The Final Call

by Craig A. Falconer

  “Jesus,” Clark groaned. “Just what we need, more goddamn factions.”

  “I’m just spit-balling, I don’t necessarily think this is right,” Emma said, trying to reassure him.

  With Dan no longer surrounded like the weirdest animal in the zoo now that the others knew he had lost his connection to the Messengers, he set off towards the basement neither trying to be noticed or caring if he wasn’t.

  “Why are you going back down there?” Tara asked, rising and rushing to catch up with Dan. She held on to his arm.

  “I just want to find out if he knows anything else,” Dan said. “Don’t worry, I’ll close the door behind me; you won’t have to hear his voice or anything.”

  Tara shrugged. “It’s not that. It’s just… how would it even make sense for him to know anything else? They just arrived.”

  Dan searched for a response. “I… well, maybe there’s…” he stammered for a few seconds before sighing deeply. Everyone was looking at him again. “I… I don’t even know.”

  “Look!” Mr Byrd called, his ever softly spoken voice at odds with the urgent and sharp tone. Apparently having been the only one not looking at Dan, he had been the first to see what was happening now in China.

  Whatever the newly unfolding scenes precisely meant, they were anything but a welcome sight.

  Dan could only gulp.

  From beside the couch, Clark summed it up best: “Well, I guess now we know why the Messengers called them the Squadron...”

  V minus 15

  ELF Western Office

  Havana, Cuba

  From his new office in Havana, the ELF’s controversial Western Secretary tried in vain to follow three conversations at once.

  Not only was John Cole on the phone to one of Ding Ziyang’s senior advisors, he was also issuing text-based orders to his media team via his computer while listening to incoming news from an aide of his own who was standing in the doorway.

  The present aide had been getting the least of Cole’s attention, but that all changed when he relayed a specific piece of news. Due to the position of Ding’s advisor deep inside the ELF building in Beijing, Cole’s aide in Havana got the news first and broke it immediately:

  “Sir, the mothership just released five smaller spacecraft. We don’t know what they want and we don’t know where they’re going, but they left in different directions.”

  By the time Cole had heard this once, he was hearing it again over the phone as the news of what was happening outside the building reached Ding’s advisor. Cole put the phone down, stepped away from his computer, and unmuted the TV on his wall.

  The screen was split, with the left side showing a live scene in Beijing that didn’t look any different from what he’d seen the last time he looked up a few minutes earlier. On the right, however, ACN was showing a looped replay of the moment when five saucer-like spacecraft had emerged from the underside of their mothership’s centre and dispersed for their unknown destinations.

  “One has stopped at the Chinese coast!” an off-screen ACN newscaster revealed, shrieking out this development the instant it reached him. “It’s hovering exactly where the third triangle was found, which gives us a good clue as to where two of the other four craft are currently headed!”

  The newscaster spoke with an excitement better suited to a sports commentary gig, Cole couldn’t help but think, particularly given the unclear motives of the alien visitors.

  Within no more than a few minutes, which were filled by intense speculation and trance-like focus on the new live satellite-based tracking map which showed the crafts’ movement, that map showed that one of the remaining four craft had stopped over Vanuatu.

  Following different paths, one of the others was heading East towards the Americas while the others were heading West. Very soon after the second took up a hovering position over Vanuatu, the third craft stopped somewhere less expected: not Zanzibar, but Moscow.

  “Moscow?” Cole asked, turning to the aide who was now by his side and gazing at the screen just as intently, rather than standing awkwardly in the doorway as he had been at first.

  “ELF European Office,” the man said. “Which means…”

  He didn’t have to finish the thought, and neither did Cole.

  After the fourth craft positioned itself over Zanzibar, surprising no one, all eyes turned to the movement of the fifth.

  Buenos Aires, Cole willed the still-moving craft. Come on… just stop over Buenos Aires.

  If Cole had explored this thought he would have realised that it marked a turning point in his outlook; rather than wishing for the spotlight and attention that would come with the craft stopping directly above him, he craved the degree of reassurance that would come from knowing that the aliens weren’t only interested — for one reason or another — in ELF-based sites.

  Alas, the craft’s direction of travel as it crossed the United States dismissed Buenos Aires as a futile hope. There was no doubt where the fifth craft was going — or coming, from Cole’s perspective — and the best place to see its arrival was not on a TV set.

  John Cole and his aide rushed through the still-unfurnished corridor outside his hastily opened office and continued to the edge of the building. They stepped outside without any hesitation and saw a great number of local police and ELF security officers already in attendance. Very few civilians were anywhere to be seen, with the atmosphere very much one of calm-before-the-storm tension rather than excitement.

  The behaviour of the aliens piloting the mothership and its series of nested craft certainly didn’t have much in common with that of the Messengers who had touched down in Colorado with little fanfare before stepping out and walking on Earth like it was something they did all the time.

  On the contrary, the sheer scale of the mothership suggested, to Cole’s mind at least, that the intimidation factor was no accident. They couldn’t not know how intimidating it would be to cast such an enormous shadow over the capital city of the world’s most populous nation, he reasoned, and he could think of no reason why the Messengers would ever want to act in such a way.

  Cole didn’t just have more questions than answers; he had all questions and no answers. Standing opposite the imposing monument from which he had addressed a huge crowd at Dan McCarthy’s side just days earlier, his mindset and the external atmosphere could scarcely have been any different. No longer was there a sense of triumphalism within him and a sense of eager anticipation around him.

  Now, all was trepidation.

  And although he wasn’t personally looking at any screens or engaged in any phone conversations as the fifth craft drew ever closer to Havana, Cole knew when it was close; the change in body language among the police and security officers — who were in touch with people monitoring the craft’s path — made this only too obvious.

  Sure enough, when shoulders tightened and weapons were raised, John Cole’s life had only around fifteen seconds of anything resembling normality remaining.

  Beyond that, as the alien craft first appeared as a speck and grew ever larger as it approached and descended, he knew that nothing would ever be the same again.

  V minus 14

  McCarthy Residence

  Birchwood, Colorado

  As stunned as anyone by the arrival of five small spacecraft in Havana and elsewhere, Emma hurriedly and focusedly opened a chat app on her phone with one thing in mind.

  She typed a quick message to a new group containing some low-level media personnel at the GCC and also Maria Janzyck, who was still in China and had built up a series of her own low-level contacts within the ELF during her time there. Emma asked very simply what they were all hearing, and the answers didn’t surprise her.

  The primary fear among individuals on both sides, so typical of the political nonsense that had been frustrating the general public for so long, was how these developments could negatively impact their side relative to the other rather than how they could impact the planet as a whole.

&
nbsp; Within the GCC, Emma learned, a common fear was that the arriving aliens might be set to share wisdom and technology with the ELF; a move which would decisively swing things in their favour… if the aliens’ arrival over five ELF-administered locations hadn’t already done so.

  On the other side, meanwhile, Maria Janzyck reported that some Beijing-based ELF sources were telling her that their superiors feared a far-out scenario involving Dan himself. Their extraordinary concern centred on the possibility that Dan — in their eyes too friendly with senior GCC figures — had used his close relationship with the Messengers to convince them to take up arms against the nations of the ELF.

  Emma relayed all of this to a roomful of shaking heads, none of whom could believe the level of self-obsessed convoluted nonsense that went through the minds of their planet’s political leaders.

  More to the point, in fact, they could believe it only too well and collectively lamented how unsurprising it all was.

  “Have you spoken to Timo?” Dan asked, mentioning a name that had slipped most of the others’ minds. “He has contacts, too. Actually, how far out of the loop is he? He doesn’t know we have Jack, but does he know I found out about Jack being linked to the GeoSovs? Last I heard about that, his team who were looking into all the hidden companies and payments hadn’t found much on Poppy at all.”

  Clark shook his head. “They still haven’t, at least not that I know of. And I didn’t tell him about Jack… I trust him, but that was one of those things that had to stay as close to our chests as possible.”

  Emma, satisfied with what she’d found out via her contacts and now keen to do something about it, turned to Dan. “So we’re not telling Timo anything for now, but what do you want to tell Godfrey… and when? He doesn’t know about the telepathy, or about Jack working with Poppy or Cole — let alone being linked to both of them. My gut says it would be dangerous to say too much right now because he’ll be angry we didn’t tell him and even angrier that Slater didn’t tell him after we told her, and right now an angry Godfrey could do something very regrettable and very un-take-backable, if you know what I mean.”

  Dan took several quick but shallow breaths, trying to capture enough air to stop his lungs from feeling empty. The stress and pressure of the moment — one he didn’t think he could influence in a positive way — was becoming too much.

  “This is my worst nightmare,” he sighed, “back to having to watch something on the news and being powerless to do anything about it. But right now, this very second, I have to see who or what comes out of those spacecraft; if anyone does at all. I need to see if they’re going to land or do anything else, because until I know what the hell is going on I can’t dive in by doing something that could make everything worse and that I might regret two minutes later when I find out something new. I could tell Godfrey everything, I could tell everyone everything, or I could try to meet these other aliens if they come out. It depends on what they do.”

  “So what do you think they’ll do?” Clark pushed. “Land and come out? Start blowing stuff up? And okay, I get that these guys aren’t the Messengers, but why did the Messengers stop talking to you after they told you that one thing… and where the hell are they?”

  Dan McCarthy could only shrug, because this final question was the one stumping him most of all.

  V minus 13

  GCC Headquarters

  Buenos Aires, Argentina

  “No emergency response,” William Godfrey reiterated, this time very firmly. “Not until we see what they’re here to do.”

  President Slater, by now talking to Godfrey via phone while she sat in another of the GCC building’s many secure offices with other key members of her administration, had been on the receiving end of equally firm calls and suggestions in the opposite direction during the last few minutes. “That craft is barely 100 miles from mainland Florida!” she told him, reiterating a point that had been made to her by military and security personnel who saw allowing the continued presence of a questionably motivated vessel so nearby as an intolerable risk.

  “Don’t start fights you can’t win,” Godfrey replied, more soberly. This was a phrase he considered often in his own mind and one he had memorably used on Emma Ford during her days as an antagonist in his life’s story, but never had it felt more pertinent than it did now.

  Slater hesitated, listening to the words of a key ally and relaying them: “William, if a lion is slowly prowling towards you in the middle of the savannah and all you have is a bow and arrow… do you use what you have, or do you do nothing and hope the lion wants to be your friend?”

  “How about you do nothing in the belief that it’s really prowling towards the person next to you?” the GCC’s embattled Chairman replied. “Because if these lions are hungry, they didn’t come to our table to get their fill. Let’s not make any new enemies, shall we? I can imagine the kind of pressure the war-hawks are putting on you right now, but this is the time to be strong. I’m not asking you to listen to me, I’m just begging you not to listen to them. Valerie, if you’re going to listen to anyone right now, call Dan and listen to him. He’ll be on my page here.”

  In the nearby office where Slater had set up shop, a few supportive heads nodded around her. Some faces were less enthused, already resentful of how much Dan had been in Slater’s ear recently when certain big decisions were needed. There was no obvious hint that the aliens would emerge from any of their spacecraft imminently, but there was likewise no let-up in the tension as the possibility remained that they very well might.

  Slater’s allies all understood that Dan had recently prevented a catastrophic incident at the nearby Gravesen hotel, and they largely put her faith in his views down to a debt of gratitude she felt towards him. In reality, of course, she knew that he had ways of knowing things no one else could.

  Hoping beyond hope what the answer would be, she dialled Emma Ford’s number and got ready to deliver to Dan what was sure to be the most important question he had ever been asked…

  V minus 12

  McCarthy Residence

  Birchwood, Colorado

  With most of the world’s attention focused on the alien craft hovering like a hungry hawk over John Cole’s Cuban office, each passing minute took the tension to all new levels.

  “The longer nothing happens, the sooner you’re gonna have to do something,” Clark mused, no need to specify that he was talking to Dan. “Even just say something… because seriously, man, people are gonna start going crazy if these things just stay there in the sky. And Beijing? Our news stations aren’t showing that anymore but millions of people are stuck in the shadow of a giant spaceship right now. That can’t go on forever with nothing happening.”

  “Hello?” Emma said, answering a call so quickly that the ringtone didn’t even sound.

  Everyone fell silent and turned to her, knowing she wouldn’t have picked up unless the caller was one of the very few people she would deem worthy of attention at a time like this; not that there had ever been a time quite like this.

  “Slater,” she whispered, handing the phone to Dan.

  Without reluctance, he accepted it and listened to what she had to say. After all that had happened he was well past considering how surreal it was that the President of the United States not only cared about his opinion but actively sought it out in times of crisis.

  The question Slater asked was one Dan had seen coming, but that didn’t make it any less disconcerting to hear. The answer, though, was clear in his mind and took no thought or effort to deliver: “Under no circumstances should you order a strike or any other kind of military action against any of these spacecraft. China is China; if they do something, the aliens might only take it out on them. But if you do something…”

  “Do you know anything else?” Slater asked. The straightforward wording and even more so the straightforward tone made it difficult for Dan not to automatically share the Messengers’ revelation of apparent hostility on the Squadron’s part,
but then he realised that President Slater — like everyone else — wasn’t even clear on the Messengers/Squadron distinction.

  He gulped, looked at Emma, and decided to unload. “Well, as soon as the mothership appeared I got a—”

  Mid-sentence, Dan fell to the ground.

  He wasn’t grasping any part of his body as had sometimes been the case during previous instances of contact, but his eyes fell immediately and disconcertingly closed.

  Emma, gravely concerned, was first to his side. Within seconds, though, she was knocked off balance by a very uncharacteristic nudge from Rooster. Having rushed over as quickly as his old paws would carry him, the dog stopped at Dan and began to whimper frantically. This worrying performance lasted only a few more seconds, however, until Rooster turned towards the basement and barked furiously at the door as though he could see a cat stealing food from his bowl.

  “Oh, shit…” Clark groaned, sprinting towards the basement. When he opened the door, Rooster surprised everyone by running down the steps. Far from scared away by an apparent alien intervention, he was emboldened by rage or something like it.

  The barking got louder and louder, to the extent that Clark didn’t know what he would find when the floor and Jack Neal’s holding chair came into view.

  His first guess proved correct: the chair was empty, and Jack was gone.

  The Messengers took Walker away because he was a problem, Clark tried to tell himself. They weren’t on his side, they wanted him out of the picture. That makes sense here, too. That makes all kinds of sense…