Rifles and Rapiers: An expansion of America Stranded

Coden gazed out the window of his not-so-homely house, or penthouse really. The lights of New York filled the night landscape like stars in the sky. Except they weren’t in the sky. They were on the ground. Attached to the ground. Dammit.

He sighed and turned away from the huge window, nursing a cognac as he pondered the truly wild situation he had gotten himself into. A few of his aides that knew of his business with the other high ranking leaders of the country were calling it borderline treason. Personally, he disagreed.

Currently, the president seemed to have no idea of the things that they weren’t telling him, so that was good. It was only a matter of time before he did get an idea. Until then, Coden was officially tasked with bringing the various drone fleets either to the newly reconnected Ramstein Airbase on the new continent across the pond or, preferably, just back home to the US. Why wasn’t the Drone Fleet Administrator doing that? Because a few days ago, he and many others had fed themselves a nice meal of nine millimeter for breakfast.

To add to the headache that was the domestic situation, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve had already been dipped into, with over fifty million barrels drying up within the first few days of the Flash. But, what did Coden know about that? He was just a drone admiral. A ridiculously overworked and underpaid drone admiral who definitely did NOT deserve all this stress!

Coden took a long sip from his cognac, silently grumbling to himself. He snatched the curvescreen remote off of his couch and powered on the television.

“-ions fleeing cities as shortages of all kinds continue to grow across the nation. Clashes between police and rioters all over the East Coast as hundreds of thousands demand entry to airports and hyperboat stations to exit the country in order to check on their loved ones overseas. The official report of the United States being transported to an alternate world draws skepticism from even the most staunch supporters of President Dre-”

Coden scoffed and changed the channel.

“-sdens focus on bringing stranded military equipment and personnel home is a move criticized by many. A recent protest in Los Angeles proved that the people will not stand to be ignored! And Dresden’s lackeys in the police department then proceeded to authorize lethal-”

He frowned and switched it again.

“-local community leaders have now been reported to begin building militias to stop the mass looti-”

“-nd this rotting MF Dresden wants to see us norms slice it up over a piece of fucking bread? Nuh-uh Gbros, I personally will not be-”

“-eighty nine reported dead in a street takeover turned viol-”

“-eff Bezos found dead by gunshot-”

“-buy Slushie Supreme toda-”

Coden turned the TV off and went back to the window.

Officially, his job was to bring the drone fleets home. But his real task? Use the drone fleets to scan the new continent for those two missing soldiers. Ryan and Alarick, whatever their names were. Personally, Coden couldn’t see the point in trying to find them. If the Deputy Director’s plan was to use them as agents to solve all of the committee's problems, then why not just use some normal tactical team? It didn’t make sense to him. Frankly, the man didn’t make any sense at all to him. Who was he?

. . .

Jared Pionic read the FBI file in front of him out loud. “John Furner. Aggressive in his establishment of profit veins in his years as CEO of Walmart, yet open to suggestion and influence. Both of these traits disappeared as he grew older. Despite being advanced in age and losing his touch, Furner has no intentions of passing the mantle down to a younger successor at any point in time.” Jared scratched his head. “Man is seventy nine and still refuses to give up the seat? Talk about stubborn,” he muttered to himself. He stood up, turned around, and waved the file in the face of the man on the bed. “See this? Even the case profilers think you’re losing it.”

John Furner jerked his head away from the aggressive file-waving, eyes droopy with exhaustion. Jared understood why. Interrogation was a lengthy thing, and mister Furner was as stubborn as the file said. Jared sighed and motioned to his underling to turn the voltage up again. The man obeyed and turned the dial.

John’s eyes widened with terror just before the volts hit, then his body shuddered and seized from the car battery hooked directly to his testicles delivering ten thousand volts of electricity at just a low enough amperage to keep him alive. He flailed about for a few minutes.

Once Mr. Furner stopped jerking and seizing, he sobbed into his gag. Then, his eyes began to roll back into his head.

Jared produced an injector from his pocket and jabbed it in Mr. Furner’s arm. He immediately woke up and began sobbing again.

“Compound production number 1822552, serial XX777. A mixture of an extremely small amount of amphetamines and the shit they put in modafinil and a cocktail of other drugs that I don’t know the name of, and you get something that will keep you awake for a lot longer than you might want. It’s main perk?” Jared yawned. “Undetectable in drug tests. Lucky for you, right Mr. Furner?”

Mr. Furner didn’t respond.

Jared rolled his eyes and leaned forward. “I’m going to ask you one more time. When and where is the next board meeting for the executives of the Walmart Corporation?”

Mr. Furner stared at Jared with wide eyes.

“This isn’t going anywhere, sir.” His aide helpfully reminded.

Jared decided to try a different approach. “I’m guessing you keep company secrets close, right? Close as in, in-this-building close, maybe?”

No answer. Jared took Mr. Furner’s gag off. Maybe he would-

“HELP! HELP ME! CALL SOMEBODY!” Mr. Furner screamed.

“Mr. Furner, didn’t we already tell you? Your security isn’t coming. They, er, took the night off.” Jared shared a knowing look with his aide. Then, he turned away. “Documents are everywhere. Google probably owns most of the computers in this place so you probably go physical paper, right, Mr. Furner?”

Mr. Furner stopped screaming. That meant he was getting somewhere.

Jared began to search around the room. “Maybe you go physical, Mr. Furner. Maybe, you keep them in a safe. A safe that could be, let's say, in this very room,” he stopped at a bookshelf. “Am I getting warm, Mr. Furner?”

“I won’t tell you a thing, ya- you fucking animal!” He coughed out.

Jared narrowed his eyes. “That’s alright, Mr. Furner. You don’t need to tell me a damn thing.” He slammed on the door leading out of the luxurious bedroom. “Bring in the ping locator.”

Immediately, two men in matching dark outfits that covered their faces walked in, carrying between them a large suitcase. They placed it at the foot of the bed and walked out. Mr. Furner looked on in confusion and pain.

Jared walked over to it and tapped a few buttons on the top of it. It opened up like a jack-in-the-box, and inside was a large metal dish and a tablet attached to it by a wire. He motioned to his aide to unpack it.

Jared grabbed his radio. “Headsets on silence.” He then pulled a large pair of earmuffs from his belt and put them on. His aide finished unpacking the device and turned on the tablet, tapping away at unseen options on the screen.

“This is your last chance, Mr. Furner. Tell us where the documents are and this will all be over.”

Mr. Furner’s mouth remained closed..

Jared looked back at his aide. The device was on and ready to go. He tapped the side of his earmuffs and spoke. “Do it.”

His aide pressed the dish to the wall and pressed a button. Jared heard nothing, but judging from his noiseless pained expressions, Mr. Furner did.

“Nothing. Moving on.” His aide spoke into the radio of his earmuffs and shuffled a few feet to the right.

This process continued for about a minute. They didn’t come across anything until Jared’s aide stopped after a ping.

“I’ve got a particularly hard to penetrate surface over here. I’ll need to move to a higher decibel.”

Jared produced another pair of earmuffs from the suitcase and put them on Mr. Furner, who had long since passed out. “You’re clear.”

“Roger. Continuing pings.”

This time, Jared felt a slight itching in his ears. It tickled.

“I’ve got it. It's a safe. There's a mechanism that might open it up somewhere over…” The aide pinged again, moving to the left. “Here.”

Jared stepped forward. “How?”

“See that drawer?”

“Yeah.”

“Open it, and then reach all the way to the back. There should be a hole with a button inside.”

Jared followed his aide’s instructions, and he was right. A panel of fake exotic hardwood flipped open to reveal an armored door. It wasn’t locked, for whatever reason.

“Grab it and let’s go.” Jared said. He spoke into his radio. “We’re done here. Clean up.”

The two men from earlier opened the door and began clearing up all of the equipment they had used. Jared and the aide opened the heavy door and grabbed the small stack of papers inside of it. Just as they were about to exit the room, Mr. Furner came to.

“Wha-” He barely got a syllable out before Jared pulled a small, water-gun looking thing from his side and fired a dart into Mr. Furner’s chest. He immediately passed out again. Jared retrieved the dart and the earmuffs, then closed the door.