Looking around the table with a glint in his eyes, he said, "I train people to recognize and use even common objects not normally considered weapons to defend themselves. Even a sharpened pencil will do." With those words he plucked a pencil out of the holder on the table and with a flick of his wrist threw it at a cork bulletin board across the room. A New York Times article with a 1943 picture of three high ranking governmental officials was pinned to the board. The point of the pencil imbedded itself through the head of Communist Party Leader, Joseph Stalin.
McPherson added with a smirk, "I don't have any pets. They don't appreciate the frequent gunfire at my place."
Captain Tom LeBlanc was the next to speak. He had a boyish face when you first glanced at him, but closer inspection revealed wrinkles in the corners of his eyes indicating he had been exposed to bright sunlight for many years. His blond hair was short cropped, and he sported a Clark Gable mustache.
"Don't quite know how to follow that, but here goes anyway," he said with as straight a face as he could muster. "I'm Tom LeBlanc. I have an advanced degree in electronics from Cal Tech. I can't tell you about my work for the military since that would put you on a list you don't want to be on," he explained in a clear voice as he straightened the black wire-rimmed glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. "Needless to say, I don't get out much, but I love science fiction books; especially where the good guys win in the end."
"I have virtually no social life and don't expect to have one outside this little group, but I'm a fair chess player and would love some competition," he concluded.
Diane Hoffman went next. She had a pretty face and blond hair swept upward into a large topknot of loose curls. Her red lipstick and fingernails seemed out of character for a university egghead. She wore oval shaped eyeglasses with bright blue decorations near the hinges of the temples. She peered over the top of her glasses like a lecturing professor as she spoke.
"My name is Dr. Diane Hoffman. I have a medical degree from Johns Hopkins, and I have dedicated my career to the study of BioGenetics. As you may or may not know, every animal, plant and human being on earth is genetically based upon a unique combination of deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA for short. My area of research involves the breakdown and analysis of how DNA is put together to uniquely form an animal, plant or human being."
Looking around the table, she asked, "Did you know that human and cow DNA is only 3% different?"
When no one replied, she continued, "That 3% is the complete difference between a human and a cow. Between being the food and being the eater of the food. That little 3% diff between cows and humans may be intellect, or it may just be a genetic need to dominate, or it may just mean we're deep down psychopaths with barely controlled needs to kill. I don't know yet how all the ingredients of the soup making humans mixes together, but I intend to find out."
Dr. John Heinbaum spoke last and very briefly. The shape of his face unfortunately made him look like a rodent. His eyes seemed just a bit too close together and his nose was long and slender. His black hair was severely slicked backwards as if he had poured used motor oil over it when he combed it. He wore round, gold colored metal framed glasses. He frankly looked like a eccentric scientist ready to do an autopsy.
"I am Dr. John Heinbaum. I graduated from Harvard with a doctorate in Astro-Physics," he said as he pushed his glasses back up his nose. "My specialty is research into the high energy fields postulated by Einstein in his unified field theory and how they can be used in practical applications."
"My IQ is higher than Einstein's," he said with a smug look on his face. "Like Captain LeBlanc said earlier, I'm not at liberty to tell you any more about my work with the military."
"I have no need for personal relationships. Frankly most people I meet are so intellectually challenged there is no need for me to interact with them. I had a pet turtle when I was very young, but it died," he said drily.
General Collier cleared his throat. “All right people, listen up. What I'm about to show you is so classified that up to now less than 10 people in the entire world know the full story. You've all been hand-picked by me to help in creating a plan to save the United States from certain destruction!”
An incredulous murmur went around the room as the import of Collier’s words sunk in. Heads went back and forth but eventually re-focused on Collier.
Collier continued. “I'm sure you've all heard of the alien UFO’s that have been reported in the newspapers and magazines over the past few years.”
McPherson interrupted. He was impulsive almost to a fault. “Sir, the government has debunked all those reports. This is well known. In fact it is SIP that did the debunking. Are you trying to tell us these things are real?”
Collier eyed Lt. McPherson with a wry smile. “Lieutenant, what I'm telling you now is that I have personally made sure the government debunked all those reports. Confirmation of aliens visiting our planet would have done nothing but scare the majority of the population and bring out the religious fanatics whose whole belief system is based upon the fact we're God's creation made in his own image. We couldn’t possibly have given full disclosure because no one would actually believe us if we did and less than full disclosure would have people claiming the government was hiding some big secret. So watch and learn.”
With that, General Collier flipped another switch and a projection screen rolled down from the ceiling. A projector hidden behind a decorative molding sprang to life and a black and white movie began. The scene shown appeared to be from inside a large, darkened warehouse. There was no sound from the speakers, just the mutter and clicking of the projector as it played the film. What they saw was the flying disc that had been shot out of the sky in New Mexico. The dark gray hull was marred by a large jagged hole blown into its upper fuselage, but there was not sufficient light to see any other structural features of the craft. No details could be discerned about the interior of the craft.
A uniformed man with his back to the camera walked into the frame and motioned to someone off screen.
Shortly, a side of beef hanging from a large hook was maneuvered into the scene about 40 feet distant from the uniformed man. You could see nothing beyond the hanging beef, inky darkness in the background complete and revealing nothing.
The man lifted a pistol-like object appearing to be nothing more than a dime store toy ray gun slightly bulbous in shape with twin discs surrounding the end of its barrel. He pointed it at the meat target. Suddenly a beam of white light shot from the ray gun, and the man flicked the beam sideways, cleanly and instantly slicing the beef in half. He then pointed the beam at the metal chain holding the hook and cleanly sliced the chain in half! The remainder of the beef hit the floor.
The people around the conference table were momentarily shocked into silence. Collier knew this was going to happen, and he stopped the projector and remained silent.
McPherson slapped the tabletop with the flat of his hand in a startling smack, exclaiming, “Get me one of those pistols!”
Everyone was saying basically the same thing. “What the hell? Show that again!”
Twice more the projector ran through the sequence. Everyone began talking over everyone else.
“Where could that device get enough power to do what we just saw?” exclaimed Dr. Heinbaum. “I don’t believe it!”
“How strong is the beam? What are its limitations?” asked McPherson.
Lucy asked an obvious question, “What do the aliens look like? Where are they?”
“How do we know this is real? Science fiction stories and comic books are full of ray guns and aliens. Given a couple of days, I could make a film that would show this same effect!” Diane Hoffman exclaimed.
“Oh, it’s real enough,” Tom LeBlanc said calmly.
“General Collier, would you please play the next 15 seconds of the film?” he asked.
Collier re-started the film from the point in time when the hanging meat and its hook had fallen to the floor. As the film continued
the uniformed man, whose back had always been to the camera, turned and stared into the lens, a small smile curling up just below his mustache. It was Captain Tom LeBlanc!
The people at the conference table had been surprised enough, and now they just looked wide-eyed at LeBlanc, some shaking their heads as the new information sank in.
As they all stared at him, Tom reached into a side pocket of his jacket and pulled the ray pistol out and laid it on the conference table.
In the soft light of the room, the pistol looked even more toy-like. The color appeared to be a dull red. It had a raised cream colored star pattern and stylized logo just behind the second of two dark green discs that surrounded the barrel end. The discs were each about half an inch larger in diameter than the barrel and about half an inch apart. The business end of the barrel appeared to be a black crystal of some kind. The pistol was about 7 inches from the tip of the barrel to the butt of the hand grip. It could be easily held in a human sized hand. There was a trigger guard much larger than one on a 45 pistol and a button in place of a trigger.
Lt. McPherson reached for it, but LeBlanc motioned him away.
“There will be time for inspection later after you have some training with it. To say it is a little dangerous is a big understatement,” LeBlanc explained.
“There must be more physical proof.” exclaimed Lucy Smith. “This thing," as she motioned toward the ray pistol, "is not proof that an alien species exists! Dr. Heinbaum says he's been working on high energy physics and applications that he can't tell us about. Maybe this thing is the product of his work. I've seen Buck Rogers movies with more believable looking space rockets and ray gun props than we’ve seen here today."
“I feel I must agree with her. I'm someone from the ‘Show Me’ state. This whatever-it-is, a ray pistol, does not validate an alien presence.” Diane Hoffman stated.
General Collier reached under his desk and pushed a button that summoned his aide into the room. The door opened, and a head stuck itself inside.
“Sir?”
“Cpl. Adams, please show our guests in.”
Adams disappeared for about 15 seconds. Then both conference room doors swung open, and Major Jim Blunt walked in pushing a wheel chair. Sitting in the wheel chair was a person covered completely with a black sheet. The person looked like it was wearing a hat, and the hat swiveled back and forth as if the individual was surveying all the people sitting at the table.
Adams backed out of the room and closed the double doors.
Blunt looked about the room. He stood 6 feet tall and had sandy brown, close cropped hair. He looked like the poster boy for military recruitment. Square shouldered, square jawed, looking very precise, no nonsense. But if you looked closely, and Diane Hoffman did just that, you could see the unmistakable crinkles of laugh lines in the corners of his eyes and the hint of dimples.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Major James Blunt. Let me introduce you to our visitor, Whatsit,” and with a flourish he removed the sheet covering the person sitting in the wheel chair.
Surprise and shock erupted all around. LeBlanc knew what to expect since he was stationed at the Nevada facility, but the others did not. The exclamations were followed by a brittle silence.
The large black eyes and the huge dark pupils seemed to captivate everyone. LeBlanc felt the now familiar tugging in his brain just behind his eyeballs. He had worked very hard learning to fight against the mental powers of Whatsit, but it took all his concentration to fight against the controlling powers of the creature. He knew if he was distracted for even a moment, he might lose the battle for control.
Jenson and Heinbaum discovered they could not move a muscle no matter how hard they tried. Jenson, who was a little off balance from lurching up out of his seat, fell over in a heap on the floor unable to stop himself from falling. Diane Hoffman and Lucretia Smith slowly turned to look at each other, each reaching towards the other to grip the other’s throat and begin squeezing. Jerome McPherson reached for and picked up the ray pistol, pointed it quickly at General Collier and began pushing the activating button over and over again!
Blunt waited a long moment and then, almost playfully, lightly slapped the creature’s head and said, “Ok, Whatsit, that’s enough.”
Whatsit turned in its seat and looked up at Blunt, an upward curving movement in the left corner of its mouth and slight narrowing of its eyes indicating it had enjoyed the little demonstration.
Immediately, each person felt a lifting of the pressure right behind their eyes. Hoffman and Smith, their hands still locked around each other's throats, and their eyes squinted in a menacing stare, quickly released their holds. Bright red flushed their cheeks. McPherson stared incredulously at the pistol he was aiming at General Collier, gently and carefully lowering the gun to the table. Jenson pulled himself up from the floor and quickly regained his chair but not his composure.
Silence, shock and fright filled the room.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, please relax. Calm yourselves," Blunt said softly.
"Our visitor here," as he motioned toward Whatsit, "has been in our custody now for almost a year. He is a Chrysallaman; a race of lizard-like beings from a star system about 30 light years away from earth."
He pushed the wheel chair closer to the conference table. Lucy Smith and John Heinbaum, who were sitting closest to where Blunt pushed the lizard being up to the table, quickly moved themselves back and away.
"Whatsit's people are accustomed to complete military-like dominance where rank and position in their society is revered. I captured Whatsit essentially by forcefully taking his weapon, that ray pistol, away from him and shooting him with it. Well, actually, I amputated both his feet with the ray gun. Since I defeated him in battle he now considers me his superior, and the person he is to serve and obey."
"The Chrysallaman mental powers are highly developed as you all have just witnessed. Since their vocal chords and tongues are not designed for speech, they were forced by nature to develop a form of telepathy in order to communicate. In dealing with us humans, their telepathy gives them a form of mind control over us. Their bodies are not that much stronger physically than ours, but the warriors wear a powered vest that includes an electrical based protective force field. The force field deflects subsonic bullets and augments their physical strength. Also, like many reptiles on Earth, he has the ability to regenerate parts of his body. If you look closely you'll see that the feet I amputated several months ago are almost fully regrown."
Blunt told them all this with such a matter-of-fact attitude that Heinbaum bristled.
"I will not sit here and listen to such nonsense!" he said levelly, his close set eyes slightly bulging in his effort to bluster. "That little monster didn't control me!"
"Listen very carefully, Dr. Heinbaum," Blunt said to him softly, trying his best to remain professional in his response.
"This creature is a highly intelligent being with mental powers we're only just beginning to fathom. When I first encountered him, he used his mental power to convince me he was harmless and to persuade me to order my men to lower their weapons covering him at which time he proceeded to slice them in half with his ray gun. I barely managed to break his mental hold on me and disarm him! In many ways, he is much smarter than most humans. He perhaps is smarter than even you."
Heinbaum sat back a little, but the sullen look of defiance in his eyes caught Blunt’s attention. Tom made a mental note to look deeper into Dr. Heinbaum's psych profiles and evaluations to see if he was best suited to be a member of the team.
McPherson was not as diplomatic.
"Listen up, Heiny," he said, very annoyed and pointing his finger at the man. "Against my will, I picked up that gun, pointed it at the General and tried my best to shoot him. I don't know why he's not lying on the floor right now with 5 or 6 holes blown through him!"
"I knew what I was doing, and I knew it was wrong, but I had no control over my actions!” he continued.
Both D
iane and Lucy chimed in with their agreement, nodding their heads emphatically. The red marks on their throats were visual confirmation of the mind control Whatsit had wielded over them.
"You planned this, didn't you?" asked Jenson, looking directly at LeBlanc. "You knew the ray gun wouldn't work! But why didn't it work? Is it broken? Out of juice? Why the dramatic entrance and scare tactics?” he asked more pointedly as his head swiveled first to LeBlanc and then to Blunt.
"Good questions," Blunt replied.
"Yes this was planned. We figured you wouldn't believe us just telling you an alien who can control our minds and is far more technically advanced than us has been living under our roof for the last year. We don't have time to overcome instinctual, uninformed skepticism. Quick and decisive actions must be taken to protect ourselves if we humans are going to survive the next few years!"
The bombshells just kept coming and coming. Boiling everyone's shouts and comments down into one theme came to: "What do you mean, survive the next few years?"
Major Blunt then told them the blockbuster. "The purpose of the Chrysallamans is no less than the conquering of Earth and the annihilation of its inhabitants. They mean to take over the Earth for colonization. This committee has been formed to create and implement plans to stop all this from happening."
Blunt continued. "It looks like the Chrysallamans have been spying on the Earth for some number of months. They apparently aren't impressed with our offensive, defensive or communication capabilities. Over time they got cocky and sloppy. With some luck, we were able to shoot down one of their saucers, much to their surprise. What we didn't understand at the time was when we shot down and captured their saucer and killed its crew, we demonstrated we were dangerous and capable in some ways of defending ourselves. Their response was to immediately return to their planet to report on our strengths and weaknesses and come back with sufficient overwhelming force to once and for all completely wipe out the human race."
"I have been able to get some general information from Whatsit. He talks to me by creating pictures in my mind. I have had a lot of interaction with him over the past months so I'm learning to communicate with him more clearly as time passes. Because I have no common reference points between his people and humans, some of the stuff is impossible to interpret. However, it is clear that his people travel in space at approximately the speed of light. Therefore, round trip to their home world and back here is 60 years of our time. We assume they'll take 5 to 10 years to assemble a force of ships and troops large enough to throttle our planet and its peoples. The math then tells us they'll be back in force in about 65 to 70 years from the time we shot down their saucer. That period of time is our defense preparation window."
The Origin of F.O.R.C.E. Page 3
