The Hidden Truth: A Science Fiction Techno-Thriller

by Hans G. Schantz

  Amit and I went through the door into the public area of the basement, then the stairs and got to work. The books on EVIL’s list weren’t in catalog order, but they seemed to be mostly history and biography, with a smattering of folklore, science, and other subjects. It took us twenty minutes to collect our haul of books in a couple of big duffle bags and get them up to the third floor. Amit checked off the list to confirm we had everything, while I swiftly set up our scanner. I removed the bulky work gloves and got to work, flipping a page, taking an image. We were already on our third book when I heard the radio click. I figured it was Rob giving us the signal that all was well. “He’s on his way,” Amit concurred. He waited a moment and then sent a click in acknowledgement.

  I broke out a couple of snacks for Amit and me, and I set one aside for Rob. At the rate we were going, we’d finish sometime early tomorrow morning – plenty of time to clear out before the morning arrival of the EVIL technology containment crew. Rob poked his head in the door. Amazing how quietly he moved – I never even heard him coming, and I’d forgotten to set up the motion sensor. His cocky grin evaporated as he saw our set up. “What’s going on here?” he asked.

  “We’re busy scanning,” I replied after swallowing my bite of granola bar. “I brought some snacks so we’d be ready to stay all night,” I explained. “Want something to eat?”

  Uncle Rob just stared – a grim look on his face. He opened his mouth to speak, then cut himself off. After a moment, he opened his mouth again and spoke. “Time for Plan B, boys,” he said. “This isn’t going to work. We need to gather up the books and clear on out of here. It’s not safe to spend all night working here. The sheriff could change his mind and come in to secure the place at any moment. You know how curious he is about what’s going on.”

  I was confused. “OK.” I broke down the scanner while Amit gathered up the books.

  “Let’s grab the physics books too, while we’re at it,” Uncle Rob suggested. “How many of these books did you scan?”

  “All the older books in the physics section,” I explained. “Many of the older periodicals on the ground floor. Several hundred books, maybe a thousand including these. We can grab a few of the most important ones.”

  “We can’t get them all,” Uncle Rob said, levelly. I wasn’t sure if he were making an observation or asking a question. “Take what you can easily tote,” he said, decisively, “and let’s get going.” He hefted a couple of our duffle bags and followed me and Amit out to the stacks.

  I grabbed the classic books. I knew them so well by now that they seemed like old friends – Maxwell, Hertz, and Heaviside. I also took the books whose subtle clues and defects had started everything: Franklin, Fleming, Whittaker, and Lodge. Fully loaded, down the stairs we went, right through the utility room to the tunnel door. “Go ahead,” Uncle Rob said. “I’ll secure the door.” Amit and I pushed back the darkness with our dim red lights. We were followed by Uncle Rob a moment or two later. I navigated us the several blocks back to our entrance. Uncle Rob popped the hatch, pronounced the way clear, and helped us out.

  “Your tool?” he asked.

  I handed him my tool, and he carefully closed the hatch. “I’ll run everything up to my place and hide it all,” he explained. “Amit, can you take my nephew back to your hotel and hide him in a room, off the record, without anyone seeing him? They might come looking for him – or me for that matter – at my place. What with this Nexus business, I think it’s safest to hide our purloined letter right under the noses of EVIL’s minions. Get it?”

  “Got it,” Amit and I acknowledged.

  “Good,” Uncle Rob said authoritatively. “I’ll join you at the hotel when I can.” He handed me my go-bag, climbed into his truck, and drove off.

  I got in Amit’s car and we headed for the Berkshire Inn. “It’s a good thing you already got everything incriminating out of your house,” he noted.

  Oh, no. I kept a flash drive hidden in the transformer block for my phone charger. I’d rebuilt it so it would come apart easily, and I could retrieve the flash drive if I wanted to look at any files on my other air-gapped laptop. “I just remembered something,” I explained to Amit.

  “It’s not safe,” Amit said. “They’ve already got Mr. Burleson, and they’re looking for your dad, too. Your house is an obvious place to stake out.”

  “They’ve probably come and gone already,” I reasoned. “I can sneak in the back, grab the transformer, and sneak back out without anyone noticing. Let’s drive casually along the side of the block to check it out. If it looks clear, you can drop me off a couple of blocks away.”

  Amit reluctantly agreed.

  I peeked out the window and looked down the street as we passed the turn to my house. The sun had already set, and the street seemed quiet and peaceful. “If there’s any trouble, try to hang around a few of minutes. If I don’t show, go back to the hotel and wait for Uncle Rob.”

  He let me off a couple of blocks away. I casually walked along the street, then ducked into the bushes and made my way through the neighbor’s yard on the back side of our block. I crawled up into the tree house at the back of our lot and watched. The house appeared empty. I saw no activity as I waited patiently. After about five minutes, I dropped down, made my way to the back door, and let myself in.

  I quietly moved through the house to the stairs. I was about to go upstairs to my room to retrieve the cell phone charger when I heard breaking glass. BANG! A brilliant flash of light and an overpowering clap of sound stunned me. I dropped to the floor. The next thing I knew, I was being roughly manhandled. I was blinded and my ears were still ringing. Handcuffs bit into my wrists. I couldn’t keep my balance. I was half-shoved, half-dragged to the front porch. I hoped Amit saw the commotion and was able to get away.

  As my vision came back, a masked man in a black ninja outfit whacked me hard on the side of the head and screamed something else. I still couldn’t hear, and my vision was clouded by an after image of the stairs, but I could see the ninja outfit had “FBI” emblazoned across the chest. I didn’t have any trouble pretending to be even more dazed and confused than I already felt. He dragged me to a waiting SUV and shoved me in the back seat. My head hit the doorframe, hard, on the way in – thud! It certainly didn’t help my feeling of confusion and disorientation. My hearing came back to me as I watched helplessly while the FBI ninjas ransacked the house.

  Just then, more flashing lights pulled up. It was Sheriff Gunn. He caught the attention of one of the FBI agents. “I hear you boys done caught one of them cyber-terrorists. You really think it’s the kid?”

  I couldn’t hear what the agent said to the sheriff but I gathered the answer was no – they had pegged my father as the cyber-terrorist they were after.

  “I’ve been wanting to run that juvenile delinquent in for years,” the sheriff said. “You sure you don’t got no charges I could hold him on for you? Accessory to terrorism?”

  Again, the agent said something I couldn’t hear.

  “Well, if you don’t think accessory to terror will stick, I’m sure I could come up with something,” the sheriff volunteered enthusiastically. “Disturbing the peace is always good. Lots of wiggle room. Judge most always sees it our way. Why not let me take him off your hands? I can hold him for twenty-four hours, easy. Probably lock him up for months if I put a word in to the judge.”

  I cringed as I heard the occasional crash, even from inside the car. They were systematically tearing apart the house. Agents were already carrying box upon box of stuff out of our house to a waiting truck. The agent seemed happy to be rid of me and the sheriff, so he could get back to looting our house. He held the door of the SUV open.

  The sheriff dragged me out of the FBI SUV and transferred me to his cruiser. At least he stuck a hand on my head to make sure I didn’t bang it on the doorframe when he shoved me into his back seat.

  When we got to the sheriff’s office, he took me in, removed the cuffs and deposited me in a cell.
I was under arrest for “disturbing the peace.” He read me my rights and asked if I had any questions. “No sir,” I told him.

  “This time, boy, you ain’t free to go. You ready yet to fess up to what’s been going on?” he asked.

  “I won’t answer any questions without a lawyer,” I insisted.

  “Figured as much,” he said. “You can cool your heels in here a while. Think about it, but don’t wait too long. Because if you don’t talk to me, you’ll be talking to the feds soon enough.” He left me and went back to work.

  My folks and Kira were safe in Nashville with Uncle Rob’s friend. There was no sign of Amit, so he’d probably gotten away. I assumed Uncle Rob would be by to bail me out in the morning. It was getting late, and I was very tired. I decided I should try to get what sleep I could on the lumpy cot. I listened to the radio traffic floating in from the other room as I fell asleep. Tolliver Library secure. Federal search in progress… yes that was my address. I drifted off to an uneasy sleep.

  Some time later, I was awakened by the urgent tone of a voice coming in over the radio. “Structural fire – structural fire at…” What? That was our address! Our house was on fire? I heard the dispatcher acknowledge the call and dispatch the fire department to our address. “Engine 1 copies, structural fire,” the fireman added our address, “We’re rolling!” Not long thereafter, I heard another call. “Dispatch, Engine 1. Federal agents on scene have ordered us to stand down, I repeat, federal agents have ordered us to stand down.” I couldn’t believe it. They were deliberately burning down our house? To destroy any possible evidence we might have hidden away? I felt sick to my stomach. Everything we owned was going up in flames. Well not everything. The feds had obviously cleared out some stuff – books, papers, and electronics, I figured. Also, Uncle Rob and I had taken out a load of books and some of the smaller, more portable antiques. That wasn’t much consolation, though.

  I thought about what Mom had said as she and Dad were leaving. The Civic Circle was a group of elite big shots who apparently engaged in social engineering on a wide scale. Xueshu Quan – Academic or Science Circle in Chinese – was a person, or more likely an organization, whose mission appeared to be seeking out and suppressing knowledge. It started out with just a few physics books, but the list of books we’d grabbed from the library showed that they had secrets to hide in history, biography, and even folklore. The more I thought about it, the more I convinced myself that Mom was right, and there had to be a connection. Uncle Larry and his Civic Circle elite wouldn’t rest until they controlled everything, the way the Tollivers controlled the sheriff in particular and Sherman in general. My parents were on the run. Hopefully Uncle Rob’s scheme had gotten them and Kira to a safe house, but our home and furniture were up in flames. Some of the pieces were antiques that had been in the family for generations. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got.

  The radio chatter continued about some other incident, a 10-54 or some such out on the highway. I mentally tuned it out as I fumed about having been burned out of my home.

  I must have drifted off again, because the next thing I knew, Sheriff Gunn was back.

  “I’ve had enough of your nonsense, punk,” he was saying. “I need to know the score, and I need to know it now.”

  “I said, I have nothing to tell you without my lawyer,” I told him off. “But, next time you lick your master’s boots, do tell Uncle Larry to go hell for me, will you?”

  The sheriff glared at me. He spoke with a slow, cold, and deliberate intensity. “Son, you need to listen up and get your head on straight. Our nation was built on the rule of law. Last few generations of so-called statesmen we have, they liked the rule of law so much that they added more laws…, more regulations…, and more rules… and more… and topped it off with still more. Then, they dump their law books and their regulations on the likes of yours truly and tell us to go out and enforce ‘em. It’s too much, too complicated for a lawyer or anyone else to understand it all. They make it so you can hardly go a day without committing something they could call a felony. So, I got to make the call which laws to enforce and which miscreants are deserving of my attention. Smarter men than I might question the wisdom of a system where the law can be no better than the character of those who select what to enforce and what to ignore. They drown a country in laws and rules and leave it up to law enforcement to sort things out. It’s a system ripe for abuse and corruption to leave so much discretion with me in particular, and law enforcement and prosecutors in general. The way the big shots see it, that ain’t a problem, because they figure they can always bend the complexity in their favor. I don’t much like it. But, them’s the cards I been dealt and them’s the cards I gotta play.

  “The Tollivers made this here county what it is. They’ve kept it prosperous, more or less, at a time when other towns up and down Appalachia are falling into ruin. I respect that. My charge is to serve and protect the people of this county. That is my mission. Between them and theirs, the Tollivers, their employees, and the other folk who do business with them are more than half of this county. Frankly, son, it’s the better half. I exercise the discretion I been given to drop the hammer on vagrants, troublemakers, and low-life scum. I lock ‘em up or run ‘em out of town. I make sure this town stays safe, and quiet, and peaceful.

  “If young Miss Tolliver wants to cry on my shoulder about how you and your Hindoo sidekick have been mean to her, I’m going to listen and then I’m gonna have words with you two.” He sounded almost paternal.

  “If you deliberately provoke a response from Homeland Security and make me call out my SWAT Team, by God, I’m going to hold you accountable.” The sheriff’s demeanor had changed. Gone was the Dutch uncle with the friendly advice. His face flickered with barely controlled anger.

  “You and your sidekick have been a couple of the biggest pains in the ass this town has seen in many years. One of the biggest regrets of my career is going to be that I didn’t lock you both up and throw away the key when I had the chance. And now…

  “You seriously don’t have the least clue about the devastation you’ve caused and the shit storm you’ve dumped on Sherman, here.”

  I thought I’d seen the sheriff mad before. That was nothing. The man’s fury was a primal force barely held in check by an ironclad will. He took a deep breath.

  “There’s someone here needs to speak with you,” he said, coldly. His deputy moved to cuff me. “No, Steve. I got him. Open the door.” The deputy looked puzzled. “If you say so, Sheriff,” he said as he opened the cell door. The sheriff grabbed me by the shoulder and marched me ahead of him to his office. He opened the door. I saw Uncle Rob inside, waiting.

  The sheriff closed the door from the other side and left me alone with him. Uncle Rob’s face seemed hard and cold. Something was terribly wrong. He said, “Your folks… they’re dead.”

  Chapter 10: Finale

  I was numb. I couldn’t believe I heard Uncle Rob say what he’d just said. It wasn’t a dream. It was real. Uncle Rob was speaking to me, his hand on my shoulder: “Focus,” he said gently. “I need you to focus.”

  I was in shock. “How?” was all I could manage to say. “How did it happen?”

  “Some kind of DUI is what they’re saying. Drunk driver hit them,” Uncle Rob explained. “A tragic accident. I don’t believe it, of course. I think the sheriff’s suspicious, too. He said he was about to head out to the scene. You’re in shock. I understand. But, there’s no time to grieve right now. You need to collect yourself. We have some time, at least a few minutes, maybe as much as an hour.”

  “Time for what?” I was confused.

  “Time for you to get your story straight,” Uncle Rob said insistently. “Before too much longer, that door is going to open, and you are going to be hauled in for an interrogation. They are going to go over and over and over your story with you, each time looking for inconsistencies, each time trying to trip you up. It’ll be the same men who just burned down your house
and probably killed your folks. If you give them any hint that you know anything about what was actually in those books or what it meant, the best you can hope for is that you’ll be locked up under high security, with some trumped-up terrorism charge, for a very long time. And, that’s a best-case scenario. Worst case, you’re dead, and it won’t be pleasant. If you’re lucky, the sheriff may be in the interrogation room with the feds.”

  “Lucky? Sheriff Gunn has it in for me!” I exclaimed. “He’s convinced I’m some kind of terrorist and swore I’d be locked up for a long time!”

  “Let me guess,” Uncle Rob said with a tired grin. “The sheriff shot his mouth off about this terrorism business and how he wanted to lock you up and throw away the key in front of these feds, didn’t he?

  “Yes…” I acknowledged tentatively, not following his reasoning.

  “I see you’re still in street clothes and not an orange jumpsuit, so you weren’t processed and strip searched and anally probed for contraband and thrown in the Tri-County lock-up, right?” The look of horror on my face at that thought was answer enough. “That wasn’t an arrest,” Uncle Rob explained. “That was a rescue. He got you away from those feds and brought you straight here for safekeeping. The feds wanted to focus on tearing your house apart, and searching the library. They probably wanted the sheriff to quit bugging them – he can be annoying, particularly when he puts his mind to it. Those feds were happy to have the sheriff keep track of you until they had time to get back to you. Damn good thing the sheriff stepped in, or you might well have ended up like your folks. Sure, he’s got some kind of nebulous charge against you. He can raise a jurisdictional stink about wanting to hold on to you, if the feds barge in here and try to take you and shut you up like they did to your folks. Mark my words, that was a rescue. You may well owe your life to the sheriff, and don’t you forget it! But, we’re getting off track. You need to be ready for the interrogation.”