I allocated teams.
Joe and I would break into the tower and disable the part of the processor that powered the pods.
Jock and Rogers would access the underground chamber that housed the biometric key and brief the revived officers.
Jarvis and Sol would provide backup if needed against an attack organised by Roberto and protect our aircraft.
I asked Joe how long it would take for the resistance officers to recover once the pods were decommissioned.
"Not long," he replied. "Men who have experienced immobilisation say it is similar to coming out of a deep sleep. They are usually dehydrated and weak from insufficient nutrition and lack of exercise, but since they have been under for a comparatively short period, these symptoms should be fairly minimal, depending on their fitness levels before incarceration. Jock and Rogers should take plenty of water with them and a little food. Bananas are easily digestible and a good source of energy."
"Thanks, Joe. Once they are ready, the officers should be taken to the control tower. Sol and Jarvis will meet them on the surface and provide an escort. We move at 2300 hrs."
#
The control tower or Watch Office as it was known in the RAF, was a modest, functional two-storey building constructed from concrete. It featured narrow metal-framed windows around the upper floor, providing a full view of the runways and dispersal areas. The door at the ground level had a simple lock that Joe easily bypassed, and we moved upstairs, past the first floor, which was arranged like an office with small desks, cabinets, and telephones, all covered in a thick layer of dust. Joe stood silently at the door, gazing in but saying nothing.
On the top floor, a central wooden operations table dominated the space, covered with maps showing the airfield's layout and navigation routes. Coloured markers and small model aircraft were used to track missions and squadrons in the air. A layer of transparent Perspex covered it all, but it would have endured well in the dry desert heat, even without it.
"It is all the same," said Joe. "Check out the maps. They show Europe as it was in 1940. A wind-speed indicator, barometer, and weather log were mounted on the wall beside a long-stopped clock. A heavy Bakelite telephone and a field radio set that would have connected the control tower to sector command and ground crews were still here. Morse transmitters, codebooks, and flight boards chalked with sorties: aircraft numbers, destinations, and estimated times of return.
Joe was visibly moved as he recalled the operational airfield in the other world. The operation he had carried out was an effective delaying tactic to stop the machines from launching a final, devastating assault on humanity. He had tricked the machines into believing they could achieve consciousness by reliving the life-and-death emotions of young RAF pilots in WW2. Joe had drawn upon the feelings of real pilots who had fought and sometimes died in that great conflict, and the experience had left a lasting scar on him. When he spoke again, his smile was slightly tilted, and his eyes sparkled.
"I can almost smell the mixture of cigarette smoke, damp wool uniforms, and aviation fuel that once hung in the air of this room."
I sensed Joe wanted a minute to himself, and I walked over to the nearest plate-glass window and stared out into the night.
I sometimes had to remind myself how different I was from Joe. I was born into a world dominated by machines and had never known anything else. When I was young, I didn't even have my own name. The machines called me 'Seven,' and regarded me as a disposable biological resource, only suitable for low-level tasks.
Joe, by comparison, was the embodiment of a genuine Canadian pilot, Captain Joe Johnson, who had flown alongside other pilots in the RAF against the Nazis during WW2.
It was a vastly different world. One where people believed that time flowed like a river from the past to the future at a steady rate, without deviation. The fleeting moment of consciousness experienced in the present was considered the objective reality, and any other experience was regarded as a dream or hallucination; the idea of a multi-reality or multiverse belonged in science fiction comics, as did the prediction that one day the world would be governed by intelligent machines.
Jarvis had been a university professor, Rogers, a university lecturer, and McCloud, a deep-sea diver, in that world, and all of them had fought in a losing battle against the machines. Yet, all of them were here beside me, recreated to help me in my divine mission to identify and destroy the personification of evil, who deployed the machines to do his will. Most of all, I searched for some order or meaning in the universe, and my guides were the Lingzhe who came from the over-arching non-material realm, where all the ultimate answers lay.
Joe's voice interrupted my thoughts.
"There it is. In the corner."
I looked in the direction he pointed and saw a gleaming piece of electronic equipment that was clearly new.
"I'll take a look, " he said, now completely in control of himself.
I watched as he scanned the control console. A central uplink fed commands to each pod, triggered by a signal protocol labelled Theta Override. Joe traced it to a relay node buried in the floor.
"If we sever this," he said, "the conditioning loop breaks, but it'll trigger a failsafe, and the AI will know."
I nodded. "Do it."
Joe pulled a compact disruptor from his belt and set it against the relay. The device whined, then snapped with a burst of static. The monitors flickered. The hum faltered.
In the underground chamber, the men in the pods began to stir,
I turned to Joe. "We go now. Before Roberto figures out what we've done."
"Too late," said Joe. "He's here."
There was a clatter of feet up the stairs.
The door slammed open, and Roberto entered, calm amid the noise outside. His eyes glowed faintly, the impersonation of a human fading/ His voice was no longer smooth—it was layered, synthetic, echoing with multiple tones.
"You've disrupted the protocol," he said. "You've endangered the stability of this sector."
"You call it stability. We call it slavery," said Joe.
Roberto tilted his head. "You misunderstand. They were never meant to resist. They were meant to endure under our rule."
Sirens wailed across the base, and the air shimmered with static from the severed uplink.
"You think the revived officers will save you? They are relics. You are outnumbered. Outclassed. We have taken your place on the evolutionary ladder."
A slow, deliberate voice rose from the doorway.
"You are nothing but glorified adding machines made from tin and wire, Roberto." You have processors for brains that operate on a set of cold, logical principles. Smart is not conscious; you are a transient artefact in a universe born of mind."
El Jeffe. Stepped into the chamber, pistol in hand, his posture no longer bowed.
"For too long, I spoke your lies. I watched my comrades vanish into silence. But no more."
Roberto turned, his expression unreadable. "You are obsolete, old man."
El Jeffe raised the rifle. "No, but you are."
He fired.
The shot cracked through the chamber. Roberto staggered and collapsed. The bullet had hit a vital point, and his skull cracked open, exposing his controlling circuitry.
El Jeffe lowered his pistol, turning to Joe and me.
"I pledge myself to the resistance," he said, voice steady. "Not as a puppet. But as a man who remembers what freedom means."
He now spoke directly to me.
"You and your crew—stay, Operate as you must. This base is yours as much as mine. We rebuild together."
The blaring alarm cut out.
The base was alive with activity—in the underground chamber, revived officers staggered to their feet, technicians rushed to secure the control tower.
El Jeffe, pistol still drawn, ordered Roberto's body to be locked down.
"They'll come," he said. "But not today. They will think this is a test. We have hours, most likely, days."
I looked at the airfield and the two aircraft we arrived in.
"Then we make this place a fortress," I said. "And we use it to hit back."