When Totems Fall (21 page)

Sgt. Sanchez had observed enough of Chinese transport, command, and control activity to feel she had a decent handle on it.

The rigorous daily discipline
of taking up her position just off the landing strips at Baotong provided a good sense of men and resources coming into the area by plane. It was a partial image but still an important piece of the puzzle. Land-locked and only one person, she couldn't account for sea-borne personnel and ships arriving via the Straight of Juan de Fuca, in off the Pacific. These assets would be harboring at points farther north than her position. Tracking that intel, she hoped, was somebody else's job. Someone hiding and watching, like she was. Content with the picture accumulated thus far, she was expanding her surveillance activities outward. There was significant risk in breaking the cover of the well-forested area. There was also a real advantage to be gained in observing and relaying conditions in the city. Strengths and weaknesses of the enemy. Overall health and morale of American captives. It all mattered.

Sanchez had completed several near-base recon missions over the last few days. What she needed now was eyes-on throughout the city limits. What she found there was disheartening, to say the least.

The total contingent of Chinese soldiers and airmen tasked to the takeover had turned out to be nearly four times the capacity of the former American military installation's barracks, family units, and officers' quarters. The logistics question became: how do you take care of 100,000 men? The answer was fairly simple—local citizens' homes. It was a harsh move, not at all uncommon in the annals of human history. Regardless, the fact it had happened many times before didn't make it any easier for Tacoma's more established neighborhoods to abide. Not at all. Many of these families had been here for decades, some for generations. The sting of loss struck them every night as fathers and mothers tucked young ones into bed in army-issue cots at local high school gymnasiums instead of the warm, personalized surroundings of their homes. Less austere than refugee camps the world over, the accommodations still underscored the displacement of all that was cherished by these people as the fog of the unknown hung over them all, with no real answer coming soon to the unrelenting question of when, or if, they could ever go home again.

Sanchez tested her reach in ever-widening concentric circles. She found it difficult but not impossible with most of her work done at night, under the faithful camouflage of darkness. To her pleasant surprise some of the Chinese guards who should've prevented her from roaming were also the least disciplined, opening wide the kind of opportunities she could bend to her advantage. It'd taken her the better part of the past forty-eight hours but she was in position now in the hillsides above the city's convention center, achieving her final post at just after midnight. Invisible to patrols by ground and air, she sat silent for another two hours and then got some needed rest.

The sergeant awoke
in heavy underbrush as the sun rose, cresting the hills behind in the east, a slight rise in temperature caressing her back. Solar reflections off the sheltered waters of Commencement Bay, just two klicks from her current position, were stunning. Gentle waves danced with light and a glint of gold crowned the massive, domed white top of the structure, located below and center of her viewpoint. So beautiful. A scant moment of enjoyment in an otherwise hellish scene, because what Sanchez saw next through her weapon's scope was something significantly less attractive.

Unending lines.

Americans, snaking from four main entrances into the building, stretching through acres of parking stalls and from there about a half mile into downtown. Sanchez noted it, communicated in their body language, even from all the way down there. It was a forced march, despised by every single one of them. What could seem to be a token act of submission—to have to show up and simply identify yourself—was, in fact, an enormous offense to a people accustomed to greater, unquestioned freedoms. It showed. Her stomach lurched
.

The largest covered wooden structure
of its kind in the world, the Tacoma Dome could seat up to 23,000 people. Once a gathering place for rabid soccer fans and high school grads anticipating all that adult life held out for them, the cavernous environs now served as one of the hastily established regional Citizens' Registration Centers (CRC). The space had once hosted the likes of U2 and Billy Graham. Now it was a building where former American residents were required to appear in person, to be accounted for. The area housed five such sites, with the T-Dome being the largest.

The system was quite thorough. Organized by local neighborhood precincts, each household was to come to their assigned Center at an appointed day and time, wait in line, and receive an identification number for every family member. They would then be stamped with their new ID on their upper right forearm; a not-quite permanent inking that was both faster and cheaper than a traditional tattoo. Although it would fade visually in about six months, the chemical markers would remain for the better part of a decade. Finally, forfeiting their individual U.S. Social Security cards and passport—if they had one, would be the culmination of this grotesque public shaming.

At this time, every citizen was also to declare their worker's status. Besides giving the new administration a sense of the inherent skills among the people, it was a census of sorts, establishing each individual's value to the regime. Though official declarations out of Beijing were quick to assign a benign neutrality to this kind of classification, any reasonable student of history might think otherwise.

You've got to be kidding me.

Sanchez exhaled quietly, watching the lemming-like procession with equal parts cynicism and unbelief. Then again she'd seen it before, too many times, frankly. Humans treating other, different humans like animals, resources, mere numbers. Military officers are often excellent historians. Sanchez certainly was. So the sergeant recognized events unfolding below as only the beginnings of a series of centralized power plays, ones leading to an ever increasing devaluation of those now shuffling forward in line, inch by dehumanizing inch.

C'mon, you're Americans!
she wanted to scream.

The Chinese controlled U.S. nuclear capabilities, had threatened to use this strategic advantage if mass rebellion arose and then acted on it when the crowds surged forward into Pike Place two weeks back. Though appearing a self-defeating potentiality this proposition was really their veto power of sorts. There was no question now as to whether the Chinese would use it. There was also no question as to whether or not the next launch would achieve impact and detonation. None whatsoever.

Endless lines of her countrymen moved forward to be identified, categorized, and assessed as to their relative value. No one would've blamed the sergeant for feeling helpless, watching her compatriots lay down their rights before a foreign captor. She didn't. She got angry. Her soldier's heart ached to find a way to reverse the losses she viewed, day after humiliating day.

Enough
.

It was time for action, with or without orders from whatever command structure still existed on the outside.

__________________________________

The Pentagon—Washington, DC

Petty Officer Third Class
Craig Mortensen
sat unflinchingly before the triple-monitor display, searching for any sign of the enemy's weakness, any possible scenario in which the United States military might regain control. He had manned this position for the better part of two weeks with only limited sleep and breaks along the way. The place was orderly but quite unkempt, as the volume of fast food wrappers in the room alone could serve as the basis for a graduate-level marketing studies research project. Half empty Coke cans and trail mix packaging littered the desktop. An aroma hovered stubbornly; one that might be expected from the combination of long hours, a lesser concern for personal hygiene, and extra onions on every burger ordered. Clearly, there were practical reasons the higher-ups never visited here, as well as a general lack of knowledge about the critical work being done at these standard-issue desks.

Mortensen's assignment: a high clearance area known only as
the Vault.

As part of a unique collaboration of the military and intelligence communities, he and a handful of other skilled technicians worked this fourteen-by-ten-foot space, hidden deep inside the walled fortress of the Pentagon. Only a dozen or so people even knew this room was in the building. Fewer had been here. Officially, it didn't exist.

The apparent simplicity of the place was incongruous with its crucial national security purposes. White, unadorned walls and three, eight-foot long workstations. No standard computer boxes with neutral, plastic casings holding the normal motherboard, CPU, and hard drives within. Three stations. Cluttered remains of fry and shake containers. Messy. Nothing even remotely high-techie. Yet a dismissal based upon first-look would be a misstep as the room's effectiveness—its true power, lay in what you couldn't see on the surface. Beyond the framing and drywall, hundreds of tentacles of cabling extended to multiple, highly controlled spaces, each housing unimaginably powerful computing platforms. This was only the control room, the input and readout side of America's hugely secretive weapon in the world of cyber-warfare.

In front of Mortensen, along the center of three, twenty-four-inch LCD displays, ran an unending, vertical progression of code. The waterfall of ones and zeros flowed on, hour after hour. The remaining two screens of this digital triptych, flanking left and right, were populated with on-screen gauges; widgets developed over the last eighteen months for scenarios just like this. The result of the military's best tech work, these apps kept vigilant, automated watch over all processes, alerting any anomalies, whether hopeful or disconcerting.

The PO3 reached for another can of Coke, popped the lid and then turned back to his work. Blinking, Mort rubbed his eyelids and looked again.

"No way. No way, nowayy, nowayyyy."

His fingers flew into action, furiously typing line commands, even though the soft-key surface robbed Mort of the satisfying clickety-clack that should've punctuated the moment. The serviceman closed the distance between face and screen to only a few inches, as if being this close would prove him right. He needed to be convinced, absolutely so, about what he thought he was seeing.

"There you are. Gotcha!"

One more keyed sequence, just to be sure.

"Yeah, now we're gonna have some fun."

Fifteen minutes later
the flustered petty officer arrived at his CO's office, dot-matrix printout in hand and expectant grin on his face.

"Sir. This..." the paper flashed out."... is what we've been looking for."

Mortensen was breathless. Aside from basic training, which had almost killed the sedentary warrior, the sprint up two floors in the stairwell—the elevator was too slow—was the greatest exertion his body had endured in a long time. He handed the pages of code, indecipherable to anyone except the small team of experts at the Vault, to his senior officer.

"Mort, what is this? You know I can't make any sense out of that scribble."

"Sorry, sir."

Chest heaving, the technician swallowed hard, mouth crying out for moisture to ease the words he needed to get out.

"We've been running our best attempts. Tracing the programming that has allowed them to steal command of our nukes. Early on we could observe what they were doing but we haven't yet been able to break it down, to compromise it. Like watching a predator hunt and kill your favorite pet from behind a shatter-proof wall. Maddening."

His CO would require an actual point to this conversation soon, so Mort plowed ahead.

"Sir, it's changing... and... changing our code along with it."

"So?" the CO dismissed. "The Chinese are re-programming as they go. Wouldn't we do the same? Respond to on-the-ground realities. React, evade."

Mortensen shook his head. He'd not been clear enough yet for the major.

"No, sir, not like that at all," he tried. "If Chinese programmers were altering their code, we'd know. Markers. Telltale signs of intervention. We know when that happens. They see it when we do it and vice versa."

"I am officially not following this line of information now Mort," the CO said, taking another sip of room-temperature coffee.

Mortensen breathed deeply and took his best shot.

"Sir, the code is changing...

... itself."

The major was intrigued now and looked up again, wanting understanding, yet skeptical about the possibility of a breakthrough.

"What, you mean like AI? Spooky sci-fi, robots take over the world kind of stuff?"

"Well, sort of, sir. It's all quite speculative. What we do know is the two sets are somehow cooperating with one another toward an unstated, presumably collective end."

The CO wanted more clarity.

"Mort, bottom shelf this thing for me. Does this mean we're getting back our bombs, or not?"

Mortensen looked him full in the face; something he rarely did with anyone.

"We don't know, sir. It's never happened before. All we know is the locus of control is changing. The Chinese code's stranglehold on our systems is degrading. We don't know how much, or if, it will even continue."