A Twist in Time (20 page)

Although he talked to one or both of the Arthurs practically daily, he hadn’t seen them face-to-face since April.  Or, perhaps it was May, depending on what twist of time you were in.  The Project’s surveillance studies showed that the Boulder City site had taken some action in response to the Times Square bombing, but no one would ever know the details.

When Ted and Sally arrived, Army warrant officers were stacked in the short hallway.  There were a lot of handshakes and some hugs.  The crew knew about the growth in the mission and the added people.  The new construction was evident. Something was up, but no one knew exactly what.  They knew that Ted was here to lay it out. 

After a brief moment for the crew to fill the training room, Jose led Ted, Sally, and Rae to the front of the room.  Ted started out by saying, “I’ve got good news, bad news, and interesting news.  I’ll start with interesting.”  He waited for the polite laughter.

“As you’ve seen, we’re expanding the mission capability here with more analysis people and more computing power.  At the same time, we’re drawing down the manpower at the Homestead facility and transferring some equipment here.  What you don’t know is that next month the roles will reverse. Homestead will become an on-call backup facility and you will have the primary watch.  Starting next month Homestead will have only a small maintenance and security force.  The next step is possibly mothballing or probably dismantling that facility.  From the first of November on, you’re it.”

“Now, here is something to wrap your head around.  As of January 1, 2011, we will no longer be a military facility.”  That announcement created a physical stir in the audience.  “We are going to become a private enterprise. Literally, the Project will become a government contractor.  Our first sole-source contract is for protection from damage to the United States caused by natural or man-made objects from space.  We will be free to compete for other types of commercial and government contracts.  Welcome to the world of free enterprise.” 

“Here is the bad news.  Those of you with enough years in to retire from the military will be strongly urged to do that and stay with us.  If you who have a year or so to go to retirement, we can get you assigned here as a military liaison.  Those of you who have more than a year to go to retirement, and that includes Lieutenant Colonel Valenzuela, will either have to leave the military, and we guarantee you a job, or you will be reassigned according to the needs of your service. I’m sorry to put you into that bind, but there is nothing more we can do.” 

“Just so you know, I’m retiring from the Air Force and Sally and I are moving here along with Bill and Janet Wirtz.  We will also have an office outside the Washington Beltway, so if anyone wants to move to Herndon, Virginia, let us know.  General Landry will head that office.”

After the crew had time to absorb that news, Ted continued.  “The first part of the good news is that we have funding and that we look forward to some success contracting in other areas.  Collectively, you have a lot of expertise and each of you is smart or you wouldn’t be here.  We think we can be a successful and competitive technical contractor in a number of areas.  If you  join us as a civilian you’ll receive a signing bonus of a good size block of stock in the new company.  And, before you ask, it’s called ‘Interspace’.  And yes, the word means nothing, but perhaps it means everything.”  

“Now,” Ted continued, “here is another part of the good news. Colonel?” 

Jose looked around the group and said, “I have two personal announcements.  First, you won’t have Lieutenant Colonel Valenzuela to kick around anymore.”   He paused for effect.  “I’m resigning my regular Air Force commission and I’ll be working here full time for Interspace.”

He put his arm around Rae, “Second… starting right now, Doctor Astronaut Rae Dunnan will no longer be available as the object of your daydreams.”  This led to a few scattered groans and boos from the audience.  “Starting this morning she is wearing an engagement ring.  And yes, you will all be invited to the wedding.”   

After some applause, laughter, and several off-color comments from the audience, Ted and Sally opened the floor for a question and answer session.  There were many questions and fewer answers, but they managed to set the right tone. 

---

Later, in Jose’s office, Ted commented, “Resigning your commission is a tough decision, Jose.  You could be giving up a lot.”

Jose replied, “Oh, believe me; we’ve talked this over and over.  But, the pros and cons are pretty clear.  First, I believe in the mission of the Project… or Interspace if you will.  Even with the frustration of not knowing what we did when we did it, this is the most worthwhile thing we think we could be doing. 

Second, after all I’ve seen, I have no respect for the civilian politicians in DC.  The military still has honor and honesty, but when I see the way the politicians steal and lie, I can’t respect them.  Finally, there is a very nice Air Force Reserve unit at Creech Air Force Base up on the other side of Las Vegas. I could put in some time there and still eventually get a military retirement.”

During Jose’s explanation, Rae was giving him support with her body language.”  Ted turned to her. “Rae, I know I said it over the telephone, but let me say congratulations and best wishes for the future in person.  Is the plan for NASA still in place?”

“You know that I agree with Jose about the politicians in charge,” Rae said. “I picked a terrible time to be an astronaut.  The space agency is so screwed up that they are perfectly happy with me being parked out here in the desert.  Out of sight out of mind.”

Sally entered the conversation, “Rae, I suggest you play your relationship with NASA on a month by month basis. If we win more federal contracts, we might need you to leave NASA and join Interspace… if you would be willing to do that.”

“A married couple working together?” Ted asked.  “Isn’t there an Interspace  company personnel policy about that?”  

“Yes, there is,” Sally replied.  “We think it’s a very good idea.” 

Rae followed up the laughter with, “Another consideration is that NASA has an excellent maternity leave policy.” 

“Already?” Sally asked.

“No,” Rae replied, “but we’re going to start working on it during the honeymoon.” 

Chapter 22: "Voting Rights"  

1005 Tuesday November 2, 2010

Riverdale, GA

Excerpt from the Personal Narrative of Mr. Jose Valenzuela   

Recorded April 2014

CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET/ TA   

"It’s not likely that we will ever know the full story of what happened on election day in 2010.  We do know that on that day we sent a lot of items back to a specific spot in Georgia. We don’t want to stir up too much interest, but it would be interesting to know what happened in some other loop in time.”

Chandra Williams loved politics.  The 22 year old was in her element when she was motivating people to get out and vote.  Today, voting day, her job as a volunteer was to make sure that the people supporting her party outside the polling places in South Atlanta had everything, from water to banners, they needed to make a good show.  Standing outside the Frank Bailey Senior Center a few miles south of Hartsfield Airport, she was under the shade of an elm tree on the south end of the parking lot using her Blackberry on Twitter.  She just sent a Tweet asking for more afternoon shift volunteers when the bomb went off. 

The car containing the bomb sat in the first short row of parking spaces closest to the door of the modern community building.  The blast shattered the front of the building and the shrapnel and car fragments blew apart the bodies of the voters standing in line. Despite being protected by the tree, the other cars in the parking lot, and the distance, the pressure wave and sound still stunned her. 

With her phone still in her hand, she typed, “Explosion here.  Many people hurt.  Send help.”  Chandra had more than a hundred general followers on Twitter and today she was sending all her messages to a special group address, specified by an @ prefix, of people following the election minute by minute. Some of these people read her Tweet and used their phones to dial 911. Others re-Tweeted Chandra’s message to a group called @BreakingNews on Twitter. 

The @BreakingNews group is a special Twitter group for news junkies.  Within seconds, the news of a car bomb explosion at a polling site in Atlanta spread across the world.

At the same time, Jason Abrams, a 43 year old IT manager, Website designer, and blogger, was in his car at the back of the building.  When he arrived to vote, parking spaces were scarce, so he circled the building and parked next to a dumpster in the back.  After voting, he went straight back to his car.  He hadn’t yet turned his ignition key when the bomb went off.  He felt the explosion inside his car and was shocked as debris flew over the roof of the building and pelted the car.  Metal, pieces of the building, dirt, and what appeared to be scraps of clothing came down on his car and the dumpster like hail. 

While he tried to understand what was happening, Jason reached for his iPhone 4, turned it on, hit the camera icon, and snapped pictures of what he saw through the windshield.  With three more touches of the screen, he sent one of the photos to the Twitpic site with a caption that was nothing more than the word “EXPLOSION” and a string of exclamation points. 

Silence replaced the hail of debris and smoke rose over the building.  Jason opened the door of his car, stepped out carefully, and slowly walked around the side of the building toward the front.  As he neared the front of the building, he heard screaming.  A man wearing only pieces of bloody clothing leaned against the front corner of the building.  Jason switched modes on his iPhone and tried to call 911, but he couldn’t get a cellular connection.  The bloody man, who Jason was afraid to touch, slid down the wall and moaned.  Jason said, “I’m sure help is coming,” but his voice sounded funny in his own ears. He didn’t know what else to do, so he shot more photos and sent them to Twitpic.  About nine minutes later Jason sent out pictures of the arriving fire trucks and ambulances.  Four minutes after that his pictures stopped as shrapnel from the second explosion shredded his camera and his body.

 __________

Early voting for the national elections started on October 16 in Nevada.  For weeks Jose pushed his people to vote early so they would be available in case something happened on the official Election Day. 

The polls were open for five minutes in the Pacific Time zone when the news of the first causalities in Atlanta hit the screen in the operations room.  Jose stood next to the operations console and noted that the national news agencies were only a few minutes behind the Government’s National Incident Based Reporting System in breaking the story.  But, even NIBRS was a few minutes behind Twitter @BreakingNews.  The @BreakingNews Twitter feeds came from CWilliams and others who were near enough to see and describe what was happening outside the polling place south of metropolitan Atlanta.  Some of the Twitter users posted at the same time other people called 911.  People posting on Twitpic sent photos of the burning car, the damaged building, and bloody bodies across the Internet while the emergency fire and rescue services were still in route.

Jose looked at the duty controller and said, “Call Doctor Wirtz and ask both he and his wife to come in a-sap.” 

The Twitter network servers failed under the load of so many people hitting the servers about ten minutes after the blast, but Twitpic carried on. Photos with captions appeared on Facebook, but the “friend” system on Facebook makes it a slower platform for following news. 

Fifteen minutes after the first explosion, about four minutes after the arrival of the first fire trucks and medical units, the second bomb at the same site went off.  Two of the first responders and a bystander were killed and several others were injured when the backpack filled with nails exploded. 

An hour later, Janet and Bill were standing next to Jose when word of the car bomb explosion outside a polling station in Cincinnati flashed on the NIBRS network.  A few minutes after that, a third car bomb in Orlando destroyed the front of the library serving as a polling site along with many people standing in line to vote.  The second and third bombs didn’t include the follow-on bomb designed to kill and wound first responders, but each site had to be treated as if a secondary explosion was possible.  Innocent people suffered and died as first responders made sure the scene was safe before starting work.