Here's a snapshot from chapter 1 of RAZOR 1-7:
Top secret test facility, Nevada desert, 2018: “Is this gonna work?” Asked U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Micker as he walked over to a large control panel.
“Doctor!?” General Micker barked, his voice reverberating off the steel grates on the floor of the underground bunker complex they were in.
“What! Oh, sorry General. I didn’t hear you come off the elevator.” Replied Jeffery Tanaka, Doctor of applied physics, and project lead.
Sensing a tone of sarcasm sprinkled with a dash of superiority complex, General Micker set his coffee cup down next to Tanaka. Looking at the young, thirty something doctor, and then at the other civilians scrambling around the control room, Micker leaned in, his head even with Tanaka’s, “Save the attitude for someone who won’t have you shuttled off to a military prison on Adak, and just answer my question---please.”
Forcing half of a grin, Doctor Tanaka looked up at the General, who in his early fifties, has spent the majority of his military career in special operations, and then the intelligence community, both military and private, before coming to project Metis.
Nodding, Tanaka replied, “Yeah, it will work. Were gonna knock power out everywhere from here to Las Vegas, but it’s gonna work.”
“I only ask because, as you know, on the last test you burned out damn near all the circuit boards on the space station.” Micker said as he picked his coffee cup up off the control panel Tanaka was working at.
“Yes, General, I remember. We all remember! And just for clarification, it was not all the boards, more like half.”
Smiling to himself as he took a sip of hot coffee, Micker sat down in a chair next to Tanaka, “I know Jeff, I’m just busting your balls a little before this final test. Look, in all seriousness, I am a little concerned about our team on the ground. The energy outputs were talking about here are---significant. I handpicked those men, I know them. I don’t want anything to happen.”
The genuine concern in General Micker’s voice made Tanaka think, just for a second, maybe there was a human underneath that uniform after all. But, then again, the five-man team he was talking about were, in his eyes, all seasoned killers. Dangerous men who, in any setting other than the military, would be viewed as serial killers.
Turning from the screen on his panel Dr. Tanaka gave a nod, and in an understanding tone replied, “Yes General, they’ll be fine. Like you said the energy output is much greater, and we had to tweak the gravity generator some to maintain our connections in the singularity, but the pulse is target specific. So, when we initiate, the package should arrive instantaneously. As long as they’re not standing on the target, it will have no impact on them.”
Micker raised his coffee cup in a toast to Dr. Tanaka, “I’ve got to tell you doc, when you achieved that instantaneous burst transmission to the ISS last year you really blew our skirts up! Then, when you came and told us that you could not only send information, but solid objects? lot of folks at the security council thought you had finally taken the train to crazy town. If this works, you’re not only gonna fundamentally change the scope of the battlefield, but our society at large.”
“Here’s to progress!” Dr. Tanaka said with a smile as he flipped the switch starting an automated countdown of 10 minutes.
General Micker finished his coffee in one long swig, stood, and walked to a red telephone receiver built into the wall. He picked the unit up, spoke with someone for a few seconds, then hung up.
A sense of hesitation cascaded across Micker’s face as he hung up the phone. He didn’t have to look to feel all the eyes in the room looking right at him as the countdown clock ticked past the seven-minute mark.
With a reassuring nod from Dr. Tanaka, Micker took a deep breath, and turned to one of the few military members in the large room buried deep in the Nevada desert. The young women, who was seated in front of a communications console that looked to be right out of a movie set, picked up a pair of headphones, and waited for her orders.
“Call them!” General Micker said as he strode across the room towards her.
“Razor 1-7, this is Metis, how do you copy? Over.”
