Satyr Play 03 Pt. 01

One of the scientists pushed his way through the arguing crowds to get to Henry. He came rushing up to stop before Henry with an excited expression on his face.

"You must show us how to build arrays of quantum tunneling processors so we can create a probability/potentiality determination engine!" the older scientist exclaimed.

Henry gave him a hesitant look. "Why the hell would you want that?"

"What's it do?" Wallace asked first.

"It can be used to predict things with great accuracy! Even social patterns," the scientist exclaimed excitedly.

Wallace suddenly looked very interested.

"You'd have to enter so much data just to get the simplest responses, and you'd still have very low accuracy. It couldn't pay for itself." Henry looked to the scientist. "Sometimes doing something just because you can do it is a very bad idea." He didn't share that he was working on a more straightforward market trend prediction utility for Camila. His tool wouldn't target individuals.

He looked at the agitated crowd. "I think I've done enough today."

Robert stepped closer to Henry. "How did you even know it was there?"

"What? The tunneling?" he asked, and Robert nodded. Henry shrugged. "I didn't, but I was curious about the energy discrepancy, so I just looked for a reason to explain it."

"My predecessor reported it was your brother who invented this firewall method," Wallace said with a confused expression. "Did he leave you notes on it after all?"

Henry froze. Shit. Was he contradicting what he told Director Yosman? He wasn't a very good liar, so he'd have to use as much truth as he could.

"He did invent it, but he left no notes. When we were both in Ireland, we talked about things we loved and what excited us. Network security is—was a shared passion. It must have been something he said that made me look where he looked. I got a glimmer into what he saw and was able to finally replicate it." He glanced at the Director and saw the man seemed to be buying it. That was a relief! Hall just looked resentful, but Dawes was watching him silently with a thoughtful expression. Henry was most concerned about him.

He gave Mahati a pleading look, and she nodded. She moved to speak to Director Wallace.

"Thank you for an interesting visit. Could we get a lift to the National Mall? Henry would like to see the monuments."

"I was hoping to take you both to lunch. I have a table at a very nice steakhouse close to the mall," Wallace said hopefully.

Henry nodded. "I could eat."

Wallace looked to his Tech Lead. "Richard. I'd like you to join us." The man was staring at Henry and twitched when he heard his name. He nodded, earning a small frown from his boss.

"Granger, can you make arrangements to get the private room. I would very much like to join you," Dawes said.

Wallace didn't look pleased, but he couldn't refuse gracefully. "I've already reserved that room. They can add a seat."

"Make it two. I want Billy to join us," Dawes added.

"Fine. Let's go," Wallace grumbled.

The volume of the battle behind them increased as they saw Henry leaving.

Once outside, Dawes and Ms. James peeled off the group to go to their car. The rest headed to the convoy they'd arrived in.

Before they reached the limo, Wallace looked to Richard. "What on Earth has gotten into them? How big a deal is this Quantum Tunneling thing, anyway?"

Richard was vibrating with excitement. "No other commercial applications are utilizing Quantum Tunneling. To my knowledge, it's only theoretical, stuff for scientists and mathematicians to argue about. If the firewall utilizes it, and I can't see how it could work any other way, it's far more advanced than any other technology available. The potential impact on all aspects of computing is unmeasurable."

They got into their limo, and Henry grinned. "Yeah, I'm working with it on several new applications. It's fascinating stuff!"

"All of which are sealed under a non-disclosure agreement, of course," Mahati said boldly, and Henry looked to her then nodded thoughtfully.

A second black limousine slipped into their convoy, and they were off.

Once more, Henry wanted to enjoy the scenery, but the two NSA men were keen on discussing what could be done with Henry's advanced tech. Mahati shut down questions regarding specific usage as this might impinge on VRL's proprietary information. They were left discussing hypotheticals, and Henry would agree or disagree about the possibility and feasibility of their suggestions. By the time they reached the restaurant, Wallace was equally excited as his Tech Lead. Their area of interest tended to give Henry pause as they strayed into violating personal privacy.

He was relieved to get out of the limo and stretched after he helped Mahati out.

"Are you well?" she asked.

He shrugged with a self-conscious smile. "I guess I didn't think through how excited people might get about the new tech."

Mahati nodded. "We should discuss this with Camila when we return. We may need to set up a new division to separate it from the investment business." She moved close and looked him in the eye. "Make no promises and offer no solutions outside of the application that has already been delivered," she said quietly.

Henry nodded and marveled at how lovely her eyes were. So intense.

"What is it?" she asked as she noted he was staring.

He broke his gaze and shook his head. He went to turn away, but she touched his arm.

"Henry, speak to me."

"It's nothing." He glanced at her again. "You-you have really lovely eyes," he said quietly to her.

Those eyes flared, and she looked away as her cheeks heated up.

Dawes and his Tech Lead joined them on the sidewalk and looked curiously at their red faces.

Granger led them into the restaurant, and the group was met with smiles by the manager. He did a quick count and sent some of his staff ahead to adjust the tables for the extra guests.

Soon they were seated and looking at menus.

"Feel free to order anything you like. Would you like a drink first?" Wallace asked and gestured for the waiter.

Henry cast a quick glance at Mahati, who was giving him a stern look. "No, I'd better not. I'm a real lightweight when it comes to alcohol. Just water, please," he said to the waiter.

"So we get a few beers into you, and you spill the secret of the firewall tech?" Stephen asked with a sly smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

Wallace wasn't amused. "Way to sound like one of Maurice's black ops goons, Stephen."

"It was a joke, Wallace. Lighten up!"

The others gave their drink orders as Henry concentrated on the menu to avoid their bickering. He saw what he wanted. He was going to eat light as he knew they'd be doing a lot of walking, and he didn't want that heavy feeling.

"After lunch, could we get a lift to the Capitol Building?" Henry asked Wallace.

"Interested in learning how the legislative branch of your government works?" Dawes asked. "We could get you an insider's tour."

Henry paused as that did sound intriguing, but what he really had his heart set on was something else.

"Maybe next time? Today, I'm more interested in walking the length of the National Mall and seeing the buildings and monuments," he said. "I want to start at the Capitol Building and finish at the Lincoln Memorial."

Dawes shrugged.

The waiter returned with the drinks and began to take their orders. The moment he left, Wallace's pitch began. He really wanted Henry on his team.

From the potshots Dawes fired at Wallace and the pitch he made, it sounded like Homeland Security wanted him too.

Henry shared a weary glance with Mahati. It was going to be a long lunch.

Chapter 20

Sam, Jeannie, Jake, and Brenda ran along the old abandoned country road in northern Mississippi, almost at Tennessee's border. They were heading to a hideout they'd found for themselves. While they usually restricted their movements to night time when their silver skin's reflectivity was far less visible, they weren't particularly worried about discovery. When they ran full out as they were now, they were moving so fast, the human eye had difficulty registering them.

Additionally, they hadn't seen any sign of the army men since that first night. So, they were all feeling pretty good that they'd seen the last of them.

Taking a sharp left, they raced up a narrow path to an old abandoned shack they'd found in the woods. A short distance from the hut was a run-down barn, which they headed to first.

Since that first night, they'd been storm chasing all across the prairies. They'd discovered they fed off the release of energy from the new clouds. Their lightning strikes were particularly satisfying, and taking a direct hit would give them enough power to run for a week.

Then came the dream. A few days into their new lives, they woke with a new mission. They'd all shared a disturbing dream. An ancient voice spoke to them from the darkness and whispered to them to make preparations. When they woke, they all felt compelled to begin collecting the products of the new cloud domination battles and stockpiled the items. They weren't sure who that voice belonged to or why they needed to hoard this stuff, but it didn't interfere with their cloud chasing and gave them a sense of purpose, so they did it.

Today, they returned from another successful storm chasing day and had a few more items they'd collected to pack away. The barn was now their storehouse for dozens of strips of the silver foil, thirty-six of those wire mesh and lit amber squares sections and roughly twenty gallons of cloud blood. That last item had been the most difficult to save. Collecting it was easy. The battling pseudo-clouds were constantly goring each other, and the stuff just fell from the heavens. They figured out how to catch it in a large tarp, which fed into gallon jugs. The tricky part was running while carrying the heavy containers. It really threw their balance off.

They slipped inside and added the three new wire mesh sections, eight foil pieces, and two gallons of the rain.

When they stepped out of the barn and headed for the shack, a loud buzzing suddenly began, and they felt dizzy, experiencing a sensation much like vertigo.

Jeannie took Sam's hand. "What's happening?" her voice came through their connection silently, but he felt her emotions. She was nervous.

Sam glanced her way to smile at her, then looked at Jake who was tilting his head to the right. A short distance away, a soldier in camo gear could be seen beginning to peek around a tree. His movements were glacially slow due to their sped up perceptions.

He spoke to Jeannie. "Looks like we walked into a trap. They found us. Not sure how, but there it is. How do you feel?"

"Dizzy. I could probably fast walk away from it, but it wouldn't feel good."

Jake and Brenda moved closer and touched them to share the communication channel.

"I don't like this feeling. They must be crafty bastards to find a way to slow us down," Jake grumbled.

"What should we do?" Brenda asked.

Sam shared a look with Jake and remembered the night this all began, when they watched the two clouds duking it out, and how they'd walked through what they thought was rain, feeling it soak in. It felt good.

An idea suddenly popped into his head, and all four of them shared the epiphany. Releasing their grip, they moved away from each other, walking with difficulty until they slumped and crumpled to the ground.

-=-

Colonel Crane smiled when he saw the silver aliens succumb to the energy field they'd set up around the clearing between the shack and the barn. The mad scientists back in Washington were finally earning their keep. Their device worked! Unlike the failure of the radar device, this one actually seemed to be doing the job!

Their eyes in the sky satellites had done an excellent job of tracking the speeders once they discovered they emitted a streak of low-level infrared light behind them as they ran. The faster they went, the more energized the particles and the longer the trail. Once his team knew where their targets were hiding during the day, they set the trap.

His team had gotten a break when he'd been informed that the silver aliens hadn't returned to their hideout during the night as they usually did. They immediately went to the enemy base, dug in, and set up the equipment as they got reports of their targets returning in daylight. Very fast. They'd just finished hiding when the entities arrived and went into the barn.

The projectors which emitted the knock out field used enormous amounts of power and weren't terribly portable. They also only had a few minute's worth of charge, but it seems that had proven to be enough.

He didn't immediately give the order to shut down the field as he wasn't sure if it was required to be on to keep the beings out. They had restraints ready to lock on the beings, and he saw his team rushing forward to get them secured.

Then all hell broke loose.

The alien closest to the barn leapt to its feet and ripped the doors from their hinges before rushing inside. The remaining three also jumped to their feet and slapped the restraints from the approaching soldiers' hands faster than the eye could follow. The soldiers shook their hands painfully.

All three restraint sets were picked up and pitched at the projector dishes, silencing them and ripping them from the mounts. The buzz immediately cut off with a wailing squeal.

Corporal Yablonski was caught flat-footed as he faced the open barn door. He was holding the metal restraints he was tasked to connect to the silver guy inside the barn. Something suddenly hit him in the chest and shattered against the restraints. He was immediately coughing and snorting to clear his sinuses from the explosion of liquid from the broken bottle.

The three silver beings in the open area stood before the group of three to four soldiers when glass missiles flew out the open doors of the barn. What followed was impossible to follow with the naked eye, but as fast as the bottles were thrown from the interior of the barn, they were slapped out of the air by the silver hands of the aliens who ran circles around the soldiers. Bits of glass were intermixed with a whole lot of liquid that saturated the soldiers quickly. They held their arms before their faces due to the flying chunks of glass, and a few took some minor cuts.

Then the silver beings began popping their helmets off and dumping the liquid on the bare heads of each soldier.

"It's water! It's just water!" Yablonski yelled out as he tried to wipe his face clear.

Colonel Crane felt a deep dread filling him as he suspected where that water came from. "Sergeant! Get your people out of there!" he yelled into his mic.

Sergeant Michelle Tennison, called Mick by her squad, signaled them to fall back when the next missiles from inside the barn shot out towards them. Their impact was a little more dramatic. The bright yellow stones in the wire mesh flashed as they struck their targets, and the soldiers were thrown back to land and tumble, dazed by a shock. Once they were all down, the three silver beings rushed into the barn to join the fourth. Immediately, all four rushed out and touched something to the faces of the soldiers.

Gordon Crane watched in horror as the silver spread over the faces of each soldier. He shouted in shock when he was suddenly face to face with one of the beings. It came to a complete stop as it stood before him.

Corporal Dulane was pulling his gun from its holster very slowly when the creature turned its head to look at him.

"If you shoot me, you may hit him when the bullet bounces off."

Crane held up his hand to his driver. The voice was very hollow and reverberated strangely, but it was definitely speaking English. There might have even been a Central States accent. He looked closer. He thought he might have recognized the face it was showing.

"You seem to bear the facial features of Sam Lagrange. Did you take his identity?" Gordon asked cautiously.

"I am Sam Lagrange. Who else would I be?" the entity said and... smiled.

Crane pushed that aside. "What are you doing to my men?"

A second silver man joined him. Its expression wasn't so friendly. "What were you gonna do to us with those shackles? Take us to a lab and try to cut us open? Since you're so fuckin' curious, we gave you your own Silver People to experiment on! Let's see if you're willing to do that to your friends!"

"Please calm down, Jake. He's just doing his job," Sam said and looked back at the Colonel. "Even though his job ain't too friendly.

The Colonel looked past these two to see the other two gently helping his soldiers to stand. Except, their faces were now covered in the chrome finish. The two guided the soldiers over to him. He saw Yablonski's stupid smile and saw Mick was also smiling. Specialist Green wore a grin on his face. Crane looked uncomfortably at Mick.

"Sergeant, status."

Mick came to attention. "The mission failed, sir. The energy field wasn't effective, and the targets were moving too fast for us to counter." She pulled off her gloves to see her hands were covered in silver as well. "We seem to be silver now, too, and for no reason I can think of, I feel really good. Almost giddy." Her voice had a similar hollowness.

"You've been altered, so your brain chemistry may have been affected. You may be under the influence—" Gordon began to suggest.

"Sir, sorry to interrupt, but I can tell you from personal experience, I'm still Sam, and this is my lovely wife, Jeannie." He gestured to the shortest of the beings, who nodded to him with a shy smile. At least Gordon thought it was a smile. The reflections made it difficult to tell. "This here is my best friend, Jake, and his wife, Brenda." He gestured to the other two. "We're no threat to anyone. We just want to run and chase the weird storms. We don't want to be dissected or experimented on."

"How are we expected to believe you're not a threat or that you are, in fact, who you say you are?" Crane asserted.

Sam shrugged. "It's true that we don't look human, but I think we think human. Ask your own people." He gestured to the changed soldiers. "You saw them become what they are now. You can take the rest of the materials we collected. Just be careful about how you handle them. The order is strange cloud water, glowy stone mesh, and then the silver strips. All of that stuff comes from the strange clouds." He turned to the altered soldiers. "I suggest each of you add a few more strips of silver foil. You want your skin to be strong in case you run into things at high speed. You can't get too much as it just stops absorbing when you have enough."

Crane's radio chirped. He looked to the one calling himself Sam, who just smiled at him.

"Crane here."

"Is everything okay, Colonel? We see you're surrounded by the silver aliens." It was Private Jackson, the communication tech he'd left at the vehicles. He was with Private Blayne and Corporal Rewan, and they were observing with drones controlled from a distance to the east.

"Yeah. The target disabled the projectors and altered the team. They're all silver now except for Dulane and me." He looked to Sam. "Do you intend to change us too?"

"No, sir. Not unless you want to be," Sam replied.

"Oh yeah! Do it, sir! It feels incredible!" Yablonski exclaimed, bouncing on his toes.

"At ease, soldier!" Gordon snapped.

"Sorry, sir," Yablonski mumbled.

Crane activated his mic again. "Situation is fubar but stable for now. Why did you break radio silence?"

"Sorry, sir, but a priority message came in. We're to head back to Washington immediately. Another group of dreadnaught class pseudo-clouds is moving on a collision course intersecting over the city."