Called, page 6
My heart skipped a beat: I was trespassing!
Deep breath.
I’ve come from the river…and it’s too late now.
Nearing the farmyard, I saw that the fire hadn’t touched the barn. There was a bolt hole in the floor there, too.
Why not?
Thankful for the torch, I felt like a stranger in the once-familiar place. It was a mess, as though someone had ransacked it. Jars we used to preserve food were smashed, and an acrid odor hung in the air. The trap door behind Jeb’s workbench was disguised under a pile of scrap lumber. I found nothing in the narrow hiding space, so I tried the cellar.
The bolt hole wasn’t always a separate room. When Jeb made it, he built a false wall to divide the cellar in two. My torchlight bounced off a few lingering jars of preserved food, the flickering drawing my eye to a pair of thin notebooks wedged among them. I didn’t want to look at them now but was glad to store them in my satchel.
Satisfied there was no more I could learn in the barn, I stopped at the door and looked out towards the rest of the Exurb. Without the farmhouse and its lights, there was nothing but an empty black sea between me and the residentials.
Moving quickly, I slipped over the small rise at the edge of the farmyard toward the well. Disguised among the well’s brick façade, the handle opened upward, exposing a narrow, deep room with a telescoping ladder. As I’d done a thousand times before, I put my foot on the bottom rung and reached above my head to grab the handle to pull it shut behind me. A halogen should have illuminated when I reached the bottom, but Jeb’s wiring hadn’t survived the solarii.
I wedged my torch into a gap in the ladder so I could see. What I saw wasn’t heartening: now that I was fully grown, there was much less room for my wider hips to turn from side to side. Using the ladder to force myself down, I reached my fingers into the little shelf I’d dug. It took a few tries, but soon I had the familiar device in my hand.
To my surprise, it flickered to life when I powered it on. After a few moments, the digital link chimed with a connection. Feeling rather proud that my tech outlasted Jeb’s wiring, I squirmed around and dug the URL bar out of my satchel. I plugged it into the port and pressed my fingers to the sensors.
The bar glowed green, and then the screen blinked to life.
3A18:Q7B9:C5D2:W1E6:T9ZA
Clementine!
You only get to hear this once, so listen closely!
Only two sets of circumstances lead to your seeing this: design or accident. I am hoping for the former, but I cannot be certain.
What if you are not prepared?
No matter, everything starts somewhere…
My name is Jonas Carlton, and I am your father.
I am sorry we have not had the chance to get to know one another, but it has all been for your safety. I have done what I believe is necessary to protect you. I have put you into cryostasis with the intent that Martha and Jed will find a way to keep you safe until…I am not entirely sure how long it will take them…but they will figure it out.
After they came for your mother, I knew the game had changed. If the Chairman has taken her, he will not stop there.
That is why you must be hidden like this.
Even now, I can hear her voice in my head, “Stick to the plan, Jonas, and adapt it to fit these circumstances.”
Neither your mother nor I can be there with you, so the Joneses were the next best choice. I know our old friends will stay true to their word and keep you safe.
Hopefully, Jed and Martha will explain some of it.
The important thing to know is that by activating this URL bar, you have set in motion a dangerous set of events. I am sorry about that, too. Unfortunately, I could see no other way to ensure the right things happen.
Too much is at stake here; it would never come down to me or your mother. It was always going to be you. They have not yet learned about you. Plenty will search for what they believe I am hiding, and that search eventually leads to you. I regret neither of us will be there to help, but the time we needed was never for us.
This sol was the first time I had seen you since I placed you in their care. You have changed so much, yet I could see the brilliant light inside you burning brighter than when you were born. It was hard to commit you into stasis, knowing I would never see you again. But because I have done so, an amazing young woman will watch this and fix my mistakes.
Clementine, once you activate this URL bar, the data that is this message will simply vanish. Once that happens, the Conglomerate can pinpoint the location of the server where I stored it because an explosive device will detonate in the corner. It is armed with enough detonite to obliterate everything inside this medical pod.
This is why the bar is tied to your signature. You will have to be awake to use this, but an explosion in rural Jericho will draw attention. That happening concurrently with activity on one of my servers means that this farm will be torn apart looking for any shreds of evidence. Even with the detonite, I cannot guarantee they will not learn cryo was used here.
When you hear about the lab in Argatha, know that it is a setup. They will have picked it apart long before you see this. There was never anything there for you; honestly, there is nothing left they have not learned about. I made sure to leave them plenty of what they wanted: profit and means of control. Even with those inducements, they will keep looking for the algorithm they believe I have hidden somewhere.
The moment you see this, anyone who has continued looking will know that I did, in fact, leave something behind. Unlike they will suspect, this message is not the key to some big discovery. It is simply a video from a father to his daughter. There is no magical algorithm for them to use against their citizens: there is only you.
On this side, it is clear that all of the work your mother and I did was done to make your existence possible. You are a miracle, born with the power to change this world. I suppose most parents would say such things about their children, but in your case, I am certain of it. You see, Clementine, you have something no one else has ever had—your mind contains power beyond measure. Beyond making you special, your gifts also make you a target. Once the Conglomerate understands even a fraction of your power, they will stop at nothing to silence and control you.
But that power is also the hope for everyone.
I can already see the future the Chairman has in mind: the citizens wholly under the thumb of the Conglomerate. He wants total control of what people learn and think, and he has stolen the technology from me to help him do it. Once he has built his evil empire, undoing it will take time. A beast like this cannot be slain in a single stroke.
Your power will unmake all they have built.
The URL bars were the best I could do to ensure that only you can access these messages, though I worry they are already on the verge of being outmoded. Your mother’s voice told me that I must not think that way.
The right things happen, do they, Sue?
Apologies, Clementine. There are still some kinks to work out with embedded tech.
Yet, she is correct.
You will find a way to access this when the moment is right. Before I go, I will ensure Jed knows you will have this one. While I trust Martha with your life, she may refuse to let you get tangled up in any of it because of how deeply she has fallen in love with you. She wants to keep you safe, but Jedidiah will understand this is bigger than any one of us.
I realize I am asking you to trust me, a vision from the past, to control your future. I doubt this feels like sufficient information, but I promise to explain it all in the messages I have secreted away across the territory over the last solaris.
If this message gets much longer, it might set off alarms before you finish watching it. Stratton will send his Guardians after the explosion first, giving you a head start. While they piece together what happened on the farm, you head for Bethelton. It is an outpost near the base of the Elysian Cliffs, but you can pick up the Trail from there.
Clementine, you will not be safe until all of this is over. They will learn about who you are, and then hunt you.
May the quest for knowledge guide you.
Make the most of your time, my darling girl.
I love you, Clem — good luck!
Part II:
Awakening
JER-32-1297.A-E
The ground shook beneath my feet, the single halogen lamp flickered, and some dirt fell into the part of my hair.
Why did I remove my hood?
To see in the dark.
Huh?
I held my breath for a moment, but everything remained still. The screen was blank when only millichrons before it had glowed with Jonas Carlton’s face as he stopped recording the video.
The one where he claimed to be—
Stay alert!
What?
I quickly powered down the digital link; he said the Conglomerate would be tracking his signal.
Jonas Carlton…my father? How is that possible? Jonas Carlton was executed in 7 CE. Marya and Jeb were old enough to have been his grandchildren. He said Martha and Jedidiah, but surely, he couldn’t mean…
Jeb’s wiring flickered as if to spite me, rousing me from my thoughts. I raked the dirt from my scalp before I thought about spiders.
There are no spiders.
How would you know?
I am trespassing on my old farm, and there’s just been a…wait, what was that?
Consistent with a minor tremor.
Someone is bound to notice one of those!
I shuddered at the thought of the Guardians finding me trespassing on the farm. The Guardians are not kind to Exurbers; I learned early on to avoid them above everyone else. Thankfully, they’re hard to miss. The exoskeleton they wear makes them tower over ordinary citizens. It’s easier to dodge them up close since their visual acuity is limited by the giant plasma ocular screen.
Out in the open on the farm, I’ll be exposed.
No other way out.
Good point, voice in my head.
I shrugged and pocketed my halogen. The ladder seemed much longer when I was younger. Cracking the cover at the top, I could see it had been no earthquake: the barn was on fire, an eerie negative silhouette in flames.
Not a tremor.
An explosion.
That will draw attention.
Ducking out from under the cover, I put my gloves and hood back on. I peered around the corner of the well: a Guardian transport was already making its way along the wide boulevard that ran through the warrens of residential units from the Junction.
I don’t even have an identity on me!
Trespassing without identity at the scene of an explosion.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a second Guardian transport coming over the horizon.
Clem, get moving!
Without thinking, I threw the digital link and the URL bar into the well and kept my body low as I slunk off through the back fields. A quick peek over my shoulder, the closest Guardian was still too far back to spot me.
I slid down the ravine to the riverbed, clutching my satchel close. I broke into a run as soon as my feet hit the level ground and didn’t look back. Nearing the Junction, I slowed my pace. As I caught my breath, I noticed tears were streaming down my cheeks.
Maybe I’m starting to feel things?
It has been an emotional few septad, to say the least.
Wiping my eyes, I crossed the river underneath the bridge, so it looked like I was coming from 31. I have plenty of scrip. I planned to get on the Expressway but couldn’t decide between going right to Bethelton or stopping back in Jericho first.
32 is in souvern Jericho, and Bethelton is norf of Zion.
I can ride back to my ward, sneak back into my building, and formulate an actual plan. I barely noticed the Junction; I was so intent on keeping to the shadows. If I could just get on the train, I’d be okay.
My stomach lurched when I caught the first glimpse of 31-2. It was dark, and the gates were barred. I backed into an alley to consider my options.
Without the Expressway, the journey will take ages.
I can’t go through a Gateway without identity, even if I had one on me.
Maybe I go back down the river?
Perhaps there’s a way I can slip under the walls beyond the farm?
My feet were moving deeper into the alley before I noticed I had started walking.
Where do I think I am going?
Orienting myself, I realized where my feet were leading me. Conglomerate developments like Junctions or centers are constructed from a large grid that alternates between streets and alleys. The library was around the corner from the station, which means…
There.
Approaching the intersection of the alleys, I saw the library’s back door. I used the front entrance most of the time, like everyone else, except when Pauly let me stay in the basement after they closed. I would slip out this way to avoid the street cams until I was further away.
Unsure of what to expect, I made a silent wish and knocked on the worn metal door.
Report 103-99.5.147-16:51
This is an automated report triggered by sensor activity consistent with an explosion on the edge of the residential zone within Jericho Exurb 32.
Using explosives without valid permits is a beta-class transgression unless found in conjunction with rebellion or insurrection. In this case, it is classified as an alpha transgression, resulting in expedited evidentiary and prosecutorial reviews.
Following the automated call, three Guardian units were deployed to contain the fire, analyze the scene, and securely apprehend any suspects. Same Guardian units were redirected to a land apportionment on the souvern edge of Jericho. Previously, units responded to a fire that destroyed the primary residential structure and claimed the life of the sole resident available in the linked reports section of this transmission.
Per explosive protocols, 31-2 Station was immediately closed upon receipt of the monitoring alert. Expressway traffic was suspended, and any passengers for 37-8 stations were redirected to local routes until Guardian units could assess the scene and determine the scope of citizen transgressions.
At 17:14, Guardian units discovered the previously undamaged barn was now consumed in flames. Video logs show the fire was subdued by 17:35, after which investigative units began documenting the scene. Olfactory observation indicated the presence of a chemical accelerant in addition to explosives.
Guardian units spotted a partially exposed subterranean area, visible after the floor above it had been damaged by falling pieces of the barn’s roof. Units found a trapdoor in the floor and video logs show the discovery of a subterranean cellar, filled with mostly canned foodstuffs. The evidence produced no positive swabs for genetic signatures. Further room inventory revealed a single piece of paper, torn from a binding and wedged into a corner. The contents were submitted to Processing for automated transcription and will be automatically appended to this report upon completion.
The team discovered shelving had been constructed to create a fake wall, which they dismantled to enter a second room at 18:26. Significantly smaller, it appeared to have been accessible from the ground floor above. Bolt holes of this type were common among the rebellions against the Souvern Republic. This space was undamaged by the explosion or fire, and nothing of consequence was discovered inside, aside from some rotting cloth.
With no evidence to indicate the source of the explosion, Guardian units began an IRIS extrapolation scan of all the video logs collected at the scene at 18:45. IRIS concluded the explosion was directed through a small ventilation shaft on the oest wall, sparking the fire. From there, any accelerant in the barn would have spread the fire rapidly.
At 18:50, Guardians located the ventilation shaft and began an infrared terra scan - appended - which indicated another structure encased underground. The scan could not penetrate the structure but indicated an aperture could be found along the souvern cellar wall. At 18:55, Guardian units began removal, revealing an archway that served as the entrance to a steel bunker that housed an outdated medical pod. Guardian units determined the mechanics were no longer functional despite being connected to the barn’s electrical system. Inside the pod, Guardians identified the source of the explosion as a digital terminal damaged beyond repair.
The explosion severely damaged much of the pod’s interior. It originated from some technical component, but it is unclear whether the explosives intended to destroy the barn above or simply the contents of the medical pod. While damaged, the evidence collected at the scene unmistakably contains components of cryogenic units. IRIS’ review of the full inventory indicates enough material for as many as three units.
The cryogenic registry contains no records for this location, suggesting any cryo units would be unlicensed. Chemical analysis indicates the components pre-date reconstruction, which supports the working theory that the current residents have no knowledge of the hidden spaces on the land apportionment. Though both are recently deceased, their births were still decennia after the average age of the components in evidence.
At 19:00, Guardian officers gave the order to reopen 31-2 Station, having determined the source of the explosion was automated. The accelerant is believed to have been a common fuel type used in farm machinery and may have only been accidentally stored too close to the source of the explosion.
All evidence, including the cryogenic components, was extracted along with the concrete bunker. The entire library, notably lacking any genetics that might be used to identify witnesses or suspects, will be committed to secure storage in Jericho, pending the availability of laboratory resources to conduct a formal evaluation or until it is requisitioned for review by another division.
Report Submitted by C346219 at 5.147-17:54
Reviewed by R79783 at 5.147-17:58
Reviewed by X56491 at 5.147-17:59
Approved by Q32450 at 5.148-08:47
