Second Contact, page 20
part #2 of Not Alone Series
“And if I could just have one last word on that,” Timo said, reacting to Marian de Clerk’s body language which made it clear that she wanted to bring the other panelists into the conversation. “Chairman Godfrey, a serious investment in our planet’s future has to be made. And if you won’t do it, I will. Yes — right now, you are standing in my way. But neither I nor the citizens of this planet will stand idly by while you hide behind the legal clauses your friends included in the GSC’s charter to forbid private groups from launching anything into orbit. You can try to stop me, and you can even succeed. What I want you to remember is that you can stop a man, but you can’t stop a movement.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Godfrey groaned, “but for some reason I am. What we have here in the form of Timo Fiore is a narcissistic billionaire with an origin story that would put any comic-book super-villain to shame. Born into the most grotesque level of privilege anyone could imagine; living with an unearned fortune greater than the GDP of many countries; and now seeking personal power through strategic control of space, the ultimate high ground? Let’s not forget, we’re dealing with a man here who just named a space program after himself. When I proposed the creation of an organisation like the GSC, the G didn’t stand for Godfrey. That’s the difference, and we’d all do well to remember it.”
“Do either of you two have any perspectives to add?” de Clerk asked the quiet pairing of Jack Neal and Joe Crabbe. While Crabbe shook his head quickly and decisively, Jack was evidently weighing up whether to share the final thought rattling through his mind. After a few seconds, he exhaled sharply through his nose and glared at Godfrey like a mongoose staring down a cobra.
Jack then glanced briefly at his notes, revealing that what he was about to say had at least been considered and hence evidently cleared with Prime Minister Cole. “Timo is not necessarily the answer to anything,” he said, speaking slowly and calmly. “I’m certainly not saying he is. But just because he may not be the answer, that doesn’t mean there are no questions worth asking. Chairman Godfrey, a lot of people in a lot of countries really are concerned that your organisation is not doing enough to ensure the long-term safety of their populations. If we consider the analogy of a national government — a state — we all recognise that a state is supposed to protect its citizens against internal threats from bad people and against external threats from other aggressive states. We all agree on that. And if a state can’t do those things, the social contract is broken and the state loses its monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Again, we all agree on that; this has been the foundation of our political world for hundreds of years.
“So when your organisation claims a legitimate global monopoly over all aspects of space-based defence and observation systems,” Jack went on, well into his stride, “you need to understand that the responsibility is on you to uphold your end of this new social contract. Because if the people of this planet understandably feel that you’re not doing enough to safeguard their futures, your monopoly is going to be challenged — not just by Timo, but by the member states themselves. A year ago, you accused Richard Walker of committing ‘a crime against humanity’ for leaving us less prepared to deal with a potential threat than we would have been if he had acted openly and responsibly. Today, Chairman Godfrey, I hope that particular irony is not lost on you.”
Marian de Clerk, as stunned as anyone by Jack’s remarkable stance, invited Godfrey to reply.
“Even for you,” Godfrey began, pausing for several seconds to let the words sink in. “Even for you… I can’t pretend to be anything other than astounded that you would stoop so low and risk destabilising everything just to score political points and continue a childish personal grudge. For everyone else, let me reassure you that the United Kingdom is and always will be a primary member of the GSC, long after this parasite is out of the picture and long after the clock strikes twelve on John Cole’s accidental career in politics. Fortunately, in the real world, the two nations truly capable of challenging the GSC’s status quo happen to be governed by reasonable individuals in the form of Valerie Slater and Ding Ziyang, both of whom are as firmly behind this cooperative global endeavour as I am. If Jack and John want to threaten to pull out, I invite them to do so at their earliest convenience. We’ll see how the British electorate reacts to that.”
“And unfortunately that’s all we have time for,” Marian de Clark said, trying to stay on top of the unexpected and explosive developments which had closed the final segment of the show and which she knew could end up having even more far-reaching consequences than the GSC leak which had opened it. “Stick around for a special bulletin on the recent revelations from Buenos Aires and what the apparent split between leading figures may mean for the future of the GSC itself. And, as ever, tune in next week for another exciting edition of Focus 20/20.”
As the lighting in the studio changed and the panelists removed the microphones from their shirts, William Godfrey stared a hole through Jack Neal. “You have no idea what kind of game you’re playing here,” he said, quickly switching his gaze to Timo and hissing out the words. “Either of you.”
C minus 49
Ford Residence
Birchwood, Colorado
Despite some of the panelists’ grim tones when discussing long-term threats to Earth, Tara was naturally happy that the evening’s Focus 20/20 panel looked to have gone pretty well for Timo and by extension for Emma. The happiness, however, ended there.
The early stages of Tara’s stay in Birchwood, which was intended as a palette cleanser of uncertain duration following a very trying last few months in New York, had not exactly been what she had in mind. Emma was gone, for one thing, having agreed to leave with Timo after telling Tara she had no plans for the next few weeks. And while the suddenness of the event at Kerguelen was no one’s fault, that didn’t make Tara’s boredom any easier to deal with.
‘Boredom’ was the word she liked to apply to her low mood, but she knew that ‘loneliness’ might well have been closer to the mark. The easy-going groups of unfocused partiers she used to effortlessly attach herself to wherever she went, including on previous stays with Emma, were no longer an option now that there was always at least one person in any group who recognised her. And given that she’d burned a lot of bridges with the old friends she left in Georgia and had never really been accepted by the fake ones she found in New York, loneliness was a tough word to avoid.
She had her phone to keep her company, of course, but the degree of visual celebrity created by her high-profile billboard and magazine campaigns for premium cosmetic products was of the difficult level that seemed to invite cruel comments without generating a dedicated fanbase large enough to counter the negativity. Tara had long ago learned not to search for her name, but there was little she could do to avoid seeing the comments when they came in the form of tags or even direct messages.
The app which now saw most use on Tara’s phone was a cartoonish farm simulator on which she could easily spend upwards of twenty dollars a day without thinking anything of it. A psychologist might well have called this an addiction and an accountant would certainly have called it a problem were Tara not financially comfortable on the back of her modelling success, but it passed the time.
Ironically enough, the relative solitude of Birchwood had been exactly what Tara had been looking forward to when she decided to take an indefinite break from a vacuous modelling world full of fake friendships and ruthless backstabbing. As she had told Emma on the phone when begging her for a place to stay, Tara felt like her career had turned into something from a bad early-2000s TV show. In her words: “drama dot com, forward-slash more than enough.”
She knew there was something tragic about someone so outwardly successful sitting alone on a Sunday night, eating cold pizza and feeding cartoon sheep the fake grain she’d just bought for them with real money.
On more than a few occasions, Tara was tempted to call Dan just to see what he was doing and to ask if he wanted to come over to kill some time; but having seen him walking around outside in the middle of the night in an effort to clear his own head, she knew that he was going through a lot of stuff and would probably now be busy trying to make sense of everything that had gone down on Focus 20/20.
A little while after the show finished, Tara texted Emma to ask how everything was going.
When a single-word answer came back — “Fine” — she didn’t try again and instead went back to the cartoon sheep.
C minus 48
McCarthy Residence
Birchwood, Colorado
“They called me to the cornfield,” Dan said, blurting it out as soon as his basement’s door was securely locked. “Last night.”
“Walker’s cornfield?” Clark asked, his jaw suddenly slack. “Did he see you?”
Dan nodded indifferently. “He invited me inside and we talked for a few minutes, but that’s not the main thing.”
“It sure as hell sounds like the main thing! What happened?”
“Well, I don’t remember getting there so I must have been sleepwalking or whatever you want to call it… just like last year. There was another crop circle, as small as the last one. I was inside it. And when I woke up — or ‘came to’, I guess — Rooster was licking my face. Walker was standing at the edge of the circle with a flashlight in one hand and a shotgun in the other. I could hardly run away.”
“Did he threaten you? Did he hurt you?”
“It wasn’t like that,” Dan insisted. “He probably just picked it up when he heard a noise outside or saw his security light or something, before he knew it was me.”
Clark rubbed his forehead, trying to digest everything. “So what did he say?”
Dan shrugged. “Not a lot. He’s dying, so I guess there’s that. He didn’t really say anything except that the GSC is a threat, and he almost apologised for getting us caught up in his bullshit. He said that telling the secret — Full Disclosure, as he called it — is our emergency stop button in case we need it against the GSC, just like the leak sequence that kicked off the hoax was his emergency stop button in case he ever needed it against the Soviets… or the Chinese, like it turned out. He said he would do it himself — tell the truth of Full Disclosure, to stop the GSC — but obviously the Messengers warned him that they’d step in if he tried.”
“So you don’t think he’s a problem?”
“I don’t think he’s relevant,” Dan said. “Listen, Clark: I saw something last night. I thought I was dreaming, but I could control where I looked and what I focused on. I was at Lolo and there was nothing else… no noise, no movement, nothing. Just me, under the stars, right in the spot where we met them. There was a flash, out of nowhere, and when it died down there was a really prominent triangle in the sky. I drew it as best I could, in the right place relative to the Moon and to the most obvious stars.”
At that point Dan placed his hands on the false wall that shielded his wall-length research board, holding his fingertips in place momentarily until they were recognised.
The wall parted to reveal a sight that was largely familiar to Clark but for the abundance of overlapping hollow triangles cut from paper and stuck to various areas of the world map. Far more prominent than the previous shapes made with pins and string, the points of the largest of these triangles fell upon Kerguelen, Miramar and Salzburg while another touched the same two latter locations but used Lolo National Forest rather than Kerguelen as the first point. Many smaller triangles lay entirely within North America, most of which used Lolo and either Birchwood or Colorado Springs as two of their three points.
Clark said nothing as he took in this sight.
“Remember the night of the bolide?” Dan went on. “I told you and Emma that the engravings on the first two plaques established triangles and squares as ways of sharing information. And I pointed out that even though those plaques were fake, the Messengers chose to engrave the third plaque — the only real message so far — in a way that didn’t invalidate the others. You thought I was crazy, and maybe I was. But they showed me a triangle last night. Let me rephrase that: last night, they showed me a triangle. A few days ago I said that Kerguelen was a message for everyone and that the next thing would be a message for me. Well, here we are, man. Here we are.”
“So what are you thinking?” Clark asked. “Kerguelen is one point, Lolo is another point, and you’re going to find the plaque at the third point? Where would that even be?”
“Kerguelen probably isn’t one of the points,” Dan said. “That was a message for everyone, remember? And I think it’s just too far away for the distances to make sense. At Kerguelen, they physically intervened to get everyone’s attention; and they did it in a way that would get the point across without hurting anyone on the ground, just like when they halted the DS-1 launch. But to be honest, I think that’s where Kerguelen stops being relevant. Lolo is probably one of the points, since that’s somewhere no one else knows is important, but I don’t know yet for sure. Anyway, you can call me crazy as much as you want, but in the next couple of days I think there’s going to be at least one more major incident and maybe even two. What matters most is where they happen.”
Clark couldn’t hide his confusion. “Okay… I can’t even remember if it was me or Emma who asked this first, but if they’re leading you somewhere then why are they being so cryptic about it? Last time, when they wanted us to go to Lolo, they called you to the cornfield and something inspired you to draw a map. Easy as that! Why are they screwing with your head this time? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Two real-world things are going to happen,” Dan said. “But because I’m the only one who saw the triangle, I’m the only one who’s going to know that the third point is the key.”
“Triangles, triangles, triangles… Dan, we’re going in circles here! If they want you to find it, why are they making it so difficult?”
Dan pointed to his board. “It’s not difficult. The last few days have been difficult because I had to be so patient, but this is it. Trust me, Clark: in a week, max, the fourth plaque is going to be found and we’re going to know whatever they need us to know. You can take that to the bank. Depending on where it is, it might not make sense for me to find it. Maybe we could use Timo, we’ll see how it goes. See? Timo might fit in right there… that could be the reason why I had to tell him. Everything’s falling into place. You just have to trust the dots, then when we look back we’ll see how obviously they all fit together.”
“I don’t know where you get your faith, man,” Clark said, patting Dan hard on the back. “But if this second contact last night was good enough for you, I guess it’s good enough for me.”
Dan grinned. “Second contact… I like that. Uh, there’s one other thing, though: Tara saw me coming back.”
“She what?”
“I took care of it,” Dan said. “She didn’t see me in the light, so she didn’t see that I didn’t have any shoes on, and I told her I was outside because I needed some space to think. She bought it.”
Clark breathed an audible sigh of relief. “So, have you heard from Emma at all?”
“No.”
“It’s probably smart if you give her some time,” Clark said. “I was pissed off by what you did. I am pissed off — don’t think that’s gone — but she was stuck on that plane with him. I mean… I know she’s good, but that’s not an easy situation to handle.”
“It worked out, didn’t it? You saw Timo. He’s on board.”
“You’ve got some serious making up to do when she gets back… that’s all I’m saying. Anyway, I’m going to catch up with Dad. And joking aside, is there any way you can rig up a bell or an alarm or something so that I would wake up if you leave the house in the middle of the night again?”
“That’s a good idea,” Dan said. “I’ll work something out, just in case.”
Clark set off up the stairs. “I always was the smart one.”
“Clark, wait,” Dan called.
“Yeah?”
“When you walked in earlier with that briefcase, you looked like a gorilla dressed up as a police officer on the first day of his new job in the big city.”
Clark laughed involuntarily. “Dan, the only reason I took that bullshit paperwork shift today was so I didn’t have to sit here with you all day and try not to kill you. Seriously… just because you’re our conduit to the Messengers, that doesn’t mean you get to treat people like that and pull the kind of shit you pulled on the plane.”
“It had to be done,” Dan insisted. “Timo had to know.”
“Just smarten up and think of a better line than ‘it had to be done’ before Emma gets back, okay? Otherwise something tells me she won’t be sticking around for much longer,” Clark said, speaking as bluntly as he felt he had to. “Got that? And fix up the alarm thing before you go to bed, but make sure you do get some beauty sleep tonight; you know what Mr Byrd is like with his birthday portraits.”
“I’m already doing it,” Dan said, clicking away on his computer and ignoring the rest of Clark’s message. He had forgotten that it was his birthday the following day and didn’t share the view that Emma would be all that angry with him when she got home, so neither point seemed particularly urgent.
Clark stopped at the door and crouched for one last look at Dan’s triangle-covered wall. “You really think we’re only a few days away from the fourth plaque?” he asked.
“There’s no think,” Dan said, speaking fairly robotically as his eyes and hands focused on the new alarm system he was already configuring. “I know it.”
MONDAY
C minus 47
GSC Headquarters
Buenos Aires, Argentina
