One Minute to Midnight

by Steve Lang

  "Stay here and starve, or go outside and freeze to death." He said to himself. He noticed a cave opening to the north, about fifty yards away, and thought he might be able to make it there if the snow did not become too heavy.

  There was a plasma disruptor rifle onboard equipped with a thermal scope. If there was anyone outside, their heat signature would show up even through ice, and stone. Before Jared opened the hatch, he took a three hundred sixty degree look around, for his relative safety, but still found no signs of life.

  "This is either a good thing for me, or it's going to get very complex once I get hungry and can't find food. I need to get to that tower!"

  Jared looked up toward the horizon and saw the tower he had been heading for when he was knocked off course. It was a massive black structure, rising high into the gray sky, and now almost obscured by faster, heavier falling snow. The oxygen in his suit was depleted—the alarm buzzed on his wrist—and he began to feel the first effects of suffocation, like a brain fog that slowed his thought and movement.

  "There had better be oxygen out there." Jared popped his helmet off, and exited the craft. The air was sweet and fresh to his nostrils, much like cotton candy.

  Jared took his rifle and the three packs of space rations, and walked toward the cave as large flakes landed on his head. Each snowflake was the size of a grapefruit, and as they piled up more and more as the ground disappeared. A wicked wind began to whistle through the ice formations, and Jared picked up his pace. The cave opening was just ahead. When he finally arrived at the entrance, he saw that this cave was not only enormous, but was extended far back into the side of the mountain. Jared walked inside, looking around at a ceiling nearly filled with human sized icicles hanging from the ceiling.

  The wind whipped and moaned outside as more snow fell, but he felt safe in the cave. He could see the R2-4 PL, half buried in the snow bank and defunct. Jared turned and surveyed the interior of the cave. A tunnel stretched back far into the unknown, and the immediate opening he was in made a right angle turn into darkness. If he was going to explore the cave, he would need a lantern, and the only one he and his crew brought with them was on the Rapier. His suit was rated for the extreme cold temperatures of space, so regardless how cold it got outside, Jared would be warm in his suit. His nose, lips, and ears, however, were another story, and without oxygen to breath he could not put the helmet back on.

  He stepped back toward the entrance and looked left toward where the tower dwarfed anything he had ever seen.

  "I've got to get to that tower."

  "Whose there? Who are you and why have you disturbed my sleep?" Came a voice from back in the cave.

  Jared froze for a moment and raised his rifle in the direction of the voice. It had come from beyond the right angle turn.

  "Who are you? You'd better be gone when I get up there." The voice growled.

  "Please, let me stay, just for the night. I'll clear out in the morning. I crash landed here and now I have nowhere to go. I'll die out there if you make me leave." Jared pleaded.

  His rifle safety was off, and he pointed toward the voice with shaking hands, and looked through his thermal sight. He saw no body heat signature, but each time the voice spoke, the sound was closer. Was he going crazy? Hearing things? It could have been space madness, or too much stress from watching his crew die in a senseless tragedy. Footfalls could be heard from ahead, and a moment later a large man covered in white and brown fur, wearing a leather vest rounded the corner. Jared thought the man resembled a hybrid of half bear, half man.

  "A human? Where did you come from? We killed and ate all of you in the War of Kilmong." The giant said.

  "Look, I just want to get off this planet. I don't want any trouble. My crew was killed by some weaponized satellites orbiting your planet."

  "Yeah, those were placed in orbit a long time ago to prevent outsiders from soliciting their wares on this planet, Torex." said the giant.

  "You guys placed weapons in space to stop travelling salesmen? That's ludicrous."

  "That's right." The giant nodded. "We had our complexities and strife in the old days, no doubt. It's much more peaceful now without all the noise." The giant said.

  "Can you help me get to the tower in that city I saw over there?" Jared asked.

  "I could. But I’m going to eat you. I haven't had a human in years, and you guys are delicious. You ready to go?" The giant produced a crossbow from behind his back that had a bolt nocked and ready to fire. Jared never lowered his rifle, and fired a round, disintegrating the giant's hand and knocking the crossbow to the ground.

  "AAARGH! You shot my hand off!" The giant screamed. Then he charged.

  Jared fired another round as he backed up toward the mouth of the cave. He tripped, fell backward, and fired a plasma round into the ceiling, knocking an icicle loose. The large shard pierced the top of the giant’s head, impaling him.

  "Glargh!" He yelled. The giant fell forward on his face as a pool of green blood spilled from the top of his head and mutilated hand. More footfalls could be heard from back inside the cave.

  "Time to go." Jared said to himself. He darted out of the cave and into the tail end of the snowstorm.

  His knew the giants would easily follow his tracks, so he moved with haste toward the tower through a maze of ice structures. Jared's terror was high, and his fatigue from the recent string of traumatic events had sapped his energy. His tired mind began fighting to keep him on task, and as the tower grew closer, he began to see green grass and trees. Roars from behind rang through the air, coming closer as Jared ran with his rifle slung across his back. He came to a chasm, where a bridge lay, turned away from him, mounted on a massive column in the center of the void. This column vanished below a layer of clouds far into the depths below. As Jared approached the cliff, a three-foot tall pedestal rose from the ground with a red button in the center of a six-inch square panel. There seemed to be no way to get to the bridge, but the tower was on the other side. Jared pressed the button and a holographic image of a pretty woman with brunette curls appeared.

  "You have been identified as human and may pass the bridge to Astrid." She smiled.

  Jared could hear the rising shouts of many angry giants behind him, and quickly pressed the button. The bridge responded and began to spin on the rotating column. When it stopped at his feet, he ran across the hundred yard long platform just as the first of a horde of giants were beginning to appear out of the frozen wasteland behind him. Facing one giant had been scary enough, but the fracas between Jared and the first giant had awakened the entire clan, and there were hundreds of them bearing down on the bridge now and they were crossing. Jared could hear the woman's voice once more as his feet touched the green grass on the Astrid side of the chasm.

  "Planetary defense system engaged. Non-human entities have been detected on the bridge to Astrid. They will now be eliminated." She said.

  An electric field covered the bridge, shocking the giants standing on it, frying some in their tracks, and sending others over the side screaming into the chasm. The bridge began to rotate once more, cutting off access to the hostile giants. Blasts from the defense satellites began to rain down on the giants from space, blowing some to pieces, decapitating others. Some only lost legs and arms. The embattled furry giants began to fire their crossbows across the chasm, one of them ripping through Jared's suit at the thigh. He turned and continued to run. The blasting became less frequent, and Jared walked into the human city alone. The buildings were constructed of marble and glass, with gold-lined windows and streetlamps. Jared walked over to one of the lamps and scratched the post with his knife.

  "Solid gold? This post alone would set me up for life back home."

  The tower was standing in the center of the city, a steel masterpiece covered in black glass. It was larger than his imagination could conceive, and the tallest part disappeared into a layer of clouds near the stratosphere. Nothing moved. Were all of the humans really dead on this planet
? How had humanity come this far out into space, and were other planets inhabited with human life? Jared wanted to get home more than anything, and in his mind, the tower held his freedom, so he ran down a cobblestone street, his boots echoing against the stillness of abandoned structures. The air was warmer in Astrid than on the glacier, and he began to sweat as his feet carried him onward. The tower was closer. He noticed that the street was lined with little shops and apartment buildings that seemed to be frozen in time. The windows shined, the street was free of debris and weeds, and the entire city gleamed as if it were brand new.

  "Hello?!" Jared screamed as he ran. "Is anybody here?" The tower was less than a football field away and he could clearly see the steps leading up to a set of double doors.

  To his left, down an adjacent street, he witnessed an amazing spectacle. A team of robots was moving in unison, performing various janitorial tasks. Some were spraying for weeds, while others polished windows, and large robots resembling trash trucks vacuumed the streets.

  "This city is on autopilot." Jared said to himself. A tall and skinny robot turned to look Jared's way, and he could see the green beacon on the robot’s head turn to red for an instant, and then back to green. It looked away and began to clean once more. "I guess I passed."

  He approached the stairs, ran up, and as he got close to the doors they opened for him.

  "Welcome to the Tower of Gehen, where we proudly retain the world's largest records of humanity, genome evolution, and space exploration. Come inside and take a tour." A friendly woman's voice chimed.

  Inside, there was a large reception area furnished with leather couches and Adirondack chairs, with flat screen televisions displaying images of children playing, nature films, and movie previews. On the walls hung portraits of men and women wearing space that were remarkably similar in design to the one Jared wore. He walked down the wall of hanging portraits as an unseen voice narrated the names of various astronauts and their career accomplishments, and stopped abruptly at a portrait of himself.

  "Here is the portrait of Jared Talbert, one of Atlantia's most distinguished combat pilots, and space explorers. Captain Talbert displayed great heroism when he rescued a colony of Atlantians on the planet Earth when their continent sunk into Earth's ocean. Over fifty percent of the population was saved and returned home by Captain Talbert and his fleet. We are in his debt." The voice finished.

  "Maybe that's why the satellites stopped firing. Reincarnation?" Jared whispered. He didn’t have an answer, but it felt strange.

  Jared backed into a leather chair facing the wall of portraits and sat down hard. He felt the room spin a bit as his mind processed what he had seen. Suddenly, explosions from outside rocked the city, shaking the floor beneath his feet. He could see giants battling with the cleaning robots, and more satellite fire rained down from above.

  "Persistent bastards." He had to move, and his only escape was upward.

  Jared noticed an elevator bank behind the reception area and ran over to it, ignoring the fighting outside. As he approached, the doors opened to the elevator closest to him and he got in. A panel on the right wall contained a digital flat screen about twelve inches wide and six inches tall. The screen displayed a diagram of the building and gave him options to press. The most interesting buttons were for what appeared to be a spaceport near the top of the building. There were designations for twenty hangars, and so with a shrug, he pressed the button that read Hangar Eighteen. Without a sound, he was off and looking through elevator windows at the ground far below, and the approaching horde of giants. Though their numbers had been reduced, at least a hundred of them were still fighting their way to the tower. A moment later, they were gone and Jared saw only white fluffy clouds as his elevator whooshed at lightning speed toward his destination.

  "Hangar eighteen is approaching, Captain Talbert. Here you will see the most experimental spacecraft Atlantia scientists have ever built." A female voice told him. The building knew who he was but that did not comfort him. He felt as if he was in a living monument to the long dead.

  The doors opened, and inside the hangar stretched down for as far as his eyes could see. It was vast and did indeed have many hovering wonders. If they still worked, he might still have a chance to get home.

  "Oh my God!" Jared was face-to-hull with an exact replica the USS Rapier. He ran over to it, and as he did the ramp descended. He walked inside and took the Captain’s chair.

  Onboard lights flickered to life, and one of the blast doors in the hangar began to lower.

  "Cabin pressurization normal. You are ready for spaceflight. Enjoy your ride, Captain Talbert." Said a male voice.

  Jared was excited to have been given another chance, and as he floated out of the window of the seven-mile high tower, he waved goodbye to the planet Atlantia, turned his ship toward the stars, and shot into the cosmos. He was headed home.

  call workshop

  Dianne makes the cold call of a lifetime.

  Dianne Trainer arrived early at the coffee shop on a sunny fall morning in Charlotte, North Carolina. She was a tall, attractive blonde in her mid-thirties, who stood almost six feet tall and resembled a fashion model. She was reserved, and that often caused people to think she was a snob, but she just did not know how to relate to most of her contemporaries. Dianne's other team members had not yet arrived, so she went to the counter and ordered a cup of dark roast coffee and a bagel with honey nut cream cheese. After paying, she sat outside to feel the cool breeze on her face as she ate her warm bagel and sipped from her coffee cup. She opened her laptop and connected to the coffee shop Wi-Fi to check emails while waiting for the others. The purpose of their meeting was to call people on a list of names they had compiled, and find out if the recipient had any interest in knowing more about their business. If recipient did express interest, then the appointment would be booked for a face-to-face meeting with two team members and the prospective business partner at a public location, or their house. Dianne had never made calls to anyone she did not know for anything other than to have her plumbing fixed, so she was nervous about the entire affair.

  Her team assured her that they had all experienced during this their first time cold calling people, and it would fade as she got used to it. Besides, this was going to be a round-robin call workshop anyway. One person calls, and then another, and another, as they go around the table, either setting appointments, or leaving messages for callbacks. She took a long, nervous, deep breath. For a brief moment she thought about leaving, and then Pearl Johnson, one of her team, pulled up beside Dianne's car. Too late. Damn! She would have to go through with it and combat her worst fears, which were judgment from strangers, and their rejections. Pearl got out of her car and waved at Dianne. Pearl was pretty, with an almond complexion, and soft skin from years of preservation with natural makeup and skin cream. She had been a cheerleader in high school, and was that kind of perky girl that made Dianne want to slap someone. Dianne sat there with her caffeinated beverage and felt her muscles tighten with nervous energy. Seeing Pearl made everything seem very real and scary. Her presence destroyed any hunger Dianne had been feeling, and the bagel was abandoned after one bite was taken out of the side.

  "Dianne! Hey, girl!" Pearl chirped.

  "Hi Pearl, just checking emails. How you doin’ this morning?" Dianne said. She hoped her voice had sounded normal.

  "Good! I’m just going to go inside and get myself some tea. Tina and Bobby are on their way and then we can get started. Don’t worry about a thing. Most of these calls go to voicemail in the morning anyway, and when the people you leave a message for call you back, it’s much easier than the initial call. You’ll see." Pearl went inside to order, and Tina and Bobby pulled up in their Range Rover.

  Tina had been a short order cook, and Bobby an advertising executive before the two became network marketing business owners, and now they were both retired and living the good life. They had earned so much money that making cold calls had become more of a hobb
y than a necessity, and although they were always very friendly and a great couple, Dianne always felt a little intimidated by their success. When Tina walked over to where Dianne was, she leaned over and gave her a warm embrace. Bobby did the same, and they both sat down. Tina was the definition of grace, and was so beautiful that when she took the stage at major business events, people stopped what they were doing just to listen to her. Bobby had the good looks of a high school quarterback and the smooth facial features to go along with it. He may have been in his forties, but Dianne could not tell, and thought it was rude to ask. She had recently left her twenties behind and was sitting on thirty pretty hard. Dianne knew that when she was earning what they did, she would return the favor of coming to call workshops for her team. They were, after all, in this together, and for anyone to succeed, they all needed to be.

  After some initial chatting and catching up they got the workshop started out of respect for everyone’s time. Tina volunteered to go first, Bobby second, Pearl third, and if she felt comfortable, Dianne could go last or pass her turn until the next time. Tina brought out a journal where she kept her list of names and opened the book to a page somewhere in the middle. She knew Dianne had never done this before and looked up from her journal.

  "Just listen to what we do and you’ll catch on quickly. Remember, this is not rocket science, so if you get flustered on a call, don’t worry about it. No one’s going to die if you forget your name, or theirs." Tina smiled. She picked up her phone and dialed a number. Several seconds went by as the other three watched her.

  "Hello, Don Baker? My name is Tina Shall, and I have your business card here. I see that you're in the textile industry. Can you tell me a little about your business?" Tina said. She smiled, and nodded at what the man on the other end was saying. After a few moments she took control of the call again.