"c91" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burt Andrew - Noontide Night)
NOONTIDE NIGHT - Chapter 9.1
Chapter 9.1
12:00 Noon, Tuesday, January 4, 2000
Manukau, New Zealand
The young blond kid with the scraggly beard and the AK-47
yawned. Morgan figured he couldn't be more than seventeen. He
was one of the half-dozen 'grunts' guarding their floor, and the
one particularly assigned to their little knot of patients, doctors,
nurses, orderlies. They'd rounded up all the staff and the mobile
patients to better watch them. After some uneasy, gun-waving
negotiating, the doctors and nurses had been allowed—in sprinkles
of one and two—to handle the women in labor, visit the other
patients and the provide them their urgent medications. Now into
the third day of their occupation, life had settled into an uneasy
routine: Sit and shut up.
Yawny, as Morgan thought of the kid guard, yawned again.
He caught Morgan looking at him, and in a show of power,
radioed down to the cafeteria squad that he needed more coffee.
Everyone else sat motionless on the floor. Cramps ignored,
nobody dared violate the NS's threat not to so much as twitch.
Nobody had yet been hurt on this floor, but they had heard gunfire
elsewhere and assumed the worst. Everyone's eyes watched the
bland, black clock hands crawl toward their daily noon meal and
break, when the guards escorted them in twos and threes to the
bathroom.
Morgan, squeezed in with only his thoughts and the stench of
everyone's sweat, realized what he was missing most was that
damn little radio. He knew the baby was ok, because the nurse
had winked, smiled, and nodded at him after her last trip. Desiree
was here beside him, as safe as one could be under the
circumstances. But his chest felt pinched that he didn't know what
was happening in the world. The New York stock exchange was
due to open for the first time in the new year, he'd calculated.
What was going to happen? He'd come to rely on the nurses'
"newspaper" updates as a reminder that while the outside was
having a crushingly hard time, they were still out there, that life
still went on, that Jeremy had a future. Yes, there were a few
fatalities, but mostly the problems were with the infrastructure.
Granted, that's the meat of what constituted civilization, but once
created, it could not be forgotten, and as after a devastating
hurricane, could quickly be rebuilt. Or so he hoped. Losing all the
controlling software was so insidious, like a neutron bomb that left
the physical world standing but inanimate, a ghost. Was the world
a ghost, or simply unconscious?
A grunt appeared wheeling a tray of sandwiches and small pill
cups of water.
"Awright, ten minutes for a feed. Queue up."
Everyone complied, rising with the groan of stiff muscles. The
grunt wheeled past, handing each person one sandwich and their
shot of water.
Morgan whispered to Desiree, "These sandwiches aren't from
the hospital commissary." He pointed to the Abner's Deli label
that taped the cellophane wrapping closed. "They must be
negotiating with the police."
"What do you think they want?"
Morgan shrugged. "Money? Power? Political prisoners
released?" He took a large bite of his ham and cheese. "I'll ask."
Bluster had worked on the real army soldiers, why not these?
"Morgan, no!" Desiree whispered, but Morgan waved her
back.
"Hey, colonel," he address Yawny, deliberately overestimating
even a revolutionary-inflated rank. "What are you guys fighting
for?" Desiree was silently livid behind him. He shot her a
"maybe we can learn something to use against them" look.
Yawny eyed him like a pile of cow dung. "We're liberating
and restoring tribal lands to their rightful owners."
"This hospital?"
"Sits on Moriori tribal land."
"You're Moriori?" Morgan realized he was arguing with a kid
with a gun, and backed down. "Never mind." Morgan thought
he'd read something about the Moriori being native to New
Zealand around the time of Christ, and run off by the Maori. He'd
gotten the impression from the article that the Moriori had all died
out after being run off to the Chatham Islands. Now he
remembered how he'd come to read the article—the Chatham
Islands were the first inhabited islands to greet the new
millennium. Morgan seriously doubted these terrorists were
representing a genuine claim by any Moriori. The Maori had
plenty of land disputes with the government, but those seemed to
be being resolved peaceably. Morgan decided he better not probe
further; lunatics from the woodwork were not to be reasoned with.
Morgan stepped back.
Desiree whispered fiercely, "Don't you ever do that again!
Now is not the time to experiment with being proactive. You can
learn that after we get Jeremy home. He needs a father, not a dead
hero."
"Okay, okay. Don't stress."
"Don't stress?" Her eyes fairly bugged out of their sockets.
"I don't think they'll shoot anyone. I mean, without the
leader's permission. They're very organized. Nation of the Strong.
Hmph. It's not the strong who survive, it's the well organized."
Of course, he didn't add that with a name like that, killing a sickly
baby might be right up their alley. He flushed with anger at the
thought they might even think it.
"Well if you do anything stupid like that again, I'll shoot you."
Another grunt came up to the group. "Hey! Which of you
mates fixed the carkin' generator?"
Morgan figured it was pretty obvious, he being one of the few
males in the group (assuming Sir Howard or someone had
described him). Would Desiree think it heroic a.k.a. suicidal if he
volunteered an arm wave? He felt his judgment clouded by
needing to know what was going on. And he didn't want them to
start torturing hostages just to locate him. "That's me," he said,
stepping forward.
"Sub-commander Knaggs wants to see you. Move out."
Morgan squeezed Desiree's hand and followed the fellow, one
of their few who were clean-shaven.
Sub-commander Knaggs half-rose to greet Morgan when he
was ushered into "HQ," actually the hospital administrator's
office. Knaggs was muscular in an olympic wrestler sort of way;
round and wiry. Morgan thought his golden hair looked like a bad
toupee, and was several shades lighter than his thin mustache.
"So, you're the resident computer genius. Heard about you.
Saved the generator. Saved the admissions computer system. Our
luck that you're here. I need you to get our manifesto, the Rights
of the Strong, onto Internet."
"What Internet? You honestly think there's an Internet out
there?"
"That's what I need to find out. Humor me."
Morgan shrugged. "What's in it for me? You're going to kill
us all anyway. That's the way it goes with hostages, isn't it?"
"Rest easy, mate, rest easy! We're not going to harm a hair on
anyone's head until we absolutely have to. We're a new nation
now. We can't go hurting our citizens."
"We're not your citizens. The police will—"
"Will do nothing. We've got us a truce with the police and the
army. They have far more year 2000 problems to handle than they
can manage, as we knew and planned they would." Knaggs
swivelled to face the window, and spread his hands. "We're a fully
functional country now. We've annexed this hospital, a TV station,
shopping malls, docks... We're bigger than the Vatican! The New
Zealand government dares not declare war on us while we have so
many of their citizens within our borders. We've negotiated a
treaty whereby our own citizens may come and go freely. If one
of our citizens were to be detained or suffer an act of aggression,
we would, alas, have to respond in kind. See for yourself." He
gestured at the window.
Morgan strode to the window in disbelief. Outside, a single
Manukau policeman leaned against his patrol car smoking a
cigarette, clearly unconcerned. Could he be right? The authorities
did have a cataclysm to deal with; it would be the ideal time for
organized terrorists to carve out a defensible stronghold.
Democracies, except a few such as the Israelis, were notably soft
when it came to negotiating with hostage takers. Especially,
Morgan could see, terrorists who demanded little and promised
limited freedom for their hostages.
"They think they can handle us once they've dealt with the
more serious issues, the looters and rioters who are actually
hurting people. But by then, we'll be too strong, too distributed.
We've got a number of Maori land rights people on our side, so
even your average Kiwi is bound to lean a little toward us. But
you were asking what's in this for you. I could grant you a visa.
So long as your wife remains our guest, you would be free to walk
the streets of the Nation of the Strong and Manukau." Knaggs
turned to face Morgan. "You will help us, yes?"
Morgan churned over the idea. Helping terrorists! He
couldn't. Yet it was his best hope for keeping Desiree and Jeremy
alive. He didn't have to mean it when he joined them. He could
refuse to kill anyone. The U.S. had urged publication of the
Unabomber's manifesto; it had even proved critical in identifying
the author. Desiree said not to be a hero. What did that mean in
this context? If he refused, they might, what... shoot him? If he
played along... Yes, that was the safer course, the one Desiree
would advise. He hoped. "Okay. I'll help."
"Excellent! Grunts," he called, waving two burly men
forward. "Take him to see Adjutant Pryce after you get him and
ID card and brand him."
"What?" Morgan cried out.
Moments later he understood, as he was led to an operating
room, his body pinned, his left arm extended onto the operating
table, and a red-hot iron brand was summarily pressed against his
inner forearm by his wrist. Morgan screamed in agony. "Only
smarts for a few days," one of branders said. Released, Morgan
stumbled to the scrub sink and ran cold water over his burn. He
could see the brand was in the shape of the Nation of the Strong's
symbol from their uniforms, two interlocking circles.
"You're barbarians!" he screamed.
The grunt stuffed a laser-printed, numbered "citizenship card"
into his hand. It still had the hospital's name on it, having
apparently been printed from the hospital's own ID card system.
"Guess you haven't been outside much, have you, mate?"
He soon was. After determining that the hospital's phone
service was still out, and thus Internet access impossible, the
terrorists conferred and nudged Morgan outside to a car. He
checked out, showing his ID badge and being nearly strip-searched, and stuffed himself into the tiny back seat of the beat-up
Holden Barina. A red interlocking-circle pennant flapped from the
antenna. As they threaded through Manukau Morgan's heart
lifted. The world was there. Yes, there were smashed and looted
storefronts and some burned out buildings still wisping smoke.
The streets were littered with debris.
But there were also people. They walked, they rode bicycles,
they drove. Most people carried supplies of some kind or other.
They hurried, perhaps afraid of being robbed of their precious jugs
of water or package of bread, but sometimes they stopped and
chatted with friends. "Isn't it just something?" Morgan caught a
snatch of speech from a pair of women on a sidewalk safely near
a police blockade. They smiled and shook their heads. But they
smiled. Morgan knew that life would go on. People would buck
up. The sky was a deep blue. They were not barbarians.
The "staff car" ferrying Morgan he knew not where passed
through yet another police checkpoint. The driver once again
defiantly upraised his fist, thereby displaying his tattoo, and was
waved through. They sped off, finally arriving at the Northbridge
Primary School. "Here's your office, then."
They led Morgan into what was labeled as Mrs. Tataramoa's
fifth-grade class. Fortunately there were no children, teachers,
staff, or any kind of hostages here. Everyone wore the green
camouflage of the Nation of Strong, with patches of interlocking
red rings. A grunt pointed with his AK-47 at the computer
workstation in the back. Another grunt produced a floppy,
holding it out as if it were the Holy Grail. "You're to get that out
to the world," the grunt said. "Be quick about it. We're running
the generator just for you."
Morgan sat in the children's too-small chair and turned on the
computer. He ignored that the PC said it was 1984. Perhaps it
even had the wrong date a month ago, for what little it mattered.
Morgan's pulse quickened as he clicked on the school's clearly
labeled Internet connection, and heard a dial tone. The phone
system was up! Or at least part of it. He heard it ring, and it was
music to his ears.
Yet his optimism was quickly dashed as the ring went
unanswered.
Wiping sweat from his forehead, not wanting to wonder what
his fate would be if he failed after all their maneuvering to get him
a working phone, Morgan scoured the PC for alternate network
arrangements. None. He could try his own provider, NatterNet.
If only he could remember their modem phone number. It was
safely ensconced in his laptop back at the hospital keeping the
generator running, but he dared not fool with that. He asked the
grunts for a phone book, and they escorted him to the school office.
There was a phone there, but no sign of a phone book. He tried the
operator, but was only greeted by a recorded message apologizing
for the failure of the phone system. He tried calling New Zealand
Freenet and E-Zeanet as well as the local numbers for Clear Net
and Xtra, but the calls all ended in fast busies or eerie clicks. He
finally admitted to his captors that he had to visit his flat, where he
had the backup numbers of his own Internet service plus that of
the free service at the Manukau Institute of Technology.
With a gruff "let's go then" they sped to his apartment.
Morgan felt like a leg-ironed convict being escorted past his
neighbors. He kept his head down to avoid conversation and their
curious looks. He reassessed innumerable times why he was doing
this. I'm not being a hero, he repeated as a mantra. He looked
searchingly at Matty in his flat, but said nothing. He located the
information he needed, plus a phone book, and quickly departed.
Back at the school, his own service provider was unreachable.
The line rung twice, then clicked to a staticky quiet. He tried
assorted other numbers listed in the phone book as Internet Service
Providers. The only couple that even rang, though unanswered,
were ones sharing the same phone company central office as the
school. Perhaps it was the only one working; or perhaps others
worked, but were isolated from each other. How frustrating it
was! To hear the comforting normality of a dial tone and ringing,
but to get shunted off to eerie clicks. With a shrug of finality he
entered the number of the free service at the Manukau Tech. He
had hopes, since it was in the same exchange as the elementary
school.
The ring was answered! The telltale squeals of modem-ese
signaled that he was connected to his local Internet service
provider. Thank God for generators. It meant someone else had
power; perhaps even the whole University. He hadn't even
considered the matter while they were driving. Every store was
dark, and he'd already accepted this as natural.
The school's system offered no graphics, but even seeing text
that came from someone offered hope that the world was alive.
The Internet was designed to withstand this exact form of
cataclysmic failure, with no central points. Yet it was a shade of its
former self. Nearly every site around the world that Morgan tried
was unreachable. It might, he realized, be that some of the
machines themselves were up, but the link between here and there
was severed. He instantly understood that thought it might be
"up," the Internet was suddenly as fragmented as Arctic ice floes.
Some sites faded in and out like a wavering radio broadcast.
Their web pages would begin to display, then freeze. At last he
reached a site stable long enough for Morgan to click on their top
news story.
The New York Stock Exchange was manned by a few souls
braving National Guard checkpoints and the start of a frigid
Noreaster blizzard engulfing the coast. They were now, it was
reported, sitting around drinking hot rums and gloating that,
unlike most of the city, they had the power to heat their rum. Pre-market trading began very calmly, as one walks slowly and
surefootedly across thin ice with nitroglycerin strapped to one's
chest. Though their networks and software had long ago proven
2000-compliant, with phone lines down, they had almost no
investors to communicate with. A sprinkling of mutual fund
managers had come down to the market in person. They calmly
agreed to open the market at one fifth of Friday's closing values,
prices not seen since 1987. From there, share prices fell thickly like
the snow. They closed the market moments later when it sagged
ten-percent and tripped the trading circuit breaker. NASDAQ,
more heavily laden with technology stocks, fared better, as
investors realized there would be massive and sudden replacement
of equipment worldwide. The techs opened at merely half their
Friday closes before the markets shut down. Everyone agreed this
had not been a good idea, and that the markets should remain
closed until some sanity prevailed. They turned back to their rums
and watched the snow.
Morgan sat back against the tiny chair with a sigh. His 401(k)
pension had been reduced to charred rubble.
The connection was lost before Morgan could read the next
story, whose headline read "NRC Orders Nuke Plants Shut
Down." He tried several other sites, all of which proved
inaccessible. Even if he had found a site to post the manifesto to,
he suspected he'd have lied to keep kindled his chance at another
surfing session. He held out the floppy to his guards. "The net is
sort of like Oakland right now," he quipped. "I can't find any there
there."
They gave him quizzical looks at his joke and sped him back
to the hospital.
Morgan anticipated icy stares from Desiree, and mused
perhaps it was best they wouldn't be allowed to talk.
Desiree wasn't there. None of the hostages were.
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