C.J.

 

Tuesday January 14 - 0759 MST

One day until Turbocharger activates

 

It might have just been my imagination but the CTOC felt chillier today than it did before. That might have just been me though. The 0730 shift brief had just concluded and that had left me feeling empty inside. Empty except for the butterflies in my stomach. We'd gotten official word that the Praetorians would take over the last remaining security details in the Underground. From now on the safety of the CTTC would be in the hands of mercenaries.

That was really the root of it. The Praetorians worked for the highest bidder. Their loyalties weren't to the nation or its people, but the almighty dollar. Many of them weren't even Americans. The Russian that gave most of the orders seemed especially indifferent. And that was what really bothered me.

This wasn't some logistics depot or armory that needed guards to keep looters out. The CTTC had such an important mission that it needed people deeply devoted to the cause. None of us in uniform were paid nearly as much as any of the Praetorians. We were here because we believed in the mission. If we failed then a lot of citizens would be hurt. Or worse.

"Earth to C.J. You there?" Larry was waving at me from the next desk over,

"Sorry. I spaced out. What's up?"

"Check this out." He waved me over to his station. I rolled my chair over to his desk not knowing what to expect. Larry was the day shift ISR Manager. ISR was short for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance and was just a fancy way of bundling up all the systems we used to track transient activities into one neat acronym. The people that flew the Predators for us or operated the tracking satellites we used all worked with Larry. He would make the phone calls and report back any findings to the Colonel.

Only now we no longer had the Colonel or a mission that required all those ISR assets. Larry mostly spent his time doing classwork for his bachelor's or surfing the Internet when no one was looking. It was sad for me to watch him languish that way because he was really quite good at his job and I know he missed doing it.

Two of his desktop screen had up the usual mess of windows for email and various spreadsheets. I didn't comment on the minimized tab I saw in the taskbar for his game of Solitaire. The third desktop screen was the most interesting though. On it was a four-way split view of security camera footage. All four views showed the deepest interior reaches of the Underground—the dark corner of our little underworld known as C-Watch.

"This is the last time you'll see military down there." Larry tapped on the screen where a group of black suited Praetorians was talking to the green BDU wearing Airmen that were standing their last shift in C-Watch. "After this, it'll be nothing but Praetorians on duty. Figured you might want to see it." After a moment he added. "Or maybe you don't want to see it."

I gave him a sidelong glance. "What?"

"You always fold your arms and bite your lip when you're unhappy and don't want to tell anyone."

My arms were folded and I was biting my lip. It was odd because I didn't remember doing any of that, and it showed how long we'd been working together. Not even my boyfriend noticed stuff like that. "It just seems wrong. That's all. Where is that by that way?"

"It doesn't have an actual name. Just a grid coordinate on the map." He tapped on the laminated paper map of the Underground that was the surface of his desk. "That intersection leads to the worst of the stuff we keep in storage. No one is allowed in there without prior approval from the commander of the CTTC. And I'm with you in not liking this one bit. That guy right there is the Russian, Kuzmin. He's got clout in Praetorian and I don't think it's right we hand over the keys to a Russian. I mean we fought the Cold War with his people. Now we're gonna just hand over all this Cold War-era scary stuff to them?"

"What's that?" I pointed at another screen that showed some giant mechanical contraption. The Praetorians were taking that away from some Airmen too.

"That's the GAU-8." Larry's cryptic letters and numbers might as well have been in a foreign language. I didn't have his motivation to memorize arcane knowledge like he did for fun.

"What's that for normal people?"

He smiled because I'd just given him permission to geek out. "That's the big multi-barrel cannon that's normally mounted in the nose of an A-10. It's meant for killing armored vehicles. Here it's more of a last resort to keep the nightmares of C-Watch from escaping."

"Oh. It's the Cerberus? Why didn't you just say that? I know what that is." I folded my arms and bit my lip. This time I noticed it. "That's something else I don't think should be in the hands of anyone but us."

He just nodded in silence as we watched the same scene play out on all four video feeds. The Praetorians talked with the Air Force SFs, did a short walk around of the posting, then they relieved the SFs for the final time. It really was the end of an era.

"What're you two doing?"

I jumped at the new voice. Larry stood up from his chair and answered for both of us. "Uh, sorry, sir. We were just watching our people get relieved from guard duty for the last time. Just thought it was historically significant. That's all."

I turned slowly expecting to see an officer. General Basser or his toady or maybe even some Praetorian who was assuming their duties. Instead I found Captain Grider wearing his habitually cynical squinty look. He stepped closer and lowered his voice before responding. "Just between us three, I don't like any of this. What's your take on it?"

I spoke first. "We don't like it either. This is too important to give out to people that aren't fully committed to the cause. Some of them aren't even Americans."

Grider nodded. "Yeah, we're on the same page then. Look…" He took a moment to scribble something on a small notepad before tearing the page out and handing it to me. It was a phone number. "That's my personal cell. You've already got my government sat phone number. I want you both to keep those numbers handy. If anything—and I mean anything—out of the ordinary happens I want to know about it." He lowered his voice again. "Because I don't think our current leadership is up to the task of handling it." And then he thumped the split screen with his finger. "And these yahoos don't care about anything that doesn't directly inflate their bank accounts. I hate to say it, but I think this all rests on our shoulders now."

His words hung in the empty air for a while. None of us wanted to admit it, but he was right. What used to be a team effort by everyone in the Underground was now fractured and falling apart. We had to organize ourselves otherwise no one would. "Yes, sir. When we hear something, you'll be the first to know."

I found it odd that I couldn't bring myself to say If. The word When felt like the only right word to use. Captain Grider must have felt it too. That was why he had spoken to us. Something bad was coming.

And I really wished Colonel Sterling was back here to help us stop it.