Chapter 1 Kaylee's Escape
Kaylee’s POV
I’d been going through the process of running a ghost protocol on the servers. I set the settings on the operating system to run strictly in RAM while simultaneously setting up the drives on the computer to have a hardware wipe, essentially doing a software wipe of data, then causing the hardware for the drive to be physically destroyed.
It’s the only way to protect our data from President Thorne’s hands. It is imperative that he never gets his greedy hands on any of this information.
While I’m busy destroying the servers, I see the military coming and there is no time to make it to the ship. I make a decision that will impact the rest of our lives.
“Tim, you need to leave. They are here! I can’t make it back in time. You need to leave now!”
“No! I’m not leaving without you!” Tim argues.
“Tim! I don’t have time to discuss this! If you don’t leave now, they will get both of us! I can’t let that happen! You need to get away. I swear, I’ll hide somewhere so they can’t get to me!” I demand.
“Kaylee... Please. I don’t want to do this alone. We planned this together! WE were going to get away together....” The sadness in his voice almost broke my heart, but I couldn't let him influence me. I needed him to leave now.
“I know! And you’d better come back for me! But right now, just leave!” I demand, knowing he will come back for me even if I didn't ask him to. “I love you! Look for me at carbon … the line. I repeat, carbon in the breadbasket to find me.”
After giving Tim my last message and praying he gets it, I duck behind the servers. The heat from the servers is hotter than I am, so they would not be able to get a thermal image of me.
I watch as Timothy takes Freedom 1 out of the hangar to be surrounded.
“Please be okay,” I whisper under my breath. I overhear the military say both targets are on the ship as I reach up onto a rack and grab a pen light while the military is distracted with Tim and quietly open the hatch to the maintenance tunnel. After entering I quietly close it.
As soon as I close the hatch, I hear a voice from the other side. We may have lost the targets, but at least we secured the servers. We will have to call in a cyber forensics team tomorrow, that is more overtime to secure the perimeter. I then make a mad dash down the tunnel to the underground mine.
One direction leads to the mine and the other to the lava tube. I head toward the lava tube and slowly make my way down, using the pen light to light my way in the pitch blackness. I crawl through the suffocating tube, trying to tell myself this is not claustrophobic at all, and it’s not working.
I just focus on moving. In approximately 2 miles, I finally make it to the opening of the lava tube.
Thankfully, this puts me well out of the half mile range the military placed as a perimeter around the hangar. They would never think to look for me out here.
I sigh in relief as I step out into the scorching sunlight, grateful to be out of the tunnel as I make my way down range to my Rivian. I love my electric truck! We’ve been using it for telemetry, and it’s licensed through a shell LLC out of Montana, so the plates are permanent.
When I get to the truck, I pull the communication fuses and put them into the glove box, then I begin the journey to Nevada.
It wouldn’t take so long if I didn’t have to take all the backroads, with the radio as the only thing to keep me company.
I can’t help but worry about Tim. He’ll be up there all alone, and I have no idea when I’ll see him again. I hope he got away alright.
When I finally make it across the state lines I make my way to Las Vegas. And no, it’s not to go gambling or drink my sorrows away. I head straight to the automated private vault that our company leased.
I smile to myself as I extract the model of Freedom 1 and $250,000 in cash. I’m going to need this. We had this money as a slush fund for miscellaneous expenses, I just wish we never needed to use it.
With the cash in hand, I go to a bike store and purchase an e-bike with some of the cash from the vault and place it in the back of the truck under the canopy before heading further Southwest towards California to lay down a fake trail. If they follow me here, they will only be heading in the wrong direction.
Finally, I turn around and head back East, now taking the off roads and side roads, slowly making my way to Moab, Utah.
When I finally get to Moab, I pull off the road to a trailhead, thankful I have the solid-state batteries in the truck to give me the range I need but more importantly there is an unmonitored electric outlet.
I plugged my truck into an empty outlet before turning in for the night, I leaned the seat back and locked the doors. I’ve been running around for the last 72 hours with no sleep, and I fall asleep in a few minutes.
It was not a restful sleep, but it was needed. When I finally wake up, I find a small diner and grab a quick breakfast before I’m back on the road again. This time I’m going to be taking the Rimrocker trail, through Nucla and Naturita and spend the next night in the Uncompahgre National Forest. I smirk as I note that my license plates get all muddy traveling through the Rimrocker trail as I lay out my suitcase solar panels to recharge in the afternoon sun.
The next morning, I continue my journey and drop down into Montrose Colorado.
Here I stop off at Walmart and grab a pre-paid phone. And using the public Wi-Fi at a McDonald’s, I decided to download some public pictures of Tim and me together. I really miss him, and being able to see his face helps with the ache in my chest. I think I will print a few of these pictures at Walmart.
While I’m at it, I look up the address of a large apartment complex in Denver. Then I use Craigslist to find a private seller of a 5-year-old Ember no-slide RV with max solar package. This will be perfect, it will be easy to tow and take down, and set up, plus it’s rated for four seasons camping and I can keep my e bike inside when traveling.
I called the seller from the burner phone that I set up under the name Ashley Emerson, that is the name I will hide under, to purchase the Ember RV and request an undated bill of sales, telling him it may take me more than 3 days to get home, so I can register it.
I sigh. Something tells me this is only the beginning.
