by Lund, Dave
“Sweetie, we have a whole library on one of the servers, don’t you worry your little head about it,” Shane said casually.
“Talk like that to my mother again and I will cut off your tiny dick and shove it so far up your ass you’ll chew on the tip.”
Everyone gaped at Erin, who stood to the side of the desk, casually picking her fingernails with her knife. She stopped and looked at Shane. “And that will only be the beginning … sweetie.”
Jake laughed nervously. “Right, well, I’m sure Shane here will be more than helpful, if not then Jason knows the systems, he’ll take care of it.”
Jason looked up from his shoes at Jake before taking a nervous glance at Erin. His voice cracking, he said, “You … you bet, Jake.”
Jake looked at the clock on the wall. “Well, I’m needed elsewhere about five minutes ago, so good luck and if any of you need anything, please ask.”
The sound of his footsteps on the polished concrete floor seemed to be sucked into silence from the heavy tension in the room. After the door shut behind him, Shane glanced at Erin and turned to Jessie. “What exactly do you need?”
“We’re not sure yet, but for now I know we need magazines for our ARs, some better cold-weather gear, lots of ammo, and in a perfect world we would have some plywood, a circular saw, some two foot by two foot wooden posts and some paper targets for when we are able to start up the training.”
“The building materials I don’t think we have, but I think we might actually have rifle targets … the clothing is no problem. How many magazines and how much ammo do you want?”
SSC, Ennis, TX
Amanda tried to pull up the overhead imagery of the area, but the computer systems weren’t responding and were giving strange errors. Frustrated, she was about to go find Clint when he walked into the command center.
“Hey, what’s the deal with the computers? I can’t get any of the satellite overhead imagery to pull up.”
“That’s because those servers aren’t stored here.”
“So?”
“We can only access systems that are physically located in this facility.”
“Since when, and why? What about our chat link with Groom Lake?”
“Hackers. Chinese hackers might be targeting Groom Lake; Cliff is en route to find out. Depending on what he comes up with then we might be able to slowly start putting our systems back on-line.”
Amanda sat at the terminal for a moment, anger flashing through her mind before she took a breath and a moment to carefully form her thoughts. “You’ve known about this and didn’t tell me? That’s not how this is all supposed to work … so there might be Chinese hackers still alive, and rather than focusing on surviving their own societal destruction they’re trying to penetrate our secure systems? That doesn’t make any sense; besides, what about the Koreans?”
“Oh, the Koreans are involved, they’re involved fully, but the Chinese have Unit 61398, among others. They’re good, they’re very good, and they’re as good if not better than we are.”
“I still don’t understand why, though.”
Clint sat down, nodding. “Madam President, there are some things that are classified so highly that even the sitting POTUS is kept in the dark. This was one of those things … but times are changing rapidly, so please keep with me; this is going to cover a lot of ground.”
Struggling to keep a neutral expression, anger flooded through Amanda. Clint was her confidant and friend, her lover and helpful guide through these drastic times, and yet he still kept secrets.
“First we have to start with the mindsets and population issues. The North Koreans, they’re the labor after arriving. China is orchestrating the invasion …”
“Wait, invasion?”
Clint held up a hand. “We’ll get there, just keep with me for a couple of minutes. Yes, the invasion. Our own imagery showed China completely overrun; North Korea was the anomaly; most everyone vanished. China appeared practically destroyed, and North Korea, well, it appeared practically destroyed to begin with. The intelligence estimates indicated that China was willing to euthanize two-thirds of their population to make the plan work. They needed the reduction in people and they needed the false flag operation. The EMP, the Yama strain and what came next in the collapse of everything and extreme casualty rate, that is what they wanted. Think about what’s left in the U.S.: most of the infrastructure remains intact but in need of repair. The electrical grid alone will take teams of people a few years to bring back on-line, but the lines are still run along poles to practically every building and home in the country. Same with phone service, sewer, water … what wasn’t destroyed during the collapse is all sitting here ready to be rebooted all over our country. And China wants to step in and take it all.”
“But the dead, the reanimates, how are they going to overcome them?”
“We believed that’s what they were still working on when we were attacked, the cure, a kill switch, whatever you want to call it; we thought we had more time, but obviously we didn’t. Either they figured it out or are waiting trying to figure it out now.”
“Then how did the Chinese and North Koreans survive?”
“Tunnels, facilities like this one, and careful government planning. Think of it as an ark to weather the storm.”
“But I still don’t get … why the hackers?”
“They know that facilities like Groom Lake exist. Hell, just about anyone in the Western world knows about Area 51, although they don’t really know what is out there. The Denver facility under the airport, well, quite a few knew about that. This facility is one of the newest and most secret. That’s one reason why we came here, that’s why we haven’t broadcast for survivors. I’m trying to keep us hidden. We lost communications due to the Chinese; they either blocked our communications electronically or have physically destroyed those satellites with their own intercepting assets in space. Regardless, once that happened I knew we were in trouble; that’s why I sent word to Cliff to check on the unit in Granite Mountain.”
“The numbers broadcast, that was how you knew? That was Cliff?”
“Yes. I’m sorry I lied to you about that, but I had to.”
Amanda frowned, staring at Clint. “What is Granite Mountain?”
“That’s where the Mormons keep all of their genealogy records.”
“So what?”
“So we helped them build that facility, along with a small addition in the back that only a few dozen people know exist. That’s where our version of the hacker unit is set up; they live and work there. We keep them supplied with pizza, energy drinks, and whatever their vices may be, and together they are the man behind the curtain. Remember Stuxnet?”
“What?”
“Stuxnet, the computer virus?”
“I don’t know, maybe, vaguely.”
“That was these guys; it got out in the wild, which caused minor problems for people, but the virus destroyed centrifuges at the Natanz plant in Iran, setting their nuclear program back years. Those computer wonks are amazing, really.”
“They’re still alive?”
“We don’t know, that’s why I sent Cliff to investigate. They went dark recently and it was either due to their choice, the Chinese, or an accident. Hopefully it was something they did on purpose and they’re working behind the scenes.”
Amanda shook her head. “You said invasion?”
“Yes, the last intelligence estimate was that the Chinese would wait twelve to twenty-four months before attempting the invasion via the West Coast. That would give the Yama Strain enough time to kill off all but a few of the population, making their invasion basically as easy as walking into a vacant house. Nothing to do but clean the dust off the mantel.”
Sitting back into her chair, Amanda quietly thought over what he’d told her.
“The survival of the country isn’t enough; the survival of those people who aren’t walking corpses isn’t enough, but we have to be ready to fend off an invasion too.
”
“We have time.”
“Maybe, maybe not. You all thought you had more time before and now look where we are! Can we get a message to Groom Lake?”
“Not without going back online, and I want to wait to hear from Cliff to do that.”
“Then all we can do is keep on doing what we’ve been doing?”
“For now, the plan is that Groom Lake amasses the civilians while we gather up remaining military personnel from wherever they may be, and get them in position on the Wes Coast by next year.”
“How—”
Clint interrupted her. “Amanda, Cliff and I are working on it; this is going to take some time, we’ll get it, but first we have to wait.”
“Wait? Wait for what?”
“Cliff will check in when he gets to Granite Mountain, depending on what the computer wonks tell him. If by some miracle some remnants of our military fighting force hasn’t survived, he … he may be heading to Wyoming.”
“What’s in Wyoming, more secret facilities you haven’t told me about?”
“No. Minute Men III silos, ICBMs. You might be making a very important Presidential order soon.”
Amanda stared at Clint, wondering if anything he told her could be trusted and what he believed her actual role was, regardless of her title.
“What about the farming and other preparations?”
“Complete waste of time. We have a war to fight first, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt anything to let you play in the dirt and do your thing for a while.”
Amanda paused; she wanted to tell Clint to go fuck himself, but now that she knew he wasn’t going to be completely truthful with her, she felt like she needed to treat him with kid gloves, a soft, gentle grip on her situation.
“No, it isn’t a complete waste of time and now we have something else I need to accomplish while we wait for your plan to come to fruition. I was trying to find imagery and information about the towns near here. I’m looking for a farmer’s co-op, a feed store, anything along those lines. There are many supplies we need. I also need to find a library.”
“A library?”
“Yes, I’m the SecAg turned President, but I was never a hands-on farmer. Besides the equipment, seeds, and fertilizer I’ll need from the stores, I need information, books, planting schedules, reference materials. For all the technology this damned place has, it doesn’t have any good reference material to help someone actually rebuild the country … and this country was built through the labor of farmers and others like them.”
“Fine. Go into the tunnel and get a truck … get an MRAP, turn it over to make sure it cranks up, make sure the tires aren’t flat and such. I’ll put together what I can find for maps in the meantime. This evening we’ll go over it all and work up a plan for tomorrow.
“That’s a start, but what’s an ‘M-wrap’?”
“I’m sure you really care what the acronym stands for; it’s a big armored truck we used in the last Iraq war. You can’t miss it. There should be a few of them.”
Amanda slung her rifle and walked out of the room, door slamming behind her. Clint watched her leave and checked the clock. He wasn’t happy; if the Lazarus project had gone as planned he wouldn’t be babysitting someone who didn’t understand what she had to, no, needed to accomplish. He could have just delivered her to safety and let the interior teams take over. I don’t have time for these stupid games, I shouldn’t have been weak and I should have kept my damn dick in my pants; I have a mission to accomplish.
CHAPTER 16
Groom Lake, NV
March 19, Year 1
From the cold yellow glow of the morning light, new arrivals trickled into the hangar that housed the main entrance to the underground facility. Jason’s typical duties of greeter had been handed off to a substitute, another seasoned survivor and resident of Groom Lake. The battered, tired and starved survivors stumbling past looked more like the dead than the living.
The team was gathered in their training area within the hangar. Jason was at the front of the line, and Jessie and Sarah were behind him with about three yards spacing between each of them. They weren’t going to be kicking in doors like some SWAT team; they would open a door, bang on it, make some noise and wait for any undead to come to them. It was safer, even if it took slightly more time with each building. But they were only training at the moment. The three of them stood by an imaginary doorframe.
“Great, just like that one more time and I think we’ll be ready to go.”
Jessie and Sarah decided to start with the easy buildings first, or at least what they guessed to be the easy buildings. The dormitories to the south would be one of the last of the buildings they cleared. The FJ still sat in the hangar where they’d left it. The group drove out the front of the hangar, turning left towards the north and following the wide tarmac the short distance to the first cluster of buildings on the edge of the dry lake bed. They had no idea what was actually in the buildings; neither did Jake or Major Wright.
Keys were a problem, or key cards actually; they brought one that Major Wright’s guys had programmed which should work on every door they found, but Jessie had Jason bring a short-barreled shotgun just in case. If the keycard didn’t work, the twelve-gauge universal key would.
They left the FJ idling on the road by the first building. Erin opted to stay with the vehicle, and she sat on the roof rack with her M4 and her big rifle, just in case someone came shambling along looking for breakfast. No one knew whether there were any survivors in the buildings, but the general consensus was that there weren’t any. With all of the commotion aboveground since the beginning of their stay—the comings and goings of the C-130, the daily arrivals—any survivors would have ventured out at some point. No, if there was anyone left in any of the buildings aboveground they would be dead and reanimated.
Jessie pressed the key card against the black square on the door frame; the small red light turned green and the door clicked. The card went back into her shirt pocket as she backed away from the door. Jason pulled the door open, held it open with his foot and slapped the metal door a few times, calling out to anyone inside the building.
They waited and made more noise, but nothing appeared in the dark hallway. Each of them switched on their headlamps and the powerful lights on their rifles and shotgun before stepping inside.
The night before, while they were kitting up in the warehouse-sized supply room, they’d found night vision gear. As excited as Jason was to play with the top-of-the-line items, the group decided to stick to regular lights. None of them had used or trained with night vision before and it could cause them more problems than they were worth. Jason was disappointed, but he kept a set to play with in his free time.
The trio stepped into the dark hallway, their lights cutting through the darkness, sweeping back and forth as they turned their heads, the metal door shutting behind them. Slowly they walked down the hallway to a row of closed office doors, but as they walked the lights clicked on, activated by motion sensors.
“Well that’s helpful,” Jessie said to no one in particular.
Jason stopped in the hallway, an office door on his left and his right. “What now?”
Sarah motioned down the hall with her head. “Jessie can watch the hallway, I’ll keep an eye on this door, and you knock on your door. Wait for a response then open it. Depending on how big the room is we can either stay out in the hallway or we all can go in together. “
Jason nodded and rapped on the door with his knuckles, his other hand still clutching the pump action of his shotgun. They waited. Jason knocked again and they waited some more. No response came from the room or anywhere else.
“If there was any undead in here do you think they would have set off the motion lights?”
Sarah shrugged. “Probably, Jason, but I wouldn’t count on it.”
Jason pushed the door open slowly; the small office looked perfectly normal, with a cheap desk in the middle, a computer on the desk, a few photos
on the shelves and desk, and a dead plant on top of the filing cabinet.
“It’s small; I’ll check it quickly and be back out.”
Jason stepped into the office, checking behind the door and under the desk, the only places something could be hiding, and found nothing.
“Coming back out,” Jason called out before stepping back into the hallway. He thought it was silly, but Jessie was very specific about how she wanted everyone to act and move. Jessie had said that she and Bexar had gone through some training, which was more than Jason had done. His training had been quick, fast, and dirty after the Cult declared war against them in Cortez.
Sarah started the same process Jason had done with the door on her side of the hallway.
Twenty minutes later, the first building was clear. All they found were a couple of empty offices and a workshop that had a fairly good complement of hand tools. None of them were sure what the building was for, but a little workshop might come in handy. Sitting back in the cab of the FJ, the heater on, Jessie labeled the building on the overhead image as “Building 1” and made some notes on a notepad about what they’d found.
Erin drove a few dozen yards forward and parked in an open area between three buildings and a huge satellite dish pointed towards the sky. They climbed out of the FJ and started the process all over again, one building at a time, leaving one person on guard outside.
Two hours later, the group was back in the FJ, snacking on some crackers and drinking the hot chocolate they’d brought with them. Jessie thought about Bexar and how he would probably want to clear the buildings at a faster pace, but she felt comfortable moving slowly and deliberately, trying to minimize their risks the best they could. She absentmindedly rubbed her small baby bump. Get this crap cleared and set up a range, then I can relax and train others, let them do the hard work, the dangerous work. What a crazy world we live in.
SSC, Ennis, TX
