by Jack L Knapp
"I know an exercise that will help; how would you like to go for a tumble?”
She looked surprised. “Do you think I’m ready for that, T?”
If there was a hidden meaning in her comment, he ignored it.
“The exercise will teach you to keep your concentration. You need a breezy day but not too breezy, like today is,. I think the blowing sand will quit as the sun goes down, and anyway we want darkness when we do this. Want to give it a try?”
She agreed, still a bit dubious, and I arranged to meet her back here after the breeze dropped. She also offered to have two meals delivered from the hospital kitchen and I was glad to take advantage of that; I simply didn’t feel safe in a place where I was surrounded by people I didn’t know.
#
We had finished our meals, not quite as good as what was available from the dining facility, but still better than MRE’s. I watched the weather and the darkness and when conditions were as good as they were going to get, we left her office.
We were wearing nothing but uniforms and a pistol each, both strapped into shoulder holsters, with the holster and belt in contact with skin under the uniform jacket.
“If you’ve got too many layers over your skin, you might lose whatever is in that outer layer. It just rips away when the field forms. I did that the first time I formed the bubble. The ‘chute harness went, and if the protective field had failed, I’d have been another ‘blood on the risers’ guy.
“It’s best to just have your clothes on, a backpack at most. If you put the pack over a parka or something, the straps will probably snap when the bubble forms unless they're in contact with skin. I make sure that if I'm wearing something I don't want to lose, I hold onto it with my bare hands.
“Anyway, what we’re going to do is bounce and tumble. It will help you understand that you have to really concentrate on holding the bubble. If you lose your concentration, the field collapses and you’ll hit the ground. You might get a bruise while you’re learning, but if you lose situational awareness and your concentration fails later on, you can get dead.
“First, we have to get over the fence. We don’t want to go through the gate because the guards will get suspicious, and maybe they’ll find out more than I…make that we…want them to know.
“So we bounce. Jump as high as you can, form your bubble, then catch your balance when you land. You’ll come down slower than you expect if you expand your field to its maximum size, but if you expand it too much there’s a danger that the field will collapse. If it’s too small, you won’t get the bounce you need. You'll need to practice until you get it right.
“When the wind hits your bubble, you’ll be tipped over and start to tumble. Head over heels, then heels over head, you’ll keep on rolling while your bubble is in place and there's a wind blowing. After a while, you’ll be able to concentrate, no matter what happens.
“Anyway, when you begin to come down from one of the jumps, get your feet under you and push off as strongly as you can. You’ll have to do this several times before you’re high enough, but it’ll get easier, and it’s a skill you might need. Every push sends you higher, as long as you add energy when you come down, until you can bounce over the fence.
“I’ll let you go first. Form your bubble and expand it as far as you can control it. You’ll feel it begin to waver when it’s at your personal limit. The bubble begins a kind of wobble too, so when you detect that, shrink the field just a little. Start bouncing inside like you were on a trampoline. You won’t be touching the ground, because the closer you come, the more the bubble pushes back. As you come down, pick the best time and jump again. Stay upright; if you tumble over before you’re high enough to clear the fence, you can just shrink the bubble and get your balance again. Keep trying; you need to be higher than the fence before you try to bounce across, but as long as you’re in your bubble, you’re safe. I’ll be watching and I’ll be right behind you. I can cross the fence quick because I’ve had a lot of practice, so you bounce over and wait for me. If you have a problem, don’t panic; I’m close, and you can call me with your TP.”
Three bounces later, she was over the fence, and I wasn’t far behind. We stood in the cleared area around the compound, bubbles collapsed. I motioned to Shezzie and we slipped down the alley to the rear of the compound, where we could feel the breeze blowing down the dirt roadway.
Her field formed with a gentle pop and a flash of dull red. The bubble expanded and the gentle breeze slowly tipped her over, rolling her bubble down the dirt track. I formed my own field and followed, catching glimpses of her whenever she was within my view as I rolled along behind. I could maintain my bubble farther out than she could, so the breeze had more 'sail area' to work with. I caught up with her, then shrank my field until we were rolling along together.
We collapsed the bubbles half a mile down the track and hiked back to the compound, facing into the breeze. We found the spot we’d crossed the Hesco barrier and were soon ready to go back inside. She was red-faced and breathless and happy. We'd been gone an hour when we bounced back over the Hesco walls.
#
Shezzie continued to think after T left for his own quarters. There had been major changes in her life during the past two weeks. She had gone from being a competent nurse and supervisor, with suspicions that there might be something more she was doing, to knowing that she possessed a psionic Talent; finally, to knowing that she possessed much more of an ability than even she had realized.
And now there were her additional Talents to consider. She’d spent a few minutes just moving articles around her quarters, using her developing PK ability. Look at the object, encompass it with her mind, think of it separating from what it rested on, then moving to a new location. The exercises hadn't gone perfectly; she had cleaned up the spilled salt from the salt-and-pepper set that she kept in her quarters, and tossed out the remnants of the APC bottle, but shortly the mistakes stopped as her control increased.
That last exercise had been different! She had attempted to lift the plastic medicine bottle and move it, only to see it crush and the pills crumble into dust. Too much force, she thought.
She was aware of a new dimension to the world now, a dimension that included Talent and people who employed it. Moreover, she was one of them and would continue to develop her abilities. What el
se might she be able to do?
She believed what T and Surfer had told her, that those who had graduated from the government-operated School were endangered by the control mechanism that had been implanted without their knowledge. She also realized that their danger came from the very government that she served as an officer.
The danger would also apply to her if anyone discovered her new abilities.
She considered the question. How important were her abilities, and could those same Talents be developed in others? Perhaps some of the abilities could be awakened in most people? And where did her duties lie, to continue as a serving officer with a mission to care for the injured, or to join with those who wielded Talents?
She didn’t know. But she realized at some visceral level that the old rules she’d been so certain of no longer applied.
She knew that at some point she would have to make a decision.
Chapter Ten
Sergeant First Class Raymond Wilson walked up to the desk and waited to be noticed.
Wilson was a little over six feet in height, weighed a bit less than two hundred pounds, and had thinning brown hair. He was 42 years old and had been a soldier for 24 years, but that period of his life was coming to an end. Wilson had applied for retirement at the end of his current tour in Afghanistan.
The clerk looked up and waited for Wilson to speak.
“SFC Wilson to see the General. He sent for me.”
The clerk glanced at a list of appointments, nodded once, then carefully checked off the name. “Let me see if the General is ready, Sergeant. Just a moment.” He came back after a short pause and said, “You can go in, Sergeant.”
Wilson knocked once and then opened the door. He marched to the front of the desk, came to attention, and reported. “SFC Wilson, Raymond, reporting to the General as ordered, Sir.”
General Adams returned the salute casually, then said, “Have a seat, Sergeant. Coffee?” When Wilson nodded, General Adams pushed a button on his intercom and said “Fresh coffee for two, and then hold phone calls and visitors until I’m done here.”
“Fresh coffee” to General Adams meant just that, coffee ground and brewed within the last half hour. The general stocked his own beans and made them available to his staff. A small Mr. Coffee machine and a coffee grinder occupied a table in the outer office; the general had been heard to remark when questioned that “he couldn’t control the enemy, he couldn’t control the weather, and he couldn’t control his own damned chain of command, but by God he could control what kind of coffee he drank!”
His aides ordered a monthly supply of Kenya AA beans, submitting the charge to the general’s wife, to be paid along with the other household accounts. His visitors didn’t complain; indeed, a number of them had begun stocking their own supplies of gourmet beans in emulation of the general.
The staff members didn’t always buy the same kind of coffee; some preferred Jamaica Blue Mountain, a few liked Kona Gold, and one had found an obscure supplier in Panama that he swore by. A coffee subculture had grown up around the general. His aides and clerks now traded information and sampled each other’s special brew. The general had been offered cups of the other brews, but declined. He preferred his own coffee.
The insistence on having his own coffee, brewed fresh, was a symptom; General Adams chafed at his present assignment. More coordinator than commander nowadays, he spent his time assuring that his well-trained staff provided support for the units that did the actual fighting. Paperwork came in, got signed, and was duly pushed onward.
It wasn’t much of a job for man who’d spent years as an active commander and troop leader. The necessary staff assignments he'd filled along the way had been distractions in his view, temporary activities that took him away from what he considered the only real task of an officer, command of troops.
Adams had been an infantryman before being promoted to brigadier general. He still hoped to command an infantry division one day, or failing that, command of one of the major infantry posts; such an assignment would be a nice cap to his career. Either job called for a major general, and he already held that rank. If he did well in either assignment, a promotion to lieutenant general would be likely, and maybe an even more responsible job. Instead, he'd found himself stuck in staff or support jobs, and he feared now that he’d never again command combat troops.
General Adams had a squarish face with an impressive collection of wrinkles and he maintained his head bald. It didn’t take a lot of shaving; most of his hair had gone within 10 years of leaving the academy. He’d been a football player while at West Point, then worn a combat helmet for years, and it showed; like many who'd worn such, the hair follicles had been damaged such that he became prematurely bald. He still sported a fit, if blocky, shape; thick arms strained at the rolled sleeves of his ACU jacket. Two black stars were velcro’d to the front of his uniform jacket; the second star had come with this assignment.
General Adams occasionally wondered if the promotion had been worth it.
After Ray drank his first appreciative sip of the coffee, General Adams said, “I thought I’d give you something to do during your last two weeks before you rotate back to the states. I’ve got a problem. You did good work for me solving problems back there at Bliss, even if you were a little unorthodox.
Anyway, two of my soldiers have disappeared. They went missing from right here in the compound, apparently. One is a nurse, a lieutenant colonel, and the medical people are pretty upset about that. The other one is a warrant, a CW3 if I recall correctly, some sort of intelligence specialist. He’s attached to a support unit.
“He does patrols, takes out convoys sometimes, so I guess he’s got language or cultural knowledge or something. He goes out on patrol with a squad and gets information. He seems to be pretty good at what he does. He’s led a dozen patrols since he got here, maybe more, and he generally works with squads from more than one infantry unit. And he has, his patrol has, only been hit a couple of times. He goes out, does what he’s supposed to do, comes back, and there’s no hostile contact most of the time. The times when his patrol was hit were flukes, I guess. They stumbled over IED’s. His people took casualties, but he’s never been scratched.” General Adams thought about that. “Lucky. I could have used that luck when I was in Vietnam.”
The general had picked up more than his fair share of dings during his three tours in that country.
“Anyway, I knew you were getting short in-country, and you did good work for me at Fort Bliss. I thought you might be able to find out something before you leave. Still planning on retiring?”
Ray nodded. “Yes, sir. I think I’ll go back to college, finish up a degree and then do something else. I’ve had enough time in the green suit. I’ll have my retirement pay and GI Bill while I’m in school; I think that should be enough, so I won’t need to work while I attend college. I’ll graduate and then see what interests me. Lots of things are happening now, and I’d like to do something technical, I think; I’ve got some ideas. But I can always fall back on doing something involving security. I’ve certainly got enough experience at that, and it should be relatively easy to pick up a minor in that if I do opt for a technical degree.”
General Adams nodded. “See what you can find out about the missing people, and then get back to me. The medical folks are really bugging me about this nurse. Nobody seems to give much of a damn about the warrant, but I’d like to know what happened to him too. I don’t like my people just disappearing from a secured compound. If there’s a way in or out of here, I need to know about it. Next time, it could be something a lot more serious. There are two personnel files on the table in the outer office. They’ll give you a starting place.”
SFC Wilson finished his coffee, put the empty cup on a side table, and came to attention. General Adams returned his salute and picked up the file he’d been working on, then paused after Ray left. He thought for a minute, then buzzed in his clerk.
“Get my aide for me, please
.”
When Lieutenant Chilton came in, General Adams told him, “I just sent an old friend, Sergeant First Class Ray Wilson, on an errand. He was my security manager at Fort Bliss and he did good work for me, more than you’d expect from a sergeant. He knows how to get things done without making waves. He’s retiring after he returns stateside. See that he gets what he needs from this command. You know the drill; he’ll maybe want a particular post to retire from, whatever. I wouldn’t want to find that personnel was being unreasonable. If you have a problem, get back to me, but otherwise I’m going to assume you can handle this.”
Lieutenant Chilton had been taking notes in a pocket notebook. He nodded, replied “Yes, Sir.” He replaced the notebook in his pocket, buttoned it, and quietly let himself out the door.
Ray Wilson took the two folders to his office and put them on the empty desk. He’d be turning his duties over to his replacement in two weeks or less, and most of his work had been completed with that in mind.
There had been a small collection of personal things that had hung on the walls or occupied a space on the filing cabinet. These had been packed, turned in to the supply office for shipment, and they'd gone out the previous weekend. A battered briefcase contained a copy of his personnel file and his personal weapon with two spare magazines. That, a laptop computer, and a small collection of circulars and copies of his alert movement orders were the only other things in the office, except for the standard metal desk, office chair, wastebasket, and file cabinet. The bare office was a clear sign that his job here was ending.
His career was ending too. He hadn’t fully come to terms with closing out that part of his life, but it was time to move on. He would adjust. He’d done so, many times during his career.
He locked the office behind him and picked up a cup of coffee and a pastry from the coffee bar. Carrying his snack, he returned, unlocking the office and closing the door behind him. There was really no reason to lock the office when he went for coffee, since there were no longer any sensitive or classified documents in the room; still, the habit was long ingrained and hard to break. He looked at the two manila folders and started with the lieutenant colonel’s file.