Mackey thought about this landscape as the baseline, the blank canvas. As if it was what was underneath everything else built on top of it. This wasn't actually true, though. The city, all the technology, dug down so deep into the earth that nothing could live underneath it.
Tell your Congressmen to defeat the unfair, Administrationist proposal of HR-17849!
Our rail lines are a fundamental, basic part of American society. But the partisan Administrationists are stuck in the past, letting their bureaucratic quagmire ruin the pride of American technology.
Private industry could keep us competitive on the world stage, by introducing innovative new means of passenger travel. Increasing efficiency, lowering prices, and increasing consumer choice is what America is all about.
But lifelong bureaucrats stuck in the post-War years are blocking any attempt at private innovation. "That's not the way we do things," they say. They want to keep total control of America's rails to themselves.
HR-17849 would create expensive hurdles for private use of transnational rail lines, creating a de facto government monopoly on passenger travel, and increasing costs for every American.
Call or write your Congressmen today, and tell them that Freedom, Openness, Competitiveness, and Innovation are our core values—not Technocracy and Conservativism.
Tell them to vote no on HR-17849, and send these bureaucrats back to their paperwork, and out of our citizens' lives.
Chapter 7
Among Other Skirmishes
Descending out of the San Gabriel Mountains, the Vail-22 came in low over the desert city of Palmdale. Dropping through the foothills, the terrain made a stark transition from hillside to flat desert basin, as they crossed over the literal seam in the earth of the San Andreas fault. Almost simultaneously, the aircraft crossed over the less-natural seam of the California Aqueduct, the newly-finished gigantic water distribution project feeding the industrial metropolis of San Fernando and Los Angeles with snow melt from Northern California, shipped by pumps and gravity over 400 miles south. Enough water flowed through the nearly linear course of the concrete-banked trench to qualify it as California's third largest river.
Then, buzzing over the separated residential blocks of Palmdale—most of whose denizens were somehow linked to the plant operations—the Vail crossed State Arterial 14 and entered the airport zone of Postal Bureau Plant 42. The buildings were large, rectangular, with curved roofs in the case of the expansive aircraft hangars, overall very utilitarian. There was little to show off here. At least, from the outside. The inside of these buildings were where the power of Plant 42 lay.
After communicating with the tower and giving the proper executive transport code, Parsons set them down in front of one of the large hangar buildings that Ross pointed out to him.
Mackey knew that Plant 42 contained some of the more secretive Postal Bureau research projects, including the home of the Skunk Works special aviation Section. Here on the edge of the Mojave desert there was limited population other than the plant personnel, which made tests of high-performance aircraft with their frequent sonic booms much easier than in the crowded airspace around the San Fernando Valley. Also, the rural area made security easier as well. Mackey had noted the triple-fence line, topped with barbed wire, below them as they had flown into the complex.
The air was hot as they exited the Vail, dry and dusty, smelling of some sort of desert plant that Mackey couldn't identify, with just the smallest hint of jet fuel. He coughed involuntarily at the dust and lack of humidity. Mackey saw Thompson take a deep breath, drawing the desert air into his lungs. "Refreshing, is it?" he asked the ranger.
"Fantastic! None of the haze of the city. If you ignore the traces of fuel, of course. Sometime, Fred, I should take you out for a better mountain experience than the one on which we met. You're an athletic fellow, I bet you'd love it. Picture it, nothing but a backpack on your back. No P-cars, no strange aircraft, nothing but you and the landscape."
"And the occasional bear," Mackey said. But in truth, the idea had appeal.
They entered the laboratory of Mary Ross, inside one of the many white-arched concrete rectangles, indistinguishable from the other buildings and hangars in the complex. The laboratory room, like the building, like Plant 42 itself, was large beyond most easy comparisons. Certainly the space was big enough that Ross could not utilize the entirety by herself. She must have assistants, secondaries, and collaborators of all kinds sitting at the various tables, running the machinery. T
here was no one here now, and the room was silent, though nevertheless full. Banks of large computers ringed the edges of the space. Scattered throughout were benches covered with disassembled machinery and equipment. Test equipment and tools, of course. But also pieces of aircraft, some large enough to be suspended on wheeled racks, disassembled with dangling wires and exposed hydraulic connections. There were the de-shrouded electronics of what might have been weapons, some large enough to be vehicle mounted, others small enough to be concealed in the hand, and yet others too obscure or deconstructed to be identified specifically. And there were small round canisters—that might have been satellites, except for the fact that Mackey knew satellites were prepared in the facilities' giant clean rooms, away from dust, dirt, and the other hazards that a crowded lab might offer.
The lab was quite cluttered, to a point that would certainly not have passed muster with Mackey's supervisors in the Electromagnetic Bureau. Ross seemed like a very logical, orderly person, and Mackey was a bit surprised at the state of affairs. The lab seemed to be for an odd purpose. It felt as if experimentation and assembly were not the goals here—but vivisection. It was like these technological devices were being searched through, their anatomy riven apart by searching fingers of technicians and scientists, left to fall aside like leaf litter, like fat trimmed from a butchered animal. It was as if they were looking for something within these devices, and unable to find it, had moved on, ceding the carrion to what scavengers might be interested next, and then on to worms, insects, and finally rot itself, a putrefaction of semiconductors, down at the bottom of the chain of technological life. The walls of the room that were not blocked by computer cabinets were covered in blackboards scrawled with obscure symbols which lended to the air of mystery in the lab—but thankfully these were the sort of mathematics symbols that Mackey could recognize.
Ross and Parsons got to work on preparing the data for her computer programs. Meanwhile, Hopper disappeared for another set of phone calls, leaving Mackey and Thompson nothing to do but sit at the large table, which after having cleared it of the disassembled pieces of a portable satellite radio receiver dome, they faced each other across the smooth expanse and chatted.
"So what is your favorite mountain, or range of mountains?" Mackey asked. "That is, where is your favorite place to go?"
Thompson smiled, clearly visualizing the place in his mind. "There is this valley, a sort of steppe. Above it are hills capped with snow, and below there is a small river flowing from a lake. When you are in this place, you can see it all, no matter where you are. From the grassy fields you can see up to the mountain, and from the mountaintop you can see down into the valley. It is self-contained, a basin, and it feels like a small house, even though it is miles and miles. From the bookcase you can see the stove, and from the stove you can see the bedroom, and from the bedroom, the bookcase again. It feels like home."
"How do you get there? No P-car tracks, I suppose."
"Oh, no. By jeep, or some other Army or farm vehicle. Internal combustion engine, roaring like a wild thing, over the dusty land."
Mackey thought about what that must sound like, rushing in an open-topped vehicle over the bare land, the engine compartment containing an indistinguishable series of explosions. He'd never been in an internal combustion-powered vehicle. He'd been off-track in any number of vehicles with rubberized wheels and manual steering, naturally. And it was
easy enough to see farm vehicles when riding a P-car through an agricultural area. But you couldn't hear them, to know if they ran on fuel or electricity. Mackey could only remember hearing the sound of a fuel-burning engine in films.
"I'm a child of the city," Mackey admitted. "Cars, computers, and federal campuses."
"A lot of computers in here," Thompson mused. "Among everything . . . else. Do you know much about computers?"
"A little bit," Mackey said. "I run programs sometimes, simulations of various physics things."
"I'm in awe of that sort of thing, but I can't say I envy you." Thompson shook his head. "All that time with your thoughts inside a box. Thinking about things with no space, no surface. Just ideas, folded up and flowing through circuits."
Mackey shrugged. "That's kind of engineering in general. You can look at the pieces in your hand, but there's always more going on than you can see. There's a lot to keep inside your head. The physics of electricity, electromagnetic waves, the properties of various materials, chemical interactions. All that stuff exists in a different realm, but you have to try and keep it in mind somehow."
"I try to keep it tangible. Even out in the woods, everything has signs. You want to look for animals, you follow the signs. You want to know about what is happening under the surface of the soil, you look at the plants. They always show some kind of sign."
"Technology shows signs, too. Did you know you can hear how complicated a P-car route is by the number of clicks inside the navigational console? Those clicks are the sound of the card reader verifying the location. When you drop the car in the slot, the P-car moves immediately, but the navigation takes a few minutes to decide the route, depending on the atlas data. Every time it makes an alteration to its journeying script during the decision process, it rechecks the destination. If the console clicks only a few times, the route is simple. If it clicks for a few minutes, there are many more track changes."
Thompson smiled. "I didn't know that."
"If you want to hear some out-of-this-world computational noise," Parsons spoke up, "wait until you hear this routine of Mary's running through the feeder. She's thrown in everything but the kitchen sink."
Attaching a magnetic reel to a machine, Ross merely said, "You use quick and dirty code, you get quick and dirty orbits. In ballistics, some try to get results by using a bigger hammer. I could drive in a nail with a needle, as long as I could get it moving fast enough."
Mackey and Thompson were quickly recruited into helping. Collating cards was easy enough, making sure the data was in the proper order and nothing was misplaced. Then, Mackey sat at a coding console while Thompson read to him from a page of notes Ross jotted down, altering a pre-written stretch of code. After Mackey got used to the syntax, it wasn't so difficult, and a few test runs cleared up his minimal errors.
After they had worked on their code for a couple of hours, Hopper returned, just as they were about to begin the program. "It should only take a minute to run and print, once we get it going," Ross reported.
Indeed, after just a minute of clattering from the feeders, whirs from the tape drives, and rapid grating from the printer, the files were spread over the table in front of Ross, where she studied them, alongside her code diagrams.
"Here's what I can tell you, Assistant Secretary. As Dr. Parsons' somewhat rudimentary program showed," she gave him a look, "the so-called birth charts all appear to be indicating places and times in low earth orbit, using celestial navigation. All times over the last six to nine months, and the associated dossier images appear to match the locations—in other words, it seems that they are photos taken looking straight down at the earth from the points given. Our working theory appears correct, and these charts contain places and times to be photographed from orbit.
"From these locations, I've managed to regress a number of likely orbits for what we would assume to be the satellite or satellites taking the photographs. If we assume that there are few orbital maneuvers made between each image—that is, the orbits are constant—we can identify four separate Crystal NRS satellites.
"Now, here is where things get interesting." She flipped the pages, displaying a second set of charts.
"Each dossier contains two birth charts. Jack ran the charts on the first pages of the dossiers at Ames, and those refer to the time and place within the last six months. The second charts from the second pages, however, are different. From these, we learn three notable things. First, all the dates are in the future. Second, they don't regress to any of the identified orbits of the Crystals. Third, and this is the kicker: they are all set for the same time, about twenty-six hours from now."
She paused for that to sink in. "What exact time?" Hopper asked.
Ross showed her on the printout. "All within a five-minute window."
"How many orbits do the future dates utilize?" Parsons asked.
Ross showed an expression of curiosity. "This is the problem: it would have to be as many orbits as there are locations. Each chart indicates the location of a satellite. For the first set, the locations are at different times. So, a satellite could appear in one place and time, and then after orbiting the earth, appear at a different place and time. But for the second set, all locations are at the same time. So two different locations, indicated at the same time, would require two different satellites. There's twelve files here, all showing different locations, so that would require twelve Crystals."
"What if the navigational information isn't for Crystals, but some other type of satellite, in some other orbit?" Hopper asked.
The engineer considered it, flipping her pencil between her fingers. "It could be that they are using the position of a hypothetical Crystal satellite to denote a place on earth that would be photographed by a satellite in such a place, looking straight down. The Crystal, from what we think we know, pretty much takes a image perpendicular to the earth. So any particular position of the Crystal would relate to a particular place on earth below. A single geostationary satellite, in a much higher orbit than the Crystals, could look down on most of the hemisphere at once and see all the places below where a Crystal might have photographed—like standing behind a group of photographers spread out across a room and taking a single photo of all the photographers, as well as all of their subjects. But such a high orbit is too far off for decent photos of any ground structure, using current lens and sensor technology. And it seems like a very awkward method to position satellites by using the hypothetical position of other satellites."
"What about the fact of the charts?" Mackey asked. "Does this odd format tell us anything?"
Ross nodded, leaning back in her chair. "I'm tempted to agree with Dr. Parsons' ideas about the occult reference. Typically, celestial navigation is just written in sets of numbers, altitude and declination, with other information if necessary. The fact that the information is presented in such an odd way would seem to be indicative of something, and the Census Service's passing interest in astrology can't be ignored."
"Census would be the likely origin for any plan of widespread, location-based surveillance," Hopper agreed. "These locations are across the entire country, and Census has the most up-to-date location information of any agency outside of the Postal Bureau."
"I'm sorry, I don't know if it is my place to ask questions here," Thompson spoke up, "but even if we accept some sort of metaphorical purpose for astrology within the agency ideology of the Census Service, what could that really tell us about these satellites?"
Parsons opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Ross answered. "Since we seem to be laying our cards on the table here, and we are now in a secure location, I can perhaps speak to that. A relation to occult and metaphysical beliefs is not just a habit or arcane agency cultural practice. It has long been a signature of classified Federal Government activities, particular of Orthogonal Procedures. This is a tradition that goes all the way back to Operation Papercl
ip, prior to World War Two."
She continued, brushing her dark hair back over her ears. "Postmaster Roosevelt was aware of the inevitability of war in Europe as early as 1935. In addition to preparing highly advanced technological weapons and planning with France and England for Germany's eventual aggression, the Postal Administration began recruiting scientists from Europe, especially Germany. Agents went to these scientists and clued them in to Roosevelt's suspicions about the coming war, and offered them lucrative jobs with the Administrations if they emigrated beforehand and pursued their research in America. This plan, not exactly secret, but never public in its widespread orchestration, was called Operation Paperclip.
"The influx of scientific talent would change the course of history for this country. But along with it came other cultural influences. It was an exciting time to be a scientist or an engineer. New immigrants, whose names we had only heard of in research papers or headlines, were now setting up labs just down the hall. There was a feeling that anything was possible. And there was a sense that everything was necessary. We were never told specifically, but everyone knew that Roosevelt wanted us on a war footing. He knew we were headed towards the most technologically advanced conflict the world had seen up to that point in history. In this mix of languages, cultures, and histories, there was a sense that nothing was out of bounds. Everything was available, and if you had a big idea, no matter how outlandish, there would be someone else who would work with you. It was this culture that brought us the atomic bomb.
"In addition to the difficult ethical issues surrounding that particular weapon, there were other trends among the technological milieu that were not agreeable to all scientists. Eugenics had a fairly wide following, before it became scientifically discredited and linked to the Nazis. And the occult was also in play. I could tell you a story or two about the negative consequences of some of the numerological theories at the National Standards Service. There were rumors of hunts for particular legendary artifacts, which ate up enormous amounts of funding as well as supported some very nationalist ideas. Some of the National Airspace Transit Bureau's projects involving ‘cloud spirits' seem like a big waste of time to me, even if not ethically suspect. And the Indian Affairs Service's ongoing appropriation of Native shaman practices is just"—she shook her head, eyes closed—"repugnant."
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