Patriots & Tyrants

  ***

  While everyone else was gathered around for some breakfast chow, Kaspar stood beside Robert Clarke as he feverishly typed away at his military grade laptop. Clarke was such a fast reader, and so fast with typing and mouse moving, that Kaspar had a hard time keeping up. It was a battle within to not interrupt the computer nerd by asking what he saw prematurely. However, that hard lesson was learned long ago that you never speak to Clarke while he did his thing on the computer. The only thing to do was sit, wait, and try to keep up.

  Clarke still had the same scraggly, salt and pepper hair which never seemed to see a bottle of shampoo and conditioner. He was like a hermit. All that was missing was a long, scraggly beard to match the hair. For his part, Clarke took the constant ribbing he got from Kaspar and the others well enough, only occasionally taking offense to it. Whenever he would, he wouldn’t fight back. He would merely say he didn’t appreciate it. Then he would disappear somewhere with his computer. Truth be told, Kaspar grew a healthy respect for Clarke. He might not have been a warrior, but his role in this fight against the USR was one which Kaspar understood as vital.

  It had been Clarke who introduced Kaspar and Krys to this new rebel team. After the incident with the lab which left only the three of them, and Greg Boler who later disappeared without a trace, the Wizard (as Kaspar came to call him) hacked the databases of the USR to find out if there were others, like them, who had been used. That’s when he found out about Sam Harvey’s squad, who operated in a city close to where they were. It didn’t take much to gain Harvey’s trust. Just the mere mention of the name John Paxton did the trick.

  It was finally safe to talk. Clarke shut the lid of the laptop and bit down on his lower lip. Kaspar paused before talking to him. He didn’t want to know the answer, but he needed to know. There was always this sense of hope after Clarke went through these USR documents. It was becoming more and more apparent, however, that that sense of hope was a false one.

  “Anything?” Kaspar asked, after taking a deep breath.

  “Nothing. All those documents you got from that hard drive were explaining how to assemble the new drug. How the drug would be dispersed. How the new drug has been altered to get rid of the bugs from the older strain.” Clarke replied. He took off his glasses and rubbed a soft cotton cloth on the lenses.

  “You think this whole talk about a cure for the old drug is just wishful thinking?”

  “I don’t know what to believe to be honest. It wouldn’t be out of the question, given the nature of the USR, to not develop a cure and just let the women die off…”

  “But…”

  Clarke refitted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “But, I could also see them developing the cure so they could make themselves the saviors. The women would praise them, all the while unaware that they were still being used as guinea pigs. We’ve got to get our hands on it if it exists, though. Not just for Krys, either.”

  Here we go again, Kaspar thought. Clarke wanted to see her cured as much as he did, but Kaspar also knew that there were underlying political interests that he cared little about. The others wanted to get their hands on the cure to show that the resistance could be trusted. It was something that Clarke and Harvey always talked about. It wasn’t enough to broadcast about the experimentations the USR conducted. That could all be wiped out with propaganda by them. But, if they had their hands on a cure…

  “If there is a cure, how come none of the databases you’ve hacked say anything about it?”

  Clarke took a small sip of water. “If there is something out there, it would be of the highest security level. Only the cream of the crop within the USR would know about it. They wouldn’t want somebody like me finding out about it.”

  Kaspar smiled. “Anything useful on that thing at least?”

  “Not anything that we haven’t already discovered.”

  “Ain’t that some shit?”

  “How’s Krys doing?”

  He just had to go there. As much as Kaspar loved her, he knew that Clarke had known her longer and cared for Krys, too. Krys, she just loved everybody it seemed, and she made the computer nerd feel good about himself. With the lifestyle and personality Clarke had, he rarely got any attention from women. But, this strong willed, attractive woman would actually give him the time of day and spend time talking to him. There was no sexual attraction between the two, of course, but there was a bond which grew stronger once it was learned that she had been infected with an experimental drug which was taking her life away, bit by bit.

  “Those lesions on her body are getting worse. She…doesn’t have much time.” Kaspar replied, the words almost too hard to say.

  “We’ll find it.” Clarke replied.

  “We better soon. If it exists…”

   

   

  .04

  William Sullivan sat at his desk, his fingers tapped in quick bursts on the keys in front of him, the sound reminiscent of rats running through a metal vent. Following the incident which nearly got him fired six months ago, Sullivan managed to get re-instated into the department, thanks in large part to the endorsement he received from Captain Fitzpatrick. He found that being allowed back to work to be less fulfilling than ever. His arrest numbers went down, thanks in large part to a decrease in rebel activity after one of their leaders was gunned down in a public execution.

  Now, he spent his days trying to find answers as to who was ultimately responsible for his wife’s death. The original hypothesis he thought up was that it was the resistance, trying to get to him because he was getting closer and closer to finding out who they really were. But, then, that bizarre broadcast showed up on his television set out of nowhere. A leftover, claiming to be a member of the resistance, got on the air and claimed it was the USR who was behind it. The USR fired back and claimed that it was merely a propaganda piece set up by the resistance. There was nothing to fear, they said, except for the resistance. Of course, that was right before there was an increase in female deaths all across the nation.

  The truth, it seemed, would never be revealed to the one time hot shot Agent. The more he dug into the computer files, the more confused he became. There were certain ones which, despite his high clearance level, he could not access. He even went to Fitzpatrick, basically begging for a higher clearance, which was granted. However, right as he went to the computer, not even minutes later, and the clearance level for the files skyrocketed once more. It was almost as if someone high up had been watching him.

  He remained steadfast in his efforts through it all. No matter what obstacle the USR would try and throw his way, he would learn the truth. As much as his wife, Julie, despised him towards the end, he still loved her, in a strange sense. She had given him little Davie, the most precious gift anyone had ever given him.

  He clicked his mouse and, once more, he got the same security clearance block. The screen flashed red while he cursed under his breath. Sullivan just wasn’t making any headway, which flustered him even more, because he rarely ran into any such roadblocks before. He heard his office door creak open. He quickly clicked the little “X” on the top of the screen and the little bastard clearance screen disappeared. He looked up to see Fitzpatrick.

  “Will,” Fitzpatrick said with a smile. “We got us one.”

  “Be right there,” Sullivan replied, not sharing the enthusiasm.

  “Get your ass in there right now.”

  Sullivan cursed under his breath again before he forced himself out of the chair.