Clear Water, Hidden Danger

Chapter 23 - The Jackson Protocol – Part 2

The power flickered twice in the secure room before stabilizing. Not a grid issue. A resonance issue. The damn frequencies were starting to bleed into the wiring again.

Major Jeremy Jackson didn’t look up.

He sat at the tactical table, elbows braced on steel, hands folded beneath his chin. The small monitor in front of him replayed the footage he’d already watched three times since dawn.

Subject CW-27.
Real name: Rodney Lightfoot Johnson.

Zero Node.

His jaw flexed once — the only hint of what he felt.

Captain Deacon swallowed hard. “Sir… Commander Mills wants to know why you diverted the drive instead of giving it to him.”

Jackson didn’t blink. “Because Commander Mills doesn’t understand what he’s holding.”

Behind him, Captain Shava Bilew-Jackson stood with arms crossed, tension tightening the muscles along her jaw. Her expression didn’t pale — it sharpened, eyes narrowing with a dread she refused to voice.

The low hum filled the room — a vibration under the concrete, through the wiring, behind the bones.

Captain Feddeler entered last.

Calm. Slow. Controlled.
A logistics man to the marrow.

He set a folder on the table.

“Sir,” he said quietly. “Update from the grid tunnels. Wells 27 through 30 are active again.”

Shava stiffened. “Active how?”

Feddeler opened the folder.

Inside were heat maps — pulsing in circles, radiating out like ripples in dark water.

“Twenty-seven is resonating,” Feddeler said. “Everything south of the Clear Water Plant is syncing to it.”

Jackson’s eyes narrowed. “Reaction or initiation?”

Feddeler hesitated — rare for him.

“Sir… it’s following him.”

Silence hit the room like a weight.

Shava stepped forward. “You mean RJ? It’s tracking Johnson specifically?”

“Yes,” Feddeler said. “The pattern matches Zero Node pairing. He’s the only successful synchronization we’ve ever recorded.”

Deacon pinched the bridge of his nose. “We should have terminated that program in 2018…”

“No,” Shava said sharply. “If we had, we’d have no one left who can interface with the node.”

Jackson closed the folder.

“Johnson doesn’t know what he is yet,” he said. “But that footage — the 2018 sweep — will trigger dormant memory pathways.”

Feddeler stepped beside him and tapped the screen.

The video showed:

• RJ strapped to the metal chair
• Electrodes pulsing
• His heartbeat syncing to the tone
• His brainwave signature locking into perfect harmonics
• The moment his identity was wiped clean
• And the final classification:

SUBJECT CW-27 – ACCEPTABLE.
RELEASE TO CIVIL NODE FOR LONG-TERM MONITORING.

Shava whispered, “We wiped him clean… then placed him on top of our most volatile transmitter. Jesus.”

Jackson finally leaned back.

“We didn’t place him there,” he said quietly.
“The system called him back.”

Deacon frowned. “System? Sir, with respect—”

“Look at the heat map,” Jackson growled.

Feddeler brought up the current data.

The pulses were converging — all frequency drift across the countryside bending toward a single point.

The Clear Water Plant.

WH27.

“And look here,” Feddeler added, switching the overlay.

RJ’s last known biometric signature — from his old StratCom employment record — appeared.

The frequencies matched.

Perfectly.

Shava’s voice cracked. “He’s the anchor.”

“No,” Jackson said.
“He’s the key.”

He stood and activated the full-scale map of Nebraska.

A red circle expanded outward from CW27.

Zerker clusters, faint but rising, moved like murmurs in the dark.

Not toward cities.

Not toward bases.

Toward him.

Deacon stepped back. “Sir… if they’re syncing to him—”

“It means two possibilities,” Jackson said, voice flat as old steel.

“One: they won’t harm him.”

The room froze.

“And two?”

Jackson stared at the map.

“Two:
He can command them.”

A beat of stunned silence.

Feddeler cleared his throat — the first sign of fear he’d ever shown.

“Major… if Johnson opens that drive — if he remembers who he was — he might reestablish full synchronization.”

Jackson nodded once.
Slow. Heavy.

“That’s the point.”

Shava’s voice shook. “But if he can’t control it—”

“Then the core transmitter will,” Jackson finished. “And the Zerkers will do exactly what ECHO was built for.”

He didn’t say the last part aloud.

Human weapons.
Directed.
Obedient.
Without fear or fatigue.

Instead:

“We pray he remembers the right part of himself.”

They stood in the low hum, the walls trembling like a heartbeat buried under concrete.

Feddeler spoke softly, almost reluctantly.

“Sir… if he’s Zero Node… then every Zerker within ten miles is already listening.”

Jackson met his gaze.

“Oh, Captain.
They’re all listening.”

========================================
ANONYMOUS FIELD LOG — ENTRY BRAVO
CLASSIFIED — PROJECT ECHO CLEARANCE REQUIRED:
NLC command confirmed Zero Node status after reviewing heat-map convergence showing Phase III Reactive clusters tracking directly toward the Anchor’s historic harmonics. Internal briefing revealed full Neural Cleanse retention and perfect synchronization in archival footage, validating Jackson’s hypothesis that mnemonic resurfacing will occur once CW-27 drive is activated. Officer reactions mixed; Jackson remains the only steady vector. Southern conduit behavior suggests system anticipation rather than coincidence. Operational assessment: either the Anchor reestablishes command authority over the network or the core transmitter overrides him entirely. Embedded cover remains unbroken; observation continues.