‘Do you ever think of your parents?’ she asked.
Benito took a moment to reply. ‘All the time. My father, stubborn old son of a bitch. I loved him.’
‘And he loved you?’
Benito laughed. ‘He’d never admit it. Took him until his deathbed before he actually said the words.’
‘And your mother?’
He shrugged and sipped his tea. ‘Lesbian.’
Benito had lost his entire family years ago in a terrorist attack at a wedding reception in Jordan. During the Desecheo Island operation, he’d met his family’s killer: Sophia. It wasn’t until they’d relocated to Australia that he’d been able to start looking her in the eye again. He knew she was a deniable operator, programmed to do the horrible things she had done; that it wasn’t really her who had murdered his family but her handler, Denton. The Fifth Column as a whole. It was the reason Benito had defected to begin with, the reason he’d joined the Akhana. But their deaths were still on Sophia’s hands. She could still smell the coppery tang of their blood. She didn’t deserve Benito’s forgiveness.
She closed her browser and all the tabs it contained. ‘I need a break.’
‘I can never go back, can I?’ Benito said.
The question caught her completely off guard. ‘What do you mean? To the Fifth Column? Why would you want to?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘To a normal life. I can never go back. It’s like this forever, isn’t it?’
Sophia focused on the laptop screen. She didn’t know what to say, but she couldn’t lie to him.
‘Until we win,’ she said. ‘Or lose.’
***
Sophia was expecting a little more when she entered the comm center. It was basically a large lounge room flanked by five- and ten-year-old notebooks and desktop computers, their fans humming with varying degrees of ferocity. The meeting between the Shadow Akhana elders would take place over the darknet, their own covert communications network. As Freeman explained it, the darknet was by far the most advanced covert communications network on the planet—the brainchild of Fifth Column engineers who’d defected to the Akhana. Freeman had quickly funded its development with money previously siphoned from the Fifth Column. The darknet provided the Akhana with multi-jurisdictional routing of all communications, ensuring their traffic never entered and exited the network through the same country. To connect to the darknet, each computer needed to be connected to an Akhana-designed cryptorouter. All traffic between the cryptorouter and the darknet was encrypted with military-grade cryptography. Even the traffic between the entry, termination and exit nodes was encrypted, making it almost impossible for the Fifth Column to conduct a fingerprinting or watermark attack. Freeman had told Sophia that once a person using a cryptorouter was communicating with another person with a cryptorouter, it was simply not possible for a third party to break it. He’d also admitted the Fifth Column had likely implemented a similar network for themselves. And the Shadow Akhana wouldn’t have a hope of penetrating theirs for the very same reason.
Sara was sitting before the main computer screen, which had a dusty webcam clamped on top. On the screen was a contact list showing different codenames. One by one, they blinked to green. It looked like some sort of Skype clone, probably custom-built by Shadow Akhana developers. In fact, the computer’s operating system looked custom-built.
Freeman must have noticed her looking. ‘That’s Kirin, our security-hardened OS,’ he said. ‘Based on FreeBSD.’
‘You said Project Seraphim would be discussed,’ Sophia said.
‘That’s on the table. We don’t have the numbers or the budget the Fifth Column do, so our priorities are one: keep ourselves afloat; and two: identify the Fifth Column’s activities that most threaten our survival.’
‘Owen,’ Sara said, ‘everyone is online.’
‘Your presence is still … controversial,’ Freeman said to Sophia. ‘It might be best if you keep clear of the webcams today.’
Sophia nodded, and he sat at another computer to fire up his webcam. For a moment she felt like some sort of embarrassment to the Shadow Akhana. It annoyed her that despite all the trust and respect Freeman had for her, he still treated her like some sort of reckless teenager who didn’t know any better.
The webcam-free side of the lounge room was crowded with a captive audience. She found herself standing near local Akhana members and Benito and DC. Behind them, Nasira had arrived. Sophia couldn’t see Damien or Jay even though they’d been invited. Nasira had probably worked them to the bone. But Grace appeared a moment later, also alone. That, Sophia was pleased about.
Freeman initiated a video conference call. Computer screens lit up across the desks, each displaying a single video feed of a Shadow Akhana leader. They seemed to have an even split of genders. Some appeared East Asian, others South-East Asian.
Freeman ran a few checks with the elders to make sure everyone could see and hear properly and their software and webcams were in working order. Once that was done, he didn’t waste any more time.
‘As of right now, we are all that’s left,’ he said. ‘The compromising of all external Akhana bases and installations is the very reason we created the Shadow Akhana. And only just in time, too.’
He kept his voice slow and measured, probably so the elders had a chance at decoding his Australian accent.
‘We’re lucky to be alive,’ Sara added.
‘And as long as we are, we will not rest,’ said the elder on the far-left screen, his accent noticeably Japanese. He was a middle-aged man with pale skin, coarse black hair and small eyes and lips.
‘Assuming everyone has read their briefing beforehand, we have quite a few threats from the Fifth Column at present,’ Freeman said. ‘Well, humanity has quite a few threats. Which this far down the line is essentially the same thing. The first issue is the financial crises. Sharlen, this one’s yours.’
Everyone’s attention shifted to another screen. Sophia followed their gaze to an older woman with permed hair and wide-rimmed glasses.
‘Yes, it appears the world ended in 2012,’ she said, ‘but not in the way people expected. The many causes of the financial crises over the last decade are complex, but to put it simple: the psychopaths who operate the Fifth Column is working very hard to gain control of our planet’s resources, or what’s left of them. Exactly as we have predicted.’
‘This is no surprise,’ the Japanese man said.
‘My point,’ Sharlen said quickly, ‘is that one crisis after another is fomenting social upheaval. We have seen this already.’
‘May I just interject here,’ said another elder, this one a younger woman with pale blue contact lenses. It looked like she had on three different sets of clothing at once, each of them thin and layered. On top she was wearing what was possibly a children’s cardigan. Sophia couldn’t help noticing the care she had taken with her make-up. Her eyebrows were impeccably plucked and trimmed, her mascara perfectly applied, with expertly drawn eyeliner and a thoughtful, muted choice of lipstick. Given that the other elder was Japanese, Sophia pegged this younger woman as Korean.
‘This is more of an issue for climate change,’ the woman said. ‘When the weather becomes unstable, the crops don’t come in and people get hungry.’
‘Danbi has an excellent point,’ Freeman said. ‘And with food scarcity comes sickness.’
‘Food is already short, but the Fifth Column is covering it up,’ the Japanese elder said. ‘Soon the shortages will be difficult to conceal and people will know.’
‘And we are not finished with severe weather around the world either,’ Danbi, the Korean elder, said. ‘The Fifth Column’s manipulation of weather needs to be stopped. Project Seraphim needs to be stopped.’
Sophia opened her mouth to say that Seraphim had nothing to do with the weather, but remembered what Freeman had told her. She bit her tongue.
‘We also have the war on terror in the Middle East,’ Sara said from beside Freeman. ‘I know this is part
of the Fifth Column’s resource grab, but as we speak armies are closing on Iran and Syria.’
‘In my opinion, this war is a smaller part of resource control than we first thought,’ the Japanese elder said. ‘And I mean not to make this sound … unimportant. But I think this pseudo-war is designed to hold the masses in a state of anxiety and to distract them. To induce them to agree with even more oppressive measures.’
‘I agree,’ Sharlen said. ‘The people of our Earth are already so traumatized that it really isn’t going to take much to push everyone into fascism.’
‘I think we have a more immediate priority,’ said a younger man.
He had a broad face and, compared to Danbi, thicker lips and darker skin. He wasn’t slapping on 70+ SPF, that was for sure. Sophia supposed he was from a Shadow Akhana base near Vietnam or Laos.
‘The Fifth Column have plans to eliminate millions, if not billions, of individuals competing for their resources,’ he said. ‘If they grow tired of waiting for us to starve or die off from a plague, they might speed things up. If we know anything about psychopaths, we know they will choose the most efficient option.’
‘What are we talking here, Hoang?’ Freeman asked.
‘Genetically engineered viruses,’ Hoang said. ‘We know of their existence. We know the Fifth Column have been playing with them for decades since Project Phoenix. And we also know they aren’t too fond of our planet’s overpopulation.’
‘Is a virus necessary though?’ Danbi said. ‘Last year we had birds falling out of the sky with no sign of disease, sinkholes in dozens of countries, a record-breaking cyclone in Australia, a devastating earthquake in New Zealand, an even more devastating tsunami in Japan and the resulting nuclear-reactor disaster—’
‘Ongoing disaster,’ the Japanese elder said. ‘And let us not to forget the massive eruption of an entire volcanic complex in Chile.’
‘And this year we’ve had snow hit the Sahara Desert!’ Sharlen said. ‘Flooding, tornadoes, supercell storms in the UK. Hundreds of meteors starting fires across the US and Russia, which the Fifth Column have been blaming on Al-Qaeda, and then when people stopped buying that, they blamed it on the polar jet stream going haywire—’
‘The Seraphim Project,’ Danbi said. ‘There is no question that the Fifth Column’s weather manipulation is the single greatest threat to humanity at this moment in time. There are only so many natural disasters they can blame on terrorists. Once people figure this out, we are looking at even more social upheaval. I believe this is of much higher danger than rumors of genetically modified viruses.’
‘We don’t have enough proof that Seraphim is the cause of these disasters,’ Freeman said. ‘Frequencies in the Seraphim’s range are normally used to communicate with deeply submerged submarines, not to generate a cyclone. We have no data on these frequencies affecting weather. But we have a small amount of data on these frequencies affecting humans. Perhaps we need to look closer.’
‘But we know Project Seraphim’s purpose is to manipulate weather!’ Danbi said.
‘Seraphim isn’t controlling weather,’ Sophia said. ‘I can tell you that now.’
The words came from nowhere, loud enough that everyone in the conference stopped speaking. Before she knew it, she was standing behind Freeman, completely in view of the webcam.
‘I do apologize, we have a new guest today,’ Freeman said quickly. ‘You all know or know of Sophia.’
Sophia could feel the glares of the Akhana’s last surviving elders. Their expressions ranged from confusion to irritation.
‘The planet’s weather is governed by solar and cosmic radiation,’ she said. ‘Charged particles from sunspots, solar flares, filaments. These particles affect our planet’s magnetic field. This is what affects the currents of our oceans and jet streams. You don’t need a weather-manipulator device to shake things up.’
‘Since you seem to be more knowledgeable on this topic, perhaps you can enlighten us,’ the Japanese elder said.
‘What you told me yesterday,’ Freeman said. ‘I think everyone needs to hear this.’
Sophia looked around at the computer screens. Everyone stared back, waiting.
‘I don’t know about the weather,’ she said. ‘It looks like we’re being bombarded by high levels of solar and cosmic radiation. Maybe the solar system is having a party. And we’re all invited.’
No one laughed.
She needed to get her point across as quickly as possible. ‘I have journal entries written by Leoncjusz Adamicz,’ she said. ‘He worked on Project Seraphim. The project’s aim was not to manipulate weather but to manipulate the brain, to influence moods, emotions and thought patterns.’
‘I suspect you have outdated information, Sophia,’ Hoang said. ‘Project Seraphim has since expanded to a much broader scale with farther-reaching applications. There are installations throughout the United States and soon to be throughout the world. Without a doubt their current purpose is to disrupt weather patterns, cause earthquakes—’
‘You’re suggesting global mind control,’ the Japanese elder said. ‘That’s utter science fiction.’
Sophia leaned in toward the webcam. ‘Science fiction? Last year I was a mind-controlled super soldier. Most of what you think is science fiction was being fine-tuned by the Fifth Column while you were being breastfed.’
His face went a slight shade of pink.
‘While you’ve all been busy tracking the weather around the world, have you stopped to notice what’s happening with the people?’ Sophia said. ‘Have you noticed the shooting sprees, the violent, inexplicable rioting? Have you stopped to consider that the extremely low frequencies you’re blaming for the extreme weather are the same band of frequencies that can alter and disrupt human mental functions? Or maybe you’re too disrupted to notice.’
‘This conference is not a discussion of widely cast assumptions,’ Danbi said. ‘Perhaps we can schedule this in for next week—’
Sophia slammed her hands down on the table. ‘There won’t be a next week if you don’t listen!’
Danbi raised her voice over Sophia’s and continued speaking. ‘—when we have less critical issues to contend with.’
‘Sophia!’ Freeman seized her wrist, then relaxed it. ‘That will be all, thank you.’
‘No, it won’t be all,’ she snapped. ‘Adamicz’s diary—’
‘The journal you speak of is hardly substantial evidence,’ the Japanese elder said. ‘There is no proof other than the ramblings of an unstable old man.’
Sophia leaned in past Freeman, making sure everyone could see and hear her clearly. ‘As an unstable old man, perhaps you’d be able to relate,’ she said. ‘If I’m wrong, and I hope I am, then you can fix your weather and your social revolutions. But if I’m right, you’ll lose more than your crops. You’ll lose control of yourselves. Because as far as the Fifth Column is concerned, this is a war against our minds. If we lose that—’
Sparks popped in her peripheral. She ignored it. ‘If we lose that, then—’
Something was happening in the corner of the room, but it wasn’t in the room at all. It was her. Darkness crept from the corners of her vision. She retreated into it. Freeman was calling her name, but it was distant.
She blacked out.
Chapter Eighteen
Sophia opened her eyes. Benito was sitting beside her and DC was leaning on the doorframe outside, arms folded. She was lying on a hospital bed.
‘How long was I out?’ she asked.
‘About ten seconds,’ DC said.
She recalled Freeman and DC helping her out of the lounge room and up the road to the corner, where the town hospital was located.
‘Are you OK?’ Benito said.
She felt fine, if a bit lightheaded. She sat up. ‘Except for the part where I passed out in the middle of an argument with all the Shadow Akhana elders, yeah.’
‘I have good news and bad news,’ Benito said. ‘Bad news is you’re getting worse. That’
s the longest you’ve been out.’
‘Good news?’
‘You’re alive.’
Sophia scratched her head. ‘I suppose that’s good news.’
‘How are you feeling?’ Benito said.
‘No worse since you asked a second ago. What happened with the conference?’
‘For what it’s worth, Freeman stuck up for you,’ DC said.
‘This weather manipulation,’ she eyed DC, ‘did you know anything about this when you were … still in?’
DC shook his head. ‘News to me. Could be a branch of Seraphim they started later.’
‘It’s disinformation,’ Sophia said. ‘We’re being misdirected.’
‘Either way, we’ll find out when you get that scientist back here,’ DC said.
She was about to respond when DC moved from the doorframe, allowing Grace to enter.
‘You know how to make an impression,’ Grace said. ‘How are you holding up?’
‘Fine,’ Sophia said. ‘Low blood sugar.’
‘Is that why you’re blacking out?’ Grace said. ‘Blood sugar?’
Grace overhearing that conversation was the last thing Sophia needed right now.
‘The operative diet should’ve cured your diabetes years ago,’ Grace said, crossing her arms. She wasn’t convinced.
‘We don’t know what’s causing my blackouts,’ Sophia said. ‘That information doesn’t leave this room.’
‘I have no issue keeping your secret,’ Grace said. ‘But I’ll need you to do something for me.’
Sophia breathed slowly. ‘This should be interesting.’
‘I’m collecting Dr Schlosser in two days. I want you onboard.’
‘I just blacked out and you want me on your babysitting team?’ Sophia said.
‘When was the last time you blacked out?’ Grace asked. ‘Before this.’
Sophia looked to Benito. He was keeping track better than she was.
‘About two weeks ago,’ he said. ‘Twelve days.’
‘How many times have you blacked out so far?’ Grace asked.
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