Chapter 36 - HIGHWAY OF GHOSTS
A steel-tipped projectile punched clean through our right tailgate, the braided steel cable snapping taut with an explosive clang that jerked the truck sideways toward the ravine.
"Hold on!" I shouted, stomping the brake and cutting the wheel toward the anchor line. The sudden deceleration slackened the cable just enough to keep us from tipping over the edge. In the rearview mirror, the pursuing SUV lunged forward to close the gap, its mounted turret preparing a second strike.
I grabbed the heavy crowbar stowed behind the bench seat and shoved it into Sarah’s hands. "Take the wheel!"
"What?!" she gasped.
"Keep her straight on the logging trail!"
Without waiting for an answer, I kicked open the driver’s side door, stepped out onto the wide steel running board into the whipping mountain rain, and leaned into the truck bed. The freezing wind tore at my tactical jacket as I braced my boots against the wheel well and drew my semi-automatic rifle.
The pursuing vehicle was less than twenty yards back, its ultraviolet lights blinding my night vision. Through the glare, I targeted the winch housing mounted to its front bumper. I squeezed the trigger four times.
Armor-piercing rounds slammed into the spool, severing the tension drum. The steel cable whipped back like a snapped guitar string of razor wire, shattering the pursuer's armored windshield and blinding the driver. The SUV swerved violently, clipped an ancient oak tree at fifty miles per hour, and barrel-rolled down the steep embankment in a ball of sparking metal.
I dropped back into the cab, slammed the door shut, and retook the steering wheel just as the logging road spat us out onto a darkened stretch of Route 522.
The scene on the highway looked like an apocalyptic graveyard. Hundreds of modern civilian cars were lined up in rigid, grid-locked rows, hazard lights blinking amber while their infotainment screens flashed the red emblem of the Sovereign Traffic Directive.
"They’ve cut off cellular networks in three counties already," Sarah reported, her voice tight with adrenaline. "Nobody can dial 911. The local police stations are locked out of their own CAD dispatch systems. The entire civilian population is blind, deaf, and paralyzed."
"Not all of them," I said, pointing through the windshield.
Ahead, at the intersection of Route 522 and Old Waterloo Road, a group of local citizens and off-duty sheriff’s deputies who refused the corrupt mandate had gathered outside a tractor supply depot. Armed with crowbars, tow chains, and vintage farm equipment, they were physically smashing the sensor arrays off the autonomous cruisers that were attempting to barricade the town.
May you like
"The resistance is already starting," Sarah whispered, a spark of hope breaking through her exhaustion. "Grant, if we can reach the Culpeper facility and transmit the root-key kill code from the central mainframe, we can release the locks on every vehicle in the country."
"Then we don't go around the blockade," I said, shifting into low gear and gunning the massive diesel. "We go straight through."
