by Jim Lombardo
Chapter Forty-Seven
Despair
On day 14 the emergency continued to escalate. The object’s center had now come to a complete stop in the Village of Steeple Langford, in southwest England, a distance of about 65 miles from where it had begun. In its wake was a trough of wide destruction as it had churned through farms and villages, leaving no recognizable debris, only remnants of charred soil. Although the orb’s center was now stationary, it continued to grow outward at an ever-increasing pace, ravaging everything around its outer edges. Every person and animal, every physical structure, every blade of grass unfortunate enough to encounter the onyx behemoth was completely annihilated.
Earlier that day, an elderly recluse living in a quaint cottage on the outskirts of Shrewton, had just finished feeding her cats and was hobbling about making tea and toast with marmalade. Being hard of hearing she was unaware of the thundering noise surrounding her home. She didn’t understand why her pets seemed anxious and distracted.
“Oh, girls. What has gotten into you? Is there a tomcat about? Now, now, we must behave like ladies,” she chortled. “I wonder where our lad is with our goodies. He was supposed to be here yesterday, I believe. Well, we’ll have to make do with our bits until he gets here,” she said before settling herself down in an easy chair in front of an antique mahogany tea table.
The woman’s aging British Shorthair feline startled her by leaping up onto her lap.
“Oh, Constance,” the woman playfully scolded the animal as it nestled snugly into the security of her threadbare apron. “You’re my favorite, but don’t tell the others,” she whispered while stroking her lush fur.
She managed to lean forward and began pouring a stream of milk from a ceramic creamer into the teacup, finding it pleasing to watch the white liquid billowing through the dark amber of the tea. However, she was soon disturbed by the tiny concentric rings that were forming on the brew’s surface. The ring’s formations coincided with a vibration that she had been feeling through her slippers since she had risen from bed.
“I do believe we’re having some sort of earthquake, Constance.”
The woman quickly looked up at the ceiling, and then around the room as the sensation rapidly intensified. She noticed that the picture frames on a bookcase in front of her were shaking. Nervously she began stroking her cat with increasing speed until her chair began to rock and windows around her began to shatter.
Pulling her companion close to her chest, she returned her gaze to the pictures that retold the story of her life. A faded photo of her mother and father smiling on their wedding day. Another one of her arm in arm with her twin sister, as youngsters wearing decorative bonnets. Her late husband sporting his Royal Navy uniform, with her posing as his lovely young bride at his side. Pictures of her babies, and her grown children with their babies. Then one by one the frames began to topple over, until the entire bookcase itself was violently jolted onto the floor.
The woman clamped her eyes shut tightly and curled her chin and chest over her trembling companion.
“Constance! Constaaaannnnnccccccccccccccccc—”
The entity was now estimated to be about two miles in diameter, and appeared to have sunk deeper into the earth, with only about 35 percent of its top visible. It resembled a mountain range from a distance, only perfectly spherical. The colorful rainbow effect on the surface had morphed into violent explosions resembling solar flares, with large pockets of hot gas erupting like fountains from a jet black base.
The uppermost portion was now beginning to interact with low-hanging cumulus clouds at an altitude of 3,500 feet, and lightning bolts were sporadically leaping out of them. The once-sweet clarinet-sounding note emanating from it had degraded to a low growl, almost tuba-like, and was registering a whopping 140 decibels at a distance of one mile from its surface, equivalent to the noise level of a jet taking off.
There was virtually no living person within 10 miles of the sphere, including police and military personnel, who were being reassigned to evacuate outlying communities in the path of the ever-widening berth. The only exception was science and engineering teams in closer proximity, continuing to monitor and gather data to feed back to other scientists struggling to come up with an approach to battling the beast. Within the research community, a growing number of people were now advising dropping a nuclear weapon on it, even though there was no scientific basis for such a drastic plan. There was only the sense that in the near future, this event was likely to result in the mass extinction of every living organism on the planet. And in the absence of any concrete proposals, doing anything was better than doing nothing.
Others strongly cautioned against the nuclear option. They argued the explosion might mince the sphere into millions of tiny globules, which could rise up into the atmosphere, and be carried along by the jet stream for thousands of miles. They could then rain down like nuclear fallout, only serving to hasten man’s demise before the correct solution could be found. The consensus was to refrain from any action until there was an idea that had some scientific justification supporting it. For this reason, Royal and U.S. Air Force jets were enforcing a no-fly zone within 25 miles of the sphere to guard against a rogue nuclear attack on it by any country trying to take matters into their own hands out of desperation.
Humankind was now descending into a state of panic and despair. The media was projecting the outcome based on the object’s current rate of growth, and it was a chilling tale of apocalypse. World leaders struggled to keep their citizenry calm, and they were united in promising and providing as many resources as they could to those combatting the problem. Per Hannah’s suggestion, the Olympic flag was popping up everywhere, crafted onto poster board for display, printed onto computer paper and taped inside windows of houses and cars, and stapled onto trees. This provided a measure of comfort. Still, despondency over the news was leading to an unraveling of order. Workers all over the world were abandoning their posts in droves, including police, firemen, commercial airline pilots, and other transportation employees. Employees in the media, food outlets, factories, and business offices were not showing up for work, and looting was on the rise. Even the military was not immune, as soldiers began deserting in considerable numbers to return to their loved ones. Meanwhile, for a reason not explained to Monica, Brian had been handed over to federal authorities and continued to be held.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Executive Order
Monica was woken up early by a loud knock on the door of their suite.
“Mrs. Blake! Mrs. Blake!”
Monica rushed to the door from her bedroom, but was hesitant to open it. She peered through the peephole to see a group of five armed National Guardsmen accompanied by the Provost.
“Monica, it’s Jean. They need you over at the Center.”
Monica frantically unlocked and opened the door.
“Is Hannah alright?” she asked anxiously.
“I’m told she’s completely fine, but someone there needs to see you right away.”
“About what?”
“I haven’t been informed, but federal agents arrived on campus about fifteen minutes ago.”
Monica hurried into her clothes and was hustled over to the Photonics Center by the Guardsmen. They took the elevator to the sixth and top floor of the building where they were met by the Center Director. After guiding the group to a reception area for the administrative offices, he escorted Monica alone to the far end of an adjacent hallway. He opened an office door for her, announced her arrival to a middle-aged man who was waiting there alone, and then closed the door behind her.
“Mrs. Blake — or Monica, if I may — please have a seat.” The impeccably attired man motioned toward a mahogany conference table in the center of the room. “I’m Marshall Goldrick, chief of the Crisis Management Team for the National Security Agency.” He flashed a credential badge that was hanging by a thi
n rawhide strap around his neck. The two sat down across from each other, and the man paused briefly to to collect his thoughts before commencing.
“Monica…I’m sorry, but we need to transfer Hannah to a more secure facility,” Marshall stated firmly.
“More secure than this?” Monica asked in angry disbelief, as an Apache helicopter passed overhead, shaking the blinds covering the single small window in the room.
“It’s for her own protection, and we need her to be able to concentrate, without being distracted by the media or anyone else, with the proper equipment and support at her disposal.”
“You can’t take her anywhere without my consent,” Monica protested, her voice quavering. “She’s my child, in case you forgot.”
“Look, we have an executive order from the President of the United States to do this,” the chief quickly responded. “But tell me, what other choice do we have? We’ve had the best people working on this 24/7 for the past two weeks, and they’re completely baffled. We need Hannah.”
“Why is my husband being held?” Monica demanded. “Do you need him too?”
“He’s comfortable and being cared for.” Marshall lowered his head and began rubbing his temples up and down with his fingertips, trying to massage out the stress. He ran his fingers through his short, wiry hair that was losing out to gray, looked back up at her with bloodshot eyes, and pleaded for some common sense. “Monica, let’s get real. You and I both know Brian’s never going to cooperate. He’s too much of a risk to the operation. I promise you, we’ll get you on the phone with him today.”
“Seems like you’re making all the decisions just fine for my family, sir,” Monica sneered. “So what exactly do you want from me?”
“That part is simple, Monica. We want you on our side. Will you please come with me and Dr. Gordon Anderson — Hannah’s associate in the lab — to see your daughter? We want you to explain the situation to her, and tell her that a transfer is the right course of action. Hannah has to be in the right frame of mind for this, and we think you’re the only one who can ensure that.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Monica laughed condescendingly. “You’re acting like Hannah doesn’t understand the whole story here, and the part she’s playing in it. She’s already light years ahead of us on that. There’s no explaining anything to her. The fact is, you don’t need me for this. Hannah already knows exactly what’s at stake, and she isn’t about to let any emotion or person affect her thinking, not even her own mother. I could march down there, fall at her little feet, and beg her to stay or go, and it wouldn’t change a damn thing. I’m sure she’s already figured out that she may have to hurt me in the short term to save my life in the long run, so she’s going to disregard any feelings or opinions I have on this, one way or the other.”
Monica halted. Her eyes strayed from the chief as she played out the likely scenario awaiting in the lab. A look of pained desperation crept across her face. “She’s going to say, ‘I have to go, Mom.’ I guarantee it. So, where are you taking her?”
“We want to station her at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.”
“Station her? Really? You make it sound like my daughter’s an aircraft carrier, Mr. Goldrick.”
“Please, call me Marshall. She’ll be protected in a deep underground lab there, and she’ll be 1,700 miles farther away from the sphere…or creature…or whatever the hell it is, which might give her more time to figure everything out. Time is our enemy right now, and it’s hovering over us like a vulture.”
Three loud thuds on the door interrupted the discussion, followed by a booming voice. “Come on, Goldie, move it along! We gotta roll!”
Marshall exhaled emphatically, and the two sat quietly as another Apache lumbered closely by. The room was overtaken by the clamor of whipping rotor blades and screaming twin turboshaft engines. As the amplitude of the sound waves eventually began to abate, the worry lines on the man’s forehead momentarily smoothed out as well.
“It’s funny, I remember one summer I had this job at a sub shop in my old hometown. I used to think it was so nerve-racking around lunchtime, like, oh my God we’re running low on pickles,” he mused, trying to inject humor into the conversation despite the dire circumstances. “We’ll set you up close by, so you can see your daughter if she wants to take a break.”
Monica sagged limply back into her chair and relented with a fragile, “Okay.” She knew there was no argument.
“Hey...Monica,” Chief Goldrick said sympathetically, “I’m truly sorry that the burden of an entire world is resting on your daughter’s shoulders.”
“Thank you, Marshall,” she replied with a mixture of gratitude and resignation. Then she added one final plea. “Just remind the people watching over Hannah that those shoulders are very small.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Nothing
Three U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcons maintained a formation around a private Learjet as it trekked to New Mexico. During the flight, Hannah discussed with Marshall and Anderson her thoughts on the giant object, and the progress she had made thus far, while Monica looked on. The child’s tone was distinctly mature. There seemed to be no little girl left in her whatsoever, save for the unicorn headband with sparkles she was wearing for the trip. Anderson had given her the plush pointy-horned headgear to lighten the mood.
“What do you think will happen if it isn’t stopped, Hannah?” Marshall asked.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing will happen?” Marshall’s eyes lit up.
“No, there will be nothing. I believe that the black object you see is actually not something, but the opposite of something. It’s a void, a void of space, time, and matter. Think of the sense of time we know, all the space we know, and all the material things in it, like this bag of almonds here, like you and me, and the moon and stars, they will all cease to exist. Eventually the entire Universe will be absolutely nothing.”
Marshall was having difficulty processing this. He turned to Anderson for some validation, but the doctor simply held up his open palms with resignation. He didn’t get it either, but he wasn’t arguing against her conclusion. Marshall got emotional. “Alright, then. Can you figure out how to stop it?”
“I’ll try as hard as I can. After all, we have nothing to be afraid of. Pun intended.”
“Are you still opposed to nuking it?” asked Anderson.
“That’s part of the problem, Marblehead—‘it’ is not even an ‘it.’ Everything around ‘it’ is the only ‘it.’ You wouldn’t be dropping a nuclear weapon on anything. So there would be no effect, except to the area surrounding the void. This is what I’m having such a difficult time with. How do I defeat an enemy who isn’t even there?”
“Are you sure about all this?” asked Marshall skeptically.
“Yes, and this isn’t just a theory of mine. This is the math thus far.”
“Well, what if your calculations are wrong?”
“Don’t let the unicorn horn erode your confidence in me, Marshall,” she replied. “They’re right. I double checked them!”
The jet landed at a restricted desert runway. Hannah removed the headband and her contingent boarded a limousine bus with dark tinted windows. Under military escort, they were driven a short distance to the Los Alamos National Laboratory. They passed through a security gate, then waited while an enormous steel door was opened, revealing the entrance to a giant tunnel. The vehicle proceeded down a circular paved roadway bypassing a few levels of parking lots until finally coming to a stop outside another reinforced door with a porthole made of bulletproof glass, which swung open as if on cue. The group exited the limo and were greeted by top officials of the renowned lab, including the Director of Global Security, and the Director of Science, Technology & Engineering. The welcoming committee thanked Hannah and the others for making the trip. They congratulated the child on her acc
omplishments, and spoke glowingly of the gifts she had given to humanity in her short life. Hannah thanked them politely but succinctly. It was clear she wanted to get beyond the reception and get to the important work at hand.
Everyone was led to a combination elevator and monorail transport system. Mother and daughter sat side by side, their hands clasped together as the vehicle began to descend. Monica closed her eyes and imagined the two were riding to watch Sophia and Leah perform in one of their ballet recitals. Anywhere but here. Hannah could see how nervous Monica was, and she squeezed her mother’s hand.
“Don’t worry, Mom. Everything is going to turn out fine.”
After the transporter stopped sinking, it began travelling horizontally for about a minute before finally reaching its destination. Along the ride, a woman who would be in charge of orientation told the visitors about the living arrangements that were awaiting them, and about the lab that had been specially designed for Hannah’s use. Nobody brought up the proverbial elephant in the room.
“Shall we start with the living quarters?” the woman asked.
“Show the others, please. I’d like to be taken directly to the lab,” Hannah ordered.
Chapter Fifty
Nightingale
“I need another box of pencils, Marshall. I’m running low,” Hannah said over the ambient sounds of a new age Pure Moods CD. The child was looking up and speaking into a two-way audio camera that was trained on her, as she sat enclosed behind a foot-thick, vault door, in her specially prepared think tank. For her writing utensils, Hannah had specified Ticonderoga, pre-sharpened golf pencils with erasers, which came 72 to a box. She had immediately fallen in love with these short, handy little instruments while once keeping score for a round of miniature golf with her parents and the twins. She was burning through them quickly because when one would become dull, she wanted to simply toss it into a nearby trashcan and reach for a new one. This felt borderline divaesque to her, but time was too short to sharpen pencils, or to care. Hannah had been hard at work for four days, and had already emptied six boxes.
