The Freezer (Genesis Endeavor Book 1) (28 page)

“That will be a dangerous task. Can we control who will go
so we can minimize the loss to New Hope?” It was horrible to put it in those
terms, but sometimes as a leader you have to prioritize your assets. Everyone
in the room paled at the thought of choosing who could potentially be sent to
their death. Despite their history, all the men in this room valued human life,
at least more than they had before the fall of the EoS.

“I am in charge of that part of the operation, and I will
decide who goes. The problem is, the mission is critical, not only for this
operation but for our success in building a new home. If I send the wrong
people, our chances of success go down. I will have to find the balance between
acceptable loss of life and skill required to do the job.” Marcus nodded, and
the room was silent for a few minutes.

Teague broke the silence with a question. “So what have you
come up with regarding Cali? Are you going to contact Joshua now or wait until
after the operation?”

Marcus shrugged. “I am not sure yet. We have been weighing
the pros and cons all afternoon. This is a tough situation, any way you look at
it. I am leaning towards waiting until after we have secured the facility. I
believe we need to think of our own community and that of humanity before
considering how it will affect the others. My main concern is whether it will
spawn open hostility between us and Cali, or worse, the other communities. I
will have to sleep on this, and hopefully the answer that comes will be the
right one.”

The statement marked the end of the meeting, and everyone
got up to leave. “Teague can you please stick around for a minute, I need to
ask you a question.” Teague sat back down and waited for the other men to
leave. Marcus noted a look of discontent on Theodore’s face, and made a mental
note that he would have to deal with him pretty soon. The coming events could
very well unsettle everything, and the last thing he needed was Theodore making
a play for his job in the middle of it all. Up until now everything they had
done together had been about survival, not just their own survival, but that of
the entire human race. But the wealth contained in that bunker up north was a
tempting prize for anyone, and it clouded what was so clear before.

When the other council members gone, Marcus looked at his
friend and said, “Teague, I trust you more than the rest of the council.” Teague
knew this and nodded. “Tell me honestly, do you think that Jack is a threat to
New Hope?”

“Jack shares much of your own philosophy, Marcus. However,
he came from post-war America, where freedom was a right that had been paid for
by the lives of friends and family. Part of that freedom stemmed from the
people deciding who their leader would be. If this operation goes smoothly, the
people here will follow Jack wherever he asks. He will respect your leadership
ability, because he is very loyal to his country, and right now his country is
New Hope. Keep in mind though, if we bring back hundreds of people that are
from his time, we may very well have to hold an election to choose our leader,
and if elected, Jack would take your job with little hesitation.”

The answer was in line with his own thoughts. It was a
subject he had been contemplating for quite some time. “Thank you Teague, that
is what I needed to know.”

Part Three

Jack woke up and looked around, a little disoriented. He was
once again waking up in a different room, his own this time. Teague had given
him a sedative to help him sleep without dreams, and he felt refreshed. The
trauma of the previous day’s fight was not pressing on him like he had
expected, but the way Wendy had left him last night was in the forefront of his
mind. Why was she mad at him for telling Emmet and Chuck about their
relationship? Surely she didn’t think that he was running around bragging about
having sex with her...

This made him realize how little he actually knew about her.
Sure they had talked about themselves, and having been intimate went a long way
toward feeling closer to each other. But it took time to truly start to
understand all the little quirks about a person. And this environment made it
all so confusing. Wendy had been here for a while now, and combining that with
the completely different era she came from compared to him, they were very
different people.

To add to the frustration of it all, just after Wendy had
coldly dropped him at the door last night, Cat paid him a visit. She used the
premise of making sure he was OK to call on him, but he was pretty sure her
motives had more to do with his manhood than his injuries. He was polite about
it, thanked her for her concern, and bid her good night. But when Wendy didn’t
show up before he fell asleep, he wondered if there would come a time when he
wasn’t turning Cat, or any of the other women here, away at the door.

Despite the fact that there were no windows, it felt like he
had overslept. Checking his datapad confirmed that it was after ten a.m. He
threw on a robe and made his way to the bathroom and shower down the hall.

After a mildly refreshing shower, he got some breakfast then
rang up Teague. It turned out he was just down the hall at the room where Jack
had woken up less than a week before.

When he walked in, there was a young man sleeping on the
bed. Teague was reading the monitor next to the bed, making notes on his
datapad.

“Morning Jack.” Teague said, without turning around. “Feeling
better?”

“Yeah, I slept like a baby, doc, thanks. I don’t even
remember getting in bed. That sedative worked fast. So, what’s this kid’s
name?”

“This would be Sergeant Bruce L. Kensington. He was in his
fifties when he died from AIDS. He was a member of the engineering corps in the
Army.”

“Excellent!” Jack was happy to have another engineer on
board. They could always use more of them. “What is ‘Aids’ though?”

Teague stopped writing on his pad and turned to Jack. “Oh,
that’s right, you weren’t around when that broke out. AIDS came from a virus
called HIV. It was a horrible virus that was discovered in about 1981, but
probably started as early as the 1950’s. It was first thought to only affect
gay people, but eventually was recognized as a sexually transmitted disease
that was transferred through blood and other body fluids. There was never a
cure for it until the time of the EoS.”

Jack cringed at the thought of a nasty STD that had no cure
and killed people. “I’m confused, doc, why would you bring back a gay man? That
doesn’t make much sense.”

Teague chuckled and said, “You misunderstood... it was
originally thought the disease was only found in gay men because they
transmitted it through anal intercourse. It turned out that any exchange of
blood or semen could transmit the virus. That means that a baby born of an HIV
positive mother could have the disease, or, like in this man’s case, a blood
transfusion could be the source. They screened blood donors for it, but nobody
is perfect, and in Bruce’s case, they missed it and he was infected. He had
been in the military for thirty years, and lived for a few years after
retirement before getting AIDS and dying. There are many subjects with AIDS in
the cryogenic facility, just as there are many with cancer and other diseases
with no cure back then, but we can easily cure it now and it is not a problem.”

Changing the subject, he asked, “Where is each group working
on the projects I assigned last evening?” He had gone straight to bed after the
meeting and now wanted to know what progress had been made.

“The engineers set up shop down on six where they can design
and engineer everything. The salvagers are up on one in room 10A. There are
already three groups out working on finding materials we will need. Tiny is in
a planning room on four with his crew, and I have a team set up in the room
next to him. They are looking over the data we have on S.C. right now, and I
will join them soon. You made a good choice with Thomas, the team is already
taking orders from him with no problems.”

“What about maintenance, where are they at?”

“They already had a room they worked out of on the sixth
floor. They are working with the engineers right now. I am done here for the
moment, it’s going to be a few more hours before Bruce wakes up, so I was going
to head up to four to check on progress.” They headed to the elevator.

* * *

Jack rode the elevator up to four with Teague, and then told
him he would be back up to join him in a little while. On the way back down, he
brought up a layout of the sixth level on his datapad. He intended to drop in
on Wendy before meeting with the engineers. When the elevator stopped, he got
his bearings and made his way to the maintenance room.

There were six men in the room, all surrounding a table with
a holographic display of the entire complex hovering above it. It was yet
another piece of technology that awed Jack, but he didn’t have time to learn
about it right now. The old man from the night before turned to him and said,
“Hello, Jack. I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself last night. My name is
Nicholas. Just call me Nick.” After introductions, he said, “We were just going
over some utility chases that we can use to get plumbing into those rooms. Looks
like it should all be pretty straightforward.

“Excellent. Thank you for taking charge like this. I was
hoping I could find Wendy here. Any idea where she might be?” This comment
turned a couple heads, but Jack ignored it.

“There wasn’t much going on here today, so she volunteered
to fly one of the salvaging missions. I think she was heading to Idaho to help
find some insulation and some copper tubing.”

Jack softly cursed to himself. If she took off like that and
didn’t tell him, she must really be pissed. “Thanks Nick. Is there anything you
guys need from any other group?”

“I think we can manage with what we have so far, but we will
need the location of the holes for the tubing pretty soon.”

“Okay. I’m going to appoint you head of the maintenance crew
for this project, and I would appreciate it if you work directly with the
engineers and salvage crews when you need things. I will let them know who’s in
charge. If you run into any issues, please contact me immediately and we will
see what we can do to accommodate you.” Jack thanked him again and let the men
get back to work.

He figured he could call Wendy later and headed to the
engineering room. He expected to see a bunch of engineers sitting at drafting
tables, but it really didn’t surprise him when he walked into a room not much
different than the maintenance room. There were three round tables, each
seating four people. There were holographic displays at each table, and the
engineers were wearing skin tight gloves, and manipulating the images with
their fingers. As they spun the objects around and spoke different
specifications, the images adjusted to fit what they were after. It was quite
amazing to watch, and for the first ten minutes he just hung back and observed.

The man who had been speaking for the engineers the night
before finally stood and walked over to Jack. “Hi, Jack, I’m Scott. I assume
you were dropping by to check on the progress?”

“Yeah, actually. I just wanted to see how things are coming.
Any problems so far?” Jack was far from being an engineer, but had worked with
them enough to know that as long as you made clear exactly what you were after
and the time frame in which you needed it done, all you really need to do is
ask them what they need. The more often you ask the smoother things go.

“Not really. The team over here is working on the compressor
pumps and the cooling system. That team is working on the entry design, and
these guys over here are working on a way to keep the heads cold while we
transport them.” He pointed to each team respectively as he spoke. “All I
really need to know at this point is if we are going to have liquid nitrogen
available.”

“Oh... I figured we could take it from the facility in
Montana. They won’t need it after we leave. No sense in leaving anything behind
that we could use. If we had more time I would say we could probably get
everything we need from there, but we really need to have these cold rooms
ready before we even get up there to start harvesting.”

Scott mulled that over for a moment and finally said, “Do
you recall if there are containers to transport the nitrogen?”

“I think so, but I am no expert. I am guessing you haven’t
been there yourself?”

“No, not many have, but I can ask Chuck or Em.. Oh, sorry.” When
Jack didn’t say anything, he continued, “I will find out, and we will make it
work, but it would be nice to have at least enough for the transport bins ahead
of time.”

Jack thought it over and said, “I can’t imagine you are
going to just find some casks of liquid nitrogen that has survived sitting
around for three hundred years, but I’ll ask the salvaging team if they can
come up with anything. If they can’t however, do you have a way to keep the
cargo cold without the liquid nitrogen?”

Scott was thinking about it when a young man behind him
spoke up. “What about Peltier cooling? We have these insanely large sources of
portable power, it should be easy to do. Besides, it’s not like we have to keep
them cold for days on end, just for a few hours.”

Scott looked at the man and smiled. “You know, I think that
would work. There would be an incredibly hot surface on the outside, but as
long as everyone is aware it shouldn’t be a problem. Let me crunch some numbers
and see if it can be done.” He looked excited to work on the problem.

“I hate to ask, Scott, but what the hell is a Peltier
cooler?”

“It’s a way to use electricity to draw heat away from an
object. It uses a lot of power, so you have to be able to dissipate the heat
you pull away, plus the heat from the power expended, but worst case scenario
we can build some heat pipes and set up coolers outside the aircraft to draw
the heat off and make them very efficient. As long as the plane is moving it
will dissipate the heat easily.” Scott had wandered back to the table he had
been working at and started talking to the computer and manipulating the
hologram in front of him.

Jack wasn’t quite sure what he had just said, but he figured
they had it well under control. He did need to speak with him about a few more
things, so he waited until Scott paused in his design work and jumped in before
he got started again. “Listen, Scott. As soon as your cooling team can, I need
them to get the dimensions of the pipes running in and out of the cold rooms to
Nick over in maintenance. He is the leader of that crew. Also, I want to make
you leader of the engineering groups, and if anyone needs anything I want them
to tell you and have you go to the other group leaders directly. If you have
any problems at all I want you to tell me.”

Scott just nodded and went back to work on his Peltier
design. Jack figured he was now just a distraction, so he eased out of the
room.

* * *

Back up on four, he stopped in to see Tiny and his team
first. There were three men sitting around a table, Tiny and two others, and as
Jack stepped up to the table he saw that the top was just like the display on
his datapad, only larger. On it was an aerial photo of the area surrounding the
site of the facility. They had marked all the key locations for defending it
from ground assault, and had even drawn in the runway as they planned to make
it. Tiny didn’t even notice him walk in, and he jumped when Jack put his hand
on the massive shoulder.

“Holy shit Jack, you scared the crap outta me!” Everyone
laughed at the irony of someone this big and strong being startled so easily. “Aww,
fuck you all!” He said it with a smile and everyone laughed again.

“Looks like you have the planning under control. Where’s Red?
I thought he was on your team?” Jack was annoyed not to see the man in the
room. He had been pretty specific when telling him to work with Tiny on this
project.

“He’s putting together the team. These guys are from the
engineering corps, and are helping me with the planning of the runway. We found
a prime location that will require just a couple quick passes with a dozer to
prepare for the big cargo plane. I was just marking places where we could set
up defenses. We figure if we can go in one hour before the plane arrives we can
have the runway ready to go.”

“Excellent. We could have the cargo plane and everyone
halfway there before you even land. That gives Cali less time to react. How sure
are you of the hour?”

“Well, we figured it would take about forty five minutes, so
we have a fifteen minute cushion there in case anything comes up.”

“Perfect. When is Red getting back here?”

“I was expecting him a half hour ago actually, which is why
I have started drawing in some of the tactical information. I really want him
here so we can talk about the details and set up a training exercise.” Jack
could sense that Tiny was just as annoyed as he was at Red’s absence. If this
wasn’t taken care of quickly he would have to make a change.

“Okay, I’ll go track him down and get him in here.” Just
then the door opened up and Red strolled in with five other men. Each man
looked like they had seen some combat, and now that Jack was starting to
recognize the differences between the Reborn and the native population, he
could tell that these men were all native born.