by Norman Oro
Once the meeting adjourns, Dr. Marshall speaks with Professor Minon and Guy Pool briefly then walks to the quarters set aside for them on the base to get a few hours of sleep. Meanwhile, Guy Pool leaves for Pueblo to oversee the installation of a remote control to deactivate the Maytag from within the chamber. A few hours later, Dr. Marshall awakens, walks back to his truck and starts driving. It’s early evening when he arrives to find Pueblo completely deserted. He and Guy Pool then spend hours practicing what they’re about to do, throwing out some parts of the retrieval plan that turn out to be unworkable and adding new pieces as necessary along the way. With only a couple of minutes to work with, literally every second counts. And though they’re getting on in years, like anyone else they love their lives. They both want to see their wives and families again. Trying to take the edge off, they tell one another it’s just another walk in the park as Dr. Gidsen would’ve said. They repeat what they’re going to do, and run through all of the different contingencies over and over until by late evening, it’s automatic.
At one in the morning, Dr. Marshall puts on his hazmat suit, gets a revolver from the gun rack, enters the chamber and places another chair in front of the sending room. He then moves the amplifier to the right of the chairs, spins nine numbers of the ten-number combination into the sending room door and takes his seat. Logging onto the 395 Array through his laptop, he sees that the beacon is still going.
After one final check of the field generator’s newly installed remote control, Guy Pool dusts off his old hazmat suit and puts it on. He gets a rifle, slings it over his shoulder, picks up the remote and walks through the chamber to where Dr. Marshall is, closing each door behind him. He then sits down alongside his friend facing the sending room entrance. Looking to his right, he sees the oddly reassuring brown rug that is the Allen field amplifier, and waits.
At 2:40am they hear beeping. Guy Pool immediately flicks a switch on the remote control. Less than a second later, the green light just above the sending room door turns on. Dr. Marshall then rises to spin in the final number of the entrance’s combination. Guy Pool lowers the remote, picks up his rifle, and takes aim at the sending room. Dr. Marshall pulls open the heavy metal door to reveal Dr. Rys, his son and the five ton physics package just as they were when Guy Pool saw them from outside the chamber over fifty years earlier. They look exactly the same. Dr. Rys is on a knee to the right of the physics package, a multimeter in hand looking into the weapon’s electronics. Pedro is on the opposite side of the weapon with a pair of wire-clippers. They look exactly the same. The Allen field reconstituted them precisely as they were the moment they were sent. However, catching their eyes, Guy Pool sees the last thing he was hoping for. He sees absolute terror.
Right away, he lowers his rifle to the floor and raises his hands into the air, doing his best to calm them down. He tells them that it’s him, Guy Pool, that they’re back in the US-395 sending room and that they all need to leave. He then quickly enters the room, reaches his hand out to Dr. Rys and helps him to his feet. With the amplifier’s beeping now replaced by a piercing monotone, Dr. Marshall closes the heavy door behind them as they exit. Guy Pool, Dr. Rys and Pedro Rys then step onto the device to immediately find themselves in the Field Technologies lab in Carpinteria. Seconds later, Dr. Marshall crosses through just as the amplifier goes silent.
Turning their attention to where they are, they see that the government has finished converting the lab into a clean room. There’s a semi-transparent corridor leading all the way from the amplifier through the hallway out to a mobile medical unit in the parking lot. A team of government physicians in environmental suits gently walks Dr. Rys and his son to a pair of stretchers and wheels them out. Unable to resist, Dr. Marshall then exchanges high-fives with Guy Pool. After their hazmat suits are doused with cleansers and rinsed off by the medical team, they enter a sealed anteroom where they remove their headpieces and gloves. Remembering the look on Dr. Rys’s face, Guy Pool walks to the desktop computer in the office nearby to check the evacuation website for any news. There is none. Going through a whole slew of news services from around the world, he thankfully finds no news about Pueblo. There’s news about the international financial markets, the upcoming transition of power in the White House, but nothing about the town aside from its recent evacuation. Dr. Marshall then comes in to tell him that there’s still telemetry streaming in from Pueblo’s ground-based detector. They did it. Dr. Rys and his son disarmed the weapon.
Guy Pool then gets a phone call from Dr. Perez asking how it went. He replies that they retrieved Dr. Rys and Pedro Rys safely. After he asks about the town, Dr. Perez confirms that it’s still there; and tells him that a nuclear weapons team has been dispatched to verify that the physics package has been neutralized. At that, Guy Pool recites the seven ten-number combinations they’ll need to get to the sending room. Glancing just then at the flat-screen monitor showing the world’s Allen field activity, Dr. Marshall notices that the brilliant pulse of light that he’s accustomed to seeing almost dead center in the lower half of California is now gone.
With Pueblo’s evacuation getting more news coverage, Guy Pool and Dr. Marshall call their wives a few minutes later to tell them they’re safe and that everything’s alright. Afterwards they can’t help but marvel at what they saw. Fatigued from the past few days and catching only a glimpse of them before they were wheeled out, Dr. Marshall asks Guy Pool to make certain he saw things correctly. Guy Pool confirms that the men Dr. Marshall saw, one in his early forties and the other in his early twenties, were indeed the 94-year-old Dr. Rys and his 74-year-old son, Pedro. Realizing the potential for their friends’ conditions to turn their lives into an awful media circus, they decide to keep that information to themselves. Later they find out the president has instructed the medical team to do the same. Once they’re back in normal clothes, they take the emergency exit out of the office, and await word on Dr. Rys and his son near the mobile medical center.
At just past five in the morning, Dr. Rys’s other son, Juan, walks outside to tell them that his father and brother are a bit shaken up, but otherwise fine. They’re going to stay in the mobile center for another day under observation. Relieved, Dr. Marshall thanks him for the news and calls his wife, who picks him up a few minutes later. Piper Finesine arrives moments after that for Guy Pool. Kissing his wife, Dr. Marshall savors the ride home in silence. Partially it’s because he’s almost literally too tired to think. Mostly it’s because he gets to go home, something that on any other day he would’ve taken completely for granted. Once they arrive, he goes to their bedroom, nimbly sidestepping his grandchildren along the way, takes off his shoes and goes to bed.
He wakes up to the sound of his cell-phone ringing. Looking at its screen, he sees it’s 5:30pm and that it’s a call from Kate Minon. She asks if Dr. Marshall wants to participate in an upcoming virtual meeting regarding US-395. He does and finds out that it’ll start in less than half an hour. He gets up, washes his face, makes himself a sandwich and talks to his wife about the past few days. He then heads downstairs to his study, opens an e-mail from Dr. Minon, clicks a link and logs into the meeting. Most of it focuses on the Allen field detection system. Having received a presentation a couple of days earlier, the White House already has some familiarity with the network of satellites and ground-based detectors that Field Technologies built. However, they need more information to help them formulate policies regarding field generators and amplifiers. Dr. Marshall and Professor Minon spend the next few hours answering questions from the president’s science and technology advisors, going into detail through each element of the network. Once they’re done, the president asks Guy Pool how much Field Technologies would charge the federal government for the Allen field detector system. Having already discussed the possibility of a sale with Dr. Marshall, he responds that they’re willing to sell it at cost, so long as the system is kept transparent. In light of the ground-based detectors’ ability to track field activity wit
hin people, the potential for abuse is certainly a concern. The president assures him that he’s preaching to the choir, and states that White House analysts are already evaluating ways to ensure the system is used responsibly.
As the meeting begins drawing to a close, they discuss the past few days; and Dr. Perez informs everyone that Dr. Rys and his son are doing well. Interestingly, an analysis of their clothing found minute traces of a metallic compound that no one can identify. He then wonders aloud whether the counterpart location for the US-395 Allen field is off-world. Though admittedly far-fetched, he points out that the beacon seems to be emanating from a non-terrestrial source. He then notes that within the past few days, they’ve seen teleportation across distances of almost two hundred miles. If he were asked only a week ago if that were possible, he would’ve said that it wasn’t. Dr. Marshall inquires whether they can find out directly from the source. Dr. Perez replies that Dr. Rys and his son will probably be debriefed the next morning. With the US-395 press conference set for that afternoon, the president requests they touch base once more at 7:30am PST the next day then adjourns the meeting.
Home
Dr. Marshall is in his lab early Sunday morning wondering about the hypothesis that the sending room’s counterpart location is off-world. The thought alone is mind-boggling and, like Dr. Perez, he would’ve probably rejected it almost out of hand only days before. However, having recently taken part in teleporting people who’ve been de-aged by over fifty years across a distance of some 160 miles, he wonders whether perhaps he’s being narrow-minded.
With the press conference set to begin in a few hours, he opens up a spreadsheet and does a few calculations. After reviewing his notes on Allen particles, he begins scanning through Vela telemetry. Seeing nothing new, he inverts one of the Vela system parameters on a lark, wondering what it’ll show. Staring at the resulting telemetry, he can only think to himself that he had no idea. He had no idea. Immediately he starts double-checking the system, running every diagnostic available. The telemetry is right. Just as he begins immersing himself in what it all could mean, he gets a call on his mobile phone. It’s Professor Minon. She’s on her way into the office and tells him she’ll be joining the virtual meeting. Seeing that it’s only about ten minutes away from starting, he acknowledges and hangs up. Guy Pool calls a few minutes later, confirming he’ll participate, as well.
Professor Minon arrives just as Dr. Marshall and Guy Pool log into the meeting through the desktop computer in the lab. Exchanging greetings with those already logged on, they see onscreen a picture of the Oval Office. They rise to their feet as the president and his chief of staff enter. Once they sit down, Sam Emerson tells them that they recently spoke with Alberto and Pedro Rys. They’re in good spirits, said that there’s a lot to talk about and that they’ll take part in the afternoon press conference. He then exchanges contact information with Guy Pool to begin arranging for the sale of the Allen field detection system to the federal government.
As the conversation wends toward the question of the beacon’s source, Dr. Marshall tells them that he just used the Vela system to examine the issue and wants to share his findings. He directs everyone to a clip he’s uploaded into the White House’s virtual conferencing system. Executing the file, they see what appears to be the same type of field activity that Dr. Marshall showed them earlier. The placement of the activity and the variation in field intensity are noticeably different; however, it’s the same kind of image. All around the screen they see familiar points of luminescence, though in this case, some are barely visible, while others are so brilliant they seem to engulf their neighbors.
Dr. Perez then comments on how striking he always finds the Vela system telemetry and thanks him for showing them what seems to be a new filter that he’s developed. When he asks what it represents, Dr. Marshall replies that it’s new, but that it isn’t a filter. He explains that they’re looking at telemetry from the Vela system with the sensors directed away from Earth rather than towards it. The field activity is off-world. And based on calculations he ran just before the meeting, the brightest field source onscreen, hundreds of times brighter than any of its neighbors, corresponds to a planet around fifty light-years away from Earth. The ensuing silence is almost palpable.
-End-
Volume 2
Keepers of the Alliance
1
Send
Away
What a pretty day.
An expanse of blue desert sky unexpectedly began filling Dr. Rys’s mind as he stared at an alarm clock enmeshed in a thicket of wires, the trigger for a nuclear weapon. That’s what he thought even as he heard the gentle thud of the immense sending room door sealing shut.
There wasn’t a cloud in sight, was there?
Though his son was there with him, Dr. Rys had never felt more alone. Then he looked at the multimeter in his right hand, its needle swaying to deliver readings from the triggering mechanism’s circuits and went to work.
“Mi hijo, hay tres alambres allí. ¿Los ve?”
“Sí, señor.”
“¿Qué colores son, Pedro?”
“Rojo, verde y amarillo, señor.”
“Bueno. A mi orden, corte el amarillo. ¿Está bien?”
“Sí, señor. Entiendo.”
“Espere. Espere. Ahora.”
“Hecho.”
“Bueno. El próximo es el verde.”
“Listo.”
“Espere. Espere. Y ahora.”
“Hecho. ¿Señor?”
“¿Sí, mi hijo?”
“Creo que nos hemos enviado.”
“Sí.”
“Cáspita.”
“Sí. Tenemos una faena, mi hijo. ¿Puede oírme?”
“Sí, señor. Estoy listo.”
“El último es el rojo. A mi orden, Pedro.”
“Entendido.”
“Espere. Espere. Espere. Ahora.”
“Hecho.”
“Acabado. Well done, Pete.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Now let’s get out of this blizzard. I’m almost frozen.”
Dr. Rys stood up, his suit drenched by the heavy sheets of frozen rain falling upon them. He then walked towards the US-395 beacon, which was the size of a small car and fortunately had strobe-lights bolted all around it. After disappearing into a curtain of sleet, he re-emerged minutes later with a backpack, two large, heavy-duty plastic bags and a flashlight. He put one plastic bag over his suit, placing its hood over his head and gave the other bag to his son, who did the same. Slowly they made their way through the storm, inching forward, leaning into the wind. Even with the flashlight, neither of them could see where they were. It seemed to be almost night, but that was only a guess. They couldn’t make anything out from their surroundings except for the sleet inundating them and what seemed to be an occasional tree obstructing their path.
Hours seemed to pass until they finally reached a clearing where a group of trees formed a stories-high enclosure that didn’t allow the storm in. It wouldn’t have accommodated Dr. Rys’s station wagon, but it was just enough to shelter them from the blizzard. Reaching into the backpack, he handed a silver thermal blanket to his son then started building a fire. By the time it was going, Pedro had fallen asleep, exhausted by the day’s events. Fighting the urge to sleep himself, Dr. Rys stayed up, guarding the fire, making certain it wouldn’t go out. As it strengthened, he noticed the storm beginning to ebb. Once the wind died down early the next morning, he finally gave in, rested his head on the backpack and closed his eyes.
He awoke a few hours later to what seemed like whispers emanating from the rustling of the trees. Dr. Rys could swear they were talking to him, as though it were some primal language he knew, but had forgotten. Shaking his head at the thought, he began looking around. As his eyes focused, he saw Pedro was still asleep. He then saw something that made him question his own sanity. Or, to be specific, it was what he didn’t see that made him wonder whether he’d gone over the edge.
Arrayed all around the clearing was the redoubtable band of trees that had shielded him and his son from the storm. However, there wasn’t a trace of sleet or snow on them or anywhere else. The sometimes knee-high banks of frost they’d trudged through just hours earlier were now gone, as though they’d never been. In their place, he saw a pristine, dark brown floor covered with pine needles and conifers, just slightly damp from the dew. He sat there quietly for a few minutes in the early morning sun, struggling to make sense of it.
He then heard the whispers again, this time in the breeze and in the barely audible sound of some far-off shore. Pedro had just awoken and by the look in his eyes, Dr. Rys knew he heard it, as well. It seemed to be a language of pure meaning, a language that was as much felt as heard.
Don’t be afraid. Walk into the ocean.
There was a benevolence underlying the message that was so genuine that it eliminated all doubt regarding whether to follow it. They both rose then began walking. Eventually they reached the weapon they’d disarmed and moments later, they passed the beacon, obediently strobing light in all directions. After an hour, they saw water.
