by Thomas Babak
“Mostly white?” Kate asked with an arched eyebrow.
“Most described him as white. One described him as Hispanic and another as Asian. They all said he was inhumanly strong. They were all obviously in shock,” he said, looking up at Kate.
“Obviously,” she said evenly.
He swiped his screen again, but decided not to go into more detail about the remaining, missing van. Jenkins looked back up at Kate and waited for her response.
She didn’t ask her usual “Anything else?” Instead, she moved on to Dr. Fossberg.
Dr. Fossberg looked back at Kate without saying anything.
“Doctor?” Kate finally prompted.
“We just don’t know. I don’t know!” he exclaimed. He hated not understanding something. He and his team of scientific specialists had no idea of why or how the van could fly, let alone how it could appear and disappear at will.
“Usually, knowing that something can be achieved provides the largest first step in understanding it and creating it. We have the beginnings of several theories, but have made no progress so far. We NEED the van!” he finished emphatically.
Kate nodded her head.
“We need the van or whomever created it.” She emphasized the word whomever and looked at Travis and the hard man. She wanted to capture live people. The hard man nodded. Travis just looked back at her.
She was video conferencing with the White House in less than an hour. The operation against the target Jenkins identified would happen later this afternoon. She hoped to have everything contained by the end of the day.
That morning after the FBI’s visit, Sandy decided he’d hide the Bubble Tech as soon as possible. Their visit had left him shaken and worried and he wanted, needed to get it hidden. He wouldn’t feel safe until that happened. He had a quick breakfast with Tasha and told her he’d be back afterwards and they could go out for a late lunch somewhere. He kissed her absentmindedly as he walked out the door. She didn’t seem to mind. After the visit by the FBI, she had her own worries. She hadn’t talked to Sandy about them other that a few hints about turning the van over. Sandy had quashed those hints fairly quickly. He couldn’t turn over Bubble Tech to the authorities. He had no idea what they would do with it. He also made a promise to Mr. Bullock and now, to himself.
He didn’t see Mr. Bullock’s car in the lot. Mr. Bullock had wanted to talk with Sandy. His and Tasha’s visit had visibly upset him and Sandy knew that Mr. Bullock would lecture him most likely about the expanding number of people that knew about Bubble Tech. Sandy wasn’t looking forward to that conversation.
Sandy went inside the Yard office, locking the door after him. Checking behind the counter, he searched furiously through the shelves for anything that might be related to Bubble Tech. There was a pad of paper with a few notes and a linoleum tile scrap from making the Stator boards. He tossed both into one of the boxes he used for shipping. The desktop computer sat powered off. He’d only used it on occasion to order parts. Most of the work on Bubble Tech had been done on his school laptop and the Toughbook’s. There was nothing directly related to Bubble Tech in the orders he’d done online on the desktop, so he left the computer as it was.
He made his way down to his workshop, unlocked the door and flipped the lights on. The fluorescent lights made pinging noises as the lights came fully on. Mr. Bullock had once explained to him that the noise was caused by something called the Ballast, a device that limits the amount of electrical current inside the fixture. It made that noise when electricity was first run through it and it heated up causing the metal in it to expand and “ping.”
There was so much in there on the makeshift shelves and workbenches that it would take a while to sort through it all. Sandy ran back upstairs and grabbed several more boxes. He spent the next hour and half sifting through everything, section by section, area by area and tossing anything he’d used into the boxes. The two largest items were the initial Bubble Sphere he’d made that helped him discover Bubble Tech and the Drone that had been his first project. The Drone had helped him learn and create so many other things that culminated in the current iteration of the Bubble Van.
He carried the sphere, drone and boxes across the Yard to the barn and stacked them all inside the van, making a pile on and in front of the bed. He walked back to the bay and looked around. He’d done most of his work on the technology in his workshop and the barn. About the only thing he’d done in the bay was weld together the rebar that made up the frame of the Drone. He saw the foot-high stack of linoleum tiles he used to make the Stator bases against the bay wall and thought to himself, What the hell. He went over and picked them up. They were heavy and he had to lever them up with his legs. Sandy had noticed individual tiles seemed pretty heavy when he had been working on them, but he’d never worked with any tiles before and didn’t realize or know if they should be heavy or light. He carried these out to the van in the barn as well after duct taping them into a bundle.
The barn was clear as well. Sandy believed he had everything and then a thought hit him. He ran back up to the office and outside to his truck. He reached behind the truck seat after unlocking and opening the door and pulled out his backpack. He pulled out his laptop. He’d done most of his preliminary research and app prototyping on it. There was very little on it that he’d need for school. He’d buy a “new” one off of Craigslist as soon as he could. There was nothing at the house related to Bubble Tech. Everything had been done at the Yard.
He carried it inside. To be on the safe side, he searched the counter again. He found nothing else. He went back to his workshop carrying a box with his laptop inside and searched it again. He found a couple odds and ends that he tossed into the box so he searched again. Nothing. Same for the bay and the barn.
When he was back inside the van, he looked at the boxes and stuff piled in the back. Grabbing a plastic tarp, he covered it all and used bungee cords to strap it all down. The barn door was soon open and the systems all powered up. Sandy drove outside and activated the Bubble Field. He flew the van to the least accessible part of the yard and hovered overhead, looking around. Junked cars were piled two and three cars high for a hundred feet around. Even he hadn’t explored this area very well over the years.
He lowered the van slowly until he figured he was just above several cars in the middle of a pile of junk. The lowered the van and turned off the Bubble field. The van dropped and rocked and his fingers hovered over the switch to activate the Lifters. He’d already switched modes without thinking about it. The van settled into place. Powering the laptops down, he looked around the inside of the van and made sure that everything was off. The Bubble Field could be turned on and off with the remote. The last thing his eyes found was the stuffed hippo wedged between the monitors. It had been his good luck charm and he reached out to take it with him, but then stopped. He’d leave it here.
Getting out of the van was easy. Getting back to the dirt road leading back to the office was a little more challenging. Once out, he stepped carefully across the hood of one car and jumped onto another. It caved in slightly. Looking back at the Bubble Van, he took out the key fob remote and pressed a button. There was a pop, liquid blue light, and then the van disappeared. With the bank of batteries fully charged, the van would remain invisible for months, years possibly. Even in the unlikely event that someone did stumble into it blindly, there wouldn’t be anything they could do to gain access to through the Bubble Field anyway.
Sandy carefully made his way to one of the dirt lanes that led back to the barn and offices. On the way he heard a noise in the yard and stopped, listening and looking carefully about. After about a dozen seconds he shrugged and thought to himself, Probably just a junkyard cat I disturbed, and walked the rest of the way back.
“All teams are in position,” came over the radio.
Kate sat in the borrowed FBI Tactical Operations Center van they had taken over. It was well appointed with the latest state of the art video, audio and radio
communications systems. It could even be tied in with drone and satellite surveillance systems. It contained its own restroom and kitchenette, though the latter went unused today.
Jenkins sat at the center console surrounded by monitors while Kate sat behind on an elevated platform chair that allowed her an unobstructed view of the screens. Travis sat a chair several feet away and off to the side, sulking that he hadn’t been allowed to go in with the tactical team. He knew better than to say anything while the operation was in progress, though. He was dressed like the rest of the tactical team, but Kate had made him leave his weapons in the locker by the door. Travis sat there quietly and watched. Each of the team members had a camera mounted on their rifles. The various monitors displayed various scenes in jerking and abrupt motion as the team members moved into place. The views from the monitors had all settled down with the last transmission as the team members all settled down into their positions.
The “hard man” that had been sitting next to Travis in the conference room led a team of twelve other hard men to encircle the target. One of the two individuals of the identified target had come outside a little while ago, done something amongst the junked cars visible in some of the camera views, and had just now went back inside the building.
“Go,” Kate said almost quietly.
Jenkins repeated “Go!” much more loudly. Within a couple seconds, the screen’s displays began to jerk around furiously, too fast to follow.
Two monitors showed a two-man team coming to a door. One turned the handle and it opened. They both rushed in. Within a few seconds, two people were taken down and captured. Within seconds of that the hard man came back on the radio and said “Clear. Two in custody.” The hard man was on a separate frequency with his team. Jenkins had wanted to listen in on that as well, but Kate wouldn’t let him. She knew better than to play armchair general with the people on the ground. She remembered in her past when others had done that with her.
Kate jumped out of her chair and rushed outside. Travis followed but fell behind as he stopped to gather up his weapons. She made her way to the building and went inside.
The man who had been captured had his hands zip-tied behind his back as he lay on the floor. One of the team members had his booted foot on the man’s back to keep him in place.
“The van!” she called out to the hard man. He nodded his head over his shoulder to follow him. They exited out another door and circled to the other side of the building. Another tactical team was leading a zip-tied man from another building to them.
The Dodge Xplorer van sat under a shed roof on cinder blocks, the wheels removed years before. Several windows were broken and the body of the van was paint chipped and faded where the rust hadn’t taken over. Kate glanced at the inside. Rotten upholstery and bird and animal droppings were everywhere.
“This isn’t it,” she said out loud, but to herself, bitterly and unnecessarily.
There was only one other possibility. They would pursue that one next.
Twenty-Eight
Back home after lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Buffalo, Sandy and Tasha still hadn’t said much to each other. At lunch Sandy had tried the beginnings of conversation several times while at the restaurant and while driving there and back. He felt so much more relieved now that he had made the van, and Bubble Tech, “disappear.” Tasha had apologized for being so quiet but had let the conversation die every time still. She was distracted and to Sandy’s queries would respond, “Just thinking about stuff.”
When they were back at home, they sat in the living room while Tasha channel surfed. The Flying Van seemed to be on every other channel. Sandy booted up his new laptop he picked up from a used computer/tablet store on the way home and searched for “Flying Van.” There were already more than a million entries. There were several hundred videos already too. He hoped that over time and with no other Flying Van sightings, the excitement would die down.
“Sandy?” Tasha asked.
He closed the lid of his laptop and looked at her from his easy chair. She sat on the couch.
“I think we should tell them,” she said quietly.
“Tell them? Tell who, what?” Sandy asked defensively even though he knew what Tasha meant.
“Tell the FBI about Bubble Tech,” she said more loudly.
“No!” Sandy said with a touch of anger. He’d already explained the danger, and that he would tell the world about Bubble Tech as soon as he could. As soon as he could control it and make it safe.
“But Sandy…you can get into a lot of trouble!” she exclaimed.
Sandy sat there, mute as he tried to pick from the sheer number of responses he had swirling inside his mind.
“And there is so much that could be done with it…”
“No!” Sandy exclaimed loudly.
Before Tasha could say anything else, he said more calmly, “I told you I’d eventually would. It’s not safe now. I’ve hidden it too. Promise me you won’t say or do anything!”
Tasha looked hurt, but then began to get angry herself and said frostily, “I already promised.”
“Promise again! Promise you won’t do or say anything!” Sandy demanded.
The beginnings of anger left her face and a look of sadness etched itself there instead. She uncurled her body from the couch and put her feet on the floor. Standing up, she looked down at Sandy and said “No!” quietly but forcefully. “I already did.” She walked stiffly upstairs and after a few seconds he heard the bedroom door close.
Sandy, so angry now that he didn’t trust himself, gently placed the laptop on the coffee table. He got up and grabbed his keys. Locking the front door behind himself, he got into his truck and started driving. He had no destination in mind, but soon found himself at the Yard. Since his dad left, the Yard had been his only refuge, his safe haven from everything. It was no surprise that he unconsciously made his way there.
Mr. Bullock’s car was in the lot. Sandy pulled in and parked. He sat in his truck for a few minutes, unsure what he was going to do. He didn’t really make a decision, but walked in and sat at his usual spot behind the desk, anyway.
He heard Mr. Bullock call from his office, “Sandy is that you?” but Sandy didn’t answer. He didn’t know what to say. Tasha was angry at him, and they’d just had their first fight. Was it our last fight? he thought.
A few moments later, Mr. Bullock came out of his office and walked over to the counter. He looked at Sandy without saying anything until Sandy looked up at him. He could tell that Sandy was upset and he had a pretty good idea why. He’d been there himself. Woman problems. The worst problem a young man ever thinks he is ever going to have.
“Come with me, son,” Mr. Bullock said. He walked around the counter and out the front office door. Sandy hesitated for a few moments but then got up and followed. By the time he got outside, Mr. Bullock was sitting in his running car. Sandy hesitated again but then walked over to the passenger side and got in.
“Buckle up,” Mr. Bullock said as he put the car in gear and pulled out of the lot. He drove around the slight bend in the road and turned down his long dirt and gravel driveway. After a couple hundred feet, they pulled in front of Mr. Bullock’s home.
“Come on,” Mr. Bullock said getting out of the car and shutting the door. Sandy followed, curiosity overtaking the hurt and anger he had been feeling before. Mr. Bullock led him into the single story doublewide trailer. It would be the first time he had ever been inside in the years he’d worked for Mr. Bullock. The outside of the trailer was somewhat dilapidated but the interior was immaculate.
The front door led into the living room. Mr. Bullock pointed to the couch and said, “sit down” as he walked out of the room. Sandy, instead, walked over to the electric fireplace mantle that had a dozen framed pictures sitting on it. Mr. Bullock and his wife on their wedding day. Mr. Bullock in his Marine uniform. A baby. Mr. Bullock, his wife and a small boy. On the end of the mantle was a picture of Sandy, a huge grin on his face and his lon
g hair falling over his eyes, sitting at the counter at the Yard office. Mr. Bullock standing behind him with his hand on his shoulder, a small close-lipped smile on his face. Sandy vaguely remembered a customer taking that photo a couple years ago but had never seen it.
Sandy was just sitting down on the couch when Mr. Bullock came back carrying a beer and a Coke. He handed the Coke to Sandy, popped the top on his beer and sat down on a well-used easy chair. Except for that chair, all the other furniture looked fairly new.
“What’s wrong?” Mr. Bullock asked, took a sip of his beer and sat back looking at Sandy, waiting. He had a good idea of what was the matter but would let Sandy talk.
Sandy spent the next few minutes telling him about how Tasha had figured out the Bubble Van belonged to him, the promise he had made her give, the FBI stopping by and their “fight” he’d had before coming to the yard. Sandy finally wound down and went silent.
Mr. Bullock hadn’t asked any questions or said a word throughout. He took another sip of beer and leaned back forward.
“So let me get this straight. You got her to promise not to talk about your Bubble stuff and then you tried to force her to promise again?” he asked. His tone was flavored with disbelief.
Sandy looked at him and nodded.
“You don’t ever do that to a woman, son. You don’t ever do that to anyone. Do you know why?” he asked, not necessarily expecting the right answer but waiting for one. Sandy realized this too. It was the way that Mr. Bullock explained things. The way he taught Sandy over the years. He asked questions. You had to figure out on your own the right answers. Sometimes you would get a little help but you were mostly on your own.