Terradox Quadrilogy

by Craig A. Falconer

  The Global Union’s power and reach had grown tremendously in those seventeen years, with complex and existential challenges since requiring even the largest nation states to cede ever greater portions of their sovereignty until the GU became a de facto world government and the nations themselves little more than administrative divisions.

  The genesis of the modern day GU could be traced back to a series of initially distinct challenges which ultimately converged, exacerbating each other to the point of a full-blown crisis. The most crushing early blow came in the form of an aggressive and rapidly spreading blight which caused widespread crop failures, with the resulting famine bringing mass starvation to once fertile regions. Unprecedented droughts in politically unstable areas led to enormous unrest and untenable migration patterns which in turn made a mockery of international borders and created acute resource shortages in the receiving countries. As though seizing its opportunity, a wicked strain of a flu-like virus wreaked havoc in denser-than-ever population centres and spread like wildfire.

  With traditional power rendered moot, the world’s great nations were on their knees. As Yury once put it to Holly: “the politicians and generals realised two things: you can’t nuke a virus that’s already spread, and you can’t negotiate with crops that won’t grow.”

  Step forward Roger Morrison, who proudly and urgently insisted that his romotech breakthroughs — by then proven viable beyond theory, some eight years after his promise of great things to come — could end the famine and cure the virus. Supposedly lacking the capital he needed to go it alone, Morrison used all of his PR nous in offering to turn over his intellectual property rights to a responsible international entity capable of funding and disseminating the necessary applications.

  A supranational institution known as the Global Union for Technological Advancement was formed to fund and administer Morrison’s expensive but conceptually proven solutions, with binding authority to collect contributions from all national governments based on a set percentage of their GDP.

  By Viola’s fourth birthday, both the blight and the virus had been defeated. While Morrison kept a low profile despite being hailed as a hero, the resounding success of his grand project led to a slight expansion of the Global Union for Technological Advancement, with the suffix “and Environmental Protection” being added to its name and its GUTA acronym expanding to the less easily pronounced GUTAEP. Almost immediately, the shorthand “Global Union” and “GU” terms fell into common parlance.

  Holly’s time as the face of the public space program had coincided with the worst months of the famine, a large enough issue to reduce her government’s appetite for unrelated scientific investment despite being primarily a faraway foreign problem. The dialling back of the public space program led to her ill-fated switch to one of the two well-funded private programs; one which Roger Morrison had at that point recently acquired, rechristened, and begun devoting his time to micromanaging.

  Two years later, the disastrous psychological fitness test which dumped Holly on a supposedly alien planet and ended with two avoidable deaths effectively spelled the end for Morrison’s space venture; though no one who knew what happened would ever speak of it, Morrison knew that morale at the top of the organisation had been irredeemably obliterated.

  And then it happened.

  “Devastation Day hit when Olivia was expecting Bo,” Robert said, his voice straining. “Just like Viola, the world in which he was conceived was very different to the world into which he was born. And Viola was only six, so she doesn’t really remember the old world. For their entire generation, the crumbling world we left behind is normal. They don’t know anything else. They don’t know how much everything changed on that day.”

  More than any other day or event in recorded history, Devastation Day truly was a turning point. It was the default “before or after” point for any memory. It was the day that changed everything.

  The most destabilising blow of all came first, when three powerful blasts obliterated a meeting of world leaders. Within minutes of that attack, a series of expertly coordinated strikes destroyed crucial infrastructure across the globe; from dams and bridges to power plants and air traffic control centres.

  Space ports too were decimated, with the public program’s director and Ekaterina Rusev’s husband both brutally executed. Rusev owed her life to her presence on the just-completed Venus station, while Morrison and the remaining employees at MXA, his own space research facility, were evacuated minutes before it was blown to pieces. The evidence Bo Harrington had unearthed regarding the tampering of interview footage on the subject of the MXA explosion fitted in perfectly with the fact that Morrison, unlike his rivals, survived the day unscathed.

  Ancient wonders were also deliberately targeted throughout what soon became known as Devastation Day. The perpetrators announced each cultural target seven minutes before it was destroyed; not to give people time to flee, but to ensure the largest possible viewership. Iconic monuments which had endured for centuries and in some instances millennia were reduced to rubble in seconds. No religious sites were targeted and there were no patterns or signs of any particular ethnic group being targeted more or less than any other.

  By the end of a day which left the world numb with shock at the unbelievable extent of the destruction, a previously unknown eco-terrorist group claimed responsibility for the atrocities. Their statements, delivered verbatim by broadcasters under evident duress, claimed that the blitz had been “necessary to eliminate the criminally corrupt figureheads who have led us to the edge of oblivion,” and that the ancient wonders of the world had been destroyed “to highlight the arrogance of modern man; mourning the loss of his ancestors’ meaningless aesthetic creations while turning a blind eye to the corporate rape and relentless degradation of the very ecosystem which makes his vapid life possible.”

  Two words best encapsulated the global reaction: helplessness and outrage. Though immediate civilian casualties were remarkably and deliberately low, certain kinds of attacks which had been overshadowed would go on to have a lasting impact; the destruction of seed banks was one, the annihilation of top-level medical research facilities another.

  Needless to say, the scale and nature of the attacks elicited a huge and immediate response. The sheer ability of the terrorists to pull off so much at once not only showed governments that nothing and no one was safe, it also showed citizens that their elected governments were no longer capable of performing the core task of protecting them from danger.

  The simultaneous deaths of so many world leaders created countless regional power vacuums and a near-universal appetite for a vast expansion of the GUTAEP, which had so far proven extremely effective in its restricted fields of operation.

  Roger Morrison led the calls for an expansion of the Global Union for Technological Advancement and Environmental Protection. Before long, all but its first two initials were officially dropped.

  At the stroke of a pen, the Global Union became the most powerful supranational institution in history. In turn, by centralising resources and effectively eliminating international competition for them, this enabled citizens and national administrations alike to focus on rebuilding local order within their regions.

  The eventual news of the decisive elimination of the group responsible for Devastation Day was met with cheers, despite the covert nature of the GU’s bombing campaign meaning there would be no trials nor incarceration of the perpetrators.

  But relative international harmony could not mask the rumblings of discontent in the years that followed as centralised mismanagement led to further food shortages and unsustainable migratory patterns. Civil liberties were eroded piece by piece, with all policing and justice policy set at the GU level.

  When accusations of misconduct and corruption among top GU officials reached untenable levels, calls for reform subsided only when Roger Morrison — who had withdrawn from public view despite remaining a key player within the GU — finally agreed to
run for leadership.

  Hugely popular among workers across the globe for his calculated refusal to sanction certain applications of romotech which would have replaced the need for a frightening percentage of existing jobs, Morrison won unopposed and promised a new kind of rule to tackle humanity’s new kinds of challenges. A well-spoken populist, he insisted that the GU under his leadership would embrace its position as a one-world government rather than continuing to pretend otherwise to avoid provoking nationalistic resistance in certain countries where such sentiments bubbled under the surface.

  Many observers had long believed this to be the endgame of the GU project. Ekaterina Rusev was one of them.

  “One man has benefitted from all of this more than any other,” she now said to Robert, concluding a rundown which had contained little concrete information that he or Holly didn’t already know but which nevertheless provided much illuminating context. “I’m not fully convinced that someone as smart as Morrison would have risked unleashing a lethal virus when there’s always a chance of unexpected mutations which could render their own vaccines useless and endanger the inner circle. But unleashing a famine is much safer so long as you have your own isolated food supply; starvation is deadly, but it’s not contagious.”

  For her part, Holly was far from convinced that someone as maniacal as Roger Morrison wouldn’t risk unleashing a lethal virus. But Rusev’s doubts, however strong, evidently suggested there was insufficient evidence to nail him with that particular charge. Holly wasn’t overly concerned by this; there was enough evidence of enough wrongdoing to take Morrison down for good. He would pay for his heinous actions as a whole, she knew, even if certain specific aspects weren’t as provable as others.

  Rusev continued: “And if Olivia truly did discover evidence that the initial famine was deliberately engineered, it doesn’t take a great leap to imagine who might have been behind it.”

  Robert looked quietly at Rusev for several seconds and gulped deeply. Then, he spat it out: “There’s no might have been; Morrison was behind it. Before they killed her, she knew she was in danger.”

  Holly and Rusev looked at each other without speaking.

  He went on: “On the day she died — on the day they killed her — she recorded a video before she left the house. I’d already left for work, before you ask why I didn’t stop her. I wish I had been home to try to talk her out of going to that meeting, but I wasn’t.”

  “What kind of video?” Holly asked, seeing little sense in re-opening Robert’s guilt wounds by patronising him with a platitudinal “it wasn’t your fault” or “you couldn’t have done anything to stop it”.

  “She spoke about what she’d found,” Robert said, “in stronger terms than the published paper, and she spoke about what she feared might happen at the meeting that day. She thought she was already in too deep and that the only way out was to go further in. It’s not proof that Morrison had her killed, but combined with the other evidence you already have…”

  Silence circled.

  “The children don’t know about the video,” Robert added. “It’s on a card inside my suitcase, which is in the Karrier with the rest of our luggage.”

  Rusev leaned back. “Until we find it, no one says a word. You don’t tell the children,” she said to Robert, before turning to Holly. “You don’t tell Dante. I won’t tell Yury, and no one will tell Grav. Until that video is right here in my hand, no one says a word.”

  “Why does it have to be a secret?” Holly asked.

  “Holly,” Rusev said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t know where we are or why we’re here, and neither do either of you.” She then flicked her eyes towards the window, where the others could be seen unpacking the materials for the habitat extension. “But part of me thinks that someone else might.”

  twenty-two

  Holly and Robert disembarked the lander in uncomfortable silence. They went their separate ways for now; Robert towards Grav and Bo, Holly towards Dante. Yury and Viola were still unpacking materials from a recessed storage compartment.

  The Habitat Extension Module, already referred to within the group simply as “the extension”, was relatively easy to construct. Less attention to detail was required than would have been the case on a planet with an inhospitable atmosphere, though Yury nonetheless took it upon himself to make sure that everything was done by the book. Given Yury’s personal involvement in testing identical extensions in extreme conditions on Earth, the others readily deferred to his experience and judgement.

  With far greater manual dexterity and manoeuvrability than they would have enjoyed had EVA suits been necessary, the group completed the extension’s physical assembly in under three hours. What may have seemed like a small victory did a lot to lift the group’s spirits, as focusing on something productive — and achieving it — offered a welcome respite from incessantly reflecting on the gravity of their wider situation.

  Bo was particularly impressed by the properties of the extension’s walls; having helped his father and Grav to unroll wide sheets of the material from a tightly wound coil, he couldn’t believe how sturdy it became when flattened out. “It’s like one of those things you slap on your wrist!” he excitedly proclaimed to Grav. “You know, the things that feel hard like a ruler but then roll into themselves when you slap them down?”

  “I guess so,” Grav chuckled. Grav, like Holly, didn’t know much more than the boy; the proprietary material had been created by one of Rusev’s companies decades earlier and similar technology was used within the Venus station to compartmentalise areas as necessary, but that was as far as their knowledge went. And while it had once been at the cutting edge of construction, even Rusev couldn’t deny that her lightweight and sturdy material now seemed archaic relative to the boundless possibilities of romotechnology.

  Grav’s trio then began work on the simple task of constructing interior divisions to act as semi-private sleeping areas. Bo chirpily commented that the top-down floor plan example packed with the materials made the inner walls look like the drawer dividers he’d used at home to separate differently coloured socks.

  Though a lack of windows made it feel smaller than it was, the extension had slightly more than twice the floorspace of the lander and would comfortably accommodate six. Holly and Dante stepped away from their completed section to help with the divisions.

  “One of you might as well help Spaceman,” Grav said. “He is already fixing the connections to the lander. You know, water reclamation and all of those things. We do not need five people for this part.”

  “I’ll go,” Holly volunteered.

  “Good,” Grav said. He then turned to Dante. “And you can make yourself useful by getting six bed frames from the storage recess.”

  “You’ll only need five,” Dante said, trying to ignore Grav’s condescension. “I’m staying in the lander with Rusev and Spaceman.”

  Holly stopped on her way out and looked at Dante. “Why?”

  “To keep an eye on them,” he said. “We don’t all need to be in here. Unless one of you two want to go in there?”

  “I am staying with the kids,” Grav said.

  Holly nodded. “Me too.”

  Dante clapped his hands together and set off. “Perfect. I’ll get the beds.”

  As Dante walked to one side of the lander to gather bed frames from the recessed storage hold, Holly followed two pipes from the extension towards the opposite side of the lander where Yury was connecting them to a previously concealed outlet.

  She heard Yury laughing merrily as he reached the end of a story. “And that,” he said, “is why they really call me Spaceman.”

  Viola laughed along before asking a new question: “So why does everyone call Holly, well, Holly?”

  Ears burning, Holly instinctively stopped where she was; just out of their view.

  “You’re asking the right man,” Yury said in a warm and upbeat tone, “because that name was born on the first day I ever met her!
I was overseeing the physical testing of our latest intake; for the public program, this is. There were no cameras inside, but the others all knew Holly was being followed by a film crew for the series they were making about the path from wannabe to astronaut. There was resentment because many thought she had been chosen for the wrong reasons. Appearance, marketability… things like this.”

  Holly took a few more steps around the lander until she saw Yury’s back.

  He continued: “They had seen the media promotions and formed their views, but apparently they had not read beyond the headlines. They probably knew that she was as academically qualified as anyone else, but what they didn’t seem to realise was that she had been a very successful collegiate gymnast… as much of an athlete as anyone else in that room. So when it was her turn for something — I can’t remember exactly which exercise — one smart mouth called out: ‘You’re up, Hollywood.’ And then others started to join in. ‘Let’s see what you got, Hollywood.’ And on and on it went. You know, Hollywood this and Hollywood that.”

  Viola caught a glimpse of Holly over Yury’s shoulder but didn’t react. Yury, who had a habit of gesturing with his hands and looking down as he spoke, didn’t notice the temporary shift of focus in Viola’s gaze.

  “Long story short,” the old man went on, “she held her own in the exercises and ended up second out of seven in the aggregate results. I announced that Ivy Wood had placed second and then congratulated her. And she stood there with a straight face, did not miss a beat, and said: ‘Thanks, but you can call me Holly.’ And ever since that day, I always have.”

  “That’s a cool story,” Viola said, her words stilted by the awkwardness that came from knowing Holly was listening.

  “The story the show painted wasn’t quite true,” Yury said, still none the wiser. “They liked to put me across as a grizzled cosmonaut and Holly as the fresh-faced all-American girl next door, and they liked to pretend that we were closer than we were, because that kind of ‘odd couple’ dynamic is good for ratings. But, to me, she was just another rookie. It wasn’t until much later that we became close; when she finally came to Rusev. When I found out what happened to her when she went with Morrison’s program, I—”