by P F Walsh
The med center AI determined the form should now begin a slow recovery to health as his system was flushed and refreshed with nutrients and medications. The AI decided to keep the form sedated and at rest. The autodoc complied. Lights in the med center dimmed as both the form and the med center facilities were now at rest. Various monitors displayed biological status as treatment systems went to standby.
Chapter Six
Book One
The prior night was quiet for Sean and Doris as they stayed in Sean’s house. They ordered a large pizza supreme from a nearby pizzeria and ate most of it while watching some nameless movie on TV they turned on sometime after it began. An old Western movie with clear delineations between the good guys and the bad guys. About half way into the movie Doris said to Sean,
“You know, we aren’t really going to be able to figure out who the good guys are in this thing if proof actually comes, right?” She said. Sean just nodded,
“I was thinking the same thing. Have to go with gut feeling.”
They both knew if proof came, it would mean all the imagined threats and possibilities were then in force and happening, beyond their immediate control. In fact, if they played it wrong, the worst could happen. After the movie ended, they both went back to the kitchen to put away the last two pieces of pizza and have another glass of wine each. After which they each went to bed not having heard from the Seeker about a timetable for the proof. Confidence levels were at a low ebb. Sleep came relatively quickly for both of them and the night passed on silently and peacefully.
Morning sunrise arrived in its usual splendor in Palm Springs because clouds were rare and the air mostly clear this year with low PM10 in the air. PM10 was suspended, micro sand particulate picked up by the wind in the mountain pass between LA and Palm Springs and shot into the Coachella Valley as a thin haze. Not today, all was clear and both Sean and Doris stirred. Sean got up, hit the shower and decided it was his turn to make breakfast so he went to the kitchen and started the Coffee maker first, knowing the scent would drive Doris out of bed. As she finally got to the kitchen, another stack of pancakes was being scooped out of the skillet into the already sizable pile on the warmer plate. In another skillet bottom, coated in melted butter, scrambled eggs were being nudged into just the right consistency to be served up.
“Timing is everything.” Said Sean, “Grab a plate” as he pointed to the plate stack.
“How is Doris this morning?” He asked.
“Great.” she answered, “Got a lot of sleep last night. You?”
“Yep, same thing. I feel good and ready for a jog this morning.” He answered.
“Jog? You jog? Since when?” queried Doris with a smile.
“Since this morning.” Said Sean. “I feel strong and nothing hurts, let’s do it and see if I can keep up.”
“Good Luck on that.” Said Doris as she slurped her coffee with a smile.
They finished up breakfast, cleaned up the kitchen, and changed clothes for running. Sean picked out his most comfortable sneakers and laced them up a bit tighter than usual wondering how far he was going to be able to go at his age. But then, he thought this will all be related to speed and how fast and hard he would burn his energy. “We’ll see” he thought.
They locked up the house and jogged up the main street toward the mountains and South Palm Canyon Drive, keeping a nice firm pace, and getting into the groove. Sean felt good and was surprised he seemed to be able to draw upon strengths and energies he hadn’t felt in decades. Doris just smiled and kept checking to see if he was running out of breath and energy. She kept smiling as he maintained the pace. They jogged about an hour and returned back at Sean’s house sweaty and fully exercised. Both headed for their showers and a change of clothes. Sean noticed the laundry bag was full, so the next task was already lined up for him to use up the rest of the morning with domestic duties. He wondered how Doris would feel about a little yardwork?
3,000 miles away, The Diplomatic Security Service agents were in a state of heightened urgency as The Secretary of State of the United States was not answering his door after not coming down for a late breakfast which was his behavior when sleeping late. His Security Agents had pounded on the door for over 15 minutes and listened for any sound coming from inside the Secretary’s suite of rooms. No sound, no shower running, no response. The door was a steel security door and the suite’s perimeter walls were concrete. No extra key was provided to the Agents for entry other than the one the Secretary had.
This arrangement prevented intruders from overcoming the Agent guards and acquiring the access key. Now the Agents had to call in the emergency to their office supervisor’s cell phone who was the only one who knew where the special door release was and how to operate it. It was a two-person job.
The lead on-site Agent when asked by his Supervisor was to provide a password that only he had. The supervisor would tell him to go to the special on-site home security panel, and the supervisor would call that panel from his office phone while keeping the on-site Agent on the cell. The panel would recognize the ANI (automatic number identification) number of the Supervisor’s office phone number and allow security release codes to be entered on the panel. This arrangement was designed to prevent capture of the on-site Agents from disclosing how to open the security door since even the one who had the code, did not know how to use it and what procedures would be instructed.
The Supervisor remotely entered his security release code from his office phone, and then the Agent on-site keyed in his on the panel’s keypad. If either one entered the wrong code, the procedure would be aborted and then, another attempt could not be made for one hour. All codes were correct and a prominent click was heard as the lock released on the security door. The other Agent rushed in with his weapon drawn and began sweeping the rooms. The Secretary was gone. No evidence of entry or departure was apparent. Not noticed initially, only a faint, five-foot circular stain on one outside wall near the overstuffed chair was visible.
Later, no one could recall if the stain was there before. Frantic Agents back at the main office began scrolling through room photos taken last month for deviations in furniture placement, pieces, photos, articles missing, etc. The faint stain was the only change from the last database photos in the file. A forensic team was dispatched. The on-site Agents who had been guarding the Secretary had visions that duty assignments guarding diplomatic dump sites was in their immediate future.
A Secret Service Agent entered the Oval Office interrupting the meeting the President was having with a few members of Congress, and whispered in the President’s ear,
“Mr. President, you have an emergency call from The Diplomatic Security Service on line three, we think you should take it, sir.”
The president turned to his guests,
“Excuse me gentlemen, I have to take this call, ask Elizabeth to get all of you fresh coffee and some of those fabulous sweet rolls the chef makes. Guaranteed to satisfy any sweet tooth, not sure about the waistline though.”
The guests filed out of the Oval Office and gathered around Elizabeth’s desk. As the door closed the President went to his desk and picked up line three. “This is The President, what’s going on?”
Two days had passed for Sean and Doris with them slipping into a daily schedule of jogging in the morning and a short hike after lunch. When they met Artie a few times at Lulu’s Bistro for dinner and cocktails, they never once brought up even a shred of what was going on with alien connections. In fact, both of them were trying to remain sanguine about what they were involved in, and that it would somehow all work out to the betterment of Earth. Mixed into all of that positive stoicism was a moderate dose of skepticism since no proof had yet been proffered and the Seeker had been unusually silent.
Sean, at least, understood AI’s were not social, at least his expectations supported that thought, so he allowed himself to accept that the Seeker was busy with other tasks associated with the project it had initiated. What those we
re, was beyond his speculation though, and that part nibbled at his mind producing surges of skepticism from time to time.
Humans are inherently impatient, especially those who have led active and complex lives. That really didn’t apply to Sean now that he was a senior and retired, but certainly came into play with Doris who seemed much more unable to patiently wait for the world to end.... or not. Doris just kept cleaning Henry, her ultimate attachment to reality, cold chromed steel, functional, dependable, and powerful, but even she knew not omnipotent in the scheme of things she faced with Sean.
On the second night, as they were cleaning up after a dinner of Sean’s spaghetti meat sauce with angel hair pasta and garlic bread, including a glass of red wine each, Sean suddenly froze in place, staring blankly at the wall. He stood there with the freshly washed sauce pan in hand and was motionless for about two minutes. He turned to Doris:
“It’s tomorrow, proof is coming tomorrow!” He said to Doris.
“You just get a message in that ear thing?” she asked.
“Yes, with instructions of where to go.” He replied.
“We’re to meet after dark at the same trail spot I first came upon you sitting out there on the desert flat. We’re going to have to gear up for hiking with lots of water and snacks. We’ll have to get to the entrance gate about 3:30 since the last vehicle allowed in is at 4. The Canyons gate closes at 5 PM.”
“They’ll know we’re out there if we take one of our cars when they shoo everyone out at five PM and our car is still there.” She said.
“No, we’ll get an Uber or a cab to take us in. No one will know we are out in the back desert when they close, I’ve been out there so many times over the last 25 years, no chance we’ll get lost.” He said quickly.
Doris countered with,
“How will we get back out after?”
“That’s easy, we can walk out. The gate only restricts cars not pedestrians, and it will be dark. There’s only a partial moon tonight, just enough to see our way but not be noticed by distant neighbors” Then he thought to himself, but did not voice: “How do we know there will be an ‘after’?”
They both got busy filling up their fanny packs, Sean with his larger one, and Doris with a smaller one that he kept for guests and family who wanted to hike like his granddaughter Michelle. He also left a long letter on his dresser that he had prepared over the last few days detailing what had been going on in vague terms without including the nature of the application for inclusion in the world council and the events that would follow if that were not successful. The letter mentioned they might be gone for a very long time, weeks perhaps.
This was not the letter he wanted to leave behind if they actually embarked and left Earth for an interstellar trip. That one had to be composed more carefully and more informatively for his son Mark. This new one was hastily put together in the event something happened where they could not return to his house after tonight. After that, he texted his next-door neighbor Marne that he was going away for a few days and would she come over once a day, feed kitty, and bring in the mail. She had a spare key to his house. He could always text her he cancelled at the last minute if they were back home tonight. All of this suddenly struck him how completely unprepared they both were for what was going to happen tonight. At the last minute, he told Doris to stick in a couple of pairs of clean underwear, and a few toiletries just in case. He did the same, and even included a spare shirt since his pack was bigger. Time to dig out the hiking boots.
The weather was perfect and although forecast to be a hot day, overcast and clouds moved in to shade the valley and hold down the temperatures to the high seventies. That meant it would be very cool later when the sun went down. The desert can be cold at night and both Sean and Doris rolled up warm jackets and tied them under their fanny packs. No one would realize they were rigged for the night, but rather, just well prepared. The Uber ride arrived just after three PM and dropped them at the Trading Post right at 3:30, “Perfect,” he thought. They paid the Uber driver and told him someone else was picking them up later. The Uber ride drove back toward the gate and continued out of the Indian grounds.
Sean and Doris walked along the Palm Canyon trail at a brisk pace passing quite a few tourists wandering around near the stream where some kids were playing, and others were picnicking in the Palm Grove. Sean was glad there were so many there today, that would mean they would be lost in the crowd and not noticed.
They hiked up the Palm Canyon Trail onto the Victor Trail and turned right to climb up the Fern Grotto Trail. An hour later, they were overlooking the descent onto the flat and there was not another person as far as the eyes could see in either direction, ideal for such an event they were summoned to.
They hiked down the descent onto the flat and reduced their hiking speed to a mere stroll. Sean wanted to get to this point before the sun set since it was all pretty straightforward hiking from here with no junctions or turns to miss. Despite his thorough experience on these trails, all trails look different at night. In a way, he wished they might have chosen the trail to the caves formed by collapsed canyon walls out near the Painted Canyons. He had taken many people out there by moonlight, but that was over an hour’s ride to the eastern end of the valley and would not have been practical for tonight. “It is what it is.” He thought, and strolled on, not talking. Doris too, was lost in her thoughts that this would be the biggest scam she had ever been involved in, or the most astounding event, either way, she was in. She patted her favorite revolver ‘Henry’ tucked under her belt, always making her feel secure and prepared. They strolled on for another thirty minutes.
“We’re here.” Said Sean.
“How can you tell?” asked Doris.
“There’s the little hole you were digging to bury the extra rounds, remember?” He said while pointing. She nodded.
“So, we just camp here and wait?”
“Yes, we have another hour or two before it starts getting dark, so we can brush aside the small stones and sit for a while.” He said.
“You got a flashlight in your pack?” asked Doris.
“Yeah, first aid too, need something? He asked.
“No just thinking, light is starting to fade.” She murmured.
“You afraid of the dark?” He asked.
“No, just things I can’t see, this is really outside of my element. Never been out in the wilderness like this in the dark.” She admitted.
“Not much our here but us... mostly.” He said.
“Mostly?” She chuckled nervously.
The darkness increased and wrapped around them. The overcast denied them what little moonlight would be offered, but the moon hadn’t risen yet, so it became very dark. But after a half hour or so, Doris could begin to see that her night vision was allowing her to see more and could make out the full figure of Sean quietly sitting just a few feet away. Anything in the distance however, seemed like it was all cloaked in black velvet. Occasional faint rustling could be heard some distance away, likely small burrowing animals coming out to feed now that the sun was gone and coolness was everywhere. Later the sparse growing in this area might even collect some dew that would also be consumed by small critters, unless it was cactus that jealously guarded its moisture collection with abundant spines.
They sat there for quite a few more hours, getting up now and then to stretch cramped muscles and in one case for each of them, to relieve some of the water they had drunk, privacy provided by the darkness which had not abated much even though by now, the partial moon would have risen. The overcast cloud cover blocked any light from the moon.
“The Seeker has picked a perfect night.” Thought Sean. “Nothing will be seen except by us.”
The air suddenly sprung up a breeze, and seemed to momentarily crackle with electricity as both Sean and Doris’s hair stood straight on an angle toward where the breeze had come from, but was now still. A close by hum started and turned into a quiet sound of a servo motor operating something,
a door? Sean strained his eyes to look toward the sound and could see that a tall ramp was beginning to descend out of invisibility just a few feet away, exposing the lowly lit interior of what appeared similar to a military personnel carrier. He could see seating inside.
The ramp set down onto the desert crust with a crunch as a chrome Ball floated out toward them. It issued a tinny voice that said:
“Viable Biological contact and biological witness are to board shuttle and sit in any seat. Seats will adjust.” It hovered for a few moments, then retreated deep into the shuttle.
“That was a Collector.” Sean said to Doris,
“Let’s get in, check for seatbelts this thing is going to fly.”
“You sure?” Doris asked.
“Yeah, this is our ride, let the fun begin.” as he walked up the ramp.
“What do you mean the Secretary of State is missing?” barked James Burke, President of the United Sates since last January. The telephone line was crystal clear and was one of the many newer federal fiber loops the government used for private conversations.
“Just that sir, he locked himself in his bedroom suite last night around 1:30 Am. The two Agents on duty saw him do it, and an agent was posted outside his door all night. His suite has a security door and no one has a key except the Secretary. When he didn’t come down for breakfast, they knocked on the door for quite a while and he didn’t answer. They used override codes with their supervisor to unlock the door and his suite was empty. No evidence of entry or exit has been found so far.” Said the Agent.
“Everything was locked from the inside.”