The Freezer (Genesis Endeavor Book 1)

by David Kersten

  “Jack is a natural. He put together teams that should be able to execute this operation without too much difficulty. There are risks here, but I think it’s necessary. The hardest part will be going into S.C. to procure the equipment we will need.” Marcus had already figured out that they would have to send some people in to get the machinery they needed. He knew the risks but was still apprehensive about the operation. Losing people was a high price to pay, even with the potential rewards that lie ahead.

  “That will be a dangerous task. Can we control who will go so we can minimize the loss to New Hope?” It was horrible to put it in those terms, but sometimes as a leader you have to prioritize your assets. Everyone in the room paled at the thought of choosing who could potentially be sent to their death. Despite their history, all the men in this room valued human life, at least more than they had before the fall of the EoS.

  “I am in charge of that part of the operation, and I will decide who goes. The problem is, the mission is critical, not only for this operation but for our success in building a new home. If I send the wrong people, our chances of success go down. I will have to find the balance between acceptable loss of life and skill required to do the job.” Marcus nodded, and the room was silent for a few minutes.

  Teague broke the silence with a question. “So what have you come up with regarding Cali? Are you going to contact Joshua now or wait until after the operation?”

  Marcus shrugged. “I am not sure yet. We have been weighing the pros and cons all afternoon. This is a tough situation, any way you look at it. I am leaning towards waiting until after we have secured the facility. I believe we need to think of our own community and that of humanity before considering how it will affect the others. My main concern is whether it will spawn open hostility between us and Cali, or worse, the other communities. I will have to sleep on this, and hopefully the answer that comes will be the right one.”

  The statement marked the end of the meeting, and everyone got up to leave. “Teague can you please stick around for a minute, I need to ask you a question.” Teague sat back down and waited for the other men to leave. Marcus noted a look of discontent on Theodore’s face, and made a mental note that he would have to deal with him pretty soon. The coming events could very well unsettle everything, and the last thing he needed was Theodore making a play for his job in the middle of it all. Up until now everything they had done together had been about survival, not just their own survival, but that of the entire human race. But the wealth contained in that bunker up north was a tempting prize for anyone, and it clouded what was so clear before.

  When the other council members gone, Marcus looked at his friend and said, “Teague, I trust you more than the rest of the council.” Teague knew this and nodded. “Tell me honestly, do you think that Jack is a threat to New Hope?”

  “Jack shares much of your own philosophy, Marcus. However, he came from post-war America, where freedom was a right that had been paid for by the lives of friends and family. Part of that freedom stemmed from the people deciding who their leader would be. If this operation goes smoothly, the people here will follow Jack wherever he asks. He will respect your leadership ability, because he is very loyal to his country, and right now his country is New Hope. Keep in mind though, if we bring back hundreds of people that are from his time, we may very well have to hold an election to choose our leader, and if elected, Jack would take your job with little hesitation.”

  The answer was in line with his own thoughts. It was a subject he had been contemplating for quite some time. “Thank you Teague, that is what I needed to know.”

  Part Three

  Chapter 27

  Jack woke up and looked around, a little disoriented. He was once again waking up in a different room, his own this time. Teague had given him a sedative to help him sleep without dreams, and he felt refreshed. The trauma of the previous day’s fight was not pressing on him like he had expected, but the way Wendy had left him last night was in the forefront of his mind. Why was she mad at him for telling Emmet and Chuck about their relationship? Surely she didn’t think that he was running around bragging about having sex with her...

  This made him realize how little he actually knew about her. Sure they had talked about themselves, and having been intimate went a long way toward feeling closer to each other. But it took time to truly start to understand all the little quirks about a person. And this environment made it all so confusing. Wendy had been here for a while now, and combining that with the completely different era she came from compared to him, they were very different people.

  To add to the frustration of it all, just after Wendy had coldly dropped him at the door last night, Cat paid him a visit. She used the premise of making sure he was OK to call on him, but he was pretty sure her motives had more to do with his manhood than his injuries. He was polite about it, thanked her for her concern, and bid her good night. But when Wendy didn’t show up before he fell asleep, he wondered if there would come a time when he wasn’t turning Cat, or any of the other women here, away at the door.

  Despite the fact that there were no windows, it felt like he had overslept. Checking his datapad confirmed that it was after ten a.m. He threw on a robe and made his way to the bathroom and shower down the hall.

  After a mildly refreshing shower, he got some breakfast then rang up Teague. It turned out he was just down the hall at the room where Jack had woken up less than a week before.

  When he walked in, there was a young man sleeping on the bed. Teague was reading the monitor next to the bed, making notes on his datapad.

  “Morning Jack.” Teague said, without turning around. “Feeling better?”

  “Yeah, I slept like a baby, doc, thanks. I don’t even remember getting in bed. That sedative worked fast. So, what’s this kid’s name?”

  “This would be Sergeant Bruce L. Kensington. He was in his fifties when he died from AIDS. He was a member of the engineering corps in the Army.”

  “Excellent!” Jack was happy to have another engineer on board. They could always use more of them. “What is ‘Aids’ though?”

  Teague stopped writing on his pad and turned to Jack. “Oh, that’s right, you weren’t around when that broke out. AIDS came from a virus called HIV. It was a horrible virus that was discovered in about 1981, but probably started as early as the 1950’s. It was first thought to only affect gay people, but eventually was recognized as a sexually transmitted disease that was transferred through blood and other body fluids. There was never a cure for it until the time of the EoS.”

  Jack cringed at the thought of a nasty STD that had no cure and killed people. “I’m confused, doc, why would you bring back a gay man? That doesn’t make much sense.”

  Teague chuckled and said, “You misunderstood... it was originally thought the disease was only found in gay men because they transmitted it through anal intercourse. It turned out that any exchange of blood or semen could transmit the virus. That means that a baby born of an HIV positive mother could have the disease, or, like in this man’s case, a blood transfusion could be the source. They screened blood donors for it, but nobody is perfect, and in Bruce’s case, they missed it and he was infected. He had been in the military for thirty years, and lived for a few years after retirement before getting AIDS and dying. There are many subjects with AIDS in the cryogenic facility, just as there are many with cancer and other diseases with no cure back then, but we can easily cure it now and it is not a problem.”

  Changing the subject, he asked, “Where is each group working on the projects I assigned last evening?” He had gone straight to bed after the meeting and now wanted to know what progress had been made.

  “The engineers set up shop down on six where they can design and engineer everything. The salvagers are up on one in room 10A. There are already three groups out working on finding materials we will need. Tiny is in a planning room on four with his crew, and I have a team set up in the room next to him. They are looking over
the data we have on S.C. right now, and I will join them soon. You made a good choice with Thomas, the team is already taking orders from him with no problems.”

  “What about maintenance, where are they at?”

  “They already had a room they worked out of on the sixth floor. They are working with the engineers right now. I am done here for the moment, it’s going to be a few more hours before Bruce wakes up, so I was going to head up to four to check on progress.” They headed to the elevator.

  * * *

  Jack rode the elevator up to four with Teague, and then told him he would be back up to join him in a little while. On the way back down, he brought up a layout of the sixth level on his datapad. He intended to drop in on Wendy before meeting with the engineers. When the elevator stopped, he got his bearings and made his way to the maintenance room.

  There were six men in the room, all surrounding a table with a holographic display of the entire complex hovering above it. It was yet another piece of technology that awed Jack, but he didn’t have time to learn about it right now. The old man from the night before turned to him and said, “Hello, Jack. I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself last night. My name is Nicholas. Just call me Nick.” After introductions, he said, “We were just going over some utility chases that we can use to get plumbing into those rooms. Looks like it should all be pretty straightforward.

  “Excellent. Thank you for taking charge like this. I was hoping I could find Wendy here. Any idea where she might be?” This comment turned a couple heads, but Jack ignored it.

  “There wasn’t much going on here today, so she volunteered to fly one of the salvaging missions. I think she was heading to Idaho to help find some insulation and some copper tubing.”

  Jack softly cursed to himself. If she took off like that and didn’t tell him, she must really be pissed. “Thanks Nick. Is there anything you guys need from any other group?”

  “I think we can manage with what we have so far, but we will need the location of the holes for the tubing pretty soon.”

  “Okay. I’m going to appoint you head of the maintenance crew for this project, and I would appreciate it if you work directly with the engineers and salvage crews when you need things. I will let them know who’s in charge. If you run into any issues, please contact me immediately and we will see what we can do to accommodate you.” Jack thanked him again and let the men get back to work.

  He figured he could call Wendy later and headed to the engineering room. He expected to see a bunch of engineers sitting at drafting tables, but it really didn’t surprise him when he walked into a room not much different than the maintenance room. There were three round tables, each seating four people. There were holographic displays at each table, and the engineers were wearing skin tight gloves, and manipulating the images with their fingers. As they spun the objects around and spoke different specifications, the images adjusted to fit what they were after. It was quite amazing to watch, and for the first ten minutes he just hung back and observed.

  The man who had been speaking for the engineers the night before finally stood and walked over to Jack. “Hi, Jack, I’m Scott. I assume you were dropping by to check on the progress?”

  “Yeah, actually. I just wanted to see how things are coming. Any problems so far?” Jack was far from being an engineer, but had worked with them enough to know that as long as you made clear exactly what you were after and the time frame in which you needed it done, all you really need to do is ask them what they need. The more often you ask the smoother things go.

  “Not really. The team over here is working on the compressor pumps and the cooling system. That team is working on the entry design, and these guys over here are working on a way to keep the heads cold while we transport them.” He pointed to each team respectively as he spoke. “All I really need to know at this point is if we are going to have liquid nitrogen available.”

  “Oh... I figured we could take it from the facility in Montana. They won’t need it after we leave. No sense in leaving anything behind that we could use. If we had more time I would say we could probably get everything we need from there, but we really need to have these cold rooms ready before we even get up there to start harvesting.”

  Scott mulled that over for a moment and finally said, “Do you recall if there are containers to transport the nitrogen?”

  “I think so, but I am no expert. I am guessing you haven’t been there yourself?”

  “No, not many have, but I can ask Chuck or Em.. Oh, sorry.” When Jack didn’t say anything, he continued, “I will find out, and we will make it work, but it would be nice to have at least enough for the transport bins ahead of time.”

  Jack thought it over and said, “I can’t imagine you are going to just find some casks of liquid nitrogen that has survived sitting around for three hundred years, but I’ll ask the salvaging team if they can come up with anything. If they can’t however, do you have a way to keep the cargo cold without the liquid nitrogen?”

  Scott was thinking about it when a young man behind him spoke up. “What about Peltier cooling? We have these insanely large sources of portable power, it should be easy to do. Besides, it’s not like we have to keep them cold for days on end, just for a few hours.”

  Scott looked at the man and smiled. “You know, I think that would work. There would be an incredibly hot surface on the outside, but as long as everyone is aware it shouldn’t be a problem. Let me crunch some numbers and see if it can be done.” He looked excited to work on the problem.

  “I hate to ask, Scott, but what the hell is a Peltier cooler?”

  “It’s a way to use electricity to draw heat away from an object. It uses a lot of power, so you have to be able to dissipate the heat you pull away, plus the heat from the power expended, but worst case scenario we can build some heat pipes and set up coolers outside the aircraft to draw the heat off and make them very efficient. As long as the plane is moving it will dissipate the heat easily.” Scott had wandered back to the table he had been working at and started talking to the computer and manipulating the hologram in front of him.

  Jack wasn’t quite sure what he had just said, but he figured they had it well under control. He did need to speak with him about a few more things, so he waited until Scott paused in his design work and jumped in before he got started again. “Listen, Scott. As soon as your cooling team can, I need them to get the dimensions of the pipes running in and out of the cold rooms to Nick over in maintenance. He is the leader of that crew. Also, I want to make you leader of the engineering groups, and if anyone needs anything I want them to tell you and have you go to the other group leaders directly. If you have any problems at all I want you to tell me.”

  Scott just nodded and went back to work on his Peltier design. Jack figured he was now just a distraction, so he eased out of the room.

  * * *

  Back up on four, he stopped in to see Tiny and his team first. There were three men sitting around a table, Tiny and two others, and as Jack stepped up to the table he saw that the top was just like the display on his datapad, only larger. On it was an aerial photo of the area surrounding the site of the facility. They had marked all the key locations for defending it from ground assault, and had even drawn in the runway as they planned to make it. Tiny didn’t even notice him walk in, and he jumped when Jack put his hand on the massive shoulder.

  “Holy shit Jack, you scared the crap outta me!” Everyone laughed at the irony of someone this big and strong being startled so easily. “Aww, fuck you all!” He said it with a smile and everyone laughed again.

  “Looks like you have the planning under control. Where’s Red? I thought he was on your team?” Jack was annoyed not to see the man in the room. He had been pretty specific when telling him to work with Tiny on this project.

  “He’s putting together the team. These guys are from the engineering corps, and are helping me with the planning of the runway. We found a prime location that will require just a coupl
e quick passes with a dozer to prepare for the big cargo plane. I was just marking places where we could set up defenses. We figure if we can go in one hour before the plane arrives we can have the runway ready to go.”

  “Excellent. We could have the cargo plane and everyone halfway there before you even land. That gives Cali less time to react. How sure are you of the hour?”

  “Well, we figured it would take about forty five minutes, so we have a fifteen minute cushion there in case anything comes up.”

  “Perfect. When is Red getting back here?”

  “I was expecting him a half hour ago actually, which is why I have started drawing in some of the tactical information. I really want him here so we can talk about the details and set up a training exercise.” Jack could sense that Tiny was just as annoyed as he was at Red’s absence. If this wasn’t taken care of quickly he would have to make a change.

  “Okay, I’ll go track him down and get him in here.” Just then the door opened up and Red strolled in with five other men. Each man looked like they had seen some combat, and now that Jack was starting to recognize the differences between the Reborn and the native population, he could tell that these men were all native born.

  “No need, I’m here.” He had a slightly dismissive tone that instantly annoyed Jack. “We gonna talk tactics or what?”

  Tiny gave Jack a look that spoke volumes. “Yeah, we’ve been ready for a while.” If Red caught the menacing tone in Tiny’s deep voice, he ignored it.