by Paul Reaver
“Well, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your help,” said John. “I am looking forward to this opportunity. Can you give me a big picture view of what to expect?”
Stanford paused. Then he said, “Well, each team, as we call them, has its specific projects and goals. Rick and I discussed your education and the scientific specialties where I felt like you both excelled and enjoyed the particular areas of study. I told him what your eight areas of study were in, that is, the areas of study where you obtained your degrees. I told him that although you seemed to enjoy all of your subjects and had 4.0 GPAs in each, from talking to you while you were still in school, I got a feel for where you would like to be vocationally. Rick agreed that we should have this very conversation so that I could confirm that I had chosen the correct areas of science that would be best for you, the ones where you would most enjoy working. We also agreed not to have this conversation with him present so that you could freely discuss your goals and desires. Rick was afraid that you might feel pressured into areas that were less desirable to you if he were there with us. With all this in mind, I told him that, in my opinion, your main areas of interest were Aerospace Engineering, Mathematics, Nuclear Science and Engineering, and Physics. I told him you also expressed a deeper interest in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, although it seemed to me that your desire was somewhat less in these areas. What do you think? Did I come close?”
John was looking wide-eyed at his father. “Did you come up with a device to read minds?” he asked. “You chose all my favorite subjects.”
Stanford grinned again. “No, we don’t have a machine that reads minds,” he said, “although I wish we did. Bear in mind that for many years I have been interviewing and working with people that represent the finest technical minds in the world. After a while, you develop an understanding of how to interpret people’s goals, desires, and areas where they excel. Since you’re my son, I had an easier time choosing your areas of expertise because I know you so much better. I’ve seen you grow and develop for your entire life so far, and that was a big help and an advantage that I don’t usually have when interviewing someone. I take it that I can tell Rick to go ahead with my choices?”
“Absolutely!” said John, grinning back.
“Ok,” Stanford said. “I’ll let him know. To answer your question about the big picture, it starts with your confidentiality determination. The people that work in a covert organization like the one I am assigned to must adhere to the rule that they can never discuss their work with anyone outside their team. For example, what kind of work did you think that I was involved with before we met with Rick today?”
John said, “I always thought that you were a computer scientist because that’s the position you said you held.”
His father said, “that’s right, but did I ever discuss any details about the actual work that I did?”
“No,” said John. “I felt as though I knew what a computer scientist did, and I never felt inclined to ask you for details. But as I recall, there were occasions where you did discuss your work with Mom and I. How did you manage that?”
“When I discussed my work with you present,” said Stanford, “I made sure that I only discussed broad areas of our research and never gave any details. The information I shared would have been the kind of information any garden-variety computer scientist might tell someone. I gave enough information so that you would not be inclined to ask me for any additional details. And it has worked for all these years. If you think back over the years, you’ll remember that your mother deflected a few occasions when you might have wanted to know more about my work than I could share. That’s because she is at the same level as I am, except that she works for a different clandestine organization.”
“Mom does the same type of work that you do?” John was astonished.
“She works at the same level of government that I do, except that her area of expertise is theoretical physics.”
John said, “but I thought she was just a scientific assistant.”
“When you work in a confidential environment as we do,” said his father, “you are required to share the minimal amount of information possible with friends and relatives. Your mother succeeded at that better than I did, but there were times when you asked me questions about my work, so I told you as much as I could. With your mother, you accepted her role as an assistant and did not ask her for more detail.
“You have now entered the same environment that your mother and I have worked in for so many years. You will find that there are times when you simply cannot answer questions about your work directly. In fact, the work situation that your mother and I are in is relatively unique. Usually, either the husband or wife works for a clandestine organization. If the husband is doing the classified work, he will probably give his wife a believable cover story about what he does. It depends on the position he holds in the organization, and what the husband’s superior feels is a suitable level of information to share with his wife and family. Often, the wife will be issued a level of confidentiality, unbeknownst to her, and the husband can share information about his work only up to that level. The same is true if the wife works for a secret organization, and the husband doesn’t.
“It is also common that the sharing of confidential government work information between a husband and wife can be dangerous, and I mean life-threatening here when only one of the two is doing the confidential work. This happens most often when the husband or wife works for an organization that involves danger, such as the CIA. Someone could kidnap the husband or wife that is not doing the confidential work so they can blackmail the spouse that is doing the governmental work. This happens to people in organizations such as the ones that your mother and I are in, though it’s far less of a risk than other clandestine roles. But there are organizations, foreign governments, and the like that will kidnap a husband or wife to force the spouse to divulge classified information. It all depends on the type of work that the person does.
“I am telling you this so that you understand the environment that you are entering. It is not only a matter of developing projects that are the goals of your organization. It is also about keeping confidential information just so, and protecting your wife and family depending on your domestic situation. I am also telling you this so that you have all the information you need to make your decision about whether or not you want to join one of Rick’s organizations. Yes, he has several. Fortunately, as I said before, working for one of his organizations presents a minimal risk.
“So Rick’s next step, as I said, will be to develop a confidentiality determination for you. It will be a formality, as he knows everything will be fine. There will also be a security check, and again in your case, this is a formality. Your life is an open book to someone like Rick, and you have never done anything wrong.
“Then Rick will bring you into the organization he feels is most appropriate. It may appear that you are starting slowly, but don’t get discouraged. He needs to make sure your progress is as expected. I’ll say it one more time – this is just a formality for you. Once you start with one of his organizations, give it all you’ve got. Give them the ‘wow’ factor with your knowledge and intelligence. I know you are capable of this. Doing this will cause you to advance quickly through the organization. The goal you need to keep in mind here is that if you progress quickly, you will start to get some of the plum projects. These will be projects that will not only hold your interest, but they will also be projects that you will enjoy doing because of the challenges. Give it all you’ve got, never reveal any information that you shouldn’t, and I know you are going to be a superstar in Rick’s organizations. With your intellect and the development of your skills, I expect that you will have an organization of your own in the not-too-distant future. Any questions?”
John asked, “Will Rick choose a project for me, or will I be able to discuss it with him?”
Rick will go out of his way to talk to you about yo
ur first project,” said Stanford. “He wants you to be happy with your work, and he wants you to succeed. These two things go hand-in-hand. You bring up a good point. Before you meet with Rick, give a lot of thought to a couple of things. The first one is to determine the areas of work or science you desire, which we have discussed, but roll it over in your mind to make sure your choices are correct. The second is to think of those areas and see if you have any appropriate ideas for projects that fall within them. Let’s say that you decide you’d like to work on nanotechnology. This is not an area in which you have mentioned you would like to work. If you want a little advice, but I don’t want to sway you, think about nanotechnology and quantum physics. These two subjects are in their infancy; you could get a big jump in these areas and set yourself up for an independent team. As I said, I don’t want to sway you, but give it careful thought as to whether these are paths you would be interested in following. If so, then see if you have some ideas in your mind or can come up with some ideas for projects using nanotechnology and quantum physics that will give Rick that ‘wow’ factor. You may have to go out on a limb a little bit and come up with an idea that you think has value and is appropriate, even if you don’t have a thoroughly developed idea. Do it to get Rick’s attention and see how he reacts. But make sure that the concept is something you feel confident that you can pursue with success.
“The second thing is that Rick may already have an area or project where he wants you to work. If so, be positive about it and show him that you are eager to get started. It may not be exactly what you want, but that doesn’t matter. You are new, and you need an opportunity to work in a project to which Rick assigns you. Then you need to use that opportunity to succeed in that project to begin your advancement in the organization.”
“That makes perfect sense,” said John. “Thanks for all your help, Dad.” He smiled. “I’m sure I’ll have a few hundred more questions for you as time goes on.”
Chapter 9
Monday morning rolled around, and John met Rick inside the ground-floor building at 8:00 sharp, with his father leading the way. A man came and took John’s car, presumably to outfit it with the necessary equipment to get him into the facility the next day.
“Good morning, John,” said Rick. “Are you ready to get started?”
“I’m pretty much overwhelmed with anticipation,” said John. “I have certainly been looking forward to this.”
Rick smiled and thought to himself, “This young man is definitely going to be an asset to our organization.” Out loud he said, “I was able to get clearance for you for all my projects. This is great because I want the decision for which project to which you are assigned to be mutually positive between us. The best way to do that is to show you what we are doing in the area that seems to be the best fit for your knowledge. We call it the Gamma Laboratory. Let’s head over to the elevators. All of our labs are underground by at least five stories.”
When they reached the elevator, John had a feeling of déjà vu. As with his father before, Rick went through a fingerprint and retinal scan, as did John. The elevator door slid quietly open, and they entered. John could not help but noticing that Rick pressed a blue button with the number 10 on it. It appeared as though they were going three stories below where he and his father had gone, but there were five more stories below that.
The elevator stopped, presumably at ten stories underground, and John followed Rick down another featureless concrete corridor. After making a right turn, Rick and John stepped into an alcove and performed the fingerprint and retinal scans again. The door slid open, and they stepped into a rather large office. Everything was not only modern, but there were also items that John had never seen before.
“This is my underground office,” said Rick. “When I’m in the office, this is where I spend most of my time, not the office upstairs. I wanted to come here to catch up on the Gamma Laboratory projects’ status. Give me a minute to review them. Please sit down,” he said, indicating a chair in front of the desk.
John took a seat and waited patiently.
After about 15 minutes, Rick said, “Ok, I’m ready to give you the grand tour.” He smiled, and John decided that he really liked Rick and looked forward to working for him.
In this laboratory area, there were five laboratories. They spanned three floors and a great deal of square footage. All were physically separated, and each had its separate security. Each laboratory housed a unique project. However, the organization would phase out the majority of the projects due to a lack of progress. A great deal of money was allocated to the projects because advancing technology was an expensive process, but they would not fund those that were not productive. John didn’t have any way of knowing this, but as it turned out, one of the sciences that would continue to garner support as time went on was nanotechnology. And oddly enough, the one project that John’s father had mentioned, and the one which Rick was most interested in, was also nanotechnology. Rick assigned John to that project, and he happily went to work on it.
Nanotechnology is science, engineering, and technology conducted at the nanoscale level. Fortunately for John, a device called a scanning tunneling microscope was a recent invention. This allowed scientists to “see” individual atoms, and it was at this point that modern nanotechnology began. But there was much to learn. Nanoscience and nanotechnology involve the ability to see and to control individual atoms and molecules. The term nanotechnology itself did not come into being until 1981. It would be over 30 years later that scientists would find a wide variety of ways to deliberately make materials at the nanoscale level. This allowed them to take advantage of their enhanced properties such as higher strength, lighter weight, increased control of light spectrum, and greater chemical reactivity than their larger-scale counterparts.
Though John immersed himself in the nanotechnology project, progress was slow. Another project that was under Rick’s management was quantum technology. This was the only other current project of his that remained active into the future. To say that quantum technology was difficult to understand would be a vast understatement, but the advantages seemed clear. And although after 30 years, nanotechnology began coming into its own, after the same 30 years, quantum technology was still not clearly understood or even clearly progressing. Though scientists had made much advancement, they had not reached the hoped-for level of progress.
Because the nanotechnology project was moving slowly, Rick assigned John to the quantum technology project as well. John appreciated Rick’s faith in his knowledge and his potential for the projects and eagerly worked on both.
Chapter 10
From the beginning of his career, John had built a reputation for being a prime contributor to various projects. Rick would “lend” him to help on projects that seemed to be at a standstill, because John always seemed to bring back these projects’ forward momentum. In several situations, he brought such projects to fruition. Because of this, in time, John became a project manager himself. During his climb up the ladder, he met a young lady named Angela. They worked on a project together and found that they enjoyed each other’s company. They began dating, and a year or so later, they got married. They did not work on any projects together after that, but she attained the level of project manager herself. This put them on an even keel, and per the rules of the organization, they could discuss projects with each other. Each found that the other would often come up with an idea that would make a project of theirs move forward more smoothly, or often an idea that moved a project forward when it had become “stuck.” They enjoyed the fact that they were not just in love; they were also best friends and colleagues.
Angela wanted to build a house in the country, and she wanted it to be a country-style house. John supported Angela no matter what she wanted to do, and they designed the house together. It was a large house, as both liked lots of room. With the thought of their work in mind, they created the detached barn-style garage as a secret workshop, a place where they coul
d work on their projects at home if they so desired. There was more to this undertaking than the casual eye would see. By putting in the workshop, they had to have the security team from their organization install security equipment; there had to be a way to identify the people that entered as being allowed to have access. By now, security had become much more sophisticated than it had been in the past. Every time a new method of security that was “bulletproof” was introduced, all of the organization’s locations had to have it. Expensive? Definitely. Required to protect the organization’s secret assets? Absolutely.
During the construction of the house and garage, there were always some “extra” contractors there whose goal was to ensure the security of the location.
They completed the house, and John and Angela moved in. It had many decorative touches that made the house a joy to behold for them. They loved the house and it felt like their private hideaway from the world.
Chapter 11
Mark had built a high-performance version of the hydrogen car. He had done this in tandem with the goal of continuing to perfect the first car, the “normal” car. The high-performance car was a star on Mark’s report card, as was the perfecting of the first car. The “normal” car was becoming as complete as they needed it to be. Once it had been completed (though it would never be perfect, there was always room for improvement), Mark had applied the direct use of hydrogen straight from the air to other devices that were usually “fed” by fossil fuels. He had worked on converting bulldozers, airplanes, and even lawnmowers. The direct atmosphere-to-hydrogen converter had advanced to the point where it’s size could be reduced enough to work on small engines. One had to bear in mind that these small engines did not require much fuel, so making the converters smaller was easier.