Read Online We Had Flags (Toxic World Book 3) by Sean McLachlan - Free Book Online

chest.
    When he opened the door he found Clyde leaning against the door frame, gasping for breath as sweat poured down his red face. A couple of his guards stood behind him, less winded but just as panicked.
    “What?” The Doctor asked.
    Clyde tried to speak but his words came out as a choked gasp. One of the guards answered instead.
    “It’s real. There’s a freighter in Toxic Bay.”
    Within five minutes The Doctor had assembled a larger group of guards, put on a Kevlar vest, strapped on a 9mm automatic, and headed out the gate. He left Marcus in charge of New City, with strict orders to close the gate if he heard gunshots.
    As they hurried through the Burbs in the direction of the bay they found themselves part of a growing crowd headed the same direction.
    “Is it true?” someone called out.
    “Yes. Go home. We’ll take care of this,” The Doctor replied.
    “A fisherman told us there’s a whole fleet of ships!” someone else said. “Is it an invading navy?”
    “There’s only one ship. Go on home.”
    The Doctor picked up the pace, trying to get ahead of the crowd, but it sped up too. He changed tack and got his guards in a line, shouting at everyone to go home for their own security.
    The crowd proved unstoppable. It flowed around both sides of his line. Cursing, he turned to his guards. “Let’s get there as fast as we can before these idiots screw everything up.”
    By the time they made it to the hills it seemed like half the population of New City and the Burbs was on their heels. The stench slowed some down, but curiosity proved stronger than fear of toxins and most kept going. A guard gave The Doctor his gas mask and he huffed and puffed within its rubber confines as he passed through the final valley as it opened up onto Toxic Bay.
    And there, just like everyone else, he stopped and stared.
    A rusty old freighter sat at anchor in the center of the bay. For a moment he was cast back to his childhood, when as a little boy he’d sit on the docks of North Cape and watch the ships come and go. While there hadn’t been many then, far fewer than the glory days of real civilization his grandparents had told him about, even so they had sailed far and wide, plying the coastline and even going to different continents.
    But there hadn’t been a ship bigger than a fishing boat on the seas for forty years.
    How could this be possible? He squinted at the tiny figures moving about on deck. Were they from the Southern City the scavengers talked about? That was just a rumor, like the fishermen’s tales of ships on the high seas, but if one rumor was true…
    “Sir,” a guard said.
    The Doctor snapped out of his thoughts. The guard held out a pair of binoculars.
    Adjusting the focus, he studied the ship. It was battered, obviously a salvaged antique and not a new construction. It looked like a patchwork quilt of rust and new steel repairs. Paint seemed to have been a low priority. What there was looked flaked and weathered, although he did see a fair amount of primer to protect the metal. The superstructure was even worse off, with some sections looking like they weren’t used. Most of the repairs had been saved for the hull.
    Wait.
    New steel repairs.
    New. Steel.
    “They have a foundry,” The Doctor gasped.
    The word came out awkward, unfamiliar. It was a word from his childhood, a word that for most people didn’t mean anything.
    It meant something to Clyde, though.
    “Oh my God,” the Head of the Watch said. “OK, everyone get back! That’s an order. All nonmilitary personnel move back to the hills. You can watch from there.”
    His words came out muffled from behind his gas mask and only the closest onlookers heard them. There was a babble of objecting voices. A loud female voice cut through them all.
    “Get your asses moving before me and my deputies start busting heads!”
    The Doctor turned and saw Sheriff Cruz and her two deputies, Frank Edgerton and Jackson Andrews, pushing people back.