by Unknown
“Maybe for you, too. You were quiet at dinner last night. I made my roast lamb specialty and you either loved it so much you couldn’t talk…or, you were in shock.”
“I loved the meal—and I’m sorry I wasn’t great company. I was just trying to absorb everything you’d told us. It was a shock. You’ve known about this for a long time, but for us to suddenly find out that our world may be coming to an end…”
Allison reached over and rubbed his arm. “I did enjoy working with those shiny appliances, though. You were right—they are like brand new. You should learn to cook.”
“I know how to cook—I just can’t be bothered most of the time. Tell you what—I’ll make dinner for you tonight. Can you stay in town a bit longer?”
“I’d love to. Maybe for a couple more days, then I have to fly back to Penticton.”
“What’s there?”
“Well, from there, I’ll be driving down to Osoyoos. I own a vineyard there, and there’s someone waiting for me—it’s all related to this subject. I’ll tell you about that over dinner tonight.”
“So, you told us last night that you’re able to read minds. A power that passed down to you from your dad. Sounds like he had the exact same experience that my dad did—zapped by a beam from one of those alien crafts.”
Allison crossed her legs and took a sip of her coffee. “Yes, his DNA was changed like your dad’s was, and when I was born I had a transcended version of that new DNA. I think that’s the only power I have, but who knows? But…you must have inherited something, too, Wyatt. You haven’t volunteered what that is. Tell me…I know there’s something.”
He let out a long sigh. “I’ve discovered that I’m a ‘remote viewer.’ That’s how I managed to track down my mom when she was kidnapped. I was able to project myself and see the whole thing. It was weird.”
Wyatt could tell that she didn’t even seem surprised.
“I know all about ‘remote viewing.’ It’s a real phenomenon. Used by most of the world’s intelligence agencies. Sometimes, they hit on things, and sometimes they don’t. It’s an erratic talent, but, when it’s in full force, it’s very powerful and very accurate.”
“Aside from saving my mom a few weeks ago, I can’t see that I’d want to use it that often. It’s very eerie—actually, quite disturbing.”
“In your job, you could use it to solve crimes.”
Wyatt laughed. “Back at the RCMP, I could have used it a lot, but here in Nelson the most serious crime we usually have is spitting on the street.”
“Well, I’m thinking of a purpose for it.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t want to talk about it right now. I will, though—have to give it some thought. One thing I’ve learned about remote viewing, is that it’s most effective when the performer doesn’t have a lot of time to think about what he’s going to focus on. Works best when it’s fairly sudden and spontaneous.”
“I think you’re right—that’s how it happened when I used it on my mom. It wasn’t planned at all, because I didn’t even know I had the skill. It just happened when I was standing out in the alley talking to witnesses.”
“Yes, traumatic events can sometimes trigger it.” Allison grinned. “We may have to find a way to traumatize you again.”
Wyatt frowned. “I don’t know if I like the sound of that. So, tell me about your mind-reading skill. You said you only get it for a few seconds at a time, and you have to do something to trigger it?”
Allison inserted her index fingers into her ears and immediately popped them back out again. “That’s all I have to do. Do you want me to tell you what you’re thinking?”
“Yes.”
“You’re thinking that there’s no way I’ll be able to read your mind because you’re focusing it on emptiness.”
Wyatt laughed. “Geez, that’s exactly right.”
“Now, you’re thinking that you’d love to kiss my lips. I can actually see an image of you puckering up.”
Wyatt put his hands over his eyes. “Stop it! I’m embarrassed now!”
Suddenly, he felt gentle fingers prying his hands away from his eyes. He opened them and there she was, leaning over him, dressing gown hanging slightly open.
Her voice was soft. “Don’t be embarrassed. You can’t read minds, but if you could you’d know that I was thinking the same thing. So, pucker up, Chief.”
She kissed him, slowly and gently, and he responded willingly. Her lips were just as he’d imagined them to be—luscious and seductive. It was only a short-lived moment, but it was a romantic one and, in Wyatt’s mind, it held the promise of more moments to come.
Their faces pulled back at the same time and they smiled at each other.
Wyatt didn’t know what to say, and he was relieved that Allison decided to break the silence. “Well, I’m glad our first kiss is over with. What’s for breakfast?”
Wyatt laughed so hard he started choking. “That was…the best icebreaker…I’ve ever heard.”
“How’s this for a sequel? We know now that each of has at least one DNA gift passed down by our fathers.” She smiled in that cute mischievous way that showed off her dimples. “I wonder if we have any more gifts, huh?”
“I’m willing to find out, if you are.”
She grinned again. “I sure am.”
Wyatt nervously jumped to his feet. “Okay, time for another icebreaker—or a cold shower! I think I should start breakfast.”
“You do that, Mr. Policeman.”
Wyatt grabbed their empty cups and started heading back inside. But, then he turned around. His cheeks felt flushed, but at this moment he didn’t care if she noticed, especially since hers had also turned a nice crimson color.
He had something he wanted to ask her and it couldn’t wait.
“Allison, is all that you told us engrained in stone? Is it inevitable?”
She shook her head.
“No, as I mentioned to you all yesterday, what I shared are predictions. Scientific stuff—best guesses. You now know, though, that the weird weather and changes that have been taking place are due to Gargantuan. That’s fact.
“Will it get worse? Yes. Might it get better? Yes—after Gargantuan makes its closest pass and begins moving back out again.
“How much worse will it get? We don’t know for sure, but we’ve planned for the worst case scenario. It will come within fourteen million miles and, when you consider that the Sun is about ninety-two million miles from us, that gives you an idea of how close it will be.
“Right now, Gargantuan seems to be about 120 million miles away, and the puzzling thing about it is that its progression towards us seems to stall from time to time. Which doesn’t make much sense, considering that it’s in a definite orbit. It should continue towards us at a reasonably consistent pace.”
“Why would that be?”
“We think that there’s an artificial means, on, or inside the planet, of controlling its rate of orbit speed.”
“From the aliens that live there?”
Allison nodded. “Yes, they seem to have some means of controlling the planet’s position in orbit. Sometimes, it moves at a consistent rate, and then sometimes it seems to stop dead in its tracks—in astronomical terms, of course.”
“How is that possible?”
“Well, we have to plan for the fact that they’re an advanced intelligence. They might have figured something out that suits their purposes, whatever those purposes may be. We think we know what it might be, though.”
“What?”
“Something we’re also doing ourselves. Something that may be a solution if we decide that the worst case scenario is going to happen. It might buy us a few extra years, or might even give us a permanent solution.”
Wyatt came back to the table and sat down. “I’m intrigued. Continue.”
Allison clasped her hands together and began cracking her knuckles. “It’s a project I was assigned to…back in its earlier stages, when I wor
ked…at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. NASA and the JPL were both involved…in a big way. I’m…still involved as a member of Majestic 12; the communications liaison director.”
“You seem hesitant talking about this. Your voice is shaking a bit. What is it, Allison? Spit it out.”
“You’ve heard of the project. In fact, Stephen Hawking got a lot of publicity a couple of years ago when he spoke out against it. He’s been silent since then, because we brought him in on it and he now knows the true purpose.
“It’s huge, Wyatt, and it’s scary as hell—but it may be the only chance we have.”
Wyatt felt his heart racing. “I’m waiting.”
“It’s located deep underneath the Franco-Swiss border, an engineering marvel to say the least. We don’t even know exactly what it may unleash upon us, it’s that scary. But, it also may be a planet-saver.
“You’ve read about it, I’m sure—the Large Hadron Collider, known to the world as CERN.”
Chapter 43
Wyatt walked over to the kitchen sink, turned on the tap, and splashed cold water on his face. Lots of cold water. He wanted to wake up from what was starting to feel like a bad dream.
Could this summer get any stranger?
He yanked a dish towel off the rack on the oven and dried himself. Allison was sitting at the dining room table, patiently awaiting his return.
Just a mere hour ago, they’d been enjoying the spectacular view of the lake out on his deck.
Then, she’d dropped the bombshell.
He’d tried his best to absorb what she was telling him, but the facts just got jumbled around in his brain. The specifics were mind-numbingly technical and the implications were beyond belief.
It seemed like a bad dream—one of those fantasies that seemed to make sense when you were asleep, but quickly veered to the bizarre once you were awake. When rational logic and common sense finally took over from the subconscious.
Wyatt shook his head in an effort to clear the cobwebs as he walked back to the table to join her. He pulled his chair out to the jarring sound of the feet scraping along the hardwood floor, and plopped his weary body down.
His weariness came from not getting a break from this—the entire summer had been consumed by one revelation after another. Ever since his very own father had been betrayed by an x-ray machine.
And, now, this.
He’d almost gotten used to the idea of an incoming heavenly body called Gargantuan, but then she’d hit him with one more terrifying twist. From the luscious mouth of a beautiful mysterious lady, whom he knew now without the shadow of a doubt he had strong feelings for.
That fact complicated things even further. He found it difficult to be angry with her for deceiving him and his father. These revelations she’d laid on him put the deceptions themselves way down on the totem pole. They seemed petty compared to what she’d told him. Being lied to was hardly a big deal when stacked up against the shocking knowledge she’d shared with him.
He stared into her hypnotic blue eyes and just locked on for a second or two. Then, in a whisper, he said, “You mentioned that a plane went down. Which one was it? Did I read about it?”
Allison nodded. “You must have. It was that Germanwings airliner; 150 people died. A story was concocted about the co-pilot committing suicide—locked the captain out of the cockpit and put the plane into a dive.”
“Yes, I remember that. Horrifying. But, didn’t they give a lot of details after the crash about the co-pilot researching methods of suicide online?”
“Sure. Amazing, isn’t it? How these things just seem to materialize after an event? It’s called ‘creating a backstory.’ That’s all it was.”
“So, you’re saying that CERN was responsible for this?”
Allison nodded. “I’m not just saying it was—I know it was. There was an amazing coincidence that day, and virtually no one connected the dots. CERN had been shut down for a two-year maintenance program, getting prepared for gearing back up again for its next big thrust—power to be amped up at twice what was used when the Higgs-Boson ‘God Particle’ was discovered in 2012. The Large Hadron Collider was going on steroids, and March 24th was the big day.
“At around the exact same time as the LHC hit full power, the Germanwings aircraft went down—descended from 38,000 feet in eight minutes and slammed into a mountain. The point of impact was 190 miles from CERN. The plane was on its way from Barcelona to Dusseldorf, and it began its fatal descent almost directly over the French/Swiss border, where CERN is located. Eight minutes later, it hit the mountains.”
Wyatt leaned forward across the table. “What brought it down?”
“Magnetics.”
“But, planes are made of mainly aluminum. Aluminum isn’t magnetic.”
Allison rubbed her tiny fists against her eyes. Wyatt could see that they were getting bloodshot.
“Not at normal magnetic levels, you’re right. But, one thing about ‘matter’—everything is magnetic when forces reach extreme levels. So, it’s conceivable that the aluminum became magnetic. And, the jet engines were made of titanium, which is known as a paramagnetic metal. It has no magnetic field of its own under normal conditions, but it develops one if it’s exposed to an externally applied magnetic field.
“In the case of the LHC, it has 9,300 magnets and the environment in the tunnels is super-cooled to minus 456 degrees Fahrenheit to enhance the power of the magnetic field. The result is a field that is 100,000 times more powerful than the actual magnetic field of Earth itself. This massive magnet literally sucked that helpless plane right out of the sky to its doom.”
Wyatt shook his head back and forth. He could feel a headache coming on, and he wasn’t surprised.
“So, if I understand it right, this monstrosity caused the deaths of 150 people and they created a story making the co-pilot out to be some kind of psycho. And, they never admitted the danger of this thing? No warnings to other planes going over that flight path?”
Allison grimaced. “That’s the gist of it. Not only that, as soon as they realized what had happened, they shut the LHC down cold. They were shocked at what it had done. Then, the gremlins went to work online, erasing any reference to the LHC having been started up that day. If you search online now, you’ll see that the re-start was in April, not March. If anyone has any old newspapers from that fateful day of March 24th, they will see that it was indeed fired up—but who reads newspapers anymore? And, if they do, who keeps them?”
Wyatt leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. “I’ve read about this LHC over the years, but never paid too much attention to it. Quantum physics was never my strong suit. But, I always understood it to be merely an experiment to discover the God Particle, the origins of the Big Bang, the wonders of the creation of the universe and all that crap. I always wondered why they hell they were even bothering—like, who the hell cares? Why do we need to know this? And, you’re now saying that all of that was just a smokescreen?”
Allison nodded. “Yes, sort of. They did have to discover the Higgs-Boson particle, better known as that God Particle, before they advanced to this final stage. So, that was the first step in the process. They’ve now reached the final step, the real purpose.”
“How long have they been planning this thing?”
“After the incoming path of Gargantuan was confirmed without a shadow of a doubt, they started construction. It took ten years, and was completed in 2008. They were slow off the mark, despite the fact that we’ve known about Gargantuan for many decades now. They just refused to believe it was true.
“Then, when there was no more room for denial, the best physicists in the world came up with a plan. A workable plan—to a point. Over 20,000 scientists have been involved with the CERN project—the best minds in the world. But, the world’s leaders were still in denial. It took far too long for them to react. When they finally did, twenty-one countries funded the project at a total cost of seven billion dollars, and an annual budget of 300
million.
“And, you wonder why your taxes keep going up, and why you seem to be taxed constantly for carbon emissions and climate change? Well, now you have your answer. That’s where the money’s been going, as well as towards private bunkers and massive government underground cities.”
Wyatt stood up and walked over to a window overlooking the lake. “Where exactly is this LHC thing?”
“Geneva, Switzerland. About 300 feet underground.”
He put his hands up against the window and leaned forward until his forehead was resting against the glass. “When you were talking about this before—you were skipping around quite a bit—you mentioned that the LHC might be the solution to Gargantuan.”
Allison cleared her throat. “It’s possibly a solution, but no one knows for sure. And, it might save us, for a period of time. It would perhaps buy us time to get better prepared.”
Wyatt turned around to face her. “What do you mean?”
He noticed Allison swallowing hard. He’d hardly ever seen her nervous before, but at this moment she was.
“As I said before, it took too long for those in power to appreciate the gravity of the situation. Too long to face the fact that Gargantuan could possibly be an extinction level event. Not necessarily in the havoc that its magnetic pull would have on our planet, but in the other implications. It’s been slowly but surely pulling the Earth apart for decades, and that’s getting worse as it gets closer. But, if we could somehow survive that, once it makes its circle around the Sun, we won’t see the beast again for another 3,600 years.
“So, if Gargantuan’s magnetic effects weren’t concerning enough for us, the possible predatory nature of its inhabitants is the big unknown. With their advanced intelligence, who knows what weapons they might possess? We can only imagine. Look at what happened to my dad and yours. That was decades ago. The world’s armed forces couldn’t deal with those alien scout forces back then. We couldn’t fight them—they turned our own weapons back against us. When their crafts appeared in the sky, we couldn’t catch them. They’re far too fast. In fact, we’ve been running away from them. We wouldn’t be a match if they wanted to take over our planet. We’re guessing that human civilization would be dead within perhaps a day or two, with our beloved planet left vacant and safe for them to take over.
