The Origin of F.O.R.C.E.

by Sam B Miller II

  "Yes, Your Grace," replied Adams as he took the chair at the end of the table. Sitting in complete silence, Adams waited to be addressed. He knew the protocol.

  The man at the head of the table took a long drag from the cigarette stub in his fingers and blew the smoke upwards. Snuffing the remnant into an ashtray on the table near him, he raised his eyes to look directly at Adams. The man addressed as Your Grace had a face bloated with fat. Everything about the man's face screamed of obesity, even his bulbous lips. Every so often, he took a cloth and wiped at the sweat dripping in thin rivulets down his forehead and cheeks. He wore a reddish-purple robe with a gold lame collar that bore the stain of his sweat. The two men seated on either side of him were also over-weight but nowhere near the size of Your Grace. They wore reddish-purple robes as well but without the gold lame collar. The details of their faces were shadowed in the wan light of the single bulb.

  At last, the fat man spoke in a sonorous tone, "So tell us, Brother Adams, what's this information you have that is so important to us?"

  "Your Holy Eminence," Adams responded, "I bring you news of a blasphemy to God, the Holy Spirit and all followers of the faith."

  Waiting a moment to let that sink in, Adams continued, "You know I'm a devoted and loyal acolyte of this Church. My vow of allegiance to The Exalted Fellowship of the Holy Epiphany is paramount to my vow of secrecy to the United States Government. I have worked for many years to gain the confidence of key men in the Pentagon and increase my security clearances to give me access to the highest levels of secrecy."

  Waiting for a compliment to his faithful devotion to the Church that never came, Adams pressed on, "The government is hiding what they call the truth about the existence of intelligent, alien lifeforms alleged to have come to Earth from another planet. These aliens are not in God's image as he created man but bear the countenance of beasts. The'are incapable of speech and yet my superiors are much afraid of them, referring to these beasts as a threat capable of killing all of mankind!"

  The elephantine man settled back into his chair which creaked ominously as he shifted his ponderous weight. Lacing his fingers together across his chest, he breathed, "And why should I believe your ravings about such a fantasy. The Word of God is clear and cannot be questioned. God created the heavens and the Earth and man in his own image. Man has unquestioned dominion over all the beasts."

  Reaching into his shirt pocket, Adams pulled out a folded photograph and passed it down the table. Unfolding the image, the man called Your Grace stared at it for several moments with narrowed eyes that almost disappeared into the fatty folds of his cheeks and eyelids. The picture was of Whatsit sitting in a wheelchair with Jim Blunt standing behind him. Blunt had his left hand on Whatsit's shoulder, and Whatsit's right hand was raised up and across his chest, covering Blunt's hand in an obviously friendly gesture.

  Looking at Brother Adams, a deep frown trying its best to wrinkle his flaccid forehead, the titular head of the Exalted Fellowship absently handed the photo to one of the other seated men at the table and said menacingly, "This cannot be. The Word of God is not to be trifled with by nonbelievers! Where is this blasphemous lizard beast? Who are its protectors in this damned to hell government?"

  Adams smiled inwardly as he saw and heard the reaction to the photo. He had been trying to garner the trust of the Church Elders for years, and it looked like he had finally succeeded. In a more confident voice, he said, "My superior officer, Major General Matt Collier is the man in charge of the operation, but a Major Jim Blunt provides personal protection for the beast. That is Major Blunt in the photo. I have access to their daily schedules and arrange all their travel plans."

  Wiping his sweaty brow again with the soaked cloth, Your Grace tapped a new cigarette out of its pack and held it to his lips. Without warning, the figure of a man stepped out of the darkness from one back corner of the room. The figure was dressed all in black and his presence in the dark corner had been completely hidden from view. Adams saw the black leather of a shoulder holster across the man's chest and the unmistakable dull glint of a black pistol butt stuffed into the holster. Flicking a gold tinted lighter, the man in black held the flame to the end of the cigarette until the fat man nodded his head and puffed out a cloud of smoke. Only then did the man in black move back into the dark corner of the room and faded from view, silent as a ghost.

  The quivering of his weak chin was a clear sign Cpl. Adams had just fathomed the dangers hidden in the dark recesses of the room. The purplish-blue color under his sleep deprived eyes seemed to deepen, and a shiver of dread tightened his spine as he remembered the person who had opened the locked door still lurked somewhere behind him in the dark.

  The man called Your Grace seemed to be enjoying the discomfort of Adams. A wicked grin curled up the corners of his lips, and a guttural chuckle rose out of his throat followed by a wet, mucous clogged cough. The horrible cough continued for at least ten seconds, and when the coughing spell had faded the horrid man used his sweaty cloth to wipe away the spittle he had retched from his mouth.

  Settled quietly again in his chair, he gazed at Adams as if deep in thought. Finally, he laced his fingers together once more across his chest and said, "Brother Richard Adams, you are hereby charged with a Holy mission of the Church."

  Pausing a dramatic moment to let his pronouncement sink in, he continued, "The very next time you arrange travel for this Major Blunt and the beast, you shall contact Deacon Bandulog and advise him of the details. Deacon Bandulog shall administer the wrath of God upon the blasphemers, cleansing their impiety and bringing them redemption in the eyes of the Lord! Amen!"

  "Amen," the other two men seated to either side of Your Grace repeated in unison.

  His dull brown eyes beginning to brighten and his lips curving into a thin self-righteous smile, Brother Richard Adams responded, "Your Grace, I humbly accept your blessed Edict and shall fulfill my Holy task with faithful obedience to the Will of God. Amen!"

  Unclasping his fingers and dropping his hands to the arms of his chair, the man called Your Grace leaned forward as much as his bulk would permit, his chair once again creaking ominously as he shifted his weight. Raising his eyebrows as far as they could arch, he looked directly into the eyes of Adams and issued a warning, "God does not tolerate a lying tongue or a prideful smile. If you fail in your Holy mission, Deacon Bandulog shall administer the Wrath of God upon thee."

  The smile on Adams' face faded instantly. Nervously, he blurted, "There will be no failure in my sacred duty to God or to The Exalted Fellowship of the Holy Epiphany! With your permission, I'll take my leave and ponder the great responsibility you have bestowed upon me!"

  With a slow nod from the church leader, Brother Richard Adams rose from his chair and backed toward the door leading to the Chancel. He sensed movement in the darkness behind him, heard the two clicks of the deadbolts being unlocked and the whoosh of air as the heavy door was opened. Once he was out of the room and headed back through the sanctuary, his pace continued to quicken until as he went through the outer doors to the stairs leading down to the street, Cpl. Adams was running in his haste to get away from the church of The Exalted Fellowship of the Holy Epiphany.

  Back in the dark meeting room, the man known as Your Grace watched as the door at the end of the room closed and the two snicks of the deadbolts confirmed it had been secured. Taking another drag on the cigarette, he blew the smoke up into the cloud hovering over the table. Without looking right or left, he said in a low-pitched, deadly voice, "Deacon Bandulog, after you dispense the Wrath of God on the blasphemers, you are charged with the Holy Duty of sending Brother Adams to his just reward. Understood?"

  A viperous voice from one of the dark corners of the room whispered, "With pleasure, Your Grace."

  ***

  Whatsit was beginning to thoroughly enjoy his human companions. Although his loyalties, hardwired into the psyche of his species by thousands of years of evolution, were to his Master Blunt, who ha
d bested him in combat and permitted him to live, Whatsit had found a great comfort from his close association with the female humans, Diane Hoffman and especially, Lucy Smith. Thinking back to the day in the land crawler where he had fled from the violation of his mind by the devil human, LaRene, Whatsit felt the human equivalent of a warm and fuzzy memory of the gentle touch of Lucy Smith as she had comforted him and soothed his mental anguish. Even more astounding to him was the straightforward mental pictures he had read from the open minds of the human females. They genuinely liked him and didn’t feel the least bit afraid of him.

  His exposure to the wonderful human named Tenzin, who had the ability to fully mentally talk with him like a native Chrysallaman, had been of tremendous value since it gave him some strong hints about how to efficiently communicate with Master Blunt. The nightmare encounter with the devil, LaRene, had forced him to recognize he had telepathic receptors in his brain he had never realized existed. While he couldn't block the receptors allowing LaRene to flood his mind with false realities, he now knew the receptors existed within his brain, what they felt like and that they permitted him to receive non-Chrysallaman thoughts from a human. He was tired of being limited to mental communication via projected mental images, and he desperately wanted to talk to his humans with words rather than pictures. It was time to experiment.

  The sound of the door to his chamber being opened jerked him out of his reverie. Major Jim Blunt walked in followed by Diane Hoffman. Blunt was a six foot tall poster boy for military recruitment. Square shouldered and square jawed, with close cropped sandy brown hair, he looked like the confident, strong leader of men that he was. Diane Hoffman on the other hand was a pretty blonde with brains to match her beauty. She wore her blond hair swept upward into a large topknot of loose curls, and her oval shaped eyeglasses sported bright blue decorations near the hinges of the temples. Today, instead of her usual red lipstick and fingernails, she had chosen a darker pink shade which looked especially nice with her chocolate brown dress.

  "Good morning, Whatsit," Blunt said with a smile as he projected a thought picture he had learned was a warm, friendly greeting to the big green lizard.

  Gathering himself mentally, Whatsit cocked his head to one side and telepathically threw a series of words at Blunt which he hoped the man would understand. "Good early day, Master."

  Both Jim Blunt and Diane Hoffman stopped dead in their tracks, eyes glued on the only thing in the room that could possibly have spoken to them from inside their heads.

  "What the hell?" Blunt exclaimed as his eyes shifted first from Whatsit, over to Diane and then back to Whatsit.

  Diane opened her mouth as if to say something and then closed her lips tightly shut, a frown creasing her forehead.

  Trying again, Whatsit projected, "Good early day, Master."

  Diane was quicker on the uptake than Jim and concentrated on directing her thoughts at Whatsit. "Good early day to you, Whatsit."

  For a moment, Whatsit turned his head to stare at Diane. Then he slowly walked over to her and gently wrapped his arms around her in a hug. Projecting another thought at her, Whatsit said, "Thank you, female human, you are warm."

  Diane Hoffman couldn't keep herself from laughing out loud.

  Over her shoulder, Jim Blunt quipped with a sly smile, "Warm, huh. Interesting choice of words."

  Looking back at him with a coy smile as she returned Whatsit's hug, Diane replied, "Now, Major Blunt, jealously doesn't become you."

  Needless to say, Jim Blunt was struck speechless.

  ***

  Being able to carry on a telepathic conversation with Whatsit had its ups and downs. Both Jim and Diane suffered annoying headaches for several days as they learned how to project and receive mental communications from him. The need to concentrate so keenly on projecting clear words to an alien brain was taxing. Blunt discovered he was most successful projecting his words when he imagined a phone cord stretched between his forehead and the head of Whatsit. He would imagine his words flowing out of his brain and along the cord into Whatsit's brain. Diane suffered similar difficulties. She found herself taking aspirin on a regular basis to ease her pain.

  Reception of words from Whatsit proved somewhat easier, but only if the thoughts were transmitted in a quiet room with no outside noise distractions. Humans hear their inner self or conscience giving advice or warnings all the time, but those conversations are confined wholly within the brain. Hearing a third party speak inside your head is a totally different experience. Human evolution had concentrated on the development of the ear to hear physical sounds from the surrounding environment. The versatility of the human tongue and voice box for communication made evolution's choice of ear development reasonable and logical. As a result, the average human's brain had no natural ability to perceive thoughts projected by third parties. Sentences mentally projected by Whatsit came across at best as muted whispers. Any physical noise in the surrounding environment flipped an override switch in the brain forcing concentration to the ear. Jim and Diane discovered the scruff of a shoe on carpet, even the chirp of a bird, would break their thought connection with Whatsit.

  Their greatest relief came from the revelation there was no language barrier to mental communication with the alien. Their brains easily translated Whatsit's thought words to English. The major problem they encountered however was conveying the exact meaning of words in a way Whatsit clearly understood the intended meaning of the words they projected. Jim and Diane had to be extremely literal when they communicated with the lizard. Jim Blunt found he was the worst at using colloquialisms and slang when he talked. One day he was complaining about the weather and told Whatsit it was raining cats and dogs. The poor lizard had run to the window to observe the phenomenon. Another time Jim had referred to a project as dead as a doornail. It had taken him an hour to explain what a doornail was and convince Whatsit that inanimate objects are really not alive. Diane thought the exasperation Blunt suffered in working through the explanations to Whatsit was both hilarious and charming.

  Their training sessions were unexpectedly interrupted shortly before lunch on Monday, May 3, 1948 by Captain Thomas LeBlanc. Rapping twice on the door of the small conference room hidden deeply in the maze known as the Pentagon where the three were practicing their mental gymnastics, LeBlanc strode into the room a couple of steps and stopped short. There sat Jim, Diane and Whatsit seated around a small round table holding hands and staring at one another.

  "So you're resorting to seances now?" asked LeBlanc as he surveyed them, his boyish face looking a little more deeply tanned than the last time they had seen him in the Pentagon conference room.

  "You'd be surprised," replied Diane with a smile. "What's going on?"

  LeBlanc walked over to the table and twirled an empty chair around backwards and sat down. "Well, I've been reviewing the progress of Dr. Heinbaum's efforts to analyze the Chrysallaman technology. With some help from Lt. McPherson, the Doc seems to be making headway."

  Without elaborating further, he continued, "I've located John Tripman, the guy with the bat ears. He lives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania with his brother, Eli. As luck would have it, Sgt. George Sanger is training a squad of sharpshooters at the Carlisle Military Base nearby. I've arranged a joint meeting with both of them at the Carlisle YMCA."

  "Isn't the YMCA a little too public for a meeting like this?" Blunt replied. "We can't risk revealing the existence of Whatsit to the general public."

  LeBlanc smiled and his Clark Gable mustache glistened in the light. "Not to worry. I've arranged the use of the facility through a friend of a friend who knows the Director of the Y. The Director is an old military vet who used to work in security. We'll have afterhours access to the Y's pool area with full privacy. We won't be interrupted."

  Diane was excited. These two men were on her primary list of unique individuals, and she was anxious to meet them. She asked, "When's the meeting to take place?"

  LeBlanc answered matter-of-factly, "Genera
l Collier's aide, Cpl. Adams is making the arrangements. I'll know the details later today."

  ***

  Cpl. Richard Adams left his office as usual at precisely 1715 hours on Monday, May 3, 1948 trying his best to maintain the appearance of routine. Tucked into his jacket pocket were his notations about the specifics of the trip he had arranged for Major Blunt, Dr. Hoffman and the alien lizard to Carlisle, Pennsylvania. If he followed his normal daily routine precisely, he would take the Metro bus from the Pentagon, cross the Potomac River via the Francis Scott Key Bridge and continue to his apartment in the Shepherd Park area near Silver Spring, Maryland. However, today he was going to exit the bus in the Georgetown University area. There was a bank of pay phones near the intersection of 35th and M Streets. The busy sidewalks in the area would be filled with hundreds of students, shoppers and businessmen. Adams felt he would effectively blend in with the scenery, just another faceless person making a call on a pay phone.

  Handing his security identification badge to the MP guarding the exit door from the Pentagon, Adams nervously looked for a sign the guard noticed anything out of the ordinary. As Adams initialed the sign-out sheet and jotted down the time he was leaving, he watched the guard, out of the corner of his eye, absently take his badge and toss it into a drawer in his desk. So far so good. Everything routine.

  Exiting the Metro bus when it reached the bus stop at 35th and M Streets, Adams shuffled and sidestepped his way through the people crowding the wide sidewalk and made his way to the series of pay phones lined along the brick wall of a nearby Italian restaurant. He chose the last phone in the line, dropped a nickel in its slot and dialed the number for the church known as The Exalted Fellowship of the Holy Epiphany.

  Four rings later, a male voice answered the phone, "You have reached church offices of The Exalted Fellowship of the Holy Epiphany. How may I provide assistance?"