The Victor Project (5 page)

     “What’s wrong?  I never saw a report on that,” she said.

    “You won’t.  And I don’t want to see one.  The panel showed they were twelve degrees hotter than normal and I just want to keep an eye on them.  I don’t know if you remember, but the engineers upgraded EU2 only a few weeks ago,” he said.

     “That explains it.  I might as well go sit up there and wait for them to catch fire,” she said.

     “Now now, watch what you say.  Big brother could be listening,” John said.

     “That’s why I said it,” she joked.

     “Can I count on you?’ he asked.

     “Sure boss,” she replied.  “How much longer you hanging around?”

     “Just another hour I hope,” he replied.

     “Yea, right,” she said.

     John clicked Pam off and made his way through the generating room and back through the doorway entering the monitoring room.  Robert had returned to his post and gave a slight wave from across the room.  The other engineer was busy falling into an hypnotic trance in front of the panels.  The two unknowns were not in the room and must have moved on.  Later he would catch Robert and get the lowdown on them.

     By now it was 7:30pm and John’s stomach had been growling excessively for the last two hours.  If he didn’t stop now to grab a byte he would be risking a blackout.  B-deck had two eating areas, one open all night for the various shift crews and another more luxurious food court attached to a mini shopping area, which stayed open until 9:30pm.  He didn’t have time for what his appetite had been begging for, a juicy well-done steak.  For now it would have to be a quick sandwich and a drink.

     All food provided by the station’s food management system was home-grown, so to speak.  The Functional Service Engineers had mandated that post-thirty-days of the completion of B-deck, C-Orbit would be “Self-sustaining for all consumable human items”.  That day had long since passed and so far all current residents were satisfied.

     It seemed like everyone living on C-Orbit was eating out tonight.  Three of the most popular fast-food places actually had lines waiting to be served.  At last count, the space station was sustaining approximately seventy-two life-forms.  The finished C-Orbit would hold up to one-thousand humans, complete with living quarters and jobs.  B-deck would house most of those.  Fifty-two percent of the living quarters it presented were single room occupancies.  Thirty-five percent of the total quarters were two-room units with the remainder being three-room dwellings.  The high ratio of single room units was most likely due to the fact that it was difficult to get families or even married couples to leave mother earth for a space detail.

     B-deck was a circular structure like the others, but was four decks high, with the decks labeled B1 through B4.  The SPS designers had even conducted a series of surveys to see what enhancements their future occupants might find desirable.  Stairs were put between the four B-decks for exercise along with a full sized health spa, shopping mall, grocery store and community playroom.  The corridor functioned as the running track, two laps on any one of the decks was the equivalent of a mile.

     B1-deck was the top of the line when it came to space living.  It was solely designed for the managers and officers of the station, they made that perfectly clear.  John guessed it was just an additional incentive to retain some of the more specific and desired employees.  Even in space, society had class distinctions.  Unfortunately, John fell into the lower class of space society as well.

     C-Orbit was scheduled for completion ninety days from tomorrow
, which meant ninety more days of the committee breathing down his neck.  God only knew what other committees and bureaucrats would soon be shipped up from earth to insure that date was met.  Already the security had been tightened for the station.  Every deck had been assigned one guard, kind of like a policeman, but without any weapons.  The uniform alone gave away his purpose for being on board.  It sort of took away from the space utopia that one would have imagined.

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     Frank Belker glanced at his watch as he marched down the hallway, it was 8:05pm.  Five minutes was no big deal to most bosses, but to Sherman Crane being late was like calling him a shithead to his face.  Why Sherman always called these late meetings, he had never figured out.  The guy had two young children and a wife and Frank didn’t know any wife that would put up with the late hours that Sherman’s did.  Frank’s best guess was that Sherman had watched way too many spy movies as a kid and felt compelled to demonstrate his ability to be just as covert as the next guy.  Frank gave a light rap on the closed door.

     “Come in,” spoke a voice from inside.

     “Frank, glad you could make it,” said Sherman with a glance at his watch.

     “Sorry I’m late sir,” Frank replied as he closed the door.

     He knew any excuse that would be given would fall on deaf ears.  He really didn’t have one anyway.  Four other men were in attendance for Sherman’s midnight clandestine meeting.  One was Jonathan Givens, the current head of the Department of Epidemiology.  To his right, sat Ben Brothers, the head of the National Security Administration.  To his right and closest to the window, sat the Deputy of the CIA, Keyton Kruck.  One other man sat in a chair near the back bookcase and remained quiet. 

     “You know everyone here, except Mr. Seaking in the back,” said
Sherman as he pointed.

     Frank gave a nod to each in acknowledgment.

     “Take a seat,” said Sherman pointing to the last empty chair.

     Sorry for not giving you a heads up Frank, but Ben brought this to my attention rather quickly this afternoon.

     “Are all your Travelers currently on assignment?” asked Sherman.

     “All but one, his wife is having a baby any time now,” replied Frank.

     “Is that Sullivan?” he asked.

     “Yes sir,” replied Frank.

     The other four men sat motionless as if holding back all their energy, waiting for the moment to pounce on the new prey, Frank Belker, although he didn’t expect that from Jonathan.  He was an old friend from back when all of Epidemiology was just a corner office in some government building.  Now they lived in the same neighborhood.  Their kids played on the same baseball team.  Just last week they saw each other at a neighborhood cookout.  On this occasion, the look that he donned was a little more serious than a chat over a clump of charcoal.

    
Sherman’s biggest wagon that he wanted everyone to jump on board with was the Team-Player wagon.  Sherman lectured the department of team-play like a preacher spoke of the bible.  He loathed individuality and demanded everything be done by protocol.  If there was a task, then there was a procedure and with procedure came prefect execution.  Frank could almost repeat the sermon by heart.  Procedures, team-play, protocol, reports, these were all just part of a big double standard.  Sherman pulled strings off the record better than anyone, which of all his true talents, was second only to kissing ass.  Rumor was that he had his sites on being the next head of NSA.

     Frank was sure about one thing of the man, he had connections and when you have certified connections, you have gained knowledge and favors.  With all of the above, you had power. 
Sherman probably had more power than the President of the United States.  He sure as hell had the freedom to execute his powers more so than the commander and chief.  He had been buddying up with Ben Brothers for the last few years to gain favor and Ben was a man with a few hidden aspirations of his own.  All Ben had to do when he moved up the covert ladder was to pick someone loyal, someone who had connections, someone like Sherman.

     All in all, Frank actually had little to complain about with
Sherman.  Over the past four years, the man had always treated him fairly and if there was anyone that you wanted on your side, it was Sherman.  You sure as hell didn’t want him as an enemy.  Only God new the exact number of graves left in Sherman’s political wake.

     Brothers was cut from the same mold, a ruthless, back-stabbing hatchet man.  If Brothers was in the room, your first thought was that someone was going to end up missing over the course of the next few days, usually the lowest ranking man in the room.  Frank hoped that the secret Mr. Seaking was just that.   Even worse,
Sherman started off the meeting with a comment that Ben had brought something to his attention.  Sherman was probably already ticked off because Ben showed up at his doorstep with some information that he should have known, or some housecleaning that should have already been taken care of.

     It was rumored that in the old days, Brothers was head of the quarantine camp system used to qualify zone candidates before authorization to enter the zones.  A quarantine camp was something of a small city in and of itself, although it consisted of nothing more than rows of plastic containers that acted as containment cells for the poor saps waiting for admission.  The camps were broken up into progressive pass/fail sections and candidates were placed in a section based upon their probability for infection.  If you made it to section five of the camp, there was a high probability that you were zone bound.

     There were a lot of old stories written about the quarantine camps, mainly by underground media.  Rumors were that many were exterminated as soon they tested positive for the populous virus.  The QC department maintained the position that confirmed infectants had simply been moved out of the camps and to a more secure facility to assure virus control.  Where these secure areas had been maintained has never been confirmed.  The government stated that secure not only meant structurally and physically secure, but also secure in the sense of concealment from the general public, as in top-secret.

     There were other rumors of scientists using people as Epidemiology test cases without their knowledge, along with maintaining poor documentation of the candidates and even favoritism towards zone entry for friends, relatives and the sort.  The last two accusations were hard to believe due to the fact that the zones would have become one large contaminated petri
dish if some form of due diligence hadn’t been adhered to. 

     Keyton Kruck was just the run of the mill company-man.  He always made sure the other players knew where he stood on the topic of the day, but everyone knew that behind the scenes he was just the voice-box for the CIA head.  Kruck wasn’t allowed to have his own opinion when it came to the department.  On top of that, the guy was the poster child for textbook paranoia.  He was always thirty minutes early to every meeting.  Popular tripe was that doing so allowed him to check the room for bugs, at least non-CIA bugs.  You could rest assured that if Kruck was in the room, the only big brother listening in was the CIA and no-body really cared what they heard.

     “Ben you want to take this one?” asked Sherman.

     “Yes.  Gentlemen, for some time the NSA has been tracking an underground group called the PERFs or People’s’ Revolution for Freedom.  For the past seven or eight years, this underground group has been functioning for one sole purpose and that has been to convince our complacent zone inhabitants that the rest of the world outside these walls is safe for all to dwell in.  They spread propaganda discounting the integrity of
Sherman’s department, they sabotage our Epidemiology studies and worst of all they fuel that small twinkle of doubt that the average citizen subconsciously holds,” Ben continued. 

     “For the past year, this group has been relatively harmless, but recently we have come across information that some of these people have infiltrated
Sherman’s department and possibly the Department of Epidemiology.  At the moment our intelligence sector has not pinpointed who they are, but given the scenarios that were recently presented to me by my analysts, we now feel that we must expand our pursuit.  The information that we deal with on a given day is highly sensitive and can easily be misinterpreted by someone lacking complete understanding of the complexity of the data.  Thus, if any one of these renegades obtains the right information, it could damage our credibility and sway more of the public toward their beliefs…..Sherman.”

     “This is why you are here gentlemen,”
Sherman began.  “Over the past six months this zone has had seventeen escape attempts.  Two of the escapees turned out to be just plain loonies, others just kids and daredevils, but one of them was practically a model citizen.  This model citizen told us of a man that convinced him that outside of all this lie an unbelievable heaven, a utopia where everyone on earth should live.  He was told that the epidemics of the past were all a government conspiracy and that these zones were just a means to keep the masses under control.  Our psychiatrists that examined the man said that he had been brainwashed.

      Gentlemen, we are going to work together to find these son-of-a-bitches and wipe them from the zones, no matter what it takes.  As of now I want each of your departments to begin D-Three security checks on all key personnel.  That means almost everyone that is on your payroll.” 

     Mr. Seaking had been sitting quietly and evidently had nothing to add, up to this point.  Ben nor Sherman had even acknowledged his presence during their self-centered save-the-world speeches.  Frank had glanced at Seaking a few times during the meeting and the man had transformed into a statue.  Not once did he catch the man even blinking.  He hadn’t even been taking notes.