Free Overrun by Michael Rusch

returned calmly. “These people have been forsaken. Cast off as a small
mess left to be cleaned up. And everyone on the inside hopes that someone else
will do it."
    Kirken let out his breath slowly
and walked closer to his stepson.
    "Look at you, Brandon.
You’re already sick. How long can you expect to continue on out here? Are you
in that much of a hurry to die?"
    "I won’t leave them,”
Brandon said lowering his voice and looking at Mel waiting patiently on the
curbside. “I’m not like you…”
    Mel glanced away down the road
pretending she was not listening to their conversation.
    Kirken took a step back like he
had been slapped in the face.
    “I will not leave her. Somebody
has to stand by somebody in this life.”
    The words echoed coldly in
Kirken’s heart.
    “And I can't believe you're
saying any of this right now in front of her. Maybe we don't need you coming
out here to see us anymore. Just stay in the domes."
    Kirken almost choked on the rage
that had overtaken him. In an instant his fury became shame and guilt.
    “Mel, I’m sorry,” he walking to
her. “All I want is for both of you…”
    “I know,” she said interrupting
him and forcing a thin smile across her face. “You don’t have to say it. I
don’t want you to.”
    She stood and walked past him to
her brother. Brandon lowered his eyes when she was in front of him. She stood
on her tiptoes and hugged him tightly around his neck.
    “There’s nothing you have to
justify to me,” she said again towards Kirken and then walked away.
    “I can’t be a part of it,”
Brandon said his anger softening. “A country that is merely content to save
itself. And not even all of it.”
    They both watched Mel stroll
further down the street towards the downtown.
    “Brandon…,” Kirken began. By now
he could barely speak.
    "The United States is
separating itself from the rest of the world,” Brandon continued. “Once the
planet has been unalterably weakened by all the years unprotected, and many,
many people have died from the sickness...the takeover will begin. Everyone
knows that. On the inside and the out. I think this is the worst thing this world
has ever seen."
    Kirken hung his head. His dark
glasses slipped halfway down his nose allowing the sun’s glare back into his
eyes. Brandon turned to walk after Mel. He stopped in front of Kirken.
    "I will not leave them,”
Brandon said not looking at him directly but somewhere over his shoulder down
the street. “I will stay and live here with Mom and Mel for as long as I'm
able. I want nothing to do with anything else. Tell them to quit coming."
    With that, Brandon left.
    Kirken watched him break into a
jog to catch up to Mel. He swore to himself and reached back into the car to
grab the holovid from the top of the seat. He watched them walk further away
while he clipped it to his waist.
    He stood there for a long while.
    Brandon’s bitterness was much
more intense than his own. His fury raged behind his eyes, and Kirken knew
firsthand the ravaging effects it had on one’s soul.
    With a heavy
heart, he watched them walk further away and slowly disappear from view.

Chapter 7
     
     
    "What happened again?"
United States President Franklin F. Ford asked his most senior advisor Daniel
Baldwin.
    Ford stood up from behind his
desk and nervously paced the room. Color rushed from his face and new wrinkles
furrowed deeper into his skin.
    "We had an incident,”
Baldwin began to explain. “About two days ago.”
    Baldwin sat in a large seat on
the opposite end of the presidential chamber from Ford. His voice echoed in the
vast emptiness of the room. A briefcase lay open on a table in front of him
covering blank command monitors embedded in its surface.
    War Minister Faulken scowled in
a seat just to Baldwin’s left. A pile of documents covered most of his lap.
    "What happened was very
large and very difficult to contain."
    President Ford walked over to a
couch across from Baldwin, sat down and began