Near Future 1: Awakening

by Randal Sloan

  Mr. Caldwell explained they had developed a family tradition of enjoying good food together as a family whenever they could all get together. He said, "I enjoy cooking on the grill when I get a chance. It's a good change of pace from our normal evening meal, and the setup we have here makes it easy and fun. With you here as company, it gave me the excuse to go all out tonight."

  "Well it's certainly some of the best I've had in a while. We don't get that much variety at school, so I always treasure the opportunities to try new things. That's the curse and blessing of not having any memory, so much is new to me."

  Mrs. Caldwell reached across to touch Miranda on the arm and said. "We were so sorry to hear about all that has happened to you, and we are glad you came to visit us. The kids have told us a lot about you, so we know a little about what you have had to deal with.

  "You know," she went on, "We all could learn a little about taking every day as it comes and living in the moment."

  Emily laughed and said, "You're right, Mom, but you're getting way too philosophical on us now." She started talking about all that they had to do, beginning with getting ready for "The Party". She looked at her mother, "Mom, we've got to go shopping. Miranda and I both have to get new outfits for the party."

  Zeke looked at Miranda and said intensely, "No way. Not me. I'm staying out of this one. Mom can be your chauffeur this time." Everyone laughed.

  Zeke looked at his mother, who smiled at him before coming to his rescue. "Of course, I would love to go. Girls day out!"

  They finished the meal in small talk, everyone enjoying the time together as much as the food. As they finished eating, the evening began to darken so that in the immediate area where they were sitting the lights came on automatically. The parents soon thereafter retired to the house, declaring "Don't stay out too late, kids" as they left, so the three wandered out into the lawn, sitting on the grass so they could look at the stars while they talked.

  Emily was still going on about the party and all the things they needed to do to get ready. However, after a few minutes, she said, "I've got to go check on something..." and left.

  Zeke and Miranda sat there for a while looking at the stars and pointing to the constellations that they both knew. Suddenly, Miranda saw the Space Tech space station streaking across the sky, so she grabbed Zeke's hand to show him. When she did this, he didn't let go. They continued with pleasant conversation until finally Zeke sighed, "I guess we'd better go in..." and they walked hand-in-hand down the path to the house. Zeke smiled and said, "I go this way, so I will see you tomorrow, after your shopping trip. Have fun!"

  #

  The next morning, the girls and Mrs. Caldwell headed out for the shopping trip. Rather than going to a big mall or strip of modern shops, they went to the local town, where Miranda was surprised to see that they had an old-fashioned square with shops all the way around. Emily's mom explained, "This is a lot more fun, it supports our local businesses, and it doesn't cost any more in the long run."

  The shops along the square were all very pleasant. After looking in a few windows, the girls and mom went into a little shop with dresses and accessories. Suddenly Miranda stopped to stare at a beautiful old fashioned style hair comb. It seemed to her that it brought back a fond memory, something to do with her mother, although she couldn't seem to remember anything else. She thought that she must have worn something like that before her accident. Mrs. Caldwell, on seeing this, insisted on buying it for her. "Consider this our gift to you as our special houseguest who has already brought pleasure into our lives."

  Miranda was standing there fighting tears until Emily called her over to look at some outfits that she thought would be perfect for them to wear to the party. They both eventually found outfits that met Emily's approval and were also considered acceptable by Emily's mom, who had quickly vetoed a couple of them. Miranda insisted on paying for the clothes that she bought, but Emily's mom wouldn't budge on the hair comb.

  Once again fighting those tears, Miranda could only tell her a heartfelt, "Thank you."

  The week flew by with activities planned by Emily every day. Everything from local tourist sites, to the museum, to an open-air concert in the nearby park were included in her plans. Zeke and Miranda got to spend some time together, but nothing like the first night.

  #

  Finally, it was the evening of the party. Emily shooed Zeke away so that the girls could spend time getting ready. They had a lot of fun walking around with curlers in their hair, enjoying the privilege of helping each other get ready. Miranda's hair had really grown, so it was good to her to be able to have enough hair to wear curlers. To Miranda though, the real treasure was to have her newfound friend to do this kind of stuff with her. Eventually they were both ready, Emily slipping the newly bought hair comb into Miranda's hair as the last step.

  Emily insisted that Miranda wait until she signaled for her to come down. Emily strode into the sitting room where Zeke was waiting, and he smiled and kissed her on the cheek. "You look very pretty tonight. I'm going to have to keep an eye on all the guys there."

  Then Emily signaled for Miranda to come down the stairs. When Zeke saw Miranda, he was struck almost speechless, and would only say, "Wow!". He offered his arm as her escort, leading her and Emily out to their car. He then opened the door for them, with Emily insisting on Miranda sitting beside Zeke so they could both "sit up front". They had to drive some distance until they arrived at the venue reserved for the party, but Emily kept the conversation going the whole time. Upon showing their school IDs, they were admitted to the venue, bypassing the booth where some of the older kids were stopping to get the bands indicating that they could be served alcohol, Emily and Miranda both too young and Zeke the designated driver.

  Emily at first stayed with Miranda and introduced her to her many friends. However, eventually she and Miranda were separated. Miranda watched briefly as Caitlyn and her friends were on the dance floor, noticing that no one else attempted to compete with them. She certainly was not interested in attempting to join them. A stray elbow would be sure to find her. So she wandered over to where some of the students were playing pool in the gaming area.

  Zeke just happened to be there and when Miranda came up, he looked up with a smile. He gave her a hopeful look. "Can you play? I need a partner. Joe has abandoned me for another player and I want to teach him a lesson."

  Miranda thought about it for a minute, but believed that she had played before. The rules to play were all in her head, just no memory of doing it. "Yes, I think so. I just don't remember how good I was at playing. I could have been terrible," she grinned.

  "I've seen some of the other stuff you can do, so I'm betting not terrible," Zeke laughed. "Besides I'm pretty good myself, and it's only for fun. Don't worry, these guys are actually both really good so we won't look horrible if we lose to them. They've pretty well wiped the floor with everyone here."

  Zeke said to everyone in the area, "The two of us," pointing to himself and Miranda, "want to challenge the winners for the next game."

  The ongoing game ended rather quickly so Miranda grabbed a cue stick, chalking it up rather nervously. As they set up for the game, as a friendly gesture the other team let them go first. Zeke said, "I'll break."

  Zeke was able to knock in one of the balls with the break, and then put in one more before he missed the next shot. The best player for the other team then stepped up to the table. Of course, that was Joe, Zeke's friend that she knew quite well. He also was able to put in a couple of balls during his turn, and skillfully left Miranda with almost no shot for her turn when he didn't have a good follow-up shot.

  Miranda looked briefly at the locations of all the balls on the table. Then, barely even thinking about it, she banked the cue ball off two different rails, putting her target ball in the pocket. When the guys around all yelled "Wooooo!", giving her an incredulous look, she realized she might have overdone it, so she said, "Lucky!" She then deliberately missed her next shot
, one that wasn't that difficult.

  Just then, Caitlyn came up and sneered, "Hah, I could have made that shot with my eyes closed." She and her friends stood there laughing at Miranda.

  Miranda was furious and watched as each of the other players played their turns, not really caring what they did. When it was her turn again, Caitlyn quipped, "Why don't you sit back down. That would save everyone some time."

  Something snapped in Miranda and she said, "No, I've got this." Grabbing her cue stick, she stepped up to the pool table. She then proceeded to run the table. Each ball was knocked into a pocket within seconds of the last shot and the cue ball was always lined up for the next shot. Without thinking about it, she sometimes shot with the right hand and sometimes with the left. When at last she said, "Eight ball in the side pocket," she slapped it in with a hard shot and the cue ball spun violently and stopped exactly in the center of the table!

  Miranda said, "Thanks for the game." She turned around to leave, leaving all of the guys standing there with their mouths hanging open and Caitlyn staring at her with an unbelieving look. Miranda saw Emily staring like everyone else, and she grabbed her arm, pulling her down to the girls restroom.

  "I shouldn't have done that," she said, and Emily could tell she was a little shaky. She would have stayed in the restroom the rest of the evening, but Emily eventually talked her into returning to the party as soon as she started to feel better. So Miranda spent most of the rest of the time talking to her suddenly significant crowd of admirers, many of them guys who all of a sudden wanted her attention. Caitlyn and her friends, on the other hand, completely ignored her, so that was a big plus. Gradually most of them gave up and moved on when she refused to play another pool game.

  Joe came up about that time and gave Miranda a high five. He said, "Anytime you need a new pool partner, let me know!"

  Miranda had been watching Zeke and she thought he was getting a little jealous. So she tried to smooth it over and told Joe, "Sorry, Zeke is my partner. You'll have to answer to him, since the two of us just kicked your butt!" They all laughed. To her surprise, Joe and Zeke then started to talk computer stuff, so she felt a little better about it.

  The remainder of the evening passed rather quickly, and Miranda was actually glad when it was over. She had to listen to Emily chatter all the way back and smiled as she listened to her. She gave Emily a big hug as they got ready to get out of the car. "Thanks for everything, Em. It was certainly a memorable night for me, especially when I don't have too many of them right now. And the whole week has been great too, and all because of you and your wonderful family. I will always treasure it!"

  CHAPTER TEN

  Plans that Go Awry

  US Cyber crime units have reported that they have been able to shut down a number of illegal VR forums in the dark web this month. So far they have been unable to locate and shut down the most lethal of them all, the VR forum used by the Organization. Officials still believe that they are getting closer to their goal.

  #

  The Weasel had finally gotten a note from Agent X that they would soon be able to dedicate resources to work with him in an attempt to kidnap Doctor Randolph. They wanted him to find a good time and place where they could attempt to accomplish this. He was glad to hear that, because he was tired of trying to figure out a way to get any information from the doctor. Besides, now that he knew that he had a way to get out of there, he could barely stand it, having to pretend that he liked working for the doctor while doing whatever he asked. He should have been in charge of things instead of working on someone else's whims.

  After struggling to come up with a way to get the doctor alone, the Weasel thought he had the perfect plan. He was going to tell the doctor that he had an urgent message from the hospital regarding his daughter. Everyone knew that she was in a coma at the nearby hospital, so the message would say that she had had a setback, and that he needed to come as soon as possible. Then he would offer to drive him there, since he would be worried and upset about her. That would surely work and they would not have to deal with his security forces if he was able to get him distracted and alone. So he posted a message to the VR forum, explaining his plan and telling them that he would be ready in one week.

  Agent X got his message, evaluated that it was at least feasible, and sent it up to his superiors. He also attached a note warning that the Weasel was not very reliable, but that he thought they could work with his plan. The cost of failure would not be that harmful for them since they would easily be able to abort the job if something went wrong. Since they would not be in direct contact with Space Tech security, only the Weasel would be at risk for most of the mission. So the word came back that the mission was a go.

  The Weasel could hardly wait until his day of glory would arrive. He had arranged to have the fake VR message generated by paying an IT guy at Space Tech to send it, telling him that it was a practical joke. Of course he made him promise not to read the message, or he would never get his money. He was to double blind copy him, which was supposedly undetectable. The doctor had come in really early that morning and the Weasel had seen him eating breakfast, so he was sure he was there. He sent the message to his IT guy and waited. At the appointed time he saw the message, verified that everything was looking good, and then posted "Go!" on the VR forum.

  However, being paranoid like he always was, he noticed something suspicious. He spotted a man that he knew worked in Space Tech security go by his office. Another man he didn't recognize came by a few minutes later, and then he got a VR message asking if he had seen Doctor Randolph in the last hour. Somehow they must have caught on to him, but he had his escape plan. He sent, "Abort! Abort!" on the VR forum.

  Slipping around the corner from his office, he pulled the fire alarm on the wall and dashed into the nearby stairwell. He then ran down three floors and pulling out a key, he opened a maintenance door. The room was full of equipment but he ran across the room in the gap between the sections of equipment and into a locker area. There he opened a locker, pulled out a set of coveralls with the local fire department logo and put on a fireman's mask. He also pulled out a bag of cash, the last of his emergency supply. He was easily able to hide his things in the large fireman coat, and the mask hid him from anyone who might recognize him. Turning on a radio on the firemen's frequency, he waited until he knew they were on his floor, so that he could easily slip out of the room to join the group of firemen. Staying with the group, he eventually made his escape by following them out of the building.

  Space Tech security had been monitoring the VR traffic into and out of Doctor Randolph's VR system as part of their latest upgrade to their security. When a message came in with an invalid tag, it had set off a warning in their equipment. When the doctor did not respond to a silent message, they increased the security level to an alert and sent a security team to check out the doctor's office, since they had not been able to locate him. But about that time, someone pulled the fire alarm and everything was total chaos for a little while.

  By the time Space Tech Security had been able to regain control of the area, no one was to be found in the lab. Neither the doctor nor his lab assistant appeared to be anywhere within the Space Tech facilities. The head of security immediately contacted Ted Randolph to alert him to the situation. When they played the fake VR message to him, he instantly knew that it was a fake and that something was seriously wrong.

  Space Tech Security immediately declared an emergency and sent notice to all the security offices throughout the Space Tech infrastructure. Neither Sam Randolph nor the assistant could be found anywhere.

  At first they thought both men were the victims of a kidnapping, but when Space Tech checked into the lab assistant's background, they found some questionable issues. Therefore, they contacted the police, asking them to send out a bulletin to watch for the lab assistant and asking them to monitor all of his credit accounts.

  #

  Instead of staying to work in the lab that day, Doctor
Sam Randolph slipped out to catch the shuttle up to orbit. From there he caught a shuttle out to the secret test facility of Space Tech. Their facility was actually a large spacecraft out in an area of the second Lagrange point (L4) that was currently not being used for mining. Just like the other Lagrange point (L5), that was called R5 by everyone, this one was called R4.

  He and his brother had decided to name the ship The Annette after Doctor Randolph's late wife. He still missed her terribly and if this test worked, he would be one more step closer to finding a way to chase down and wipe out the Organization and those responsible for her death.

  He had used one of his disguises to get there, so that he would not be tracked by the Organization, something he started doing as a matter of habit whenever he traveled. This time he had used his elderly professor disguise, which was the one he really liked wearing for some reason, probably because he also used it to visit the Space Academy. So everyone else on the flight believed that he was one of the technical staff, or some kind of consultant. Strangely, no one had challenged him when he boarded either shuttle. Need to tighten down the security on all our flights!

  When they arrived at their destination, as he exited the shuttle he realized that he had been so deep into his disguise, he had forgotten to send a message to his brother telling him where he was going. He would need to send him a message as soon as they were out from under the communication blackout imposed during the test. They always imposed the blackouts in case the Organization was listening and could triangulate their position.

  Glancing around to make sure no one was watching, he tapped the access control to his private quarters. Removing the wig that was the main part of his disguise, he placed it in his carry case. Glad that normally they used spin on the research vessel to simulate gravity, he went to the small toiletry area and washed off the makeup that he used to modify his natural coloring and add to the appearance of age. The water would be recycled as everything had to be self-sufficient on the research ship. Checking his appearance in the small mirror in his quarters, he decided that he passed inspection, so he headed out to the control room of the research ship.