by Mark Wandrey
Amanda said she would and went to look over the huge predator. It was like an alligator but with the speed of a lion. It fell with its mouth gaping open and she could see line after line of serrated teeth, much like a shark.
Amanda glanced at the pristine arboreal forest around them and cocked a head. “What kind of a hell-hole evolved you?” she said and leaned closer. She reached out to see if the teeth curved inward toward the jaw line like a shark when suddenly the head jumped and the jaws snapped closed. Someone grabbed her arm and jerked it back just before the jaws closed.
“Didn’t you hear the Colonel, Sergeant? These things have a hard time understanding they're dead.” She looked to see the same soldier who had brought the big rifle. “You need to sever the spinal column to be sure.”
“Don’t do it with this one, I need it as a specimen.”
“The Colonel said you were a scientist. Well, better leave it here to finish realizing it’s dead.”
“
You bet. I’ve got a lot of work to do anyway,” she said and headed back to the cabin. She needed to get organized and find her dissection kit. Geology was her specialty but today she was a biologist. The idea of doing the first exploratory work on an alien organism was too exciting to pass up. “I’m going to be here the rest of my life; I might as well start with my food.” In the cabin there was already a pair of howlers on top of her bunk busily mating. She took a couple pictures then set to organizing her lab.
May 5
Mindy stayed up all night going quietly insane. As the sun began to climb above the eastern Manhattan skyline she was on the ragged edge. Most of the night was spent with her eyes closed while she sat in a chair and watched alien stars in her mind's eye like a planetarium. Many years ago she had learned to use the self-imposed blackness as her own personal planetarium to project vivid images of the night sky and see the passages of comets, planets and asteroids. In the dark recesses of her mind she imagined constellations seen from far away worlds.
There was the Arrow, the Dragon, and the Crow. Circling below the Crow was the Horse, slowly moving upwards to maybe merge into the others over the ages. “But how do I know that?” she wondered. “I could watch these stars until I die and they would never move more than an inch.” She opened her eyes and had to squint against the light showing through the apartment windows. Billy stayed at his own apartment last night. One look at her when she got home and he’d known that company was the last thing she wanted. So he left her to her thoughts. She ate the food Harold made earlier then crawled into an old musty chair where she spent the night.
Mindy groaned slightly as she got to her feet, abused muscles creaking in protest. Now on her feet she realized in a hurry how much time had passed since she used the bathroom and was forced into an unladylike rush to the toilet. Afterwards she prowled through the quiet apartment and started some breakfast. While she was cooking she tried once or twice to use her planetarium. All she saw was a red haze. Her brain was too abused to go any farther. Besides, they had to be at work in a couple hours. Once breakfast was started she headed for the shower.
It was so early she didn’t bother checking if Harold was already in the bathroom, and that was how she caught him sitting on the toilet masturbating. “Oh shit,” she barked in surprise.
“Damn, man!” he yelled and yanked a towel over himself.
“I-I’m sorry, Harold, I’m really, really sorry!” she pleaded through the doorway.
“Just leave me alone,” Harold moaned and she retreated to the kitchen, her cheeks burning with embarrassment. Sometime later he came out into the tiny living room. She took the food off the burner and took a shower. Later Harold was dressed and had taken over cooking. As they ate neither said anything.
The silence held until they were in the elevator of the leased federal building and heading toward their shared office. “So you think that chick in data processing will have the disc ready today?” he asked. Mindy let a little sigh of relief escape before she replied to the idle office chatter. As he followed Mindy out the elevator door he couldn’t take his eyes off her well-shaped ass. It was the very image he was holding firmly in his mind as he pleasured himself.
It was a normal and routine day. They heard no one else was going through the Portal for two more days so that was one less thing to occupy Mindy's mind. The next day would be much more auspicious. Aries was due to make its rendezvous early in the morning. The fact that the asteroid was on a collision was common knowledge. Generally people were excited and optimistic.
Now that everyone thought Aries would save the day, the press was full of non-stop, around the clock coverage on how bad the damage from Lebowski could be. Thank goodness Aries would save the day before Lebowski hit! In the Portal Project all the section leaders pushed their people even harder. One of the rumors was things would get harder to do in a few days.
Lunch time arrived and neither of them left. The already crowded office started to resemble a college prank. Four of their co-conspirators arrived. From under her desk, Mindy produced a box of forms and a notebook. Harold took out a small old-fashioned laptop computer. The others brought their own equipment and records. They passed around notes on requests for things they had seen which bore merit. Equipment that was actually necessary, people who had the technical knowledge they were looking for, scientists and tradesmen were all on their lists.
The group had been working for several days and finished their first list of personnel which Mindy dubbed their “Chosen”. Now they moved on to equipment. Free of the military mentality or a politician’s hidden agenda, the job went ten times faster. Harold and Mindy sent off a series of e-mails to scientists they knew asking questions they themselves couldn’t answer. When the answers arrived the responses were factored in. Amidst all the work, they were also having fun. It wasn’t every day you got to plan an exodus to another world. Aries fever was affecting them too. For a time they even managed to forget it was real.
Then lunch was over and the others said goodbye. The reality of the situation came crashing in to leave Harold and Mindy spending the rest of the day struggling through their work. They went back to reviewing idiotic requests for equipment that had no use whatsoever on an alien world and did their best to make it look like they cared.
That evening they returned to their apartment building but Harold walked past instead of going in. “Where you going, Harold?”
“I’m really not in the mood to sit in the hall and listen to you two fuck,” he said and waved over his shoulder. “There’s a bar a couple blocks down, I’ll be back by nine.”
Mindy watched him go with a frown on her face. She was happy to be with Billy but her relationship was obviously making it hard on her old friend. The fact that she'd talked him into coming out here and that they had once been lovers probably wasn’t helping. As Mindy reached the apartment she found Billy waiting. She was trying hard to avoid making a decision that she had been considering for a couple days.
Billy knew something was going on when she didn’t jump him the moment she came through the door. He quietly sat the food on the table for them to eat. “I feel like we’re married,” she said to him. Billy grinned and passed her some of the lime chicken he'd made. “I mean, you’re waiting for me every day I get home with dinner ready and then we make love and we usually fall asleep together.”
“That sounds like a complaint.”
“No, it isn’t really.”
“I get off my shift more than an hour before you; it’s just convenient for me to be here and make dinner so we can spend more time together.”
“But we didn’t even talk about this or anything, it just happened.”
“I like being here with you.”
“We don’t even know if we’re…”
“What?”
“You know, we don’t know where our relationship is.”
“You need a road map?” He got up and came around the table to stand in front on her. “Maybe we’re both afrai
d to say it?”
“Say what?” she whispered.
“Then I’ll do it first. Mindy, I love you.” Tears welled up in her eyes and began to fall down her face. “I know you just left a relationship and came here for something a lot bigger than me, but I fell in love with you the day I arrested you.” She put a hand to her mouth and stifled a tiny laugh that turned to a sob. “If this is too much for you, I’ll leave. I’ve been married and I fucked that up. I wouldn't blame you if you wanted me gone.”
He took a step back and she grabbed his hand. “Don’t go, please?” she cried.
“Why not?” he asked, his eyes bright and shining.
“B-because I love you too, asshole!” she cried and jumped up into his arms. “Why is it always so damned hard to say those words?”
“Because they mean so much,” he said as they held each other.
“It’s terrible to say it and find out the other person doesn’t reciprocate.”
“Only thing worse is to find out that what you thought was love wasn’t.” They held each other and felt their hearts beating almost in time. “Now I need you to tell me something else,” he said to her.
“Anything,” she said. He gently urged her to sit back down as he took a deep breath.
“The world is going to end, isn’t it?” She looked at him and opened her mouth, then closed it. He'd managed to put most of the pieces together himself. To answer him straight out could be dangerous to her status with the Portal Project. “I realize you aren’t supposed to say anything or maybe you don’t know it for a scientific fact, but I want to know what you think. I believe Aries has a chance.”
“I don’t think Aries will succeed,” she said. That wasn’t related to the Portal Project, I can at least say that, she thought.
“I guess that’s enough of an answer for me,” he said. Quick as a flash he produced a small fabric box and was holding it out to her. “We don’t have a lot of time, so I want to get married as soon as possible.” She opened and closed her mouth like a fish. “Hey, if your wrong and Aries succeeds and the world survives, you can just divorce me.”
“I don’t want to divorce you,” she said. He looked away from her face and down to the box in his hand.
“Oh,” he said and started to put it back in his pocket. “I guess I made a mistake.”
“No, you don’t understand. I don’t want to divorce you. I want to be your wife for the rest of my life.” He looked up at her and she bit her lip and nodded her head.
“A divorced cop as a husband is okay with you?” he asked, wanting to be sure.
“And an old maid astronomer is alright for you?”
“I wouldn’t be here with a ring in my hand if it wasn’t.”
“Well, there isn’t another man in the world I would rather have.” He took the ring out and put it on her finger. “There’s only one condition.” he looked at her curiously. “We need to move into your place; this just isn’t fair for Harold.”
“He’s still burning a candle for you.”
“I know, but that candle went out on my end years ago.”
They were sitting on the couch watching the news when Harold came in. He just looked at them and headed for his room. It was Billy that stood up to stop him. “Harold, I need to tell you something.”
Harold stopped, brushing his shaggy hair out of his eyes, and turned to face Billy. Mindy looked at him critically, worried about how much he’d had to drink. Harold could get a tad boisterous when under the influence. She was worried he would take a poke at Billy. While Harold might be a tough guy, he was no match for a trained police officer. Not even when he was sober. “Yeah, what’s up man?”
“I know we’ve been kind of rude to you, but it wasn’t our intention. This is your place with Mindy here and I have just sort of moved in.” Harold nodded his head, his way of saying ‘that’s cool man’. “Well, I just wanted to let you know things are going to be different from now on.” Harold looked from Billy to his friend and his eyes narrowed. “I just asked Mindy to marry me.”
“And what did you say?” he asked, his head turning slowly to look at her.
Mindy tried to smile of for it to turn into a slight frown as she held up her left hand with the ring on it. It had once belonged to Billy’s mother. “I see,” he said simply, then added, “Congratulations,” before continuing to his room and closing the door behind him.
“Well, he took that well,” Billy said and went back to sit next to his fiancée. Deep down she knew just how much pain her old friend was in.
“I want to move to your place tomorrow after work, okay?” she asked him.
“No problem,” he agreed. “You have so little here we can do it in my cruiser. Do you want to send for any of your stuff from Oregon?”
“Let’s wait until after the 21st, shall we?”
“Sure, I understand.”
She stood up and tugged him to his feet. She wanted to feel him against her, and inside her, so she could forget all about the look on Harold's face when she held up that ring. Thankfully, he was as good in bed as always and she soon forgot everything except the ancient movement of their bodies against each other. A few feet away Harold was not nearly as successful in forgetting. Their rooms were too close together and he could hear every sigh, every cry of passion, and every one of his dreams going up in flames.
* * * **
Volant reclined in his electronic bed at the hospice he was living in while recovering and watched the data feed through his computer. The first of the satellite imagery to finally penetrate the debris plume above New Delhi was coming in and it was horrendous. Most of what had once been a city was destroyed. He clicked on the associated analysis button and read the report.
“Preliminary analysis indicates a thermonuclear blast was detonated at ground level in the New Delhi Golf Course at five fifty-five AM local time on May 3rd. The exact yield cannot be determined. It is estimated at five hundred megatons. Loss of life to this point is between nine and twelve million locally and another million within a hundred miles. The first question is to explain where India obtained a nuclear weapon more powerful than the largest thought to exist. Continuing, the blast demonstrated a high order of efficiency, at least ten times more so than any nuclear device previously detonated.
“Radiation fallout is negligible as well as gamma and beta waves (the second question). Finally, the peculiarities of the explosion’s dynamic yield are yet another mystery. Extensive damage has been done to the Earth’s structure directly below the blast’s epicenter that may well extend below the crust all the way to the mantle. T-waves radiating through the Earth’s core give some credence to this theory, as does the extreme and persistent volcanic activity in the region. Seismologists studying the phenomenon believe that the damage was so extensive as to create a number of new fault lines in the region. How any weapon was capable of being delivered still produced a clean blast is yet another mystery. In conclusion, the incident cannot be cataloged as a normal event and requires further analysis.”
“No shit,” Volant said and shut down the computer. The blast and after effects were so severe even the Arabs and Israeli paused in their suicidal dance marathon. The entire planet seemed to be holding its breath as Aries approached Lebowski. NASA was keeping tight lips and only relaying the same regurgitated tripe they were showing to the press.
He was about to turn off his light and go to sleep when he spotted the red striped tip of a classified file poking from the back of his wheelchair. He stretched out and grabbed it.
Like most classified files, this one had a heavy fiber tape strip. Volant snatched the SAS dagger he kept under his pillow, slashed the seal and returned the blade to its hiding place. Inside he found a copy of a Presidential Briefing folder and a disc. “Son of a bitch, I forgot all about this!”
Some hunch had compelled him to order a copy of the POTUS briefing. With a sense of dread he began reading it. There was nothing in the briefing about the Portal at all. It gave det
ails about a crashed spy satellite that carried five pounds of plutonium fuel. The report said it would take months to clean up the highly dangerous radioactive debris. A budget of a hundred million dollars was requested.
Steve threw in several smaller files and in those were subsequent briefings given to POTUS since the events began. The battle against the cultists was conveniently explained away as terrorists attempting to steal the plutonium, or failing that, to use explosives to spread radiation over the entire eastern seaboard. “So that’s how General Hipstitch moved in and got martial law so quickly.” There were more millions of dollars for the army. He read on to see the detention without trial of the city officials, now charged with treason and assisting the terrorists.
Volant put aside the files and picked up the disc. There was a note on it from his aid. “Sir, please look at the frequency that files pertaining to the most classified areas of this operation are accessed. I found it disturbing.” He slapped the disk into his computer and looked over the data. His aide copied activity records from the NSA mainframe concerning files on the Portal. A short time before he’d been hurt in the fighting he checked those numbers as part of his routine duties. There had been about one hundred accesses at that point. Now the number was in the tens of thousands.
A large number of people, people with enough security access to enter a government top secret database, had been informed of the presence of these files and took it upon themselves to climb in the bag.
“Now who’s really in charge?” he grumbled in the darkened hospital wing. He reached for the phone and had almost finished dialing Hipstitch’s number when his hand stopped over the last button. No, think about this, he thought. The old bastard was brought here to enforce martial law. He’s either being controlled by whoever is really in charge, or he’s just a stooge. Volant put the phone back down and tried to concentrate. It’s a power play, pure and simple. The big players know the rock is going to hit and want to control who’s leaving. And that means this whole Portal Project is nothing but a front. He picked the phone back up and dialed Steve’s number.