by J. G. Martin
Hmm, so this person was very familiar with his military record, including the top secret black ops. Interesting. Not wanting to give anything away, Derek kept it simple.
“What do you want?”
“To the point, I like that. The government needs your help. In return you will receive a full pardon and you can return to the U.S.T.G. as a civilian or even active duty if you like. On top of that we will pay you five hundred thousand dollars on completion of the task.”
“I want a million in gold. Half now and half on completion.”
“One million in U.S.T.G. dollars deposited in account here and ALL on completion. Plus your pardon.”
Derek pondered the offer. It was a pretty sweet deal. He would be allowed back into civilization and have enough money to live like a king. But he really hated the U.S.T.G. and what they stood for. The U.S.T.G. was nominally the remnants of the United States of America’s government and military prior to the Collapse. Most of the legitimate government had been wiped out in the fighting and attacks following the Collapse. A small cadre of high level military had seized control and installed Rickard Channing, a former VP, as President.
The President, Vice President, and most of Congress had been wiped out by the nuclear strikes on the Northeast. A terrorist attack had taken out Cheyenne Mountain and most of the top military leaders. A few Cabinet members had been out of Washington but they never reappeared after the Collapse. A few Senators and Congressmen had tried to rally people to their banners, but the U.S.T.G. had eliminated them. Some just disappeared and others were embarrassed by scandals, the rest dropped their bids and quietly joined the U.S.T.G..
Based out of Chicago they had ruthlessly consolidated power and expanded their area of control. Most of the military had declared loyalty to them after they revealed they had massive stores of food. Democratic institutions had been reinstated, but they were really more of a sham designed to give the illusion of democracy where there was none. There was only one recognized political party, the Neoconservative Party, run by Channing and his cronies.
Party membership was limited to the rich and powerful, and you needed to be sponsored to join. Joining was essentially a ticket to becoming rich and powerful. All ownership of “private” industry was by Party members. They lived in special gated enclaves with access to better food and medical treatment and special schools. Everyone else worked for the betterment of the state, providing the goods and services needed to keep everything running.
There was an Executive branch, a Legislative branch, and a Judicial branch; like before the Collapse. But the Justices and Judges were party members and just rubber stamped any legislation passed by the Senate, which was in turn controlled by Channing and his inner circle. Senators were elected by popular vote, but there was never more than one choice for each seat and they served ten year terms. Governors were appointed by the President and they in turn appointed Mayors. Otherwise there were no local legislatures or judiciary. Federal law was supreme in the U.S.T.G.. And federal law was set by the Neoconservative Party and its leader Rickard Channing.
The U.S.T.G. was currently under a form of martial law enforced by the Federal Police. They were very ruthless and swiftly cracked down on any dissent. Since it was illegal for any citizens, except Party members, to own guns or cars it was easy for them to maintain control. In Derek’s opinion they maintained a fascist police state controlling the population through fear and intimidation. They also did not hesitate to expand through military force, including the use of chemical weapons. He wanted the money but didn’t want to go back to living there.
So he gave his counteroffer. “You went to great lengths to find me, so you obviously need me…One million in gold on completion and the pardon. Or I hang up and destroy the phone.”
There was silence for a few moments before the response. “Fine. We will deliver the gold to you in exchange for delivering the package.”
“Package?”
“We need you to go to the location on your phone and retrieve a device for us. I will give you an exchange location once you have the device.”
“What is the device?”
“You don’t need to know that to complete the mission. Go to the location and retrieve the device from Doctor Andrew Carter. Take it by force if necessary.”
“How will I know what it looks like?”
“There is a picture of the doctor and the device on your phone. Don’t lose the phone, it is our only connection. It is completely secure including against Collective eavesdropping. ”
Interesting. The Collective were possibly involved. The Collective was in control of the world’s satellite systems including spy satellites. Their seizing control of the satellites had triggered World War 3, with every nation panicking as they lost their eyes in the sky and launching every weapon they had at their supposed enemies. The U.S. had survived with minimal destruction due to a secret land based missile shield. Most of the Northeast had been wiped out from Norfolk to Boston, but everything else had been untouched. Somehow the shield had failed in that section of the country; no one knew why only that section failed.
The Collective had seized control of Seattle and imposed their form of society. They had quickly moved down the coast into Northern California and up into Vancouver. Former U.S. military assets stationed in Washington and California had attempted to stop them. They were slaughtered when their weapons systems turned against them, being operated by remote control. The Collective sealed their borders and no one was allowed in or out. A few people escaped early on and brought stories of cyborgs and robots controlling things, which were mostly dismissed as fantasy. Little was known of their leadership other than that Stefan Doors, a former Silicon Valley genius, was in charge.
Stefan Doors was the founder of Macrowave Corporation, which had become the world’s largest software company. Their software was used by almost every company, government agency, and person on the planet. Charismatic and a brilliant businessman, he had only been an above average programmer who was often accused of stealing his competitor’s ideas. Prior to the Collapse he had been diagnosed with inoperable cancer and had practically disappeared from public view while he had attempted to find a cure.
The Collective rarely interacted outside of their borders and were considered self-sufficient. The U.S.T.G. had some communication with them, but all other attempts had been rebuffed. All attempts to penetrate their border had been met with overwhelming force. It was widely known that they used the satellites to monitor all activity in North America and possibly the world. Derek believed they were the ones who had disabled all the satellites precipitating the Collapse.
From his time working black ops for the U.S.T.G., Derek did know more than the average person about the Collective. They did indeed have cyborgs, humans who underwent “improvements” to become “more perfect” versions of humanity. Those cyborgs were the elite and ran the place. Their tanks and vehicles were operated by remote control using advanced technology. And worst of all they lobotomized the average person and turned them into what they called drones. People operated by remote control via a chip in the base of their skull. They were the perfect worker or soldier, mindlessly obeying orders. Derek had also heard rumors that Doors had once worked with the U.S. government prior to the Collapse on these technologies and other fringe science. So who knew what else they had created or developed without any oversight?
The Voice continued, “If you leave the earpiece in I can hear what you hear and you can subvocalize to call me and speak to me. It also has a GPS so I can see where you are at any time. If it stays in one place for too long or stops working I will assume you are dead and we will move on to the next job candidate. If you need help with anything call me. You have three days to get to the doctor and retrieve the device. The faster the better. Assume that others will be coming for the device as well. Understood?”
“Yeah, I understand. Get there and get it quickly or else I don’t get paid.”
“Correc
t. Good luck.”
With that the call ended. Derek put the phone in his pocket and began gathering his gear. To the average person the whole event would probably have been disconcerting, but years working black ops for the government had left him jaded. Weird stuff happened all the time and secret missions popping up, seemingly randomly, was a common occurrence for them. This whole thing stank of GIA involvement. The Government Intelligence Agency, or GIA, was the successor of all of the former U.S. Intelligence agencies. The U.S.T.G. believed in a very centralized command structure and had consolidated all the agencies into one massive super agency. They were just as secretive and byzantine as the original agencies though, and spent a lot of their time keeping everyone out of the loop.
He didn’t have much gear since he had moved out to the abandoned camp site a year ago. It had been an old boy scout camp that had fallen into disuse following the collapse. Once in an old growth forest, it was now surrounded by the bare sticks of dead trees. It had shelter, water, and bathrooms. Of course the shelters were Adirondacks which needed some repair, the water a well with a pump, and the bathrooms were latrines. But it suited his needs, which were simple, and it was remote. No one should have been able to find him there.
He grabbed his backpack and started off into the wastes. Using the GPS on the phone he headed East. An interstate was just twenty miles away and he could probably find a ride there. A passing big rig might pick him up, but more likely he would need to find an Express Station to purchase a ride. Express Stations had popped up several years after the Collapse. They were fortified gas stations that provided food, supplies, repairs, and gas at very high prices.
After a few minutes Derek upped his fast walk to a jog. He didn’t have much time to get there and he wanted to loosen his muscles for what would probably be a crazy ride. It felt good to get back into action; and as much as he hated to admit it, the hermit life probably wasn’t for him. He was made for action.
Chapter 3
June 8, 2029
Near Lamar, CO
With the bike Derek was able to make good time. He stayed off the main roads and used side roads and even dirt back roads. The bike roared across the broken roads and easily slipped past blockades of broken down cars and trucks. He saw a few other vehicles but made sure to avoid or ignore them. No point in seeking out additional trouble. He had stopped only to camp for the night and take bathroom breaks. He was almost out of gas but he figured he could buy or steal some at the Doctor’s. Including the half a day it took him to detour around Denver and the couple of hours stripping the biker’s Harleys; he made it to within ten miles of the location in less than two days.
Denver was a smoking ruin after the battle of Denver in 2022. The U.S.T.G. had acted quickly to crush a small group of U.S. Senators who had tried to rally troops under the flag of the United States. Worried about the legitimacy of the Senators and the fact that some troops from the West had rallied to them, the U.S.T.G. had used chemical weapons and firebombs to soften up the forces gathered there. Fierce fighting between the survivors and the U.S.T.G. forces had resulted in the complete destruction of the city and surrounding areas. It was still a toxic mess full of Ferals and rogue troops.
Ferals were formerly civilized humans that had returned to a primitive subsistence lifestyle. They eschewed modern technology, believing our dependence on it to be the cause of the Collapse. They used bows and arrows and melee weapons like spears and machetes instead of guns. Not that they weren’t dangerous, they were ferocious in their defense of their territory and generally somewhat insane. They often lived where normal people wouldn’t dare.
Derek stopped and concealed the bike a few miles away from his destination and moved in through the brush. He wanted to scout the location before he entered. You could never be too careful. As he got closer he became concerned as he saw a lot of smoke rising from the vicinity of the location on his GPS. It was black and oily, and way too much to be cooking fires. He dropped to a crouch and approached even more cautiously. His stomach dropped as he crested a small ridge and could see the location.
It had been a small village of five houses with a couple of barns and animal paddocks. It looked like it had once been a cul de sac in a suburban development. The other houses had been either stripped to provide construction materials for the village or burned out previously. They had rigged up heavy tarps on ropes and pulleys to cover a small vegetable patch from storms. The crop virus had burned itself out after it had killed over ninety five percent of the plant life on Earth. So it was possible to grow food if you had clean water, seeds, unpolluted soil, and could protect the plants from the harsh storms. A low fence surrounded the village to keep out predators. But it hadn’t kept out predators of the two legged kind.
The houses smoked and burned and the paddocks stood open and empty of animals. The attackers had probably taken the animals for food. Fresh meat could be scarce at times and it was always highly valued. They were probably goats. Goats had done well surviving the Collapse and the Aftermath. They could eat just about anything and they could survive in almost any climate. Larger varieties had been bred for a food source and they were by far the most common herd animal in North America. The U.S.T.G. had vast ranges covered in them near Indianapolis.
Derek moved in to examine the village and see if he could recover anything. Evidence scattered about the village showed a brief firefight had taken place, but that the villagers had been overwhelmed. There were empty shell casings inside the houses where he could see some of the villagers put up a fight and hundreds of empty casings around the perimeter of the village showing a large group of attackers had surrounded the village. Some the casings were large enough caliber to have come from machine guns, probably vehicle mounted based on tire tracks. It looked like the villagers had been burned out and forced to surrender. There were a couple of dead bodies in the burning buildings, all with multiple gunshot wounds.
Since all the people were gone as well as the animals, Derek assumed they were attacked and taken by slavers. Tire tracks from wide bodied tires, typically used by the slaver wagons, led away from the village. Slavers had become a scourge of the wastelands following the Collapse. Human trafficking gangs had easily transitioned to kidnapping defenseless people and selling them to warlords and other scum, brothels, rich people, even the Collective and the U.S.T.G.. As they became more organized and survivors started banding together and arming themselves the slavers upgraded their capabilities and began targeting small convoys and settlements. Rule #13, the weak serve the strong.
Derek went through and ransacked the burning buildings hoping to get lucky and find the device. But the buildings had been stripped clean of any valuables, with even a safe broken open in the center of the street. He did find some canned food stashed in a barn and a half empty gas can next to a car up on blocks. It looked like they had been working on the engine so he took spare parts from the car and grabbed a few loose tools. Rule #9. He also filled his water containers from a well the villagers had sunk. They had installed some sort of filtration device he had never seen. Rule #8, water is life. Sources of clean water were rare in the wasteland.
He debated what his next step should be. There was still half a day until the deadline to retrieve the device and the attack looked fresh. He could still retrieve the device from the slavers and fulfill the requirements of the mission. The Voice had said there would be others coming for it. He didn’t need to know Derek hadn’t gotten there first. OR he could call the Voice and let him know the situation and see what he wanted Derek to do?
He decided to go after the slavers and retrieve the device without letting the Voice know. He didn’t want to take a chance on having him cancel the mission and void the contract. That money and pardon were Derek’s retirement plan. Killing a few slavers to accomplish that wouldn’t bother him one bit. In fact, when he had been a bounty hunter he had reveled in killing scum like slavers. They weren’t too far ahead of him; he could probably catch up by night fal
l. Then sneak into their camp and retrieve the device by slitting a few throats.
He quickly checked his weapons. His double barreled twelve gauge shotgun was loaded and slung over his shoulder. Twelve shells were in the bandolier and he had more in his pockets. Derek had gotten the gun off of the first punk who had tried to rob him after his exile. He had taken out his frustrations on the kid by disarming him and then beating him half to death. His combat knife was in a sheath on this left thigh. That he had gotten when he started his special forces training in the Army Rangers. It had served him well over the years and had slit dozens of throats. Made of carbon steel it still held a razor sharp edge. And he had his Glock 22 strapped to his right thigh in a tactical holster. An extra thirteen round clip was in the holster and two more were on his belt.
The pistol was a gift from a grateful Patrician in Nashville, head of one of the powerful families that ran the city. Derek had saved his entire family from raiders. It was chambered for forty caliber rounds which were harder to come by, but it did a lot more damage than the ubiquitous nine millimeters. He took two grenades out of his back pack and clipped them to the bandolier. His last two grenades, hopefully he wouldn’t have to use them, but better to be prepared. Those he had bought from an arms dealer in Indianapolis with some of his bounty money. He was ready. At the last minute he also grabbed the two pistols and knives he had taken off the bikers. If it did come to a shoot-out, more weapons were always better.
He then jogged back to his bike and set off after the slavers. Derek caught up to them just before night fall. He stopped a few miles away so they wouldn’t hear his bike and snuck closer. The slaver’s had made camp right beside the cracked road bed. They had circled their vehicles to make a rough perimeter with the two slave wagons and a panel truck with their supplies and loot in the center, but there were minimal sentries. And the sentries looked half asleep or very bored. They obviously didn’t think anyone was going to mess with them. Derek smiled; the arrogance and incompetence of scumbags always amazed him. Constantly pushing people around made them forget there was always someone badder than you out there. They were well equipped though. All the slavers had assault rifles or modern pump shotguns slung over their shoulders and pistols on their hips. Some had body armor or bulletproof vests on over their clothes. There were too many to fight, but he could use their arrogance against them to sneak into the camp.
