The Wind Guardian

Chapter 1

Chapter 1Cameron Taylor gazed quietly at the image in the broken mirror.

Only twenty-eight years old and already burnt to dust!

For him, waking up to an 8:30 p.m. alarm clock was just the start of another night's work. Stuck on the midnight shift at Mal Loma Nuclear Power Plant for the past eight months, he was still trying to adjust to his capsized schedule. Having answered a newspaper ad hiring 'Armed Responders' to protect a nuclear power plant 'from acts of terrorism and industrial sabotage,' he was initially enthused by the prospects of his new job. But the position turned out to be a boring routine of mundane security procedures and endless hours marching with a rifle on blacktop. Truth was, guarding a nuclear power plant from “acts of industrial sabotage” was simply not what it was cracked up to be, nor what he expected.

He stared into the mirror, n***d except for a pair of white boxers.

Nothing had changed, he thought.

The time on the small, fold-out digital clock sitting on the shelf beneath the medicine cabinet was 9:20 p.m. Beside it, the tube of tooth paste, still with cap off, remained lying exactly as he had left it the night before. On the shelf beside that, carelessly discarded facedown was his badge.

Here I begin my upside-down world, he thought. While the 'real' world sleeps, I drape on my armor.

From the very start, his body had rejected the time change. He tried giving up caffeine, took Ambien to no avail. He had even purchased a yoga CD thinking the gentle sound of waves might help lull him to sleep. For some it came easy. For Cameron it seemed, adjusting to night work was next to impossible.

He reached in, turned on the shower, and climbed in with a million thoughts rushing through his head, none of which were any good. In less than five minutes, he stood fully clothed before the mirror with his hair slicked straight back. He donned a regal blue uniform. On the shoulder was a telling patch—the insignia of three spinning atoms in counter-orbits. Bordered across the top by the word “Nuclear,” and arched across the bottom with the words, “Security Service.”

He picked up his badge and held it to the light. He never imagined the treadmill it would eventually become.

It had all started out ambitious enough just eight months before. Cheerful at the prospects of his new job, Cameron was thrilled to have passed the initial interview. He took on the challenge of the physical agility tests like a school boy at a track meet.

The requirements included a four-hundred-meter dash in less than seventy-five seconds, a one-hundred-and-fifty-pound-sack-of-sand-drag across fifty-yards of blacktop, and a ten-foot-wall scale with a dummy rifle strapped to his shoulder, all of which he passed easily enough. Next came the security clearance and background investigation, which put some light on the enormity of the position. They wanted to know every detail of his past life, even what grammar school he attended.

They're absolutely serious about this stuff, Cameron remembered thinking.

First there was the fingerprinting—a LiveScan digital-ten-print which fed directly into the FBI's mainframe in Washington DC, and into the Department of Justice Office in Sacramento, revealing Cameron to be clean except for a few speeding violations. This was followed by an eighteen-page background questionnaire, confirmed by a polygraph test and scanned into N.O.R.A.—Non-Obvious-Relationship-Awareness, a 'next-generation' cross-referencing software capable of linking members of terrorist cells and crime groups in more than seventy-five countries. Lastly was the MMPI—the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, which was evaluated, analyzed, and followed-up via an interview with a Pre-employment Consult Psychologist.

He was an odd-looking guy, Cameron had thought, bald with glasses, the picture perfect scientific type. Cameron anticipated trouble coming when he was handed the read-out of his MMPI. The first sentence read:

You lied when taking this test to make yourself look better to your prospective employer.

“Is it true?” The Psychologist asked pointedly.

Cameron hesitated. He knew enough about the MMPI to think twice about faking it. He had researched it ahead of time. The test was said to be capable of identifying an alcoholic with ninety-seven percent accuracy and to fish-out the major symptoms of social and personal maladjustment with prophetic-like accuracy, and was the primary screening tool used by employers for candidates for high-risk public safety positions.

“Sure it's true,” he replied, staring at the computerized print-out. “I need a job.”

The psychologist nodded his head and scribbled in his notepad.

“Okay then,” the psychologist said. “Next question: If you could be anyone in the world other than yourself, who would it be?”

Cameron had to think about it for a moment. Frankly, it was a bit weird being asked this question by a psychologist. The first thing that came to his mind was how therapists are crazier than their clients. And besides, what does it have to do with employment at a nuclear power plant?

But after a little thought, he thought he'd better answer. It might have some underling value after all.

“Bugs Bunny,” he replied.

“Bugs Bunny?” the psychologist questioned, mulling it over like a scientist pondering a new mathematical equation. “That's interesting. I never had that answer before.” He scribbled sentences on to his notepad.

Cameron looked worried. He was not trying to be funny. It was an honest answer.

“And why Bugs Bunny?” the psychologist asked.

Cameron glanced at the ceiling panels, thoughtfully. “Well, I really admire the crafty little rabbit. It seems no matter how dreadful things get, how bad the situation could be, I mean, you know how deep they'd pile it on him, and he'd still find a way out looking good and unruffled.”

The psychologist gazed back with fascination and scribbled furiously in his notepad.

Cameron thought he was doomed.

Despite the seemingly failed psychological interview, two weeks later he received a slim envelope in the mail, on which the return address was the San Roque PO Box for Mal Loma Nuclear Power Plant. Inside was a five-paragraph letter welcoming him to an “Elite Security Force,” a congratulatory statement on being selected, a line requesting that he report for training promptly at 8:00 a.m. the following Tuesday morning, and to arrive in what was described as “appropriate civilian attire.”

Cameron was elated. After six months of unemployment, searching for jobs with a less than impressive resume gapped with lengthy periods of unemployment, and with a savings account nearly depleted, he was happy to find work again.

Now he gazed back at his reflection in the mirror, feeling it was all for naught. There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, beyond which life cannot rise. It seems Cameron's ecstasy had come and gone at the tender age of twenty-eight. Aside from the occasional raccoon that wandered into the perimeter fence tripping the alarm system, truth was there was little action to speak of. He found neither the intrigue nor sophistication promised by the recruitment ad. Night after night, he toiled to the same boredom. The job was without future, full of bureaucratic rules and regulations that seemed absurd at best, and governed by a bunch of corporate executives sitting in a high-rise office building in San Francisco. A born optimist, charmed by nature and amused by humanity, he was indeed stricken with the ills of monotony.

Standing in the rain for hours on end with a rifle in one's hand; staring into a surveillance screen at the same motionless images; performing repetitious drills which neither made sense nor would ever be put to test; watching a clock hoping time will pass. Is that what life's all about?

His reflective image raised a doubting brow.

A security guard on the midnight shift, he thought, straightening his tie. Let's face it, that's what I am.

The one bright spot in his otherwise dismal existence was Grace Baker, a twenty-six-year-old new hire at the power plant, with whom Cameron had commenced an accelerated romance. The attraction had been immediate and mutual. In three short weeks, the two had found a fondness for one another likened to the romances of old Hollywood. In Grace, Cameron found a wild, defiant beauty; the type men cross oceans for. And now Cameron found himself thinking more about Grace than the prospects of looking for another job, which he had considered until Grace came into the picture.

Grace! Grace! Grace!

He took a deep breath. Time to defend the masses.

With one last look in the mirror, he pinned his badge to his chest, turned, and walked to the kitchen to make a sandwich, fill his thermos with hot coffee, place both in his lunch pail, and pile in a heap of potato chips. Then he grabbed his car keys, and headed for the door.