Cyril was shaking his head, barely able to comprehend the details of Bruce’s rather convoluted explanation.
“The Transcendents’ bodies were destroyed in the process of transcending,” Bruce continued, “so they basically scooped up people from Earth and stocked their planet with the ancestors of the people I thought were the aliens when I first went there.”
“I’m still confused, son. How did you get involved?”
“Dad, I’m not surprised you’re finding this hard to follow. Not only is it difficult to get your head around, but by the time the rest of the world hears about it, it will shake the foundations of most of the main world religions. The Skidians, the original ones, have a lot to answer for and they’ve done this sort of thing more than once. Basically, Sue and I got kidnapped and taken to the planet Skid by people we thought were aliens. But the aliens I thought were the Skidians have turned out to be the descendants of humans from Earth, sucked up by the Transcendents, the real Skidians.”
“Skidians? Are you for real?”
“Yep, their planet is called Skid. Leaf and Myfair are Skidians, actually humans a few generations removed.”
“'So what has all this got to do with you, I mean us?”
“Well it’s quite complicated really. The Transcendents don’t want to get their hands dirty in restocking the planet with fleshies. Fleshies is their term for the human bodies they have stocked the planet with, for want of a better term, over the centuries. There’s been a famine on Skid and they, well me, by the looks of things, have to restock the planet for them.”
“Do you mean these Transcendents just let a whole lot of people die off?”
“Yeah, they have a pretty light hand on the tiller. The AI they had set up to manage things has had a bit of a meltdown on the odd occasion – this was the reason for the latest crisis, which was how I came into the picture in a roundabout way.”
“You mean this has happened more than once?”
“Yeah, I told you they had a lot to answer for and I reckon they aren’t as advanced as they’d like to think they are. I think they stumbled on the ability to transcend before they were really ready to. As far as I can work out, when they did transcend, they were not much more sophisticated and mature than the human race is today. I reckon if they were really comfortable with the whole process they wouldn’t need spare bodies in the first place. Besides, I would’ve thought any really advanced technological culture would’ve been able to clone decent replacements bodies, even if they used ours as a template or something.”
Nothing is ever that simple. You should know that by now, the Transcendent chided him gently, apparently unperturbed by Bruce’s comments.
Maybe it’s feeling guilty for fucking up our society, Bruce thought maliciously.
“They’ve visited Earth several times over the last three or four thousand years and taken enough spare bodies back to repopulate the old planet as required. Things are more complicated these days, and you can’t just hoover up a whole lot of people, like they did in the past, without the whole world noticing.” Bruce paused for moment. “Actually they could, and nobody would be able to stop them, but it would create a global upheaval which might impact on their ability to mount another replenishment mission if they ever needed to. And given their track record that’s extremely likely,” he added under his breath.
“So Noah and the ark, Moses leading his people out of Egypt, angels and prophets – it was all about the original Skidians looking for spare bodies?”
“I suspect so,” Bruce replied.
“Bloody hell. Well don’t tell your mother.” Cyril thought most of the organised religions would be in for some serious soul-searching in the coming years if this news ever got out. “If this gets out, the idea is going to cause absolute mayhem across the world.”
“Only if we tell anyone – and I’m not planning to.”
“And this is the ark?” Cyril motioned towards the screen showing the asteroid now covered in structures, teeming with robots so it almost seemed to be growing before their very eyes.
Bruce cocked his head slightly. “Not really, not in the way you might think. It’s not going to become a space patrol ship and cart people back to Skid. It’s actually a portal or anchor for two wormholes. One wormhole links the portal with Earth and the other will be the exit point on Skid.”
“Wormhole?”
“Yeah, sort of like a tunnel that takes a shortcut across space and moves matter around many times faster than light. To get from here to Skid, which is over 20 light years away, is an almost instantaneous trip.”
Cyril shook his head at his son; it was all too much for him at the moment. He desperately wanted to believe him but he was still unsure exactly what to believe.
“Don’t ask me how it works.” Bruce held up his hands as he sensed his old man had just about had enough for one day.
“Might be time to go home now,” he suggested, “and sleep on it. We can talk more tomorrow.”
Nineteen
Wisneski mulled over his options for a moment then called Agent Duke. “Do you have Trevor Todd and Sue Harwood in custody?”
“Yessir?”
“Well then.” He hesitated for a moment and looked over his shoulder at Shelly who was sitting across the aisle from him. Wisneski was pretty sure she realised they were both likely to be offered up as a sacrifice to save the skins of their far more powerful and largely anonymous masters when questions started to be asked about how an alien had pushed an asteroid into orbit around the planet without anyone knowing about it. If they were lucky they would probably survive the ritual public humiliation and then be quietly tucked away with a decent sinecure to keep them quiet for the rest of their days in some sleepy little mid-western town.
“They need to be released into my custody, so get them on a plane to rendezvous with me in New Zealand, at our hotel at the Auckland International Airport.”
This order was met with a pregnant pause at the other end of the line.
“If you say so, sir,” Agent Duke responded half-heartedly. He knew it was the wrong thing to say but releasing the two suspects into Wisneski’s care halfway across the world did not seem right either. But all hell was breaking loose in Portland and, Duke suspected, in Washington, so maybe he would be better off washing his hands of Todd and Harwood entirely and reporting back to his home office.
“Let me know the moment they’re in the air,” Wisneski demanded, “so I can arrange to meet their flight.” He planned to bring the two of them along as a kind of peace offering when he went to visit Bruce and throw in his lot with him.
What next? he wondered as he texted Dick Todd and agreed to meet him at an airport hotel where accommodation had been arranged for both him and Shelly, and now Trev and Sue.
Wisneski turned his mind again to his task and wondered how and whether to broach the subject with her, how to gauge how she felt about being hung out to dry with him. He was convinced for a short while he was going to be given a fair amount of rope with which to hang himself. Best make good use of it then, he decided grimly as he mulled over the best way to contact Bruce without Bruce hanging up on him.
He was unsure whether he and Bruce – and the two Skidians – had parted on the best of terms so he was wary of the reception he would get if he turned up unannounced, so having some human collateral seemed a good idea.
Being part of the cavalcade that had ultimately tried to blow him to smithereens when Bruce had failed to cooperate probably wouldn’t help. Demands which, after some reflection, Wisneski realised were clearly presumptuous. Myfair had, albeit with the aid of technology he could no longer control, disdainfully ignored the might of the most powerful nation on the face of the planet and managed to coerce their leader aboard his patrol ship. Leaf, he assumed, had the same sort of abilities but remained something of an enigma to him. Now Bruce appeared to be in control of this technology.
Bruce, and their interaction with him, had taken some time to deve
lop and had already virtually foundered as his leaders struggled to get to grips with the new reality. They weren’t dealing with a foreign government, with professionals who knew the rules of engagement – even if they had no time for them. Bruce had an almost small-town, provincial stubbornness with his attitude to the attempted subordination by the United States. Nothing new there. However, what was new was unlike any other protagonist – he was apparently invulnerable to any threat thrown at him.
On the other hand, Bruce had struck him as a fair-minded individual, and Wisneski felt they had got on pretty well despite the situation. With a form of peace offering in the shape of Trev and Sue he hoped to smooth the waters.
Shelly – ‘Dr Shaw to you!’ he had been reminded more than once – remained a nagging issue. Was she a fellow fall person or had she been sent along to report back on his progress and behaviour? Maybe they could have a drink in the bar once they had landed and cleaned up and he could do a little gentle probing to understand her position. Dick Todd would probably be there as well, which would add an interesting if unknown dynamic to the situation.
Dick Todd was a bit of an enigma – there were not many people in this connected, digitised world whose electronic footprint was as vague as Dick Todd’s. It was quite possible the NSA might have a bit of trouble building a digital profile of someone, despite rumours to the contrary. However, it was unusual that a combination of the NSA, CIA, Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft, let alone a hundred phone app databases, seemed to know very little about Dick at all.
Wisneski had seen enough files to realise that Dick Todd’s digital footprint had been carefully managed over time, especially for someone who appeared to make his living online developing various apps. Very curious indeed. In comparison, his brother was an open if not very interesting book. Wisneski was actually looking forward to meeting Mr Todd. The two of them should have a conversation around digital security, an area Wisneski considered himself an expert in, if nothing else.
“How long to New Zealand?” he asked through the intercom.
“ETA four hours, give or take,” the pilot replied.
“Thanks.” Wisneski glanced at Dr Shaw who appeared to be asleep.
He texted the last mobile number he had for Bruce, informing him he was on his way and he would like to meet up. His eyes lit up when he had a response a few minutes later. He had only expected a reply after they landed.
His phone buzzed an hour or so later and Agent Duke informed him Sue Harwood and Trev Todd had been bundled onto a jet and were already winging their way across the Pacific.
Trev was a little bewildered at the sudden turn of events. That he and Sue were in some form of custody, there was no doubt, and he was surely a prisoner. However, the situation was a bit blurred where Sue was concerned. But now the two FBI agents seemed unsure what to do with them.
They had been moved to a building euphemistically called safe house. The safe house turned out to be some kind of disused barracks at the local air force base which, to be frank, had seen much better days and clearly not been used in a while. Although someone had hastily given the place a quick once over before they arrived. It had been dusted and bleach had been poured down the toilet and around the old open concrete shower block Trev had no intention of using. But that was about it. The mattresses on the bed looked like something his grandparents used to sleep on.
An empty old fridge rattled away in one corner and an ancient television set was perched on a table in front of a couple of ancient easy chairs. Bloody hell, Trev thought. It was like a punishment block.
Sue looked equally unimpressed and ready to break down completely and bawl her eyes out.
The barracks were a complete shithole and even the agents were not amused. The one called Duke was immediately on the phone, after members of the base security team had showed them in, demanding somewhere better for them. Without success initially.
“What do you mean this is the best you can do at short notice? This is the NSA and we have guests vitally important to our national security to accommodate and you give us this shithole to put them up in? Not only is it a bad look for our guests but it’s completely insecure.”
Not that I have any desire to escape, Trev thought. There was nowhere for him to go. He turned on the television which, to his surprise, actually worked. A little unfortunately he found it tuned to a news channel and caught the tail end of a story relating to how his bar had been destroyed in a firefight with a cell of suspected terrorists. It failed to define where the terrorists had come from but they were normally believed to be people from somewhere in the Middle East, the current standard bogeymen. Any talk of aliens seemed to have been excised from the reporting - the authorities were not dealing with aliens but good old bog-standard terrorists.
Sue had been right – the agents had lied to him. Trev thought he might vomit as the realisation hit him, no matter the outcome, there was no going back to his old life. Most likely for Sue as well.
“I told you so,” she crowed, almost triumphantly, clearly of the opinion that she was immune to any dark plot Agents Duke and Adams were involved in.
Far more practically, or so he thought, Trev started to think about the possibility of making a run for it.
“That will do,” Agent Duke said finally, and ended his call. “Come on,” he added for the benefit of the others and the armed guard who had turned up to act as an escort. “We’re off to the VIP section of the international terminal until it’s been decided what to do with you.”
“Mobile devices off!” the guard ordered. “We will be moving across the tarmac to the terminal once we leave the vehicle, and mobiles must be turned off – they are a spark hazard.”
As they stepped out of the barracks Trev looked the guard up and down. The guard was cradling a large gun in his hands which made him decide making a run for it was not a sound option.
They were all hustled into a wagon and driven toward the terminal building, where they disembarked ten metres from a doorway leading into the terminal proper.
“OK, you are free to turn on your mobiles again,” the guard instructed as they stepped inside and were led towards the VIP waiting area. “Feel free to use the facilities, and there are 24-hour bars and restaurants through there.” The guard pointed across the room to a door.
“So we aren’t prisoners then?” Trev asked, before he was distracted by his mobile, which Duke had returned, ringing in his pocket. “Hello? Dick?” Trev was surprised to hear his brother’s voice.
“Don’t worry. Everything’s under control, and we’ll have you out of there pretty soon.”
“Who are you talking to?” Agent Duke demanded, taken aback someone had broken through the call diversion placed on Trev’s mobile so inbound calls could be screened.
“I’ve had a good chat to Bruce Harwood; not sure what he’s involved in but he seems to have some pull over your situation, and you’ll soon be out of wherever you are, and on your way back here soon.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, pretty sure. See you soon.”
As if on cue, Agent Duke’s mobile rang and shortly after, before they even had a chance to get anything to eat or drink, Trev and Sue were being hustled cross the tarmac onto a waiting business jet. The stewardess looking after them didn’t seem to know where they were going, but the plane lifted off and headed for the Pacific Ocean on a south-westerly course.
Twenty
Bruce had given little thought to the full significance of the task the Transcendents had set him – and, to be honest, he told himself he still wasn’t a hundred per cent sure what the Transcendents wanted in the first place.
He was still coming to terms with the realisation his life was about to make a major shift for him and his family and those close to him. He couldn’t expect to live a normal any longer, and if he thought going to Skid was an upheaval, he was sure he had not seen or experienced anything yet.
The mere fact Dick Todd was somehow involved wi
th, or had linked up with Wisneski, both of whom were apparently looking to him for some direction, was testament to the fact there were a number of activities going on around him which at some point he was going to have to be accountable for and get a grip on.
He sat down in his favourite place in the whole world. The old farmhouse had a covered veranda running the full length of the side facing the harbour, and Bruce sat on the steps leading down to the garden and ultimately the beach, lit up a smoke and guzzled another beer. Bruce wondered how much longer he would be able to enjoy this simple pleasure.
The house was quiet for the moment. Ngaio and her mother had been a little concerned about the welfare of the baby so they had called for Mrs Pratt and she and little Bruce had gone down the road to the Tauroas for the night with one of the cops for company. Leaf and Myfair had been despatched to a room at the rear of the house, and Bruce’s old man had gone to bed completely knackered after the events of the afternoon.
At this time of the year the sun set late and the night seemed to close in quickly, so Bruce could just make out the other side of the harbour. The tide was almost in and he could hear, above the call of the crickets in the trees surrounding the house, the sound of the small waves breaking on the beach and the soft slap as they broke on the rocks a little further away.
Other than that, there was no sound except for the odd low moo of a cattle beast somewhere on the farm. Even the dogs were quiet for a change. Bruce felt a real sense of isolation that was both physical and spiritual. It did not intimidate him in any way; in fact, he prized it, which was why he had been so looking forward to coming back home.
The farm was not all that far off the beaten track really, though he liked to think it was. The Tauroas lived just down the road, and across the harbour there were the pinpricks of light that were houses, and he could also make out the lights of cars travelling along the road running along the beach on the far side. While the road to town was long and winding, as the crow flies, the biggest city in the country was only an hour away.
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