The third pillar to show serious signs of cracking in the western world had been the food supply. Most never really appreciated that upwards of seventy percent of the goods and items we consumed were delivered by truck. With a massive shortage of labor and streets jammed with people in cars attempting to flee to the country, it was only natural that catastrophic disruptions were bound to take place.
Kay couldn’t help remembering her days as a college freshman studying classics, a full semester before she’d transferred into journalism. One thing from those early days studying Carthage and Rome had stayed with her. Two thousand years ago, Rome was a bustling metropolis of over a million people. But the surrounding countryside didn’t grow enough grain to feed such a massive population. So Egypt, then part of the empire, was tasked with picking up the slack. On account of the fertile lands around the Nile, the area was known as Rome’s breadbasket. It was during a time of turmoil in the capital that a shrewd general named Vespasian used this to his advantage. He threatened to cut off the grain supply because he understood one very important truth. If you controlled the food, you controlled Rome.
Two thousand years later society was still skating along that thin line between order and chaos. Sure, there were police and National Guard troops protecting the grocery stores and rationing out what remained. But even Kay knew it was only a question of time before that veneer of civility disappeared and a full breakdown occurred. The thread that bound the sweater of civilization might be holding, but it was frayed.
During her meeting with Sentinel’s mystery man, Kay had been told in no uncertain terms to let this go. Without intending to, Kay had done their bidding, releasing false information that had helped indict five members of President Taylor’s cabinet and put Secretary Myers, a Sentinel operative, into the Oval Office.
There was still no telling what would happen to the cabinet members falsely accused of conspiracy, nor to President Taylor, still in a coma following the attack on Marine One. With only days remaining before the doomsday ship arrived, there simply wasn’t enough time for proper trials, and certainly not enough time for Taylor to wake up and take back control of the country.
That left Sentinel’s man in charge, which in more ways than one meant Sentinel was in charge. Given the propaganda going around, Kay had heard two-thirds of the country was now against contact with an extraterrestrial race and, by extension, in favor of blasting the hell out of the incoming spaceship. Would knowing what had really happened make a difference in people’s minds? She wasn’t convinced it would. But either way, this was still a democracy and the people deserved to know the truth.
That was precisely the reason Kay had decided to write an article blowing the lid off the entire Sentinel conspiracy—a full exposé on how Sentinel had masterminded one of the most brazen coups in modern history. Of course they had threatened to embarrass her father with lies about sexual improprieties. She knew that wouldn’t work. They’d tried it with her and had failed and her father was made of much tougher stuff by far.
She had finished the article earlier today and fired it off to the newsroom right before she’d come to stand in this breadline from hell.
Kay was in the middle of sending an email when her phone rang. It was the newsroom editor, Ron Lewis.
“Please don’t ask me to reveal my sources,” she said preemptively.
“I just got out of a meeting with legal,” he said in his usual curt and rather insensitive tone. “We can’t run your story.”
Kay felt the breath catch in her throat. “Excuse me? You can’t run my… why the hell not?”
“From a legal point of view, the risk to the paper would be far too great.”
“Legal?” Kay repeated, incredulous with what she was hearing. “Ron, it’s possible in a few days there won’t be a paper at all. I’ve just given you a conspiracy that’s bigger than Watergate and the JFK assassination put together and you tell me you’re worried about getting sued. Do you realize that by even writing that story, I’ve put my entire family at risk?”
“It’s not a lawsuit we’re worried about,” he replied, cutting right through everything else she’d just said.
“Then what is it?”
“In the last week alone the government’s put an injunction on five newspapers and two television stations.”
The line advanced a few feet and Kay followed along, switching the phone to her other ear and trying her damned best to stay calm. “I heard about that. They were tiny backwoods news outlets, Ron, I don’t see―”
“They were a proof of concept,” Ron shouted back, stopping her short. “The government wanted to see if they could get away with it or whether a federal judge would have the balls to stop them, especially given what’s going on. Predictably, everyone’s so busy looking for aliens they weren’t paying attention. Now I hear the White House is ready to put the kibosh on any news outfit that doesn’t toe the line. CBS, NBC, the New York Times, they’re all just one unflattering story away from being shuttered.”
“I got lab results on the missile debris they found mingled in with the president’s downed helicopter that proves some of the missiles were from a Ukrainian military base. This wasn’t some half-baked plot cooked up by a bunch of disgruntled cabinet members. It was the work of an international organization desperate to unseat an existing president in order to further their own aims. The Post has faced bullies before. Remember Nixon and the Watergate story. We almost didn’t run that for fear of losing the paper, but we did and we were proven right.”
“I don’t know,” Ron said, stubborn as always.
All the same, there was a strange quality in his voice. On some level, she couldn’t explain, she sensed she was getting through to him. She just needed to push a little harder.
“What about the truth, Ron?” she said. “Isn’t that why we got in this business in the first place? It’s one of the reasons I begged, pleaded to trade my lifestyle beat for the newsroom. You know my story’s bulletproof and that’s why you’re scared to run it. But just ask yourself one question. Do you really want betraying the Post to be the last thing you do on this earth?”
“All right, dammit!” he screamed. “We’ll run it. But if this goes south it’s on your head.”
“If this goes south,” Kay repeated, “we won’t have heads to worry about.”
Chapter 6
68 hours, 22 minutes, 45 seconds
Jack spun around, marveling at his exotic surroundings. Not only exotic, but lush. He was standing in a forest. No, forest wasn’t the right word. He was standing in a jungle and easily the strangest one he had ever seen. Thick clumps of dragon blood trees rose hundreds of feet into the air on long thin yellow trunks. High above him, giant red and orange palm leaves choked the sky, eagerly soaking in the rays cast from an alien sun. And by all appearances, it was a sun much more powerful than the main sequence variety he knew back on earth. A beam of light bled down through the dense canopy, bathing him in warmth. But it wasn’t long before Jack activated his gold-layered visor assembly. The skin on his face was beginning to burn.
Nearby, violet tentacles protruded up from a nearby patch of undergrowth, waving back and forth in a delicate breeze. He approached and they withdrew at once, pulling back into their protective home.
Jack paused to stare down at his now mud-stained biosuit, a consequence of the tumble he’d taken after falling head first through the portal. There was something unusual about this mud. He bent down and scooped some up with the tips of his gloved fingers, examining it. Could it be shimmering? He held it up to the sun’s rays and, when that didn’t answer the question, spun his back to the light and snapped on his head lamp. Whatever this was, it seemed to be pulsating with light.
His eyes were drawn back to the trees. Like the wispy violet strands, they too appeared to be swaying back and forth, the giant photoreceptor leaves flicking up and down like enormous kites. The sight certainly explained the movement they had detected earlier staring through
the portal.
“Control, you getting any of this?” he asked, breathless. No reply came, but that was hardly a surprise. There was no sign of Anna either, who he reminded himself had been the very reason for his mad dash into danger. But the sheer majesty of his surroundings had quickly done away with all that. Jack turned back and stared at the portal, now swirling in the opposite direction. On the other side were distorted shapes that didn’t look human.
“Anna, do you read me?” If she was still in one piece, then Jack was sure she should be getting his signal. Uncertain, he pushed ahead, calling out to her over and over. There was no clear path visible in this world of vibrant fall colors. The ground was also uneven, and Jack found himself scrambling over ten-foot-high berms where the landscape seemed to rise and fall like waves in the deep ocean. Except these waves were covered in dense fronds that glowed magenta and cyan until he approached. Clearly the environment was reacting to his presence, although he wasn’t sure just yet whether or not it approved of his intrusion. Jack was breathing hard, pushing aside an assortment of bizarre-looking foliage as he struggled forward.
“Anna, are you there?”
Jack ran his OHMD glasses through every spectrum of light available―infrared and ultraviolet among others―and yet he still wasn’t having any luck. The auditory sensors in his suit detected a sound in the distance and played it for him. He stood rooted for a moment, puzzled. It was a crashing sound, like that of a falling tree striking the forest floor. Surely it was too far and too loud to be Anna.
Suddenly Jack felt something pull his right foot from under him. He fell back into a patch of violet wisps, which retracted to safety at once. Worried, Jack stared down where he’d been standing to see a long thin form crawling along the ground. Less than a second later it disappeared into the undergrowth. He scrambled to his feet. Had that been a snake? He wasn’t sure, although there had been something even more unusual about the creature. The tail end had been frayed.
Then understanding came all at once. It was the severed end of Anna’s rope. He chased after it, stomping through the dense jungle, through beams of light and shadow, trying to catch sight of the cord. A ripple of movement in a patch of yellow bushes to his left caught his eye and Jack bolted in that direction, scrambling over the damp soil. He entered an open space about five feet square and that was when he saw what he was looking for, peeking out from a thicket. He lunged and grabbed it with both hands, working one fist over the other.
A black object buzzed his head, then another. Moments later they returned, hovering ten feet off the ground, red lights blinking. They were the drones Anna had sent in earlier, the ones the science team at Zulu had lost contact with.
“Dr. Greer,” a gentle female voice said over the radio. “What are you doing on channel one hundred and eleven?”
He blinked. “I don’t know. Maybe the settings got jumbled when I hit the ground on my way in.”
Anna stepped out into the clearing. “I thought the plan was to await my return before you entered the portal.”
“Your signal cut off as soon as you entered. I was… we were worried you were in trouble.”
“I have been collecting specimens,” she replied, proudly holding up a handful of colorful leaves.
Jack noticed her feet were caked in shimmering clumps of mud. She followed his eyes, and glanced down at her legs. “The soil here is also most unusual.”
Just then a tiny glowing dot whizzed past them. Jack ducked and followed it as it danced out of view.
“Did you see that, Dr. Greer?”
“Of course. What the hell was it?”
“I am not certain. Although I suspect it could be an indigenous lifeform.”
“You mean it’s an insect of some kind?”
“Perhaps,” she replied, thoughtfully. “I have observed them several times already. Normally they remain high up in the canopy.” She extended a finger toward the sky.
Jack’s gaze followed. He squinted, waiting for movement. Once his eyes had adjusted, a series of blinking red lights came into focus. The glare of the sun and the red leaves overhead created the impression they were blinking in and out of existence. The long-distance sensors captured another loud crashing sound, only this time it was closer and recurring at regular intervals.
“Are you getting that?” Jack asked, tapping the side of his helmet.
“I am. Perhaps it is another lifeform,” she said excitedly.
“Yeah, well, if it is, it doesn’t sound very happy.” Jack looked around, realizing he was completely lost. “Any chance you can point us to the portal?”
Anna’s synthetic brow furrowed as she scanned the jungle. “Over there,” she said, pointing to the southwest.
Jack quickly grabbed the loose rock-climbing rope and tied the remainder around her waist. The last thing he wanted was to be hard-charging toward the exit only to see it get snagged. With that sorted, they set off at a brisk pace, the sound of heavy footfalls growing closer every second.
“Head left,” Anna told him.
Jack did so, distinctly aware he could now feel the ground trembling beneath his feet. Up ahead, he spotted the portal. Before, it had been a scientific mystery, but now it was nothing less than a ticket home.
“It is getting closer,” Anna said. Her excitement at meeting the natives seemed to be dimming.
“No shit.” Jack glanced behind him as they ran, and the sight made his eyes bulge with fear. The yellow trunks of trees were being pushed aside like blades of grass. Whatever this was, it was very big and very pissed off.
The drones hovering above tore off toward the creature, which was now less than thirty feet away. Anna’s aim was to distract it and for a moment it seemed to be working. That was until the sound of crunching plastic made it clear the drones were no more.
Seconds later, they arrived at the doorway, the giant creature close behind, clomping through the alien jungle intent on making a meal out of them as it had done with the drones. Both Jack and Anna stood rooted in horror, mesmerized with the promise of what they might see. And then for only the briefest flash, Jack glimpsed a dark, lumbering shape webbed in shadow and the sight of its enormity drew deep fingernails of fear along the top of his skull. In a single motion, he pushed Anna into the portal before leaping in after her.
Chapter 7
65 hours, 50 minutes, 33 seconds
They emerged into a chaotic world of flashing yellow emergency lights and booming voices.
“Prepare decontamination protocol,” Admiral Stark shouted as two techs in hazmat suits advanced with mobile sprayers.
Jack rose to his feet and saw that they had returned to the chamber, but that a protective glass barrier had been erected around the portal. He was in the middle of helping Anna off the floor when the techs rushed in. Jack threw up a hand and told them to back down. Anna’s left hand was still clutching the strange-looking leaves she’d collected and both of them still bore clumps of alien mud splattered up to their ankles.
“We need sample kits right away,” Jack told them.
The techs drew to a stop and looked back at Admiral Stark. After a moment’s hesitation, Stark motioned for them to do as Jack had instructed.
Ten minutes later, with samples taken and the remaining contaminants neutralized, Jack and Anna were escorted to a Quonset hut with a sign reading “Command Center” hung over the door. Inside, key scientific and military personnel had gathered for the debriefing.
Locked in utter fascination, the group watched a recording Jack had taken with his OHMD as well as video captured by Anna’s drones.
“Where the bloody hell did you go?” Grant asked, mystified.
Jack shook his head. “I wish I could tell you.”
“The ecology is like nothing we’ve ever seen before,” Gabby said.
Dag folded his hands behind his head. “Our first look at an alien world. But why aren’t the plants green? Wouldn’t they have photosynthesis just like on Earth?”
; Gabby shook her head. “Not necessarily. On Earth, chlorophyll reflects green light from our sun. That’s why plants are green. Since green light is reflected rather than absorbed, it can’t contribute to photosynthesis. A brighter star in another solar system would tend to emit more blue and ultraviolet light. If a planet contained an oxygen atmosphere and ozone layer, they would block the ultraviolet, so that only the blue would penetrate. Thus life on that world would evolve a type of photosynthesis designed to absorb blue light and maybe even green. With the yellow, orange and red light reflected, it would explain why the leaves display what to our eye look like bright fall colors.”
“Since each sun displays a unique spectrum of light,” Eugene began once Gabby had finished, “if I tinker a little, I might be able to see if Jack’s videos can help identify the star the planet’s orbiting around.”
“That is assuming the star is in our database,” Anna interjected.
“Or in our universe,” Jack said, folding arms that were still shaking from the encounter.
Everyone grew silent, contemplating the enormity of their challenge.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Stark said, breaking the spell. He jabbed a finger in the air. “We are here for one reason and one reason alone. To stop that ship from landing on our heads. Now if all you found over there was a bunch of funny-looking plants, then it seems to me we might as well start digging holes for each other.”
Anna’s gaze flicked between Jack and the others. “We witnessed more than ‘funny-looking plants,’” she told them. “There were at least two distinct life forms, although there is no way to be certain whether or not either of them was intelligent.”
Gabby, Stark and the others straightened in their chairs.
“Don’t you think that’s kind of an important detail to leave out?” Dag asked, his lips parted with incredulity.
Extinction Crisis Page 3
