“You mean like to save us? But you said yourself that it would take hundreds or thousands of years. There would have been announcements, meetings, plans… We would have known about it.”
“We didn’t know about it because it all happened in an instant of our time.”
“Okay, that’s impossible unless you’re now saying you do believe in giant ray guns.”
“Actually no, it’s not. Space and time are relative, and the only logical explanation for such an event is that whoever did this was able to fold space and time to accomplish a centuries-long task in an instant.”
“You mean time travel?”
“That’s precisely what I mean.”
“So they traveled back to some point in time…”
“12:21:12 p.m. on 12|21|12 to be precise.”
“And they gathered up as many people as they could and took them away in their space ships or whatever, and when they came back again…”
“They returned at exactly the same instant of our time and moved another group off the planet.”
“So for us, it all seems to happen in that same moment even though it takes them hundreds of their years. That’s pretty deep, Dr. Loeb. Is that even possible?”
“Indeed it is — if one were actually able to fold space and time. Then he could be anywhere he chose at any time he chose without having to travel there using more conventional methods.”
“So they could have transporters, or a star gate, or something like that?”
“I would assume so.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“So why didn’t they take us, Dr. Loeb?”
“If this were an exam and you got five wrong out of 6.8 billion, it would still be an “A.” No one is perfect, Cameron.”
“So we’re a mistake? That’s comforting.”
“Or perhaps, as the good reverend said, we were left behind for a reason. Perhaps they left us here to gather up the other stragglers.”
“So when they came back again they would take us all in one shot on the last bus out of town. That makes sense. We need to find that bus station, Dr. Loeb.”
Cameron cleaned up. Loeb went to the computer in the study to continue his search, and Michael retired for the evening. Later, Cameron brought Loeb another pot of coffee.
“Any luck, Dr. Loeb?”
“Not really. The only activity on the Internet is automated. There have been no more views of the video. Nothing.”
“I just have one more question. If they were saving us, what do you think they were they saving us from?”
Loeb gave up searching sometime in the middle of the night. He couldn’t sleep, and instead wandered the hallways nursing a headache and fighting back the nausea that had been bothering him on and off since that day in the city. He thought about it, and it made no sense: the world spins on its axis at over one thousand miles per hour, orbits the sun at over sixty-seven thousand miles per hour, rotates with the rest of the galaxy around its center at 490,000 miles per hour, and it all travels through infinite space at a staggering two million miles per hour. How was it he felt motion sickness from the simple act of walking?
He stopped to rest in a chair near an archway leading to the other wing of the lodge. A security camera’s red light blinked on. It had been dark when he’d first entered. He was sure of it. The camera rotated toward him, and the lens spun to focus. Loeb stood up and waved: “Is anyone there? Hello?”
The light blinked out.
Cameron, Michael, and especially Bowen were less than enthusiastic about being dragged to the north wing second floor hallway by Loeb, but his urgency prevailed. They watched the security camera for several minutes before the light came on again.
“There!” Loeb pointed.
“It must have a motion sensor,” Cameron said. “They all do, don’t they?”
“Not that I saw, and if it did, why the delay? Where are these monitored?”
“The cameras for the entire compound are monitored continuously from a secure room off the barracks, or at least they were. I can’t believe there’s anyone still in there. It’s been days. There’s also a feed into the shelter command center, but no one’s there either, Dr. Loeb. No one’s anywhere.”
“Take us to the monitoring room, Cameron.”
“So much for the element of surprise,” Bowen waved at the camera. “And you bastards can probably hear every word this dipstick is saying, can’t you?”
“There’s no microphone, Bowen. I checked.”
“This is bullshit, Loeb. It’s hooked to a dumb computer just like everything else around here. It has to be. We searched the place. There’s nobody here.”
“For once, I’m inclined to agree with Mr. Bowen,” Michael said. “And, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to bed. I don’t feel well.”
“Maybe there are motion sensors around here somewhere, and you just can’t find them, Dr. Loeb.” Cameron shrugged: “And it is kind of late.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” Loeb agreed.
When they were out of the hall, Loeb motioned them into an alcove. “I’m going to the barracks. The possibility that someone is watching us, but has chosen not to communicate, troubles me. I could use your help for this or your pistol, Mr. Bowen.”
Bowen stared at Loeb’s outstretched hand. “Yeah, all right, I’ll go. Can’t sleep anyway.”
The four men slipped out of the house through the kitchen and found Ferret there relieving himself in the bushes.
Michael stopped to look at the sky. “Dr. Loeb, I’ve always thought we were God’s chosen people, but when I look up at the stars and realize how small we are, I feel so alone and insignificant.”
“There are billions of worlds in the universe, Michael. We’re not alone, just very far apart.”
A dark stream of clouds trailed across the moon. Cameron framed the sky in his hands: “That’s Orion, isn’t it? The Hunter?”
Loeb looked up and realized that more was wrong than just 6.8 billion people missing from the planet.
The living room sofa was warm and comfortable. Someone had relit the fire. Electric Christmas candles twinkled in each window of the room. The smell of cinnamon, oranges, and cloves from a potpourri on an end table made Loeb want to vomit. He sat up slowly and focused on Michael, who was sitting opposite him in a chair.
“Feeling better?”
“Yes, thanks. I guess I fainted?”
Michael nodded. “We found the room with all the cameras, but no one was there. Cameron thinks it’s being monitored remotely from the White House.”
“How long have I been out?”
“Not too long. Would you like some water or something to eat?”
“No. Get the others. Now.”
When everyone was there, Loeb began, “We have to get to Washington.”
Bowen opened another bottle of scotch. “We’ve been down that dead end too many times, Doc. What’s the point?”
“You’re a survivalist, Bowen. The point is survival.”
“Finding one more peeping Tom isn’t going to change a damn thing. I’m staying here till spring, then I’m heading south.”
“It won’t do you any good.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Cameron asked me earlier what they were saving us from. What indeed? Why spend hundreds, even thousands of years and countless resources transporting every living being off this god-forsaken planet? Why?”
“Who gives a crap? Even if there is a ‘they’ like you say, ‘they’ didn’t take us. We’re stuck here. We’re on our own now.”
“You’d better hope we’re not.”
“Look, I don’t care if someone is watching us from D.C. It’s not going to change a damn thing. You can take your crackpot theories and stick ‘em where the sun don’t shine. Once the weather breaks I’m out of here.”
“Bowen, listen to me. What if I told you that everyone’s disappearance was just the beginning, that som
ething terrible is happening right now, something that will make your little jaunt south as meaningless as putting on Coppertone before you’re thrown into a blast furnace?”
The ice in Bowen’s drink clinked against the side of his glass like a lonely chime on a breezy day.
Loeb looked out the window at the star-filled sky. “Billions of stars and planets, more galaxies than can be counted. Creation really is a beautiful thing if you stop to think about it…”
“So what?”
“So, I want to see it one last time through the telescope at the Naval Observatory in Washington.”
“Loeb, you’ve totally lost it. We have to go to D.C. because you want to look at the pretty lights?”
“You’re right, Bowen. I have lost it, and if I’m wrong, you can shoot me.”
The Tunnel
They found the tunnel in a remote wing of the shelter. A single twelve-passenger electric car sat at the platform facing a concrete tube lit at regular intervals by triangles of dim yellow light.
“According to this map, there’s a stop under the National Cathedral. That’s where we’ll get off. It’s only a few blocks from there to the Observatory,” Loeb told them. “The long delays, the cost overruns, the eighty-some years of construction — it all makes perfect sense now. They weren’t having trouble with the cathedral. They were building this.”
The smooth reinforced concrete walls were icy to the touch. Cameron blew into his fist. “This is amazing, Dr. Loeb, and no one has any idea it’s here.”
“So much for hundred dollar hammers and thousand dollar toilet seats,” Ferret said. “I’ve been saying it for years. All this top secret crap — that’s where you’re hard-earned tax dollars are going.”
The train ran itself after Loeb punched in the instructions to its computer. It was seventy miles to the White House, somewhat less to the Observatory.
“I’m glad you decided to come, Bowen.”
“Well, Loeb, it’s like this. I’ve lived in the woods all my life. I’ve slept in the rain, and I’ve laid in the mud. And for what?”
Michael patted him on the shoulder: “It’s never too late to repent. God understands.”
“Who’s talking about God? I’m just saying I’m a lousy cook, and I could get used to the whiskey and cigars.”
The tunnel angled downward as they left the mountains. It was getting colder, and the heater in the car switched itself on.
“When I was growing up I always wanted to be an astronaut, not a policeman, not a fireman; it was always astronaut,” Loeb said. “To fly into outer space and see the stars up close… That was what I always wanted. Then I found out I hated flying. I get airsick. Ironic, isn’t it?”
“From astronaut to astrophysicist,” Cameron laughed. “I always wanted to be a fireman until I burned my hand on the stove. Then I found out I could write and not get burned so badly or so often. What about you, Ferret? An interesting guy like you, what did you want to be when you were growing up?”
“I wanted to ride the rodeo, be a real cowboy like Roy Rogers.”
“Roy Rogers… He was a person? I thought it was just a fast food chain.”
“You do realize he was born in Cincinnati?” Loeb pointed out. “And that ‘Roy Rogers’ wasn’t his real name.”
“Don’t care. Roy was one of the good guys. Always will be.”
“Since we’re all telling our life stories, what about you, Bowen?” asked Loeb.
“Does it matter now?”
“Don’t tell me you grew up with no aspirations other than to stalk the wild asparagus?”
“Loeb, I’ll bet that mouth of yours gets you in a lot of trouble.”
“No so much any more, actually.” Loeb went back to staring out the window at the lights flying by in the tunnel.
“I was in a band in high school. We wanted to be rock stars.”
“What made you change your mind, Mr. Bowen?” asked Cameron.
“We sucked, just like every other punk kid band. That’s what.”
Cameron turned to Michael: “That leaves you. What did you want to be when you were growing up?”
Michael shifted in his seat. “My aunt and uncle were missionaries. I always wanted to be one, too, ever since I was a boy. It was my calling, God’s calling. It just didn’t work out that way.”
“Funny, isn’t it, how none of us ended up what we wanted to be?”
“I visited them one summer,” Michael went on. “But a rival tribe attacked the village. They didn’t like the idea of us converting their neighbors, so they beheaded my uncle and tortured my aunt.”
The train bumped over a connection and followed the green signal at the intersection into a wider tunnel on the left.
“They let me live. They sent me home to tell all the others that they would get the same treatment if we ever came back. I never did. I was too afraid. I was just a boy.”
“Okay, that’s pretty awful. I’m sorry, Michael, I was just making conversation.”
“I should have gone, Cameron. It was my calling, and God has been punishing me ever since.”
Loeb got up and checked their progress. They were nearly to the Cathedral. “Michael, trust me, God doesn’t have to punish us. We do that quite well on our own.”
The train pulled into the station under the National Cathedral. The five men got off and made their way up a metal staircase to a locked door that Loeb opened with an access card he had made at Camp David. From there, it led into a vaulted stone hallway and then to a side chapel off the nave.
Michael knelt in front of the altar and began to pray.
Bowen dragged him to his feet. “Save it, padre, I don’t think anyone’s listening.”
They left the church and walked south past darkened buildings to the observatory. Loeb and Bowen located the observatory’s backup generator while the others waited. The lights came on, and when the two returned, Loeb was carrying an armful of computer printouts.
“What’s that?” Michael asked.
“This forty-foot telescope has a twenty-six inch lens and was once the largest refracting telescope in the world. It’s not anymore, of course. Now, the Navy uses it primarily to measure the parameters of double stars — position, angle, separation, and so forth. Every clear night, they take photos of as many of them as they can. There are several they are actively tracking, so those they photograph every night. The photos go directly into the main computer to be analyzed. These are the printouts from the evening of the twentieth. By comparing this data with the photos we’ll take in a few moments, I hope to be able to tell you all what exactly is happening.”
“I hate to break it do you, Doc,” Ferret said, looking up at the telescope eyepiece. It was ten feet off the floor. “But we didn’t bring no ladder.”
Loeb flipped a switch on the base of the telescope and the entire floor rose up toward the eyepiece. “Gentlemen, I give you the largest elevator in the city of Washington, D.C.”
Loeb set the telescope to view the first double star, took the high-speed photos, and left them to get the printouts from the computer room. When he returned with the new data, he was preoccupied and refused to speak with anyone. He checked and rechecked the settings and took another set of photos. He even moved on to the next double star on the list and took several sets of that. When he returned from the computer room the second time, he slumped in a chair with the papers in his lap.
“Well?” Bowen asked.
“I was wrong.”
Bowen drew his gun and ran his finger down the barrel. “So I can shoot you now?”
“You may as well. It doesn’t make any difference.”
“Dr. Loeb, what did you see through the telescope?”
“The end of mankind, Cameron. A gloriously ignominious sight to behold.”
Bowen holstered his weapon. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Back at Camp David, I knew something was wrong. The stars weren’t right; more specifically, Mars wasn’t right. In the
night sky, it should be visible in Aquarius until February at least, but it wasn’t in Aquarius.”
“Where was it? In Uranus?” Ferret laughed. “Get it? Uranus.”
“Somehow, that seems a fitting last joke for the human race.”
“Mars has moved?” Cameron asked.
“It appeared so, but it was impossible to tell without this data. I thought it more likely a distortion of the reflected light striking the Earth.”
“A distortion? Caused by what?”
“By the one thing possessing a strong enough gravitational field to bend light — a black hole — and this data proves that out. At exactly 12:21:12 p.m. on 12|21|12 our futures were forever altered by a black hole.”
“Wouldn’t we see something that big coming?
“Not necessarily. All black holes resolve to a point without dimensions, the singularity, and the event horizon, the area of space within its gravitational pull, could be millions of miles across or as small as our planet or much, much smaller. And if it were traveling through the galaxy at a sufficient rate of speed, we might never see it, even when it was upon us.”
“But we would have had some warning. The government would know, right?”
“This isn’t the movies, Cameron. We aren’t constantly watching the skies for objects on a collision course with Earth.“
“So where is it?” Bowen asked.
“It’s gone.”
“Gone? What do you mean gone?”
“The Milky Way is traveling through space at about two million miles per hour, Bowen. Light, about three hundred times that fast. Even assuming the black hole was only going the same speed as our galaxy but in the opposite direction, it would be beyond the sun in a single day. This data indicates it was traveling much, much faster than that, but it came so close that we were within its event horizon for a brief time. Fortunately or unfortunately as the case may be, it could not entirely overcome Earth’s inertia before leaving the solar system. Otherwise we would have been sucked in immediately and obliterated, and we wouldn’t be having this discussion.”
“So you’re saying this black hole sucked six billion people off the planet?” Bowen laughed.
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