by Jack Vantage
“Okay sir, whatever you want. Please just tell me.”
David gave him the destination again, then said, “Just get there quickly. After that you and your family are safe. I swear. Some people are after me. I’m not a dangerous man.”
He didn’t know whether he was convincing as a criminal. He might have lacked the conviction. The driver seemed nervous, so he must be playing the character right.
“We should be able to join the sky-way in the next minute,” the driver said. “There isn’t any slow traffic today, so we should arrive at your destination within five minutes.”
“Good,” David said.
In front of them, another sky-cab waited its joining slot, then sped like lightening into a gap and converged with the skyway.
“Here we go,” the driver said.
He put his foot down and accelerated into a gap, guided by the windscreen skyway router, which lined a white path into the sky-way. The cab shifted from zero to seventy miles per hour within a second and pushed David into his seat.
The Quazar topography was a bed of high-rise buildings. It was a landscape of architecture which silhouetted against the setting sun and bleached red azure. David enjoyed sky-cab journeys because of the unparalleled views. Seeing the world from on high held an irresistible appeal.
Thousands of skyways danced across the sky under the setting sun, like ants in formation. The buildings mixed and matched in a million styles. Each sector differed from the next, with suburban, residential, industrial, parks, lakes, high-rise, and corporate styles. In the distance was his favourite building, a collection of cubed structures, stacked off centre of each other. It rose to three hundred feet like a misaligned Rubik’s cube. Its white cubes were office blocks, but its obscure and radical design was eye catching.
The digital mapping, David had learnt from completing his own sky navigation test, was perfect. Every sky-mobile that travelled on the skyway sent a message to the skyway organiser with its speed, destination, etc. It calculated when you were able to join a skyway and almost every other aspect of the journey, from the destination distance to the speed of flowing traffic to the exit required. The digital mapping that appeared on the windscreen informed the driver of every detail he would need. It would guide him safely to wherever he wished to go.
Quietly, David said, “Jerry, get the information out to as many e-mails as you can. Tell them about the asteroid belt and tell them about military coming for us.”
Jerry said, “I am trying to send the asteroid discovery to every contact we have, but something is blocking me.”
“Then use the band you’re talking to me on. It will redirect all E-network feeds through our remote satellite.”
“Sir, that’s it. They have our system. I can’t do anything. They’ve crashed our network. I may lose contact with you soon.”
The cab driver eyed his digital mirror inquisitively.
“So, what are you working on now?” the cab driver asked, then returned his attention to the skyway.
“Something’s missing and I have to find it,” David said.
“What? A planet. A star? Tell me. This sounds so cool.”
“All I can tell you is that it’s why these people are after me.”
“Top secret shit, hey. I bet you know tons of stuff that us ordinary folk never get told. Like aliens. I bet you know about aliens.”
“All right, I’ll tell you something, but you have to promise not to tell anyone. If the government finds out, they’ll kill you,” David said. He sat forward and got closer. David had never broken a law in his life, and already the wrongs of crime were itching away at his morals. So, he joked to distract the crime. “About five years ago I was looking at a star and this thing just flew in front of it.”
“What? An alien? A flying saucer? What?”
“A flying saucer. It was huge, but what happened next was unreal. It flew so fast that it reached Quazar in a day and touched down in the southern hemisphere.”
“What happened next? What did they do? Who were they?”
“The government went down there and captured them. They’re holding them in a secret building, studying them.”
“Cutting them up and shit, or what? What are they doing?”
“I don’t know. They won’t tell me, but people have said that the aliens are planning an attack.”
“Oh man! What should we do?”
“You don’t have to do anything. You might be called up to war.”
“War? Holy shit, I’ve never even used a blaster!”
“You’ll have to learn. Some people say the aliens can imitate humans, make themselves look like one, be like us.”
“Don’t say that. My wife has been acting strange for the past week. I bet the fucking aliens got her.”
David laughed.
The driver flushed. “You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you? I bet there’s no aliens.”
“What has your wife been doing lately?”
“She been staying up late, and she’s been really nice to me. A lot nicer than usual.”
“They say the aliens don’t sleep and that they act nice so as not to arouse suspicion.”
“You’re shitting me! So, you’re saying I might have been, you know, sleeping with alien?” the driver said seriously.
David laughed again.
The driver laughed too. “Get out of here, aliens and shit! Been tugging my leg. If my wife was an alien, she’d be prettier.” His deep chuckle sounded like he’d swallowed a subwoofer.
David said, “An asteroid belt has gone missing, like something ate it. The military are looking for me before I can let the cat out of the bag.” David noticed him looking for someone.
“I’m sorry, sir. Okay. I’m sorry,” the driver said.
David frowned, wondering what he was sorry about. Then he watched as an Authoritarian vehicle pulled up beside them. Its bulky square design was dressed in the blue and white colours of the force. Its red siren bar ran its top, which blared into action and flashed the sky.
David’s eyes grew wide. He said, “Jerry, they’re on me.”
“David! David!” Jerry shouted as someone dragged him from the image.
Suddenly a heavy bump banged the cab. David looked through the rear window. Another Authoritarian vehicle had snagged the cab. He couldn’t see the large magnet, but could see the unbreakable thin Nano-wire flexing the air to the pursuing Authoritarian vehicle. He was caught like a fish on a hook. He knew there was no escaping the snag. The sin of crime lashed his mind with punishment and incarceration.
A voice came through the cab’s speakers. “Sky-cab maintain your speed and drop off the sky-way at the next junction. Land at the Bell Observatory. Do not exit the vehicle until detained.”
The driver glanced back at David. “Hey look, when you’re trying to get a free ride don’t threaten my son, because I don’t have one. My family, your friend said, son and all. I gave my wife the conception injection years ago. Had you told me about the asteroid belt and the military I might have helped you”.
“Thanks,” David sarcastically said.
“You were like a god damned rookie, a street chump.” the driver said.
The sky-cab lowered and descended towards his observatory. There was nothing he could do about it. His mind wandered over his life, which was dedicated to looking at the universe and discovering its mysteries. His galaxy would have to wait to be named.
Through the windscreen the digital skyway dropped to a junction that was signed with a digital board that read The Bell Observatory. The cab followed at seventy miles per hour, with the trailing Authoritarian vehicle linked. An open fenced area surrounded the main building, which was a white dome.
The galaxy he’d discovered lay billions of light years away. Many people believed the galaxy to be as old as the universe, with the entire science world waiting for confirmation of its distance. The satellite David pioneered was built to accurately measure the distances of stars and galaxies. It ha
d been millennia since the first were fired into orbit back on Earth, but still today the same methods were used, if a little more powerful due to the technological evolution in time. Cat’s Eye was a hundred and fifty metres long. It orbited Quazar and had a reflective mirror of ninety-one metres in diameter. At any one time, David’s telescope could look at a patch of the cosmos the size of a giant sun, and with its universal depth of field many distances could be calculated by using trigonometry.
A formula known as stellar parallaxes was the simplest way to measure a distance. The formula David learnt, while at Intake, worked on the basis of Quazar’s orbit around the Sun. At different times of the year Quazar floated on the opposite side of the Sun. By looking at a star from one point of orbit and then looking at it again from the opposite side of orbit. half a year later, he was able to measure its distance from Quazar in comparison with background stars because he had its arcsec, the size of the stars motion in relation to the Quazar orbit. It was like drawing a triangle and looking at its angles with excruciating detail.
If a star had an arcsec of one, then it had a distance of one parsec. Given that a parsec equalled three point two six light years, he could then calculate the distance of the nearest stars. It was all in the size of the isosceles triangular angles.
Cat’s Eye also looked for pulsating stars called Cepheids, pulsating variable stars, in the farthest reaches of space. They were small stars that had thin surfaces and large core centres. With gravity squeezing and the Cepheid core pushing, it pulsed brilliantly as the centre swelled and contracted in a fierce fight with relativity. By using Hubble’s law, it was quite easy to determine the distance of a new star or galaxy, no matter what the distance. Luminosity was the key factor when looking for Cephids. Once you had its period-luminosity relation, how often it pulsed, you could obtain an intrinsic brightness reading. From there you could calculate its distance in comparison with other recorded Cepheids. All by measuring light.
David often thought about how easy it all sounded to him now, compared to his youth when he barely was able to get his head around the subject. Light was a powerful formula, “a formula by which the universe was measured” his distributor used to say to him. Six years of Intake later, he could draw up any measuring formula you threw at him. The data heads of his Intake building noticed his ability and sent him with the government’s science department. They found his strengths and nurtured his star gazing talents, a talent that had won him a great deal of accolade from the field of science.
David watched a swarm of military vehicles surround him. They buzzed like bees in the air, were shaped like birds and hovered close. Within each curved crescent wing whirled rotor blades, which enabled the sky-vehicle to yaw and bank with a split-second pace. The black tinted, and glass hexagon carriage, hung centrally beneath the wings, and its body was crafted with bumps like it had veins. He watched the rotors tilt and twist in the wings as the vehicles zipped around him. They were fittingly named birds.
David looked to the observatory’s glass entrance and watched as the white coated Jerry was detained, standing in a swirling gush of wind from the bird’s wings. Something big was going on, a conspiracy bigger than anything he ever imagined.
Chapter 6
Getting Ready for the Big One
Lecodia couldn’t wait. All throughout the city the hype and expectations of a new millennium tingled on everyone’s lips. Everyone was preparing, and everyone had his or her venue picked for the big event.
All day she and her new friends had shopped, with her plan working like a dream. All the girls liked her. They liked her style, her attitude, her chi, her body, and her fashion sense. As she tried on a few items the girls would marvel at her shape, complementing her on her well-toned and perfectly curved lines. They’d ask how she’d reached her current tight bottom, flat tummy, and flawless silk skin. She’d reply with the usual modest look and remark, “Hard work.”
After shopping, they had gathered back at Lexine’s apartment to give the purchased items a final examination and prepare for tonight. They planned to meet the boys at the entrance to the Zero G club at seven o’clock, three hours from now.
“Is this a cute little number or what?” Lexine said excitedly as she held a black silky miniskirt to her body in front of everyone. She stood padding her feet centre bed like an excited kitten.
Feistily Deve Replied, “Is there any room for your ass in there?”
“This number is for when a guy is needed pronto,” Lexine said.
Lecodia had explained how to keep fit and work the body for it to look after you. She compared her body with the other girls, checking their assets.
Lexine was in great shape, with full hips, long legs, and soft skin. Her breasts were small and pert, smaller than Lecodia’s, but there was plenty there to work with. She knew how to flaunt it.
Lecodia needed smart-looking girls to make up her sorority, girls who looked good enough to turn heads when they walked the halls of the data building. Girls who grabbed attention long enough to spark the gang as the it crowd. She needed girls who hovered beneath her beauty.
Deve’s body purred like a kitten’s, cute and cuddly. She was slightly bigger than her and Lexine but nothing excessive, just had that little extra to grab onto. Her breasts were larger, her hips curvier, her legs shorter, she had the ability to side-line a boy with her beauty. She held an irresistible attractiveness.
Xandu was petite, a small girl with a unique look that emanated difference. Her eyes were angled, oval and warm, her body thin and short. Her breasts were large, which added to her appeal. Her allure as the beautiful but odd one made her a great member of the crowd. Actually, Lecodia thought, her unusual beauty was a unique enigmatic delight.
“Take a look at this one girls!” Lecodia said.
She pulled an item from her clothes bag, leaning over the bed’s edge. The silver bag on the floor read Hot Zone Fashion. Lecodia up held French red knickers and bra. Her cleavage would be enhanced.
“If that doesn’t boil their blood in bed, then I don’t know what will.” Deve said.
The girls on Lexine’s bed were lying on their bellies in sexy lingerie. Their tiny bums wiggled the air.
“I feel sexy already!” Lecodia said as she stood and held the bra and knickers to her body.
“I love this one,” Deve said, standing.
She held a yellow short skirt to her body. She twirled, holding her balance, then lay back down. “Will have to be careful when bending over. We might give some old guy a heart attack.”
The girls giggled.
Xandu reached for her bag and rummaged for a moment, then held up a short frilly cashmere skirt, and white knee-high wool socks to her body. Her meek look masked a secret temptress behind her eyes and skin.
“What do you think?” Xandu asked.
“Like a doll girl, a sock-boxer bombshell,” Lexine said.
Xandu shifted, smiled, then lay back down, “I’m definitely keeping this one.”
All day Lecodia had experienced her first full day of shopping, which she could see was a necessity. It was a female prerogative, a luxury they held dear and cherished like a sentimental object.
Lecodia had bought a wardrobe, thirty items to be exact, from skirts to tops to shoes and of course lingerie. All were sexy in both fabric and design, with many items destined to melt men. There was still a long way to go, still many more clothes to buy, but the start was made. She began with summer ware, as the hottest Quazar days were ensuing.
Fashion had thousands of styles and finding the right one would take some time. She knew how to play with fashion, to move with the times, to be trendy. Like the four seasons of life, fashion changed with the weather. In the bright summer sun fashion awoke and blossomed the body like rose buds in a flourishing flower bed. In the autumn it crazed in a medley of patterns like a collection of leaves falling from a tree. In the winter it covered and thickened like the long dark nights, and in spring it yawned like the crisp air
and cool light.
There was so much to do, so little time. She wanted to stand up and scream with delight, scream with happiness. Her head spun in a dreamy cartwheel. The excitement was unbearable.
Every cut, material, fabric and shape of the clothing spelled a different projection of identity through the fit and radiance of fashion.
To design for people, she had to know about people, which would be a key focus for her study over the next coming years. She had it all planned.
“What you be wearing tonight Lecodia?” Deve asked.
Lecodia rummaged through her bags, looking for the clothes.
“Well, I thought I’d turn a few heads, raise some pulses!” she said as she stood up.
Lecodia nipped out of the room with bag in hand and dressed outside as the girls lay waiting. Quickly she slipped into her new buy.
“Ready?” Lecodia shouted from outside the room.
“Ready!” all the girls replied.
Like a model, Lecodia walked the makeshift catwalk in front of the girls. She wore small turquoise rubber hot pants that moulded her bottom. Her legs were long and smooth, her bum flicked from side to side, and her glossy blue knee-high boots elevated her by two inches. Up top, a four-inch rubber band wrapped around her breasts and criss-crossed over her tummy.
Lecodia placed two hands on her hips, positioned her head up, and turned back towards the girls.
“Go girl!” Lexine shouted as Deve wolf-whistled her on.
Xandu sat laughing at the exaggerated walk.
“No man in the world can resist this!” Lecodia said as she snapped her fingers and arched her back in a pose of feminine prowess. She was surprised at how well-crafted her bone structure was in her mirrored reflection. She realised she truly was beautiful.
All the girls started laughing as Lecodia climbed back on the bed.
“I’m sorry,” Deve said laughing. “That’s a misdemeanour.”
“I want their attention! I need the attention!” Lecodia said giggling.
“So Lecodia,” Lexine asked with sexy inquisitiveness. “What do you think of the guys so far? Are there any that stand out?”.