by Mark Kraver
“Yeah, but you’d’ve wanted to go with her,” Mac said. “And she needs to do it herself— “He stopped. “Crap, I did it again,” he whispered under his breath.
The awkward moment sent everyone back to their workstations, trying to act busy while straining their necks to follow the news on the TV. Even Conrad, staring in frustration at the screen had nothing else to say.
Mac shrugged and relaxed in his seat. He watched, with a twinkle in his eye, as Conrad turned dejectedly from the screen and limped out of the room, holding his side in pain.
Chapter 27
It does not matter if God created man in his own image, or man created God in his, humankind cannot survive without Him.
Yahweh, 3.141,592,653x106-66.666,666,666x106, Omega Prime, Helios
Library of Souls
Keesler AFB, Biloxi, Mississippi
“The Hala’ib Triangle, you sure? Because if you are, I’m not going,” Wilson said to his boss, Colonel Burgess. Wilson had only been back at the base for a few hours and was still thinking about the strange scene he’d left behind in Florida.
Colonel Burgess was a mountain of a man who was not easily put off. He’d known Wilson as a boy when he was stationed in Pittsburg with the 911th Airlift Wing. Wilson had played high school football with his oldest son, and Burgess had helped Wilson get his job at Keesler Air Force Base right out of college. Not enjoying being an empty nester, Burgess had taken Wilson on a few fishing trips in his boat out to the Chandeleur Islands for speckled trout and redfish, but usually came home with only a mess of undersized croakers. “I just read the orders myself. I don’t know where this dad burn triangle is—”
“Merry Christmas, does North Sudan ring a bell? It’s one of the most contested borders in the world.”
Wilson would have never known about the Hala’ib Triangle either, if not for looking at scuba dive hotspots around the Red Sea last year when he was on an assignment.
“I see,” Colonel Burgess said, walking over to his bookshelf and pulling down his dog-eared Rand McNally World Atlas.
“I’ve got it up on Google maps, sir,” his personal assistant, Sergeant Charlie said.
Burgess ignored him and continued flipping pages as he fell back into his desk chair. “You know, I went to Iran and Iraq a couple of times before the Ayatollah Cocamola threw a camel pie into the fan. Middle Eastern people are pretty decent if you don’t fool around with their women. Ah, here it is.” He sat up and lay the open atlas on his desk. “The Hala’ib Triangle. Hello, it’s right on the Red Sea. It can’t be all that bad. Maybe you can get in some diving time when you’re there. The Red Sea’s got good vis, and the coral reefs are really supposed to be red—or at least, that’s what I’ve heard.”
“You don’t have a clue, do you? You’re ignorant about this whole thing, aren’t you?” Wilson said, adding a smile so he wouldn’t piss off the colonel.
“I suppose you’re the expert,” Burgess said.
“No, of course not, but I do know that back in the nineties, Sudan granted oil concessions in the triangle and Egypt had a proverbial fit over it. Now the Bedouins who live there are shit out of luck cause nobody is helping them anymore with anything. It’s a hot, nasty place with less than this many air conditioners in the whole place,” he said with his middle finger on his right hand pointing straight up into the air. “North Sudan is pro-Iranian, and most nations of the world no longer deal with their government because of their human-rights record. You know what that means.”
Burgess shook his head dismissively. “Look, you’ve already rooted out one of these damned signals for Space Command and found a golden egg, now Cyber Command—”
“What?” Wilson asked.
“I’ll tell you later. Now you have to root out another for Cyber Command. It’s too damn bad you’re being sent to the poor side of town, but the bottom line is that we need to get there first, and that means you’re leaving tonight,” said Burgess.
“Tonight? What the hell does Cyber Command have to do with this?”
“No sure. So, don’t give me any more of your crap.” Burgess was starting to feel agitated by the whole exchange. “I have my orders, and you have yours.”
“But I’m a civilian,” Wilson protested.
“If you want to sit in Cairo, sucking down fermented date juice while your crew—”
“Crew? What crew? Oh no, Bill’s tolerable, but not Bubba.”
“That’s right, while your crew flies all over the damn desert looking for one of humankind’s greatest discoveries. Just don’t come to me afterwards and tell me you didn’t have a good time.”
Burgess closed the atlas and stood up from his chair. “And anyway, Cyber Command—
“Hey, check this out,” shouted Sergeant Charlie from a small adjacent room. Charlie had slipped quietly into his tiny office to watch television while Wilson and his boss discussed the mission. His voice was just in time to cut the colonel’s temper in half.
“Not now, Charlie,” boomed the colonel.
“I’m not kidding, Colonel. You need to see this,” insisted the sergeant.
“This had better be good,” the colonel said. He stared down Wilson as he passed him and stepped into the sergeant’s office. “What so important on the boob tube?”
Wilson followed the colonel and stood next to Charlie to watch the TV too. The ABC weekend news anchor, Robert Muir, was announcing a breaking story:
“. . . the strange funnel cloud touched down during the Miami Dolphin-Rams football game. No reports of damage have come in, even with the stands packed with a near-record ninety-eight thousand fans. Some aspects of this weather phenomenon were thought to be part of the halftime show, but the stadium administrator said no such show was planned. One moment. We now go live to our affiliate in Miami, WSVN. Go ahead.”
The scene changed to a dark-haired woman in a deep purple pantsuit and high heels standing outside the stadium. She was holding her hand to her ear, listening for her signal to go on air; when she realized the red light was on, she looked at the camera and began speaking.
“We are outside the stadium,” she said. “People are leaving after a reported tornado touch down. One individual we interviewed claimed that she had seen Jesus Christ, while others said the Virgin Mary had appeared.”
The screen moved back to Muir at his news desk. “Is there any damage or have there been any reported injuries associated with this storm?”
The Miami reporter shook her head. “None that I have seen or have been reported. The funnel cloud came out of nowhere and touched down on the field for several minutes, according to fans leaving the stadium.”
Muir thanked the woman. “And now, we go to Ramona Riviera of WSVN on Ft. Lauderdale Beach for more live coverage, as the weather phenomenon tracks up the east coast.”
The screen flashed to another woman who, despite her professional attire, was looking decidedly unnerved. One hand was shakily holding a microphone and the other half-covering her mouth. “Oh, my God, I don’t believe it,” she cried, looking at the sky instead of the camera. “Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, oh—”
Muir cleared his throat. “Can you tell us what you see there on the beach?” he asked.
The woman flung both hands in the air. “I saw Jesus Christ,” she yelled out, loudly enough that the mic in her hand still picked up her words. “He has risen. Christ has risen!”
When it became clear he wasn’t getting more out of the distraught field reporter, Muir started asking in vain, “Can you get someone else? Can someone tell us more about what’s going on?”
“What’s on the other channels?” Colonel Burgess grumbled. “And what about the blackout? Is that thing still coming?”
Charlie clicked to the Weather Channel.
“Here you see this little patch of cloudiness over the coastline between Palm Beach and Broward County, which spawned a funnel cloud that touched down in NFL stadium. There are no reports of damage. The cloud appears to be headed north at abou
t forty to forty-five miles per hour, which is unusual, especially since the prevailing winds are from the East at three to four knots, with clear skies and a large Bermuda high-pressure ridge hanging over the area. No naturally-occurring weather phenomenon could account for such meteorological behavior.”
Burgess, Wilson, and Charlie watched the news coverage, mesmerized. Wilson regained his composure, looked at his boss, and asked, “Wow, there’s a cloud and a blackout—I’ll get hazard pay, right?”
“Hell, I’ll see that you get double hazardous pay,” the colonel whispered, falling into Charlie’s office chair with a thud and a hissing of escaping air from the overtaxed seat.
“One more thing,” Wilson demanded. “I’m going alone. I can’t handle my crew on remote in the Middle East.”
“Sounds good to me. Cyber Command asked for only you, anyway,” the colonel said, smiling and looking at his watch as Charlie handed Wilson his typed orders. “You leave in sixty-six minutes.”
Chapter 28
All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.
Sun Tzu, 544-496 BC, Earth
Library of Souls
Beaches
Logan couldn’t believe her eyes. The beaches below her were growing ever more crowded by the second. People were pouring through the canyons of towering hotels and buildings that lined the coastal highway. Their eager feet trampling the delicate sea oats and sea grapes of nationally-protected sand dunes.
As every inch of the sandy beach filled, the crowds expanded seamlessly into the water’s edge. A dense congregation of swimmers on rafts, surfers on boards, and preachers waist deep in the breakers baptizing sinners in long conga lines obscured the frothy white bands between sand and boat-filled sea.
Passing over small Space Coast towns with names like Satellite Beach and Cocoa Beach, Logan saw what looked like rivers of parked cars. Scrambling pedestrians were pushing little children in strollers and old people in wheelchairs as if their lives depended upon them making it to the beach on time. Everyone jostled and shoved, forcing themselves past each other—desperate to get to the end of the world before the cloud slipped silently past.
News helicopters and small airplanes circled, adding an overhead component to their traveling circus. Their onboard cameras streaming video of the strange miraculous journey up the East Coast of America straight into every television around the world.
Logan guessed their cloud was about forty to fifty feet above the crowds below. Next to her, Yahweh and Numen stood as they had appeared in their ship—a young teenage alien in golden tights and his similarly colored sidekick. The three of them were far enough out of range to not be seen; instead the people of the world saw only Jesus and Mary.
Yahweh said in her mind, Numen has prepared them for this day. They have been waiting for me to save them.
Logan looked down at all the faceless beach goers and thought, Can you?
Yahweh smiled, and Logan felt a warm glow flow through her body. She knew his answer.
“Numen tells me that many nations of the world meet in one place,” Yahweh said with his own voice.
“Yes, the UN. The United Nations Building in New York City.”
“On this coastline?” he asked.
Logan nodded. What an ingenious plan, she thought, watching Yahweh wink and tug on his earlobe in response.
After traveling over jammed beaches, the wave-splashed sands became deserted. Off in the distance Logan saw strange towering gantries pock-marking the solitude of virgin pine and palmetto forests teeming with wildlife. The giant American flag painted on the side of the Kennedy Space Center’s massive Vertical Assembly Building where her satellite had been put into a rocket gave her a feeling of nostalgic pause and awkwardness.
He will be worried about you, Yahweh said in her mind, diverting her attention.
Logan blinked.
Yahweh stared at her, and she realized he was talking about Conrad.
“Vince is probably sick with worry,” she said, and for the first time since they’d taken flight in the cloud, she felt quite worried about him.
“Call him.” Yahweh gestured to her cell phone hanging from her belt.
“Oh, no. He can wait.”
“Call him,” he insisted.
She was uneasy. Yeah, she could call him, but what would she say?
“Don’t think about it. Call him.”
Logan picked up her cell phone, slid it on to recognize her face, pressed her phone icon, and touched a number on her favorites list.
Inside the connectome Nadira focused on Logan and her importance to this adventure:
“You cared for this hominin?” Nadira asked.
“He used her as a source of information about the local culture,” Lanochee said.
“He had Numen for that. Why was this female so important?” Nadira asked.
“Everyone influences everyone one around them and her influence has already changed the world,”
Yahweh silently said.
Chapter 29
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Albert Einstein, 1879-1955, Earth
Library of Souls
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Every television screen was on. Every channel urgently reporting the non-stop news. Two compelling stories competing for the country’s attention: the strange ‘Judgement Day Cloud of Christ’ and the ominous, inexplicable blackout spreading over the southern hemisphere.
Videos and images showed scene after scene of cars parked in the middle of roads and highways, as everyone on the Eastern Coast of the United States abandoned their vehicles and raced to see the miraculous beach cloud with their own eyes. On other channels, anchors shared reports of broken communications with the southernmost countries; electricity, cell phones, internet, cable; everything in the path of the spreading blackout had ceased to function.
Conrad turned away from the television in the control room with a cramp in his abdomen that was so intense it made him cough up blood. “Can you believe that crap?” he asked the room to divert everyone’s attention away from his discomfort. All the techs shook their heads without turning from the mesmerizing news. Recovering from his agony, he asked, “Try to get Kit on the phone again, will you please?”
Harold, who sat with his face about fifteen inches from the TV screen, studying every scene as if his life depended on it, shouted, “Mac, you heard the man, get her on the—”
The sound of the phone ringing cut him off. It was the old landline still attached to the wall of the lab.
Mac jumped up, grabbed the phone, and pulled the cord as close to the TV as possible without yanking it out of the wall. “Hello? Okay,” he answered, without taking his eyes from the TV set. He held the phone in the air. “Vince, for you. It’s L-logan.”
“What?” Conrad grabbed the phone. “Kit? Where in the hell are you? I’ve been worried sick.”
“I’m not in hell, quite the opposite. I’m on the beach or about fifty feet above it,” she said, looking down through the clear gravity bubble.
“Above the beach? Where are you? On one of those damn sail kites? I thought you were in the Everglades for Christ’s sake,” he said.
“Well, I was.”
“What? Have you been watching the news?”
“No.”
“Damn it, girl. You’re on the beach. Didn’t you see that crazy cloud?”
“Ah yeah, I’m in it…”
Conrad swallowed hard and glanced at the TV. “You’re in that cloud?” he whispered into the receiver so the others in the room couldn’t hear his voice quiver. “The cloud over the beach? You’re serious you haven’t seen the news? Have you taken your meds?”
“No, I’m serious,” she said. “I’ll fill you in later. Tell the guys the satellite worked like it was supposed to.” The glow of accomplishment brought gooseflesh all over her body. “I’m in
good hands, going to New York City for a press conference,” she added, in a hurry to get off the phone.
“New York City? Why New York City?”
“Because that’s where the United Nations is. Goodbye,” she said.
“Wait! What do you mean ‘we’?” he asked as she hung up in his ear.
Logan looked at Yahweh, surprised at her own boldness.
“Now, don’t you feel better?” Yahweh said to her. She didn’t have to answer.
Conrad stood with the receiver in his hand staring at the TV screen with a renewed sense of urgency. “Kit claims she’s inside that cloud,” he said.
The others looked at Conrad for a moment and quickly shifted their gazes back to the TV, unfazed. They’d heard crazier things come out of Logan’s mouth.
“She said she was inside the cloud? Geez, next thing she’ll be saying is she caused the blackout,” Harold said. “Was she imagining it? Maybe she forgot her meds?”
“I don’t know. She said she was inside the cloud, and that we were headed to the UN in New York City for a press conference,” he said, as if his own head was now in a cloud. “She also wanted me to tell everyone that the satellite worked as it was supposed to.”
Booger grunted. “What does that mean? It was designed to receive deep-space frequencies from extraterrestrial intelligence. How did RFI turn into a successful mission?”
Nobody had an answer and the voices of reporters were again the only sound in the room. Conrad’s mind began clicking at the speed of a jet plane. He didn’t have to wait to see what was happening on the news. She had given him a signal, and he knew what to do.
He had to get to the UN on the next available flight, no matter what the ticket-gouging airline’s short-notice price policies were. Hell, I’d take a supersonic Concorde flight, if they were still flying, he thought, racing out the door without telling the others where he was going.
