Heart rates rose. The order was not obeyed. There were screams, yelling, with voices meshing together along with Johnny calling out. Through Johnny’s vision we just saw LEPs, that was it, then he looked down.
I could see it, the elite were trying to think of another way. I could see Johnny was up to something. The LEP’s knew the dedication of men. They knew it, that was why they grabbed Johnny. They banked on it. They banked that the elite would not fire.
They didn’t bank on the man Johnny was.
Click.
Beep.
“Fuck,” Billy whispered. “He activated the SD.” Billy grabbed the all call. “Back it up. Back it up. He activated the SD.”
I whispered out. “Johnny no.”
“Dad! No!” jack cried. “Dad. Get out of there!”
“Jack,” Johnny’s voice was calm. “I love you.”
“Dad! No!”
Boom.
27.
Individual strategy
Johnny’s self destructive strategy ended his life. It also eliminated 80% of the LEP in that camp.
We lost two elite.
Jack freaked out.
The mission was finished, the camp was gone.
I never really told you much about Joey Slagel. Although mentioned, it wasn’t in detail. And to get the full effect of what happened immediately following the raid and Johnny’s death, you need to know Joey.
Though some in the community doubted Joey’s parentage via genetics, visually there was no doubt; Joey was Frank’s son.
He was huge. Big and bulky, tall and strong as an ox. He had the bravery trait, feared nothing, was a loner, and was skilled beyond belief. He was an elite. A level five for fighting LEPs. I’d even go as far as to say he was better than Jack.
So why wasn’t Joey in command that day?
Several factors.
Joey was strong, skilled and brave, but Joey wasn’t the brightest bulb. He lacked the intellectual levels needed to be a leader. He just didn’t have that command instinct and military strategy gene every other Slagel had.
He admitted it.
Granted he could have been taught, but Joey didn’t want to lead his men, he wanted to be one of the men.
He was a military grunt. Did what he was told, did it well, and loved it.
Joey was a soldier and he lived that way.
Period.
Personality wise, he was rough around the edges. Gruff to be exact. Lacked tact and really could give a shit if people liked him or not. That wasn’t his job. His job was to protect people and kill threats.
Again, he did his job well.
The leader, the commander, the soldier in Jack disappeared after that raid. Distraught was an understatement.
In a world where people took death for granted, where death was so commonplace, no one knew what mourning was. Jack lost it.
We heard them return to headquarters.
The silence of our control room was also filled with the tension. Billy sat silently, head down, staring at his folded hands for over two hours.
He said nothing.
I stood when I saw the truck return, and laid a hand on Billy’s shoulder.
“Ready?” I asked.
He nodded, exhaled and stood.
We were to head down to the deck, where the soldiers would be in formation.
The double click of the doors to the open gymnasium echoed, and the command of ‘Fall in.” rang out.
But it wasn’t Jack’s voice.
“I said …” Joey ordered again. “Fall in!”
The fifteen soldiers were in line. So why was Joey ordering again?
Jack.
He stood in the back. He wore his black uniform, but his protective suit, ammo, everything else was on the floor.
“Soldier, pick up your gear and join the line. Now.” Joey barked. He paused then barked again. “Now.”
With no energy, Jack grabbed his things, walked slowly to the line, and then dropped them hard.
I winced. Not only from the sound, but because of the look on Joey’s face. He had inherited that jaw twitch and vein thing Frank had.
I was his uncle, but I was also President, and when in the presence of the men, Joey always was the uptight soldier and treated me like the President, never Uncle Dan.
He pivoted and faced me. “All present and accounted for, Sir.”
Jack mumbled. “Not all.”
Joey shot a glare Jack’s way, then returned to me. “I have spoken with the men dealing with his … this loss, sir.”
I nodded.
“But it wasn’t a total loss, Sir.” He stepped forward and handed me a disk. “As you are aware, Sav 13, was wiped cleaned. Mission accomplished, Sir.”
A slight huff came from Jack.
I took the disk and faced the men. “You should all be proud. We have suffered a great loss today. But the loss was a sacrifice for you and this country. Sgt. Slagel did what he believed in, and I know for a fact that he would want you to be proud of finishing the mission. Thank you for your service today. We owe you our gratitude.”
“What about the next time? Are you gonna thank us then too when we lose lives?” Jack asked.
“Soldier!” Joey yelled.
Jack continued. “When we kill more just to have them breed…”
“Soldier!”
“When we destroy more cities for what?”
“Soldier!”
Jack turned to Joey. “Do not take that tone with me Sergeant. I am in command.”
“Then act like it!”
Silence.
Joey turned to the men. “Fall out. Dismissed. Good job.”
I watched.
The men fell out, grabbed their gear and proceeded to leave the gymnasium. But Joey and Jack faced each other.
“How dare you?” Jack growled. “Do not take that tone with me again. You hear me? I am your superior. I am an officer!”
”And I’ll wipe my ass with your commission for all I give a shit.” Joey said. “You wanna be in command. Then take command. You want to whine and cry, then do so, but don’t preach authority when you can’t utter the word.”
“I lost my father!”
“And I lost my brother today!” Joey blasted. “We didn’t kill him. They didn’t kill him. He sacrificed his life for the mission. That was my brother. That was who he was and he would be damn disappointed in your for your piss poor reaction to his heroic final stand.”
“Heroic final stand?”
“Are you not proud of your father?”
“I’m proud of my father.”
“Then act it! Mourn, yes, but in front of his men, act it!”
Jack clenched his jaws. “I can’t. I can’t believe in what we doing right now.”
“You took an oath. An oath to protect, serve, fight and defend this country against all enemies, foreign and domestic. This war …”
“Is not winnable.”
“Excuse me?” Joey stepped to him.
“We can’t win this. Not like this. We can’t beat them. I don’t believe in this cause. I never did. I fought for my father, because he said this is what we had to do. He’s gone. This cause killed him. I don’t know if what we’re doing is the right thing.”
“Then step down, mother fucker, because we believe. If you don’t believe in the fight, then you’re no good to us. Step down.”
Jack inhaled deeply though his nose. Loudly, too. He nodded. “You’re right. You’re right. I will step down.”
And with that, he turned and walked away.
Jack resigned his commission. It wasn’t a spur of the moment, emotional thing. He wrote me a letter that day. I didn’t argue with it. I couldn’t. Because I felt in my heart like Joey. If Jack didn’t believe, he wouldn’t be any good. He wouldn’t have the passion that the others had.
For a fight like this, we needed passion and conviction.
That evening in our own mourning, Billy and I sipped drinks and sat by the window over looking the small city.
<
br /> A knock came at the door, and in stepped Jack.
“Uncle Dan, Uncle Bill, can I speak to you guys?” Jack walked closer.
“Absolutely,” I said. “Did you want a drink?’
Sadly, he shook his head no. He pulled a chair closer to us and sat down.
I reached over laying my hand on his knees. “How are you?”
“Doing. Not well. But doing.”
I nodded.
“I’m sorry,” Jack said. “I am so sorry.”
Billy asked. “For what?”
“For disappointing you. For stepping down. For not believing …”
I interrupted with a shake of my head. “Don’t apologize for how you feel. I understand.”
“I didn’t do it,” he said. “Because I was angry or sad. I did it because I truly feel we are doing this the wrong way. I’ve been wrestling with this for a while. But now I really am firm on it.”
Billy asked. "What do you mean?”
“You know it, I know it,” Jack said. “These things. Or rather this war with the LEP is destroying our planet. They settle and we blow them up. We destroy this, they move on so we destroy that. It’s a never ending thing.”
“We have to kill them,” I said. “They are an abomination. They will kill us if we don’t kill them.”
Jack shook his head. “No, I disagree. I think if we leave them alone, we preserve our life. If we fight them they’ll fight us.”
I chuckled some. “If we don’t fight them Jack, they will hunt us and kill us.”
Jack held up a finger. He had a look on his face that said I had a point. “Not if we migrate to a place where they won’t go.”
“There’s not a place on earth like that, except maybe across the ocean. But that’s a dead world,” I said. “The meteor made that into Arctic for hundreds of years.”
“Here.”
“Where?”
“In America.” Jack stated.
“Wrong,” I argued.
Billy interjected. “Jack, these things need meat. When they kill all the animals, which they have begun to do, we are next.”
“That’s why I want to go where they aren’t. Go where they can’t get to us.”
“And hide? Live in seclusion?” I asked.
“Protect ourselves and make a new start.”
I didn’t want to argue any further. I stood. “We created them. They aren’t acts of nature. This isn’t some course of life. This was man made and it will take man to take them out. Nothing you can do except fight the fight and take them out.”
“I want to try,” Jack stated. “Everything we have is under lock and key. Every provision. I want you and the council to authorize me supplies and weapons.”
“For what?” I asked.
“To make an expedition to find a place we can go.”
After staring at him for a moment, I sat back down. “You want me to supply you like Christopher Columbus to cross the world to find a place to go. Supplies we need for you …”
“And whoever wants to go. I plan on leading a group of people.”
Billy shook his head. “Lead them like Moses? You’re insane. Jack, I love you. But this … this is the only way to preserve mankind. We have to render these things extinct. We have diseases we can’t battle brought on by their bites. We are losing population because when they get hungry they attack like we’re a dinner plate. Leaving them alone is not an option.”
“We can’t win this war, Uncle Bill. Not yet. Not at this time. By my estimates, by yours … at our current rate ... when will we eliminate them?”
“I’ve said it before,” Billy replied. “It’s not gonna just be our fight. It’ll be the fight of our children, their children ….”
“And if there are no children left to fight?” Jack stared at us both. “Issue me the supplies, the equipment and weapons, Uncle Dan. Please. Let me do this. Let me try.”
“It’s sending you and the others to your deaths,” I said.
“We don’t know that.” Jack argued. “We only know now what our satellites tell us and what we have behind secured walls, and they aren’t even all that secure. I’ve looked at those pictures, I have a plan.”
Exhaling, my eyes locked with Jack’s. “Let me and Bill discuss this and I’ll get back to you tomorrow.”
Jack nodded. “Thank you. I’m gonna head home.” He walked to the door and stopped. “Don’t stop fighting them. I’m not saying that. I’m merely saying let me find a place to protect human life so we are assured it will go on.”
He nodded and left.
In silence, Billy and I stared at each other.
“Dan, you can’t let him do this. You can’t authorize the supplies.”
“I know,” I sat down. “We actually need him to reenter the fight.”
“Our elite team can train others. Yes, this will be a hundred year war. But if we don’t start pushing the lines back now. If we let them go, we’ll never reduce their numbers. We’ll be mere monkeys in a tree. We’ll be animals, outnumbered, running and hiding for our lives.”
“What if we are heading that way anyhow? He has a point though. We need to pocket some people. Make sure that life goes on.”
“People will survive anyhow.”
“By becoming animals, perhaps.”
“Perhaps.”
“If only we knew,” I said. "If we only knew what the future held, then we could make this decision.” I paused. “If we only knew.”
Billy raised his eyes slightly and looked at me.
28.
The Aragon Window
Jason Godrichson considered himself the Godfather of Time. And rightfully so. He invented and implemented the first working time machine.
This is where my story really gets like a science fiction novel.
After the Great War, when there was a debate to try to go back and save and warn Dean Hayes, a rebuilding council met. It was the first arm of a new government, with Joe as leader.
They unanimously decided to outlaw time travel. With the exception of Jason Godrichson and any understudy he instructed to use the time machine as a testing device.
Other than that, no more time travel. No more messing with fate.
Jason was able to get most of his belongings and research out of Beginnings and just before they believed Beginnings was to be invaded, Jason blew up his lab.
Some of us still believed he tucked away his remaining research somewhere.
Jason was a brilliant man who was just about fifty at the time of The Great War.
In 2025 time travel was outlawed.
In 2028 Jason informed the Council that copies of his research were stolen, along with files copied from his computer.
This bred a fear in the Council and Jason. Although no one was believed to be smart enough to implement a time machine, that chance could not be taken.
Jason spent the next ten years dedicated to inventing a Time Tracer.
Exactly how he was able to do it, no one knows. Or the details of how it worked. In a nutshell and basically, the time machine, any time machine, would release a certain ‘wave’, and the program he developed was able to pick up on that wave.
He actually had the program developed by 2030.
By 2035 he had perfected it. It linked up to a solar detection unit and was able to not only pick up time travel waves from anywhere in the world, it was able to detect where and when the time traveler was traveling.
Locking in on that, the secondary invention called the Time Chaser kicked in. When the Tracer found the traveler, the chaser followed the signal and time traveled to the exact same spot.
In theory, anyone caught time traveling would be stopped before they could create a ripple.
The chaser would arrive at the same time as the traveler.
Yes, time cops.
Unfortunately, the only time traveler was Jason himself during the tests.
This was a separate division set up by Frank. Jason was in charge of the Time Police, and t
rained the squads that would monitor time.
For fifteen years this division was in effect. Their location was always a secret.
Hal Slagel passed the reigns over to General Baker when Jason passed away in 2046. General Baker, to the best of my knowledge was still running it.
Our government supplied the funds to the military, and the military diverted funds and soldiers to the program.
I always believed this would be the worst job on the planet.
How boring. To sit around and monitor time travel that wasn’t happening.
But I remember General Baker telling me they ran tests weekly.
To be honest with you, during my presidency, I received reports from Baker, but never really read them. My assistant would tell me, “From the TTP, all good. No time intrusion.” Then my assistant would pass the report to me.
No need to read.
I kind of thought it was a joke. A division in name only.
That joke was about to be tested as funny or serious.
Jason’s research was stolen, but by none other than Billy Hayes.
When Billy heard that time travel was illegal, he didn’t want the brilliancy of that research to go unnoticed.
He confessed his thievery to Jason once Jason started his time monitoring.
Jason chuckled, so said Billy, and wished Billy luck. Although he did tell him they would catch him if he used it.
Billy never really used a time machine for travel.
For testing, yes.
Jason always knew of the tests and approved them.
This is what Billy told me when he showed me the Aragon Window.
“It’s illegal,” I said.
Billy, one hand on hip, the other holding back his hair, nodded. “Yeah, I know. But like I said. Jason knows about this. Hell, how else do you think I was able to test it to make sure it works?”
“You know, I always wondered who stole the research.”
“Was there ever any doubt?”
I smirked. “No.” I stared at the contraption, which was so similar to Jason’s. It was connected to a computer. “How do you propose we do this without getting in trouble?” I asked.
“You’re the President.”
I nodded. “But still.”
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