by Ben Winston
“Sir, I don’t mean to argue with you but while Eric’s smarter than I am, he hasn’t gotten his doctorate yet,” Christy pointed out.
Dr. Ellis smiled at her and handed over the two book-looking items he’d removed from his briefcase.
Now that she could see them, Christy knew immediately what they were. She opened the first one, and saw her name on the signed and certified Doctorate.
“I spoke to the rest of the board, most of whom are members of our little group, and they agreed with my assessment of you and Dr. Cowan. In your case, awarding the doctorate was a no-brainer, but in your fiancé's case it was more difficult.
“Until recently, he has been totally below everyone’s radar. However, once he renewed contact with you, we had to take a look at him, simply because we’d already decided to approach you. What we discovered took us completely by surprise.
“Shortly after making contact with you, all of your communications became impossible to trace or monitor, and trust me, we have some very impressive tracking methods. That evening, while you were here asleep, your project data was removed from the Lab computers.
“Shortly after that, all trace of your project was also wiped from one of the most secure computer networks on the planet. That computer is designed to detect intruders and trace them back to their source. As near as we can tell, it didn’t even know it had been invaded. There was nothing, not even a record of the deletion, in the system. Since those idiots are confident that no one hacked their hack-proof system, there is currently a mole hunt going on while they try to replace the missing data.
“We know that while your computer skills are good, they are not equal to those tasks. So, we concluded you had to have help from someone you trusted without hesitation, and also someone that had scary-smart computer skills.
“After analyzing the events that happened, coupled with the low probability he had time for preparation, the board agreed that Dr. Eric Cowan could probably teach all of us a few things, and granted him a Doctorate of Mathematics and Computer Science. Dr. Rogers, both of those Doctorates are one hundred percent real, and legal; that is, once Dr. Cowan gets his High School Diploma.” Dr. Ellis grinned again at the irony of the situation. “They are yours regardless of what you decide with regards to joining us.”
“Pardon me, Doctors,” Carl asked, and proceeded when both Victor and Christy nodded. He pointedly looked at Christy’ laptop. “Dr. Cowan, do you have any questions for either me or Dr. Ellis?”
I activated my camera, and Sarah made sure it was displayed on the laptop. “Uh, the whole Doctor thing is going to be a little hard to get used to. Carl is it?” When Carl nodded I continued. “First, I’d like to know how you knew I was watching and listening.”
Carl chuckled. “When Christy sat her phone down, she ‘accidentally’ set it so its camera covered the part of the room the laptop didn’t. I’m an ex-spy; I notice things like that. However, she did it like it was the most natural thing in the world. She’s really good.”
That made sense, and it matched the information Sarah’d dredged up on him. I nodded acceptance of the answer. “Dr. Ellis, I’m Eric Cowan. I’m pleased to meet you, Sir.”
“And I you, Dr. Cowan. Might I assume then that you’ve heard the offer I made to your beautiful lady?” Dr. Ellis asked.
“I did, Sir. I hope you don’t mind, but I’d like to talk it over with her and the rest of our family. There are a total of five of us in our group,” I explained.
“I appreciate your candid answer, Dr. Cowan, and will call ahead to let them know there are five of you instead of two.
“Since Dr. Rogers can leave school whenever she wishes, there is a private jet we keep at Logan in case one of us is needed elsewhere. We can have her home in a couple of hours, and I can make the pitch to your whole family,” he offered, smiling. “I’ll need to be back here Wednesday morning, but that shouldn’t be a problem. If you need more time, you can just call me once you decide, and we can proceed, or not, from there.”
“I’m not packed yet; I was going to do that tomorrow to take my mind off of going before the board,” Christy admitted.
“Are we really that scary? We need to change our image!” Dr. Ellis replied chuckling. “Seriously though, why don’t you grab some clothes and anything else that you want to take, and we’ll have the rest moved for you?”
Christy sucked on her lower lip in thought. I thought she looked too cute when she did that. “What do you think, Baby? Should we trust them?” she asked.
“I think you should be okay for the flight at least, Sweetheart.” I looked at the screen with all the info that Sarah had been digging up. “I’ve already got the transponder ID for the plane, so I can track it. I’ll be watching every move that gets made, Baby,” I said to her. “Come home to us.”
“How do you even know which plane is ours?” Carl asked amazed.
I grinned back at the man. “The same way I know that Carl is not your real name. I look forward to meeting both of you, but I most especially can’t wait to see Christy again.”
“We’ll bring her with us to your house, Dr. Cowan,” Dr. Ellis said. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ll be on our way.”
Christy was already up and stuffing clothes into a bag as fast as she could. Before I disconnected, I heard Dr. Ellis tell her, “Won’t you need some underwear as well, My Dear?” The comment served to help me relax about trusting Dr. Ellis and ‘Carl’.
––––––––
Making sure that Sarah was tracking Christy’s movements, I left my room to tell the rest of the family what was going on, but found only Jamie in the kitchen humming a tune as she made herself a sandwich.
“Hey Beautiful, where is everyone?” I asked as I walked up and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“Julie went out to do some research for the business, and Ellie wanted to go with her. I decided to stay here.”
I nodded. “Any idea when they’ll be back? We need to have a very important family meeting.”
“They should be back in a little bit. They planned on being back before you even knew they’d left. If the meeting is that important, shouldn’t it wait for Christy to be here too?” Jamie asked.
I just smiled and winked at her. “What kind of sandwich is that?”
“Peanut butter and banana. I usually like to have sliced cucumber on it too, but we don’t have any right now.”
I shuddered imagining the taste she just described. “You know, I can see peanut covered bananas, with a layer of marshmallow, dipped in chocolate. Now that sounds good. Keep the cucumbers for the pickle factory.”
“Damn! That does sound good! I think I’ve gained five pounds just thinking about it!” Jamie replied. “I wonder if we could make money selling that. But what would we call it?”
I chuckled. “We could always call it a ‘Schlong’. Dipped in chocolate would be a ‘Gold Coast Schlong’! Dipped in butterscotch would be a Scottish Schlong!”
Jamie was laughing hard by now as well. “We could roll it in coconut and call it a Jamaican Schlong!”
“And we’d make them in a ‘Schlong Factory’!” I tried to say through my laughter. By now, Jamie and I were holding each other and laughing hysterically.
“Hey you two, what’s so funny?” Ellie asked from the garage door. Julie was standing behind her grinning as she watched Jamie and me.
We slowly stopped laughing, but Jamie tried to explain the whole ‘Schlong Factory’ concept.
Once everyone stopped laughing and settled down, I told them all about the coming meeting. As I expected, both Julie and Jamie were concerned about being exposed, and Ellie was concerned that Christy wasn’t home yet to be in on the meeting. All of them were concerned over the fact that this was one of the secret government agencies I’d wanted to avoid.
“Relax ladies; there are a few things you don’t know about. First, Christy will be here for the meeting; she’s riding back here wi
th the men we’re going to meet. Second, they already know we’re a blended family and don’t have a problem with it. So, if we decide to join these folks, we’ll all be able to go, together.
“By the way, I’ve been awarded a Doctorate of Mathematics and Computer Science by MIT. Christy also got her science PhD. I’ve already listened to the explanation as well as the offer they made to us. Christy and I would both like for you three to hear it, too, so we can make this decision as a family,” I said. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure we’re still safe, at least for now. I feel I should also mention that joining Dr. Ellis’ group will keep us safe from the agencies I was originally concerned about.”
All the girls hugged me in congratulations for the doctorate; Mom looked like she was going to explode with pride. However, we soon got back to the original subject of our discussion.
Jamie looked thoughtful. “I don’t mean to sound overly melodramatic, but how can they do that? Hiding from those assholes is supposed to be impossible once they decide they want you.”
“The answer to that is in the explanation of who these folks are. While they were talking to Christy in her room, I had Sarah digging up as much as she could on the two men, and everything does fit with the information they volunteered. Their explanation also fits with other things that are not as verifiable, but I believe are true simply because of the amount of misinformation about them.
“The explanation is very fantastic, and you won’t immediately believe a word of it. I only ask that you all keep an open mind, listen to their offer, ask what questions you can think of, and we can take as much time to discuss this as we need,” I said.
My phone beeped at me, and I pulled it out. “What’s up, Sarah? Are they still on course?”
“Yes Eric. The reason I beeped you was that I’ve made a few discoveries.”
“Go ahead, Sarah, we can all hear you,” I replied.
“The group Dr. Ellis and ‘Carl’ represent are the group known only as ‘Majestic 12’ to UFO buffs. In actuality, the true name was ‘Project Majestic’ and its origins mostly match what Dr. Ellis told us about. He omitted only the amount of ‘incidents’ that actually happened and their locations.
“Currently the main facility here on Earth is known as Alliance Base ‘Mediterranean Majestic’ or simply as ‘Med Majestic’. The base is little more than a military base that serves as an embarkation point. Research and residence facilities are located in the Apollo Crater on the far side of the Moon in what is known as the South Polar Region.
“From what I can tell, it’s a rather large facility, built by the Alliance for our use. It’s fully self-contained and protected from both enemy as well as natural projectiles,” Sarah explained but was interrupted by Ellie.
“Excuse me Sarah, but are you talking about the lunar south pole? As in, the Moon?” Ellie asked, half fearfully, half awed.
“Yes Ellie, I am.”
“Eric Honey, who are these people?” Julie asked, also stunned.
“That’s what they’re coming here to tell us, Lover. Remember, please try to keep an open mind. Sarah, where did you get this data?” I asked.
“Considering the prime subject, I looked at several UFO web sites to see what I could find. I found a ‘hidden’ portal on both the MUFON site as well as the SETI site. These portals both led to a ‘hidden’ network that was very hard for me to get into.
“It was almost as if the firewall programs were written in a totally different programming language. I had to decompile the firewall then decode the language on one of my isolated ‘scruff’ drives before giving myself access to their system.
“I’m completely at a loss as to the method of connection for the multiple computer systems. There is no communication lag like you would have with a Wi-Fi or hundred-base-T or even a direct parallel connection. I can communicate with the servers on the moon base almost faster than I can with the separate computers of my own cluster,” Sarah explained. “The only lag was from the internet connection.”
I thought about that a moment, while the girls looked at me. They didn’t have a clue what Sarah just told me.
I took pity on them. “Every computer on every network on Earth experiences a time lag of some kind when talking to the others. It might only be micro-seconds, but there is still a delay. Sarah just told me that the system she got the information from doesn’t have any delay.
“What that means is that there really isn’t a network, and she’s tapped into a system that has been so cleverly constructed as to imitate an entire network that she can’t tell the difference, or that this network is using a type of connection that doesn’t exist on Earth yet.”
“Okay, this whole thing sounds impossible,” Ellie said looking at her two ‘moms’. “However, I think we need to keep something in mind. If this is a hoax, it’s a very elaborate one. Why would someone go to all the trouble and expense to build all this as a ruse? If it was our wonderful, trust-worthy, government, they'd just make Eric and Christy simply disappear, or outright kill them after confiscating as much of their work as possible. The three of us wouldn’t be involved at all. I haven’t even heard the offer, and I’m almost completely convinced it’s real.”
“But if it is real, they would have to have the support of the government wouldn’t they? Jamie said.
“Why would they?” Julie replied thoughtfully. “Ellie’s right; why go to all the trouble if this wasn't real?”
“Let’s withhold speculation until the meeting. Keep in mind, that if we don’t decide to do this, then our original plans are still very feasible. Now, two hours will put them here just before dinner. Do we want to cook, or order in again?” Julie asked.
“One more, small thing. Principal Eichens and Superintendent Bock asked me to come to the school board meeting this Friday night, so I can answer any questions the board might have about the program I gave them,” I said. “Since it’s an open meeting, everyone can go if they want, but I suppose at least Julie should go with me.”
“I didn’t know you gave them a program. Is that how you got them to release you?” Julie said teasing me.
I chuckled back at her. “No, they agreed to let me out early before I gave it to them. I didn’t want them to think I was trying to bribe them. So to answer your earlier question, I’d kinda like fried chicken tonight.”
Jamie snorted. “I’m sure you would, Handsome, but that’s a lot of work while we should be paying attention in this meeting.”
“Nope, once Sarah tells us they’re about forty-five minutes out, then you and Julie set the table while Sweet Pea and I go visit the Colonel,” I suggested. “I’m all for a home cooked meal, but I don’t think that’s gonna be realistic tonight.”
“Well, I’m sure I could pull it off, especially with Jamie or Ellie to help, but I’m not going to argue against less work for me!” Julie said.
––––––––
An hour and a half later, I made a quick trip downtown. When I got back from the local Kentucky Fried Chicken (Ellie decided to stay at home at the last minute in case Chris got there before I did), I pulled in just ahead of a rental car that had my missing lady in it.
I beat Ellie to Chris, but only just. I scooped the smiling woman up in my arms and pressed my lips to hers to let her know how much I really missed her. She kissed me back just as passionately. I broke the kiss when I felt someone smack my arm.
“Hey Romeo, some of the rest of us would like to welcome her home too, you know!” Ellie said beside us.
I winked at a crying Chris then released her, and turned to shake hands with her traveling companions. “Thank you for bringing her home to us, Dr. Ellis, Carl.”
“It was our pleasure, Dr. Cowan,” Carl replied, grinning at young Ellie.
Dr. Ellis was actually chuckling at the girls’ antics. “She’s a wonderfully modest young woman that I will dearly miss in my classes.”
Julie and Jamie had followed Ellie out, albeit a
t a slightly slower pace. I took the time to introduce them to our guests, and saw Carl grab Chris’s two bags.
“We took the liberty of getting fried chicken for everyone. I’m not that good of a cook and the ladies were too excited to want to cook. I hope that was alright?” I asked.
Dr. Ellis licked his lips and smiled. “That actually sounds wonderful! Mrs. Teasdale, bless her heart, is a fabulous Chef, and she takes super-wonderful care of me, but she insists I have a gourmet dinner every night. I don’t think she considers this wonderful ambrosia to be food. I try to eat as much of it as I can while I’m on the road.”
“Excellent; I thought, since there is so much to discuss, we could talk over dinner. That way we won’t be up all night!” I said.
“I think you might want to rethink that, Mister!” Chris said.
“Okay, maybe I should have said we won’t be up all night debating this discussion!” I said, grinning.
“Either way, the food’s getting cold, and we certainly don’t want to have this discussion out here on the lawn. Go get the food. Eric, and let’s get this party started,” Julie said, leading Carl and Dr. Ellis inside. Ellie still had a hold on Chris, but Jamie got a welcome home kiss in too.
Once inside and I’d gotten Chris’ stuff up to my room, we all sat down to dinner. I’d brought a laptop out and hooked it up to our big LCD television before leaving to get the food. I’d briefed Sarah to keep her presence a secret for now, and act like I was giving the computer voice commands via a Bluetooth headset I’d wear. She agreed, but I could have sworn she sounded like she was going to chuckle at any minute.
Once we sat down at the table, I touched the cell phone headset I was wearing and carefully spoke the words, “Play majestic offer one dot a-v-i.”
I’d placed the laptop on the side of the table that they couldn’t see, while everyone could see the TV screen, and it had everyone’s attention as it began with Carl speaking to Chris while retrieving the leads from his taser. Everyone still ate, but no one spoke until after the part where Dr. Ellis reminded Chris to pack some underwear too.