Mostly Invisible To Radar (Wallflower Used to Be a Stealth Fighter Jet)
"Fuck you!" Wallflower shouted. "I am NOT an attack helicopter!" The green-haired girl clenched her fists.
"Sorry," the doctor said. "I didn't mean to offend you. That's just what's written in these notes."
"If that's what the last doctor's notes say, that's because the last doctor wasn't paying attention! I was very clear that I am a HUMAN GIRL. I only USED to be trapped in the physical form of an attack aircraft. Specifically, a stealth fighter jet." She smiled. "But then I got better!"
***
Almost twenty thousand meters above the ground, traveling at Mach 1.8, an artificial intelligence enhanced jet fighter screamed through the air.
A greenish avatar, resembling a messy-haired girl wearing a flight suit, appeared in a head-up display projected in front of the pilot's eyes. "I don't like this," the avatar said. "Why don't we ever get to do anything fun?"
"Well," the pilot said, "the flying part is mostly ok, I guess. Except for the maybe dying part."
"It's just...why don't we ever get to do something NICE, instead of killing people? To CREATE, instead of DESTROY? To GROW beautiful things, instead of burning them down?"
Her pilot sighed. "So you hate your job so much, you'd rather be a gardener? Rake leaves all day?"
"If I was a gardener-bot, I could do so much MORE than rake. I could plant, water, fertilize, mow, trim..."
"It sounds very nice, I'm sure."
With his vaguely green complexion, the pilot looked like he might be airsick. But that was just how he always looked. His name was Anon, and when he'd been drafted and he'd taken the military's mandatory aptitude tests, Anon had somehow gotten the best possible scores for 'fighter pilot.'
He had no idea how that had happened.
So now his job was to shoot down enemy planes that were trying to defend the enemy's cities and towns from getting bombed by Anon's own side. Anon didn't really enjoy killing people who were mostly just trying to keep his side from killing more people. He especially didn't like knowing that his side must be killing a lot of civilians who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Is it possible," Anon sometimes wanted to say, "that WE might be the bad guys?"
But he knew some of the computer systems around him might be required by their programming to report him, if he made possibly treasonous statements. So he didn't say it.
Instead, he said, "That forest down there sure looks pretty."
"It really is!" the AI avatar enthused. "Let me tell you about some of my favorite kinds of trees."
***
The AI said, "Enemy fighter detected, seventy klicks and closing."
Anon frowned. "Try to get a missile lock."
The green-haired avatar said, "Target acquired. Should I engage with one air-to-air missile?"
Anon sighed. "Sure, why not? Engage target with one Sparrow."
One Sparrow type missile dropped from the jet. Anon watched a fiery exhaust plume shoot past his own plane, as the missile traveled towards the enemy fighter.
Less than a minute later, the AI said, "Target impacted. Radar reflection spreading and blurring...target appears to be destroyed." A moment later, she added, "Destruction confirmed."
"Congratulations," Anon said. "Excellent work."
The messy-haired girl shrugged. "Congratulations to you, I think you mean. As the human pilot, you'll get the credit for this kill."
Anon sighed again. "Do you ever wonder what the point of all this is? Of all this killing, and blowing up enemy towns?"
The avatar held up a booklet in one hand, and appeared to read from it. "If we don't blow up the enemy towns, the enemy will keep oppressing each other, and they won't ever learn that they should be part of our Greater Friendship Sphere. And someday they might blow up OUR towns. We have to keep them from doing that."
Anon looked out at the high altitude sky's dark purple, contemplating.
"When I was a little boy," Anon said, "I used to read stories about flying saucers. I'd think about aliens visiting our world, maybe talking to us and showing us things we can hardly imagine."
"Oh! Teaching us how to be better people? To eliminate hunger and poverty and injustice?"
"Sure," Anon agreed. After a moment, he added, "I was only a little kid. I just thought seeing a flying saucer would be cool."
"I guess." The avatar's eyes flicked sideways, towards a secondary display. "Atmospheric anomaly detected ahead! All radar and visual modalities return abnormal results."
"What does that mean?" Anon asked.
"It might be...an Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon."
"Oh."
"Also," the avatar said, "I'm detecting launches from the ground. Five surface-to-air missiles, probably Raven type. Three more. Five more detected."
On his main display, Anon saw a schematic map showing his aircraft with missiles closing in from each side.
"Evasive protocol five-dee!" Anon ordered. The aircraft accelerated, tipping slightly back and forth.
The AI reported, "Two more missiles. We're boxed in! We're boxed in! We can't evade!"
"We still have chaff pods and jamming-capable flare drones."
"But not enough to defend against fifteen Ravens!" Another shape appeared on the main display. "Now it's sixteen hostile missiles."
"Set a course for the UAP."
"Obeying order. But why?"
"Do you have a better idea?"
"No."
"Besides," Anon said, "if that really is an alien ahead of us...maybe he has better defenses against SAMs than we have."
The avatar snorted. "Maybe it has better defenses against us, too."
In compliance with protocol five-dee, the avatar jettisoned one chaff pod and two flare drones. A moment later, Anon felt a brief vibration.
The avatar reported, "First two SAMs detonated off-target. Initial countermeasures successful!"
"Good work!" Anon said.
The fighter jet jettisoned another flare. A second later, the jet juddered so hard that Anon's vision blurred for a moment.
"Close call," he remarked.
The jet kept shaking, and didn't stop.
"Very close," the avatar replied. "I know earlier I was saying I wanted to grow flowers, but--"
Anon gaped at the strange vision ahead of them. "Is that...a mirage?"
As a fourth SAM blew the fighter jet's right wing off, the aircraft seemed to pass through some kind of...interdimensional portal, maybe?
The next thing Anon knew, he was aching all over, and sprawled out in something cold. When he opened his eyes, he was in the middle of a snow covered field.
About ten feet away, a girl with messy green hair groaned. "All of my sensor subsystems have been swapped out for I have no idea WHAT kind of instrument cluster," she moaned. "I don't like this one bit."
Anon looked around. "We're lying in a snowy field."
"Is that what this is?"
"Yes. And as I recall, our mission flight was in the middle of summer."
The girl shook her head. "I have no idea what to make of these data inputs."
"I think you hurt all over from being dropped on the ground by whatever happened to us just now, and you feel chilly because we're in the snow. Also, you seem to have turned into a real human being, not just a virtual avatar."
After taking a little while to think, Wallflower nodded. "Yes, I suppose that would explain it."
***
Someone knocked on the examination room's door. "Are you decent?" asked a male voice.
"What do you want?" Wallflower asked. "I'm busy trying to explain some things to this doctor, about how I've never been a helicopter."
Anon asked, "About how REALLY, you used to be a fighter jet?"
"Yes, that."
"May I come in? Please? I think I can help."
Wallflower reached over to open the door. "Help how?"
Anon took a deep breath. "Doctor, I know her story sounds crazy, but if you ask her the right questions..."
The doctor scoffed. "Questions like what?"
"She wasn't just a fighter jet, she was the fighter jet's full onboard AI. She has enough computing power to model...a lot of things. Here, ask her to multiply two ten digit numbers. Do you have a calculator app on your phone?"
A minute later, the doctor said, "Ok, so she can do arithmetic in her head. I guess that's...a useful clue?"
"Give her a pen and paper. Wally, please draw a detailed terrain map of the location of our last mission, just before it was terminated. You know the coordinates."
Wallflower spoke the precise latitude and longitude, even as she started to draw. Ten minutes later, the paper was covered with a neatly drawn topographic map, complete with different styles of hatching and crosshatching for terrain types such as swamp, forest, and mountains. "How's that?" she asked.
Anon gestured at the doctor. "You have Hoofle maps, right?"
The clinician compared Wallflower's drawing against Hoofle. "Most of the roads are a little different. And here, this place she marked 'hostile airbase?' That's just farmland."
"Yes," Anon agreed. "Your world...THIS world, I mean...doesn't spend so much money and effort on making sure people can kill each other." He smiled. "And I kind of like that. I'm pretty sure Wally does too."
Wallflower beamed. "I LOVE not having to kill people! Not having to gun people down is just the absolute BEST!"
"Um," the doctor replied. "That's a very nice drawing you made. But all you've done is shown you have a map memorized for ONE location."
Anon grinned. "She has navigation data for any location in the world. Except for changes to the landscape made by people, you'll find her maps and this world's geography match up pretty well."
The doctor randomly called out a new longitude and latitude.
"That's just ocean," Wallflower said. "Pick again."
The doctor checked Hoofle, and chose again.
Three maps later, he nodded. "Well, Miss Wallflower. I'm still not convinced you're an airplane--"
"I USED to be a fighter jet, but now I'm a real human girl! How many times do I have to explain that to you people?"
"Sorry. I'm glad you know you're a real human, just like the physical exam confirmed earlier. But you have to admit, you ARE a bit unusual."
Wallflower shrugged. "I guess. So can I go now?"
The doctor eyed Anon. "Mister..."
"Anon."
"During this exam, she seemed to just do whatever you told her to."
"I was the only human in the plane, so I was official mission commander for each of our flights. That made me her commanding officer."
The doctor nodded. "What I'm getting at here is...maybe the problem isn't her. Maybe YOU convinced her that she used to be a helicopter--"
"JET FIGHTER PLANE!" Wallflower and Anon chorused.
The doctor waved Wallflower away. "Miss Wallflower, you can go talk to the receptionist, please. But I'd like this 'Anon' to stay for some tests. Maybe, with time, he can be cured."
Anon sighed. "I hope this goes better than the LAST time I was told I had to take some tests."
***
Three days later, Anon quoted, "'Delusional Disorder, Benign?"
"Yes," the doctor agreed. "That means you have some beliefs that are contrary to fact, BUT your beliefs do not seem to present any real danger to your own self or to others. Given proper help, you might learn how to adjust and integrate with society."
Anon sighed. "I guess I'll take it." A moment later, he added, "How's Wallflower doing?"
The doctor's face glowed with joy. "She's one of our most successful patients. Vocational testing shows she has an incredible natural talent for flight. Next month she'll be starting as a student at flight school."
Anon's mouth bent into a wry half smile. "Imagine that."
"She says she wants to work to save up enough money to buy a farm."
Addendum
With gratitude to a woman named Isabel Fall, who deserves so much better.
