Near Future 1: Awakening (20 page)

One of the other techs exclaimed. "I think we have another problem." He had turned rather pale.

Seeing their questioning looks, he managed to get control. "Even though we can't transmit, we can receive signals. Take a look at the time stamp on the message I just picked up between Space Tech Station and one of our mining ships."
 

Sam stared at it in obvious confusion. "It looks like it's something like a few months ago. How is that possible?"

"Look at the year, sir." The man nervously pointed at the year of the timestamp. His obvious distress was getting worse.

"Oh..." Sam could only stare at it for a moment. The only answer seemed incredible. He looked around the room. "I don't know how, but it appears that we have somehow lost several months..."

Sam was having his own problems maintaining control. Finally, he went on, voicing what they all knew was the only answer. "We knew something strange happened at the last, with perhaps Newtonian physics breaking down. The only possible explanation is that we have traveled forward in time." Everyone in the control room just stared at him, all in various levels of shock and disbelief.

Sam was more than a little shook up too, but he tried to maintain appearances for his team. However, he couldn't help but comment, "So everyone at home probably thinks we are lost forever. Which we may be anyway..."

#

In the executive offices of Space Tech, Ted Randolph called an emergency meeting. They now knew that Doctor Sam Randolph was missing and his lab assistant was also suspiciously missing. To make things worse,
The Annette
was late reporting in after their communication blackout during a special propulsion test they were conducting. The combination of the two events had many convinced that the Organization had kidnapped the doctor, using the resulting chaos to somehow take control of the ship. The situation looked grave, and Space Tech had no choice but to go into emergency operations mode.
 

After ending the meeting, the PR team was called in and they went over their strategy in detail. They would not communicate anything directly, but rumors would be "allowed" to get out that the doctor was sick, or that he was taking a break due to the pressures of the job. This was only a temporary strategy since he would have to be there for the stockholders meeting in a couple of months.
 

Having dismissed everyone, Ted sat by himself in his office. He alone knew the details of the test the Space Tech research vessel was conducting, and he feared that they had more than likely suffered a major catastrophe that had nothing to do with the Organization. He wasn't sure about his brother and if it was a coincidence or not. He knew he had planned to be involved with the testing, but he had not told him he was going there.

So far they hadn't been able to discover anything regarding his whereabouts. If the Organization had kidnapped him, why couldn't they find any evidence at all? Plus he and his brother both had a special tracking device implanted that only a very select few knew about, and the first thing he had done when he realized his brother was missing was to try to find him using their array of satellites. Nothing! He could hold things together by himself for a little while but within a few weeks he would have to make some tough decisions. The most important of those decisions would be who would be the next CEO. He knew who that would have to be, he just didn't want to go there if he had a choice.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Rumors

Space Tech has announced that one of their research vessels is missing. According to their statement, they were testing a new propulsion system and the ship has disappeared. A number of search ships have been sent to the area, but they have so far not found any evidence of the research vessel. They haven't found any debris, so they are holding out hope that the ship will be found.

#

Mid-term break over, everyone headed back to school. Miranda was suddenly getting a lot more attention than she wanted, and she kept seeing students talking and pointing toward her. Someone had VR'd her pool game and the video had gone ultra-viral. Emily of course was excited about it, but Miranda just wished she had kept her cool. Caitlyn and her friends were even worse than ever, now going out of their way to cause her trouble.

Back at the military training area, they shifted to teaching the students basic hand-to-hand fighting skills. To Miranda the training seemed really easy, but she tried to hold back on her moves to match the level of the other students. When the Master Sergeant showed them how they could practice the hand-to-hand moves in the VR simulator, he couldn't resist giving Miranda a glance. She gave him a big smile, because she immediately realized what that meant.

It wasn't long before Miranda was taking advantage of the opportunity to practice after class alone. By carefully pacing herself, she was able to avoid the headaches. Soon she had pushed her skills to an advanced level as she practiced by herself with a simulated dojo as her instructor. Not the same as practicing with an actual person, but she had every move down to perfection. She learned to respond by instinct with moves that were best for defense when faced with an attack and the moves to attack if necessary. Of course, she told no one, just as she had told no one but the Sarge about her skill level with shooting, even though she longed to try them out for real.

The following evening Miranda's astronomy class was conducted for the first time at the big telescope. The construction work had finally been completed, sped along by the scrutiny the incident with the lasers had brought about. It had been built for the astronomy class. The telescope worked by shooting a laser off a Space Tech satellite, using the return signal to tell an AI how to modify the view to compensate for the effects of the atmosphere. That was why the lasers had been there to start with, although it was only supposed to have been only one set of primary and secondary lasers.

Miranda was glad to be no longer studying theory or viewing space-based telescope footage, but looking out through the telescope with her own eyes. She was thrilled that she now had an opportunity to point it to her own specified location. She had been looking at some of the furtherest galaxies visible with the Space Tech telescope, looking for clues for her theory regarding the subspace fabric. So Miranda stayed later than the other students.

With the telescope at the top of a big hill at the far end of campus, Miranda found herself walking back alone in the semi-darkness. Suddenly she was surrounded by Caitlyn and her friends. One of them said, "It's time to teach the girl a lesson, and there's nobody here to watch or to help." A number of them moved in toward Miranda, obviously intending to attack her.

Without thinking about it, Miranda slipped into her defensive position that she had learned in the hand-to-hand classes, and seconds later all of the other girls were lying on the ground. Realizing that she had done it again, Miranda helped them back to their feet. Two were holding their arms in obvious pain and Caitlyn was limping again. The others weren't much better. They all looked at her with a mixture of fear and respect and quickly hurried away. Sorry that she had obviously injured some of them slightly, Miranda was nevertheless angry at them for attacking her.

The next day even more rumors followed Miranda. She finally was unable to take all the pressure, sneaking off to the flight simulator to hide inside of it. Although the students had been given access, no one was currently training in the simulators. Miranda had previously used the basic simulations they had been assigned in class. However, she needed a distraction, so she pulled up the more advanced simulations. She was soon flying many advanced VR missions in the simulator and was so engrossed in the activity she didn't see the "Facility is closing" VR icon until it was blinking red. She realized that she only had five minutes to leave. She struggled with that because she was on the verge of another major headache, but she managed it by thinking about Julie's music as she moved. When she got back to the dorm and Emily asked where she had been, she shrugged and said nothing.

#

Zeke had been talking with some of the guys about the pool game with Miranda. He knew she was somewhat embarrassed by it, but they were all amazed. One of his geek buddies had slowed the video down, and they all watched as each ball had precisely been hit into the center of the pocket, even on the banked shots. He had also measured the speed of the spin on the cue ball on that last shot and it was off the charts. To even attempt that shot was unreal. Everyone had always known that the only way to put the eight ball in the side pocket without scratching was with a soft touch, yet Miranda had hit it as hard as anyone had ever seen, but had put so much back spin on the cue ball that it had moved in the opposite direction than it should have.

When they heard about her "incident" with the soccer team, they all kidded him that he better watch out. He laughed at that, but admitted that he too thought that "Better not make the girl mad!" was a pretty good policy. However, he told them, "She's a very sweet girl, you know," at which they all said, "Wooooo!" and one of them said as he was leaving, "Man, you've got it bad!" Zeke smiled at that and wisely kept his mouth shut.

After the rest were gone, Joe turned back to Zeke. "Well, my friend, you certainly have gone from the frying pan into the fire. First Caitlyn and now the ninja girl. That's what the soccer girls are calling her, you know."

"They got what they deserved, that many ganging up on her. If I thought it would do any good, I would have another talk with Caitlyn."

"Yeah like the last one did?" Joe couldn't help but poke at his friend who was always doing the same to him.

"That's true. At least none of the guys are bothering Miranda, and it looks like she can handle Caitlyn on her own."

"No, the guys already knew the two of us would take them to task if they caused trouble, but now I think that they are actually a little afraid of her. Not that they shouldn't be. You know, you did pick an amazing girl to be involved with."

"It's not like I picked her out. It just sort of happened. But you're right. She's amazing!"

"I hope it works out for you, Bro. Then we can work on finding me a girl, too. It's only fair."

"Someday it'll just happen. It's obvious none of us guys have any real say in it."

"Yeah, that is so true..."

#

When Andrea came to pick her up that week, Miranda told her she needed her help. Instead of pulling her car out into traffic, Andrea turned to look at Miranda. "Ok, what's up? This doesn't sound like one of our normal weekly lunches."

"No, I guess we need to pass this week." Miranda said quietly. "I know you were former special forces. I read an article talking about you competing in an amateur event, and it mentioned your background. I also watched some of the VR of you competing, so I know how good you are. I need you to help train me in hand-to-hand combat, because I have recently learned I have skills beyond the normal. I could have really hurt some girls who attacked me the other night without realizing what I was doing."

Andrea's eyebrows had gone up at Miranda's first statement, because she didn't think she could have found out about her competing. She had used a stage name when competing, as all the girls did. Then her eyes had widened at the last. "I'm a little rusty you know, but I will help you if I can. What have you been doing to suddenly develop these skills?"

"We had the basics in class, but they gave us access to the simulators. They have some very high quality instructors in there. Using the simulator, I could only learn the moves, and had no way to practice with a person. So when they attacked me, I merely responded entirely by instinct."

Andrea nodded in understanding. "I will need to know your level before we can begin. I propose we go to a little studio nearby where we can practice in private. I know the guy who runs it, and he's just there part time. He lets me borrow his space when I want to work off a little steam. We need to keep this just between the two of us for now."

"Yes. Please, let's do that."

Andrea made a call and found out the studio was open for the afternoon. Giving Miranda a thumbs up, she said, "We've got it. Let's go."

So they drove the few blocks to the studio, Andrea entering the access code to get them in. Soon they were standing across from each other. "We are in street clothes, so we will have to take it easy. Take as long as you need to center yourself and then drop into your defense stance."

Nodding, Miranda took a few slow breaths and then took an easy defensive position.

"Ready?" Andrea asked. At her nodded yes, Andrea stepped forward and snapped out a quick punch not really intended to strike home. Before she knew what was happening, her strike was blocked and a return punch had her sliding across the floor. Not really hurt except for her pride, she gasped, "What was that? I never even saw it coming."

"Sorry," came the quiet response. "You see what I mean? I never meant to actually hurt you. That was just the response I've learned, and it's automatic."

"Ok, well, we can skip the next step. I know you can throw a punch. Tell you what, show me a combination of moves and I will watch. Go full speed so I can get an idea of your ability."

Miranda took a couple more deep breaths. Then she went through the top ten combinations she had learned, using punches, kicks and footwork. When she stopped, she looked expectantly at Andrea. What she saw was her friend standing there with her mouth hanging open.

"What I just saw," Andrea said when she could get her bearings, "was as fast as I have ever seen in anyone I have competed against, and it looked like every move was perfect. Can you do it at half speed? If you can, I can probably teach you some of the more practical things I know."

"It's like my brain has it memorized. But I think I can do it if you will give me a minute to work on it." Miranda stood there and took slow, steady breaths, concentrating on mentally setting the speed in her head. "I'm going to try it now."