The Simulacrum (First Contact), page 7
The NASA Finance Department watches expenses like a hawk. It’s not just that they want to keep costs to a minimum but that there should be no perception of anyone abusing their expense account. As they focus on annual costs, their approach hurts those who travel the most. For Ryan, it means he ends up with the Compact class of cars from Alamo Car Rentals. Today, he’s driving a Fiat 500. It’s a shoebox on wheels. Getting a free upgrade to Alamo’s Economy Class is like waking up to snow on Christmas Day, but it doesn’t happen very often.
The nice lady who booked his accommodation means well, but all she was interested in was the overall cost of his PR tour of universities in the American Southwest. She has a budget to keep. She’ll be commended for staying under some arbitrary amount while Ryan’s lying there, regretting not bringing earplugs.
Ryan drifts in and out of sleep in time with the trucks rumbling on down the road. Tomorrow, he’s giving a speech at the University of Arizona. They’re overachievers in the space industry. MIT and the University of California get most of the media attention, but the University of Arizona has made several significant contributions to space exploration, including the development of the NIRCam on the James Webb Space Telescope and the OSIRIS-REx mission to retrieve rock samples from the asteroid Bennu. That particular mission aligns closely with AMPLE.
Ryan’s been given a speech to read to the Space Engineering department. Handshakes and autographs will fill most of the day. Then he’s off to Phoenix for his next engagement, which is dinner with a US Senator. He’d rather be back in Houston in one of the training simulators. Unfortunately, his role on the backup crew is to run interference for the primary crew with the public and media. They get the high-profile glam events while he and his team bounce around the country rallying support for the mission. Everyone loves an astronaut, even if they’re not scheduled for a space flight. The irony of being an astronaut is that 99.9% of his decades-long career will be spent on the ground. Space is but a dream.
The spa pool is quiet. There’s hope for a deep sleep yet.
Ryan sinks into his pillow. His muscles go limp, and his breathing slows. The cacophony of thoughts that assault his mind fades. Tomorrow will take care of itself, as the saying goes, and he slips off to sleep.
There’s pounding on the door.
Ryan sits up. He’s disoriented. He’s not sure what time it is, but it feels like he only just closed his eyes. He picks up his phone. It’s on silent.
3:40 am.
According to the notifications, he’s missed six calls.
The banging on the door continues, thundering around him like the drums at a heavy metal concert. Ryan gets up, turns on the light, and cracks open the door, double-checking that the metal chain is still on the latch, preventing the motel room door from being forced open.
“Hello?”
“Ryan McAllister?” a police officer asks, shining an absurdly bright flashlight in his eyes and causing him to squint. “From the NASA Astronaut Office in Houston?”
“Yes,” Ryan replies as the officer lowers his flashlight. Behind him, a patrol car cycles through a pattern of red and blue strobe flashes, but there’s no siren. Ryan unclips the chain and opens the door. “What’s going on?”
“Sir. This is a welfare check. I’m here to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m fine,” Ryan says, scratching the scruffy hair on his head. His mind is still booting up out of a deep sleep and struggling to accept that this is reality and not a dream.
“Apparently, you haven’t responded to several emergency calls from the NASA Astronaut Office.”
“Ah,” Ryan says, looking down at his phone in his hand. As he raises his arm slightly, the screen kicks back into life, reminding him of the missed calls. “Yeah. I had it on silent.”
“Okay,” the officer says, pulling out a pad and jotting down a quick note. “I’m going to log this as a successful welfare check. If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to contact Tucson PD and quote this number.” He hands Ryan a police business card with a case number written on the back.
“Thank you,” Ryan says, unsure why he needs the card.
The officer smiles, saying, “Oh, and you might want to call NASA. I think it’s important.”
Ryan lets out a solitary laugh. “Yeah. I think it is. Thank you, officer.”
He closes the door and slips the security chain back on the latch. The red and blue flashing lights on the patrol car die as the police vehicle pulls back out onto the main road.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Ryan hits the call button and puts his phone on speaker. His call goes through to the Astronaut Office. He can’t imagine anyone is there at this ungodly time, but that’s where the missed calls originate.
He’s expecting one of the secretaries or assistants to answer when he hears the gruff voice of the NASA Administrator, someone Ryan’s only ever met a couple of times before.
“Hanson, here.”
“Ah, this is Ryan McAllister returning your call, sir.”
“Ryan,” Administrator Hanson says. His voice is weary. There’s considerable talking in the background. It sounds like there are dozens of people in the room along with him. Given the hollow echoes, Ryan suspects they’re in the main meeting room. “Listen. I need you to get to the local airport there in Tucson. Sarah’s arranged for a flight with Executive Air. They’re ready to depart as soon as you arrive.”
“Depart where?”
“Washington.”
“I—I don’t understand.”
“Haven’t you heard?”
“No.”
“Andre Compton, Elizabeth Kali, and George Lister were killed earlier tonight.”
“Killed?”
“Murdered.”
“I…”
“Turn on the news. They were at a fundraising gala in Chicago. Some asshole with an AR-15 shot up the place. Twenty-two dead. Nine from NASA.”
“Jesus,” Ryan says, feeling his blood run cold.
“You’re being moved up to Primary. I need you in Washington. As it is, we’re behind schedule. This… well, this puts the whole mission in jeopardy. There are plenty in the House that would happily use this as an excuse to swing the axe on our budget.”
Ryan feels physically sick. Bile rises in the back of his throat. The mission? Fuck the goddamn mission. Three of his friends have died. He grits his teeth. Tears well up in his eyes. He wants to protest and say something to the administrator, but he understands. For him, this is a bombshell. But the administrator’s been dealing with the fallout from this for hours now. He’s past the point of shock. He’s moved into damage control. Ryan knows him well enough to know he’s being pragmatic rather than cold.
There’s a pause on the other end of the phone.
“Listen, I know this is tough. Hell, this is our worst loss of life since Columbia. And there wasn’t a goddamn thing any of us could do to prevent it. We’re… we’re still trying to make sense of the senselessness of this tragedy. I need you on point. I need you to run interference while we deal with the fallout. Lives have been lost. Families have been destroyed. And it’s only going to hurt more in the days ahead.”
Ryan swallows the lump in his throat. Tears stream down his cheeks. He speaks, but he can’t hide the emotion in his voice.
“I’m on my way, sir.”
“Good. Sarah will set up a schedule of appearances for you in DC. We need to be seen as robust and resilient. Out in front. We mourn, but we don’t stop. Understood?”
“Understood.”
“Keep me posted.”
“Yes, sir.”
The call ends. Ryan leaves his phone lying on the bed and walks into the bathroom. He throws water on his face and runs his fingers up through his hair, forcing himself to face reality. Being astronauts, they all know there’s a risk of death, but no one expects to die at a goddamn fucking gala.
Launch and reentry: these are the pucker-points of space exploration. Even though he knows the rigors of engineering and testing that go into building rockets and heat shields, it’s not until the canopy of three massive parachutes unfurls that Ryan can breathe easy.
Splashdown comes like the kick of a mule, but the sight of water spraying through the clear blue sky, rushing away from the capsule, is more beautiful than any painting hanging in the Louvre. Monet’s waterlilies have nothing on the hundreds of water droplets clinging to the glass window on the hatch after splashdown.
Climbing out of a space capsule is surreal. The ocean stretches for miles, disappearing over the horizon. Clouds dot the sky. Waves lap softly at the spacecraft. Land is nowhere to be seen. By the time he’s clambering over the hull of the capsule, Navy divers have already attached a flotation collar. It’s a stark contrast to the scorched hull. Then, each astronaut crosses from the most sophisticated vessel ever built to the simplest: a boat. Ryan remembers his first flight and the black marks lining the outside of his once pristine capsule. Starship is changing all that with rocket landings, but there will still be space capsules for some time to come. They’re proven technology. They’re brilliant for long-haul flights.
Safety is everything when it comes to spaceflight because nothing is more important than life itself. And now, three astronauts have been killed attending a fundraiser. It seems like a sick joke.
Ryan packs up his toiletries, changes into his NASA blues, and dumps his suitcase in the back of the Fiat. He drops off the key to his room and drives to the airport, feeling numb.
Tucson is quiet. Like a sailor following the stars over ancient seas, streetlights guide him on through the city. There’s a private company on the edge of the airport called Executive Air. All the lights in their building are on. Eight cars sit out front in the parking lot. Ryan’s not the only one who’s been rudely awakened.
There’s someone waiting outside for him as he pulls up.
“Ryan McAllister?”
“Yes,” he says, getting out of his car. “Hey, listen. I need to drop—”
“I’ll arrange that for you, sir,” the man says, holding his hand out for the car keys. Ryan drops them in his hand.
“Thanks.”
Ryan hates being called “sir.” He used the same honorific when talking to the NASA Administrator. “Sir” means well. It’s respectful, but it’s also classist, which Ryan hates. He wonders if the administrator tires of facile pleasantries as well. Ryan doesn’t like being treated as special. He understands the intent and even the need for it at times, but, in his experience, putting people on a pedestal brings out the worst in them. Ryan likes to keep his head about him.
Someone grabs his suitcase and carries it into the building. Ryan swings his laptop bag over his shoulder and follows them. Inside, the pilot and copilot stand to attention. They’re wearing their formal uniforms, complete with caps. They smile and shake hands. For the sake of courtesy, Ryan smiles and joins in the friendly banter as though it’s not the middle of the night. He makes out as though he doesn’t have a care in the world.
The crew leads him through to a Learjet sitting on the concrete apron outside the hangar. Strobe lights blink on the wings and tail. The smell of jet fuel clears his nostrils. The whine of the engines drowns out the well-meaning chatter of the flight attendant accompanying him. He climbs the fold-down stairs and ducks as he enters the fuselage. The jet is long and spacious, but he can only stand upright in the aisle. The plush leather seats look as though they belong in someone’s home rather than an aircraft. There’s a meeting area further back and even a long couch made up as a single bed set to one side. Ryan takes a seat. There’s a small table set between him and another seat facing backward.
“Can I get you something to drink?” the flight attendant asks. Now, there’s a loaded question. There’s got to be one helluva bar onboard.
“Ah, just water.”
“Sparkling?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
The door is closed, and the Learjet taxis for takeoff in the darkness. Ryan puts his seatbelt on and stares out into the night at the various lights lining the taxiway and the two runways. He’s lost in thought.
Trust.
Life is about trust.
And trust demands that people work together.
The fifteen or so staff called in to work through the night to prep the Learjet look at him as special. He’s an astronaut, that’s all. It’s a job description like any other. It has its demands for expertise, but he’s no god. The pilots and flight attendants all defer to him, but he’s no king. As much as they may look at him as somehow different from them, he’s not above them, not in his mind. Ryan knows he depends on them. He trusts them—complete strangers. He has to. He has no idea who conducted the preflight checks or engine inspection, but they’re arguably more important than him at the moment, as their diligence will make the difference between a routine flight and a disaster.
Perhaps that’s what makes liftoff and reentry so harrowing for astronauts. At those points, they're helpless—all they can do is trust in science and engineering.
Once the plane is airborne, the flight attendant comes back with his drink.
“Is there anything else I can get you?”
“Ah, do you have a sleeping mask?”
“Yes. And I’ll dim the lights. Oh, there’s a—”
Ryan waves away her gesture toward the bed at the rear of the plane, saying, “I’m comfortable here.”
He drinks. She returns with the sleep mask and a blanket.
“Thank you.”
“Is there anything…?”
“This is wonderful.”
He loosens his belt, slips on the mask, and drifts off to sleep, trusting in technology, trusting in the pilots, trusting in the systems around him, knowing that without them, he’s nothing.
Traitor
“What’s your angle?” Gabriel mumbles from deep inside the basement of the NSA. He scrolls through access logs, looking for clues about Russia’s interest in MyGuy Professor Susan Mills from the University of California in Berkeley.
Senior NSA analyst Gabriel Lopez is curious. Why is Russian FSB internet operative Maria Petrovoski, also known as Pirate69, interested in a specific US college professor?
Russia’s primary interest in cyber-warfare is in disrupting American society using wedge politics. Culture wars seldom make sense. They’re disproportionate. They’re about power, not morals—about anger, not reason. And the Russians love nothing more than to shift the focus onto the sensational. Minorities like asylum seekers and trans women are easy targets for fake outrage. The Olympics have allowed trans women to compete since 2004, and yet only one has ever won a gold medal, and that was in the team sport of soccer. But the outrage continues. Culture wars know no reason, but they are useful. For politicians, they’re a magician’s sleight of hand. They’re a distraction. They get people watching the wrong issues and missing the really important points in life.
Culture wars are emotional. The Russians love nothing more than setting Americans against each other. Why fight your enemy when you can get your enemy to fight himself? And this is what bothers Gabriel. Pirate69 doesn’t have a clear target. There’s no cultural idiosyncrasy to ignite. No one cares about SETI—the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. Or if they do, they’re passionate about UFO/UAP videos and the idea that there are spaceships soaring around Earth’s skies, buzzing USAF F-16s. Professor Mills, though, specializes in analyzing exoplanet atmospheres. If anything, she only has a partial focus on SETI, looking for any kind of life, intelligent or otherwise.
It’s been a couple of days since the discussion about Przybylski’s Star. Gabriel has done more background research, and that particular star is an anomaly. It’s full of heavy elements that simply shouldn’t be there in abundance. They cannot have come from the star itself as it fuses hydrogen into helium and the chemical elements beyond there.
There’s simply not enough energy for heavy elements beyond iron to form in a regular star. Exotic elements, like uranium and plutonium, had to have come from earlier stars that collided or exploded as supernovas or from neutron stars that smashed together.
Californium is particularly intriguing as it’s not found naturally on Earth. It has to be synthesized in a laboratory. How the hell did Californium make it into that star? Could these elements really be a sign of intelligent life? Is someone sending a message? If so, it’s one that won’t get lost in the murky haze of radio waves bouncing around the galaxy. Although the signal may not say much, what it lacks in detail, it makes up for in clarity and strength. To Gabriel, it’s the equivalent of a bonfire being lit on an otherwise deserted island. It screams, “Hey! I’m over here!”
Maria Petrovoski has fallen silent, but she’s leaving an electronic fingerprint that reveals she’s watching Professor Mills, tracking her erratic activity online. Gabriel is watching the watcher. In the midst of this, Professor Mills has no idea she’s the target of a foreign intelligence service. Or maybe she does. She’s got some elaborate automated routine setup that bounces her source IP address around the planet like a pinball. It’s an old technique to throw anyone tracing her signal off the scent, but as she’s openly on a public WhatsApp discussion group and easily a dozen other forums and social media sites as MyGuy, and these are openly linked back to her at Berkeley, it makes no sense to hide her IP address.
Thinking about both Maria Petrovoski in St. Petersburg and Professor Mills in Berkeley, Gabriel mumbles, “You’re playing cat and mouse… only who’s the cat?”
