by Rob Horner
“’Bout time, Anders,” someone said as Sherry came into the workspace. Sherry glanced at her watch; it was 6:58. Only her fourth day in the facility, and she was almost late. Damn. She’d have to do something about getting her husband out of bed earlier in the morning. Thinking about what that something might be brought a smile to her freckled face.
Most of the men and women from both the off-going Mid-Shift and the oncoming Day Shift were present, awaiting the orders to go home or get to work. Though only the end of her first week, Sherry had met most of the day-shifters. They were a friendly group and a tight-knit community, with numerous activities advertised and promoted on multiple bulletin boards.
Walking past the shelves of stacked gear awaiting repair, Sherry took in the massive work center. Off to her right were the four test stations that everyone said produced the most results, the Fire Control benches. Usually added right after the compliment was a caveat about how they only produced more because their equipment broke more frequently. And there, leaning on one of the worktables, was the young dark-haired guy she’d noticed on her first day. Sherry struggled to remember his name—he’d been one of the few who hadn’t sought her out to introduce himself, which only made him more noticeable. Travis Wilkins, a Second Class Petty Officer. If she hadn’t already been married…
Sighing again, she let that thought slide.
Her marriage was wonderful, better than anything she’d ever dreamed it could be. Even if her husband couldn’t tell her what he did at work every day, they had great conversations. He worked in PSD, anyway; it didn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out what his days were like! Funny thing though, she couldn’t remember how or where she’d met the man. It was like he’d always been there, a constant part of her life. Then her thoughts caromed off in another direction, like they did whenever she tried to analyze her marriage too intently.
But that didn’t bother her because her marriage was perfect. Why question perfection?
Her thoughts turned back to Travis, who appeared to be concentrating intently on something in the large green logbook he was reading. Idly, Sherry wondered what could be in the book that was making him so…
—the hell would write something like this it just doesn’t make any sense and it wasn’t there a moment ago I’m sure it wasn’t but it’s there now and I need to know if it’s meant for me or if it’s just a joke I mean it’s not really funny at all to write—
The words came from nowhere, invading Sherry’s mind with the suddenness of a bullet. Gasping under the barrage, as much for the sheer volume and intensity as for the impossibility of it, Sherry clapped her hands to her head, struggling to keep her balance, feeling herself falling into the impossible words.
“Anders? You all right?”
The voice broke the spell.
Shaking her head, Sherry looked up into Petty Officer Harmon’s caring gray eyes. Hadn’t he been behind the production desk when she opened the door? How long had she been standing there? Slowly lowering her hands, half-convinced the barrage would resume as soon as she wasn’t expecting it, Sherry looked around.
Everyone, including Travis, was staring at her.
“Just—" she began, searching for words but finding none that would explain anything.
“Headache?” Harmon suggested, and Sherry leapt at the idea.
“Yeah…um…it just kind of…hit me, you know?”
He nodded sympathetically. “It’s the constant buzzing, the four hundred Hertz whine. It can get to ya until you learn to ignore it.”
“Yeah…I…maybe.” Sherry looked around again, satisfied to see that most of the other sailors had resumed their conversations, and only a few still regarded her with any curiosity. Petty Officer Wilkins had put aside his logbook and looked like he wanted to approach her. Something…some instinct…told her that would be a bad idea. “Thanks,” she said to Harmon. “I’m okay now.” She took a deep breath to prove she was steady.
“Okay, just take it easy for a bit.”
“I will. Thanks, AT2.”
“No problem.” Harmon gave her a gentle, friendly pat on the shoulder. Sherry was aware that his every movement around her—and around every other woman in the work center—was engineered and exaggerated specifically to demonstrate that he was not treating her with favoritism, or with any kind of sexual overtures. Realizing this brought a smile to Sherry’s face, enabling her to move from her spot just inside the work center door.
Passing Travis’s aisle, she came to the production desk. To her right was the second aisle of test stations, where computer systems were troubleshot and repaired. A little farther back was her own aisle, dominated by the two display benches she’d been trained and assigned to operate. Across from where she worked was the Chief’s desk, where Chief Crane was just sitting down, reaching for his phone. Had he been standing behind her during that…whatever it was?
Sherry sat down in front of her repair bench, a million thoughts crowding into her head. What was that torrent of words? It was a voice, but not one she recognized; it certainly wasn’t her husband’s. Could she have imagined it? Was it an auditory hallucination?
She had an aunt who was schizophrenic, who claimed she could hear people talking about her even when there was no one else in the room. But that made no sense; the words didn’t have anything to do with her. She’d been looking at that guy, that Travis, and thinking how good he looked, bent over the book, strands of hair almost touching the tops of his eyes…
But Stan, her husband, looked better, right? He loved her bright blue eyes, her generous smile, and her petite figure, and she loved to flaunt it for him. Why, just the other day she had…
“Shop meeting!” a loud voice yelled, calling everyone’s attention to the production desk. Leaving off her thoughts of her husband and their perfect marriage, Sherry walked out of her aisle, following the other technicians to hear the latest news.
2
“Sir,” came the call over the intercom, “you have a phone call from a Chief Crane.”
“Thank you, Rogers, patch it through.”
In a well-appointed office, on a large polished mahogany desk, a telephone started ringing. Before plucking the handset from the base, Lieutenant Barnes pressed a rapid sequence of numbers, activating a recorder to monitor the phone line.
“Hello?”
“Lieutenant Barnes?”
“Speaking.”
“Chief Crane here.”
“Yes, Chief. Do you have something to report?”
“Maybe something, sir. I’m not sure. It could be nothing.”
“What’s on your mind, Chief?”
“It’s the new sailor, Anders, sir.”
“What about her?”
“Well…sir, a few minutes ago she kind of…blanked out.”
“Blanked out? Can you be more specific, Chief?”
“She was coming into Sixty-Three Alpha just ahead of me. She got through the doorway and stopped, like someone hit pause. It only lasted a few seconds, and she snapped out of it when her name was called. I’m only reporting it because you asked me to keep an eye on her.”
“Yes, yes. That’s exactly the kind of thing I want to know about. Anything else?”
“No, sir. She seemed all right after.”
“Okay, and what about Petty Officer Wilkins?”
“Strange you should mention him, sir.”
“Why is that?”
“I couldn’t see Anders’ face, but her head was turned right into Aisle One, where Wilkins was standing.”
“Was he looking at her?” Lieutenant Barnes asked.
“No, I don’t think so. Looked like he was doing his reports, going over the logbook.”
“They weren’t talking?”
“No, sir.”
“All right then. Good job, Chief.”
“Um…sir?”
“Yes?”
“It’s just that…well…I don’t really feel right doing this.”
“Doing
what?”
“Spying on my own people, sir. If there’s something I should know about Petty Officer Anders or Petty Officer Wilkins, something that might help them—"
“There isn’t, Chief. And I trust that you will trust me on this.” Lieutenant Barnes’ tone of voice became hard.
“I just want to do what’s best for my men, sir, if you know what I mean. If this poses any danger to my work center—"
“It doesn’t, Chief. Believe that we have good reasons for asking you to report on these two sailors, specifically, and leave it at that.”
“Ah…yes. Well then, um…thank you, sir.”
“No problem, Chief. Let me know if anything else comes up.”
Lieutenant Robert Barnes hung the receiver back in its cradle. Reclining in his well-padded, dark leather chair, he steepled his fingers, thinking. The wall behind him held numerous photographic prints of the Navy Chain of Command, with President Donald Trump holding the highest position on the wall. His desk held only his intercom, the desk phone, his computer monitor, and his personal smartphone. The keyboard for the computer was tucked away on its sliding tray.
After a few moments of thought, Lieutenant Barnes reached forward and pressed the intercom button that opened communications with his receptionist in the outer office.
“Yes, sir?”
“Get me Captain Ortega on a secure line, please. Use priority code ‘XB.’
“Roger that, sir. Stand by.”
Chapter 3
Travis
1
Travis stared at the logbook for almost five minutes, ignoring the hum of conversation around him. Lost to him was the comical story of Airman Harding’s blind date with the Marine female, as well as the appreciative laughter of his fellow sailors. There was more wrong here than just the three-word message, which might be a joke, and might not even be meant for him. It looked like it was written in standard black ink, and therefore indelible, but it shouldn’t be affecting him this way. He shouldn’t feel as if an electric current had hold of his muscles, locking his hands to the logbook. He shouldn’t feel pinpricks of sweat tickling his scalp or his heart picking up speed like a boulder rolling down a hill.
But he felt all those things, and it was his reaction to the message more than the message itself that had Travis in a near panic. It felt like something remembered, or almost remembered.
You’re being watched.
A pounding started up in the back of his head, throbbing in time to his heart. His vision pulsed at the periphery, and the blurry changes seemed to hint not at a distortion of the world around him, but that there might be another world of vision buried beneath the obvious. The pounding wasn’t a headache, but more like a hammer slamming against a wall or a door. Something had to open, or someone needed to be rescued or escape from somewhere. Travis’s breath quickened as a flash of hallway appeared before him, and the briefest glimpse of a running figure in white dashed into his sight and was gone just as quickly.
A new sound reached him, a strange buzzing hum in his ears, different from the pervasive high-pitched whine that filled every avionics work center. This new sound pulled his eyes away from the logbook. He looked up. There, staring at him, was the new girl—what was her name? —and she had the strangest look on her face, like a cross between wonder and nausea.
As soon as their eyes met, she clapped her hands to her head as if in pain. Travis moved to drop the logbook, shocked at her reaction yet also driven by a basic human need to offer help.
And the buzzing turned into words…
can’t bear it where is it coming from what is happening to me these words from nowhere what do they mean
…and then Petty Officer Harmon was talking to the girl and everything seemed to snap back into focus for Travis. The voice—a girl’s voice? —was gone. He realized he and the new girl had locked gazes, were openly staring at each other, and he dropped his eyes.
When he looked up again, Harmon was patting the girl on the shoulder as she walked by, heading deeper into the work center. Chief Crane followed close behind.
Travis considered himself experienced in the ways of men and women. He didn’t think of himself as a Casanova, but he wasn’t a social recluse. He’d certainly never had that kind of reaction when meeting a woman’s eyes.
Thinking about it, the reaction didn’t feel like a sexual attraction, but something different. Something passed between them, he was sure of it. He’d read about being able to feel someone staring at you, but is that really what happened? And those things he experienced before, the almost remembering—was that related to the logbook message or to the girl’s presence?
“That’s some bullshit,” Stevens voice came from behind, overriding Harding’s protests. “What do you think, Wilkins?”
Travis turned to his co-workers, unsure what Petty Officer Stevens was talking about, when the stentorian voice of Petty Officer Faley rang out.
“Shop meeting!”
Closing the logbook, Travis replaced it on the worktable. He resolved to question the Mid-Shift sailors as soon as the production meeting was over.
2
Ten minutes of bullshit, Travis thought to himself as he headed back to his aisle. That’s all the meeting was. Ten minutes of his life he’d never get back. He still had to deal with the off-going Mid-Shift personnel, all of whom wanted to leave, yet would be forced to wait while Travis went through a lecture on the importance of not leaving personal messages in the logbook.
They were all friends, here, Travis reminded himself, despite the differences in rank. They all did the same job, worked on the same equipment, and dealt with many of the same issues. From willowy and petite Airman Michelle Nguyen, with her exotic Eurasian features, to squat Petty Officer Ketchem, an African American who complained constantly about the inherent difficulties of being black in America—their backgrounds were as varied as their features. They’d all volunteered to serve, which gave them a common ground lacking in many other diverse groups. These Mid-Shift personnel deserved a quick discussion and a faster dismissal; their weekend started the minute he let them go.
Satisfied he had everyone’s attention, Travis began, “We all know that this logbook is an official record, right?”
No one answered, but he received a lot of nods. Not a week went by that someone didn’t misuse the logbook—or not use it at all—and there were regular reminders about maintaining a proper written passdown. The most common expression, Travis noticed, was impatience, and the occasional smug smile which said that person knew he or she had done nothing wrong, and whatever discrepancy Travis found had probably happened on Night Shift, none of whose members were around to protest.
“So why is it,” Travis continued, “that I found a personal message in this logbook when I came in today?”
That got their attention. Heads turned as Travis’s co-workers looked at each other, trying in that silent way so common to siblings and close friends to determine who had broken the rules.
When no one spoke up, Travis added, “Now, I can understand a good joke as well as the next guy, even if I don’t get it, but we need to keep them out of the official Navy logbooks, you understand?”
Airman Harding started to raise his hand, but Travis quickly added, “That includes not taping black and white copies of your ass to the last page, Harding.”
“I knew it was you!” Ketchem said as Harding lowered his hand. “That ass was just too flat to be anybody else’s.”
Travis let the laughter continue for a moment before adding, “Look, I know you’re all tired and ready for your weekend. Let’s just agree to keep the logbook clean, and we’ll forget about it.”
“Excuse me, Petty Officer Wilkins,” Airman Short said. Travis raised his eyes to the young redhead, whose unfortunate face was so covered with vesicular acne that it resembled the bubbling surface of a freshly baked pizza.
“Yeah, Short?”
“Well…um…I was the last guy to make an entry in there, and I d
on’t remember seeing any kind of message.”
Travis expected this. Flipping open the logbook, he handed it to his men, waiting for their reactions to the odd message.
“Yeah, Petty Officer Wilkins,” Short said, “that’s my last entry. But I don’t see what you’re talking about.”
“It’s right under your power supply sign-off, Short,” Travis said.
“Uh, AT2,” Stevens said, “there’s nothing under Short’s sign-off.”
“No, there isn’t,” Petty Officer Kale confirmed in his nasal voice, handing the logbook back to Travis, who accepted it with a smile which said everyone was conspiring against him and he knew it.
When he looked down at the blue-lined pages, he saw his co-workers were right. Below the last line of Airman Short’s entry was nothing but blank paper.
“But that’s impossible,” Travis muttered, staring hard at the paper, willing the message to return. He inspected the inside of the binding, looking for a torn page—though it was doubtful anyone could have torn out a page and recreated every entry in the few minutes since he’d first discovered the message—yet nothing seemed to be missing. He was certain everyone had attended the production meeting.
“Um…will there be anything else, AT2?” Short asked softly, bringing Travis back from his thoughts.
Looking up with haunted eyes, Travis answered, “No…uh…that’ll be all. Mid-Shift is relieved.”
3
Although Travis was still puzzled by the mysterious message—I know it was there, I didn’t imagine it—he’d largely managed to put it aside by lunchtime. He enjoyed a greasy burger and fries with his friends and experienced nothing worse than a mild acidic burn in his stomach—which wasn’t unusual when buying lunch from the Enlisted Club’s short-order grill. He also got to hear the story of Airman Harding’s blind date.
Airman Scott Harding was of a height with Stevens, through broader in the shoulders. He kept his blond hair cut short in traditional Navy style, though he avoided the Marine brush-cut Stevens sported. His sharp-angled features always had a wry twist, like he found sarcasm and humor in everything around him. Combined with the stylish wire-frame glasses he wore—no Navy-issue BCGs for him—he reminded Travis of an intelligent, militaristic Bond villain, the type who wants to blow up the world but has a very logical reason for doing it.