Chapter 346: Reaching My Return's Point-of-No-Return

Friday, April 27 (Continued) to Friday, June 1, 2007

All the family members gathered in the Adults' dining room and the girls started putting together a celebratory breakfast while we called our lawyer. Unsurprisingly, he took our call right away. I knew the most about what had been in the van and the conversation between Paul and the police chief, so I did most of the talking. It was a good way of bringing everyone else up to date too.

At the end of the conversation, our lawyer said, "Writing down your names and tracking your movements meets every definition of 'surveillance' that I know of. A technical escape might be possible, but we put a considerable amount of work into that settlement contract. Claiming they were investigating a crime offers them the only way out that I can think of. They'll claim to have received an anonymous tip-off serious enough to justify their surveillance effort. They'd be foolish to prosecute anyone because that'd give you rights to dig into the accusation, so I wouldn't worry about that. My advice is that we go public immediately, to push the FBI into having to reveal their reason as quickly as possible. If we're lucky, they might make a two hundred billion dollar mistake."

We did as he advised, contacting the media and a few hours later providing them with interviews and many of the photographs we'd taken. We only released the photos taken from the street, as there's no expectation of privacy for people who leave their vehicle doors open on a public street. Those were good enough as they showed the interior of a real, live, FBI surveillance van, and showed that its screens displayed our gate and hilltop homes. The reporters were also very interested in our claim that we were now owed $216 billion.

Under considerable pressure, the FBI responded a few hours later with a statement saying that they'd give a statement tomorrow.

Later that evening, Jonathon Winters' final list of twenty four alphabetically sorted candidates was released, causing a great deal of additional interest in the Andersons. The angel's resurrection was way more important (i.e., would sell more advertising space and newspapers) than yet another "Government Spies on its Citizens" story - yawn. Although the possibility that the two stories might be related was intriguing.

Midday Saturday, the FBI gave the reason for their surveillance of the Andersons: "In the course of an unrelated investigation, one of our undercover agents overheard a conversation which mentioned that a major new lab was turning out industrial quantities of synthetic drugs. There were references to tunnels and that the DEA would have a great deal of trouble getting near the place.

^-- "We compiled a list of over a hundred possible sites and we were investigating each of them. The operation wasn't aimed specifically at the Andersons at all, but over a hundred locations. Their home was included in the list because it has extensive tunnels, a great deal of security, a military-grade radar, and the Anderson's jet makes an extraordinary number of private flights all over the country which would be ideal for delivering drugs. Those reasons gave us more than enough reason to suspect there might be illegal activity being carried out. People with nothing to hide don't need tunnels and radar systems.

^-- "The Andersons' irresponsibility in publicly releasing the pictures of our surveillance van and two of our agents has caused great harm in our War on Drugs..." He went on to attack our patriotism, intelligence, selfishness, and everything else he could think of.

The FBI spokesman was asked about the lack of a warrant, to which he'd responded, "We were recording the names of people who drove along a public street. We don't need a warrant for that."

"What about the camera that was aimed at the Andersons' gate?"

"It was aimed along the street. The gate just happens to be at the end of it."

"What about the camera that was showing a picture of the Anderson's home?"

"We also wouldn't need a warrant for that, not when recording from a public street. That wasn't part of the operation though. The agents were tasked with recording the names of people who used the street outside the Anderson's residence. That camera was surplus and wasn't being used; it just happened to be pointing upward at that angle after the last job the van was used for. You saw that it was showing more sky than anything else, so it's clear it wasn't being used to observe the Anderson's home.

^-- "It is possible that the agents might've heard on the grapevine that the Andersons were on the angel's list, and they might've been hoping to catch a shot of it, but they're denying that. We don't think that's the case, but we're investigating it. If that's what they were doing, they'll be reprimanded for misusing FBI resources for their private benefit."

"So the van wasn't being used to watch for the Archangel Michael?"

"Of course not. The FBI doesn't have jurisdiction over angels! I've never heard of anything so silly."

"Who does then?"

"I don't know. Maybe the Fish and Wildlife Service, or Border Protection, or NASA. You'll have to ask them."

He regretted that he couldn't answer any detailed questions about the current investigation, and the press conference soon ended. The reporters thought it was too boring to bother wasting time on. Obviously the FBI was lying, but that hardly qualified as news.

As they'd intended, it was impossible for us to disprove that, "An undercover agent had overheard comments." Digging into whether there really was a list of one hundred other locations wouldn't get us anywhere either. I thought of flying up to Portland for some snooping (the four arrested agents all came from Portland), but Majestic Countdown was NOT going to risk any unnecessary flights at this time, especially because we already had more money than we could spend, and there doubtless was such a list by now.

The good news was that it put the van out of action [[it forced the FBI to pull ALL twenty four vans out of action, as damned reporters were all over every one of the twenty four candidates and would've spotted the vans now that they were alerted to the possibility of them]]. Plus it almost certainly forced the FBI to cancel anything else they might've been doing to spy on us. They might want to spy on us even more than before, but they couldn't risk it now. Everyone from the President down knew the FBI had been caught surveilling the Andersons, and the risk of being caught doing it again was totally unacceptable (risk $216 billion for a 1-in-24 chance of seeing the angel arrive!). It was a safe bet that there were some very bruised asses in the FBI, from the kicks they would've received for being caught the first time.

We asked Paul Olsen to check whether Corvallis's Police Chief had gotten in trouble for supporting us. The Chief had supplied a lot of assistance to us, and he'd had a very busy and high-pressure day. Paul reported back that there was no problem there. The Chief had enjoyed sending a shot across the FBI's bow, and he didn't regret it afterward because he thought their explanation was a crock of shit. He'd told the Feds, "It's your own fault. I was not informed that you had an operation in my town and your agents didn't have a warrant. That's a very smelly coincidence. If you pull a stunt like that again, your people will get the same treatment or worse. I don't appreciate anybody playing fast and loose with the rights of the citizens under my protection, especially when those citizens have done as much for this town as the Andersons and Williamses have."

Another job Paul suggested to us that he should do, because of the level of official interest in us, was find someone in our telecoms carrier that we could bribe to alert us if any of our phones were being tapped. Despite the source having to have the necessary access, not leave an audit trail of his actions, and having to be "reliably dishonest" to properly do the work we were paying him for, Paul was confident of finding someone. Probably two someones as a cross-check. Telecom companies leak like sieves, which is something the investigation industry makes good use of. Paul had acquaintances who doubtless had contacts inside the major carriers. Given how badly the Government had treated Mark Anderson, the CIA-inspired Army attack on the family home, and the Government's other dishonest dealings, our sources would probably feel justified in leaking the information. They'd still need a few hundred dollars a month of course, but they wouldn't have any moral qualms over doing the job.

[[The FBI wasn't tapping our phones. There wouldn't have been any deniability, so it wasn't worth the risk, especially as the angel was unlikely to phone us to make an appointment for his visit.]]

Having to pull all their vans back was a nuisance for the FBI, but no more than that. By now they'd extensively bugged the other twenty three homes and had video cameras covering the air approaches of all of them. The other candidates were all 'ordinary' people, although nicer than normal. Most importantly from the FBI's perspective, they were not living in unpatriotically well-defended houses, so covering them in surveillance had been easy.

Plus sixteen of the homes had a UAV high overhead (sixteen rather than fifteen, as the UAV near our home had been reallocated to one of the non-radar equipped homes). That Majestic Countdown operated at night had been long known, but the angel seemed to prefer flying during the day. That left the UAV operators with the problem of when to land and refuel their craft. Unfortunately for them, no one had yet developed midair refueling for UAVs. It was being looked into, but that was no good for now. So the FBI got Air Force cooperation, having manned reconnaissance planes cover the sixteen homes during each UAV's landing and refueling times.

Northrop Grumman detected a certain sense of urgency from the FBI over their acquiring a stealth UAV, which lit up dollar signs in Northrop Grumman's corporate eyes. They squeezed the FBI by sticking to the truth. It wasn't often that they had a chance to do that, especially not so profitably. A deal was struck where the FBI pre-ordered ten of the new UAVs at top dollar, for delivery when they were ready (although the FBI would normally have zero need for stealth UAVs), and the Air Force bought one of the prototypes immediately, for a nicely expensive price. The Air Force had suffered badly at the 'hands' of the angel and were happy to help the FBI track it down.

Northrop Grumman had insisted on the right sort of publicity about their sale of the prototype UAV, so the Air Force had to publicly announce, "UAVs are the way of the future so it's important we develop suitable dogfight tactics, both for our UAVs against other aircraft, and for our aircraft against other nations' UAVs, as air forces around the world are investing in them too." Much later in the press statement, there was, "As part of this testing, and at an appropriate time, we'll push the UAV to its limits, deliberately causing it to crash, because it's better to do that now rather than lose a manned aircraft in a real combat situation." The not-unlikely crash of the prototype would now be seen as deliberate, that preemptive excuse being a condition of Northrop Grumman's for their selling it. The ten non-cancelable orders would also guarantee that the model was put into real use, which would make obtaining further orders much easier for the developer. NG was rubbing its corporate hands together with glee.

The Air Force immediately deployed the UAV to one of the air bases nearest to Corvallis, where the FBI immediately made use of it. That doesn't mean the FBI flew it, because they didn't have any staff who could do that nor the equipment to do it with. (UAVs are operated from a base station that can be anywhere in the world. For example, the UAVs that fly in Iraq and Afghanistan are operated out of Beale AFB in California. The planes themselves are based in the Middle East, but the 'pilots' are based in California). Northrop Grumman rented out their operators and the base-station to the FBI, and that UAV was piloted from the developer's premises in El Segundo, a suburb of Los Angeles, with FBI agents hovering over the operators' shoulders. It was the fastest and most reliable way of doing it. "Fastest" was particularly critical, because the angel was expected to visit one of the twenty four families any minute now.

The angel was supposed to visit Jonathon first to discuss the files, but there'd been no word from the angel about that. The danger was that the angel would visit Jonathon, then immediately visit the selected candidate, so the FBI had to be ready.

Jonathon was, of course, under HEAVY and multiple layers of surveillance. He didn't have "a belly full of surveillance", but only because he'd refused to swallow a tracking device (he was being uncooperative), but unbeknownst to him, his watch was bugged, all his belts and shoes were bugged, and his briefcase produced more output than a TV studio. There'd even been arguments about surgically implanting something in him, but there was no need as he was so well bugged already. Plus there were agents all around him, several planes overhead at all times, sonar equipped boats in the river, ASW ships out to sea, and when in suitable positions, surveillance satellites on the job too.

Lastly, and pretty much leastly too, several FBI agents were sent to Corvallis. They weren't surveilling the Andersons (Oh no! Of course not!); they were merely in the general area. Riding horses in the nearby hills, admiring the view from the top of the nearest high hill, bird watching, set up in a rented house with an attic that gave a camera an excellent view of the sky above the Andersons. Strictly "above", the Andersons' home was NOT in the shot. All the agents were ordered in writing NOT to surveil the Andersons home or anyone who lived there. The agents were to watch the sky, and give warnings of anything colored silver larger than a gull.

Hopefully, the FBI thought, they'd be able to acquire the angel when it met with Jonathon. Following it after that would be a good test that they could do so. If they had any problems and lost the angel, they could reacquire it when it visited the soon-to-be resurrectee's family. Hopefully by then the FBI would have found a way to correct what caused them to lose it, so they'd be able to track it wherever it went after the resurrection.

[By the way, around the nation some people called the angel an "it", and some a "he" (no one said "she" though). Which word people used mostly depended on their attitude to it/him. Within the FBI, the angel was generally referred to as an "it". They didn't like me at all.]

It'd taken a LOT of work, and had turned into a HUGE expense - especially for the UAVs - but the FBI was finally ready to intercept the angel and to follow it to wherever it went.

^

Early Sunday morning, the media got an email using Majestic Countdown's usual authentication codes, saying:

I not you call Archangel Michael. He gone busy other place long time.

Resurrect wait one your lunar cycle. Problem with chosen soul. God fixing. I stay learn this planet until fixing done then I do Resurrect then I do go.

You call Archangel Michael say thank you Jonathon Winters and sorry have to go so quick.

The media and public weren't sure what to think, but the FBI was: it was PISSED!

My sneaking out to send that message had taken some planning and effort, as:

• I had previously noticed a very faint Ku-band signal coming down from above. Ku radar is short-range, as atmospheric dust and moisture quickly block the signal. There is no Earthly reason I knew of for a plane to have a radar in that band. But I'd read that satellites used that band for command and control links with UAVs, in large part because those frequencies attenuate so quickly at lower altitudes so won't leak sideways very far. I detected the Ku-band radiation very infrequently, but its being so unusual and related to UAVs made me cautious. (Stealth UAVs have Low Probability of Intercept (LPI) communications antennas mounted on their tops. They ensure that UAV-to-satellite communications are undetectable, and minimize the risk of satellite-to-UAV communications 'spilling over'. But "low probability" isn't the same thing as "no probability".)

• I'd noticed more people around our property than usual, and a LOT more than usual at nighttime. They were very easy to find. Their infrared emissions were helpful, but that was obscured by vegetation. The easiest way of spotting them was when their cellphones "checked in" or when they used their Fibbie-frequency radios. Both sources of radiation spread in all directions on EM frequencies that penetrated vegetation easily, giving me bright point sources declaring, "Here we are!"). I'd confirmed they were FBI by following some of them with a sight-blob back to their rental house, where I'd read their orders, so I knew everything I needed to know about them.

My families had agreed that we shouldn't do anything about either of those problems. We didn't expect to get paid $216 billion for revealing them since their orders were so explicitly not to surveil us and they were truly following their orders to watch out for the angel. We'd also worried that our repeatedly uncovering the FBI's surveillance might start them wondering how we were so good at that. Given that the angel was also good at things like that, it risked creating too much of a connection. I'd REALLY been hoping that all the surveillance would go away, but I guess that was being too hopeful. I only had one more email to send (the one quoted above), and after that they should go away because the object of all their orders - Archangel Michael - had left the Earth. Even if their surveillance did stay, I wouldn't be going on any more flights or using my other visible abilities for quite a while, so the surveillance wouldn't matter anywhere near as much.

To send the email I had to find an excuse to get away from home for a few hours. Mom and Dad volunteered to visit Dad's parents in Seattle, an unavoidable obligation from time to time, especially since we started being so "successful". I hid in their car's trunk, climbing out of it when Dad pulled into a rest stop which had plenty of trees to park under.

We hadn't been tailed, and it was unlikely that a UAV had followed us because not long before we'd left home, Ava had driven off in another direction, while Julia and Carol went in another. Not long after we'd left, Prof and Vanessa went to visit friends, and then Donna got a ride to one of her friends from one of our guards (they often drive Donna and Carol around if everyone else is too busy. Two of our guards take Donna to and from her Karate classes for example, even after Ava joined in and could've driven Donna, as things we do regularly are treated particularly cautiously).

Splitting us up so much would've made it very unlikely for a UAV to be on my tail. There hadn't been enough UAVs manufactured for it to be practical for the Government to have several of them lurking over our home, plus I hadn't detected any Ku radiation during our drive. I knew that in an event like this, the operator would have to fly the UAV live rather than leaving it into a pre-programmed auto-piloted pattern, so if there'd been one above me, I should've caught several glimpses of the back-and-forth communication.

After Dad drove away, I walked into the restroom, killed a few minutes productively, then flew off to do my other business: sending the badly worded email given above.

We'd worked out roughly how long Mom and Dad would stay at his parents (never very long, but often what felt like too long), and the travel time for them to get back to the rest stop, so I chose a city for my emailing that got me back fifteen minutes ahead of Dad. I sat in the woods playing with the nice, little animals (little, so there'd be insignificant infrared output) until I was able to sneak back into the trunk again.

As an aside, small animals have less than one-twentieth of a human's amount of ki. I had thirty two minds, trained enough to be able to produce 70 minds' worth of ki, so my EKP swamped their ki by a factor of at least 1400. I had no trouble at all getting them to do simple tasks. I couldn't order them to do forward rolls or other such tasks, because I could only reinforce their normal ki, but getting them to sit still or walk where I wanted them to was very easy, the latter requiring a little bit of NP to get them 'thinking' in the right direction.

^

I neglected to mention one of Archangel Michael's contacts with humans. The evening after the surveillance van was exposed was an ideal time, as the four FBI agents were still in jail (the Police Chief had been VERY uncooperative with the FBI) and the FBI hadn't had much time to get whatever their Surveillance Plan B was into operation. It was also the evening before the list of the final candidates was made public. On that evening, Archangel Michael visited the Anderson families to tell us that he'd chosen the candidate, and that it was Mark. Honest he did! We're all willing to swear to it, so it must be true because we're a very moral family, as proved by how much God was favoring us.

We were all highly appreciative! The girls all insisted on kissing the angel to thank him, but he had to sadly refuse to take off his mask. We were actually role-playing it in Mom and Dad's Faraday-enclosed bedroom, so everyone would have a common story to tell in case we get questioned closely.

The angel said that Mark's soul would need a volunteer body, and he asked whether Ron was still willing. Everyone was shocked, because Ron hadn't told anyone about his email. The angel recited it (so they'd all be familiar with it. Reciting it was a good idea because in reality most of them had helped write it, and it was smart to line up reality with our story as much as possible). The girls thought Ron was wonderful, and insisted on kissing him, which Ron gracefully accepted. (Of my two roles, I preferred playing Ron.)

The parents refused to let Ron give up his life for Mark. Ron insisted that he wanted to because of how wonderful everyone had been to him, saying, "This is my only way of paying you back for the love you've give me." It was very touching, and the parents put up a good fight, but Ron got his way, especially after the angel said God agreed. It's hard to argue with God. (It truly is, as the bastard never answers.)

The angel then explained that God had informed him that Mark had been so traumatized by the CIA's experimentation on him, and the deadly attack on the lab, that he was psychologically and mentally damaged - ("Oh no!" cried the girls) - but that God was going to fix it. ("Yippee!" said the girls. Vanessa told them to calm down and role-play properly.)

"It'll take a few weeks to heal him because God wants to use Mark's soul's own recovery mechanisms. I'll be leaving the Earth shortly, but a minor angel will arrive to perform Mark's resurrection and a Guardian Angel will be staying to protect Mark after that. God will leave some of Ron's memories behind, but only for events that will help Mark understand what has happened since he was kidnapped by your Homeland Security. That's so he won't feel disconnected or puzzled by the changes. Ron's childhood memories won't be staying because they'd be of no use to Mark, but many of the things Ron did with everyone here will stay, so Mark will understand your conversational references to them, and so he'll appreciate Ron's role in your families. Do you understand?"

They understood, and I'll assume you do by now too. By role-playing it, we'd later give realistically consistent stories - including a realistic degree of inconsistency - when questioned about it, which we surely would be considering how important a resurrection would be.

Everyone thanked the angel very profusely, there was some badly acted crying, and we pretended the angel left by opening the door and flying away, the reverse of how he'd arrived.

Then the family role-played the discussion they had after the angel left. Ron got more kisses (especially from Julia, as she was honestly very upset over her "Playing Dress-Up" disaster), and we eventually decided that we'd achieved everything we wanted at ten minutes past midnight.

All the girls, including Donna, insisted that Ron should be shown some serious appreciation.

He apologetically refused Donna, saying, "I'm sorry, Donna, but all of you are going to be asked about this a great deal, and you're so young it'd upset a lot of people.

^-- "Out of character: I'll stay with you in your bed one night soon to make up for it. Tomorrow night hopefully, unless too much FBI crap messes it up.

^-- "Back in character: I'm sorry you can't stay now, Donna, but I'm sure you understand. Besides, Carol is my main girlfriend and I'd be uncomfortable doing anything with her sister. I appreciate your offer, but I don't think it'd be right."

Donna did a very poor job of acting sad when she left the room, anticipating tomorrow's extra, non-monthly, session.

Julia, Carol and Ava gave Ron a very good time; Julia trying very hard to make up for her Dress-Up Stupidity, although it would've been out of character to mention that out loud, and it was kind of more fun to leave the apology and its acceptance as unspoken. We all 'heard it' in the appreciation she was giving me. My cock was still too big to fit inside Julia, but I did go out of character long enough to tell her that I'd already ordered my body to return to Ron's, so it should only take a few more days before doing her would be doable.

It was a good night, as it jolly well should have been, considering the sacrifice I'd made: putting up with so much bad acting.

^

There's no need to detail the next couple of weeks, so I'll just say a few things about it.

The Angel Plan proceeded nicely:

• My body returned to Ron's version of me roughly on schedule, taking about 2.5 weeks. The last 1.5 weeks of which had Julia apologetically making up for lost time. It's true what they say on TV: make-up sex is great! Plus, I must admit, I think I get satisfaction out of seeing Julia trying so hard to be subservient and contrite. It's probably wrong of me, but my excuse is that Julia genuinely enjoys proving her devotion, so it's a win-win situation.

• For my landscaping work, I started documenting it rather than working from my head as usual. I introduced my changing attitude slowly, not telling my staff why. When any of the gardeners asked me about it, I said something like, "It's better this way. You won't have to ask me questions so often because you'll be able to look up the plan yourself." But once Ron had sacrificed his life to bring Mark back, the gardeners would say, "Ahh! So that's why all the landscaping plans are in folders with monthly To Do lists. I wondered why Ron was getting so organized. That must've been very hard for him, knowing when he was going to die... ," etc.

• There was a flurry of media excitement over the final list, but twenty four people is too many to make Good TV, and every one of them said that they hadn't heard from Archangel Michael or the new angel. After a couple of days of being pains in Mom's and Dad's butts, the media attention faded away. The new angel didn't appear in public or send any more emails, so that got to be old news. It didn't take long for almost everyone to decide that the whole thing had been some sort of weird trick. Archangel Michael - if that's what he had been - had done miraculous things when he'd been flying around, but the silence was suspicious. Sure, the new angel had said "one your lunar cycle," but that required an attention span beyond that of most watchers of TV News.

• The FBI's surveillance remained for a few more days in case the last angelic email had been a trick to get the FBI to pull back, but after nothing happened for those days, they did have to pull back because they couldn't keep so many agents in the area so long. All twenty four candidates' houses had their teams reduced down to a skeleton level, just enough to monitor the bugs in twenty three of the cases, or keep the attic-mounted camera running in our case. Software was provided to summon human attention if motion was detected by the camera. There were many false alarms (from flocks of birds and clouds mostly), but the two agents babysitting the camera mostly just did a lot of reading. Most of the UAVs had to be returned to where they'd been begged from. The stealth UAV was retained, but kept out of the air nearly all the time as flying it continually increased its risk of crashing too much. They'd launch it again if something happened to justify it.

• A couple of days later, one of our guards' routine sweeps of the area looking for anyone surveilling us spotted the Fibbies camera surveillance. The procedure for that was to photograph the surveillance, report it to the police, they get a warrant, and they raid the place with a couple of interested spectators coming along for the ride (Paul, for example). The FBI was caught pink-handed (not "red-handed", because the camera wasn't pointed at our home). The agents were sent scurrying home with pink-faces. The Chief gave a press conference at the property that'd been used. He explained how the FBI was skating toward a harassment accusation, and showed the press through the attic with the camera gear reinstalled to create Good TV. The attic gave a good view of our property, and the implication that the FBI had been spying on us was obvious. The FBI came in for a great deal of public abuse for risking a $216 billion penalty, and they got some private abuse too, the Corvallis Chief of Police particularly enjoying yelling at them. That left the FBI with a grounded UAV and the highly unsatisfactory situation of having to wait to hear something from a public source to tell them when to launch it.

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