Unwilling to Back Down (Survival of the Fittest Book 2)

by Shawn Keys

  Fighting back, Rebecca waved her hands at them. “You’re both crazy. An organization? Like, what, the Freemasons or Templars or some other conspiracy nutjob story?”

  Kyle smirked. They had not approached the media or broadcast anything about what they knew because they feared this exact type of response, only magnified a thousand times over. “Not so easy to dismiss a thing like that once you’re a part of them. We don’t know what they call themselves.” He paused, then smiled. “You might. Tell me, what did your evaluators call this special unit you were going to join?”

  Rebecca held her tongue, suddenly suspicious she was giving something away.

  Jackie nudged her, “You said it wasn’t a secret. This wasn’t a covert organization like the CIA. If it isn’t off the books, then why would it be bad to talk about the name? I should be able to call it up on an internet search, right?”

  Rebecca didn’t immediately give in, mulling that over. Then, she said, “They called us potential Soldiers of Dawn.”

  Kyle barked a short laugh. “Soldiers of Dawn. God damn, that is exactly the sort of thing these bastards would call themselves, isn’t it?”

  Flaring up at his laughter, not about to be mocked, Rebecca demanded, “Tell me what this is about! What the hell is ‘baseline’? You say my father is caught up in this. How? If they are part of the FDPC, then what the hell is the problem with them? They’ll help fight off the effects of Persterim.”

  Jackie challenged her right back, “Did you ever stop to ask what a so-called ‘elite sub-unit’ inside the FDPC would do? FDPC agents already handle a huge set of problems, from interviews to deviant take-downs.”

  Rebecca scowled. “I don’t know. I figured they were like the SWAT in a police department. All cops have to worry about firing their guns, but SWAT take it to the next level. That sort of thing.”

  From her point of view, Kyle could see that making sense. It might be the very thing she hoped for, Kyle figured. After all the training to learn about rescuing people and hauling people out of danger crossed with her military flight training, she might have thought this would finally be a chance to do some real good. His previous humor died, and he shook his head in mild pity. “You thought all your father’s bullshit finally had a purpose, didn’t you? After all he stopped you from doing, you figured he was finally leading you down the golden path where you could help people.”

  Rebecca flashed up at him again, though a lot of her anger seemed to come from him hitting too close to the mark. “I told you to stop assuming you know anything about me. Just because you read a file on my father doesn’t make you an expert on my life!”

  Kyle held up a palm, as if suing for peace. “You’re right. It doesn’t. But maybe you should hope I do. Because understanding you a little bit is the reason we’re going to give you a second chance, instead of burning you to the ground with the rest of these fucking ‘Soldiers of Dawn’.”

  At the mention of giving her a second chance, Rebecca’s eyes darted back and forth between the two people grilling her. She dared to press again, “Who do you think they are? What’s baseline? What is all this?”

  “They aren’t Masons, Miss Bruice. Or Templars. Or anything else like them. The mud smeared over those names are conspiracies, just like you think. The people who are trying to recruit you are far, far worse.” Jackie paused for effect. “They’re people who think they know what is right for humanity. They want to cull the weak from our collective herd. They want to transform us into their vision of the future. It’s been given a lot of names over the years, but the most common name is eugenics. People who use genocide, selective breeding, targeted assassination and influence games to seize power. In the past, others have been simply content with ruling the world. This time, the ‘Dawn’ as you called them are taking it to the next step. We don’t know how Persterim came about, but they saw the opportunity and they are taking it. They’re trying to make sure that the only ones left standing fit their mold.”

  Kyle reiterated, “Baseline. The line they’ve drawn. On one side, everyone who they deem worthy to live. On the other, those who didn’t make their grade.” He shrugged and gave a dark laugh. “Until they decide to move the line, of course. I’ll bet a lot of their supporters never even thought of that. Once you’ve drawn one line, it’s awfully easy to draw another. And another. Sweep another group aside as they make the race more and more ‘pure’.” He refrained from a disgusted spit only to save the janitor the trouble of cleaning it.

  Rebecca’s reaction was instant. “That’s horrible! Th-they… they can’t…” She shook her head, her braid tossed back and forth with the motion. “They can’t expect I’d go along with that. Or any of the others!”

  Jackie scoffed, “Oh no? Think back over the last week, Miss Bruice. You haven’t had even one suspicion about any of the questions they’ve asked?” She gave a cold smile. “Maybe you haven’t. We’ve already proven the hidden habit of being judgmental that your father has planted inside you over your life.”

  “That’s not fair!”

  “Isn’t it? Picture it from our side, Miss Bruice. What’s going to happen in a week? They take you up to their secluded camp. Have they told you that’s what’s happening? Up there, in the wilderness, away from any other influence or witnesses, you’d be broken down to the bones, torn apart, and then given the chance to build yourself back up under their careful instruction. All those hidden seeds your father has spent a lifetime burying deep inside you would be encouraged to come out. Hate is easy, especially when you’re hurting. They’d guide it. Direct it. Not at them. Not at the ones hurting you. Oh, no. They’d give you a whole new target for your hate. Do you think most Nazis even knew any Jewish people? But when your whole country is going insane and the world is turning against you, the Nazis showed us how easy it was to feed a small, innocent part of their population to the rest of their people and let hate fester. It’s an old tactic, Miss Bruice. But that doesn’t make it any less effective. And you’ve been primed for it by the one who should have been protecting you. You have a right to be angry, but not at us.”

  Rebecca shook her head more violently, not wanting to believe. “You don’t know anything about these people.”

  “Have they started teaching you Aeolic, yet?” Kyle asked suddenly.

  Rebecca froze. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  Slowly, stunned at the question, Rebecca whispered, “Only a few basic words. They said… said it was a test of aptitude for languages. To see if we could retain it.”

  “They use it as their own internal code, so that even if outsiders break their electronic codes, no-one can understand what is being said.” Kyle shrugged. “We know quite a bit. We just don’t know everything. We don’t know enough to really hurt them. Definitely not enough to stop them. And that’s what we want.”

  Jackie pressed next, “Did they give you an access ID? Did they show you an email system that used this language?”

  “What? No!” Rebecca protested.

  Kyle clenched his jaw, though he wasn’t totally surprised. Yeah, that would have been too easy.

  Rebecca saw the mark of disappointment on Jackie’s face as well. “Is that what you wanted from me? Access? I don’t have it. They’re only talking to us. Examining us for things they don’t even tell us about.”

  Jackie sighed. “I’m sorry, Miss Bruice. Your father hasn’t done you any favors. He’s dropped you in a den of scorpions, hoping you’d walk out as one of them. That doesn’t make you guilty of anything, but it doesn’t change the fact that you re right in the middle of this whole mess.”

  Rebecca was totally trapped, and she looked it. She paced back and forth, but only as far as she could without looking like she was trying to run. “This is completely unfair. I wanted to be part of the FDPC. I thought it was finally a worthy cause my father was letting me embrace! After all the others he stopped…” She trailed off.

  Kyle nodded. “If it’s any consolation, that’s
why we chose you. Because we knew you didn’t come here to be one of them.”

  “Don’t do me any more favors, alright?” came her biting response.

  Jackie snapped, “We are doing you a favor. Because if it wasn’t for us, in about a month, you’d either be dead or one of them. That would probably be worse than dead. Do you get it? They would carve up any morals you have, drag the dark, judgmental part of you into the light and teach you to give it free reign. When you sterilized your first inferior or killed your first kid who didn’t make the cut, it might hurt a bit. But it would hurt less each time, especially with people like those examiners congratulating you on a job well done. How long was your soul going to survive that?”

  “I wouldn’t…” Rebecca tried to say, fading off at the end. Whether because she was losing how sure she was, or simply because she knew these two would never believe her.”

  Jackie said, “It doesn’t matter. Because either way, you’re going to help us.”

  “I told you, I don’t have the access you want!”

  Kyle admitted, “That’s only one small part of what we need. Look, I’m confident that before too long, you’re going to see what we see. Until then, well, you’re going to cooperate with us because you have to. That means helping us get into the camp they are going to take you to.”

  Rebecca’s eyes widened. “You still want me to go in there? You can’t be serious. I’m calling father and straightening this all out. I know him. I’ll know if he’s telling me the truth. If this is even a little true, I’ll roast him alive!”

  Kyle understood her lurking outrage, ready to explode. He wished he could give her that chance. “Actually, what will really happen is that he’ll know you didn’t buy into his life’s work. You’ll probably be dead within 48 hours.”

  “He wouldn’t let that happen!”

  “Only other option is for you to end up confined to some out of the way residence for the rest of your natural life. Guess it depends on how much money he has, and how much influence within this ‘Dawn’ organization. If he’s high-up, well, maybe you’re right. If not, he’ll be overruled. He might never even know it happened. They’ll just ‘take care of you’ for him, so he doesn’t have to get his hands dirty.”

  Rebecca tried to stay defiant. “No. That… that wouldn’t happen.” She sounded les certain.

  Jackie sighed. “Suit yourself. Like we said, you’ll believe us soon enough. What happens after that is up to you. For now, we can’t risk the time it would take to ease you into this. We can’t give you the chance to fix your family. We need you to go back in there. I would love for you to volunteer. Go back in and prove we’re crazy. Prove it to yourself. Don’t waste this ‘great job’ with the FDPC on our word alone.”

  Rebecca glared at her. “If half of what you are saying is the truth, they’ll kill me if they realize what I’m doing. Even if I get away, they’ll hunt me down after.”

  Jackie nodded. “The DOJ will protect you.”

  “Can you? If what you’re saying is true, and they own part of the FDPC, what can the DOJ do?”

  Jackie shrugged, “The DOJ might be the only ones able to protect you. It’s our job to make sure the FDPC doesn’t run wild. We’ll do what it takes to keep you safe.” She noticed Rebecca was about to object, maybe say that she didn’t believe the agent. Jackie talked right over her, “I want you to cooperate for your own sake, but I’m going to be upfront about this. I’m not asking. I’m telling you: you’re doing this. You need to settle yourself to that fact right now. You made a bad call, letting yourself get mixed up in this.”

  “My father –”

  Kyle cut her off, “– wanted this, we know. And it’s hard to ignore a father’s wishes.”

  “Try impossible!”

  Jackie didn’t budge an inch. “We can’t miss this chance, Miss Bruice. We’re sending you back in. And we’re sending you back in knowing that if you screw it up, we probably won’t ever find your body. That’s the stakes we’re playing for.”

  Rebecca shook her head, hating this. “Why are you doing this?”

  “If these people succeed, they’ll tear this whole country apart. That makes them traitors. If you help them, that makes you a traitor to everything we hold dear. Don’t ask me what I’d do to protect that, Miss Bruice. You wouldn’t like the answer. Think long and hard about being on the right side of this. But like I said, like it or not, you are going to help me stop them. Take a few seconds. Get your mind right.”

  Kyle glanced at Jackie out of the corner of his eye, a little startled by the cold iron behind her voice. He found he believed every word she had said. She thought outside the box, and seemed more flexible than most investigators as to the art of the possible. But that didn’t change the fact that she was a patriot, through and through. He had a personal stake in what was going on. So did the women who were with him. He guessed she had her own reasons as well for going the extra mile.

  Throwing her hands up again, Rebecca turned in a circle, staring away from them at the screen to hide the strain behind her eyes, tears lurking just out of sight. She was tough. She’d been trained to be tougher than she was at the start. But they were pushing her hard. “So what?” She asked sarcastically. “Going to make me walk in there with a wire?”

  Kyle couldn’t help a dark chuckle. “Despite what you think, we really don’t want to get you killed. They’d find something that obvious pretty fast.”

  Jackie stood, the cheap theater seat creaking as she walked out the end of the aisle, down the steps and onto the platform in front of the screen. She approached Rebecca, holding out a black card with silver lettering on it. Dazz had made a few for exactly this purpose, though they had not had any cause to use them. “Encrypted email. Secure phone line. Both connect straight to us. Memorize them before they take you to the camp, then dispose of the card. Assume you will be stripped and all your belongings searched. They won’t care about how invasive they are. It will no doubt feel like you are being taken into a prison, only worse. They have too much to lose to make any overly stupid mistakes with new recruits. Once you’re in their camp, you’ll be under their surveillance and total control. Go with the flow. Accept what they say, even if it turns your stomach. Your only chance is to be the perfect little storm trooper that they want you to be.”

  Taking the card in slightly trembling fingers, Rebecca whispered the question, “How long?”

  “That’s up to you. The sooner, the better. They won’t let up, Rebecca. They will push and push and push until they are sure you are one of them or they kill you. Either way. You can’t wait for them to trust you and give you access. By then, it’ll be too late. You need to take chances. Sneak what you can. Play every trick you know. We can’t extract you. Not until you can let us in and then bust you out from the inside once we have what we want. Your task is to get us in, and help us get as close to the access point we need. Give us a little time to take photos of what’s there. Then, we can get you out.”

  She closed her eyes in pain. “This is totally… totally… fucked up.”

  Kyle let out another dark chuckle. “Yeah, yeah it is. We’ve been saying the same thing since the start.”

  Rebecca gritted her teeth, then clenched the business card into her fist, crumpling it. But she didn’t drop it. “Anything else?”

  Jackie shook her head. “Get going. Get back with your partner before anyone realizes you’ve had time to yourself. It’s a good alibi. After all, it was Oleski who wanted time alone. You did her a favor. She’ll have no reason to suspect you met with anyone else.”

  Rebecca’s eyes widened. “You set that up?”

  Jackie brushed her off. “Nothing about that matters. All that matters is that if anyone will get hung out to dry for wandering off, it will be her. If things start to get sticky, encourage that. It will deflect attention.”

  “They could hurt her!”

  “Maybe. Then again, did you know that it was her mother who got her into this mess? She
might be the same as you, Rebecca. Just another innocent caught up in their family’s bullshit. Then again, maybe she knows all about it. Think about that. Everyone of your fellow students has a reason to be here. Everyone of them has a reason that these instructors think they would make a good eugenicist soldier capable of ushering in some horrid, new era. Don’t trust them. You can’t afford it.”

  Those ideas steamrolled right over her. Rebecca could only nod.

  “Get moving, Miss Bruice. Take a walk first. Give yourself a few minutes before you call her. It’s only been an hour. You wouldn’t be out of a movie for a while, yet. Calm down and get focused. You’re going to need it.”

  Looking lost and scared out of her mind, Rebecca turned and drifted back down the corridor, clanked open the door, and was gone.

  Kyle almost collapsed into his chair, his forehead breaking out in instant sweat as he let his nerves show. “Holy crap, that sucked!”

  Jackie leaned against the forward railing, flashing him a crooked grin. “I don’t know. I’d say you did fairly well for your first time. Megan always said you were a quick learner. Apparently, not just when it comes to the ladies.”

  Kyle rolled his eyes. “If you hadn’t coached me ahead of time, I wouldn’t have known where to start. It kept getting harder whenever she said something that made her seem less like a high-minded bitch primed to take over the world.”

  “Remember, sometimes it’s all about the lesser of two evils.” Jackie shrugged. “Also made it a lot easier since we had her over a barrel. We had the guns, the information, we knew more about her soon-to-be employers than she did, and we knew about her father, perhaps even more than she did. We leaned on her pretty heavily but it had to be done. The real risk is that she isn’t scared enough, and she’ll walk in and demand answers from her assessors. She’ll end up dead, and we’ll be back to square one. No, worse, because then they’ll know our subversion plan and they’ll haul the rest of them off to the camp immediately or cut their losses and send them all home.”