by T. C. Edge
“Anyway,” went on Martha, “it’s good to see such a talented team come together. And what a well rounded group too. Two women, two men, three nations represented.”
“Yes, Councillor Mitchell,” remarked Tanner. “We were just saying how we needed a citizen of the Mid-States to join us to complete the set. I suppose that could be you?”
“Ever the charmer, Mr Tanner,” laughed Martha. “I’ll do my best from here, if you don’t mind.”
“So, you’re staying for a while?” asked Ragan.
“Yes, I have no need to rush on back to Chicago quite yet. Until this mess is sorted out, I’d prefer to stay close to the action, so to speak. And I think someone needs to keep an eye on Colonel Slattery.”
“What do you mean?” whispered Chloe. “Do you think he’s…involved?”
Martha’s eyes dropped beneath a frown, and she shook her head.
“No, nothing like that. I just like to keep watch on things, that’s all, Chloe. The council may be required to make some further decisions soon. It’s best we all stay here for the time being, if possible.”
Chloe smiled secretly. She liked the idea of having a woman with the authority and presence of Martha Mitchell around. Along with Ragan, she made her feel a little more secure in an otherwise alien environment.
“I don’t want to keep you from your tasks, though,” concluded Martha, smiling to each of the four soldiers. “Please, continue with your meeting.”
With that, she headed off, leaving a short silence behind her. The group turned to Ragan, as if waiting to be dismissed.
“Right, you heard her,” he said. “Tanner, Nadia, you two check in with your people back home. See what you can dig up.” They nodded and began stepping away. “And guys,” called Ragan, forcing them to turn. “Be ready to move at any time. No tomfoolery, Tanner.”
Tanner lifted a playful grin once more, before slipping off through the base with Nadia alongside him.
“There something going on between those two?” asked Chloe, watching them go.
“Not that I know of,” said Ragan. “Why?”
“Oh…just that he seems like a real flirt.”
“That’s not the half of it, Chloe. It’s the reason he’s here in the first place.”
“What is?”
“His womanising ways,” said Ragan. The note of envy was hard to miss. “He was once a member of the Spectre Squad over in the WSA, just like I was with the Panther Force. He got kicked out for getting a little too frisky with one of his commanding officer’s daughters. He tends to break the rules and go off-piste a little too often for his own good. He’s hard to rely on sometimes, but is a fine soldier when it comes down to it. You just need to ignore his incessant flirting and advances.”
“Oh…that shouldn’t be so hard,” said Chloe, drawing in a breath.
When she turned to look at Ragan, she found his face sharpened and strained. His eyes moved away from hers, and he made to speak, but stayed silent.
Chloe couldn’t help herself.
“Are you…jealous, Ragan Hunt?” she asked.
Ragan huffed, frowned, and shook his head.
A clear sign, then, that he was jealous.
“Well, you don’t need to be,” said Chloe.
His azure eyes dropped to hers, a coy smile upon her face. They drew in each other’s gaze for a long, silent moment, gently drawing closer. Then a sudden rush of soldiers across the yard broke their attention, causing them to lean back once again.
And, with the spell broken, and Colonel Slattery still looking down from the window above, they got straight back to work.
34
The old military base up there in the highlands of Colorado was bigger than Chloe had first realised. During her brief time there thus far, she’d been privy to only a few of its areas, and though she’d taken in a decent birds-eye-view of the place when leaving in Ragan’s jet the previous night, she still hadn’t realised just how large it was.
There were sections that stretched away into the woods, largely overgrown now after decades of neglect. There were others that delved deep underground, old nuclear storage facilities and silos. There were outposts connected with the base that kept watch further afield, now long taken by local flora and almost entirely hidden from sight.
Though large parts of the base now sat unused, Chloe had begun to realise just how extensive the organisation was. Project Dawn comprised not only hundreds of soldiers, many of them nanotech augmented, but hundreds more personnel besides, some of them here at the base, others at their secret posts around the four nations of the Disunited States.
Those in the Council were the tip of the iceberg, men and women of serious prominence and expertise. All contributed something of real value to the cause, whether that was the vast military knowledge of Colonel Slattery, the huge financial resources of Martha Mitchell, Benedict Oppenheimer, and Archie Westham, or the scientific genius of Professor Stephanie Horton. All played their part, living in their nations, feeding back information that would help Project Dawn defeat the next threat, and the same was true of so many others.
There were hundreds of them, it appeared, who were loyal to the organisation, and Chloe had been given but a taste of what they truly were. She imagined, with all those spies living across the four nations, and even hidden within some of the factions and other mercenary groups operating across the neutral zones, that someone, somewhere, would get a sniff of Mikel.
Her enthusiasm wasn’t shared by Ragan as he led her towards a building at the rear of the base, one that appeared to be used for housing the soldiers who lived here permanently. He merely told her that they’d have to ‘wait and see’ with a tone to his voice that might have made the words ‘hope for the best’ more appropriate.
“So all that about telling Tanner and Nadia to be ready?” asked Chloe as they entered into the multi-storey barracks. “Seems like they don’t need to be. I didn’t get the impression that either of them truly thought we’d get a lead too soon. And you know, I’m getting that vibe from you too.”
Ragan stopped in the entrance and turned directly to her.
“Chloe, we have to be ready at all times. That’s how we live. We might get a tip at any moment, and then need to determine whether it’s worth following up on. Or…we might be waiting here for a while. Either way, we have to be ready.”
He continued on before she could speak, leading her down a corridor, past a mess hall, games room, and showers, before eventually stopping at a door and stepping inside. It was a basic room, single occupancy, with a bed, wardrobe and little more. The space allowance compared to her apartment in Sub-Tower 12 was, however, quite pleasing.
“This’ll be your room while you’re here,” he said. “Whether that’s one night, one week, one month, whatever…it’s yours. It’s old and basic as you can see, but it does the job. There’s an interface by the bed that can play movies, TV, and has some online access. Not sure what sort of signal you’ll get, but try to relax…”
“What, I’m just meant to stay here? Can’t I come with you?”
Ragan took a pause.
“Best you don’t, given what’s happened. There are quite a few around here who would have sided with the likes of Colonel Slattery in killing you to destroy the data. I don’t know how they’d take to seeing you just wandering around the compound.”
Chloe bristled at the idea. She’d done nothing wrong, nothing at all. Why should she be seen as some sort of villain?
“Well, that was hardly my fault,” she said, hurt. “You know how grateful I am to you and Martha, but surely they’d be more angry with you two, right?”
Ragan’s quick nod was an assurance that he didn’t disagree.
“Yeah, and a fair few of them probably are. But they’re not about to cause a mutiny over it. What’s done is done, and there’s not much they can do about it. Martha and I have been with this organisation for a long time.”
“And I haven’t,” said Chloe, catchi
ng on. “I’m just the newbie, and barely even that. Part of me is starting to regret sticking around. Doesn’t seem to matter where I go, people just want to hurt me.”
Her voice fell away, disconsolate. Ragan lifted her chin before it could fall. His stare was firm.
“Everyone here is passionate about saving the future, Chloe, that’s all. They have no real gripe against you personally. I’m just saying, it’s best for you not to be wandering around right now. Just stay back here, OK? Can you do that for me?”
Chloe glanced around the four walls, then to the bed. It looked comfortable enough.
Could be worse.
“Sure, for you,” she smiled. “But if someone comes looking for trouble…”
“I know, I know,” said Ragan. “They won’t. And if they do, they’d probably regret it.”
He slipped his fingers off her soft chin, and stepped back to the door.
“I’ll be back later on, OK. I need to go check up on things, see if any progress has been made. Try to get some rest, it’s been a long few days.”
He left with that, slipping back out into the corridor of the rather barren barracks within this colourless, suddenly unfriendly base. Chloe was used to feeling like she didn’t belong, and though she seemed to have some friends here at least, she was starting to get the impression that this place wasn’t one where she could truly let her guard down.
The data was gone, and the real reason for anyone wanting to mess with her had surely been eliminated. But, despite all that, it seemed to Chloe that she’d never be truly left alone.
Maybe this is my fate, she thought, dropping onto the bed. Maybe I’ll be running from something forever…
She needed a distraction to help, to take her mind away from things. An old movie, perhaps, might do the job?
Reaching to the interface fixed to the wall next to the bed, she brushed off the coating of dust and activated the little electronic panel, hoping that it was still in working order. Other than this minor embellishment, which was an older model anyway, the room was truly archaic. She just had to hope that the thing still worked.
It took a moment, but thankfully a faint blue glow signalled some fragment of life, bringing into focus a detachable tablet, which Chloe quickly pulled from its holster and took to her lap. On the little glowing screen, a series of options began to appear, revealing the fairly meagre allowance of entertainment options available to those who once lived and worked on this base. There were menus for movies, old television shows, video games, live television reports, and others. And at the top, a large bar was printed with the words, PROJECT IMAGE.
Chloe tapped on the bar, and immediately the interface fixed to her left projected the image onto the opposite wall. She looked up and saw the various menus now spring to life ahead of her, controlled by the tablet in her hands.
Her finger went straight for the movie menu, tapping the icon on the tablet. Nothing happened. She tapped again with a little more force. Again, the tablet didn’t respond, and the projected image didn’t change.
“Great…”
She tried tv shows, and got the same reaction, and then live television too. The thing was clearly defunct, just an empty projector with nothing on it.
Before she gave up entirely, however, and tossed the tablet angrily across the room, she checked to see if any online sources could be activated. To her surprise, a new screen loaded, listing out a number of prominent online sites from the various nations across the continent. With her interest spiking, she immediately checked the news, something she’d always done whenever possible to see if there was any online chatter about her.
Usually, there wasn’t. And certainly not for the past few months.
Today, however, and over the last few days, her name had shot right back up to the top of the list of trending topics.
“God, do people have nothing better to talk about,” she muttered to herself, loading up a news outlet from LA and flicking through the articles.
Many were about her, and they were hardly positive. It seemed that several murders were being attributed to her, all shaken up by the press who, depending on the outlet and the nation in which they existed, didn’t exactly like her. She read through several reports, reading about the guards - the young man, Matt, and his older colleague, Derik - who’d been killed at Sub-Tower 12, many hours after she’d departed, as well as another motorist who was found dead not too far from where Ragan had swept in and saved her from Mikel.
The nano-vamp, it seemed, was guilty of all the killings, murders which were only being added to her slate, no matter what the evidence said. And the more she read, the more angry she became; not only at Mikel and his wanton violence, but the press for the manner in which they liked to rattle cages and stir the pot.
Grumbling, she read on, her notoriety only growing worse over the past few days, particularly over in the WSA. Deciding that it wasn’t a good thing for her mood to continue seeing what the WSA press were saying, she switched on over to other outlets from the NDSA to check out their take on things.
They were never quite so ruthless in their assertions, the culture of publishing false accounts and embellished and exaggerated stories nowhere near as prominent over in New York as it was in LA. Given the fact that Chloe was still officially a citizen of the NDSA, they tended to be a little more respectful of the truth, often speaking of her father as a hero and patriot, and herself as ‘misguided’ and ‘troubled’, rather than the usual descriptions of ‘witch’, ‘sorceress’, and ‘psychotic murderer’ they liked to call her in the west.
She flicked through articles and watched news reports for quite some time, engaging in a good bit of sadomasochism as she did. It was never nice reading such things about herself, seeing how the truth could be so stretched and warped, without being able to ever set the record straight.
Even now, with the entire reason for her pursuit now done and dusted, there was nothing she could do. So few people really knew the reasons as to why she’d been hunted in the first place, and they probably never would. The dye had been cast on her life now. Most normal people would see her as a monster for the rest of her days, no matter what she did to try to serve them from the shadows.
She didn’t blame them exactly for that. She couldn’t rightly do so, not when employing her reason and logic. After all, people were sheep, and sheep merely follow. There was no sense in blaming them for merely observing their nature.
But still, it hurt.
Though the press called her a witch and a sorceress, though so many people believed her to be something other than human…she was.
She was human to her core, and she couldn’t deny her feelings.
So sitting on that bed, reading and watching these strangers discuss her life with such baselessness, she felt a mix of anger and grief swell inside her.
And though she didn’t want to, she couldn’t help but let a few soft tears slip from her eyes, and drift town her dirty cheeks.
35
The command centre at the base was a hive of activity.
Though it couldn’t quite match up to the sophistication and polish of the CID in New York, it remained state-of-the-art in its function and presentation, largely due to the enormous funds given to the cause by its most wealthy benefactors. With their money, the latest in tracking, hacking, surveillance, and reconnaissance tech had been bought and installed, morphing what was once a rather old and tired central command room into something more appropriate to the modern age.
Here, in fact, much of the great work of Project Dawn and the Crimson Corps was run. They were quite capable of hacking into various networks to keep an eye on things, thus allowing them to keep their ear to the ground regarding any new tech developments that, the organisation believed, wasn’t being given the proper oversight.
However, no matter what they did, they still needed their ‘men on the ground’, their spies hidden in the midst of their many enemies. Thus the likes of Ragan had been recruited, giving them a
direct line to the CID in New York, with others serving the same purpose elsewhere. Unfortunately, given recent events, that particular line was now severed, a matter of some frustration for Colonel Slattery, as well as a number of others who’d come to rely on Ragan’s intel, particularly in the search and hunt for Chloe.
Now, of course, that search was over, and in its place another was starting anew. The data had been passed from her to a rather more deadly enemy, and the trail, it seemed, had reached arctic levels of frigidity.
Right now, within that command centre, dozens of trained operatives were hard at work. It was loud, voices calling and fingers tapping, feet rushing from place to place to pass on tips or seek new orders. To one side, Colonel Slattery had his own private office, a different one to that which Ragan and Chloe had visited earlier that day. To another, there was a larger briefing room, separate from the main command centre and utilised for the planning and execution of top level strikes and missions.
Within the maelstrom, Ragan was spending his time moving from station to station, keen to hear any new tips that were coming down the line. There were sections assigned to each of the four nations of the Disunited States, with technicians in communication with the various agents and spies on the ground there. There were smaller ones, too, whose focus was on gaining intel on the various large tech companies, private military groups, and other organisations operating across the neutral zones that might also have a great interest in the data.
Truly, Mikel might have been working for several dozen different entities, making the search particularly fraught.
Of course, the prime suspects were always the nations themselves, with the WSA under particular watch. Ragan was quite sure that few people had the means to actually develop synthetic life, without which the data would be meaningless.
After all, the data disc was merely the final piece in the puzzle in unlocking the ability to transfer human consciousness into artificially created bodies. Without those synthetic forms, the data that Professor Phantom stored in Chloe’s nanites would have no meaning or value at all.