 
### Confessions of a Drone Pilot

### By

### Max E. Harris

Published by Max E. Harris at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 Max E. Harris

rev. 1.01

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This edition of Confessions of a Drone Pilot has been updated and revised.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

The characters and events in this story are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Cover art by Ray Harris, http://www.rayharrisstudio.com/

Table of Contents

Preface

Confessions of a Drone Pilot

Distress Signal

Where are my Rate Earths?

Twenty-four Hour News

Evil Power

About the Author

Preface

This book is a collection of short stories of the present and near future. All are based upon events in the news which stimulated me to ask, "And what if ..."

The stories here are a possible answer to the question.

Confessions of a Drone Pilot

**by**

Max E. Harris

"Arf, arf," barked our three-year-old Dachshund Fritz as he ran around the room trying to escape from the small plastic helicopter that was constantly coming close to his tail. Then the copter flipped nose up in the air and rose away from him. As it flipped small bacon bits fell from the piece of plastic straw I had glued to the back of the fuselage. Fritz immediately smelled them and started licking them up from the floor. That was my first drone experience, my tenth birthday, and I was hooked. For good or evil the drone was a most useful tool. In the following days I demonstrated to Fritz the dark side of the drone. Instead of bacon bits I filled the tiny bomb bay with black pepper. I landed the drone near Fritz and he came over to it to investigate. When he got close, I flew it a short distance away and landed again. He liked this game. He thought he could scare the sleeping drone. After a few jumps and chases Fritz barked and attempted to attack the drone.

This time the drone rose up suddenly, dumping its cargo of black pepper in Fritz's face. He barked and ran away sneezing. I laughed. My mother had been watching from the doorway and asked me what had startled Fritz. I told her about the pepper and she shook her head disapprovingly, but I explained that I was training him to be alert to potential threats. Her intervention had distracted me from the drone and I crashed it into a lamp breaking a piece on the drone. It was a learning experience for all of us.

By the time I was fourteen I had learned a lot about drones. Fritz was no longer the target of my experiments so he would sit next to me while I prepared them for their various missions. In the four years since the first drone there had been a series of increasingly sophisticated devices. My father had given me the first two as gifts for birthdays and Christmas but after that I had to buy them myself. The drones could not yet pay their own way but the experience was giving me ideas. I made money cutting grass and doing other yard work for neighbors which met the approval of my parents. They would watch with appreciation as my skills improved. I now had a quad-motor drone with dual cameras that I could fly around the neighborhood. My repair skills had improved out of necessity. Accidents were a constant occurrence but not the main reason for my drone technical work. I modified them to carry different payloads and instruments. One of the cameras now had night-vision capabilities. It could be flown at high enough altitude that it could not be easily heard on the ground and had an interface which permitted it to be commanded over a cellular phone link. This meant is had a very long control range even if still only about a thirty minute flying time.

After a series of acts of vandalism were reported in a small area in the local paper I thought this was my opportunity to demonstrate my capabilities. I called the reporter and learned more information than was in the article, such as the time-frame in which the vandalism happened and exact locations. The next night that it seemed likely that the culprits would strike again I had my aircraft ready. It was a Friday night and there had been a high school football game earlier in the evening. I launched my craft and started sweeping the area. It was not long before I saw a few boys about my age chatting in the dark. As it was well past midnight the odds were higher that they were not discussing the ball game or school work. Hovering in the area I watched as they approached a car parked in the street. Now I zoomed in on them as one of them let the air out of one of the car's tires. The next step was the critical one. I had equipped the drone with a tiny speaker that could reproduce limited higher sounds. I played a short, high-pitched cat howl. All the dogs in the area heard it and started barking. The boys heard it and looked up to see where it was coming from. I zoomed the camera in, shot a few seconds of video, and moved the drone higher. The next day I turned over the pictures I had taken to the local police. They were able to identify the boys and questioned them. The vandalism in the area stopped. I thanked the reporter who followed up with a story about the vandals being caught by my drone photos. He did not identify me but the police had been grateful and said they would refer any queries to me.

Within three months I had signed contracts for surveillance with a number of neighborhood watch groups, some of them in upscale gated communities. I bought a large batch of custom-made drones from offshore and trained a group of local high-school students to maintain and fly them. I warned them that I would not tolerate any abuse of their positions. If any of the pictures they took showed up on the internet, they would be prosecuted. There was sufficient information embedded in each photo to identify when and by which camera it had been taken. As expected, one of my employees used the drone to take some revealing photos and was stupid enough to display them on his social-networking site. When I learned about it, I fired him and turned him in to the local police. They did not prefer charges but scared him sufficiently to deter anyone who learned of it. To this end I asked the original reporter to write an article telling of the abuse and the consequences. There were no similar problems after that.

Don't get me wrong. It's not that I never took any pictures like that, but there was no way they would ever be transmitted on the internet.

The business went very well and grew and grew. When one of the large security firms offered to buy the business from me for an amount that would let me live comfortably for the rest of my life, I sold it to them. But I was only twenty years old. I still liked working with drones. I wanted to travel. I wanted some real action.

<****>

At this time I had never been farther out of the country than Canada. With plenty of money and time, there was nothing stopping me from seeing the world. My girl friend was in college but she did not see it offering much of a future so when I proposed we take a long, slow trip around the world she jumped at the idea. I bought a pair of round the world airline tickets that would give us a year to go around. Not wanting to waste the time on just vacationing we set ourselves some goals: gain some language proficiency in at least two other languages, develop our creative skills with non-tourist photography, drawing, maybe some watercolors, learn an exotic musical instrument. Plus the usual list of museums and not-to-be-missed tourist spots.

It was a good year. After the first month together we had learned to co-exist on a full time basis. We accomplished most of our goals. Now we can say Hello, good-bye and Good morning in French and Chinese. My watercolors are weak and my sitar playing lacks the right sense of rhythm but there is plenty of time to improve those.

In the meantime we had both decided we want to go back to the mid-east and spend some time there. The people are friendly, the scenery is varied and attractive, and maybe I will adjust to the food. About once a week some bug seems to find my weak spot and attack my gut in the middle of the night. There are some really good anti-diarrhea drugs on the market now.

To fill my time I decided to make use of the one thing I am really good at: repairing, maintaining, modifying, and controlling drones. After coming up to speed on the most recent advances we will ship out to Dubai.

<****>

Three months later and here we are in Dubai. I used my contacts from my old business and came in with a list of people to talk to. My girlfriend Sarah is setting up an apartment for us and has scheduled Arabic lessons.

There are many security contractors here. It is just a matter of my deciding which one offers the most interesting work.

<****>

This seems like six years ago when I was starting my first business. The local security contractors are still a few years behind where I when I sold my business. One local I will call Najib has a son Ahmed who studied electronics in the UK. His business now is mainly alarm systems with backup ex-military policemen. We have agreed that we will start a business here introducing many of the techniques I introduced in the US. I will have a small financial interest but mainly guide the technical aspects. There are different legal constraints here so the business must be operated differently than in the US. Najib will have one of his men train the locals to operate the drones while Ahmed and I organize the technical aspects. The first shipment of drones should arrive within a month.

<****>

Everything seemed to be progressing according to plans: the drones arrived on schedule. Ahmed, a young engineering trainee, and I assembled the drones and added my modifications. These units had not only multiple cameras, sensitive audio microphones, standard navigation instruments but new tunable chemical sensors. I reckoned with the right combination of sensors, good communications links, and powerful computers at our base, we should be able to fly over areas and collect air samples that we would partially analyze on-board with final analysis being done on the more powerful computers back at the base.

Najib was a valuable partner not for just his citizenship and obtaining the necessary permits. He also had good business contacts and knew whom to see. Within a few months he had arranged demonstrations of our capabilities with influential people. My background in the US was useful in showing that our equipment and techniques did work in reducing crime. We began to receive contracts. This enabled us to hire new personnel for both training as drone pilots but also all the technical support areas of computers and drone maintenance. I contacted the company I had sold my business to and arranged to have a few select managers come to Dubai for a six month period to organize and recruit new staff. Within a few months the operation was running smoothly. That meant not only more time with Sarah but more time to play with my drone toys.

One morning I was in the hangar working with some of the local technicians who were doing maintenance on a drone when two fit looking Westerners walked across the pavement to me. Both had the comportment of either military, intelligence, or even oil company men. The lack of a beer gut made me think they were not from an oil company. They introduced themselves and asked for a few minutes of my time. I excused myself from the technicians and walked to the other side of hangar. As it was still February the temperature was comfortable in the open. Being in the security business there was constant video and sound recording done in the entire facility. I was sure the visitors were aware of this as well.

"How can I be of assistance to you gentlemen?"

The one who called himself Ed began. "Mr. Sanders, we were told you have a skill set and resources that might be of use to us. You seem quite busy right now. Do you think you might be able to take yourself away from this work for some time to pursue a project that would benefit many people?"

"Yes, it's possible I could assist you but I should warn you I consider myself a businessman, or a mercenary if you like, and expect to be paid even if it is for patriotic or charitable causes. I have seen too many international charity projects where the charity benefits the rich more than the needy. The same goes for patriots. There are plenty of true patriots but too many men who claim to be patriots only as long as they receive an excessive reward. So let's not confuse the matter with those kinds of tags. If I assist you it will be for a decent and fair profit, and since I have the luxury of being able to do what I choose, for the pleasure of the work."

The two men exchanged glances with each other. Ed nodded. "We understand your position and have no problems with this. We would like to make an appointment to discuss the details with you soon. At that time we can complete the business arrangements. We would prefer a more public locale for that. We will not permit any recording devices, electronic or photographic. Here is a number where you can send the details." He handed me a business card with his name and a name I vaguely recognized: Multimodal Transport and Services. I took the card and shook hands with both men. Later I made a reservation at a office complex which rented meeting rooms by the hour. I went to an electronics shop and bought a jamming device which would emit electronic noise over a short distance to prevent recording or transmitting. One hour before the agreed time, I sent a text message to the address on the paper and waited for the confirmation. It arrived within a minute and I took a taxi to a point near the meeting place. I had left the address at the office in case I did not return. Ed asked if we could have a different room. The host said there was a larger room available at a higher price. Ed asked me if that was agreeable. I signaled my agreement and we went to the office. The second man, Dave, took a phone-size device from his pocket and walked around the room. He nodded to Ed. I took out my jammer and turned it on and placed it in the center of the desk. We all smiled at each other.

"Tell me what I can do for you that someone else can't," I began.

Now it was Dave's turn to lead the conversation. "You have a number of advantages for us besides your technical and business background. You are here in the Mideast where the action is. You can develop new drones from components found outside the US. You can fly them and make sure they do what we need. Finding one man with that package is difficult. Plus we have checked your background thoroughly and we have no reservations about your willingness to work for the common good."

I interrupted, "What would that common good be for you?"

Ed's turn: "Eliminating terrorist threats at the source before they spread out of this region. Without any identification of the actor."

"I see. Who would fly the drones and how long do you expect this work to last?"

"Initially, we would like you to fly the drones and then build a small team to continue the work. The duration would be at least a year and we could see your involvement for up to three years. You would need to be in-region most of the time. We would establish a set of bank accounts here for payment. There would be no knowledge of these funds to any governments. You give us the price for your services and if we agree, we will pay an initial retainer into one of the accounts. Other accounts will be for materials and third-party suppliers. There will be no connection between the accounts and in fact they will be in different banks. You will need to visit the banks only once each for purposes of identification."

"That sounds fine. I will continue to use my business here but will put someone in my place for most of the work. I was in the process of training a replacement anyway. What exactly does Multimodal do?"

"Our principle business is transport as the name states. In the process of transporting goods we provide other services such as documentation, security, financing,...,really the whole gamut of business services."

"We will also supply you with some special support services which you probably are not used to dealing with. The drones must use satellite communications so we will provide you with the channels for that. Also we will bring in an explosives expert to assist in developing self-destruct mechanisms for the drones. They are all to be considered disposable, one-time units."

"Sort of like bullets, eh?"

"Yes, not a bad analogy. But these bullets have to fragment into a thousand pieces when they destruct."

<****>

Six months later we were set up. We had rented a separate nearby location with much tighter security. When asked about what we did and why we were so secretive, we would say we were developing a new type of entertainment device for spectacular events. It would have aspects of fireworks shows but be much more elaborate and dramatic. We hoped to make a lot of money with it but needed to be secretive until the launch in a year or two. The plans also included production of an expensive toy for the wealthy such as a model aircraft. This was the story to suppliers as well as most of the employees. It explained much of what we bought and much of what we required.

Our purchasing process was equally indirect with components bought by and delivered to a network of expediters who held all the parts for our trusted driver to retrieve. All of this pushed the costs up, but the cost was not important.

When the prototype was ready for testing we loaded it in a trailer for motorcycle racing teams, complete with small workshop, and drove it into the desert in the early morning. For this test there was Nick the explosives expert, my best technician Terry, and myself. The drone was designed to be launched from a frame of a man's height which collapsed away upon a remote signal. Extensions to the wings gave the drone additional wing surface for take-off. These tips were covered before launch and would decompose within hours after being exposed to air but we had multiple sets in case there were delays after the tips were unwrapped. The previous day I had contacted Ed and notified him that we were going to make the test and we would need the communications link which he was to provide. He said they would make a final test but as far as he was concerned it was ready for use. We turned on the comms link and looked at the pictures from the multiple cameras and checked the drones instrumentation readings. We could observe the delay between what we could see outside the control van and what was displayed on the control screen. This was due to the delay in the satellite communications link. Terry took the wing tips to the drone, attached them, and unwrapped them. I started the motor and brought it up to maximum velocity then feathered the prop for maximum thrust and switched the frame to collapse. The drone fell forward and started lifting into the air. As it gained speed I increased the rate of climb. Soon it was out of sight even with strong binoculars but the cameras aboard gave us a good picture of ourselves and the ground target we had placed some distance from us. The target from above had the profile of a man with a light turban standing in the desert. After it reached sufficient altitude I tripped the release of the wing tips which fluttered away. The drone climbed to its operational altitude where I put it in a random hovering pattern. We ate a snack and waited a few hours while exercising the cameras and other monitoring instruments. When we were satisfied with these results we put the controller on-board into target acquisition mode. I gave it a broad range of objects to check. It scanned and presented each for my inspection. When it showed the turban, I signaled to lock on this target. Nick and Terry both verified it was our target and not some local out for a walk with his pet hawk. I let Nick flip the switch to attack.

Like a hawk diving on a rabbit the drone pitched forward and accelerated downward. The forward camera was in full zoom mode but reduced the zoom as it grew closer. This was to give the operator a last chance to abort if he saw something he did not like. Of course, at this stage the abort did not save the drone, just the target. The explosive charge was a small one. To destroy a man at the speed of the drone's dive no explosive would have been necessary but this was a test. As the drone reached arm's length of the target it detonated. We heard the small popping noise in the afternoon air and drove out to the coordinates where we had place the target. All that remained was a hole in the ground and small pieces of magnesium-painted material burning away in the vicinity. Within a few minutes this residue stopped burning. We photographed it all then proceeded to collect everything larger than a cat's tooth. We drove home in the twilight with a small black trash bag full of small pieces of trash. We had filmed the entire process with multiple cameras mounted to the top of our vehicle. After storing everything in our workshop, the three of us drove to a good restaurant in town and had a special celebratory supper.

After spending a day compiling the results of the first full test flight I met with our sponsors Ed and Dave. We reviewed the video and the analysis we had done of the fragmentary residue. As all the components were commercially available in the Far East, there was no indication of the source of the drone. Even the explosives that destroyed it had a commercial source which made tracing them difficult if not impossible. They gave authorization to scale up the operation. This meant larger explosives and longer duration flights. Over the next three months we fabricated ever more elaborate drones and tested them in the area but now with long duration and longer range flights. As planned, each flight ended in destruction but with a lot of data collected before the final explosion. The configuration included a fail-safe device that would destroy the drone if certain parameters such as an extended loss of communications or detection of an attempt to seize the drone took place. It was time for the real world, not a test.

<****>

Ed provided me with the specifics of the real target. He was a hostile residing in a Gulf country with a ineffective government. We had already made practice launches from a small private watercraft so we knew there should be no impediment to a maritime operation.

I am not a pacifist but I was never even a hunter. My shooting experience was limited to clay pigeons. But Ed made it clear that they wanted me to be the shooter. To assuage any sympathetic feelings I might have had he briefed me on our first living target.

He presented documents on a group of pirates operating off the coast of Somalia. The men in charge of the pirates had been responsible for multiple ship seizures and the death of British civilians on a sail boat that had been taken a year before. There was no chance of any intervention by a recognized governmental body to bring these men to justice. Killing Bambi is one thing. Killing pirates who have killed innocent people is another matter. I had no hesitation in taking the assignment. Nick, Terry, and I loaded our gear on the large craft which had been made available to us. Dave gave us new passports for our temporary identities as well as cover details that would justify our being in the area. They also provided us with a sailor named Fritz who would handle the craft for us. Fritz had equipped the boat with the gear to support a deep sea fishing trip of a few days, including a few cases of beer and refrigeration facilities to chill the beer and any fish we caught. Terry said he was a decent cook and offered his services. After two days of sailing and training in deep sea fishing we arrived in our target area. In the early morning light we assembled the drone. As the sun rose the drone flew from the back deck of the boat and after climbing out of sight dropped its wing extensions. We received a brief coded message giving the coordinates of target vessel and entered them in drones guidance system. We had planned our attack for late afternoon and set ourselves to fishing. The weather was beautiful. I stayed below and monitored the flight while Nick and Terry fished. They threw back most of what they caught but kept a few of the better specimens. Fritz dressed the fish and put the filets in the refrigerator. Shortly after noon we spotted a large naval vessel headed our way. It looked like a NATO patrol craft. Fritz talked to them on the radio and welcomed them to inspect us. They sent three seamen in a large Zodiac inflatable equipped with a small cannon. They tied up to our side and two of the men came aboard. They checked our documents and asked a few questions. We offered them a beer which they declined and some fresh filets which they viewed hungrily but also did not take. We told them they might see us in the area again as we were working on a project nearby and liked going fishing when we had the time to do so. They warned us about pirate vessels and said to stay alert. We thanked them and they sailed away.

An hour before sunset the drone arrived in position above the target craft. The drone was painted with non-reflective camouflage paint so it would be hard to detect especially since we positioned it to the west of the vessel. I lowered the drone to an altitude where the cameras would have a good view of the men on the craft. I captured pictures of three of the men and enhanced them for comparison with the photos Dave had given me. I had no doubt that these were the men we were looking for. I messaged Ed in code that I was about to launch the attack. Within a few minutes I received the coded order to proceed. He had the coordinates of the pirate ship and must have some form of monitoring what was happening. I called Terry and Nick down to observe. As with our first test flight I brought the drone down to a level where it was almost visible from the surface. I flipped the switch to arm the explosives. Then I locked the guidance system on the target, set the elevation of the explosion as Nick had advised, and commanded the drone to attack. We watched the forward camera as it rapidly dove on the boat. The drone transmitted back its own status code which was converted to a screen message: "Time to destruct: 5...4...3...2...1 As the camera pulled back I looked around to see if there was any reason to abort and found none. Then the screen went blank. Within a minute I received a code from Ed confirming the destruction of the pirate boat. We were much too far from it to hear or see anything. We were already headed home so we closed up our equipment and went up on deck to grill some fish and wash it down with cold beer. Deep sea fishing works up a strong appetite.

<****>

Arriving home the following day we were met at the dock by Dave. He collected our identity documents and scheduled a review for the following day. We took the rest of the day off.

At the review Ed showed us photos of the explosion and the resulting debris. Sharks had cleaned up any organic matter still remaining. He said he was scanning regional newspapers and transmissions for news of the explosion but so far there was no mention of anything. In that area vessels disappeared frequently for any number of reasons, mainly due to storms or equipment failures. Ed proposed that we make a few more missions in order to refine our techniques and hardware profiles. He also wanted to extend the distance from which we operated and proposed we augment the fuel supply and flight characteristics for the additional range. Funding was no problem.

I had some modifications I wanted to make so we let Nick take a vacation while Terry and I designed the Mark II drone. We ordered all the parts from the Far East through our usual channels. I took off for two weeks with Sarah to go to Australia. On our longer trip we had not had enough time to touch all the points along its coast so now we could fill in the gaps. When we returned, all the parts had arrived. Assembly time for Terry and me. In a week we had the new model flying test patterns high above the Persian Gulf. No explosives except for the mandatory self-destruct kit. We did not want this model to destroy itself at the end of the test flight so we had replaced the explosive payload with a parachute that we deployed over the spot in the desert where we waited with our motorcycle team trailer.

Ed had decided to make the missions a little bit trickier by requiring the drone to fly a complicated predefined map course. As the drone had a GPS which it used to correct its flight path, having it fly through imaginary hoops would pose no problem. The next real mission was to involve taking off from our home position and destroying another boatload of Somali pirates. Fortunately, our drones never needed to have enough fuel to fly home. He briefed me on the pirates I was to kill. Out of curiosity I did a little research on the internet and found plenty of information to support his contentions. My conscience was clear. We still wanted to strike in daylight so we launched midday of one day with an estimated arrival at noon the next day. Dave supplied us with weather forecasts for the entire course so we could adjust our flight plans for unfavorable winds or storms. Our three-man crew drove out to a new launch site int the desert. Terry fueled the craft and attached the wing tips then Nick loaded the explosives. With me at the control panel in the back of the van off the drone flew, rising like a vulture on the hot afternoon air. At cruising altitude we drove back to the shop to monitor the flight from the workshop. We had bought a comfortable recreational vehicle to reside in with the idea that it could also be used for future field support work. Ed had been discussing future operations involving multiple drones on simultaneous missions.

All went well until 2100 flying south. We had known there was a chance of thunderstorms and I was prepared to reroute the drone around anything I was aware of but this one came up so suddenly that before I knew it, the drone was in trouble. The drone was little more than a glider. It did not have the power to overcome strong wind gusts. When the instruments began to indicate the drone was being buffeted and it was having trouble maintaining course, we had to make a decision. We had not programmed it to self-destruct on a sudden uncommanded loss of altitude. This was a serious oversight on my part. If the drone fell into the sea and its electronics were soaked it would be helpless. Worse, it would be retrievable by anyone who found it floating. We would correct this in the next release, but for now I had to decide quickly before we lost satellite communications with the drone. I glanced up at Terry who was standing next to me. He shrugged and shook his head. I entered the self-destruct command and gave it the confirmation password. The last coded message we received said, "Self-destruct initiated" The readings stopped updating and the "Loss of Comms" message flashed on the screen. We had damaged many drones in testing but it had never been as severe as this. I decided to wait until the next morning to tell Ed. I slept very little that night trying to think of the best way to correct the error. It would mean at least another week just to validate the new software plus the time to build up a new Mark II drone.

When I called Ed and told him about my mistake he was surprisingly understanding. He said it was better to find these faults now than later on in the project, whatever "project" he was referring to. I told him we had already started to build the replacement but it would be at least two weeks before we could fly again. In fact, it took three weeks and for me those were some long days. Running a small operation like this meant we each had a lot of responsibility which was fine when everything went right, but crushing when it did not go well. The new drone was ready to go. Dave said the target vessel was in the same general area and gave me the coordinates to plug into the new drone. I did not want to risk any more weather related problems so we waited an additional three days for the conditions to improve on the flight path. I was aware this could be a major constraint in the future. We used the same schedule as before and I had a cot next to my control panel. That wasn't really necessary as Terry was perfectly capable of handling the piloting work. It just felt like it was my baby, though.

As the noon arrival time approached we turned the cameras on. Most of the flight they were off to save battery power. Approaching the target area I had the drone make a visual sweep for the target vessel. A few probably innocent fishing boats then the recognizable profile of the target. I lowered the drone and zoomed the video in on the target. There were three men visible on the deck but no weapons. We did not expect to see weapons because if we could see them, then so could the international patrol vessels. I transmitted a photo of the boat to Ed and Dave and within seconds received confirmation that this was indeed the target. The drone drew closer to the boat and I had it circle at an altitude which should have made it invisible to the men on the boat. But I noticed one of the men wave to the other two and then all three looked up directly at the drone. Sweat broke out on my forehead. My immediate thought was, "We are going to have to paint these drones to look like birds," but it was too late for that now. I marked the boat as the target for the drone and commanded it to commence its attack. It nosed forward and began calling out "Destruct in 5...4...3. The camera zoomed out and I saw nothing to be concerned about so I took my finger away from the abort key. ...2...1. "Loss of Comms" A few seconds later I received the code from Ed and Dave confirming the kill.

We reviewed the shots of the men on the boat and agreed they were watching the drone come at them. They made no motion to escape even as the bird approached. They just watched it come. Who knows what they thought it was. But we all agreed that better camouflage was necessary and the surveillance altitude should be somewhat higher.

Ed said to prepare for another mission within two weeks, almost identical to this one. We prepared the new drone with its bird-like livery. Nick kidded that we should put some actual feathers on the drone but it would not help the fuel consumption.

The target was similar to the previous two. Ed gave me a dossier on the targets and I did my own research on them. They were as bad as he said. I had no reluctance in killing them. We selected a time-frame when the weather looked to be optimal but launched later so the arrival time would be closer to sunset. I did not want the targets to have a good look at the drone even if it did look like a big bird. All went as planned and when we circled overhead and looked down at the target, no one looked up at us.

<****>

A few days later I met with Ed and Dave to determine what would happen next. They explained that they had informed the Somali government about the three hits thus far. They told the government that if the pirates did not stage any more attacks on ships, their vessels would not be sunk. If there was another attack, the pirates involved would be identified and their home village struck. The government officials said they would let everyone in the pirate home area know of this ultimatum.

Nothing happened for two weeks but then a cargo ship was taken and held for payment. Ed said they knew the location of the ship and the village responsible. He wanted to make a warning attack with two drones. One would explode above the port area. The other would be above the house of the clan chief. The altitude would be high enough to do only minor damage but should scare the village. We prepared a second transport trailer similar to the first. In three weeks we had both drones ready for launch as well as the new control panel. We tested a standard drone with the new control panel and everything worked as it should.

On the morning of the launch we drove the two vehicles to a good spot in the desert and set up the drones. We wanted the strikes to take place about 1000 when we calculated there would be the lowest chance of injuries to civilians but an immediate recognition of what had happened. The launches went off within a few minutes of each other and the drones started on their courses. They would travel at some distance from each other to minimize the chance of them being connected to one another. We returned to the base and I positioned my cot for quick access to either console. Terry monitored one while I watched the other. The next morning at 0945 we brought the drones over the village and turned on the cameras. There was activity around the market area. We saw where the canopied area that served as the school was. I found the small port area where we reckoned the pirates kept their craft. I set this as the target and programmed the drone to explode a hundred meters in the air. Before sending it down we set the second one to target the clan leader's hut but again to explode high in the air. I commanded the first drone to attack and watched it countdown. When we saw the comms loss message we counted to ten and then sent the second drone in. Five minutes later Ed called and confirmed the explosions. He said there was a lot of activity in the village. "Let's put all your work on hold," he told me. "We are going to wait and see what happens in the next few weeks. Also, we are working with a large group of shipping companies on some other approaches. I will be in contact with you within two weeks."

We put all our operations on the shipping drones into cold storage. Nick left for a vacation. Terry and I moved over to the regular drone activities. We had been talking about developing a new line of drones that would have chemical sensors for various exploration activities. We wanted to call them Bloodhound Drones and had in fact already licensed the name. The potential business could even surpass anti-crime surveillance.

Ed called two weeks later just as he had promised. He explained that while the last attack seemed to have been successful in discouraging the single village from launching attacks on ships, there were many similar villages that may not have received the message. Consequently, the shipping group had agreed that the next approach would be to hire mercenaries to ride shotgun on the ships when they passed through vulnerable areas. It was the same approach that the American stage coach companies had used in the late 1800's to combat both Indian and outlaw raiders. "We want to thank you for your dedicated work. We attached a small additional payment to the last one. Consider this a retainer for future consultations. We have sent Nick to work on another project. Good luck to Terry and you. It has been a pleasure working with you.

Fortunately, that was the last conversation I had with Ed or Dave. I had decided that blowing people up was not the way I wanted to spend my life. In fact, I've decided that I don't particularly care to use drones in conjunction with law enforcement. Finding mineral deposits or tracking the movement of airborne plant diseases seems a lot more constructive.

The End

Distress Signal

By

Max E. Harris

The screaming started again about four in the morning. Palma rolled over and tried to go back to sleep but the noise would not stop.

"Damned seagulls!" he muttered to himself as he sat on the side of the bed. "I might as well start the day early. If I finish my work early, I can fish this afternoon."

He drove from his flat to his office in the port of Rotterdam and unlocked the office. He surveyed the roster of ships awaiting inspection that day and found one he could board at 0600. Good. If he could give it the usual four hour inspection, he could have an early lunch. He went to the supply shelf and picked up a supply of consumables: flashlight batteries, ventilator filters, a new dosimeter, sample vials and bags. He took a recharged radio from its cradle and put everything in a carryall that he took out to his car. After stocking his backpack with all the essentials he drove to the pier where the huge dry bulk carrier sat taking on a load of fertilizer. This was the Portofino, a Capesize: meant for the long voyage around the southern tip of Africa or South America but too large for the major distance-cutting canals.

A mate from the ship came down and greeted him. Palma grabbed his heavy backpack and donned his protective gear then they climbed up to the ship's office where he had coffee. The ship's captain came in and greeted him with a large smile.

"Good morning, Mr. Palma, my name is Captain Braga. We just need your inspection and approvals and we are ready to sail."

"Captain, I will finish this as quickly as I can. I see you have no onward destination listed after New Orleans."

"Yes, that's right. The shipping rates are so low right now that the owners have not been able to book a good charter for an additional leg. They said they may not unload the cargo immediately. It depends upon the price that the owners of the cargo can sell it for. They said they may park the ship offshore for a while and wait for the price of the cargo to increase. The ship is so cheap and we make very little so it is a good investment for them."

"I imagine your crew will be a little anxious to go home."

"A little, yes. But while we are waiting there is not much to do so they can fish and the owner said he would send us some entertainment once a week."

"What kind of entertainment would that be? Jugglers and acrobats?"

"Ha, ha. No, some female entertainers who can sing and dance and have many talents."

"I'll bet they do. Do you have a trip lined up after your home leave?"

"No, not yet. But it is better for us than for the ship owners. Do you keep track of the BDI, the Baltic Dry Index?"

"Yes, we receive reports on the shipping rates for all the different types of shipping: the crude carriers, the container ships, and the dry bulk carriers that the BDI shows. It is interesting how when the daily rate for these ships was over two hundred thousand a day a few years ago, all the owners seemed to think it would stay high like that forever so they all ordered more ships to be built. And that pushed the demand for bulk goods like iron ore and coal even higher. Then the ships started being delivered and the excess demand disappeared. Now the rates are how much, six or seven thousand dollars a day?"

"That's right. As low as it was ten or fifteen years ago. But all the costs have gone up since then so the owners hardly cover their costs. I am sure the older ships will be turned back into scrap metal at a wrecking yard in India or some other place where labor is cheap."

"Then the rates will start to recover and you should earn a higher wage."

"I certainly hope so. I don't spend this time away from home so I can catch fish."

"I'm from Louisiana. My father is a fisherman. The best thing about this job is that I can fish a lot but I am not paid like a fisherman who works two or three times as many hours a week as I do."

"Yes, Mr. Palma, you are a fortunate man."

"I know I am. OK, let's start the process. Are these the passports for all your crew and passengers?"

"Yes, they are."

"After I have done all the paperwork, I need to match each person with their passport. I expect that will be in about an hour. I apologize for waking anyone up."

"That's no problem, sir. We are used to it."

Palma opened the file from his backpack and compared the ship's documents with the data he had printed from his computer. After he completed the review of the documents he went to the galley where all the crew had gathered. He checked each man's passport picture against his appearance. Many did not speak much English so he avoided questions. When this was completed he returned to the captain's office to retrieve his backpack and prepare for the inspection.

"Captain, you know that now we take pictures throughout the ship. I do not use a flash, so there should be no concern about setting off any detectors, but do you know of anything else that might be triggered by my camera?"

"No, Mr. Palma, there should be not any problem. I will assign a man to accompany you and retrieve any samples you may need."

"Very good, Captain. I will meet you again when the inspection is complete."

The captain called in an English speaking man who went around the ship with Palma. Palma took frequent pictures and made notes as to where the pictures were taken. He had the crewman capture samples of the fertilizer in the vials. He took samples from different parts of the holds. For the scrap metal it was enough to have a number of photos. When the inspection was complete it was past lunch time so Palma made a short visit to thank the captain and then left the ship.

He stopped at a cafe near the shipyard and had a brief lunch, then drove back to the office. He took his backpack into the office. By then it was the middle of the afternoon and he had worked his hours for the day. He gave his backpack to a man working in the office that day who said he would process all the documentation and samples. Then Palma returned to his flat to change clothes and retrieve his fishing gear. It was a beautiful afternoon so he walked through a nearby park to a small canal with benches along the side.

Sitting on the bench with his long fishing pole hanging out over the water of the small canal was an old Dutchman he had met before. He was smoking a pipe. He looked up and smiled as Palma approached.

"Good afternoon, Brad. It's good to see you can fish on such a beautiful day."

"Dag, Jan. I was lucky enough to finish early. What are you catching today? Anything interesting?"

"I've caught one good eel. That's good if you like eels."

"No, Jan. I haven't developed a taste for those yet. If I stay here long enough maybe I will."

"How long do you expect to be here, Brad?"

"I hope another two years. I am due to go home on leave next week for three weeks. Then I will be back. I don't want to miss the summer here. It's repayment for the winter months."

"We Dutch prefer not to think about the winter months. That is when we like to travel to the south."

"I don't blame you. It will be hot and humid at home now but I am used to it."

"How is your work? Are you busy?"

"Only moderately so. The economy has changed even in just the last year since I arrived. The shipping business is so slow that the ships are being used for storage. A speculator will buy a shipload of oil and wait for the price to rise a few percent then deliver the product. The product that puzzles me is the amount of fertilizer being shipped to the US. It usually comes from the middle east where they manufacture it, by way of India where they pick up a partial load of scrap metal."

"Does it all go to the same port, like New Orleans or Houston?"

"No, I would have expected that, too. Fertilizer for the farmland in the Midwest United States and steel to be made into steel pipe for the oil and gas industry. But there are even shipments to the east coast and to the west coast. I haven't figured it out."

<****>

After eating a light meal for supper Palma turned on his notebook computer and logged into his email account. There was a message waiting from his office mate who was processing the material from the ship inspection.

"Brad, I didn't want to disturb you on your time off (just like I would expect you to leave me alone when I am off), but I found something a little strange in you backpack. The dosimeter you had taken indicates exposure to a high level of radioactivity. I checked the others in the storeroom and they were all normal. Be thinking about where you went today and we'll talk about it in the morning. I didn't mention it to Frank. There's no need to get him excited when you may have a simple explanation, like you drove through Chernobyl on the way back from the ship.

See you in the morning, Jeff"

Brad leaned back and tried to think of where he and the dosimeter might have been exposed. There were a lot of radioactive sources in the shipyard used to examine the contents of different kinds of containers, but to his knowledge he had not passed close to any of these. The dosimeter would have been shielded to some extent when it was in the car. The only place he could think of was around or on the ship he had inspected.

<****>

When Brad arrived at the office Jeff was already at his desk. Brad grabbed a cup of coffee and rotated his chair to face Jeff.

"OK, Brad. Tell me how it came to you in your sleep. You remembered going to the dentist for an X-ray and you had the dosimeter in your pocket."

"Right, Jeff, I wish I could say that was it, but the only place I think the dosimeter might have been exposed was on or around the ship. Has the ship been given clearance to leave port yet?"

"The dosimeters were the only thing that I found out of the ordinary so I signed off on our part of it. I think they were just waiting on that to leave. This time of year they like to cross the Atlantic before the hurricanes start coming out of the tropics."

"OK. We have a lot more resources when they near US waters. I want to check on a few other matters that I've been thinking about."

"What have you got on your mind?"

"I was thinking about the dry bulk carriers that have gone through in the last couple months. A number of them had the same cargoes and same sources."

"That's not really unusual. Can you be a little more specific."

"Yes. I want to check ships with cargoes of fertilizer and scrap metal."

"All the data is in the system. Have at it."

Brad spent the rest of the morning collecting the data. When he was finished, he had a spreadsheet with a list of eleven ships with virtually identical cargoes and sources, but each with a different destination port. He printed out the list and passed it over to Jeff.

Jeff reviewed the list and shook his head.

"Partner, I think you may be on to something. Since when does Boston have a large demand for fertilizer and scrap metal? Likewise for Portland and Seattle. I think you should show this to Frank."

Brad rose from his chair and went to their boss's office. Frank was just finishing a phone call and nodded for him to have a seat.

"So, Brad, I see you are off to New Orleans on leave next week. Watch your step on Bourbon Street," began Frank with a smile.

"Thanks, Frank, but I've got something to show you that may be important."

Brad explained his interest in the bulk shipments of identical cargoes to different American ports and showed him the spreadsheet and map he had drawn up.

"This is all in the last three months. I would not have thought much of it until I came back from an inspection yesterday and it looks like something on the ship overloaded the dosimeter in my bag. I did not expect to be near a radioactive source so I did not even check it. Jeff found it when he was going through the backpack with the samples and documentation."

Sweat appeared on Frank's forehead. He looked at Brad with his mouth half open searching for words.

"I don't say we call out the whole US Cavalry but we are sure going to bring this to a lot of people's attention."

"Sure, Frank, whatever you think is best. I can leave tomorrow."

"No, don't make any changes just yet. We've done about all we can do at this end right now. Let the experts take it from here. Leave your vacation plans as they are for now."

<****>

As part of his morning routine American President Hawkins reviewed the status of all matters considered potentially catastrophic in the near term. As the various intelligence agencies investigated the bulk carrier ships now surrounding the country the severity of the situation moved up the ranks till it now was at the top. The digest of reports showed that the similar ships near the main ports of the country all fit a similar profile and had followed the same procedures upon their arrival near the US. The ships moored in international waters about fifteen miles offshore. The reason given by all the captains of the ships was to avoid additional costs associated with being within US waters. The captains had all been told by their management that the owners of the cargoes were investors who were awaiting a short term surge in the price of the cargoes. When the price surged, either in a US port or in some other nearby foreign port such as Mexico or Canada, the ship would move to the port and discharge its cargo for sale. The cost of holding the cargoes on-board the ships was now so low due to the glut of shipping capacity that it was a practical way of storing bulk commodities. Within a few days of arriving near their destinations the crews of all the ships were sent home and replaced by a much smaller crew of three or four men sufficient to look after the ship while it was moored. Close examination of all the replacement crews revealed them to be associated with areas of terrorist formation such as Pakistan, Yemen, and Iran. While the documentation for all the men was in order, none of them had extensive sailing experience. All the investigations were conducted in a most circumspect and non-invasive manner so as to no trigger the suspicions of these crewmen or their masters. The most recent arrival, the Portofino, was scheduled to arrive off Galveston in the next two days.

The preferred plan now before the President for approval involved the risk and even the certainty of great loss of life. However, it was viewed as being preferable to other proposals which would only be casualty free in unrealistically optimal circumstances. Surveillance of all suspected ships had been established early in the investigation. Various forms of monitoring were being employed including high flying drones and satellite surveillance. Wireless transmissions were recorded. Once the ships were parked in place the only commerce with the shore involved the exchange of crews and a single visit from a supply vessel which brought sufficient food to last the smaller crew for months. All the ships were very modern and so had sophisticated digital communications capabilities. These were monitored and analyzed. The internet service providers were large inte3rnational companies and the accounts were standard accounts used by ships with satellite communication links. Once each hour the name of the ship was transmitted as a brief email message to three different standard email providers for recipients with apparently uninteresting names such as hek4rzqmp. These names failed to have any meaning in any known language, similar to a password. The intelligence people had yet to identify who was reading the messages or if they were merely a diversion for some other form of communication. The internet links were not used for any other purposes after the relief crews arrived.

<****>

Upon his arrival for his vacation in New Orleans a young man in casual attire approached Palma at the baggage claim area and identified himself as an FBI agent. He asked Palma to claim his baggage and accompany him. The agent drove him to the naval air station near New Orleans and took him to an office building where he was immediately led to a meeting room where four men sat around a conference table. A Naval captain greeted him and offered him a chair and coffee.

"Mr. Palma, we know you are tired after a long trip so we will make this short so you can have a rest. Then your work will begin.

You have been chosen for this assignment for a number of reasons. You have served in the Coast Guard Reserves so you have basic military training even if it is not up to date with the way many things are done now.

You are currently a government employee with a high security clearance.

You are currently qualified in the use of small arms.

And most importantly, you have recently been on board the Portofino and know the captain.

You will need many if not all these attributes.

The Portofino is currently near Florida and should arrive in the New Orleans in about two days. This gives us enough time to train you for your mission. Now you will be given comfortable accommodation in the Bachelor Officers Quarters here at the station. If there is anything you need – anything at all – tell the officer accompanying you and he will see that you have it. Please try to sleep because you are going to be a very busy man.

<****>

"Good morning, Mr. Palma. I hope you slept well. Was your food satifactory?"

"Yessir, very good. I had most of the local delicacies I've been missing for the last year. It would have been nice to chase them with a pitcher of daiquiris."

"I understand. When this is finished, you can have a swimming pool of daiquiris. Let's begin your training. I will give you the top view and then turn you over to specialists who will give you complete training on each aspect. By the way, have you done any acting in the past? That could be a very valuable asset."

"No, sir, not unless telling all the women in Holland that I am the true Captain America counts?"

"Ha, ha. If you did it well enough, that may be sufficient."

"Yessir, well I had pretty good results with it after I had perfected my lines. I even carried a small brass shield with Captain America painted on it as proof. It was actually a brass ash tray but it helped to clinch a few evenings."

"Quick thinking and creativity will certainly be useful in this case. Now let's get started"

"Since it was you who identified the presence of the drybulk carrier threat in the first place, I won't go into that part of the story. The carriers are all in place offshore in international waters near a dozen port cities in the US, including even Honolulu. We do not know when the final vessel will arrive but we have not seen any following the pattern of the others so we are afraid the Portofino may be the last to arrive. With the previous ships the normal crew was replaced within three days so we expect the same procedure with the Portofino. In fact we have confirmed that commercial flight seats have been reserved for the crew in that time frame and we already know the identities of the replacements who are still outside the US but are under surveillance at a distance. We are doing everything possible not to alarm any of the actors currently in place. All the ships are under distant surveillance and countermeasures are in position. We want you to board the Portofino and either confirm or allieve our fears. If our suspicions are confirmed, immediate action will be taken."

"What type of actions will these be, if I may ask."

"You may ask. All I can tell you is that part of your gear will be goggles to shield your eyes from a nuclear blast and we have restricted all military vessels not to approach closer than one mile from the carriers. We have used various different reasons for these orders so as not to raise a common alarm."

"I understand."

"You will contact the captain of the Portofino from a small Coast Guard vessel which will be about one kilometer from the ship. You will tell him there are new greenhouse gas emission monitoring requirements for all vessels entering US waters and you would like to board his ship with some new monitoring equipment to test the equipment. We expect him to agree to this. You will be taken by a small Coast Guard inflatable to the Portofino. You will carry no weapons on your person but there will be two Seals in the inflatable with you. They will be in standard Coast Guard uniform but will have enough firepower concealed on the inflatable."

"After you have exchanged pleasantries with the Captain you will proceed to make a thorough inspection of the ships cargo holds. The backpack you will wear has been specially outfitted with chemical monitors for explosives but we do not expect you to be close enough for long enough for these to be effective. We mainly wish to confirm the presence of high levels of radioactive metals. When you approach this hold, you will proceed slowly. The data collected will be transmitted back to the Coast Guard vessel and relayed to more equipment onshore which will be able to give us a better estimate of the radioactive threat.

The communication gear you will be wearing is very special. You will have full audio capabilities plus you will be wearing small fore and aft facing high resolution cameras which will be transmitting before you leave the Coast Guard vessel. There will be more people seeing what you see, and watching your back as well, than you would believe. However, I will not lie to you. These devices are not to protect you. You and many other people involved in this operation are expendable. If you are lucky, and if we are lucky, you will survive. Have you understood that so far?"

"Yessir, it became apparent to me when I saw the threat to the country."

"Good, I wanted to be clear on that."

"Yessir, there are no virgins taking this trip."

"Right, and no simpletons either. Besides the gear on your back we will give you a special cellular phone to carry. We know your standard phone and have modified one that looks like it. It has some special circuitry and apps to permit it to act as a powerful alarm device. It has a special key sequence which will transmit a power distress signal that will go on a frequency that can penetrate the ships hull and be received both by satellite monitors and by a monitor on the inflatable. If you transmit that signal, we will prepare for immediate action. Don't send it unless you have no other choice. It may be a suicide signal."

"I understand."

<****>

Palma climbed down the ladder into the inflatable craft now loaded with its hidden cargo of armaments and communication gear. He had met the two Navy Seals and the Filipino commando who would escort him and had every confidence in their abilities. He was wearing the full backpack of equipment as well as a special flight helmet outfitted with front and rear cameras with zoom lenses that could be remotely controlled from the shore. The three men with him had similar helmets but theirs also had a small visor that looked like a sunshield. In fact it contained a screen on which images appeared. They were now set to monitor the fore and aft camera transmissions of Palma's helmet cameras. In his pocket was the modified cell phone which had all the functionality of his own phone, including his directory entries, plus the distress signal power. He had practiced this both on the shore and on the Coast Guard craft.

The captain of the Portofino was pleased to hear from him and welcomed his visit. Palma carried a bottle of top quality American bourbon as a welcoming present for the Captain.

The inflatable approached the Portofino at a modest speed which belied the capabilities of it engines. If need be, it could move across the water at over 50 knots.

The seaman on the deck of the Portofino dropped a rope ladder over the side of ship. The dry bulk carriers sometimes traveled in routes frequented by pirates so they did not by default make it easy to climb aboard the ship. Since the Portofino was carrying a full load, it sat low in the water. The inflatable pulled up next to the still moving carrier and one of the Seals pulled the ladder in and tied it to the small craft. Palma exchanged nods and hand signals with the men on his craft and started up the ladder. The seaman led him across the deck and up a stairway to the control room.

"Permission to come aboard, Captain."

"Mr. Palma, I am pleased by this unexpected visit. How is it that we meet again, sir?"

"Before I explain that, let me offer you a bit of New Orleans hospitality. I brought a bottle of our best bourbon for your enjoyment."

Palma took a small plastic bag from his front carryall and handed it to the captain who smiled broadly and removed the bottle from the bag.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Palma. I will open this when our relief crew arrives and assumes their duties."

Palma smiled and began his carefully rehearsed presentation.

"I got home about a week ago. After a day in the house I was ready to go out with my friends so we went down to Bourbon Street and had dinner. Then we walked along and stopped for a drink at every place that looked interesting. By the time we got to the casino I was feeling pretty good. But feeling good with bad luck is not a good combination because after an hour I had lost more money than I knew I had. That's what a high limit credit card will do to you. When I woke up the next afternoon and checked my bank account I couldn't believe it. I decided I didn't have enough for a decent vacation so I called the local office and asked them if they could find any temporary work for me. My luck had changed. They said they were a little shorthanded and had this new project they would give me for a week if I was interested. I would also draw an offshore bonus. I signed up and they showed me how to use the equipment. I did my first survey the day before yesterday and they made a few changes to the procedures and the equipment yesterday. So here we are for our next trial run. It's pretty easy. I just walk around all the decks with this gear on me and the package here transmits all the data on the air quality back to a computer somewhere that analyzes it."

"Are they going to fine us if we don't pass the test?"

"No, it's not like that. They are just collecting data. There is no pass or fail to worry about."

"Great. I get a bottle of whiskey and you do all the walking around you like so you can pay for all the money you lost. I will send a seaman along with you in case you need assistance."

"That will be fine, thank you, Captain."

Palma nodded at the seaman who nodded back and smiled. Palma was pleased to see that he was not Ramos. All the crew's background had now been carefully examined and Ramos, a large, young man new to the shipping business had been found to be the most likely to have Muslim terrorist sympathies. He was from the south of the Philippines in an area known to harbor terrorist groups that the Philippine government had been unable to eliminate. This man was named Ortega, a devout Catholic from near Manila.

The captain was not aware that this conversation was being viewed by military and government officials all over the country, including in conference room of the White House where the President had gathered his advisers in readiness for swift action.

Palma and Ortega made a top to bottom clockwise tour of the entire ship. Periodically, Palma would talk into his microphone in response to a request from a distant monitor. He carried a large flashlight provided by Ortega to illuminate darker areas. After forty-five minutes they had made their way down into the holds where the scrap metals were held. As they passed one particular hold, a vibration alarm in Palma's vest started pulsing. Within seconds a voice in his ear asked him to make a complete turn and to illuminate the area with his torch.

Ortega laughed. "Mr. Palma, we crewmen don't like to come into this area. Some of the men say they think the metals glows in the dark." Palma nodded at him in acknowledgment.

A voice came into his ear. "OK, Palma, that's it. It is all confirmed. Your dosimeter was dead on. Leave that area as soon as you can and rush through the rest of the inspection."

The Seals and the commando on the inflatable had been monitoring the inspection and heard the instructions. They had all studied the layout of the ship and knew precisely where Palma and Ortega were located thanks to devices tracking Palma's movements.

Palma had descended four steps down the stairway to the next deck with Ortega at the top of the stairwell when he heard the shout in earphone, "Behind you!"

He spun around to see a fire axe swung by Ramos strike Ortega in the side of the head throwing the dying man's body to the side. As Ramos pulled the axe back for the next swing Palma reached in his vest and pulled out a small .38 caliber revolver. His goal was to stop Ramos but not to kill him. That would come later. He shot Ramos three times in the right shoulder holding the axe. The impact of the shots sent Ramos falling backward as he lost his grip of the axe.

At the first warning to Palma the three men on the inflatable quickly climbed the ladder on the side of the ship. Seal One headed for the control room while Seal Two and the Filipino commando raced toward Palma and Ramos. Ramos had apparently ingested strong drugs just prior to the attack for he was now climbing to his feet in spite of the three bullets that had destroyed his shoulder. Palma quickly topped the stairs and rammed Ramos as he tried to rise. They needed Ramos to be able to talk so Palma merely stomped on the fallen man's right shoulder to intensify the pain.

Seal One arrived in the control room and advised the captain that he must immediately abandon ship with his crew on the fastest vessels they had. He knew that the ship was equipped with a pair of small inflatables which could be quickly launched and possibly remove the crew far enough to save their lives.

No one knew if the terrorists had a distress signal of their own. Therefore, the watchers of the other ten bulk carriers intensified their vigilance, looking for changes in the previous routine. Thus far there had been none.

Seal Two and the commando arrived at Palma to find him with his heel firmly planted in the bleeding man's shoulder wound. Seal Two pulled a pouch from inside his vest and removed a syringe and small bottle of clear fluid. The bottle contained a potentially lethal drug designed to quickly induce psychosis into the victim. To this had been added a pain inducer which would make the recipient feel as if he was on fire. It had been previously decided that it was sufficient to keep Ramos alive for five minutes. If he didn't talk in that time, they could not afford to wait. Seal Two injected the dose into a vein in Ramos's neck and they watched as it took effect. Ramos's eyes widened and he started to scream. At this point the commando stepped forward and began to holler at Ramos in his native dialect. He helped the psychosis by describing the horrors that were coming from the jungle and the sea to torture and devour him. What's more he spoke of Ramos's family members by name and said if Ramos did not speak quickly and tell him how to signal the other ships, the same horrors would be visited on his people. It was clear that Ramos wanted to help but the psychosis and impending death had damaged his ability to communicate.

In the meantime Seal One had one of the crewmen show him to Ramos's quarters. The Seal rummaged through the man's gear and in a camera case found a small shortwave transceiver. He shouted his discovery into his microphone and called for everyone to abandon ship. Now that they knew the medium of communication there was no need to remain. The commando took out a small metal detector and passed it over Ramos body to seek any other devices. He found none.

The three men ran up the stairs and across the deck. Seal One had already climbed into their craft and readied it to leave. He was now describing the details of the shortwave device he had found and was waiting for instructions on what to do. The ship's captain and crew were lowering their boats into the water in haste. The captain had brought the ship to a halt but it would drift with the currents. Right now that was the least of their worries.

Before their boat had reached the Coast Guard ship Palma's cellular phone began ringing. He answered quickly and connected it to his earpiece so he could hear over the boat noise.

The message was urgent. It was imperative that the captain of the ship return to the carrier with a few men and proceed at a slow pace. Ramos's device would be taken to the naval air station for examination by technicians. A boat from the Coast Guard cutter was being dispatched to meet the lifeboats from the ship.

When Palma's craft arrived at the Coast Guard cutter he was relieved of Ramos's device and taken to the Captain's office where two other men in civilian outfits were waiting for him. They said they had seen his transmissions and wanted to know if there was anything significant to add to them. Palma said he was not aware of anything that they had not seen. They proceeded to explain to him what had alarmed everyone about the device.

Not only was it a shortwave radio but it also contained a GPS device and was programmable. If it was as they feared, then the device was probably turned on each evening and transmitted the ships position to whoever was coordinating the operation. This would be verified when the programming was analyzed within the next few hours. Since the device would not be checking in today, it was necessary to prepare for some other contact. Palma and his Seals were to be taken back to the carrier to stay with the Captain and his reduced crew and await contact. The ship would proceed at a slow rate which was to be blamed on engine problems. Palma and the Seals could rest back on the Portofino if the conditions permitted. In the meantime they would all be fed a good meal in the cutter's mess. Their small craft was to be exchanged for a larger and faster craft for their return to the Portofino.

Within two hours the three men were motoring back from the cutter. They were greeted at the carrier's side by one of the crewmen who had volunteered to remain aboard. He walked them to the control room where the Captain waited.

"Mr. Palma, I am pleased to see you again but I would very much appreciate an explanation of what is going on. First, we have to abandon ship immediately, then we are told to proceed slowly with a reduced crew. Please tell me what is happening."

"Certainly, Captain, it will be my pleasure to explain. First, let me warn you to tell your men to be prepared to leave the ship very quickly. When we leave, you and your crew will be going with us.

Ramos, the man who was killed was a terrorist. We don't know which organization precisely he is from but it makes little difference. They intend to guide this ship near the port and blow it up. The radioactive materials will be dispersed over a wide area and make the region uninhabitable for some time. We hope to delay that explosion as long as possible. My two Seals will be looking for the detonating device but it may be well hidden. We do not yet know how to check in with the terrorist organization but we hope they have an alternate procedure to check with their man if he does not call in. We will know more about this when the shortwave radio is examined. If someone tries to contact him, you are to tell him that he fell down a ladder and was taken by helicopter to a hospital in New Orleans. We have checked him into the hospital already and have prepared an ongoing narrative to describe his condition. He is stable and will recover but is not able to communicate because he is sedated. They will ask who he can contact if he becomes conscious. We don't expect a real reply to this."

"Excuse me, Mr. Palma, but I was told Ramos was dead."

"He is. But we don't want them to know that. In fact there is a man meeting his general description in a hospital bed in case anyone looks in the room. He has his head bandaged and a leg in a splint. He is unresponsive to any inquiries and appears heavily sedated."

"I see, Mr. Palma. How soon do you expect to be contacted?"

"Probably within the next twenty-four hours. Your relief crew is already in New Orleans. They are being closely monitored but not interfered with. Now let me brief you on what to say when they call you."

<****>

The call came at 0900 the following morning. As it was an external call the captain answered it.

"Hello, Captain, this is Captain Ramirez, the captain of your replacement crew."

"Good morning, Captain Ramirez, I have been awaiting your call. We should have the ship moored in about three hours and look forward to your relieving us."

"I hear from the company agent that there were some problems that delayed you."

"Yes, that's correct, A fitting holding a high pressure hydraulic line broke. A crewman nearby was struck in the head and then fell and broke his leg. A helicopter flew out and took him in to a hospital."

"Oh, I am sorry to hear that. Who was the crewman?"

"An able bodied seaman named Ramos. We heard he will recover but he will be in the hospital till he is well enough to travel home."

"Did you send his gear in on the helicopter with him?"

"No, we will take it in when we change crews and leave it at the agent for him to pick up. He will have to go by the agent for tickets and travel money anyway."

"Has the fitting been repaired?"

"Yes, we had the part brought out on a supply vessel last night and the mechanic installed it immediately. So the ship is in good condition for you."

"That is good to hear, Captain. I look forward to meeting you tomorrow."

"Likewise, Captain. Enjoy your time onshore. Goodbye."

<****>

Palma poured another cup of coffee and took it to the window from which he could observe the Portofino in the distance. The device taken from Ramos's gear had been put in a lead shielded box from which no transmissions could be sent or received and transported to the electronics test facility at the naval air station. It would be examined closely within a similarly shielded room and an attempt would be made to determine the exact functions of the device. But in the meantime the device was not available to answer any electronic questions put to it.

<****>

The President had been awakened at 0300 and he dressed quickly and went to the conference room where his military and intelligence advisers had gathered.

"Gentlemen, my chief of staff tells me that matters are quickly coming to a peak. I would like the chief of intelligence Mr. Swanson to bring us all up to date."

"Yes, Mr. President and my colleagues. Matters are indeed escalating. The electronic device found in the belongings of the agent Ramos was transported to the naval air station for analysis. However, shortly thereafter the captain of the carrier Portofino received a call from his relief officer inquiring when he could take control of the ship. Possibly as a result of these two events we have monitored a sharp increase in radio activity from all the ships. Always short encrypted bursts that we have yet to decipher. But what is more disturbing is that in the last few hours we have observed more activity on the ships and expect they are preparing for the final assault. They all are moored off the main shipping lanes and within a one to two hour leg to their likely targets."

"We were hoping there would be time to understand the full communications systems and send in teams to disable the detonators. That is still one option and we intend to use it as the first part of our attack. If we were to be successful, there would be minimal damage and loss of life. However, we do not have the time or the information. The team on the Portofino removed three detonators in the fertilizer, but we cannot be sure that there are not more there, and one should be sufficient to ignite the fuel. If we can prevent one explosion, it will have been worth the effort."

The President raises his hand, "Mr. Swanson, please review your current human loss estimates for the different options."

"Yes, sir. If we could accomplish the suppression of all activity on the target ships by some sudden shock attack, say using poison gas, there would be minimal loss of life. Unfortunately, we believe they may have activated timed detonations which may already be in progress. Any one of these ships which detonates near its target will take at least a few hundred thousand lives within days and possibly that many again over time. If it detonates near its mooring point, that may be reduced to less than twenty thousand, depending upon weather conditions. A wind which carries the fallout offshore would save thousands of lives.

The preferred option at this point might only take a few thousand lives at any target."

"And what is that option, Mr. Swanson?" asked the President.

"We have dispatched a pair of Stealth bombers to circle within cruise missile range of each ship. These missiles carry tactical nuclear weapons which would vaporize a ship and everything on it but produce minimal fallout. We would expect losses of as little as one thousand but up to tens of thousands, again depending upon the winds at the time and the proximity of other craft."

The President takes a drink from a glass of water. "My friends, I see little practical alternative than to try assaults with the Stealth bombers as backup. What is the communications link between the assault teams and the bombers?"

"Each man in the assault team is equipped with a simple transmitter that will send a distress signal which we will receive and retransmit to the bombers. Like Samson, he will be pulling the temple down upon himself to destroy his enemies."

The President slowly nods. "I appreciate your Biblical reference but is there anything which we can do to punish the groups behind this? The American people will rightfully expect us to seek retribution."

At this point the commanding general at the table raises a finger. "If I may, Mr. President."

"Yes, please tell us what you have in mind."

"When we first learned of this plot, we began to move intelligence and military assets into place to be able to act if we determined which state was behind these actions. The assets are in place. I would propose that we use them now to effect regime changes in all the countries which could have supported this or might support similar attacks in the future. To clear the field of wrong-doers and potential wrong-doers, if you will."

A chorus of support is heard from other attendees.

"Yes, I think you are right. This is the time not just to react but to take the initiative. I would like all present at this table to begin the actions which will attempt to stop the attack of the cargo ships, and failing that, destroy the attackers. Furthermore, prepare to remove the governments which we suspect may have played a part in this, or have the potential for creating such a disaster. I am prepared to sign any orders you bring to me. I am sure the Congress will give its full support to these actions."

<****>

Palma had drifted into a light sleep on a bed in a private cabin when the alarm sounded. He was clothed but had taken off his shoes. He quickly pulled them on and turned on the cabin light. He found his life jacket and helmet and ran into the hallway. His cabin was near the control room so he proceeded there and stood in the back near the door as the announcement sounded, "All hands to combat stations!"

The ship which had been hovering parallel to the Portofino now turned seaward and moved out at flank speed. In a few minutes it would be a safe distance from the carrier no matter what happened.

The captain turned and saw Palma near the door.

"Mr. Palma, come over here for a moment."

"The hostilities are beginning. A helicopter was dispatched to the Portifino to take the crew away. That should be completed within the next five minutes. Once all military vessels and aircraft are removed from the area, we will await further orders."

"What do you expect those orders to be, Captain?"

"The carriers will all be boarded by commando teams. At the moment any commando senses there is a chance of an enemy demolition, he will give the distress signal. Then all the carriers will be vaporized within a couple minutes. Permit me to make a crucial announcement to my crew."

"Now hear this. All crewmen, come below decks. Do not look in the direction of the Portofino and brace yourself for a strong shock wave from a possible nuclear detonation. I repeat, All crewmen, come below decks. Do not look in the direction of the Portofino and brace yourself for a strong shockwave from a possible nuclear detonation."

Palma turned to the Captain. "Excuse me, Captain. I think I will return to my cabin."

"Certainly, Mr. Palma. Make sure to sit in a position with your back to the aft of the ship. You may want to place a mattress against the wall."

Palma walked quickly to his cabin. He bolted closed the cover over the window and placed the bed mattress against the aft wall. He stood with his back against the mattress, closed his eyes and waited.

The End

Where are my Rare Earths?

By

Max E. Harris

GC – (abbr.) Goal Compound, any chemical or pharmaceutical compound designed for a specific purpose, as, Sleep GC, a medication given to aid immediate and deep sleep.

The Rebound

When the global economies collapsed, various interested bodies joined to formulate a plan of recovery. American marketing was drawn in to present the new economy in a positive manner. Being well-versed in selling ideas to the public, the marketing industry quickly decided that new but recognizable terms were needed to bring support to the new models. Incorporating sports metaphors as they had done previously the corporations and government bodies were convinced to use a term which indicated the recovery from a failed attempt. And thus the changes were all lumped under the widely recognized basketball term, The Rebound.

The Transition

The economic period following the collapse of the American economy, meant to be a bridge between the former materialistic economy and the planned, improved economy which placed higher value on social and spiritual qualities. The transition was later called The Rebound as the economic numbers produced by the government statistic offices started to indicate a stronger economy.

Work

In a small temporary building set amid the castings of an open-pit coal mine in northern Appalachia a group of men all dressed in heavy casual clothing with a company logo on the breast and an American flag on the left upper arm are seated at a plastic laminated-topped dining table in a large company dining hall.

A large, older man arrives with his food tray and places it at his place at the head of the table. He looks around the table and all the men stop chatting and lower their heads.

The older man raises both his hands in with the palms up. "Let us give thanks to all those responsible for this food, this work, and this great country where everyone has the opportunity to succeed and feed their families." The other men nod and raise their heads to look at their balding, clean-shaved leader who sits in his chair. "There are no special announcements today. Continue your good work."

"Sam, pass me the butter, please."

"Here, take it but don't use it all. The cook said the supply was running low and the food shipment was delayed for a couple days. He didn't know what the delay was."

"I'm just grateful we get as good food as we get. It makes it worthwhile to work in the mines, as if we had a choice. Sal, tell Ernie your story about how things were in Sicily after World War Two."

Ernie looks up from his plate and laughs, "I'll bet I've told this story a hundred times. But it was really simple. After the Second World War in Sicily many of the people who had fled from the cities to escape the Allied bombings had no homes to go back to and no jobs. And no food. So every day they would go down to the towns from the mountains and look for work. My great aunt Lucia had a big garden. The garden had very fertile volcanic soil and anything you threw down on it grew. But it took some labor because the weeds grew just as fast as everything else. So Zia Lucia would have a couple guys working every day to maintain the garden. Their payment was a single meal. A large piece of bread, tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, salt, and some olives. If there was something mature in the garden they could take the poorer quality pieces that she could not sell or trade. One meal for a day's labor. That was it."

The table became very quiet with all the men looking at their dishes and thinking.

A young man at the end of the table commented, "Yeah, we've sure got it a lot better than them but I wish I could have some real beef just once. I understand that chicken is much more efficient but some days chicken is just not for me."

Another man offers, "Look, if you're tired of chicken, eat an egg instead. Ha, ha, ha."

The other men at the table chuckle.

The younger man replies, "Sure, like they're going to let us have eggs. When was the last time you saw an egg for sale?"

No one replies. The younger man asks, "What is this story I have heard that it all was because of the rare erts or something like that?"

An older man in the middle of his table leans back in his chair and wipes his mouth with a coarse cloth napkin.

"Earths, not 'erts', and it means rare earth metals. These are relatively rare metals that have properties that make them important or essential for some manufacturing processes. They are not found everywhere just like you don't find much water in the Sahara desert. A little but not a lot. And like water in the desert, if you don't have it, it limits what you can do and what you can make. For example, a lot of the electronic manufacturing processes developed since the 1960's depended upon these metals. As more and more electronics were made, more of the rare earth metals were consumed."

"Unfortunately for the United States, it did not have very large deposits of some of these metals. That was alright as long as everybody played nice. We bought them from China, Africa, and anybody else that wanted to sell them. But then the Chinese decided to play dirty. They didn't want to start a war so they said they needed the metals for their own uses. They had bought control of almost all the rare earth metal deposits outside the US. We could go to war over it but we didn't even have enough of the rare earths to build the electronics we needed for modern warfare so we swallowed hard and figured out ways to survive without the rare earths."

"OK, I have heard that it was the Chinese's fault but why do we have to do without things that we had when I was a kid? I had a tablet computer that I could play games over the internet on and watch films and lots of other cool things. Now all I can do on the internet is send text messages. The world wide web is gone. I had a cell phone that doesn't work any more. Just stupid phones with wires. My grandfather says it was like this in the 1950s."

"Look, Bill, for one thing the way you are talking is not patriotic. It's unAmerican. You keep talking like that and you will lose this sweet job. If you think it is hard work here think about living in a city dorm and doing sixty hours a week of labor for your room and board. For another it was the god-damned Chinese that did this to us. We still make good electronics but we have to use them to defend ourselves both from the saboteurs and the terrorists and from the Chackers who brought the internet down in the first place."

Bill nodded his head, "Don't get me wrong. I'm thankful for this job and I know how the Chackers in China made the internet and most communications unsafe for use. We're smarter than them. Why can't we make smarter programs to keep us safe?"

The older man nodded and leaned forward. "Yes, Bill, we are smarter than the Chinese but since they have the rare earths and we don't, they can build much faster computers that can beat ours. So we have to save our resources for military defense. Don't worry, this won't last forever. Our government will find a way to get around it. But for now we don't have much oil so we have to use coal power. That's fine but it means we don't have as much electricity as before and we can't use many planes or do much local ground delivery. It is really not that bad. About like the 1950's and everybody was happy then. We'll get through this by working together."

Again Bill nodded, "Yeah, working together is good, but after two months here with you guys I'm ready to go off the work GC's and go on the play GC's for a month."

All the men around the table laugh. Sal adds, "You know it. The play GC's are really super. My girl friend Molly starts taking hers the day before I come home so we don't have to worry about pregnancies and we are both fired up for my whole rest month. Who needs travel when you have a cute girl friend and lots of play GC's." The other men all laugh and nod.

Sal stands up at the table. "Okay, which one of you bastards wants to have his ass kicked at ping pong first? My work GC is still acting and I can beat any of you guys."

Bart, the team leader, interjects, "OK, Sal, that's fine for now but remember to take your sleep GC so you get a good night's rest. I don't want to hear any excuses for anything less than peak performance tomorrow."

"Yes sir, Bart, I hear you loud and clear. I always give my best for the company and the country. We all want to make it through the Transition to a better way of life."

Homebound

Two days later after the men had finished their dinner meal they went back to the large dorm room and retrieved their carryalls. They went out to board a large bus with tracks instead of standard tires. As they boarded the bus the driver handed them each a Travel GC. This was a compound which produced a light sleep plus anti-motion sickness effects. In most parts of the country the state budgets no longer provided for maintenance of rural roads and highways so off-the-road vehicles with high clearance and rugged tires or tracked vehicles were needed. For the time being most natural rubber compounds still came from the Far East. For a number of reasons this pushed there cost up sharply. Rubber plantations were being developed in Central and South America but the trees were not yet mature enough to yield the amounts of rubber needed. Likewise, artificial rubber was very expensive.

The bus left in the dark for the three hour drive to the nearest train station. An hour out of the pit they passed the large electrical power generation plant which was the destination for the coal they mined. This power plant was supplied by five surrounding deep open-pit mines. When mining a pit was no longer practical, the pit was used as a waste disposal site. At the station the men waited for the late train which would take them to a larger station where they could transfer to a high speed electric train. This train took them to the closest major hub in Philadelphia. From there they could catch other high speed electric trains to hubs around the country. Recent rules restricted how far a person could travel for work. This was viewed as a necessary measure in reducing transportation costs.

The Rules versus The Laws

When the American economy declined steeply with no credible path to recovery, the political, legal, and business communities were not immediately capable of putting in place laws to stem the decline. The laws were rigid in what they permitted. Political leaders were not in agreement on what kind of new laws were required. Consequently, to slow the decline The Laws regulating much public activity were ignored and replaced by The Rules. The Rules were liberal interpretations of The Laws. It was always possible to find a legal body that would permit execution of The Rules in spite of the conflict with the laws. When someone appealed to a court because they thought they were not being treated fairly, the court or an appeals court would generally support the new interpretation, i.e., The Rules. Soon most people began obeying The Rules and ignoring The Laws, including those charged with enforcing The Laws.

Transportation Hubs

After suitcase-carried nuclear bombs destroyed the train terminals in Newark and Zurich, designers realized the modern but outmoded structures which enclosed the entire boarding area had become obsolete. These closed structures tended to contain and amplify the force of an explosion. The rebuilt terminals and any subsequent terminals were designed to resemble the bomb assembly stations in Los Alamos.

Large earthen barriers separated all tracks and passenger loading areas. Instead of strong roofs meant to last decades, roofs were now new lighter covers with slots to permit airflow and the dissipation of explosive forces into the sky above.

Similarly, subways were replaced with open-air, recessed trackways which deflected energy upward while still permitting easy access. Streets and avenues were replaced with these trackways and the subway tunnels became channels for various support tubes housing utility lines. The subways also provided space for temporary public sleeping and bathroom facilities.

Time Off

Sal's girlfriend Molly was waiting for him at the new Newark train station when he arrived. She waited in the covered area outside the station. As had been the case with airports for decades access to the trains and the baggage claim areas was restricted to those with tickets. After the terrorist bombings destroyed the two major train depots these restrictions were accepted as necessary. Similarly, large bus stations had restricted access. Scanners and explosive sniffers were deployed at the entrance to all major gathering points. Overhead drones patrolled with cameras, microphones, and chemical sniffers. The data collected was sent to large computer centers for automatic analysis and storage. Unfortunately, terrorists always seemed to be one or two steps ahead of the latest anti-terrorist technology. A large proportion of the national budget was dedicated to anti-terrorism work. This limited resources for competing demands but was willingly accepted by the general public. Molly had a part-time job as a technician at a data processing center. Like most people she had to settle for only a part-time job as the economy could no longer support many full-time employees except in fields which supplied resources to the rest of the economy. The Rebound did however provide some employment for virtually everyone. Even the homeless and mentally ill were given carts similar to supermarket trolleys which were covered with patriotic placards and divided into sections. A small section on the top was used for holding litter which was redeemed at a disposal station for coupons good for meals or temporary shelter. The lower part of the trolley was to be used by these public sanitary workers for the storage of their personal belongings.

Full Employment

In the Western countries the Holy Grail of non-inflationary full employment had been met. The wages were in general low but by taking full advantage of all the opportunities provided within the system, all those who were willing, and some unwilling, adults were employed at least some of the time. That is to say they were compensated. Even the hospitalized and terminally ill were compensated. Anyone receiving a pharmaceutical provided by one of the licensed pharmaceutical manufacturers was entitled to compensation as a Verifier. The amount of compensation depended upon the information gathered by and from the Verifier. For the users of the Final Promise GC, the compound which brought final closure to suffering people within three days of administration, the payments were used to offset the expenses incurred by the dead person. Similarly prisoners who did not wish to perform laborious physical effort could still receive compensation as Verifiers of the BeCalm GC. BeCalm was subject to abuse by some of its Verifiers and resulted in their death, but the compensation was still paid as bodily measures taken at or soon after death would be beneficial in judging future dosing recommendations.

Molly roomed in a four bedroom apartment previously leased to United Airlines for its flight attendants. When United finally closed down, the rooms were let to locals. There were eight people in the flat. Three each in two of the bedrooms and a single person and partner in the other two rooms. These were shared out in twelve hour slots. Sal and Molly were lucky enough to be able to reserve adjoining time slots so they spent the first day enjoying the benefits of the Play GC's they had taken. Then they took WideAwake GC's to keep them alert for another day or so.

Chip Implants

Microchip implants had been put into pets for years so the technology was cheap and readily available.

Under the usual pretext of national security people in the US were asked to have identification chips implanted into their upper arms. While there was no law requiring it, The Rules stated that you could not board a public vehicle such as a bus, train, plane, cruise ship, ferry boat, or taxi without an ID chip implant which could be scanned from arms length through thick clothing. Also, you could not enter public buildings including schools, university buildings, libraries, shopping malls, grocery stores, movie theaters, and on and on, without an implant. So unless you wanted to live outside civilization, you had to have an implant. There was a positive side to this, though. No one needed to carry any form of identification. Their identification was implanted in their upper arm. Very cheap scanners permitted anyone to scan a chip and access a limited amount of public data from a large database. To make a credit card purchase you needed to only give the last two digits of the credit card and the type of card. Similarly, bank transfers could be easily initiated. Of course, the bank only authorized transfers where there were sufficient funds or credit to support the transfer.

Service Camps

Over a cup of coffee Sal and Molly discussed their plans for the coming three weeks. "I arranged with my boss to be absent for the next three weeks. He said there are plenty of people willing to pick up my hours for the money. I was thinking we might go to a camp, but I didn't know which type you would prefer. I checked the notice boards and there are lots of slots available at all the service camps."

With the gradual disappearance of affordable vacation trips, various public bodies recognized the need to provide some form of outlet for people's energy away from their day-to-day living environment. At the same time there was work that needed to be done in the public sphere for which the government no longer had the funds. Thus arose the development of service camps. These were rural facilities located within a few hours travel of major cities. They were at the seashore, in the desert, in the mountains, on the plains. All provided accommodation of a rustic nature, wholesome nourishing meals, and different types of exercise. The basic price of this was nothing in terms of money but the participants were expected to provide services. These services ranged from planting trees and other reforestation and natural improvement and cleanup operations to the harvesting of crops. Campers were scanned and their activities monitored by camp staff to ensure proper training and to direct their work. In some cases the campers were entertainers who "sang for their supper" by performing in evening entertainment programs. Some camps provided for special interests such as religious affiliations, physical and mental disorders, educational enhancements. There were evening programs where foreign languages were taught, musical instruments and vocal training were provided, art skills were developed. For many of these there were small projects that were joined with the daytime work. For example, an evening art project might design a outdoor landscape design that would then be implemented by a daytime work crew. Volunteers with demonstrated leadership skills could act as coordinators and directors.

Sal pursed his lips in thought. "You know I haven't been to the seaside in a few years. What would you think of a few weeks on the coast?" Molly laughed, "The weather is hot and dry: that sounds like a great idea. What kind of work would you like to do?" Sal responded quickly, "I've always been a decent cook. If we both work the food service area, we can have time together to spend on the beach in the day." "I think we have a plan. Let me check if there are places available and when we can catch a local train."

By late afternoon they were at a seaside camp and had been assigned a room in a hostel-type dormitory. There first work shift would be after the evening meal.

National Service

The following afternoon as they lay on beach towels near the water, Molly rubbed sun block on Sal's back. "Sal, with your Mediterranean complexion you really don't need much of this cream. I on the other hand have Irish blood and skin to match, so if I am not in the shade or covered with sun block, this will be my one and only day on the beach." "OK, Molly, I hear you. I will put the strong cream on you. While I'm doing that, why don't you tell me what you did in the national service."

"Ah, yes, the national service. Definitely not the two most pleasant years of my life. Most of you guys like the outdoor adventure of it but most girls don't have that option. I could have been a hospital aide or a preschool aide. Either way you spend a lot of time cleaning up messes. They sent me to a hospital in a rough part of St. Louis and trained me in the three C's: cleaning, caring, and counseling. Any hospital requires a lot of cleaning so that was no surprise but I did not expect to spend so much time sitting with the sick and dying. It was not part of my character profile when I started but I learned a lot about people the first year. Then they trained me in the counseling part. In that area there were a lot of people with drug dependencies. Too many GC's in too short a time. GC's are useful but they can have interactions and you have to know which can be mixed and which can't. So I would sit with young people who had overdosed on a bad cocktail of GC's and try to teach them how to avoid coming back on a stretcher or in a body bag. How about you, was it all forced marches in the Arizona desert?"

"Ha! Desert my eye. I spent two years at a small base in Montana. We alternated so that we were cross-trained for at least two types of military work. Part of the time was outside walking or skiing border patrols and practicing interceptions. Winter nights in the mountains can be pretty brutal. Especially when you have a four hour watch after midnight and it is so cold the wild animals are burrowed into the snow. The other part was a little more fun. We would sit in a control room piloting drones along the border. When we spotted anything unusual we would first do an optical scan with the zoom lens and then if there was a doubt, fly the drone in closer. We had to be careful about not crossing into Russian Canada. Those Russians are very sensitive about intruders and won't hesitate to 'accidentally' blast a drone out of the sky. Of course, we were the same way when we were on patrol. If we spotted a Russian drone we tried to coax it across the border so we would have an excuse to shoot it down. The Russians act like they own Canada even though they just have a mutual assistance agreement with the Canadians to protect 'their' oil interests. Hell, Americans were always willing to pay the Canadians for the oil. But the damned Canadians tried to charge an unreasonable price so we were perfectly justified in trying to protect our interests. Then they make a deal with the Russians to block their neighboring Americans from using the oil that they don't even need. If it weren't for us, that oil would still be sitting like a big ugly mess of sand under the snow. Anyway, I was glad to move back south, even if it did mean working in a coal mine."

Sal and Molly returned from their three weeks at the seaside tanned and energized. Sal spent one more night with Molly at her flat and then caught the train back to the small train station to meet his crew and ride the tracked bus back to the coal mine. Molly went back to her part time job in the city. After such a long break the grey sky, grey air, and grey complexions on her co-workers did not bother her.

The End

Twenty-four Hour News

By

Max E. Harris

You probably are not reading the original version of this story. Six months after I have written the original story there will be fifty slightly different versions in circulation. Circulating primarily on the internet but also in the tabloids and the multiple cable and satellite networks. After all we all want twenty-four hour news and that demands a lot of writing to be done.

Maybe I should have called this House of Mirrors or Collection of Derivatives because that is what it really amounts to. But let me tell it my way and then the editors and regurgitaters will make of it what they like.

<****>

When I graduated from college at the end of the long drought the unemployment rate for new graduates was upward of 90%. This worked out nicely for the state governments in that it meant they were able to close down most of the public higher education system due to lack of demand. Like all my classmates I continued to live at home with my folks. My main occupation was tending the family garden which like all of our neighbors comprised what had previously been a yard of grass. Now it was different crops in different seasons. I used to tire of eating tomatoes all the time but my mother had learned to can what we did not eat or trade so we had some basics the year around, probably the way it was a hundred years ago. And the homeowners association would not have considered banning the raising of chickens like it was written in the deed restrictions. Unfortunately there were no rivers near us or we could have had some fish now and then.

We did not use much heat or cooling most of the year but we still could afford to have internet access and I had taken to writing short stories and distributing them online. I had studied English in college because my math and science skills were limited and there was already a glut of people with degrees in the more interesting areas such as abnormal psychology. We wrote a lot of stories and articles in my writing classes and they of course were visible on the internet. I don't know which of these resulted in my being approached by my one and only employer. What did matter was that I got an email that said they had seen my work and were interested in paying me to write articles and stories on themes they would supply. If I was interested, all I had to do was respond.

My folks said it was a scam to take money from me, but as I had no money and in fact owed the college and banks for my college loans, I had little to lose but some of my time. I wrote back an eager acceptance and then received a ten page contract spelling out all the terms and limitations. I flipped through it and sent an electronic signature to the agreement. They did not say exactly who was paying me, only that I would receive a money order in the mail. No benefits, no deductions. That was fine with me.

A few days later I received a link to a site which gave instructions on how my work was to be done. I tried tracking back and searching the source of these instructions but none of my searches yielded anything more than the instructions themselves. This was puzzling but so far I had only spent an hour of my time so I was not out of pocket anything. The last instruction was an email address to send my acceptance of the instructions. They made it very clear that if I did not adhere to their format, I would not be paid.

Soon I received my first project. There was a two-hundred word article about a car wreck in Nebraska that had resulted in a small amount of drugs and some weapons being found in the trunk. I was told to make this a much larger story. I was to create people in the car with their names, ages and backgrounds. It was all to be fictitious and would be used as the subject for a short video or printed news report. The payment would be dependent upon the quality of the work.

I was excited. I decided to approach it as a fictitious story and also as a screenplay for a short video. I worked eighteen hours a day for a week and then sent both pieces to my editor's email address. He said he was very pleased with my work and I would receive my money within a few days.

The amount was enough to pay our bills for a month. My parents still suspected a scam and were not content until I had cashed the money order and no police came around to question me. What surprised me, however, was that I received no notification of my work being published. About a month later I was watching the news on TV and saw a story that was quite similar but had significant differences. It looked like my story after a few heavy revisions. The instructions said the work orders would arrive at irregular intervals so I just waited.

The next article was about Chinese goods being smuggled across the Canadian border. Since the economy had crashed and import restrictions had been placed on many imported goods, it would not be unusual for this kind of smuggling to take place. I was instructed to add much more content and add some serious violence to the story. They said if I wrote a good short screenplay I could earn a significantly larger amount of money. The next week was a concerted effort for a good news article and a twenty page screenplay.

The check arrived after a few days and was enough to last us at least four months. But my folks still wanted to wait until I had cash in hand to celebrate. We did not tell anyone of my good fortune. The instructions had mentioned keeping my ideas to myself as they would not pay for duplicates or plagiarized material.

A few months later we were watching the news and saw an investigative article documenting a border clash between smugglers and federal troops patrolling the border. This was about eighty percent my story. The dialogue was very similar but slightly changed. All the names and locations were different. There was no doubt in our minds that it was my work. We discussed it at length and decided it was better to keep quiet and live on the money. There was no indication if there would be more work and the economy was not getting any better in spite of government claims that we had begun a long but healthy recovery process. Why didn't they let me write some of those government reports? I could even do the screenplays for the interviews with the government officials.

The process continued like this for over two years. The money was just enough to keep us paying our bills so we were contented. One day I caught the bus into town to go by a government office to request a delay in my loan repayments. On the way out of the office I saw one of my classmates. He was a writer like me. I did not intend to tell him about my good fortune but contacts are important and it seemed difficult to maintain contacts with people these days. After most of the social networking companies went bankrupt due to lack of advertising revenues, sites that made this type of interchange easy disappeared. I had even written emails to classmates only to not receive a response. When you are depressed, it is no fun to tell other people how bad things are so I understood the lack of response. So seeing Jed outside the office made me feel a little better. I caught up to him and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned at looked at me in surprise.

"Jed, good to see you, man. How are you doing?"

"Vince, it's really good to see you man. You're looking good. Really trim."

"Ha, ha. Thanks, I lost that baby fat I had in college. Working in the garden ten hours a day helps."

"Right. You've got a good tan and I don't imagine you got it at the beach or on the ski slopes."

"You've got that right, brother. Those days are long gone. I'd like to offer you a beer but my budget no longer allows such liberties."

"No problem. Let's go fill our flasks at the public fountain and have a talk."

We walked to a public fountain and filled our canteens which had now become the accepted standard for public hydration. Too bad for Starbucks and McDonald's. We found a tree with some shade and sat below it.

"Jed, I wrote you a couple emails to see how you were doing but I figured it was not going well so you did not reply."

"That's strange, Vince," Jed replied, "because I only received one email and I replied to it immediately. Maybe the economic problems are disrupting the internet."

"I might think that, too," I told him, "but we still get all our bills online and some of my communications go through OK. Have you heard from any of the rest of the guys in our class?"

"No, not since after the first few months when none of us could find work. I think a couple guys took government security jobs. You know the kind: military, border patrol, transportation security, internal anti-terror checkpoints. There seem to be lots of jobs in that sector. I guess that's why the taxes always go up."

"Have you done any writing?"

"Not really. I still write some stories to keep my hand in and I've got a couple ideas for novels, but I need something that pays. I did get a little work from some internet site."

"Really? That's interesting because that is the only work I have had and it is a little strange."

"Strange in what respect? Do they want you to write kinky emails to guys like you're some sexy gal?"

"Ha, no, but that's not a bad idea. No it's just a little fiction writing that I do every now and then."

"Really? I got something like that too but I'm not supposed to talk about it. They said I should keep my ideas private so no one else steals them from me."

"That's the same thing they told me. Have you actually made any money at it?"

"That's the good part. It is apparently a real company because they pay me right on time. A money-order in the mail, no deductions for taxes or anything."

"Wow, that is strange. That is the same deal I have. They give me a subject to write about and I write a story to their guidelines. News events, disasters, political plots. It's actually fun to write. And like you say, they pay on time."

"Look, I'd like to discuss this with you more but I have the uneasy feeling that we would be violating the terms of our contracts, at least I know I would. It's better we don't talk about it. In fact, I am beginning to feel a little uncomfortable about what we have already said. If anybody asks, tell them we were talking about the girls we knew in college."

"You're right. Mandy, Denise, and Sara. We knew those three and can tell them stories about what they did then."

"OK. I would like to see you again and talk more, but I don't know how safe it would be. Some of these stories I have been writing have made my thinking a little paranoid."

"Let's leave it at that then. If we run into each other again, so be it. But let's not plan anything. Good luck, partner."

<****>

I did not see or hear from Jed after that and did not make any attempts to contact him. The editor still sends me work now and then, enough to pay our bills and I like being able to work in my chosen profession. So maybe it's better not to ask too many questions. I read they are thinking of imposing restrictions on what food you grow in your own gardens because it is disruptive to the larger economy and hurts the farmers.

At least we don't have problems of being overweight and not getting enough exercise.

The editor gave me a topic to write on: a gas pipeline explosion in Ohio that has cut off supplies to part of Midwest. He wants lots of fire and burn casualties. Maybe I'll do a screenplay for it, too.

There's never too much news to report.

The End

Evil Power

By

Max E. Harris

"I tell you there was something evil in that elevator! That was no accident! There was something that wanted to kill that poor man!" she almost screamed at me. I tried to calm her down by telling her I understood. Her reaction was not that unusual. In many violent accidents I had seen witnesses state that there was some unnatural, evil force at work. I took her identification and gave her my card with the usual advice to call me if she remembered anything else pertinent. Then I returned to the office and wrote up all the interviews I had made that day.

I'm not your ordinary police detective. I started out to be an engineer. After college and two years working for a manufacturing firm that made food processing equipment I wanted a little more action. So I quit the engineering job and joined the New York Police Department. That was a lot more interesting and gave me a boost every morning. Then after three years as a patrolman I spotted a notice for a job as a Technical Detective. This required street experience plus training in a scientific or technical field. I applied, had a few interviews, and got the job. It did not even require the usual competitive exam since it was so specialized. They put me in the Public Safety Office of the headquarters department beside three other guys with similar backgrounds. We are not involved in normal police cases. They call one of us when there is a possibility of a product defect or even a gap in an engineering code. I love this job.

So about three months ago I answered the phone and our boss asked me to check up on an elevator accident. I had read the case in the paper. It was horrific but many engineering failures are horrific. When planes lose their wings or buildings collapse a lot of people suffer. This was a little worse because it hit the psyche of many New Yorkers who ride elevators every day. This poor middle-aged guy climbed on the elevator as he had every workday for the last twenty years and then was beaten to death in the space of two minutes by the doors of the elevator. The doors opened and closed with massive force and speed. It should not have been possible. The other passengers on the elevator and people waiting for other elevators all needed medical assistance for trauma. I read the investigating detective's report. He had contacted the elevator manufacturer as well as the service company and everything appeared in order. I talked to the same people again but asked them slightly more technical questions: electrical measurements, pressure measurements, qualification test procedures. The kinds of things an engineer is interested in. The woman's frantic remarks about the "evil power" in the elevator caused me to check the records of ConEd to see if there had been any anomalies that day in that area. They found none but did mention that the recent intense solar activity had caused power disruptions in parts of Canada and some of New York's electrical power was supplied at times from Canada. I went to the public library and looked through back copies of the Toronto and Montreal newspapers for the past two months.

I got excited. It was not just in NYC that there had been elevator events. There had been two deaths reported in elevator "accidents" in each Canadian city in the last two months. Not identical to each other or to the one in NYC but still unusual. I called the police departments in both cities for more information but they weren't as thorough as we are, so when they found no evidence of foul play or code violations they filed it away as tragic but non-criminal activity. I asked the Toronto detective who had investigated the deaths if there had been any other unusual events lately. He said he had noticed an unusual number of faults with escalators but as no one was killed the events had been referred to the city inspectors to ensure proper maintenance procedures.

Now you have to remember that New York City has at least ten times--maybe fifty times—the number of elevators that Montreal or Toronto have. It should not have surprised me when within three days of the first death, there was another elevator attack. Not the same style as the first one. This one raced an elevator car rapidly up five flights and then dropped it all the way to the basement level, seemingly overriding or bypassing the mechanical braking devices that should have slowed the descent. Ten of the fifteen passengers survived the ride but five did not. The resulting panic--for there is no other way to describe it than a full-blown panic--caused all elevators of that make to be pulled from service until the postmortem was complete. New York's businesses were struck as if by an attack. All critical operations were moved to the lower ten floors of buildings where employees could reasonably be asked to used the stairways. Other businesses had as many employees work from home as was practical. There were so many representatives from federal agencies present that we soon decided to establish an information center to channel queries and distribute responses. This worked very well and I could finally get some sleep.

There were still elevator attacks but the number of riders had shrunk and many elevator cars now had foam padding on the floors and ceilings. Unsightly but reassuring to those who had to use the elevators. We advised limiting the number of passengers on any car to less than ten at a time. People adjusted their work schedules. There was a small increase in the number of heart attacks in the city, but more people regularly used the stairs to traverse a few floors. Health club and gym membership declined. Companies fitted out some restrooms with shower facilities. The city responded well and addressed the concerns of both the businesses and the elevator riders.

One afternoon I arranged an interview with an expert on automated control systems who taught a high-level design course and consulted heavily across industry sectors. I assured him that what he told me would not be attributed to him unless he wished it to be done. With this promise I hoped he would be forthcoming about not just the visible but also the unseen aspects of modern control systems.

"Professor Ward, please tell me briefly what has changed that has allowed systems that we relied upon and have trusted for years to suddenly become threats to our economy and our lives," I asked to set the stage.

"Detective, you mentioned you have an engineering background so I will speak at an appropriate level and not water it down like I would for a reporter," began Ward. "Since the mid nineties and the development of the Internet there has been an increasing tendency to connect devices to servers and other devices in ways that were not conceivable even in 1985. The computing power and the software sophistication in individual devices permits them to be flexible and powerful. The networking enables the transfer of data both up and down. Central computers collect and analyze data from the remote nodes. The software is designed in a modular structure which encourages enhancements and should make the overall system more reliable. Unfortunately, managing all these changes is not perfect and all too often changes are introduced which result in a reduction in the overall integrity of the networks and components connected to the networks. Or, in other words, shit happens."

Ward laughed and sat more comfortably in the chair. He thought to light a cigarette but then remembered he had stopped smoking. "Now lets diverge a little from the engineering aspect of this problem and look at the human side of it. When bad things happen, people do not want to be held responsible and to avoid taking the blame they take actions which do not help make the situation better. People directly involved generally realize they must act and try to do the right thing. The more peripheral people are to the event, the more likely they are to try to use it to their own advantage. They want to place blame to make a competitor look bad and make themselves look good. This is a common human reaction. Politicians make careers of it, business managers climb the corporate structure by doing it, even religious leaders use the technique to illustrate the rightness of their beliefs and their own connection with the Almighty. It's just human nature. Or maybe I should specify it is one of the less desirable aspects of human nature."

"Are you saying the recent events are the result of human actions?"

"No, not that. What I mean is that human nature makes it more difficult to understand a sophisticated system because there are so many parties who have a vested interest in hiding the details of the system. The elevator manufacturer is afraid of lost sales and lawsuits. The engineers and programmers are afraid for their reputations and jobs. So are their bosses. If you recall the first space shuttle disaster in the late 1980's, it was probably only because a person with the insight and integrity of Richard Feynman was put in charge of the investigation that the simple cause of the disaster was revealed. You look at the circus currently being played out around your elevators and you can see the difference. I have little hope that you will uproot the real cause of this."

My spirits sank when he said that. He saw my reaction and smiled again.

"Take heart, Detective. It is not only the people who may be undermining the investigation. You have to take nature into consideration as well. We understand many aspects of HOW things work, but much less of why they work. It is usually sufficient to know that when you put a fire under a steak, the steak will turn brown and smell good. You don't really care how the fire causes chemical and physical reactions in the meat or how your brain recognizes the aroma and causes you to salivate."

"You are right. It also reminds me I at least owe you a good dinner for this interview."

"You have read the reactions of many people to these accidents. Did you notice how so often ordinary people treat anything of a modern technical nature as if it were magic? And they expect an equally magical solution to any related problems. They demand solutions of the politicians and the politicians turn to the high priests of technology--the engineers, scientists, and programmers—and demand answers, or at least a consultation with the gods of technology. A wise high priest admits his limits. I admit mine."

After thinking about this for a moment I changed the direction of the questions a little.

"Professor, I know there were different agencies involved in the investigations of these recent elevator accidents. Certainly, there must be thought given to tampering with the control software. How likely do you think it is that hackers or foreign governments were part of this?"

Ward paused a moment and crossed his legs. "Certainly it is always possible that someone bypassed the security systems and altered the software or even overrode the software and took control themselves. However, after all the inspections and analysis there has been, I would have expected any evidence of such tampering to have been revealed. It would certainly be easier to have a foreign competitor to accuse. Since this hasn't happened, I must assume either no such evidence was found, or the political masters have a motive for not revealing it."

"One last question, Professor, when this all started I interviewed one woman who said she sensed something evil in the elevator. How would you interpret this?"

"I could say it is just superstition. For a long time human beings survived at least partially by being superstitious. They knew that those who believed in the gods and prayed and offered sacrifices for beneficial events like the rains and fertility of animals lived better than those who sat in a cave and waited for food to come to them. They didn't know the reason why but they understood there was something they did not understand which was making both good and bad things happen. It is still largely that way. And there are still many things we do not understand. You are familiar with the current solar flares taking place, I suppose?"

"Yes, in fact I tried to find a link with the flares and the disruptions to the Canadian power grid but there was not enough data to draw any conclusions."

"I see. This could be an interesting vein of data to explore. There are characteristics of electromagnetic radiation which we do not understand well. Just as lightning is attracted to a lightning rod, possibly there is something electrical occurring in a way we don't understand in the elevator control systems that is attracting these disruptions. If you were not a technical person, you might well call it evil. Evil power. Yes, there could be an evil form of power we do not understand. I mean evil only in the sense that the results are not desirable, not as if the power is malicious. I do not want to ascribe behavioral characteristics to electrical energy. But people also make references to good or blessed sunlight as if the light were willfully beneficial. An entertaining concept."

<****>

The attacks on the New York elevators continued at varying intensity for many weeks after that. People became somewhat adjusted to the unreliability. Less business was conducted at high levels. Finally, some engineer from an elevator company suggested an experiment. It would be cumbersome and expensive but might be worth a try. They would isolate the electrical supply for the elevators and disconnect the elevators from any external data connections: complete electrical isolation from the electrical grid. It took a few days to configure but once it had been checked out, it seemed to work well enough. When this installation had been in place for a week with no problems they made a similar installation on a large bank of elevators in a high building. This building was equipped with a backup generator system. Over a weekend the elevators were again isolated from normal grid power and the control system was disconnected from any external communication. The backup power was rewired to supply the elevator bank. It tested well. Monday morning the bank was put into use but the number of riders was still restricted. By the end of the week there had been no problems so other important buildings which had the available backup power systems started making plans to make a similar changeover.

At about the same time the incidence of solar flares started to decline and the intensity dwindled. The Canadians reported a sharp decline in disruptions to their electrical network.

Monday morning one of the guys in the office passed me a tabloid newspaper he had picked up that morning. It reported a curious incident over the weekend. A shift worker returning to her apartment in Harlem had been attacked on a main street late at night. Two men seized her and gagged her. Then she reported two nearby streetlights began to glow more brightly to the point where the men stopped what they were doing and looked up to see what the source of the bright light was. The lights emitted a sound like an old factory whistle at quitting time. The lights became incredibly bright and then both exploded simultaneously. The attackers were so shocked they ran away.

<****>

It has been two months now since the last elevator fault. Gradually the city is returning to its previous routine. The buildings which had switched over to backup generator power have reconnected to grid power but left the switches in place so they can go off-grid in a matter of minutes. New buildings are having similar capabilities incorporated in their designs.

<****>

We were sitting in the office today eating lunch together when Matt, an ex-lab tech who handles cases with drug, chemical, or medical implications called over to me.

"Hey, Mitch, have you ever noticed how some plants seem to respond as much to the environment as a lot of people do?"

"No, Matt, I'm more used to seeing pavement than plants and the few houseplants I have are lucky to survive. When I see them wilting I give them some water and they usually come back around. Are you talking about the man-eater in Little Shop of Horrors?"

"Not quite, but in a similar way. Many small plants—even weeds—close their flowers when the sun sets and open again when the sun rises. They track the movement of the sun across the sky during the day. Almost like an intelligence. You know how people talk about someone not having enough sense to come in out of the cold? Well, if they had legs, some plants might do that. And some plants will grow away from other plants, like my ex-wife and I did."

I laughed at the idea. Then I put my chopsticks into my Chinese take-away.

Did that bean sprout just move away from my chopstick?

The End

About the Author

In his first life Max E. Harris was a computer system specialist living mainly in Houston but for periods in Scotland, Holland, Brunei and the even more remote wild lands of Sacramento, California. In his second life he moved to Como, Italy, where he walks in the woods with his dog Orso wondering what happens next. Harris wonders, Orso knows.

Harris can be contacted at MaxHarrisWonders@gmail.com.

