Lifter: Proton Field #2 Page 13

  The entire mess made Massoud wish he hadn’t sent Omar off on a support mission. At the time it’d seemed like a good idea to get rid of the excessively devout man. But now he wished he had Omar here to tell them whether Nina was interpreting the Quran correctly since Omar claimed to have read the Quran front to back several times. On the other hand, he worried that the sanctimonious little man would confirm she was correct, thus destroying even the possibility that his fighters might relieve themselves with the women.

  Massoud looked up and saw one of the captive men helping his wife over a fallen tree. Once again, Massoud wondered whether they were only pretending to be married, but he couldn’t think of a way to find out.

  Now both of the captive men were helping Nina over that same trunk, almost lifting her bodily. Despite the fact that she seemed to be some kind of a cripple, and troublesome to boot, her beauty had inspired Massoud to proclaim that he was going to marry her a few days into their trek. He’d heard that even the prophet Mohammed had married some of the women he’d captured in battle, not for love, but so that he could have sex with them. Massoud had been going to explain all the benefits Nina would receive from being his wife, but then if she denied him anyway, marry her against her will. However, Nina had immediately begun spouting long, loud sermons about how Islamic law required the consent of the wife prior to marriage. Although Massoud felt fairly certain that this wasn’t true of captive women and slaves—whom he’d been told could be forced into marriage—once again he couldn’t prove her wrong without a Quran and weeks to search through it for the appropriate passages.

  The damned woman reminded him of his domineering aunt. Beautiful or not, he wished they’d taken almost any other woman from the mission group.

  Chapter 4

  Charlotte, North Carolina—Duke Energy, the world’s largest electric utility, today announced the successful adaptation of their last coal power plant to use one of Miller Tech’s new fusion technology steam generators. The utility was anxious to remind the public that, although the plant uses “nuclear” fusion, such technology is not as dangerous as the old nuclear fission plants. They say that though it’s not completely radiation free, it only produces gamma rays which are readily blocked by shielding. Unlike traditional fission based nuclear plants, it does not use radioactive fuels, nor does it generate neutrons which are what makes the facilities themselves radioactive at old-style nuclear plants.

  Stephanie Harrington, CEO of Duke Energy, says, “We have entered a new era in power generation as fusion energy substitutes for coal in Duke Energy’s last coal-powered plant. At the same time that we’ve stepped away from the pollution problems caused by coal energy; we’ve also avoided the traditional hazards of nuclear energy. This new plant not only does not use radioactive fuel, but it also doesn’t generate radioactive byproducts. When it’s ready to be closed at the end of its useful service life there won’t need to be any cleanup. In fact, even when it’s simply turned off for routine maintenance, the workers will be able to perform such maintenance without wearing protective garments.

  Because this new fusion technology is so much safer, some people are already looking forward to the day when you will be able to have a fusactor in your own home. If you choose to have your own small fusion plant, it could completely free you from dependence on the power company. Even if a power utility installed and maintained your personal fusactor, it would at least eliminate the need for unsightly power lines with their tendency to fail during weather events and other natural disasters. Others believe that fusion plants will remain too dangerous for household use because they do generate gamma rays. Even though such radiation can be blocked, they fear homeowners might try to self-maintain such a plant and might—through unsafe practices—endanger their health.

  At the least, many believe, power generation will soon be done in small units in your neighborhood rather than in the current industrial-size power plants that so wastefully transmit power many miles over ugly high-tension power lines.

  ******

  Mark found himself sitting next to Nina. After several nights of forced marches in a row, they’d been in the same camp for three days now. He still felt tired, just not as bad as on the days after they’d had to march. He reached down and rubbed at one of the sores on his feet. Although their captors let them wear their shoes for the marches, they were back in flip-flops again. Mark thought the flip-flops were actually good because a couple of rains during their marches had left his shoes damp and that made him worry about getting some kind of jungle rot. The flip-flops were letting his feet dry out and he’d been moving his shoes to keep them drying in some of the little spots of sunshine that penetrated the forest canopy.

  Nina looked even more exhausted than Mark felt. He suspected part of that was because faking a limp burned more energy than ordinary walking. Of course, all the captives were tired from the long treks and minimal food. Since the food they got was almost entirely rice, Mark suspected they might also be developing nutritional deficiencies in addition to a simple lack of calories. Nina smiled at him, which was typical for her. No matter how bad things got for Nina herself, she tried to cheer up the rest of the captives. On the same days that Massoud had beaten her with his bamboo paddle, she’d still tried to cheer up the others. Leaning closer, he whispered, “I just wanted to tell you that I think you’re doing an amazing job as our leader. No matter how this turns out…”

  She stopped him with a shake of her head, “Banish those negative thoughts! Keep thinking about how we’re going to get out of this and it’s all going to be fine. Besides, I’m not our leader, I’m just the one who read up on how to deal with these kinds of people. When we escape, someone else will need to step up as our leader because they’ll know more about traveling in the jungle.”

  Mark felt a flash of horror to realize he’d only been thinking of ransom, rescue, or death. I should have been thinking about how to escape! Even though he’d been keeping track of their location, he’d only been doing it in hopes of getting a message out to possible rescuers. He resolved to start focusing on escape but nonetheless returned to his desire to lend Nina any emotional support he could. “You’re right. But still, it’s amazing what you’ve done for us. Knowing that the Quran protects wives. Knowing that Massoud can’t marry you women against your will. Knowing that…”

  Nina snorted. Leaning even closer, she whispered, “Don’t tell Massoud, but the Quran doesn’t actually forbid a Muslim from forcing sex on captive women, whether they’re married or not. You might find it hard to believe, but the Quran condones slavery and doesn’t think forcing yourself on a female captive or slave actually constitutes rape. It’s just that I suspected Massoud had never really read the Quran. So, I thought I’d be able to put one over on him.”

  Mark leaned back so he could look into her eyes with awe and amazement, “Holy shit!” he whispered, “You’re bluffing these idiots?!”

  She shrugged, “It’s worked so far, but I live in fear that someone who’s actually read that book will show up one of these days. If so, there’ll probably be hell to pay.”

  With awed respect for Nina’s machinations, Mark set himself to thinking about how they might escape. Since they had no access to the Abus’ red flashlights, which had turned out to be very cheap little LED flashlights with some red saran wrap over the ends, the captives couldn’t hope to escape on a completely dark night where they’d be falling every few steps. They also couldn’t hope to escape on a night that was well lit by a moon that was close to full because they’d be easy to see even in the distance. Somehow, he’d need to have some idea which way they should go or they could just wind up lost in the jungle. He wondered if there was any chance he could get a look at the map Massoud referred to as they traveled…

  ******

  After they finished putting their kids to bed, Jeff sat down next to Ellen on the couch. He put his arm around her shoulders and said, “What was the upshot of the video conference tonight?” She’d com
e out of the den from her conference about Mark’s group just in time to put the kids to sleep. Despite her efforts to be upbeat for the children, she’d looked wrung out.

  Ellen sighed, “Ardis says the negotiator’s not making any progress. Ardis is pretty upset about how thin his sister looks in Abu Sayyaf’s videos. The negotiator says these kinds of negotiations are usually long drawn out affairs unless you just roll over and give them everything they want.”

  Jeff said, “But you guys can’t afford the ransom they’re demanding, right?” When Ellen didn’t respond immediately, he turned to look at her and saw that her usual calm demeanor had broken. Her face had frozen in a rictus and tears were pouring down her cheeks.

  Her eyes slowly rose to focus on his. She said, “If… If we moved into an apartment and sold the house. If we emptied our savings and sold the rest of our few investments. If I traded out my stock options at Miller Tech. If we cleaned out our retirement accounts and took the biggest loan we could get —which wouldn’t be much, because remember, at that point we wouldn’t have any collateral left… If my parents came through with some money…” She hiccupped, “Which they might not, since I was so ugly to Dad he won’t even talk to me.” Her eyes dropped back to the floor, “If we did all that, we might be able to raise $1 million for Mark. I know I wouldn’t be able to look any of the people in the other families in the eye if we ransomed Mark and left their family members over there to die. I don’t know if I could look myself in the eye if I ransomed him without the others. But I’m also pretty sure I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t and Mark died.” She drew a gasping breath, “Hell, I’m having a hard time forgiving myself for not ransoming him already, knowing what those bastards are probably putting him through every day.”

  Jeff pulled her closer and squeezed, “We’ve been poor before. If we need to become beggars to save your brother, I’m okay with it. I’m sure my parents would help. You just say the word.”

  Ellen hugged him back, “But the kids!” she said desolately, “I’d do it in a heartbeat if it weren’t for the kids.”

  “Lots of kids have grown up poorer than they would. Remember, it won’t be an ongoing expense. Once we’ve paid it, we’ll still be earning our salaries and,” he snorted, “considering the small size of the loan we might be able to get, we’ll probably be able to pay it off pretty quickly. Then we just have to build up some equity again.”

  They sat there in silence for several minutes while Jeff wondered what was going on in her mind. Finally, she said, “Ardis…”

  When she didn’t say anything else, Jeff said, “Ardis Quan?”

  “Yeah, you remember that he was in the Special Forces?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So, he’s a warrior, of course. And he thinks the solution’s to go over there and kill the bastards.”

  Taken aback, Jeff didn’t know quite what to say. After several seconds of silence he said, “Um, I thought the problem was that no one could find them? If they knew where they were, the Filipinos would send in their task force to take out Abu Sayyaf and get them back, right?”

  Ellen blew out a big breath, “Yeah… Ardis thinks some of the high-tech imaging equipment he used in the Special Forces would let him find them, but it’s not clear to me that he could get access to the equipment. Also, it typically relies on aerial overflight and doesn’t work very well in a dense tree canopy.” Ellen shook her head as if in frustration, “And if we were to try overflying the area in helicopters, guerrilla forces like Abu Sayyaf can hear them coming and hide under the densest parts of the canopy. Besides, renting helicopters costs a fortune.”

  “What about drones? They’d be less expensive than helicopters and make less noise too.”

  Ellen said, “The small, quiet electric-drones we’re all used to seeing don’t have much range or time aloft. Of course, the military has long-range drones that can loiter for extended periods, but Ardis says there’s no way he can get access to one of those.”

  “How’s he think he’s going to find our people then?”

  “Not clear… I think Ardis is just a man of action who’s lashing out with a half-formed plan because he wants to be doing something to rescue his sister.”

  Musingly, Jeff said, “I’ll bet the Philippines wouldn’t be too excited about him showing up over there with some kind of paramilitary force either.”

  “Yeah,” Ellen said somewhat despairingly. “They probably wouldn’t even let him in the country. They certainly wouldn’t share intelligence with an unauthorized paramilitary group. A lot of people on the video conference were poking holes in Ardis’s idea. He said he’d work on it and present a more refined plan the next time we held a meeting.”

  Jeff said, “You want me to look at our finances and see how much I think we could come up with? Talk to my parents?”

  “That’d be great,” Ellen said with a sigh.

  ******

  Vinn had his AI send a message to Myr and Ellen, “Hey, Randy’s finished building the flyer prototype. You guys ready to go out to the green and try it?”

  Myr’s voice came back, “Ten minutes?”

  “Sure, as long as you don’t mind taking the second or third flight?”

  “I’m coming! I’m coming.”

  Ellen didn’t respond, but with what’d happened to her brother, Vinn felt surprised she was at work at all, much less participating fully.

  As they went down the stairs, Randy said, “Hey, did you see in the news that one of the power companies has fired up a fusion plant?”

  “Yeah, Dr. Miller’s really relieved that there’s finally going to be an income stream to help him keep up with your exorbitant salary and expensive hardware tastes.”

  Randy snorted, “Oh, please. As a line item on the budget around here, I’m so low the accountants have to rent a backhoe to get down to it.”

  Vinn felt pleased. He’d been getting along far better with the folks here at Miller Tech than he ever had at his previous summer jobs and internships. With some of the coaching Dr. Miller had provided him, he’d managed to stop rubbing people’s faces in his intellectual superiority. Well, mathematical superiority, he thought to himself. He’d had it pointed out to him that there were a lot of different kinds of smart. For instance, Randy had a real genius for building things. Vinn had a pretty good grasp of mechanics and could put things together, but he certainly wasn’t in Randy’s class. If people were as awed by an ability to design and put together exotic equipment as they are by a knack for esoteric math, he’d be the one crowing. To Randy he said, “If this,” he hefted the backpack, “flyer’s as cool as I’ve come to expect from every device you build, pretty quick they might be able to reach your line item with no more than a shovel.”

  One of the first things Vinn had learned in the process of improving his people skills was to recognize that bragging about himself and putting other people down didn’t really make him feel better. Besides, as he’d come to realize other people could have their own versions of “smart,” he’d forced himself to look for those gifts. Doing that kept him from feeling so superior and then he wasn’t as likely to abrasively dismiss them.

  If only, he thought, I could manage to talk to Myr without being an ass. Vinn had gotten pretty good at joking with the guys like he’d been doing with Randy. They seemed to like it, and he knew he enjoyed that kind of repartee, but his “interactions coach” had told him to be careful because women typically didn’t appreciate being ribbed the way men did. Nonetheless, he found himself dealing with Myr that way. Partly, that was because she started it a lot of the time. He’d sworn to himself on several occasions he was going to stop responding in kind—but so far he hadn’t managed to control himself.

  They walked out onto the green, both glad there weren’t many people to see it if the new flyer failed.

  Vinn had shrugged into the backpack and started tightening the straps across his chest when he caught a flicker of motion out of the corner of his eye. He’d just sta
rted to turn when Myr tackled him, driving him to the ground. She wound up sitting astraddle of him. “You were about to take my first flight!” she said, eyes open wide as if she were completely aghast.

  “Of course I was; you were late!” Vinn said indignantly as he tried to ignore the firm pressure of her thighs against his ribs. A glance upward showed Randy staring at them with wide eyes.

  “I was not late,” Myr said, a huge grin belying her angry tone, “Ellen and I were only about fifty feet behind you!”

  Vinn’s eyes darted over to see Ellen standing there. He felt terrible that he’d been acting so childishly with what Ellen had going on. He worried about how she’d react, but she said in a singsong voice, “Children, children. If you don’t stop fighting over the toys I’m going to have to put them away.”

  Both Myr and Vinn exploded in laughter. Myr quickly stood up, reached down and offered Vinn a hand up. She turned to Ellen. Looking down at her toes she said in an abashed tone, “Yes Mom. But please tell Vinn he has to let me go first.”

  Ellen snorted and turned to Vinn, “It was her idea; you really should let her go first.”

  Vinn produced a theatrical sigh and started unbuckling the straps.

  Myr looked at the vest, then turned to Randy, “I thought you were putting small field projectors on the front and back for maneuvering?” She laid the pack on a nearby bench and unzipped the back to look at the layout.