Charles waited for his turn to speak, then took Skip under his arm and started walking alongside the pool.
“Glad to see that you seem to be enjoying the Conference, Charles,” Skip was beaming as he spoke, “I hope it’s a sign you are overcoming grief. There are so many things to do now, I have great proposals to offer you, Charles.”
“Perhaps, you might start by telling me the truth, for once,” Charles replied politely.
“The truth about the rumors that you read in the news? That I am thinking about you as new Secretary of Treasury to help fix our economy?”, Skip’s enthusiasm was uncontrollable.
“The truth about Sally.” Charles replied bluntly. “You should know quite a bit but you never told me.”
Skip suddenly stopped and put himself instinctively at arm’s length from Charles. Before he could speak, Charles continued.
“Why did you give the order to kill her, Skip?”
“She was killed in a sectarian attack, you know that. You just haven’t come to terms with it yet.”
“It was not a sectarian attack. I got evidence that the gang was armed and instructed by government officials to make sure the congregation would be destroyed” Charles paused, “And Sally along with them.”
“What evidence do you have, Charles? Videos? Mails? A secret blog? It’s all bullshit, you know that everything can be manipulated and changed nowadays.”
“That may have been the case. Then I went back to the old way. Word of mouth and trust.”
“You are telling me that you are trusting Sally’s friends’ in Israel more than me? They are just trying to divide us. And maybe they are the real culprits.”
“I did not get the information from them. What really matters is, if you gave that order, Skip? You have to tell me.”
Skip did the utmost to control his rage, after a few seconds he stared straight into Charles’ eyes and hissed,
“I am responsible for the security and the rebuilding of this country, and God only knows how many threats I have had to fend off in the past decades to try to preserve it, despite all the damage that the delusions and greed of people like you were doing. I do not have anything to justify to you, and much less to apologize.”
There was a moments of silence, Charles kept staring at Skip and continued,
“Did you give that order, Skip? I need to know.”
Skip spoke louder this time, attracting the attention of the Secret Service agent who was following them.
“It was a foreign spy you have been sleeping with for decades, and you knew it,” Skip paused for a moment and turned his eyes away from Charles, he was now staring at the pool, and continued,
“You know what? I think I tolerated it way too long. I actually regret not giving the order myself, and let a gang of negroes do a shabby work instead.”
Charles kept silent. He looked at the pool beyond Skip’s shoulders, then inched a step back. Skip sighed, as if in repentance.
“Ok, I was too blunt. Sorry, but I had to tell you, Charles.”
“Sure, Skip. Understood,” Charles replied, calmly, staring back at Skip. “I also had to ask you. It’s time to call it off.”
Charles then lowered his eyes, and extracted a small box from his pocket. Skip failed to recognize the micro spider grenade a second too late to react and ask for help.
The Secret Service agent behind them noticed the small flare coming from Charles hands, followed by the cascade of grey balls that landed on the ground, surrounding them. Immediately, they started looking for targets. He tried to rush back to safety, but he was a bare ten yards away from the President. He was bitten and died exactly three seconds after Skip Ross and Charles Daniels.
Part Four
The New Order
Chapter 1
Nicolas Playan took his place in the pilot seat of the Elevator transport module number 41. Next to him, on his right, sat Waddah Al-Mofeez, the polyethylene space expert from the Arabian Union, and on the left there was Albert Goltsmann, the Russian space-drilling guru. They exchanged a greeting, and then Nicolas signaled to the control center they were ready for take off. The two people were the only passengers of that flight, the only other cargo was the usual 20 tons of compressed carbon dioxide to be released in high Earth orbit.
“Even though we went through the lift-off briefing procedure for first timers like you,” Nicolas said, “you will be surprised to see how uneventful going into space has become. Just relax and enjoy the view.”
He had barely finished the sentence when a slight bump signaled that the module had been put into motion. After a brisk acceleration, the speed was stabilized at the thirty-miles-per-hour cruise that would take them to the intermediate station, two-hundred miles above sea level. Due to cloudy weather, the rainforest of Equatorial Guinea quickly disappeared from their sight. Half an hour later, the module was entering the stratosphere. The crew started seeing the amazing curvature of the Earth, as the sky turned into a deeper blue.
“Are those blinking lights above us the intermediate orbit station or a module on the way back?” Albert asked.
“It’s a module like ours on the way back, the station is still far away,” Nicolas replied with some amusement. He was always getting the same questions, but he enjoyed answering them. “As you know, the Guinea Space Elevator now has thirty-five cables in service, which keep the intermediate station anchored in position while acting as guides for the transport modules like this one. The Elevator manages to send twenty-five shipments a day into outer space. We keep building new cables, just like the sister Elevators in Guyana and Kenya, and the new carbon nanotubes tethers allow bigger payloads.
“The Plan calls for a capacity of one million tons per year by 2070, correct?” Waddah remarked, “That’s what we were told during the briefings.”
“I think we will do more,” Nicolas replied, “After the war, the decision was made to build the three facilities along the Equator, under the respective control of the United States and Brazil, the Euro-Russian Federation and China and India. It turns out that each of the powers is constantly increasing the budgets, and China and Japan have recently announced they will build a fourth Space Elevator station in Malaysia.”
“Have they overcome the challenges of building the Earth station in highly seismic areas?” Albert turned away from the Earth’s surface and joined the conversation.
“Apparently so, but nobody really knows how they managed. There is still a lot of work for secret services to do,” Nicolas laughed. He then noticed that Waddah was looking up where the Mecca was on his smartwatch.
“I beg your pardon, it’s prayer time,” he said, then stood up and moved toward the rear of the crew module. “I will be back soon,” he added. Albert and Nicolas interrupted their conversation and waited until Waddah was back. When he returned, he broke the silence first.
“I am really glad that the restoration work at the Holy Mosque is progressing well. Next year, the remaining war damages should be repaired, inshallah. Then it will be back to the splendor it was at the beginning of the century.”
“I am sure your government will make it on time,” Albert conceded, “After all, it is the most significant project to legitimate your new Union, that is stretching from the Turkish border to Oman. It won’t fail.”
“One always fails if he goes against God’s will”, Waddah rebutted, then he fell silent, as if regretting his tone. Nico chimed in.
“Well, it’s a similar situation in Europe, with the development plan of Budapest, the new seat of the Euro-Russian Federation. The city now has four million people and is growing, luring people from all corners of Eurasia. It’s now twice as big as London, or Paris, or my hometown, Madrid. Who would have said that twenty years ago, at the onset of the war?”
“No one,” Albert whispered, looking outside the window. He deactivated his translating earbuds and continued in his very decent English, looking at Waddah. “The only thing that did not change in the upheaval is your quarrel wit
h the Jews, which continues the same as before the war, right, Waddah?”
Waddah smiled, and switched to English as well. “What used to be the State of Israel, is now occupied territory of the Jewish Republic of Cyprus within the Arab Union. And what used to be occupied territory of the State of Israel in the West Bank and Gaza, is now part of the Arab Union. To me, this is one more proof of the truth of the Holy Koran, which says that things will be settled once and for all only at Judgment Day.”
“I think we already came too damn close to Judgement Day,” Albert snapped back, “and realized just in time we did not like it. My family lived in Moscow for five generations. They survived the Nazi attacks in World War 2, but could not bear the climate change and epidemic waves that the war brought about. We had to flee South, toward the Black Sea coast. The richest branch of the family made it to Greece. Now the government is trying to reverse the trend, feeding throngs of government employees with fat wages to bring them back to Moscow. Yet I was there last week, and believe me, with barely two million people living there in the city center, you can still feel the weight from those dark war days. I wanted to go back, but I have not yet made up my mind.”
“I am sure you will go back sooner rather than later,” Waddah said, “Your new czarina is as determined to revive Moscow as our King Yusuf is to restore Arabia and the Levant to the splendor of the Abbasids.”
Albert smiled. “I agree. Irina Kanchelskaya first saved us from the Chinese invasion, then negotiated the deal to merge the Russian Federation with what was left of the European Union. Somehow, she made a blessing out of two wreckages,”
“And then,” Nico jumped in, laughing, “she made Telomerax legal so that she can rule forever! Look, we are approaching the low orbit station. Prepare to shift gears, we are going to accelerate to outer space speed!”
Albert and Waddah looked at the data projected by the systems on their retina, expecting some bumps on the road, but there were none. The module left the cable and activated the electromagnetic engines as it flew through the half-mile length of the station, where some modules were parked at the docking fingers, offloading payloads.
They felt instead the acceleration of the engines, but it was no stronger than a sports car, except that it lasted much longer. Nicolas noted that their passengers all started looking at the clock.
“If you forgot to start your timer, I can tell you, it will last exactly twelve minutes and fifty-one seconds. Enough to accelerate us at the speed of nearly six thousand miles per hour to take us to the geostationary station in little less than four hours.”
“Will we stay at this speed as we cross the two remaining intermediate stations? Those from which we launch the planet drilling vehicles?” Waddah asked
“Yes, but do not worry, there is no other transport ahead of us we could bump into, nor are there any passengers waiting on the platform to see our train pass.” Nicolas chuckled. “Intermediate stations are huge structures like this one we are crossing, but it will take us less than a second to speed through them.”
It was exactly as Nicolas predicted. As they approached their destination, the atmosphere changed and Nicolas asked his passengers once again,
“I read in the flight plan that your mission is not classified. So, what are you going to do up there?”
Waddah was the first to answer.
“It’s a routine job. I need to check the performance of the last generation of drilling heads, that we have installed three years ago on the methane-extraction vehicles. Telemetry data gave us good results, but I need to physically inspect the system before we decide to send it back to the Jupiter moons for another methane-harvest trip or even bring it back to Earth for repair. You need to be on site, just like with the old oil wells in the desert.”
He then looked outside the window. In front of them, there was now only the darkness of outer space, adorned with stars. Looking out of the back window, it was possible to see the blue glow of the Earth behind them. Stunned by the sight, Waddah paused long enough to let Albert think he was finished.
“I am instead working on the plastic production, just like in the old days,” Albert said, “except that the polyethylene factory is now twenty-thousand miles above sea level. It took a while to build it. It was clear since the very beginning that there was no point in bringing the raw hydrocarbons back to Earth, when you could manage the whole process in outer space. We now know you can dump the waste without worry, as long as it is disposed of in the Sun.”
“Until some alien civilization will find the garbage and come looking for us,” Waddah laughed, “I hope that by that time, we will all be dead.”
“Is that the reason why you guys of the Arabian Union banned Telomerax? You want to spare yourselves from the first alien invasion?” Albert snapped back. Nico thought the remark was quite rude, and hoped he did not have to report to the mission commander, in case the conversation went downhill.
“It’s not only the Arabian Union, you know,” Waddah politely rebuffed. “There is also the Egyptian Federation, Turkey, the Empire of Iran and many nations in Africa, many of whom are not Muslim at all, if this is what you are implying. Lastly, Telomerax remains strictly regulated in China.”
“To be fair,” Nico completed, “there are also many places in Europe and America that refuse to take Telomerax, mostly for moral or religious reasons. You are not forced to take Telomerax, it’s an option.”
“Yes, except that at some point in time they will get old in a world of young and they will feel increasingly disconnected and unwelcome,” Waddah added, “Have you read about the Polish community in Alexandria, Egypt? Devote Catholics that felt that a Muslim country was a better environment for the last part of their lives and..”
“I think the sunshine and seaside also played a role there,” Albert chimed in with a smile, “on one thing I do agree with you, Waddah, nowadays people are choosing the place where they want to live based on their soul’s preferences rather than anything else, such as race or language, and..”
Albert stopped in the middle of the sentence, as soon as he felt the beginning of the deceleration. Graphs and numbers appeared on the screens of the three crew members, as Albert and Waddah were surprised by the flow of data. Nico quickly configured the module for the docking.
“You see that blinking spot, right next to the group of four stars in front of us? It’s Geo Orbit 1, our destination. We will arrive in exactly…” Nico checked again, ”..sixteen minutes and thirty-five seconds from now.”
He looked at his passengers. Albert and Waddah were busy doing the pre-landing checks, and they had forgotten about the conversation. Nico was relieved. For a few minutes, he had feared the situation might get worse, like it did the week before, when his passengers were…who were they? He thought for a fraction of a second, then he recalled. Yes, the German physicist and the Nigerian doctor. That time the argument had grown so nasty that he had had to electronically isolate the passengers and denounce them to mission control. This time, doing his job was much easier.
Chapter 2
Louis was looking outside the Skydeck on the 67th floor of the Donau Tower in Vienna, Austria. Below him, the Donau River and the highway A22 ran in parallel, cutting the Vienna Metropolitan area in half. At 7:30 in the morning, the traffic was at its peak. From his view, Louis could spot the boroughs that still lay abandoned, as they casted their shadows of darkness crossed only by the pools of light from the street lamps. Ten years had passed since the end of the war back in 2055, yet Vienna was still struggling to recover, like many other cities. He used his mind to launch a search with his wifi helmet, and information started to flow on his retina lense. He quickly found what he was looking for. A third of the population of Vienna was still missing, only the city center and the most elegant residential suburbs had come back to pre-war population levels. All the rest were either underpopulated or empty.
He had to appear in front of the Telomerax Regulation Commission of the World Federation in
about half an hour, in the old United Nations complex which was next to the Donau Tower. He decided there was no point in making his guests wait. He nodded to the bodyguards who had always followed him, and started walking to the elevators, immediately followed by the escort team.
Twenty minutes later, he cleared the security checks and entered the spacious room that would host the hearing. He was ten minutes early, and was not surprised to see that most of the commission members had not shown up yet, but he was glad to see that Dinesh Kheradpir was already at his place. Dinesh stood up, and approached him smiling. He stopped respectfully at an arm’s length away, slightly bowed and politely extended his hand for Louis to shake, following his Indian culture.
“Good morning, Dr. Kheradpir, I’m happy to see that you have been appointed as chief scientific adviser to the Commission,” Louis cheered, “I hope you can bring some common sense to the discussion.”
“Dr. Picard, it is always a pleasure to see you. I can tell you that all the Commission members are particularly nervous about the size and rate of growth of the population of the immortals.”
“All the Commission members? Are you sure?” Louis was puzzled, “Even the Americans and the Eurorussians?”
“All of them. You will see, here they come.” Dinesh turned towards the door, as the members started to enter. He shook hands with Louis one more time, wishing him good luck, and he sat at his assigned desk, leaving Dr. Picard alone.
The Chinese delegate opened the meeting, introducing the six other members, each one representing the main political blocs of the Security Council of the World Federation. He then asked Dinesh to start his presentation on his findings.
Louis was aware Dinesh’s research. Basically, there was no way to easily know how many people had become immortal. Louis and the children of his early partners were obviously among them, but hundreds of thousands of people had been exposed to Telomerax long enough during the Prohibition Era to develop and pass on immortality to their offspring. Many had perished during the war, but there were still some left. The calculations developed by Dinesh guessed that there was somewhere between one to two million ‘native immortals’ in the world, with a large majority of them unaware of being so.
The Last Enemy - A history of the present future - 1934-2084 Page 37