OCTOBER 7TH, 1758 HOURS (1658 HOURS MOUNTAIN TIME)
Would Tom like the room? Hopefully.
But then it felt like a huge lead bar crushed upon Colonel Stevens’ hope; General Tauring had to go and assign the room directly across from the DFRs’ base headquarters. They obviously believed Tom couldn’t be trusted that much.
“This sure is a long hallway,” Tom said, keeping his stride with Colonel Stevens. “About three hundred feet?”
“I think that’s about right. We do have some long hallways here, for certain.” Colonel Stevens became quiet a moment, thinking. “Tom. I have to ask. I know this is a sensitive issue for you, but how are you coping, with your belief system and all that you’ve witnessed here?”
“Honestly, I’d rather not talk about it. I’m just staying focused on what you said. Help these people. And now, with your general wanting me to find a mathematical pattern for the hull people’s increasing light speed, and to verify the authenticity of those objects the hull sucked up and spit out, that’s what I’m doing. Keeping focused. Just keeping focused on helping those people.”
“All right. Whatever works for you.”
Though Tom wanted to forget, it wasn’t showing on his pale, worry-scored face. He gazed with a serious eye. “Can you do me a favor?”
“Of course.”
“Read me your notes again.”
Colonel Stevens readied his tablet. Since General Tauring had requested the tablets at the meeting, no reason not to enter notes on them too. “First. You, our team, Jennings team, and General Tauring all tentatively agreed that the hull’s repulsion force could be a prior warning, or signal, to alert that the separate dimension units are uniting together.”
“Right. But why even have this transparent layer around them? Why do we need to see it?”
“Not sure. But don’t forget. It supplies them light in the dark and obviously somehow supplies life support too. But you have an idea?”
“Yes. A distraction from something else, but I don’t know what.” Tom sighed. “Go ahead, Ward. Read the rest.”
They were getting close to the end of the hallway, so this needed to be more condensed. “Though you mentioned pressure differences if both our realms were to meet, Jennings stressed light speed, mass and time differences override that concern by miles.”
“And she’s correct. Go ahead. Let me hear the rest.”
“The hull obviously has an issue with the hull people’s cell phones, since, at last observation, none could take photos, none had wireless activity, and three people, including Lang, found photos deleted. And the report from our DC headquarters showed not one line from the repeating text was saved on the computer’s hard drive, though Captain Indalo’s camcorder did record the repeating text. But his camcorder did not record the hull people joined together in one hull unit.”
“Strange how that is. Only once or twice my tablet’s speech velocity reducer picked up their voices. So, sometimes allows recordings.”
“Exactly. But…Next. Jennings’ team didn’t find the communication strategic ploy making much, if any, difference, and they couldn’t use both the Wakefield and Penning devices on one vehicle. But she wants to use one device per each hull vehicle now, at the same time. And then, as you explained, the hull probably destroyed parts of the Wakefield accelerator, preventing it from functioning, since particle accelerators can produce tiny black holes.”
“Yes. Wormholes could develop. Wise choice by whoever, or whatever, is behind the hull.”
“I suppose. And then Dr. Joe Hakan. His life force, or rather, mind force transfer ability, scrapped by the hull.” Colonel Stevens recalled General Tauring’s strange, quiet pause after mentioning this, but didn’t feel it necessary for comment now. “But honestly, I’m not feeling it for him. Hakan scared enough people on this base for far too long.”
“I could see in him such traits. But fortunately, like your general said, if the hull wanted to destroy the rest of our minds, it, they, or whatever, would have done so already. And I think that’s true.”
“Yes, hopefully.” Colonel Stevens kept reading. “The Zeta mind block couldn’t stop Major Fredericks from viewing or sensing the Suburban, while the robotically controlled transcranial magnetic stimulation with MRI couldn’t work, since the hull damaged its internal circuits. And then you wondered why Japan would send Akina here, since their country is more advanced than ours.”
“Which didn’t go over well with your general, needless to say.”
“That’s for sure, Tom. But it was a valid question and has more to do with our EBE associations than our technology level. And of course Jennings’ team received all the vehicles without any difficulty and all their dimensions and masses are in ratio with the hull people and Suburban.”
“Wait a minute.” Tom came to a stop in his steps.
Colonel Stevens stopped too, but his anxiousness heightened. “They need you to be in your room in a few minutes.”
Blotches of red flushed across Tom’s face. “Do they want me to figure this out or not?”
“Yes, of course. But we--”
“Three dimensions.”
“What?”
“We’re dealing with three separate dimensions, or alternate universes. All of you are certain that Lang saw a spacecraft hovering in intergalactic space?”
“Well, we believe so, but--”
“Hull people on one stage.” Tom used his hands to show imaginary placements. “Our dimension on another. And the hull beings, on another dimension, interacting with both our minds.”
“But, Tom. Only one realm, the hull realm, is changing. The hull aliens must be in our realm, since you wouldn’t think they would want to experience decreasing in size, only witnessing it.”
“Exactly. That is why I say three. It’s the only way they can easily control, and experience, both our minds, like scientists in a lab, able to view both caged groups of subjects at one time. But regardless, the hull people should try to enter the hull vehicles, so I can know for certain.”
“Say. That is a good idea. We wanted Lang to get inside the Suburban, but gave up because of the repulsion. Why didn’t you mention this at the meeting?”
“I did think about it, but thought your general would contemplate it before me. But mainly…that guy makes me nervous.”
Colonel Stevens let out a low chuckle. “I know. We need to get you to your room. And then I’m telling him about both your ideas, promptly.”