Confirmation

by Barna William Donovan

  “And get in?” Knight spoke up as he increased his strides, making sure he stayed as close to Brubaker as he could.

  Journalist’s instincts still honed, Cornelia quickly lurched toward him to make sure she moved in his wake and advanced as quickly as he did toward the head of the power structure in the group.

  “What’s that?” Brubaker asked.

  “Getting in,” Knight repeated. “What about getting in? Do you have all the globe pilgrims coming to Hawaii?”

  “From what I heard,” Brubaker said, “airline reservations both in and out of the islands have completely been jammed. Everything’s overbooked. So yeah, since the press got a hold of the stories of people hearing this buzz, thousands of people either want to run or want to be on the next plane in.”

  Then a thought occurred to Cornelia, something that had been an inarticulate shade in the back of her mind until now. “Any of the people who’ve talked about hearing the hum,” she exclaimed quickly. “The local experiencers,” she continued when Brubaker cast a look over his shoulder and made eye contact with her. “Any of them military personnel?”

  For a moment Brubaker seemed to be stumped, but replied, “No. Actually, no. No one here reported anything like that.”

  Then Cornelia noticed the contemplative look in Kristine Murakami’s eyes. “That’s right…,” the doctor said quietly, apparently unnoticed by Brubaker or anyone else.

  “As far as we know, they’re all civilian reports,” said Brubaker.

  “The island has a large military population, right?” Murakami raised her voice.

  “Statistically—” Cornelia began, but was cut off.

  “Someone from the local bases,” Murakami interjected forcefully, “from Hickam or Pearl, should have been among the experiencers.”

  “And the reports that have been coming in so far,” Cornelia said quickly, and stepped closer to Brubaker, not appreciating Murakami’s pushiness. “Where has it fit in the population so far? I mean, were they truly all locals, or were any of them from the tourist population? Just so we can guess if the phenomenon is entirely in the location, or something having to do with the experiencers alone.”

  These were questions Brubaker had obviously not considered until now, because his face looked ever more quizzical.

  “Entirely in the location alone?” Murakami replied instead, and Cornelia noted the disapproval in her voice. “I think it’s obvious that we’re dealing with some aspect of the location—”

  “Not entirely!” Cornelia shot back. “If we did, everyone in San Francisco would have been going crazy from phantom humming in their ears. Including us!”

  “All right,” Murakami replied, obviously irritated and impatient now. “And it’s also obvious that there is something about specific individuals. So what?”

  “Wouldn’t it be strange if only locals heard the buzz in Hawaii? In a place with so many tourists? And again, if no military personnel heard it? With such a significant number of the local population being in some way connected to the military?”

  “Statistically,” Cornelia heard Rick say behind her, “those are interesting questions.”

  Cornelia barely suppressed a satisfied smile as she noticed his strong inflection.

  “And I don’t have any of the answers to that,” Colonel Brubaker replied quickly. Before either of the bickering women could, Cornelia thought, amused. “I suppose your group will be able to figure that out. But let me warn you about something first.”

  With that, Brubaker paused and let a theatrical beat of silence hang in the air.

  “What’s that?” Cornelia asked, glad she got the question out before Murakami could.

  “There might be more experiencers out there than we’re aware of.”

  “Oh?” Murakami did get the follow-up question in.

  And Cornelia understood its simplicity. The doctor must also have been suspecting the answer.

  “Yeah,” Brubaker said. “Because we have reasons to believe many experiencers are actively trying to avoid us.”

  “And let me guess why,” Knight said, snark and attitude well loaded into each of his words.

  Brubaker gave him a rueful look and nodded. “Right. Check some of the local radio shows. The podcasts. Social media.”

  “People are being told to stay away from the government, aren’t they?” Knight asked.

  “They’re afraid they’ll be locked away. With the military’s mad scientists doing experiments on them forever,” Brubaker said.

  Cornelia noticed Murakami giving her a quick glance.

  “Well,” the doctor said, “what if we use the press corps to try and counter all the conspiracy-theorist propaganda?”

  “You certainly can try,” Brubaker said. “And you’ll have your work cut out for you. We’ve got a couple of real rabid ones doing their podcasts from the islands. They’ve got some people convinced the government’s got concentration camps for the experiencers all across the country, and that aliens are running the Pentagon.”

  “Wait a minute!” Rick spoke up.

  Cornelia, of course, suspected what he was about to say.

  “Can’t anyone talk to these bloggers and podcasters?” Rick asked. “Find them and—”

  “And what?” Brubaker replied. “Two problems with that. Number one is the finding part. We don’t even know what island they’re on. They went, as they say, off the grid some time after 9/11.” When Rick rolled his eyes in frustration, Brubaker added, “Not that we didn’t try already. Local FBI office gave it a shot, from what I heard. Tried to find the source of the podcasts and their web pages. Got traces routed all over the world. Conspiracy theorist computer geeks tend to be smart bastards. They know how to hide in cyberspace.

  “Now, of course, you also have to consider something else. Should we be able to find these clowns, there’s the little matter of the First Amendment to deal with. They have the right to say and tweet and podcast whatever they like.”

  Rick nodded before Brubaker even finished his last sentence, a crooked grin on his face. “Come on, Colonel. You guys are the air force. Don’t you have a whole cadre of men in black that can find anything and make anyone disappear?”

  “They’re all at Area 51,” Brubaker said, then glanced over his shoulder toward the press people trailing behind. “Our good friends in the news media,” he said with a grimace, “they know how this is a joke, don’t they?”

  “I’m pretty sure they do,” said Cornelia.

  “Speaking of Area 51,” Brubaker continued. “If it all goes south, we might even get harassed by a Nevada senator who’s vacationing here. Been asking questions already. But anyway, you ladies and gentlemen are about to have an eventful stay in the Aloha State.”

  “Where are we going first?” asked Knight.

  “I suggest King’s and the Kaiser Permanente Moanalua Medical Centers. Some of the people who’ve heard the hum are there. The ones who came in voluntarily. We thought it would put them at ease if they didn’t have to come into a military facility.”

  3.

  “I’ve always been a knee-jerk First Amendment purist,” Cornelia said, surfing the local conspiracy web pages Lyle Brubaker had recommended, “but this is going too far.”

  “Some of this stuff seems to be inciting criminal behavior, if not violence,” Lacy Anderson said from the seat behind her.

  The Travis globe-study team, minus the air force special operations commandos and the SEALS, had been loaned several GMC Yukon SUVs at Hickam field, and the Confirmation group had taken two of the vehicles. Cornelia now rode in the same car with Rick, Melinda, Matt, and Lacy. Rafferty, not surprisingly, sat next to Lacy. The two of them, Cornelia was glad to note, just seemed to gravitate together naturally.

  And every time she noticed these details, Cornelia’s attention first drifted toward Rick sitting behind the w
heel, then she felt the most incredible exhaustion. It was more than just their six-hour flight from Travis, of course. The two of them had let their guards down, given in to their attraction, had given themselves to each other for an hour in California, but it had been nothing but business ever since. It was draining, frustrating, and depressing, Cornelia thought. Only the fact that she knew Rick felt the same—the stolen glances, hands held, a word of affirmation when they got a moment away from all of these people—allowed Cornelia to stay focused on the job at hand.

  “…the implication of violence is so subtle.” Rafferty’s voice snapped Cornelia’s attention away from her drifting thoughts. Her glance first shifted toward Rick, then toward the palm-lined, high-end real estate, shops, and scenery of Waikiki as their convoy of SUVs rolled down Ala Moana Boulevard. She had been to Hawaii on spring break once in college. She remembered wanting to come back again when she was a successful journalist breaking world-changing stories every day, and when she was accompanied by the love of her life. So how did the plans turn out…? she wondered before Lacy’s voice demanded her attention yet again.

  “Isn’t that right?” Lacy called.

  “What’s that?” Cornelia replied, forcing every other thought from her mind.

  “You don’t need to specifically say, ‘go kill people,’ or ‘blow stuff up,’ or ‘go overthrow the government’ to incite violence, do you? It’s not covered by the First Amendment, right? It’s just like shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater, isn’t it?”

  “You have to be real clear in what you’re inciting people to do,” Cornelia replied. “I mean real, literal, crystal clear. There should be clear intent in your words. And there should be a real likelihood of imminent violence coming about as a result of what you said or wrote.”

  “And that’s where I think the posts don’t quite meet the legal requirements,” Rafferty said. After a pause, though, he quickly tagged on, “Although I could see a lawyer making a convincing case.”

  He cast a quick glance Lacy’s way after his last words. The conciliatory tone in his voice made Cornelia want to smile.

  “So what do you think?” Melinda asked.

  “Yeah,” said Rick. “You’re our media law authority.”

  “I’m hardly an authority,” Cornelia replied. “But I think the people who write this stuff online know how to skirt the law.”

  “You think so?” Matt asked as he filmed their conversation.

  “This is the kind of stuff white supremacists and survivalists and all those fringe anti-government fruitcakes write every day. I don’t think it qualifies as causing imminent violence.”

  “Well, one of the fruitcakes was tweeting about how all the people who have voluntarily contacted the authorities about their hum symptoms have already been placed in chains and flown to FEMA detention camps on the mainland,” said Lacy. “That’s a clear lie.”

  “But will it, without a reasonable doubt, make people commit violence?”

  “It’s doubtful,” Rick said, and made a turn onto Punchbowl Street.

  “I think so too,” said Melinda.

  “God, some of this stuff is just off the wall,” Rafferty said a moment later. “What the hell is the matter with people?”

  Lacy chuckled now. “A web page by the—get this!—the Conspiracy Kahuna, says that the hums had been beamed into the minds of a select few people to hasten the New World Order’s declaration of global martial law.”

  “Hmm,” Rick mumbled a moment later.

  “What’s that?” Cornelia asked.

  “Just…hmm,” he replied.

  “Oh really? Just hmm? Meaning what?”

  Cornelia caught Rick’s glance flick to the rearview mirror, as if he was interested in the reaction of the people in the back. Or some of the people in the back.

  “I just thought,” Rick said, “that it sounds a bit like what Doc Knight said back on the plane.”

  Or what Vince Rafferty was somewhat, half-heartedly agreeing with? Cornelia wondered. As long as it didn’t offend Lacy?

  “Oh, he doesn’t think the government is doing this,” Rafferty said quickly.

  “I don’t think so either,” Rick replied. “But it’s the same kind of reasoning. That something is causing all this for a personal gain. And I mean gain as in a dictatorial takeover.” A heavy beat of silence hung in the car. “It does make you think…,” Rick added.

  “Makes you think about what?” Cornelia asked.

  “The kinds of things you asked Brubaker about back at the air field. Who exactly hears all this stuff? And why so many all at the same time? Why just now?”

  Those were questions with no clear answers. Not even clear, logical guesses, Cornelia considered. That, of course, was why another heavy, awkward beat of silence sat in the car, like a miasma oppressing everyone.

  “Because David Kwan’s condition went public?” Melinda said at last.

  “What?” Lacy asked.

  “David Kwan?” Melinda said, her voice very tentative now.

  “That’s an excellent point,” Rick said.

  “And I think I agree,” Rafferty seconded.

  “Speak! Speak!” Matt said, swinging his camera back and forth from Rick to Vince Rafferty.

  “Why do so many people,” Rick obliged, “suddenly become globe sensitive so soon after Kwan’s story hits the airwaves? I mean, suppose the air force’s clumsy visit to Kwan’s house wasn’t seen by his neighbor. The globe-blogger, mind you!”

  “Yeah!” Lacy cut in. “Then the press would never have caught wind of the whole hum sensitivity.”

  “Or they wouldn’t have put two and two together the way Ian did about some of the other hum-sensitives,” Cornelia added.

  “Exactly!” Rafferty said. “But still the point is that until the Kwan story broke….” He let his voice trail off, reminding Cornelia of Knight’s occasional pedantic impulses, when he spoke as if he was lecturing students and urging them to participate in class and come to conclusions on their own.

  “Until the story broke,” Lacy said, looking at Rafferty with a beaming smile, “all these other places—Mount Shasta, that Italian town, even San Francisco—had at most one person talking about hums.”

  “All right,” Melinda said. “So this is something important—”

  “Oh, I think this is something potentially huge,” Rafferty blurted. “I mean really, really significant.”

  “Like what?” Melinda asked the obvious when Rafferty appeared content to let his statement hang in the air.

  “Well…,” Rafferty said, and paused. “I don’t know.”

  Melinda rolled her eyes in frustration.

  “I know, I know,” Rafferty said, and nodded vigorously. “This is really frustrating.”

  Lacy giggled at the whole exchange.

  “But look,” said Rafferty, “it’s still a step in the right direction….”

  “On, come on!” said Melinda.

  “No, I think he’s right,” Rick agreed. “It’s better than nothing. At least we noticed a problem. Now we know what needs to be investigated.”

  “We’re grasping at straws,” Melinda said, still unsatisfied.

  “I think it’s a pretty big straw we just grasped.” Cornelia had to agree with Rick and Rafferty.

  But before any more could be said, her cell phone rang. When she glanced at its screen, she saw Kristine Murakami’s name and number displayed.

  “Oh, God,” Cornelia couldn’t help letting slip. “What does she want?”

  After she finished talking to the doctor, her good mood was immediately knocked down a couple of notches. And the others could sense it immediately.

  Matt’s camera was immediately aimed at her. She could imagine her face framed in a tight close-up.

  “What’s up?” asked Rick.

  “I shou
ld have realized this back at the base when Brubaker told us about the Nevada senator.”

  “What about him?”

  “He is very concerned with the globe crisis and, as a member of the Armed Services Committee, he would like to talk to us. To gather some facts. Our good doctor, Kristine Murakami, of course, somehow manages to dodge all this, and we get nominated to brief the senator.”

  “OK,” Rafferty said, sounding somewhat baffled. “So what’s the problem?”

  “Have you ever heard of Senator Bling?”

  4.

  “…and this guy is Washington’s most outspoken advocate for transparency in studying the globes.” Cornelia explained. “This is just so wrong.”

  “Like things couldn’t get any weirder,” Lacy said.

  “He’s the first one on Capitol Hill who took the whole thing seriously,” Knight said, and started to count points off on his fingers as they walked past the King’s Medical Center atrium and into the sort of maze-like, confusing corridor system Cornelia had always hated in hospitals. “And this guy is the only pro-military flag-waver who actually stands with the soldiers when it counts,” he said. “Not just throwing them into combat like cannon fodder, but consistently voting for more benefits, more VA spending….”

  “Been censured by the Ethics Committee,” Cornelia shot back, tired of listening to the Brandon “Senator Bling” Markwell fan club.

  “Ethics Committee? Gimme a break! Prostitution’s legal in the county where, you know—”

  “He was caught…!”

  “He wasn’t caught,” Knight insisted with that smarmy soft-pedaling tone. “Where the alleged liaison—”

  “No, not alleged. It happened. He admitted to it. After, mind you, after it was clear he couldn’t keep denying it any longer.”

  “It was perfectly legal.”

  “Then why didn’t he come out and admit to it? Why lie to the press? Why not say, ‘these are the values I live by, take it or leave it,’ and be honest? You think prostitution should be legal, just own it.”

  “No politician can say that.”

  “I completely disagree” Cornelia exclaimed, shocking herself by the way she almost yelled those three words.