The Circle

by Harold R Watson

  “This is what I wanted you to see,” she said with a great deal of excitement in her voice for the first time since we had left Cleveland more that a week ago.

  The plane stood about two stories high and looked to me like a cross between a fancy boat and a stealth airplane.

  There was a ramp leading from the pad up and inside the craft. She drove the golf cart up the ramp and then inside.

  Once we were inside this strange looking craft, I realized that it was very spacious and more like the inside of some fancy living quarters than the inside of an airplane. She asked me to follow her as she took me through the interior to show me all the ship s amenities.

  She then showed me the cockpit area. It had many of the instruments you might expect to see in a modern commercial airliner plus some that were unfamiliar to me.

  Well, what do you think? She asked.

  It s beautiful! I said fumbling for the right words.

  Its one of my new toys, she said. I designed it from the ground up. I have been working on it for the last three years with several of my company engineers and scientists.

  She went on to explain that the craft was so secret that each plant worked on only a small portion of the final product. She said that it was assembled from parts and systems shipped here to this final assembly plant from her factories around the world.

  “Two weeks ago, we finished assembling this craft here in Colorado. While you have been alone in the cabin most of the week, I have been here running final tests on its systems. That’s why I suggested we spend the week at the cabin,” she said. I’m sorry that I had to make an excuse each day so I could come here.

  “I had to tell you that I was going shopping. I know how you hate shopping with me or with the girls,” she said.

  She suggested we spend a week in the cabin!! I said under my breath so she couldn’t hear me. I practically had to beg her to come to the cabin, if my memory serves me right.

  “This ship is designed to work extremely well on or under the water, on land, in the air, and even in outer space. It is truly an all purpose vehicle,” she went on swelling with pride.

  “Tell me more,” I said.

  “Best of all, it has a cloaking device which makes it virtually impossible to detect with any of the world’s known tracking systems. It’s full of the company’s latest technology,” she boasted.

  Once she had finished her tour of the ship, she came back down to Earth again when she said: ‘1 going to shower.”

  She went into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. Soon I heard shower water running. I went back into the kitchen area where I located a coffee pot and a full can of coffee.

  I plugged in the coffee maker and made a fresh pot. When I don’t know what else to do, I often make a pot of coffee.

  As I drank my first cup, I gazed around from my chair and thought that I could live pretty comfortably aboard this craft. It’s like a great little apartment. Maybe, this toy of hers explains the long hours she has been working the past several years.

  A short time later, Tess came out of the bathroom and told me that I too should shower before we returned home to Cleveland. As she came out, she was wearing a new robe that was apparently stored in the bathroom. I poured her a cup of coffee and told her I would.

  Once I finished my coffee, I went into the bathroom and took my shower. I also shaved and brushed my teeth and put on one of the new robes similar to the one my wife had been wearing. When I finished, I came out of the bathroom into the adjoining bedroom.

  At first I didn’t notice Tess lying on the bed. My thoughts were about finding some clean clothes in my luggage to put on for our trip home.

  Then I heard something. It was like the weak meow of our house cat. As I turned to see where the sound was coming from, I saw her lying on the bed with a sheet draped loosely around her unclothed body. She was extending both arms to me. She meowed again but didn t say a word. I knew what she wanted.

  While at the cabin during most of the week, she had shown little interest in making love. Maybe it had been the surroundings. I thought all along that she was just upset about something. Her mind must have been on this new aircraft of hers.

  Right now her mood was warm and loving as if she needed to be caressed and loved. I didn t waste any time trying to analyze why her mood had changed. I simply moved toward her as I allowed my new robe to fall to the floor.

  Rather than just pounce on her as my animal lust began to set in, I decided to follow her leads and let her actions be my guide. When she becomes like this, I have discovered that it is better for me if I just let her set the pace rather than for me trying to improve upon perfection.

  Afterwards, we dressed and drove the golf cart back down the ramp, disconnected all the water and utility exterior lines and made final preparations for getting underway.

  One of the attendants parked the golf cart out of the way and prepared to remove the wheel blocks when we were ready to begin to taxi the craft out of its hangar space.

  While we completed our on-board pre-flight checks, the attendant towed us to the edge of the taxi way where he released the plane back to us. My wife then taxied down a long taxiway to an area that seemed to be a dead end in the back of this large cave like facility that we were in.

  Just before take off, there suddenly appeared an escape opening as the side of the mountain opened into daylight. Then we pulled out of the cave and I realized we were back at the airport where we had originally boarded the helicopter earlier.

  Although I knew that my wife owned this private airport, I had no idea before now that it was part of such a giant secret complex like she had shown me today.

  After getting clearance from the tower, she pulled the craft onto the main runway. The take off was much like that of any other conventional aircraft as we rolled down the runway ever increasing speed until the wheels lifted off as we climbed into the sky.

  Unlike an airplane however, was it had the capability of reaching into outer space if desired, and our ability to program our trip to such precise destinations. Tess had a code book in a safe aboard the ship which contained satellite navigational computer programs to each of her many facilities worldwide. She explained the procedures to me as she went so I would know what she was doing.

  Although you could pilot the ship manually using standard navigational methods, flying of this craft was made much simpler with these new on board systems which allowed you to pre-program each desired destination with its directional satellite computers.

  She coded into the craft’s navigational computer a destination in Cleveland so precise that we would land on the large roof top helicopter pad of her office building.

  After coding the program into the computer, she switched on the craft’s remote controlled automatic pilot allowing it to take us to our destination at incredible speed. The entire flight was under the cloak of invisibility to radar.

  “Nice huh!” she chuckled.

  “You sure were,” I answered.

  “I’m talking about the aircraft silly,” she said.

  “Oh, it’s nice too,” I came back.

  We reached our destination in Cleveland about thirty minutes after we left the facility in Colorado. After sitting it down in a hover maneuver onto the roof top landing pad of the office building, it was just a matter of walking down a flight of steps to reach our penthouse suite.

  Our live in maid and two daughters were happy to see us and we were just as glad to see them. It was a few minutes past noon Cleveland time when we arrived home. My wife spent lunchtime with us and then said she had to check in at her office.

  She was away the rest of the afternoon and returned in the early evening to tell us that ‘THE PROJECT’ she had spent many years working on was nearly completed.

  I mentioned that we had ridden home in it
and she said: ‘Oh no, you don’t understand, that is just a toy I designed as a hobby in my spare time. It isn’t the real project. The real project will bring to us a future that is beyond your wildest imagination.”

  CHAPTER 2-COMPLETING THE PROJECT

  Our family also owned the local professional football team. On a day when the Divisional crown was on the line in the middle of December on a snowy Sunday at Cleveland Stadium, Cleveland was trailing Pittsburgh by five points when time expired in the contest. On the last play from scrimmage, Cleveland ended up one yard short of the goal line.

  Tess appointed me the General Manager of the football team. I was down on the sideline with the coaches and the players when the game ended. When it seemed all was lost, I learned that there had been a penalty flag on the final play.

  The referee indicated “Off Sides” against Pittsburgh. A game cannot end on a defensive penalty. The Cleveland team was therefore allowed one final un-timed play.

  The Cleveland team moved up to the line quickly and ran a quarterback sneak into the end zone winning the game for before Pittsburgh’s defense had had time to realize what had happened.

  You need only to live in Cleveland or in Pittsburgh to realize what this game means to the fans of the two cities. It goes without saying, the Pittsburgh fans felt cheated by the sudden turn of events at the end of the game.

  Cleveland’s team would now be in the playoffs and the Pittsburgh fans would have to wait until next year for another chance to make the playoffs.

  As I was leaving the field to return to the locker room after the game, some angry Pittsburgh fan threw a large chunk of ice that he or she had found from the side of the snow covered field. It struck me in the back of my head and knocked me unconscious.

  The team doctors had me rushed to the hospital where a cat scan revealed that I had suffered a concussion. I was admitted for observation and later that evening, I lapsed into a coma. I was laid up in the coma for over three months during which time world events changed for the worse.

  While I was out of commission, a new dictator from a Middle Eastern country proclaimed himself as ‘Ruler of the World” and declared a holy war against all who failed to accept him as the true ‘Messiah’. Soon after making his proclamations, he launched a nuclear attack on his neighboring countries.

  Other countries with similar weapons soon began to retaliate with nuclear weapons of their own. Yet his forces where more powerful and country after country began to fall under his rule. He then determined to launch his weapons of mass destruction on all he considered Infidels.

  Nostradamus, an astronomer from the sixteenth century wrote of a time when such a ruler would rise and proclaim himself as the “Messiah” and start a so-called holy war against all who failed to accept him as the chosen one of God.

  The Book of Revelations in the Holy Bible foretells of an Anti-Christ who would one day proclaim himself as the “Messiah” and lead the world into Armageddon, a time when the true “Messiah” would destroy this Anti-Christ and send him and his followers to hell.

  By the time I regained consciousness from the coma and was well enough to be discharged from the hospital, the world was on the verge of destruction. After my discharge, I was returned to our penthouse suite. The first evening after I returned home, my wife called our penthouse from her office located on the floor below and said that she wanted our daughters, our housekeeper and me to come down to her office.

  Information about the world events of the past three months had been kept from me while I was recovering. I was therefore unaware of the spreading holocaust that had started in the Middle East and that was now beginning to spread around the globe.

  Tess very seldom invited us to her office unless she had some news to tell us about her work. This often meant that she would be going away on a secret mission or something like that. Needless to say, I was filled with curiosity as we rode the elevator down to her office.

  When we arrived at her office, my wife called our attention to cardboard boxes placed along the wall. She said that the boxes contained clothes that she wanted us to put on right away. She said that we could get dressed in one of the adjoining rooms before returning to her office.

  Her office staff had already left for the day and no one else was around. I took my box into one room and the two girls and maid took theirs into another one. In a few minutes, we all returned wearing jump suits.

  My wife already had put on her own jump suit before we arrived. Hers was white and appeared to be made from the finest material. It had four golden bands around the left sleeve near the bottom similar to a Navy uniform. She was also wearing white boots with tops that reached nearly to her knees.

  On the uniform in an area over her heart was a triangle shaped insignia of some kind like I had never seen before with the word CAPTAIN on it. My jumpsuit was dark blue and not nearly as dressy as my wife s.

  The girls were each wearing light blue jumpsuits made of material similar in quality to their mother s. The maid s was also blue, similar to those worn by the girls.

  Doreen, our twelve-year old daughter s uniform had two silver bands near the bottom of the left sleeve and Susan, our ten-year old daughter had one silver band on her sleeve.

  Tess explained that silver bands meant that our two daughters were cadets. I figured it was some private joke because I did not remember our daughters attending any military school or training.

  Each of their uniforms also had a triangle insignia on it similar to my wife s. She opened her desk drawer and removed a similar triangle insignia which she pinned onto my jumpsuit.

  These are your communicators, she said. From this day forward, never remove them as long as you are wearing your uniforms. If you need to contact me, simply press down like this and talk, she said as she showed us.

  She sent me into another room to test my communicator. I talked to her and to each of our daughters and their voices came in loud and clear. By the time I returned to her office, my curiosity level was high because of the serious urgency I sensed in my wife s voice about these things.

  Follow me, she instructed us as I returned to her office.

  We followed her through several doorways, each one protected with coded security devices, until we arrived at a door labeled DATA PROCESSING.

  It was lined with wall after wall of electronic devices for computing and printing stored data like one might expect in such a room. She placed a program disc into a computer and typed in a secret code after which she took out the disc and returned it to a file box located on the console.

  She then walked across the room and placed her hand on a plate containing the indentation of a hand. It lit up as it scanned her hand. Suddenly two hidden doors opened where no doors had been apparent before. It was more like the wall panels slid open.

  She led us into another room behind the wall panels. Soon after we were inside, she pushed a switch and the panels closed behind us.

  Across this room was an elevator. It wasn t for public use but a very private elevator that she said few people in the company knew about, let alone had access to.

  She motioned us to follow her into the elevator. When we were inside, she punched in another set of numbers and the floor indicators lit up. She then punched in the level she wanted and the elevator began to descend. As it went down, it seemed to pick up speed. We had seventy plus stories to go down before reaching the bottom floor. Eventually it began to slow down as we neared the level she had chosen.

  We are twenty levels below ground, she said as the elevator came to a stop. When the elevator doors opened, we found ourselves at the entrance of a long well lighted concrete enclosed tunnel leading in either direction almost as far as the eye could see.

  Parked near the elevator was a six-passenger golf cart type vehicle. After we all climbed aboard, Tess drove us down the tunnel for what seemed to be abo
ut ten minutes and then she parked it in front of several glass doors. She led us into a waiting area much like you might see at a subway station. Before long, a streamlined bullet shaped train arrived and we boarded it.

  We were the only ones aboard the train. Once we were seated and strapped in, my wife took the controls and said something into a speaker. The train began to move forward toward a cylinder shaped tunnel ahead.

  This train is run by suction once it enters the sealed tube up ahead, she said. It takes very little power and doesn t give off polluting emissions. That is very important under ground where air quality is at a premium.

  About twenty minutes after we had boarded the train, it came to a stop at another terminal similar to the one where we had started.

  This is where we get off, she said as the train doors automatically opened.

  As you might have guessed, there was another golf cart like vehicle parked near the terminal exit. We rode on it down another long tunnel for several minutes before we arrived at an large underground mall like area with high ceilings. All around the perimeter of a spacious open area about as large as a football field, were buildings located like the stores in a large shopping mall.

  We stopped in front of one of the buildings with a large sign on it that said: OPERATIONS CENTER.

  Where are we? I asked as we got out of the cart.

  We are about a half mile below Lake Erie in a very secret place, she answered. Now come on, we don t have all night.

  Doreen was laughing as she said to her younger sister: “This is dad’s first time here.”

  “I take it you two have been here before,” I said.

  “Only about a hundred times,” Susan remarked.

  “This is where mother really works most of the time,” Doreen said.

  “Her office is more of a front. Since she was almost never in her office the times I had tried to reach her, she couldn’t invite you there and you weren’t cleared to come down here because of security restrictions,” Susan went on.

  “I guess you two had higher security clearances than I had,” I said. “How come you were allowed to come down here and I wasn’t?”