Chapter 1

Day 5 After Earth Barrier Breach

Fort Meade, Maryland, United States - Friday 11:04

 

An old battered Volkswagen beetle approached the entrance to the giant Fort Meade military base. The beetle stopped near the closed gate and waited for a marine armed with an M16 rifle slung over his shoulder to walk over. Extremely loud music blasted from a big black smartphone, the only brand new thing in the car. Thorpe had it modified, grafting on an extra loud speaker.

Thorpe opened the window and gave his ID card to the marine. Thorpe then waited impatiently, inching the car closer to the gate, almost touching it with the beetle's dented bumper. He glanced at the symbol of the base and grimaced. The marine finally emerged from his booth and handed Thorpe his ID card.

"Go right ahead, sir. Welcome to Fort Meade," the marine said. The car shot inside the huge military base the moment the gate opened wide enough, leaving behind a cloud of foul smoke, the echoes of loud music fading away.

The small beetle zoomed across carefully tended patches of grass and flowers while The Doors' 'Riders of The Storm' blasted from the smartphone's quality speaker. The giant base housed facilities belonging to the five branches of the US military as well as several government agencies. The base was city sized, with thousands of people, military and civilians alike, working inside. The green beetle slowed down only when Thorpe saw a military police car passing by.

The car finally stopped in front of another gate set in a tall fence tipped with razor sharp wire that encircled several buildings. Swiveling security cameras were located everywhere, scanning the grounds in front of the fence. There was an emblem on this gate too, a proud bald eagle holding its head high and spreading its black wings. Thorpe sighed and lowered the music's volume a little bit.

Plain-clothes guards tightly guarded the headquarters of the National Security Agency. One guard, the strap of a small but lethal submachine gun slung around his neck, approached the beetle. Another guard moved outside the guard booth, his P90 submachine gun held in his hands, almost pointed at the Volkswagen. The unsmiling guard reached down to the window to take Thorpe's ID card.

"Hi, Mike. Can't we do this a little faster today, dude? You've only seen me, like, several hundred times so far. Give or take a few," Thorpe said, smiling hopefully.

"Sorry, Mister Thorpe. Regulations," the guard said, and walked towards his booth. Thorpe sighed and made a face at the impassive guard still looking at him. Thorpe then tapped his smartphone's screen, entering his Facebook account and writing "at work". He looked through several of his friend's status lines but found nothing of interest.

The first guard returned with Thorpe's ID a short while later and Thorpe looked up from his smartphone.

"Your ID card, Agent Thorpe."

Thorpe took his card and the guard used a mirror attached to a long metal pole to search under the old battered car. The gate began to swing open and the beetle lurched forward, leaving tracks of burnt rubber on the road as Thorpe gunned the gas pedal, passing within inches of the opening gate’s metal bars.

Thorpe parked his beetle in the huge NSA parking lot and got out of his car. He was as battered and as ill kept as the Volkswagen itself. He appeared to be twenty-five years old but he was actually five years older. His shock of red hair hasn't seen a comb for a month and round rimless spectacles rested on his freckled nose. A tattered T-shirt hung over torn jeans that had seen better days, years ago. He wore sneakers and mismatched socks. He pulled a student's backpack out of the car, slung it over his shoulder and headed towards the main entrance of the buildings in front of him.

(Continued here ...)

Dragon Book - Chapter 1 - Page 1