A Life Revealed

[austintorn@aol.com]

The extent of this retreat is actually within the confines of Fort Shafter, in a scenic part unused for anything else. There are points atop from which one can see Diamond Head, Tripler Army Hospital, the International Airport, Hickam Field, and Pearl City and Pearl Harbor, as well as everything in between.

After entering the Fort and being waved through by the white-gloved MP, there is, off to the right a ways, a seemingly useless and steep embankment, and, yet, after powering up it on a motorcycle in first gear there is then a sharp left onto a path 6 feet wide or so that goes up very slightly as it traverses the base of the mountain until a wide right curve brings it back to another, higher angled traverse, but not steep, really, but ever gaining height on its long way.

There is then a tremendously steep climb right towards the ridge, and, upon getting there, one must be very careful riding along the 2 foot wide path, for only a bush separates it from a terrible fall down to the LikeLike highway running below.

There is then a leftish turn onto the higher ridge toward the back of the mountain and here the trail apparently ends, but the rest of the trail around and down is really just blocked, and very treacherous, although one could use it for an emergency escape if fire were coming up the front of the mountain.

It seems as there is no retreat here, nor anything, but it is slightly down and beneath, tucked into the cliff-side, and so one must climb down to it; however, there is also an invisible and more circular route to it if one is not in the mood, although it is laced with jutting rocks.

Here, then, in the nook of an open cave type of arrangement, our tent is tucked to the back, the double cot placed in the back, where the ceiling has sloped down. The tent doors can usually be left open on the average fine day time. There is a slight grassy ‘lawn’ in front, with enough room for lounge chairs, and a table, and beyond that is a sheer drop. The view faces toward the airport and its reef runways jutting out into the Pacific.

We stayed in each others arms for a while, basking in the afterglow, then walked toward another ledge, but then saw a shadow, that of a man atop the cliff, who said, “Want another week’s vacation?”

She replied, “You changed your voice. And for once we don’t want to actually see you to get an extra week.”

“Fair enough,” he said, “and besides, I’m busy recreating what happened up here, and you can’t very well make a report while you’re on vacation, and I know you’ve been softly sneaking out all this time to get a look at me.”

She was, and she then looked straight up, but he was gone.

She wondered aloud, “How did he get here? I didn’t hear any helicopter. I didn’t hear anything at all.”

“Yes, impossible.”

[austintorn@aol.com]

“Unless they have a transporter type thing.”

“Too risky, and he could have waited and then gotten here in a more regular way. The assessment could have waited a bit.”

“Then it’s a duplicate maker.”

“Can’t have two guys as the boss, or umpteen copies.”

“Well, then, if the duplicate is unsuccessful, then they always still have the original.”

“True, but if the duplication is successful, then it is the duplicate that becomes more up to date with the latest memories, and so he is the version who must be maintained.”

“So then the previous working version would have to be destroyed.”

“Or put on ice, but after tests have performed, totally verifying the duplicate as complete and working.”

“And if the active one was killed, then they could at least activate the most recent backup.”

“If we went back to the Forbidden City in Niihau and looked for the trap door in the floor, there wouldn’t be any.”

“That’s how he is a ghost who can disappear and reappear.”

“Appearing is fine, for a duplicate, but the base copy must remain, you know, just in case something goes wrong.”

“Yes, and even if the technology was perfect, such as perfectly copying every quantum state, human error could still have him materialize inside a rock or something, and devices can malfunction. You know, I reviewed some outdoor photos that we’d taken at the motel in Texas, and there was no tree wide enough for him to have hidden behind.”

“It’s a true transporter, not a duplicator. No messiness of getting rid of clones.”

“They have the TOE.”

“Nothing can go wrong, just as with the nine-star satellite.”

“That was the lesson of his visit.”

“He has taken a liking to us.”

“There’s still risk. Some of those bullets could have hit us today.”

“That’s true.”

“And if a fluke occurred, and he died, whether in transporting or even when not, such as being hit by a car, they could still reconstruct him from the transporter memory, albeit he going back to how he was when he last transported.”

“But he still grows older.”

“They haven’t solved that yet.”

“If they made a younger version, then that one would have had less experiences and memories, so, they don’t have a complete solution really.”

“They can’t just add them into a younger version?”

“I guess not, for that involves a lot more than just keeping him the same and moving him about as such.”

“We’ve still uncovered an actual big time secret.”

“I guess he let us.”

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“We’ve moved up in the Ninja Empire. We’re on staff to a ghost. And we’re also in the invisible D-I-A and are still MPs. Three jobs, but only one paycheck.”

“They’re intertwined, and the satisfaction counts for a lot, but maybe we’ll get a raise. I need a new motorcycle. And I’m extending my service by six months; we have a wedding to plan.”

“I would hate that wedding prep stuff; we’re getting married by a judge. And those six months will be the best you ever had.”

“Fine with me.”

“I’ll always be at a fort near to wherever you are.”

“Great; we can live together.”

“And vacation here. Or maybe he’ll let us transport to each other.”

“Yes, probably, if part of those trips, when needed, are for Ninja Empire Missions.”

“We might get killed eventually.”

“Then he’ll reconstitute us.”

“It’s still scary to die in some horrible way.”

“It is, but we won’t remember it when we come back as we were.”

“We’ll think it’s Tuesday, but then find that it’s already Thursday, or something like that. Time will have moved on.”

“That will be our clue. Then we’ll read about how we died, and learn from it, improving ourselves by seeing what went wrong.”

“Let’s just try to stay alive. The coming back option might make us reckless. I don’t really like dying that much, at least not while we’re young. It really just ruins the day, you know.”

“OK, we’ll only die if it’s absolutely necessary.”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“I’ll be back.”

[austintorn@aol.com]

We rested, sleeping for ten hours, got up, and looked out upon the scene from these heights. Waterfalls ran between the domes of green looming as hills into mountains as we looked upon the glory of the main island of the archipelago of the 50th state.

“What is this retreat, really, Patrick?”

“It began as just that, years ago, a respite from D-I-A and Cambodia, and then it evolved. I keep some treasures from my adventures here.”

“From your times with that General in Tahiti.”

“Yes, some. And now it’s my Empire base, and ours. And the Conspiracy is getting too close to Niihau, although they don’t know it.”

“Niihau is in plain sight and they don’t know its worth?”

“No, for psychologically, it’s there but not there.”

“Will wonder never cease?”

“No, never.”

[austintorn@aol.com]

We walked to back room, through a solid rock wall that somehow gave way, full of communication equipment and treasures.

“Here are many fine treasures, Juliet, such as the one and only jewel-encrusted edition of the ‘Great Omar’ (Rubaiyat) that I fished up from the Titanic lying on the floor of the North Atlantic. The only other copy was destroyed in WWII. Here, as well, Aristotle’s lost book, ‘Beyond Metaphysics’, and, too, I have some nuggets of gold found in the original Garden of Eden that was located in the heart of the Amazon Jungle, wherein lie massive fields of Lady’s Slippers thriving due to a rare fungus, and all of the flowers of Paradise, many of them replicated here in Hawaii. And the Celtic Chronicles, I have, as well, that were found in an iron box beneath Glastonbury Abbey, telling all of the tales from the Dark Ages, and, from the tomb of the Holy Sepulcher—the Holy Grail itself.

“Here, as well, a sliver of the true cross, a small vial containing a drop of the Virgin Mary’s milk, a pebble from a moon rock, given to me by a polymath who works for the President, a smart thinking and talking cricket named ‘Crick’, the tip of the spear that pierced the side of the Saviour, a few molecules of immortal air from a sealed pyramid chamber in Egypt, some secret papers retrieved from the shaft of the bottomless C-I-A and D-I-A trash pits of “things that never happened”, a thriving rose bush, just outside my window, that was begun from Omar Khayyàm’s 11th century garden, ‘Flamberge’—Prince Valiant’s ‘Singing sword’ (Twin to ‘Excalibur’), Thomas Jefferson’s briefcase, an original and intact Ming dynasty vase, the third [missing] tablet of the 15 Commandments, the solution to gravity, as it is a means and a reason for quantum collapse from superposition, as well as a tennis ball with my initials marked on it in a yin-yang style. Yet, all of these treasures pale in comparison to reality’s truth unveiled.

“I also have the treasure of a preliminary but solid indication of the Higgs particle’s existence, which Lisa Randall was nice enough to give me from the LHC’s latest analysis. I am now holding part of a brick that came from Nero’s very recently discovered revolving banquet hall that kept pace with the turn of the Earth. And here the first book of the Library of Congress, a place which now has five hundred miles of stacks. It began anew, after burning by the British, when Thomas Jefferson donated his personal library. I found his personal diary in the lining of his brief case. It said that some of the founding fathers wanted to retain a Deity (non interfering) to save the new nation from the religious superstitions associated with a ‘Theity’, a word that I myself invented. You can Google it, finding that all of the entries are my own. I hold in my hand a bone from early sapiens or of proto-man. He is not gone, though, but lives on in your heart and mine, as in him lived all those before in which the universe itself came to life. Amen. Yet, all of these treasures pale in comparison to reality’s truth unveiled.”

“Count me in,” she said, “forever and always.”

[austintorn@aol.com]

“We will each be given one of the clues. Mine will concern ‘nothing’ and your will relate to ‘everything’.”

She reflected, “They are opposite sides.”

“Of?”

“The same coin.”

“The currency of existence.”

“Its essence.”

“Butterflies are the proof that one can have a second life.”

“Thanks for flying with me.”

“We fly united.”

“Let’s stay here for a few days.”

“We’d better, for the Conspiracy may still be afoot.”

“Where’s the main entrance to this place?”

“It’s over there, coming from those bushes and trees, but no one would catch on to it, and besides, I took the rope ladder away.”

“Wow, we can do whatever we want here.”

“Honeymoon time.”

…

[austintorn@aol.com]

We walked down the mountain, feeling refreshed, and ready for the next big thing, for Hawaii was more and more seeming to be the arena for it.

The MP unit was quiet, they having patched up themselves, their gear, and their trucks and jeeps. And they had a million questions, many of which we could answer.

We retired to my office and finished the Irish Creme.

“Tell me about Cambodia,” she asked, out of the blue, “the early times.”

I opened a drawer and pulled out my personal report, so I could refer to it:

We were on the wrong side of the river, by purpose, in Cambodia, which was fine, for we barely existed, with no records kept. We were in the wrong place, too, one of our rare mishaps, as it turned out, and actually one very early on, of a cascade of unfortunate events that was not totally unplanned for. Always have an out, for there will be those times of woe.

We, the intelligence officers, had been inserted along with the D-I-A [special] ‘troops’, another nameless non-designation, and they with us, for we each supported the other.

The action had been going fairly well, as planned, the many opposing rampagers led not so much by reason but by the beast that was ever part and parcel of man.

The fire-engagement was over, for now, in the main, as a retreat had been called by the Captain of the section upon detection of a larger than expected approaching ground force, this fallback being somewhat hindered by some opposition stragglers whose spirits had been bolstered by the sight of an entire Klemmer Rouge division boldly crossing a long and open field, which could become good luck, or not, for either side.

The tail end of the section retreaters was further slowed by the carrying and stretchering of our dead and wounded.

Actually, the surprise incursion had gone well, but for the fact that we two remaining were now pinned to the ground just inside the front edge of the tree-line, as all hell was breaking loose, shattering the forest trees and their branches. The special troops had just begun their slowed retreat, and we could leave no one behind but ourselves, my Major friend and I.

The lead Rouge were advancing, haphazardly, with some old and assorted mini-artillery, with an entire battalion or division some ways behind. We would not last where we were, but we had to stay behind for yet another reason, for we were the information and intelligence gatherers when in the field and on the ground, as well as back at our base in Hawaii.

All we had was a machine gun, but a large one, hidden a bit further back in the woods, recently dug out of the ground, where we had left it on a prior occasion of recon. Always think many moves ahead. Yet, it was not quite the right time to retrieve it and use it, which is of knowing when to move, not just where, on the chessboard, for we’d have to be somewhat exposed to use it, plus it wouldn’t be that useful against the machines firing into our area, and it would draw attention to our troops’ retreat path, for the KR didn’t exactly know where we were, or if any of us still were. Do not show yourself until you have to. We had to survive at least ten more long minutes.

The fire was beginning to converge on us, whether by luck or a good sense of sweep, from either side, but not yet straight on, where a medium size boulder sat, just up ahead in the grassy field, as why we had chosen the spot. Do or die.

We dashed out and crept up to it, it already having an end split just off of it. We needed more time, at least many or several minutes. We dug out the ground behind the really big rock a foot or so deep, exposing the part of the boulder yet underground, and laid in the depression. Another minute or so and the above ground portions of the rock would be gone, and soon they were, shattering and flying away.

The enemy would see no one behind the rock which was no longer there, but just might figure it out soon. I raised a small bending scope and noted the yet noiseless jets approaching on the horizon, behind the battalion, as well as a vanguard of Klemmers approaching at 600 yards. We just needed 60 seconds now, or even half, as it turned out.

The music began to play upon the drama…

At 30 seconds, the enemy first heard the sounds of the jets, crying to all the rest to retreat, yet some of the vanguard still ran toward our woods, perhaps preferring that over an open field. Not good, neither for us nor for the special troops that were still retreating through the forest, who could still become targets at the river shore clearing, while boarding.

At 0 seconds, the air-strike landed on the main battalion, a fine diversion for us IAs, and so we rose from our would-be graves and ran back into the woods, rolling out the machine gun, blasting most of the on-comers away for quite a while. The chess moves had come to pass, although still ongoing into new territory.

The machine gun finally overheated and jammed. We made no pause, which is more of the training, and so we were up and off into the jungle like bats out of hell, not wanting to become meat-loaf.

The enemy, a bit shocked at the silence, had taken rather too long to give chase, but that they then did, yet still a hundred yards off or more, their bead and their one lucky projection blasting the Major to bits and instant death with some great munition, just twenty yards behind me, he an older man and of a higher rank, as I was a lieutenant.

The rock had been hard, and the road of the trail was long…

Yet I knew that the General would not leave me behind, as long as I was relatively on time and/or could give him some indication that I was alive, pending, of course, the fact that we weren’t supposed to be here, and the less attention on it the better. The arriving enemies at the shore, if more came in greater numbers, could be better dealt with by firing on them from the other side of the river.

I reached for the radio, but then remembered that it had been assigned to the Major, my mentor and my friend, even though I wasn’t even a Captain yet… nor now even the total captain of my fate, for the chess board had now crashed and fallen to the ground.

He, this young lieutenant of myself of 40 years ago, believed that luck would never fail—so he ran like the wind through the jungle, surely knowing. He’d what he’d come for, now hopeful to find the help at the shore. The relentless ones were not far behind, that ill-fated menace of the bad kind.

Miss fortune laughed, and said, “No road could be too hard to tread, for we are fearless. To those, a boon—for they ever seize the opportune.”

“I see you, fairest happening.”

Just past a sharp turn, in the trees, he suddenly dropped to his knees and fired into his pursuers mean as they came upon the scene, using all his ammo but for one round, then hurried on, with nary a sound.

“I am wide aware,” Miss Karma, “Of this continuing dharma—that chance shines as my sun, for, she, in turn, happens on everyone.”

“Oh, say it is your lot, my friend and lover,” she answered back, granting him cover.

Listening, he could hear ever more troops rushing through the night, in groups, about a half-mile back, around the loops, far enough away.

“I gratefully welcome thee, Miss Lady Luck of Dice, though I may pay a late fee for my pick up so precise.”

Ms. Destiny Serendipity smiled, saying, “The game is on; we are yet alive and playing. Let joy and innocence prevail; believe that luck will never fail.”

He moved on, ever faster, cheating lame old Death, a third wind becoming of her vaporous breath, it blowing this D-I-A operative onward to the shore, ever toward. He could hear the whirling chopper, but now receding was its doppler, he thus grieving of its leaving.

“Am I much too late—still too far? Shall I curse you all, destined stars?”

“No,” said Lovely Dear Twist of Fate, for you have one bullet left for chance, not to use to sleep or dream perchance.”

But the chopper was rising nigh, up into the star-crossed sky.

“Shall to self I take this bullet now that the bus has left?”

“Oh, no,” Miss Lucky Break Encouraged, “Do not be at all discouraged, for you know it shall not be so and what with it you now must do.”

“Yes, perhaps it shall be so in some plight coinciding in a most kempt and hapful night.”

He smiled and then knelt to ground, and sent his last bright tracer round just ahead of the copter now departing, his minor wounds yet sorely smarting.

“I bless you with all my lucky charms, my good and well-fated man of arms.”

The door-gunner noted the red tracer and whence it came of the river vapors.

“Captain, turn back and take a look; here awaits a fortuitous accidental fluke.”

“I am an uncursed, non-jinxed agent man. Let my joyous innocence prevail again.”

He jumped into the rescue’s hovering haven, directing the door-gunner’s firings, wavin’.

“Fare thee well, my nightly knight” Dame Fortune wished upon his sight. “You recognized me even in the dark.”

She said, after, “With your General that we met in Tahiti?”

“He ran the mission.”

“He’s a good man, and so are you, but you’re lucky to be alive.”

“I sure am, especially now, with you.”