by Steve Alten
Mulder casts a perturbed look at the president. ‘Is this some kind of game they’re playing?’
The second female president of the United States and the first homosexual ever to reach the executive branch nods. ‘It’s poker, Ken. Make no mistake, they’re watching and evaluating our responses.’
Mulder glances up at the surveillance camera. ‘Poker’s a game of chance. I prefer chess.’
The door opens, revealing a putty-complexioned man in his late sixties. His short-cropped hair is mouse-gray and curly, his matching piggish eyes heavy behind rose-colored spectacles. Barefoot, he is dressed in a paisley Hawaiian shirt and matching Bermuda shorts, his narrow lips sucking on a pacifier bong.
Donald Engle casts a wide shadow over the doorway. ‘Lilith Mabus?’
A buzzed smile creases into a giggle behind the portable cannabis device, freed by manicured fingers. ‘No, big man, I’m Lilith’s personal assistant. Benjamin Merchant, at your service. Ya’ll come in, we’ve been expecting you.’ The accent is a southern Alabama drawl, laced with saccharine.
Merchant leads them through the grand entrance, the floors polished onyx marble, the bay windows at the rear of the house revealing the pool, its invisible lines melding perfectly into the turquoise shades of the Atlantic Ocean.
‘May I say, Madam President, that finally meeting you is quite an honor. I’m a flamer myself. Probably stems from my upbringing. Did your Catholic priest fondle you, too?’
Heather Stuart’s face flushes pink. ‘No, he most certainly did not.’
‘Yeah, I suppose they restrict themselves to little boys. What about the nuns?’ Moving past a sweeping oak staircase in a drug-induced saunter, he leads them to a matching set of interior doors. ‘The lady of the house is inside. Go on in while I fetch us something to drink.’
Ken Mulder waits for the annoying man to leave before opening the door.
The study is a thousand-square-foot pentagon-shaped chamber, its walls paneled in rich mahogany, its high arched ceiling criss-crossed by teak wood beams. A matching desk houses a wraparound computer station featuring a 270 degree plasma screen. On the other side of the room is a sitting area—three leather sofas and two bamboo chairs forming a square.
Seated on the middle sofa is Lilith Mabus. Brilliant turquoise eyes gaze up to greet them, the Hunahpu-blue radiance exuding the luminescence of a cat’s nocturnal eyes. Wavy raven hair flows like ivy down her black kimono, the sheer fabric pressed against her breasts.
More startling—the mocha-skinned thirty-four-year-old goddess’s lower body is nude beneath the hip-length kimono. With her bare feet propped on the coffee table, Lilith is clearly flaunting her sex, daring her guests to look.
Mulder and Engle’s eyes widen. President Stuart merely shakes her head.
The man-eater smiles. ‘Welcome to the oral office, Madam President.’
‘Cute. But my last name’s not Zwawa and this isn’t a social call, so if you don’t mind.’
‘Oh, I don’t mind a bit. You’re the one who requested a face to face, and I find formal wear too conforming. You can have a seat, or stand there gawking, it’s up to you.’
Heather Stuart motions to her two cabinet members. The two men share the sofa catty-corner to Lilith’s, the president selecting a bamboo chair directly in front of their host.
Lilith leans over to the wide-bodied national security advisor and winks. ‘What’s wrong, Donald? Don’t trust yourself? You never averted your eyes when I used to visit John in the West Wing.’
‘You weren’t naked, Lilith.’
‘Ah, but you were imagining me naked, weren’t you, Donald? The way you used to ogle my cleavage … the way you inspected my ass every time I crossed the room. Tell me, was I good in bed?’
‘What?’
‘When you masturbated later that night … was I good in bed?’
‘That’s enough!’ The president turns to her national security advisor. ‘Brief her.’
Donald Engle positions his attaché case on the coffee table next to Lilith’s bare feet and opens it, revealing a holographic projector. ‘The report you’re about to see has been classified umbra, beyond top-secret. Reveal its contents and you will be subjected to arrest.’
‘How exciting.’
Engle activates the device, causing a 360-degree aerial video of Yellowstone National Park to bloom above the sitting area. ‘While Yellowstone National Park is known for its geysers and hot springs, to scientists it represents a ticking time bomb of Mother Nature, packing the explosive force of ten thousand Mount St. Helenses. Buried five miles beneath the surface, fueling those geysers and hot springs, is a coneless supervolcano, more commonly referred to as a caldera.’
The image changes, converting to an animated color-coded thermal display revealing a massive subterranean magma pocket. ‘There are actually three calderas buried beneath Yellowstone. The largest and most lethal of these triplets is 112 miles across and 48 miles wide, encompassing nearly the entire park.
‘Yellowstone has erupted three times in Earth’s history, the first event occurring 2.1 million years ago, the second 1.2 million years ago, the last 630,000 years ago. The eruptions unleashed a combined 6,000 cubic miles of debris, the ejection of lava causing the tops of the volcanos to collapse, forming these three massive depressions.’
The animated eruptions change to a real-time aerial view of a flooded forest.
‘Our scientists have known for decades that Yellowstone’s calderas are overdue to erupt. What you are looking at is Yellowstone Lake. Situated aboveground along the northern section of the park and directly beneath the pocket of magma is a mammoth, hill-size bulge. The bulge has been rising since the first geological survey of the park was taken in the late 1920s. Scientists became alarmed back in the 1990s when the bulge actually began lifting the northern end of Yellowstone Lake, causing its waters to spill into the forest along its southern shoreline.’
‘A rising bulge, spilling into the forest?’ Lilith winks at Engle.
The national security advisor ignores her. ‘When the caldera erupts again, the explosion will yield a detonation comparable with an asteroid strike. The pyroclastic blast will instantly kill tens of thousands of people living in the area. The resultant ash cloud that rises into the stratosphere will cover most of the United States, primarily affecting the Great Plains—America’s breadbasket. Harvests will be obliterated overnight. The ash plume will eventually span the entire globe, blanketing the atmosphere and blotting out the sun’s rays, condemning our planet to a hundred-thousand-year ice age.’
‘Brrrr.’
‘I’m so glad you’re amused.’
‘Donald, darling, everyone with a sixth-grade education knows about Yellowstone’s caldera. The Army Corps of Engineers have been focused on the problem for a decade. Your own administration siphoned a billion dollars from the Midwest farm subsidies program to vent the magma pocket.’
‘For some unknown reason, the vents failed. The caldera’s volcanic chambers collapsed four weeks ago, creating one massive magma pocket. Pressure within the pocket continues to rise. Our geologists now predict the caldera will erupt within the next four to six months. Maybe sooner.’
‘Of course, you already knew that,’ the president states, staring hard into Lilith’s unnerving turquoise eyes. ‘We know you’ve had contacts feeding you information directly from the US Geological Services long before you married your deceased billionaire and long after you began humping John Zwawa in the Oval Office. You must have been one helluva lay; either that, or you really put the fear of God into the former president. A hundred billion a year since 2032, secretly diverted from the bottomless money pit over at the Pentagon into H.O.P.E.’s Mars Colony project. Sweetheart leasing deals at Cape Canaveral and Houston … even access to Golden Fleece. All that support and you still fell behind.’
Mulder jumps in, as rehearsed. ‘The problem, Madam President, is that Lilith was relying on Golden Fleece to equip her shuttles with z
ero-point energy.’ The chief of staff shakes his head. ‘It was a risky gamble, Lilith. The geeks over at Majestic-12 have been vying for the same breakthrough for a century now; in fact, it was at their insistence that the moratorium on the Large Hadron Collider was lifted during President Stuart’s first term in office.’
Lilith remains silent, her internal thoughts whirring at light speed.
‘Face the facts,’ Mulder continues. ‘Engineering mistakes delayed the first Mars supply shuttles by three full years. Four weeks ago, only days after the caldera collapse, H.O.P.E. took on new investment partners in Moscow and Beijing. Coincidence? Maybe. More likely another cash shortage, caused by the sudden escalation in raw materials and astro-engineers. After fifteen years you’ve only managed to complete two biodorms on Mars and three agricultural pods, reducing your capacity to sustain a populace from nine thousand to just over fifteen hundred. Compounding the problem is that you only have a dozen operational shuttles, each one capped out at fifty-two passengers.’
‘Twelve shuttles,’ reiterates the president. ‘It takes a minimum of six months to get to Mars, another six months to return. That’s a full year to transport the first eight hundred or so prepaid VIPs while you finish the fleet, only Yellowstone’s temperamental volcanic residents have determined there won’t be any more shuttles to launch. That means, from the roughly nine thousand investors who coughed up more than a trillion dollars, less than ten percent actually get to make the trip off our doomed planet.’
‘If word leaked out …’ Mulder raises an eyebrow. ‘You’re messing with some very powerful people, Lilith—world leaders and bankers who could shut you down long before those twelve shuttles are set to take off down H.O.P.E.’s runway in twenty-eight days.’
‘Of course, we could do that too,’ Engle chimes in. ‘Health inspections, safety code violations. It could cause some unfortunate delays.’
‘Now, Donald, everything’s negotiable.’ President Stuart sits back, propping her flat-heeled shoes on the coffee table, mimicking her host.
Lilith smiles coldly. ‘Is that what this is, a negotiation?’
‘More like a partnership guaranteeing our mutual survival. My terms are simple: I want passage and accommodations for two hundred of my top aides and their families. Do that, and you’ll have no worries come the twenty-ninth.’
Lilith’s grin conflicts with the malice in her eyes. Standing, she saunters barefoot around the sitting area until she’s standing behind the president. Leaning over, she whispers into the commander-in-chief’s ear. ‘Darling Heather, you really have no idea who or what I am, do you?’
President Stuart is about to respond when something moves across her peripheral vision, a white blur that leaves her with a sense of vertigo and something more bizarre—a sensation that feels as if the aura in the room has suddenly changed.
Devlin Mabus gazes at the president and her entourage from across the chamber. The fair-skinned fourteen-year-old’s hair is silky white and shoulder-length, drawn into a tight ponytail. His high cheekbones and thick lips match his mother’s features, but the adolescent’s Hunahpu eyes are far different. Each sclera features a jagged patchwork of thick choroid blood vessels, turning the normal white of the eye blood-red. Devlin’s irises are pitch-black, making his matching ebony pupils appear like two barrel holes of a gun. Over six feet tall, he is dressed in a skin-tight white sensory training suit that accentuates his overly developed two-hundred-pound muscular physique.
Lilith kisses the teen on his neck. ‘Madam President, have you met my son, Devlin? Dev, this is Heather Stuart, the most powerful leader on the planet.’
The man-child’s eyes stare coldly through the president. ‘Leaders do not extort their citizens.’
‘Corrupt leaders do.’
‘Who wants lemonade?’ Ben Merchant bursts into the study, wheeling a cart of drinks and a serving dish piled high with cakes and sweets. He serves the beverages, then places a chocolate square on a plate. ‘Madame President, you simply must try one of my brownies, they’re to die for.’
Stuart drains half her glass, pushing aside the offered sweets. ‘Corruption is a relative term, coming from a woman who poisoned her own husband to take over his company.’ She glances at the white-haired adolescent. ‘What happened to his eyes?’
‘Devlin’s biological father was Jacob Gabriel. My son is the first fullbred post-human of our era, the next evolutionary step above Homo sapiens. His eyes are normal for his species. The enhanced blood vessels feed his sight organs with a far greater supply of oxygen, enabling him to see in ways you could never comprehend.’
‘Is that right? And such an appropriate name—Devlin. Why not just call him Lucifer or Satan and get it over with?’ The president leans forward in her bamboo chair. ‘So then, Mom, are you interested in playing ball, or should we—’
Her throat constricts, the room spinning until it is completely enshrouded by a white fog. Sinister red pricks of light move through the dense mist toward her, distorted voices echoing in her drugged brain.
We discussed this, Dev. It’s dangerous. Your course of action leaves too many loose ends.
And yours resolves nothing.
Nevertheless, this was my decision to make.
I did what was necessary. You, on the other hand, have grown far too tolerant of these human leeches. President Zwawa feared you, which is why his people maintained the caldera’s secret for so long. You’ve grown weak and careless, mother. It concerns me.
You would be wise to know your place.
And you would be wise not to underestimate me.
A sickening feeling of vertigo forces the president awake. She expels the remains of her lunch until the retching becomes a whimper, then opens her tear-filled eyes.
She is strapped to the bamboo chair, her vision blinded by purple spots. The rough the haze of annoying lights she sees Mulder and Engle. They stand bound beneath one of the ceiling’s teak beams. The nooses tightened around their throats offer no slack, forcing both men up on their toes.
Ben Merchant circles them slowly, as if the homosexual were inspecting a pair of horses being readied for the glue factory. ‘Dev, I think you gave Mr. Engle too much phenobarbital. He just pissed all over himself.’
Now fully awake, President Stuart twists in her bonds. ‘This is insane. Release us!’
‘Releasing you would be insane,’ Lilith coos. ‘And please don’t think for a moment the reason you’re still alive has anything to do with your elected office or the Secret Service agents posted outside my gate. My son could dispose of them as easily as taking out the trash.’
Lilith kneels before the president, resting her chin between the older female’s trembling knees. ‘Now, as to your generous offer of extortion, I’m afraid I’m going to have to pass. You are quite right, of course—Mars Colony remains vulnerable, at least until we leave orbit. Now, had your terms of self preservation merely asked for accommodations for the three of you, I would have probably relented, just to keep things running smoothly. Had you wanted an additional spot for a significant other, I would have at least considered the request, commitment to a loved one being a desirable trait when hoping to extend the reign of a threatened species. Instead, you demanded passage and living accommodations for two hundred people, the majority of whom have nothing to offer the colony. Perhaps that was your opening bid, a means to negotiate a hundred spots, or even fifty; perhaps it was simply greed. Either way, you once again demonstrated the difference between a politician and a leader, the latter putting the needs of the people first, the former always ready to trade the needs of the many for the privileges of the few.’
‘Who are you to judge me? You cheated your financial backers. You murdered your own husband to take over his company!’
‘My financial backers lived their lives of splendor off the toil of the lower classes. By taking their money to preserve our species, I help cleanse their souls. As for my dearly departed husband, he too paid the price of a life s
tained by selfishness. What I gave him was a legacy to be proud of. Sadly, all I can offer you is a drug that simulates a massive stroke.’
Removing the president’s left sandal, she injects a clear elixir between Heather Stuart’s fourth and fifth toes.
The elder woman’s face twitches for several moments, until her head flops across her still convulsing chest.
Satisfied, Lilith crosses the room to deal with the two terrified men. ‘I need a witness who will testify to the president’s unfortunate demise. Any volunteers?’
‘We’ve known each other fifteen years,’ Donald Engle pleads. ‘Whatever you need, you know you can trust me to do it!’
Ken Mulder locks eyes with Lilith. ‘We have Dave Mohr.’
For the briefest of moments, the female Hunahpu’s eyes radiate a burnt orange.