He entered the supervisory control room. The Day Watch Supervisor Alan Melding looked up. He saw a tall, thin youngster wearing Bermuda shorts and a lightweight hoodie. Most of the pilots wore the hoodies because of the air conditioning, but very few wore shorts. The shorts made this kid stand out, as did his success record. In eight months, he had 103 confirmed kills.
That was why management had believed it was unnecessary to send a backup drone to eliminate the witness. This was the first time Jackson had missed a kill. Alan had warned them of the possibility, but they had cited budget constraints, and now he had to deal with the problem.
"Clayton, you had your first miss. The subject was not in the car when your missile struck it. The Image Review Team flagged this one because they couldn't see the driver as the car went off the road. We just got word from the Dirt Recon Team sent to investigate that the subject escaped into the mountains on foot."
Clayton looked somewhat shocked.
"Don't worry kid," Alan said. "Sometimes it happens even to the very best, like you. Why a while ago, we had a subject escape a sixty quad-copter-drone strike. We got his significant other, but he got away clean. Now that was really something. Apparently, the guy had an escape tunnel we knew nothing about."
"Sixty quad-copter-drones? Wow, I would have loved to have seen that."
"I will show you the film sometime. It is now mandated viewing for all drone operations management personnel."
"Man, that guy must be some kind of terrorist?"
"Yeah," the supervisor nodded, "that is our only long-term target miss to date. But, we will get him," he paused. "Don't worry about the target you missed today. That was just a collateral damage incident. We sent a ground hound after her. He will have her in no time. Those hounds are incredible. They have not missed yet.
"I don't even know what a hound is," Clayton said.
"Maybe it's better you don't know the details," Alan replied. "But, don't worry. With a record like yours you may well be management material in a few years. Then, you will have a higher clearance, and you will get to learn about a lot of things that most people could not even imagine."
Clayton smiled. "I am not sure I could give up piloting."
"Spoken like a true patriot," Alan said as he rose to shake the young pilot's hand.
Colorado
Peggy knew she had to keep moving. There had been no time to hide her tracks. Other than brushing them out with a branch, she had no idea how to do that anyway. She only knew what she had seen on TV and in movies. She also knew that Hollywood often sacrificed technical accuracy for profit and that meant that she didn't even know if what she had seen would work.
Limping a bit, Peggy alternately walked and jogged deep into the forest. She had torn the sleeve from her shirt and bound her left arm where it was badly scraped from hitting the gravel.
Peggy wasn't sure who would be after her, but after nearly being killed by a government drone, she was convinced that someone, or something, would. She no longer trusted the authorities. Her world had been turned upside down in less than an hour.
She had read occasional internet rumors about government drone strikes on home soil, but she just thought those were the ravings of conspiracy theorists and the lunatic fringe.
Her sense of safety was now completely gone. She realized that her previous feeling of security was just an illusion and always had been, but she missed it more deeply than she would have ever imagined possible.
Peggy pushed herself and kept moving ever deeper into the forest. She had watched a single episode of Dual Survival once with a boyfriend. That was her only introduction to the topic of survival in the woods. She knew from watching that episode that shelter was more important than food or water at first. The hippie-looking guy had made a point of that on the show. He seemed very convincing, so she decided she should stop moving a couple of hours before dark and either find shelter or pile up leaves and sticks to make a shelter like they had done on that show. They called it a debris hut, but it just looked like a pile of leaves and sticks to her.
She didn't know how to make fire, but she was hoping if she could find shelter out of the wind, she could survive the night without it. She knew the morning weather report at her father's house had said that the low tonight would be about 40 degrees. That meant high in the mountains, where she was now, the temperature might drop as low as 30 degrees. That wasn't very cold when you had warm clothes, but all she had on were the jeans and light flannel shirt she had been wearing. Even her jacket had gone down the mountainside with her car.
As she continually pushed deeper and higher into the mountainside forest, she lamented losing her suitcase. She would have loved to have any of the clothes in the suitcase now, fashion be damned.
The really scary part was that no one would be looking for her. She had been visiting her father and sister in the rural Colorado area where she and her sister had grown up and had been on her way home to Ohio, where she worked as a computer programmer, when she had encountered the drones. Her father and sister wouldn't expect to hear from her until late tomorrow at the earliest, and none of her family or friends would expect her to be deep in the forest high on a mountainside. There was no one at home waiting for her either. At the moment, she both felt good that no one would be worried and also regretted that same fact.
Peggy kept moving up the slope. She suspected that if she didn't use the full capacity of her brain and her physical ability, she would be dead before nightfall.
Chapter 3: REFUGE
"Illegitimate governments fear accurate and critical thinking above all else.” John Debrouillard
Wyoming, Near Ten Sleep
I was still groggy when I awoke. Toni had shown me to a bedroom. I fell asleep before I could even get my boots off. When I woke, my boots were on the floor beside me and I was covered with a blanket. I had no idea what time it was or how long I had slept, although I knew I had slept for a very long time. My leg hurt and so did my shoulder, as well as several muscles that I thought had no reason to.
It all seemed like a dream. I looked around at the bedroom filled with western-style furniture, so different from the Shaker-style furniture I had built for our bedroom at home, and realized it had not been a dream. Susan was dead. As that thought permeated my consciousness, I started to get mad at the people who took her from me. I remembered my promise to Susan, and I, who had never fired a gun at anyone in my life, vowed again that I would do my best to kill every one of them—no matter whom they turned out to be.
I bent, pulled my boots back on, and tied the laces. Then, I walked out of the bedroom door and down the hall.
"Good. You are awake," the young doctor smiled. He looked just as implausibly young as he did earlier.
"How long did I sleep?” I asked.
"Thirty-seven hours," he replied. "But, the sedative I gave you probably helped."
"I don't remember that," I said.
"I gave you a shot after you fell asleep."
"Doc, you are sneaky," I said.
"You don't know the half of it," he replied. "Sneaky is the new survival skill."
"Gee, I think evading drones is right up there."
"You bet," the Doc replied. "Some of us are getting good at that too."
"Doc, sometimes you speak too quickly. It is a bad habit," Toni said as she entered the living room. "Remember what George Washington said: ‘Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well-tried before you give them your confidence.’"
"That is still good advice today," I mused. "I suspect if I had not posted adverse opinions to some of the recent government actions, my wife would still be alive."
"I think you may be right," Toni agreed. "However, I am afraid that our 'benevolent' oppressors will not stop with those that are simply a bit vocal about their opposition. I am afraid that the trend is soon going to be about discerning thought crimes and then eliminating potential opposition before they even know they are truly opposed."
"That sounds a lot like selective genocide," I said.
"It is," Doc said. "And I think is has already started on a small-scale."
I looked at Toni. "Don't you think you are trusting me too quickly with your opinions?” I asked.
"That would have been true before I had you checked out," Toni agreed. "While you were asleep, I had a complete background check run on you. I am not worried. In this case, posting your opinions online helped me decide."
"You should be worried if someone tracks that background check back to you."
"It can't happen," Doc said. "Don't worry about it."
"What happens next?” I asked.
Reston, Virginia
"Where is he? Why haven't you found this one? Are you incompetent?"
"Now Boss, just take it easy. We have five analysts searching through the entire national incoming data stream and three programmers working constantly to refine the search algorithms. The target has not used a cell phone or sent an email, nor do we detect him at any physical location. We tried to activate the transmitter on the RFID chip in his state driver's license, but he must have shielded it or buried it somewhere. We are back searching through all the data recorded by traffic cameras, store cameras, and others in a 30-mile radius as well. We will find him. No one can hide from us."
"It has been three days and nothing. That target just vanished from a house that was absolutely demolished by gunfire from our drones.” The Boss, LaDonna Perkins, Manager of Target Information Acquisition for the Department of Interior Security, Drone Operations Division, settled herself deeper into her chair and glared at her subordinate. She was proud of her previously perfect record of target data acquisition for the quad-copter, assassin drone group and totally pissed off about the first target miss due because of data acquisition failure. She looked at her subordinate again. She saw a nerdy-looking man of about 40 who, at the moment, seemed nervous. "Did you know that the target had a basement and an escape tunnel that were not in the records?"
"No Ma'am, I didn't.” Greg Rhodes shifted in his chair thinking that the pre-strike survey group had failed, not his group. Greg's group only did data search and target location. However, he knew better than to say anything to Ms. Perkins. Ms. Perkins had a notoriously bad temper and was not noted for logical responses when she was angered. Right now Ms. Perkins was angered.
"Well, OK then.” Ms. Perkins seemed slightly mollified at Greg's deferential manner. "Listen. We need to find this guy ASAP. It is of critical national importance. Why, if word gets out among the domestic terrorists, our reputation may be damaged. Did you know that this guy even managed to shoot down a quad-copter-drone, with a shotgun, no less."
A flicker of worry that he might have chosen the wrong career flashed through Greg's mind. If the domestic terrorists could shoot down a drone, could they come after us? He vanquished the momentary worry from his mind and asked, "That has never happened before, has it?"
"No, it hasn't," Ms. Perkins said. "And I won't ever let it happen again. From now on, we will use four times as many analysts for target data acquisition, so we can be far more thorough."
"Won't that be expensive?” Greg asked. He knew the budget was big, but he also knew that Ms. Perkins was often after him to keep costs down and to do more with less.
"Of course it will be expensive. However, I feel that it is necessary and I have requested the additional funding for next year. Speaking of budget, I want you to put three more analysts on this—and make sure you have your very best analysts working on this."
"Yes Ma'am," Greg said, relieved that the conversation seemed to be ending. "Don't worry Ma'am. We will find him."
Wyoming, near Ten Sleep
"You know they will be after me," I said to Toni. "Isn't that a risk to you?"
"You have strong luck," Toni said.
"I don't think so," I replied, thinking of Susan.
"I understand," Toni said, "but hear me out. You are the first actual target they missed—don't laugh, but target is what the government calls you and everyone else it has assassinated here at home. Not only that, you brought down a drone and managed to disappear, and all that acting alone. The really lucky thing is that you came here."
"That was just chance," I pointed out. "I was tired and trying to find some gasoline away from the surveillance grid. All I knew was that most ranchers are fiercely independent folks who don't like government, or other, intrusions."
"There is truth in that," Doc said.
"Tell me what you know of government surveillance," Toni requested.
It seemed a reasonable request so I said. "I am no expert, but here is a summary of what I know, mostly from reading science reporting and alternative news sites on the internet. Our government monitors our cell phone calls, emails, and internet posts. I also understand that any purchases made with credit cards, debt cards, or store customer appreciation cards can be tracked by the feds. I also know that there is a network of digital cameras, especially in urban areas, which send data to software with facial recognition capability. I know that they can use satellite imagery to identify license plates on moving vehicles in some cases and that they have the technology to bounce signals off windows that allow them to hear what is being said inside a building."
"That's far more than most of the sheeple are aware of," Doc said. "But then, you are awake. Oh, by the way, the windows in this house are made of three-quarter-inch thick tempered glass with a soft, clear plastic center. They can't eavesdrop through those."
"Kind of like a cone of silence," I said. Toni smiled. "I am just barely awake, not nearly as much as I thought before. For example, I didn't know that our government was killing citizens with drones here at home, and I, for sure, didn't realize that people could be killed just for comments made on blog sites. I have never even espoused violence against the government, of any sort."
Toni smiled. "I have read all your online comments. I know that to be true. The government, the powers that be, does not fear violence from you. Your entire history shows you are not a violent man. What they fear is your ability to come to logical and accurate conclusions from relatively sparse sets of facts. You see right through their camouflage and tell people the government's real motives and predict their course of action all too well. You are very well known by your pseudonym throughout the awakened world. Your comments have caused more people to wake up than you know."
"Yeah," I said. "A handle of 'RetiredProf' is incredibly scary. I should have thought of that."
"The question we have is what do you want to do now?"
"Simple," I replied. "I want to kill everyone who was involved in any significant way in the murder of my wife."
"I think that goes all the way up to the president," Toni said.
"Then, if that is so, and I get the chance, that SOB is as dead as the drone operators."
"And you are not a violent man," Toni laughed. "Well, turn about is fair play and, in this case, would be admired by our Founding Fathers. Just how do you think you are going to do this?"
"I would very much like to do it face to face. However, the thought keeps running through my head that 'to live by the drone is to die by the drone'. As to precisely how, right now I have absolutely no idea."
Toni smiled, "Then let us help."
Looking at Doc, I asked. "Who are us anyway?"
"I think you will be surprised," Toni smiled. "I think you will be very surprised. You do need to know though, that we may need you as much, or more, than you need us."
Reston, Virginia
"We have him!” The data analyst jumped up from his chair and shouted at the top of his voice. "We have him!"
"Who?" The supervisor called from across the room.
"The target who took out the drone and got away."
"That's great!" The supervisor said, now looking over the analyst's shoulder as he sat down again in front of his computer screen. "Where?"
"Not too many miles out of Ten Sleep Wyoming."
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"Geez, how in the hell did he get from mid-Indiana to Wyoming without us knowing? I didn't think it was possible that anyone could take out one of our drones, and I certainly didn't think it was possible for a target to move that far, that quickly, undetected."
"It's okay boss. We have him now!"
"How did you find him?"
"Sir, I had a hunch that he would take a local vehicle from somewhere in Indiana and move as quickly across the country as he could. Therefore, I searched through satellite imagery, using an algorithm that I wrote, to read the license plates of every vehicle on back roads in every state bordering Indiana. I located an old green pickup truck with an Indiana tag, as well as 23 other potential targets. I used my algorithm to track all of them. The 23 other potential targets were all tracked to various locations and the occupants confirmed not to be our target. The old green pickup truck showed up again in Oklahoma with a different tag number. One that was not registered to it.”
"That green pickup truck was registered to a neighbor of the target's who lives about two miles away from him. Those neighbors are not now at home and have not reported the truck missing. We found them visiting relatives and interviewed them. They said they did not know the truck was missing. The man became distraught when we told him that his truck had been stolen. We don't think they had anything to do with the target's escape."
"Using the satellite data, I followed the truck's path through old data until the driver stopped to get gas. Although the target was attempting to mask his identity by wearing a hat and carefully staying undercover, we got one photo that allowed me to tentatively identify the target by general build."
Drone Wars 1: The Beginning Page 4