BLOGS

The Chandliss residence was a modest size house, 20th century traditional, with a huge acreage of lawn bordered by a white wooden fence. Beyond the immediate property lay an expansive valley of rolling grassland and tree dotted hills, striated by streams that fed into a far off lake. The house was somewhere in Kansas . Which was to say it was in the middle of nowhere. Montgomery's closest neighbor must have been leagues over one of those distant hills, because I didn't see any sign of human occupancy other than a Secret Service guard post within visual range of the house.

Montgomery and I were riding in an armored rover with a Secret Service agent the control. A swept-winged, unmanned spotter flew past us doing an overwatch. The driver veered off the main road onto a narrower path leading to the house's driveway. At the end of the driveway was a woman I recognized from pictures as Montgomery's wife.

Maureen Chandliss, like her husband, was not a regen recipient. I could tell. Anyone could. Regen treatment eliminated wrinkles, reversing the sags of age, ironing out the skin to the point where it became smooth as plastic. Maureen's youthful pallor, enhanced by a dazzling smile, was clearly the result of healthy living, aided by prize winning genes. She wore a plaid shirt and green khakis. Her gray-streaked auburn hair flowed freely past her shoulders. Montgomery was out of the vehicle the instant it came to a stop. He rushed to his wife and embraced her with a fierceness that advertised his affection to the world.

"It's about time you dropped by," Maureen teased.

Montgomery stroked her hair. "I can't stay away from your fabulous home cooking for any length of time."

"That and something else."

I don't think Montgomery's wife meant for that last inuendo to reach my ears. She put a hand to her mouth, clearing her throat before shining her attention on me. "Hello, Nola. Mont's told me all about you."

"It's an honor and a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Chandliss,"

We shook hands. Then Maureen pulled me closer. "Listen, I'm not one of those DC elitists. It's a first name basis with me."

"Yes Maam."

"And none of that maam stuff either," Maureen hooked an arm through my elbow and we both started up the walkway toward the front door. "Don't worry, we'll get you loosened up with a good meal."

"I hope you whipped up some deviled eggs," Montgomery called out from behind us.

Maureen threw me a wink. "See what I'll have to put up with after he retires?"

My boss became conspicuously silent.

Montgomery introduced me to his two sons when we entered the house. Mason, with his strong jaw and squared crew cut was the spitting image of his father in his early adult years. McIntyre, the younger sibling, was a little shorter, a bit less imposing with a softer face that took after his mother's. As I looked around the house I marvelled at its quaintness. The furnishing was mid twentieth century at the most, complete with a mantle and real fire place.Other than a projection screen in the living room and an environmental regulator mounted next to the front closet, the interior was achingly bereft of current tech. The place was a little too period peice for my taste.

"This is such a beautiful house," I said, directing my praise to Maureen. "The entire area is so scenic and peaceful. I can understand why you chose not to move to Washington."

"And I'm all the saner for it." Maureen gestured to a decadently plush sofa next to the window. "Please sit. Would you like a glass of lemonade?"

"Her lemonade is a taste of paradise," Montgomery declared heartily. "Made from fresh squeezed lemons...none of that synthetic crap."

"Mason, don't just stand there like a rock embedded in packed dirt," Maureen admonished gently. "Bring Nola a glass."

The elder son withdrew to the kitchen with an audible sigh while Maureen sat next to me on the couch. "Anyway, I work more effectively from the peace and comfort of home than in some distracting urban pressure cooker."

"What kind of work do you do?" I asked.

"She's a chemist," Montgomery answered, plopping down in a love seat across from us. "World renowned."

"So I'm told." Maureen waved the comment away. "But accolades are meaningless to me. My work is what counts. I've been designing chemical agents for use against the collabs."

"I think you'd be intersted in her research," said Montgomery. "Maureen has created some nasty airborne stuff that, under ideal climatic conditions, can wipe out the population of a small city in a matter of seconds."

A creeping chill settled over me. Evidently, Maureen was no ordinary politician's spouse.

"Our effort aginst the collabs is a family affair," Maureen revealed as Mason entered the living room and handed me a cold, clear glass of lemonade. "Mason is a Marine Recon lieutenant. He'll be departing on the expedition."

I looked up at Mason. "Is that so?"

"Yes, Maam," the Marine replied in a clear, precise voice. "I'll be shipping out with the first wave."

I turned to McIntyre, who was perched on the edge of the sofa. "How about you? Are you in the military?"

The younger brother's boyish features expanded into a dimpled smile. "No maam. I'm a graduate student studying geophysics. But I will be part of the geologic team assigned to survey the Traitor's Planet's mineral resources."

"Yeah, we clear the planet of its infestation and you worms come in behind us to loot," Mason jabbed.

"No Mason, we don't loot," came McInyre's playfully condescending reply. "We find the loot for others to take. Get that through your thick grunt skull."

While the two brothers exchanged ribbing remarks, Maureen retreated toward the kitchen shaking her head, wearing a boys-will-be-boys expression. "Come on, Nola, what say we check on the food and leave the adolescents to their antics."

I made a show of trying to hide my amusement as I followed Montgomery's wife out of the room.

Ten minutes later we were sitting at the dining room table chowing down on roast hen, dressing, mixed vegetables, biscuits, and gravy. I barely had enough room in my crowded stomach to accomodate dessert, which consisted of a warm, oozing slice of the best apple pie I had ever tasted.

Afterward, we gathered in the living room for an evening of idle chit chat that died down when Montgomery turned on the projection screen. Montgomery was a news junkie, which, I suppose he had to be, given what he did for a living. The broadcasters didn't have anything new to report beyond the ordinary. Jihadist terrorists, tacitly supported by the Caliphate, blew up a mosque full of Shiites in an embattled central Asian state. Bolivarian government forces were cracking down on separatists in the Guyana Province, and the Russian president was fending off (open secret) accusations of drug abuse and corruption. The remaining coverage focused on the hunt for suspected collabs on Earth, tying that in with the ongoing preparations to invade the so-called Traitor's Planet.

It was time for me go, for which I was glad. That ridiculously comfortable sofa was beginning to lull me into a doze. I thanked Maureen for the delicious dinner, scrumptous dessert, and the wonderful hospitality. I bid farewell to the brothers. Montgomery walked me to the rover that was going to take me to a waiting flyer. He gave a list assignments that he wanted me to tackle when I returned to Washington and sent me on my way.

"How long will he be at his home?"

"Three days, that's why I must do this now. The window is perfect."

"We wanted a more...public venue."

"Opportunity trumps desire. I have an opportunity. I'm taking it. This is my call, but I would appreciate your authorization as a formality."

"I don't know..."

"I'm going in with or without your blessing. I'm just giving you the courtesy of notifying you. Do I have your authorization?"

"Very well."

I switched off my encrypted link and blew out a slow, meditative breath. It was time.

Night in this part of Kansas was a multilayered opacity that seeped into your pores as if you were submerged in a sea of black ink. I know. I had to shut down key functions of my stealth suit after completing a drop from the cloaked suborbital pod that I used to secretly ferret myself to these coordinates. I landed softly along the bank of a creek, fifteen miles from the Chandliss residence. The approaching aerial spotter would have detected a trace signature from the conversion unit that powered my suit's night vision and mobility boosters. The suit's stealth mode operated on a separate feed that required only the tiniest tendril of energy to sustain the inversion field that made me invisible to active and passive sensors. The spotter could not detect that energy charge. I still had stealth, but at the expense of sight. And without my boosters, covering fifteen miles at a unaugmented pace, made for a comparatively slow and laborious trek. Navigating through this pitch black darkness was not as difficult as it could have been only because I had studied a topographical chart of the path I was on. That didn't mean I was nessesarily going to avoid every swell and dip. I didn't. But having a smidgeon of foreknowledge was preferrable to total ignorance any day. Just because the spotter failed to detect me didn't give me license to ignore the drone when it glided overhead like a prowling raptor. I still dropped, hugging the ground, doing my best to mimik a statue...a prone statue. Because even though the spotter could not see me directly, it would have caught sight of disturbed grass, drawing an inference that ruled out wind as a cause of the motion. Maybe it would have assumed an animal of some sort was scampering through the field. An assumption the spotter would not have neglected to investigate. I didn't chance doing anything that might draw its attention.

Each time the spotter's red running light receded in the distance I jumped to my feet and ran, maintaining an even pace to conserve energy. It seemed like I had been on the move for hours. But when I came upon the structure that resembled a giant, antiquated outhouse, I realized how close to the objective I actually was. I unholstered my Visionary 26 auto pistol and skulked like a panther toward the Secret Service guard post. My eyes were adjusted to the dark well enough to spot a guard approaching the post building. He must have been on foot patrol. Had he noticed me, he would have transmitted and a rapid response element from a nearby location--I didn't know where--would have pounced on me like a tsunami. That is if didn't he killed me first. It was a simple matter of making sure the guard didn't see me. I advanced quickly, raised my pistol and placed pressure on the trigger. The pistol recoiled gently. A kularium tipped spike hissed from its narrow barrel, drilling through the guard's head with a muted thunk. The guard's body barely hit the ground when I sprinted to the post building and kicked the door in.

Three guards, sitting at consoles turned in my direction, stunned. My V26 whispered before they could react. I shot each guard once in the body. Then I shot each one a second time, a spike per head for good measure. I rushed to the nearest guard, pulled his corpse out of his chair and stood over a blood-smeared console. I knew the guard post procedures. The guards worked in rotations, sending a signal to the spotter, letting the machine know that all was secure at the post. A signal was supposed to be sent every fifteen minutes. Failure to transmit at the appointed time would alert the drone that something was amiss. The drone would then alert that rapid response element that I had absolutely no desire to confront. I tapped the right keys on the signal transmit panel. Then I did something extra. I inputted a command, ordering the spotter to do a patrol sweep for suspicious activity 25 miles to the north. Opposite of where I was heading. After that I proceeded to deactivate every security sensor surrounding the Chandliss estate. A gridded console screen displayed white blips, indicating where each sensor was located. There must have been over a thousand of the detectors, all buried maybe an inch or two beneath the ground. The blips went dark like fading stars, clearing me to step foot on the Chandliss' property without triggering an alarm.

I departed the guard post and double timed it toward toward the objective.

A rover was parked in front of the house. I turned on my night vision, adjusting it to the lowest setting. Two secret service guards sat in the vehicle. Immediately, I shut down the NV before its faint power output could be picked up by the spotter. I waited a moment for my eyes to readjust to the darkness. Then I moved, making a beeline toward the vehicle. I edged toward the driver's side, squatting down until I reached the driver's side window. I popped up, stuck my pistol through the open window and blasted a hole through the driver's temple. The second guard flinched, made a move to reach for his sidearm. A move I interrupted with a shot that left a bloody socket where his right eye used to be. I rounded the rover and scurried to the house, leaping up the front porch. I took out a stylus and picked the antique lock, then eased the door open. The living room was dimly lit by the glow of the projection screen. Mason was lying on the sofa. He had begun to stir from his sleep, due I'm sure, to my quiet entry. He was definitely an elite soldier. Elite soldiers were light sleepers. He opened his eyes, muttered groggily, then tensed when he saw me. I raised my pistol and put him back to sleep, permanently. I raced up the stairs to the second level. I didn't scout the upper floor, but I was sure that's where the rest of the family was located. A bedroom to my left. I entered the room, heard heavy snoring and saw someone lying in a bed too small to accomodate an adult. McIntyre was obviously a restive sleeper. The bedsheet was interwined around his fetally positioned body like a giant tapeworm. It was an endearing sight. I put a spike in his head. The snoring ceased.

I slipped out of McIntyre's room at the same instant that Maureen was emerging from another bedroom at the far end of the hall. She must have been headed to the restroom. Maureen saw me and gasped. Then she let out a shriek and tried to retreat back the way she had come. I opened fire. An auto burst from my weapon cleaved a gash from her lower left waist to the upper right shoulder blade. She spun to the floor.

At that second I heard a rustle in the room Maureen came out of. "Maureen?"

Montgomery's voice. "Maureen, what's wrong?"

The door opened.

I braced myself.

Montgomery stepped out into the hall in a T shirt and pajama pants. He saw me. His body went stiff, his eyes flaring wide in astonishment. Then he looked down. The sight of his wife's blood soaked body brought him to his knees. He gripped her shoulders, lifting her into his grief stricken embrace. A heart wrenchingly pitiful cry of sorrow, punctuated by gutteral rage rippled from the depths of his soul. I had my pistol trained on him but I swear the God I could not press the trigger. A perverse sense of guilt had stayed my hand, freezing me in place. I stood there, conflicted when I shouldn't have been, feeling a strain of sentiment for a man who murdered hundreds without a thought and called for the deaths of tens of millions out of cold, unreasoning hate. But that was the inhuman part of Montgomery. There was another all too human aspect of his personality. An aspect of warmth and generosity. There was humor and laughter and concern and commitment. It was to that aspect that I felt I owed something. I decided that Montgomery should at least see the face of his executioner. I stepped forward,stopping within five feet of my former boss.

He glared up at me through tear stained, hate-filled eyes. "You son of a bitch!" He growled shakily.

I lifted my face plate and when Montgomery recognized me, his jaw unhinged. "Nola?" He shook his head, lowering his dead wife to the floor. He stood and repeated my name. "Nola? It can't be...who sent you? Whose payroll are you on? The Russians? The Caliphate? The fucking Europeans? Or is it the West African Alliance? Is General Tunde your handler?"

"None of the above," I replied softly. "My allegiance is not to any nation on Earth."

He stared at me, his eyes narrowing. "You...you're a collab?"

"Yes, Mr. Secretary. I'm a collab."

A few seconds of silence hung between us. Then Montgomery started to laugh. It wasn't his usual light hearted chuckle, but a harsh and bitter dissonance. His body heaved in a convulsion of grim merriment. "Goddamn it to hell. I'm supposed to be the fucking Secretary of Security and yet I let a fucking collab infiltrate into my staff, under my very fucking nose. How many more collab infiltrators are out there?"

"You would be surprised," I replied.

Montgomery straightened, his mouth twisting into a sneer. "Well, it doesn't matter. You people are going to die and your planet is going to burn. In a generation, you traitors to your species will be less than a footnote in the glorious march of human history. So go ahead and finish what you started. Kill me. It won't change your fate."

I pressed the trigger. Three spikes punctured Montgomery's chest, rupturing his heart. He flopped backwards hitting the floor hard. With his arms spread wide and his head lolled to one side, he looked like Jesus on the cross. I immediately shook off the association and removed an eight inch utility blade from my thigh sheath.

As I stood over Montgomery's body, I was beset by another bout of hesitation. However, this was brought about not by sentiment, but revulsion. For what I was about to do ran counter to the humanity I still clung to in spite of my chosen...profession.

But I had to act fast. The spotter would soon be returning from that goose chase I sent it on.

This was going to be difficult...

World News Network...This is Hastings Willoughby, WNN, reporting live from the residence of Cabinet member and Secretary of Security, Montgomery Chandliss. The secretary and his family were found dead at an early morning hour by a Secret Service Rapid Response element. This is a truly horrible development...Secretary Chandliss, his wife and two two sons, according to the latest update I've received, were discovered with fatal gunshot wounds...more horrific, and again, this is yet to be corroborated, but the report I'm getting is that their bodies were disembowled and their throats slashed...six Secret Secret guards were also found dead on or near the premesis...

American News Service...The manner by which the secretary and his family were killed and mutilated closely resembles the methods used by the Caliphate-backed Soldiers of Jihad, a terrorist group that has been committing a spate of atrocities in Central Asia in an effort to impose strict Wabbahist-style regimes in the region...

Global Broadcasting Company...Mamud Mansur, the emir's senior spokesperson has issued a statement denying the Caliphate's involvement in the grisly slayings of Secretary Chandliss and his family...

Washington News Circuit...this just in, a CIA (Continental Intelligence Agency) surveillance sattelite picked up a powerful burst of static on the night of Secratary Chandliss' assassination. The static, which was catalogued by the satellite's core processor and relayed to data anlaysts at Langley, was discovered to have contained a hidden carrier signal. The signal's point of destination has been determined to be somewhere in the midwestern United States. The analysts have not been able to specify an exact location. However, they were successful in tracing the signal's origin to Riyayd, Arabia, where the headquarters of the Caliphate Security Intelligence Directorate is based. It has been substantiated by reliable sources that the CSID provides training and assistence to the terrorist organization Soldiers of Jihad...

World News Network...Another world leader has fallen at the hands of assassins. Chairman Olu Alaba, leader of the West African Alliance was killed Tuesday afternoon when his motorcade was hit by portable launched missiles...

American News Service...Two simultaneous attacks by American forces were launched against the CSID headquarters in Riyadh and a suspected Soldiers of Jihad training camp in northern Turkmenistan. The Riyadh attack was orbital based in what may be, if confirmed, the first use of the newly developed Epoch orbital weapons system...

Global Broadcasting Company...Caliphate space fighters attacked an American research station on the moon an hour ago. Casualty data is still coming in, but at last count, there are over three hundred fatalities. This is truly a tragic culmination of recent events. The clamor of war drums has drowned out the reasoned voices of calm and diplomacy. The people of Earth stand helpless as two of the world's most formidable powers clash in humanity's first massive internacine conflict since the withdrawal of the Opakular.

I boarded a transcontinental unirail bound for Luanda two days after the USNF and the Caliphate went to war. By that time, the Nola Monroe that I had been in Washington had submitted her resignation to the Cabinet. The reason being her inconsolable distress over the death of her former superior and mentor. My work was done. I took my assigned window seat and withdrew an image pad from the media slot next to my arm rest. I tapped the screen to ON mode and proceeded to make my programming selection. I clicked NEWS and a talking head appeared on the screen giving the latest update on the war that I sparked.

Another passenger boarded, a tall, broad shouldered African god with a bald head and a well trimmed goatee. He moved down the aisle with a small travel bag in hand. Our eyes met in the briefest instant of contact as he headed toward a rear seat. That instant communicated volumes. He had done his part in West Africa. Taking out Chairman Alaba using a stealth missile launcher, which Alliance investigators still had not uncovered, was a much more efficient, not to mention, hands off method of neutralizing a target than the up close and personnal butchery I had to perform. I was having nightmares that invariably concluded with me on the verge of drowning in a crimson, gore-strewn lake. Having to relive night after night of that horror was rough. But framing a blood thirty terrorist orgnanization, required a bit more effort than simply fabricating an incriminating signal hidden in a static stream. The crime required a shock element so provocative as to drive the American people into a vengeful fury. Was it worth it? Well, with the USNF and the Caliphate at each other's throats and the West African Alliance riven by civil war in the wake of its leader's death, Earth was in no position to invade another world. Utopia was safe for the time being. Under the circumstances, I had no problem enduring a few restless nights to reach that outcome.

My first name really is Nola. I was born on Earth, on which I lived for the first two years of my life before my parents boarded the last evacuating transport to Utopia. We barely escaped the mass slaughter that GD24 unleashed on real or imagined collabs.

To hear it from the common person, who tended to parrot the propaganda generated by Earth historians, the Opak occupation was the most calamitous event in human history. In actuality, the period was a golden age. Make no mistake, the Opakular were conquerers in the tradtional sense. They made that plainly clear when their ships arrived in the Solar System bearing a message proclaiming their intent to establish authority over Earth. The human race could either take heed and receive the Opaks without resistence or face dire conseqences. Earth's leaders chose the dire route. It took the destruction of Earth's most powerful militaries before humanity had finally taken heed. Once the Opaks settled into their role as our overlords, they revealed another side to their character. The Opaks were intensely altruistic. It was an integral part of who they were, an element deeply ingrained in their culture. They truly believed in the concept of uplifting a species. Under the Opak's non-repressive, non-exploitative rule, humanity benefitted enormously. Wars were eliminated. Of course that was a given. A single Opak battle cruiser was an ample enough deterrant to human conflict. The miracle of Opak medical science had wiped out all diseases. Opak technology transformed deserts into lush valleys, cleansed the air of pollutants, repaired Earth's ozone layer and restored damaged ecosystems. Their climate arrays regulated the weather, moderating dangerous storm systems. Hunger and poverty vanished. Crime became practically nonexistant. The Opaks shared their altruistic philosophy with the same giving spirit that they had shared some of their technology. Many humans latched on to this philosophy, absorbing its life affirming principles. Unfortunately, there was a large cross section of humanity that continued to resent the Opak presence. That segment passed along its animus toward the aliens to successive generations. These were humans who had never come to terms with the fact that theirs was no longer the dominant species on Earth. Religious fanatics, racists, anarchists, nationalists, extremists of every stripe held tightly to their depraved allegiances, clinging with an addict's obssesion to petty, outdated grievances.

Toward the end of the third century of their occupation, the Opaks began drawing down their forces throughout the solar system. The Opaks had never been very talkative about matters regarding their empire. But there had been rumors floating about that the Opaks were at war with another species on the far side of the galaxy. That apparently explained their eventual withdrawal. Perhaps they needed to prioritize their resources. Thank God the Opaks didn't abandon their supporters before they left. They knew there would no place on Earth for collabs in their absence, not with so many reactives and regressives chomping at the bit to reclaim their planet.

Utopia is a beautiful Earth like world, positioned perfectly within its system's habitable zone. The Opaks gave us the technology to carve out a life for ourselves on this virgin planet they selected. They also gave us an arsenol. The Opaks knew that sooner or later Earth would find us and that it would dispatch forces in an effort to wipe out humanity's greatest experiment. What was the experiment? That humans could live together in mutual respect and understanding. That we could exist side by side in a spirit of love and selfless devotion. That we could resolve differences without resort to violence...that we could maintain this state of peace in the absence of alien oversight. That experiment proved a complete failure on Earth, which had already reverted to the misery that it had been prior to the Opaks' arrival. It was only a matter of time before the little brushfires of discord that arose when the Opaks left flared into a much bigger catastrophe. That eventuality would have occurred without collab instigation.

By contrast, the experiment on Utopia had been a resounding success. However, we cannot grow complacent. Despite its internal turmoil, Earth remains a clear and present threat to our way of life...to our very existence.

I was going to be sure to include that little editorial during my debrief when I returned home. I'm a weapons expert. I witnessed first hand Earth's growing military capability. Utopians simply could not make do with the weapons the Opaks rendered to us. We had to expand our armaments, produce and innovate just like the Earthers were doing. Otherwise, the next time Earth pulled itself together enough to mobilize for an invasion, Utopia would find itself at a serious disadvantage...

Good grief. Too much thinking. I needed to relax, clear my head. I turned off the image pad and put it away. I would be debarking in Luanda in four hours. From there, it was on to an isolated outback somewhere in Namibia where a stealthed shuttle awaited. After that, home.

I shut my eyes and thought about home. It wasn't long before I drifted off into the first nightmare-free slumber I had experienced in days. I dreamed about apple pie.