Empire

by Brandt Legg

  “You’ll find that the Minton Micro attack doesn’t fit any of the others NorthBridge has done.”

  “What about NorthBridge taking credit?”

  “A simple hack.”

  “Northbridge can’t be hacked.”

  “Anyone can be hacked. Who do you think controls the internet?”

  The Empire, Hudson thought.

  “NorthBridge would not have attacked that plant,” Fonda continued, “and you know it. It’s the REMies and if you go on letting everybody blame NorthBridge, then you’re aiding the REMies and they’ll get away with it. That means you’re not only helping them win, but you’re also a coward.”

  Hudson stared at his phone in disbelief. “How dare you call me a coward! I’m here in front of the world risking my life to fight the REMies while you and your friends hide behind aliases and bombs! Why don’t you think about who’s really the coward here.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Fonda said sarcastically. “Are you really out there in the public fighting the REMies? I don’t see you giving speeches about who the REMies are, what the REMies are doing, or how you’re going to stop them. I don’t see any of that. You seem to be doing an awful lot of hiding yourself.”

  “History will judge,” Hudson said. “History will judge me, and history will judge NorthBridge.”

  “Most of the history you know was written by the REMies.”

  “There have been some notable exceptions,” the president corrected. “Historians attempting to tell a straight account of history, Howard Zinn for one—”

  Fonda sighed an interruption and continued her lecture. “As far as what people in the future will read about what happened during this time, I can tell you one thing: if they are allowed to read about it at all—the truth of it, I mean—it will be only because NorthBridge was here, and NorthBridge did what had to be done in order to save the future.”

  “NorthBridge may just be a vehicle Booker’s using to win the CapWar,” Hudson snapped. “You may think you’re part of some great cause, but don’t forget Booker is a REMie. Perhaps you’re just part of a massive MADE event.”

  “Did Vonner tell you that?” Fonda shot back. “Just like he told you that Trump was a mistake? When, in fact, Trump was the massive MADE event.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “There was a group of REMies who decided their best chance at winning the CapWar was to put in a giant disrupter, a distractor . . . a bull in a china shop. Trump was perfect. Remember, each MADE event has to trump the one before as the public becomes immune to scandals, and the latest crisis is boring after twenty-four hours. They gave us an actor, a CIA man no one liked, but that was payback, a young governor who couldn’t keep his pants on, a president’s son just in time to handle 9/11, a handsome and eloquent African American, and then how could they top that? By then, the internet and twenty-four hour news cycle, the instant and viral social media, and all the polarization they had created, meant the perfect choice was reality TV.”

  “You’re off-topic.”

  “No, I’m not,” Fonda said, as if spitting the words. “Trump was a while ago, but remember what it was like? Every day another outrage, another scandal, another tweet, another distraction.”

  “We were talking about Booker.”

  “No,” Fonda said, “we’re talking about the truth, and the truth is your vote doesn’t count. The truth is you really aren’t free. The truth is a bigger lie than you can believe. And the truth is you believe it anyway.”

  “The truth hurts,” Hudson said. “Especially when it lies . . . ”

  “That may be the truest thing you’ve ever said,” Fonda said slowly, and then, lowering her voice to a whisper, added, “Goodbye, Mr. President.”

  As he raced up to join the gathering that hopefully Fitz was keeping going, Hudson puzzled why Fonda had even bothered to make the call.

  Did I miss something?

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Days after the Minton Micro attack, the president, flanked by a large security detail, walked the winding path through a heavily wooded section of Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC. The two-thousand-acre sanctuary sometimes seemed almost invisible in the bustling capital city.

  Eventually, he found Tarka seated on a pile of large carved stones, which looked as if they’d been haphazardly stacked there by ancient giants. His agents spread out and took positions among the trees and slabs of carved rock.

  “What is this place?” the president asked.

  “It’s called ‘The Capitol Stones,’” Tarka responded. “Back in 1958, during renovations of the US Capitol Building, the architect stripped these old stones from the project. Some of them date back to the 1700s, before the burning of Washington. Apparently, it was illegal to sell or dispose of the historic stone, so . . . ” Tarka waved her arm out to the ruins.

  Hudson looked around at the piles of sandstone, marble slabs, and granite blocks, some ten or twenty feet high, many at least partially covered with moss and lichen, an effort by the earth to reclaim what was once her own. Some of them had ornate carvings, etched letters or numbers, decorative curls and scrolls.

  “It seems a strange decision to have just abandoned them here,” the president said, eyeing her. “Also, an unusual meeting place.”

  “Absolute privacy,” Tarka, the head of Vonner Security, said in a tone of combined experience and confidence.

  Hudson walked between two massive stacks into a long alley. The thick foliage and aged white and gray stones made him feel as if he were discovering ancient Mayan ruins in a central American jungle.

  Tarka, having already explored several times, followed the president.

  “I need you to do something,” Hudson said, stopping at a panel detailed with eagles and carved leaves. He handed her a printed list. “Can you put together teams to shadow and protect these people?”

  “I don’t understand,” Tarka said, scanning the page. “You want me to guard REMies? It really wouldn’t hurt my feelings if these people landed in harm’s way.”

  “NorthBridge is no longer content to attack REMie institutions,” the president said, a tinge of anger in his voice. “Now they’re targeting the REMies themselves.”

  “By assassination?”

  “We uncovered a NorthBridge plot to take out Titus Coyne.”

  “These men all have their own adequate or better protection teams,” she said.

  “Yes, they do, but not up to the level of Vonner Security, and not with our access to intelligence. I’d like you to personally head up the team that gets assigned to Coyne.”

  “What about Bastendorff?” she asked, pointing to his name on the list. “Isn’t he more important?”

  “Yes, but as far as I know, you don’t want Coyne dead.”

  She looked at him with her best puzzled expression.

  “I know that given the chance, you would kill Bastendorff yourself,” Hudson said, tracing his fingers over the talons of a stone eagle. “Too tempting.”

  Tarka nodded quietly. “What about you?” Tarka had not been providing the president with round-the-clock protection as she did when Vonner was alive, but it was still her primary mission, and she was never far away. This new assignment would take her around the globe and definitely be a distraction.

  “Thanks to your efforts, we have an incredibly deep and talented VS force.” He gazed at her with sincere appreciation. “Between Colonel Dranick and Agent Bond, we’ve also created a locked and truly impressive Secret Service detail . . . one we can trust.”

  “I understand,” she said. “I know that Rex, the Wizard, and Granger Watson have significantly increased the digital and electronic safety nets around you, but still, with NorthBridge, the REMies, and all the usual nut cases, you’re the most targeted man on earth. I think you need me here.”

  “Not if REMies start dropping like flies. Then we won’t just have a Civil War in this country, we’ll have an all-out global war between the one percent and everyone else.”


  “Aren’t we heading to that anyway?” Tarka asked as they rounded a corner and came face-to-face with some kind of marble gargoyle half covered in dry leaves. “And would that really be such a bad thing?”

  “I have this debate continually,” the president said. “If we aren’t painfully careful, absolutely meticulous, in how we break the REMies’ empire, the result will be anarchy.” Hudson brushed some of the leaves off the mythical stone creature. “The system is extremely fragile. Even if we do nothing, it could all collapse under its own weight with the wrong news story, or a financial domino falling at the wrong time. No, NorthBridge is being reckless, and they can’t be allowed to push us to the brink.”

  “Forgive me, Mr. President, but isn’t going too slow also risky?” They both knew she had earned the right to be blunt and question his methods. He would not be alive if not for her.

  Hudson wasn’t surprised at her question, and he understood the meaning between the lines. “You mean, can’t we just kill the forty-eight key REMies over a weekend and pick up the pieces from there?”

  She couldn’t help but smile.

  “On some days, I’d like to do just that,” he admitted. “But however tempting that course might be, not only is it morally wrong, it would crash the empire instantly, resulting in pandemonium so severe that we would be unable to climb out of it . . . the end of the world.”

  She nodded, unconvinced, but committed to following orders. “Okay,” she said. “But at least promise me you’ll keep an open mind.”

  “Believe me, Tarka, after all I’ve been through the past few years, all I’ve got left is an open mind.”

  After the meeting, Tarka immediately expanded VS operations and coordinated with Rex, Granger, and the Wizard, on a strategy to protect the most important REMies. The Wizard had already been using the Gypsy program to track the REMies and overlay their movements and meetings with transactions and MADE events, so making the transition from surveillance to protection wasn’t that difficult.

  However, in spite of their efforts, three fairly well known REMies died during the next month. All three deaths were ruled as various natural causes, but VS investigations, as well as information from the DarkNet, contradicted those official findings. Hudson didn’t need any of the Wizard’s back channel facts to tell him that NorthBridge had successfully assassinated three REMies, or to know that more “natural” and “accidental” deaths were planned.

  An overt attempt had been made on Titus Coyne’s life, which Tarka and her team were able to prevent. Thus far, Bastendorff had been able to insulate himself from any direct attacks, but Hudson was worried it would only be a matter of time before more REMies fell and the world would begin to notice the “coincidence,” shaking the markets, creating panic, and causing the remaining REMies to resort to incomprehensible tactics to save their empire.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Fitz caught up to the president in his private study prior to a Cabinet meeting. “Did you see the NorthBridge statement?”

  “Reading it now,” the president said.

  It is time that we examine what we want to be as a nation and as a people. NorthBridge began originally to return us to the ideas set forth by the Founders of this country. We had hoped that through elections and education, our organization would be able to remind people that we don’t have to be liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats. None of those labels matter. What does matter is our pursuit of happiness, and that we use our precious freedom to take care of one another and our planet. Life is not a competition, it is a combination.

  “Seems like an effort to rebuild their shattered reputation after Minton Micro,” the president said.

  The news of the attack on the California chip maker had hit while the president was in the middle of seeking support from members of Congress concerning his secret radical reforms for the government. NorthBridge had immediately been blamed for the horrors, but in recent days, Dranick and the Wizard had discovered evidence suggesting it had been a REMie operation, just as Fonda had claimed. Either way, it had been an awful distraction, and further delayed the planned Cherry Tree launch.

  “Keep reading,” Fitz urged as he opened a Coke.

  However, there are those within NorthBridge who believe returning to the core constitutional values of America would take too long, or that it would be impossible to regain what was lost more than a century ago. And how was it lost? It was not. It was stolen from us by a group of elites—the 1% of the 1%—some of whom you read about in the business pages, some of whom remained hidden in the anonymity that allows them to rule from the shadows. What they all have in common is a lust for wealth and power that is limitless and unmatched by any definition of greed. These people seek to increase their wealth and control by any means necessary. They have manipulated and stolen the truth for so long that most of us have a hard time recognizing what is real and what has been created by this group known as the REMies.

  “Wow,” the president said. “Has any media picked this up yet?”

  “None of the REMie-controlled main stream media,” Fitz said. “But a few indie news sites are hyping it.”

  There are factions within NorthBridge who chose to utilize violence to incite a revolution to wake up the population to what is happening, to take it from beyond the fringes of conspiracy and shadow and paranoia to the light of day . . . to the mainstream. Those factions inside our organization have won more times than not. However, we have tried to minimize the loss of life and violence while still sending a clear signal to the REMies that we are not going to stop. We have always believed that eventually public opinion and knowledge would move in the right direction so that the REMies would no longer be able to hide.

  I am one NorthBridger who stands for nonviolence. I’m sorry for every blast, every bullet, every act that has harmed another human life in the name of NorthBridge, yet I do not discount our progress. Please, we need you to join us, because it is only with the people that we will have enough power to stop the REMies. Don’t be afraid. Through 3D and the NSA surveillance of your phone calls, Internet usage, and social media activity, the REMies have created a police state far more sinister than Orwell’s worst nightmare. But because there are so many of us, and so few of them, we can win. REMies may have the dollars on their side, but here’s a little secret: those dollars aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. I ask that you join the resistance, and even if you won’t join us, start questioning everything . . . especially authority.

  Signed AKA Adams

  “My God, AKA Adams has practically launched Cherry Tree for us!” the president exclaimed, getting up and looking out the window as if there might already be demonstrations in the streets. “We’ve got two choices now. We can either bring out Cherry Tree tomorrow, or delay it even further.”

  “The problem is, if we do Cherry Tree now,” Fitz began, “it’s going to look like we’re endorsing NorthBridge.”

  “Exactly, but we can at least see what kind of momentum they get,” Hudson said. “If people respond to this, it could pave the way for our launch.”

  “That’s certainly the most prudent approach,” the chief of staff replied, stirring his soda as though it were a mixed drink. “Let’s give it a few days, see what happens, then reevaluate.”

  After the Cabinet meeting, the president returned to his study and contacted the Wizard and Granger, instructing them to find out, once and for all, the identity of AKA Adams.

  “This person is obviously the moderating force in NorthBridge, and that’s who we need to talk to,” Hudson told them. “If we can find out who it is, we might have a way in. Make it your top priority.”

  “Do you really want to work with these terrorists?” Melissa asked that evening in the residence.

  “I don’t think we have a choice,” Hudson said. “And at least Thorne, Fonda, and Booker are known entities in the world. I know who they are. I know them personally. I think this will help.”

  “
But can they be trusted?”

  “Fonda once told me that no one could be trusted.”

  “Telling.”

  Hudson nodded. “The final investigation is going to show that NorthBridge didn’t do Minton Micro.”

  “But they’ve done plenty.”

  “True, but this is a messy business.”

  “That’s an understatement,” Melissa said, massaging Hudson’s shoulders on the edge of the bed. “But why did AKA Adams come out with this now? It sounds like they know about Cherry Tree and want to undermine it.”

  “Adams may legitimately be tired of the attacks. Fonda has told me several times that there is extreme diversity within NorthBridge. Adams might be going rogue and trying to stem the violence by changing NorthBridge’s direction from the outside.”

  “Or it’s a publicity stunt because of all the fallout from Minton Micro.”

  “Maybe,” Hudson said, falling back into her lap and wondering, not for the first time, if AKA Adams might be Linh, the leader of the Inner Movement. “If Adams really is the voice of reason, then we have to talk to her.”

  “Her?”

  “Perhaps Adams is you,” he quickly said, pulling Melissa on top of him.

  “Wouldn’t that be convenient?” she said, laughing.

  “I can’t stand what NorthBridge has been doing, but I can no longer deny that getting them on board with us could make all the difference.” He pushed himself up on the bed. “I’m not sure we can beat the REMies while still fighting NorthBridge, but together . . . and Adams may have just given us the opening.”

  “As long as it’s not a trick,” Melissa said.