Tommy Held the Door and Carter....

Thousand+ Words for Dec. 14, 2025

Tommy held the door and Carter Reynolds stepped through it and stopped short. He couldn't see anything at all; he had to blink a few times to adjust to the relative darkness of the interior from the blindingly bright summer's day. Finally, the scene swam into view: it was a large open interior space, roughly rectangular. On one side, offices had been partitioned off, each with its own heavy wooden door and nameplate identifying whose office the door led to.

On the other side, there was some sort of contraption in the center of the open space, a large cylindrical tank ten feet high, surrounded by equipent and cables and panels and monitors. Heavy equipment was lined up in two long rows to the other end of the room. Each had cables and hoses connecting them to the central tank. There was the throbbing of tanks and the hum of electricity, along with an odd smell, not unpleasant, but odd. Most of the equipment had a cushion pad all around it on the floor; the operator stood on this to operate the machine. There was a wide passage all the way across the width of the room, and then another wide passage between the two rows of equipment.

"Right this way, Mr. Reynolds," Tommy said as he stepped around him to lead the way. Reynolds followed, and they walked past two of the heavy wooden doors. At the third one—it was marked with a placard that read "D. Phillipston”—Tommy slowed and then stopped. "Here we are," Tommy said as he grasped the knob, turned it, and opened the door.

The door opened into a large room, outfitted as an office. Not opulent by any means; it was positively utilitarian, with walls and display cases crowded with photographs, plaques, and awards. At a large desk in the back of the room sat a large man in dark-blue coveralls, the name Phillipston embroidered on the right breast of his shirt. He rose as he noticed the two men entering his office. "Hey!" he said as he came around the desk and spoke with his hand out. "Carter Reynolds, great to see you."

The two men shook hands. "Good to see you, Chief," Reynolds said. "You look great, you really do. Always the same."

"Not the same, Carter, but thanks, and thanks for coming on such short notice. Flight was all right?"

Reynolds shrugged. "No worse than normal, I guess."

Phillipston looked over to Tommy. "Okay, you can leave him with me." Tommy nodded and slipped back through the door, closing it.

"Look at this, I found this the other day," Phillipston said as he walked over to his desk and picked up a photograph that was lying on it. He brought it up and around so both of them could look at it. "Here," Phillipston pointed. "That's you, isn't it?"

"Oh my God, Chief," Reynolds said. "Yeah, that's me alright. Suwon, Korea, 1988."

"Yep. That was the elephant cage mission." The two men stared at the picture for a moment, then Phillipston pointed at one of the figures in the photograph. "Isn't this Kelly Dockery?"

"Yeah, it sure is. And that's Steve Heimstra behind him."

"Yeah," Reynolds said. "Poor Steve."

"Yeah. Well, have a seat." Phillipston said as he walked back around to sit in his own chair. Reynolds sat down in one of the two chairs that faced his desk. Phillipston had transitioned into business mode; he sat down and leaned forward on his glass desktop. "So, we've found something.”

“Really?" Reynolds said. "Found what?"

"Well, we think we've got it identified, and we think we know what it is and what it does, but—” he stopped and there was an awkward silence.

"But what, Chief?"

"But I'd rather you look and come to your own conclusions. If you agree with us, then great. If you don't, then, well, we could be wrong. You're the expert."

"Okay," Reynolds said. He still didn't know what Phillipston was talking about. "

Let's go down there and we'll see what you think." The chief picked up the phone and pushed a button. "Larry? It's Dave. Carter's here. We'll come down in a couple of minutes, can you get two suits ready for us?" He cupped the phone. "You still 33 in the waist?"

"More like 38 now, Chief," Reynolds said with a smile.

"Carter needs a 38, okay, and let me have my blue respirator." A pause. "Right." He put down the phone. "Okay, they'll be ready for us in a minute."

While Phillipston had been talking, Reynolds got up and had moved over to one of the many plaques and pictures on the walls of the office. Most of them featured the old chief in one incarnation or the other. The one Reynolds was examining showed Phillipston shaking hands with a young-looking Barack Obama. There was an inscription on the bottom, written neatly in fat black marker: "Chief, thanks and call on me if you need a favor." Below that, the characteristic looping signature of the 44th President of the United States appeared. Phillipston moved over to join Reynolds as he looked at the photo. "Yeah, that's him when he was a senator," he said. "He's been back here since, but the staff thought it might not be a good idea to have him seen with me—just in case we hook the big fish one of these days, you know."

"The big fish, yeah," Reynolds said.

"I think we might have that fish down there," Phillipston said. "But I'm saying too much. You need to decide for yourself. As I say, you're the expert.”

Reynolds peered at the chief’s face, trying to detect signs that he was kidding. “You think you’ve got the big one?”

“Can’t say. You need to look. Come on.” Phillipston strode toward the door, opened it, and held it open while Reynolds stepped through. Then he followed and the two of them walked down the hallway toward a suiting parlor. “I hope you don’t mind, all we have as spares are the old suits. I’ll have to put you in a Scranton. It’s old, but it’s clean, and it works.”

“Whatever you have will be fine, Chief.”