Regolith

by Brent Reilly

  An armored car, van, and bus sure beat the hell out of Marines invading in unarmored Humvees like in Iraq.

  Jackson would have made billions if McCain didn’t croak. Instead, Palin and Senate Republicans blacklisted Jackson as a supplier and subcontractor, but at a cost since the millions in defense contributions that used to go to Republicans now went to Democrats. And the Democrats who received the most from the defense industry were those running for president.

  So, yeah, Jackson felt under-appreciated.

  He knew, of course, why Cooper was pissed. Jackson and the mega-donors in his Millionaire’s Club bought futures just as shares of defense contractors soared a year ago. Critics claimed they pocketed billions.

  And no one profited more than Henry Fucking Jackson.

  18

  Cooper finally chilled out enough to sit down.

  “Henry, don’t try to change the subject. What the hell do you need one hundred nuclear spaceships for?”

  Jackson hesitated to tell him the truth, which would take way too long, so he told him a fraction of the truth and hoped it would take just a fraction of the time. He sat down in one of the cheap chairs in front of his desk.

  “Ah, hell, Dan. You got me. But it’s not a billion dollar opportunity we’re looking at. It’s $1 quadrillion.”

  Cooper did not look impressed.

  “Remember this joke? Bush was told that two Brazilian soldiers died, so he asked, ‘how many soldiers are in a Brazilian?’”

  “You don’t believe me!” Jackson played offended.

  “Stop fucking with me, Henry. You say you want me to back you, but you won’t even level with me.”

  Which was funny since Jackson thought exactly the same about him.

  “Aren’t you in a hurry, Dan?”

  “Oh, I got time for this.”

  “You think I’m playing? If you must know, we want to mine space rocks. Of the Near-Earth Objects at least one kilometer big, at least 50 are metallic or Type M, which are up to 99% metal. One of these, Amun, is a two-kilometer wide rock that, according to John Lewis, a planetary sciences professor at the University of Arizona, has $8 trillion in nickel and iron, $6 trillion in cobalt, and another $6 trillion in precious platinum-group metals, for a grand total of $20 trillion. These large metallic NEOs are collectively worth $1 quadrillion, those 100-1000 meters a $1 quadrillion, those 10-100 meters a $1 quadrillion, and those less than 10 meters another $1 quadrillion. And those are just the M-class and stony-iron NEOs, which make up only 4% of the NEO population. The other 96% are worth several quadrillion dollars more. The average non-M NEO has a higher concentration of precious metals than the richest ore mines here on Earth. To put it another way, several quadrillions dollars worth of metals float near Earth.

  “And past Mars lie millions of rocks in the Main Asteroid Belt. Three times that many float 60 degrees in front and behind Jupiter. Then there are billions of asteroids and comets past Neptune in the Kuiper Belt, and trillions more past Pluto in the Oort Cloud.”

  “Yeah, but how do you get them?”

  Cooper was interested in anything that made money.

  “We capture a big one when its closest, then re-orbit it into a gravitationally stable orbit called a Lagrange point. There are five of them: L1 and L2 are on either side of Earth relative to the Sun; L3 is on the other side of the Sun directly opposite Earth; and L4 and L5 are 60 degrees before and after Earth in its orbit. More specifically, like we have with many satellites, we give it a Lissajous orbit around L2 from where we return precious ore and send people, materials, and supplies.”

  What Jackson didn’t mention is that his father had already located a $20 trillion asteroid in a Lagrange point sixty degrees behind the Earth, that they named The Jackpot. They didn’t even have to move it. No one else knew of it because its location made it visible only momentarily at the horizon at sunset.

  Jupiter has many asteroids that orbit sixty degrees before and behind it, but what got the Professor started was the discovery of the asteroid 1990 MB in a Lagrange point near Mars. If any rocky planet should have Lagrange asteroids, it should be Earth, which has the greatest gravity well of the four rocky planets. Because he headed the University of Arizona’s Spacewatch program for so long, the professor had more equipment than virtually anyone else on Earth. And he looked specifically for it.

  He not only knew where to look for, but what to look for. Detecting NEOs requires different telescopes than those that measure their spectra. Most astronomers rely on colleagues from other universities or in other countries, but Spacewatch had access to the Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, which has the largest collection of scopes in the world. So the Jacksons became virtually the only people on the planet to know that a $20 trillion asteroid floated exactly behind Earth. And if he told Cooper, then as president he would take it away. Sure as hell.

  “It sounds like you just need one. Why do you want one hundred?” Cooper, sensing weakness, dug further.

  “The more ships we have, the more money we make,” Jackson argued defensively.

  “But wouldn’t you flood the market?”

  Jackson had no honest answer to that. But that was the trouble with being a lousy liar. He never learned to lie well because his father taught him that those who know how to carefully phrase the truth never needed to lie. Which was a damn lie.

  Staying awake all night didn’t help. He was running on fumes. In truth, he only needed one ship to fly crews and supplies back and forth. Thousands of capsules, sure, but just one ship.

  Although two or three would be nice.

  And Cooper was right. But he wanted to flood the global market to buy up distressed mining companies as he became the world’s dominate automaker, aircraft maker, and ship builder.

  Which is why he needed so much political support.

  Once in office, President McCain had Congress update the McCain-Fiengold campaign finance laws to allow for more generous federal matching of small-dollar contributions for candidates who accept public financing. Republicans, in turn, demanded eliminating the cap on donations from a single individual to multiple candidates, then capped at $125,000 an election cycle, since they were largely funded by billionaires.

  In response, Jackson started the “Millionaire’s Club” by asking rich donors to give $1 million in early, hard money contributions to hundreds of Democratic challengers. That is how PACs became so powerful – by giving early hard money donations. The website was specifically designed to automate the donation process because the easier it was to give, the more people would go through the trouble of giving.

  The webpage made it as easy as possible, by listing the candidates and suggesting how much to give. Once a donor gave their bank and personal information, it only took one click to give $1 million to hundreds of candidates. Donors could change the amounts and the candidates, but most gave the suggested amounts to the candidates Jackson listed. And because his websites tracked how much early hard money contributions went to which Democratic candidates, the candidates never were allowed to forget how in debt they were to him. Not that they complained. If anything, their main fear was not making the list.

  Jackson, notably, chose which Democratic candidates got funded. It was, after all, his fucking website. Not that the idea was new. Progressive bloggers had raised tens of millions via their ActBlue website. The main difference was scale: if a PAC, business executive, or rich donor wanted to impress the party, he now had an easy way to distribute millions right when they were most needed. Joining the Millionaire’s Club quickly became a requirement for any PACs, lobbyist, trade organization, companies, and rich person who needed access. No special interest could afford not to join.

  As every campaign manager knows, early money is worth four times as much as late money because early money gives a candidate credibility, which allows him to raise more money later. Early money determines viability. The media eagerly pronounces a campaign dead if the candidate can’t raise enough early m
oney.

  Hard money is worth several times more than soft money because of the limits placed on hard money. Parties can use “hard money” for any purpose, including supporting specific candidates by name, whereas soft money cannot pay for overhead or get out the vote. Up to half of all campaign money goes towards one form of advertising or another. Hard money is not only harder to get, but candidates need more of it than soft money.

  The resulting media frenzy was all the advertising that he needed. His critics provided his publicity, getting the word out. It was like Coke paying for Pepsi ads.

  This was just one more example of how Henry Jackson got criticized for doing nothing wrong, yet he would be praised for doing the morally ambiguous. Like dominating the global metals market, automaking, ship making, and aircraft making, and using a hundred spaceships to optimize the solar system for human habitability. He need broad political support to execute his agenda, which required a hundred manned spaceships.

  “But we will save billions through economies of scale by building a hundred of them.”

  Which sounded weak, even to Jackson. After all, how do you justify one hundred nuclear spaceships? And fuck telling him the truth – that would take too long and Cooper wouldn’t believe him, anyways.

  Cooper wasn’t buying it, and grew angrier.

  “Henry, what aren’t you telling me?”

  Jackson sighed to himself. They had so many important things to talk about, like how to win the presidency, how to stop China from invading Taiwan, and how to rebuild Earth after hundreds of mountains struck it. He finally had Cooper one-on-one, without his asshole campaign manager and annoying advisers. For once, spaceships were the last thing he wanted to talk about.

  Jackson’s watch beeped. He received a text message from his father that said, “911”, which meant an emergency. But now he had an emergency of his own. Besides, what possible emergency could his dad have? For billions of people, the world was already going to end. What could possibly be worse?

  No, he would have to get back to his dad later. He had his own crisis on his hands.

  19

  As soon as Jackson left, Monique ran up the stairs with an alarmed David close behind. She fell on her bed and cried uncontrollably. David closed the door and turned on music, afraid she would wake up the house.

  Bewildered, he climbed in next to her to comfort her. He intertwined their arms and legs and whispered to her that she had done nothing wrong. His warm embrace only increased her sobbing, as she saw what she did from Jackson’s perspective.

  The one thing that leaped out in David’s mind was that he never wanted Monique to do anything sexual with anyone else ever again. No matter how hard it made his cock. Unsure what to do, David just held her with all the love that his puny, under-utilized heart had to offer. It wasn’t enough.

  Lisa knocked on the door and entered without waiting for an answer. She immediately kneeled just inches away from Monique. Monique quit crying, but closed her eyes and said nothing. Lisa knew that something was terribly wrong, and felt responsible even though she didn’t know why. Guilt, shame, and remorse were not normal emotions for her, and she had trouble recognizing them for what they were.

  “Go away,” her brother begged her.

  “What did I do?”

  Lisa did not know that Monique almost let Chucha maul her father’s choice for president, risk her modeling career, then stick a stranger’s finger in her pussy so that she could feed him another man’s cum.

  Then Lorena popped her head in the door.

  “Is he here yet?” she asked excitedly. Although she had known Cooper for several years, the fact that he may become president thrilled her. She wanted to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom, get her picture taken in the Oval Office, and take home something that said White House on it. Not bad for a country girl from Tablaza, Colombia.

  “What’s wrong?” Lorena then demanded to know.

  David looked up at his mom and realized he needed to explain quickly before she started interrogating them.

  “Chucha attacked Cooper when he got out of the car. Monique saved him from being mauled, but almost got mauled herself. If dad expects to make billions when this guy is president, then he owes Monique a pretty penny, because she risked her career just saved Cooper’s ass.”

  Lisa gasped as everything fell into place. She herself had a love-hate relationship with that bitch of a dog. Mostly hate. She felt relieved to learn that she was not responsible but, most of all, that she knew what the hell was going on.

  Lorena sat down on the bed, started stroking Monique’s luscious black hair, and instinctively fell into empathetic mothering mode. Only recently had they opened up and bonded as women, which kind of annoyed Lisa, who felt replaced.

  “Oh, you poor girl. I’ve been telling Henry for years to keep that beast on a lease. Or in a cage. He never forgave his mother for running over Chucha’s mother. It must have been terrible. You are so brave.”

  Scared and vulnerable, Lorena had never seen this side of Monique before. Super-confident Monique never seemed to need anyone. Not now though. Monique looked up and lunged into her arms with an intensity that shocked Lorena. Monique lost her own mother nearly twenty years ago, and really needed one right now. Lorena returned the fierce embrace, then Lisa and David joined in.

  David, unlike his dad, was not a hugger, much less a group hugger, but the energies they gave off permeated him like water a sponge. Before he knew it, he was crying too. Once the first tear fell, a billion more soon followed. It only now hit him on an emotional level that he really could have lost her. Forever, just like he lost his wife Evelyn to leukemia. Something deep within him clicked as he resolved never to let that happen again. His love for Monique stared at him in the face, and he was the first to blink.

  They finally pried themselves apart when the tears dried up, and David needed to know something.

  “Monique, what would you do if Chucha had really scarred your face and ruined your career?”

  “Finally have your babies, if you’d still let me.”

  She didn’t even need to think about it. She always wanted to have children with him, but the shelf life of a model is short. Plus, he already had two small kids and until recently was still in med school. David was in no position to have kids, or at least raise them. Raising kids takes a lifetime while having them only takes a moment.

  Monique said exactly what he wanted to hear.

  “Can I have this?” David asked his sister, even as he began taking her engagement ring off of her finger.

  Surprised that he wanted to borrow her ring, she reflectively said, “sure.”

  Her brother then shocked them by getting on one knee and proposing to Monique, who never looked less hot.

  “I love you more than I can express in mere words. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. And I want us to have children. Will you marry me?”

  Monique’s stunned eyes opened as wide as dinner plates. Taking advantage of her state of shock, David quickly slipped Lisa’s ring on Monique’s finger as Monique, statue-like, stared at him in disbelief.

  “You’re giving her my ring?” his sister demanded.

  Lisa sounded alarmed, shocked, and pissed. She needed to break the spell that had enchanted the room.

  “I’ll buy you a better one.”

  David’s eyes never left Monique’s. David didn’t seem to care that he just took something very special from his little sister. He neither knew nor cared that Lisa spent months plotting to score the baddest possible ring, soaking it to her parents and her boyfriend’s parents. She must have spent a thousand hours mastering the little details of expensive jewelry. Now all that work was going to waste? Or, at least, going to her cousin?

  Re-gifting an engagement ring clearly did not bother him. David simply needed to act on this moment.

  “But that’s a million dollar ring!” Lisa protested, as if she just lost her first-born. While she got a great deal at just $250,000, split betwe
en both sets of parents, experts estimated its retail value at over $1 million because jewelry has a huge 400% retail markup.

  “I’ll buy you another one worth twice as much.”

  It did not escape Monique’s weary mind that David thought her answer was worth a few million dollars. Rich men have spent a lot of money on her, but none sprung a few million on her. But, hell, she would have accepted his proposal with a candy ring.

  Monique remained speechless as the energy in the room changed. Despite knowing several languages, she couldn’t get a “yes”, a “oui”, or a “si” out of her mouth, although the tears again flowed out of her eyes. Instead, she held up her arms, asking to be held, and David embraced her like a python. Overwhelmed with happiness, he picked her up like she weighed a feather and twirled her around like a helicopter rotor. Lisa and Lorena backed up just in time to avoid getting kicked in the face. David, the emotionally repressed guy in the family, hollered in joy like he won the state’s cage fighting championship. Again.

  As David and Monique cried in joy, and her mother whooped at the news, Lisa felt like crying for her ring. For once, Lisa didn’t know what to think or how to react. Monique and David could not possibly have looked happier, beneath their tears.

  One thing was perfectly clear to Lisa, though. She was not getting her damn ring back. All that time and effort to get it, and she lost it to the least devious man she knew. Her father was always drilling her about how one single mistake, usually done without a second thought, could dramatically change one’s life forever. He was referring to crossing the street without looking, or losing one’s situational awareness when flying, but giving your ring to your brother had to rank high up there somewhere.