Second Contact, page 61
part #2 of Not Alone Series
“Apology accepted,” Dan replied. “But you need to realise that the things you say have an effect on people, man. You’re smart, you’ve got a good voice… surely there must be better ways for you to make a living then tearing people down all the time?”
Crabbe looked as though he was really thinking about this for a few seconds until his expression changed. “Do you have the dog?” he asked, a sudden urgency in his voice. “You knew where Richard was and someone pressed the button in his kitchen a few nights after the interview, so I’m hoping you drove out there…”
“We pressed the button and we have the dog,” Dan confirmed.
“Good,” Crabbe said, gradually inching towards his car and gesturing with his hand to indicate that he was leaving. “Anyway, McCarthy, I’m glad you came. He wouldn’t have wanted most of these bottom-feeding leeches to be here throwing themselves in front of the cameras, but something tells me he wouldn’t have minded seeing you.”
Dan watched Crabbe leave, and while doing so hoped that some of his words might have gotten through. No pictures of their brief conversation would be published, because no one had any interest in presenting Joe Crabbe in a positive or even neutral light. Dan sometimes wished he could revert back to a mental state in which he didn’t understand these kinds of media machinations — the world was a nicer place when some things went unnoticed — but he ultimately took comfort from Emma’s oft-cited maxim that seeing the bullshit was a prerequisite for slicing through it.
As soon as Crabbe was gone, Clark led Dan away. They stopped at the grave for a few moments of reflection and then walked the gauntlet of authorised media crews on their way back towards the waiting car.
From the back seat of the chauffeur-driven car, Clark looked out at the politicians and other public figures swanning around the cemetery like they were at some kind of charity gala. “You know something, man?” he said with an expression of visceral disdain. “If I was an alien, I don’t think I would have saved this place. Look at them.”
“That’s not the real world,” Dan replied, waving a dismissive hand at the surreal scene. “That’s what you get when your structures of power reward the worst kinds of traits. The real world is farms and forests and, I dunno, kids playing at the park or whatever. Looking at those idiots and saying the world isn’t worth saving would be like looking in a trash bag and saying all of our stuff is garbage. Life is too short to let those creeps ruin it, man. Stop looking in the trash… look at the nice stuff instead.”
“You might be on to something there,” Clark mused, turning away and looking out at the trees on the other side of the road. A bird landed on a high branch, carrying a twig longer than its whole body and adding it to a semi-constructed nest.
“See?” Dan said, catching sight of the same bird. “That’s the real world. That’s where to look.”
EIGHT MONTHS LATER
C plus 49
Ford Residence
Birchwood, Colorado
An alarm sounded on Dan’s phone, telling him that it was time to go.
“Thirty minutes until the comet is as close as it’s ever going to get…” he called to Emma, disabling the notification on his Diavolo Tracker app. “We need to get going.”
“I’m glad it’s night-time,” Tara said, standing up from the couch beside him and stretching her legs. “Better view.”
In the eight months since Contact Day, Tara Ford’s life had finally begun moving in directions she was happy with. A career change from the world of modelling into the world of fashion design was the headline difference, and she couldn’t have been more pleased with how it was going so far. Her initial involvement had been restricted to the licensing of her name and image — extremely lucratively, and without too great a cost in terms of her daily privacy and low-key lifestyle — but her ultimate intention was to become more and more hands-on in the design stages as time passed. Happily, the excellent initial sales of her first line made it very likely that she would be able to call a lot more shots when it came time to renegotiate the licensing terms.
She had also moved into a contemporary apartment in Colorado Springs, close enough to still spend a lot of her free time in Birchwood but far enough away to satisfy her independent nature.
For Dan, the welcome trajectory of his own life could be best expressed by his main graph on Emma’s Social Media Meta Analysis app, where his key metrics now followed less of a roller coaster-like pattern and more of a constant and gradual downward return to something approaching normality. His level of celebrity continued to far exceed anything he had known prior to Contact Day, of course, but the madness of the first few post-Contact months had steadily subsided.
Being revered as a prophet and messiah was less fun for Dan than it might have sounded to many, but he was able to grin and bear the obsessive attention he still received from some quarters largely because he had come to accept it as the inevitable price of doing what had to be done.
This kind of fame had been the last thing Dan McCarthy had ever wanted, as everyone around him knew, but he would have done everything the same way one hundred times over if that was what it took to get the truth out and safeguard humanity’s very future. He likewise quietly endured the monthly medical check-ups he and Emma were required to undergo at approved federal facilities, none of which had detected anything unusual in their necks or anywhere else.
Emma had been questioned extensively by Harris and his colleagues following her release from the hospital, but no one was overly surprised that she couldn’t tell them any more than Dan already had.
The couple’s undoubted highlight of recent times had come when they enjoyed a much-needed two-week vacation in the Seychelles around a month earlier, revelling in the privacy of the closed resort and seizing their chance to put everything else to one side for a while.
With things between them having gone as well as they had in the meantime, Dan had thought about bringing a ring with him but decided against it just before they departed. Another tourist at their resort had the same idea and proposed in front of them during a romantic dinner, and it seemed as though almost all of the other couples they encountered were there on their honeymoons.
There were many moments which could have been awkward and would have been if Emma and Dan didn’t share the same sense of humour, regularly joking with others that she wanted to wait until the comet was “absolutely definitely gone” and that he wanted to hold off until they could honeymoon on New Kerguelen, or at the very least on one of Timo’s planned space stations.
Tara looked after Rooster while they were gone, and although the old dog was now arthritic, he had the best care money could buy. He was also still as energetic and as playful as ever, even if his old joints couldn’t keep up with his young heart quite as well as they once could.
Another individual who had been engaged in travel of late was Billy Kendrick, whose ever-popular tours no longer visited some of the outdated locations of old and instead now took in both Lolo National Forest and the Feather brothers’ antique store in Salida.
The Feathers’ store had been included ever since Michael called Emma and asked if they could go public now that secrecy didn’t matter. Seeing no harm in it, she agreed with Timo and Dan’s full support. The Feathers certainly didn’t need the money from the greatly increased footfall — Timo’s large monthly payments would continue for a long while yet — but the brothers felt a pride in the part they had played and wanted it to be known. Additionally, everyone understood that the tourist income certainly wouldn’t hurt their local area.
The world at large had changed less in the last eight months than Dan had imagined it would, with the main development being the dissolution of the GSC in its current form and William Godfrey’s return to frontline party politics in London. Godfrey was currently midway through a brutally divisive challenge to Diane Logan’s leadership, and Dan McCarthy was currently doing everything he could to avoid ever seeing or hearing anything about it.
It took no such effort to ignore Jack Neal, who was no longer in the media’s eye having made a reluctant return to commercial PR work, while his former boss John Cole was equally out of the picture having followed the tried-and-tested route paved by other disgraced Western leaders in opting to undertake inexplicably lucrative consultancy work for questionable governments in less liberal parts of the world.
The GSC’s founding charter had included procedures for dissolution, and it wouldn’t take long for the national space agencies it had once consumed to return; their buildings, staff and funding all remained, for the most part, and strong public and political will in both Beijing and Washington ensured that levels of investment would continue to increase for years to come.
One benefit of the GSC’s tumultuous existence was that ground-level scientists from around the world had grown used to cooperating in their day-to-day business; this, combined with the inevitable perspective provided by the Messengers’ incredible landing in Birchwood, ensured that there would no longer be any major stand-offs or insurmountable barriers to cooperation in mutually beneficial endeavours between Chinese and American agencies, even though the air was rife with the scent of competition.
Timo Fiore, recuperating in Italy following his release from hospital and now almost walking unaided, had not given up on his big dreams for Fiore Frontiere. The organisation’s flagship HQ in Colorado Springs had been fully renovated under the watchful eye of Alessandro Bonucci, and it was now staffed by dozens of highly qualified scientists all working towards goals as lofty as the Tinia telescope and an intergenerational ark. The once-exciting Reciprocity probe, on the other hand, was understandably no longer in Timo’s plans now that humanity had been openly visited by the very extraterrestrials with whom it had intended to communicate. Dan was happy to have met with Alessandro on several occasions, but media obligations meant that he wouldn’t be joining Dan’s group for their comet-viewing party.
A great deal of media attention had also focused on the short investigation into the Fiore Frontiere attack, during which a handful of the Welcomers who were responsible for planning it brazenly came forward to state that their only regret was their lack of success.
Clark’s vow of vengeance found a useful outlet in his police work, which afforded him the opportunity to analyse some low-level evidence such as communications data between members of the demented cult-like group. Ten years earlier, Clark would likely have flown to Norway to take care of things in his own way when he successfully identified an individual who had offered ‘anonymous’ technical advice to the already-imprisoned man who planted the IEDs. When he actually did identify that individual, however, he passed the name up the chain of command, never mentioning anything about it to Dan or the others, and let the law do the rest. It felt good.
Around a minute after Dan alerted her to the time, Emma hurriedly emerged from her bedroom.
“You didn’t say we were getting dressed up!” Tara moaned when she saw the decidedly form-fitting blue and black contoured dress Emma had chosen.
Dan recognised it in an instant as the dress she had worn, out of necessity, during his appearance on Marco Magnifico’s TV show just days after he got the ball rolling with the IDA leak.
“Well, what do you think?” Emma asked him.
Dan grinned. “Magnifico.” He himself was more smartly dressed than normal, thinking the occasion deserved it. Tara meanwhile, wore a casual white blouse with her own brand’s name on the label; despite likely costing as much as Emma’s dress, it certainly didn’t have the same pizazz.
The plan for the comet-viewing party was for the three of them to drive to meet Henry, Phil Norris and Mr Byrd at the nearby house Phil had recently bought at auction. Clark was making his own way straight from an extra shift at the precinct where he had really settled into a nice groove, and Dan expected that he would beat them there.
Dan’s telescope would not be going with them; it had proven very popular with everyone in recent months as Comet Conte-Abate drew near, but the comet now appeared so bright and so large that nothing could beat a naked-eye perspective.
Phil’s ownership of the drive-in lot where the whole world had seen alien beings converse with Dan had allowed him to monetise New Kergrillin’ Bar & Grill and the surrounding units like never before, with interest in the location utterly dwarfing that which had been seen during its initial heyday when a media frenzy over the IDA leak had first delivered images of the lot into homes around the world. Phil’s purchase of his new home had been small beans compared to the kind of cash he had made of late, but its just-out-of-town location was right up his alley thanks to the privacy and convenience it was able to simultaneously provide.
While not quite to the level Dan had indirectly helped him, Phil had aided Dan in one regard by paying for and overseeing the removal of the signal-shielding material within the walls of Dan’s basement. There was nothing left to keep secret and Dan agreed with Emma and Clark’s view that this was an important and symbolic thing to do to draw a line under what had been a difficult time in their lives when fear and paranoia had been all too prevalent. Dan had been staying at Emma’s, anyway, so the work caused little disruption to his life.
“I’m way underdressed,” Tara said, pulling at her blouse as she looked at Emma and Dan.
“Tara…” Dan replied, “you could literally wear a potato sack and look well-dressed next to Phil and my dad. And we’re just going to watch the comet pass by; no one else will even see us. There’s definitely no time for you to go home to get changed, anyway.”
Tara ran into Emma’s bedroom to rake through her clothes and grab the first acceptable outfit she could find at short notice.
“We will leave without you…” Emma warned her.
“Come on, boy,” Dan then called to Rooster, clapping his hands and trying to tempt the dog to follow him and Emma to the door. “We’re going to visit your old home.”
Rooster tipped his head; he knew that word.
“That’s right,” Emma told him. “Home…”
C plus 50
Stevenson Farm
Eastview, Colorado
As comet-viewing parties took place around the world, many of them billed as survival parties, Emma’s car pulled up outside Richard Walker’s old refuge at Stevenson Farm.
The new owner, Phil Norris, knew nothing of the property’s major role in the events which had allowed this day to come to pass; he had no idea that without Dan being called to the adjacent cornfield, no direct contact with the Messengers would ever have been established and Comet Conte-Abate would now be wreaking apocalyptic havoc on Earth rather than passing spectacularly overhead at a safe but still astronomically minuscule distance.
Everyone was already outside, relaxing on the porch as they gazed up at the incredible view of a once-in-an-epoch comet which was already as close as it was going to get in terms of human perceptibility. Dan’s app, which would alert him again one minute out and then vocally count down to the precise moment of the comet’s perigee, now told him that only seven minutes remained.
“Woah,” Clark said when he caught sight of Emma and her dress. His eyes widened again when Tara stepped out of the car in something less flashy but equally eye-catching, and even Dan looked pretty fetching in his Sunday best. “Well, thanks for telling me we were all dressing up!”
Dan went inside to grab some drinks for himself, Emma and Tara. He could hear the TV playing an old classic movie about an incoming asteroid, in keeping with the theme of several stations which had recently gotten into the habit of showing just about every planetary disaster movie ever made. For reasons Dan didn’t quite understand, millions of viewers had been oddly keen to tune in for a healthy dose of planet-killing drama.
Kaitlyn Judd, having survived the critical panning of her role in The Fourth Plaque, had already been cast to star in a remake of the most famous impact movie of all as studio executives banked on the public’s appetite lasting beyond the perigee. Il Diavolo would naturally remain easily visible to the naked eye for a few more months as it made its way towards the sun to begin its next 95,000-year orbit, just as it had been visible during the final few months of its approach, so it seemed like a safe bet that the new movie would do well given that the subject matter would be at the front of everyone’s mind whenever they looked up at the stars.
“You know what warms my heart?” Emma said a few minutes before the big moment, not leaving a gap for anyone to guess. “Thinking of the Welcomers. You know, all those sad creeps who’ll be cursing under their breath as the comet glides past like a firefly in July. They’ll be sitting at home, crying into their cornflakes, trying not to look outside while all the cool kids are partying in the streets. I mean… it’s not like I’m bitter about them trying to blow me up or anything.”
Humour was the only way forward, and no one had to force their laughter at Emma’s comments.
When the final countdown began, everyone stood well clear of the house and looked up at the awe-inspiring galactic wanderer. Clark opted to carry a chair with him and plumped it down next to Henry’s wheelchair. Henry noticed this and put a silently appreciative hand on his eldest son’s shoulder.
The thoughts and feelings the sight evoked in Dan’s mind changed by the second. But when the countdown reached ten, his mind shifted elsewhere.
At three, he stepped back deftly enough to evade anyone’s notice.
When a sound best described as a royal trumpet played through Dan’s phone to announce the moment of perigee, Emma glanced to her side and saw that he wasn’t there. She then turned around and saw why.
There he was: down on one knee, with a ring in his hand.
Tara reacted more visibly than Emma when she saw what was going on, hurrying to Emma’s side and clasping her hands tightly in excitement.
