wo red eyes, suspended in the darkness, perhaps sixty yards T out and three feet off the ice, though with no visible point of reference it was hard to tell. What could it be? The little research she’d had time for before she’d left home indicated that no land animal would be this far out on the ice cap. What else could it be?
Then, in a moment of clarity, she understood. It was the answer to her prayers.
Where it came from didn’t matter. It had to be an animal, and if she could direct it, it could become her salvation. She willed it to come closer, with temptations of food and safety.
The eyes came closer, still disembodied, with no shape around 307
them to suggest what manner of animal approached her. She projected warm dens, fresh meat, and shuffled a few steps closer. Then she had it, the shape, that of a wolf, all white. Then a gasp escaped her throat, as she perceived more eyes in the darkness behind the wolf, a dozen pair or more. A wolf pack. How is that possible, 300
miles from the nearest land? Another thread? Could that be?
Didn’t matter. As she watched, incredulous, they moved to her.
The ghostly shapes, all pure white, materialized around her, and waited, she realized, for the leader, the alpha male, to lead. She concentrated on the male and walked back around the Beaver. The pack followed.
Her heart fell when she saw it. The spur beam had reached the thing’s head, had branched out a dozen more tentacles, engulfing its head, glowing. The arms began moving, testing the new warmth.
Attack! Food! She projected to the alpha, and then to the others.
They were cautious, circling, heads lowered, as Hardson stood up, warmed now by the energy.
They worked as a team. The alpha at the lead position in front feinted an attack while a female streaked in from behind, intent on seizing Hardson’s left leg, at the calf.
The counter-move by the Hardson thing was so quick she couldn’t believe it. With its mouth open, bellowing, it twisted its head around 180 degrees over its left shoulder, and Bell saw the faint image of a much larger pair of jaws reach out from the Hardson thing’s head. It snapped its jaws shut while it rocked its head and twisted violently to the right, severing the female wolf’s head clean off. It tossed the head ten feet in the air. It landed near the alpha male and rolled to a stop among the pack members.
Seeing the entity’s raw, violent display of power sent Bell backpedaling, uncontrolled, into the open cockpit door of the Beaver. The pack too backed up, either taking cues from Bell, or their own reassessment of the thing’s power. Its surging power embold-ened the entity. It repeated the snapping, twisting motion with its head, and now Bell could see the image that emanated, projected, 308
from the Hardson mouth each time it took a swipe. It was a monstrous specter, with a gaping maw of a mouth that opened twelve inches or more, long fangs dripping blood and viscera.
Bell didn’t fear death. She had known from the start that there was no way back to the real world from this bleak, empty place. But the thought of being shredded by the nightmare apparition frightened her more than she would have thought possible.
She had to stop the damn laser spur from feeding it energy.
Leaning backward, half in the door and half out, she glanced up as she began pulling herself up into the plane. That’s when she saw the answer. A mirror. Who puts a rearview mirror in an airplane?
It was midway up the windshield, on the far-left side. Installed by someone who had wanted to see into the back seat, perhaps. It was eight inches long, four inches high, and flat. Worried she was already too late to do any good, she reached up and tried to wrench it free, hit it from the bottom a few times with her gloved hand, then twisted again, and it was hers.
The entity still swiped with its demonic facade, but she realized it had a range. The specter could swipe outward seven feet from its Hardson body. It had nailed the she-wolf at five feet, Bell thought.
Therefore, its range must be growing. The wolves too could see, or sense, that range. They stayed just out of reach, but they still attacked, looking for an opening. Good doggies!
The spur sprouted from the coaxial beam at a point ten feet above the frozen sea, and terminated at Hardson’s head, about six feet high. Bell knew she would have to get perilously close to the monster’s range to even have a chance of reaching high enough to deflect the spur. Rather than dwell on the consequences and chicken out, she jumped in with both feet.
She joined the pack at a safe range, directly under the undulat-ing spur, and she positioned the mirror in her hand so it would face back toward the main beam when she held it aloft. She waited for Hardson to turn its attention away from her, then rushed in with the mirror held high. She had to get closer than she wanted to, but it worked. She got the mirror high enough to intercept the spur, and 309
halleluiah, halleluiah, the spur struck the mirror and was deflected back to rejoin the main beam.
Which the monster noticed immediately, of course. It belted out a roar of rage, turned and swiped at Bell. She flinched, drawing back the main part of her body, but the hand holding the mirror remained high, and the spectral jaws ripped open the front of her jacket. The monster took a single step toward her, bellowing its rage as it poised its head for another swipe. Bell held her stance until the last instant, then fell back, away from the sweep of the murderous phantom jaws, pulling her hand down as she fell between two members of the pack.
Lying there, looking up, she saw a most wondrous sight. Rather than reattach to the monster, the spur maintained the loop out to where she had held the mirror, and back to the main beam. It seemed to be held in stasis between two opposing forces, and she could see the monster concentrate on it, trying to win it back. The pack sensed an opening, and two of them rushed in from behind, each chomping down on the back of a leg. It reacted, but too slowly, its counter attack anticipated this time by the two wolves. They both pulled back, easily avoiding the spectral jaws. With the momentary release of its hold on the spur beam, the force pulling it back to the main beam won out. It snapped back, rejoined the main beam, producing a loud, sizzling sound that lasted several seconds.
She was so overjoyed she rose to her feet and began jumping and shouting, “YES YES YES!” over and over.
The monster roared its rage, and then went silent, and she realized it was trying to pull another spur out to feed it the energy it wanted. Sensing weakness, the pack tried a few faints and, drawing no counter move, one wolf went in low from behind and made a quick but solid chomp to the calf muscle, before quickly retreating, avoiding by inches the fangs of the monster. It only managed three feet of projection now. It was losing power rapidly.
It looked longingly toward the laser beam and tried to move toward it. But the pack had learned the monster’s moves and gauged its range unerringly. They sensed victory, and attacked from all 310
sides, closing in as its range fell lower and lower.
The spectacle mesmerized Bell. When a large male leaped high and clamped on to the back of its neck, the monster staggered, then fell to one knee. In the crucial moments before the pack closed in, the monster looked up into the eyes of the approaching alpha male, pursed its lips, and blew hard. A yellowish green, protoplasmic substance oozed outward toward the alpha. It looked alive, and it narrowed its girth as it neared the alpha, seeking and latching on to the nostrils. The alpha breathed in the stuff, getting every molecule.
As the alpha backed off, the rest of the pack fell on the remains of Hardson. Within half a minute, they had separated appendages from the main body, and Hardson was no more.
Bell had seen the entity enter the alpha. At first, she couldn’t believe it had made such a mistake, but then she realized it had no other choice. She locked it down, an easy manipulation when dealing with the minds of animals, where the operable pathways are few: food, Safety, Shelter, Mating. Bell had them sealed and secured in seconds. The entity would not be leaving its current host, not from any portal available to it.
It knew. In the wolf’s body, its only chance of survival now was to get away fast, before the mortal set the pack upon it. The wolf-body chances of survival, so far from land, without the support of the pack, were not good. But if the mortal set the pack upon it, the wolf-body would die, and it would be trapped forever in a lifeless mind. It needed to get close to other life forms before the wolf-body failed. It could wait, eons if necessary, until a higher life form got near enough for transfer. Once away from the hateful, controlling mind of the mortal, it could again transfer.
It turned away from the pack, only to find four wolves blocking its path. The hateful mortal was responsible. One by one the rest of the pack left the Hardson remains and joined the wolves surrounding the alpha. Its ethereal power was failing. It looked at the mortal, the one that had orchestrated its fall. It hated the mortal. It would 311
kill the mortal, if possible, and if not, then hurt it as much as possible while life remained in the wolf’s body. The best way to do that was to attack quickly.
It made a mad dash for the mortal, slashing one wolf’s throat, breaking another’s forepaw, leaping deftly over another. Four wolves, two on either side of the mortal, fell upon it, all four at once.
It fought bravely, more ferociously than the alpha had ever fought on its own. When it fell on its side, with one broken hind leg, it was over, and it knew it. Bleeding from a dozen places, it was puzzled when the pack relented, allowed it to sit up and lick its wounds.
They sat in a tight circle around it. Escape was impossible.
Ten minutes later, the laser drill stopped rotating. One at a time the four center beams winked out, silent in their leaving. As Bell had hoped, the Heaven operator left the coaxial container beam in place.
Standing near the hole, Bell strained, while the dim light of the coax was still available, to see if she could detect the depth of the hole. She saw only darkness. She would have to trust that it went all the way through. It had taken a little longer than she’d thought it would, so chances were good that it had drilled through to the abyss.
A yellow ring pulsed silently down the length of the coaxial beam, followed in quick succession by four more. She heard a sizzling sound, but saw no change, at first. Then she noticed that the coaxial wall had opened, directly on top, in one line representing only one degree of the cylinder’s circumference. It ran, she presumed, all the way up to Heaven. The air inside began to cloud, and as the vapor cooled it condensed into water, which began falling as rain. Some fell into the hole, but the frozen vapor extended 100 feet or higher within the coax. Because of the angle, most of the rain fell on the inner surface of the coaxial wall, where it vaporized again.
The cycle continued, with the vapor cooling and sliding downward, the process depositing more and more water back into the hole.
She addressed the pack—except for the alpha, which wasn’t a wolf any more. She asked the pack for one more effort before they 312
began their long trek back to wherever they had come from. The pack began herding the alpha toward the laser hole.
About the time the air inside the coax became clear, the quick succession of five yellow rings pulsed down the length of the coax again. The Heaven operator saying goodbye, she guessed. After a brief pause, the coax withdrew up into the sky, back to Heaven, leaving the hole in the ice filled to within twelve inches of the top.
She was alone again. Funny, but having the coax and laser drill near had made her feel as though she was in the presence of another human. Which was silly, but she felt more alone now.
The entity, inside the mind of the alpha male wolf, realized too late what the pack was doing. It lashed out weakly, but its efforts were futile. The pack closed ranks and pressed forward, leaving only one opening. The entity gathered the wolf’s strength and attempted to leap the pack. In better days, it may have succeeded, but not today, not with its life leaking out and a broken rear leg.
The wall of wolves pressed once more and the good rear leg lost purchase on the steep slope at the edge of the hole. It went down slowly, clawing at the ice with its front claws. Its rear end came to rest briefly on the thin layer of ice that had already formed. Then the body broke through and slid down despite desperate efforts with its front claws. Just before it sank into the icy water, the entity willed the wolf’s body to take in one final lung full of air. If it could force the body to hold the air, even as it died from oxygen deprivation, it might provide enough buoyancy to keep the body floating near the surface. If the wretched human were to leave, and a suitable host came in range, it might be close enough to transfer. The wolf body’s instinctive need to breathe became more powerful as each second passed, however, and finally overpowered the entity’s determination. With a jolting spasm the body expelled the CO2-laced air in its lungs and immediately inhaled: an involuntary but instinctive effort to live. It froze for a half-second, another instinctive move, this time an effort to reject the water that had entered its lungs. But with no options left, still needing air, it spent its last living spasm inhaling deeply, and then it was still. With lungs full of water, the body 313
went limp, and the entity howled its silent rage as the wolf body fell to the bottom of the abyss.
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Chapter 44 Seven Years Later May 29, 2017, GREOC Operations Ctr, Minnesota North Shore anny Hooks thought about that night, the night he called his M Arctic Night, now seven years past, as he maneuvered his two-year-old GM ECAR onto the off-ramp to Climates Drive. He glanced to the north, where he knew he’d get his first view, over the treetops, of the mirglas Operations Center: a smoothly contoured, garishly lighted, showy celebration of architecture and abundance, poised on top of the sprawling ten-storied complex housing the very first Global Rainfall and Energy Operations Center.
Seven years ago, Yul had gone ballistic when Manny told him what he’d done. What had upset him most was that Manny wouldn’t give him a reason for his actions. It would have offended Manny’s sense of ethics to repay his debt to Art and cause him grief in the process. He’d known from the start that in agreeing to grant Art’s request, he’d also insulate Art from any blowback that ensued.
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“I’ll tell you what I’m able to tell you,” he’d told Yul that next morning, when he’d waited for him in the Midwest Energy parking lot. “I repaid a favor, a large favor, to a friend, and saved lives in the bargain. I’m convinced of that. If I tell you my friend’s name, and this turns into a circus, he’d become a part of that circus, and I can’t let that happen. Whatever you do, I won’t fight it. Won’t sue, won’t file a grievance, won’t even offer a defense. I’ll ask only one thing of you. If you choose, you can believe coding errors caused the equipment maneuvers. At first. For a few hours, a day or two…
But hey! If things get intense, you get backed into a corner and you need to toss someone under a bus, I’m your guy. I’ll fess-up so fast it’ll make your head spin… If it stays in-house, if I keep my job, then I’ll owe you a favor. You can count on that. I repay favors.”
Yul had kept him sweating for the two days Manny was on break. The next time he’d reported for work, Yul had pulled him into his office and closed the door. “It’s a non-issue,” he’d said.
“Oh!” Manny’d said. “Thanks! How…”
“Don’t ask. Don’t discuss it with anyone. Understood?”
“Um… sure. Got it.”
“Payback’s gonna be a bitch, though,” Yul had said, as he’d pulled his door open and walked out.
Yul never told Manny how he had swept his Arctic Night under the rug, but doing so had enabled Manny to fulfill his dream.
Manny’s job had transferred to the GREOC when it became opera-tional a few months ago. Tonight, was the night he’d waited for.
The “Global” part of GREOC would become meaningful tonight.
There had been no practical reason to build the Operations Center atop the miles-deep granite ridge on Lake Superior’s north shore, a few miles north of Duluth. Nor was there a reason to build the skydome of the scarce element mirglas—mined on an asteroid and processed in space labs—and there was no reason to nest it in showy elegance on top of the building. They’d had the means, the materials, and the money, so they’d built it.
By international agreement, the Center and its staffing would 316
rotate every two years to a different country. America the Beautiful had first dibs and wanted to set a high bar. High it was, and what a view! Manny could walk for hours around the 800-foot perimeter track, watching as his view changed: beginning with the grandest of the great lakes and its rugged shoreline, to the Duluth skyline and harbor, and then to the great Minnesota north woods, stretching to infinity north and west. Three hundred sixty degrees of grandeur.
Recognizing his bio signature, the parking unit opened to admit him. He parked in one of 84 spots reserved for on-duty GREOC
Operators. The express elevator recognized him, opened its door, and whisked him to the observation platform.
At 5:20 PM, ten minutes early for the start of his shift, Manny stepped off the elevator and onto the bubble-shaped observation platform, made of mirglas, of course, and walked to the edge. From here, he had the best view of the fifty thousand square foot process floor. He saw a few bunches of balloons still tied off around the room, and he noticed they had finally unveiled the giant brass sign dedicating the structure to Carl Sagan. Kennedy had insisted: his name decorated too many structures already. He said this day belonged to Carl, without whom the project would have withered and died while it was still an undeveloped idea in his head.
Manny had wanted to attend the festivities today. He’d wanted to meet Sagan and JFK and shake their hands, but regulations dictated that he and his team sleep prior to the start of their first night shift, using nubbers if necessary. Non-compliance would show up on the bio scan.
All high voltage systems in the U.S. had transferred their operations to the GREOC several months ago. The GREOC had run operations in tandem with regional centers around the world beginning thirteen days ago. Those other centers would relinquish their control at midnight tonight, midway through Manny’s twelve-hour shift. At that point, there would be only one center orchestrating global operations. A little scary, but exciting.
Six teams, of forty-two persons each, would staff the Center around the clock, in twelve-hour shifts, 365 days a year. They would 317
have no vacations, no personal time off. Every team understood the rarity of the opportunity they’d been given, to be a part of something as historic as the GREOC, and they’d fight tooth and nail to be present for every minute of the time allotted them by their work schedule. For the next two years Manny would lead one of those six teams. As long as he didn’t screw up. If there were a downside, that was it.
Delivering electrical energy and rainfall, fairly and equably, to the world’s citizens, industries and governments, while obeying the laws of physics and working within the limits of the incredible system at his command, would require a delicate balance of engineering jurisprudence, diplomacy and sheer dumb luck. It would be laughably easy to offend or slight one geographic region or another, and even easier to remedy the offense: just replace the Team Lead.
An overabundance of hopefuls were ready, willing, and able to step in, but Manny wasn’t worried. He knew Heaven better than anyone.
Like the other five Leads, Manny had grown up and matured with the system. When he was a young operator, electrical energy had been produced by burning something, and rainfall wasn’t controlled at all. That you could accomplish both at the same time, cleanly, hadn’t even been a science-fiction concept. If Manny hadn’t watched it develop himself, it would be almost impossible for him to believe that this incredible system functioning today had begun as a twinkle in Kennedy’s eye a mere fifty years ago.
Noting, with approval, that Spencer was already on the floor, Manny made his way through a concealed door to steps leading down. In an emergency, Spencer was first in line to replace Manny as Lead, and Spencer wasn’t one to leave anything to chance. He’d be here early; he’d even spend some days-off here (though he’d be required to sit quietly on the sidelines) just to be certain he could step in and display complete and total system knowledge from minute one. Nothing less would be adequate. The Team philosophy derived from the Lead. It had to be solid and unassailable.
The door to the process level opened to Manny as he approached. He walked to the bridge: a circular stage with a diameter 318
of twenty feet, raised three feet above the floor, in the center of the process floor. He climbed the four steps to the top, and couldn’t help but look up at the massive mirglas dome overhead. Predictably, everyone called it the Sky. Two hundred fifty feet across, and nearly fifty feet above the floor at its center, the Sky was a marvel of engineering, bordering on magic.
Half an inch thick, supported only at its base, it was harder than titanium, more rigid than tungsten steel, and so smooth it defied belief. Rain, ice, snow, dust and other contaminants not only slid off, they never actually touched the mirglas surface, seeming rather to be repelled while still a hairsbreadth from contact, a phenomenon not quite understood by engineers. It never needs washing. In fact, mirglas would shrug off soap and suds as easily as it does any other material.
Known explosive devices could not destroy mirglas, but they could scar it. As mirglas absorbs and defuses the explosive heat, a permanent color, or stain, is infused into the mirglas, radiating out in unpredictable patterns. Artists were experimenting with the technique on ultra-thin sheets of the substance.
Each cubic inch of mirglas was composed of trillions of sub-nano-sized particles, each particle having countless properties of color, luminosity, and reflectivity. In its default state, each particle displays its clear property; they hold the first eight feet above Sky’s base in its clear state, allowing for the sweeping perimeter views that enchant anyone who made the trek.
Above that level is where the science got spooky. Scan the surface with a low energy, micron thin laser encoded with data, and the tiny particles jump to attention, displaying one or more of their non-default properties, allowing operators to project any part of the bulk electrical system onto the Sky: generating arrays, relay satellites, receiving anodes, and laser paths active in each sector.
The oculus, a 50-foot circle at the center, belonged to the team Lead. The remaining 163 feet between the oculus and the top of the eight-foot high clear base divides into twelve quadrants. Below each quad resides the operator triad responsible for roughly one twelfth 319
of Earth; one assigned to weather, one to electric and one to communications.
“Tonight’s the night,” Manny said to Jim.
Jim made no effort to conceal his jealousy. “Lotta pressure, old man. Sure ya ken handle it?”
“Well, young-en, you’re welcome to tape your mouth shut, sit back, and watch,” Manny replied. Though Jim was only five years younger than Manny, they both enjoyed the friendly bantering. If the five years were instead, five months, it wouldn’t have mattered.
“I’ll pass on that. But I know ya got me on speed-dial, and I’m only ten minutes away, so if ya get in trouble…”
“Oh, I wouldn’t wanna interrupt your nap time. I know how you young-ens need those naps.”
Jim scowled and shook his head. “Have it your way, old man.
But you’re wading in deep water. I’ll sleep with my phone on my chest. You call me if ya need an extra pair of hands. That’s coming from Yul. He put me on standby.”
“I’ve spoken to Yul. Your concern is noted, and your slumber will be undisturbed.”
“Let’s get into it then. No major ops involving the bridge today.
A couple of minor excursions were handled by the Control Center of record. By the by, most Centers have made it known they will stay online for an undetermined time just in case anything comes up that the Crystal Palace can’t handle.”
“The what?”
“That, unofficially, is our nom de plume.”
“Hm, Crystal Palace,” Manny said. “I kind-a like it.”
“That’s good, cuz you’ll be hearing it plenty. Energy-wise loads are low. About forty percent of our PV sets are on line. Globally, we have 11 mainline anodes inactive to assist with regional voltage control: two in the U.S., two in Japan, two in South America and five in Europe.
“PV 987, owned by one of the African groups, has a DC control problem. They’ve re-initialized it twice today already.”
“That’s the same one gave ‘em trouble last week,” Manny said.
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“I’d send a crawler out,” Jim said. “I don’t know why they haven’t already. Worried we might charge em, I guess. I cued one in, set to roll at midnight. Up to you, if you want to cancel.”
“We’ll let it roll,” Manny said, “see what it finds.”
“Ok,” Jim said. “Weather-wise, the Canadians are chasing another one south, but it don’t look good. If they lose it in the Rock…”
“Ah jeez, not again…”
“…ies, it’ll happen about the time you take over at midnight, and dumping all that water where they don’t need it will not be popular. I’ve talked to ‘em. They’re aware and doing what they can, but just so you know, it may get plopped into your lap later.”
“Christ,” Manny said, “when are they gonna learn they gotta start earlier?”
“Well, you know, they catch flak from a couple big cities if they cloud-up their evening,” Jim said.
“Yeah, exactly!” Manny said, raising his voice, agitated.
“That’s exactly what this whole GREOC is all about. We stop kow-towing to selfish interests and push our water where it can do the most good.”
“You done?” Jim asked.
“Well for Crissake, plains states are dealing with a drought!
Outdoor cooks in Regina are gonna have to put up with cloudy skies once in a while!”
“Hey,” Jim said, holding his hands up in surrender, “don’t shoot the messenger. I’m on your side, remember?”
“I know. Sorry. Just one of my pet peeves.”
“Yeah, I bet it ranks up there with NERC reps in the OC, huh?”
“Right,” Manny said, smiling now. “Ok, anything else I need to know?”
Jim spent another ten minutes going over the current state of the system with Manny: the 15,000 photovoltaic arrays marching in orbit around Earth, the lasers, anodes, and converters on sending and receiving ends, the safety protocols that protected their assets, and communication equipment that made it possible for them to do their jobs. When Jim finished, Manny logged in and pressed one 321
button that announced to his team he was open for business.
“Good luck old man,” Jim said, as he turned to leave.
“Luck’s got nothin to do with it, young-un. But thanks.
“Ok, next order of business,” Manny said, as he turned to con-template a spot on the floor, “do I want my rocker, or not?”
Their own good sense had forced designers of this first GREOC
to acknowledge that operators would not have eyes on top of their heads. Because operators would need to look up, at angles ranging from thirty to ninety degrees, designers knew they had to either solve the problem of neck strain or abandon the very idea of the mirglas dome—and no way in hell would they give up on that dome.
The IVSD (Infinitely Variable Stance Device), referred to as the rocker by operators, resulted from having turned thirty-four engineering students loose for one long weekend in a warehouse full of materials and tools, a list of requirements, and lots of pizza and caf-feinated soft drinks.
The robotic rocker could be sat in, stood in or laid upon, and in any of those modes it could tilt up to ninety degrees, allowing the operator to see any display on the dome over his head with no neck problems. The compact, wireless control board could be removed from the control console and attached to the rocker. Fully automated, the rocker turned, tilted or reconfigured at the operator’s whim, intuitively avoiding contact with railings, consoles, other operators or rockers. Sensors could even detect a sleepy operator thirty seconds before he drifted off, rotate him to a standing position, and advise him to take a short walk. That function had no override.
Left alone for more than a minute or two, the robotic device folded itself into a small, neat, cube and parked itself in a charging station in an out-of-the-way corner, for those rockers used by the thirty-six quad operators. The single rocker on the bridge sank into the floor when parked, its top becoming a part of the floor. Manny still wasn’t sure how he felt about the rockers. He had to admit they were cleverly designed and flawlessly built, and he hadn’t found a problem with any of their functions. Maybe he needed to become more familiar with them.
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