The CRES code

Chapter Sixty Three - Deployment

     Emily exited the tent dressed in her new soldiers uniform and paused for a moment to look around at the camp in the gathering darkness.

     It was almost full night now. A few stars were beginning to appear, those bright enough to compare with the almost full moon and the crimson glow on the horizon that marked where the sun had recently set. Some of those stars were moving, she saw. Machines going about their business. Either sunlight reflecting from the steel hulls of machines in Earth orbit or the plasma drives of larger machines elsewhere in the solar system. The reminder of the machine civilisation brought the anger back with an Indrawn hiss of breath and a clenching of her fists, along with a renewed determination to protect the Earth from their insatiable appetite for raw materials.

     Protecting the Earth meant being down in the basement levels of the old Gorsty Common facility, though, where the ancient computers Randall was looking for would be located, so that was where she needed to be. That meant that her disguise as a soldier, which had seemed so clever at first, was a hindrance, though, since all on duty soldiers would be out on the perimeter, looking out for orcs. Precisely the opposite direction from the one in which she needed to go. She needed an excuse to go to the elevator shaft, no matter how flimsy an excuse.

     Jane. She would be accompanying Jane there, protecting her. Never mind what Jane needed protecting from. So, where was Jane? She saw one of the workmen making his way to the mess wagon for a plate of beans and strode over to him. "The girl who came in yesterday," she said in her best deep, man's voice. "Where is she?"

     The workmen barely glanced at her but nodded his head towards a cluster of tents close to the aristocrats' pavilions. Of course, Randall's tent. She strode in that direction, got the identity of Randall's tent from another workman, and ducked inside it.

     Jane was bare to the waist, combing her hair with a long, walrus ivory comb by the light of a small oil lamp. She gave a gasp of alarm and clutched a blanket to her chest as the tent flap opened, then relaxed when she saw who it was. "Emily. You gave me a fright."

     "Get dressed," said Emily, picking up Jane's jacket and tossing it to her. "We've got places to be."

     "What places?"

     "We're doing no good out here. We need to be where Randall is. He could be starting up the machinery right now for all we know. You're going to get me down there."

     "I've got no plausible reason to go there..."

     "Make something up. Just get us down there."

     Jane nodded and shrugged into her jacket, then pulled on her other clothes. "I could say I've got to deliver a message," she said. "I don't know what message..."

     "Just be quick," said Emily, glancing out through a gap in the tent flap. "I've got a feeling..."

     Jane nodded. She had a feeling as well, although she had no idea what it meant. Perhaps it was just the knowledge of how close they were to the grand culmination of events, either triumphant or disasterous. No-one else in the camp seemed to be nervous or on edge, and many of then were professional soldiers trained to be constantly alert for danger. Perhaps God is trying to warn me of something, she thought. Some approaching danger.

     As soon as she was dressed they emerged from the tent, where the chilly air immediately seeped in through every gap in their clothing. At least the snow had stopped, Emily thought. The flurries earlier in the day had made her worry that a major snowfall might be on the way, but the clouds had drifted away to reveal an almost full moon shining down on them. A moon that was at once achingly familiar, reminding the eco warrior of previous nights spent wandering what had been left of the world's green spaces, while at the same time disturbing her with its new lines and features created by massive machine engineering projects. A disturbing reminder of the power and might of the civilisation she'd sworn to destroy.