Second contact, p.24
Second Contact, page 24
part #2 of Not Alone Series
The momentarily pensive expression on John Cole’s face turned placid, his mood greatly lifted by the historical context in which Jack had just placed the current situation. “We’re on the right side of history,” he said, nodding approvingly. “Jack, that’s the smartest thing you’ve said all day.”
Jack forced a grin as Cole laughed and slapped him on the back. “Exactly, boss,” he said. “The right side of history…”
C minus 39
McCarthy Residence
Birchwood, Colorado
Flat on his back and frozen to his bed, Dan McCarthy tried and failed to scream for help.
Every time his dry lips parted and his mouth opened to shout “Clark!”, no sound came. After the sixth or seventh try, movement returned to Dan’s equally restricted limbs and he suddenly rolled out of bed and onto the floor as though a spell had been lifted.
He clasped the back of his neck with one hand — he’d felt a tingle, but nothing like the shooting pain of the night of the Kerguelen bolide — then ran upstairs and bounded straight into Clark’s room.
Clark lurched out of his bed and immediately reached for the lamp next to it. “What’s going on, man?” he asked. He then saw that Dan’s hand was resting on the back of his neck. When he did, the initial concern on his face gave way to a more hesitant confusion.
With his free hand, Dan beckoned Clark down into the security and privacy of the basement. As soon as the door closed behind them, he blurted it out: “Something is going to happen at Lolo.”
Still confused, Clark nodded slightly. “Something to do with the triangle you saw?”
“Not exactly. I had another dream,” Dan said, sitting on his bed and pinching the top of his nose between his thumb and forefinger as he closed his eyes in thought. “It was nothing like last time. Last time I wasn’t dreaming, I was actually sitting in Walker’s cornfield and it felt like I was at Lolo. This time I was in bed but it felt like I was in the cornfield. Remember the map I drew that led us to Lolo? That map was in my hand. And I was wearing my watch. It wasn’t like last time when I was in control. This was more like a regular dream — you know? — when stuff just happens. And on my watch it said it was 2:28 AM on the twenty-first.”
Clark looked up at Dan’s giant Wall Street-like trend-ticker and saw the time and date in its upper right corner. “Seriously? That’s only twenty-two hours away!”
“I know,” Dan said, opening his eyes again and looking up. “But when I looked away from my watch, I was back here. Something is going to happen at Lolo tomorrow night — or technically tonight — but I don’t think I have to be there. I think they’re telling us to pay attention.”
“We can’t go,” Clark said. “A) someone might see us, and B) how are we supposed to explain going away for the day and a half it would take us to get there and back?”
“I know. I literally just told you that they weren’t calling me there, anyway. If they were, I would have felt it. I can’t explain it, but it’s like there were thoughts in the dream and then there were thoughts when I woke up… and none of those thoughts were telling me that I need to be there. But I think someone does. Something is going to happen that either explains the triangle or tells us for sure that Lolo is one of its points, and I don’t know if it’s definitely going to be something publicly visible like the bolide at Kerguelen. It might be, but it might not. You believe me, right? Last night I told you that stuff was going to start happening soon, and this is it. This is it.”
Clark leaned back in his chair, at the end of Dan’s long work desk. “Of course I believe you, man,” he said, sighing out the words. “But it’s not about whether or not I believe you, it’s about whether or not you’re clear about what’s going on and what we have to do about it.”
“I’m trying my best to be as clear as I can,” Dan replied. “And what I’m telling you is that I think someone has to be there, right at the very spot where we met them. Something is going to happen and someone has to see it.”
Clark snapped his fingers as an idea came to him: “Can’t we just tell Timo’s guys to point some telescopes or satellites or whatever in the right place?”
“It doesn’t work like that. Only the GSC has any telescopes in space and they oversee all formerly private satellites, too, so we couldn’t do that even if we thought it would work. We need someone on the ground. Maybe we could give an anonymous vague tip or something?”
“You mean online, or to one specific reporter?”
At that idea, Dan’s eyes lit up. “Trey!”
“Trey Myers?” Clark echoed. “Does he still try to film stuff before anyone else gets there then sell his footage to the different news networks?”
“Exactly! Trey Myers, who believed me about the IDA leak before anyone else did — even you and Emma. Trey Myers, who made his baby’s middle name Daniel. Trey Myers, who drove towards our house with a camera rolling while we were in Italy and Slater’s Feds were raiding the place. Trey is the most loyal guy ever, and last time out he was willing to help me with something before anyone else knew about it. He kept that quiet even though he could have made a lot of money by ratting me out.”
“What was that, again?”
“The Kloster letter, remember? He bought the digital translator and the calligraphy book for me so I could make sense of the writing, and he kept quiet about the letter for four full days even though the whole world was going crazy for every piece of info about the leak. He’s our guy!”
Clark wasn’t totally against it; Dan could see that. “But Dan, how can we possibly explain this? When we tell him something’s going to happen, and especially if something does happen, how can we explain how we knew ahead of time without telling him everything? Because obviously we can’t tell—”
“I know that,” Dan interrupted. “Trey’s like Tara: I like him way too much to want to tell him a single thing more than we have to. But how does this sound… I could tell him that I’ve detected a pattern within a meteor shower or something like that, and I could say I know for a fact that there’s going to be the most amazing scene ever in this specific place at this specific time.”
“I don’t like the sound of ‘or something’, man. If you’re going to tell him anything, we need to nail it down. And if he’s going to get there in time he’s going to have to leave in like four hours, max.”
“You’re right,” Dan said. “We need to call him now so he can get ready, then we’ll meet him and explain as little as we can get away with. But I’ve got a feeling that he really is going to get some priceless footage of something amazing, so it’s not like I need to lie about that.”
Clark pointed to the wired phone beside Dan’s computer.
Dan found Trey’s number in his computer’s contact list and dialled. Unsurprisingly, given the time of night, it rang a number of times before Trey picked up.
“Hello?” a tired and startled voice answered.
“It’s Dan. Dan McCarthy.”
The line was quiet for several seconds. “It’s nothing, honey,” Trey said, reminding Dan that it might not be straightforward for him to disappear for a day and half without a good reason, either. “It’s just a fresh lead. I’ll be back in a sec.”
Dan heard some muffled sounds as Trey walked out of his marital bedroom towards a more private area where he could talk. “Time is tight,” he stressed.
“Okay, okay,” Trey said. “What’s going on?”
“Meet me outside the drive-in as soon as you possibly can,” Dan replied. “I’ll be there in five minutes. I wouldn’t call you if this wasn’t big, and I’m seriously counting on you.”
“Dan… let’s take a step back here and start—”
“Trey, you can’t tell anyone but this is related to the Kerguelen bolide and it’s very time-sensitive. I’m not going to answer any questions over the phone, so don’t ask. Will you be there?”
“Kerguelen?” Trey said, lowering his voice. “I’m on my way.”
TUESDAY
C minus 38
Drive-in
Birchwood, Colorado
Sooner than they could have reasonably expected, Dan and Clark saw Trey’s familiar Blue Dish Network van coming towards their parked car at the edge of the drive-in. Clark flashed the headlights twice to make sure he saw them.
Trey pulled up behind them, at which point the brothers stepped out and joined him in his van. Dan wasted no time in handing over a scrap of paper which contained the precise coordinates of the very spot where he and Emma made the step across an invisible threshold that brought into view the Messengers’ gargantuan craft — the craft they had then proceeded to enter before coming face-to-face with two awe-inspiring humanoid extraterrestrials.
“You said I couldn’t ask any questions on the phone…” Trey said.
Having already looked around and seen several flasks and food containers, as well as a backpack which complemented the mountain of equipment that lived in the back of the van, Dan already knew Trey was in. He didn’t have to reveal or tease anything else to persuade him, but there was no harm in letting him ask. “Go on…”
Trey’s question, really a double-question, was very simple: “What’s going to happen and how do you know?”
Counting on Trey knowing precious little about astronomy, Dan fell back upon the slightly flimsy explanation he’d previously suggested to Clark: that he had identified a pattern in a meteor shower and could accurately and confidently predict that a major event — but not a dangerous one — was going to occur at a certain place and time. “It might not be a meteor and it might not even be natural,” Dan said, “but it won’t be dangerous.”
Trey didn’t dismiss the explanation out of hand, which was all Dan needed. If he wasn’t in before, he certainly was now.
Dan then impressed upon Trey the importance of keeping quiet about both his destination and the reason for his trip. He also insisted that Trey promise to share no footage he might record with anyone until he had brought it back to Birchwood to be studied. Dan promised a large payment for Trey’s effort, whatever the result, as well as gas money and expenses for the long trip.
Although Trey was grateful for this and didn’t argue, by now he had heard enough to have been willing to do it for free.
“It’s not about money,” Trey said, almost glowing with excitement. “Dan, you had me at ‘might not be natural’. I remember when I helped you out with the letter before I knew what it was, and that changed everything. If this ends up being even one-tenth as important as that…”
“We owe you, man,” Clark said. “Keep in touch, yeah? And take a few breaks; it’s a long-ass drive.”
“What did you tell your wife?” Dan asked. “Because it is a long way. By the time you have a rest, you probably won’t be back until Thursday morning.”
Trey smiled. “When I told her I had a hot lead from Dan McCarthy, she pretty much kicked me out of the house and told me to chase it until I catch it. She knows to keep it on the down-low and she knows I wouldn’t be leaving like this if it wasn’t big. Besides, all the stuff you guys helped me out with last year — letting me put the Blue Dish logo on the big screen, Emma sending me the footage of everyone celebrating at Timo’s observatory and letting me use it as an exclusive, all that stuff — that literally paid for our new house in Lipton. You don’t owe us anything… trust me on that.”
“And you’re okay finding the exact spot of these coordinates?” Clark asked, keen to make sure.
“Yeah, I’ll just use my phone once I’m out of the van,” Trey said. “I’ve got backup power sources piled up in the back. I’ve got everything I’ll need and more. For now, the van’s navigation system will get me into the general area. Let me just type it in…”
As Trey typed the coordinates in the absence of an address, his eyes widened in surprise when the screen displayed the nearest parking spot.
“Lolo National Forest?” he read aloud. “And damn, that’s a real walk from the van. I’ll be limited in what kind of equipment I can carry.”
“Seriously,” Dan said, “we just need some footage. Video from a phone’s camera would be better than nothing. The point is that with the way things are these days, only the GSC can gather data from space. We only have what we can gather from the ground and there are no private facilities anywhere near Lolo. We just need to see what happens. I just need to see what happens.”
Trey nodded, his expression growing intense. “This is about the cover-up, isn’t it? This is about Godfrey turning into the new Walker and hiding truths he doesn’t like. Dan, tell me straight up: is this really about a meteor shower, or is this about, you know… them?”
“It’s going to be worth the drive,” Dan said, with enough of a smile to encourage Trey’s excitement. “But remember: whatever you see, you tell no one and you show no one until you’re back in Birchwood for a debriefing. That’s almost as important as getting the footage, okay?”
“It’s a two-part mission,” Trey replied, “understood. My job isn’t just getting the footage, it’s getting the footage back here — unseen by anyone else.”
Clark patted Trey on the back. “Bingo.”
Trey then held his hand out for a sports-style handshake, the same kind Dan had struggled with a few days earlier with Tara’s short-term male acquaintance. He handled it more smoothly this time.
“Good luck,” he said, closing the van’s door after stepping out.
Trey rolled down the window and waved, calling out as he pulled away into an early morning full of promise: “Luck is for losers, dude. I won’t let you down!”
C minus 37
Tour ship
Southern Ocean
Longing for the warmth and comfort of his new home in Myrtle Beach, the site of his famous and fondly remembered ET Weekender, Billy Kendrick was once again broadcasting live to his loyal podcast viewers from a tour ship in the middle of nowhere.
Hundreds of thousands typically watched the live video and several million more typically downloaded the audio version once it was uploaded, but on this occasion Billy’s live viewership was well into seven figures.
This increased interest was attributable largely to Billy’s participation in Sunday evening’s headline-generating Focus 20/20 panel, and he didn’t surprise anyone by criticising President Slater’s meek response to the news that senior GSC figures had tried to silence researchers who suggested that the Kerguelen bolide was not a natural event.
Billy was his usual animated self during the sixty-minute recording, touching on a number of subtle angles and openly expressing his support for the massive demonstrations against the GSC which had been sweeping the world.
“All I ask is that we keep it peaceful,” Billy stressed, fully aware that he couldn’t control the serious troublemakers but hopeful that many of his largely youthful audience would heed his words. He also re-stressed his great dislike for the “cretinous losers who call themselves Antidotalists” and used particularly firm language in slamming the offshoot group of so-called Welcomers who had recently vowed to sabotage all future attempts at planetary defence.
To close, Billy shared his admittedly unsupported belief that something else akin to the event over Kerguelen was going to happen very soon. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on here, but the big answer is coming,” he said in a deliberately upbeat tone. “Maybe not now now now, but definitely soon soon soon…”
C minus 36
McCarthy Residence
Birchwood, Colorado
During what were without doubt the slowest-passing hours of his life, Dan McCarthy looked at the time so frequently that the numbers began to lose meaning.
He knew he should have preferred waiting for a specific time to arrive over hoping that something would happen at some undefined point in the near future, as had been his situation in recent days, but the focus on the clock certainly made his impatience more pronounced.
This was a jittery impatience rather than mere anticipation, for sure, of the kind that caused stomach pains as the ostensibly slow passage of minutes and hours played havoc with his digestive system.
The clock seemed to be toying with him, and on more than a few occasions he began to think that it really must have been broken, only for one minute to finally tick over to the next. On just as many occasions, he envied Clark’s position of having a day job to occupy his body and mind.
Even the things Dan normally longed for more time to enjoy didn’t appeal — the TV box-sets he wanted to catch up on, the books that had been on his to-read list for months — and sharing his frustration, either with Henry upstairs or with Tara next door, was naturally out of the question.
But when he went upstairs to go outside in an effort to clear his head with some fresh air, he finally caught sight of an effective distraction in the form of the wonderful birthday gift that had been pushed out of his thoughts by the rapid events of the previous night: his brand new, long wished-for, high-quality telescope. Calibrating its viewfinder and getting to know the workings of its GoTo mount killed a few hours, and also had the welcome side-effect of recalibrating his thoughts to be more positive.
It did this by refreshingly moving his focus on to what he was waiting for, rather than the painful waiting itself. Although this was a slight mental distinction, it not only made a noticeable difference to Dan’s mood but also abated the previously palpable stress-induced feelings in his stomach.
