The Gates_The Arrival

by Max Wyatt

  “I highly doubt we need a photojournalist for a fashion magazine,” Daniel said to great laughs.

  Harper sank to her seat, feeling the blood drain from her face. How did he know? How in the world would he know? She didn’t think that even Finn knew what she did. And she sure as hell knew she hadn’t told anyone.

  “Given how much money Finn has put into this place, I suspect he could invite anyone he wants,” an older woman sang out, with several voices seconding the comment.

  How much money has Finn spent here? Harper found herself thinking about the wall with the high tech gate. Power. All the buildings. The whole place had to be crazy expensive. He’s used his inheritance. When his parents died, how much were they worth? She’d heard the number to be in the millions. It had never meant anything to her. He’d always been just Finn.

  But he couldn’t possibly be the only investor.

  She found herself looking around the room. Noting, with an eye that had grown practiced to understanding fashion in the last year, just what people were wearing. Expensive hiking boots. Sweaters that could have come from the pages of AIRS. Some of these people had money too. She was willing to bet her last dollar on it.

  Rich people. Professional people. Who had prepared for exactly this end to the world?

  It seemed very…specific.

  Daniel called them to order again. “As I was saying, given the nature of the attack—”

  “But what is the nature of the attack?” a skinny man holding a small child asked. The little girl clung to his neck, her eyes wide and frightened.

  “Yeah, tell us what’s going on!”

  The voices rose around them, urgent. Demanding.

  Finn held up his hands for silence. “We’re experiencing a terrorist attack. The power grid of has been compromised across the globe. They’re demanding ransom—”

  He could get no further. The room erupted again into chaos.

  “They need better organization,” Tara muttered for Harper’s ears only.

  Harper nodded, still chafing at Daniel’s attack on her job. Except…

  “They must have had it at some point. This place didn’t build itself.”

  They exchanged glances. Someone was missing.

  It was Daniel who broke through the noise. “What my esteemed colleague isn’t telling you is that the group is called ‘The Rise.’ So far they’re claiming no known affiliation. As of this point, with no one paying the ransom, the world is plunging into chaos. The whole world. Not just us. Canada too. Wherever they have electricity up there.”

  Again that sneer. Harper stared at him, hating his smug superiority. Hating everything about the little man who was somehow coming to be in charge. Marsden was trying to say something, trying to calm the crowd as people started shooting questions at Daniel. Harper saw Finn shake his head and leave. He looked positively livid.

  Harper nudged Tara and together they rose and headed for the door.

  “You didn’t know,” Harper said as soon as they caught up to Finn out on shaded walkway that ran between the houses. “You didn’t know who was behind this.”

  Finn flexed his fingers several times. “Maybe the better question to ask is how did he know.”

  “You mentioned something about the black net or something…?” Harper asked, reaching out to still his fingers before they found something to hit.

  “The Dark Net? Daniel is on the Dark Net?” Tara skidded to a halt, half turning to look behind them, as if she expected someone to be coming behind them. “Is it still up?”

  “It might be. I don’t know. I only dabbled a little back in college, I haven’t been in there since. Though I’d bet a great deal of money that he has.” Finn didn’t say who ‘he’ was.

  “What are you talking about? I didn’t understand it before,” Harper asked, realizing that she was still holding Finn’s hand and dropping it quickly, hoping he didn’t see the blush that she could feel forming.

  “You know that the internet started in the seventies as a way for the military and colleges and emergency services to coordinate in times of nuclear war, right?”

  Tara nodded. Harper shrugged. “Sure.”

  “Well, it did, they hooked it across the country and built the whole thing on TCP/IP protocol… Never mind. The fact is, the beginning of the internet was this communications connection. The way it was built allows computers to find other computers through these addresses.”

  “Like using an internet address on the search bar?”

  “Kind of…”

  “Yes,” Tara interrupted. “That. When you type in a place you want to go to, it looks for a number that goes with that address and connects you.”

  “Right.” Finn nodded at Tara. “Well, there were some places that didn’t get the numbers, that other computers can’t find through a search. They’re still there on the internet but they’re invisible.”

  “You can only get to them with special software,” Tara said, looking at Finn. Harper wasn’t sure she was following but the look Tara gave Finn was disquieting to say the least.

  “So what’s the point of having computers you can’t find?”

  “Harper,” Tara said, glancing at Finn before answering. “If you can’t find them, you can’t track them. You can’t search them for illegal activity either.”

  “Rumor has it that there’s a huge human trafficking site on the dark web,” Finn said, “any kind of perversion, or drug or…information. And it’s all completely without any regulation or any way to be controlled.”

  “Because no one can find it, unless they already know where to look,” Tara whispered and shivered though it was still warm out.

  “Is that how he knew who I am? Where I work I mean?” Harper asked, feeling more than a little frightened suddenly.

  “I don’t know. Either he’s been doing some crazy wicked internet surfing, or…” Finn’s eyes grew suddenly dark. “Or, he’s one of them.”

  “One of who?” Harper asked, feeling more and more lost as the conversation progressed.

  “One of them. The Rise.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Finn

  Finn stepped out of the little house he’d once rather counted on never seeing again and rubbed his eyes. It had been a tiring trip and he felt every mile. He tried to not hear the bump he’d felt when leaving the construction area. For a while he’d thought he’d escaped that particular memory, but as it turned out the sickening, wet sound still followed him. It had only been waiting until he’d had a quiet moment to rear its ugly head.

  He let Harper and Tara unpack as best they could and decided to seek out familiar faces, let the people he once knew well know that he was back. By not staying until the end of the meeting, he’d lost a chance to talk to people. Now after seeing Harper, who he’d thought he’d known pretty well, he was wondering how much everyone else had changed.

  Harper. Funny how she’d gone from the delightful airhead he’d dated all those years ago to someone so serious…so feisty. He grinned at the memory of her standing up in the meeting, with no idea what to say, but intent to say it all the same. That certainly wasn’t the Harper he’d known and…liked.

  What did you expect? I suspect everyone’s changed in the past few days.

  Something about fleeing from a terrorist attack that made one firmer and harder. Harper was stronger, leaner somehow in ways that weren’t physical. Finn wasn’t sure if he liked the new Harper or not, but she was far better suited for what might be her new life. There didn’t seem to be a lot of room for innocence anymore.

  He wondered how he’d changed.

  He thought about Daniel, a nerdy nobody back in college who’d always been in everyone’s business. He’s definitely not the same…

  It was an unsettling thought.

  He stood under the fading sun and stretched, popping his back and flexing. He turned in the direction of the gate and tried to see if, by some miracle, he could conjure up Erik. He sent a silent thought to his fri
end and heard someone squeal.

  “Finn?!” he turned around to a woman jumping into his arms, her hands on the back of his neck and holding him tight.

  “Margret?” She hugged him to the point where he was finding it difficult to breathe. He reached up to pry away her hands, but wound up encircling her in a long hug instead. Who needed breath when one had a beautiful woman in his arms?

  When she released him and stepped back, he noticed her expression. She was delighted to see him, that stood out prominently. But there was a sadness in those eyes, almost as if the years had hollowed her out.

  “Hey, are you all right?” It was a stupid question and one he regretted as soon as he’d said it. The world was falling apart around them, of course she was upset. Everyone was upset. But her reaction surprised him.

  “Well…” she glanced around and pulled on his arm, tugging him back under the trees to a path he almost hadn’t seen. “Let’s head over to my place and get caught up, shall we?” she said with a bright, wide smile on her face that seemed to be screwed on tightly and using a voice just a little too loud for the occasion.

  Okay, so either she wanted to talk privately, or she had something in mind that he would have killed for a few years back. He hoped it wasn’t the latter. With Harper staying at his place, things were already confusing enough.

  “It really is good to see you again!” she said as they walked, and this time it was with a genuine delight. Margret lived beside Finn’s small house, and though hers wasn’t that much larger, she lived there all year. She worked as a freelancer, he remembered. She’d always liked the solitude. She spoke in inanities while they walked, never letting him actually say anything. She chattered about the weather, and finally the current events outside the safety of the walls. It seemed to Finn that she was just filling the empty space until they could get indoors. He looked uneasily over to his own house before stepping inside hers. He wondered what Harper would say if she happened to glance out the window now and see him.

  He then had to remind himself that it didn’t matter in the least what Harper thought one way or another. He wondered if he was listening.

  Inside the house, he could smell the tantalizing aroma of coffee in the air. Finn remarked on the smell and Margret rushed into the little kitchen to pour them each a cup.

  “Finn…” She said cautiously coming out with two mugs and container of cream on a tray. “…how bad is it out there, really?”

  He watched her set the tray on the table between them and poured some of the cream into the coffee. He stopped and looked up at her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t… Cream isn’t going to be easy to get hold of…”

  “…oh, don’t worry about that.” Margret assured him. “We’ve added a small dairy since you were here last and besides, what I have now won’t last any longer by hoarding back on it. Use it while it’s fresh.” She waved at his hand and he poured a little more into the coffee.

  “It’s pretty bad,” Finn said, sitting back with his mug and sipping the comforting heat. “People are running in circles. There’s been some violence, some shootings…”

  “I saw the back of your car,” Margret interrupted. “You were shot at.”

  The coffee he was drinking went down wrong. He set the mug down, coughing frantically. She patted him on the back until things subsided. “I was. Fortunately, they didn’t damage the car too badly.” Don’t ask me. Don’t ask for more details.

  “They? As in more than one?”

  Finn sighed and told her about the construction site, about the men in the shadows. He talked about Mike and the old man too, but left out the part where he felt the bump in the night when his car exacted a terrible vengeance for being shot up.

  When he was done, Margret shuddered and fixed him a new cup. Finn was surprised to note that he’d finished the last one.

  “A lot has changed since you’ve been gone Finn,” she said without any preamble. “Johnathan left…”

  “Johnathan?” Finn could not have been more shocked. “All this…” His grand gesture was meant to indicate the campground and the surrounding area, “all of it, was his idea! Why would he leave…?”

  “Yes, but it was kind of Daniel’s too…”

  “Daniel?” Finn scoffed. "Daniel never had an original idea. He just talks over people until they’re willing to agree to anything to get him to shut up.”

  Margret cocked her head to one side and thought for a while. “You might be right,” she conceded, “it’s been long enough that I’m no longer sure…” She bit her lip and her eyes tried to focus on something far away.

  “When Johnathan left,” she continued after a minute, “Daniel declared himself ‘Mayor’ in Johnathan’s place. Marsden doesn’t agree. He has followers…things have been somewhat divided. I…I’m worried about him, Finn. He’s…he’s different, especially when reports of…” she looked out the window. “When we started to hear about the…the riots and lootings…” She set her cup down and looked at him. “Finn… Daniel became paranoid. Rabidly so. We formed this community to be a bulwark against the end of the world, we’ve all been expecting it in our way, but he’s growing worse and worse every day.”

  She took a long drink of the coffee and stared into the cup. “I…I was afraid to say anything outside, that’s why I rushed you in here so fast. He’s got people reporting to him, people who listen in on conversations and report back any kind of complaints or gripes…anything that might usurp his authority.” She looked up at Finn, fear lining her eyes. “It’s been bad enough listening to what’s going on in the world, Finn, but lately I’ve been afraid to leave my own home. I have to though, I mean, I have to do my share, help out, take care of the animals and the gardens and…” she caught herself and bit her lower lip. Finn could see her trying to take herself in hand.

  “I’m sorry. I just don’t know who else I can trust, who else I can talk to, and you’ve been gone so long…at least I know you’re not part of his crew.” She managed a smile and took a large pull of coffee as if to get the taste of the conversation out of her mouth.

  “What do you think is happening out there?” Finn asked her quietly.

  “In the world?” She set her cup down and took a deep breath, “Well…” she barked a quick nervous laugh, “I…guess…I guess in a way, I’m not surprised. This place was built for just such a contingency. I mean, that’s why we’re all here to begin with, right?”

  “No,” Finn confessed. “I just wanted to get off the grid, to unplug. I bought into this place because I wanted to be out of the world of high-tech, non-humans. I just wanted simple.”

  “You?” Margret laughed, “you, the great computer expert, wanted to raise veggies and milk goats?”

  Finn smiled. “Guilty.”

  “So why did you leave?”

  “Because this place needed money. I needed to buy my share, build my home, invest in the land and all that…and let me tell you, the money was good. Really good.”

  It was a lie. He’d used his inheritance, but no one needed to know that.

  “And what’s it worth now?”

  Finn remembered what Tara had said about the cost of gas, both in money and in the toll of lives. “Now,” he said, “it’s worth my house and all the food stored in it. The money might be useless now, but the preparations it bought me are still here.”

  “You haven’t been here in years, Finn, so how did all that precious food stuffs make it into your house?”

  Finn looked at her. He tried to not let it show, but the floor vanished from under his feet. “I sent the money here, to Randy and Jill. They got what I asked for.”

  “And so they know what you’re stockpiling.” Margret said. “And they both work for Daniel.”

  “Margret,” Finn said, noticing the coffee had gone cold in his hand, “sometimes you have to pick someone and trust them. Sometimes you don’t have a choice.”

  “So why didn’t you pick me?”

  Because Finn didn’t want to choose he
r. “Because you weren’t here when I left.”

  Margret nodded and looked away. There was nothing more to be said. She’d left for a short stay but the powers that be proclaimed her fit to live on her own and sent her back. Finn wasn’t entirely sure.

  “I’m a prepper from way back.” Margret said, a half-smile on her face.

  “I remember.”

  “I saw those two girls,” her smile now was genuine, a big sister tormenting the little brother. “Wanna fill me in on what’s going on there?”

  “I think I told you about Erik and Harper. I used to date Harper…”

  “Oh, right. Your buddy and his sister.” Margret nodded. “She’s the one that was a little…flighty?”

  It was accurate enough, Finn gave her that much. It was in no way the Harper that was currently next door.

  “So you starting that up again, or is it her friend?” Margret got a positively wicked gleam in her eye, “Or is it both?”

  Finn laughed. “Neither. It’s…not like that. Besides, Erik should be here soon.”

  “He’d better be.” Margret sounded positively foreboding. “I’m hearing rumors that Daniel is locking the whole complex, no one in or out.”

  “He can’t do that! We all own a share, we all have input.”

  “Just because you own a share, that doesn’t mean that the girls over there have a right to be here, nor your friend. They need food and water and plumbing, but you only contributed as a single.”

  She didn’t know. Of course she didn’t. He stared her down, not saying a word.

  She smiled. “Don’t look so crestfallen. With any luck, we’ll get attacked from the outside and we can all band together to fight off the hordes.”

  “Thanks,” Finn said flatly. “You have no idea how much that means to me.”

  “Look at the bright side, there are bound to be casualties. That should open up some room, wouldn’t you think? Three people die, there’s your guests.”

  “Margret…”

  “No, Finn, no. you listen to me. I have been prepping for this for a long, long time. You have food, shelter and two pretty girls with you. Sooner or later you will have to defend yourself, your goods and your friends. You will have to. Come by tomorrow,” she stood with a great smile and gathered the coffee cups. “I’ll start teaching you.”