The Guardian Collection (End of the Sixth Age Book 2)

by Col Bill Best

  Is it really possible that no one can see me?

  Roger double-checked that optical stealth was off and shrugged. He put aside the whys and wherefores and focused on facts as he knew them. Something happened when he collapsed Guardian’s superconductive magnet and generated a directional EMP along the conductive ion trail as the warhead went through it. That probably ignited the warhead, generating a greater EMP followed by unimaginable electromagnetic radiation from gamma down to ultra-low frequency. Guardian was screaming away at over two miles per second, but still not fast enough to outrun the radiation or the fireball’s overpressure.

  But the aircraft survived. I survived. The nerves in my back are healed, and I can use my legs. We weren’t vaporized. The radiation didn’t kill me. The shock wave didn’t pulverize us.

  Roger slowed and turned off the taxiway onto the J-STARS ramp.

  We’re here. We’re on the ground. Gravity’s normal. But somehow, we’re different.

  He carefully rolled off the tarmac onto the grass between the taxiway and two hangars.

  They may not see us, and I sure don’t need a full-size J-STARS slamming into me as I try to figure out what’s going on.

  With all indicators showing normal, Roger transitioned the aircraft configuration to “Park” and shut down the engine. He opened the cockpit, extended the plane’s ladder treads out from the fuselage, breathed in the cool fall air, and did something he never believed would be possible. He slowly, carefully climbed out of the aircraft.

  I really feel good!

  Giddy, he jumped the last couple of feet to the ground. And bounced.

  23. A DIFFERENT REALITY

  Roger thought he was beyond surprises. Until his feet hit the ground. Rather, they seemed to sink into the ground then rebounded, sending him several inches back into the air. Roger’s knees began to tremble. He quickly sat down, afraid he was about to collapse. But sitting on the hard ground was more like relaxing on a thick exercise mat. So, it wasn’t a problem with his feet or legs. Something was different about the ground. Or about him?

  What in the world?!!

  Roger closed his eyes, lay down on the ground, and focused on long, slow, deep breaths. After a few moments, he slowly sat back up, then stood to his feet.

  “Okay.” Roger noted another anomaly. His voice. It sounded flat as if the natural harmonics were missing. And the volume was significantly less than what it should have been.

  “I even sound different?” he asked to no one but the empty tarmac, raising and lowering both volume and pitch. Yes, decidedly different.

  “All right,” he continued out loud and paced around the aircraft. “Let’s evaluate. I’m not dead, and I’m safe on the ground. Either I’m about to die, or not. If not, then I’ll need water, shelter, and food. I have to figure out how to contact the rest of the world. Now, what’s my first priority?”

  A sudden urge reminded him it had been a long time since he’d relieved himself. Not that anyone might see him—apparently no one could, regardless—but out of a habit of modesty he walked behind a hangar.

  Feeling better but unsteady on legs he had not used in years, he bent forward as he finished and pulled up his zipper. He placed a hand out to lean against the hangar wall and fell through. Roger literally went through the hangar wall, stumbled, then caught his balance. He was inside.

  Lights were off, yet he saw clearly in shades of gray.

  Incredible.

  He shook his head and once again took several slow, deep breaths.

  The implications didn’t take long to sink in. He couldn’t grasp anything. How would he drink? Eat? What other capabilities or limitations did he have? He looked around the hangar, empty for the moment of aircraft, but stocked with maintenance equipment, tools, and a case of water bottles in the corner. He walked toward them.

  Two more observations: Matter, in the horizontal direction, seemed less substantial than matter and gravity in the vertical direction. Second was that vision thing again.

  It’s like I’m wearing night vision goggles.

  He saw an unopened water bottle standing apart from the case. As expected, his hand went right through when he tried to grasp it. There was just the slightest resistance, like grasping an aerogel, or thick cotton candy.

  OK, let’s try something here.

  Roger put his hand around the bottle, only allowing his fingers to go in about half an inch. He held his hand steady. Ever so slowly, the water bottle pushed his hand back out. After what seemed like a full minute, he firmly held the bottle.

  So, some kind of transference going on?

  Holding onto the water bottle, hoping to give it time to fully adapt to “his” reality—as he started calling it—Roger walked around the hangar. Sure enough, there was a break room with a refrigerator. He reached for the handle and again, held his hand just slightly inside the handle until the mass pushed his hand back out and he could grasp it. About two minutes, he guessed.

  Roger was not one to steal, but to say his circumstances were unusual was like the classic “Doctor Livingston, I presume?” understatement of an earlier century. He grabbed—or rather, slowly grasped—a cup of yogurt. Between one and one-and-a-half minutes. He also picked up a plastic spoon; about thirty seconds.

  All right, let’s see if I can survive or not.

  Roger twisted open the water bottle and took a sip. Water! Good old fashion H2O. He finished the bottle and threw it in a trash can. It went halfway through the opposite side, then slowly backed into the center and fell in. He opened the blueberry yogurt, his favorite. After he finished it, he tossed the empty cup into the can. It, too, went part way through then plopped back into the center and fell in.

  Roger started to walk out, then stopped and turned around. He reached for the refrigerator handle. His hand went right through it.

  So… the transference is temporary?

  Roger felt better now but noticed congestion building up in his sinuses and lungs. The famous Georgia allergies? That’s how a “local” had described her sneezing and congestion the one springtime week Roger had visited the base many years ago. No, he’d never suffered from allergies. He’d only noticed this because he was in full analytical mode, trying to identify each variance from the expected, like a master forensic scientist. And it was well beyond allergy season.

  He guessed he had been away from the aircraft about twenty minutes and decided to go after his next objective: Trying to communicate with “their world.” He walked over to a wall that should put him close to Guardian and put his hand against it. There was a little resistance, and he panicked. Trapped inside? Was he transferring back to “their world?” The possibility encouraged him, but he knew from too many test failures over his long career, that sometimes you can push things too far, too fast. He resolutely leaned forward and walked through the wall.

  Guardian looked as beautiful as ever. He walked around her, marveling at the clean leading edges. No evidence of charring. The aircraft must have transformed before the full impact of the hypersonic airstream damaged the surface when the implosion shut down the ion drive and shielding. And before the blast overpressure would have pulverized it.

  “Now there’s an interesting fact.” Again, the quiet, flat voice, like standing in a large anechoic chamber. “How in the world were we even able to fly?!”

  He compared transition times for the water bottle, refrigerator door, a cup of yogurt, and a plastic spoon. It occurred to him that he was breathing “their” air. So…it’s a function of density. Air, almost instantaneous, but not so much to fry Guardian’s skin. Liquids, a little longer. Solids, longer still. Presumably, there would be a direct correlation to the time of transition and the material’s position on the Periodic Table. Fortunately, neither he nor Guardian needed plutonium or denser materials!

  Roger looked at the landing gear. No, the tires had not sunk into the ground. Again, it seemed that matter behaved differently in the vertical dimension as defined by gravity. Could thi
s add credence to gravity being trans-dimensional? Hmm. Is that what I am now?

  But something else bothered him. Matter… light… sound… That was it. Sound. The graveyard shift work taking place across the field should have produced the distinct sound of diesel ground support equipment. But all Roger heard was something that sounded like deep moans; not like any internal combustion engine he’d ever heard. As he looked across the field, he noticed something even more astounding. He remembered from his General Aviation training that a military airport control tower beacon had a green beam and a split white beam. An observer would see the beacon flash white, white, a pause, then green. He’d already come to understand that what he observed in “their” reality would be shades of gray in his. But the timing? There should be around thirty flashes per minute. He regretted given up both his phone and watch when they put him into Guardian, though they would have both fried in the intense magnetic field anyway. So, his best guess…it looked like the flashes were at about a fourth of the expected rate.

  Did he see infrared? Did he hear audio at several octaves lower than normal? Could “his reality” include a clock rate two, three, or even four times faster than “their reality?” Even that wouldn’t account for all the anomalies…

  The congestion became more noticeable, along with a slight wheezing. This could be serious. He leaned against Guardian’s fuselage. Solid as a rock. Almost immediately the wheezing stopped. Within a few minutes the congestion cleared. There was something else strange…and it was the aircraft itself. Compared to shades of grey, the warning label near the recessed emergency canopy ejection handle door appeared bright yellow and red.

  Roger gently ran his hand over the smooth surface of the aircraft. “Well, looks like we’re inseparable for the foreseeable future.”

  Suddenly, he stumbled. He quickly half sat, half fell to the ground as his unsteady legs collapsed. In another moment he was flat on his back. His last seconds of consciousness swirled like a kaleidoscope of images and questions:

  Who launched the nuke?

  Airmen lowering him into Guardian.

  Why? Will they launch again?

  Dropping out of the C-17 and slamming into the headwind.

  How will the U.S. respond?

  Pulling out from the dive.

  Why did the third slug miss?

  Pressing the skull and crossbones icon that bypassed Guardian’s safety protocols, collapsed the ion drive, and presumably triggered an EMP and destroying the warhead.

  A name flashed through his mind; Karen Richardson. Then, the question Mordecai asked his niece in the Bible book of Esther, whether she had been placed in her unique position, “…for such a time as this?”

  Karen…me…unique…

  A prayer of Jesus the evening before his crucifixion… then everything faded to black.

  Guardian – Altered Reality

  24. NOT GOOD

  Cindy Jacobs, the current alias of Karen Lane Richardson, was beside herself. She had worked out the biology and the math long ago and knew that the next doubling of her strength and intelligence would be far beyond her expected lifespan of “five score and ten” years. Her occasional dual streams of consciousness—like now—would likely not increase beyond the occasional couple of minutes here and there, even if she forced it. For all practical purposes, her genetic enhancement had finally maxed-out. That wasn’t the problem.

  She had two problems actually, and both streams were equally concerned.

  Cindy had been fully focused on a plea for help from her long-time friend, Samantha Knowles. “Sam” was a regional director of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and presented a compelling case to expect a brutal terrorist attack from an awaking sleeper cell, somewhere in the Southeast. Once again, she needed Cindy’s—Karen’s—help.

  Sam only asked for assistance occasionally, knowing that each time Karen intervened, she put herself at extreme personal risk. Not just risk from the task itself, but risk of being tracked down and caught, or killed, by those who would do anything to make that happen. The threat was real. It had only been in the last few years that they could even communicate without both of them being in danger.

  That request for help was the first problem. Cindy focused on it intently on that Saturday evening, November 21, 2025—as a Nor’easter pounded her current short-term home in Charleston, South Carolina.

  A lot of lightning and thunder—normal. Heavy rainfall—normal. Then, a prolonged loud noise, like an extended sonic boom or thunderclap—not normal! Five seconds—ten—twenty—almost thirty seconds before it started to fade.

  Definitely not normal. So, the second stream of consciousness ran through the possibilities, immediately eliminating a sonic boom or thunderclap because of the long duration. Even if she were in a valley surrounded by mountains, the echoes wouldn’t have continued for that long.

  Like a one-person engineering team conducting an analysis of alternatives, she brainstormed events like a railroad tanker car derailment and explosion; natural gas explosion in a very large building; explosion of a fueling truck, perhaps while it was pumping gasoline into service station tanks; construction demolition; and dozens of other possibilities.

  Just as quickly, she eliminated non-players. A railroad derailment? Too far from tracks. Construction demolition? Not on a Saturday night in heavy thunderstorms. And so on. The exercise continued even as she scanned through news channels on television and the internet.

  She didn’t perceive any direct threat, so she would mentally add that to her “what in the world, now?” file for later clarification. Her full attention returned to the urgent plea from Sam.

  There was no way she could know that the extended explosion was from a nuclear detonation—NUDET—160 miles east-southeast of Charleston, at an altitude of around 90,000 feet. Nor could she have known that her friend from 2006, Roger Brandon, was responsible for detonating it that high and that far out to sea, by creating a directed electromagnetic pulse. That EMP in turn focused the NUDET’s EMP above the earth and out into space. Neither she nor anyone else would have imagined that the combined EMPs and the NUDET transformed Roger and the Top Secret hypersonic manned interceptor, Guardian—into, well, into an altered state of reality.

  What she did know was that something very cruel, very evil was about to take place. If she could, she had to stop it. Cindy asked a few questions and Sam quickly responded in their ultra-secure chat session:

  Sam: It could be any number of major cities. I personally suspect Charleston. Intel of some radical cell groups close by. There’s a strong Christian heritage, and an old Jewish congregation, one of the largest in the continental United States. Also, one of the oldest Orthodox synagogues in the South. A target-rich location for jihadist attack. Wherever, we suspect the attack will be before Chanukah, which begins at sunset Monday, December 15th this year.

  Cindy: Why me?

  Sam: Not just you. But we’re spread thin. Intel indicates a new low. They plan to rape, torture, and kill; then blow themselves up as soon as we can engage. It’s lose-lose for us. People die horribly if we do nothing, and everyone dies if we try to do anything. Maybe you’d have a chance? We’ll cover other cities and I’ll leave Charleston for you. I’ll have to put my neck and career on the line to exclude Charleston, but if the attack’s there I believe you’ll have a better chance than our forces would anywhere else. Anyway, I’m close to retirement. If I’m right and you succeed, I’ll go out with my head high. If I’m wrong, we’ll have more resources ready to respond at the other locations.

  Cindy reflected a beat. Smart, strong, fast, and a woman—some Islamic terrorists believed they would automatically be damned if killed by a woman—maybe she could do something. She typed again.

  Cindy: Any other intel? Likely targets? Combined attacks or just here? Anything?

  Sam: Will send everything I’ve got, and anything more as soon as I get it. Karen, I’m really concerned about this one. We’re overwhelmed—stretched too t
hin. Pray it isn’t multiple attacks.

  + + +

  “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” Those words of Jesus, from his prayer before his death, burial, and resurrection, were Roger’s last thoughts before plummeting into a deep sleep. His last feeling was the dull ache of legs that had been paralyzed for years, suddenly functioning again. The ache, and a continued mild tingling sensation throughout his body.

  He had air-launched Guardian out of a C-17 cargo aircraft, dove toward earth to get the supersonic shockwave into the intake to light the scramjet and ion drive, and was able to intercept the incoming nuclear warhead. His three slugs had all missed, so he and Justin had to implode the ion drives’ super magnet to generate an EMP. They knew that it would destroy the warhead but feared that it might also detonate it. At least it would be high enough and far enough from land to prevent casualties. Except for him. But the warhead’s EMP could affect millions along the eastern seaboard.

  Apparently, something worked.

  Roger and Guardian survived but were somehow different. Roger regained use of his legs, paralyzed since the mid-air collision and crash-landing years earlier that killed his family. Now, he and Guardian were apparently invisible to the “normal” world. He could walk through walls, and he could not communicate with anyone, by any means.

  Transdimensional? He wondered as he suddenly collapsed, then thought of the words of Jesus just before he lost consciousness laying on the “soft” ground beside Guardian. It was impossible for Roger to know whether the deep sleep lasted for minutes or hours. But at some point, he dreamed.

  The tingling; it’s getting worse. But, I’m dreaming. Too intense for a dream. Aftereffects of electroshock?

  He fidgeted, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. Hi-def dreams, unlike anything he’d ever experienced, projected like an Imax movie. He caught glimpses of his career’s countless System Requirements Reviews, Preliminary Design Reviews, Critical Design Reviews, and In-Process Reviews. He dreamt of endless Design Specifications, Performance Specifications, and Interface Control Specifications. There were the Critical Path Analyses, Pert and Gantt Charts, Risk Assessments, and Root Cause Analyses. The late nights, early mornings, and far too many all-nighters where the two became one. And excruciating “death by PowerPoint” meetings in the hundreds.