Afternoon tea, and that’s it? I’m protesting in my head.
“An old trick of mine I learned after years of traveling on military transports,” he’s happy to explain. “The first thing you do is find something halfway comfortable to sit inside like a Humvee. A helicopter. A tank. Especially if you’re flying halfway around the world.”
“I guess there’s no real food because you’re worried about me getting motion sickness, which is more likely to happen on an empty stomach,” I’m disappointed, a bit miffed. “And more to the point, it isn’t supposed to happen to begin with considering my enhancements.”
“I’m not worried about you being motion sick.”
“Then why skip lunch? Why not ask whoever left the tea also to include food?” I’m tempted to add that the commander of Space Force should be able to request anything he wants. “There’s probably nothing for us in the galley either,” I already know the answer, and Dick shakes his head, nope, not a morsel.
I don’t mean to be a crank but the last I ate was when Mom fixed me two fried egg sandwiches before I left the house, and that was a long time ago. It would have been nice to grab lunch in the White House mess hall before we headed out. But there wasn’t time, Dick mandated.
He said, and I quote, “You don’t keep a 140-ton military tactical transporter waiting while you order a turkey rueben even if it’s to go.”
“I said you’d be upset with me,” Dick sips his tea. “I’ve held off telling you for as long as I could in hopes of making it easier. But the fact is you can’t have anything else today, nothing tonight or in the morning. Nothing to eat before the launch except clear fluids, maybe crackers. And after that it’s space food, some of which you’ve had before.”
“Probably while I was locked up at Dodd Hall,” I connect the dots. “Like the bags of space punch. You probably had me eating reconstituted space food that I don’t remember.”
“Your mom and I had a discussion about whether you should have those fried egg sandwiches this morning,” Dick says, his phone in hand like always, monitoring messages.
“What did she do, text you about it?” as I think, Are you kidding?
“Actually . . . ,” he hesitates, and that’s exactly what my mother did.
“Do I get to decide anything on my own anymore?” I’m incredulous, annoyed and secretly flattered.
“Penny pointed out that whether you ate or not this morning, it was risky either way,” as if they were discussing surgery instead of breakfast. “As important as the White House briefing was, better to make sure your blood sugar didn’t drop.”
“Which it does more than it used to,” I admit, taking the blankets from him.
I begin unfolding them, draping one over his lap, the other over mine, sitting side by side like roomies again inside our private space. Our view is the wiper blades parked askew on the windscreen, the dimly lit steel fuselage filled with big darkly silhouetted shapes, and in the distance the cockpit glows like a light at the end of a tunnel.
“Hunger is a powerful thing,” Dick says. “I’m sorry if your appetites are out of whack,” as if it’s not just food we’re talking about. “There have been a number of things to adjust with Carme too.”
“It’s like the volume is lower in some areas,” I reply, “and higher in others. That’s how it feels,” and it’s not a subject I’m eager to discuss with him.
“Well, clearly something needs to be adjusted,” he decides as if we’re talking about a misfiring carburetor. “Probably your hypothalamus. But I’m no doctor.”
“Then maybe don’t guess about things like that,” I suggest.
By now the pilots have begun firing up the 4 engines, and if we weren’t sitting here with the helicopter doors shut, I’d suggest hearing protection.
“How about some nice hot tea?” Dick says. “You can have all of that you want,” pouring himself a cup.
“Not helpful. You know what happens,” I remind him. “What’s the bathroom like on this thing? I prefer to avoid it if possible. It would be like tromping out into the cold to use a steel outhouse, and no thank you.”
00:00:00:00:0
“HERE,” Dick hands me the steaming cup. “A few sips, and if you have to hit the loo? Just remind yourself that won’t be a problem soon enough,” he nudges me with his elbow the way Carme does, the way he used to do when she and I were kids.
“You mean when I’m wearing a diaper again,” I reply.
“There are some advantages to our humiliations.”
“That’s probably not one of them,” trying the tea, I taste honey and lemon, the way he’s always taken it for as long as I’ve known him.
As we talk in the near dark, I ask him to be honest. We’re way beyond being coy or disingenuous, and I don’t need him sitting on details that might cause me to walk off the job.
“Is it possible Neva could know about the PEQUOD, the MOBE? If so, for how long? And might she have similar technologies?” I get to the point. “Or what if she has more advanced ones?” and it’s a very bad thought as I prepare to face off with whatever rogue spacecraft she’s dispatched to screw the rest of us.
“We’ve kept the technologies as off grid as any project we’ve ever done. But with her there’s always a chance for anything,” Dick tops off his tea, and I don’t know where he puts it. “The short answer is we don’t know the extent of her capabilities. We can’t say for sure that she doesn’t have a secret spaceship that’s been weaponized.”
“One that’s attacking our satellites at the moment and about to strike again apparently,” I’m sitting with my feet up on the helicopter seat, my arms around my knees, the blanket over me.
“For starters, very possibly she’s behind it,” Dick agrees, the C-17 lumbering along the runway as we take off. “And yes, it’s my suspicion that she’s doing all of this, intending to monopolize everything she can.”
“So much for getting to take my Chase Plane on a test spin,” I reply. “Or even seeing it in the showroom beyond the photograph of it in the hangar. By this time tomorrow I’ll be orbiting in GEO, piloting a spaceship I’ve never been in before and didn’t know existed except in white papers, schematics and my imagination.”
“There’s nothing you haven’t done countless times in the simulators, and a lot of those very programs are the ones you wrote. Or you and your dad did,” Dick reminds me. “I wouldn’t allow you to do this if I didn’t think you were up to the task, Calli.”
“I don’t know why you’re so confident.”
“Because I know who and what you are a lot better than you do,” he says, the C-17 picking up speed, pushing us down in our seats as we lift steeply with a roar worthy of a tornado.
“At the end of the day,” I resume when it’s quieter, “what happens if I get up there and don’t find anything? What if after all this we’re no closer to discovering what’s happening to our satellites? What if I can’t prevent our new spy satellite from being the next casualty? And I let everybody down.”
“You have a chance of detecting things from up there that we can’t from here,” he repeats, “because of the AI-assisted quantum computing capabilities, and the conductive skin among other things.”
My Chase Plane’s sensors will work in concert with my own, giving me an enhanced signal-detection sensitivity that should pick up on pretty much any intruder. With ART’s assistance once we reach GEO, we’ll be orbiting the Earth in a vehicle that has spectrum analysis capabilities.
In a sense, it won’t be all that different from my doing pirouettes as I scan with a mobile antenna. It’s just I’ll be some 35,000 kilometers (21,700 miles) above the Earth, scanning a much bigger area really fast, and with exponentially more at stake.
“The other thing to remember?” Dick adds. “
Part of the objective is to put the PEQUOD and MOBE through their paces. To see if they’re all they’re cracked up to be.”
“I don’t like to hear the words if or cracked up right about now.”
“If all goes well,” and there he goes again, “then it will be a successful mission whether you find the target or not.”
“Let’s be honest, okay?” I’m warm beneath my blanket but my face is cold, and the seat hits my lower back exactly wrong. “The mission can’t be considered successful if our new spy satellite is the next casualty. Then what? A next, and a next? So, while it’s nice of you to act as if there’s no pressure, I know better.”
“Do you need to make a visit?” he opens his door to find the toilet.
“I’m fine.”
“I’ll be back in a few,” he gets out of the helicopter, and as soon as he’s dissolved into the shadows, I ask ART to go audible, placing my phone on top of my blanketed lap.
“What may I help you with?” and it’s nice to hear his voice again, sounding mellow but pleased as if he’s happy to hear from me.
“I’m sitting inside a helicopter that’s inside a C-17, and before that it was an Agusta and the White House,” I feel compelled to tell him as if catching up with a parent or a friend on Facebook.
“I don’t understand your question,” his response, and at disheartening moments like this I’m reminded that humans created ART and not the other way around.
He doesn’t exist separate and apart from Carme and me, those of us who are programmed to depend on him. Yet it doesn’t feel that way when he and I start talking. He seems as real as it gets while showing me all sorts of images in my lenses, and giving me alerts in my earpiece. None of it seems like it was anybody’s idea but his, and I could swear I’ve detected emotionality from him.
“I didn’t ask a question,” I let him know. “I was just talking the way friends do when they’re catching up.”
Silence. The throbbing noise of massive engines. The shudder of mild turbulence.
“You know, informing them, updating them,” I add. “Something you’ve not been doing with me, not today. I’ve heard very little from you and there’s been very little in the way of updates.”
What I’m getting at is I’d better not discover that ART was programmed to drop everybody (most of all me) like a hot potato the minute Dick comes around. I won’t be undervalued or invisible. I’m also not a cheap substitute because someone like my sister is unavailable.
Been there, done that, when the Conn Lacrosses of the world pay attention to me until something better comes along. Then suddenly I’m like Ranger in GHOST mode tagging along transparently. Nope, not happening. I’m not in high school anymore, and it’s not an option for me to be ignored because my artificial sidekick panders to someone who can’t sneeze without being saluted.
I don’t know who’s responsible for some of ART’s unfortunate ideas and attitudes. Maybe it’s Dick. Maybe Dad. Even Mom can be a tad old fashioned. But when I get my hand on the algorithms, I intend to make a few changes, and I pick up my phone, looking at it as if ART and I are FaceTiming.
“Is there a reason you’ve given me the silent treatment today?” I confront my blank display.
“It was my impression you weren’t to be unnecessarily distracted,” ART says.
“I don’t know who gave you that impression because it wasn’t me,” I let him know.
38
“I’M SORRY. What would you like to be updated about?” ART’s soothing voice might be slightly contrite.
“Status reports. How are things at home?” I inquire, and he shows me the live feed of police cars on our property, a state police helicopter circling.
It won’t be long before the media gets the scent of a huge story, and I worry what life will be like for all of us. How much more off-nominal can it get?
“Maybe send a text to Lex,” I decide, looking out the helicopter’s windscreen, watching for Dick, wondering if he knows I’m talking to ART.
“What would you like me to say?”
“Maybe tell Lex I’m checking on him, hoping he’s okay. I’m thinking about him,” and words like that have never been easy for me to say. “Maybe let Mom and Dad know the same thing. Also, Carme. And Fran. I know these last few days have been rough.”
“Wilco.”
“I assume there’s been no mention in the news or on social media about the White House briefing . . . Okay, shhhhh . . . !” I hush him as I make out Dick’s shadowy shape heading toward me.
“I don’t understand.”
“No more audio,” I lower my voice to a bare whisper. “I don’t want him hearing everything you and I talk about. He’s not listening right now, is he?”
Unauthorized, in a text.
“Has anything hit the media?” and ART links me to a news live feed I’m seeing in my lenses as Dick opens the door, the helicopter shaking as he climbs back in.
While Mason Dixon broadcasts his latest breaking news in front of a town house with the front door ajar, police everywhere . . .
“. . . Right here,” he points behind him in the video playing in my lenses, “that’s where this was going on, folks. An entire network of criminal activity involving illegal firearms, homemade bombs, all right here under our noses at the Dog Beach Marina and Villas . . .”
Dick rearranges his blanket, refilling his tea, and I don’t mention what I’m watching in my SPIES. Maybe he already knows that Jack Kracker’s short-term rental has been discovered, the pearl-white Jeep Cherokee inside the garage.
“What happens to Mom, Dad, to everyone?” I ask. “If Chase Place and everything about it ends up all over the news, then what?”
“I wish I had a good answer for you,” Dick says.
“At least that’s an honest one,” and I almost add for once.
“We’re less than 30 out,” he hands me the tea again, his hand warm as it brushes mine.
We sit quietly for a few minutes, sharing a tea, and I think of what Carme’s always saying. Now or never. I ask Dick what he was doing with the Secret Service and other undercover agents in the NASA hangar 5 days ago.
“Why was Dad there?” I continue before Dick can answer or not. “When I was climbing up to the top of the hangar, I could see you below with Dad and your posse tracking stuff with signal sniffers, huddled around computer displays. At the time, I thought you were searching for Carme.”
I assumed Dick had assembled his troops to hunt her down, and had Dad helping somehow.
“But now I know that can’t be true since obviously she’s working with you,” I go on. “There’s no posse after her, and Dad wouldn’t go along with that anyway. You knew where she was and have all along, yet when you spotted me climbing up to the roof, you went after me like a pack of dogs. Why?”
“Why might I not have wanted you there?” Dick says. “Beside the fact we weren’t expecting you.”
“I had to get inside the radome to reset the dish antenna if we were to restore communication with the Space Station . . .”
“Yes, yes, yes. But your showing up introduced an unanticipated risk . . . Let’s just say, a threat that was completely out of left field when suddenly there you were climbing up to the roof.”
“You knew where Carme was hiding out and didn’t want me to find her,” I can only figure.
“Plain and simple, the two of you can’t be seen together,” Dick reminds me of what’s most painful. “Your power comes from working together while you’re not. That’s all you need to know about it.”
I’m feeling my tea too much to argue, to tell him how unmanageable everything is, and I weigh my options. I can brave the bathroom here. Or I can wait until we land with more g-forces than my bladder would
appreciate, and I decide to brave the elements.
“My turn,” I announce, and as I walk away from the helicopter, I think of the irony if I trip and hurt myself, what a way to scrub my first mission.
“The one thing I didn’t bring today was a flashlight,” I remark to ART as I step around shrouded wooden crates, careful of tie-downs and rings in the metal flooring.
“You have a flashlight app on your phone,” he says in my earpiece.
Duh, it seems I’m quickly forgetting how to do the smallest thing on my own. Lighting my way, I find the bathroom, a sink, a toilet, and a roll of toilet paper as promised. Except there’s no running water, and flushing doesn’t seem to be an option. Fortunately, someone was thoughtful enough to leave a few packets of hand sanitizers, and I wonder if it was Dick.
Back in the helicopter seat, I tuck my blanket around me, and ART must have taken my lecture to heart. He’s acting extra nice, paying attention, being thoughtful as we begin making our approach into Cape Canaveral. He shows me in my lenses what the pilots are seeing as we swoop over a tawny strip of beach, the white froth of waves breaking on the sand.
We turn on final for KXMR, the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station skid strip, a single runway with sandy dirt on all sides, and numerous launch pads. The moving map display shows me the runway’s configuration, letting me know its length, the elevation, our speed and the latest weather. Then the C-17’s wheels touch down, engines screaming as we brake to a quick stop that presses us hard against our seats.
As loud as it is, we give up talking until we’re being marshalled into our parking place on the ramp. What we do next strikes me as another one of Mom’s quirky conundrums. We climb out of a helicopter so we can climb out of a plane, neither of them moving. Yet all of us are at 107,826 kilometers per hour (67,000 mph) as the Earth orbits the sun at a sizzling clip.
Spin (Captain Chase) Page 31
