Rival of Atlantis

IX

GILLIAN CASUALLY WALKED PASS THE guardhouse towards the fence. As she walks, her eyes drank the surroundings, taking note of the details like printing a copy of it in her head. She is gifted with a vast expanse of memory and her photographic memory is as clear as a shot from a modern day camera.

She heard a male voice talking to someone in Spanish. Then another voice replied in same language. They are talking about their experience overnight.

As someone who travels around the globe, major languages are things she is learning. It is true that she got a little vocabulary in French, Mandarin, Spanish, German and Belgian, but nobody can use major languages to sell her. Tapping her vocabulary, she understood that the guards fell asleep then a lot happened overnight; one of them even said about a dream of seeing her companion drop on the ground.

My head is in pain, her mind translated the statement of the first voice and is followed by a crunchy laugh. Your dreams have effects in real world.

Electric failure, came the second voice in Spanish. The fire caused by generators and the boss is trapped in the tunnel.

She paced away from the guardhouse, distancing herself out of earshot. She always prefers her calls made in private. It gives her the ease of talking no limits over the phone without giving a lot of information about her to anyone around. The common mistake of most people is revealing a lot of information when talking over the phone. Gillian cannot sell even a tidbit of information that could be used against her no matter how invaluable it is.

She dialed a number of the nearest SAR headquarters. As the phone rings, her eyes were on this wide gush that was cut on the fence. She was thinking who could have made the cuts at the fence as the phone on the other end rings, when a familiar voice broke the line.

At the other end of the line, a man in a U-shaped computer console is flying his hands over three keyboards while his eyes are jumping across five monitors. Just when the telephone rang at his far right, he picked up.

"SAR San Jose, Costa Rica Headquarters," the male voice came on the line.

"John?" Gillian said in surprise. "I did not know Laurent sent you nearby."

John Umari, is the Advanced Technological Director of SAR. Like Gillian, he leads a team that has no permanent crew aside from the Advanced Technological Assistant Director. He may lead two or even fifty people under his team, depending on the projects. If Gillian's task is more on scientific research, all technology-related matters are his job. He is a pure-blooded Filipino and only stands five feet at six inches tall. He weighs one hundred and seventy pounds in a body that was packed with shredded muscles. He has a thin black hair in crew cuts and gazes through fierce brown eyes. Unlike his ancestors, John has a white complexion. Overall, the man is a complete chick magnet for all ladies who happened to be in same height range as him.

Gillian is one of the first employees of SAR when it was incepted. As one of the first people in the agency, she had been given the privilege to recommend talents for vacancies. She did not only hire Summer under her team, but also made a recommendation for John.

John could only be the employee under the SAR banner that does not possess a degree; even the drivers of SAR have finished their schooling. When Gillian first met him when she was on vacation in the Philippines, he was working as a sales personnel of a computer shop that offers repair services, and he was not even one of their technicians. Gillian needed their help about corrupted files in her laptop computer back then. One of the technician recommended installation of few applications for a high price which she turned down. It is then that John whispered to her while jotting a mobile number.

"I can do it for you, ma'am, for a pack cigarettes," the young John said. In the end, Gillian contacted the number and they met at a local fast-food chain. Gillian paid for the meal while John worked at her laptop. After an hour, her files were recovered.

After fixing her laptop, Gillian asked few more information about the man who just fixed her problems. She asked about educational background or so, but the young man said he never set foot in college because of poverty. He just learned to analyze computer language, programming and all sort of technology-related matters on his own, but unfortunately, no company hires someone based on what he can do but what is written on a paper. Gillian then recommended the man for SAR when she learned they are looking for technology experts, hoping he will land as an aide or something. The interview came and he did not fail to impress Patricia Laurent and eventually landed as Advanced Technological Director. Ever since then, John who just access the internet through backdoors, do computer-tweaking jobs for a pack of cigarettes and cheat programs for fun, evolved. Now, supplied with everything he needs, he can do almost everything if it is technology-related.

"Boss granted my project request," John uttered in a voice that has traces of a Broadway singer in it. "She wanted SAR HQs around the world to have access to SAM."

Gillian recognized the acronym SAM. She is familiar to what John calls his latest toy, an artificial intelligence program dubbed as Special Advanced Mind, an exclusive property of SAR but is a creation of John. The AI is programmed into a subserver, series of mainframes occupying a room a basketball court in size at their main headquarters at France and a main server .

"You gave her chocolates in exchange for approval I guess," she said with a suppressed laugh. Everyone knows that only Gillian can make the Director says yes into an issue she already said no.

"You're insulting my genius soul," John said as if dismayed. "She just saw the value of my greatest creation and wants to share it to the whole family."

"Sounds like scary as some movie wherein an AI taking over everything."

"Wait for the phone application before saying it's scary. Anyway, why did you call? You are consuming a lot of expenses in this call, Boss Laurent will not be happy."

"I need an airlift for Summer's toy."

"Which one?"

"In the warehouse, wooden crate. It's labeled as Bullet Horse."

"That's the scary one. You have a minute? Let me check on it."

"All the time in the world, Laurent is the one paying this call."

John left her hanging, placing the phone atop the table. Asking the first person he saw where the warehouse would be, he dashed for it. It only took him five minutes before he went back to his seat in the console; he only needed to size up the crate labeled as "Bullet Horse." He typed a few commands on the keyboard, looking for the list of their air assets and itinerary of their travels. "Good news and bad news."

"Bad news first," Gillian braced herself for whatever it is.

"The cargo cannot be airlifted," John said flatly. "All of our air assets are out. The earliest due of return..... 6PM tonight. Can you wait?"

"Hell no! Lives are at stake here!" Gillian's voice rose and may have damaged any nearby Richter scale.

"Easy, I still have good news for you. One of our cargo planes is due to fly an hour later from Palmar Sur Airport. I can arrange for the transport of Summer's toy."

"A cargo plane? We are in the middle of Costa Rican forest. There's no way it will land here."

"A Boeing 737 Max 8 in fact. And I know what you are thinking. We will not try to make it land at Abangares, Gunacaste, Costa Rica where there is no possible airstrip that can accommodate the plane."

Gillian bit her lip thinking how he knew her exact location. She instantly thought of their GPS locator and the realization dawned on her that she is talking to a technology geek. For sure she can be located by use of some technology. She gazed up to the blue sky and the feeling that someone can know her exact location in a few taps of keys brought goose bumps on her back. "So how are we getting our package? You'll let it rain down from the sky?"

"A little bit like that but with a twist. Give me a call when you have the bird on sight."

"Right." Then she hung up.

After two hours, nearly lunch, she and Summer saw a plane from the 737 family. The plane is hovering in a wide circle up the sky. She dialed a number on the sat-phone and was connected to John instantly.

"The bird is there?" John's lively voice came through the phone as he hurriedly punched keys across three sets of board. One of the monitors blinked and then displayed a GPS map with a red dot and coordinates. The other monitor blinked next and showed a copy of a live satellite feed of some mountainous terrain with green vegetation. Another showed a GPS map, but this time in a hybrid of map and satellite image. The last monitor showed the planet and debris surrounding it and as John types, a yellow line connected three dots surrounding the globe model. The yellow one ended on some dot just way far below the others surrounding the planet. In all the monitors except the one with a green model, a green arrow is evident and is pointed to the red dot. Then John's right hand took hold on some kind of a joystick.

"Soaring like an eagle," Gillian gazed up as the plane hovered up above.

"Hold on a minute," John said. The background of tapping on keys is evident on the line. "Let me contact the flight captain."

Gillian heard the inaudible voice of John on the line as John set the phone aside and spoke to the headphones with extended mic on his lips. For Gillian, it is like he went in a distance and is talking to someone. After a while, he went back on the line. "Out pilot says cargo is going down. It will be there in a jiffy."

Gillian and Summer gazed up the plane hovering in a circle. They never waited long before a small thing seems to detach itself from the airplane’s body. Something is falling as the plane continued its circular pattern.

Men together with the soldiers from the US Navy came running towards the two ladies. They heard the roar of the plane that did not leave since coming above them. They are all gazing up as the thing that came from the plane grew from a tiny speck up above.

"Our plane carries a repeater system," John explained on the phone. "With the help of SAM, I was able to use about three commercial satellites to relay my signal to your cargo."

"Using commercial satellites with their permission?"

"SAM made an undetectable connection. If they cannot detect the untraceable connection, who would needs permission?"

"That's illegal," Gillian protested, unwary that her voice rose a little higher. Eyes around are on her now.

"Only if you get caught."

"What is this signal you are talking about?" Gillian is puzzled on how John thinks of delivering the cargo they needed. But even in the dark, she well knew that John will deliver whatever they need by all means.

"That is not my crate falling," Summer uttered. "Is it?"

"Matter of fact," Gillian responded. "It is. And is falling fast down on Earth because of some stunt John only knows."

"Not a stunt. Here's how it goes. From my location, I am broadcasting a signal that uses the satellites as repeaters homing towards the repeater system in the plane," the speck of thing falling from the sky is now larger than before. "Deploying chutes!"

The falling thing shot up something upward which deployed three parachutes tied together by lines. Now Gillian can see how John wanted to deliver down their cargo. He is sending it down using chutes.

"Okay so you deployed chutes from our crate via remote control, congratulations," Gillian sarcastically said. "And it will fall down where the wind blows it."

"Not if you control where it lands."

"Okay, should I begin practicing telekinesis now?"

"No need," John said coolly. "The crate is tied unto this bell-shape thing, which is my latest toy. My toy controls all the tension in the chutes. Using principles of physics and a little of aerodynamics, I can control where the chute goes by toggling switches which is broadcasted to the chute control as commands. The toy makes its own computation then will loosen or increase tension in the ropes, either paying out or pulling in the lines, to control where it is going. It also auto-corrects the fall depending on the velocity of the wind and is greatly relying on my controls using a combination of GPS and satellite maps."

"Meaning, you control where it goes on a map." She looked at Summer and grinned on her. “John is sending your crate using his latest toy.”

"Yep! If I want it to fall over one a roof in a cluster of buildings near you, all I have to do is to navigate it using my joystick here."

"How many times you tested this new toy of yours?" Summer barked on the phone almost yelling at Gillian's face. The idea that the crate is being delivered using the new technological toy of John finally dawned on her.

"Is that Summer?" John asked with a grin. "Please do tell her that I tested prototype model of this on little scale model like toys. This model? First time airborne."

Gillian watched Summer gazed back in the sky. The fate of her precious creation was greatly tied to the invention of John that is holding the crate. Gillian noticed that she seldom took a gulp of air and the color is draining from her face. At that, she decided to imply the concept of white lies.

"John said this have been tested many times with at least 1 percent margin of error."

"Good to hear," Summer said, the color starting to flood back in her face.

"Liar," John said on the line followed by a crunchy series of laugh. "I locked up the device on your GPS location, Gillian. I will do my best to home it unto you."

"Best?"

"It's my first time to deploy this, I cannot make promises."

Giliian slowly walked away from the cluster of people who are gazing up and the she  whispered. "I want to be on the front seat when Summer flays you and dip you in some acid if you happen to destroy her baby."

"Call me back when there is a problem," John said coolly and before the line was cut he added, "Please take care of my prototype version."

Gillian walked towards the cluster of people who are still gazing up at the crate when it went near the ground. In a matter of minutes, the crate is a already some measure above the treetops and is homing unto the cluster of people. They gave way as the crate settled down with a soft woody thud. All the spectators found that the crate is a wooden cube with sides reaching two meters. The chutes settled over the crate, draping them as if curtain to shield it off from dust. Gillian asked the engineer to help it be carried to a nearby shade. The engineer gamely tasked about a dozen of men and it was done.

"Rescue equipment?" The engineer asked.

"A little less than and more than rescue equipment," Gillian said cheerily which brought a puzzling look unto the engineer's face.

"Let's get down to business," Gillian trailed the crate as the men carrying it, who found it mysteriously heavy, settled it down.