Overture (Earth Song) (26 page)

“
All is lost,” Victor realized with a sinking feeling. Through the ruins of the garage door he could see hundreds of his followers lying dead on the ground. The agents inside were killing at will. Nearby, Gabriel struggled to climb the Portal dais to defend his leader. Already bleeding from several gunshot wounds, he still managed to continue firing his M-4 until it ran empty. A CIA agent stitched him from crotch to head with automatic fire and Gabriel fell next to Victor, eyes wide in death. 

“
Go through!” Duke yelled from the bottom of the steps, “Get to Heaven!” Victor looked at him, then to the Portal. When he looked back, Duke had jumped at a pair of agents who were firing at him from point blank. He was hit a half dozen times and still managed to reach them. With his dying strength he crushed their necks with his bare hands.

A
pair of agents turned toward Victor, and he realized he was about to die. Confronted with certain death he did the only thing he could, he raised his hands. They both pointed their guns at him for a long moment before one of them raised a hand to the other, and they both lowered their weapons slightly. Victor nodded his head and half smiled at them before taking a deep breath and jumping backwards.

The
Portal flashed deep purple and he landed seemingly just a foot from where he’d started. Only now a strangely tinted sunlight shown on him, not the near darkness of the dome. He was in Heaven.

Victor
turned around and beheld the Promised Land. There were trees in the near distance and the air held a strange sweet smell to it. “I’m here!” he cried, the joy of the moment temporarily overcoming the hopelessness of the situation he just left behind. He turned his head slightly and there he saw a pair of small, roughly constructed log cabins. Out of one of their doors came a pair of men. To his horror he realized they carried machine guns and were dressed in fatigues. It was just like the prophetic dream. He'd reached Heaven and it was already occupied!

Searing
pain suddenly jerked Victor upright and pulled him around. He looked down to see several bloody holes torn raggedly through the front of his shirt. He staggered around and looked back through the Portal to the darkened dome. Some of his followers managed to almost reach the gateway as well, only to be cut down by weapons fire. Somehow the bullets traveled through the Portal and reached him in Heaven.

“
How?” he gurgled as he fell backwards and rolled down the steps. Lying on the ground and feeling his life’s blood pour out, Victor wondered how he could die in Heaven. A short time later he ceased to wonder about anything.

Mindy woke in the quiet hotel room to the smell of bacon and eggs. She sat up and looked around, trying to remember something. That was when she noticed the covers pulled back on the other side of the bed and the note on a pillow. She bit her lower lip and her cheeks flushed as the memories of the previous night came flooding back. She couldn’t remember the last time she had stayed up late making love, or when she’d had such an attentive and skilled lover. Billy was an eager professional in the sack, and she already longed for another go at him.

The
note explained that he was on duty this morning and he wanted to see her afterwards. He said he’d had a wonderful time, thought she was a pale-skinned goddess, and asked if she still thought he’d been a perfect gentleman. She laughed as she read that last part, and then noticed the room service cart.

“
Food, thank God!” She jumped out of bed with a laugh. He’d obviously made himself a sandwich or two, but that left more than enough. She piled a plate high with some of everything, took a huge glass of orange juice and plopped down on the end of the bed to eat and watch TV.

“
News from the spaceship Aries is all systems are go!” said an artificially beautiful TV anchor. “As the world watched, the USS Aries fired its engines and raced away from space station Freedom and into outer space. Just moments before the President of the United States announced to the world that the asteroid LM-245 was going to hit the Earth. NASA apparently made the determination weeks ago, but the news was kept secret to allow plans to be completed.”

“
Already critics are complaining loudly that keeping this mission secret was a serious breach of the public’s trust. Dissenting voices have said that secrecy was the only logical response to this world-threatening event which the average citizen could not affect. The risk of regional or even global unrest was too great, it is claimed. Now that the Aries mission is underway, people can be informed of the danger and given hope at the same time.”

“
The official spokesman of SETI announced in a news conference scheduled more than a day earlier that the only reason NASA even made the mission public was their own planned disclosure of LM-245’s impending impact.”

The
image changed to her scruffy friend Harold speaking on a typically bleary Seattle April day in front of the shiny gold SETI sign outside their Renton, Washington office. “This is a standard government snow job,” he said with his patented move of sweeping his long hair back out of his eyes with one hand while holding a cigarette with the other. “They wouldn’t have said a (bleep)ing thing if it hadn’t been for us. This Aries mission is just smoke and mirrors. Throw a few billion dollars of space junk at that asteroid and everyone feels better, until it goes smack and we all die.”

“
When Mr. Binder was asked to elaborate on what NASA was doing while Aries distracted the masses, he claimed to have no idea, then said they were ‘looking into it, and would find the truth’. There is some interest in the claims made by SETI. Just what can a space ship not slated to originally fly for nearly a year, and then only to Mars, hope to do against an asteroid the size of LM-245? We spoke to an expert on this issue.”

The
screen changed again to show a familiar gray-haired troll of a man. Scrolling across the bottom of the screen appeared the name Dr. Leo Skinner, Head of Astronomy, NASA. “Well, you see, the physics are complicated but the solution is elementary. You just rendezvous with this asteroid in deep space.” While he spoke a graphic appeared showing a stylized space ship racing toward the bowling pin shaped LM-245. “As you close within a few thousand kilometers, more detailed radar analysis is possible. We must assume the asteroid will have faults lines, and that vulnerable spots can be located.” The graphics showed lines radiating out from the ship, scanning the asteroid. “Once you find a weakness, you plant a few nuclear bombs. Detonate these bombs in the right sequence and you not only break the rock into pieces, you also push those pieces away from a collision with the Earth. As far away as this asteroid is, if you can alter its course by as little as one tenth of one percent, it will miss us by a considerable margin. I’m afraid this Mr. Binder just doesn’t know much about astrophysics.”

“
What will happen to Aries after it shoots past LM-245?”

“
Well, we didn’t have time to build a ship capable of an active return orbit, so we elected for free return.”

“
I’m sorry, what is a free return?”

“
Aries will continue onward at its speed, rendezvous with Mars, and slingshot back around. All they need to do is fire their engines for a good burn and they’re heading home.”

“
That’s going to take an awful long time isn’t it?”

“
Naturally. They should reach their objective in ten days. Their return to Earth will be almost a year from now.”

The
camera changed back to the interviewer, now alone, for his closing monologue. “So it would seem Aries is making its trip to Mars after all, only it won’t be going to look for signs of life or even a colony site. No, Aries has left mankind’s cradle of life on a mission to save us from certain death. Will the ship and its valiant crew succeed? Only time will tell. Please stay tuned to this affiliate for constant updates on ‘Aries: Earth Rescue’.”

Mindy
sat back and thought about this. If anything, Harold and Leo were on a par with each other in scientific knowledge.  After her conversation with Leo last night she knew that he was lying, and that Harold was probably right. There was no way Aries could save the planet. NASA and the US government were spending a huge amount of money to buy time. According to the story, Aries would reach LM-245 in just ten days. That wasn’t going to buy much time. So what was so desperate that they were willing to go to these lengths to get a few extra days?

She
checked her messages and found none. There was nothing to do but wait for Leo to call, so she contacted Harold via IM. He was on as usual.

“
How you doing in the big apple?” he asked her.

“
Fine. All this fighting is scary.”

“
Cults are going to rule the world once civilization is gone.” She shook her head at his typical pragmatism. “Oh, we broke the code,” he typed.

“
You what?!”

“
Yep, broke the primary component late last night. It was those images from that cult website. The data strings were righteous, man. They filled the holes we needed. Now don’t freak, it’s not like we know what they were saying. We have to learn the language now that we can read it.”

“
I understand,” she typed. A second later IM told her that a file was incoming. “What’s this?”

“
It’s the data algorithms for the code. Thought if you got bored you could work with it too.”

“
Thanks, I have some spare time. I talked to Leo last night and he told me some things.”

“
Oh, fuck him.”

“
Forget about your differences for a second will you?” Quickly so she wouldn’t lose her nerve she let Harold know what Leo told her last night. About the sure impact, about the Portals, about mankind's only way out. Then she told him about the list. “I want you to come out and work with me so maybe we can both be on that list.”

“
They don’t want old hippies on that new world. If Skinner’s in charge I’ll never make that list, and you know it.”

“
Not necessarily. They’re going to have a few old scientists; you might as well be one of them. You’ve still got live swimmers, right?”

“
Huh?”

“
Can you make babies?”

“
Oh, sure, far as I know. Never got cut and haven’t been sitting on any nuclear reactors.” She chuckled at his quirky sense of humor.

“
That’s an issue with this situation. Adam and Eve and all that jazz. There’s no sense in looking for E.T. anymore when he’s dropping off intergalactic Portals. Jump a plane and meet me here. We’ll do our best to catch a ride and failing that at least have some fun on the way out.”

“
Sure, why not. The rest of the dudes can hold down the fort. I still want that original message licked. You’re right of course, they’re linked somehow. See you in a couple days?”

“
You bet. Bye.”

She
shut the computer down and leaned back on the bed. An old quote from college floated up from the depths of her memory. “May you live in interesting times.” It was Chinese, she thought, and, if she remembered rightly, it was a curse. These were certainly interesting times.

Harold threw the last of his stuff into the huge trunk. He knew Mindy said there was little chance they would get to go. No sooner had she described the situation and convinced him to go, he knew he was going to be emigrating to another world. So he took everything he felt would be required for the rest of his life. Books, notepads, pens & pencils, Blackberry, extra sets of rechargeable batteries, tiny solar charger, a pair of high-capacity jump drives, clothes, twenty toothbrushes, and on, and on he went until the chest was stuffed to overflowing. He slammed the lid, locked it down and grabbed one handle to drag it outside. Harold nearly dislocated his shoulder trying to lift the trunk and ended up needing help to carry it.

“
Keep chewing the code,” he told one of the encryption specialists he’d hired right after funding started coming in. “We’re well on our way to establishing their lexicon, so keep at it. I’ll get in contact and help once I’ve set up shop in New York.”

The
man said he’d be on top of it and helped Harold load the humongous trunk into the back of a taxi. The driver stared at them from under his turban and didn't offer to help. As he climbed in, he looked out at the staff that had gathered to watch him go. They knew he wasn’t coming back, and that made him bow his head in shame. “I should have told them all, asked them to come along.”

“
What was that?” asked the driver in thickly accented English.

“
Nothing. Let’s head for the airport.”

The
cab pulled away from the building and disappeared into traffic, a dozen sets of eyes watching him go through binoculars or telescopic sights. “What’s the order?” asked one man through his throat mike. The back of Harold Binder’s head was framed perfectly in his cross hairs as the laser range finder was ticking up fast. “Ten seconds till loss of target.”