Near Future 1: Awakening

by Randal Sloan

  She needed more information on the possible infiltration by the Organization in the construction and maintenance at the school. She knew she had to take a chance. She needed information from Jon Rupert, the man in the undercover role in the Organization. She was pretty sure that he was a highly capable computer expert, and so she called Zeke, asking him and Joe to come see her. She went out to see the Sarge, telling him she was getting close, and asking him to go get their weapons. As soon as she figured out where they were located, the two of them would be shooting out lasers.

  The Sarge just laughed, "Now that's something I've never done before. Shooting out lasers. I may get in the record books yet!"

  Miranda laughed with him but she sobered up quickly. They wouldn't be shooting this time for sport or training. It was going to be a life or death situation for a lot of people, based on the power curves she was seeing.

  Zeke and Joe arrived and she showed them the message from Jon. "How do I trace this back to him? And remember, we think he's a computer expert, so the obvious answer will only lead to whoever he wants us to think it is. That would probably be a disaster, so I have to have the real address."

  The two took over the VR system for a few minutes and called her back in. Zeke proudly told her, "You were right. The most obvious address is back to some man named Ralph something or another. But he's not really the right person. If I had to guess, that is the second man you saw in the library. The kind of bad guy he would want to set up, based on what you told us about him. Anyway, here is the real address." He highlighted it with a VR pointer.

  "I knew you two could do it," Miranda said excitedly. "Ok. Send the following message: 'It is imperative that I know about any activities of your sponsors regarding lasers. This is a very high priority request related to the upcoming event.' Make sure you send it priority, for his eyes only." She watched as they put it in, correcting them a couple of times. "I hope he doesn't panic because you found him, because we really need to know the answer. And I really, really hope we don't get him in trouble."

  Zeke nodded and sent the message. They waited for several tense moments. Finally, just as Miranda was about to give up, the answer finally came. "Only one instance involving lasers. The telescope project; testing lasers around the building using temporary locations to determine the best installation points. Primary and backup lasers were tested at the displayed locations." A VR diagram appeared showing the building housing the telescope and the locations around the building where tested.

  Miranda quickly determined six locations that would be in line of sight to the soccer field and pointed them out to the Sarge, who had been watching. "Those are our targets. I figure each has a laser installed and between the six of them they would be able to get two shots off each, and thus be able to get the reactions combined. We are talking a huge explosion that would result if they do this. We have got to take them all out. Even a couple would be terrible. And if they are monitoring the status of the lasers, when we start shooting them out, they will probably try to use the remaining ones to set off the ones left so we have to take them all out quickly."

  The Sarge nodded. "You take the ones on the right and I will take the ones on the left. Start in the middle and work out. That way if they somehow get a shot off, at least the two would be further apart. Joe, you're with me. You will be my spotter. Grab the laser range finder on the table and follow me. Needless to say, Zeke you are with Miranda, doing the same thing." He stopped for a moment, looking Miranda in the eyes. "Just do what you know to do. Take the shot and move to the next. You are the best I have ever seen, so I know you will get it done."

  Miranda gave him the only possible answer. "Yes, Sarge." She knew this time it was for keeps, but she also knew she was up to it.

  #

  Five minutes later, Miranda was in position on the hillside facing the telescope building. She had a clear line of sight to the locations for each of her assigned lasers. She and Zeke were both lying on the ground facing the building, with her rifle set up in front of her in full extended position. She looked around to her left and she saw the Sarge and Joe settling in too. Seconds later she received a ping from the Sarge, signaling he was in position.

  Miranda turned to Zeke. "Ok, Sarge is set up. He will send two pings when ready to shoot and we will send two back when we are ready. Your job is to look through the range finder at each target. In this case I have the rifle set up to paint the target so you will be able to see it in the range finder with a red dot appearing to be there. I need you to give me the numbers as soon as you have them and I will take the shot. My rifle will give me a range to set up, but your numbers will be more accurate. Remember, we are starting on the inside and working out to the right. We don't have any wind, so we won't have to worry about determining it. Let me know when you are ready."

  Seconds later, she got a ready from Zeke, and immediately afterwards two pings from the Sarge. She sent her two pings back and lined up the first shot. Zeke was right after with the range. Miranda quickly tweaked her setup for the exact range and she fired the shot, perfectly on target. They repeated it on the next laser with the same result, Miranda just following her training. Finally they were on the last one. When the last shot hit home, there was an explosion of sparks and smoke from the laser. Miranda checked the Sarge's targets, all were done. She finally breathed a sigh of relief. She knew that the last laser had been powering up and would have gotten its shot off within the next fraction of a second. She saw smoke coming from the last one of the Sarge's targets too. They had both been very, very close.

  #

  Less than a minute later, several members of the security forces came running up, reacting to the sound of the shots. They were pretty good, Miranda admitted, tracing the shots that quick. She carefully set the sniper rifle down and calmly spoke to the arrivals. "It's ok. We're the good guys. We just took out the six lasers that were targeting the soccer stadium." She knew they had validated the signal from her DHS pass, but she kept her movements slow until they had relaxed a little. "I guess you had better collect the two of us and the Sergeant across the way there, and have us accompany you back to headquarters where we can explain what just happened."

  A few minutes later, the four were in the command tent, standing in front of Jimmy and his boss, Commander Dumont. His rank was the DHS equivalent of a general. The commander looked at the Sergeant for answers, "I was told the four of you just neutralized the threat to the stadium. Is that correct and under whose authority did you do this?"

  Sarge nodded and held up his DHS pass. "We have been working with your man Jimmy and received his blessing to follow the leads that we had. That eventually led us to six lasers targeted on the stadium and we took them out with our sniper rifles. What that means, I have no clue. I was just following her instructions." He pointed to Miranda.

  The commander looked at Miranda and then turned to Jimmy. "Jimmy, do you want to explain?"

  "Yes sir. Since Miss Summerlin's connection with Doctor Ted Randolph is what started all this, I suspect we will want to include him in this too, if that's ok. That way we can do one set of explanations and keep us out of hot water."

  The commander nodded. "Proceed. He's the one who warned us about all of this in the first place and I know my boss spoke directly with him. Yes, that would be very expedient."

  Jimmy put the call through using the secure VR they had set up. When Doctor Ted answered the call, Jimmy went on. "This is DHS calling from the command tent. In addition to the personnel here you are already familiar with, I have a Master Sergeant John Lewis and several students. I believe you know some of them, Miss Summerlin specifically."

  Miranda saw the reaction cross Doctor Ted's face at the mention of her name. If he had known the facts, she wouldn't have been anywhere close to the school. And a lot of people would probably be dead soon too. But he only nodded. "Yes, I know them quite well. Especially, Miss Summerlin, who is my patient under extended care."

  Jimmy proceeded with hi
s explanation. "As I suspect you will understand, Miss Summerlin has a way of convincing you she is right. She came to me earlier today with evidence that led us to believe that the plan for the attack somehow involved the bulbs at the soccer stadium. It appears that they were replaced last week in an unscheduled maintenance task. She explained that the new bulbs contain a tiny amount of exotic matter. She and her friends had struggled with this for the past twenty-four hours or so. They couldn't figure how such small amounts of exotic matter could be used to produce a big enough explosion. So she came to me for help, with our much decorated master sergeant here to vouch for her.

  "After listening to her story, in my gut I believed her to be correct, even though the whole thing seemed rather far-fetched. I also recognized that if she were wrong, there would be no real consequences, but if she were right, we would be in real trouble. So I issued them both DHS friendly passes, with the stipulation she had to stay under authority of the sergeant. I also gave her the authorization to query Space Tech Technical regarding the exotic matter." Turning to the commander, he said, "Sir, all of this was within range of my authority, and I did not have time or reason to bring it to your attention along with many others in the myriad of tasks I completed today."

  The commander nodded, so Jimmy continued. "It's been known for a time that someone has been helping the Organization with funds and weapons. Miss Summerlin speculated that this time they also gave them a lot of technical expertise beyond that which the Organization could pull off on their own. Based on what we have just seen, it appears that she was correct, a very worrisome development." Turning to Miranda, "Miss Summerlin, I believe you will need to explain what transpired from this point."

  Miranda took a deep breath. "Very simply put, with the information I received from Space Tech, I was able to determine what we were up against. We were looking at an almost foolproof plan to set off a near nuclear level explosion in the soccer stadium." She paused a minute as a number of those in the room gave an audible gasp and Doctor Ted had turned rather pale. But there was no point in trying to gloss over that information.

  "We had been looking for the trigger for the exotic matter, and thinking all along we were looking for a conventional level explosion. The answer was unfortunately simpler but much worse. We couldn't see it because we were all concentrating on the soccer field alone, and in the case of my friends and I, specifically the bulbs. Space Tech gave me all of their research on exotic matter, and buried in there is a big issue."

  "When hit with a laser at certain frequencies, the exotic matter stores and amplifies the entire amount of energy in the laser pulse. The higher the power and the longer the pulse, the more energy stored. But shortly after that, it releases it all in a tiny fraction of time. The Organization, or their helpers in this case, had managed under the guise of construction work on the telescope building, to place a total of six high powered lasers on that building targeting the soccer field lights. I had estimated that each laser would get two shots in before the explosion would prevent further shots, not that it would have mattered soon after that because nothing would have been left to show what had happened, including the lasers or the telescope building. As the Master Sergeant indicated, the two of us took out the lasers with our sniper rifles. The last two lasers we shot out were in the process of powering on. If we had been a fraction of a second later with those last shots, it would have been nothing like having all of them, but we nevertheless would not be having this conversation."

  By the time Miranda had finished everyone was in complete shock. Even Zeke, Joe and the Sarge, who had thought they had known what she meant by a very large explosion. After all, she had not had time to explain it all to them in this detail. In hindsight, that may have been for the best. If any one of the three had frozen at a critical time, it would have been fatal. She knew that she had not allowed herself to think of the ramifications of what had been going on. She amazingly didn't have even the tiniest headache, because she had somehow put it all away behind the importance of getting the job done. Now she felt rather weak in the knees.

  Before anyone could speak, she added. "There's one more thing I think I need to say. We can't let the public know what just happened. Not until Space Tech can do a permanent recall of all their exotic matter light bulbs. I'm sure you can see why that is important."

  Miranda's suddenly weak knees almost gave out, and Zeke quickly rushed over to help her to a chair. She gave him a weak smile. "Seems like you've done this before, Zeke."

  The DHS commander had been shook up as much as the rest of them at what had almost happened, but he quickly took charge. He soon had everything sorted out. Everything would be classified; everyone in the room was sworn to silence. The three students and the Sarge would get classified commendations in their files. Space Tech would do a priority recall on the bulbs.

  As everyone prepared to go their separate ways, Miranda overheard the commander offering Jimmy a new job that would be helping in the fight against the Organization. It would come with a big promotion and a lot of leeway to do his job. At least one thing worked out for the good. She suspected she herself was going to be in big trouble with Doctor Ted.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Project

  Space Tech has announced their tenth annual science fair competition is officially open. Only students and amateurs are allowed to enter. Submissions will be accepted for the next three months. Any school sponsoring such a student will receive funding for each student entering and the winner will receive one million dollars for a designated science field scholarship fund. Amateurs entering will receive similar funding, and if they submit the winning entry, they will be able to designate the scholarship money to the school of their choice. Already competition looks to be fierce this year. Any patentable entries will be able to have their patent applications completed by Space Tech Legal at no charge.

  #

  The next week Miranda somewhat nervously went to the meeting location for the special projects class. With all the action the week before, the kick-off meeting for the class had been rescheduled to this week. She was glad that they had, because she had spent a good chunk of her past week convincing Doctor Ted that everything was ok, so that she could continue her studies. Of course, she had to explain about her participation on the shooting team and the sniper training she had completed. After quite a bit of negotiation on her part, he had agreed to leave her in school and she could remain on the team if she promised that she would keep her participation low key.

  When she arrived at the classroom, she saw only a small group of people there, and she realized that she didn't know anyone in the room. However, they all seemed to know each other based on their level of conversation. She also made the number of students in the class an odd number. She was worried that the instructor would tell her "Sorry, you can't do this class unless you have a partner" or that she would be stuck on somebody else's team as the third wheel. She was getting more and more stressed about the situation. Just as she was beginning to panic, Zeke came in, sitting down beside her.

  He said quietly, "Your partner is here if you will have him." Zeke knew Miranda well enough to know that she had been stressing out over the situation, and he was sorry now that he had kept it such a surprise for her. Of course, he had not intended to be so late, but he had been stopped by someone on the way over and had lost track of the time.

  Miranda said, "Yes! Yes!" She smiled, feeling a warm feeling. "I didn't know what I was going to do. Figured I would be the odd girl out."

  "I'm sorry. I should have told you, but I wanted to keep it a surprise. Just not this much of a surprise. Actually, I'm looking forward to it, although I'm a little nervous. I've never done anything like this before, so I guess we're both in it together."

  They looked up as the instructor came into the classroom. Everyone stopped talking so they could listen to him. Introducing himself as Doctor Smith, he explained in a somewhat dry tone how the special projects class worked. As Miranda al
ready knew, the class would be divided into two-person teams. Each team had to choose a project that the two agreed to work together on. Moreover, half of the grade was based upon the detailed project plan that was due no later than midterm. Failure to complete a project was not necessarily considered a problem if the level of work was demonstrated. And for the project, components had to come from the school's supply of parts and the project had to be kept within the amount of dollars that were budgeted. All the details for the budgets and the cost to be used for the components were in the class notes. He went on to answer questions, although there weren't very many.

  When it came time to choose their partners, Zeke had already submitted them to be partners on the project and Miranda quickly accepted. Then as the class broke up, the instructor gave them final instructions for each partner pair to get together, and to submit their chosen project for approval no later than the time for the class next week. As they walked out, Miranda said to Zeke, "Thank you so much for joining me in this project. I was very nervous about working with someone else," she admitted. "I still don't know very many of the students at the school, and I didn't know anyone in this class."

  Zeke was glad that he had decided to take the class with her. "Well, we haven't been seeing much of each other, even with you just down the hall from me. I am looking forward to working with you on this project, but I haven't a clue what we're going to do for it."

  "Do you have time to go to the library to talk about it? I would like to show you the ideas I have." Miranda couldn't hide some of her excitement about what she wanted to do but she she was a little nervous about it, too.