Chapter 20: Fraud
General George Ramford stood by the front door of the main building in the compound. He was seething.
How on earth could Halle do this to me? He wondered. Even before the death of their parents, Halle and he had been close. The year afterward he’d become a surrogate father, to both of them. But he had loved Halle in particular, and he knew she’d loved him. I always thought if I could only speak with her again, I could convince her to join me. But not so anymore.
Kyler. He thought angrily. He’d managed to transfer his anger of the father to the son when the son committed the same betrayal.
Ramford watched the cavalcade pull up, quietly chewing the inside of his cheek in nervousness.
“Welcome!” General Ramford said courteously to the group as they approached him. He was annoyed to see that the group was not only comprised of two Senators and the Speaker of the House; Senator Howe, Senator Burbank and Madam Speaker Hardman, but also several aides. Of the three, only Senator Burbank had been involved with the original committee established a decade previous. Since then, it was a very select group that stayed informed about the study done and the extent of the results.
What are they thinking, bringing extra people here? Ramford griped internally.
“General.” The Senators shook his hand.
“It’s good to finally have a reason to come here, General,” Hardman said. “The President is fascinated by your research and wanted us out as soon as possible.”
Ramford felt uncomfortable, but tried to hide it. “Yes, well, there have been some unfortunate events, but despite our setbacks, I assure you, we have plenty to show you!”
“Setbacks?” Burbank’s raspy voice questioned disapprovingly. He had seen quite a few of the “setbacks” Ramford’s team had allowed in the past. “What sort of setbacks?”
“If you’ll please follow me, I will explain everything,” Ramford said. This needed to be handled delicately. As they walked into the building, he wondered if he was approaching this in the best way. It hardly matters, I don’t have time to change the plan. I’ve got to convince them!
He led them to a conference room prepared by Diana, his secretary. It had a large screen lowered along one of the walls. Set in the middle was a thick oak table surrounded by thickly padded office chairs. After the officials had filed in, Ramford stepped in front of the door, blocking the aides’ entrance.
“Excuse me, but I’m afraid I can’t allow anyone but the assigned committee members in this room,” he said.
“Oh. Uh-” One of the aides looked to her boss in surprise.
“I apologize, but we will be examining sensitive material,” Ramford said cautiously. He waved Diana forward. “If you wouldn’t mind following Lt. Berg, I’m sure she’ll find a comfortable place for you to wait.”
They consulted with the Committee members for a few minutes. While doing so, Colonel Jessop approached the General with a small computer drive.
“Sir, I think it would help our cause if you showed them some of the original footage, as well as the video from yesterday.”
“Oh? Yes, that is probably wise. Remind them what this is all about, eh?”
Colonel Jessop grimaced slightly, “Yes sir.”
“Do you have it?”
“Yes sir.”
“Give it to Lt. Berg. And thank you, Colonel.”
The Colonel left the room with the Committee aides.
Not wanting to begin with an argument, Ramford decided to refrain from chastising them for bringing their aides with them at all. He liked to keep his business as inconspicuous and unknown as possible; it annoyed him that each president and many Congress members had been informed of the experiment since its inception.
“Alright, Ramford, we were informed you had finally succeeding in retrieving two of your assets from the botched experiment nine years ago. What happened? Where are they?” Burbank said, rather aggressively. He was rather nearer 80 than 70 and had become crotchety as he aged.
“John,” Ramford said, hoping his voice sounded patient and authoritative. “I feel some explanation is needed first. Senator Howe, and Speaker Hardman, I am not sure of what particulars you are aware, but I would like to ensure you fully understand what I am about to tell you.
“The two subjects we have been attempting to recover were never originally part of the experiment. Everything pertaining to the experiment was destroyed, intentionally by the lead scientist, Tom Priest. All of our evidence and subjects were gone. But shortly thereafter we discovered that his two children had also undergone the experimental treatments. We took video and brain scans of these youth. One, Kyler, was in the military. Both were official government assets as their brain function had been significantly altered by proprietary government products.
“We planned to use their blood to reverse engineer the results. But they disappeared before we could get any blood samples.”
“General, we know all of this,” Hardman interrupted.
“Yes, I know. But there are pieces you are unaware of, and I would like to remind you of their abilities before we continue. Lt. Berg?”
Diana started a video playing on the screen.
“Day 1, subjects A and B,” a voice behind the camera said.
The General and a Doctor appeared on the screen. The room looked like a laboratory clashed with a hospital, only there was a blackboard on the wall.
“Kyler? Halle? This is just the first test, so we’ll keep it simple, okay?” Ramford asked two teenagers sitting on separate beds in the room. They were attached to a machine next to the bed, each by a sort of headband connected to a bunch of wires.
“Sure!” Halle said enthusiastically. Kyler merely nodded.
“Okay, to start I’d like you, Kyler, to move the ball at your feet. Hal, you move the waste basket over here.”
Almost before he’d finished speaking the ball rose up, and the waste basket zoomed over to where they were sitting. The ball dropped calmly into it.
“Very good!” Ramford said. “Now, try something bigger. Or more complicated.”
The entire lab table lifted at the same time that Halle’s bed did.
“I can do two at once now, sir,” Kyler said.
“Excellent! Hal?”
The chalk next to the blackboard rose and began spelling out the ABC’s.
“Splendid!”
The Committee looked impressed.
Yes! Ramford thought. I’ll need to give Colonel Jessop a commendation.
Even though Senator Burbank had seen it before, it was still an impressive sight. The video show continued for a half hour or so, showing the teenagers flying or causing others to fly. It showed an interview with a soldier whose brain was being changed by them. And then, to cap it off, a video of soldiers completely under the teenagers’ control. While the abilities in these latter videos were more impressive, the videos didn’t show it and the effect wasn’t the same as seeing objects float around the room.
When the screen turned off everyone turned back to the center of the table.
“General Ramford, while this is, no doubt, impressive and valuable footage, I was under the impression we were here to see the real thing,” Speaker Hardman said.
“If you will humor me for a few more minutes, please. The reason you have seen this video is to remind you of the possibilities of such abilities. I know you have heard of it theoretically, but not all of you had seen the actual video. You see the inherent problems in our attempts to recover the assets.”
They nodded in agreement.
“At first it seemed nearly impossible. But a couple of years after they disappeared, we noticed something. The machine they were connected with mapped their brain waves, we knew that. But we discovered that we could trace these brainwaves. Consequently, the committee commissioned, and was granted, the use of several satellites around the world to perform continuous scans to locate them. It seemed likely we would succeed quite quickly. They could change what our office
rs were seeing, but not the physical sensors on the skin. This allowed us to locate them, no matter where they tried to hide. But, as you know, we had a change of administration and several new threats to our nation. We were then limited to one satellite, and even that one had to be shared with other projects.”
“General Ramford,” Senator Howe was part of the new camp, “You should understand as a military man that the threat is very real and the need for satellite imagery is great.”
“Oh, I do, Senator. But we differ in our methods. I believe in the big picture and long-term results. If we could successfully reign in this power, think of the possibilities!”
“General, are we here for another requisition for a new satellite?” Speaker Hardman sighed. “I was under the impression that you had the assets in your facility.”
“We did.” Ramford cursed internally. He hadn’t meant to say it yet.
“What do you mean, did?” Burbank rasped. “You’ve had them moved?”
General Ramford hesitated a moment before replying carefully. “Not exactly. We had them in custody when the girl we were holding for interrogation regarding the assets managed to slip her guard. She destroyed the scanner used to track their brainwaves.
“Without that scanner, gentlemen, and Speaker, we are blind. There was next to nothing we could do to stop them.”
“You lost them?” Burbank roared. “After all this time, you finally gain control of them, only to promptly lose them again!”
“Please, Senator! Understand that if we had full satellite usage, we would be able to easily track them!” Ramford said, trying not to lose his temper.
“And once you found them, how do you propose to keep control of them, General?” Hardman asked.
“It was an unfortunate occurrence, but if we had the scanner working, we would never have lost them to begin with.”
“Do you not have a backup scanner on the base?” Burbank pointedly asked.
“Yes, we do. And that is why I did not cancel your trip to the base,” Ramford said, preparing to begin his bargaining. “The second Brain Emission Scanner was never given the permissions for the satellite. Congressmen, the only way to get those permissions is from you. And I implore you to give it to me.”
“Why should we do that?” Senator Burbank asked, grumpily.
“I want you to see another security video series as my answer.” Ramford dimmed the lights and the screen lit up again.
The video began with a shot of the fence. It showed a long line of empty fence. Halle appeared from off screen. She looked around, then calmly floated up and over the fence. She walked confidently toward the center building, but she didn’t get very far before soldiers zeroed in on her on their scanners and circled her.
She tried to change their view of their scanners, but she couldn’t affect them all at once, when they were waiting for her to do so. They ignored their vision and went by touch.
There was conversation that they couldn’t hear, then a soldier handed her handcuffs. Instead of putting them on, she calmly put them on one of the other soldiers. The others hadn’t noticed him leave the circle, but he just calmly stood right next to her.
Here, Ramford paused the video and interrupted. “All of the soldiers are willing to swear that the person who was handcuffed was the one they had surrounded and that person was a private they didn’t recognize.” He started the frozen feed again.
As they escorted Halle toward the main building, there was a disturbance. All of the soldiers flinched at the same time; there was some confusion as they pressed together. When they came apart, Halle was walking in the circle surrounding the private she had cuffed.
“This was where the problems started,” Ramford said as Diana changed the tape. “There was an explosion that she took advantage of, and the explosion destroyed our scanner, so our boys could no longer tell where the brainwaves were coming from. This next one doesn’t look like much. She just stays in the room where I’m interrogating Private Ganeiri. But everyone who was in the room, or close by, can testify that she was never there,” He said it as the video played, showing them.
“You mean, more than resembling another soldier, they can become completely invisible?” Howe asked.
“Yes. Which we suspected, but we’d never seen before. It must be more difficult than some of the original feats they did,” Ramford said. The next video started. It showed him and Halle entering the room Cassie was in. “That is not what I saw when I entered the room. What I saw was Halle, the curly haired girl, sitting in the seat. And no one else.”
They all watched as the real Halle tazed him and she and Cassie pulled him into a corner out of reach of the camera.
“Now, this last one is perhaps the most significant. Because of the scope and distance.” The video showed Kyler drive up in the SUV, they piled in and he drove off.
“So?” Hardman asked.
“So, this was approximately 750 yards away from the security room, where the guards did not see anything. An alien car approaching would definitely have attracted their attention. But they blocked the guards almost half a mile away. Not to mention all of the men standing at the gate and around the fence. No one saw or heard a thing,” Ramford said. “It was only when the security footage was reviewed that any of this was seen. This is quite beyond the scope of any of our past tests.”
“How far beyond?” Hardman asked.
Burbank was the one to answer. “Incredibly. Neither test subject could change the view of more than one person at a time before. And they had to be able to see them to do it.” His excitement was rising.
“I see,” Hardman said. “And you believe this changes things?” She asked Ramford, who bristled at her lack of understanding.
“General, your operation here is the definition of shoddy! First you allow all of your research to be destroyed, then new research neatly presents itself to you and you lose that, too! Then after years of being humored, you manage to trap your quarry and they simply walk out?” Burbank said, his temper rising with his realization of what they had lost. “How exactly do you intend to prevent that from happening again?”
“Very simply,” Ramford said, impressed by how calm his voice sounded. “We have new measures to install. We would have done it sooner had we believed it necessary. We want to set up security cameras connected to a network being observed miles away. Hundreds of miles, as a precaution. Far enough away that they can have no effect on the guards monitoring them. That way no more mistakes would be made.”
“I’m inclined to agree to your request,” Madam Hardman told him. “Their powers have grown. Errors were bound to happen. And now that we more fully understand what’s at stake, we need to be more cautious. The potential behind these assets is too great to lose.”
“Thank you, Speaker!” Ramford said, thrilled. “Gentlemen?”
Burbank snorted, but made no sign either direction.
“I agree with Janice,” Senator Howe said. “I’m sure John agrees, despite his disappointment at your past failures.”
Burbank looked annoyed but grunted, which Ramford took as an agreement.
“Brilliant! Thank you very much!”
“We did not come prepared to give you what you need. It will take time to push this through,” Speaker Hardman said.
“You understand that until we get those permissions, we will be severely crippled?” He asked her.
“I do, but I’m afraid these things take time. You can expect the satellite access permissions will be delivered to you within the week. Also, the amount of increase in funding and the location of the monitoring site will be decided on within a month, then you’ll be able to get it up and running,” she said.
“No sooner?” General Ramford protested.
“That is an at-best projection. We can’t do this with the snap of our fingers. I’m afraid nothing faster can be managed.”
“Well then we will make do with what we have.” The General extended his arm, “Thank you very much, Madam S
peaker.”
She took his hand, and to all appearances gave it a firm shake. The General took a step back in surprise. He had felt nothing. He saw that they touched, but his skin couldn’t feel it at all.
It couldn’t be! Could it? Ramford thought.
“Something wrong, General?” She asked.
He quickly regained his composure. “No, not at all.” He shook the hands of the other two as they exited as well. Maybe the stress is getting to me. He thought, but he didn’t really believe it.
They waited in the hall for a few moments before Diana had the aides join their employers. Ramford shook each of their hands as well, feeling more and more disconcerted as he did; his senses did not feel any of their touches. Trying not to panic, he wondered what to do.
Can I do anything? If I’m wrong, it could ruin everything.
As they turned to leave, the group of eight people flickered suddenly, as if a projection. Only two of them stayed solid. But they didn’t stay the same. The General saw, for barely a moment, Kyler and Halle standing where the two Senators were.
Fighting against the urge to shout at his men to seize them, the General’s mind flew through his options until it landed on a plausible plan. I have to get them locked in a room before they suspect I know who they are. Then when the real Committee arrives, nothing will have failed at all!
Wondering what had been done to the actual Senators and Speaker, and plotting how to move them, Ramford was relieved when Colonel Jessop appeared, looking unaccountably nervous.
“Ah, perfect. Colonel, perhaps you could entertain our guests for just a moment before they leave. I have one final thing I would like to show them. I will just go and see that it is properly prepared. I will return momentarily.” Then he said, in a whisper to the Colonel. “Do not let them leave. Whatever you do! Diana, please come with me!”
He hurried off leaving the Colonel puzzled, but grateful for the opportunity. The Committee looked at him, perplexed as to the delay.
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