Absolution

by Peter Smith

  She opened her mouth to debate him on the topic and then closed it. He was right, “I even gave you pre-programed crops to grow.”

  “Exactly,” He stopped to laugh, “Do you know how badly I want some sushi, but I can’t get it yet because you didn’t include rice or fish protein in the programing. Had you wanted us to be free you would have left a bunch of 3D printers, a portable fusion power plant and an encyclopedia of do-it-yourself handbooks. But why didn’t you?”

  “Because with the design I use now, I can guarantee that no matter who finds the settlements, they’ll have the basic ability necessary to grow their food, clean their water, dispose of waste and be protected from the elements.”

  “And did you restrict our ability to do anything else?”

  She shook her head, “No, but honestly I figured that with all your needs met, there’d be no need to do anything other than purse personal growth.”

  “But you didn’t prevent our actions. That’s the point. We have plenty of people that don’t want to live in the towers. They still had the choice to go out into the wilderness, and to establish their own homes. The reward for them is greater freedom to do as they wish and more privacy, the risk is that they might encounter something that they aren’t prepared for or is violent. If they get hurt or run out of supplies, they can always come here to get what they need. Maria, you created this place and others like it, but that doesn’t prevent us from having choice.” He stopped, thinking about what he wanted to say next.

  “True, it shapes our choices, but it also creates a stable foundation for us to build on. Right now I’m studying genetics so I can grow my own fish. You didn’t prevent me from that and if I never achieve my goal, it's not your fault. Your father never did that. He eradicated and manipulated the remainder of humanity to fit his idea of the perfect global system. So while you are like your father, you are not him, you’re something better.”

  She stood there, Sean’s hand clasping hers as she processed George’s words. “Now kick Trotsky’s ass so we can have global peace already.” Rainbow Smile said from behind her.

  She huffed out a laugh and nodded her head, “Thank you Mr. Creighton, I have a lot to think about.”

  George nodded, “Feel free to come back any time, just call ahead and I’ll make sure I’m here to greet you.”

  She stuck out her hand, and he shook it. She nodded thanks to the rest of the group and broke away, walking back toward the transport with Sean. They made their way in silence until they arrived at the ramp, Tobor waiting patiently for her to return.

  “Do you understand now, you need to stop blaming yourself for what everyone else has done Maria.” Sean said, with a squeeze of her hand.

  She smiled at her husband, “I do, I also understand that I have some hard choices that I have to make.”

  “Like what?”

  She looked at Tobor, “Toby, you are to take a force that you determine suffices to achieve the goal, and acquire President Trotsky. Then escort him to Kauai for the conclusion of peace negotiations. Try not to kill anyone if you don’t have to, but if they refuse, you are permitted to use whatever actions you deem necessary.”

  “An Army corps should be more than sufficient to dissuade any armed resistance. I will plan for the excursion to Moscow. With our forces in the European theater mobilized, it should only take me forty-eight hours to implement.”

  “Good” She said.

  A smile cracked over Sean’s face at his enemy being dragged from their center of power. She looked at him, taking his hands into hers, “Sean, don’t get too excited yet.”

  He arched an eyebrow, and she continued, “I’ve got orders for you too.”

  “Okay…” He said, drawing the word out uncertainly.

  “I need you to inform General Kellen that his and Director Canine’s presence is required in Kauai. Tell him I’d rather he came of his own free will but if decides not to, I’ll have Toby escort him there.”

  Sean’s eyes widened and his skin went a shade whiter, “Are you sure about this, babe?”

  “Yes,” She said with a nod, “It’s time that I ended this war.”

  17

  Sean Williams

  Kauai, Hawaiian Island

  “He’s pissed.” David muttered, resting his head back against the metal skin of the transport. The rear ramp was lowered and the sound of the water lapping against the shore was creeping in through the opening.

  Sean nodded his head. It had been a week since Maria had decided on how to wield the vast power of her global empire. One week since he had flown to Berlin, found General Kellen at a forward operating base directing the entire recovery effort after the nerve gas attack and informed him he was to immediately report to Kauai. One week since he had become the release valve for all of General Kellen’s pent up frustration, anger and guilt over how the Battle of Berlin had played out.

  “He made that pretty clear to me.” Sean said, matching his father’s movements, “What do we do?”

  “I’ve been contemplating retirement for a while now.” David said with a shrug

  Sean snorted, “That’s bullshit.”

  “Yeah, reporting for duty is the only time I get any peace from Eva.”

  “So be honest, which is worst, Eva being mad at you or General Kellen being pissed at us?”

  David sat upright, “Ah hell ask a hard one son, Eva, one hundred percent.”

  They both laughed, “Gotta say, I nearly pissed myself giving him that message though.” Sean said.

  David stood up and stretched, “You handled it well. He was definitely in a shoot the messenger frame of mind once you told him.”

  “Do I have you to thank for not being court-martialed?” Sean asked.

  “We’re like an old married couple, Kellen and I, we can get pretty upset with each other but we’ve been together so long now that not growing older and dying with each other just doesn’t seem right. He’ll calm down and avoid making any rash decisions that affect our long-term relationship.”

  “You both took the longevity treatment.”

  His dad let out a breath, “Yeah, I’m in for the long haul.” He pointed toward the ramp, “We should get moving.”

  “Can’t we be late just this once?” Sean asked.

  “You’ll be fine, don’t worry about it.”

  “Says you, I don’t have a magical codependent relationship with the General.” Sean joked.

  They left the transport and walked across the white sand of the beach, heading toward the facility that now served as the official neutral meeting location for the peace talks between both parties in this war. It had originally been where the Spire families came together to discuss matters of global politics, before Patterson’s final war against them.

  Sean had never been here until the negotiations had begun months earlier. He had come as a member of Maria’s delegation and had really enjoyed the time he had carved out to play with Alex on the beach and build sandcastles, no matter how short lived they were. His father had been here several times, both before and after ‘The Fall’.

  Dad had been a part of the recon teams that had made their way to the island in-between Spire family gatherings to plant observational devices. Those journeys had been long and risky, as they required the use of one of the few submarines that they had access to. And those vessels hadn’t seen a service dock in over a decade at that point. But the missions had been worth it, they had gained a lot of actionable intelligence, not been exposed and had lost none of their critical equipment, like the aforementioned submarines.

  “So what’s your wife’s game plan?” His dad asked.

  “She said she’s going to end the war.”

  David nodded his head slowly at that, “You know what that entails right?”

  “I’m trying to not think about it,” Sean said.

  “We might have to pick sides.”

  Sean looked at his father, standing a foot taller than him, “Hell dad, I picked my side a long time
ago, I thought you were with me on that?”

  A sigh left his father, “Yeah, I am, but old habits die hard so I’d prefer to not have any life altering changes come my way. I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t call myself a Marine anymore.”

  “I get it dad, you and the Corps are a big part of my life. I would feel weird too.”

  His father nodded his head, “Improvise, Adapt and Overcome.”

  “Universe knows we’ve done a lot of that in the last few years.”

  His father’s hand fell onto his shoulder as they both walked up to one of the main doors for the facility. He squeezed, and Sean smiled as they stepped up to the shared guard post. Two Marines and two of Trotsky’s commandos stood sentry at the entrance to the facility. Both Sean and David presented themselves for biometric analysis.

  Each pair scanned their retinas, and they even had to provide a sample of their DNA. They were forced to empty their pockets of all materials and they were checked for weapons and hidden explosives by being scanned with bomb detecting wands and metal detectors. Once they were in the building and out of the Pacific sun, with its near equatorial angle, Sean turned to his father,

  “Is it necessary that we give a DNA sample?”

  His dad smirked, “Can’t be too cautious in this day and age.”

  “Command worried that someone cloned us, uploaded false memories and then implanted bombs in our chests that go off when we’re near our target?”

  Dad stopped and looked at him, cocking an eyebrow, “You’re watching too much science fiction.”

  “Even after his death, your generation continues to under value Gary Sinise,” Sean mumbled, “Besides, do you have a better explanation?”

  They kept walking down the temperature-controlled hallway, following it to the main conference room. Marines and Trotsky’s soldiers lined the halls, serving as guards. Others moved past them on the way to their areas of need, “You ever ask your wife how her father took down Jeffery Chen?”

  Sean tensed, “She doesn’t like talking about it.”

  “Well, that I understand. How about this, remember our briefing before we breached the New York Spire? Why did we enter through the floors above the main atrium?”

  “That creepy ass water feature serves as a defensive system.”

  “It’s a smart material that can assume nearly any shape.”

  “So what, he slipped some of that material into the Chen Spire?” Sean asked.

  His dad nodded, “And from there it took over command and control for the entire Chen network.”

  “So the General and Trotsky are worried that Maria continued his research and figured out some way to use it to mimic humans?”

  David’s right index finger taped his nose, “And since smart material doesn’t have DNA, DNA checks prevent that. Plus the other families have experimented with cloning, gotta watch out for Centaurian Replicants,” he said with a wink.

  “Wouldn’t a clone have our exact DNA?”

  “Same DNA, but not the same genetic degradation that you would expect from a person who had lived in the real world for decades.” Dad asserted.

  As they neared the door Sean looked back over to his father, “Okay, you’re good but how could you have possibly known about the methods that Patterson used to take down Chen?”

  His father’s face contorted into false shock, “Son, I’m hurt that you have so little faith in the skills of the senior most Ground Intelligence Officer for our MEU. My abilities, much like my personality, are shrouded in mystery, beyond the comprehension of mere”

  Sean interrupted him, “You asked her, didn’t you.”

  His father stopped, pursed his lips together and then nodded his head, “I asked her.”

  Sean was laughing as they arrived at the doors to the main conference room, submitting yet another sample of spit into a small tube and having their retina’s scanned. They had to prove that their pockets were emptied and both of them had to submit to a pat down from each set of guards, “Damn, buy me dinner first.” His father growled to the Russian Commando that had checked between his legs for hidden paraphernalia. The guard muttered something in Russian and then waved them both through.

  David leaned over to him, “Don’t worry about the General, he’s a professional and he knows that you were doing what you had to do. Even if you weren’t married to Maria, you’d be duty bound to have relayed the message as critical intelligence.”

  Sean nodded, feeling the tension in his shoulders, “Sure didn’t seem he thought that way when I told him a week ago.”

  The guards opened the door, and both men entered the conference room and its near crypt like silence. One side of the table sat General Kellen, Director Canine, who was the former leader of the NSA and now was responsible for the entire intelligence apparatus that the Legacy forces relied upon. Gisela Warin of the Berlin Spire was there. Sean was secretly happy that her son had stayed back in Europe, and James Dawson of the London Spire along with two of his soldiers that Sean vaguely remembered from the fighting in Berlin.

  On the other side was Trotsky, the woman that was his primary aide and the heads of some of his client state Spires that purported to be free. Sean wasn’t sure if they believed that or if they were just trying to keep up the illusion for the benefit of the rest of the world and their own battered egos.

  None of the groups were talking with one another. Even among themselves they were deathly silent. This was the first time during the entire months' long peace process that all the principals actors for this conflict had been placed into the same room. Never once had both Kellen and Trotsky been together, always sending a trusted delegate when they knew the other would be in attendance.

  It was clear that Maria’s decision to put her military might behind her request had paid off, at least initially. Sean hoped that this gambit on her part would work. One thing Sean knew for sure, none of the men and women in this room were used to being told what to do, especially Kellen and Trotsky.

  Sean walked over to a seat placed along the wall, with a half dozen other senior aides for the Legacy alliance. His father sat next to General Kellen, in the only seat that was still vacant. He watched as both their heads dipped toward one another. He couldn’t hear their conversation, but he knew that it was happening in hushed tones. After a minute his father’s hand wrapped around the back of the chair and his thumb came up.

  Sean exhaled, some tension leaving him. He knew that it was ridiculous to worry about his future in the Marines. It wasn’t like he didn’t have a purpose outside of the Corps. His wife and son were his life. But the Marines were his identity for far longer than father or husband had been. While he would shed that version of himself in a heartbeat if either his wife or son needed it, doing it would leave him with a sense of intense loss. He hoped that no matter what happened here today, he’d be able to remain in both worlds.

  The lights in the room dimmed twice as a notice to the attendees that the host of this conference was prepared to address them. Normally such information would have been shared via virtual vision or device, but no one was permitted to have either of those things in the room. Only a few specially scanned pads for taking notes and recording audio for future reference were in here.

  The lights dimmed and a figure formed at the head of the table. Sean did his best to suppress the smile he felt at seeing his wife. She was gorgeous and while he was sure guilt still burdened her, nobody ever transformed in a short period of time, he knew she was on the mend emotionally. While what she was about to do was grave in its importance, he could see in her eyes she had more life.

  She looked over the assembled delegates, at least her holographic representation did, “Thank you for coming ladies and gentlemen.”

  “Like you left us a choice.” Trotsky spat.

  A smirk tugged at Maria’s mouth, “You had a choice Mr. President.”

  “Some choice, come or die, I’ve been a prisoner on this island for the last five days while that man,”
Trotsky’s finger pointed directly at Kellen’s chest, “twiddled his thumbs up his ass and took his sweet time coming here.”

  Kellen was about to speak when Maria did, her tone erased the small bit of joy that Sean felt at seeing her. Icy and frightening she leaned forward, placing her immaterial hands on the top of the long table, “It was still a choice Mr. President and a better one than you gave the people of Berlin or your own troops. How many of your own did you kill with your gas attack?”

  “You” He emphasized, “killed thousands of them!” He said with a shout.

  “I,” She said, nearly yelling the word, “was moving to prevent you from slaughtering innocents and if you don’t shut your fucking mouth, I’ll do what I should have done, what I so badly wanted to do, right after the attack.”

  Trotsky’s eyes went wide and his mouth clacked shut. No one talked to him like this, at least not since Patterson or Chen had been alive. The way his jaw trembled slightly indicated the indignation he felt or the fear that came from the realization of his own mortality.

  Maria had deployed Tobor at the front of three air wings and a hundred thousand combat drones to retrieve Trotsky. A single shot hadn’t been fired, and no lives had been lost in the operation. It had been clear to Trotsky the moment his detection systems had begun tracking the force rolling its way through the Russian Spire’s territory, that he had no chance of defeating an invasion of that size. He had been left with only two choices, fight and die or acquiesce and live with the repercussions from the peace talks.

  Maria stood up straight, releasing a pent up and adrenaline fueled breath, “I am not here to be the dictator of the world, I don’t want the title and I sure as hell don’t want the job.”

  Sean watched as General Kellen’s head dipped and he knew that the man was worried about just that. He also knew that the career soldier wouldn’t tolerate a situation where he had no power to affect the outcome and where in Sean’s wife was nearly unstoppable.