Pictures of the day his mother died flashed through Mike’s mind. He saw her loving, laughing face, remembered the teasing she’d given his father about how he always waited until the last moment to decorate the tree. He remembered the laughter that always surrounded him in those days. Multicolored lights sparkled on the floor and half of the fir tree in the living room. Boxes of ornaments were stacked on the couch, floor and tables. Mike remembered the anticipation he and Scott felt each time they decorated a tree with his parents.
But that all ended when his mother went out to the store and never came home. His father buried himself in rum for a week, then work after that. Even Aunt Evelyn’s loving embrace couldn’t dispel the feeling of abandonment. Yet somehow the child inside Mike still wanted his father.
He turned the skycar east and flew a straight line at twenty thousand feet. Radar showed the sky empty of all vehicles. As he soared through the pristine blueness against a backdrop of blinding white that covered tall peaks and craggy valleys Mike thought about his life. Even without a loving father it’d been a good one. Love from Aunt Evelyn and his brother sustained him then and Shauna’s love sustained him now. He felt fortunate, blessed to have found her.
But how would they have a life together? When would they live? Mike feared that asking Shauna to live in his time would cause a rift between them that they’d never overcome. And how would he feel about living in her time and leaving the only two people who loved him? Could he leave his brother and his Aunt Evelyn? He soared over the mountains. Put aside the thoughts, he told himself. If he and Shauna were meant to be together they would be.
Easy to say but hard to do. Mike let the craft take him around the local countryside. He didn’t see the splendor, still focused inside. He decided to head back to Shauna. A driving need rose in him to hold her tightly, never let her go.
The green and white flew out of nowhere. It passed by Mike with only miles between them. The Guardians didn’t see him, hidden by the invisi-shield. Mike turned and followed them. He laughed at the silly thought that raced through his head. Follow that car. How appropriate that saying was, even now.
Mike hoped that the Guardians were on a direct route to somewhere and not searching for their headquarters. He kept back, not sure whether their heat-seeking radar would pick up on his craft or if the invisi-shield protected him from that too. He should have asked before he left.
The Global Guardians flew straight and sure for twenty miles then abruptly turned left. They flew straight for five miles then turned left again. After twenty miles and another left turn Mike knew they were flying a search pattern. How did they know to look here in this part of the Alps? Mike followed them knowing that from this vantage point the buildings down below wouldn’t be seen.
Thank God for George’s invention. The Guardians flew their pattern for an hour then turned right and flew away. Mike punched in the coordinates to the landing zone and the craft nosed down.
“Warning. Warning. Fuel cell failure,” the computer intoned. A clanging filled the interior of the skycar.
“Shit.” Mike’s heart rate sped up but he kept his head clear. Pages of the skycar manual filed through his brain. Fuel cell failure can be caused by a couple of things. A clogged filter, of all things, or a cessation of electrical energy. “Computer, check fuel filter.”
“Fuel filter clear.”
“Computer, check electrical charge.”
“Electrical charge off.”
“Computer, turn on electrical charge.”
“Malfunction of solar panel,” the computer intoned. “Emergency glide to landing zone.”
Now he had two failures. The fuel cell and the solar panel. They were probably related but Mike wasn’t sure. He felt the skycar take over the controls as it headed toward the ground. Silence reigned inside for a minute. He pushed back the feeling of dread. A malfunctioning solar panel would stop all the avionics of the skycar. With no way to get continuous energy the computer would shut off.
Mike knew that skycars could be flown manually under glide conditions until landing. The controls would be sluggish and hard to use. Maneuverability would be gone and speed would be a factor. But under a glide the skycar would speed up as it descended. Slowing it for landing was critical. Touchdown was known to be a job for advanced fliers.
Why was the skycar suddenly falling apart?
“Invisi-shield off,” the computer droned.
“Double shit.” Mike scanned the sky for the Guardians but they seemed to have given up on the area.
“Skycar touchdown in three minutes.” The flat voice reverberated throughout the interior of the vehicle.
The ground rushed up at an alarming rate. The angle of descent was too steep. Mountains rushed by in a blur of white. Mike punched in commands to the computer. “Level out, you rust bucket.” He pulled back on the stick but the skycar didn’t respond. Mike stood on the brakes. Usually controlled automatically, he used the old manual maneuver to hopefully slow the skycar.
* * * * *
A loud wail rent the air like a tsunami warning. Everyone inside Subversive headquarters rushed to their stations.
“Incoming,” a steady female voice said over an internal speaker. “Rate 260, angle 40 degrees, speed 340 knots. Looks like a drone, it’s flying on auto.”
“Drone my ass,” Douglas muttered. “Prepare for a missile attack.”
“No!” Shauna stepped to the nearest screen. “That’s no missile. That’s a skycar.”
“What?” Douglas said. “We would have had more notice.”
“Look at the outline on the scanner, there’s no invisi-shield.” Shauna scanned the figures running across the screen evaluating the incoming object. “It’s an out of control skycar— Oh my God.” Shauna’s hand flew to her mouth while her other hand punched a holographic keyboard. “The scanner says it’s skycar 101,230. That’s Mike’s vehicle.”
The room went silent. Then in one instant, motion and noise filled the air. “Emergency vehicles to the landing zone,” Douglas ordered. “Techs, try to find the computer’s problem and repair it. Surgery, prepare for incoming injured.”
Shauna ran from the room. She grabbed a hover scooter, raced to the landing zone and looked up in time to see a streak of sparkly purple arrow toward the ground. “Come on…come on. Pull up,” she prayed.
Emergency vehicles shot to the landing zone, no lights or sirens. They hovered a short distance away not sure where the skycar would come to a rest.
The seconds felt like hours. Shauna watched terrified. In less than a minute the skycar would plow into the ground if it didn’t level out.
Something wavered in front of Shauna. Just when she thought Mike wouldn’t make it, the skycar’s nose leveled out. She screamed her joy. But it still flew too fast for a landing and now headed toward some storage tanks.
As the skycar rushed closer and closer a brown net rose out of the ground to block it. Made of the same strong composite material that skycars were made from, it was the last-ditch attempt to stop an out of control skycar. Shauna watched as Mike’s craft flew straight into the net. The nose plowed through the composite netting but it had slowed enough that the body of the skycar stuck.
Shauna jammed the controls of the hover scooter to full forward and raced to the scene. She pictured Mike inside dead from the impact with the net and the suddenness of the stop. Emergency vehicles sped past her and reached the broken craft first.
The medics brought Mike out of the skycar on a stretcher. “Mike…oh Mike,” Shauna sobbed. She rushed to his side. He lay on the stretcher his face bloodied and swollen. His eyes were open, glazed. “Oh, darling, you’re alive.” Shauna gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “Thank God.”
* * * * *
“Shauna, I need you to look at this,” her father said. There was something in his voice. Her mother glanced up at his tone and he gave her a slight nod.
“On my way, Dad.” She’d been by Mike’s side for two days. His injuries were
healing well, a broken leg, two cracked ribs and a stiff neck. Today she was back at work inserting incriminating evidence against the CEOs into the worldnet, spoon-feeding what her parents wanted to leak out.
“Would you like some coffee?” Louise asked.
“Sure, honey,” Douglas said. A look passed between them.
Shauna and her father waited in the office until Louise came in with three steaming mugs of Starbucks. Once the mugs were distributed and the door closed Douglas got to the point. “I’ve swept this room and it’s clean.”
“What?” Shauna asked. “Why would you do that here—” She saw her father’s eyebrows lower and his lips turn down. “Oh no. You think there’s a mole.”
Louise slammed her mug on the table. The happy melodious ringing sound was out of place in the silence of the room. The three family members stared at each other.
“We can rule out Mike, that’s for sure,” Shauna said.
“Yes. He hasn’t been in this century long enough to cause any damage,” Douglas agreed. “But everyone else is on the table.”
“How’d the mole get through?” Louise asked. No one answered. “Our investigations were so thorough.” She scrubbed so hard wiping up the spilled coffee that the table rang a flat protest. “Oh, hush.” Louise threw the towel toward the sink.
“I have to think that the person who infiltrated us has been with us for quite a while,” Douglas said. “Someone we’d never think would give us away,”
“So now our friends are suspect as well as our employees,” Shauna said.
“Exactly,” Douglas nodded. “We have to start a search. But we can’t let anyone know we’re doing it. That’s going to be tough, since everyone here has the highest access allowed. They wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
“I have an idea, Pops.” Shauna tapped the table. “Let Mike start the search on one of his old computers. He’s well enough to do that after numerous sittings with the medic. The medic used Roll Away on his face and ribs, set the bone in his leg and used it on that three or four times. Mike’s not in a cast, can walk slowly and is itching to do something.”
“Basically he’s cranky,” her mother deadpanned.
Shauna laughed. “Exactly, Mom.” She turned to her father. “What do you say?”
“Good idea. He can start accessing old records and see if it leads to a trail of some sort.” Douglas paced the room, his head bent forward in thought. “We have to act as if nothing’s amiss. Treat everyone the same. Laugh, joke. Put them at ease. Don’t expect the mole to slip. He or she’s been at this for a very long time.”
“Okay, Dad. I’ll go and whisper sweet nothings in Mike’s ear.”
“Make sure he gets the message without hurting himself,” her father said.
“Dad! I would never lead Mike on. Especially in his weakened state,” Shauna said with mock seriousness. “After all, I have to protect his reputation.” She lifted her head and airily walked out of the room. The sound of her parents’ laughter gladdened her heart.
* * * * *
Bored out of his mind Mike stared at the images on the monitor across the room. Television, or what had become of it, wasn’t any better than his day. Oh, sure, there were three thousand channels now. They’d surpassed hi-definition with something called an orbital receiver where the picture was so clear you felt as if you were inside the room with the actors, or outside in a storm getting cold and drenched. But sit-coms were the same. Soaps were such an addiction in the twenty-second century that they had over one hundred channels for them alone. And they all were awful. Sports had over five hundred channels, a bit of overkill if anyone bothered to ask and the only good movies were the ones that played from his century. Go figure.
Mike gingerly rose from his bed. The window beckoned. Bright sunshine warmed the sill and Mike sat down, already a bit winded. He touched his hand to the composite material and muttered, “What are you doing right now, Scott?”
“Oh, that’s bad. You’re talking to yourself.” After three long strides Shauna bent over and kissed Mike. She nuzzled his ear, nipped his neck and nurtured his lips. “Don’t pull away,” she murmured in his ear.
“Why would I?” Her breath smelled minty, her lips tasted like cherries and her citrusy scent drifted over him. Mike hardened and groaned. “Great time to arouse me, woman. Take pity on an invalid.” Shauna’s laugh tickled the lobe of his ear.
She licked behind the sensitive shell then said, “There’s a mole inside The Subversives.”
* * * * *
The cleaning crew usually picked up anything left on a desk and shredded it. That was procedure, ordered by the CEOs. Each shift was monitored by cameras. Shredders could be heard all night long. This evening a cleaner rubbed a coffee stain from a desk. She hated the brown ring that marred the beautiful patina of the table with colored striations that looked like a forest just after a storm. Straightening the desk with her other hand she moved a paperweight out of the way. A slip of paper, folded into a tiny square fluttered off the desk and to the floor. The cleaner picked it up, read it and gasped.
Not looking at the intrusive cameras lining the walls she kept to her routine. The paper slid into the shredder.
But the woman in the cleaner’s uniform had a photographic memory.
She finished her shift and hurried home. “Computer on.” The monitor lit up and a deep, male, mechanical voice said, “Hiya, doll. Whatcha got for me?”
Nancie Rutherford said, “Go to site Four Square.” The holographic monitor flashed and a website came up. Radical rhetoric spewed from the anti-Fearsome website. Nancie’s fingers flew over the keyboard and in less than a minute she had passed the sentence she’d read earlier that evening to the world.
* * * * *
Loud voices came from behind the door. Four angry men each pointed fingers at the other. “Find out who’s spreading this garbage,” Robert Cranston ordered as he waved a slip of paper at the others.
“Why?” Donald Carson asked in a snide voice. “We know you’re setting us up to take the fall.”
“We need to do something,” whined General Glen Tillson.
Cranston turned on the little weasel. “Tillson, get some balls.”
“Look, for God’s sake,” said Layton Kendall. “We’re turning on each other like a pack of starving wolves.”
“One of you three,” Cranston pointed a stubby finger at the men, “told someone that you were a member of The Society. A family member, a wife, a mistress. Now that person has gone and plastered it on the worldnet.”
“Now see here, Cranston,” bellowed Carson. “No one would do that. The secret’s been in our families for generations, like it or not.”
“I don’t like it,” Cranston said. “First we have to stop it from spreading on the worldnet, then we have to find out who among us is a traitor.”
Chapter Fifteen
Mike dug for hours on the old computer with no results. He stood up to stretch his sore muscles and groaned having forgotten about his stiff neck. It seemed that in the twenty-second century the medical industry still couldn’t fix whiplash. Although the Pain Away helped. He ran his fingers through his mussed hair leaving a few spikes. He felt like hell and knew he looked it. His broken leg had mended with some lingering soreness. Thankfully, his ribs were completely healed. No more sucking in his breath when he sneezed or laughed.
Three days had passed and word about the CEOs had reached the main websites. The worldnet hummed with speculation. The news media reported that demonstrations were planned outside the buildings of the four corporations the next day. Wild rumors circulated that the CEOs had gone underground to avoid the negative publicity. World Starbucks everywhere were full of people drinking coffee and gossiping.
Time had run out for those who protected the corrupt leaders of the world.
A beehive of activity buzzed inside The Subversive headquarters in Switzerland. Voices commanding computers on and off were heard all day long, shouts across the room updatin
g everyone of the latest progress drowned out the sneezes and coughs of everyday living.
Mike needed fresh air to clear his head. He walked to the door with barely a limp and opened it. A bitter blast blew in. “Close the door!” someone shouted. Mike did but not until he’d sucked in a few deep breaths.
“How’re you feeling?” Shauna asked. She wrapped her arms around him and nuzzled his neck.
“Lousy. I can’t find a thing. No hint that anyone inside the group is,” Mike glanced around the room and lowered his voice, “against us. I’m frustrated. You’d think that going back twenty years would show something. I feel as if I’ve failed your parents.”
“No one could work the old computers like you. We’re lucky to have you. If you didn’t find anything then there’s nothing to find.” Shauna grabbed his hand and pulled him into the room. “Mom just made fresh coffee.”
The explosion and the alarm happened at the same time. The window that Mike and Shauna had just been standing in front of blew inside the room showering shards of composite material over the nearby workers killing them instantly. Screams and shouts followed. People ducked from the shrapnel and ran toward the interior of the building.
The loudspeaker blared. “Emergency. Emergency. Invisi-shield penetrated. All hands calmly walk to underground escape chute.” Douglas Wentworth kept up a steady set of instructions. “All computers have been erased. You know the drill, people, we practiced it. Keep calm.”
Mike and Shauna ran to the office where Douglas and Louise were controlling the escape. Mike slammed the door open. “What happened?”
“The only thing we can come up with is someone found the code to the invisi-shield and disabled it. Our mole sold us out to the Global Guardians.” A blast came from the other room and part of the building disappeared. Other blasts could be heard indicating that the Guardians were systematically destroying every building in the compound. “Better get to the chute. We don’t have any time left.”
No Future Christmas Page 19