Freedom's Last Gasp

by M. A. Rothman

  Chapter Fourteen

  The lid to Tom’s coffin-like container cracked open, and a familiar face appeared above him.

  “It’s about damned time, Richard. I hate these cryo-containers.”

  Richard Fox was in his fifties, heavily muscled, wearing the uniform of a colonel in the UN’s quartermaster corps. He was also the leader of the southeastern US’s rebel alliance. He took Tom’s hand and pulled him upright.

  “I thought you guys were supposed to be in some kind of dreamless suspended animation or something when in these things.”

  “Just because these things slow our metabolism to like one percent doesn’t mean something isn’t cooking upstairs.” He tapped the side of his head.

  Around them, other containers in the UN supply warehouse—all of them labeled “for recycle”—hissed as their seals were breached. The other members of Tom’s team climbed out, also shaking off the cobwebs of medically induced hibernation.

  “Did you have any trouble with the customs folks?” Tom asked.

  “Nah, you guys were all listed as colony garbage. They ran a bio scanner and released twelve boxes of junk for me to take to the processor.”

  “Are we in monitored territory?”

  “Yes. But…” Richard smiled. “Follow me.”

  He led Tom and his team through a staggeringly tall maze of shelves and crates. He pressed a hidden button on a shelf, and a section of the floor lowered, revealing a ramp going down.

  “That’ll lead you to the Underground. Bikes are about fifty feet down tunnel, along with three supply crates. One of those has a really nice sniper rifle. I’m sure you’ll do good things with that. You have the map, right?”

  “I do.”

  “Good. It’s marked with breather holes where you can pop up in unmonitored territory. Do you know where you’re going yet?”

  “First place is the hacking station. I need some info from the Oracle.”

  “The Oracle, eh?” Richard chuckled. “Well, I guess she can handle some stuff I can’t. So, any questions?”

  “No questions. Thanks, Richard.”

  Richard clasped his hand. “Godspeed, my friend.”

  Twisting the throttle to its maximum, Tom ducked low, very conscious of the concrete ceiling just an arm’s length above him. The electric motorcycle had no speedometer, but the rushing air threatened to tear his clothes from him, which told him that he had to be going at least two hundred miles per hour.

  His goggles featured alien tech that projected images directly onto his retina. Without looking back he could not only see that the rest of his team was close behind, he could see that their target was only minutes away.

  A voice with a Russian accent came over his earpiece. “Rebel team approaching at breakneck speed, who the hell are you?”

  Tom smiled. “Hey, Tina. How’s it going?”

  Tina Polyudov was a Russian hacker known as the Oracle. She was the eyes and ears of many of the rebels in this part of the country, and Tom knew her well. Her voice sounded like it belonged to a barrel-chested brute of a man, but apart from that, she was all woman.

  “Blyat! No fucking way. Tommy-boy, is that really you?”

  “It’s me in the flesh. I’m going to need your help, girlfriend.”

  A string of curse words in Russian, English, and probably Demon erupted through the connection. “Don’t you dare try to sweet talk me. I haven’t forgotten what you said to me, you asshole. Tell me why I shouldn’t blow all of you into scraps that even the rats won’t find.”

  Tom winced. When they last parted ways, they didn’t leave on the best of terms.

  “Come on, Tina. We’re on the same team. I need help, and I know you’re the first person I can count on to help us stick it to those UN bastards. Can we at least sit together like civilized human beings and talk about this? It’s a conversation that’s kind of tough to have while I’m speeding through a low tunnel on a motorcycle. I promise you, you’ll want to help us.”

  There was silence on the line for a full ten seconds before Tina responded. “Fine. As long as you agree to leave your weapons in the cooler, my guys will let you in.”

  “Thanks. You’re the best.”

  “Fuck off, pretty boy.”

  The connection ended, but Conrad, one of his men, came over the line. They’d all heard the conversation.

  “Man, Tom, you seriously pissed in his corn flakes. And is that guy really named Tina?”

  Tom laughed. “Word of warning, guys: that’s a girl, and she’s pretty touchy about what she sounds like.”

  “No way. So what did you do to piss her off?”

  “Well, I worked with her five years ago, when I was down on a training mission. And I’ll be blunt: she’s hot. Body, curves, the whole deal. She’s also smart as hell. And she’s Russian, and maybe they make their women a bit aggressive, I don’t know, but whatever it is, she’s a big-time flirt. I ended up putting an end to that.”

  “How?”

  “Well, and this is totally petty on my part, I own that, but I couldn’t get past her voice. So one of the times she was suggesting we should… you know… I told her I wasn’t interested because she sounded like a three-hundred-pound Russian bodybuilder. She didn’t like that too much.”

  There was a chorus of laughter from the team.

  “You really are a sweet talker, aren’t you?”

  Lights appeared up ahead. Tom flashed his high beams and said, “Okay guys, we’re here.”

  Two big beefy guys were waiting for them at the bottom of a ramp leading up to a blast-proof door. Tom hopped off his motorcycle removed the sniper rifle that had been strapped across his back, and handed it to the first guy he came to. He held his arms out and the other guy patted him down. The process was repeated with the rest of his team before they were escorted through the door and into an old bomb shelter from the twentieth. Just a small room, poured concrete, empty but for the frames of a few bunk beds.

  A door on the opposite side of the room opened and Tina stepped through, curvy but fit. Her gaze immediately locked onto his, and she walked purposefully toward him, her smile growing larger, and as she came within arm’s reach, slugged him in the gut.

  “Now we’re even!”

  She turned to the rest of the team and, with a smile, motioned for them to follow.

  Tom groaned and ignored their chuckles as he brought up the rear. I hope she got that out of her system.

  Terry was with Tina in a small room filled with old-style flat screens and humming fans. A mainframe tapped into one of the trunks of what had once been called the information superhighway.

  “I don’t believe it,” Tina said.

  “It’s true. We think there are factions in the anti-UN types who tried to take out an actual Radcliffe.”

  Tina shook her head. “Well, there aren’t that many comms between here and the colony, so let’s just tackle that one first.” Her fingers were a blur on the keyboard.

  Tom leaned closer to see what she was doing, and got a death stare in return. “Sorry,” he said, backing away. “You really do hate people hovering over you.”

  “Not at all… in the bedroom. But you lost that privilege when you blew me off.”

  Tom took a deep breath and stared at the back of her head. “What are you doing?”

  “All of the alien tech on Earth is monitored, and I’ve got root access to the comms database. I’m scanning the traffic streams from Earth to Chrysalis looking for keywords and—got it.”

  Tom scooted closer—but not too close. “Got what?”

  “Hold on, there’s a long list of crap in here. Your Radcliffe chick is evidently a conversation piece with our UNIB folks. Let me extract data references associated with access requests.” She tapped at the keys. “Okay, does this sound familiar?”

  A man’s voice broadcast through a speaker somewhere in the room. “I’m sending an image of a new intern. She’s a Radcliffe. She’ll be leaving here in a few days. You know what to d
o.”

  Tom smiled. “That’s it. Damn, you’re good. The guy who received that message is in a cell up on the colony, but we don’t know who the sender is. Can you run an ID on the voice?”

  Tina looked back at him. “You’re barking up the wrong tree on that one. I know that voice—Todd Winslow. His father is a leader of a rebel group out of Montana. He’s a rebel through and through, but he’s also active duty with the military. I don’t know how he got on your radar, but he’s not a bad egg.”

  “I’d still like to talk to him.”

  “What, and get your group of assassins on him?” Tina’s eyes darted to the door. On the other side of that door were their two teams—probably sharing war stories. “No. I’ll call him and see what’s up.”

  She turned to a wall of electronics and flipped a particular switch on a panel of a hundred other unmarked switches. A ringing came over the hidden speaker, then a voice.

  “Hello?” The same voice as before. Todd Winslow.

  Tina leaned back in her chair and adjusted her cleavage. “Boy toy. Can you talk now?”

  “No. Twenty minutes.”

  “Call me.”

  “Will do.”

  Tom’s pocket PC vibrated with a message from the colony. He took it out and read. If possible, find out what Operation Clean Sweep is.

  “What is it?” Tina asked.

  “A message from the colony. They want to know about something called Operation Clean Sweep.”

  Tina turned back to the laptop. “What keywords do you want me to use? Operation Clean Sweep, anything else?”

  “Let’s add Priya, P-r-i-y-a Radcliffe.” Tom frowned. “Well, the premise the UNIB guys used to get the Radcliffe girl under their thumb was to figure out who was responsible for some terrorist attacks. So maybe add terrorist, bomb… I don’t know, Chrysalis. Start with that and see what we get.”

  “What I get, you presumptuous ass.” A smile grew on Tina’s face as she typed. One by one, monitors in the room lit up with SQL queries, binary search attempts, and a series of predictive search functions. Tom felt the room get warmer by a few degrees as the processing power of the machinery was put to the test.

  “What databases are you searching?” he asked.

  “All of them. We long ago managed to find a backdoor in the UNIB’s Raven firewall. If it’s out there, I’ll find it.”

  A moment later, the first hit popped up. Tom scooted closer to get a better look. “A newspaper article about the tube attack outside Cape Canaveral. That’s the one the Radcliffe girl’s parents died in. Stuff we already know.”

  Over the next twenty minutes, more results trickled in, but none of them were particularly revelatory.

  And then Todd Winslow called back.

  “Ya?” answered Tina.

  “You wanted to talk?”

  “Absolutely. I’m following up on something and your name popped up. I was hoping you could help fill in the blanks.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “This is from a couple months ago. I see here that you arranged for a comm with the colony, and it had to do with—”

  “I remember it. I don’t exactly talk to the colony folks often. What do you want to know?”

  “What was the point of that call?”

  “I was informed that a girl heading over to the colony might have been set up for something. You know the UNIB guys, those assholes don’t give a damn about anyone, and this girl was a total dupe. She had no idea what she was getting into. So I was trying to get one of our guys to act as overwatch for her.”

  Tom nodded. That seemed a reasonable explanation, and it fit with what he knew of the case.

  “Thanks, zaichik,” said Tina. “I’ll see you soon?”

  “I’ve got leave next week, so I was hoping to get together.”

  Tina grinned and shifted her gaze to Tom. “Oh, we’ll get together all right. Over and over again.”

  Tom just shook his head. She hadn’t changed a bit.

  “I have to get going. Love you.”

  “You too.” As Tina disconnected, there was a slight pink on her cheeks.

  “Zaichik?” said Tom with a smile. “Doesn’t that mean bunny?”

  “Shut up.” Tina pointed at the screen. “Another hit, and I bet this one will be more interesting. Video taken by an alien probe embedded in the UNIB complex.”

  She pressed a key, and a video began to play. It showed a very up-close image of a file cabinet, the camera angle was almost as if it was captured by a snake oozing into the cracks of the cabinet and then slowly scanning each individual paper.”

  “What in the world captured that video?

  “That’s an alien probe. I’m sure you’ve seen the shapeshifter types. Anyway, we’ve got them crawling through everything those guys are doing.” Tina reached over and twisted a knob on the nearby desk.

  “Looks like I have to manually advance to the identified time stamp.” The video fast-forwarded rapidly what seemed to be thousands of pages. “Okay, here we go.” She highlighted the paper on the screen and zoomed in so they could read it.

  * * *

  Date: 126.12 AE

  Subject: Classified Briefing – Terrorist Problem

  * * *

  SGNP: Let’s be very clear, gentlemen. This conversation is not to be part of any official record or database. We’re getting reports of terrorist activities that are disrupting government services. We know they’re illegals coming out of the unmonitored territories, yet the public sentiment is not with us on a crackdown. You promised a solution—that’s why we funded the UNIB. What have you got?

  CHD: Ma’am, the research on KBP is complete. We have five projectiles at the ready. Each is capable of bringing down the explosive energy equivalent of nearly 500 tons of TNT. That will wipe out anything in a thousand-foot radius.

  * * *

  SGNP: And we’re sure that it can’t be traced back to us?

  * * *

  CHD/GMB: Yes, ma’am.

  * * *

  GMB: Madam Secretary, what Henry’s developed is silent. No radar cross-section whatsoever. No radiation. We can plant certain things on site to satisfy the forensics team, then leak it to the media. We’ll have the media with us, which should create a popular shift to our way of thinking.

  * * *

  SGNP: I’m counting on that. This utopia our forefathers envisioned is only hanging on by a thread, and it needs patriots to care for it.

  * * *

  CHD: Ma’am, I may not be able to guarantee zero casualties from the operation.

  * * *

  SGNP: The same thing that makes the grass grow feeds the heart of what we’re doing here, gentlemen. There are sacrifices to be made, and I’m sure any patriot would make that sacrifice, right?

  * * *

  CHD/GMB: Yes, ma’am.

  * * *

  “What makes the grass grow?” Tina asked, confused.

  “Blood,” explained Tom, shaking his head. “Blood makes the grass grow. This is sick.”

  “Well, judging by the date on this, twenty-seven years ago, I’m guessing they were discussing the terrorist attack in The Hague against the UN’s First Council. Plenty of blood, that’s for sure.”

  “Is that it? Is there more?” Tom asked.

  “Oh, we’ve got more hits. Hang on.” Tina referenced another monitor, then fast-forwarded and zoomed in on another sheet of paper.

  * * *

  Date: 146.205 AE

  Subject: Classified Briefing – The Radcliffe Problem

  * * *

  SGNP: How is it that we have two scientists in charge of one of our most important construction projects, and you’re telling me that they’re in communication with rebel elements?

  * * *

  GHD: They passed their polygraph exams, ma’am. If it weren’t for one of the UNIB’s men recording a conversation, we wouldn’t have thought to put tracers on them. It happens, I’m afraid. And being descendants of a historical figure gives them sta
tus with the illegals out there in the unmonitored territories.

  * * *

  SGNP: Well, we can’t have them having unmonitored excursions. Who knows what they’re divulging to the enemy? But there would also be problems with just letting them go. They’d have the ear of the media.

  * * *

  GHD: I didn’t think that was a problem anymore.

  * * *

  SGNP: Don’t be naïve, Henry. Data gets around, even today. We need them pastured, permanently.

  * * *

  GHD: KBP has been dormant for seven years. There’s four unused projectiles. It worked well the last time… how about another try?

  * * *

  SGNP: KBP? Oh yes, I remember. Good… there’s a reason I recommended you to be elevated to general. But we can’t make it look like an assassination. Just killing them would lead the conspiracy theorists to sniff around.

  * * *

  GHD: How about we send two shots this time? One lands in an open field outside Canaveral, no harm done. The other takes out the tube as the Radcliffes approach the area. Takes care of the issue and makes the terrorists look like bumbling idiots.

  * * *

  SGNP: Perfect.

  * * *

  Tina shook her head. “I can’t believe these morons have all this written down, even if it is in some shithole filing cabinet deep in a UNIB vault.”

  “It’s the military way: paperwork then, paperwork now, paperwork forever. They probably figured if there wasn’t an electronic record, there was no risk.”

  Tina grinned. “They were wrong.”