The plane left the runway and climbed steeply. It was Jordan's least favorite part of any flight. He figured that if something was going to fall off the plane, it would happen under the stress of take-off or landing. This time nothing fell off the plane, and their ascent soon became more gradual. Since the morning was clear and calm, the Captain graciously turned off the "Fasten Seatbelts" sign. Jordan left his alone.
Leo leaned over and said, "So Chief, when do we find out what this is about?"
The team had been buzzing with curiosity since he had told them that they were going to Boston without any other explanation. "We're meeting Tom Martin. He and I worked together in technology assessment."
"What's that?" Vanessa asked.
"We were provided the plans for various devices and asked to figure out how they worked. We were told they were devices developed by the Russians, and that the plans were smuggled out of the country, but we weren't convinced. It was often unclear what they did, but very clear that they were complex and linked together somehow. We were never able to determine what the command input system for something that complex would look like. We used to joke that you'd have to be able to think to control such a complex system."
"What did the devices seem to be?" Jim asked.
"The ones we figured out were control circuits for servos," Jordan replied, "Another seemed to be a guidance system of some sort. Really bizarre stuff."
"If they weren't Russian, then who made them?" Zenya asked, "The Japaneese, perhaps?"
"Tom and I, and a few others, were convinced that they came from much farther away than either of those places."
"Where, then?" Martin inquired.
"Extra-terrestrials," Jordan replied.
"You can't be serious," Martin responded.
"That belief didn't form over night, Agent Reed. We worked for months believing what we were told, but over time what they were telling us began to seem wrong. The kicker was when we found files from the 1950's in which many of the same devices had been analyzed. If we were having a hard time, you can imagine how baffled our 1950's counterparts were."
"So they were looking at the same stuff in the 1950's," Jim said, "Roswell, 1947."
"Quite possibly. The devices seemed to be from a common source. Now Tom thinks he's got the user interface and we're going to look at it," Jordan said.
***
[Back at the office]
Jenny dialed the number she had before the last message, and a man picked up on the other end, [Hello.]
"They went on a training mission to Boston," she said crisply.
[What kind of training?]
"I don't know. Stern didn't say."
[Understood.]
NRPG:
Feel free to add questions and comments on the flight.
Respectfully submitted,
Alton Reich
SA-4 Jordan Stern, Team Leader ZULU
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