by B. C. CHASE
“That's okay! I'll send a limo for you—don't worry!”
“A limo? I'm in my uniform! And besides, I couldn't wing an interview for that job! I don't even have any experience!”
“I'm sending a limo now. Just get in and I'll take care of everything else.”
Aubrey stepped forward from behind the corner and gazed at the floor of the busy restaurant. She had dreamed of leaving this world of bacon and pancakes for a long time; in fact, pretty much from the moment she arrived.
“Brie, you there?”
“Yeah, I'm—” Aubrey could see the black form of a limousine pulling up outside the frosted glass. “Maggie, the limo's already here.”
“Already?” Maggie voice sounded a little anxious, “Wow! The driverless ones are so fast these days! Hurry and get in or you might miss it!”
Uncertainly: “Maggie...”
“Hurry!”
“Maggie.”
“Aubrey Vela, I'm older and I've lived way longer than you, so listen. Most people only get one chance to change their lives forever. This is your chance. Get in the car.”
She paused a moment, pondering her choice and trying to calm her nerves. Finally, she said “OK. I'll be there.”
Although her heartbeat was fluttering with excitement, her stomach was queasy as she slipped her phone back into her apron and walked slowly past the piles of plates...the screaming kids...the pots of coffee...and out the door.
La Guardia
When the limousine pulled up to the departures platform, Aubrey spotted Maggie standing at the TransPacific Airlines kiosk, rubbing her own shoulders for warmth. Maggie ran up to the limo and opened the door for Aubrey, exclaiming, “I'm so glad you made it in time!” As Aubrey emerged, Maggie clutched her around the waist and manhandled her into the busy airport—almost like a porter with a piece of luggage. When they were inside, Aubrey broke free and protested, “Now you didn't tell me why I had to come to the airport for the interview. Why so fast?”
“Yes, well, we have to leave just as soon as he's seen you. He's just taken on a new company from England and we're flying out right away.”
“So wait, you're telling me that if I'm going to accept this job, I have to fly out today, right away, without any warning at all?”
Maggie admitted, “Uh. I mean, yes, that would be a yes. I wish I could give you more time. But this is urgent.”
“Maggie! I don't have anything with me except what I'm wearing!” Aubrey's mind and emotions were in a whirlwind.
“I know, sweetie, I know. But we'll get you new things.”
When this didn't alleviate Aubrey's baffled expression, Maggie added, “Better things than you had before.”
Aubrey wasn't impressed. She drew a long breath and exhaled fast, trying to compose herself. “How long will we be gone?”
“I don't know.”
“Can you estimate?”
“I frankly have no idea. That's the name of the game here. But I know you'll love where we're going.”
“How do you know that?” skeptically.
“Because it sure as heck won't be International House of Bacon. Now let's go.”
They rushed so quickly past the iris scanners and through the terminals that, before Aubrey knew it, they were outside again and at the steps of a screaming white jet the size of a commuter airliner. It read “INTRAWORLD CAPITAL” on the side in black letters. The smell of jet fuel was strong despite the chill of the air.
Maggie was halfway up before Aubrey's protest came from below, “Maggie, I don't have a passport.”
“What?”
“I've never flown before,” Aubrey said sheepishly.
“Sweetie, I know you're naïve, but gosh.... Nobody needs a passport anymore! You got your USID card like all of us, right?”
“Yeah.”
“They scanned your irises. That's your passport. Now get the heck up here!”
So Aubrey dashed up the steps and entered the cabin, greeted by a rush of cool air.
Jet
Inside, Aubrey hardly had time to take in the surroundings as she was whisked through the plane, and although she hadn't ever been in one before, she knew this didn't look like anything people usually flew in. There was a lounge with supple, leather wrap-around sofas and sleek-looking armchairs, a conference room where several men sat at a rich wooden table, and a hallway with wood paneled walls—one side lined with doors and the other side arching down and dotted with the small, round windows typical of airliners.
They stopped at a door in the hallway and Maggie quickly looked Aubrey over and batted some dirt off her skirt, saying, “Okay, if he asks you about your experience, just make something up.”
“You mean lie?”
“Yes; lie.” Maggie knocked on the door. An immediate, baritone response came from inside, “Come in.”
Motioning for Aubrey to wait, Maggie stepped in and closed the door behind her. Aubrey heard her muffled voice, “Your new personal assistant is here, sir.”
The reply came in a rich, Anglican accent, “Show her in, Maggie.”
The door opened and Maggie's hand appeared around the door frame, making two quick motions to usher Aubrey along.
She stepped around the corner into what was a contemporary, but elegant office; there was a modern sofa against one wall and two chairs facing a glass desk. Behind this sat a strongly-featured man, breathtakingly handsome, but austere in expression, with eyes fixed on a transparent screen that he held between both hands.
Aubrey stood there before the desk, waiting, but the man didn't even lift an eyebrow. She cast her eyes at Maggie, searching for some kind of guidance, but Maggie motioned for her to wait. And so she did, for at least two minutes.
Finally, the man raised his eyes and, as if he was surveying a new suit, fleetly looked Aubrey over. He then nodded to Maggie, “She'll do.”
Aubrey's jaw would have dropped, but Maggie didn't give it a chance to, pushing her straight back into the hallway. After the door was closed and they were a safe distance away, Aubrey protested, “She'll do? What kind of an interview was that?”
“We're departing soon; he doesn't have time to do a full interview. You're actually lucky,” Maggie laughed nervously.
“I don't know if I feel lucky or insulted!”
“Trust me, you're lucky. Now let me show you where you'll sit for the flight.”
Maggie led her back through the aircraft to an area directly behind the cockpit where there were three sections; one was a galley, one had bunk beds and the last had rows of seating. In one of the seats was a sixty-year-old-looking woman with bright red lipstick. She had big curls that were dyed golden and she held a long-stemmed glass of sparkling champagne in one hand. Maggie introduced her as “Lorraine, the stewardess.” She then directed Aubrey to sit in one of the seats and dropped a cell phone in her lap. “If this rings and it says, “Henry Potter,” that means he needs you for something. Go find him and ask him what he wants—politely. I'll be back later.” Maggie left them alone.
Aubrey felt a tingle of excitement when the plane began to move. Despite the strange “interview,” she felt pride at having been granted the job. She had, after all, dropped everything to come here at a moment's notice. Few people would have had the nerve to do that, she surmised.
“So you're Henry's new personal assistant?” Lorraine asked, not bothering to hide her skepticism.
“Yes.”
Snickering: “Well good luck.”
“Thank you...” Aubrey said, her satisfactory feelings now giving way to dubiety. “Why would you say that?”
“Oh, no reason. It's just that his last personal assistant left this plane about two hours ago. And she had only been with him for five days.”
“Oh really?” Suddenly the pieces began to fall into place. The urgency, the limo, the lack of an interview... Maggie had been on the hot seat for a new PA, pronto, and she'd capitalized on Aubrey's ignorance.
Lorraine chuckled hoarsely, and broke
into a cough. When she recovered, she said, “Oh yeah, I've been on Henry's planes since the first time he had one, and I've never seen him keep a personal assistant longer than three months.”
“Oh... Really...” Aubrey's disappointment was betrayed by her voice.
“Sorry, kid, but Henry Potter is a first-class jerk, at least when it comes to his PA’s,” Lorraine said. “This new job of yours is going to be hell on earth.”
The engines fired loudly and the plane started to accelerate toward takeoff. Lorraine raised her glass jovially, “Champagne?”
The cell phone rang. It was Maggie, “Come down to the conference room as soon as we're in the air.”
“What for?”
“Just do it.”
Antarctica
Having not seen the titanium submersibles in over a month, Zhou Ming-Zhen, PhD, cringed at the sight of them now, lined up on a platform in the drilling station. They were shaped like giant phalluses. They were identical: eleven feet tall, twenty-five inches wide, tubular, and topped with an acrylic glass bubble. Hidden inside the edge on the bottom of each was a propulsion fan.
Members of the international press had congregated around them; some were snickering to each other.
Back in the East China Sea, Doctor Ming-Zhen had spent hours under water in order to master his claustrophobia and learn how to maneuver them. Conditions inside were atrociously confined: it was like being in a metal coffin. To say he was relieved when training was over was to put it mildly.
At the insistence of his camera crew, he jumped up to pose in front of the subs with the only person who would descend after him: Doctor Ivan Toskovic.
They made an odd pair, Doctor Toskovic winking with triumph at the journalists and Doctor Ming-Zhen staring straight-faced and anonymously into their lenses. The two wore tight wetsuits, Doctor Toskovic's accentuating his muscular physique; Doctor Ming-Zhen's emphasizing his skeletal smallness.
After the photo op, the first vessel was prepared for descent. Two hooks at the end of a steel cable with a Y-split were attached to a small u-bar protruding out on each side. The cable slowly tightened and lifted it up onto a platform above the steel-rimmed borehole. As it came down to rest with a clang that echoed up the ninety-foot tower, the press shuffled, murmuring in expectation.
Doctor Toskovic shook Doctor Ming-Zhen's hand, saying, “Are you ready, my friend?”
He nodded a reply. “And you?”
Doctor Toskovic smiled with a shrug, “I like dark abyss, I like certain death.” He motioned to the sub, “I like to drive giant penis. So, of course, I love this mission!” He clasped a small compass hanging by a chain from his neck and kissed it, “Besides, I have my lucky compass, we will be A-OK.”
Doctor Ming-Zhen knew that he carried the compass with him at all times. It was a matter of pride for the Russian after he had been lost in the Siberian wilderness while working a remote drill site. Placing a hand on Doctor Ming-Zhen's shoulder, the Russian said, “I see you on other side of ice, eh?”
Practically blinded by a thousand camera flashes, Doctor Ming-Zhen walked up the steps to the platform and entered the doorway on the side of the upright submarine. Inside, he climbed two notches in the white, round wall up to a spot with stirrups for his feet. Then he buckled a vest around his chest and placed his forehead against a brace. When he pushed a button, the vest, the brace, and the stirrups all tightened so he was firmly buttressed within the machine.
He pushed another button and the door swung in and clinched shut with a suction sound. There was a hiss which he knew to be the chamber pressurizing.
He was now totally sealed in. He started to feel a wave of panic, claustrophobia, but he took a deep breath, closed his eyes. It subsided.
Opening his eyes, he said, “Ready for descent.”
“Enjoy your trip,” Doctor Toskovic's voice said over speakers in the cabin.
“I will,” he lied.
He heard operators talking over the speakers: “Ready for descent. Releasing submersible, opening hatch.” Doctor Ming-Zhen knew that much of this was actually automated; the operators were mostly there for dramatic effect—for the journalists.
He slipped a picture of his wife and daughter out of his sleeve. Fastening it to a rim below the glass, he said a quick prayer mantra.
His stomach lurched as the machine took a sudden two-foot drop. He heard some women from the press shriek in alarm, but he knew there was no reason to worry, at least not yet: the platform had simply given way and the submersible was swinging mildly from the steel cable like a giant pendulum. He folded his hands over his chest and took another deep breath. There was a loud metallic twang from up the tower and he felt the machine beginning its descent.
Doctor Zhou Ming-Zhen was now forty-two years into his paleontology career. His last educational acquisition had been his second PhD, this one in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Stanford, awarded over twenty years ago. He was now the head of the Chinese National Academy of Sciences Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology.
His childhood, burdened by heavy expectations, had done little to contribute to his success in the field. His late father had been a Communist Party official in a smaller town, relatively poor compared to the officials in Beijing. His mother, still living and now placed in a monolithic assisted living facility housing thousands of the elderly, had been a homemaker. The two of them had presented a dichotomy of nurturing values: on the one hand he was coddled and spoiled, but on the other he was chastised and scolded with the constant weight of the family's success on his shoulders.
When his father, through the Party, secured the scholarship for him to attend university, he was dispatched with the anticipation of greatness. None in his family had attended higher education. But when he secretly chose Paleontology as his course of study, his parents were devastated, angry. How could he improve the family fortunes by scratching the ground for old bones? He was a fool, his mother said. He shamed his family, said his father.
And now, forty-two years later, he agreed with them. He was known the world over not merely as a paleontologist, but, as the greatest fraud in the history of paleontology.
This came about through a chance discovery in the Gobi—during a routine fossil dig two years ago. What he and his team of students found there in the desert was something so astonishing that all his years of study and practice could never have prepared him for the firestorm that it unleashed.
As he descended down towards the deep interior of the ice, he desperately wished he would never have stepped foot on the Gobi, that he had listened to his parents and become an engineer. But here he was, dropping into the dark unknown, not knowing whether he would return at all.
United Nations Security Council
Doctor Matthew Martin was sitting at the front row of the vast audience that had gathered at the United Nations Security Council chamber. The chamber was airy, expansive. A large painting ornamented the front of the room with a giant semi-circular desk situated below it. The top of the auditorium was circled with blacked-out glass where Doctor Martin knew an army of the international press was busy broadcasting the event to the world. The fact that he knew the event had garnered so much global attention made him all-the-more nervous.
When he had received the call from Secretary General Kwame Aidoo, he had scarcely been able to believe it. His work of the last eleven years had received positive attention mostly only from the lunatic fringe. Now was the chance to provide his discoveries with the mainstream exposure they deserved.
Science had been meddling with the tinker-toys of the universe; physics, biology, anthropology and the like, he thought. Now it was time to move beyond that. Now, it was time to play with the big boys. And he, Matthew Manley Martin, was going to be the harbinger.
He was scared senseless.
Sitting next to him, his fiancée squeezed his trembling hand. “How are you?” she inquired, her voice smooth and controlled, as always.
“Devel
oped a bit of a stomach upset, I'm afraid,” he replied.
She shook her head, trying to hide a grin, “Have you, pet? Shock me.” Then she said, “You're quite pale.”
“Am I?” he inhaled fretfully. “Well, we can only hope they listen to my words rather than critique my appearance...”
“I'm sure that they will,” she said. She patted his cheek, “Don't worry.” She raised her hand, displaying a diamond ring, “Your powers of persuasion were convincing enough even for me.”
He grinned, “As I recall, you did not require much persuasion... You've always been a bit of a dominatrix, haven't you?”
“Have I?” she asked, biting her lip and touching a finger to her chin.
From the front of the gigantic auditorium, the gavel made an unceremoniously tinny clang as a gray-haired man struck it three times. He was seated at the giant circular desk with at least twenty other men and women, each with small plaques in front of them. His read “AUSTRALIA—PRESIDENT.”
Adjusting the microphone, the man said, “The 7,402nd session of the General Assembly is called to order. The provisional agenda for the session is before the assembly in document S-AGENDA-7593 which reads, quote, 'Evaluation of Key Events and Phenomena Relevant to Awareness, Felicity, and Security.' Unless there is an objection I will consider the agenda adopted.” He banged the gavel, “Adopted.” Bowing his head for a moment, he said, “Before we begin, I would like to take a moment to declare our compassionate solidarity with the United States in this time of tremendous difficulty. We express our deepest condolences. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.” He nodded to the representative of the United States, who acknowledged.
“I would now like to welcome the distinguished heads of state, the representatives, and the Secretary General to this meeting. Thank you all for coming. This meeting will be somewhat unconventional, but as you are all well aware, the topic is also unconventional. And now, without further ado, I would like to welcome the first member of our witness panel, Doctor Matthew Martin.”
