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  Idiot Lights.

  Chapter Two

  1

  Colorado Springs, Colorado

  1 November 2010

  0537 Hours Mountain Time

  Jimmy Cherko checked his e-mail one last time as he saved Brilliant Eyes, his newest fiction manuscript, to his hard drive. He was cutting it close. Not that he absolutely had to be at work at any specific time, but the later he got into work, the longer he had to stay to make his “eight,” and he liked leaving relatively early in the day. It got him into the gym before the after-work rush-hour crowd, and got him home, again, at a relatively early hour. There was no real reason to this schedule, except that it was just what he’d always done, and was probably brought on from his time in the military. Twenty years ago, he’d done seven years, and part of that time had been out at Schriever AFB, on the plains east of town. Though he’d worked shift work for most of his sixteen years at Schriever, as both an Air Force officer and a defense contractor, he’d found that if he’d arrived to work an hour or two before the masses did, he beat most of the traffic—out and back—which could severely snarl one’s commute.

  Twenty years. Twenty years doing contractor work for the Air Force. He’d never envisioned himself where he now found himself. Had always felt he’d been destined for greater things, something... important.

  Astronaut.

  Legendary writer.

  Failed at both.

  Well, not entirely. He was, after all, getting paid to write “books”... technical orders, actually. And making quite a bit more than your average fiction writer. The average advance for traditionally published fiction writers was five-to-fifteen thousand, while he was pulling in—with seniority and all—nearly ninety grand. Not a bad gig after all.

  And as happy as he tried to be around his wife, family and friends... well, he wasn’t. He was just biding time, time for what, who knew. He had a great life, a great family (on both sides of their marriage), a great job that paid well and was secure for the next ten or so years, given they’d just won the follow-on contract... but he was, to himself, a failure.

  And he’d come to accept that.

  As long as he could write. His unsold novels and short stories. Hadn’t sold one novel, ever, yet occasionally sold a short story. But it was the writing that was important, not the selling. As long as he could do what seemed to be in his soul.

  At least, that’s what he kept telling himself.

  So, at forty-nine, Jimmy had come to terms with his dreams of grandeur being nothing more than smoke-and-mirrors. That he’d never really been destined for any kind of importance. He’d chalked it all up to having a healthy ego, of being told by his parents he could do and be anything he wanted if he just worked hard enough. Of having been brought up a big dreamer and voracious reader, raised on Aldiss, Blish, Clarke, Pohl, and Heinlein. Cordwainer Smith. He’d always written about material outside his work-a-day experiences, and, he thought, hmmm, maybe that was the problem. He had a wealth of experience in the techie world, the world of satellites and government bullshit, so, he finally realized, why the hell not break down, give in, and write a goddamned full-on science-fiction novel?

  So, that’s just what he did. What he’d saved this morning. A genuine science-fiction thriller set in the near future. And as much as he’d gone out of his way to avoid incorporating his work experience into his fiction, he was going to face it all head on, and totally incorporate everything. Everything, that is, that was unclassified and didn’t compromise himself or national security. He might have no direct experience with UFOs and highly covert and compartmentalized classified government operations, but given his healthy imagination and time in the service and as a contractor working for the Air Force, he had a wealth of firsthand experience.

  And if Brilliant Eyes didn’t work... then he would again sit down in his home office, and again start at page one with a new manuscript, and would again continue... until death did us part.

  Writing is what he did.

  It was in his blood; his mother was a writer, and various family members dabbled in it, but life seemed to have had other plans for him. Just because something was in your blood didn’t necessarily mean it was your life’s purpose—or even good for you. Or that writing was meant to be an end-all.

  Living was its own end-all. Breathing air.

  Growing as a person and doing what you had to do to make your life—and the lives of others—better. That’s what it was all about, was what Jimmy did with his own life, when he realized he wasn’t to be famously, nor handsomely, published by thirty. He was gonna live life the best he could, tortured artiste or not.

  Yes, he had a wonderful life, and he knew it.

  So, Brilliant Eyes saved, he backed out of his laptop and closed up shop. It had been quite the productive morning.

  * * *

  It was dark and cold as he pulled out of the garage at 0610, spooking a small herd of deer nibbling on fallen crabapples beneath a bare Crabapple tree. He glanced at them as they loped away in their huge, graceful high arcs.

  Fastening his seatbelt as he ensured that the garage door closed, he backed up into the street and paused, staring at the location of their bedroom. His wife would still be there, in bed, peacefully unaware of all the work he’d already performed this morning before even arriving at his paying job. She joked at how he had this entire life he lived in the early, wee hours of the morning, before anyone else got up. She loved his work, his writing, and constantly remarked how he created these worlds while most of the world in this hemisphere had been asleep. It impressed her. She was so proud of him, and Jimmy, in turn, loved her deeply. She was his rock. Someone who believed in him no matter what. He couldn’t have done any better in marrying her. She was an absolutely incredible find, and he positively adored her.

  Jimmy put the Honda into drive.

  * * *

  As much as Jimmy loved high summer and the month of July, he also loved the dead of winter—even though, technically, it was still fall. He could never understand it, but he loved the sense of desolation that came with the winter months. The grayness... the snow and cold. The internal density of being. Perhaps it was the way people tended to look inward during these months. During the summer, people (him included) were outdoors, doing outdoorsy things, but during the colder months people (skiing, snowboarding, and snowmobiling aside), tended to stay indoors more, and with that, came memories of warm, sunny days, and—he suspected in others, because he knew that people were people, and if he did it or thought about it, he was sure there were others out there who also did it or thought about it—going “internal.” Pensive. He liked that. He loved recalling fond memories from his childhood. Of good times. He loved thinking, and he loved thinking about the length and breadth of his life.

  Jimmy tapped the brakes as a fox darted out in front of him as he crossed the intersection of Uintah Street and Nevada Avenue.

  He smiled, watching the fox dart off down an alley.

  And he lived in a great part of town. The West Si-iiide, as they (the locals) called it. The older part of Colorado Springs. More established neighborhoods and trees, lots of wildlife.

  Jimmy slowed and came to a stop as he hit the El Paso Street stop light. He watched as a car and a garbage truck pulled out onto Uintah in front of him. He liked how car exhaust curled and wafted ghost-like into the cold air.

  There was just something about the winter months!

  The light turned green and Jimmy drove forward, shortly coming up behind the garbage truck, its orange lights blinking.

  Blinking.

  He followed it up the inclined, narrower part of Uintah as they approached Union Boulevard. It used to be two lanes up and one down this hill, but had been changed to one lane each way, which was probably for the best. It definitely gave drivers more room. The bare, skeletal branches above overhung the road and were pitch-black silhouettes against the slowly brightening sky. He loved the cozy feel on this stretch of street.

&n
bsp; The garbage truck braked, and Jimmy hit his, as they came upon another light at Hancock. As he sat there, still behind the garbage truck, he found himself staring at the blinking lights. Blinking. Orange lights. Rotating. Blinking.

  Orange.

  Yellow.

  Red.

  Blue.

  Rotating.

  Blinking... blinking... blinking....

  Jimmy pressed down harder on the brake pedal. His palms sweated and his heart palpitated. Everything before him blurred. He blinked; shifted uneasily in his seat, under his seat belt. He opened the windows several inches.

  His vision began to tunnel. Grayed out into that crazy narrowing cone. He shook his head and tensed his calves and legs. Hard.

  The light changed to green.

  Jimmy hit the accelerator... then promptly blacked out.

  2

  Jimmy awoke to the alternating flashing of red, clear, and blue lights and shadows busying about him. He blindly lashed out.

  “Somebody grab his arms!” a voice called out.

  “No!” he yelled, as one of the shadows leaned in to his face. Jimmy tried to break free, but was unable to.

  “Hey—hey!” the same voice again called out. “Hey! Buddy! It’s all right, calm down... calm down.... ”

  Jimmy blinked and looked about him. He was lying in an ambulance, paramedics and police everywhere.

  “What?”

  “You’re okay... can you see me? See my hand?” the paramedic asked.

  Jimmy blinked, waving away the hand. “Yeah, yeah, I see it. What happened?” He tried getting up.

  “Whoa, buddy, not so fast. You just rear ended a truck—and pretty hard, too.”

  “I what?”

  “A garbage truck. You’d been at a light. Light turned green, you gunned it... right into—”

  “Oh, shit. My car—”

  “Yeah, your car. Your air bags went off, but you’re okay. Your Honda’ll need some front-end work.”

  Jimmy lay back, dizzy.

  “What happened?”

  “You remember anything?”

  Jimmy took in the group clustered around him. Saw the police officer intently staring at him as she wrote stuff down on a notepad.

  What was she writing down?

  “No... not really. All I remember... was sitting at the light... watching the”

  (lights)

  “truck in front of me; saw the light change. Next I know...”

  The cop wrote down everything, and, Jimmy’d noticed, nudged herself right up to him. He looked to her, still blinking, trying to regain some sense of dignity.

  “That’s, ah, that’s all I honestly remember.”

  “Have a history of seizures?” the paramedic asked.

  Jimmy stared at him like a deer in headlights.

  Was he kidding?

  Were they in a movie?

  Things like this just didn’t happen to him. But, apparently, they really did ask these kinds of questions.

  “No... no, never had any seizures...”

  “Your family?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  “Were you drinking?”

  Jimmy looked at the paramedic askew. “I assumed you already checked for that, but no. I don’t drink and wasn’t.”

  “Had to ask, buddy.”

  “Okay,” the officer said, “take him on down to Memorial Emergency. Get him checked out.” Then she addressed him directly, “We’ve already called your wife and told her to meet us down there.”

  All Jimmy could do was nod. And that hurt.

  Whiplash?

  He knew where this was going, and he didn’t have a problem with that—a day off... at home. He doubted he was seeing the inside of his office today, but damn it, what’d happened? He’d had strange experiences before, but had never actually, well, blacked out before.

  As they packaged him up into the ambulance, he glanced out the rear of the opened truck to his car... and groaned.

  3

  On 1 November 2010, 0517 PST, a Lockheed Martin Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle, or EELV, lifted off from Vandenberg AFB, in Southern California. Its classified payload rocketed skyward, only to fatally malfunction on-orbit. It had made all the headlines.

  Except that the payload actually had achieved orbit, after having deployed another classified payload to mislead observers into thinking a catastrophe had occurred. The actual payload achieved its 100-nautical-mile orbit and immediately proceeded in deploying its solar arrays, charging up it nickel-hydrogen batteries... and initializing its artificial-intelligence mission package....

  Chapter Three

  1

  Falcon Air Force Station, Colorado

  31 October 1985

  0530 Hours Mountain Time

  First Lieutenant Jimmy Cherko pulled his ‘85 Toyota Celica up to the gate shack before Falcon Air Force Station. The guard, bringing his M-16 into the ready position, approached. It literally was a gate “shack,” more of a temporary telephone-booth-like thing barely big enough for the hulking Air Force Security Police Master Sergeant who looked an easy six-foot-six, and barely fit into his utility jacket and uniform. His black beret was smartly canted on his head and his face looked as if freshly chiseled from very unsmiling granite.

  “Morning, Lieutenant,” was all he said, as Cherko displayed his orders through his rolled-down window. The SP took and read them, holding them against the stiff wind. He glanced around the open, empty, plains and road behind him, then back toward what existed of the brand-new site still ahead of Cherko. They were apparently the only two present, ten miles east of Colorado Springs, Colorado, and two miles south of Highway 94.

  “Please park your vehicle over there, sir,” the SP said, directing him off the road, but not inside the site, “and shut down your engine.” The SP reentered the guard shack.

  “Thanks,” Cherko, said, nodding. He retrieved his orders and backed his Celica up a couple feet, pulling slightly off to the right as directed.

  Cherko took in his new surroundings. Falcon Air Force Station was supposed to be the military’s premier new space operations center, and it wasn’t yet completed, yet here he sat, out in the middle of nowhere, a massive Air Force SP eyeing him, the main road into Falcon not even graded, its twisting dirt road winding up and over and around massive dirt mounds like an afterthought.

  Man, just what kinda assignment was this?

  He barely had time to answer that before he saw the approaching vehicle. Appropriately enough, a black Jeep CJ. Cherko looked back to the SP, who was just returning his “brick,” or walkie-talkie, to his side. He again exited his tiny guard shack as the Jeep arrived. Cherko started up his vehicle, when the guard quickly shot one hand for his M-16, the other extended toward him in a “please don’t make me shoot you” gesture.

  “Sir! Turn off your vehicle!”

  Cherko complied, grimacing and raising an apologetic hand. His red face nicely contrasted with his blue uniform.

  Feeling eminently stupid, he watched the Jeep perform a U-turn around the guard shack. It pulled to a stop alongside the guard, who lowered and relaxed his hands, but kept an ever watchful eye on him. Slightly nervous, Cherko observed the two interact, both occasionally looking over to him.

  What the hell had he gotten himself into?

  Finally this new guy, a hat-less major sporting a sharp crew-cut and trim physique in the standard Air Force “blues,” and wearing a partially open Poplin jacket like himself, got out of the Jeep. He carried a clipboard. Cherko rolled down his window and flinched from the sudden gusts and dust.

  “Lieutenant Cherko?” the major asked, raising his voice above the wind. “James Cherko?” The major’s voice was crisp, punctuated, and articulate. Made Cherko just wanna snap-to.

  “Yes, sir,” Cherko responded, saluting. He noted the Master Pilot wings over the major’s left breast pocket.

  “May I see some identification and orders?”

  Cherko quickly and nervously reached into
a back pocket and removed his wallet. Producing his green military ID, he handed it over with his orders. The major took them, compared them against whatever he had on the clipboard, and returned both.

  “Major Bernie Turnbull.”

  Turnbull reached in and shook Cherko’s hand.

  “We’d like you to leave your vehicle here and accompany me in the Jeep,” Turnbull said, simultaneously turning to the SP and nodding an “it’s OK.” Hulkster SP reentered his post and continued to scan the terrain, M-16 at hand.

  “Sure,” Cherko said.

  Turnbull backed away from the Celica. Cherko grabbed his satchel, exited the car, and locked it.

  * * *

  “A little trouble in nav training, I see,” Turnbull said as they both buckled up inside the vehicle. Turnbull started the engine and put the Jeep into gear.

  Cherko smiled uncomfortably. “Ah, yeah, had problems doing mental calculations.”

  Turnbull nodded and pulled out.

  “I could do them on paper, just didn’t have the head for them in-flight. Mountains come up pretty fast.”

  “Sure do,” Turnbull said, flatly.

  Cherko looked down to the clipboard between the seats, and saw that it had official documentation on it concerning him, and his military photograph from nav training. The one with his wings anticipatorily planted on his chest. He caught some bits of information on there about himself, which did, indeed, list his failed attempt at nav training.

  Great first impression.

  Turnbull glanced over to him.