The Hidden Truth: A Science Fiction Techno-Thriller

by Hans G. Schantz

  After class, I was off to the Tolliver Library where I’d meet Amit and scan more books. The wireless motion detector was invaluable – at least hourly a librarian would check to make sure we were behaving ourselves. We had the sensor set up at a choke point and we got a good thirty seconds to a minute of warning whenever anyone was drawing near our study room – plenty of time to secure the scanner under the table and pose earnestly studying over books or homework for the benefit of any passers by. We had a few false alarms as students walked by, but the traffic was low. We were well on our way to exhausting the library’s supply of older physics and engineering books, so we’d started scanning journals and periodicals as well, like Physical Review and the Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineering.

  When we were tired of scanning and studying, Amit and I would swing by the hotel to work out and swim in the pool. Sometimes Emma would join us. I was still a bit amazed that Amit of all people had attracted her. I had to hand it to Amit – that girl looked hot in a swim suit. Not that Amit could do much of anything about it. The pool area was under video surveillance – which, come to think of it, may have been why Mrs. Patel was working the front desk where she had access to all the live video feeds. Amit did a wonderful impression of being completely nonchalant about Emma. He rarely slipped up. But one afternoon as I was heading out, he asked me if he could borrow the wireless motion sensor.

  “Why do you want it?”

  “I thought I’d go back to the library after dinner to do some research with Emma. Just generic alternative energy stuff – nothing that would give away our case.”

  Nice redirection on his part. I held his gaze for a moment or two longer than was comfortable. Then I asked, “So why exactly do you need the motion detector?”

  He was squirming a bit. “So we can study without being disturbed,” he explained with a poker face that needed some work.

  “Learn lots,” I said, handing it over.

  “Oh, we will,” he assured me.

  Chapter 5: Independence Day

  With June behind me, I went up to Uncle Rob’s with my folks for an Independence Day celebration. When I’d first heard we were going to Uncle Rob’s place for the Fourth, I had been expecting a small gathering with just immediate family. I’d been waiting patiently for a month now to get the scoop on Dad’s project with Uncle Rob. When I heard about my sister Kira and her beau driving in from Nashville, I was unconcerned – there’d be no problem getting a quiet moment with Dad and Uncle Rob and getting the details from them. Then, Dad suggested I invite Amit and his family. Mom said she’d extended an invitation to the Tollivers. I wasn’t looking forward to having to hang out with Abby, but fortunately, they didn’t deign to attend. And then, I learned Rob had invited all his veteran buddies and the festivities were going to start with shooting. This was clearly not destined to be a quiet and intimate family gathering.

  Mom and I picked up Amit and his mother – Mr. Patel had to stay at the hotel, and Dad had gone up early to help Rob set up. We made the dozen-mile drive out of town and up into the hills to Uncle Rob’s gate. Usually locked, barred, and punctuated with a couple of “No Trespassing” signs, today it was wide open and even decorated with some red, white, and blue bunting. We drove in about fifty yards to where an arch of welded rebar spanned the gravel road. The sign spelled out “Robber Dell” in twisted rebar with a thin patina of rust. Heh. Below, someone had added a “Welcome!” sign. More red, white, and blue decorations were threaded though the arch. Just past the arch, the road entered a narrow defile with a steep incline and even steeper sides. The road cut sharply into a scarp just barely wide enough for Mom’s car to get through. Mom drove slowly and carefully up the slope. The road opened to a broad clearing, full of corn.

  The property had belonged to Great Aunt Molly, my grandmother’s sister on my father’s side. Back a few years ago, Dad and Uncle Rob inherited the property on the death of their mother. The property had not been lived on in years – merely leased to nearby farmers for hay or corn. A stone chimney and a foundation of rubble were all that were left of an old farmhouse. The gravel road ended by the ruined farmhouse, and a dirt road still damp from an early morning rain shower led back through the cornfield. At the far side of the corn field, backed up almost to the mountain, was a doublewide trailer and a small metal barn. I don’t know how Dad and Uncle Rob got the trailer in through that steep cut up the hillside, but Uncle Rob had been living there since he got out of the service, supplementing his military retirement by working the farm.

  Mom parked next to a low, flat hill. We climbed up the gentle slope where we met Dad. On top of the mound was a fresh concrete pad surrounded by low concrete walls with rebar fingers sticking in the air like a giant Venus flytrap waiting… Realization dawned. I looked curiously at Dad. He smiled and placed a finger in front of his lips to gesture for silence. I was sure I knew where Dad had prototyped the design for Dr. Kreuger’s refuge.

  I also saw a low, sloped-wire antenna between the mound and the trailer. It looked a lot like the one Dad had in our backyard. I’d figured Uncle Rob and Dad were communicating using amateur radio, but the similar antenna confirmed it for me. I also saw a few propane tanks on pads distributed around the pad. One I could understand – many folks with trailers would have a propane tank for heating or cooking. But, Uncle Rob had three and what looked like pads for a couple more. I was rapidly adding to my list of questions to ask Dad and Uncle Rob, but for now, I was going to have to be patient.

  Uncle Rob put us to work organizing and setting up his shindig. He gave responsibility for the shooting range to Amit and me. We set up targets on hay bales on the field Rob had designated as the range, and we piled a row of double-stacked bales to form a firing line. We stacked up a half-dozen bales at each shooting location to form an impromptu platform for prone or kneeling shooting positions. All that work left us tired and thirsty, so we headed back to the trailer in the Mule.

  By then it was clear Dad and Uncle Rob had invited quite a crowd. There were a number of clean-cut men. I pegged them as some of Uncle Rob’s veteran friends. I recognized some of Dad’s contractor friends and colleagues. All the men seemed to have brought their wives and children or girlfriends. I saw a couple of Mom’s friends and their husbands and families, including some kids I knew or recognized from school. I spotted Emma – Amit would be happy. There was even a familiar looking German sedan – I spied Dr. Kreuger accompanied by a woman I assumed to be Frau Kreuger. Following them were an attractive blond girl and a couple of younger boys. I assumed they were the Kreugers’ children.

  I caught up with Uncle Rob and asked him where and how he’d met so many folks around Sherman. “Folks I worked with, mostly,” he explained. “Some from the rifle range. Pity all the deputies are on duty for the holiday or we’d have had most of the sheriff’s department over.”

  “You shoot with the deputies?” I asked. “So how do you score compared to them?”

  He chuckled. “My scores are better than any deputy, but that’s what you might call a ‘loaded question.’ On the range, a smart law officer makes his qualification score and not much better. Shoot a perfect or near-perfect score and heaven help you if you ever accidentally shoot a bystander in the line of duty. No one will believe it was truly an accident. My scores are better than any of them – officially. Unofficially, there’s a few who’re probably on par and maybe a bit better on a good day. Sheriff Gunn runs a tight ship. He makes sure all his deputies know what they’re doing.”

  Before I could get into any further questions, he excused himself, and made an announcement to the throng. “Anyone who’d like to learn how to shoot, come on to the range,” Uncle Rob shouted out. “We’ll be training and practicing for an hour, and then we’ll see who’s the best shot here today.”

  I ran to the truck to get my gun case, but Dad already had it and met me halfway. “Make sure you spend your time teaching others who haven’t had your opportunities to learn,” he advised
me. I was a bit disappointed, but I saw the wisdom of Dad’s direction. I could come and shoot whenever I wanted, after all. I taught Amit and the Kreuger boys, Carl and Frank, how to shoot with my .22 rifle. I asked Amit where Emma was, and he told me she wasn’t interested. My .22 was a simple single-shot bolt-action rifle. It didn’t take long before all three of my students were getting quite good. I saw Dad was teaching Mr. Kreuger how to shoot his .45 pistol. Mom was using her slim .22 pistol to instruct Mrs. Patel and Mrs. Krueger. Another of Mom’s pupils was the Kreuger’s daughter, who was very cute, and was taking to shooting with a bouncy enthusiasm.

  Finally, we cleared the range, secured the weapons, and I replaced the targets. The competition began, first rifle, then pistol. The top three scores from each round advanced to the final. I made it to the final with my .22 rifle, beating out one of Uncle Rob’s friends. He was shooting a fancy, tricked-up AR-15, and he was incredulous that I shot better using the iron sights on my simple .22. At that relatively short range, however, my .22 was every bit as accurate as the more expensive weapon. Uncle Rob, Dad, and I were all beat in the final round by another of Uncle Rob’s friends. In the pistol competition, my Mom cleaned up. She shot a perfect score in her preliminary round, and then did it all over again in the final. The holes from her shots formed a tight group right in the bullseye ring.

  “You still got it,” Dad said to Mom. “Shall, I?” He offered to take her gun. “No, go ahead, dear,” she said. “I’ll clean her up and store her myself.” Dad carried our rifle case back toward the truck as Mom quickly and skillfully cleaned her pistol.

  “That’s some mighty fine shooting, ma’am,” one of Rob’s friends was saying. He’d been the runner up and shot a near perfect score with his .45, but Mom’s grouping had been tighter. “But, that little gun isn’t very practical for self-defense, though,” he continued. “Those .22 rounds have no real stopping power. You might consider looking into something with more power that shoots a .45 round. A .22 is a lousy gun to take to a real gunfight.”

  “I’ve tried other calibers, sir,” Mom replied politely, “but the recoil makes those big guns hard for me to handle. I prefer to be accurate with a .22 rather than spray large caliber rounds in the general direction of my target.”

  “I think you’ll find that grouping would be plenty tight to put a magazine of rounds into someone’s nose,” Rob observed in Mom’s defense. “That’s gonna be effective. The best gun for a gunfight is the one you’re most proficient and effective with. The worst is not to have one at all.”

  That seemed to settle the debate. I walked with Mom back to Dad’s truck to put away our guns. “Where did you learn to shoot like that?” I asked her.

  “It was your Uncle Rob who got me and your father started,” she explained. “From then on it was just a matter of practice. I’ve been too busy to shoot regularly of late, so I’m glad we had this opportunity.”

  “But why did you and Dad spend the time to get so proficient?”

  “It was a bit… wild,” she explained, “in the early days when your father and I first came back to Sherman. It made sense to be prepared for any… eventualities. And the less said about those days the better.” That was all I could get out of her.

  After everyone had locked up their weapons and secured them in their vehicles, Dad stepped up on a stump, and held up his hands to silence the crowd. “I want to thank you all for joining us on this fine Independence Day.”

  “Can’t keep me away from your barbeque!” came a cry from the crowd.

  “Well, y’all should know there’s no such thing as a free lunch!” he exclaimed back, “So quiet down, and listen up! Legend has it that ‘Robber Dell’ is where the Unionists hid their horses when the Confederate raiders swept through these hills. The place had fallen into some disrepair. I can’t imagine a more appropriate proprietor for this spread than my brother.” Dad got some chuckles.

  “John Adams said that Independence Day should be ‘solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.’ We got the games, sports, and guns well underway. Now’s the time for the show where we ‘solemnize with pomp.’ Being a most unpompous sort myself,” that drew more good-natured chuckles, “I’m going to turn the stump over to our host to remind us all what we’re celebrating here today. Rob?”

  Dad stepped down, and Uncle Rob stepped up on the stump. “I want to thank my big brother not just for that introduction, but also for introducing me to Sherman. I haven’t been here long, and I’m grateful so many of you have honored me with your friendship. I appreciate y’all spending your valuable time to gather here today.

  “Some of us take liberties like these for granted: the right to assemble, the right to speak our minds, the right to have a say in how we’re governed. It hasn’t always been that way. A couple hundred years ago some folks just like you and me got fed up with being pushed around and oppressed by tyranny. They joined together, and they resolved to send a message to tyrants then, now, and in the future: a message that would never be forgotten, a message that goes like this.” Rob pulled out a sheet of paper.

  “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

  It was uncanny how Uncle Rob’s voice quieted the rowdy crowd.

  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

  I’d read Jefferson’s words before and since, but never did they have more meaning to me than that day, spoken aloud by my uncle. It was easy to imagine a patriot of old standing on a stump in a clearing informing friends and neighbors who’d gathered to hear the latest news from Philadelphia.

  Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

  The crowd became livelier, punctuating the recitation with boos and hisses as Uncle Rob recited the list of tyrannies, and responding with cheers as he described our rights and independence. Finally, he concluded:

  “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor!”

  The crowd burst out with sustained cheers and applause. When they quieted down, Uncle Rob continued. “As we’re celebrating here this fine day, kindly remember to lift bottle or glass in honor of our founding fathers, our comrades, our friends and family, and all the others who have pledged their Lives, their Fortunes, and their Sacred Honor in the cause of liberty.” He took a swig from his bottle, as did many in the crowd. “I am informed,” Uncle Rob, continued, “that the barbeque is ready to be served. If you’d like to get an early start, head on up to
my new pad. Otherwise, please carry on with the fun and games.”

  I thought I was finally going to get my chance to corner Uncle Rob, but he was busy talking with a group of men. I recognized Mr. Garrety and some of the other truckers from Kudzu Joe’s among them. Before I got a chance to hear what they were discussing, Uncle Rob interrupted the man who was speaking, and drafted me to supervise the ATV rides. Dad and Uncle Rob had carved a mile-long loop trail roughly around the perimeter of the property. Now that the shooting was over, the trail was open for business. Some of Dad’s and Uncle Rob’s friends had brought some ATVs and dirt bikes. The kids did laps while I served as a pace car, driving the Kawasaki Mule at the head of the pack and making sure none of the kids got too wild. I did several laps over the course of an hour. When the Mule ran low on gas, I stopped to fill it up. I waved over Amit and Emma, letting them take over with traffic control. The Mule had two seats and they liked the idea of being out of sight. By then, I was getting hungry, so I climbed the mound to Uncle Rob’s pad to get a helping of barbeque.

  I saw Dad and Uncle Rob talking privately. Finally! I grabbed some pulled pork, heaped it on a bun, and went on over to join them. Before I could make it over to them, however, Mr. Burleson stopped me.

  “You folks sure know how to throw a party,” he said. “Find any other clues about those bouncing waves?”

  I told him about the Fleming bibliography and the missing reference to the 1905 paper by Heaviside: ‘On the Interactions of Waves.’

  “Your father passed that one on to me last week,” he acknowledged. “Unfortunately, I haven’t made much progress. Heaviside talks plenty about reflections of waves from conductors, but not from each other. If he wrote a paper on electric waves bouncing off each other, he certainly didn’t include it in Electromagnetic Theory.”