Chapter 13 E G R U E N R B E M Z O U Z T Y A Z V E Q E C Z D R T Q P Z Myles, Tyler and Sir Walter were on a conference call with several of the Knights and some of their assistants. Two subjects were under discussion, but they were closely related. Beginning with the Atlantis briefing, they would continue to the state of affairs in the United States, and its relation to the status of Atlantis. The large crescent that had emerged, it appeared, would likely constitute an enormous island off the west coast, reaching from near the northern edge of the continent to the southern coast. The continent itself was now beginning to appear, and the attention of the world's nations was drawn to it. A small settlement had already been built, some simple metal buildings with a few dozen personnel. More were arriving, mostly from the ships anchored along the side nearest the continent. Parts of the main continent were beginning to show - mostly some mountains but the lower lands were not far below. In some places the water was now just a few feet deep. The government of Atlantis was now seated in the temporary capital they had build. Some of it at least - the initial form was a ruling council consisting of the Knights - but only three of they were actually on Atlantis. Information about the government had been sent to the World Congress, with a request for recognition. "Our communication should keep them off balance for a while" Sir Roland told them. "We emphasized our desire to preserve the area for scientific research, provide accommodations for international visitors, all that garbage. We also stressed the danger of visiting the area before it has become stable, something that may take several years. In any case, it will probably work for a while - most of the world seems to be much too busy to worry about it just now." And indeed, although the emergence was in the news regularly now, but carried nowhere near the weight of national and international affairs. China was experiencing food shortages again, and the civil unrest seemed more severe this time. The Russians had been on rather good behavior for quite a while, working at rebuilding their empire by diplomacy and trade rather than force. In the Middle East and most of Africa, small wars were going on at any time, as they had for many years. But the United States was their main concern. "We still don't know what effects the complete emergence will cause" said Sir Roland. "It may be quite anti-climactic, or Atlantis may have some surprises for us. But the U.S. is the greatest danger, and if they suspect a connection between Atlantis and the resistance, the results could be unpredictable. Even though they can't deal with domestic matters, they might launch an attack. It would be a big mistake, but still we would prefer not to have that happen." "They are not only ill-equipped for it" said Sir Walter, "but they don't even have an idea of what is happening here. So the are operating blindly, with insufficient resources to contain even a small part of it. So at this point, they are becoming less of a threat with each passing day. "Aside from some of the larger militias being organized better than they, or we, thought, there are now spontaneous acts of citizens, sometimes individually, sometimes in small groups, to deal with. The number of authorities being assaulted, and often killed, is beginning to terrify them. Most of them are law enforcement, sometimes local officials, but it's becoming quite pervasive. I suspect the crisis will be severe soon, perhaps in just months." "Certainly, failing to disarm the population has been a serious error" said Sir William. "It's too late now" said Sir Walter. He grinned, a rather roguish look. "We can supply a lot of partisans from our own supplies. Not to mention the logistics of selecting and attacking lucrative targets. I suspect our misguided masters will be quite busy keeping their heads above water before long." Myles knew he would be called out to Atlantis once a significant colonization operation was underway. Now that it was actually happening, he had a feeling he could not identify. It seemed he was part of the most important event that had happened in centuries, or more likely millenia. A natural event, coupled with the power of the League, might change the world for an equally long time. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ After the conference ended, they had lunch with Sarah and Tanya in Sir Walter's dining room, and then retired to his offices to discuss local events. Tyler and Gordon had returned together from the raid at the army's black site and discussed the operation with Sir Walter and Myles. Although the success of the raid had been impressive by any standards, they had lost seven men and had several more with serious wounds. Three of the men were Kurt's people, while the other four were part of the small militia contingent. The men in these small organizations knew one another well, and their families as well. The emotional wounds would take time to heal. The alliance was still sound, however, and Gordon had gone back to continue his work. He told them that Alex was having some difficulties with one of the prisoners they had rescued - a very young girl, apparently so traumatized that she would not leave Alex, or let anyone else near her. He had her living in his quarters in a safe house that was relatively safe for long-term use, while he tried to figure out what to do with her. She was one of several children they had freed, Gordon told them. No asked why they were there. They knew, and no one wanted to talk about it. They watched several news channels to see if anything important was happening, and had watched several typical filler stories, when one of them was interrupted. The large 'Breaking News' banner appeared in the upper part of the screen, and the young blonde woman who had been talking about the storm damage in southern Texas suddenly switched to a new story. "We have reports of some type of explosion on the I-35 bridge over the Columbia River, near Columbia Ohio." she said, rather excitedly. "We're just getting some video, and we have an on-scene report from ANC-13 in Columbia. We go to Andrea Phillips at the scene. Andrea?" Another young woman, looking remarkably like the one in the studio, now appeared. The usual exchanges, seeming quite scripted even though the event had just happened, now took place. It seemed that a bomb threat had been called in to several news outlets in Columbia, and the state police had closed it, and so there was no traffic on the bridge when the explosion occurred. A big one from the looks of it, thought Myles. The nearly mile-long bridge now had an enormous gap near the middle, probably several hundred feet long. No traffic was going over the bridge for a long time. In the background he could see another bridge which looked like a railroad bridge. It was not uncommon for highway bridges and railroad bridges to cross rivers close together, and Myles wondered about the effect the disabled bridge would have. As he watched the reporter talking, an enormous cloud of smoke appeared behind her, just where the railroad bridge was. Startled, she turned just as the sound reached her. As the smoke cleared, the damage to the railroad bridge was visible. No trains either, Myles thought. Columbia was located between the Columbia and the lower Ohio River, not far from where the two rivers converged. "Anyone want to guess how long before the bridges over the Ohio go down" asked Myles. "Minutes, I would guess" said Sir Walter. What was happening was obvious to them - it was a strategy some in the League had discussed. If they found themselves in a desperate situation, isolating some of the larger cities by cutting their supply lines would induce a massive crisis - millions of people in multiple cities suddenly with no food or other supplies. Or worse, no water - many of the cities depended on water brought in from great distances, and aqueducts, hundreds of miles long in some cases, were quite vulnerable. "The bigger question is, who is doing it." Sir Walter continued. "We've been finding some of the militias are quite competent" said Myles. "But the explosives, and the ability to deploy them properly - that's more interesting." "Indeed" said Sir Walter. "I wonder if our Russian friends are becoming more adventurous." Official contacts with the Russian empire had proven advantageous for the League - in addition to weapons, they often acquired useful intelligence from them. It was generally believed they only dealt with the League, but broken states often had leaks. Freelancers might well be involving themselves in the resistance. As expected, the scene changed again as the news of the largest bridge over the lower Ohio had been taken down. "Presumably the railroad bridge is next" said Myles. "Blowing the railroad bridges seems strange" said Tyler. "Unless this is part of something bigger. What the city needs to survive doesn't come in by train." "I suspect there is something larger here" said Sir Walter. "The railroad bridges could simply be gratuitous destruction, but there is likely more to come. Blowing the railroad bridges will cripple rail traffic on one of the busiest rail corridors for months. But cutting the roads into the city will precipitate an immediate crisis, a very serious one. With everything going on, over four million people suddenly without the daily necessities is going to be one ugly situation." Sir Walter activated another screen and displayed a map of the area. "It's not as bad as it might be" he said. "Not yet. There are roads coming from up north, between the rivers. But I suspect our unknown saboteurs are not finished - there are many smaller bridges on those roads." "Blowing the big ones was not easy" said Myles. "That suggests some high-level technical expertise." "Indeed it does" said Sir Walter. "It will be interesting to see how it was done." They watched the news for a while, and eventually there was no purpose to continue. There would be no other news of consequence tonight, and it was getting late. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Myles was having another strange dream. Again it seemed that he was in another universe, but not like the world of plowed fields he had seen before. He was standing on a grassy hillside, looking at a huge city on the plain below him. It was far away and he could not judge it size, but it seemed impossibly huge. As he looked from right to left, the city was in his vision until his head was turned almost completely left or right. The buildings looked like stacks of blocks, piled up in many layers. There were no buildings like the ones he was familiar with, tall towers with straight sides from top to bottom. They were a uniform light brown, looking rather dusty. Behind them was a mountain range that also seemed impossibly large. It filled the entire horizon and the highest peaks seemed to rise into space. As he watched, the sky darkened and stars appeared, along with what appeared to be a moon. But not one of the moons he was familiar with - it appeared to have oceans and continents, and he soon realized that it was much further away than a moon would be, and must be about the same size as the world he stood on. And behind it was another one, and it seemed that there was a third one, but this one was so far away it was just a very large bright spot, much larger than any of the stars. It seemed that the world he was on was one of a string of worlds, following each other in a common orbit around their sun. The dream faded, and before long he awoke without remembering any subsequent dreams. That one seemed very real, he thought. He looked over at Sarah and then at Tanya, sleeping quietly and seeming to enjoy a peace he wished he could experience. He looked over at the clock - still a few minutes until time to get up. He closed his eyes and waited quietly. They went down to have breakfast with Sir Walter and Tyler. They had watched some news beforehand, and so knew that there had been more destruction of bridges during the night, along with some power distribution facilities. Columbia was now, in terms of providing the daily needs of is residents, cut off from the world. "They'll probably be able to get some temporary bridges up to replace the smaller ones up north" Sir Walter told them. "But that may be days, and even then traffic may be slow. The inner city has a large, volatile population that doesn't care what happened - they just want food, lights - whatever it takes to get them through the day." The large underclass which made up much of the population of most large cities had long been managed by supplying it with food and entertainment, and suddenly having them taken away invariably resulted in violence on a large scale. Occasional blackouts or damage from weather, often lasting only days, had in the past resulted in deadly riots. Which, Myles thought, was probably exactly what the saboteurs were counting on. Before long large numbers of National Guard personnel would be deployed to deal with the situation. "I would guess we've evaluated this sort of thing before" said Myles. "Whoever did this would seem to be almost at the League level - even the most capable militias aren't likely to be able to pull it off. Unless a foreign player is involved." "You're likely right" said Sir Walter. "We certainly can't rule that out. The Russians - some factions anyway - are philosophically close to us. I wouldn't suspect them, but there might be others who want to break the government before it goes too far in the wrong direction." "Would we ever do something like this?" asked Tyler. "I'd like to say no" said Sir Walter. "But it's been said that conscience is the first sacrifice in the process of survival. I don't know if that's true, but it's pretty high on the list of things that get tossed overboard when one's very existence is at stake. So we have wargamed it, and came up with pretty much what we've seen - paralyze a number of large cities, force the government to expend resources it already can't afford to restore and maintain order, and give ourselves more room to operate. It would be a last resort, though. There are innocent people in there. Perhaps not many, from our perspective, but there are some." He displayed a map of the entire country on one of the large screens. "There's no shortage of targets" he said. "As population goes, Columbia and the metro area is at a little over four million, with perhaps a half million in nearby cities and towns that depend on it to some degree. So it's a small target compared to Los Angeles at over ten million or New York City at twelve. Even though a lot of those populations are outside the area that could be isolated, it will be a disaster of unthinkable dimensions when that happens." "You think that will happen?" asked Myles. "It's beginning to look like it" replied Sir Walter. "I suspect this is a test, perhaps a warning. Whoever is doing it may have already issued an ultimatum, and didn't get the response they wanted. Or this may be a first strike, as when we initiated our own action. It's hard to say at this point, but we aren't likely to see it on the news." "New York and Los Angeles could both have their water, electricity, and most vehicular traffic cut off as easily as just happened in Ohio" said Myles. "Indeed," said Sir Walter. "The government is probably scrambling assets even as we speak, to guard those conduits. And they will fail. If you cut a transmission line in one place, it can be back up in a day or two. Take down a dozen or so towers over a hundred miles, put a few distribution stations out of commission, it could be weeks or months with no electricity. Cut off the water and you have mass insanity in a day or two. As I told them back when they attacked Mike Charlie, they can never win a guerilla war if the enemy has sufficient supplies of arms and men willing to use them. This may be more interesting than we expected."