Obstruction - Drop in the Ocean

Obstruction

Griff put the scanner away and locked the toolbox with the same massive padlock he’d used since he first started his career 17 years earlier. The biggest bolt cutter in the world couldn’t even scratch it. Griff was very protective of his tools, and he had “purchased” the lock from a classmate’s father while at Aerotech, the trade school the two attended. He was a master locksmith and had the reputation of making the most secure locks money could buy, and he’d made Griff’s lock for free. Well, to be clear, Griff paid no money, but the lock wasn’t actually free.

Randy Withers was Griff’s classmate and it was Randy’s father, Ross, who had made the lock for Griff. Ever since Griff had first met Randy, he’d thought he was a bit strange. Randy seemed like the type that, in Griff’s mind, should be studying psychology or something, but not avionics. But, after a week of getting to know each other at school, Griff decided Randy was an okay guy and their friendship grew from there.

There were times when Griff sensed something in Randy that seemed sinister; the way he’d grin when he talked about certain things - things that Griff felt, normal people just wouldn’t think about. He didn’t see Randy very much anymore. He had a job working for a major foreign airline, as a mid-level director in avionics development, based in an office at Hartsfield Jackson in Atlanta, about 3 hours away. Griff did continue to see Ross quite a bit though, ever since he’d gotten that lock.

Ross was a very intelligent man, more so than his son, Randy. He’d had no formal training, yet from the conversations he’d overheard between Griff and Randy, and from questions he asked them, he had become somewhat of an expert in one area of research – the development of a working tractor beam. Not for use in outer-space so much, as for right here in the skies of planet earth. Griff, now the world-renowned top avionics expert in the field, was the guy that Ross needed to put his plan into action, and he’d made that decision the same time the lock was dealt to Griff, based on his promise to work on Ross’ project, as time allowed. It was to be the payment for the lock.

They used gas-powered model airplanes for testing a miniature prototype Griff had developed. The planes were equipped with a camera so Griff could activate the beam to lock onto targets; the first ones being flying insects. After successfully locking onto insects of different types and sizes, and being amused, watching a fly guide the model planes around, seemingly as if they were aware the planes were locked onto them. Griff knew it was just an illusion, and a fly would fly its normal patterns with the plane following because it was that strongly locked onto it. In fact, in Griff’s design of the locking aspect of the beam, the size of and power of targets were inconsequential. That’s because once the beam would lock onto it, the target would be in control of the plane as though a fixed metal rod was connecting the two, allowing no “slack” to develop when the target sped up or slowed down until the beam was switched off. The beam was very powerful, even in this miniature prototype.

About 6 months later, Griff had made a full size model of the beam apparatus, and he and Ross tested it using two light Cessna planes – one served as target and the other would lock onto it with the beam. These tests also went very well, as Griff expected. Their next test was to have the target plane shut its engine down on Griff’s command, so the beaming plane would be in control of the target, pushing it along and causing it to bank and turn, gain and lose altitude, etc., according to the maneuvers the beaming plane’s pilot chose to make. It worked like a charm.

It took a year and a half of tests, reams of paperwork and countless hours of honing certain aspects of the device’s control system to fit the FAA’s strict “rulebook,” even though the rulebook hadn’t yet been updated to enable tangible system requirement oversight of this technology at that point. Most of this would follow a trial period of using the beam on real missions and developing guidelines covering any and every aspect of what those missions would reveal. Griff knew this is where the beauracracy would create silly and costly rules, coming out of someone’s misunderstanding of the system’s potential operational possibilities, many of which result from the lazy stupidity of the bureaucrats. At least, it wouldn’t ground the system while the organization’s composition of the rules proceeded in the background.

A couple of weeks before the missions utilizing the beam were scheduled to begin, Randy showed up. He said he’d taken time off from his job so that he could see the system operate. He claimed that his airline was interested in the beam technology, and since he was the son of one of the major players on the project, he thought it was a good idea to help out and get more inside knowledge of the system. Griff was a bit surprised that Randy wanted to learn so much about the beam now, when it would be on display to the world so soon, and he’d never shown interest before.

Finally the day the first mission was to be flown, arrived. Griff noticed Randy was nowhere to be seen on the flight line, after insisting he would be there to help out. He asked Ross if he’d heard from Randy, and Ross said that he’d be there before the plane took off. He said Randy told him that he had some legal matter to take care of that morning, but he assured Ross he’d definitely be there prior to takeoff. The next thing Griff knew, two Sherriff’s cruisers pulled in and blocked the plane. Two sheriff’s deputies walked up to Griff, with Randy behind them. One of the deputies asked, “Are you Griffith Anderson?” Griff stated that he was. The deputy told him that he was under arrest for fraudulent acts. He couldn’t believe his ears. He saw Ross standing with Randy, and both were talking to another deputy, and occasionally one or the other would point to Griff while they discussed whatever it was they were discussing. Moments later Griff was put into the back seat of one of the cruisers, and was taken to the county jail.

They started to question Griff on what his real purpose had been as he tried to commit fraud on the project that Ross and Randy Withers were in charge of. Griff replied, “What? What on earth are you talking about? I was key to the project and I developed the beam system from scratch!” The deputy interviewing him told him that both Withers men had accused him of stealing the beam plans, and falsely signing off as the developer of the system on the FAA documents. Griff was told both of the Withers men were saying that Griff had come onto the project late; that he wanted credit for work he wasn’t involved in, and that his presence at the field that morning was an act of obstruction, to stop the scheduled first flight.

At that point, Griff knew he was screwed. He never would have suspected that Ross would turn on him like that, and especially with Randy. He had trusted Ross too much, obviously. With both of them testifying against him, Griff had no chance in court. He had trusted Ross, and Ross had scammed him out of his rightful co-ownership of the system that he had developed. The Withers would become rich, while Griff did 5 years in prison, wrongfully. If they thought they’d heard the last from him though, they were dreaming. He’d prove them wrong once he was freed. Oh, would he prove them wrong.

Image by Manfred Antranias Zimmer from Pixabay