Under a clear, cloudless, brilliant blue sky, Forrest paused to watch a chickadee bob around in a shrub, piping its familiar song, unconcerned with the nearby human. He looked down at the hard, glossy potatoes he had raised from the cool earth around his feet, noticed the subtle fragrance of the soil and potatoes. His attention shifted to the growing drone of multiple airplane engines.
One plane passing every now and again was as normal as birdsong – ambient, often unnoticed. Several together as disturbing as a swarm of hornets.
He looked up mid-dig, steadied his footing, and focused. Too much altitude to be local, but silhouettes of turboprops and marker lights just visible. He counted seven. Evenly spaced, moving steadily in parallel, East to West.
Some moments later, a sheen appeared high in the air, expanding in the path of each plane. Silvery, granular. He thought of a day in a long-ago deep winter, when the sun shone brightly through the gentlest storm of ice crystals, a paradox of cold and warmth, with tiny crystals scintillating as they fell softly to the crusted snow on the meadow, a barely audible tinkling all around him. A moment of magic, indelible in his long memory. But this was a warm morning in late Summer, almost fall. No possibility of that deep a cold, even up there.
The sunlight illuminated the falling cloud, highlighting a dance of myriad reflective particles, pulsing in the wind. A moment when the angle was just right, and it looked like a sheet of gossamer across the entire sky, almost horizon to horizon. Another moment and a rainbow formed, brighter and brighter. A double, intense colors, with a metallic sheen. An animated sparkling cloud, descending, and suddenly fading, the last columns of immaterial translucence shimmering away.
Now Forrest was aware of the mist all around, more like fine, fine ash than vapor, an almost imperceptible coating on everything, a glistening, on soil, leaves, his hands, the potatoes, just for a moment, and then it was done.
Another memory surfaced in Forrest’s mind. A similar sheen in the experimental tanks of a lab, fragments of conversation with a colleague.
What had he just witnessed?
Forrest’s ear was now catching neighbor Watts’ hollering across the meadow separating their properties. “Are you … seeing this?”
“Morton! … Hey Morton! … Did you see … ?” Simon Watts’ rounded form emerged from the tall grass along the lot line, his face even redder than usual, his questions punctuated with gasps for breath. “What … the hell … was that?”
Forrest knocked clumps of soil from his boots against his fork, and made his way over to Watts, brow furrowed. Watts had regained a good amount of his breath by the time they stood together looking at the sky where the planes had passed, the noise of their engines fading over the horizon.
“Beautiful and all… never saw a rainbow like that. Did you see … all silver and that was one hell of a rainbow! But all those planes!” Watts was groping to pull it all back, even though it had been moments before. “And that misty stuff.”
He stepped closer and looked into Forrest’s face. “You know about this stuff, Forrest, right? What the hell was that?”
Forrest’s brow had not uncreased. “You’ve heard all those stories in the news? They’ve been talking about putting some new technology in the atmosphere, to fight the climate crisis. Kind of like cloud seeding. This must be what they were talking about, right?”
“Oh, course. Yeah I heard that… wasn’t expecting anything like this though…”
Forrest turned his face to Watts, whose expression turned from astonishment toward something more quizzical. Maybe he was trying to make sense of it still, maybe he was trying to figure out if Forrest was talking sense. He hoped Watts would accept his answer, and not push for more. If he stuck to his usual lack of imagination, he might be satisfied for now.
“Hell of a rainbow, wasn’t it?” Forrest offered. “Did you see those old turboprops? Don’t see those too often these days.” They chatted about changes of that sort – planes, cars, machines of all kinds, how different now than when they were coming up. And the web, kids.
Forrest sensed the potential for a long conversation here, and gently cut it short. “Well I gotta get my taters out by evening, so I’m gonna get back to it. I got some beautiful tomatoes last few days, I’ll bring some over later if you could use some.”
“Aw thanks Forrest. Arlene has more than she knows what to do with already.” Watts’ broad smile returned at the thought. “She’s canning up a storm. Don’t worry about it. Thanks though.”
Forrest strode back to the potato patch. His brow creased again. Have to think this through. Can’t take too long either.
While his fork turned over the soil and released the potatoes from their hills, Forrest’s mind was turning over memories and extracting details. As he worked, the sunlight filtered through the clouds of dust falling out of the atmosphere far in the west. He contemplated the deepening oranges and scarlets of a fiery sunset.
Shepherd’s delight. Sailor’s too. But the tightness in his belly, the formless pressure in his chest, were growing. So much beauty in this day, but… The feeling of dread made it hard to focus. He loaded bags heavy with fingerlings, russets, and golds into a barrow and headed for the root cellar.
That evening, Forrest started in on preparing the meal, warm light in the kitchen, air full of aromas, marriage of hot olive oil and fragrant herbs. When Ellen, his wife, joined him, relaxed after a bath, she sensed the distraction in his kiss, the extra effort to be light in his greeting.
Pieces of conversation focused on their cooking as the meal came together. They moved around each other with the comfort of long practice, shared the last of a bottle of white. As Forrest served the food and brought the plates in, she set the table. She eyed him with pursed lips, gauging her moment. His brow wasn’t furrowing so much, but his quietness, and heavy breaths, and hand reflexively cupping his chin every now and then had given him away early.
“Jeez, Forrest,” she finally gave up waiting. “I know you well enough by now to know when something’s eating you up. Out with it.”
He looked at her with a half-smile somewhere between apology and embarrassment. “Not too mysterious are you, really,” she returned the smile. “I know perfectly well that weird weather or whatever those planes were doing today means something to you that the rest of us have no idea about. Out with it, Forrest, you’re killing me here.”
“What did you see, you were shopping, of course?” he asked.
“I was in Lampman’s, so I didn’t see a thing, but people coming in were squawking about planes and a rainbow, and when I made it outside there were people standing in gaggles looking all shell-shocked like the sky had just fallen and… Well, it was pretty strange feeling. Nothing looked much different to me, so I just finished up in town and headed home, but it did cross my mind…”
She remembered her question and paused, giving him his chance. Turning to him with a raised eye brow to be sure he recognized it.
“Three things,” Forrest set down his fork. “Actually four. The planes. They covered the entire sky. Blanket application across the whole place. State? Country? Don’t know yet. Second, they were old, too. Turbo props. That’s weird. Who has that many old planes and not the new hyper-jets? They weren’t airline planes. Not Air Force or Air National Guard. Third, all the news stories about some atmospheric technology for the climate crisis. It sounded good until I saw this… event… today. It’s bogus. Bogus because of the last thing, the mist. People must have been talking about that right? The mist coming down, and then it looked like everything was a little shiny for a second.”
“Yes, they did talk about mist. It sounded like weird weather. No one said anything about things being shiny though.” Ellen paused to replay her memory. “So what do you make of all that? Tell me everything you saw.”
Forrest closed his eyes and led Ellen through each moment, even the encounter with Simon Watts. The retelling refreshed the fragments of memory he had tried to find a place for.
“When I was working with the MIT people, you remember? That project was about figuring out how to encapsulate micro-computing units, you know, bugs, so they could function in harsh environments. They brought me in for a consult because of the work my team had done on our traffic control mesh. You remember all that, right?”
Ellen nodded. “So the thing is, one of the people in that department was working on extreme miniaturization. We hit it off, I spent quite a few lunch times in his office, and saw at least bits of things he was working on. He had prototypes in his office. Different experimental builds, and they were in solution in tanks, on organs and parts of dissected animals.”
“Eesh, sounds revolting!”
“Kind of a strange environment for a lunch break, but fascinating,” Forrest allowed a hint of a smile to surface, then went on. “A few of the parts had the same sheen I saw as the mist disappeared. It was the potatoes. You know how they are kind of moist from the soil when you dig them up. The red fingerlings especially, they’re glossy when they come out of the ground. Most are duller than that. Well, for a second or two, all of them were sort of metallic and had that same sheen as the organs in the tanks.”
“So the mist made your potatoes shine like guts?” Ellen was picturing the tanks and trying not to wince.
“Well I think the sheen was from the miniature bugs. Too small to see, but together, they made the surface of whatever they were on look shiny. Yes, for a second there, the spuds looked just like the guts.”
They ate, sitting close at the dining table, not at the ends like some king and queen, but where they could have reached out and held hands if they felt like it. Chicken left from a roast, diced in a spontaneous sauce along with the freshly dug potatoes, other veggies from the garden, a soft crusted bread Ellen had whipped up that morning. Simple. Really, really good.
Forrest leaned back, and smiled again. “You know how grateful I am to be here, with you, with all we have, right?”
Ellen tilted her head and her eyes softened. “Of course, you goose. And I’m right there with you.”
After supper Forrest settled in the den and called up the chat screen. He started with Molly, in Manhattan.
Ordinarily, Forrest wouldn’t mind hearing the low pitched pinging from the screen for a while, signaling a pending chat. It was calming, like a slow heartbeat with a musical chime. This time the wait was irritating. Forrest drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair until the chime changed to a brighter tone and the chat connected. The screen came alive with his daughter’s broad smile.
“Dad! Not your usual time, you’re lucky we’re here! How are you?”
“Molly, sweetheart, glad I caught you. I’m fine, Mom’s fine.”
“Good, good, us too. Listen, I only have a sec, we’re going out and the ride will be here any minute. Saw the screen ringing so I just wanted to make sure everything’s okay – everything’s alright, yes?”
“Yes, Moll, all fine, okay, I won’t keep you. Tell me quick, did you see any strange weather down there today?”
“Weather? Really, Dad?” Molly teased. “An emergency call to check on the weather?”
“I know, it sounds silly. Just wondered if you saw anything strange today?”
“Well, it was pretty nice all day. But since you mention it, there was a light fog that rolled in when I was getting out of work. I mean that’s not so unusual this time of year, but not that time of day, you know, off the river it’s always in the morning, and it sticks around til it warms up. I guess that was kinda strange.”
“See anything else?”
“No… like what? You’re weirding me out. Sure everything is okay?”
“Yes, really, Moll.”
“Stu says the ride’s here, gotta go. I’ll call usual time okay?
“Yeah talk to you then, have a great night, love you Molly.”
“You too Dad, bye… bye.”
She always said it at least a couple of times, as though she was never quite ready to give up the connection.
There. The whole of the northeast, at the very least. No surprise, except he had expected people to have talked about the planes. He pictured the canyon-like streets, the volume of air traffic around any big city. No surprise at all.
Forrest’s next call was to California.
“The actual Forrest Morton, on my screen, man! And dude you don’t look any older at all, you must be doing a lot of clean living my man! Maybe a bit of gray in that thatch now, am I right? But look at you, has to be what, eight years? Nine?”
Forrest had braced himself for the human tornado he remembered, as he waited for the connection. Now as Bruce Cameron’s beaming, bearded face filled the screen, his smile matched his former colleague’s. A guy who filled up any room he was in, not with his own importance, but with generosity.
“I know, Brucie, it’s been a long time. Way too long, and I’m sorry about that. You look great yourself!” He found himself feeling more energetic – the Bruce effect of years past.
They swapped a few of the more important milestones to bridge the missing years, but Bruce was well aware there must be a reason for the surprise call, and he didn’t wait too long to ask what might be going on.
“Yeah, you’re right, Bruce, there is a reason. Something a little strange happened over here today, and it got me thinking of some of the things we worked on back in the traffic mesh days.”
“Okay, ya got me intrigued.” Bruce paused in attention, then broke in himself, “Hey, you know Forrest, I just about never go anyplace without thinking about you. Just want to say that. Seems weird not to have kept up with you, when I think about you anytime I take a ride anywhere. Daddy of the traffic mesh, no big deal, right?” He raised a brow and wagged his head. “I’m an idiot. But go on…”
“Well, I could have stayed in touch, too. Time slips by right?” Forrest gathered his thoughts and started in, “But today. First off, did you have any odd weather over there today?”
“Well not odd, unless you count a day of rain in California. Don’t have that many of those, but nothing you’d call odd, really.”
“Notice any unusual air traffic?”
“No…?” Sounding like a question, trying to figure out where this might be going. “What’s the deal, big guy?
“I was working outside today. Heard a bunch of planes come up, they were flying in parallel, heading west, covered the entire sky. I’m pretty sure they were dropping something, covering the entire region.”
Bruce cocked his head in interest. “Go on.”
“It looked like powder or dust, very high up, kind of metallic and prismatic when the sun hit it right. Behind the planes, almost in a sheet. Made an amazing rainbow, actually. Dustbow I suppose!
“It took a few minutes to fall, looked like mist at ground level, and then there was a sheen on everything. My daughter in New York had no idea about the planes, but she was out of work early and saw the mist. So I’m thinking it’s regional, at least. All of New England and New York, maybe the northeast. If they were going cross country they would have reached you a while ago.”
Bruce reacted when Forrest paused. Under his beard was the scrunched up lower lip of a skeptic, being skeptical. “Nah, man, nothing like that here. Sounds like some weird-ass hallucination to me. You spent the day smoking the funny stuff, right? That sounds like some great medical grade weed doing the news report to me.”
“Yeah, I know,” Forrest allowed a sheepish smile, “but you know that’s never been my thing Brucie. Unlike some I can think of, right?”
“Sure, maybe…” Bruce chuckled. “Anytime I hear about strange things in the sky I go straight to user error. Atmospheric effects can look really weird, Forrest, man, you know that.” Bruce considered a moment. “I’ll give you planes on parallel paths is unusual. If that’s what you saw for real. How many?”
“I could see seven, spaced out evenly. And they were turboprops.”
“Seven. And obsolete. Yeah, that would be weird. So let’s say you saw what you saw. I know the traffic mesh king doesn’t bounce an observation off me without a theory. What do you see, boss?”
“Yeah, I do have a theory,” Forrest laughed. “Listen to this and tell me I’m crazy. Remember the last part of our project was sorting out control comms, so input from all the sensors was routed and handled in real time to control traffic flow, routing, merging, speed, spacing, all of it. The mesh and the sensors were the easy part, the data was the heavy lifting.”
Bruce grimaced. “Aah, ya, that’s why I didn’t sleep for two years. I do recall pushing that rock up that mountain.”
“Then not long after, there was the explosion of medical bugs and implants. I got a glimpse of that, they were working on that tech at MIT, soon after we launched. I helped those guys out with a consult on data strategies and encapsulation stuff. The guy I knew there was heavily into miniaturization. And I know they were talking to our software people and others. Luke Willis, Anna Volcette, [ Maybe FM has a hard time remembering the names, Bruce fills in the missing parts?]you’ll remember them right? Maybe MIT talked to you?”
“Well actually no, I did not have that honor. Would have loved that gig, but their loss.”
“Yes, it was quite sweet. And obviously, that all turned into a very big deal.”
“Only about a quarter of the economy now!” Bruce’s eyebrows mimicked the sky high value of stock in the entire sector.
“Well, I have a feeling some of our stuff has been mixed up with some of their stuff, and it’s being used for something completely new. I don’t like what I’m thinking that might be.”
By now Bruce was frowning. “Okay dude, let’s hear it.”
“Mesh technology, sub-microscopic sensors, blanket coverage over a huge area. And that could only make sense with control comms like ours.”
Bruce’s frown didn’t let up. “That doesn’t seem even close to practical. Think of the expense of that.”
“Universal surveillance. I can’t think of anything else that would be worth that much to anyone.”
Bruce sat with the idea for a moment. “I think you’re dreaming, man. Shit. Except it’s you, the least spacey guy I ever worked with. No offense Forrest, you know what I mean.”
They chatted a little longer, Bruce offering benign possibilities for the weather and the planes, while remaining unconvinced that they meant anything significant. They both promised to stay in touch more often, both with warm smiles as they rang off.
Forrest let out a sigh on the way back to the kitchen, where Ellen was steeping tea for them both. “Bruce Cameron wasn’t buying it. I’m not sure how to feel now. It was really good to see him. I really don’t know why I didn’t keep up with him all this time. But explaining it all again, I’m not sure. Maybe I’m just imagining possibilities that don’t make sense.”
Ellen squeezed his arm, and moved in to wrap her arms around him for a comforting minute. Drawing away, she held onto his hands. “Forrest, honey, I don’t think I know anyone on earth more level-headed than you. If you say something doesn’t look right, I’m one hundred percent sure it’s not right.”
“Let’s get that tea before it’s cold.” She disposed of the teabags, passed Forrest his mug,. Cupping her hands around her own mug, she leaned back on the counter. “You know, I looked up turboprop airplanes while you were chatting. Quite a few articles out there. I can send you links to a couple I thought were good. Most of them were scrapped ‘cause it made no sense to pay to maintain them once hyper-jets came in. But I was surprised how many were sold to countries like Congo and Sudan in Africa, and there were some others. Still a lot of them out there, just in out of the way places. It was business sites, where I found them.”
“Once a researcher, always a researcher, eh Ellie my love?”
“Those skills don’t go rusty, hun.”
The hot tea, along with Ellen’s attention, was restoring his faith in his own judgement. “I would have guessed he’d be open minded enough to consider the possibilities. Doesn’t change anything though.”