by Greg Gotti
“Who, Wallace? He is starting to eat again. He never says a word. He just does pushups and sleeps.”
Heredia smirked. “He will be talking soon enough.”
“What do you think Martinez has planned for him? That’s a nasty cut Wallace gave him.”
“I’m not sure, but it’s going to be fun finding out,” Heredia said laughing.
Diaz laughed with him, and he waved as he turned and walked down the hall. Diaz went back to his magazine as Heredia walked past the cells and stopped in front of the one containing Wallace. He was eager to get started on him. He couldn’t understand why Martinez had coddled him for so long to begin with. The Soona were a great unwashed, simple-minded people. They had no concept of what it meant to be civilized. They were little more than barbarians led by the few leaders they had who actually had a brain. Wallace had been a capable warrior, but he was still little more than a trained maniac. Martinez had found that out the hard way. Oh well, he thought. At least he was finally going to get what was coming to him. He smiled at the heavy door and continued on down the hall.
Soon, he thought; his smile growing wider.
The night air was cool and mild as the crickets sang their nocturnal chorus. A large spring moon shone silently and brightly down upon the mountains. The air smelled of a thousand different scents produced by the countryside and carried by the gentle breeze blowing softly through the trees. Somewhere in the distance, a coyote announced its presence to the world with a long, plaintive howl. It was into this setting that John Wallace left Facility 4 and experienced the outside world for the first time in a year. His hands were cuffed in front of him as he walked beside Martinez. Two men accompanied them, one walking ahead and the other behind them carrying rifles. He recognized one of them as Perez; who he’d gotten to know during his time at Facility 4. John knew elite unit soldiers when he saw them, and these were definitely some sort of “best of the best” type. They walked at a brisk pace, almost a trot, as they left Facility 4. Their escape plan had gone off perfectly. They had choreographed their fight in Room 52 to be convincing, and it had landed him in the black level. After a few days down there, Martinez had come tonight and smuggled him out of his cell through a hidden passageway in the wall. He’d led him through some sort of tunnel leading to a cave at the surface where they had been moving quickly across the land ever since.
John’s thick red hair flowed over his neck as the breeze picked up. He had grown a beard over the last month, and he reached up to scratch an itch on his chin. The night air felt wonderful to him He inhaled deeply of its crisp fragrance. He loved the smell of the woods. The pines, the decomposing leaves and needles on the ground, even the mud… all of it filled him with a sense of being where he belonged. He had spent most of his adult life among the trees. He felt as though he had come home.
“I’d almost forgotten what the moon looks like,” he said quietly.
“It is beautiful; isn’t it?” Martinez replied. “There is something majestic and powerful about its light. It shines in silence, yet it illuminates the night like nothing else. It would be brighter if we hadn’t had to speed up our timeline.”
“Why did we have to go earlier than we planned? Did something happen?”
“Something always happens, John. This time, it’s just the nature of the operation. It’s too big and involves too many people from too many different groups to stay secure for long. I am sure there are people who have already begun to put the pieces together. We simply ran out of time to wait. We had to go tonight.”
“That little tantrum got all the heavy doors closed… that worked out well.”
“It did,” Martinez admitted. “All it cost was a flask of tequila and some chocolate.”
“So are you going to tell me exactly what’s going on now? You’ve told me little more than to trust you, and I’ve done that.”
“You have held up your end of things, John. There are many things I have wanted to tell you, but circumstances haven’t allowed it. You will get most of your questions answered tonight. We just need to get where we are going.”
John was silent for a few seconds. He took a deep breath of the crisp night air and exhaled as he looked to the sky. The moon illuminated the edges of the few wispy clouds that floated silently by, giving them a silvery glow.
“Everything you told me… about the war being scripted; is that the truth? Are they really sending men to die with no intention of letting them win the war?”
“John, believe it or not, I have never lied to you about these matters. I have my reasons for why I have handled you the way I have. You may not trust me, but I am being truthful when I say I had no choice but to keep you hidden away for all this time.”
“I do believe you, Jose. Too many of the things you gave me to read line up with things I’d found over the years on my own. Something is off about all of it. Nothing about the war makes any sense once you know the intel from both sides.”
John looked at him in silence for a few moments until Martinez noticed him studying him.
“What is it, John?” he asked in an almost resigned voice.
“Why’d you do it?”
“Why did I do what?”
“You know what. You’re going rogue. None of this is being done with authorization; is it? At first I thought it was a trick. Then for the longest time, I thought you were part of some sort of underground or something. But it’s just you; isn’t it? Maybe you and a few others, but your superiors have no idea about any of it.”
Martinez turned up one corner of his mouth and looked up at the stars for a few moments.
“So what exactly is your question, John?” he asked returning his eyes to the trees before them.
“When they find out what you’ve done, they’ll call it treason. You know what that means. Why are you willing to risk it all for whatever it is we’re doing tonight?”
Martinez took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He was silent for a few moments. The sound of their footsteps seemed abnormally loud as John waited for his answer. When he finally spoke, his voice was small and quiet.
“John, for years I have made decisions that sent men off to almost-certain death. I have kept the true nature of our conflict from the men who lead our forces, and in doing so, I have condemned many to die. I didn’t realize just how much of a lie it all was until you came tearing down from the north and sent everyone into a panic. I was told things that opened my eyes, and I haven’t been able to live with myself ever since. It is one thing to do something wrong while blind. It is another thing entirely to do it with your eyes wide-open.”
“So what exactly is the war about? I know you say it’s money, but what is the overall agenda?”
“They need to keep us divided. They make us fear each other. Once we are afraid, it is easy to make us hate each other. Once we hate each other, they get us to harm and even kill each other. This begins the cycle of vengeance. Once that cycle begins, it is just a matter of giving it a little jolt here and there when it begins to slow down. The Federation is immersed in war, and the factories churn out weapons, vehicles and all sorts of things on a large scale. We are told to fear biological weapons, so that means all kinds of pills, vaccines and antidotes. The propaganda machine has to work efficiently, so they make sure the media slants everything to suit their agenda. The agenda is money and power, John.”
“But power to do what? People want power in order to do some specific thing. They’re already rich, so I get why they’d want the power to make sure they stay rich. It seems like it’s more than that though.”
“You’re very perceptive, John. You are good at putting the pieces together. More importantly, you are a seeker of truth. Many intelligent people are fooled because they prefer their illusions to the truth. The elite understand this well. They make everything emotional in order to manipulate people through their emotions. It was this way even before The Fall. They divided people by race, by gender, by political party and more. They made people beli
eve the other ‘side’ was duplicitous, immoral and stupid. They divided the people into tribes and set those tribes at war with each other; just as I told you before.”
“But there are always smart people,” John protested. “Surely all kinds of people figured that out. You mean to tell me nobody ever pointed out what was being done?”
“Of course they did,” Martinez said. “Many people tried to sound the alarm, but nobody wanted to listen. They all wanted to ‘win’ first. They wanted their tribe’s norms and values to be the ones everyone united under. Each side believed they held the moral high ground, so they all believed they were fighting the good fight. Meanwhile, the elites kept stealing their freedoms and their money. If the people started to resist, something horrible was allowed to happen in order to make them beg to give away their freedom in exchange for safety. People are easy to control if you keep them fed and entertained. As long as they have food to eat and games to watch and play, the people really don’t care what their government does. It is only when they begin to be made to do things they don’t want to do that they begin to think of government oppression. There will always be many more commoners than there are elites. That is why they are kept divided and quarreling. They are little more than sheep who don’t realize they are sheep until it is too late. We have been over all of this, John. Why do you ask me about it now?”
“Because the Soona system of government is totally different than the Rista Federation,” John replied. “Everything is about money here, but it is all about serving the state in the Soona Nation. The two ideologies are completely opposed to each other, so how can they possibly work together to conduct a perpetual war?”
“It is because they are so different that it is easy to keep the war going,” Martinez explained. “Think about something like religion. People are very religiously observant in the Federation. There are churches in every town, and we acknowledge God in our official ceremonies and rituals. Religion is frowned upon in the Soona Nation. It is tolerated as long as people quietly observe it and do not see its values as superseding those of the state. The Soona people do not realize it, but they are as religious as the Rista people. They have simply substituted the state and its ideology for God and worship it with equal ardor. We revere the Ten Commandments. You revere the Ten Precepts… do any of us do a good job of following either? The elites really don’t care. They just need something to keep the masses in line. So they convince their people that the other side is evil and must be defeated, and the people feel righteous and superior.
They tell them their suffering is not their own fault. It is the fault of the people on the other side. And it works. It keeps all of us in what was once all called ‘America’ from rising and reclaiming our birthright of freedom. This is what brought about The Fall. America crumbled from within as too many were willing to let the country fall rather than compromise. There is still a country called ‘America,’ but it one step short of being a police state now. There are still a lot of good-hearted people, but too many blindly follow the lies and propaganda of the media. Those who speak out against the state are ignored until people begin to listen to them. That is when the media works to discredit them. They smear them and affix some sort of negative label to make it socially undesirable to approve of their message. If this doesn’t work, these are the people who disappear under mysterious circumstances or suddenly die. They either have an ‘accident’ or they are poisoned and are cremated without an autopsy. The state allows nothing to interfere with its agenda. It is this way in America and the ‘nations’ within the zones. All are controlled by the same group of elites. All of this… is a lie.”
John knew Martinez was being honest with him, and his words made too much sense to ignore. He finally understood some of the things that had always bothered him. He had one more burning question inside of him, and he needed to know the answer to that more than anything.
“Jose, are the SSS and the RID actually two parts of the same thing? Do they work together to keep the war going? Do they manage the war and plan its events like some sort of theater? Do they exist to decide who dies and when and where? I need to know.”
Martinez nodded his head.
“Yes,” he replied. “The answer to everything is ‘yes,’ John.”
John nodded in acceptance quietly. He said nothing more, and Martinez matched his silence until they reached the river.
“We’re here,” he said.
He took out a piece of jewelry; a small medallion with four numbers engraved on it attached to a chain. He hung it around John’s neck.
“Wear this, John. It contains information they’ll need to make our mission successful. Don’t lie to them. They need to be able to trust you. Be honest and tell them anything they want to know. It is the only way, my friend. Do you understand me?”
John nodded, and Martinez reached out and unlocked his handcuffs. He removed them and nodded to Perez, who used the barrel of his rifle to point John towards the bridge. He looked at Martinez questioningly, and Martinez held out a hand in the direction of the bridge.
“Your people are waiting on the other side, John. They will not harm you. Their eyes have been opened to the things we have been discussing. You made an interesting remark earlier. You said you had thought I was part of some sort of resistance. You are about to learn just how big the big picture really is. Pay attention and resist the urge to act emotionally. Be completely honest. What you do in the next hour or two will have far-reaching impact on many people.”
John took a hesitant step down the incline, then another. He looked a final time at the face of Martinez. The Rista colonel wore a stoic expression. John turned and walked to the bridge.
The water below flowed silently by as the moon shone upon its surface. John could hear the wooden planks creaking with each step he took. He quickly realized the bridge was creaking too much and froze in his tracks. He heard footsteps from the far end of the bridge. Someone was coming towards him. The entire bridge was covered by metal beams and encased in a type of metal mesh. There was no way to jump or leave the bridge except for going back the way he came. The footsteps were coming closer as John could now see the shadowy figure approaching. He was maybe a third of the way across the bridge now. He swallowed hard as he walked towards the approaching figure. He wondered why they’d bring him all the way out here just to have someone…
Every thought in John’s head escaped him as he stopped at the middle of the bridge and watched as the oncoming figure stepped into the moonlight and stopped in front of him.
Maria.
Heredia sat in the communications center drinking his second cup of coffee. He had located the folder containing the last week’s reports and was sorting through them as he worked on this week’s reports. He set his coffee cup down on a coaster, making sure not to leave a ring on the dark, polished surface, and rifled through the papers until he found the one he wanted. He began to highlight a line when the phone suddenly rang; startling him. He wondered who would be calling at this hour as he picked up the phone.
“Heredia,” he answered.
“Sergeant, there is a call from North Central Command for you,” the operator informed him.
“Very well; put it through,” he said.
There was a pause of a few seconds and then an angry-sounding voice came on the line.
“Hello? Who is this?” the voice demanded.
“This is Master Sergeant Heredia,” he replied with obvious annoyance. “Who is this?”
“Heredia, this is Colonel Garcia of RID Command. Where is Colonel Martinez?”
“It is the middle of the night, colonel. I have no idea. Have you tried his private number?” Heredia was not about to give any information away about his boss; not even to RID Command.
“Yes, I tried his personal number! Listen to me, sergeant. This is an emergency situation of the highest priority. I am issuing you a 111. Do you understand what that means?”
Heredia blinked his eyes in surprise.
He knew what a 111 was, of course. It meant that any information he had could not be withheld from a member of RID Command on a clearance basis, regardless of its classified nature. Anyone issuing a 111 order could be brought up on serious charges if they could not justify doing so. It was just one step short of ordering a subordinate to disobey another superior officer’s orders, so being issued one meant something very serious was going on.
“Yes, I understand, sir.”
“Do you have any Class X prisoners at your facility?”
Heredia swallowed hard. John Wallace’s presence had been made beyond classified. Martinez meant that as superseding even a 111, and there would be hell to pay if he told Garcia about Wallace.
“Answer me, sergeant! Do you have any or not?”
“Yes, sir,” Heredia answered. “We have one.”
“Who are you holding, sergeant? Every minute matters, so answer me now.”
“John Wallace, sir.”
There was silence on the other end for so long that Heredia thought the line had gone dead. Finally, he heard a different voice come on the line.
“Heredia, this is High General Rodriguez. I want you to listen very carefully to what I am about to tell you. I want you to go personally get a visual on John Wallace and confirm he is there. Go do it now. I will wait here on the line.”
“Yes, sir, I am going now, sir.”
He set the phone on the desk and hurried to the elevator. What was going on? The elevator stopped at the black level, and he went through the protocols to open the doors granting him access. Everything seemed to be taking forever. He growled with impatience as he entered the 16 digit code and swiped his card. The door buzzed, and he practically ran down the hall to where Diaz sat bored to tears.
“Open the heavy door to Wallace’s cell!” he urged Diaz, who looked at him as though his hair was on fire.
“Man, you know Martinez said to leave him alone until he was ready,” Diaz began.
“Command is on the line upstairs!” Heredia thundered. “Open the door now!”
