Don't Cross This Line

by Michael Anderle

  The second one was simply labeled, “Ignore At Your Own Peril.”

  For the first year after he left office, the relationship between TQB and the USA had been cordial, and he had hoped the decent working relationship he had built up with Bethany Anne would continue with the new President.

  It had not.

  First, they didn’t get along. Both had large enough responsibilities, but only one of them had the real ability to back it up. The USA had a large capacity to be tactical and some damned impressive weaponry and people.

  Bethany Anne could drop a rock in the middle of Colorado. That she wouldn’t was an assumption the wags up in the Government had finally decided was the Gospel Truth.

  So, even though you could do something, if you wouldn’t then where was the threat?

  He continued looking out the window, knowing he was going to pick up his personal phone and make that call. He owed the world another try. Hell, he owed his family another try.

  He breathed deeply and reached back with his left hand landing on his desktop, moving it a couple of times left and right before he felt his hand grab the cell phone and pulled it back around.

  He grinned just a little as he called up the Digital Assistant, “SIRI, call Wonder Woman.”

  QBBS Merideth Reynolds

  The all-system warning lights and alarms screamed throughout the inner area, and all non-essential people were told to get inside.

  It might have been nice to have everyone see this new technology turn on, but Bethany Anne wasn’t willing to gamble on a small mistake vaporizing her people.

  Watching it happen on video was going to have to be good enough.

  Those working to bring up the new Artificial Sun were working inside the main Engineering rooms. One with controls, another for the main machinery with glass between them. “When you close the loop between the two systems from the Etheric side, come back here and hit the button to complete the links,” Marcus told Bethany Anne. He was licking his lips as he watched the two screens showing the Etheric Energy Pull for their systems.

  He touched the commands, and the lights in the middle of the massive cavern dimmed, leaving everything in the inky blackness that the absence of light always produced.

  The smaller Etheric taps were busy being re-routed to the Arti-Sun.

  “See you guys in a second,” Bethany Anne said as she stepped into the room with the Etheric tap machinery and closed the glass door behind her. One second they could all see her, the next she took a step and was gone.

  Marcus watched all of the readings and reached up to wipe off his forehead. Then, there was a slight uptick in Etheric Energy coming into the system. “Four, three, two…one!” Marcus called out and slammed his hand, and the desktop when the Energy Input spiked a thousand fold and the slight humming from the room next to them became a roar.

  “YES!” Marcus screamed triumphantly, “We have connectivity and the capacitor is not being slammed! The Arti-Sun is acquiring energy per stated calculations. Merideth?”

  “Yes?” the E.I. responded.

  “Are you seeing anything outside of normal parameters?”

  “No Marcus, I am running the agreed testing parameters, pulling the energy through the Etheric Iris using different diameters. So far, it is running…One moment.”

  Marcus’s mouth opened, “One moment?” He asked as he turned to review the systems.

  Bobcat and William stepped up. They had worked to stay in the background on this project.

  “What the hell?” William asked and started using the far left monitor and checking additional screens.

  Bobcat worked with Marcus, “That doesn’t look right,” he said as he pointed to a chart on Marcus’s screen.

  “Tell me something new, Bobcat.” Marcus grumped as he worked to see what Merideth was doing.

  “Uhhh new. Ok, here’s one. I think I found a girl?” Bobcat told his friend.

  “That’s nice, what does it taste like?” Marcus asked as he touched areas on his screen to show two additional input charts simultaneously.

  Bobcat snorted, “Jackass, I said girl, not another beer.”

  “You have no other love but beer, Bobcat,” Marcus answered.

  “Folks?” William interrupted the two.

  “Yeah?” Bobcat answered and leaned over to look at Williams screen where he was pointing.

  “Oh, fuck us again.” Bobcat blew out, “Markie Mark, take a look over here.”

  Marcus looked quickly over to William’s screen and then returned to his for a second before he turned back to Williams and leaned towards William’s screen, “What the hell?”

  “It’s Morse Code,” William answered, “Bethany Anne is testing our system.”

  “How the…,” Marcus shrugged, “Merideth, translate the Morse Code and use it to figure out the next fluctuation and adjust appropriately.”

  “Done,” Merideth replied moments later.

  Thirty seconds later Bethany Anne appeared in the glassed room, the hum of the machines behind her receded to a solid middle-level bass, one you could feel in your chest.

  She opened the glass door, the sound loud and then closed it, blocking most of the noise from reaching them once more.

  “How was that Final Exam, guys?” she asked as her phone went off in John’s hand. He took the call.

  “Fine boss, did you have to scare us so bad?” Bobcat asked.

  “How did you handle it?” she replied.

  “Swimmingly, I assure you,” Marcus answered. She went up and patted him on the shoulder, “I’m sure you did. However, how confident are you that the system will work now if we get unexpected Etheric fluctuations?”

  “UEF’s?” Marcus looked at her, confused, “TOM never said there were any UEF’s, and before you say anything, I did ask.”

  “I love TOM to death, which might be foreshadowing if he keeps up his talking to me in my head at the moment, but I have asked him if he is an Etheric know-it-all and he admitted he wasn’t. Who's to say there isn’t a normal, hundred solar year Etheric flash which occurs?”

  “We passed, right boss?” William interrupted and gently kicked the back of Marcus’s ankle.

  “Yes, you passed” she agreed.

  “Bethany Anne?” John called out.

  She turned and raised an eyebrow. He wiggled her phone, “Call from the President.” She made a disgusted face before he explained again, “Sorry, ex-President, not the PITA.”

  “Oh, then ok, toss it here.” John flicked the phone to her, and she snagged it out of the air and put it up to her ear, “Hey, ready to leave Illinois?” she asked with a smile.

  The voice chuckled on the other side of the line, “PITA?”

  “Yeah, our not-so-hidden acronym for you know who,” Bethany Anne replied, “One second.” She turned around to see the rest of the team in the Arti-Sun Engineering area high-fiving each other and passing around small glasses of alcohol.

  Good thing E.I.’s didn’t drink.

  ADAM, confirm Merideth is running Arti-Sun for the next few hours.

  >>She is in full-time control now. Marcus set that up previously. It requires an override from him, with your permission in advance, to change that.<<

  Ok, at least he was thinking ahead. She noticed Dr. Brown-Williams had sidled up to Marcus now and seemed to be initiating the conversation. Marcus was oblivious that his little sun stunt had appeared to attract the food scientist in maybe a romantic way.

  Who knew?

  She turned back to her phone, “Ok, I’m back. What do you want me to do, and who put you up to this?” she asked the ex-President.

  “That obvious, or am I bugged here?” he chuckled.

  She tapped her lips, “No, not bugged. But, if I lied about that, it would be funny as hell to hear about your security detail scrambling all over your house trying to find how we knew.”

  His frown came through clearly over the call, “No, I don’t think so. My wife would not appreciate having our walls rippe
d apart and destroyed as they tried to find your technology. They would evict us under eminent domain or some shit, and we’d never see the inside of my house again.”

  “Oh, yeah, guess that might suck for a joke after all,” she told him.

  “Well, the request is for you to come to an event in Europe, among a select few power players in government and business, to try and bury the…ok, poor choice of words. To see if we can negotiate any sort of agreement for the technology when there aren’t a bunch of cameras and egos involved. Well, ego’s on parade, anyway.”

  “So, no lights, cameras, and recordings?” she asked.

  “Can’t promise anything, but I was told it was supposed to be a pleasant meeting of walking around and chatting. No one is going to say anything, admit anything, use anything in the meeting as political ammunition, etc. etc.. Believe as much of that as you want,” he finished.

  “And you?”

  “For my sins of being able to call you and you taking my call, I’ve been asked to attend with you.”

  Bethany Anne snorted, “You done gone and fucked up, haven’t you?”

  “Apparently.”

  “What’s the wife think about this?” she asked him.

  “She’s coming around to flipping everyone the hell off and kicking the arrogant asses to the curb. To think she spoke up for them for the past three years is starting to grate on her nerves.”

  “Told you so,” Bethany Anne said.

  “Wow, and I thought Queens were above that.”

  “Not this one, I’ve decided to be Regal is so passé,” she admitted. Then she turned around to see Marcus waving his hands in the air as he explained what he was thinking when Merideth was involved in handling the Etheric energy pulses.

  “And boring,” he added.

  “Especially boring. How those Kings and Queens in the past did it, I’ve no idea,” she agreed as she turned back to his conversation.

  “So, will you do it?” he got back on the reason for the call.

  She shrugged, “I don’t expect it to accomplish anything, but I’ll give the dead horse one more chance before we put it six feet under.”

  “Have your people call my people?” He asked.

  “How about we have Gabrielle call you back?”

  “Yeah, or that works, too,” he admitted before asking, “She’s still with Eric, right?”

  “One second,” Bethany Anne barely covered up the Mic on her phone and yelled over to Eric, “Hey, Potato head,” she waited for Eric to turn towards her, “You and Gabrielle are still tight, right?”

  “Who’s asking?” Eric replied, confusion on his face.

  She held up the phone, her other hand still covering the microphone, “The only President we like.”

  Eric grinned, “Oh, then tell his wife that yes, Gabrielle is still very taken.”

  Bethany Anne put the phone back to her ear, “Did your wife hear that?”

  “Yes, she is nodding that she did. She came into the room a few seconds ago to let me know dinner was ready.”

  “Ok, so Gabrielle will call you, and it will get setup. You guys go eat, catch up with you later.”

  The said their final goodbyes and hung up.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Inside Schwabenland Base, Antarctica

  Maria Orsitsch didn’t know whether she should be fuming, or allow her curiosity to over come her anger at Barnabas for exhibiting capabilities he hadn’t divulged before.

  Or both.

  She expected the man to disappear after whatever he had come here to do, and was surprised when was still at the table and sipping coffee from a mug someone must have brought him.

  She told Horst to stay out and entered the room, closing the door behind her. “That was an interesting display of talent I hadn’t expected you to perform, Barnabas.”

  He dipped his head in acknowledgment and continued sipping his coffee.

  She pulled out her chair and sat down, placing her elbows on the table, “Are there additional surprises I might expect?”

  He put the coffee on the table, “Why would I tell you this, Maria?”

  She stabbed the table with a finger, “I was under the impression your Queen was one of the legations who was working to acquire our allegiance? How about we start with that concept?”

  “Then, I think you have mistaken something, Maria.” Barnabas picked the mug up and took another sip. “What you have at this base is impressive, and your skills and weapons are commendable, yes.” He put his coffee cup down a second time and wrapped it with both hands, “But if you want to be frank, and talk like two adults, you have promises of abilities to come, nothing here,” he nodded his head towards the door, “is of value to the Etheric Empire.”

  “Then why all of this help?” Maria asked, annoyed, “Your people have aided to help keep Schwabenland a free country. For what purpose are you doing this. Further,” she asked, annoyance creeping into her voice, “You commanded me to sneeze!” She sat back and pointed a finger at him, “You could be manipulating me right now.”

  Barnabas raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

  “Well, answer the question,” she spoke, annoyance coloring her voice.

  “Maria, there was no question. You are irritated because you feel out of control. The fact you have felt in control was due to a misperception on your part. You, and your people, are protected as both a courtesy and a requirement to keep you safe from a fight you can’t win.”

  “A fight with who?” Maria waved her arm towards the door, “Those unknown flying saucers? Their technology is better than some of ours, but not enough to allow an easy win over us. I doubt they can make it too far into this fortress,” she finished.

  “Not them, although we suspect they would be worse than you suspect. No, with Bethany Anne.”

  “Why would she be a problem?” Maria asked, now totally confused. “She’s never been belligerent to us. Nor have we done anything to TQB.”

  “Let’s play a game called suppositions, Maria.” Barnabas offered, “Let’s pretend that the following happened. Schwabenland, for whatever reason, was clearly overcome by a foreign power. Any of the majors. China for instance.” Maria’s sudden grimace was all Barnabas needed to know she could see the results of that path. “Or America with their present President and attitude of World First?”

  “Bethany Anne is responsible for that,” Maria fired back, ‘Not us.”

  “No, Bethany Anne is responsible for saying ‘no’, nothing else, and sticking to her guns on the subject. Apparently, her consistent position on this request has infuriated those who believe since they have joined into larger and larger groups of adult children with nation-sized temper tantrums, she should change her mind.”

  Maria sat quietly for a moment before commenting, “This was our path, you’re telling me?” He nodded. “So, without her taking the heat, and flying overwatch up there above us to make sure no large nation attacked us, we would presently be speaking United Nationish?”