-Judging from the chaos at the gates, I’d say their chances of surviving are improving.
-I think I need some medication; my nerves are shot and my blood pressure is through the roof. Keep me posted; I need to finish preparing for the general meeting in… let’s see… forty minutes. I’d better go try to make myself beautiful.
-You don’t need to do anything to do that.
-Oh, don’t try to flatter me to get out of the doghouse, (SVC). If you get me something to eat, though… that might work. And an adult beverage.
****
W e have to land, now… the others followed me in a rapid descent, and this time they landed without tumbling wildly. “What now?” Cheri hissed, and I motioned for them to come close. “I just got another message from Zoey Perez. You remember the American ambassador we saved in Pakistan, Marlin Roehl? He found out they moved dad when they heard about the gate-storming. He’s not here anymore; he’s at Area 52! Have you ever heard of that?”
“It’s much less-known, but just as important. It’s about fifty miles northwest of here. How solid do we think their message is? It couldn’t be that they’re trying to throw us off, could it?” asked Bill.
Ava, what do you think?
“There’s no way of knowing absolutely. If I had heard his voice I probably would have an answer, but here’s what I think: Jawad Rajput would not have relayed the message if there was any doubt in his mind about it. He’s gone a thousand light-years out of his way to help us, and there’s no reason to think this time is any different.”
Yeah, that sounds right… but what if it’s not? If we go all that way, we might miss our chance to save dad if he’s really at Area 51, and we’re taking the risk of getting caught over there because there're no distractions like there are here. What do we do?
“If you want my advice, we go to Area 52, but leave either Bill or Cheri here to warn Benji and the others and help them get out of there before something bad happens. Plus, one less person will be one less to worry about if things get tough.”
Oh, boy. Okay, I think you’re right, but how do we pick who stays and who goes?
“Ro-sham-beaux, it’s the only fair way. Quick, time is ticking.”
Well, how about rock-paper-scissors instead?
“Yes, that’s what… that’s what I… oh, forget it. Yes, you’re right, let’s have them do rock-paper-scissors instead.”
I told Bill and Cheri what Ava said, and about the rock-paper-scissors. Bill looked at both of us, then at the ground for a long moment. “Lucas, you have an A.I. that can tell you anything I could, plus much more. And you’ve had Ms. Kim with you for all your challenges, and I suspect that she has a strong personal investment in seeing it through to the end. I agree that one of us should warn those who are here on your behalf and get them away from danger. So, unless you would prefer for me to go with you, I’ll stay and warn the others.”
Just for a moment, Cheri’s face scrunched up in an ‘I’m trying not to cry,’ look. Bill put his hand on her shoulder and said, “I would have enjoyed the challenge, but I don’t deserve it. Miss Kim does. Go on, now, before I change my mind.”
Cheri had recovered from her almost crying moment, and said, “I was afraid I would have to fight you for it, and I didn’t really want to hurt you. Thanks, Bill. It’s weird how things turned out for you, right?”
Bill flashed his brilliant smile and said, “Weird indeed. And just for the record, you wouldn’t have hurt me unless I allowed you to. Now go get your father, Lucas. I’ll do my best to meet you in San Diego, but if I’m not there, don’t wait. I’ll catch up with you, eventually.”
“Bill… all this time Ava was worried that you were still trying to fool me; she thought you had some kind of plan to turn me over to the Americans. I never thought that, though.”
Bill paused again, and just for a second his eyes seemed kind of shiny. “There was a time when I almost certainly would have. As Miss Kim says, it’s weird how things turn out. Go on, now.” Then, Bill turned and ran through the depression between hills, and within moments was out of sight.
“Okay, chief, lead on,” said Cheri, her voice kind of shaky.
Ava, what do we do?
“I’m accessing everything I have on Area 52… It’s about a hundred kilometers northwest of our current location… there is a range of hills to both east and west… officially called the Tonopah Test Range… a collection of buildings, airstrips, and an extensive underground facility. I have a record of the blueprints, but it’s highly likely that they left some things out. I have a record of several entry points to the underground structure, including a service entrance, and that’s where we go. Just inside that entry is a service elevator; we slip in and go down the elevator shaft as far as we can. We must improvise from there.”
“Okay, like before, we’ll be flying low and fast. How much charge do you have left?”
Cheri lowered the visor on her helmet, and then said, “If we continue at the same speed, I have about two hundred fifty kilometers left.”
Ava?
“That’s not near enough. She’d need three times that range to get to San Diego.”
Can we give her some of our energy?
“I’ll see what we can rig up. If I’m able to come up with a way to do it, we still might not make it all the way to San Diego, but we’ll get close. That might have to be good enough.”
“Ava will figure out a way to give you some of our charge so you can make it over to San Diego. Are you sure you want to go? This is probably a lot more dangerous and we had a plan, but now we don’t.”
“Oh, come on, Lucas. If you ask me that again I’m going to sock you. Listen, the stuff we’ve gone through… it’s been great, and it’s been terrible. If I don’t do another interesting thing for the rest of my life, this will have been enough. Okay?”
“Okay. We’ll stay between these hills for as long as we can, then over the desert. When we get near, we’ll approach from the west to stay in the dark as long as we can. We’ll probably have to go on foot for the last kilometer or two; we’ll just have to see how it looks when we get there.”
“And then we’ll knock out their electronics and make a disturbance of some kind to keep them occupied, right?”
“Excellent idea. Cheri, umm… thanks for… for helping me all these times. I wouldn’t have made it if it wasn’t for you.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll think of some way for you to pay me back one of these days. Remember, let’s stay off the intercom. If we need to communicate, we’ll just have to use hand signals or set down if we need to talk.” She held her real arm up, we did a high five, and we were off, low and fast, heading north and then west, into the unknown.
33
DIRECTOR’S NOTES
MEETING WITH SVC/LFP GENERAL MEETING
122052 19:59
DIRECTOR’S NOTE TO TRANSCRIPT A.I.: To maintain anonymity, we will continue with the practice of using coded initials to identify the members of the LFP.
-Okay, (SVC), is everyone online?
-All digitally present and accounted for.
-Bring up the holograms… There we are. Good evening, everyone. By now I assume you are all aware of the disturbance at Area 51; it’s in all the newsfeeds. One could hardly avoid it. What many of you may not know is that we are the cause of this disturbance; I’ll explain the many reasons as we go along, but I’ll begin with a presentation, something I haven’t done in far too long.
I know speech-giving one-oh-one would have me begin my remarks with a pithy joke, but let’s consider my acknowledgement of the accepted structure as the pithy joke one might tell, and move on. Many years ago there was a poet and activist of some note, and I like to reflect on his work as I think about our raison d’être; it helps me focus and re-center, as it were. I will paraphrase some lines from one of his better known works here to illustrate the situation we find ourselves in; the zeitgeist and ortgeist from which our organization sprang.
‘Pity the nation whose people are sheep, and whose shepherds mislead them.’ We can substitute nations for the nation, but the sentiment applies and we all feel it because, my friends, we are thoughtful, highly intelligent people. We have played the game, all of us. And grew sick of it, and if we’re honest, fearful of it, even though we helped create the monster. We are not the sheep, but we have been the shepherds, or have at least consorted with them, and we have decided for ourselves, no more. We will play the game no longer. The leaders are liars, and have sought to squash every dissenting voice through fear, intimidation, and violence. Well, we refuse to be silenced or victimized in this way. We have the intelligence, the ingenuity, and the wherewithal to find a different avenue for ourselves.
Their feckless mouthpieces have dominated the airwaves for so long that the average people, the people on the streets, accept their lies as truth, even when the evidence to the contrary is staring them right in the face. They are the victims of the most concerted, most utterly successful mass hypnosis in human history, but not us. We know the truth, but we have decided, and rightly so, that the hill we would face, if we were to choose to fight, is simply too lofty to climb. So, we have bided our time, but we have been quite industrious behind the scenes, haven’t we?
Our time is finally drawing near, friends. And so, it is up to us, this exceptional group, to forge an alternative path. We will not allow our rights to erode in the name of ‘security’, and we refuse to allow our freedoms to be washed away out of fear. We have looked outward, to find our fortunes waiting for us out there, leading to a better, brighter future for humankind, one that was our true destiny all along. To that end, please look at your screens; you will see images of our ship under construction, but nearly completed; the most complex, monumental structure ever built. You will see the fusion reactor, which just had an exceptionally successful test. And this, dear Live Forever Project members, is the boy on which our ultimate hopes and dreams rest. Take a good look. Do you see anything unusual? No, because of the ingenious tech used to augment him. Some of you have seen his image before, but have you seen this? Yes, that is him, his arms and legs transformed into wings, flying over the Australian outback. Those are not wings that attach to him; they are his actual arms and legs. This is him jumping hundreds of meters at a time in the Bright Hand cavern. This is him tossing an American soldier in full exosuit forty meters, with one hand. The boy has successfully completed tasks that Hercules himself would have failed, and he’s still standing. He does not have to age, and potentially can live indefinitely, and with his technology, we can do the same.
This is our future, friends, but it all rests on one thing: the man who created the tech, the boy’s father, Dr. John Taylor. As you know, the Americans are desperate to acquire his technology as well, but for utterly mundane, unimaginative purpose: they want to build super-soldiers so they can continue their paranoid quest to dominate the world and poach the natural resources of other countries. They have kidnapped Dr. Taylor and have been holding him at an underground facility at Area 51. I believe all of you have heard of Area 51, mostly based on the rumors that the Americans are harboring alien technology there. We have, of course, used the Bright Hand to infiltrate various agencies, including the American military, and have an agent inside Area 51. Our most current information from this agent is that the Americans have been unsuccessful in their attempts to pry the technology from Dr. Taylor, but as time progresses they will become more desperate, and will resort to, shall we say, enhanced means of extracting the information from him; it’s only a matter of time. It’s clear we must rescue him, but how to do it… it must be done delicately. We cannot challenge the Americans directly, so the only way we can accomplish it is through stealth and speed, and there is only one person on earth who could do it. I think you can guess who that person is.
Now, back to the disturbance underway at Area 51. If you’ll look at your screens, you’ll see a live video of the event. We organized this siege, this storming of the gates, solely as a diversion; the boy is using this cover even as we speak to enter the facilities and find his father. In the space of a few hours, Dr. Taylor will be back safely with the Bright Hand, and we will take extreme measures to assure that he remains safe and out of the Americans’ hands.
This is our destiny, friends, and we will not be denied. In a little over a year, we will be aboard our ship, bound for a new world, with new, virtually indestructible bodies. Just imagine the things we will see that no other human has ever, or perhaps will ever see. We have earned this future, all of us.
Because of the need to monitor current events, I will not be taking questions or discussion at this time. We will keep you updated as events unfold. Our future is near, and I urge you to prepare yourself physically and emotionally for the greatest adventure in human history. Thank you.
-Stand by… the holograms are now offline, director.
-How do you think that went? Do you think they bought it?
-Well, it was motivation-rich and detail-poor, which is exactly what we needed in this instance, so I say well done. I suspect, though, that there are questions about why there was no mention of (WK), and that you will hear from certain members about that.
-Yeah, I thought it was better to not mention him and just stay on the positive tip. I’ll tell you what, though, I’m glad that crap is over. You want to have a little dinner? I’m starving.
****
W e wound our way through the hills west of Area 52, staying low and following the natural terrain as much as we could. Ava, did you figure out a way to give Cheri part of our charge when we get out of Area 52?
“Don’t worry, sonny boy, I have it covered. I also have some updated schematics for Area 52. I took the risk of accessing the site records; it only took me a few seconds to defeat their ancient digital security. The underground portion goes on quite a distance, and down several hundred meters. I found, though, that they have a brig for insubordinate military, and it’s highly likely that your dad is in there. Here is its location.”
Suddenly in my vision was a confusing series of lines, but it started to make sense to me almost as if something in my brain just automatically knew how to read the schematics. Ava, how…
“Remember, an insignificant thing we did a few days ago called a REBOOT? That’s just the tip of the iceberg. There are lots of additional things you can do and understand now, they just haven’t come up yet, and this is one of them.”
Well, why couldn’t you make me understand things like metaphors and jokes then?
“I’m an A.I., not a miracle worker. Let’s land behind that next hill; our destination is almost due east of us now.”
I signaled Cheri to set down, and we came in as quietly as we could, jogging to a stop among the sagebrush, small bushes, and not much else. We crouched near a break between hills where we could see all the above-ground buildings of Area 52. The surrounding land was almost totally flat for kilometers in every direction, so there is no way we could approach it without them knowing about it. There were quite a few airplane hangars all in a long row, and several landing strips running parallel to the hangars; dozens of other structures were clustered mostly behind the hangars. There were four large jets parked on the landing strip nearest the hangars, and they lit the entire place up bright as day.
“This will be tricky. This place is enormous… I’m surprised we got this close without running into any kind of security,” Cheri whispered.
“Yeah, it’s weird. Maybe they figure why have a bunch of security out here, because there’s no way you could get any closer than this without being seen. We’re… let’s see… a little over three kilometers away, and I bet the moment we step out from behind this hill they’ll be after us. Maybe we should rethink trying to walk up to it.”
“I think our best bet is to make a massive diversion and then fly in low and fast, knocking out their electronics as we go. You know, blow something up and then run in behind them while they’re dealing with
it.”
“I guess that could work… we might end up using all our weapons before we even get inside, though. Then we’d be…”
“We’d be screwed. Yeah, you’re right. We need a plan…”
“Here’s what we’ll do. You won’t have to use any of your weapons until you’re all the way inside.”
I waved my hand and said, “Wait a second, Cheri, Ava has an idea.” Why did I wave like that? That was weird…
“As I was saying before you interrupted me, we’ll use good old-fashioned manipulation. You will get into your female form, and the two of you will walk up there as two poor girls who got lost while hiking and need the help of all those big, strong men. No matter what their orders or protocols are, men cannot resist that. Then, we get in as close as we can to our goal before knocking out the lights. You’ve seen how men react to you when you’re in your girl disguise and imagine what happens when there are two of you. In the past, when you’ve been in your girl form, Cheri has always been in her male disguise. Not this time. Double trouble, sonny boy.”
I told Cheri Ava’s plan, and she made an odd snorting sound. “Oh, sure, the only way females can get what they want is through manipulation. Don’t you think that’s a bit sexist?”
“Well… well, yeah, I guess so. I… I mean, I didn’t…”
Cheri’s face had been scrunched up in an angry expression, but she suddenly covered her mouth to keep from making too much noise while laughing. “Oh, Lucas, I’m sorry, but I did it to you again. I manipulated you through faking indignation over having to use manipulation. That’s as meta as it gets.”
“Oh, oh, yeah, I knew. I was just playing along. Meta, yeah, super meta.”
Reassemble (Singular Book 4) Page 21