Free Breakdown: Season One by Jordon Quattlebaum Page A

will do their best to rescue whoever’s left from the government, create a puppet regime. Loans get called in and we can’t pay, so those new ‘leaders’ of our country annex us off a chunk at a time to pay the bills to our saviors.”
    Thom thought about it for a minute and nodded slowly. It made a scary amount of sense.
    “You’ve given this a lot of thought, it sounds like.”
    “Let’s just say that if I’d had any money, I’d be a heavy investor in tinfoil hats.”
    Unable to help it, Thom forgot himself and let out just about the biggest belly laugh he’d had since before he’d lost his wife.
    Yesterday he had felt that pain so keenly, but now, with the events of the last 24 hours, it seemed like a different life altogether. In a strange way, the end of the world had jump-started his healing process.
    It gave him a mission. An honest-to-goodness, urgent, incredibly important mission: to find his daughter and keep her alive until order in the world was rebuilt or restored.
    They walked in silence for a while then.
    “Herbie?” Thom ventured. “What’ll you do when that happens?”
    “Thom, I swore an oath to this country when I was drafted. I meant every word of it.”
    A smile met Thom’s lips and stretched to greet the corners of his eyes. “Thought you’d say that, Herbie.”
    “Did ya now?” he asked, a twinkle in his jaundiced eye.
    “Sure did. But Herbie, I know a bit about that oath. Doesn’t it require you to serve the President and any officers above you?”
    He nodded. “There’s the rub.”
    “So if what you’re thinking is true—if the folks that did this to us set up a puppet government—what then?”
    “Duty is to defend the Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic, Thomas Monroe. But let’s not worry about that just now. No sense in worrying over what hasn’t happened yet. Plenty we should be thinking about. We’ll be lucky to live to that point in history unless we’re smart and start to think things through.”
    Thom laughed again, then, and Herbie eyed him wearily.
    “Sorry…something struck me as funny. Was thinking about that movie again and imagined paratrooping Commies landing in Columbia, where my daughter goes to school.”
    “I fail to see what had you so tickled about that possibility, Thom.”
    “Well, Herbie, you know how the kids in that movie name their little guerilla band after their high school mascot?”
    He nodded.
    “The mascot for the high school in Columbia is the Kewpie Doll.”
    Without missing a beat, Herbie thrust his arms into the air and bellowed, “KEWPIE DOOOOOLLLLS!”
    Thom laughed until he cried, and then they found themselves at the bridge.
    The bridge was wide enough to allow for some foot traffic to the left of the rails, and with a lot of effort, Herbie was able to push his cart along.
    Thom had finally had enough.
    “So, Herbie…what’s with the cart? I mean…I know you’re…umm…”
    “Homeless?”
    “Yeah. Is that the P.C. way to say that?”
    Herbie just laughed.
    “Nothing P.C. about being homeless in a country as great as this one, Thom. To answer your question; it’s got my stuff in it, so it comes with me.”
    Thom smiled and tried to peek under the tarp hiding the contents of the shopping trolley.
    “What kind of stuff are we talking about, here? My guess would be a shopping cart full of mint-condition Ferbies. Am I right?”
    “Nope.”
    “Am I even warm?”
    “Not even a little.”
    The two men continued to pass boxcar after boxcar, most of them empty from what they could tell.
    “So not Ferbies, then. Tell you what, you tell me one item in your cart, I’ll tell you one from mine. Deal?”
    “Sure, Thom. KY Jelly.”
    “Game over. You win. No more questions,” Thom said, holding his hands up in mock defeat.
    Herbie simply cackled.
    “Kidding. I’ve got a sleeping bag, pad, some food, things like that. Guessing a lot of the same things you might have in that bag of yours. Things that make