Chapter 22

When John returned his attention to the room, Sam was squatting beside Julie, encouraging her to drink something. He immediately wondered if it was similar to the stuff she had him drink the morning he met Kiri. He hoped so. It would relax her, and give her the energy to face what was to come. Of that, he was speaking from personal experience.

John almost considered asking for some, for himself. Though his thoughts were different, they were none the less disturbed. He had voluntarily taken on the position of Earth’s protector. Something he intended to do in spite of most of his fellow men acting contrary to what was in their best interest. However, when he began this, he hadn’t expected that protection to become as individualized as it had. Still, Julie had brought this problem to him. He would deal with it as he would any other problem ... as completely as he could.

Okay, sure, he didn’t have all the facts yet. But what he had thus far was quite damning, his gut told him that he couldn’t allow this ‘Allen kid’, free rein. What’s more, he trusted Julie’s instincts on this. Call it his belief in ‘woman’s intuition’. What this meant, though, was that he couldn’t in good conscience sit back and do nothing. It was easy to say that you were going to protect a planet, if in doing so you didn’t have to think too much about the individuals involved. John was finding himself very conflicted.

In his previous life (which is how he now thought of the break between the ‘before and after’ of his acquisition of the scout ship), he had lived by the letter of the law. For the most part, he found the laws that protected an individual’s rights, were beneficial. Now, for all practical purposes, he was above the law. Was that a good thing? Damn! This was more than he’d bargained for.

John took a good long cleansing breath, to refocus, and thought, ‘What are my options?’

Well if he was honest with himself, even without hearing from Sandra yet, he believed the kid was a danger to those around him. Call it gut reaction, but that was how he felt. So what were his options? He could, possibly, use his pheromones to force the kid to seek counseling. The kid would do it honestly, but would that work? This was another one of those unknowns. There was simply no way to know, unless he tried. But, let’s say it worked, and the kid sought professional help. What if there was no hope of recovery? The kid was already on anti-psychotics. No doctor would lock him away, forever. That meant he would have to face the fact that eventually the kid would be turned loose on society. What if he didn’t take his medications? Well, John didn’t like to think of the possibilities.

Finally, John had to ask himself, could he actually do what would be necessary to remove the kid from society permanently? In other words, could he kill in cold blood if it meant protecting others? His head said that he could, but his heart told him something different. John knew that eventually he was going to have to make life and death decisions, but it had always seemed so far away, before. Now the time for him to make that first one was here, and he still wasn’t sure he could do it.

Then he reminded himself that there was some good news. He didn’t have to make that decision yet. Everything would depend on what Sandra had to say. Okay, that might simply be putting off the inevitable. However, any reprieve no matter how short, was better than none. And, of course, there was a possibility that the boy could be salvaged. He might be ‘putting the cart before the horse’, as his father had been so fond of saying.

John was brought out of his reverie by Sandra chiming his door.

John gave her entrance by saying, “Come!”

She pulled up short after coming in the door, when she saw her daughter sitting on the couch.

“Honey, what are you doing here?”

And so the story was told once again while Sandra sat with a creased brow.

John saw that the minute her daughter’s story started to be told, that Sandra had gone into ‘counselor mode’. Therefore, she didn’t rush to her daughter when the story was finished, as a mother normally would.

John caught her eye, and pointed to his temple hoping she would get his meaning. She nodded, and John used his implant to let her know he was stepping out. He told her that she could contact him via implant, so they could have a private conversation. She nodded again, and he left.

John decided that he needed more background on this. The first people he thought of, were Paul and Martha. John was so focused that he didn’t notice the absence of Sam at his side. Luck must have been with him, because not only were Paul and Martha at home, but so was Helen. Even better, was that the three of them weren’t involved in ‘extracurricular’ activities.

Paul did seem to be totally absorbed in the code he was pouring over on his screen, as well as the notes he was making occasionally. Martha and Helen had apparently been sitting at the table, talking over their coffee. Martha invited him in warmly, but then hesitated when she saw the expression on his face.

“I’m sorry to barge in on you like this,” John said, ignoring the expression of concern on Martha’s face. “You see, something has come up, and I think you might be able to give me some answers. Do you think you could pry Paul away from his code, long enough for the four of us to sit down and talk?”

Whether it was the mention of his name or the sound of John’s voice, Paul had looked up from the screen full of code that he had been working. He looked around the room, and seemed to be amazed that there were other people in the room with him.

“Well,” said Martha, regaining her earlier warmth, “I guess I won’t have to put a stick of dynamite under his seat after all.”

Paul gave her a look that let everyone know he had no idea what his wife was talking about. Under other circumstances John might have found it humorous, but now he could only smile politely.

Paul looked from his wife to John and said, “I’ve been hoping to catch up with you, alone. I’ve been going through the programming code for the AIs, line by line. You have no idea how unique Sam and possibly Carlos are, as both of them went through extreme events to become what they are today.”

John could tell that Paul was ready to continue explaining everything that he had discovered, but he interrupted him.

“Paul, I know that what you have to tell me is important. But what I have come to talk about with you, Martha, and Helen, is even more so. I promise I will hear you out when we get this present crisis sorted.”

Paul, who had been taking a breath to continue, seemed somewhat taken aback by John’s interruption. He let the breath he had taken trickle out and seemed somewhat deflated. However, hearing that there was some crisis he could help with, he refocused on what John had to say. He wasn’t sure what was up, but if the expression on John’s face was any indicator, then it wasn’t good.

After the four of them were sitting around the table with fresh coffee, he shared with them, not only the meeting with Julie, but the discussion he’d had with Brian prior to that. Though Helen showed no outward reaction, Paul and Martha seemed to flinch at the mention of Allen.

“Okay,” John said, looking at the two of them, “who’s going to fill in the blanks?”

Paul and Martha shared a look, and Paul gave the slightest of nods. Martha heaved a sigh, and took a large swallow of coffee, as though to fortify herself, and began.

“I guess I get elected, since I was around him more than Paul. Now please understand, John, Paul and I have tried very hard not to interfere with Brian and Penny’s choice of friends. If there was ever one we would have made an exception for that rule, it would have been Allen.”

Martha continued to talk for nearly an hour, non-stop. She talked about all of the things that Brian and Allen had been caught at. She talked about all of the things that she and Paul suspected, but had no proof of. She even related her relief, when she heard that Allen’s family was moving out of the neighborhood. They only moved to the other side of town, but it was far enough that Brian and Allen spent a lot less time in each others company.

However, as luck would have it they ended up in the same junior high and high school together, which rekindled the old friendship that had been dying.

John walked back towards his office, feeling as though he had swallowed a large rock that was now weighing heavily in his stomach. He knew that a part of his mind had taken in everything that Paul had shared about the coding in the AIs, but he had too much going on in the active part of his brain to take much notice. In his mind, Allen now had two strikes against him, and he was yet to meet with Sandra. He was somehow certain, that he was going to find out if he could do the things he thought he should.

John sat at his desk, rubbing his temples. Sandra had just left his office, and the rock in his stomach had grown at least three fold. He tried to focus on what Sandra had told him, so he could remind himself why this had to be done.

“John,” Sandra had said in a questioning manner, “would you kill a highly venomous spider, if you saw it crawling toward one of your wives? Or, would you wait to see if it walked on by?”

John had thought about it, though he wasn’t sure how it applied to this kid.

“I guess I would kill it. Just because it might not bite them, doesn’t mean it wouldn’t,” he said. “But, are you saying the kid is not human?”

“No. I’m saying that he’s an incredibly and totally out of control disaster,” Sandra said. “There is only two questions of WHEN he will kill or if he already has. There is no doubt about the fact that he will do so or has done so. Like I told you, I was his counselor for a while. I have read his file. The doctors that have seen him agree that there is no cure for him. They have put him on anti-psychotics so it looks like they are doing something. Before you ask, the Rhylertians never advanced much farther than we have, in the field of mental health. Oh there were advancements in treatable patients, but the ones like Allen went the way of the Rhylertian naturalists. You know the ones who were so opposed to the genetic enhancements? The mentally ill simply weren’t given the enhancements and died out with the naturalists.

“Occasionally, a child was born with what the Rhylertians called ‘psychological abnormalities’. Since their parents had been enhanced, these children presented a different problem. These children would be long lived, so it was decided to house them in such a way that they were only a danger to themselves. Eventually the Rhylertians perfected the genetic enhancements to the point that where those problems no longer occurred. At least that is what the records show. It could be that they were very rare, or that they simply stopped recording the occurrences.

“Now I’m going to be ‘The Amazing Randy’, and answer your next question even before you ask it. We aren’t equipped to build such a facility at this time. I don’t see a point in the near future where we will be able to, either. I’m sorry, John, I know you wish there were other options.”

After heaving a sigh she summed it all up.

“I don’t like the idea of killing the kid, any more than you do. But you’re the one that pointed out to all of us, not so very long ago, that sometimes you have to do distasteful things for the greater good. Like that spider I mentioned before, sooner or later this kid is going to move up from the small animals that we know he has been torturing and killing. He is going to see other humans as prey. Then he is going to kill some random person, if for no other reason than they got crosswise on his path. Maybe it will be a killing of opportunity, but someone will die. It may be that many people will die, before he is caught.”

If she had any more to say on the subject, she didn’t utter it. John could tell by the haunted look on her face, that it was tearing her up that she didn’t know how to save this kid. She left his office a short time later, without saying another word.

Sam startled him out of his private thoughts by saying, “John, everything is in place.”

He knew that Sam meant that the satellite they had earlier positioned over Allen’s house had monitored the arrival of the cloaked drone. They had arranged for one of the shuttles picking up new arrivals to drop it off. The sun was just coming up in the Midwest, so this was the final run in this area of the planet. However, John’s mind was drawn back to what the satellite had picked up during its scan of the house. What had been found, was actually the determining factor for him to go ahead with this plan.

Allen was already awake, and was working on something when they did the initial scan. From the reading they got it, was easy to figure out that he was building an explosive device. How a teenager got his hands on the Ammonium Nitrate was beyond John’s understanding, the diesel fuel he could understand, but the other was a fertilizer, and was not available in this urban area. A little more work on Sam’s part and she had hacked into Allen’s computer. She discovered that Allen was using plans he had found online. It was this information that John used in finalizing his improvised plan.

A cloaked drone would be dropped, and moved in close to the house. Its job would be twofold. Firstly, it would project a shield around the hard-drive of the computer. John wanted to be certain that it survived, so the information could be retrieved from it. Secondly, it would detonate Allen’s device, the touchy part was doing it when Allen was the only one in the kill zone. Though Sam had set things into motion, it would be John’s job to type in the commands, and the execute order.

The satellite images showed the father leaving the house at six. A short time later the drone was in place. It’s parabolic microphones picked the mother calling from the bottom of the stairs, telling Allen to come down and take out the trash. Something she said he had promised to do the previous night. Well, her words were something to that effect, even if they were considerably more colorful. After three more attempts to get Allen downstairs, the mother apparently gave up on him. After much cursing and even more maligning of Allen’s character, the mother started gathering the trash, so she could haul it to the curb.

The mother dragged the two seemingly heavy cans down the drive. It was easy to see she was trying to beat the garbage truck that was only two houses away. John’s finger hovered over the enter button. His eyes were glued to the monitor. An overlay was placed on the satellite image showing exactly how far she needed to be from the house to reach a minimum safe distance from the blast radius. This number had been reached by calculating the size of explosion based the amount of material in the bomb. John watched as the distance between her and the house grew. John found himself thinking, ‘Just a couple more steps and... ‘

KABLAM!!!

John immediately looked down at his finger. It was still hovering above the enter key. He jerked it clear of the keyboard. He then turned his attention back to the screen, as though to verify that the blast had actually happened. The upper front section of the house, including a section of the roof, was gone. In its place, was a huge smoldering hole.

Allen’s mother had been blown off her feet, into the path of the approaching garbage truck. Fortunately, the truck was moving very slowly as it stopped in front of each house to collect the garbage. The driver was able to bring the truck to a stop, just inches away from running over her head. The guy from the back ran up, and helped her into a sitting position. The two of them gaped at the smoldering hole in the front corner of the house.

“What the hell just happened?” demanded John. “Did the drone act independently? Did I accidentally push the key?”

While Sam accessed the drone and the satellite, John pulled up his office’s video feeds. He brought up a split screen, half was a picture of the house and the other was a close up of his keyboard. He played the video that ran up to the explosion. He was relieved to see that his finger never got any closer to the ‘enter’ button, than a quarter of and inch. After the explosion his hand jerked clear, and even then it didn’t touch anything. When he was done with his end, Sam told John that the only thing the drone had done was create a shield around the hard-drive, just as he had instructed it to do. The drone had not, however, triggered the device. Sam went on to explain that the most likely scenario was that Allen had done something wrong in final assembly. Maybe the triggering mechanism, whatever it was, was already tripped when he installed the batteries.

“The hard-drive of his computer ... did it survive the blast in good enough shape?”

“Well the case and most of the components of the computer are so much twisted metal and scrap, but you can tell what it once was. The hard-drive, on the other hand, is intact and functional, thanks to you thinking about protecting it with a shield. The police shouldn’t have any difficulty finding the plans that Allen had downloaded.”

“In other news, there were disturbing happenings in south Minneapolis today. An explosion rocked the normally quiet neighborhood on Hampton Road. The official police statement said that the cause of the explosion is as yet unknown, though they promised a thorough investigation. However, this afternoon a police source stated that a homemade bomb caused the explosion. The plans for this device, had apparently been retrieved from the internet. We have done further research and discovered that the family had a teenaged son that lived in the house. Further digging revealed the son had a history of mental illness. While the father was confirmed to be at work, the mother was taken to County Mercy, and was treated for minor cuts and abrasions. We have been unable to discover the whereabouts of the son. Rumor has it that the area of the house that was destroyed, was the boy’s bedroom. We will continue our investigation, and keep you up-to-date on our findings. This is Andrew Wetherspoon, for the Five O’clock News.”

John watched this and shook his head. He should have guessed that they would play up the mental illness part of it. After all, that made for a more sensational story. He retracted the screen, and put on what he hoped was a neutral expression. Brian was due at his office, and he had to act like he knew nothing.

Brian was walking towards John’s office. His mind was still in turmoil, but he was thinking much more rationally. John had presented some good points. What had he, himself done? He had yelled at John, and threatened to walk off the projects that he had so much invested in. Not really a smart thing to do. When he chimed the door, he wanted to get a few things off his chest, before John had a chance to reprimand him. So when the door opened, he didn’t wait he went into his mentally prepared speech.

“John, I know that I acted immature the last time I was in your office, and I ask that you hear me out before you say anything.”

He looked at John, who nodded, so he began pacing as he continued to speak.

“After we talked, I was still pissed. I wanted to rage against the machine that you had put into place. I was certain of the unfairness of it all. I admit, John, it took awhile for my temper to subside. I’m afraid that Julie got the brunt of it, and after you and I are done, I have to go to her and ask for forgiveness. We haven’t even spoken since my last blow up. When we are together, she seems to walk on eggshells around me. I think she is afraid to set me off, again. In all fairness, I gave her every reason to be nervous around me.

“Anyway, that is off the point I was going to make. That point being, that I was raging against the wrong thing; or in this case, the wrong person. It was so easy to think that it was unfair of you not letting Allen up here on my say so alone. It was me who was being unfair. I was trying to circumvent the very system that was put in place to keep us all safe. Well, as safe as we can be, until the Hruth get here. So, I want to apologize for going off on you. I’d like to see if it would be okay to continue on my projects.”

“Brian, I understand that you had a lot come at you all at once. You came up here to the moon, you found out you were a father, and you got married. Then on top of that, you found yourself for the first time without your friend. That would be enough to stress anyone out. But you know, Brian, I never said that Allen couldn’t come up. I only said he had to go through the same channels as everyone else.” Brian looked at John with real understanding in his eyes, John continued. “Submit his name, and let the scanners have a look at him. I know that you’re certain that he won’t pass, but this will give us a better idea of what we’re dealing with, and there is the possibility that there is something in the Rhylertian knowledge base that can help. If there is, then you and I can sit down and discuss options. Fair enough?”

Brian snapped to attention and said, “Yes, Sir!”

“No need for that,” John said with a smile. Then his face turned more serious, “Yet!”

Brian tilted his head and gave John a quizzical look.

“This base is, and will stay, a civilian outpost. Just like New Atlantis. The military training facility is here, but that is because troops will be stationed here to protect the base. Strangely enough, our recent interaction has made me see that I can’t continue to act as administrator here, and get our military in place, its just too much. So I’m going to name a replacement, and move to Ares Landing. Although there is a civilian sector there, it is primarily a military base.”

“Have you given any thought as to whom you are going to use as your replacement?”

As Brian asked this he took a seat for the first time.

“Actually, I have. I was thinking about your mother.”

Brian looked stunned, so John held up his hand so he could present his reasoning.

“Your mother has shown amazing organizational skills, and what’s more is she isn’t afraid to ask for help when she needs it. I will make sure that she has a support staff in place. I’m hoping that Sandra will agree to be one of them. Anyway, I haven’t talked to your mom yet, so please don’t mention it.”

Brian shook his head, though he still looked rather shell shocked.

“Anyway, about the ‘yet’,” John continued. “You once told me that you wanted to join up. I don’t know if you still do? I should mention that if you do, you could stay with our R and D department. I don’t know how long it will be before I can get administration for the base in place, but I hope that I can do that in the next couple of days. I want to devote my entire attention on what is coming at us, faster than the speed of light.”

Brian got up to leave, and then turned back toward John.

“I know I wasn’t supposed to, but I have talked to Allen both on the phone and through messenger, about this place. He already knows, and seemed very excited about the prospect of coming up here. Still I should let him know about the scanning process and the possibility that he could be denied, but that you will try to do what you can for him using the tech we have up here. I’m sure he will understand.”

Brian turned to leave again and turned back a final time.

“Uh, John, do you think I could have my internet and phone privileges back?”

“Sure, Brian. They will be active again, before you get to your quarters.”

Brian turned and left.

Sam appeared, “Do you think I should see what I can do to erase the interaction between Brian and Allen on the hard-drive the police took?”

“No, if they find it, they will think it was some new variation of D&D that involves space, or they will think Brian was some sort or crackpot whose story Allen bought into. I’m not worried that they would ever be able to back track their conversations, to us. I’ve seen your internet security measures. No one in this century is qualified to even begin to track the signal.”

“Okay, John, as you wish,” Sam said. “I have a couple things we need to cover. The first won’t take long so I will go over it, first. The United States has given New Atlantis notice that none of its citizens will be allowed to board our shuttles, from within its borders. Of course, this action has resulted in record numbers of visitors to Mexico and Canada. Rad is shifting half the shuttles that were landing in the US to pick up the overflow in those countries. He is still landing shuttles in the US, because they haven’t been able to revoke our permission to land. Rad thinks that its better that he keep shuttles landing there, to show that we are exercising those privileges. However, armed military guards are keeping people from boarding. It is amazing the amount of national news coverage this particular action by the government is receiving.

Sam smiled to let John know that she was behind keeping the media focused on this.

Next has to do with our ships that were sent out to intercept the ones that sent the FTL message. Through one of our outriders, we just got a message from Ray. It seems that things may not be what the ‘survivors’ claim. Our ships arrived in nearby space, and they hid themselves out of quantum phase. They pop back into phase, occasionally, to do more detailed though passive scans. Their ships, for the most part, are exactly as what had been described. Most are two to three ships that are hard docked together, because only one has a functional FTL drive. The exceptions were the five that were acting as outriders. From a personal point of view, it looked as though those five ships were herding the others.

“Ray, acting as though he and the other ships were still a short distance away, sent a message that they were drawing near. Suddenly, messages in Hruth code were being sent back and forth between the five ships. Those same five ships suddenly started outgassing something. This was very strange since they were in the best shape of all the ships. Ray then received an emergency reply that five of their ships were leaking atmosphere, and they needed immediate emergency aid. Ray did not reply immediately. He wanted to give the impression of distance, but when he did answer, he told them that he had repair personnel with him. He added that they would make top speed to intercept.”

“I think the whole set up smells like a trap, but forewarned is forearmed. Transmit these orders to Ray. No one goes near one of those ships unless they are suited. Even the people who are not boarding, I want in their pilot’s suits. As for any other decisions, inform Ray that he is in command. He is on site, and is in a better position to make decisions based on what he sees there.”

Sam nodded, and got busy.

Ray got the go ahead from John. He was surprised and pleased that John had put the entire thing in his lap. The safety measures John had instituted made sense, since several of these people had never been in a battle situation before. Through a comm link, Ray outlined his strategy. They were going to feign friendship, much as the Hruth were doing. Then they would launch an attack, once the ships were hard-docked.

Four things were working in Ray’s favor, all of which he was totally unaware.

The first fact, was that the beings that the Hruth left in charge of these ships, were not warriors. Oh, they had all been trained in combat. All Hruth were. But these Hruth were accustomed to being sent to gather intelligence while floating with these ships, and sending in data on what they found. The humans were with them, to lure the others in close enough to be captured.

The second fact was that with humans onboard, the atmosphere had to be changed to one they both could breathe and survive.

The third fact was that though both human and Hruth could breathe, they both had considerable difficulty. To qualify it, both races were gasping for air as though at a high altitude. This significantly reduced their fighting effectiveness.

The fourth fact was the Hruth’s complacency and their confidence in their superiority. They didn’t believe humans could beat them, nor did they believe that humans could possess the advanced technologies that Ray and his people actually did possess.

All of these were very bad mistakes.

Ray gave the order for the Sphinx class Battleships to move into place. They had used a random number generator to pick which of the Chimera crews would board the ships, and which would target the power system of the fifth ship.

As it turned out, it was Ray’s crew that was left out. The crew was very disappointed. Ray, if he had thought about it, would have opted himself out anyway. Being separated from the hand-to-hand action, gave him a chance to orchestrate everything, without being distracted by the necessity of staying alive during combat.

If there was one thing that made Ray glad, it was that John had insisted that everyone on this mission not only learn, but use ONLY the ‘Galactic Standard’ language. In fact Ray had taken it one step further, since John had not only promoted him to Commander, but to Acting Admiral, for the mission. He had insisted during the trip, that no other language be used for any other purpose at all. It was a good thing, too, even though the damned language made his mouth hurt. Still he had to use it. At least the people onboard understood it.