Chapter 341: Jonathon Makes Progress

Wednesday, April 18, to Sunday, April 22, 2007

In the very early morning, while the other celebrants snoozed, I spent half an hour practicing creating a ghost version of Archangel Michael. Ideally it would be indistinguishable from what I looked like in my A-man suit and still leave me with plenty of minds uninvolved so they could do other things, but that was never going to be possible, but a partial duplicate might have its uses. I already knew how to do the wings, so I 'just' needed a body. My light blobs are a lot more flexible than they were when I first discovered them, but there was no way I could make a realistic looking body so I didn't try. Michael's wearing a semi-metallic silver suit didn't help matters either; I should've chosen a yellow fabric. Instead of going for realism, I tried for an impressive looking special effect, to inspire awe and fear (in either order was fine).

My final version wasn't very impressive, not as I judged it anyway. A guard surprised in the middle of the night by its appearing in front of him might have a different opinion though.

I had a half-plan that I could have the ghost storm though a military base. It could walk through walls, stand in the middle of desk, and otherwise seem to be nothing more than light (I thought I could manage that). But when the angel wanted to, it would be extremely solid and strong, such as when it picked up a soldier by the neck. The soldier would be kicking and punching, with his blows passing straight through the ghost. The soldier could even fire his gun if he wanted to. I could imagine that the soldier would be REALLY freaked out!

When news of that capability reached the top echelons, the bosses should develop some additional caution, because how on Earth could they fight such a creature!

Having learned how to make the angel-ghost look as good as I could with my capabilities, I resumed my OSU studying.

^

Wednesday was a day of minor- and non-events.

The non-event started first, probably because it had an unfair advantage. In the morning's news, the Navy had still not renamed CVN-77. By lunchtime they still hadn't renamed it. They maintained their consistent position - sitting on their asses - all day.

Mom got an email from an underling in Jonathon's organization at midday, confirming that "According to the criteria set down by the creature referred to as Archangel Michael, the absence of your son Mark Anderson's body would not seem to be an impediment to his possible resurrection. However, this organization is currently in the process of formulating a comprehensive set of criteria, which blah, blah..." Translated into non-Government-speak, it said, "Yes, but don't get your hopes up. And don't call us, we'll call you."

Mom's getting a reply didn't have any significance, but Mom still sent back, "How do we get Mark's name put on the list?"

In the afternoon, Jonathon's group released the first draft of their criteria. That wasn't the sort of thing the Government would normally do, but the angel had suggested putting that information on ABC's website so Jonathon had pushed for making that part of his job public. Giving ABC a scoop didn't appeal to Jonathon's advisors, so they released it more widely.

There was nothing particularly surprising in the list of criteria:

1. "Not Elvis Presley." Bureaucrats don't have senses of humor, so I was pretty sure Jonathon was having some fun throwing his authority around, which pleased me.

2. "American citizen who died in America, had a social security number, and the death certificate was issued in America." It seemed a little redundant, but who was I to make a fuss.

3. "Died January 1st, 2000, or later."

4. "Has no criminal convictions."

5. "Has at least one of: a mother, father, husband, wife or child still alive." There was an explanation that this was so the resurrectee would have somewhere to reestablish him/herself, which was specifying something I'd said in general.

There were several more minor criteria, such as "Younger than 45 at time of death", none of which excluded Mark Anderson.

VERY importantly - because Mark Anderson didn't have a death certificate - there was a process people could go through if they wanted someone to be considered who met the other criteria and who were American citizens, but who either hadn't died in America, hadn't had a social security number, or didn't have a death certificate. Mom immediately followed that procedure for Mark Anderson. The angel could have sent Jonathon an email to get him to change the troublesome death certificate criterion, but it was much better to use the mechanism they were helpfully providing as it avoided having the setup job look like a setup job.

[[Other than the criterion of being an American citizen - which was required to avoid the nightmare of opening the list to everyone in the world, because it'd be impossible to achieve anything in ten days if that happened - the other requirements of the second point weren't really requirements at all, but a place to start. Jonathon's organization had to create a list of dead people, and copying all the databases of death certificates was a very easy way to kick that off. It would've been far too time consuming for Jonathon's group to search for all the dead people who didn't have such certificates, so they simply put the onus on the public to inform them of any ex-Americans who could be added.]]

There was also an explanation that there'd be several soft criteria as well, such as "The resurrectee himself/herself or at least one of the qualifying people in #5 has to be capable of financially supporting the resurrectee until he/she is capable of managing his/her own life." That was left out of the current list because it was too subjective. They wanted the initial criteria to be capable of being processed by computer, then the list of people who emerged would be looked at manually for the soft criteria.

I did landscaping work for most of the day, chatting as usual with my gardeners and agreeing that just like them, I hadn't gotten much work done yesterday because of the amazing angel. I added, "The angel may be able to take on the Air Force and Navy, but if he delays Julia's decorating one more day he's going to be in serious trouble."

The gardeners have met Julia, so they laughed.

I didn't want to die just before I was resurrected, so I added, "Please don't tell Julia I said that."

More laughter.

When the sun went down, it was time for me to do go up. I had three items on tonight's agenda:

1. Borrow someone's computer to research military aircraft, spy systems, satellites, and whatever other interesting links I could find.

2. Go to a military base to calibrate some military frequencies.

3. Do something about the Navy's failure to rename CVN-77 with the prompt responsiveness that an angel of my elevated status deserved.

I knew Edwards AFB was a big one and somewhere in California. I wasn't sure exactly where, but I headed in that general direction for a while, with a radio blob leading the way.

There's not much angel-threatening radar in the valley that runs south of Corvallis, so I barely had to deviate from the path I would've traveled anyway, but I felt proud of myself every time I altered my course.

Not long after I passed Mount Shasta in northern California, I found myself an available computer and started reading up on the various types of military hardware that I might run in to, or that might try to run into me. I wasn't looking for detailed specs, just an overview of capabilities.

Things like, "The Predator drone has a laser designator that can be used to paint a target so a long-range missile can take it out," caught my attention. I decided to do some googling to find out what frequencies those laser designators use. I was of the opinion that it'd be REALLY good to know if I was being painted by a target-designating laser! Especially because I'd also found out that the damned Air Force use smokeless fuel in their missiles, so you can't see them coming (how unfair is that!). Hollywood's got a lot to answer for, because every missile I've ever seen in a movie always leaves a very easy to follow, white smoke trail. I was VERY glad I'd learned the truth by googling, because learning it the other way would have been very upsetting.

Fearing the Navy might be waiting for me the next time I dove into the ocean, I checked out what they could do. For once, I was pleased to see nothing too worrying. Depth charges of course, but apparently they're reasonably ineffective against human bodies. That's because we're mostly water so the shockwave passes through us in the same manner as it passes through the water around us. Plus they'd be easy for me to toss back if the Navy sends any my way.

I don't know what would happen to my submarine if a depth charge went off nearby. If the sides collapsed, I could quite easily recreate the box, not even needing to do it above the surface as I could create the initial tiny box in my mouth, then expand it to push the water away, using a snorkel to fill it with air after I entered it and drained the water out. The main risk was in my being knocked out, but I wasn't too worried as it was unlikely that I'd ever let a depth charge go off near me.

A more serious weapon for a swimmer was a multiple launcher that could blanket a wide area of the ocean with mini-depth charges. They were contact explosives, so easy to avoid and even more fun to throw back. The Navy also had sound weapons, which made me laugh as I'd be in a soundproof box.

I spent an hour researching, having to change houses partway through because the first house's owner came home. My research session was productive and scary. The Navy's weapons were only as scary as I'd thought, but what I'd read of the Air Force's capabilities scared the crap out of me. I'd seriously underestimated the sneakiness of their weapon systems. I'd been lucky so far because all my appearances had been a surprise, but I had a feeling that turning up on Jonathon's doorstep in a week's time could result in an overly tricky visit.

#2: <Perhaps it might not be a good idea to utterly destroy Edwards AFB because of the Homer Simpson non-renaming.>

#10: <There's merit in what you say. On the other hand, we have to react to their not following our order.>

#28: <How about we email them via the usual recipients and say, "We're feeling charitable because Jonathon is getting what he needs, so we'll give the Navy one more day to rename CVN-77 or there'll be a very big fire." It's only a name, for goodness sake; they shouldn't be willing to suffer billions of dollars of damage for a stupid name. Plus if they STILL fail to change its name, it'll look much more like their fault.>

#All: <Agreed.>

I returned my attention to the computer to find out where Edwards AFB is, what it does, what sort of planes are normally there, etc. Good background information to learn before I paid it a visit. While reading, I encountered a mention of a Beale AFB which was only about a hundred miles away from where I was now, and almost directly in my flight path for going to Edwards. I liked the idea of visiting two bases so I could check how consistent their frequencies were.

Reno, Nevada, wasn't far off my path, but not close enough to Beale AFB to alert them to my presence, so I flew to Reno.

I found a computer there, used it to check the ABC and CVN-77 websites for any change to the naming situation. There was none, so I sent my usual recipients the following:

Hello from Reno. As the Navy is gambling, this seems an appropriate location to use. I'm feeling charitable because Jonathon is getting the resources he needs. At the same time, I'm feeling highly annoyed that my order about CVN-77 is not being treated with the respect all my orders should be. I will wait three hours. If there is no media coverage of the name change having been made by then, I will create a very expensive fire.

I am God's representative on Earth and I speak for him. You are disobeying a command from God. The only gamble is over how many billions it's going to cost you if I get Old Testament on your asses.

Have a good life,
Mickey.

Three hours gave me plenty of time to fly to Beale AFB, calibrate my radio blob against the base's many transmission sources, confirm that Air Force air traffic control radars couldn't see me, fly to Edwards AFB, and do the same there.

[[Amusingly, Beale is the base from which RQ-4 Global Hawks are remote-operated. These are state of the art, unmanned, unarmed, aerial reconnaissance vehicles. A lot better at surveillance than the old Predators that I thought of when I'd thought of unmanned planes. The Air Force had Global Hawks over LA and Washington DC, hoping to acquire Archangel Michael if he turned up in either of those cities again. If I'd taken the time to snoop Beale fully, I would've found their operators at work, and should've recognized the cities they were flying over. Their orders would've been interesting reading. As it was, all I did was identify some more ground-to-satellite communications frequencies without making the effort to find out why they were communicating.]]

Edwards is a HUGE base, with runways scattered all over the place and large numbers of very expensive planes, the total value of which would be considerably more than the cost of a new carrier. All things considered, it would be cheaper for the Government if it bought a new pot of paint and used it on the bow of CVN-77.

Sneaking into parts of the base was tricky, but fun. There was a great deal of security around the base, as there had been at the much smaller Beale, but I had enormous advantages. I had superb night-vision courtesy of a giant sight blob, and I also had infrared frequency-shifted into my visible range, which made people and guard dogs shine in my vision. Even if my body was completely hidden under or behind something, I could still sight-blob search all around the area, including inside and behind buildings. I could arrange wonderful distractions, like sending a couple of the guard dogs charging off in the wrong direction, or more subtly, have one of the ground-radar operators spill his coffee badly, which I ensured resulted in his display going out of action by pulling a wire loose inside it.

As I said, it was fun. Provided I took my time and was careful, they didn't have a hope of keeping me from doing what I wanted. I wasn't trying to penetrate to the center of the fields, only to find samples of as many of their transmission sources as possible, and to identify what they were. Emplaced navigation beacons I couldn't care less about, for example.

When my three-hour time limit was up, I pulled back from Edwards to find an empty house with a TV that I could look at while my ear was near a recently opened window. It was all over the news: the US Navy had surrendered to my demands. It was in the process of creating the USS Homer Simpson, to spread shock, awe and American parenting skills throughout the world.

#29: <That's very fiscally responsible of them.>

#27: <Yeah. They'd have been crazy to refuse, or even to try to stall.>

[[The delay over renaming the carrier had been entirely political. The President didn't want to order it done because it'd upset his daddy, and the senior admirals were concerned about their career futures if they advanced the suggestion. There wasn't anyone who had clear responsibility for the decision to follow my order, so the buck had been ignored as much as possible, and when ignoring it hadn't been possible, it had been passed. My ultimatum had brought the issue to a head, so a group of admirals had an excuse to collectively raise the issue with the President.]]

#12: <I thought they were crazy not to do it already, but the name "Bush" must be dear to the armed forces. The question is what do we do now? We could get the Holy Ghost to grab the base commander and demonstrate that we could've wrecked the place. When he reports that we could hold him up but his limbs moved through us, that'll make them much more cautious.>

#1: <Or we could send an email from this base saying something like, "Good choice. I won't obliterate this base then.">

#14: <I think we should do nothing. Just accept their compliance as our due. Especially let's not show the ghost yet. We appear to be getting everything we want so there's no point in putting more pressure on them. We'd just be using up our ammunition for no direct gain. Let's keep it in reserve in case we need to do something to get their attention in the future.>

#3: <Doing nothing now will keep them nervous for a while too. That appeals.>

#All: <Agreed.>

I flew home.

^

[[One thing the armed forces didn't need was a reason to feel more nervous about me. Take just one issue: nuclear weapons. They had highly secure bunkers around the country containing nuclear bombs, missile warheads, depth charges, torpedoes, and probably other weapon forms. But as far as they could tell, I could waltz in and set them off. All of a sudden, the country's entire nuclear arsenal was insecure.

Putting more guards on the doors wasn't likely to help, although they did that anyway. Should they try to hide the weapons? Should they replace them with dummies to try to fool me? Maybe they should destroy them? Or as a halfway step, sabotage them in some reversible manner? (But maybe I could quickly fix that?)

They didn't know enough about my abilities or intentions, so were left with having to guess. They couldn't even pray for guidance, because God was obviously on my side, hehe. They analyzed my abilities as best as they could. They had my telekinesis's maximum force and range pretty well pegged, but adding to their worries was the fact that I obviously had several abilities that they didn't understand anything about. How had I identified the law enforcement agents on the platform in LA? How did I know which reporters had boob jobs? How had I turned water into wine? The angel's not turning his body or face around had them very worried because it proved that I could see things all around me. Or maybe I simply "Knew Everything," perhaps with a range limit or perhaps not.

It was damned hard for them to design a security system to keep me out of their nuclear weapon stores. Even if they expanded the perimeters considerably and filled it with soldiers, tanks, etc. - which they often did, massively intruding on and inconveniencing the normal operations of many bases - I could obviously smash my way through them in a second. Even automated defenses were no good, because I could pull their insides apart.

They did their best to start upgrading their nuclear security. It was a panic project; highly argued, expensive, and more than anything else, highly disruptive. Many doubted it'd do any good at all, but the military had no choice as being nervous about nuclear weapons inside their own country, and sometimes in the middle of substantial population centers such as at Norfolk Naval Yards, wasn't something they could ignore.]]

^

For the next few days, there were only two things I had to do (not counting moving furniture around for Julia):

1. Make sure that Mark Anderson got on Jonathon's list.

2. Plan a safe way of meeting with Jonathon when it was time for that.

The first objective was advanced in a very unsubtle manner: the major Saturday morning newspapers across the country contained a full-page, full-color advertisement from Mom and Dad, asking people to support Mark Anderson's inclusion on the list of resurrectee candidates.

We had a bullet list of major reasons in a largish point size near the top of the ad, with some discussion of them further down the page. The main reasons were all pretty obvious: As per the CIA-started scientific enthusiasm over my body, there was the possibility of a "Mark Anderson Immortality Pill". My apparent genius was also listed, with hints about what that might enable me to do for humanity. Because so many Americans are obese, we included the point that, "What could be learned from his body might cure obesity, as Mark didn't have to exercise to look as good as he did." Several pictures were included in the ad, naturally including the shot of me in those bright yellow Speedos, sigh. Also mentioned was that Majestic Countdown's first leak had been about Mark Anderson, so the angel should greatly approve of Mark's inclusion. There was no point in trying to hide that connection, so it was best to scream it loudly as if we were proud of it. There were also other small problems that we could do nothing about, such as it would've been better if MAF was actually named the Mark Anderson MEMORIAL Foundation, because the absence of "Memorial" might make some people suspect we'd always known Mark was alive. That word's absence had simply been because Vanessa had wanted an easier name and my Angel Plan hadn't been in place early enough to stop her naming MAF the way she had.

One of the discussion points was our money. We wrote, "Legally, the billions of dollars we received in our settlement is ours to keep if Mark is resurrected, as the payment was for the Government's breaching of Mark's Fourth Amendment rights, for kidnapping and for experimenting on him. Those actions were illegal whether or not Mark died. We recognize that the size of the settlement was because Mark's body might have been used to find cures for every disease and to make everyone who wants to be fit, healthy and genius, so if Mark is resurrected and scientists discover any medical advances from him, we promise to give back to the American taxpayers 80% of the annual net profits from those, until we've paid back ten times the amount of the settlement." It was, in effect, a multi-billion dollar bribe that we'd never pay, as my plan called for there to be no such profit. The taxpayers were welcome to 80% of that.

In the resultant media attention, Mom and Dad were accused of trying to buy or bribe Mark's way onto the list.

Mom answered, "We think it's the fair thing to do, and we don't need that much money ourselves. But if people think we shouldn't, then we'll keep it."