Confrontation

by William Hayashi

  “You have three days of nothing but getting settled in, a weekend, and then we’re off to Houston. Look through that policies and procedures manual, no big whoop since you report directly to me. Anything comes up you have questions about, call me first.

  “I also want you to get to know the main facility here and where all the departments are. You’re going to have to do that for every site you visit, especially Houston. I also have to get you cleared by NASA; that’s what I’m going to be working on today. I should have your credentials by the end of the week and we’ll pick them up when we get there Monday. By the way, whenever possible, try to schedule one of the company jets for your travel. The communications systems aboard them are top shelf. Besides, I always get a lot of work done in the air without some passenger next to me peeking at what I’m doing.

  “For the time being you can share my admin, Seneca DeAngelo. She’s twice as smart as me and has never made a mistake in the eight years we’ve been working together. She ran your background check for me so she’s pretty much got the scoop on who you are.”

  The elevator opened up on the twenty-second floor, one floor from the top. Weston lead John around the hallways and cubicle farms to the northeast corner of the building. As they rounded a bunch of cubicles a woman who must be Ms. DeAngelo rose from her desk and greeted them. She was tall, about five feet nine with dark Native American or Mediterranean skin, and handsome features. Her glossy black hair was worn down and just short of shoulder length.

  “I hope HR wasn’t too much of a chore. Did they take blood and schedule you for the mandatory company colonoscopy, detective?” she asked, shaking his hand.

  John laughed and said, “It wasn’t quite that bad.”

  “I’m glad. I’m Seneca DeAngelo, I’ll be your administrative assistant. And this is your office over here,” she said, leading John to a door that already had his name on the plaque on the wall next to it.

  “And I’m right next door, John,” Weston said, opening the door. “Go ahead, take a look around.”

  “Would you like coffee sent up, detective?”

  “No thank you. Please, call me John. I haven’t been a detective for quite a few years now.”

  “Very well, John. Please call me Seneca. By the way, I had IT send your new phone up here so I could program the more common company phone numbers in it for you. It’s a secure smart phone that’s pretty much useless to anyone else if you misplace it. I can go over the features with you if needed.”

  John took his ten-year-old flip phone from his pocket and showing it to them. “You mean this won’t do?”

  Weston burst out laughing as Seneca suppressed all but a slight smile. She held out her hand for the phone, looked it over and said, “I admire fine antiques, John. But this probably won’t work with our network,” she said, handing it back to him.

  Weston led John into his office and stood just inside the door as John entered and looked around, walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows, then opened the vertical blinds.

  “Jesus Christ, this is unbelievable!” he exclaimed, shaking his head. “I’ve never had a real office, just a desk. I really wasn’t expecting anything like this.”

  “Like I said, you won’t be spending much time here, so enjoy it when you can. Seneca will get you squared away with IT, so you can log onto your computer and show you how to synch information with your phone when you’re away. I’m going to run around and take care of a few things. By the way, your employee manual has more than a hundred pages of information on the scope of GST’s manufacturing and consulting activities—that’s not what the usual hire gets. Study up on it, it should be a great intro to our family,” Weston suggested.

  “Right away.”

  “I’ll probably see you before you leave. Welcome to Global Space Technologies, John. You’re a great addition to the GST family,” Weston said, formally shaking his hand.

  Seneca got John set up with his new network account and quickly went over the highlights on the use of his smart phone over the next half hour, then left him to his study of the GST manual.

  The company was involved in the manufacture of everything from hybrid crop seeds to portable nuclear reactors for use in satellites. Its business relationships with technology companies all around the world were so numerous it was nearly impossible to find any technological niche where GST wasn’t connected, if not the outright leader in the field. GST had operations in 31 countries and over one million employees, either directly or through tightly connected subsidiaries.

  As John investigated the reach of the worlds largest conglomerate, he kept trying to find the underlying reason for its interest in him. The obvious connection between him and one of the last members to join the lunar separatists couldn’t account for the trouble Weston went to getting him into the GST fold.

  “John, would you like to grab some lunch or would you like me to have something sent up for you?” Seneca asked over the intercom, startling him.

  He examined the phone for a moment before he found the right button to push. “Sorry, I had no idea how much time has gone by. Do you eat in the building? If so, I’d like to go with you if that’s no problem.”

  “Sure thing. Whenever you’re ready,”

  John stuck a Post-It note to the page he was on, slid the notebook into an empty desk drawer, and grabbed his suit coat. When he emerged from his office Seneca smiled, grabbed her wallet and said, “And we’re off.”

  “Is Tom around?” asked John, glancing at the closed door to Weston’s office.

  “No, he said he’d be back later. What’s your pleasure? We have a really nice dining room for upper-level managerial staff and a very good cafeteria for everyone else; the food’s great in both.”

  “Where do you go?”

  “I like the cafeteria, it’s a lot less stuffy and the variety is more extensive than the executive dining room. And frankly,” she said, lowering her voice, “the company there is a lot less formal, if you know what I mean.”

  John laughed, “Indeed I do. Off to the cafeteria then.”

  They took the elevator down to the fifth floor, which was completely taken up by the two dining rooms and kitchen. As they got in line, Seneca quickly explained what was generally available at the steam tables and introduced John to a couple of friends who stopped to say hello to her.

  “Don’t worry about remembering names at this point. It’s all a blur when you start. If you look at your calendar for tomorrow, Tom has scheduled a quick meeting in the morning to introduce you to his department heads and a several others”.

  “That’s fine. I was wondering about something. Obviously Atlanta is one of GST largest complexes, but I thought Tom was posted in New York. Has he relocated?” John asked.

  “Not exactly. He splits his time between here, New York and Houston right now, with junkets all over the world to put out fires. I live in New York but I came here on temporary assignment for the duration. His other admin, Doris, is holding down the New York office. As for Houston, he’s got a whole security department there where the department heads are pretty much running the show.”

  “What’s so important about Atlanta? Other than GST having most of their oversight staff here for all their space-related projects?”

  “At first the bulk of the space operations group was based in Houston and just outside the Cape in Florida, But there were too many problems with corruption, minor malfeasance, you know, mopery and dopery because of incestuous relationships between contractors and the department heads running the projects.

  “Atlanta is a convenient transportation hub, and the cost of living is a lot lower than New York. My place here costs less than half of what I pay in Manhattan, and it’s twice as big,” she said, smiling. “The pace here is slower, and GST is paying well for the trouble of posting me here.”

  “That’s quite generous of GST. When did you get
here?”

  “About seven months ago. Long enough for me to find my way around and check out the local scene. I’m really loving the local flavor.”

  John was silent, thinking back to when Weston started dropping in at Pete’s. In fact, everything she said just reinforced his unease over the real reason Weston had relocated to the area. Not that he was under any illusion that the world revolved around him, even in light of his relationship to Sydney Atkins and the separatist affair. But he had learned a long time ago that his hunches were something to pay attention to, panning out more often than not. His instincts as a detective were just as sharp as they had ever been, and when things smelled, didn’t make sense, or simply didn’t ring true, he’d learned to pay attention.

  “John?” Seneca said, laying her hand on his arm. “Where’d you just go?”

  John, realizing that he hadn’t heard a word she had just spoken, gave a nervous chuckle and said, “I just realized how big GST really is and just how much Weston has on his plate to keep everything safe, secure and running properly!”

  “Still want the job?” she asked, grinning.

  “Like the guy said who jumped off the roof of the fifty-story building and at the twenty-fifth floor he says, so far, so good,” he replied. “How long have you been Weston’s admin?”

  “Going on eight years now.”

  “You have to move around a lot?” he asked.

  “This is my first time, although I did spend a month in Houston training the admins in our department. I got to tour the NASA center. It was amazing. Someday, I want to get over to the Cape to see an actual launch, even if it’s just a supply ship on its way up to the Jove probe,” she said wistfully, then sighed.

  “So I guess you know about the connection between me and the separatists, right?” John asked, watching her face closely for her reaction.

  “There was a notation about you leading a missing-persons investigation and some school administrator in the mix. But the file was heavily redacted, so it wasn’t really clear. If you don’t mind my asking, how did you figure in the overall investigation into the people they discovered on the moon?”

  John could see nothing in her eyes that spoke of concealment, or a knowledge of his role other than what she mentioned. But he was still going to play this one close to the vest.

  “That school administrator turned out to be the primary recruiter for the female contingent of the former lunar residents. We had gotten close, went out a few times before I twigged to the fact that she might be associated with them. One of her students went missing, that was the case I was working on. She was a dean at the school the missing student attended.”

  Seneca reached over and laid her hand on John’s arm in comfort. “That must have been hard, both personally and professionally. How long had you known?”

  “Only an hour or so before she too disappeared off the face of the planet. That seems so bizarre a thing to say, almost like … ” he said, his voice trailing off as he stared off in the distance.

  “Almost like she passed away, isn’t it?” she said quietly.

  Shaking off the memory, John gave a slight smile and said, “I guess. It’s been a decade since she left, my mourning is quite over. Speaking of which, what did you think when the whole thing came to light back then?”

  “Wow! Let’s see, I wasn’t working at GST, I was a paid intern for a member of the House, federal level, in Wyoming. I was a science major in college and have a Masters in biology. I was hired to read and help write position papers on technology, and generally answer questions from the rep and his staff.

  “There were little things in the news, and like everyone else I hadn’t connected the dots. I guess when the images from the back side of the moon were released, the ones with the tracks. That’s when it all hit home for me. But even then I don’t think I really knew they were all black.”

  John laughed, “Looking back, that was the most delicious part of the whole thing, finding out that our country’s African Americans had stolen the technological march on the rest of the world in the most spectacular way. We know they manipulate gravity, and we also know that they age a lot slower than we do.”

  “Sure, that’s the real reason for the Jove Mission, we want to steal their stuff,” Seneca said, shaking her head. “Can’t say I think much about waving the red flag in front of the bull.”

  “How so?” asked John.

  “Just the ability to control gravity is essentially unlimited power. It makes atomic weapons look like firecrackers in comparison. To send that group of SEALs to the moon was the stupidest thing I think anyone could have done. And look what happened, they launched their entire habitat into space before the SEAL mission got there.

  “I keep up with space technology, both what the public knows and some of the secret projects GST operates on its own and we’re nowhere near their capabilities. We’ve spent billions on our own top-flight research. As for the military and intelligence services, they’ve got nothing on hand except the ability to piss them off if even that,” she said.

  They chatted for a while, John still curious about just how much she really knew about the investigation of his relationship with Sydney. But if she knew much more than she was saying, it didn’t show.

  When he returned to his office, there was a note from Weston inviting him to dinner later if he had the chance. John left voice mail on Weston’s mobile suggesting where to meet, then he logged onto GST’s network and dove into the online documentation on Project Jove.

  He was tempted to see what the network had stored on himself, or on the Steddman College case, but he wasn’t about to try something so transparent in the event his online activities were monitored. The smart thing to do was to bide his time. The opportunity was bound to present itself.

  * * *

  “Okay, so what we want to begin constructing is enough space to house at least half of our population, should something reduce the capacity of the colony, perhaps more,” Christopher said to the assembled department heads. “Those assholes from Earth are determined to come here no matter what, based on every public and secret conversation we’ve monitored. And given that they sent soldiers to knock on our door the first time, the council has every confidence that they will try something monumentally stupid again.

  “But doesn’t Genesis monitor everything going on, including the military? What’s the latest word on the mission profile?” asked Julia Rivers, lead educator for the colony.

  “TJ?” asked Christopher, directing the question to Genesis’ creator.

  “Instead of asking me, let’s get a summary from the horse’s mouth. Genesis?” he called out.

  “Yes, TJ. How may I be of assistance?”

  “Would you summarize the offensive capabilities of both missions currently being assembled to travel here from Earth?”

  “The NASA mission, Project Jove, is scheduled to depart Earth orbit first. That mission has no offensive weapons capability described in any of the public or secret military dispatches. In the event that no such electronic documentation exists to prevent discovery or disclosure by unauthorized internal or external access to the mission documentation, I have performed a detailed inspection of the spacecraft blueprints in an effort to determine if there is any portion of the craft where such weapons, missiles or high-energy-beam weapons could be stored or attached. To date no such accommodation has been found.

  “In the case of the Russian/European Union program, Project Svoboda, according to the earliest design blueprints, which have since been removed from network storage, there are recessed mountings on the spacecraft to accommodate a Russian/French hybrid air-to-air missile. There is no corresponding documentation stored on any of the mission computer networks suggesting such arms will be included. I have determined that if any such documentation exists, it is strictly in offline hardcopy or stored on a non-networked computer system that I
cannot access.”

  “I wonder if these missiles are nuclear?” Peanut asked. “Even if they are, our shield technology can protect us from both concussive and radiation damage, even from a relatively close detonation.”

  “There is no documentation I have been able to access to suggest one way or the other. The original specifications for that particular weapon shows a high-energy explosive payload,” Genesis replied.

  “Frankly, they’d be stupid to try. However, I’m not willing to give them that much credit. What about EMP?” Christopher asked.

  “The improvements to the habitat since leaving the surface of the moon have considerably hardened the systems here against radiation damage from the sun as well as the electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear detonation in close proximity.”

  “And when do we expect the spacecraft to arrive?” council president Landers asked.

  “The Jove spacecraft is scheduled to depart Earth orbit in seven months, two weeks and four days. The travel time from Earth to the colony, according to the specifications of the propulsion systems and the mission profile, is calculated to be less than eight months. A better estimate will be possible once the spacecraft has powered engines for sustained flight.

  “The Project Svoboda spacecraft is scheduled to leave several weeks after the departure of the Jove spacecraft. Because its nuclear propulsion system has never been fully tested, it is impossible to calculate the speed the craft will attain, or when it will arrive.”

  “Do you have a best-guess estimate on the drive’s thrust capability, Genesis?” Landers asked.

  “A rough estimate of the thrust, based on tests conducted on the ground, suggests that the top speed of the Svoboda spacecraft is as much as twenty percent higher than the ion drive system of the Jove spacecraft. If pressed, the Svoboda spacecraft can arrive here nearly at the same time or just slightly behind the Jove mission, depending on how hard the engines are pushed.”

  “The guys in my department have located a great asteroid in the belt. It’s about twice as large as this place. If we burrow down to the center and start hollowing it out, compressing the rock to four or five times its natural density when we get near the surface, we could have the beginnings of a second habitat fairly far along by the time either mission arrives,” suggested Chuck.