Fall of the Core: Netcast 01 (The Frontiers Saga) (3 page)

“What if they remove my nanites?” Hanna wondered.

“It takes days to flush out all your nanites,” Arielle said. “Sometimes weeks.”

“Without my nanites, he couldn’t do anything to hurt me,” Hanna said.

“But without your nanites, you could get run over by a bus, fall off a building, catch the flu…”

“Or catch Klaria,” Graham added, interrupting Arielle.

“I’m pretty sure that if I caught Klaria, my nanites wouldn’t help me,” Hanna reasoned. “If they did, there wouldn’t be so many people dying right now.”

“She’s got a point,” Graham admitted as he took a seat. “It wouldn’t be much of a virus if they did.” Graham looked at Hanna again. “But you’re still nuts. Why the hell do you want to help the ICTA? They’re killers, the darkest of them all, the original men in black, except that they don’t wear black.”

“Think of the leads we might get out of it!” Hanna exclaimed.

“I like the way you’re thinking,” Mister Tollison said.

“Besides, I don’t think he wants to hurt me,” Hanna continued. “I think he needs me.”

“Why do you think that?” Arielle asked.

“Remember what he said before he signed off? ‘Hold on, it’s going to be a wild ride?’ That has to mean there’s more to come.”

“Maybe he meant a wild ride for all of us,” Graham pointed out, “as in, the whole human race.”

“Why would he want to kill the entire human race?” Hanna asked. “That would leave him all alone.”

“You think a whacko who’s killing hundreds of thousands of people per hour is worried about being alone?” Arielle asked.

“See? Nuts.” Graham said, chuckling.

“Maybe you can ask him?” Mister Tollison said.

“What?”

Brent Tollison’s eyes lit up. “Oh my God, what if you could get an interview with this guy?”

“What makes you think it’s a guy?” Arielle wondered.

“Not a lot of female genocidal maniacs in the history books,” Graham reasoned.

Arielle nodded in concession. “Why would he want to be interviewed?”

“Most mass-murders want the attention, the notoriety. They want the world to know that
they
did it,” Brent explained. “Besides, this guy has got to have an agenda. Nobody tries to commit genocide without a reason.”

“What kind of reason could he…” Hanna began.

“I didn’t say a good reason,” Brent cut her off. “Fact is, Timmy Twister let you live for a reason. Sooner or later, he’s going to let you know what that reason was.”

“And keeping my neuro-digital implant will make it easier for him,” Hanna noted.

“Precisely.” Brent stroked his chin as he furrowed his brows in deep thought. “I agree. You have to get rid of your health nanites. In fact, everyone on your staff should.”

“Why?” Arielle asked.

“All three of you should be linked together at all times, so when he does make contact, you can spring into action in the hopes of turning it into something we can air, and be witnesses to Hanna’s feeds.”

Both Arielle and Hanna looked confused.

“Unknown wiped his messages as they came in,” Graham explained. “But he didn’t wipe them from mine, or from Arielle’s comms. The NCTA guys downloaded my message history. That’s why I took longer than everyone else. Had a few messages in there that required some explaining.”

“That’s likely why all of you have been moved to the bottom of the suspect list,” Mister Beals told them as he entered the room.

“We have?” Hanna asked.

“Yes, and the warrants have been rescinded, for now,” Agent Oslo added as he and Agent Lund joined them. “I assume you’ve been discussing our proposal with your colleagues?”

“Yes,” Hanna replied. “I want to do it. I want to help.”

“Very well. I’ll contact our office and have a technical specialist come out and set up a dedicated link so that we see all of your messages.”

“All of them?”

“Yes. Since the suspect uses a different account with each message, there’s no way for us to filter only his messages.”

“I guess I’d better watch what I say.”

“You don’t
have
to do this, Hanna,” Arielle reminded her.

“Yes, I do.”

“Then keep your implant off for few days until your nanites are all flushed from your system.”

“How am I supposed to communicate with the rest of the world?”

“Use the smart-comm,” Graham suggested.

“You want me to manually type out everything? Are you kidding?” Hanna protested in disbelief.

“It does have a voice mode, you know,” Arielle reminded her.

“I’d have to speak out loud. Everyone would hear me.”

“It’s only for a couple of days.”

“It may not be necessary to turn off your implant,” Agent Oslo said. “If Unknown
wanted
to kill you, he probably already would have. It’s possible he still has plans for you.”

“Wonderful,” Hanna said sarcastically. She picked up the smart-comm from the table and looked at it with disdain. “I’m hoping somebody here knows how to use this thing?”

“Don’t worry,” Brent said. “You’ll be here most of the time for the next few days, doing the morning, noon, and evening netcasts. Once all the nanites are out, we’ll have you in the field at least once per day.”

“There is one other thing,” Agent Oslo added. “Assuming that Unknown does have plans for you, once he realizes that he can no longer use your nanites against you, he may try to exert that same influence by controlling the nanites of others. People you care about.”

“Everyone here, with the exception of Hanna, is having their implants downgraded,” Brent announced.

“My parents,” Hanna realized. “They both have the newer implants.”

“As do mine,” Arielle added, “and Sahmeed, and my sister and her family…”

“Give us a list, and we’ll make sure all of their implants are downgraded as quickly as possible,” Agent Oslo promised.

“If you can find them,” Hanna said, her tone turning somber.

“Our families live in San Diego,” Arielle said.

“We know,” Agent Oslo replied. “We’ll find them, and in short order.”

Hanna breathed a sigh of relief. She turned to Brent. “So, what’s next?”

“You have another netcast at noon, a strategy meeting at two, and then another netcast at six,” Brent explained.

“Where do we stay when we’re not working?” Hanna wondered.

“Not working?” Brent Tollison chuckled.

“Sleep, then?”

“There are dorms and suites clustered around this production area,” Arielle told her. “We’re all set.”

“This is probably one of the safest places you could be on the entire planet right now,” Brent added.

Agent Oslo turned to face Hanna. “Miss Bohl, we’ll be departing now. A technician will be here within the hour to set up the link for you. He will pre-program a message link to me as well. You can message me anytime, day or night.”

“Thank you,” Hanna said gratefully.

“No, thank you,” he insisted. “If this works, the people of Earth, and possibly all of humanity, will be in your debt.”

Hanna and the others were silent as agents Oslo and Lund left the room. Graham broke the silence.

“I still say you’re nuts.”

* * *

“Half of Europe has already closed their borders to all but essential traffic, and airports are at a standstill due to screening efforts,” Brent informed his senior staff members gathered at the conference table, as well as the twenty or more technicians and office personnel standing around the perimeter of the room. “The American states are doing the same. By the time the feds get their head out of their ass and order all public transit to stop, it’ll be too late.”

“How the hell are we going to get any of our people out in the field?” someone asked.

“Maybe we should start spreading them out, plunking them down in hotels at key locations while we still can,” another chimed in helpfully.

“Why don’t we just fly them?” the chief of air operations suggested. “We’ve got enough shuttles and pilots.”

“If the feds shut everything down, we’ll need special permits just to lift off,” Mister Beals pointed out.

Hanna sat at the far end of the massive conference table next to Arielle, listening quietly as the senior department heads argued. She looked over at Arielle, who leaned forward in her chair, watching intently. Her manager was totally in her element, but it was a foreign process to Hanna.

“Screw the feds,” Brent said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “What are they going to do, shoot us down?”

“They might,” Mister Beals warned.

“I don’t see it,” Brent argued, “they’ve got enough to deal with right now, and I doubt they want the additional bad publicity. Besides, they may need our shuttles at some point.”

“Bad publicity?” another department head questioned. “You talk like this will be over in a few days and everything will go back to normal. Do you really believe that?”

The room erupted into a heated debate that grew louder with each comment.

“Enough! Enough!” Brent called for order, his voice rising above the cacophony. “Everyone shut the hell up!” He waited several moments, glaring at his staff as the room slowly quieted. “Yes, the situation is bad. I get that. And no, I don’t think that things are going to ever be the same.” He looked at one of his data guys on the side of the room. “What was the last count?”

“Four million infected, five hundred thousand dead.”

Brent sighed. “And that’s just in the nations that have been reporting.” He rubbed his hands over his head and down the back of his neck, massaging the tensed muscles in his neck. “I know this looks like it’s the end of the world, and it very well could be, but I, for one, intend to continue to do my job… And I plan on doing it as long as there are people out there who want to hear what’s going on. You know why? Because I have hope. Because I want them to have hope. And if they see us, continuing on as if there
will
be a tomorrow, then maybe they’ll believe it as well, and they’ll try a little harder to make it through each day.” Brent looked at the faces of his staff, some of which appeared to be moved by his words. Of course, there were others, like Graham, who appeared unfazed. Brent grinned wryly, “Besides, what am I going to do? Go home and board myself up with my wife and our dogs?”

“Your wife and your dogs arrived twenty minutes ago, sir,” his assistant told him, as if on cue.

Several people laughed.

“See, that’s my point. We’re probably safer here than we are at home. So here’s the deal. Anyone who truly thinks this is the end, and wants to go home and wait for death to come knocking, feel free. Everyone who wants to keep working, call up your families and have them come stay here. Something tells me we’re going to have a lot of extra space in the near future.” Brent turned to his assistant, Jeff. “Same goes to all our regional offices. Everyone who wants to leave can go, everyone who wants to stay can bring their families. But it’s got to happen now, before the feds start locking down the skies. We might be able to get away with moving reporters around, but airlifting refugees, family or not, is bound to get noticed.”

“I’ll coordinate with all the regional shuttle ops managers,” the director of shuttle operations for the New York office said.

“What about communications?” someone asked.

“What about getting our broadcasts out?” another staffer added. “If this thing is spread digitally, it’s only a matter of time before they shut down the internet.”

“They can’t shutdown the internet!” someone protested. “Too many people depend on it for day to day…”

“They can shutdown the public internet,” the previous staffer replied. “They can, and they will. And when they do, we’ll lose ninety percent of our audience.”

“And all of our revenue.”

“People!” Brent exclaimed. “You can’t think in those terms anymore!”

“How are we going to pay people? How are we going to operate?”

“We’ll operate with what we have on hand,” Brent explained. “I’m freezing all payroll and all assets as of this moment. If the only reason you’re here is for the pay, then the door is right there!” he said, pointing to the exit. “I’m talking about the biggest story in the history of humankind! I’m talking about keeping the public informed! I’m talking about doing the right thing. If you’re talking money, then get the fuck out!”

“I’m just trying to be realistic, Brent. It takes money to operate this company. A fucking lot of it, I might add.”

“Not anymore,” Brent insisted. “Now, it’s going to take commitment. Commitment and resources. That’s all we need. And we’ve got lots of the latter. Stockpiles of it, for Christ’s sake! I’m just asking for the commitment part, and I’m offering people an out if they’re not interested. If and when we make it through this, if there is anything resembling an economy left, I’ll be more than happy to see that those who remain get compensated as best we can. But I can’t promise anyone anything. We may die at our desks.”

Again, the room got quiet.

Brent took another deep breath. “How long will our reactors continue to operate?”

“Years,” the head of utility operations replied. “I’d say a decade if their cores were changed recently.”

“And our satellites?”

“Decades,” his director of communications replied.

“Then we can broadcast via satellites if they shutdown the public internet?”

“NDIs aren’t designed to receive sat feeds,” a staffer reminded him.

“Everyone’s getting their NDIs removed or downgraded,” Brent replied. “Most people will start using smart-comms, and those are capable of receiving satellite broadcasts.”

“Those broadcasts are digital, Brent,” one of his IT directors pointed out. “If Klaria is spread by Twister…”

“Has Timmy Twister managed to breach our firewalls in the past?” Brent asked.

“No, not yet.”

“Then until he does, sat broadcasts are the backup plan.”

“And if the feds order us to shut the satellites down?”

“We tell them to drop dead,” Brent replied. “No pun intended.”

“They can shoot our satellites down, you know,” someone said. “Or us.”

“They’re not going to come in guns blazing,” Brent argued. “Not when we’re the only ones left broadcasting. They’re going to need us to broadcast instructions to the general public on how to survive, where to get food and water, when it’s safe to move about, and where.”

“Could we broadcast analog?” another tech staffer wondered.

“We could,” Brent replied, “but I doubt very many people still have analog devices. Museums and enthusiasts, mostly.”

“Then analog is our final fall back plan,” Brent announced. “As long as we have power, we keep broadcasting reports, every six… No, make that every three hours.”

“You want me to go on the air every three hours?” Hanna said in shock, speaking for the first time since the meeting had started nearly an hour ago.