Chapter 353: Sunday After the Resurrection

Sunday, June 3, 2007

Our astronomer couldn't do nighttime photography of the UAV because it moved too fast for the long exposure times the ordinary camera required, but nighttime was good in one respect, because our radar tracked the UAV breaking off its orbits to head almost straight south (slightly east of south; at about 170 degrees), returning about four hours later. We didn't actually know that it'd "returned" four hours later, but it was a good guess. Once it'd left, the best our staff could do was aim the radar at one point of the UAV's circuit and wait for either a daybreak visual sighting of it, or for the radar to reacquire the UAV when it passed through those coordinates again. It did the latter four hours after it'd left our area. It might've been in the area for a few hours already, but it was a reasonable assumption that the operator had immediately put the UAV into the same GPS-defined circling pattern as usual.

Dad told me about the UAV's departure and return over breakfast. Because I'd done the same trip, I immediately had a good idea where it'd gone: to Beale Air Force Base, the US Air Force's largest UAV operations center. I was tempted to do a snooping trip. The operator's orders should contain text that'd ruin the FBI's ability to deny they were spying on us, handing the $216 billion to us on a silver platter (we'd buy a gold platter after we got the money, provided Mom agreed that it matched our dinner service). The problem was how to get the orders into our possession. Majestic Countdown and the unnamed second angel had left the Earth. The Guardian Angel was still around, but snooping wasn't its job and I didn't want it to do any communicating either. Complicating the issue further was that I guessed I'd probably find the orders in written form rather than in a computer that I could email them from. Smuggling out a printed copy could be tricky, or I could be unsubtle and simply punch a hole in the roof and carry them out.

However we got the orders, explaining how they came to be in our possession would be a problem that could very easily cause us a great deal of trouble. In a nutshell: if angelic accessing of military bases was too closely associated with the Andersons, then we might end up with a large number of very angry military people determined to find out how it'd been done, and wanting to get revenge for what had been done to them at Andrews AFB and Norfolk Naval Yards, plus the assorted F-16s and helicopters of theirs that I'd downed.

The parents favored caution, preferring that I not do any snooping, especially because there was so much high-risk stuff already going on. Our radar and telescope evidence was already wonderfully effective proof of our $216 billion claim without being dangerously miraculous and worryingly inconsistent with our established cover story. As bizarre as it seems, considering the amount involved, we didn't want the $216 billion nearly enough to take significant risks to get it.

[[Although 'our' UAV was flying out of Beale AFB, it was being controlled out of the developer's facility in Los Angeles, so I wouldn't have found any useful orders at Beale. If I'd looked in the right place, I might've found servicing orders, but it was very unlikely I would've searched for them because I would've been concentrating my efforts on the very large operators' area. Even if found, the servicing orders wouldn't have said that the UAV's mission was to spy on the Andersons. It was mostly a coincidence that our UAV was based at the major UAV operations air base; Beale just happened to be one of the closest Air Force Bases to Corvallis (385 miles). There were a couple of smaller bases that were slightly closer, but Beale was a large, secure base where the presence of the new UAV wouldn't stand out, which it very much would have at either of the two slightly closer, smaller bases.]]

Even without my going on a snooping trip, it was good to know that we had the FBI's sur-veillance under such good sous-veillance (the "sur" of surveillance is French for "from above". "Sous" is French for "from below"). Our gardener/astronomer had even used his home computer to identify the exact model of UAV overhead, and had found the article about the Air Force purchasing one of them from Northrop Grumman to develop air-combat tactics with. The Air Force needed to do a hell of a lot more work on their air tactics, because so far they couldn't even get a fighter into the same sky as a UAV flying in a small circle for twenty hours a day, day after day.

^

There'd been no riots or other major events overnight. There'd only been two intrusions over the wall, and they'd both been ordinary guys of no significance or intelligence.

Many of the participants in yesterday's mob had wisely decided that going home would be a good idea, but that was proving problematic for many of the thousand people who'd lost their car keys. They had no keys, no clothes, no cellphones, no money (the banks were closed, but the people had no ID either), no food, and usually no friends in Corvallis. I like to think that they had a very difficult time overnight.

According to the morning news, most of them had gotten friends or family to drive to Corvallis with spare keys and clothes, but there were still quite a few of them stuck in Corvallis because there was no one back where they'd come from who had access to their house to get spare keys, or even if keys were delivered, often their cars were blocked in by all the other cars that had been abandoned so the owners could congregate around our walls. Teams of tow trucks from cities all around Corvallis had been called in and were in the process of removing those hundreds of cars, but it would take a fair while yet. The local churches had taken in many of the 'refugees' overnight, which was both nice of them and appropriate, since it was church sermons that'd deluded most of the Idiots into volunteering to be refugees in the first place.

Although many had left, more were arriving. They were much better behaved and were keeping their distance from our home. They had little choice, as there was plenty of Army and police now. The crowd was generally splitting up and congregating in distinct areas; Alien Invasion Freaks in one place, Cure My Terminal Illness Desperate Dreamers in another, Feet Worshipping and Stake Burning Christians placed as far apart from each other as possible, etc.

I felt sorry for the town's municipal workers because the local infrastructure was being overwhelmed: there were not enough parking places so cars were parked illegally in and around the city; public restrooms couldn't process people fast enough, with the obvious and offensive result; all the normal accommodation options were fully booked, making lack of accommodation a serious problem for the Idiots.

More than half the new arrivals were flying in, as it was apparently essential that they get to Corvallis as quickly as possible, presumably in case my divinity wore off. Corvallis airport was closed to non-official flights but surrounding airports were open and bus operators were doing a roaring business bringing people to town, who thereafter had no accommodation at all. People with spare rooms in their houses were making small fortunes renting them out to people desperate for somewhere to stay, tents were being rented or sold and were springing up in all sorts of places, most against local bylaws and with no hygiene facilities, and many people were living out of their cars, which would get old fast.

Many of the visitors were saying, "I'm prepared to stay for a long time, because [insert whatever lunatic theory the person had]." Most of them said it was so they could be in the same area as my divine miracle, or words to the same illogical effect.

#19: <I hope the lunacy slows down, because at the current rate, in about fifty years every single American will be living in Corvallis. That'd make it very hard to get parking.>

#8: <I wonder if there's a way to convince everyone we're not divine, but not to let all the pretty girls know that. Everyone else can go home leaving the girls to worship in the general area of our feet.>

#20: <It'd be SO EASY to take advantage of these idiots. We could extract large sums of money from them just to be in our presence for five minutes.>

#8: <Or extract daughters.>

#20: <That'd be even better. We don't have a use for any more money, but we could always find a use for pretty girls.>

#19: <It'd be the same use repeated many times, but that'd be fine with me.>

Dad got a phone call from the Chief of Police saying, "We have to investigate the killing of the five men outside your gates and we'd like to talk with your family and the Williamses about that. Can we come over this morning please?"

Dad said, "Hang on. I'll ask everyone."

I'd have preferred the police to take no interest, but that was being too hopeful. Refusing didn't seem like a good idea, and no one could see any benefit in delaying, so Dad told them it was fine.

We planned what to say. It was pretty obvious that we should simply say the truth, just not all of it.

The Chief and one of his detectives arrived. The detective led the questions, which were of three main types:

1. Where had we been during the angel's appearance? I made sure they understood that the angel had taken me and Tristan to see it without my having any choice, and definitely without me asking it to do anything at all.

2. They'd like to talk with the angel about what it'd done. We explained that the angel seemed to be interested only in protecting me, as that was the only time it had appeared and was the only thing it had done. It wasn't a conversationalist and I had no authority to order it to become one, "I didn't appoint it; God did. It does what God says, not me." I proved the point by once again asking it to appear, but it didn't.

3. Which led to a useless conversation about what angels were, how they worked, etc. My families helped me shovel that crap very well.

I was amused by the difference in tone compared to the earlier times I'd been questioned by the police, such as after the Eaton family had attacked me. Having a few hundred million dollars in the bank changes quite a few things, including totally stopping the in-your-face aggressive attitude that cops project. Cops only threaten people who can't cause the cops trouble afterward.

Speaking of attitudes, as was often the case the two cops were reluctant or self-conscious about calling the Guardian Angel an "angel", and they had a similar reluctance with calling me "Mark Anderson", but that didn't really matter as it didn't change their current investigation in any way. It will be interesting to see how people's attitudes change as my body does. The investigation was doomed to fail because they had nothing to work with. They couldn't even prove that the angel killed the five men, because no one had seen it do so, and there was no forensic evidence linking their deaths to an angel.

I was hoping they'd make a comment along the lines of, "It's not police business anyway; we only investigate crimes carried out by humans," but they never did. I had my fingers crossed that somewhere up the chain someone would decide exactly that, as an excuse to leave the five murders in the Too Hard basket, but it was more likely that officialdom would decide that it wanted to know more. Eventually they'd have to give up; it was just a matter of how much of a nuisance they were first. Judging by this visit, not much of a nuisance at all.

As we'd confidently expected, the cops left having learned nothing but bad news about their chance of concluding the investigation successfully.

^

The Boys both called again. They'd been calling quite often recently, concerned at what had been happening. The conversations had been very innocuous.

I should mention that back when the country had been waiting for Jonathon Winters to produce his list and for the angel to make its choice, Vanessa and Prof had warned their sons to be VERY discreet.

Andrew and Sophia visit quite often, sometimes with her parents too. I've been assuming you don't want to know - because I sure didn't - that Andrew and Sophia's wedding is only three weeks away, scheduled for June 23, and it's being held on our property, riots permitting. I've nothing against Andrew and Sophia, but I avoid wedding planning discussions like the plague because females turn them into a nightmare. There was a great deal to be discussed, including an additional dinner service for all the guests, so you can imagine how bad it was. One amusing aspect was that all our spare bedrooms were going to be occupied by out-of-town wedding guests staying overnight. It would be the first time the Visitors' Quarters and the four unused staff bedrooms under the Activity Level would be used, so Ava and Carol were nervous over whether they'd remembered everything for them. The spare bedrooms in the Kids' Wing would be pressed into service too, and I can't say I was the least bit nervous. They contained a bed and each of them had bed clothes, so they looked complete enough to me.

During one of Andrew and Sophia's visits, only a few days before the resurrection, Prof had taken Andrew aside - much to Andrew's relief because the wedding discussions were getting to him too - and had let Andrew know that there were likely to be some extraordinary developments involving Mark over the next few weeks. Andrew was to assume the Government would have him covered in bugs, so he had to be VERY careful about what he said to anyone, including not phoning his parents to ask revealing questions, nor discussing his secret knowledge with Sophia. Prof explaining, "You can tell Sophia all of YOUR secrets if you wish, but you cannot tell her any of Mark's. Mark doesn't know her well enough to trust her with his life, and there's too much risk she'd tell her family, they might tell their best friends, and so on to disaster."

Andrew had been curious about what was going to happen, but self-disciplined enough to accept Prof's saying, "It's best not to tell you yet. Events might not happen the way we plan, and whatever does happen, it'd be best if you looked surprised at the time."

Vanessa had also called Robert, giving him a less detailed version of the same warning.

When Archangel Michael had first appeared, The Boys hadn't known anything more than the general public did, including not knowing that there was any connection between it and me. They were as mystified as everyone else by the self-proclaimed angel that could perform impossible feats. Some of their confusion had been removed, and additional questions occurred to them, when Mom and Dad had placed the full-page advertisements in the national papers asking for people to support Mark Anderson for resurrection. That didn't make sense because The Boys knew that Mark Anderson was alive and well, even if Black. Their puzzlement increased when Mark Anderson was on the final list of Jonathon's twenty four resurrection candidates. Their parents refused to answer their questions. Nothing happened for weeks after that, until Prof and Vanessa had warned them that some extraordinary things were about to happen with Mark and to keep their mouths shut. Shortly after that, there was a public announcement that Mark had been resurrected into Ron's body. The Boys were very puzzled and curious, but self-controlled enough that their phone calls after the resurrection were innocuous, saying no more than anyone could be expected to say under the publicly known circumstances.

On Saturday afternoon The Boys saw TV clips of the Guardian Angel in action against the mob, and they immediately recognized it as a light blob, the same as they'd seen at my three-way wedding a year and a half ago. Recognizing the light blob was the LEAST curiosity-inducing thing they saw. They were amazed by the Guardian Angel lifting people into the air, horrified that five people had been killed, and had been reminded of everything Archangel Michael had done. Now that they thought about it, Archangel Michael had been in a suspiciously anonymizing costume and they knew that I was capable of changing my body's shape. They became convinced that there was a great deal more to Mark Anderson than they'd thought before. They'd suspected a few things earlier, but they hadn't suspected ANYWHERE near enough! Their parents' over-the-top attitudes to me made much more sense now.