Twilight Earth

by Ben Winston

  Turning to Jorga, he said, “Your family is being taken to another pod close by.” He turned to Marcy. “I’m afraid your mother was disqualified for pod residency. However, we have insured that she, as well as her life partner, will be taken to our closest base. I’m afraid that the ability to procreate is a requirement for pod residency. Tom bent more than a few rules just to get her a spot in the base.”

  Marcy swallowed hard. “I understand, Ed. But are you certain that we’re facing a Mass Extinction?”

  “The decision isn’t mine of course, but the conditions must now exist for it. I would imagine the probability is still rising or at the least hasn't changed. That’s the reason for our stage one condition; which is getting the selected families into the pods and bases,” Ed answered. He’d led the small family to a door panel without a handle. “Each of you needs to place your hand on the door only once. If you touch it twice, it will exit programming mode and open.”

  “You mentioned ‘stage one condition’ that implies more stages. Can you tell us what they are?” Ben asked.

  Ed nodded, still stone-faced. “Stage two means that the event is in progress. Elevators are sent to the bottom of the shafts and those shafts are sealed. Stage three means that more than forty-five percent of those left on the surface and in the shallower, sub-surface bunkers have died or been killed. Pod inhabitants are ordered to the hyper-sleep chambers and the pods themselves are lowered to the bottoms of their shafts. The pod shaft is sealed two hundred feet above the pod and those shafts are then collapsed.”

  “Okay, now that’s scary sounding. How deeply are you going to bury us? How long until the chambers open and how are we supposed to get out?” Kaitlin asked.

  Ed looked frustrated, but continued. “The pods are lowered an additional three thousand feet. If the hyper-sleep chambers are used, they will revive specific occupants in two hundred fifty years. If conditions on the surface are still hostile to human life, hyper-sleep may be re-entered, this time the span will be a thousand years. At that time everyone will be awakened, the chambers will deactivate and may be salvaged, but they can’t be used for hyper-sleep again.

  “As for getting out, there is a transit system connecting all the pods and several very secret escape routes. There are also robotic tunneling machines that are more than capable of reaching the surface if no other way is found.”

  “You’ll be joining us then?” Deirdre asked.

  Ed slowly shook his head. “No ma’am. I had a vasectomy when I was twenty-one. ALS runs in my Father’s family and Parkinson's in my Mother’s. As soon as I was old enough, I made sure I couldn’t pass them on. As soon as this pod has all its occupants, I’ll be changing into a uniform and reporting to the same base as Miss Marcy’s mother.”

  Marcy cocked her head at the man. “I mean no offense, but if you have a vasectomy, how did you get a spot in the base?”

  “A fair question,” Ed nodded. “When my sisters and I made the decision to sterilize ourselves, we became foster families. Between the kids we adopted, and our foster kids, we have nineteen young people between the ages of seventeen and five. My kids got accepted; I get to go along as one of their parents. I also have some specialized skills that may be useful.”

  “Okay, so what do you need us to do next?” Ben asked.

  “Just get settled into your new apartment and watch the TV.” He indicated the huge, wall-mounted LCD screen. “That’s how you’ll get news and information. We hope that we made sure that you can get to all the information you need as well.” He opened a compartment on the end of the coffee table and took out a keyboard and mouse. “The TV is multipurpose. It’s a broadcast display, videophone, music center, and computer terminal. Each room has one, as well as each of you having your own new laptops.” He held up a small one inch by two inch burnished metal 'chip’ that was about three-fourths of an inch thick. “You’ll need instructions to use those as well. Just request the info from your terminal,” Ed explained. “We ask that, for now, you please stay in your apartment so the other families coming in can get settled faster.”

  “One last question then?” Deirdre asked, poking her head out of the kitchen.

  Ed nodded to her.

  “It’s getting on toward dinner time, I don’t see a fridge or even a pantry in here. How do we get food?”

  Ed walked into the ‘kitchen’ with Deirdre. “As I said, you can get the full explanation for how all the tech works from the terminal, but I doubt you'll want to dig for it before you eat.”

  He moved over to a section of counter that had a touchpad next to a rectangular outline. “This is a new gadget called a replicator. I have no idea how it works, but basically, it creates food from molecules in the air.” He touched the smaller touchpad. "What would you like to eat?”

  “Pizza!” Marcy and Kaitlin yelled.

  “I guess that settles that. What kind of pizza would you two like?” Deirdre asked chuckling.

  “Cheese please!” Marcy asked.

  Kaitlin sat next to her nodding vigorously. “Don’t forget the diet root beer!”

  Ed almost cracked a smile at the girls’ antics, especially when he saw Jorga shudder at the mentioned addition. He touched the ‘order’ button. "One large, cheese pizza from Giovanni’s in Manhattan. Also one, two-liter bottle of diet A&W root beer, cold.” He pressed the ‘end’ button as the pizza began to form in the rectangle.

  “You can either order plates and utensils from the replicator, or keep them on hand.” He indicated the cupboards around the kitchen. He then turned back and ordered the plates, cups, utensils, and a roll of paper towels.

  When the pizza had formed, it was on a wooden platter. Sitting beside the pizza was a shaker of peppers, a shaker of Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. Kaitlin carried the pizza out to the table, while Marcy grabbed the condiments. Kait returned for the plates and utensils, and Marcy grabbed what was left.

  “Clean-up is easier, just set the dirty dishes and leftovers back in the rectangle, and press the ‘reclaim’ button. I would however, recommend reading up on this device. It does have a few rather frustrating glitches in the system.” Ed said and walked back out to the door.

  “There is an instruction program waiting for you when you finish eating. Please view it as soon as you can. I hope to see you all again in a few days, good luck.” He nodded to Ben and the girls and left.

  Jorga turned to the girls. “Cheese pizza and diet root beer sounds horrible!” Kaitlin stuck her tongue out at her from the table. Jorga returned the salute. “Could we get something else?”

  After dinner, the big TV in the living room announced an incoming call. Ben looked at his family in surprise as he told it to accept the call. A haggard looking Bob Gilly appeared on the screen. “Good evening, Ben, Ladies.”

  “Good evening, Bob. What can we do for you?” Ben replied.

  “Well, in case you haven’t figured it out yet, you’re standing in the middle of the big secret project Tom was working on. I was calling to try to fill in the blanks," Bob replied. “Do you have time for that this evening?”

  “It would appear we have time to spare Bob. However, we haven’t had time to go over the video Ed told us about; we just finished dinner,” Deirdre answered.

  “Well, I’m sure you’ve had a tiring day and would like nothing more than to relax, but you do need to know this information before the rest of this starts happening."

  “Okay Bob, go ahead,” Ben replied as the family took seats around the room.

  Bob took a deep breath. “I would be doing this in person except that I’m in another pod much like yours only larger, and for now we can’t leave." He glanced down at his notes.

  “For the last thirty years, Delphi Systems Inc. has been working closely with several governments and private agencies around the world to construct large underground bunkers. These bunkers will hold a substantial portion of the human race, almost indefinitely, in their own semi-sealed biospheres.

  “This was d
ecided by the United Nations and a few of those nations that were not actually members. This precaution was initiated by a multi-national scientific report that outlined exactly what we could expect to happen should any extinction level event befall our planet.

  “In all of the theoretical scenarios, the human race ended. Since we have yet to develop space travel, this plan was developed in an effort to ensure the survival of our species and the several other animal species that have genetic material stored in these bunkers.

  “Now, I won’t go into detail about those bunkers because Tom took the opportunity to create and execute his own plans. You see the governments, especially the US government, had preselected candidates based on how much money the people had donated to campaign funds and how politically connected someone was.

  “In addition to the 'large underground bunkers' I have spoken of, a series of smaller, ‘shallow’ bunkers were built in the event that word leaked out, and it was discovered that no preparations had been made for the masses. All of those bunkers are 'shallow' compared to the ones Tom built for the rest of humanity.

  “Although he couldn’t do much for the general public, Tom did create as many of the ‘pods’ as he could. He also kept them updated with the latest technology and amenities, to ensure the occupants survival. His selection criteria for the pods was strict, and he, himself, didn’t qualify, but through his efforts, the human race will survive,” Bob paused to take a drink of water.

  “There are literally thousands of pods scattered all over the planet. We can all communicate with each other, and in a lot of cases, visit, once the emergency is over. There are warehouses of tools, weapons, and anything we’ll need to start over. All stored in a sealed stasis environment......”

  “Bob? Sorry to interrupt, but might I ask what happened to move all of us down here now?” Ben asked.

  “Sure. Events are in motion that could end quickly in a world-altering event. So, the precautions were triggered,” Bob replied. “A...... uh...close pass by a meteor, I think.” He was looking through his paperwork.

  “A meteor?” Marcy asked, suddenly far more interested. “Did you get a name? I don’t remember any being close enough, and I should have heard.”

  “It was Wilcox-something, I think,” Bob muttered to himself.

  “Wilcox-Locke?” Marcy asked.

  “That’s it!” Bob said. “Wilcox-Locke. They said something about a near-Earth event. All I know is the threat analysis computer triggered Condition One as soon as the data was input.”

  Marcy looked confused. “The Wilcox-Locke Meteor swarm is over two light-years away. They won’t even enter our solar system for thirteen years. There is no way any of them could be close enough to be considered ‘near-Earth’.”

  Bob shrugged. “That’s what we were told. JPL and NASA are both sealed up tighter than a politician’s personal wallet. So we can't get independent confirmation. We can only act on the information they give us. I did hear from a friend at space command; he told me that they had been placed on high alert and were tracking, I quote, ‘rather large, fast moving objects’, unquote.

  “None of that makes any sense, Bob. Once I figure out how to use them, I’ll jump on the computer, and see what I can find out from here,” Marcy replied.

  “We would really appreciate it, Marcy, Thank you.” Bob said. "One of the deciding factors was the relocation of the President and other heads of state to the shallow bunkers. Currently, our entire government and all their rich ass-hole buddies are in the bunkers. Civil Service officials are stuffing the other bunkers full with anyone they can grab off the street. They are literally kidnapping people, whole families, and getting them down to the bunkers as fast as they can. There has been no public announcement, and I doubt there will be. The government decided to not tell anyone about what's happening as they would panic and that would hamper emergency measures."

  "They must be pretty convinced that there is a viable threat if they are kidnapping people. If they weren't sure of it, then they just let the cat out of the bag as far as the secret survival bunkers are concerned," Deirdre said.

  Bob nodded his agreement with her. "Oh, there is a real threat. Our threat analysis computer has been very well programmed and it is convinced this is real. But, I couldn't tell you what information it's basing its decision on. All I know is that there is a very high probability the surface of the planet will be hostile to human life very shortly. We don't know how long it will remain that way."

  Survival Pod 0001a

  Fulton's Prairie, Missouri

  United States

  Ben and his family discovered that the designers had gone to great lengths to help pod occupants keep their sanity. Considering they were living far underground, Ben appreciated it.

  On the lowest two levels of the pod, the designers had included a park that would mimic the normal seasonal cycle of the surface far above. There were trees and grass, flowers and brush. There were even birds and insects. Ben had no doubt that if he dug into the soil, he’d find some really confused Earthworms.

  Ben discovered the park two days after arriving and after the pod was sealed. They also discovered an old family friend in the group. Dr. Jon Lyam and his family were the last family brought down before the pod sealed. Deirdre invited the family over for dinner the following evening since they’d arrived late at night.

  Looking for something to do, Marcy discovered she could participate in an online lecture being given by Dr. Harold Wilcox of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The lecture he was giving was on the impending astronomical event; which he co-discovered. The people on the surface were still being told that they were safe, and the meteors would pass-by at a range of well over a million miles. Which in astronomical terms was damn close.

  A good portion of the lecture was interactive, and attendees were allowed to ask relevant questions. The professor was explaining how, once again, Jupiter’s mass was pulling the deadly projectiles off-course so the majority wouldn’t impact our planet. What would make it to the planet would be too small to make it to the ground.

  Marcy looked confused a minute, and used her laptop to pull up the information she remembered seeing earlier. The initial sighting by the HST placed the objects well outside the Oort cloud, which meant they would have to be at least two years away at light speed.

  She indicated that she had a question for the professor. When he finished his immediate topic, he looked up, into the camera. “Yes, Miss Carmichael?”

  “Thank you, Professor," Marcy said in reply. "I must have missed something, so please forgive my ignorance...”

  Dr. Wilcox smiled. “Would that we all could be forgiven that, Miss Carmichael. Please continue.”

  “The original HST sighting had the entire event well outside our Oort cloud and far below the plane of the ecliptic, far outside of the gravitational influence of any planets in our system. How is this major discrepancy explained?” Marcy finished.

  Dr. Wilcox nodded like he’d been expecting this question. “Excellent question and one I’d be curious about as well. The information wasn't released to the public in order to avoid a loss of confidence in the HST program or those of us at JPL.

  “The original report and findings of the HST at the time were believed to be accurate. However, we have since discovered that a non-ecliptic, high-intensity, solar event caused the image of the objects to be reflected off of the high-energy solar particles. If you’ll remember, all the original images were blurry? That’s because we were trying to get the HST to focus on the reflected image. Think of the whole episode like a hologram being reflected off of a cloud of smoke.”

  “So basically you’re saying ‘Objects in Mirror are closer than they appear’?” Marcy asked.

  Wilcox chuckled at the reference. “Exactly, thank you for the layman’s description, Miss Carmichael. Ah, excuse me a moment.” He leaned over to listen to an aide whisper urgently in his ear. Dr. Wilcox gave some urgent instructions before the aide all but ran out of
the room. Dr. Wilcox turned back to the audience and the cameras.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen, I must apologize. Something very pressing has come up that requires my immediate attention. Miss Carmichael, I hope to meet you one day. Please excuse me.” He turned and hurried for the door and the two men in familiar looking black suits.

  “What was that all about?” Jorga asked from the easy chair she’d been reading in.

  “Have you ever seen a highly respected Scientist and Nobel Laureate knowingly lie through his teeth?” Marcy asked.

  Jorga raised an eyebrow. “No...”

  The younger girl looked at her friend and snorted. “You have now.” Marcy started typing furiously on the keyboard for the big screen, and then started working on her laptop. She stopped to look over some information, before typing into the terminal. Going back to her laptop, Marcy started chasing down more information.

  Jorga was just starting to get back into her story, when she heard Marcy say “Oh shit!” softly, then chanting ‘please be wrong' over and over again. Marking her page, Jorga set her book down and moved closer to Marcy to see what the girl was working on.

  Both screens seemed to be filled with rapidly changing numbers as Marcy typed and chanted. When Marcy stopped typing to watch the results of the data she just entered, Jorga put her arm around her.

  “Marcy, honey? Do I need to get Kaitlin for you? What’s wrong?” Jorga asked.

  Marcy just shook her head. “No, thanks. We are so screwed. Let me get all this put into an understandable format and I’ll explain it all after dinner, Okay?”

  “Sure Sweetheart. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “Nope, just get ready for a really long nap,” Marcy said sadly.

  Jorga spread the word to try not to disturb Marcy while she was working. Marcy herself made that easier by moving her whole project into her and Kaitlin’s room. Finally, Jon, his wife Ellie, and their twin twelve-year-old girls arrived for dinner. Deirdre and Ben visited with Jon and Ellie while Kait and Jorga took off with the Lyam youngsters.

  Ben explained that Marcy was busy with something she discovered earlier and wanted to share it with everyone. Ben warned them it had something to do with what was going on above and that it was most likely bad news.