Chapter 23: Max’s Big Day
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Max was thinking outside the box now. He was taking his newly formed team on a WW2 tour of Britain; first stop was an old training camp sold off years before. It would do for a day or so until he could think where to go next. The camp was set back several hundred feet from the road side with a clear view for miles around. A deliberate fire line was cut around the camp and anyone coming would be seen long before they reached the camp. He knew of it because he had visited the camp as a cadet when he was growing up. They used to have a firing range, billets and enough room to store three lynx helicopters and several army trucks, in fact far more than they needed with out causing too much disruption. He had decided that they were only going to be there for a day. He would give everyone a briefing together and then fly on ahead to sort out the details. He had phoned ahead and arranged a meeting with the owners of Eden camp, a military museum in the Yorkshire. He preferred to hide in plain sight. It would be harder to find military staff where they were expected to be. He, of course, would have to contribute to the camp and exhibits. Once everyone was at the Proteus camp he use a crow bar to force a billet door open where they could rough it together in one hut for a night. They set up bed heaters and a mess hut at one end and were sleeping head to toe up and down the billet. When everyone was in and had eaten supper, Max drew their attention to him and began to explain what was going to happen and what had already happened.
“It is now official that MI5 had been taken over by Scotland Yard and the defence of the country is in their hands. MI6 no longer exists but the defense minister has regrouped and is assembling a new MI6. They are scared of all Simpathes including Chloe but acknowledge that she can play a valuable part as all of you guys can. All of you could have been affected and you have been chopped off by the British government, temporarily I hope, while they evaluate their position in the world with regard to Simpathes. The politicians will negotiate and attempt to contact the Simpathes and Simpathe factions and make peace. All organisations will have paperwork to this effect. We will work on our own with no instructions but to destroy all the simpathes except Chloe’s people. We will be seen as acting on our own but I have a big budget to do whatever we need to do. We answer only to the prime minister who is aware of our existence and our badges will carry the same credence and power as they always have, but if it goes tits up no one will come and rescue you. Is that understood? It appears that other foreign governments are aiding the Simpathes and an arms race is exploding. These creatures have technology beyond us and are more effective at using ours than we are. Each government is using it as weapons. Mark and Robert here were shot down by Americans. But of course this was a training accident in the eyes of the people and for those of you who don’t know it, they have apologised already, for their deaths that is. Nice to see you both looking so well considering you’re dead chaps! Marcus has the information Robert obtained from a faction base in Uzbekistan. This needs to be processed immediately. Marcus; Chloe and Josh will look at the satellite and try and set up a secure links to Chloe’s people and get control of the satellites. I need to know how many factions we are dealing with that are in the internet and ways of tracking them. Once a safe internet connection has been established we will research the companies known to be involved. It has been explained that the companies don’t exist but that could have been done by Simpathes so we will start again from fresh. This will be done by my original agents who will form the base operation team. Everyone else is mobile apart from Reg who will be our quartermaster. If anyone thinks that another person is a Simpathe tell Chloe, she will deal with it. The prisoners belong to Josh, including the one in the MRI machine who I’m told is still alive but weakening. Chloe is to interrogate the other two prisoners tomorrow when we make camp again and we will see what information we can turn up. We are an intelligence service after all. Good. Lights out now people.”
Everyone woke early the next Morning and started the trek up to the camp where Max was negotiating the use of a piece of land for parking the helicopter and trucks on and the use of two billets. They hadn’t restored all of the billets at the old prisoner of war camp but had turned many of them into museum pieces with many world war two items on display. The trucks wouldn’t seem out of place here and there was the odd aircraft scattered about the grounds. They would all have to be in civilian clothes once they arrived though. Max had flown on ahead while Chloe had taken one of the trucks and also took a prisoner on board. She had started her interrogation early, whilst she was munching on ham sandwiches. The Simpathe was weakening; she would be able to read his mind eventually unless he decided to give up in which case his mind would explode and he would cave in on himself. On the net his programme would be scattered into thousands of pieces and absorbed by other passing programmes. This Simpathe was the technician who she had pulled up days before. The one she had defeated had not given anything to the guard and she was certain that he wouldn’t give any answers to her if she hadn’t beaten him. Chloe had given orders for the Simpathes not to be fed. She needed to be super strong to interrogate them. Chloe held her hand above her prisoners head and watched as little sparks flew gently into the technician’s brain as if they were picking it apart. Josh watch with a silenced pistol, waiting. If the creature broke or harmed Chloe he would take it out. The Simpathe started to scream and whine; the noise was something like a human would make and the whole macabre scene seemed somehow wrong. No-one would put an animal through torture like this humanoid was suffering. She had promised him freedom if he just answered simple questions but he wouldn’t break. The horrible noise intensified until Josh desperately wanted to put the Simpathe out of his misery. Then Chloe lunged forward and put both hands on his head and gripped tightly. Sparks flew for what seemed an eternity. When Chloe stepped back to catch her breath the Simpathe was dead.
“Anything?” asked Josh.
“Well he was part of a cell, they’re working in fours and he wasn’t the leader. He killed himself before I could get any more out of him,” Chloe sagged, her energy depleted by the ordeal.
It wasn’t a lot Chloe thought, for the amount of suffering the Simpathe technician had gone through. What was so important that he would die rather than allow me to discover it? They moved the body to one side ready for the next interrogation. As soon as they pulled over they fetched another Simpathe prisoner. This was the one she had dueled and Chloe sat him in the truck facing his dead comrade.
“This is how you will end up,” Chloe spoke very quietly, her voice full of menace.
“This isn’t me and that isn’t him. You are freak of nature who shouldn’t even exist,” the Simpathe responded, hate shining from its narrowed eyes.
Well, Chloe. Thought, at least he was talking even it wasn’t very nice.
“I’m not a freak, merely an improbable improbability created by Josh’s father, as were you,” Chloe said.
“I wasn’t created by Josh’s father.” the Simpathe looked smug as he taunted her.
“Why are you so confident, why so smug?” Chloe asked.
“What’s the date?” the creature replied.
“It’s the first of December,” Chloe wrinkled her brow, puzzled.
“Well then, it doesn’t matter what happens now,” the Simpathe answered cryptically.
“Who is here?” Chloe asked.
“Sorry, that’s all you’ll get out of me. Can I die now please,” the Simpathe said silkily.
“No, I need access to you. I need to know who is here and what you are doing,” Chloe insisted.
“No,” replied the Simpathe as he self-destructed and died.
“Well that was different,” Josh was bemused.
“He was created but by who? His programming shows that he was created,” Chloe puzzled.
They spent the rest of the trip contemplating the meaning of the semi cryptic clues given by the Simpathe. Were they merely red herrings to throw them off the trail? With their arrival
at the new camp came much confusion. There were people everywhere: children, grannies and everyone in between. They soon saw that getting through the crowds would take a bit of time. Max had sent a helicopter to a nearby farm where he had negotiated for it to be stored under the hay barns cover. There was plenty of room to take off and the men got a warm farm house to stay in with good home cooking. The farmer was making good money out of it. Josh set his computers up in the lorry where the MRI machine was parked. There was no way that was going anywhere. He needed to create a false internet connection trap on a series of computers. His plan was to make reading of a Simpathe as it went physical from the MRI machine to the laptops. The laptops were strung together in series creating an infinite loop that the Simpathe would travel round, back and forth to the service. Josh had a way of identifying Simpathes electronically, eventually containing them on tighter and tighter loops. He needed to, in essence, freeze what it looked like in computer language. He then planned to turn the laptops off and kill it. He thought he would try again later because he wanted to know what Chloe was up to first.
Josh and Chloe spent the morning setting up safe links to her people and cleaning the satellites of Simpathes all the way to the MRI scanners if they could,
Later that day Max asked for feedback from everybody. He had set up a meeting as he wanted everyone’s input. Marcus started as he had the most information to divulge.
He told of how he had processed the photographs and extracted all relevant information ready for everyone to get as a brief. He read this out to the hushed room;
First contact report reads as follows; the researcher we sent to open up the facility at Uzbekistan and the computer appear to be talking to each other. Following studies this log was kept of their progress
May1: Today we made first contact with sentient beings. They appear to have superior intellect but lack corporeal form as we know. We initiated the conversation with mathematics, the universal language. In less then three minutes they had mastered fourteen distinguishable languages and were communicating directly through the computer screen. We have been given a list of customs and general protocol to be followed when addressing their supreme leader who we will meet later in the week. The simpaths, as they like to be known, have given us a new type of micro processer more powerful and efficient than anything that has even been thought of before. Our company is currently making one and will have it ready in the next week for testing.
May 2: Internet connections were set up to allow the Simpathes access to the full internet so they can learn of our culture. They have been stuck in the compounds computer system since coming into existence for the past thirty years. The computer was the most powerful and advanced of its time and was permanently left on for many years, even when the building wasn’t in use. It was a testament to Russian efficiency and engineering.
May 3: Simpathes want to meet with the president of our company and wish to interface with him directly. They have given us plans for a new type of MRI machine with a modified device. We can’t see any harm in building it. They said it is a more effective method of communication and we will feel what they feel as they described it. Our engineers are building the device but don’t understand how it works. We have a stand in for our president as it would be safer for a test subject to go forward rather than a leader at this stage.
May 7: We are ready for first contact and have built the machine as requested. Our stand in has been briefed on the situation and on the company’s position.
The meeting didn’t go well they knew he wasn’t the president and have explained they are deeply offended.
May 30: Still no contact with Simpathes, they have disappeared.
June 1: Re-established contact. Our president is coming to meet their leader and a formal working agreement between our two great species is to be signed. The first sentient species treaty. History will be made on the fifth of June.
June 5: First contact was made. The president came back a changed man and told us he was moved spiritually. Thing have started to speed up round here and people, equipment and even myself are being replaced. I don’t understand why but I have been axed. There is something more to this than meets the eye. I have been promoted out of here to headquarters
Writing by Dr J Farquarson of England.
Most of the information is list of target genomes. They appeared to be mapping the flaws in human genome. On average we all have 400 faults’ or errors and they were isolating selectively the genomes that had the best chance of survival against gamma radiation.
There were plans for machines of various different uses. One was some sort of healing device we think. There was an advanced computer design, also some sort of reactor. Most of the designs could not be made. We simply don’t have the technology to make them that small yet. The reactor was only small, the sort of thing you that would power a space probe, but the predicted power output is that of 10 cities.
“They were picking humans that could withstand gamma radiation. That’s what you had in you isn’t it.” Max said.
“Yes but the radiation I received wasn’t of this world,” Marcus answered.
“Well that would mean these are aliens on the internet,” Josh joined in.
“The evidence points to it,” Chloe said quietly.
“I need a Geiger counter,” Josh said.
“What for?” asked Max.
“Well, I trapped another Simpathe from the satellite; I could measure it for radiation traces,” Josh told him.
“Better still the 4r56t satellite will scan the earth for the radiation spikes in the gamma frequency we have identified,” Marcus suggested.
Max agreed and hurriedly set his team researching the gamma radiation spikes around the world and correlating that with what they knew about the physical company’s instillations and holdings suspected of Simpathe infestation to see how bad the problem really was.