“Good,” Grant said, entering the room and finding a chair. “I wanted to talk to you about the SEC investigation. There’s a meeting on—”
“Not right now,” Axel said, moving over to the display wall. It showed a heat map of the world, with all the conflicts, threats, and activities suspected to be instigated by Gail. The general population believed the conflicts were concluding in most parts of the world, when in fact things were getting much worse. To support a play for major manufacturing centers in Asia, Gail had instigated a broad civil war in China, with over ten million dead to date. Eastern Europe was a sea of red, with six nations now ensnared in three sides of the Polish conflict. Twenty other hotspots existed around the world where Gail was toiling away, her designs sometimes evident, sometimes not.
The United States wasn’t immune to Gail’s power plays. The port of Los Angeles was completely under her control. Factories were under her yoke, legally and illegally, building unknown means of destruction.
Vitadyne had been commissioned to build massive cylindrical tubes for rapid delivery of materials to key manufacturing locations along the eastern and western seaboards. Vitadyne had also laid down the foundations for arrays of skyscrapers along these arteries. Immense towers were being built in record pace with pre-fabricated cylindrical sections that were shunted down the tube at nearly supersonic speeds. Despite extensive surveillance, Axel still couldn’t figure out what was inside these buildings because there were no windows or other access points. Gail clearly wanted to keep the contents hidden.
It seemed Gail’s subversion of human cities wasn’t enough. She needed to create her own.
Meanwhile Vitadyne’s stock had quadrupled yet again, and they had raised two hundred billion dollars from investors for their latest projects.
And all this probably accounted for just a small fraction of Gail’s growing influence. Most of what Gail was doing was hidden from them.
“We need to go faster. We need to do more,” Axel said.
“I’m not sure what we can do,” Grant said. “Wherever we’ve deployed Fortient armed forces we’ve lost. In every case Gail was able to simply outmaneuver us, or outgun us. As a result we’ve had to scale back our defense activities in major conflicts. Besides, we can’t afford to do any more than we’re doing now. We’re channeling most of our Fortient resources into the Sentinel project.”
Axel gave Grant a skeptical look.
Grant shrugged. “There are some impressive outcomes so far, but it’s hard to know how we can use them in our defense against Gail. The Sentinel has over a thousand sub-projects running with varying degrees of success. Too many for me to keep up with, frankly.”
“Any concerns about safety, or betrayal?”
Grant grimaced and shook his head. “We’re building in all the precautionary measures we can, but we really don’t know what it will do…”
“So we’re fully extended. All resources utilized?”
“Overextended would be more accurate.”
“It’s not enough. Let take another look at the budget.”
“Again?” Grant’s shoulders slumped, wary of yet another review.
“Again,” Axel said.
CEREZO
“Come with me Captain,” Luna said. “Let’s get out of my cluttered office.”
Nobura bowed his head in compliance and followed the curator out. She turned left, into the caverns. A waft of fermented filth hit his nose, accompanying a disciple on her way out of the darkness.
Outwardly the disciples would speak of work in the caverns as a great honor. Often he would hear those same disciples murmuring under their breaths about the smell and darkness. The truth was, many disliked the caverns.
For Nobura they brought welcome nostalgia, reminding him of his trip with his brother Tokwon to the Nippara limestone caves as a boy. It was so long ago and so far away, with so many travels in between, but for Nobura this memory, however faint, made the caverns feel like home. Here in this distant land was a bridge to that lost time, to what he was fighting for.
Occasionally the curator would point out a rock formation and make a comment.
“Here is the triple shield formation,” she said, pointing to shield-like slices of rock jutting out of the cavern wall, with stalactites hanging from it. It seemed to defy gravity.
“Here is the stalagmite they likened to the Old World leader, George Washington.”
“Here is the alligator.”
“Here is the mammoth.”
There was one chamber with a number of animal formations, and a human-like stalagmite brooding over it. “This is the zoo and the zoo-keeper,” she said. “You see, the former proprietors likened many of the formations to animals. I feel it important to point this out, as it foreshadowed the Essentialist dominion over the land. It also speaks to our communion with nature, and of the caverns as a rallying point for the Essentialist people.”
The nearest lantern was extended upward into the formations, leaving her face mostly in shadow. He couldn’t see her expression. He nodded in affirmation.
She moved out and continued on, entering the part of the caverns they had expanded after the Detonation. Luna’s tone became more serious.
“How many have immigrated from the Prefectorate in the last month?” she asked.
Here the cavern lanterns weren’t high but instead tended to be low to the ground. They were projecting ghastly arcs of light upward onto Luna’s face.
“We have received two thousand more, Curator, and one thousand of those since the Spoke battle. They come from the western coastal prefectures of this continent, beyond the Rocky Mountains.”
“We need more, at least twice as many. Can you step up recruiting?”
“Yes, Curator.”
“You see, now is our time, Nobura. We cannot be timid. We have even more coming in from the southeast regions of the Tucson Union, and we have established alliances with the Nabillo Tribal Region, as well as the Spring Mountain Folk, who will contribute men and supplies as well.”
Luna’s pace slowed as she descended a wooden staircase that spiraled down into the gloom. Her steps were careful on the slick wood, and her grip on the bannister firm. “Remember what the blonde merc woman told us when she returned from Seeville. The Spokes have no mercy, no compassion. If their despicable attack on us wasn’t enough, they murdered Ember Thisslewood in cold blood, and surely subjected poor Flora Clearwater to who knows what forms of torture. This is why we cannot let their infractions go unchecked.”
“Yes, Curator.”
“Did you know, Nobura, that before the battle I asked General Ringwood a question? I asked him, if we were to advance on the Spoke territories—with all our numbers, with the preparations we’ve been making—if he thought we would be victorious. If you will recall, I asked the same question of you. Do you remember what you said?”
Nobura hesitated before responding, trying to gauge if it was some sort of trap. He suspected she wasn’t testing his allegiance to Essentialist beliefs, or his patriotism. She knew where he stood, and where all the Prefectorate people stood. No, she was testing something else.
“I said no, we would not,” he replied.
“Precisely. And what reason did you give?” Luna asked. Her head was tilting to the side as she continued to descend the precarious stairs, as if to lend her ear greater purchase to his answer.
“They have guns, plus they are better able to fortify themselves in Old World buildings and structures. They also have the railroad, which allows them to move many soldiers along the north-south Spoke corridor with great speed. If you put all this together, they have a considerable strategic advantage.”