The Gathering Storm (Surviving the Fall 2)

Mark continued with the setup of the other cameras and before too long he handed the tablet to Dianne. “Here you go, mom. You can push this button to cycle through the cameras and this button changes them from regular video to night vision.”

“Well done. This is perfect. Is there a way to make a motion alert on the tablet?”

“Yep!” Mark took the tablet back and showed Dianne how to work the more intricate functions of the app. When everything was said and done Dianne nodded with satisfaction. “Can you set up one of the other tablet

s around here with this same thing? I think your dad has another one in his office somewhere. I’d like to keep one in the bedroom and one downstairs in the kitchen or living room.”

“Sure, I just need to find it.”

Dianne nodded. “I’ll help you with that tomorrow. I think this’ll be perfect for tonight. Why don’t you head back downstairs and find something to do. Maybe we can look for the spotlights and speakers tomorrow and see how much work those would be to get hooked up.”

Mark nodded and headed downstairs while Dianne flipped through the views of the different cameras on the app. Being able to see the entirety of the outside of the house at a glance made her feel much more at ease. As the night drew on she kept the tablet close to her, glancing at it every few minutes while she worked on preparing the next day’s meals and getting a few things cleaned up around the house.

After her children were in bed, Dianne laid on her side and stared at the tablet as she tried to get to sleep. There was no sign of movement anywhere outside but she still felt uneasy despite that fact. She turned over to look at the ceiling and felt the space in the bed next to her. Instead of feeling Rick, though, she felt the cold steel of her rifle tucked just underneath the blanket and sighed, then closed her eyes and drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

Chapter 9

US Government Facility

Six days before the event

The President of the United States is not having a good day. It has been forty-eight hours since the advanced cyber-warfare system codenamed ‘DAMOCLES’ was compromised and he has been briefed on the situation by the Joint Chiefs and the head project managers from the NSA who developed the covert application.

The President paces around the conference room table as he listens to the project managers describe the details on what Damocles is capable of before he interrupts them by picking up a lamp and throwing it at the wall. “Will one of you shit-stains kindly explain to me just how the hell Damocles was available for long enough for an intruder to get their hands on it? Why wasn’t it air gapped to begin with? Jesus f—”

“Sir?” A secretary peeks her head in through the door of the conference room.

“What is it?” The President roars at her as he storms back to his seat. He grips the back of the chair with both hands, turning his fingertips and knuckles white.

“Michael Evans is here, sir.”

“Evans? Who the devil is Evans?”

“The security expert you wanted to see, sir.”

“Oh. Right.” The President frowns. “Send him in.”

A man with disheveled hair, wrinkled shirt, stained khakis and a jacket with leather elbow patches hurries into the room. In his hand is a leather case that he places on the table before sitting down in the closest chair.

“Sorry I’m late, Mr. President.”

“We expected you two hours ago. Where’ve you been?” The President barks in response. Evans, however, barely pays him any mind as he opens his leather case and pulls out several thick stacks of paper. He stands up and begins hurrying around the conference table, dropping a stack of paper in front of each person as he begins to talk.

“Sorry, the printer ran out of ink when we got to the last few copies. Some of you might have to share.”

“What’s this?” A man in a military uniform that appears to have a composition breakdown of seventy-five percent cloth and twenty-five percent medals starts thumbing through the stack of papers before passing it to the man to his left.

“This, I’m sorry to say, is an analysis that I just finished running earlier this morning on the effects of Damocles.”

A murmur passes across the table as the Generals whisper with one another. The one who asked the initial question speaks up again, looking at the President as he does. “I’m sorry, but who are you exactly? I was under the impression that Damocles knowledge was classified at the highest levels.”

The President lets out a smirk as he answers before Evans can. “Dr. Michael Evans is the one who came up with the original theories that brought Damocles into existence. You would know him better as ‘Dr. Howard Chu,’ an alias he went by to protect his standing in the academic community after we bought everything related to Damocles a few years ago.”

“You… you’re Dr. Chu?” The man’s eyes widen and Dr. Evans nods humbly.

“Yes, sir, I am.” He glances down at a copy of the papers he passed around the table. “Now, if you’ll direct your attention to page thirty, I can give you a summary on what to expect now that Damocles is in the wild.”

Everyone in the room turns to page thirty and Dr. Evans continues. “Thank you. “Now as you can see from the charts on the page, wide-scale attacks are most likely not going to begin for another forty-eight to seventy-two hours. At this point, whoever infiltrated the Damocles system most likely doesn’t realize that they were infected with the weapon when they downloaded the source code. If they are working to study and/or weaponized it for their own benefits, as I’m certain they are, then Damocles is learning a hundred times more about them than they are about it.”