Eye of the Machine Read online

”Could be another one of them Martian scares, sheriff; we never did really get over the last one, remember?”

  “Grover’s Mills ever recover?”

  “Not that I’ve heard!"

  Deputy Sergeant stood up; darned her hat, her hand on her gun, and gazed around the room like I was visible, or something. I felt like I was standing there with my neurons down around my knees.

  I watched the peace officer for what seemed an eternity, then turned and departed the sheriff's office, stopping the deputy mid-stride. Manny Sergeant turned around looking straight at me, before exiting the office. She took one last look around the facility, before pulling the door shut––making me damned uncomfortable, I’ll tell you me. Although, it wasn’t as annoying as the mayor’s babbling about monsters from space stealing human souls. How ridiculous. So what if he saw them with his own eyes. Who would believe him?

  “Monsters–– Huh. What’s this man’s navy coming to anyway?

  Deputy Sergeant looked back, out the back window of the police car, and shook her head. "Looks like Mayor Stent-worth has had a little to much celebrating for this time of the year––He's gone plum loco."

  The sheriff agreed, “Yep … and he’s damn lucky I didn’t lock him up for disorderly conduct.”

  “Would serve him right, but then, he is the judge. Who would set his bail, Fanny Sinclair?”

  The police car sped off into the night, sirens whaling.

  Teenage couples, double dates, it was all the same to me. There were a bunch of them parking in the woods next to the Miles' farm. Just up the hill from where my buoy landed. One of the teenager’s notice the illumination right away. The beam of light was incalculable; it shot skyward pulsating with rings as bright as an airport beacon. Made me feel like I was part of a "B" flick, complete with all the overtones and mystique of a fifties movie: Monsters and aliens, invasions, warring civilizations, and creatures from a thousand worlds that all looked the same. All that was missing was a woman the size of a telephone pole.

  Needless to say, in this case, the overtone was more parody than a scene out of the classics. My signal was disrupting their radio communications, and cell phones. The engine wouldn't start. One of the teenagers even looked at his watch to see if it had stopped! I couldn’t wait for one of them to pull out a compass, and utter: "Hey, that's not pointing north!”

  But none of them did. Not a one of them answered the way I expected. Today’s teenagers had simply outgrown the classics of the past, in lieu of iPhones and tablets. The world had changed, and me with it.

  I reset my parameters, adjusting for infrequency in the timeline. At least, the teenagers were still inquisitive enough to want to get out of their vehicle and get a better look at my data stream. I was fairly proud of it. The teenagers, however, were anything but graceful. The young men started down the hill through the woods, leading the women along a trail to the farmhouse, or in this case, the gully where my disc-shaped buoy anchored itself.

  I could see the sheriff's police car racing along the same two-lane highway John Miles and Bear had driven earlier, but this time it was night. Although, the beacon from the time buoy made it look more like mid-day. The beam stretched upwards to the very threshold of space.

  "See that," said Deputy Sergeant, trying to keep her wits about her. "It's just like in the movies, Chief. Maybe I’d better call dispatch and get some help out here!"

  The sheriff looked over at Manny, watching as she called for back up. "And you'd better count on calling out the National Guard too––we're going to need them out here!"

  The deputy went wide-eyed with excitement. "You mean it's an invasion?"

  “I don’t know what it is,” said the sheriff, but I’m not taking any chances.

  "Yeah!"

  The police car rounded a curve, blazing across the field in a cloud of dust just as the teenagers stepped out of the woods, standing by the roadside. They watch the flashing lights of the squad car disappear in the cloud of dust, waited a moment, and then headed across the dirt road disappearing into a cornfield.

  John opened the screen door to his house, and stepped out onto the porch. The swirl of cigarette smoke curled around his nose. He could hear the sound of approaching sirens, but he couldn’t see the police cruiser. Martha stepped up behind him, letting the door close behind her. Bear whined, nosing his way out the door as he opened it, sliding his way out of the farmhouse behind them both. He didn’t like being stuck in the background and neither did I, so we both took a place near the bottom of the steps.

  I felt the dog’s glance, as he sniffed the air. It was as if he sensed my essence. I however knew he was there long before I could sense him. The smell of a working dog was anything but pleasing to my sensors. Bear obviously needed a bath. Dashing off the steps seemed the only recourse, running for the squad car justified escaping one odor for another, the second being more pleasing. Deputy Sergeant obviously had a more advantageous scent. The sheriff’s cruiser, nevertheless, reeked of dirt road and flying dust.

  The sheriff parked the vehicle down wind at least, a few feet from the gully where John’s prize pickup laid on its side like a drunken dinosaur. Deputy Sergeant immediately exited the squad car, and glared up at the beacon. “Manny,” said the sheriff, nodding toward the farmer.

  “Sheriff,” said John.

  “Exciting evening I’d imagine?” said the deputy.

  John looked to the pulsating light, and then the pickup lying on its side in the ditch. He agreed with the officers, but that wasn’t the half of it. There was more excitement than he could deal with, but seeing the squad car seemed to make everything better. I wondered if the flashing lights had something to do with it.

  The deputy followed the two men down into the cornfields. John and the sheriff reached the crater first. Deputy Sergeant was more interested in the pickup, but trailed the farmer, lagging behind. There was something about the incident that didn’t seem right. It was spooky, and she half expected something to jump out of the cornfield at her like in so many horror movies she had seen.

  She was by herself, a few hundred feet from the crash site and where the pickup met the side of the road. It was the perfect spot for a bloodthirsty monster to wing its way out of the neither-sphere and rip her heart out. But, of course, it was her imagination. The only sounds she heard was those of teenagers making their way to the site from the other side of the cornfield.

  Still, the noise made her uneasy. Tension was at an all time high, and together with the teenagers approach, she was wigging out; her mind playing tricks on her. It was all I could do to reach the buoy myself, without setting off every alarm in her head.

  The sky beacon was just about all she could take. Much more and she’d lose it for sure. Whatever the deputy was imagining, she was hearing her mind’s interpretation of her own fears. The noise coming from the field spooked her. She had her gun drawn, and she was aiming it haphazardly, turning around quickly, looking for anything that moved, especially Martians. “Sheriff,” she shouted. “There’s something else out here!”

  “Calm yourself, Sergeant,” chuckled the sheriff. “You’re imagining things.”

  “Is she okay?” asked the farmer!

  "She's harmless; at least, I think she is."

  The sheriff plucked his weapon from its holster, releasing the strap. There was a moment. He heard the noise too.

  “In the cornfield,” he said with a motion of his hand. Scared.

  John Miles was afraid. The ground was shaking, violently. The buoy was actively pinging. The dog started barking his fool head off, like an early warning system. If there were Martians, the sheriff and his deputy would undoubtedly open fire. I could only hope they wouldn’t piss their pants first, especially now that I could sense chatter. It was verbal yet, but traffic was inbound. I could hear the recognition codes being transmitted in the back of my mind.

  Any moment now, a sphere of energy would form in the heavens. I could feel the energy routing. Pulsating in the st
ream of time like a homing beacon driving away any sense of extraterrestrial connection: A fleet of six enormous starships about to drop on the farm like a swarm of locus, each a gigantic galactic cruiser––huge in structure, out of this world in design. Each vessel was self sufficient, unlike anything these patrons could understand. To them it would seem like an invasion, in reality, it was more of a stopover in time. Tonight, the future would visit the past, and peek at the stars to get its bearings in a universe teaming with life.

  I could see Martha running from the farmhouse, the teenagers converging on the edge of the cornfield, the sheriff and his deputy traveling from the direction of the squad car, everyone flocking to the time buoy, as if it was drawing them to it.

  Bear growled from the top of the crater then retreated into the protective covering of the cornfield. The terror rained from above. The sky turned black, and starless, as if the night had swallowed the heavens from horizon to horizon. The gala armada was returning home. The ships whaled their respective sirens, sounding their horns, as they marked their arrival: A naval fleet returning to port.

  Martha stopped mid-stride, and stared at the largest of the cruisers. Her husband stunned by what he was seeing.

  "All right!" shouted Joe, one of the teenagers, his girlfriend tight to his arm. "Beam me up, Scotty!"

  The four teenagers emerged from the cornfield to stand next to the sheriff and his deputy, startling them. The officers looked over at the youth, reaching out to stop them as they moved closer to the crater.

  The older of the teens, Joe, stood at the base of the impression, staring up at the sky. The enormous ships descended from the heavens, hovering above him in the sky. "They've got U.S. markings,” said Joe. “Are they ours?"

  “How the hell would I know,” said the sheriff, just as overwhelmed and excited as the rest of them. "But until we find out, I think we should just let them alone."

  “I think that’s the best idea I’ve heard all night,” added the deputy, everyone else staring at her. "Well–– It's my opinion, okay?"

  “Okay,” said the sheriff, while the largest of the ships hovered just a few hundred meters off the ground just above his head, like a blimp coming to rest against its mooring. I on the other hand was staying close to the beacon. Their voices were loudest in my mind, data streaming back and forth at lightning speed, in constant transmission between ships. I knew I was somehow a part of it.

  • • •

  "Whoever heard of the Space Fleet getting lost in time?” said Captain Ramious, commander of the flagship Mystic Thunder, his voice echoing in my mind as if I too was on the bridge. “I want inquiries made as soon as we get back.”

  "Aye, Sir,” I said, utilizing the communications chip in his head. We were in constant contact: The ship’s artificial intelligence and her crew. A turbo lift door slid open at the back of the bridge. A tall, lengthy hologram rendition of myself stepped out and onto the flight deck.

  “Antarctica Tracking control is off line, Captain.” The skipper huffed with a little chuckle, and shook his head. It was anyone’s guess how we were going to get out of this one. But if Ramious had his way, he’d have a team on the surface in no time making repairs.

  The temporal buoy was obviously malfunctioning. Our immediate mission was to recover the marker and make the necessary adjustments to the bouy. If we were going to head back through the window into their own time, we had to do it quickly. The temporal vortex was already beginning to dissipate.

  "One last thing, Lieutenant," said the captain, before leaving the bridge. “I want blue squadron on a thirty minute response, and put two hellcats on ready alert."

  “Aye, Sir,”

  “Plasky," acknowledged the captain, “Will you and Mister Stagg join me in CIC?"

  The two men entered the bridge via a turbo lift, following the captain as he exited the bridge back onto a turbo lift elevator. The two men, one an officer in Space Command, the other a civilian, followed one another almost instinctually. "Combat Information Center," he demanded in a stern voice. The elevator whisked the three men away on a short trip to the belly of the whale––One floor down from CIC.

  Commander Plasky and Mister Stagg entered CIC via a staircase facing the elevator. The command center was obviously separated into two components, the computer essence where my protocol resided, and the human element, which consisted of a team of officers and enlisted personnel, at the threat board.

  "Scanners show us clear, Captain," said the deck officer, offering his take on the information available on immediate threats facing fleet operations. "We've a couple of civilians on the surface, but there's not a star dock within a thousand miles of us in any direction. We're prehistoric here, Captain, or, at least, as far back as first generation––maybe closer than we think to the right temporal period."

  "Get me an analysis of combat operations in this time period, Mister Kyle. And get it up on the boards."

  “Aye, Sir,” said the officer.

  The captain pulled down a small device from one of the overhead sockets. "Launch the ready alert,” he said a-matter-of-fact. “I want a tactical umbrella over us at all times. We could have found the original window."

  Two small, disc-shaped fighters exited the huge circular carrier, and accelerated across the heavens, vanishing in an instant, as if by magic. Sheriff Bigalow and his deputy watched the two Hellcats arch a path through the clouds, then make a spine-breaking, ninety-degree turn heading across the mountains to the south of Williamsport.

  Both pilots reacted with great ease. "Falcon one to Falcon control, airborne; routing to station, vectoring two-one-zero."

  "Roger, Falcon one!”

  On the surface, John Miles, his wife, Martha, the sheriff and his deputy all scattered along with the teenagers. A team of holographic workmen materialized via transporter device teleporting their likeness to the surface. The men appeared as shadowy grey figures, simple holographic representations of themselves.

  The lead man looked over the yo-yo shaped device, and nodded to the others. A third man materialized within a narrow beam. "We're ready to retrieve the buoy commander,” said the lead technician. “Transport when ready."

  One of the teenagers, Joe, wearing a Star Trek anniversary shirt, wide-eyed at the spectacle, watched in such awe he damned near pissed his pants. "Wow," he screamed, the widest smile on his face his girlfriend Sara had ever seen.

  "Live long and prosper!” Yelled the youth.

  “All right––that’s enough. I’ve never made you smile like that!” The youth glared at his young lover, and turned his attention skyward for a second look.

  • • •

  "We've two air-to-air contacts, Captain, bearing one-two-nine; one-eight-zero miles and closing," said the deck officer.

  The skipper pulled down another device from overhead, and listened for an answer. "Bridge Aye!" said the officer on the other end of the line.

  "Boss give us some maneuvering room: Have the Hornet and Lexington maintain altitude, get the Triumph away from the surface and have the Georgetown steer clear and hold position. I don't want to get caught out here with our pants down.”

  "Aye, Captain."

  "And have our fighters do an ID pass.”

  “Aye, Sir,” said the deck officer. A moment later, the huge ship lifted away from the crater, uprooting the cornfield with thrust from its powerful antigravity drive engines.

  John chased Martha up the hill, away from the incident, as two sleek F-22 fighters screamed above them in a wide circle; two Hellcat fighters hot on their trail. At least, the future of aerospace was taking shape, passing directly overhead.

  The sheriff glared at his deputy, shocked; his face somewhat in awe of the situation. “Did they have U.S. markings?” asked Manny Sergeant.

  “What?” asked the Sheriff, startled back to reality, “U.S. markings?” He was bewildered by the experience. It was incomprehensible.

  The sun poked above the mountains, with daybreak and the blessing
of sunrise. Some thing had changed, as if time itself had sped up. The F-22's circled again, staying close to the mountaintops. The fighters took a quick exit pursued by the futuristic aircraft.

  The four teenagers cheered, chuckling with excitement. They were having their own personal airshow.

  Catching four kids parking was nothing compared to this! Hearing the swish of opening doors as the sirens on the ship's bridge went off in my head, crossfading with the thundering jets was just as pleasing. I was reintegrating with the command network. "Skipper,” I said, managing to maintain my cool while being overwhelmed with excitement. It wasn’t everyday an AI got to visit the past.

  “We've identification on the two air-to-air contacts," announced the deck officer.

  "Which button?" asked the captain walking back and forth across the bridge!

  "Three, Sir."

  "Falcon one, this is Thunder one. What’ve you got?"

  "Two F-22's, Sir; in original condition––complete with all markings."

  "Two what?"

  "Air Force F-22 Lightning II's, Captain."

  "There hasn't been a flying boat like that in over five hundred years.”

  “We're living history here, Sir.”

  “Roger that!” said the captain. “Maintain position. Let's get that time buoy launched, before we become part of the statistics."

  "Time buoy coming on line, Captain,” I told him, integrating my circuits with his. We were compatible except for when he was high strong––Safety protocols.

  “Ready to launch."

  "Recall the fighters,” insisted the Captain. “And make ready for departure.”

  “All systems ready."

  "Aye, Sir!"

  "LAUNCH!"

  The two Hellcat fighters separated from each other, vanishing across the horizon as the F-22 fighter planes attempted to engage the Hellcats, but the sky opened a window into another dimension, and the aircraft vanished.

  The Mystic Thunder moved into position for departure. The heavy cruiser Triumph launched the time buoy into the vortex and scrambled after it forming a transit sphere, which formed in the sky above the Miles’ farm. Each of the huge starships moved into the sphere.