Tiona (a sequel to "Vaz") (31 page)

He’d blinked at her a few times, then said, “The people who broke into our house weren’t regular criminals, they were FBI, CIA, military, or some other one of those groups. They were working with the men who asked you questions in the afternoon. If we call the police, the people who are looking for the saucer will get the police report as soon as it’s filed.”

Lisanne had still been pondering the possibility that a secretive government agency was looking for them when Vaz said, “I need to program a way to reach Tiona in the saucer. Can you get us some breakfast in the morning?” He’d turned to the small AI in their motel room and been working on it ever since.

Lisanne had almost asked him why he would have to program something to let them reach the saucer, before she remembered that the agencies looking for them almost certainly had ways to intercept normal communications.

It was getting light outside and Lisanne was hungry. She peered out the window and saw a Hardee’s sign across the street. She stepped back and looked over Vaz’s shoulder, trying to determine if he was at a point in whatever he was doing that she could interrupt him to ask what he would like for breakfast. Computer code skimmed by on the screen at a rate that Lisanne found hard to read much less follow. Despite her education as a programmer and years working in the field she found it very difficult to keep up. Of course, when she’d first met Vaz, he’d been the most astonishing programmer she’d ever encountered. But then he’d gone on to get a graduate degree in physics and to the best of her knowledge, had only done programming when he needed it to help with his physics research.

She watched him work in awe, thinking that either he’d still been doing a lot more programming than she had imagined, or he’d forgotten so little that he was already back up to speed after just the hour or so he’d been working at it since they’d arrived in the motel. He stopped the screen, changed to a different one, then spoke rapidly to the AI, causing blocks of code to pop up here and there in the kind of coding matrix he had always liked to use.

Lisanne leaned down to look up into his eyes, but he didn’t notice her. She’d seen him in this kind of fugue state on many occasions in the past and knew that he wouldn’t hear her speaking to him unless she blocked his view of the screen. For a moment she considered doing it, then realized she’d be doing it for herself. In his present state he wouldn’t care
what
she got him to eat, but she wanted to interrupt his concentration so she could talk to him about the many things that were worrying her.
Which is stupid, she thought, talking to Vaz won’t make me feel any better.

Worse probably.

Lisanne put on all the clothes she had, then one of Vaz’s oversized shirts over that. She opened the door and stepped out, glancing back at Vaz as she went. He hadn’t noticed she was leaving.

***

As dawn began to lighten the sky, the saucer slowly lifted out of the waves. Dripping, it skimmed in over the beach, some trees, and a small road that served the coast. It dropped into an opening in the tree canopy and squeezed between some trunks to mostly hide itself from above under the low foliage of the short trees.

In an effort to look like tourists, Tiona, Nolan, and Eisner rolled up their jeans. Eisner had a T-shirt on under his regular shirt so he wore it alone. Nolan and Tiona rolled the sleeves from their shirts up as high as they would go. “I still don’t think we look very touristy,” Tiona said.

Nolan laughed, “Better than if we walked around in this heat in long sleeves and long pants!”

They walked into the small beachside town. Though it looked like it was trying to attract tourists, it didn’t look like it had been terribly successful so far. They found a small beach restaurant where they ate breakfast. They only had a few hundred dollars in cash with them so they chose low end items from the menu. It had been years since Tiona had worried much about the cost of anything, so she found that an odd sensation. When their waitress brought them their breakfasts, Eisner tried to use his pidgin Spanish to ask her about an internet café.

She smiled, “There is place, 300 meters up nex’ street,” she said in broken English. “Name ‘AI Net.’”

As they walked to AI Net, they discussed a plan for their searches. Nolan said, “I don’t think you should try to email or otherwise contact anyone you know. I’ll bet that the NSA has a watch on all your usual contacts by now. Don’t use your real name either.”

When they got to AI Net, it did prove to have some limited capability AIs to help them with their searches. Professor Eisner attempted to contact NASA directly as the most senior sounding member of their group. Getting past the public relations face of NASA however, proved to be very difficult. They were dubious of his claim when he told them he was a professor at an American university since he didn’t want to say which university and was calling from Nicaragua. The woman he spoke to said she’d pass on his message about a way to retrieve the astronauts from Kadoma, but he had the impression she was struggling not to laugh.

Nolan reviewed news stories about the mission to Kadoma and the astronauts that were involved in the hopes of finding someone to contact from the stories. He settled on a Sophie Bautista who he saw standing next to White and Abbott in several of the publicity photos. He asked the AI to place a call to her.

Sophie was on her way to work when her AI said, “You have a call from Norman Maddo. He says he has a way to salvage the Kadoma mission."

Sophie had had a friend in college named Norm Catto. Thinking that something had caused a mispronunciation of his name, she said, “I’ll take it… Norm?”

“Hello Ms. Bautista,” an unfamiliar voice said. “Thank you for taking my call. I’m with a group that has a functioning vehicle capable of reaching Kadoma and retrieving astronauts Abbot and White.”

For just a second Sophie’s heart skipped a beat at the thought of rescuing Zack and Ralph. Then reality caught up with her dreams. Irritated, she interrupted to say, “Are you trying to tell me that you have…”

Norm interrupted right back, sounding a little desperate. “Please! Don’t call it by any of the usual names. Someone capable of monitoring all electronic traffic for those kinds of keywords is probably listening.”

Oh my God!
Sophie thought,
Not just a crackpot who thinks he’s invented a spaceship, but a conspiracy theorist to boot!
She said, “I’m sorry but…” The guy tried to interrupt her again. She had her AI disconnect him.

I
hate
people like that!
she thought to herself.

Tiona’s assignment had been to take on the news. First she had checked the news services for any reports, either about the launches of the saucer into space, or about the firing of air to air missiles over North Carolina. Their thought had been that if they found a story about it they might be able to contact whoever had written it up with a “scoop” as a means of getting publicity.

No such luck. Tiona couldn’t help but wonder if someone had tried to put up a story about missile launches on a news service, but that the NSA had managed to suppress it.

Next, she tried to reach some reporters directly, offering them a story that she assured them they would find fascinating. Unfortunately, they all wanted some answers to the standard, “who, what, when, where,” questions before they would agree to meet her somewhere. Since, for fear of it being picked up by the NSA, Tiona didn’t want to give her name, the fact that they had a spacecraft that looked like a flying saucer, or that they had flown into space with it twice, she gained little traction with the reporters she spoke to.

Frustrated, Tiona sighed and leaned back in her chair. Glancing to either side she saw Eisner bleakly staring off into space and Nolan with his head down on the desk. Nolan didn’t look like he was resting, he looked depressed. “Doesn’t look like you guys are having any luck either, huh?”

They both shook their heads.

Tiona frowned, “I can’t get a reporter to listen to me if I won’t tell them my name or what the story is about. I’m worried we’re going to have to go ahead and use some of the words we’re afraid the NSA is screening for.”

“Yeah,” Nolan said disgustedly. I was able to get through to Bautista, one of the astronauts who seems to be friends with Abbott and White. But I’m sure I sounded like a total wacko, verbally dancing around what we’ve done and claiming I can’t talk about it because the,” he lifted his hands and made little finger quotes in the air, “government is listening.”

Eisner said, “Bautista? Sophie Bautista?!”

“Yes, why?”

Wide-eyed, Eisner said, “She’s my wife’s niece! The one I said I didn’t think could help us when we were talking about trying to reach NASA!”

Nolan narrowed his eyes at Eisner, “Do you know her well enough that she’d remember you? Or is she one of those
distant
relatives who’s going to think of you as a stranger?”

“Yes. I’ve met her at quite a few family gatherings. I know for the past several years she’s been in astronaut training and hoping to go up. Of course, I had no idea she knew the astronauts on Kadoma!”

Tiona said, “Well, try to give her a call. You’re our best shot.”

Before Eisner could dial, Nolan said, “Wait, let’s try and think our way through this conversation first. You’re absolutely right that it’s our best shot, we surely don’t want to blow it!”

The three of them spoke quietly for a while in an effort to plan Eisner’s talking points. Finally Eisner had the AI he was working with put through a call to Sophie. “Sophie? This is your uncle Bob Eisner. You know, your Aunt Mary’s husband.”

“Hi Uncle Bob. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Hey, I’m going to be in Galveston tomorrow night. I’m really hoping you’re not so busy that you couldn’t drive down for a brief visit.”

“Really?” Sophie said evidencing her surprise that an aunt’s husband—uncle though he might be—wanted to visit.

“Yes, I’d really appreciate it.”

“Well… let me look at my calendar…”

They could all hear the reluctance in her voice and feel the high likelihood that she was about to beg off. Eisner said in the most serious tone he could produce, “I truly am very, very sorry to ask you to do this Sophie, but it’s extremely important.”

Sophie said nothing for a moment, as they all held their breath. Then, “Sure, I can make it.” She said, though not very enthusiastically. Where do you want to meet?”

“La Cerveza Roja,” Eisner said, naming a small bar near the port. “Can you get there by seven PM?”

“Yeah, I should be able to make that. If I can’t I’ll just…”

Eisner interrupted, “You won’t be able to call me. My AI fell in the pool and it isn’t working. I’ll wait in that bar all night if I have to. So if you can’t make it at seven, just show up when you can. This is
incredibly
important.” After a brief pause, he said, “I promise it’ll be worth your time.
Really
worth it.”

Sophie said, “Are you okay Uncle Bob? Do you need me to call Aunt Mary for you?”

Wincing at the thought that he’d laid it on too thick, Eisner said, “No, don’t call Mary; she doesn’t know what this is about. This is something to do with where my job and yours intersects.”

“That’s pretty cryptic,” Sophie said.

“Sorry, yeah, I know,” Eisner said, wondering how to convince her. “I really can’t tell you more until I see you in person. Will you trust me? Believe it or not, people’s lives actually depend on this meeting.”

“Okay,” Sophie said after a few moments passed. “I’ll be there.” She gave a worried little chuckle, “There isn’t someone sitting there, holding a gun to your head is there?”

“No, that’s not the kind of problem it is. But I
really
do appreciate your willingness to meet with me.”

***

Major Riker watched uncomfortably as General Harding read the riot act to the NSA group. It had been his turn to absorb the man’s wrath last night. As the man in charge of the radar systems, Riker had done his best to lead the team tracking the saucer. They’d successfully followed it up to where it had seemed to Riker that the saucer was safe. However, Harding had begun working to obtain control of some top secret anti-satellite weaponry.

Riker had found it hard to believe when the anti-sat weapons were released to Harding’s control. He’d followed developments with a sick stomach as Harding mapped out a plan to shoot what Riker now thought were homegrown geniuses out of the sky.

Harding had met some resistance from the anti-sat people, not on ethical grounds, but on technical grounds. At first, they insisted that the saucer was some kind of artifact of the tracking system because it certainly wasn’t a satellite. It was maintaining a steady altitude directly over Texas which was far too low to be an orbit. After Harding had bellowed sufficiently that they agreed to shoot at it even if it was an artifact, another problem cropped up. “Sir, all our tracking and guidance software is based on firing at something in orbit. As this object is not in an orbit, our AI lacks algorithms to intercept it.”