Survival

by Chris Wright

  The shift happened quickly overnight, the Elite knew they had the majority of mankind caught in a trap of their making, and all they had to do was censor the information. Only give them limited information, begin controlling what they could think by only allowing them to access certain things. They had built the software to be able to interfere with the brain activity of people too. A dozen more casualties at the test phase was worth the end result, it meant they had a form of mind control. The elite controlled the masses, and within a few days had toppled most heads of state, no violence required. It wasn't perfect, but it did the job and meant they could very quickly assume absolute power over the globe. When any new child was born, they would now be wired into the web after a few days, the rest of their lives being controlled from outside of themselves. This new generation would never know the freedoms the previous ones had and would never be given the tools to discover it.

  The Elite had full control of 90% of the world's population, the rest were those outside of this control loop, those who hadn't been implanted, who didn't want to tamper with their brains. Some of these were allowed by the Elite. They were a mixture of scientists and academics that they knew they needed in order to advance their technologies further. These scientists and academics were far from free though. Their research was handed over and controlled by the state, their movements watched continuously. But they were allowed to be internet free, it was semi-freedom, but without being afraid for their lives every moment of every day. It was the only option they realistically had. The others were a mix of different groups, those who saw the un-revolution beginning to happen and banded together in small groups of resistance. The first week was an intensive effort to escape from the clutches of the Elite, a few influential people inside the Elite's social group tipped off people they could about what was going to happen just before it did, giving them time to plan their escape, and spread the word to whoever they could.

  The fighting at the beginning of that first week was intense, small guerrilla battles sprung up sporadically, fighting to get away. It was a mad scramble to escape the Elites grasp. Others scientists, academics and professionals, who didn't want to be monitored all the time, and had no allegiance to these neo-barbarians, knew they had to go completely underground into hiding. The different factions that had already made it underground were able to communicate with each other through secret channels, through deep web services. The scientists left out in the open had to plan a way to get out or be ensnared by the Elites control. A lot were caught by surprise, but continued on with what they did, as the Elite's armed forces hadn't yet come knocking. It was a difficult few days, everyone who could still think fully for themselves had to make a choice of whether to run or not. Each decision was a personal one, depending on their own circumstances and their moral compass.

  There were sympathetic scientists out in the open, still in contact with their underground colleagues. It was a brave move, but they couldn't just stop being human. They never divulged their colleague's whereabouts, choosing a painful death instead. In their minds they were doing their very best to salvage what being human was, and if that meant a sacrifice then that was necessary. Within a few days, most the scientists who were sympathisers had been found, but not all. There were even those who hid none 'Neuro-Net' users, keeping them safe, away from the authorities, until the time was right for them to escape to the underground. The Elite had put years of work into all this, careful strategies put in place, trying to account for all eventualities. They were aware of people being hidden. Their network of billions of humans meant that some key piece of information would be processed at some point, and so the hunt for the rogue factions began, as well as the final phase of bringing all intellectuals under their dominion.

  Sheryl

  Sheryl sat at her desk, chewing the end of her pencil, clearly frustrated. She was scanning through her companies' documents, checking carefully for anything that could be seen as non-conforming. She knew those in the Elite well, she had crossed paths many times. They tried to recruit her into their game of world control, telling her that all the riches in the world could be hers as well. She declined, and they respected that. She wouldn't stand in their way, she knew better than that, she would just look the other way. Or so they thought. The Elite respected her, she was a self-made billionaire who started out with nothing and built her empire from scratch. She was well thought of and had financed early ventures for the Elite that helped build what they had now. She didn't know this at the time, the whole process being shrouded in smoke and mirrors. She didn't like being taken advantage of or manipulated, which is exactly what had happened, but she was clever enough to know when the time was right to do something or say something, and when it wasn't. There was no need for a quick payback, she had to wait until the time was right for it to be effective. This was now her time.

  There was a knock at her door and she told whoever it was to come in. A short bruising looking man entered, looking very serious, dressed in a suit that was far too expensive to let out your closet.

  “Hi Rashid, please sit” Sheryl said, pointing to the empty seat across from her desk.

  Rashid had worked for Sheryl for over fifteen years, he was one of her most trusted members of staff, the head of security. She had known him since he was born, as she went to school with his mother. She had to have a team of security because someone always wanted to take a shot at her. Her wealth attracted the psychotic loners or 'let’s get-rich quick' kidnappers, hoping to snatch her away and get some kind of ransom. She had been building up her security the past year, carefully vetting all of the men herself, and leaving no stone unturned about their private lives and whether they could be trusted. She had felt it necessary when she was informed of what the Elite were planning. She told them it was because she would feel like even more of a target once their plan was in action, but the truth was quite different. They were going to be her own private guards, her own resistance, so she needed men who had an unquestioning loyalty. She was able to persuade the Elite to keep them all off the 'Neuro-Net'. She needed proper soldiers she said, not glorified clones following mass orders.

  “So how is it coming along?” She asked Rashid.

  “It's all in place. I've split them into the series of teams you asked and they're all on stand-by”

  “Great, once we start, we won't have much time, so we need to be efficient” She said with a pleased look in here eye, “I'll let you know straight away when we start, it won't be long. I just need to put a few more things in place. Have you located our first contact?”

  “Yes, we have all the contacts locations, we've had surveillance on them for the last week, so far they are all untouched” Rashid said, standing to leave, “Ma'am?”

  “Yes?”

  “I'm glad we're fighting this, I think I speak for all of us when I say that” He replied smiling.

  Rashid rarely smiled, so this was quite unexpected. She smiled back, they both knew what was at stake for humanity and felt they had to fight for what was right. Rashid left, closing the door behind him and Sheryl checked the last few documents. She wanted to make sure that there was no clue about their whereabouts once they left. The Elite would check every tiny detail once she had gone missing, and she had to make sure there was nothing left behind. She was trying to make it look like she had been kidnapped, so that it threw them off the scent for as long as possible. They were ready to stage an 'accident' not far from her company building. Overturned vehicles, gun shots sprayed across them, the occupants having been taken against their will.

  They were going to be extracting Gina, Emma and Jarrah by armoured vehicle. They had equipment they needed transporting with them, and it had to be kept safe and secure. These were the extractions that were most likely to draw attention, but there was no other way to do them while keeping them protected. Everyone else was to be given instructions to meet at a central point. They'd have to make their way there themselves, it would be less conspicuous, and Sheryl's gu
ards would be waiting to transport them on. The only exception was James, as he lived too far out and couldn't drive, so she had to have a team ready to pick him up from his home. Her laptop on her desk beeped into life and she could see she had a message. She clicked on a few icons that flicked her through to the secure channel, the communication path for her fellow resistance fighters. An elderly man appeared on the other end, he was in his late sixties, but as animated as a twenty-year-old.

  “Bill, nice to see you're okay” Sheryl said.

  Bill was another financier of the resistance, there were many of them that had been in secret communication, and they were each building their own team to fight back. The idea was to be a close-knit but completely separated set of teams that would operate in the same way, fighting the same fight. The advantage of them being spread out, working as a network but from different locations, was that they didn't know where the others were stationed. No one could give up another team, either accidentally or not. Their multi-pronged attacks would be co-ordinated, from different positions, designed to surprise and confuse the Elite.

  “Are you close to getting out?” Bill asked.

  “Just about yes, we'll be making our moves today. I had to be careful as we think we had some eyes on us. I wanted to make sure there are no suspicious movements. Anything I do differently would have been noticed, so it's crucial to make all the moves at once” She replied.

  “Ok, that's great to here. We've been here for two days now, we've started engineering, so expect to be up and running by next week” Bill said excitedly.

  Bill was an army veteran, the past wars he'd been in still pumping around his veins and the whole world was now in the territory he was familiar with.

  “I'll send you a message as soon as we all reach safety, until then best of luck to you and your team Bill”

  “And Godspeed to you, we'll all be praying for your safe passage” He replied, before ceremoniously saluting like he always did and killing the signal.

  Each team was going to be made up of a range of scientists and experts in different disciplines, trying to cover the whole spectrum of skills and knowledge they required. The plan was for each team to build a small space-craft, that's sole purpose was to be launched into the atmosphere, locate a communications satellite, and destroy it. Each team would be positioned in a different place around the planet, to single out different satellites. Eventually this would stop any internet signals from being transmitted back down, freeing the enslaved billions. It was an ambitious plan, but it was one that might just work.

  Sheryl had already thought of a backup plan too, she didn't want to rely on this one-trick pony. If it failed then there would be a very long scrappy drawn out war, which the Elite were bound to eventually win. She had to think beyond this, and so was assembling a larger team with an extra set of skills.

  They had found a brilliant engineering physicist a few weeks back and he was instantly someone Sheryl wanted on her team, his name was Jarrah. He was perfect because not only was his profession and adeptness what they needed, he had a large circle of professional friends, from experts in robotics to genetics, and someone they were most interested in, Monique. Together they had a large network of trusted friends, and they would know who else could be trusted. More importantly, as they had known each other for between ten and twenty years, they would be able to reach out to them safely and get them to join. It was paramount to have a tight trustworthy team, one with no weak spots.

  Jarrah had been informed secretly a week before, just before the whole world changed. He wasn't hard to recruit, all it took was secretly filmed evidence that Sheryl had been collecting over the previous few years. He reached out to his friends, firstly to forewarn them of what was going to happen, and also to plead with them to join and help reclaim humanity. None of them needed any persuading. They were all given a disposable mobile that would only ring when it was time for them to be extracted, then the phone would have to be destroyed. It was clichéd, but were eventually convinced it was the best way to leave no trace.

  Sheryl picked up her bag that was on the floor and placed her laptop and cell phones inside. She stood up and looked round to make sure that there was nothing left, nothing incriminating, and strode towards the door. When she reached the room outside, she called Rashid over.

  “Okay, secure the building and then we'll all go to the compound, get the kidnap team in straight after” She said.

  Rashid nodded and waved over two of his men.

  “While we're on our way there can you get the first team to extract Jarrah” she asked, to which Rashid nodded again, “Is the cosmologist with him at this moment?”

  Rashid wasn't sure so sent a quick message through to the first extraction team who were surveying where Jarrah was. There was a reply that crackled back almost instantly.

  “Affirmative” it said.

  Sheryl smiled, that would make life a little easier, “Great, make sure they're both extracted safely and take them to the safe house”

  She started walking away, heading for the exit and the waiting transportation.

  Chapter Seven – Extraction

  Jarrah’s Lab

  Jarrah's phone beeped, not his usual phone, the secret self-destructing one that had lain dormant for the past week. He'd been expecting this, so it was no big surprise, he just wasn't sure exactly what time it would ring. Emma was sat not far away and looked over, knowing exactly what was happening. He answered quickly, he knew it would only ring when something was imminent and so didn't hesitate. He was also paranoid that if he didn't pick it up quickly it might ring off, explode anyway, and leave them stranded.

  “Jarrah” Sheryl said on the other side of the line, “Get everything ready, my team will be with you in a few minutes”.

  Jarrah signalled that he understood and the line went silent. As instructed to, he flicked a switch on the phone and threw it in a metal trash can. Within thirty seconds there was a crackle, a small flame and then a short blast of smoke. It was no ordinary phone, he had never seen one quite like it, and the whole situation reminded him of hammy spy movies. Sheryl had financed the production of a small unit of these phones just for this situation, completely unique and untraceable. The self-destructing element was just the icing on the cake to make sure. The phones transmitted their message on an encrypted signal created through the dark web, impenetrable to the elite.

  “Okay, it's time” He said turning to Emma.

  “I gathered that from the exploding phone” she grinned.

  They were dressed in their casual clothes, their lab coats already thrown aside. In front of them was what they had been working on for the past three years, a prototype space craft, designed originally for collecting samples from passing meteors and asteroids, the goal to track which ones were suitable for mining. It would be the first stage of a lengthy process, but a vital one, they needed to know what asteroids were worth the effort of sending a full-scale fleet out to mine. The full-scale fleet was still a few years off, space travel still in its infancy, but they were collectively making progress. Of course, they were, until the Elite took over a few days ago. Now all research, space or otherwise, was being commandeered by them, to be used for who knows what means. They were unsure exactly what Sheryl's plan for their craft was, she had been vague, deliberately, until they could all be together face to face. Jarrah guessed that it would be some kind of weapon though, how else could she fight the Elite back? But as all it was designed for was collecting samples, it would need some kind of enhancement.

  There was a knock at the entrance, five solid spaced out knocks. It was the sign that it was friend not foe on the other side of it, so Jarrah made his way to the large roller door. He cranked the handle to the left and pulled it open slowly to be greeted by two of Sheryl's guards. They were dressed head to toe in black, with high-powered rifles slung across their shoulders. They were every part the stereotype that Jarrah was expecting, so he had to smile to himself.

  “
Ready?” Asked the guard to the left, to which Jarrah nodded, waving Emma over.

  Behind the guards was a large van, the ramp folded down, its interior waiting to be loaded with the craft. It took all four of them to carefully haul it over and up the ramp.

  “You could have put wheels on it” the second guard said.

  “Why would it need wheels? It was built to be in space” Emma replied shaking her head at the genius. Let's hope they don't get into any trouble she thought, otherwise this Einstein might end up picking his weapon up back to front, wondering where the trigger was.

  They finally secured it in place and shut the back of the van. Jarrah and Emma were ushered into a small secret compartment behind the driver's seat. It was a little too snug. Jarrah was a towering guy and Emma liked him a lot, but not enough for his groin to be constantly rubbing against her shoulder the entire journey. Jarrah apologised to her throughout, he liked Emma, but not enough to rub his groin all over her for two hours.

  After a rough and tumble trek through who knew where, the van began to settle down a little, and shortly after they arrived at their destination. They heard the engine stop and then shortly after, the door to their hidden lair was wrenched open. Both of them rolled out on to a steel floor, tumbling embarrassingly and lying there, arms and legs splayed out. Emma and Jarrah looked up to see Sheryl, standing a few feet away, slightly embarrassed for them.

  “You must be Sheryl” Emma said, her head upside down, and legs up in the air. This wasn't the best first impression she had ever made, but not the worst either. She quickly rolled herself into a more suitable position and then stood up, holding out her hand towards Sheryl, who quickly reciprocated the greeting.