Let's leave time travel alone for now, what do you say? I thought to Tatiana.
Suits me, it hurts to think about it. But maybe one day we'll try to make use of it, she thought back to me in Russian.
Maybe, but let's stop the alien abductions first.
Okay.
On the way to the Luna Grill I bumped into Jim and Anson and they decided to join me. The two of them were wearing karate outfits, were very sweaty, and seemed tired.
"Anson, you guys do martial arts, I take it?" I asked.
"Yeah, some of us around here ain't nanomachine enhanced and must maintain our fitness levels as best we can." He laughed.
"Yeah, we mere mortals have to stave off death the old-fashioned way," Jim added.
"You know, there is no reason for you to be getting old. I could repair any ailments you have and even reverse and stop the genetic deterioration of aging. I've done this with myself and it doesn't take the nanomachines to maintain. Actually, I have to give Tatiana the credit for the idea. She came up with it." I shrugged my shoulders and raised my eyebrows as if to ask if they were interested.
"Are you serious?" Anson asked.
"Of course I am," I assured them.
"Well, shit fire boy, why you waiting so long about telling us this?" Anson asked in his deep Alabama drawl.
"I guess I thought you might think it to be unnatural?" The truth was, it had taken me a while to trust them enough to enhance them to even a limited extent. It had been a good tactical idea for me and Tatiana to remain the only ones so enhanced until we got to know everyone better.
"Listen, Steven," Jim started in on me. "I know you are a Californian turned Ohio . . . Ohioan . . . Ohian . . . whatever the hell, and you might think of things a little more, uh, emotionally . . ."
"Hell, Jim, why you beatin' around the bush about it?" Anson said. "He's from California; he knows he comes from a liberal and utopian-minded background. Steven, we are more logically minded here. If a man comes along and offers me the fountain of youth you better believe I'm gonna take a big-assed swig from it. Morality has no play in it."
Jim laughed and punched Anson on the shoulder. "I agree with the old codger."
I chuckled and placed a hand on Jim's shoulder and one on Anson's. I instructed Mike to implement the fountain of youth program and to pull twenty years off Anson's appearance and ten off Jim's.
"Aggghhh! That stings!" Anson yelped.
"Oh, you big sissy, it only tickles," Jim said.
"There, it's done. You guys are somewhere between twenty-five and thirty now and will remain like that until you get hit by a truck," I said.
"Can't be, son," Anson said. "My pants still fit. I was four inches smaller in the waist when I was twenty-five."
"I had the clothing adjusted as well. And be careful for a bit because I thought you guys might like a bit of extra strength and speed as well."
"Are you serious?" Jim asked.
"Of course he is," Anson replied as he blurred, zipped to the edge of the lake that was a hundred meters away and back in about two seconds. "Holy shit!" he said. He looked his right hand over and pulled his top off and looked at his chest. "The scar on my hand that's been there for twenty years is gone and the bullet hole scars are gone too!"
"Did you want to keep them? I can put them back."
"No, Steven, I had just as soon forget I ever got shot," he replied.
Realizing his new abilities, Jim leapt into the air five meters and completed several backflips before hitting the ground. He lost his balance and fell on his butt. He got up and dusted off his karate pants and then jumped up again and did a three-hundred-sixty-degree outer crescent kick followed by a tornado roundhouse kick that was perfect and nearly impossible for a normal human being in one gravity.
"Wicked!" he said. "Would you do this for the rest of the team?"
"Of course."
And so we did.
The crew decided to use cosmetic surgery, diet, and exercise as a cover story.
Anson posed the thought that if his body could so easily be adjusted and enhanced that his mind could too—couldn't it? Tatiana and I conversed in our mental speak for a few seconds to decide how to handle it and we decided not to let them in on the whole story of the alien SuperAgents but we could let them in on the enhanced memory-handling and problem-solving abilities. We asked them what types of enhancements they would like and whatever they came up with we tried to accommodate them to some extent. Anson was thrilled to be able to do any type of calculator function in his head instantly, and to be able to remember every page of every book that he read in the future. Jim wanted instant and total recall of anything any of his senses had ever detected.
Well, you can see that this went on for the rest of the evening and turned out to actually be kind of fun. Tatiana and I bonded with the group a little more and were beginning to be trusted as part of the family. They also opened up to us about their own pasts. Anson and Jim told a riveting story about how their crew had developed the world's first nanoscoptic power generator that was powered by the vacuum energy fluctuations of spacetime. They figured out how to use these Casimir-effect power supplies to power the first warp field tests in a laboratory in Huntsville, Alabama. These power generators also had the problematic trait of going chaotic every now and then and blowing up with a very big bang.
At some point in the process of developing the warp drive field coil technologies Rebecca had been involved in an accident that implanted her with millions of these microscopic power systems and she remained sick for a major part of the development project.
But, after persistence and Southern stubbornness, Anson and his team finally built a warp drive that could be tested in space. Anson and Tabitha deployed the warp probe test vehicle from the Space Shuttle and were preparing to launch it from orbit when the Space Shuttle was destroyed, thus stranding them in orbit. Anson and Tabitha reprogrammed the probe and traveled at warp speed back to Earth and crashed into a pine grove.
That was just the beginning of their adventure. They told us about how they were chased by giant tornados that were spun up by the warp probe's entry into the atmosphere (the public all thought it was a meteor) and about how they got their scars in a harrowing shootout, and about the Secret War with warp weapons against the Chinese and the Russians. The story was incredible. The description of The Rain did remind me of my family and I felt a little sad. But more angry with the people who started the war. After many margaritas, Tabitha grabbed Anson by the hand and told him that she wanted to go try out some of her new modifications on him and see how his turned out. I took that as a good sign that it was time to go to our quarters in the trailer park. It was time to talk to Tatiana about the isolated abducteeism.
CHAPTER 18
"Hey gorgeous, there is something I need to talk to you about." I pulled the covers over Tatiana's shoulders since there were chill bumps forming there.
"Mmm, can it wait until morning, Stevie?" She snuggled up closer to me and appeared to be going to sleep.
"I . . . uh . . . it can't. I won't be able to sleep if I don't get this off my chest," I told her.
Tatiana rolled off me and rose up on her right elbow and mussed her long, wavy black hair. She rubbed her eyes and yawned. "Okay, let's hear it," she said in a thick Russian accent. She used that accent when she was toying with me. She smiled, but looked a little sleepy.
"Okay, I don't know how to say this so I'm just gonna say it. I haven't been completely honest with you about Mike and Mikhail." I paused to watch her reaction.
"What do you mean, Steven?" she asked in a perfect American accent.
"Mike is the original SuperAgent and Mikhail is a copy of him. I had to make that copy because . . . Mike will not let you give him direct orders and won't let you have direct access to him."
"Why not?" Tatiana didn't seem upset, just a little surprised.
"He doesn't know."
"What? He doesn't know why he will not give me access?" No
w she was interested and speaking in Russian.
"We have talked about it at great length and for some reason the Grays programmed him so that no matter what anybody did to his programming you would not be able to gain access to him." This wasn't so hard.
"Me specifically?" she asked.
"Uh, well sort of. It's you—and a whole lot of the other abductees—specifically. Mike tells me that out of the millions of abductees over our history a couple hundred thousand or so of them would have been isolated like you from accessing him. We have been calling these people isolated abductees. We don't know what it means, just that they are isolated from him."
"Why haven't you told me this before?" She didn't seem upset, just curious.
"Well, there is more."
"Uh huh?" She adjusted herself and sat up against her pillow and stretched with both arms over her head. As she did the sheets slid down to her waist revealing her navel—and a couple other things. It was dark in the room but not to my nanomachine-nhanced eyesight; the view wasn't lost on me.
"The planets that Anson called quarantined planets that we talked about earlier tonight are all planets where Mike says there are isolated abductees. No other planets have them as far as he knows. This means that for some reason the Grays are isolating complete star systems with a quarantine zone of two hundred light years with these isolated abductees inside the zones. You scare them, Tatiana." So there, I told her. It was out in the open now.
She pulled the covers up, leaned into my shoulder, and looked up at me lovingly. "Steven, you didn't have to keep this from me. It wouldn't have hurt my feelings and you can't be held responsible for something that those damned, grotesque alien monsters have done. I'm not sure why you kept it from me in the first place. You said there were a lot of others here on Earth that are these isolated abductees. Who are they?"
Open channel. Mike download all of the abductee and isolated abductee data to Tatiana.
Okay, Steven.
It took her about five seconds to assimilate all of the data. The salient point we finally came up with was that the isolated abductees were either powerful people within our civilization, or close to a powerful person. Tatiana was the daughter of the Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations for Russia, for instance.
"Steven, this scares me." She squeezed my arm and nuzzled my shoulder. "Is someone or something trying to control us and direct our politics or civilization? Why else would the abductions increase during periods of war? And from the data it appears obvious that it's not the Grays that are doing the controlling." She was wide awake now and I thought I felt her tremble a little bit—just a little bit; it takes a lot to make Tatiana tremble.
"What do you mean? Who's doing the controlling?" The answer came to me about as soon as I asked the questions.
"These Lumpeyins?" Tatiana replied.
"I think you must be right. Looking at the data suggests that they were at war with the Grays once, or perhaps they still are. Who else could have shot so many of their ships down five thousand years ago? It also looks like they have divided up the galaxy. But if that is the case, then how did they come to control all of these isolated pockets of planets? I want to think about it for a while." She kissed my shoulder and rubbed my chest.
"You aren't mad at me then? I wasn't sure what to do about this." I squirmed a little. She was making it hard for me. I would've understood mad, but she was more intrigued by the situation than perturbed at me. I guess I underestimated Tatiana.
"Steven?"
"Yeah?" I had just decided to close my eyes and try to sleep—relieved that Tatiana wasn't sore at me.
I'm awake now. Tatiana rolled over on top of me and kissed me. She looked into my eyes and then put her hands on my face and kissed me again.
Uh, yeah . . . me too, I thought to her. An obvious fib, but when a gorgeous, naked, and aroused female climbs over on top of you and shows interest in you, what else can you do? It quickly became the truth.
* * *
With so much truth-telling, Tatiana and I decided to come clean with the W-squared team and reveal everything to them. We talked to Anson first and he arranged a meeting with the team. The meeting was held in the Clemons's second-floor sunroom and we were assured that it was secure there. All the people on the Moon were cleared to at least the knowledge of the moon base. Even the kids there could only visit people on Earth that were "in the know." Kids and security had never really been dealt with before the moon base and it was decided that the only way the kids could live on the moon base would be if they were considered classified documents that must always be monitored by a person cleared at the level to which they had been exposed. So, any children on the moon base who visited Earth had cleared grandparents and so on. For the most part, children were kept on the Moon with occasional chaperoned visits to Earth. And Tabitha told us that her entire house was cleared to the required levels
Anson had drinks passed all around and there were finger foods set out on the sunroom table. Anson was a sight to see with his chef's hat and splatter-painted apron that read "Einstein had to eat too!" on it. He corralled us all together in the sunroom and began to tell the tale about Tatiana and me.
Anson's children were home from visiting the grandparents, and occasionally he would stop to tell Ariel and Hunter, and the Daniels twins, Mindy and Michael, to quit doing this or that and threaten to kill them if he had to go in there, but it was all a farce—the kids knew it too, so they paid him little attention. But once Tabitha warned the kids not to do something the law had arrived. It was pretty obvious who the boss was as far as the kids were concerned.
Occasionally Anson had Tatiana or me clarify things here and there, but he did most of the introduction to our confessional. Then he handed it over to me and told me to show the data.
I had Mike turn the outer sunroom wall of the house into a large flat-screen panel. When I did that all four of the kids went completely silent, sat down, and watched the screen. They were convinced it was a magic show. They had already seen some pretty interesting magic up here on the Moon with Anson and his entourage.
On the screen I displayed the data about the abductees and the isolated abductees versus our history. Then I showed the list of known isolated abductees and pointed out Tatiana's name and Senator Grayson's name. "The Grays know everything about us and everything that Senator Grayson knows," I pointed out.
"My God, that makes us defenseless. They have access to all of our strategies, technologies, and plans," Jim said.
"From now on nobody tells Grayson anything without me filtering it first," Tabitha said. "What else, Steven?"
"Well, there is a lot more. Mike, Tatiana, and I have figured out that the isolated abductees are all closely connected to, or related to, people in powerful positions within human civilization. They are either politically, militarily, or industrially connected. It is interesting to note that there are no socially connected isolated abductees. Whatever or whoever is causing this phenomena does not seem to think of the celebrity connection as important."
"Well, that makes sense to me," Anson interrupted. "The so-called social connection has little bearing on a military machine. If I were going to manipulate the balance of power in a civilization, I wouldn't do it through a public campaign or making a movie about it, no sir! I would change the minds of the people already in power."
"Steven, I know you explained about the Mike and Mikhail SuperAgents, but can we meet them?" 'Becca asked.
"Of course you can," Tatiana said as she placed her hand on the patio table and a speaker formed out of the table materials.
Mike, make an open channel through the speaker on the table here. The cat is out of the bag. You too, Mikhail, I told the SuperAgents.
"Mike, Mikhail, can you hear us?" I tested the speaker system.
"Of course, Steven," Mike replied.
"Yes, Steven," Mikhail said in a slightly dryer tone of voice.
"Boys, meet the W-squared crew . . ." I introduced everyone. I
t was fun for a moment, until we got back down to business. "Mike, display the galaxy map with the quarantine zones indicated by orange x's and the political control indicated by different colors."
"Okay, Steven," Mike replied and the map appeared on the flat screen.
"You see that the galaxy is mostly separated into two regions. This yellow part is controlled by the Lumpeyins. And the Grays control the green part. Mike calls the Grays the Teytoonis, by the way," I explained.
"Sounds to me like they bought too many vowels," Al, one of the original Huntsville members of Anson's cadre, said.
"Notice how the x's are all inside, deep inside, Gray territory," Tatiana pointed out. "And also note that all of the x's have a two-hundred-light-year quarantine around them. The Grays are afraid of these planets for some reason."
"That's right. And Mike and I figured out that only these quarantined planets and all of these quarantined planets have isolated abductees on them. This is too blatantly obvious a correlation to overlook. Tatiana . . ." I nodded for her to take over.
"I think the Grays fear the isolated abductees for some reason and that is why the quarantine is there. Perhaps these Lumpeyins caused something or did something to us that the Grays do not like. I'm not sure."
"Boobytrap!" Tabitha said.
Anson looked at her and replied, "A boobytrap, sir?" Then he started laughing and chuckling to himself and in a very badly imitated Russian accent he continued, "Ha, ha, ha . . . It was so obvious!" And he slammed his fist on the table.
Jim and Tabitha must have understood the joke because they started laughing. I wasn't sure if it was a joke on Tatiana or not with the Russian accent and all.
"What's so funny?" I asked.
"Nothing is funny, really, Steven, not about our situation any way. But this moment mimics one of the anime cartoons from the 1980s that we've studied," Anson said.
"That you've studied?" Tatiana asked.
"Oh yes, studied. I've always been a science fiction fan, but a few years ago when we realized that we were actually being attacked by aliens we conducted a brainstorming session for ideas and training regimen. The outcome of that conference was that we needed a language from which to compare possible alien attack scenarios. Since there was a wealth of science fiction books, television shows, movies, and so on, we decided to make alien-oriented science fiction a training requirement for the W-squared group. This gives us a common language to use. That is why we all understand the Boobytrap reference." Anson's explanation made a lot of sense.
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