Chapter 16
Ranks
Colby caught up on the files of those Coordinators that had met an untimely demise. It was a debilitating experience but one that had to be done. It was with some relief that he was distracted by the tone emitted by his view-phone.
He touched the key, saw the little red light blink as the camera came on line and the monitor went from a blank screen to a close up of Cliff and his lab.
“Colby.” He said and saw a slight smile on Cliff’s face.
“There is an unexpected development here at the lab.” Cliff said.
“What is the situation, Cliff?” Colby asked with only half interest.
“It’s best if you come and see for yourself.” Cliff stated forcefully. “Just come and see.” Follow by a severed connection and the screen went blank again.
Colby considered Cliff’s other than normal response and actions. For Cliff to make a statement not allowing any reply was like sending out a RSVP and then not accepting responses. It was so out of the ordinary. Even in a heated discussion or argument, Cliff would never put in the last word. He had explained this once to Colby.
“A person’s final comments in any situation usually meant more than all the words used to get to that point.” With this comment Cliff explained that he had made many significant breakthroughs in his work by using those last few words spoken by another person. He called it their final sum up and this is why he always allowed the other person to have the last word, that is, up until now.
No matter what Colby had to think about Cliff, here he now sat with a blank screen on his view-phone. Blank, except for the prompt at the bottom of the screen, blinking in yellow. “The party has terminated connection. Redial? Y/N. Colby hit the N. The View-phone screen went from dark to opaque which indicated the unit was off.
Colby hit the replace file key on his office computer. The personnel files he had been working on were promptly filed and stored again in the main computer. This, the main computer, was located somewhere deep in the heart of this uncharted planet. The headquarters for the Coordinator’s organization called Coordinators Inc.
It was sixteen hundred hours, old earth time, and Colby figured he had at least two hours he could spare with Cliff. He knew Cliff and he guessed that this situation, what ever it was, could be significant.
As he made his way to the lab the weather was as it was, a drizzling rain with cloud cover, gray and depressing. It matched Colby’s mood and the job he had been doing with the dead files to a tee. He needed sun and brightness but this depressing overcast was what he had.
He took his mind off of those dead files and thought about the rookie Coordinators and the changes in operation during the last few days.
P1 Don Ranks, the new and possibly only recruit that was ready for field work. This Coordinator’s progress was unreal to the point of unbelievable. This particular individual must have been born for this line of work. Rapid healing, shorten knowledge conditioning in all phases, unexcelled implant operational use and his weapon knowledge and accuracy were just a few of his attributes. In conjunction with this, his physical and mental stamina were extra ordinary and allowed him the ability to run our obstacle course below minimum time. While he ran and maneuvered the obstacles of the course he solved the most difficult peace negotiation problems that had ever been encountered.
The only problem with Ranks, if again it was a problem, he knew he was good and that showed in his cockiness. This overconfidence could get him in a lot of trouble or maybe even get him killed.
Colby entered the lab and accepted the towel offered by Cliff. He wiped his face and his hair removing most of the rain water that the slight drizzle had caused to accumulate.
“Thanks Cliff, now what did I need to come see?” Colby asked as he finished with the towel.
“It’s the Anticipator.” Cliff stated.
“What about it?” Colby impatiently asked.
“Ranks isn’t using the device as it was designed or expected to be used.” Cliff started to explain.
“Excuse me, are there other uses for this device?” Colby broke in.
“Not that we previously knew, but he seems to be mentally altering the device. He can not only anticipate your actions, he may be able to actually read a person’s mind.” Cliff’s hands were animated as he tried to explain.
“Come on Cliff. You know they dismissed that ESP crap as a hoax ages ago. They could never find any solid evidence that it was possible.” Colby explained.
“Now you know the reason I didn’t tell you this on the phone. I want you to look at some brain waves charts. A normal brain wave chart, like this one,” Cliff pulled up a chart on the monitor. “it shows highs and lows covering all the areas of active thought. The amplitude of the signal is usually of a certain height as you can see by this normal graph recording.” Cliff pointed to several peaks of the graphed displayed on the monitor.
“Now I want you to look at this graph.” Cliff clicked a couple of keys and the display changed. “This was recorded this morning on our young P1 Don, Don was Actually Gordon just shortened, Ranks. See the separate signal above the others?” Cliff again pointed to areas on the monitor’s display. “This is the Anticipator in action. This line, although it has highs and lows, is almost strait and about two centimeters wide. Now follow this, look here,” Cliff quickly moved the cursor to a new area on the display. “a much taller peak, then nothing. The Anticipator was switched off.” Cliff then explained. “This line is the results of heavy use of the Anticipator during combat. Ranks was unarmed and being attacked by an armed assailant.”
“Could this be a fluke of the machine?” Queried Colby.
“No, I don’t think so. We have tested the machine and we have tested other candidates on the machine. We could not duplicate the results that Rank’s test recorded.” Cliff said as he pulled up several charts on the display, having them placed side by side. There was only one that displayed something quite different and that one had the name, Ranks, at the top.
Cliff allowed a little time for Colby to study the charts that were displayed then he continued.
“There is more. This is Rank’s second use of the Anticipator. It starts off at normal amplitude as he is waiting for his next test.” Cliff had a running chart displayed on the monitor. The chart pulled across the screen with the time, in seconds, ticking off at the bottom of the graph. It was about five minutes of level display before the amplitude peaked and went out the top of the chart. Cliff continued pointing out where it started to rise. “This is where it starts and then it goes off scale, to what power we don’t know.”
“The staff and I were in a meeting in an adjoining room planning the next test for Ranks. There was no way he could have overheard or been aware of what we were talking about.” Cliff stressed the next point. “Our meeting room is bug free and soundproof, so I feel comfortable with its security.”
“We had four separate test in mind as we returned to the lab where Ranks waited.” Cliff held up four fingers to solidify his statement.
When we entered, Ranks said, ‘I’ll take the test number twenty seven and number thirty three. I don’t care for numbers forty one or forty seven.’
“Of course, I was stunned because no one, as far as we knew, could have known about our test or the numbers we had assigned them. The two test he picked were the two we had decided to run.” Cliff slowly shook his head, not really understanding the results.
Colby stared at the monitor, he too did not understand, not even half as much as Cliff, so he was completely lost.
“Let me try to explain this amplitude.” He pointed again at the two centimeter line left on the display. “Now this line is a certain frequency and should not vary very much, mmm, this width is normal and these peaks are usually the max.” Cliff then pointed at the change. “Now I want you to understand, this peak on Rank’s chart is not an increase or decrease in frequency. This line is representative in a completely different way. It expands li
ke a balloon expands when it is being blown up. It’s still the same frequency but its amplitude is beyond measurement somehow.”
“Is there any way to discern what this means?” Colby asked as he continued to stare at the display.
“As you know this chart simply records patterns of pulses transmitted from the brain. Each of these transmissions of pulses transfers information from the brain to the body or it may transfer information from one part of the brain to another part. The actual transmitted signal is made up of a pattern or set of pulses. The distinct pattern of these pulses makes up the message.”
“This,” Cliff again pointed at the display. “is the normal signal and pattern of the Anticipator and this is where it deviates from the normal. It has a pattern but it is not normal. From this little information you can see how this Anticipator works. It actually picks up the signal from another person then it increases the speed of the message while transferring it to the wearer’s brain. In other words the actual thought pulses reaches the wearer’s thought center resulting in the wearer’s reaction as if the thought originated in his own brain.”
“Now that is the way it normally works. These messages, it is suppose to pick up, are action messages. That is when, let’s say the opponents brain sends a message to its hand or arm, this signal is picked up by the Anticipator in route from the brain. The message is speeded up and sent directly to the wearer’s thought center. It is processed at this accelerated state allowing the wearer to respond before the opponent can complete his action. We call these surface messages because they have left the brain and are traveling along the transmission lines to the reaction station.” Cliff paused while he closed the file and turned off the monitor.
Then Cliff began again. “Well, what Ranks has done with this equipment is to mentally increase its pickup capability so as to penetrate the thought centers of the opponent. He is now obtaining the messages as they are compiled inside that thought center. Now the thoughts don’t have to leave the thought centers before he can read them.”
“That would make him unbeatable in a one on one situation.” Colby’s thoughts were spoken out loud. “How would this work with, oh say, a mob of attackers?”
“Not sure, it would probably make him very nervous. All those thoughts would become muddled together and that makes them probably unreadable. Oh, I’d say, he would pick up the closes one thoughts easy enough, but they may be confused or even hide the intentions of the others, making him even more vulnerable to harm.”
“That would make it almost unusable with our current situation. All the current attacks have been by numerous opponents at one time.” Colby was just thinking out loud again. “I think I know a way this can be used. “I just, oh, ah, thanks Cliff, you guys are great. Keep up the good work and keep me abreast of any new developments.”
“Don’t you want to see it in action?” Cliff asked.
“Not just now, just keep testing, find out the limits and restrictions on its use.” Colby said as he departed the lab.
Cliff said something about some minor restrictions, but Colby was deep in thought and he either didn’t hear or it didn’t register.