Whisper - Chapter 28

Insert standard disclaimer here: The one that reminds everyone that this is a work of fiction. No one is real and any resemblance to someone who is real is just the reader's imagination. This is also a Fan Fiction set in the Whateley Story Universe. No Canon characters were permanently harmed in the making of this story. I hope. :)

** Chapter 28 **

>Monday, 19-Feb-2007 1008 hrs
>U.S. Army Command and General Staff School, Fort Leavenworth, KS.

Major Tom Hanson sat on his chair while his team monitored the servers.  The school was running another battle sim and it was his responsibility to make sure the servers ran at peak performance.  The officers using the servers to hone their command skills were going to be Generals some day and Major Hanson wanted to make Lt. Colonel.  A server crashing in the middle of a sim would not look good on his performance review.  

That is why he jumped when Sgt. Anders knocked on his door and reported, “Sir, we might have a problem with Server 2.”

Major Hanson looked out of his office window and down to the server floor. He spotted Server 2 with its blue card on top that denoted its force status.  “ Great, Server 2 is running the Blue force. ”  In this scenario, the blue force was supposed to lose to the red force.  It was how badly the blue force commander lost that would be graded.  If the blue force commander lost even worse due to a server glitch, there would be hell to pay.

“What is the problem, Sgt. Anders?” Major Hanson asked, fearing the response.

“It’s kinda hard to say sir.  I just noticed that Server 2’s CPU utilization is down to 63% while Server 1 is still pegged at 100%.” Sgt. Anders said with a puzzled expression.  

“Crap! Sounds like it’s crashing to me, what’s Server 2’s latency up to?” Major Hanson asked, expecting to hear that it was up from the normal 2,000-3,000 ms range and into or beyond the 7,000ms range.

“Umm, that’s the weird part sir,” said Sgt Anders, frowning with confusion, “Server 2’s latency has actually dropped.  It’s now averaging 800ms, sir.”  

Major Hanson had a hard time believing that.  He typed a few commands into his terminal.  “And no one has called down here to scream yet?” He asked with disbelief after viewing the server performance monitor. If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn’t believe that the server could be so close to crashing without anyone from upstairs calling to yell at him.

“No sir.” Sgt Anders said, looking equally puzzled.

“Hmmm, I guess I will call upstairs and face the music.” Major Hanson said with resignation.

“Yes sir, lemme know if you need a fire extinguisher to help put out the flames.” Sgt Anders said with a grin as Major Hanson shooed him out of his office.

Major Hanson sighed as he picked up the phone and hit the speed dial for the War-game Controller’s Office. “WCO, Lieutenant Harper. How may I direct your call, sir or ma’am?”

“Lieutenant, Major Hanson from the server room.  We might have a problem with the Blue force server.  Is the General available?”

“Yes sir. He is currently hovering over Colonel Ashton’s shoulder and watching his sim.  I will go let him know you are on the line.” Lieutenant Harper said before he set the phone down on a hard surface.  

Major Hanson feared the worst.  If the General was “hovering” over someone, then it probably wasn’t a good sign. His thoughts of doom were interrupted when he heard General Roskaft pick up the phone 20 seconds later.

“What did you do to the Blue server Major Hanson?” General Roskaft asked, without a trace of the expected anger in his voice. “Colonel Ashton’s sim has been running better than ever for the past ten or fifteen minutes. It’s almost spooky how well the system is running for him.”

“How so, sir?” Major Hanson asked, confused as to why the General wasn’t chewing his ass out.

“It looks like that new Speech Recognition module you were talking about last week is working like a charm.  It is instantly recognizing every command that Colonel Ashton is saying and Colonel Ashton has a pretty good southern accent.”

“We never got a chance to install that module sir.” Major Hanson said.

“Then what is making the system run so well?”

“I don’t know sir. I called you because I thought the server had crashed.”

“Oh, hell no!  Like I said, the server is responding almost instantly to Colonel Ashton’s commands and is even starting to anticipate his commands as the battle progresses.”

“It is?” Major Hanson asked, mystified by what was happening.

“Yes, Major Hanson. Hell, if this keeps up we might have the makings for a first ever Blue Force victory.”

“We will?” Major Hanson asked, concerned.  The Blue Force wasn’t supposed to win, ever.  In his mind, that would be worse than the server crashing. There would be week’s worth of paper work to fill out and Power Points to create.

“I want you to find out why and make it like this all the time.”

Major Hanson watched as the server monitor showed the CPU spike back up to 100% and the latency go back into the 3,000ms range again. “Oh crap!” He said as he felt his face drain of all color.

“What was that Major?”

“Sorry sir.  The server just returned to normal operation.” Major Hanson said, hearing the sound of swearing in the background.

“Major, find out why. I expect an answer by 1300hrs today.  Call me ASAP if you find out something sooner!”

“Yes sir!” Major Hanson said as he braced to attention before the line went dead.

“Sergeant!  Better bring me that fire extinguisher! Start pulling the server logs for Server 2. I wanna know everything that’s happened over the last hour.”

**

>Monday, 19-Feb-2007 1028 hrs
>Langley AFB, VA

“Brianna! Honey, are you okay?”

I hear my mom ask me with a chipmunk voice.  Oh no! I was paying too much attention to the game.  I quickly disconnect and pay more attention to what my mom is saying.

“Sorry Mom, I was kind of zoning there. What did you say?” I ask, turning my head to look at her.

“Dr. Edmundson was starting to get worried about you.” She looks over to Dr. Edmundson standing on the other side of my bed.

He’s staring at his laptop with concern evident on his face. “Bree, what were you doing?”

Oh crap.  I think I might be in trouble now.  I probably shouldn’t have been playing with the system like that.  “Ummm, I was just playing a game that I found online.”  I hesitantly say.

“What kind of game?”

“Well, I found something called a ‘ Red on Blue Force’ game and it looked pretty interesting, so I joined the Blue Force.”

I am interrupted when Mr. Reilly and some Air Force officer with two stars on his shoulders enter the room.

>U.S.AirForce/RA/MajorGeneral/O-8/Harold/Anthony/Evans/xxx-xx-xxxx/O+/FALSE

Oh crap!  I don’t think that they are in here to just say “hi”. I’m in so much trouble.  Mr. Reilly looks at me with what I interpret to be a stern expression.  The General is harder to read.  He just looks ready for whatever happens.

“So, Brianna, you caused Dr. Edmundson and everyone a scare there when you failed to respond.  What happened?” Mr. Reilly asks.

“Umm, well, the MRI machine kinda messed me up?”

Mr. Reilly just looks at me expectantly. “We know about that.  What happened just now?”

Oh yes. I am in trouble. “I got kinda bored while Dr. Edmundson was running the diagnostics thing, so I found a game and sorta started playing it?”  I sort of ask and say in an attempt to make it sound like it wasn’t really a big deal.

Mr. Reilly looks from me to Dr. Edmundson. I glance over and Dr. Edmundson shrugs his shoulders. “I’m not sure sir. I am glad that Bree had the idea about using the Land Warrior System to run health diagnostics on her and that it worked.” He looks at me and smiles encouragingly before he frowns. “However, If Bree was a computer; I would say that she was at 90% CPU utilization and close to crashing.”

Oh, that sounds bad.  

Mr. Reilly looks worried now. “From sorta playing a game , Brianna?  When was the last time you just sorta played a game?”  He looks expectantly at me.

Oh yeah, he’s a little upset with me. I don’t even need the voice stress monitor to tell me that.  I feel like I am ten inches tall now. I want to pull the covers over my head and hide.  I am so close to crying and I hate that.

Mr. Reilly sighs with frustration. “Please say that it wasn’t called ‘Global Thermo-Nuclear War’.”

I instantly get the reference and I panic a little.  What if I was playing a real war? Real people could be dead right now and I could be responsible.  I don’t think that we are fighting the Chinese, so maybe it really was just a game, but I that worry pushes me over the crying edge.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Reilly, I didn’t mean to. I thought it was just a game and I was only trying to help.”  I say as tears stream down my face and my nose starts to run.  Geez, how pathetic and wussy can I get here?

I am a little surprised when Mr. Reilly walks over to my side and hands me a tissue.  “Shh, it’s okay Bree. The President hasn’t called me yet, so I’m sure that it was just a game.” He says with a hint of a smile. “Tell us what happened.”

I dab my eyes with the tissue. Hmmm, maybe there is some advantage to this crying problem I seem to have.  “Well, I found this game called ‘Red on Blue Force’ and it had one guy playing the Chinese army, umm, Colonel Adams and Lt. Colonel Ashton was playing the U.S. Army as the Blue Force.”

“Okay, and?” Mr. Reilly asks as he glances back to General Evans.

“Well, I noticed that Colonel Ashton was getting his butt, I mean, he was going to lose, but mostly because his computer controlled commanders were taking too long to understand and respond his orders.  He was also missing some reports from his scouts.  So, I, umm, sorta helped the computer with his commands.”

“Helped?” Mr. Reilly asks.

“Umm, yeah.  It was taking the computer a super long time to understand even the simplest command from Colonel Ashton; he has a pretty bad accent, so I just told the computer was he was saying.”

Once again, Mr. Reilly looks back at General Evans. “Sir?”

He frowns in thought as he rubs his chin. “Hmmm, it could be the war game training sim that the Command and General Staff School runs. It has been a long time since I attended that school, but that was one of the games we ran.”

“Isn’t that in Virginia somewhere?” Mr. Reilly asks.

“There are some satellite schools in the state, but the main school is in Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas.” General Evans says.

Mr. Reilly turns back to me and sighs with frustration. “Okay, it sounds like you probably didn’t start a war, but it also looks like I have a few calls to make.” His voice thing is in the green, so I guess that he’s not mad at me anymore. He looks down a little and directly into my eyes. “And you, until we get your access levels ironed out, again , you need to not play with anything else in that system, okay?”

“Yes sir.” I say, glancing up to meet his gaze and still feeling miserable about what I did.

Mr. Reilly turns to General Evans. “Sir? I’m going to need access to a secure phone.”

“Of course, sir.  You can use the one in my office.”  General Evans says as he and Mr. Reilly exit the room.  Mr. Reilly gives me one last sort of stern gaze before he leaves.

**

It takes a few seconds before Dr. Edmundson or my mom decide to say anything.  I think that they are both still processing how much trouble I might be in and what to do next.  My mom looks expectantly to Dr. Edmundson.

He clears his throat. “Yes, well, umm, where were we?  Oh yes, your monitor.  Well, until you zoned out on us, everything was responding normally and everything looks good now too.”

“Okay...” I say, weakly nodding my head.

“So, I’d like to monitor you for  another twenty or thirty minutes, check out a few things.  I think that having this monitor will help with your testing.”  Dr. Edmundson says, sounding a little excited about that last thing. “Well, I think that I will let the test administrators know that you’re okay. Do you feel up to continuing with the testing in, say, thirty minutes?”

“Umm, sure?” I say, confused about why he would be asking me, but grateful at the same time.

“Great!” Dr. Edmundson smiles affectionately at me. “Plus, that will give Mr. Reilly a chance to make his calls.  I am going to recommend that we just do a CAT scan on you next and I want to see if the MRI got anything before it shut down.  I will be right back.”  He says as he affectionately pats my leg once before he turns and exits the room.  

My mom replaces Dr. Edmundson’s place at my side.  She gives me a hug instead of an exam though.

She releases me. “I was a little worried there, honey. Okay, more than a little worried. You’re not going to play around with any more games, right?”

“I’m totally sure, Mom!” I glance down at my hospital attire. “Ummm, would it be possible to get my clothes back now?”

My mom laughs.  “Sure. I will run down the hall and get them for you.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

I never felt so glad to get out of that darn gown and put on my umm, underwear and regular clothes. I know, I know. They are called panties, but I’m having trouble with that word.

One of the staff doctors stops in after only ten minutes to do a check-up. I guess that is just so that the facility can CYA. Mr. Reilly doesn’t return or call during my thirty minute downtime, so Dr. Edmundson lets the facility know that I am ready for more testing and after a quick jaunt down the hall, I get to strip down and wear a gown again for the CAT scanner.

Sigh.

The CAT scanner is boring, but I’ll take boring to the crazy MRI scanner any day.

After the CAT scan, they make me keep the gown on for my very first pelvic exam.  Well, I get to watch my mom get examined first. Since we both need exams for our records, Dr. Howards, our gynecologist, asks who wants to go first.  My mom volunteers to go first. I think she does it so that I won’t have an excuse to be a wuss about it.  On the plus side, there aren’t any needles involved.  On the negative side, there is this big clamp thing that I am not looking forward too.  Maybe my nanites will eat it.

Dr. Howards does seem to be a nice guy though.  He is very professional and gentle with my mom.  He makes sure that she knows exactly what he is going to do, when he is going to touch her and where.  That is a little reassuring for me.

My turn at the table proves to be, umm, not fun.  Dr. Howards uses some of the CAT scan imagery to try and reassure me that my hip structure looks perfectly healthy for a girl my age.  Based on that, I don’t think that he knows about my medical history.  I take a peek at his terminal and spot that my sex is listed as ‘female’, so I guess that he really doesn’t know. I just smile and thank him for his observation.  My mom elects to remain silent, but I think she knew I wasn’t really thrilled with that bit of knowledge.

He also decides that during his exam and while my feet are strapped to his torture table stirrup things that it would be a good time to educate me on my new plumbing.  

“So, Brianna, have you had any abnormal flows during the past six months?” Dr. Howards asks as sets a new, plastic wrapped speculum on his instrument tray.  That’s the clamp or spreader thing that I hope my nanites eat.

“Umm, no sir.  I did not.” While I try not to laugh at my own joke, my mom frowns at me, but sort of smiles at the same time.

I am also able to honestly answer “No” to his question about me being sexually active or using contraceptive medication.  He elects to helpfully remind me that if I do decide to take birth control pills, that I should still insist that my partner wears a condom due to the risk of sexually transmitted diseases.  TMI! Nothing like a captive audience, I guess. I just wish we could skip right to the new powers testing module thing and avoid this pelvic exam entirely.

Other than the impromptu sex-ed class, I learn that “Everything is normal.” I really don’t like that speculum thing, but when my nanites detect and helpfully ask if I want the foreign metallic object eaten; I reluctantly tell them to stand-down. I’m not sure why they asked about that and not the needles.  Maybe it is because the needles actually cause a wound and the nanites are programmed to respond more aggressively in that situation.

Oh yeah, and once again, I really don’t like being a girl. Why can’t the girl exam be like the boy exam? You know, just turn your head and cough? Girl plumbing is way too complicated. It is a miracle that the human race has survived for as long as it has and if girl parts are so complicated and need regular invasive checkups; why do women live longer than men?

In the end, I still feel pretty damn violated. On the plus side, Dr. Howards informs me that I shouldn’t need another pelvic exam until I turn twenty-one. Now that would be one hell of a way to celebrate my twenty-first birthday, not. I am very glad that my mom was there with me.  All of the strange sensations were incredibly overwhelming to me. Her calm, reassuring, everything is normal smile is the only reason that I didn’t cry. Well, that and the fact that she went before me and there is no way that I am going to make a big deal of something if my mom doesn’t.

I do wish that I could take a shower to clean the slimy feeling that the lubricant caused down there.  My mom gives me a few of her wet wipe things that she always carries in her purse. I never understood why she needed those things, but the last few days are helping.  I almost feel normal after a few wipes.  Well, I feel a lot less yucky, but I still feel a little out of sorts down there. On the plus side, I am able to ditch the gown.

The allergy tests go pretty well.  Surprise, surprise, I’m allergic to iron and man-made, artificial fibers. I don’t understand why I’m not allergic to steel, since steel is really iron, but I guess that steel is just more refined and that removes the allergic bits.  

My mom gets called away during the allergy test to start her testing.  That causes me a little concern, but Dr. Edmundson stays, so I guess I still have someone I can trust.

The vision test is a bit of a challenge for the testers.  The standard eye charts can only measure to 20/5 vision and that is where they are stuck until they have the bright idea to move the chart into the hallway so they can get me 40 feet away.  40/5 is easy, so they ask me to just keep walking backwards until I can’t read the bottom line any more.  200/5 is where I end up and that is only because we run out of hallway.

Using his laptop, Dr. Edmundson is able to see what I see and hear what I hear. I can see how this system would be nice on the battle field.  It would be like that Aliens movie, but better since the images aren’t all grainy and there aren’t any aliens trying to eat me.

My hearing ends up testing out mostly normal human baseline. Mostly.  I test out at 20 Hz to 40,000Hz.  Baseline is 20 Hz to 20,000Hz.  A dog can go up to 60,000 Hz. So, I have above normal hearing, but not freakishly above normal.  That’s cool. Maybe when I get a new cell phone I can put in that mosquito ring tone and jack it up to 30,000Hz so no one else can hear it.

Dr. Edmundson also uses his laptop to monitor me during the physical tests.  The first physical test is the strength and endurance test. The strength one is some electronically controlled weights, while the endurance part is some super sized tread mill thing. For the strength test, I manage to bench press 400 lbs pretty smoothly, but my max press ends at 500 lbs.  As expected, my max press wipes me out, but less than twenty seconds later; I am able to do it again. Followed by another twenty second rest and again.  I feel like I could keep doing this max press thing over and over again all day, but Dr. Edmundson stops me.

I’m amazed and even Dr. Edmundson is impressed.  “Based upon your results and the monitor here.” He points to his laptop. “It appears that the medical nanites, in concert with your natural regen, are allowing your muscles to metabolize their energy supplies much faster than I would expect.”

“Oh, that’s cool.” I say, but I remember doing my max press in gym class and feeling spaghetti armed for at least five minutes and not being able to do hardly any lifting for almost thirty minutes.  On top of that, as a guy, I was only able to max press 150 lbs and that was on a good day.  I’m pretty damn strong for a little girl!  

The treadmill is just boring.  After fifteen minutes of running at a normal pace, it seems like I can just go all day.  I try a sprint, expecting to feel the burn and stop after only a minute, at best, but instead, I feel perfectly fine after ten minutes of flat out running. I do end up sweating. I’m not sure if it is proper , but I decide to take off my sweat shirt, because I don’t really need to sweat more and I’ve seen plenty of women wearing only a sports bra in the gym. Oh wait, I mean I, umm, glow, because girls don’t sweat, they glow.  Yeah, right. I am dripping wet, but feeling perfectly good to go when Dr. Edmundson signals me to stop after thirty minutes of full speed running.  He hands me a sports drink and a towel. I smile at him and he quickly looks back down to his laptop display.

“Thanks Dr. Edmundson, how did I do?” I ask as I slow to a walk to help slow my breathing and cool down gently while I take a few sips from the sports drink.  I know better to just stop and sit down after running. I am glad that he gave me a towel. I can’t believe how much I am sweating and how much that I want to rip off my sports bra right now.

Dr. Edmundson looks back up. “Excellent!  I don’t know what to credit more for your performance.  The nanites helped by boosting the oxygen supply to your muscles and improving your lung efficiency, while I think that your natural regen helped remove the fatigue toxins in your muscles.  I stopped you because you were beginning to get dehydrated. So, that is something you will need to pay attention to during extended exercise.”

“Oh, that’s good to know, but I felt fine.” I smile at him as stop walking and step off the treadmill while I wipe the sweat out of my eyes with the towel.  I think that my glamour is working on him again, because, once again, he quickly returns to looking at his screen.  My current state of undress probably isn’t helping him any. I feel so embarrassed.  I pat my neck and upper body down with the towel and throw my sweatshirt back on in an effort to help poor Dr. Edmundson.

“Yes, I know, but I thought that it would be safer to stop you before you hurt yourself and I’m sure that you will want to, umm, freshen up a little before we head for lunch.”

Crap!  I forgot to bring my purse. I bet that my mom stuck a comb or something in there for me. Oh well, what I really need is a set of spare clothes and I am sure that my mom couldn’t fit those in my purse. I guess that I could splash some water on my face and fix my hair a little before we leave for lunch. “Hmmm, I think you’re right. I’ll head to the bathroom.”

**

>Monday, 19-Feb-2007 1145 hrs
>U.S. Army Command and General Staff School, Fort Leavenworth, KS.

Major Tom Hanson was a happy man.  It took Sgt. Anders and himself less than thirty minutes to trace the log files and find out what happened with Server 2.  As a bonus, they were able to do that without needing to shut the server down.  Thus, he was ahead of schedule with the General’s Power Point After Action Review (AAR) briefing.  

He was amazed by what they had discovered. He knew that the server’s OS was a multi-processor system designed to hyper-thread and parallel process within itself.  But, what he didn’t know, until he cracked open the manuals, is that there  also was code and procedures built-in that would allow the server to off-load processing to external systems, but those “grid-computing” procedures and code had never been utilized since it was envisioned to only be used with a hardwired connected system.

Following the log trail, at 1003 hours, a super-computer called “Whisper” connected from the DARPA network connected via mil.net . Then, five minutes later at 1008 hours, Whisper, as a trusted peer, engaged the server’s grid-computing procedures and assisted it with processing the natural language commands given by Lt. Col Ashton.  Even with the network latency, the Whisper super-computer was able to process and return the commands insanely fast.  Finally, at 1028 hours, Whisper disconnected without warning.

Based upon its node designation and raw speed, he could only assume that it was a super-computer. After all, what else could it be?  DARPA was well known for experimenting with cutting edge stuff.  

The idea actually made him a little excited.  While in college, he had read about some research into human speech recognition and he knew it wasn’t easy.  Human speech is capable of so many different tones and meanings that it was almost impossible for a computer to one hundred percent recognize and interpret human speech.  Word Error Rate (WER) is generally higher when speed is a requirement. Take the phrase “Get out of here!”.  Is that a simple command to leave or is the speaker expressing surprise?  It all depends on the speaker’s tone of voice and inflection.

Granted, it was only a short period of time, but Whisper managed to make those distinctions with one hundred percent accuracy. She knew when to ask for clarification when Lt. Col Ashton used too many acronyms and she even started to predict future requests based on past requests. She was almost human, except not even a human would’ve been able to talk directly to the server and respond as fast as Whisper did.  She had to be some sort of AI, but not a full AI since those were banned.  Her voice sounded a little young to be used as a computer voice, but she sounded friendly and was easy to understand. An important consideration in a high-stress situation. Yes, just like ships and cars, all computers are female. Hal 9000 ruined that area for male dominance.

One of his recommendations was to see if the Army could purchase or share time on the Whisper computer when it is completed.  Near real-time human speech recognition could lead to the sci-fi Universal Translator that could save soldiers lives in foreign theaters of battle.  

Major Hanson was deep in thought imagining some cool phone or PDA app when he heard one of the Specialists from outside his office yell, “Attention!”  He looked up as he automatically rose from his chair and spotted General Roskaft entering the data center.

Crap!  I’m not done yet, but it’s not 1300 hours yet. He must be really anxious to find out what happened.

“As you were, as you were.” General Roskaft said, waving his hands dismissively as he stalked towards Major Hanson’s office.

The General didn’t look pissed or impatient as he approached Hanson’s office. He actually looked more perplexed than anything else.

“Sir?  I am just finishing up my Power Point now.  Would you like to see it?”

General Roskaft shook his head ‘no’. “That won’t be necessary Tom.  Who else worked with you or knows about this, umm, intrusion?”

Major Hanson struggled to control his confusion and fear.  He wasn’t sure about what was going on.  Considering the subject, the fact that General Roskaft used his first name only confused him even more.  If he was in trouble, General Roskaft would be addressing him by his rank and last name only. “Sgt Anders is the only other personnel who was involved or has any detailed knowledge of the incident. He helped me pull and analyze the log files.”

“Okay. I need you to call him in here then.  What I have to say will apply to both of you.”

“Yes sir!” Major Hanson said as he opened his door, stepped out and motioned for Sgt Anders to come over.  Sgt Anders looked a little anxious about it too.  Major Hanson could only shake his head to Sgt Anders inquisitive expression as he cautiously approached and entered his office. Major Hanson followed behind and softly closed his door as he looked to General Roskaft for clues to how he should proceed.

As his door closed, General Roskaft gave them both a quick smile to help reduce their fears.  “You two can relax. I’m not here to bust your balls for not having the report done. I just got off the phone with the SecDef.”  He paused as the importance of that statement sunk in for his audience. “Yes, he called me after he got a call from his boss.  Need I say more about how high up the flag pole this thing goes?”  

Major Hanson and Sgt Anders both looked at each other with shocked expressions before returning their gaze to General Roskaft.

“Apparently, this intrusion was an accident and a pretty damn highly classified accident at that.  Well above my pay-grade.  None of what happened today is to be ever mentioned to anyone outside of this room.  Full need-to-know and national security are in effect.  Got it?”

“Yes sir!” Major Hanson and Sgt. Anders chorused.

“Additionally, I need you to extract the relevant portion of the log file and send it, along with your report using the following instructions. Don’t lose it and shred it when you’re done. I have already securely deleted this from my inbox.” General Roskaft said as he handed Major Hanson a print out.  

Major Hanson quickly glanced at it and recognized that it was a printed email and that the sender address belonged to the Office of the Secretary of Defense.  Not from the man himself, but definitely from someone in his office. Probably an IT guy.

“Once that is done, you need to delete and umm, over-write the log and report to ensure that it cannot be recovered from your systems.  I’m assuming that you will know how to do that?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good, and if you have the report on any removable media, that needs to be destroyed as well.”

“Yes sir. I don’t have it on anything other than my workstation here.”

“Excellent!  Email me when you are done.”

“Yes sir!” Major Hanson said while cringing a little at the thought of emailing something that was supposed to be so top secret.

“Other than that, excellent work, you two, and sorry Tom, I was looking forward to that report, but now, no matter how curious I might be about it, I don’t want to know.”  General Roskaft relaxed and smiled that the two of them. “But, if DARPA has another test accident, I don’t think that I will complain.”

**

>Monday, 19-Feb-2007 1204 hrs
>Langley AFB, VA

The test facility doesn’t have its own cafeteria so we have to ride the elevator back to the surface world to use the hospital’s cafeteria.  Surprisingly, that cafeteria has some pretty good food. The burgers and pizza look so yummy, but the smell of cooked grease makes my stomach turn. I sigh as I load up my tray from the salad bar.  

Apparently, all the weight lifting and running not only dehydrates me, but it also makes me hungry since I demolish my salad. I am about to get up to get a second salad when my HUD alerts me to the arrival of Mr. Reilly and my mom.  I wave to catch their attention and I get a little worried about how serious Mr. Reilly looks as he scans the room and spots us.  He nods at me as he points  to my mom.

They both walk over to our table and join us with my mom sitting beside me and Mr. Reilly sitting next to Dr. Edmundson.

My mom looks at me with a critical eye.  “Why do you look so bedraggled?”

I don’t think that I look that bad. I know that I didn’t have a brush to make my hair look perfect, but I thought I did an okay job.  “I had a bit of a workout on the treadmill.”

“Hmmpphh, I put a small brush and some extra scrunchies in your purse. Did you forget to bring it with you?” My mom asks, while knowing the answer already.

“Ummm, sorry.  I forgot.”  I really did forget, but I’m surprised that she forgot to remind me about it before we left the room this morning.

My mom digs into her purse and pulls out her brush. “Here, why don’t you go fix your hair?”

I run to the bathroom and out of habit, I almost enter the wrong door before I make a rapid course correction.  I quickly glance around, but it looks like no one noticed my almost goof.  My first venture into a women’s public restroom is anti-climatic and I am surprised by how much nicer it smells compared to the men’s room. It’s not that it’s cleaner, but the lack of urinals might have something to do with it.  It is the lingering smell of perfume in the air. Just enough to drown out the normal bathroom smells.

I notice that one of the stalls is occupied, so I have that to worry about.  Well, I guess not worry.  I am a girl, but I still feel like an intruder.  I smirk at the idea of whoever is in the stall coming out and yelling at me for being in the wrong bathroom.  I wish.

My hair isn’t that messed up, but it does look a little worse for wear. A few swipes with the brush, a little water to help tame the worst and my hair is back to looking almost pristine.  I am glad that Whisper had such an easy to manage hairstyle. I am just finishing up when the toilet flushes and a woman exits her stall.  She smiles at me as she steps up to the sink to wash her hands.

I relax a little. It looks like I won’t be getting my wish.  I return to the table and give my mom her brush back.

“Much better.” My mom smiles at me appreciatively.

“Thanks. Sorry that I forgot my, umm, purse. I’m just not used to having one.” I blush from a mixture of shame and more shame.  Shame for forgetting it and shame for having one.  

My mom smiles at me. “It’s okay dear.  Just be more careful in the future.”

“Yes, Mooomm.” I smile at her as brightly as I can manage while inside I cringe a little at myself because I sounded just like Lindsay there. “Ummm, can I go get some more food now?  I’m staarrvving!”

She just laughs and waves me away from the table.

Once again, I load up my plate with rabbit food, but this time I receive a few strange looks from the people running the kitchen.  I don’t think that they are used to seeing people load up on the salad bar more than once. I just smile at them and they glance away, embarrassed at having been caught by me.  I think. 

I guess that they had good reason though, because even my mom raises an eyebrow at the size of my second salad when I return to the table.  I just smile, shrug my shoulders and dig in.

“So, umm, Mr. Reilly?” I ask after I near the end of my plate and slow down enough to speak as I chase a slippery cherry tomato with my fork.

“Yes?”

“Umm, am I in trouble with that ‘ game ’ thing?” I ask, trying not to sound too pathetic and girlie, but it’s a little hard to not cringe at the sound of my voice. By girlie, I mean, “In need of protection” even though I know that I would’ve asked the same exact question if I was a guy, but I don’t think I would’ve sounded so “dependent”.

Mr. Reilly surprises me with a smile. “Actually, I was very worried.  I started at the top with you know who. Then, I spoke with the SecDef, who then spoke with the school’s commanding general.  Then, the SecDef called me back a few minutes later laughing about the whole thing.”

“What?!?  But...I...”  I say, stuttering with confusion.  I fully expected Mr. Reilly to say that I was going to end up in a jail somewhere.  Is this girlie thing really that effective?  I know that Lindsay could sometimes get away with murder just by sounding so pathetic, but really?

“I was able to read through the school’s report on the incident and the General in charge of the school and his IT staff were very impressed with our little experiment. The Major who wrote the report suggested that the school and the DOD buy DARPA’s new Whisper super-computer when we are done testing it.” Mr. Reilly says with a grin.

“Really!?” I ask, stunned that I’m not in trouble and by the fact that my alias is probably going to end up matching my GEO character name. I am spared further top secret embarrassment by the arrival of Mrs. Townsend.

“Do you all mind if I join you?” Mrs. Townsend asks.

My mom looks up and smiles warmly at her. “Not all, here, let me move my tray and make some room for you.”

“Thanks.” Mrs. Townsend says as she settles into the open spot.  She turns to me and smiles warmly. “So, Bree. You are such a pretty and polite young lady. I’m sure that you have all the boys in your school acting crazy.”

I almost choke on the cherry tomato that I just popped into my mouth when she says that.  I glance at my mom and she’s not helping.  She just has a mischievous little smile on her face.  Almost like she is passively confirming Mrs. Townsend statement.

“Oh dear, are you okay? Did something go down the wrong pipe?”

I cough a few times just to help buy me some more time to reply. A little help here, mom! “Umm, yeah. Sorry about that.  I’m just not used to thinking of myself as pretty. I’m kinda new to all the attention.”

Mrs. Townsend has a knowing smile. “Ah, so you were kind of a late bloomer then?  I know how that is.  My daughter was the same way. One day she was little Miss Plain Jane that no one paid any attention to and the next day, none of the boys would leave her alone.”

“Umm, yeah.  That’s kinda how it is.”  If she only knew.

“So, What do you think of our little facility here? It’s all new!” Mrs. Townsend says with conspiratorial whisper.

Does that have something to do with what Nikki and Sara warned me about?  “New?  Why is it all new?”

“Um, well, the DoD wanted a different test site so they decided to build it here.”  

Mrs. Townsend’s voice stress meter is in the upper yellows, edging into the red zone there.  I wonder if I should keep pushing.  I am kind of curious.  “Why did they want a different test site? Where was the old one?”

Her eyes look haunted and I feel my mom’s fingers dig into my leg as a warning. “The old site just wasn’t in the right place.  I can’t really say more than that.”  Everything she just said was in the red, but she tried to shrug it off with a smile.  

Time to change the subject. She looks pretty tan for it being the middle of winter. “Did you recently have a vacation?”

My mom’s fingers relax as Mrs. Townsend’s happy smile returns. “Oh! Yeah. I somehow won a trip to Disney World for my family.  We just got back from spending a wonderful week down there.  Have you ever been to Disney World?”

I find myself returning her smile at the memory of the family trip that we took to Disney three years ago.  “Yeah, it was fun.  I was a little disappointed with the roller coasters though.”

“What?  Why?”

“Well, I kind of expected them to be bigger or something. More scary.”

“My daughter and I thought that they were more than scary, but my husband and my son kind of said the same thing. Oh well, I guess you must have a little bit of a tomboy hidden inside of you.”

It takes all of my limited self control to not laugh. “Yeah, maybe.”

I think that I was too subtle there, because she looks concerned. “Not that I don’t think that a girl like you can’t have a little tomboy inside them.  I hope that I didn’t upset you there.”

“Oh no, it’s okay,Mrs. Townsend. I’m just feeling a little overwhelmed by all the attention, that’s all.”

“Oh. I am sorry to hear that dear.” She then turns back to my mom and engages her in small talk.  They talk about things like gardening, fashion and even the weather.  I tune it all out as I work on my salad.  

Dr. Edmundson excuses himself and heads out.  He wants to see if the techs were able to recover any imagery from the MRI before it shut down.  

Lucky guy. I wish that I had a good excuse to leave the table.  Mrs. Townsend keeps trying to pull me into their conversation about clothes and fashion. She also mentions that her daughter likes this and her son likes that more than once.  I hope that doesn’t mean that she is thinking about trying to set me up with her son or something. My mom smiles patiently at me when I respond with simple “yes”, “no” and “I don’t know” answers.  Well, more “I don’t know”, because, honestly, I don’t.   Fortunately, that doesn’t seem to faze Mrs. Townsend.  She’s a one woman conversation machine.  So chipper and up-beat that it’s almost criminal.

I feel relieved when Mrs. Townsend glances at her watch. “Oops, it looks like it is time to get you to your next test there, young lady.”

“Which one is it?”

She frowns for a second. “It’s not really one of my favorites, but we rebuilt it from the old facility here.  It’s the reflex test, but once that one is done, than you will just have a magic powers test and finally, the new super machine test, machine thing. After that, you are done for the day.  I think that they want your Mom to at least get a CAT scan done and maybe an MRI while you are doing your magic test.” She turns to my mom. “Is that okay?”

My mom gently laughs. “Sure. I completed my empathy testing while Bree was lifting weights and I was wondering when they would want me to try the machine that Bree broke.”

Mrs. Townsend laughs at my mom’s joke, but I can’t help feeling a bit nervous about that.  What if they figure out that I did it?

“Oh good. Okay, are you both ready to head back into the dungeon?” Mrs. Townsend asks.

We both laugh and nod affirmatively to her.  Once we descend back into the hidden facility, she leads us into a control room where a guy dressed in a lab coat sits facing a giant console of some kind.

Mrs. Townsend introduces him as, “Joe the Great Ball Cannon Dude”. The room over-looks  another room that is about the same size and shape as a racquetball court. Except this racquetball court has a big red circle in the middle of it and the walls and ceiling have what look like baseball pitching cannons sticking out all over.  The circle looks like it is about 10 feet in diameter.  I wonder what it is for.  The floor looks like it is slightly angled and there is a trough at the end.  That must be to help collect the balls that the machines fire?

Joe notices my curiosity. “Okay, this isn’t as bad as it looks.  Trust me; the new one is way better than the old one.  This one only shoots tennis balls at people, not medicine balls and bowling balls like the old one did.”

Bowling balls!?!?  Why am I not reassured by that statement?

“The object of this test is to stay in the red circle and not get hit by a ball for as long as you can go.”

“How long do most people make it?” I ask him.

Joe smiles nervously. “Well, we haven’t actually had a chance to test anyone like you in this one yet.  It’s all pretty new, but we had a pilot volunteer to test it for us and his best time was 21 seconds.  His results matched up pretty well to what we expected from a baseline human subject.”

21 seconds?  That doesn’t sound very long. “Oh. Okay. So, if I last more than 21 seconds, can I have a ride in a F-16?”

He laughs. “I’m not sure that we can authorize something like that, but if you last more than 10 seconds on your first try, I’ll buy you an ice cream.”

“Hmmm, that’s not as good as an F-16 ride, but I guess I could accept an ice cream until the authorizations on the F-16 comes through.”  I laugh and I am relieved when everyone laughs with me.  I still would rather have an F-16 ride though.

Mrs. Townsend shows my mom and I out of the room, down a flight of stairs and into a small locker room area.  Well, more of a changing room really.  There are bins holding a few different sizes of padded head protection.  It looks like the head gear that we have at Jujitsu. There are also a few brand new plastic safety glasses sitting there. That’s not a good sign.  Not good because they think I will need it and not good because I bet I can’t wear it.

I inspect the head gear and as I expect, it is a padded foam covered with red plastic.  I can’t wear that.  Ditto for the plastic safety glasses.  “Umm, Mom. Mrs. Townsend, I can’t wear this stuff. I’m allergic to the materials.”

Mrs. Townsend looks worried. “Oh dear, I’m not sure if we can let you do the test without it, but it is just tennis balls. Would you be willing to give the machine a try without?”

“I’m game. Mom?”

“Are you sure?” She asks as Mrs. Townsend looks at us expectantly.

“Sure, not a problem.  I’ve played baseball with less and those balls hurt.”

“Okay hon, but I want them to stop the test if they start hurting her, Barb.”

Mrs. Townsend nods her head. “Of course, Jennifer. You and I can sit up there and watch. At the first sign of trouble, I’ll hit the emergency stop button myself.  If you don’t beat me to it!” She finishes with a laugh.

My mom looks back at me. “Okay, Bree. You be careful in there. Don’t be afraid to yell out if things start hurting.”  

I’m not sure exactly why she is telling me that. I will have zero problems with telling them to stop if it starts hurting me, plus I am betting that she will be able to tell them that it’s hurting me long before I could yell for help.

Mrs. Townsend points to a door conveniently labeled, “Test Area - Do Not Enter without Authorization”.  I turn the handle, open the door and enter the room.  It seems so much larger from down here. The cannons are very intimidating.

“Just stand in the middle of the red circle Bree and don’t leave it.  If you exit the circle, then the test will stop and that will be counted as a loss.” Mrs. Townsend says.

“Okay.” I say over my shoulder as I enter the circle. I turn back to see the door close and hear the door’s lock click into place.  

Rut Roh! This is it...

A few seconds later Joe’s voice comes over a PA system. “Okay.  Test run one. Starting in T-minus 10,9,8,...”

I start looking around. I wonder which cannon the first ball will be fired from. Those cannons really look intimidating.  I really hope that tennis balls are all that they can fire.

“...7,6,5,...”
I activate my targeting systems and maybe a few more things that I don’t really need, but there is no such thing as overkill in this kind of situation.

“...4,3,2,1 and go!” Joe says, finishing the countdown.