Second Contact, page 21
part #2 of Not Alone Series
From the elevated perspective of his meeting room, William Godfrey disdainfully looked down at the tiny people on the ground as they swarmed around the perimeter of the GSC compound in a fast-growing protest. It didn’t really matter whether they were protesting against his leadership of the GSC or against the GSC itself; either way, this was not a good start to the day.
Blitz News played on the huge TV behind him, giving a live view of a reporter on the ground moving quickly through the growing hoard in search of English-speaking protestors to interview.
“It’s impossible not to think back to the scenes outside Richard Walker’s IDA building last year,” the reporter yelled to her cameraman, raising her voice to be heard over hundreds of others. “And just as Walker defiantly showed up to work even when evidence of his cover-up began to emerge, my sources suggest that Chairman Godfrey is indeed somewhere inside the imposing compound behind us. We’ve had no public comment from him today, and as you can see: the mood is growing restless.”
“Idiots,” Godfrey muttered under his breath, turning slowly towards a table which had far more empty seats than during his other recent meetings. Many desks elsewhere in the building were also unoccupied following the initiation of Godfrey’s purge, a ruthless take-no-prisoners attempt to ensure that whoever leaked the Kerguelen memo to the press would never again be in a position to see any sensitive communications. Anyone who had ever so much as looked at Godfrey the wrong way was gone and this aggressive approach to rooting out the traitors had the full support of other senior GSC officials, all of whom understood the need for classified documents to be handled confidentially.
“The hysteria will die down in a few days, sir,” said one of Godfrey’s few remaining media advisors. “This really isn’t anything like the IDA leak. No one thinks you know some grand secret, and there have been more than a few balanced articles which point out that keeping tentative conclusions from the public until they can be verified is part of your job. Walker knew something big and chose to do everything in his power to hide it. Rational people can see the difference.”
Godfrey glanced up again at the TV, which currently displayed a speculative headline: ‘GSC leak: first crack in a larger cover-up?’
“Rationality is in short supply these days,” he groaned, gesturing first to the TV and then towards the protestors outside. He threw his hands up in an uncharacteristic display of exasperation. “And what do they even think we’re covering up? A meteor entered the atmosphere and exploded after exhibiting some unusual characteristics, fine. What else do they think we know?”
Another advisor replied — this time Manuel, the only remaining Argentine within Godfrey’s inner circle. “Well, sir,” he said, his voice bearing a slight but noticeable accent, “judging by their signs and chants as well as broader social media discussions, the idea of a cover-up is not the main concern of many of the protestors, let alone the only concern. Since Timo’s comments yesterday, there has been a sharp rise in discussions regarding planetary defence and a parallel rise in hostility towards our organisation as a whole. People are calling for action, sir, and they are calling for us to either do it ourselves or get out of Timo’s way.”
Manuel was right: the protestors did have multiple concerns. And to Godfrey’s chagrin, they also appeared to have multiple buzzwords.
Earlier in the day, Billy Kendrick’s calls for what he termed ‘Full Disclosure’ had immediately led to that particular buzzword gaining prominence. But on the streets of Buenos Aires, another old slogan was back.
“Ah, look what we have here!” the reporter’s voice boomed through the TV. Godfrey turned towards it and saw her stop beside a group of college-age friends, all of whom wore matching ‘Ahora Ahora Ahora’ T-shirts.
Godfrey rolled his eyes as the reporter recounted the story of the Now Movement, a loose-knit protest group which swept the world and provided a catchy slogan and chant for angry citizens to unite around in support of Dan McCarthy’s IDA leak: ‘Truth, Truth, Now Now Now’.
‘Now Now Now’ T-shirts had been ubiquitous during huge marches on every populated continent and were still regularly worn by all kinds of people, while the Spanish-language ‘Ahora Ahora Ahora’ variant had become extremely popular in Argentina in the days before a supposedly alien sphere was lifted from the ocean due east of Miramar.
During the furore around the IDA leak, Godfrey had revelled in the catchiness of the slogans used by the millions who protested against Richard Walker and campaigned for capital-D Disclosure. Now that the shoe was on the other foot and those on the street were calling for Full Disclosure while protesting against Godfrey himself, it seemed a lot less humorous.
“What law enforcement agencies will be watching carefully is how the mood in various parts of the world develops in the hours and days ahead,” the reporter continued, moving away from the main throng of protestors and reverting to a more normal volume of speech. “We are already hearing of planned gatherings outside GSC facilities in the United States and Europe, and the tone of those gatherings is likely to dictate the approach and response of local police forces. In the difficult days between the reveal of the first two plaques — which many believed to suggest hostility, as we all recall — and the announcement of DS-1, desperate citizens took to the streets under the new banner of ‘Action Now’ as they demanded protection. The tone of those marches was very different to the tone of the initial marches when people were calling for Disclosure — suddenly there was a primal tension in the air, and that’s the same vibe I’m getting here in Buenos Aires. For the majority of demonstrators, it seems like they don’t view this GSC cover-up as the be-all-and-end-all issue but rather as a telling symptom of the organisation’s unwillingness or inability to keep our planet safe. And if these concerns aren’t addressed by Chairman Godfrey before they gather momentum, things could get very ugly very quickly. For Blitz News, I’m Lisa Belmont.”
Something Lisa Belmont did not report but which Godfrey had been briefed on was the very recent split within the so-called Antidotalists, the fringe group whose vividly expressed raison d’être was to facilitate humanity’s demise. The split arose from one high-ranking member’s public statement that he would welcome the kind of hypothetical planetary threat that Timo Fiore had alluded to on Focus 20/20, and more precisely from that member’s vow to do whatever it took to block any future attempts to defend Earth whether or not they involved launching weaponry into space.
The term ‘Welcomers’ was immediately coined and attached to a splinter group who supported this sentiment of welcoming the destruction of Earth rather than the mere extinction of humanity, but most Antidotalists forwarded the contrary argument that humans had already done so much damage to their home planet that they at least owed it to Earth to protect it from any external threats. Many internet users derided this second position as “hypocrisy at its finest”, arguing that self-preservation motivated the supposedly selfless Antidotalists who were always quick enough to talk about the need for immediate population reduction but never so quick to volunteer their own heads for the chop.
Other onlookers, including William Godfrey, were extremely wary of the language used by the so-called Welcomers. The Antidotalists were already an extremist offshoot of a radical but genuinely environmentally-minded group, and the Welcomers were a tight-knit group who viewed the broader Antidotalist movement as insufficiently assertive. The one positive in Godfrey’s mind was that he could blame the Welcomers for the ballooning anti-GSC protests around the world and in doing so try to taint the general media perception of those gatherings, but this wouldn’t be easy given how small the groups in question really were.
“Even after seeing that report and even knowing what these ‘Welcomer’ idiots are saying, do you still think this will fizzle out if we keep our heads down?” he asked Manuel, the advisor who had earlier provided greater insight than the rest.
Manuel responded with a relatively convincing nod.
“I hope you’re right,” Godfrey replied. “Walker kept turning up for work at the IDA and everything would have blown over if McCarthy, Ford and their friends in the media hadn’t kept drip-feeding new information; the letter, the videos, all of it. But now, for us, there’s nothing else to come out. This is a storm in a teacup and our focus quite simply has to stay on maintaining harmony within the GSC. On that note, I’m told that President Slater has been persuaded to say a few words, at last, in a call for calm and a gentle rebuke of Jack Neal’s irresponsible words in New York. And Ding, for his part, has been placated by my public criticism of the Western tourists who caused last week’s incident at Namtso.”
“What about Timo?” asked Manuel, quickly becoming Godfrey’s firm favourite of his remaining advisors.
In response to this question, Godfrey blew air from his lips. “Well, I can’t pretend that I expected him to talk so firmly about planetary defence, so I can’t pretend to know what he’s going to say next. More to the point, I can’t pretend to know what she’s going to tell him to say next. Do we have any new ground intelligence on their plans for the next few days?”
“Their return flight now leaves Milan tomorrow, sir. They’ve cut the trip short by several days and no one knows why.”
“Interesting,” Godfrey mused. “Good work, Manuel. And from everyone else’s silence I assume we have nothing on the sister? Tara, was it?”
“Indeed,” Manuel said, now apparently speaking for everyone. “She has engaged in minimal social media activity since arriving in Birchwood, and none of our attempts to engage her in conversation with dummy profiles have had any success. Given the security and scrutiny of her location, sir, with it being not just Emma Ford’s house but also the house next door to Dan McCarthy’s, we’re unusually limited in what we can do. Traditional information-gathering techniques are out of the question.”
Godfrey shrugged. “Understandable, I suppose,” he said, surprising everyone with an uncharacteristically tame reaction. “Don’t give up on that completely, but I expect you’re right in thinking that it will prove to be a dead end. For now, I’ll need the room to myself. I have a call with the Strategic Committee in Washington to discuss some amendments to our Arrival protocol.”
Godfrey’s advisors, spread thinly around his large meeting-room table, glanced at each other in shock and confusion. Again, Manuel did the talking: “Arrival protocol, sir?”
“Of course,” Godfrey said with a smile. “A lot of people I trust are now telling me that the latest Kerguelen data really does suggest that there may have been some kind of — well… we can say it, can’t we? — some kind of alien involvement. So if these Messengers are close, distance wise, their arrival may also be close, time wise. And if they ever decide to show up, I have to be properly prepared to greet them.”
No one said anything.
“Disclosure was so last year,” Godfrey continued in a dryly ironic tone. “Something tells me it’s time to get ready for Contact.”
C minus 46
White House
Washington, D.C.
The morning after an explosive Focus 20/20 panel in New York, President Slater authorised a short and succinct statement:
“The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms all politically motivated attempts to destabilise the Global Space Commission and stands firmly behind the GSC’s goals and leadership.”
No one in the American mainstream media paid much attention to the finer details of this statement, but politically astute observers didn’t miss the fact that it had been ‘The United States’ doing the condemning; not Slater herself.
That the simultaneous rebuke to Jack Neal and John Cole and supportive nod to Chairman Godfrey had been delivered via a written statement, rather than directly from Slater’s mouth as many might have expected, only served to add a second layer of impersonality.
In the face of mass anti-GSC protests and speculation as to Slater’s position on Godfrey’s leadership, issuing this kind of statement had been the only responsible course of action.
But in seats of power from London to Buenos Aires, some read more into what wasn’t said than what was.
C minus 45
McCarthy Residence
Birchwood, Colorado
“Happy birthday, son,” Mr Byrd said as he shook Dan’s hand at the front door. “I got you a little something.”
Dan took the gift and invited Mr Byrd inside.
It had been a disappointingly low-key day for Dan so far; not in terms of it being his birthday, which was something he’d never gotten particularly excited about, but more so because nothing related to the Messengers had happened all day, just as nothing had happened overnight.
Dan had been quietly glad to see the growing protests against the GSC’s lies and inaction in various major cities, but the birthday present he really wanted was another message or sign.
So far he had received an aquarium ornament from Clark, in the shape of a little green man. Within an hour of being unwrapped, it was already in there with Skid and the rest of Dan’s easily pleased fish.
Henry, meanwhile, had gone for the simple option of a $30 gift certificate for Mansize Clothing. It was the gift card variant that had Dan’s face on it, along with the words “I shop at Mansize Clothing, and so should you.” Henry laughed heartily when Dan opened it, and Dan saw the funny side while reminding Henry that the embarrassing commercials he reluctantly shot a year earlier had paid for the wheelchair ramps, widened doorways and other modifications that allowed Henry to stay at home.
Tara came over from next door in the afternoon with a handmade card, apologising for her lack of a gift and explaining that she only knew it was Dan’s birthday because it said so on TV. She stayed for just a few minutes, during which time she asked if Dan had been okay since his late-night walk on Saturday and then whether he knew that Emma was now going to arrive home very late the next night having decided, along with Timo, to cut their Italian stay short.
“I’ve not looked at my phone today, but I think Clark said something about that earlier,” Dan had replied, keen to avoid getting into any discussions about why Emma might not be talking to him.
Clark got the feeling that Tara was keen to hang around, but Dan’s lack of engagement — which Clark assumed was borne of his reluctance to risk saying the wrong thing — suggested that he either failed to pick up the same vibe or chose to ignore it. Either way, it ensured that she didn’t stay for long.
Now, meanwhile, as Dan got round to unwrapping the gift from Mr Byrd, his eyes fell upon a remote-controlled drone modelled after the sphere raised from the ocean near Miramar; the very sphere which had contained the two supposedly alien plaques that caused so much fear until the third was found in Salzburg and provided calming context.
The toy sphere, which had been a top-seller during the previous Christmas season, functioned like a basic drone with the workings hidden inside a lightweight sphere-shaped exterior. Ads still ran for the toy every day, often showing it flying out of bodies of water above a tiny written warning that it wasn’t actually waterproof.
“Thanks,” Dan said. It was the thought that counted.
“No problem,” Mr Byrd replied, reaching into his pocket. “And before I forget, Phil sent this.”
For the first time all day, Dan’s eyes lit up when he saw what was inside the envelope. “It’s my cheque!” he beamed, holding it out for Clark and Henry to see. “The $85 cheque for the first article I ever sold! Remember when I had to cash it last year, to buy the stuff Trey picked up to help me translate the letter? Phil must have hung on to it for all that time.”
“He’s a good man,” Henry said.
No one disagreed out loud, but Clark was still less than pleased that Phil had revoked his meal-card and hit him with a newspaper for trying to use the card to get a free meal for someone who needed it. Phil had told Henry, who unsurprisingly sided with him over Clark, and Dan hadn’t seemed to care either way on any of the several occasions Clark had complained about it since.
“That reminds me!” Henry continued. “Man alive, she would’ve killed me if I’d forgotten this. Dan, Emma left something for you. It’s in my room. Byrd, fancy helping me bring it out here?”
Dan looked at Clark, who gave an honest shrug.
“Wait in the kitchen and don’t look,” Mr Byrd called. The brothers followed the instruction.
A minute or two later, Dan had to fight back his emotions as he stared at the large telescope in the middle of his living room — exactly the kind he’d always spoken about with Emma but for one reason or another had never gotten around to buying. He walked over for a closer look and ran his hand up and down the smooth black surface of the wide optical tube. A small gift tag dangled from the focusing knob, with a picture of a cartoon spaceman on the front and a handwritten message on the back:
“Aim high and enjoy the stars, Dan McCarthy! Never look down, never look back. Love, Emma.”
There were five kisses, written in black like the rest of the message, along with a large red heart.
“It’s perfect,” Dan said. He turned to Henry. “Thanks for holding on to it.”
“No sweat. But I don’t think it’s me you should be thanking; that thing is almost as wide as a beer keg and I looked up how much it cost. The answer was a lot.”
Dan nodded. “I’ll call her. And Mr Byrd, thanks again for the sphere.”
“Enjoy,” the old man laughed. “Henry, are you coming to the bar?”
“Would you mind?” Henry asked Dan.
“Knock yourself out,” Dan said, already on his way outside to try calling Emma. He hadn’t gotten through on his last attempt, but that had been on Saturday — just hours after he told Timo the secret — and it had come as little surprise that she didn’t want to speak to him then.
