"It is getting a little crowded in here," said El Jeffe as a nearly continuous line of base personnel came up the stairs and onto the upper platform.
"Sgt. Ortiz," El Jeffe said to a soldier in uniform. "Go down to the next floor and stop anyone, except for the returning officers and their escort, from coming up here. Direct them into that disused office and assign a squad to clean it up and make it into a conference room, or as best they can. Send the rest back to their quarters to get some sleep. They are going to need it. Everybody on parade for 0800 hrs, where I will address them and allocate work details."
He turned to face the room.
"That applies to everyone in here. Unless you have been explicitly requested to stay, you are dismissed."
Most of the men began to move out, and we sat down. A couple of men started to remove the remains of Roberto.
"Can I retrieve Roberto's memory core?" Joe asked. "I want to find out who Roberto has been in contact with."
El Jeffe nodded, and Joe bundled up the electronic device.
"We must pool our knowledge," said El Jeffe, before we make our plans for defence. Let's start at the beginning."
"Joe, you were the main architect of the original airfield. Any reason why you chose this particular spot?
"Yes," Joe said. "It was the site of the portal exit when I first entered World One. Not only that, but I discovered that the portal had exited at a portal interface, a kind of crossroads where different portal routes intersect.
"I found a way to access the interface and set other portal routes, principally back to England during the Battle of Britain in 1940, where I could gather the memories of the RAF pilots for my scheme.
"Also, to import the aircraft and associated specialised equipment, including building materials, we needed. I had contacted the leader of the underground human community, a man called Marco, who provided the labour for the construction."
"Did you also install a defence system?" asked El Jeffe, "And how did it work?"
"On the extremely rare occasions when a surveillance drone passed over this area, I was able to instantly transfer the entire airfield and everything in it to a holding dimension. I merely had to press a button to initiate the temporary transfer, and we would be entirely undetectable from the air.
"The problem was that it required a huge amount of power to operate, and we could only sustain it for a limited time. That was usually enough, but once, only, a drone circled back for some reason, and I had to shoot it down with my Hurricane fighter aircraft, like I did when we first landed here.
"I have since learnt that information was passed down. If someone spotted a surveillance drone, the procedure was to press the red button. No one knew what action it triggered, only that it worked. Without evidence, someone suggested it probably activated some sort of protective screen, and that theory evolved into the standard explanation. I think that explains why you so readily accepted the fictional code as the reason why I evaded detection so readily when we first arrived. I guess they were too embarrassed to push it further."
"Correct," said El Jeffe with a smile.
At that moment, Rogers, Jarvis, and Mcloud appeared at the door with the six rescued officers. Jarvis decided they could not trust the platform to bear Sol's weight, and he had been left on guard at the bottom of the steps.
El Jeffe greeted them individually with an embrace, and we found them places to sit. They all looked thin and exhausted, and although they were all unshaven, I could easily make out the features of the real Roberto that the android had mimicked. There was some attempted conversation, but El Jeffe saw they needed to shower and rest and sent them back to quarters.
I asked Joe a question.
"I appreciate your explanation of how the airfield is defended, Joe, as a reason why the machines have never attacked in force, but have you also considered the possibility that the machines know this area has strategic value as a portal interface?
And a direct bombing attack risks destroying the interface? Instead, they decide to try to take control through infiltration. We have no idea who else might be an agent here besides Roberto. "It is certainly possible that we have traitors among us. We know that somebody attached a tracking device to the Skytrain, and they are still at large."
Everybody shifted uncomfortably.
"There is another tactical move that the machines could make," I continued. "They could try to seal off the airfield's dimensional access. I do not know if that could be done, but it would block off our access to other dimensions, and we would be trapped here."
"We must not allow ourselves to be overwhelmed with theories and predictions," said El Jeffe. "Tomorrow morning, I will address my men and inform them of the current situation. The first task is to reinforce our defences. The perimeter fence must be secured against a possible ground attack, but if they do send a force against us, it is more likely to come from the air. All available aircraft will be overhauled and armed. Joe, your help here would be invaluable. Also in pilot training. Authority must be delegated whenever possible. We cannot have the expertise of key personnel wasted on routine tasks.
"But for the moment, we rest. Get some sleep. We reconvene in the offices below at 0730. From now onwards, this is to be our command centre. "Good night, gentlemen."
#
The next morning at 0630, I was awakened by Joe with a cup of coffee. He wanted to speak to me before the morning meeting. Soon, the whole crew was up, and after a makeshift breakfast, we headed back to the control tower. The cleaning team had done a good job of the former office area, which was set up like a briefing room with a long table on a stage and rows of chairs in front. El Jeffe was already there with his officers, who were much more alert than they had been a few hours earlier.
I was appointed the official leader of our group, with Jarvis as second in command. The other three were given officer status, and Sol, our official bodyguard, had full security access.
I approached El Jeffe and asked if I could make a vitally important announcement before the meeting started. He looked a little puzzled but agreed. I asked Joe, who was carrying a metal box in his hand, to join us on the platform.
"Good morning, gentlemen," and a special welcome to El Jeffe's officers, to whom we will formally introduce ourselves shortly. What I have to say now is of the greatest possible importance for the security of ourselves and the airfield. Last night, El Jeffe disposed of the enemy android who was posing as Roberto."
I nodded in the direction of the real Roberto.
"At the time, Joe requested that he be allowed to remove and interrogate the android's memory circuits, and he will now give us the results. Joe?"
I gestured for him to stand up, and I sat down next to El Jeffe.
"Good morning," Joe said to the group. "For those who do not know me, my name is Joe Johnson, and I was part of the resistance in an alternative form of this reality. A reality we refer to as World One. The reality we now inhabit, we call World Two.
"In the early hours of this morning, I managed to access and decode the memory banks of the enemy android. Much of it was routine and what I expected to see until I came to the daily reports he sent back to his masters. The content was much as one would expect from an enemy agent, but the interesting part was the identity of the recipient of these updates. Through my work in the resistance, I have become entirely familiar with the radio wave bands used by the machines. They are fixed and never change."
He paused.
"The android was not transmitting his reports on any of these bandwidths."
There was a murmur of surprise from the group.
"The android was transmitting on a channel on the very edge of the spectrum, one I have
never before encountered. In short, the Android was not transmitting to the machines but to another master.
"Gentlemen, we are facing an enemy of which we know nothing, and by the ease with which they sent in the supporting soldiers and equipment, including the sophisticated stasis-like machines which were installed almost instantaneously, they must be a very formidable opponent."
El Jeffe had gone a deathly white. And he rose unsteadily to his feet.
"It is as I feared," he said, crossing himself. "This is not a mortal enemy; we have demons in our midst, and they will destroy us."