The Hidden Society

by R. Chauncey

  Why would they have it if its scan was limited to only one direction? Even if Karl and Willow knew Marlene and her accomplice were coming from the north they’d play it safe and scan in a circle.

  He lowered the binoculars to the ground and lay down and brought his left wrist close to his eyes and looked at his watch. It was 2: a.m. He decided crawling was best, but without the backpack. It was useless to him now. He hoped he didn’t run into any more stupid snakes. He removed the bottle of water from the backpack and put it into his left parka pocket. He waited a minute to build up his wind, put the binoculars around his neck and moved them back onto his back, then began crawling again. He crawled slower this time to avoid making any unnecessary noise out of the dry stream bed. Ten minutes passed before he estimated he was close to the depression. He stopped, raised his head for a few seconds, and using the binoculars again looked to his left, and saw the candelabra cactus a yard from him and then looked ahead and saw what looked like a dark hole ten or eleven feet west of candelabra cactus.

  That’s it. The depression.

  He put the binoculars on his back, lowered his head, and waited for the sound of running feet, or shooting. Fifteen seconds passed and he didn’t hear a sound.

  Willow and Karl had either seen him or picked up his body heat and were waiting for him to make his move, or they hadn’t seen him because their attention was directed somewhere else.

  That gap between those two mountains I bet.

  Dodge felt Lady Luck was on his side and decided to make his move. He had no other choice. To remain where he was would be foolish. His position limited his field of fire to what was in front of him and behind him. Even if he was attacked from the left or right he’d have to rise up to return fire, and he’d make a target of himself. He crawled as silently and as quickly as he could, keeping his legs and arms together and using his extended arms to pull himself forward toward the depression while keeping his head down. When he passed the candelabra cactus he knew, and hoped, he was heading in the right direction. He reached the depression in less than six minutes. He found a low spot in the depression and settled into it. He rested and wondered if he’d been detected?

  *

  1:47 a.m.

  “Karl?” Willow said into his com-cell while looking at his com-cell’s screen.

  “What?” Karl answered.

  “The infrared unit picked up some movement off to our left a little over a hundred yards south of us,” he answered.

  “I told you not to check the inferred unit,” Karl grumbled at him.

  “I thought it was best to do so,” Willow explained. “We need every edge we can get since this Done woman and her accomplice got pass Betty and Dodge.”

  Karl didn’t like admitting it, but Willow was right.

  “What sort of movement?” Karl asked.

  “Something crawling,” Willow told him.

  “Something crawling,” Karl asked him wondering what the infrared could have picked up.

  “Yeah, sort of fast too,” Willow told him.

  “How large was the heat signature?”

  “That’s the problem, Karl,” Willow said. “It was a flat signature about six feet long and a foot or more wide. It was on the ground, pretty hard for the infrared unit to get a clear signature.”

  “You see where it came from?”

  “No, I didn’t. It just popped up on the screen like it came out of the ground. The unit is in three hundred sixty degree scan mode. All it got was a passing signature.”

  Karl took out his com-cell and pushed the playback button for the infrared unit. He looked closely at the heat signature the unit’s computer had recorded. “What do you think, Willow?” he asked.

  “Could be some animal. Saw a similar heat signature half an hour ago going south.”

  “And it was crawling fast,” Karl said, trying to think of what sort of animal would have a heat signature six feet long and a foot or more wide. Maybe a large snake or a lizard, he thought.

  “Yeah,” Willow replied.

  “It’s nothing,” Derrick said. He’d been listening. “Just some animal out hunting.”

  “Maybe not,” Willow disagreed, wondering whose voice he’d heard. “It was pretty large for a crawling animal. And there was another heat signature over twenty minutes ago of something headed south.”

  “Both of them were long and wide?” Derrick asked.

  “Who is this?” Willow asked.

  “Answer the question, Willow,” Karl told him. “And don’t worry about who’s speaking to you.”

  “Yes, sir,” Willow said, knowing it had to be the voice of a leader or Karl wouldn’t have responded as he did. “No just the one that was heading west.”

  “Then it is not them,” Derrick said. “They’ll be coming from the north through that gap. It’s the easiest way to get to where they’re going.”

  Karl pushed playback till he saw the heat signature going south. “The one going south is about four feet long maybe half a foot wide. That’s probably a snake. But the one going west close to the mountain looks larger,” he said.

  “It is nothing but some animal. Didn’t Willow say it just popped up like it came out of the ground? Don’t those com-cell screens cast a glow?” Derrick asked.

  “Ours are on low level,” Karl said. “The glow can’t be seen more than two feet away.”

  “Turn them off,” Derrick demanded. “Now!”

  “I don’t advise that, Leader,” Karl said.

  “And why not?” Derrick demanded in a sharp voice. He didn’t like a soldier disagreeing with him. Being outside in the dark waiting like a wild predator was bad enough, but disagreement from a soldier was a bit more than he was willing to take.

  “If they come through that gap, the infrared unit will pick up their body heat, but we won’t know that if we turn off our com-cells. They’re our only way to seeing what the infrared unit picks up,” Karl explained.

  “You’re wearing night vision goggles,” Derrick said. “You should see them the moment they come out of that gap.”

  “Not if they keep low to the ground and move among the rocks and plants,” Karl replied.

  “Alright, then keep your com-cells on. Ignore that heat signature you saw heading west,” he said. “And remain quiet.”

  Karl didn’t respond.

  Willow didn’t either, but he did wonder, why was a leader out here? Leaders never went on a kill or an information collecting mission. That’s what the Society’s leaders used soldiers for. Willow now knew that this mission was so important a leader was out here, too to guarantee

  Marlene and her accomplice didn’t get into the center. That meant they knew exactly where the center was and how to get into it.

  Derrick punched a code into his com-cell that enabled him to see where everyone was hiding. Only his com-cell had a program that allowed him to know the location of every soldier and member of the Society from their implants. He was very happy he had forced the Society’s five doctors to implant tracking chips into everyone. But once he announced to the members and soldiers he had removed the other two leaders and the Council of Twenty, he realized he’d have to tell the other doctors within the Society who knew about the implants not to mention the implants, and they wouldn’t once they knew what had happened to the other two leaders and the Council of Twenty, but that didn’t worry him. Marlene Done and her accomplice did. Once they were dead and he had the drives Julian had given Done’ accomplice, he’d have complete power and no member would disagree with him. The Society’s doctors would remain silent.

  I’ll give them more money and the fear of death will keep the
m quiet? He thought. Money and fear had served the Hidden Society interests for well over a thousand years. Maybe both still had the power to keep people’s mouths shut and them obedient?

  *

  Dorothy didn’t need a special code to see where they were all hiding. She was a little over a hundred feet behind Derrick with an electric rifle with a silencer on the muzzle and night vision goggles, and her special binoculars. She could see Charlie and Lester flanking Derrick hiding in thick brush behind two large rocks. They were sitting down with their legs crossed. Both appeared to be fighting sleep and losing their battles from the way their heads kept bobbing up and down. Karl and Willow were alert and ready for anything that came through the gap.

  She turned and looked through her special binoculars in the direction Willow had said he’d picked up the heat signature. What she saw convinced her things just may work out as planned. Only time and Marlene Done and her accomplice, which she had no control over, could upset the plan if they failed. She prayed they would not fail, because prayer was the only thing she could do to help them.

  ***

  Chapter 55

  January 13, 5 a.m.

  Marajo woke up and rolled over on her back, sat up, and leaned over and looked at Larson sitting to her left. She could barely see his face in the darkness.

  He was sitting up with his back against the boulder they’d slept next to with a serious expression on his face as he looked east.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked, sitting up and stretching her arms and legs.

  “About that fucking gap,” he said.

  “Fucking gap?” she asked in a startled voice. “You changed your mind about going through it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? You said it would be a good way to go to avoid any heat detecting equipment they may have, and that it would mask our movements,” she said. Her voice was filled with worry and confusion. “What’s wrong with it now?”

  “They know it’s there, they probably know, or at least suspect, we’re not outdoor type of people, and that we’d take the easiest way to get to the information center.”

  She got up on her knees and looked up at the mountain. She could just barely make out the dark outline of the mountain in the dark. “You think we should go over the mountain?” she asked.

  “We don’t have any other choice, Marajo.”

  “How high do you think it is?”

  “It’s a mountain. It has to be at least a thousand feet high to be classified as a mountain,” he said, turning around and looking up at the dark outline of the mountain. “And this one’s probably two or three thousand feet high.”

  She stood up. “Well, the sun will be coming up shortly. So we might as well start walking toward it. It looks like it’s about a mile away.”

  Larson was still looking at the mountain when he asked her, “You don’t want to eat something first? We still have some fruit bars left.”

  “We can eat once we get half way up.”

  Larson stood up, grabbed his blanket, rolled it up, and wrapped it around his backpack, and tied it to the backpack. He put the water bottle he carried in the backpack, put his backpack on, and adjusted his clothes so they’d feel comfortable, and started walking up the side of the small hill they’d slept near.

  “Lucky for us we slept close to the mountain we’ve now got to climb,” Marajo said after she had done the same with her blanket and water bottle and backpack as she started climbing beside him.

  “You’re telling me,” he agreed with her. “Walking a few miles to the mountain and then climbing it would wear us out. And I don’t think the soldiers waiting for us are going to sit and wait for us much longer.”

  “By now they must be pretty pissed at us for making them wait,” she said.

  “Pretty pissed is probably putting it mildly, Marajo,” Larson said.

  “How long do you think it will take us to go over this hill and reach the top of that mountain?” she asked, looking up at the top of the mountain.

  “No more than twenty minutes for the hill at the rate we’re walking. But I don’t know about the mountain, Marajo,” he said. “I’ve never climbed a mountain before.”

  “Well, thank God this one’s got an incline that looks easy to walk up,” she said. “I’d hate it if it was like those mountains mountain climbers climb.”

  “It probably has a lot of boulders and rocks on it I bet,” he said as he looked at the dark outline of the mountain. “So be careful where you step when we start up the mountain. Climbing this mountain isn’t going to be a walk in the park.”

  It took them over half an hour to walk to the mountain over the low flat topped hill that provided them with some cover. When they reached the mountain, they sat down and rested for half an hour then started the climb up. They started up the mountain at six a.m. For two hours they climbed without talking watching where they stepped to avoid a loose rock that could break away under their foot and send them rolling down the mountain breaking their legs or backs. The rising sun gave them plenty of light to see where they were walking. They stopped once for ten minutes to catch their breaths and drink some water before they continued. By eight fifteen they were near the top.

  “Let’s stop,” Larson suggested, breathing heavily.

  “I agree,” Marajo said, breathing just as heavily as Larson. She slipped off her backpack and looked up at a large boulder that looked as if was ready to roll down the mountain. “Think this is a safe place?”

  Larson looked at her and grinned. “Don’t worry, Marajo, that boulder’s probably been leaning forward like that for well over a thousand years. I doubt if it’s going to suddenly start moving.”

  “Hungry?” she asked him as she put her backpack down and sat down.

  “No. I’m too afraid to be hungry.” He sat down next to her after removing his backpack and took out his water bottle. He unscrewed the cap, and took a large swallow of water then recapped the bottle and returned it to the backpack.

  She did the same thing then asked, “How are we going to find this information center?”

  “According to what was on the second drive my com-cell should start to vibrate or hum when it’s within a hundred yards of the center.”

  “So you’re going to have to turn your com-cell on.”

  “I don’t think so,” he said.

  “Then how will we know when we’re close to the center?”

  “The more I think about Julian Franks, the more I realize he would have known I’d have to turn off my com-cell to avoid being detected. He would have known once the Society knew he’d given those drives to someone the Society would have its killers stake out this information center because it’s the most important of the three. He would have re-configured the chip from that drive I put into my com-cell to cause my com-cell to vibrate or hum whether it was on or off. At least I hope he did.”

  She didn’t say anything. She was just hoping he was right.

  He turned and looked at her. “Well? What do you think?”

  “Julian was a person who always planned ahead. So maybe he would have done that to the chip.”

  “I remember on the second drive he wrote that all I had to do was get inside the information center. The chip will do everything else.”

  “What do you mean everything else?” she asked.

  “It would shut down the information center’s defensive system,” he answered.

  “What type of defensive system?”

  “Laser rays and robots I imagine,” he told her. “Julian didn’t say what the defensive system was.”

  She didn’t like what he said and
she looked east and said, “Look like it’s going to be a beautiful day.”

  Larson’s looked east then at her. “We’ll succeed,” he assured her with a smile on his face. He could see fear in her eyes and he knew his eyes reflexed the same fear. He hoped his smile would hide his, but he didn’t believe it would.

  She looked at him and said, “You sound positive, Larson.”

  “We’ve made it this far. Maybe Lady Luck is still on our side.”

  “I sure hope so,” Marajo said. “Because if she ain’t I’m going to give that bitch a good piece of my mind when I meet her in paradise.”

  He laughed at what she said and said nothing.

  “The closer we get to our objective the more dangerous our mission becomes.”

  “If you expect me to disagree with you, don’t waste time waiting for it,” Larson told her. “Once we get to the crest of this mountain things will begin to get hot. We won’t have time to think about what it’s like killing someone. We’ll just have to kill. I don’t know what’s waiting for us on the other side of this mountain, but if what Julian wrote on that first drive about the Hidden Society is true we’ll be facing the best trained and best armed and worse killers the world has ever known.”

  “A Hidden Society of human monsters who want to remain hidden and in power regardless of what it will cost the world.” There was the sound of anger in her voice.

  “Exactly,” he said as he looked at his watch. “Eight thirty-seven. Let’s rest another fifteen minutes then go for glory, Marajo.”

  “I don’t want glory,” Marajo said. “I just want a quiet, safe life. Maybe find a man I can have a long term and very passionate relationship with.”

  He laughed a short laugh and said, “Let’s agree to remain friends until we die.” He wanted to say ‘if we succeed’ but he didn’t want to depress her or himself any more than they were already depressed.

  “After what we’ve been through that sounds great. I could use a friend like you,” she agreed. After a few seconds of silence she asked him, “What are you going to do once we’ve succeeded?”