Dark Road Page 24

  “Do you by chance have the second transmission recorded?” She asked.

  “Yes ma’am,” Sparky said with a small nod. He’d forgotten to stop recording after the initial transmission had ended and almost used up his entire hard drive by the time he’d realized it was still going. He’d pulled out the dead air and made two files, one for each transmission.

  Mallory nodded and Sparky played the second recording, which had the desired effect. Everyone in the room, including Joel, was visible moved. They realized now that not everyone was onboard with what the Colonel had ordered, and that someone, somewhere was on the way to help those people—and that they were most likely loaded for bear.

  “We can’t keep this under wraps any longer,” Mallory said. “The new orders; the fact that we don’t actually know who’s giving the orders; that we as a unit are technically in rebellion right now, and we don’t know who we can trust absolutely.”

  “Have we declared our intentions?” Eric asked.

  “Not openly, no.” Mallory said.

  “Has anyone that we have…obviously allied ourselves with?” Halstead asked.

  “Not to my knowledge, no,” Mallory said.

  “Major,” Joel said. “Does my input have any bearing?”

  “Absolutely, Joel,” Mallory said. “You’re in this as much as anyone, and by you I mean the civilians. I wouldn’t have invited you and waited until you were here to begin if you weren’t a part of the decision making process. What’s happening is wrong, and as far as I’m concerned at this point you are the only legitimate elected official around.”

  Joel shook his head. “I wouldn’t go that far…”

  Mallory interrupted him because she was getting exasperated with him, “And I wouldn’t sell yourself so short, Mr. Mayor.” She said. “I didn’t nominate you, but I sure as hell voted for you, and apparently so did at least 51% of the rest of the population! Nobody seems to be clamoring for a recall or a lack of confidence vote either.”

  Joel looked down for a second to gather his thoughts but Mallory took it the wrong way and snapped at him. “Look at me when I’m talking to you!”

  Joel looked at her with fire in his eyes at being spoken to like a child. “Hey,” he said, “I’m a grown-ass man lady! I don’t need you to scold me! I wasn’t sulking, I was gathering my thoughts, and if I want to look down or over your shoulder or close my eyes and imagine you naked I will—so back off.”

  Bill had started clenching his jaw as soon as Joel barked back at his Major and Eric saw it. He also saw what Mallory was doing and grabbed Bill’s arm under the table and shook his head to tell him to cool it; it was under control.

  Mallory sat back with a small grin on her lips. “Better, so what are your thoughts?”

  “We can’t sugar coat it with the population. We need to handle it head-on, just like the situation with Sheri.” Joel said. “We also need to know who else heard the transmission last night and how they are handling working with their civilian populations.”

  “Agreed,” Mallory said. “Anything else?”

  “What can we do to help?” Joel asked. “ARCLiTE is working, no, forget that. Forget ARCLiTE, forget the orders, and forget being told what to do from your higher command and authority. We were working together just fine before they gave you permission to work with us, and integrate with us, and be our friends, and win our hearts and minds.”

  Ramirez was the first to laugh at the phrase and then the rest of the table started to chuckle, including Mallory and Joel.

  “Well, it’s true,” Joel said. “This wasn’t a mission and Natchez Trace isn’t a battlefield, yet. I don’t know all the right terms but I watched the Embeds on CNN. You weren’t sent here to pacify the indigenous peoples of the Nashville area. We are your fellow citizens of the United States of America and we have all suffered a horrible catastrophic event.”

  Joel looked around the tent at everyone and realized he had their undivided attention. “You and I both know that you didn’t need orders to help out.” Joel said. “You mustered, you mobilized, we moved out into the middle of the damned woods and started building a town! We’ve since acquired another ready-made town and started using the pre-built facilities here…but in the beginning we…just…did it.”

  Eric shook his head and said, “I voted for Karen because I was afraid she’d kick my butt if I didn’t. She said she voted for you.”

  “Whiiiiped.” Ramirez said.

  “Can it, Ramirez.” Mallory said. “And you were worried about being Mayor.”

  “Meh,” Joel said. “So I can give a good speech.”

  Mallory rolled her eyes.

  …

  “Joel,” Mallory said as the meeting was breaking up a half an hour later. “Hang back a minute, please.”

  After the tent was empty she asked him, “When are you going to get some help?”

  “Pardon,” he asked.

  “You have one assistant in Redemption and, don’t get me wrong; Marissa is doing a great job down there.” Mallory said. “You hardly ever have to go down there anymore but you can’t do this job alone. You don’t strike me as a control freak, Joel, but that’s exactly how it comes across to everyone else. You don’t need to recreate the world’s worst bureaucracy but you’ve got to appoint, or hire, or whatever, some additional positions.”

  Joel looked behind himself.

  “What are you doing?” Mallory asked.

  “Looking for a tail,” Joel said. “The first time someone calls you a horse you punch them in the mouth. The second time you look for a tail. The third time, you go get fit for a saddle. By now I should probably be at the glue factory.”

  “No, you’re just hardheaded.” Mallory said. “Like most men.”

  “Thanks.” Joel said.

  …

  Sparky had worked to pull communications duty again, even though he’d only gotten about three hours of sleep the night before. He’d come to live by the motto that he didn’t trust what he didn’t fully understand, and he’d never taken the time to fully understand the radio gear they used on a daily basis.

  Oh, he had an in-depth knowledge of how it worked. Radio theory and electronics were his thing, but deep in the guts of the units were bits and pieces he’d been forbidden to touch…until now. Now he had one open and hooked up to probes and scopes and could really see what made them tick, especially in comparison to the stationary and mobile stuff.

  …

  “Sergeant Lake to see you, ma’am,” Mallory’s guard said.

  “Send him in,” she said.

  “Please have good news for me, Sparky,” Mallory said when he came in carrying a cardboard box.

  “Oh yes, ma’am,” he said with a huge grin. He took out two handheld radios and gave one to Mallory.

  “But bad news first,” he said. “In the presence of a satellite capable mobile communications station, such as we have, the handhelds will hit the satellite.”

  “I asked for good news,” Mallory said with an arched eyebrow.

  “Turn on your radio, please.” Sparky said.

  Once both of their radios were on, and using a channel that he had selected as unused by anyone else in camp, Sparky transmitted some unsavory and rather vulgar comments about Colonel Olsen.

  Mallory closed her eyes and counted to ten, out loud…twice.

  “If that didn’t work like it was supposed to I’m going to shoot you myself,” she said without opening her eyes.

  “I guarantee it worked,” Sparky said and picked up the meter that was still in the box. “This needle didn’t move.”

  Mallory opened her eyes and looked at what Sparky had in his hands. He was holding a portable spectrum analyzer to measure radio frequencies up into the gHz range. “Call me on your other radio and watch the needle.”

  She did so and was immediately rewarded by a flick to the right.

  “Wait,” Mallory said. “I told you I was ok with you destroying one radio.”

  “Yeah
…” Sparky said with a confused look on his face.

  “But there are two modified radios here.” Mallory said.

  “Yeah…” Sparky was still not getting where she was going.

  “I didn’t give you permission to modify more than one radio.” Mallory said.

  Sparky swallowed. Now he got it. “Well, ma’am,” he said. “Actually you never gave me permission to modify any radios.” He was slowly drawing himself to attention and looking six inches over her head. “What you said was that, if necessary, you were ok with me destroying a radio. I was able to determine everything I needed to about the radio without destroying it.”

  Evan cleared his throat, as he was Evan now and now Sparky. “I assumed from our previous conversations, and tasks you had set me to, that you wanted a way to use the current radios we had without using the satellite links.” Evan said. “I also assumed that if there was a way to modify the radio without destroying it, although I had permission to try on the one radio and to reprogram it if necessary, I had permission to do so.”

  He could see via peripheral vision that she was interested in his explanation, so he went on. “I was able to modify the programming to ignore the presence of any satellite uplink in the vicinity, or, more appropriately, not look for one in the first place and act as though one didn’t exist. Once I had that done and it didn’t destroy the radio I, um, did it to a second radio because it hadn’t destroyed the first one, and that was the only restriction you had placed on me. Ma’am.”

  Mallory kept a straight face for a count of three and then started laughing. “That was some really convoluted logic but I have to say it would probably stand up in a court of law.” She said. “I don’t think it would keep you from being grounded, but legally it’s sound. At ease, soldier, sit down.”

  Sparky slumped into the chair behind him.

  “We can’t modify all of the radios in camp right away, though,” she said. “We can’t even do them a few at a time. If all of the intra-camp chatter died out they would wonder what happened.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.” Sparky said. “I haven’t had a chance to look at the mobile rigs in-depth yet, either, but I’ve done enough work on them in the past that I’m fairly sure the same reprogramming can be done on them. It means we can most likely continue to use these,” he held up the handhelds, “for a good long time should something happen.” And he rolled his eyes up to look at the sky.

  “I think it may happen sooner rather than later,” Mallory said.

  …

  “What do you need from me, sir?” Sparky asked.

  “That’s actually my line,” Eric said. “What do we need to push out over the satellite to everyone we trust so that they have everything they need to make this underground—or pirate—network work?”

  “At this point,” Sparky said, “everyone should actually have everything they need. What I want to send out is the software, and instructions to take the handhelds, mobiles, and base stations off of the satellites—if other units want to.”

  Eric just stared at Evan for a few seconds before he said anything. “Wait, what?” He finally said. “You want to pull everything off of the satellite everywhere? On purpose?”

  “No, sir, I want to give everyone the ability to take themselves off the satellite if they want to.” Sparky said. “My original rewrite of the code was an either or, on or off. I’ve spent a little more time on it and I’ve been able fine-tune it so that you can turn it on and off at will. You can even program a button to…”

  “Stop,” Eric said. “You’re geeking out again.”

  “Sorry,” Sparky said, but couldn’t suppress his grin.

  “Oh, be proud, just don’t explain.” Eric said. “How big is this…package going to be?”

  “Zipped, it’s a little over a meg,” Sparky said.

  “Ouch. That’s not going to go unnoticed—you do know that, right?” Eric said.

  Sparky nodded. “Yes sir, and I’ll understand if we don’t do it. I’m just saying that’s what I would prefer to do.”

  …

  “Alpha Prime calling…” Mallory paused, she couldn’t believe she was about to say this, “Optimus Prime.”

  “Which one of you two idiots came up with that name?” She asked.

  “He did, I swear.” Sparky said. “He heard what I used and immediately came up with Optimus Prime.”

  “Idiots and practical jokers, if this was corporate America I would swear I was surrounded by job security.” Mallory keyed the microphone on the encrypted HAM radio and made the call again. “Alpha Prime calling Optimus Prime.”

  “This is Optimus Prime, authenticate…” Mallory was relieved that at least they were taking their radio discipline seriously.

  Once authentication was taken care of she got Ben on the radio.

  “I need a favor,” she said.

  “Sure, what’cha need?” He asked. “A cup of sugar?”

  “No, more like a gross of Stingers.” Mallory said. “I have four Humvees with Stinger racks and nothing to put in them. We’ve even got a Sentinel unit already.”

  There was silence for several seconds but Mallory was willing to bet Ben was swearing or choking—or both.

  “Mallory,” Ben said, when he finally came back on the line. “What are you doing?”

  “Sorry, should have made sure you were sitting first and not drinking anything.” She said. “I’m not doing anything, yet. I’m sure you heard about South Carolina, though, and I have no intention of having a repeat here. Having the ability to paint incoming 'Hawks with SAM radar would make anyone think twice about trying it a second time.”

  “Yeah,” Ben said, drawing out the word into three or four syllables. “They’d also wonder where it came from.”

  “Good point,” Mallory said, “Then again, eventually we’re all going to be in this boat together anyway, right?”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “So, I have a couple of questions,” Josh said. “Why can’t we use the same radio—or one like it—around camp? I remember reading about building a radio in an Altoids tin in one of my Boy Scout magazines, and I’m pretty sure it was a HAM radio. It was supposed to be super easy to build. Couldn’t we use something like that?”

  Josh and Maya were in class learning the basics of radio theory from Sergeant Lake; Josh couldn’t bring himself to call a man almost twice his age “Sparky”.

  “Well, you’re jumping ahead quite a ways, but the biggest problem you run into using a radio like that is the frequency it’s designed to operate on, which is HF. All of our radios for local use are VHF or UHF, which we’ve discussed a little already…” and then the lecture, which was actually quite interesting, began again, and Josh had to wait almost a day and a half to ask his next question.

  …

  “Why aren’t we getting more groups onto the HAM system?” Josh asked. He’d almost said encrypted system, but it wasn’t public knowledge that they had a means to encrypt their communications yet. Josh only knew because it had come up at home, and he and Maya were sworn to secrecy.

  Sparky paused for a few seconds to gather his thoughts. “Mr. Taylor,” he said. “If you had a secret that you wanted to share with a bunch of your friends but you weren’t sure which of your friends you could trust, how would you go about sharing that secret?”

  Josh opened his mouth to answer but no sound came out because there was nothing to say, so he closed his mouth and had to think about it. It hadn’t occurred to him that the Colonel might be at one of the bases they had been in communication with all this time, and that giving them an encrypted radio would literally be giving them a key to the new, secret system.

  Sparky nodded his head and went on with the lesson.

  …

  “There’s going to come a point when we’ll need to actually send files to people,” Eric said, “and that is going to raise some eyebrows if they are paying attention up top.”

  “That’s a risk we’re going to have t
o run.” Mallory said. “The satellite link is still the fastest way to send large amounts of data and we still have it available to us. Sparky says that as long as we only use it for software, then the system is still secure, and we have got to be able to get some of the software out to a wider base before that link gets denied to us.”

  Eric shook his head. “You really think it’ll come to that?”

  “No way to know, but I’m hoping for the best and planning for the worst,” Mallory said, “and expecting Murphy to show up at any time.”

  “How many sites are in the ‘net now, including us?” Eric asked.

  “By now I think we’re up to thirty,” Mallory said, “and those are all units that I contacted directly a couple of days before that conference call or groups that those units have been in direct communication with.”

  “What do you think?” Eric asked, realizing he was full of questions and no answers today.

  Mallory shook her head in resignation, not in negation. “I just don’t know. Each one we add to the list could end up burning us, directly or indirectly, but we can’t live in fear or in isolation.” She said. “Eventually we’re going to have to expand. There’re no sure things in life—including taxes, apparently.”

  “Too bad nobody thought to ask where the Colonel was when things were still looking all rosy.” Eric said. “Assuming he would have answered truthfully, anyway.”

  “Even if he had,” Mallory said, “not all of the units I spoke to before the call are on the ‘net now. It seems that some of them are totally onboard with what the Colonel and the new orders outline. It isn’t just about keeping the base where the Colonel is stationed out of the ‘net.”

  Eric sighed. “Who would have thought it would ever come to this?” He said “Once the world came to an end I really thought that we’d all come together and try to pull through…you know, after all the useless meat-sacks died or killed each other off.”

  Mallory smiled. “No plan survives initial contact with the enemy, Eric, and apparently the useless meat-sacks haven’t finished killing each other off.”

  …

  “We were on I-40 almost the whole way,” Dan said. The only time we really got off was to make camp, or the one time we actually went into a town in Kingston Springs.”