“Do you want a drink or something?” Dan asked as he took off his shoes.
“Sure,” Emma said. “Do you have any more of that fancy lemonade in the glass bottles?”
Dan fetched two bottles of Houghton’s Home Fresh lemonade and joined Emma on the couch. “I meant to call my boss and tell him I won’t be at work tomorrow,” Dan suddenly said. “Shit, I’m supposed to be on coffee. If no one covers for me, Clint will be on the counter by himself and Mr Wolf might realise he doesn’t need both of us.”
“How much do you get paid at the bookstore?” Emma asked.
“Why?”
“I’m sure I could get the firm to cover it as an incurred expense. They’re pretty hot on you after how well you did on Focus 20/20. I’ll sort it out. How much will I say you make, $150 a day?”
“Plus tips,” Dan said unconvincingly.
Emma’s phone made a sound like a wind chime. She walked over right away and scanned through her new messages, of which there were too many for her to deal with at this time on a Sunday night slash Monday morning. One caught her eye. “The article about your school thing is up,” she said.
“How does it look?” Dan asked from the couch.
Emma scanned the text then met his eyes. “Bad.”
* * *
The Daily Chat, Blitz Media’s flagship national newspaper, bucked the general trend of declining readership by utilising attention-grabbing headlines and running the kind of long-form populist pieces which would have traditionally been more at home in weekly tabloid magazines. The Chat, as it was universally known, was only printed on weekdays, so this was the first edition since Dan’s leak.
The online edition was behind a paywall, but Emma had full access one way or another. Its front-page headline read: “‘I WILL BE FAMOUS AND RICH’: MCCARTHY’S MOTIVES REVEALED… IN HIS OWN WORDS!”
The body of the article contained not one but two short essays, along with large scans of the originals which Blitz had somehow obtained. The originals were handwritten on ruled paper in a rushed schoolboy scrawl, both covered in red-pen notes from teachers correcting unnecessary capitals and too many exclamation marks.
Jan Gellar, editor of The Chat, prefaced the essays with an almost laughably biased introduction: “Any reasonable person already knows that Dan McCarthy’s claims don’t stand up to any kind of scrutiny, but when we take a closer look at the man who’s making them, we see that the claims don’t even stand up themselves.”
Dan closed his eyes for a few seconds then kept reading.
“Here’s the crux of the matter: Dan McCarthy didn’t want to find proof of alien life, he just wanted to prove it. Twelve years later and with no proof in sight, he made some up.”
Dan still didn’t remember exactly what the essays said, but he was starting to remember writing the first in Mrs Dempsey’s classroom, the one that was always too hot.
The first essay was titled My Best Present, and the date in the corner revealed that Dan would have been nine at the time of writing.
“How bad can it really be?” Dan said.
Emma didn’t reply. They both started reading.
MY BEST PRESENT:
My best present was when my dad bought me a poster of all of the planets side by side. Can you believe that the other planets are even bigger than this one? Well they are! It says that some are really hot and some are really cold. My dad is a firefighter and he said that the sun is hotter than fire!
He also said that if the poster showed more of space then I would see that the other stars are bigger than the sun and that the other galaxies are bigger than our galaxy, too! Then when I said there must be other people on some of the other planets, my dad said “maybe there are,” and my brother Clark said “don’t encourage him.” Then when my dad left, Clark said this to me: “Dan, you are an idiot. There are no aliens.” But he is the idiot, because of course there are!
My dad also said that if I’m good all year then when I turn ten I might get my very own telescope… and that is now only two more weeks away! Then I will be able to show Clark and everyone else that there are aliens on other planets. And I will be the first person to find the proof and everyone will say “Well done!” and I will be famous and rich and buy a big house for all of my friends to live in.
THE END.
Emma finished reading first and looked at Dan until he lifted his eyes. “Did you write this?” she asked.
“I was nine.”
Emma said nothing and scrolled to the second essay, titled When I Grow Up. The date indicated that it was penned a year after the first.
WHEN I GROW UP:
When I grow up I will find aliens for real because space is way too big for there not to be any. Even this planet is huge. One day last year we drove to the store and it took TWO HOURS and I asked my dad why the car kept turning left and right because it felt like we had gone around the world five times already. Then when we got to the store he showed me a globe and said “this is where we live and this is where we are,” and compared to the whole size of the world, the two places were right next to each other!
I did another report about aliens last year. Mrs Dempsey said “Dan, there is no such thing as aliens.” So I pointed to the map on the wall and said “we are here, and if we drove all day we would still only be here, and our planet isn’t even big compared to the other ones.” And she said “Dan, you have been watching too many movies.”
Too many movies!
But I’ll show her, just like I’ll show Clark. I’ll show everyone.
I don’t have my telescope yet because on my birthday my dad said that the economy was too high for a telescope, and at Christmas he said that Santa only brings big fancy things for kids who don’t have big stupid brothers, but that if the economy comes down before my next birthday then I will definitely get one and I will finally be able to show Mrs Dempsey and Clark that I am right and they are wrong.
THE END.
The concluding commentary from Jan Gellar, The Daily Chat’s controversial editor, was scathing: “This is what we’re dealing with in Dan McCarthy. Rather than maturing his mind, all that the passage of time has done is give him a chance to come up with this perfect “leak”. What these essays reveal is that Dan McCarthy isn’t just someone who is desperate to believe; he is someone who is desperate to be the one who breaks the news. I’m no psychologist, but is that not an odd thing for a child to want?”
After he finished reading, and with Emma again waiting for a response, Dan spoke. “The second one wasn’t so bad,” he said. He waited for Emma’s face to show something. Anything. Eventually, he saw a hint of a smile.
“If this is the worst thing that Blitz could dig up about you, I don’t think we have too much to worry about.”
Dan felt a weight lift from his shoulders.
As Emma finished her lemonade and got ready to leave, she noticed a pensive look on Dan’s face. “What are you thinking?” she asked.
“Just what you said about Blitz trying to dig up dirt on me. Do you think they’re snooping around in my trash and stuff like that?”
Emma sensed an unease in Dan’s voice that wasn’t normally there. “Nothing’s beneath them,” she said, “but I can get security cameras and an alarm system set up. In fact, if you’re keeping the folder here then we definitely should. The folder is here, right?”
“Yeah,” Dan said, realising only then how foolish he had been to leave the documents, and particularly the Kloster letter, in his empty and unalarmed house. “And I think we should go ahead with the cameras.”
“Will do. I’ll sort it before we head off to the Kendrick show. But get some sleep tonight, okay? It’s boring when I’m the only one awake in the car.”
“I’ll try,” Dan said.
Emma stopped before stepping inside the waiting car. “By the way, did you ever get that telescope?”
Dan shook his head. “They’re pretty expensive.”
“Yeah.” Emma waved. “See you in
the morning.”
Dan closed the door, turned the lock, and pushed the couch up against it. For the first time, he realised how exposed he and the folder were. Everyone knew who he was, everyone knew where he lived, and everyone knew he was alone.
If only Clark was here, he thought. No one would get through Clark.
Dan didn’t want to translate any more of the Kloster letter until after he had seen Billy Kendrick and done the live TV show on Tuesday, if that ended up happening. Though he was more curious about the content of the letter than he had ever been about anything, he knew Clark had been right to warn him against telling anyone about it until Clark got home on Tuesday night and he knew that keeping quiet would be a lot easier if he didn’t know what the letter said.
Dan’s thoughts were jumbled to the point of near incoherence as the clock neared 3am. After leaning a dining chair against the handle of the back door, he threw himself on the couch and watched ACN. At some point during the second news cycle, he fell asleep.
MONDAY
D minus 65
IDA Headquarters
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Richard Walker arrived for work on Monday morning at his normal time of 8:35.
Unfortunately for Richard, nothing else about this particular Monday morning at the IDA could be described as normal.
The first thing to hit him was the media presence. Reporters crowded his car as he parked and swarmed him when he walked as though he was a high-profile defendant leaving court.
The press irritated him greatly, but they were nothing compared to the protesters who soon came into earshot. Though Richard counted only six of them, these megaphone-wielding rabble-rousers near the doorway made enough noise for six hundred.
“Walker lies, truth now!” they chanted, paraphrasing the sign from the already famous image of the man who stood behind President Slater during her brief appearance in Maryland. Having enjoyed a chuckle at Slater’s misfortune, Richard failed to see the funny side now that the shoe was on the other foot.
As an experienced politician, Richard knew better than to look into any of the many cameras being thrust in his face or to acknowledge the protesters in any way.
Richard maintained his bee-line to the doorway and quickly texted Ben Gold to warn him about the commotion and suggest that he enter via the lesser-used side door. Three security personnel then belatedly emerged from the IDA building and formed a cordon around Richard.
The chanting stopped as Richard and his guards reached the doorway, only a few metres from the previously loud group. He instinctively looked over to the protestors, if they deserved such a title, wondering why they had stopped so suddenly.
In turn, they took his stopping as a sign that he was about to speak. When Richard instead resumed walking and stepped into the revolving door, the oldest-looking of the protest group — a man who himself could have been no more than 25 — goaded Richard through his megaphone. “What’s wrong, scarface? Nothing to say?”
Richard’s head shot round to meet the eyes of the heckler. Richard stayed in the revolving door for a full rotation then stepped back outside. His guards, knowing better than to argue, dutifully followed and reformed their cordon.
“Who said that?” Richard asked.
In response, the heckler tossed a red water-balloon in Richard’s direction.
One of Richard’s guards, a long-serving IDA employee named Raúl, unthinkingly threw himself in front of his boss to take the impact. The other two guards, concerned that the balloon could be filled with anything from urine to acid, roughly shoved Richard off to the side.
The water-balloon burst against Raúl’s chest. Red paint splashed onto his face and covered his shirt. He turned to Richard, partly to check that he was okay and partly to receive the next order.
Richard’s eyes, however, were focused on his own feet; focused on the single speck of red paint that had landed on his Italian suede shoes.
“Boss,” Raúl said.
Richard looked up. “Inside,” he ordered.
Raúl dashed towards the missile-thrower and tackled him to the ground. The other five protesters offered no help to their comrade, fleeing as quickly as their feet would allow. Conscious of the cameras, Raúl avoided punching the man and instead delivered three swift forearms to the side of his head; only two more than necessary.
This fallen protestor, evidently inspired by the blood drones which had been embarrassing Prime Minister Godfrey for the last few days, was already paying the price for being stupid enough to launch his copycat strike within sight of its target.
Richard waited for Raúl and his perp inside the IDA building, away from prying eyes. The man, dazed by the ferocity of Raúl’s tackle and strikes, struggled to support his own weight. The other two guards followed Richard’s orders to help Raúl prop the man up.
“Say it again,” Richard said to the man. They were nose to nose. Richard turned so that his scar was right in front of the man’s eyes. “Call me that again.”
“I-I-I’m sorry,” the man choked out.
“Stand up!” Richard snapped as the man slouched. He then signalled for the guards to step back.
The man regained his footing and looked at Richard, who was a lot taller than he came across on TV. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, each word a struggle.
Richard smirked. Then, with no warning, he sent a crashing head-butt into the bridge of the man’s nose. The man fell to the ground, clutching his nose in agony. Richard didn’t flinch.
Raúl noticed blood above Richard’s eyebrow. “You okay, boss?”
“I’ll feel a lot better when this maggot is out of my building.”
The other two guards, who didn’t know Richard nearly as well as Raúl did, looked at each other in shock. To them and others their age, Richard Walker was a frail 68-year-old with a limp.
“What are you waiting for?” Richard asked them. “Get him out of my sight.”
The guards unceremoniously pulled the man to his feet.
“Not you, Raúl,” Richard said.
Raúl stood, looking unsure, as the other guards dragged the man towards the building’s side entrance.
Richard opted to limp towards Raúl rather than call him over, then extended his hand. “Clean yourself up,” he said, “then come to my office. I need someone at my door, full time.”
“Of course, boss,” Raúl said, setting off immediately. He had been around long enough to know how unwise it was to hang around once Richard was finished talking.
At 8:43 on a far from normal Monday morning, Richard Walker set off towards his office.
As soon as no one was looking, he gritted his teeth and rubbed his aching forehead.
* * *
Ben Gold arrived in Richard Walker’s office with the four usual newspapers under his arm.
“How bad was it?” he asked.
“It would have been worse if we didn’t have Raúl.”
Ben placed the newspapers on Richard’s desk and sat down opposite him. For the first time, he saw the hint of blood above Richard’s eyebrow and the developing bruise that surrounded it. “What the hell happened?”
“Justice,” Richard said. After further prodding from Ben, he relayed the whole story. Ben seemed most keen to confirm that the head-butt had occurred away from the cameras, which Richard insisted was indeed the case.
“I’ll arrange a police perimeter for the end of the day and tomorrow,” Ben promised.
Richard shrugged and unfolded the newspapers. The Gazette, The Bulletin and The Digest all ran front-page articles about the leak. The Gazette and The Bulletin both focused on the unusually personal strife that the issue had caused between President Slater and Prime Minister Godfrey. The Digest, meanwhile, covered the revelation of Hans Kloster’s now-verified private letter to his former employers at NASA in which the controversial scientist warned against attempts to communicate with any extraterrestrial intelligences.
Without voicing his annoyance at these head
lines, Richard turned to The Daily Chat. Unsurprisingly, as Blitz Media’s flagship periodical, The Chat devoted their front page to a hit-piece on Dan McCarthy. While the other newspapers seemed to be sitting on the fence, hedging their bets, and giving dangerous credence to the leak, Richard was pleased to find someone willing to take a committed anti-McCarthy stance.
He was also impressed by The Chat’s success in unearthing something tangible to discredit McCarthy, even if the excited ramblings of a 10-year-old weren’t exactly decisive proof of questionable character.
“Call Gellar,” Richard said to Ben.
“Jan Gellar?”
Richard’s eyes replied for him.
“You can’t be serious,” Ben said. “You’re not going to work with them after what they tried to do to you with the—”
“I’m calling it in,” Richard interrupted. “It’s time.”
Richard’s tone left Ben in no doubt that he wouldn’t budge, so Ben reluctantly dialled Jan Gellar and handed the phone to Richard.
Jan Gellar, the former Head of Content at Blitz News who had since been tasked with saving the floundering Daily Chat, answered her phone with a questioning inflection: “This is Jan?”
“And this is me,” Richard said. Despite a half-hearted attempt, he couldn’t keep the smile from his face.
Jan said nothing for several seconds. “What do you want?
“Dan McCarthy’s head.”
“Oh, we’re working on that,” Jan replied in a more upbeat tone.
“Today,” Richard said. “ACN and everyone else are at my place of work, and I won’t stand for it. I want you to shut McCarthy down. Today.”
“Like I said, we’re working on—”
“Work harder.”
Jan paused again. “What exactly are you getting at?”
“It’s time to break out the old tactics,” Richard said casually. “Stalking, surveillance, harassment of friends and family. You know, all the ones I’m so familiar with?”
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