David thought he saw Lena glance at Bill. Then she said, “Brooke is exactly correct. In this case, the countdown keeps resetting after not receiving an activation signal. That is my understanding. So we know it is there, waiting to be activated, but we don’t know when it will occur. Given the periodicity of the resets, our best estimate is in twelve to eighteen months.”
David woke up to the green-glowing beep of his watch alarm. He had collapsed on his bed at 5:30 p.m., intending just to shut his eyes for thirty minutes. But the fatigue of his jet lag and the all-day sessions had drained him. While just about everyone else had filed into the cafeteria as soon as the afternoon team meetings ended, David took a nap. It was now 7:15 p.m. and David would have to hightail it to make it to dinner before the cafeteria closed.
He threw on a tee shirt, khaki shorts, and a pair of Reebok sneakers and then rushed over to the cafeteria. He walked into the meal hall to the clatter of metal dishware being cleaned in the back. Bill was the lone diner. David walked through the buffet line, scooping heaping piles of mashed potatoes, green beans, and what looked like pot roast onto his plate. He grabbed a few bottles of water and a banana and walked over to the table where the other man sat.
“Mind if I join you?” David asked.
“Sure, sure.” Bill was in midchew. He took a gulp from his cup and said, “Helluva day, huh?”
Bill ran his hair through his thick fluorescent-white hair. He dressed in a collared shirt that was tucked into a pair of light blue jeans. Black sneakers completed the outfit. David thought that he looked like he could have been a grandpa.
“Where are you from again, Bill?” David asked.
“West Texas. But I’ve lived in Nevada for the past few years. And honestly, before that I was Air Force so I’ve lived all over. Yourself?”
“Virginia. Right outside DC. I’m a Navy brat myself.”
“I’ve been there. Nice area. Lousy traffic.”
David nodded as he finished a bite of the overcooked roast. “Yup.”
A few moments passed. Small talk didn’t seem to be either man’s forte.
Finally Bill spoke. “This all just makes you re-evaluate your life, you know?”
David spoke through chews. “Yeah. The end of the world will do that.”
“I’m not saying I regret anything. My wife always says to our kids that regrets ain’t worth fussing over. Because there’s better things ahead than behind.”
“Sounds like a smart lady. Wonder how she ended up with you?”
“Hah. Yeah.” Bill looked sad at her mention.
David said, “I hope my family is alright. My dad, sister, and brother are all active duty Navy. I would imagine their jobs just got a lot more dangerous.”
Bill raised his eyebrows and took a drink. “I’m sure they’ll be okay. With any luck, we’ll come out of this all right. I remember the Bay of Pigs when I was a little kid. It seemed like the world was about to end then, too. We used to practice getting under our desks at school in case the Russians nuked us. Imagine that. And that all blew over. Hopefully this will too.” While his words were meant to comfort, he didn’t sound like he believed them.
“My mother passed a year ago. Heart failure.” David didn’t know why he said it. It just came out.
“I’m so sorry,” said Bill.
“Thanks. It hit us pretty hard. So after my mother died, my father, sister, and brother were all home together for a short while. It was the first time I’d seen Chase in two years. Crazy. He was always deploying with the SEALs.”
“He was a SEAL? Impressive.”
“Oh yes. Everyone’s always impressed with Chase. So he came home, took a month off from his work, and we got to hang out a bunch. Now, I’ve never been the athlete that my brother and sister were. But the day after Chase flew in for the funeral, he asked me to go on a run with him. He goes on these super-long runs. We drove down to DC and ran around the Theodore Roosevelt Island and finished on the Washington & Old Dominion Trail. Very scenic. Very long run. I hadn’t run more than two miles since I graduated Annapolis. My mother used to love taking long walks around that area. She always said that her kids got her athletic genes. Heart disease. Unbelievable. It’s a cruel, ironic world if you ask me. Anyway, my brother insists that I go with him on this run. We go for five miles around that lake and I swear that something changed inside me. It was therapeutic. It sounds funny, but that run was like a way to say goodbye to my mother. Maybe she was with us? Well, I’ve been running almost every day since. I actually did my first triathlon two months ago and I’m training for another. I got a taste of a runner’s high that day and I keep going back for more.”
“That’s sounds like a healthy hobby. What’s the problem?”
“You talked about all this China stuff making you re-evaluate your life. My mom’s death did it for me. Part of my conclusion was that I needed to reconnect with my family more. I missed my brother and sister. I have been doing pretty well keeping up with them through email more. I have even flown down to Jacksonville to hang out with my sister. My dad is almost impossible to get time with. He might as well be the president the way the Navy treats him. Still, with all of this talk of war, I’m just worried. I don’t want to lose any of them…” David’s voice trailed off.
Bill put his hand on his shoulder and looked him in the eye. “David, better things are coming. I’ll pray for it. You mark it down, and I’ll pray for it.”
The entrance door opened and Natesh walked in. He waved at the two men and received polite acknowledgments in return. A moment later he plopped down like a sandbag across the table.
“You look pretty beat, young man,” said Bill.
Natesh raised his eyebrows and said, “My friend… you cannot imagine. I’m exhausted. This project is quite intense.” He drank his plastic cup of ice water until the cubes slid down to his mouth. He bit an ice cube and began crunching it in his teeth.
Bill asked, “What did you all think of the last part of the meeting today?”
Natesh said, “You mean Lena’s revelation? It was compelling. What did you think?”
David said, “I was pretty shocked. I work on classified technology for a living. I’ve seen a lot of real cutting-edge stuff. If they have ARES, that’s bad news.”
“It sure is,” Bill agreed. “There’s that silver bullet we were talking about all day.”
David nodded. “Imagine our ships, our troops in combat, and our aircraft without any navigation or smart weapons. A great deal of our communication… arguably the most important parts, would be wiped out. We would be back to Vietnam-era technology. And the thing is, our military is pretty reliant on the tech that we have. I mean, when was the last time you wrote a letter? Has your cursive handwriting gotten any worse since you were in grade school? No need to practice with email, right? The same will go for war fighting. No need to practice using a compass all the time if you have got GPS. And if the other guys are practicing, advantage them.”
Natesh said, “Or worse, if the Chinese retain their technology. I believe they just launched their own GPS system. I’m sure it would be quite possible to crash our satellites and leave theirs intact.”
David looked at each of them. That little voice in his head was talking to him again. Something just didn’t sit right about all of this. Natesh and Bill both seemed like good trustworthy men. He wanted to ask them if they believed everything that they had heard over the past twenty-four hours. Instead, he just kept silent.
Natesh said, “Lena and the Major will be taking us through some more of the Chinese military capabilities and limitations this evening. We should probably leave in another few minutes.”