The Manhattan Incident

by Raymond Poincelot

  Around 5:00 PM Laurent had a glass of a delightful mencia from the Galicia region of Spain. Some brie and manchego accompanied it. The chef as usual made a wonderful dinner. Lamb chops, a mixed green salad, and amaranth, followed by a crème brulée. He looked forward to the once a month red meat dinners. Most times he ate healthily, you know, the usual fish, chicken, and lots of vegetables, fruits, legumes and grain. Dinner was accompanied by an excellent Priorat from the area outside of Barcelona, Spain. Thank God the remaining wineries still made quality wines. Joe, Lisa and Roberta joined Laurent at dinner. Roberta was his former nurse and companion and now his wife, but that’s a story for later. Most times he needed all their company. They and the night guards were his family. Night guards joined him at breakfast.

  Night and day guards rotated places monthly, so all got to know him well. Their families were lost during THE INCIDENT, so he felt badly about them. Still, they had managed to start anew with different relationships and things seemed to be going well for them here. He had no family, but not because of tragic loss. A few decades ago, he had been married, but it ended in divorce. Back then, Laurent was consumed by work, a workaholic at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. He never remarried nor had any children, the CDC being his life. Regrets, yes some. Heroes didn’t have time for regrets and always got the woman, he mused as he swallowed another mouthful of wine. Yes, that part came true as he gazed at Roberta.

  The wine cellar in the Stamford complex, or the Room of Delights, as it was affectionately called by those who worked here and visited it, was fully stocked. Food supplies and transportation were now adequate. Law and order had been restored. Things were good, at least on the surface. While most things looked, ran and functioned more or less normally, much was different. The difference was hidden, out of sight. Only a handful knew where or what was hidden. Given the sparse population and firm government control, it wasn’t so hard to keep things secret. Oh, sure, media still existed, but an understanding that secrecy was essential for incident preparation. No one was convinced that the enemy had stopped surveillance of our communications. After all, given the events surrounding THE INCIDENT, it was certain that much was known about public institutions. Undoubtedly, the enemy had eavesdropped on our public and encrypted communications and data stored in the cloud.

  Around 8:00 PM the day guards swapped places with the night guards and went home elsewhere in the complex to their families. Laurent was dimly aware of the change as he absorbed information about tomorrow’s classroom visit. Teacher notes for grade eight were included for each student. He scrolled down the list, looking only at those students identified as exceptional. While Laurent was interested mostly in students with an aptitude for science, he studied others with technological or sociological or other notable bents. These students would be watched closely by him during the film and after when classroom dialog took place. Should any look promising, they and their families would be moved to designated education centers for the best education possible. Sure, it smacked of elitism, but few complained. Everyone knew the reason behind the program. Maybe someday it could be different. He only hoped that people would be around long enough to see that time. Roberta was already in bed when he climbed in. “We’ll, about time,” she said. They hugged affectionately and cuddled for a while before falling asleep. His last waking thought was how damn lucky he was to have Roberta.

  Morning found him in the limousine traveling on the Merit Parkway toward the join with I-91 at Meriden. Laurent preferred the route to I-95. Once, he disliked I-95 because of the constant traffic. That was no longer a problem. The Merit scenery was nicer and he didn’t have to look at the deserted buildings and areas along I-95 that once teemed with humanity. Scenes like that were to be found all over the globe. Nature was reclaiming those areas where people didn’t. Sad, very sad, he thought. The journey up I-91 to the Rockingham exit 6 in Vermont went smoothly. They did stop for a pleasant lunch break. At the journey’s end, they followed routes 103 and then 7 into Rutland. Rutland looked the same, he thought, old brick buildings, gambrel houses, a downtown out of the turn of the century. Perhaps somewhat run down, but still intact. He wondered if the Sweet Tomatoes restaurant was still there. It was not; he wondered what happened to its owner. He remembered the past owner had a penchant for attractive young women waitresses. He thought they would probably look like grandchildren to him now, if he had had any. Perhaps dinner in Rutland elsewhere tonight for old time’s sake, he sighed to himself. He hoped the food and wine was as good as in those past years.

  The limousine pulled up on Library Avenue. The building looked just like any other countless numbers of schools. As Laurent exited the vehicle, he couldn’t help but wonder would this be the time? Might he find something beyond the ordinary? Evolution had gone in rapid spurts in the dim past of the fossil record after catastrophic events stressed the survivors. This observation led to the idea of punctuated equilibrium, a theory in which the evolution of new species occurs only periodically, in relatively rapid spurts at critical junctures or events. Certainly these students were born during catastrophic climate changes; extreme weather events and horrible heat and drought had become the norm and might have influenced their genetic recombination when they were conceived. To date, Laurent’s hopes had led to nothing. Well, he did find intelligent children who with accelerated special educational environments were helping us make great technological strides. Some were even classified on the genius level. But no one had ESP or telepathy or whatever. The stuff of science fiction and the imagination might just remain as such. Still one could hope.

  They entered the building and walked through the metal detectors. Their P-Com implant chips communicated with the detector, over-riding the alarm system as they had high level government clearance to enter anywhere. The officious guard undoubtedly noted some jacket bulge on Joe and asked for identification. He quickly waved everyone on once seeing the Earth First Government ID for the Directed Education Outreach. Just doing his job, a good thing Laurent thought. The principal hurried toward the group in her chalk stripe gray suit. “Hi, I’m Principal Georgiana Black. Welcome to the Rutland Intermediate School. Follow me to classroom 8.” Joe and Lisa had small smiles, perhaps thinking back to their days at school.

  The teacher was named Edward Rabideau. He was a wiry, thin individual with the kind of face that blended in everywhere and was easy to forget. He explained to the class who Dr. Laurent was and that they would see a very important video, perhaps the most important one in their lives. Laying it on thick, Laurent thought, while scanning the eager or bored faces sitting at their desks. School hadn’t changed much, he thought. One student was staring at him and quickly glanced away when Laurent made eye contact. “Ed, who is the student in row 3, fourth seat back,” he whispered. “Oh, that’s Zack. He’s a loner and a bit strange. Most of the kids find him weird. He doesn’t have any friends that I know of. He lost his parents during THE INCIDENT.” Looking at his list, Laurent noted that Zack was not one of the exceptional students on the list. He put Zack out of his mind. The video started to play at that moment, so he sat and watched the students on his list from the class seating plan that Ed had handed earlier to him. He hoped to not nod off; having seen the video so many times that he could recite each line from memory. Actually, he had lived it too in some parts.

  VIDEO: THE INCIDENT. The video opened with a handsome, ageless male dressed in casual, but sharp clothes. He had a deep, commanding voice with perfect diction. “Greetings, viewers, I will be your narrator throughout parts of this documentary. The scenes you see are portrayed by actors. The material is true to life as it reflects the reality of THE INCIDENT. I will vocalize background material, the thoughts of the characters, important asides at critical junctures, as well as setting the scenes at various locations. These thoughts are important as they give you direct insight into the decisions made by the men and women of those difficult times. While the thoughts might not be exact, they are nevertheless
as true as possible based on interviews with survivors, friends and relatives of survivors, blogs, diaries, emails, recordings, notes, and interviews with relatives and co-workers of those that didn’t survive. Certain segments are narrated to clarify or to condense a too long timeline. The producer and director stand behind the accuracy of this documentary. All references and resources are available through the web site indicated here, www.THEINCIDENT.gov/resources.”

  PRESENT DAY. Paul watched the opening scene with mixed emotions. Memories returned, some painful and some not. In the video, he was portrayed as Dr. John Cabrot. That was his real name before he became Paul Laurent for protective purposes.

  VIDEO: THE INCIDENT. The video opened with a deep voiced narration to which Laurent listened with sadness. “You are seeing a retirement party at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, popularly known as the CDC. It is a sad time, an angry time, a bittersweet time for Dr. John Cabrot. Dr. Cabrot had worked his way up to Associate Director at the CDC through hard work, never missing a day because of illness. He gave 200%, unlike what some government workers give.” The narration stopped and one important looking individual spoke. “And we thank Dr. Cabrot for his 40 years of service, well done John,” said the newly appointed Director, Thomas Soule. The narrator returned. It should have been John’s job. The current new appointee was a political hack, a plodder. In plain humor, he didn’t know one part of his anatomy from another. Upon hearing that phrase, there were a number of giggles and titters from the students. They knew what the real phrase reference was. “Unfortunately, Soule’s politics were right for the time, John’s were not. So he retired. Sure, they said the words, we need you. Please stay. John couldn’t work under the new Director. John had no respect for the new Director. So at 66, John ended his career and moved on.”

  PRESENT DAY. Even now Laurent missed his co-workers, well most of them. Quite a few were sad to see him go back then. It is so sad that none of them survived, thought Paul.

  VIDEO: THE INCIDENT. “The next scene takes place at a little Vermont cabin nestled on Killington Mountain. It was a vacation and retreat place where John Cabrot would go to relax or think out problems. He wasn’t a skier and never rented it out, as skiers of a certain age had reputations for trashing places. It is a cold January day in 2020, one month after his retirement, and Dr. Cabrot is working on his laptop. This is a pivotal point for Dr. John Cabrot. He is wondering what to do with the rest of his life. Events beyond his control over the next three months are already shaping his course of action.”

  PRESENT DAY. The video version of the cabin seemed larger and was decorated in a much more masculine style than Laurent remembered. Again, part of the hero image. There was no television service there, not worth the cost to the cable company for his remote location. Satellite dish service didn’t work, being blocked by the trees. He did have a physical broadcast antenna and fiber internet service, though, thanks to the local phone company, VTEL. It was actually pretty good, all things being considered. The internet first alerted him of things to come, but not yet shown in the video. Reception was poor, so he only got a few local channels.

  VIDEO: THE INCIDENT. “The date is January 16, 2020. The office you see is part of a monitoring facility at North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). Deep in an office at the Cheyenne Mountain Command Center in Colorado we see Tech Specialist John Munger sitting at a desk. Truth be known, most of NORAD’s operations were sited at the nearby Petersons Air Force base. The mountain facility was now mainly for emergency use. A few offices were retained, usually referred to as the Gulag offices where the “wish you would leave staff” ended up. Munger was there as a result of the 2012 New Year’s Day fiasco. Those offices were mainly used for meteor, asteroid and comet monitoring. You can’t blame Munger for thinking it was a very boring job, especially given the graveyard shift. On the other hand, the fewer people, the better were Munger thoughts.

  Suddenly a klaxon and rotating red lights are heard and seen on the video. The time is 3:45 AM. Munger immediately taps at the key board and brings up the warning location on the monitor. Most unusual were Munger thoughts at that moment. The warning came from Dr. WATS, the nickname for the Monitoring, Detection and Warning of Asteroid Threat Surveillance, a satellite system known as MDWATS. This system of monitoring satellites had been put into place in 2017, when NORAD had expanded its space surveillance. Numerous satellite dishes for space monitoring had been added in the United States and in other nations allied with the United States. MDWATS had been installed to monitor asteroids throughout the solar system. While the threat of an asteroid extinction event was highly improbable, lobbyists working for defense contractors in bed with the military had convinced Congress of the need to secure the United States against all possible threats. At the time the economy was good and it would create many new jobs, so it sailed through Congress. Critics assailed it as a waste of taxpayer money. Conspiracy supporters, particularly those who believed in Area 51, thought their beliefs were being vindicated with this system, which was obviously an early-warning system for alien invasion. Truth be known, it was just another boondoggle project. That was why Munger thought it unusual as nothing ever came out of the system.”

  Munger spoke to the computer responsible for all the Collective Integrated Satellite Systems Technical Administration, affectionately known as CISSTA. It was CISSTA’s function to monitor and analyze all incoming data from the thousands of satellites in near earth and beyond orbits. “What do we have, CISSTA?” A hologram of a woman in a lab coat appeared in the video. “Tech Specialist Munger, MDWATS has detected an anomaly about 108 million miles out between the moon and Mars orbits. It does not appear in our database as a known asteroid or other space debris object. Given its proximity to earth, I thought you should be alerted.” Munger’s first thought was this alarm must be a malfunction. “Have you run diagnostics on that particular satellite to check for malfunctions,” asked Munger? CISSTA responded, “Of course, it is not a malfunction.”

  “Not a malfunction and not a known object, then what the hell is it?” said Munger. CISSTA replied, “I don’t know.” “CISSTA, where did it originate?” “Unknown.” “What do you mean, unknown. It must have followed some incoming path before its present position. Check your earlier data streams.” “I did. Unknown is because it came out of nowhere. One minute it was not there, and then suddenly it was.” One can hardly blame Munger for his reaction and thoughts at that critical moment. Munger started to sweat. His mind went back to that horrible New Year’s Day in 2012. Munger thought, Please God, not this shit again. I can’t take it. “OK, CISSTA, get our nearest satellite with high resolution imaging to focus on it. Also acquire a satellite capable of spectrographic analyses to take a look at it. Report back to me as soon as possible. I want images of everything. If it disappears, I want to know immediately.” This was not turning out to be your average boring graveyard shift. Munger decided not to alert anyone until he had further results to report. After all, between the Moon and Mars was a long way out there. Besides he didn’t want to be a two-timer laughing stock.

  The video now shows the office clock at 4:34 AM and Munger looking up as CISSTA reappears. “I have the results. One, the objects are still there and two, they have not moved. Here is the enhanced image of one. It is not a natural object.” Munger gasps and sputters visibly. “What the Fuck! Jesus Christ. They look like the same disk-like craft I saw in 2012. This cannot be happening.” CISSTA resumed. “The composition is unlike any metal alloys we manufacture, but elemental analysis does show high strength steel, rare earths of various types, some unknown materials, and silicon nanotubules. Munger, the objects are suddenly moving and fast. Please hold for several minutes, while I triangulate and determine speed and direction.” Five minutes passed on the visible clock and Munger is shown sweating profusely at his armpits. “My early analysis of speed and path vectors indicates an earth-bound direction. I calculate their speed at 150,000 mph. They should be
in Earth orbit in roughly 30 days.”

  Finally at 5:00 AM Munger knew what he had to do. With trepidation and a shaking hand, Munger picks up the phone and presses the red button. A direct line to General Straub’s quarters is activated. He knows the General would still be asleep or perhaps just getting up. However, there would be 24 hour coverage by a duty officer. “Duty Officer O’Hara, What is the problem?” “Tech Specialist Munger here. We have a Code Red here. I repeat, Code Red, immediate danger requiring General Straub’s presence in the Geospatial Ops room in the Rock.” The Rock is code for the facilities remaining in the Cheyenne Mountain facility. “Tech Specialist Wedgie, I hope this isn’t more of the bullshit you are famous for. The General doesn’t take kindly to screw-ups like you.” “No Sir, this is not bullshit. CISSTA has confirmed the danger with hard data and imagery. We continue to monitor the situation.” “Alright, Munger, it’s your funeral.”

  Several minutes later the elevator door opened in the nearby corridor. When Munger heard the elevator door’s whooshing noise he stood up and saluted smartly. “General Straub, Sir!” “At ease Tech Specialist Munger; what do we have and it had better be worth my time here.” Munger carefully explains the timeline and observations and then shows the General the images. “Good God, those look like spacecraft. There is nothing like these vessels on Earth as far as I know. CISSTA, this is General Straub.” CISSTA’s hologram appears and responds. “Yes, General, What is your command?” “Search your data bank for past images comparable to this one.” Several seconds elapse in the video. “General, I have no image match, but do have a written report about a similar object. The file is dated New Year’s Day, 2012.” General Straub is shown quickly reading the report. The written object description from 2012 and the current image seem identical, except that the current image shows many space crafts to only one in the 2012 report. They both are large, disk-like crafts with quarter score visible ridges. Shit, thinks the General, either Munger was right back in 2012 or he has doctored today’s stuff. Maybe all this hectoring has pushed him over the edge of sanity. The narration ends and General Straub speaks. “CISSTA, is there any chance your system has been hacked or compromised?” “Absolutely not, General; my protective software wouldn’t allow it.” Munger is shown shifting uneasily in his chair, as he can guess why the General asked. “Furthermore General Straub, the initial warning satellite observations have now been confirmed by other satellites, spectrographic analyses, and satellite telescopic observations. The images represent reality.”