The Intelligence

The breeze gently brushes his skin, kissing the hair on his arms. Time to push on, it says. Noah stands on the precipice admiring the cross swell of blue ridges. If there is a more beautiful sight he has never seen it. He is at the highest point of a cross sea of mountains stretching out to the horizon. The wind ripples through the trees in the distance. Over crests and valleys and up the slope to where he stands before continuing its voyage off into eternity.

Push on, it says. It is time to push on. It is never wise to linger very long in any one spot. Least of all one as exposed as the top of Bluff Mountain.

Rain has fallen the last four days and four nights. The STS always increases its patrols in the rain, thus preventing his journey. Finally the skies cleared, crisp and cold. Too cold for late April. Countless stars shone bright in the cloudless sky when he embarked this morning. Now he can count the clouds on one hand. But all of this just makes the journey more perilous. The sky is always watching.

He adjusts his umbrella hat. Flaps his arms like the wings of a bat so that cool air will fill his poncho. It is imperative that he remain as cool as his surroundings. The drones and satellites are trained to find both heat and motion.

Noah pushes on, slow and steady. He walks over the monument to the boy who had wandered away from school only to die on this mountain. Alone. But that was centuries ago. When children still attended schools together in one building. Long before The Intelligence ran everything.

Less than eighteen kilometers to go to the rendezvous, he thinks. Push on, he tries to motivate himself. Push on. Push on. Push on. Instead it is demoralizing.

Thankfully it is all downhill from here. An old phrase. One that seems to lie in an effort to encourage. All old things seem to be that way. Falsehood, fibs, or disinformation. Equivocation with the goal of making the listener or speaker or thinker commit to the task.

It is never as bad as it seems, it says. Push on. It can always be worse, it says. Push on. Don’t stop now, you are almost there. Push on push on push on.

If one has a topographic map, it will show that it is mostly downhill from here. But only The Intelligence can provide those anymore. Noah remembers his current elevation to be one thousand and thirty meters above sea level. Approximately.

A sea he has never seen. A sea he is told is constantly rising. A sea that somehow never gets closer to the summit. The mountain keeps its distance.

The rendezvous spot is four hundred and twenty five meters above that same rising sea. Approximately. So yes, it is all downhill from here. If one can only ignore the pointless ups and downs of hundreds of meters. Rising up and down as if riding the waves of the ridgeline for kilometers and kilometers. Noah knows how to distract his brain from the impact. If only he could protect his feet from its consequences.

Hiking down from the summit he enters the green tunnel. Foliage so thick he almost does not have to fear the drones. Almost.

The drones are virtually everywhere. The satellites are omnipresent. Together they make The Intelligence omniscient. Where they cannot see - if there is still such a place - the men and women of the STS fill the void. And the STS is nothing to be feared in comparison to their superiors, the ITSRT.

Three kilometers passes under his feet before Noah can see the road. He pauses as he crests the ridge. The STS Patrol is pulling out of the overlook on their Ebikes. For the first time on this journey he is thankful he had not ridden his own bike. It would have lessened the journey by more than ten kilometers, but the risk would have been more substantial. The roads are always patrolled by the STS.

As it is he may have already been spotted by a drone. Most likely back on the summit while admiring the endless blue ridges. If so, the STS probably assumes he is moving faster than he actually has been. So they have gone forward to the next place where the trail crosses a road. Noah is thankful they have done so instead of flying their pocket drones back up the trail. But maybe they aren’t looking for him at all. Only out on patrol. After all, they are always patrolling the roads.

Noah waits for some time. He has to be sure they are not going to double back. Crossing the road to the overlook is dangerous. The overlook is exposed to the sky and the patrols of the road are frequent.

The road was once part of something the older generation says was called the Blue Ridge Parkway. A road that swam its way through hundreds of kilometers of mountains. No one travels hundreds of kilometers anymore. Not even the STS.

The road had been produced and maintained by a national government, of, by, and for the people. At least that is what the older generation claims, but they speak only of memories. No one really knows for sure. That was long before the New World Government. A government of The Intelligence, by the technocrats, for the elite. Whoever they are.

Noah does not linger. He cannot not linger. He has to push on. The view of Punchbowl Mountain is breathtaking, but he is too exposed. He has to push on.

He flaps his batwings again and rushes back into the green tunnel. He will have about two kilometers of cover before he crosses the old gravel road. Will the STS be waiting for him there? He cannot know, still he has to push on. The spring, his first chance to refill his water bottle, is still five kilometers beyond that unnamed gravel road.

There are no signs of the STS when he arrives at the gravel road. They must have stayed on the Parkway. That means they are only on patrol and not searching for him. That is good, really good. He can push on.

It isn’t illegal to travel. Anyone can. If they have a good reason to do so. Noah’s reason, however, is not legal. And The Intelligence always knows.

The Intelligence knows if you are telling the truth. If you are lying. If you leave something out or embellish something else. The Intelligence knows you better than you know yourself. It most likely already knows that he is on this journey. Whether or not he is caught is more a question of resources than of knowledge. The Intelligence always knows.

Upon reaching the spring, Noah has to remove his umbrella hat to take off his poncho and his backpack. The pack contains only a tarp and paracord. One pound of jerky, a water filter and his water bottle. He expeditiously ties the tarp between four trees. Over the spring to provide cover for his chores. It will take half an hour to filter water. He will use that time to eat his lunch, half the jerky now and the other half for his dinner.

Noah cannot remember when The Intelligence decided that the common users no longer deserved to be connected to the electric grid. He can barely remember when it had decided to cut their rations. Now the rations are never enough. Medicine, food, even water. It is all insufficient. That is why there is such a huge black market. That is why he is being forced to make this dangerous journey. Again.

The older generation can remember a time when the Comptrollers rationed electricity. The good old days, they call it. Before The Intelligence decided it could no longer take that risk. Millions died, they say, when the hospitals went dark. Now the hospitals only serve the elite and the technocrats and their servants; the ITSRT and the STS.

Once in a while a very old person will claim to remember a time before that when electricity was used as it was needed. A golden age. Before the power grids were connected and given sensors that The Intelligence could monitor. Few believe them. Noah can hardly imagine.

Whether it is true or not does not matter. It is not true now. Nor will it ever be again. Still you must push on.

So Noah places his full water bottle and his half empty bag of jerky into his backpack. He takes down the tarp so that it can join them. He pulls back on the poncho and flaps his bat wings. The umbrella hat tops it all off. Push on, he thinks. The hardest part of the journey is yet to come. Push on.

Two kilometers under foot and the hair stands on the back of his neck. He feels the dead lingering in this place. The gravel road that leads to a bridge that leads past a campground. The grounds served as a refugee camp for many years, but not anymore. During that time his contact used this sight as the rendezvous. But The Intelligence had told the Comptrollers about the black market activity. The STS slaughtered every man, woman and child. Resources are needed. Human beings are not. Their ghosts now live only in the fog that rises from the Peddlar River.

Push on, he thinks, only eight kilometers to go. But five of them are far too close to the shore of the reservoir. The water supply for the region. Water that is carefully rationed. Closely guarded. Always one patrol drone on the surface. At least one below it. Noah has to be stealthy and quick to stay alive. He knows all the tricks necessary. He has made this journey dozens of times. Still nothing is guaranteed, except that he must push on.

Today the water will make things formidable. The shore had risen towards the trail. The drones will be close. There are three washes to be forded, inlets usually only ankle deep. Each one is deeper than the last. Today they will be treacherous.

The first two he crosses successfully. But the old bridge over the third has long ago been washed away. On a normal day the footers the bridge stood upon rise up out of the water and provide stepping stones. Today, the clear mountain water rushes over their tops. They can be seen, but only barely. The water over them is flowing fast. What is worse is that the bridge was built near the top of a waterfall. Not a large waterfall, but a drop off all the same. The water is crashing into the top of boulders at its bottom. Thrashing and breaking anything that rides its current.

If Noah is swept into the creek he will be washed over the falls. He will be smashed on the stones below. There will be nothing left of him. This journey will have been for naught. But he must push on. So he needs to find a better place to cross.

Downstream is not an option. The shore is too exposed. The wash only grows deeper and more broad. He will have to search upstream. So uphill he starts to walk. Step by step, meter by meter, until there are kilometers and hours between him and the shore. The difficulty of crossing does not ease. It only becomes worse. I need an ark, Noah thinks, a biblical miracle.

There is only one place to cross. Noah takes the first dangerous step. The water pushes his feet downstream, away from the pylon. Focusing all his strength against the current he finds the footer. He places his foot firmly on it. Each step from here will only add to the peril.

His right foot has to join his left on the first pylon. He has to fight the current to aim this foot and keep his balance. He makes it, but he is getting tired already. The greatest difficulty still lies ahead. Push on.

The next pylon is under deeper water. He will have to reach it while balancing on a pylon with swift water up to his knees. Push on push on push on.

Noah balances on his right foot and pushes his left through the water. Carefully he searches for the pylon. He finds his footing. The right foot is forced to follow. Finding the pylon he wobbles forward and nearly falls head first into the water. He totters backwards, then forwards and backwards again. He gains his balance and stands slowly in the thigh deep water. Thankfully he doesn’t have more weight in his backpack. Thankful that he is still alive but unhappy he isn’t finished. Push on, just a little further. Push on.

One more step to go. From pylon to muddy bank. Too far to leap, not that one can leap out of such a strong current. Left foot first, his furthest step yet. Legs nearly stretching into the splits. His foot digs into the mud and slides back toward the water. He totters again but his balance holds. His left foot catches a rock, his heel in the water. Not perfect, but stable. Stable is good.

The final step. Will his left foot hold long enough to pull his right leg out of the water? It slides with the movement. He moves faster, he pulls harder. His right foot makes it to dry land and both feet slide out from under him. He catches himself on the bank with both hands. He claws up and away from the water. He stands, he has made it. Muddy and wet but alive.

“Whoo-hoo,” he yells from the rush of adrenaline. It is far too loud. He has forgotten and he realizes a moment too late what he has done. He freezes, but it doesn’t matter. A submersible drone rises up out of the water. It has always been there, less than a hundred yards away. It shines its search light on him.

Within seconds three drones fall out of the sky and circle him. They are inspecting him. One of them opens a line of communication. The Intelligence begins to question Noah.