“So how is it coming along?” She asked Rashid.
“It's all in place. I've split them into the series of teams you asked for and they're all on stand-by”
“Great, once we start, we won't have much time, so we need to be efficient” She said with a pleased look in her eye, “I'll let you know straight away when we start, it won't be long. I just need to put a few more things in place. Have you located our first contact?”
“Yes, we have all the contacts’ locations, we've had surveillance on them for the last week, so far they are all untouched” Rashid said standing to leave, “Ma'am?”
“Yes?”
“I'm glad we're fighting this, I think I speak for all of us when I say that” He replied smiling.
Rashid rarely smiled, so this was quite unexpected. She smiled back, they both knew what was at stake for humanity and felt they had to fight for what was right. Rashid left, closing the door behind him and Sheryl checked the last few documents. She wanted to make sure that there was no clue about their whereabouts once they left. The Elite would check every tiny detail once she went missing, and she had to make sure there was nothing left behind. She was trying to make it look like she had been kidnapped, so that it threw them off the scent for as long as possible. They were ready to stage an 'accident' not far from her company building. Overturned vehicles, gun shots sprayed across them, the occupants having been taken against their will.
They were going to be extracting Gina, Emma and Jarrah by armoured vehicle. They had the equipment they needed transporting with them, and it had to be kept safe and secure. These were the extractions that were most likely to draw attention, but there was no other way to do them while keeping them protected. Everyone else was to be given instructions to meet at a central point. They'd have to make their way there themselves, it would be less conspicuous, and Sheryl's guards would be waiting to transport them onwards. The only exception was James, as he lived too far out and couldn't drive, so she had to have a team ready to pick him up from his home. The laptop on her desk beeped into life and she could see she had a message. She clicked on a few icons that flicked her through to the secure channel, the communication path for her fellow resistance fighters. An elderly man appeared on the other end, he was in his late sixties, but as animated as a twenty-year-old.
“Bill, nice to see you're okay” Sheryl said.
Bill was another financier of the resistance, there were many of them that had been in secret communication, and they were each building their own team to fight back. The idea was to be a close-knit but completely separated set of teams that would operate in the same way, fighting the same fight. The advantage of them being spread out, working as a network but from different locations, was that they didn't know where the others were stationed. No one could give up another team, either accidentally or not. Their multi-pronged attacks would be co-ordinated, from different positions, designed to surprise and confuse the Elite.
“Are you close to getting out?” Bill asked.
“Just about yes, we'll be making our move today. I had to be careful as we think we had some eyes on us. I wanted to make sure there are no suspicious movements. Anything I do differently would have been noticed, so it's crucial to make all the moves at once” She replied.
“Ok, that's great to hear. We've been here for two days now, we've started engineering, so expect to be up and running by next week” Bill said excitedly.
Bill was an army veteran, the past wars he'd been in still pumping through his veins and the whole world was now in the territory he was familiar with.
“I'll send you a message as soon as we all reach safety, until then best of luck to you and your team Bill”
“And Godspeed to you, we'll all be praying for your safe passage” He replied, before ceremoniously saluting like he always did and killing the signal.
Each team was going to be made up of a range of scientists and experts in different disciplines, trying to cover the whole spectrum of skills and knowledge they required. The plan was for each team to build a small space-craft, its sole purpose was to be launched into the atmosphere, locate a communications satellite, and destroy it. Each team would be positioned in a different place around the planet, to single out different satellites. Eventually this would stop any internet signals from being transmitted back down, freeing the enslaved billions. It was an ambitious plan, but it was one that might just work.
Sheryl had already thought of a backup plan too, she didn't want to rely on this one-trick pony. If it failed then there would be a very long scrappy drawn out war, which the Elite were bound to eventually win. She had to think beyond this, and so was assembling a larger team with an extra set of skills.
They had found a brilliant engineering physicist a few weeks back and he was instantly someone Sheryl wanted on her team, his name was Jarrah. He was perfect because not only was his profession and adeptness what they needed, he had a large circle of professional friends, from experts in robotics to genetics, and someone they were most interested in, Monique. Together they had a large network of trusted friends, and they would know who else could be trusted. More importantly, as they had known each other for between ten and twenty years, they would be able to reach out to them safely and get them to join. It was paramount to have a tight trustworthy team, one with no weak spots.
Jarrah had been informed
