Parallels.Book Two.ch7

Chapter 7



"How's your French?" asked Bill to the man on the radio. With even a moment's pause in response, Bill looked around the room. "Not better than your Spanish, I take it? It's nothing like Māori to me, either."
"Aren't we landing in Central America?" asked one of the officers.
"The Caribbean." said another officer, tapping on the shoulder of the man on radio. Bill cheered him on as he began radioing in their flight plan to the observers on ground. The first officer looked nervous for a moment.
"It's all square, mate." said Bill. "I wonder just how many people have heard more of Haiti these days than earthquakes and the like."
The navigator had been occupied with his duties, while also squinting curiously at his monitor. Even as they had begun to land, he had been ignoring his imagination that he presumed was the source of what he saw on the monitor. Then after the full plan was radioed in, suddenly the same woman popped onto his screen again.
"All apples?" asked Bill to the navigator. He paused as the woman held a finger to her lips.
"I think so." replied the navigator, looking again to see the woman was no longer on the screen. "We have a clear path toward the given coordinates."
"Very good. Let's leave any talking, other than to Volden, to that gent on radio." said Bill. Suddenly all the monitors had shut down, along with the main power to the lights. Before a comment could be made by Bill, a familiar face showed on the center viewing screen. "Alice? Been a while. You're just in time to help find our friend Volden. Again."
The woman smiled on the screen before, with a snap of her fingers, a lifelike digital formation on the screen showed a display as if from a game show. Music played over the speakers, and letters on the display began to spell out a phrase as the woman pointed her hands toward each letter one at a time.
"This isn't funny right now, Alice. We got work to do" said Bill.
Alice seemed preoccupied with the words that eventually spelled out "Good bye." Something stirred in Bill's mind as he fell silent. Then the hum of the engines gave way to the sound of air against the outer paneling.
"Space junkies! I hope you got some emergency gravity lever hidden somewhere!" shouted Bill. There was no immediate response as all within the control room and the entire vessel hastened to find anything still functioning. The flying sphere began to fall no longer over the ocean, but the ground and the unsuspecting below.


Meanwhile, the world seemed to be beyond understanding once more as the news was on the television and Grace Rice found homework again to be of little significance. The tablet she had not even plugged headphones into yet rested on the table. She sighed, looking toward the living room where her sister had decided to remain on her one and only day off the whole year, it seemed. She tried to catch her feelings with music, plugging in the headphones to the tablet and trying to let go.
Abigale Rice stared at the television between looking toward her phone. What had nearly blown the entire upstate region of New York was clearly not the only event that had taken place in the passing two days. There was the incident with the video feed interrupting the United Nations of America conference, in addition to other areas meeting near disaster by the alleged launching of several unsanctioned missiles upon various targets left unnamed. Abigale looked to a particular contact on her phone, still coming to the decision of calling. A knock came on the door.
"Max?" said Abby. "How did you get back here so quickly? And why?"
"There should be time to explain, I hope," Max began to say. Then Abby noticed who else was at the door step.
"No! You stay right out there!" shouted Abby as she dragged Max in by the arm. "I don't know or care what more trouble you're in. You're not dragging me and my sister in it ever again!"
With that, Jim found the door slammed in his face before he had a chance to get any word in at all. He stood staring at the door saying nothing to himself or the cold night sky as he gazed at it. Jim reached into his jacket and pulled out a small box that had crumpled during the operation he barely survived. One cigarette was intact. Jim's other hand searched for a lighter. Finding it to be missing, he reached for the tool his instinct already forgot had been claimed by Mock. With a glance to the door, Jim crumpled the cigarette and the box further and threw them with a sigh.
While contemplating on leaving, Jim only remained on the door step realizing this was the most peaceful moment he had since the last he had even slept. Without even a cell phone at his side, there would be no strange voices or words he had to keep prepared for someone else at any moment. At least once now, Jim was able to imagine being alone and undisturbed while the stars shone above.
At once a light formed around the silhouette of a woman, just before the steps to the porch. Jim couldn't forget seeing Alice the way he did with Mock. Yet, seeing Alice now and the expression on her face, there was something different about it.
"Took me long enough to find you." said Alice.
"Do you mean to finish me off?" asked Jim.
"I'm not sure what you mean." replied Alice.
"So then, it wasn't you who betrayed everyone to work for Mock." said Jim. Alice sighed, also looking at the stars.
"We both have things we need to explain. Alfonso is having us try a digital conference to try and sort these things out before we continue." said Alice. A screen opened in front of her, and she selected something from a long list. Some device materialized in her hand that Alice placed on the ground before it projected an image of Alfonso sitting at a desk.
"Thank you both for your time. Should we start on record with you, James?" said Alfonso.
"I don't think so. Though I don't have a choice either way." said Jim.
"Very well. Please give then a full declassification of who you are, what organizations you are involved in. What part this has had in operations as of late. And what your current goals are while being involved with them." said Alfonso. Jim laughed.
"You want to declassify me? First, I have two requests. A continuing prescription to nicotine gum, and one date with one Mellisa Elise Fairgrove of the FBI." said Jim.
"I'm sure something can be arranged." said Alfonso.
"Fine enough." said Jim. "For the record, my full name is James Edward Fly. Before I became more or less adopted by the CIA, I was adopted and raised by a group designated M Omega. This organization was founded by several like minded individuals with more money than what they knew to do with otherwise. They all felt a deep connection with religion, the sciences, and the meaning science was given by something greater than itself. It came to be that the most devoted members to this society as well as organization began to believe it was revealed to them by God that they were all destined to witness the end of the world first hand. As the years passed by, and the earth still turning, members began to divide on the continued purpose of the organization. Most members were contributing financially to humanity efforts, and were otherwise drawn and attached to the organization by the notion that it upheld traditional values among other things. Maybe some felt they were more visionary than others, and then decided to take measures in their own hand. To the point of which I think some of them have begun to believe they were put on earth not just to witness, but to actually cause the end of the world. The best proof I have of this is spending quality time with this family here again. They call him Max. He was a genetic experiment designated the Omega Project, not surprising enough to have gone wrong. They were looking to clone an ancient prophet with intent wildly unknown as far as what they most likely only believed they would be capable of should they succeed. This failed experiment as I and many other members believed, has recently displayed certain abilities that almost make we wonder... Well, scared off my ass more or less to consider what he really is capable of. And as far as my future with M Omega, I plan to stay the hell away from them. Hopefully we can keep Project Omega out of their hands as well."
"There is more to ask you concerning most recent operations. What you have given will suffice for now." said Alfonso. Then he turned his eyes to Alice.
"My name is Alice Fujieda. I was born and raised in Japan. By my father, and many connections he had, I was enrolled in a excel program after I had completed most of grade school. Through this program, I studied telecommunications and computer engineering, earning degrees in both areas. Though I suppose its hard to compare with someone who has a unified doctorate." said Alice, looking dejectedly at Alfonso before continuing. "With a grant and rather generous offer of employment I became involved with the super company known as Serene Corporation. It was then that I along with other engineers began taking on a challenge at making theoretical science possible. Our, and mostly my greatest success was the crossdigital system. This system made possible the theory of converting matter into energy, and back again. By crossloading, as I call it, this process changes a given matter into energy which is then immediately stored into hard drive space on a system I will not name. From the digital storage, and access within the network, one is able to generate any number of things. I originally intended this to be a supply and delivery system, competing with both traditional mail and otherwise. A more personal matter is part of what changed everything. There was an event and someone I thought worthwhile to try and use the system to crossload myself. Whether or not it was worth it, since then I have been seeking answers as to how much of my humanity is left. This occurrence attributes to how I am more digital now than human. It is also why I refuse to ever again try at crossloading a human being. My current and future involvement with Serene Corporation is already known to you. What I am currently trying to discover is what involves someone gaining access to my work, including a compete digital copy of myself. My theory is that whoever accessed my work has somehow made a replica of myself, and by manipulating this copy is able to do at least half of the things I am capable of. It may only be a matter of time before this replica is able to access my crossloading network. Just as worse would be what incalculable damage this replica could do on its own. I believe the best solution would be to use discretion when involved with me as I try to reach out to other minds as far as how to best locate and isolate the replica."
"Thank you both again. This seemed worthwhile. I'll keep you both informed of need I may have for you." said Alfonso.
"I may need a few days to lie low. Don't bug me." said Jim. Alfonso nodded, then the device shut down leaving just Jim and Alice.
"Aren't you missing something?" asked Alice.
"If you mean the sword, someone is going to find out hard someday that somethings in life you really can't steal." said Jim. "Or at least, some things won't leave you alive when you do."
"I'm sorry if you believed I betrayed you." said Alice.
"I'm sorry if you think you're not human." said Jim. With a half nod, Alice began to dematerialize as she went elsewhere. Jim stayed in the cold, staring again at the stars and sitting against the house.