Megapulse
“Oh,
get real, Greg. You don’t pray for a basketball game,” said Phil.
“What’s
wrong with praying for your team to do well?
I see it as a perfectly logical reaction to a very stressful
experience.”
“Well,
I agree it’s stressful, but c’mon! Prayer?
Do you really think anyone up there cares?”
Greg
and Phil had been lucky enough to get seats for the playoffs, even though the
seats were in a corner and their team, the Wolfhounds, always seemed to be at
the other end of the court.
The
Wolfhounds’ forward went up for a shot just as Greg uttered a quick prayer
under his breath.
“Uhhh,”
groaned the crowd as the shot bounced off the backboard.
“See,
what did I tell you,” sneered Phil. “I
saw your lips moving—a lot of good that prayer did you.”
*********************************
“He
was supposed to make that shot!” exclaimed Tobias, brushing some of the clouds
away to make sure he hadn’t missed something.
“I was monitoring one of the fan’s prayers. What gives?”
“I
diverted it to Bosnia,” said Daniel.
“Why
there?” gasped Tobias. “What about this
basketball game?”
“We’ve
got a situation heeeerrrree, Tobias,” growled Daniel. “A fifteen-foot jumper in a basketball game
in America is not very significant at this point---did you hear me
correctly? We’re talking war here if our
Lieutenant Steel goes weapons hot within the next ten minutes.”
As
prayer controllers in Heaven, Daniel and Tobias were used to the tensions that
built up from time to time in the business of processing the multitude of
requests that barraged them continuously.
Tobias
held up an understanding hand and nodded his head while trying to focus the
binoculars he had just been given by a clerk in Tools. “Just a second, Dan; I can’t seem to get the
hang of these lenses.” He fiddled with
them a little more. “Oh! There!
Aw, now I see what he means…I can get a much better view of the center’s
eyes with these.”
“Tobias!”
screeched Daniel, shaking him by the shoulders.
“We’ve got to divert twenty of those prayers in Steelcap Arena to the
Balkans. The heck with your worthless
basketball game!”
Tobias
finally looked away from the game and gave his full attention to Daniel. “First, I’ll have you know, that is not a worthless basketball game. Now, I thought Saint Peter had this Balkans
situation under control already. What
happened?”
“You
got me, friend,” Daniel said exasperatedly.
“All I know is if we don’t do some rearranging here really quick-like,
we’re in for some bad headlines tomorrow.”
“Let
me take a look there.” Tobias walked to
the other end of the cloud and peered down into former Yugoslavia. “Hey, wait a minute, Dan. What’s a Russian MiG doing flying over
Bosnia-Herzegovina?”
“I
don’t know the details, but that’s not only a Russian MiG, it’s a Russian Air Force pilot
in the cockpit as well.”
“You’re
trying to tell me that’s a full-blooded Russian
in the cockpit?”
“Now do you see what I’m talking about,
Toby, my boy? Care to take a gander down
at the USS Abraham Lincoln, which is
just sitting off the coast of Bosnia?”
“Holy
mackerel! That’s an F-18 lifting off the
deck, and he’s loaded for bear!”
*********************************
“Bravo
Victor-seven-seven level at angels one-five,” said Lieutenant Jack Steel,
dimming his cockpit instrument lights to preserve his night vision. “Expect feet dry in two minutes.”
“Roger,
seven-seven, turn to course zero-niner-five, repeat zero-niner-five,” responded
the metallic voice of the AWACS (Airborne Warning And Control System) aircraft.
Jack
clicked his mike button to acknowledge and scanned the night sky for any signs
of aircraft. Since the UN had just
declared the area to be a no-fly zone, whatever was out there would probably
not be too friendly.
“Seven-seven,
be advised bogey is at your 11 o’clock, 80 miles out. Estimated time to intercept, five minutes.”
Jack
always liked the reassuring information given by the AWACS. The aerial radar
plane reminded him of some great all-seeing eye, so awesome were its powers of
observation.
Jack
had mixed emotions about this flight.
Granted it was exhilarating to be on a real mission at last, but he
couldn’t forget the now famous Scott O’Grady either. O’Grady was the Air Force pilot who had been
successfully rescued in Bosnia in the mid-1990s after being shot down and
evading capture for six days on the ground.
“Seven-seven.” The sudden noise in the earphones jolted Jack
from his thoughts. “This is Combat
control—go weapons hot immediately!”
*********************************
“Holy
shinola!” shrieked Daniel. “Did you hear
that? He just went weapons hot! Tobias, we need prayers fast!”
“Aaargh,”
groaned Tobias. “It’s the fourth quarter
and I need all I can get for the Wolfhounds!
They need nine points and there’s only four minutes left in the game.”
“I
thought I already told you. We’ll have a
war on our hands if an American jet shoots down a Russian one. Forget the basketball game!”
“Oh,
m’gosh,” said Tobias. “The other team
just stole the ball.” He brought the
binoculars to his eyes. “Yikes! Looks like Tepera fouled out too.”
Daniel
threw up his hands in exasperation and strode over to his computer
terminal. “Looks like I’ll have to do
the grunt work myself,” he muttered. He
opened up the Prayer Source file and began scrolling down the list of
names. “Tobias,” he said calmly, “Would
you please take a look at this? I’m
going to need at least 100 megapulses of Grace to retask Jack Steel’s guardian
angel.”
Tobias
tore himself away from a crucial free-throw situation and sidled up next to
Daniel. “Why can’t we just get the
Russian’s guardian angel to implant a retreat order into his imagination?”
“Tobias,
if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times, retasking a guardian
angel takes a minimum of 100
megapulses of Grace. And didn’t you read
that new directive that was passed around last week? Retasking a Communist guardian angel takes at least 150 megs. We’re going to
have a hard enough time finding a 100 megs, let alone 150.”
“Communist?”
asked Tobias. “I thought they were all
gone.”
“Look. I just work here. Now, how many megapulses can you squeeze out
of that basketball game you’re watching?”
“Well,
that all depends; what’s the exchange rate for a Lord’s Prayer these days?”
Daniel
opened the Macroeconomics file and clicked on the Exchange button. He pointed to an entry on the lower half of
the screen. “We’re talking nine
megapulses of Grace per Lord’s Prayer…eight for a Hail Mary…six for a Psalm 23…”
“All
right, all right,” said Tobias, holding up his hands, “let me take a reading
here.” He picked up a pistol shaped
wand, the prayer-o-meter, dialed in the exchange rates which Daniel had just
given him, and pointed it down at the basketball game. “Great Scott!
I’m only picking up 53 megs for the Wolfhounds and–whoa—can this be
right?—only 26 for the opposing team.”
“Fifty-three
and 26…that’s…79! That’s good for
starters. I can get the rest from those
old ladies who are praying right now in Kansas.
All right, Tobias, I’m going to need all those prayers as soon as the
Russian gets within missile range of our Lieutenant Steel.”
“Pleeze,
Louise,” begged Tobias, “There’s only a few minutes left—” He quickly looked through the binoculars at
the scoreboard. “There’s precisely three
minutes and 20 seconds left in the game.
I’ll give you everything I’ve got as soon as the game’s up.”
“Don’t
be an idiot, Tobias. I know you’re a
little new at this job, but you have to realize that as soon as the game’s
over, your prayer flow drops to nothing.
I’m gonna need those prayers before the game’s over. Come on!
Which is more important: World
War III or a Wolfhounds’ Victory?”
Tobias
cringed and gritted his teeth at such a direct question. As a basketball fan himself, Tobias hated to even
consider making such a decision.
“What’s
the score down there anyway?”
“The
Wolfhounds are down by two,” said Tobias.
“One measly three-pointer is all they need.”
*********************************
“Combat Control, seven-seven is feet
dry and weapons hot.” Jack scanned the
night sky in front of him. “No visual
contact yet. Request update on bogey.”
“Bogey
is at your ten o’clock, 50 miles. We
show his FLIR now activated.”
“Roger
that!” yelled Jack, losing his composure momentarily. “Bogey just showed up on my threat
receiver. Request weapons free!”
“Hold
one minute, seven-seven,” replied the controller in Combat Control.
*********************************
“Do
you know what ‘weapons free’ means?” shouted Daniel. “It means he’s about ten
seconds away from shooting off a missile!” Daniel was frantically running back
and forth between his computer terminal and the prayer-o-meter mounted at the
edge of the cloud. “Jumpin’ jelly beans! This is going to be close! I’m only getting 18 megapulses out of those
old ladies. Tobias! Stop watching the game and find me three megs
from somewhere!"
Tobias
scrambled over to his own terminal and began scrolling through a list of
Emergency Prayer Sources. If he
remembered correctly, there was a certain schoolboy who used to stop by a
church about this time every Saturday…
“I’ve
got it! Daniel, I’ve got it! Josh Medlin!
He should be making a visit to a church right about now!”
“Osh-migosh,
this is going to be so close,” whined Daniel.
“Tell me a visit to a church is worth three megs—“
“Cowabunga!” exclaimed Tobias as he tapped his computer
screen. “It’s worth five!”
“Where
is he?” demanded Daniel, jumping up from
his seat and sprinting over to a dish located at the far end of the cloud.
“Idaho! The northern tip of Idaho.”
“Help
me out here, guy! Give me the
readouts.” Daniel pointed the dish
toward Idaho and hit the “Receive” button.
“Right
on the money!” sang out Tobias. “Five
megapulses of pure prayer power!”
Daniel
hit a few more buttons, storing the prayer pulses in a capacitor at his
feet. Next he swung the dish so it
pointed exactly into the center of Steelcap Arena.
“All
right, we just received 79 megs from the basketball fans—you better hope those
old ladies are up to snuff.”
“Tell
me about it,” said Daniel, swinging the dish till it pointed at Kansas.
“Eighteen
megapulses! We’re over the top!”
“It’s
not over yet,” warned Daniel. He lunged
over to a ray gun and pointed it toward the Balkans. “Here goes nothing!”
*********************************
“Seven-seven,
you are go for weapons free. Repeat, you
are go for weapons free.”
“Copy
that, Control, weapons free.” If there
was a quavering in Jack’s voice, it was understandable. He had never fired at a “live” target before.
Jack
ran down the checklist of launching his “fire-and-forget” missile. Just as he was about to flip the switch to arm
it, something distracted him. It was
exactly at this instant that his guardian angel received 102 megapulses of
Grace. That was all he needed to carry
out his task.
Sidetracked
by his guardian angel, Jack thought back to his boyhood on the farm when he
first fired a rifle under the watchful eye of his father. It was a bright spring day and it had just
rained. He remembered how—Holy Cow!
What am I doing! Jack snapped
back to the present and instantly pushed the fire button.
“Fox
one! Tallyho!”
The
AIM-9 raced out ahead of the F-18 and headed straight for the Russian MiG where
it slid harmlessly by the enemy aircraft, lost from sight as its brilliantly
white rocket engine flamed out.
“Control,
seven-seven requests another weapons launch!
Negative CEP zero!”
“Seven-seven,
return to base.”
“Control,”
queried Jack, “repeat that last command?
I said the missile launch was negative.”
“Seven-seven,
you heard correctly—return to base immediately.
The diplomats have worked out an agreement down here. Let’s just say it was fortunate your missile
failed.”
*********************************
“Sha-zam!”
howled Daniel, giving Tobias a high-five.
“We did it! We stopped World War
III!”
“I
just have one question: I’m not an
expert or anything, but how could Lieutenant Steel have launched that missile
without arming it? I thought there would
be a lockout or something.”
“Hey,
that’s a hardware problem. Maybe the boys over in Miracles were in on this as
well.”
“Yikes!”
yelled Tobias suddenly. “I almost forgot
the game. Give me that ray gun.” He grabbed the gun and pointed it down at
Steelcap Arena, placing the crosshairs on a certain player who had just made a
rebound against the Wolfhounds.
*********************************
“Block
it, dudes!” screamed Phil. “Four seconds
and it’s all over!”
The
Wolfhounds were ahead by one point and were attempting to stop the opposing
team from making their last shot.
Greg
tore his eyes from the action on the court and said a quick prayer. Half an
hour, God…I’ll pray for half an hour
tonight if the Wolfhounds win.
“I
know that look,” said Phil. “lot of good
your prayers are gonna do now.”
Down
on the court, the forward on the other team passed the ball to his point guard
and he went up for the shot…just then his guardian angel received 120
megapulses of Grace…the point guard instantly thought about the first shot he
had ever made in a game…it was in that small gym at Ridgewood Elementary…Oh m’gosh!
What am I doing! His mind
switched back to the game, but it was too late.
He watched as the ball went sailing just to the right of the rim with no
time left on the clock.
“All
right!” crooned Phil, giving Greg a vicious bear hug. “You see, my friend, it’s all about faith,
faith in your players. Your prayers are
worthless.”
“Yeah,
well, maybe you should ask their point guard about that.”