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It was clear to Json, the needed to set traps and cameras (they had three hyper-web cloaked web cams to leave behind at the limping powerstation. The wind turbines above ground appeared to be stable. He was formulating a plan on the fly. The entire group, about 135 people at this point, needed to pack all necessary gear to move out at 2 am, only four hours from now.
“Okay, he said into the room of leaders, “We’ve got to mobilize. We don’t know if the swarm is related to Eva finding reaching my laptop here in the bunker. You’ve got three hours to pack your teams and stage our departure in the west hallway, as far from where we encounted the swarm! Let’s go.”
He knew 10 people were going to be left behind. That was the harder part. Sacrifices had to be made. GAA was not fucking around. The swarm had found them. Eva had managed a direct transmission to his expiring laptop. Every minute was critical.
“Dale and Julie, stay behind! The rest of you, wake your crews and get everything packed up!”
A micro-lightning strike of fear passed through the room at the struggle ahead, but everyone stood up and began heading to the doors.
“This is going to be the hard part,” he said to the two commanders. “We need to leave a skeleton crew behind and you’ve got to pick five people from each of your squads.” There was no fear now, just action!
“What’s the plan, sir?”
“No time to discuss. Get moving. I will brief everyone at the rally point. Let’s get moving!”
As the room cleared and got quiet again, Json turned the lighting down again. He sat next to the inert laptop and staired into the controls of the power grid. Should he blow up the entire place and leave? Set a trap? Something else? He sat in the dark, the lights of the ancient cammand center blinking silently wishing he had a cigarette, but they’d been outlawed and gone for years. Still…
“Split Test!” his mind shouted. He understood the mission now. He would leave behind a skeleton crew as if they were protecting the power center. The would be the PART A of the split test. A second group, 20 people, would head back towards the main city of Denver, PART B. The bulk of his team would go back to the surface, to the ocean shore and sun and head west, PART C. He didn’t think GAA had enough drones to patrol the entire Earth. But now that they had located his pocket of resistance (who knew how many existed across the globe) they would be sending weapons and troops to the bunker beneath the wobbly grid his team had set up.
It was PART D he didn’t want to consider at this moment. He was too drained. He needed 15 minutes of downtime and then he’d be good, he thought as he lost consciousness…
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