The Cupel Recruits

by Willshire, Susan

  Removing the chair from against the door and replacing it at the small matching desk in the alcove area of his suite, which was identical to the suite of every other recruit, Mr. Aquila left his room and ventured out into the hallway. Assuming they had cameras in the common areas, he wanted to check things out without appearing to be looking for an escape route. He could hear mild stirrings in the quadrant of running showers, muffled voices and the whirr of a coffee machine down the hall with the occasional splunk of dropping water. A few others were starting to rise and prepare for their day. George emerged from his room across the hall from Mr. Aquila’s.

  “Good morning,” George said, barely awake, moving on autopilot toward the cafeteria for some coffee. While each room had a refrigerator for drinks and snacks, they did not have their own microwaves or coffee pots. The recruits had to eat in the common area for their main meals. George turned the corner into the cafeteria, disappearing from Alexander’s sight and the hallway was once again empty. To Alexander’s left stood about four or five steel doors before the door leading to the training room. To his right was a long hallway. These doors were not all being used as living quarters. In fact, they seemed to be spaced to one vacant suite between each occupied suite.

  Fortunately, Gabriel’s room lay at the very end of the hallway, just prior to the opposing door. Gabriel moved down the hallway, looking at the floor boards and ceiling structure subtly as he walked. There were no additional vents in the hallway and the general construction seemed to mirror what he had found in his room. At the end of the hallway, he stood by Gabriel’s door and cocked his head, for the benefit of any rolling cameras he was clearly listening to see if his son was awake yet. The interior was silent.

  The door at the end of the hallway swung open and a man carrying a tray of baked goods entered. Alexander didn’t jump even an inch, though he was startled.

  “Good morning,” said Stone to Mr. Aquila with a small nod. The door swung shut and Alexander heard a lock reengage when it did. His other question had been answered.

  “Good morning,” Alexander replied politely as Stone quickly moved past him toward the cafeteria. Not knowing who this new person was or if he was sent to check on them, Mr. Aquila knocked loudly on Gabriel’s door. “Gabriel, time to get up,” Alexander said in a moderately loud voice. He had not intended to wake his son up this early, though it was not very early. He had wanted to allow him to sleep as long as possible, but…plans change. Gabriel’s sleepy face appeared at the door and pushed it wide for his father to enter.

  “Gabriel, get ready and I’ll get Enam and be back in ten minutes.” Gabriel nodded wordlessly and returned to the depths of his room. Mr. Aquila gathered Enam from his room and returned in ten minutes as promised. The door shut behind them.

  “We were just told by that new fellow that we have about twenty more minutes to eat breakfast. Most of our class is in the cafeteria already, so we had better speak quickly,” Enam informed Gabriel as he sat in the chair at the desk while Alexander and Gabriel sat on the sleek bed, facing him.

  “I checked this place out. Looks pretty tight structurally. I think we could get out one of the end doors pretty easily if we wanted, but no telling what’s on the other side. We’ve only seen two people, and there are ten of us.” Mr. Aquila summarized.

  “So we’re looking for a way out? “ Gabriel asked, “Does that mean we don’t believe what they’re saying about dying?”

  “It just means we’re assessing all our options,” Mr. Aquila replied, patting Gabriel on the shoulder like when he was thirteen.

  “Well, do you actually think we’d die if we left? Sounds pretty implausible.” Gabriel looked between his father and Enam expectantly.

  “Well, we have no evidence that this story of some medical miracle is true,” Mr. Aquila began, but was cut off by his dark friend.

  “I’m not sure, Alexander, we should at least consider it a possibility,” Enam stated. Considering the alternative was death, Gabriel thought considering it a possibility was at least a given.

  “Well, of course, we need to gather information. I’m just saying I haven’t seen one single thing to make me think that’s true. I mean, we don’t have memories, we don’t really know what happened with the bus. Hell, maybe it turned into a plane and flew us away for all we know. We may not have been harmed at all,” Gabriel said.

  “Maybe not,” said Enam, raising the side of his shirt to reveal obliques in good shape for a man of his age, “but I used to have a long scar here from the war and it’s gone. The skin seems so smooth, like maybe they used a high-yield human growth hormone for burn victims or something. I’m just saying something must’ve happened to us, even if we don’t know yet exactly what it was.” Gabriel and Alexander Aquila looked at each other seriously, carefully digesting this new piece of information.

  “Well, they’re obviously part of a pretty upscale think-tank. I’ve never seen anything like that sensory acclimation test, and Enam and I have both worked on some pretty high-level projects,” Alexander added.

  “We’d better get with the others. We’ll talk more later. On breaks, let’s split up and each talk to three of the others in detail and see how much information we can gather,” Enam concluded.

  The three men joined their newfound colleagues and ate quickly, enjoying the brief meal for its stark contrast to the uncomfortable eating of the day before. Without a look or any coy smile, Juliet handed Gabriel an orange juice. A drop of condensation fell from the carton onto the table. Though nothing like her, the mere action somehow reminded Gabriel of Gretchen and he wondered how she was doing. ‘She must be worried sick that I’m missing’, he thought to himself. He hoped she would keep the wedding plans going so they could get married on schedule. He hated the thought of pushing it back because of this, whatever this was exactly. ‘So you steal a bus full primarily of scientists, plus a few random folks who were mixed in’ he thought. His first thought was that it must be a weapons project. Why else all the cloak and dagger? He’d never worked on a weapons project in his life, and he absolutely refused to start now. ‘The first sign that we’re being used for a harmful purpose, I am NOT participating,’ he promised himself. Gabriel would sit in his room alone for the next four weeks before doing anything that might do harm.

  David Running Wolf sat alone eating breakfast of eggs, bacon and bagel at the adjacent table and was thinking the same thing. An MIT graduate, he’d turned down many lucrative jobs in bioweapons design to continue working on genetic mapping and testing. His work allowed pregnant mothers to be aware of markers for certain illnesses and conditions early enough to take preventive action, like beginning vitamin therapies or medication to ensure a healthy child.

  The man Mr. Aquila had seen in the hallway earlier appeared at the door to the cafeteria accompanied by another, taller man that had the look of a soldier. Stone spoke, since they had seen him bringing in trays of food and were no doubt more comfortable with him.

  “It’s time for class, everyone,” he said and started to clear the tables. The recruits cleared their tables quickly and began clearing the room and heading down the hallway to the training room. The last to exit, Juliet, dropped her tray. Wood rushed to help her pick it up.

  “Are you shaky at all?” he asked, still on the watch for medical side effects of the day before.

  “No, just a damn klutz,” Juliet responded. She left the room and jogged a bit to catch up with the tail end of her class. Wood watched her go.

  “She’s not even a Circle One yet, my friend, as in off limits,” Stone said to Wood. Wood’s voice responded about a half octave above his normal decibel,

  “I know.” When Stone and Wood entered the training room, all recruits were already sitting and Saraceni stood at the front of the room. Saraceni addressed them as they entered.

  “Gentlemen, thank you for your assistance. Team, I’d like to introduce you to two men who will be assisting us throughout your training experience, Wood and Stone.”
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  “Who’s who?” Juliet asked Saraceni, glancing back at the two men. ‘The one is clearly the brawn of the outfit, but why the muscle? Do they think we’re going to make a run for it?’ she thought to herself.

  “On the left is Wood and on the right is Stone,” Saraceni answered.

  Juliet summed the two up to herself. ‘So, the slightly shorter one is Wood . He seems smart and alert. The other one is harder to read, but they’re clearly friends as well as coworkers,’ she thought.

  “Now that the introductions have been made,” Saraceni slightly raised his voice to regain the attention to the front of the room, “we will commence our lesson for today. We have a lot of material to move through in the next few weeks, so I will be moving at a quick pace, summarizing some pretty large areas of study and have a specific order of approach. This may not fit with your questions. I’ll make every effort to answer them, but we will have occasions where we have to parking lot them to revisit later or where we just have to move on. I’m saying this to acknowledge that there is a much deeper layer to this subject matter and you will likely want to learn it at that level of detail in the future, but for now, think of this as an overview class.”

  “An overview of what-what’s the subject matter?” Gabriel asked, eyeing Saraceni intently for signs of lying.

  “Let’s call it ‘Nature of the Universe 101’, for now. Today’s a pretty basic day, foundational information, so let’s begin,” came Saraceni’s reply. Gabriel’s gaze remained on Saraceni like a laser, but could find no signs that Saraceni was hiding a weapons program or something equally dubious. The class looked at each other measuring reactions to this.

  “So, you mean like how the universe was created and all that?” asked Kyle Chambers, the sixteen-year-old.

  “Among other things,” Saraceni confirmed.

  “Most of us are scientists. We know this already. Or at least have pretty definite opinions of our own, I imagine,” David Running Wolf observed.

  “Oh do you?” answered Saraceni, “I don’t deal in opinions in here. I deal in fact, but we are not starting with how it all began, we are instead going to start with what it is, the basic nature of the universe. Much of what we discuss here is not as much for you to learn, but to relearn-to take what you already know and put it in the proper context.”

  “So what is the universe?” asked Saraceni. The room was silent for about ten seconds before a voice ventured to enter the discussion.

  “A collection of planets and other astronomical occurrences, like black holes,” answered Kyle.

  “In part. So, what are those things called at a simple level?”

  “Matter,” offered Jane Gray Windsor

  “Right, mostly, but is it correct to say the universe is matter? What else is it?” Saraceni continued.

  “Space,” added George.

  “In part, what else is it?” Saraceni looked at the class wondering who would get the closest answer. None of them would get the whole answer, of course, but conceptual thinking showed promise and he tracked his recruit’s participation carefully.

  “An interaction of matter, space and time…” Gabriel began and then paused

  “Good, they interact-for what purpose?” Saraceni walked toward Gabriel at the back table with enthusiasm, as if to encourage his thinking with proximity, offering some of his own energy.

  “To further life?” Gabriel answered.

  “Okay, let’s assume it’s to further life. Why? Why further life? What difference does it make?” Saraceni asked.

  “Well, if we don’t further life, we don’t exist. Our species doesn’t continue, or any other species, for that matter,” Kyle responded again from the front of the room. Saraceni backed up to be more inclusive.

  “For that matter,” Saraceni laughed, “excellent double entendre, Kyle, but what does it matter if life continues. Who cares?”

  “We do,” Enam replied, “People...and animals, too, I guess. We care if we live.”

  “Okay, so we care now that the universe is here,” Saraceni prompted, “but if we have matter, space and time interacting to promote life, what would have been the initial goal of their interaction?” he asked.

  “You mean when created? I thought you said we weren’t going to talk about how the universe was created today?” Juliet challenged.

  “That’s right, Juliet, we’ll talk about how it was created another day, but we are discussing why it was created, which is key to understanding the nature of it-how it works, its purpose.” Saraceni paused and could see Juliet’s wheels turning. “So, I repeat, what’s the goal of that interaction?”

  “You mean God’s plan?” it was the first dialogue in two days from Chandra Wells, a woman in her early thirties who sat at the front right table next to Kyle. Chandra had minored in religious studies, so her response was not surprising to Saraceni, but he wanted to avoid religious doctrine at this point. With her finally speaking that left only one recruit in the room, Jack Reedson, the actor, who had not spoken yet.

  “Chandra, we need to table any discussion of God for the moment, but assuming that you, and anyone else who wants to operate on that premise internally, wants to do so, then try to answer the next layer down—if there were a God, putting aside which God and whose God, but assuming it’s irrelevant which God we’re talking about, however you think of it, what might His purpose be?”

  “To create life,” David repeated.

  “So the universe is an interaction of matter, space and time for the purpose of creating life?” Saraceni hoped restating the amalgamated concept might demonstrate its inadequacy. “But why? Is anything missing from that definition?’

  Alexander had an epiphany and couldn’t believe he hadn’t said it earlier. He’d spent an entire conference in Copenhagen discussing just this concept.

  “Information!” Alexander revealed.

  “Excellent,” Saraceni rewarded, “can you summarize in a way that can be understood by the non-scientists in the room?” Alexander thought for a moment. It was his nature to think in terms of formulas and the math of it. To translate it into layman’s terms wasn’t as easy as keeping it in mathematical terms. He stumbled at the start.

  “Well, information processing is occurring all the time. Every particle-electrons, photons, they are all processing information all the time. The basic unit of information being the bit, or binary digit, which gives a choice between two alternatives, um, so, then in quantum physics the particles information-processing is counted in qubits, meaning a particle can be in a yes state and a no state at the same time,” Aquila was still struggling to find the right words, but improving.

  Saraceni interrupted, “Simpler.”

  “Well, it’s like every particle in existence at every moment has two choices. It can act in a way to say “yes” or to say “no” to any potential action, or question, or….command. But, quantum physics says that a particle can answer “yes” and “no” at the same time, so it expands the possibilities exponentially as to how it can process information.”

  “You mean like it answers itself “yes” and goes in one direction and then at the same time answers itself “no” and then it’s answering any question with all possible answers at one time?” asked Chandra

  “Basically,” Alexander answered

  “Why? What’s the advantage to that?” she asked.

  “Efficiency,” Juliet responded, “If you were trying to answer a bunch of questions, it’s faster to answer all the potentials at once. Like if someone asks you which way you wanted to take to the airport and your answer was “it depends”. If you said” If we’re leaving Saturday morning, I’d like to take the interstate and then they asked, well, what if we leave Wednesday morning and then you’d say you wanted to take the back way. You would have answered the question more thoroughly and conveyed more information concisely if, when they first answered the question, you had responded ‘If we leave on a weekday, the back way, but if we leave on the weekend, the interstate w
ould be fastest’.”

  “So the universe cares about how efficiently we answer questions? You’re saying God cares how much information we gather?” Chandra asked Juliet, still not sure she was following. Saraceni now took back control of the class, having let them develop the idea naturally to this point.

  “Yes, whoever designed the universe cared about how we gather information. Since the universe itself is in fact a quantum computer where each particle carries and transmits information, information-processing does seem to be one purpose.”

  “Wait, now the universe is a computer?” Jane asked,” You’re saying we live inside an actual computer, like the one in my office? What are you talking about?” Being an anthropologist, Jane did have a scientific mind, but not as strong a physics background as some others in the class.

  “Not like the one in your office. The universe is organic, but if you examine those organic components, they comprise every necessary element for a computer, which is really just a machine for processing information. So, the universe is as you know it, organic, with chemicals, lightning, particles, many types of waves (radio waves, ultraviolet rays, etc.) but the properties of all those things provide the foundation for what is actually an amazingly powerful computer. Think about any computer: It needs instructions or a system on how to process, or code, like DNA or the Krebs cycle or any other multiple coding instructions we see in nature. It needs a mechanism to transmit information, multiple ways of getting it around, like - electrical conductivity, the principles of harmonics and frequency, and finally somewhere to store the data when it’s finished processing, like all the billions of particles in our universe, each of which stores, carries and transmits information. Think back to your own life, haven’t you ever heard a neurologist say the brain is really just a computer, with neurotransmitters, connections, storage capacity, and more processing capability than you even use. That is a microcosm of what I’m talking about on a much larger scale. All the properties of the universe function like a computer like a brain does, but much more broadly.” Saraceni glanced around the room to be sure his recruits appeared to be following before continuing.