"Well, okay for now. But I don't want to hear you talking like that around the doctors. It would just be plain rude," Tabitha scolded me with her best Mama-said-don't-do-that voice.
I nodded and asked again, "Okay. So why was there no help from the good guys after the storms?"
"By the time the weather had settled down enough for aircraft to be sent in, we had managed to stumble along to the back gate at Eglin Air Force Base. Our communication filtered up the food chain much faster than you would believe. An order was sent out to stay out of the area until more was heard from us. Boy we sent a message in a big way didn't we?"
"Uh huh." No words could describe how badly I felt for the people involved in this whole ordeal.
"I know Anson. I had no brighter ideas of how to save us either. But, we're here and alive—and we kept the probe out of the hands of the communists, or terrorists or whoever."
"Johnny said the Communist Chinese, remember?" I corrected her.
"Sure he did. But why should we trust him? How do we know that he wasn't sending us down a blind alley? It could have been Usama Bin Laden as far as we know."
"I thought he was dead?"
"Are you sure?"
"Good point."
"One problem is that Johnny must have known everything about our program. Hell, he was our secretary and he had somehow managed a clearance. I guarantee that his customers have all of our blueprints, drawings, data sets, and everything else. Do you think they could rebuild an ECC or a warp probe?"
"I never thought about it. I don't see why they couldn't, if they were smart enough. If it's terrorists who were his customers, I would be more worried that small ECC bombs would be created and used. They just wouldn't have the bankroll to fund anything as large as a Warp Probe."
"That sounds logical, maybe. Remember how bankrolled the terrorists back in '01 were. Uncle Usama was loaded." Tabitha reminded me.
"That's why I just can't rule out the terrorist theory. Johnny was too well financed for it to be anything less than a large cell structure or a government. He had superfast fixed wing helicopters, surface to air anti-aircraft missiles, and he did mention that the Chinese were going to steal the probe on orbit. Didn't Mission Control tell us that the Chinese had a rocket on the pad but it wasn't ready for launch yet? We need some more intel on that."
"That's right. And he must have had a top-notch crew to get into the Vehicle Assembly Building to plant the bomb on the Shuttle. I think you're right. It must have been a government or at least an organization as big."
"We need to tell somebody this. These people or government could change the balance of power in the world!"
I was terrified. Much like I had been as a kid in the seventies and eighties during the Cold War. Now I was far more terrified by a warp missile than any intercontinental ballistic missile. The worst part is that I had invented the terror. Now I know how Einstein and Oppenheimer must have felt after the Rosenbergs. Or was Einstein already dead by then? For that matter, was Oppie?
"Relax Anson. After the press conference with the Vice President in New Mexico, we're flying back with him to D.C. to debrief the Joint Chiefs and the President."
"Vice President?" I asked Tabitha. She told me to read the cup in my hand, the one that I had been sipping water from for more than thirty minutes. I did. The logo on the side explained that the cup was from the Office of the Vice President of the United States of America.
"Air Force Two?" I asked while studying the cup.
"Bright boy." Tabitha smiled at me and patted my arm with her good hand. "Buy 'em books and send 'em to college . . ." she hinted at the old joke. She kissed my cheek.
"Give me a break," I said. "I've been mostly dead all day!"
I only waved and smiled and said that I was fine as they rolled my stretcher by the press corps at Edwards. Then I shook the Vice President's hand as he thanked me for what I'd done for the country. I never got to discuss the state of world affairs with him. He must be a busy man. Tabitha and I did get about thirty minutes with the Joint Chiefs and with some guys from agencies that didn't exist. They basically told us that they had "top men" working on it. I was beginning to understand how Indiana Jones must've felt.
The general premise was that "black bag" guys and Special Ops could retrieve whatever was lost and discredit anything left behind. Tabitha and I weren't as confident in that assessment. I tried to make myself clear on that point, but arguing while lying in a gurney isn't a real power position.
So, we went home and Tabitha checked me into Huntsville Hospital for a few days of observation. The second morning—let's see that would be four days after the space-warp—Tabitha and I were eating breakfast in my room when Jim finally got around to seeing me.
"Jim! What took you so long?" I asked.
"Hi there slacker. How you doing? Tabitha is he really just goldbrickin'?" Jim replied.
"Oh absolutely, Jim. He is the laziest S.O.B. I ever met." Tabitha laughed and clutched her ribs.
"Forget him, how are you feeling?" Jim asked Tabitha.
"Side hurts when I laugh or sneeze, but I'll make it."
"Jim," I started, "it worked! Can you believe it? It worked." Tabitha gave me a dirty look, meaning that we weren't supposed to discuss the space warp outside of a secure area.
"Cool." Jim smiled and winked.
I noticed Jim was looking rather tired and that his clothes looked slept in, peaked around the gills as my dad might have said. So I asked, "Jim, you been out partying or something? You look kind of rough."
Jim looked at me with tears in his eyes, "No, Doc. I've been here all night. 'Becca's not doing so well."
"What do you mean?" I asked. Tabitha held my hand and I could tell that she was holding back tears as well.
"Anson, she's in the intensive care unit. About five days ago she took a turn for the worse with all of her asthma and allergy symptoms as well as some sort of flulike thing. She's been incoherent for the past two days and running very high fevers. Nobody knows what to do here and the doctors don't have much hope." Jim's head sunk and he cried.
"What!?" I rose from my bed and threw the covers off of me. "She is here?"
"Anson sit down!" Tabitha started.
"Tabitha, can it. No way I ain't going to see her." I stood up and dressed. About that time a nurse came to collect my tray and give me my dose of daily antibiotics and pain meds. She asked where I was going and I told her that I needed a drink and that the stuff they served in this bar was watered down. She "harrumphed" and exited. I pulled on my pants and a T-shirt that was in my overnight bag. Tabitha had even brought my toothbrush.
By the time I was dressed, the nurse had returned with a doctor and a much larger nurse—or maybe he was an orderly.
"Mr. Clemons I suggest that you stay in bed a while longer," the doctor told me.
"Sorry Doc, I'm going up to the ICU to see a friend. You can join me if you like." I told him. The orderly stepped between me and the door to my room.
"Perhaps you should listen to the doctor," the orderly said.
I looked at Jim and Tabitha as I stretched my arms slowly and yawned. I needed to see how strong I felt. I felt fine—just very sore. I rolled my head around to loosen my neck and then stepped toward the door. The orderly placed a hand on my chest.
"Sir, you should reconsider." He smiled.
"Doctor, I am paying for medical attention and this room, not for imprisonment." I said as I wrist-locked the orderly's hand and twisted his hand backward and showed him his own palm. He must not have like the way his palm looked because he collapsed to his knees in either disgust or pain. Probably, pain. I walked past him and let go of his wrist. Jim and Tabitha never said a word. They just followed me.
"Lead the way, Jim." I motioned him around me.
The three of us found the elevators, then up to the ICU. There was some slight resistance until I told a nurse that Tabitha and I were Rebecca's parents. She didn't seem to care if I was lying or not and let us through to see her.