by Tony Teora
Susan watched the bird circle their blanket. "What do you mean "cooked"?" asked Susan.
"Ah, the Sun will run out of fuel in about 4-5 billion years. It’s gonna fart, like a cooking stove that doesn’t light right and then…pop!"
"What are you talking about?" asked Susan, troubled.
Robert spoke as if he were talking to a crowd. "…and before the last gasping flame dies, that fart will burn everything for millions of miles, including the Earth."
Susan did not like the idea even though billions of years seemed far away. She particularly did not like the word fart. "That’s terrible, why can’t you just enjoy the beauty of the sky? We are a precious planet and I’m sure someone will find a way to fix things."
"Yeah, the universe is a big place, maybe there are some smarter folks up there."
Unknown to Robert and Susan, the black crow flying about their heads was actually modified, its brain lobotomized by a Zok patrol plane. The Zoks had hidden a small radio transmitter in its wings to transmit coded signals back into space. The Zoks were preparing for war. The Zok planet was currently 800 million miles from Earth, and since Zoks had never seen a planet with human life, they were scouting to figure out its weaknesses. Robert’s conversation was being taped and translated into Zok magnetic telepathy codes, then stored for later transmission to the Zok home world. The old Zok Commander, SnikerBlik was in charge. He’d been planning this mission since the Nevada Air Base (NAB) deal went sour. That was when a Zok named Rok went missing. The story of Rok:
Nevada Air Force- 1959, Dreamland Base, Nevada (top secret)
Chief Master Sergeant Donovan thought he’d seen everything in the Air Force; a nuclear explosion in the Bikini Atoll ten times worse than Hiroshima, a new plane whose wings fell off during its maiden flight, and a bomb that dropped off during takeoff, ten feet from Donovan himself, yet didn’t explode. In March of ‘56 Donovan was part of a team looking for a B-47. Yes, a whole B-47 got lost. The bomber carried two nuclear capsules for nuclear bombs. It was en route from MacDill AFB, Florida, to Europe and failed to meet its aerial refueling plane over the Mediterranean Sea.
Donovan and his team failed to locate any traces of the missing aircraft or crew. That took the cake until the foo fighters showed up and one crashed with a live one carrying maps of Earth.
It was Donovan’s job to escort this one to Dreamland and act as a guard. He sat in the corner and watched the "doctor" work his interrogation. The three hours of watching the Doc try to get the alien to fill in dots, look at pictures and push buttons was enough to for Donovan.
Time for a new job.
The Zok Warrior named Rok sat in the corner tired of the games. He was ready to negotiate a land deal with the Americans but communication was not going well.
Doctor Burns looked at the alien who was about 5 feet 5. The large ass and head contrasted with the long slender arms. The eyes were big but not at all strange. He wore a shiny blue skintight suit.
Zok Rok moved his hands and showed a map of land in Nevada.
"What are you trying to say?" asked the Doctor.
Rok understood the question and answered telepathically.
"We want to use part of your Nevada base for a landing area. We’d like to use the Earth as a refueling stop. We trade technology."
Doctor Burns felt his head itching from inside his head. He could not make out the hand gestures.
Rok was getting annoyed but didn’t show it. How could these intelligent beings not use telepathic messaging?
Rok blocked the hidden Zok agenda to send in a bunch of Zok warships to the base for later use to take over the Earth. But this did not matter; the humans were not telepathic!
Doctor Burns looked at Donovan. "Did your head itch while you were bringing him over here?"
"Doc, my head’s been itching ever since the Bikini blast almost knocked me out in Operation Red Attack."
The Doctor shook his head. "Well, I don’t think we’ll be able to communicate with this bug. He’s showing some kind of map. I think he’s lost."
"What are we going to do Doc?" asked Donovan.
"Well, the General was very specific. Take him to storage facility LN-46."
Rok eventually picked up a faint telepathic message from Donovan -- the word was "cold".
"OK Doc, I’ll take him out to Liquid Nitrogen facility 46."
Rok was reportedly being stored in cold liquid nitrogen at base while the Americans tried to reverse engineer Rok’s ship.
Robert had heard such far-flung stories but never believed them. Robert’s personal theory was: Any alien race stupid enough to deal with the human race is probably not very evolved in galactic terms, for if there were, they would have better things to do.
(Unknown to Robert Davichi, this would someday be known as the "Davichi Alien Interaction Theorem" which would be quoted throughout future generations. The Big Wheel Universe also had a similar theorem: "Dummies Attract Dummies".)
Susan looked up at the sky. "Do you really think there are other people living there in space?"
"Sure, there are billions of other stars just like our sun. Some make ours look like a grain of sand and others are smaller." Robert picked up an orange held it in his hand.
"How big is our Sun?" asked Susan.
"Well, let’s put it this way, we could fit a million Earths into the Sun."
Susan found this hard to believe. The wind eddied, picking up leaves in a small tornado that quickly dispersed. "Wow, that’s pretty big."
"It’s not even the biggest." replied Robert.
"What do you mean?" Susan noticed a bird land on a nearby tree.
"Well, there are some Suns where you could fit a million of our Suns inside. Now that’s big." Robert studied astronomy for fun and took pride in knowing things others didn’t.
"Well, that’s good news. Maybe we could get some fuel from those stars for our Sun, when ours runs out."
Robert looked at the leaves landing near his blanket. "Susan, the universe is actually stranger than any fiction ever written. Did you see that small twister, spinning the leaves like a small tornado?"
"Yeah, so?"
"Where do think the biggest tornadoes are?" asked Robert.
"I don’t know…maybe Arkansas? I saw a few big fast ones in a movie -- real scary."
Robert picked up a reddish yellow leaf in his hand and threw it into the wind. "Nope, they are not the biggest. Jupiter has bigger tornadoes. Do you know how big? Take a guess?"
Susan wanted to figure out the answer and she knew Robert took pleasure in passing on information that was useless to most people. "Ok, how about a 5 miles in diameter?"
"Nope, bigger."
"10 miles?"
"Nope, much bigger" answered Robert.
"Ok, just spit it out -- how big?" asked Susan getting annoyed.
"There is a tornado the size of the earth on Jupiter that started many years ago and is still active. It’s a big red spot on Jupiter that you can see with a telescope. That’s the storm."
Susan found this strange, and so did the Zok drone sitting in the tree.
"Is there any other galactic news I should know about?"
"Nope, I don’t want to be a man from New Jersey, even though I am the most important guy on the planet." Robert looked at Susan’s book. He thought she read too much romantic trash.
The Zok blackbird drone’s eyes focused in and magnified Robert’s face. It picked out part of Robert’s last words.
"Oh Robert, are you talking about my book? I forgot you read it. Did you like it?" "Sure, but it’s a little too much. Saying that all men think like men in New Jersey, now isn’t that rude? How can you stereotype people like that? How do you think Jersey men feel?"
"Men don’t have feelings. It’s the reason women go nuts."
The Zok-programmed bird was expending all energy reserves converting the conversation into magnotelephathy codes -- translation of Susan’s words required twice the energy. The Zok commander Sn
ikerBlik received some of the information but didn’t quite receive it all as the bird started to think of food. The sound quality started to weaken, and then turned into noise as the bird’s thoughts became unfocused. SnikerBlik did convert enough of the message to understand that Robert was the most important guy on the planet. SnikerBlik used the bird’s eyes to scan for energy. On the screen, a park trash can popped up with a listing of 800 calories. SnikerBlik scanned the bird’s eye in for a closer look. It was a half-eaten McDos Cheeseburger that someone had thrown out. SnikerBlik turned the bird’s remote control system off and set it to autopilot to allow the bird to act on its own good instincts. The large black crow slowly flew down to the trashcan and grabbed the burger. It sat lazily and happily chewing at the burger, oblivious to the world. The lobotomy had the effect of reducing the bird’s understanding of sounds, otherwise it would have recognized the sound of a slow moving canine. From behind the crow, and very slowly, Buddy grabbed the bird with his teeth. He crushed the bird and shook it twice to make sure it was dead. Wagging his tail playfully, he carried it over to Robert. He proudly dropped it in front of Susan, panting from excitement. Susan turned to see what fell in front of her. She looked at the bird with a strange hole in its head, and opened her mouth to speak …but neither words nor air came out. She sat frozen. Robert looked at Buddy who continued wagging his tail.
"Ah Buddy…that wasn’t nice. Now let’s take this poor bird to a trash can," Robert picked up the bird with his newspaper.
"Honey relax, I’ll be right back." Robert walked away toward a trashcan and inspected the black crow, viewing a gaping hole in its head. "That’s strange," he said to himself. Maybe someone with a pellet gun had wounded the bird, thought Robert.
Inside the Zok warship, SnikerBlik was arguing with his second in command, LikMitten. Obviously the earthling Robert had outsmarted him. SnikerBlik spoke to LikMitten, "We must kidnap that man Robert. He must have the secret to taking over Earth. But be careful, or you will end up like that bird or Rok!"
LikMitten replayed the last video transmission of the reconnaissance bird for a detailed inspection. He was getting a bird’s eye view so to speak. Large salivating teeth covered the bird’s head in the final seconds.
LikMitten giggled at the end of the video.
(Defective Zoks giggle when they sense fear. During a war, the side that giggles first is at a disadvantage, as a Commander SnikerBlik well knows.)
"LikMitten, stop giggling or I’ll give you something to really giggle about."
LikMitten suppressed another giggle and looked straight. "Sorry boss," replied LikMitten.
"Now, I want you to get that man on this ship. He’s got the code to the Big Blue mainframe. We need to read his brain."
"Yes boss," replied LikMitten, feeling a giggle coming on, but holding back.
Chapter 9: Tokyo Branch Office
Date: February 14, 2021
Place: Earth,
Location: Tokyo Japan
"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying." - Woody Allen
Work is the curse of the drinking classes. --Oscar Wilde
It was early Monday morning. Comfortably seated in the back seat of a large black Japanese sedan called The President, Robert headed off to work at the MicroIntel Japan branch office. Next to him sat his seventeen-year old son Jimmy. Jimmy was joining Robert on this Japanese holiday. Robert wanted to let Susan relax with Lisa at a shopping mall. Jimmy’s only stops at a mall would be at a game room, bookstore or software shop. Since these could be done online, Jimmy preferred hanging out with his Dad.
Jimmy focused on his personal WebTele, typing away, ignoring his father who was in a similar trance at his large LCD car version WebTele. To Jimmy’s annoyance, his father’s WebTele took up most of the front wall separating them from the company-hired driver.
Robert scanned through the news and switched to a channel in Michigan.
Jimmy watched his father smile as the LCD screen in front flashed to the Michigan Evening News.
"Dad, why are you always watching that stupid Michigan News?I Is it the F-Caster shit?" Jimmy typed an e-mail.
"Please don’t curse in the company car. You know, son, I was born and grew up in Michigan. It’s kind of like keeping track of your roots. Plus I really like the weatherman Norton. He’s almost always right, and the MicroIntel F-Caster software sure doesn’t hurt business." Robert was proud of the F-caster. It was one of his first projects at MicroIntel. The F-Caster connected into two hundred worldwide satellites. The satellites tracked temperature, wind speed, air pressure and even microscopic amounts of water vapor miles away to give the most accurate 3-D picture of the global weather system. Big Blue did the massive calculations. For short-term weather, the F-Caster could predict snow within inches. Longer predictions were good but the chaos theory was something MicroIntel couldn’t beat, at least not yet. Chaos theory says the flap of a butterfly's wings can alter the long-term weather, saying there is an inherent limit to the atmosphere's predictability, as even the slightest inaccuracy in measuring the initial state causes forecast errors to eventually mushroom.
But the satellites were great for short-term weather.
Jimmy watched his father with contempt. All MicroIntel code was trouble. It tracked everyone’s movements, e-mail, web sites, movie sites, shopping and especially online gaming. He knew his father knew all the time he logged on his WebTele, but Jimmy used a hacker’s tool to counter the snooping. His Dad was smart, but Jimmy had a few tricks too, especially since a guy named Eddy had become a pen pal.
The Michigan News anchor Amanda Fletcher finished the evening news and introduced the weather. "And now we go to the weather with Bob Norton."
Robert smiled. He liked the rough, woodsy, bearded Michigan weatherman Bob Norton, dressed daily in different goofy looking clothes. He also liked how this irritated Amanda, the highly paid NY newscaster who moved to Michigan. She was prim and proper and tried to hide the fact that she hated Norton’s news style, (and Norton himself).
"Thanks Amanda," said Norton ringing a jingle bell and smiling toward Amanda. Amanda pretended to ignore Norton and nervously shuffled some papers on her desk.
Meanwhile Jimmy typed a message to his new friend Eddy. Eddy wanted to keep his pen pal relationship secret and Jimmy obliged. Jimmy mentioned that they were watching the Michigan News. Eddy and Jimmy corresponded as below:
Eddy> Jim, want to see me fuck up the weather in Michigan?
Jim> That’d be slick, how will you do that? Fcaster’s never been wrong—plus my Dad wrote the shit.
Eddy> Will you be pissed if I fuck up tomorrow’s weather forecast?
Jim> Way man, that would be cool—it’s only weather—how bout some snow?
Eddy> You got it dude!
Jim> Give me a snow storm! Gotta go, got GameSmasher 6 on standby.
Eddy> Take care Jim --and take what you can get!
Jim> Bye
Eddy> Bye
Norton was dressed in a red Santa suit with matching red hat and finished talking to an elderly woman in Michigan who had just turned 93. He wished her a happy birthday and then went to a map on the wall. "Now lets pull out the radar maps," said Norton as he magically waved his hand. A radar map came across a blue screen. "The weather in Michigan has been calculated by our MicroIntel F-Caster software to be bringing in…what? Boys and girls it’s exactly 9 inches of snow for tomorrow morning! Wow! Yes! Snow, wonderful Snow..."
Norton did a little dance done by kids when something good happens. "Glad to be a weatherman with all this new technology by MicroIntel. It makes me feel like a rough tough weather guy! Nothing like technology and power tools to get a man going! Let’s pass on to the final news to Amanda who may not have F-Caster software and snow but has all our headlines." Norton jingled a Christmas bell and winked.
Norton did not have much to do and hammed things as much as possible. Amanda resented the fact that Bob Nortons’s
ratings were as high as hers were, and all he did was repeat the flawless F-caster satellite linked weather reports and ring stupid bells. Of course, no one except Eddy and Jimmy knew that tonight’s weather might not be so perfect, more like the weather before F-caster when no one was really sure of how things would come out. Just like life thought Eddy as he made his own weather. 9 inches sounded about right for a small storm. Oh the power thought Eddy. The power of being able to control the weather forecast gave Eddy a reason to believe in more than work on the WebTele.
Amanda forced a smile. "Thanks Bob, I’ll look forward to the snow tonight. Glad that we still have rough guys working the weather." Amanda smirked over to Bob, looking at his Santa suit. "Nice suit Norton! And now for today’s sports"
Robert was born in Michigan and watched the news and weather even though it did not matter living in Seattle. It mattered even less in Tokyo since the weather was mild in the winter and burning hot in the summers.
The Norton news relieved stress. The hacking into the AD2100 system had to be solved soon. Nothing with MicroIntel software was working right and Robert wanted out. Just fix that goddamn problem, fix the wife and start the vineyard, Robert repeated the words to himself.
Robert had a feeling that things were not going to go as planned. It was a hunch, but he could be sure. As Robert would say, part of the reason we all keep living our lives the way we do is that we have no fucking idea of what is really going on. But we have to do the best we can with the available information. Information to Robert was what deals were to Gill. It was life.
