He continued, “There are safeguards here to protect us all. You are very important to us all. You are the most cohesive and talented group of humans to be birthed in hundreds of generations and our AI predicted that this would happen, once we had a critical mass of genes and skills flowing through the population here on Toigan. Also our programming has become more nuanced and effective at data input into young brains during the Immersion with less chance of inducing brain derangement and higher success rates in engendering enhanced individuals. We saw the patterns blossoming among your group during the Immersion with an amazing syncing of brain patterns especially between Jonah and Jessi then spreading to Mader and Matt both of whom were already stars with their accomplishments and then Cherese and Dillion. We have never seen anything like that before. It was like a wildfire of communication that spread from brain to brain, like fire jumping treetop to treetop! Then, it turns out you guys sought each other out and a genuine friendship was born. You all came together as a natural team without pressure from outside forces. Even more amazingly is the ferocity with which your attributes, particularly group powers are growing. This is unheard of in human history. We therefore, would like to encourage your growth and development and apply the techniques learned to hone our abilities to create new groups of enhanced responsible humans for the benefit of our human race. We also hope to start using your skills to get our Outlaw Badjan issues under control too.”
He continued thought speaking to us as we were about to enter a large hanger like building quarter mile from our dormitory style building. We were following Jongi and had as usual automatically deployed as couples in a staggered pattern like the points of a V. Breecher moved right into the middle of the protective V so that he could slip in through doors that we opened and not have to reveal himself to any observers.
“So I saw your escapades this morning while perched atop the tall rocks. I lowered my life signature and blended in to resemble the heat reflectivity and vibration profile of the rock and observed. When Cherese shot herself into the air, we came eye to eye; for a moment I thought she could discern me! Obviously she was not powerful enough yet by herself to do so.”
He continued, “The vishes had been brought to Toigan to train our interplanetary soldiers to cope with alien predators and obviously some had been stolen by the Badjan groups and used to test you as well as physically channel you toward that tight opening ready for ambush. I was so proud of how you all reacted reflexively to new challenges. Your quick healing from injury, your energy absorption and energy redirection to dissociate your attackers was a first time observation even for me. I am so glad that I could directly observe the spontaneous blossoming of new capabilities adapted to different circumstances in you. So I’d better stop gushing before your heads grow too big! Just truly fantastic I say. Just like my personnel files will not reflect my own true capabilities, as there will always be a leak somehow, likewise your capabilities will not be written down nor recorded anywhere. Hacking is still a thing ; occasionally too traitors arise too. Do keep information of your skills to yourselves.”
It was then that I explained to him my reading of a family relationship between Mr. Waple of many years ago and Gooch. He said he would thoroughly analyze that to see whether Waple was an Outlaw talent seeker or just inadvertently bled information to the wrong folks. It was scary to think that Gooch may have had his eyes on me for years and I can imagine that he would have been thrilled when I led him to more talented brain power. It is obvious that he’d want to exploit that for his own nefarious purpose. Gooch seemed to be motivated by the desire for personal power, and maybe too, the satisfaction of money credits. Thumbing his fingers in the eyes of the ‘establishment’ is sometimes the best reward for some! Where would he be able to use his wealth in civilized society is anybody’s guess. His DNA signal would trigger alarms anywhere he attempted to go beyond the Badlands Bahoe area and a few such similar haunts. He would have been promptly hunted down. I suppose he could have created some rich playgrounds underneath some mountains for him and his friends to enjoy.
It was comforting to know that Gooch and his six remaining partners would be alive but mentally have been neutralized from being able to cause society any further harm. They were in the decriptors now getting their brains sucked dry then rearrangement would be done to make them unable to access parts of their own memories and skills. Many Security Department agents over the years have been captured and sucked dry by the Outlaws the same way, with a few recruited through reprogramming to help their cause. So those Outlaws were a resilient bunch.
Obviously we had done something that no one else had been able to do - capture Gooch. We weren’t just a bunch of kids with unique and growing capabilities, but were morphing into an integrated team of Six able to contribute to the furtherance of society’s wellbeing.
It was cool and poorly lit in here and had all the appearance of an old workshop with large dilapidated pieces of mining equipment smelling of old oil, battery acids, lubricants and staleness. We walked to the back of the building and Jongi tapped on an old steel door three times. Then she waited there for 1 min and turned right toward a large tractor that was backed up against a side wall. Actually it was more like an old yellow troop carrier and it’s metal gantry swung down wide open with a whoosh. She stepped in, motioning us to follow. Once we had all stepped in, it closed behind us with a faint click. It was quite mostly dark and we felt puffs of air blow on each of us from head to toe while red laser lights swept over us. Finally a fine mist seemed to envelope us as we reflexively held our breaths.
A light gradually increased in intensity and another door opened, revealing a long shadowless corridor lined with low intensity lamps. As we followed her, we realized that it was hard to make out any energy signatures behind the walls. The odd cameras yes and slight magnetic variations too. We were encased by seemingly solid rock. Two hundred steps in, I estimated 600 feet, we came to a T junction and turned left. Third door on the right, she pushed on it and we were in a room with banks of large screens wall to wall. There were two AI bots running on rails along the keyboards and two humans sitting in an alcove above them looking toward the screens. Reflexively we reached out to assess them. They seemed open and calm. They waved and said, “welcome to Fenway Control Center.” Clearly they had a view of all the surrounding countryside in all the pertinent wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum. There were uplinks and downlinks from various satellites too.
Jongi said, “We have been careful to not upgrade or in any way change the level of surveillance over the area to clue in the Outlaw Badjans to anything as unique as a special operation taking place. Even their transports minus their pilots of course are sitting where they were left but tagged so we can follow them if they come to investigate or move them. We were all sniffed to ensure we brought no contamination in here and to sample our DNA, to ensure we are not disguised interlopers.”
She continued, “Tonight we will all stay in these underground bunkers here until we can ascertain what response the Badjans will have. By now they must have learned that their operation went awry. Their response we will watch and learn from too. One of the screens looked like a subway transport map from a major city with different colored lines. Obviously these were underground maps with entrances and exits and lots of sensors, to eavesdrop on movements, temperatures of bodies, engine sound, air currents, electrical and magnetic variations. Of course some of these sensors are known to the Outlaws. If and when convenient the sensors could be fed deliberately misleading information by them. It appeared that our AI could read those false inputs like a book and guess their game with help from other devices hopefully unknown to them.”
This was confirmation to me that we had in truth been bait. It had been a set up.
Jongi said aloud, “So yes we were fully aware of the trap they’d built between that narrow passageway and Breecher was positioned to watch how you all would cope with it. We knew when their kennels were triggered open to l
et out their vishes to attack and herd you toward their trap and how they’d camouflaged themselves in wait to pick you up; we couldn’t let on in any way that we knew. We did not want to let on that we knew they had hacked our internal communication nodes and were aware that you were on your way here. We wanted to find out how deep their hack went. Now we know and have chosen to leave certain doors open so we can feed them misinformation when it is deemed appropriate, while closing other doors to make them feel that that was how we got onto them.”
“So once again it has been wonderful the way you Six have helped us cleanup a good portion of this mess,” she said.
“ Now we are hoping you’ll agree to be trained further and give us some service for a few years to take care of some interplanetary problems too.”
I looked over at Jessi, and we stepped closer to each other and she gave me a quick squeeze mid arm as if to say ‘dream coming through.’
“ By the way folks, shall we call you from now on ’SIX’? Congrats on completion of your ‘Quest’! You are the first group to do so, of the whole batch who went through the Immersion this year and you did so with flying colors.”
Breecher cleared his throat, “Yes SIX congrats, we all very much look forward to assisting with your growth over the next ten days. You will be stretched and challenged so I’ll show you to your common room where your packs would already have been placed. You all must familiarize yourselves with this building now, escape hatches, security features and vulnerabilities. Then take some time for relaxation, entertainment and then sleep. Be ready at 0600am to meet, eat and discuss the day.”
After going over the schematics of the building, which really was a series of mountain caverns, with two shafts to go topside, one leading down into deep safe rooms with air tanks and wetsuits stacked in rows along the wall. To exit meant swimming through a flooded cave up through a grating and exiting up into a pond. The topside exits were very camouflaged and booby trapped should someone try to get in. There were also concealed offensive auto-cannons with self contained power supplies. These were in addition to the frontal entry that we had used earlier. All of the various warning systems and alarms were reviewed with egress procedures practiced. Breecher and Jongi wanted to make sure that we would not be vulnerable should the Outlaws stage an attack as they have done in the past at this facility and others. They were very good fighters and not to be underestimated. That is why we were moved from that vulnerable dormitory building that was originally meant to be our home.
We were then introduced to the folks who took three eight hour round the clock shifts monitoring the deliberately limited security apparatus, so that we could read their biologic signatures and thus differentiate friend from disguised foe. There were eight guards for this building and fifteen others spread out to cover the infirmary and three other installations making up the complex. Most of those we met via vid conferencing though. The infirmary where Gooch and his band were taken received particular attention. There were some very high tech medical devices including for the reprogramming process with two human technicians to operate them. Each building was designed to have its own power supply and communication systems with backups, thus making it harder for disruption to occur. Of course, the Outlaws could put down a suppressive anti- signal shield, so there were a few tunneled communication cables to remote sites 15 miles away that they may not know about. There were other options like laser signaling to satellites, but that wouldn’t work well if they exploded cloud bursts over us. However we had Jongi who could signal long distance to her bonded partner Choka. He could then arrange reinforcements like a couple of hypersonic killer robots.
The last thing we Six decided to do was run some scenarios ourselves. We enlisted Jongi’s and Breecher’s help and they in turn, after we had outlined our ideas to them, called up Commander Lister of the Security Department. He was so enthusiastic about it, that he involved his other twenty three men too, plus the monitoring personnel by video.
All Jongi said was, “My God, these people are weird. I was thinking of when I was just seventeen and feeling you’ve all had had enough for the day. You’ve been through some extraordinarily intense struggles for this day already and here I was thinking all you’d want to do is eat, drink, make merry and go to bed! Yet you people once appraised of the dangers, are having fun just play acting defensive and offensive scenarios. You are in a league all by yourselves. So let’s play.”
I allowed myself the indulgence of wondering if she could really remember way back to when she was seventeen, but I hopefully shielded that thought from her and I just it it die in my mind unshared.
Sitting in the living room, we each took turns being the aggressor and indicating what modes of attack we would use to fool the sensors and defenders. They could come rappelling down the escape shafts blowing open the buildings from the inside or sending modified cruise missiles through the known doors, then storming in for the extraction of Gooch and killing the defenders. I brought up the fact that simple execution of Gooch and his men would be an option with standoff missiles. In addition, I felt that we should not rule out that they may be able to come in as cloaked humans and or robots. They may have some secret powers like Breecher’s that they use sparingly.
All mechanisms of possible defense were reviewed. Some new strategies were devised. There were some tagging guns brought out of storage which shoots fluorescent paint blobs, useful to either directly make invisible coatings moot or to light up walls or dark corridors should power be cut. We rigged up rubber bands to their triggers since we would be able to teleport those and trigger them from a distance. We rigged up battery powered uv light bulbs with remote triggers to make stairways, escape doors and corridors visible. Multiple cameras with their own battery source connected by separate low voltage wiring taped to the side of corridors and along ceilings were setup. We set up very rudimentary low voltage wired clickers like the Telegraph Morse code of early human civilization with agreed upon emergency codes between buildings to our control room. It was so basic that even an electromagnetic pulse attack shouldn’t incapacitate it as no fancy electronics were involved. Thus it would be almost impossible for an invader to completely put down our surveillance and fight back ability. At least one to two laser cannons per corridor and exit with independent power supplies were put together. This took place in outlying buildings as well as our own.
At 11pm we as a group, with preparations now made, took a shower and crashed with one of us starting a shift of two hours. Mader took first shift with him plugged into the AI monitoring system. Gas masks were at hand as well as our tagging guns. Hopefully nothing will happen. We had gotten enough entertainment I suppose.
From deep sleep, I awoke to a loud thump. It took me a few moments to orient and a few more to react. My brain felt stretched out from tiredness. In what felt like an instant though, I was up as more huge thumps were felt and my colleagues were pulling shoes on. We were fully dressed anyway and grabbing those tagging guns, we all stood, calming ourselves and reaching out our senses. Cherese had just relieved Mader, she thought spoke to us, at 0100am and they were both in the control room and alert.
She said to us, “They came on cloaked tree hugging drones very fast and twelve rappelled down into our valley mostly on top of our infirmary and over our control building. Then their drone transports sent in guided bombs to destroy the gates and doors. We eliminated 12 of their people right away. Those dead ones seemed to have timed booby traps strapped on, so if any defenders had gone to their aid, kaboom! Now they’ve laid in some EMP device and put up a huge 10 mile cloud bank over us but we have already called in reinforcements. These backup units can see through the clouds somewhat, but are going to hold their fire. All our troops are safe and using the primitive clickers! They then dropped off thirty more attackers who are spread out and now heading for each building. We have triggered a few auto-guns set up around and inside the compound to distract and confuse them. Now we can be ready for any surprises. Everyone ne
eds to scan for cloaked fighters.”
Jongi and Breecher both replied that they were in on the update.
Two of SIX were in the control room already and so as agreed upon, two of us would go up each sets of topside stairways to the hill over our building. Dillion and I headed down the corridor carefully, up the stairs noting our low tech devices were still intact. He went up ahead of me, and he suddenly stopped, nose crinkling.
He thought-said, “Outside mountain air plus Badjan scent, alert stairway 1 level 4.”
We pressed ourselves against the wall readying our tagging gun and I could feel the Badjan’s heart rate and along with Dillion smell his sweat. We went into our zone and now his heat signature was visible no more than fifteen feet above us carefully stepping down the stairs, blaster pointed our way. The Badjan was good, very good. He probably didn’t know what hit him though as I let go of my tagger, propelled it to within five feet of his face before his eyes could focus and triggered it. At that close range the force of the liquid would have driven his eyeballs into his brain and death was instant. He reflexively pulled the trigger though, before his blaster clattered out of his hands down the stairs. Concrete and metal railing bits rained all over us but we emerged from the little nook that we had hidden behind and bounded up the damaged stairway. Dillion stood guard while I frisked the warm dead corpse for communicators and got one spare blaster off his belt. I loaded it up. “Not as nice as what Dad and I hunted with, but it will do.”
I lifted my head to see Dillion dart aside and I simply triggered the weapon blindly toward the open escape hatch door. It was completely dark, but I heard a grunt and a tumbling sound as if someone had fallen down the hill. Of course, in an instant I knew from what it sounded like, that it may be an attempt to delude us. Once I was sure Dillion was uninjured, I sent my senses out there. “Ha ha, someone was trying hard to control their breathing and heart rate but was standing just to the right of the entrance. They must have thrown their backpack down the hill to fool us. Nice.”
Outlaw Badjans (Six of Toigan) Page 7