0300 Book 1 - 8. Chapter 8: Flin Flon and Beyond

Chapter 8: Flin Flon and Beyond

Dmitri was a good sport about the alcohol, and after he’d short-sheeted us all one night, we called a truce. That was a good thing, too. We were too busy with classes and ice hockey for pranks.

* * * * *

Flin Flon is in northern Manitoba (mostly Manitoba—some of it is in Saskatchewan). It had a reputation for impressive aurora borealis and some equally impressive hockey. It also had a historic statue of Josiah Flinabbity Flonatin, for whom the first copper mine and later the town were named. We didn’t find out about that until afterwards, though. My element plus another of the same ages had joined to make a single team. We won the “Cadet j.g.” division of the ice hockey tournament, and were to play the Flin Flon junior team. The trip wasn’t to be all sports: we would also spend several days at the Fleet High Altitude Aurora Research Program, or HAARP, facility and tour some of the mining operations.

As soon as we arrived, we were paired with members of the Flin Flon junior ice hockey team, and stayed in their homes. My host was Andre Elliott Trudeau, a seven-year-old French Canadian whose father was a scientist at HAARP.

“There’s only the one bed in my room,” he said. “I will sleep on a pallet beside it.”

“The bed’s big enough for two,” I said. I read his reaction and added, “And I like to cuddle. May we sleep together, please?”

Andre nodded his head vigorously. So we did. Cuddle. We were, after all, only seven years old, and although we could get erections and good feelings from touching and cuddling, we weren’t ready for any real boyfriend stuff.

The first several days were split between morning practice on the rink and afternoon tours of mining and ore processing facilities. Despite widespread asteroid mining, it was still cost-effective to mine some of the more pure veins found on Earth. The most recent ice ages: Mississippian, Illinoin, and Wisconsanin, had scraped a lot of the surface soils from Canada down to The States, exposing rock and ore, making access easy.

We spent another five days at the HAARP facility in the evening, from 9:00 PM until midnight, slept late the next morning, and practiced in the afternoon. They gave us three more days to practice and scrimmage, and to get our body clocks back to normal. Then, the tournament began: it was to be best-three-of-five, and the boys from Flin Flon gave us a run.

I could have been the star of our team, but I learned that if I helped other boys, not only was everyone a lot happier but we scored more and were scored against less. So I did—helped others, that is—and made Dmitri the star of our team, with two Canadian boys in the other element close behind.

It took all five games to decide a winner, and the boys from Flin Flon were good sports about it. “You have the honor of painting the thumb,” Andre said.

He realized I had no idea what he was talking about. “Oh! You flew in, you didn’t see the statue!”

I knew what statue he was talking about. On the road leading to Flin Flon (the only road, actually) is a statue of Flinabbity. I’d seen a picture on the internet: it’s a cartoon figure (he was, after all, a character in a science fiction book) who sort of looks like a Mountie, with one hand shading his eyes as if looking for something.

“When you come up the road, his thumb, sticks out between his legs like a penis!” Andre said. “Every year, the team who wins the local championship paints it red! The town leaves it that way for a while—everybody on the council played hockey and painted it when they were boys. This year, we decided to let the tournament champion paint it. That’s you guys!”

Apparently out tactical officer had gotten an official blessing, because he didn’t say anything when we piled into a HAARP shuttle and rode to the statue. It took a lot of giggling to paint the thumb, and then more giggles as we took pictures with our iPads of each other on the statue as seen from down the road.

That night with Andre was especially nice. We “rubbed tummies,” stimulating our stiffies until we were exhausted, and kissed before falling asleep. I nursed a hope that Andre would remember me, but was afraid to try to find out, later. I did send a thank-you letter to him and his parents for being my hosts.

The Royal Canadian Air Force—a home defense force, with National Guard status and a mutual support agreement with Fleet—maintained a number of antique aircraft, including Beavers and Otters with skis and pontoons, as well as twin-engine tail-dragger planes that we “Yanks” called the DC-9, but the Canadians called the Dakota. They all had AG units to backup their piston engines, of course. That was our transportation from and back to Edmonton, and was a highlight of the trip.

Except that on the morning we were to depart, it was so cold the piston engines wouldn’t start. They could have made the flight on AG, but tradition was tradition. I got to help hand-prop the Dakota! Not like one would hand-prop a small, single-engine plane, of course. We stuck a crank into the side of the engine and slowly spun up a flywheel. When it was up to speed, the RCAF officer who was supervising signaled the pilot who “popped the clutch” and transferred the momentum of the flywheel to the engine. After the first engine started, he bled hot air to the second engine, and then started it normally.

As I write these things, some from memory and some from my journal, I wonder why I chose to write certain things, and not others. I think I wrote so much about Flin Flon because I felt there more than elsewhere the comradeship of not only Andre and my team, but the Canadian boys, too.

* * * * *

The summer after my eighth birthday I pushed for a transfer to the Fleet school at Cardiff, Wales. The Fleet communications, electronics, and nanotechnology laboratory is there, and that’s where they were doing research on artificial intelligence. After learning about MEG, I wanted to know more about that. I was disappointed, however. They weren’t really working on AI, more like “expert systems” that could capture human knowledge and use it to solve problems. It was simple decision-tree stuff.

* * * * *

They took only about 4,000 of us to the Spring Cricket Tournament. It was to have been held in Wales, but the weather was forecast to be awful (i.e., typical for that time of year). Somehow, my element was selected, along with some 200 others, to be the cheering section for our team. Cheering seemed to consist of sitting in the bleachers and saying things like, “Blimey” and “A bit of okay, that.” Just kidding.

The tournament was held at a national park on the southeast coast of Sri Lanka. There were plenty of cricket pitches, but not enough quarters, so they set the troop ship in the water a hundred yards offshore, and ran gangplanks to the beach. There was room in the troop ship for about 2,000 cadets from the Madras Technical School to join us and, in fact, the tournament was changed at the last minute to allow the team from Madras to participate.

It was a good change. The Madras school was part of the Fleet School system, administered by the Fleet Council—as were all the best schools on Earth. The screening was just as rigorous as for the other fleet schools, and the kids were just as bright and motivated as those of us from Cardiff. Their cricket team was “spot on,” and the competition was fierce. If anything about cricket can be called, “fierce.”

I met a cute Indian boy from the Madras School. His name was Pavi, he had black hair, and eyes and teeth that gleamed against his brown skin. His English was stilted, with the emphasis in the sentences coming at odd places; the rhythm sounded funny to my ears. Of course, he spoke not only English but also Hindi and Bengali.

It didn’t take me long to learn both Hindi and Bengali—the mind vacuum thing—and Pavi’s smile when I addressed him in Bengali was bright. I felt his desire, and invited him to my room. My roommate was happy to give us some privacy.

Pavi was excited about getting naked with another boy, cuddling, and touching one another’s penis, and that’s how we started. But Pavi was also anxious to try fellatio. He’d done it, once, and liked it, so we did. We discovered that just sucking didn’t do much, but that running a tongue around the tip of the penis felt good. It was, I think, better than tummy rubs, and I knew that when we were older and made seminal fluid, it would be quite a different experience.

Afterwards, I had some second thoughts. Did I take advantage of Pavi? I felt his desire, I knew he would like it. But another boy wouldn’t have felt that or known that. Am I using my telepathy only to satisfy my desire? I spent a long time thinking about these questions.

* * * * *

I checked email only once a week, and then only from habit and a sense of duty. If there were an official message, I would get an alert, and no one sent unofficial messages. I was surprised to find an unofficial email in my inbox. I was even more surprised that it was from Andre.

* * * * *

“Bon jour, Paul. The Edmonton cadets have arrived for the tournament. It’s a different bunch of boys. I was disappointed you weren’t there. I was looking at the pictures we took when we painted Flinabbity, and remembered you. I remembered the last night we spent together, too. It was a lot of fun. I told my father that I think I will be homosexual, but he said it was much too soon to know, and to have fun any way I wanted until I knew. I found you at Cardiff. You said you were a Yank, but you are at your second Commonwealth school. Are you sure you’re not a Brit? I am, of course, a rabid French-Canadian Separatist. Not really. Not the Separatist part. They’re still around, but are mostly just drinking clubs. You know the drinking age in Canada is 16—two years earlier than in the States. I think it’s 16 in Wales, too. Is that why you’re in school there? You can watch the tournament on CBN-3. The tournament is a big deal since we started including Edmonton. Had to compete against a Fleet team before it became important, I guess. I’ve taken Fleet aptitude tests, and may get to attend a Fleet technical school to learn electronics. Then I’ll be able to work with my father at HAARP. I would like that. Please tell me what you’re doing. Andre.”

* * * * *

“Why are you crying?” It was Penn, my roommate.

“I just got an email from a friend I’d forgotten,” I said. “I was kind of mad at myself for forgetting, I guess.”

Andre and I exchanged emails for a couple of months before he got accepted at the Fleet Comm-Electronics School at Cardiff. By that time, I had pushed to be promoted to Senior Cadet and transferred to Nazca, which was also the location of the Fleet Medical School. I figured that I couldn’t actually get a medical degree that would be recognized anywhere, but at least I would be able to learn all I needed for one, and maybe, just maybe, learn a little more about what I was. Andre and I sort of lost touch. Other than hockey, we didn’t have much in common, and we didn’t play hockey at Nazca. We played ullamaliztli.

Ullamaliztli was an ancient game played by many peoples of Mezoamerica. Of course, no one really knew how it was played. We played by rules common among the local peoples, except that our court was not rough stone, our protective gear was not deerskin, and the hole in the goal was actually large enough to get the ball through on occasion. The game was fun and fast, and once again I found that by making others the stars of the team, my element won more often.

It didn’t take long to realize that a nine-year-old Senior Cadet was about four years too young, and much too confusing for people, but that I could make people think I was older without consciously trying all the time. I figured out that the “push” that I could use to make people do what I wanted had a subconscious component that I nicknamed “the veil.”

* * * * *

Officially H5,9 N1,5,2,1 S, it was descended from H1N1, the virus that was responsible for the Great Pandemic, and which incubated in the trenches of the Franco-German War of the early 20^th century. This new one had two types of hemagglutinin: 5 and 9; and a chain of four neuraminidase structures: 1, 5, 2 and 1 again. The two H proteins allowed it to attach to host cells in two different ways; the four N proteins did a number (no pun intended) on the host cell, literally exploding it when the “daughter” viruses escaped.

It wasn’t long before someone started counting letters in the alphabet: 5=E, 9=I, 15=O, 21=U. They turned H 5 9 N 15 21 S into “Heinous.” It was appropriate and predictive.

We seldom heard any real news from the Mujahedeen bloc. The only official news outlet, Al Jihadi, had one television transponder on a satellite over the Arabian Sea just east of the African coast, and an internet feed. Every once in a while, someone—often one of the religious from Rome or Constantinople—would try to block the signal or hack the site. Fleet always shut them down. What was coming out of Al Jihadi was almost always pure propaganda, but sometimes there was useful information. Besides, Fleet wasn’t in the censorship business. If people wanted to believe in invisible powers who judged people based on a confused set of rules and soi-disant moral principles, that was up to them. Fleet was willing to suffer fools gladly, as long as the fools kept out of Fleet business and didn’t hurt anyone.

I had been at Nazca for three months when the commandant received a flash message from Fleet Intelligence: people in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were dying by the thousands, and whatever was killing them was spreading. Suspicion on our side was raised when Jihadi started pushing disease prevention, including hand washing. (Not a trivial thing, really: most of the Mujahedeen world still wiped their butts with their hands—their left hands—and ate with their right hands.) When Jihadi put out a fatwa from the Caliph that Friday prayer services in the Arabian peninsula were to be suspended indefinitely, Fleet got really concerned, and looked hard at what they called “technical systems,” the code words for image, electronic, and other discrete intelligence gathering.

The message to the commandant was read during lunch. A disease of unknown type and origin is sweeping over the Arabian Peninsula. Based on our limited information (see Classified Note 1), we believe it to have originated in Riyadh. Symptoms match influenza. Deaths in Riyadh metropolitan area are estimated to exceed one million. At least two members of the royal family are known to have died.

I was amazed that Fleet was able to get this much information. This was before my first deep intelligence briefing, so I was unaware of the resources Fleet had committed to monitoring the Mujahedeen bloc.

The school at Nazca became the focal point of Fleet medical and intelligence activity. The vision screens in the mess hall were given over to maps of the Middle East with red blobs showing the spread of the disease, and numbers at the bottom of the screen showing estimated deaths. There were a lot of new people at the school, too. Men in dark jump suits: lieutenant commanders, commanders, and a couple of captains. They and their staffs took over several classrooms, and posted armed guards at the doors.

Fleet made offers through both official and unofficial channels to the Mujahedeen Brotherhood. All our offers were rejected. Al Jihadi broadcast speeches by the Caliph including a fatwa that blamed the disease on Fleet, which he called the Great Satan. He admitted the plague—which told us just how serious it was—and declared that it was an attack on the True Faith. Would-be martyrs were encouraged to report to their mosques for training. Fleet declared Defense Condition Three.

One of the screens in the mess hall was slaved to a display in Geneva that showed the positions of Fleet assets. I saw the Enterprise over international waters in the Arabian Sea, and thought about Phillip, and wondered who was on the port weapons console.

The first case of Heinous outside the Mujahedeen world was in Paris. Not surprising. The French colonial empire had included a lot of territory now held by the Mujahedeen, and the French were notoriously slack in securing their own borders. As soon as Fleet found out about the case in Paris, they slapped a quarantine on the entire country. Fleet Marines, augmented by National Guard troops from Germany, Italy, the BENELUX countries, Switzerland, Spain, and elsewhere patrolled the border, with shoot-to-kill orders. The area within 100 miles of the French border, including the seacoast, was declared a “no-fly” zone. After Fleet shot down an airbus that had left Paris with 300 passengers and was nearing the Mediterranean Sea, France grounded their ancient aircraft fleet.

The people who came to Nazca with biological samples containing the disease—samples that included several corpses—spoke little. The samples were tagged with the location from which they were taken: Paris, Orleans, Dijon; Riyadh, Mecca, Sana’a; Petra, Damascus. As soon as the first samples were received, academics were suspended. Everyone in the school was pressed into service.

The first analysis told us that it was a tough bug and that it was spread by aerosol from sneezes and coughs as well as through the exchange of body fluids. The only good thing about it was that it wasn’t a retrovirus. In fact it was so complicated, that any mutation ever seen or modeled tended to destroy its entire structure.

“What are you doing? This is a laboratory, not a playground!” The sharp voice startled me. In the first place, I wasn’t playing. In the second place, I hadn’t sensed Dr. Martin approach me. I was too engrossed in what I saw on my computer screen.

“Not playing, sir,” I said.

“Looks like fractals,” Dr. Martin said. “Playing—”

“No sir,” I interrupted. “It’s a model of Heinous’s reproductive pattern.” I paused and looked at the screen. “It does act like a fractal, though.”

“Model? Heinous?” Dr. Martin was clearly puzzled. I took a chance and pushed just a little.

“Sir, you said I should find something to do that challenged me. I have computer experience. I parsed the steps of Heinous’s reproduction—as much as we know—and added some fudge factors. Not many of those, either. This is what the model generated.”

Dr. Martin was not only convinced, he was fascinated. I showed him the backup materials, and the assumptions I’d made. He sat beside me, pulled up some additional files, and filled in the facts that confirmed or changed my assumptions. It took the two of us less than an hour to update the model. He looked at me. “Your privilege. Push the button.”

I pressed the enter key, and watched the program compile. Then, I watched the new, and even more beautiful fractal unfold.

“Do you know what this means?” Dr. Martin said?

I knew, but only because I was reading his mind. So, I shook my head.

“No, sir.”

“This means that if we can interrupt even one of these steps, Heinous cannot reproduce! It means that we may not have a vaccine, but we have an antivirus—almost.” He sobered a bit, and his voice calmed.

“Let’s see where it is most vulnerable.”

It took another week and the help of the rest of the team, but we developed an anti-virus. It was something that could be administered to people with the virus, and to people who might be exposed. It wasn’t a vaccine: it didn’t cause the body to create anti-virus protection. But it did allow health workers to get into the infected areas without fear of their own lives.

The Mujahedeen Brotherhood reluctantly agreed to accept aid from us—as long as Fleet didn’t claim credit. Fleet loaded aerial tankers of the kind used to fight forest fires with the anti-virus and modified the nozzles to spray a fine mist rather than dumping everything at once. They flew over populated areas at night, spraying the stuff. It was hit-or-miss, but it did seem to slow the advance of the virus.

Fleet also prepared and delivered more than 250 million devices much like an epi-pen, containing one dose of the anti-virus in a disposable injector. It took six months and another 100 million of the epi-pens to control the pandemic, during which time it was estimated that 200 million people had died. By that time, we had created a vaccine that caused the body to create an antivirus that would attack both the H5 and H9 components. Without these, the virus could not latch onto cells in its host and eventually disintegrated.

There was no doubt in my mind that Dr. Martin’s team—including me—deserved the Jefferson Prize in Medicine that year. However, Fleet restricted the data from our work. It was just too sensitive, I guess. However we all got a commendation in our files.

After the crisis was contained, we were given two weeks of vacation. Most of the school, both students and faculty, left the school, often in groups, for some destination that promised both fun and education. I elected to remain at the school. I thought, and I thought hard. I had used my ability to learn quickly—the mind vacuum—as well as the push to help solve the Heinous reproductive system and, ultimately, not only the anti-virus but also the vaccine. I read philosophy and the old “revealed religions” that had been mostly put to rest by the Enlightenment. I posed questions on internet discussion groups, carefully hiding behind a false identity. The answer came from an unexpected source. The book of Luke, 12:48, “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required . . .” Voltaire had said something similar: “The possession of great power necessarily implies great responsibility.” It also was said to apply to an early comic book hero.

* * * * *

As I look back on my journal entries from this time, I understand that I was still a little boy, albeit a brilliant and powerful little boy, and I remembered how the idea of being a super hero appealed to me, then. It was a phase that burned out shortly, but for a while, I dreamed that I could fly.

* * * * *

Eventually, Fleet Intelligence was able to send in forensic teams. They traced Heinous to the slums of Riyadh. It was suspected, but never proven, that Patient Zero had been a sex slave into whose anus had been squirted so many different viruses and bacteria that such a mutation was almost inevitable.

The screens in the dining hall switched back to showing the Fleet news channel, the Fleet Cricket tournament, and current entertainments. All the visitors had left. Things were almost back to normal, when I did something that frightened me so badly, I still have nightmares about it.