Battle for Earth

by Hammer Trollkin

  I carried a lot of responsibility on that job. Yeah, the responsibility was heavy. And there were timelines and pressures, important people wanting the answers to the tests so they could move forward ... right now. Often as not, toward the end of my term, I was the one thrown to the contractor lions.

  Pressure. We need to move this project forward little girl. Or else. None of that bothered me at all. But being directly responsible for people is so hard for me. It’s always been that way as far back as I can remember. That kind of responsibility terrifies me.

  With that, there’s no daycare work in my future. I can freeze up. Making decisions in an emergency situation becomes so ... difficult. It’s not very logical I suppose. Responsibility is responsibility. Pressure is pressure.

  Another thing I’ve noticed, despite my best attempts to avoid direct people responsibilities, it happens repeatedly. I get dragged into a situation where I have to be directly responsible for someone. Hate it. My... Where did that diatribe come from? Let’s get this moving again.

  Like I was saying, we still had some days off. Summer time, what was left of it, and the living would be easy. Why not go bowling? It was a nice day, so we decided to walk. It wasn’t all that far to the bowling alley. But halfway there, Grandad pulled up in his command car. That’s what he calls it anyway. It’s a lifted diesel, chipped, 4-wheel drive crew cab Dodge Ram 2500. See, I know my trucks, Rock! He also has a Challenger SRT-8. Now that’s a sweet ride!

  Grandad pulled up in his truck and rolled down the window. “Get in.”

  He sounded all serious. We got in. It had been a week since the pizza party. So, August 13th . Grandad rushed us to his house and down to his lab. We kept asking what was up. He kept saying we would see. We arrived and rushed downstairs. Grandad showed us the data from all the tests he had been running. He explained the data too.

  Grandad was excited. “All of us were covered with specialized nanites. From the lab explosion. The nanites are making complex microscopic factories and are ... systematizing. They are setting themselves up in complex patterns that show design and purpose. They seem to be focusing on our central nervous systems and cerebral cortex.”

  Well, that didn’t sound so good. I brushed at my clothes. “Get them off me Grandad.”

  He looked sad. “Dear-heart, I’m not sure I can, and I’m not sure if I should either. Something amazing is taking place.”

  Now, when Grandad calls me Dear-heart, there is usually some serious stuff going on.

  What’s that Grandad? Yes, it’s true. When you call me Dear-heart, something serious is going on. That’s the true-up.

  Grandad then gave us the story behind the story. The fancy new science lab that blew up was functional, and it was involved in real science. But it was also a front for a top secret government project under the control of DARPA. That’s the government agency, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. It’s tied to the Department of Defense.

  It turns out, DARPA had an ultra-top-secret lab way, way, underground, beneath the new science lab. I guess the above ground lab was a way for DARPA to receive supplies and ship out DARPA project stuff without anyone noticing. It was also a good way for the government to allow a slow trickle of ... appropriate ... DARPA tech, to flow out to society.

  I thought I was being smart. “I get it. The above ground lab would hide all that extra electricity DARPA must have been using.”

  “No, of course not,” said Grandad. “The DARPA lab had a dedicated nuclear reactor.”

  I’m glad the reactor took only minor damage in the lab explosion. Because it was the DARPA lab that was targeted. What happened above ground in the science lab was blowback from the DARPA lab explosion that came up through a secret elevator shaft. The nanites and goo that covered all of us came out of that shaft. We were, literally, hosed with the stuff. All the nanites and goo were DARPA nanites and goo.

  Now, we had been ever so impressed with that above ground science lab. Grandad had told us the science lab was working on cutting-edge civilian stuff. That was true.

  But now he confessed, “DARPA technology is generations ahead of civilian tech.”

  Nanites, and artificial intelligence, and genetics, and all. The kind of stuff dreamed up by quantum computers. (Note: That must be what happened to Muncle. Sure, the rest of us have some odd gifts. But Muncle especially got hosed down. His cage was close to that elevator shaft. I’m thinking he received the bulk of the nanites and goo.)

  We were all in the process of some sort of change. Grandad hoped, and he prayed, that it was all for the good. Don’t worry, he would be watching over us like a hawk. At the slightest suspicion of a negative consequence, Grandad would get us the best help on the planet. Okay. It was still disturbing.

  ***

  + BEGIN TIMELINE DROP. This is a Timeline Project drop.

  Explanatory Notes:

  1. Drop initiated upon review of Solcom Special Investigation Case 15-172-135286.

  Case 15-172-135286 [“MUNCLE”] reexamined a U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security investigation related to genomic terrorism.

  Subject: Muncle, apparent non-human operative of the Shockwave Special Operations Team.

  Subject permissions required. Permission granted by: Shockwave operative Para and apparent Shockwave operative, non-human, Muncle.

  2. The actual Event Recording was the result of a monitoring system programming error.

  * EVENT RECORDING. SHOCKWAVE AI MONITORING, EXPERIMENTAL. SEPTEMBER 10. 01:00 HOURS AUTO-START. SHOCKWAVE OFFICE COMPLEX LOUNGE

  FILE HAS BEEN REDACTED.

  * Muncle: “I do. Really, it’s not so bad being one-of-a-kind. It just takes some getting used to.

  * Para: “Yeah, all of our team is one-of-a-kind if you think about it.”

  * Muncle: “True. And as I think about it, at least I’m not alone, not really. Communal is as much a part of me as old Stripe, the spider monkey. Communal provides an incredible amount of processing power to make Muncle 2.0 happen. I’m always immersed in community, they’re always there in the back of my mind. It must be lonely ... being only an individual person.”

  * Para: “Sometimes. Yeah, I guess, sometimes.”

  FILE HAS BEEN REDACTED. END TIMELINE DROP. +

  ***

  GIFTS

  After the nanite talk no one was saying much. It was a lot to process. Grandad had gotten his hands on a project list, showing the variety of work that was taking place in the DARPA lab around the time of the explosion. He thought it was only a partial list. There may have been new projects not included on that list. Still, Tom and Bill had their heads together, probably memorizing the listed projects. Para was curling her hair with a finger, no doubt trying to think of other things. I was certainly troubled.

  “So, Grandfather,” I said, fists resting on hips. I call him Grandfather on the rare occasion that I am a tiny bit perturbed with him. “What do we do ... now?”

  He smiled in an attempt to disarm me. “We do some more testing and analysis of course.”

  More testing? He had already done a lot of tests including regular EEG monitoring. At that point he pulled out a weird looking metal headset with all sorts of leads. It had a thick wire harness which was plugged into a large dedicated computer box sitting on a roll-a-cart. He said it was just a very advanced EEG on loan from a friend. We each had a turn as Grandad carefully placed the headset and all those leads, while the machine happily chirped and beeped. He went on to say we shouldn’t worry about all those nanites. Too small to see. We wouldn’t even notice them.

  Okay... None of us are stupid. We were aware the ... advanced ... EEG was recording our brain activity. Don’t worry about all those nanites. Yeah, the whole thing was troubling. At that time we still didn’t know about any special abilities. Grandad suggested there might be some small changes, only a possibility. We would figure it out and handle any eventualities. But it wouldn’t be long from that point until we all discovered our n
ew capabilities.

  It was time to say our goodbyes. Mia and I walked home. We were drained. To top it off, it had developed into a grey stormy day. Perfect mood setter. I decided to go downstairs to the TV room and watch a movie and try to relax. My folks had recently sprung for a RealHolo3D entertainment system. The vid system was still new and exciting to me. Immersing myself in full holographic imagery and D-base sound. That would be the ticket to forget what all those nanites might be up to as they rattled around in my brain.

  Mia opted to wash her hair instead and see if she could comb-out any stray nanites. She must have been kidding about combing out the nanites. Mia knew very well they were too small to even see. I was about 20 minutes into my movie when I heard a creaking and a sudden crashing sound. It didn’t seem to fit with the movie at all. And there was Mia sitting on the floor right next to the couch. I looked up to see a gaping hole in the ceiling through which she had obviously fallen. Not part of the movie then.

  I quickly got over my initial shock and ran over to her. “Mia, are you okay?”

  She was fine, just shocked. “I guess I’m okay. What do you think happened?” She was staring at the gaping hole in the ceiling.

  Like I would know what happened. “Termites maybe? What were you doing just before you crashed through the floor?”

  Mia had a contemplative look. “Well, I was combing my hair and something crashed. It startled me. I think a lotion jar fell in the tub. Anyway, I startled and then ended up down here. Pretty crazy, huh?”

  Too crazy. “I’ll call Grandad. He said to do that if anything odd happens. I think this qualifies, right?”

  Grandad came right over. He examined the floor thoroughly. Grandad then asked some questions. He wanted to understand exactly what had happened before Mia crashed through the floor. There was some water damage to the flooring from a slow leak, though the leak had been fixed a while back. The damage wasn’t so extensive that the floor would collapse. At least not under normal conditions.

  He called mom, told her what had happened, assured her that Mia was fine. Grandad had a carpenter friend who would come over right away and take care of it. And he did manage to get his buddy to drop everything and come over right away. He had a different task for us.

  We headed back to Grandad’s lab for yet another round of tests. He moved into a side room, a small kitchen and lounge area, and puttered around for a couple of minutes before calling Para in. He pointed at a heavy-duty digital scale. That made sense. Let’s see if Mia had gained a few pounds. Mia, Para, whatever. I smiled at her. She growled at me.

  Yes you did growl. Seriously mean look you had there, Para. Oh, don’t bat your eyes at me. The way you snarled; you could have been one of the Ogres of Merelot, on the Adventures of Prin. And no makeup needed. Oh, is that so? If I wasn’t busy working on the Journal...

  Anyway, Grandad motioned for Para to step on the scale. The scale registered her normal weight.

  A puff of air from a cylinder on the counter hit Para in the face, messing up her hair. She jumped straight up, slapping the cylinder on the way. I was like, no way. The scale showed at 10-times her normal weight. We found the cylinder two rooms over. It had smashed through two walls of sheetrock and hit the concrete outer wall, totally denting the cylinder and taking a large chunk out of the concrete.

  Grandad was shaking his head. “Must be an autonomic response to stress. Adrenalin reaction. Fight or flight. You look the same but your mass increases exponentially, as does your strength. You’re amazing Mia. Your gift is amazing. Let’s have a late movie night. It’s been a while. No school tomorrow. How about the two of you spend the night? I’ll give your mom and dad a call. Go home and grab an overnight bag. We’ll run some more tests.”

  As we were walking toward the door, I could tell Para was troubled. “Grandad, am I going to keep crashing through floors?”

  “No Sweetie, I don’t think so. Even when you are ... denser ... you don’t weigh too much for a strong floor. The bathroom floor was weakened from the water damage. We’ll be as careful as we can. It will all be fine.”

  We did as Grandad said. It was obvious he wanted us near at hand in case any more ... changes ... manifested. When we got back to his lab, he ran more tests on Para. She insisted Grandad not scare her again. He agreed, then checked a bunch of things like electromagnetic field fluctuations and such.

  I slipped away to tidy up for bed, wash my face and comb my hair, that sort of thing. My hair was a mess. Frankly, I looked terrible. The hair could wait until morning. Too much had happened that day, and I was done with the image in the mirror. Time to make a ponytail and call it a day. Then it was, like, what’s wrong with Grandad’s mirror? It wasn’t working. No image in the mirror. I know. How can a mirror NOT work? Some odd light refraction? DARPA?

  I was, to say the least, confused. “Grandad, can you come here for a minute?”

  “Sure can, just a sec.”

  He looked in the bathroom and frowned. “Where did you go? I’m really not in the mood for hide-and-seek right now.”

  Real funny Grandfather. “I’m not in the mood for games either ... Grandfather. How did you get the mirror to NOT WORK? Is this an experiment, like with Mia?”

  Grandad had backed into the wall across the hall. “Liz, where are you? Sweetie?”

  “Right here in front of the mirror, of course.”

  He looked right at me, but his eyes didn’t focus. He couldn’t see me. I was invisible. It was unreal.

  Grandad definitely looked concerned. “Close your eyes and imagine, imagine with all you’ve got, that you can see yourself in the mirror.”

  I did as he suggested. “There I am. I guess the mirror isn’t broken after all. What’s happening to us Grandad?”

  He had a very thoughtful look as he answered. “I don’t know for sure. Not yet. But we WILL find out.”

  Para had walked over in time to catch my reappearing act. She just stood there with her mouth open.

  I was getting into a mood. “Best close your mouth Mia, before a fly buzzes in.”

  Grandad called the twins. It was still fairly early in the evening. They came over. We updated them on what we had found out about our gifts. Rock and Roll looked at each other. They had some news too.

  “Spill it,” I said.

  Rock glared at me, just a little. “Well, something is happening to us as well. You know what it’s like when Roll sneaks up behind you, tackles you, and mashes you to the ground? All your air gets knocked out and you see stars?”

  Para shook her fist. “No, and he better not even think about doing that either!” She had a little smile going though. With what Grandad and I had seen earlier, it really would be a BAD idea to sneak up on, or otherwise startle, Para.

  Rock waited patiently. “We’ve been seeing stars. Roll and I have been seeing stars, it’s a little like that, but a lot more complex. And it feels like they are calling to me. I closed my eyes when that was happening and it was like the Journey Earth app. Kind of like that. It’s hard to explain. But I knew intuitively I could go somewhere else. It was like I was already there. I wasn’t actually there, not yet. It’s hard to explain.

  “I was getting a headache. So, I let my mind wander a little. I couldn’t exactly see it, but I felt like I was at the football field at school. I imagined I was there. And then I was there. Just like that. In our room and then there. Grass under my bare feet. The sport stands, right there. I lost it for a minute, freaked a little, and I popped back home to our room. Right Roll? I was at school and then I was back. Well, what I mean is, you saw me disappear and then reappear, right?”

  Roll nodded. “It was like Rock said. He was there, not there, back again. I tried the same thing as Rock, let my mind wander. I had been doing some online searching earlier. Can’t even remember what exactly. But I’m sitting there chilling, letting my mind wander. There was a pop up ad that, well, popped up when I was online. It was a catchy ad and kept popping into my thoughts, an ad about some b
ig shopping mall somewhere. The advertisement gave detailed directions and those must have sunk in. I’m sure that’s what I was thinking about. Not many of those left. You know, not many shopping malls.

  “I drifted in and out. Suddenly I was standing in a big parking lot, a shopping mall parking lot. I remember a sign, Mall of America. Whatever that is, I really was there. The wind was gusty. Storm clouds rolling in. There was some lightning. Heard thunder. Like Rock said, it was ... crazy. I popped back. Right Rock? I was there and then I was back.”

  Rock shook his head yes.

  Grandad was quiet for a minute, as he pulled up a map on his device. “The Mall of America is in Minnesota. That’s something like 1,700 miles from here. At least. You went there and back, instantaneously?”

  “Yes sir. A kid in the parking lot saw me and dropped his ice cream cone. He was pretty little. Hope he doesn’t have nightmares.”

  Grandad kept staring at the map. “Quantum teleportation? Not sure what else it could be. Amazing.”

  Rock nodded. “That’s what we’ve been thinking. Roll and I have been doing some studying along those lines. Quantum mechanics. Our quantum studies have been directed more toward quantum computing. Still, there is plenty of overlap with computing and teleportation. The math isn’t too bad.

  “Scientists have been teleporting photons and atoms for a while now, even from Earth to satellites in space. That sort of thing. One of the first articles I read was from 2014, so it’s pretty old. But it was an IBM Research article. Yup, International Business Machine, IBM, one of the leaders in quantum computing back in the day. The article stated teleportation, even teleporting people, doesn’t violate any fundamental laws of physics.

  “There are some engineering hurdles. But none of this is particularly new science. The article cited a 1993 group that had concluded ‘perfect’ teleportation was possible in principle. That was an encouraging assessment. Roll and I were concerned the teleportation process would destroy our original selves and merely create a facsimile. That would be a problem. A facsimile is not a perfect rendering of the original. The concept of ‘perfect’ teleportation involves the very important aspect of a one-to-one, exact duplication.”