Searching.
‘Can you keep an eye on this?’ Helen said, handing the laptop over to me. ‘Don’t let it unleash a virus and destroy my work all over again. I’m gonna go check this drone out…’
‘Yeah…’ I said, wearily but casually. I took the laptop from her and looked at the basic program once again. ‘What the fuck is this…?’ I muttered to myself. Then-
Detected…
Aurelius 00297-KF88
‘Aurelius…’
‘Sam, are you gonna come see this?’
‘Just a second…’
Another command window popped up, running its own stream of code flitting by faster than I could read, before vanishing once again.
The program window suddenly dropped a list of functions.
Assume manual control.
Recharge solar cells.
Abort.
Was it referring to the program? Surely it couldn’t be referring to… To…
I shook my head, seeking out the cross in the top right corner, but found nothing.
Abort. That was the closest thing I could find to shutting the program down.
I clicked it without hesitation.
The program seemed to freeze, along with the cursor. Moments later another loading circle appeared, and that was when Dolores called out.
‘Woah…!’ She shouted, rapidly taking away the binoculars before placing them back to her eyes.
‘What, what is it?’ Luke asked.
‘She’s… She’s gone down. Dipped down into that barley field just beyond the edge of the forest.’
‘Are you serious?’
I felt my blood run cold. Frantically I looked between the monitor, my three companions and the skyline in the direction that they were seeking out some sight.
Abort successful. The words appeared in a small box on the screen, shadowing the main program.
Quickly I shut everything down, saving Helen’s work – but that didn’t matter, because all three of them were already looking over at me when I glanced back over to check what they were doing.
‘Sam… What was that program on the drive?’ Helen asked, raising an eyebrow at me.
I could’ve denied that it was anything, but despite feeling like I was overheating, I knew the blood had drained from my face.
Chapter Twelve
Howl
‘I clicked abort, thinking that it would end the program, but I don’t think that’s what it was talking about. I think it might pick up signals from drones… Or whatever else… And hack into their control system.’
‘Who gave this to you?’ Dolores asked hurriedly, looking as if she was going to snatch the USB pen out of my hand at any second. I pocketed it quickly.
‘What’s it to you?’ I said, suddenly on the defensive.
‘Don’t be stupid, Sam. To me it’s a covert program that you ran from my laptop that just took down what is likely a military drone no less than a mile from my house. So it’s a lot to me, thank you very much.’
‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I don’t even know if this just did what we’re thinking it did… Although it would be a hell of a coincidence if it didn’t… But I’m not giving you this drive.’
I stood face to face with her, within hitting distance, and after last night I was confident that she could kill me a lot faster than I could kill her.
How the hell had it come to this in only a matter of seconds?
Luke and Helen both watched us expectantly.
‘Fine,’ Dolores smiled, ‘If you’re not gonna indulge me then you can do the next best thing and clean up after your mess.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We’re gonna go check this thing out. Now.’
***
We took the same route onto the back lane from which I had exited last night, heading in the opposite direction towards the point where the crop fields began. Dolores guided us with Luke following behind her, I behind Luke and Helen at the back.
She now held the USB drive.
‘You still don’t feel like telling me who gave you that?’ She called from the front.
Luke looked back at me and shrugged, mouthing what does it matter?
I thought for a moment, considering the consequences, before realising that there weren’t many if they existed at all.
‘Somebody from the city university,’ I said, keeping it vague. ‘I’ll leave his identity at that.’
‘So he’s not military.’
‘He’s sort of a prepper,’ Helen said from the back. ‘Like you, I guess.’
‘He good with computers?’
‘A little… And he knows people who are.’
‘You gotta be more than a little good to develop a program that could bring down one of these things.’
We turned the corner as the shrubbery beyond the fence dropped off and hopped the turnstile into the open field. Seeing it stretch off like that in the early evening sunlight, miles upon miles of farmland as far as the eye could see, I found myself thinking back suddenly to the city. It was baffling to think that no less than a hundred miles from this location there was a community of several million people either still attacking each other or cowering in their homes as they desperately tried to cope with this rapid collapse that had suddenly fallen upon us in the most unexpected of ways.
I was grateful to have been able to escape.
I was more grateful to have been raised by somebody who had given me some semblance of the skills that I needed to survive in such a situation as that.
We stood waist height amongst the barley, the four of us looking out over the open view before us.
‘That way,’ Helen said, pointing out towards the edge of the section of trees that we had seen from atop the house. ‘It’s gotta be over there.’
We moved at a paced walk, single file, along a trampled path at the edge of the field that had been used by dog walkers since I was a kid. I could remember these fields, playing football, flattening the grass, fooling around after school… Now…
We passed the treeline, looking out at the low-grown barley, and almost immediately saw the trail. I had bounded through this as a kid, but the trails that I and my friends had made were… Well, they were literally kid stuff in comparison to this. The span of the drone’s wings reached three or four yards, having pressed down the barley shoots messily, digging up some of the dirt beneath it all.
‘This isn’t a garden variety drone for spying on the hot girl next door,’ Luke said surely, moving to the side and pacing a little ahead. ‘Jesus Christ, look at the size of this thing…’
When we finally caught up with him we saw it, and confirmed that he was right. It was industrial – two huge wings laden with solar cells spanned out, twinned, whilst the slim but domineering grey body that they met in the centre sat motionless, balancing the two.
‘Didn’t come down heavy,’ Dolores said to herself, just loud enough for us to hear as Luke moved around to the opposite side. ‘Size of these wings… It’s a glider. In the event that it comes down it can be reused, and likely repaired. The people who built it must have known that this was coming, otherwise they wouldn’t have designed it with this type of characteristic in mind.’
‘Any of this scream military to you guys?’
‘Obviously,’ I said, ‘It’s just a question of which one…’
‘No-’ Luke said sharply, ‘I don’t mean this fucking drone, of course that’s what it is. I mean this logo…’
We crossed to his side on the opposite end of the construct and saw it – against the grey contrast of the outer shell it was impossible not to see it.
It was a roughly circular shape, a few times larger than the circumference of the palm of my hand. Two silhouetted, symmetrical eagles looked stared at each other in a face to face fashion, either guarding or fighting over an object in the centre – an hourglass, it’s sandy contents in equal measure above and below.
Stamped beneath the logo in block capital font were three let
ters – D O A.
‘D O A,’ I said to myself. ‘That doesn’t sound like any military organisation that I’m aware of. At least any that have a name…’
‘Unless it isn’t from here…’ Dolores said.
‘Why put a pair of eagles on it, though? Surely you can’t get more patriotic than a God-damned American eagle.’
‘Maybe they’ve printed it like that to trick people.’
‘Oh, come on…’
‘Think about it, kid. If you were flying hundreds or even thousands of these things around the US in order to spy on everybody would you really print Property of US Military or Homeland Security all over it? You’d want to be invisible.’
‘So why print anything at all?’ Helen asked, squinting over as she shielded her eyes from the sun. ‘Surely anonymity comes first?’
‘Unless you’re proud of what you’re doing…’ I muttered. ‘I don’t know. I’m more confused now than I was before this freaking thing crashed.’
‘What do we do with it?’ Luke said. ‘One of the kids in town will probably find it eventually, or a dog walker, and when that happens it will be complete fucking chaos.’
‘It’s bad enough in town already,’ I said, glancing at Dolores.
‘What do you mean?’ Helen continued.
‘I might’ve… Pissed off a few locals yesterday.’
‘Who?’
‘The sheriff, namely.’
‘Are you serious?’ Helen said sharply, scoffing. ‘One day in town and we’re already on a hit list…’
‘I wouldn’t worry too much about a hit list for the time being.’ This time I didn’t look at Dolores. ‘Look, this thing’s too heavy to move, even if we did have a car. We need to push the barley back up as best we can and try to keep it hidden. That’s all we can do for now.’
So that was what we did, out there in the early evening heat as the sun pushed closer and closer to the horizon, perfectly willing to leave us in the land of eternal darkness.
After ten minutes of silent work, an animal unleashed an encroaching howl in an undefinable location somewhere in our surroundings.
All four of us stopped with a slight grasp on the crops in our hands and looked about, listening. The echo sounded through the field, before descending into nothing.
Silently we ceased our work, throwing down the last of our crops upon the drone and quickly setting off back towards the absent of light but all the same safety of Redwood.
Chapter Thirteen
Visitors
The three of us said goodbye to Dolores and made our way through the main street in the encroaching darkness, back towards the farm house.
‘This is getting more and more fucked…’ Luke said, running his hands through his hair. ‘You’ve still got that USB drive, right?’
I ran my hand across the pocket of my jeans, feeling the outline of its metallic casing, and nodded silently.
‘How the hell would Moody even have something like that?’ Helen asked. ‘I just don’t get it. I mean I know that he was involved in all sorts of university and industry projects, but how do you get a hold of a military-grade piece of software that can take down a drone from a mile away, and compress it enough to fit onto a tiny hard-drive?’
‘And why give it you?’ I asked. ‘And why not tell us?’
‘Probably because he knows that we would want to know more. Or because he wants us assassinated. I mean, if the people who are responsible for that drone found us and found out that we were in possession of that thing…’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘They’d probably make us disappear. Just like our government and countless others have done before.’
‘Controversial,’ Luke smiled, to which we both looked over at him for. ‘What?’ He asked comically, holding up his hands, ‘I’m kidding. I know that they’ve done that in the past. You’ll never find anybody that believes in it more. I’m just getting used to the idea of talking about it without being listened to by secret recorders and CCTV cameras.’
I smirked, feeling strangely settled as I looked back up the street towards the way out of town, when I heard the shout.
‘Can you see that?’
It didn’t come from any of us. The streets had been scattered with people who were either sat in shopfronts or talking at the edges of the sidewalk – one of them had said it, and murmurs of agreement and recognition followed.
I saw our shadows stretching off before us prior to turning to look behind me and seeing what it was that had caused any commotion amongst the citizens of Redwood.
A pair of bright, blurred headlights had appeared in the distance, perhaps three or four hundred yards off. They had to be headlights – they were moving closer and closer to the street at a slow but steady pace. There was no sign of a convoy – this was one vehicle.
Unless it had been stowed away in metal garage by accident – or on purpose.
‘Who the hell is that?’ Luke said, a tinge of exasperation mixed in with his anxious tone.
‘I need to get the sheriff,’ I said, thinking quickly before setting off towards the station.
‘Are you serious? I thought you and him weren’t getting along.’
‘We’re not, but whoever this is people are gonna be freaked out. They need somebody to lead them or a fight could break out. If it’s military we need an envoy. If it’s a regular person we need someone to stop the citizens from stealing the car.’
‘You really think they’d do that?’ Helen asked, baffled.
‘We saw what they did in the city at the promise of some small chance of profit or rescue. What do you think people would do for a working car in times like this? Head to that side of the street and stay hidden in one of the shopfronts.’
Reluctantly they agreed, and I sprinted to the station. I opened the door quickly, met by the flickering sight of candles – and the clicking of a gun.
‘Hold it,’ the sheriff’s voice said through the dark. ‘Wait… You again?’
‘Yes, me,’ I said frantically, ‘Look, I’m sorry for what happened yesterday. I didn’t mean for things to get out of hand, but I need you to forget about that right now. Somebody’s coming.’
‘The fuck are you talking about?’
I near enough had to drag him outside – there was a slight smell of liquor on his person, but he was lucid and standing and, most importantly, not shooting at me, so it was evident that his mental faculties were still running somewhere in there.
By the time we reached the sidewalk, though, any drunkenness that may have remained upon his mind had sobered. The lights were only a hundred yards off, and now the steady trundling of an engine was clear, trailing along behind the bright headlights.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I edged closer to the front door of the police office as the lights came within fifty yards.
The sheriff waved his arms over his head, flagging the vehicle down.
As it slowed to a stop just ten yards from the door, I found the gun tucked into the back of my pants and wrapped my hand tensely around the handle.
It halted at an angle, and from its size and sound I immediately recognised that it was military in nature – if that didn’t clinch it, the manoeuvrable gun mounted on the roof did.
Whether there were military personnel driving it, of course, was another matter entirely. That fact must have clicked with a lot of the people in the surrounding area, because they all retreated to their shops or further down the street in either direction. I felt like I was in an old western and the local gang had just come wandering into town to cause mayhem.
The lights toned down a little, and on the roof of the vehicle I saw the man in control of it move from a silhouette to a featured figure. It didn’t add much to the appearance, beyond his military gear, topped off with the helmet strapped upon his head. The gun was in a secure position, disabled, huge barrel pointing downwards as it sat there, inactive.
It sat for a moment before the passenger side door opened enormously, the ste
el casing neither shuddering nor swinging as it came to a stop, and a soldier got out.
‘Who’s in charge here?’ He said flatly, making his way across to myself and the sheriff – the only two people left in sight in this damned street. Talk about cowardice.
Slowly I took my hand away from the gun, bringing it down to my side like the other.
‘I am,’ the sheriff said, straightening his jacket and standing up straight.
The soldier moved forward and, in an uncharacteristic move, shook hands with the sheriff.
‘I’m Liuetenant Morgan,’ he said as they shook hands. His voice was sure and gruff but retained a welcoming tone. ‘It’s good to see that at least one town hasn’t fallen into complete damned chaos.’
‘I… What?’ The sheriff said.
‘Is that liquor I can smell on your breath, officer?’
‘It…. Uh, it’s…’
‘He’s had a long couple of days,’ I said quickly.
‘Looks it… Who are you?’
‘Sam Thompson… I live here with my Dad.’
I had blurted out my name like it was nothing. How did I know that this guy had anything to do with the army and wasn’t just part of a collective of psychos who had escaped a mental asylum and dressed up as soldiers in the chaos?
Was I being paranoid?
‘What the hell is going on out there?’ I asked. ‘Have you guys been stationed here?’
‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘We’ve been sent to rendezvous with neighbouring towns from Fort Wentworth. Just checking on the situation.’
‘And what is the situation?’ I said, acting aloof. ‘Everything electrical has been off for days. Yours is the only working car I’ve seen.’
‘No official word’s been released, and we don’t want people to get too alarmed, but we’re confident that an EMP event has occurred.’
‘So that is what it is?’
‘We’re confident of that, yes. We don’t want people to panic, though. Trust us when we say that we’re working as quickly as possible to get the system running again.’
The Solar Pulse (Book 2): Escape the Pulse Page 7