One month later, the field teams were prepped, briefed and ready to go. They were brought in to a staging site north of the Wilderness Area and adjacent to the Bitterroot National Park, and Wilderness Area from a nearby private airfield owned by a man that Edward knew from the old days. They then piled into jeeps and 4 x 4’s and were driven to the eastern border of the FCRNR Wilderness Area, some thirty miles north of the northern most position of the Gens vanguard units.
At this point, Edward, Rod and Cindy were still working under the operating assumption that this was nothing more than a very large Boy Scout Jamboree for a few Gens out for some outdoor exercise. They didn’t yet have any hard data on exact numbers and concluded they would only number in the few thousands at best. They didn’t suspect anything about training or field testing of drugs in development.
All Edward was seeking was information about Gens readiness and state of training of a small contingent of military. Having relied upon what they knew from intelligence gathered by Alana, Team Hannah and Misti, they still assumed that natural state Gens couldn’t be directed by transformed military Gens.
Unfortunately for Edward, that was the purpose of having a lot of Gens disbursed in the Wilderness Area. Saldana Ri was anxious to know how well natural state Gens could be directed, how disciplined they were and how much they understood from their time spent in transformation. Did all knowledge remain, or did a little remain and only for a finite time period? How cohesive could natural state Gens be when directed by transformed Gens? There were just so many unknowns.
The last piece of advice Edward gave Rod and Cindy was to be aware of all times which way the wind was blowing. The Gens in natural state could undoubtedly pick up the scent of humans; Edward didn’t know, however, at that point just how far away humans could be detected.
***
Captain Arnaud Lemieux stood in a clearing with a dozen of his Captains assigning tasks for his subordinates to carry out presently, and after he left. There would be many tests to carry out with the new serums both on his own fellow Black Shirts and his human “volunteers”. They would perform in depth tests looking for the parameters of the effectiveness of these serums on humans and Gens to see what worked, for how long and the detectable side effects, if any. They would be especially interested in the long-term effects on the two species and whether the serums, as developed, would perform as intended.
The field testing had gone on for several months and the reports back to Liv Wilder had shown that the computer simulations run months ago were fairly accurate. The one notable unintended side effect of the serum forcing transformed Gens back to natural state was the degree to which human form knowledge was retained in natural state, coupled with the ability to communicate between the species.
This had never been achieved and meant that human form Gens could communicate with and direct natural state Gens in military encounters. In addition, with the serum that suppressed natural state transformation to human state upon consumption of human blood meant that the Gens in natural state could become an effective military force. When coupled with the E-5 virus in an urban setting, the devastation to humans could be significant.
Arnaud had decided early on that he didn’t want to repeat of the Collective’s incident at the Grand Canyon, so security was tight, and the outer perimeter of the occupied territory within the Wilderness Area was subject to patrols twenty-four hours a day. As new Gens arrived and were transformed back to natural state, they were assigned to forward units. As the distance from point zero increased, the number of campsites increased at the same time. Spacing was critical.
Squads of ten to fifteen Gens on patrol with a human state Gens in command went out patrolling occupied territory as well as driving deep into new forward positions. Simply put, the occupied zone of the Wilderness Area radiating out from point zero along the midpoint of the Lodge property line abutting the Wilderness Area was crawling with Gens in natural state. Easily ninety percent were in natural state and training with Gens military commanders in human state.
This was all initially unknown to Team Suarez, and to Edward. In addition, the estimated number of Gens was also way off. There weren’t a few hundred, or even a few thousand. There were thirty thousand individuals and growing. They occupied large swaths of the Wilderness Area, more highly concentrated around the border with the Lodge, and more disbursed radiating out.
The results were beyond what Arnaud had dared to contemplate and well beyond whatever the expectations conceived by either Liv Wilder and Saldana Ri. If the scientists working on the E-5 virus could achieve similar results in preventing Gens infections, this Great Cull might have a chance of success after all.
Liv had warned both Saldana and Arnaud not to get out ahead of their skis. The logistics of manufacture, distribution and coordinated urban attacks, post infection, was easy to computer model and not so easy to carry out in the real world. This undertaking would’ve to be lightening quick once begun, and simultaneously carried out from a human infection standpoint. In addition, the Gens would have to be inoculated and field tested to determine how effective the inoculation was in live conditions.
She further warned that there had been no testing beyond computer simulations on mutation rates and reinfection. In short, she applauded herself and her staff for what had been accomplished, but unless further field testing was done, and parameters shown to be safe, there could be no war. The very stuff that would cull the humans might easily cull the Black Shirts and the Gens Collective as well.
Saldana’s response was for Liv’s teams to get to work and get the data she needed. However, within weeks of the Incident in London, a new problem would surface for the Black Shirts. The effect on their plans would be devastating. These actions would be carried out secretly, and surreptitiously by Alana McCarthy at the direction of Edward and Adam St. James.
Chapter 55
The Team Suarez field teams assembled in a remote part of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness some thirty miles due north of the planned approach into the portion of the FCRNR Wilderness Area occupied by the Black Shirt military. Arnaud was now gone from Idaho and back in the Olympic Peninsula spending his nights with Liv Wilder, scandalous in the eyes of the military detachments, and extremely unimportant to the Black Shirt scientists assembled there. Who was sleeping with who was a human preoccupation. A true Gens warrior couldn’t care less, and most of the scientists thought the military types spouting off should be dealt with, and harshly, for what appeared to be insubordinate behavior. Since when did the Gens rank-and-file military begin concerning themselves with the private conduct of a senior military commander and who he was coupling with?
The morning was somewhat cold, rainy, and wet as Rod and Cindy Suarez met with the fifty men and women comprising the ten five-person teams that would be in the field over the next few weeks. The orientation today was a delicate matter as the teams needed to be apprised of the unique challenges that lay ahead, but none could be told the entire truth. Rod, under Cindy’s watchful eyes, would explain the nature of mission, what information needed to be gathered, and how it was to be done. He would also lay out a plausible story of who their adversaries were, the dangers they posed and their modus operandi.
Rod had spent time with Edward deciding on what he would and could say to his troops. Edward thought that nothing should be said to the field teams; Rod and Cindy nixed that idea right away. Both Rod and Cindy knew these men and women well. They had been in the field with them, had trained with them for special ops over many years and knew they owed them the truth about the danger, if not the whole truth about the Gens.
Rod was confident that the core of the mission and its dangers could be explained with sufficient precision that the troops would be in no additional danger. This was to be recon and surveillance only.
Had the mission been intended as confrontational and had it included the potential for a firefight, the troops would certainly have needed more information. But
this mission was surveillance; to gather and collect specific information and double and triple check it. There was no expectation of coming into direct contact with the enemy with the need to disclose more about the Gens.
No matter the provocation, there wasn’t going to be physical interaction.
***
One month earlier
Edward had asked Rod and Cindy to drop by his office before they left for Idaho. The parameters of the exercise had just changed, based upon new data, new analysis of that data, and the predictive modeling done by Bitsie Tolan in coordination with Team Hannah. Adam had become suspicious of the satellite thermal telemetry Alana had obtained through repositioning government spy satellites.
Those satellites showed very little movement of vehicles passing through the Lodge compound or at any point near the perimeter of the Wilderness area. The working assumption had been that the Gens military were from the Collective and were, of necessity, in transformed state.
“I’m not sure that those working assumptions are correct,” Adam said. “The telemetry doesn’t show a large numbers of Gens soldiers spread out and radiating in every direct and deep into the Wilderness in small mobile packs. Instead it showed squads of Gens soldiers marching two by two, ten to fifteen in number, between a highly-organized web of camps of one hundred to two hundred plus individuals. The camps themselves are approximately equidistant from one another. The formations and marching patterns suggest the Gens are in transformed state, as we would expect to see. But the lack of resupply and absence of any motorized supply chain anywhere in the immediate vicinity suggests that the Gens are living off the land with only modest amounts of supply coming through, and only from the Lodge grounds. That suggests, at least to me, that most of the Gens are in natural state.
“Further, the Gens seem to be fishing heavily in the rivers and streams, foraging for edibles and hunting game, both large and small. Some activity is at a fair distance from the vanguard elements. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the transformed Gens element cannot be greater than twenty percent of the total individuals we have spotted. Maybe significantly fewer.”
Edward continued, “And we know that cannot be the case, since that would suggest that the transformed Gens are leading or directing the natural state Gens. It would also suggest that the natural state individuals understand the transformed Gens leadership. That’s not supposed to be possible either.”
Adam said, “I agree. Not supposed to happen and yet it seems to be happening.”
Edward turned to his son, “Then what are your thoughts?”
“Mine are the same as Hannah’s. The same as Misti’s.”
“Which is?”
“These soldiers are not Gens Collective. And the natural state Gens are being led. That means that Rod and Cindy and the field teams are in far greater danger than we supposed, and we need to halt our surveillance and probing plans right away. We need to issue different gear, different weaponry and map out an entirely new strategy.”
“Not sure what you mean?”
“If these folks aren’t Gens Collective, then who are they? Second how is our guesswork even possible, if indeed it is accurate? We have to get these Gens teams on film; first on thermal to confirm that they are Gens and, second, to snap some picks of the Gens patrols to determine if natural state Gens are being led by transformed Gens.” A high-speed camera with night vision capability and thermal imaging should do the trick. And some daytime snaps if it isn’t too dangerous. Get in, film it and get out. Provide the field teams with real time satellite intel from here in Barrows Bay through available telemetry. We can do this, Dad. And we need to do this.”
“OK. Let’s bring Rod and Cindy in on this intel and have them stand down for the time being. Then let’s get Hannah hooked up for a call with Team Suarez and the crew here. Then we need to get Mom and Edmund patched in with all of us here to go over the engineering and equipment requirements. Then it looks like we have some new fancy equipment to build.”
“Done.”
***
Mom, Pops and Edmund sat in a small conference room with Rod and Cindy at the Institute prepared to go over the new tech they had created for the mission in Idaho. Edward, Adam and Misti joined them, as did Noki and Alana. Hannah was linked in through a secure video feed.
“Wow, I knew we were popular, but not this popular,” said Rod. Cindy too was taken a little aback that a cream puff of a recon mission had attracted so much attention from family. Only Agustin was absent. The pair had figured they would go down to Idaho with their crew, set up shop and be out with their intel in a few days. They had been asked not to engage with the Gens in the Wilderness Area, but that didn’t preclude them from probing the Gens defenses just to see how ready they were.
This gathering seemed a bit of overkill.
Cindy said, “All right, now that the entire Barrows Bay family is here, minus one, but plus one from the Manor, what’s on your collective minds?”
Edward began, “We have reconsidered the parameters of your adventure in Idaho, based on some new data and, quite honestly, some new conjecture about what you might find down there. We now believe that this job is a lot more dangerous than we originally thought and the unanswered questions about what is going on down there too important to ignore.”
Rod looked at Cindy, then back at Edward. “Not clear what you’re talking about. I thought this was just a large gathering of Gens Collective folks, off the Preserves and in the wild. Might be military, but probably not. And if it’s an ordinary collection of the Collective, there is likely little danger. So, what’s changed and what’s the problem?”
Edward replied, “In short, none of what you just said is likely true. At least it might not be true. We have discovered some anomalies. We need to analyze them and adjust.”
Cindy asked, “What kind of anomalies?”
Adam said, “The deadly kind.”
***
Rod and Cindy looked at each other again, then said, “Explain.”
Edward said, “What we have uncovered is concerning. Alana redirected some of the satellite telemetry to the FCRNR Wilderness Area to determine the number and location of the Gens in the area. What we all expected to find was a distribution of Gens scattered over a large area in small packs and groupings similar to what we now know about them in other wilderness areas the Collective inhabits. But what we found was quite different.”
“How so?”
“First, they were quite concentrated in camps over a wide area, but much larger than we expected to find. There were camps of Gens numbering between one hundred and two hundred fifty individuals. As camps filled up, the newer arrivals pushed farther out, building new camps as they went. Advance patrols were sent out ahead, we’re guessing to scout the territory for new locations. The patch work of camps and patrols seemed random at first, but when we looked more closely, there was a pattern, somewhat asymmetrical, but a pattern nonetheless.
“Hannah and her team also noticed that rather than wide dispersal in very small packs which we expected to see, we got highly organized patterns. Then Hannah noticed that the patrols were going out in formation. Ten to fifteen to a patrol, walking in single file or two by two with clear leadership up front.”
“So?”
“So that’s not how the Gens in the wilderness move through the bush.”
“Still not seeing your point.”
“Hannah also noted that if they were in organized formation, we could surmise that they were transformed Gens, not natural state.”
“Seems right.”
“Yes, but there was no supply or resupply of the Gens coming in from anywhere outside the Wilderness Area. These Gens would have to be living off the land, and for thirty thousand of them in a wilderness area, that would not be enough space for transformed Gens to occupy and feed themselves.”
Cindy said, “Perhaps they pre-supplied themselves before beginning their move in.”
“Possibly, but we aren’t seeing any campfires, no motorized vehicles, and no movement we would expect to see. The Gens are heading for water several times a day and, by that, I mean almost all of them. Again, we wouldn’t expect to see that if they were transformed.”
Rod said, “Let’s skip to your point, Dad.”
“We think these Gens are mostly natural state, based on Team Hannah’s workup. The predictive model that Bitsie generated is at odds with the data we have received. This whole thing is anomalous. If there are transformed Gens leading natural state Gens, then this is new news for everyone. Not supposed to be possible. They’re not supposed to be able to communicate between states. Now it seems they can.”
“How is that possible?”
“We have no clue.”
“What else?”
“A lot, but the most important factoid is that Adam contacted Paulo.”
“And?”
“Paulo claims that the FCRNR Wilderness Area is not one of their sanctuaries. Never has been.”
“Who are they then?”
“Who indeed? We don’t know, but we have a guess.”
“And?”
“They are Black Shirts. Have to be. Unless there’s a third faction. And, if they are Black Shirts, progress with their science projects is well ahead of what we believed the case to be with the Collective.”
“That’s not good.”
“No, it isn’t. It really isn’t.”
“Any chance this is a joint Collective/Black Shirt project? Maybe our intel isn’t as good as we thought it was.”
“Don’t think so, although it does seem to fit the facts. Still, the Collective was nowhere near having their science projects operational. If this situation turns out to be what we suspect, it means the Black Shirts have advanced the ball much closer to the goal line than the Collective. And I think we would’ve seen something in the Collective’s communications traffic.”
Probe Page 65
