The Time of The Cat 8

EIGHT

A RESPITE

I used my remote to open the parking garage gate, and we parked in the basement in a service parking space where the van looked at home. We then went through a service door, down a hall, and found a door that didn’t have a keyhole or handle. I looked closely at a crack in the concrete located conveniently at eye height. The retinal scanner concealed in the crack seemed to think that I was OK because the door opened.

We went in. Understand that this was actually the first time I’d used this hideout, so I wasn’t too sure about the facilities. A brief check showed me that there were weapons (good), computers (exactly what we needed for more research), and a small, fully stocked kitchen (great, as we were both starved). There was also a room with two sets of bunk beds in case someone needed a nap.

While we looked around, Liz continued to talk, “I got involved in this mess about six months ago. I was assigned to trace some bogus bills that were coming over the border at Tijuana. One thing led to another, and I eventually followed the trail back to DC, as I mentioned.”

“After considerable digging, I discovered that the bills were being printed at a secret facility that I think is near the Mint. The paper was apparently being transported from the Mint to the location of the other press. The dies themselves look to be the real thing. Perhaps they’re spares that have been stolen or... borrowed.” She looked at me with a speculative air.

“It seems that a number of Federal employees are moonlighting on this, and I don’t think the citizens of the country would approve. At least, I don’t,” she said and then sighed deeply.

“Anyway, I followed a shipment of the bills that was being moved in an unmarked delivery van from DC to New York. The deliverymen off-loaded the pallets at a warehouse near the Hudson. I had to get smart and go sneaking into the building, and the first elevator I tried – ”

I grinned and interjected, “Wasn’t like any elevator you’d ever been in before.”

She looked disgusted, “No, it wasn’t. I ended up on some moon of, I think, Jupiter.”

“I went there,” I interjected. “It was amazing. The view of Jupiter coming up over the horizon was like nothing I’d ever imagined. Wait a minute, didn’t you say you were captured in Greece?”

“If you can just forget what you thought I said,” she said sarcastically, “I’d like to continue with more important things.” She paused to see if I was going to talk again.

I have that effect on women. I don’t know what it is, but I often seem to bring out the worst in them.

She continued, “It wasn’t in Greece. It was on Io, a moon of Jupiter. At least, that’s what moon I think it was. Maybe you simply heard Io and assumed Greece. But, let me go on.” She looked to ensure I wasn’t going to interrupt and then said, “There was a mess of Pugs there, and they grabbed me immediately. I don’t know where they thought I was from, but they were puzzled enough to hold on to me and investigate rather than killing me out-of-hand.”

I interjected, “I was lucky, then. The place was empty when I poked my head out.”

She continued, “From what I’ve gathered, they’re meaning to take over the Earth, but they don’t seem to have the force to invade directly.” She sighed again and looked at the wall. “I think that their overall strategy might be to create a series of financial crises that disorganize us and create internal problems. If governments were fighting internal battles for power, it might be possible for the Pugs to force us to a tipping point where they would be able to take control without too much risk. Who knows, they may have done this before. They certainly seem to know what they’re doing, and they are sticking to what looks like a long-term plan. We’d better figure out a way to counter them fast, or we might end up as slaves or,” she shuddered, “cattle.”

Well, I’d once read a quote from some famous investor who remarked that “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.” That’s exactly what happens in really bad monetary crises. It was beginning to look like the Pugs and possibly some unknown members of our government were trying to create a financial storm by dropping even more worthless currency on the population than normal. It seemed like they were trying to discover exactly how stupid humans could be.

You can figure out roughly how safe a bank is by looking at its liquidity. One way of doing that is to calculate how much cash it has on hand as a percentage of customer deposits. Banks don’t actually pile up stacks of paper money these days; they simply have electronic records of deposits with the central banks. In general, the more cash the bank has on hand, the safer it is because, in a financial crisis, people always panic and want to withdraw cold, hard cash in physical form.

In a crisis, banks bleed cash, and if the government doesn’t close them with a banking “holiday,” the bleeding will look like a cut jugular vein. The reverse of this problem involves creating so much physical cash in circulation that it begins to lose value. In that case, Gresham’s Law comes into play, and people will horde other stores of value, such as precious metals, drugs, food, and probably ammunition. Those types of valuables will become the desired medium of exchange.

Banks, on the other hand, really don’t have any business hoarding ammunition, so they’ll try to raise as much cash as they can to meet the increased demand. If they are poorly run and don’t have the necessary reserves, they’ll start liquidating assets such as loans, stock, and even shares of the bank itself. The only problem with that process is in a full-blown crisis, one never gets the true value of the asset. Everything goes at a huge discount. This means that the banks with thin reserves will either go out of business or go to the government for a bail-out.

The Pugs didn’t even have to be very good planners. We’d shown them the easiest way to disrupt our society with the crash and bail-out of 2009. The only thing that would make it worse would be to somehow destroy all electronic records of finances. I didn’t know it then, but we later found out the Pugs were working on that. My general conclusion was that using financial disruption as a means to take over was only too possible.

Just at that point, my stomach rumbled. Liz laughed and walked into the kitchen, shooing me out when I followed. I heard some cooking noises, and shortly after that, some really interesting smells came wafting out. I was trying to ignore my hunger by working on some satellite recon with the aid of a reasonably fast computer and an anonymous Internet connection.

I was afraid, and rightfully so, as it turned out, the Internet was compromised, and any open inquiries might be monitored, not only by NSA but by other entities as well. Our location was protected by the encryption system that was in place.

Shortly, Liz came in to get me. We returned to the kitchen and had a satisfying meal. I kidded her about her cooking ability, and she feigned embarrassment, but I could tell that she was pleased that I liked the food. She simply hadn’t scrounged up any old thing. She’d fixed a complete Italian meal with spaghetti and meatballs and a great Greek salad. Unfortunately, this really wasn’t the time or place to open a bottle of Chianti, even though there actually was one sitting on one of the pantry shelves.

We looked at each other across the table, laughing a little as we sat down and tucked into the food. We were both tense from our various escapes, but as we started to eat, we began to relax. I think food tastes better if I take the time to enjoy it. I found out long ago that eating slowly helps burn off the stress of action. We were really hungry, so we kept our heads down and stayed too involved in eating to carry on much conversation.

When we were done, we went back to the computer, and, this time, Liz helped by giving me the locations of the few transport stations that she knew of. She was reasonably certain of the locations. The one or two that she was dubious about, we flagged with question marks. In our travels today and her prior captivity, she’d gone through some parts of the system more than once, and she had a good memory for that sort of thing.

The pattern that started to emerge was patchy, but its implications were chilling. The aliens seemed to be covering a large part of the globe. Most of the transporters Liz and I had seen were in New York. If other cities in the United States had as many, it implied that there were a lot of transporters in the network.

She had no idea if they had spread evenly across the country or if the west coast was also involved. We decided that we’d better presume that the Pugs were everywhere and work on that assumption.

We were speculating about the pattern and what to do next when I unexpectedly kissed her again. This action was met with only token protest. My heart rate skyrocketed as her arms went around my neck.

My reactions seemed funny to me because I had never really encountered a woman with whom I’d had such an instant connection. Thinking about it, I guess I had unreasonable expectations. It always seemed that there was no girl next door who fit into my rather active and dangerous lifestyle. The women that I had met were, for the most part, either actively working for the opposition or were basically incompatible with my subconscious image of a mate. She wasn’t. In fact, she seemed to be all that I’d ever dreamed of. I only hoped that I was as attractive to her as she was to me.

Quite sometime later, after we calmed down, we managed to make a decision about going back into the transporter system. She was of the opinion that we had no choice.

Liz said, “Look, the aliens are obviously dangerous, and they don’t mean us well. It’s up to us to see if there’s anything we can do.”

“I’m game,” I responded. “Let’s see what we can find out, but let’s get equipped first.”

Liz took a large briefcase that was already stocked with a UMP, a Glock 9MM pistol, four frag grenades, and a new tool that I’d not used before. It was a state-of-the-art laser projector that could be adjusted momentarily from a modest flashlight-like mode to an intense weapon beam that would burn skin and instantly burn out the retina of any eye that happened to be in its way. In the high-power mode, the laser was almost invisible. There was barely enough visible light to aid in aiming over a medium distance.

I found another one of the lasers and put it in my bag, along with my UMP and a couple of additional full magazines for the gun. I lightened her load by taking two of her four grenades. They went into the bag. Then I arranged a towel to cover all of the weaponry from prying eyes.

In our work mapping the system, she had remembered that there were a couple of transporters nearby. They were not far from Times Square.