Eugenic Reprisal (Halcyon Gate Book 2)

by J. M. Preiss

  "Good," Lisa nodded. "We can go see her, and I have the sinking suspicion that she might have a suitor calling that night as well. She's already 24. It's entirely out of the norm for her to not be married yet, but apparently her parents never did set up a marriage contract with any of the families that they knew. Can you believe that she has to go about meeting an eligible bachelor the old way?"

  Jacob stared at his plate and ate some more.

  "I can't even begin to imagine where she'd be able to meet a suitable person. Everybody that we know is either spoken for in a standing contract or married. She assures me that I have nothing to worry about, that she'll find somebody, but I do have my concerns."

  Lisa set down her fork and lightly wiped the corners of her mouth with a napkin before placing it back in her lap.

  "People are starting to talk, and I'm not comfortable with what they are saying. I want Betty to find someone for her. She deserves the happiness, but oh, she says that she enjoys the single life. I don't know what there is to enjoy about it. You know she doesn't get to have nearly as much as we do," Lisa prattled on. "But of course you know that. You work for the government, and we were taught in school how the economy works. Only families are warranted the extra rations on top of those that two individuals would get."

  Jacob laid his fork down and looked at the perfectly cleaned play before him. It was an acceptable dinner.

  "When are we going to have children, Jacob?"

  Jacob blinked in slight surprise. Children? He had never thought about being a father.

  "I've always wanted to be a mother," Lisa said as she looked away shyly and twirled a strand of hair between the fingers of her right hand. "Just think about the pitter-patter of little feet around the apartment. The joy of having a son or daughter look into your face with unconditional love. Just the thought of it gives my heart a flutter."

  Jacob looked inward. He knew that it was a part of his marriage contract to Lisa to give her children, but ever since he had enlisted, he had put those thoughts behind him. So he thought. He wondered if he had really put the thoughts behind him or they had been repressed by his training. It didn't matter. He has a standing order to cover this.

  "I'm unable to give you children until my enlistment is up," he said mechanically. "Even if it would bring the two of us joy, I am under strict orders to do no such thing until authorized by my superiors."

  Lisa looked hurt.

  "I don't understand," she said. "All of the other families I know had prior approval as part of their marriage contracts. They didn't need any permission. Oh, sure, they needed permission if they wanted to go beyond what was stated and approved of in the contract, but I'm not familiar with anybody being told that they couldn't have children. That seems almost barbaric to me."

  "I don't know why I have those orders," Jacob said. "I can't say that I understand it either, but understanding is not required. I follow my orders to the letter. That is what is expected of me, so that is what I am going to do."

  "Of course," Lisa said with defeat in her voice. "I know that it is important to you that you follow your orders, and it is important to me as well. I just wish that there was some leeway in them, some wiggle room. You never seem happy."

  "No, I can't say that I am ever happy," he agreed.

  "Or sad for that matter," Lisa added.

  "Or sad," Jacob nodded. "My training was complete. I am better able to do what they need me to. It protects people. It protects you."

  "But it destroys you in the process," Lisa said. "I can't agree with that, but I feel powerless to change that."

  "That is because you are powerless in that regard."

  A new twinge of hurt flashed across Lisa's face.

  "I'm going to bed," she said with tears in her voice. "You can clean up the apartment and sleep on the couch when you are done."

  "I can do that," Jacob said calmly as he stood up, picked up the dishes, and carried them over to the kitchenette.

  Lisa stood up and ran off into the bedroom. She closed and locked the door behind her. Jacob could hear sobbing.

  It caused him to pause for a moment. A part of him didn't like hurting Lisa in this way, but it was a small part that was at total odds with what he was trained to do. He was trained to protect people and stop any threats before they became real. Sometimes that meant hurting those closest to him.

  Chapter XIII

  They had made it into the lift without any problem. Upon passing the room they had locked those that confronted them earlier in, they saw that the door was still firmly shut. Content that the makeshift response had not gotten out, Mason and Jacob had continued on into the lift.

  Once the doors had closed, Mason looked to Jacob.

  "I'm going to keep making this point clear. I'm not comfortable in this place," he said. "All of the information that we are learning - the emptiness here, the people in stasis chambers - it just doesn't add up."

  "We just don't have enough information," Chelsea said over the channel for all to hear. "There is going to be a reasonable explanation for all of this. We already learned a little bit about what's going on."

  Jacob pushed the button that Sara said to him mentally, and then he turned to face Mason.

  "She's right. We know that this is essentially some kind of fallout shelter for whatever it is that is coming. They're seeing quakes on the Moon. There are tremors down here that they are unable to explain as coming from normal sources. They feel that this is their only chance of survival."

  "I don't like it," Mason said. "Surely there has to be some other solution available."

  "Maybe there is," Sara replied.

  Mason sighed in defeat.

  "You're right. I'm just getting really worked up over all this," he said as he tried to rub the back of his head but had his hand bounce off of the helmet. "My mind is a massive jumble of emotions that I don't quite understand."

  Mason turned square to Jacob.

  "We could be the whole reason for all of this. What we did may have doomed the entirety of Humanity."

  "I don't want to jump to that conclusion," Jacob responded. "We went to the future, right? Things may be different there, but we're still around."

  "You mean that Adam is still around," Mason corrected him. "People are his pawns there. He's supreme dictator."

  "Maybe," Jacob said. "But we did get help from people that were against him. He can't control everything. He doesn't seem to have that kind of power."

  Mason simply shook his head as the lift continued on.

  When the lift reached the level with the hangar, the doors silently glided open. The warning lights still flashed, and off in the distance, a blaring klaxon could be heard. An acrid, black smoke billowed along the ceiling, driven by an invisible current of air.

  "I think we found the area where the explosion took place," Mason offered.

  Jacob nodded and signaled for Mason to take up position behind him. Looking both ways down the corridor, Jacob shot back into the lift and pulled Mason with him. A drone zipped past, in a hurry to get wherever it was that it was going.

  Leaning forward again, Jacob saw nothing in the corridor. He jumped across to the other side and covered for Mason to follow suit. Once they were both out of the lift, the doors silently slid shut, and it whisked away to another location in the facility.

  "Which way?" Jacob asked Sara.

  An arrow showed up in the top middle of the heads up display for both Mason and Jacob.

  "We go that way," Sara said.

  They headed off in the indicated direction. It was more of the same, empty corridors and locked rooms. The only thing that broke the eerie silence of it all was the ever increasing sound of the klaxon, but that only seemed to rattle Mason more. He started to have flashbacks of New York.

  Chapter XIV

  The alarm klaxon had been silenced when they entered the complex. His teams moved in unison as they advanced on the last known location of the terrorists.

  Terrorist
s in a time like today. Worse yet, they were holding the entire city hostage.

  Mason silently cursed at them.

  "First platoon," he said over the command channel. "Move up to position alpha. Second platoon, continue on mission to point bravo and report on the disposition of hostile forces. Third platoon, I want you to follow first platoon to alpha and set up a forward post."

  "Confirmed, Captain," his three lieutenants responded.

  "What do we know, sergeant?" Mason asked the man beside him on his local channel as the company leapt into motion.

  "Not much, sir," the man in silver armor matching the rest of the troops responded. "Command still hasn't updated the mission briefing beyond what we were given when we first entered the facility. They think that it is just a group of radicals that are trying to make a statement, nothing more."

  "Everyone wants to make a statement, sergeant, most of all terrorists," Mason chided. "That's why they are terrorists. They have an agenda that deals with bringing down what they see as an offense to their very nature."

  Sighing, Mason fingered his laser rifle, his hand tracing out the various components.

  "Get on the line to Central and see if they can't dig up some more information. We're going into this blind, and I need something more to make sure we properly deal with this threat. They have a reactor for Heaven's sake. Also, find out how long it takes for one of those things to go critical. I also want to know what kind of warning we will be given in the event of a critical reaction."

  "Sir," the sergeant said as he we over to converse with some of the other members of Mason's command.

  Mason called up a map of the facility that they were in. Superimposing his troops' locations as they moved towards their objectives, he tried to make sense of a plan of attack. They had just entered the facility to no resistance. There weren't even forward observers for whatever terrorist group was deeper in. He felt reassured that these were just amateurs that got lucky, but he tried to make a habit of disagreeing with the assessment of his superiors.

  Lifting his chin up, he rubbed at the protective suit on the side of his neck. The things always seemed to chafe him in the worst possible times.

  "Captain, we've got some information for you," the sergeant said as he returned.

  "Report," Mason responded.

  "Central agrees with their early assessment that this is a splinter group from one of the major terrorist factions operating in the third world. They are as of yet unable to ascertain which group they are a member of, but it is their consensus that such information is unimportant. None of the third world terrorist groups have ever attempted such a bold attack on a Habitation Complex before. "

  Mason nodded and waved for the sergeant to continue.

  "The disposition of the hostile forces is unknown. All exterior access to the security feeds has been severed, and it would appear that the feeds went dark before the attack took place. Analysts are trying to piece together what they can, but they don't want to make any guesses as to what we are going to face. Central is of agreement that we will see nothing more than civilian recreation weapons, but they are pouring over recent replicator calls to see if somebody hacked military small arms."

  Mason didn't like what he heard. Going in blind was part of his job description, you never could have all of the information when you needed to make a decision on the spot, but he really wished that he had something more to go on. These were his soldiers, his men. Were he not their commanding officer, they might even have been his friends. The fondness he felt for them was only shadowed by the love he felt for his wife and daughter.

  "What about the information regarding the reactor itself," he asked.

  "Central has put in a call to facility technicians that were off-site at the time of the attack to get some on-scene; however, they only have initial technical information to go over right now. They have told us that once the reactor is put into overload status, we have ten minutes until it is able to build up a sufficient charge to detonate. At any point after the overload has commenced, it will be unstoppable except by a containment purge. Central commands that it does not get to that point."

  "Very good. Thank you, sergeant," Mason said.

  The sergeant saluted and went back to the rest of the command unit to continue going over intelligence as it came in.

  "Baker Actual, Baker Two, over," a voice came in across the company channel.

  "Go ahead, Baker Two," Mason responded.

  "Baker Two, no sign of tangos, over."

  Mason looked at the overlay he had and zoomed in on the position of his second platoon.

  "Baker Actual, secure position and perform additional recon."

  "Baker Two, confirmed, out."

  Mason shook his head. It didn't make any sense why they hadn't seen at least a sentry of some kind. Security feeds were said to be dead. The facility had been locked down and evacuated when the terrorists took it over. Surely they would have run into something by now.

  "Sergeant," Mason called over to his command staff. "Let's prepare and move on up to position alpha. I want to get access to the security feeds. We need to find these terrorists before something bad happens."

  "Sir," the sergeant said and saluted. He turned to talk to the others, they all nodded, and then they started off in front of Mason.

  Mason fell into step behind them. He was busy looking over the overlay map and the positions of his troops once more. They hadn't covered the entire facility, Central said that they had no need since all of the entrances to the facility had entered lockdown, but it didn't sit well with Mason. He needed more men.

  "Baker Actual, Baker One Actual, over."

  "What is it, Jonathan?" Mason asked.

  "Something about this is striking me as off," he said. "We should have run into something by now. Everything is quiet up here. Nelson is trying to patch into the computer systems, but it all seems to be down."

  "Understood. We're en route and will be at your position in two. Keep Private Ramirez working on getting into the system. Anything we can get will be useful to us."

  "Roger, out," Jonathan responded.

  Mason scratched at his neck again. Nothing was sounding right to him.

  "Sergeant," he said over the local channel. "Do any of you have theories as to why the entire network would be down even on the inside?"

  There was a brief silence, and Mason could see the heads of the men in front of him bobbing as they conversed with each other.

  "No, sir," the sergeant replied. "We can't really think of a specific reason as to why the network would be down that fits with what we were briefed on. It would stand to reason that they would be able to temporarily shut down the computer network; however, we were given the access codes to reboot the system once we had made it inside. According to the intelligence that we were provided with, that would be possible from any primary computer location including position alpha."

  Mason didn't like where this was going.

  "Alright. Do any of the terrorist networks that we know of have the capability of bringing down a network to this degree?"

  There was some more silence as the men talked again.

  "It is possible, sir, that they acquired an inside informant or agent that was able to permanently disable the network."

  "Follow up that lead. Contact Central and get them to comb over ration expenses and account information for all personnel involved with the running of this facility. See if there are any anomalous transactions that took place."

  "Sir," the sergeant acknowledged.

  An inside man would make the job of taking down the network a lot easier, Mason thought to himself, but that would mean that the terrorists had been planning this for a lot longer than what was initially anticipated. It was in the realm of possibility that this had been planned over the course of many months if not years. What was the purpose of this?

  Mason and his command team entered into the outer security station for the reactor facility. There wasn't a
ll that much to it, being the outer security station. It only had a handful of monitors that watched over the access points, and there was a computer where employees had to login before being allowed further into the facility. All of the camera feeds were blanked out in a white snow. The computer system was unresponsive.

  "Sir, we've been unsuccessful in accessing anything beyond the local computer system. The network appears to have been physically severed at the mainframe. All wireless backups are not responding to handshake requests. There seems to be an ECM signal emanating from further in the facility that we were initially unaware of. It isn't interfering with our communication systems due to their nature; however, anything else is blanked out, including civilian personal communication devices. It's a wonder we even caught wind that this was going down."

  The soldier that had spoken looked young. Mason mused about how it was probably still his first tour, but he was doing well for himself. The young man had the rank of corporal emblazoned on the shoulders of his armor.

  "Very well, corporal. See if you can punch through the interference to learn something new. I want a signal analysis of the interference that is shrouding this facility. Maybe we can learn more about them based on the equipment that they are using," Mason said as he looked over information that was being displayed on his HUD.

  The corporal saluted swiftly and went back to his fire team.

  These police actions wore on Mason at times, but he was glad that he was able to make a difference. It sure beat whatever his father was going to cook up for him. The thought of being apprenticed out for one of the art trades was not the most appealing, even to this day.

  "Lieutenants," Mason said, beckoning the two men standing in a corner conversing. "What are your thoughts?"

  "I don't know, sir," the first one to speak said. He had a gravelly voice indicative of a nasty smoking habit. "Jacobsen and I were just discussing that. He has a theory that I don't in anyway agree with, but I don't have anything to offer up in lieu of it."

  "Go ahead, Jacobsen," Mason said openly.

  "Sir," Lieutenant Jacobsen responded. "I've been hearing rumblings in the ranks about the Specs. It seems that they've been mobilizing to take on some kind of new threat that has appeared in Africa. There are also whispered reports of a renewed conflict taking place in South America."