by RJ Johnson
Over the years, her work began to concentrate more on what the complex considered legitimate science. SETI only used about ten percent of the telescope time, and much of that processing was done on a distributed computing grid. People at home who wanted to, could download the Allen Telescope’s observations and examine the data itself for alien signals. As the distributing computer power project grew, her duties changed. Now, she mostly charted quasars and gamma ray bursts as she peered deep into the universe, hoping for some explanations. Somehow, looking for the ETI’s had become a distant priority during her tenure at the telescope.
Every morning, she received a set of briefing papers, going over the schedule and recapping the various experiments currently being run at the Allen Telescope Array. The last item on the briefing papers was always news on the search for alien life, but as always, the skies remained silent. Emily never gave up hope that she might see something in the briefing that might encourage the search for life, but every morning, she was disappointed.
As she arrived to the complex, she picked up the day’s packet, scanning the schedule, making mental notes on who she would need to talk to over the next few days. She turned to the last page, where SETI outlined their progress. She always secretly hoped for some earth-shattering revelation, but, as always, she sighed, tossing the booklet aside, after reading the weekend’s entry for their search for extraterrestrial life: “No significant signals detected.”
Her project assistant and college roommate Christina Ip entered her office. Christina had graduated from Berkley with honors, along with Emily, and had taken a job with her at the Allen Telescope Array. Whereas Emily remained skeptical, but ready to believe in the face of real evidence, Christina had talked non-stop about the possibilities of alien life since the day they had met.
“Got today’s briefing packet?” Christina asked, waving the loosely bound sheaf of papers.
“Nothing on the scope, Christina,” Emily replied, not looking up as she responded to her e-mail. “Same as it ever was.”
“You are so negative!” Christina pouted from across the room. “Sheer numbers say we’ll hear from somebody eventually. Just gotta have faith!”
“Yeah, by the time our bones have turned to dust, maybe.” Emily looked up from her computer to look at her friend. “How was the weekend?”
“Boring. We had a few gamma ray bursts go off last night, but we missed ‘em, cause we were on the wrong side to see ‘em pop off. The folks in Australia caught some of it, but for the most part, we’ll only be seeing afterglow by the time they rise over the horizon, which should be…” Christina checked the clock on the wall, “in about a half hour or so. We might even get to see something interesting.”
“Sure, just like the last 500 or so of those we’ve observed.” Emily replied, sounding bored. “Anything else I need to know?”
“Not really…” Christina trailed off as she looked at the schedule in her hand. “Just another week in paradise, looking for little green men!”
“If you’re gonna continue with the cheerleader crap, can you at least wait till after I’ve had some coffee?” Emily grumbled. With her commute, Mondays always hurt the most.
“I could make a Starbucks run,” Christina offered.
“No need for that. I’ll take whatever they’re trying to pass off as coffee in the kitchen.” Emily stood up from her desk, walking towards the door. “It’s not like we have a lot to do around here anyway.”
Christina winked at Emily. “Hey, you never know. Today could be the day we’re contacted by aliens.”
Emily laughed. As much faith as she had in the idea of life on other planets, the next four days on her schedule were telling her a different story. If there was life out in the great beyond, she probably wasn’t going to meet them today.
Chapter Thirty-One
The helicopter approached the Allan Telescope Array at a brisk 215 miles an hour. The mid-morning sun glinted off the Plexiglas windows as Geoffrey sat in silence, watching Kline gaze out the window down at the natural bowl-like formation of the valley below them.
Hundreds of large, shiny, metal satellite dishes were scattered randomly throughout the valley, leaving little to no room for the large helicopter to land. The pilot banked once again; the gentle breezes that seemed so calm on the ground might as well have been gale force winds, the way they were playing havoc with his controls. The pilot clicked his microphone, enabling himself to talk directly to his passenger’s headsets.
“Sir, there isn’t much in the way of a landing area here.” The pilot’s voice was tinged with fear. He’d heard how Kline had erupted on the mine foreman earlier that night. Gossip like that always traveled fast.
“What about the parking lot?” Kline called out as he pointed down towards four squat buildings on the other side of the valley. Clearly the nerve center of the whole operation, Kline thought to himself. The buildings were small, none any higher than two floors, and were centered neatly on a vibrant courtyard filled with flowers and trees. The parking lot was located a few hundred feet away from the buildings, filled with cars parked under carports. The tops of all the carports had extensive solar panels on top of them, feeding power to the hybrid cars and trucks parked below them. With the spaces all covered with the solar panel carports, there left little room available for the large commercial helicopter to land.
“There’s a spot there over in the corner,” Geoffrey added helpfully. Kline shot him a look, and Geoffrey sat back in his seat once again.
“Can you land there?” Kline asked the pilot, his words hissing through his headphones.
“It’ll be tight. If I can’t make it, I’m aborting,” the pilot replied nervously as he smoothly guided the several-thousand-pound vehicle over to where Kline was pointing. He nosed the stick of the helicopter, settling in a precise hover over the free area.
The helicopter settled into a hover, its tail rotor hanging precariously close to high-voltage lines. The pilot swallowed as he lowered the collective inch by inch as sweat poured off his brow.
On the ground, the gentle breeze that rose and fell through the valley was regarded as a welcome respite from the hot day for many. For the two ton craft hovering in midair, it could spell disaster at any moment. The breeze gusted, and the tail rotor of the helicopter was pushed slightly into the carport. The clanging and screeches of metal against metal shook the entire helicopter. The pilot instantly yanked the collective up, bringing the helicopter back up a few hundred feet as he struggled to control it. The tail rotor had been damaged slightly, but it wasn’t enough to kill them all. He was not trying that landing again, no matter how much Kline paid him.
“Idiot!” Kline screamed at the pilot, who ignored his boss as he struggled with the aircraft, attempting to keep them in one piece. He whipped around, looking for his assistant. Geoffrey was clutching the safety handrail, his face white as a sheet. Useless, Kline thought to himself.
“Get us closer to the ground!” Kline yelled into the mic.
“I don’t know if you were watching, but if I try a stupid stunt like that again, we’re all gonna end up as a bunch of pasty red smears down there,” the pilot roared back. “We need to find an airport; that’s where we’re…ack!” Kline’s forearm clamped down on the pilot’s throat, cutting off his words. The businessman leaned forward, whispering into the pilot’s ear.
“Get the aircraft to hover directly over that carport; I’ll take care of the rest.”
The pilot nodded and pushed the collective back down. Kline released his pilot and opened the door. Geoffrey, still pale from their near miss in the helicopter, screamed to his boss over the rushing wind. “Where are you going?”
“To find us a parking spot.” Kline replied nonchalantly as he jumped out of the helicopter and onto the carport below.
Landing on the roof and crushing several panels of the delicate solar panel equipment, Kline fell, rolling down the side of the carport and onto the ground below. Standing, he brushed himse
lf off as he approached the nearest beam that held the expansive carport up.
Clutching it tightly, he grunted and removed the beam, the roof tearing where he took it off. Chucking the beam like a piece of trash, he threw it away into the field beyond the complex’s fences. He moved, tearing off another piece of the corrugated metal carport and throwing the remains into the field and river beyond.
He folded his hands, cracking his knuckles as he approached the truck that had been plugged into the metal beam he had just thrown into the water. He smiled and picked the truck up as if it were one of his favorite toys. Spinning it on one finger, he tossed that too into the river, the water and waves washing up onto the high banks.
He turned and casually tossed another light pickup truck into the water. The helicopter should have plenty of room to land now, he thought to himself. He looked up, smiling and waving at his helicopter above him, pointing to its new landing pad.
The helicopter settled once again into a hover above the spot. Bit by bit, it lowered itself down, finally landing perfectly. The pilot killed the engine. There was work to do if he wanted to get this bird back flying in the air safely.
The pilot opened his door. “I’ve never seen anything like that,” he said, staring at Kline in wonder. “How’d you…”
Kline waved dismissively. “Fix the chopper. Mr. Tate and I have an appointment inside. Be ready to take off when we return. Is that clear?”
“Yes sir, Mr. Kline.” The pilot swallowed. It might be best to forget what he had seen and just fix the helicopter if he wanted to go home tonight. He grabbed his tools and headed back to the tail rotor of the aircraft, intent on finding out how badly it was damaged.
“Mr. Tate, you’re with me.” Kline began walking towards the four buildings where a crowd of people had gathered to watch the helicopter land. There usually wasn’t this much excitement at the Allen Telescope Array. The pair of them strode past the first group of people, ignoring their whispers and furtive glances.
“Sir, you think we may have made too much noise with that landing?” Geoffrey asked his boss nervously. Kline stopped, turned on his heel, and addressed his second in command.
“Perhaps you’re right. Ahem…” Kline cleared his throat. “Ladies and gentlemen of the Allan Telescope Array, my apologies for my somewhat dramatic entrance, which may have interrupted your day here at work.”
A security guard, complete with radio and flashlight, approached Kline and Geoffrey somewhat hesitantly.
“Sir, you need to come with me,” the security guard said nervously. “I don’t…” The words out of his mouth were cut off as Kline’s hand shot out, clutching the security guard’s throat.
“I’m just curious,” Kline asked, his eyes looking up and down the man’s face, “What brings you to this point in your life? Surely you had some larger dream than sitting in a windowless office in the middle of nowhere?”
The guard couldn’t respond. The crowd of people who had gathered around began running in fear. Kline watched them scatter off, his attention momentarily distracted. “Doesn’t matter, I suppose. You’re here now, you’re in my way, but it’s possible you serve a larger purpose that I’m currently unaware of.” Kline tossed the man hard, throwing his body through the plate glass window entrance. The man landed on the ground hard, bleeding profusely from several cuts. He slumped over as he moaned in pain. Kline ignored him and Geoffrey followed him as they briskly walked into the complex.
Geoffrey was already moving to the main counter. Typing furiously on the keyboard in front of him, he located the office they were looking for. “She’s in Building 3, Office 138, which just across the way from us here.”
Kline surveyed the damage in front of him. This would need to be cleaned up.
“Disable whatever security system they have and format the security drives. Leave nothing behind!”
Geoffrey nodded and began to type rapidly on the keyboard in front of him.
Kline exited the main building and into the courtyard behind it. There, surrounded by several different types of wildflowers, trees and plants, he walked down the narrow path, towards the other large building with several satellite dishes situated on top of the roof.
Approaching the door, he tried it, finding it locked. Sighing heavily, he tore the door off its hinges, tossing it behind him.
People screamed as Kline peered into the lobby of the Allan Telescope Array. He opened his jacket and removed a gleaming black rectangular gun. The front was flat and square, with nine tiny holes drilled into the end of the barrel. It was one of the more devious guns Kline’s company had invented. Inside the magazine were 900 tiny aerodynamic hypodermic needles filled with a potent neurotoxin. These people here were men and women of science, and Kline wished them no harm.
The toxin was designed to stop limbic activity — that is to say, paralyze his victims instantly. After Geoffrey’s description of Mr. McCray’s vulnerability to non-lethal types of weapons, he had picked up his needle gun from the personal store he kept with him at all times in his trailer. There, he had every type of weapon imaginable, and some that were still highly classified by the Department of Defense. His close connections with the DoD had enabled him to get his hands on some potent weapons in the past, the needle gun being no exception.
Inserting a high-pressure CO2 cartridge, he aimed and fired the needles rapidly into the oncoming crush of terrified scientists. The needles spat out the end of the gun rapidly, hitting several men and women in lab coats. The crush of people made it impossible for the rest to get past Kline. He giggled as the darts hit his intended targets, their terrified faces falling helplessly to the floor as if they were living dolls that had suddenly been turned off.
The truth was much more terrifying. The men and women who fell victim to his needles were awake, paralyzed in a living nightmare, unable to move their limbs or do much of anything except breathe and feel the tingling toxin working its way through their nervous system. In a few hours, they would be quite all right once again, but in the meantime, they would be stuck as prisoners in their own bodies.
Kline exited the lobby, turning a corner and walking down the hallway lit by bright fluorescent bulbs. Turning to his left, he ran into a group of people running down the opposite end of the hallway. The group stood there, all frightened for their lives as they watched the man in the impeccable suit hold the gun on them.
“Where is Office 138?” Kline asked, his voice low and gritty.
A woman with her chin held high looked with disapproval at Kline. “Why are you here? There’s nothing of value here for you to take! What could you possibly want?”
“Emily Harper.” Kline said menacingly. “I’ve got her resume and I’m just dying to meet her.”
“She’s a goner, left hours ago,” one of the other scientists offered up quickly. The woman hugged the lab coat around her tiny frame as she stepped up to Kline. “I don’t even know if she’ll be back.” Behind her, she grasped a fire extinguisher, and as Kline approached her, she could feel the sweat on her hands as she clutched her improvised weapon. If only he stepped a few feet closer...
“Shame.” Kline flipped the switch on his needle gun and fired an open spread of six needles tipped with the nightmarish neurotoxin.
The group of them fell, each struck with a needle and paralyzed. Kline saw the woman who had confronted him clutching the fire extinguisher. He laughed and crouched next to her. “What exactly did you think you were going to do with that?” Kline hissed in her ear, licking his lips. “I suppose, in another universe, it’s possible you killed me. You small nothing of a woman.
“You have no idea of the forces you are trying to interfere with. You think that you could possibly stand in my way? I know you, I know everything there is to know about you, and we've only now just met. All the challenges you faced growing up, born in a large family, with little to no money or attention. Blessed with brains, you scraped and clawed your way through life until you ended up here, in this mom
ent, where you might have struck down the most powerful man in the world.”
Geoffrey entered the building, seeing his boss stroking the terrified scientist on the ground. He looked at his watch and cleared his throat. His boss’s flair for the dramatic was costing them time.
“Yes, I know, Mr. Tate. I’m finishing up here.” Kline smoothed the terrified young lady’s hair back on her head. “Today you are the luckiest woman alive, because you stay alive. You go on, lead a normal life, and leave these nerds behind.” Kline stood abruptly, letting the young woman’s head bounce on the floor below.
“Now, Office 138, I believe it is.”
Kline and Geoffrey strode purposefully down the hallway, looking at the various numbered plates on the wall. He paused at Number 137, hearing voices from the next room.
“Hey, something’s happening out there,” Kline heard a woman’s voice call out. “People are running towards their cars.”
“I wonder what’s going on,” another voice asked. “Can’t be lunchtime already, can it?”
“If it is, you can buy me lunch. It’s about time you picked up a bill.”
Kline smiled. He walked into the office, a concerned expression on his face.