Legacy of a Mad Scientist by John Carrick

all flowed to the Micronix. It
was beyond undetectable, it was… Un-susceptible. How could these
nitwits suspect something they’d never heard of, never
imagined? Fox laughed.
    Geoffrey looked up at his father.
    Dr. Fox blinked the Micronix menus and pallets away
and looked back at his son. He smiled.
    Behind them, watching from the stairs, Ashley gasped,
staring into the fog. Ana was with her, sitting on the step next to
her daughter.
    The fog before them looked so thick, the windows
appeared to be frosted. Yet it billowed with a heavy texture and
something dark flashed just beyond their ability to make it
out.
    Jack barked.
    A bird struck the window.
    They all jumped.
    The family watched the heavens pass by as birds
played the role of angels, fluttering through the clouds as they
journeyed to wherever clouds, and birds lost in them, go.
    As the day grew brighter and the sun continued to
rise, warmth penetrated the heavenly vapor and it vanished.
    Within a few minutes, breakfast was ready and the
backyard was visible again, covered with the dewy remnants of the
clouds. The sky grew dark, and as the family ate, it rained.
     
    Ashley’s Journal, Tuesday, June 23, 2308
    Something woke me up last night. I don’t even
remember sitting up, but that was how I woke up. One of the houses
across the canyon was on fire, the house with all the windows.
    There’s something strange about that place. The way
the windows are. In the afternoon, it looks like a face. When the
windows were on fire, it looked like it was growling at me.
    In my dream, I saw the long white cords in a deep
dark place again, with those huge knots in them. The knots were
made of pain.
    Geoffrey talks in his sleep.
     
    Thursday, June 25, 2308
    All over the city, people rose and prepared for their
day. Yet somehow, today was different. People drove more
cautiously, and there was less traffic than usual. The headlines
weren't good; the war was threatening to start up again.
    From the front lines in San Diego to San Antonio, the
Christian Communist Peoples Party had been pushing north, mounting
strikes deep into the heartland. Not to mention the mujahideen
coming down from Canada on horseback, harassing federal outposts
all across the border. Meanwhile, the government fought internal
corruption scandals in the headlines of every major news
outlet.
    Early that morning, intelligence agents met their
handlers at safe houses. Today everyone was working; today there
was heavy chatter. Interested parties assembled in loose convoys,
out on the fringes of municipal airspace. In locked rooms and
tinted vehicles, mercenaries cleaned their weapons and loaded
magazines. Directives were confirmed and memorized.
    Dr. Fox listened in on the transmissions. The
briefing location would be released over two minute intervals,
first to federal officers, cascading down to the juniors. The
traffic would be screened for leaks, all branches were ordered to
participate.
    Fox’s driver arrived to escort the doctor to the
briefing. He said goodbye to his wife and children.
    Once the vehicle lifted off Andrew placed the call.
The briefing would be held aboard the Fuji Dozo, docked at the
heart of the city. The boarding times had been carefully
segregated. When the Department of Defense wants to know if you're
a security leak, they don't just ask you, they tempt you. Hungry
fish get caught. Operation Rusty Bucket was concerned with plugging
leaks; the briefing itself was secondary.
    The Fuji Dozo didn't even exist. Andrew had created
the name, and then researched it, just to be sure. When he made the
announcement he was confident that no one in North America had ever
before put those two words together as the proper name of a
restaurant.
    The dock numbers and loading times were all that
mattered. Giving the location an exotic name was the key that
allowed the analysts to track the leaks. Any unauthorized
transmission of those two words between the hours of ten and noon
was a crime punishable