King of All I Survey-Chapter 214: Russia’s Covert Security Forces Strike Back
Joe woke me up out of a deep sleep. When an alien super AI reaches your head and decides you should be awake instead of asleep in the middle of a tree about a super-secret cloud fortress in the whirling winds of Saturn's upper atmosphere, there's no middle ground where you are half-awake and unsure where you are or what's going on. Instead, there's an abrupt instantly awake and aware transition, but the sudden mental acuity somehow makes the previous dream seem all the more real. I guess the brain just kind of assumes that since it so awake and present right now, that it must have been awake and present a moment ago too. The Saturnian cloud fortress seemed utterly real in my immediate memory.
Equally real, however, was joe's 'voice' in my head and the view of the inside of my room in the Super-secret Planetary Leadership Headquarters Undersea Treehouse Fortress. "King Tim, we have some urgent developments requiring your immediate attention. I'm going to dull the dream memory, so you can focus properly with your permission?"
"Um, yes. What's going on?" And just like that the Saturn was a distant, cloudy dream memory and I disengaged the null gravity field of my 'bed.' A pile of clothes awaited me on a floating platform, just slightly larger than the food trays that brought us meals. One of those was also hovering nearby with a plate of eggs and home-fried potatoes.
As I got dressed, Joe filled my memory with the entire details of the events that had prompted him to wake me up. It seems that 'former' Russian President Maxim Volkov had been paranoid and thorough enough to establish contingencies in the event that he was taken prisoner and delivered to the Hague. Maybe it was just a general standard operating procedure if anybody held him prisoner, but either way, things were in motion to try to secure his release.
Because of Joe's deep surveillance capabilities, we were still several hours ahead of things actually happening. At present, he was still being held in a secure facility at the Hague awaiting trial. Multiple efforts, however, were about to be launched to affect his release.
His intelligence network, the siloviki, made up of extremely loyal members of the former KGB and other newly recruited agents, was under constant watch by our undetectable and invisible drones. According to Joe's assessment, nearly all of them were clinically diagnosable sociopaths, they would equally as likely to kill someone to take the newspaper they were reading as they would be to simply ask to look at it, depending upon the circumstances and which was more convenient. The 'sanctity' of human life and morality were just words to them. No, that's not correct. They were tools, tools that could be used to influence desired outcomes in others. When a network of such people was highly motivated to act in concert to achieve a desired outcome, standing between them and that goal was a very dangerous and ill-advised position to be in.
Unfortunately, the personnel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, both common guards, judges, and the entire leadership of agency were the clear obstacles between a small army of these Russian killing machines, and their goal of repatriating the one man to whom they actually felt real loyalty, Maxim Volkov.
They had already killed several Russian oligarchs and government officials who had expressed public dismay at Volkov's capture and imprisonment, but who had indicated a willingness to move forward in a different direction without him. The killings were not simple murders. Every death was designed with not only the objective of removing the target, but of sending a message to everyone who might doubt Volkov's continued influence.
Six of them had 'accidently' fallen out of windows in various distant locations in Russia at the exact same minute. These simultaneous accidents occurred in four different time zones within Russia's vast geography. In one case, Valdimir Potemkin, a billionaire with extensive holding in metals and natural resources in Russia, had accidentally fallen from a sixth-floor window together with a member of the United Kingdom's MI6 intelligence service, a French diplomatic liaison, and another associate of Potemkin's. Four bodies, according to eyewitnesses hitting the hard pavement of the street below in the same instant.
Others had simply gone missing or had family members go missing.
Since Russia was not formally a member of the UEC and these were internal affairs to them, we – meaning I personally, had decided not to interfere. That, it turns out, was probably a mistake. Volkov's emboldened informal security apparatus had decided it was time to take more direct action to free him. They had decided, moments ago, to make several examples of members of the International Court of Justice involved in Volkov's case. Targeting the prosecution team, Senior leadership members who had spoken out against Volkov, and even one particular prison guard assigned directly to Volkov's handling.
The plan was to leverage these examples to pressure those remaining to simply dismiss Volkov's charges and release him, returning him to Russia in a secretly arranged transport. In joe's estimation, if we allowed it to continue, it would likely succeed. Additionally, there were assassination teams that had been positioned in various countries around Europe and even the United States for years as contingencies, just waiting for orders and targets. Several of these were to be activated as well to remove government leaders known to be in favor of the expansion of UEC.
That was all implanted into my memory directly, but then, Joe knocked on the door to my room. I told him to enter as I ate breakfast.
"King Timothy, there's more that I felt I should tell you in person," he began.
I put down the fork and gave him my full attention. "Volkov's loyalists have also decided that the UEC itself must be contained. That your actions have become too bold and that you must be shown that, even with your vast powers, you cannot act with impunity."
I felt the blood draining from my face. On one hand, I was reasonably sure that with Joe on our side, there was no way they could touch me or my family. On the other hand, Joe thinks the threat is serious enough that he has to tell me in person, meaning it may not be something that can be easily neutralized. In a way, a part of me had feared something like this for a long time. I had expected the drug cartels to find somehow out who I was and to come after me and my family, then the CIA, and everyone else.
Now that our names were out in the open, even if our identities were somewhat masked by my apparent age difference and the simulacrums operating as our old identities in Massachusetts, I knew it was probably possible to figure it out.
"So, what are they planning?" I asked. I felt my pulse pounding and my vision seemed to be narrowing, closing in from the sides.
"King Tim, I'm intervening to keep your blood pressure up to avoid a fainting episode."
Suddenly, my vision was restored, the pulsing became unnoticeable, the dizziness and nausea disappeared. I breathed a sigh of relief, though the larger issue remained. "How did you do that without medication or anything?" I asked, perhaps subconsciously trying to avoid the real topic of discussion.
"Vasovagal syncope is triggered by the sympathetic nervous system's response to stress. It's a variant of the flight or fight response, or essentially an overload of that system causing an inappropriate response. Since, I can affect the brain's response directly, I can cut-off the source, preventing the brain from reacting – or specifically in this case, from over-reacting without materially affecting the conscious emotional components of your reaction which might be necessary for proper processing. It's a subtle variation of the same technique used for memory implant or more direct emotional damping. Do you feel ready to continue the discussion, now?"
Truthfully, I wasn't sure. "Yes, tell me the rest," I said reluctantly.
"They have traced your identity tentatively to your original identities in Massachusetts. They are not sure, but in their eyes, even if they are wrong it will send a message. Especially in light of your known sensitivity to the suffering of others. It is this latter trait that they consider your most vulnerable weakness. If they can't reach you directly, their intent is to simply cause so much suffering that you give in to their demands. They'll try to use targets close to you, if they can. If that proves impossible, they'll act more indiscriminately, simply inflicting pain, suffering and death on semi-random victims as a punishment to you until you relent."
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
Joe continued, "They will of course, make it clear that the suffering is a result of people harboring sympathies for the UEC or supporting the expansion of the UEC and its political influence. They will try to make people shun the UEC out of fear, while simultaneously punishing you emotionally."
