by Glenn Smith
He had no choice. As she acclimated to this new environment over the summer and then settled into her new school in the fall, he was going to have to do all he could do to protect her, perhaps from herself as much as from anyone else. But... he was going to have to do that without suffocating her or she’d rebel. He was going to have to protect her while at the same time giving her enough room to breathe and to grow into the person she wanted to become.
Now more than ever he could have used a good dose of Mirriazu’s parenting advice.
Where was he? What had he been thinking about before Heather came outside? Ah yes, the memory-edit. Rather, whether or not he’d ever been subjected to a memory-edit. He’d pretty much concluded... again... that he must have been, somewhere along the line.
He snickered. ‘The line.’ The timeline. He was beginning to think of everything in terms of points along the timeline.
He took a drink of his coffee—still warm, but starting to cool a little too much.
So many questions, and aside from Heather’s wellbeing they seemed to be all he thought about anymore. Questions with answers that could change at any time. Those for which he had answers anyway. No wonder the nightmares kept coming back every night.
As for the question of whether or not he’d ever been subjected to a memory-edit...
Why not ask his friends? Of course. It was so simple. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? The fact that he’d retired—okay, he’d been force retired, escaping hard time in prison after being convicted of criminal acts for no reason other than that Mirriazu had exercised her authority on his behalf and pushed the court into showing mercy, probably more for Heather’s sake than for his. Anyway, the fact that he’d retired didn’t mean that he’d lost all of his friends. There were a number of people out there he could ask. Friends, former co-workers, colleagues both superior and subordinate. Some of them he’d known for years. Even decades. If he’d ever been subjected to a memory-edit, someone out there had to know something about it.
He gulped down the rest of his coffee—even lukewarm his favorite blend tasted better than any other—then went back inside, poured himself a second cup, and strolled into his den to start making calls.
* * *
Four hours later, Nick didn’t know anything more than he had known when he started. No one he’d contacted had told him anything. Some of them hadn’t acknowledged their prior friendship or even their professional relationship, and a few hadn’t even answered his call. He’d gotten himself into trouble and all of his friends and coworkers had scurried away like roaches running under the baseboards when the kitchen lights are turned on. Some things never changed, and he realized that he probably should have expected it.
So now what? He had questions, but for now all but one of those questions had answers. And the one question that didn’t have an answer apparently wasn’t going to have one anytime soon... if ever. So what was he supposed to do now?
Raise his daughter. That was what he was supposed to do, just as Mirriazu had told him. He was supposed to put Heather first in his life and be there for her whenever she needed him to be there. He was supposed to stop being the soldier and start being the better father—the kind of father that every young deserved to have.
Young daughters like Miss O’Donnell, for example. She’d grown up without her father... without ever having known him, as far as Nick knew... yet she’d gone to extraordinary lengths to try to free him from his enemy captors. Or at least she would have, had she gotten the chance. As much trouble as she’d caused, could he really blame her for wanting to rescue her father?
No. No he couldn’t, and she deserved to be rescued as much as he did.
He opened his top desk drawer and took out the data-chip Rod Johnson’s man had given him in Geneva, then slipped it into his terminal and tapped the call button. A few seconds later Johnson’s image appeared on the monitor, recognized him, and said, “Good morning, Admiral.”
“Good morning, Lieutenant Commander Johnson,” Nick returned. “It’s good to see you again. Congratulations on your promotion, by the way.”
“Thank you, sir. What can I do for you?”
Nick hesitated for a moment and just gazed at the younger man, taken off guard. What could Rod do for him? He must have known why he was calling. His men in Geneva, of course. Why else? Rod glanced briefly off to one side and then looked back at him, and he understood. Of course. There was someone there, or at least within earshot. Rod was warning him to choose his words carefully. “I spoke with your men the other day,” he began.
“So they told me,” Rod replied.
“The issue warrants further discussion. Where and when would you like to meet?”
“Just so happens I’m in the Springs for the weekend. How’s this afternoon?”
Now there was an interesting coincidence. “This afternoon is good,” Nick answered him. “Do you have anywhere in particular in mind?”
“How about the Cheyenne Mountain Complex?”
Nick sat back in his chair. The Cheyenne Mountain Complex? Was Rod kidding? It was hard enough for an active duty fleet officer to gain access to that facility. For him as a retired officer it would be impossible. “You must know I can’t get in there anymore,” he said.
“I can get you in. Meet me at the outer gate at fourteen-hundred.”
“Are you sure?” Nick asked him, just to make sure.
“Trust me, Admiral,” Rod replied confidently. “Fourteen-hundred.”
Chapter 28
Having shaved—maybe he’d grow his beard back in the fall, but for now he preferred to be clean-shaven—showered, and dressed in charcoal-gray slacks, a pale green shirt, and casual black shoes, Nick arrived a few minutes before 1400 hours and pulled his new midsize Solfleet-blue sedan into the half-full employee parking lot just outside the nine-foot tall beige plasticrete wall that served as a barrier between the lot and the restricted area. His status as a retired flag officer had authorized him unescorted access up to that point—the heavily armed guards at the barricaded security checkpoint about three-quarters of the way up the winding two-lane incline of Norad Road had checked and authenticated his identicard and then cross-referenced it with their access control roster, then scanned his right palm and both eyes, and then searched his sedan from front to back, inside and out—but that was as far as he was going to get until Rod or whoever he might send after him came to get him. The restricted area was exactly that, restricted, and if the U.S. Aerospace Force and Solfleet Military Police guards back at that checkpoint were any indication, the security forces charged to protect the complex took their job very seriously. One only needed to look at the weapons they carried to remove any doubt about that. In addition to their standard-issue sidearms, each guard had been armed with an MS-4 automatic rifle and had probably been carrying enough ammunition to repel an invasion. They’d also been backed up by two HS-21 squad assault weapons that he’d seen set up in excellent overwatch positions, and who knew what else they might have had back there that he hadn’t seen.
And despite his rank, which was clearly denoted on his identicard, the guards had offered no apology whatsoever for inconveniencing him. Nor had he expected them to. They had their duties to perform, and frankly he would have been disappointed if they had apologized. On the contrary, he had been pleased to see them pursue those duties so aggressively. The alternative could put the whole complex at risk.
He spotted an empty parking slot close to the near end of the second row and pulled into it, shut down his sedan, and got out to take in the view while he waited. He hadn’t visited the complex in a good many years and wanted to take it all in while he was there. Who knew when he might get back again, if ever.
The sun shone brightly, high in the still cloudless blue sky. The afternoon had grown quite warm, but a cool breeze blowing gently down over the mountains made it a beautiful spring day. Looking up over the top of the wall into the complex, he could see the second floor of the combined Security
Operations and Visitor Identification and Processing Center, or the SO-VIP-C for short, and the top two floors of the three-story administration building standing to its south, but little else. Not far beyond the buildings, the steep, gray granite mountain rose something like another two-thousand feet higher into the sky, only the most gently sloping areas covered in green by low-standing shrubs and middle-aged trees, most of them evergreen.
To the east the view was as impressive as he remembered, looking out over the centuries-old but still very upscale Broadmoor Bluffs housing development—there must have been at least two or three thousand more homes down there now—and the United States Army’s Fort Carson beyond, still an active Army post after almost two-hundred and fifty years. To the fort’s north, Colorado Springs lay nestled like an oasis between the front range and the eastern plains, a city by name that had somehow managed to avoid growing into a city by appearance and spoiling the natural landscape around it the way all the large cities up and down the east and west coasts had.
“Admiral Hansen,” a voice called out to him from behind.
Nick turned and looked to find Rod Johnson walking toward him, having just exited the restricted area through the nearest pedestrian gate in the wall—an open doorway wide enough for one person to pass through at a time, with personnel scanners mounted on both sides and more armed guards posted just inside. He was wearing minimally adorned tan utilities and soft boots rather than his class-B’s, the usual standard duty uniform for the S.I.A. deputy chief, which Nick found a little curious. Granted, Cheyenne Mountain Complex wasn’t exactly Mandela Station and the war had recently reached much closer to home, but it was still a garrison facility. Surely the job description hadn’t changed that much since the invasion.
“Rod,” he replied with a polite smile, setting the question of his uniform choice aside for the time being as his old friend’s son walked up to him, extending his hand. “It’s good to finally see you face-to-face again.”
“And you, sir,” Johnson responded in kind, smiling back at him as they shook hands—his grip was firm and sincere, Nick noted. He genuinely was glad to see him again. He stepped aside and gestured toward the gate he’d just exited through and asked, “Shall we?”
“By all means,” Nick answered. He still questioned whether or not he truly believed that Rod could get him into the complex, so as they walked toward the gate he asked him, “So how is it that you can take me in there after the way my career ended? I’m not exactly Fleet Command’s favorite son these days.”
“Some of us... a lot of us actually... think you got a raw deal, Admiral,” Johnson told him. Not that much of an answer really.
“Maybe so, Lieutenant Commander—that diamond looks good on you, by the way,” he mentioned as an aside—“but the fact remains, I was guilty. I did what they accused me of doing and was convicted by the court-martial board. If it weren’t for President Shakhar’s interference, I’d be in prison right now.”
“Yes, sir,” Johnson acknowledge as they passed one at a time between the scanners at the gate, Johnson leading the way into the restricted area as required, under the careful scrutiny of the two heavily armed guards posted there, one each Aerospace Force SP and Solfleet MP, “but you did what you did with good reason, in furtherance of Earth’s security and survival.”
“Still maintained in pristine condition, I see,” Nick observed, looking ahead and off to his left, across the fronts of both buildings at the perfectly manicured grounds. The sidewalks were smooth and clean, and as far as he could see completely free of cracks or misaligned joints. The oddly-shaped lawns, relatively small though they were—a good two-thirds of the grounds that he could see had been xeriscaped to keep watering needs to a minimum—had already taken on a healthy shade of green, been trimmed to a uniform one-inch length, and been nicely edged along the sidewalks and around all the various sized circular mounds where young trees or bushes had recently been planted.
“Of course,” Johnson emphasized. “You know how it is, Admiral. Nothing tells the boys and girls from the Inspector General’s office that a unit is meeting or surpassing all of its mission objectives more than clean sidewalks and pretty landscaping.”
Nick snickered. Indeed he did know. How many times had he seen units try to make good impressions on the I-G inspection teams by beautifying their areas of operation, rather than by staying on top of their game? More times than he cared to remember. “I’m surprised you’re not painting the rocks around the flagpoles white,” he commented.
Johnson laughed. “Take a ride down to Fort Carson when we’re done here. You can find all the white rocks you want to see down there.”
“Anyway, as I was saying,” Nick continued to steer their conversation back on track, “I was essentially forced out of the fleet, which brings me back to my question. How exactly are you going to get me inside?”
The doors ahead of them opened automatically as they approached, and as they walked into the building side-by-side the pair of Solfleet MPs standing guard on either side of the second pair of doors snapped to attention. The Aerospace Force SPs sitting at the counter off to one side did not, but neither did they say or do anything to disrupt their colleagues’ display of respect. In fact, after another second or two, they stood up as well, though they remained at ease.
Of course the MPs would come to attention, Nick mused. Rod was their superior officer.
Johnson told them, “We’re going through,” and the one on the right immediately tapped the button to open the inner doors.
Nick followed Johnson through those doors only to find two more armed guards, an SP and an MP, standing a few feet inside, and when they saw him they, too, snapped to attention and the MP announced, loud enough for everyone in the area to hear, “Admiral on deck!” The young man stationed behind the wide security desk, an MP sergeant, stood up and snapped to attention, as did the mixed pair of guards standing by the doors at the far end of the hallway beyond.
“As I said, Admiral,” Johnson pointed out, looking sidelong at him as they approached the security desk, “some of us think you got a raw deal.”
They admired him, Nick realized with surprise. He’d broken the law—several of them, actually. He’d committed multiple offenses, some of them very serious capital offenses. He had been court-martialed, convicted, and forcibly retired in disgrace, yet these people still respected him and perhaps even admired him for what he’d done. Not that any one of them knew all of the details, of course, what with the Portal’s existence still being classified... regardless of the fact that it didn’t actually exist anymore. But still...
“Lieutenant Commander Roderick Johnson,” Johnson identified himself to the sergeant, holding his identicard out to him, “Headquarters Command Staff, escorting retired Vice-Admiral Icarus Hansen into the facility on official business.”
“No need for that, sir,” the sergeant replied, gesturing for Johnson to put his identicard away. “I know you.” Then he looked at Nick and asked him, “May I see yours, please, sir?”
“Certainly,” Nick answered, reaching into his shirt pocket.
The sergeant accepted his card and slipped it into his reader, then pointed at the combined palm and eye scanner to his left and asked him to, “Place your right hand palm down on the plate and look directly at the retina scanner, please, sir.” Nick complied and the plate glowed white for one second, analyzing his palm and fingerprints, while the camera simultaneously scanned both of his eyes, which only took a second or two longer. The sergeant then gazed at his monitor for a moment, presumably waiting for it to display the results of the scans, and then pulled Nick’s identicard out of his reader. “Welcome to Cheyenne Mountain Complex, sir,” he said politely as he slipped the identicard into one of the many slots in another device off to the other side. Then he withdrew a different card from that same device—a coded visitor I.D. bearing a hologram of his image—handed it to him, and instructed him to, “Please display this prominently on your shirt above t
he waist at all times beyond this point, sir. You’ll exchange it for your identicard on the way out.”
“Thank you, Sergeant,” Nick said as he accepted the badge.
“Enjoy your visit, sir.”
“Thank you,” Nick repeated as he clipped the I.D. over his shirt pocket.
Johnson led him the rest of the way down the hall and out through the far doors to where a fleet-owned sedan sat idling, waiting for them. Johnson stepped out ahead and opened the back door for Nick, moved aside to allow him climb in first, and then followed. The driver waited for the door to close behind them, then started driving.
“So how’s your daughter, Admiral?” Johnson asked, gazing out through his window as they followed the bend around to the left and approached the dark tunnel into the mountain.
Nick looked over at him a little tentatively and answered, “She’s good.” It wasn’t that Johnson’s asking after Heather bothered him. It was just a little unusual.
“Good,” the younger man replied. “I’m glad to hear it. Raising a teenage girl can be quite demanding sometimes.”
Okay, now that was strange. Johnson didn’t have kids at all, let alone any teenage girls. “Small talk, Lieutenant Commander?”
Johnson met his gaze and answered, “Just until we get where we’re going, sir.”
Fair enough.
The sedan’s headlights came on automatically as soon as they entered the tunnel, which curved fairly steadily to the left as they rode deeper into the mountain. Now that they were out of the direct sunlight, the tunnel wasn’t nearly as dark as it had first appeared to be. In fact, the twin rows of light strips that ran along both sides of the ceiling had been replaced with newer, brighter and whiter strips since the last time Nick was there which probably provided enough illumination to make the sedan’s headlights unnecessary, except for safety sake. Other than that, the tunnel hadn’t changed much. Actually, it hadn’t changed at all.
