Chapter 9

Watching the President step out of his limousine and strut up to the guard gate in the concertina wire fence around the warehouse made me sorry that I’d had the gate guards let them into the outer compound. Other legislators were getting out of their limousines and scrambling, trying to catch up with the President.

I watched the security camera feed from inside the warehouse as the President milled around impatiently outside the gate.

“Call him again,” the President ordered.

“I’ve already informed him that you’re here. He said that he’d be here. He’s a busy man trying to build up our sanctuary and keeping everyone safe while also controlling both smuggling attempts and the violent gangs in this area. He’s damn near wiped out the major cartels. All that’s left now are a few disorganized remnants of the original cartels,” the guard replied.

All the legislators had caught up with the President by then, so I went out to meet them.

As I approached the gate from inside the concertina wire, the President began his speech.

“On behalf of the government and the people of the United States, we’d like to thank you for sending us the Treasury Bonds,” he began.

“You’re welcome,” I interrupted before he could continue. Then I turned around and headed back to the warehouse.

“Wait, we’re not finished,” the President hollered.

“I was told that you were coming here to thank me. You thanked me,” I replied.

“We were hoping to see the portal,” he hollered.

“Why not shout it a little louder so the whole world can hear. Better yet, why not tell the news about it,” I replied caustically.

“I had to shout. You were walking away,” he protested.

Walking back towards him, I explained, “No elected politician will ever see what you really came here to see. We’re using it to escape the shit mess you politicians have made of this country and the world in general. Since it’s your mess, you can stay and face it.”

“But we didn’t cause the problem. It was those who were elected before us,” he protested.

“Have you even tried to balance the budget?” I asked. “All of you flew down here to see the portal without an invitation from me. You rented limousines to drive you here trying to impress us with how important you are. Every cent you spent should have been spent on something important, like more police officers. My personal opinion is that each of you should be tried and shot for malfeasance in office for wasting so much money just now,” I growled, and turned back towards the warehouse.

“We’ll get inside there one way or the other,” he threatened.

“And you’ll find nothing inside. All the portals are on another planet, not here. We can open them anyplace we want to. Hell, since we’ve wiped out the cartels in Venezuela, maybe we should open a portal in South America. We could spend the hundreds of millions of dollars we spend here on goods manufactured there, instead. You can nuke this place for all I care. Just be warned that if you do come after us, there is no place on this world that you can hide. No bunker or cave is deep enough or secure enough to hide from us.

“Even if you do come after us, you can’t touch us. Where do you think the portal came from? It came from an alien spaceship that sent explorers here almost four thousand years ago. The aliens brought it to Earth, but it was stolen from them, and without it, they had no way to get back to their ship.

“That’s why I have it off world, so it can’t be stolen. Aside from that, it’s password protected and requires my presence at least once every twenty-four hours or it will shut down for another four thousand years.

“What else do you think the Artificial Intelligence has told us about? The serum to cure diseases was one thing. That was a solution to the problem of us possibly infecting the people on the other planet and vice versa.

“The much-improved batteries that power everything from cell phones to automobiles was another. Our cell phones on the other planet can reach the satellites in orbit and don’t need cell towers.

“Guess what we haven’t shared with you: weapons. We still use standard weapons here, but each of our military people on the other planet has a rifle that can take out a tank, let alone other troops. We also have shielding that protects us from everything up to and including NBC weapons.

“You wanted to see a portal, well, look above you,” I told them, surprised myself that a portal had just opened. There were at least two dozen troops standing around the edges of the portal, looking down at the legislators. They held their weapons across their bodies instead of pointing them threateningly, but they had made their point. I hope.

“As you can see, we can open a portal anywhere, above you, behind you, beside you, and even beneath your feet. What would happen to an invasion force if a portal opened beneath them and dumped them into the ocean a hundred miles from shore? We wouldn’t even have to fire a shot to defeat them. I strongly suggest that you rethink your decision to threaten us and instead, run back to Washington and steal more money from the taxpayers,” I said angrily. Then I stalked into the warehouse.

“Advanced weapons? Shields?” Larry asked, trying not to laugh at me once the door closed.

“I was pissed,” I replied.

“Obviously. Hey, we could make Air Force 1 disappear from MacDill AFB,” Larry laughed.

“Nah, then they’d have a legitimate reason to arrest me, theft of government property,” I replied, also laughing.

Once back in Sanctuary, I had one of our newer portals continuously monitor the area around Refuge, watching for any signs of a pending attack. I also left notes for the President, one on his desk in the Oval Office and another on his pillow.

“I do mean anywhere,” was all each note said. I left them unsigned.

Two days later, Sheila commented, “I’ve been thinking about what you told the President.”

“That’s pretty vague. I told him a lot of things, some that weren’t very nice.”

“But what you said about him and the other politicians was true. However, I was talking about the shielding. I’ve come up with a way that you can create them ... well, that we can create them. I’ll have to do a lot of the work at first.

“You’ll need to repurpose one of the clean rooms that you have prepared in case we confiscate another supercomputer, probably a room big enough to house a couple of the newest computers.”

“Not a problem. It will be a year before the next one is ready,” I replied.

“The first thing will be for your inhouse technicians to build me several tiny robotic arms. Those will eventually be controlled by one of the lesser supercomputers. I will guide it in building what is needed to create a shield. You’ll need to install three more wind turbines to power it once it’s complete.”

“Hell yeah!” I replied excitedly.

By the end of the day, every one of our electronic techs had heard that they’d be building something new for our supercomputers. They were a bit confused when I told them they’d be building robotic arms and hands.

“Those are available all over the market,” one of the told me.

“These will be smaller, and will have much finer motor control,” I explained.

The next day I spoke with Sam, still in charge of our metal recycling and smelting. Our metalworks had evolved into a large assortment of buildings in a walled complex about five miles from downtown Sanctuary, having grown significantly from the initial collection of Sam’s and my assorted smelting equipment. Now, aside from a new smelter for the copper ore from our mine, they had more types of equipment than I could name, and I’m the one that paid for everything.

I had Sam look over the new data Sheila had downloaded onto a laptop for him. “Holy shit,” he gasped several minutes later as he stared at me goggle-eyed. What he was looking at were the specifications to create a new alloy that would withstand temperatures created by almost any manmade heat source short of a thermonuclear explosion.

“This would be great for MHD generators or rocket and jet engines,” Sam said. “They wouldn’t have to be replaced periodically like they are now.”

“Unfortunately, the formula and instructions can’t leave the metalworks. Nobody but you is to see the specs for making this alloy. Sheila said for you to make twenty, eight-fluid-ounce crucibles out of it, and sixty blowpipes to use to heat the crucibles. You’ll be adding oxygen to the gas mixture to make it hot enough to melt yet another alloy. The second alloy is one we’ll be using to make some of the tiniest parts for the robotic arms for the supercomputer to use. Many of them will be less than a millimeter thick and would quickly wear out or break if we made them from even the toughest alloys available now. Some of the first alloy will eventually be used to make molds for the parts we need to make,” I explained.

“This is getting complicated. Are any of the fumes hazardous?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Sheila said that all the information you needed was on the laptop. If it doesn’t say anything about it, let me know and I’ll ask.”

I left Sam poring over the laptop.

It took the General a month to work up the courage to face me after the President’s visit. “I warned them that you wouldn’t be impressed,” he sighed.

“Like Will Rogers said, ‘There are three kinds of men. The ones that learn by readin’. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.’ I guess we know which one the President is,” I replied, making him laugh.

“Larry wanted to steal AF1 from MacDill,” I added, making him laugh even harder.

When he finished laughing, the general got to the real reason he was here. “Anyway, the reason I’m here is that your favorite President hopes that I can convince you to deal with the Russians. Since we’ve pulled our troops out of every foreign country, Russia had begun mobilizing troops and equipment. It looks like they intend to forcibly reclaim some of the countries that used to be part of the USSR. Ukraine has been a target before and they’re worried that they’ll be first. Their citizens are trying to escape the country by any means necessary. A dozen other countries are worried that they’ll be next after Ukraine.”

“If they want my help, they need to pony up all the intel they have on Russia, and I mean EVERYTHING. I don’t care if it’s classified ‘Eyes Only.’ I want to see it. To make it easier, all they need to do is let me know what room inside CIA headquarters they want to use. After that, they only need to leave every page face up for one second. When they’re done, it will have never left the room and I’ll have one of my AIs digest everything. Nothing will ever be printed or released.

“I want to know where Russia keeps their darkest state secrets that they don’t want anyone to know about. I want to know where they stash their bullion. I want to know where their various military headquarters are. I want to know where they keep their nukes, how many submarines they have, and where they are. Imagine how embarrassing it will be to have their nuclear subs run aground on the shores of other foreign countries. Yeah, I’ll fuck with Russia if I get the intel I need,” I promised.

The politicos must have really been worried because I got the intel without getting any grief about it. It took six days, twenty-four hours a day, for two CIA agents to leave each page face up for one second. Sheila copied everything into her memory, digesting it even as she copied it.

Our first raid happened a day after they started sharing the intel with us. The Russian troops mobilizing along the Ukrainian border suddenly had serious problems. Every handheld and crew-served weapon turned up missing. Every tracked vehicle was sabotaged. Every tire was slashed on their other vehicles. The warheads for their missiles were gone. The kicker was finding that every tire on every visible Russian military aircraft was flat, having been shot. Every turbine had been shot and would need to be repaired or replaced. While the gunshots hadn’t been audible, the tires exploding or losing air was audible and had guards and aircraft mechanics running in circles.

Well before we finished, they tried hiding aircraft in hangars. They managed to get quite a few in the air before we flattened the tires, but they weren’t armed for a mission yet, so we didn’t care. We tracked them and shot up the tires and turbines of each jet aircraft when it landed, even of it landed in another country.

Then their nukes disappeared. Those ended up going through a portal in space, headed for the sun. Everyone else’s did too.

Chinese and Russian subs ended up colliding. Neither side could explain how their subs ended up hundreds of miles from where they had been moments before. Other Russian subs began appearing in landlocked lakes.

Then the top Russian military leaders disappeared, as did the top politicians pushing for the attacks. Only a handful of people know where they went. They were crammed like sardines into a Russian submarine that suddenly imploded because it was way too deep in the Marianas Trench instead of the North Atlantic where it had been moments before.

Yeah, their bullion disappeared, and not just gold, silver, and platinum. They had quite a stash of other precious metals, even rare earth elements. Those ended up in storage on Gleffen.

It only took a week for the Russian military to stand down. When they did, General Weisch showed up yet again. This time he was shaking his head while trying to keep from laughing. “You guys are too much,” he laughed. “We’re still getting reports about inexplicable things that happened in Russia. Where did all the top military brass and warmongers go?” he asked.

Laughing, I replied, “We crammed them aboard one Russian sub. It was a tight fit, but they weren’t inconvenienced for long. The sub just happened to take a detour into the deepest part of the Marianas Trench. All the world’s missing nukes are on the way to the sun. Also, I have a warehouse full of papers for you guys. You’ll need hundreds of people who read Russian to go through them.

“Oh yeah, we also took all the Russian supercomputers, and they had four supercomputers that were less than two years old. Those will soon be more AI controlled portals.”

“I’ll say this. Even though he doesn’t know about everything you did, the President is scared shitless to cross you now. Maybe he’s not as dumb as he looks,” the general laughed.

We continued our raids against the gangs, gradually expanding the territory we were covering. Having spoken to some guy named “Duke” Murphy from the Nobles Group, I had been assured that they didn’t mind us expanding our territory northward, even though one of their headquarters was near Fort Bragg in NC. He suggested that we expand west to the Mississippi and north through Kentucky, West Virginia, and Maryland. Since we’d already cleared Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina, I agreed that his suggestion was doable. Their much larger group was busy dealing with the myriad of gangs in Southern California and the Eastern Seaboard megalopolis.

With a few of the cartels trying to regroup, we made sure it didn’t happen, hopefully eradicating them permanently this time. We also continued to harass the Chinese. Within a year of my telling the General about the portals, we had snagged every remaining supercomputer in China. Even though the Chinese tried to play a shell game with their precious metals, we found them. They filled the hidden vaults with painted lead ingots and moved the precious metals into regular bank vaults or bunkers on military bases. We took it all, even the lead. We also left a few nasty surprises in some of the bunkers that contained weapons.

The two supercomputers I had ordered had just been finished and I ordered four more, compliments of the money we took from Russia. We had looted enough to buy supercomputers for the next decade. One of the two we confiscated from Russia was quickly set up and merged with one of the less powerful of the recently stolen Chinese supercomputers. Once everything was ready, Sheila reprogrammed it and we had another portal to help us keep an eye on everything.

The second new computer was intended for something completely different. Just after I ordered the two supercomputers, Sheila had made me a promise. As part of the promise, she downloaded designs into two different laptops.

One group of our people worked with one laptop, putting together ten sets of the sophisticated electronics shown in the laptop. The second group built the containers for the electronics. Those were done much sooner than the electronics.

Once we got the new computer, we incorporated eleven of the least powerful stolen Chinese supercomputers with it, attaching one of them to each of the sets of electronics we built. Once everything was attached and had been tested, Sheila reprogrammed the whole shebang, making the new supercomputer an AI, although one with a dedicated purpose. The electronics were installed inside the containers, and everyone finally realized what they had built. Healing pods.

They weren’t nearly as sophisticated or powerful as the ones Sheila’s people had used, but they worked; Sheila expected them to be about one-quarter as powerful. They’d still accomplish most of the same things; it would just take longer.

Our doctors began triaging patients, deciding who should go first. The only people we had with serious health problems were the senior citizen parents of some of our workers. I named the AI overseeing the ones attached to the healing pods Walt, using Dr. Perry’s shortened name since he always went by Walter.

We did test one of them out first. One of the gang members we captured had a serious bullet wound by the time we had subdued him. After making sure he was unconscious, we took him through the portal and put him in the healing pod.

Once we were sure it worked, we released him, alive and healed ... five miles above the middle of the South Pacific.

The population of Sanctuary has reached almost ten thousand. The wall around the plateau is far from complete, but it has closed off all access points. Only the eastern side remains incomplete, and it’s nearly half done.

Our orchards have increased dramatically, especially the olive orchards. Even though we chose cultivars that will fruit early and heavily, it will be several years before they reach full production, so we’ll have to continue buying olive oil until then. Our vineyards have also been increased dramatically.