Chapter
13
A Serialized Story of the
Not So Distant Future
April 24, 2005
Part Twenty Three
The Tai Chi classes were above a storefront on 5th avenue. Sam was a little surprised by how casual it all felt. There was no bowing or karate outfits to wear, just a bunch of people in casual clothes.
"You must be Sam, I'm Alex." Alex was about 5 ft 7, and very slim. His head was completely bald on top, and brown with flecks of gray on the sides. He had a moustache and beard which were flecked with gray as well. He seemed to almost flow rather than walk, and he had a strong sense of serenity about him.
"Hi." Sam said, shaking his hand. He could tell that Alex had a better grip than he did, but Alex didn't exert any unnecassary pressure.
"Come on in, you'll need to take off your sneakers. It's better to work out in socks or flat slippers. You can sit on the bench over there as I demonstrate the form for you."
"There are several forms of Tai Chi, I'll be demonstrating the Yang long form." Alex said. He turned his back to Sam and stood with his heels together, and his feet sticking out at 45 degree angles. He then stepped sideways, and began raising both his arms upwards directly in front of his body.
"Tai Chi moves every muscle in the body, and it's excellent for building muscle tone, stamina, increasing your circulation and boosting your immune system." As he spoke, he moved slowly through a variety of poses that didn't look too complicated to Sam.
"There is of course the spiritual side to Tai Chi as well, and the flow of Chi energy through the body, but you don't have to learn about that unless you're really interested. Just learning the form and practicing it daily will be very beneficial to your health."
Alex began to step backwards in an almost comical fashion, and then bent low, almost touching the floor with his hands and stepping up into a blocking motion. "I realize that some of this looks complicated, but we take the entire form one movement at a time, and in Tai Chi you never push yourself. You should always feel relaxed and comfortable in your movements, your body will naturally become more flexible and limber as it's ready."
"That's good." Sam said, "I'm pretty sure that some of those moves are too hard for me right now."
"This is a flexible system." Alex said as he continued moving through the form. "Obviously, if your body can't handle something, you don't have to do it. In our Wedensday class we have several people who do not have full mobility due to various medical conditions. The important thing to remember is that your body knows what it can do, you never have to try and force it."
Alex finished, in the same place where he started, he came over to Sam and said. "Let me start you with a few of the basic moves, and see how you do."
"Charles, would you mind joining us for a round?" He called into the other room.
Charles looked a bit younger than Alex, possibly because he had a full head of blonde hair. Both men had very boyish faces Sam realized, and his own bony visage probably made him look like the oldest man in the room.
"Hi." Charles said, "I'm also an instructor here."
"Nice to meet you." Sam said.
"Charles is going to help observe you, while we do the form. He'll be doing the form behind you, so that you can easily see either of us, and so that we can both observe you."
The moves seemed simple enough to Sam, although he felt awkward and clumsy when he attempted them. He almost fell over a couple of times when he was required to stand on one foot. Alex had them pause in several places, where he gave instructions on how much weight should be placed on his forward leg, and how Sam's arms should be positioned. These pauses were hard on Sam's leg muscles, he began to sweat just from the effort of standing in these uncomfortable postions.
There were quite a few steps that required putting 100% of your weight on one foot, and stepping the other foot down before transferring the weight over. Sam was finding this very difficult, and Alex gently indicated that he was overstepping, trying to do too much too fast. Sam almost felt like he was taking baby steps, and in a way he supposed that he was.
"You did very well Sam, I think that these classes will be very beneficial for you." Alex said.
"I'm feeling muscles that I didn't even know I had." Sam said. His legs were actually trembling from his efforts.
"Walking around a bit will help ease the muscles. As long as you're not getting cramps, you're doing ok. If your muscles cramp up then you've done too much."
"So, will we see you on Wedensday?"
"Yeah, definitely." Sam started filling out the enrollment forms, and noticed that there was an ARF logo on the desk.
"You guys are an ARF chapter?"
"Oh yes. We hold several free meditations daily, which are open to the general public. That qualifies us for ARF status, much to the chagrin of some of the more fundamental chapters." Alex said, smiling.
"That's great, my brother's big into ARF and the meetings are usually on Wedensday nights; now I'll have an easy out."
"Perfect." Alex said.
"Can I use your phone to call a car service?"
"By all means."
Sam called for a car, and his legs began trembling again as he was making the call. On the trip home, he realized that he was starving again, he couldn't wait to get something to eat.
"Hello?" He called as he went into the house.
"Hi Sam, how was your class?" Martha called from the kitchen.
"Tiring, but good. I'm scheduled for Wedensday and Friday nights."
"Wedensday? Robbie's not going to like that."
"Yeah well, Robbie's going to have to deal with it. Besides the Center is an official ARF chapter, so there's nothing he can say about it."
"Sam, you know..."
"Yeah, I do know Ma, and frankly I don't give a rat's ass. First of all, we're talking about my recovery, which is more important than anything else right now. Second of all, I'll be damned if I'm going to live my life in fear of what Robbie or anyone else thinks."
"I know Sam, but..."
"No buts Mom, I lost ten years of my life, I'm going to live the rest of it the way I want."
Martha sighed. "I knew this would happen, you're a lot like your father in that way."
"I would think that would be a good thing." Sam said.
"It is. I'm just a little scared."
"Yeah Ma, I know. I'll try to take it easy."
The doorbell rang, and Martha went to go answer it. "That's the pizza I ordered." She said.
Sam was thrilled to eat three slices that were topped with mushrooms and sausage. Even Martha took notice of his increased appetite.
"All that exercise must be good for you."
"Yeah, I feel like a bottomless pit." Sam said.
"You got a little sun on your face as well."
"Really?" Sam touched his face, it felt a little dry and warm, but it didn't hurt at all.
Just then Martha's cell phone rang: "Hello?"
A man's voice could be heard in the background, he was speaking in a different language. There was so much interference that Martha couldn' make any sense of it.
"Hello? Is somebody there?"
She gave up and turned off the phone, it instantly started emitting a high pitched whine, like feeback through a cheap sound system.
"Ow!" Sam said, covering his ears. "What is that?"
"It's coming from the phone!" Martha said, she buried the phone deep in her purse, which at least muffled the sound.
"Can't you turn it off?" Sam asked.
"I did, it must be broken."
Sam went into her purse and yanked the battery from the phone, it immediately went dead.
"What do you think that was about?" Martha asked.
"I don't know, who was on the phone when you called?"
"I think it was a wrong number, there was a man speaking in another language, possibly Russian."
"Do you have caller ID?" Sam asked.
"Yes, but it said 'blocked,' I thought it might be Robbie, sometimes his lines are listed as blocked."
Sam tried placing the battery back in the phone. It seemed to be working normally again. "I guess you need a new one Mom, we can both get them tomorrow. Oh yeah, my check came today, I'll need some way to deposit it."
"We'll have to get the bank to transfer your accounts back into your name, everything was switched over to me when I became your legal guardian."
"Wow, it's like being a kid again without any of the fun." Sam said.
Sam wrapped up the remaining pizza, while Martha took care of the dishes. He headed into the living room and flipped on the TV.
The image on the screen was of the Alaskan wilderness, there was a damaged oil rig listing heavily to one side and the land was blackened for as far as the eye could see.
"It was supposed to be the salvation of the American people; the Alaskan drilling project began in 2009 but a comedy of errors stopped production cold and created the worst environmental disaster in American history."
"Workers using heavy explosives in a rush to establish a string of wells accidently ignited the two existing wells as well as hundreds of acres of the surrounding wilderness. The Alaskan wilderness had been unusually dry due to an extended drought which some attribute to global warming. The raging forest fire was virtually unstoppable, as there were virtually no firefighters to manage the blaze."
"It took a fortunate early winter storm to blanket the area with snow and put out the forest fire. By then it had burned an area six times the size of Rhode Island, and no amount of snow would be enough to cap the oil well fires."
"The wells were finally capped the following Spring, and it looked as if workers would be able to get oil production back on track. Clean up efforts began, but some of the damage was irreversible. Toxins from the burning oil and smoke had gotten into the the surrounding streams, killing untold numbers of fish. Other wildlife had either perished in the forest fires or fled to safer territory, leaving only ash and the lifeless skeletons of trees behind."
The phone rang, and Sam looked up but his mother grabbed it first.
"Oh hello, Robbie. Oh, yes it did, Sam had to pull the battery out to stop it. Oh really, yes it was the voice of a man, he was speaking another language and I could hardly hear him. I see. Ok dear, thanks for calling."
"That was Robbie. He said that there's a cell phone virus going around. It actually came from overseas, and it's damaging phones all over the country."
"Really." Sam said, "how did it work?"
"I don't know, but Robbie said it's better not to use it until they can fix it."
Sam flipped the channel over to CNN, but they were doing the sports news. He glanced at the time, it was nearly 9:00, he switched back to the Discovery Channel.
"It was the 7.9 magnitude earthquake that really finished the project however. A previously unknown faultline opened directly beneath the drill site, causing the oil rig to collapse into the crevice. And what was worse for the oil companies, was that the vast amounts of oil seemed to have dried up. The wells were useless, and the Alaskan Energy Corp. went broke, leaving a legacy of environmental destruction behind them."
"Scientests differ on what actually happened to the oil. Many claim that it was never there to begin with, that there never was more than a few million barrels of oil under Alaska, and that those barrels were lost in the fires. A former Geologist from Alaskan Energy though claims that the earthquake caused the oil to drain further into the Earth, and that a bigger operation might succeed in tapping it."
It was 8:59 so Sam switched back to CNN again:
"Hello everyone I'm River Travels, tonight's top story, Senator John Zebidiah Taylor has announced his candidacy for President in 2016. Taylor, who has been the Senator from Georgia for the last ten years, and is married to Jenna Bush has been the expected favorite by the Republican party for some time."
"A cell phone virus damaged or destroyed thousands of phones tonight. The virus effects only phones made by Halipax Technologies, and causes a feedback loop by activating the mouthpiece while the phone is in "off" mode. We now go to Michelle Rafferty at the HSA Headquarters in Washington."
The scene shifted to an attractive red haired woman standing outside of Homeland Security Headquarters: "If you're like me, then you received a call tonight which had a man speaking Russian in the background. The call was actually a recording and carried with it an attached computer virus which targeted the operating system of Halipax Cellular phones. This virus caused an audible feedback loop which would continue either until the battery was removed or ran out of power. Several minutes ago, Captain Joesph Brannigan released this statement:"
The screen changed once again to a white haired man in a business suit. He had a deeply throaty voice and had to clear his throat several times as he spoke. "Good evening. At approximately 7:00 tonight, a computer virus which was designed to attack the operating systems of Halipax cellular phones was released from multiple international sources into the United States."
"Like most viruses, it spreads itself by accessing the phone numbers stored in phones it infects. This virus can access the numbers of non-Halipax phones as well, so all cell phone users are asked to be on guard tonight and not accept any calls from blocked sources. "
"What the virus does is activate a passive microphone, which is only meant to be activated when a phone's "panic button" feature is activated. The panic button is meant to keep an open line to emergency authorites in case the user is incapacitated. These buttons have been instrumental in saving lives for people who were in distress."
The scene cut back to River Travels at the anchor desk. "Michelle, we just received a recording of the actual message that people are receiving." They played the recording over the air and the camera panned out to another man seated at the desk. He was an older man, obviously not a reporter, he was bald with a heavily jowled face.
"I'm here with Professor Lex Tuscan, a Linguistics expert from Pennsylvania State University. Welcome Professor, can you tell us what language this is?"
"Thank you River, yes this despite the background noise, it's quite clear that the man is speaking Russian."
"And can you interpret what he is saying?"
"Oh yes, he is stating: "They are listening to you, the gardener's are listening to you."
"I see, and who are the gardeners exactly?"
"I have no idea River." The Professor said smiling.
"Hey Mom, where's that phone?" Sam asked.
"It's in my bag, in the kitchen."
"Maybe we should pull the batteries out again, just to be safe." Sam said.
"That's a good idea Sam, that virus can't effect your computer can it?"
"I don't think so." Sam got the unspoken message, Martha suspected that there was more than just one hidden microphone in the house.
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You never know when an emergency will strike. With a Halipax Phone by your side you can summon emergency help with the push of a button. GPS tracking will guide the authorities to your location, even if your unconscious or unable to speak. The phone also remains open for the duration of the emergency, even if the case is closed. In the event of a crime, police can use these recordings as evidence against the perpetrator.
Halipax Phones: Your best friend on the Road.
posted by John at 11:45 PM | link |
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