by M. Alan Marr
Dev quickly writes up a single dispatch on his interlink device to be transmitted over the borrowed (hijacked) satellite. Message loaded, it becomes a question of time. Without further delay, Dev presses the enter key to begin the transmission. The data probe triggers a surge of power in the satellite, boosting its transmission signal strength way above normal, but not so much as to overload its power systems to the point of damaging components. Dev carefully watches red and yellow bars on the status screen to make sure the power surge is being managed, regulating the power output, and keeping everything below the upper redline limit. A new window opens up on the screen and very slowly populates with the most basic of messages:
OASIS… OBSERVATION… REPORT…
EARLY… DESCENT… REQUIRED…
RELAY… BUOY… UNAVAILABLE…
OBSERVATION… CONTINUES…
ALL… IS… WELL…
RESPECTS… 4…2…6…9…7
The message is short, but will let the Admiralty know Dev is on mission. He purposely left the content vague in the off chance someone on Earth is actually able to intercept it. He signed it with his command number, 42697, so his name would not be out there. The Admiralty will know not to reply to the cryptic message, particularly when they analyze the method by which it was sent. The computer signals the message is transmitting at maximum power available. The computer further calculates a boosted steady signal for eight minutes should be enough. It is a long eight minutes. Dev considers the long-distance detection capability of the Crown and estimates his signal should be in range within three months, and possibly earlier if one of their ships happens to be bridging the gap.
Meanwhile, on the ground in Mexico, the harried technicians watch as their satellite’s power climbs to dangerous levels. Nothing they do has any effect. Their every action is instantly countered by the unseen forces at work. Phones across all of Mexico are dead. The screens showing normal satellite activity quickly blank as its cache of data empties. All anyone knows at this point is that Mex-Star 1 is malfunctioning and sending all of its data out into space.
Dev watches the countdown clock reach zero and then begins the process of putting the satellite back in normal position and relinquishing control back to the Mexican agency. The satellite’s RCS thrusters fire again in a controlled sequence, and its transmission aperture rotates back toward Earth. Dev programs the data probe to self-annihilate, and fifteen minutes after it all began, Mexico’s telecommunications grid is back online. Mex-Star’s control room suddenly reverts back to normal operations, as if nothing at all happened.
Dev activates a security program that wipes all evidence of the interdiction from the computer systems on Earth. All links are severed. The cryptology system is powered down. Dev disengages the special programming, and his MacBook is once again just a normal laptop running its unusual cosmos program, although it still shows the dashed line representing the last outbound transmission from the system.
Dev yawns and locks his interlink device in the safe. He changes into bedclothes and applies some more of his super-salve to his black eye, then goes to sleep, content in knowing his message is well on its way. Tomorrow’s trip to Starbucks will have him poring over the newspapers for any evidence of his nocturnal activities. What Dev doesn’t realize is that news doesn’t always travel fast on Earth . . .
Dev wakes to an earlier than normal text message from Chaz, asking him if he’s awake and feels up to meeting for coffee. Dev quickly showers and hurries to Starbucks, where Chaz has two coffees ready to drink.
“I’m sorry to text so early. I have to go to the training center this morning for some work stuff.”
“No, I’m glad you did.”
“Hey, your eye looks much better,” Chaz comments, noticing Dev’s face appears all but normal.
“Feels fine now.”
“It looked terrible last night. You all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine, really.” Dev sits. “I can’t believe I got accosted.”
“Mugged, Dev. You got mugged.”
Dev smiles. “Attempted mugging.”
“When you say accosted it makes it sound so . . . civilized.” Chaz adds, “I am so glad you kicked that guy’s ass.”
“I didn’t kick him.”
Chaz laughs. “You take everything so literally. I mean you beat the shit out of him.”
Dev is about to reply to that, but then realizes this too is an expression. “Yes. I beat the shit out of him. And then hit him with a building.”
“Are you recovered enough to have dinner tonight?”
Dev nods with enthusiasm. “Absolutely.”
“Good. Dress nice.” Chaz smiles. “I’m sorry to cut this short, but I’ve got to get going. But I’ll be back tonight. Let’s meet at 7:00 pm, at the gates to Piedmont Park. Don’t be late.”
“I’ll be there.”
“And try not to beat anyone up!” Chaz jokes as he walks out. Dev laughs at this one.
Chaz departs Starbucks and drives to the Triad Airlines training center, where he will spend most of the day at recurrent training class that every pilot has to periodically attend throughout the year.
Dev, meanwhile, reads the newspapers for any hint of his Mexican satellite adventure. He returns to the hotel soon after and watches the news channels for the rest of the day. Nothing but the usual terrible things going on in the world.
PIEDMONT PARK
1900 HOURS
Satisfied his nocturnal activities remain a quiet mystery locked away in Mexico, a very well-dressed Dev enters the gates of Piedmont Park, with no black eye, and meets Chaz at the designated spot. Chaz said to dress up for dinner, so Dev wore one of his new suits, this one a blue striped John Varvatos, fitted perfectly, and a stunning orange tie. Chaz is also dressed in his finest for a splendid dinner outside. A few hundred yards away, their destination awaits: a small folding table in front of the Heavenly Beast food truck for their renowned Kobe Mignon Tacos, savored they say, by all who taste the Beast’s greatness.
Tacos ordered, Chaz gathers a terrific dinner designed completely on the fly. The fish course, grilled scallop kabobs, is from the equally mobile Arielle’s Tail seafood truck. Pita and hummus is retrieved from Vehicular Hummuside. A truck called Axel Grease provides truffled French fries deep fried in duck fat. A veritable four-star meal from the food trucks is the bill of fare for tonight’s dinner in the park.
“This is great,” Dev says, finally able to relax after a day of quiet anxiety.
“Having a good time?”
“Absolutely,” Dev replies with relief. “It’s been a trying day.”
“Did something else happen?”
Dev wavers. “No, it’s . . . programming issues.”
“Oh . . . well, at least it wasn’t police-related.” He adds, “Did you get them worked out?”
“I did,” Dev replies. “It took some creativity, but . . .” Dev smiles. “All is well.”
Chaz looks at Dev and squints. “You don’t strike me as the type that easily stresses out. Even last night you seemed pretty calm about the mugging.”
“Attempted mugging,” Dev jokes. “Normally I’m not. I mean, when you look at all the problems the universe has to offer, mine here are fairly innocuous.”
“The universe?”
“You make fun of me.”
Chaz laughs. “I’m not making fun of you, Dev. You just have an interesting philosophy is all. It’s all very Zen. You connect everything to the universe.”
“It is all connected.”
“Well, how’s the universe treating you tonight?”
“Better than last night.” Dev laughs. “But I’m holding my own.” He looks at Chaz and adds, “You know, I certainly didn’t plan on meeting anyone here, but . . . I’m very glad that I did.”
“Me too.” Chaz smiles.
Dev smiles back. “I think it was in the stars.”
“I’m good with that.”
“So what’s next on the menu?”
Finally, dessert is enjoyed together in front of The Flavor Zamboni, a shaved Italian ice and gelato truck. Dev wonders why the raspberry-flavored ice is blue. It doesn’t make any sense.
Later, Chaz and Dev meander through the park, walking off a little of what they ate.
“What did you think?” Chaz says.
“Dinner was delicious.”
“Food trucks have become all the rage down here.”
“I’ve never seen anything quite like it.” Dev laughs. “Although, I thought everyone else was very underdressed.”
“We looked pretty good, though.”
“Yes, sir, we did.”
They continue talking as they stroll through the park, taking the long way back to the gates. “How is your condo coming along?”
“I haven’t seen it yet,” Dev replies casually. “Donovan, the decorator, said he’s having trouble with the fourth bedroom. Something about a damaged something or other.”
“Fourth bedroom?” Chaz says, resisting the urge to pry further.
“Yes, the one off the kitchen,” Dev replies and adds, “I told him he had my complete confidence. And then I reminded him he has two days left.”
The walk eventually leads to Chaz’s condo for a relaxed after-dinner evening. It is nearly 9:55 pm, and Chaz hasn’t seen any headlines of the day. “Do you mind if I put the news on?”
“No, of course not.”
Chaz turns on MSNBC to catch the last segment of Rachel Maddow, and then goes into the kitchen to open a bottle of wine. A television commercial ends and the news segment begins. Rachel Maddow is sitting at her anchor desk. On the screen next to her is a graphic reading: Number, please. Rachel Maddow begins the segment. “Something very weird happened early this morning, plunging Mexico into a telephone blackout after a communications satellite went haywire.” Dev stares at the TV screen with a shocked expression.
Rachel Maddow continues, “Communications satellites are nothing new. Back in the old days of broadcasting it was rather a big deal to bring news or conduct interviews ‘via satellite.’ Newsrooms would even put up a little caption on the screen letting you, the viewer, know that what you were seeing was being streamed over a hunk of metal in space. In fact, the skies above us are littered with both functioning and non-functioning satellites that date back to the early 1960s.
“These satellites, of course, have finite lifespans. Some of them wear out and eventually fall back to Earth and burn up in the atmosphere, where others just hang around up there for generations. Telstar was broadcasting’s first, but nowadays, there are a lot of them, and they do a lot of different things. Satellites are used for everything from tracking the weather, to satellite TV, to any number of civilian, military, and scientific purposes. The GPS in your cars and smartphones use an entire network of twenty-four dedicated satellites positioned geometrically around the globe and pleasantly tell you how to get from point A to point B. But tonight, we’re going to talk about one particular satellite, a communications satellite, and the wild ride it took in the wee hours this morning.” Rachel shifts her papers and continues. “Mexico has two satellites, called Mex-Star 1 and Mex-Star 2, respectively. Mex-Star 1 is responsible for telecommunications; Mex-Star 2 is tasked with everything else. They are both American-made commercial satellites, and up to now, they’ve both worked perfectly. But last night, Mex-Star 1 went completely loco.”
Chaz brings in the wine. Dev is glued to the TV.
Rachel Maddow continues, “Phone calls all over Mexico, from Acapulco to Zacatecas went dark. Now, these satellites have small thrusters attached to them, which are fired from time to time to adjust the satellite’s position and keep them in their proper orbits. Well, this morning, at exactly 0200 hours, the thrusters on Mex-Star 1 malfunctioned, turning the satellite around from its normal position pointing toward the Earth—specifically Mexico—to the very abnormal position of pointing away from the Earth entirely.
“Mexican authorities reported afterward—because their phones too didn’t work—that the satellite continued transmitting its data into space while all this was going on. Technicians were able to right the satellite after about fifteen minutes, and all was bueno down Mexico way again.” Rachel Maddow pauses and looks at the camera. “The weird part, is that the satellite apparently decided, not just to misfire its thrusters and turn around facing the wrong direction; but to point itself with precision, to an area of the sky near the Big Dipper called Corona Borealis,”—Dev’s mouth gapes—“requiring its thrusters to fire not just once, but several times to achieve that exact alignment.
“Corona Borealis is a group of stars visible in the night sky. Its name means Northern Crown. It is, as I said, in the neighborhood of the Big Dipper, many, many light years away. No one knows why this happened or what caused the thrusters to misfire. But for fifteen minutes, the Mex-Star 1 sent out everything it had as a message to deep space . . . en Español. Weird. That’s it for us—now it’s time for Lawrence O’Donnell.”
Dev is still staring at the screen as he whispers, “Holy shit.”
Chaz hands Dev a glass of wine and looks at him. “You okay?”
“Yeah . . .” Dev says vaguely. “What would cause such a thing, I wonder?”
Chaz dismisses it. “Oh, please, no matter where it ended up, they could say it pointed to this star or that star.”
“Do you think something else was going on?”
“What could be going on? I think the satellite malfunctioned, and it sounds much cooler to say it was transmitting to a specific star than say the thing just malfunctioned.”
“I hope.” Dev quickly adds, “I mean, I hope it doesn’t happen again.”
“Those things screw up all the time.”
Dev takes a large pull from his wineglass. He swallows, takes a deep breath, and tries to shrug off the news and enjoy the rest of the evening with Chaz.
Despite the hack-attack making the airwaves after all, the evening is a total success. Dinner in the park was great. But the reporting of the Mexico situation has made Dev a little unsettled, so he calls it a night. As he walks down the street toward the hotel, he thinks, No more borrowing Earth’s satellites. Two close calls in as many days.
Chapter 10
Superstar
It’s been three weeks, and it is nearly time for the unveiling of Dev’s condo. No other media outlet picked up on the Mexican satellite mystery. Relieved, Dev continues on mission, learning about present-day Earth and writing about what he sees and does. The sheer vastness of the Internet has made data collection exponentially easier. In fairly short order, Dev is able to sift through the paranoid conspiracy driven areas of the Internet and focus on fact. Science and technology are easy, and never before in Earth’s history have such technological leaps been made that directly impact the daily routine of the average Earth resident. Communication, once a person-to-person exercise, now spans the globe. National borders all but disappear on the electronic frontier. A global citizenry is beginning to take shape, bringing people together. In a perfect world, this new communications phenomenon would mean the people of Earth are starting to work together. However, growing pains are equally obvious, for as much as the Internet is a tool of hope and knowledge, there is a dark side as well. And, as with any tool, communication can be used as a weapon, furthering a destructive agenda. The power of communication can destroy societies just as easily as it can save them. And on a world such as Earth, where higher education has become a luxury, rather than an imperative, lack of practical reasoning skills becomes an easy target for those willing to exploit them. Depressing, really. People on the verge of greatness, hampered by a vast legion of those who will stop at nothing to maintain a status quo of despair and division.
Dev is fast becoming jaded to the inadequacies of planet Earth. A knock on the door signals Dev to close his laptop and h
appily forget about the state of the world. It is the decorator’s crew, there to transfer all of Dev’s belongings to the Gillespie. Right on schedule. Dev already has his leather duffel bag packed with all his off-world items and cash from the safe, so he slings his bag over his shoulder and leaves the suite to the movers.
Downstairs in the hotel lobby, Dev settles his bill and officially checks out. He has a little less than an hour before the grand unveiling at the Gillespie, so he walks over to Chaz’s condo to wait out the time. Chaz is excited about the unveiling as well.
At 7:55 pm, Dev and Chaz walk across the street and check in with the concierge, who promptly escorts them into the elevator. The concierge passes a magnetic key across the elevator sensor, which lights up the PH button, then leaves them alone, and the doors close behind him.
Chaz gasps. “Oh my God, you did—”
“Did what?”
“You bought the penthouse—holy shit.”
Dev makes light of it. “It was the only thing available.”
Chaz shakes his head in amazement. “Of course,” he says as he laughs, “because why not?”
“I had to buy something.”
Chaz shakes his head. “I’m just giving you grief. I can’t wait to see it.”
The elevator arrives in the private vestibule, now tastefully decorated in white. White walls, white table, and two white fabric chairs. On the table is a tall glass cylinder containing a beautiful and vibrant purple orchid, introducing the only color to the room.
“Welcome to heaven,” Chaz says, alluding to the all-white vestibule.
An overdressed decorator, named Donovan stands ready at the doors to the penthouse, and greets the men as they come off the elevator. “Good evening, Gentlemen.”