Committed

COMMITTED by A.R. Kirby Episode 11 In which the Collective takes notice M eanwhile, some 239,000 miles away, Regular Associate Stephen Sufjan of the Collective put his hands on the padded rail of the balcony overlooking the Monitor Room and smiled. It was going to be a good shift, he thought, and he was eager to begin. The eighty or so Associates working on the shift with Sufjan shared his attitude and enthusiasm. About three-quarters of the Monitor Staff for the night were already at their stations, studying their own sleek monitors from comfortable chrome and leather chairs. The remaining twenty or so Associates gathered reports from the previous shift, made lattes, or huddled in brainstorming sessions on the overstuffed leather sofas in one of several conversation clusters placed seemingly at random around the room. Giant monitors -- covering three walls from the softly carpeted floor to the thirty-foot ceiling -- cast a pleasant glow across the room as graphs, charts, and maps flickered by in succession. It was a comfortable room, but meant for business. Sufjan thought it was almost as if Mission Control at NASA had been commandeered by IKEA. He smiled again. His reverie was broken by a quiet voice behind him. “This gets so freakin’ boring sometimes,” said the voice. “Monitor, monitor, monitor. Nothing ever happens.” Committed by A.R. Kirby Sufjan turned away from the bustling activity ten feet below him to see Junior Associate Brandon Mays leaning back in his chair, booted feet propped on the Control Console, picking at his fingernails. “I know I’ve only been with the Collective three months, and I’ve got a lot to learn,” Mays said to no one as he examined a particularly impressive piece of dirt recently removed from beneath his left thumbnail, “but I already know I hate Monitor duty. This is the third time I’ve pulled it. I don’t see how you can be so excited about it.” Sufjan walked back to the Control Console, took the open chair to the left of Mays, and began arranging his workspace for the shift. Mays was his assistant for the night, a relatively new Associate who would be doing little this evening, or so Sufjan hoped. As Duty Associate for the shift, Sufjan was responsible for management of the Monitor Room, and Mays would be his trainee and right-hand man for the next eight hours. “Sure it gets boring,” Sufjan said as he examined a clipboard on the desk in front of him, “but it’s necessary. When something big happens -- and it will -- we’ll be the first ones to know about it.” “The first ones to know -- expect for the Associates on the ground,” Mays grumbled. “If I’d known how much time I was going to spend looking at a computer screen, I would have stayed in Hartford.” Sufjan turned and looked with disbelief at the 28-year-old sitting next to him. “And done what?” the older Associate asked. “You were a hacker who got caught, and who was about to do some hard time for -- what was it? -- cracking the IRS database and clearing the tax records of a couple hundred thousand people?” Mays smiled wanly. Sufjan ignored the hint of braggadocio and continued. “Thanks to the Collective, you’ve got no record now, the government couldn’t find you even if it wanted to -- and it doesn’t want to, trust me, the Collective took care of that -- you’ve got a great place to live, and you’re doing something important. 2 Episode 11 What’s better than that?” “I know, I know,” Mays said, trying to be a bit more active in monitoring his station. “The Collective has been great, and I really like it here. But I thought I would be making a difference.” “You are making a difference,” Sufjan replied. “Our work here gives important information to Collective Associates on the ground so they can make good decisions about whatever it is they are dealing with at the time. From here, we monitor all aspects of the world around us, providing information for all of the Collective branches -- paranormal, super-scientific, extra-terrestrial, and all the rest. We’re the eyes and ears for the entire Collective.” Mays was more attentive now, something that did not surprise Sufjan. Mays wasn’t the first Associate to complain about monitor duty, and the short speech Sufjan always gave seemed to rouse their passion, at least for a shift or two. But it wasn’t just a speech to Sufjan; it was his passion. He specialized in Monitor Room duty, having focused on this particular area for most of his five years with the Collective. He knew most everything about the Monitoring Stations, how they functioned, what they recorded, and what was done with the information received; practically every Associate in the Collective regarded Sufjan as an expert in the field. Mays. Sufjan pointed to a monitor just above and to the left of “Let’s take a look at the Dimensional Transference monitor, as an example,” Sufjan said. “Any time there is movement between dimensions, it leaves a unique energy signature. So we have systems in place which monitor those energy fields.” Sufjan pointed to a smooth line on the monitor, one of several dozen. “You see that line right there? That represents the energy field for one of the known dimensions. See how it’s nice and flat? That means there’s no energy transfer occurring. If there 3 Committed by A.R. Kirby was, we’d see a spike on the graph.” “Of course, most of the dimension-jumping is done by our guys, and they are supposed to let us know ahead of time,” Sufjan continued, turning back to his own monitor. “Generally, it’s not a big deal to see a spike on the screen. But every once in a while, we’ll get to see something really unusual.” “Like what?” Mays asked, his curiosity roused at least momentarily. “A couple of years ago, we had this really nasty bunch of folks from the Arugula dimension try to sneak into our world, coming into Paris, of all places,” Sufjan said. “If they had come across as they naturally appeared in their dimension, we would have had no problem identifying them -- a fifty-foot tall, brightred, heavily-armed lizard destroying the Louvre would have attracted attention and a Collective containment squad would have been sent out and that would have been that. Unfortunately, the Arugulans were able to disguise themselves as human -- and incredibly effectively. No one would have known they were here.” “You see, the Arugulans are a warlike race,” Sufjan continued, “and they were planning to send an army to earth in order to conquer the planet. The even got a dozen or so Arugulans across dimensions. However, thanks to Monitoring, we were able to detect the cross-dimensional transfer, locate the source of the transmission, and send out Collective associates to quietly and effectively deal with the problem. The Arugulans haven’t bothered us again. Just one more notch in the Collective’s belt for saving the world.” Mays let out a low whistle. “I know,” Sufjan said. “You might ask, ‘why don’t governments handle this kind of stuff?’ It’s a good question. The simple answer is that they can’t handle it. They’ve got their hands full with their own messes. They’re too busy dealing with politics, 4 Episode 11 wars, and the rest of the world around them to pay attention to the space between the cracks. So that’s why we’re here -- to live between the cracks and catch what falls through before it affects the planet. The rest of the world doesn’t know the Collective even exists.” “So tell me more about the Arugulans,” Mays said. “How did you know they crossed dimensions?” “I guess this is as good a time as any for you to learn about Dimensional Transference,” Sufjan said. “I was going to save that for next week, but you might as well learn it now.” He got up and stood behind Mays’ chair, then poked at the monitor in front of Mays. A number of running graphs appeared in front of them. “Ok, you see this line right here?” Sufjan pointed to one of the three dozen or so smooth lines on the screen. “That represents the energy being transmitted from the Arugulan dimension. There’s a line for all the dimensions that we know of, and we are constantly searching for more.” “So how did you know that the Arugulans came across?” Mays asked intently. “Well, dimensional transfer requires a tremendous amount of energy,” Sufjan explained. “When we see a spike on the graph, we can be fairly certain that a transfer has taken place. Sometimes it’s an anomaly, sometimes it’s a black hole showing off, but generally an energy spike means someone -- or something -- has moved between their dimension and ours. When the Arugulans came across, they left a gigantic footprint. They’re not very subtle.” “Well, what about that?” Mays pointed to a different line on the screen which showed a small bump. “Oh, it’s probably nothing,” Sufjan said, “you see small anomalies all the time. Probably just an energy fluctuation, but we check it anyway. Do you remember the process for investigating a 5 Committed by A.R. Kirby dimensional anomaly reading?” Mays scanned his brain; he knew he’d heard this in class just a day or two before, but he couldn’t recall the procedure. “Ok,” Sufjan said after a moment. “Let me help. First, you zoom in on the anomaly and select it, then copy and paste...” “Paste it into the Comparison Module,” Mays completed the sentence and followed the instructions on the screen. “The Comparison Module scans the reading and looks for historical matches in the database.” “Exactly,” Sufjan said, stepping back from Mays and turning his attention momentarily to the continuing hubbub in the rest of the Monitor Room. “That way we know if this is something we’ve dealt with before. So what is it this time? A supernova in the Rho quadrant? One of the guys in Arcana doing an experiment?” “Uh, no,” Mays said, checking another screen. “There’s nothing in the logs about any of our guys doing any dimensional work today, and there’s no unusual cosmic activity reported...” “What did the Comparison Module come up with?” Sufjan stood next to Mays and looked at the screen. “Just one match,” Mays said. “About a year ago.” “Hmm,” Sufjan leaned in to review this historical data. The match was nearly perfect in duration and amplitude; both curves indicated a brief burst of activity, but not a very powerful one. If it was a dimensional breach, Sufjan thought, whoever was in it didn’t go very far. The archive showed the date the surge occurred (June of last year), the duration (.35 seconds), and a brief log entry which stated that the surge may have occurred in eastern Europe, but further determination of origin was deemed unnecessary because of the low power shown by the anomaly. “Do we have a location fix on the surge from today?” 6 Episode 11 Sufjan asked as he sat down at his own station and began calling up monitors in front of him. “Let me see...” Mays replied, looking at a globe on the display in front of him. A blinking circle surrounded the southeastern United States. “It’s from the U.S., but I can only get a 1,500 kilometer radius,” he said. “It wasn’t long enough to get a better fix.” “Let’s log this and send it on through,” Sufjan said. “It’s probably nothing, but I want the guys upstairs to take a look at this.” He composed a brief message, attached a file containing the records of the two energy fluctuations, and sent it on it’s electronic way to Senior Monitoring Associates for review. Mays looked questioningly at Sufjan. “So what do we do now?” he asked. “We get back to work,” Sufjan replied, getting up from his chair. “Now where were we... ah, yes, Dimensional Transference. Now, take a look at the toolbar...” Sufjan was interrupted by a chirp from the communicator in his right ear. He shot a frustrated glance at Mays and straightened before answering. “Associate Sufjan,” Mays heard him reply to whoever was on the other end. “Yes. That is correct. I agree, they are a perfect match. Who found it? That was Junior Associate Mays. Yes. Uh Huh. Shall I patch him in? One moment...” Sufjan touched a spot on his belt, and Mays heard his communicator come to life with a pleasant chime. He stiffened in his chair. The voice in his head was clear and commanding, but somehow almost gentle. “Associate Mays, this is Senior Associate Merkle. I want to congratulate you for finding this anomaly. How long have you been with the Collective, son?” 7 Committed by A.R. Kirby “Three months, sir,” Mays replied. “Three months. And already finding phenomena for us to investigate,” the voice on the other end of the communicator said. “Well done, well done. Are you enjoying monitor duty?” Mays grinned across at Sufjan, who was stifling a chuckle. “I’m learning more about it, sir,” he said, eyes twinkling. “Well, you best not grow too attached to it,” the voice replied. “You’re going to investigate this situation. It’s probably nothing, but we want to get a fix on what this is. This particular energy signature has showed up twice now. Once is happenstance. Twice shows intent. Now get back to your bunk and gather your things. I want you on a transport in an hour. You’ll get updates on the way.” Mays looked quizzically at Sufjan, who just shrugged his shoulders. It wouldn’t be the first time the Collective threw a green Associate at an unknown issue; everybody has to have a first mission sometime, Sufjan thought. “Well, Associate? Are you on your way or what?” The voice in Mays’ head was insistent. “Yes, sir!” Mays said as got up from the console and turned toward the stairs down from the command console. He would have to hurry if he was to pack and be on a transport in an hour. “Good luck,” Sufjan said. “I hope you find something really weird.” “Yeah, me too,” Mays replied, and he headed out the door at a trot. To be continued... 8