“So I’ve heard. How long did you serve with dad?”
“Nine long years in the trenches…demolishing cell towers and laying underground landline while Barriers were erected and the planet warred over crop supply,” Bennie went on. “We could have easily served an additional five years together if funding hadn’t run out, leaving half the world stranded in Sanctuary fallout shelters.”
Nathan folded his arms. “I guess that makes us the lucky ones, huh?”
“Depends on how you look at things,” Bennie said. “Your father and I have long suspected that when the Intergovernmental Congress took charge of the planet’s safety half a century ago, they saw a perfect opportunity to re-plan and stabilize the world, and get filthy rich doing so. Order and money, Nathan. That’s what it’s always been about.”
Nathan mulled this over, but was interrupted by a burst of bright light outside the greenhouse.
“Speak of the devil,” Bennie said, looking upward.
Silence fell over the room. White light flooded the glass, illuminating faces and bodies like heavenly apparitions. After thirty seconds, the light dissipated to yellow, then orange, then red. Five minutes later, the sky faded to blue.
Nathan’s uncle raised a champagne glass and broke the awkward silence. “To Aidan!”
“To dad,” his sister added.
Conversations sprang back to life.
“Right on time,” Bennie said. “They were predicting a flare in the next day or so.”
“Yeah…impeccable timing.”
“Pop quiz,” Bennie said, slamming his hand on the table. “Guess where I was when the first flare struck forty-nine years ago?”
Nathan shrugged.
“On the toilet with my pants down.”
“Yikes.”
“Yep.” Another suck on his cigar. Smoke streamed from his nostrils. “Have you noticed the flares becoming more frequent?”
“I stopped keeping track.”
“Well I keep track of everything. What can I say? I’ve had nothing better to do since Sherry passed last spring.”
“Your wife?”
“Number three, and she was a keeper.”
“Sorry for your loss.”
“Sorry? Nonsense,” Bennie said, snorting. “The only thing you need to be sorry about is being born in this century. If the sun would cut us some slack for a few years, the ozone layer might stand a chance of recovering, and we might be able to grow crops outdoors again. The moronic media is saying that at the current rate of the sun’s misbehavior, it’ll go supernova in a hundred years. Although, as usual, they’ve got the terminology all wrong.”
“How so?”
“The sun’s far too small to go supernova,” Bennie said loudly. “But it will explode, and it will annihilate Earth and everything on it. At least we won’t be around for the human barbecue.”
Nathan’s aunt glared from the table beside them.
Bennie paid no attention. “The big mystery remains…what caused the sun to suddenly start destabilizing forty-nine years ago? We were supposed to have a few billion more years before our cranky friend in the sky turned into a ravenous red giant and devoured the entire solar system.”
Nathan’s aunt stood, grabbed her purse and glowered at Bennie. “I’ve had enough of you, sir.”
Bennie furrowed his eyebrows as she streaked through the rows of tables and exited the greenhouse. “What’s her problem?”
Nathan was speechless.
Bennie cleared his throat. “As I was saying…we’ll never know why. The destabilized fusion is occurring in the sun’s core where it’s twenty million degrees, and we’ve only managed to send probes to the outer layer where it’s only ten thousand. But that still puts us three million miles from the core, and from that distance we’ll never get adequate information. So, the fact remains, we’re screwed.”
Nathan glanced at Sarah chatting with distant relatives at the table beside him and wondered how much longer he’d have to endure this. He cleared his throat. “If you don’t mind, Bennie, I’d like to ask you a few questions about dad.”
Chewing on his cigar he continued, “After the Barriers were erected and populated, and NASA was up and running again, Aidan and I worked as senior communications engineers for twenty years on missions to Ellis Three. I retired at sixty-five, but you know Aidan, retiring wasn’t part of his vocabulary.” Bennie looked around. “Nice workspace Aidan had here. Lucky devil. I was always jealous.”
“Oh?”
“He was the only senior communications engineer permitted to work from home. Aidan always had the upper hand. He was the best man NASA had.”
Bennie tapped his cigar on the table. Sarah looked his way and coughed loudly. She shot Nathan a scowl.
“Enough about the old days,” Bennie said. “How are you handling yourself?”
Nathan rubbed his face with one hand. “I’ve been better, Bennie, and that’s what I want to talk to you about.”
Bennie leaned forward and whispered, “I hear you’ve been making phone calls about your father all week.”
“Who told you?”
“Word gets around.”
Nathan glanced sideways and leaned in. “So, do you know anything?”
“I know your father didn’t kill himself,” Bennie said, reaching for a brownie from a plate in the center of the table. He leaned back and took a big bite, brown crumbs cascading down the front of his blazer. He cursed under this breath, brushing them off with a napkin. “Lousy eulogy, by the way.”
“Thanks.”
Bennie tossed the napkin aside. “Tell me, Nathan, did your dear old dad ever disclose what he was involved with for the last five months?”
“I only know what everybody else knows.”
“Which is?”
“For the last ten years dad designed communication schematics for an aerospace firm called Zathcore. They’re secretive but reputable, I’ve done the research. He worked in this greenhouse twelve hours a day behind a barricade of plants.” Nathan pointed at a thick wall of exotic vines covering a closed metal door to their right. “Nobody was allowed inside the greenhouse while he worked remote, not even mom. Nothing unusual about that. When it comes to Ellis Three archeological missions, every employee takes an oath to protect corporate secrets. Dad had a ‘don't ask, don't tell’ policy, and the family upheld his wishes.”
“Anything else?”
“Dad picked up some lucrative contractual work to help fund the neural synaptic device he was designing for my son’s quadriplegia. Some top secret project he wasn’t at liberty to discuss. About three months ago, he decided to split for the cabin in Alaska, insisting he needed time alone to work on the device and finish up his contractual obligations. He said he was stressed out and overwhelmed. He kept his laptop and everything else in a bomb proof vault in the back office here. Mom says he emptied the vault and took it all with him. He called her every night from the cabin and seemed to be sound in mind. That’s about it.”
Bennie reached out and put a hand on Nathan’s wrist. “I know all about your son and that device, and I know how you’re getting screwed over by Barrier Admin. Aidan told me everything.”
“Then you know that if my father is still alive, I need to find him. My son’s life depends on getting that device and proving to Barrier Admin that he can pull his own weight.”
“What if I told you I know exactly what Aidan dirtied his hands with?” Bennie whispered. “And I believe he may still be alive.”
Nathan nearly jumped out of his seat.
Bennie glanced behind him, then to the right and left. “But you don’t want to get involved with these people.”
Nathan lunged across the table and grabbed Bennie’s shoulders. “They’re going to murder my son in less than three weeks if I don’t find my father and get that device. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
Bennie’s eyes widened and the cigar quivered between his lips.
“Sorry,” Nathan said, releasing hi
s grip. He sat back down. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
Bennie stood, repositioned his worn ball cap, and handed Nathan a Day's Inn business card. “Call me and we’ll set up a time to talk some more. Too many eyes and ears in this vicinity.”
He walked away, patting Nathan’s mother on the shoulder before stepping out of the greenhouse.
Nathan’s heart pounded as he sat alone, fingering the card.
5
Nathan had two hours to kill before his meeting with Bennie. It was 6 a.m. He threw on a robe and started the morning in the same fashion as every other day since his job termination. With a cup of coffee, he sat down at his desk in a loft overlooking a stone-tiled living room. His and Sarah’s nine-hundred-square-foot condo was no spacious haven, but it was a mansion compared to any living quarters in the Sanctuaries.
He unfolded his SyncSheet and scanned the web for job postings he might have missed the day before. After firing off a half-dozen resumes, he sifted through an equal number of rejection emails. All were polite and generic, but they might as well have said: “We know who you are, pal. Don’t bother applying here again.”
Next, he skimmed through his spam folder, in case something credible happened to slip through the filter. Something had. An eviction notice from the Kansas City Barrier Administration. It stated he and Sarah had forty-five days to provide proof of sustainable Barrier income.
How nice.
With a swift, forceful finger, Nathan deleted it.
He sat on the couch and pulled up CNN, a morning ritual since the news of his father’s suicide. He sipped on his coffee as he watched the non-stop media coverage of the Ellis Three Crisis. The daily press conference with the World Defense Committee was just starting. Most Barrier citizens had been following all the latest concerning developments. This morning, Nathan tuned in for other reasons.
The anchor went through the usual spiel. Five months ago, a satellite orbiting Ellis Three had detected an unidentified spacecraft leaving the planet’s orbit. Space Traffic Control held no flight records of any private or governmental missions that matched the vessel’s belly identification or its location upon takeoff from the distant red planet. Ellis Three, for those who might have been living under a rock and didn’t already know, was the third planet orbiting a star six hundred light years from Earth. It was similar to Mars in atmosphere and geography, and was located just beyond the Fold—a space-time anomaly that suddenly appeared in the asteroid belt sixty years ago. The anchor went on to explain that the Fold was a crease in space fabric where two distant points touch, allowing for a six-month journey to and from the previously unknown and unreachable planet. The Fold had facilitated the planet’s discovery via probe sixty-years previously.
The spacecraft filled the screen and had been nicknamed Black Ghost. It was dark and shaped like a boomerang, and blue light glowed from its belly. Its propulsion system and energy source were unknown and appeared to be highly advanced.
The scene switched to a crowded press room that was located at the World Defense Headquarters in the Chicago Barrier. Chairman Alkott took the podium and flashed his dimpled smile for the cameras. He towered over CNN’s news correspondent, Mark Scovotti, who asked the first question.
“Can you give the global community an update?”
The chairman released his smile. His chiseled cheekbones, lean physique and dark, slicked-back hair glistened in the stage light. Alkott was a well-calculated balance of stoicism and charm, Nathan’s father once commented.
“We have no new data,” the chairman replied. “Other than the fact that Black Ghost is now less than nine million miles from Earth’s orbit.”
“Which equates to how many days, Chairman?”
“At the current velocity of the vessel, nineteen days.”
“Has any being in Black Ghost attempted to communicate yet?”
“Not that we’re aware of.”
“Can you speculate why they’re not communicating?”
“We don’t know.”
“Any idea who they are?”
“We have no new information.”
“Have you ruled out the possibility of a private or government research vessel?”
“Space Traffic Control has verified seven documented missions to Ellis Three when satellites captured the liftoff of Black Ghost. All seven were conducting archeological excavations along the Great Riverbed in the eastern hemisphere—six privately funded and one by the British government. The undocumented spacecraft departed from the western hemisphere.”
“Safe to assume the occupants are human, Mr. Chairman?”
Chairman Alkott grinned. “Need I answer that question, Mr. Scovotti?”
A few laughs escaped the crowd of reporters.
Mark continued. “Is the World Defense Committee still holding to the theory that Black Ghost is inhabited by a surviving remnant of humans from an Ellis Three colony?”
“We are.”
“Mr. Chairman, how’s that even possible?” a reporter interjected. “Archeological records clearly show that human colonies on Ellis Three died off three thousand years ago. There isn’t a drop of water left on that planet. There’s nothing there now but old bones and bits of android prosthetics.”
The chairman shrugged. “You’re better off posing that question to an anthropologist, not a politician.”
More chuckles.
“Are there any new developments on the course of action the World Defense Committee will take in the best interest of global security?” someone added.
“We’re weighing all the facts before a strategy is finalized,” the chairman responded calmly.
Questions from more reporters flooded the room.
The chairman raised his palms and waited for the room to quiet. “Friends. There are many apparent impossibilities in our mysterious universe, are there not? Archeologists can’t even explain how ancient humans got to Ellis Three in the first place. We mustn’t act in haste, but it is the duty of The World Defense Committee to not allow a vessel of hostile intent to enter Earth’s orbit.”
More questions.
“Stop listening to this man’s lies!” a woman shouted.
Murmuring filled the room and the cameras focused on her: beige overcoat, rimmed glasses, bleach-blonde hair to her shoulders. Mid-twenties.
Chairman Alkott forced a smile. “Miss, do you mind holding up your press badge so the viewers at home know which media outlet you’re with?”
“No thanks.” She flashed both middle fingers at the cameras and bolted toward an exit. The cameras followed as she left, then refocused on the stage.
After a long thirty seconds, the chairman looked directly at the cameras. “Citizens of this planet’s great Barrier cities, I implore you to ignore the voices of the misinformed. We must unite and protect our Barrier infrastructure, and we must assume the vessel has a hostile intent. We don’t know what they want from us or what weapons of mass destruction they possess. If they are not willing to communicate, then we must prepare for the worst.”
“Still plan on hitting Black Ghost with a nuclear warhead?” a British reporter asked.
“Kind of seems like an act of war, Chairman,” another reporter said. “I thought bombs and missiles were relics of the past.”
Mark Scovatti jumped in. “Chairman, what is your official response to the critics who say the World Defense Committee is acting in haste?”
Pause. “I say to those critics….when would you like the World Defense Committee to respond? After it’s too late?”
More murmurs.
More questions.
More speeches.
Nathan shut off the SyncSheet and sighed, staring blankly out the window.
What pained him the most was that Black Ghost might meet its fate around the same time Ian was scheduled to meet his. Truth was, he’d only started paying attention to the Ellis Three Crisis because his father did. Relentlessly. Was he involved somehow? Was Nathan overlooking a clue from the endless
coverage that might provide insight as to why his father lived and breathed the Ellis Three Crisis before his supposed death?
And there was the vacation cabin in Alaska.
Why his mother allowed a seventy-six-year-old man to split town by himself and fly an ancient Cessna 172 two hundred miles up the Alaskan coastline was beyond him. Sure, the seventies were the new sixties among Barrier residents, thanks to supplements and medical advancements. And as far as Nathan knew, his father’s mind was still as sharp as a tack, and he was in good physical health when they’d last spoken. He'd recently renewed his neurology certifications with high marks, and he'd finished in the top thirty percent in Kansas City’s 5K last year. Even so, he wasn’t a young buck either. At his age, anything could happen, and flying to the Alaskan wilderness alone didn’t seem like a risk worth taking.
“Everything okay?” Sarah asked, putting a hand on Nathan’s shoulder.
Nathan looked up. He hadn’t even heard her get coffee and climb the creaky steps to the loft.
“Just sending off another round of resumes.” He stood, pulled her close, and gave her a quick kiss.
“Any bites yet?” she asked, brushing her short chestnut hair away from her cheek. She’d recently turned forty-seven but nobody believed she was a day past thirty-nine. Her petite frame, hazel eyes and winsome smile snared him twenty-eight years ago in English Comp 101 during his freshman year at Kansas State University. And she hadn’t let go since.
“Afraid not.” Nathan folded up the SyncSheet and slipped it into the pocket of his robe. He turned toward the window. “I’m starting to think writing that article wasn’t such a bright idea.”
Sarah moved closer and cupped his face in her hands. “I’m glad you wrote it. You did it for Ian.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Nathan mumbled, breaking free and sinking into the couch. He thought about the path he had gone down. A path that led to where he was now: permanently blacklisted from journalism.
When he was a rookie at the Kansas City Tribune, he submitted an editorial to the Senior Editor critiquing the Rankcon Intergovernmental Partnership. Rankcon’s seventy-year renewable patent on Barrier technology was outrageous, his editorial claimed. It violated countless anti-trust laws. Other entrepreneurs deserved the chance to compete and offer similar services at a better price. Sure, Rankcon had made significant contributions to the betterment of humanity after years of solar flares and civil wars, and was thus awarded the historical patent on Barrier technology. But did that earn them the right to a global empire? The article was factual, ruffled a few feathers, but it needed to be said. The Senior Editor hated every word, calling it spiteful and reckless. Nathan pled ignorance to the industry’s unspoken rules and was miraculously allowed to keep his job.
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