Tree of Liberty (Book 3 of The Humanity Unlimited Saga)

by Terry Mixon

  Since their groups were loosely aligned, they needed to have a secure method of identifying one another’s operatives.

  “My concern is that you might be associated with the US government,” Harry said. “They know Brenda Cabot and I are aware of one another. You need to offer me something that only she or her people would know.”

  The man seemed to consider that for a moment and then shrugged again. “I find myself at a loss, Mister Rogers. You see, we are not directly part of her family. Our branch is active only in France. Perhaps you could call her. She would vouch for us.”

  That was a possibility, but one he’d prefer to use only as a last resort. He had a number for her, but the potential for an NSA intercept was high. They’d only be able to speak in generalities and he’d have to use one of his people as a proxy. They’d be looking for his voiceprint.

  Hers, too, but she undoubtedly already knew that.

  “I assume your family is aware of your location,” Harry said after considering his options. “What will they do if I hold on to you until I’m certain of your bona fides?”

  The man smiled slightly. “The potential for conflict when we made contact was always there. I have a code phrase that I may call them with to assure them of our safety and inform them that we will be staying here for the time being. My phone was confiscated by your men.”

  It was always possible the code phrase would mean something entirely different, but their silence meant something, too. It was probably best to take the chance. Whoever had sent them already knew roughly where the base was located.

  “I’m going to leave you with my associate so I can take care of other matters requiring my attention. He will also endeavor to verify your identity with Miss Cabot. Once we’re sure whom we are negotiating with, we can settle this misunderstanding.”

  Once the man nodded his agreement, Harry made his way out into the corridor with a gesture for Rex to follow.

  He closed the door and spoke softly enough that no one inside would overhear. “Get his phone and let him pass the code phrase along. Use one of the burner phones and call Cabot, too. Don’t mention any names, but inquire whether she might have sent a friend or two to visit us. If she says yes, these people are probably legitimate.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” the scout said. “What business are you going to be looking into?”

  Harry grimaced. “As much as I’d rather let him rot, I need to get to New Zealand and figure out what happened to my father. If the US has him, that’s a terrible security risk. We’ll have to spring him.

  “If he got away, he’s either somewhere in the wilderness or down in the New Zealand base. We also need to secure it and keep the government down there from seizing it.”

  “Good plan. I’ll handle my end. We still need to move all the vehicles away from the area. When someone official finally locates them, it’s going to spark a lot of questions. There were a bunch of terrorists involved in this attack, too. Someone is going to miss them.”

  “We can’t control that,” Harry said grimly. “So long as we move the vehicles a sufficient distance away, it doesn’t matter what anyone does. They won’t be able to locate this base.

  “That’s the important thing. If the terrorists had left word of their destination, we’d have already had more company. How long do you think it’s going to take you to relocate all the vehicles?”

  The scout shrugged. “If we use every available body and only move the cars forty or fifty miles, we should be able to get all of them relocated before dawn. We’ll still be on the road getting back here, but we should be safe enough.”

  It would have to do. “Make it happen. Torch them all once you’re done. Gather the bodies onto pallets near the gates and move them to Freedom Express, too. We’ll give them a quiet burial in deep space. Collect all the intelligence you can as you go. We might need to know who their friends are later.”

  “Copy that. Good luck on your search.”

  Harry headed up to the surface. He’d take the jet that had brought them to France. With the time shift during the flight, he probably arrived in New Zealand just after dusk, local time.

  He had no idea what he’d tell the New Zealanders. Everyone on Earth knew he was on Mars. He couldn’t just reappear with no warning. He’d need to pretend to be someone else.

  Thankfully, he’d been in his suit when they’d recorded the landing on Mars. His face might not be widely known. At least he hoped it wasn’t. He’d find out soon enough.

  Chapter Six

  Queen stepped off the rolling steps and onto the hot concrete of the airfield. His hat provided some protection against the glare, but he still had to shade his eyes with his hand.

  A man in a blue Air Force uniform stepped forward and extended his hand. Silver stars glittered in the blinding light. “Welcome to Area 51, Secretary Queen. I’m Lieutenant General Nick Guthrie, the base commander.”

  Queen shook his hand, but raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that classified?”

  The man smiled. “We stopped denying the place existed quite some time ago. We just keep the details of what we do here under wraps now.”

  He gestured toward a waiting SUV. “Let’s get inside before you melt.”

  Queen climbed inside the air-conditioned SUV gratefully. Once he’d secured his seatbelt and the general had climbed in beside him, he inspected the man.

  The Air Force officer seemed young for his rank. Of course, as Queen got older everyone seemed younger. He supposed such was the nature of the universe.

  “Has this vehicle been scanned for bugs?”

  The officer nodded. “I had my people give it a thorough scan right before I came out to pick you up. It’s clean and the driver is cleared for anything we discuss.”

  “He might have the clearance, but he doesn’t have the need to know. We can wait until we’re in a secure facility to continue.”

  The building the SUV pulled up in front of was nondescript, except for the hangar adjacent to it. Still, they’d originally designed the base to hide the stealth planes the US had designed here. The best way to conceal critical hangars was to have a lot of them to confuse observers.

  The two Air Force military policeman guarding the door saluted the general as he escorted Queen inside.

  Queen expected them to take the elevator down into some sublevel, but the general surprised him and hit the button for the top floor. He took a moment to scan the rows of buttons and quickly determined that there was no basement level to this building. None with a button, anyway.

  The general raised an eyebrow. “Looking for hidden facilities concealed deep inside the earth?”

  Queen allowed himself a smile. “I confess that I was. Too many old movies, I suppose.”

  The man shook his head. “We do have a number of underground facilities. In fact, we’re converting them for project use as we speak. If you like, we can take a tour once we’re done with the initial briefing.”

  The elevator doors slid open and Guthrie led him to a conference room. The thickness of the doors and walls indicated it was a secure facility. No one would be able to monitor anything discussed within its confines.

  Half a dozen people waited for them inside. Two were Air Force officers and the remainder appeared to be civilians. Queen recognized one of the latter. Ethan Wagner, the former lead scientist of BenCorp and Kathleen Bennett’s scientific lapdog sat on one side of the table.

  To his credit, the man had fallen all over himself in an effort to prove useful. And Queen was willing to admit that the man was a valuable resource.

  While the man was no longer in charge of this research project, they’d continue to utilize his particular knowledge so long as he proved useful. If that ceased, the man knew he had a nice comfortable cell waiting for him at Guantánamo Bay.

  General Guthrie gestured toward the chair at the head of the table. “If you’ll have a seat, Mister Secretary, we’ll get this briefing under way.”

  Queen assumed the ind
icated seat and waited for the general to take the remaining open chair to his right before speaking.

  “Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Josh Queen. For those of you who do not know me, I’m the secretary of state, but the president has also placed me in charge of Project Prometheus. I’m here to learn what the baseline status of our investigation is.”

  Guthrie gestured toward the two military officers. “On your left are Majors Gregory Durant and Stephanie Mills. They fill the role of security officers for the project. Both have science backgrounds and can competently oversee all research and researchers. On the civilian side, I believe you are already familiar with Doctor Ethan Wagner.”

  Queen gave the scientist a cool smile. “Yes, we’ve met before. How are you, Doctor?”

  The other man shrugged. “I suppose that depends on what we compare my situation with. Held up to a cell in Cuba, I’m doing wonderfully. Measured against the life I had before this, not so well.”

  “I suggest you don’t use exterior yardsticks to measure how things might have been. You made the choices that led you here. You now have an opportunity to regain the freedom you once enjoyed. Don’t fuck it up.”

  Of course, both of them knew that was unlikely. With the critical knowledge the man had in his head, Queen couldn’t just allow him to wander around freely. Wagner would always be subject to close monitoring and other restrictions, even if he earned his so-called freedom.

  Frankly, it would be a lot simpler to drop the man into solitary confinement once this project was well under way and lose the key.

  Guthrie continued. “The remaining scientific researchers have all been pulled from other high classification projects on the base. To your left is Doctor Tran Lee, center is Doctor Benedict Pender, and right is Doctor Astrid Sherrod.”

  “How much do they already know?” Queen asked.

  “Nothing. I felt it best for you to tell them whatever you wanted them to know.”

  “Excellent. Everyone, I’m about to tell you a story you will have difficulty believing. Nevertheless, I assure you it’s true.”

  He glanced at his watch. “We’re going to be here late into the evening, so I think it best if we send out for something to eat. Does anyone object to pizza?”

  “Pizza is a favorite around here,” Guthrie confided. “I know a guy that makes some amazing pie. We’ll get that ordered and it should be ready for us in an hour.”

  “Perfect,” Queen said. “That should just about allow me to lay out the basics. It all starts in the jungles of Guatemala…”

  * * * * *

  “I tell you, that cat was frozen as solid as a block of ice,” Jess insisted. “Ray can back me up.”

  “It was,” the engineer said. “I was there when she found it.”

  The man blinked and turned to her. “You don’t suppose any of those other people are going to come back to life, do you?”

  “No. They’re dead. The cat, though, appears to be a different story. Something is not as it seems.”

  She’d gathered her core scientific team to discuss the unprecedented reanimation of the frozen cat: Emily Adams, their computer specialist, Michael and Sierra Crockett, their senior archaeologists, Rachel Powell and Paulette Young, their restoration specialists, and Debbie Callahan, the medical specialist they’d brought on board to deal with any issues in her realm.

  If anyone could figure out what the hell was going on, it was this group of people.

  Debbie spoke up first. “I performed a brief physical inspection of the cat and the bodies that you brought up from the surface. I can categorically state that the cat is not a biological entity. The bodies are.”

  Ray Proudfoot scratched his head and leaned back in his chair. “Not a biological entity. It’s some type of mechanical device. That’s a hell of a thing. It looks exactly like a cat.”

  The physician nodded. “She acts like one, too. Without putting her into a scanning device, I’d never have been able to know that I wasn’t dealing with a real cat. She’s an amazing replica. Each and every detail is perfectly correct.”

  Michael Crockett shook his head. “That’s crazy. Why would anyone build a mechanical cat?”

  “To avoid cleaning the litter box?” his wife Sierra asked with a smirk. “And maybe control shedding. Trust me, nothing tastes better with cat hair as an ingredient.”

  The grumpy scientist laughed in spite of himself. “Those are good points. You could also program them to stop knocking every single thing you own to the floor.”

  Emily Adams, the third member of their poly relationship on this mission, sighed at her partners. “Context. You have to look at the context. That planet down there—that frozen impossible Earth—is one big wall-to-wall city.

  “I’d imagine they had enough trouble growing food for themselves, much less supporting the kind of ecosystem that we take for granted. Perhaps cats and dogs are extinct there.

  “Hell, we’ve got enough trouble on Earth with species dropping dead. I can only imagine what it would be like in a few hundred years with the continuing population curves we’re seeing now.”

  Jess shrugged. “That makes as much sense as anything else I can come up with. I suppose we’ll have to continue our examination to be sure.”

  She turned in her seat to face Doctor Callahan. “If this is some type of cybernetic cat, one might assume that it has capabilities that a regular cat would not. Without disassembling it—which I am not willing to authorize—how can we know what we’re dealing with?”

  The woman shrugged. “Based on everything I’ve seen, it seems designed to behave like a cat. If it has capabilities in excess of that, it’s not showing them. There’s no indication that it understands anything I’m saying to it.”

  “It might have a command word or phrase that puts it into a different state,” Ray said. “It’s probably designed to be a cat unless someone intentionally places it into a different operational mode. Good luck figuring out what that is without taking it apart.”

  Jess scowled at him. “I’m not going to hurt that cat to satisfy your curiosity.”

  The engineer held up his hands in surrender. “The pedant in me wants to insist that it isn’t a cat, but I know that’s a losing argument. I’m simply stating a fact. Perhaps we can find out where it was made or locate one that’s in a nonoperational state as we continue searching the planet.”

  She rubbed her face. “Talk about looking for a needle in a haystack. Searching that planet is going to be a huge pain in the butt. It’s, well, Earth-sized. Obviously. Because of the temperature and vacuum conditions, I can’t think of a more hostile environment.”

  Paulette Young leaned forward. “Rachel and I have been doing some calculations. Based on the size of the urban connected centers, which as you said take up the entire available landmass, that planet could have supported more than one hundred billion people. Perhaps many more.”

  Rachel Powell nodded at her partner. “With the land masses fully occupied, all food had to have come from the only available location: the ocean. I’m certain we’ll find that they had some scheme for raising and harvesting vast amounts of fish protein.”

  A knock on the door interrupted the woman. John McCarthy stuck his head in. “One of the observation teams found something. A massive excavation site in what would be central China on our version of Earth. Based on the images I’ve seen, it looks as if someone was checking out what was down there on a grand scale. And by grand, I mean bigger than Manhattan.

  “It seems they leveled a bunch of buildings and created an open space. The structures that they’ve raised in the center have the look and feel of Asharim technology.”

  Jess stood. “As interesting as the cat is, we need to focus on the Asharim presence. Emily, have you found someone we can hire to help you crack into the computers on the station and extract the destination code the ship used?”

  “I have,” the young woman said. “All I need to do now is convince him to help us. He’s a pretty big de
al in the global hacker community and can do things with computers that you wouldn’t believe.

  “That’s not going to translate across to Asharim technology easily, but I suspect that he’ll adapt a lot faster than many other people would.”

  “Make him a generous offer,” Jess said. “Cash, alien computer technology, dancing girls, whatever it takes. The sky is literally the limit.”

  “I’ll try not to break the bank. Money and Asharim computer technology will do just fine. I’ll hold the dancing girls in reserve.”

  Jess chuckled. “The rest of you, we’re mounting up to go down to the new site. Get something to eat and meet me at the lock in an hour.”

  Chapter Seven

  Nathan raced out to the room he and his men were using as a command post on the alien ship. The surviving members of his team that weren’t out guarding the section of the ship they’d claimed were waiting for him. A number of them gasped and raised their weapons when his mother came into the room.

  He raised a hand. “No time to explain. She’s okay. We’ve got to go find out what those bastards have done. Focus on that and I’ll explain the rest when we’re done.”

  With a gesture, Nathan sent the majority of them into the corridor before turning toward his mother. “Stay here. If you start wandering around, someone is going to shoot you.”

  He didn’t wait for her to reply before following his fighters. Honestly, he still wasn’t sure how to deal with her either.

  The strange halls of the alien ship still set his teeth on edge. There was something wrong with the geometry. The corridors were too wide and the ceilings too low. They made him feel squashed.

  One of his surviving team leaders was waiting for him at a major cross-corridor where they’d set up a defensive fire point.

  The man gestured toward the rear of the ship. “The noise came from back there.”

  Nathan hadn’t heard a noise. He’d only felt the ship make an unusual move. “What kind of noise was it?”