Glassing the Orgachine

by David Marusek

  Around the world, mosques, synagogues, and churches were transformed into spiritual dynamos for generating petawatts of worshipful supplication. Prayer bombs were detonating every hour. Never had so much bandwidth opened up between Earth and the Throne Room. It was a wonder to behold and a blessing to join.

  Look out, Satan; you’re going down.

  Simultaneously, under the Visitor’s guidance, men and women of science and industry were converting the raw power of civilization and warfare into virtual dark energy and sending it down a conduit to a bottomless stockpile at Earth’s L1 point, about 930,000 miles (1.5 million km) away.

  Bombs, both conventional and nuclear, fell like raindrops into sublimation zones in both the Atlantic and Pacific where they detonated without any measurable effect — no concussions, flashes, or mushroom clouds — to be added to the Lagrangian stockpile.

  Meanwhile, no nation had the means or time for waging war. Regional conflicts petered out. Long-standing rivalries were put on hold. Terrorists and sociopaths took a breather. Civil courts closed their doors. Good and Evil declared a truce. A sizable portion of the world’s population took the week off work or school, if they could arrange it. Some employees hedged their bet by taking vacation or sick leave, in case the world didn’t end that weekend after all and they were expected to show up for work on Monday. Others quit their jobs outright.

  Many stores, businesses, and organizations were forced to suspend operations for lack of staff, but governments in the United States and around the globe declared martial law so that essential services could continue by decree without major interruption.

  Even otherwise responsible adults delayed paying their rent, utilities, alimony, mortgage, car and school loans, and every other galling obligation for a week.

  Restaurants and bars did bang-up business hosting an array of end-of-the-world parties. Food, drugs, booze, off-the-chain sex. Tips went through the roof.

  Banks declared a week-long holiday. So did Congress.

  Clothing stores and boutiques sold out their stock; people wanted to look good for their final selfies.

  Amazon extended Prime membership perks to all orders — free, expedited shipping for everybody! (Though some restrictions applied.)

  The major stock markets enjoyed extreme volatility.

  Celebrity bucket lists went viral.

  Skydiving without a chute became a thing.

  Long-festering personal grudges were finally put to rest, one way or another.

  Wobbly marriages and relationships failed completely. Relief all around.

  Long-simmering crushes were boldly declared and consummated, or not.

  A whole new, un-ironic generation got started during that week. If its members were ever born, they would be known as Gen N.

  Gang violence experienced a sharp increase, and there were spikes in vandalism, burglary, violent assault, hate crimes, and rape in cities and towns both North and South.

  Friends helped friends prepare.

  It was a scary time. It was an exciting time. It all felt so surreal. It was great to be alive.

  “OH, WE SKYPE almost every day,” Jace’s sister said.

  “Who Skypes?” Jace said.

  “Me and Dar and Luke.”

  “No, I mean who do you Skype with?”

  “With the Visitor. Isn’t that who we’re talking about?”

  “Yes, yes. I was wondering if it might have been the angel.”

  “What angel?”

  “Never mind. So tell me, what does the Visitor look like?”

  “He’s like ten feet (3 m) tall, orange and shaggy like a carpet. You know, like that Woopie on Star Trek. And get this, he doesn’t talk in words, only growls and whines, but we can understand him just fine. Like we’re wearing universal translators or something. It’s weird.”

  “Good, good.” Jace had been wondering if they’d gotten the angel or, in Darshan’s case, the Hindu equivalent of an angel, if there was one. Were angels universal?

  “Why do you ask?” Kate said. “What do you see?”

  “Me? Oh, I see the Woopie too. Anyway, I was just checking up on how you all are doing. Got your emergency supplies and all?”

  “Yeah, we’re prepared.”

  “They say there might be earthquakes. You ready for earthquakes and avalanches and all that?”

  “We’ve got enough food and supplies laid in for a nuclear winter.”

  “Well, that should do it then.”

  LN2 1.0

  ON THE FINAL day before the Little Nudge, the non-terrestrial emissary to Earth sent a personal message to every adult and child living on the planet, wired or not. It went via phone, internet, TV, cable, AM/FM radio, newspaper, billboard, divine revelation, tapping behind the wall, automatic writing, bike messenger — whatever it took to reach you.

  Regrettably, millions of earthlings were unreachable by any available means.

  The sender of the message was manifested variously in the form of: Gabriel/Jibril, any one of about three hundred popular sci-fi characters, My Little Diva, the Bodhisattva Avolokiteshvara, Moroni, the usual voices in your head, random numbers, the Force — whoever or whatever you were predisposed to petition concerning existential matters.

  The message, stripped to its core, read as follows:

  My Dear Friend —

  In the brief period of time that we have known each other, I have come to cherish your human qualities. I salute you for your bravery in the face of biological extermination. Remain strong in the coming hours, both for your own deliverance and for that of your family and community.

  Together with your selfless leaders, we have mounted a formidable defense against the approaching threat. We have finished our work and tested our systems and are confident of the success of our intervention.

  Nevertheless, we cannot rule out localized damage or disruptions, so prepare for the Little Nudge event as you would any other natural disaster, such as a hurricane or earthquake. Today is your last chance to put up at least three days of food and supplies. Unless you must be outdoors, stay inside your home or shelter for the duration. Avoid low-lying areas, especially those affected by dams and levies. Fill the bathtub with water.

  Prepare yourself, but don’t panic because WE GOT THIS.

  Media channels competed for audience share down to the final frame. Times Square followed its New Year’s Eve script with live bands, celebrity hosts, glitter, and crowds. The city even managed a special ball drop for the final countdown.

  In other cities and towns, crowds gathered in squares and parks and churchyards to collectively witness their fate, while bolstering themselves with candlelight, hymns, and prayer.

  LN3 1.0

  IT WOULD STILL be Friday in Alaska when it happened, 7:00 p.m., to be exact. Vera Tetlin watched the celebrations on TV with Bradd, Taiga, their two ALF bodyguards, and Colonel Swayne. The safe house was an exclusive hunting lodge in a fly-in-only location north of Big Lake. Swayne had brought pizzas and beer from Anchorage.

  “Three minutes till Zero Hour,” Taiga announced. The Tetlin daughter had lost her campaign to stay in Wallis until everything had blown over. She was no fan of the Obamas, but she couldn’t see any reason why anyone would want to implant chips in her mother’s brain. It was all politics, as far as she was concerned, and not worth her time or attention. She lobbied hard to be allowed to stay behind. She argued school attendance and studying for exams, though she’d never been a fan of either. She promised to behave herself, not to answer the door or phone. She appealed to her dad, who was usually a pushover. Yet here she was. “Two minutes till Nudge time.”

  “Two minutes till big, fat nothing time, you mean,” Vera said. She still clung to the belief that the whole rogue planet thing was a hoax perpetrated by the Antichrist, who would soon show his cards and begin his march to Armageddon. She turned to Colonel Swayne. “When can we go home?”

  Swayne scratched his beardless chin and replied, “Not yet, Governor. Maybe nev
er. This is a whole new ballgame.”

  Bradd said, “Get ready; here comes nothing.” He gathered Vera in one arm and Taiga in the other.

  “Ten, nine, eight . . .”

  AT STUBBORN MOUNTAIN, since no one had heard about the Little Nudge, no one was counting down the seconds to its arrival. Least of all, Poppy, who was plotting with Proverbs and Sue at the time about how to trick Mama P into leaving the keep so they could capture her and give her the gift of a thorough spiritual cleansing.

  Ginger Lawther and Tim Hash were also unaware of the celestial event taking place and spent their evening at the table in Tim’s April Creek cabin drinking cocoa and playing a card game Tim had invented but rarely got a chance to play. It was really hard. Ginger was wearing blue jeans for the first time since leaving home in Wallis, courtesy of a new friend.

  Meanwhile, her brother and father did know about the Little Nudge but were too preoccupied digging themselves out of a ditch at the time and missed it.

  The Alaska State Troopers, when Rex had finally reached them by phone, promised to send an investigator from the ABI with a warrant to search the Prophecy mine. The Lawthers waited a couple of extra days in McHardy, but Detective Bradshaw and warrant never showed. So Rex decided to drive out to Glennallen and deal with the Troopers in person.

  The McHardy road was well-passable, due to all the RAC traffic. But since most of the traffic was inbound, and because the McHardy Road was a single lane, Rex was compelled repeatedly to pull over as far as possible to let opposing traffic by. This could be tricky, especially for the eighteen wheelers and RVs who hogged the lane. Twice he pulled over too far and got mired in soft snow, and he and Rory had to shovel and winch their way back onto the roadway. Not an easy thing to do with a camper towing a snowmachine trailer.

  By the time they got on the road again, it was all over.

  LN4 1.0

  THE RESIDENTS OF McHardy typically enjoyed a night sky with no light pollution. And streets with no traffic. Deut, Jace, and Barbara Jean were stargazing in the middle of Main Street. You were supposed to be able to see Pipnonia with a telescope or good binoculars, if you knew where to look. Jace knew exactly where to look, and he was trying to help his companions locate the rogue planet with his binoculars.

  Deut pointed the binoculars high overhead. “Which way?” she said.

  “First find Polaris,” Jace said.

  “Find what?”

  Barbara Jean said, “He means the North Star.”

  “Oh, I know how to do that.” Proverbs had showed her how when she was little. She located the Big Dipper and followed its pointer stars out to the brightest star she could see. “Now what?”

  Jace said, “Now continue upward and a little to the left until you see a tiny yellow-tan dot.”

  For Jace’s own viewing experience, Scrappy was illustrating the night sky with helpful overlays. Jace could zoom in on the rogue planet, he could compare its actual trajectory to its projected one, and, as you would expect, there was a huge Deliverance Clock sitting on the horizon the size of a mountain range, now with less than a minute to go.

  “Still can’t see it,” Deut said and handed the binocs to Barbara Jean. “You try.”

  Barbara Jean couldn’t find Pipnonia either.

  “I’ll bet he’s just pretending to see it,” BJ told the dog, who must have wondered why they were all standing around in the cold.

  “Here it comes,” Jace said and began to count down, “Ten, nine, eight . . .”

  Barbara Jean held out her arms. “Here, hang on to me. I don’t want to fall down.”

  The three of them locked arms. “seven, six, five . . .”

  The German shepherd’s ears pricked up.

  “Four, three, two, one.”

  They cheered, though nothing seemed different than the moment before. If the planet had entered new space, they hadn’t been able to detect it. Jace stared at Scrappy’s sky display until he was sure the rogue’s path was indeed shifting.

  “It’s happening! It’s happening!” he yelled, pointing at the sky. “We’re saved!”

  They cheered again, this time with feeling.

  “Cool,” Barbara Jean said, letting go of the others, “but I was expecting something more awesome. Now I’m tired. Come on, dog. Let’s go in and leave these two stargazers alone.”

  Deut and Jace hardly noticed. They were still holding on to each other in the moonlight.

  “So what does Gabe say about the Nudge?” Jace asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ll ask him the next time I see him. What does your spaceman say?”

  “I don’t know either, but my ring says it was a big success. We’re already out of the crosshairs.”

  “Thank You, Jesus.”

  “Sure, why not? Amen.”

  “Even though you don’t mean it, He hears you and is pleased.”

  “I can live with that.”

  Progress? With the ranger, it was hard to tell. Still, she didn’t want to let him go. She could feel his warm breath on her cheek.

  “Deuteronomy?”

  “Yes, Ranger Rick.”

  “I’d like to kiss you.”

  “I’d like that too.”

  They kissed, gently, on the lips, then took a beat to recover.

  “Again?” he said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Watch as two worlds collide.

  Celebration

  C1 1.0

  JACE STAYED UP until NASA announced, at 2:40 a.m. Alaska Time, that the Little Nudge had been a success. Based on initial and follow-up observations, scientists calculated that the planet Pipnonia would pass Earth by about three lunar distances, or 720,000 miles (1,200,000 km). This was an incredibly close shave, and there was bound to be tidal and other gravitational ills, but nothing in comparison to what might have been. And the year 2013 was slated to last 4 hours, 23 minutes, and 07 seconds longer than 2012.

  “You did it!” Jace shouted to the empty house. “You did it! Thank you!”

  Would you like me to send Found One a message to that effect?

  “Sure.”

  Jace finally went to bed, but he was too keyed up to sleep. Now there were visions of Deut Prophecy dancing in his head. They’d kissed twice. The second kiss lasted a long, long time. No tongue! But a soft, plump, vulnerable offering of lips. The start of a secret conversation — Here I am. I acknowledge you.

  Before the kisses, there was nothing but longing and doubt. After the kisses, the longing remained, even intensified, but all the doubt was gone. Now he knew; now they both knew, no matter what divided them, they could make it work. They would become a couple. There would be mutual exploration and discovery, pleasure and joy, compromise and personal growth — the whole blissful shebang. Kids — two or three of them — shared goods and goals, shared vacations and fun, hard work, inevitable setbacks and disappointments, probably some epic arguments and hurt feelings along the way. And he didn’t even have to dose her with DARWIN.

  A delicious idea crossed Jace’s mind as he straddled the border of dreamland. He would never use the DARWIN potion on Deut. That would be an egregious assault on her personal integrity. But if Prophecy and his posse of louts threatened Deut or him or unduly interfered with their lives, maybe he’d use it on them, turn them into secular humanists. That would be an effing riot, old man Prophecy preaching about evolution and the Big Bang. And it wouldn’t amount to mind rape at all but clearly be an act of self-defense.

  The important thing, though, was that tonight the world was safe and now there would be time for him and Deut to make their world anew. More than anything else, that was the headline of the day.

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING as Jace slept in, the world at large was taking stock of its narrow escape. As it happened, the Little Nudge had been more strongly felt in the southern hemisphere than the northern. Clusters of minor to moderate earthquakes were felt throughout Indonesia and the South Pacific. There were reports of mudslides in China. A skyscraper under construc
tion in Bangkok collapsed. However, because all work on it had been suspended, no workers were killed or injured. Perhaps the most spectacular side effect of the Little Nudge was the sudden calving of West Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier. A spectacular, 225-square-mile chunk (583-sq-km), the acreage of ten Manhattan Islands, broke off and crashed into the sea. Subsequent satellite images showed a wide fissure in the ice twenty miles (32 km) inland, a harbinger of collapsing ice sheets and rising seas to come.

  Altogether, preliminary estimates put the loss of life due to the Little Nudge at fewer than one thousand persons around the globe, and perhaps quadruple that in injuries. Add to this several tens of billions of dollars in property and environmental damage. An incredibly cheap price to pay, according to worldwide consensus, for deliverance from extinction.

  In appreciation, the United Nations by unanimous acclaim called for a special commendation of gratitude and friendship to be created and awarded to the Organization of Federated Planets and its special envoy, the Visitor. Major cultural institutions and national governments announced similar medals and awards, and President Obama invited the Visitor to a state dinner at the White House. Meanwhile, religious leaders around the world proclaimed a Day of Thanksgiving to God for sparing Earth, and they invited the archangel to address the global community of believers.

  International scientific bodies petitioned the Visitor to continue to share its advanced technologies and scientific knowledge. The U.N. Security Council petitioned the OFP to initiate Earth’s application to join the interplanetary federation. And hundreds of thousands of ordinary people around the world made personal entreaties to the Visitor to let them join it on its return journey to its home planet for permanent resettlement and with no expectation of a return voyage.

  Mayor Bloomberg in New York announced a ticker-tape parade in honor of its newest, celebrated visitor. Thousands of other municipalities around the globe also invited the alien/angel to attend celebratory events.