Weapons of choice

Ensign Curtis had a new job. No longer just the assistant bookkeeper on the Enterprise, he and Lieutenant Commander Black had been assigned to the Clinton to undergo "familiarization," learning the basics of operating with the Multinational Force. Having done so, they would train their colleagues on the Enterprise. The idea of Wally Curtis having anything to teach some of those old salts back on the Big E was enough to keep him awake at night. They were going to eat him alive. He was just sure of it.

But then, Admiral Spruance had personally told him that his quick thinking at Midway had singled him out as a young man who could adapt to change under pressure, and that was something they were all going to have to work on. And he did have Commander Black along to look after him.

Curtis had nearly choked on his pride when he wrote to his mom and dad to tell them. Of course, he couldn't send the letter yet. The censors weren't letting anything out about the arrival of the Multinational Force. They were the talk of Hawaii. Every bar, every shop, every warehouse and factory, every home and office was abuzz with excited-and occasionally hysterical-talk, rumor, and argument about the people from the future. But not a single story had been printed in the local press. It was an invisible sensation. And Curtis was right in the middle of it.

Who would have thought?

He spent most of his time here, in the Media Center-except that it wasn't called that anymore. The journalists had mostly been confined to their quarters. It was the Research Center now, and Ensign Wally Curtis was one of the first researchers. He was currently learning about helicopters.

It was a dream posting, like being sent on a spaceship, only better. Buck Rogers didn't have a fraction of the stuff these guys used all the time.

Unfortunately Curtis wasn't allowed to use the computers without supervision, not yet, and Lieutenant Thieu was nowhere to be found, so he occupied his time reading conventional books and journals. Some of it was great, but some…

"Would you like to have a go on my computer, Ensign Curtis?" Rosanna Natoli asked.

She'd appeared from nowhere.

Curtis was used to that. The reporter and her friend, Miss Duffy, were frequent visitors to the Research Center. Unlike some of the other journalists, they'd agreed to help out. They told him they were writing a paper to explain the Transition.

Here and there around the room other sailors and one or two civilians sat quietly at workstations, tapping keys, scribbling notes. Curtis would have liked to ask them for some help, but truth be known, he was a little frightened of approaching them. They all seemed sort of fierce to him. Even more so than the old salts.

"I'd love a turn on your computer, Miss Natoli!" he said with real relief.

"C'mon then, Ensign. Let's take her out for a spin."

Curtis fairly leapt out of his chair to follow Rosanna over to her workstation. As they went, she handed him her personal flexipad.

"The big computer is more powerful, but of course I can't carry it around with me," she said. "When I insert the flexipad into the drive slot, however, this baby reformats itself into my personal workstation. So now I've got the nice big screen, the keyboard, and faster access to the Net. Or I would have, if we still had the Net. We're making do with whatever the Clinton had cached. Still with me?"

"Not really," Wally said, pulling up a chair.

"Don't sweat it. You're a smart kid. You'll pick it up quickly. Where'd you say you were from? Chicago, right? Okay. Type that in."

Wally was actually quite an accomplished typist. He'd taken lessons at his mother's insistence. But the combination of the very busy screen in front of him, and the strangely shaped keyboard beneath his wrists, proved so unsettling that he retreated into a slow, two-fingered, hunt-and-peck style.

"Jesus, kid, you're gonna have to speed it up if you want a job at the Trib. Okay, click the mouse… this thing here."

The picture on the big screen changed instantly. While Wally squinted at the flood of information, Natoli explained that Fleetnet had more than four thousand CNN references to Chicago stored in its lattice memory. Beginning to get the picture, Curtis stared in awe.

"All right," Natoli said. "A big cheer for the Windy City. Now, let's refine the search. Whereabouts you from in Chicago?"

While Rosanna played nursemaid to the ensign, at the other end of the room Julia Duffy was just beginning to feel the need for another chill pill. She'd been chewing through her supply of Prozac like fucking M amp;M's, ever since they'd arrived. As she listened to Lieutenant Commander Black describe the raid on Pearl Harbor, she began to feel again as if the floor of the world was dropping out from beneath her feet. Like, here's this guy, completely sane, kinda cute even, and he's talking about something happened way back in the last century-as though it was just yesterday, she mused, hoping it didn't show on her face.