Happy Utopia Day, Joe McCarthy

Chapter 27

This is the era of the Armageddon—that final all-out battle between light and darkness foretold in the Bible.

—Senator Joseph McCarthy

"Get in the chopper," Samuel says.

We run to the Black Hawk and pile in. Samuel brings her to life. He pulls back on the stick and lifts her ten feet off the ground. We circle around the hangar toward the house.

A woman stands on the front porch with a baseball bat in her hand.

Wizkid is running away from the house in a zigzag pattern.

The rancher stands aiming his rifle at him.

Samuel swoops the Black Hawk down, and the rancher dives to the ground. We pass over him and spin around before Wizkid.

The rancher stands up and aims at us.

Samuel presses a button and the two 30mm autocannon machine guns tilt and rotate.

The rancher, recognizing our superior firepower, lowers his gun. He shakes his fist and stares at Samuel. "Communist!"

Samuel drops the chopper to the ground. We motion wildly for Wizkid to jump aboard. He looks uncertain at first, but then runs and climbs in. He crawls to his side spot, fastens his harness, and closes his eyes.

"What did you do?" Derek asks. The Black Hawk lurches into the air. Wizkid screams.

I put my hand on his shoulder. "Relax, man." He breathes deeply. "I thought I was a goner." "What did you do?" Derek asks again.

"I went for a walk and ended up by the farmhouse."

"We were told to stay away," Derek says. He puts his hands against his cheeks and opens his eyes wide. "That was the only rule we had to follow. You could've been killed."

Wizkid puts his head down and pulls on his hair. "I know, but I saw this suh-suh-smoking hot girl walk across the front porch into the house."

Derek looks at him scornfully. "And you couldn't resist?" "I don't know. I think her mom saw me looking through a window."

Derek shapes his hands against his eyes like binoculars. "You were peeping them?"

"I, I, I was going to go to the front door and introduce myself." Wizkid looks up and around at us. He shrugs. "But I thought I'd see what I was dealing with first."

"Yeah," I say. "'Cause that's how you meet girls, Derek, you peep at them first."

Derek laughs. "Kids nowadays." Wizkid shuts his eyes and clams up.

I climb up into the copilot's seat next to Samuel. "How long will it take to reach Emergence?"

"About four hours."

"Do we have enough fuel?"

"We should." Samuel points his thumb out the window. "This baby has an extra three-hundred-and-fifty-gallon tank."

The Black Hawk flies low to the ground, swerving in and out of canyons and valleys. The snow-tipped Rocky Mountains glare with reflected sunlight. Fresh morning-blue sky covers them. A river meanders through the green beneath us, flush with mountain spring water.

"Why so low?" I ask.

"Nate is bound to report us. I'm trying to avoid radar." "Nate's the rancher?"

Samuel nods. "We were friends because of our kids, but he's just too deep into the faith to see any other possibilities."

We race along, a rogue bird over America, hoping to save the chosen ones' lives. And our own, too—if we cannot bring down Big Mac, Chancellor Vance Slater will never stop until we're dead.