End of the Road

by LS Hawker

  “So you’re saying we have three days to finish,” Berko said.

  Jade started to shake. This had to be a joke. This was not happening.

  “You’re sure it’s China,” Elias said.

  “Yes. Our intelligence says they’ve been preparing for quite some time. The special agents who discovered the plan had been embedded for four years there and . . . didn’t make it out of the country.”

  Jade’s breath came faster.

  “For the last six months, we’ve been tracking power grid outages around the country, and the number has nearly tripled from twenty-five per week to seventy. Consistently.”

  Berko scoffed. “Of course power grid outages are going to increase because of aging infrastructure, weather, population growth. How do you know the Chinese are responsible?”

  “Patterns have emerged,” Martin said. “I can show you the documentation, if you like. There’s also been an unprecedented number of simultaneous multistate outages.”

  Jade remembered seeing something about this on the news before she came to SiPraTech, but the Chinese were never mentioned, of course.

  But Olivia put her hands on her hips, skeptical.

  “The time is right,” Martin went on. “The country is divided. The political system is in chaos. Our national debt is crushing. Our current president has alienated our allies and angered our enemies. We’re so dependent on technology that the country will be crippled by the loss, even for a few weeks, of electricity. It’s the perfect way to hold the country hostage.”

  “It’s sort of like ransomware on a massive scale,” Berko said. “It’s brilliant.”

  Martin shot him a scorching look.

  “So what do you think we can do about it?” Jade said, her voice cracking.

  “Maybe we should let them do it,” Berko said. “Maybe they can do a better job governing us than we can.”

  Elias gaped at him, horrified. “You can’t be serious. You think communism is the way to go?”

  “No,” Berko said quietly. “But you have to admit they’ve got a point. This country’s a mess.”

  “The best mess on earth,” Elias said.

  Martin raised his voice. “Save the political debates for later. If the Clementine Program can do what you say it can—reroute the connections in the power grid, reconnect everything that becomes disconnected and do it continuously—then we can prevent the lights from going out. And if the program isn’t able to do what you’ve said it can, you’ll have to make it work.”

  Berko consulted his watch. “Three days. We have so many more tests to run. I don’t see how—”

  “Solve the problem,” Martin said. “Make it happen.”

  Jade searched the faces of her teammates as the weight of what lay before them bore down on her consciousness. From their expressions, she gathered they were feeling the pressure too.

  “So I can count on you all to stay put, yes? Until we’re done?”

  Jade waited for Elias to ask for more money, but looking at his face, she knew it wasn’t going to happen. The seriousness of the situation had wiped his mind clean of any such demands.

  But something still bothered Jade. “I’ll say yes to that as soon as you tell me why you’re so convinced I violated the NDA,” she said.

  “That’s the primary reason we need you to stay in the Compound,” Martin said. “There are people out there who’ve learned about the project, and they want to stop it. I just don’t know how they found out. The only connection to them is you. Olivia told me about the man in the grocery store.”

  “Yeah,” Jade said. “But I don’t know the guy.”

  “Think, Jade,” Martin said. “Who is he?”

  “I told you,” Jade said. “I don’t know him.”

  He continued staring at her, and she suddenly felt guilty, as if she had spilled about Clementine to the man she didn’t know, and just didn’t realize she had.

  “I don’t know him,” she whispered.

  “Well, he knows you,” Olivia said. “He said your name.”

  Martin straightened on hearing this news.

  The room seemed to shrink with all eyes on Jade.

  Martin got close to her, again staring her down. “Think, Jade. Who is that man?”

  “I don’t know,” Jade said.

  “Who have you been in contact with?”

  “No one!”

  Martin looked around at everyone, then back at Jade. “I’m not sure we can trust you’re telling the truth.”

  Jade gasped. “Of course I am! Why would I—”

  “Maybe this group got to you before you ever arrived on the Compound,” Martin said.

  “Got to” her? Hot, sharp panic set her skin on fire. She looked at Elias, who gazed at her suspiciously. But he was with her at the grocery store! Did he think she’d cooked the whole thing up with the baseball-cap man?

  “Where did you go on your drive this afternoon?” Martin said. “Was it to meet him?”

  “Martin, I was with her,” Olivia said.

  Martin kept his eyes on Jade, ignoring Olivia. “Where did you go this afternoon?”

  Olivia kept her eyes on Jade, who knew she wouldn’t tell. Jade needed to admit where they’d gone to clear this whole thing up.

  “Olivia and I went to Ephesus to visit my family.”

  Martin threw his hands in the air. “I thought I made it clear you were not to go beyond Miranda?” He surveyed the group. “Didn’t I make that clear?”

  Jade stood and slapped her hands down on the tabletop and shouted, “I don’t give a shit about what you made clear, Martin. My mother is dying.”

  That shut everyone up. And then, of course, Jade was crying, snot and tears running down her face, but she didn’t care.

  Her mother was dying.

  Berko walked over to her, pulled her to him, and held her while she cried.

  Martin continued in a softer voice. “They must have been watching your parents’ house, and you led them straight here.”

  Olivia grabbed a box of tissues off the sideboard, pulled a few out, and handed them to Jade.

  “You okay?” Berko asked her as she dabbed her face and blew her nose. He didn’t let go of her until she answered him.

  “I’m all right,” she said. She hugged him gratefully then sat back in her chair. He squeezed her arm.

  “Well, why in the hell did you set up the project here?” Elias said. “If you knew there was a group—”

  “They’re not just here in Kansas,” Martin said. “They’re everywhere.”

  That sounded paranoid and ridiculous, although having just been hit by an SUV made it seem less so.

  “But why don’t you just tell them about the upcoming attack?” Berko said. “I’ll bet they wouldn’t be so excited to stop the project if they knew.”

  “They do know.”

  This fell on Jade’s head like a rock. “They want the Chinese to take over? Seriously?”

  “It’s not that they want the Chinese to take over,” Martin said. “They don’t want the US government to have access to this kind of technology. They’re afraid the NSA would abuse it, use it to spy on the population, put a stranglehold on the Internet or worse.”

  “Sounds reasonable to me,” Berko said.

  Population. Something about that word. Miranda, population 800. Homogeneous population . . .

  Jade covered her mouth with her hand. “That’s why there aren’t any children or elderly in town,” she said through her fingers. “The town is populated with soldiers. By the NSA. That’s why you didn’t want us going anywhere but the Compound and Miranda. That’s why the town was boarded up just nine months ago. It was a dead town, and the government bought it. Right?”

  “Yes,” Martin said. “The soldiers are there to protect you and this computer system. But we believed you to be a rule-follower, Jade. We didn’t expect you to sneak away.”

  “I didn’t sneak,” she said, her voice rising again. “I just didn’t tell you. And
if you’d given me the whole story at the beginning, I wouldn’t have gone home.”

  “If they’d told us why they really recruited us,” Olivia said, “none of us except sailor boy over there would have willingly come here at all.”

  “Hey,” Elias said, straightening.

  “Am I wrong?” Olivia said.

  Berko shook his head, and Jade had to wonder if she would have agreed to work on the project had she known. She didn’t think so. It was too big. Too heavy.

  “The point is,” Martin said, “we could have quietly completed this project and subverted the cyber-attack if it hadn’t been for your little road trip, Jade.”

  He was right. This was her fault. They’d been found because of her. And now they couldn’t leave because of her. And the Chinese might take over. Because of her.

  “And that’s why we need you to stay on the campus,” Martin said. “No more going into town.”

  “But you just said the whole town is militia. Isn’t it their job to protect us?”

  “Do you really want to take that chance?” Elias said. “They couldn’t protect Jade and Olivia on the road back to the Compound.”

  “It’s a precaution,” Martin said. “Otherwise, we’ll have to line the road with soldiers, and that will attract attention, one way or another. We can only protect you if you stay here until the project is completed.”

  But what if Jade couldn’t control the program? If she couldn’t control it, steer it somehow, she needed her fail-safe, the cartridge that could neutralize the core of the program. She called it her AIP cartridge.

  But it wasn’t here.

  It was in Ephesus, because it didn’t occur to her that she’d need it. She’d thought they were working on a theoretical scenario, not real life. Plus, if the anti-AI people were out there, watching her parents’ house, neither she nor anyone else could retrieve it.

  “Why aren’t you working with real live adults?” Olivia said.

  “Because in your midtwenties, your brains are more elastic. You’re more likely to think outside the box.”

  “Bullshit,” Olivia said. “You chose us because you can ruin all our careers before they even start.”

  “Yes,” Martin admitted. “You have much to gain. And much to lose.”

  Clearly insulted by this, Berko said, “And if we refuse to help?”

  “Then the Chinese shut us down,” Martin said, letting his arms drop to his sides. “Simple as that.”

  “We’re not going to refuse,” Elias said. “We have no choice here. Because we want this country to go on, however screwed up it may be, it’s better than the alternative. You know that, right, Berko?”

  “Is it?” Berko asked. “Does anyone believe the UN would allow the Chinese to do whatever they want once they ‘restore’ our power? That’s not how the world works. You know that, right?”

  “Do we really want to take that risk?” Elias said. “Once they establish a significant foothold in our infrastructure, where does it end?”

  Berko made no answer, just stared at his hands folded on the table in front of him.

  “What are you going to do with the guy who ran us off the road?” Jade asked.

  “We’re going to interrogate him,” Martin said. “And then we’re going to turn him over to the FBI.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you are,” Olivia said. “Two of your militia pals told us not to talk to law enforcement.”

  “Right. County law enforcement,” Martin said. “They’re not aware we—the NSA—are here. They would be more of a hindrance than a help. All right? Now let’s all get some sleep.”

  “Like anyone’s going to sleep tonight,” Olivia muttered.

  Martin rose from the table, stretched, and left the room.

  They sat silently, sneaking peeks at each other, the silence pregnant with questions.

  Jade imagined she would wake up from this nightmare, that this couldn’t be happening. She wanted to talk to Dan. She wanted to talk to her mom.

  She wanted to go home.

  But if they didn’t get this right, there might be no more home to go to.

  Chapter Twelve

  September 8

  Jade finally fell asleep around four after flopping around in her bed for hours. She’d forgotten to turn off her alarm, which woke her up at six forty-five. She got out of bed and went to the bathroom. The sight of the bandage on her forehead in the mirror seemed to remind the wound to throb. So it would be a dry-shampoo day. After a careful shower, she got dressed and went outside, the heat already crouched and waiting to spring at the edges of the sunrise.

  She walked around the Compound, now spotting at least three armed soldiers scattered around the fence’s perimeter. The sight gave her a chill. She tried to ignore them and just listen to the early-morning birds and gaze through the chain-link fence to the wheat fields and prairies beyond. She wanted to go home.

  Jade heard the front door of the house open and close, and she turned to see Olivia jogging toward her, her face grim.

  “Hey,” Jade said.

  “I don’t know about you,” Olivia said in a quiet voice, “but I did not sleep last night. I kept thinking about how we were . . . fooled into working for the federal government. I kept thinking how I am fundamentally against all the sketchy things the NSA has done, and how I would never work for them voluntarily. This is all wrong.”

  “Yeah,” Jade said. “But what can we do?”

  “What can we do? We have all the power here. We have what they want. Or you do. And anyway, how do we even know this is for real?”

  Jade hadn’t even considered that.

  “I want to talk to someone outside of this Compound, outside of SiPraTech, or the NSA, or whoever we’re actually dealing with. I want confirmation this is real and not some weird scheme some crackpots have cooked up.”

  “I don’t think ‘crackpots’ typically have the deep pockets to pull off something this elaborate.”

  “Whatever. The point is, they can’t keep us here against our will. They can’t force us to work for the government. There are laws.”

  This hadn’t occurred to Jade, probably because her upbringing taught her that if you were told to do something, you did it. You didn’t question authority. But this was a good time to break away from that mind-set.

  “I need to get my head on straight,” Olivia said. “Do you want to go over to the fitness center and do that yoga DVD? It might help us feel better.”

  They went back to the house, changed into workout gear, and walked over to the fitness center. After the hour-long yoga practice, Jade did feel better, but she still needed to burn off some nervous energy, so she got on the elliptical machine for another forty-five minutes while Olivia lifted weights.

  “Let’s see if the guys are up, we need to be together on this,” Olivia said.

  “Right,” Jade said, and they walked back to the house.

  Berko and Elias were unloading the refrigerator and freezer into a cooler, both of them looking haggard and exhausted.

  “What are you doing?” Olivia said.

  “Refrigerator’s out,” Elias said. “Don’t know if we can save any of this, but—”

  “It needs a new coil or something,” Berko said.

  “They’ve sent one of the maintenance guys to the big city of Great Bend, so they’ll replace it as soon as he gets back.”

  “When you’re done with that,” Jade said, “we need to talk to you.” She and Olivia sat at the table.

  Elias closed up the cooler. “What’s up?” He and Berko sat at the table.

  Olivia gave them the same spiel she’d given Jade. They looked apprehensively at each other.

  “So you want proof we’re working for the NSA?” Elias said. “I told you about the hidden files I found.”

  “I know,” Olivia said. “But how do we know those are authentic? How do we know any of that stuff about the Chinese is true and not just some—”

  “Let’s talk to Martin and politely as
k for confirmation,” Jade said. “Information about China’s AI tech, or maybe—I don’t know, some satellite spy photos or something.”

  “Even if this is really happening, I’m not sure I want to stay anyway,” Olivia said. “They don’t need me—I’m just the med research person. It appears the brain research part of the project was a sham. I truly do not know why I’m here.”

  “They don’t need any of us but Jade,” Berko said, concentrating on the bowl of cereal in front of him. “I’m not crazy about the idea of working for the NSA either. Not gonna lie.”

  “They have Clementine—that’s all they want anyway,” Olivia said. “But really, Jade, it’s not theirs. It’s yours. And if you don’t want the NSA to have it, then you can just pull it off the system like you said last night.”

  “But if the Chinese really are planning to shut down the power grid, then I need to give the program to the NSA to help stop them. I’d rather do that than be their prisoner here.”

  Everyone looked at Elias, who hadn’t said a word. He stroked his chin. “I agree,” he said. “We didn’t volunteer for this. I would have, if they’d told us the truth from the beginning. Happily. But we need to meet with Martin and tell him we’re handing over Clementine, and then we’re leaving after they give us everything they promised. Because we were lured here under false pretenses.”

  “But what if they don’t give us what they promised?” Berko said. “I need that money.”

  “So do I,” Jade confessed. “But regardless. We have no business being here.”

  Olivia walked over to the wall, picked up the house phone, and dialed. “Hello, Martin—we’d like to meet with you in the conference room at—” Here she checked the clock. “—noon. Yes, we’re all busy, but it won’t take more than a few minutes. All right. See you then.”

  She hung up. “We’re all set.”

  At five ’til noon, the four of them trooped into the conference room and took seats around the large table, fidgeting and waiting. The clock said lunchtime, but Jade had no appetite.

  Finally, Martin came striding in, his face tight, his jaw clenched.

  “All right,” he said. “What is it now?”

  They’d elected Olivia to speak for the group. “Here’s the deal, Martin. None of us signed up to work for the government. We accepted employment in a privately owned company. We feel very strongly that we were duped into working on a project. We’d like to hand over the Clementine Program to you, and we would like to receive payment, and we would like to leave as soon as possible.”