First Light: Book one of the Torus Saga

by Berg, Michael

  He was not angry this time. He was full of admiration. Admiration for the effective destruction wrought upon people. He admired the way the authorities had efficiently crushed so many spirits as he watched them act like fools, with their hysteria and their crying. And he admired himself. Soon he would be exactly where he thought he would and nobody could stand in his way.

  He hated Reno and thought good riddance to the place wishing they had taken out Las Vegas as well. He hated the cabin where he had commenced his chase, thinking now it would be nothing but a ruin, and he hated Lake Tahoe with its gambling, it holiday makers in summer and winter, and its scenery. Nothing suited him more than the blandness of nothingness, of grayness, and of coldness.

  The authorities were full of lies. They filled people’s minds with stories of false terrorists and false insurrection. They filled people’s minds with paranoia. They filled people’s minds with insecurity. They filled people’s minds with false promises it would all would be alright. They would apprehend those responsible and they would serve justice to them so the population could see who to blame, could see who they could hate, and could see why compliance with everything they were told – was a surety to remain safe. A state of semi-martial law was immediately put into place, not only in America, but also in nations and cities all around the world. From the great glittering jewel like cities of Beijing, Moscow, and London, to the small centres and remote town, authority control was served upon the people.

  Many were almost unaffected, their self already given to the system. Some were concerned and so gathered to discuss if it was the right thing to do. Often many of these meetings were infused with officers of the authorities and so eventually consensus swayed towards supporting the new security measures.

  Then…there were those who outright objected to such an intrusion into their lives, and into their souls. They could see visions where the simple freedoms of movement, of choice, and of adventure in spirit, would be replaced with systems of ordinance and organized methods in pursuit of efficiency. They knew this was not the true elemental nature of human beings from their deepest selves beyond physical manifest. Technology was rapidly servicing the human instrument and through such service, born would be dependency – already occurring on so many fronts.

  Lights that so beautifully ornamented the buildings of the great cities were turned off, and replaced with cold grey lighting, rendering them featureless. Festivities and celebrations were cancelled. Cultural centers and museums had their doors locked. Alcohol and other indulgences were to be outlawed, and private businesses were to be shut down. Commerce would soon be cashless and conducted using the ID chips as payment. The authorities had convinced themselves they had thought of everything, and were now taking control of almost everything.

  Inside the high rise, armed officers were stationed on every floor, and people everywhere were told they must be indoors no later than nine at night. In coalition with other world governments, an order was being affected, and so their populations were forced to comply. It was an order by the elite – their own style of insurrection against human values and ethics. They were misers, and manipulators, measuring out misery to deconstruct memory.

  Steve McCray departed the next day for the trip into space. He was not piloting the spacecraft, but rather, was considered as a VIP passenger and thus was given all the privileges of such a position. He still felt bad though, not only because of where he was going, but how his life would take on a lonely existence far flung from most of human kind. The data outlining his mission to the Asteroids did include psychological illness encountered by those persons who chose to work so far out in space. Steve was already aware of such detail prior to the report though, but, using the word ‘chose’ reminded him of his complete lack of choice in this instance. Gradually throughout the course of recent events, Steve was becoming softer and easier going - his feelings of being a staunch commander receding. Even though he had nobody to call family, no lover or partner, and what appeared to be no military role on Earth, he felt deeply saddened when he heard of the atomic event in Reno. Steve had spent years of his life presenting a front as an officer to maintain order, but underneath, he was sensitive to nuances of life.

  As the spacecraft lifted further and further into the atmosphere, he feared he was abandoning ship and this upset him. He never abandoned a post, never abandoned a mission or let anyone come up short under his command. Now in some way now he felt he was needed more than ever on Earth, but there was nothing he could do about it. At the time when the craft initiated atmospheric exit thrust, he was pushed back into his seat, the G forces making it hard to move, and at this moment he felt helpless, pinned, and unable to do anything.

  Chapter 32

  Jenna and Lyle had watched the events unfold at Reno with disgust, knowing the authorities were behind the destruction of so many lives. Jenna openly wept so Lyle held her tightly, softly crooning her and stroking her hair. When the news was too much to bear, Lyle turned off the holographic vision and they just held each other for a time.

  Operations at Kennedy Space had increased with the influx of military personnel and machinery to the base. When they left the living quarters building the next day, a military officer was waiting for them to take them to their assigned workstations. A heightened state of security was in place with all employees now assigned officers to escort them whenever they were required to travel about the massive space complex. Upon arrival at their workstation, they discovered new orders had been issued for all personnel to be given the identification chips as a matter of urgency. “Security level is at red,” sounded over loudspeakers throughout the space center at regular intervals.

  Their approach to their work was slow as they both felt uninterested and too preoccupied with thinking about the events in Nevada. As the day wore on, their mood hardly changed until the officer who had instructed them when they had first arrived, suddenly appeared. He was carrying a small metal box about twelve inches square. “Well, here it is!”

  “What is it?” Jenna asked.

  “The Torus.”

  “In there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh of course.” For a moment Jenna had forgotten her visions of the Torus on the holographic bank had been magnified, and so she had expected something much larger.

  “We need to get to work on this immediately. Anything you require, do not hesitate to ask.” He handed her the box and left.

  Lyle had stepped out when the officer delivered the box and returned just after he left. He noticed the box straightaway upon return, “That is the Torus isn’t it?”

  “Yes. The officer told me that we need to get to work on this fast, but you know what?”

  “What?”

  “I feel like stealing it and running away, far, far away.”

  “I know. There is not one cell inside my body that wants to deliver any type of knowledge about what it can do or help them to activate it if it can be activated.”

  “Oh it can. Think about what Chan…” She stopped herself remembering they were under surveillance. “I hope they missed that.”

  “Me too,” said Lyle, in the same hushed tone, frustrated he had forgotten such a rudimentary thing.

  Jenna opened the box and they both looked inside. The Torus appeared to be made of a very hard crystal and they thought it was diamond.

  “Wow!” they said together as she lifted it out of the box. It was a fascinating sight as she held it in the palm of her hand. The Torus was approximately two inches in diameter. “Quite a diamond ring!” Lyle said and for a moment his emotions took over as he looked into Jenna’s eyes and asked, “Will you marry me?”

  She laughed a little in response saying, “Of course, if we ever get the chance.” When the moment passed, they returned to their professional thinking, “I will place it inside this resonance chamber here. Just keep on eye on the variables as I power up the chamber Lyle. I am going to do a carbon isotope scan first.” She entered a sequence via the hol
ographic controls resulting in a very low hum from the chamber.

  Lyle monitored the resulting data, “all looks nominal for diamond.”

  “OK. I’ll increase the power and scan the neutron quantum spectrum. It will give us a lot more detail on its purity.” She made the required adjustments and the Torus began to glow a little pink. “It’s beautiful!”

  “Now I’ll see what sort of conductivity it has…”

  “Wait! I am getting some silica readouts here.”

  “Silica?”

  “Yeah. Adjust the spectrometer a little and see if we can detect the level of silica particles. Also give it some unshielded ultrasonic waves and some waves in the upper spectrum – I want to see if there is a vibration we can get going here between the carbon and silica.”

  Jenna responded to Lyle’s request thinking it a little strange as she had not considered first, there would be silica, and second, about intensive ultrasonic waves to make the Torus vibrate. Immediately after entering the sequence required for the test and initiating it, the Torus began to respond. At first they both thought it was just going to repeat the pink glow again, which it did. But the glow kept intensifying and as Lyle had thought, it also began to vibrate. They both just gazed at it for a few moments forgetting to watch the resulting data, which was virtually exploding on the holographic banks similarly to when they were discovering the Torus on the Moon. Then without warning, the Torus flashed a blinding flash for an instant and then stabilized to a regular glowing and vibrating state. What amazed them was that it was floating in the air without any support of any kind – gas, liquid, or solid. They both knew this was a physical representation of the Torus of Eternity – it came to them as an intuition, a gut feeling. ‘Anyway,’ they both quickly thought, ‘what else could it be?’ Without word, they both knew what they had to do next, but they had no idea how they were going to do it.

  Jenna shut down the test so they could think for a while about how to steal the Torus and get out of the space center. Neither of them were pilots so an aircraft was out of the question. They would not be able to simply walk out of the base with the Torus, so they needed a plan.

  Returning to look as if they were still working for the sake of the surveillance, they pretended to be analyzing the test results, whilst still thinking of ways they could escape with the Torus. Then suddenly, Jenna heard John’s voice inside her head, “Jenna, are you with Lyle?”

  “Um…yes,” she said softly.

  “Stand by, I am going to remotely reconfigure your devices.”

  “OK.”

  Twenty seconds later John’s voice came again, “Try thinking something to say to me.”

  ‘OK,’ she thought. ‘It is the Torus, we are certain.’

  “Good, it works. So it is the Torus. Amazing. What will you do?”

  “We are trying to work out how to steal it. It will be difficult though, as this place is teeming with military personnel.”

  “Um...wait a bit.” Their communication fell silent.

  “Lyle?”

  “Yes?” he said softly.

  “Try thinking a communication to me.” He did and it too worked. “Good. Jenna said you have found the Torus but you cannot think of a way to steal it.”

  “None,” he responded I thought.

  “I have a way…I think might work. Listen. Tell me the spectrum results you have, I need to know the vibration frequency of the Torus.”

  “Um…it varies slightly, increasing with each moment.”

  “I thought it might. It may be linked into the Schumann resonance, which is exponentially increasing each second. I am going to send a masking frequency to your device. You will need to attach it to the Torus. Don’t worry about your security authentication, it will still work.”

  “OK,” Lyle took his device from behind his ear and gave it to Jenna who placed it on the Torus.

  “Jenna?”

  “Yes?”

  “I am going to set the frequency to match that of the Schumann Resonance…including its variations.”

  “OK.”

  “Now. All you need to do is take it and leave the base. The scanners will not detect it as they too are calibrated using the Schumann resonance, so in effect, anything that shows up on their readouts will be masked.”

  “Alright, but it is going to be nerve wracking.”

  “I know. There is a lot of nervousness about now with all this stuff going on. Trust yourselves. Nearly everyone is nervous after Reno, so get out quick!”

  “Where will we go? There are bound to be travel restrictions in place.”

  “There are. I suggest you commandeer a vehicle or buy one or something. Avoid air travel.”

  “OK.”

  “And best of luck. We are heading towards Chico in northern California. My friend in Oakland told me he had met Raynie, Jake, and Chan.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll tell you when you get here. Also, avoid coming in through Nevada. Take a more northern route. The authorities have devastated the northern end of the state and some of California, but it is safe. They used a delimitated nuclear explosion and so its’ affects were limited to a specific area…even the fallout.”

  “How?”

  “They are able to manipulate the radioactive isotopes using some type of nano-tech to breakdown at a very fast rate after a specific time, instead of the normal half life we are used to. Don’t know much more, but if they have that capacity, who knows what else they have up their sleeve. Travel safe.”

  “Well, we need to get going Lyle. We must whisper to each other in close in a hope to avoid audio surveillance. I am thinking of a way we can get out of here without raising suspicion immediately, but they will find out what has happened in a short time after we leave, so we need to be diligent and stay alert.”

  “What’s the plan?”

  “I am going to set up a resonance field based on the data we received during the testing. It will make it appear as though the Torus is still here in situation under test conditions. You need to leave first. I suggest you go straight from here to our quarters and pack a few things we will need. I will follow, but after about thirty minutes. That way, we are not observed as leaving together.”

  “But what about the chip injection? We are both scheduled for two this afternoon.”

  “That is part of it. Tell them you need to go now, as there is some testing you need to do that will take most of the afternoon and you thought about getting the injection early so you can return to your work. We are dealing with military here and they like an eagerness to comply.”

  “OK, and then?”

  “When you are gone, I will request a personal meeting with the officer who we report to and I will take the Torus with me, in my pocket as it is small enough…thankfully.”

  “Right.”

  “Then, at the penultimate moment when I arrive outside the office, I will request passage to quarters. I’ll use a feminine excuse…they cannot refuse.”

  “Sure.”

  “The injections are being carried out at the space center hospital which by a stroke of luck is on the northern perimeter of the base, are you following?”

  “Yes.”

  “When I get to our quarters, I will request the same as you after staying inside for a few minutes. I’ll fake a reason based on something I have just realized. I am sure whoever escorts me will not be smart enough to think much more than his military duties…which are to escort us wherever we need to go. I will tell him to wait whilst I have my injection. By this time we will both be in the same location at the northern perimeter.”

  “And from there?”

  “That is a tricky part. The escorts will not be waiting right outside the injecting room, as they will know there are other officers inside the hospital. This is where we need to make a move.”

  “We ask for transit outside the base?”

  “That was what I was thinking. We have been given rights to go outside.”

  “But what
about the injection?”

  “Those officers won’t know if we have had it or not, if we allow a suitable amount of time for the injections. So we use the devices John gave us to provide us access outside the base. The chips are now a pre-requisite for access to leave this place. I will still have mine behind my ear and yours will still be on the Torus in close enough proximity to register authentication.”

  “So we walk right out of the base!”

  “Precisely!”

  “One thing though. With authentication occurring just prior to our re-entry into the atmosphere, surely they will be tracking the signal?”

  “I can imagine they will, but as we have had no questioning or been arrested over that as yet, I can only imagine they haven’t yet made the connection. I’m going on my gut feeling with that one.”

  “Sounds good enough for me,” Lyle looked into her eyes and gave her a quick kiss.

  “What’s that for?”

  “Luck, and because I love you.”

  Jenna’s plan was precise and so too was its execution. An hour later, they stood waiting at the main access gate outside the space center hospital as a military officer confirmed their ID and then opened it for them to freely walk through. Five minutes later, they were on the public transit system used by the many visitors to Kennedy Space for public viewing of spacecraft launches, but on this day there were none and so they had the transit carriage entirely to themselves. They remained silent and expressionless to keep a straight face and appear as though they were on official business.

  They disembarked their transit at Tampa and immediately went about looking for a vehicle for the long drive across the continent to California. Within an hour they had purchased an older second hand model and were traveling on the east coast elevated transit network. The network on this side of the country was an immense collection of tubes servicing the vast populations. One could drive at high speed from Florida to Massachusetts and west to Alabama and Kentucky without having to leave the elevated roads or the need to engage manual driving.