The Freezer (Genesis Endeavor Book 1) (40 page)

“That man was going to try to kill me, I simply defended
myself. I hope nobody else is going to try that again, I have waited a long
time to have a conversation with something smarter than a motion sensor and I
would hate to have to end it prematurely.” The coldness in which the computer
answered turned Thomas’ bowels to liquid. Not only was the mission a failure,
but he and the five remaining men were as good as dead.

The men looked to him, their leader, for answers. He had
nothing to offer. He didn’t even need to tell them not to try something stupid;
everyone here understood they were completely at the mercy of this machine. The
chill of the concrete made its way through the under suit of his armor, letting
him know that at some point he had sat down.
When did that happen?
It
didn’t matter. Time no longer had meaning. They were already dead, and he only
had one decision left, whether to die from dehydration or from the computer’s
defensive system.

Jack was in his room, reviewing the data from the operation.
He didn’t know how it had all gone wrong. Thomas’ fire team was in position to
take the command building, then they lost contact. Ten minutes later, Red
reported in from the transport saying the mission had failed.

Apparently, the Mutes pushed Red’s group back until they
were forced to retreat back to the rendezvous point. The main group of Mutes
then went after Thomas and his men, and the long range pictures they had
retrieved from the scout aircraft they sent in later showed that the city’s
ground defenses had been re-activated, and the remains of many people were
littered around the command center. Whether the team made it inside or not was
a mystery, as was whether they had perished with the attacking Mutes when the
ground weapons system came back on line.

Depression was setting in at the failure. This was a key
part of the whole operation, and without a way to land the giant transport
plane in Montana, there was no way to safely get what they needed. On top of
this, his ideas had gotten at least seven men killed in the last week. He knew
that some men would be lost in this effort, but right now it seemed that those
he had lost had died for nothing.

He was feeling pity for himself over this when the door
opened and Wendy walked in. Normally he would feel better just with her
presence, but with such a large failure hanging over his head, he almost didn’t
want her to be there right now.

She stood behind him, wrapping her arms around his neck,
hands resting on his chest. After a moment, she said, “It isn’t your fault,
Jack.” Her hand moved to rest on his and she squeezed, trying to comfort him. “They
knew the risks, and went anyway.”

It wasn’t much consolation. He was the one who came up with
the mission. He was the one who put Thomas in charge of this part. He was the
one who decided they go tonight. This was the problem with being the leader, it
was your fault when things went wrong. He simply shrugged in reply to her
comment. She wouldn’t understand, he figured, she was just an enlisted person. She
had never made a decision that got people killed.

It didn’t help that it was late, almost three a.m. He really
should get some sleep. Maybe in the morning he would be able to make sense of
it. He got up from the chair and kissed Wendy. “I gotta get some sleep. You can
stay here if you want, or we can meet for breakfast in the morning.” He kind of
felt bad for being so anti-social with her, but such is life.

He settled into bed and closed his eyes. Wendy walked over
and kissed him on the cheek, then left without another word. He fell into that
state halfway between awake and asleep, hovering there for what seemed to be
hours before falling into a deep, dreamless sleep.

* * *

They met in the same utility room as before. The older man
patted the younger man on the shoulder and said, “I don’t know how you pulled
it off, but it worked!”

The younger man pulled his shoulder back and said, “I did
pull it off, and it put me at huge risk! You better be able to take advantage
of this. I expect a healthy reward when everything is said and done.”

The older man held back his retort to the younger man’s
insolence. This boy is a pawn, but he could still be useful. Besides, he is
fairly bright, despite his naivety, and might have instructed his loyal
followers to talk if he met an untimely fate. Best to play along until things
were well in hand. He forced a smile onto his face. “Of course. I already
figured that “head of security” would be a just and proper reward. Don’t worry
yourself about how I will handle it from here. Just make sure your men don’t
end up with a sudden change of heart. I expect you can handle them?”

The younger man scoffed. “Don’t worry about them. They were
more than happy to leave Thomas and his group of
reborn
to their fate.” He
said the word ‘reborn’ with so much animosity, it was a wonder the man had been
able to conceal his hatred from the rest of the population.

The hate was gone in an instant, replaced with pretension as
he reminisced about the recent battle. “You shoulda seen it! First we ducked behind
cover as if we were bein overwhelmed, then we started shouting back and forth
about how the other team should have the ground defenses down by now after
sneaking right past the Mutes, and how it was just about time to get the hell
outta there. Then I dropped a couple napalm grenades between us and them, threw
down a phosphorus grenade to screw up their night vision and cover our exit,
and we waltzed out of there without a problem. The Mutes bought it easily. As
soon as we made it difficult to go after us, they rushed right toward the
middle of town. We heard the defense system kick in, so Thomas must have
re-armed it, just like I figured he would. If those bunch of freezer burnt
assholes aren’t cut to pieces from the auto-turrets, they’re stuck in that
building, cut off from the rest of the world without a hope of getting out.”

His arrogance was almost overwhelming. The older man was
about to remind him where he got the information about the rolling pass code,
but it was a moot point.
Let him think he is so much smarter than everyone
else. It will make it that much easier to take him down when it becomes
necessary.

* * *

The next morning, the council requested his presence. It
wasn’t really a request, and everyone, including Jack, knew it. Theodore would
make his move on Marcus today, of that he was certain. The big question was:
how would Marcus react. Chances were good there would be some accusations and
even threats, and there was little he could do to avoid being in the middle of
it all. On the way down the elevator toward the Council chamber, he prepared
himself for the attack. If he could keep either side from using him, he really
didn’t care who came out on top.

The political squabbles within the council did not concern
him. When the smoke cleared, he knew that a large portion of the reborn
population would stand behind whoever Jack chose to follow. What mattered right
now was finding the traitor, and Jack couldn’t think of anyone who stood to
gain from his failure outside of the council.

He was working under the assumption that the ambush arranged
through Cali was meant to derail his operation, or perhaps stop him from taking
risks altogether after losing his girlfriend and other valuable members of the
community. If that was the case, there were two suspects: Marcus and Theodore. Many
of the people of New Hope had made it clear that they felt Marcus had been
sitting idle for too long, not taking advantage of the wealth and prosperity
offered by the discovery of the cryogenic facility. This was the reason Jack
felt most of the reborn and some of the native population would follow his lead
if it came down to choosing a new leader. Marcus must clearly see this as a
threat, but was he really willing to sacrifice so much to discourage Jack from
continuing? Jack had not just taken over operations in the last week by
himself; he had done it with Marcus’ permission. Theodore was looking to use
that against Marcus if Jack should fail, which gave him a hell of a good motive
for sabotaging Jack’s mission.

Theodore had attacked Jack’s ability to lead right away, but
Marcus had stepped in and shut him down. That weighed heavily in favor of
Theodore being the traitor, but Jack didn’t presume to completely understand
the level of politics these men were working on. There could be motives hidden
that he couldn’t even begin to imagine. Hopefully, he could get some more
information from this meeting and use it to make a decision.

He arrived at the council chamber door, knocked, and waited
for it to open. Loud voices could be heard on the other side of the door, but
it was unclear who was arguing or what they were arguing about. He knocked
again and the voices quieted down before the door opened.

Jack entered and, without preamble, sat down. This drew a
look of scorn from Theodore, but nobody else seemed to take offense to him
seating himself rather than standing in the center of the room to address them.
He glanced at each man in the room and was surprised to see Teague occupying
his seat at the circular table. His face looked grim, perhaps as a warning to
keep this meeting serious. Jack had no intention of making light of anything
today.

“Gentlemen, thank you for your time. I suppose you want to
get a full debriefing on last night’s mission?”

Theodore jumped right in on the attack. “We are well aware
of your failure, Jack. The only question is what your punishment will be for
recklessly endangering the lives of so many of our citizens.”

Jack put a look of surprise on his face, even though he was
far from surprised. Before he could form a reply, Marcus spoke.

“Dammit, Theodore, what makes you think we are going to
punish him for this? It was a failed mission. Granted the cost was high, but
aside from that it was no different than any other failure we have had in the
past.” Jack was expecting Marcus to defend him, after all, it was Marcus’ seat
that Theodore was really after.

Theodore leaned forward in his chair, appearing to be on the
edge of standing up. Raising his voice and jabbing his finger on the table in
front of him for emphasis, he said, “I warned you that this would happen,
Marcus. I made it perfectly clear that I would not stand for you to give this
man free reign over our people to wreak destruction as he so clearly has. My
fears have been justified, and you are as much to blame as he is! You have been
idle and indecisive for too long! You allowed this man,” he pointed at Jack,
“to take control of New Hope and use it as a playground for his war games. He
needlessly threw lives – the very lives we are here to protect – in harm’s way!
We need to take back control of our community, and quite frankly I don’t think
you have the ability to do it!”

There it was. Jack had figured there would at least be some
posturing for a while as accusations got thrown around, but Theodore wasn’t
holding back. He was going straight for the jugular. Jack was disappointed; he
had hoped to get something out of this meeting. All he could do was sit back
and wait for Marcus to defend himself. If he didn’t dodge this bullet, Jack
would have to get involved with the residents of New Hope to save Marcus’ job. If
Theodore was looking to publicly punish Jack for this, he would have no choice.
The question was, could Jack support Marcus if he still suspected the man of
being responsible for the attack on Wendy?

Everyone’s eyes were on Marcus now, including Jack’s. The
man sat back in his chair, staring coldly at Theodore. He nodded, as if making
a decision. When he spoke, his voice was even and calm, a stark contrast to
Theodore’s raving, and because of this, it seemed to carry more power. “Every
member of this council is born of a time when life had no value. In the final
years of the EoS, we thought that by bringing God back into the world we had
brought value back to each individual, whether they were productive or not. Instead,
we used terms like “sacred” to fuel a war that had been festering in the
underbelly of our culture since long before the EoS was ever founded. It took
us two hundred years to bring humanity back from the brink of extinction, but
only in the last four years have I been able to see, through the eyes of the
reborn, how far we still have to go. The wealth we gained from the discovery in
Montana has given us the final tool to secure humanity’s place on earth, but it
also marks the end of what we can accomplish. Anyone born of the war or the
horrible time after it knows what we stand to gain, but only the reborn know
what we have already lost. I knew that one day we would bring back a person who
not only understands this, but also has the capability to defend our community
without destroying it in the process; someone who values life because it
is
sacred, a gift from God, not because it means a more diverse gene pool or more
productivity. Someone who would be willing to risk his own life so that others
would live, not just to gamble for more power. I also knew that when this
person came along, he or she would put my own position, as leader, at risk. I
have spent the last few days looking deep inside my soul, and I have come to
the realization that the future of New Hope, and that of humanity itself, is
more important to me than my position on this council. We,” he gestured to the
entire council, “served an important task for our race, but the time has come
to pass on that responsibility to the new future of humanity. You are correct,
Theodore, that I am no longer fit to lead New Hope. None of us are.”

The room went silent. The speech had knocked the wind out of
Theodore’s sails, and the man appeared to be searching for a way to recover. Jack’s
own mind was reeling from this revelation. Marcus was offering him leadership
of New Hope on a silver platter, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted it. Jack’s
skill lay in cutting his way through bureaucracy, finding the quickest way to
achieve his goals within the boundaries set by the leadership. If he was
leader, he would be the one putting up red tape, not cutting through it.

While he pondered the implications, Theodore stood up,
looking incredulous. “Are you saying that we should hand over the leadership of
New Hope to Jack?” He snorted. “This man is a traitor to our community! You
speak of the value of life, but ignore that he is the one who has cost us the
lives of seven of our people! We have led this community for nearly two hundred
years, and we are the only ones qualified to do so! It is not only our
responsibility, but our right! You are correct that you are no longer fit to
rule – just the thought of handing over leadership to this traitor is evidence
enough! I demand that you step down from the council, and I will put it to a
vote right here and now!”