by D. A. Hill
They all looked at him and said nothing. It was clear they could not talk him out of this.
“I’ll turn the other key.”
Cyrus’s heart sank as he realized who had spoken those words. “Jen you can’t,” he implored her.
“Cyrus I have to do this.”
“Why,” he begged. “Why you?”
“Because you were right. I shouldn’t have released the story. You and James told me what would happen and I went ahead and did it anyway. And look what happened. It’s all my fault. I can’t live with knowing what I did,” she replied. “I don’t want to live with it. This is my chance to make my life mean something amidst all this madness.”
Cyrus recognized the look of determination on his sister’s face, even through her tears and his own. He knew he would not change her mind no matter how much he wanted to. Cyrus hugged his sister, his tears flowing freely. “Goodbye, Jen. I love you.”
“I hate to interrupt this,” Newton said. “But those of you who are going still have to finish your upload. We may not have much time.”
“I love you too big brother,” Jenny sobbed. “You have to go. Now!” she added forcefully as she pushed him away.
—o—
“We will need to go through the same process as the passengers for the sake of the children,” Cyrus said. “Do you understand what I’m saying?” he asked, unable to just come out and explain what he meant with the children present.
“Yes,” Manny and Regina answered together; they both understood that the children could not see or hear anything that would suggest they were anything other than flesh and blood human beings.
“Fortunately we’ve all done our physical scans so it’s only the brain scan to do now. Major Lopez, you and Elizabeth should go first, followed by Manny and Eric and then me. Agreed?”
Regina nodded but Manny stood looking grim faced. “What is it Dad?”
Manny signaled that he wanted to talk out of earshot of the children. Regina and Cyrus followed him across the room. “I won’t be going,” he said. “It’s going to take at least half an hour to get you four loaded. Someone needs to make sure you have time.”
“But Dad, we can’t go without you,” Regina pleaded. How could she allow her father to stay behind on a suicide mission?
“You don’t have to,” he answered. “I’m already there.”
“But you’re the one who insisted that you and Emmanuel are different people now.”
“We’re different but the same. Anyway it’s better this way. It would be too confusing for the children. And for you.”
Regina looked to Cyrus for support. “I’m with you on this, Major,” he said. “But I don’t know what I can say. If you can’t convince your father I don’t think anyone else can.”
“Nothing either of you can say will change my mind,” Manny replied. “You’re my family. All of you. I have to make sure you’re safe.” He hugged his daughter and tenderly kissed her cheek. “Just remember Gina that he loves you every bit as much as I do,” he said as he turned and ran off.
Regina knew she could not stop him. Not long ago the idea that a consciousness inside a computer could be her father seemed ridiculous to her, but she had finally come to accept that it was true. That made it possible, however reluctantly, to accept her father’s decision. “I love you too Dad,” she said to nobody in particular as she watched him leave.
She decided she should act quickly though, before being tempted to reconsider, tempted to go looking for her father. Regina helped Elizabeth into the first of the two interface chairs. “This will only take a few minutes darling and I promise it won’t hurt, OK?” she said as she kissed Elizabeth’s forehead reassuringly.
Elizabeth nodded. She was intimidated by the unfamiliar equipment but she trusted this woman to take care of her. She still missed her mother terribly but she really liked Gina; she was kind to her and made her feel safe.
Lopez took her place in the second chair and held Elizabeth’s hand as Cyrus attached her cables. “Ready Major?” Cyrus asked when they were done.
“Ready as we’ll ever be,” she answered.
“Computer, initiate scan,” Cyrus said.
—o—
Manny selected his weapons carefully. He knew this was a suicide mission, that the only possible outcome was his death. That did not mean he could afford to sell his life cheaply. He needed to stay alive long enough to ensure Regina and Cyrus and the children had time to get to safety. There would be no place for any sort of heroic charge into the face of the enemy. He needed to be smarter than that. He would have to use his knowledge of this facility to his advantage. Lay in wait, ambush the enemy, quickly move to the next ambush point while they were trying to figure out exactly where the first ambush had come from, take care of their casualties and reorganize themselves. He did not need massive firepower for that. A single well placed shot was just as effective as a wild spray of bullets in forcing an enemy to stop his advance and go to ground. What he needed was an accurate and reliable weapon, something light that would let him move quickly. And a large magazine.
—o—
Sergeant Ray Johnson closed his eyes and focused on his breathing. The headphones helped soften the deafening sound of being inside the UH-60S Black Hawk helicopter, but they did nothing to dampen the vibration. He turned his mind inwards, tuning even the vibration out, calming himself for the coming assault.
There were any number of ways to take out a bunker. Most of them had the benefit of not putting him and his assault team in harm’s way. Unfortunately orders had come down from the top. So they were going to do this the old-fashioned way with boots on the ground. Johnson expected the assault to go according to the book. This was the type of mission—taking out high value targets in fortified positions—that his team specialized in.
They were coming in low and fast. No point giving up the element of surprise, even if your target is not expecting you. He imagined the Black Hawk skimming the tree tops; if there had been any tree tops within a hundred miles to skim.
The pilot gave him the prearranged signal indicating they were within two minutes of the target. Sergeant Johnson walked through the mission in his mind one last time. Out of the chopper and on the ground before the wheels had even touched down and while the rotor was still spinning. Immediately establish a perimeter to secure the objective and then blow their way in—the briefing had said this place had a steel door a foot thick; the generous supply of C4 explosive they were carrying would take care of that—and then disable the targets with flash bang grenades. Speed was essential to bringing your team home. Take out the targets before they had time to react, before they had time to even think about fighting back.
It should all be over in just a few minutes. Johnson knew the mission would ultimately come down to one of his team looking James Newton in the eyes and putting a bullet between them. He did not particularly relish doing that to an American citizen on American soil, but someone very high up really wanted to be sure this guy was dead. Orders were orders. As an added incentive they had been promised a place on the ark in exchange for Newton’s scalp. That was a motivation he could not ignore; it was not hard to choose between his own survival and that of some trillionaire he had never met.
—o—
To select his first ambush position Manny needed to anticipate the most likely point of entry. The mob was angry and desperate; that made it very unlikely they would take the time to think through their attack, to look for an easier way in, despite the fact that a frontal assault meant penetrating the rather imposing blast door.
How would he attack the door in their shoes? Anything short of explosives seemed futile. But where would they get explosives? C4 would be perfect for the job but in these troubled times he doubted the military would be leaving explosives just lying around. There was no mining in this part of Colorado so access to dynamite seemed unlikely. What about something combustible like gasoline? No that would not work—lots of heat but no
explosion unless the combustion occurred in a very confined space.
Manny began to hope they might find the blast door too intimidating and eventually give up, to hope that maybe there would be time for him to get back to the interface room and join the others. As he considered that possibility he realized the solution. Diesel. Diesel and ammonium nitrate fertilizer. Insurgents had used fertilizer bombs to devastating effect in Iraq and Afghanistan and he recalled that a small van filled with fuel and fertilizer had taken out half the Federal Building in Oklahoma City back in ninety-five. A couple of gallons of diesel and a hundred pounds of fertilizer would surely be enough to deal with the blast door. This mob of farmers would have easy access to both ingredients, even diesel—tractors ran on diesel and growing food was the administration’s number one priority. Manny knew there would be no miraculous escape for him today. Thankfully Emmanuel would be there to look after his family in his place.
—o—
“Scan complete,” the computer said fifteen minutes later.
“That’s it?” Regina Lopez asked as Cyrus began removing the cables.
“That’s it. Told you it would be easy. Eric and I are up next,” he said as she climbed out of the chair and began helping Elizabeth down. “Sorry to hurry you but we don’t have much time. Major, if you could help get Eric connected...”
—o—
“Scan complete,” the computer said fifteen minutes later.
Regina Lopez sat up. For a moment she thought the upload had not worked. She did not feel any different. They were still in the same room. Alone. Why had the others left? She realized that they had not. Everyone was still there in the interface room. The real interface room.
Regina Lopez felt her blood pressure rising and her pulse quickening as she accepted that she really was an EM. She knew she had to calm herself for Elizabeth’s sake. “We’re all done Elizabeth,” she said taking a deep breath and smiling as she squeezed the girl’s hand. “Let me remove the cables and then I’ll help you down, OK?”
“OK,” Elizabeth answered in a small voice as she looked around the room. “Where did everyone go Gina?” she asked confused.
“They just went to get some things. We’re about to go for a ride in a rocket ship up to a space station—we’ll be asleep while that happens and I’ll be with you the whole time so there’s nothing to be scared of—and then when we get there we’ll see Grandpa Manny and Eric and Uncle Cyrus again. I promise.” She hoped that was true, that Eric and Cyrus would have time to complete their uploads. She could not bear the thought of losing either of them.
—o—
“It’s done,” Cyrus said. “Everyone’s loaded.” He tapped his pad to send the message to Newton. “What do we do now?”
“Well I don’t suggest taking our chances with the mob, only to die a long, slow and lingering death from starvation if they don’t tear us apart first,” Lopez replied. “So I guess this is the end.”
“No, not the end, only the beginning. A new beginning,” Cyrus insisted as much for his own benefit as for hers. “Don’t think of it as dying, think of it as being reborn. Remember we’re still alive in there. We’re together, all of us.” He had to remind himself of that if he was going to be able to do what needed to be done, even if it was not entirely true. Jenny and James Newton were not there.
The sat on the floor, Cyrus holding Eric’s hand and Regina holding Elizabeth’s. Cyrus passed out the cyanide capsules. “We’re going to go to sleep now,” he said to the children in the most reassuring voice he could manage. “Everything will be fine I promise,” he said as tears began to stream down his face.
Cyrus took Regina Lopez’s hand. He swallowed hard. He had nothing to lose now and everything to gain. “Regina I want to tell you something, something important, before it’s too late.”
Regina felt her hand in his. The look in his eyes, the sound of his voice and the way he held her hand—all firm but gentle at the same time—told her everything she needed to know. That and the fact he had finally called her Regina rather than Major. “I love you too Cyrus,” she said as she kissed him for the first time, and for the last time, hoping that her other self, her virtual self, would find the same courage she had just found, the courage to tell him how she really felt.
—o—
James Newton waited impatiently for the message confirming that the last of the EMs had been loaded. Once they were through the blast door it would not be long before the angry crowd found them in here. Just when he began to worry that it would never come, that they were too late, his pad beeped. READY TO LAUNCH was all it said.
“Are you ready?” Newton asked urgently as he quickly stepped to the console and placed his hand on the key.
Jenny Ryan nodded. “Let’s do this,” she said as she placed her hand on the second key, her face set in a look of grim determination. She tried not to think about what would happen next, but to focus instead on doing what she needed to do to save her brother. To save humanity.
“On my count. Three, two, one, launch.” They each turned their key from the position marked off a quarter turn clockwise to the position marked launch. An eternity seemed to pass as a hundred feet above them the eighty ton concrete silo door slowly slid open.
“Did it work?” Jenny Ryan asked anxiously as she glanced at the security display. Her question was answered moments later as the room began to vibrate, indicating that the missile’s solid fuel engine had ignited. “Thank God,” Jenny said. She breathed a sigh of relief knowing that her brother was safe.
—o—
Sergeant Ray Johnson’s meditation was abruptly terminated by the pilot’s shouting. “Sergeant you’d better see this!”
Johnson opened his eyes. “What is it?” he asked leaning forward to get a better view through the windscreen, trying to spot whatever it was that had got this fly boy so excited. He expected to see evidence that somehow they had lost the element of surprise. Ah well, it can’t always be easy or they wouldn’t pay us the big bucks, he joked to himself.
Instead the pilot pointed to a cylindrical object rising rapidly from the horizon, trailing smoke and fire. “Someone’s fired a missile!” he said. They both watched dumbfounded as the missile rose into the sky.
—o—
Colin McKay sat at the console in the control room, the only place in Newton’s Ark that provided feedback on the external environment. It was strictly off limits to all but the crew. That was what they had taken to calling themselves, those of them who knew what they really were. Everyone else was a passenger.
Cyrus and other members of the crew stood watching as McKay interpreted the display. “Goodbye Jen,” he whispered to himself as McKay confirmed that the missile had launched.
“We have ignition,” McKay said. “The first stage should burn for about sixty seconds before the second stage ignites...there she goes.” Another minute passed. Cyrus could feel the virtual sweat running down his virtual brow. “Here comes the third stage,” McKay said. And then another minute which seemed to Cyrus like an eternity. “That’s the shaped charges detonating,” McKay said as he pointed to some data displayed on the screen. “That extinguishes combustion at a precise time to put us into the correct orbit. Now there will be some micro-maneuvering by the post-boost vehicle—there ’tis—and we’re in our targeted orbit. Welcome to space everyone.”
Regina Lopez had listened as McKay narrated their launch, but her eyes had been fixed on Cyrus Jones. She could see he was in pain. No, it was more than that, it was like she could almost feel his pain, the pain of loved ones left behind. She felt a little of it leaving Manny behind, although it was not really the same since Emmanuel was still here. Right now what she was feeling was more like confusion. It really messed with her head knowing that her father was dead, but still alive, right here in front of her. She coped by trying not to think of it that way, by trying to not even imagine what might have happened to his physical body, by insisting to herself that her father was alive and that wa
s all there was to it. In her past though she had experienced the emptiness that comes with not bringing your entire team home, from failing to protect the people you had sworn to protect. She needed to share that with Cyrus, let him know that someone understood what he was feeling. “It will take time Cyrus, but I promise you it will pass,” she said.
“What will pass Major?” he asked.
“Pain, regret, guilt,” Lopez replied. “It’s not easy having to leave people you care about behind.”
“No it’s not easy Major,” he replied, the sadness clear in his voice and on his face. “It’s not easy at all.”
—o—
“Newton’s dead,” Sergeant Johnson informed his team as they regathered at the agreed location after securing the facility. “We found him in the missile control room, along with the journalist. Looks like they’re the ones who launched the missile. They were already dead when we found them.”
“What did they die of?” one of the soldiers asked.
“Suicide—cyanide capsules would be my guess,” Ray Johnson replied. “What about the rest of the facility?” he asked.
“We found some more bodies in another room. Also suicide,” the Corporal answered. “Lots of computer equipment and some sort of weird chairs. A man and woman and two kids. Looks like a family.”
“That explains the sniper. He was obviously protecting them. Given his age my guess is he was the grandfather. Tough sonofabitch,” Sergeant Johnson said with a mix of admiration for Manny’s skill and bravery and anger at losing two of his team in what should have been a routine operation. They were up against freaking civilians and yet Johnny and Mitch were dead.
“What the hell was going on here Sarge?” the Corporal asked. “And what was the missile launch about?”
“Just another crazy group of people who decided to go out on their own schedule in their own way, obviously with a bang,” Sergeant Johnson replied, shaking his head. “Can’t say I blame them...”