IMAGINATION'S PLACE
FICTION
FIRST NIGHT'S DUTY
By; Gerald A. Polley
Major Rita West checked her uniform for the hundredth time
then finally left the locker room and approached the operations
room. One of the two security guards outside the door opened it
for her. The Major stopped a moment.
"Shouldn't you check my I.D.?" she asked. The airman
smiled and pointed to the sensor above the door. "I always
do a visual check, ma'am," he explained. "but that
little baby was reading your tag way down the hall! And if you
weren't who you were supposed to be it would be emitting blinding
flashes of light into your eyes and screaming 'unauthorized
person!'"
The Major smiled and continued on in. She stopped to look at the
big map so often pictured in t.v. shows and movies. But she knew
it actually showed very little. It was actually the hundred or so
smaller screens scattered about the room that actually told the
strategic air command what was going on in the skies and space
over The United States, and, the world. The commander of the
afternoon shift came up.
"Ready for your final briefing," he asked, "before
your first night shift?"
"What more could I be told?" the Major asked.
"Just a couple of things," the other officer told her.
"Over here. He turned on a computer and the images of three
people appeared on it, two men and a very attractive woman. The
officer tapped one of the men. "This is General Star,"
he explained. "He's with intelligence. You will receive
operating instructions from him very often. You are to act on it,
send it to the appropriate personnel, but you are never to enter
anything into any log...never, under any circumstances, not a
mention of him, or, his associates! Merely put in the log that
you received instructions for operations in the Iraq theater, or
the Philipines, or, Korea, and that you passed them on, no
mention ever, of their source."
The Major looked perplexed. "Is that SOP?" she asked.
"Yes," her companion answered. "If they should
appear here personally, render them whatever assistance they ask.
Don't question, don't argue. Give them whatever they want
immediately! The only thing they would ever be denied is a
request for a nuclear strike. The President would have to approve
that. Anything else they get! This is the highest security. You
never speak of this to anyone outside of this room! If anyone
asks you, absolutely anyone, you never heard of these people!
You've never seen them! They do not exist!"
"Sir!" one of the monitoring officers cried,
"They're up, sir, moving towards the east coast."
"What?" the afternoon officer snapped, "This
early? They hardly ever appear together before midnight!"
He went over to the officer's screen, with Major West following.
She watched as three bright contacts moved across the screen
towards the east coast. "Good God!" she snapped,
"At what speed are they travelling?"
"They must be pretty solid," the monitoring officer
remarked, "they're only doing about moc six. When they're
less dense, when they don't give such a good contact they go much
faster. Sometimes we can't even track them! That's what will
probably happen when they head for The Middle East."
The Major stood and looked at her companion. "Can't tell
you," he remarked. "Classified. If you ever need to
know you'll be told. Until then you watch. If anybody calls
giving the proper recognition signal you give them what
information they're asking for. But nothing, absolutely nothing
is entered into the logs! None of this is ever seen, we know
nothing about anything! The only person you might ever discuss it
with is The President, if you're asked." The images
disappeared from the screen on the east coast. "They've gone
down," the afternoon officer remarked. "Communications,
we should start getting emails in about three minutes. Iraq is
waiting for the information."
"Yes sir!" an officer snapped.
"Well!" the afternoon man sighed. "I'm done for
the day! It's all yours, Major! Nothing unusual going on. Pretty
quiet night. See you tomorrow!"
"Nothing unusual going on?" the Major sighed.
"Nothing unusual going on?"
She saw the communications officer start processing emails and
she went over to see what he was getting.
THE END