Chapter 9
The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil,
but because of those who look on and do nothing.
-Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
“Well that’s a stroke of luck Maya heading off shopping with Jen,” said Brendan, as the team settled down to work on the E/M interference weapon.
“Luck combined with subtle suggestions.”
“You arranged it with Jen?”
“Not quite... Never organise an independent woman completely mate... I dropped a hint Jen was going shopping and left the rest to Maya!”
“That never works for me... Cherie drags me shopping.”
“That’s just a desire to be around you... Did you meet in the mall a lot when you were courting?”
“Yeah... all the time.”
“Well if you set a precedent back then, you can hardly expect things to be different now.”
“The same with T.V?”
Zac picked up the tension in Dale’s question and decided to be very indirect.
“Yeah… Couples will often sit down together in front of the tele when they’re courting. But then when they’re committed, a girl will get sore at a fella for sitting in front of the tele. And he can’t work out why. I mean before they were together she didn’t care if they sat there and watched tele all night. And she never asked him for help with the dishes during a movie! She just wanted to snuggle up to him!”
Dale chewed on his thumbnail. Soft laughter from the others.
“To avoid conflict they both need to yield a bit… She has to realize he sometimes needs veg-out time. And he has to read between the lines and realize she wants his company without distractions robbing them of quality time.”
“So if you had a girlfriend how would you get around it Zac?”
Dale wasn’t nibbling at the bait any longer. He’d swallowed it completely. The tele was definitely an issue between him and his latest gal.
“Well I’m more into DVDs than tele, but I’d probably start by recording all my favourite shows. That way, I could fit the tele in around our relationship not the other way around. The other thing is to get tele in perspective. You don’t really need the news on at tea time if your sweetheart wants you sitting at a candlelit table… You can catch up with the news on the net later… or listen to it on the radio in the car driving home...”
“And most tele shows are online anyway,” added Pete.
“Talking of online, do you know who was online earlier Pete?”
“Who?”
“Your mother. She sent us both an email. To my email address. Presumably because she doesn’t know yours.”
“What?!”
“Want me to read it?”
“Is it gag material?”
Zac grinned.
“Dear Pete and Zac, I hope you are both well. Love, Mum.”
Stifled chuckling.
“Look on the bright side. At least she didn’t post it on your Facebook wall!” laughed Brendan.
“You’d better reply. Otherwise she might try!” added Dale.
Pete rubbed his forehead and sent off a flash email to his mother.
Silence.
“You alright there Jake?”
“Yeah... just checking the components before we put them into the DC generator, to save a headache afterwards if any are below par. The 50KV stackable capacitors all check out. So do the voltage multipliers. But the CMOS chip seems to be dud. Have we got a spare?”
“Hmmm. Have you checked the box Brendan brought across with him from Sydney?”
“Yeah. There isn’t one. Maybe we can rob one off something lying around here...”
Jake drummed his fingers on the table for a moment.
“Didn’t you tell Gordon last night that your laptop’s webcam was cactus?”
“Yeah... Good idea... we can rob the CMOS chip off it and use it if it’s working.”
Zac reached for his laptop.
“I’ll just make a backup copy of your files onto my laptop in case your hard drive chucks a wobbly about the robbery...”
Jake connected Zac’s laptop to his. Zac watched Jake’s fingers flying over both laptops. Crunching noises from inside both machines for about ten seconds.
“There... all done.”
“What? You’ve copied 80 gig of data already?”
“96 gig actually... I copied your O.S and all your system restore points as well just to be safe.”
Zac looked impressed.
“I told you his laptop was awesome!” grinned Pete.
“I think the risk you guys took getting all this stuff over here to the West is awesome. Especially the stuff that you brought over Pete.”
“What? A few high speed spark gap switches?”
“No... I was referring to a certain 1.3 microfarad 100,000 volt energy storage capacitor.”
Chuckling all round.
“It was a breeze,” shrugged Pete. “Gordon organized a hazardous equipment affidavit and a letter with a cover story which included his and Zac’s contact details... I had it all ready in case, but I didn’t even need it.”
“What did the cover story letter say?”
“That I was accompanying expensive equipment over to W.A. that’s going to be part of a display for Science Week later on in the year.”
“Didn’t you feel bad that is was a lie?”
“I know where you’re coming from, but no, I didn’t feel bad... It’s like on National Treasure where Ben Gates raises a toast to high treason and says, Here’s to the men who did what was considered wrong, in order to do what they knew was right.”
“Yeah... and where he says, If there’s something wrong, those who have the ability to take action have the responsibility to take action,” added Brendan.
“And that’s us,” finished Dale softly.
Ω
The first hundred kilometres of the trip was uneventful. To my left the sun painted shadows on the tuscan red sand. To my right it transformed a salt lake into a dramatic expanse of iridescent gold. In front of me the ribbon of grey shimmered under the opalescent blue sky.
Picture perfect.
Except for a red smudge to the left of the abandoned man-made mountain.
“Probably just a willy willy,” shrugged Jen, when I pointed it out.
The smudge looked eerily like the circular pattern in the sky which Tyson and I had seen forming near the JORN receiver out the back of Dave and Jen’s a few days earlier.
“I wonder…” I mumbled, rummaging in my bag for my iPhone.
Reception. WMK1 repeater.
Déjà vu.
I quickly opened the GPS application… Bookmarked the coordinates of my present position the same way I’d seen Dale and Brendan take the coordinates of the Korean camp the previous day.
Yes! It worked.
I thought about the discussion between Zac and the others I’d tuned into earlier at breakfast... Something about Faraday cages. And organising additional shielding for the MOS devices against transients. High-tech talk that made my head whirl... On the other hand if they were taking extra precautions to protect their project, maybe I needed to protect the coordinates in my iPhone... In case Zac was interested in this observation.
This observation?...Huh?!
I shook myself like a wet dog.
You’re losing it girl... You’ve only been around them for a couple of days and you’re already thinking like them!
I weighed up my options and decided to switch my iPhone off and put it in my camera case. Not that I really had any idea whether a sleek aluminium camera case was the same as a Faraday cage. But it sounded safer than a Fendi handbag.
I glanced out the passenger window. We were almost level with the whirling dirt cloud now. A tiny pinprick of light was flashing inside it.
“There’s something odd landing on our windscreen,” frowned Jen. “White stuff,” she murmured as she turned on the wipers.
“Stop the car! Stop the car!”
No wisecrack about an Ikea sale from Jen. She obviously didn’t watch as much telly as Tyson.
We both clambered out of her 4WD and held our hands out to catch the fluffy drifting particles. Jen ran them through her fingers like she was feeling a satin wedding dress.
“Sleet!” she murmured in disbelief.
I stared at the white specks on my palms blankly.
A flashback of a blizzard... Tearing metal... darkness... Rick lying dead beside me.
I hurriedly pushed back the memories that were trying to surface.
“I’ve never heard of it snowing in November in these parts. Ever,” I said shakily.
“Me either. Here... Let’s take some photos. So we can show the boys.”
Jen had shifted gears. She seemed calm about this extraordinary weather event we were witnessing.
“I think Dave will be interested in this,” said Jen between pictures.
“Why?”
“I’m sure this is somewhere near where he said he saw the lights last time.”
“What lights?”
“I call them FOO lights. You know Freaky Outback Occurrences.”
“I think they’re FOO too,” I said softly.
Fairly Often Occurrences.
The north-eastern Goldfields was shaping up to be the scoop of a lifetime.
Ω
“Okay... It’s finished,” announced Zac later that afternoon. “The next step is to programme it. Any questions Jake?”
“What’s its target?”
“A relocatable Tesla transmitter in this area. We haven’t pin-pointed its precise location yet, but we suspect it’s being tested down near the Celia fault line.”
“Why do you want to knock it out?”
“Western Australia is almost geographically opposite the Pacific Coastal cities of the U.S.A.”
“And the unknown transmitter can create larger fireballs like we observed the other night and release their energy over California?”
“Yes.”
“Where Gordon lives?”
“Ah ha.”
“But that could trigger multiple devastating earthquakes in and around the San Andres fault region!”
“Yes.”
“Which is what you meant by millions of people could die...”
A nod from Zac. Sober looks from the others.
“How do you know about the existence of this transmitter since you haven't been able to locate it?”
“A cluey investigative journalist I’ve never met named Heidi Cannikin posted on my geophysics blog, saying she’d heard that the Japanese researchers had teamed up with the North Koreans. The next day our team in South Korea heard a radio transmission where the North Koreans reported they were testing three new transmitters in the north eastern Goldfields in Western Australia which would improve their national security. ”
“Why have the North Korean and Japanese researchers joined forces?”
“Gordon believes the union’s just one of convenience. He thinks that the Japanese are just interested in the climate research side of things. Whereas the North Koreans want to send a message to other countries saying that they have the ability to make use of anything that the U.S. has in Western Australia.”
“So what does the U.S. have in Western Australia?”
“It’s more of a case of what they have unrestricted right of access to. There’s the JORN network - the active radar station down the road, the transmitter at Leonora and the receiver near Laverton. And the JORN Ionosondes - the Laverton one, Adjana near Geraldton, Boolathana near Carnarvon, Learmouth near Exmouth, there’s one at South Hedland and another at Derby... and the JORN transponders at Christmas Island, Broome and Kalumburu. And JORN uses the DTSO ionosonde network at Wyndham and Derby... Then there’s Project DUNDEE, which is an American missile defence research project - it uses JORN to detect missiles. And of course there’s whatever’s at the former U.S. naval base up at Exmouth. The U.S officially pulled out of Exmouth in 1999, but they still have continued right of access to their VLF/ELF transmitter site. And in 2008, Australia and the U.S signed a bilateral treaty governing joint use of the facility for the next 25 years. And that includes access to whatever is underneath the above ground transmitter site at Exmouth...”
“... which is a fixed Tesla Magnifying energy transmitter, right?” asked Jake.
“There’s evidence to suggest that.”
“What evidence?”
“Well during the winter months thousands of retirees flock to Exmouth to fish and generally soak up the sun... A few years ago some of Gordon’s old Airforce mates - he calls them the A-team - went to Exmouth to collect information from locals and regular visitors. Some of the locals they chatted to talked about seeing an underground wooden frame and a giant coil under the Exmouth transmitter back when it was being constructed. They estimated it went down under the ground about three storeys deep. The use of wood implied it was handling very high voltages and VHF or microwave frequencies. None of that set-up was necessary to make VLF and ELF transmissions to submarines which the facility was supposed to be doing.”
“It also fits the description of a scalar weapon,” murmured Jake.
“Yep... Another local had been a cleaner at the facility and was drinking buddies with some of the military blokes stationed there... One night when they’d drunk more than they should have, they were bragging to him about how they’d used some technology to redirect Cyclone Tracy so it hit Darwin. At the time this guy knew nothing about E/M weather modification and dismissed their chat as drunk talk... Years later however he started hanging out with a sparky who knew a fair bit about Tesla and E/M technology. And then the bloke realized what type of technology they’d probably been talking about all those years back.”
“That fits in with other local eyewitness accounts of freaky stuff,” added Brendan. “I heard that locals have seen fireballs around Exmouth and east of Exmouth in the Great Sandy Desert for years. And there have also been sightings of bluish-glowing lights out in the desert in an area which is supposedly completely uninhabited.”
“Talking of freaky stuff around Exmouth, I also know that in 1996 the Mundaring Observatory released data about some strange earthquakes in the region...” added Pete. “The quakes were regularly positioned in grid lines which suggested they were man-made. Because natural quakes normally show chaotic elliptical spreads...”
“And then there’s the aviation incidents in the Exmouth region,” added Dale. “Commercial flights have run into trouble a number of times over the area - there have been incidents of large passenger aircraft simultaneously stalling and over-speeding, making uncommanded movements, the auto pilot disconnecting without being told to and so on. One major incident happened in 2005 and two in 2008 all in the Exmouth area. And there are numerous light aircraft incidents too... The Civil Aviation Authority listed nearly 400 light aircraft incidents in 2009 in the Exmouth region... An unusually high number of them were due to fried components...”
“And because some of the incidents are recent, it implies someone authorized is still using the facility,” murmured Jake.
“Or someone unauthorized is misusing it,” bantered Zac. “It’s not under heavy guard... It’d be relatively easy for a foreign group to pass themselves off as legitimate researchers making use of a joint U.S and Australian facility.”
“But why us?” frowned Jake.
“Well as they say, location... location... location... And your state happens to be located geographically opposite the San Andres fault region... And it’s geographically isolated from the rest of the world... and it happens to have thousands of sparsely populated hectares in the interior to test E/M weapons. I sympathize with you though. Alaska’s in the same boat as Western Australia.”
“So you think the Exmouth facility might be our equivalent to HAARP in Alaska?”
“There are some interesting similarities. HAARP in Alaska happens to be geographically opposite an area in Antarctica wh
ere it’s alleged that scientists have been experimentally triggering underwater volcanoes to melt icebergs and create storms. Exmouth’s geographically opposite the San Andres fault line and eyewitness accounts suggest that it’s an E/M testing range.”
“And that all fits in with something I know - the Exmouth transmitter was detected on the Australia Bureau of Meteorology’s radar screens in 2010,” added Jake.
“Really? I wasn’t aware of that... Fill me in.”
“It started out when a couple of perfect rings with donut centres appeared on the Bureau’s radar maps on January 15th, 2010. Then they started appearing on weather radar screens over the Goldfields region, the southeast of W.A and the northwest. The ones right over Exmouth on January 21 and 22 had ruby red rings with lines radiating out of them like stars. Exactly what you’d expect to see if someone was testing a Tesla Shield Generator. Here... want to see some snapshots?”
Everyone crowded around Jake’s laptop.
“Sh...” began Brendan.
“Incorrect observation,” interrupted Zac. “Looks nothing like faecal matter... Now look again and tell me what it looks like to you as a scientist.”
“It looks like a transformed scalar wave with a bubble around the transmitting station area.”
“I agree... Know anything else about these Jake?”
“Only that the ring over south-east W.A. on January 22nd appeared on BoM’s radar about 30 seconds before the star shaped ring over Exmouth. And the BoM radar picked up similar rings over other parts of Australia too over the next few weeks. Including rings over the east and northern coastlines in February. Their official explanation for it was unknown interference.”
“Hmmm. I wonder if Gordon’s still awake in California? I might email him with the gist of this, so he can alert his met teams to watch for the patterns worldwide in the future.”
“The BoM in Australia charge anyone wanting to retrieve information out of their archives, but tell Gordon that Colin Andrews has got snapshots of several of the interference rings on his website if he wants to look at them.”
“Colin Andrews? Why’s he interested in the rings?” laughed Pete.
“Maybe he thinks they’re crop circles!” grinned Brendan.
“Or UFO landing sites!” guffawed Dale.
“Doesn’t matter what he thinks they are. What’s important is, we know what they really are,” shrugged Jake.
Zac stretched noisily and got to his feet.
“Coffee time I reckon... Hmmm... I know how everyone else has theirs. How do you have your coffee Jake?”
“I’m not sure... I’ve never had a coffee before. Nan only has Milo and herbal tea in the house. She’s kinda stuck in her ways.”
“You’ve never tried coffee... like at the uni cafeteria?” smiled Pete.
“Nah... I don’t eat out much... We live across the road from the uni, so I just walk back home if I’m hungry.”
“Lucky you... I’ve got to commute to uni... two buses and a train.”
Zac handed the others their coffees and rummaged through the cupboards.
“Sorry... There doesn’t seem to be any herbal tea here... Dave might have some in the homestead. Want me to ask?”
“No... I think I’ll try coffee... As a new experience.”
“Okay, but if you’re running around hyper tonight instead of sleeping, you’re back on the herbs tomorrow.”
“Talking of herbs, check out the hippies on Jake’s screensaver!” chortled Dale.
“Whooah... flower power!” grinned Brendan.
“The chick’s sexy Jake!” chuckled Pete.
“I s’pose she is. I’ve never really thought of Mum as sexy though. I’ve just thought of her as mum.”
Pete choked on his coffee.
“That’s your Mum?”
“And my Dad... I don’t have a more recent photo of them together ‘coz Dad’s not around and Mum died when I was a kid. That’s why I live with my Nan.”
An awkward silence.
“You’ve had a hard trot, Jake...” mumbled Brendan.
“Sorry for being offensive,” added Pete.
“No offense taken.”
“Lucky for you three,” growled Zac. “Remember that next time any of you lust after a woman... She’s more than a sex object... she’s someone’s daughter... possibly someone’s Mum or someone else’s wife.”
“I really am sorry for saying that about your Mum Jake.”
“Nah... We’re all blokes... And Dad must’ve thought she was sexy... I mean he looks pretty pleased with himself... Actually Zac, this is the photo of Dad I was telling you about that I said I’d show you...”
Zac glanced at the screensaver photo. Shock flickered across his features.
Silence.
“Zac? You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost...”
“Nah... Your parents look a little like a couple I met at a workshop... Years ago. Back in Alaska. Probably just a case of mistaken identity.”
“It looks more like Mum and Dad were on a beach somewhere near a big city than in Alaska. See... there’s a big bridge in the distance.”
Zac recognized the Golden Gate bridge but decided not to say anything.
“You’re right... That’s definitely not Alaska... Listen I was thinking... We’ve made good progress today. How about some R & R until tea? Swim in the dam... Enjoy yourselves a bit...”
“What are you gonna do?”
“I was thinking of catching up with my washing actually. And maybe snatching forty winks if there’s any time left. Are you happy to hang out with the rest of the team Jake?”
“Course. Hey Pete... Have you got a license?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Can you teach me to drive?”
“Sure... Maybe not the hire car though. Let’s go ask Dave if we can use his jeep...”
Ω
“You didn’t all have to come to teach me to drive,” smiled Jake.
“Nah... it’s okay... You’re learning to drive. And we’re all heading down the dam for a swim.”
“Without bathers?”
“No girls around... We can just nicky swim...”
Jake’s ears turned scarlet. Beetroot against his pale, bespectacled face. Brendan sensed his mistake.
“You don’t have to nicky swim with us though if you don’t want to... You can swim in your jocks... or your jeans... or just hang out with us on the bank of the dam if you’re not sure about swimming... You choose.”
“Funny Zac didn’t come with us,” murmured Pete. “Is it my imagination or hasn’t he got his usual perk?”
“He ain’t got his usual perk,” replied Brendan. “The normal Zac would’ve come with us and dozed on the bank while we swam.”
“Not to mention Bible-bashed us at least half a dozen times by now,” added Dale.
“He had a quick swipe at me last night,” shrugged Pete.
“But he’s still not himself... What do you think Jake? You’re rooming in with him.”
“Maybe I’m tiring him out with my questions...”
“Nah... Zac can answer a million questions and not get tired.”
“Maybe my questions are tiring...”
All round laughter.
“Why? What have you been asking him?” grinned Pete.
“He’s spent a lot of time helping me straighten out my ideas about stuff... Stuff I haven’t wanted to ask my Nan.”
“About sex and that?”
Jake nodded cautiously.
“Nah... Zac doesn’t find those types of conversations tiring. It has to be something else...”
“Does he normally get up in the night?”
“Nah. Sleeps like a log.”
“Maybe that’s why he’s tired then. He got up early this morning... I think he had one of those dreams.”
“How do you know?” chuckled Brendan.
“He went into the bathroom. ‘Cept there was no wa
ter. He must’ve forgot about the generator. So he went outside... Then later he came back inside. In just a towel.”
“Sounds like you haven’t had any sleep either!” laughed Pete.
“You’re not gonna tell him I told you, are you? He might get mad.”
“About knowing he’s had a wet dream? Nah... Zac’s completely uninhibited when it comes to talking about stuff like that. The only thing he doesn’t talk about is his personal experience of sex. ‘Coz he hasn’t got one yet.”
“Maybe that’s the other reason he’s tired. He was dreaming about Maya last night... Before it happened...”
“What?!” gasped Dale.
“He was talking in his sleep. Saying... um... words about her body... I think he’s in love.”
“Well it’s about time he fell in love!” chuckled Brendan.
“I dunno,” ventured Pete. “He might feel like that when he’s asleep. You know...when he’s unguarded... But when he’s awake, he’s real careful around her... Like last night when Maya got aroused, it really turned him on. I could see it in his eyes. And then they went off together alone... I walked into her room to let him know Gordon was online... expecting them to have less clothes on, or her hair to be a mess or somethin’... And all he was doing was sitting on the floor opposite her treating her feet with peroxide. Talk about self control...”
“It’s all making sense. She loves him... He loves her... But they’ll both be going their own separate ways in a few days. That’s why he’s not got his usual perk. He’s emotionally drained.”
“How do you know Maya loves him?” asked Jake, a little shyly.
“Remember she said?”
“No.”
“Oh, that’s right... You weren’t with us. The other day when we went out to the Celia fault, she told us then she’s got a crush on him. She said he's the first bloke she’s fallen for, for years.”
“So if they both love each other, let’s match-make them,” shrugged Jake.
“Sounds good in theory. But Zac won’t let his personal life get in the way of the assignment. We know him.”
“Okay... So let’s keep asking him questions about falling in love and girlfriends and that, so he keeps thinking about Maya. And when the assignment’s over, then we’ll match-make them.”
“If you weren’t so inhibited, I’d think you were an old hand at match-making!” chuckled Pete.
“Nah... Never tried it in my life. Still - there’s a first time for everything.”
“I was thinking... There’s something else we can do too,” added Dale. “You know how Zac’s always said Jireh would bring him his wife...”
“Yeah... and we’ve always made fun of him about such a crazy idea.”
“Well... Maya’s rocked up out of the blue hasn’t she? Maybe Jireh did bring her here. Maybe they’re meant to get hitched... But Zac can’t see it because he’s not been talking to Jireh about her.”
“You mean rig it so he does the prayer thing. How?” frowned Pete.
Pensive silence. Jake broke it.
“You know how Zac’s been teaching me to observe with all my senses? Yesterday we were also talking about observing things in the spirit dimension as well as in the natural... We could set up some special spiritual observation room.”
“That might work. Let’s stick a sign up on the door of one of the spare rooms that says Jireh Communications Centre!” suggested Brendan.
“Reckon he’ll take the bait?” asked Pete.
“Dunno. But if nothing else it’ll be a good laugh... Come on. Let’s go swimming.”