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

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