Government Contract Two
I guess I couldn't have chosen a worse moment in time to be visiting Japan. Our trip had been arranged many months in advance, by doing so we'd managed to get a bargain on our airfare and hotel reservations. The country was now in a heightened state of awareness thanks to the saber rattling actions of North Korea. Not only were the local police and the government security personal keeping a terror watch, but the military was getting ready for a possible missile attack from the mainland nation.
The situation had rapidly unfolded the few days after Robin and I had started our trip. We'd managed to visit many of the tourist sites on our list before the alerts had gone active, and now we found our travel arrangements much more complicated. Still, the Japanese managed to be friendly towards their visitors, even if they had to inspect our carry bags at every stop, and even frisk us with metal detector wands.
Right after all of this started, Robin got a text from our daughter Anne. She's the one that followed in her father's footsteps to become a software engineer, and is now working for one of the big government contractors in the defense radar industry. It seemed that due to the heightened defensive, the software at the radar and anti-missile-missile systems on one of the US military bases in Japan was being upgraded, and Anne was chosen to oversee the operation. She knew we were already tourists not far from where she'd be working, and hoped we'd be able to get together. For some strange reason, some strings were pulled and I found myself being issued a visitors pass card, and I now found myself in the middle of things.
When I arrived at the entrance to the air force facility, my daughter was waiting for me in the company of two other engineers from the Boston area, and a USAF general with more brass pinned to his uniform than I'd ever seen. "Hi Padre," Anne smiled, using that small bit of her high school Spanish to address me, as she usually did.
"I guess you can call me Otōsan here," I said.
"That's father in Japanese?" Anne laughed, "Isn't it?"
"Hai," I answered, "When in Rome …."
The man wearing the general's uniform, broke in. "Mr. Peng, we're on a tight schedule, if you'd come with us,"
"Right sir," I said, offering a sloppy salute.
"Pleased to meet you," he added, "I'm General Hayes. Your daughter has led me to understand that you're familiar with the Fantastic Jump hardware."
The General was referring to the company I was most recently employed by. They had delivered a prototype holographic imaging system to the military that could be used to process combined radar images visually. "Yes sir, I've been doing some of the system testing on that."
"Good," the general replied. "You might be of some use to use in installing the upgrades on the base. That's one of the reasons we approved your security clearance so quickly, that and the instance of Mr. Tetma Ku."
I was familiar with that name. He was a senior Japanese engineer that I had worked with a few years back when I was in the Osaka area with Johnson Robotics. I wondered what he had to do with all of this.
I now found myself in the computer room where Anne had disappeared into the crowd of other engineers who busied themselves at numerous computer terminals, or were staring into oscilloscope screens adjusting the complex radar equipment in the numerous relay rack cabinets. The general walked about the complex, observing. I found a place to sit down next to the imaging equipment, where I picked up one of the holographic visors and looked though it. The image was jumbled, clearly they hadn't gotten the system integrated with the radar yet.
"What is that kid doing here?", I heard General Hayes mutter. He strode rapidly over to where an elder Japanese man stood, accompanied by a pre-teenage boy. I recognized the man at once, Tetma Ku's short rotund frame still stood out in my mind from the last time I'd seen him a few years back in Osaka. I walked over to intervene. "Kon'nichiwa Ku Tetma San," I said in a friendly voice, extending my hand.
The elder engineer turned and remembered me quickly, "Kon'nichiwa, Alvin San," he said, giving me a small bow. The boy smiled and winked at me. He looked exactly as I had remembered him. Still dressed in the same short pants and boots.
"This is no place for children," the general said curtly.
"I've obtained the necessary permission from the base commander for him to be present," Tetma Ku replied, "and my government has insisted on this."
Before the general could reply, I stuck my two cents in, "Believe me General, You don't want to raise a stink here. The boy will not cause any trouble."
"Keep out of this," the General told me, "I only want you to assist with the imaging device, if necessary." Hayes walked back to inspect the work of the computer techs.
Tetma Ku and the boy stood by a large window that faced out to where the radar dishes stood. Further away in the distance, I could just make out the shapes of a battery of Patriot missile launchers, the anti-missile-missiles pointing upward at a seventy degree angle, poised for an immediate launch.
"This is crazy," I muttered.
"It is," Ku sighed. "At any second, the enemy could launch a nuclear missile towards Japan. If it comes from their part of the main land, your country's Patriots will probably intercept the attack and neutralize it, but if they launch from a submarine the radar might not detect it in time.
"That's what the holographic imaging stuff is for," Anne said. My daughter had wandered over to where I was standing, and had heard our conversation. "As we speak, several spy satellites in geosynchronous orbits are being relocated so they will have a good view of the Korean mainland, and the Sea of Japan. They will be able to add a radar and infrared view that combined with the land based radar will hopefully provide enough of an early warning to allow intercepting missiles launched from submarines as well as from the main land."
"And the Holovisors?" I asked.
"Will give the radar operators an additional few seconds of advanced warning," she explained. "Even with the advanced computer software, we still need a visual conformation before committing one of the Patriots."
That evening, Robin and I had dinner at our hotel. She'd been holed up in our room, watching movies on the television, while I had been confined to the computer room a the Air Force base. "I've asked for permission for you to accompany me tomorrow," I told her.
"They want you back there again," she sighed.
"I'm afraid so," I said. "While there are other engineers over there from Amazing Jump, a Japanese engineer that is also assigned to the job by his government asked for me. Actually, he also signed a request that you be allowed on the base."
"Why?", Robin asked.
"You'll see," I said slyly.
General Hayes gave Robin's visitor pass a long inspection, before he allowed my wife into the computer room with me. Once again, there wasn't much for me to do except watch, and occasionally do an inspection of the holovisor station as the other engineers did their system adjustments on the equipment. Hakase Ku was sitting at a desk near the window, doing some programming on a laptop computer, his young assistant stood next to him, looking over his shoulder.
"I remember that boy," Robin whispered to me. "Wasn't he, ..."
"Yes, he is," I told her. "Just keep it to yourself, the General doesn't know why Tetma Ku San is here. If he did, he'd have a meltdown."
Anne walked over Robin and myself. "How's it going, dear?" my wife asked our eldest daughter.
"My work is almost done," she said. "My team has installed the new software, and it seems to be working correctly with the satellite data now coming in. Hopefully, we won't have to test it for real."
I sorta wish she hadn't said that. Edsel Murphy must have been listening. Suddenly, klaxons started to sound, and red lights began to blink. I watched as the radar engineers manned their screens, and the misslemen turned their keys.
Though the window I saw the exhaust plumes of a half dozen Patriot's as the rockets roared skyward.
"We just had launch conformation, two boggies from the mainland," General Hayes spoke. Ku and the boy looked at each other, I could swear they were exchanging thoughts visually. I heard a few cheering voices coming from the radar screens.
"Looks like we can stand down," Hayes yelled. "The enemy missiles were neutralized while still over the mainland. Excellent work! Our response time was amazing."
"That was just a test."
I turned to where the voice had come from. The boy had a stern look in his eyes.
"Not yet," Ku told him.
I picked up one of the holographic goggles and adjusted it over my face. I held a hand up in front of my eyes and gestured. A control wand appeared, and I took hold of the virtual device. While I couldn't feel it, I could hold it in my hand and operate the controls. I'd done this so many times before during our system testing of the thing. While I wasn't familiar with the layout of the military controls, I could quickly figure it out.
Soon I had the display at my command. I was able to home in on the image from the satellites and merge them on top of the radar returns. "Excellent!" I said, looking at the general through the augmented reality that was now projected in the middle of the room. "It's working."
Using the control stick, I zoomed my view into the sea of Japan. I shifted the 3D projection into the infrared and the invisible became clear. I touched a virtual control with my left hand and two sets of numbers appeared on the periphery of the display, latitude and longitude of where I was looking.
"General, I think I see a submarine."
"He's right!" One of the radar techs verified my observation. "The computer just locked on to it!"
Now the klazons blared again. The missile men scrambled to their launch panels, but were fighting against time. The launch of a single rocket from the middle of the Sea of Japan had been confirmed.
"Now!" Ku spoke. Through the corner of my eye I saw the boy slip out of a side door, through the window, I watched as he ran towards the missiles.
Nobody saw what I observed. Through the window, I could see the launch of two more Patriots. The radar and missile men watched the track of the converging objects on the radar screens, but the look on their faces told the story. The Korean weapon had too much of a jump start on the Patriots.
The live satellite view projected in the 3D goggles showed something that the ground based radar was blind to, at least at first. I watched as the anti-missile-missiles fell short of the submarine launched warhead, as a second, smaller defender merged on it. The warhead changed course and began to fall back towards Earth. In the confusion, the view from the Air Force point of view was still that of the two Patriots missing their target, it took the base computers a bit longer to figure out what was right in front of my eyes. Suddenly, the large computer screen that had been tracking the action showed the detonation of a small nuclear bomb on the outskirts of Pyongyang.
A deathly silence fell over the war room. General Hayes stared at the radar screen, as a red phone lit up and began to ring. The commander picked up the handset, and answered it. "I'm not sure what just happened," he said. "I don't think we deflected that missile, perhaps we were lucky and it malfunctioned."
I removed the goggles from my face and turned toward Ku. I didn't have to ask.
"Atom changed its course," he said with a dry throat.
The view on the computer screen zoomed in on the point of detonation. "It looks like the bomb went off above a sparsely populated area near the capital," the General spoke into the phone. "Probably minimal loss of life under the circumstances. We might not have to take any action on our own, they probably just scared the shit out of themselves."
No one in the room noticed the return of Ku's associate. The boy's clothing was torn and charred. He smiled at Robin and I as the four of us snuck out of the war room. "Hello, Robin Chan," Atom smiled.
"Hello yourself," my wife laughed. "Care to fill me in on what just happened?"
"We must keep this a secret," Tetma said. "Atom and I need to leave now. Let your military come to their own conclusions."
"Right." I agreed. I knew that my daughter was oblivious to all of this. Robin and I had kept the events of that trip to Osaka a secret.
Gradually Japan returned back to normal. Robin and I were able to finish our trip, and we enjoyed the rest of our vacation. Anne had to return stateside, where she spent the next several months analyzing data. The military never did figure out how that submarine launched missile had missed its intended target, and my wife and I plan on keeping that secret.