THE LIGHT WE LOST: a gripping thriller

by Valera Titov

  Glory was adamant that there was something beyond Planet Earth, perhaps even life forms. She was even more convinced that Alan probably knew more about this than he was letting on. If her husband worked with space programs on a daily basis, surely he had been privileged to see some strange or not so strange things?

  Glory got hold of the telephone number for the Paranal Observatory and placed a call from her mobile phone. She was fully aware that language was about to become an issue as most Chilean spoke more Spanish than English. Glory had achieved straight ‘A’s’ for Spanish in her high school years but that seemed like a lifetime ago now. Besides, there is a big difference between writing a Spanish exam and actually speaking the language.

  ‘Hola,’ said the person on the other end of the line.

  Glory did her best in what was her third language after English and French, another language that she studied in high school.

  Eventually, she got put through to another department at the observatory where a lady answered. Fortunately for Glory, the person on the other end of the call could speak fairly fluent English.

  “Ms Glory, you want to speak to the Professor?” she said in a timid voice.

  “Haven’t you heard the news? Professor Goic died in a car accident on the Paranal mountain range three months ago. It was so sad. He worked here for thirty-seven years.”

  Glory gasped. Was she now out of teaching with the goings-on in planetology and observatories that she didn’t even know that one of the greatest Professors on the space scene of all time had passed on?

  “I am so sorry to hear that,” she said.

  “By all accounts, the Professor was a wonderful man and an extremely clever person.”

  “Clever?” exclaimed the lady.

  “Did you say clever? He was nothing short of a genius. It will be another one hundred or two hundred years before this observatory has someone of his ability and commitment again.”

  “How did he pass away?” questioned Glory.

  “Was it sudden?”

  The lady began to sob.

  “His car went over the edge of the mountain cliff,” she said.

  “It is very strange as the Professor was a careful driver. He always drove slowly and everyone at the observatory teased him about that. I think there may have been… wait let me stop before I say too much.”

  Glory could feel her face going cold and a chilly sweat began to drip from her forehead.

  “Ma’am, you don’t think that someone…”

  “Look, I have worked here at the observatory for over seven years as the assistant to the Professor and I know that he was threatened on a few occasions on some of his views and findings. I hope you weren’t contacting him about possibly getting into the space program, were you?”

  “Well actually…” said Glory before she was cut short.

  “Don’t if you know what is good for you,” the lady went on.

  “I was like you when I was young. I dreamed of going to space and when I finally got the chance to work in the observatory, I saw a whole different, evil side of this industry. The end of the world is not as far away as you think. You see, now you make me speak too much. I need to go.”

  “Wait, why do you say that the end of the world is not far off?” asked Glory.

  “Ask your fellow Americans at Cape Canaveral,” said the lady.

  “I speak too much. I must go. Adios.”

  The phone went dead in Glory’s ear and she put it down next to her.

  She wasn’t sure what the woman was eluding, but her evasiveness to keep her lips tied with the cold shoulder style was like the deep secrecy shown by Alan Falcon about his secret mission at the space office at Cape Canaveral. There must be a link between the two.

  Glory wasn’t even worried about her own life. She had two infants to worry about. Within an hour, Glory Falcon, neatly dressed in a blue blouse and black slacks, was seated inside a cab on her way to Alan Falcon’s office at Cape Canaveral.

  Once at the space campus, Glory’s mind was blown away. It took no less than ten security checks before she got anywhere near Alan’s office. What was so secretive that the mission had to have more security procedures in place than those guarding the US President?

  A young administration clerk eventually escorted her to Alan Falcon’s office.

  Alan sat at his desk and looked up from the document that he was reading. He smiled instantly and then refrained himself as he made his way over to his wife. He was caught between a ‘honey, I am so pleased to see you’ to a ‘what are you doing here? What will my work colleagues think when they see my wife here?’

  He shut the door and embraced Glory before giving her a passionate kiss.

  With the niceties done with, Glory fired the opening question.

  “Honey, what is up with Armageddon?”

  Alan wiped his brow with his handkerchief.

  “What do you mean?” he inquired.

  Glory explained about her telephone call to the observatory in Chile and what the woman had told her.

  Alan sighed and stared at his wife, before ushering her to a seat in front of his desk.

  “Honey, I will try and explain it all to you but please don’t interrupt me as the information is quite sensitive and can be complicated at times.”

  “According to legend, which Adam also knew, people were made as helpers to the gods, basically a workforce. People on earth have destroyed how things should have been. Think about it: war, nuclear tests, biological weapons, carbon dioxide…”

  Alan went on.

  “Armageddon as you call it is coming soon. We refer to it as ‘Planet X and it is heading straight for Planet Earth. It will melt all glaciers and unleash hunger, epidemics, and radiation. The radiation stream will destroy all forms of life on earth.”

  Glory stared at her husband who looked mentally drained from all the hours that he had put into his work over the past few months.

  “When the radiation strikes on X-Ray Day, it is all over here on earth. So we have been building space crafts to transport human beings to other planets for their own safety.”

  Alan took in a sip of coffee from a mug that was positioned on his desk and then continued.

  Children and parents fall under my protection,” he explained and then went around to hug his wife.

  “Honey, I don’t want to live alone. I don’t want to die alone. We need to move as soon as possible before it is too late. As earthlings, we are late to discover the real value of living on other planets. Let’s say that we are poor at real estate market evaluation in other parts of the solar system.”

  “I know that you will have dozens of questions to ask, but please understand that I have been sharing information with you that is not for the eyes and ears of the average man in the street,” continued Alan.

  “The US military and their Russian counterparts have spent billions of cash working on this project. It is for the good of every human being here on earth but it could only be activated when everything is 100 percent cast in stone. Time is against us, yes, but we will have enough time to activate the plan before Planet-X strikes. Think of it as a UFO heading straight for earth. A collision is imminent.”

  Tears began to flow down Glory’s cheeks.

  “It’s not as bad as it may seem at first, honey,” said Alan.

  “Who knows, maybe our twins will be happier living on Mars than here on earth. We can’t make that judgment on their behalf. You need to go and I need to get back to my work.”

  Glory stood up from her seat and smiled at Alan. She knew him to be a workaholic – a man who would do whatever was best for his family and country.

  She left the office with many unanswered questions going through her mind. How did this fit in with Adam’s mission and did someone at the Paranal Observatory want to stop the process and the first point of call was to shut the Professor up for good? Had he stumbled on some information that could tarnish the space program’s plan either way or was she being c
ynical? Perhaps the Professor had died of natural cause after all. Glory shook her head. The death of the driver of a car that went over the mountain cliff could hardly be put down to ‘natural causes’.

  Her mind drifted back to her twins. She didn’t care about her life or even that of Alan at the moment. Her children came first and if there were only two seats left on one of the spaceships to Mars, then she would definitely offer the places to Adam Jnr and Rachel. They were the future, while she and Alan was the present.

  It almost seemed like the security checks that had to be undertaken to leave the building, were nearly as much as when she came in. Were the US and Russian military worried that she might leave with a spaceship in her pocket? The security elements looked silly to her.

  Chapter Seven

  Life is a Beach

  The sun was setting as Glory Falcon sat deep in her thought, looking out over the Coca Beach coastline. The yellow cab was close to reaching its destination and aaccomplishing the request of returning her home.

  Life can be a beach, thought Glory. Yeah, life can also be a bitch.

  Heaven, the smash pop hit of Bryan Adams from the 1980s, was playing over the car radio. Glory shook her head. Heaven… Good, honest Professor Sergio Goic is certain to have gone to a good place up in the sky. Who could be so cruel? What did the clever man know that someone didn’t want him to reveal?

  Was the US or Russian military behind the ending of the Professor’s life or was there another force at play?

  Then there was the Adam Kennedy mystery. There was still no proof where and Adam disappeared or how he vanished. Likewise, there was no evidence to suggest that Adam was indeed dead.

  Alan Falcon had let on that Adam knew about the legend that people of earth were meant to be a workforce of the gods.

  Glory knew that Adam was no fool. Despite his age, he was an experienced archaeologist and he clearly knew much about the secret space program. He must have been on a mission to find something of such importance that it needed to go with him on the spaceship to safety before Planet Earth was destroyed by the mass destruction UFO called Planet X.

  Glory thanked and paid the cab driver and went into the double story home. Rachel’s face lit up as she saw her mother, while Adam Jnr was more interested in gulping down his supper. He finished the last of his baby food and let out a huge burp.

  “Thanks, Adam,” said his mother sarcastically.

  “It is nice to see you too.”

  Glory spent some quality family time with the twins in order to give housekeeper a break.

  Later, the ladies swapped roles and Glory made her way to the study room.

  The razor-sharp former planetology student didn’t know what she was looking for or where to start. She would only know when she saw it.

  As she walked into the study, her eyes caught on the range of encyclopedia books that Adam had given to her as Christmas present. She pulled out some of the books and paged through each of them. They were all space-related and she had read them a few times.

  Again, something caught her eye. On one of the pages was the number ‘1416’. She read the page carefully. At last! She had found a clue. The information on the page clearly stated that Planet Mars is roughly 1416 million miles away from Planet Earth!

  Glory wiped her hands over her face. The first time that she had seen the numbers ‘1416’, was on the message received to alert her of the disappearance of Adam Kennedy and the others on the mission with him.

  Glory, you fool, she thought. That is it. Adam had put the numbers on the message as a code to tell her that he is still alive. She began to retrace her thoughts. Was she going crazy or was she making sense?

  If Adam was indeed alive, why had he not made contact with her? Was he being held somewhere against his will and by whom: the US military, the Russian military or by a criminal force?

  She could feel cold sweat dripping down her cheeks. Was her husband or the US government hiding something from her?

  Glory Falcon moved over to her Celestron Powerseeker 70AZ Telescope which stood in the corner of the room near the window.

  She began to adjust the telescopic settings like she did on many occasion, but this time, her fingers worked the switches on the device with aggression rather than finesse.

  Glory peered into the eyepiece which would allow her to see out into space. There was something out there, there had to be!

  She looked long and hard in an attempt to spot a UFO or perhaps, a US or Russian spaceship on its way to or back from Mars.

  For afew seconds, everything looked normal through the telescope. Then, things changed for the worst. A blaze of light, similar to what Glory had seen through the telescope at the university and again on Prom Night, powered its way almost directly towards her telescope. For a moment, it seemed like the light was going to come right through the device. It was so bright that the mother of the twins pulled away and fell to the floor, letting out a loud cry.

  The housekeeper, Joey Lawrence, found Glory Falcon lying motionless on the floor. She was conscious, but shivering from fear.

  “Ms Glory, what happened?” asked a concerned Joey, as she tried to help her boss up to a seated position.

  Glory tried to gather her thoughts.

  “Joey, do you believe in Armageddon?” she asked.

  The domestic worker reached for the sideboard and poured some water into a glass, before handing it to Glory.

  “Yeah, I believe that the world will end someday and we will all be answerable to our maker on the way that we lived the life that he gave to us,” said Joey.

  Glory pushed in the next question.

  “Joey, do you think that there are people living on other planets like Mars, Jupiter, and Uranus?”

  Joey raised her eyebrows in surprise at the question.

  “I am not sure if there are other humans living there. in fact, I don’t think so, but there could well be other forms of life there,” she said.

  Glory took in a sip of water from the glass.

  Suddenly, things were starting to make sense. If that bright light was able to strike at her through a telescope or without a telescope like on Prom Night, surely it could strike at other people too. Glory knew to always trust her gut feeling and it was telling her that the bright light may have blinded Professor Goic which forced him to lose control of his vehicle which then went over the cliff.

  Her mind was in overdrive. Was a bright light from somewhere in the solar system also responsible for the potential death of Adam Kennedy? Was the bright light destroying anyone or anything that stood a chance of fighting against Planet X’s chances of destroying everything on Planet Earth?

  Was this a part of the secret project that the US and Russian military were fighting against? What was behind Planet X and what was the ultimate objective? Did Planet X have a Plan B to destroy anything that left Planet Earth? For instance, would Planet X have a means to destroy a spaceship en route from Earth to Mars?

  She would only find the answers if she could work out the matters behind Planet X? How was it created and why of all the planets in the solar system, was it aimed at Planet Earth? Yes, earth was the only planet where humans were living to the best knowledge of the scientists, but who was on a mission to destroy what was now seen as a wicked ‘workforce’ for the gods?

  Joey helped Glory to stand up from the floor. They went to the lounge, where Rachel and Adam Jnr were playing with toys peacefully on a woollen blanket.

  The twins looked so peaceful and innocent, yet some force wanted to destroy all forms of life on earth – both good and bad.

  Her thoughts were broken by the ringing of the doorbell.

  Who would be coming to visit the Falcon home at this time of the evening?

  Joey Lawrence went to answer the door and two men, one white and the other African-American, stood on the doorstep, both neatly dressed in black suits and wearing ties.

  “Good evening, Ma’am, is this the Falcon residence,” said the white ma
n, who was slightly the thinner of the two.

  Joey nodded, adding that this was the home of Mr and Mrs Alan Falcon.

  The men waved their badges which identified them as FBI agents and Joey let them into the house and ushered them into the lounge.

  “Mr Alan is not home yet,” she said.

  “We are not here to see Mr Falcon,” explained the African-American agent, whose name was Denver Mills.

  “We would like to speak with Mrs Falcon.”

  Glory had earlier retreated to the library room next to the lounge and eve-dropped on the conversation.

  Back in the lounge, Joey offered the men tea or coffee but they both declined. They had both had a long working day and wanted to complete the reason for the call as quickly as possible so they could return to their respective families.

  Glory made her way to the lounge and found one of the FBI men playing with one of Adam Jnr’s toy cars in a bid to keep the child entertained. Adam roared with laughter as the FBI agent made a ‘vroom, vroom’ sound with his mouth as if to show him the sound that cars makes in reality.

  Upon seeing Glory Falcon walk into the room, the FBI agent put the toy down and introduced himself and his colleague to the lady of the house.

  “Good evening, Ma’am,” said the thinner agent.

  “We know that you are aware of the Project X threat and the US and Russian government’s collaboration to space lift human life to Mars for safety reasons,” he began.

  Glory remained still and neither nodded nor spoke. Was Alan Falcon going to be court-marshalled for speaking to his wife about sensitive secret projects?

  “Well, we are not here to take action against you or your husband,” the agent went on.

  “We actually need your help.”

  Glory gulped. Of what benefit could she actually be to the FBI?

  “Ma’am, you used to be involved in a relationship with Adam Kennedy, am I correct?’ the agent said.

  This time Glory had no option but to nod in agreement.

  “Ms Falcon, we need to find Adam Kennedy as he could be an important part of what is going to happen in the bigger scheme of things. You need to be open and honest with us. Do you know where Adam is?”