Overture (Earth Song)

by Mark Wandrey

  “Well, by all means fill us in!” blurted the Secretary of Labor.

  “I’ve left this for the President himself since it has dire consequences. So if we’ll all just have a bite to eat or a drink while we wait, he will be here any moment.” On cue, the ever-present and efficient White House staff arrived with a buffet. Tension still filled the room but it was quickly joined by the clinking of silverware and conversation. Most of those present had been so busy the last few days that a sit-down meal had become a luxury.

  A half hour passed and the President still hadn’t arrived. The Vice President was about to ask the head of the Secret Service what the delay was when the towering agent suddenly put a hand to his ear. Everyone in the room knew this meant the man was listening to his high tech little radio they all wore. The man took his hand away and hung his head. The room stayed deathly silent as he walked toward the doorway.

  “What happened?” the Vice President asked. The agent stopped and looked at him, realizing that he was about to leave without saying anything.

  “The President has been assassinated,” he said with as much of the patented Secret Service calm he could muster.

  “Good Lord!” several of the Cabinet members cried out, while others jumped to their feet.

  “Quiet!” the SecDef yelled. “What happened?” he asked the visibly shaken agent.

  “Marine One was just coming around for approach. We had four teams out for security. There have been hundreds of incidents of random sniper attacks around the federal buildings since that meteor impact so we didn’t want to take any chances. It was a well-orchestrated attack; at least two teams. One team must have had an RF jamming device to the north. We sent a team over to see what that was all about, but it was the other team that was the threat. They fired a shoulder-launched surface to air missile just a few seconds before the helicopter was to land. There was no way to avoid the missile. There were no survivors.”

  “God help us,” the Secretary of HUD said.

  The agent looked down again. With a primal roar of rage he slammed his powerful fist against the wall, cracking the plaster façade and causing dust to drift down from the ceiling. “We’re sorry,” he said to them all, “we failed the nation, again.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said the Vice President quietly. “We know that nothing can stop a determined attacker, especially with such formidable weaponry.”

  “We will need you all to stay here until we can secure the vicinity,” the agent said before leaving.

  “You might as well tell us what the President wanted to say in person,” said the HUD secretary to the Vice President.

  “Yes, please do,” agreed the SecDef. The others waited expectantly.

  “Of course. Masciler’s research found a money trail through the military under its discretionary ‘wartime’ fund. The money was tied to the Bunker Appropriations Act that Congress enacted last month for construction of those non-existent retreats. As we now know, nothing was built, though billions of dollars were channeled into the budget. The people will want our heads, but of course we won’t live long enough to do anything about it.”

  “Where did the money go?” asked someone.

  “The military kept it.” The SecDef’s jaw dropped in surprise. When he looked around the table, all the others were glaring at him.

  “Oh, he had no idea about this,” the Vice President assured them. “The President had someone at the Ft. Benjamin finance center investigate the money flow. They found and arrested the financial analyst who manipulated the accounts. Almost all the money was sent to the 222nd Armored Division under the command of General Hipstitch.”

  “Isn’t he the one in charge of the New York Martial Law Zone?” asked the HUD secretary.

  “One and the same. More interesting is how the money started flowing before the appropriations were approved. He started embezzling funds as soon as he was assigned to New York City. NASA had some hard questions to answer and eventually admitted there was no satellite.”

  “So what is really going on there?” It was the SecDef this time, having regained his voice.

  “There is sketchy information only, but Masciler believes they have some sort of a transportation device through which they intend to evacuate a few hand-picked people off of the Earth before Lebowski hits.” There was a general outburst of denial and further questions. “People, please, let me continue. The President instructed members of the Secret Service to raid offices at NASA. They have found information corroborating this story. There is indeed such a device, and it is located in New York City. Central Park, to be precise.”

  “We need to do something about this,” someone said. Everyone was shouting their agreement.

  “I agree; this is not the way the United States of America is supposed to work. The President was coming here tonight to authorize the use of force to go in and take that device and arrest the conspirators, especially General Hipstitch.”

  Despite losing their President only minutes earlier, a group of Secret Service agents arrived to guard their new charge. Following instructions in their manuals they brought a senior member of the US House of Representatives and a Supreme Court Justice, no minor feat considering most of DC was burning above their heads.

  “We just heard a few minutes ago,” said the Justice. “I had them pick up Congressman Davis here and came right over.”

  “What for?”

  “Why, to swear you in, of course,” the congressman answered.

  “I’ve always wanted to do this,” the Justice said as he came over and produced a Bible, “of course, not under these conditions. Well, should we begin? Do you hereby swear to faithfully execute the responsibilities…”

  A short time later, there was a brief round of subdued applause from those assembled and the new President shook hands with the Congressman and Justice. “Thanks so much,” he said. The Secret Service men escorted the pair back out. “Okay, I think there are some papers I need to sign?” he asked the SecDef. His hand shook as he penned his name on the authorization of force. He was keenly aware that he was the first President to ever do this as his first act. He was also aware his would probably be the last presidential act.

  Near the end of the new President’s first Cabinet meeting, the SecDef placed a call to Bureau Chief Masciler. They all wanted one last confirmation before they unleashed the dogs of hell on one of their own cities. The person who answered the phone informed them that Masciler was killed an hour ago by a bomb blast in his office.

  Mindy hadn’t bothered going back to the apartment. There was nothing there for her any more. She’d worked on the translation program in Harold’s computer until she couldn’t see straight. Finally she’d given up and lain down on the floor under her desk. In a few minutes she was asleep. Sometime later, a research technician shook her awake and she’d simply gone back to work.

  Hipstitch and Volant had come in at one point the previous night just as Leo had said they would. Osgood was with them and he’d pointed her out to them. She was only dimly aware of the visit. She was so deep in her calculations that little penetrated her conscious thoughts. No one asked her any direct questions and eventually they left.

  As morning arrived, she began to feel like she was making some progress. This encouraged her and gave the work a little jolt of enthusiasm in her fatigued mind. She’d only slept a few hours, but it was enough. Years of working all night in dim rooms watching the stars crawl by gave her the critical tools for that moment. The calculations were purely hypothetical. It was the kind of raw number crunching she always enjoyed. “I’m not nearly as good at this sort of thing as Harold is,” she would readily tell anyone, “but I’m not bad!”

  At one point, she looked over and was stunned to see a tray of food sitting there. She worked the computer with one hand until the food was gone then continued working without noticing when the tray was taken away. She didn’t remember using the nearby restroom, but realized at one point that she must have.


  Around noon, Leo stopped by to see how she was doing. Mindy took the chance to stretch her leg muscles and walk with him for a bit. They talked about her progress and he made a few suggestions. She was to be allowed to make contact with several mathematical experts at universities such as MIT, Caltech and Texas A&M. That fact stunned her almost more than the announcement of Harold’s death.

  “Hipstitch said to give you whatever it took to break the code and fix the Portal,” he told her.

  “Are you taking that farther than he intended?”

  “Possibly, but it’s not my fault he wasn’t more specific.” Leo gave her an eyebrow-lifting smirk and she shook her head.

  “You’ve got the conspirator’s instinct,” she said to him. “You’d make a good secret agent.” Leo gave her such a strange look that she changed the subject. “You know I could use the e-mail access to send messages to more than those researchers at MIT.”

  “You would never do something like that, would you?”

  They both turned at the sound of heavy equipment nearby. One of the distant warehouses was the site of intense activity as personnel were guiding in trucks and cranes. Outside the warehouse entrance were parked dozens of loaded flatbed trucks of a size that would fit through the Portal Dome’s entrance. “They’re almost ready to go, aren’t they?”

  “We’re just waiting on you, sport. I know you can do it. The gloves are off, okay? Do whatever it takes to make it happen.”

  A minute after he had left her at her desk in the dome, she was writing an e-mail to Billy. He must have been at his desk because the reply came before she had finished her next message.

  Mindy,

  So glad to hear from you in more than a few scribbled lines on a cocktail napkin! I probably don’t want to know how you managed this, and I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  I’m working in the precinct office still. Hipstitch came back yesterday and started stomping around giving orders, repositioning all our patrols and stopping any more evacuations of the city. The last part worries me the most, but we can’t do anything about it. He’s in charge, there’s little doubt about that!

  Have you seen the news? You were right about the bunkers being a lie. People are freaking out. It’s like some episode of the Twilight Zone or something. I hope you’ve got some idea of what to do, because those guys who walk around with the signs saying ‘the end is near’ are right.

  Love, Billy.

  I wish I had more ideas, she thought as she read the message over. The little walk with Leo helped clear her mind so she walked up to the Portal and mounted the steps. Once her foot touched the top step, the holographic oval of the actual Portal flashed into existence. One of the scientists working nearby looked up at the flash of white light but went back to his work when he saw who it was.

  “Do whatever it takes, eh?” she said as she gazed over the symbols now indelibly ground into her brain. She closed her eyes and summoned up her memory of the old woman and her actions. She’d watched the recording a dozen times and gone over Osgood’s report at least that often. “She touched here first.” The entire oval gave no response. She pulled her hand back and tried again, this time over a slightly different location, but again with no luck.

  Mindy had been stabbing at random for a few minutes and was about to give up when suddenly the entire oval pulsed purple. “Bingo,” she said with a clap.

  “How the hell did you do that?” asked the scientist who was now standing on the bottom step of the Portal dais.

  “Luck,” she said and tried desperately to remember what image she had stuck her finger through. She pressed the one she thought was right again, but nothing happened this time. “Oh, come on,” she grumbled and tried it again. This time she was rewarded with that purple flash of light. “Maybe it restarts a sequence,” she said to herself but the other scientist heard her.

  “I better call Osgood,” he said and ran toward the phone.

  “No, don’t push the panic button until we have something real.”

  “That looked pretty real to me!”

  “Don’t fool yourself.” She didn’t try to push the same symbol again, instead she thought of where Osgood said the woman touched the second time. The oval portal glowed white for an instant and then would do nothing else regardless of where she tapped. “Gotta start over,” she frowned.

  “Getting somewhere?” Osgood asked some time later. The tech must have called after all. She looked down where he was standing at the bottom of the dais with a curious look on his face.

  “Slowly,” she said and looked back at the floating icons.

  A set of portable bulletin boards were near the dais covered with stills of the Portal icons and the woman touching them, including the final sweeping motion frame-by-frame. “Think you're close?”

  “No closer while I'm talking,” she said without considering how rude it sounded.

  Osgood stood and watched in silence for a few minutes before speaking again. “You know, I had no idea your real name was Melinda.”

  “I can't stand it,” Mindy admitted, “I've gone by Mindy since I was seven years old.” She wasn't looking at him so she didn't see him scratch his head and try to decide how to continue. She pressed a pair of icons and the Portal flashed in sequence.

  “Looks like dangerous stuff,” he said, his eyes wide at the unfamiliar reaction from the alien artifact.

  “No more dangerous than being here when Lebowski hits.”

  “Well that goes without saying, but do you know what you’re doing?”

  “Not really, just an assumption.”

  His face contorted and he bit his tongue. “What assumption is that?”

  “That your mystery woman keyed in a command sequence and that the designers possessed at least a small amount of human style common sense.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “If you designed something as fantastic as this and with such an incredibly dangerous power source, you would at least make it many times harder to do something dangerous as it was to do a routine function, right?”

  “That makes sense.”

  “So I just figured that as long as I mimicked what you saw, there was minimal risk.”

  “What do you consider minimal risk with a device capable of cracking the Earth's mantle?”

  “Stuff like this,” she said and started a new sequence. Mindy managed to get through the first three steps and was searching for the last ‘button press’ as she was calling it. If she could just find the last button, all that remained was that beautiful sweep of the arm. That action was recorded in high definition.

  “I’d better get some more people in here,” he said and turned to leave.

  “Whatever,” Mindy said and went back to work. On her next attempt, she hit the last spot on the dot. “Bingo!” she cheered and turned to look at printed stills of the movie. “Now, she did it just like this,” Mindy said and reached out an arm, but that was when she noticed that the icons were changed. All the symbols along the arch metamorphosed, and these were ones she'd never seen before. She looked at the spot where the woman started her arm sweep to the spot where she had finished it. The first symbol looked familiar, the second one did not. Far too soon, the symbols pulsed back to their original familiar shapes. “What the hell was that about?” she wondered.

  Mindy worked the sequence again and when she tapped the last symbol, up popped the new unfamiliar symbols. Using a remote control, she snapped a couple of pictures. On a monitor, she examined the eleven symbols. The last one was the most interesting. It didn’t fit in with the other ten.

  She ran down from the dais and back to her workstation. Harold’s computer still sat there flashing calculations. She pulled up a search directory and scrolled through the recorded images until she found that symbol and clicked on it. It didn’t take her where she expected.

  The computer just sat there for a moment, its hard drive light flashing as it worked. “Come on,” she moaned impatiently a
nd gave it a little smack. The screen went black and her heart rate shot up. “Oh shit, I broke it!”

  Mindy hadn’t broken the computer, it had just been busy. The screen came back on with the translation program frozen on a spreadsheet. This isn’t where I left off, she thought and checked the control bar. Now there were two versions of the translation program running. “Okay, I’m officially confused,” she said to the computer and flipped back and forth between the two programs. Both were running the alien signal and correlating the symbols from the Portal. The difference was one of them, the one she had been using, had barely scratched the surface. The one that she just accidentally started had already broken the code.

  Mindy chewed her lower lip as she furiously ran down the formidable list of symbols. “Eleven hundred,” she gasped when she’d finished. There was a ninety-nine point seven percent match between the translation matrix, the patterns of the Portal, and the signal they'd received years ago. “He did it,” she said with awe and respect in her voice, “he did it all by himself.” Her eyes filled with tears as she realized what this meant. He was probably trying to tell me about this when they killed him, that's why he was escaping. She was about to go back and find out what the last symbol from the Portal meant when voices interrupted her.

  “-and she just started making it flash and respond like that woman did!” she could hear Osgood exclaiming as the dome began to fill with scientists and technicians. Leo Skinner was among the excited crowd. “Have you had any more luck?” Osgood asked her.

  “I’ve completed the sequence, but now I don’t know what to do.” She turned to Harold's computer to explain. Nothing came out of her mouth. Some part of her didn’t want to share the legacy he'd left behind. Why? She didn’t have an answer to that question. Maybe it was the look of expectant excitement on Leo and Osgood’s faces. Maybe it was all the implied threats over the last week or so. Her handler’s liberal use of the carrot-and-stick management style. Or maybe it was just that Harold would have wanted her to keep it to herself. And that was when she remembered her group of co-conspirators. All the hours they spent putting together their own group of colonists, even going as far as stacking the equipment list with items they deemed worthy of going across. All they lacked was the means to execute their plan. Now that means was staring at her from the computer. Mindy was in complete control. But only if she kept her mouth shut.