Last Avenger

Prologue

New Jersey, 2040

Caleb Ryan couldn't help but remember the weekend he and his two buddies flew down to Texas. An intern had showed someone who showed someone who Caleb had overheard in passing mentioning a new burger joint that had just opened up in Houston that a friend of the intern had tagged her in. Caleb followed the word-of-mouth trail back to the intern, whom he loudly and publicly reprimanded for being on her phone during work hours and then confiscated the device.

Caleb was in his office having lunch and had zoned out into the New York skyline through his panoramic, corner window twenty-two storeys above Manhattan. He suddenly realized he had no idea how long he'd been lost in space as he blinked himself back to Earth. He turned his seat back to his desk and his eye caught the intern's phone next to his keyboard. His mind immediately recalled the burger joint in Houston. He Googled the name and it was one of the first results. The burgers were thick, juicy ground chuck, many oozing with sauces of varying viscosity and flares of colours. The bun crusts flaked a tad revealing the porous, cloud of dough within. Caleb scrolled and scrolled until on autopilot when he made his way over to a travel site to book a trip. Caleb emailed two golfing pals to meet him at JFK at six to make the eight-thirty flight.

They were first in the door at the restaurant at 11 the next morning. His stomach was in stitches of hunger remembering how the burger grease coated his lips and how the flavours of the sauces and the toppings and the tender beef all swam together.

"Ryan!"

Ryan snapped up in his chair as he shook the spell off.

Celeste cocked her head to confirm he was all there.

"I'm trying to talk to you and you've just been staring at that map the entire time," she said, her tone becoming a tad nasally as it did when she scolded someone.

Ryan's leathery, tanned face folded into a scowl. He idly scratched his salt and pepper stubble and glanced at the map crowded with radiating pins of different colours around the eastern seaboard. His eyes fell back on Texas.

"Ryan," Celeste prodded, the acoustics of the mess tent some how sharpening her words.

"Alright! Yes! What!" Ryan snapped at her.

Flustered, Celeste tossed her bouncy, red hair back over her shoulder, de-shrouding one half of her pale, tired face. Her eyes skittered over the command quarters, featuring light standards and rolling corkboards with other maps and papers stuck to them. She neatly pressed her hands out from her on the fold-up buffet table at which the two of them sat.

"I was trying to say that the Atlantic City area is continuing to be a problem," Celeste said.

"How so?" Ryan said, rubbing his face.

Celeste sighed and rested her forehead up against her hand. "Continued violence that does not seem to be letting up. The Army seems to be determined to..." she puttered her lips "...I don't know, clear it out? Maybe take it? It's still not clear."

"Is it spreading?"

"No, but we got word they're making a play for Brigantine."

Ryan caught his face in his palms then wiped them across his cheeks. "Fuck. That'll be a real problem. Guess they're looking to stay." He reclined in his seat with a puff and his heavy eyes wandered back to the map. "We're looking pretty boxed in. What's the word on the rest of the southern front?"

"I actually got in touch with a settlement down Galloway way," Celeste said. "They're saying that...whatever this is...it's making rumblings around Philly."

Ryan pointed himself forward in his chair at Celeste. "Well what is this?"

She shrugged and shook her head. "A movement? A radicalizing of what's left of the U.S. military? I mean..." her words seized.