“Military organization?” Had Fitz let something slip or had he sensed Denver had taken the bait?
“More coffee?”
“Please. This is good stuff.”
“It should be, Columbian, shade grown, and fair trade practices.”
“I feel better already. Now as to this whole us – they thing. Are you some sort of subcontractor? You find and screen recruits for this ‘they’ you mentioned.”
“Yes, that and more. I guess it will not hurt to at least tell you about us, but only if you promise to get some sleep. The next few days will be demanding.”
“Promise.”
“Okay.” Fitz took a deep breath. “What do you know about secret societies?”
“You mean like Masons or Knights Templar?”
“Something like that, but not so public.”
“Okay, so you are part of some secret society. What else can you tell me?”
“Have you ever heard of the great airship scare of 1896 and 1897?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“Our founders were quite wealthy, educated, understood technology, and were completely fed up with civilization, especially the hold the British and its banking establishment had on the world.”
“Now that’s the first thing you’ve said that I do understand.”
“Well, the banking family goes back to the late eighteenth century. A certain number of people rejected all that and the nation states it keeps in power and under its control.
“Originally, they were from Europe but went to the orient to escape. They began to develop new technology. The airship was part of it. However, their numbers were always small. Their technological advantage kept them safe and separate. Occasionally they would bring in a new member, especially women.”
“The rape of the Sabine Women?”
“Nothing quite so grandiose, I assure you.” He sipped at his coffee and continued. “We stayed well ahead of general society in technology until after World War II. Then they started to catch up. We had to do something.”
“Do something?”
“Do you remember the big UFO scare over Washington DC in the early 1950s?
“No, I was never into that sort of thing. You guys got flying saucers?”
“Well, they are not saucers, but we had aircraft well beyond your capability. We staged a big show over Washington and disappeared every time they sent up interceptors. They couldn’t touch us.”
“You’re not going to tell me that you were personally involved in this operation.”
“Goodness no, I wasn’t even born yet. But our people sent a powerful message; leave us alone or we will burn your capital cities to the ground with complete impunity.”
“Okay, smart guy, why didn’t you just conquer the world.”
“Number one, conquering is one thing, holding, securing, and administering is something quite apart. Surely you know this by now.”
“Boy, do I ever. Modern armies have proven ineffectual against insurgencies.”
“True, too bad the politicians never caught on, or they just liked keeping the military suppliers, supplying them with cash.
“Next, we are not conquerors. We just want to be left alone.”
“So that’s what this is all about. You are recruiting people for your extra-national organization.”
“No.”
“No? That means you are recruiting for someone else. That would be, ‘the other’ you alluded to, right?”
“Bingo.”
“But you can’t tell me about that yet.”
“Not yet.”
“I see a pattern here. You get in people that society does not want. That way you do not disturb any of the nation states. Why stir up the hornets’ nest?
“You seduce them with money, and then let them go after each stage if they do not make the cut or elect not to continue. Only after they elect to go on, do you offer more money for the next stage.”
“You are promoted to the head of the class.”
“No one is forced to do anything, and everybody gets paid. That way everybody’s happy.”
“That’s pretty much it.”
“Okay, you will not tell me who you are recruiting for, but it has to be either a government or some group like a terrorist group. Let me tell you up front, I will not do anything against our constitutional republic. You can throw my ass out of here right now if you want to.”
“That won’t be necessary. I swear that you will never be asked to do anything against your republic. In fact, in the long run, you will be helping the Republic. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Look, professor, it’s late, I’m tired, and we both have long days ahead. See you in the morning.” With that, he turned and walked away.
Denver took his cup back to his room and was soon sound asleep in the knowledge that the police could not touch him.
Strangely enough, he did not awaken early the next morning. He did not know at first where he was, but the sun flowing through the skylight helped him orient himself. He was no longer in the shelter.
Stepping from the shower, he quickly dressed and went to find some coffee. A couple of the others were already in the kitchen fixing themselves something. The sign over the sink read, “Your mother does not work here. Clean up after yourself.”
Fair enough. Light continental is more to my liking, not much cleanup and lots of greasy food in the morning just doesn’t work for me. At least, someone made coffee. Thank you whomever, he thought.
He took a seat away from the others but not so far away that he looked like he was trying to take a seat far away from them. He surreptitiously looked around. He noticed for the first time that there were people here who had not come in on his bus. He supposed they were already here or came from another shelter.
“I haven’t had a drink since we got here,” the one who went by Charlie was saying. “I could use one.”
“Me too, but nothing’s been offered, and I want to see where this thing is going. They keep paying, I’ll keep staying.” The conversation kept going on like this. Denver Smith said nothing.
Fitz came in smiling and looking well rested. He seemed more relaxed here than at the shelter. Was it because he was not sure of their safety from the cops or was it the smaller group?
“Morning everyone,” he began. “I knocked on all the doors, but some of you beat me here.”
“Where is here?” It was Charlie. The couple wandered in.
“Excellent question. We are in a facility my people have built especially for completing your physical and psychological evaluations.”
“Why?”
“Here we will find anything medically wrong with you that can’t be fixed. Those individuals, who do not make the cut, will be bused to a different city of their choosing, within reason.”
“Then what?”
“There will be one final test. If you pass, you will be made an offer.”
“When do we begin?” he asked.
“Now,” Fitz drained his cup. “Follow me.”
Fitz led the recruits out of the room and down the hall in a direction away from quarters. In a large room, they were put through what looked like an MRI, one at a time. Each procedure took about 20 minutes. After putting on a sort of hospital gown that closed in the back, each took his turn to lie on the table as it slowly moved past a large ring.
Fitz monitored the flat screen and nodded with approval every now and again until he came to Charlie. He went completely stone-faced. Then each individual went to a computer and took a battery of tests. The recruits quickly fell into a routine over the next few days.
After it was over, Fitz interviewed each candidate recruit again privately. It was the next day before he called in Smith.
He knocked even though the door was open. Fitz was s
itting at a terminal. It was a computer, the likes of which Denver had never seen. Fitz looked up and smiled.
“Come on in. I’ve got your results.” He walked over and sat across from Fitz at a low table.
“Okay, let’s get started. First your head. Mentally you rate above 85%.”
“Is that good?”
“Yes.”
“What does it measure?”
“Intelligence for one thing, with much greater confidence than the battery of tests you took before.” He took a moment to glance away from the screen and back again.
“It also attempts to make a stab at how emotionally stable you are. Your government has used tests like this for years to screen people who are to winter over in Antarctica. Apparently, the tests are not completely successful.”
“Then why are you doing it?”
“We like to think ours is better. Besides, we have a much better way to evaluate your mental and emotional stability.”
“How?”
“Stand by with that question till I give you the complete report. Now, look here.” With that, an image appeared floating above the table.
“Wow!” The figure floating about the table was Denver, quite lifelike in his hospital gown. He could even see himself breathing.
“Nice holographic you have.”
“Thanks, we’ve had it for a while. Getting the subsystems operating in real time, now that was hard.” Fitz began removing layers.
“No major skin or muscle problems. No tattoos. That’s unusual these days.”
“Never appealed to me.”
“Let’s look at the brain first. See this here?” He pointed to a blood vessel that glowed green.
“Yeah. Why is it different from everything else?”
“I’ve assigned that bright color to anything that might cause a problem at some point in time.”
“What you’re telling me is that I’m a candidate for a brain aneurysm.”
“I’m afraid so, but don’t worry, we can fix it.”
“How?”
“Well, this part my people put together, but the fixing, most of that came from elsewhere.”
“Elsewhere?”
“Yes, elsewhere.”
He just would not take the bait. “I don’t have any insurance.”
“Don’t worry, if you come to work for our client, that will not be a concern. Eyes, we can return to 20/20 in both eyes. We can even stop those cataracts.”
“Cataracts, what cataracts?”
“Oh, it happens often with age. Don’t worry, you only have the beginnings of them. Lungs appear to be in good shape.”
Denver sat and watched as his own lungs expanded and contracted.
“No scarring. Never smoked, huh?”
“No, the one vice I never developed.”
Fitz smiled. “Chasing women and drinking are not necessarily and of themselves vices.”
Smith laughed.
“Diaphragm seems okay, nothing there. Heart, you already have some plaque in those arteries. Too many burgers, huh?”
“But, you can fix it, right?”
“Oh yeah, and you’ll never have the problem again.”
“Why don’t you just patent this and share it with the world?”
“The world’s problems are the world’s problems. We take care of our own,” Fitz retorted more sharply than he meant.
“Okay, what else you got?”
“Circulation’s fine. You are a candidate for a hernia in your testes. No problem, many men are. We’ll fix that too.”
“I’m starting to feel like I’m falling apart.”
“No, you’re better off than a lot of people I see. So don’t worry, we’ll even fix your teeth.”
“Can you make them white and straight?”
“Yes we can, but no we don’t do plastic surgery.”
“But you could.”
“I guess so, but it just isn’t in our client’s interest how pretty you are. Look at this. You are probably going to get prostate cancer, oh thirty to forty years from now. We can stop that now.”
He looked up at Denver. “That is, if we offer you a contract, and you accept. Otherwise, the knowledge of yourself is free, but you need to take care of it, fair enough?”
“Would it matter?”
“Not really. All in all, I’m pleased with this.”
“Good. What do we do next?”
“Next, I will pay you and make you an offer on the last part of the selection phase.”
“Okay, offer away.”
“Right. Remember, I told you that we had a better way to determine your mental and emotional stability or mental toughness if you like?”
“Yeah, standing by,” Smith said crossing his arms and leaning back.
“The New Zealanders also have people winter over in Antarctica. They have this mountain you have to climb. If you’re tough enough, if you can push yourself, and keep going to the top, then they figure you can take a winter in Antarctica.”
“That works?”
“Better than written tests, I’m told. We have something in North America very similar with mosquitos, grizzly bears, mountain lions, bogs, and swollen streams – a thoroughly unpleasant place.”
“Sounds lovely.”
“Thought you’d like it. It pays $500, just to try. Make it to the top and you might have what we are looking for.”
“Then what?”
“Then no more holding back, no more obfuscating. We tell you the whole truth and make you an offer.”
Chapter 6: The Final Test
Passing on the eggs, he made himself a huge bowl of pasta. Then he cut up some fruit and stuffed it into whatever pockets he could and waited. Two others were missing. Guess they weren’t interested.
The level of whining had certainly gone down. The strung out looking people were gone as well. Charlie was missing; something about his liver, he had heard someone say. Bad break. There was the couple; they clung to each other. One female and three other guys were left. He had spoken to all of them in passing but not in depth or length.
Was it hard to make friendships under such circumstances or had they all become cynical and cold? Who knows? Who cares? For 500 bucks, and a chance to find out what was really going on, he would do about anything. Besides, I used to pay good money for a chance to get out in the wilderness like this; he thought to himself.
“I don’t think they will let us get away with carrying food like that,” the woman said from behind him. She had been one the people who were already here when his group arrived.
Smith did not even turn around. “How do you know we don’t get extra points for creativity and thinking for ourselves?”
“Just put it back.”
“No.”
She pouted.
Whatever, glad I don’t have that kind of baggage. Strangely, it had always been baggage to him. The helpmate in life had never come along, just something else to be carried.
Fitz came in. “Good morning everyone,” he said with the grin of someone who had set a practical joke and was waiting for it to be sprung.
“Everyone have all their belongings?” He looked around the room. “Don’t worry; you won’t have to carry them. Everything will be kept on the bus.”
Some bus, Denver thought. No wonder we have to be out before daylight.
They filed out single file, about twenty of them. The “bus” was waiting. This time, there were benches around the edge. With a soft hum, it lifted over the edge of the structure and quickly gained altitude, swung around, and swiftly headed north.
They arrived at their destination just after first light. In the distance, he saw snowcapped mountains. They were probably near the Rockies, possibly in the Northern U.S. or Canada, maybe even Alaska.
What he mi
ssed at first, was the low, broad, extinct shield volcano, until they lost some altitude. Not terribly steep, no technical climbing, just enough to wear out the weak-willed, which he understood was the purpose. Fine, let’s do it.
There were already three other buses, and another landed shortly. They filed out. The groups stared at each other like stray cats. Fitz obviously knew the other group leaders. He went over, and they spoke too low for Denver to hear.
One of the other leaders motioned everyone to gather around him. “Good morning. As you know, this is the final test. Get to the top and we make you an offer. If you don’t, we’ll pay you and drop you off with a bus ticket to the city of your choosing. Are there any questions?”
One guy raised his hand. What are the rules?”
“No rules, just get to the top by whatever means you can.”
“Are you going to drop us off at different locations so we can’t support each other?”
“No. You are going to start right up this mountain in a few moments. You will have your kit, containing a flare, only to be used if you give up, one canteen full of water, and a survival blanket. There should be puddles of water on the mountain. Be sure to use your purification tablets just in case.”
“Have you ever lost anyone,” another asked.
“Define lost.”
“Died.”
“Yes.”
“What do you do about that?”
“Bury him.”
“What about next of kin,” another asked under his breath.
Someone whispered, “None of us would be here if we had next of kin to help us.”
“Any more questions?” asked the leader.
Smith held his peace; any questions now were just nervous chatter, a pointless waste of time.
“How much time do we have?” It was the first nervous questioner.
“The day after tomorrow we go looking for the bodies. But it’s only about 20 miles or so to the top. You should finish today if you go hard at it. Now, line up for your belts, which contain your kits.”
When Smith got his he quickly went through its contents. Inside were the tablets, a blanket, water bottle, and a flare. Some of the others just strapped theirs on, no checking.
“Okay, good luck everyone. Off you go.” He pointed toward the top of the mountain, and the group surged forward. Some quickly pushed ahead of the others and raced off.
Hell Fighters from Earth Page 5