She smiled. It was time. She had to call him. She was almost ten minutes late and waiting any longer may spook him. She breathed in deeply, thought about being Princess Charming, and hit the button.
An intricate network of encryption software and black market server pings were initiated in the background. Video compression on both sides was occurring, packetizing, and sending on random patterns through servers outside the reach of the NSA. The end result was that Thomas appeared on the wall screen of her apartment.
He looked more beautiful in real life than she would have ever believed. She saw his cramped living space, which was wretched but expected for the camps, and she saw him looking at her and smiling.
She realized that her smile was growing into a laugh. Uncontrolled, she giggled. He looked at her in a somewhat puzzled way and then laughed himself.
“It is very nerve wracking to do this, huh?” he said. “I’ve been sitting here so scared for the last hour, thinking about how you will react when you see me.”
She almost cried tears of joy. Almost. Julia wasn’t the crying type. Instead, she said, “You are perhaps the most beautiful man I have ever seen in my life.”
They both smiled and breathed a sigh of relief. She finished, ”I was so scared to dial the number that I’m ten minutes late.”
He looked at her like the southern gentleman Rhett Butler from the 2D classic Gone With The Wind. “What could you possibly have to be afraid of, my dear?”
Now she got even closer to crying, but held back. She had to swallow and blink a few times to clear her throat. “I’m so happy to see you, Thomas. I’ve never been so excited for anything in my life.”
“These are exciting times. Three days, right? And then freedom and I can finally hold you in my arms.”
She bit her lip. “Thomas, I won’t be able to get there so quickly I’m afraid. There is much more planning on my side and quite a bit more difficulty for me to get there without exposing the operation. It may be several weeks before we can see each other, but I’ll get to you as quickly as I can safely do it.”
He considered her words, as if analyzing each one carefully before replying. “I understand. I’ve waited for you my entire life. I can wait a few more weeks. Or whatever it takes.”
She was thrilled. He was the perfect man. Everything that came out of his mouth was pure gold.
You’re doing it again, Julia. Putting him on a pedestal.
Setting your expectations way too high.
Deep breaths, we have work to do.
She had to get him out of the camp first.
“I have quite a bit of news on how this will occur,” she said.
“All right.”
“There is a woman in Tennessee, in a town nearby called Jasper. Do you know Jasper?”
“Never heard of it.”
“It is right outside Chattanooga.”
“OK. Why Jasper?”
“Well, there is a female priest there named Debbie. She was an Episcopal priest before religion became illegal, but she continues to have a congregation. She is active in the underground railroad.”
“What’s that?” Thomas asked.
Julia realized that he spent little time watching the news. Even if he had, the underground railroad was a topic the media rarely covered. When they did talk about the UR, they labeled it a terrorist network.
“There is a network of people, mostly women, who are working to help liberate men,” Julia said.
Thomas seemed surprised by this.
“How many men are out there like me? I thought most guys were happy in the camps.”
“It’s unclear. Most men are happy in the camps, but the issue is whether they are free to leave. After they checked in, most of them didn’t realize that their civil rights had been taken from them. The movement is mainly about civil liberties.”
Thomas took it all in. “So, how big is this railroad?”
Julia smiled. She had always loved his curiosity. “That is also unclear. There are lots of independent cells that are local and keep to themselves. They started as a reaction to the FPA. Most of them stay completely silent. Those who work with us, like Debbie, are taking enormous risks.”
Thomas thought about it all. “It’s hard to believe that a stranger would risk her life for me.”
“She’s an incredible woman. I haven’t spoken with her yet, but I will soon enough. I’m working with another person from Jasper named Elizabeth, who is a manager of a trucking fleet. She has access to large transportation vehicles and knows how to smuggle humans in the cargo containers. She’ll be taking you from the camp to Jasper in the back of a food truck.”
“A food truck?”
“There is some kind of cylinder you’ll slide into. The cylinder is covered with nano-particles that make it appear to scanners as a large sack of potatoes. When the truck is scanned on the Interstate, the scanners will measure the weight and look for anything in the truck that isn’t a container or potatoes. This cylinder apparently can fool the scanners.”
“Got it,” he replied.
“You will have a twenty minute window to get out of the camp, find Elizabeth, get in the cylinder, and be placed in the truck.”
“Is that enough time? What about the camp surveillance system?”
“I’ve been assured that the surveillance system at your camp will be undergoing maintenance upgrades from 11:45 pm until 1 am on Friday night. Not every camera will be down, but the exact path from your living quarters through the multi-purpose room and out the back will be down. Maxime will be leaving along the same path at the same time. Just beyond the field is a small road where Elizabeth’s truck will be. She will pull up at 12:05 and stop.”
“OK. I just get in?”
“A robotic handler will open the container door and remove the exact same weight of potatoes and containers as your weight and the cylinder. You’ll climb into the cylinder and I’m sure Elizabeth will help you. The robotic handler will then put the cylinder, with you in it, into the large truck container and put other potato containers around you in case an actual “open-door inspection” is performed. My understanding is these types of inspections are rare, but Elizabeth has experience dealing with them.”
“So, I’ll leave my room at what time? Midnight?”
“Leave around 11:50 pm. Go to the multi-purpose room and wait for Maxime. Both of you should walk out to the picnic area by midnight and be on the road before 12:05.”
“What do I need to prepare or take?”
“I have shipped you a package with everything you need. For the trip, it’s only two hours. You’ll have a disposable phone with some key contacts on there and several cans of water. I also packed an encrypted memory stick which you can use with your equipment. If you plug it into your main computer, it will copy over everything that you need to let you hack in as yourself from other locations.”
“If the phone has key contacts, will that put anyone in danger if it is stolen from me or in the mail?”
“Don’t worry about that. The contacts all go to third party underground server address locations. We’ll know if you have the phone and if you call, we’ll pick up. If the phone is lost, we’ll never use those addresses again. Your focus must be on getting out safely and getting a good night’s sleep. And make sure you have used the bathroom before going into that cylinder,” she smiled at him.
“Is that everything? Seems a lot easier than I thought it would be.”
“Well, this is the plan if everything goes right. We’ll review it again on Friday night. We should also go through the plans if things go wrong.”
“All right. Let’s do that.”
“First, I’ll be monitoring the security system that night. If it doesn’t go down for maintenance at 11:45, then I’ll tell you and we’ll abort the mission. If anything happens to Elizabeth on her path, she’ll tell me and I’ll tell you and we’ll abort the mission. If you don’t get my package in the mail today or tomorrow with all of the suppl
ies, then we’ll update the plan.”
“And if something happens once I get on the road with Elizabeth?” Thomas asked.
“That’s why you’ll have the phone. You’ll need to run and seek shelter in nature. Stay away from cities or areas that might be easy for aerial surveillance. Use the phone to contact me, and we’ll plan accordingly. Tennessee is mainly rural, especially the path that Elizabeth is driving. Run as far from the Interstate as you can and find shelter in a field. Stay away from homes or barns or anything where someone might have electricity and Internet access.”
Thomas shrugged. “This is a piece of cake. The missions I go on in VR are much more complicated.”
Julia was happy that he was strong but concerned he may take it too lightly. “But in those missions, if you fail, you don’t die. This is real life, Thomas. Real life or death. Promise me you will take every precaution.”
“Of course, my dear,” Thomas said.
He looked so cute. She couldn’t wait to finally be with him.
They continued talking for another hour, learning about each other and enjoying their first “real” date.
33
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE Margaret Lane reclined in her chair and took in the view of the Pentagon Lagoon. It was late in the afternoon, and Susan would arrive shortly. They were scheduled to meet in this office, with its spectacular views.
Margaret looked at the sail boats on the Columbia Island Marina and reflected on how far she had come in the last 12 years. Next year was the big election. 2076. If she played her cards right, she would be the next Vice President of these United States of America.
Their current leader was loved by the people but far too weak for those inside the party. The FPA was barely ten years old and plenty of people wanted it repealed. It was a very fragile situation.
If Margaret and her party could win the next election and stay in power, they would be strong enough to enforce the FPA. After eight years, the law would be nearly 20 years old, and a generation of little girls would have grown up with it. Historically, if an act in Washington can last 20 years, then it can last forever.
MARGARET LOOKED at the biggest sail boat in the marina. Even though she owned no boat and wasn’t very good at sailing, she enjoyed the constant fine-tuning required in the sport. Perhaps she could be VP for eight years and President for the next eight and then sail her yacht around the world.
Why would I leave the action of Washington?
In life, there are good people and bad people. Her job as Secretary of Defense was easy. Kill the bad people. Eradicate them all, and bring to justice anyone who gives them safe harbor.
Nothing was so clear cut as to say that all men were bad. Margaret knew that not all men were bad. In fact, she was excited about her upcoming date. But historically the male gender had oppressed everyone else, especially women, and their time in history was over. For that reason, anyone who wanted to bring back equality of the sexes was an enemy of the state.
Equality of the sexes. What a joke!
When men were in charge, was there equality of the sexes? Women made less money for the same work. Women left the work force to raise a baby and lost their careers. They had less power in corporations and in government. The entire society was presented with innumerable propaganda to perpetuate women being held back, from the Bible to the Koran to TV shows about women staying in the home, to books about men in power. A young girl would spend her first 18 years of her life, the primary learning years where subconscious biases and assumptions are formed, seeing 95% of those in power being men. How could she believe in equality of the sexes from a textbook if she saw such inequality in reality?
Then the opportunity came, and the feminists seized it. Men leaving the work force, abandoning society to join grid camps and play online every day. The unemployment rate dropped from 30% to 1% and women were getting promotions everywhere. The more men dropped out, the more power women got. And even the Bible-thumpers became feminists when their husbands abandoned them to spend time with young female avatars.
While the women worked in jobs to pay taxes, some of that money went to “promote the General welfare.” At first, women protested paying for men to live in the camps. Who do these welfare daddies think they are? Why should hard working women be forced to pay for a bunch of lazy men to play all day long? But soon enough they realized that the price of welfare was paltry compared with the rewards.
Freedom. Liberty. Independence from a male-dominated world.
A new chapter in the history of power.
Margaret had been at the right place at the right time. She worked tirelessly on the cause, organizing the rallies, getting out the votes. She helped re-instate the laws that only persons owning land could vote. She later worked on an act that authorized and assured land to all women born after 2060 with mothers who were American citizens. The same legislation seized any land or property owned by men collecting welfare and living in grid camps.
Margaret’s work for the party started as a law clerk in the Supreme Court. She later served as senior assistant to a Congress woman and then was appointed to a senior position in the Pentagon where she met the current VP. Seven years ago, after the President and VP were elected, Margaret was asked to be the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. Four years later, after an unfortunate boating accident killed the Secretary of Defense, Margaret was named her successor.
It was a nasty business on the boat, but it was a critical moment. I seized the opportunity. I did what had to be done.
She looked at the Marina again. One of the boats there reminded her of that day. She frowned.
No pain, no gain.
An alert went off on her phone. Susan had just gone through security at the front desk and would be up momentarily.
Margaret collected her thoughts. The next few days were as critical for her long-term plans as that day on the boat. And Susan would be the instrument to accomplish it all.
Susan, the kind-hearted NSA agent who secretly met with police and sent a Chinese family to South America. Someone so kind would understand the need to help move a camper from a Tennessee location to a safe place.
Susan, the competent, hard-working, hard-driving agent with the flawless track record overcoming the most difficult technological challenges. Someone so technically competent could pull off the big maneuver that Margaret had in mind. The eradication of the underground railroad and those who want to derail the FPA.
No one will turn back the tide of progress, as long as I draw breath.
Susan was the perfect instrument. And right on cue, she knocked on the door.
Margaret put on her best smile. “Come in, Susan. I’m so happy to finally meet you in person. How was the flight?”
Susan walked in the door as Margaret opened it. “The flight was wonderful. What an amazing plane! I was able to review all of the security protocols and technology for the largest 50 camps around the country. Just as you requested.”
“Excellent work,” Margaret said, and closed the door.
34
SUSAN SAT IN THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE on the Air Force X plane used by the Secretary of Defense senior staff. Besides the pilot, she was the only human being on the plane.
A robotic steward brought her the gin and tonic she had ordered three minutes ago. Susan picked the drink from the raised robotic arm. Somewhere in her brain, there was an impulse to say “Thank you,” but a lifetime of being served by robots had taught her the uselessness of the phrase.
She put on her goggles and linked in with Sofia, who was online constructing a world as part of a class assignment. Satellite links always had several seconds of latency, so Susan reminded herself to be patient when speaking.
“Hey, sweetie,” Susan said. She looked around to see what appeared to be their neighborhood in San Diego from many years ago. “What is this place?”
“Mom, don’t do that. You scared me,” Sofia said. “I was concentrating on this. You can’t sneak up on me like that.”
“I’m sorry, baby. I just missed you is all. I’m on my way back home. I’ll be back in time for dinner tonight.”
A woman walked up to them. “Sofia, who is your visitor?”
Susan looked at the woman, “I’m sorry to interrupt the class, Miss Woods. I just wanted to say hello to Sofia. When I logged in, it seemed like she was working on an assignment by herself. I didn’t mean to interrupt your class.”
“No problem at all. I’m just making sure that it wasn’t a hacker or someone unauthorized. I just saw on my screen that Sofia had a visitor and I popped over. I’ll let you guys finish your conversation.”
Suddenly Miss Woods disappeared.
“Mom, you’re not allowed to just come into class like this.”
“Sofia, for goodness sakes. The school gives parents access to do this. I’m not the only mother who checks on her daughter. I missed you the last few days and I just came in to say hi.”
“Hi.”
“Can you tell me about this project?”
“Ugh, do I have to? I’ll finish last if I have to spend the whole class telling you every detail.”
Susan laughed. “You don’t have to tell me every detail. How about just a basic summary? It looks like San Diego but maybe from a long time ago.”
“It’s San Diego from the year 2030. Our teacher wants us to learn about history. I hate talking to you when you’re on a plane. The response time is really glitchy.”
“I’m sorry. So, what are you doing in San Diego in 2030?”
“Ugh.. Whatever. We need to create a world that is our neighborhood in Rancho Bernardo, and we can’t use any buildings or vehicles or clothing or anything that came after 2030. So it’s really hard to find objects to put in the world.”
“That sounds like a great assignment. Who are you teamed up with?”
“You don’t listen, mom! The whole class is working as a team. We are all supposed to start with just our street, so nobody in the class lives near me, so I don’t see anybody around yet. But as we get farther from our house, we’ll meet other people on the way and can work with them. At the end, the teacher is going to show us how our world compares with pictures and videos from the real areas back then.”
Escape The Grid: Volume 1 Page 14
