Pockets of Resistance

December 23, 2047

Dear Diary,

Technology has finally caught up with us. We’ve been out in this remote refuge for almost 8 years now. Much longer than any of us thought was possible.

Chris was monitoring the southern range three nights ago for our monthly supply drop when an aircraft had flown over at cruising altitude. Much too high and fast to be our underground supplier. Chris had taken all the required precautions, well down in the bunker under the heat shield before the aircraft was within monitoring distance. Before emerging to the surface his scanner gave the green light; no frequencies, no signatures, nothing. It seemed the coast was clear. He wasn’t out more than a few minutes and what he thought was a small grasshopper flew just over his head. We’ve not seen grasshoppers since ‘42 and so it was very strange. The insect darted back toward Chris and hit him in the neck. With a swift swipe Chris managed to smack the thing to the ground.

By the time Chris got back to the main tunnel entry he was looking very pale and sickly. He has a large welt on his neck where the insect hit him.

Turns out these ‘grasshoppers’ were not insects at all but a sort of drone - a couple of them got snared in the brush down the gully. Ian found them twitching in the dust and brought them back for a little interrogation and dissection. They look just like a grasshopper, except for very small UN markings and what we assume are cameras for eyes and assorted aerials. When we pulled the bodies apart it seemed they were some sort of biological/mechanical hybrid. And we found out why Chris was now so sick - these things had a stinger in their tail, like a wasp. That aircraft must have been dispersing them - a UN search and destroy mission for sure. We guess that some of these drones have alerted Health and Global Security of our location. There’s been no supply drop. We guess our arm of the underground has been compromised and our approximate location exposed.

To be honest we didn’t think our underground labyrinth could have remained a secret for 8 years. The underground network has never been completely secure - people are people, right? And we did learn, about a year ago, that a community up in the Cape were found and all 200 of them detained at the ‘wellness camp’ at Alice Springs.

Despite this we continue to hear about pockets of resistance, and that there was even a fully fledged army massing in Indonesia to take on the New World occupation of Australia. But most of us, and probably most of the underground, take these tall tails with a grain of salt. It would be wonderful to think that there is a force that will push back - but pipe dreams are dangerous, false hope is a snare.

The next evening, two nights ago, Dale and Clair were on the first watch at the main tunnel entrance when they both were attacked by these drones. Both of them stung badly. We don’t know what it is that they have been injected with but both were sent to sick bay, along with Chris, all struggling to breath, heart irregularities, it didn’t look good. The work of the WHO no doubt!

We’ve had all the entrances sealed since that night. The ventilation has wire mesh and seems to be holding off any insect-like intruders. Just about everyone is in a panic tonight after Dr Andrews announced that Chris has died after a massive seizure. These weapons were obviously sent to expose us and wipe us out.

What to do now? We can’t very well run. Where would we go? There’s thousands of kilometers of desert in every direction and who knows how many killer drones there are out there. And even if we do get to ‘civilization’, we will be immediately arrested for being health terrorists.

No one here has any sort of genetic branding that would pass the scanners in the New World. I remember Brandon, who walked into our camp 4 years ago, saying the technology was changing at lightening speed and no one needed any sort of embedded hardware, it was all now genetic. ‘Sniffers’ he called them - AI scanners that could tell if your DNA had the right codes written into you. Most of us left the New World in 2039 without even the old micro-dots or nano-chip technology. Heck, some of us hadn’t been ‘vaccinated’ since 2019. We would stand out like a beacon on a hill.

We also know from information in our supply drops that the caste system has been formalized by the current genetic therapy and that our unmodified genome would place us at the top of hierarchy - posing as an elite with unmodified DNA is an offense punishable by death. ‘Sniffers’ would pick us up as unmodified, know we are not of that caste, and before we know it we’d be in a truck on a one-way ticket to ‘health camp’ hell.

But what does any of that matter? We are besieged by biomechanical locusts with stinging tails, probably waiting for a drone delivered bunker buster to take us all out.

But we did try. We did hold out this long. There is still an underground… I hope. I hope there is still hope.

I’m going to put this diary and a few of my things in the ground now. Who knows, in a hundred years time someone may dig this up and read about the terrifying adventures of living in the 21st Century.

_______________________

December 25, 2047

Dear Diary,

It’s Christmas! In more ways than one!

So much has happened over the past 2 days. Both Dale and Clair died shortly after my last entry - the insect drones were deadly and we couldn’t leave the mine. Everyone was totally freaked out. We were trapped and our supplies wouldn’t last long.

Then early yesterday morning there was a huge commotion outside and we thought it was the end. We all went deep into the mine to buy just a few more moments of life. The main entry doors were broken down and men in sandy colored body armor were running toward us beckoning us to come out. Everyone was frightened and confused. Then the commander took off his helmet and assured us that they were there to help us - “We are the Pacific Liberation Force,” he said, “We are here to evacuate you - it’s not safe here anymore.”

We were told to gather our things together, only a few essentials, and to come outside. As if reading our minds the commander said the killer insect-drone things had been immobilized (we don’t know how) and that it was safe to come outside. I grabbed my diary that I’d buried in the dirt and ventured out into the blindingly bright morning, loud rotors and their resulting dust storm.

Three Chinook helicopters and a couple of attack helicopters that I didn’t recognise were on the ground waiting for us and kicking up a red storm of sand and dust. We were quickly escorted onto the helicopters, half blinded by the dust, fully dazed. For all we knew these could have been a New World force and they were going to take us to detention at Alice Springs. But it was the end of this place for us, and I guess we just went with whatever the end was going to bring us. We were going to die in the desert or in a detention camp.

But now, another 24 hours later, and sitting in a PLF mess tent in Indonesia, it seems we are destined for a different end! Indeed the rumors of resistance were true - in fact totally underestimated. The total propaganda of the New World, and especially the CCP operating out of Australia, had completely obscured what was really going on for the past decade or more.

After the war there was a gathering of freedom loving warriors who had meticulously built an opposing military force in all the best traditions of the underground and guerilla warfare. The Pacific Liberation Force is obviously ‘David’ and the CCP ‘Goliath’, but we all know how that story ends!

I’m just learning all this right now! What a revelation. The insect drone things that we thought were targeting us, were actually looking for the PLF. They had worked out that our underground supply pilot was doing a bit more than run of the mill cloud seeding and had thought our supply drops were feeding an underground army. It was a seek and destroy mission but not for us, but for the PLF. We were exposed to both sides of this war and thankfully we were rescued by the ‘rebel’ force!

We haven’t been off the base, but as far as we can tell this army of international freedom lovers run completely independent and secure communications, supply lines, and autonomous geographical regions! We could never have thought this could be possible, but the human spirit is tenacious for freedom - Well at least this lot are.

I guess we underestimated what people can achieve in the face of tyranny, with truth on their side, and the love of liberty. We just need to know we are not alone, but more than that, we need to network, cooperate, and act with courage together. We may be the minority, we may be the rebellion, but we are also the hope of a future generation who should have the opportunity to have life and liberty to the fullest measure.

I have to finish up here - I’m being assigned to the comms division - something about writing counter-propaganda!

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Some other short fiction:

The Decade of Terror

Stay Within The Line