by J. W. Huemme
Just then the monitored radio frequencies came to life again. “Columbia, Houston.”
“Houston, Columbia. Go ahead.”
“I’ve just been handed the figures and I’m afraid Mir is out of the question. You’d run out of oxygen long before it could catch up with you.”
“Houston, what if we cut our oxygen consumption to bare minimum? Over.”
“Columbia, that idea was figured into the calculations. There just isn’t enough fuel or oxygen reserves.”
“Houston, that just isn’t good enough. We can’t just sit here and watch her drift into space and do nothing.”
Just then Cindy’s voice could be heard. “There’s no point in taking the rest of you with me.”
“Cindy, don’t talk. Save your oxygen. We’ll figure something out. You just hang in there.”
“It’s all right,” Cindy replied. “Unless you’ve got a miracle up your sleeve, it doesn’t sound like there’s much any of you can do. At least I got up here. If I’ve got to go, I’d rather go up here amidst the stars.” There was an eerie silence.
“How do we go about it?” Christopher asked.
“We have to wait until she runs out of oxygen and passes out so she doesn’t say anything over the radio to expose us. Then we shift her inside and revive her.”
Christopher thought for a moment, “We will have to change the interior so as not to frighten her, like we did with my mother.”
“I can transform the interior to look like the inside of the shuttle.”
Christopher thought again, “No, that wouldn’t work. She would know it wasn’t right because how would I explain my presence. No, it has to be something else.” He thought for a few more minutes. “How much time do we have before she runs out of oxygen?”
“Approximately seven minutes,” the computer responded.
“I’ve got it. A hospital room. It would be a natural place to regain consciousness. Can you make me look like a doctor?”
“Yes. Good idea. I’ll position us to shift her in. They won’t have a visual on her then. I’ll shift her out of the space suit directly into the hospital bed. That way they won’t lose sight of her suit drifting away. I’m not in position to retrieve her. We just have to wait for her to drift to us.”
“How long now?”
“Three more minutes.”
“Good. Let’s transform the interior to the hospital and me to look like a doctor.” The computer once again transformed the interior of the craft, now to look like a room in a hospital. With Christopher’s suit altered to resemble a doctor, the illusion was complete.
“I can add a hologram of a nurse if you’d like.”
“Good idea. Please do.”
“One minute,” the computer stated. Christopher became somewhat anxious. He cared for Cindy and wanted her realization of her true whereabouts to be as untraumatic as possible. “Her oxygen supply has been completely exhausted. We’re in position.
Cindy’s voice could be heard again. “That’s it, guys. My oxygen’s gone. Don’t feel bad, you did everything you could.”
A few moments later the computer announced, “She’s passed out Christopher. I’ll be shifting her in now.”
A transparent outline of Cindy floated into the interior of the craft. She gently drifted over to the bed where the computer lowered her. As Christopher watched, Cindy’s barely visible outline became more and more solid, until she was once again in her natural state.
“We need to dress her in a hospital gown.”
“Like this?” the computer asked as he replaced Cindy’s long john looking garment worn under her space suit with a typical blue hospital gown.
“Yes, that’s perfect. Christopher then took a step back to see if everything looked just right. “Oops, I almost forgot! Her watch.” He quickly removed her wristwatch. “There, that should do it. How long before she regains consciousness?”
“I’ve dramatically increased the oxygen content of the interior so it shouldn’t take more than a minute or two.”
Christopher looked at Cindy lying in the bed. She looked like an angel to him. He was happy to see her again and so thankful to be able to help save her life. Cindy was special to Christopher, very special.
Christopher stood at Cindy’s bedside while the holographic nurse stood checking the connection on the monitoring equipment beside Cindy’s bed. The scene appeared to be what one would expect of any typical hospital room. Cindy moved her head to one side as she slowly began to regain consciousness. She moaned, and Christopher began to try and act like a doctor by placing one hand gently on her wrist as he looked at his watch as if taking her pulse. She rolled her head and moaned again as she struggled to come out of her slumber. As soon as she opened her eyes, she asked, “Where am I?”
“You’re going to be all right,” Christopher replied. Cindy struggled to get her wits about her. She looked around her trying her best to put two and two together.
“How did I get here? They must have gotten to me somehow. But how?”
“Please Cindy, you need to rest.” The holographic nurse picked up a chart and appeared to be writing down the readings from the monitors onto her chart. “Cindy,” Christopher asked, “How do you feel?”
“A little groggy, and I have a headache. Otherwise I feel fine.”
“You’re lucky to be alive, Cindy.”
“I don’t understand. There was no way they could have gotten to me, so how did I get here?” Christopher looked at her for a moment. “Well?” She asked. She seemed to have totally revived, so there was no time like the present.
“Cindy, what I’m about to tell you will no doubt come as a shock to you, and at first, I doubt you’ll believe what I’m about to tell you. At least not until I prove it to you. So I’ll go slowly and one step at a time.”
Christopher removed his surgical mask, and continued. “I’m not your doctor; it’s me, Christopher Adams. Remember?”
“What are you doing here?” Cindy asked, still just a little groggy.
“First I have to tell you, Cindy, I didn’t mean much of what I said that day at the briefing, but I knew we were all being monitored, and if I was going to do anything to stop them, I first had to make them believe I was with them. I was worried that if they thought you might go public, they might try to eliminate you. I’m sure that’s what happened. Your tether didn’t break; it was cut. It was an easy way to get rid of you and easy to make it look like an accident. Who would ever know?”
“But how did I get here? I was so far out I could barely see the shuttle. I remember running out of oxygen. I should be dead. There was no way for them to get to me, and there were no other ships anywhere near us.”
“Actually, there was one. You just couldn’t see it. It’s the one you’re on right now.”
“Come on, Christopher. I may have been unconscious, but I still know the difference between a hospital and a shuttle.”
“I didn’t say shuttle. Here, I’ll prove it. See the nurse there? She’s a hologram. Computer, eliminate the nurse.” The hologram of the nurse was discontinued and she vanished. “She was just a hologram created to make the illusion of being in a hospital more believable.”
“We’ve had holographic projection technology for years. I have to admit she did look rather real. That doesn’t prove anything.”
“All right. Watch the monitoring equipment. Computer, remove the monitoring equipment.” The monitoring equipment vanished. “What about that?”
Searching for a rational explanation, Cindy responded, “Same technology,” and pointed to the window outside, which appeared to be a beautiful afternoon.
“Computer? Would you change the image in the window to what is really outside?” Suddenly looking out the window, Cindy could see only stars.
“That one’s easy,” Cindy said confidently.
“How about if I have the computer make your hospital gown vanish as well?”
Cindy quickly turned her gaze directly to Christopher
and with a bit of fiery defiance in her eyes stated, “Don’t you dare!”
“So you believe me now?”
Cindy was still skeptical. “Then I suppose all this, I mean the room and all, isn’t real either?”
“No. This was all fabricated so as not to shock you when you regained consciousness. I felt it best to break it to you a little bit at a time.”
“Thank you, Christopher.”
“Computer, would you return to where we were this morning in the foothills?”
“Yes. We will arrive in a few moments.”
“Who was that?” Cindy asked.
“That is the computer. It runs this craft and everything in it. Computer, say hello to Cindy.”
“Hello, Cindy. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you, too. Where exactly are you?”
“I am all around you. I am an interracial part of this craft. I am an advanced artificial intelligence. We have arrived, Christopher.”
“All right, Cindy, brace yourself for another shock. You’ll be perfectly safe; it just comes as a bit of a shock the first time. Computer, would you shift us outside?” Christopher was shifted outside. When he realized he was alone, he asked “Computer? What happened to Cindy?”
“I thought it best to provide her with a suit like yours for her safety. I thought she might like a little privacy to change.”
Christopher was a little embarrassed he hadn’t thought of that, although he wasn’t used to interacting with women. “Yes of course. I guess I hadn’t thought of that. Thank you.”
A few moments later, Cindy appeared next to Christopher in her new suit. “Wow! Now that’s quite an experience!” Cindy exclaimed.
“You’ll get used to it. Take a look.” Christopher said as he motioned for Cindy to look behind her. She turned and saw the craft hovering just a few feet from her.
“Oh my god!”
“It’s all right, Cindy. That is the craft that made it possible to save you. Beautiful isn’t it?”
Cindy was obviously shocked. “It’s incredible. Where, I mean how, well, where did it come from?”
“That’s a long story. Come with me.” Christopher walked back to the stream he had seen earlier that day and sat on the large rock as he had before. “Have a seat,” he said as he indicated another rock for Cindy to sit on. “Thousands of years ago, a large spacecraft on a mission of exploration visited Earth. It was carrying an advanced race of beings on an information gathering mission. While observing the people of earth at that time, they realized that the primitive people were developing technology faster than they were gaining wisdom. The leaders used these advancements to enslave their people to secure their own lavish lifestyle. The beings of this race knew that left unchecked, the human race was headed for disaster. Unable to stay themselves, they left the craft behind. They implanted several of the women with what is best explained as a gene-altering substance that would go unnoticed and be passed on to future generations. It would remain dormant until the time was right. Then, once activated, the next born would have very advanced abilities. Not like a superman or anything, but with very advanced learning abilities.
“The computer in the craft was left with a set of instructions to follow. The computer, with the use of a holographic projection and a few other tricks, posed as Ra, the god of the sun and instructed the Egyptians to build the great pyramid. The computer provided the plans to be followed, as well as a simple means of moving the huge stones into place. When the pyramid was finished, he had them bring all the building instructions to a location in the surrounding desert. Once there, the computer destroyed all the documents with what the primitives saw as bolts of lightning. Inside the pyramid was an empty chamber beneath the Queen’s Chamber where the craft could wait through the years for the right time to emerge.”
“How did it get into and out of the pyramid?” Cindy asked.
“Dimensional shifting. The same way you and I got out of the craft. As the computer explained it to me, an object or person is shifted into another dimension. Not quite all the way, but almost. Although there are many other dimensions, for this purpose they use a dimension void of everything, even light. That way they aren’t distracted by anything in the other dimension and are still able to see the faint outlines of this dimension, used for navigational purposes. Like you just experienced, everything turns transparent. This same type of shift allows the craft to become invisible to the naked eye as well as radar or any other type of sensor.
“My mother was the gene carrier to be activated, and I am the result. Operation Down-size is the disaster this race had foreseen. With the aid of this craft and its abilities, it is up to me to stop Operation Down-size. Now I guess you’ve become part of it as well. We have a lot of planning to do if we’re going to have a chance to stop it.”
“I think you already know how I feel about Operation Down-size. I’ll do anything I can to help,” Cindy added.
“About the suit you’re wearing. It’s a little more than just something to wear. It has some amazing attributes. For instance, pick up that rock there and throw it at me.” Christopher pointed to a small stone by Cindy’s feet.
Cindy bent down and picked up the stone and paused. “Are you sure you want me to throw this at you?”
“Trust me.”
Cindy tossed the stone at Christopher and about an inch short of its target, a shield of light surrounded Christopher, deflecting the stone onto the ground. “It’s an automatic shield of some sort. It activates automatically when it senses anything approaching you faster than two miles an hour. It also activates when you get nervous or afraid by sensing the chemical changes in your skin.”
Cindy smiled. “I think I’m going to like this better than my old space suit.”
“There’s more,” Christopher went on. “It acts as a two-way telepathic radio with the craft’s computer. All you have to do is think the words and the computer can hear you. When the computer talks to you, you just hear the words in your head.” Christopher then gave it the real test. He didn’t know, but just seemed to sense it would work, so he gave it a try. He thought the words, “Cindy, can you hear me?”
Cindy looked at him, then he could hear her words as clear as day. “Yes, I can. It’s incredible,” she thought.
Christopher announced, “We better start working on a strategy.”
“Have you come up with any ideas yet?” Cindy asked.
Just then the computer interrupted. “Christopher, I am sensing a small aircraft heading in this direction. I’ll shift both of you in now.” Both Christopher and Cindy turned transparent, and a moment later were back inside the craft. “I’ve gone to stealth mode and taken us out of the earth’s atmosphere for safety,” the computer informed them.
“What happened to the hospital room and all?”
“The interior is made of a liquid metal that is controlled by the computer. It can be transformed into any shape desired. Like this chair.” The shape of a chair formed out of the floor once again. “Would you like one, too?”
Cindy suddenly put her arms around Christopher and gave him a big kiss. Startled, Christopher asked, “What was that for?”
“That was for saving my life.” Then Cindy kissed him again. “That was just because I wanted to.”
Christopher didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t used to this kind of interaction and it was his first kiss. “Another chair for Cindy, please.”
“We need to start working on our strategy. We should go somewhere that we can’t be disturbed.”
“Anywhere in particular?” the computer asked.
“How about on the surface of Mars?” Cindy asked.
“Christopher?” the computer asked.
“Well, I doubt we’ll be disturbed there. Let’s go.” In no time at all they were on the surface.
“Is there any way I can see outside?” Cindy asked. Almost instantly the interior wall became like a window, giving a three hundred and sixty degree panora
mic view of the Martian surface. “I didn’t think I would ever get to see this,” Cindy said as she walked around the entire interior looking at the planet’s surface. Christopher indulged her for as long as it took for Cindy to be satisfied.
“Computer, display three photographs. One of a submarine, one of an underground missile silo, and one of a typical aircraft used to drop large payloads.” The computer instantly complied. Christopher stood in front of the three displays. “Chair,” he said. Instantly a chair rose up out of the floor and he sat down. Cindy walked over and stood next to him.
“Chair,” she said, and sat next to him.
“These are the three means of delivery they are planning to use to deliver the bombs. I believe the aircraft will pose the biggest problem.” Christopher thought for a minute. “I have an idea, but in order for it to work, we will need to know exactly when they plan to begin the operation.”
The computer remarked, “There has been very little information exchanged by means of radio regarding Operation Down-size. It would seem as if all of the information is exchanged person to person, in an attempt to safeguard the operation. It is doubtful they would risk information as critical as the date and time of the operation. It is possible, however, to implant several of the key people involved in organizing the operation with monitoring devices. I could then monitor them to obtain the information we will need concerning the date and time they plan to execute the operation.”
“That will help,” Christopher remarked.
“What are you thinking?” Cindy asked.
Christopher paused for a moment. “Well,” he went on, “as far as I know, they rarely open the other doors on the land-based missiles. They only open the outer silo door to remove or install a new warhead, and only once a month during periodic systems checks. I think it would be safe to assume that they wouldn’t open the outer door in the few days preceding their launch. Computer, could you somehow seal the doors so they would not be able to open them when the time came?”
“Yes, using a laser of the right intensity, I could melt the edge of the door just enough so it would bond or weld itself to the surrounding structure. It would have to be done during daylight so the laser will go unnoticed. It will also have to be done in short bursts in order to minimize any visible smoke from the super heating of the door material. I estimate the time required to effectively seal the doors of all of the silo’s worldwide to be three hours twenty-seven minutes.”