The E Utopia Project (31 page)

“Is breakfast ready?”

She looked at Cruz unsure
whether to salute him or not. She was still an ensign and he was still her
commander-in-chief but it felt ludicrous to salute one’s lover. “Mr.
President,” she saluted. “Breakfast will be ready in ten minutes.”

“Jennifer.”

“Sir!” she said, standing at
attention.

He walked to her with a
twinkle of laughter in his eyes and kissed her. She stood at attention for a
moment before she yielded and kissed him back.

“That’s more like it,
darling.” He kissed her again. “Call me when breakfast is ready.”

“Yes, Mr. President,” she
said, resisting the impulse to salute.

“You can call me, Sam.”

“Yes, Sam.”

Smiling, she wiped his saliva
off her lips and continued cooking. She was more relaxed when they had
breakfast. She even had the audacity to say, “Sam, when will our families be
evacuated from Earth?”

“The evacuation will start when
I return to Earth,” Cruz replied through a mouthful of food.

“When will you return?”

“I’m returning tomorrow.
We’re starting with the chosen ones of the senior officers but I can squeeze in
ten of your folks to come with the first evacuees.”

“I miss my family. I don’t
know how to thank you, Mr. President!”

“It’s Sam,” he said, noting
how her smile accentuated her beauty.

“Thank you, Sam,” she said
with ecstasy. She could bring her parents, her three sisters, her two uncles,
one aunt and two cousins. The smile vanished from her face when she thought
about her best friend.
Oh no! Teresa won’t forgive me if I don’t include her
parents. I’ll have to drop Uncle Harry and Aunt Diana.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“You were smiling and all of
a sudden the smile gave way to a worried look.”

“I suddenly remembered that
I’d forgotten to put two people on the list of ten people I want to come first.
So I’m trying to figure out who to drop.”

“You can give me a list of
fifteen people.”

“Thank you, Sam.”

“I’m putting my reputation on
the line here, Jennifer. We agreed to bring the chosen ones of high-ranking government
officials and senior space force officers first. Many people will be pissed
when they find out that a new recruit jumped the queue. So I expect you to be
discreet. Don’t go around telling your friends that I helped you jump the
queue.”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

“Good.”

When they finished having
breakfast, he phoned Hitchcook. “I’m ready, come and pick me up.”

“Yes, Mr. President. We’ll be
at Planet House in twenty minutes.”

“Remove that space force
uniform and put on something else. I can’t go out with you wearing that.”

“I think I should stay here,
Sam. As you said, we must be discreet. It’s too early for me to be seen with
you.”

“You’re right. I’ll go out
with you another time.” He caressed her cheeks. “You’re prudent. I like that in
a woman.”

True to his word, Hitchcook
arrived with Cruz’s motorcade in less than twenty E Utopian minutes. Fleet
Admiral Eawo and Admiral Geza got out of one of the cars and saluted the
President.

“Good morning, gentlemen,”
Cruz said.

“Good Morning, Mr.
President,” the two admirals replied, chests out.

“Good morning, Mr.
President,” Hitchcook echoed. “Did Ensign Ladley prepare you breakfast, sir?”

“Yes,” Cruz said, trying his
best not to sound hostile. Now that Jennifer Ladley was his wife, he no longer
wanted Hitchcook to casually talk about her.

One of the security men
opened the door for Cruz and he stepped into his limousine together with
Hitchcook and two bodyguards.

“Where do you want to go
first, Mr. President?”

“I want to inspect the prison
first.”

“We’re going to the prison
first,” Hitchcook told the driver of the limousine.

The limousine driver radioed
the drivers of the other cars in the motorcade and the cars made a bee line for
the gate.

“So how are Gibbs, Ford,
Nutwell and Fenton?” Hitchcook asked to curtail the silence.

“They’re fine.”

“When will they pay us a
visit?”

“Soon,” Cruz said. “They were
busy overseeing recruitment. Recruitment is over and they’ll be busy helping me
manage the evacuation of the chosen ones.”

“How many people do you hope
to evacuate per day, sir?”

“At least one thousand.”

“And you’ll launch most of
them into space from our Congolese and Bolivian spaceports, no doubt.”

“The FAA won’t allow us to
make the number of missions needed to launch that number of people from Columbus
Space Station daily. Plus, most of the chosen ones will come from Third World
countries. It’ll be difficult for them to acquire US visas.”

“It was very wise of you to
build spaceports in the Third World, sir.”

Cruz looked out of the window
at the distant mountains. “Imagine how beautiful this planet will be when it’s
covered with vegetation and populated with animals.”

“It will be a paradise, sir.
We just have to protect it from human greed. We, humans, are selfish by nature
and most of us won’t think twice about destroying the environment for personal
gain.”

“We’ll protect the E Utopian
environment, Hitchcook,” Cruz vowed. “We won’t let what happened to Earth
happen to E Utopia. We didn’t go through all this trouble to create a world
that would be destroyed by polluters.”

“Humans have no natural
predators to control their population. Sir, I think we must have a two-child
policy. No woman should be allowed to have more than two children.”

“You’re right, Hitchcook. At
some point we’ll have to control the population but for now, we’ll let E
Utopians reproduce freely. Our planet can come under attack in the future and
we’ll need a sizable army to defend it.”

“I don’t think we’ll come
under attack any time soon, Mr. President. As long as the people on Earth don’t
get hands on the jump drive, they won’t be able to get here.”

“I’m not worried about the
people on Earth. We’ll soon delete them from the Earth and make Earth part of
the E Utopian Empire. I’m worried about possible attacks by beings from other
planets. Humans might not be the only advanced sentient beings in the Universe.”

“You’re right, Mr. President,
it’ll be a good idea to let our citizens breed freely for at least one
generation.”

The motorcade turned and drove
through the gate in front of the prison complex. Security men opened the doors
of the limousine and Cruz and Hitchcook stepped out. Lieutenant Commander Mario
Arantes, the prison warden, saluted Cruz, Eawo and Geza. The prison’s eight
guards stood at attention in a file and saluted when Cruz and his entourage
passed by. The prison guards were all space force ensigns who were awaiting assignment
to spaceships. Only the prison warden was permanently assigned to the prison.
The prison guards went at ease and followed the President’s entourage into the
prison.

With a holding capacity of
one thousand two hundred and fifty inmates, the prison complex was too large
for such a small population. It was inevitable that some of E Utopia’s citizens
would break the planet’s environmental law, so Cruz and his lieutenants had
made sure there was enough prison space to accommodate litterbugs, tree
choppers, poachers, illegal miners, and all those who committed crimes against the
environment, not to mention those who committed crimes against fellow man.

Currently, the prison only
held thirty-eight prisoners. Arantes led the President and his entourage to the
section which held the prisoners. They first came to a cell where two teenage
boys sat glumly. The younger of the boys cowed when he saw Cruz and his men but
the older boy stared at Cruz with eyes that glowed with hatred. The younger
boy’s name was Wayne Cole and the older boy’s name was Gary Cole. Both of them
were the sons of the Head of NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive.

“Hello boys,” Cruz said. “You
look well. I can see that my men are feeding you well.”

“You didn’t bring us here for
our nutritional well-being, Mr. Cruz,” Gary Cole snapped.

“You’re right, Gary,” Cruz
said. “I didn’t bring you here to feed you. I brought you here for the greater
good of Mother Earth. I’ve brought you some questions from your mom and dad.”

“I won’t make that damn video
for you,” Gary shouted.

“You will because your mom
and dad will be pleased to know you’re alive.”

“I won’t answer the damn
questions,” Gary spat defiantly. “If my dad thinks I’m dead, he won’t cooperate
with you.”

“We’ll play it the easy way
or the hard way,” Cruz said, holding the prison bars. “In the easy way you’ll
be a good boy and you’ll make a nice little video for mom and dad, telling them
that you’re being well-looked-after and will continue to be well-looked-after
if they continue to cooperate.” He paused, holding the boy’s glare. “In the
hard way, we’ll hurt your little brother till you cooperate. Either way, you’ll
cooperate, Gary.”

Wayne Cole sobbed.

“Leave my brother alone!” Gary
hollered.

“You know what to do if you
want us to leave him alone.”

“Gary, please don’t let them
hurt me,” Wayne begged.

“What’s wrong with you, men?”
Gary shouted.

“It’s nothing personal,
Gary.”

“The police will find you, son
of a bitch!” Gary screamed, tears starting to come out of his eyes. “The law
will catch up with you.”

“Unfortunately, I am the law
around here, Gary.”

The boy aimed a jet of
spittle on Cruz and missed him by a whisker.

Cruz walked to the next cell
which was home to a young woman and a teenage girl. They resembled each other
so much that the prison guards thought they were sisters. The young woman was
Angela Roland, young sister of Patricia Stevens, the Head of National Space Science
Data Center. And the teenage girl was Samantha Stevens, Patricia Stevens’ only child.

Of the thirty-eight prisoners
in the prison, sixteen were relatives of people who worked in different
positions along the NASA hierarchy, eight were related to people who worked in
ESA management, and twelve of the prisoners were related to directors of
privately owned satellite imagery companies.

“Good morning, ladies,” Cruz
said.

None of the two women said a
word.

“I bring regards from Earth.
I brought some questions from Patricia Stevens and you’ll answer them in front
of a camera to show her that you’re okay.”

“When will you release us?” Samantha
asked.

“We haven’t decided yet,”
Cruz said. “It’ll depend on your cooperation.”

“I want to go to my mom,” the
girl whined. “Please let us go. My parents have lots of money.” She sobbed. “She’ll
pay for our release.”

Cruz hooted. “You think this
is about money? You think we’re poor to the extent of kidnapping people for
money? We own this planet, young lady. With your mom’s help, we shall own the
Earth.”

“Please,” the girl begged. “I
miss my parents. Please let us go.”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that.
Are my men treating you well?”

“What do you think?”
Samantha’s aunt finally broke her silence. “They’re treating us as well as can
be expected in a prison.”

“Good. We don’t want to make
your stay here unnecessarily unpleasant.”

Cruz walked to the next cell.
Each prisoner shared a cell with a relative. The International Green Movement
had kidnapped the prisoners in pairs of relatives to make it easy to control
them and their families back home. When a prisoner refused to cooperate or
tried to go on a hunger strike, they submitted the prisoner by torturing his or
her relative. If the chiefs of the space agencies and satellite imagery companies
refused to cooperate, Cruz was prepared to kill one of their abducted relatives
as punishment.

Cruz gave the prison warden
the flash drive that contained the questions from the prisoners’ kin. The
questions were in a form of an interview in which the relatives of the
prisoners asked the prisoners how they were being treated.

“Record the videos today,”
Cruz told the prison warden. “I’m leaving tomorrow and I want the videos
delivered to the families of the prisoners as soon as I arrive on Earth. Make
sure they say nothing that might reveal our identity or the location of the
prison.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hitchcook, check the videos
when they’re done.”

“I will check them out and
suggest reshoots where necessary, Mr. President.”

Cruz looked at his watch. “It’ll
take me time to get used to these E Utopian hours. I’ve seen enough of the
prison. Take me to Shipgen.”