Curious Sols (The Sol Principle Book 1) Read online

  “Now that’s the kind of excellence we are looking for from your team,” commented the general.

  John looked from the control board to the door and then back to the general. “General, that’s not my team down there. Well, not my official team.”

  “Well then, who’s flying those sims, Lieutenant?” asked the general with a harder tone.

  The ensign at the control board interjected before John could answer, “Captain Sterling is in drone one, Sir.”

  “That explains that,” replied the general. Pausing a moment, he followed up. “Send the captain up.”

  Turning to Dr. Brynn the general suggested, “You need to meet Captain Sterling while we are lucky enough to have her on loan from the Navy. She was pivotal in setting up our training center before John took over. But don’t get any ideas, our newly designed facility is the optimum place for your research.”

  An unexpected call came over the general’s shoulder comm.

  “General,” interjected the caller, “I have the call you’ve been waiting for on hold. Are you available to take it?”

  The officer keyed his mic. “Give me one moment and I’ll have the ensign here page you with a number.” Motioning to the ensign he ordered him to send a page to his office. He then turned back to his guest. “Pardon me, Doctor. Perhaps you can enlighten John here a bit about your project. I’ll be just a minute.”

  “Of course, General,” she replied.

  As the general walked over to the control center’s secure line, John wasn’t sure what he was going to say to the doctor. He didn’t have to wait long, however, to get a read on her disposition.

  “So, the local chapter of Girl Scouts was full?” she sarcastically whispered.

  John was caught off guard by her remark. “Come again.”

  “Oh, I was just thinking it must be one heck of an elementary school proficiency test you have here on the base,” Dr. Brynn mused. “Reading books, writing paragraphs, shooting down Chinese drones, the basics any young student must master these days.”

  John was picking up on her sense of humor now. This could go one of two ways. John was hoping he was reading her right, or the drones weren’t going to be the only thing crashing and burning here.

  “I’m just a single dad trying to help his daughter live her dreams,” he said with a sarcastic smile of his own.

  “Her dreams or what you’d have her dream?” she countered.

  John shook his head, “If you’ve known this child since she was able to crawl, you’d know she was a born speedster.”

  “When the General pieces things together how will you explain it?” she asked as though she was only mildly curious.

  “He won’t have to find out,” John replied. “I’ll tell him.”

  “So you’re a boy scout then?” she quipped. “Honesty is the best policy and all that?”

  “I’m an officer in the Air Force, Doctor. That simple,” he responded.

  “Well it turns out I may be looking for an Air Force officer…and a boy scout,” she said with a small smile.

  Having finished his call, the General returned to the small group.

  “General, excuse me, but as I was saying about my family, I take full responsibility for my actions…” John began, but it was his turn to be interrupted, in this case by two people entering the room from the sim area. Captain Sterling was dressed in her Navy flight suit. She was followed closely behind by Stephanie. Dressed in rolled up Navy fatigues clearly labeled Sterling on the shirt jacket, she beamed with a smile ear to ear.

  The officers exchanged greetings.

  “General, I hope you don’t mind my brevity, but today I’m on active supervision duty with this young lady and we’re late for morning services.”

  The general’s features communicated a feeling of unexpected disappointment.

  “I was hoping you could go over the program with us, Captain,” related the General.

  “The minute services are over I would be happy to,” countered the Captain.

  “After church then, Captain,” grudgingly agreed the general. “If the chaplain asks tell him I’ll be stopping by later today as soon as I can break away.”

  John gave Anita Sterling a look of thanks as the two of them headed toward the exit. He quickly shifted his gaze to his daughter, shooting his “laser eyes” as she called his stern glares. Meanwhile, Doctor Brynn was glancing at the control screen and then to the young girl. She began to mouth a question, but stopped as General Gossett started to speak.

  “You were saying, Lieutenant?” asked the General.

  Pausing, John replied, “It takes a village to raise a child these days sir, or in a pinch a highly decorated fighter pilot. Before we continue there’s an issue I need to bring to your attention…”

  Stephanie placed her Ksync securely in her pack. She was going to keep pushing herself to fly higher. That meant putting in extra time on the coaster. In some ways it was the hottest sim on the ship. Hopefully, she could pull off a little side training session without her father clipping her wings.

  Chapter 2 My Future is your Past

  Jonathon Quinn shifted in his chair as he tried to get comfortable. Touching the screen on his desk, he dimmed the lights in his office. The lack of sleep was starting to catch up with him and his eyes were more than a bit tired. He had been working on a lesson review that would hopefully engage his students more than yesterday. His secret weapon was tapping into his childhood. As a kid it seemed his father and grandfather had always been wrapped up in some project. He was used to it though, and it wasn't like he was bored. He had the entire White House to explore and generally found his way into small amounts of trouble.

  One such jaunt had led him on quite the adventure. He had found a hat given to his grandfather by the Australian Governor-General of the time. He wore the hat everywhere in the White House, pretending he was taming the outback. Apparently, his grandfather got such a kick out of the show that he let him borrow it on a permanent basis.

  John reached out to a small stand by his desk. Resting on the stand was a suede hat with an Aussie-style brim. He snatched the hat up and with twirl, placed it on his head. Then he leaned back in his chair as the hat stirred up more memories of his childhood.

  Eventually, he found his way to the White House movie theater. His grandfather had a passion for movies, and for something called television. Especially some of the decades old stuff. Some of his fondest memories as a child were of the three of them sitting side by side in those cushy chairs and watching the classics. It was his grandfather, after all, that had inspired him as a youngster to join the MARC program. If only his father had shared his enthusiasm for leaving the family business and following his dreams.

  A picture on his desk caught his eye. It was an heirloom of sorts, passed down from his grandfather. John stared at the three generations of Quinns within the frame. As he did, his mind drifted into the past. His daydream envisioned an anecdote his father had shared about the birth of the MARC program.

  “How did we get here?” whispered a man in anguished tones. He took off his suit coat and slung it on a neighboring chair. The circular room he stood in was a mix of cutting edge technology and antique furniture. One piece of furnishing held his vision, a picture frame sitting on an ornate desk. It was a happy scene, one of himself, a man appearing as a younger version of himself, and a young child watching a movie together in the White House Theater.

  Refocusing his vision on one of fifty paper-thin screens around him, he took a deep breath.

  “Manuel do you see this?” he questioned while motioning toward a screen. A second man, one of a dozen or so executive dressed people in the room, turned and moved toward him.

  Pointing at the screen in front of him the first man continued, “Tell me I’m not looking at downtown Chicago, right here in the United States. Are you kidding me?” Fighting back an urge to knock over the chair next to him, Joe squeezed his jacket resting on it. The force of his anger transf
erred to a grip so powerful that his knuckles turned white. “Those are families, Manny. Families lined up hoping to get food and shelter, and we have police in riot gear firing tear gas canisters. What’s going on? They’re only holding up a few protest signs and singing carols!”

  “There’s more than carols going on there Mr. President,” countered the second man in an empathetic tone. “Chicago’s been on the verge of mass violence for over a week now,” he added.

  “And if I had a choice, I’d likely be out there holding a sign with those people,” riposted the President of the United States. Throwing his arms up he continued. “A third of them are in jeopardy of going hungry tonight and when they speak out about it, we bring down the hammer. What happened to an idea we once called free speech? Are we now just steamrolling over any right that isn’t convenient for us?”

  “We have to keep people safe, Mr. President,” countered the Speaker of the House.

  “We have to keep people safe from dying of starvation,” replied the President in a gasp of exhaustion. “They are not protesting taxes on their bloody tea, Manuel! We can’t punish them for voicing their need to have a piece of bread to eat.”

  Walking a few steps closer to another screen the President motioned. “Then we have this mess. What’s the death toll up to now, with this settlement, five thousand?”

  The Speaker stepped closer to the screen. A placard on the bottom of the screen read Nevada. A news crew was showing video of a large concrete compound. Desert winds whipped through several open areas making visibility difficult. The reporter on camera was pointing at various parts of the compound. At the same time the camera’s view followed the reporter’s direction, moving around the compound before settling on the center courtyard. Obscured by the winds and partially covered by sand were dozens of people. Although the visibility was difficult, it was clear to tell by their lack of motion that they were deceased.

  “FEMA is already spread too thin Mr. President,” commented the Speaker. “When Mother Nature throws her hat into the ring, it’s too much stress to the system.”

  The President tilted his head to the side and raised his eyebrows at the remarks.

  “If we didn’t have extremist groups marching people through the desert to set up communes, this wouldn’t be happening,” replied the President. “When people believe that living in a dust bowl is better than life in a metropolis, we’d better take notice. I’m all about religious freedom, but the number of cults brainwashing unsuspecting people is getting out of hand. We need to focus on getting the Housing Authority to work faster on reconditioning urban areas,” he finished.

  “I wish people weren’t packed into shelters like sardines,” the Speaker agreed. “But the grim reality is there are more people than healthy communities these days. As bad as we have it, Mr. President, India and China have been seeing this kind of crisis for a decade now. Maybe more to the point, Mr. President, how do we get everything back on track? It’s not just one system. Every government on the globe seems ready to plunge into something… to go someplace… A place I don’t want to think about.”

  In the midst of everything that was happening, even Joseph Quinn was taken aback by the Speaker’s words. He paused, slowly turned, and paced in a small circle for what seemed the longest minute of his life.

  “Mr. Speaker,” a hard voice that softened continued. “We are not the first to stare into the uncertainty of the world. When Kennedy dealt with the realities of Sputnik, he faced two choices. One, let his imagination run wild with the most frightening possibilities... Soviets raining nuclear missiles down from the sky, coworkers feeding secrets to the Communists. He could have capitulated to such fear, or… do something that was counter-intuitive. Extend a hand to the country that had beaten us to space. Offer them a pact for peace based upon a joint exploration of a new frontier. He embraced hope and everything we want to be, as an American, as a partner of the world.”

  Looking past the screens, he looked across the room to an outside window.

  “Kennedy had the Moon, Mr. Speaker,” mustered the President, “…we have Mars.”

  “Mr. President," shot back the Speaker of the House, "you cannot compare the events of the Cold War to our current situation. We stand upon the edge of a second great depression. Our ability to compete in a fair market has been crushed by foreign countries, which have either stolen or duplicated most of our intellectual property. Even our military is a shadow of its former self."

  The speaker, lost in his own fervor, continued, “Who would you offer an olive branch to… China, Russia, Britain? The world is consumed by its own problems: overpopulation, toxic waste, disease, hunger. Where can you hope to find the money for this program, Mr. President, let alone the support?”

  For a moment, Joe Quinn, the forty-eighth President of the United States of America, stood silent. It would take an expert of non-verbal communication to read his face, the subtle shifts of creases, eye movement, and lips. That person would see a pain, one of desperation, one of loss, and a sense of defeat. In the very next moment, the lines of pain on his face would disappear, replaced by lines of confidence and a stare of determination.

  “Life may not duplicate itself, but look closely and you'll find the similarities," began the President. "FDR hoped to pull the country out of a great depression with the New Deal, but you and I both know it was war spending that brought us out of the economic crisis."

  The president looked at the bronze eagle on his desk and then back at the speaker. "The world cannot survive a conflict on that scale again, yet here we are, standing in a place with circumstances much like those Roosevelt faced. Do we pull back, retreat into our own boarders, and feed the fear of world decline?" the President's voice continued to build in intensity.

  “Do we cross our fingers and hope to survive the inevitable conflicts that scarcity of resources will bring to us?” He continued and with a boom, “I say no! We must cast our lot with hope. We must push to find those resources that made our country great. If necessity was ever the mother of invention, we must trust we will have an explosion of thought and innovation to meet our dire needs. Manuel, we must push on with this project. We must go to Mars!”

  The Speaker began to respond, then paused, and let out a great sigh. After a moment of shaking his head the Speaker replied, “I’m not sure I have the faith that you have Joseph, but I’m tired of staring out of my window and thinking about the world that was. You have my support, Mr. President.”

  Putting on his jacket, the President moved to the speaker, the two of them exchanging a firm handshake. Then turning toward the press room, both men walked through the double doors and into a packed room of reporters.

  John would have continued daydreaming if it were not for a warning beep indicating his class was ready to begin. He quickly recalled the plans he had for his classroom. While activating the school neurolink, John practiced his best game show voice. By the time the office had transformed into a classroom, he was ready to take his place as greatest game show host of all time.

  Chapter 3 Learning by Osmosis

  Three beeps of a familiar tone reminded Jessica that school was about to start. She quickly turned off her holographic castle, removed the princess costume that was dangling off Wispy, and traded in her own costume for a school uniform. Jessica grabbed her NEUBI and hopped into her seat before anyone knew the wiser. She quickly pulled her hair through the headband and made a quick adjustment to fit it snugly around her head. Following the training she received from elementary school, Jessica closed her eyes and prepared her mind for the link.

  As swirls of light filled her thoughts, the bedroom she sat in began to change. The clear face of her desk transformed into a vivid image of a desktop. Crystal clear three-dimensional images of books, pencils, and erasers appeared to hover inside the desktop. Although Jessica knew she was still in her bedroom, her mind now saw all the trappings of an elementary school classroom. The room’s size appeared much larger now than a few
seconds ago, and it was filled with several boys and girls also sitting at their school desks.

  Her holo castle was a fun toy, but that was all it would ever be, especially compared to a NEUBI. The headband was really called a Neuroband Interface. The kid version was called a NEUBI because you could only receive senses the computer sent you. Jessica wasn't supposed to know that, but since her mom invented it, there were a lot of things she knew about tech gizmos.

  Jessica recognized almost everyone in the room. She had spent several days now learning and playing with her classmates just like school back on Earth. The only difference was most of these children weren't actually here. They were close by on one of the eleven other ships traveling to Mars. There were, however, a few kids in the class from her ship. Mary was two rows over and Tahir two seats in front of her. In the back left corner sat Vincent and almost square in the middle of the room was Karen. All four of them were from the U.S.S. Columbus. Outside of school, there wasn't much chance to play with them. Tonight though, for big events like the Star watch, Jessica would have a chance to see them in person.

  "Okay, class, it's Friday, so you know what that means," prompted a deep excited voice echoing through the room.

  "It's Quiz Time!" the class responded chorally.

  With a sudden pop and a burst of smoke, a man dressed in a standard issue MARC suit appeared in the middle of the room. The only curious part of his dress was a tan hat that he wore. One side of the brim was snapped up and a cord of some kind dangled from one side of the brim under his chin and attached on the other side.

  “Unfortunately, the hat is real,” Jessica thought to herself. The teacher of course was real too, but not in her bedroom. Her father was at his office in another part of the ship. The computer flawlessly replicated him though the NEUBI and into her thoughts. “Too bad the NEUBI couldn't filter out some of his bad jokes,” she giggled to herself.

  Jessica coughed a bit as the odor of smoke reached her desk. "Oh that stinks," she added. Being able to smell things from the NEUBI could have its positives, but this was not one of them. She'd have to talk to her mom about what kind of smells the school used.