A New World: Conspiracy (4 page)

The workstations are only partially filled
with operators at this time, primarily because nothing much is
happening at the moment. They are in a pure monitoring status. The
shift supervisor, the one who called her here, looks over when she
enters and hurriedly makes his way to her.

“Nahmer, thank you for coming. We’ve picked
up something you might be interested in. You know you said that we
should—” he starts.

“Yes, yes. Show me what you have,” Gav
interrupts.

The supervisor nods and opens his arm in a
‘if you’ll follow me’ gesture. She follows in his wake, her heels
clicking sharply on the hardened floor. She always wears heels when
she can. The sound of them on the floor adds to the force she
already presents. Even though she is not a tall woman, her presence
in a room commands attention. The supervisor guides her to one of
the consoles where they stand over a lone operator.

“Pete, pull up the satellite feed from a
moment ago,” the supervisor says, putting his hand on the man’s
shoulder.

The operator’s fingers fly over the keyboard
and his monitor goes dark momentarily. When it comes to life, they
are looking down at some region of earth.

“Zoom in a little,” the supervisors
instructs.

More fingers bounce across the keyboard and
the monitor blurs for an instant before refocusing. There, in the
center of the screen, is a C-130 flying across a mountainous
landscape. Gav is startled at the sight of a lone Hercules aloft
but conceals her surprise behind pursed lips.

“Do we have any idea who it is, where it’s
going, and where it originated from?” she asks, her accent
betraying her origins only slightly.

“We have no idea who it is, Nahmer, but we
did track its source to Joint Base Lewis McChord. Going over some
of our footage of the area, it appears to be part of a group from a
C-camp. Let me see.” He rummages through several sheets of paper.
“There it is, camp designation C-US-4.”

Gav holds her hand out and the supervisor
gives her a small booklet. The booklet contains all of the
identified gatherings of people and categorizes them. Categories
range from A through F; with ‘F’ being just a few families, to a
group such as Gav’s, which would be classified as an ‘A’ camp. The
classification system includes capabilities with regards to
training, numbers, and equipment. So far, they have only found
groups classified up to a ‘C’ level, and only four of them within
the borders of the continental United States. This group falls
within that category.

She turns the pages before coming to the
camp information. It’s a location in the Northwest close to JBLM,
near the city of Olympia. There are several pictures of the site
but they don’t look current to her practiced eyes.

“Any idea of where they’re heading?” she
asks, not looking up from scanning the information.

“It’s not a certainty, Nahmer, but from the
information we can gather from their flight path, it could be that
they are heading to Clovis or Albuquerque,” the supervisor
answers.

“And what is there that could be of
interest?”

“Albuquerque has Kirtland AFB which was a
training base for Air Force special operations and Clovis is near
Cannon AFB which is home to an AC-130 wing.”

“I’d put my money on Cannon AFB seeing as
they are flying a C-130. They may be trying to pick up an AC-130,”
Gav states.

“What would you like us to do?” the
supervisor asks.

“Keep an eye on them and let me know what
they are up to. Also, task one of the satellites to do a pass-by of
camp C-US-4. I want current pictures and keep it monitored.” Gav
hands the booklet back.

She turns to leave but stops and looks over
her shoulder. “Good find. Keep up the good work,” she says before
turning once again and leaving the control room.

The supervisor nods with a satisfied smile
on his face, patting the controller on the shoulder.

Later that day, Gav sits with the outgoing
and incoming shift supervisors in one of the smaller conference
rooms close to the control center. She tries to hold these meetings
with them between shifts to ascertain what is going on in the world
around them and what needs to be done…if anything. Usually it’s
just an update on the various camp activities that they’ve located
or to mention another one found or lost.

In the beginning, these meetings had more
significance as the scouting of the areas and logging of
information began. Lately, they have been short as nothing much
different has transpired. Finding a C-130 aloft alters things. It’s
the first significant discovery that they’ve found in a while, and
it represents a capability they don’t currently possess. That
worries her.

“We tracked the C-130 as you requested, and
it landed in Albuquerque,” the outgoing shift supervisor continues
his debrief.

“Any idea what they are doing there and what
their force is comprised of?” Gav asks.

“I don’t have any idea what they may be
doing there. They could have landed there due to a large squall
line that formed along their flight path. From what we were able to
see, which was difficult because of the weather moving in, their
numbers were approximately eighteen to twenty, all armed. They
managed to meet up with one of the D-level groups we previously
identified. It is, um…” the outgoing supervisor says, pausing as he
looks through one of the sheets he has spread on the table, “…the
group identified as D-US-12. We also re-tasked one of the
satellites to do a flyover of camp C-US-4 as you requested. We
should have a new set of pictures for you in the morning.”

“Very good. I want that C-130 flight and
group under constant surveillance. Call me if you find anything
else,” Gav says.

With that, both supervisors nod and leave,
one for dinner and rest, and the other to monitor what is left of
the world. Gav remains seated at the table. Sipping on her cup of
coffee, she mulls over her position and how she arrived at it. More
importantly, how everything could have gone so horribly wrong.

She had a lot of success within the Israeli
special operations which led to her being integrated into the
Mossad. Gav felt her abilities were underutilized within the
Sayeret, so she jumped at the chance to move. Once her training was
complete, she never looked back as the missions she conducted were
more in line with what she wanted and where she felt her skills
were put to the best use. Plus, she enjoyed the challenge.

Over time, Gav made a name for herself as
someone who could be successful even in the trickiest situations.
That eventually led to a very strange meeting with a small group of
people that evolved into her current status. She was given several
missions which tested her resolve, loyalty, skills, and morals.
With regards to morals, she had them and detested bullying, but
accomplishing the mission was the more important aspect. She prided
herself on her ability to meticulously plan and carry out any
assignment given her.

Eventually, she was given the opportunity to
become a full-fledged group member. Her death was faked and there
were only a very few within the Israeli intelligence community who
knew that she was still alive. Those were the ones who introduced
her to this new group and were themselves involved. Over time, and
after being tested further, she learned of the group’s mission,
eventually leading to her current position as the operations
director of the command facility. And what a scheme it was.

The overall plan was for the group to emerge
from the ashes of civilization to control the resources and, in
essence, become the de-facto leaders. They would control the
resources and distribution. To do this, they had established
thirty-two sites across the world; each one built in secret and
close to various resources. Each site would house petroleum
specialists, nuclear physicists, and other experts in differing
arenas of production, along with the staff and workers necessary to
bring infrastructure systems back online and continue output. This
was especially important with the nuclear power plants. Those
needed to be shut down in a timely manner or they’d have a disaster
on their hands. Each site was to deploy its resources after the
world died to enact Phase Two of the plan.

Phase One was implementing a vast decrease
in the world’s population. It was a bold plan waiting for world
events to bring it about. They had the nanotechnology and were just
waiting for the right time and event to implement it. The
nanotechnology would be spread in a short period of time and
distributed worldwide. Phase Two was for personnel to deploy out of
the sites and take control of the resources.

Pandemics, or rather the fear of it, were
increasingly commonplace events. The group just needed one to come
around so they could administer their plan via a vaccine to a
populace that would welcome it. Of course, no one would know what
else was being administered. The nanobots would infiltrate the body
and attach themselves to the cerebral cortex. These could then be
activated by satellite, setting off a small charge which would
instantly kill the individual. Arrangements were already in place
to add these nanobots to two-thirds of the vaccines which would be
sent out. In the meantime, they would build their infrastructure
and wait.

The Cape Town Flu virus provided the
opportunity. Gav and her staff were already ensconced in their
underground command facility. Other groups were alerted to move
into their facilities. These would house the experts, military
personnel, and equipment that would later emerge and begin Phase
Two. There was even an entire division of military personnel in
Namibia that were to sweep south into South Africa to take control
of the infrastructure and precious resources there. Timing was
crucial. The vaccine would be administered, and ninety-six hours
later, everyone would move into the facilities and prepare.
Twenty-four hours after everyone was in place, the nanobots would
be triggered, effectively reducing the world’s population by over
sixty percent. Their deaths would be blamed on the flu; the group
would take control of the resources and rise from the ashes. That’s
when everything went to shit.

They could never have anticipated that the
vaccine itself would alter the DNA and bring about the ruin of
their plans. Since the initiation of the first phase, there had
been no communication from any of the other sites. Gav believed
that no other personnel made it due to the short span of incubation
the vaccine had – the deaths and DNA alterations that created the
infected ones happened too quickly. Although none of the personnel
took the vaccine, she believes that they succumbed to the madness
that followed and never had a chance to make it.

She sent parties to some of the nearest
sites only to find them sealed up with no one home. Even the
military vehicles in storage were of no use as she didn’t have the
proper forces to utilize them. She had her own contingent of
vehicles, mostly Humvees and Strykers, but the others were useless
without the personnel. She had no pilots or any other specialized
personnel. Her facility was intended to function as a support
compound. They were, in essence, stuck. The leaders of this fiasco
were housed in the command facility, but they were still searching
for a way to rise from the ashes.

There would still have been a chance if it
weren’t for a single failure. They couldn’t communicate with the
satellite controlling the nanobot’s signals. They were receiving
information from it, but, from all appearances, the receiver aboard
wasn’t functioning. They checked all of their equipment to find it
working perfectly. Still, the satellite couldn’t receive a signal.
Integral checks of the satellite revealed it was working perfectly
except for this one, not so minor, glitch. Gav kept technicians
working on it night and day, but so far, they haven’t found a
solution.

If she could get control of the satellite,
she could hopefully eradicate the infected ones, or at least thin
them out a little; and then Gav and her group could come out of
their facility to implement a modified version of Phase Two. As it
is, there is no way they can implement the plan they had gone to
bed with, but perhaps there is still a chance. With an exaggerated
sigh, she rises, rinses her mug in a small sink, and departs the
room to grab something to eat.

The next afternoon, she meets with the
control room shift supervisors once again. The one going off shift
slides a folder across to the table. Gav opens it as the supervisor
begins the brief.

“Nahmer, we did a flyby of camp C-US-4 as
you requested. The camp has established their main encampment
around a large sporting goods warehouse just to the north of
Olympia, Washington. It sits astride Interstate 5 with access to
JBLM and Seattle to the north and Portland, Oregon to the south. As
you can see in the pictures,” he says as Gav pulls out one of the
high definition photographs, “they have erected a concrete wall
around the entire facility…at least it appears to be concrete from
our analysis. It measures approximately four miles on the long side
by one mile wide. The land between the walls is mostly cleared and
construction of outer buildings is apparent, with most either
completed or nearing completion.”

The supervisor points out several closer
shots with only the camp showing. “You can see here,” he points to
some of the buildings to the south, “these appear to be barn-type
enclosures and we can only speculate that is what they’re being
used for. The others are storage and, from their size, they may be
for vehicles. There is a large greenhouse along with shipping
containers that we can only guess are used for supply storage.”

“Anything on the occupants themselves?” Gav
asks, looking at more photographs and the annotations on each.