Resurrection America

by Jeff Gunhus

  He’d been in enough forward operating bases during his military career to recognize how well the place was sealed off. Whoever had set up camp inside had either gotten really lucky or they knew what the hell they were doing. And Rick didn’t believe much in luck.

  He went back to the Blazer, tried his radio again, and listened to the static for a few seconds before switching it off. Staring at the gate, he rifled through his options again, reluctantly realizing he didn’t have many. He got back out then went around and opened the rear door. He rummaged through the stockpile of traffic cones, flares and first-aid kits until he found the crowbar that went with his wheel jack. As he walked toward the gate, he was a little more observant than he’d been before. This time he noticed several cameras around him attached to different parts of the fence. Some wireless units were positioned up in the trees. He pictured somewhere there was a bank of TV monitors and a security guard watching his every move from a dozen angles. The least he could do was make it exciting.

  With a grunt, Rick heaved the crowbar at the fence. On impact, it exploded into a fountain of sparks. He ducked as the metal bar came flying back at him like a missile and passed over his head, right through the Blazer’s windshield.

  “Shit,” Rick said, standing up. He stared dumbly at the shattered glass, feeling like an idiot. A few inches lower and the crowbar would have taken his head off. He looked back at the video cameras, imagining someone on the other side having a good laugh at his expense. That put him in an even worse mood.

  The air reeked of burnt ozone. Rick was no expert on electrified fences, but he would have bet good money that the voltage was a lot more than advertised, not to mention the amps. Whoever erected the fence meant it to be a lethal deterrent.

  He took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his brow even though the temperature hadn’t cleared sixty. A hawk cried overhead, and he found himself wishing he had a hand drone to activate and send over the fence to reconnoiter the area for him. Even one of the civilian jobbers would have done the trick. Although he was starting to suspect that whoever was on the other side of the fence would have countermeasures for anything sent over to get a better look.

  He decided to walk the length of the fence to look for a gap in the fabric mesh. He didn’t hold out much hope that he’d find one, but he felt like he at least needed to try. A path about four feet wide made walking it easy. He looked up and down each section, feeling like a kid trying to find a hole in the fence at a ballgame when he couldn’t afford a ticket. Section after section showed that the fabric was a professional job. There were no corners turned down or short edges to give him a peek inside. Just green fabric and steel mesh with thousands of volts coursing through it. The whole thing had the smell of someone with military expertise.

  The end of the fence terminated into the mountain but also curved out and up along the rock wall. Even though the face was as climbable as Rick remembered, there were also long strands of razor wire bolted into the rock to block access. And he found one more thing that added to his anxiety level. A double set of boot prints in the soft dirt. One walking down and another walking back. It was impossible to know for sure, but his gut told him that he was tracing Manny’s footsteps. But where in the hell had he gone?

  An overwhelming sense of dread washed over him, just as it had in the Blazer. The looming fence seemed to stretch higher, and the ground felt tilted beneath his feet, giving him a feeling of vertigo. His heart jackhammered and his breathing sped up. A ringing filled his ears. Part of his brain recognized the signs of a panic attack, the kind that used to grip him and twist him sideways back when he first came home from the war.

  Naming something wasn’t the same thing as controlling it, but it was a start. He closed his eyes, trying to focus his breathing, grasping his left bicep right above the joint of his prosthetic hand. Holding on to what was real. What was actually part of him.

  Slowly, the panic ebbed. His heart rate returned to normal and he was able to take a deep breath, even though when he exhaled it came out ragged and slow. He took another breath, eyes still closed, and this one was smooth and clean. He was centered. Back in control.

  But when he opened his eyes and looked down the fence line, it took everything he had to keep that control in place.

  The gate was open. And he was no longer alone on the mountain.

  3

  Rick’s hand moved toward the gun on his belt but he immediately felt ridiculous for the gesture. The man standing outside the gate was almost two hundred yards away. His Glock was basically useless at that distance. Still, despite feeling idiotic, he took comfort in the feel of the gun’s cool steel under his fingers, and his nerves steadied.

  It wasn’t Manny waiting for him as he’d hoped. It was a man in a suit, dark and formal, waving Rick toward him. Rick pulled his hand away from his gun and started the long slog back, squinting as he approached to get a better look at the stranger waiting for him.

  The man watched him walk the entire distance, standing with his feet shoulder width apart, chest squared to him. The suit was buttoned up, but the jacket tails still whipped around in the mountain breeze. As Rick got closer, he noticed the man’s only concession to being in the mountains were the rugged boots he wore instead of fancy dress shoes. He also realized the man was older than his upright posture indicated from a distance.

  The man appeared to be in his early or mid-sixties, with silver hair carefully combed back and parted perfectly to one side. His face was etched with deep grooves that spoke of experience and a life lived the hard way. There was a self-confidence in the way the man stood with his squared jaw thrust forward, his cold blue eyes taking in every detail. A confidence that could have been arrogance, except that the man’s bearing and the expression on his face conveyed the sense that the confidence had been well earned. When Rick finally reached him, the man gave a thin, pained smile.

  “How can I help you?” the man said.

  Rick stifled a laugh. “Where do I start?”

  The man smiled, a little more genuinely now. A little pride sneaking into the expression. “You’re wondering how all this happened without you knowing about it?” the man said, indicating the fence.

  Rick nodded. “The thought had crossed my mind. That and a dozen other questions. Like whom I’m talking to.”

  “Of course,” the man said, “introductions first. My name’s Hank Keefer. And you are Sheriff Rick Johnson, correct?”

  Rick glanced at the gate and noticed two small holes had appeared in the fabric covering the fence. Through each of these poked the barrel of a gun pointed at him. Whoever this Hank Keefer was, he was well briefed and traveled with a security team. Rick worried what Manny might have gotten himself into. The sheriff decided to hold off on asking if the man had seen his deputy.

  He nodded to the guns. “I do have questions for you, Mr. Keefer, but first you better tell whoever’s behind those weapons over there to put them down. Guns make me nervous.”

  Keefer didn’t look towards the fence; his eyes stayed locked on Rick. “Sorry, of course.” He waved his hand and the gun barrels pulled back inside the fence and circles of fabric were reaffixed into position. “A lot of our mining operations are in third-world countries so our habits reflect that. We have to remind ourselves that we’re in the good old USA.”

  “So, that’s what you’re doing here? Mining?”

  Keefer laughed. “What else would we be doing?”

  Rick shrugged. “Been a mine up here for over a hundred years. Hell, there’s probably been a half-dozen different owners since I’ve been born. No one’s ever put security like this up here before.”

  The man looked at the fence as if he were contemplating the size of it for the first time. “Like I said, we’re used to operating in some very bad places. Sudan. Bolivia. New China. Congo. We have a protocol we follow.”

  “The folks down in Resurrection probably don’t consider their town part of that list you just gave.”

  Ke
efer’s face showed a flash of annoyance for the first time. It was there and then gone just as quickly. He nodded to the fence. “You think it’s too much?”

  “Depends on what you guys are really doing in there.”

  Keefer laughed, but it was cold. “You’re a suspicious one, aren’t you?”

  “Just trying to figure out––”

  “No, I understand,” Keefer interrupted. “A major mining company moved into town, created a high-tech secure perimeter fence, started operations, and not a single person in town knew anything about it. Not even the sheriff who’s supposed to be looking out for things.”

  Rick ground his teeth, feeling the truth behind the man’s words. Undoubtedly, he felt like a fool that something like this could happen right under his nose without him noticing. He felt no reason to lie about it. “It’s a little embarrassing, I’ll admit it. But why bother? Why all the secrecy?”

  “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you,” Keefer said, delivering the joke in a flat, lifeless voice that made Rick’s skin crawl. The man stared him down for a few seconds before giving him a wink. “You need to relax, Rick. I’m kidding. It’s from an old movie.”

  “Yeah, Top Gun. I know it.” He pointed down the mountain. “There are hundreds of people in Resurrection who know how to work this mine. But you haven’t hired one of them. Why?”

  Keefer blew out an exasperated breath. “For the same reason as the secrecy. The reality of what we’re doing here is only going to upset people in town. Perhaps to a point where there might be some trouble. We wanted the site to be online first if possible before announcing.”

  Rick took a step back, feeling like he was finally about to hear something approximating the truth. “Announcing what?”

  “The reason we haven’t hired anyone.”

  “And that is …”

  Keefer pointed to the fence behind him. “This mine is going full auto,” he said. “It’s our competitive advantage. A small handful of men operating machines that can do the work of hundreds.”

  “You mean robots,” Rick said.

  “See, that’s a word we just don’t like to use. It’s too loaded with sci-fi expectations. People think of androids walking around with pickaxes, wrapped in synthetic skin like those Asian sex worker bots they see on the news. These are just smart machines, safely operated from a control room on the surface by a human. Once we’re fully up and running, the trucks taking the ore out of here will be driverless, but still supervised by a person.”

  Rick took it all in. He’d seen the backlash against automated factories in industrial cities. Whole factories burned to the ground by angry mobs. And it wasn’t only factories. Everything from cab companies to fast food restaurants that had tried to go full auto had first been picketed, and then vandalized and become a hot-button political issue. Presidential candidate Mayfield had made it a central campaign promise, and after taking the oath of office had hammered the nail in the full auto coffin with his Get America Working Again (GAWA) legislation. But some things never change, and GAWA had carved out exceptions for those with the most powerful lobbies in Washington. Problem was that Rick knew mining wasn’t one of them.

  “You open this mine and it’s full auto, you’re going to need a taller fence,” Rick said. “Once word gets out, the feds will be here to close you down. If the men in town don’t arrive here first. All this twenty-foot-tall fence will do is cause a run on twenty-four-foot ladders at the hardware store.”

  Keefer glanced at the destroyed windshield of Rick’s Blazer but didn’t comment. They both knew the fence wouldn’t be breached by an angry mob. The man pulled out a neatly folded piece of paper from his inside jacket pocket. He handed it to Rick. “Times change, Sheriff. Don’t you watch the news? The world’s on fire. Countries putting walls up. Trade’s nonexistent. And on how many fronts is America waging the war on the Jihadis? Turns out America needs raw materials more than she needs a couple hundred jobs in Resurrection, Colorado. The feds were the ones who invited us in.”

  Rick unfolded the piece of paper. It was an official-looking document from the Department of Labor, but the heading on the page told the whole story.

  GAWA Exemption Awarded to CZ Corporation: Resurrection Mine, Colorado.

  Rick flipped to the second page and saw the signature line.

  Terrance Ruiz, Secretary of the Interior.

  “You can keep that if you want,” Keefer said. “It’s just a copy.”

  Rick folded it and put it into his pocket. “You think this is going to make things any easier with the town? Or the fact that your robots are supervised? This mine is the only hope they have. Once they see it’s back in operation but that none of them are needed to––”

  “I thought ten million dollars of town infrastructure and job training would help ease the pain,” Keefer said. “I was going to contact Mayor Wilkins. She goes by Bertie, right? Anyway, I’m going to ask her to facilitate the money. Or do you think I should ask Jack Lougner, the town treasurer? But I heard he spends a little too much time at Roscoe’s Bar and Grill. What do you think? Who do you think I should give the money to? I mean, it is your town and all.”

  Keefer grinned, and Rick sensed the man knew exactly what he was doing, signaling that he’d done his homework and knew the town well. If it was meant to rattle Rick a little, it hit the mark.

  “The mayor will tell you the same thing I did. These people don’t want a handout, they want a job. They don’t want your money.”

  Keefer shrugged. “Funny, your deputy didn’t feel that way.”

  4

  Rick felt a wash of cold over his body. “What do you know about my deputy? I got a radio call from him that he was up here.”

  “You just missed Deputy Garcia. We invited him in and had a nice chat. I asked him to do the same thing I’m going to ask you to do.”

  “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

  “Keep what he saw up here to himself. You know, give us a few days to make last minute preparations before we announce our presence to the town.”

  “I’m sure Manny told you the same thing I’m going to,” Rick said. “You can go to hell.”

  The man’s eye twitched and the muscles in his neck bulged. Rick took note of the signs of a raw temper just under the surface of the cool exterior, and filed it away for later use.

  Keefer pulled a stack of money from his jacket pocket. Nice, crisp, hundred-dollar bills. Based on the thickness, Rick guessed it was nine to ten grand.

  “He did say that, but with a little convincing, he decided to take a few days of vacation time.”

  “Bullshit,” Rick said.

  “Check your voice mail. He said he was going to leave a message for you.”

  Rick grabbed his phone. “I don’t get any reception …” His voice faded as he saw four bars on his phone. And a flashing icon of a telephone indicating he had a message. He looked quickly back at Keefer and hated the smug bastard even more.

  “Go ahead,” the man said. “I can wait.”

  Rick pressed his screen and turned away from Keefer. His shoulders slumped when Manny started to speak.

  “Hey, Rick, it’s me. I just wanted to let you know that I … uh … needed to take a little time off. Nothing big … a few days, k? I had … you know … I thought I saw something up at the mine. That’s why I called you. It wasn’t anything. Just Iraq again. Shit’s in your head, you know? Look, I’ll explain when I get back. Sorry, man. I’m really sorry.”

  Then the phone clicked off.

  “Did you want to play it again?” Keefer said.

  Rick clutched the phone to his chest and shook his head.

  “It’s not a bad deal,” Keefer said, waving the money like he was gently fanning himself. “No one gets hurt. If anything, it makes things smoother for everyone. The federal government wants this place operational, so you can’t stop it. All we’re talking about is when people in town find out we’re up here. If it’s today, there’ll be confusion and
panic because we’re not quite ready to announce the benefits package for the town. You said yourself that when people find out the mine is going full auto, there’ll be hell to pay.”

  “Option two?”

  “You say nothing. The town finds out in a few days when we have the community money figured out. We’ll have a meeting in the town hall and tell everyone the good news.”

  Rick snorted a short laugh. “Good news?”

  “What’s better? The mine is closed forever, everyone clear out? Or here’s ten million dollars, let’s find a way for everyone to stay?”

  Rick nodded. Mining was a thing of the past, he knew that. But it was the only thing about half of the working age men in town had ever known. Maybe a job training program was exactly what the town needed. It was better than anything else they had going on to save the town. “A few days?” Rick asked.

  “I can do it in two,” Keefer said.

  “How much are those days worth to you?”

  Keefer’s eyes narrowed. He held out the money. “About this much.”

  “I want five million dollars.”

  Keefer burst out laughing. There was movement behind the fence and Rick saw the holes in the fabric open, followed by gun barrels. Keefer saw the same thing and waved them away. The barrels withdrew but the holes remained open.

  “Son, you’re not worth five million dollars. No one is.”

  “It’s not for me,” Rick said. “I want it for the town. Up from your ten million.”

  “I don’t think––”

  “That’s nothing to you guys. You and I both know it,” Rick said. “And I figure it’s worth twice as much not to have the entire town up here a couple of hours from now picketing this place.” Rick indicated down the hill. “Tomorrow’s the Fall Festival. People from all over are coming into town. Most of them from other mining communities. Bet we could get a thousand people up here. The press would eat that.”