The Filter Trap

by Lorentz, A. L.

  “I hope we’re waiting for a doctor,” Susan said. “Kam and Natalie barely made it out of there alive.”

  Kam and Natalie huddled closer together, finally able to relax for a moment. Both felt an ice in their veins from nearly drowning that the ride over hadn’t abated. The cold steel of the Kearsarge did little to diminish their shock, but it was the first thing approaching safety they’d experienced since the Event.

  Susan looked into the hallway again, but abruptly ducked back inside, pushed by a young woman in uniform. “Who hit the water?”

  Everyone but Minor, slightly embarrassed, raised their hands. She immediately began assessing and prodding at each of them in turn.

  “How long do we have to stay here?” Susan asked.

  “‘Stay?’” the young medical officer mimicked. “You’re lucky to be alive, and luckier still to be on this boat. Most of my time the last twenty-four hours has been spent tagging toes and authorizing burials at sea. Half the rescues we get back die of hypothermia no matter how hot we crank the heat in here. This is an assault ship, not a medical frigate.”

  “But . . .” Natalie started.

  “Mrs. Cho,” a stern voice echoed from the hallway before matching up to a middle-aged man with many medals on his chest. “I know this ain’t the penthouse you’re used to staying in, but you’ll have to make do as long as you're a ward of the state. We weren’t aware of your little rendezvous with Dr. Douglass until you were already on your way. Our intelligence is stretched a little thin at the moment. Still, I’m informed your father was a war hero, helped our boys in Korea. I’m very sorry for your loss.

  “Regardless, I’m sure these Marines informed you Dr. Douglass was our focus. None of you need to worry; you won’t be on this boat for long, because it’s being pushed to Florida, or rather the underwater peninsula that used be the southern part of the state. They could have sent another sailor to tell you this, but the brass thought I should do it, as Dr. Douglass and I’ll be seeing a lot of each other for a while.”

  The man finally stopped to take a breath and extend his hand to Kam.

  “General Pith.”

  “Kamran Douglass.”

  They shook awkwardly and then Kam couldn’t help himself. “General, is it true that the Moon is gone? That all the satellites are gone?”

  Pith glanced at the Marines. “Maybe they should have said ‘loose lips sink helicopters.’”

  “Sorry, sir! We thought this was common knowledge.”

  “It’s all right, Corporal. It’s common enough, we just don’t encourage anyone to carp about a problem until we’ve worked out the solution.”

  Kam’s curiosity couldn’t be held. If anyone knew more about what happened in the Event it would be the general. “I’m guessing when the stars come out tonight they’ll be in the wrong spots too, is that right?”

  “Now hold on there, professor. Let’s not trade guesses. Like you, I’m just a guest on the Kearsarge at the moment and I don’t think the captain would appreciate me helping along any rumors that could dishearten our courageous sailors enough to neglect duties that are so very important in our nation’s—in our world’s—time of need.”

  Natalie lowly said, “So much for the First Amendment.”

  Pith turned to her. “I have merely made a polite request concerning everyone’s safety. Yours included.”

  “What are you trying to hide?” Susan asked.

  “I think he’s more worried about what I was going to tell you,” Kam stated.

  Pith glared at Kam, punishing his soul for the very thought of speculating on the Event. He cocked his head and smoothed his countenance into a smile, opening his mouth once more as he put a large hand on Kam’s shoulder.

  “Look, I’ll level with you. I treasure free speech as much as anyone. It’s my job to defend the Constitution with my life. So if the professor really wants to speak, I can’t stop him. Thirty years ago I took an oath. It wasn’t a promise to these boys,” he gestured to the Marines, “but to the people of this country. To you.” His eyes moved to Natalie for a moment. “Guest Visa holders included.”

  “You’re so generous,” Natalie sarcastically replied.

  “Look, your money is worthless right now. You know what isn’t? Information—everybody wants it and there ain’t nearly enough. You know the best way to keep a hungry kid out of a cookie jar? Only give him one cookie at a time.”

  “So give me at least one, then,” urged Kam. “The Moon is gone, blown out of the sky. That’s what caused the tsunamis, isn’t it? And it’s global, not just Boston. Not just America. I surmised this, but you can confirm it, can’t you?”

  Pith put his hand down and started to shake his head up and down with increasing strength. At first he almost whispered. “Yes,” he said, then his voice grew in strength. “Yes, yes. In the briefest of security briefs I’ve ever received, the Moon is no more. But, what you couldn’t guess about, professor, and it is my job to, is the impact. I don’t care how this happened, just yet. I’m too busy cleaning up.

  “Rampant looting in the Midwest. Coastal metropolises razed. The worst thing this country has ever faced, but we’re certainly not alone. There have been coups in seven countries, including Mexico. All commercial aviation has been grounded, not that there’s an easy way to enforce it right now with all our tracking satellites gone.”

  “Metropolises? What of Seoul?” Natalie asked with worry.

  “If it’s anything like here, the numbers are staggering. Millions in the United States feared dead, tens of millions more wounded. World fatalities are estimated at almost a hundred million, but that’s a really rough guess. We can’t even talk to countries who haven’t got their old shortwave radios back up yet. The worst attack I’ve ever seen.”

  “You said the worst attack, General,” Kam reminded him. “Is this not a natural disaster?”

  “From a national security standpoint we are to treat this as an attack until we know otherwise, so don’t read more into it than that. The official title the Joint Chiefs are using for this attack now is the Event. You asked me to confirm the Moon was gone, I suspect the president is going to ask you to confirm whether it was on purpose or not.”

  “You need him to translate messages with the Russians or the Chinese?” Susan asked. “Do they already know how this happened?”

  Pith laughed with his belly. “From the mouths of civilians, eh fellows.” He looked at the Marines, who emitted weak smiles. “We don’t even need people for translation anymore, ma’am, and from what I hear, that’s partly thanks to Dr. Douglass, anyway.”

  “That’s true. Other than the Tocharian project, I work on translating variants of known languages that still have rough edges showing up in computer-based translation, essentially filling in the gaps in machine language interpretation.

  “Other than Natalie’s father, my biggest research funding comes from Silicon Beach, hot on the trail of adaptive live translation to fulfill military contracts. Not just word-for-word swaps, but interpretive phrasing and deep knowledge of historical linguistics.”

  “Shit, if you’re translating I don’t know how the president would ever get a word in edgewise,” the younger private at the back said.

  Minor broke his stoic countenance to chuckle again. “Other than filibustering I still don’t understand what use they’d have for yah.”

  Kam tried not to show his frustration. “Language comes from a central place, a way of transmitting emotions and desires concretely. Even the Minoans had the same love—and lust—for life that we do now. A Rosetta Stone isn’t always necessary to untangle lost alphabets, only an understanding of the fundamentals. Code breakers in the military use the same techniques but to a different end. The Enigma program’s breakthrough was realizing every Nazi message ended with a nod to Hitler.”

  “Hitler? So you think this was an attack, a modern Pearl Harbor? The machinations of a group or government we don’t have a handle on yet, and you’re the code breaker?”
Pith asked.

  “Not exactly. Breaking any code requires a robust knowledge of a culture’s history, clues to deciphering quicker than a computer’s dumb brute-force attempts that smash billions of possible combinations against a single keyhole. My work is less translation, and more sociology and archaeology.”

  “I don’t get it.” The general threw his hands in the air.

  “General, I get to know the lock builder instead of trying every key.”

  “Well, it ain’t the ancient Egyptians that did this,” Minor stated.

  “All biology is bound by the same language, Corporal: mathematics.”

  “Trust me, kid, we’ve got plenty of math majors,” Pith replied indignantly. “Working on classified projects without a budget is impossible for most eggheads to resist.”

  “If I’m on the president’s list my expertise isn’t going to be used to translate Russian radio intercepts, read ancient cuneiform, or do calculus. If they need me, then they’ve found something else, something new that requires a broader skillset that your eggheads with tunnel vision working on new encryption schemes for the NSA don’t have.”

  “Yeah, and what’s that?” Minor asked.

  “It’s not the ‘what’ that’s important.”

  “It’s the where,” Private Silversun asserted.

  Kam nodded.

  “And where’s that?” the general huffed.

  Kam lifted his arm, touching an outstretched index finger to the cabin ceiling. They looked up in silence and fear, imagining what lay beyond in the strange, new sky.

  Chapter 6

  “Thirty miles an hour.”

  Natalie approached Kam from behind as he stood with his back to the tower.

  “Hard to believe, right?” He didn’t put down his binoculars. “Feels like 300 cutting through the water like this.”

  “Still faster than going from Nova Scotia to New York in a car.”

  “I can see the Freedom Tower.” He offered her the binoculars. “Want to see.”

  “If Manhattan is anything like Boston I’m not interested.”

  “Can’t tell much from this far, but the skyline certainly seems different.”

  “They sent me up here to get you, Kam. It’s time for our briefing, c’mon.”

  She put her arms around his waist, locking him in place.

  “Seems like you don’t want me to go anywhere.”

  “Everything’s changed. Even if they let me go home, I may not be able to get back. I may never see you again.”

  He put his hand over hers and turned to face her.

  “Life isn’t binary. Stop thinking in absolutes. I seem to be more important now than a no-name MIT professor with a few mentions in Wired magazine. Whatever the Event is, things will normalize. That’s what humans do: we move on.”

  She hugged him closer.

  “That’s what I’m worried about.”

  The briefing took place in the ward room, large for a Navy ship, but small compared to anything else. Filled with many chairs, a few tables, a few couches, and two televisions, Kam imagined it was the one place the sailors could cool down and relax. Today the room filled with tension. All the uncertainty for sailors and survivors alike focused on the mysterious professor that rode in on a Huey.

  The insistence of everyone involved that they knew nothing about the Event, that there was no conspiracy, only fueled the flames of suspicion. To keep them on board any longer might be downright dangerous. Although Natalie and Kam were not eager to leave the safety of the ship where their brief romance had started to flower, Susan, Pith, Minor, and Silversun were more than happy to leave. The latter had already taken spots at the large U-shaped table facing one of the televisions when the lovebirds came down from top deck.

  Without waiting for Kam or Natalie to sit down Pith began. “I’ve received word that the corporal and private will be taking you to an evacuation base in the Catskills. After that you will be taken to an undisclosed location and rendezvous with two other scientists, a Doctor Jill Tarmor—”

  “What?” Kam couldn’t help but interject.

  “This isn’t a classroom discussion, Douglass! At the very least you will ask permission to speak. You better get the protocol down before you try interrupting the president!”

  “I’m sorry, General. I was not expecting to hear that name. I have . . . worked with Doctor Tarmor in the past.”

  Natalie looked at Kam with suspicion. He opened his mouth to say something but the general started again.

  “We’ve all worked with thousands of folks in our careers. Since your big brain got you on the safe list you shouldn’t be surprised that a few of your liberal university brainiac friends also made the cut. I don’t suppose you know the other doctor, Dr. Sands?”

  “Alan! Is this a joke? I couldn’t believe it when Private Silversun mentioned it before. Thought she had to be mistaken.” Kam slammed his hands on the table.

  “So you know them. Fantastic. A little family reunion is in store. Lucky you. Anyway, what’s going to happen is we’re going to put you on another chopper with the Marines here. They’ll fly over to Manhattan on the way to the Catskills and pick up some senators and other folks on the president’s list.”

  Natalie raised her hand and Pith pointed. “General, why Kam? And why the other doctors?”

  Kam didn’t wait for the answer, fairly sure the general didn’t know anyway. He put his hand up. Pith nodded. “Allan is one of the best astrophysicists in the world. He’d cataloged hundreds of exoplanets at home, by himself. And it’s no coincidence they’re gathering the three of us. We all worked on SETI research. Jill still does—er—did until the Event.”

  “I’m sorry.” Susan raised her hand. “SETI?”

  “That one I do know,” Pith said. “Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence. Aliens.”

  “Oh God!” Susan buried her head in her hands. “My uncle said they were coming for us. Told me to listen to Coast-to-Coast. I thought he was crazy. Which ones are they, the reptilians? The Grays? Oh, Jesus, not the robots!”

  “Not nothin’!” Pith announced. “Don’t believe everything you see at the multiplex. The government has been studying the prospect of alien visitation since the 40s. Project Blue Book is barely classified these days, and all it showed was how much money the government could piss away on a wild goose chase. There are not little green men invading at the poles.”

  “Sir,” Silversun asked, “why are we taking the SETI scientists to the evac, to an undisclosed location, then?”

  “Undisclosed. Sounds like Area 51 to me,” Susan said.

  “Because the Commander in Chief said so!” Pith bellowed. “Or do you think the senator on his list you’re picking up in Manhattan also knows aliens personally? My guess is our president wants more of his liberal pals around when the shit hits the fan.”

  Pith glared at Kam, then turned to the Marines.

  “No more questions. You’ve got your assignments.” He stormed out of the ward room.

  Minor looked to Kam. “Those other docs are space researchers, stars and radio waves and stuff, right?”

  “For lack of a longer, more accurate description, yes, that kind of stuff.”

  “Then why do they need a language guy?”

  Kam looked at Susan and chuckled. “Maybe they need me to talk to some little green men.”

  Nobody else laughed.

  “You were right before,” Silversun surmised. “They musta found somethin’”

  Susan scoffed. “Hope you have better luck than the scientists that try to talk to aliens in every movie I ever saw.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They all die.”

  Chapter 7

  “Where is the general?” Susan yelled over the rotor noise.

  “Different chopper,” Minor yelled back, as he helped Susan and the others into the V22 Osprey’s main hold. The cargo section had nothing more than folding seats with harnesses for the passengers. Minor quickly made sure
they were all strapped in and then handed out earplugs as the engine noise increased.

  With a small bump, the aircraft lifted off the ground.

  “That wasn’t so bad,” Kam said, though no one could hear.

  The nacelles turned slightly away from the sky and the Osprey’s nose dipped forward. The passengers, strapped along the inner hull, squished shoulders. Gradually, the Osprey leveled out before a few quick banks pointed it toward the eastern coastline, not that anyone but the pilots could tell. Unlike the choppers the passengers had ridden in previously, the Osprey passenger compartment had no windows of any kind. If it had, they’d have seen little more than fog rolling off many miles of open ocean.

  After twenty minutes they reached the remnants of Montauk and the Hamptons. The few luxurious multi-story estates that remained standing peaked from several feet of water. The Long Island State Pine Barrens Reserve struggled to absorb flooding from the Peconic River in the north and the tributaries of Seatuck Cove in the south. Steep barren hills stood like rudders before backwash of thousands of pines, torn and battered like toothpicks.

  Dirty, deep water sloshed through the empty neighborhoods along I-495, cutting the peninsula in half. Nothing would be rebuilt below it. The Osprey stayed low, taking a visual record in case any survivors could be spotted and reported.

  In Queens, buildings appeared on the horizon like fists protesting the calamity. Despite their New York resolve to withstand the storm, many were stripped to bone and fell into piles of weathered steel and broken old bricks.

  The bridges were the only remaining dividing line between the eastern boroughs and Lower Manhattan. The East River had disappeared into channels of water crisscrossing Midtown and SoHo, remaining only as a wide street demarking the transition to taller buildings made of tougher stuff.

  Manhattan’s residents hadn’t fared well, but their construction remained. Glass shattered in the waves cut bodies in the water to ribbons. The streets filled with trails of auburn in standing water. The East Village and the Bowery benefited by hiding behind the high apartment buildings of the Lower East Side; the skeleton still hung in the second story window of Search and Destroy. Further west, the top of the Washington Square Arch stood tall over uprooted trees.