Careful Measurements

by Layne D. Hansen

  Nate shook his head and nearly shuddered at the memory. The senator had come into the office, walking into rooms and offices like he owned the place. Trailed by his army of security guards, of course.

  “Yeah. Senator what’s-his-name,” Nate said, snapping his fingers in hopes that it would jog his memory. “Anyway, he sponsored the bill that paid for all this. You wouldn’t believe the final cost.”

  “What was the final cost?” Alex asked.

  Nate just stared at him.

  “Come on,” Alex pleaded after a moment.

  “Let’s just say I now know why our country is so far in debt, because of BS like this.” Nate shrugged again. “But let’s be grateful. This BS is why we have jobs.”

  Alex nodded gratefully at that. They both looked back up at the monitors. They were going paying him a lot of money to help keep a security system up and running. He’d landed the job just in time too—his house was about to go into foreclosure. He was going to have to live with his wife’s parents. It was his turn to almost shudder.

  “There’s a rumor going around, though …” Nate said, shaking Alex from his nightmare living situation. “That this is being paid for by two individuals. I guess one is a huge liberal and the other guy is some Republican from somewhere or other.”

  “Yeah, but why would they throw all that money away like this?”

  Nate shrugged and said, “I dunno. Why do people do anything?” he asked and then something occurred to him.

  “Oh, Carl,” Nate said, needing to ask him about another problem. When he turned to look at him, Carl was fast asleep, a small puddle of drool already formed on his desk.

  “Forget it,” he said, throwing up his hands in frustration and the two of them walked away.

  The term “spy” seemed a tad melodramatic, but it was fitting of the position of the people hired to perform the function. They would live and work alongside everyone else in the community, but Insight Resource would be paying them an additional salary. One of these spies was Bao An Hahn. He definitely didn’t feel like James Bond, chasing babes and bad guys, that is. In fact, his cover was to fill and service vending machines. Nothing could be less glamorous in the young man’s mind.

  Bao was a second generation American, the son of a South Vietnamese Army lieutenant who managed to escape the country during the last few days of the war. Bao’s father met his mother in Oakland, where many Vietnamese refugees had settled. The two went on to marry and raise five children, of which Bao was the youngest. As with most Vietnamese families who migrated to the United States, the children were driven and forced to succeed in school. There were two doctors, a lawyer, an accountant and then there was Bao. It wasn’t as if Bao was a failure, it was just that he never thought he needed to attend college to do what he wanted to do.

  The Hahn family purchased their first computer when Bao was two years old, and almost from the time that he could speak he could operate the machine as well as anyone in his family. By the time Bao was five he was writing simple code. By the time he was ten, he had a new computer of his own. By the time he was twelve, he’d created several video games. His skills soon led to trouble, however. Like most people with his programming abilities, Bao’s curiosity led him to hacking. At first it was innocent pranks, but when he broke into the system that controlled electronic freeway signs and started posting nasty messages, the police began to take notice.

  Bao ended up completing his GED from juvenile detention before he turned seventeen years old, and under the strict control of his parents, started working for local businesses in the community. He wrote software programs to make the businesses run more efficiently and created websites for them. Once his parents’ control over him slackened, however, Bao started getting into trouble again. During a thirty-day stint in county jail, Bao’s situation was brought to the attention of the Sheriff. Instead of continuing the cycle of letting Bao out of jail just to see him return, the Sheriff recruited him to help him track down and arrest other hackers.

  With a new challenge, and a nice steady paycheck, Bao no longer had the desire to create problems. As he was entering his third year with the Sheriff’s office, an interesting offer came to him from a company called Insight Resource, Inc. They wanted him to help them set up a computerized surveillance system for a town they were building in Utah for some kind of experiment. Bao readily accepted the offer.

  After working for Insight for just a couple weeks, the rumors of the company inserting spies into the experiment started to circulate. Bao wondered why such a thing was even necessary, but he immediately applied. He would get to design his own house, drive his dream car, and still receive his salary on top of what he earned by filling vending machines. During the interview process he learned that spies were necessary to report developments. Were the people getting along? Was crime beginning to increase? What was economic activity like? These were the questions that only people inside the experiment could truly answer. That was the official answer. The real reason, Bao’s supervisor claimed, was to cover Insight Resource’s ass in case things went awry. If their people noticed anything screwy going on, Insight could then report it to the scientists and wash their hands of any liability. Either way, Bao was excited to get out of the office.

  Bao was just finishing up a report about his initial impressions about the town. He conjectured about what might happen to the subjects. He proofread the report one last time, attached it to an email, and clicked send. Such reports from Bao, and dozens of other spies, were summarized, analyzed, and combined into one concise report that went to Insight executives. Once analyzed by people at that level, another report was written and sent to the PhDs who were in charge of the experiment.

  Now that things were underway, it was the spies and their reports that would inform organizers of how things were going. They wouldn’t be the eyes and ears of the operation – there were thousands of cameras and microphones for that – but they would be the human element that computers can’t simulate. Although the spies would do their job, much to Bao’s chagrin, and the disappointment of almost the entire spy network, the things they reported would go largely unheeded.

  The two large suitcases and the large Army duffle bag were lined up in a perfect row. He’d been a messy child, but Travis Snedley was now a neat freak. His time in the Army had something to do with that, but it was mostly due to his impatience with disorder. Ironically, he was about to embark on a new adventure where his main purpose would be to create disorder.

  Travis was tall, nearly six-feet-two, and was solidly built. He was also a very graceful athlete, which was probably a result of his childhood ballet classes. While growing up, his classmates called him a “ballet pussy,” but no one would dare call him that now out of fear of ending up in a hospital. Not that he was a particularly vicious person – he didn’t just strike out violently at random – he just didn’t suffer rude or stupid people anymore.

  He looked at his watch and unconsciously tapped his foot on the wooden floor. The cab driver was going to be late. And if the cab was late, he was going to be late to the airport. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and called the taxi dispatcher again, who assured him that the driver was close. Travis ended the call and exhaled loudly. He wouldn’t let this ruin his day. He promised himself he wasn’t going to lose control today.

  Perhaps Travis was so serene because he’d grown up in an upscale Miami suburb. His father had been a holistic doctor to the stars and his mother was a world-renowned nutritionist who pioneered what became one of the most successful paleo diets in the world. Travis obviously never lacked for anything, except perhaps for some attention and guidance. When he acted out, his parents had him medicated. To fill his time, they put him in ballet and gymnastics and other things that led to his being teased unmercifully by his classmates.

  He came to forgive them for this, however, when he was able to utilize that training to become a highly ski
lled martial artist. Despite his devotion for martial arts, Travis’s passion was politics. During his freshman year at Columbia, he heard about a program that was sponsored by a very secret, but very progressive group. They were recruiting young people, directly out of high school and without any type of criminal record, to join the military. The group wanted people who could qualify for military intelligence jobs so that they could gain access to top secret military intelligence.

  Much to his parents’ dismay, Travis joined the Army during what was supposed to be his second semester at the prestigious Ivy League School. After basic training, Travis attended Advanced Individual Training in Arizona. He then joined a counterintelligence unit that was eventually deployed to Afghanistan. While there, under the relative freedom of combat, Travis accessed some highly secret files and downloaded them onto a thumb drive. A security breach was detected and Travis was caught and court-martialed. Before being caught, Travis was able to upload the information to Wikileaks, a website devoted to revealing secret documents of governments throughout the world.

  Travis was caught red-handed, but his father’s lawyer was able get off with a slap on the wrist. He was sent to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he ended up serving just over a year of hard labor. To him, however, it had all been worth it. Giving a year of his life was nothing. He was a hero to radicals and anarchists all over the world, especially in the United States. Upon returning to his parents’ home in Florida to rest and recuperate, Travis was contacted by a group back in New York. One of his friends from Columbia had given them his name. They wanted him to lead a group that would infiltrate a social experiment out west. They would fly to Salt Lake City, would be driven to a desolate area across the mountains from where the experiment was to take place.

  Now, here he was, about to embark on the journey of a lifetime. If only the damn cab would come.

  PART TWO

  PUTTING DOWN STAKES

  CHAPTER

  6

  The morning after the meeting at the amphitheater brought many changes. The weather had been unseasonably warm, but the morning air was brisk with a threat of snow. The bigger change was within the town itself. No longer did the large Insight Resource tents dominate the north side of Main Street. It was as if the circus had been in town and was suddenly gone the next morning. The stores, restaurants, and venues that had been run by the experiment’s organizers people were now gone without a trace. People must have been up all night working, packing, and transporting many of the new residents thought. In their place were the shops, stores, and restaurants run by participants of the experiment. Those business owners would now provide the goods and services for the townspeople.

  Despite the cool weather, the downtown area was packed with pedestrian traffic all day. Bars, restaurants and movie theaters were packed. People had money and everyone wanted to get into town to see and be seen. A long line of cars waited outside the town’s security gate, waiting to be granted entrance. Several people from the surrounding areas were either coming into work jobs already obtained, or to seek employment opportunities. Though many residents chose to start their own businesses with their credits, many did not, figuring they would work for others.

  Some economics researchers feared these residents were taking a risk by trusting that times would always be good. They were particularly worried about the many residents that were treating their newfound wealth as retirement. Many bought large, lavish homes, expensive cars, but did not provide themselves a way to perpetuate their wealth. If they overspent their credits they would eventually run out. This was further problematic because there was no way out of the experiment without paying the penalty. It was something researchers would keep their eyes on.

  Anna had a severe case of cabin fever. Patty and Mark weren’t set to reach town until for a few weeks. Until then she was going to get out, meet people, and get a sense of her new neighbors. Fed up with watching TV getting high, Anna decided to get out and eat dinner, and maybe see a movie.

  Now that the humdrum of life had closed in on her, her sense of purpose for participating in the experiment had faded somewhat. Perhaps, she thought, the desire to create a better society had come from her friends and not from within herself. This idea depressed her. All her life Anna had thought of herself as a leader, a moving force among moving forces. Now, she realized, maybe she was just a fraud. Maybe she was, and had always been, all talk and no action.

  While lost in her thoughts, she passed an older man on the sidewalk. He seemed to be staring at her chest with a lustful glint in his eyes.

  ‘Pervert,’ she thought as she continued to walk downtown. She was accustomed to having men staring at her. The leering stares, especially from people she didn’t find attractive, were unsettling. After walking a few more steps, she heard someone from behind her say, “Hey!”

  Anna knew it was the old man. She ignored him and increased her pace. He called again and this time she turned around. While walking towards her he pointed at her midsection.

  “I like your shirt.”

  She looked down, not remembering which shirt she had put on before leaving her apartment. The shirt had a picture of a bearded man wearing a beret.

  “Uh, thanks,” she said, still wary of the old man’s motives.

  “I mean, I really like your shirt. I actually met him once.”

  “Wow,” Anna replied, honestly impressed.

  She performed a mental calculation. The man on her shirt died in the late 60s or early 70s. If the guy here was old enough to remember meeting him he must be … she couldn’t think anymore. Anna had gotten high again just before leaving her apartment.

  “He was an interesting guy,” the old man went on, almost reverently. “He was so calm and quiet in private, so unlike his public persona.”

  She must have been giving him a confused look because now he was laughing at her.

  “Do you know who this is on your shirt?”

  Just to be sure she looked down at it again. The shirt was Army green and fit tightly on her wondrous form.

  “Of course,” she said, a little offended. “It’s Che.”

  The old man nodded with pleasure and said, “Yes, and do you know who he was?”

  “Castro’s right hand man.”

  “And why do you wear the shirt?”

  A pause. Anna didn’t know she was being tested, but she also didn’t want to appear ignorant. She shrugged, revealing herself to be more the twenty-something girl that she was.

  “My friend gave it to me. Che was a true believer. He believed in social justice.”

  “Yes he did. He really did,” the man said, nodding again.

  “Where are you headed off to tonight?” he asked hopefully.

  Her impulse was to come up with an excuse to stonewall him, but he seemed harmless.

  “I was on my way to see a movie,” she said.

  “Yeah? Is there anything good playing?” he said, anxious to remain in her company, but not wanting to push his luck.

  “I don’t know. I thought I’d go look and see.”

  He got brave and reached out and touched her shoulder. “How about this … let me buy you dinner. I think we have lots to talk about,” he said, grinning at her the way a fox would at a hen.

  She subtly moved away from his touch, but accepted his invitation. They made their way down the sidewalk together towards the heart of downtown. After walking a few blocks they found an Italian place that had good breadsticks and great wine. He finally introduced himself to her as Charlie Henry and did most of the talking through dinner. Unbeknownst to the much older, much more experienced man, young Anna Radinski was playing a game of her own. She was feeling him out, making sure that he was the right person to help her.

  And it wasn’t as if Anna wasn’t having a good time. Charlie was distinguished looking. He was thin and had piercing grey eyes and a nice smile.

&
nbsp; “So what was Castro like?” she asked, leaning towards him.

  “He was a loudmouth who thought the world revolved around him,” Charlie said, looking off into space, trying to conjure up his favorite image of the old Cuban despot. “He had such charisma, though. Just imagine Bill Clinton with a beard.”

  Anna tried to drum up the image in her mind but couldn’t and the whole mental exercise caused her to giggle. He was glad to see her loosening up. To keep her going, though, he filled her wine glass.

  “What are you laughing about?” he asked her, smiling roguishly. He was clearly smitten with her and wasn’t afraid to let her know.

  She took a bite of her pasta and didn’t answer. She looked at him, radiating sexuality, even though that wasn’t her intent. She attracted men, and some women for that matter. He reached out and rubbed the back of her neck. She allowed the touch but finally moved away. She’d had an enjoyable evening but that didn’t mean she was ready to go to bed with him.

  “Eww, that was creepy,” Jennifer said, snickering behind her wine glass. “He’s old enough to be her grandfather.”

  Patton was not amused and his expression perplexed her. Here, she thought they had been having a wonderful dinner, but Patton was just sitting there, stone-faced. She nudged him and he looked at her. He made a weak attempt at a smile but she wasn’t convinced.

  “Didn’t you think that was creepy?”

  He nodded and took a sip of wine.

  “Would you like to share your feelings on the matter or are you going to just sit there and nod like a bobble head?”

  That broke through his hard exterior and he smiled sincerely.

  “It was creepy but for a different reason,” he said, taking a bite of his linguini.

  “And that is?” she said, rolling her eyes at him. While they hadn’t known each other very long, they’d spent enough time together that she was becoming accustomed to his moods.