The Quantum Connection

'Well, that makes sense to me,' Anson interrupted. 'The so-called social connection has little bearing on a military machine. If I were going to manipulate the balance of power in a civilization, I wouldn't do it through a public campaign or making a movie about it, no sir! I would change the minds of the people already in power.'

'Steven, I know you explained about the Mike and Mikhail SuperAgents, but can we meet them?' 'Becca asked.

'Of course you can,' Tatiana said as she placed her hand on the patio table and a speaker formed out of the table materials.

Mike, make an open channel through the speaker on the table here. The cat is out of the bag. You too, Mikhail, I told the SuperAgents.

'Mike, Mikhail, can you hear us?' I tested the speaker system.

'Of course, Steven,' Mike replied.

'Yes, Steven,' Mikhail said in a slightly dryer tone of voice.

'Boys, meet the W-squared crew . . .' I introduced everyone. It was fun for a moment, until we got back down to business. 'Mike, display the galaxy map with the quarantine zones indicated by orange x's and the political control indicated by different colors.'

'Okay, Steven,' Mike replied and the map appeared on the flat screen.

'You see that the galaxy is mostly separated into two regions. This yellow part is controlled by the Lumpeyins. And the Grays control the green part. Mike calls the Grays the Teytoonis, by the way,' I explained.

'Sounds to me like they bought too many vowels,' Al, one of the original Huntsville members of Anson's cadre, said.

'Notice how the x's are all inside, deep inside, Gray territory,' Tatiana pointed out. 'And also note that all of the x's have a two-hundred-light-year quarantine around them. The Grays are afraid of these planets for some reason.'

'That's right. And Mike and I figured out that only these quarantined planets and all of these quarantined planets have isolated abductees on them. This is too blatantly obvious a correlation to overlook. Tatiana . . .' I nodded for her to take over.

'I think the Grays fear the isolated abductees for some reason and that is why the quarantine is there. Perhaps these Lumpeyins caused something or did something to us that the Grays do not like. I'm not sure.'

'Boobytrap!' Tabitha said.

Anson looked at her and replied, 'A boobytrap, sir?' Then he started laughing and chuckling to himself and in a very badly imitated Russian accent he continued, 'Ha, ha, ha . . . It was so obvious!' And he slammed his fist on the table.

Jim and Tabitha must have understood the joke because they started laughing. I wasn't sure if it was a joke on Tatiana or not with the Russian accent and all.

'What's so funny?' I asked.

'Nothing is funny, really, Steven, not about our situation any way. But this moment mimics one of the anime cartoons from the 1980s that we've studied,' Anson said.

'That you've studied?' Tatiana asked.

'Oh yes, studied. I've always been a science fiction fan, but a few years ago when we realized that we were actually being attacked by aliens we conducted a brainstorming session for ideas and training regimen. The outcome of that conference was that we needed a language from which to compare possible alien attack scenarios. Since there was a wealth of science fiction books, television shows, movies, and so on, we decided to make alien- oriented science fiction a training requirement for the W-squared group. This gives us a common language to use. That is why we all understand the Boobytrap reference.' Anson's explanation made a lot of sense.

'Okay, I get it. So, what about the cartoon?' I asked.

'It was called Robotech and this is similar to what happened there. An alien spacecraft crashed on Earth and when other aliens showed up to get it the thing turns its big guns on and starts plastering away at the incoming aliens. The humans figure out it's a boobytrap. That's all. But doesn't it seem that this is what is happening here?'

Mike, download all info on Robotech to Tatiana and me.

Okay, Steven. There are books and television shows. 

Download them all. In fact, download any and all science fiction relating to alien attack, Tatiana thought to Mike.

Okay. Mike downloaded the television series, all of the director's stories and cuts and then the books. The books were very impressive and by the third or fourth chapter in the first one I understood the boobytrap reference. It took a few seconds more to download all alien attack related science fiction.

'Actually, the parallels are thin here. This seems more like landmines to me like in Screamers or that episode of Deep Space Nine where Nog got his leg shot off,' Anne Marie said. They all seemed to have impressive knowledge of the pertinent science fiction. My first guess had been that they all liked impressing each other with their knowledge of the classical science fiction and that they tried to outdo each other with their knowledge of useless trivia. I soon realized that I was wrong and that such obscure knowledge does seem to come in quite handy in their day jobs, which appeared to now include defending the human race from alien attackers—much like in many science fiction stories. Too bad nobody ever wrote a serious textbook on how to defend against an alien attack; it would have been useful. Maybe someone did, perhaps it's classified and I never had access to it. I would have to ask about that.

'That's right, Annie, landmine strategy is the same thing though. It's a boobytrap scenario.' Tabitha smiled approvingly at her daughter. 'If you are a retreating force that is being overrun or forced out of a territory, if there is time, you leave behind hazardous things like landmines and spiked pits and other nasty surprises to slow down an advancing enemy. They might also try to create a long-term strategy to give you an edge in future battles. Perhaps