Alley Oop Through the Ulysses Trees
By Lenny Everson
rev 4
Copyright Lenny Everson 2012
Cover design by Lenny Everson
For Dianne
****
Before you start.
This book contains quite a number of characters in several different locales. The sections near the end, Characters and Places and Day-By-Day Summary of Sections are provided to help you keep track of events.
Chapter 1: September 13
The story opens in mid-September on an overcast day with a cool wind and the occasional shower.
Four days before Button Day (The day that the aliens press the button that starts the re-activation of Professor Nothing, their spaceship)
Kitchener, Ontario
Headquarters of Wind Turbines Foundation, just south of the Region of Waterloo International Airport.
It was a sonar scan that first picked up the object in Lake Ontario off High Bluff Island. A couple of geologists and a limnologist were called in right away, sworn to secrecy, and shown the pictures. The Wind Turbine Foundation company had a fair amount of money riding on getting seventy-eight large wind turbines installed on the bottom of the lake, and nobody wanted any problems.
But, right where there was supposed to be nothing but a bit of mud or sand on top of good solid limestone, there was an odd-shaped object in seventy feet of water.
"What the hell is that thing?" the younger geologist with the red hair asked no one in particular.
"Looks like an odd-shaped submarine," the older geologist with no hair noted. "Really odd-shaped." The others just pursed their lips and contemplated the awful prospect of some historical association getting involved. It wouldn't do WTF any good. Worse, there'd been a ban on putting wind turbines into the waters off mainland Ontario since some premier of the province, a little desperate for votes before an election, had listened to an ecological group. This was to be the first offshore wind farm since the ban was lifted, and nobody in the company wanted any problems. None – or at least none they couldn't hide.
It should be explained that the name of the company had started out as "Wind Turbine Farms," with the senior officials blissfully unaware of the use that their grandkids were making of the initialism, "WTF." It also turned out that any use of the word "farm" brought derisive laughter from the farming community, most of whom seemed convinced that wind turbines reduced their wives’ sex drives. It was agreed among the officials of the Wind Turbine Foundation that since they’d made up a lot of letterhead, business cards, and some giant letters to go onto the little building they owned in an industrial suburb of Kitchener, “WTF” had to stay, and since the founder and CEO said “foundation” sounded nice and stable, they’d keep it as “WTF." Besides, he noted, every other text message on the planet helped advertise the company, one way or another.
The older geologist with no hair, the sexy blonde limnologist, and the younger male geologist with the red hair looked carefully at the sonar, and at the underwater photographs that had been taken by a camera lowered from a fishing boat.
"At least it's not the wreck of the Speedy, the limnologist noted. She got a bunch of blank looks. "In 1804," the scientist told them, "the Speedy was carrying important people who planned to make Presqu'ile Point the capital of the local district. It was also carrying one of our first nations brothers, whom they planned to try and hang to mark the occasion."
"And it went down here?" a voice asked. Everyone turned, to see the CEO, who had a habit of arriving quietly. Meeting the Dilbert Requirement for managers, he was tall, and had good hair, unlike the younger geologist who had spiky hair and the limnologist who had blonde hair tied in a ponytail.
"Went down off High Bluff Island, with the loss of all lives," the limnologist continued. "The governor of the province moved the capital to Cobourg and the wreck of the Speedy was supposedly never found, although one fellow in Trenton thinks he spotted it out near Weller's Bay. I'm pretty sure this isn't it."
"We hope."
"It doesn't look like any wooden boat I've ever seen," the older geologist with no hair said. " He paused. "Looks a bit like the American Civil War boat, Monitor – the ironclad boat." He looked up to see the expression on the others' faces. "Oh, it couldn't be, of course. It looks like a submarine with no conning tower and a single large round hatch in the middle. And besides, it seems to have no magnetic component at all," he added.
"Ever seen anything like it – other than the Monitor, of course?" The CEO looked over his reading glasses at the limnologist.
"Never. Ever. There's no record of any submarines in Lake Ontario, aside from a wild rumour in World War Two that a German U-boat was seen there. That's impossible, and this doesn't look like a U-boat anyway. You can see it's settled into the mud until it's hardly projecting at all – not even any fishing nets caught on it."
"So what do we do?" the older geologist with no hair asked.
"We ignore it," the tall CEO with good hair said. "Build the foundations beside it. Don't mention it to anyone."
The others nodded, but after the meeting, the limnologist placed a phone call to a number in Langley, Virginia.
In another part of the building, the CEO sighed, got out a little book of regulations, and placed a call to an arm of the Canadian government. At least, he figured, that group might be able to keep the find secret.
****
Langley, Virginia
CIA ("The Company") Headquarters
Four Days before Button Day
In Langley, a phone rang at The Company. "Chung Import/Export," a voice answered.
"Bosco at 7700," the limnologist in Kitchener said, and eventually got the voice of a young man in Langley, with an odd echo to the call.
"This is code Betty Baggins," the limnologist said, untying her ponytail, because even minor people who worked for The Company didn't go around in ponytails. She wished she had a trench coat, just for the phone call.
"Hang on." The young guy in the small basement room at the CIA, who also had a ponytail, looked up the code name. It went back a long way, to the predecessor of a predecessor of both of them. "Are you 97?" the young guy asked.
"I'm the person who inherited the position of Betty Baggins," the annoyed limnologist said. "I was told I'd get a payment for anything interesting I could turn up in my job if I phoned this number."
"Ah, it looks like this project was supposed to have been terminated at the end of the cold war," the young guy admitted. I was wondering if you were 97 years old. "
"As I said, I inherited this number. Do you want what I've got or not. How much do I get?"
"Look, I'll tell you what. Give me a brief description, and I'll look into it, and if it's good I'll get back to you." The young guy was part of an organization that was reduced to chaos. Anything he did was likely to be wrong. On the other hand, a retired general was now running The Company. The general hadn't a clue what to do with anything but his paycheck, but he knew he didn't like guys with ponytails. A confrontation was inevitable, so the young guy was willing to take a chance.
The limnologist thought about it. "I guess. Bottom of Lake Ontario. Sub-like thing in the mud," she said. "Outline looks like the civil war boat Monitor, I'm told. One big round circle, a hatch or a turret, right in the middle. Maybe twenty metres long." She hung up and wondered if she'd get enough for pizza. What the hell.
It took the young guy with the ponytail seven phone calls just to find the name of someone who might have a clue, and it was a day before a call came from an old guy, retired (and, according to Records, dead) who was fishing in Chesapeake Bay with a woman who could have been his granddaughter, but wasn't. "Tel
l me what you have," his old voice whispered.
The young guy with the ponytail had heard the footsteps of the general pass his office, then pause. He passed along the description. Then the old voice whispered, "I think I just shit my pants. What you said cannot be true, cannot be true. Pay anything you need to pay for more information from the Kitchener woman. Got a pen? Requisition number 888A610. Use code Barbara. I'll call you tomorrow. Be waiting."
The general who was now in charge of The Company was in a foul mood. During the cold war, his antecedents had had the ear of the White House. Now he was lucky to get the ear of the woman in charge of the West Wing cafeteria. But when he opened the door, the young guy was sporting a crew cut and putting a pair of scissors away . His ponytail was now in the garbage can.
The limnologist in Kitchener,, who still had her ponytail and a degree from Conestoga College, got the call a day later from the young guy with the new crew cut hairdo at The Company . "Ten bucks," he said.
"Fifteen," the limnologist said, as she preferred better quality pizzas.
"Two thousand, eight hundred and six if you can get a copy of a picture," the young guy said, making up the number. He had an inspiration. "Double that if you can email me a picture."
"Up that to an even five thousand," the limnologist said, her math being a bit weak, "and I'll have it to you tomorrow." She had, of course, already taken a picture of the sonar scan with her cell phone.
Copies of the picture multiplied slowly in Virginia, kept to a tight circle. But not watertight; an old staffer placed a call from a street phone to Ottawa a couple of days later.
****
Ottawa
Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)
Four Days before Button Day
“Are there any questions so far?”
Oscar Copeman, known as “Cope” to the other agents in the room, said nothing. He had spent twenty minutes so far watching the presentation and trying to keep his mind on visions of a couple of the office secretaries mud-wrestling, naked. It hadn’t worked very well.
Senior Agent Lafontaine wasn’t good at giving presentations, and he was botching this one up. He was also very new to the team, or he wouldn’t have looked at Cope when he asked for questions. The others knew better. “Mr. Copeman?” Lafontaine asked, into the silence. “What threats do you personally rate most likely from Muslim groups in Canada?”
The other agents sighed, collectively, and tried to get their minds onto naked secretaries or gardeners, as the case might be. They would have preferred running screaming from the room or faking a heart attack, but that had been tried earlier and no longer worked. Cope was not a team player at this point in his life.
A friend had asked Cope why he didn’t just quit the Canadian Security Intelligence Service if he didn’t like it any more.
“Pension,” Cope had answered, sucking on a chocolate cigarette. “In a year I get a full pension. If I quit, I lose about thirty percent of it. I’m only fifty, so that makes a big difference if I live long enough. On the other hand, they can give me an early pension that would be almost as good as a full one.”
“What do you mean, ‘if you live long enough’? You think they’ll bump you off?”
Cope had laughed. “Haven’t heard that quaint old expression in years. No, nobody gets bumped off in the service any more, not after Neil Lucy disappeared mysteriously back in 1968.” He sucked a bit more on the cigarette, a so-far-successful effort to quit smoking. “Three weeks later a whole shitload of classified material – including lots of good stuff about his superiors – showed up at head office, with copies to every major newspaper and the Albanian embassy. No, you can’t threaten a dead man, so they like you alive.”
“So you’re just going to be a nuisance until CSIS gives you an early pension?”
“Worse than that. Much worse. I’m going to tell the truth, but only within the organization.”
“Isn’t CSIS committed to truth?” the friend had asked.
Cope had almost choked on the chocolate cigarette.
“Goat vindaloo," Cope said, decisively, looking up at Lafountaine. “Goat vindaloo from a Bangladeshi restaurant like the Kismet.”
Lafontaine looked flustered.
“Some people wander into the place and ask for the ‘hot’ version,” Cope said. “That’ll kill some people.”
Senior Agent Lafontaine forced a smile. “I’m trying to be serious, Mr. Copeman. I want to list possible scenarios in which Muslims already within Canada might, individually or collectively, want to hurt this nation.”
“Ah,” Cope said. “This nation. So we don’t have to worry about the other nations in Canada.”
Senior Agent Lafontaine looked confused.
“Canada has several nations within it. Isn’t that right, Paul? Richard?” Cope looked at the aboriginal and Quebecois members.”
Lafontaine scrunched up his face. “You know what I meant.”
“I did,” Cope said, “but I find it dangerous to assume that I can always tell what a person means when it’s not what he said. I learned that a long time ago.”
“Maybe someone else can start the list.” Lafontaine grabbed the whiteboard marker somewhat tighter.
“But now that I think I know what you meant, instead of what I know what you said,” Cope went on, "I’d be happy to say that this is all pensionable time, but otherwise a waste of a good afternoon.”
“And why would that be?”
“We already keep tabs on every possible Muslim threat in this… country. There isn’t a mosque from Labrador to Victoria that isn’t bugged by us at least twice, once under the water cooler and once under a quotation from the Prophet.” Cope scratched himself, wishing for nicotine. “Peace be upon him,” he added. “And that doesn’t include any illegal bugs our friends to the south have installed.
“We’ve bugged every place three young Muslims could possibly eat, including every fried-chicken place in every major city. We tap so many phones we’ve had to install a very expensive computer just to sort out the messages, and if some poor joker mentions that next week’s looking good for a picnic, we’ll follow him right up to the time his family unrolls a blanket on the beach."
“I think…”
“It’s got so my dentist is afraid to put in a filling in case someone thinks he’s suspected of inventing tooth bombs.”
“You have a Muslim dentist?” someone asked, loudly. Cope suspected this would be added to his file, and if his dentist’s brother-in-law’s second cousin had visited Pakistan in the last decade, Cope would be checked out again. A note about tooth bombs would be made somewhere.
“You’re calling this a pointless exercise?” Lafontaine said, grimly.
Cope waved his hands. “Not at all. Not at all. If we don’t chase Muslims, then we don’t get big grants to chase Muslims just because our Friends to the South are totally whacko. I’m not trying to stop this exercise; I’m just identifying it as I see it. It’s my duty to be perceptive for these younger fellas.”
Lafontaine wrote “tooth bombs” on the whiteboard. “You know,” he said, “a mouthful of explosive dentures could be used for targeted assassinations. Or for blowing out the windows on an airliner. Thank you, Mr. Copeman. Do we have any other suggestions?” Not everybody in the room was able to keep a straight face, but they did manage to come up with other suggestions, the sensible ones being those that they’d seen many times before.
Cope may have got his point across, but it served him to no good end, for Lafontaine complained to his boss, and Cope ended up getting assigned to drive to Brighton, Ontario, to look around for odd rumors. He told Paula, his wife, and she just sighed. "Better than being assigned to Afghanistan or Glen Miller," Cope pointed out. "I'm only a couple of hours away for a week." It didn’t make her much happier, but then, he hadn't supposed it would.
Early the next morning Cope called Jag Stone, an old friend in Brighton. "Jag. This is the man from the movie academy."
/> "Ah, well hello, old guy." In Afghanistan, Copeman had been ribbed for his first name, Oscar. "Another tango gets an Oscar;" the men had said when Cope had eliminated a Taliban fighter, "add it to the movie credits." It didn't make much sense, but nothing over there had made much sense. He knew Cope was leery about phone conversations – it seemed to be part of the spy business to be a little paranoid.
"I need a favor. Will you have time to meet with me the day after tomorrow?"
"Sure," Jag said. "I'm on duty all day, but we can meet at lunch downtown."
"How about Carrying Place, at the cafe in the gas station."
"12:05. I'll be at the main intersection; the café closed last month."
"Thanks. Bye."
Secret meetings, Jag thought. I wonder what's up. But it didn't keep him awake.
****
Toronto
The Piazza Manna bar facing the harbor
Four Days before Button Day
Outside, the wind suddenly threw rain onto the Queens Quay, onto the people heading to catch the last ferries, onto the Captain John's Restaurant boat tied to the docks. The street shone like diamonds, and people, laughing, ran for cover.
Somewhere above the clouds and beyond the rainbows the stars shone bright and cold and much too far away. Another night, and no communication from the Empire approached the cloudy blue planet.
Inside the Piazza Manna bar five creatures waited out the night. All of them looked human. Two weren’t, at least not completely.
Jack, which wasn't his real name (you couldn't pronounce it unless you were born a hgkpphtitrw) was slurring his words. He leaned over towards Jim , and wheezed, carefully, "I say we blow the whole damn planet to hell!"
Jim (which wasn't his real name), thoughtfully stuffed his tongue up his left nostril, in the way that hgkpphtitrw have done for a million years. It was a tribute to what he could will his host's aging human body to do. He'd had his host as long as Jack, but had taught the human form a few civilized tricks. Catching the bartender's eye, he pulled his tongue back.
"Ah," he huffed, in a loud voice, looking toward the bartender, "two more of the same." He was old, and his nose hairs swayed back and forth as he breathed.
Outside, individuals and lovers strolled the darkening street, then turned back toward the string of hotels to the east. At this end of Toronto, there was little to see or do after dark. But lovers were lovers and Toronto had streets aplenty for them and memories of this night forever, even in the rain.