Afterwards, Zarif had taken what little cash he had and contacted a refugee trafficker who arranged a passage to Europe. He didn't care where he went. He had been to France in the past, and knew the streets were not paved with gold, as others in his village imagined, but living conditions there, even for a penniless refugee, were infinitely better than in his war-ravaged home. In the West there were opportunities for those who chose to make the most of them, free of the constant fear of sectarian violence hanging over their heads.
Everyone knew the sea crossings were dangerous, and there was always a risk that the boat would be intercepted by the European navy ships and towed back to where it had come from.
But it was a risk worth taking. There were far more success stories than failures. Everyone in the village had a friend, neighbour, or family member who had made it, and created a new life for themselves and their family in one of the richer European nations. Zarif decided to make his move, doing the deal in a harbour-side coffee shop. When he was herded aboard an old fishing trawler, which soon chugged slowly out of the harbour, spewing dirty black smoke into the air, he was still hopeful.
But several hours into the journey, the constant rumble of the trawler's old diesel engine began to sound more like a death rattle, and then it finally stopped. For good.
For a few minutes, there was almost complete silence aboard. The captain could be seen gesticulating wildly, speaking to someone on an intercom while the trawler bobbed about in the gentle swell.
The sound of metal on metal came from below decks. It sounded like someone was trying to beat the old engine into life with a hammer. Then there was a period of silence, followed by the sound of running feet on the wooden deck, and a sudden commotion on the far side of the vessel as a petrol engine exploded into life. He would have liked to have seen what was going on, but he was hemmed in by the press of passengers around him. Nobody was going anywhere in a hurry.
The small speedboat he had seen tied astern of the trawler with an armed guard sitting on its foredeck, swung into view around the bow of the trawler with the captain and crew aboard, headed back the way they had come. A wail of anguish went up from the passengers and one of the crew members gave them an ironic wave as they disappeared astern.
Now they were really stuffed. No water, no food, and abandoned in the middle of the ocean with little chance of rescue.
Zarif began to panic. He could literally smell the fear building amongst his fellow passengers as they realised they had been abandoned. Men went below deck to check on the engine and discovered it wouldn’t run again without replacement parts. It hadn’t stopped of its own accord: it had been sabotaged. This news set up another great wailing, and frightened passengers started to surge from one side of the boat to the other, threatening to capsize it.
Nobody aboard knew that being abandoned in the middle of the ocean was a part of the smugglers' plan. The traffickers knew it was almost impossible to run the blockade the European navies had implemented, and they ran the risk of being caught, which would be the end of their lucrative trade, perhaps permanently. Without a workable solution with a good chance of success, word would get around and they would be out of business.
They relied on the moral obligation of merchant ships and naval vessels to help any ship in distress. They aimed the barely seaworthy old tubs they had crammed full of paying passengers in the general direction of the European coastline. With the mainland in sight, they manufactured an on-board crisis, sent out a distress signal and abandoned the passengers to their fate, safe in the knowledge that rescue was likely to be just over the horizon. The ships nearby would remove the passengers from the boat, and if they were lucky the people smugglers could sneak back and reclaim the empty vessel, to use for the next run.
The scheme worked most of the time, unless the boats capsized or fell apart when the passengers panicked (which the old tub Zarif was travelling on now threatened to do) or foundered in rough weather.
None of the passengers on the stricken trawler were aware of this, as they stared out across the empty sea. Fights had already broken out over the few remaining lifebelts. This caused further panic, and set the trawler rocking violently from side to side as other passengers attempted to avoid the combatants, who were struggling desperately to retain what small advantage the lifebelts might provide them.
The situation didn’t look good and some passengers were already thinking about jumping over the side. Zarif wondered if he should take a leap himself. A quick death by drowning seemed preferable to the misery of a long-drawn-out death by starvation or thirst. The way the ship was rocking from side to side, it would probably reach the point of no return and capsize shortly, throwing them all into the sea anyway. He pushed the people beside him out of the way and using one of the mast stays for support he braced himself, so he could clamber up onto the gunwale and leap into the sea.
Dick Todd strolled through the large dormitory built in the hollowed-out interior of Automedon.
The dormitory was stacked with rows of bunks. Thousands of them, stretching away for hundreds of metres. There were other equally large dormitories constructed in the interior of the asteroid, built to house the MFYers and refugees they planned to hoover up and then process, to separate out the old and infertile, the mad and the bad. These they would send back to Earth while the rest of the newSkidians, a label Bruce told them they should now use, would begin a far longer journey than they had ever intended when they left their homes in search of a better life.
Dick had no idea how they were going to go about weeding out the bad eggs, the jihadists trying to sneak into Europe, the petty criminals, thugs, and rapists. The Transcendents had been adamant its screening systems and protocols would identify religious fanatics, zealots, and other undesirables, without going into detail about how these systems worked. The Transcendents had the power to access every database on the planet, searching for tell-tale signs of any unacceptable kind of behaviour. There would be medical monitors, and Dick knew they could also take a deep dive into people’s minds.
Dick had been visiting the asteroid regularly to check out the dormitory facilities and was desperate to test the protocols they would be using before they started the wholesale hoovering up of newSkidians. He wasn’t sure at what point they became newSkidians. Did the term apply when they had arrived at the facility, or once they had been deemed fit and proper to proceed in the process? Did it matter? Probably not.
Hoovering wasn’t a very politically correct term to describe how they were going to upload people to the asteroid either. However, it was a very apt one, because they would employ the open end of a wormhole to suck up people and deposit them in the reception area adjacent to the big dormitories, just like a big vacuum cleaner. The first astronauts on their way to the Mars had already transited through the asteroid via a wormhole on the first leg of their mission. Further crews on their way to settle on the moon and Mars would soon follow.
Since those first travellers, a few changes had been made to the process. The view of the cosmos had been switched off, so now when people looked up, they would see the smooth roof of the cavern, instead of a panoply of stars and planets. The other change was to the way the newSkidians would exit the asteroid. Instead of travelling through a gateway on a conveyor, the end of the wormhole would be extended into the dormitory and the upload process would be activated from there.
The Transcendents continually demanded they move faster and bring the implementation date forward, but there was still work to do. The development of a rudimentary guidebook for life on Skid that Bruce had just commissioned was still very much a work in progress. Dick agreed it would not be enough to simply beam a whole lot of people aboard, upload them to Skid and then leave them to their own devices.
Dick was also keen to test their processes well in advance of the main hoovering-up event to iron out any bugs and apply any remedial actions required for a successful implementation. He was waiting for the Transcendents to give him t
he go ahead, because this wasn’t part of their agreed strategy. Bruce was adamant they shouldn’t show their hand before they were ready lest they spook the entire global population. Dick believed the benefits of a trial run outweighed the risks. He could ask forgiveness later: he just needed the Transcendents to play ball.
He had his eye on a medium-sized trawler crammed full of people which had stalled in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. They understood the tactics of North African traffickers, and Dick knew what would happen next.
The trawler had run into trouble almost halfway between Italy and Libya. Dick was hoping he could convince the Transcendents to hoover the passengers up or, as he liked to think of it, offer most of them a one way, all expenses paid trip to a new world.
He wasn't concerned about the fate of the rejects or the impact on the MFY program if any of them related their experiences to the authorities or shared them in the media. The refugees who were culled from the program would be pumped full of a cocktail of illicit narcotics during the exit process and their experiences would be put down to hallucinations when they were questioned back on Earth. Nobody would believe their wild stories.
“When can we start?” Dick asked. He didn’t have the enhanced connection with the Transcendents that Bruce enjoyed and naively believed he only dealt with one of the ethereal entities. He was following a real-time video of the trawler on his mobile, which they had hacked off a satellite. He could clearly see people starting to panic on the deck and it looked in danger of capsizing. His systems test could quickly become a rescue mission.
Have you run this by Bruce yet?
“Do we have to run everything by Bruce?” Dick asked. “I mean, who is in charge here?” He knew how to push the Transcendents buttons, and he loved questioning who was really in charge of the operation.
We are, the Transcendents replied emphatically. Dick wasn’t fooled. If the Transcendents had been organic beings, their tone would have implied a degree of resentment nobody would doubt.
Even though Bruce had made it clear he was quite happy not to be involved in the day to day running of the program, they all deferred to him, including the Transcendents. It didn’t help, despite his pronouncements to the contrary, that he was becoming more involved in the detail and he had a mind like a steel trap. This made them cautious when making decisions, and the ambiguity of Bruce’s position blurred the lines of responsibility for the rest of the team. Dick was probably the least in awe of Bruce because he had known him the longest, back before Bruce originally ended up on Skid.
“Isn’t this a case of 'go ahead and seek forgiveness afterwards'?”
The Transcendents agreed with Dick, but it was also concerned there had been a bit too much of this kind of ad hoc decision-making recently. There were few firm project controls and those which had been implemented were being regularly flouted. Where safety was concerned there should be no compromise but sometimes, because of the nature of the project, they had to consider the mental health of the people they were uploading.
Dick checked his watch. The old mechanical timepiece was an affectation these days, especially since he was probably the second most wired human ever. He knew down to the microsecond exactly what time it was, whether he was on one of the four life-sustaining planets in the known universe he had access to, or in the vast, empty reaches of space between them. However, he checked the time as he always used to. He had an important meeting to attend to shortly and he couldn’t dilly-dally.
“Come on, make a decision.”
Silence ensued. It might only have been a few seconds, ten at most, but for the Transcendents and Dick, who had augmented his brain with every artificial aid the Transcendents would authorise, the seconds ticking by were an eternity. Separated by time, space, and almost every cultural more imaginable, they were coming to the same conclusion. If they waited for the situation to be perfect, they'd be waiting for ever.
They also had to prepare for Bruce’s wedding rehearsal. Dick had to make himself presentable, and the Transcendents had decided to download into unsuspecting bodies and experience the occasion first-hand. They were all itching to move ahead. They both sensed the first implementation was being delayed in the pursuit of a perfect plan.
It was far better, they both felt, to get the first small boatload of refugees into one of the dormitories than sit around attempting to boilerplate the design and resolve all the current risks and issues, which was an impossibility anyway. They could never think and plan for every eventuality.
“So?” Dick asked. He checked his watch again. Time to make a final decision and flick the switch, otherwise he would miss all the fun and he would get into trouble with his new partner, who had spent the best part of the day getting ready for Bruce and Ngaio’s wedding practise. If she applied this much effort to the rehearsal, Dick groaned at the thought of the effort and patience which would be required on the wedding day itself.
Nine
Zarif stood on the gunwale, grasping a slippery mast stay to keep his balance, while he prepared to jump. His bag contained all he owned in the world. He shrugged it off his shoulder, as he thought it might act as a flotation device and keep him buoyant long enough to be rescued by a passing ship. Then it occurred to him what a waste of time this was: there was no sign of anyone coming to their rescue, and besides the bag wouldn’t keep him afloat. Leaving it in place would take him straight to the bottom and a quick death, which he decided was preferable to a lingering struggle in the water, waiting for a rescue which might never come.
Other passengers were jostling him now, eager for him to leap overboard because this would give them all a little more space to make their own escape as the boat listed further. People were screaming all around him and could hear them scrabbling for purchase on the slanting deck. They scrambled to climb to the topside of the boat, in a forlorn effort to right it and prevent a capsize, but the ship began to turn turtle. Someone shoved Zarif in the back and he fell awkwardly, face down towards the sea only a few metres below. He put his hands up to shield his face from the impact.
Suddenly, leaping from the ship didn’t seem like a very good idea, but it was too late. A body slammed into him and he screamed, drowning out the distant whump, whump, whump sound of an approaching helicopter.
The helicopter had flown from the MM Sirio, an Italian offshore patrol vessel which had sortied to check the status of the latest boat load of refugees who had entered its patrol area. Intelligence sources had confirmed the trawler had been pressed into service by a known group of people traffickers operating along the Libyan and Tunisian coastline. They knew it was probably not seaworthy. If it didn’t fall apart, the engine would most likely break down. They had been ordered to investigate and tow the boat back to North Africa if it was seaworthy, or take the passengers aboard if it wasn’t, and then sink it if it posed a danger to shipping.
The breakdowns were clearly planned. This ruse was exploited ruthlessly by the traffickers and no western government or vessel could or would ignore it. If the passengers were rescued, the traffickers could claim a successful operation, which was a good outcome for their business. The worst-case scenario, assuming there weren’t wholesale drownings if the vessel capsized or foundered before rescue arrived, ended with the ships being towed back to the point of embarkation. It was far more likely they would either be towed into an Italian, or better still French, mainland port.
France was the preferred destination, because France was perceived to be a secular nation, more welcoming for people of different religions and it already had a big Arab and Moslem immigrant population. Italy, being strictly Catholic, was believed to be more hostile to, and less accommodating of, people with different religious beliefs, especially Moslems.
The helicopter circled overhead, careful to stay high enough so they didn’t drown people in the water with the down-draft from the rotors. After a few moments, the pilot and co-pilot looked at each other.
“There's nobody in the water. I could
have sworn I saw people jumping over the side of the old tub as we came over the horizon,” the pilot said. “Can you see anybody?”
“I’m certain I saw it capsize, and I am sure I saw people jumping into the sea too,” the co-pilot agreed.
Now all they could see, apart from a barnacle and seaweed encrusted hull, was a growing diesel slick, and a few plastic boxes and crates bobbing around in the water.
“I’m sure it’s only just turned turtle,” the pilot continued, “there’s still water streaming down the hull.”
He pulled back on the stick to gain some height, searching vainly for a sign of bodies, swimmers or, much less likely, lifeboats. There was nobody to be seen. This was extremely unusual in their experience because even in the worst disasters, some hardy, lucky souls survived long enough to be rescued.
But everyone who aboard had simply vanished. Maybe this was the one occasion in a thousand when there were enough lifeboats for all the passengers, and they had all got away. Or this was a real trawler that had run into trouble, and the crew were still aboard, trapped in the flooded superstructure beneath the waves.
“Fredo,” the pilot said to the crewman stationed by the rescue winch, “make sure you have a good video of this. Something tells me this situation is going to create a lot of problems for us. It smells bad.” He pulled back on the stick, the chopper rose further into the air, and they began a fruitless search.
“Status report?” the commanding officer of the Sirio demanded over the radio.
The pilot hesitated, not quite believing what he was seeing. “No sign of any bodies in the water. Do you want us to investigate further?”
There was a short silence at the end of the line. The helicopter crew could imagine what the rest of the Sirio’s crew were thinking: have they gone mad?
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