by Ray, Joseph
“I believe that warrants an investigation,” Garber replied. “With the Military Advisory program shut down, we’ll have to rely on the I.I.U. to investigate Parasus involvement. Wilkes, reach out to them and get the ball rolling on an investigation. Tell them to be subtle about it though. I don’t want to cause a war when we’re trying to prevent one.”
“I’ll make contact as soon as we’re done Mr. President,” Jana replied, making a note on her data pad. "I’ll request that Calloway stay out of it. His involvement could make things worse.”
“Good idea,” Garber added. “Like him or not, Monasaul Isom is an ally. I’d like to keep it that way if possible. What other planets come to mind?”
“Veelona,” Wayne stated. “Their government has been on us for years over the amount of tax we require. They’re ship builders, so all we can do is tax the hell out of them. Negotiations last for months whenever the treaty expires.”
“Taurus,” Kendra added. “The farmers can’t keep up with our agricultural requirements. Even with our population dwindling, our requirements are still rising every year. We still haven’t managed to feed a million people on our own.”
“No, Taurus lacks the resources for this type of attack,” Jana said. “There are no scientific researchers that dwell in cybernetics on either of those planets. I’m not saying they’re not involved, but neither could do it on their own.”
“Are you suggesting a collaboration?” Wayne asked. “That multiple planets are conspiring to take down the Earth? We have eyes and ears everywhere. If such an event occurred, we’d already know about it. We control the big rings and who uses them. We could easily go back to see what planets have sent dignitaries to the same systems at the same time, but I’d doubt we’d find anything useful.”
“It’d be pointless,” Garber added. “That would rely on the assumption that the travel manifest was correct. It wouldn’t take much to sneak a team of dignitaries onto a supply ship. We’d never be the wiser.”
“That leads us back to the main questions,” Kendra said, looking to President Garber. “What do we have that others would want, and whom would be our enemies?”
“These Sons of Abraham would be worth investigating,” Wayne interrupted. “It could be a cover, but it could also lead to some truth. Agent Calloway was friends with Joseph. He’d be motivated to find answers. We should appoint him in charge of the investigation.”
“No!” Garber snapped. “Nathan Calloway is currently the most recognized I.I.U. Agent on the roster. We need him performing his normal duties, ESPECIALLY with the MA’s out of the picture. We can’t allow jurisdiction disputes to rise up once more. I agree it needs to be investigated, but he is the last person I want to head the inquiry.”
“That brings us back to our assets,” Kendra said. “If this is a matter of what the Earth has to offer, then the MA and I.I.U. programs would be the lead export. We have little else to offer other planets that our investigative and criminal justices support.”
“Don’t forget about technology,” Wayne interrupted. “We still hold the methods for everything the first gen Cybers created. Sure, Eden has the market on artificial gravity, but the Earth holds all the other keys. The last terraship was used up centuries ago, and I’d imagine that there are other technologies that other governments would kill to get their hands on.”
Jana grew quiet at the mentioning of the terraforming technology. She would have had to excuse herself if the Gabriel Rings had been mentioned. She perused the room, realizing that she may not have been the only one being victimized by the unknown attackers. Perhaps one, or all of the other members of the table were being blackmailed as well. It made sense. Push hard on each of them individually, and you would likely be rewarded. She knew Garber too well to think he was being attacked, but Wayne and Kendra were a bit of a mystery to her. It was possible that one of them was even one of the attackers. They told her this morning that they would take a more direct approach to the matter. Was this what they meant?
“It’s possible,” Garber replied. “But that leaves us waiting for a demand or ransom. I’d suggest we keep key figures gridlocked until we know for sure. I don’t want there to be a hostage situation.”
“There are a few scheduled to go to Eden for the festival,” Kendra said. “I can’t imagine they’d like being shut out from the event. Myself included.”
“I can’t risk it,” Garber replied. “You being off planet makes you vulnerable. I know you need to work with the scientists on Eden to solve our problems, but make them come here. I’ll send a formal apology to the Queen. She has a great deal of wisdom for such a young woman, I’m certain she’ll understand. She may even sympathize and offer us aid. Eden has always remained neutral in the affairs of other worlds, but it wouldn’t help to try.”
Kendra Hill sat back in her chair, doing her best to remain calm. The Gathering Festival on Eden occurred once every ten years. This was to be her first time attending the gala, something she’d dreamed of since obtaining her position. She understood the President’s position, but she NEEDED to get to that Festival.
“That leads me to wonder if this WAS the full attack,” Widox stated. “9/11, Washington, Paris…..they were all one-time events with several, lesser attacks attempted afterward. We may be overreacting to the situation.”
“I’d rather overreact than under,” Garber muttered. “Besides, Washington was an act of war, not a terrorist attack.”
“What’s the difference,” Wayne replied. “Both are acts of aggression. It seems the attacks are classified by whether a country or organizations were behind them. I see little difference between the two.”
“The difference is the declaration,” Garber snapped. “If someone is foolish enough to go to war with us, then so be it. I’d rather receive a formal declaration tomorrow than wait another month for the next attack. At least, then we could make the proper preparations.”
“They’re only being foolish if they don’t know who would support us,” Jana added. “If Veelona is involved, then we’ll have no warships to replenish what we lose in battle. It’d just be a matter of time before we surrendered.”
The room drew silent, each contemplating what it meant for the Earth to be surrendered. It wouldn’t be the first time that another planet fired upon the mother planet, but times had changed greatly since the Earth/Taryon war.
“We should also consider this being an inside job as well,” Widox stated. “Wasn’t that long ago that Parasus was under a different rule. Isom gained his power through force. It’d be foolish to think that we are invulnerable to such an attempt.”
“No, I’m not ruling out anything, nor anyone,” Garber muttered. “The Cybers may merely be pawns of terror, but there is a puppet master out there, plotting his next move.
3 CHAPTER three
Sargent Bearden and Corporal James reached the tower. A blind man could tell the difference between the tower and the remainder of the facility. Where the facility itself was dark and metal, the tower was white and pristine. The entrance was the same as many of the other hallways, but the same metal doors that spliced down the center in their pocket frames were white, with blue control panels next to them. The lack of security out front was the first area of concern for the Sargent.
“Should be two men posted out here,” Bear whispered.
“Maybe they’re inside,” Janys replied. “We can’t know for sure out here.”
Bear held his rifle in both hands, his mind racing. The only other access to the tower, that wasn’t outside, would take him three miles out of his way. If Ilda and her team were in trouble then he couldn’t lose time retracing his steps to go the long way around. Besides, the other doorway would be the same as the one before him, offering him the same possibilities as he now faced. They could backtrack and go outside, enter from one of the exterior doors, but that would require a security clearance. They’d be announced as soon as they entered, given that they weren’t spotted from the glass panels on
the Tower’s exterior walls.
“Wait here,” he ordered. “You know what to do if you hear shots.”
“Uhm, no I don’t,” she replied.
“You come in and save my ass,” he snapped, punching the security code into the blue panel.
“That’s a monumentally stupid plan Sarge,” she replied, checking the hall behind them. “We should go in together.”
Bear activated his neck com, then slipped his rifle back off his shoulder. It felt heavy, a sign that he was getting fatigued. The adrenaline rush from the gunfight added with the lack of sleep was taking its toll. He damned himself for growing soft over the years, ever since the first day he’d begun to work for Divinity. Soldiers weren’t meant to stand guard over a bunch of scientists. It was like locking a lion behind a cage at a zoo. The lion still looked menacing, but its instincts were slowly dying. He didn’t need the metaphor to describe his wither, his body was showing the signs on the exterior. His muscles were growing soft, same as his hands and feet.
“I’ll broadcast the entire time I’m in there,” he muttered. “Just stay alert. I’ll let you know how many are in there. If the number is too high, go for support. If the number is small, get your bony ass in there. Got it?”
“Whatever you say, Sarge,” she replied, sliding to the left corner of the corridor. “You can count, right?”
“Only to twenty-one,” he laughed as the door opened.
She couldn’t respond with the door open, but she wanted to smack him for the twenty-one remark. Only a man would add in the twenty-first digit. She watched the mountain of a man disappear into the doorway a moment before the timer expired and the two halves sealed off once more.
Bear had stood at the entrance, uncertain of what he was expecting. The walls of the tower were the same white as the exterior hatch, with two rows of bench seats on opposite ends of an empty receptionist desk. He couldn’t imagine why there would be a reception desk at the facility as guests and visitors were few and far between. He imagined that some engineer felt the need to stick with the typical blueprint, taking no liberties to make better use of the entryway.
With his assault rifle raised, he chose one door over the other pushing the glass door open. It was double-plated, a thin line of frosting forming the shield and sword of the Divinity Corporation. The ‘D’ made the shield, the ‘V’ forming two swords, and their tips overlapping one another. It swung open with little effort, the hinges and mechanics tweaked to make the physics simple.
The scene was eerie, the long white hallways void of any traffic or noise. There should be lab assistants rushing from one lab to the next, or someone on the higher end of the spectrum, like Ilda, forcefully debating with another scientist. It was only his third time in the Tower over the last year, the last two to follow up with a complaint from one of the techs. Every trip had been laced with a beehive of workers, all buzzing around him as if he didn’t exist.
“Can I help you?” a female’s voice called from behind him.
Bear turned around, startled by the quiet appearance of the tiny woman before him. Her cheekbones were thick, nearly piercing through her tanned skin. The makeup around her eyes was heavy, as was her lipstick. Her hair was blonde, a streak of bangs hanging just over her eyes. The rest was pulled back in a tail, bobbing back and forth, as she walked. She wore the standard white lab coat, with tan pants and shoes. The lab coat was unbuttoned, a low cut white shirt lying beneath.
“I’m just checking in,” Bear replied, not looking away from the woman’s eyes. “We got the power back up.”
“Obviously,” she sighed. “Was there anything else, Sargent Bearden?”
Bear snapped the rifle taunt, his sites lined up with the woman’s nose. She jumped back and let out a short shriek. It was hollow, rehearsed, and just one of a line of reasons Bear had for targeting the startled woman.
“Can it,” he snapped. “Where is Ilda?”
“She…..she’s busy,” the woman stammered. “Maybe you could put the gun down. We’re all safe here.”
Bear smiled, keeping the gun aimed at her tiny head. He caught movement from the corner of his eye, the front door was opening. Janys had entered too soon.
“What the hell are you doing Sarge?” she asked. “Put the gun down before she wets herself!”
“Stand down Corporal,” he ordered. “Do you recognize this one?”
Janys looked at the short woman, trying to place her. The labs were full of women, making it impossible to remember each one by name. Janys usually stuck with the grunts, not wanting to listen about hairstyles and manicures. She knew that women didn’t talk about that crap, but they may as well have.
“I can’t place her,” Janys replied, lifting her weapon.
The small woman looked to both of them. Her right hand slid quickly into the pocket of her lab coat, but Bear’s cannon went off before she could retrieve the handgun hidden within. The white walls were sprayed with crimson as she fell backward, her head crashing into the floor. The blood pooled beneath her, almost black at the base of her neck.
“How’d you know?” Janys asked, pulling the handgun from the woman’s grip.
“Good God, couldn’t you?” he laughed, checking both doors. “Ilda would never let a woman wear low cut clothes, heavy makeup, and a lab assistant would never talk to a soldier like that. She had intruder written all over her.”
“Really?” she snapped. “She had ‘intruder’ written all over her? Do you shoot everyone who looks like that, or just women dressed up like whores?”
Bear gritted his teeth but kept his mouth shut. In general, people seldom called out something stupid that he’d said, mostly because he was a foot taller, and a hundred pounds heavier than everyone else. The few occasions where someone actually possessed the fortitude to call him stupid left him at a loss for words. He was never one to have a witty remark prepared for such an occurrence, leaving intimidation as his only weapon. Janys James, however, was not someone he bothered intimidating. Sure, she was scrawny, by so was a nail, which was exactly how tough the red haired Corporal was.
They didn’t bother hiding the body as the pool of blood on the ground was clear evidence of what had transpired. A search of her body yielded no results, the handgun being the only thing on her person. Janys acknowledged that she’d never met the woman, just as the Sargent moved through the next set of glass doors and pushed through. He made no effort to remain quiet, the gunshots having given away what advantage he’d possessed before encountering the short woman with the whorish makeup. Bearden was still baffled by her appearance. If she was one of the military Cybers whom they suspected were attacking, then she’d been an Advisor. Military Advisors stuck to the military protocols, meaning that she would not have worn her hair in that manner, nor would she have caked on the makeup. Was it a poor attempt to fit in? Did the Cybers think that secretaries dressed in such a manner? The thought still lingered when he suddenly realized that there was no one in the labs or meeting rooms. No attackers had crashed through the doorways, their guns blazing at him and the Corporal. No hostages had run out, thankful to be saved. The most troubling aspect was that there were no bodies to be found either. No blood, no broken glass, no bullet holes, and definitely no bodies. Did they just walk in and everything was handed to them upon arrival or was something more sinister at play?
“Would you have shot her?” he asked, allowing for a door to close to a vacant meeting room.
“What?” Janys asked, stepping out of the men’s bathroom.
Bear stopped his room-to-room check, blocking her from walking around him. He eyed her close, trying to determine if she hadn’t heard him, or if she was stalling to come up with the ‘proper’ answer. Janys wasn’t one to display her thoughts or feelings if they didn’t match the protocols that she’d memorized line for line. She was a ‘by the book’ type soldier. Normally, Bear found bookers to be an annoyance, but the Corporal seemed to be the exception to the norm. He’d tried twice to have her transf
erred to his security detail, but the Major had shut him down on both attempts. Apparently, someone else saw the value in her as well.
“Would you have shot her?” he repeated, looking into her pale eyes.
“Well yeah, when she pulled her gun I would have,” she announced, trying to look over his shoulder. “Why the big deal? You were right, okay. You want a cookie or something?”
He sighed, turning to face the remainder of the hall, yet to be checked. The two walked in silence, checking each lab and meeting room as they passed. His mind drifted back to conflicts from the past. Technically, he’d never been in a war, but politicians were the ones who decided what was a war and what was a skirmish. He’d lost too many friends because they hesitated when they should have fired. He’d sent too many messages through the rings to family members, telling them their kid fucked up and wouldn’t be coming home. True, he’d only written a small handful of such letters himself, but he’d request his superior officers run the letters through him. Majors and Captains usually had too many soldiers under their command to know each of them personally. Bear liked to tack on something personal about the deceased, telling a wife that her husband always remained faithful, or telling a son that their mom was always talking about the time they did something embarrassing. He felt it was important to remind the families that they weren’t the only ones whom would miss the fallen.
“You’d been dead back there,” he muttered, opening the door to the last lab on the left.
“Bullshit,” she snapped, letting a closet door slide shut on its own. “I’d nailed her the second her arm flinched.”
“And you’d been too late,” he reminded her. “If that was a Cyber back there, then you would have been dead. Everything they do is a step quicker than our brains can muster. I had my mind made up to pull the trigger the second her arm flinched, and she still managed to get her gun halfway out of her pocket. If you were still debating when she went to pull, you’d been dead. I’d be writing your dad tonight, telling him how you always stuck to protocol because that’s how he raised you. I’d be telling him how proud I was to serve with you, how I’d wished you’d been under my direct command, and I’d been thanking him for raising you the way he did. Face it slim, if that was you back there, you’d be dead.”
