<b>RE: Breakout! (Chapter 1 - Crash)</b><br/><br/>Erica shrugged at Alex's impatience.  She gestured to a couple of guards, and without further discussion the prisoners were bundled into and chained into their seats.  Martin ended up in front, with Alex in the center left, and David in the center right.  John ended up in the back.  The metal screen separating the prisoners from Erica and the driver, who sat in the front, was clanged into position and secured.<br/><br/>The van rumbled out of the jail, and onto the highway.  It was about an hour after sunrise, and the last of the morning commuter traffic was still jamming the road.  But it didn't take long for the van to get out of the city and onto the Interstate, where movement was quite a bit faster.  The driver tooled along at 75 or so, so the miles went by reasonably fast.  The driver had put on a twangy country radio station (the van was State issue, with the original factory AM radio).  Martin could hear it well enough, but by the time it got back to John, the sound had pretty much petered out and he only caught bits and pieces of it.<br/><br/>The journey was an hour underway when the van left the Interstate and got onto a rural two-lane road with not much traffic.  The country station was getting a bit sketchy as the van began its ascent into the hills.  "We've made slightly better time than usual, so we've only got a bit over an hour left," Erica announced to the group.<br/><br/>Then Tim McGraw's crooning voice utterly went off the radio.  Irritated, the driver thumped the dash.  "Damn wiring must be--"<br/><br/>There was a trilling sound.  The Emergency Alert System.  "Oh for fuck's sake," the driver said.  The sound was interspersed with static as the signal got sketchy.  "Another of their damn tests.  We just had this shit yesterday."<br/><br/>"Strange," Erica said, "they only test once a month.  That's--"<br/><br/>A voice came onto the radio, walked over and splattered with static.<br/><br/>"This...not a test.  All...take cover.  Radar...incoming objects...America...west..."  The static grew too strong for the voice to be heard.<br/><br/>"Is this some sort of practical joke?" The drive sounded bemused.  "Must be like when those hackers programmed it to talk about zombies and shit--"<br/><br/>The radio said a few more words.  "Basement or other underground shelter...subway...now..."  More crackling.  "Repeat...incoming objects detected..."  Then the voice went silent, and there was only the hiss and crackle of static.