Norm
My breath fogged in the February chill as I watched the hulking yellow and black earthmover bite deeper into the ground. The shovel carved out a clod of moist earth and swung its arm up and to the left to drop into the waiting dump truck. I felt tense, coiled like a spring, waiting for one of a dozen different disasters to happen: the side of the pit to collapse, the excavator to tip over, the shovel hitting some buried trunk cable not on the city's map, or simply a breakdown of the equipment. We had only budgeted to rent the vehicles for a couple of days, so delay was its own kind of calamity.
I saw Stan watching me as he swung the shovel back towards the pit, so I forced a smile and gave him a thumbs up. The pit was a sixty-by-forty foot rectangle set back sixty feet from the west side of the house, opposite the driveway. It was currently about six feet deep, except for the new section that Stan was working on and had started to dig a few feet deeper.
I checked my phone messages again for at least the twentieth time. Nothing had changed. The last message I had received confirmed that Andy would deliver our building materials later that day. The greenhouse project was much larger in sheer size, but the equipment needed to erect it had been more rudimentary and the construction a lot less dangerous.
My radio crackled to life and Nock's voice came over it. "Bates, Bates, Bruce here. I've got a vehicle approaching from the highway. Black sedan. Might be Daniel's car. Over."
"Thanks, Bruce. Keep an eye out. Let me know if anything looks suspicious. Over."
We had stationed Nock up on top of the barn where he could easily spot any vehicles approaching from the main road. We had all agreed that it was very unlikely that anyone would be around to even see what we were doing, let alone take any interest in it or notify the authorities, but it didn't hurt to be careful. Daniel had phoned me earlier to say that he had some news that he wanted to deliver in person, so this visit was expected.
I had been slowly circling the construction site as I watched Stan work. While I had been out of sight of the house, behind the excavator, Stansy had appeared, looking a little frantic. She spotted me and started away immediately, coming around the pit at a dead run. I picked up my own pace, but she closed the distance so quickly that it hardly mattered.
"Hey," she huffed, only slightly winded, her cheeks and nose red from the cold. "Daniel's here."
"Yeah," I said. "Nock saw him coming up. Did he tell you what's up?"
Her voice had an edge as she spoke. "He says the government...they're starting to round up former genemods. People who've already been reverted."
I stared at her. "What? What possible reason could they have to do that?"
She spread her hands. "I have no idea. Why don't you come talk to him?"
I knew why Stansy was upset. Her son was a half who had undergone reversion. I considered bringing Stan in as well, but we simply couldn't afford the delay. Besides, I wanted to find out if Daniel's story checked out before involving more people than necessary.
I found Daniel in the den standing at Tilly's shoulder, both of them staring at the terminal. As soon as we entered the room, she waved us over. She was talking in a low voice, and I looked for and saw the table microphone in front of her.
"I cannot tell you anything for certain if this claim about reverted genemods is true," a man with a crisp tenor voice said over the terminal's little speakers. "But I've been following Renault for about a year now. I have read and evaluated comprehensive listings of his claims and predictions, and other than some obvious disinformation he puts out, I would say that there is compelling evidence that he knows what he is talking about. My theory is that he is either inside the DOJ or is getting information directly from someone who is. He warned last year about the move on the Agency's smuggling operations two months in advance. That's what got my attention."
"Hold on," I said, motioning for Tilly to key the mike as I approached. "You're saying there's a guy out there that knew in advance about the biggest blow the Agency has ever had?"
"Oh, uh, hello," the voice said. "Yes, that is what I am saying."
Tilly broke in. "Ed, that was Norm. He's part of our group here, an important part. Norm, this is Ed from node 238, an agency safe house. I asked on the darknet forums if there was anything like an expert on this Renault character that Daniel gets his information from. Ed here came back with an answer in under a minute, so I got a voice chat going."
I didn't need to ask what kind of genemod he was. The Agency customarily gave Eidetics the name of Ed, Edie, Eddy, or some close variation.
I pushed the talk button. "Nice to meet you, Ed-238. So, two questions. If this guy works for the US government, why isn't he already locked up? And why haven't we heard much on him before now? Daniel mentioned him to us several months ago, but..." I turned to Daniel. "Pardon me for saying it, but I didn't know if this were just some garden-variety conspiracy theorist."
"No offense taken," Daniel said quickly. "There are plenty of wackos out there."
Ed spoke up. "As I said, he could be getting this information from a source, and resides in a part of the world where he cannot be extradited to the United States. But he is also very careful, using foreign-owned and operated message boards. Everything he writes and posts is encrypted with a public/private key, to ensure that someone else cannot impersonate him. Any attempts to trace him have, to my knowledge, failed. As for why he is not mainstream news, I offer two reasons. One, our news is tightly-controlled, and even a smear piece is going to bring attention to him. Two, the disinformation I mentioned earlier. Renault's supposed explanation for the Rot is an alien plot to destroy the human race. He mentions is regularly. Follow him for any length of time, though, and you'll see little hints that indicate that this is a deception. It ensures that most do not take him seriously."
"Oh," Daniel said, and I pushed the talk button again, "you don't think the aliens are real?" He looked both disappointed and embarrassed.
"Not in the slightest," Ed said. "And neither does Renault. You can bet on that."
"But despite that," I said, "you think he's real and that he gives accurate information. Shouldn't we be disseminating everything he says throughout the Agency?"
"I tried to get them interested, but like most, they saw 'aliens' and gave it a pass."
"So we bypass them," Tilly said. "We post his feed directly to the darknet. Ed, how would you feel about editorializing those? You could give your opinions on which information is true and accurate and which to ignore, and tie it in to the larger context."
"I would be happy to. I have little to fill my time here. I could start by summarizing all of the important points. There are a lot of events that I could point to that even the casual observer would have to admit are too improbable to be coincidence."
Nissi had come in while was speaking, nodded greeting to the rest of us, and walked over to stand next to Tilly, on the other side from Daniel.
"I think that's a great idea," I said. "And we need to go over everything you have to say. What about contacting this Renault directly?"
"Not likely," Ed said. "He will occasionally answer questions left by his followers on message boards, but has never left any contact information that I've ever seen."
Nissi suddenly spoke up. "Stansy, your son."
She nodded. "That's what I'm worried about. I get emails from him about once a week, and the last one came on Tuesday, just two days ago, so I'm trying not to freak out too much, but this has me scared. Can we look at what this Renault has to say about the topic in full?"
I relayed the request to Ed and he sent back a node address. "You'll find his latest stuff there. He hops around a bit, but it's not that hard to find him again. If you want to see an example of disinformation, look at last week's drop. It's all about how the 'Grays' developed the Rot on their secret base on the dark side of the moon and delivered it to the Earth on one of their saucer-shaped spacecraft. Like I said, you've got to read past that stuff."
Tilly called up the node and a plain text document appeared onscreen.
I've got some unfortunate news to relay today. McCain just ordered our esteemed FBI director to compile a list of former genemods and begin detaining them in secret. We know that there are at least a quarter million reverted genemods still living in the country, so this is a huge undertaking. You might be asking, why the secrecy? And what purpose does this new action serve?
The reason for secrecy is two-fold. The existing population of reverted genemods is large compared to the number of FBI agents in the field. Even if local law enforcement is enlisted to aid them, it will take a considerable amount of time and resources to find and apprehend that many people. By targeting a few at a time and simply "disappearing" them, they fade easily into the statistics of the thousands of people that vanish every year. It might take several years, but with as dispersed as the population of reverts is, this could be done without alerting them all of the danger.
The second reason is the possible public outcry. Offering genemods reversion was seen as a compassionate act by many in the populace, a means of allowing them to return to the human race, as it were. Reneging on that could further inflame negative sentiment against the McCain administration. As I have mentioned elsewhere, the president's announced crackdown on genemods last year dropped his approval rating to 28%, lower than at any time since 2009. I think that it was a trial balloon of sorts, to find out how much public sympathy still lies with genemods. That, in turn, has informed the shift to more covert tactics.
As to why McCain is going after reverts, that is anyone's guess. I have documented in prior drops the over four hundred genemods that briefly appeared in public records when they turned themselves into local law enforcement during the amnesty period. Every last one then disappeared, no mention of reversion treatment and release, a trial, nothing. Until we know more about why genemods are simply vanishing, rather than being reverted and released, we can only speculate, but my guess is that the two are related. Maybe they are simply being killed, or maybe they are now being viewed as some kind of resource that the administration can exploit.
In any case, watch for this topic to recur in future drops. I will attempt to document these disappearances as they occur. Any help that my followers can offer in this area is, as always appreciated.
Renault
"It does read like conspiracy theory," Nissi said, frowning.
Tilly reached up and touched her shoulder. No one had transmitted the comment, and she kept her next comment private as well. "That doesn't mean that it is. Think of the world we live in now, how far off the rails we've run in the last ten years. I want to have a look at what Ed comes up with before I decide anything." She keyed the mike again, thanked Ed, and told him we would be in touch.
"And if this Renault is legitimate," Stansy said. "Then it is just a matter of time before they take my son."
