The Rogue (Planets Shaken Book 1)

by Lee Brainard

  “The camps are given an annual headcount-based budget, and the directors are given a bonus of twenty-five percent of the savings which they accomplish under budget—which can be a significant sum. Some of them double their government salary. And they are given tremendous freedom to attain savings. They are permitted to buy used items, government surplus, and outdated goods from the USDA’s Safe Outdated Goods list. They are allowed to turn the thermostat down to 64 degrees during the day and 56 degrees at night. They are permitted to turn the hot water heaters down to 125 degrees, except in the kitchen. They are not required to provide hot water to any laundry facilities. They are permitted to obtain clothing from second-hand stores and warehouse clearance sales. And they can require detainees to purchase clothing and personal items from a commissary.

  “Detainees are paid five dollars per week regardless of what kind of work they do in the camp, whether in the camp trade or in the kitchen or in maintenance. These funds are derived from the camp’s assets and business income.

  Irina was stunned, “Camp assets?”

  “That’s right. The camps are flush with cash. They are lucrative even without a profitable camp business. When someone is detained, the government seizes their assets. Half goes to the general treasury for FEMA camps and half to the camp that the detainee is assigned to.”

  Irina interrupted with exasperation, “The nerve! Selling my possessions to pay my room and board! Where’s the decency? Shouldn’t my possessions go to my family if I’m going to be locked up for the rest of my life? I’ll bet my watch and car alone cover my expenses in this dump for four or five years.”

  Joyce nodded in agreement. “I hear ya, dear. I had nearly two hundred thousand in an IRA, over two hundred thousand in my 401K, some valuable heirloom jewelry, a Jaguar, and a three-story brownstone overlooking Central Park that was nearly paid for. I like to think that it’s my money that buys us all outdated supermarket pizzas for dinner twice a week.” She paused for a moment, then continued. “I suspect that part of their reason for the confiscation of our property is that it enhances their deceptive claim that we are security threats to this country, a charge that implies terrorism in the minds of the mindless masses.”

  Irina frowned. “I hope my parents don’t think that I’ve become a terrorist. They were worried about me when I left the Orthodox church and joined an Evangelical church. They thought I was headed down an extreme path. I wonder what they’ll think now?”

  “Don’t think about it,” Joyce counseled, “or that will lead to worrying about it, which will lead to a disengaged mind, or maybe even mental breakdown. Find something to focus on here that will keep your mind off unprofitable worries. Be an asset to the team, not a weight.”

  Irina pursued the detainee question a little deeper. “Is there any hope for discharge from a FEMA camp?”

  “Folks can get discharged from the derelict camps if they show evidence that they will be productive citizens upon discharge. And people will be discharged from 200 series camps if they were imprisoned for white-collar crimes and have finished their term. It’s a little more sketchy for those in 300 series camps and those detained in 200 series camps for civil disorder charges. Supposedly, they can be discharged if they finish the reeducation program, pass a Casper exam—which includes promising not to stir up trouble any longer—and meet several other stringent conditions.

  “But no one is discharged from the Minoa camps, where the Rogue problems are detained. These camps are like black holes. People enter. People never leave. Being sent to a Minoa camp, like 286 here, is essentially a life sentence. The worst part about it is . . .” she paused for a moment, “nobody knows that we are here.”

  “What!?” Irina blurted, “Nobody knows we’re here?”

  “That’s right hon’. Nobody knows. The government does not notify the detainee’s family when they detain them. They wait a few weeks, then send them a letter that states that their child, or spouse, or parent, or whatever, has been detained by Homeland Security at an unspecified location on unspecified security charges. They leave them with the awful suspicion that their loved one was a closet terrorist. No opportunity for contact is offered. All requests for contact are turned down.”

  “How do you know so much about the FEMA camps?”

  “I was an investigative reporter for the New York Times and was doing a story on the FEMA camps. As I dug deeper, I realized that FEMA camps were being used for more than getting derelicts and petty criminals off the streets, slackers off the government dole, and white-collar criminals off the prison roles. They were being used to silence voices who, right or wrong, saw themselves as John the Baptist types crying in the wilderness. My boss told me that I was getting in over my head and that I was going to end up in a FEMA camp. I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. So here I am.” She shook her head and laughed. “I’m over it now. It is what it is. But if I ever get the chance, I would still like to get my story published. Maybe one of the Russian news sites that are operating beyond the reach of the American government or maybe one of the underground news outlets.”

  “What does 286 do for its trade?”

  “We repair appliances and furniture for the Salvation Army store in Syracuse. Some they sell on location and some they transfer to other stores. Once a week we unload a box truck of appliances which need repair, then reload it with repaired units. The trucks are driven by FEMA drivers, who supervise the unloading and reloading. Every two weeks we receive a load of damaged furniture, then reload the truck with pieces that have been mended or renovated. And every six weeks we receive a load of crates filled with kitchen and household appliances that need attention—blenders, toasters, vacuums, coffee pots, microwaves, and the like—then reload the truck with crates of refurbished items. Many of the repairs are made by cannibalizing parts, so we end up with quite a bit of waste. Some of the waste gets recycled. Some we find innovative uses for. Some ends up in the landfill.

  We have also received, on several occasions, shipments of crates and boxes filled with appliance parts in the original packages, most likely overstock from warehouses or salvage from repair shops that went out of business.

  “One of the perks of this business is that we have first dibs on the items that come in, so we have nice appliances in our kitchen, good washers and dryers in the laundry room, and fairly decent furniture. We also have three big screen televisions, which have been placed in different rec rooms. So . . . no one . . . is forced to watch sports.”

  Irina snickered, then asked, “Where do the appliances and furniture come from?”

  “Mostly second-hand store donations and dealerships glutted with trade-ins. On occasion we receive seconds from manufacturers.”

  “Bob mentioned showers.”

  “Yeah, we got showers. The maintenance department put together two makeshift shower rooms in the back—one for the guys and one for the gals. There is plenty of hot water from mid-fall to mid-spring—they jimmy-rigged a system to siphon heat off the boiler. The rest of the time the water is only warm.”

  “Is there internet access?”

  “Yes, there is. We have quite a few computers, mostly older models, set up in the computer room and convenient locations like the kitchen, the supply room, the commissary, the maintenance shop, the infirmary, and the repair business. But unfortunately, we can’t upload or send anything except prescriptions and orders which are sent through Bob Drake. We have no communication with the outside.”

  “If I want a desk, who do I see?”

  “See Arnie in maintenance.”

  “Arnie. Interesting name. Is he Norwegian?”

  “No. He’s Italian. His real name is Stephan Gallo. We call him Arnie because he lifts weights in his spare time and has really bulked up since he got here. He was a webcaster focused on threats from heaven like comets and NEOs. His website was called Impact Today and he was well-known for having far more science and far less over-the-top speculation than most of his peers. He published some inform
ation on the Rogue given to him by Anonymous and within forty-eight hours his website was shut down and he was in custody. Within a week he was working in maintenance.” Joyce glanced at the clock. “Hey, we only have fifteen minutes left on our lunch break. We better eat fast.”

  34

  FEMA 286, Syracuse, New York

  Sunday, November 25, 2018

  Irina sat on the edge of her bed, frustrated because of the limitations she faced in clothing and cosmetics. She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye—this was a big step down. In the past she wouldn’t have gone to a church picnic wearing the outfit she would be wearing today. With a sigh, she determined to make the best of it. It is what it is.

  She turned her focus to the chapel service. Would she enjoy it? The two Joyces loved it. But she had fairly low expectations. She had gotten spoiled under the rousing messages of Pastor Jellineck at New Life Church and the expository Bible teaching of Pastor Vargas at Resurrection Fellowship in Glendale. And the bar had been set pretty high for music too, as both churches had employed highly-skilled worship teams.

  Irina set her feelings aside and left for the meeting early so she could enjoy some quiet time. As she walked in the door, the chapel wooed her as it had Wednesday night at the prayer meeting. It had a quaint charm . . . there was grandeur in its simplicity. Set up in an unused section of the warehouse, it was separated from the open floor by makeshift walls of pallets and wooden crates stacked eight feet high. A plywood platform stood in the front, adorned with nothing but a simple podium. Behind the podium was a large screen and an old-fashioned overhead projector for song lyrics. In front of the platform stood a card table draped with a white sheet. On top of the table sat a small loaf on a small kitchen plate, a pitcher of grape juice, and two serving trays loaded with a variety of shot glasses. The seating was an assortment of plastic chairs and folding chairs with several wooden chairs. Along the far wall was a set of shelves that held a modest selection of Bibles and books. Along the near wall was a folding table which offered a coffee pot, an odd assortment of coffee cups, an urn for hot water, a selection of tea bags, and several packages of outdated cookies. It wasn’t much. But it was more than enough.

  The only lack that they felt was a piano—their furniture supplier was on the lookout for an inexpensive console—but they were content to continue with their guitars.

  The people started trickling in, milling around, chatting, and drinking coffee. At 9:30 a.m. the two song leaders took the platform, repaired guitars in hand, and placed the first song on the overhead. Irina was encouraged to see how well attended the meeting was, considering that there were only 114 detainees at the camp—she estimated mid-thirties.

  After a half hour of singing, Jeremy Hendricks took the podium with his Bible and a sheaf of notes. He was one of the two who did most of the Bible teaching. He was also the one who had organized the chapel when he arrived at 286 in January. His message was based on the text, “Though the outer man perishes, the inner man is renewed day by day.” During the second hour, the Sunday School class, he walked the congregation through a number of passages on spiritual essentials and priorities—things necessary for the growth of the inner man. He exhorted them to not let themselves get distracted by superficial things that have no real spiritual or eternal value.

  That afternoon, reflecting on the meeting, she realized that she appreciated it far more than she had expected. While Jeremy wouldn’t win any awards for his oratory skills, his message was insightful and heartfelt. And the singing, while far from polished, exuded a sense of heart-reality that made a profound impression on her. She found herself strangely drawn to the spartan chapel. Its attraction brought to mind the Messiah’s draw for the believer, “There is no beauty in him, that we should desire him.” The little chapel at 286, which invited comparison with the underground churches during the Soviet socialist regime, had everything that really mattered for a vibrant testimony—God, the Bible, and earnest believers. She felt a twinge of shame as the truth dawned on her. I’ve put too much emphasis on superficial things . . . not enough on spiritual basics . . . too much focus on the outer woman . . . not enough on the inner woman . . . too bad it took a few days in 286 to see that I didn’t have my priorities right.

  35

  Los Angeles and Mount Wilson

  December 2018 to April 2019

  After taking her first unauthorized images of the Rogue a week after she had received the package from Irina, Ariele began taking two sets of images per week, one on Tuesday evening and another on Friday. She directed the images to a temporary folder in SODpro and then transferred them, after the shoot was finished, onto a two TB flash drive she had purchased just for this illicit project. It was a pricey gizmo—the expense was grudged a bit because the money had come out of her homestead nest egg—but it could hold a dozen stellar images at high resolution. When she returned to her apartment later in the night, she downloaded the images into her copy of SODpro—her pirated copy.

  Throughout January and February, Ariele spent all of her free time searching the archives, optical and infrared, which Dr. Youngblood had posted with his research paper Another Look at the Phenomenon Near the Seven Sisters. It was an exhausting endeavor, leaving her—a tireless astronomy buff since she was nine years old—weary of stars, charts, and images by the time Valentines Day came around. She moped and sulked the entire day. Some Cupid Day this is . . . chasing a hunk of rock instead of being chased by a hunk . . . where is my valentine? . . . where is my box of chocolates?

  Despite feeling burned out, she pushed herself hard, and on the last evening of February finished scanning the last of the 126 archives that Dr. Youngblood had attached to his post—supposedly every known Taurian archive from May 2008 to August 2018—drawn from thirty-six collections. Her searches uncovered the same thirteen occultations that he had included in his online paper: the eight that Irina had discovered, the three joint observations made by the Keck, the Hooker, and the MMT, and two prediscoveries that Irina had missed. One was a twenty percent occultation that was first observed on Sunday, November 10, 2013. The other was the earliest known record of the intruder, the complete occultation of a dim star above the Pleiades on December 21, 2012. The date sounded familiar. Why does that ring a bell? . . . She furled her eyebrows and thought for a moment. No way . . . the Mayan apocalypse. She shook her head and chuckled to herself. It’s probably just a coincidence . . . but then again who knows? . . . maybe the Mayan-calendar nuts were right after all? The more sober-minded Mayan experts, after all, had suggested that the December date was not the end of the world per se but the threshold of a new era, which would bring the world into a time of testing, purging, and renewal—similar to the last days of Christian prophecy.

  ***

  On Friday, April 12 Ariele snapped the final images of the occultation of a dim binary pair, giving her the second of the two occultations that she needed to have a large enough sample of occulted stars to calculate the Rogue’s orbit with the accuracy that she desired. The first had been discovered and documented in January. As she was loading the images onto her flash drive, she breathed a sigh of relief. She was finally done with her furtive—and risky—research, a project which had kept her on edge like a cat in a dog kennel.

  During her drive home that night, all she could think about was the Rogue data. With her finds, there were now sixteen occulted stars—four faint and twelve very faint—that made a dim trail of footprints in the heavens, starting a little above the Pleiades in December 2012 and ending a little below the Pleiades in April 2019. Even to her trained mind, it seemed strange that such a feeble display in the heavens would have any significance for man. Nonetheless, it was undeniable that a comet was headed for our neighborhood.

  But what would the data reveal? Was the Rogue really as dangerous as Irina had feared, Burrage had reported, and Dr. Youngblood had estimated? Was it really going to give Mars a close shave? She didn’t want to doubt her friend, much less experts like Dr. Young
blood, but a comet as massive as Mars playing bumper cars with the Red Planet seemed over-the-top—it was . . . surreal. Her mind ran a hundred miles per hour as she grappled with the scenario and its complexities. When she turned off Orange Grove Avenue and onto Highway 110, her home stretch, she realized that she wasn’t going to bed anytime soon tonight. She was way too wired.

  Not knowing what to expect, she placed her key in the lock, and to her surprise . . . holy guacamole . . . it turned easily. The WD-40 trick she had tried that afternoon had actually worked. She stumbled into her apartment, physically tired and emotionally drained, but laser-focused. Time to rumble.

  She flung her purse on the table, raced to her bedroom, reached under bed, retrieved her gaming laptop and external hard drive, darted back to the kitchen, set the high-powered unit on the table, turned it on, plugged it in, and fired up her orbital calculation software—Caltech’s GUI version of OrbFit. Shaking with excitement, she carefully entered the dates and stellar nomenclature for all sixteen occultations, started moving her cursor toward the calculate button, then hesitated. The gravity of the moment weighed heavily on her.

  With a nervous puff of her bangs, she moved the cursor to the calculate button and tapped her touchpad, trembling as if it were the launch button for a nuclear missile, and waited in suspense. The laptop chugged along, maxing out the CPU and the memory. She jumped up, paced the floor anxiously, broke out a few dance moves to relieve her frustration, and returned to her chair at the table. Even with her gaming laptop, the calculation was processing at a snail’s pace compared to her workstation at Caltech. After seven long minutes, the results panel popped up, giving her three options for viewing. She selected Slow Animation Mode. The dotted green line worked its way through the asteroid belt, entered the inner sanctum of the solar system, and . . . she quit chewing her gum . . . stared in wide-eyed amazement . . . and whispered holy mackerel . . . the green dotted line directly intersected Mars in August 2024. The red box in the lower right corner, which warned her that the calculations could be up to 25,000 miles off, did nothing to relieve her fear. A comet of this size passing that close to Mars would perturb the orbits of both bodies whether or not the electric universe theory was true. She sat in stunned silence. The concerns enunciated in Irina’s letter, Dr. Youngblood’s paper, and Burrage’s report on the Down the Rabbit Hole program were not exaggerated. They were entirely vindicated.