by Norman Oro
Away
A science fiction novel
Written by
Norman Oro
© 2011 Norman Oro
All rights reserved.
Contents
Dedication
Volume 1 Beginnings 1 Find The President
Dr. Perez
Secretary Davies
Sam Emerson
Edwards Air Force Base
2 In old days Dr. Marshall
The Probe
Dr. Rys
The Bunny
Undersecretary Scott
Pueblo, CA
Interlude
Team
7/8/1957
Firefall
Delegate
Telemetry
Things Remembered
Gizmo
Questions
Jalama
Bell Curve
Pedro Rys
Dr. Angstrom
Launch
Gitano
Number Tree
Revelations
Flight
Aftermath
3 Strive Professor Marshall
Guy Pool
Vela
Dr. Minon
Highway 1
Signal
Maytag
Home
Volume 2 Keepers of the Alliance 1 Send Away
2 The Cley Onav
Chosen
A Just Decision
Change
Wish
War
3 The Kek Thirst
Beyond Courage
Mystery of the Steppe
Eternal
4 The Grell Hope and Piety
Cline’s Embrace
Survival
Domain
Nemesis
A Cure
5 Humanity Answers
Earth
Old Friends
The Human Ability
Centennial
Ambassador Rys
Possibilities
Dedication
To you, the reader.
Volume 1
Beginnings
1
Find
The President
It’s a crisp winter morning in Washington, DC, just days into a new year. The president hangs up the phone at 5:30am after receiving a call from Fort Meade, MD. Minutes earlier, the National Security Agency detected an automated government beacon that they’re unable to identify. When NSA analysts mentioned its non-terrestrial origin, the president requested that it be given high priority. With just days left in office, allegations of conspiracies involving extraterrestrial signals would be an unwelcome distraction. As he finishes breakfast, he expects to eventually hear back about a malfunctioning government satellite, possibly by the end of the day.
A few minutes later, he walks into his office for a briefing from his national security advisor, Lindsey Cartwright. Instead a lanky and unfamiliar figure rises out of a chair in the Oval Office as he enters. Seeing his shock of gray hair and weathered features, the president notes with some surprise that he’s at least several years his senior. He introduces himself as Jack Prentice, the agent in charge of the NSA’s incident management division. When the president reviewed spending on intelligence services, he often wondered what that group did. Based on what he heard, it was being phased out. However, they’ve apparently been trying to phase it out for the past thirty years; and Agent Prentice’s division has since taken on an aura of near invulnerability. Despite his amiable demeanor, there’s a subtle yet unmistakable sense of urgency in the agent’s voice.
“You’re needed at Mount Weather, Mr. President. I’ve taken the liberty of arranging for a motorcade. It’s awaiting us downstairs.”
“Why?”
“I haven’t been told the reason, sir. You should find out once you get there. We need to leave as soon as possible, though.”
They begin walking with the president’s security detail to the motorcade, and an hour later arrive at Mount Weather, the sprawling underground city built in the 1950s to house essential government staff and personnel in the event of an emergency. They eventually reach a squat and unassuming beige building at the city’s outskirts; and after entering through its only door descend a long flight of stairs into its basement to find a waiting room filled with more agents. The president immediately notices rubble scattered all around the room’s entrance. He also notices that the furniture is anachronistic, like what he remembers from when he was a child. He sees another door opposite the one they’ve just entered.
“Sir, your Secret Service detail and I will stay here. You’re requested in the next room.”
“Why, Agent Prentice? What’s in there?”
“I don’t know, sir. A couple of hours ago no one knew these rooms even existed. The facility is free of any danger; however, my instructions are that only you may enter that room, sir.”
Before the president leaves for the door, Agent Prentice hands him an envelope with the presidential seal on it. He breaks open the seal and finds a strip of paper inside with a twelve-digit number written on it. When he reaches the door, he sees a numeric key-pad set into the wall. Wiping away a thin layer of dust, he carefully enters the number then watches as the heavy metallic door silently glides open.
Once he’s inside, lights immediately turn on accompanied by the faint hum of electronics. He looks around to see everything set up in the same anachronistic way as the antechamber, the way people in the fifties and sixties imagined life would be like in the eighties and nineties. Right on cue, a mechanical computerized voice requests that he sit down. The president takes a seat in the only chair in the room. Looking around, he sees a television monitor on a stand in front of him, as well as a bank of flashing electronic lights lining the walls. Moments later, a firm, warm and reassuring voice begins to crackle to life through the monitor’s speakers. It’s a voice the president vaguely recognizes. A face then materializes to accompany the voice. It’s someone the president would never have expected. The voice and image onscreen are former President Eisenhower’s. However, it isn’t some antique newsreel. After the initial shock wears off, his predecessor’s words begin tumbling in on the president’s consciousness:
“...neither the technology nor the institutions to deal with this in 1960. I can only hope that in your time, you’ll fare better. And since you’re watching this, I can safely assume that you have the signal to guide you. Personally, I hate all of this cloak and dagger stuff, but in this case, it’s warranted. We simply can’t allow the technology to proliferate. I’m certain you can appreciate its inherent danger... and, of course, its inherent promise. Clearly, it’s now your decision regarding how to proceed. If you need to contact the project team you’ll find a vault built into the wall behind this monitor. It contains their original names and the names assigned to them once they entered protective custody. The key is in the Central Intelligence Agency’s perpetual system. The password is, ‘Home-team’. They’ll take it from there and give you the key.”
With that, the message fades away along with the hum of the machines charged with delivering it, their sole task accomplished. And what a message it was. Shock. Elation. Wonder. Fear. All in equal amounts inundate the president. He sits trying to absorb everything he’s just heard. When he finally looks at his watch, he sees that over an hour has passed. It’s time to get the key.
Though he campaigned on a platform of cutting government spending, the president has to admit that at least this corner of the government runs like clockwork. Getting the key goes smoothly; and within the vault he finds names, addresses, photographs and journals, as well as the project’s official codenam
e: The US-395 Interchange. He can’t help but grin knowing it’d been run out of the precursor to the Department of Transportation. He subsequently learns that almost no one from the original team is still alive. At least there are meticulously detailed logs chronicling their research. He also finds a map for a city in California called Pueblo where the project was housed. He’s learned and done about all he can alone. It’s time to assemble his own team.
An hour later he gathers his three closest advisors into the Oval Office to assign each one a share of closing out US-395. Standing before him are Dr. Enrique Perez, head of his White House Science & Technology Council; Sheila Davies, his Secretary of Transportation; and Sam Emerson, his chief of staff. Over the years, he’s found each of them to be possessed of an indelible humanity and a formidable intelligence. Just as importantly, perhaps, each one is of unquestionable integrity, ability and loyalty.
Before going over the Eisenhower message, he gauges whether they’ll be comfortable carrying out the task at hand. He broaches an analogy to the situation they’ll face and asks them what they’d recommend doing. After hearing their responses, he reviews for them what he heard in the message. His explanation is first met with looks of good-natured incredulity. By the end, they’ve melted into ones of complete disbelief. He gives them some time then begins outlining a plan.
The president tasks Dr. Perez with assembling what’s left of the project team and Secretary Davies with examining the facility in Pueblo. He tells them that planes are awaiting them at Andrews Air Force Base. Sam Emerson is to oversee their efforts from the White House and make certain they’re provided with whatever resources they need. With the impending transition of power in mind, the president sets a time-frame of one week to bring US-395 to a close. With that, he dismisses his team. He then returns to the task of governing the nation and of finding some way to explain to its people the events that he anticipates will transpire in the next few days.
Dr. Perez
It’s early afternoon in Carpinteria, California. For Dr. Perez that means driving through scenic and winding roads in the “cold” 57ºF winter air. Having grown up in Hayward, CA and gone to college on the East Coast he’s familiar with how relative the term “cold” can be. Like possibly many of the residents in the quiet beachside community he’s traveling through, he’d never seen snow growing up; and so as a child it was often a source of fascination and novelty. It was only on the East Coast where he saw his first snowfall.
Dr. Perez won a full scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earned undergraduate degrees in mathematics and physics then went to Princeton for his doctorate. His dissertation was on string theory and he’d split time since then between Fermilab in Illinois and CERN in Switzerland until the president tapped him to head the White House Science & Technology Council. The physicist that he is can’t reconcile what he heard several hours earlier with what he knows about the world. It’s that part of him, though, that also knows better than to think everything is understood, that knowledge of the physical world is complete. As proud as he is of the progress being made in science and technology, there are still a lot of unknowns.
The six hour flight to Santa Barbara Municipal Airport gave Dr. Perez a chance to review US-395’s archives before trying to find its remaining team members. At a stoplight, he mentally runs through what he read. There are only two people from the project still alive. One was a young physicist fresh out of Caltech at the time and the other was an administrator. Based on the files, the physicist was apparently brilliant and very well thought of. He declined the government’s offer of protective custody, became a professor at the University of California in Santa Barbara, got married and settled down. He went on to do some groundbreaking work in quantum mechanics at UCSB and taught there for about fifty years before retiring. His name is Jeremy Marshall. There isn’t as much about the administrator in the archives. Based on journal entries, though, he was very capable and exceedingly well-liked. The address the White House has for him is in Half Moon Bay, making him the second leg of Dr. Perez’s journey through California. The administrator’s name is Guy Pool.
As far as what he has to do, his high profile within the physics community should take care of establishing credibility. Essentially, the rest would be up to Dr. Marshall and Mr. Pool. Dr. Perez’s scholarly temperament favors persuasion over force; and considering Dr. Marshall once worked on US-395, he’ll probably need very little convincing to join them in resolving it.
Spotting an address matching the one in his notes, he makes a right turn into a long driveway. He’s surprised to find a few pickup trucks parked along the way, some with surfboards in their beds. The driveway ends in the front yard of a wood-paneled single-story house where there are children playing along with a Labrador retriever. Dr. Perez parks his car rental, steps out and walks to ring the doorbell. It’s answered by a very attractive young woman with a British accent. Feeling suddenly uncomfortable, he realizes that he’s probably at the wrong house, but introduces himself anyway. To his relief, the woman recognizes him, smiles and says her name is Kate Minon. When he asks for Dr. Marshall, she invites him into the house, explaining that she’d been a graduate student of Dr. Marshall’s and is a professor at UC Santa Barbara.
He enters to find the living room filled with people. An easy, friendly atmosphere permeates the place. The house itself is bright and seems to capture every quantum of sunlight from the outside. Dr. Perez then enters the kitchen to find two elderly men at the far end of a circular table intently peering into a laptop monitor. He also sees some packed suitcases. Dr. Minon introduces him to Dr. Marshall and, as luck would have it, Guy Pool. After exchanging handshakes, Dr. Marshall tells him that if he hadn’t arrived, they’d made arrangements to travel to Washington themselves.
“Yes, I’d imagine we weren’t the only ones who detected the beacon. Will you and Mr. Pool join us? We certainly could use your help.”
“Of course. Professor Minon should go also. She’s a quantum physicist and one of the most trustworthy people I know. Also, she’s a key part of some research I’ve been conducting that may prove useful.”
“Does she know about the beacon?”
“No. We were just about to go over that when you arrived.”
“I see. Yes, that’s fine. There’s a plane at the municipal airport waiting to take us to Andrews. My car’s parked outside.”
They leave the kitchen and after a few brief farewells, get into Dr. Perez’s car and begin driving to the airport.
Secretary Davies
Taking in the cool afternoon desert air, Secretary Davies drives north on the US-395 highway for about a half hour then takes the South Tor Road exit going east. Roughly an hour later, she arrives in Pueblo. She read through the project files on the flight to Edwards Air Force Base and from what she could tell, aside from being a small out-of-the-way town of some nine thousand people, Pueblo housed the infrastructure for the US-395 Interchange project. Having lived in big cities all of her life, Secretary Davies finds the wide open spaces of the desert pleasant, though unfamiliar. Before arriving in Washington, she grew up in Chicago and studied mathematics at Harvard. A summer internship with a consulting firm called Booz, Allen & Hamilton eventually led to an analyst position with their logistics group. Unknown to her, she was widely regarded as brilliant and was being groomed for a senior position within the firm. However, after less than two years as an analyst, a project with the federal government led to a position with the Department of Transportation; and it was there where she found a home. She celebrated her twenty-third year at the department just a few days earlier. Her intelligence, years of public service and innovative use of new technologies to balance the infrastructure demands of the American economy with the realities of strained federal budgets caught the president’s eye. She was confirmed as Secretary of Transportation near the very beginning of his first term in office. He is now nearing the end of his second. Over that time, she grew to become one of th
e president’s most trusted advisors.
As Secretary Davies approaches her destination, she sees that the most remarkable thing about Pueblo is that it has a nuclear power plant. Otherwise, it seems to be just another nice, quiet desert community. She soon reaches the address in her notes and, as her research indicated, finds the building there boarded up and vacant. Apparently it also once housed the local post office. She parks her car in a nearby abandoned lot and steps outside. Although the project is over a half-century old, she still feels a twinge of embarrassment running the department whose precursor oversaw US-395 and yet being unable to learn anything more about it outside of the files she received a few hours earlier. She finds a way inside and looks around. There are stairs going below, but she finds that they end at a very solid concrete wall. She returns to the ground floor and calls Sam Emerson to tell him that there seems to be nothing left of US-395 in Pueblo. He responds by directing her to return to Edwards Air Force Base to meet Dr. Perez and members from the original project team. She acknowledges, walks to her car and heads back to the air base.
Sam Emerson
Baffled, Sam Emerson puts down the phone. Despite the apparent dead-end in Pueblo, closing the project out is progressing. A few minutes earlier, he heard from Dr. Perez, who found both of the remaining project team members in Carpinteria. They were headed to Washington, DC when he instructed them to meet Secretary Davies at Edwards instead. In addition to US-395, there’s a mountain of other pressing work to do, much of it related to the impending change in administration. As usual, he draws on his seemingly bottomless store of energy to carry him through the rest of the day.
