The Freezer (Genesis Endeavor Book 1)

by David Kersten

  The visual was, in a word, stunning. Ever since he accepted his “rebirth”, he had more or less taken for granted that everything he was being told was the truth. However, he had only really seen the truth in his immediate environment, and his environment was limited to a few rooms, a few people, and a mirror. The large screen in front of him was not exactly proof of the state of the world, but it was the first representation he had laid eyes on, and it took his breath away.

  “The sweeping red areas are the result of weather patterns. The nukes kicked up huge amounts of radioactive debris and the winds scattered it across these paths.” Teague was tracing his hand along some of the broader red areas. “As you can see, there are some large areas that are free of radiation but totally isolated and surrounded.” He pressed more buttons and the display zoomed into what used to be California.

  “The complex pattern of radioactive fallout does a good job of isolating and protecting them. It makes it difficult for them to do anything that doesn’t involve air travel, however. This is good and bad for us. On the one hand, it makes it nearly impossible for them to launch any kind of large scale military strike if they decide to get more aggressive. On the other hand, it makes trading large amounts of natural resources difficult as well.”

  He pressed more buttons and the view zoomed out to just include Montana, New Hope, and the land in between. “Compared to California, most of the rest of the continent is not nearly as bad. But that doesn’t mean you can just get in a ground based vehicle and drive to Montana from here. If you look closely, you can see there is a path, but it is far from direct and would require passing over a portion of the Rocky Mountains as well as the Grand Canyon.”

  Jack studied the map for a minute longer then said, “Speaking of the path to Montana, what is the plan tomorrow?”

  Teague again manipulated the control panel and the display panned over to Montana. “Like I said, it isn’t so much a mission as just a tour. As you know, the facility is near the old Malmstrom Air Force Base. We will fly you and two others in a four seat flyer up to here,” he pointed to a location about seven miles south of the entrance, “and you will take a small transport vehicle to the entrance. This way, if anyone is tracking you by satellite, you won’t lead them directly to the entrance, and it will appear you are just surveying the area.”

  Jack interrupted him, “Satellite? Like those things up in space?”

  Teague looked embarrassed and said, “Sorry, I forget sometimes that you were dead before much of this technology came about.” He took a moment to refer to his datapad then said, “In your time, satellites were pretty simple. They mostly relayed telecommunications around the curvature of the earth. Later during the Cold War, particularly in the 80’s, technology heated up and satellites were used for everything from communications to weather to spying, and eventually, even to help find where you are.”

  “And these are still up there and working?”

  “By the time the war started there were thousands up there. Mostly they were powered by fuel cells and solar panels, and eventually all but a handful of them either ran out of fuel and fell out of orbit or just simply broke down or fell victim to some kind of debris. See, back then people concerned with the environment didn’t want nuclear powered satellites potentially crashing down and spewing nuclear waste all over the planet.” Surprisingly, he said this without an ironic tone. “However, after the war started, the various military powers no longer cared or were held back by environmentalists, and their satellites were built to withstand a lot. Many of these are still active, and we have control of two of them. If we have control of two, chances are Cali and other communities also have control of some.”

  “How many do you think they have? And they can use them to keep track of what you are doing?”

  “We have confirmed a total of a dozen satellites that are still in orbit and seem to be functioning on some level. One of those was sent up during the time of the EoS, to monitor radiation patterns. It simply broadcasts the information as it orbits the earth, and anyone with a radio receiver hooked to a computer can read it. That leaves nine that we don’t control, and despite not being sure if Cali or anyone else controls them, we have to take precautions as if they do. We are fairly confident they have at least one of the old missile tracking satellites because of their superior air defense, and that gives them the ability to track any flights we make. Those can’t track us once on the ground though. If they have control of any of the old spy satellites, they could potentially track us with long range video cameras. However, even if they have control of one, getting it into position to track anyone is not easy to do. Chances are, once you land they will not bother to get a satellite on you even if they could. It is not abnormal to send out exploration parties, and we doubt anyone has the resources to keep track of everyone else’s exploration crews. Furthermore, from what we know of the spy satellites, if they happen to have one in the right place at the right time, the window they can use it is short, fifteen minutes at the outside. So to ensure they don’t find the facility, we will land twenty minutes away. Absolute worst case scenario, they would track us within a couple miles of the entrance, but when we replaced the power source there, we were able to mask it enough that they would have to be within a few dozen feet of the door to detect the facility at all.”

  Jack nodded. He had become practically numb to the level of technology he was learning about, but when it came to tactical intelligence, he automatically pressed to learn as much as he could. This need to know probably stemmed from some of his near death experiences in Korea where bad intelligence meant dead GI’s. “What kind of satellites do we control?”

  Teague referred to his datapad again and said, “One communications satellite and one GPS, or Global Positioning System satellite. The communications satellite is above Texas in a geosynchronous orbit, and the GPS is a little north of that. We can bounce a laser off the communications satellite to get secure communication from just about anywhere in North America, but it takes a rather large device to do that. The flyer you will take will have one, but your own devices will be shorter range. They do have the capability of using the satellite to communicate back to here, but the range is limited and we will lose the signal about the time you hit Colorado. The GPS satellite will allow you to determine your position on a map, but since we only have one satellite, it is only accurate to about ten yards.”

  “You said that I will have a device for communication?”

  Teague reached in his pocket and pulled out what looked like a datapad only smaller. He gave it to Jack and said, “This is your PDP, or Portable Data Pad. It has all the functions of your current datapad; a smaller screen and a powerful satellite communicator are the only real differences. It is tougher too, and can withstand a lot of abuse. It will automatically stay in constant communication with us as long as you are roughly south of where Denver used to be. Anything north of that latitude and you will have to be in range of an active laser link to the communication satellite. In an emergency, it has a beacon that is quite powerful, but there are downsides to using it. First, it takes an enormous amount of power to send out the signal, and during that time you will lose the use of its other functions for a short period of time, and second, the beacon uses the open airwaves, so anyone monitoring the emergency frequencies will know exactly where you are. Unless it’s a last resort option, don’t use it. This device is your lifeline if anything goes wrong, and I want to make sure you know how to use all the features before you go tomorrow.”

  Jack was playing with the PDP, and saw that it had all the same functionality of his datapad. “Uh, actually a little girl taught me how to use my datapad this afternoon, so I think I know most of the functions.” Teague chuckled at this, the irony not lost on him.

  “I will give you a rundown and explain anything she missed later.” He pressed some buttons on his datapad and a wireframe model of the cryogenics facility came on the big screen. “Here you see the layout of the facili
ty. I imagine it looks familiar.”

  Jack looked at it and nodded. It was definitely the site that he built. “What’s the reason you are sending me there, Teague? I mean, I want to go and am happy you are letting me, but you have to have a reason in mind.”

  Teague smiled and said, “You’re just tagging along. The two that will be with you are there to collect some new candidates. I wanted you to see the facility in person, partly to get you thinking about design and logistics, and partly to see if it stirs up any possibility that you made more of these for the military”

  Jack hadn’t thought about that. It was possible that other projects he worked on had been used for the same purpose, and finding another would be a good thing. “I could probably point out the other sites that I worked on right now, but I would still like to see this one first hand. The last thing I remember, it was just a big hole in the ground with only the lowest level in place. I want to see how we finished it and what it looks like now.”

  Chapter 20

  After discussing the specifics of the trip and a short tutorial on features of the PDP, they headed to another door in the large classroom, this one opposite the one they came in. Once again, Teague put his eye near a lens in the wall and there was a beep and a click. The door led them to a long but somewhat narrow room, with lockers lining both all the walls. The center of the room was occupied by a series of tall, narrow tables that paralleled the lockers. The space just in front of the lockers was occupied by a long bench. About halfway down the wall to the right was a door. They headed in that direction.

  As they entered the next room, Jack was surprised to find Chuck standing there, proudly wearing a big shit-eating grin. Next to him on a table was an object Jack could only believe was a futuristic weapon. It was nothing like he had ever seen or used, but there was little question that it was made for killing.

  “Hello, Jack. How’s life treating you?” Jack couldn’t help but smile. Chuck’s smug look told him what was coming next.

  “It’s been an interesting couple of days Chuck. I feel like it is about to get a whole lot more interesting.” He looked down at the weapon on the table. The only thing about it that resembled a rifle was a barrel barely poking out one end and a trigger that he could spot near the middle of the weapon.

  Teague spoke up, “Chuck will get you outfitted with the standard exploratory gear. Don’t get excited, just because you will be well armed doesn’t mean we are expecting any trouble. This is all just for safety sake.” Jack just nodded, his attention solely on the gun.

  Chuck got right down to business. “So I hear you were in WW2 and Korea. I am guessing you carried an M1 Garand?”

  “I didn’t see any action in the big war, but in Korea the M1 was my lifeline. Helluva rifle.” He finally looked up from the weapon on the table and met Chuck’s eyes, holding out his hand.

  Chuck met his gaze and shook his hand without hesitation; his grip firm but not overbearing, a sign that he was both welcoming Jack as a friend and neither threatened nor intimidated by him. “Thirty aught six, one hell of a wallop. I would hate to be on the receiving end of one of those.”

  “You and me both. It was a heavy weapon to hump around but if you hit the enemy with it, they weren’t getting back up. I have a feeling what you are about to show me is just as deadly and a hell of a lot more friendly to carry around.”

  “I think you will be impressed. But before we get to that I would like to hear more about your weapons experience.”

  “I mostly used the M1 and my 1911 sidearm in combat, but toward the end of my career I got some time on the M14. I would have to say of every rifle I have used, that would be my favorite.”

  Chuck was nodding, “Did you ever get to use the M16?”

  “I heard about it, mixed opinions, but I never shot it myself.”

  “Well, this,” he picked up the rifle from the table, “is no M16, and I can tell you right now that your opinion of it will not be mixed.” The smug grin was back, and Jack could tell that he was very proud to have the privilege to present it.

  “This is the M74 assault weapon. Developed during the war, in about 2025, near as we could tell, it is by far the most advanced infantry weapon ever made. The weapon itself is incredibly impressive, but it is the platform that really makes it incredible. It fires a .202 caliber round that has a small bundle of titanium flechettes imbedded in soft lead and jacketed in a copper alloy. While the caliber sounds small, the Muzzle velocity is fifty eight hundred feet per second, which gives it more kinetic energy than the rounds you fired with your M1.” He handed Jack one of the rounds. It looked like just a bullet, not an entire round. “When the round hits a target, the lead mushrooms like the ammo you are used to, but the flechettes spread out and continue on, tearing through just about any kind of armor you can imagine. Soft targets just cause the flechettes to sprawl through the body and cause maximum damage. The ammunition magazine holds two hundred rounds and weighs less than the twenty round magazine of the M14. The casing is only three quarters of an inch long and the entire round is a little over an inch. It uses a chemical that burns eight times faster than gunpowder and expands over fifteen times more. The reason the round is so small is because the chemical propellant is solid and doesn’t need a shell. It is completely consumed when firing, so nothing to eject. The gun uses a hybrid closed bolt system that completely contains the explosion, routing the excess energy to power the action, and even to help counter the recoil.”

  “Fifty eight hundred feet per second? Even a bullet that small needs a heck of a lot of energy to get moving that fast. This thing must kick like a mule.”

  “Actually, the action on the weapon uses a shock absorber filled with a magnetic fluid that changes viscosity depending on what the fire rate is set to. If you fire a single round, it softens up to make recoil almost nonexistent. If you go automatic, it stiffens up to increase the cyclic rate. The weapon itself is made of composite carbon fiber and titanium alloys, with a frictionless surface in the barrel and on all moving components. It’s a bitch to clean because each piece is like wet ice, but it almost never needs cleaning because nothing will stick to any part that matters.”

  He paused, probably just to take a breath. “The rifle itself uses a bull-pup design to keep it perfectly balanced for maximum control while firing, and can be fired from any orientation, under water, covered in mud, or frozen solid in ice.”

  Jack was immediately skeptical of this by nature. Most automatic and even semi-automatic weapons were usually incredibly susceptible to dirt and debris, and to fire one that was muddy or dirty was almost certainly going to cause a jam. To fire a gun that had water in the barrel was a quick way to blow up the gun and cause yourself a really bad day. “I would really like to see that, from a distance of course.”

  Chuck just smiled, “I understand your reluctance to believe it Jack, but weapons have come a long way since your time. Even in my time you could build a fully automatic gun that could fire reliably in just about any condition. This thing takes that to the next level though.”

  Jack didn’t have anything to say to that. He would just have to take Chuck’s word for it. The man certainly seemed to know his way around guns.

  “The barrel has a built in suppressor so it can’t be heard more than a half mile away over the flattest land and doesn’t need hearing protection to fire safely outdoors. The sight is a green laser that is invisible without the filter, so you look through the lens and you see the dot – wherever the dot is, that is where the bullet goes. The weapon has a computer processor on board that controls the recoil and adjusts the laser sight dependent on the range of the target in your sites as well as environmental variables like wind, humidity, and temperature. On the side of the weapon is a display you can flip up showing whatever the weapon is aimed at. You have a choice of regular, thermal, or night vision. The screen can also flip to the side so you can hold the weapon around a corner and still see what you are aiming at.”

  Jack was co
mpletely in awe. In the last few days, he had been shown technology that only existed in science fiction stories when he died, but this, by far, was the coolest thing he had ever seen. “Can I hold it? Is it loaded?”

  Chuck nodded and said, “It has a full magazine but is not chambered. The safety is here, the fire selector is here, and the bolt is here.” He pointed to them respectively and handed the weapon to Jack. He took it and his eyes got wide.

  “It hardly weighs anything!” He held the weapon to his shoulder and thumbed the laser. It was the most comfortable weapon he had ever held. The bull-pup design meant the ammunition magazine was between his grip and his shoulder, and the receiver was just in front of that. In fact, the balance was so perfect that he needed almost no adjustment to his aim to put the green dot wherever he was pointing. It was as if he had been practicing with this weapon his whole life. “Where can I try it?” He was anxious to fire the weapon to see what it could do.

  “This way.” Chuck gestured toward a door on the opposite end of the room. The two men were like teens who had just purchased a bag of fireworks. When they got to the door, Chuck handed Jack a set of very small ear plugs. “Put these in, they are electronic and they cancel out the noise from the weapon but let everything else through. We could hold a whispering conversation while firing the weapon fully automatic.” Jack felt like a kid on Christmas.