Ozark Mountains

The Cabin

The light coming from the cabin was the only bright spot in a dark mountain valley and was the source of the sound of laughter.

Michael and the others were sitting around the big kitchen table; they even had to pull out the extensions so there would be room for everybody. After they returned from the ship, everybody helped to cook an enormous amount of food. It was Max’s suggestion; all of them needed a big infusion of energy to replenish what their nanites were using while doing final changes to their bodies. It was surprising even to them that in the end not one scrap of food was left.

“If I can have your attention please…” Michael said, tapping his glass with a steak knife, and then waited until all the conversation in the room stopped.

“I would like to say some things concerning us all and our futures. First, let me thank you all for joining me in this endeavor and all the places it will lead us. The road there won’t be easy and we all know there will be plenty of obstacles that will stand in our way, but in the end, I think it will be worth it.”

He had to stop talking on account of the whistles and clapping that broke out at the table. For a moment, he felt like that dubious life form, a politician, speaking at a rally. He quickly dismissed that disturbing thought and continued.

“Okay, settle down you bunch of miscreants and let’s start with problems at hand, and specific tasks I want you to do.” He announced when they quieted a bit.

“While you were going through the upgrade procedures in the AutoDoc, I used that time to go over some immediate actions we need to take. But first, Max, would you give us a short summary of what resources we have available.”

He turned to the hologram, sitting on one of the chairs. It was Anna’s idea, not wanting Max to feel left out of the group.

The AI nodded and looked around the table. “Well, if you include all the gold we mined, the money you collected at the mansion, and everything I managed to transfer from Ariz Rama’s accounts, we have in excess of $70 million,” Max said that with a straight face, knowing what kind of reaction his statement will provoke.

There was a collective intake of breath, followed by various sounds of surprise and amazement, all around the table.

“Boss, I want a raise!” declared Al, raising his hand in the air.

“You do realize that we are not working for a salary?” Pete theatrically whispered to him.

“That’s just not right, I am going to complain to my union representative.”

Tyron looked at him while raising his hand in a familiar gesture. “Al… shut up.”

“He’s right, we’ll all need some spending money –” Michael was interrupted by Max.

“I can take care of that. You can take as much cash as you need from what we took out of the mansion, it cannot be traced. In addition, I have made some arrangements for the rest of it. The cash, including the gold, will be picked up by an armored truck, and transferred to our accounts. Once it becomes digital, I can make it grow,” he stated smugly, one corner of his lips rising considerably.

“All right, that will work. The size of the infrastructure we will need, requires a more organized structure, so Max, set up an international Corporation under the name… Genesis, that has a nice ring to it. It will be used as a front for everything we publicly do; At the end of the day, it’s always easier to hide in plain sight,” Michael said.

“That shouldn’t be too difficult; with the amount of money we will be transferring into the accounts, banks will be all too pleased to issue you corporate credit cards. Just don’t go wild with them, so don’t go buying private planes, ships, or gold toilets. Leave the money issues to me, I read an e-book about banking yesterday, so I’m practically an expert,” the AI added.

“Anything else?”

“Satellite production is going steadily, and I managed to finish another transportation aircraft, or a flying saucer if you want to call it that.”

Michael closed his eyes in exasperation. “Oh brother, it’s so cheesy calling them flying saucers, we really should choose a different name for them, — any suggestions?”

After a ten-minute debate, and many prepositions about the new name of the craft, Michael decided it was ludicrous that they should spend so much time on such an inconsequential thing and decided to cut the Gordian knot by simply calling them Transporters. That was their main purpose, and he absolutely would not want to call them Puddle jumpers, Prowlers, Delta flyers, Shuttlecrafts, or Runabouts. Those were a few of the many ideas, even if most of them didn’t make any sense for Max’s particular design. He could see that Al was disappointed the most, but he was not naming the aircraft an X-wing no matter how many times Al whined how cool it would be.

“Well, that’s settled; next on the agenda is something only you could do Max, I need you to take control of the Internet,” he said, and everyone present opened their eyes in surprise.

“In today’s world, almost the entire flow of information goes through it, and you are the only one who can control that flow to our advantage. We are in a race against time; eventually, our actions will be noticed. Therefore, I need you to buy us more time, with disinformation, by changing official reports and planting bogus stories. Those are just examples; you will have to do a hell of a lot more. I realize some of these things will be morally and ethically questionable, but I firmly believe they will also be necessary,” Michael stated.

The AI scrunched his holographic face and nodded. “It’s doable, but it won’t be easy and I will need a lot more processing power for a project of that magnitude. By now, almost 25 % of space-based communications is already under my control, and it won’t be long until I am at 100%. The problem is that the biggest part of informational flow goes through the undersea optic cables, so I will need to construct autonomous submarine vehicles that can approach them at great depth, and insert splices, without anyone being the wiser. At the same time, I need to find a way to infiltrate numerous strategic locations in digital infrastructures that span the globe. I can see our need for material rising considerably, and we will need to address that before we hit a bottleneck.”

“It is one of our top priorities,” Michael said and turned to the colonel.

“Jack, you will be in charge of our recruitment, finding the right people for the right jobs are in line with your expertise. Our ultimate goal is to build a space-based civilization, and we will need a lot of manpower to achieve that. You, more than any of us, knows a lot of old soldiers that are wasting away in retirement homes, collecting their disability pensions, or were let down by the system and are doing nothing except waiting for the end to come. We have the ability to heal them and give them a purpose again and a desire to strive for something greater than themselves.”

Jack nodded and smiled, “Not only them, if you are looking for people willing to go to space, there are certain individuals that would do anything for a chance. You are all familiar with a few astronauts that went to space and some even spent some time on the International Space Station. But for every one that went up, there are hundreds that never did. Rejected for this and that, losing their chance as a result of budget cuts, and whatnot. They would be perfect candidates to join our venture. No matter their age, each and every one of them possesses that adventurous mindset. Several were close friends before I ended up in that well-meaning hellhole, but we stayed in touch. As a benefit, almost all of them went through some kind of military training, and that is always an asset. I can get the ball rolling in that direction, and in several others.”

“And that’s why you’re in charge of recruitment,” Michael said with a nodding smile.

“The rest of you should make a list of people that you think would be a good fit for what we are trying to achieve, then give it to Max so he can run background checks. We cannot give everyone a CEI yet, but basic treatments with medical nanites should do wonders for their general health.”

Michael looked at the two women that were sitting next to him. “Now for our intelligence section. I figured that it is best if it is run by Elizabeth and Alice, let me explain. Elizabeth you were one of the top FBI intelligence analysts, and your official record speaks for itself; connecting the dots will come naturally to you. And Alice, you have a gift of acquiring information by unconventional means, which is always a bonus. With your military training and Elizabeth’s knowledge about government agencies, I think you two should fit well. Of course, you will work closely with Max. Not utilizing the full potential of all the advantages he puts on the table would be foolish. What do you think?”

Elizabeth and Alice looked at each other, and as far as Michael could see, had an entire conversation using only their eyes in those two seconds.

“We can do that,” Elizabeth said. “As long as Max provides for the technical side of intelligence gathering, it shouldn’t be too difficult.”

Michael turned to face her sister. “Anna—”

Her raised hand interrupted him. “I already know what I want to do,” she announced confidently. “I was planning on making my career in public relations; I was always good at it. Also, you are going to need someone to be the face of the Genesis Corporation. If it’s all right with you, I know I could be good at that job.”

“Okay, if that is what you want then you will be in control of our PR, but be aware that most of the information we make available to the public needs to be spun to our advantage. That is hopefully a long time from now, but we had better be prepared. Then, there will be times when we will need to… if not lie, then bend the truth into a pretzel,” Michael explained what would be expected of her.

Anna laughed. “To tell the truth, that is something that one of my professors said at the beginning of the semester, how the public image is based on perception, not reality. He also said that the truth and facts should be our instruments for painting the picture, which does not necessarily represent actuality.”

“Smart man, at least he told you all the truth, not some sugar-coated gibberish that had no connection with real life,” Michael replied and looked in the direction of his teammates.

“That leaves Tyron, Pete, Al, and me. We will be a sort of fast response team, which will be used to put out the fires that will most certainly appear in our path. That was our job before, hunting bad guys, and we were not half bad at it. With advantages we now have, is going to be a whole new ballgame.”

“Boss, we are always ready to play.” Tyron's deep base resonated through the room.

Michael acknowledged this with a nod, “I don’t plan on us becoming vigilantes of some sort, but if we see something that is not right and we have the ability to stop it… we just might.”

Tyron, Pete, and Al’s faces showed big happy grins, and those around the table could see something predatory awaken in their eyes. It did not bode well for those that would be their adversaries in the future, not one bit.

“I’ll talk to my father when he gets here tomorrow, he will be your counterpart Jack, since he’s a scientist himself, and recruiting members of the scientific community will be his responsibility.”

Michael looked around the table and all their eyes were fixed on him.

“This will not be a strict and regimental organization, there will be plenty of overlap for your areas of responsibilities. Each of you can ask for help from the others, and of course Max. He will have to be a Jack of all trades, dealing with logistics, infrastructure, transportation, communication, intelligence, and assist the rest of us as needed.”

He didn’t want to drag on this impromptu meeting and over-saturate them all with new information. And it has been a long day, so he decided to mention a few more things, and then wrap things up.

“People, if any government or any big organization finds out what we are up to before it’s time to leave, they would absolutely object. But we cannot count on not being discovered, so we need to implement some plans in advance. For one, we need secondary locations, in case we have to abandon this cabin. Elizabeth and Alice, work with Max to arrange that, so if we need to evacuate, we could do so in a hurry. Max, how are we on secure communications?”

“Our satellites in orbit should cover our current needs, at least over the Western Hemisphere, so secure communication is not a problem. And if you want to do something on the other side of the world, I have control over enough ‘hijacked’ satellites, so you can talk all you want with nobody being the wiser,” the AI answered.

“Great, that’s one less thing to worry about. But let us not forget that ‘High Council’ Ariz Rama talked about, they will not forget that someone destroyed their operation, and clean them out in the process. Max, I know you said they have covered their tracks on the net, but I need you to dig a little deeper. Use as much money as needed to buy any scrap of intelligence, hack into secure databases, and do everything possible to find out more. I have a really bad feeling about them.”

“I cannot make any promises, but I will do my best.”

In the eyes of those around the table, he saw how much faith they all had in him. He only hoped that he could rise to their expectations.

“Okay, that’s all folks. Now let us grab a drink and enjoy it on the deck.

***

A few hours later Michael was sitting alone in his favorite chair and looking at the slowly rising moon. They had a great evening, hanging out on the deck. That one drink turned into several or more; everybody was enjoying the company in a happy and jubilant atmosphere, a celebration of the beginning of their new lives. Listening to Al tell funny and often embarrassing stories of their time together in the military. Eventually, one by one all of the others turned in for the night. The cabin was not very large. Still, there were enough surplus army cots for everyone. Michael bought them a few years ago at an auction, he did not really need them, but he got a very good deal. Besides, those things could last forever; God knows he spent enough time on them.

He couldn’t sleep, excitement and worry were battling inside him, making sleep impossible. He was going over and over through his plans, using his CEI to draw charts, make notes, and arrange timetables; tweaking, adjusting, and trying to make every cog align with another.

His improved hearing detected someone climbing down the stairs inside the cabin, and a minute later the door behind him slowly opened.

“Hi,” Elizabeth said, putting her hand on his shoulder.

“It’s late, you should get some rest,” he whispered.

“I tried, but… we never really talked about…” Her quiet and hesitant voice trailed off into silence.

“No, we didn’t.” Michael stood from the chair and faced her.

“Elizabeth, I was never really good at relationship things, and – “

Her hand covered his lips, preventing him from speaking.

“There are times when you should talk, and then there are ones when you really shouldn’t,” she said, then rose on the balls of her feet and kissed him.

Elizabeth took his hand and pulled him towards the door. “Come with me.” and didn’t let it go until they were all the way into his room, where she closed the door behind them.

“Finally! Two sloths on Valium would have hooked up faster than these two,” Al whispered from the room across Michael’s.

“Al… shut up,” Pete whispered back and moved to make himself more comfortable on a familiar army cot.

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My readers, I salute you!

Thank you!

Because of you, TSL is on the trending list! :)

But like Icarus getting too close to the sun, I don't know how long it is going to stay there. Someone gave the story 0,5 star (yeap, the lowest possible) a few hours after making the list, and then went through all the reviews and gave thumbs down to every single one of them. That is like kryptonite for ranking lists. I guess everyone is entitled to their opinion but it did feel like a punch in a gut.

It is what it is. When life gives you lemons...

Anyway, you keep reading—and I'll keep writing. Deal?

Again, thank you.

igi

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