This wasn’t working. Why didn’t anything ever happen the way it was supposed to? He should be crying, repenting, pleading for forgiveness and a chance to change his ways.
“Mr. Dimarin, please. Whatever else you do, don’t destroy this. You’d be destroying the world’s best chance at a future.”
“Don’t worry. I will keep one copy. It would be foolish to throw away something so powerful. It will go into a vault, never to be used or touched, but not completely destroyed.”
“But that’s as good destroying it!” Qwiz yelled. He felt desperation rising in him like bile.
“Yes, it is.”
The horror of Stalker’s intentions began to sink in a little deeper. They planned to completely purge the world of its knowledge of 126’s power. It was one thing to maintain a monopoly on the synthesis of 126, and therefore the applications, but another entirely to permanently erase all knowledge of it. The Sabers were going to systematically murder everyone who had ever heard the innocent numbers 1-2-6. Stalker didn’t want to use it at all, in any way. Using it granted back to the people an incredible freedom that scarcity and carbon-policy had taken: the freedom of cheap energy.
Stalker, nor any of his minions, had the desire to give up a single iota of the power that the CPI, carbon-credit system gave them. With it, the Carbon Coalition wielded total control over the masses, and the Sabers were its almighty enforcers. Everyone’s location was constantly being recorded every time they bought anything or used a government service. Their activities were stored in a giant database and everything bought was tracked. Qwiz couldn’t believe he had never thought of it in those terms before, but the CPI chips allowed the Government to effectively spy on every man, woman, and child in the world continuously. At least that part of Bill’s conspiracy was right.
And the censorship system, in the name of national security, rounded out the surveillance. They could see every electronic form of communication deciding what to allow and what to ban. They had prevented him from communicating freely with his father since before the war. They’d tracked Luthor’s phone calls and murdered Eli. Combined with control of the carbon monetary system, it allowed them to completely control every aspect of the economy and every aspect of people’s lives in the name of saving the planet from global warming.
Releasing 126 would corrode the foundation of their whole system. People would have access to unlimited, zero-carbon energy. CPI couldn’t control something that was free and limitless. It would be like regulating oxygen intake. Without scarce energy, they had no means of control. Stalker’s whole objective was to protect that control.
Stalker put his hand to his ear, his focus shifting to his headset. He nodded repeatedly and a cruel smile played across his pale face. “Excellent, be certain to remove any element 126 you can find on their bodies—check their belts. Then take them to the compound. Try to keep the girls alive, we will need them when we are questioning Tenrel and Laramy.
Stalker removed his headset and regarded Qwiz with mock pity. “Your friends have been captured.”
Qwiz interrupted, fear and desperation straining his voice. He would not be receiving any codes, “How can you be satisfied with our world, when it could be so much more? You could have so much more!”
“You have a lot to learn about greed. If I already have everything I want, the only thing left is to safeguard my desires. I intend to set them in concrete.” Stalker motioned to his team to move in toward Qwiz. They moved forward slowly and methodically, carefully watching for sudden movements.
Qwiz found himself gripping his gun tighter. He would have to use it after all. He had to protect the one’s he loved. “Then you aren’t greedy enough!” he shouted.
Stalker laughed and began walking forward.
Something else in Qwiz’s head clicked. Not greedy enough… that’s it! Qwiz suddenly realized what he had to do. He had only one chance. He had to send the research to someone greedier than Stalker. Greedy enough to use it. Fingers flying with speed that came with a lifetime of computer work he opened his email and began typing.
“Stop him!” Stalker shouted. The only man with a clear shot fired his weapon.
Qwiz turned his body to protect the computer and a bullet tore into his bicep. Searing, white-hot pain burned through his flesh.
“Cut the hard line!” Stalker screamed into his headset. “I don’t care if the whole damned region goes dark. Cut it!”
Qwiz clacked a few more familiar characters, while two more men sprinted to get an angle. Another shot impaled his shoulder blade. A worse pain than any Qwiz remembered wracked his body, but his adrenaline pushed him onward. He had to complete his task.
With a desperate click he jammed the enter button, and fell backward in surrender. A single email went out. One file. One recipient. Without the codes, that’s all he could send. But at least for once in his life, he completely circumvented the American censors.
Chapter 27:
Thirty Minutes Later: The Whitehouse
President Jimenez looked up from his desk as a man hurried into the oval office. He muted the two monitors on his desk to hide the classified material displayed on them. Jimenez was the first president to place monitors permanently on the Resolute desk. It had earned him some mild public criticism, but he found it incalculably improved his efficiency and so he felt the political trade-off was worth it.
The way the man entered spoke volumes about the message he carried. Most people, even those familiar with the office, entered timidly. The gravity of the space seemed to make each person question the importance of their errand that brought them inside. That is, unless that bearer’s purpose was clearly important enough to disturb the President. In that case they came in, looking scared, harried, and in a rush. This man entered in the latter manner.
Jimenez braced himself. “Yes?”
“Sir, a half an hour ago, insurgents broke into the USNN Tower in Chicago.”
“What did they steal?” Jimenez asked. The tower was the hub for all communications traffic in the region. It also held the regional censorship station and the electronic counterterrorism division for Chicago.
“They didn’t steal anything sir. It appears they circumnavigated the firewall and sent an unprotected transmission.”
Jimenez frowned, an uncensored message was hardly something to bother him about, they had safeguards to shut down any hacks almost immediately. Let the censors deal with it. “Do you know the content of the message?”
“The Satellite Protocols automatically saved a copy, sir. We will know within the hour what it contained.”
“If you don’t know anything yet, then why are you bothering me with it?”
“Because sir, the message was sent to China.”
Jimenez blanched. He reflexively restrained any change in his facial features out of political habit, but this was bad. Anyone willing to risk their life to send a message to China without being censored wouldn’t be sending a Christmas card.
“Where are they know? Have the insurgents been captured?”
“It seems the Sabers have already apprehended them sir, they shut down the hack after a single file was sent.”
Jimenez hated the Sabers. They were a stupid, poorly planned and maintained idea. But he couldn’t fight them either. They were like the bully at school whose mom was the principal, and she refused to believe her kid could do any wrong no matter how many times he was sent to the office.
“I don’t yet have confirmation of this, but it seems that one of the men captured was Luthor Tenrel.”
“Really?” The situation just kept getting more interesting, “where are they taking him?”
“They have a secret compound somewhere North of the city.”
“Find it. If Tenrel and the Chinese are involved then this has become a matter of national security, not carbon policy, so the Sabers no longer have jurisdiction. I want those terrorists in American custody within the hour.”
“Sir, a word of caution, it has
not been confirmed that it’s Tenrel. If it isn’t, we would be breaking international law by interfering.”
“Then get confirmation. Find where they were holding him, tail every Saber in the country if you have to. And figure out what that transmission was; I want a copy on this screen the second it’s decoded. Do you understand?
“Yes sir.”
“If Tenrel was involved, I want him and any other insurgents in federal custody ASAP.”
The man left the office in an even bigger hurry than he’d entered.
“Your move Dimarin.” Jimenez said to the empty room. He picked up the phone and dialed JSOC; he had a feeling that Dimarin might not be so willing to give up his prisoners without a fight.
#
Eight Hours Later: Somewhere in the Suburbs
Qwiz didn’t remember being knocked unconscious, but woke up to the harsh buzzing of florescent bulbs. Adorned only with a steel table with straps and a squat toilet in the corner, Qwiz knew this room had to be inside the “compound” Stalker had mentioned. Strangely, they had bandaged his gun-shot wounds. His arm was fixed in a sling and he could feel restrictive brace winding his torso like a bear-hug. They still ached in sharp waves of pain, but at least he had survived them. Perhaps torture worked better when there were more healthy body parts to injure. He prayed that he would have the courage to endure and not betray anyone.
Something rumbled above him, like rocks falling in the distance. Qwiz shrank into the corner despite himself as fear overloaded his mental RAM. He tried to imagine Stone’s steadfast endurance and attempted to emulate it.
Qwiz figured he would probably never know if his plan had worked or not. It had been a desperate gamble at best, suicidal and borderline-traitorous at worst. Maybe the history books would remember what he had done, but in truth it seemed more likely that they would never even notice a simple email, let alone see the courage and insight it had taken to send it. The important thing was that he had tried. He had shown honor in fighting evil and tyranny. Qwiz hoped his father would learn of his actions and call him courageous. He had risked everything without compulsion; he had done it simply because it was right. Courage isn’t what you do, but what you are willing to lose. Qwiz again regarded his cramped cell. Well, at least I got one part of that right. I managed to lose everything.
More rumbles from above; they were louder this time and accompanied by a faint rattling. Maybe they were already torturing Bill. Qwiz didn’t even know how many of the others had survived to be brought here. That helicopter had used more ammunition than should have fit in the entire vehicle if it had held nothing but bullets. He hoped none of them would have to be scraped off the sides of office cubicles.
Qwiz identified the rattle as the sound of bullets issuing from a machine-gun and found himself wishing for an extra helping of courage. Just as Qwiz began to contemplate the mystery of automatic weapons being used inside Stalker’s compound, the steel door burst open.
A man in all black appeared. His face was painted varying degrees of grey stripes and he held a gun that looked like it had come from Devolution. “Hurry, come with me!” he said.
Qwiz didn’t know if he should trust the man or not, but wasn’t about to argue with a guy like that when he had his arm in a sling. Actually, he wouldn’t have argued with him at any point.
Qwiz got up, and the man grabbed him by his good arm and hustled him down a concrete hallway. Two other similarly dressed men wearing gelvar moved to flank him. They pushed him down the hallway, screening him with their bodies.
The raging cacophony of a full-on firefight accosted him. Men yelled to each other and blasts of light exploding from their weapons were the only illumination in the dark corridor.
His body guards yanked him away from the battle and up a flight of stairs. Qwiz’s unhealed wounds protested at the violent movement, but the men forcibly carried him when he couldn’t walk fast enough. The tempest continued. The ground underneath them shuddered and chunks of rubble blasted out from the wall next to them. The soldier on Qwiz’s right immediately began firing shots through the new hole.
Qwiz didn’t know what to think, who to trust. It was all happening so fast. But these men seemed to be taking him out of Stalker’s compound, so that made them the good guys. Right? There was too much happening to concentrate. Without warning his two handlers quit shooting and led him farther up the steps.
A moment later the stairs disgorged them into a parking lot. Outside, the earsplitting shockwaves of exploding propellant all but vanished leaving only the eerie silence of a vacant suburban strip mall. An old gasoline filling station had dedicated itself to becoming a full-time bird-nest collector. All the other stores of the shopping center lay just as abandoned, their smashed windows and burned exteriors standing as grim historians, forever describing the horrors wrought by the Culling in the suburbs of the world. The only sign that human life persisted were the half dozen military vehicles stationed in the parking lot. Bill would have a hay-day when he found out that Stalker’s secret base was actually in the basement of a TJ-Maxx.
The men encouraged him, rather strongly, to enter the belly of a nearby Humvee. “If you want to live, stay here,” one of them said before he slammed the door.
The two men charged back in immediately, like kids who had been given the permission to play in the pool for five more minutes. Qwiz didn’t understand why anyone could possibly want to re-enter a battle. Qwiz had not particularly enjoyed being shot.
I guess that’s what it means to be brave. Qwiz thought. To risk your life to accomplish your mission. Qwiz suddenly smiled to himself as he realized he too had been brave. He had sacrificed his body, preventing the shooters from damaging his laptop before he had accomplished his own mission.
More men sprinted out the door, carrying another heavily bandaged man. As he was shoved into another vehicle Qwiz recognized his old friend. They had rescued Bill! They were the good guys!
Qwiz pounded his hand on the window. “Put him in here!” he shouted. No one heard him. Qwiz saw more soldiers pouring out of the stairwell, several other bandaged people in their care. He couldn’t tell if they were his friends or not.
Bullets began pinging against the armored hull of the Hummer. Qwiz saw Sabers firing from the broken windows of the TJ-Maxx. A round dented the thick glass right in front of Qwiz’s face. He flinched. The men who rescued him ducked behind vehicles and fired back. The bright flash of a grenade erupted out from the building. Another explosion violently lifted the Humvee next to Qwiz half a meter off the ground. Fear paralyzed him. He didn’t want his to be next. The battle raged on for interminable minutes. Bullets flew, hot and thick. Smoke and debris clogged the air. Grenades blasted around him.
Abruptly, the fighting stopped.
The Sabers walked out with their hands in the air and the remaining good-guys slapped cuffs on them. Eight were able to walk under their own power, but Qwiz saw medics tending to other Sabers sprawled on the pavement. Qwiz mentally applauded men who were noble enough to tend to the wounds of those who had just been trying to kill them. They really were the good guys.
The door to the hummer opened and a man climbed into the driver seat. He began wiping off his face-paint with a cloth.
Qwiz’s mind flooded with questions. But his questions shouted over the top of each other so loudly he couldn’t make many of them out. His mental CPU wasn’t fast enough to process all of the things he wanted to ask his new companion. When he’d finally buffered all the data, he heard himself ask probably the most inane question of the jumble vying for attention.
“Who are you guys?”
The man picked up a clipboard from the dash and examined it. After a moment he nodded, “Mr. Quency Park is it? We are Delta Force, United States Army.”
“What’s happening?”
He looked at the clipboard again. “You and your friends are being transferred to a more… suitable location.”
Qwiz’s heart sank. They were being shipped off to a
different prison, this one run by the USW instead of the Sabers. This wasn’t a rescue, it was a prisoner transfer. His email had been considered treason after all.
“Why are you driving me then?”
“Would you prefer a horse?” the man asked with a chuckle.
“I…just didn’t think you would waste a car for a prisoner. Don’t you usually make us walk?”
“If Dimarin were to transfer you—though after our incursion I didn’t get the impression people ever actually left his compound—you would walk,” he said conversationally, “but I’m happy to say that his compound is now under new management.”
“Then where are you taking me?”
He finally put down the clipboard and turned to meet Qwiz’s eyes, “to the Whitehouse.”
#
Clipboard drove the Hummer in relative silence for the better part of a half hour. Qwiz was amazed that a vehicle powered by small, repeated explosions could be so quiet. He had never ridden in a gas-powered vehicle before.
Clipboard decelerated and drove out onto a massive open strip of pavement, with only blocky sections devoted to solar power. He pulled up to other camouflaged trucks parked there. The door unlocked, and Qwiz leapt out of the car as fast as his useless left arm allowed. A man in fatigues with an automatic rifle appeared at Qwiz’s side. Like the men who had extracted him from the compound, he pointed the gun away from Qwiz in a posture of protection.
Without warning a dozen hands mobbed him, ruffling his hair, patting him on the back, and generally attempting to touch any available place on his body. Qwiz huddled in the fetal position as he tried to make out any of the voices bombarding him.
After a few seconds one of the competing audio files resolved to clarity in his mind.
“Damn fine work Qwency! If I had another arm, I’d hug your Asian ass.”
“Stone!” Bill’s shoulder bulged with bandages.
Luthor, Michael, Tanya and Vika were all there as well, each one of them beaming as broadly as if they’d just built their first computer.
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