When the time came, Emma told everyone to stay out of her room no matter what they saw on the live show and no matter what they wanted to tell Dan. She encouraged them to text her if there was anything truly necessary for her to know, but stressed the ‘truly necessary’ element of this instruction.
Henry, Phil and Mr Byrd were all still next door and ready to watch the show in the hope it would go well, while Timo, Clark and Tara were going to watch in Emma’s living room.
Timo reiterated his gratitude for Dan having agreed to do this, and promised that he would be instructing Alessandro, Fiore Frontiere’s permanent GCC delegate, to firmly push for a new approach to reducing international tensions in the coming days.
Tara, meanwhile, told Dan to be careful then tried to lift the mood of brooding anticipation by telling him to make sure he didn’t mess up the makeup she’d taken so long applying in a way that made his face look as fresh as her own with a little more subtlety.
“I really fucking wish you didn’t have to do this, man,” Clark said, sighing deeply, “but I’m damn proud of you for taking it on.”
“Thanks,” Dan said from the doorway, very sincerely. “I’ll try not to let anyone down.”
V minus 69
RMXT Studio #1
Manhattan, New York
From a familiar audience-less studio where countless names had been made and countless careers had ended, Marian de Clerk sat in her usual seat before an unusually sparse panel of three. Two further spots would be rounded out by the remote guests whose names were responsible for much of the expected record-breaking viewership, and the final panel of five was quite possibly the most explosive in the show’s history.
Before introducing the panel, Marian de Clerk perfunctorily mentioned that Kaitlyn Judd had unfortunately been unable to attend. In truth, she had been culled to make way for Dan; her representatives were willing to accept this quietly given that his presence was doubtless going to utterly dominate the focus, and thus would have left her twiddling her thumbs. de Clerk gave a quick plug to the Il Diavolo movie whose home media release Kaitlyn’s appearance had been booked to coincide with long before the specific topic of the show had been decided, introducing a short trailer to precede the hotly anticipated panel discussion.
“Originally, this special Saturday night episode was going to look back at Contact Day and discuss where the intervening year has taken us,” de Clerk said after the thirty-second trailer ended. “Much of our panel was booked with that in mind, but the remarkable events of the past few days have brought us two more panellists of the highest profile. As well as two very familiar faces and returning guests in the shape of Billy Kendrick and Joe Crabbe, we’re also joined today by Poppy Bradshaw of the anti-contact ‘GeoSov’ movement. The panel’s two recent additions are coming to us via satellite and need little introduction. We have John Cole, the ELF’s new Western Secretary, coming to us from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, and we have none other than Dan McCarthy coming to us from Birchwood, Colorado.”
Dan gave a half-nod and half-smile in recognition of his introduction, a gesture that looked effortless and organic only because of how long Emma had helped him to practice making it so.
The final pre-discussion order of business was de Clerk’s explanation that today’s broadcast would be one of very few in the show’s history not to follow the titular format of focusing on two separate topics for twenty minutes apiece. Quite understandably, network heads had decided that it would have been unwise and likely impossible to enforce a topical division between the recent GCC inauguration and the issues surrounding the recent discovery of a supposedly alien triangle. For that reason, the live show would run on a relatively unstructured basis. It would also last for only forty-five minutes, with a five-minute commercial break between the two twenty-minute segments, to avoid interrupting the flow of discussion any more than necessary.
de Clerk explained that the single-topic nature of the episode and the fact that two of her five panellists were participating via satellite would lead to a slight change from how things normally played out, with more time for the panellists to express themselves unchallenged and with fewer aggressive interruptions than many episodes tended to feature. The satellite delays, although very slight, could make regular back-and-forth conversations problematic, she explained, and the calibre of the night’s guests meant that thorough statements of their positions were what viewers wanted most of all.
She began her slow circuit of the panel with Joe Crabbe, a one-time shock-jock who had often been a lone voice of support for Richard Walker during the tumultuous days of the IDA leak. Crabbe was well known for holding American sovereignty above all other considerations, and in recent times had come to be known as a man of few words. Walker’s death and Dan McCarthy’s humility at his funeral had made Crabbe see some things in a new light, and the former foe was now someone Dan expected to be relatively cordial.
“Joe, to begin… your general thoughts on the GCC and ELF?”
“Even the likes of me,” Crabbe began with a knowing grin, “even the American exceptionalists and unashamed patriots like me can see that in the face of a beast like the ELF, we need a devil we know like Godfrey. I would like to see our country leading the world and leading the way, taking our own path to handling future contact and inviting allies on our own terms. I would prefer it if we weren’t in the GCC, just like I prefer having NASA to the old GSC. But if we weren’t in the GCC, the GCC wouldn’t exist. And if the GCC didn’t exist, the Russians and Chinese would have everyone else banding together and we’d be left in the lurch. By joining our staunch allies — or dependents, as I see them — we can stand against Eastern aggression in a way that would be far more difficult on our own, in these tough economic times.”
“An approach very much born of pragmatism, you might say?” de Clerk prodded.
“I would say that,” Crabbe nodded. “I do say that. I’m a pragmatist who wants what’s best for his country, just like Richard Walker was. He made mistakes, as we all know, but everything he did was done to protect us from the threat he saw coming from aggressive Chinese expansion. He would have predicted this, you know; I’m absolutely sure of that.”
de Clerk turned next to Billy Kendrick, a popular and affable man who had carried himself with a quiet dignity during a longstanding smear campaign and who had acted with humility when he was ultimately proven right about the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life. A personal friend of Dan since the days of the IDA leak when Dan himself was the subject of much ridicule, Billy had since carved out an exceptionally profitable niche as a tour guide to remote locations of extraterrestrial relevance. The likes of Kerguelen and Bouvet Island were no longer must-see sites now that the story surrounding the ‘alien’ spheres which had supposedly been discovered on their shores had been revealed as a masterful hoax by the late Richard Walker, so Billy had returned to his old pre-Disclosure career as an author and touring speaker.
Billy’s latest show was built around his recent bestselling book, The Fork, which philosophically addressed the questions raised by extraterrestrial contact and the options such an epoch-defining event presented for an intelligent species. Its abstraction surprised many readers who went in expecting an analysis of the Messengers and a deep reflection on Contact Day, but precious few had been disappointed by the mind-expanding insights and questions posed within The Fork’s pages.
The Fork’s tie-in speaking tour was currently filling major cities’ largest arenas for multiple nights in a row, with the exhausting 100-date tour narrowly on track to reach two million paying attendees. Money had never been the main thing for Billy; even going back to the days when his sanity and motives had been questioned, he had offered his books and lecture tickets at the lowest prices he could while maintaining a reasonable standard of living. Billy’s life had been driven by his tireless pursuit of truth and his burning desire to share his knowledge and beliefs with the widest possible audience, and even now that no o
ne could accuse him of cashing in on conspiracy theories and he could comfortably charge triple what he did and still sell out arenas across the country, he steadfastly maintained his flat pricing structure.
Billy was now able to travel by plane and stay in the best hotels during his coast-to-coast tour rather than live out of a car as he had during the less-attended tours of old, but the money hadn’t changed him in the slightest.
“What’s your take on the split, Mr Kendrick?” de Clerk asked him. “I know you’re close friends with Timo Fiore, who wrestled with his own decision on whether to formally endorse either organisation. Was your decision at all influenced by his?”
“No. My position on this is similar to Joe’s, albeit for slightly different reasons,” Billy said. “Like Joe I have publicly recognised the GCC — not endorsed it — and even then my limited support, if you really want to stretch the meaning of that word, has come only with great reluctance. I dearly wish that there was one truly global organisation; but with the choice that’s been presented to me in reality, it’s not overly difficult to consider an organisation composed of the world’s largest democracies somewhat more palatable than one composed of the world’s largest dictatorships. Our own kind of politics isn’t perfect — Jesus, I’ve made a career of pointing that out! — but at least it’s participatory.”
Crabbe gave a measured nod of acknowledgment.
“But this chaos was utterly inevitable,” Billy went on. “In the Five Scenarios book that brought me into the public eye, I wrote at length about how contact could play out post-Disclosure. Declarations were in place — supposedly binding ones, at that — about how we as a species would deal with extraterrestrial contact. But the real issue is this: all of the old declarations were about contact, not visitation. And now, as we all know, we’re not just post-detection or post-contact; we’re post-visitation. Our planet has been visited, but the important thing to remember here is that there hasn’t been even a modicum of ‘official’ diplomatic contact. The only contact the Messengers have initiated has been with Dan McCarthy.”
“And as far as today, Billy,” Marian de Clerk began, glancing at her notes, “what do you see as the way out of this current situation of what feels like deadlock between East and West, and how do you see Dan fitting in?”
Billy considered the question. “Ideally, although the last thing I want to do is put words in Dan’s mouth, I’d like to see a truly international contact-focused collective and I think he would, too. Something like a Global Contact Forum or GCF, if you will, in which Dan felt able to participate without having to choose a side. To me that is self-evidently the best way forward, but unfortunately we’re currently being led by men and women of ego rather than logic; men and women who live to climb rather than to serve.”
“Hmm,” de Clerk mused, not quite personally involved in the discussions but seeming more so than usual. “And as for where you think things will go in the short-term, as opposed to your hopes for where things should go?”
“Life is going to be difficult for the ELF if they maintain this current strategy of confrontationalism,” he replied without a moment’s pause for thought. “Western culture is pretty much global culture, and citizens in certain large ELF countries aren’t happy that they’re being driven further away from the rest of the world. In many cases these citizens feel very disconnected from their governments in general terms, but this issue is going to highlight that to an all-new level. Implicit opposition to universally popular figures like Timo and especially Dan is not going to go down well. But on the point I mentioned about broader cultural shifts in those countries, I think that’s something much deeper. Presenting Western powers as the devil incarnate was difficult enough for the Soviet Union thirty years ago… but now that the internet has made the world so much smaller and made Western culture even more dominant, it’s all but impossible.”
“Well,” de Clerk grinned, “we certainly have the right man to tackle that charge. And we’ll hand over now. Can you hear us, Mr Cole?”
“Hello, friends!” he began, raising ironic smiles and shakes of the head all round. “And a particularly fond hello to my two good friends in Buenos Aires, William and Valerie. I know you’re both watching and I hope you’ve had a good day so far, because you’re probably not going to enjoy the rest of the night too much…”
V minus 68
Seafront
Vila, Vanuatu
“I don’t know what the problem is, he just won’t sit still,” Liang Fu explained over his phone to the local veterinarian. “It is persistent; this has already been going on for three hours! And I told you, next door’s dog ran towards the sea at the same time. Something spooked them and I don’t know what the—”
Liang’s concerned recounting of the story was interrupted by his dog Pinnochio, who was now sitting still — all too still — but continuously growling in a way Liang had never heard.
“Do you hear that?” he spoke into the phone. “He’s growling at the door!”
Seconds later, Pinnochio’s growl morphed into an extremely aggressive and repeated bark. The Alsatian’s bark resonated through the house and raised the hairs on Liang’s neck. He had raised Pinnochio since he was a tiny puppy and had never expected to be intimidated by the large dog, but this sound was something he had never expected to hear.
“Pin-Pin, it’s okay,” he called, keeping his distance. “There’s nothing there.”
No more than five tense seconds later, the barking ceased and Pinnochio scampered away from the door, rushing to Liang’s side and whimpering.
“This isn’t normal,” he told the veterinarian. “Get over here as soon as you can… please!”
As soon as the phone was down, Liang devoted his full attention to the now puppy-like dog. It didn’t stay down for long, though, ringing almost immediately to inform Liang of a call from his neighbour Zhou.
Liang listened to his friend’s frantic retelling of an all-too-familiar episode in which his own dog had behaved exactly like Pinnochio: a burst of aggressive barking followed by a sudden regression into a state of apparent fear.
“You don’t think it could be…” Liang said, cutting himself off.
No, he thought. Don’t be stupid.
“Maybe they’re smelling a gas leak or something like that?” he continued.
Zhou wasn’t saying much on the other end of the line, and Liang got the distinct impression that they were both thinking the same thing but that neither wanted to risk saying it first for fear of how crazy it sounded.
As it always did, time would tell.
V minus 67
RMXT Studio #1
Manhattan, New York
“I’m speaking to you all from Dar es Salaam,” John Cole beamed, “which translates as ‘haven of peace’. Somewhat ironic, you might say, given that our triangular gift from above is as clear a signal as any can be: a clear signal that the Global Contact Commission is an affront to human decency and a threat to world peace.”
“And with that, we’ll get right into it,” de Clerk said, unflustered and unsurprised by the strength of Cole’s opening gambit. “Mr Cole, what is abundantly clear to all of us and indeed to vast numbers of concerned citizens is that this so-called Zanzibar triangle has underlined and exacerbated East-West divisions that have been brewing since—”
“I won’t make a habit of this, Marian,” Cole interrupted, “but since time is so tight I do have to step in to make a point here. As the ELF’s Western Secretary, my office in Havana will actually be further West than the GCC building in Buenos Aires and indeed further West than the White House. So really, the talk of an East-West split isn’t particularly accurate and is no longer a valid way to frame things. What’s more accurate is the recognition of the ELF as a forum for those of us unprepared to be dragged along by the calculated self-interest of the United States and the irresponsible egotism of William Godfrey.”
Astute observers immediately noted Cole’s careful and deliberate c
hoice of words, with ‘calculated self-interest’ being a term popularised by Godfrey himself in criticising President Slater’s initial reaction to the IDA leak.
“Well, I must interject to remind you that neither President Slater nor Chairman Godfrey are here to defend themselves,” de Clerk said, “so while we certainly want to hear a candid statement of your views and positions, unnecessary personal asides aren’t what any of us are here for.”
“No, Godfrey’s not here,” Cole said, unaffected by the rebuke. “And do you know where else he’s not? London, fulfilling the position he has twice been elected to hold and has twice abandoned for a bigger paycheck and greater power! Do any of you even know who David Hearst is? The office of Prime Minister used to mean something. When I was Prime Minister, Britain was internationally relevant. Godfrey, too, until he abandoned the country twice.”
“In the interest of balance…” de Clerk said, “I can’t impartially allow any implication that your own time in office was all sunshine and rainbows, Mr Cole. We all know how it ended, in particular.”
“I stepped down with dignity after what I admit was a serious error of judgement,” Cole replied, “albeit one I was pushed into by Godfrey’s complete lack of action in the face of Il Diavolo’s relentless approach. Godfrey, on the other hand? He has stepped down from the office of Prime Minister not once but twice, and on both occasions for the sake of ascending to a position of greater international power! I’ll keep repeating this until the point gets through. He is a ruthless climber and a career politician, and he can talk about being ‘born to lead’ all he wants. But let me make one thing clear: I was born in the gutter and I fought my way up. There were no silver spoons or trust funds in the south side of Sheffield, I can tell you that much. I didn’t grow up going to the right schools or knowing the right handshakes, but I made it to the top through my burning desire to represent people like me — the real people, from all over this great world of ours — and I’ve contended with the snot-nosed entitlement of the likes of Godfrey and Slater all my life.”
The Final Call Page 13
