Chapter 1

Friday 8 p.m. January 3, 2076

It was typical cold Illinois winter weather, with a lot of snow on the ground, and a promise of more to come from the overcast night sky. The country side looked like a white blanket had been thrown over it with colorful dots of brown, and a few reds and grays and greens, representing the roofs of farm houses and barns popping up every now and then, and pine trees.

Since he had taken the right exit ramp off I-88 near the town of Fenton and crossed a small river whose name he didn’t remember he notice the brown, red, and gray dots had become fewer as had the few towns he’d passed when he got off I-88. A mile away from  the no name river the dots disappeared. They were replaced by a dark forest of snow covered pine trees and naked deciduous trees. Naked of leaves but not of snow that covered the top of the branches and even clung, from the ground almost to the tops, to the western and northwestern sides of the tree trunks indicating the direction the snow had come.

Even though the world had gotten a half a degree warmer, everybody now believed in global warming which included those assholes who’d tell any lie industrial leaders wanted them to tell about global warming for large amounts of money, winters were still snowy and cold in the Midwest. Midwestern winters, like winters everywhere in America, were still nothing to laugh at. According to meteorologists winters were shorter by half a day, but still just as cold and snowy. And anyone who knew anything about snow knew snow and cold went together like water and wet. That was why Larson was glad all motor vehicles were now electrical.

Electrical engines produced heat faster than internal combustion engines without costing the owners a penny more than they had paid for the car, and there was no air pollution. Even planes had electric engines. Investing in oil exploration was like pissing in the desert and hoping it changed into cool fresh water. And the Middle East had become quiet and peaceful now that greedy western oil men weren’t forcing their gutless governments, especially the American government, to manipulate Middle Eastern governments into adopting oil policies that profited the oil men and a few Middle Easterners and did nothing for the common people of the Middle East or anyone in the nations that had depended upon oil.

“Where the hell am I?” Larson asked himself as he slowed down and looked out the windshield. He was driving down the middle of the partially snow cleared road ignoring the yellow dividing line when he could see it.

There was no need to move to the right side of the road. Larson hadn’t seen another vehicle in almost twenty minutes. Truck drivers and other drivers stuck to the main roads and expressways where signs were posted allowing drivers to determine where they were like intelligent people. Only a damn fool like him turned off a plowed paved road onto one that looked like a plow had passed over it a week ago, and then had done a half ass job.

‘Six miles from the Bay Route,’ replied the verbally activated trip computer in his car. ‘Road conditions require a safe speed of twenty miles an hour.’

Larson reduced his speed of forty miles an hour by half and relaxed. He glanced at the clock on the dashboard. 8 p.m. He started to ask the computer how long to the Bay Route, but decided not to. He didn’t like the damn thing showing up his weak math skills, the result of spending too much time using calculators.

I’ve got to start using my brain for solving the daily math problems I encounter rather than relying on those three calculators I’ve got at home. No matter how convenient they are.

He had never been like a lot of people in the later part of the twenty-first century. Thrilled by the various electrical gadgets produced by companies that claimed they saved people time to do more interesting things. The only thing the gadgets really did was to encourage people not to think giving them more time to engage in a lot thoughtless

behavior. The calculator he used, the other two were in some drawer in a desk somewhere

in his house, to figure out his monthly expenses was over twenty years old like the other two, and he had no intention of updating any of them.

He still read books made out of recycled paper, though he did have an electrical tablet which he seldom used. He liked using bookmarks and page points to mark his spot in the latest novel or history book he was reading. Which made him wonder why he was driving through the back country of northwestern Illinois? Instead of being in the first floor study of his faded dark red brick house which had been a two flat apartment building before he bought it and had it converted to a comfortable five bedroom, six bathroom single family townhouse.

The answer was simple. He had become a successful, bored, well to do bachelor writer with two grown children who visited him three or four times a month, called him weekly, and worried about him daily. Just as he sometimes did with his ex-wife. But at sixty Larson was in good physical shape, healthy – he kept his hair cut very short because he was almost bald, and not worried about anything but avoiding boredom. Which is why he had answered the letter he had received through the mail two weeks before Christmas asking him to report to the Bay Route address on January 3 at 9 p. m.

The letter was short and had been hand written by someone who took the time to form his or her letters properly. I have something important to tell you, Mr. Western. Please come to my home on Bay Route. You can’t miss it. I’m sure you’ll find the way. Tell no one where you are going, and be here no later than 9 p.m. January third. Julian Franks.

‘Bay Route is the next road to your right, Mr. Western,’ the trip computer said.

 ‘One hundred feet away. Reduce speed to five miles per hour to make a safe right turn.’

Larson slowed down and looked to his right and saw the road that was Bay Route.

Bay Route was a narrow two lane road between two walls of trees and covered with snow.

He checked the dashboard to make sure his four wheel drive was operational.

It was.

He made the turn and instinctively looked in his rear view mirror and both side mirrors to see if he was being followed. Though he didn’t know why since there was nothing in the letter about making sure he wasn’t followed. He hadn’t told anyone he was going to Bay Route as the letter had instructed him not to do. But he knew why he was driving to Bay Route. Curiosity had gotten the better of him when he read the letter along with the desire to add a little adventure to his life. He didn’t know what this Julian Franks wanted to tell him, but he was sure there was no danger involved in going to the address he’d been given and listening to Mr. Franks. Or so he hoped.

He turned off his headlights just to feed his desire for mystery and adventure.

Larson loved intelligent mysteries. Not the Hollywood kind of mysteries with loads of sexy, skinny, big breasted women, and handsome men who looked like they hadn’t reached twenty-one and acted as if they hadn’t had an original thought in their entire lives, and with so many twists and turns it was impossible to figure out the mystery or why who had done what to whom.

And Mr. Frank’s letter was a mystery. No later than 9 p.m. January third.

What’s so important about 9 p.m. January third, Larson thought.  

For a brief moment he wondered if he was on a fool’s errand or a fool on a foolish errand.

What the hell have I got to do that’s more interesting? He thought. Screw hot to trot beautiful sexy women in their fifties and early sixties. You damn fool!

By the time he was ready to turn around and head back home, stopping to use the washroom at some truck stop and getting a hot cup of coffee, he saw the dark outline of what looked like a small house partially hidden by the trees and the darkness a few hundred feet up the road.

He took his foot off the accelerator and let the car move forward under its own momentum. By the time the car stopped, the deep snow on the road worked against the car’s momentum, he was looking out the driver’s side window at an old gray stone and faded brown brick one story house. It looked as if it had been abandoned years ago and forgotten by its owner. What had once been a front yard was now dominated by thick brush growing up around two healthy looking young trees that had the promise of centuries of life in them.

“Computer,” Larson said.

‘Working.’

“Does Bay Route appear on any Illinois maps?”

‘Only on those printed before 2050.’

“How is it that you have it in your program of maps?”

‘Your automobile was built in 2048.’

“Yeah, antique,” he said as he started turning the car around to face the direction he had come. If anything unusual occurred he wanted to be able to get away fast. And running through these woods on foot wasn’t going to be his fast getaway route. He stopped the car. “Computer, don’t shut off the engine. If I come running back, open the passenger’s front door, and start moving the moment I’m in the car.”

‘Close the passenger’s door after you have entered?’

“Yes.” He turned the engine to low idle, opened the driver’s door, and got out. He stood by the door for a few seconds while he looked over the house. Hoping to see something that indicated it was inhabited. He saw nothing to indicate it was inhabited.

This is what you get for answering foolish letters. Hell, it wasn’t even a letter just a note on one sheet of plain paper in a plain envelope. With no return address. What a fool I am.

He closed the driver’s door and started walking around the front of the car through the two foot deep snow. He made his way through the chest high brush, passed the two young trees, and through the snow down what he thought once was a well-cared for stone or concrete walk, till he reached the faded wooden porch. He walked up on it to the door, hoping the wooden porch wouldn’t collapse under his weight, and stopped.

The wooden door looked thick and heavy, as did the walls of the house. The house looked like a small version of a block house designed to stop anyone with conventional

weapons from entering without permission. Even the steel screen door looked as if it could stop a two hundred pound man if he threw his weight against it. But nothing indicated the house was occupied.

“This is stupid,” he said and turned around to walk back to his car.

“Please, don’t leave, Mr. Western,” a baritone male voice behind him said.

Larson quickly turned around and saw an older man through the glass and screen of the steel screen door dressed in a red and black smoking jacket, creased black trousers, dark reddish pull over sweater under the smoking jacket, and black polished leather slippers. His white hair was down to his shoulders and neatly combed back. His ears were hidden by his hair. His white face had the soft cared for look of a man use to living a comfortable life.

“I didn’t hear the door open,” Larson said.

“An advantage of oiled plastic hinges,” he said, stepping back and opening the door wider. “The screen door is unlocked. Please enter. I don’t have much time left.”

Larson reached out and pulled the screen door open and entered the dark house.

“My name is Julian Franks, Mr. Western,” he said closing the door behind Larson.

As soon as the lock clicked, lights came on in the house.

Larson expected to see an old, nasty interior with furniture that was good for nothing else but a bond fire. Instead he saw a richly furnished interior with what looked to him like rich carpeting and a clean well cared for half-moon table against a wall a yard from the door. Two landscape paintings hung on each of the walls, and the ceiling lights gave off a soft, bright glow. There was even the smell of pipe tobacco mixed with the odor

of some sort of mint flavored coffee.

“My living room is the door on the left,” he said, standing behind Larson. “Please remove your coat. Would you like some coffee? I drink only a mint flavored Jamaican coffee.”

Larson turned to face him. “What’s this all about, Mr. Franks?”

“The living room if you please,” he said. “What I have to tell you is best heard in a comfortable chair. And do not fear for your safety, at least not yet.”

“What does that mean?” he asked, feeling a bit apprehensive.

“Please, the living room,” he said, pointing the way with his left hand.

Larson turned and walked to the living room. It was a bit too late to leave now. Even though he felt he’d have no trouble leaving if he wanted to. Franks struck him as a man not use to, or comfortable with physical violence. But then neither was he.

Larson hadn’t had a good fist fight since he was in the Army more than thirty years ago. If a fist fight could be considered good. He’d won the fight which he was proud of.

The walls of the living room were covered with floor to ceiling empty bookshelves except where there were windows, and they were hidden behind heavy brown woolen drapes. Larson suspected behind the drapes were thick, locked wooden shutters though he hadn’t bothered to look for any when he walked up on the wooden porch. In the corner was a wooden desk with a matching leather chair. On it was a laptop computer and the usual things one expected to find on a desk. The floor was richly carpeted and in the center of the living room was a thick, polished ruff wooden coffee table with two baked earthen mugs, a

glass coffee pot on an electric heating pad, a small earthen pitcher of cream, and a matching sugar bowl with a sugar spoon in it. A spoon lay next to each of the mugs. The table was surrounded by three heavy, but comfortable looking chairs and a rather long couch that looked like it would make a nice place to take a nap.

Larson removed his navy blue parka, woolen hat, and gloves – he put them in the outer pocket of his parka, dropped the parka into one of the chairs and sat in another.

“Please, help yourself,” Franks said, sitting on the couch facing Logan. “I’ll get right to the point, Mr. Western, since time is short. I use to be one of three leaders of an organization known as the Hidden Society. It has existed since 1049, and has been manipulating events on this world since its creation. It consists of only ninety-nine members now that I’ve left it.” He leaned forward and poured coffee from the glass coffee pot into both mugs. He added cream and sugar to his mug. He used his spoon to stir the cream and sugar into the coffee, placed the spoon on a paper napkin next to his mug, picked it up, took a swallow, and continued, “Its power is unimaginable. No political leader, dictator or democratically elected, is beyond its reach. It has unlimited financial resources, and no weapon is beyond its control. Everything on this planet is within its reach or under its control. Every computer, computer cell phone, land line telephones, satellites, and TV and radio station whether they’re cable or disk.”

Larson turned and looked at the laptop on the desk then helped himself to coffee and added cream and sugar to his coffee. He took a swallow. It was good mint flavored coffee.

“That laptop is an antique, Mr. Western. It was made in 2018. Before the Hidden Society got control of an extremely unique computer chip and had that chip redesigned by a group of its chip technicians that enables it to read, see, and hear everything every time anyone uses a computer, including the people on the international space station, and the Martian Scientific Station.”

“That’s impossible,” Larson replied with a large smile on his face. “Computers have had security chips in them that allow their owners to prevent such things.”

“Every electrical piece of communicating equipment made on this planet made after 2034 carries a Hidden Society chip, either an older version of the chip or new one. Believe me when I tell you no computer or cell phone on this planet is safe from the Hidden Society.”

“That would include my car,” he said. He took another swallow of coffee.

Franks took two large swallows of his coffee and then said, “Yes.”

Larson placed his mug on a paper coaster on the table. “You’ve got to be kidding me, Mr. Franks.”

“I wish I were,” he said in a serious voice. His eyes fell to the coffee table with a look of deep regret in them. “I became a member of the Society from birth as were my parents, grandparents, and great grandparents. My ancestors have been members since the Hidden Society’s creation. I was given the best education available, and became one of three leaders of the Society over twenty years ago. I am an expert at acquiring and arranging information.” He looked up at Larson. “Knowledge, Mr. Western, has always been, throughout the history of the human race, the most valuable substance on this planet. With the rise of civilization over ten thousand years ago it became priceless. And whoever controls it controls the world. No matter where we humans are. The Society has always claimed it supported democracy, freedom of the individual, and the rights of all to equal opportunity and justice. I believed that when I became the leader.”

“Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” Larson said.

“Exactly. In the last fifty years I’ve seen the Society become an organization that is concerned only with power, and gaining more power. Progress, equality, freedom has never really been of interest to the Society. Though the Society has always claimed they were. Greed and the power to control governments were and has always been the sole object of the Society.” He looked at Larson with hard, gray eyes. “This planet will become sometime in the twenty-second century a united and democratic world at the rate in which democracy is spreading. And if the Society isn’t stopped, it will be a world controlled by the members of the Society, and no one but the members of the Society will know that. And those members are capable of anything.”

“Why not tell the world?”

“Just telling the world wouldn’t work because no one would believe me if I did tell the world, and within twelve hours after you leave. I will be dead. Twenty-four hours at the latest.” He reached into the right pocket of his smoking jacket and removed two flash drives and placed them on the table. “When you leave, take those drives and that laptop on the desk with you. This first one has a brief the history of the Hidden Society. The second will tell you how to get to the Society’s main information center. Only I and three others know where it is. Information on the second drive will also tell you how to expose the Society’s information to the world, because that is the only way to destroy the Hidden Society. Do it, Mr. Western, and democracy and equality and freedom for all will become a way of life on this world in the future. Fail and slavery awaits the people of the world without the people knowing it.”

“Why me? Why not tell the government, or the new media?”

“The Society controls the news media and the government, though they don’t know it.”

“If you released this information about this Hidden Society to the world, someone would believe you,” he said.

“Unfortunately, I don’t have the time.” Franks stood up. “You must be leaving, Mr. Western. I wish you God speed.”

“Someone is coming?” Larson asked, standing up.

“Within less than three hours a weather satellite will pass over head. One the Society can access, though the government doesn’t know it. That satellite will be looking for abandoned houses like this one. It will detect my heat signature in this house.”

“The Society knows your heat signature?”

“Yes. The Society always hires the best scientists, pays them well, and keeps a close eye on them. But they, like thousands of others, don’t know they’re working for the Society. Once they pick up my heat signature they’ll send men to get me. I’m too old to be taken alive, Mr. Western.” He reached into his left pants pocket and removed a small white capsule. “Cyanide, Mr. Western. Not a pleasant way to die. But considering how I’ve helped the Society over the last fifty years it is considerably better than I deserve.” He returned the capsule to his pocket. “Now put on your hat, coat, and gloves. Take the laptop and drives and leave. Tell anyone about this meeting, and the Society will win.”

Larson reached over and got his hat and coat. His mind was a blank because he didn’t know what to think. Franks had seemed serious and that frightened him.

“One other important thing, Mr. Western,” Franks said, helping Larson into his coat, and then walking to the desk for the laptop. He picked it up and walked back to Larson and gave it and the flash drives, which he took from the table, to him. “When you reach home before you go into your house and forget, raise the hood of your car, locate the travel chip in your car’s computer, and place a nine volt battery against it. Positive and negative charges are noted on the chip. The sudden surge of energy into the travel chip will remove from your car’s computer your drive here. Then remove and discard the travel chip. It will not disable your car. Your life and the lives of those whom you love will depend upon your removing that chip. I’m sorry about the position I’ve put you in but I had no one else to turn to. Good night, and good luck, Mr. Western.”

Within six minutes Larson was back in his car heading for the road that would take him back to I-88 and home.

*

As soon as Larson had driven away, Julian Franks carefully cleaned the cup, spoons, cream, and sugar bowl Larson had touched. He polished the desk, and the wooden arms of the chair Larson had sat in four times as well as the seat of the chair. Then he took out his battery operated vacuum cleaner and vacuumed the carpet Larson had walked on. Then he took the dirt container of the vacuum cleaner out to a pit in the ground behind the house, dumped the dirt into the pit, and set it afire with lighter fluid from a can he’d taken from his jacket pocket. Then he went back into the house, put on his coat, hat, and gloves and went outside again, and using a heavy wooden straw broom brushed away the foot prints and tire tracks left by Larson. When he was satisfied no clear copies could be made of the impressions left in the snow by Larson, Julian returned to the house.

He relaxed in the house with another cup of mint flavored coffee and awaited his unwanted visitors though he wouldn’t be able to greet them. He would be dead hours before they arrived. He knew they would bring with them the best forensic equipment they had and the best forensic experts, and what they had was better than that of the best national police force in the world. He prayed the Hidden Society’s intense desire to control the world would work against them. It would take the Society days, hopefully weeks to check every computer chip in every automotive vehicle in America. He prayed that by the time they were on to Larson Western it would be too late to stop him from exposing them. Assuming, of course, Larson believed what was on the two flash drives.

He got up and walked around the room for a few minutes to build up his courage to do what he knew he had to do to give Larson a chance. Then he sat down in the chair Larson had sat in and took the cyanide capsule from his pocket and put it in his mouth. He picked up his mug of mint coffee and took a swallow washing the cyanide capsule down his throat with the coffee. He could have bitten into the capsule, but he didn’t want to ruin the flavor of the coffee. It was his last worldly pleasure.

“Now if things go as I’ve planned, and Mr. Western believes what’s on those flash drives and does as I hope he will do. He will succeed and the Hidden Society will be destroyed by the one thing it fears, public exposure.”

He leaned back in the chair resting his head against the back of the chair and said softly, “God forgive those who have sinned against me, and God forgive me for my many and terrible sins.” He closed his eyes and awaited death.

***