The GODD Chip (The Unity of Four Book 1)

by K Patrick Donoghue

  Sarah shrugged. “I can try, but he’s an Evvie Guild member through and through. Very rigid in his views. Very by the book about everything to do with gutant laws. He feels the same way about sterilizing me and the girls. Minimum waiting period. Get it done and move on.”

  As Yon watched Sarah begin to weep, her stomach cramps intensified. The bitter choices faced by parents in Sarah’s and Rodrick’s situation ate at Yon. There was no right answer as to what waiting period was best for families. More often than not, regardless of the period chosen, Jakali Syndrome diagnoses destroyed families.

  Suddenly, Yon felt selfish for prodding Sarah to reopen the painful discussion with her husband. And she realized that if the discussion went poorly, Sarah might shut down any further talk of a rescue. With her finally showing some receptivity, Yon didn’t want to risk losing her cooperation. “On second thought, don’t talk to him, Sarah. We’ll figure out a rescue plan. Give me twenty-four hours to work out the details with my colleagues and I’ll get back to you with the plan. Just keep an open mind until then. Okay?”

  The sobbing mother nodded. Yon rose from her seat and wrapped her arms around Sarah. As she held her tight, Yon’s mind raced. How in the world are we going to pull this off?

  CHAPTER 2: TIP-OFF

  Warehouse District

  Bloomington, Lakelands Province, New Atlantia

  Under the dim light by the warehouse door, Major Damon Spiers waited for the overdue tipster.

  “Any sign of our songbird, yet?”

  Damon’s question was directed to his deputy, Sergeant Cassidy Willow, an android5 who was back at headquarters operating the drone providing surveillance of the warehouse complex.

  “No, sir. The access road is clear.”

  After adjusting the fit of his earbud radio, Damon checked the time on his holoband. The wrist-worn device displayed 2:43 a.m. “All right. I’ll give him another fifteen minutes, then I’m out of here.”

  “Copy that.”

  Leaning against the building’s corrugated wall, Damon wondered whether the informant had developed second thoughts about coming forward. The man had clearly been nervous in their earlier phone call. His voice had trembled and he’d repeatedly stuttered as he told Damon he had important information about the Beacon underground network.

  Damon hated the network’s name as much as he despised their mission. No matter how virtuous they claimed to be in their anonymous proclamations, they were nothing but criminals, human traffickers who posed a serious threat to New Atlantia’s security.

  For four years, Damon and his Beacon task force had failed to infiltrate the network or apprehend any of their members. They had come close to nabbing some of the agitators on several occasions, but each time, the Beacon rats had managed to escape. Their elusiveness was maddening to Damon.

  And he was not alone in his frustration. None of his peers in the other New Atlantian provinces had foiled Beacon smuggling ops, either. Still, Damon felt inordinate pressure to crack the network. The survival of New Atlantia depended on maintaining the integrity of the country’s borders and the longer Beacon continued to brazenly smuggle their “rescues” into neighboring Carapach through Damon’s province, the greater the likelihood they would destabilize the country.

  As he fumed about that possibility, Cassidy radioed with an alert. “Major, I have eyes on a cruiser headed your way. I am releasing a nano now.”

  “Copy that. Let me know as soon as you have the guy ID’d.”

  Nanos were one of the most useful devices in the New Atlantia Security Force arsenal of surveillance devices. To the casual observer, the miniature drones looked and behaved like flying insects but, in actuality, they were sensor-laden machines that provided excellent close-up reconnaissance that was often difficult to acquire with higher-flying drones and stationary security cameras.

  Cassidy would guide the nano to within feet of the informant and collect facial recognition data and other biometric information. The mini-drone would also scan the vehicle’s registration chip, image fingerprints present on the vehicle and snip samples of the tipster’s hair for later DNA analysis. By the time the man greeted Damon, the data provided by the nano would allow Cassidy to access the informant’s full NASF profile.

  As the sound of the approaching car grew louder, Damon stepped back under the glow of the warehouse’s security lights. While there was no one else in the vicinity, he wanted to make sure the tipster was able to easily identify him and verify he was alone. The man had been adamant he wanted to meet somewhere discreet and wanted Damon to come alone.

  After suggesting the warehouse for the rendezvous, Damon had said, “I can’t guarantee there won’t be other people around; the warehouse is in a commercial district, but if some folks are milling about, none of them will be NASF.”

  “If there are other people, how will I pick you out?” the informant had asked.

  “Just look for the tall black man with long white hair.”

  When the car appeared from around the corner of the building, it turned toward Damon and shined its headlight bar on him. From the curve of the oblong light, Damon could tell the vehicle was the recently released Hutech RiverForge cruiser, a damn expensive tri-surface automobile. Capable of propelling on wheels, via maglev or by hydrojets, the RiverForge was in high demand in Damon’s province given the abundance of lakes, streams and rivers throughout the region. The four-door vehicle was also highly sought after for its quad-driver system which allowed the car to be driven by a human, android, the auto’s self-driving navigation system or by New Atlantia’s satellite traffic management network. The man must be an evvie, thought Damon. Few people from the lower castes could afford such a vehicle.

  As the RiverForge slowed to a stop a short distance from Damon, the headlight bar turned off and the vehicle’s blacked-out window tint was deactivated, providing Damon his first glimpse of the tipster seated in the rear compartment. He was definitely an evvie. The genetic superhumans were easy to identify, even when inside a car.

  Damon whispered, “You got him yet, Cass?”

  “Working on it. Positive ID on face rec, waiting for confirmation on fingerprints.”

  The gull-wing rear door opened and the man stepped out. He was at least six-foot-five, a few inches taller than Damon. Elegantly dressed in a suit and tie, the athletic, brown-haired Anglo waited for the door to close before turning toward Damon. As he started to walk, Cassidy recited a brief bio through Damon’s earbud.

  “His name is Rodrick Hearns. Evvie caste. Age sixty-four. Lives in a suburb of Chicago. No criminal record. Married to a blenda-caste named Sarah, maiden name Upshaw. She’s thirty-two. Three kids. One boy. Two girls. One of them, the boy, just failed his third DNA test. He’s been designated for euthanization. Diagnosis is pre-Jakali Syndrome. Procedure is scheduled for next Monday. Sterilization of the daughters and mother are set for the following day.”

  This should be interesting, thought Damon. I’m glad I stuck around.

  “Maj. Spiers, I presume,” said Rodrick.

  “Yes, that’s right. And who might you be?”

  “I should think you would know that by now. Glider drone hovering above. Nano buzzing around us.” Rodrick said. “But, just in case your computers are slow, my name is Rodrick Hearns.”

  Ah, the RiverForge is outfitted with surveillance detection, thought Damon. It was an illegal module for most New Atlantians, but not for Evvie Guild members. Rodrick was obviously an important man…one who neither stuttered nor appeared jumpy.

  Damon shook the man’s hand and said, “Kind of far from home, aren’t you, sir? Minneapolis is a long way from Chicago, even using maglev the whole way.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “It was clever of you to use a stand-in to call me. Was it an android or a friend of yours?”

  “My apologies for the deception, Major, but it was important to protect my identity for as long as possible.”

  “Oh, and why is that?”

&n
bsp; “Again, I would think that would be obvious to you by now. Whoever is on the other end of the drone feeds, communicating with you through your ear-comms, should have filled you in by now.”

  “Be that as it may, Mr. Hearns, I’d like to hear it from you directly.”

  Rodrick sighed. “It’s rather difficult to say the words.”

  The reaction was common among evvies in Damon’s experience. Most of them viewed themselves as perfect in every way. Admitting deficiencies of any kind did not come easy.

  “I just discovered my wife has been in contact with Beacon. In fact, I think they have been in contact with her for quite some time. Ever since our son’s second jakali gutation was detected.”

  Damon nodded. Grooming was a common tactic used by Beacon operatives given how much New Atlantian parents worried about the outcomes of their children’s DNA tests. What better time to begin recruiting than after a second failed test, particularly when jakali-related gutations were involved?

  For New Atlantia had a strict three-strike law. If a child exhibited three or more jakali gutations by the age of ten, two penalties were enforced; the child was euthanized and the remaining family members were sterilized…except for evvies and didgees, of course. Given the absence of any gutations in their DNA ancestry, evvies and didgees were exempt from the law’s sterilization requirements.

  Though the law was considered draconian compared to jakali management policies in many other countries, New Atlantia’s approach assured eventual cleansing of the dreaded condition from the nation’s population and Damon supported it. Beacon, on the other hand, viewed the law as abhorrent. They advocated more compassionate policies and often found willing listeners among parents whose children were at risk of developing JS…and apparently, Rodrick’s wife was among those willing to listen.

  “I take it your wife hasn’t reported the contact to NASF,” said Damon.

  “That would be a correct assumption.”

  “Failure to report contact with Beacon is a serious crime, Mr. Hearns. Conspiring with them is even worse. You and your wife could be executed.”

  “I understand that, Major. It’s why I’m reporting it now.”

  “What was the nature of the contact? What did Beacon want? Or, if your wife sought them out, what did she want?”

  Damon could guess the answer already, but it was important to capture Rodrick alleging the crime. The nano’s video recording would ultimately be needed to garner arrest warrants.

  “Withdraw your drones and I’ll tell you.”

  The look on Rodrick’s face was as tense as the tone of his answer.

  So, that’s the game, thought Damon. Rodrick isn’t interested in ratting his wife out, having her arrested. Makes sense. He’s an evvie. He doesn’t want the publicity. It’s bad enough the man decided to marry a blenda, so why further risk his social standing over a public trial and his wife’s execution, or face accusations of participating in a Beacon scheme, himself? No, he’s looking for a hush-hush deal.

  “I can’t do that, sir. Not without some indication as to the nature of the contact.”

  “Major, there’s a reason I sought you out instead of going to my local NASF precinct. You’re the man responsible for cracking down on Beacon in this province. I’d like to help you do that but I want assurances in return.”

  “What kind of assurances?”

  “Withdraw your drones.”

  The man had already admitted enough to throw him and his wife in jail but playing hardball to force a confession would likely result in a protracted legal battle with the Evvie Guild. In the interim, any chance of “cracking down” on Beacon would be lost. As soon as Beacon became aware of the arrests, and Damon knew they would find out, whatever scheme they had in the works would be dismantled.

  Most likely, that scheme involved smuggling the children out of the country. While it was perfectly legal for a family to leave New Atlantia before receiving a jakali diagnosis, once the diagnosis was made, the jakali management law kicked into effect. That meant the Hearns boy had to be euthanized, no ifs, ands or buts. And it meant sterilization was required for his sisters and mother. If any family member tried to leave the country without complying with the law at this point, they would be subject to immediate execution.

  This was when Beacon was the most devilish in Damon’s opinion. They convinced people like Rodrick’s wife that it was inhumane to kill a ten-year-old who would not transform into a murderous jakali for another five to seven years. Better to wait until violent symptoms developed and then try to manage the symptoms with medications for as long as possible.

  If the underground terrorists could not convince grieving parents to smuggle out their pre-jakali child, then they focused on circumventing the sterilization of the remaining family members. It was a barbaric practice, Beacon told parents. Especially for the other children in the family. After all, they were not the ones diagnosed with JS, and they might never incur the same gutations as their diagnosed sibling. Better to smuggle them out and protect their rights to procreate.

  However, this sales pitch ignored the fact that all children in the family were products of their parents’ DNA, meaning that even if some of the children didn’t contract JS, they could pass on their parents’ replacement-gene mutations to their offspring. Sterilizing all family members was the only way to ensure no dangerous gutations could be passed on.

  If Beacon had made either of these smuggling pitches to Rodrick’s wife, Damon reasoned it might be worth cutting a deal to learn more. Damon and his NASF team might learn enough to intercede and catch the Beacon devils in the act. Damon touched his earbud and spoke to Cassidy. “Deactivate surveillance. Withdraw the drones. I’ll call you if I need you.”

  “Copy, Major. Signing off.”

  Damon heard a tone in his earbud, signaling communications had been terminated. He removed the radio, showed it to Rodrick and then slid it into his pants pocket. “Okay, Mr. Hearns. You have five minutes. Make ’em count.”

  Rodrick turned toward his RiverForge and spoke a coded command. Turning back to face Damon, he said, “I’ve activated a jamming signal, just in case your colleague put the drones in stealth mode instead of deactivating them.”

  You are one cautious evvie, thought Damon. And a smart one.

  “Now that we’re truly alone,” Rodrick continued, “let’s talk assurances. First, I want full immunity for me, my wife and my girls. No jail time. No executions.”

  “Immunity from what, Mr. Hearns?”

  “Beacon has offered to smuggle my wife and daughters out of the country before their sterilizations.”

  “I see. How much are they asking for?”

  In true Robin Hood fashion, Beacon’s fees for smuggling varied depending on the caste of those smuggled. The higher one’s caste, the more one paid, and vice versa. Given Rodrick’s status as an evvie, Damon suspected the proposed fee was astronomical.

  “They’ve not asked for any money. They want a different form of payment.”

  “Such as?”

  “They want my son.”

  For a moment, Damon thought his ears were playing tricks on him. “Excuse me? They want what?”

  “My son.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “I have no idea. It’s macabre.”

  Damon frowned and lowered his head. What would Beacon want with a gutant destined to become a jakali? He knew the Beacon rats were bleeding hearts, but a pre-jakali? A kid designated for euthanization? He looked back up at Rodrick. “Are you sure about that, sir? Are you sure you didn’t misunderstand? I mean, it’s not uncommon for Beacon to offer to smuggle out pre-Jakalis along with the rest of the family, but I’ve never heard of them wanting a JS kid as payment.”

  “If you doubt my word, I can play you a recording of my wife discussing the offer with her parents.”

  “Recording?”

  “Yes. You see, my wife has been acting strangely lately, so I’ve been keeping close tabs on her…um…
activities.”

  Nothing says love like surveilling your wife, thought Damon. “Tell me more about the offer.”

  “Do we have agreement on the assurances?”

  “Tell me what else you know. If I like what I hear, I’m open to a deal.”

  Rodrick slid his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “I’m afraid I don’t have much more to offer, Major. My wife didn’t get into specifics on the call. I’m sure she didn’t want to put her parents in a bad spot, make them accessories, she just wanted someone to talk to about the situation. She’s obviously conflicted. Regardless of whether she accepts Beacon’s offer or not, she loses her son.”

  Damon nodded. “I’m sure it’s a hard time for her…and for you. I’ve been there myself. I know first-hand what a jakali diagnosis can do to a family.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, my only boy was put to sleep almost two years ago. Wife couldn’t deal with his death, the stigma. Committed suicide. End of family.”

  After a short spell of silence, Rodrick said, “I don’t know what to say, Major…other than, I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah. Me too.” Damon momentarily choked up. Clearing his throat, he said, “Anyway, it’s a raw deal for any family to go through, so I get why your wife is conflicted. It’s also what pisses me off about Beacon, preying upon vulnerable families, taking advantage of tragedy to further their own goals. It makes me sick to my stomach.”

  “I feel the same way. They’re wicked. It’s why I reached out to you. I want you to stop them before they destroy my family.”

  “Understood,” Damon said. “I take it your wife hasn’t talked to you about any of this?”

  “No. She knows how I feel about upholding New Atlantia’s genetic purity laws and how I feel about Beacon.”

  “And you haven’t confronted her?”

  Rodrick shook his head. “I considered it, but the hard truth is — I don’t think I could stop her from following through without turning her in. We don’t have the best relationship as it is. But I still love her, Major, and I love my kids. If there was anything I could do to prevent my son from turning into a jakali mongrel, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But there’s no cure, there’s no stopping the mutations from happening. Putting him to sleep now, as gut-wrenching as it will be, is the most merciful thing we can do for him.”