They went into the sitting room were Agent Kane was watching the news on TV.
“Time to go, huh?” the FBI agent said.
“Yes, it’s time to go,” George said.
Sara wanted to walk to the door but Kane stopped her.
“Let—”
“Oh I get it,” Sara said. “Ladies last.”
“Ladies last,” Kane echoed before he opened the door and led her to one of the three cars waiting outside.
They entered the car, which was full of cigarette smoke.
“Sorry for the smoke, ma’am,” the man behind the wheel said. “I’ve just been taking my morning cigarette.”
Sara felt like punching the smoker in the face. She thought it was selfish of him to pollute the air just to nurse his addiction. “Take me to the Federal Triangle,” she snapped. “I want to visit the Environmental Protection Agency.”
“We’re going to the HQ of EPA at the Federal Triangle,” Kane spoke into his sleeve.
The lead car of Sara’s motorcade drove into the street and the car that was carrying Sara followed. At a snail’s pace, they drove under the cloudless sky, through the rush-hour traffic for almost half an hour before they reached the Federal Triangle.
Only George, Kane and Sara’s driver accompanied her into the complex. The rest of the bodyguards remained in the cars. She led the three men to the headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Zachary was waiting for her in his office, looking immaculate as ever in his blue suit. He was reading something from his computer when she entered.
“Zack, you look great,” Sara said with a fond smile. She liked this man and she knew the feeling was mutual. Perhaps if they weren’t so professional when she was his deputy, they could have become more than just friends. “I can see you did away with your specs. Did you get a miracle cure for your eyes?”
“I switched to contact lenses,” Zachary said.
“Good for you, Zack,” she said, taking the chair opposite him. “Contacts make you look less like a stern professor.”
“Did I look like a stern professor?”
“Come on, Zack, I’m kidding.”
“Where’s the new evidence you want to show me?”
“Zack, have you given any thought to my theory?” she asked, looking into his eyes.
“Are you talking about your assumption that an extraterrestrial entity is taking oxygen from the atmosphere?”
“Yes,” she replied, searching his face for a hint of derision.
He put his hands on his temples to reach for his glasses and laughed at himself when he remembered that he wasn’t wearing glasses.
“Are you laughing at me, Zack?” Sara asked with unmasked pain. She didn’t care when the whole world mocked her, but it hurt to see Zack laughing at her. He was her friend and professional soul mate.
“I’m not laughing at you, Sara. I’m laughing at myself. It’s two months since I started using contact lenses yet I still put my hands on my face to adjust my glasses.”
She pushed her head toward him. “You didn’t answer my question. What do you think of my theory?”
“It’s an interesting theory, Sara. I don’t subscribe to it but I give you credit for thinking outside the box. Everyone else is working on the assumption that some volcanoes are sucking oxygen from the atmosphere but nobody has even the slightest proof that such a thing is happening. Nobody has any idea where these volcanoes are.”
She leaned backwards and crossed her legs. “If I give you proof, will you help me investigate my findings?”
“Depends on the proof.”
“First, let me say that I came up with the extraterrestrial theory before I noticed the suspicious behavior of the space agencies and satellite imagery companies. The suspicious behavior only added weight to my theory.” She took out two A4 sheets of recycled paper from her handbag and placed them on his desk.
“What is this?”
“This is your proof, Zack. These are screengrabs I took from yesterday’s real-time satellite images. You see those clouds marked with a red pen? They were pasted onto the satellite image to cover up something.”
“How do you know that?”
She told him everything.
“But why would they paste clouds? They could simply paste a picture cropped hours before they do their thing.”
“I thought about that too,” Sara said. “Maybe one of them wants to expose the whole thing.”
“I want to see this for myself.”
“No problem, Zack. Seeing is believing. I’ll phone you when they paste clouds again and you’ll see for yourself what I’m talking about.”
“Even if I see this for myself and become a believer, I won’t be of much help to you, Sara.”
“Zack, you’re the only person who can help me. We need the government’s help to fully investigate this. This is an environmental issue and your agency can easily take it to the President.”
“What do you want the President to do?”
“We need the government to find out what’s happening in that area. They must send Navy ships or even submarines to this area. When the fake cloud appears on the satellite images, the servicemen in the ships can look at the sky and see if there are any clouds in the area.”
Zack shrugged. “I’m only a deputy administrator, Sara. Only the Administrator of EPA can take this matter to the President.”
“I know, Zack. If you see for yourself what I’m talking about, please talk to the administrator.”
“I’ll do more than that, Sara. I’ll talk to the administrator today and when the companies paste the clouds, I’ll see them together with him.”
“Do you trust him?”
“Yes. Why?”
“The people we’re investigating have compromised NASA. Maybe they’ve compromised your agency as well.”
“I trust him.”
“If you trust him, I trust him. Talk to him. Thanks. I knew I could count on you.”
“Show me the proof first, Sara.”
“Your proof will come real soon.” She sighed. “See you soon.”
“Goodbye, Sara.”
She walked out of the office and was immediately shadowed by her bodyguards.
* * *
It was morning when Cruz landed on E Utopia’s only spaceport. The E Utopian sun was shining brightly in the partly cloudy sky. He was welcomed by Doctor Hitchcook, Secretary of Interior and Works, Fleet Admiral Charles Eawo, Secretary of Defense and Transport, and his deputy, Admiral Chief of Operations Gyozo Geza. Hitchcook warmly shook Cruz’s hand and offered him a breathing machine whilst Eawo and Geza stood at attention.
“At ease gentle man,” Cruz said, putting on the breathing machine.
The two military chiefs greeted Cruz before the public address system began blaring the Green Hymn. Hitchcook and the two admirals followed Cruz as he inspected a guard of honor that comprised men and women from tanker crews and dozens of ensigns who had just graduated from the space force academy.
Cruz went beside himself with joy when he noted that two of the servicemen in the guard of honor had no breathing machines. The last time he was here, the oxygen in the air could hardly sustain animals that originated from Earth’s high-altitude environments. Now these two men were breathing E Utopian air unaided. He was going to make sure that this air remained clean. He was going to do everything in his power to protect E Utopian air from needless pollution.
When the Green Hymn was over, Cruz, Hitchcook and two bodyguards entered an electric limousine and the two admirals entered a much smaller electric car.
“Mr. President, do you want to go to your residence or your office first?” Hitchcook asked.
“To my office.”
“We’re taking the President to his office,” Hitchcook told the driver.
“Okay, Mr. Secretary,” the driver said before he spoke into his sleeve. “We’re driving the President to his office.”
Cruz’s six-car motorcade dro
ve out of the spaceport and entered a dust road. Cruz looked at the identical houses on the left side of the road. The number of the houses had grown since he was last here. Dozens of houses were under construction. The houses were part of the space force barracks.
The pioneers had only explored a small part of E Utopia. Now they were concentrating on bringing oxygen and flora and fauna to the planet. When that was over, they would explore the rest of their new world. Most of what they knew about E Utopia came from satellite data.
Less than a kilometer from the barracks was an administrative complex. When the motorcade stopped in front of the complex, Cruz and Hitchcook stepped out of the limousine and entered the complex, surrounded by top military officials and security men. Only Fleet Admiral Eawo and Admiral Geza followed Cruz and Hitchcook into the President’s Office.
Cruz sat on his chair and asked the three men to take seats. They all took off their breathing machines.
“I saw that two of our men were not wearing breathing machines,” Cruz said. “I hope you didn’t order them not to wear breathing machines just to impress me, Admiral Eawo.”
“No, Mr. President,” Eawo said. “They were under no such orders. Those two men are James Yobo, from my homeland and Imata Kabua from the Marshal Islands. The two men have stronger lungs than all of us because they were professional athletes before they joined the green cause. James Yobo was a short distance runner and he represented Nigeria at the Olympics. Imata Kabua is a former long distance runner and Marshallese national champion.”
“What is the state of the planet?” Cruz asked.
“Mr. President, everything is going according to plan,” Hitchcook said. “The level of oxygen in our atmosphere can now sustain life as attested by the two servicemen who can survive without breathing machines. I think we must start thinking about taking our plants and animals out of the biomes. On the animal side, we can start by taking out animals that originate from Earth’s high altitude areas since they are best adapted to surviving in environments with low oxygen.”
Cruz pouted his lips. “Do we have enough carbon dioxide to sustain plant life?”
“Yes and no,” Hitchcook said. “The atmosphere has just over zero point one two percent carbon dioxide by volume, which is more than enough to support plant life for now. But I don’t think it’ll be enough to provide the carbon needed by the organic life that’ll fill this planet. As forests grow, they’ll absorb almost all the carbon dioxide.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Mr. President, we’ve plenty of hydrocarbon fuel that we brought from Earth before we began using heavy hydrogen fuel,” Hitchcook proffered. “When carbon dioxide levels drop too low, we can burn the fuel to make more carbon dioxide. That won’t provide all the carbon we need, so we’ll have to get carbon dioxide from Venus.”
“I’m more in favor of taking carbon dioxide from Earth,” Cruz said. “That will kill Earth’s green plants and starve the polluters.”
“That can be a quick way to win the war, Mr. President,” Hitchcook said, thinking about his family and friends back on Earth. He couldn’t wait for the day of their evacuation to E Utopia.
“You can go ahead and start planting plants outside the biomes, Secretary Hitchcook,” Cruz directed.
“We shall begin tomorrow, Mr. President.”
“What’s the average sea level pressure?” Cruz asked.
“Six hundred and forty millimeters, Mr. President.”
“We have to push it to 760 millimeters,” Hitchcook suggested.
“Can I say something?” Fleet Admiral Eawo said.
Cruz nodded. “Feel free to speak, fleet admiral.”
“I know it makes sense to set the air pressure level and the air content to the levels that were on Earth before we began the EU Project, but I think we should consider three things. Number one: E Utopia is slightly bigger than Earth and its gravity is slightly higher than that of Earth. Number two: EU has almost the same average air temperature as Earth. When EU’s atmosphere has the same pressure as pre- El Monstruo Earth, it will be less dense than Earth’s atmosphere was before El Monstruo.” Fleet Admiral looked at Cruz to see whether he understood what he was telling him. He continued with his speech when Cruz nodded. “Number three: when forests grow, nitrogen-fixing plants and microbes will absorb nitrogen from the atmosphere, reducing the atmospheric pressure. The absorption of carbon dioxide by plants won’t change atmospheric pressure because it would be offset by the oxygen released by the plants.”
“Touché, Eawo,” Cruz said, glad he had appointed Eawo as the head of the space force.
Eawo was an Ogoni from Nigeria’s Niger Delta. Prior to his recruitment, he worked as an Agricultural Chemistry and Soil Science lecturer at the Niger Delta University. Although Eawo had no previous military training, Cruz appointed him commander of E Utopia’s space force because he was intelligent and fiercely devoted to the cause. Eawo knew that if the E Utopian project succeeded, it would save more than ten thousand of his tribesmen from the certain genocide they faced from greedy oil companies and corrupt government officials. As a senior officer of the space force, he was entitled to saving one hundred and fifty Ogonis of his choice from the genocidal destruction of their homeland and bring them to a pollution-free world they had never known all their lives. There were more than a hundred of his tribesmen in the E Utopian pioneer force and as junior officers, each one of them was entitled to saving a hundred people. The E Utopia Project was his tribe’s only hope of freedom. He would do everything in his power to make sure that the project succeeded.
“Eawo, the plants won’t take much nitrogen from the atmosphere because the soil has good levels of nitrates,” Hitchcook said, squinting, cursing himself for overlooking what the Nigerian had pointed out. He hoped this would not make Cruz think Eawo was more intelligent than him.
“The levels of nitrates seem good because there are no plants and animals on the planet,” Eawo argued. “The levels will plummet when plants and animals start assimilating the nitrates.”
Hitchcook felt like he had been kicked in the balls. This Nigerian was too intelligent for his liking. “Of course, you’re right, Eawo. We’ll bring more nitrogen and carbon dioxide as the forests grow. When we finish Earth’s carbon dioxide we can get more carbon dioxide from Venus. We can’t bring the carbon dioxide all at once because it may cause acid rain.”
“That’s true, Secretary Hitchcook,” Eawo said. “Acid rain will harm our new ecosystem.”
Hitchcook nodded. At least the Nigerian wasn’t an arrogant son of a bitch.
“I’ll return to Earth the day after tomorrow,” Cruz announced. “We shall start the program of evacuating the chosen ones from Earth upon my arrival. We’ll also end the recruitment program. We shall start with the evacuation of the chosen ones of high-ranking officials and senior space force officers. I want you to give me your invitation videos and lists of your chosen ones.”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” Hitchcook said. “I can’t wait to see my family again.”
“I’ll need the invitation videos and lists of chosen ones of all officers from the rank of commander going upward.”
“We’ll send the word out, Mr. President,” Eawo said. “It’s a long time since I saw my parents and my three brothers. Thank you for fulfilling your promise, sir.”
“Admiral Geza,” Cruz said, realizing the Siberian wasn’t going to say anything unless spoken to. “How is your work?”
Geza was the most taciturn men, Cruz knew. He only spoke when it was absolutely necessary. He came from Russia’s Siberia and was a member of the Khanty tribe. His people had lived in the Siberia for thousands of years, fishing, hunting and herding reindeer. Their lives were shattered in the nineteen sixties when oil was discovered in their homeland. The Soviet government immediately began drilling for oil. Towns sprang up in the region and hordes of job seekers invaded the homeland of the Khanty.
Fish constituted seventy percent of the Khanty peopl
e’s diet. They suffered from food shortages when oil pipelines began leaking into the Ob River, a river that they had relied on for food for hundreds of years. Large tracts of reindeer pastures were destroyed by fire and oil pollution. Oil exploration and the influx of workers from other parts of Russia severely affected the hunting grounds that had sustained many generations of the Khanty. The new population of workers hunted Siberian animals for sport. Populations of animals like the sables, elks and bears, which the Khanty relied on, dropped drastically. A people who had been self-sufficient for hundreds of years suddenly became destitute.
The collapse of the Soviet Union brought even more misery for the Khanty. The petroleum industry was opened to private players and Russian- and foreign-owned oil companies flocked to the Siberia.
Geza’s father was a fisherman and hunter who stuck to his traditional ways despite the change that oil production had brought to Siberia. He continued to fish even when the Ob River was declared to have fifteen times more petroleum hydrocarbons than was considered safe. He was diagnosed with liver cancer when he was only forty-eight years old. He died a year later. Geza blamed the oil companies for his father’s death.
His mother always encouraged him to go to school and become someone. “Being someone,” according to Geza’s mother, was getting a good job and living in a city. She did menial jobs in the nearby city of Surgut to raise money for his school fees. When an opportunity came for him to join the Russian Air Force, she begged him to enlist. He joined the Air Force and trained as a pilot. He flew many sorties during Russia’s Syria aerial campaign in support of President Bashar Assad.
To his mother’s dismay, Geza chose to stay in his homeland when he was on leave. He felt a strong attachment to his people. He joined the newly formed Khanty movement called Spasensie Yugra, which promoted Khanty culture and campaigned against the environmental degradation of the Khanty homeland. He began to campaign vigorously against the oil companies that spilled oil into the Ob river and polluted his homeland with impunity. His superiors in the Air Force thought Geza’s anti-pollution campaign was politically-motivated. They ordered him to stop the campaign but he didn’t listen, leading to his court-martialing and arrest. He was discharged from the military upon his release from prison.
The E Utopia Project Page 21
