by Mike Kraus
“Keep it together, Dianne.” She whispered to herself as she stalked through the snow, checking the ground for footprints and the barns for any signs of a break-in. “Just keep it together.”
Chapter 7
The Waters’ Homestead
Outside Ellisville, VA
Steamed vegetables, macaroni and cheese and tilapia fillets made for an easy dinner for Dianne to cook. Once she and the children finished their meal she sat Mark and Jacob up with dish duty while she and Josie sat on the couch to read a book. While Josie sat and read the book aloud, Dianne half-listened, keeping part of her attention on the story and part on the tablet sitting next to her on the couch.
Views from the cameras pointed out from the house appeared and vanished from the screen as Dianne kept the camera app full-screened to better make out any and all details. Her rifle sat leaning up against the wall across the room while she felt the comforting bulge of her pistol pressing against her hip.
Dianne had originally thought that going through day-to-day life with a rifle and pistol on her and always on the ready for dangers would be a hard transition. In fact, though, it had been quite easy for her and for her children. Constant, gentle reminders to Jacob and Josie to always respect firearms ensured that the pair never went near the rifles she and Mark carried or the pistol that felt like it was an extension of her body.
When Mark and Jacob finished up with the dishes, she left Jacob and Josie to play in the living room while she took Mark to the front room to go over her plan for the evening. “Basically I want to play it safe for the next couple of nights. I’ll plan to stay up most of the night keeping watch, but I’d like you to sleep with your clothes and shoes on and be ready to jump up and help me if needed.”
“I can do that.” Mark nodded. “Are you expecting something bad?”
“Nah.” Dianne shook her head in what she hoped was a convincing manner. “That was the first person we’ve seen in a while, though, and he was pretty messed up. I want to stay extra vigilant without scaring your brother and sister.”
“Okay. Just let me know what to do.”
“Thanks, kiddo.” Dianne smiled and embraced Mark. “Sorry we’re going through this. I hate that you three are having to deal with everything.”
Mark shrugged. “It’s okay. I don’t think Josie even notices. And Jacob is… in his own world.”
Dianne chuckled. “That he is. He looks up to you, though. I’m proud of you for how much you’ve stepped up and how many responsibilities you’ve been taking on.” Mark lowered his head and mumbled a thank you as he tried to avert his face. “No, I’m serious, kiddo.” Dianne tugged on Mark’s chin and looked him in the eye. “You’re doing a great job. Your dad would be proud of you, too.”
Mark abruptly sat down on the narrow wooden bench in the front entry. “When do you think he’ll be home?”
Dianne eased down into the space next to Mark and put her arm around him. He leaned into her and she could feel his chest heaving as he tried to hold back his tears. “I’m not sure, kiddo.” Dianne whispered to him, putting her head on his and holding him tightly. “I wish I knew.”
“Do you think he’s… gone?”
Dianne shook her head and sighed deeply. “No.”
“How do you know?” Mark sat up and quickly wiped a tear from the corner of his eye.
Dianne smiled, letting the tear fall freely from her eye and cut a line down her cheek. “Faith, kiddo. Faith.”
***
Hours later, after Mark, Jacob and Josie were in their beds, Dianne sat on the stairs with the tablet by her side. The house was quiet aside from the creaks and groans from the appliances that were quietly sipping power from the backup batteries and the drips of water from the snow slowly melting on the eaves. Dianne had spent just over three hours watching the cameras on the tablet before setting it down to take a short break. With her head leaning against the rails of the stairs, Dianne didn’t even realize that she was drifting off to sleep until a strange noise roused her from her slumber.
“What the hell?” Dianne mumbled to herself as she sat up straight on the stair. Pain shot through her rear end and she shifted on the uncomfortable wood plank to try and find a more comfortable position. She wasn’t sure what the noise was that had awoken her but as each of her senses adjusted to her awakened state she felt the hairs on the back of her neck start to rise.
Something wasn’t right in her house.
Dianne looked down at the tablet and tapped the button to go back to the multi-camera view. On the screen, all of the cameras outside the house looked normal. She studied each image intently, listening to the sounds of the house as she tried to figure out what had woken her. The sharp clink of broken glass came a few seconds later and Dianne stood up, her eyes wide as she waited for any further sounds.
When none immediately came Dianne picked up the tablet and backed up the stairs until she was at the top, then swiftly entered the room where Mark was sleeping. A few taps on his chest was all it took to rouse him and when he saw the rifle in her hands and the look in her eyes he was out of bed and on his feet in an instant.
“Mom? What is it?”
“Somebody’s in the house. Stay here, at the top of the stairs. I’m going down to check it out. Don’t come down unless you hear me telling you to do so. Keep an eye on the outside cameras and through the windows, too.”
Dianne tossed the tablet onto Mark’s bed before moving back out into the hall. She moved down the stairs quickly, taking each step with the practiced ease of someone who knew exactly where every squeak was. When she reached the bottom of the stairs she stopped and listened. While she expected to hear the sound of more glass breaking or the grunts and shuffling of someone rummaging through drawers in the house, she heard nothing except the soft hum of the refrigerator.
After drawing her pistol, Dianne placed her rifle on a high shelf near the bottom of the stairs. While the rifle was good at a distance, the long barrel would be cumbersome while clearing the rooms as she had learned after her last experience of checking the house. With the very clear presence of someone in or around their dwelling the last thing she wanted to worry about was getting the rifle caught on a doorframe or having someone grab it before she could fire.
Keeping the pistol close to her chest, Dianne padded through the main floor of the house, going from room to room as quickly as she dared. Each empty corner she checked was a welcome sight and in less than two minutes she confirmed that the main floor and basement were clear of intruders.
“What on earth?” Dianne shook her head as she went into the dining room and saw bits of broken glass lying on the floor next to the window looking out the front of the house. She pulled back the curtains to reveal a small hole knocked into the window and a piece of firewood lying on the floor that had been tossed through the glass.
“Dammit!” Dianne cursed herself for, in all of her preparation, forgetting one of the most obvious points of entry into the house. With nothing protecting the windows from the outside world anyone could easily gain entry into the house in spite of the locked doors.
After moving back to the entryway, Dianne grabbed her rifle and started to head outside when she heard Mark trying to get her attention. “Pst! Mom!” Mark whispered down to her from the top of the stairs.
“What is it?”
“There’s a guy on the cameras running down the driveway.”
“Towards the house or away?”
“Away.”
“Stay here and open a window upstairs. Holler down if anything changes.”
Dianne moved out onto the front porch and crouched next to one of the pillars, squinting as she tried to see the figure running down the drive. While the cameras had the benefit of infrared spotlights and detectors her eyes did not and all she could see were shadows from the moon and clouds as they passed by overhead.
After waiting outside the front door for several more minutes Dianne crept down the length of the porch until she was s
tanding in front of the broken window. Snow and ice were scattered across the porch along with large drops of dark red blood. Dianne resisted the temptation to examine the scene more carefully with her light as she didn’t want to fully reveal her position in case the perpetrator was still out in the woods watching her beyond the sight of the cameras.
Dianne headed back inside the house and upstairs to where Mark was sitting in the hallway watching the tablet. Dianne kneeled down next to him and looked at the screen. “He went up the driveway, eh?”
“Yeah. He was walking funny, too. Like that guy from earlier.”
Dianne clenched her jaw, resisted the urge to curse in front of her son. “All right. It doesn’t look like he got in the house. There’s a piece of firewood on the floor inside and some blood on the porch. He probably cut himself and got scared and ran off.”
“What should we do?”
“The sun will be up in a couple hours. We’ll have to get some lumber and nails from the barn and seal up the downstairs windows so this can’t happen again. You should get back to bed for now, though. Try and get a bit of sleep.”
Mark nodded and stood up before heading back to bed. He kicked off his shoes and flopped down, falling asleep seconds after his head hit the pillow. Dianne took the tablet and went back to sit on the stairs. Unlike before, however, she wasn’t tired at all and she doubted that she would be sleeping well for a very long time.
Chapter 8
Somewhere in Utah
After passing briefly through Arizona Rick found himself in Utah, continuing on along Interstate 15. He stuck to the main road as much as possible but frequently found himself having to either take alternate routes or go off-road when passing through towns and cities. The high volume of destroyed vehicles sitting in the road played havoc with the Humvee which was substantially more difficult to drive and maneuver through tight spaces than the SUV Rick had picked up in Los Angeles.
While on a back road trying to get back to the Interstate Rick came across a large, formerly well-maintained gas station. The pumps had caught fire and burned down but the building looked intact and Rick decided to stop and see what they might have in the way of clothing and food. He drove around the building slowly, watching through the windows for any sign of movement. When none came he parked behind the station and hopped out, taking a rifle and pistol with him.
The air was still chilled and he shivered again as he moved into the building, checking each corner as he went. A flashlight was attached to the end of the rifle and he flicked it on once he got fully inside. The illuminated interior was a complete disaster and looked like a herd of elephants had stampeded through the place. Shelves were knocked over, food and other supplies were trampled on the floor and the drink cases had their glass doors smashed in. Behind the counter the cigarette displays had been torn apart by people stealing as many cartons as they could get their hands on.
Rick wrinkled his nose at the smell of rotting milk and meat as he stepped gingerly through the mess in the store. He scanned the ground and the few upright shelves for anything of use, but anything that hadn’t been taken was either crushed to bits or torn open and rotting. Dismayed and disappointed, Rick started to head towards the back door to the building when a pile of tipped-over boxes caught his eye near the front.
He crouched down over the stack of boxes and picked one up, turning it over to see the front. “GPS, eh?” Rick raised an eyebrow as he looked out the front window at the darkening sky. “I doubt any satellites are still working. But maybe…hm.” Rick took the box back outside to the Humvee and sat in the driver’s seat. He opened it up and popped the included batteries into the back of the unit and switched it on. A pleasant chime accompanied a woman’s voice as a greeting while the device initialized. When it began searching for a signal Rick stepped back out of the Humvee and held it flat in the palm of his hand, staring up at the sky.
“There’s no way you’ll pick anything up. No possible way.” After a few minutes of waiting for the device to try and locate any GPS signals the unit flashed an error message on the screen.
No GPS signal acquired. Defaulting to static maps. Please try to re-acquire GPS signal later.
Rick grinned at the error message text and got back into the Humvee, setting the GPS unit on his leg as he turned the vehicle back on. “Now that’s what I’m talking about!” As he pulled out of the gas station he manipulated the touchscreen with his fingers, zooming in and out to see the level of detail offered by the device. It appeared to contain details for the entire country down to the smallest street and back-country roads. It was possible that the maps were a few years out of date but having something was better than nothing.
A thought passed through Rick’s head and he slammed on the brake pedal, put the Humvee into reverse and stopped in front of the gas station’s front entrance. He hopped out, picked up the rest of the intact boxes and threw them into the back of the Humvee before getting back in and continuing on his way. He hadn’t seen any batteries in the store but since the units each came with a set he figured it would be a good idea to have as many as possible along with a spare unit in case the first one he picked up got broken.
Using the unit’s street search feature it only took Rick another ten minutes of driving to find his exact location on the map. Zooming out he saw that the road he was on would turn north soon as he went deeper into Utah but if he passed through Fishlake National Forest he could cut east onto Interstate 70 and head directly for Colorado. It wasn’t the most direct easterly route he could have taken from Nellis but under the circumstances it was the best he could manage.
Rick stared at the screen as he zoomed out, the roads and highways disappearing as state borders and names were drawn. He felt like he had traveled so far already but Virginia was still so distant. The view of the vast distance he still had yet to cross made him feel like an insignificant speck, breaking down the mental barrier he had put up to try and keep from worrying about his family back home.
He slowed the Humvee to a stop in the middle of the road and closed his eyes, sighing deeply as he tried to keep his emotions under control. “We can do this.” Rick whispered to himself. “We can do this. They’re okay. Dianne’s okay, Mark’s okay, Jacob’s okay and Josie’s okay. We can do this. We can get home.” Squaring his shoulders, Rick gritted his teeth and grabbed the steering wheel with an iron grip.
“I’m coming home.”
Chapter 9
Three days after the Event
Mount Weather, Virginia
“Will someone please tell me why the hell I wasn’t informed about this… this weapon?!” The Vice President of the United States, deep within a bunker at Mount Weather, is furious. He paces the conference room like a lion, pouncing on every hesitant answer as he struggles to understand what is going on.
“The development of Damocles was classified at the highest level, sir. The President himself had limited knowledge of the weapon until—”
“I don’t give two shits what information you held from the President. Have you even heard from Air Force One?”
A man near the end of the table looks around nervously. “No sir. Not yet.”
“Then you’d better give me some answers right now. What is Damocles? Why was it developed? How did it get loose? How do we stop the damned thing?”
A report given to the President six days before the event is produced by another man at the table and copies are passed around. The Vice President snatches one up and flips through it, then shakes his head and tosses it back on the table. “I don’t have time to read this shit right now. Give me what I need to know to make a decision.”
“Well, sir.” A man near the end of the table clears his throat. “Damocles originated as a privately-developed system to experiment with advanced command and control techniques.”
“In English?”
“Damocles knows how to talk to just about any device or system that has a computer. It knows this because it’s a learning system. I
t teaches itself based on human and computer interactions and learns how to find and exploit weaknesses in systems.”
The Vice President narrows his eyes. “You mean it’s just a computer virus?”
The man speaking looks around the table nervously. “Damocles is to a computer virus what we are to chimpanzees. A computer virus—even the best and most well-designed one—is a bulky, unwieldy tool compared to Damocles. The power of Damocles is that it constantly alters itself depending on the system it attacks. It can change and alter itself to attack… well, as I said, sir. Anything.”
“Why, exactly, was a private entity developing such a thing?”
More nervous looks. “Damocles didn’t start out as a weapon, per se. The NSA bought out the project, classified it and then went to work with the CIA under the umbrella of a new project called Cerberus. They turned Damocles into… well, Damocles.”
“Christ. So the spooks created this? For what purpose?”
Another man, farther up the table, answers. “For the protection of our country, sir.”
“Well it doesn’t look like that went all that well, now does it?!” The Vice President explodes, slamming his palms down on the table. “We’re not going to have a country left if this shit keeps going on! How did this thing get loose anyway?”
“There was a break-in. A virtual break-in. A system in the Cerberus network was compromised. That system happened to be linked to the development systems where Damocles was being tested and the source code was housed. The code was downloaded and then we believe it was compiled and inadvertently activated by whomever broke into the system.”