Ted appeared mildly interested and then said, "Well, I'm developing some new graphics routines. Time to get to work."
"You're a programmer?" Sally asked. This was an interesting guy and so far her relationship with Wirtz hadn't gotten past the point of occasionally brushing hands and bumping into each other on the beach. It appeared that he thought a lot more about his computers than about the opposite sex.
"Oh yeah. I speak 8080 assembler, C++, and a couple of other languages." he replied.
"Are you one of those Air Force guys?" she asked. "Yeah, one of those." he said.
Sally sensed an attraction with this strong character, but he wasn't responding. Maybe she was in heat or maybe he was in the closet. She said, "Well thanks for your help." and turned back to studying the protocol analyzer. She and Ted couldn't get their signals straight and there was something about the timing of the electronic signals that wasn't right either. The link should be faster, although she wasn't really rooting for faster downloads.
An hour later, Bill Wirtz pulled himself out of his chair and came into the closet to find her."Hey, let's get something to eat. I'll tell you about the latest scenario."
Over dinner, Bill explained that he had received a long e-mail setting new parameters on the no Vietnam, no Johnson scenario. "This must be for a computer game, because they are getting pretty specific and now there's a lot of fantasy. They want the final action to be something that could be influenced by a time machine able to send a small object a limited distance into the past. The object can't weigh more than a few ounces and it has to be able to take great heat and pressure."
"A time machine! That's pretty silly. But I guess it works for a complex computer game." Sally talked slowly as she squeezed lemon on her shrimp. "Why bring in the stuff about heat? I mean otherwise you could send a note back in time to Kennedy's desk saying 'Don't go to Dallas' or something."
"Well, as a game rule the heat thing does force you to be more creative." Bill observed.
"Couldn't you wrap a note in a piece of asbestos or write it in ceramic on metal?" she asked.
I'm told to assume that the heating is general-it's throughout the material and not from any one point source, so putting a note in an insulated tube wouldn't work. Anything I can think of in human-readable form that is going to survive the heat wouldn't make the weight rule." he replied.
"Oh yeah, and why would anyone believe a note from someone claiming to be from the future?" she asked. "Somehow, I don't think that would be very convincing."
"And, as they say, there's more! The time machine thing in this game loses accuracy in terms of both location and time. The further back in time you go the less accurate it becomes. So dropping a note on a twelve or twenty-four square foot desk on a specific day in the sixties would be too iffy."
They talked for a while about possible actions until they both ran dry. Then Sally said, " Well, Bill. I've got work piling up for me in Atlanta and it looks like I'm done here. I guess I'll be driving back up north in the morning."
Wirtz frowned and almost pouted. "I can swing the consulting fees for as long as you want to stay, Sally."
"But I'll lose business in the long term, Bill." she replied. "I've got other clients who can find other consultants, but I need to keep them."
"Can we put you on retainer for a 12-hour response?" Bill asked.
"Oh, I can respond, Bill. Twelve hours or faster. You've got it." she said. She saw a strange look on his face, but if he got the jibe he didn't reply. She left with a peck on her cheek and when she got into the car she let out a sigh. "Geeks." she said softly while Wirtz waved.
FLY AWAY
Wednesday, August 9, 1995
1000 Eastern
Atlanta, Georgia
Excerpt from the Personal Narrative
of Brigadier General Ted Arthurs
Recorded July 2006
CLASSIFIED CONFIDENTIAL /TA
"Are you kidding me?I was a captain looking to make major some day.I couldn't have gone there without having done all kinds of coordination with my superiors and preparation with my team.But, Sally just up and went"
Two months flew by as Sally caught up with her clients in Atlanta. She was dodging cars on the Perimeter Highway, drivers in Atlanta have no concept of slower traffic moving to the right, when her cellular phone rang. She said, "Sally Langley" and the voice on the other end replied, "Sally, I need you."
"Well, that's a direct approach, but who are you?" she asked as she threaded her Beemer past two pickup trucks having a slow speed race in the two left lanes of traffic.
"Sally, this is Bill Wirtz." the voice replied.
"Okay, Bill. Sorry, but cellular phones don't do a lot for voice recognition. Is the circuit down? I've got my list of contacts and I can probably restore it from here."
"No, the circuit's fine. Listen, I need you to go with me to Indonesia. My sponsors want to have a conference and they want me to bring anyone from the team that I feel I need. The scenario hasn't changed -except to get more detailed- and I know you're interested in that. Actually, your friend Mr. Woo suggested that I bring you. I'm going to bring Ted and Janet too. But you have to have a passport."
Sally settled into the third lane behind a cruising Mercedes and considered the proposition. She had her local clients settled down again. She had a current passport, but she had only traveled through Europe, so Indonesia sounded like an adventure. And then there was the factor of Ted. Something interesting might happen out of all of this. "How are you going to get there?" she asked.
"Through Atlanta, of course." Bill replied. If you die and go to heaven or hell around here, you've got to go through Atlanta first. I can have first class tickets waiting for you at the Delta counter in the Atlanta airport tomorrow morning. They are taking care of the entry visas.The flight leaves Atlanta for JFK at noon.
They arranged the details and then she downshifted to fourth gear and caught the exit ramp to her next appointment.
At 1 1:40 the next day she boarded a 777 crowded with New Yorkers returning from Florida beach vacations. She could tell who they were by their attitudes and burnt flesh.
At 1 1:55 there was still an empty seat next to her in the spacious cabin and two empty seats in front. She wondered if she should get off if Wirtz and the others didn't make the flight, but then she thought that she had the tickets and might as well go on. At about one minute before noon, the three of them came through the door carrying baggage. She stood up to letWirtz in and he even gave her a quick hug. Ted gave her a big smile and a hollow-eyed stringy-haired Janet smiled thinly. "Whew!" Bill said. "The airport train is out and we had to run all the way from concourse D to concourse A. Ted almost had to carry Janet, but we made it."
The next 15 hours were a mix of movies, naps, a novel, and seemingly endless food in first class.They changed planes in JFK, Frankfurt, and Singapore. At one point, Sally complained, "Aren't we going the wrong way? I thought we should be going West to get to Indonesia. It's down by Australia!"
Janet had studied airline schedules for much of the trip. She turned around in her seat and observed, "When it's on
the other side of the world, it doesn't matter which way you go. But I figure we're each getting over ten thousand frequent flyer miles each way with a 50% bonus for first class. So when we get back we'll have enough miles to take a trip!"
Wirtz moaned with the rest at the thought of more flying, but then he carried on in a more practical note, "But the distances don't matter anymore. Low cost shipping makes it more economical to ship raw materials one way and to return them the other way as finished goods than it is to fabricate the finished goods in North America. Look at you. You can create a communications span across the Pacific with just a few phone calls."
"Yeah, that and a limitless checkbook." Sally replied.
Ted had said little during the trip. He looked as rumpled as they all did, but when he got up to move around the cabin he didn't appear as stiff or stooped as the other passengers. At one point he and Sally had traded magazines, but they hadn't said much else. Janet, on the other hand, was apparently a binary creature. She was either dead asleep or animated. She spent so much of her time turned around in her seat talking to Bill that Sally finally insisted that they swap seats. Bill, she noticed, didn't seem to object.
She settled next to Ted and said, "Well, what do you think of all this?"
Ted looked at her and said, "The airplane? I guess it's all right."
Sally tried once more, "No, I mean the scenario and Asians and the mysterious communications link and all of that!"
"Oh. games, computer games, I guess." he replied.
Sally settled back into her book. Apparently, the lights were out on some of Ted's floors. "A shame." she observed inaudibly.
SMOKE SCREEN
August 11, 1995
In Flight Singapore to Jakarta
Excerpt from the Personal Narrative
of Brigadier General Ted Arthurs
Recorded May 2006
CLASSIFIED CONFIDENTIAL / TA
"The system worked fine. I had reliable contact with the team back at Hurlburt Field. But, even with that, I wasn't prepared for what I found."
They changed planes in Singapore in a fog of fatigue, but they were grateful to be on the final leg. As they approached the airport in Jakarta, they crowded the windows for a peek at the country. Flying low over Jakarta on their approach, they saw a modern city with a large highway system.
As their airplane taxied to the gate, Sally saw some small aircraft sitting along the runway. She nudged Ted, "Okay Mr. Airplane Guy, what are those?"
Ted put a hand on her shoulder and bent to look out the window. "Oh those are Hawks. Two seaters, so they are probably the 100 series. That's a single engine trainer and
ground attack aircraft built by the British. It's a nice airplane. Over there are some German-built BO 105 helicopters."
"How do you know all these things?" Sally asked.
"I like airplanes." Ted said simply. He sat back in his seat and started to get his baggage together.
It seemed that it took the jet forever to trundle up to the jetway. People crowded forward in the aisles well before it stopped rolling. Waiting for the seat belt sign is pretty much a North American trait. As they staggered off of the airplane together, Janet said, "What's that smell?"
The airport's hallway was waist deep in smoke. It wasn't dense and the smell wasn't familiar or threatening like burning wood or insulation, but it was a low hanging haze inside the building. As they trudged in the direction of the baggage claim, Sally noticed that the people in the airport seemed young and prosperous. They were dressed like middle class business people anywhere and while they weren't bustling like New Yorkers, the pace was good. But then she noticed many of the men, women, and some people that she would consider children, were smoking. The women generally didn't walk with a cigarette, but the men did. If a woman was sitting, she was smoking. But the smell was different.
"Clove cigarettes." Ted said. "The people of Indonesia smoke cigarettes that combine cloves and clove oil with the tobacco. Smoking is popular. However, drugs are very carefully controlled and strong laws and social pressures
hold down the abuse of alcohol. This is a very strongly Muslim country. So, I guess they smoke."
"Wow, that's the smell and the smoke all right." Sally observed. "How did you know that?" she asked.
"I read a book." Ted replied. "Actually, the CIA Country Guide."
"How did you get that?" Sally asked.
"It's on the Internet." Ted replied with a smile.
Sally nodded and smiled slightly in return. Internally, she was shaking her head. Her image of this man just would not stay in focus.
Bill added, "When Magellan set sail for the Spice Islands in the 1500s, he was aiming for Indonesia. The culture, climate, and economy of Indonesia are tied to cloves and other spices. Although the country also has oil."
The only people in the baggage claim area were a trio of three men including a uniformed chauffeur holding a sign saying "Dr. Wirtz". Bill and the party were in the middle of a stream of passengers, but even before they identified themselves one of the men stepped out to intercept them and said, "Dr. Wirtz, I am Sanyoto Woo." The mysterious Mr. Woo turned out to be nearly six feet tall, younger than he sounded, and of some ancestry that wasn't Indonesian, but didn't fit any other pattern Sally recognized from her only source of reference, her friends at school.
Her engineering courses at Georgia Tech had more students from outside the US than from inside, and most of them were oriental, but she couldn't match Woo to her models of the Chinese, Korean, or Japanese students. Woo shook her hand with a smile and a slight bow. He did the same thing when he shook hands with Bill and Linda, but there was no bow when he shook hands with Ted. They stared into each other's eyes.
Woo didn't introduce the chauffeur or the other man, but he said, “These men will help you collect your luggage. We must visit customs and immigration, but it will be quick."
After they gathered their bags, Woo knocked on a side door and a uniformed customs official came out of a small office wreathed in a cloud of clove cigarette smoke. He nodded at Woo and led the party past the lines of people queuing up for inspections. He smiled and ushered them out through the opaque automatic doors leading to the airport's public lobby. Sally noticed that the other people waiting for passengers were kept out of the customs area.
"Some treatment!" she said to Ted as they walked out through the outside doors. Then suddenly they were forcibly struck by the heat.
"Wow," Bill said. "Florida is never like this!" "This really is the tropics." Ted said. Janet said, "Look at that."
Two identical dark Mercedes limousines idled at the curb. Three men stood by the cars. They stood with their hands loosely at their sides and kept looking around the terminal area and the traffic lanes even as Woo led them all to the cars.