still is, so like half these messages are automatically generated reports that start out with datasets and then move on to analysis and then recommendations—the team leaders apparently take the recommendations and either accept them or submit additional data and request a reassessment using a link like this one, which makes me think that for the most part a single Apex team probably requires an uplink to even know what they’re doing and how, right?”

  Caleb blinked. Was that all one sentence?

  “So, if we can swing it, what happens if we knock that link out?”

  “We take their comms out, sure.” Lana glanced up at Caleb, brow furrowed. “Is that the whole plan?”

  Caleb frowned at the laptop screen, where a number of messages populated a spreadsheet like the other data Diego had recovered. “It does seem a little obvious. That’s got to be part of our plan no matter what, but… you seem awfully excited about it. What are we not getting?”

  Diego sighed and queued up another file. “I pulled this about an hour ago. It’s not just text. Listen.”

  He clicked a file, and an audio clip buzzed over the laptop’s speaker in a fabricated female voice that was vaguely familiar. “Team 213-A is directed to deploy to the following coordinates.” A string of numbers followed, repeated once. “Threat level beta. Suppressing fire authorized. Hold position for 74 minutes. Further instructions pending.”

  The rest was still scrambled, with snippets of the voice mangled by whatever process Diego had used to recover the file.

  “Where do I know that voice from?” Caleb wondered.

  “It’s TARA,” Diego said. “It’s the AI assistant that shipped with all of the latest gen Electron devices. Trusk’s big push into mobile tech. It’s pretty advanced—tracks your schedule, makes predictions about your best productivity hours, suggests useful apps based on your habits, even helps you grocery shop and stuff. Well, it was. Or… still is, I guess? Anyway, it was due for a major upgrade like four months from now, to integrate fully with Dimension.”

  Lana groaned. “Of course. That’s where I know it from. All those commercials that were on everything for the last year. That’s what Apex is using to coordinate their people.”

  “It makes sense,” Diego said. “I mean, there are a lot of Apex agents out there. You’d need a huge team of people coordinating to direct them, but that means a lot of leadership and a lot of human error. Apex is all about automation. From the messages and these audio clips, best I can tell, TARA runs everything. I mean, someone probably hits the go button, you know, but the acceptance rate on these messages that got responses is like 90% or more.”

  Caleb let that digest for a second. Somehow, he’d imagined most of the Apex agents being mercenaries or ex-militia. People who made tactical decisions in the field. But to find a hundred thousand of those types… it had seemed pretty unlikely.

  If, instead, Apex had a fleet of satellites looking down over everything, and an AI gathering intel from those and the teams on the ground, and rapidly making tactical decisions and directions?

  Caleb gave a start. “They’d be blind. Without this AI, they get no direction, no intelligence. We cut them off—”

  “And they’re just a bunch of people really good at following orders,” Lana finished for him, “with no orders to follow.”

  “Exactly.” Diego’s whole body animated with excitement as he waved at the laptop screen. “Everyone ends up stuck, and even if they did re-establish communications, the AI would have to compensate for the lost time and the change in positions. Or, best case, the whole Apex force is stuck for however long that takes.”

  Caleb nodded, a world of possibilities spreading through his thoughts. A move like that, crippling any Apex forces that came for Springfield, could make their situation far more flexible.

  He still thought that holding their resources hostage was the best way to handle both Trusk and the government long-term, but there was always the chance that either of those factions called their bluff and invaded anyway. If they had even one extra option available before having to burn the food supply—the ‘nuclear’ option he desperately hoped didn’t become necessary—it could mean the difference between the end of Springfield and this dream of a new America that Daniels had used to inspire a unanimous vote against joining Apex.