David Golemon - Event

They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.

--EDGAR ALLAN POE

"ELEONORA,"I84I

Specialist Fifth Class Sarah McIntire closed her book and notepad at the end of class. Today's lecture had been on ancient burial pitfalls, traps made to prevent looting of various burial sites throughout the world that Event Group archaeologists had come across during the many excavations in places like the Valley of the Kings near Luxor, Egypt, and in the Peruvian Inca ruins excavated in 2004. Sarah taught geology and used the opportunity given her by the ancients to spice up an otherwise boring day of geological subject matter. She had been joined by a professor visiting her class thanks to a virtual video link from the University of Tennessee. He'd delivered a nice lecture on the use of hot springs and other natural elements as traps by ancient architects in their planning of tombs.

"Boy, was that dead or what?"

Sarah looked around to see her roommate, Signalman First Class Lisa Willing, USN, smiling and holding her books against her ample chest. The blue Group jumpsuit fit her a little too well, which helped in giving her part of her nickname, behind her back of course, of Willing Lisa. Sarah knew Lisa had to have heard it before, but her friend always said it was just better to ignore people. Sarah knew Lisa to be smart as a whip, and she was the best in her field of electronics and communications as well. And, as her roommate, Sarah knew her not to be willing to do much of anything other than study at night and, on rare occasions, catch a movie on the complex's cable television station. Though there was a certain someone in her life, it was secret, and sadly, nicknames like that lingered.

"Oh, thanks, so I'm boring?"

"Nah, just kidding, kiddo," Lisa said, smiling and nudging her friend with her shoulder.

"Well, just another week and I'll finish my graduate work and I'll have my master's from the Colorado School of Mines. That still won't guarantee a field assignment." Sarah looked at Lisa. "You've been there, haven't you?"

"Egypt? Yeah, last year we had that busted field operation when that French asshole blew the whistle on Dr. Fryman from NYU. We were this close"--Lisa held up her index finger and thumb about an inch apart--"to getting a good lead on some relics that may have escaped the destruction of the great library of Alexandria."

Sarah looked at her friend with envy. She longed for the day to participate in something other than simulations and attending classes. She would walk out of here with a master's degree in geology and an officer's commission, a second lieutenant's gold bar, but she wanted what everyone here at the Group wanted, and that was fieldwork. But the opportunity hadn't arisen in the two years she had been here. She was not like a lot of the scientists here at the Group. She was a soldier first and that was what was so damn frustrating for her. She had the training she needed to survive, she should be eligible for more than just geology and tunnel teams, and she should be placed on any roster where a soldier was required. She knew it had been just a fluke that her geology team hadn't had any fieldwork, but that didn't make it any less frustrating.

"I would have loved to have been there," Sarah said as they passed others on their way to class and the mess hall.

"You'll get your shot," the blond woman said. "Hey, you wanna grab a late lunch? I'm starving." Lisa had become quite adept at steering her roommate away from a very sore subject.

Sarah hunched her shoulders in a "whatever" gesture and started for the mess hall.

As they stepped into the main cafeteria, Sarah, concentrating on her thoughts, didn't see the large man with gold oak leaf bars on his collar. Luckily, he saw the collision coming before it happened. Moving quickly, he raised his tray full of roast beef and mashed potatoes at the last second above her small frame. Sarah raised her arms over her head, hoping if food fell, most of it would fall on her textbook and not her. As she was doing this, she inadvertently backed into another, only slightly smaller man. As she hit his tray, the man deftly backed up two paces and righted the plates before he lost his sandwich and green-tinted lime Jell-O.

"Boy, you're just a little pinball, aren't you?" asked the first, taller officer.

Sarah turned to the second man, who held his tray in one hand and was readjusting its contents.

"I'm so sorry," she said, embarrassed.

"You'll have to excuse my roommate, sir, she's daydreaming of caves and tunnels and all other kinds of nasty stuff," Lisa chimed in, letting her eyes linger a little too long at the taller of the two officers.

"Think nothing of it, ladies, just a minor traffic pileup, no harm done," said the man with the dark brown hair and wearing an army major's rank on his new coveralls.

Sarah backed away with her book held to her chest. Her eyes locked on the man's blue ones. His stare didn't waver; his smile was dazzling and his gaze almost hypnotic. She finally broke what was to her an awkward moment by turning and walking away quickly enough that Lisa had to run to catch up.

"Hey, slow down," Lisa called at Sarah's retreating form, looking back at the taller of the two men, the one with a navy lieutenant commander rank on his collar. He was returning her look, smiling as his companion commented on something, and then he had to finally turn away.

"Damn, that's the new head of security," Sarah said as she took a tray from the stack and placed it on the serving line.

"With you becoming an officer yourself soon, there could be something there," Lisa chided, nodding her head in the direction of the almost accident, but all they saw were people staring at them, waiting for the line to start moving again.

Sarah turned and looked at her friend. "Is it the entire navy that has dirty minds and reads nonexistent things into something as mundane as me almost getting a bunch of food knocked onto my head, or is it just you?"

Lisa smiled and batted her eyes. "Just me, I guess."

Lieutenant Commander Carl Everett stood six foot three inches, which was how he had maneuvered his tray over Sarah so easily. His blond hair was trimmed short. His arms were tanned and muscular in his short-sleeved jumpsuit. He set the tray with his lunch on it down and pulled out a chair. But he waited for his new boss to sit first and watched Lisa and her roommate, Sarah, the one he had almost run into, walk through the serving line. He waited for Lisa to look back again, but she was too busy talking with those around her, already joking with the cooks serving her. Giving up, he finally sat. He tried never to communicate with Lisa during duty hours because the secret they kept was a serious breach of military etiquette and a court-martial offense.

"Is the mess hall food always this good?" Jack asked.

"Yes, sir, they usually have three or four entrees, and since this is a government-and not a military-run outfit, it's officially called a cafeteria, whatever that is," Everett joked, then paused with a forkful of mashed potatoes halfway to his mouth. "But field RATS are still the same, MREs in quantity if not quality."

Collins smiled. In his time in the service he had eaten enough of the freeze-dried rations to feed Botswana.

"So, Commander, you like the duty?" he asked, then chewed.

"Enough so that I don't want to rotate out. They want to send me back to the SEALs with a promotion and a nice fat training stint, but I've officially requested another six years of detached service."