Black screen for a beat; then back to his days of courting Cindy in college. And her courting him! Their frequent teasing of each other, and how neither doubted that their feelings were mutual. Their almost unheard-of decision to save themselves for each other until marriage, and how God had blessed them for it. It was true. Their commitment to Him and to each other provided a foundation that held them together even through the turmoil of Roger’s over-commitment to work and their daughter’s years of destructive hedonism.
The birth and childhood of Frank, then Susan, and the crazy family vacations. The plane crash. Losing his family, but knowing he would never fully lose them, and would one day rejoin them with the Eternal One, as he liked to reverently refer to the Triune God.
Worse than a dream…it hurts!
Roger tossed and turned even more on the “soft” ground, feeling the emptiness as he finished the contract at his earlier job, dreading where life would take him next, and then the surprise call from Cliff to join Directed Paradigms, Incorporated—DPI. A vague reference to a concept that Roger had mentioned during a tour of a classified facility. He didn’t need the money. Corporate lawyers of the company responsible for the UAV that caused the fatal crash begged him to take a lofty settlement after the accident. No, not the money. He battled depression daily. What he had needed was a purpose.
Fast forward.
Roger was given unprecedented—as far as anyone could remember—control over an ultra-secret program. As a contractor, Roger was empowered to act as both the Program Manager and Program Systems Engineer—always before a government position—and reported directly to Lieutenant General Rey Alvarez. In a sense, even his own boss, Clifford Nesmith, reported to him. Roger was re-energized with the challenges, the unique manufacturing facility and techniques, the broad responsibilities without the typical “micromanagement.”
As he slept and dreamed, a minor chord of discomfort returned as the strange playback in his mind recalled the occasional reports he and General Alvarez had to make to Senator Matthews. Roger got along with just about everyone, but Matthews made him very uncomfortable, way down deep. Roger was always guarded around Matthews. Always.
Another fast-forward, as the tingling increased.
It was the successful, uneventful test flight less than two days before. Loading Guardian into the C-17. The crisis, and his crazy plan to drop the hypersonic interceptor from the cargo aircraft, dive to go supersonic and light the ion drive, and attempt an intercept with a prototype that wasn’t yet half-way through operational testing.
The tingling increased yet again, and the Imax movie took on a 3-D surround effect, with him in the cockpit.
He whimpered in his sleep at the crushing fear of being in a cockpit once again. He giggled at the absurdity of a crippled, overweight, retirement-age engineer trying to fly the beast. Then he lay still and quiet, as the dream played out; the slugs missed, the safety over-rides and ion drive implosion, and…the miraculous healing of his paralysis. Waking to an alternate reality. Stepping down from the aircraft into a different world; or the same world, but different?
Karen.
Roger half-jolted out of his dream state, into that strange world of a waking dream. He knew he was dreaming, but in a sense, he was consciously communicating with his dream.
Yes. Different. Like Karen.
The year was 2006, the one Sunday that Roger was asked to share from the pulpit when the pastor and associate pastor both had to be out of state. The one Sunday that Karen attended, after burying her husband.
She asked Roger and his wife if she could take them to lunch. The kids were with grandparents, Karen seemed genuine but troubled, and they agreed to go with the young woman. As they ate in a booth where they could talk privately, she handed her driver’s license to Roger.
“This is no joke. No cosmetic procedures. No surgeries, other than to close up a bullet wound that should have killed me.”
Roger and Cindy looked at the license. Karen Lane Richardson. Huntsville, Alabama address. Blonde, no glasses, five-feet-six-inches, born—Roger did the quick math and looked at the young lady sitting across from them. She looked like a high school senior, or at the most a college freshman. Long blonde hair, a little longer than in the picture on her license and wearing an attractive but modest black skirt and white blouse. Modest but expensive silver earrings hung just below her lobes from a single piercing, with no other visible piercings or tattoos. A small but elegant wedding ring. Little makeup, and none needed.
Karen Richardson was thirty-seven years old.
25. SLEEPLESS IN TITUSVILLE
Roger slept, and dreamed.
Justin Townsend did neither. Actually, he never went to bed. Why bother? After the bigger-than-life crisis of the previous evening, he doubted he’d be able to sleep for days.
At 5:00 a.m., he didn’t have his pre-workout energy drink, then run along Titusville Beach like he always did on odd numbered days. Nor did he go to the gym like he did on even numbered days. Justin didn’t even have his post-exercise breakfast. He didn’t bother checking the forecast before choosing the bike instead of his car.
At 5:15 a.m., his hybrid Tesla Tiger touring motorcycle was all but silently clicking off the miles toward the Kennedy Space Center, and the re-purposed facility that was now the home of DPI.
The terror, the doubt, the crisis, and the climax of the previous night continued to play back and forth in his mind as it had nonstop for hours. A nuclear fireball didn’t kill hundreds of thousands. The East Coast wasn’t paralyzed by an EMP. Government and civilian infrastructures were still intact, with virtually the entire world unaware of how close they had come to World War III. Or how close it still might be.
From his bedroom, Justin had data-linked in and remotely served as Guardian’s back-seater, as the classified prototype interceptor flown by a paraplegic engineer attempted a desperate suicide mission to intercept and destroy the incoming warhead.
Guardian’s rail gun missed. Justin bypassed dozens of safety protocols so Roger could implode the superconductive magnet, hoping to destroy the warhead by releasing an EMP. It was all based on nothing more than speculation. Apparently, it had worked.
Roger, his boss and long-time friend, was dead.
Nine decimal places of accuracy. We needed ten. Two shots. Several orders of magnitude improvement from the first to the second. How did the third shot miss?
Justin’s core competencies were programming and math. He led the programming team that developed the Ternary Operating System. In addition to electrical engineering and program management, Roger excelled in radar and LIDAR design and operation. He and Justin shared the lead on the LIDAR sensor. Cliff Nesmith himself, founder and president of DPI, oversaw the Terminal Targeting System.
We should have been within forty centimeters of center mass! Why did Roger insist on preparing the implosion? How could he have known?
“Because I told him to.”
It wasn’t an audible voice, but it was clear and unmistakable. Its impact was profound.
A sense of calm and certainty flooded over Justin. He knew where it came from, although he’d never experienced it before.
Justin once asked Roger how he had handled a particularly difficult management confrontation without losing his temper. Roger explained about the still, quiet voice of peace, more like an impression, that had helped him in several pivotal situations over the years. Most recently, Roger said he’d experienced it after losing his family. And once more in the make-or-break meeting that had prompted Justin’s question. A meeting which later lead to Cliff hiring him at DPI. Roger once told Justin that he was praying that the younger man would eventually experience and recognize the voice of the Eternal.
Like now.
Justin kept his eyes on the road. His augmented-vision helmet and visor tripled his view of the road ahead and enhanced his peripheral vision. Despite the moonless pre-dawn night, he clearly saw Florida deer well off the side of the road. They look
ed his way, but he hardly noticed. His heart was with his missing friend. And now, he felt in direct contact with the One his friend loved more than life itself.
You told him! You loved millions of us so much that you saved us from a direct nuclear attack. You gave us a fourth shot!
Again, not an audible voice. Nor a specific dream or vision. But a clear mind’s-eye view of the elegant painting he had admired so many times on Roger’s wall clearly appeared to Justin. He could see the details; the top of a mountain in a heavenly setting, with a regal Jesus dressed in white. His arms were bared and muscular, and he was confidently pulling on a strong rope that extended below the white clouds, and down through a terrible thunderstorm below. The end of the rope was secured to a mountain climber, struggling to climb up the treacherous mountain. To the side of Jesus were the words—clear in Justin’s mind’s eye: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” To the side of the rope, above the clouds: “There is salvation in no one else.” Also, beside the rope, but down below in the storm: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.” Finally, below the man struggling to climb the mountain, the words: “For man is born for trouble, as sparks fly upward.”
Trouble. Believe. Authority. Salvation. A miraculous deliverance. Hundreds of thousands…maybe millions saved…
Justin realized that what happened last night was “a God thing.”
He felt dirty. Ashamed of the years he’d denied God, made fun of Bible Bozos, as he’d called all Christians except Roger. He felt an overwhelming sadness that he’d rejected the Eternal for so long. And such love! Roger had given his life to save Americans. Now Justin felt a personal connection with Roger’s Jesus, who had given his life to save everyone who would trust in him.
Justin wept.
Jesus. I believe you are the living God, who came in the flesh to die for my sins. Please forgive me, save me, receive me to yourself. Live in and through me as you did with Roger.
Justin saw an owl fly over the road ahead. The motorcycle’s small, perfectly tuned gasoline engine started and reached its optimum rpm to help charge the batteries and continue powering the bike. Justin was surprised at a set of feelings…peace, and a sense of acceptance and purpose unlike any he’d ever experienced. He felt—he felt clean.
He also knew exactly which code subroutine he had to check when he got to his workstation at DPI.
“Thank you, Jesus,” he prayed.
We should have been less than forty centimeters from center mass!
He didn’t know why yet, but he was determined to find out.
+ + +
In her alias as Cindy Jacobs, Karen slowed her pace on the Jacob’s Ladder Exercise Machine for a five-minute cool-down after her one-hour workout. The machine had been eight years old when she bought it used and was the first she ever owned. The external frame she added increased the climbing angle from 40 degrees to a more-challenging 60 degrees and the extra weights helped get her heart rate up to a modest 160. This morning, she wore a 40-pound vest, two 20-pound ankle weights, and two 10-pound wrist weights. It was the best she could do. In years past she had sprinted up and down Pike’s Peak in Colorado in the wee hours of the morning, but that was before the state added cameras. Same with running up and down stairs in skyscrapers the times she stayed in big cities like New York.
No, over the years far too many people had taken cell phone pictures and videos of the enigmatic young superwoman as she exercised, rescued people from wrecked cars or out of earthquake rubble, prevented jihadist attacks, and more.
There were dozens of web sites devoted to tracking the redhead, blonde, brunette, or whatever she was—or whoever they were, as some supposed. The times she was caught on surveillance cameras just added legitimacy to the speculations, and even led to a few TV programs.
So, she exercised inside. Even there she had to be careful, especially when lifting weights. Part of her routine was to gently lower weights to the floor. It would not bode well to drop a 500-pound barbell onto a third or fourth story apartment floor at 5:00 a.m. or so, which is when she typically exercised after her four-hour night’s sleep. Not very neighborly.
Her cool-down ended about the same time as her audiobook, an up-to-date definitive analysis of Islamic terrorist organizations which she listened to at 5x speed. She had to tweak her multi-phone’s app to go that fast, as she typically got bored listening at a slower speed.
26. SABOTAGE?
Roger awoke with Karen still on his mind, but he knew where he was. He realized that he had slept and was well, despite not being in direct physical contact with the aircraft. Also, he noted that he wasn’t cold in spite of a light layer of frost on the ground, even though he was still just in his khakis and long sleeve cotton shirt.
He had no way to know the exact time until he got into Guardian, but then he questioned that assumption. What time would the aircraft’s chronometer show? Would it show early Sunday morning, or would it still be gibberish as it was last night?
Okay, I guess I’m not in critical need of shelter from the cold. I can get water and snacks from the hangar, at least for a while. Time to figure out how to get in touch with someone.
The noise that awoke him grew louder, and he turned to face the runway.
“No…no, that’s just wrong!” His mouth hung open and he slowly shook his head.
A Hercules C-130 was taking off, the four turboprops strangely quiet and at a lower pitch than he expected. But like the slow-moving UFO he saw the previous evening that turned out to be a Boeing 787, the venerable cargo aircraft appeared on the verge of a fatal stall.
“Nothing flies that slow!”
Well, okay, maybe an ultralight, a helicopter, a V-22, or Marine F-35B? But not a C-130! Not a Boeing 787! And the beacons are flashing slow…!
Roger was back in analysis mode.
If it were a matter of metabolism, like I’d converted to a hummingbird, I’d be moving around faster, but everything would still be solid. It’s not.
He paced around the aircraft.
But an aircraft doesn’t have metabolism, so something else is going on at the atomic level. Are we literally trans-dimensional?
He stopped. It appears to be both. I don’t see light differently; away from Guardian, I see different light, apparently infrared. I don’t hear differently; away from Guardian, I hear different audio frequencies. And the audio has to travel from “their” air to “my” air, so that’s another transition. Maybe that’s why my voice sounds so strange and quiet since part of it goes out from “my” air to “their” air and then back to reach my ears.
And there was something else.
“What kind of electrochemical shock healed the nerves in my spine?”
Roger leaned against the aircraft a moment, looking around, listening, and breathing in the strange air.
Let’s see if we can get some answers.
His legs were sore as he slowly, carefully climbed up the retractable ladder rungs into the aircraft. Haven’t used them in four years, he reminded himself.
Main power ON, computer systems ON, communications suite ON, glass panel displays ON.
Full computer boot-up complete in, what? About the usual five seconds. From his perspective. And the chronometer showed…flashing digits.
Still gibberish. That’s all right, young lady. It doesn’t compute with me either.
It occurred to him that, except for a few changes Justin made the night before, the aircraft software was still in test mode. He should be able to program in whatever changes he might need.
Roger climbed into the back seat and pulled down the touch screen monitor. As an electrical engineer, Roger had learned a respectable amount of software coding over the years. Guardian’s unique Ternary Operating System had required more than a manager’s oversight. He wasn’t anywhere near Justin’s level, but….
Frequency agile, software programmable radios. Roger smiled and began modifying code. Let’s start simple.
R
oger began with a stable, receive-only system. He wrote and executed a routine to re-tune GPS receivers, for both the L One and L Two GPS radio bands, by ten kilohertz at a time.
Reduce both L One and L Two frequencies by ten kilohertz. Pause for sync. No sync? Repeat.
Nothing.
Radios are tunable, but the antennas aren’t. Did I go too far out of tolerance?
“You dummy! Use the frequency scanner.”
He put the radio into the scanner mode and saw the spikes considerably lower on the scale than they should have been, almost like a huge red Doppler shift. Roger locked in the “new” GPS frequencies, lower than the nominal 1575.42 and 1227.60 megahertz settings.
Nothing.
What if…what if I also have to match data rates?
He programmed a routine to modify the data receive rate so the digital receiver would wait one thousandth of one percent longer than it normally would have before timing out. Pause for sync. No sync? Increment by another one thousandth of one percent, repeat.
One minute—two minutes? Solid. The data rate had to be slowed by a factor of…four! The GPS clock synced the aircraft chronometer, and Roger chose the setting for Eastern Standard Time. It was 5:30 a.m. What, not even seven hours since intercept, implosion, and transition?
Roger did the math to offset other radios’ frequencies and data rates. He didn’t bother with voice radios as he doubted anyone would be able to “hear” him with the auditory frequency offset.
Wonder if dogs can hear me. Maybe bats?
The Guardian Collection (End of the Sixth Age Book 2) Page 12
