“What’s the meaning of this? Why have I been summoned here? YOU!”
Jack span around and faced the tall uniformed figure standing in the doorway, a dagger-like scar stretching all the way from his forehead to his chin.
Stormborn…
Chapter Twelve: Stormborn
“You can’t be serious,” said General Stormborn, glaring at Jack like a serial killer. “He’s a criminal, guilty of treason, of sabotage…”
“You LIED!” said the President, slamming her fists down onto the dark mahogany table. “You said Nevada was the work of the greys, the Asvari, when all along you knew it was the Scourge.”
“Yes, I lied,” said the General, cracking his knuckles behind his back. His eyes burned like torches. “I wouldn’t expect a career politician like yourself to understand. But I did what was necessary. For America, for humanity.”
“Bullshit. You did it for yourself. For more money, more resources. All your little projects,” she said, throwing her hands up into the air.
“Are what’s keeping us safe. You know that. If what this boy is saying is true the greys are still going to invade, are still planning to conquer us… to enslave us. Trust me, Madam President, when this is over you will be thanking me for Area 52 and my fleet of TR3-b’s. It will be money well-spent.”
“It better be. Or before this is over I’ll have you managing the smallest radar station in Alaska, or better yet Mars.”
“We’ll see about that,” said the General. “I have a lot of important friends. More than you know.”
“Don’t we all.”
“That remains to be seen.”
“Can we just get on with this?” said Jack. “We are going to have to stop bickering or else the Asvari and the Scourge will just march all over us. We need to unite.”
“Yes,” said the General, eyes boring into Jack like demented corkscrews. “My thoughts exactly. Give me your ship.”
“What? You can’t be serious.”
“Like a heart attack. If you think for one minute that I’m going to entrust the safety of America, of our whole democracy, to a… to a boy…”
“Well that’s just what you’re going to have to do,” said Jack, returning his stare. “Because I’m not letting you anywhere near our ship. Not now, not ever. Besides, I’m the most experienced human there is when it comes to space, your astronauts and pilots have got nothing on me.”
“If that’s true then how come you haven’t found the greys yet? I thought your spaceship was supposed to be really advanced?”
“What are you getting at?”
“Well, shouldn’t you have found them by now, wherever they are hiding? Your scanners must be the best in the universe after all.”
“They are but…”
“Well then, where are THEY?” said General Stormborn, slamming his hands down onto the table.
“I don’t know. I can’t…”
“That’s not good enough and you know it,” said the General, rapping the table again. “Let me send some of my tech-guys aboard your spaceship. They will...”
“I’ve already told you you’re going nowhere near our spaceship. You’ll steal it the first chance you get, I know you.”
“Why are you helping me then?”
“I’m not. I’m doing it for Earth… for my parents. I doubt you would understand, all you are concerned with is money and power and secrets. You thirst for them. It’s like a drug.”
Stormborn smiled. “You can believe what you like, but you still need my say-so to proceed. If I don’t sign off on this there’s no deal.”
“But Madam President…”
“I’m sorry Jack, there’s nothing I can do,” said the President. “I rule a divided country in a divided world, and the Joint Chiefs defer to him on matters of security and war. If he doesn’t give the green light, you’ll be fighting the Scourge on your own.”
Jack couldn’t believe he was hearing this. What had happened to this place? Everything had been turned upside down. “Fine,” he said finally. “I’ll take a team of your best soldiers. They may come in handy when we infiltrate the Asvari base.”
“You haven’t found it yet,” said the General smirking.
“I will,” said Jack. “You can have my word on that. Do we have a deal?”
“Yes,” he hissed, like a cobra. When would he bite?
“Good…”
“After we agree to certain conditions.”
“Which are?”
“Technology.”
“What about it?”
“I want access to it. We will need it if we are to defeat the Scourge.”
“Yes, but…”
“I’m sorry Jack,” said the President. “Even I have to agree with General Stormborn on this. I will need some alien technology to sweeten the deal to the American people, to the whole world. We can’t go to intergalactic war on a whim. There must be some kind of exchange, we have to be seen to profit from this.”
“But if it’s used by the wrong people for the wrong reasons,” said Jack, looking squarely at the General. “The world will suffer. There must be some kind of agreement.”
“Such as?” asked the President.
“I’ll give you whatever you want, but with one condition.”
“Which is?”
“Everything is timed.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think of it as an intergalactic sell-by-date. Everything I give you will only work for one year. If at the end of that year you have broken your promises the deal’s off, everything will stop working.”
“And if we adhere to the treaty?”
“Then Utopia continues for one more year. You’ll be living in a technological paradise. It will make this,” he said, looking out of the window, “seem like the Stone Age. Now do we have a deal?”
“Done.”
“But Madam President this is highly irregular…”
“I said done. This could cure everything: poverty, AIDS, hunger, you name it. I’ll give you a list of what we need tomorrow Jack.”
“But what of the other countries?” asked the General. “How will we get them to agree to the deal? What if they renege on their side of the agreement, what if they use it to attack us?”
“The same. If they break it in any way, shape or form I’ll pull the plug. You’ll agree to that Jack? I doubt I’ll be able to convince the Republicans otherwise.”
Jack nodded.
“Good,” said the President. “Also, to receive the technology in the first place they must guarantee to stop making war on each other and their own populations. Barbarism just became extinct.”
“I could live with that,” said the General, forehead creased up in thought.
That was easy, thought Jack. Too easy…
“I knew you’d come around,” said the President. “I’ll talk to Congress.”
“I’ll convince the Joint Chiefs.”
“Will they play ball?”
“They have to,” said the General. “We’ve just skipped a million years in technological evolution. The possibilities are endless. This could make America great again. Our economy will blast-off into the stratosphere…”
“I’ve not agreed to this so you can fatten-up your bank balance,” said Jack. “Or anyone else’s for that matter. I did it because it’s the only way to beat the Scourge. I need to know that I can trust you.”
“Of course you can,” said the General, smiling broadly. “We’ll do everything exactly as you have stipulated, I promise.”
“See that you do,” said Jack. “Otherwise I’ll cancel our agreement and send you back to the Stone Age. I’ll see you tomorrow, with a full list of the technologies I’m prepared to hand over.”
“Tomorrow then,” said the General, his eyes as cold and murderous as ever.
When Jack re-appeared moments later in the ship’s control room he wondered whether he’d just done a deal with the devil. No, he thought, General Stormborn is worse…
“You can’t be serious?” said the President looking at the pulsating, blue ball in the middle of the oval office. “There can’t be that much energy. It’s not…”
“Possible?”
“Yes. No one will believe me, they will think I’m crazy, nuts. And with all that’s happened recently, who can blame them?”
“Just tell them the truth,” said Jack.
“But I don’t know what the truth is, let alone how to explain how this zero-point energy works.”
“Don’t explain anything,” said Jack. “Just plug it in and let the device do the rest.”
“But they’ll think it’s a trick, a hoax,” said the President.
“Some con powering the entire national grid for a year.”
“This will…”
“Change the world,” nodded Jack. “Irrevocably.”
“With all this power, we can do anything. It will be a paradise, a utopia. No one ever need go hungry or homeless again.”
“Well looking at the world right now,” said Jack, peering out of the window as a flurry of red lights and wailing sirens shook the night. “You’ve had your fair share of dystopia, of hell.”
“Yes, we have,” said the President looking blankly at the picture of a teenage girl on her desk. “Too much of it.”
“And what about weapons?” asked General Stormborn. “We still have ISIS to contend with and Al Qaeda are always around. Then there’s Russia, and China is still riven with civil war. We need to protect ourselves.”
“I wondered when you’d get around to that,” said Jack. “That’s all you people ever want – more guns, more ammo.”
“But you prom…”
“Oh, don’t worry General, I intend to keep my side of the bargain, you needn’t worry about that.”
“Well, where are they?” asked the General. “I don’t see any weapons in this room.”
“You wouldn’t,” said Jack. “That’s your problem. You can’t see technology for what it is.”
“And that is?”
“Progress. Free energy and the benefits that it will provide will disarm your enemies far quicker than any space gun.”
“But…”
“Oh, don’t get your finely pressed trousers in a twist,” said Jack. “I’ve already delivered your weapons. I’ve upgraded all of your TR3b’s with sonic cannons and I-bombs, plus given them the latest in interstellar armour, as well as an upgrade to your engines to make them capable of faster than light travel. That should give you enough firepower to defend against the Asvari…”
“But not the Scourge?”
“Not even we have the capacity to do that. Not yet anyway.”
“Then what use is it?”
“It will bring your enemies to the negotiating table. Diplomacy…”
“Will never work. It never does. What these folks need is a strong hand, a…”
“Have you not been listening? All this stuff I’ve given you is one big giant bargaining chip. Who doesn’t want free energy and a fresh start at civilisation? With what I’ve given you today you have the capacity to take Earth into the thirty first century, never mind the twenty first.”
“Okay Russia, and what’s left of China and the Union of South American Republics, maybe – but ISIS and Al-Qaeda? You have no idea what they’re like. They’re lunatics, fanatics. They bombed Manchester last week. Over forty people were killed!”
“Even you will be surprised at how many of their followers will throw away their ideologies and their hate for a fresh start in life… for a life without disease, without suffering.”
“What?” asked the President and General Stormborn together.
“You heard me. In that vial,” he said pointing at an electric blue tube that was floating in mid-air behind them, “is an intergalactic superdrug that cures all known diseases, both terrestrial and alien.”
“Everything?” asked the President.
“Yes. AIDS, Malaria, all forms of Cancer, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s. You name it, it cures it.”
“Thank you,” said the President. “What you’ve done…”
“Don’t thank me,” said Jack. “It may yet turn out to be a curse, the population explosion alone will give you headaches you never dreamt of.”
“What about the rest?” asked General Stormborn.
“That’s it.”
“What? You can’t be serious.”
“Fatally so,” said Jack, locking eyes on him like a bull does a matador. “Besides, it’s more than you deserve. As for the rest, you will have to invent it yourselves. But in a world free of disease and poverty and with free energy to boot you might be surprised as to how quickly you discover new ways of doing things.”
“If you say so,” said General Stormborn, sounding like he had a mouthful of acid.
“I do. The proof will be in the space pudding so to speak. That reminds me I’ve one last thing to give you.”
“What’s that?” asked General Stormborn.
“Don’t get too excited,” said Jack. “It’s not a weapon or anything.”
“What then?” asked the President.
Jack handed the President a long, black, tube-like device.
“What is it? It looks like some kind of telescope.”
“It is.”
“But I don’t understand. We have these already. Very powerful ones in fact.”
“Not like this one, you don’t. Take a look.”
“But it can’t be,” the President said, a few seconds later. “It looks so close, so detailed, so…”
“Real?”
“Yes.”
“Mars always looks like that in the morning, when the dust storms have died down and there are a few clouds in the air. Why don’t you have a look at something else?”
“Like what?”
“You decide. That space telescope is automatically tuned into the locations of all nine planets.”
“But there aren’t…”
“Call me a Pluto enthusiast,” he said. “If you hit the switch on the right the telescope will automatically toggle to the next planet.”
“And then?”
“Alpha and Proxima Centauri. But that’s where it stops, I only had time to program those two in. If you want to see the rest, you’ll just have to look for them the old-fashioned way and point it at a star.”
“What’s this button for?” she asked, pointing at a small black button on the left of the device.
“That’s…”
“What is this place?” she asked.
They were standing in a shadowy forest glade, the trunks of some huge trees spiraling up towards a distant sky like skyscrapers.
“It’s an Earth-like world orbiting one of the two stars that make up the Proxima system. When you hit that button…”
“It transported us here, across space?”
“No, of course not,” he laughed. “It acts like a virtual reality device and places you in the middle of what you’re viewing.”
“Then how come you are here?”
“I thought this might happen, so I linked myself to the device, just in case. I go where you go. Want to take a look around?” he asked as a large brown blur swooped low over their heads, squawking into the gloomy distance.
“No,” she said, feeling the bark of one of the trees. “I mean I want to. But I’ve a country to run, a world to rally and unite. We’ve dwelt in the dark for too long. It’s time to bring back the light. How do I get back?”
“Just clap your hands,” said Jack.
As soon as the President brought her hands together the forest crumpled away into nothing, replaced by the cream white walls of the oval office. They were back.
“One more thing,” said Jack. “The device is linked to you now. One clap of your hands and you can go back there anytime you want. It may take some getting used to at first.”
“I’m sure it will,” she said. “But no doubt I’ll learn in time.
Until then let’s get on with the business of finding the Asvari and working out what they are up to.”
“Yes, Madam President,” said Jack. “If I could have a look at some of your data it may help me pinpoint where they are hiding.”
“Sure thing. General Stormborn, can you get him into the Pentagon?”
“Madam President, I can get him into anywhere in the world.”
“It’s almost as if we are allies now,” he said looking squarely at the General.
“Yes,” said the General. “This is a great… opportunity. For both of us.”
“Just remember it’s not just about making money,” said Jack. “Or about updating your precious military. It’s about helping people, making their lives better.”
“Sure it is. I just meant…”
“I know what you meant,” said Jack. “Need I remind you that all this stuff lasts for one year. After that if you haven’t behaved the deal’s off, it will all just disappear.”
“What like Harry Potter?” scoffed the General.
“Exactly,” said Jack. “But this time there will be no Diagon Alley. No place to come back to. You only have one chance at this.”
“Will the disease serum only last for one year too?” asked the President.
“No, that curse is with you forever. I could see no other way.”
“You mean the population bomb?”
“Something like that. You’ll understand… in time. Now come on General, let’s get things moving. The Asvari could attack at any moment.”
“Still nothing,” said General Stormborn, peering over the shoulders of a deep space radar technician.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. That’s the tenth deep space scan we’ve run. There isn’t so much as an asteroid out of place, never mind a fleet of grey ships.”
“But they have to be here somewhere, Ros said…”
“General,” said a man in a dark blue uniform to Jack’s right. “I’ve got NASA on the line. They want to know if anything’s up at Lagrangian One, between the Earth and the Moon. Apparently, some of their spacecraft there are acting strangely.”
“Define strange.”
“Their orbits are a little off, like…”
“Something’s disturbing their orbits,” said Jack. “That’s it. They where they are.”
Jack Strong: Dark Matter Page 6