The Inner Circle (33 page)

His father was not as impressed.

"I can't believe they're wasting all of this money to send some worthless rocket ship into space," he said in between sips of beer. "What a waste of taxpayer money."

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Tyler Ainsworth, Jr. walked out of Mimosa Grove a new man. Although he had never considered his drug usage to be a problem, spending two months in the solitude of a rehab facility had been more than enough to deter him from ever using again. The experience at Mimosa had been more of a soul search than a drug detox. Tyler never had a problem living a carefree life off his father's incredible wealth, but spending the past two months reflecting on his past made him realize there was more to life than partying and relaxing. His father started off his life with nothing and built one of the most lucrative shipbuilding companies in the world. Tyler never gave his father and the company the proper respect they deserved, but he vowed that would all change.

Carrying a single bag, Tyler spotted a familiar Rolls-Royce across the parking lot, and knew that his ride had arrived as expected. What he had not expected though, was for someone to be waiting in the back seat of the car. As Tyler approached the Rolls, the driver quickly got out and opened the back door. The driver helped Tyler's father, Tyler Sr., out of the car. The younger Tyler – who had gained a world of respect for his father over the past few months – was ecstatic that his father came all this way to pick him up.

Tyler Ainsworth, Sr. had a mean scowl on his face for as long as his son could remember. He was a no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners type of man in both his business and personal life. When he'd found his son passed out on the front lawn of their huge estate one morning, Tyler Sr. had his son put into Mimosa Grove. Tyler Jr, could not tell whether his father did this because he truly cared about his health or if he was trying to avoid embarrassment for his company. Either way, Tyler Jr. – who at first had been very angry for being sent to Mimosa Grove – now felt indebted to his father.

"Father, I'm so glad to see you. I've been doing a lot of thinking and –"

The old man held up his hand, cutting off his son. All Tyler, Jr. wanted was for his father to appear happy to see him, to see that he was not on drugs anymore, to know that he was going to rededicate his life to learning the family business.

"Are you sure you're clean now?" the old man asked.

"It's nice to see you, too," Junior said, hurt that all of the newfound positive feelings for his father would apparently go unappreciated.

"I have no time for your sarcasm. Putting you in this hospital – "

Now it was Tyler Jr.'s time to interfere.

"They call it a treatment facility, father."

"Don't get smart with me. Putting you in there was the smartest thing I've ever done. I'm an old man and I run a multi-billion dollar company. I'm not going to die and leave the company in the irresponsible hands of a druggie."

Tyler Sr. must have sensed the hurt feelings he was instilling in his son and his stone-faced façade cracked the tiniest bit.

"Look, ever since your mother left and disappeared off to Europe or wherever the hell she went, I realized that you were the only person I was going to leave anything to in my will. But I want you to be drug-free so you'll make sound decisions once I'm gone. So I apologize if I hurt your feelings by being frank."

Tyler Sr. extended his hand and his son took it. The two had never been affectionate with each other, but they could at least be amicable.

"Now enough of this crap, get into the car before we miss anything else," his father said, pushing Tyler into the back seat.

"What's the big rush?"

"Haven't you heard? Oh, I suppose you don't get televisions or radios in there. NASA is actually sending a probe into space that is doubling as a prototype for a manned spacecraft. The launch had just started when you came outside."

Tyler Jr. immediately thought about his encounter with the crazy man the night before. The crazy man had known about the probe, but he'd said that a man would
actually
be on board. And now, the probe being launched was unmanned but was a prototype for how a manned mission probe would be.

Could there have been something to what that guy was saying? Nah. Anybody could have known about the probe being launched and it was probably coincidence that the guy said someone would be on board. Besides, even if it were true, why would the government admit that the probe was anything but normal?

Although the Rolls Royce cost ten times the amount of money of most other cars on the road, the reception on the radio was surprisingly poor.

"The probe is now out of view," the garbled voice on the radio said. "It appears as though this launch has gone off without a hitch."

The Rolls Royce drove away from Mimosa Grove. As the rehab facility disappeared into the distance, Tyler Jr. still couldn’t shake the thought that the crazy man he'd talked to the night before might have actually known something.

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During his younger days – when Neil Peterson was training to be an astronaut with NASA – he had gone through countless exercises and drills that attempted to simulate what blasting into space would feel like. Some of Neil's fellow trainees did not have a good time during such drills and he could recall quite a few big, tough astronauts vomiting and passing out when subjected to incredible g-forces. Neil, on the other hand, never had trouble with that aspect of training. Because of this, he did not worry much about the physical repercussions of the probe launch, figuring he would be able to handle it without a problem.

He was wrong.

The g-forces drove him back against his seat so hard that Neil found it difficult to breathe. If he was pushed back any harder, Neil felt like he would become part of the seat. He tried to concentrate on just relaxing and watching the view as the ship rocketed past the white clouds and blue sky, but he found it hard to enjoy himself when his breathing was coming in short gasps. The only comfort Neil could take was the fact that the computer was doing all the work and he would not have to do anything but sit back and enjoy the turbulent ride to space.

Again, he was wrong.

When the blue sky began fading to a darker shade of black as the probe reached the upper-most part of the Earth's atmosphere, a red light began to flash in the cockpit and a beeping noise signaled that something was wrong. Neil's heart skipped a beat and he wondered if death could be coming for him. Since he was traveling this quickly and at such a high altitude, Neil knew that if he did not act quickly, he would soon be dead.

His first response was to reach for the communications system, but he knew that Armour had disabled it for the time being. Armour was the only person who would be able to turn it back on and that was not planned to happen for a while.

It was a struggle to even move his hand forward against the force of gravity, but Neil soon pushed a few buttons on the console and a computer image appeared on the screen next to him. There was a problem with the main thrusters, a problem that Neil was not completely sure how to solve. If only he could call mission control and ask what to do. But he couldn't.

Neil was alone on this one.

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A similar red light began to flash in mission control and the large, computer-filled room was quick to transform from nervous chatter to panicked clamoring. Dozens of workers began to simultaneously pound away on keyboards, calling out situation reports on the numerous probe systems they were tracking.

"What the hell is going on?" Armour asked William Newton, Head of Mission Control. William was an old colleague of Armour's that went all the way back to their days in astronaut-training school.

"There's some kind of problem, Jimmy."

Armour's inner turmoil made his heart feel like it had stopped beating. The comet was one doomsday that he did not look forward to, but now he was worried that if the probe – and subsequently the nuke – exploded, he would be responsible for causing another disaster. His stomach was in an uproar and he felt like he was falling down a deep chasm. Armour's head was spinning and he felt faint, but he was now in the impossible situation of needing to appear calm and cool in front of his NASA workers. They did not know the true significance of this probe and Armour had to pretend like he was simply concerned about an unmanned probe, not the spacecraft tasked with saving humankind.

"It's the thrusters," a man on the far side of the room yelled. "They're losing power quickly. I'm not sure there are any other systems whose power can be diverted to give the thrusters enough juice."

In unison, forty people ran over to this man's computer workstation, crowding around. Armour and Newton rushed over as well and pushed aside many of the workers until they could see the screen. The man working at the area was typing quickly into the computer, but it was apparently doing nothing productive. A long red line labeled "THRUSTER POWER" was gradually going down, well below a small line labeled "MIN."

"What does MIN mean?" Armour asked.

"That's the minimum amount of power needed to break free of the Earth's atmosphere," someone behind Armour answered.

The man sitting at the computer continued to type on the keyboard, pounding away at the keys as hard as though they were frozen in ice.

"Nothing is happening," he cried anxiously. "The system is not responding. I'm getting all of my readouts but the probe is not responding to anything I'm doing. It's like I've been cut off."

Many of the workers who’d crowded around this one computer ran back to their own workstations and a symphony of tapping computer keys soon followed.

"Nothing is working at mine," one woman called out.

"Mine either."

"Me, too."

Newton turned to Armour with a shocked look on his face, as if he could not explain what was happening. Although all of the mission control workers had no idea how this could possibly be, Armour knew that there was one way all of this could be explained. And he could not tell anyone in this room why their computers could not transmit directions to the probe. All he could do was pray for a miracle.

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Every move Neil Peterson made was a struggle against the powerful g-forces. As if it was not bad enough that he had to make quick decisions that could not only cost him his life but cost Earth its life as well, he had to do it while traveling thousands of miles per hour straight up in the air. Every movement of his arm was a strain on his body, but he was at least glad he'd spent the previous two years constantly lifting weights.

Although his newfound physical strength would give him a chance to try and survive, Neil knew that his mental fortitude would be his only chance for survival. He was somehow able to ignore the loud beeping and flashing red lights, as he saw that the computer was still attempting to draw power to the thrusters where power apparently no longer existed. It was not his job right now to figure out what had happened, it was his job to figure out how to correct the problem.

The computers must not have been programmed to redirect power, so Neil quickly initiated the computer’s control system override. Manually controlling the computers stopped the system from trying to draw power from the main thrusters. This move stopped the amount of power from decreasing in the thrusters, but did nothing to help it raise to the needed power levels. Neil had precious few seconds to draw power from another source and he frantically pushed buttons on the computer system to find more energy. The problem was that every other system with transferable power was essential to the probe reaching its destination.

All but one.

With the push of a few buttons, Neil drained the power from one system on board, diverting it to the main thrusters. His maneuver had an immediate impact and he could feel the increase in propulsion, as the red line for the thrusters zoomed past the MINIMUM POWER NEEDED line. The blinking red lights and annoying beeping noise soon shut off, as the probe now had enough power to rocket out of the Earth's atmosphere and into space.

The first crisis of Phase One had been averted, but now one of the most crucial systems on board would be worthless.

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James Armour looked around the room at mission control and saw the simultaneous dropping of dozens of jaws.

"I can't believe it," said the man sitting at the computer with the thrusters' readings. "The main thrusters drew power from somewhere, enough that the probe broke free of the Earth's atmosphere."

"Well?" Newton said. "Where the hell did the extra power come from?"