The Collapse Trilogy (Book 2): Escape and Evade

by Rod Carstens

  “Have you changed the factors that can compound those figures, like climate change, water stress, and population instability?”

  “Yes, but we don’t have the dynamics and system tuned correctly, apparently. Given you designed the program, that is why we need you back so badly. The Council has not been pleased with their six-month and year projections. They don’t trust them enough to make the decisions that need to be made.”

  Rule looked at Ashton. If the Council was not pleased, then he knew Geoff’s and Ashton’s heads were on the block. Literally.

  “Who is head of the Council now?”

  “Madelyn Holm.”

  Rule raised his eyebrows. “I knew her when she had just been appointed as a district representative.” To now be the Council chairwoman meant quite a climb to the top, Rule thought. She must have left quite a few bodies in her wake.

  “Wow, Doctor. This feedback loop on water is neat, but if you add…” Morgan said and typed in several lines of code.

  “Now, wait…” Ashton began, and then, seeing the results, he said, “Well, now it does seem to work better that way.”

  “The word is ‘elegant,’ Ashton,” Rule said. “As I said, she was born to this.”

  “As much as I'd like to stand here and watch you three talk about computer code, I’m exhausted and would love a shower before I lie down. Father, do you mind if I leave you three to it?” Cat said.

  Rule was surprised at how good an actress Cat was. That was exactly what Julia would have said.

  “No, dear. Go ahead. I won’t be far behind you.” Turning to Ashton, he said, “I think we’re good for the time being, Ashton. Why don’t we begin again in the morning?”

  “Fine, sir. There are clean clothes in there for you. I will order some for your daughter and Morgan and have them sent up in the morning.”

  “Thank you, Ashton.”

  Ashton walked out, and Rule was left with Morgan. They exchanged a glance but didn’t say anything. Rule had instructed both Cat and Morgan that they would be under constant surveillance while they were in the City. Anything they said or did would be recorded and studied.

  “How ya doing, kiddo?” Rule said.

  “Gosh, Doctor. This is great work and fascinating. I’ve never seen code so exciting.”

  “You going to stay up and play?”

  “Yep, you got it right, Doctor. I’m going to pull an all-nighter for sure with this stuff. It doesn’t get any better.”

  Rule looked into that pretty young face and wished her future held many all-nighters, instead of a return to the zones. Her talent was a special one that was not going to be as useful as it could have been just a generation ago. He stood behind her for some time, watching her study the program and making subtle changes that improved it's performance. After a while, he thought he would go and see if Cat was finished with her shower. He was exhausted.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Tanner had made the last of his rounds checking the the security posts and was walking down the concourse to Rule’s quarters to check on how they were doing in the City when it struck him. He was walking through what amounted to a real community. On his right were the Chans, a family with two kids. Linda was putting the children to bed by candle and hurricane-lamp light. The warm golden light gave a feeling of normality that Vin had not felt for a long time. The next store was a dorm for single men. Several were playing cards and laughing while others slept. A young couple walked by holding hands, probably looking for a place to be alone.

  He had never really been in this kind of peaceful existence before. Even as a child with his parents, life had been much harder, and their living spaces had never been nearly as clean and well organized as this was, despite his mother’s best efforts. He tried to relish every second of this time, because he didn’t know how long it would last if Rule was right.

  Out of the dark of the concourse, Blondie appeared and came up to him.

  “You just get off duty?” Vin asked.

  “Yeah. Heading to get some sleep.”

  Blondie looked a hundred times better than when he had found her. Because she was eating regularly and had Danielle’s care, her wounds had healed well. Her blonde hair was growing out, and he could see how pretty she was now.

  “Look, I wanted to say something to you,” Blondie said. “I wanted to say thanks. I never said it, and I needed to say it.”

  “You know you’ve already said things to me. In the way you’ve found your place here. The way you’ve handled yourself taking on jobs and missions others couldn’t or wouldn’t take on. Working with the children when you’re not on duty or out on a mission. No, all of that was the best way you could have thanked me, and you have.”

  Blondie looked at him for a long moment before she said, “I still wanted to say it out loud. I wouldn’t have had the chance to do it if you hadn’t freed me.”

  “Okay, you’re welcome.”

  “Look, about Cat and me…”

  “Cat and I care about each other, but that’s been over for a while. No worries. Good luck.”

  Blondie and Vin exchanged a glance. Blondie smiled and said, “I’m going to need it. She’s a handful.”

  “Don’t I know it. Have a good night.”

  They went their separate ways as Vin headed for Rule’s quarters. He pulled the blanket aside and entered. Julia Rule was on duty at the portable computer. They had organized watches so any messages from the three in the City would not be missed. He and Julia had worked a lot together lately, planning the bugout. She was smart and had a great feel for organization, and the plan had come together quicker with her help.

  “Look who’s got the late watch,” Vin said.

  “Right back at ya. Do you ever sleep?”

  “I don’t need much. Just checking the security. Any word yet?”

  “Yeah. They’re safe and in an apartment in the Resource building.”

  “Great. Explain again how they’re able to send messages without security finding out.”

  “Simple. There is an old secure Internet program called TOR that was developed for spies and government agents overseas back in the day. It’s still around and still works, if you know where to find it. It encrypts any message through a number of different servers, again and again until it even encrypts the original IP address, so anyone trying to trace it can’t. It does this by hopping from one server to the next up to a thousand times, so it’s secure enough no one, not even Internal Security, can determine where it came from or where it went.”

  “That's all gibberish to me. We never had a computer or the Internet. We weren’t rich enough.”

  “You know, we’ve never talked about your background. How did you end up on the teams?”

  “Long story short, Mom and Dad worked on the City’s seawall. You know how dangerous that is. Backbreaking work for little pay or rations. Mom was killed in a construction accident when I was about ten. So I went to work on the wall with Dad until I took the tests at sixteen. I scored high enough to get offered a job on the Resource teams. Dad was really proud of me; he was killed in an accident not long after we found out. I took it and was on the teams for the next ten years. Then I stumbled onto you guys, and the rest is history.”

  “You didn’t just stumble onto us. You saved us from the Spec Act Team. You had it pretty good—a job others would kill for, rations. What made you do what you did?”

  Vin looked at Julia. He had never discussed this except with Cat and Matos. He wasn’t sure if he could put it into words.

  “We did things that we thought were justified because it was for the greater good. You know, making sure the resources that were left were distributed equitably to all the people. But things began to change—slowly at first then more and more as time went on. Until what we were doing didn’t make sense if you looked at the big picture. They were squeezing the people at the bottom so those on top could have what they wanted no matter what it cost. Well, the last mission, the one where you met the
others and me, was the final straw. They wanted to declare the zone a Free Fire Zone. That meant anybody in that zone—man, woman, or child—was a walking target. It was a quiet zone with no significant gang activity that did not meet the criteria to be designated a Free Fire Zone. So I told them I would protest it once I got back. They sent a Spec Act Team to take us out before they hit your settlement. So I didn’t run away. I got pushed out.”

  Julia studied his face for a long moment before she said, “But you knew they weren’t going to be happy about you making a fuss over the declaration. Why take the chance?”

  Tanner thought for a long moment before he said, “As I said, we had done things for them. Killed for them, or stood by while gangs did things that we should have stopped. I reached the point where I realized that unless I stopped doing that I would be one of the bad guys. Can you imagine after all those years I thought I was doing good, and suddenly I realized I was one of the bad guys? Or at least working for the bad guys doing their dirty work? I had to stop.”

  “Vin, you may have been fooled for a long time, but you could never be a bad guy,” Julia said.

  “But if you did things you’re not proud of what would you—”

  “They used you. Whether you understand it or not, you’re an idealist. Someone who needs to believe in what they are doing. Governments have been using men and women like you forever. Using their desire to protect, serve, love of country, love of family—you name a reason to dupe people into doing things those on top are unwilling or unable to do. You’re no different than millions of others except, and this is big, you realized you were being used and stood up to them. That is very rare.”

  Vin looked at Julia—maybe for the first time really looked at her. It was evident she had been thinking about him, and he had never really thought about or looked at her. She was just Rule’s daughter, and their paths had rarely crossed in the settlement because they had very different roles. But working with her lately he had come to respect her intelligence and competence. Her dark hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail. She had large, dark, serious eyes, and a rich, full mouth. He had never noticed she was beautiful before. She had a beauty that didn’t jump out at you, and she did nothing to make you notice it. He had finally taken the time to notice, and she stunned him.

  “But…”

  “Look, Vin. You didn’t have to stay. You could’ve taken Cat and Matos and left us. You would have been fine on your own until you found a place to make your own settlement. Instead, you stayed with us, and without a lot of chest pounding became our leader. That too is rare, because people usually have to be convinced to follow someone, and you did it without trying. People want to follow you.”

  “Your father said that to me the other day.”

  “Father is a lot of things, but observing people’s behavior is not his strongest trait. He depends on me for that.”

  “You told him?”

  “Yes, Vin. Me.”

  “I thought you and Mike…”

  “No, that’s been over. You and Cat?”

  “If you’re the observer you claim to be, then you know we haven’t been together for a long time. Just ran its course.”

  “Then why in the hell don’t you kiss me?”

  Vin took Julia into his arms and kissed her for a very long time. She took him to her quarters where they went to bed. Much later as they lay naked, Julia rose on an elbow and looked down at him.

  “You need to know you are a very good man and the leader of the community. We're going to need you if things get as bad as Father thinks they're going to be. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes.”

  “This, us…well, that is a different story. I won’t be a glorified companion. We either try for something, or this will be it. Understand?”

  Her beautiful eyes were fierce when she looked down at Vin.

  “I understand.”

  He pulled her back down into his arms. This was his home, and these people were his responsibility. He understood it in a way he had not before. When he had walked away, he had wanted revenge. He knew now he should take the same advice he had given Blondie. His revenge was the success of this settlement, and its survival in the coming months and years. He’d had his revenge all along and hadn’t recognized it.

  Julia began to kiss his chest, and he was soon lost in the sensations of their lovemaking.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “You know, doc, I’ve looked through the program carefully, and it collects all of the right statistics, plus behaviors. And the feedbacks between the various systems are nice and tight. Not to mention the loop logic that connects them all. I think everything is working the way it should. You did a great job on the program from my perspective.”

  “Okay, then why is the program giving them predictions that don’t match what occurs?”

  “I think something in the environment has changed and the program can’t do its job without some new inputs.”

  Morgan and Rule were sitting side-by-side working on separate floating displays. She leaned back in her chair and said, “Let’s see. You have the whole food system from agriculture to food processing and distribution. The industrial system is a fucking maze of every statistic you can think of to measure.”

  “Morgan, I told you not to use the F-word. You’re too young.”

  “Sorry, doc, but it’s a habit I picked up from hanging around you and Tanner. You’re tracking renewable and nonrenewable resources down to the nth degree. The program’s got a good handle on the pollution in the city-states and to a reasonable degree in the zones. Your feedback thinking for all of these is spot-on, and your loop dominance and nonlinearity is excellent. It contains all the weighted inputs that should be there. It produces the feedback thinking that it should, given the data. The weakness, I think, lies in the population modeling.”

  Cat was sitting on the couch listening to the conversation. She said, “You know, Father, Morgan may be on to something. There’s no way those models for the zones are accurate. You and I both know how much goes on not being captured by their Resource teams and reported. People live and die out there every day, and it doesn’t make it into the models.”

  “She’s right. I think that’s it. Something in the modeling of the zones’ populations is significantly off. If the program were overcounting, that would throw it off. And if it were undercounting, it would do the same,” Morgan said.

  “Okay, for discussion’s sake, what changes the populations in the zones?” Rule asked.

  “Accidents, combat between the gangs, natural causes, lack of medical care, sickness, you name it,” Cat said.

  “How do they collect that data?” Morgan asked.

  “By observation,” Cat said. “The teams make regular situation reports on anything significant, including deaths and illnesses they observe.”

  “There is no use of this data in the zone models?”

  “No,” Rule said.

  “What about the models of the city-states?”

  “Easy. We know all of those statistics in the city-states. They’re counted. And included in the program.”

  “What kind of models?”

  “Standard predictive modeling.”

  “What about using a social-network model instead?” Morgan said. “People’s lives are better modeled through their social networks.”

  “I understand why you’re suggesting social modeling for the cities, but what about the zones?”

  “I’ve lived out there all my life. I know how the different settlements and gangs interact. It’s a bizarre social network, but one nonetheless. Each settlement and gang is a node in the network. Each node has a different number of contacts with other nodes. If I had the Resource data I could drop it into a social model, and combined with the city-state models we’d have ourselves quite a little predictive engine,” Morgan said.

  Rule thought for a minute before he said, “You know, I believe that you’re on to something. All of the other inputs affect the
people in the zones and the cities. By only modeling population numbers and other interactions though, we’re not getting a true picture of their behaviors. The cities are easy, with every citizen leaving a nice electronic footprint. But the zones are a bit of a black hole for data.”

  “So where do we get the data on the zones we need to build a model?”

  “Resource Control has got to have extensive data on the zones. They've been collecting it for decades,” Cat said.

  “Simple. We ask for what Resource Control has, and I’m sure Internal Security is tracking social media networks in the cities,” Rule said. He sat back with a small smile on his face. The girl never ceased to amaze him.

  He glanced over at Cat, who only shook her head and said, “I’m no programmer, but it sounds like she’s on to something.”

  “Okay, the place to start is Resource Control, and then Internal Security. We need access to their files. I’ll ask now,” Rule said. He leaned forward and sent e-mails to both headquarters.

  ***

  Later, Steiger walked into the room without knocking.

  “Why do you need access to our data?” he said.

  “Well, come on in, Colonel. Nice to see you too,” Rule said.

  “When you requested the data, naturally I was notified, and I need to know why you want it.”

  “Well, Colonel, we were tasked with fixing the GRP, and we have to believe that one of the factors that has caused the problems with the program has been a lack of data from the zones. So we want the data so we can input it into a modeling program and see if that will help us with the GRP.”

  “How could what happens in the zones possibly impact the resource predictions? They don’t consume enough to change the numbers.”

  “How do you know that? Can you prove it mathematically?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then give us the data and at least let us try.”

  Steiger hesitated then touched the communicator plug in his ear and said, “Release the data.”