by Paul Anlee
I’m seconds from oblivion, myself—he observed calmly, in shock and too spent for fear. It was all falling away from him. No Kathy, no lab, no hope of saving the Earth. What was the point in struggling?
A memory floated into his consciousness, and pushed through his despair.
“I always hate when they do that,” he remembered Kathy saying.
“When they do what?” he’d asked. They’d been watching an old action movie.
“When you’re in the middle of an intense action scene and the hero loses his wife or girlfriend, and he just stops whatever he’s doing and takes a little timeout to grieve. Right there, in the middle of the battle or disaster or whatever it is. I mean, come on! And all the bullets just go around him as he kneels there, crying. In real life, threats don’t end just because you lose someone. You have to haul butt!”
“That’s not very romantic,” he’d replied.
She’d swiveled on the sofa and looked him in the eye. “If we’re ever in a dangerous situation and I get hurt or killed, don’t be stupid,” she’d said. “Take care of business first. You can grieve or save me, or whatever, after. You got that?”
“Now, you’re telling me when I can grieve and not?” he’d laughed. “I’m not sure I have much control over that.”
“Just promise me,” she’d said and her eyes bore into him until he gave in.
“Okay, okay. I promise!” he’d said.
His mind went to the people on the asteroids. The Vesta Project had delivered only a fraction of the population they’d hoped to save. The colonies were barely ready to support even those few million. Ill-prepared and unsupported, what were their odds of survival? Is this the end of humanity? Are we done?
He’d never felt so lost and alone in his life.
The dull gray sphere was within a foot of the wall. Its calm surface showed no other activity besides the relentless expansion. It was the most menacing thing that had ever existed, and Greg hated it. He would have pounded the damn thing to a pulp with his bare hands, but there was nothing to strike against and if he touched it, he’d just lose his hands.
His shoulders slumped. Kathy was gone. Completely gone. He hadn’t believed in the human soul for a long time. Darian had been too damn convincing. What if Darian had it all wrong? Maybe I will see her again.
He wanted to believe. If he could just believe, he’d throw himself into the Eater right now, knowing that he could join her. But he knew, deep down, he couldn’t.
It’s a nice fairytale, but death is the end. There is nothing left of the person I loved. No body, no mind, no spirit. No Kathy.
There was no point in his dying today. The remains of humanity, the colonists on the asteroid and whoever could be saved of Earth’s best and brightest were still alive. To leave them to their own devices —the millions of people that still had a chance on Vesta—that would be the height of selfishness. If Kathy were out there somewhere, in body or soul, she’d never forgive him for that.
Greg stood up and glared defiantly at the Eater, now less than a hand span away from his face. He’d do whatever was needed to save as many as he could. He would honor Kathy’s memory.
He shifted away; there was work to be done. He would grieve later.
31
Greg knew the list by heart; he’d helped write it.
He jumped to the nearest Shifting Station, not far from Blaine, Washington. There were world leaders and VIPs to rescue! Humanity would stand a better chance of survival in the asteroid belt if it kept its organizational heart.
He checked emergency escape routes. Air travel should still be possible for a few days. The Shifting Stations can take it from there.
He cursed himself for ever agreeing to maintain the fiction that colonists were still being transported to the colonies by rocket. The Reverend had been adamant about it and the G26 agreed.
If it hadn’t been for them, he could have put a shifter in every capital city in the world. But he’d been voted down and it didn’t seem worth pushing any further. Not back then.
The world’s leaders had insisted that instantaneous transportation all over Earth—not to mention throughout the solar system—would be too disruptive to global economies. Shipping and transportation industries needed protection. Greg and Kathy disagreed; their economic models predicted disruption would be limited and short-lived. The industries would adapt.
Guess who won that argument.
Greg materialized inside the Shifting Station. He wasn’t surprised to find it empty; the next movement of colonists wasn’t scheduled until later that evening. His footsteps were the only sound as he walked to the Control Room to check on the readiness of the RAF shifter.
“Hey, Jules!” he called out to the on-duty technician. He’d come to respect the man. He was methodical, unambitious, and most importantly, he knew how to keep the biggest secret on the planet. Jules had seen people disappear in front of him and known they would reappear far away. He knew the reasons for all the subterfuge.
Jules kept quiet about his work, about the Eater, and about the need to keep quiet. Even if his secrecy had been bought with a promise to save him and his family, he kept the secret. Perhaps the threat to rescind his reservation should he ever leak anything had something to do with it.
Even now, seven years after the first colonists had been shifted to Vesta, those selected gathered at what they presumed were rocket launching stations. After their briefing session, the colonists were marshaled into a large hall. They clustered nervously near the middle and Jules or the other shifting technician would push a button in the control room.
The button activated a link between a pair of entangled particles, one under the hall, and the other a few hundred million kilometers away inside one of the three asteroid colonies.
The specialized RAF generator below the hall spun a field around the room’s occupants and disconnected them from the matter and energy fields of the real universe. Then it shifted them to where the other member of the entangled pair had been situated and re-connected them to their proper universe far, far away from where they started. The relocation took no measurable time.
For every two hundred colonists shifted off Earth, a rocket laden with supplies and additional Cybrids blasted off to scattered stations throughout the asteroid belt.
The people of Earth believed the rocket ships were crammed end-to-end with colonists, frozen embryos, and seeds. Of course, that would have been impossible; putting that many people in one of the rockets would have killed them all on launch.
The Shifting fields were precious. They could only be generated in limited sizes, and the project had a lot of people to move out to the colonies in a very limited amount of time. The project heads agreed, fields would be used exclusively for people.
The rockets mostly carried Cybrids. Without the need to supply oxygen and other human necessities such as food and space in which move about, the ships could be stripped down and packed much more efficiently.
The world remained largely ignorant of the enormous numbers of autonomous robots working on their behalf in outer space.
After a dozen years, the colonies were nearly independent of Earth. They’d been producing their own food and most of their manufactured goods for years.
People on Earth took for granted the unbelievable diversity of products—chemicals, components, machines, electronics, and the expertise to put it all together—necessary to keep an advanced society running. But the colonies didn’t. They understood firsthand how hard it was to become fully self-reliant.
In addition to new Cybrids, most of the rockets these days carried specialty items: works of art, scientific instruments, advanced machines, frozen embryos, and thousands upon thousands of treasured personas encapsulated in freshly-minted, bodiless, Cybrid brains.
“Hey, Jules!” Greg called again.
Jules didn’t answer. Maybe he’s out for coffee.
Greg peeked into the control room. He stopped just inside, eyes drawn to
the body on the floor.
Jules wasn’t going to answer, not ever. He’d been shot once, expertly and efficiently, from behind. Greg checked for a pulse. The body was still warm but there was no heartbeat. The ugly wound made it pretty obvious he’d died instantly.
Who would do such a thing? A professional hit? Why?
Security around the launching and Shifting Stations was thorough, and had multiple levels of redundancies built in, just to be sure. Only a handful of people even knew what happened inside the Shifting Stations or how it all worked. This had to be the work of an insider or else a very sophisticated effort from outside.
Aside from pushing the all-important button, a Shifting Station technician’s primary responsibility was to keep the delicate equipment well maintained. Mostly, that entailed regular cleaning and keeping the superconducting material bathed in liquid nitrogen. If the technician failed to do this, the particles might lose their coherence, become un-entangled. Then there’d be a delay of days while more entangled pairs were generated, separated, and transported.
The button activated a superconductor, a short bar of yttrium barium copper oxide sitting in a bubbling pool of liquid nitrogen. The superconductor contained an intricate array of nano-electronic components: a circulating loop to store entangled electrons; a single-electron transistor to pull them out one at a time, and a detector to collapse the spin state of its half of the entangled particle pair.
When a single, spin-entangled electron was “read,” it caused the quantum state of its partner to be immediately determined. The entangled pair rang like a bell across the solar system. The shifting RAF generator followed the resonance from one particle to the other delivering more colonists to the asteroids.
The superconductor! Greg opened the access panel on the podium beneath the button. He removed the insulated lid. Normally, the grayish slug would be sitting in its bubbling pool of liquid nitrogen. The chamber was empty.
Huh? It took a second to process what he was seeing. Someone had removed liquid nitrogen and the superconductor with it. Not Jules. He was beyond reproach. Perhaps he’d been forced or tricked into it. Either way, he’d paid with his life.
Without that superconductor—and the single-electron, nano-scale transistor meticulously crafted in its interior—the RAF Shifter wouldn’t be able to send people to the asteroid colonies. It would take days to replace, and he didn’t have days.
The world leaders and VIPs would have to rely on the rockets, rockets that hadn’t been outfitted and tested for transporting humans in years. It was doubtful those decrepit units could even maintain a breathable atmosphere anymore. Sending anyone out in them would be irresponsible, it could be a death sentence for all aboard. Then again, anyone left behind on Earth was guaranteed a death sentence.
He had his own internal RAF generator, the one he’d grown in his head but that wasn’t going to be of any help to others. The big RAFs at the Shifting Stations were huge, specialized devices. His was intended for personal use only. It might have enough processing power to shift one other person—maybe—but no more.
There were five other Shifting Stations around the planet, six in total, one on each inhabited continent. They could gather the VIPs at any functional station, if anyone let them. Yeah, not likely. They’d have their own lines to contend with; why would they accommodate the VIPs from this one? Still, it was worth a try.
Oh, god. What if this wasn’t the only Shifting Station put out of commission?
Greg jumped to each of the other stations in turn. The same scene greeted him at each one. Someone had put them all out of action over a short period of time.
Why? What could anyone gain by doing this?
Conspiracy theories ripped through his mind. Could someone have found out about the specialized-RAF shifting technology? Even so, could they have duplicated it? There weren’t many people with enough knowledge to independently construct such a device.
Alum’s name stood out on that very short list, but that couldn’t be right. It didn’t make sense. Only a few days ago, Alum had congratulated them on finding a solution to the problem of the Eater, one that worked for everyone. He’d seemed pleased. He wouldn’t do something like this, would he?
Was releasing the Eater part of a plan, a sick conspiracy, or just some horrible mistake or coincidence? What’s the point?
He chided himself for entertaining such ridiculous, paranoid thoughts. To think that someone might have set out to prevent transporting people to Vesta!
And no one in their right mind—with full knowledge of the consequences—would release the Eater from its cage. Intentionally destroying the planet was pointless. Earth didn’t have much more than a year left anyway, though not many knew that. And everyone who did know was already on the VIP list, including Alum.
Who on Earth would benefit by shortening Earth’s life by a year? No one.
The two events had to be unrelated. The Eater containment grew weak and imploded. A horrible accident, nothing more, and purely coincidental that it happened today.
And how could he have suspected Alum of wrongdoing? He and his Church had been committed to saving people, as many as possible. They’d invested all their time and resources to that end. They wouldn’t benefit by letting the Eater loose prematurely. Still, there was something secretive, possibly dangerous, about the heir to Reverend LaMontagne that Greg couldn’t dismiss. Staging a coup wasn’t beyond him. Greg was sure of it.
Gritting his teeth, he shifted to the Diamond Cathedral, the principal place of worship for the YTG Church.
He half-expected to find the building empty. Morning service should have concluded hours ago. Instead, the place was full of people. Many looked lost; their sobbing and wailing was audible over the chaotic conversations.
Ushers were roughly escorting a good number of individuals out of the building, while hundreds more streamed in. Greg’s lattice identified most of those with displaced looks being shunted out the door. They were Vesta colonists.
People gathered on the main stage. Greg counted 250, ranging in age from young children to seniors. Alum blessed them, and they disappeared.
A second later, a roughly equal number of miserable Vesta colonists appeared in the same spot.
My instincts were right. Alum and the YTG Church has stolen the shifting technology. But this is crazy. He’s already on the VIP list, along with hundreds of others he recommended. Why would he do that?
Angry men with semi-automatic assault rifles pushed the confused colonists toward the broad stairs on either side of the stage. Greg couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
A coup? That’s crazy. They wouldn’t have a chance.
Eight years of Reverend LaMontagne’s resistance to making the miracle of instantaneous transportation widely available suddenly made sense. Greg was stunned by the scope of LaMontagne’s planning.
Had his intention, all along, been to replace the carefully selected colonists with Church members?
Greg sat down heavily in the nearest seat. He reviewed the evidence in his lattice, looking for anything that would argue against such a diabolical betrayal of humanity.
“I know it’s hard to leave, Brother, but this is for the best.”
Greg looked up at the friendly voice.
The speaker took one look at the dirty, bloody face and desolate eyes peering back and changed his consoling advance. He gave a whistle for help and was joined by one of his gun-wielding fellows.
Greg was seething inside but stuck between fight and flight. A righteous anger he’d never known coursed through him.
Alum and the YTG Church had betrayed two decades of planning, two years of selecting the best of the best, to give a drastically reduced group of humanity its best chance of survival. They were replacing prominent scientists, engineers, artists, humanitarians, economists, and leaders with individuals whose only admission requirement was blind Faith, membership in the Church, and unquestioning loyalty to Alum.
As the armed
man approached, Greg felt his fists flex. The desire to pummel someone, anyone, associated with this outrage was powerful.
The man stopped in front of him, gun in a neutral position but at the ready. The man gave Greg an appraising glance and his brow furrowed. He shifted the gun to a slightly more ready posture.
“What’s up, Tyrone,” the guard asked the other man.
“I think someone here got away from the returnees. I don’t think this guy’s one of ours.”
“Have you asked him for his card yet?”
“I was waiting for some backup.”
Tyrone turned to Greg. “Could I see your Church membership card, please, sir?”
Greg stared blankly at the two men. “I’m not a member.”
The rifle rose and pointed at Greg’s torso. “In that case, I’ll have to ask you to leave the premises, sir.”
Greg eyed the barrel. He could probably generate a microverse around the bullet so the gunpowder wouldn’t work, or put up a blocking field where it left the gun. Or he could turn their brains into non-functioning mush. He considered how satisfying it would feel to rid humanity of at least two bullies.
The moment passed. Greg sighed, shrugged, and nodded. No point in winning an inconsequential skirmish when the war was already lost.
He shifted out of the hall, leaving the two men gaping at an empty seat.
32
Greg popped back into existence in the office of Prime Minister Francine Hudson.
Her hand jumped for the security button under the ledge of the elegant maple wood desk but relaxed when she recognized the disheveled scientist.
“Greg? How did you get here? What happened?”
He was bleeding lightly from a dozen scratches on his face. His clothes were filthy and torn.
“It’s all over,” he whispered.
His voice was soft, but his eyes conveyed a depth of anger and despair that troubled her. She gently took his arm and guided him to a chair.
“What’s over? Are you okay? Sit down,” the Prime Minister invited. “Do you need anything? A doctor? Some water?”
