Chapter 10: It’s Not All Academic

In Inkie’s view, the ‘contest’ was a huge success from the start and a royal pain in the ass. Submissions rolled in. Good ones. But also, far too many pedantic, repetitive propositions that wholly missed the point of the contest. There were also a plethora of submissions from psychologists and similar professions that proposed to analyze ‘aliens’ to understand their aversion to violence. That was more than a little troubling. Had they guessed the intent of the symposium?

In short, the Pareto principle was once more demonstrated to be valid. Approximately eighty percent of the submissions were pure crap. Without Helva’s initial review, the Sa’arm would be turning left onto Fifth Avenue before the bottom of the pile could be reached.

Ah, but in the twenty percent were some real gems, insightful, articulate, and to the point. Now if these folks could present, teach, as well as write. An unexpected bonus was the number of unsolicited submissions from musicians, songwriters, and other non-academics who learned of the contest ‘through the backdoor’.

From one not-yet-famous songwriting team, they received a long, original, heroic ballad with a second copy carefully annotated with notes on why a given idea was used, what the choices had been, and a full discussion of the process to develop the work’s various themes. And the score? Inkie was enchanted. The work was so good and well developed, that Inkie was beside herself with recriminations for not looking to that source in her program design.

Early one evening, Inkie and the extended family were gathered for dinner when Helva interrupted the flow of conversation, <Inkie, Love, I think you want to take this call.>

<Okay, who is it?> she asked.

<A surprise. A real surprise.>

Inkie sighed and said aloud, “This is Inkie. Who is this, please?”

An excited voice answered in a rush, “I thought you’d been extracted, but rumor has it you are the behind-the-scenes impetus for the contest and upcoming symposium in Boston. The one on heroic themes and ballads? The one that just might be looking for ways to explain humanity to the Confederacy?”

“Maybe,” Inkie answered, “at least part of the Confederacy. Who is this? What’s your interest?”

“I don’t suppose you could use another panel member? I’m considering a musical about humanity and the Confederacy and the fight with the Sa’arm.” The voice broke into, “My name is Alexander Hamilton. And there’s a million things I haven’t done. But just you wait, just you wait...”

Shocked and thrilled, Inkie replied, “Eliza! Is the best thing in our lives. And never lose sight of the fact. That you have been blessed with the best wife!” She dropped back to her normal voice, well, sorta normal, “You? You want to be a part of this? When can you be here? I’ll send someone, whenever!”

“Well, I presumed you’d be interested, forward of me I know, but I wrapped up my immediate future, packed, and can leave anytime,” he replied. “Let me tell you where I am.”

“Don’t bother!” injected Helva. “I already know where you are calling from. Is your pre-pack with you? You’re authorized four, but for the right mix, we can bump that up.”

“My four ladies are in the next room,” he replied, “You probably know that Vanessa is also a sponsor, so we’ll be keeping three open slots. No dependent retrievals are needed. Our two boys are with Vanessa.”

“Okay,” Inkie resumed control, “Here’s our offer. Yes, there’s a place on our panel for you. Your pre-pack is welcome. Once our drones confirm your location is safe and secure, we’ll detail Marines to extract you. Fair warning,” she continued, “anything goes wrong, there will probably be bodies, yours among them.”

“Understood,” came the reply. “We’ll wait to hear from you.”

Vivie looked at Gunny and Melody, “The Kuh’s Marines are total cherries for an extraction, but I know them all. They won’t panic, and they need the experience before our main events start. I’ll contact Pierce and ask for a detail. Any excess can staff reception.” She turned to Inkie, “I presume that we’ll house them with us on Helva?

“You can bet your sweet donkey on that!” Inkie exclaimed. She turned to Gunny Sam and told him, “You can take the time to finish eating before you arm up. I want the drones to give that hotel a complete go-over. Then we’ll move them out of their rooms – someplace else for the extraction.”

“You trying to teach this dog to suck eggs?” Gunny asked, grinning around a large mouthful ham and sweet potatoes. “So who is this stud that has you all excited?”

“Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good,” Inkie responded. “You are going extract mister Hamilton himself, Lin-Manuel Miranda!”

Unable to use their Confederacy Marines for security, Vivie and Helva saturated the New England Conservatory with drones and hired a local security company to supplement the school’s campus security. The combination of the Conservatory’s reputation and the size of the awards drew an audience larger than normally expected for a single-topic symposium.

The Conservatory’s Jordan Hall had a capacity of slightly over one thousand. Reserved for one week, each of the forty selected candidates was scheduled half an hour to summarize his or her paper and an equal time to answer questions. Fully half of the seats were reserved for Conservatory students and music students from the nearby Walnut Hill School for the Arts. The latter was a boarding high school, whose music students also had ‘classes’ at the conservatory.

Any vacant rooms in the nearby Hilton, Sheraton, and Westin Hotels had been reserved for contestants before the contest was announced. It was hoped this would help minimize the inevitable Earth First infiltration the event would attract. Anyone wishing a room near the Conservatory would need to find rooms at other hotels like the Copley House or the Midtown Hotel.

In the several discussions – well, bull sessions – with THE Harem, one theme was a constant; always try to plan something different and unexpected. Predictability could hinder an extraction and even turn one deadly. But, part of doing the unexpected is making it look expected...

The contestants, presenters, were to arrive on Sunday and begin registration, followed by a dinner reception. Ho hum. Standard academic procedures.

Late Saturday night, Vivie and her extraction team arrived on the stage in Jordan Hall using a portal placed there by one of Helva’s drones. Supposedly to save costs, the seating had been set up on Friday to avoid paying overtime and weekend premium. They spread out and began to search.

Gunny’s area was the stage, and he monitored feedback from a drone’s various sensors. <Holy shit!> he told Helva. <This place is riddled with hidden explosives. Warn the team to be careful. I don’t doubt some are booby trapped.>

Hidden on and around the stage itself were four shrapnel charges, two overhead, one in the pipe organ, and one in the wings. By the dust in cracks and other signs, they had been in place for quite a while. Gunny’s drone also found two caches of automatic weapons.

<Helva, > Gunny, told her after mapping the remainder of the hall. <With this much advanced preparation in just one venue, it seems likely that Boston is a hot bed of Earth First activity. I haven’t heard anything to that effect. Check with both the OTE and Llew Carter and see if they are aware. Especially, warn them to be careful to check out potential extraction sites. This may be one-off, but they may need to cancel or postpone their extractions planned for this week, and that would be a pity.>

<Maybe not, > Helva told him. <The explosives in your location’s booby traps are each tied to a burner cell phone. Every five minutes they swap an ‘I’m okay’ message. Ironic, without Confederacy technology, the batteries would be long dead.>

Then she told him, <My drones can infiltrate and circumvent the auto destructs. When they do, I’ll start sending the message to whoever or whatever is monitoring. Eventually, I’ll be able to use cell towers to triangulate and locate the receiver. Not sure why they didn’t hook into the public wifi, but I’m glad they didn’t.>

Over the course of the evening, following a meticulous search, the various caches were located, explosives were replaced with inert packages, and weapons were rendered harmless.

A search of the remainder of the conservatory’s presentation halls turned up lesser caches of weapons and explosives. These too, were dealt with.

Monday morning came, and Jordan Hall began to fill about forty-five minutes before the scheduled welcoming speech and the start of presentations. A firm adherent to the philosophy ‘if you feed them, they will come’ Vivie had ordered coffee, juices, fruit, and pastries in large quantities. In addition to tables of goodies in the lobby, additional refreshments were available to the presenters, who were to be seated on the large stage.

Students, faculty, and other invited guests presented tickets and were admitted to assigned seats in the hall’s VIP section. General admission ticket holders were directed to unassigned seats on either side of the VIPs or up in the balcony.

Helva’s analysis showed two groups of seats in the balcony that were not in the projected path of any shrapnel from the shaped explosives. Behind each area, the panels had been modified to conceal caches of automatic weapons and grenades. Apparently, one or more ‘triggermen’ were to wait in these areas to detonate the deathtrap at the optimal moment.

<I wonder, > Gunny speculated to Helva, <if the Firsters knew that the interdiction field would isolate the autodestructs and set them off? Having humans present would serve no real purpose.>

The symposium began as most do. Vivie gave the welcoming speech and the introduction. She thanked the Conservatory’s President who then introduced senior faculty present. Vivie resumed with the introduction of the panel of judges and a restatement of the rules and subject matter for the presentations and contest. Yes indeed, it was the usual boring start – at least to those uninterested in the subjects under discussion, which did not apply to the majority present.

Before the first presentation began, Vivie announced a concert for Wednesday afternoon featuring performances by panelists Mireille Mathieu and Lin-Manuel Miranda. “By that time,” she told them, “I’m sure we’ll all need something to get us over the hump. Tickets will be needed and are included in your packets already distributed for the symposium.”