Sarah whispered to Joshua, her eye on Casey’s back. ‘He won’t ever admit it, but you just taught him a lesson. But don’t push him, Casey is like a gorilla – he won’t roll over for a young new male leader without a fight.’
Joshua gave her a sharp look. ‘What, you think I’m a...?’
‘We’re here,’ Casey called over his shoulder. Joshua looked up at the “Tower”, which wasn’t carved out of coral like the rest of the imitation Colonnade. It was in fact the fuselage of a gigantic military aircraft, sticking out of the bottom of the lagoon like a birthday candle.
Joshua wondered how it had got there... some ancient crash perhaps?
It was painted the same dull greyish green as the lagoon. From the sky, it would look like just a large outcropping of coral, and even on closer inspection no one would care about an ancient aircraft crash site.
Casey opened a door on the side of the fuselage and stepped in. Joshua and Sarah followed on his heels.
The inside was as dull as Joshua would have expected a military aircraft to look, grey everywhere, seats hanging off the walls that ran up the length of the plane, and luggage netting that hung down from the ceiling. It was very disorienting.
A large rectangular crate was lashed to the rear of the plane, well out of reach. It looked as solid and impenetrable as a bank safe.
‘Best if you don’t ask,’ Sarah warned, before Joshua could form the question as to what it held.
He looked down towards the cockpit. The entire section sat below the seabed level. It had been completely stripped, and in its place was a stairway leading straight down. Nearby there was what looked like a man-sized tube, also pointing down into the dark depths of the Earth.
‘This is the fun part,’ Sarah said, and ran ahead of Joshua to jump head first into the tube after Casey, who disappeared inside it before he had realised.
Joshua stopped for one last glimpse at the bright blue sky behind him. On the ridge they had walked down from, he thought he caught a glimpse of a dark blue silhouette, and then the spectre seemed to blend back into the landscape as though it had always been a part of it, watching him from afar.
Not quite the deserted island after all, thought Joshua.
The door of the plane he had walked through slowly began to close by some unseen automatic mechanism. As it slid shut, the water of the lagoon outside re-emerged as it filled itself back up. Some of the water splashed into the plane before the door closed, soaking his boots.
He took a few deep breaths to steel himself, and climbed feet first into the tube.
Joshua fell through darkness. He imagined it was like the story his mother had read to him as a child, the one about a girl falling down a rabbit hole... Or maybe he was journeying to the centre of the Earth, or perhaps even back in time.
All he could feel was the wind pushing into his face and the smooth slick surface of the slide, going faster and faster, twisting one way then another. He couldn’t imagine how far underground they were, or if they were even still under the island they had entered from. Eventually the tube began to go in circles and the incline flattened out, bringing him in for an easy touch down on an inflatable landing pad.
He flailed around, disoriented, and then Sarah was there, offering her hand to help him up. He hesitated for a second, and then took her hand. Her touch was icy cold, causing him to shiver. At least that’s what he thought it was. He let her go, perhaps too quickly, but the moment passed.
Casey was waiting for them by a short tunnel that was carved out of a solid wall of rock. Joshua could see the light from the other end only twenty metres or so distant. There was a raised portcullis on this side, a decontamination chamber in the middle of the tunnel, and a criss-cross section of lasers barring the far end of the tunnel’s exit. There were no warning signs or guards to give them directions. It wasn’t a place one came to uninvited.
The three of them walked into the tunnel and stood still while scanners popped out of the walls to run over their bodies. Joshua had to put his knife in a drawer off to one side to complete the scan, Sarah and Casey having clearance for their equipment already.
‘I’m going to want that back,’ said Joshua, as his knife was whisked away by some unseen force in the drawer.
‘Just wait ’ill you get a load of our toys,’ said Casey, with a hint of humour in his voice.
The lasers shut down as the scan was completed, and Joshua stepped out of the tunnel into the blinding light from the Academy.
After his eyes had adjusted to the sudden unexpected brightness, Joshua saw the Academy for the first time. The light came from far above his head in the cavern, bouncing off highly reflective crystal formations and well placed man-made mirrors, amplifying the effect.
‘We have a couple of satellites in geosynchronous orbit with the Academy. The light is bounced off their mirrors and down fissures in the rock. So we can control the day/night cycle to any length of time we like,’ Sarah said in answer to Joshua’s unspoken question.
He pulled his gaze away from the ceiling and studied the grounds. The Academy could have passed for any one of the abandoned universities he had seen around Illinois. Except it was full. People walked to and fro everywhere, books tucked under their arms, or tapping away on holographic keyboards being projected for use with their student iPCs.
In the centre there was a statue of an old man carved in stone. He wore clothing similar to Casey’s loose pants and tight shirt, but he leaned with a bent back on a gnarled cane, and he sported a beard that ran almost to his feet.
Perhaps a founding member, thought Joshua.
In the distance he could see faculty buildings, lecture halls, housing for students, even a mini mall. Anything a student would ever need. Joshua was more interested in the groups of kids, sitting in clusters on the neatly trimmed lawn surrounding the statue. They looked just as he imagined students at a university campus to be. Some played with a ball, others read books while eating lunch. Many just sat in a circle to talk about the state of the world. But they all looked younger than Joshua, every single one of them had to be only 14 or 15 years old, at most.
‘Where are the seniors?’ Joshua wondered aloud.
Casey made a noise halfway between a grunt and a snort. ‘We, uh, had some casualties during the transition from our previous base in Japan. There are only four other students your age here.’ He waved an arm, indicating the mass of youngsters in front of them. ‘Don’t be fooled by these kids though. They’re tougher than they look,’ he added with a dry chuckle.
Sarah waved to someone, and Joshua saw Richard driving toward him in a squat-looking silver buggy, designed to shuttle people around the vast grounds. He had two passengers with him, one in the back, the other riding shotgun.
As they pulled up, Richard called out, ‘Hey guys, what’s up?’
He parked the buggy and got out to give Sarah a pat on the arm, and a thump on the back for Joshua.
The man in the back seat gazed over Joshua and Sarah with his pale grey eyes as though they weren’t worth the trouble, but kept a friendly smile fixed in place nonetheless. He emulated Casey’s crewcut style, but with the added vigour of youth. He was so massive he barely fit into the buggy. He wore the same tight jumpsuit that Sarah wore, and it gave his chiselled body the impression of being carved from stone.
He turned to Casey as he climbed out of the buggy and snapped a sharp salute.
‘Reporting another successful mission, Master Jayne,’ he said, his thick accent turning “mission” into “mee-shan”.
Casey gave him an approving nod, ‘Good work Ryan,’ he grunted.
The man, Ryan, continued, ‘But I don’t like being kept in the dark sir. You gonna tell me who I risked my neck for?’
Then the other passenger in the buggy lifted his head and Joshua suddenly recognised him. ‘Dr. Prewett!’ he burst out.
Quick as a flash, Sarah unsheathed her sword and pointed it straight at Joshua. ‘How the hell do you know him?’
Joshua froze. All around him the Academy members turned hostile. Sarah had her short sword out, and Richard drew a classic six-shooter pistol from a holster on his hip. Casey and the new guy, Ryan, were unarmed, so they simply assumed a fighting stance, ready for any kind of attack. Dr. Prewett looked around in alarm and raised his hands.
‘Stop!’ he yelled. ‘He was just a customer!’
Sarah lowered her sword from Joshua’s face but didn’t put it away. ‘You only defected from the Confederacy earlier today,’ she said to the doctor. ‘You’re telling me Joshua made deals with you before that?’
The colour drained from Joshua’s face as the sword, gun and two pairs of fists were now closing in on him.
Joshua finally found his voice to support the doctor’s story. ‘He sold me my knife. Gave it really. I was desperate. Near death. He helped me.’ Joshua was babbling. ‘We became friends after that. We would chat. I gave him some recipes. He would tell me about the projects he was working on. What was the last one... the, um... the bio-ID, right?’
‘You did what?!’ Sarah and Casey said in unison, and everyone’s weapons switched over to point at the doctor.
‘That blade saved my life more times than I can-’
Casey cut in. ‘Forget your goddam knife,’ he growled. ‘The Confederacy will be unstoppable with the bio-ID, and the doc here made it for them. Didn’t you?’ he asked this last of the doctor.
Ryan prompted Dr. Prewett with a shove; clearly peeved he hadn’t known how valuable his passenger was until now.
‘Yes,’ said the doc, ‘I made the bio-ID for General Withers. He said he was going to use it to end the Confederacy. Start having elections again. When I found out he’d called a meeting with the Confederacy leaders instead of putting them in a jail cell like he should have, well, that’s when I contacted you.’
Casey looked about to explode, ‘And jus’ what do ya think you’re goin’ to do to fix yer fine mess now?’
Prewett shook his head, ‘Even if I had the General’s bio-ID here now, I...’
‘You mean this?’ Joshua said. He held up General Withers’ eye, still moist and dripping from its recent departure from the General’s skull.
‘My God, is that...’ The doctor bent over and dry retched. Casey and Sarah exchanged a glance.
‘Doc,’ Sarah said, ‘Can anyone else follow your work, without this?’
She tapped the eye, sending it swinging in Joshua’s grip. It caught Casey directly in his iPC. For a second it looked as though someone was trying to communicate with him. Then he grunted, and the distraction passed.
Dr. Prewett composed himself and looked up at Sarah. ‘Of course, yes, eventually my work could be emulated. But it will take time.’
He took the metal eye from Joshua’s hand, suppressing another gag. ‘With my help, we can unlock the data in this bio-ID, and bring down the Confederacy. I promise.’
With a hand signal from Casey, the three other Academy members tucked their weapons away. Richard put an arm around the doctor’s shoulder and led him back into the silver buggy. They drove off in the direction of the student housing without another word.
‘It’s time we explained some things,’ said Casey. He walked off toward the faculty buildings, leaving the others to catch up.
As they walked through the main courtyard, students around them paused to watch, their eyes following Joshua. In return, he gave a few of them a wave, warming to his sudden popularity. Several girls rushed up to him and he broke into a grin, but most ran past him to the man who had come with Richard and the doctor.
They chased after him calling out, ‘Ryan! You’re back, how did your mission go?’ and ‘Chalk another one up eh?’, and the occasional, ‘Take me with you next time!’
Ryan tried not to notice; instead he stared off into the distance, in the direction Richard had driven off with Prewett.
They caught up to Casey at the entrance to the largest building in the underground base, and Ryan finally faced his fans to ask for some privacy. Joshua strode past into the building, suddenly incensed at his being upstaged by this show-off.
To his credit, Ryan caught up with Joshua. ‘Hey mate, sorry about all that. I tried to get them to leave us alone.’
‘Forget it, it’s fine,’ Joshua left him there and entered the auditorium at the top of the stairs. It led down to a stage where Casey and Sarah waited. He took a seat at the bottom.
Casey stood next to a table, and as he spoke, lifelike 3D holograms appeared projected above the surface, illustrating his speech in detail. He began by addressing Joshua.
‘The iPC device you gave to the doctor will do as an entry fee for yer admission to the Academy, should you choose to stay with us. Frankly, if the device is all the doc says it is, it puts us in yer debt.
‘What we can offer you here is a place to live, work, and study for up to six years of tuition, safe from the control of the Confederacy. Perhaps even equip you with the skills you need to find yer sister.’ He paused to give Joshua time to process the idea, while Ryan took a seat nearby Sarah.
‘Here comes the history lesson,’ Ryan whispered.
‘Around twenty years before you were born,’ Casey continued, ‘there was a third world war, both civil and between nations. The world had just recovered from the numerous wars of the savage 20 Century, causing a gigantic population boom directly afterward and then again at the turn of the century.
‘Folks’ eyes grew bigger than their wallets, and they took out loans they knew they could never pay back. A huge market for cheap quality goods sprang up, and suddenly China controlled the global economy. Eventually, western governments defaulted on their loans unable to pay them back. China suddenly had no source of income for cheap labourers, and the westerners were unable to pay their public servants or beneficiaries. With no paid-up police force to stop them, people revolted against their governments, leading to mob rule and total anarchy worldwide.’
Throughout his speech, motion graphics summarised his points from the projection table. It began with charts and graphs showing the mounting debt, but eventually showed newsreels and video clips from during the war. Joshua had never seen anything like it. Images of sleepy suburban neighbourhoods were displayed, and then devastated by 3D mobs of angry people. He saw a group storming a small bank branch in a rural community, and tear apart those unlucky enough to be caught inside. It was brutal.
Casey indicated the display, nodding. ‘The banks were the first to be targeted. It wasn’t long before weapon stockpiles were raided. Many of the police force even helped the mob. Near the end, it was each nation’s army versus its own people.’
The image zoomed out to show pitched battles between hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens against the tight orderly lines of an army. Joshua could see where the army’s defences would fail – tanks, planes and transports broke down without engineers to fix them, soldiers ran out of bullets without enough factory workers to make them, medics had nothing with which to heal the wounded. It was total anarchy.
The display ended and Casey resumed.
‘After eight years, a number of people who had holed themselves up in self-sustaining facilities arranged to meet each other. They held a public conference. It was mostly made up of essential military personnel, Generals and the like, but there were also some of the top scientific minds, and a few clever billionaires. They announced the abolishment of national identities and granted themselves sole control over state functions, effectively forming a single planetary government. They called it the Confederacy.’
He paused, but the table hologram showed nothing.
‘Apart from the two men who made the announcement, we have only guesses as to who is a member of the Confederacy.’
The table hologram popped up again with two spinning heads.
‘General Withers, you’re already familiar with him,’ said Casey, with a grim smile. A new “deceased” label appeared over the General’s face.
‘...And this man, Simeon Warner.’ The display enlarged the second head. ‘He seems to be the spokesperson for the Confederacy, since it’s his face we see on those public speaker drones everywhere.’
Joshua remembered the drones they’d seen before he and Sarah made it to the lake. That was the first time he had heard of Simeon Warner. So those drones weren’t just in Chicago then? Joshua found the idea chilling.
‘Anyway,’ said Casey, ‘they soon forced everyone to work in low wage jobs, which got a crude economy up and running again. You’ve seen how well that worked in Chicago. No middle class to hold everything together. Just the poor majority surviving on a barter system, a tiny minority with trade jobs, and the Confederacy at the top of the food chain. The world was on the brink of erupting into war again.
‘Then someone in the Confederacy came up with the idea of forcing anyone with the right set of skills into working for their armed forces. Only they weren’t building more tanks and planes, they built the drones.’
The hologram changed to an image of an attack drone of the same type that had chased Joshua yesterday. It was actually just a few short hours ago, and suddenly Joshua felt incredibly weary. He pushed the feeling down as Casey switched off the display. Sarah and Ryan went to stand next to him on the platform.
‘The Confederacy was initially promised as a temporary measure until individual nations could rebuild themselves. That was over twenty years ago. They’ll never give up their power. We’re here to make sure it happens, starting by finding and eliminating the Confederate board members.’
Ryan spoke up. ‘You’ll be trained how to become invisible, take them all down one at a time.’
‘And those drones won’t know what hit ‘em,’ Sarah added.
The three of them fell silent. The sales pitch was over.
Joshua hesitated over his next words. He wasn’t sure whether these people saw him as their saviour or their sacrificial goat. But if he could just get one of those suits like Sarah had, it wouldn’t matter what the Academy wanted to use him for.
The Covert Academy Page 6
