by R E Kearney
Beaute shakes her head. “I didn’t know either of the two men. When they walked through the door was the first time that I had ever seen them. I’ve never heard of a Reverend Boig or any Evangelical Church of Human Purity. Although, I’ve heard rumors that there is some sort of anti-government meeting hall in an abandoned building about two blocks from here.”
“Unable to identify the individual completing the purchasing transaction from available information. Additional biological data is required.” AGI simultaneously informs Robert and CRAGI.
CRAGI moves to Beaute’s desk to exam her biometric reader. Lifting, twisting and turning the reader, CRAGI scrutinizes its imprint screen. From the corrected angle, CRAGI’s camera eyes capture the arches, whorls, and loops along with the outlines of edges, minutiae and furrows of the only fingerprint on the reader. Accessing the worldwide automated biometric identification system, CRAGI searches for a match.
“What can you tell me about the man who purchased the yam chops and sausage? Did you notice anything unusual about him?” Robert calmly queries.
Nodding her head vigorously, Beaute describes her interaction with Rube. ”Confused and perplexed…maybe mystified. Yeah, that’s how I’d portray him. He didn’t look like he understood what he was expected to do or that he actually belonged here. I had to explain how to use the biometric reader. He kept staring at me…at everything…like he had never seen it before. Very strange old man if you...”
CRAGI interrupts. “The automated biometric identification system located one single match in its database with the biometrics recovered from the reader screen. Matching biometrics recorded at the emergency medical clinic at the Lymon outpost identify an individual receiving treatment for a fracture of his ankle as Ruben Landwirt. No other data concerning Ruben Landwirt is possessed by the automated biometric identification system.”
Simultaneously, Robert instructs CRAGI and AGI. “Search for JPEGs of both Ruben Landwirt and Reverend Boig. Let’s see what Beaute’s two elderly insurrectionists look like, if possible.”
Beaute impatiently drums her fingers on her desk. “If you’re done with your questions, may I return to my work or are you ejecting me?”
Robert assesses her sincerity. He immediately determines that she cannot be trusted. Just by looking at her fake face, he recognizes that she is willing to do just about anything to accomplish what she desires. He contemplates if there is some way he can use her to his advantage.
Robert strokes his chin. “I don’t think we need to eject you, but we may have to permanently close the Vegan Butcher. Unless…”
“Unless what?” Beaute hostilely snarls.
“Unless you take us to Rele.” Robert sternly insists.
Beaute looks away. “I can’t. I don’t know where he is.”
“She is lying.” CRAGI proclaims. “All Denver Metrostate laws are logic based algorithms. Only fact based yes or no answers to questions are considered. Failure to provide factual, truthful responses is considered an Eject crime.”
“Obviously, CRAGI.” Robert glares at Beaute. “Either you cooperate with us now…right now and take us to Rele or I ensure that you lose everything. Your choice.”
Beaute sneers at CRAGI. “I can take you where he was, but not where he is.”
“AGI process Beaute Concue for immediate termination and ejection.” Robert directs verbally and mentally. “People are dying. Children are dying. Rele is killing them. I don’t have the time or patience to play games with you.”
Beaute remains unyielding. “Rele’s no fool. Soon as he got what he wanted he was on the move. He’s playing with you. Luring you. He’s smarter and he’s outmaneuvered you and…miss metal head, here. You’re turtles chasing a fox.”
SEED VAULT
Bang! Crack! Hiss. Rube buries his truck’s front bumper deep into the silt of the drought drained river bend pond. Rele pitches forward slamming his forehead into the windshield. Blood trickles down across his cheek.
“Are you trying to kill me?!” Roaring in pain, Rele presses the palm of his hand against his head cut.”
Rube leans forward and peers into the black, lightless night. He turns and bellows at Rele. “Hey! Don’t blame me. I told you that I’d never been here before. But, you didn’t listen. Did you? No! No lights, you said. Use the moon and stars, you said. Well, look outside. Do you see any moon? Do you see any stars?”
“No, all I see is my own blood.” Rele growls as he peers at his blood covered hand. “Don’t be stupid. We can’t sneak into Fort Collens in the daylight or with your truck lights alerting every surveilling security drone that we’re here.”
“And just where is here?” Rube swivels his head left, right and ahead. “I have no idea where we are or where Fort Collens is.”
With his bleeding stopping, Rele begins studying their location. “You know…yes I believe…I believe that we’re just about where we need to be. We’re stuck east of Fort Collens in the old, dried up Riverbend Ponds Natural Area. Fort Collens is directly west of us about a mile…maybe a mile and a half or two.”
Rube restarts his truck. Revving the engine, he slams the transmission into reverse. Jerking and jumping, wheels spinning, the truck climbs backward out of the hole. With a cough, the engine dies.
“And what’s between here and Fort Collens?” Rube looks to his left for any sign of human life.
Rele kicks his cab door open. “More of the same. It’s the dried up remains of a lowland nature preserve. It’s just scrub brush, cactus, dry grass and empty ponds like this one that you stupidly drove your truck into.”
“So we walk?” Ignoring Rele’s insult, Rube sneaks his pistol into his pocket from beside his seat then, reaching beneath his seat, he retrieves his flashlight. “Can I use this?”
“If you hold it low and point it toward the ground. Don’t want to attract any extra security drone attention with a light beam.” Rele climbs out of the truck clutching his green bag.
“Is there a road or path through this natural area to town?” Rube asks as he catches his first glimpse of Fort Collens’ lights.
“When I visited here years ago, there were hiking trails, but I don’t know where they are or if any exist, now. Besides, since drought fires have burned almost everything into ash, it should be an easy hike. So stop whining and start walking. Follow me.” Although he is still hobbling on his two injured feet, Rele pushes past Rube, stepping forward and away from his guiding light. Four steps later, his right foot drops into a hidden hole and he crashes onto the ground.
Rube illuminates Rele with his flashlight. “Looks like you made an ash of yourself there, Rele. I think I’ll follow my little light as my guide.”
Cautiously, Rube maneuvers west through the short hills and shallow hollows. Griping and limping, Rele follows close behind him. After a short hike, they slide down the eastern bank of the dry Cache la Poudre River.
On the gravelly, bottom of the dead river, Rube treads carefully to avoid the sharp-edged, broken bottles glittering in his light’s beam. Too stubborn to ask for help, Rele crunches along on his own emitting repeated yelps of pain and curses.
Rube clambers up the low bank of the river and stumbles onto the rutted remains of a paved trail. “Hey Rele, I think I’ve found an old trail over here. Do you know where it goes?”
Huffing and puffing, Rele staggers to Rube’s side. “Yes, you’re probably on the old Poudre trail. This is exactly the spot where I was leading you. Was my plan all along…we’ll follow this right into Fort Collens. So, you take the lead and don’t worry about getting lost, I’ll be right behind you to keep you on track.”
Shaking his head in bemusement, Rube silently marches ahead.
Winding northwest and then west, the Poudre trail hugs the western edge of the meandering Cache la Poudre River channel. The river is just a dry, trash strewn ditch, now. Fort Collens drinks and drains all of its water. Nothing escapes.
Treading the trail,
Rube and Rele hike three miles to enter Fort Collens, sitting less than one half mile directly west of them. Their progress is slow with Rele lagging, straggling and bellyaching about his pain. According to his sniveling, the severity of his injuries increases with each step.
Finally, after Rele demands far too many rest stops according to Rube, they arrive at the edge of Fort Collens. Unlike Greenly, they cannot sneak into Fort Collens through a drainage tube. Past the Riverbend Ponds Natural Area, the land surrounding Fort Collens is tabletop-flat, hard packed clay.
“How do we get through this?” Rube asks as the Poudre trail dead ends at a locked gate in Fort Collens’ twelve foot high, electrified security barrier.
Rele sets his green bag on the ground, opens it and pulls out a device unlike anything Rube has ever seen. Peering through the dark, Rube compares it to an extra-large lantern flashlight with a metal cone on the light end. Rele points it toward the gate’s electronic lock and pushes a switch on its handle.
Buzz. Click. The gate unlocks. Rube swings the gate open and strides into Fort Collens. Rele carefully returns his device to the security of his green bag. Looking proud, Rele steps through the barrier and pulls the gate closed. With a click, it locks shut.
Once inside Fort Collens’ security barrier, Rele begins searching for an available, community-use transport. After hiking several blocks through a darkened business district, his frustration at not finding one is mounting. His face begins twitching and jerking. Rube hears him mumbling curses. With each step, his anger grows louder. Rube worries that he will awaken some sleeping citizen.
After walking a few more blocks accompanied by many more curses, an empty transport sounding its electric-vehicle-in-motion alert, rolls past them. Two houses ahead, the transport stops to wait for its summoning rider. Wildly waving his arm, signaling for Rube to hurry, Rele quickly commandeers the paused vehicle.
“Eleven, eleven south Mason Street.” Rele orders, as soon as Rube jumps in and slams his portal closed.
Just as the transport resumes moving, a woman steps out of the house. She franticly waves her arms and yells for the ride she summoned to wait. Running, she pursues them for half of a block before giving up. Rele cackles and waves goodbye toward her.
“That worked out much better than I expected.” Rele happily announces. “We snagged a free ride and nobody knows it was us.”
Less than ten minutes later, they are sitting at the rear of a nondescript, beige building just off the quad at Collens State University. A small sign quietly announces that this boring building is the National Laboratory for Genetic Resource Preservation above its address. Rele carefully peruses the back of the building with its four entrance doors.
“What is this?” Rube points toward the building.
A contented smile on his face, Rele leans back into his seat. “You are looking at the place where you’ve been begging me to bring you. This is the Fort Collens seed vault. Home to one of the world's largest collections of seeds, genetic material for livestock, microbes and endangered plants. Inside that building are those precious seeds that you need to start farming again.”
Rube barely hears Rele above the sound of his heart hammering inside his chest. He cannot remember the last time he was this excited. “So how do we get them? When do we get them? I can’t wait.”
Rele snickers smugly. “Oh no, you don’t just walk in there and grab some seeds. It’s called a seed vault because it’s secure. It is a building within a building. Then, inside the inner building is the facility's securely locked main cold storage vault where row after row of ceiling-high shelves hold more than seven hundred thousand bar-code labeled seed packets. So, you could look for days, at one seed pouch after another, and never know what kind of seeds you're holding. To find the seeds you want, you need access to their secure database. But then, even if you learn where your seeds are stored, you face yet another security problem. Only six people in that building can enter the seed vault.”
Rube hangs his head with disappointment. “So, we can’t get inside? We can’t get any seeds? Why did we come all this way…for nothing?”
Rele wags his finger. “Oh no, not for nothing. Yes, we have a minor problem, but for weeks I’ve been scheming to provide us a key. Creating a tempting trail for one Robert Goodfellow. See, the majority of the seeds in that building belong to the same mega-agricorporations that drove you out of farming. Your hated SPEA is its largest contributor. Robert Goodfellow is our key. He’s SPEA’s head of cybersecurity and its chief seed protector.”
“So, where is he…our key?” Rube scans the dark surrounding their transport.
“Proceed to eleven ninety-eight East Drive.” Rele instructs the guidance system. As they begin rolling, he explains his next move to Rube. “When we pause, you’ll activate the payment system. Then, we’ll wait in the front parking lot for our rat to scurry to our cheese. Come to me Robert Goodfellow. Run. Run. Run into my trap.”
BOIG
Bam! Bam! Bam! Robert slams his hand against the shielded door. He waits. Nobody answers. Bam! Bam! Bam! He hits the door again. He waits. Again, nobody responds.
“Illogical. Nonsensical. Why do you humans commit crimes and verbalize non-factual statements? Why did she modify her visage and structure?” CRAGI probes, ignoring Robert’s disinterest.
Robert answers CRAGI without giving her much thought. “Because lying serves her purpose, just as changing her appearance did. She didn’t want to be what she was…plain looking and fat, so she traded sex with Rele for him financing her transformation. It is human nature to instinctively rebel at obscurity or ordinariness, or so Taylor Caldwell once wrote, CRAGI.”
At this moment, Robert is preoccupied with finding a way through the locked door of the Evangelical Church of Human Purity. Depressing his right earlobe four times, Robert increases his hearing acuity to that of an owl. He flattens his right ear against the door. Squinting his eyes, while holding his breath to reduce interfering background noise, he intently listens.
While searching the silence, he considers other avenues of attack. Knowing humans are always the cyber world’s biggest leak liability, he decides to take advantage of the weakness. “AGI, conduct a full examination of the cyber communications transmitted for this Evangelical Church of Human Purity. Search for church member names and their locations. Cross reference with SPEA personnel. Alert SPEA security of matches for possible investigation and termination. Notify me upon task completion.”
“Query initiated.” AGI responds.
Backing away from the door, he presses his left earlobe four times to return his hearing to human. “There is someone standing just behind the door. I hear them breathing and their heart beating. I’ll knock again. If they don’t acknowledge us then you can open it, CRAGI.”
Bam! Bam! Bam! He pounds against the door. Nothing. No response.
“All cyber communications are encrypted. Estimated time required to decode encryption is two hours.” AGI updates Robert.
“Actually that is excellent news. I wanted a reason to bust into this place anyway. I certainly didn’t come all this way to walk away without the information I need.” He points toward the door’s digital lock. “CRAGI, open that door!”
CRAGI touches the index finger of her left, human-scale anthropomorphic robot hand to the digital lock. Her right, human-scale anthropomorphic robot hand grips the door’s electronic door release handle. Robert hears the snap of electricity shooting from CRAGI’s left index finger into the digital lock. The spark rips through the door’s security wiring completing the circuit at her right hand frying the lock’s controls. CRAGI yanks open the door and rips of the handle.
“Stop! Stay out you unnatural, godless demons! You cannot defile my sanctuary. I will destroy you!” Screams a shaggy, stubbly, scruffy, shrunken man skittering away like a cockroach from Robert and CRAGI, as fast as his short, shriveled legs will move.
CRAGI quickly captures the fleeing fellow by
his clothes’ collar. He squirms and twists in CRAGI’s grip. Struggling to escape, he rapidly exhausts himself. He wheezes and whimpers, dangling limply beneath CRAGI’s extended, carbon-fiber arm.
“Ewww! What is wrong with this man? Where is the pretty lady?” Peter-one is still awake and still enchanted by Beaute. Hoping to avoid additional distractions, Robert mentally orders him to go play somewhere else.
Like a bolt of lightning, the emblem of the eagle on a red, white and blue banner surrounded by the phrases, Preserving Human Purity and Sustaining and Defending Nature’s Laws and Species Integrity painted on the church wall explodes inside Robert. The cruel, callous bludgeoning of Shengwu rages through his mind. He has caught one of her killers. No, this man was not there, but in Robert’s opinion, he is as guilty of her murder as if he had been. His rage crystallizes into contemplations of how to cause him the most pain without killing him.”
“Stop! He is weak and not worthy of your vengeance. Bend him to your will and he will provide us with the information we require. Be who you are, not what he is.” AGI intervenes, scattering Robert’s torturous plans.
After ten deep recovery breaths, Robert motions for CRAGI to lift him to his eye level. “You must be Reverend Boig. I understand my organization, the Society Preserving Endangered Agriculture or SPEA, as you may know it, just paid you an exorbitant amount for some of our own yam chops and sausage. Were they satisfactory? SPEA always wants to satisfy its customers, you know.”
Choking in CRAGI’s clutch and confused by Robert’s question, Boig gurgles. “I don’t know what you mean. Put me down. I can’t breathe.”
“Well, I certainly wouldn’t want you to choke to death, Reverend Boig. CRAGI assist the Reverend a bit. Show him that we unnatural, godless demons can be kind to the Naturals that wish to destroy us.” Robert allows CRAGI to lower Boig until the tips of his shoes barely touch the floor.
Robert’s lips curl with gratification watching Boig desperately dance in his struggle to support himself. “What can you tell me about a cohort of yours named Rele Gieren?”