by C J Klinger
“I’m sure your merciful intensions will be taken into consideration.”
Randy decided to break down the heavy door instead of trying to squeeze through it. The noise would serve his purpose anyway. Pushing the debris aside he went over to the cowering men. He took the sword and deftly cut the plastic restrainers and put the pieces in his utility belt. He waved the sword in front of the two terrified men and said in Farsi, “Tell Abdullah Al Sadad we will come for him the next time he takes anymore women as captives.”
Both men prostrated themselves with their foreheads on the floor.
“Do not move,” Randy went back outside and motioned for the team to move out. Tony Boyer ran at the mud brick wall and hit it like a middle linebacker. He knocked a sizable hole in it, large enough for the two Mecrats carrying the women to squeeze through. Within seconds they were running toward the west between the few mud huts and fields that lay between them and the desert scrub land. In twenty minutes they had covered twenty-five miles. To their credit, the two women didn’t say anything. The hydrologic like action of the Mecrats arms and legs made their ride shock free. The only thing that bothered them was the seventy miles an hour wind in their face, but it was a small price to pay for their freedom. The team could see the C130 several miles ahead descending to the rough road they had selected for a landing strip. It would be waiting as planned by the time they arrived. Randy stopped and scanned the horizon behind them. No infrared heat signatures flared in his vision. The ISIS had no airplanes so he was not worried about being attacked from the air, but they did have a considerable arsenal of antiaircraft weapons that they used as ground attack guns. Fired from an elevated position they could be devastating, but there were no elevated positions in the area and no evidence of pursuit. They were going to get way clean.
He caught up with them as they were running up the ramp. The plane started moving even before the loadmaster had the ramp up and secured. The women were asked to fasten their seatbelts in the utility seats that folded down along one side. Randy squatted in front of the women and spoke to them in a low earnest voice. “Sister Marie and Alice, a lot of people are going to ask you a lot of questions about what happened. I want you to understand that inside these monster suits we are American soldiers. Our very lives will depend on your saying that it was regular American soldiers who rescued you, not some mechanical monsters. I can’t explain, but I hope you will keep our secret.
The nun put her small hand on top of his massive fist. “I don’t know who or what you are, but you’re my hero. We will keep your secret safe.” Alice Beacon added her hand to the pile. “Yes we will.”
Randy lowered himself into his crate with a tremendous sense of satisfaction. Before he pulled the lid shut, he said, “Rat Pack.” The muffled sounds of four other ‘Rat Packs’ sounded over the noise of the engines.
Sister Marie smiled and said, “Rat Pack.”
Chapter 12
Most of the crewmen and technicians from Nevada had returned to the C5A. Every other moment someone looked at their watch, checking the time. Waiting was never easy, but not knowing what was happening was worse. Cathy squeezed her hand until it was sore. Finally, she willed herself to sit still. Her thought focused on her favorite Mecrat, Randy. Why he was so special to her she could not explain. Perhaps it was his inner thoughts when his brain was in her care. They seemed to parallel her ideas of romance and relationships. It was silly to be infatuated with a nine hundred pound machine, even if there was a human brain running it. In spite of the seriousness of the situation she smiled at the visual the thought created
The loadmaster’s light went on and he picked up his headset. Every person on the plane stared at the man as he listened to the party on the other end, probably Lt. Colonial Westover. His face broke into a wide smile and he circled his thumb and forefinger. He pulled off his headset. “They’re on their way back. Mission accomplished.”
Excited conversation broke out among the technicians and engineers. They were anxious to see how their equipment performed. Cathy was glad her soldiers were coming back. Another anxious thirty minutes passed and then two Israeli fighter jets landed followed by the desert colored C130. The plane taxied along the apron and parked next to its bigger cousin. As soon as the ramp was down the two women were escorted off the plane and met by Lt. Colonel Westover. The party moved into the lounge for a press conference. The American Embassy had called CNN letting them know something important would be happing at the Hatzerim Airbase. As soon as the press conference was finished the two women would be taken to the American Airbase in Manheim, Germany and then to America.
While all the focus was on the women in the lounge, the crates were offloaded from the C130 and transferred to the waiting C5A. The Israelis watching the operation were curious, but respected the American’s request to conduct this operation using their own equipment operated by their own personnel. Razi Cohen, the Mossad agent was not so respectful. He took pictures from every angle he could. Unfortunately for his report, he was unable to interview any of the Americans on the plane about what the crates contained. He moved to the lounge. Perhaps the women would be more informative.
Inside the C5A, the crew secured the crates. Colonel Westover’s strict instruction had been not to open them until the plane was clear of Israeli air space. Cathy walked over to Randy’s crate and knocked on it. A muted voice said, “Hey, I’m trying to get some sleep in here. Oh, hi Dr. W, how are you. Did you miss me?”
Relief flooded Cathy. He was okay and sassy as ever. She was certain the others were also. “How did you know it was me, Randy?”
“Infrared, Dr, W, infrared.”
She smiled, no longer embarrassed by the fact that he could see a lot more of her than any man had for a long time. She had accepted the fact that being around the Mecrats was like walking around in your underwear, or less.
The big plane started to move and Cathy took her seat. Thirty minutes later they were over the Mediterranean heading northwest. Their route would take them over northern Europe and Greenland before refueling over Eastern Canada. From that point it would be a five hour flight back to Groom Lake. Cathy was anxious to get back to the base and finish the process of integrating the Mecrats into a mind-to-mind communication system. She had convinced General Emerson it was the smart thing to do because it would improve the Mecrats ability to coordinate their actions during combat maneuvers. She was sorry she had had to use those terms to sell the idea, but in seven years she had learned how to deal with the military mentality. Colonel Westover had surprised her with his remark about being thankful to her for caring about the Mecrats wellbeing. Perhaps she would have to revise her opinion of the military mind and make it applicable to generals only.
The Nevada based crew began opening the crates. The Mecrats came out one at a time and as before, sat down on a stool and was secured to the floor with straps. Randy gave her a thumb’s up, but didn’t say anything. Cathy knew she would have to wait to talk to them. The military, specifically the intelligence service wanted to debrief them while their memory of the engagement was fresh. She sat as close as she could during the question and answer session and was amazed at the type of questions and the amount of information the Mecrats had gathered in such a brief interval of time. She listened to questions like, “What did the crops look like? Where the animals emaciated? How were the Islamic soldiers dressed?” At first the questions didn’t make sense until she began to understand the intelligence people were trying to determine the local populaces’ will to fight. If the locals were marginally committed to the ISIS cause and something like the Mecrats started showing up, it might be enough to destroy the leadership’s support base.
Finally, after two hours military intelligence decided they had asked all the questions they could think of. They retreated to their corner of the cavernous plane to compare notes. The technicians moved in to hook the Mecrats up to a portable cafeteria and run checks on their vital statistics. Cathy recognized that the big m
achines were still works in progress and now that the initial steps had been taken, it was conceivable these versions of their mechanical bodies might be discarded for new and improved models in the near future.
The seven scientists who had been the project’s group leaders since the beginning had held many discussions about what was going to happen when news of their successful transferring a living mind to a mechanical body became public. There would be a worldwide clamor by the rich and famous to have their own mechanical body available to them when they died. It was not a world Cathy could imagine. One of the many questions they had discussed and had not come up with a satisfactory answer was how long the Mecrats were expected to live in their artificial environment. Dr. Warner Carson, the other medical doctor on the staff had suggested they would live as long as they were fed, providing they did not contract a disease. One of the other scientists had asked the doctor what possible disease the Mecrats could contract.
The doctor had responded dourly, “Insanity.”
His acerbic answer had prompted Cathy to double her efforts to improve the Mecrats quality of life. As a neurological scientist she knew that brain cells aged just as every other cell in the body does. She had expressed her opinion that their life span would probably parallel their biological body’s life span had it continued functioning, with the obvious exception of not being subjected to the other body parts’ diseases. That became the groups accepted version of the Mecrats future lifespan. For Cathy, the most important outcome of the medical miracle that had occurred at Groom Lake was hope for thousands of people who had suffered a catastrophic spinal injury. Those people could now look forward to some degree of recovery. She planned to spend the rest of her medical career perfecting her revolutionary neurological connection process to help eliminate the huge burden created by spinal injuries.
Randy got her attention and pointed to his chest connection where the mind-to-mind cord was inserted. She moved to the seat closest to him and handed him the end of her head set. She had become used to the rush of the other person’s emotions flooding her senses when they were first connected. It lasted only a second. She and the Mecrats had learned how to control the other party’s access to their subconscious minds. The mind-to-mind connection was not an all-encompassing access to another person’s thoughts. Cathy did not believe that was possible, but it did allow for mentally reading word-thoughts the other party formulated. She had described it to General Emerson as being similar to the silent words a person forms in their mind when their reading a book. What she and the Mecrats had discovered was, as they had gotten better at mentally communicating with her was they had also begun to develop the ability to exchange nonverbal emotions. Some of those emotions were very powerful and was the reason why Cathy had insisted on supervising the Mecrats initial connection between each other.
“I’m glad you’re okay, Randy. Waiting to hear if you and the others were safe was very difficult.”
Randy turned his big, helmet-like head and looked at her. “We were never in any danger, Cathy. It felt good to get back into action again. I felt alive, really alive for the first time since you woke me up.”
That concerned Cathy. Were the Mecrats destined to become combat junkies in order to feel alive? She felt a sense of urgency to complete the mental connections to each other so they would at least have that to relieve their isolation. The scientist in her made her ask, “Where you afraid?”
Randy shifted slightly before answering. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I was not afraid. Not at all and the other four have told me they weren’t afraid either. Something inside me says that’s a problem. Is it, Dr. W?”
“Fear is an extremely valuable survival instinct, Randy. Lack of it can lead to taking chances you wouldn’t ordinarily take.”
“Why didn’t I feel any fear this time? Before, when I was in combat I always felt a little fear. I kept it under control, but it kept me from doing something foolish.”
This had been one of Cathy’s concerns when she had started with the program. Fear was not just a mental condition; it was also an autonomic function of the body created by enzymes and adrenalin rushes. Sometimes the mind didn’t make the decision; the body did. The Mecrats lacked that mind/body partnership. Now they had to rely entirely on their mental reactions.
“It’s a problem, Randy, one that I probably should have discussed with you and the others earlier.” She spent five minutes explaining the medical side of fear. Randy asked several observant questions and then said he understood.
He said, “That’s why our military training is so important.” When she got a quizzical look on her face he explained, “New recruits don’t know shit, so they train and train until their reactions to certain situations become automatic. I guess we are going to have to teach ourselves how to respond automatically to certain situations.”
Cathy nodded her head. “Remember when I warned you about revealing your actual performance capabilities?”
“I remember. Now we are going to have to regulate our own capabilities, to stay within our boundaries.”
The technicians were starting to hook the Mecrats up to their portable cafeteria. Randy shared his emotions of anticipating a meal with Cathy. All of these experiences were new to both of them, but they would become what defined the Mecrats existence. As time passed, the emotional reactions between biological people and mechanical people to the same situation would begin to differ enough to impact their perception of each other. It was difficult for people of different ethnicities to fully understand the other’s culture. She was unsure of the Mecrats’ chances of fitting into a society that had repeatedly and graphically demonstrated how intolerant it could be of different cultures and different religious standards.
“Gotta check out for a while, Doctor W. I’ll talk to you when I wake up.” Randy handed her his end of the cord and settled into a slumped position. The other Mecrats were already getting their necessary rest time.
Colonel Williams came down the ladder from the pilot’s deck and sat down next to her. He leaned in close to overcome the noise of the engines and to keep other people from overhearing what he was going to say. “Cathy, I just got a secure call from my office in the pentagon. Someone in Israeli intelligence recognized you, or overheard your conversation with the professor. They’ve started doing a search on your name to see what possible connection you could have had to the rescue of the two women. Your friends and colleagues should expect to get some calls about your work, so I would be prepared for some pointed questions.”
Cathy had not been expecting that. The military, combat operations and now spies were all new to her. She was a scientist, not a person of interest by a foreign power.
“What do I do? What should I say?”
For seven years she had been more or less isolated in the middle of the Nevada desert. She did take weekend jaunts to Las Vegas and LA and occasional to Virginia to see her parents. She had few close friends and recently her only associates were the people working on the Mecrats project.
The colonel waved his hand in dismissal. “If strangers start asking you questions about your work, I would just tell them you have no idea what their talking about. If they persist, have them call this number.” He handed her his card with a number on the back. “It’s a number we use to disseminate misleading information about projects we’re working on. The difference is, this number is monitored by people who can trace the call.”
“NSA?” Cathy had listened to enough news reports in the past ten years to know that big brother was alive and well and lived at Ft. Meade, Maryland, home of the National Security Agency.
He grimaced slightly. “You didn’t hear it from me.” He abruptly got up and climbed back up the ladder to the upper deck. Cathy was left with her thoughts and soon dropped into a troubled sleep.
Chapter 13
Abdullah al Sadad stood in the middle of the compound and surveyed the damage to the building that had held his prized prisoners. The two
guards, the ones left alive by the monsters, as they had described the creatures responsible for all this were kneeling in the dust several feet away, their hands tied behind their backs. He had not yet decided whether to kill them or not for letting the women, especially the nun be rescued. Their stories were too preposterous to be true, yet the evidence suggested at least part of it was. He did not for a second believe the one guard’s babbling account of Isra’il, the Angel of Death freeing the women. Such things were for the uneducated masses, whose only exposure to any kind of education was in the madrassa schools where the only subject taught was the Qur’an. Humans did this, not angels, but what kind of human was nine feet tall and wore boots that were twenty inches long? He followed the giant foot prints to the western wall. Someone or something had broken a hole in it. There was no sign of an explosion and no wheel tracks to indicate a vehicle had carried the giants or had created the hole. He looked closer at the rubble and was surprised to see that the wall had been breached from the inside. A little chill ran up and down his spine.
One of his guards, a man named Moussa trotted up to the breached wall and climbed over the rubble. “Their tracks run straight west. One of the farmers got a good look at them. He said there were five metallic monsters, two of them were carrying the women.” Moussa hesitated for a second as if he didn’t want to relate the rest.
“Go on,” Abdullah encouraged him.
“The farmer said the monsters were running at least as fast as a truck on the highway.”
Abdullah knew he had to quickly squash this monster rumor, or even worse the rumor of the Angel of Death freeing the women. If the general populace believed, even for a second that Allah’s personal messenger of justice had freed the women, his support base would disappear overnight. His followers, the young male Sunni fighters believed he was leading then to create an Islamic state based on strict sharia law where the male was dominate as the prophet had said it should be. If they believed Allah was against them, they would lay down their arms and melt back into the general population.