Take the Fourth (19 page)

Linkages are the keys to this all-knowing power. Linking NID’s, satellites, supercomputers and databases creates the true power of the system. The satellites fly over the globe, transmit and receive the signal from the NID’s and their exact location calculated, then stored. Each and every signal is processed through the supercomputers. Thousands, even hundreds of thousands signals are turned into raw data in an instant. The data is simplistic in form and contains only four pieces of data, the nano identification number, the latitude, the longitude, and the time. This information is stored in a database only few have access. From this data everything else can be derived through interfaces into other databases throughout the world. Every database that is online can be accessed to provide a wealth of information. They can pinpoint the exact location of any individual that is online and determine who they are with or what they buy or when—almost in real-time and they have access to this information forever. An individual’s past becomes stored as ones and zeros. Their entire life is stored as ones and zeros. Their truth is stored as ones and zeros. That truth is knowledge, and that knowledge is the power. NID’s, satellites, supercomputers, databases, all tied together create the most powerful system/network in the world—a system that is held within the hands of the government and even the government doesn’t know the system exists.

Only a selected few hold the power of God in their hands. It started out as a very small circle of friends, more like a triangle than a circle really, and it hasn’t grown much since then. Each primary individual played a significant role, from securing of funds and lobbying for laws, to creating interfaces and databases, to developing stabilizers and nano devices; without each piece of the triangle the system would not exist. The complete system took time to exist, years in fact, years of planning, scheming, and conniving. They had to lay the objectives out in a linear timeline. They had to have laws in place before the public would accept certain things. They had to make friends in very high places. They had to do many things outside the box in order to meet all their objectives. One of their main objectives was for the system to be fully functional with the majority of Americans logged online within twenty years of graduation. They fell a little short of their target date, four years give or take, and mainly because of the delivery method was geared more towards newborns and children.

Vaccination was their primary delivery method, though vaccination is not the only method of delivery. It is the best because of its natural linkage to the IIS database, however other shots help fill in the voids within the complete demographics of a society. Given the fact that within sixty-five years almost ninety-seven percent of all Americans will be injected with NID’s through vaccination, this does not help in today’s world, in today’s tracking ability. Since the system came on line, ninety-two percent of the population under the age of twenty-five has been vaccinated. But what about the adults? Again, this is where STB5 comes into play. This stabilizer is also used in flu and tetanus shots and anything else needing a shelf life. Flu shots are meant as a yearly precaution against sickness and are mostly consumed by the elderly via free injections with the help of subsidized funds from the federal government. One of the nice features about the NID’s is they will continue to broadcast the older serial number if existing NID’s are encountered in the bloodstream; so a patient who receives a yearly flu shot will continue to transmit the embedded serial number on their first injected NID’s. The lot number of the flu shot is then connected to the social security number and stored in a database just like the logging of the vaccinations. With only children and the elderly being logged in droves into the system this leaves a huge chunk of citizens still unaccountable but not to worry. The biggest chunks of citizens, known as the baby boomers, are just getting ripe for their annual flu shots and are becoming linked into the system. Still this leaves a large number of unaccountable citizens but again, not to worry. More and more mandates, laws, and government sponsorship are encouraging flu shots in the workplace and in schools. At this point in time roughly half to two-thirds of all legal Americans are online within the system, not too shabby; all thanks to vaccinations and free flu shots but inevitably, people will slip through the cracks and across the borders. The government will play a huge part in this as well. Entering the country will require proof of shots thus linking a passport number to the shot number and again this is stored into a database. But still people will slip through the cracks. A plan was needed to fill in those cracks, to ensure the protection and safety of its people, to promote health and the welfare of its people, to ensure the traceability of its people, to ensure all the people become online.

Early on Francis Simoski considered this problem and early on he had a solution to this problem. Cell phones and OnStar could help fill the voids but they could easily be compromised. His solution was much more simplistic. It was fear, fear for one’s life. Simple indeed. He just had to bestow fear into the common man and make them want to be injected. He knew how things worked, how rumors began, how they traveled, so he wrote an article or two under a pseudonym and had them published in a medical journal in Indonesia. Then, after a few months he linked the articles to a wide spread story in Asia, again under a pseudonym. Through whisper down the lane the story grew until it was picked up by the mainstream media. Blogs were written on the subject, even a science fiction thriller or two. It appeared in Time and on World News Tonight and in other media outlets even on the internet. It left a lasting impression on the people who read or heard anything about it. Every once in awhile another article or television news report will surface confirming that the fears are true. Funny thing is, no one actually tries to confirm if the fears themselves are based in reality. No one tries to locate the doctors who first made the discovery or wrote any of the other articles. No reporters or medical practitioners are flown to secluded places to examine the bodies of the dead. No one does any true research. They just reference bogus articles after bogus articles, talk to so-called experts, just to generate hype or whip the public into a frenzy, like the bones the media throws in for the eleven o’clock news during primetime shows—“There could be something in your fridge right now that will kill you, more at eleven,” and it turns out to be milk older than two years, well duhhh. The scare tactics are easy, make it plausible, make it inevitable, and make it news.

“Yes, I’ve heard of them, I think the first was the Avian Flu, also known as the bird flu if I’m not mistaken.”

“Originally this new strain of the Tanjung Flu was confined to our feathered friends but recent studies from Indonesia have proven that a crossover into different species could exist, same thing happen in Mexico with the Swine Flu, tomorrow it may be goat or cow. This is the worst of the bird flues we have seen in awhile.”

“Usually something like this is rare, right?”

“Right, but it has been known to happen, take the Black Plague or Bubonic Plague for instance.”

“Black Plague, that’s some pretty serious stuff.”

“Events like that define history. This flu could very well be another history defining moment for our species.”

“So we’re saying this flu, this Tanjung Flu from Indonesia has many similarities to the Black Plague?”

“The theory is based on a disease that infected the rat population which also made the crossover to humans, killing almost two-thirds of all of Europe in the fourteenth century.

“From what I gather, the same could happen here.”

“Right you are again, it becomes much more advanced than we originally feared, then makes the crossover from species to humans and then begins to move across the globe,”

“Is there any proof to back up such claims?”

“Enough evidence has shown that many deaths throughout Asia and now Eastern Europe are linked to a severe strain known as H5N1, the last reported cases were in Turkey. England had a slight scare about two months ago but it was proven to be false… . for now.”

“Now is this strain, what was it you said… H5N1, something to worry about?”

“Don’t really know, this strain may peter out and give way to an even more infectious strain. If that happens then we will really need to worry, it could possibly wipe out up to seventy percent of the entire planet, only three out of every ten will survive and no race, class, or individual will be truly safe. We need to take precautions now.”

“Jesus… you mean this could be more deadly than the plague, is there a cure?”

“Eventually, well I mean hopefully, it’s rather difficult to pinpoint an exact cure for an exact strain but there are governmental agencies and pharmaceutical companies throughout the world working towards that goal as we speak, regular flu shots will help somewhat, in the meantime, until an actual vaccine is created and to answer your other question, yes, I think seventy percent of the population wiped off the face of the earth is more deadlier than the plague.”

“Frankly I’m scared to death now, I had no idea something like this was feasible in our lifetime.”

“Fear it because it is possible and probably will happen in our lifetime and if we don’t start planning, ramping up on distribution centers, stocking up on medication, and taking the threats seriously, repercussions are going to happen.”

“Repercussions meaning seven out of every ten people we know and love could vanish almost overnight in a worldwide epidemic? Sorry we are almost out of time… any last thoughts?”

“Epidemic, no. More like pandemic. This is the way the world ends… . This is the way the world ends… . This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men. Can you envision that world?”

“Yes… . yes I can… . Thank you Doctor Simoski, thank you for your time and… the truth.”

 . . .

Chapter 28
 

O
ver the next few hours, the two of them traced their steps and double and even triple-checked their data and always came to the same conclusion—they were being watched, maybe not watched per se but being tracked, their lives being recorded—it was an uneasy feeling. They scoured their backdoor entries into the machine to see if anyone was watching them and as far as they could tell only the President and Scott were ever on this machine… . and of course root, aka the administrator, whoever that may be. Greg knew his way around this machine and he made the conclusion that nobody knew they were there, that is after he deleted a few system generated log files that tracked their movement on the box. This was a matter of a few simple keystrokes and their records had vanished and vanished for good, unlike the data deleted on a personal computer, most often than not that data remained stored on the drive and the only thing deleted were the file pointers to that data. This is the reason many would be thieves are caught, just because they can’t see the data doesn’t mean it’s gone. Greg was smarter than that, not only did he delete the pointers but also the data… it was gone and so were they when they logged off around 10 am.

“Greg, I’m going to say this again… don’t go in the system without me.”

“I… .”

“Just don’t, I mean it, just don’t okay?”

“Yes, I’m not, I won’t… . shit I really don’t know what to think right now.”

“We are both going to have to get some rest, we’ll talk more on Monday.”

“That’s if we’re still here by tomorrow.”

“Don’t go getting all paranoid on me Greg,” as she was walking him to the door.

“Jorja, I really think you don’t comprehend our situation, there are over half the people of our country in this system being tracked on a daily basis, you and I are just two of those people. Jorja, if they wanted to, they could track us, hell they might even know we were together all night, that will really be suspicious.”

“Greg, relax, it’s like you said, there are a lot of people in this system, what are the chances that we are the ones being watched?”

“I know, but it’s just… well we did stumble upon this system, we might have tripped some wires somewhere, they might know we know.”

“I thought you covered our tracks?”

“I did but…”

“Greg, I trust you, don’t go second guessing yourself, we’ll talk tomorrow.”

“I’m still uncomfortable with the fact that they could find out we were together last night.”

“If they ever say anything, we’ll just tell them we were sleeping together, now I’ll see you tomorrow.” That caught Greg by surprise and he took his raised eyebrow expression all the way home with him.

Once Greg was out the door Jorja was left to her own thoughts. The implications to the flu shots were beginning to sink in, really sink in. In what she thought was common sense, protecting her health, that one little pin prick changed her body forever. That one little pin prick changed her perception of her country, of her freedom, of her life… forever. Without her knowledge she was a caged animal, an endangered species, able to be tracked anytime, anyplace. Without her knowledge her right granted to her by the Fourth Amendment that guards against unreasonable searches was taken away by tiny little transmitters deep within her body. Without her knowledge, the freedom won through the blood, the sweat, and the tears of the founding forefathers was lost instantaneously. Their declaration that was placed on parchment during that famous date in July is now a mute point deemed a farce of the highest degree and saturated with unequivocal irony upheld by a government spewing righteous democracy and liberties. It goes beyond the United States Constitution. It goes beyond any sanctioned law known to man. It goes beyond reason, beyond fear. It strips the very soul that defines humanity forcing it to comply, to obey, to submit, all without mistake, without assumptions, without faith.

Jorja reached for her left arm, feeling her bicep, feeling for the spot of injections. She felt hot. She felt as though a watching eye was burning a hole right through her. She knew she was alone yet she felt this presence upon her, watching her, watching her every move, and it wasn’t her god. Her mind raced with the horrors of her new found prison, her home. She felt the walls closing in on her, a tightness gripping her chest as reality was starting to macerate the boundaries of her sanctuary. Her muscles tensed, she couldn’t breathe as she imagined thousands of tiny little robots eating her skin from the inside. Her skin began to crawl as these tiny robots broke the flesh and started screaming as to alarm the hounds of her whereabouts. She heard sirens in her head. She saw visions of the Third Reich marching in unison, police surrounding her house, iron bars on the doors and windows. She started to gasp for air but before she could succumb to any more horrors brought on by her science fiction movie plots, she forced herself to face the fears. She took a deep breath and tried to relax. She took another deep breath and tried to force her mind into an analytical mode. It worked somewhat.

 . . .