The Cattle

Praise for Greg M. Sarwa’s writing

Author Greg Sarwa’s style has an ineffable quality that is the mark of great writing. Deceptively simple, his storytelling combines a poetic air with clear-eyed practicality…

…will keep the readers engrossed in the story right from the word go, filling them with suspense and a sense of anticipation as to what will happen next. This is a book not to be missed...

BookWire Review

…this story is well-written, action packed and easy to follow. Readers will enjoy the frenetic pace of the story with its fascinating twists and turns.

Dana Blozis, ForeWord CLARION reviews

…runs a range of vibrant emotions without ever sinking into the maudlin or the melodramatic. It's a good, strong story which tugs at the heartstrings and at times tickles the funny bone…Well written, well paced and significantly insightful, Sarwa’s novel is well worth reading.

M. Wayne Cunningham, ForeWord Magazine

I guarantee that you will not be able to put down this novel once you begin to read it.

Alan Caruba, Editor, Bookviews.com

Sarwa’s writing is sprinkled with some vivid detail and his characters are nicely drawn and distinctive.

Norm Goldman, Bookpleasures.com

Well-written and balanced in descriptive scenes, dialogue, and plot, it is a page-turner I didn’t want to put down. But then, neither did I want the tale to end…

This novel is the best soul mate story I have ever read.

Heather Froeschl, Bookreviews.com

Sarwa, of Northbrook, does a fine job of keeping the suspense hovering.

Joanne Zerkel, Star Newspapers

…it's a soul-touching story that you will never forget.

Another Review at MyShelf.Com

The best writing causes you to suspend your most fundamental principles of disbelief and that is what happened to me when I read this book.

Charles Ashbacher, Amazon Top 50 Reviewer

The Cattle

Greg M. Sarwa

The Cattle by Greg M. Sarwa

Copyright © 2005 Ampol Publishing

All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without written authorization from the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Editing by Sue Carol Nussbaum & James K. Bowers Book design by Fiona Raven

Smashwords Edition

Published by Ampol Publishing

This book is available in print at most online retailers ISBN 978-0615690124

Discover other titles by Greg M. Sarwa at Smashwords.com:

If only I could…

The Valley of Silent People

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Acknowledgments

A Note from the Author

About the Author

This book is dedicated to my wife Monika.

Thanks for being.

Applied Digital Solutions, an e-business to business solutions provider, has acquired the patent rights to the miniature digital transceiver it has named Digital Angel. The company plans to market the device for a number of uses, including use as a tamperproof means of identification for enhanced e-business security."

Digital Angel is capable of sending and receiving data and can be continuously tracked by global positioning satellite technology. When implanted in a human body, the device is powered electromechanically through the movement of muscles and can be activated either by the wearer or by a monitoring facility.

2000 WorldNetDaily.com

Delray Beach. Fl and South St. Paul, Mn Applied Digital (Nasdaq: ADSX), a provider of Security Through Innovation and Digital Angel Corporation (Amex: DOC) announced today that VeriChip, the world’s first implantable radio frequency identification (RFID) microchip for human use, has been cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for medical uses in the United States.

VeriChip press release, October 13, 2004

Little-noticed new rule raises fears of National ID Card. Washington privacy advocates worry that provisions buried in the intelligence bill that President Bush is scheduled to sign today will lead to a national identification card.

Chicago Sun Times, December 17, 2004

U.S. House passes though Immigration Law. The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a controversial new law that would toughen regulations regarding the issuing of driver’s licenses, and make it easier for judges to deport illegal immigrants suspected of U.S. links with terrorism.

With a vote of 261 to 161, the House approved the Real ID Act, taking what the bill’s Republican sponsors describe as an important step in safeguarding Americans against future terrorist attacks.

Voice of America, February 10, 2005

The function of science fiction is not always to predict the future but sometimes to prevent it.

— Frank Herbert (1920-1986)

Sometime, in the very near future…

Chapter 1

Sunday 2:59 pm

Sunshine and shadows darted and danced on the silver fuselages of countless machines, suspended in mid-air, like a swarm of bees trying to find their way back to the hive. It was a typical bright June afternoon.

Brian Warburton was driving back to the air terminal where he worked as a computer programmer. He was on a short break from work, and had stopped at home to take a quick snooze before returning.

It’s going to be another beautiful evening at work, he thought to himself.

Brian loved his work. He felt an almost infinite love for his computers, but the feeling was not mutual. Sometimes, but not too often, he felt that he’d had enough of them. This was especially so, lately. His disaffection was generally caused by too much overtime work, the stress of short deadlines, and the need to have everything working perfectly. He knew that the pressures would go away, eventually, but right now he was tired; he needed to rest.

Freaking job, he thought, walking through the bright, wide but crowded corridor of O’Hare’s Terminal number 5. I hope there won’t be any power outage tonight. The last couple of days had been terrible. Out of nowhere, they started to have problems with the electric generators that were supposed to provide power for the computer system.

That’s really stupid. The servers can be damaged by something like this, he complained to his boss every time it happened, but no one seemed to be listening to him.

Brian was trying to get through the crowd of passengers who, with their luggage at their sides, were waiting for something to happen. Next, he passed through a group of children who, becoming impatient and not having anything better to do, started a competition to see who could make the highest pitched noise. Lastly, he had to make his way through a large group of Transport Security Agency employees, who were about to give up on trying to keep order in the hallway.

Where, the hell, are all those people coming from? He wondered.

But he knew exactly where they were coming from. Ever since employees of the Department of Homeland Security, the Transportation Safety Agency, the National Guard and the Chicago Police Department started working side by side, a few months ago, to manage the large crowds of people trying to enter the United States, there was utter chaos in the airport. To expedite processing such a large number of people and to help the overworked staff, they brought in extra workers who were inexperienced in the screening process.

After they implemented the new law, this hell-fire was unleashed. It was bad before, he thought—but not that bad. Even the oldest and most experienced Immigration veterans didn’t remember anything like this happening before. Not ever. It was a deluge of people. It looked like everybody scheduled his or her meetings at the same time and in the same city. Everyone was trying to get things done before tomorrow’s deadline, not understanding or wanting to hear that it wouldn’t matter at all.

Arriving commercial planes were coming in full. Of course, there was overbooking, so even if someone had a ticket it didn’t always guarantee a flight. For those leaving the country, it was just as bad. There were quite a few people trying to get out of this place. The whole airport seemed to be crazy; everyone was trying to get his or her business done and everyone wanted to be first. People had to wait in line for more than three hours to be interviewed by Immigration.

A circus! Not enough people working and too many wanting to enter. It was a total mess.

He finally made it to the side doors with the sign that read: AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY.

Hi, Brian, said the uniformed man standing at the door, looking at the crowd. Don’t you have anything better to do than come here on Sunday?

It is what it is. He wasn’t in the mood to make chitchat. Somebody has to work, so that those who don’t can get some rest and all the honors.

I know, I know. Tomorrow’s the big day. Have fun.

I’m sure I will.

His authorization took a second. Instead of an old, often malfunctioning magnetic strip reader, there was a recess in the wall, on the right side of the door, resembling a through-the-door icemaker and water spigot in a refrigerator. This was the newest generation reader for checking one’s identity. The unmarked square opening was big enough to easily accommodate a human hand, up to the middle of the forearm. A special scanner was installed inside of this housing. It authorized certain personnel to gain access to certain parts of the airport. No doors would open if the authorization wasn’t read and programmed into the system and checked against the existing database.

Brian put his right arm into the opening and the door clicked open. He now had access to one of the long, winding hallways, which had many anonymous doors on each side. He stopped at the door to the elevator. Two floors down and three more checkpoints like this and he could finally find peace with his best friends, his computers. He had called them his friends since the seventh grade, when he learned how to assemble one at school. More often than not, he felt better among processors and whirring hard disks than with real people.

The main system room was in good order; no detail was left to chance and it was absolutely sterile. Everything was where it should be; there were and would be no accidents because Brian was a perfectionist; he liked it this way. Actually, he didn’t have to come here today, if he had decided otherwise. It wasn’t necessary. All modules were ready and working. The only thing he wanted to do was to check them again, run some tests and be sure that everything would work as designed. He knew that if the need arose, he could check it all out in fifteen minutes or even wait until tomorrow morning, but he was trying to avoid any surprises. He wanted to be sure that when the system started running, it would run without any glitches. This had to work perfectly. His reputation was at stake. One more time, he systematically began running additional tests on all modules and applications even though the whole system was designed to be self-testing and self-correcting.

While he was working, he had a tendency to shut out the rest of the world. During these times, everything he cared about was on the monitor’s screen; nothing else mattered. He fixed his attention on the computer screen and didn’t react to anything that was happening in the outside world, with almost no exceptions. Sometimes, even if there was something going on, something that caused him to be thrown off balance, like now, he wouldn’t notice at first. He suddenly realized that his eyes were beginning to hurt. When he realized this fact, he was surprised. Usually, if his eyes hurt him, it was after long hours at the computer, not after just a few minutes, like now. This is strange; what’s happening? He began to realize that there was a reason for his pain—but a different one. All the lamps in the room were dancing as if to techno music, but there was no music present. What in the hell is going on? Suddenly, it got dark. All the lamps went out and the darkness of the room was lit only by the monitor’s pale glow. In a short