STAR TREK - TOS (26 page)

The guard nodded, but continued to eye Roberta with suspicion. “Please step out of the car, ma’am,” he said sternly, a Colt Commando assault rifle slung over his shoulder. His breath frosted the air outside the window.

Not wanting to make waves, Roberta did as the guard asked. Her legs were stiff from the long ride[229]

from the airport, but it felt good to get out of the car. Looking back the way she’d come, she saw a lonely desert road stretching through an arid landscape distinguished by sun-bleached cattle skulls and PRIVATE PROPERTYsigns. Tumbleweeds rolled along dried-up riverbeds, past reddish-orange rock formations jutting up from the earth. Scattered cacti and yucca plants hinted at a trace of moisture somewhere beneath the arid soil. Not much of a vacation spot, she decided.

“Name?” the gatekeeper demanded, brandishing a pen and a clipboard.

“Roberta Landers,” she lied. The guard dutifully jotted down the name on his sign-in sheet.

It was a cold, clear morning in Arizona, and Roberta hugged herself in hopes of hanging onto some of the warmth trapped inside her fringed leather jacket. A flannel shirt, Levi’s, and cowboy boots completed her outfit, which seemed appropriate to her present assignment. Slightly jet-lagged from the red-eye flight from Spokane, where “Bobbie Landers” supposedly lived, she would have killed for a cup of hot espresso, but suspected that there wasn’t a convenient Starbucks anywhere in the vicinity.

“Please raise your arms.” The guard frisked Roberta, a bit more intimately than she thought was strictly necessary, then waved a wand-shaped metal detector under her arms and along the outline of her body.

The wand beeped once, forcing her to extract her servo from her pocket in order to appease the guard.

He gave the apparent fountain pen a cursory inspection, while she pretended to be unconcerned.
What if
he wants to confiscate it?
she worried. The[230]disguised device was more than just a weapon; it was her lifeline back to Gary Seven and the Isle of Arran.

A second guard, walking what looked like a mean-tempered doberpit, circled the Humvee. Straining at its leash, the dog sniffed around the vehicle, then padded over to snuffle warily at Roberta’s ankles. Its slobbering jaws drooled over the toes of her snake-skin boots, while she waited anxiously to see if the first guard would be taken in by the servo’s innocent contours.

“All right, ma’am.” The guard returned the all-purpose device, and Roberta repressed a sigh of relief. He nodded at Butch, who had remained behind the wheel of the Humvee. “You can take her in.”

Grateful to have passed the security screening, she climbed back into the car. The steel barrier raised in front of them, and Butch drove her past the fort’s outer defenses. A large wooden sign, readingKEEP

OUT! TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT!did little to calm her nerves.

Fort Cochise, headquarters of the “Army of Eternal Vigilance,” was built on the site of a defunct mining town, abandoned in the early thirties when its precious gold and silver deposits ran dry. Many of the original adobe buildings were still standing, converted into dormitories and storage areas. Roberta spotted the crumbling facade of the old town jail, complete with bars over its windows.
Let’s hope I
manage to stay out of there,
she thought.

Butch parked the Humvee just past the barbed wire fence, then led her across the grounds of the compound. Uniformed men and women, wearing various shades of khaki and cammo gear, went diligently[231]about their business, repairing fortifications, patching up weathered adobe, or transporting heavy crates of food, medicine, and ammunition from one building to another. Roberta couldn’t help noticing that every one of the fort’s adult inhabitants appeared to be heavily armed, with shotguns, pistols, or both. Even a group of women stringing up laundry to dry had handguns holstered to their hips.

A sudden burst of automatic gunfire startled Roberta. Raising her hand to shield her eyes from the sun, she spotted several militia members practicing at a firing range set up on the western side of the compound. Round after round of unleashed firepower blew apart cardboard cutouts of Janet Reno, Hillary Clinton, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Yikes!Roberta thought, gulping at the sight. A former flower child and self-described “hippie chick,” she felt more than a little out of place.
I’m a long way from Woodstock,
she realized.
Geographically,
chronologically, and psychologically.

The whole camp, in fact, seemed to be on a war footing, gearing up for some big siege or battle that might break out at any moment. Unfortunately, as Roberta knew before she even got on the plane in Spokane, the enemy these people were preparing against was their very own government—and anyone else they perceived as part of a nebulously defined global conspiracy. Even worse, Fort Cochise was not unique in that respect; similar camps and private armies had sprung up throughout America over the last decade or so.
But only one militia is run by a genetically engineered superman,
Roberta recalled, trying to look on the bright side.

[232]Ironically, given all his anti-government rhetoric, General Morrison’s personal offices turned out to be housed in the refurbished shell of the town’s long-dead post office. More men, equipped with automatic rifles and doberpits, guarded the entrance of the building, where Roberta endured another round of passwords, searches, and overly invasive inspections before being handed off to a rangy, grim-looking soldier, who finally led her into the presence of the AEV’s supreme commander.

Hawkeye Morrison rose from behind his desk as Roberta entered the room, escorted by her intimidating new baby-sitter. She recognized the notorious militia leader, and one-time Chrysalis kid, from various right-wing periodicals, not to mention her and Seven’s own surveillance photos. “Welcome to Fort Cochise,” he greeted her cordially, his jaw working on a piece of chewing gum as he spoke.

Tan-and-olive army fatigues clothed his stocky, alpha-male physique. A bolstered Glock pistol rested on his hip.

“Please, call me Bobbie,” she insisted, seeing her own face reflected in the General’s silver mirrored shades. Confident that her alias would do the same, she surveyed Morrison’s office with open curiosity.

An authentic Revolutionary War-era flag, bearing the defiant motto “Don’t Tread on Me,” hung on the stucco wall behind Morrison’s desk, while a framed news photo immortalized the choking smoke and flames of the Waco disaster. On the wall to her right, a mounted world map, dotted with numerous brightly colored pins, bore an eerie resemblance to a similar map currently residing in Gary Seven’s office in Scotland.
Looks like he’s keeping track of his
[233]
superpowered siblings,
Roberta deduced,
but as
potential allies or enemies?

Thankfully, Jugurtha, Pachacutec, and many of the lesser supermen had self-destructed by now, or else were bogged down in bloody civil wars throughout Africa, South America, etc. But she was worried about the growing size of General Morrison’s militia, which seemed to be gaining converts by leaps and bounds.

“It’s such an honor to finally meet you!” she burbled energetically. There were no windows in the room, probably as a concession to Morrison’s paranoia, but she heard the sound of mechanical air filters humming away in order to get the office adequately ventilated. “You’re a genuine American hero.”

Morrison accepted her praise with a show of humility. “I’m just an old-fashioned patriot, determined to protect our freedom to the best of our abilities.” He sat back down behind the desk, which struck Roberta as frighteningly tidy and well-ordered, as opposed to the “creative” clutter of her own desk back at the farmhouse. “Please take a seat,” he offered, gesturing toward a plain wooden chair resting on the Navajo carpet in front of the desk.

She plopped down into the chair. Her current escort, whose sun-baked, leathery face appeared locked in a permanent scowl, remained standing, stiffly watching over her from behind. Only a scary glint in his eyes, hinting at fanaticism and pent-up violence, provided evidence that the man was actually alive and not carved from an immobile block of wood. The monosyllabic Butch, who had been dismissed from duty after turning Roberta over to this would-be[234]storm trooper, was starting to seem positively bubbly by comparison.

“Don’t let Freeman Porter make you uncomfortable,” Morrison said, referring to her taciturn shadow.

“He’s here strictly for my own protection.” He offered Roberta a stick of spearmint gum, which she politely declined. “Given the insidious forces arrayed against our cause, I can’t afford to take any unnecessary chances.”

“Of course not!” she agreed readily. “The Beast will stop at nothing to stamp out the last flickers of individual liberty.” Righteous indignation, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, added heat to her fervent declaration. “That’s why I contacted you via your Web site, to join your all-important crusade against godless collectivism.”

“So I understand,” Morrison said. “I was impressed by the passionate eloquence of your letter, as well as by your own fledgling efforts in the struggle.” He gave his PC’s monitor a half-turn, so that Roberta could glimpse the screen as well, then quickly keyed a familiar URL into his Web browser.

A headline composed of animated flames appeared at the top of the screen, against a red-white-and-blue background.
The Unblinking Eye
read the burning block letters, above columns of densely-spaced type. Smaller headlines, over various front-page stories, hyped such startling revelations asFEMA: THE SECRET GOVERNMENTandBAR CODES: MARK OF THE BEAST?

“Your online newsletter is one of the best I’ve seen,” Morrison congratulated her. “You appear to have a first-rate grasp of the fundamental issues at stake in these perilous times.”

“Thanks,” Roberta said. To be honest, she was perversely proud of the
Eye,
which she had started up a

[235]few months back to cement her cover. Although the text was a ridiculous mishmash of urban legends and half-baked conspiracy theories, most of them lifted from other “patriotic” Web sites, she thought she had captured just the right tone of belligerent paranoia. “It’s just so obvious that you can’t trust the so-called ‘legitimate’ news media to tell you what’s really going on in this country. I felt I had to warn people about what our government was up to.”

Morrison nodded approvingly. “It’s not only Washington, D.C., we have to worry about. The Feds are just one tentacle of a greater Beast, a secret New World Order ruled by an elite group of genetic supermen. I know this for a fact, because I’ve stared the enemy in the face—and in the mirror.”

He removed his mirrored sunglasses to look Roberta directly in the eye. Oversize red orbs, like the eyes of a hunting bird, stared into hers, and she abruptly realized that “Hawkeye” was more than just a colorful nickname; it was the unvarnished truth.

“Let me tell you something that few people know, that I share only with my own trusted brothers- and sisters-in-arms. I’m a bit more than human myself, the product of the same unholy conspiracy that give birth to the Beast.” His crimson eyes blinked like a bird’s, complete with separate nictitating membranes.

“Among other things, I’ve got a touch of raptor DNA in me, giving me extraordinary eyesight.”

Roberta gasped out loud, feigning surprise. “You?” She stared at him with wide-eyed confusion. “But how—I don’t understand. ...”

“It’s very simple,” he explained. “To my mind, my duty as an American takes precedence over the[236]

dictates of my tainted DNA, therefore I’ve vowed to defend humanity against my own kind.” He brought his fist down hard upon the desktop, rattling the neatly arranged trays of pens and paper. “Someone has to stand up for the common man, and that fight is starting here at Fort Cochise, named after the valiant Apache warrior who fought to preserve his way of life from federal troops.” Deeply felt emotion thickened his voice. “He defied the Beast for eleven years. I intend to win that battle, no matter the cost.”

That’s exactly what scares me,Roberta thought, recalling why she had decided to infiltrate the AEV in the first place. Crazed, right-wing militias, packed with trigger-happy gun nuts and conspiracy theorists, were dangerous enough, but a militia headed by a genetically engineered
Übermensch
... ? That was something she wanted to keep a very close eye on, especially given the rapid growth of Morrison’s private army. She had already tried planting an undercover operative inside the AEV, only to have her agent die in a mysterious “car wreck” several weeks ago.
If nothing else,
she thought, feeling a pang of guilt over the spy’s death,
I owe it to her to make sure the AEV doesn’t claim any more victims.

“Ohmigod,” she exclaimed, giving Morrison the reaction he expected. “I always knew there was a conspiracy at work, eating away at our freedom, but I never guessed how truly diabolical the threat really was!” Roberta figured she deserved an Oscar for her performance.
Eat your heart out, Meryl Streep.

“You must let me stay and do what I can to help the cause!”

The really ironic thing was, Morrison was right in a way. Genetically engineered supermen were out to

[237]take over the world, unbeknownst to ninety-nine percent of the general public. Khan, in particular, would like nothing better than to establish a New World Order with himself on top. Unfortunately, Roberta feared that Morrison’s agenda of violent resistance was primarily driven by acute paranoia and his own inflated sense of manifest destiny.
The U.N. and Bill Clinton aren’t the problem,
she thought;
it’s super-charged loose cannons like Khan and Morrison.

Avian eyes looked her over speculatively. “Let me be straight with you.” Pulling out a drawer beneath his desk, he removed a bulging file folder held shut by thick rubber bands. He dropped the file onto the desktop, where it landed with a muffled thud. “We’ve had you checked out thoroughly; otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

Roberta recalled all the hours she, Seven, and the Beta 6 had spent painstakingly constructing Bobbie Landers’s phony existence, complete with birth certificate, Social Security number, past addresses, employment history, academic records, magazine subscriptions, deceased ex-husbands, and so on.