Prophesy - Chapter 6
One thousand eighty-eight days had passed since Walter McAllister arrived in Wyoming to begin his seismic monitoring project for the US Geological Survey. He kept track of each day’s readings in both a computer database and in handwritten ringed notebooks, which now filled a large bookshelf in the corner of his bedroom in the small cabin where he lived on the western edge of Yellowstone Park. In the three years since he had arrived at the site, he had had five visitors, three from the Geological Survey and his two friends who were passing through Wyoming and stopped by to see him. For the rest of the time, he was alone, living a hermit’s life in the forests of Wyoming with his books and his computer in one of the least densely populated states in the entire country.
It was seven o’clock in the morning on a Saturday, and Walter had heard noises from the eastern side of his cabin where he kept his garbage cans. He was always reluctant to investigate such noises because they were more often than not created by bears foraging for food. One of the first lessons he learned in Wyoming was not to put food in cans unless you wanted bears to search for food. It had been months since he had heard a noise, and he was upset that it appeared the bears had come back. He grabbed a shotgun and went outside to try to scare off the bear one more time. To his surprise, it wasn’t a bear, but a young man of about twenty-five stumbling on the uneven ground where the cans were stored.
“Next time, tell me you’re human,” Walter told the young man. “I was about to fire a shotgun. Who are you? What do you want?”
“I’m Douglas Starbender with the Geological Survey,” he timidly answered.
“What are you doing here at seven in the morning on a Saturday? This is not a weekday!”
Walter laid the shotgun down for a moment as he waited for the young man’s reply.
“I was here at the park on another assignment, and William Perry with the home office called me and asked me to speak to you.”
“I know William Perry.” Walter was perplexed as to why Perry would have called him.
“You know I have a telephone. You could call me. It’s very dangerous for you to be wandering around the forest alone. Campers die periodically in these forests.”
He was exaggerating, of course, but he was annoyed at the sudden intrusion, and he hated unexpected breaks in his routine.
“What doesMr. Perry wants?”
“Can I come inside?”
“I don’t know about that. Maybe I should ask you for ID. What proof do I have you’re from the Geological Survey?”
“I have my agency I.D.”
“No, I think you should just wait outside. I’ll be out to see you in a little while after I finish a few chores.”
“You have me kind of worried now about the bears.”
“You should be worried. Where’s your car? There’s a particularly obnoxious bear who likes to jump on cars.”
“My car is about a half a mile from here. It was hard for me to find the cabin. I parked it and began to walk in circles.” He paused. “Please let me come inside,” the young man pleaded. “I don’t want to be out here with bears.”
Walter couldn’t continue the charade any longer and finally stopped himself.
“I’m just playing with you,” he conceded. “Please come inside, MMrStarbender.”
Douglas was dressed casually as though someone on vacation, and Walter gestured for him to follow into the cabin. Walter picked up the shotgun where he had laid it down.
“So speak, Mr Starbender. Time is money, you know, and it’s also impatient,” as they entered the cabin.
“He wanted me to take a look at your computers to see if they were working properly. Some of the data has been, how did he put it? Anomalous.”
“Anomalous data,” Walter chided him. “Sort of sounds like anonymous dating, doesn’t it?” He paused. “Take a seat, and we’ll get to the bottom of this mystery.”
His visitor searched his cluttered cabin for a place to sit down
Walter went into his kitchen and returned with two bottles of water. He handed one to the young man.
“I’m all ears,” he responded. “Tell me about the anomalous data.”
“It appears there has been interference in some of your transmissions.”
“Are those the exact words which William Perry used, and do you have examples of this so-called interference?”
“He wasn’t specific on the details.”
“William is never specific on details. He’s not a scientist anymore, as I’ve reminded him, more of a bureaucrat now,w and he has no idea of the difficulties of the task he’s asked me to do.”
“He wants me to look at your computers to see if the problem is there. That’s what I do.”
“What if I don’t want you to look at my computers? I’ve been gathering data here every day for three years and seventeen days now. I keep double results on the computer and written records in notebooks.”
Walter pointed to the notebooks in a bookcase on the southern wall of the living room. Give me specifics. I’d be glad to go over it with you. But I’m reluctant to have you meddling with my computers.”
“The diagnostics I want to run shouldn’t take longer than fifteen minutes. That was all the time I was planning to interrupt you.”
“Fifteen minutes.” He paused a moment.
“Alright, I’ll take you at your word.” Walter rose from the chair and went to a cabinet. He removed an old-fashioned hourglass about eleven inches tall with almost bright yellow sand inside and set it down on the table in front of him.
“This is exactly fifteen minutes. I’ve tested it many times.”
“His visitor looked at it a moment with its four pedestals mounted on the metal panels on each end, and the sand-filled red glass tube and the pedestals stained in a red dish brown hue.
“It was my wife’s and before that her grandmother’s and before that a Lithuanian duchess’s. It’s about one hundred and fifty-three years old.”
Douglas thought it odd that Walter used the number one hundred fifty-three. But then Walter’s behaviour appeared strange to him anyway. Walter pointed to his computer in the southeast corner of the room. He flipped over the hourglass,s and he declared, “Alright, you have fifteen minutes.”
“This is ridiculous. I may need more than fifteen minutes.”
“You don’t have more than fifteen minutes. Time is flowing past us like leaves tossed by the wind. I suggest you hurry.”
Douglas hesitated a moment.
“’ To quote that great mystic poet, Jim Morrison, the time to hesitate is through.’ Carpe Diem, Mr Starbender.” Walter went over to his computer, turned on the monitor and signed in for Douglas. His desktop appeared on the screen, and then he got up from the chair.
Douglas came over to the computer and sat down. He removed a CD-ROM from his jacket and put it into the computer. To Walter’s surprise, his hands moved quickly across the keyboard, and he could see various screens flashing quickly across the screen. The procedure took exactly thirteen minutes and twenty-nine seconds, and Douglas stood up from the computer. Walter sensed this was not just about anomalies. Something else was going on.
“I’m finished,” Douglas announced. “You see, it was that simple.”
He removed the disc and put it back into his pocket.
“So, what was this other assignment you were working on?” Walter asked.
“I’m not at liberty to talk about it. I don’t want to take up anymore of your time than necessary.”
“So what did you discover on my computer? Any problems?”
“No. Everything appears in order. It means the problem most likely is somewhere else.” He paused a moment. “Don’t worry. I can make my way back to my car.”
Walter watched Douglas leave the cabin and began to walk back into the woods,s when Douglas finally disappeared. Walter immediately returned to his computer to see what had happened in the Diagnostic test.
When Douglas arrived back at his car, parked in a clearing, he found two bears lingering near the car. He turned around and began to walk quickly back to Walter’s cabin. Walter was scanning the hard drive, searching for any changes in his configuration. He was in DOS mode and began typing a long series of commands, followed by the screen flashing before his eyes. Then he heard a loud knock on his door.
“What does he want?” he told himself. “I thought I was rid of him.”
He reluctantly got up and opened his doors.
“Yes, Mr. Starbender.”
“There are bears at my car. Could you help?”
“What do you want me to do? Shoot them? That wouldn’t be very nice. It seems to me you must wait for them to leave. This is their forest, remember? Your car is an intruder.”
“Mr Perry said you have a caustic temperament. How long will I have to wait?”
“How would I know that? I’ll take you to your car. You climb inside, and you leave.”
Walter retrieved his shotgun,n and the two of them began the walk back to Douglas’ car. When they arrived, the bears were gon,e and Douglas climbed into the car and left. Walter hoped that this would be the last of the intruders.
He returned to his cabin and continued his DOS analysis of his hard drive. Then he returned to the Windows operating system, and he began to search for a program named “Enigma.” He clicked on the icon, and a password box opened up. He entered the username “Agamemnon”, and then his password and a menu screen popped up with four commands.
“Analyse, Scan, Security, Special Projects.”
He clicked on special projects, and another list popped up on the screen with a dozen names, all names of various patriarchs of the Old and New Testaments, Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, David, even Jesus and Paul. He clicked the name “Moses,” and an icon popped up of a disc scanner and the words “scanning.” An icon of a lion’s head popped up, and beneath it, the words ‘Key logger detected’ appeared. Walter knew there were those within the Geological Survey who were watching him. He wondered if they suspected he was “Agamemnon.”
“I have to tighten security,” he told himself as he turned off his monitor. But his computer system had the most sophisticated security system in the world, all designed by one of the most talented programmers alive, a man who, from all outward appearance, spent his days checking electronic equipment, reading mystery novels, surfing on the internet and mourning his wife in a cabin on the edge of Yellowstone Park.