Pinatubo II

by Les W Kuzyk

  Chapter 29

  Vince sat with Brad around the morning table in the meeting room downstairs waiting on Jeri. Vince was going on about how Southern Alberta had flooded, yet how most oil company employees ignored any reference to climate change. They just kept living their oil company lives, talking about reservoirs and production and barrels of oil. He heard that talk in the streets of Calgary.

  “Like Jeri said, people are crisis managers,” Vince said. “On that I totally agree.”

  “Say managers are the crisis,” Brad said. “Leaders don’t lead.”

  “Political leaders?”

  “Who gains, who loses?” Brad’s face held no smile. “Who took out Keith? And why?”

  “Jeri picks China,” Vince said softly. “She says they want to send a mixed message. So they took out Keith’s SUV after you got out. They didn’t want to kill two Americans, sorry bud, so they waited for one to step out.”

  “Yeah, think logistics,” Brad’s face went dark. “With a high altitude missile you don’t have that kind of timing control. You ascertain target, you confirm and you obtain release authorization. That takes about a minute and anything can happen. Luck of the draw for me that day.”

  “Russia’s Jeri’s second pick,” Vince said. “Say they take on a new national cause—they want to warm the planet—and they want China to look bad too. Say in Africa. They get a double hit. They keep carbon emissions going and they make China look like they’re playing war games in Africa.”

  “Jeri’s spinning her wheels,” Brad glared. “Like I said, when it comes to Keith, who knows? So much for brotherly fucking love.”

  “People in the street are not proactive. They talk about their day to day stuff in a wait and let-it-happen mode. Then when it happens, they freak out and scramble into action. I think she’s really got that one pegged. Explains a lot about what we’re doing right here right now.”

  Vince scrunched his eyes at Brad.

  “Right,” Brad nodded. “Look Vince, on managing our own little crisis I found us a safety feature.”

  “We, the engineer target crisis?”

  “Yeah. I found us a missile warning device,” Brad said. “Aahil’s seen it yesterday and we installed the hardware in the Nissan. Here, check out this image.” He swung his visiscreen towards Vince.

  Vince read the label on the dash mounted device. Drone Detector. The warning below stood out in hard lettering—You have ONE minute to RELOCATE.

  “One minute.”

  “You don’t get much time,” Brad’s face fell. “Better than what Keith had.”

  Vince looked to Brad’s pain, keeping quiet.

  “So this device detects surface drone communication signals and warns when you’re locked as a target.” Brad said. “Look, if it sounds, you move directly away from where you are as fast as you can. And get behind anything solid.”

  “Right,” Vince said softly.

  Brad told Vince more. Once launched from their Marauder drone platform, a Hellblazer missile took only seconds to reach a target. Solid rocket fuel made them only a little slower than a bullet. So that one minute warning was a pilot decision time estimate, and depended a lot on the delay to identify and confirm a lock target. The device took advantage of the process time between surface drones and drone cameras high above.

  “How does it warn?” Vince looked at his friend.

  “Aahil picked a siren blast setting.” Brad looked directly back. “You’ll get an earful you can not miss.”

  “Alright Brad,” Vince said. “Good idea, I think.”

  “We picked a side, bud, no going back,” Brad said. “We gotta take on whoever got us in their sights and get this contract done.”

  Vince nodded.

  “Back to people philosophy,” Brad said.

  “This geoengineering project comes in as an eleventh hour response,” Vince said. “Climate change was all over the media for decades but people never noticed. Not enough to vote for anything but their economy. Then there’s who they vote in. Politicians postpone any real problem and selectively suppress media so they can strategically pass big issues on to the next ones elected. They only make any real move if it makes them look good. Not like I’m saying we’re playing any hero role here but once they have a good solid crisis, they bring someone like us in to design a poorly thought out solution. They need someone coming in on a rescue mission at the last minute like in some goddam movie.”

  “Oh yeah, man, that’s us.” Brad’s smiled past half. “We come riding in on our big horses, guns a blazin’.”

  “Yeah, well in this movie we ride in for the HICCC underdog. Kind of atypical for a Western.”

  The two engineers sipped at their coffees.

  “That Jeri got us people nailed down pretty good,” Brad said, putting his cup down.

  “Oh yeah,” Vince picked up on the topic. “She’s got good insight. We’ve got economies based on free carbon dumping grounds. Man, I hear that free word all the time from my wife. Rings a consumer bell...people come running when they hear free. Then there’s freedom. That one works on citizens, so politicians get good mileage out of that. Reminds people of the time they threw rocks of revolution at the king’s castle, or when they toppled their dictator.”

  Brad found a piece of paper, and began folding together an aeronautical design.

  “Then there’s her intelligent fear.” Vince watched him fold. “She says people aren’t afraid of climate change same way they have no intelligent fear of driving seventy miles an hour. You remember? They hear about traffic fatalities all the time, so why aren’t they petrified? Truth be told lotta people ride roller coasters to get a speed thrill—they enjoy fear. People need a respectful caution on climate change. I mean look at the impact so far, and then look at that 4 degree map. Our dangerous future. So Brad, how do you teach climate caution?”

  “Natural disasters,” Brad shrugged. “Gets more attention than traffic stats. When a natural volcano erupts, people notice. Mount St. Helens blew a decade before I was born, but even when I was a kid there was still a lot of talk. They’d chatter on about the layer of ash spread over the streets of Spokane. Everyone noticed ‘cause it was right there in their face. On their lawn, actually. And who knew how long the eruption was gonna go? People are gonna notice our sulphur dump like any volcano.”

  “Yeah,” Vince said. ”We need that better in-your-face visibility.”

  “The president knows that. That’s why we’ve got balloons going up all around Niamey.”

  “So we need media up at Agadez. Or we move operations from Agadez back to Niamey. The HICCC decides on visibility...that’s their call. And...depends how far they go with this make-a-volcano project.”

  Jeri came in through the door.

  “Hey Jeri,” Brad said. “We were just talking about you.”

  “Yeah,” Jeri glared. “Like what about?”

  “Like all those things you say about people,” Brad said. “We figure you got us figured right out.”

  She wandered over to the coffee machine. “What’s the latest drone report?” she asked. “We got Ms. Tamanna talking?”

  “She doesn’t get told either,” Vince said.

  “She refuses to talk on any other projects,” Brad said. “I’d say Chad, Mali and Burkina Faso each have a Phase I design right now. Ready to roll.”

  “You were right there? In Burkina Faso?” Jeri asked. “With Keith.”

  “Luck of the draw,” Brad scowled. “We stepped out of the vehicle minutes before the missile hit.”

  “Keith was an American citizen,” Jeri was adamant. “That’s an act of war.”

  “And Sanoo? Just because he wasn’t? That’s old thinking,” Brad said calmly. “They knew the risks of overseas work. Like us.”

  Pin drop silence reigned for a moment.

  “Did you get that last set of numbers for your CMIP5?” Vince said. “That would be Phase I, now complete. About a thousand tons released mostly here around Niame
y.”

  “Yes I did,” Jeri poured her cup of coffee. “My chimp’s responding pretty much as expected. That’ll be excellent data for her calibration to the rest of the national launch.”

  “The president’s office sounded pretty happy,” Vince said. “Last kwikgram from Tamanna says people flooded out in the streets last night. Lots of people watched, waving presidential posters. Good politics.”

  “One fresh green Sahara, on the way.” Brad whooshed his hand outward. “Aahil’s wound up.”

  “Yeah,” Jeri walked back to the table, coffee in hand. “Real world check, what’s our project status?”

  “Engineering progress report,” Vince said, looking at Jeri. “I fly to Agadez to supervise the next phase. We’ve got seven thousand tons to launch for Phase II requirements, and that should be complete in four weeks.”

  With the other two looking at him, Vince wondered at his own words. The project had deviated from standard engineering practice, and expanded in scope more than once already.

  “We get the rest of that sulphur up high, and we’re set,” Vince said. “So we send Phase II up in the stratosphere over those beautiful Ayăr Mountains, and the Ténéré beyond and that’ll be it. Our client has Niger national done as requested, so we all go home.”

  They sat for a minute.

  “You guys even think they hired us for alternate reasons?” Jeri wiggled up straight in her seat. “Like what else they knew about us…besides direct project related qualifications?”

  The interviewers, it turned out, asked both Brad and Jeri hypothetical questions on how they’d respond to media in certain situations. Vince nodded along. He told them of not just the questions he got on media response but queries into his political views. All in a roundabout way, by mentioning specific political figures. He hadn’t paid much attention at the time. As the other two chatted on, Vince wondered if this political consortium carried out research on him that he hadn’t. Had they looked into his high school literature class work or those math classes? Some fractal influence past engineering skills leading him to a new career.

  “I’m thinking they wanted me for messaging as much as for model analyst.” Jeri looked to Vince. “There must’ve been news cameras out there last night, right? I mean, the world’s gonna notice this release, you can’t keep something this big out of the news.”

  “I dunno,” Vince said. “Could be.”

  “Well, they called a press conference this morning,” Jeri said calmly. “That’s where I go next.”

  “No kidding,” Vince said. “What you gonna tell them?”

  “The truth, the God honest truth.” She stared at him. “That’s what comes out of my mouth. Anyone listening to me for a minute can tell that. So you could presume that’s what they want going to media.”

  Vince and Brad looked at her, waiting.

  “Listen up! You, building your political career, you capitalist, you consumer. You will wake up and smell the coffee. Now.” She thumped her fist forcefully on the table. “Yeah okay, they won’t want my rant, but when they ask their questions I’ll be rattling off the truths coming out of our climate model. Any detail they want, any implication on any HICCC national security issue.”

  “A lotta people have their own versions of truth,” Brad said. “They’ll say it’s just a model.”

  “I’ve heard that a million times over,” Jeri said. “The question is, you got something better? Like a spare planet for experimental control?”

  “Talk on volcanoes.” Vince felt an inner shiver. “Just tell them we are engineering an artificial volcano.”

  “Yeah, possibly,” she said. “That would certainly be true.”

  “They’ll pick up on that better than a model analysis,” Brad said. “Your pet chimp, or not.”

  “And, give our volcano a name,” Vince said, enthusiastic. “You talk about tons if you keep the numbers simple. Like global numbers, in millions. We’d put up 16 million tons for this global scenario, right, and good old Pinatubo, remind everyone of that volcano from 1991, blew up 8 million. Easy math, that’s double! So we name our artificial volcano Pinatubo the second, or Pinatubo II. You need to get personal with a name to make good story. Especially for kids; we had that chat on human maturity, remember?”

  Vince felt his internal rush as he talked. Right in there with waking-up-to-smell-the-coffee he knew the time had come for adults to grow up. Period. Semi-barbaric children needed to mature into forward thinking adults. And yet at the same time, keep some purity of little children, like his daughter. To set out and make friends with the others in the global sandbox. As children do, yet, all around the planet. And not tomorrow, but now! Tough call, that, but what other choice did they have?

  “This’ll be my lifetime moment in the spotlight,” Jeri said. “And I’ve been rehearsing for so long.”

  “You’ll do great,” Brad grinned.

  “You need to tell everyone,” Vince said. “The world needs to hear what you’ve been telling us.”

  “We got us some serious competition out there,” Jeri said. “Last night news has it Jackie’s gonna be having a baby. They’re talking names already. Jessi, if she’s a girl.”

  Vince and Brad looked at each other. Brad looked to his jPad.

  “No shit.”

  “Crowdsource chat talks about sending a nursery,” Jeri said.

  “That’s a nine month trip,” Brad said. “And they’re what? Six months out? So this Jessi girl will be the first Martian born kid.”

  “Another crowdsource chat wants to bring Jackie back to Earth.”

  “Just her?” Vince said. “What about Haydon?”

  “They didn’t develop return technology for anyone,” Brad said. “The Mars Mission was a one way trip from the get go – they all signed contracts.”

  “Yeah, we’ll see what crowdsource funders wanna pay when there’s a baby,” Jeri said. “That Jackie’s our social experiment with an outer space darling.”

  “Okay, so at least Jackie’s gonna keep people glued to the news,” Brad said. “They’ll catch you too, Jeri.”

  “Right, who’s gonna notice my rants?” Jeri said. “They’ll be following the first human ever conceived off planet. The Jackie and Hayden love story.”

  “But that’s only one world story, see,” Brad said, spinning his jPad screen around for them to see. “You got room right in there next to Jackie.”

  Vince understood, but wasn’t sure about Brad’s enthusiasm. The Nigerien national design was in place he knew and the Agadez release would be starting next. It’d take a few days or even weeks for the international media to notice, but up at edge of the Sahara desert didn’t cut it as a high profile part of the world. He wondered if Jeri would be speaking to local news only. And the outside world won’t be noticing at all.

  GREEN SAHARA