by Tom Wheeler
“Am I getting top secret clearance?”
“You’ve been cleared. But we need you on board yesterday, which means you may have to burn a bridge with Phoenix.”
“That’s not fair, is it?” I asked.
Dhilan pursed his lips while nodding. “Welcome to my world. If you can’t live with that, then we need you to sign a nondisclosure regarding Ahmez, or else we must distance ourselves from you and let the chips fall where they may. I’m sorry for the predicament. It’s the nature of the—”
“Don’t say it,” I broke in.
“. . . beast. Sorry, you might as well get used to it. I did.”
“So, you’re saying what, exactly?” I asked, squirming slightly in my chair as I sat up.
“We either hire you or, if you choose to talk, discredit you.”
I took a deep breath, looking toward the wall that held a picture of Robonaut saluting the American flag.
“I need your decision by morning. If you agree to join, we need you on board Monday.”
“The 9th?”
“Yep. I truly am sorry about the short notice, but certainly you suspected I would be offering you a job, right? ”
“Yes, sir. But I hadn’t . . .”
“So this isn’t as much of a surprise as it appears. That said, we’ll work with you, Mason, but I do need a firm decision tomorrow, and I need you at the office Monday. If Phoenix has loose ends you need to tie up, we will make arrangements for that to happen. We aren’t Draconians,” he said, referring to an extraterrestrial race I had mentioned at CEDRA.
“You remembered that? Huh.”
Dhilan smiled.
Then he gave me paperwork to complete as part of the formal application process to work for NASA. It was a lengthy process, but Dr. Hannah had been given authorization to hire me immediately, since they had already given me security clearance. If I was leaving Phoenix, I had to figure out how to tell Jack and Adam, after they had just sent me to CEDRA. The excitement of working at NASA was coming at a price—a price I didn’t know if I could pay.
31
Relationship Drama
September 6
As soon as I got back to my hotel room, I threw off my clothes and stepped into my swimsuit. I grabbed a large towel, goggles, iPhone, and a card key to my room, and headed out into the hall with my towel over my shoulder. I listened to the door slam behind me as I made my way to the elevator and down to the lobby, feeling the coolness of the carpet under my bare feet. I backed into the crash bar of the exit door, mashing the door open as a warm, gentle breeze now swirled around my body.
I walked over the warm, gray boardwalk past the outdoor bar and swimming pool, passing several tanned bodies worshipping the sun. Then strode down a short corridor until my feet squished into the silky-soft white sand. I was greeted by the same feeling of euphoria I’d felt that morning, the sense of peace and calm that only came from the soothing sounds of waves crashing on the beach, accompanied by screaming seagulls. My eyes were filled with the deep blue of the sky intersecting the majestic blue of the vast ocean, the bright sun twinkling off the water in an abundance of colors. I inhaled a deep breath of salt air tinged with the smell of fish. A moment later I laid out my towel, holding my goggles and phone at the same time, careful not to send either one sailing onto the sand. My phone chimed.
“Mason, bonne après-midi! Where have you been? I thought you were going to call?”
“Sorry, I just got back and am looking at the beautiful ocean. You’re not going to believe this,” I said, pressing the phone to my ear, distracted by three golden-brown, half-naked bodies walking in the surf 20 feet from where I stood, all carrying bottles and acting a bit crazy. I still believed they were the Almighty One’s greatest creation.
“You had another dream?” Capucine asked me.
“What?” My eyes narrowed, caught off guard by Capucine’s quick reminder of my dreams, although that wasn’t what I was going to tell her. Several other girls stopped in front of me, bending down for shells as their tan bodies furthered my distraction. One was in a thong, her brown rear end fully exposed. I opened and closed my eyes hard as the same girl turned to me, smiled, waved, and flashed her boobs. “Oh, geez!” My eyes bulged. I didn’t gasp, but my innate biological response was impacted. When does that ever happen? The girls laughed as they made their way down the beach. “Satan, I rebuke you!” I said unenthusiastically as I half turned around.
“What?”
“Some girls flashed me,” I said, looking at the hotel, my back to the ocean.
“Flashed you?”
“Never mind.”
“In France, girls don’t wear tops on the beach. It’s normal,” she said.
“We’re not in France. You really don’t wear a top at the beach?”
“Never.”
“No wonder French men are so happy,” I remarked instinctively.
“Are they?” she asked, as if taking my comment seriously.
“Okay, moving on . . .”
“Your dreams. Did you have another one?” she persisted, snapping me back to reality.
For the first time, the dream I’d had several weeks ago concerned me: Capucine turning into a bird and flying away, landing on what I believed was the Kremlin. I had pushed it down, unwilling to consider its meaning. Until now. Right now. This second, because she had brought it up. Why had she flown off? Was I ready to settle down with someone who lived across the pond? She’d flown away again in the dream I’d had starring Hassan bin Laden.
“Mason?”
“Sorry, no—well, yes. What?” I said, stammering. In a nanosecond, my mood had reversed. Here I go. I turned back around to see where those girls had gone.
“What’s the matter?”
“I was going to tell you about my time with Dhilan, and you asked if I’d had another dream. I have dreams all the time, some I’d prefer not to remember, but for some reason I do.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean . . .”
“Dr. Hannah said he wants to hire me, but I have to fill out the paperwork,” I said, interrupting, now inconclusive about what to tell Capucine and what not to tell her, particularly since I couldn’t tell her about Ahmez, nor about my visions or hallucinations, whatever they were. This form of deception appeared to be a game I was going to have a hard time playing.
“Bravo, Mason! I am so happy for you! When do you start? I’m assuming you have a couple of weeks.”
“Well, I have to speak with Jack and Adam. They’re not going to be happy,” I said without mentioning the urgency, since I would then have to tell her why, which I couldn’t do.
“You’re right. But they’d do the same thing in your position. Is something wrong, Mason? You sound distant.”
“Besides the fact that a nuke went off in America, and Ahmadi, Ahmadinejad, and now Pak-un are dead, and I—” I stopped short.
“Pak-un is dead? Mason, the BBC reported his double was killed.”
“It was just confirmed - it was the Supreme Leader,” I continued, trying to understand my schizophrenic reaction to one simple comment. Is the devil capable of manipulating my thoughts so quickly? I wondered silently.
“Do you think your government did this, Mason?” asked Capucine.
“Sure would be the coincidence of the century that the two suspected kingpins of the massacre are now mysteriously dead, particularly after Tense said a rogue soldier would rise up and provide justice. Perhaps it’s the government’s way of avoiding World War III,” I said, digging a toe into the sand.
“Or starting it. I’m sorry, Mason. I know these are turbulent times.”
“We must be on drugs thinking this can work, Capucine, especially now,” I said as my own past came to mind.
“Or we have faith. Mason, I know it looks impossible. But we met for a reason, and I’m not giving up beca
use of distance. Are you?” she asked, her voice now cracking.
“I’m not trying to be a defeatist, Capucine, but . . .”
“Mason!”
“I don’t want to talk about it right now. I’m freaking out a bit about the aforementioned, this job at NASA, what to do about Phoenix, and the fact that a New York Times article just reported a bank robbery by a robot.”
“Pardón? Mason, what are you talking about?” came the surprised response.
“Google the article by Lisa Cummings in the New York Times. I met her in Washington.”
“I will, but don’t give up on us, Mason. Unless you think relationships like ours come along more often than they do, don’t just write me off because I live across the pond.”
“A really big pond. I’m sorry, Capucine. I’ve got to go.”
“Mason? When is your flight to California?”
“Tomorrow. I’ll call you later. Is that okay?” I asked, hitting the red dot on my phone and tossing it to my towel after she reluctantly agreed to talk another time. I had to go. My thinking was unpredictable, uncontrollable, and irrational.
Some karma, I thought to myself as I semi-hid my phone using the towel, grabbed my goggles, then walked toward the ocean. Almighty One, what do You want me to do? I asked inside my discombobulated mind, wondering what Capucine was thinking after the eclipse of my brain. Maybe the reason she’d flown off in my dream was because I was a jerk and had driven her away. Who knew? The girls on the beach flashed through my mind as if I had taken a snapshot. I should have followed them, I thought. Shut up! Geez! Could the devil have led those girls to flash me, too?
“Where are you?” I asked out loud, hoping to hear from the Spirit of the Almighty One.
“Do not worry about tomorrow, Mason. Today has enough troubles of its own” popped into my head as I pulled the goggles over my eyes.
That wasn’t helping. Doing nothing didn’t appear to be an option, not without its own set of consequences—nothing. Or was the point of that scripture knowing that whatever decision I made today was okay? I pondered that as I considered another passage of scripture in my head, Romans 8:28: “And we know that all things work together for the good . . .”
Between those two verses, it appeared that whatever decision I made would work out.
My mind raced.
The simplicity of having “found” someone was now being replaced by the complexity of making the relationship work. Why does life have to be so difficult? I suppose that is why faith is so important, was my last thought before diving into the greenish-blue water for a long swim. It was part of the routine of being a self-described thalassophile. I began a slow freestyle up the coast, praying I wouldn’t get eaten by Jaws while I sought clarity over the issues at hand, or should I say sought peace with the decision I’d already made but hadn’t quite accepted.
32
Hard Choice
September 7
Phoenix Headquarters
Sunnyvale, California
It was almost dinnertime when the jet touched down in California. It was an uneventful trip except for the fact that the winds were now shifting from the west to the north. Sadly, that still mattered for all California residents, since the ionizing radiation coming from the Diablo nuclear site continued to be a threat. That meant I would be exposed to the cancer-causing poison while I tended to my affairs in Sunnyvale. Perhaps that was why the Almighty One was shipping me to the East Coast.
For the past hour, I had tweaked the remarks I had rehearsed, although I still didn’t know what to expect from my three bosses, Jack, Adam, and Jonah. I took one last breath and entered the corporate offices of Phoenix.
“I know how painful this must be for you, Mason,” said Jonah as Jack and Adam looked on.
“You do?” I asked, surprised by the comment as I stood before the three men in Adam’s office just after 4 p.m., the time the men had requested.
“Well, if I understand what you said this morning, you feel indebted to us for bringing you on board, but NASA is an opportunity that you feel is difficult to pass up. How am I doing so far?”
“Yes, actually,” I said sheepishly. “You three took a chance on me. Besides that, I just returned from CEDRA. I would understand if you were upset.”
“Mason, if any of us were in your position, we’d likely make the same choice,” Jonah continued. Adam looked like a deer in headlights.
“Mason,” said Adam, pushing his chair back in a huff, “I don’t agree with Jonah . . .” Jonah turned toward Adam, eyes narrowed as Jack looked on. My heart sank.
“Mason, can you excuse us for a moment?” asked Jonah. “Wouldn’t you enjoy a cup of coffee or water?”
“Um, yeah, sure,” I answered as he opened the door and closed it behind me. I walked into the hallway, heading for the break room as Jonah had suggested. It appeared the three men were not in agreement about the situation. “Almighty One,” I prayed, “please grant me grace and favor with those men, in Your Son’s Name. Amen.”
“Are you insane?! We just sent Mason to CEDRA! That training cost a fortune!” said Adam, standing up in haste. “Besides, you just told us we need him to fix an issue with the actuator!”
“Adam, we talked about this already,” Jonah said, putting his hand on Adam’s shoulder in an attempt to calm him. Adam interrupted.
“Exactly. I recall you saying ‘time’s up,’ get him back here, we need him to fix the actuator,” he said, fuming. “Not ‘thanks for the memories, see ya’!” He paused. “I know you are funding this, Jonah, but we are co-owners. Just because our car is operational doesn’t mean we don’t need him. If he solved our problem, he will solve others, including problems at NASA. I think we should sue the son of a bitch if he attempts to leave. He signed an NDA!”
“What I said was get him back here to fix the actuator, which I am sure he will do,” Jonah said. “You want to sue him after we sent him to Iran, where he was kidnapped? And shot? Mason feels bad about leaving. Don’t worry. He’ll make this last fix for us.”
Adam walked in a circle.
“Besides, he can be of more help to us at NASA,” Jonah went on. “The fact that our nondisclosure does not include a noncompete clause for the US government also makes it our legal responsibility to let him go.”
“It’s a matter of principle, Jonah,” said Adam, hands on his hips.
“Principle has nothing to do with it. Money does. I would agree with you, but you are missing the obvious. Trust me,” said Jonah, lying without hesitation.
“We don’t trust anyone, Jonah. We just announced the Akula. Do you want to delay our launch?”
“Now, why would we do that?” Jonah asked, pausing. “If Mason goes to NASA, we may have bought a ticket to the most secret information on the planet—besides the important fact that they may become our number one customer in the US. If we do it your way, we may end up getting unwanted publicity and ruining our chance to manufacture the car for China. Yes, we could hurt him, but we’re caught between a rock and a hard place, as is Mason. Let’s keep him on our good side,” he said as Adam shook his head.
Jonah hesitated. “Jack?”
“I have something on Mason, just like I do on the others,” Jack said, knowing what Jonah wanted him to say and realizing that Adam was just now processing the issue of Mason working at NASA.
“What?” asked Adam. “The kid is a saint.”
Jack pulled out a DVD and moved toward Adam’s computer.
“What are you doing?”
“Showing you your saint.”
33
Realigning Assets
Jack popped the disc into his remote DVD player. Adam opened the door slightly to see if Mason was waiting outside. He wasn’t. Immediately the sex video appeared, with Mason as the star of the show. Adam’s eyes were glued to the scre
en.
“That’s maniacal! How the hell did you get this? When did you get this?”
Jack’s smile was malicious. “Dirt is my job, Adam. You know that. Unless Mason wants this on the Internet, we are going to have a link to more secrets.”
“Who knows about this DVD?”
“Besides us? No one.” Jack wetted his lips.
“You think I would hire another person on this job without assurance that whoever we were hiring wouldn’t talk?” asked Jonah, his eyes intense.
“Oh, geez,” said Adam, pausing. “So you wanted him to take that job all along?” Adam asked, shooting Jonah a quizzical look.
“We knew something was going on when Hannah called him weeks ago. Then I read the New York Times article,” said Jonah.
“About the rumored bank robbery?” Adam asked.
“You want my take on it?” asked Jonah, looking at Adam.
Adam stared at Jonah.
“Mason figured out the federal government has a robot in play,” said Jonah, making up a story, since Troy had recently told him the government had androids.
“Why would you say that?” Adam still sounded skeptical.
“When Mason spoke with us initially, he was adamant he had been rescued by a robot of some sort. Then he talked to Dhilan Hannah, and now he’s not so sure. I believe Hannah, among others, is in a bind. Otherwise why would they want him now—right now? Mason knows too much; they don’t have a choice.”
A pause followed as Adam paced the office.
“You think the federal government is ahead of our work?” he said.
“I’m not saying that, but we knew Robonaut was making advances . . . ,” said Jonah, lying again.
“As was Cedra,” Adam said, referring to the android at CEDRA training. He took a deep breath.
“Right, which is why we sent Mason to begin with,” said Jonah. “Cedra is the most advanced robot on the planet, next to EVE Champion. But still, this may be our chance to confirm our assumption. Either way, we win.”
“How so?” asked Adam.
“Besides manufacturing, we want to sell components, which will allow others in the private sector to benefit,” said Jonah. “Apple and Microsoft are equally powerful companies built on very different philosophies. Apple built hardware . . .”
