Second Contact, page 51
part #2 of Not Alone Series
Trey Myers, who had accompanied Timo to another nearby hospital, glumly reported that Timo was currently in surgery and very likely to lose his right arm and require extensive skin grafts elsewhere due to bearing the brunt of the razor-like shrapnel ejected by the small IED on the underside of his chair. As bad as things were for Timo and as much blood as he had lost, there was at least no suggestion of any serious threat to his life.
No medical staff had said anything out loud about the severity of Emma’s injuries, but between Tara’s report from the ambulance and the initial look on Clark’s face at the scene, Dan thought the outlook was bleak. He tried to ease his mind by falling back on the logic that a head-knock bad enough to kill someone would do so right away, but he didn’t know enough about this subject to convince himself of anything.
A muted TV, mounted high on the waiting room’s wall, displayed the headline “Carnage In Colorado Springs!” alongside a live report from the scene. No one could bear to look at it.
Time was a blur, marked only by the obnoxious strobe-light effect of a perfume commercial which ran on Blitz News every fifteen or twenty minutes. No one else entered the waiting room until shortly after this ad’s seventh airing, when Clark saw someone approaching the automatic doors behind Dan’s back.
Clark, facing the door, told Dan who was coming: “It’s the doc.”
The answers as to whether Emma had woken up and whether they could see her soon would come before a word was spoken, for they all knew that someone delivering this kind of news could wear only one of two expressions.
When the door slid open and Dan McCarthy turned to glance at the doctor’s face, he saw the wrong one.
C plus 28
GSC Headquarters
Buenos Aires, Argentina
William Godfrey stood speechless and alone in his cavernous office. The mood following the terrible events in Colorado Springs was one of utter dejection; without doubt, the sombre scenes throughout the GSC’s headquarters were far worse in Godfrey’s eyes than the chaotic mania of other recent times.
An assassination attempt on Timo Fiore was a direct attack on humanity’s hopes and plans for survival. And if the worst of the unconfirmed rumours about Timo’s condition were true, the attack was likely to prove a fatal blow to the world’s already slim survival prospects.
Even more so than within the GSC, the managerial structures at Fiore Frontiere and Timo’s other businesses were built around one man. As well as acting as a figurehead for his staff to rally around, Timo had been known to provide near-dictatorial guidance whenever he saw fit and all personnel within his organisations were very accustomed to working under such oversight. Another concern for Godfrey was the admittedly coarse but unavoidable financial question: if Timo was gone, who would decide which of his projects would receive sufficient funding to continue and thrive?
With no children or siblings and no public declarations regarding how his fortune would be handled when he was no longer around to pull the strings, Timo’s death would have posed extreme challenges for any kind of project he was heavily involved in at the time. But when the safety of Earth quite possibly hung on one of the projects in question, these difficulties were amplified exponentially.
Only making matters worse, Godfrey had already heard reporters using the attack as proof that society’s inevitable descent into lawless disorder was already past the point of no return. “We now live in a world where not even Timo Fiore is safe,” one reporter put it. “A world where law enforcement and private security can’t even protect the wealthiest man on Earth.”
This was a worthwhile point, Godfrey reluctantly conceded. The possibly fatal attack on Timo, which Godfrey was less upset to learn had perhaps claimed Emma Ford as collateral damage, undeniably did show the public that the world was already unsafe because of the approaching comet; this was no surprise to anyone, but such a brazen and costly attack had more impact on the average psyche than did scenes of general chaos and looting.
And if they knew just how much we were counting on him… Godfrey thought to himself. If they knew just how paltry our member states’ proposals at the summit really were, and if they knew that some of the tech Timo’s teams have been working on really is the only hope we have…
And that was the primary point, as Godfrey saw it: quite simply, Timo could no longer help. This was the point weighing on his mind and this was the point he feared would drive everyday citizens into nihilistic hopelessness.
Many members of the public had tuned in to Timo’s press conference in the hope that he was going to present a major breakthrough. Timo and Emma had quietly told Godfrey that this wasn’t really the case and that they were instead going to exaggerate the novelty of one much discussed but previously unpublicised plan for defending Earth against the comet. This plan involved the repurposing of what would otherwise have become RS-1, transforming it into a craft capable of trying to deflect the comet using the ‘cannonball method’ of bombarding it with kinetic impactors — a method Timo’s staff had been exploring since long before Il Diavolo emerged as a specific and imminent threat.
Research Station 1, known as RS-1 and the GSC’s first flagship project since DS-1, was essentially ready to launch. The usual lengthy testing and safety procedures could be cast aside and, through necessity, would be cast aside. The difficulty would come in the repurposing and the real difficulty would come in the timing and scale of the bombardment. The one big positive was that the GSC had already developed a rocket booster capable of launching something far heavier than RS-1, which meant that there was plenty of wiggle-room to make the necessary amendments — particularly once RS-1 was stripped of the equipment and life-support systems which would be wholly unnecessary for an unmanned one-way trip towards the comet.
But without the direct input from Timo they were used to, let alone the colossal funding he provided, Godfrey didn’t know how effectively Timo’s planetary defence team would be able to act upon the research and planning they had been quietly conducting for so long.
Very suddenly, the TV in Godfrey’s office then flashed red before the screen was filled with a bullet-point breakdown of potential suspects and motives for the attack.
The absence of a visible suspect or culprit, although tremendously frustrating, was at least peculiarly beneficial in that it prevented the media from dividing along tribal and partisan lines based on which narratives the attacker’s profile fitted best; thus far, the entire media had remained united in horror and despair.
There was anger, for sure, and it was aimed largely at the bizarre group who called themselves Welcomers and had recently attempted to carry out attacks at GSC sites around the world. Although the Welcomers were almost universally described as terrorists, saboteurs would have been a more accurate term since their goal was not to spread fear but rather to directly prevent the successful development of any Earth-saving defensive measures.
Not for one second did Godfrey believe that John Cole and Jack Neal might have played a part in what happened, despite a handful of commentators semi-seriously floating the idea. The notion that they may indeed have been involved grew arms and legs within an hour or so of the attack, to the extent that the speculation ultimately prompted Godfrey to issue a video statement urging calm.
He also took the opportunity to assure the world’s citizenry that humanity was “stronger than the soulless scoundrels and bottom-feeding scum-suckers who call themselves ‘Welcomers’ could ever understand.” Somewhat extending beyond his jurisdiction, Godfrey then promised to respond to the attack with unprecedented force. This statement didn’t mean all that much in real terms, but Godfrey had been around for long enough to know that it was what people needed to hear.
The GSC’s inaugural Chairman concluded his brief video statement with another few lines he knew that people both wanted and needed to hear: “We owe a lot to both Timo Fiore and Emma Ford, and all I can say regarding their individual situations is that they are in the hands of the finest medical experts in the world. And thanks to the planetary defence research that Timo’s staff have been quietly conducting for several years, the fate of our planet remains in our own hands. It would be inappropriate for me to get into specifics at this difficult and trying time, but rest assured that nothing is on hold and that everything Timo was going to announce today will be announced in due course. Until then — and I know this is easier said than done — what we all need to do, fellow citizens, is keep calm and carry on.”
Ten minutes after issuing this statement, Godfrey remained alone in his office. His words had gone down well; and while no one could be described as anything close to calm, the general tone of the media’s discussions was certainly less frenzied than it had been before he spoke.
But whatever his words did for everyone else, they did little for Godfrey.
For however convincingly he could lie to the world about humanity’s chances of survival, he couldn’t lie to himself.
C plus 29
McKinley-Dwyer Hospital
Colorado Springs, Colorado
The doctor took a visibly deep breath, his chest rising and falling very slowly.
“Well?” Tara said, rising to her feet.
The doctor tried to force a small smile. “Well, she’s not yet conscious, but she is stable,” he said.
Although Tara was somewhat eased by this — it wasn’t the news she had really feared — Dan and Clark shared an uncomfortable look. After Henry McCarthy’s serious accident the previous year, “stable” had been every doctor’s favourite word; but within a few days, the brothers came to realise that it wasn’t always a good one to hear. The wrong kind of stability saw months go by before Henry even opened his eyes, and his life was never the same from then on out.
But so great was their concern, Dan, Clark and Tara would all have gladly taken a similar outcome to Henry’s if it was offered up. Right now, all they wanted to hear was that Emma was going to make it.
Tara wasted very little time in asking this outright, cutting short the doctor’s rundown and catching him off guard. He opened his mouth to reply then closed it again to rethink his words. No one could ever accuse Dan of being an expert on reading body language or facial expressions, but the doctor didn’t look comfortable.
“The scans have revealed some head trauma,” he eventually said, “but I’m more optimistic about your sister’s prospects than I was before I saw the results.”
“So she will be okay?” Tara pushed, putting him firmly on the spot.
Again, he chose his words carefully: “At this stage, it’s too early to say anything so definitive.”
Tara went again: “But I’m asking if she’ll make it.”
“Well, as I said, it’s very early. What I can say is that of all our scans — and there have been several — none have revealed anything else of immediate concern. There were concerns about a direct injury to the abdomen but fortunately there’s been no organ damage.”
“Did the scans show anything on the back of her neck?” Tara asked, her tone suddenly changing.
The doctor shook his head. “It’s the head trauma that’s concerning us.”
“So nothing showed up on her neck?” Clark asked, quickly seeing that Tara wasn’t asking about a potential neck injury but rather a potential trace of something extraterrestrial in the spot where Emma and Dan felt pain whenever the Messengers were close.
The doctor, looking more than a little confused by why they kept asking about Emma’s neck, reaffirmed that there were no concerns about either a neck injury or arterial damage from the shrapnel.
“There won’t be anything to see and she won’t have felt anything there,” Dan said, talking aloud mainly to himself and not giving a thought to what the doctor might hear. “I didn’t feel anything. They weren’t there. They let it happen, but they weren’t there.”
“Uh, what’s this?” the doctor asked.
“So when can we see her?” Tara butted in, not to halt Dan’s over-sharing but purely because she was desperate to know. “I want to see her.”
The doctor sat down and told them that it would be best for everyone if they all went home to await more information. Emma was under extremely close observation, he said, and not in an area designed to receive visitors. He said that even if or when she regained consciousness there would only be room for one visitor at most, and that frequent switching between them wouldn’t be possible. The man was curt in his words, neither kindly nor dismissive, and spoke to them exactly as he would have spoken to anyone else.
Clark turned to Dan. “You okay with that?”
“I’m staying,” Tara answered for him. “He said one visitor will be allowed when she’s conscious and I want to be here so she’s not on her own when she wakes up.”
“We’ll stay with you,” Dan said.
Tara shook her head. “It would be different if you could see her. What about Timo? You could visit him. And don’t take this the wrong way but since you can’t see her anyway, I sort of want to wait here by myself.”
Again, Clark looked at Dan. This time Dan relented; he wanted to be there when Emma woke up, too, but the doctor had made it clear that only one person would be allowed in and he couldn’t exactly barge her little sister out of the way.
“Thank you for your understanding,” the doctor said as he walked back towards the door he’d come from. “We’ll keep you informed of all developments.”
Clark told Tara to call him if she needed anything at all — they wouldn’t be far away — then encouraged Dan to get up. The news could have been a lot better and it could have been a lot worse, but rather than relief or concern on Dan’s face, Clark saw anger. He himself felt a burning rage at whoever had planted the IED and he wouldn’t rest until they faced justice, but he was surprised to see that a similar feeling was also getting the better of Dan’s other emotions.
“At least we know it wasn’t them,” Clark said as they stepped outside. “Like you said… because otherwise you would have felt something, wouldn’t you?”
Dan stopped walking. “Why would you even think it might have been them?”
“Maybe because we were going to show the plaque and they didn’t want us to? Or the footage maybe?”
“Then why the fuck would they give us it?!” Dan snapped.
Clark was slightly taken aback; he knew the anger wasn’t directed at him, but it was more than rare to hear an F-bomb coming out of Dan’s mouth.
“I’m just thinking out loud, man,” Clark said. “When Tara asked about Emma’s neck and you said you didn’t feel anything, that was the first time I thought about them at all. You’re the one who said they weren’t there.”
“That’s the whole point,” Dan scowled, his volume low but his tone fierce. “They weren’t there. They jump in like it’s nothing when Walker is about to say the wrong thing in an interview, but they do nothing when Timo and Emma are about to be blown up? What kind of bullshit is that? They could have stepped in. They could have saved her. So why didn’t they?”
Clark had no answer to this. He hadn’t been asking himself the question, but now that Dan had raised it he could understand the anger on his face and the venom in his tone.
Dan’s heart was filled with rage at the terroristic and nihilistic Welcomers he saw as almost certainly responsible for the attack, but his most pronounced anger lay at the door of the supposedly friendly extraterrestrials who had decided to let it happen.
Nearing their parked car, Dan knelt down on the tarmac and threw out his hands. “Where are you?” he bellowed. “Huh? Where the hell are you? Why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t you save her?”
Clark saw a woman looking down from an open window on the hospital’s third floor. She wasn’t filming them, at least, and he figured that to an uninformed bystander Dan’s words would surely sound like they were aimed at God rather than a group of selectively non-interventionist extraterrestrials.
It didn’t take long for Dan’s head to fall and for his eyes to start letting out the tears he had been holding back for so long. As more people gathered at the overlooking windows, Clark helped Dan to his feet and into the car; the onlookers were almost certainly sympathetic to what they were seeing, but that didn’t mean Clark wanted them to see any more of it.
“We should take this stuff home to the basement before we go to see Timo,” Clark said, gesturing to Timo’s plaque-containing briefcase and Trey’s footage-containing laptop which both lay under a blanket on the back seat.
Dan nodded. “It’s not a lot of use to us now, anyway,” he said, looking despondently through his passenger-side window.
The sky was clear and empty; beyond the slightest of doubts, he was alone.
C plus 30
McCarthy Residence
Birchwood, Colorado
Although there had never been anything on any level close to this, after previous unexpected events Dan and Clark had grown only too accustomed to asking Emma what to do next.
They had grown only too accustomed to asking her who might be behind some scheming action or another; only too accustomed to asking for her expert take on the behind-the-scenes angles; and only too accustomed to asking what they themselves should do in response.
But now that the worst action of all had left Emma not just unable to help them understand an event but fighting for her own life because of it, they had no one to turn to but each other.
The trend-ticker on the wall kept cycling through two posts, both pointing the blame at John Cole. If Emma had been at his side rather than in hospital, Dan felt sure that she would have dismissed this out of hand. Both Cole and Jack Neal had proven themselves irresponsible and irrational with their comet-leaking fiasco, but a multiple assassination attempt in front of the world’s cameras was a step too far. The maniacal group of terroristic eco-nihilists who called themselves Welcomers were a far more likely bet in Dan’s eyes and had indeed already claimed responsibility, but the relative lack of drama inherent in that story saw it relegated to occasional mentions by the orgiastically sensationalist news networks.
