every engineer
in America
knows the
absolute center
of the union.
the spot of balance
held accrue
fashioned by
pressure from
all the angles.
stand there and behold
empire
fastened by
project planners.
deep in some cornfield, without light even the moon obscured two men slowly talking as one
fished something out of his suit jacket pocket. he twirled it and his partner kind of smiled
but also thought it was extra stupidity. as it rested in his palm, and his partner both watched and
looked around almost fearful of discovery, he pushed down with a concentrated look and held
whatever area he pushed for a meaningful amount of time.
the device made an awful sound that penetrated so far...
both of them wondered if it was broken. this was the first time either of them had had to use
it. suddenly a great maw of weird oval shape translucent vertical portal? the less stupid of the
two whistled. "christ! do we step in through there?"
John mumbled he thought it was mostly insane,
that this had to happen. John put the device away, this time with much care. then both men looked around them, the corn not moving, the air still, the shape quiet. they stepped in, one after the other, not really
important who stepped in first. they were team players, evident of the actions taken place here now.
once they had left the corn field, the portal too vanished and left no wake in that action. just a momentary
snap.
it had been early in the morning when the two of them were summoned to their boss's office. Marty
drank coffee sitting in one of the large leather chairs. John walked in smiling, he held a piece of
paper in his hands and threw it to his partner, which jostled the coffee. John begin to preach a sermon
about last nights games, in which he only, was the god almighty and had made the correct bets.
he looked out his boss's window while speaking these truths. his boss, James, only looked up once
from his computer screen during the exchange, his face, worried. Marty was attempting to clean
his coffee. he moved the paper with the historical record of John's genius.
gentlemen, "it has come to the agency's attention that contact must be made." John and Marty looked at each other and both of them became serious. they noticed that James had now produced a small black
metal box. it rested on his large wooden desk. the grain looked almost to be swallowed up around the
device where it rested. the space around it seemed 'wrong'.
gentlemen, "care must be made. mistakes could be costly. you've been chosen because of your Rosstrom
Index." they looked at each other and sort of sighed. the agency's metric system was a bizarre mystery.
it guided so much of the decision making process's. they understand it little but it was the Index that
had decreed them partners. it could be assumed that whatever James had been looking at on his computer
screen was also influenced by the system.
John spoke first, "uh, so is this by the book? this is what all the training was about?"
Marty was looking down at his feet as if recalling an entire decade of training.
John continued, "there a countdown to go with the orders?"
James nodded. He picked up the device and handed it to John. He then reached into a drawer of his desk
and pulled out an ancient looking leather folder. Meant to hold important documents from long ago.
There were strange engravings all over it. This he handed to Marty, who began to sift through the inner
contents. He pulled out a map and unfolded it on a large glass table that also occupied James's office.
The three men hunkered over the map. There were some coordinates along the left hand side.
Map Depiction
After, the two men who had arrived for the meeting, shook their boss's hand and vacated.
In the hallway they both looked at each other. Sun was pouring in through long rectangular
window slats to the opposing brick wall. There were plants soaking the light. They kept looking
at each other. John pulled out the box. They looked at it. He put it away.
"Did you ever think we'd make contact?"
