Zero Limit

by Jeremy K. Brown

  “Mr. Ross or Senator Ross?”

  The lawyer pursed his lips in a failed attempt at producing a grin. “My client,” he said, trying a different tactic, “would like this matter resolved quietly and quickly. With that in mind, Ms. Taggart, you are free to go.”

  “Thank you,” Caitlin curtly said, and pushed the chair out as she stood to leave, still in quiet turmoil. When she reached the door, the lawyer called after her.

  “On one condition,” he said.

  There were always conditions when it came to the Ross family, she thought. She turned around to face the lawyer.

  “And that would be?”

  “You must never, ever attempt to profit from this,” said the lawyer. “No speaking engagements, no book deals, no movie rights. If you so much as tell this story in a public library, my client will have no choice but to react swiftly. And, I’m afraid, harshly.”

  “Is that so?” said Caitlin. “Well, please tell your client that I consider any profits that come from this incident to be little more than blood money. Ask him if he’s prepared to live with that.”

  Having said what she needed to say, Caitlin turned on her heel and walked out of the room, her footfalls echoing off the concrete walls as she did.

  As she walked through the lobby of Core One’s headquarters, Caitlin tried to put together everything that had transpired during her debriefing. Mostly she tried to process the fact that Vee had somehow survived against all odds. Before she could even begin to consider how, she saw someone across the lobby and called out her name.

  “Vee!”

  Vee was busily making her way across the lobby aided by crutches and a knee brace. A pair of suit-clad lawyers walked on either side of her, one female and one male. At the sound of Caitlin’s voice, all three swiveled their heads. The lawyers’ faces tightened immediately, and both attempted to usher Vee out of the building even faster. Vee, however, brushed them aside and turned around, coming toward Caitlin.

  Caitlin found her steps picking up as she made her way across the lobby to her miraculously resurrected friend. Caitlin was so glad that she wasn’t dead that her arms were already fanning out in preparation for a hug. Vee’s body language, however, was less than receptive. She remained cool and businesslike, the demeanor of one stranger greeting another. Caitlin saw this, and her pace immediately slowed, her arms returning to her sides.

  “Hey,” was all Vee offered.

  “Hey, yourself,” said Caitlin. “You’re alive.”

  “Looks like it,” said Vee. “Those EMU suits are built to last.”

  “For sure,” said Caitlin, rather lamely. “It’s good to see you. Really good. I thought you were gone.”

  “Yeah, you too,” said Vee. “Look, I gotta . . .”

  “Go, go,” said Caitlin. “We’ll catch up soon.”

  “Right,” said Vee, and turned to leave.

  “Why’d you do it?” Caitlin asked suddenly. “Why did you say all those things up there? Things you know aren’t true.”

  Vee paused, keeping her back to Caitlin, then turned slowly as though on a revolving pedestal. Efficient with her crutches, she marched back toward Caitlin purposefully, her green eyes locked on her. When she had crossed the distance, she leaned in close.

  “I knew the risks going in,” Vee said. “We all did. But it turns out knowing the risks and living with the aftermath are two different things. You get to walk out of here, get on a plane, and fly back home to your daughter. But me? Where do I go? Who’s waiting for me? On the asteroid, we did what we had to do to survive. We worked together just like we always did. But all that’s over now. And here we are, back on Earth. Everything is different. My husband was a loving man, and he’s dead, Caitlin. Tony’s gone. Someone has to answer for that.”

  “Even if it’s me?”

  “I think it should be you,” said Vee. “Don’t you?”

  And with that, Vee turned and moved through the lobby to rejoin her legal team, exiting the building without bothering to give Caitlin a second glance.

  From Dallas, Caitlin flew (this time commercial, although on the government’s dime) to DC, where she was slated to meet with the PDCO for a debriefing similar to the one she had just endured at Core One. She hoped this particular meeting would be somewhat less painful, given that they knew the lengths she and her teammates had gone to, to stop the asteroid from hitting the planet. The uncomfortable meeting with Vee was beginning to recede in her memory, yet continued to sting as she thought of their time together on the Moon.

  The flight was blessedly uneventful. Although the world now knew that there had been a team of miners on the Thresher and said team of miners had been instrumental in keeping it from striking the planet and that two of those miners had, against impossible odds, survived the entire ordeal and made it back to Earth, what they didn’t know was what any of them looked like or who they were. That information was being kept strictly classified, and if Core One and Senator Ross had their way, it would probably remain that way for the foreseeable future. Personally, Caitlin was fine with that arrangement. Fame was not anything she had ever sought out. But it secretly pleased her to think of how Diaz would react to the idea of celebrity being snatched away immediately after it had been bestowed upon him. The tirades he would have unleashed at the Dark Side—drinking on someone else’s chits, no doubt—would have been endlessly entertaining. As the plane made its bumpy descent into DC airspace, Caitlin found herself wishing that she could have had the chance to hear them one more time.

  Walking through the terminal, Caitlin scanned the area, looking for the telltale driver with her name scrawled on a white piece of paper and probably spelled with a K and a Y, as was usually the case. She searched around the baggage claim area, watching other travelers being whisked away by limo drivers, cabbies, and gleeful family members, but could not find anyone who was waiting for her. Then she heard a voice from behind her. One she had gotten to know very well over the last several weeks, only this time it was clean and bright, not filtered through the chop and hiss of the Alley Oop’s speakers.

  “Caitlin?”

  She turned and saw Sara Kent waiting there for her. Instinctively, Caitlin reached out and hugged her like an old relative. Sara, although probably expecting a warm welcome, was nonetheless taken aback by the suddenness of Caitlin’s embrace. Still, she affectionately returned the hug.

  “Good to see you too, partner,” she said.

  Caitlin stepped back, already getting emotional, but held on to Sara’s shoulders.

  “I can’t believe you’re here!” she said. “I would have thought you guys would have sent a car or something.”

  “Well,” said Sara, “they had one lined up, but I had to come see you myself. There was a time when I thought this meeting would never happen, so it only seemed right for me to be the one to bring you home. And I wanted to give you this.”

  Sara reached into her bag, extracted a bottle, and handed it to Caitlin, who turned it over in her hands to read the label.

  “Autumn’s Hunt Vineyards,” she said.

  “Napa Valley,” said Sara. “Now that you’re back, maybe you should take some time for the little things.”

  Caitlin slid the wine bottle into her shoulder bag.

  “You got it,” she said, and this time she knew that she meant it.

  “Good,” said Sara with a smile of her own. “But the wine wasn’t the only reason I came to get you myself.”

  “Oh?” asked Caitlin. “You mean there’s more?”

  “There is,” said Sara. “You see, there’s someone else here I’d like you to—”

  “Mom!”

  Whatever pretense Caitlin had about staying calm or composed during the meeting fell away in an instant. As she saw her daughter running toward her, her face aglow and her eyes alight with happiness, Caitlin fell to her knees, now sobbing openly in complete and total joy. She felt as though a firework had been ignited inside her chest, and when Emily ran into her arms a
nd they embraced at last, it burst in a shower of elation so strong and so powerful, Caitlin was sure her daughter could see the swirls of color.

  “Hi, baby girl!” she said through her tears. “I can’t believe it’s really you! I thought I was never going to see you again!”

  “I thought so too,” said Emily, burying her face in her mom’s shoulder. “I was so scared.”

  “So was I, honey,” Caitlin said. “So was I.”

  Emily looked at her mother with curious, studying eyes. “Were you scared you were going to die?”

  “Yes, baby, I was,” Caitlin said. “But I was more scared that we’d never be together again. And that would have been so much worse.”

  They hugged again, even stronger this time, and Caitlin melted. All the pain, agony, and trauma she had endured since the day she left Earth more than a year ago dissipated like breaking fog, burned away by the glow of her daughter’s love. Now, at last, she could say that it was truly over.

  As she hugged her mother, Emily looked up at Sara.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I hope I didn’t spoil the surprise.”

  “Sweetheart,” said Sara, wiping the tears from her own eyes, “I think you nailed it.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The word eventually did get out. Caitlin and her crew’s identities were leaked to the press and soon she found her face, as well as the faces of Vee and the friends and loved ones they had both lost, splashed across every TV, computer, smartphone, and tablet display in the country. As the only survivors of the mission, Caitlin and Vee were separately bombarded with questions daily. Vee had decided to use her public profile to raise awareness of the treatment of Moonborns and the desperation that had led Tamarisk crew members to undertake the asteroid mission. She started a nonprofit organization and began working with leaders on both Earth and the Moon to help improve the immigration process and create opportunities for Moonborn travelers that they might otherwise never enjoy.

  Caitlin did not attempt to turn her ordeal into profit either. She was cordial and polite when asked about what happened on the Thresher, but declined every TV interview, book deal, and movie producer who came around looking to bring the story of the incident to life. She wouldn’t have tried to benefit from what happened even if Core One hadn’t made its threat. The idea of getting wealthy off something that had killed most of her friends, and cost her another, turned her blood cold. What she did take, however, was a job offer to become director of operations at a small, up-and-coming He-3 mining company outside Seattle, with the proviso that lunar travel was out of the question. She and Emily had packed up everything and moved to a small house on Whidbey Island. It was old and needed some work, but Caitlin didn’t mind. She had the time.

  Shortly after moving in, Caitlin undertook her first home-renovation task, replacing the house’s previously installed artificial intelligence system with one of her own, the one and only souvenir she had decided to electronically retrieve from her stay on the Moon. Caitlin noticed how well Ava seemed to take to her new surroundings. Her voice even seemed to have a little lift to it. Life on Earth seemed to agree with her. She supposed it agreed with them all.

  Ben was happy with the new direction Caitlin’s life had taken. He’d even offered to move up to Seattle to help her get settled in, an offer she’d politely passed on. After Eric, the Moon, and the asteroid, she needed to find out who she was again on her own before she could even think about starting something with anyone else. She knew the consequences of rash decisions.

  Of course, as was the case with any sudden change in lifestyle or behavior, Caitlin’s new direction wasn’t without its share of detractors.

  “Why did you take that job?” Sara had asked during one of their many weekly video chats.

  “Why not?” said Caitlin. “It’s a good job with good pay and better hours. And I don’t come home covered with Moon dust every night. Believe me when I tell you that’s a perk and a half.”

  “Fair enough,” Sara said. “But with your new celebrity status, you could work just about anywhere and ask for anything.”

  “I suppose.” Caitlin shrugged. She looked out her window at Emily scavenging along the beach, searching for whatever treasures the sea may have brought her that morning. “But I’ve got the job I want right now.”

  When the media eventually realized they weren’t going to be squeezing any blood from the rather obstinate stone that was Caitlin Taggart, they turned their collective attention to a far more interesting target—Lyman Ross and his father, the good senator from Texas. Core One Mining was dragged through the mud in both the court of public opinion and the actual courts themselves. The media had a field day with the angle of Core One using “illegal immigrants” to perform dangerous, deadly, and of course, unlawful mining procedures. A congressional panel was convened to investigate the incident thoroughly, and Caitlin and Vee were forced to testify on several occasions, recounting minute by minute the ordeal they had experienced on the asteroid. Since this was most likely the only time Earth would see the survivors of the Thresher incident give their accounts of the events that had captivated the world’s attention, their entire testimony was broadcast and live streamed around the globe. Transcripts were featured in every news outlet available and shared and reshared across social media platforms from Earth to the Moon and back.

  “We weren’t doing it to get rich,” Vee said in one of the many hearings that were broadcast on a never-ending media loop. “We weren’t doing it to become famous or be pioneers in some bold new enterprise. We were doing it because we had to. Because, for some of us, it was our only shot at getting back some of the life we had lost.”

  Whenever their paths crossed during these hearings, Caitlin and Vee were cordial and friendly, but there was a barrier between them now, one that was insurmountable. Too much had happened, both on the asteroid and in the time since they had returned. In the loss of their friendship, the Thresher asteroid had claimed its final victim.

  Core One Mining could not hold up under the pressure of the sustained media pounding, the consistent probing of Congress, and the endless public demonstrations against the company. They closed their doors quickly and quietly, with little fanfare and no public statement. Lyman Ross took a job in his father’s office, a position most suspected was designed solely so that Hamer Ross could keep close tabs on his son and ensure that he didn’t attempt anything that stupid ever again.

  Caitlin’s testimony cast a stark and unflattering light not only on the practices of Core One Mining but on the policies of the White House itself. Although the president had repealed the lunar embargo, and negotiations between Earth and its nearest neighbor had begun anew, the fact that the situation had even been allowed to become as dire as it had was of grave concern to the nation, which was also still reeling from the revelation of Ark City. Those who had opposed the president’s election in the first place relished the opportunity to say “I told you so” to anyone who would listen. On the other side of the aisle, those who had endorsed him as their candidate were now wiping the egg off their faces, trying to explain how they could have supported a man whose disregard for policy and protocol nearly brought about the end of the world.

  The president himself, however, was enjoying a momentary spike in approval ratings thanks to his last-minute change of heart and his efforts toward stopping the asteroid, as well as everything he’d done to help the Oceanian nations in the wake of the nuke’s detonation. He was also staying true to his word and stepping down once the fervor from the asteroid crisis had subsided. However, he maintained, he would not leave before all his work was done. His last act as president was to give NASA the resources it needed to launch telescopes and probes out to the asteroid belt and beyond to scan the stars for anything that might put Earth or the Moon in danger. He also ordered that even more funding be directed to the Planetary Defense Coordination Office to combat and respond to potential threats looming out there in space. He also appointed someone
to run the NEO Program in the DC office, someone who had firsthand experience dealing with these kinds of threats and had shown the wherewithal and courage to face them head-on—Alex Sutter.

  On his final day in office, the president sat at the Resolute desk, composing the letter for his successor, in keeping with the tradition of the presidency. As he finished and was signing the letter, Jason Keating walked in.

  “Sorry to disturb you, Mr. President,” he said. “I just wanted to let you know that Marine One is waiting for you.”

  “Thank you, Jason,” he said, standing up and walking around the desk. He shook Keating’s hand and pointed to the desk.

  “She’s yours now,” he said. “And all that comes with her.”

  “I think I’m ready, sir,” he said.

  “I have no doubt,” the president said.

  “What about you?” asked Keating. “What are you going to do next?”

  “I don’t know,” said the president, answering honestly. “I’ve spent so much time chasing power that I don’t know if I know what to do with the world, any more than it knows what to do with me. I guess for now I’ll just . . . be quiet.”

  “Are you going to miss this office?”

  The president gathered up the last few items from his desk. He picked up a picture of his wife and tucked it into his briefcase.

  “Not really,” he said as he walked out the door. “I don’t think it suited me all that much.”

  On a bright morning in May, the press, public, and a host of military personnel and foreign dignitaries gathered at the unveiling of a memorial cenotaph in Arlington National Cemetery for the three miners lost on the asteroid. Everyone, both present and watching at home, listened as the country’s new president, Jason Keating, spoke. These would be the first words he would ever give as the commander in chief of the United States.

  “None of the three who were lost in this disaster had ever served in any military capacity,” said President Keating. “But all of them gave their lives not only in the service of their country but of the entire world. There can be no greater honor, no sacrifice more worthy of praise than that. But their deaths also cast into sharp relief the dangers of limited thinking. Because of the policies and practices of this office, five people were forced into a position where they had to put their own lives in jeopardy to try and get back that which was taken from them. And, of those five brave, selfless people, only two of them came home. That notion brings shame to the office of the presidency, and having spoken at length to my predecessor, I know he will carry that shame with him all the rest of his days. He has told me as much, and he is content to live with it. However, all of that said, today isn’t about me, my predecessor, or the office to which we were both appointed. And, to be fair, it isn’t about these three brave souls, at least not exclusively. In actuality, this day is about all of us. It’s about each one of us turning to the other and asking ourselves . . . what would we sacrifice everything for, as they did? How much do we believe in the things we hold dear, and how much are we willing to risk to preserve them? See, we’ve been given a second chance. We have avoided annihilation, and the world has been allowed to continue turning for a little longer. So what are we going to do with that time? Are we going to continue squabbling over trivial and meaningless disagreements? Are we going to spend our lives in the ceaseless pursuit of material things? Or are we going to turn to each other and finally come to the realization that we are all in this together? That here, in this little patch in the arms of a vast galaxy, here is where we must make our stand, and make it as one united people?”