The Rise of the Speaker

by Pete Driscoll

  All communications channels were continuously monitored on the slim chance that her precautions hadn’t been successful, but so far – nothing. At 8.45 that morning, the Spartans finished their return journey.

  “I agree,” Alice said, as the last of the Spartans were inspected and redeployed to the perimeter. “I have been looking into alternative modes of transport – aerial insertion being the most obvious solution – but there are a few variables that cause us problems.”

  “such as…”

  “stealth aircraft use a combination of angled hulls, composite materials and radar refracting paint to make them invisible to radar. Although the angles of the aircraft are easy to replicate, neither carbonite nor Nanites are capable of creating either the polymer or the paint meaning any aircraft we launch will immediately show up on military and civilian radar… after 9/11, it is a guarantee that the military would send fighters to intercept.”

  I watched her talk as we made our way from the southern barn back to the house. “There is a possibility that the magnetic shielding used by the holograms could disperse the radar waves, it would make our aircraft look like a flock of birds – but we would need to test it, which means launching an aircraft – if it didn’t work…”

  “…We’d be giving our position away.”

  “Yes, the second problem is where to launch any aircraft from. The Artisans could construct a landing pad or an airstrip in a matter of hours, but one of the benefits of the cabin was its invisibility to aerial reconnaissance. If we start cutting down trees for a landing pad, or carve a great big runway in the ground we compromise that advantage. Plus, if the aircraft was made out of carbonite – which it almost certainly would need to be – we would need a place to store it, meaning more construction and more visibility from the air.”

  “yeah, this does seem like a bit of a conundrum.”

  “I will work on designing something, maybe carve out a clearing for a vertical take-off aircraft a few miles away and work on camouflaging it. We wouldn’t be able to use it though unless it was an emergency, or until we find a way to test the stealth properties without risk. But if the cabin is ever compromised, the Spartans would need to escort us there on foot… that distance? with bullets flying at us from all directions? It’s very risky.”

  General Reaves’ words echoed in my mind as we climbed the steps into the cabin.

  You are enemy number one now… they will hunt you to the ends of the earth.

  It was only a matter of time before that risk – running a gauntlet of bullets in an attempt to reach safety – became a reality.

  “What about an underground hanger?” I asked as Alice sat on the sofa and I went to the kitchen to make myself a coffee, memories of my childhood watching thunderbirds passing through my mind. “Maria’s valley is pretty steep and there are some cliff faces there which could disguise a hanger entrance. We could store and launch an aircraft from there and dig a tunnel connecting it to the cabin – wouldn’t that solve our problem?”

  “Interesting…” Alice mused as I sat on the sofa opposite her, “It’s possible, but I would need to send the Artisans up there to do a full geological survey, if we dig out to much – and especially if we remove too much rock – we could destabilise the whole hill and cause a landslide. That would definitely draw some attention our way.”

  “Couldn’t we reinforce the structure with Carbonite?”

  Alice smiled, “yes, that could work. It would take much longer to construct but it is definitely within the realms of possibility. I’ll send the Artisans up there immediately and then work on constructing more if they are needed for the building phase.”

  I nodded as I took my first sip of the hot, bitter drink in my hand.

  “in the meantime,” Alice added, “I think we should sta…” She stopped talking and cocked her head to the side, a faraway look in her eyes. “I believe General Blake is trying to make contact.”

  “Err… Ok. Put him through.”

  Morgan Blake’s face appeared on screen. No longer the dishevelled shadow of a man he had been during our last conversation, he had regained his posture and presentation, sitting up straight in his office chair. A piece of paper with ‘I need to speak to you’ dropping to the table as he registered the connection.

  “General Blake. What can I do for you?”

  “Marcus, thank you for contacting me so quickly.” He looked down at his impromptu sign, “I can’t believe that actually worked… Anyway, I spoke to Doug Reaves, he told me what happened, even the parts that weren’t in his official report. I wanted to thank you for giving him the benefit of the doubt, we might not agree on a lot of things, but I am certainly glad he wasn’t as involved in this whole mess as much as the evidence suggested.”

  “As am I general. How is General Reaves?”

  “He’s not happy, I can tell you that. He is making a lot of noise about being an unwitting conspiracy to murder, I think he has even put those formal accusations in his letter of resignation.”

  I grimaced, “Have you told him what happened to Caplin?”

  “Yes. But Reaves is old school, a consummate soldier. He took his oath of enlistment very seriously and as far as he is concerned, his commanding officers now constitute a domestic threat to the constitution – his sense of honour won’t let him drop this, even if it means risking his life…”

  Maybe I underestimated Reaves, that would certainly explain why he was fighting with the other men outside the Montana safe house.

  “…he’s even threatening to go to the press.” Blake continued, “I don’t know how to ask this, given how you must feel in his involvement in Dr Gonzalez’s death – albeit a limited involvement – but I need to you to talk him down. If he makes too much noise, they will kill him.”

  “You said something about a report.” I asked, trying to buy myself time to think about his request.

  “Yes, he was the only survivor at the safe house. They bought his story about being knocked out, but they are also very worried about these Spartans – impressive sounding machines by the way, I would love to take a look at one someday – The brass know you are alive now, whereas before it was just a suspicion and they are dedicating significant resources to locating you.”

  Alice looked up at me with a confused look, “I haven’t detected any additional efforts to find us, Marcus.” She said with a worried tone.

  “Who was that?” Blake asked

  “That’s not important,” I answered quickly, “Where are these investigations being conducted?””

  “Langley, in the secure mainframe facility. The had satellites monitoring the safe house in Montana and they tracked your team back as far as Casper in Wyoming before losing them so at the moment they are concentrating their efforts there, but I don’t think it will be long before they find you. They are going to bring the full weight of the military down on you when they do, they are desperate to get their hands on these Spartans. Forget due process, Marcus… If they capture you, they will kill you.”

  “Ok, General. Thank you for letting me know. I will see what I can do about Reaves.”

  “No problem, Marcus. I wish you luck.”

  The screen went blank as I turned to Alice. “Secure mainframe?”

  “I am going through the blueprints of Langley now…” She sat in silence for a few moments before sighing. “It’s an air gapped supercomputer, Marcus. I have no access. It is a secure room in the underground section of Langley, authorised entry only. Independent power supply, no connections of any kind to outside networks, not even cell or radio signals can get in there. There is nothing I can do.”

  “What are the chances they will find us?”

  “From tracking the assault team? Zero. I am more worried about the financial trail left when we bought the cabin.”

  “what do you mean?”

  “Like I said at the time, I made this transaction as invisible as possible, but the simple fact is that a certain amount of money left the Itek a
ccounts, that same sum of money then appeared in realtor’s account. If they piece that together and they contact the realtor… I have deleted every piece of digital information there is, but if they have one piece of paper with the details on it…”

  “they will find us.”

  “we don’t have long. Marcus.”

  “get as many Artisans as you can on constructing the hanger, forget capping the rest of the US for new carbon, dedicate everything you have to this.”

  “Using Nanites to help dig out the tunnels will speed things along, but it will still take time.”

  “Do the best you can, Alice. This is our new priority.”

  “This is incredible,” Penny exclaimed as she reviewed her notes. “To see the origin of things that are iconic of Atlantia. There were Artisans working in my street this morning, I barely gave them a second glance, but back then they must have been revolutionary.”

  Penny had returned to the tower the day after our previous conversation – as promised – and now we were back in the Bastion, looking north towards Lake Serenity, Maria’s Island and the embassy district of the capital.

  “and the Spartan’s…” Penny said excitedly, “I genuinely thought that their first deployment was in Uganda, I had no idea that they helped to bring Maria’s murderers to justice years before the African conflicts.”

  I smiled at her as she looked out over the city with giddy fascination. “They did a lot more than that,” I answered, “Both the Artisans and the Spartan’s had huge roles to play before Atlantia was founded and recognised as a sovereign nation. You see, history has a way of blurring the passage of time, confusing it even. People think that I left the US and poof… Atlantia just ‘happened’. In reality, it took years of hard work before anything even remotely resembling this…” I gestured towards the city behind the window “…came in existence.”

  “You don’t have to always be so modest.” She jabbed playfully, my response was cut short when Jonathan entered the room, his eyes immediately locked onto to Penny, whose eyes seemed equally fixed on his.

  “Mr Speaker,” Jonathan began after clearing his throat, “the delegation from the United Kingdom has landed at monument field airport. The have asked me to pass on their enthusiasm for next week’s summit.”

  “Thank you, Jonathan. Would you like to join us?” I nodded to Penny “Learn something about our history, it might come in handy for the conference.” Jonathan seemed a little hesitant. “I’m sure Penny will hold your hand if you’re shy.” Blushes flushed the face of my two companions.

  “well, in that case, I’d be honoured sir.” Jonathan said, trying to sound confident. Penny giggled at my frown as Jonathan bowed deeply and entered the room. He sat on one of the sofas, Penny moving to sit beside him, their fingers intertwining once they were settled. I took one last look over the city as the last fading light of the day was stolen by the night and shrouded the city in darkness before moving into the room and sitting on the sofa opposite the two young lovers.

  “So… where were we.”

  Chapter 18

  Revelations

  It was six months to the day since Maria had died. I still felt the ache in the pit of my stomach every time I thought of her, but today, that feeling was even more acute. I had been so happy that morning with the knowledge that getting Maria to safety was almost within our grasp, that happiness turned to apprehensive excitement as the operation was set underway… and that excitement turned to agony when we realised that we were too late. Six months later, we were still living with the aftermath of that night.

  I sat on the sofa inside the woodland cabin that Maria had never gotten to see as I watched events unfold on Alice’s large screen plasma tv. The oval office was unmistakable on the screen, we had found out about this meeting between the three organisers of Maria’s death and the leader of the free world from email communications between the conspirators. Alice had sent in a handful of Nanites to monitor the meeting and broadcast the feed back to us.

  Adapting the Nanites had been easy, at least for Alice. The cutting lasers in the Nanites antenna were replaced with a camera lens and microphone combination which could record and transmit the entire meeting. 14 of them were now scattered around the oval office, each tiny dot impossible to detect by either the naked eye or the myriad of security equipment protecting the room.

  David Turnbull Jr sat down behind the resolute desk; the desk that had once been used by his father. The two terms of David Turnbull Snr were now widely regarded as the worst of any US President, it had been two decades since he left office and America still hadn’t fully recovered from the damage it had suffered to its economy and national reputation. America’s standing was nowhere near where it once had been and David Turnbull Jr – like everyone else in the country – knew exactly where the responsibility for that lay.

  His father’s tenure had been a plague of scandals, sexual assault allegations, corruption charges and abuses of power – accusations that his father blamed on the media to this day - how he had manged to avoid impeachment was beyond the new President, but David Turnbull Jr had come to power after publicly criticising his father and vowing to right the ship his family name had wronged. Of course, it was all bullshit, David Turnbull Snr still pulled a lot of the strings behind the curtains in his role as special advisor, even going as far as calling himself ‘the power behind the throne’. Turnbull Jr didn’t care, he was the President and the decisions were his to make, even if his father didn’t like them.

  Turnbull was now dealing with the aftermath of one of those decisions. “Ok Gentlemen, let’s get on with this.” He used his most commanding voice from his seat behind the nation’s most famous piece of office furniture.

  “Yes, Mr President,” Conrad Fields, the Secretary of Defence, answered as he and the two other officials sat on the sofas in the middle of the room.

  “Let’s start with the most obvious question,” the President started, “what the hell happened?”

  All three officials turned to face Gerald Meisner, the National Security Advisor. “Well,” he stuttered, “pursuant to your orders, Gregory Hammond issued a kill order against the CEO of an uncooperative tech company based in California. They obviously didn’t do a very good job of tidying up after themselves because a former employee and possible lover to the victim has gone on something of a rampage - He was responsible for the string of security personnel murders last month.”

  “Get to the point Mr Meisner,” the President tapped his pen impatiently.

  “Sir, this former employee – he only goes by the name of Marcus – has developed some extremely advanced weaponry from wherever he is hiding, including – but probably not limited to – robotic soldiers, energy weapons, extremely durable armour, and possibly even holograms. This list is based on eye witness testimony from the only survivor of the Montana safe house attack and what our technical experts have surmised from his descriptions. This is technology that is far beyond our understanding or capabilities, sir.”

  “Alright, well if the media get hold of this, we spin it as domestic terrorism with links to Iran or some other hostile nation.” The President interrupted as if the answer was obvious.

  “I’m not sure that will be enough, sir.” Meisner replied doubtfully after a pause. “The survivor is three-star General Douglas Reaves. It turns out that Hammond manipulated Reaves, even falsifying command codes to authorise the assassination mission. Reaves is not letting it go, he has already put most of the details in his letter of resignation and is threatening to go to the press if this is not dealt with. It wouldn’t take much to put two and two together, that would blow the Iranian angle out of the water”

  “Exposure?” The calm voice of Amanda Hollifield, Secretary of State, came from the other sofa.

  “Pretty high, I would say.” Meisner answered, “In his letter he has already stated that the joint chiefs confirmed a Presidential meeting when confronted with the evidence. That alone could give the appearance of
this administration sanctioning action against a US citizen. Add in the use of the National Intelligence agencies and things could get very messy, very quickly”

  Admiral Robert Garfield, chairman of the Joint Chiefs spoke up. “Sir, you gave an order and that order was carried out. Reaves was kept in the dark, the mission went sideways and Reaves ended up caught in the cross fire. He has all the information he needs to expose this, if he were to …”

  “Oh, fuck Reaves!” the President interrupted again in frustration. “If he does anything then it makes him a traitor. Old men die every day – especially treacherous ones! I don’t give a shit what he thinks he knows and you have my permission to silence him if he tries telling anybody! I want to know more about the Montana incident.”

  “Errr… yes, sir.” Meisner spoke up again. “Hammond and Reaves were targeted by ‘Marcus’ in the murders – they were named in notes left behind, they went to a safe house in Montana, about 40 miles north of Missoula, in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. At approximately 2300 hours – according to radio communications of the agents guarding them – 6 intruders were detected at three separate points along the perimeter. According to radio chatter and forensics at the scene, 8 of the 10 teams engaged the hostiles in the field and all were wiped out, the other 2 fell back to the safe house itself, but they were also annihilated. There are some pretty gruesome accounts of the wounds these men suffered. Body parts being vaporized, limbs and heads being blown off, 4-inch diameter holes punched clean through chests and all of these agents were wearing full body armour…”