Into the Guns by William C. Dietz

Zero.
    Molly turned the wheel, waited for the dogs to clear, and pulled the door open. Then she stood to one side, so Sloan could enter. The cabin was nicer than he had expected. The bulkheads were covered with light green paint. The full-sized bed was nicely made and topped with two large pillows. There was an easy chair, too . . . And a side table. A small bathroom could be seen through an open door.
    â€œYour dinner will arrive at six,” Lucy told him. “I hope you like fish.” And with that, the women withdrew. Sloan heard a series of clanking sounds, followed by near silence.
    The cabin boasted a single curtain-covered window. Sloan went over to peer out. He could see bars and mangrove trees beyond.
Okay,
he thought to himself.
I’ll find another way to escape.
The next fifteen minutes were spent exploring the nooks and crannies of his cabin. There were two orange jumpsuits in the dresser, both of which had the word PRISONER on the back and would make it that much more difficult to evade capture should he manage to escape. No,
when
he escaped.
    A radio was sitting on the table next to the chair, and it worked! That meant he could listen to the news once he managed to find some. The only station he could get was playing country-western music at the moment. Where were the rest? Off the air as a result of the meteor impacts? Maybe.
    A closer inspection of the bathroom turned up a set of toiletries, and that led him into the shower, where he spent ten glorious minutes under a powerful stream of hot water. Sloan felt clean and reinvigorated as he put a fresh jumpsuit on. He was about to fiddle with the radio when the hatch opened.
    Molly entered first. She was carrying a linen-covered tray. Lucy came next with the Taser at the ready. She was about five-eight or so, and in good shape. But Sloan had four inches on her and was in tip-top condition after weeks of paddling. So, if he could getbehind Lucy, Sloan felt sure that he could take her down.
Will take her down,
he told himself.
And soon, too.
    After placing the meal on the table, Molly withdrew. That was Lucy’s cue to back out through the door. There was a metallic clang as the hatch closed.
    The catfish dinner was excellent, but it went largely unappreciated because of the newspapers that had been delivered with it. There was a week-old copy of the
New York Times
, complete with coffee stains, and a two-day-old copy of the
Dallas Morning News
. Sloan read both of them from front to back as he hoovered up every scrap of information he could get. And that included the ads because the kinds of goods and services being offered made their own statement about postimpact America. Cold-weather clothing was popular . . . As were Mason jars, tools, and backup generators.
    Tears ran down Sloan’s cheeks as he read the latest assessment of what it would take to rebuild Washington, D.C. Had his mother been killed? Probably. And his staffers? Yes . . . Unless they’d been on vacation or something. And the president! He was dead, along with thousands of other government officials. The vice president had survived though . . . and, according to the
New York Times
, was hard at work trying to get the nation back on its feet.
    But that’s where things got interesting. After reading the
Dallas Morning News
, Sloan had the impression that many, if not most, Southern politicians were unhappy with the president’s ambitious reconstruction plans. They objected to “higher taxes,” “big government,” and “too much regulation.”
    Sloan was a creature of Washington, D.C., and recognized the rhetoric as being part of the long-standing philosophical divide between conservatives and progressives. Except now there seemed to be some ominous undertones. Prominent civil and business leaders talking about “more self-determination,” “state’s rights,” and“local autonomy.” One