Authors: K.B. Kofoed
“America uber alles,” said Gene with a laugh. “How many like him do you think are guarding our shores?”
“Most of them, I’d say,” John muttered, sullenly sipping his cognac.
“I don’t know,” offered Jim. “The General is speaking for himself. My wife’s Dad was Air Force and he didn’t share the General’s politics, as I recall.”
“So,” said Gene, stretching his arms and looking around the room, “we finally have a chance to talk. Just the three of us.”
“So what really happened with the computer simulations?” asked Jim. “Did you get any results at all?”
“In truth we did manage to get a simulation to run,” said Gene.
“You did?” Jim asked enthusiastically. “What happened? How did you get it to run?”
Gene smiled. “We turned the ark, adjusted the size a bit. That produced a sustained effect when simulated radio waves were projected into the tabernacle at 45° from the East. Before, the only effect was minute and uncoordinated.”
“But you said the program failed,” protested Jim.
“That’s what we thought,” said Gene, “but my friend at Columbia kept at it every night for a week. Finally he modified the program and proved that it had been running. Then he decided to try the prime variable.”
“Prime variable?” said Jim.
Gene laughed. “That’s what he called the orientation of the ark in the tabernacle. He realized that in his virtual tabernacle, as he called it, the ark was in a different position from the one in the drawing. Why and how it got changed is anyone’s guess. Anyway ...”
“It worked, Jim,” interrupted John. “It worked.”
Jim was stunned. “Worked? Why not tell those techies at Sandia? And what exactly do you mean by ‘it worked?’”
“Hold it, Jim, one question at a time,” said Gene.
“I hate to admit this, Wilson,” said John, “but we debated about even telling you. That’s why we were quiet, and that’s why we ultimately decided to invite you here. All we wanted from the techies was some independent verification.”
“Wow. I can’t believe it.” Jim stared at the gas flames dancing over the fake logs in the fireplace. “It worked?”
“Exactly as you described.” John poured more cognac into Jim’s glass and dropped in an ice cube.
Jim thought about the old war horse who’d just gone to bed. “What about the General?” asked Jim. “Did you tell him too?”
“Not yet,” said John, “and not unless we have to.”
“Then how did you persuade him to get the money?” asked Jim. “What did you tell him?”
“He hasn’t arranged for the money yet,” said John. “We told him that we needed to build it to test the hypothesis.”
“He went for it on that basis?”
“So far,” said Gene.
Jim stared into the flames again. “Can I see the simulation run for myself?”
“We’ll try,” said John. “Right now I need some sleep.”
The plans for Jim to stay the night at Sandia had changed. The General apparently liked Jim. With his dinner invitation, Jim had also been invited to stay overnight.
John Wilcox showed Jim to his room and said good night. “I hope the news won’t keep you up all night. We wanted to tell you sooner, but not at Sandia. Then, of course, Dad had a lecture to give you.”
“Are you saying you don’t trust the folks at Sandia?” asked Jim.
John smiled. “Never know who might be listening.”
It was eleven o’clock when Jim climbed into the queen sized bed and switched on the TV mounted on the far wall. The news was depressing. A maniac in Belgium had killed a group of police at a pre-Easter dinner; the Space Shuttle had avoided a near catastrophic decompression due to a grazing collision with a satellite; and the Pope was still calling for an end to oppression of the poor.
“Same old stuff,” Jim said aloud. He wondered what the Pope would think if he knew about this project. What advice would he give? He thought about this for a while, then fell asleep.
#
Since the Philadelphia Airport was being renovated, Jim had to wait in the cold until Lou could get through the snarl of traffic to pick him up. By the time his friend showed Jim’s teeth were rattling. It had been warm in Albuquerque when he left and his jacket was packed in the middle of his suitcase.
“R-r-right on time, bud,” said Jim.
“Freakin’ traffic,” said Lou without apologies.
“There’s always traffic,” growled Jim. “Coulda’ started sooner.”
“It’s Sunday,” Lou grumbled. “I coulda’ stayed home and had a beer.”
“Sorry,” said Jim. “Appreciate the pick up. The flight was rough and they made me wait outside the airport. Renovating the garages for the millionth time. Then the security check. Do I look like a terrorist?”
“Well, in fact ...”
“Thanks.” Jim smiled. “Same old Lou. Now I know I’m home.”
Lou gave a satisfied grin as he maneuvered his car around triple parked tourist buses and cabs. “How’d it go? See Gene? What about that air base? Was it all balls to the wall brass?”
“Whoa, Lou. One question per second, please. Yeah, I saw everybody. Met Wilcox’s Dad. Brass balls for sure.”
As Lou’s car pulled onto I-95 toward the Blue Route, Jim told Lou all about the trip. The main detail, however, he kept to himself: the fact that the computer simulation had worked. He didn’t want to sound too enthusiastic. It would only threaten his business partner. Besides, there was plenty of time to talk. The project wasn’t going anywhere for a while, at least.
When Jim described his meal at General Wilcox’s house, Lou launched his ire at the military. He had been in Vietnam during the final days of the war and had his own well oiled opinions about the conflict and those who ran it. Without comment Jim listened to Lou’s now familiar diatribe against the military pinheads.
“Good to be back home, Lou,” he said, punching Lou’s shoulder gently. “I missed you, believe it or not.”
Still fuming about the Nam, Lou glanced at Jim skeptically. “Fuck you.”
“I mean it, Lou. It’s good to be home. It was weird at Sandia. Creeped me out. Maybe it was the terrarium windows thirty floors underground, complete with birds.”
“Birds?” said Lou.
“Yeah. Weird.”
“Fuck it,” Lou rolled down his window and spat out his gum. “Forget about it. You won’t be going back there.”
“Yes, I will,” Jim admitted.
“You will? How do you know that?” Lou arched an eyebrow menacingly.
“I don’t know,” said Jim. “Just a feeling.”
PURSE STRINGS
Jim had to forget about the ark for a while. Tax time. The weekend had cost Jim virtually all his spare time. Now he had to catch up on his design work and organize receipts and invoices. This had always been Jim’s responsibility simply because he was more organized than Lou. It was an annual ‘someone has to do it’ situation that Jim loathed.
Kas was glad to see him when he arrived home. She took a break from her own accounting to ask if he’d had dinner, but Jim said, “Don’t let me interrupt,” and threw a pot pie in the microwave. That night Stephie had some friends over and Jim and Kas retired to the sounds of hip-hop.
He got to the Raftworks Monday morning just in time to get two clients’ panicked calls that told him Lou hadn’t covered his jobs as he’d promised. All thoughts of the ark were swept aside.
A week later he emerged from his mountain of responsibilities, realizing that he hadn’t heard a word from either Gene or John regarding the project. Again, he felt like an outsider. Rather than stew about it, he called Gene at his office in New York and was somewhat surprised to find Gene at his desk. It was lunchtime, after all.
“I got back here and couldn’t find my desk for all the shit that was on top of it,” said Gene.
“Small world,” Jim replied, laughing. “I’m just now coming up for air, myself.”
They didn’t talk long. After Jim left nothing significant had happened. “As soon as I have news,” Gene said, “I’ll give you a shout.”
“You said you’d show me the simulation,” Jim reminded his friend. “Any chance of that happening soon?”
“I have to go to Philly around Friday,” said Gene. “Maybe then.”
It never happened. Friday came and went. This time, however, Jim took Gene at his word and made no inquiring phone calls.
Despite Gene’s apparent resolve the phone still didn’t ring. With the holy days of Passover upon them work slackened considerably. It was during one of those days that Jim began his journal about the ark.
It had occurred to him while lying on his cot in the guest quarters at Sandia that all this was beginning to become bookworthy. He promised himself that he’d begin a story, at least a journal, of his personal search for the ark. Saturday found Jim alone at the Raftworks facing his computer screen as if it was a window into an alien world. Today his computer was a word processor and Jim was venturing into the frightening realm of literature. After typing a few lines he stretched and looked around the studio. “Why does it feel so empty?” he wondered. A dog was barking in front of the Raftworks. Stephie wanted a dog. She had told him so two nights ago. Jim looked again at the screen and reached for the keyboard. He found himself hitting the DELETE key more than any other. The words never came. An hour later he was in the Morris Animal Shelter getting his daughter a cute little collie.
Kas was fuming, but their daughter was so overjoyed with her new puppy that she decided to wait until they were having their first walk before taking her husband to task. “What ever possessed you to suddenly do that without so much as a phone call?”
“Bad move, I guess. I didn’t think about the cat, either.”
Kas stared at Jim in frustration, biting her lip. “Bad move. Yeah. You could call it that.”
Jim looked out the window at Stephie being yanked around by her new puppy. He smiled. “She wanted it.”
Kas grew strangely quiet, and Jim understood. His behavior lately was surprising even to himself. Why had he gotten the dog? Why had he completely abandoned convention and not consulted Kas? She was right. All he’d had to do was pick up the phone. Kas had even said that she’d hoped for a family outing that weekend. The weather had been miserable for the last three weekends and she needed to get out. What she got was Jim bailing at nine Saturday morning, only to come home with a new family member twelve hours later.
Jim and Kas had always faced problems together. It was an unspoken rule that problems would always be discussed. Early in their marriage they had agreed to this, and over the years they had both made compromises on occasion to honor the rule, but now they couldn’t talk. Or wouldn’t.
At ten o’clock that evening, with the TV going and Stephie playing happily with her new collie, Kas silently went to bed.
Stephie didn’t notice that gloom had set in, but Jim definitely did, and he felt overwhelmed with guilt. Without Kas the emptiness that surrounded him was the same that he’d felt at the office. Jim had never felt like this before and he didn’t know what to do. Was he beginning to lose it? Was his obsession with the ark sapping his soul? Was the attention he was paying to it depriving his family of more than just his presence? Was he depriving Kas and Stephie of a husband and a father? Watching Stephie play with her new puppy, Jim realized that it was guilt that made him get the dog for Stephanie. Large thick flakes of spring snow were patting at the window. “Jeez, Steph,” he said, “isn’t summer ever going to get here?”
Stephie didn’t hear her father. She was talking to her collie.
Jim got up and went to look for Kas. He found her in bed with a book.
“Feeling okay, pooks?” he asked gently.
“I’m fine,” she said in a tone that proved otherwise.
“I’m sorry, hun,” said Jim, “I really screwed up, didn’t I?”
“You could have called,” said Kas, not looking up from her book.
“You’d have said no way, I guess, huh?”
She looked up at him. There was still love in her eyes. “I wanted to help pick out a dog for Stephie, is all,” she said. “It was like you cheated, or something.”
“Yes, I guess so,” he admitted. “I was at the studio, all alone. I heard this dog barking outside, somewhere. Later, there was this ad on the radio for the Morris shelter; whimpering dog sounds and all. I guess I got carried away. I just felt like I’ve been away. Out of touch. I wanted to do something.”
“Well, you did it, all right,” said Kas with a wry smile. “Stephie loves the puppy, Jim. So do I. He’s beautiful, but won’t he get huge? I wonder if PC will ever accept him. He’s still in the back yard, and it’s snowing.” She gave the window a worried look.
“The cat will be okay,” said Jim. “And no, the man at the shelter said he probably wouldn’t get too big. He’s not pure collie. There’s some border collie in there too.”
Jim sat down on the edge of the bed and looked into her eyes. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me, Kas,” he said sadly. “It’s the ark thing, I guess.”
“It’s getting the better of you, maybe. Maybe you should back away from it.”
Jim shook his head. “I’ve told myself to do that a number of times, but it’s no good. I can’t. I hate to admit it but I think the thing that bothers me – keeps tearing me up – is that I’m not in control. Like it’s going to happen without me.”
“Like WHAT’S going to happen?” asked Kas, closing her book and putting it on the bedside table.
“That they’ll build it without me, and I’ll never know.”
“I understand,” she said. “Don’t worry, Jim. I’m not that mad at you.”
“That’s something,” said Jim. “Quite a lot, really.” He laid his head in her lap and sighed.
As Kas stroked Jim’s temple he thought back over the events of the last few days. When he’d returned from New Mexico he was jubilant and couldn’t wait to tell her that the simulation had worked. Then nothing. No calls. It began to eat at him again. It was like he was being haunted.
“I’ve tried to do something about it,” said Jim. “Get my head into other things. I was thinking I should maybe write it down, like a journal. Maybe that’d help get me out from under it. I tried to start it today at the studio.”
“How did it go?”
“Shitful,” he admitted. “I can’t write worth a damn.”
“No one expects you to be a great writer,” said Kas, “least of all when you write your own journal. Don’t worry about getting it perfect. It’s a good thing to do. Call it coming to grips with a problem.” She kissed the top of his head, noticing that his hair was thinning slightly. She gently pushed some locks over it. “It’s hard to start something new. Especially if it’s important to you.”
Jim listened to Kas’s voice resonating in her chest. Her words comforted him and provided the solace that only Kas could bring to his life. “I love you.”
Suddenly Stephie and her collie came bounding into the room. “Taught Woolsey some tricks,” she said proudly. “Can’t wait to show Val tomorrow.”
“Woolsey?” Kas screwed up her nose. “That’s its name?”
Stephie ignored her, threw the saliva covered tennis ball into the next room, and off they went in a thunder of footsteps and paw scratchings. “Get it Woolsey,” Stephie yelled.
Jim chuckled. “Woolsey? Where did that …?”
“It’s the last name of her history teacher, a blonde stud from Australia,” explained Kas with a knowing smirk.
“She’s just a kid,” said Jim. “Maybe she just thinks the name is cute.”
“Sure,” said Kas, straight-faced, “that’s got to be it.”
“Stephie!” yelled Jim. “Why did you choose the name Woolsey?”
There was a moment’s interruption in the play in the next room, then Stephanie yelled, “Thought it was cute!”
Jim and Kas looked at each another and sighed. “Woolsey,” Jim repeated, and they both began to laugh.
“What?” yelled Stephie.
#
Sunday morning at ten the phone caught Jim in the shower. He’d intended to sleep in but something had gotten him up at seven. He’d gone out and walked Woolsey, but not without rousting Stephie to help with the chore. After a half hour of dragging his daughter and her dog around the neighborhood and running into Mr. Brussels, the talkative neighbor who regarded the weather as personal enemy, Jim had decided that the day would continue without redemption.
The call changed that. It was Dan Slater, in town and needing a place to stay. The wheels of employment were grinding slowly for Dan. On Monday he had to attend yet another interview. “I know this is abrupt,” he said apologetically, “but I thought I’d take a chance that you’re not busy before I booked a room downtown.”
“No way you’re paying for a room,” said Jim. “We still have a lot of catching up to do.”
“Okay, then,” said Dan, “I’ll be right over if that’s all right.”
Moments after they hung up, Gene called. He was in town, preparing to run the simulation at Penn’s computers to correlate the results. He asked if it would be possible to arrange to have Jim’s friend Dan there to see it too.
“This is weird,” said Jim. “He just called to say he was in town because he has a Monday meeting with a prospective employer. Would you believe he has nothing to do this afternoon? Can I get Lou to see it too?”
“We’d rather not get everyone in on this, Jim,” replied Gene cautiously. “There’s already the three of us. With my friend at Penn that’s four. That’s quite a crowd for the computer room. Also, we won’t have much time. You understand.”
“Sure,” said Jim.
#
They met Mr. Megabyte on the green in the center of the Penn campus. “We’re the sweater boys today. Ain’t it great? What’s your excuse, Jim?” said Earl in a boisterous voice.
They were all wearing sweaters except Jim, who wore his heavy leather jacket. The weather was still unseasonably cool. Jim looked at Dan in bemusement. “Gee, should I go home and get a sweater?”
Gene introduced Dan as an old friend, and they made small talk for a few moments before Earl pointed to the building behind Gene. “We’re all here, then. Let’s go.”
“Even without a sweater?” said Jim with a big smile.
Mr. Megabyte glanced at him coldly. Apparently he didn’t like people encroaching on his jokes. As they walked down the hall Jim noticed there were very few people around. “Well, it is a Sunday,” explained Earl. “Not too many students here today. Generally we do maintenance work and data filing on Sunday. I’m supposed to be doing that too, but there’s time to play.” Earl looked at Dan and raised his eyebrows playfully. “So what is it you do, Mr. Slater?”
“I’m a microwave geek,” said Dan passively.
“I don’t know what that is.”
“Neither do I,” Dan said, straight-faced.
Earl roared with laughter. When they got to the computer room Earl punched a code into the digital lock and the door unsealed with a hiss. As they entered the lights came on automatically. “What’s the media?” asked Earl, holding out his hand to Gene.
“CD this time,” said Gene, reaching under his sweater into his shirt pocket. Gene gave Earl a small jewel box that contained a black labeled disk. He opened it and stuffed it into a slot in a unit sitting on the main console.
“What am I going to be looking at?” asked Dan.
“Nothing for a while, Mr. Microwave,” said Earl. “Mr. Megabyte has to boot up and load a program or two. Then Mr. Cray has to...”
“Spare us, Earl. Really,” said Gene. “If it’s going to take a while maybe we should get a coffee somewhere.”
Mr. Megabyte glared at Gene. “This will only take a minute.” The screen in front of him displayed the emblem of the Columbia University Sciences Department.
“Booo, hiss!” said Earl. “This sign you put before me, this does not please Mr. Megabyte.” He crossed his index fingers before the screen as if expelling an evil demon.
“If that’s for my benefit it won’t work,” said Gene. “Don’t work for them anymore.”
The emblem faded from the screen and was replaced by a message in glowing white letters that scrolled from right to left.
“RESONATOR MODEL -- V TEST”
“V-TEST,” noted Gene. “Virtual test.” The screen turned solid blue and Jim’s drawings of the tabernacle began to appear in white lines as a wire frame structure. A duplicate appeared directly above it. The two images took only a few seconds to assemble.
“Cool,” said Jim, “but why two views?”
Gene nodded. “You’ll see.”
Next to be added to the model was the furniture inside the tabernacle. Finally the Ark of the Covenant appeared looking exactly as Jim had drawn it, perfectly positioned in the rear third of the tabernacle separated from the rest by four pillars and a curtain.
“So far so good,” said Jim. Without taking his eyes off the screen he nudged Dan with his elbow. “What’d’ya think?”
“They’re your drawings, all right.”