Rescue (an Ell Donsaii story #11) Page 11

  When silence reigned, he glanced at Redman who spoke, indicating Dupree and calling him by his codename, “This is Crossbow. He’ll lead this meeting.”

  Fallon launched the rich baritone with which he had mesmerized so many others in the past, “The time has come… the time for patriots to speak. Speak, not with words, but with actions. For if a picture can be worth a thousand words… an action can be worth a thousand pictures.

  “Last August…” he drew out the pause to look around at the men before him, “last August those craven maggots at the FBI arrested three of our members and killed one…” he paused, “our brother Cola.” Looking out into their eyes he could see that many knew from the news that Cola had been Dupree’s son. He could also tell that they respected him more for denoting Cola as their brother rather than as his son.

  Dupree spoke then, hypnotically painting a picture of a government run amok, destroying their God given personal liberties while condoning the immoral practices of the slothful, immoral, and indecent. As Dupree’s harangue wore on, dusk fell and the temperature dropped further. Redman started a fire in the center of the clearing.

  With the fire burning well, Dupree worked it into the symbolism of his speech. First it burned the soul of our great country. Then it became the hell where our enemies would spend eternity. He encouraged the men of the SCDF to throw pieces of wood onto the fire as surrogates for their enemies in the government. Sparks flew up as branches landed violently in the flames. As they added wood, the fire built and built until they had a real bonfire, pushing back the cold night air, leaping in the mind’s eye, and symbolizing both the ongoing destruction of their country and the devastation they would soon visit on the government that had betrayed them.

  All the while, Dupree’s exhortations built and built, his personal charisma, word pictures and hypnotic tones inciting the men further and further until he had them marching around the bonfire. Though they would think of it as a march, it had much in common with tribal war dances performed in other places and other times.

  Finally, having built their hate to a degree that would have astonished an outside observer, Dupree began to ask them how the SCDF should respond to the travesties visited on them and their country. For a while he let them build their violent fantasies, one on the other, each man shouting a more vicious proposal than the last…

  Then he began to guide them.

  He focused their hate, gradually, but surely onto Stockton, the she demon Dupree could still hear gloating over his son’s death on her putrid little radio show.

  “Yes!” he exclaimed, as he pretended that the men had led him to recognize her as evil incarnate. “I see your vision! By taking down that Satan’s whore, we can send a message! A message that this country will no longer stand idly by while she and her so called government of misfit cowards tries to strangle our liberty!”

  By the time the bonfire began to burn down, Dupree Fallon had them practically falling over themselves to sign up for probable suicide missions. These men, men who considered themselves patriots, began begging to scout and plan and fund and participate in the assassination of their own country’s president.

  ***

  Research triangle park, North Carolina—Quantum Biomed, a subsidiary of D5R, announced today the development of new, “port enabled,” contacts. These contacts not only allow for the correction of vision errors, but also allow your AI to insert your HUD display directly into your vision without needing a headset. In combination with tiny “audio ports” placed in your ear canal, these contacts will allow you to have full access to the AV resources of your AI without any visible devices mounted on your head.

  In addition, the Quantum Biomed representative pointed out, these contacts can correct your vision to supra normal. This is because the intake port on the front of the contact gathers more light from a larger area than your pupil normally allows to enter the eye. This light is then sent to an optical processor where various enhancements can be made. These include zoom magnification, the conversion of UV or infrared light to visible wavelengths, improvements in the contrast and brightness, sharpening of the image, boosting of dim light, and even the highlighting of items in your visual field which your AI may feel pose a threat.

  Quantum Biomed will also sell small “hearing enhancers” which fit entirely inside the ear canal. These, like the contacts, will have ports at the opening of the ear canal which take in sound, send it to your AI for processing, and return it to another port deep in the ear canal. The processing can help people with impaired hearing by boosting sound frequencies they don’t hear well. For people with normal hearing, the processing can enhance hearing by increasing the volume of quiet sounds and protect hearing by diminishing the volume of loud sounds. Finally, of course, your AI would be able to insert its own audio stream for you as needed.

  Allosci had shut down somewhat over the Christmas break. The resulting drop in production had made them late with a few of their deliveries and Gary had been spending time smoothing ruffled feathers. Instead of working on the science part of things like he loved, he’d found himself dealing with the business end. He realized that he only thought of the business end of Allosci’s endeavors as a necessary evil that funded the fun part of things.

  Now that things were somewhat back on track, he was going around to see what the researchers in the various areas had been accomplishing. As he stepped into the first big lab he found Viveka and Matt, heads together as they peered into the new VLGC. Gary felt frustrated on several levels. First, he had planned out his route through the labs so that he would finish in Viveka’s usual lab. Second, he’d been hoping to apologize and get back into Viveka’s good graces before she fell for the handsome young optical scientist.

  He had the feeling that somehow he’d been “cut off at the pass” by Matt, who’d moved in ahead of him. Feeling frustrated, he quickly turned and left, heading for the next lab and hoping that Viveka and Matt had not noticed his brief entrance and retreat.

  After talking to the chemists in the next room for a while, he felt frustrated on a different level because they hadn't been making much progress. Joe, the vapor state chemist, despite his subtle bragging about his own skills, only seemed to be able to manage problems that he’d encountered before. Admittedly, he had a lot of experience, but Allosci was working with entirely new problems, and when the problem called for innovation Joe seemed lost. Worse, the two young guys working the problem before he had arrived seemed to be intimidated by his “expertise.” If Joe told them an idea wouldn’t work, they accepted his opinion as the gospel.

  One of the worst things about being boss, Gary was finding, was the necessity of demoting, or sometimes firing, people who weren’t performing at the level he had hoped for. He wondered if perhaps he could move Joe out of the research area and into the production area. There Joe’s experience might serve him well in managing processes where the innovative parts had already been worked out. Perhaps he could even convince Joe that it wasn’t a demotion?

  While he’d been pondering the problem Gary had slowly walked into the middle of the lab Viveka normally worked in and stopped there, thinking. When he came back to the present and looked up he found Viveka staring at him with a questioning look on her face. “Sorry,” he said, embarrassed, “woolgathering.”

  Viveka looked puzzled, “Woolgathering?”

  “Uh, ‘woolgathering’s an Americanism. Means ‘thinking,’ usually not very productively in my case.”

  “Oh, can I help?”

  “Sorry.” He smiled, “Not with this particular problem. I’ll just have to suffer with it by myself. I was actually coming down here to see how things were going for you?”

  Viveka smiled, “They’re going good! Matt’s really been able to help with the focusing of light energy from the solar parabolics. With the greater precision we’re getting out of his setup, we’re able to generate graphend with a lot fewer flaws.”

  Gary felt a stab of irritation. He’d just b
een worrying about Matt and Viveka getting together. Her obvious admiration for Matt felt like a slap in the face, even though Gary told himself she admired Matt for what he’d done, not who he was. “That’s great,” Gary said weakly, looking everywhere but at Viveka.

  “You seem upset?”

  “No, no, I, uh, am still worried about the problem I was woolgathering about before. It’s really great that you’re getting the VLGC going. Do you think you’re going to be able to produce graphend of the same quality we do with the smaller chambers?”

  “Oh yeah, I’m pretty sure. We’re already very close.”

  “That’s great!” Gary said, turning and leaving the room, without actually being sure what he had thought was “great.”

  Viveka stared after him, wondering what was wrong and whether he was mad at her.

  When Gary got back to his office he realized he had completely failed to deliver the apology he had set out to give to Viveka. Damn it, he thought to himself, I’m such an idiot.

  For a while he pondered going back specifically to apologize. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it, it would be too embarrassing. He’d have to do that on another day.

  ***

  Ell asked Allan to connect her with Carter and AJ. A couple of minutes later they came on line. “Hey guys, I haven’t heard from you for a while. What’s happening with your little farm on Mars?”

  There was a brief pause, after which AJ said, “Uh…”

  After a moment with nothing more forthcoming, Ell said, “Let me guess. Something’s gone wrong and you’re embarrassed?”

  “Yeah,” Carter sighed. “Our plants aren’t doing too well.”

  Ell laughed, “Failure is a common companion when you’re doing something that no one has ever done before. Who’ve you got helping you with your ‘farming’?”

  “Uh, no one. It seemed pretty straightforward. We’ve brought in light, filtered to a fairly close approximation of sea level light here on earth. Atmosphere’s going through a port, so it’s the same as here. We brought in rich topsoil from here in North Carolina, spreading it a couple inches deep. It has to be pretty thin because the chambers aren’t very big. We installed sprinklers and have been providing water at rates typical for excellent growing seasons here on earth.” There was a pause, then he continued, “But, the plants are sick and many of them are dying. We’re not sure why.”

  “Have either of you done much gardening or farming?”

  “No Ma’am.”

  A laugh exploded from Ell. She obviously had been struggling to control it, but just couldn’t seem to hold it all inside. When she’d gotten it down to an occasional giggle, she said, “I’m thinking farming sounded pretty simple to you compared to physics and engineering?” She snorted, then continued without waiting for them to answer, “But, there’s a lot of science and a fair amount of art in growing things and doing it well. NASA has been working on growing plants in space for some time now. You might see if you can consult with someone who’s been involved in that kind of work. Or at least see if anyone at NC State’s Ag school would be interested in the problem of growing things on Mars. I’ll bet it will turn out that you’ve ignored something obvious.”

  “Yes ma’am,” they said, sounding abashed.

  “Stop saying ma’am to me!” she laughed. “I hear that your big subterrene melting tunneler is nearly finished and ready to start on its way to Mars?”

  “Yes M… uh, yes, we’re attaching the rocket nozzles now.”

  “Are you going to send it, or wait to see how your farming efforts go?”

  “Uh, we were going to send it. We’ve already spent more building it, by a substantial margin, than it will take to send it there. Even if we never figure out how to grow things on Mars it seems like it might be nice to have an underground base there where people could live.”

  “I agree. Go for it.” She snickered again, “Good luck with the farming.”

  ***

  Charlotte, North Carolina—Stell Simsworth, the young girl from Asheville who has been storming up the music charts with a series of hit songs, astonished the audience of her first concert this year by appearing on stage and telling her fans that she can now see. No one doubted the truth of her assertion as she moved around the stage easily and without guidance, waving to fans that waved to her. In interviews afterward she claimed that her newfound sight became possible through technical innovations made by Quantum Biomed, the medical subsidiary of D5R.

  Apparently, a pair of Quantum Biomed’s new contacts that have generated excitement because of their ability to provide heads up display without a headset are part of Simsworth’s new sight. The contacts feed an image to a port inside of Simsworth’s damaged eyes. The port then projects the image directly on her retina.

  Stell’s blindness turns out to be of an unusual form, and this solution apparently will not work for most blind people. However, Quantum Biomed is also working on feeding an image directly to the optic nerve, similar to the way they interface their artificial limbs with amputees’ nerves. They believe that this solution will help many other blind people recover their sight!

  ***

  Viveka’s AI chimed at her, reminding her that it was time for her lunch with Matt. They had recently come to a kind of informal understanding that they would meet each other in the lunchroom every day at noon. Viveka wasn’t really sure how it had happened, and had actually been thinking that they just happened to eat at the same time each day. But the previous Thursday she hadn’t arrived in lunchroom until 12:15 and Matt had acted as if she had broken a date.

  She liked Matt well enough, though he didn’t really compare to Dr. Pace. Unfortunately, Dr. Pace had been acting oddly ever since their one abortive date. The more she thought about how much she liked him, the worse she felt about how she had acted when he had leaned towards her.

  She wasn’t even sure that he had actually been trying to kiss her. And if he had, would that have been all that bad? After all, she’d been having little daydreams in which he tried to romance her. And she was the one, after all, who’d been telling her mother what a nice man he was. She’d been saying that he didn’t just want sex like her mother claimed. So what if he’d wanted a kiss, that wasn’t sex was it?

  Oh well, she thought to herself, there really isn’t any chance he’d romance me any more after the way I acted. Little enough chance before I behaved as if I thought he was trying to rape me. For a moment she wondered whether she might be able to apologize for the way she behaved and get back in his good graces.

  Forget it, she thought, I’d just as well accept the fact that I’ve destroyed my chances with Dr. Pace, and if I’m to have any romance here in America it will be with Matt. She stood and picked up her small lunch bag. When she turned she was startled to find Dr. Pace standing behind her.

  He looked upset.

  Panic struck through her! Could he be about to fire her and send her back to India? Her mother had said that men whose sexual demands had been frustrated could be very vindictive. “Yes Dr. Pace?” she asked, nervously.

  “Um,” he said, obviously uncomfortable, “I’d like to talk to you, if you’ve got a minute?”

  “Sure, just let me send Matt a message telling him I won’t be there for our lunch.”

  Dr. Pace’s face tightened almost to a grimace, but he smiled in a strained fashion and, waving a hand dismissively, said, “Oh, no, no. You guys have your lunch and I’ll catch up with you some other time.” He turned abruptly and walked away, leaving Viveka wondering whether he was as upset as he looked. If so, what was he upset about? It didn’t seem likely that he had come to fire her. If he had, it didn’t seem like her lunch with Matt would have kept him from it.

  ***

  Agent Max Venter grinned to himself. This assignment to tail members of the Kinrais family, originally irritating and extremely boring, had taken a decided turn for the better. He’d managed to hear the Kinrais girl talking to one of her friends about a vacation to Vail,
with dates and everything. To his surprise, when he’d asked the agent in charge if he should follow her on their ski trip, he’d been told yes.

  Apparently, at least someone thought that there was a reasonable chance that Donsaii and her husband Shan Kinrais would attempt to meet the Kinrais family on this vacation. From what he’d heard, the family took a ski vacation almost every February or March.

  So now Max was on his way to Vail on the FBI’s dime, to do some skiing and watch for anyone who might meet Donsaii’s description hanging around the Kinrais family.

  Life’s a bitch, he grinned to himself.

  ***

  Viveka fidgeted around her living room. Matt had invited her to go out to dinner and she supposed that it was some kind of a date. She felt uncertain about this, after all she felt naïve about romance in her home country, she certainly didn’t understand how it went here in America.

  Ever since Matt had invited her on this maybe date, Viveka had found her thoughts cycling through a series of questions she had no answers for.

  She really wished that Dr. Pace would ask her out again, though she found that extremely unlikely after the way she had behaved on their first date. However, she continued to wonder whether there was some way she could apologize or somehow make him realize that her refusal of his kiss—if he had even been attempting to kiss her—had been a horrible mistake on her part. She even daydreamed about walking up and kissing him, though she knew she would never get up the courage.

  Matt seemed nice enough, but Viveka didn’t feel much of a romantic interest in him. She suspected that that was only because he seemed to come off so poorly in comparison to Dr. Pace. Matt was smart, but Dr. Pace was brilliant. However, setting her sights on Dr. Pace seemed unreasonable. If either of the two men might consider her as a marriage prospect, Matt seemed much more likely.