Isonation

by In Churl Yo

  “Lightsea?” she said while accepting his handshake, recognition dawning at the name.

  “Yes,” Dr. Lightsea replied smiling.

  Madeline grunted and pulled her hand back. She hated him already.

  Ogden stifled a laugh, then cleared his throat. “Go on, lad. Your idea?”

  “Right,” he said and threw a new window up from his cufflink. “We already know that polyethylene makes an effective shield against ionic radiation because the high hydrogen makeup of the plastic blocks the harmful particles from passing through. Our problem has been one of size and weight—how to get enough hydrogen in our panels to shield against galactic radiation while remaining light enough for effective space travel. What I’m proposing is suspending hydrogen within a thread that we can weave together into sheets—sheets that, once layered with our existing panels, will provide more than an adequate level of protection.”

  The CEO nodded and looked at Franklin. “Hurdles?” he asked.

  “Manufacturing and scale,” Franklin responded. “Lightsea has already mocked the hydrogenated nano-sized tubules in the lab, but it’s a matter of stable creation and then reliable replication. We’d have to invent the machines capable of producing them. It would take some time.”

  “Have you looked at a pharmacological solution?” Madeline asked.

  “Some,” Ogden said. “What do you have in mind?”

  “Redox inoculations, biocompatible nanoparticles.”

  The three men responded with blank stares. “I’m afraid you’ll have to elaborate,” Ogden said.

  Madeline searched the global network using her virtual keyboard, then threw up a simulation onto a window for them to follow. “Radiation exposure produces damaging free radicals within our cells that cause havoc with DNA and proteins leading to oxidative stress associated with any number of diseases. Free radicals are electron thieves—they steal electrons from other molecules in our cells, causing a chain reaction that leads to cell damage, tumors and death. Redox inoculations would imprison and rehabilitate these radicals, trapping them and converting them into harmless particles through the absorption and release of oxygen ions.”

  “There’s a ‘but’,” said Ogden. “There’s always a ‘but’.”

  “We’re creating a super antioxidant, engineering the most effective uniform nanoparticle for the job,” said Madeline. “It would take some time.”

  “A familiar tune,” Ogden responded.

  “So, you’re going to cure cancer?” Dr. Lightsea asked. “I mean, before I reinvent radiation shielding technology at the molecular level?”

  They stood staring at the screens floating in front of them. With a quick flourish, the Ceres CEO closed the virtual displays before turning to face the group, his look stoic but hopeful. “We’ll pursue both. Franklin, set up Lightsea and Price with their own labs and staff them up. We must solve this riddle.”

  Franklin nodded and left, already 10 items into a 100-item list he was checking off in his mind to get the request done. Dr. Lightsea shook Ogden’s hand and bowed his way out toward his office—where once inside with the door closed, he let out a victory yell.

  “You have to find someone else,” Madeline said when they were alone. “I’m not even a doctor yet.”

  “Fresh minds, young lady. If we’re to survive as a race, it will be because of people like you and young Lightsea, our best and brightest. I’m sure at least one of you will succeed, or perhaps both of you together…”

  Madeline laughed. “I see what you’re doing, Cecil,” she said. “I don’t need to compete with that smug, big-headed Lightsea to realize my own worth.”

  “Maybe you do,” Ogden replied. “After all, what better competition could there be than to have the highest Rosweiller scorer take on the close second? As you said, there was only a negligible difference between your second-place grades and Charles’ first. Who knows, after all is said and done you two may just end up becoming friends.”

  She shook her head at that. Madeline had already made up her mind about Lightsea—even if they were to work together or if they somehow managed to crack the code on the miracle inoculant…even if he was kind of cute…

  “No,” she said. “Before I even think about taking on this project, before I leave my family, friends, medical school, everything—you have to tell me. There’s more to this story than you’re letting on, and I deserve to hear all of it. I deserve the truth. What’s really happening and what does any of this have to do with space travel?”

  “Nothing, officially. In fact, as far as the rest of the world—even the rest of my company, for that matter—is concerned, none of this exists…”

  The Ceres CEO sighed. He raised his cane and pointed to a nearby conference room where they sat together for the better part of an hour. He knew he was going to have to tell her, of course—in fact would’ve been disappointed in her if she hadn’t asked. Still, it was never an easy thing for him to recount, but then, things hadn’t been easy for quite a while now, had they?

  Cecil Ogden looked her in the eyes and then proceeded to tell her all of it, the truth, starting at the beginning.

  CHAPTER 31

  “Let’s start at the beginning,” Dr. Lightsea said.

  But Zoah was having trouble concentrating on her father’s words. Despite wanting to hear everything, to know in detail the consequences that led to her being up here in space so very far from the world she thought she once knew, the view from her father’s office was mesmerizing and could not be ignored.

  Looking out into the vast interior of the ship down its long axis, Zoah watched the slow, constant spin of four large overlapping rings revolving around a connecting cylindrical axis (there were five rings in total including the one occupied by Lightsea’s office). Each was massive and contained living quarters, work space, laboratories—the bulk of the habitable areas made that way by oxygen generators and artificial gravity created by their rotation. Five spokes led from each ring to the center axis, which was used for passage and utilities between rings. The largest ring was dead-center in the ship, and each subsequent ring was smaller, with the most compact nearest the front and rear ship sections. Each end was capped by massive domes—static, shielded and home to the most vital parts of the ship, the command bridge and engine room. In total, the area from where Zoah now sat to the back of the ship was easily five football fields long. She could not stop staring at it.

  “It’s like looking at the inner workings of a clock, isn’t it?” her father said when he noticed her gaze.

  “Amazing,” she replied. “You made this?”

  “I had a hand. One of thousands who helped construct it over several generations.”

  “I’m guessing you had a good reason.”

  Dr. Lightsea sat back and sighed. “It’s complicated, Z.”

  “So, start at the beginning.”

  “Right. The beginning. You know, your mother could explain this to you better,” he said, trying to work out the right way to start off, “but I’ll give it a go. Let’s see…as with most things, it all started with the best intentions—in this case a potential cure for malaria.”

  “Malaria?” Zoah asked.

  “A disease run rampant with the onset of global warming. Once all the flooding and tropical expansion began, it proved harder and harder to contain. Millions died. When populations beyond the third-world countries began getting sick, action was taken. A team of well-meaning scientists sought to end the spread of the malaria-causing parasite by introducing a genetically modified bacterium that inhibited its growth in mosquitoes.”

  “So, something bad happened,” Zoah said, “and the Zombie Flu was born.”

  “Not exactly.” Dr. Lightsea covered his face with his hands, then rubbed his temples. “Some of this may be a little hard for you to hear.”

  “Dad. Tell me.”

  “The bacteria mutated, somewhere in Africa or the Middle East. We aren’t certain exactly where. Something in the new genetic sequenc
ing created a pathogenic strain of Pantoea agglomerans that, once infected, inhibited a plant’s chlorophyll-producing ability. Rice and barley were the first to be contaminated.”

  “Wait, what are we talking about here?” asked Zoah.

  “Blight,” he answered. “We’re talking about a blight—one that will destroy our planet’s capacity to support plant life, or any other kind of life for that matter. The research was extensive in this regard, as you might well imagine, and incontrovertible—the Earth is dying.”

  Zoah opened her mouth to respond, then closed it when she realized her utter loss for words. She looked at her father’s face for some hint of deceit or help in understanding and found neither. He was telling her the truth—without sugar-coating it.

  “There hasn’t been a single word about any of this on the global network, not one crazy theory posted in a conspiracy chat,” she said. “How is that possible? And what does any of this have to do with the Zombie Flu?”

  “Top officials from the world’s most powerful governments came together and made a decision—somehow mankind would survive this catastrophe. Humans had created it, after all, so it was presumed humans would engineer a solution as well,” Dr. Lightsea continued. “First, they tried to contain the blight, eradicate it, but all attempts proved futile. Entire crops were burned. Land quarantines were put in place—to no avail. The bacteria spread through the soil, the seeds—insects and animals distributed the disease. Projections made it apparent that the world’s food supply chain would soon no longer be adequate to support the population. There remained 20, maybe 25 years before widespread famine hit, then the slow painful end to civilization that would follow. No one could know—imagine the panic and chaos. They had to take control somehow, contain the threat. Drastic measures were necessary and regrettably taken.”

  “What happened?” Zoah asked, her voice full of dread.

  “Time was the issue. They needed more time.”

  “What did they do?”

  “To prolong our food supplies and reset the doomsday clock,” Dr. Lightsea replied, “they engineered then unleashed the Zombie Flu onto an unsuspecting world.”

  There it was. The lie that was told. Zoah could hardly believe her ears.

  “Sacrificing 7 billion people to save hundreds of thousands and protect the future of mankind,” said Dr. Lightsea, “achieved what they thought was necessary to preserve our race and give us a chance to survive.”

  “Oh, my God…” Zoah replied, stunned by the revelation. “My God! You make it sound altruistic,” “How can you justify mass genocide?”

  “My beliefs are irrelevant, Z. This all happened well before I was even born. Am I sad that most of the world’s population was systematically wiped out to balance some statistician’s probability equation? Yes, it makes me sad. But I would be lying if I said knowing that humans had a real chance to start over somewhere, that you and Thomas have long and promising futures ahead, didn’t make me happier.”

  “It makes me sad, too,” she said.

  Dr. Lightsea nodded. “Well, their strategy worked. Instead of only 20 years left, the result was an additional 100, and in that time, they devised and implemented a plan to save us all.”

  “You mean this ship.”

  “There’s no point in staying put on a dead planet, so we innovated. We pushed the boundaries of known science and manufacturing technology.”

  “Does it have a name? The ship, I mean.”

  “We call her the Gaia. We’ve been preparing you and everyone else for your journey on her for quite some time. Why do you suppose we live in forced quarantine with everyone isolated and only interacting through the Virt?”

  Zoah frowned. “‘To keep the Zombie Flu from spreading’ was the correct answer before today.”

  “They took advantage of the turmoil and fear brought about by the pandemic,” Dr. Lightsea continued. “They used it to put a deliberate set of plans in motion—first, solving the supply problem by eliminating most of the demand (i.e., the Zombie Flu), and next, protecting what little was left, which is where Cecil Ogden excelled.”

  “The Ceres Corporation,” Zoah said. “Ravendale.”

  Her father nodded again. “Ceres isolated and took strict control over the world’s remaining supply chain. Teams scoured the planet for healthy plant sources and soils, then placed them in protected, sealed environments. The company commandeered every facility, workforce and technology it deemed necessary. It was as if Ogden had declared martial law on the entire planet. By controlling all resources, manufacturing and distribution capability, Ceres could take on a project like the Gaia, and that was its real goal all along.”

  “And the quarantine?”

  “Ravendale proved to be the model to follow. Even as they spread the flu in specific areas around the globe, select people were being rescued and sheltered—from scientists, professors and artists to philosophers, tradesmen and technicians. When Ravendale came online, followed by five other Ceres sister cities around the world, it was populated by the best of us, and as we refined and constructed our ark ship in orbit, we began to isolate and quarantine families in anticipation of how their lives would be like in space. The Virt was created as a means not only to enrich our existence in the nigh perpetual confinement of interstellar travel, but a crucial alternative reality that would allow us to conserve, better allocate and even augment our limited resources.”

  “And all this time…all I’ve ever heard,” Zoah said, “was that the Zombie Flu had forced us to live this way—fragmented, detached, fearful. It’s all been a lie.”

  “A necessary lie. Controlled and disseminated through the global network and the Virt.”

  “Families were destroyed. People suffered.”

  “Z, it was necessary.”

  She got up from her chair and approached the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows and placed her hand on the cool glass. A thick composite was all that separated her from the harsh, unforgiving vacuum of space that lay beyond, and Zoah rested her forehead against it.

  Dr. Lightsea approached from behind and placed his hand on one of his daughter’s shoulders. She turned around and hugged him.

  It wasn’t his fault. He’s not to blame, she thought.

  “Who decided?” she asked him. “Who got to choose which person lived and which died?”

  Before he could answer, a flash of light on the C ring, Gaia’s largest centermost habitat, caught his eye—then the floor rumbled as the shockwave travelled outward and spread throughout the ship.

  “What was that?” Zoah said as she turned around to look.

  Her father was already moving back to his desk. “An explosion,” he said, raising his hands to bring up the Gaia’s diagnostic displays. Data streams were pouring in from every section. “Nothing good,” Dr. Lightsea continued. “We have reports of damage and injuries. Fatalities. Z, I have to get to the bridge.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “No, you have to get to a shelter. They’re the most protected sections on the ship. Until I know what’s happening, I won’t risk your safety.” He typed some commands into his cufflink and threw up another window. “Madeline, are you and Thomas okay?”

  “We’re fine. What happened?” Zoah’s mother appeared on screen looking worried.

  “Looks like a breach in the C ring. I’m sending Zoah to the Alpha shelter.”

  “We’ll meet her there,” Madeline said, then looked at her daughter. “This wasn’t quite the homecoming I was planning for you, honey.”

  Zoah smiled. “I’m just happy to see you,” she said.

  “Be careful,” her mother replied, then dissolved their connection.

  Dr. Lightsea continued typing. “I’m uploading the Gaia’s schematics to you. Follow the directions on your visor to Alpha. I’m going to sound muster now, which will send the crew to station and all non-essential personnel to shelter. When all of this is over, I’ll come find you. Now get going, Z. Head on a swivel.”

&n
bsp; “Head on a swivel,” she repeated as they hugged and left his office together, her father heading right while she turned left. A horn sounded in rapid succession over loudspeakers across the passageway, and lights lowered from the ceiling and spun small red circles, signaling the ship’s emergency status.

  Zoah didn’t quite have the hang of maneuvering in a lower-gravity environment yet, and her progress was slow though steady. Already an almost constant stream of people was out rushing to their required posts, which made travel a trickier thing for her.

  Her visor had Zoah heading toward one of the five massive spokes connecting the ring to the center of the ship, where she was supposed to ride a conveyance of some kind down to the Gaia’s core and the safe Alpha refuge that awaited her, but a familiar face ahead stopped her dead in her tracks.

  Now what was Theodore Ogden doing out here alone?

  He didn’t look conspicuous, unless of course you knew who he was and what he was capable of, and for Zoah, the Ceres CEO stuck out like a sore thumb. Of note, per her schematic, Ogden wasn’t heading anywhere near the shelter, and that troubled her. If that man wasn’t looking to save his own butt, where then was he going?

  Zoah decided she needed to find out and tried her best to hug the wall and blend into the swarming crowd.

  CHAPTER 32

  Neema was having none of it. She wasn’t feeling triumphant. There was no sense of accomplishment. Instead, every minute spent in the belly of this beastly spacecraft only served to make her feel even more like a failure.

  For years, she had devoted her life to chasing an elusive truth, to righting the wrongs imposed on mankind living in an unnatural world, and never in all that time did Neema ever suspect such a thing as this ship existed, orbiting around the planet, high over her head in proverbial plain sight. She had been oblivious, and that did not sit well with her. Nor for that matter did hearing about bacteria and blights.

  Nox had given them the short version.

  She had sat and listened to all of it without a word, hardly moving. The rest of the Kiters were likewise dumbfounded. When the white-haired man finished his tale, Neema got up and started walking. She left the conference room they were in and travelled into the outside corridor, feeling numb but antsy. Floating around the Gaia only reinforced the otherworldly sensation she was experiencing, but it helped her think which was great because Neema needed to process everything. She needed to be alone.