Jeremiah (Just Another Day At The Office, Part 3)
(Author’s note: if you haven’t read the earlier parts of this story, you should read that first before enjoying this story. Start with “Just Another Day At The Office”.
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“Why do I have to wear this stupid thing?” Sam exclaimed, for probably the tenth time since they left camp that morning.
“Because until ‘J’ vouches for you, we can’t take any chances”, Eli replied.
“What, you think I’m working for the Drekons?”
“No, Sam – but the resistance is vulnerable. The less folks that know where we are based, the safer we’ll all be. Besides, we’re only about a half-mile away, so just hang on for a few more minutes and we’ll be there.”
Sam and Eli had left the suburbs of New Liberty 3 days prior, after a town meeting at the local high school. Eli introduced the citizens to the idea of a planet-wide resistance movement against the Drekon occupation. Sam spent most of the 3 days pumping Eli for more information about the mysterious “J”, leader of the resistance. Sam was 99% sure that “J” was really old crazy Jeremiah from the street corner, but Eli was not forthcoming with any information. That was very frustrating for Sam, almost as frustrating as the blindfold he’d been made to wear since breakfast. It was hot out here – wherever “here” was. Sam thought he could smell the ocean, maybe they were near the coast?
A short time later the atmosphere changed from hot & sunny to dark, cool and damp. “You can remove the blindfold now, we’re here”, Eli said.
Sam blinked and looked around. They were apparently in a cave. And there was nothing in it. “This is it? An empty cave? We hiked 3 days for this?”
“Wait here”, Eli replied. He walked to the back of the cave and disappeared behind a rock formation. Sam was momentarily startled. Unless you knew exactly where to look, the back of the cave looked unbroken. Apparently this cave had multiple chambers, cleverly concealed. Sam was almost impressed.
“Sam? Is that you?” a deep voice echoed out a few minutes later. And there he was, emerging from the back of the cave: Jeremiah. No longer dressed in rags, and no longer sporting a long, unkempt beard. But it was crazy old Jeremiah for sure.
Jeremiah clasped Sam’s right hand in both of his, and smiled warmly. “I’m so glad you made it! I was hoping you’d survived the attacks.”
“Um, yeah. Me too. So you’re the leader of the resistance now? You’re the same guy from the street corner outside Starbuck’s? I mean, 6 weeks ago you were yelling that “The Drekons are coming!” and handing out pamphlets and now –“
Jeremiah put his hand up. “Yes, that’s all true, Sam. But there’s much more to the story, as I’m sure you’ve guessed by now”. Jeremiah put his hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Come! Let’s go into the ‘office’ and chat a while”.
Sam was led to the back of the cave and around the rock formation to an archway that led to an even larger chamber. This room was abuzz with activity – there were lights, workstations with terminals, comm equipment, generators, and people. Probably 2-3 dozen folks were milling about doing various things. It looked kind of like an office after all.
Jeremiah led Sam to a desk and showed him to a seat. “Where do I begin?” he asked with his eyes pointed towards the roof of the cave. “At the beginning, I suppose”, he answered himself.
“As you know, I used to work for IGCBCS. At one point I was vice Guild Leader for ‘A’ shift – bet you didn’t know that!”
Sam was genuinely surprised. Jeremiah had said he was high up in the leadership, but Sam never thought he meant that high up. “No, I didn’t know that. Go on.”
Jeremiah clasped his hands. “Well, this situation we’re in with the Drekons. Let’s just say it’s not news. It’s happened before. Just not here on Cestus 3. During my time with IGCBCS I noted some ‘irregularities’ in the online universe.”
“What kind of irregularities?”
“Well, seeing as how you’re a long-time employee of IGCBCS – and a good one - you know very well how things work in the universe we log into each day. When an individual is no longer employed by their guild, they get the “inactive” tag and they’re free game for the rest of us, right?” Jeremiah asked.
“Sure, but what has that got to do with the Drekons?” Sam replied.
“Imagine entire guilds going inactive all at once – and never coming back! That’s what started happening, 15 years ago. Working with some contacts I had on other planets, we pieced together that someone – or something – was causing these smaller guilds to disappear from the universe forever.”
“Where did they go? Maybe their comm systems or terminals went offline for a while...” Sam mused.
“No, Sam. They weren’t gone for a while, or had to restart their online guild – they just plain never returned. A few people from those guilds managed to send some PMs to others outside their guild, including myself. Those private messages spoke of attacks – in real life, not the IGCBCS system! Attacks with real military ships possessing unbelievable power, armor, and shielding. By a group calling themselves “The Drekons”. Sound familiar yet?”
Sam looked at Jeremiah with amazement in his eyes. “How can this be? I worked for IGCBCS for 11 years and never heard of anything like this!”
“Of course not, Sam! When I brought this knowledge to the Guild leaders they dismissed it. They said I was meddling in affairs that didn’t concern [CSTS3]. They told me to drop it immediately or face consequences!” Jeremiah leaned forward. “But I didn’t drop it. People were dying - for real, not in cyberspace! So I took the data I’d collected, the messages, and went to the government. That was my fatal mistake.” A frown came over Jeremiah’s face as he leaned back in his chair.
“How so?” asked Sam.
“The government didn’t want to consider the possibility that I was right, and that there was a real threat out there. You see, Sam, things here on Cestus 3 were going really well for centuries. The economy was prospering – not having to spend any money on a military or defense will do that! The last thing the government wanted was word to get out that there might be some threat out there that they couldn’t handle. People would have panicked and demanded a response! So they confiscated all my materials and showed me the door. They discredited my reputation at IGCBCS, telling everyone that the stress of so many years of virtual combat had gotten to me and I had a breakdown.”
Sam was having difficulty processing this information. “So you’re telling me that for years entire planetary guilds have been quietly disappearing from the IGCBCS – and our guild leadership knew about it - and no one did or said anything?”
“That’s right, Sam. Only now it’s become our problem because the Drekons finally got around to us!”
“So why did you become ‘crazy-homeless-dude-on-the-streetcorner’? Wasn’t there a better way to get the word out?”
“Who would have believed me? And I wasn’t homeless, Sam. I worked the street near the main HQ for IGCBCS, trying to spread the news to the folks who worked there - including you, I might add. But that was my ‘day job’. At night I spent countless hours organizing what has become this resistance movement, and getting ready for the inevitable. I stocked up on generators, camping supplies, food, you know - the ‘survival nut’ stuff.”
“I still don’t get it. You could have gone to the press, the ‘net, the vid stations...”
“Remember what you thought of me until today, Sam? How did you put it? I was a ‘crazy homeless dude’? I tried to warn you, yes I did! But you and your fellow IGCBCS workers were too busy playing with your pretend ‘space boats’ to see the truth about what was happening in real life!” Jeremiah’s fist banged the table at the end of the sentence, startling some of the other resistance members as the sound echoed through the cave. He took a deep breath and calmed down before proceeding.
“Sam, remember also that my reputation was thoroughly destroyed both with the government and IGCBCS. The vid stations would never have run a story on me. No, the media would never have taken this seriously. So I worked by night and preached by day hoping others would listen. And some did, Sam – look around you! This is one of 4 cells planet-wide, working together to organize a resistance to the Drekons. We have people, supplies, everything!”
“Well, do you have a way to beat the Drekons?” Sam asked.
“Not yet, Sam.” He waved a finger. “But we’re getting there. I want to show you something.” Jeremiah motioned to a man working on a computer several desks away. “Mister Prespa! Could you bring that file over here for a moment?”
The man immediately came over and shook Sam’s hand. “You must be Sam! Pleased to meet you! The name’s John Prespa, but everybody calls me ‘Johnny Drama’.”
No explanation for that nickname forthcoming, Jeremiah took the folder and said “thank you, Johnny, that’ll be all. Sam – take a look at this.” Jeremiah handed over the folder which contained a single 3D holopic.
“What is this, exactly?” Sam inquired.
“You’re looking at perhaps the very last ship ever produced by the New Liberty Shipyards. That Corvette rolled off the assembly line around 475 years ago, right around the time the Inter-Galactic Treaty was signed by Cestus 3.”
“Is this for real? It looks just like those 3D images of the corvette in the IGCBCS system!” The 3D picture showed a huge, clear rectangular display case, probably made of transparent aluminum. It contained a small one-man craft mounted on a pedestal. And it looked exactly like the online version did.
“Yes, Sam. It’s real. It’s housed in the Museum of Antique Warfare way down in Atlantis.”
“The what? I’ve never heard of that place! We have a ‘Museum of Antique Warfare’?” Sam was more than a bit surprised by this news.
“Yes, Sam. They are a small non-profit group that maintains some artifacts from before the IGT era. They’re not well-publicized and the government barely tolerates them. I’m sure our leadership wanted folks to think happy thoughts, and not be reminded of those darker times. There were even those in the Julatsa administration – may she rest in peace, I heard about the attack on the Capitol – who wanted to shut it down and destroy any evidence that those dark days ever happened. As such, the museum was purposely located way, way down on the Southern Continent away from any large cities. And it was never promoted or advertised, really. It got only a few hundred visitors a year, if that. But this may work to our advantage!”
“How?” Sam was having a hard time digesting all this information. “And where do I fit in to all this?” he gestured with his hands, indicating the cave and all the activity in it. “What can I possibly do?”
“Whoa, Sam. Slow down, that’s a lot of questions at once. Firstly – we are planning an expedition to Atlantis to examine this Corvette in the hopes that we might be able to learn something useful from it. Something we can maybe use to fight the Drekons. I’ve seen the reports - nothing we’ve thrown at them so far has made a dent in the armor of that blasted ship. The nerve of them, parking it right on the front lawn of Parliament House! The Corvette was a fighting ship, the last of her kind. I think she may yet have something to tell us!”
“Atlantis is like 5000 miles away, isn’t it? How will you get there with the power grid unreliable?”
“6,350 miles or so, believe it or not. By water, anyway. And that’s how we’re going to go. We’ve got a ship, Sam – the S.S. Alyra. She’s a beauty! And more importantly she’s got her own mini-Fusion plant onboard. That means she’s off the grid, so to speak”.
“So a 6,350-mile sea voyage to a museum to look at a 475-year old ship. This sounds great, and all, but again – where do I fit in? I’m just an IGCBCS drone!”
Jeremiah smiled. “Oh, you’re much more than that, Sam! You just don’t know it yet. For now, I need you to keep on connecting to the IGCBCS and do what you can to make sure our guild doesn’t get wiped out in cyberspace - while we work on keeping it alive in the real world. And I want you to come with us to Atlantis. We may need your help looking at the computer systems on the Corvette. Most importantly, you’ve shown remarkable ‘outside-the-box’ thinking for an ‘IGCBCS drone’ and I want you on my team.” Jeremiah rose and stretched out his hand. Sam stood and slowly took it, a look of bewilderment still on his face.
“I’ve got no better offers at the moment, Jeremiah. So yes, I’ll go with you to Atlantis. I can’t guarantee I’ll be of any help but I’m willing to try. But what if the Drekons spot us?”
“No guarantees on that, Sam”. Jeremiah lowered his voice and motioned to the chair, and they both sat back down. “But their pattern of attack seems to be striking at populated areas. Places where there are large numbers of people - and witnesses. Does that seem strange to you, Sam? To me, it seems like they are waging a psychological campaign against our people – and they’re winning. Everyone is frightened and they’ve barricaded themselves at home or a cave like this one, Sam. So the Drekons can keep people from organizing and fighting back by their daily terror attack – it’s simple intimidation. But hitting a small boat on the open sea with a dozen people on board isn’t going to help that goal. It’s too small of a target – and if they hit us, no one would know about it”.
“We’d know about it, and then we’d be dead...” Sam mused sardonically.
“Think, Sam! Where have they hit? Mostly large cities, or places where large numbers have gathered. In fact, we’ve analyzed their daily ‘pillages’ and according to the data, 80% of the attacks have been in and around New Liberty. We still don’t know why they only attack once every 24 hours, but it’s information we can use to our advantage. The odds that they would take notice of our little boat and waste a daily pillage on us is remote. It’s a chance worth taking, anyway - don’t you agree?”
“I suppose you’re right. I mean, it’s just as likely they would attack my neighborhood one day and I’d end up dead inside my home. So, hey - why not die trying to accomplish something?” Sam forced a smile.
“That’s the spirit, m’boy!” Jeremiah rose and clapped Sam on the back. “Let’s get you introduced to the other members of the team, and then get you to a terminal so you can log into the IGCBCS and save our planet – er, ‘virtually’ that is. Then we’ll get you a hot meal and a warm bed, and tomorrow you can start saving the planet with us for real! We set sail in the morning.”
“So soon?” asked Sam.
Jeremiah looked serious. “With every day that goes by, more of our people die in the Drekon pillage attacks. There’s no time to be wasted, Sam. We leave at dawn tomorrow for Atlantis!”
TO BE CONTINUED...