Not Alone

by Falconer, Craig A.

  Billy Kendrick, Joe’s one-time-only ally on the record-breaking Focus 20/20 panel the weekend before the agreement, had ceased broadcasting altogether. Having gone from zero to hero and straight back again in the eyes of the fickle media more quickly than anyone before him, Billy cut himself off from the world.

  Billy’s most recent public appearance came at a pre-scheduled commitment to publicise someone else’s already obsolete book on meta-conspiracies. Since then he had retreated even further after his three-month beard received a relentless mocking on the front page of The Daily Chat: “Does Santa Claus have a drinking problem? Nope, but Billy Kendrick just might…”

  Fortunately for Billy, the media didn’t care enough to hassle him at home. Richard Walker, meanwhile, knew that anyone who really wanted to find his own second home could have done so with relative ease. As far as he was concerned, the fact that he was still a free man was further proof of the spineless kind of non-leadership that had gotten the country into the mess it was in, forced to crawl into bed with communists and globalists to keep itself safe.

  “Keep looking for the interviews,” Dan called from the back seat. “I wanted to hear France. Do a manual scan.”

  With Emma driving, Clark held his finger on the scan button until the numbers stopped moving. An oddly familiar chorus filled the car:

  “So while you’re out there in them old boots,

  running from your rags to riches;

  Spare a free thought for the dead man,

  who gave them boots their stitches.”

  “Why do I keep hearing this song?” Clark asked no one in particular.

  “Seriously? I’ve heard it a few times, too,” Dan said.

  “Yeah?” Clark said, turning to check that Dan wasn’t messing with him.

  “Are you two serious right now?” Emma asked. “Have you never heard a song twice?”

  “It’s a pretty obscure old song,” Clark argued.

  “Then the radio’s obviously haunted,” she shrugged. “It’s either that or confirmation bias, but that would be crazy, right?”

  Clark kept scanning until he looped all the way back to the first station. Emma slowed before reaching the recently installed gate at the end of the street and waited for it to recognise the car.

  More so than in the world at large, a lot had changed in Birchwood over the last four months. This frustratingly unresponsive gate was just one example.

  * * *

  The most immediate change in Birchwood following the New York agreement was the rapid media exodus from the drive-in. The leak was old news — Disclosure itself was old news — and there was no reason for media outlets to maintain a permanent presence in Dan McCarthy’s home town.

  Even Maria and Kyle from ACN left to cover other things. Trey took some time off at home with his wife Louise and their new baby, whose middle name happened to be Daniel.

  As soon as the media left, Phil Norris invested heavily in fast-tracked renovations to the lot and pinned his hopes on tourism. His giant “BIRCHWOOD PLAZA” sign didn’t look out of place now that three stores had moved in to the old retail units alongside his own commercial venture.

  Always a fan of a pun, Phil opted to make the most of the lot’s association with the leak and to name his flagship restaurant appropriately: New Ker-Grillin’ Bar & Grill.

  Dan now drove to New Ker-Grillin’ for a brief meet and greet session every Thursday, of which there had been three since opening night. Dan agreed to do this only because it was a condition of Phil’s business loan being approved, but he was happy to help out since the tourist dollars his appearances brought in would benefit not only Phil Norris but the whole town. Everyone in Birchwood had been good to Dan after his father’s accident, and no one had ever expressed resentment at the sometimes intrusive media attention he’d brought upon them.

  The “Welcome to Birchwood” signpost just beyond the old drive-in now included the words “Proud home of Dan McCarthy,” and that pride went both ways.

  Clark had made use of his “eat free for life” pass at New Ker-Grillin’ eighteen nights in a row, but Phil didn’t begrudge it since Clark was a minor celebrity in his own right courtesy of his regular appearances at Dan’s side during countless televised events. Clark kept a running count of the value of the food he’d eaten and used it to playfully tease Phil.

  Every night, Clark said the same thing: “I bet you regret giving me this pass now!”

  Every night, Phil smiled and shook his head.

  It certainly wasn’t as though Clark couldn’t afford the ever-larger mountains of food he was challenging himself to consume each night; not since Dan’s three ad shoots brought in more money than they ever dreamed possible and Emma surprised them both by opting only to keep what she called a “standard 17% cut” for brokering the deals.

  Dan’s remuneration was the kind of money that necessitated meetings with multiple accountants and attracted visits from enthusiastic investment managers. Clark took care of everything on his own; and though the sudden influx of capital led to more than a few stressful days and sleepless nights, he much preferred these high-class problems to his old ones. There was no longer a gap at the bottom of the front door, for one thing.

  Dan was only too glad to leave the money side of things to Clark. He knew how much there was but tried not to think about it or spend any more than he had to. This was partly because it didn’t seem fair that he could make so much in a single day when so many had nothing, but mainly because he was worried that the ad agencies might suddenly realise they had added a few too many zeroes to his contracts.

  However many times Emma tried to explain the value that the three brands in question would gain from an association with Dan, he couldn’t grasp how he could possibly add enough value to offset what they’d paid him. He sat down one night to calculate how many extra bottles of cola Lexington would have to sell solely because of his ad to make up for the expense, and the numbers just didn’t make sense.

  When he showed Emma the numbers, she pointed something out: “That’s just what they paid you to shoot the ad. They still have to pay the networks to air it. That thirty-second spot would cost half a mil if it aired during a football game. So when they debut them right before the DS-1 launch… I can’t even guess a number.”

  “If you weren’t worth it, they wouldn’t pay it,” Clark had said.

  “Pretty much,” Emma agreed. “The stock price rose 6% when they announced you were doing an ad, so the market liked it.”

  The ad Dan felt most conflicted about was the one for Beanstox Coffee, whose aggressive tactic of running smaller coffee shops out of business had been one of his dad’s favourite subjects to rant about. Dan’s decision to go back to work for Mr Wolf at the bookstore-cum-coffeehouse wasn’t solely based on guilt over this ad, but it did play a part.

  In any case, Dan’s trial return to work was both a great success and a colossal failure. It was a failure in that the store was overrun within minutes of Dan’s arrival and a success for precisely the same reason. Mr Wolf took delight in the free publicity and thanked Dan profusely, but the episode decisively ended Dan’s faint hopes of living anything resembling a normal life. Having never given any thought to what he would do if he didn’t have to earn money, Dan felt like he had floated purposely through the last few months.

  Emma, meanwhile, continued to revel in her new and similarly work-free life. Her situation was different from Dan’s in that she had been working a highly demanding job in New York for most of her adult life and had dreamed of a break like this for almost as long. It would be a long time yet until she shared Dan’s restlessness.

  The biggest event for Emma since her move next door had been a two-week visit from her sister. Tara slept in Emma’s house on only two of her fourteen nights in Colorado, and neither Dan nor Clark ever saw her in person. Emma explained that Tara had decided on a whim to spend the whole of the first week with people she met in Colorado Springs then followed one of them to
Denver for a few days and nights towards the end. “She’s always been good at making friends,” Emma said. “Making friends and spending money”

  But the biggest news for everyone else in Birchwood, not just Dan and Clark, was that Henry McCarthy would be coming home from hospital in just over a week.

  Dan had seen him twice since the doctor’s called Clark to tell him Henry was exhibiting signs of major progress and could soon be self-reliant. Dan cried when he walked in and saw his father sitting up for the first time in months. Henry’s mental faculties had recovered greatly even since Clark’s last visit, and he was overwhelmed with emotion to both see and recognise his two boys.

  On the way to the hospital that day, just two weeks ago, Clark told Dan not to say “anything about anything.” Dan understood what he meant: Henry didn’t yet know that aliens had been discovered and the world flipped on its head in the months since his accident, much less that Dan had set the whole thing in motion.

  Between that visit and Dan’s next, Henry learned everything. When Dan and Clark walked in together for the second visit, Henry greeted them with a real smile; his real smile.

  “They told me one of my sons might just’ve saved the whole damn world,” he said. “I guessed Clark, and they told me to guess again.”

  “So you guessed Clark again,” Dan butted in, preempting the punch line with a smile.

  “So I guessed Clark again,” Henry said, his face creasing with laughter. He wasn’t usually talkative or jovial like this, but then he wasn’t usually seeing his sons properly for the second time in six months.

  Henry wore a brave face for a once athletic man who had recently been told he would never walk again. A tiny fraction of Dan’s ad money went into the structural modifications needed for the house to meet Henry’s new needs — things like ramps, handrails, and wider doorways.

  Everything was set, and as far as Dan was concerned, the imminent launch of the Límíng module was something to get out of the way before Henry came home.

  Dan might have gone to watch the launch on Phil Norris’s big screen if he wasn’t obliged to, but Emma had taken that decision out of his hands. For his part, Clark couldn’t wait to meet the man who had come to see Dan: none other than Miguel Perez, the Argentine cult hero who first spotted the sphere coming out of the sea at Miramar.

  Miguel, a frail man of a good age, had his travel to Birchwood paid by the same news station who had given him the binoculars he used to spot the sphere. The station, ADLTV, contacted Emma a few weeks earlier with their offer. She took the money. When Dan asked why, given that money was the last thing they needed more of, her answer was simple: “Because you always take the money.”

  As soon as the old drive-in came into sight, Dan felt unexpected excitement bubbling in his stomach.

  The first section of a space station which would ultimately function as one of many Earth-defending asteroid-killers was about to launch into space. Aliens were real. They warned humanity about an asteroid. All of this was only known — and the launch was only happening — because of Dan’s undying commitment to the truth.

  Between this excitement and the stronger-every-second anticipation of Henry getting home from the hospital, Dan decided it was time to take a deep breath and smell the roses. He had nothing to complain about and everything to be grateful for. Hundreds of people were waiting to see him at the end of the street and billions more were waiting to see a rocket launch from China. It was a good day to be alive.

  Clark noticed Dan’s zen-like expression in the rearview mirror. “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

  “Hmm?”

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “Nothing,” Dan said. “Why? What about you?”

  “I was just thinking… do you reckon Richard Walker will be watching the launch?”

  “Everyone will be watching the launch,” Emma answered.

  “You think? Even Walker?”

  She nodded. “Especially Walker.”

  D plus 25

  JSLC Launch Area 4

  Dongfeng Aerospace City, China

  “Mr Godfrey, sir,” a Chinese media liaison officer whispered in his ear.

  “Yes?”

  “Seven minutes, sir. You still wish to stand by the window with your back to the camera for the launch?”

  With mission control completely closed to the press, this maximum-security viewing area was the focus of the world’s attention. Billions were watching these scenes.

  Details mattered.

  “Sir?” the liaison officer pushed.

  Godfrey nodded.

  “Okay, sir. And who do you wish to stand on your right-hand side?”

  Godfrey scanned the roomful of leaders, most of whom were giving their final pre-launch comments to their respective home country’s sole media representative. He saw John Cole and Valerie Slater side by side — together would be too strong a word — talking to the British and American reporters.

  “No one,” Godfrey decided.

  “No one, sir? Not even Mr Cole?”

  Godfrey considered it again. Ding Ziyang would be standing to his left, of course, and three figures silhouetted against the fiery launch site would project a more powerful image than two…

  “Scrap that,” he said.

  “Scrap that, sir?”

  Godfrey nodded again.

  “Mr Cole, sir?”

  “No,” Godfrey said after a moment’s hesitation. “Let’s go with Slater.”

  D plus 26

  Drive-in

  Birchwood, Colorado

  Dan stepped out of the car to the sight and sound of fireworks emanating from the top of Hawker’s Hill. An upbeat vibe surrounded the drive-in, as Dan insisted on continuing to call Birchwood Plaza; it hadn’t been a drive-in for fifteen years and everyone had still called it that, he said, so no amount of fancy new signage could change it now.

  There were plenty of cameras waiting for Dan, including those belonging to the Argentinian network who had arranged for Miguel Perez to meet him while wearing a jacket with their logo all over it.

  The media attention was certainly nothing compared to what Dan had faced on his last major media engagement, when he shook hands with William Godfrey as the world held its breath over the then-imminent international summit in New York.

  Tonight, on this starry Tuesday evening, the drive-in was quite literally a different place than it had been then. Everything was clean; fresh; new. One of the reporters present for the launch party went so far as to clumsily exalt the once dilapidate lot’s rejuvenation as a “perfect metaphor for the New York agreement’s far-reaching effects.”

  Emma led Dan towards Miguel. The old man beamed from ear to ear and hugged Dan like a long-lost grandson. “Thank you,” he said in forced English. Dan could tell that Miguel was genuinely glad to be there; and regardless of ACLTV’s motives, Dan was glad to have him.

  Dan then spent a lot longer than he realised talking to Miguel through his interpreter, Sofía, the middle-aged Argentinian woman who had arranged everything with Emma.

  Miguel told Dan that he hadn’t always been a big believer in aliens or anything else he hadn’t seen for himself but that he saw truth in Dan’s eyes the very first time Dan gave an interview. Miguel looked around the drive-in lot and pointed all around. “In this very place,” he smiled.

  Dan was so engaged in the conversation with Miguel and Sofía that he didn’t know how imminent the launch was. Emma tapped him on the shoulder while Miguel was talking about the sphere’s salty aroma, which had wafted down to him from the steps of the Coast Guard building where Juan Silva presented it to the public.

  “Five minutes,” she said.

  Dan immediately looked up to the screen. Godfrey was talking and the countdown timer in the lower right corner said 00:04:51.

  “Here’s to a safe launch,” Dan said, excusing himself to go with Emma.

  Sofía passed the message on. Dan saw Miguel speaking and waited to hear
the translation.

  “Come on,” Emma said, pulling Dan towards the screen where Phil Norris had set out three seats for them and Clark, his three special guests.

  “Just a sec,” he said. He looked at Sofía. “What did he say?”

  “He said yes,” Sofía replied.

  “It was longer than that,” Dan said.

  Miguel read the confusion on Dan’s face and repeated himself.

  “He is old,” Sofía said. “Senile.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Seriously,” Emma stressed. “The ads are about to start and we’re supposed to be in those seats.”

  The interpreter rolled her eyes. “Fine. He said: let’s hope they don’t mind.”

  Emma yanked Dan’s arm strongly enough to give him no choice but to follow.

  “Did you hear that?” he asked her as they hurried to their seats in front of the big screen. The scaffold stage made famous by Emma’s speech on the night they revealed the Kloster letter was still there beside the screen, untouched by Phil in his effort to retain something of the lot’s charm and attract more tourists.

  “I heard her say he’s senile.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “Shut up,” Clark said from his seat on Dan’s right. “The ads are starting.”

  * * *

  The broadcasting deal surrounding the launch of DS-1’s core module was highly atypical in that everything went through the Global Shield Commission’s media division. The GSC provided one feed for each international market, featuring the launch footage interspersed with commercials. This feed was made available to commercial news networks free of charge on the condition that it be relayed exactly as-was. This meant that ACN and Blitz News couldn’t air their own commercials within a one-hour window around the launch, depriving them of a colossal payday. Though it infuriated the networks’ bean-counters, this pleased Dan; if anyone else was going to make money from his ads, he would much rather it was the GSC than a faceless corporation.