Overrun: Project Hideaway

by Michael Rusch

  "Are you involved?"

  Baldwin still did not speak.

  “Dan, are you part of this?”

  "No, Frank. I’m not. I'm not directly involved. I’m just aware of how it works. Occasionally, I’m contacted for a report on what is going on in this office. And on occasion, I advise and make recommendations when I see the need."

  "Have you ever advised in regards to me?"

  "At times, I have."

  "With everything finally plays out, this all going to fall on my shoulders,” Ford said tiredly. “People are going to need someone to blame. Both our citizens and theirs. Your ‘underground powers that be’ will remain there. Secret and safe. While I sit at the head of the government that has released on its own land the worst atrocity this world has ever seen. I will be left standing alone to atone for the sins of this country to the rest of the world. Is that what all this preparation is for?”

  "In a way sir," Baldwin said his voice was nearly a whisper.

  “Is that why my family had to die?”

  Baldwin didn’t answer him.

  "They will come after me."

  "Yes, sir. They will."

  "Those on my administration...," Ford finished. “They will come after them too. None of you will be safe.”

  "Also probably true," Baldwin spoke softly again. "It was never expected to run its course in this fashion. The situation we are in now has come as a surprise to many involved in this undertaking. Control of the events set in motion has been lost. Something like this will never be able to happen again."

  The President stared out the large window and sipped at what remained of his drink. The ticking of a large grandfather clock echoed loudly from the center of the vast room. Its sound was ominous and foreboding.

  "What about Faulken?" Ford asked with his back still turned.

  "He’s been missing for some time. His absence has extended well beyond what can be expected between normal administrative check-ins."

  Ford sat back in his chair and nodded contemplatively. The ice in his glass made a soft clink as he took another drink.

  “I have placed all mission decisions in the hands of the quadrant commanders."

  "So you don't expect him to return?"

  “I don't, sir."

  Ford lifted his right hand and pointed his index finger in the air. He set his glass down on his desk and stared directly into Baldwin’s face.

  Baldwin shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  "I want him dead," Ford said through clenched teeth. "Assign a team to search him out. Trace him to those ‘powers that be’. I want him standing next to me when I'm held accountable. I will end his life for this treason. And for the treachery that took the lives of my family."

  "Sir, dispatching a team is not possible at this point,” Baldwin spoke nervously. “Most wounded are being sent back into combat, our troop levels have fallen so low. There's barely a skeleton crew operating here at the Administration Dome as it stands. There's literally no one left to send after him."

  A dark menacing cloud settled in front of the President's eyes.

  "Daniel, this plan is failing. This genocide we've created is not going to make our country stronger. It’s hemorrhaging it apart. All we've done is make this nation more weak in a dying world. It’s a national suicide. Project Hideaway is the last hope our country has to survive. We need to exercise the utmost in caution in deciding how to use it."

  Baldwin swallowed hard.

  "I want Faulken brought back."

  "Sir, land vehicles and troops have been detected in this vector."

  Ford didn't react. His expression was still.

  "They haven’t discovered our position yet, but they are out patrolling areas approximately four hundred miles from the outermost safety point here at the Administration Dome. We are still cloaked, but they are zeroing in. They haven’t shown signs that they’ve discovered us, but they will know we are here soon.

  “It’s one of the reasons Faulken left,” Baldwin’s voice became darker. “As a participant and leader within this underground, he had to protect himself."

  The President turned his head.

  "Sheer luck has been a great factor in the J.G.U’s military success thus far, Mr. President. We need to be ready. We’ve scouted their patrols. We haven’t sensed a direct focus on our location, but they’re heading in this direction. Soon they will be here. We can’t think otherwise.”

  "I don't think it’s luck that has contributed to their military success,” President Ford breathed out slowly. “We're reaping the price for the sins we have done."

  With that, Baldwin stood. The President also rose from behind his desk.

  "Regardless of what it is, Mr. President," Baldwin said reaching down into a small leather bag sitting next to his feet on the floor. When he pulled his hand out, he held two Sunzyk hand weapons and two leather holsters. "I brought you these. These are necessary now."

  President Ford reached across the desk to take the side arms and their leather protective pouches. He looked at them for a moment and turned one of them over reflectively in his hands.

  He raised his head to look at Baldwin.

  "Has it come to this already, Mr. Baldwin?"

  "I'm afraid sir, it has. The J.G.U. are pouring into the country. They, unlike us, do not seem to notice that they are running out of men. And as this scenario plays out, our own people will turn. The stories of what is happening on the outside soon are all about to be told."

  "Does this mean you fear we will be conquered? That the whole country will be overrun?"

  "My fears are many, Mr. President. You must be prepared. The J.G.U. have already taken over Science Dome 15. Other science domes are also soon to fall. Project Hideaway is the last bit of anything that will keep this country from vanishing from the face of the Earth."

  "Not quite what was designed by the ‘powers that be’?"

  "No, sir. It is not."

  "When will we have word from the reconnaissance team you've dispatched to SD15 to investigate the status of the Hideaway Project?"

  "Choppers just took them in. We expect contact within the next eight hours."

  "Those two men in space have the most precious cargo ever known to this Earth. With it, we may be able negotiate a truce with the J.G.U. and convince them to stand down.

  “I want to be informed as soon as you hear anything. Any and all status reports of the Hideaway Project are to come directly to this office, and this office only. And to hell with your ‘powers that be’. Is that understood?"

  "Yes, sir." Baldwin gathered his things from the desk and began walking towards the door.

  "And, Dan."

  "Yes, Mr. President." Baldwin turned back around.

  "I want him found."

  "Sir..."

  The President held his hand in the air to cut him off.

  "Find someone. Anyone. I want him located and taken into custody. He will be tried for treason immediately…and executed.

  “He will be my message to your ‘powers that be’. I am still the fucking President. I still have regular armed forces and the administrative behind me. Faulken’s trial and execution will demonstrate that point.

  "Sir, what you’re saying…” Baldwin’s voice was barely a whisper.

  “Your participation may also be considered if what I order now does not soon come to be,” the President warned icily. “Many will ultimately stand with him for what has been wrought upon this country. I will not take it upon my shoulders alone.

  "Faulken will die a traitor’s death as a warning to your underground ‘powers that be’. A warning that unless they want to follow in his footsteps, they are to remain underground. For fucking forever.”

  "Yes, Mr. President."

  "When this whole thing finally ends, and I’m being dragged away in chains, I will have the comfort knowing that I didn't pay this price alone."

  "I understand, Frank."

  "I want that passed along."

 
"It will be," Baldwin said quietly. And with that he left the room.

  * * *

  The President walked back to the center of the room and threw the holsters and Sunszk side arms across his desk. Their clatter rang loudly through the empty presidential chamber. With a resonant thump, he dropped his body back into his seat.

  He stared at the weapons for a long time while running through the reasons why not to just put one to his head. To not pull the trigger and end the nightmare his world and life had become. To find peace once again.

  From a locked bottom drawer, he pulled out a second bottle and replenished what was in his glass.

  Taking it again in his hand and emptying its contents into the back of his throat, he contemplated the events of that afternoon many long months ago.

  Ice cubes from the bottom of the glass clinked against his closed teeth.

  During the day, the visions tormented him constantly. The haunting nightmares came for him during his mostly sleepless nights.

  And now after his conversation with Baldwin, the visions and reasons behind them became even more disturbing. Everything about his life after that point in time had just been transformed.

  His mind wandered back to that particular date. When the sheer act of life for him became dulled and a dreary icy cold.

  The unexplainable act of violence, something completely unprecedented in any past dome events, became frightfully more clear. His head pounded as he fought to control his thoughts. And tried to grapple with what he had finally come to know.

  He remembered well the day of the execution. The colors of the day were etched forever in his head. All variations of dark gray and black.

  It was the day he personally witnessed the ending of the two lives of the men accused of firing on their vehicle caravan. He clung to the memory with a cold bitter hate and took satisfaction in reliving it over and over again in his head.

  Surrounded by Secret Service, armed military guards, and local dome police, they had been driving through the center of the Administration Dome. With smiles across their faces, they all waved to the crowds through the unprotected open air. It was a joyous and grand historic time.

  He could still see the bodies of his wife, daughter and son grotesquely flail beneath the barrage of weapons fire. He had thought the attack was directed solely at him. He could still feel the crushing weight of the three bodyguards sprawled across his back. The ones who had unexplainably detached themselves from his family and surrounded only him when he got out to address the excited crowd.

  To this day he couldn’t remember why they decided to leave the vehicle or recall the purpose of the grand celebration. No matter how clear it almost always seemed, the vision was always incomplete.

  The one thing he did remember entirely was the blinding hate and the emptiness of death. The dark colors that surrounded them. And the loss of his soul.

  He could still taste the pavement and feel the pain in his teeth. He could smell the exhaust from the executive transport chugging quietly just over his head in the street.

  At the sound of the first shots, the bodyguards tackled him and threw him beneath his own car leaving the rest of his family unprotected and exposed. They were gunned down before they could run back to the vehicle. Their happy waves and warm smiles had turned quickly to surprise, fear and pain while the President was held to the ground and watched helplessly.

  He recalled the pain when he tried to get up. The broken bone in his left arm and the blood running down his face. He remembered the bystanders running away in panicked herds, and the physicians and armed guards jumping from cars further up in the parade.

  He remembered the blackness of the dome.

  Each time he relived it, the scene seemed to take forever to play out. The confusion and pain of the day. The instant crushing blow of agonizing loss. His crying heart and stinging tears.

  And then the faces of the two men suddenly brought before him when he was finally allowed to stand.

  Still sipping his drink, Ford could only recollect the hate.

  All during the quick trial, there were denials and accusations. Neither of the men ever confessed to a part in the assassination attempt. No weapons were found. A motive was never offered. Not once did he even care. He wanted someone dead. He wanted those two men dead. And dead he vowed they were going to be.

  Ford remembered how he looked forward to that day. The day of the execution. He remembered getting dressed that morning and driving himself to the penitentiary chambers. He stood with the guards when they took the men from their cells. And walked with them when they were moved to the execution chamber.

  Ford stood between them when they were strapped to the tables and stared into their faces when they were raised upright.

  Ford remembered the look in their eyes. And could still almost feel the sense of their fright.

  Every bit of every day since, he relished in their fear.

  He recalled the rush he felt when the executioner offered him one of the positions at the activation device. When the order was given, he and two other men pressed buttons on the medical apparatus that released the dose of liquid radiation into the tubes jutting from their skin. Two of the switches were dummies. Only one of them was live. Ford had asked to press them all.

  And the President remembered that all of it just didn't seem to be enough. He wanted to administer the radiation with an injector himself. He wanted to twist its jagged needle around in their arms. He had wanted to force them to feel more pain. To make them feel more like himself.

  Baldwin had accompanied him that day. In the execution chamber, he stood alone in the shadows. He talked to those that questioned the President’s participation in the punishment procedures after the failed trial. Never once did Baldwin advise him that his public display of spite and vengeance was a political mistake.

  After pressing his switch, Ford stood again between the two execution tables. The radiation entered their system, and their bodies started thrashing violently about. Ignoring the small crowd there to witness the event, Ford looked on without compassion. Anger seared through his body. He relished in their torment and watched over them until the end finally came.

  When it was over, he backed away. Baldwin reached from the shadows then and gently took his arm. Leading him through the door of the chamber, they left the penitentiary down a darkened hall.

  None of it was enough. The tortured deaths of the men that killed his family did nothing to ease his despair.

  Rage consumed his life. Heartache dulled his senses. He became blinded to the implications of the events around him and everything that had just occurred.

  Eyeing the gun on his table, Ford finally realized he had chosen to ignore what did not make sense and let himself be blinded to the information and procedural holes. Shock and grief overwhelmed his body and tore away his nerve. He suffocated beneath it for a long time while the dome government continued to operate around him.

  It wasn’t until just now after his conversation with Baldwin that Ford completely understood. He had allowed an underground to grow up around him while he wallowed in his sorrow. Bureaucratic demons had come to exist. Ones who used the murders of his own family to make him look strong.

  These were the men responsible for this war, a governmental underground now bent on using Ford to cover for their ambitions and make true their lies.

  While they worked to one day rule the Earth.

  President Ford swallowed the rest of the drink in his glass. He pulled out the file Baldwin had given him and reviewed again the secrets and implications of the Hideaway Project.

  He vowed to God that the day these men lorded over the Earth was a day that never in a million years would ever come.

  Chapter 16

  Both men aboard the Hideaway were silent. Sweat dripped heavily from their foreheads.

  "What do we do, Jed?"

  "What do you mean what do we do?” Parker answered curtly back. “What we do is we wait."

  "J
ed, there’s something wrong. We’ve been in hypersleep up here for more than fifty years,” Barnes’ voice started to go up in pitch. “Something is really fucking wrong."

  "Nothing is wrong."

  "Jed, listen to me. We’re not even supposed to be awake. The ship for god’s sake brought us out. Something went wrong. There might not be anybody left that even knows we’re up here. We could be completely screwed."

  "We don't know that."

  "Like hell we don't."

  "Jeff, listen to me,” Parker said in a carefully guarded tone. “We have to sit. We have to assess. We need to wait for someone to contact us. That's what we are up here to do. And you know that. We came up here knowing that."

  "We can't do that forever, Jed," Barnes responded slightly more calmly.

  “Forever hasn’t even begun to start yet, Jeff.”

  "What if the world is dead? And what we have up here is the only thing that can possibly bring it back. Where's your loyalty? It shouldn’t be just to the people that sent us up. Not anymore. Not now. We have a moral duty to bring this ship back. To let whoever is alive down there use what’s on it. To try and save at least somebody."

  Parker looked at him then. His eyes narrowed to a dark glare.

  His vision flashed quickly back to the day he found his wife in their tub and the white tiles he had stared at for so long in their bathroom. A surge of sadness rushed to fill his aching heart. And then like a ship opening an airlock into the blackness of space, it was quickly sucked completely out. Until only nothingness filled it once again.

  "Barnes, who is there really to be loyal to anymore?”

  Barnes didn't immediately say anything back. He turned and looked straight ahead.

  “Then why the hell are you even up here?” Barnes asked sullenly. His voice echoed quietly in the small Hideaway command cabin.

  “The same reason you are, Barnes. Just to get the hell away.”

  Barnes was silent for another long minute before responding again.

  “What if we’re the only ones left?”

  This time Parker didn't respond.

  "My suggestion to the captain is this," Barnes said talking just slightly above a whisper. "We need to think about this and not rule any course of action out. We won't do anything or deviate from current mission orders until we’ve thought it completely through. And we’re both in complete agreement."