Blue's Code

by James Abel

  “Watch this!” Bennings said, as he ran to a closet underneath the loft. The one remaining drone fired at him.

  Looking out the window, Jordan said, “The others all left. Looks like they only hold one round apiece.”

  “Roger that,” Bennings said, opening a closet door. “Keeps their weight down.” He rummaged around inside the closet, until he came up holding two black rubber suits. He threw them at Jordan and said, “Here, catch!”

  Jordan plucked them out of the air and asked, “Thermal suits?”

  Bennings said, “Yup, I use them to scuba dive down at the lake. Put them on. It should hold in your body heat, maybe confuse their heat sensors.”

  As Blue and Jordan pulled on the suits, Jordan asked, “What about you?”

  Bennings moved to the locked gun vault, punched in the combination, and said, “Don’t worry. I’ve got a date with that chopper up there.”

  “What?”

  “Check this out!” Bennings turned around holding a portable ground-to-air missile launcher.

  “Holy shit, an MPADS?”

  Bennings smiled and said, “You really do know your weapons.” As he ran toward the trap door, he continued, “You hold down the fort in here. I’ll be right back. Don’t assume anything. They may be re-arming the drones with a different type of ammo, maybe even cameras since they haven’t been able to penetrate our defenses.”

  Bennings disappeared through the trap door, pulling it down behind him.

  Seconds later, a fresh group of six drones appeared at the window. One drone moved out in front of the others, lined up dead center on the window, and fired. The window held. A second drone took the same position and fired on the exact same spot. Again, the window held. When the third drone moved into position and fired, the glass shattered into a million pieces and rattled across the floor.

  Blue screamed as the three remaining armed drones swarmed inside.

  Jordan, standing a few feet away said, “Stay calm and don’t move, no matter what. Do not move!”

  The drones separated. Two of them flew up to the loft and one of them focused on the stove. They moved slowly, inspecting every inch of the room. Then, the two drones up by the loft slowly descended. One of them moved toward Jordan as the other moved toward Blue. As the drone circled Jordan, he didn’t flinch. He held his focus on Blue. The drone circling her slowly moved up toward her face. She did her best to stay calm, but Jordan could see the stress building.

  Shit, that’s right where her body heat is escaping, Jordan thought.

  Then the third drone that had been by the stove joined in. Both of them circled Blue, moving up and down. Her body began to quiver as tears filled her eyes. One of the drones positioned itself directly in front of her face. It backed off about two feet and a red light flashed on the front of the drone sending a laser beam to the middle of Blue’s forehead.

  Jordan screamed, “I’m right here you bastards,” and lashed out with his arms. His left arm caught the drone closest to him, smashing it against the wall. The two remaining drones turned toward him as he charged toward Blue.

  BANG! The first drone fired, the bullet catching Jordan in the front of his left shoulder. It spun him sideways, but as he fell to the floor, he reached out and knocked Blue to the ground, shielding her body with his own. The remaining drone moved in, lining up a kill shot. The red laser beam went on, targeting the back of Jordan’s head.

  FLASH!

  The entire sky lit up, sending a bright flash of light streaming through the window, a millisecond before a massive explosion rocked the entire cabin. As debris rained down from the sky, all three drones fell to the floor, lifeless.

  Jordan rolled off Blue, clutching his shoulder. Blue saw the blood on her shirt, and then saw it oozing out from under Jordan’s hand and screamed, “Oh my God!”

  Jordan, peeking at the wound offered up a weak smile and said, “I’ll be okay. We need to check on Bennings.”

  Before Blue could react, the trap door opened, and Bennings pulled himself up into the room. He saw Jordan holding his shoulder and said, “Shit. You alright?”

  Jordan zipped the suit down to the waist with his free hand, looked at the wound, and said, “Yeah. Doesn’t look like it hit an artery. Should be fine.” Then, noticing a hole in the back of the thermal suit, he said, “In fact, it looks like it went clean through.”

  “Okay. Let’s get you tended to so we can get the hell outta here.”

  Bennings ran for a first aid kit as Jordan smiled and said, “Yeah. You lit up the sky pretty good out there!”

  *******

  Ten minutes later, Bennings threw a duffel bag and some weapons into the back of the Tahoe and ran back toward the cabin carrying a two-gallon plastic container of gasoline. He ran inside the cabin and worked his way back to the porch, emptying the gasoline as he went. He tossed the empty container down on the porch, threw a lit match down, and ran to the Tahoe where Jordan and Blue were waiting inside.

  As they drove down the hill, Bennings watched in the rearview mirror as flames shot up from the cabin. He shook his head and said, “Damn, I really liked that place.”

  “Sorry,” Jordan said. “Did you get everything we need?”

  “Yup. It’s all in the back, including a duffel bag full of odds and ends, a first aid kit, and the burner phones.”

  As they crept down the mountain and neared the main road, they saw headlights filtering through the trees. Then they heard sirens approaching. Bennings turned off the Tahoe’s headlights and shot off the trail at an angle. He slowly maneuvered around trees and moved toward the main road before pulling to a complete stop, about 30 feet to the right of the path they had used earlier that day. He shut off the engine and watched as off to the left, an all-terrain fire vehicle with powerful halogen headlights and huge, knobby tires led the way up the mountain with two police Jeeps following right behind. Bennings waited until they moved closer to the fire, and then started the Tahoe, worked around some trees, and got it back onto the main road. A quarter mile down the mountain, he turned the headlights on and left his burning cabin behind.

  A few miles down the road, Jordan looked at Bennings and quietly said, “There’s no way they could have found us that fast unless…you know.”

  Bennings nodded and said, “I know.”

  Jordan turned to the backseat and looked at Blue.

  Blue looked at him and asked, “What? I told you: I did not bring any electronics with me. I swear!”

  Bennings glancing in the rearview mirror asked, “Have you had any type of surgery since you’ve been living with the governor—a broken bone, boob job, even dental surgery?”

  “No, nothing!” Oh, shit. Wait a second. I did have an emergency appendectomy a couple of years ago.”

  Bennings said, “Okay. Jordan, grab the flashlight from the glovebox and help Blue find where a microchip might be planted.”

  Jordan pulled out the flashlight, turned toward the backseat, and found Blue already sliding off her jeans. When he saw the thong she was wearing, he blushed and quickly turned away.

  Blue said, “Mr. Nichols, I need the flashlight. I mean for God’s sake, it’s no different than a bathing suit.”

  Holding out the flashlight behind him without turning around, Jordan said, “Fine. You take it and feel along the sides of the scar line from the operation. Tell me if you feel anything a bit out of the ordinary—like a bump.”

  Blue, rubbing her finger across the scar said, “The scar feels bumpy. Is that what you mean?”

  “No, that’s probably just scar tissue. It would be to one side or the other.”

  Blue ran her fingers along both sides of the scar line. As she did, Jordan peeked back to make sure she was doing what had been asked.

  He blushed again and quickly turned away saying, “I’m sorry. Just trying to help.”

  Blue smiled and seconds later said, “Holy crap! I do feel something. It feels like a little hard spot. It almost feels like I can move it.”<
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  Jordan said, “Okay. Turn off the flashlight and pull up your pants. We need to find a place to perform some emergency surgery.”

  “What?”

  Jordan said, “Don’t worry. We’re just gonna have to make a small incision and get that chip out.”

  “Oh Jesus!”

  When they reached the entrance to I-81, Bennings saw a truck stop on the other side and headed for it. When he reached the parking lot, he drove directly to the darkest, most remote corner and parked. Five minutes later, he was standing outside the back door of the SUV with the door open. He had a box cutter in his hand, and Jordan was standing right behind him with some gauze and a bandage. Inside, Blue was lying across the backseat with her shirt pulled up to the top of her belly button and her jeans pulled down to her knees. She was holding a towel over her eyes with one hand and putting a strangle hold on the rear door pull with the other.

  Bennings leaned in and said, “Don’t worry. This won’t hurt too much, but you have to lie perfectly still. You got it?”

  Blue said, “Yes. Just get it over with.”

  Bennings, using the box cutter, cut a one-inch incision near the top of the appendectomy scar. Then, he cut two smaller ones at 90-degree angles, creating a flap of skin. He peeled back the flap, using the flat side of the box cutter blade. There, on the dermis layer of Blue’s skin, was a square microchip.

  Bennings’s eyes lit up. He gently slipped the box cutter underneath the chip, picked it up on the blade, and said, “I got it!” Balancing it there, he backed away, allowing Jordan to lean in and put some gauze over the incision.

  Jordan put the bandage over it and said, “You can look now. It’s all over.”

  Blue opened her eyes and said, “Really? I gotta admit; it really didn’t hurt that much.”

  Jordan laughed and said, “Good. Now pull up your pants. You’re in the middle of a Truck Stop for God’s sake!” as he closed the back door and stood guard outside.

  Blue laughed as she sat up and squirmed around, trying to pull up her pants as she laid on the backseat.

  A few minutes later, Bennings hopped back in the driver’s seat as Jordan waited in the passengers seat.

  Jordan looked at him and asked, “All set?”

  Bennings nodded and said, “Yup. Found an unlocked truck. That chip will soon be on its way somewhere else.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Fifteen miles down the road, Blue was sound asleep in the backseat. Jordan, looking straight ahead as if he was talking to himself, asked, “What do we really know about the Deep State?”

  Bennings glanced over and said, “We know that their real name is the Guild. We know they’re a huge international organization with a governing council that controls most of the money and military might in the world, and they seem to be able to control our elections at will. Oh, and then there’s the end game they are planning, which is supposed to include violence, unemployment, and all sorts of other bad shit.”

  “I’m betting that it’s all gonna start as soon as Warring’s lab work is done,” Jordan said. “That’s when all the Guild’s members will have their magic pill, or whatever it is, to live forever. Maybe they’ll let us mortals battle it out, or maybe they’ll just unleash the latest and greatest disease on us all while they sit in their mansions with their vaccines and watch some of us die. You know, like a controlled kill on animal populations when they get out of hand.”

  Bennings said, “Wow! And I thought I was cynical. You really think it’s gonna play out that way?”

  “It has to. The Deep State can’t share the gift of immortality with the masses. Earth’s resources would be overwhelmed within 50 years—maybe less. In fact, this immortality shit explains a whole boatload of things that have already gone down.”

  “Like what?”

  “How about climate change? Haven’t you ever wondered why there’s been such an intense focus on a theoretical problem that’s hundreds, maybe even thousands of years in the future? Don’t get me wrong, I care about our environment as much as the next guy, but sorry, it’s not human nature to obsess about something that far out in the future unless…”

  Bennings finished the sentence for him, “Yeah, unless you plan to be around to enjoy that future.”

  “Exactly. And now the pandemics, mobs ransacking entire cities with the police ordered to stand by and watch, and finally, the big push to take away our guns. It’s all part of the plan. They want to destroy our economic foundation, weaken our will by pitting us against each other, and finally, take away our guns and our bullets. The gun thing isn’t about public safety. It’s so we can’t fight back against them when we the people finally figure out what’s going on. The Deep State now has the science to deliver immortality, and it’s not about to share it. This is the start of the fucking End Game.”

  “Who specifically is the they you keep talking about? Who are these guys?”

  “That’s easy. It’s the mega wealthy who control the world-wide flow of information. Those arrogant pricks own the search engines, social media sites, battery and computer technology, and effectively, the whole worldwide grid. Dude, they’re trillionaires, and through the machines we carry in our pockets, they know everything about us. They control us, and then they buy whatever and whomever they need to do their bidding—including politicians, the media, and the universities.”

  “I don’t know, man. Sounds a little far-fetched to me.”

  “You think? Hell, you’re the one who left the FBI.”

  “I know. But at the time, I thought it was just dirty politics. This is bigger than that. It’s depressing as hell!”

  “Sure is. And that’s why I’m hoping you have one hell of a plan for when we get to wherever it is your taking us.”

  “I might. Blue said something about the Three Musketeers coming to a theater near you, and it got me thinking. The only chance we have to come out of this alive is to take our story directly to the people.”

  “Yeah. Hi, remember me? I’m the nut job who said that the Deep State killed Peanut.”

  Bennings laughed and said, “Yeah, something like that.”

  After 10 minutes of silence down the road, Jordan turned to Bennings and asked, “Mind pulling off the road for a minute? I want to grab one of those burner phones you have in the back.”

  “Sure thing. Who are you calling at this time of night?”

  “I wanna check in on Molly. I have a bad feeling all of a sudden.”

  Bennings nodded, pulled off the side of the highway, hopped out, and came back with a phone in his hand. He said, “Here, use this. There are four more in back.”

  “Thanks,” Jordan said as he punched in Molly’s cell phone number.

  On the other end, a man answered and said, “Molly’s answering service. Who is it I am speaking to?”

  Jordan put his phone on speaker so Bennings could listen and said, “This is Molly’s dad. Who the hell is this?”

  “Ah, Mr. Nichols. I’ve been waiting to hear from you. Who I am is not important. What is important is that I’ve got your daughter, and your mother in my possession. If you don’t cooperate, thy will both be dead within 24 hours.”

  “You son of a bitch, let me speak to Molly—now!”

  “Of course. I’d never keep a father from talking with his beloved daughter. Here she is.”

  “Dad! They came to Nana’s house. His name is Willard Lance, and he’s…”

  Lance yanked the phone out of Molly’s hand and said, “Your girl here has a lot of fight in her, but here’s the deal. You and Mr. Bennings will deliver Jessie Warring to me in the rear parking lot of Warring Pharmaceuticals at precisely 7 tomorrow night, or little Miss Molly and your mother will both die. It’s that simple.”

  “No, it’s not that simple. If you don’t let them go right now, I’ll take Jessie to the nearest police station, and she will spill her guts about what’s been going on out there at the plant. And, in the meantime, if you’ve done anything to my mother or Molly, y
ou’re a dead man. You hear me?”

  “You, Mr. Nichols, are not in the position to threaten me. You know, Molly is a very sweet, juicy young woman, and I have a certain affection for her type.”

  “Why, you piece of shit!”

  “Ah Ah. One more disrespectful word out of your mouth, and you’ll never see your mother or daughter again. I, on the other hand, will enjoy every inch of Miss Molly here.”

  Bennings wildly motioned for Jordan to settle down and mouthed the words I’m dead. Tell him I was killed!

  Jordan bit his lip, took a deep breath and said, “Okay. You’re right. I’m sorry. Look, I’ll be there with Blue and no games, I promise. But Bennings won’t. He died up on that mountain.”

  “Why should I believe that?”

  “I don’t know. Just look for his charred remains under the fuselage of the Sikorsky that you or the Deep State sent to kill us. Now tell me exactly what you want me to do!”

  “Pull up to the gate at 7 p.m. sharp. The guard will let you in. Proceed around to the back of the warehouse. You give me Jessie. I’ll give you Molly and your dear mother. See you then, Mr. Nichols.”

  Click.

  Jordan’s head dropped to his chest as Bennings looked over and said, “Sorry, man. Really. I don’t know what to say. But I think we just gained the advantage. I know exactly what needs to be done.”

  Jordan looked up and said, “Yeah, sure…the advantage. But just so you know, I’ve got no problem trading my life for my daughter’s or Blue’s. They come first, end of discussion. Promise me you’re good with that.”

  “No. We’re all gonna walk away from this alive. That’s the only promise you’ll get from me.”

  “Not good enough, bro. If you have to make a choice between any of us tomorrow night, I’m last in line, you hear me?”

  “Yeah, sure. I hear you.”

  Then they drove down the highway in silence.

  CHAPTER 30

  The hotel’s radio at the Holiday Inn Express by the Atlanta Airport clicked on at 6 a.m. Bennings was the first to hear it, maybe because he hadn’t slept that well. After getting in around 2 a.m., he had spent the night on the floor, letting Jordan and Blue have the two beds. Bennings staggered to his feet and walked into the bathroom. With a combination of gargle and toothpaste, he won the battle with some bad morning breath.