Nolan surveyed the old Ford conversion van sitting abandoned on the grass. There were at least fifty abandoned cars littering the four-lane highway and not a sound to be heard.

Most of them were newer vehicles, and their updated engines were harder, if not impossible, to work on.

The Ford was the oldest one he could find. It was a model built in '89 and Nolan was hoping he could hotwire it back to life. The EMP had knocked out most of the other vehicles, including this one, but there was always a chance...

He popped open the hood as Grace helped Collin rest Angela inside the roomy back end of the conversion. She was awake now, but not doing well.

Jim came around to the front and propped his elbow up on the hood.

The van was boxy and had a rusted brown stripe down the length of it. It had once been a classic cream color, but had since turned a sickly yellow.

"Engine looks good." Jim said, peering at the metal parts below that looked anything but "good".

"It's drivable, anyway." Nolan opened the driver's door on the right side of the vehicle and unscrewed the compartment below the wheel to reveal a coil of wires. He pulled out one of the three bundles that were connected to the ignition and steering mechanisms and stripped away the plastic from the ignition and starter wires, twisted them together, and attached it to the battery wire.

The lights on the dashboard blinked to life and Nolan gave a sigh of relief.

"Did it work?" Grace asked excitedly from the back.

"So far," Nolan replied, creating a spark to make the other wires active. He revved the engine and it made a clunky purring sound—one of the best noises Nolan had heard in a long time.

"Good job, son!" Jim said.

"All aboard the Mystery Machine." Grace hopped into the back, along with Jim, to keep a close eye on Angela.

"First stop, the hospital," Collin muttered, climbing into the passenger's seat next to Nolan.

Grace rolled her eyes. "Killjoy,"

Nolan backed up out of the grass and began the task of dodging around other vehicles littering the highway.

They had walked for at least five miles out of the city and as Nolan drove, there were more cars fifteen miles out—evidence of how far the EMP had spread.

Not good.

With every recharge, the EMP grew stronger; it wouldn't be long until another went off.

The road was long and quiet. Soon both Grace and Jim had dozed off to sleep.

The late afternoon sun made him tired as well, but his mind was too active to rest.

He cast a sideways glance at Collin, who was staring rigidly out the window.

"You did good today," Nolan said.

Collin huffed a short laugh. "I killed five people. Does that qualify as a good day in your book or something?"

"I guess what I meant was that you didn't die."

"Don't know if it was worth it."

Despite Collin's harsh tone, Nolan couldn't help but grin. He'd heard those same words come from his own lips. "I know the feeling."

"Oh really?" Collin scoffed. "You make it look so easy."

Nolan winced at that. He settled into thought for a few moments, watching as a street light flickered on and off. They were out of EMP territory. "I guess, in a way, it is easy. I aim, pull the trigger, and move on. But each face is branded into my memory every time, and the knowledge of taking a life comes heavy later; in those quiet moments...where no one can see you cry."

"So, what? Are you just supposed to get over it and do it again?" Collin's voice was hoarse with an undertone of panic. "How far are you supposed to go? What's the difference between right and wrong anymore?"

Nolan's brow furrowed. All of the things he'd been struggling with had been summed up in a question. He didn't have an immediate answer, but after a while, said, "I don't know, Collin. I guess, after a while, you realize how fragile everything is. You never get used to taking a life, but you see how easy it is to take. In a twisted, messed up way, you learn to appreciate it. You want to protect people who don't deserve to be killed, which sometimes means killing those who do." He rubbed his thumb across the worn leather of the steering wheel. "I suppose that's the difference between us and them. They're trying to murder, to gain power over a person. We're trying to maintain freedom."

Collin created a silence that made Nolan uncomfortable. "Anyway, that's my stupid thinking at the moment." He glanced up at the rearview mirror to see Grace pretending to help Angela with a grin on her face.

He inwardly sighed. He'd never hear the end of this one. In the distance, Nolan spotted a faded gas station and pulled into the beat-up parking lot.

At least his old van matched the dilapidated station.

He locked the doors and got out to buy food and supplies. His stomach lurched at the thought of something to eat and he realized he hadn't had anything for at least two days.

He entered the small building and nodded to the cashier, a teenaged boy who looked as if he'd rather be eating dirt than working his shift.

Nolan gathered granola bars, bags of nuts, and almost anything else he could get his hands on. He piled it onto the checkout counter and pulled out his wallet. He blinked sleepily as he pulled out what little cash he had in there.

The dated payphone in the corner rang.

Confused, the cashier went over to it and picked up the receiver. Nolan assumed it hadn't been used for a while.

"It's for you," he said, holding out the phone.

Now it was Nolan's turn to be confused as he took the call. "Hello?"

"What's up, buddy? Did you have fun at Egor's playhouse?"

Nolan's eyes widened as he let out a hesitant chuckle. "Toby? How—"

"I've been stalking you, my friend," he replied. "Well, Maddie and James have. And I've been risking my neck on your sorry behalf here at headquarters."

Nolan was still trying to process his call. "These payphone calls aren't cheap, what are you doing calling all the way from Virginia?" was the best he could come up with.

"I can feel the gratitude," Toby replied airily, "Anyway, we don't have a lot of time. We're trying to help you out—I'm on the inside of Howard's team here in Virginia."

"You're going to help?' Nolan asked in disbelief. "Against Howard's orders?"

"Guess you're rubbing off on me," Toby said, "But you need to fill us in. We've been tracking you since you entered that EMP town in Poland. Bad news is that Howard found you as well..."

"What?" Nolan groaned. Now he was going to be arrested...again.

"Yeah, so you might want to watch your back on all sides now. I'll just say that when he found out you were going against his plans, his bald head was redder than a tomato."

Nolan sighed. "Okay, well, here's what I have. We were captured back in Germany and taken to the concentration camp in Poland, where Egor had set up a base. We were being held hostage with some agents from the UK."

"Did you rescue them?"

Before Nolan could answer, Toby continued. "Of course you did. What were they captured for?"

"They found out information about the EMPs," Nolan explained, keeping his voice low, although the cashier was paying zero attention. He decided to skip all of the details and said, "It can all be shut down by inserting a counteractive algorithm into the core system."

"I'm assuming no one knows what that is?"

"Right."

"Okay, that'll be our next project. The leader of the agents from the UK is Jim Betany, correct?"

"Yes." Nolan could tell Toby was enjoying his wealth of knowledge a little too much, but it was nice to hear his arrogant voice again.

"I'm going to need you to buy a mobile phone from that gas station you're in, we got into your bank account and put some money in there." Toby said.

Nolan looked up to see that the cashier was gesturing for him to speed it up.

"You know where I am?" Nolan asked.

"Oh yeah, we've been tracking you, remember? I can't see your face, but, yeah."

"Maddie and James have more skills than I thought," Nolan murmured. He'd always known they weren't the typical basement hackers, but this was more than impressive...

"So have you kissed Grace yet?"

"Excuse me, what?!"

"Oh, just wondering. You two are obviously perfect for each other, so—"

"Talk to you later, Toby." Nolan hung up the phone and picked up a cheap mobile device before paying for his bounty.

When he got back to the van, he tossed the bags onto Collin's lap and got in. He exhaled as his head began to pound.

As they all passed around the food and water, Nolan set up his new phone and called 999, the Polish number for an ambulance.

"Jaka jest twoja awaryjnego?"

"Hi, yeah, I don't speak Polish. I'm American."

"Będę przenieść do operatora."

"Awesome." Nolan assumed he was being transferred to an English-speaking operator. He briefly closed his tired eyes as his head throbbed painfully.

"Hello sir, what's your emergency?"

"I've got a woman here, uh..." He glanced back at Angela. He couldn't explain what actually happened. If the police knew she'd been shot, it would draw unnecessary attention...

"Sir?"

"Sorry, I've got a friend—woman, here and she...got impaled."

"Impaled?" The lady on the other end asked.

"Yes. By a pole. That was in the ground." He heard Grace sigh audibly behind him. His head hurt too much to think clearly. "She tripped and fell right on it."

"Alright, what state is she in?"

"Unconscious and dying."

"Oh! Well, we have an ambulance heading your way right now. What's your location?"

Nolan told her.

"How far did this...pole go through her?"

"Oh, all the way. Straight through. Hard fall. She's got a hole in her, it looks like a bullet wound, but it's not, okay? Anyway, I have to go so bye."

"Sir—"

Nolan hung up with a groan and reached for a bottle of water and a bag of trail mix. Everyone was staring at him. "What?"

"I'm guessing you're not a phone person, then." Jim said, finishing off his water.

"A pole?" Collin asked. "Was that the best you could do?"

"Yes, yes it was." Nolan replied between mouthfuls of M&M's and peanuts. He could feel his energy slowly replenishing. "Heard from Toby."

"Toby?" Grace repeated in surprise.

Nolan relayed their conversation and filled in the details to Jim and Collin.

He'd forgotten that he hadn't given them any of their personal background, so it took longer than expected.

Just as he finished, the ambulance roared into the gas station, lights flashing.

Jim met with the paramedics that flooded out of the ambulance. He opened the back doors and helped them load Angela onto a stretcher.

They examined her hurriedly, stuck an IV into the veins on her wrist, and placed an oxygen mask over her mouth.

"This looks very bad..." One of the paramedics said.

"It was a bad pole," Jim replied, glancing at Nolan in the driver's seat.

Once Angela was secure in the back of the ambulance, Jim filled in a report, explaining that Angela was a UK agent and gave them her personal information as best he could.

Collin got out as well to hear what the medics had to say.

Nolan closed his eyes sleepily as Grace climbed into the seat next to him.

"Hey," she said.

"What?"

"I heard what you said to Collin."

"Did you now? Are you here to commend me on "opening up" and "sharing my feelings"? Well, you've been an excellent therapist, if that's what you're wanting to hear."

Grace rolled her eyes. "Please, that isn't what I was going to stay at all. I was going to say thank you."

Nolan couldn't hide a look of surprise.

"People like us...we're in the grey area, you know? We're not good. We do the things no one else wants to do." She shrugged. "I thought you were quite eloquent."

"Gee, you're making me blush." Nolan said, reaching for another water bottle and downing it in one go.

"Do you think Maddie and James will be able to figure out the algorithm?"

"Don't know," Nolan replied thoughtfully, "I would have never thought so, but they're pretty good."

Grace slid down into her seat and exhaled slowly. "We're in deep crap now. If Colossus doesn't kill us, we'll be put in jail back in the States."

"Yep."

"What's it like in prison?"

"Ever seen a bearded lady?"

"Uh, no..."

"Well, there you go. Other than the occasional circus attraction, it's deathly boring."

"I don't think I'd fit in," she said.

"I don't know, you're pretty brutish."

She gasped in feigned shock. "How dare you! That is no way to describe a lady!"

Nolan gave her a sly look. "Yeah, you're much more attractive."

Now Grace's jaw dropped in true surprise. Nolan grinned. It was nice to see her uncomfortable for once. "What? Not used to getting compliments?"

Grace brow lowered and she searched his face. "No, I know there's some motive behind what you said, but I can't figure it out."

Nolan watched as the ambulance backed out of the station's parking lot and sped away. Jim and Collin climbed into the back.

"What's the plan?" Jim asked, "The medics said Angela should make it, they're going to transfer her back home to be put into the hospital."

"So she's going to be okay?" Grace clarified.

"Seems so." Jim nodded.

"We need to call Maddie and James," Nolan said, pulling out his phone and dialing Toby's number. The cheap phone's speaker audio wasn't great, but manageable.

Maddie answered. "Hello? Nolan, is that you?"

"Hey Maddie," Nolan said.

"Oh, I'm so glad you're alive! Grace, honey, are you there too? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Grace replied with a slight chuckle.

"And what about that other woman? The one who got shot?"

"She's on her way to the hospital," Nolan said, "We have Jim Betany and Collin Fletcher here to discuss the code to shut down the EMPs."

"Great! So I'm in front of my computer now. Mr. Betany, I have a few questions to get started."

"Go right ahead," Jim said.

"I need to know if you saw the code—just what it looked like."

"Yes,"

"Do you know what type it was? For something as extreme as controlling dozens of EMPs, it would have to be complicated."

"Looked maybe like a Fibonacci type of formula," Jim said slowly, "From what I've experienced, Egor doesn't take chances and covers his tracks flawlessly. I wouldn't be surprised if he set up multiple layers of defensive programming to his code."

The sound of a pen scratching interrupted the static on the other end of the phone. "Interesting. That'll be difficult to get through."

"Especially if he has a firewall in between each code," Collin added, "In fact, it's pretty much impossible. The good news is that it is accessible."

"How so?" Maddie asked.

"He can control the devices from wherever he is, even if he's away from the central device."

"So you're saying that it isn't within the device itself, right? Like a hard drive or a chip?"

"Exactly."

Maddie sighed deeply. "We have our work cut out for us and not a lot of time. The next EMP is set to go off in forty-eight hours." She was quiet for a few moments before saying, "The world is in a panic already. Everyone's wondering who's next—it's a disaster."

"That's another thing we need to figure out," Jim said, "There's someone in the world, most likely holding a seat in government, who is serving as Egor's conduit."

"You mean helping him? As in covering his tracks?" Maddie asked. "Okay, fantastic. And you said in the world?"

"...yes."

"I'll need more information later, but for now this is in our hands. You four need to go get some rest and food," Maddie said, "Hopefully we'll be able to shut down the systems from here, but you'll need to be ready to take manual action."

"How long do you think it'll take?" Nolan asked.

"Oh, probably about two months. But, seeing as we only have two days before the next attack...we'll have to solve it in twenty-four hours."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hello friends! Sorry this chapter was a little early, but I'm heading off for vacation and won't have internet tomorrow. I hope you enjoyed!

~Maddie and James have their work cut out for them! Do you think they'll be able to crack the codes before any more EMPs go off?

~What are your thoughts on the chapter?

Thank you so much for reading! (Don't forget to vote, comment, and share!)