Chapter 19

The Navy put me in an apartment off Mira Mesa Boulevard in the Mira Mesa neighborhood of northern San Diego, California. My assignment was open ended. I took the freeway to Interstate 5 and went south to Point Loma where Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command was located. At SPAWAR I went to the Security Office, presented my NRL ID badge and my orders from Commander Chang. The sailor manning the ID badge services said he'd download my picture from the Navy's central Data Warehouse.

SPAWAR required its own badges for access to the facilities. I went to the Topside portion of SPAWAR overlooking San Diego Bay. Topside housed SPAWAR Code 4033, the Space Warfare Division. One Lieutenant Commander Christopher Espinoza, a tall physically fit man, briefed me on Project Whirlwind. I learned that the Navy was responsible for the Naval-Based LGATE System, a network of Laser Platform Frigates, Jonah Guided Missile Cruisers, and Thermal Imaging Land Based Telescopes (TILBTs). Each NB-LGATE could detect, track, and eliminate one Enemy Satellite, or ENSAT. The US Army and US Air Force would handle the LB-LGATE network.

"I'll buy you lunch, Dr. Sanglao," said Lt Cmdr Epspinoza. We walked up a flight of stairs to the top of Topside. We had lunch on the balcony of Topside Grill, the Navy research and development laboratory's cafeteria for personnel. Active duty sailors had lunch alongside with Navy civilians such as myself.

The view of San Diego Bay from Point Loma was breathtaking. I saw a submarine cruising through the bay on its way out to sea.

"What kind of submarine is that?" I asked Lt Cmdr Espinoza.

"That's the USS John Paul Jones. It's an attack sub. Later the Navy plans to use special submarines equipped with Scorpion Missiles to attack ENSATs."

"God help us that we're even developing this technology."

"We're at war remember, Dr. Sanglao," the naval officer said to me. By then, President George W. Bush had deployed his Shock and Awe policy in Iraq. The War in Afghanistan was well underway. I was naive, and I thought our enemies were Islamic fundamentalists such as Al Qaeda. Our War on Terror comprised a larger struggle. I soon learned our enemies were much more formidable than what I had thought.

Out of the blue sky, a bat-winged being swooped down on me. It had a scaly body of a six-foot long green snake. Its head was a skull with three smaller skulls forming triangles in each of its eye-sockets. Worms flowed from its teeth. The being let out a piercing, shrieking scream. I let out my own piercing scream when I saw the thing.

Chapter 18

The next day, a Thursday, I called Monica on her extension at NRL. The lab was shielded from most frequencies of electromagnetic radiation to prevent radio eavesdropping from the outside. That meant cellular phones didn't work at the Naval Research Laboratory. I asked Monica to come to Theology on Tap with me at Pat Troy's in Old Town Alexandria the next day. Theology on Tap was a national Catholic program for young adults who basically meet at a bar to socialize.

Monica accepted my invitation, and I was excited about our date. Still, first I had to attend one of the many briefings of the Project Pathfinder scientific and technical team led by Commander Chang in the conference room at Building C60. The commanding officer of Project Pathfinder wore his khaki naval officer's uniform as he explained the slides from his Power Point presentation.

"...blah, blah, blah...Project Pathfinder...blah, blah, blah...," Commander Chang droned on and on. I took notes just to look busy and to keep from falling asleep in front of the commanding officer of the project. He said something about Project Whirlwind and Project Scorpion. I couldn't pay attention because I couldn't stop thinking about Monica. "Project Whirlwind will use Naval Based LGATEs and Land Based LGATEs operated jointly by the Army and Air Force." I learned new acronyms, some of the many that the Department of Defense used. In this case, I learned of the NB-LGATE and the LB-LGATE. The LGATE again was the acronym for Laser Guided Antisatellite Tracking and Elimination.

From my what I understood, the United States and its allies were deploying the LGATE system all over the world. Commander Chang then said something about Russians. "Our intelligence community has learned that Russian operatives have infiltrated the LGATE program and stolen many of our secrets. We now have to develop a defense against our own antisatellite system."

The Asian-American naval officer explained that Project Whirlwind and the associated Project Pathfinder and Project Scorpion were conceived by scientists and engineers at the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA) to counter threats by the old Soviet satellite reconnaissance and surveillance program. The Soviets did not have an antisatellite system of their own, but their operatives working in the US and abroad managed to steal technical details of the early DARPA designs and prototypes of Project Whirlwind. Subsequently, Russia inherited the intelligence data.


"All secrets shall be revealed," said a voice in my mind. I knew the voice came from my mind because at the same time Commander Chang was talking about DARPA and Russians. The voice in my mind spoke to me more frequently those days. I thought I was losing my mind. Visions, voices...what was next? Miracles?


"I need to send someone to SPAWAR in San Diego to liason for the NRL effort of Project Pathfinder. SPAWAR's Code 4033 is already working on such a defense. I need a volunteer."


Dr. Luis Freedman stood up and said, "I volunteer Dr. Michael Sanglao for the assignment."

"Great," said Commander Chang. "Dr. Sanglao, get ready and leave tomorrow."


Yeah, great. I had to cancel my date with Monica to go to Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) in San Diego, California. I had planned possibly to give Monica my rosary bracelet if things went well in Old Town Alexandria. Those days I was in a hurry to get my girlfriend. I went to the Applied Physics Laboratory to say goodbye to Monica in person.

I went to Building C39 and swiped my ID badge. I entered the Applied Physics Laboratory of NRL and went straight to Monica's office.

"I have to go to California tomorrow," I said to Monica.

"But what about our date?" Monica asked.

"That will have to wait."

"Well, then." Monica took both of my hands and came close to me. We kissed passionately.

Chapter 17

Monica and I went to the Starbuck's across the street from the Naval Research Laboratory. We both ordered cafe lattes, and we sat on a couch.

"So where are you from, Michael?" asked Monica. She took a sip of her latte.

"Originally from Nevada," I said.

"Las Vegas?"

"Yes, and you?"

"I'm from California," Monica said.

"Wow, we're almost neighbors."

Monica giggled with me. "What part of California?"

"Stockton."

"Up north?" I asked her.

"That's right."

"Where did you earn your bachelor's?"

"UC San Diego. And you?"

"UNLV," I said. I admired Monica's long, shiny black hair that she brushed aside from her ear. She curled some of her hair along her finger and then uncurled it.

"Where did you get your Ph.D.?" asked Monica after she finished playing with her hair.

"Harvard University."

"You must be very intelligent, Michael. They rejected me as freshman and as a grad student." Monica put her hand on my right shoulder. "What was your dissertation on?"

"Observational astrophysics," I said. "Namely, the dark matter problem."

"What exactly did you do, MACHOs or WIMPs?" Monica asked.

"I was on the data analysis team of the MACHO Collaboration." MACHO stands for Massive Compact Halo Object, while WIMP stands for Weakly Interacting Massive Particle.

"Could you explain a little more?"

"Sure," I said. I took a white napkin and drew a few diagrams. I showed Monica how according to Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, light bends around a massive object, such as a planet or a star. We at the MACHO Collaboration used a phenomenon known as gravitational microlensing to detect the MACHOs, which were essentially Jupiter sized objects in space that emit no light. "When a MACHO passes in front of a star in the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy, it creates a temporary increase in the star's light intensity. We had a telescope in Australia that was dedicated to looking for these MACHO events."

"What was your conclusion, Michael?"

"I found a few MACHO events, but we couldn't conclude if MACHOs form a significant part of the dark matter."

"So how did you get your Ph.D.? What discovery did you use for your dissertation?"

"I discovered a few variable intensity stars that had light curves never seen before."

"Awesome!" Monica momentarily slipped off her shoes. "Listen," she said. "After work, would you like to come to Brookland? I live near Catholic University, and I know a great place we could go."

"I'd love to," I said. Could Monica be the one to wear my rosary bracelet?


After work at NRL, Monica and I took the Red Line of the Washington Metro Rail System to the CUA/Brookland Station. She took me on a tour of Catholic University of America, which looked to me like a typical eastern university. We walked by the Columbus School of Law, and we briefly stopped by the student center. We walked a flight of stairs in the student center across from the law school. We walked through the center and out a set of glass doors.

"You see that?" Monica said. She pointed to a building with a tall tower and a blue dome.

"Yes," I said. "That must be the campus church."

"It's not just a church," said Monica. "That's the Basilica of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the biggest Catholic Church in the country."

"Oh, I see," I said. I had heard of the basilica. It was America's equivalent of Saint Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City.

"Let's go in!" Monica said. She took me by the hand and led me up the steps to the beige building.

We entered huge wooden doors, and we were near the altar, which was reminiscent of the altar at Saint Peter's Basilica, from what I saw on television, especially during Christmas Mass at the Vatican with the pope. Above the altar was a huge vaulted ceiling, under the blue dome outside apparently. A towering painting of Jesus Christ stood behind the altar. A blue circle in the vaulted ceiling had a verse painted in gold letters:

"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the One who is, who was, and is to come, the Almighty."

People were lighting candles at the little chapels all around the basilica. I had always wanted to come to the basilica, but I plain just didn't have time. I preferred to attend Mass at Saint Mary's Catholic Church in Old Town Alexandria.

Monica, still holding my hand, led me to the front pew. "We have to pray first," she said. She put down the kneeler and kneeled. She folded her hands and rested them on the pew wall. Monica made the sign of the cross and prayed. I did so likewise.

I silently prayed, "Lord Jesus Christ, let this be the one. Amen."

Chapter 16

For a while things seemed normal, but I felt perpetually dizzy. My mind seemed to be in a fog. I saw my doctor, Dr. Elbert Chao, an internist at Alexandria Hospital. I didn't tell him about the visions because the last thing I needed was to see a psychiatrist. The Department of Defense did not allow anyone with a psychiatric history to hold a Secret or Top Secret Clearance, so I knew my career as a military scientist was in jeopardy.

"You just need bed rest, plenty of fluids, and I'll prescribe something for the dizziness," said Dr. Chao. He wrote me a prescription and sent me on my way. After I had the prescription filled, I called Luis and told him I needed to take sick leave. I went home and slept for days.

David came home, and he said, "Michael, there's someone you should meet over in my lab." David worked in NRL's Code 4254, over in Building C-39 for the Applied Physics Laboratory where he did his 3-Dimensional Volumetric Display work. He was the Lead Software Engineer on the 3-D Volumetric Radar System (3DVRS), which the Navy informally called, "3-Diverse". David even held a patent for the software code used to control the basic 3-D Volumetric Display System.

She was better than David described. Monica Cabrerra was the perfect match for me. She was a graduate student in physics from Catholic University of America (CUA). Monica held a Science Mathematics for Research Transformation Scholarship (SMART Scholarship) from the Department of Defense, and ONR was her service branch so NRL was perfect for her.

After David briefly introduced us, he left us alone in one of the experimental rooms of the Applied Physics Laboratory. "So, Monica, could you explain to me your research?"

"Certainly," said Monica, the beautiful Filipina woman. "I'm trying to produce SCIRL in order to generate 3-D volumetric images."

"What's SCIRL?" I asked her.

"Supercontinuum infrared light." She went to the white board and drew the energy diagram of rubidium, which I recognized from my atomic physics classes at UNLV and Harvard. "I'm trying to induce multiple photon, continuous wavelength upconversion in rubidium vapor. SCIRL beams are like laser beams, but they have a continuous wavelength band of focused infrared light."

"How does this produce a 3-D image?"

"Simple," said Monica. She switched from a red dry erase marker to a blue dry erase marker. She drew blue arrows on the red energy levels of rubidium. "The SCIRL beams are invisible. You take two of them and where they intersect in the rubidium vapor, they produce visible points of light in multiple colors."

"So you use rubidium vapor as a display medium for your 3-D Volumetric Display, I see."

"Exactly, vapors make a better display medium because of their light weight and ease of fabrication of the display chamber." Monica spoke almost like a melody.

"When you have that, then what?" I questioned the graduate student from CUA.

"For my dissertation, I'm going to attempt to induce multiple photon, continuous wavelength upconversion in ordinary air."

"How does that work, Monica?"

"Well, air is mostly nitrogen, oxygen, and a little bit of other gases," Monica said. "So if I can get the components of air to undergo upconversion, then I can design a 3-D Volumetric Display with realistic, possibly animated images."

"Like the holodeck in Star Trek!" I said. "That's exciting." I decided to make my move. "So, Monica, would you like to go to Starbucks with me for a cup of coffee?"

"I'd love to, Dr. Sanglao," she said.

"Call me, 'Michael.'"

Chapter 15

"Did you ever find a woman to wear your rosary bracelet, Michael?" asked Dr. Robertson.

"I'm getting to that part," I said.

"Tell me this, though," Dr. Robertson removed her eyeglasses momentarily and wiped them with an eyeglass cleaning cloth. "Have you ever kissed a woman?"

Chapter 14

My Christmas vacation in Las Vegas was horrible that year. I just told my family that I couldn't divulge national security secrets as a Navy physicist. I did tell them about Dyos, the apparition. My mother said that the name Dyos is Tagalog for God. Now since my mother was a spiritual woman, I thought she would be supportive of my vision. Instead she said, "You need to see a psychiatrist."

I refused. I knew I saw something in my apartment on Duke Street in Virginia. My mother, father, and Helen all insisted that the stress of my job was making me see things that weren't there. I wondered then what was all this talk about all those stories in the Bible about men and women coming face to face with the Almighty, like Job did. My mother and father forced me to attend Mass all through my childhood and young adulthood. I became a model Catholic, even receiving the sacrament of reconciliation every week, unlike most other Catholics.

When I returned to my apartment in Virginia, the weirdness didn't stop. On a sunny winter day, I just decided to open the blinds to my balcony. The voice in my mind said, "There has been a struggle from the beginning of time, the Greatest Story Ever Told!" I walked out onto the balcony, and I saw the most amazing sight in the sky.

The whole sky turned into a movie screen. In the sky outside my apartment, I saw a large clearing in a forest, with trees at two ends of an immense grassy field. Two armies on horseback prepared for battle. The army closer to me rode white horses while the opposing army rode on black horses. Each army formed a triangle, with a lead rider at the point of the army.

The white horse at the point of the white triangle roared like a lion and jumped onto its hind legs. The lead rider of the white army wore red academic regalia, consisting of a red gown and a red cap with a golden tassle. His eyes blazed like fiery diamonds. Each time the lead horse would leap onto its hind legs, the rider in red would swing his sword and blue lightning would shoot forth from it. Thunder would explode as the lead horse rider swung his sword. The sight was glorious.

"Michael," said a voice behind me, "are you okay?"

I turned around and saw David. I thought he had gone to NRL that Saturday morning to catch up on his work. "What are you doing here? I thought you went to the lab."

"No, I didn't. And you just opened the blinds and walked out onto the balcony for no reason."

"I did?" I didn't want to tell David what I had just seen, even as awe inspiring as the vision had been.

"You need a woman, Michael."

"Believe me, I've tried." My rosary bracelet still sat in my nightstand without a good woman to wear it.

Chapter 13

The nation was still recovering from September 11 when I took the Washington Metro from the Van Dorn Street Station to the station at Washington National Airport. Security was tight all over Washington, DC. From there, I flew on Northwest Airlines, Flight 5454, to McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. I stood in line at the taxi-stand for an hour and a half waiting for a taxi to take me to my family's home near Sunrise Mountain. I couldn't wait to see my family for Christmas.

It had been a rather strange autumn. Ever since I read the white paper on Project Pathfinder, my life changed overnight. That day the Pentagon and the World Trade Center were attacked, and I went home to my apartment on Duke Street in Alexandria, Virginia. I entered the building on 42 Duke Street and left the elevator on the 3rd floor.

I saw beams of sunlight coming out of my apartment door, but I thought to myself, "How can there be beams of sunlight? It's night time, and the door should be closed unless David left it open." I investigated by slowly approaching the beams of sunlight emanating from my apartment doorway.

When I stood in front of the doorway, I saw it. The door was open and at the end of the living room by the balcony was a cross made of out fire surrounded by a Rosary of fire. The 10-foot tall apparition was suspended in the air against the darkness of my apartment.

"Who are you?" I asked the apparition.

"I go by many names," said the apparition in a whispering voice I could hear only in my mind.

"What is your name?"

"To you, my name is Dyos," said the fiery cross surrounded by the fiery Rosary.

"What do you want from me, Dyos?"

"I have a purpose for you."

"Which is?"

"You're a scientist. You'll figure it out."

"Who are you talking to?" said another voice. I turned around, and saw David, my roommate staring at me. By then, Dyos had disappeared, and the apartment had turned back to normal.


At the taxi stand at McCarran Airport, tourists talked excitedly. "Look there's the MGM!" a man said to his girlfriend or wife. My rosary bracelet was in my wheeled red carry-on luggage, still without a woman's wrist to put it around. Yet another year, I returned to Las Vegas, my hometown without a woman to bring home to Mom, Dad, and Helen, my sister. Helen lived in Henderson, Nevada with her husband Tony Martin and their son Jonathan Martin. Every Christmas the family got together to celebrate the holidays.

"When are you going to get married?" Helen said over Christmas dinner.

"Uncle Mike needs a girlfriend first," said Jonathan, eating his pumpkin pie. "Even I have a girlfriend, and I'm only 13 years old."

"That's puppy love, Jonathan," I replied. "It doesn't count. Besides where is Shannon these days?"

"She's vacationing with her relatives in San Diego," Jonathan replied.

"Is there something you want to tell us, Mike?" said my mother in her Filipina accent.

"Yeah, Mike," said my father in his Filipino accent. "You've been acting strangely ever since you came back."

Just then I saw a reflection of a Rosary hanging in the window to the dining room against the darkness of the night. I blinked, and it disappeared.

Chapter 12

"How did your family feel about your work for the Department of Defense?" asked Dr. Robertson.

"I wasn't allowed to tell them anything," I replied.

"What did you tell them?"

"I told my mother and father that I was just working on basic scientific research for the Office of Naval Research." I said. "It made for interesting conversation the following Christmas. Along with a few other things..."

Chapter 11

After I read the white paper on Project Pathfinder, I reached for my research journal that I had been keeping since I was an undergraduate at UNLV. Back then I did research in high-temperature superconductivity for one Professor Maxine Chu, who later went on to become a Fellow of the National Academy of Science. We found a novel way to heat and cool high temperature superconductors such that they retained their superconducting properties below the critical temperature, below which superconductivity happens. She supervised me on my senior honors thesis at UNLV.

Since I kept continuous paging in my research journals, by the time I became a postdoc at NRL I had already 30,000 pages of handwritten notes. I used ordinary black composition books that the school children use to do their writing assignments. I preferred to use the kind with graph paper, but lined paper would do.

I made notes on Project Pathfinder and my interpretation of the whole thing. The Dual Laser Guidance System (DLGS) used two Terawatt lasers, one continuous wave and the other pulsed. Each laser emitted enough power to light Las Vegas. From the specifications of the dual lasers, I saw that each was small enough to be mounted on a large frigate. The Navy had a special experimental frigate it called the Laser Platform Frigate (LPF).

A separate experimental guided missile cruiser launched the HSASMs. The Navy called it the Jonah Guided Missile Cruiser (GMC). The two US Navy vessels would work in tandem to use the DLGS to detect and track enemy satellites. Further DLGS would be used to guide the HSASM to the targeted enemy satellite, thus destroying it.

I read more of the specifications. The Continuous Wave Terawatt Laser (CWTL) served to heat up the targeted satellite against the cold background of outer space. The Pulsed Terawatt Laser (PTL) served to heat the circuitry of the enemy satellite by illuimating its solar power panels with a fixed frequency of powerful laser pulses through a process scientists call Joule heating.

The effect was to induce thermal flashing in the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. The targeted enemy satellite would flash like a Christmas light only in the invisible infrared spectrum. A land-based telescope observed the thermal flashing in the infrared band. This information was sent by short wave radio to the Jonah Guided Missile Cruiser and to the Laser Platform Frigate.

It turned out that my summer research as a graduate student allowed the US Department of Defense to derive a mathematical relationship between the frequency of the laser pulses from the PTL and the frequency of the thermal infrared flashing of the enemy satellite. The actual relationship was Top Secret, so I didn't know what it was, but I had helped DoD find it.

Through a process I did not know, the Heat Seeking Antisatellite Missiles locked onto this frequency of infrared thermal flashing and destroyed the targeted satellite. Project Pathfinder was part of a larger umbrella project DoD called Project Whirlwind. This was the Laser Guided Antisatellite Tracking and Elimination (LGATE) project. Under Project Whirlwind, at the same level as Project Pathfinder, was Project Scorpion, or the Scorpion Missile, code name HSASM. This was none of my concern, and the white paper on Project Pathfinder was all I really needed to know, at that point.

Comment

I notice Michael has no family. He mentions nothing of them. In fact, he does not have any friends. It would be good to add some characters, family and friends. His father will be Osmundo Sanglao and his mother will be Julia Sanglao, both from the Philippines. They live in Las Vegas, Nevada, as mentioned earlier in the novel. Michael has an older sister, Helen (Sanglao) Martin, who is married to Tony Martin. She has a teenage son, Jonathan.

Now all this story takes place in a past. Michael is recalling his whole story to his therapist, Dr. Robertson. At this point, Michael has earned his Ph.D. from Harvard and is working on his postdoctoral fellowship at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC. He hopes to be a senior physicist with the Office of Naval Research, working from NRL. Of course, he has just learned that his assignment in an antisatellite weapons system called Project Pathfinder.

He shares an apartment in Alexandria, Virginia, with his roommate and friend, David Sanchez, a Latino man who is a software engineer also at NRL. David works on software for 3-dimensional volumetric imaging, more commonly known as "holograms". He developing the software code for the Navy's new 3-D volumetric radar system (3DVDS). David earned his B.S. and M.S. in computer science at Duke University.

That's it in a nutshell. I'll come up with another chapter.

Chapter 10

Harvard University conferred upon me the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Physics toward the end of the Clinton Administration. So I went through middle school, high school, college, and graduate school without having a girlfriend. I did apply for several jobs including postdoctoral fellowships, assistant professorships, and federal service. My favorite choices were the Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Science and Technology (DS & T) and the Naval Research Laboratory Postdoctoral Fellowship.

In the end, the only job offer I received came from the US Navy to work as an NRL Postdoc at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC. It helped that I had done my summer research at NRL as an ONR-NDSEG Fellow all through my years at Harvard. Naval Research Laboratory Code 3040, Advanced Technology Branch hired me to continue my work with them at Building C60.

Dr. Sheila Bender had moved on to become an assistant professor at the University of California at Berkeley and concurrently a faculty researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Dr. Luis Freedman became my immediate supervisor at NRL.

"Michael, I'm sorry we kept you in the dark while you were an ONR Fellow," said Dr. Freedman in his office. "You didn't have the appropriate clearance at the time. Now that you have a secret clearance, I can present you with this." Across his desk. Dr. Freedman slid a manila envelope to me. Stamped in red were the words "Sensitive Information - Do Not Leave Unattended". I opened the envelope and found a white paper, the DoD term for special projects. The title was Project Pathfinder. "Read it throroughly and lock it in your safe when you're not reading it."

"Thank you, Luis," I said. "I'll get right on it."

"There will be a briefing in the conference room tomorrow," said Dr. Freedman. "Commander Chang will tell everyone here at Code 3040 what his vision for Project Pathfinder is."

I went back to my office down the hall, sat at my desk, and pored over the white paper. Project Pathfinder was the reason behind my summer research at NRL while I worked on my Ph.D. at Harvard. I read all the technical details. In short, Project Pathfinder detailed a method of attacking enemy satellites. The reason I fired a pulsed laser and a continuous wave laser at solar power panels every summer at NRL was that the whole Department of Defense was interested in guidance systems for antisatellite missiles. Furthermore, the Office of Naval Research was engaged in active research and development for defense against attacks by unfriendly nations possibly using the Dual Laser Guidance System (DLGS) to attack US satellites.

I understood the DLGS, which I had unknowingly worked on as an Office of Naval Research Fellow during my summers away from Harvard, but I had no idea how the Heat Seeking Antisatellite Missiles (HSASM's) worked. Project Pathfinder only described the guidance system for the HSASM's. My secret clearance allowed me only to know what I needed to know, and the Office of Naval Research only allowed me to know about Project Pathfinder, the code name for DLGS. Obviously, some other project within DoD detailed the HSASM, but that was none of my concern at the time.

Still, I wondered if ONR and DoD were developing antisatellite weapons and defenses against them, then what were we headed for?

Chapter 9

Anna turned out to be Catholic. She asked me where the local Catholic church is. So we attended Mass every Sunday at St. Paul's Church. She was so gorgeous, I'd do anything for her, and I mean anything for her.

I bought her groceries, with my own money, and I did her laundry. I even carried her books for her when she walked to from Perkins Hall to the education school, sometimes being late for my own classes in Jefferson.

"Michael, could you do me a favor, sweetheart?" she'd say every time she wanted a favor from me.

"Sure, Anna," I'd reply. On one occasion, I bought Anna bluebooks for her written examinations.

"You're so sweet, Michael," Anna would say. "Very nice."

I was certain she'd go out with me so I went to her room one day and knocked on the door. When she answered, I said, "So, Anna, would you like to do lunch with me? My treat."

"That's so sweet, Michael," said Anna. "I'd love to go, but I have student teaching all day this semester. Maybe next time." By then it was already spring semester that year. Anna had not gone out with me in spite of all the favors I did for her. "While you're at it, could you throw out my trash, sweetheart?"

"Sure, Anna, anything you say," I said to her. I took her trash and dumped it in the trash chute. Then I went back to my room and studied quantum field theory. When I got bored, I went to my laboratory in Jefferson and analyzed data from the observational collaboration I was doing my dissertation on. I studied the dark matter, which purportedly makes up most of the mass of the universe.

Then one day, a breakthrough came. I was doing my homework for chaos and nonlinear dynamics when someone knocked on my door. I answered it, and Anna stood there wearing a Harvard crimson tank top and black shorts. "Quick, Michael," said Anna, "Go buy some condoms and meet me back at my room, and be discreet." She put her finger over her sealed lips.

Wow! My heart raced and I raced out the door to the dorm. I sprinted through Harvard Yard to the CVS store, not even remembering that condoms are a no-no in Catholicism. I dashed to the contraceptives section at the CVS store, grabbed the first box I saw, and raced to the register. I paid for them at lightning speed, and dashed back to Perkins Hall.

I caught my breath outside Anna's room, and then I knocked on her door. Anna answered the door, wearing a pink satin robe. "Thanks, sweetheart," she said as she took the condoms from my hand.

"Babe, come back to bed," a deep voice said from Anna's room.

"You're sweet, Michael. Very nice." Anna closed the door.

Chapter 8

"What happened with Anna?" said Dr. Robertson.

"I lost my head with her," I said.

Comment

Where should I head with this? I'm thinking Michael, the narrator, should fall head over heels for Anna, the new education student. After all, they both majored in physics in college. They have that much in common. A little background: Anna attended University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN. She too is Catholic, which is one of Michael's requirements for the woman to give the rosary bracelet. He doesn't know that yet.

I'll save that for the chapter after the next.

Every other chapter roughly will Michael's therapy sessions with Dr. Robertson. These occur way in the future after the whole story has taken place. So there are actually two plotlines, Michael's search for his soul mate and the Michael's interpretation of his experiences through his retelling to Dr. Robertson.

Chapter 7

That fall, I moved back into Perkins Hall on Everett Street at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. My rosary bracelet was in its box without a wrist of a woman worthy enough to wear it. Teresa was not worthy of the bracelet, and neither was Sheila. It was a new school year at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. There were plenty of new prospects. I just hoped they didn't come to Harvard born with boyfriends, fiances, or husbands like virtually all the previous girlfriend prospects.

Fall semester was hectic. I fought, the crowds at the Harvard Coop on Massachusetts Avenue near the Au Bon Pain bakery and cafe in Harvard Square. I purchased two textbooks, Classical Electrodynamics by Jackson and Statistical Mechanics by Huang. The Department of Physics in principle allowed graduate students to enroll in up to four classes per semester. In practice, the courses were so demanding, most grad students, myself included, took only two classes per semester.

I walked through the park-like setting of Harvard Yard where the parents of freshmen were parking their cars. It was move-in week for all new students at the University.

On my way to Perkins Hall, I saw her at her at the entrance. She had the voice of an angel. She said to me, "Could you help me bring up my books to my room?"

This woman with long dark hair and wearing a white sleeveless, button up blouse led me to her white Volvo station wagon. She opened the trunk and said, "You look like such a strong man."

"Why thank you...what's your name?"

"Anna," said the dark haired woman. Her skin seemed to glow like the halo of a saint. She had a great smile when she gazed upon me.

"And yours?"

"Michael," I said, "Michael Sanglao." We shook hands.

"What kind of name is Sanglao?"

"It's Filipino."

"I don't know too many Filipinos. Where are you from?"

"Las Vegas."

"Wow, you've come a long way to get here."

"Where are you from, Anna?"

"Minneapolis."

"I've never been to Minnesota."

"I've never been to Nevada. What's is like there?"

"Hot, lots of shrub and sand. It's in the middle of the desert."

"That must be interesting. Did you gamble there?"

"I wasn't into that."

"You look like a man who gets lucky a lot."

What did she mean by that? Could Anna be the one to wear my rosary bracelet? I decided to make good on my agreement and carry Anna's books to her room.

"Here, I'll open the door for you," she said. She unlocked the door.

"Gee, thanks," I said. I hauled load after load of textbooks to Anna's room. In the course of my moving boxes of books, I asked her, "What department are you in?"

"I'm with the School of Education, master's program," said Anna.

"I'm in physics."

"That was my major in college," Anna said. I fell in love with her immediately.

Chapter 6

Over time the first summer at NRL, Sheila and I became very close. Every day, the two of us would have lunch. By August, we graduated to coffee at Starbucks across the street from the Naval Research Laboratory. Sheila and I even caught a movie at the AMC Theatre near the Eisenhower Metro Station in Alexandria, Virginia. We watched Forrest Gump starring Tom Hanks. Then we hung out in Old Town Alexandria.

Over dinner at Pat Troy's, I was all ready to give Sheila my rosary bracelet. She wore the most gorgeous cardigan sweater that matched the turquoise beads of the rosary bracelet. Under the cardigan she wore a white blouse. I admired her French braided sandy blond hair. Sheila and I chatted, and in the middle of the conversation I heard Sheila say, "...blah, blah, blah...MY BOYFRIEND...blah, blah, blah,.."

That was all I had to hear. I never gave Sheila my rosary bracelet. I a few weeks, I left Washington, DC to return to Harvard.

Chapter 5

"What happened between you and Dr. Bender?" asked Dr. Robertson.

"Absolutely nnothing," I said. "Unfortunately."

"You mean you never became intimate with her?"

"Heck no. Sheila turned out to be like the rest of the women I knew."

Chapter 4

At the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, DC after my first year at Harvard as a Ph.D. student, I worked on something I had no idea what its purpose was. I know I worked for NRL Code 3040, the Advanced Technology Branch. Summer in Washington was great. I commuted from Alexandria, Virginia to NRL in DC.

At NRL, I just fired a pulsed laser and a continuous wave laser at a solar power panel. Then I recorded the electromagnetic response of the solar power panel using sophisticated electronic instruments such as oscilloscopes, time to digital converters, and analog to digital converters.

Dr. Sheila Bender, an NRL Postdoctoral Fellow, was my immediate supervisor. Dr. Luis Freedman was our Principal Investigator (PI). He ran the Naval Research Laboratory's Applied Optics Laboratory. Sheila came from Stanford University where she completed her Ph.D. in electrical engineering the year I graduated from UNLV.

NRL had tight security. I needed a visitor's security clearance to be there and to gain access to building C60, where Code 3040 was located. I had to swipe my identification badge through a card reader. The guards, active duty sailors, would yell at me for not properly displaying my ID badge.

I liked Sheila. She was only a few years older than me. I considered giving her my rosary bracelet. I pictured in my mind having dinner with Dr. Sheila Bender. Then I'd present her with the box containing the rosary bracelet. I'd open it to the delight of Sheila. The I'd wrap it around her left wrist. Finally, we'd kiss, in my mind of course.

"Michael, stop daydreaming," said a voice. Sheila said, "This is a very important project. You're being paid with taxpayer dollars, remember?"

"Anything you say, Sheila," I said. I got back to work and conducted my experiments. Over and over I measured the electrical response of the solar panels in response to varying laser pulse frequencies.

Sheila set up her own set of experiments in the Applied Optics Laboratory. I admired her girlish figure and her long sandy blond hair. That day, she wore a pink cardigan, a white blouse, and a white, knee-length skirt. I saw no ring on her ring finger on her left hand. In college, I never had to look for the ring. In graduate school, the women I often met were either engaged or married. Her angelic face gave me a sense of peace, that is despited her strict management style.

"Why are you lookig at me?" said Sheila. "Luis wants a technical report from you by the end of the week."

Chapter 3

"When did you first hear the voice of God?" asked Dr. Robertson, a professional woman dressed in a grey skirt suit.

"On September 11th," I said.

"You mean September 11, 2001?"

"Yes."

"What did God say?"

"He said he has a purpose for me," I replied.

"Well, Michael, God has a purpose for everyone." Dr. Robertson made a few notes on her yellow legal pad. "The problem comes when you think you have a special purpose from God."

"Whatever this purpose is supposed to be I can't figure it out."

"You need to stop playing prophet and get your life together again."

"What's wrong with my life now?"

"Well, you're unemployed, on disability, living in a state subsidized apartment, and basically doing nothing with your life."

"Hey, I went to Harvard."

"But, you never completed your degree there. Plus that was almost a decade ago."

"I've been trying to get a job, but nobody will give me a chance."

"The last job you had was at the prison over in Otay Mesa. You got along better with the inmates than with your coworkers. You quit after only one month on the job."

"My coworkers were idiots. Plus, I couldn't stand cutting names and social security numbers off of eyeglass prescriptions."

"A man with your intelligence could easily get a job with the government. You used to work for the Department of Defense. Why don't you give them a try again?"

"Believe me, Dr. Robertson, I've tried and I've tried. The DoD is just not hiring, and they're certainly not hiring me."

Chapter 2

The following Sunday, I went to Mass at Saint Paul's Church in Harvard Square. Father Mark Abdella, the chaplain of Harvard graduate students, celebrated the Mass. When Mass was over, the members of the congregation shook hands with Father Abdella. He was a fairly young priest, barely 35 years old. The women of the Harvard-Radcliffe Newman Catholic Center called him, "Father What-A-Waste".



Father Abdella was a tall, athletic man with a dark complexion and short dark hair. Rumors said Father Abdella was quite the ladies' man in college. That is until the Lord called him to the priesthood. He entered Saint John's Seminary upon graduation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. Archbishop Benjamin Cardinal O' Rourke ordained Mark Abdella a diocesan priest in the Archdiocese of Boston.



"Father Abdella," I said to the young priest outside Saint Paul's Church, "could you bless my rosary bracelet?" I presented him with the jewelry box containing the bracelet, and he opened it. "Who are you giving this bracelet to, Michael?"



"My girlfriend," I said to the priest wearing traditional green vestments for Masses in ordinary time on the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar.



"And what is your girlfriend's name?"



"I don't know yet."



"What do you mean?" Father Abdella looked puzzled.



"It's for my first girlfriend."



"Oh, I see," said the priest. He took the box with the rosary bracelet and held it in his right hand. "Bless this rosary bracelet, Lord Jesus Christ. May the woman who wears it bring a lifetime of joy to Michael. Let the two of them live in faith, hope, and love. Amen." Father Abdella handed the rosary bracelet back to me.

"Thank you, Father," I said.

"No problem, Michael." The priest gave me the thumbs up. I walked alone, as usual, to my dormitory room in Perkins Hall. My room was just big enough for a single bed, a desk, a small closet, and a book case.

In those days, we did not yet have the World Wide Web. For fun, I read books on science and engineering. I bought them at the MIT Coop, Cambridge-speak for "book store". Harvard had its own Coop, but MIT's Coop had a better selection of science and engineering books.

I had filled my wooden bookshelf with books on subjects from biology to chemistry, and from materials science to nuclear engineering. That particular day, I cracked open a book on quantum mechanics by J.J. Sakurai. I couldn't believe the US Department of Defense was paying me to do this. I held a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG Fellowship). The Office of Naval Research (ONR) was my service branch within the DoD. That next summer I was to report to the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, DC for summer research..

The Department of Defense paid for my tuition, fees, and living expenses at Harvard University. The NDSEG Fellowship required no military service. It objective was to increase the number of Ph.D. trained scientists and engineers who could contribute to the defense of the United States. Most of us would go on to work in academia or industry. A few would work in federal civilian or military research and development laboratories.

At the time, I had no idea what path the Lord had in mind for me. I was young and didn't know anything about life. My best friends were the derivative and the integral. Yet, I was lonely. Shortly after Bill Clinton was sworn in as President of the United States, I left my home of Las Vegas, Nevada for the first time. I had spent two years studying physics at the College of Southern Nevada, the only community college in Las Vegas. I spent the next two years completing my Bachelor of Science degree in physics at the Universit of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) on Maryland Parkway, a few minutes from the Las Vegas Strip. My family lived off Sahara Avenue near Sunrise Montain on the eastern edge of the Las Vegas Valley.

At Harvard University, I had no friends, at least no close friends. All of the other graduate students, whether in the dorms or in the Department of Physics, seemed to care only about their own lives. Each of us had lives before Harvard, and everyone seemed unwilling to let go of the past and to meet new people. Most of my classmates were in long-distance relationships when they entered Harvard. That made it difficult for me to have any woman even give me a chance.

It seemed like every woman at Harvard was born with a boyfriend, fiance, or husband. I was on a date with my quantum mechanics textbook. I read about the spin-orbit coupling in atoms. I even did a few problems at the end of the chapter. Kep in mind, I was studying outside the coursework in which I was enrolled at the University.

"This is pathetic!" I yelled out loud in my room. "Lord, I need a girlfriend!"

Comment

Actually, I've written a lot of this novel in handwriting. I'll just copy what I have. Hopefully before I get stuck, people will have suggestions on how to complete this novel.

Chapter 1

I walked into the Pauline Book Store on Massachusetts Avenue next to Harvard Yard. The nun wearing a blue habit asked me, "Can I help you, sir?"

"Yes," I said, "I'm looking for a gift for my girlfriend." Deep inside, I felt badly for lying to a nun. Still in a way, I was telling the truth. At the time, I had never had a girlfriend. I managed to go through middle school, high school, college, and now graduate school without ever being in a relationship with a woman.

At age 25, I attended Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, in the Department of Physics. At the time, I was pursuing a doctorate (Ph.D.) in physics.

The nun introduced herself as Sister Joanna. She said, "Why don't you buy her a nice crucifix?"


Sister Joanna showed me the different crucifix necklaces. I wanted to tell her that the gift was for my future first girlfriend. I felt embarassed to never had had a girlfriend at such an advanced age. Still, I looked through the entire collection of crucifix necklaces the store had. Some were sterling silver while others were 14 karat gold. Some had 18 inch chains while others had 24 inch chains. None seemed satisfactory to me,

"Do you have anything else I can give my girlfriend?"

"Well, sir, we have these rosary bracelets," said Sister Joanna, a petite elderly Filipina woman. The rossary bracelets were gorgeous. One of them had turquoise beads that glistened in the light. It had ten beads plus one extra.

"She can use it as a one-decade rosary."

"I'll take it," I said to Sister Joanna. She rang up my purchase and put it in a bag. The rosary bracelet came in a nice burgundy jewelry box, sort of like a box for an engagement ring.


I lett the store and returned to my office in Jefferson Physical Laboratory, the main physics building of the Department of Physics at Harvard University. I sat at my desk in Jefferson, as we graduate students fondly called our home at the University. There I inspected the rosary bracelet with the pearly turquoise beads. two charms hung from it: a small crucifix and an Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

This rosary bracelet I would give to the first woman to be my woman. Women gave me the hardest time. Earlier that day, I saw her, Teresa, an undergraduate student concentrating in physics. (Harvard called its undergraduate courses of study, "concentrations" rather than "majors" as is done at most American universities. Teresa kept her long red hair in a ponytail. As I saw her in the hallway, her big brown eyes pieced through my spirit. That day, Teresa wore a turquoise long sleeve blouse and blue jeans. It had been several days after I broke the ice by simply asking her, "What's your name?"


"Teresa," she said to me.


"I see you all the time in the hallway. Are you a grad student or undergrad?


"Undergrad," she said. "I work for Professor Freedman." She smiled cordially.


My heart almost melted when she smiled at me. "I'm a graduate student," I said.

"What are you doing your dissertation on?"


"Observational astrophysics."


"You haven't told me your name."


"Oh, I'm sorry," said. "My name is Michael."


"Pleased to meet you, Michael."

"Please to meet you too, Teresa."

She said nothing further and quietly slipped away. For the next few days, we played a cat and mouse game. I would say, "Hi," to Teresa, but she would igore me. If she saw me in the distance in Jefferson, Teresa would alter her course or even duck into a classsroom. Obiously, she didn't like me.

So after three days of playing cat and mouse, I gave up on Teresa. I decided to find a woman worthy of being with me. That's why I went to the Pauline book store. I wanted to give my first girlfriend a gift. That gift would be the rosary bracelet. I just needed a woman worthy to wear the bracelet.

The Rosary Bracelet

I'm writing a novel titled The Rosary Bracelet. I will provide sample chapters alternating with my own commentary.