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Twenty-eight: IMAGE ENHANCEMENT

Quite a collection of brass, Willie Sherman thought to herself. It wasn't the biggest group she'd ever worked with and it wasn't the highest ranking, but it was still two generals, a gaggle of colonels of both types and a brother who was obviously some kind of high-up spook. Pretty impressive.

Not that Master Sergeant Wiletta Sherman was impressed. After being in for eighteen years there wasn't a lot left that could impress her.

Less than twenty-four hours ago she had been at Edwards AFB in the California desert helping to test a new filmless imaging system. She had been ordered to Alaska so quickly she'd just had time to throw a winter uniform into a suitcase and grab a few toiletries.

Unfortunately whoever was responsible for this building had never heard of the DOD energy conservation guidelines. It had to be eighty-five degrees and she was already sweating in her heavy blue wool uniform.

If it weren't for all the brass she would have taken her jacket off. But no one else had, so she just sweated.

"Everybody here?" asked the ranking two-star. "Okay, pull it up and let's see what we got."

Willie hit a couple of keys to call up the file on the screen. Before she got here someone had already gone through the tape, picked out the best images and digitized them. So all she had to do was the processing.

The workstation she was using wasn't much bigger than a personal computer tied to a compact refrigerator, but it had cost the government nearly a million dollars. She didn't know how many millions had gone into the software, but it obviously hadn't been cheap. For Willie, who had started her career analyzing photographs of North Vietnam with a binocular microscope, it was a lot more impressive than her audience.

After a couple of seconds the image flashed on the screen. Willie looked at it and her eyes went wide. Some asshole was playing tricks, in front of the goddamn generals, no less!

The picture was obviously taken at long range but it was clear enough. Against a background of fleecy gray clouds a dragon sailed along with its wings extended. There was a rider on its back just forward of the wings.

Beautiful job, though. There was no sign of a matte line or the kinds of shadow inconsistencies that usually trip up faked photographs—not that that was going to save the poor bastard who was responsible.

Willie braced for the inevitable explosion. It didn't come. All the generals and colonels were staring at the picture as if it made sense. Some of them looked sideways at each other, as if they wanted to say something, but none of them opened their mouths.

"Hmm, ah yes," the major general said. "You're sure this is, ah, correct?"

"I unloaded the tape and digitized the image myself," said the colonel in charge of the base's imaging section.

"And this is the best image that was on the tape?"

"Ah, yes sir," said the colonel. "None of them are any better and they all, um, show the same thing."

The major general looked over at the black man in the flight suit with no insignia and the brother looked back at the general. Not a muscle in either man's face moved.

"Well then," the general said briskly. "We'll have to use this one." He peered at the screen again. "Although it is a little out of focus."

It's a dragon, you fucking moron! Willie Sherman thought. But in the Air Force there are times when you protest and there are times when you keep your mouth shut. In her climb to master sergeant she had learned which was which and this was definitely a time to shut up and soldier.

"Let's check it against known aircraft first," the head of the image processing section said.

Try checking it against Saturday morning cartoons, Willie thought. But she entered the command anyway.

Quickly the machine ran through the profiles of Soviet and NATO aircraft.

"No match, sir," Willie reported without taking her eyes off the screen. Even smiling would be bad form and she wasn't sure she could keep a straight face if she met someone's eyes.

The major general nodded. "A new type then."

"That's what we suspected all along," the man with no insignia said.

"Let's see if we can get some more detail," the imaging colonel said. "Try stretching the contrast."

Without comment Willie used the mouse to indicate the new contrast range. Instantly the dragon and rider seemed to fuzz and smooth out as every shade of color broke down into sixteen closely related shades.

"Look there along the trailing edge of the wing," said one of the other colonels. "That's obviously some different kind of material."

"Radar absorbing," said the spook. "If you look at the way the trailing edge is scalloped you'll see that it has some resemblance to the trailing edge of the B-2."

"Might also be radiators to dump infra red," one of the other colonels said.

The brigadier general rubbed his chin. "Plausible. Okay, assume they're radiators. They'd be flat black, wouldn't they?"

The imaging colonel nodded. "That gives us a color reference. Make them flat black."

I can't believe you people are taking this seriously! Willie thought. But what she said was, "Yes, sir."

Making the rear of the wings flat black changed the colors on the rest of the image, muting them and fuzzing the details even further.

"Okay," the two-star general said. "Now, where are the tail surfaces?"

"If you look closely at the tail boom you'll see it's somewhat flattened," the imaging colonel told him. "The entire thing is apparently an empennage."

"Enhance that, will you?" the brigadier asked. "Let's see if we can bring out the detail along the boom."

"Try compressing the tones there," suggested the imaging colonel.

Willie marked out the tail with her mouse and compressed the colors. Now four or five shades on the tail were rendered as one. The thing on the screen didn't look like a dragon anymore, but it didn't look like much of anything else either.

Slowly and gradually, one change at a time, the gaggle of officers used a million-dollar workstation to enhance a clear picture of a dragon into something they could accept.

By the time they broke for dinner they were arguing over the serial numbers on the tail.

 

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Framed