Rebel, chapter 9

A Revolution fic Bass Monroe, Charlie Matheson. Miles Matheson. Charloe. Blackout AU.

Denver, Colorado, 2027. The blackout didn't happen in 2012 because the weapon failed, killing most of the Nanotech project team although the Matheson's escaped and continued their work. When Charlie found out what they were doing and tried to warn people, everything changed and she was a fugitive, running to the only person left who might be on her side, her Uncle Miles.

AN: Hi, thanks so much for wanting more and coming back. Sorry for the delay – RL chucked a few very curly curve balls my way. Hope you enjoy J Cheers, Magpie

'What do you mean, she went to the bathroom.' Bass was furious, his eyes cold, one hand hovering over the gun at his hip, the other clenched into a fist.

Jeremy stood straight, almost at attention, both his hands, the real one and the prosthetic raised, defensive. 'Hey, don't shoot the messenger. I said I'd get one of you to relieve me so I could go with her, but she said not to bother you, she'd only be gone a minute.'

'And you actually let her go.' Voice like a whip, Miles was standing next to Bass, shoulder to shoulder, his dark eyes hard, snapping bullets. Then he focused on Jeremy's obviously functional prosthetic hand and frowned, gaze darting to the pendant around Jeremy's neck then up to the other man's face. 'She gave it to you? Fuck.' He glanced around then swung back to Bass, 'so why isn't anything else lit up? I thought you said Ben gave this thing a bigger range than the others?'

Jeremy broke in. 'She said she'd figured out how to change the settings and a few other things...' He trailed off as the other two turned and stared at him wearing nearly identical looks of surprise and outrage.

'Sounds like you two have been getting real close.' Bass moved in closer, eyes hard, full of anger and more than a hint of jealousy.

Jeremy stood his ground, frowning, his gaze swinging from Bass to Miles then back again. 'She didn't tell you about that? Well if you two morons hadn't gone all high and mighty secret squirrel and ignored her and everyone else, she might've told you first and not me.' He tipped his head to the other door at the back of the shop, 'and can I just point out that if the two of you hadn't been blocking the door while you were having your private little conference she might've used the staff bathroom out back of the shop instead of going outside.'

Miles spoke through gritted teeth. 'you should've said something, Jer.'

Jeremy shrugged, 'didn't want to interrupt your little tete a tete.'

Bass glared for a moment longer then frowned, glancing out the door. 'We can sort out who's to blame later. How long has she been gone?'

Nora was standing by the door scanning the shadowed space outside, arms crossed, foot tapping. Her eyes narrowed as she swung back to them, looking increasingly irritated. 'Longer than she should've been. I'll go find her.' She turned to go but stopped as a man's voice echoed through the big space, coming from down where the others were being held outside the big store.

'Sebastian Monroe, I have your girlfriend, and I think you know what I want. Once you give it to me, I'll give her back to you.'

There was a woman's muffled yell of protest, then a yelp of pain.

'Charlie.' Bass leaped towards the door, pushing Nora aside.

Miles pulled him back, ignoring the knife that was now poking into his ribs. 'Don't be an idiot, Bass, that's just what he wants. You know that.'

A low, gloating laugh echoed through the hall. 'She's a pretty little thing isn't she? And so feisty. I'm finding playing with her quite…arousing, in fact I'm almost hoping you take your time so I can get to know her better.'

There was a strangled female growl of fury and outrage.

Miles went rigid, his face a cold mask, then he exploded into movement, shoving his way past Bass and Nora towards the door.

Jeremy lunged, managing to catch the back of Miles' coat with his prosthetic hand, hauling him back inside and holding him there with an effort that showed in the strain on his face.

Nora forced herself between Miles and the door, full lips set, face determined, staring him down. 'Miles. Stop. You were the one who said it. That's just what he wants.' She put a hand on his arm, gripping hard. 'So no one is going out there until we have a fucking plan. Ok?'

Miles kept straining to get to the door, twisting to face Jeremy, frowning at the unyielding strength of the prosthetic. 'Hey quit making with the bionic super glove, ok? Let me go or so help me…'

Jeremy held on tight, shaking his head. 'Sorry, Miles. Not a good idea.'

'Miles, get a grip.' Bass' voice was harsh, impatient, 'you said it, rushing out there and getting yourself killed isn't gonna help. We need to work together or Charlie's dead.' His eyes were hard, ruthless, 'or worse.'

Miles glared at all three of them but stopped trying to shake himself free. 'Ok, but that fucking guy's mine.'

Jeremy let go and backed away towards the back of the shop. 'Hey… no argument from me. But we need more guns. I'll go check under the counter, it's where I'd hide one.'

Bass spared him a glance, nodded approval then got back to checking his weapons. He passed Miles a rifle and a spare clip, eyes hard. 'Not if I get to him first.'

Miles shouldered the gun and slapped the clip into his pocket. 'You can try.'

Nora rolled her eyes, 'So what's the plan?'

Bass looked at Miles, 'remember that town at the end of our last tour, the one where I got slammed?' He shrugged, 'bastards must've hit me pretty hard 'cause I can't remember the name of it.'

Miles nodded, 'yeah, I do, and yeah, they did.' A grim smile twisted his lips and his eyes gleamed. 'That'll do.'

Jeremy peered up from behind the counter, 'We heard about that one. Everyone thought you guys were down and out then wham, back you come and wipe the floor with the other side instead.'

Nora shrugged. 'It was a bad situation but we made it work.'

Bass snorted. 'Yeah,' He rubbed his shoulder, although now there was only the barest ache where the bullet went through, 'but I'm still mad at you two for calling evac on me.'

Nora tipped her head towards Miles, 'you can blame him for that, you were making so much noise I was ready to amputate.'

Miles cocked a dark eyebrow. 'I wasn't.'

Jeremy glanced at Nora and shook his head, still searching through drawers and boxes. 'Remind me not to get on your bad side if I get shot again. I don't want to wake up missing anything else…' Then he grunted in triumph, pulled out a sawn off shotgun and a couple of boxes of ammo and held them up. 'Here we go. Gotta love a careful shopkeeper.'

Nora smirked, 'I'm happy for you. But we're still outnumbered and outgunned and even though we won back in that town, a lot of people still went home in body bags.'

He glanced at her, a blond eyebrow lifting. 'Have a little faith, darlin'.' He held up his prosthetic hand and wriggled the fingers. 'Look at me. I just happen to get out of town in time to not get blown into my component atoms by an ICBM, then get saved from getting beaten to death for my boots by a guy who just happens to be the uncle of a girl with the power to make my hand work and whose parents just happen know how to put the lights on again? What are the odds of all that?' He shoved more rounds into his pockets and came round to her side, blue eyes glinting. 'I gotta say I'm feeling kind of lucky.'

She huffed, slung the strap of her back pack around her neck, adjusted her belt and did a last check of knives and guns. 'Well, I hope your luck rubs off on the rest of us.'

Miles was staring out the door, impatient, hissing back over his shoulder. 'Are you morons ready yet or are we gonna have high tea first?'

Bass moved closer to Miles, leaning in. 'Listen, don't worry. Charlie's tough, I've seen her do stuff in the last few days that I'd never have believed she could. She'll be ok.'

Miles met his eyes. 'She shouldn't be caught up in any of this, Bass. She's just a kid.' He turned for the door.

Bass shook his head and followed, Nora and Jeremy close behind. 'No. She isn't. And I happen to think she's dealing with all of this pretty well.'

Miles grunted something unintelligible.

'Sebastian. You're taking way too long.' The voice from outside was louder, the sing-song slither of madness flowing through it in jarring dissonance. 'So if I don't see someone coming in ten more seconds I'm going to enjoy using my very sharp knife to start cutting little slices from that tempting strip of bare skin between Miss Matheson's pants and that ridiculous top.' The low, sinister chuckle sounded again, 'young women these days have no idea of propriety do they?'

A strangled growl escaped from Miles' throat as his hands bunched into fists. 'I'll give him propriety. I'm going to cut off the guy's dick and balls, then make him eat them, slice by fucking slice…'

Bass' lips were a hard, tight line as he glanced at Miles then back at the others, 'Sounds good to me, now stop talking and let's go.'

…..

Charlie was so pissed she was finding it really hard to breathe inside the hood. The unhinged moron holding her one hand like a vice around her throat and the other around her waist had left her in it, probably to try to make her more scared. It was working. She was scared and she hated it, hated feeling helpless, although there was no way she was going to let him know that.

She wasn't going to tell him that she'd worked out who he was either. His voice was like a screeching shiver up her spine, and she'd heard it before. He'd been with Randall Flynn when he visited her parent's house, the guy's shadow, a uniformed flunkey with the flat, empty eyes of a psychopath.

Flynn had called him Strausser, Major Strausser.

She forced herself to ignore the feel of his hard, hateful body against hers, the sour smell of his skin, the hands roving uninvited and unwelcome over her flesh. Forced herself to breathe slow, to relax cramped, tense muscles and to be ready for when Bass and Miles came.

Because they would come, she knew that as sure as she knew her own name and then Major fucking Strausser wouldn't know what hit him.

….

Randall Flynn lowered his field glasses. He was a bureaucrat, not a military man. He wasn't used to giving orders to soldiers who obviously didn't have a clue what they needed to do next, that was why he had Strausser. He stared down at the rag tag but tough looking band of civilians coming down the road on bicycles of all things and then back at the much smaller group waiting for him a couple hundred yards away, frustration roiling through his veins. This mission was becoming an embarrassment. He didn't have enough men to deal with this new rabble and negotiating with them was probably not an option, the possibility that they would trust anyone from the government was pretty remote, especially after the bombs.

He turned the glasses towards the Mall, but there was no sign of anyone, no one living anyway although Strausser and most of his platoon were inside with orders to obtain the Matheson pendant and these newest civilians could not be allowed to interfere.

There could be no witnesses now. None. Even the Matheson girl had become expendable. He still had her brother and Rachel Matheson would burn the world to cinders for her son. Danny Matheson would have to be enough.

Flynn's hand went to the pendant around his neck. He could use it, but the risk that the girl had found a way to use hers to its full potential was too great. If her traitor of a father had done even half of what he suspected, it was highly likely that her pendant could actually control his. She was smart enough to figure it all out too, he'd seen her academic transcripts. She was an outstanding student, not surprising given her genes, and she'd been studying the same fields as her parents. There was no way she wouldn't have been experimenting, no way she hadn't worked out some of the pendant's secrets.

He couldn't afford to let her know where he was. But he also needed to find out what Strausser was doing and what was taking him so long to deal with a few civilians and a girl, even if they did have Sebastian Monroe on their side, and there was only one way to do that. He needed to go in there himself, find out what was going on and consolidate his troops. Then they could finish off these inconvenient civilians, stop this increasingly farcical operation and get back to the real work of establishing the new government of a new, better United States.

He waved at the soldiers waiting in the shelter of a big semi-trailer stopped just short of the loading dock at the back of the Mall by the blackout and pointed towards the big double doors standing open, leading inside.

The soldiers glanced at each other, a couple of them shrugged, then one of them waved back and all of them started towards the doors at a fast trot.

Flynn frowned and cursed under his breath, damning their eyes and their stupid hand signals as he forced his ageing body to run to catch up.

They were supposed to wait for him.

Jim lowered his field glasses, passing them to Sophie. 'Look, do you see those guys heading in to the Mall? They must be the ones Charlie was talking about, the ones from the trucks. I knew there was more to all this than some escaped prisoners.'

Sophie looked, her lips tight, the passed the glasses back and glanced up at her husband. 'Looks like you were right.' She reached up and caressed his cheek. 'Glad you came to warn us. We could've walked right into it.' She looked over at the trees down by the river where he'd said Pol had hidden the horses and wagons, she could just see the faintest outline of a wagon if she squinted. 'Pol and the boys are safe?'

'Yeah, they're gonna wait there till I give the all clear.' He smiled down at her although his eyes were grim as he looked back at the line of friends, neighbours, new and old gathered behind them, waiting for the word to go. They were a mixed bunch but well-armed and tough, and willing to fight for their own and what was right. They'd proved that over the last few days. He turned back to his wife. 'We're still walking right into it though. The prisoners are bad enough, but these guys are a whole other story and it looks like Miles, Bass, Charlie and a whole bunch of other folks are in a world of trouble in there.'

She shrugged and got back on her sturdy mountain bike. 'Well get on behind me then, we'd better hurry.'

…..

Bass looked out at the scene in the centre of the Mall from his cover behind a juice stand then glanced over at Miles, standing with Nora like a shadow behind his shoulder.

Even from this distance, the dark eyes of his brother were hard, flat, deadly, his nod back to Bass brief, a tiny movement of his head before his attention returned to what was happening out on the floor.

The cowed civilians were sitting in a huddled circle in front of the ground floor restrooms, adults on the outside, older children in the middle, the younger ones in their parent's arms. Armed guards stood at regular spaces around them.

Pete's body had been dragged over to the wall but the twins were still tied to their pillar and seemed very much alive, although covered in blood. They had a guard of their own.

The real escaped prisoners were still tied up, lying slumped against the walls. Most of them looked to be unconscious or asleep with at least one possibly dead. The others were awake and alert, their eyes focused on the man standing on a small stage under a torn and drooping banner advertising a children's show. The man was holding a familiar, lithe, female figure, a canvas hood covering her head. The guy's hands were crawling over her body like spiders.

Charlie.

Bass saw her through a red haze, his blood boiling in his veins as a killing fury ignited in his belly. He had to force himself to stay still, to keep from rushing out all guns blazing. He locked eyes with Miles again, a look of total understanding passing between him and the man who was more than his brother.

Time to move.

AN: Thanks again, next one up as soon as I can (last one I think…), cheers, Magpie