“Tango Alpha, this is Tango Charlie, over.”

“Tango Charlie, go ahead, over.”

“Tango Alpha, we are at TBD, over.”

“Tango Charlie, proceed to deuce and hold, over.”

“Tango Alpha, roger that, out.”

Sergeant Mack keyed off his laryngophone and returned his map, a battered sheet of paper, to the pocket on his body armor. He looked at the dusking sky as he raised one finger and gestured toward the silent, solitary, building. A soldier scurried forward. At intervals, three more soldiers followed. Mack took up the rear, backpedaling, sweeping the area behind, ever watchful. He entered the corner tower and ran up the stairs to a door marked “2.”

Sergeant Mack didn’t like the order to hold. Long-range reconnaissance was independent of the main force. The only mission was gathering intelligence and reporting back. Intelligence was urgent, they were fighting an unknown enemy with unheard of firepower, in a land foreign to them. The rules kept changing; something would work one day but not another. One night, they camped in a forest with M1 Garand rifles after a firefight with aboriginals from a bygone era and awoke in a futuristic city with electron emitting pulse rifles fighting off-world aliens. To a soldier, however, a rifle is a rifle.

He opened the door and entered what appeared to be a parking garage. Really? We’re holding in a garage. What’s the brass thinking?

“Sarge? What the hell?” Grafton was annoyed. He had gone from being a happy kid to a dead man with a spear in his chest to a crusty veteran practically overnight. For Mack, the switch was jarring, but not as harsh as the morning he looked in the mirror and discovered his skin had changed from white to black.

Mack shook his head. He whirled his index finger in the air, and the team spread out to search the area. Dusk morphed to full-on night, but no lighting appeared. Not a safe environment for anyone coming to retrieve their car. He realized the garage was full. Odd. What did it service? This territory was unexplored and unmapped. He had seen nothing in the vicinity to warrant this structure.

Mack reached for the switch on his goggles. He wasn’t sure which he liked best, his body armor or the night vision capability of his goggles.

He flipped the switch. Nothing happened. He heard clicking from various points across the garage, then whispered cursing. They would have to stay in the lanes and trust their hearing. Not optimal. Mack felt his pulse quicken. He heard muffled shuffling coming from somewhere ahead and to his left. Mack hoped the others understood something was coming. He moved forward and squatted behind a vehicle.

A pinhole of light appeared on a support column; the brightest light Mack had ever seen. The pinhole grew to the size of a headlight. Then he heard a voice.

“I keep telling him ‘don’t leave things on hold to write the easy stuff, get on with the story, jolt ‘em with some juice’ but, no, he has to wait for inspiration.”

The light was blinding, and Mack moved to his left so he could look at it through the smoked glass of the vehicle windows. He wished the damned thing was bigger so his quads would stop burning.

The light stopped and arced down. Mack saw what appeared to be a man holding a flashlight looking at a book. The man was dressed in jeans and a blue work shirt, his face obscured by a red baseball cap with a large letter “B” on the front. The light swung up and swept the garage. It pointed down, and the man shook his head.

“Why would the utility closet be on the second floor? What was he thinking?”

Mack moved further left. Now he could see the letters embroidered on the work shirt: “King Power & Light.” Who the hell was this guy? Time to find out. Mack stood and stepped away from the vehicle, pointing his weapon at the man in blue.

“Okay, mister, drop the light.”

The light swung toward him. Just before he was blinded, Mack pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. But the light beam arced toward the floor.

Mack heard clicking sounds coming from his right side. His men were moving swiftly toward their leader, firing at the source of light. There were no bursts of electrons coming from any place in the garage. Grafton shouted and raised his weapon. He lunged forward toward the man in blue who neatly sidestepped him. Grafton crashed into the column and fell to the ground.

Where was the door this guy came through? Mack put up a hand in case the light came up. But the man in blue had the beam aimed at Grafton who was out cold. Mack looked at the man who was shaking his head.

“What a dunce.”

“Excuse me?”

The man in blue looked down at his book, his lips moving as he read. Then he trained his light toward the ceiling and faced Mack. He was older than he originally appeared.

“You must be Sergeant Mack.”

Mack was startled. “Yes, I am. Who are you?”

“Newton Galloway. I’m the electrician. If your guys could give me a minute, I’ll have this place energized for you.”

“What?”

“I need to turn on the electricity. You know, the juice, the energy. Nothing works without power.”

He turned to go.

“Wait a minute. How did you get here? I saw you walk through that column over there, near where Grafton smacked into a wall.”

Newton looked at the column. “Well, yeah, he can’t get through. It’s an alignment thing. Relativity and all that.”

“What?”

Newton Galloway sighed. He hated talking to the characters. They weren’t supposed to know they were characters. They’d demand story control, or so the boss said. He took off his ball cap and rubbed his head with the back of his hand. Then he put the ball cap back on. He sighed again.

“Okay, look, it’s basic physics. You’re standing in an inertial frame of reference.”

He peered at Mack and realized Mack didn’t understand the terminology.

“Okay, you’re not a scientist, you’re a grunt.” He raised his hands. “No offense, that’s what soldiers were called back in the day so it just sorta comes out.”

“We still are. Grunts.”

Newton nodded.

“Okay. So I’ll try and simplify. You’re standing in a parking garage bounded by support columns. Yes?”

“Well, duh.” Mack bristled.

“So, in physics terms, that’s your frame of reference. So far as you know, the parking garage isn’t moving. So you’re in an inertial frame of reference, and it appears to you to be independent of any other frame of reference. The problem is this frame needs to be moving forward because there are other frames around it. You with me so far?”

“Yeah, I think so. If there were other buildings out there, they would be frames of reference, too, right?”

Newton quivered.

“Yes! Exactly! But you can’t observe them, relative to you, unless I turn on the electricity so you can see them.”

“How did you get here? How did you see us?”

“I don’t have to see you; I have the master map. Each frame of reference has coordinates. I was turning the switch in another location when I got the call to come to your coordinates and energize your frame. I opened the door and walked over.”

“But the door is gone. How do you get back?”

“I open another door.”

“Can we come with you?”

“Why when you belong here?”

“It’s unstable.”

“It’s war. That’s how it is.”

“You don’t get it. Since the beginning the enemy has changed, the environment has changed, who we are has changed.” Mack waved an arm at the others. “Some of these guys died, but they’re alive now. I don’t understand what’s happening. I don’t like where this is going.”

“Well, the guy in charge didn’t know either, but it’s becoming clearer to him.” Newton looked at Mack. “Look, I gotta turn on the electricity so you can do your job.”

Mack thought about it. “What if I don’t want to do my job. What if I just conk you on the head so you can’t turn on the electricity?”

“You can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because until I turn on the electricity, you got no power. You’re on hold. You know, TBD.”

“What the hell is TBD?”

“To be determined. It’s a placeholder. What did you think it meant?”

“That’s stupid. Besides, just cuz the ‘guy in charge,’” Mack gestured air quotes, “wants us to hold here doesn’t mean we have to.”

“Yeah, actually, it does. Wasn’t it getting dark outside when you came in here?”

“Yeah, so?”

“No power in your inertial frame of reference. So, you wait. The guy in charge didn’t have a plan. It was just a handwritten ‘TBD.’ He was waiting for inspiration. When he’s inspired, he sends me to start up the juice. The inertial frame of reference can’t continue to be inert. You need electricity to move forward.”

“So, why do I need electricity to conk you on the head?”

“Without it, you can’t touch me.”

Mack took a swing at the old man and corkscrewed to the ground. He looked up and saw Newton shaking his head.

“Tol’ ya. Dunce.”

Newton Galloway looked down at his book. He swung the beam around the garage again until it pointed at a door. The signage for an electrical closet reflected in the light. He shuffled across the garage, moving between vehicles. The electrician reached the closet and pulled a set of keys from his pocket. He unlocked the door and entered the room. The door shut behind him.

The team looked at one another as the darkness lessened under the impact of dim emergency lights. They looked around at the vehicles. Grafton groaned and sat up. The whine of charging weapons told them they had power. The team’s earpieces crackled.

“Tango Charlie, this is Tango Alpha, over.”

Mack keyed his laryngophone.

“Tango Alpha, this is Tango Charlie, over.”

“Tango Charlie, are you in position, over?”

“Tango Alpha, we are in the garage at TBD, over.”

“Tango Charlie, check your map, over.”

Mack pulled papers from the pocket on his body armor. Two pages? He opened the well-worn map and discovered that they were in the long-term parking garage at Asimov Airport. So, we’re no longer TBD.

“Tango Alpha, we are in long-term parking at Asimov Airport, over.”

“Tango Charlie, roger that. Proceed on mission, out.”

Mack looked at the second sheet of paper. Mission orders were to use the garage to observe the enemy. The team was authorized to infiltrate the airport and destroy vectors into the surrounding areas.

“Hey, Sarge?” Grafton crouched near Newton Galloway’s electrical closet. “You need to see this.”

Mack tucked the papers back into his pocket and moved to Grafton’s location. Together they watched as fully functional airport buildings lit up the night sky. Large, slow-moving flying machines landed and disgorged humanoids sheathed in shiny camouflage casings. Mack still didn’t know what or who the enemy was, but he had his orders now, and he could observe the enemy and act on what he saw.

“Corporal Grafton,” breathed Sergeant Mack, “those are troop transports down there.”

They swung around, in unison, as the electrical closet door opened. Newton Galloway’s bright white light appeared, and the electrician stepped out and closed the door. They could see his lips moving as he read his book. Newton’s thumb moved over the flashlight body, and a black hole appeared in the support column near the closet. It began to grow.

“Nothing worse than a boss who needs inspiration,” Newton muttered. “Inspiration, my ass. Gotta go back to frame three. He needs to rewrite that forest debacle.”

The electrician shone his light on the hole and stepped through.