Chapter Fifty-Six
TAVISH
1
The nightly news began in the same fashion as on every other night for the previous month. The comet was headline news and all other news was secondary because of it.
‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is the news of Wednesday, August 23, 2023. Travers’ comet again dominates the news with the latest release from NASA reassuring us that the comet will safely pass between the Earth and Moon on the 23rd of September. The report goes on to say that a number of small pieces of comet debris may in fact pass through our atmosphere, but NASA assures us that they will burn up harmlessly before they hit the ground.
‘Tavish McTavish, head of NASA’s Travers’ Comet Task Force, stated today that he was looking forward to the spectacle and that he and his family were planning a backyard, comet-welcoming barbecue on the big night.
‘People all over the world are planning to celebrate the comet’s passing. We now cross to London for the latest on their planned celebrations.’
‘A jolly good evening, America. Reggie here. On the 23rd of September, Londoners will do what Londoners do best, paaaaar-teeee! Yeah baby! … and Roger … it’s Roger isn’t it?’
‘Er, yes, that’s correct, Reggie.’
‘Well, Rodgee-dee, I have some Earth-shattering news for you tonight … no, no, Elton John has not been defrosted out of his cryo. It’s bigger than that. … Are you ready, America? … The Stones … oh my God, did I just say The Stones? … Yes, I did, girlfriend … The Stones are going to smash the whole planet with a show they say will absolutely slay everybody. How about that, America?’
‘Do you mean The Rolling Stones, Reggie? I would have thought that they would have been on life support by now, ha, ha.’
‘They might look like the walking dead, Rodgee-dee, but apparently they still kick ass, as you Americans like to say.’
‘It’s a wonder they survived the epidemic. If they live any longer, people are going to start thinking that they’re immortal.’
‘Yeah baby. That’s because they come from good old British stock, Rodg.’
‘Aren’t they into baby-blood transfusions or something?’
‘Rodgee, Rodgee, where did you hear that? I don’t know where these sorts of cruel rumours come from. I have it on good authority that Mick and the boys get off on their veggies every day, and you can take that to the bank.’
‘They probably suck them through a straw.’
‘Ha, ha, ha, Rodgee baby, the par-teeee, Rodgee, aren’t we supposed to talk about the par-tee? What is happening on your side of the pond?’
‘Listen, Reggie, us Noo Yokers can out-par-teee you bunch of fish-n-chip chompin pommies any day of the week. The 23rd of September’ll be like Noo Years Eve, 1999, here in the Big Apple.’
Trixie yelled from inside the house,
‘They’re sayin it’s gonna miss us, Snake. They’re sayin that there’s gonna be a big party.’
Snake took the phone away from his ear and yelled from the side of the pool,
‘Change the friggin channel, Trixie. Those sons of bitches are bullshittin everybody.’
‘OK, Snake. You want I should get you another beer?’
‘That’d be nice, cupcakes.’ Snake put the phone back to his ear. ‘Now, Jack, I don’t want you to let me down on this one. I need the whole load here by the weekend.’
‘You got it, Snake. The truck is nearly loaded. We’re just waitin for the guns and the ammo and we’ll be off. We should be there by Saturday night. And you wanna buy the truck as well, is that right?’
‘That’s right, Jack, the truck and everythin that’s in the truck, for cash, payable on delivery.’
Snake hung up the phone. He lit a cigar and took a swig of his beer. His phone rang. He recognised that the call was from Jonesy and picked up.
‘Hiya Jonesy.’
‘Hiya, Snake. Have you been watchin the news?’
‘Agh, Trixie’s been surfin the channels, but all I smell is bullshit by the bucket load.’
‘They all reckon that it’s gonna miss us an put on a great show.’
‘Yeah, crap!’
‘Have you seen the guy on YouTube that reckons it’s gonna hit? He calls himself Cometwatcher. He put up this video showin all these calculations he’d done, an he’s come to the conclusion that it’s gonna hit right somewhere in the middle of the North American continent, man. Have you seen the video, Snake?’
‘Can’t say as I have, Jonesy. I knew nothin about it.’
‘They took his video down as soon as it started goin viral. He put it up again an told everybody to record it on their phones off their computer screens. He then told everybody to upload their copy back on YouTube. He reckoned that that was the only way to beat the bastards. That’s what I’ve done; I’ve recorded it on my phone, Snake, an just after I did it they took the video down again. I can send it to you if you want.’
‘That’d be good, Jonesy. I’d like to see it. So, what else does this guy reckon?’
‘Well, he reckons that he’s calculated the size of the comet. He reckons that based on the speed reduction, and the change of angle after the Venus encounter, the comet should be about twenty-five miles end to end.’
‘Holy cow!’
‘An he reckons that there are at least a couple of dozen chunks of rock flyin through space alongside it that are between half an two miles across.’
‘Jesus Christ!’
‘He reckons that the main comet will hit on the 23rd somewhere right in the middle of the North American continent an that all the rest of the chunks will pepper the whole rest of the planet. That was his word that he used, Snake … pepper.’
‘Jesus, Jonesy, send me the video an I’ll check it out.’
‘They keep takin it off YouTube, but now so many people are postin it back up that they can’t keep up with em.’
‘Serves em right, the sonabitches. Hey, I’ve got the supplies comin this weekend.’
‘What have you got?’
‘You name it. Food, water, tents, guns, ammo, clothes, first aid; did you know that Trixie used to be a nurse?’
‘No, I didn’t know that, Snake.’
‘Oh yeah. She made up a list of stuff, everythin from bandages and tourniquets to penicillin and sutures. She’s somethin else.’
‘How are ya gettin all the supplies up there?’
‘I’ve bought a truck. We’ll have to go an scout out the area, Jonesy. I figured we could make base camp somewhere near Pike’s Peak, maybe in a park or campin area. I thought we could fly a lot of the supplies up the mountain in the chopper.’
‘We better go out there and case the scene soon, Snake. Time’s runnin out.’
‘I thought next week, after all the supplies get here. Let’s both check out the area on Google Earth an I’ll touch base with you in a few days.’
‘That might be too slow, Snake.’
‘You wanna go faster?’
‘I think so, Snake.’
‘OK, how about, say the truck arrives on Saturday like Jack says it will, so … say I book a flight to San Fran on Sunday mornin an you pick me up at the airport?’
‘That’s a better idea, Snake.’
‘I tell you what, Jonesy, why don’t you hire us a nice red Corvette for the trip into the mountains an pick me up in that.’
‘You got it, Snake. Convertible?’
‘Yeah, an get the one with the big-mother motor.’
‘I’ll get on it, Snake. Call me an let me know your flight number. We’ll blast up the mountains straight from the airport.’
‘I’ll touch base with you Saturday night.’
‘Adios, compadre.’
‘Adios, amigo.’
2
The candy-apple-red Corvette roared up the Sonora Pass Highway. Snake drove while Jonesy navigated using both the GPS in the dash and Google Earth on his tablet.
About twenty-five miles out of Sonora, and just before lunch, they rolled into a tiny town called Cold Springs. They pulled up at the only building on the side of the road, which just happened to be the Cold Springs Realty Office.
‘What kind of house are you fellers lookin fur?’
‘We’d like it big, next to a clearin and some water nearby, an as close to Pike’s Peak as possible.’
‘Well, you’d be wantin somethin around Pinecrest Lake, up the road apiece. Just happen to have a place on the books that might suit yer. Let me git my file.’
Jonesy and Snake looked at each other while the realty man rummaged through his filing cabinet.
‘It’s here somewheres. I know the place. It’s real pretty. It’s on Pinecrest Avenue an it’s right across the street from a cleared-out space. You got kids?’
‘Er, yeah,’ replied Jonesy, ‘but they’re pretty grown up, er, high school.’
‘Not too many high schools round heresabouts … here it is.’ He opened the file and took out some photos of the house. ‘I can take you up there if you like, it ain’t far.’ ‘We like,’ said Snake enthusiastically.
As they followed the agent’s pickup in the Corvette, Jonesy looked up Pinecrest, California, on the net.
‘I know this place, Snake. It can’t be more than five miles from Pike’s Peak as the crow flies. It’s like a holiday place with campin, an a resort with a marina on the lake. It’s a real pretty place.’
They pulled up in front of the house, which was a sizeable, well-maintained, stone and timber construction with a gabled roof. They stepped out of their cars.
‘There’s your open space over there,’ said the agent pointing across the street from the house.
‘No problems landing the chopper there, Jonesy,’ observed Snake.
‘It’s got the big driveway, see, an three cars’ll squeeze in that garage. It’s got five big bedrooms, a big woodpile fur the fireplace …’ ‘We’re sold,’ said Snake.
‘But you ain’t seen the insides.’
‘OK then, let’s have an eyeball around the insides.’
As they inspected the interior of the commodious, mountain abode, Snake found out the asking price and offered $50,000 bonus to the agent if he could get the conveyancing completed within a week. After the agent caught his breath, he assured Snake that he could get the job done on time because his brother was a lawyer. He told them that they could pick up the keys in seven days, ‘or any time there abouts after abouts’.
3
As soon as Snake returned home to Las Vegas from his house-hunting trip he began calling everyone and informing them of the purchase. He told them that the Pinecrest house would be their base from which they would launch operations. He told them all,
‘Get good hikin boots an tough mountain clothes an backpacks. I’ve got guns, crossbows, ammo, arrows, knives, binoculars, an you name it.’
Snake was approaching this like a military operation. He suspected that the comet might take everything out, including them, but he clung onto a blind faith that Jonesy would somehow pull them through, although he couldn’t imagine how. He knew one thing for sure, though. The last decade of his life had unfolded in a fashion he could never have imagined, or foreseen, even in his wildest dreams. Who could have imagined aliens from other planets that flew around in silent, silver disks and psychedelic body suits?
The aliens were responsible for his obscene wealth, they were responsible for his new family, his talented crew, and they were responsible for them being the benefactors of the secret knowledge about a date and a place to be, bound to one’s family. Although he wasn’t a religious man, in the traditional sense of the word, Snake had his own secret relationship with ‘the Big Guy upstairs’. He had his own reasons that he never spoke about to anyone. He spoke to the Big Guy and he believed that the Big Guy listened; that was how it went. He always thought that he wasn’t going to hide under some rock from the Big Guy, ‘no way’. For better or worse, he would face Him, and be open to Him, and accept his fate as delivered by Him. But Snake had absolutely no time for any kind of organised religion, and he had zero tolerance for its ‘twisted’ purveyors. ‘Bullshit artists, the lot of em.’
4
People all across America and all around the world ate their dinner in front of the ‘many-coloured beast’ that dominated their living rooms. Togetherness was now something altogether different from what it was a few generations before. Togetherness was now being locked into the beast in the vicinity of people who were similarly locked in. Days, even weeks, went by without anyone in the house ever looking at anyone else directly in the eye. Whole conversations were held between participants who were firmly tranced into the rectangle of flickering light. It was like having a black hole in the house. Albert Einstein warned us about how anyone that got too close to a black hole would be drawn into it until they got so close that they could never escape. Little did he know that black holes came in many guises and that one of those guises was the domestic television set. It sucked everything in. It operated chiefly on the mental level, attracting and annihilating the mind of its victims. It sucked the personality out of a person like someone sucks the meat out of a lobster claw. This phenomenon might have been predictable mathematically, and Einstein might have even worked out the formula if he had lived long enough, but there was something that was not so easily predictable, and it was quite amazing. The black hole created a vacuum and then re-filled that vacuum with something else. It replaced the vibrant, unique consciousness it had sucked out of the human individual with its own consciousness, which could at best be described as groupthink and at worst, propaganda. And the most amazing thing about this whole transmutation was that the victim remained completely oblivious to what was happening to him. The black hole gave the anaesthetic and then performed the lobotomy. It took away real reality and replaced it with its own, even realer reality. Reality wasn’t what was happening outside, it was what was happening on TV, and everyone believed it. They believed in the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, the Moon landing, 9/11, Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, climate change and carbon tax. And now they believed in the Travers’ Comet flypast. They believed everything they were told because they were lobotomised and were thus incapable of discerning the truth. From the point of view of an alien race, they were primed for extinction.
5
‘Snake …’
‘Yeah, cupcakes?’
‘That NASA guy that’s in charge of the comet task force is gonna be on TV.’
‘You mean the guy with the funny name? What’s his name? Donald McDonald?’
‘No, Snake, it’s Tavish McTavish. They’re sayin that he’s gonna give us the latest information on the comet.’
‘You know, Trix, you oughtn’ta watch that thing so much cause it’ll rot your brain.’
‘I would’a thought my brain was the last thing you worried about, Snake.’
‘I worry about all of you, Trixie. I just don’t want you to get too sucked in by all the bullshit, that’s all.’
‘Don’t you worry about that an come in here an give your Trixie a big kiss, eh?’
Snake could never resist an invitation like that. He rose from the lounge in his study and stepped into the living room. The television took their attention.
‘Live from downtown, smoggy Burbank, welcome to Newspeak.
‘Dateline, Friday, September first, 2023. Travers’ comet continues to hurtle towards Earth accompanied by an armada of deadly debris, which became freed from their icy entrapment during the comet melt as it passed through Venus’ thick atmosphere, … bla … bla … bla, I’m reading here. Today we have Mr. Tavish McTavish, from NASA, who is with us to explain the latest findings on the goings on of Travers’ comet. Good evening, Tavish. Give Tavish a big hand, people.’
The rented audience, going by the name of Clapmeisters, gave Tavish precisely ten seconds of wild applause with added hoots and whistles. Tavish looked decidedly troubled as he sat in the guest’s chair. His forehead was furrowed and his eyes darted from side to side. He appeared to be unable to make direct eye contact with anyone. He seemed to be hazy on his surroundings. A small bead of sweat rolled down his left temple.
‘Good evening, Tavish. Is that an Irish name?’
‘Uhm, yeah, Dave.’
‘Is it OK to call you Tavish?’
Tavish stared at the audience as though they were cardboard cut-outs. There was a distinct glaze in his eyes. The presenter looked sideways at the audience with a ‘what the fuck?’ look on his face. He turned back towards Tavish and asked him,
‘So, Tavish, three weeks to go. The whole world is chillin the champagne in anticipation. Tell us a bit about how you discovered the comet.’
Tavish’s eyes turned slowly towards the presenter with a dumbfounded look on his face. It was the kind of expression a person gets just after they realise that they are in the presence of a total idiot. He scanned the interior of the studio with a slow, purposeful turn of the head. The camera zoomed in on his face as he mumbled,
‘You are all actors.’
The presenter looked at the ceiling and called out to his producer,
‘Izzy, what is happening here? Should we go to a break?’
Just before they made a decision to cut to an advertisement, Tavish regained his composure.
‘Actually, Dave, the comet was discovered by an Aussie gliding instructor, named Tim Travers, hence the name Travers’ Comet.’
‘What did I say?’
‘I was the guy that guessed that the comet would execute an aero-braking manoeuvre through the Venusean atmosphere.’
The audience laughed for five seconds because a flashing sign told them to.
‘You crack me up, Tavish. So, can you describe to the people of the world just how good the big show is gonna get? Will it be better than the New Year’s Eve fireworks?’
‘Sure, Dave, I can give you a description.’
The audience broke into wild applause. Dave shuffled in his chair excitedly and licked his lips. Tavish leaned back in casual repose and placed his right ankle on top of his left knee. A sudden calm overcame him. He appeared like a man who finally got it. He began,
‘Travers’ comet came hurtling into our solar system doing something like 40 kilometres per second, which is about 144,000 kilometres per hour, Dave. It was huge, about thirty miles across. I guess the universe is a game of random events, a game of billiards played on an infinite, 3D, billiard table. Every now and then, something hits something else. I suppose that you could work out some sort of statistical probability, but the fact is that there was nothing random about the comet’s encounter with Venus. Since its formation, the comet’s flight path was ruled by the immutable laws of physics. If you knew where it was, and you knew its mass, speed and trajectory, and you were smart enough, you could have worked out the Venus encounter thousands of years in advance. And you probably could have worked out what happened after the Venus encounter. You just needed the data and the computing power to do it.’
Tavish looked around at all the blank, gaping faces, then continued.
‘Once I knew the speed, mass and flightpath of the comet, I crunched the numbers and came up with the aero-braking scenario. I have no idea why nobody else got it … no idea at all … it seemed pretty straightforward to me. Everyone knows what happened after that, how NASA sacked me, and how President Griffin got my job back for me.’ The Clapmeisters burst into a round of wild applause, hooting and whistling.
‘Thank you. The comet burned through the Venusean atmosphere, but did not actually make physical contact with the ground. It experienced a huge amount of friction, which caused the fireball we all witnessed from Earth. The friction also caused a profound reduction in the comet’s mass due to the vaporization of an outer layer of ice. This vaporisation of ice released a number of large rocks, which were previously trapped within it. Am I making any sense, Dave?’
‘Er, kind of, Tavish. Are we coming to the show part anytime soon? Everybody’s itching to hear about the show.’
‘Oh yeah, I’m getting to that.’
‘Oh good. Give Tavish a big hand for that, folks.’ More applause.
‘Er, thanks. Now, where was I? Oh yeah. The comet burned away about a sixth of its mass passing through the Venusean atmosphere. It is now, as close as I can figure it, about twenty-five miles across. The other thing that happened, and you needed really excellent data to figure this out in advance, the other thing that happened … actually there were two things … there was the twenty-three-degree change in trajectory … plus … there was a slowing down of the comet due to the braking effect of the atmosphere. It halved its speed to about 72,000 kilometres per hour. Er, most of the freed debris got slowed down a bit more than the core of the comet … er … smaller chunks more than bigger chunks … er … as a consequence they got deflected at slightly different angles, meaning that they are spread out a bit, not unlike a shotgun blast. Because some got slowed down more than others, some will … er …’ Tavish paused and looked at all the dopey faces staring blankly at him. After a brief moment of contemplation, he continued, ‘some will, er, pass this way, we estimate as much as twelve hours after the main part of the comet does. That will give the Earth time to turn and …’
‘I know what you are going to say, Tavish, you are going to say that everybody on Earth will get to see the show … eh what? … Am I right?’
Tavish’s jaw dropped open and his eyes took on an even more vacant stare. He mumbled,
‘You must be psychic, Dave.’
The audience went nuts with applause. Dave rose to his feet and began stomping around his chair, chanting, ‘par-tee, par-tee, par-tee’. Then the whole audience rose to their feet and began chanting ‘par-tee’ as well. Tavish just sat there looking like Jack Nicholson after his lobotomy. After all of the ruckus subsided, he continued,
‘Er, so the comet is about 25 miles end to end. That’s like two Manhattans, Dave. It’s travelling at about, ah, give or take, 72,000 kilometres per hour, which is, er, about 45,000 miles per hour, which is about twelve and a half miles per second.’
Beads of perspiration were beginning to appear on Tavish’s forehead.
‘Er, we’ve been observing the comet and doing a lot of number crunching and we’ve pretty much nailed the final trajectory. We’ve got the ETA down to, er, like five minutes. Er, just as a hypothetical …’ Tavish looked at Dave, ‘er, that’s like pretend, Dave … just as a pretend, if the comet hypothetically hit anything, it carries the power of about 240 quadrillion tons of TNT. Er, I think the Hiroshima bomb was something like around 15 thousand tons. Er … that equates to about 16 trillion Hiroshimas. … Er, that’s one huge firecracker, Dave. … Er, this thing is going so fast it’d be through the atmosphere in about five seconds. That’d be just about enough time to take one breath.’ Everyone in the studio sat spellbound.
‘Er, as I said already, we’ve pretty much nailed the ETA. It’s going to be sometime between 2.20 and 2.25 in the afternoon, Mountain Time, on the 23rd of September.’
Dave cut in,
‘Ohh, that’s daytime, Tavish. You can’t have fireworks in the daytime. Can’t you do anything about that?’
‘Er … life tends to be full of disappointments, Dave. Get used to it. Now, the speed, mass and power of this thing adds up to some biblical numbers, Dave. Like this puppy would bury itself forty miles into the Earth’s crust if it hit. It would take you hours to drive your Hummer to the bottom of the hole. As I said, we’ve done plenty of number crunching and we think we’ve nailed it, Dave.’
Tavish sat there looking as pale as a ghost and as cool as a cucumber. With sweat dribbling down his forehead, he calmly declared,
‘The comet is going to slam into the Earth right in the middle of Wyoming, with the power of 240 quadrillion …’
Suddenly a man ran into the shot. He appeared to have come from the audience. Only his back and the back of his head could be seen. He pulled a pistol from his right jacket pocket, placed it point blank between the eyes of Tavish’s forehead and pulled the trigger. As the bullet buried itself deep inside Tavish’s brain, his last realisation was that it was a fractal precursor of the coming event. Dave dove under his desk. The audience screamed. The gunman raced off, stage left. Tavish slumped forward in his chair, dead. The program cut. The station logo appeared for fifteen seconds. Finally, an ad for Chunky Cheese Protein Patties, with guaranteed 5% real meat content, came on. After the ad, a favourite old episode of F-Troop began.
…….