How much of this should I believe this time? “Well, let’s hear it, then,” he said.
“You know,” said Spencer, “a lot of this stuff is kind of hard to believe. Pretty strange and all.”
“I don’t think I’ll have any trouble with it. Not anymore.”
Spencer leaned forward and picked up an object from the helicopter’s floor. It looked like a miniature portable television, white plastic and gray screen. He set it on Ralph’s lap and pressed a button on its side. The screen lit up and began focusing into a picture. “Pretty neat, huh?” said Spencer. “This is a first class operation, believe me. Maybe a little more elaborate than necessary, but really top notch electronics.”
The screen held Ralph’s attention. He watched as words appeared, almost too small to read: “Beta Group Orientation Aid.” Below that was his own name. The words vanished and were replaced by the minute image of a serious-faced young woman wearing glasses with heavy black frames. She was seated at a desk and held several sheets of paper in her hands. “Greetings,” she said—her voice sounded tinny coming from the viewer sitting on Ralph’s knees. “If you are watching this—”
“What is this?” shouted Ralph. The voice stopped and the woman’s image froze as Spencer reached over and pressed the button on the side.
Ralph knocked his hand away and slapped the top of the viewer. “I’m not going to sit here and watch some crummy training film, for Pete’s sake.”
“Take it easy,” said Spencer. “We went to a lot of trouble to prepare this for you. It went into the can only a few hours ago.”
“Yeah, well, what is it?”
“It’s an orientation aid, just like it said.” Spencer’s exasperation showed. “You sure have become hostile. You know that?”
Ralph snorted in disgust. “That’s because this is a sleazy universe we’re operating in,” he said. “As I’ve been finding out.”
“Big deal. Welcome to the club.” Spencer pressed the button again. “So just watch the film, okay? Tape, actually.”
The image on the screen was moving again. Ralph focused on it and shut out the cramped interior of the helicopter.
“—this,” the intent woman was saying, “Mr. Metric, you will shortly be asked to assist in an endeavor the success or failure of which will literally determine the fate of the world.” She paused and the letters FATE spelled out at the bottom on the screen.
“The audio-visual company that did this for us,” whispered Spencer, “also contracts for a lot of children’s educational TV. I think some of it carries over.”
Ralph ignored him. The glowing screen pushed the darkness outside the helicopter farther away.
“The purpose of this presentation,” said the woman on the screen, “is to inform you of the actual nature of the organization known as Operation Dreamwatch, and to familiarize you with the agency seeking to counteract this threat to humanity.”
“Sounds exciting, doesn’t it?” said Spencer.
“Shut up.” Ralph leaned closer to the viewer.
“Briefly,” continued the woman, “the group you were in contact with before, known as the Alpha Fraction, was not the only one investigating and working against Operation Dreamwatch. The Alpha Fraction was in fact only a diversion designed to help conceal the existence of the Beta group—the real anti-Opwatch organization. Organized as a section of Army Intelligence, the Beta group has been investigating Senator Muehlenfeldt and his activities for over a year. The formation of a separate, clandestine organization for this purpose was necessary due to the domination of the Federal Security Agency by Muehlenfeldt and his associates.
“The existence of the Beta group was kept a complete secret from the members of the Alpha Fraction. This was done in order to maintain the smaller group’s usefulness as a decoy for Muehlenfeldt’s attention.
“Knowledge of the Alpha Fraction’s existence was deliberately planted in the Opwatch organization. As they were then under varying degrees of surveillance by Muehlenfeldt’s agents, any knowledge of the Beta group on their parts might have endangered the secrecy of the larger organization.
“One man, Michael Stimmitz, was a member of both groups, serving to coordinate the actions of the two groups.”
“Mike didn’t even tell me about it.” Spencer sounded proud of the fact.
“It was only after they caught up with me in that phone booth that I found out.”
“Unfortunately,” continued the woman on the screen, “last week Muehlenfeldt learned of the Beta group’s existence, due to the inadvertent exposure of one of its members who had infiltrated the Federal Security Agency. At the outset of interrogation, the Beta member was able to trigger a miniature bomb planted in his skull.”
So that’s what Stiles was talking about, thought Ralph. An image filled him for a moment of the unnamed infiltrator’s explosive death ripping out from the head’s center.
The woman shuffled the papers she held and spoke again. “Other infiltration attempts have been more successful, even onto the staff of the Thronsen Home. Enough has been pieced together just a short time ago to form a picture of Operation Dreamwatch’s true intent and the mechanics involved in fulfilling it.
“From the first reports of what was going on inside the Thronsen Home, it was hypothesized that the sleeping juveniles were part of an elaborate cover-up for the project’s real purpose. Upon further investigation this hypothesis turned out to be in error. The children are in fact the essential component of Operation Dreamwatch’s plans.
“The real purpose of Operation Dreamwatch is the construction and detonation of an explosive device of tremendous force. The children kept sleeping at the Thronsen Home are themselves the bomb.” The letters BOMB appeared on the bottom of the little screen.
Ralph felt his innards constrict at the image of the sleeping children.
Stimmitz knew, he thought. He had it figured out.
“The principle involved,” continued the woman, “is analogous to the construction of a nuclear reactor pile, but using psychic energy rather than atomic. The devisers of Operation Dreamwatch have developed the means for converting the basic energy of the human mind into a destructive device of incredible magnitude.” The woman paused, the eyes behind the glasses seeming to pierce the double layer of glass between her image and Ralph. “The estimated potential,” she said quietly, “is sufficient for the literal destruction of the planet through the conversion of the earth’s crust into a molten and/or gaseous state.”
Ralph rocked back in the seat and stared at the viewer on his lap. The woman on the tape was watching her hands shuffle through the sheets of paper. He turned his head away and looked out through the side of the helicopter at the night. A vision moved through him of the earth’s surface boiling away, exposing the fierce core. There was no question of belief—within himself he knew the world was only a thin shell against all possible furies. The woman’s voice brought his attention back.
“The psychic bomb,” she went on, “works in the following way. The children involved were carefully selected from psychiatric profiles for their high innate energy levels and low tolerance of emotional frustration. These were the qualities that led to their delinquent behavior in the first place.