by Jeff Gunhus
“What is this?” Rick asked.
Keefer waved the soldier forward and took the phone. He held it up to his ear, only his side of the conversation audible.
“Colonel Keefer, sir … yes that’s right, at gunpoint …no, sir, if we can get back to work in the next five minutes, I guarantee the mission can be completed … yes, sir …”
Keefer asked for the mic from Rick who handed it over. He held it to the earpiece and then said, “Go ahead, sir. You’re being piped in through the PA system.”
A man cleared his voice, and then there came a sound that tore apart everything that Rick had come to believe in the last two hours.
“My fellow Americans,” the voice said, a little distorted over the line, but clear enough. “This is Ken Mayfield, the president of the United States. First, let me extend my heartfelt …”
Rick didn’t hear the rest of what the president said. He staggered backward, the gun hanging limply in his hand. He startled when he felt pressure on his arms and then his gun was wrested from his hands. Pain exploded in the back of his legs and he was forced to the floor.
But he didn’t care. He’d gotten it wrong. All of it. And he’d put everyone at even greater risk. All that was left to do was give in to the process, get out of the way, and try not to cause any more damage.
Someone yanked his arms behind his back and he felt the pinch of zip ties on his wrists. Bertie was right in front of him, tears on her cheeks, talking to whomever had a hold of his arms. She was telling the man not to hurt him, but he barely heard the words. He didn’t want to hear them and he didn’t want to see her face. Poor Bertie, always looking out for him since he was a kid. Went out on a limb when he got back and took a risk on a broken soldier. And this was the thanks he gave her.
He looked past Bertie and saw Keefer still holding the phone to the mic. The president’s voice seemed impossibly far away and under water. The words, “God bless you all and God bless the United States of America,” filtered through his consciousness.
Keefer said something to the crowd, waved and then returned the mic to its stand. A security detail immediately formed a phalanx around him as he walked off the stage. When he passed Rick, the two of them locked eyes for just the barest of seconds.
And the son of a bitch winked at him.
Then Rick was hefted onto his feet and half dragged, half carried off the stage toward jail. He heard Cassie cry out behind him and she was grabbed too. The coconspirators in the mutiny were under wraps and out of the way.
The clock ticked down to nineteen minutes.
30
Cassie watched as the soldiers pushed Rick ahead of her. One of them held her upper arm in a strong grip, but otherwise she was allowed to walk on her own. The crowd parted just enough to allow them to squeeze through. People wanted to be close enough to give Rick a few choice words as he passed. Men and women both, their faces screwed into masks of anger, yelled insults at Cassie and Rick, mostly about how they had put everyone at risk with their stupidity. Only they used language so colorful it would make a sailor take note.
Cassie didn’t recognize any of the faces. She’d gotten to know most of the residents in Resurrection during her few years of work there, and dating Rick had made certain that everyone knew who she was. She was glad to see none of Rick’s friends yelling in the angry crowd. The few scattered here and there stood in silence and watched him pass by; not anger but sadness and disbelief marked their expressions. There was one that stood out among them, an old man, Roberts she thought was the name. He was part of the human tunnel the soldiers pushed through, but he wasn’t yelling like the others. He just stood as if sizing Rick up as he was hustled past.
Rick didn’t seem to hear or see any of it. He walked with his head down, shoulders slumped forward. Cassie felt terrible, owning her responsibility for what had just happened. Her concerns had been valid, but she should have been more aware of how Rick’s PTSD might impact the way he processed the events. He’d looked so wild on the stage, barely in control. He could have told the crowd the sky was blue and they still would have doubted him.
His claim that he’d seen soldiers taking a smoke break in the alley next to the sheriff’s station had taken her by surprise. She hadn’t seen the soldiers with their visors up, but she felt like she’d left Rick hung out to dry when he’d asked her to confirm the fact on the stage. Her impulse was to back him up, but she couldn’t. The stakes were too high. Because if their suspicions were wrong, and they really were just slowing down the inoculations for no reason, they were putting the entire town at risk. So she’d told the truth. The look of betrayal on Rick’s face was unlike anything she’d seen from him before. No, that wasn’t quite right. The moment she’d chosen her career over staying in Resurrection to be his wife had produced that same expression.
But she hadn’t seen the soldiers the way Rick had. And she had to face the fact that maybe Rick hadn’t seen them either. It wasn’t that she thought he was lying. She had no doubt Rick believed he saw the men in the alley with their visors up. But given Rick’s history, there was a chance it was all in his head. On the other hand, he’d been right about so many things, like the Jihadi symbol on the vehicles, that it seemed odd his only break with reality would come at that one moment.
Cassie felt guilty because she honestly didn’t want to believe Rick. It was bad enough if there was a deadly virus inside her, but at least that came with a solution. If the whole thing really was some terrorist plot, there was no hope. If this were true, what could she do to stop it anyway? While the human side of her wanted the happy ending, the problem solver in her wanted to know the truth.
As she walked, she went through each of the facts they’d come up with, and Keefer’s explanations. Each thing Keefer had said seemed reasonable on the surface, but she couldn’t stop the feeling that something was still off. There were too many small oddities, and the reasons for each came off as too convenient. Too rehearsed and perfect.
Or they might have sounded like that because they were the truth.
The revelation that Rick had known the mine was in operation hurt. She’d guessed he’d known something based on the way he’d tried to stall her, but the fact that he’d actually met Keefer before, and that money had changed hands, surprised her. And the way he’d been able to lie right to her face was disturbing. It was the one thing he’d never been able to do when they were together, not even to say he liked an outfit she was wearing when he really didn’t. The reveal had hurt his credibility with the crowd at a pivotal moment too. But it wouldn’t have mattered in the end.
The call from the president had sealed the case.
Anyone in that square who might have still harbored doubts was sold after that phone call. Even Rick had sort of imploded after hearing the voice over the phone, the reality he’d constructed in his mind collapsing in on itself as he understood that the two of them had been wrong. He’d looked completely broken by the revelation. It was only then that she realized he was living the experience filtered through his PTSD. Back when they were together, she’d been there on the nights when he woke up screaming, locked in some fire fight in a distant desert, his friends dying around him. With her there, he came out of it quickly, but always with his entire body shaking and covered in sweat. Sometimes he’d weep in her arms as the dream gave way to actual memories of things he’d seen and done in the service of his country.
And that was after he’d made a tremendous amount of progress.
He’d shared with her some of the details of his first year back in the country. How every loud noise made him jump. How a sound or a smell could transport him to a different country and a different time, with such reality that he thought he was going insane. How every person with Middle Eastern heritage put him on such an edge that his mind flooded with ways to kill. How when he looked in the mirror he saw a monster to be feared and hated staring back at him.
Resurrection had been his bedrock. Bertie had been his savior. Cassie
could have been the third leg of his full reintegration into a normal life, but she couldn’t do it. No, she could have done it, she’d loved him enough. Sometimes, especially when she walked into her empty apartment after a fourteen-hour day at the lab, she wondered if she’d made the right choice.
But none of that mattered now. She worried how this situation would impact him. Whether he would retreat back inside himself to the dark place where the nightmares waited. As she watched him stumble up the steps to the sheriff’s station, head hung low, totally defeated, it looked like he was doing exactly that.
Now a new soldier joined them. Cassie noticed the others deferred to him as he reached out and took hold of Rick’s arm. His had one of the clear visors but she was behind him so she couldn’t see his face. However, she could see a tattoo extending from his collar up the side of his neck. Whoever it was, he handled Rick roughly, pushing him along and shoving him through the door into the station.
Before she followed them up inside, she turned around to look out over the crowd. Most people had lost interest in them, listening to the instructions being given on the stage for the final people to get inoculated. The old man was still there, studying her, his face still unreadable. Behind him the clock on the stage ticked down to under seventeen minutes. A soldier made an announcement on stage, assuring everyone that there was time for all as there were under a hundred people left.
She breathed a little easier hearing that. At least their questioning hadn’t messed things up too much. Everyone would get the shot in time. Everyone would be safe.
As she walked through the door into the outer office of the sheriff’s station, she saw the soldier with the neck tattoo punch Rick in the face. Before she could cry out, the door slammed behind her.
31
Brandon Morris turned off the monitor at his desk that showed the live video feed from Resurrection. He didn’t have the stomach for watching Keefer work damage control, spinning half-truths and lies so fast that even Morris wondered what was real and what was fiction. And seeing Cassie on stage made him feel sick. How she’d been caught up in the whole mess was unbelievable. He’d had assurances from Keefer that she wouldn’t be harmed, but the images on his screen of soldiers in hazmat suits occupying an American town, didn’t give him confidence that Cassie would make it through without getting hurt.
Then again, if there was one thing Keefer had proven over and over it was that he could deliver what he promised, no matter how high the odds were stacked against him. Morris had to hand it to the old soldier. The proposal Keefer had pitched nearly a year earlier matched almost exactly what was rolling out on the video feeds. The plan had seemed not only audacious but needlessly complicated, but Keefer’s resolve and confidence had won Morris over.
Morris understood systems better than most people. He’d designed and created some of the most complicated computer and mechanical systems in human history. So he knew the chaos that the deviation of a single variable could cause. He’d seen billion-dollar projects seize up and fail because one line of code had been entered incorrectly. Computers and machines were hard enough, but when he considered the incalculable variables working with so many human beings, Morris could only marvel at what the man was pulling off.
Keefer’s brilliance was a rare combination of ruthless resolve and an understanding of human instinct. The old soldier was a master manipulator; as proof Morris only needed to switch the video feed back on to see hundreds of people lining up dutifully to submit themselves to a shot in the arm from a faceless technician holding an unknown serum. And yet there they were; the elderly being helped into the medical tents, families getting shots together, mothers handing their babies over and crying in relief after the injection was given to their little ones.
It was brilliant.
Even so, he still felt Keefer ought to have listened to him to begin with and conducted the operation offshore where they could have acted with impunity. There was no shortage in an overpopulated world of government officials willing to turn a blind eye to even the most egregious acts as long as the money ended up in the right bank accounts. But Keefer had insisted they do this in America. He’d even given Morris a lecture about patriotism and how Americans had to save their own country. Patriotism was a foreign idea to Morris. To him, nationalism was on par with religion, a way to manipulate the masses and rally them to whatever cause the ruling elite wanted to fight. He was surprised to learn that Keefer was under its sway. Morris considered it a weakness, one he could exploit.
Keefer wasn’t the only one capable of manipulation. Morris’d let the old man believe he was in control. Even when Keefer had threatened him over the phone the previous day, Morris had pretended to buckle. He smirked as he imagined how confident the old man had sounded at the end of the call. The alpha dog didn’t know it, but Morris had him by the balls. All he had to do was push a button and he could lop them off. Once they reached the next stage of the mission, he held every card. Keefer was just the pawn who thought he ought to be king.
He was willing to let Keefer keep believing that until he delivered them to the next stage. It had to happen. Everything was riding on it.
“Mr. Morris, we’re ready for you,” a soft voice said through a speaker embedded in his jaw bone. The device still unsettled him. During development, his people had thought the wearable would be in the ear itself, but the soft tissue had proven difficult to deal with and prone to infection. Vibrations in the jawbone worked just as well and it was a permanent solution. And importantly, there was no machine-brain connection, so it couldn’t be hacked.
He checked the clock on the wall. The call was precisely on time. He expected no less than perfection from his medical team.
He crossed his right hand to touch the spot on his left jaw where the speaker was embedded, a movement which activated the microphone. It had the added benefit of covering his mouth as he spoke to protect him from lip-readers. Some of the most important secrets in the world were still stolen through low-tech means.
“Thank you,” he said. “You may come in.”
The door to his office opened and a beautiful woman dressed in a dark business suit and high heels entered, flanked on either side by two large men dressed in crisp white orderly uniforms. The Genysis logo was embroidered discreetly on the uniforms next to the large identification badges attached to their breast pockets.
The woman stopped in front of Morris’s desk, but the men continued forward without being asked. Morris recognized them as the same two that had come for him six hours earlier. And six hours before that. And six before that. He felt as if he should know their names and nearly made the effort to look at their badges, but he stopped himself. Getting to know the men only made it harder later when they had to be rotated out if they asked the wrong questions or demanded to be let out of the grounds. The world didn’t know about his sickness, and there was only one way he knew to ensure his medical team kept quiet. If one had to be dismissed, they were never seen again. Because of that, he preferred to have them remain nameless.
The larger of the two men took hold of his wheelchair and pushed it. There was some irony in that Genysis produced the most cutting edge machine-brain interface wheelchairs in the world, capable of responding to the wheelchair-bound person’s thoughts, following directions to move, stop, accelerate, deliver medicines through an IV, contact medical help …. the list went on. But the owner of the world’s most powerful machine-brain interface company refused to allow his own brain to be connected. He was too aware of what could go wrong and too aware that his competitors would stop at nothing to try hacking such a connection.
So, he had a man push his wheelchair. It was a short distance and it was one of the only times during the day that he was physically around other human beings. He didn’t like to admit it, but he actually looked forward to the short interactions.
Dr. Fitzgerald waited for him in the medical suite. It was fully fitted as a complete operating theater. Morris had left no stone u
nturned in acquiring the most sophisticated medical equipment. He’d received enough death threats from both Jihadis and homegrown fundamentalists that it felt like good business to have the hospital on the grounds. Just in case.
He liked to joke that hatred of his integration technology was one of the few things the Jihadis and the fundamentalist Christians could agree on. They both railed against his creations as abominations and contrary to God’s will. Still, even these groups inevitably used some Genysis technology. It was nearly impossible to go anywhere in the world and not be touched by it somehow. It didn’t stop them from promising to kill him.
When his lymphoma was diagnosed, the medical suite was already in place. That meant he was able to receive his care without letting anyone know. No one on his board of directors or senior management team had any idea. The only person he’d come close to telling was Cassie. He even had a carefully constructed fantasy of how it would happen. He would tell her and she would become emotional, finally letting go of the employer-employee relationship excuse she always fell back on when he tried to move their relationship forward. Then she would be by his side, helping him to complete the most important project of his life.
Only he knew it wouldn’t happen that way. There were too many things he’d had to do to overcome obstacles in the new project, things that Cassie would never agree with. So, he made do with the fantasy and with watching her carefully from a distance, biding his time.
But eventually his weight loss became an issue, starting rumors that he was the next Steve Jobs, a sick, lonely man, wasting away from a mysterious illness. He countered with rumors of his own that he was working on a new invention that would transform the world. His reputation of being a workaholic and an obsessive played into the narrative of the mad scientist skipping meals for days as he worked in his lab. Overnight, the conversation on the Internet changed from what his illness might be to what incredible invention the genius Brandon Morris might next offer the world.