Minneapolis had not fallen the way Dallas had.
The Dome had protected it.
The lights still worked across most districts. Traffic still moved in organized lanes. National Guard checkpoints controlled bridge access while evacuation buses rolled steadily toward the eastern suburbs. Helicopters moved between hospital rooftops and field triage zones along the river.
The city looked strained.
But alive.
General Roberts studied it through the curved glass of the helicopter cockpit.
The aircraft itself still carried the faded lettering along the tail boom.
ALLBRIGHT ROOFING
Shane's company.
Roberts had smiled the first time he saw it.
A roofing contractor's helicopter had somehow become one of the most valuable reconnaissance platforms left in the Midwest.
Below them the Mississippi cut through the city like a long black scar.
Bridges spanned the river at regular intervals, each guarded by armored vehicles and infantry positions. Floodlights illuminated the banks where engineers had cleared vegetation to prevent ambush.
The pilot lowered the aircraft slightly.
"National Guard command post should be near the University bridge, sir."
Roberts nodded.
"Take us down to a thousand feet."
The helicopter descended slowly along the river corridor.
Below them an Abrams tank sat positioned at the northern approach to the bridge. Infantry squads moved along the concrete embankments while portable floodlights swept the waterline.
The defense looked disciplined.
Prepared.
Roberts felt a flicker of cautious optimism.
If any city could hold a river line, it would be one like this.
The radio crackled.
"Command to Pump Station Three. Status check."
Silence.
Another voice answered.
"Maintenance team was supposed to report back thirty minutes ago."
Roberts frowned slightly.
"Water treatment?"
The pilot nodded.
"Yeah. Sewer and drainage systems too."
Roberts leaned forward slightly and looked down at the water.
The Mississippi moved slow beneath the winter sky.
For several seconds nothing looked wrong.
Then something disturbed the surface.
A ripple.
It slid through the current at an angle that didn't match the flow of the river.
The pilot noticed it too.
"You seeing that?"
Roberts raised binoculars.
The ripple spread again.
Then vanished.
The radio exploded with sudden noise.
"Bridge Two checkpoint requesting immediate backup!"
Gunfire cracked through the headset.
"Contacts emerging from the riverbank!"
The helicopter banked toward the bridge.
Floodlights below swung wildly as soldiers repositioned along the embankment.
Roberts watched through the binoculars.
At first he saw nothing.
Then the riverbank moved.
Dark shapes pulled themselves from the water, climbing the concrete slope with unnatural speed. Soldiers opened fire immediately. Muzzle flashes lit the embankment in rapid bursts.
Several shapes dropped.
More followed.
"Jesus," the pilot muttered.
The creatures did not rush the soldiers.
They moved toward the drainage outlets cut into the concrete wall.
One soldier fired a grenade launcher into the cluster.
The explosion tore through the riverbank, throwing bodies into the water.
The survivors vanished into the storm drain.
Roberts lowered the binoculars slowly.
The radio erupted again.
"Contacts entering sewer system!"
The pilot shook his head.
"That's not good."
Below them the checkpoint held position for another minute.
Then a manhole cover launched into the air.
Something climbed out.
Then another.
And another.
Gunfire erupted in every direction as soldiers suddenly found enemies behind their own line.
The bridge defense collapsed within seconds.
Roberts exhaled slowly.
"Take us higher."
The helicopter climbed.
Across the city more gunfire echoed.
Reports flooded the radio network.
"Multiple drain breaches!"
"Sewer tunnels compromised!"
"Contacts inside the industrial district!"
The pilot glanced over.
"They came through the pipes."
Roberts looked down at the river again.
The surface moved strangely now.
Ripples sliding through the current.
Not random.
Organized.
Thousands of them.
They were leaving the city.
Following the river.
⸻
On the University bridge the situation deteriorated rapidly.
Captain Miller watched another manhole cover burst upward fifteen yards from his position.
A mutant hauled itself from the opening and lunged forward before a soldier dropped it with three rifle shots.
More were coming.
"Engineers!" Miller shouted.
"Set the charges!"
Two Army engineers sprinted toward the bridge supports where demolition lines had already been prepared.
The plan had existed for days.
No one had expected to use it this soon.
Another wave of mutants surged from the storm drains beneath the bridge approach. Soldiers opened fire in controlled bursts while the Abrams tank rotated its turret toward the riverbank.
"Canister!" the tank commander shouted.
The main gun thundered.
The canister round tore through the cluster of creatures along the concrete slope like a massive shotgun blast.
Bodies scattered.
More emerged from the water.
Miller keyed his radio.
"Command, we cannot hold the sewer access points!"
Static answered him.
Then a voice came through.
"Bridge evacuation authorized. Repeat—prepare demolition."
Miller turned toward the engineers.
"How long?"
"Two minutes!"
Civilians still crowded the eastern lane of the bridge—families loading into buses and pickup trucks under the watch of National Guard escorts.
Miller raised his voice.
"Move those vehicles now!"
The convoy accelerated across the span.
Another manhole cover launched skyward.
Mutants poured out of the opening and slammed into the defensive line.
Soldiers fired point blank.
The tank fired again.
The shockwave rolled across the bridge.
An engineer shouted from the support column.
"Charges set!"
Miller waited until the last bus cleared the span.
Then he gave the order.
"Blow it."
The explosion tore through the center of the bridge.
Concrete shattered.
The middle section collapsed into the river with a roar of falling steel.
On the western side dozens of mutants still climbed from the storm drains.
But they would not cross here.
⸻
From the helicopter Roberts watched the explosion ripple across the water.
Another bridge further south detonated moments later.
Then another.
The military was cutting the city off from the river.
The pilot shook his head slowly.
"They're abandoning it."
Roberts studied the river again.
The surface moved like something alive.
Ripples slid through the current and branched outward into tributaries.
The creatures were not gathering at the destroyed bridges.
They were leaving.
Migrating.
The pilot followed his gaze south.
"Sir… that's not debris."
"No," Roberts said quietly.
He watched the movement patterns for another minute.
The realization settled in.
"They're not attacking cities."
The pilot frowned.
"Then what are they doing?"
Roberts keyed the radio.
"All commands, this is Roberts."
The channel went silent.
"Cities cannot contain this threat."
He looked south along the winding course of the Mississippi.
"We track it."
The helicopter turned and began following the river downstream.
Below them Minneapolis burned in controlled fire lines as the military continued destroying crossings behind the evacuation.
The skyline still stood.
The lights still worked.
But the river had already moved on.
And something inside it was growing.
The helicopter followed the river south for nearly twenty minutes before anyone spoke again.
The city behind them shrank into a grey shape on the horizon. Smoke columns climbed into the winter sky where bridges had once crossed the water.
The pilot adjusted the collective slightly.
"Never thought I'd watch a city get cut loose like that."
Roberts kept his eyes on the river.
"You didn't."
The pilot glanced at him.
"Sir?"
"You watched the military prevent something worse."
Roberts lowered the binoculars again and studied the branching waterways ahead.
The Mississippi was not a single river.
It was a system.
Tributaries split from the main channel like veins spreading across the continent.
The pilot followed his gaze.
"Where do you think they're headed?"
Roberts didn't answer immediately.
He unfolded a paper map across his knee and traced the river south with a gloved finger.
"Everywhere," he said quietly.
The radio crackled again.
This time the voice came from Minneapolis command.
"General Roberts, do you copy?"
"Go ahead."
The voice sounded exhausted.
"City evacuation is underway. Guard units falling back east of the river."
Roberts nodded even though they could not see him.
"Understood."
A pause.
Then the officer asked the question everyone wanted answered.
"General… what are we dealing with?"
Roberts looked down at the water again.
The surface moved strangely even miles from the city.
Ripples spread outward in clusters that moved against the current.
The creatures were spreading into side channels.
"We're dealing with migration," Roberts said.
Silence followed.
Then the officer spoke again.
"Migration to where?"
Roberts glanced at the map again.
The Mississippi fed into dozens of rivers.
The Missouri.
The Ohio.
Hundreds of smaller waterways that ran through farms, towns, and cities.
"Wherever the water goes," he said.
The radio went quiet.
⸻
Far below the helicopter, something broke the surface.
The pilot noticed it first.
"Movement."
Roberts leaned forward again with the binoculars.
A cluster of shapes moved along the shallow bank where the river curved around a sandbar.
One creature pulled itself partially from the water.
Its body twisted unnaturally as it dragged something with it.
Roberts focused the lenses.
A deer.
Half eaten.
The creature snapped its head toward the helicopter as if it sensed the vibration of the rotors.
More shapes moved beneath the surface around it.
"Pack behavior," Roberts murmured.
The pilot shivered.
"Those things were inside the city drains."
"They were inside the river first."
The helicopter moved further south.
Dead fish floated near the surface.
Several had been torn apart.
Others showed strange puncture wounds along their sides.
Roberts studied them silently.
The ecosystem was collapsing.
The pilot pointed ahead.
"Sir… look at that."
A narrow tributary joined the Mississippi from the west.
The water at the mouth of the smaller river churned with strange ripples.
Roberts watched carefully.
Dozens of shapes broke from the main swarm and turned into the tributary.
"They're splitting up," the pilot said.
"Yes."
The creatures were spreading.
Not randomly.
Following water.
Roberts keyed the radio again.
"All commands monitoring this frequency."
Several voices responded at once.
"Go ahead, General."
"Listening."
Roberts spoke calmly.
"Treat all river systems as hostile migration corridors."
He watched the creatures move through the tributary.
"This is not a localized outbreak."
He paused.
"It's a watershed event."
⸻
The helicopter flew another thirty miles before the sun began dropping toward the horizon.
The pilot leaned back slightly.
"Fuel check. We'll need to turn around soon."
Roberts nodded.
But his eyes stayed on the river.
For the first time since leaving the city, the water ahead looked calm.
Then the river bent around a rocky bluff.
The pilot slowed the aircraft.
"Sir…"
The entire river surface moved.
Not ripples.
Movement.
Hundreds of creatures packed together beneath the surface like a living current.
The mass stretched across nearly the entire width of the channel.
The pilot swallowed.
"That's not a pack."
Roberts lowered the binoculars slowly.
"No."
He watched the dark shapes slide through the water like a migrating herd.
The creatures were not hunting.
They were traveling.
A slow realization settled into place.
The creatures were not attacking cities.
Cities were simply in the way.
Roberts folded the map across his knee again.
"Take us north."
The pilot turned the helicopter.
"Back to Minneapolis?"
"No."
Roberts looked east.
Toward the network of rivers that cut across the Great Lakes region.
"Back to the others."
The helicopter climbed and turned into the fading light.
Below them the river continued south.
And the swarm continued with it.
Somewhere far ahead, another town waited beside the water.
"If you enjoyed Shane's journey, please drop a Power Stone! It helps the Common Sense Party grow!"