Chapter 11: Meanwhile Back at the Ranch...

Susan was driving back from her mother’s house when she suddenly saw flashing red and blue lights behind her.

“Oh, no,” She said, annoyed, “I wasn’t even speeding.”

She pulled her car off the road, got out her driver’s license and registration and waited, window down, for the visit from whomever it was that had pulled her over.

She heard a crunch of gravel and had just turned to face her accuser when she heard a hissing sound and felt a mist cover her face; then blackness.

“OK, let’s get her out of here. Smith drive the car. Jones help me get her into the van for transport.”

The man giving the orders was Joe Friday – the man Jim thought he’d driven off and neutralized. Unfortunately, there were people with more power than Jim had who were able to detect his changes and break through them. Now, they had decided to come after him through his wife.

Susan’s limp form was taken to a nearby van and strapped into the back seat. The men doing this did so with great care to see that she was not harmed. Friday got behind the wheel of the van. His partner rode shotgun. A third man sat next to Susan, making sure she didn’t flop around and hurt herself.

The van U-turned and the man driving Susan’s car did the same. The pair of vehicles drove for about an hour and turned off onto a dirt road leading to a dilapidated old farmhouse with a barn nearby. The barn had a serious list to one side. Weeds had taken over what was once a yard.

Friday pressed a button on the steering wheel and an opening appeared in the ground ahead of the van. A ramp led down into a tunnel. The other car followed. Moments later the ground appeared undisturbed – a vacant yard in an old farmstead.

Lights came on in the tunnel as soon as the outer door was closed. The van and car came out into a large underground room with a number of people in it. Doors led to various other rooms. Everyone had blue uniforms with the FMCA insignia on the breast.

Susan was carefully removed from the van and strapped to a gurney. The gurney was wheeled through a set of double doors at one end of the room.

There was a technician at a computer. He was running a copy of Master PC.

“OK, Johnson. You know what to do. We need to know what changes he’s made and then we can decide what to do next.”

“Yes, sir.”

This version of the Master PC software didn’t look like the one Jim had. It was a major upgrade. An early glitch in this version had created Fox News and the widely held belief that making rich people richer was good for the economy.

The tech at the computer tapped a few keys, clicked on a few icons, put in some more information, and waited. A printer nearby whirred into life and spit out one sheet of paper. Friday went to the printer and removed the paper. He studied it with a frown of concentration.