Harold To-kamra, chief editor of Po Publications, was not overjoyed with the idea of spending half a day away from the office. His inbox was a foot thick, and his to-do list was threatening to become a book in itself.
And yet, he was already making money, and expected to make lots more, from this silly book that someone wanted in bookstores so badly they’d put up a huge pile of cash, and risk the reputations of several respected generals and scientists in the process.
As he waited, briefcase in hand, just inside the ornate beveled glass doors of Po Publications, he smiled to himself. He’d get it into bookstores, easy.
He’d make sure every man, woman, child, and pet hamster in the world knew about it. But he was quite sure no one would actually buy it. It was bad news, the end of the world as they knew it, a downer if anything was.
The military van pulled into the loading zone exactly when it was due. An armed sergeant hopped out of the front passenger seat, slid open the side door part way, then stood with his hands behind his back.
Harold To-kamra took a deep breath and pushed through the ornate doors. As he approached the van, he recognized the young lady who controlled the money.
“Identity verified,” the young lady said.
The sergeant slid the door open wide.
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“Um . . . thank you,” the chief editor said. “Is tipping customary?”
“No,
Sir.”
“Come on in, Harold!” the young lady invited.
With some uneasiness, he stepped into the van and took the nearest seat.
A female officer smiled and extended her hand as the door was slid closed.
“Good morning, Mister To-kamra. I’m Colonel Lisa Ka-markla, chief of security at the facility we’re heading toward.”
He smiled and shook hands, then looked at the young lady. “I really need something I can call you. Gertrude, Brunhilde, something.”
The younger female laughed. “Everyone on the research team calls me Heather.”
“Happy to meet you again, Heather.” He looked around as he felt the vehicle move along the street. “It’s a bit strange not being able to see where we’re going.”
“Most of our scientists have been going through the same process for years,” Lisa explained. “They park at the air base, then chat about anything and everything, in one of these transports, on the drive to the facility.”
“I did a little research. Top secret umbra, right?”
“That’s just the general clearance to get you in the building. To actually be on the team, a specific program clearance is also necessary.”
“I don’t have either . . .”
Lisa smiled. “We won’t be operating in that mode today. Same thing happened when the authors were here, and when we have to bring in scientists or other specialists for a day.”
Harold nodded. “I see. Isn’t this weather we’re having quite beautiful for February?”
When the door was slid open and Harold To-kamra was finally able to see outside the vehicle, he beheld a concrete block wall and a steel door. Stepping out and standing up, he noticed that the geometry of the parking garage did not allow him to be seen from the vehicle entrance, behind them, nor the exit, ahead. Thick red lines on the floor appeared to mark the safe area. No one was making sure he stayed inside the red lines, but he imagined that more important guests might be handled differently.
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The sergeant spoke into an intercom on the wall, and a corporal unlocked the door from the inside and held it open for the new arrivals.
Harold To-kamra followed Heather into the building, past a staircase, and into a small room.
The sergeant stood behind a desk and grabbed a small lock-box from a cabinet.
Heather placed her pistol into the lock-box, and left her shoulder purse open on the table. The sergeant tapped it and smiled, but didn’t look inside.
“Mister To-kamra,” the sergeant began, “please take a look at the chart on the wall. If you have any of the items on this chart, such as guns, knives, or explosives, I must keep them locked up for you while you’re in the facility.”
“No, nothing. Do you wish to search me?”
“No, you’re already on our list of trusted visitors.”
“Thank
you.”
Heather collected her purse and led the way upstairs.
Harold To-kamra was enchanted by the pleasant atmosphere, the hospitality, and the tasty breakfast. Colonel Sarah Ma-soran, about his age and quite attractive, introduced him to the scientists and other professors who arrived in a constant stream. He had met the philosopher, but was familiar with the rest only by reputations, and their signatures on endorsements for the book he had so recently published.
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The chief editor asked a few open-ended questions to see if he could discover any more about the top-secret programs that met in the building, but didn’t learn anything new.
“Program name and session number deleted for security, twenty-three February 3670, zero-nine hundred hours, thirteen minutes.”
“Good morning, everyone,” Heather said, rising from her seat. “The security lamp is off, as we have a special guest. Please tell us about yourself, Mister To-kamra.”
He had it all planned. For several days, he had worked out what he was going to say to these people. He intended to put everything in glowing terms, tell them exactly what they wanted to hear, and utter not a single word that would tarnish their hopes and dreams. Those checks for a hundred thousand were what mattered. He’d be able to skim quite a bit, since an impressive publicity campaign wouldn’t cost anywhere near what these unsuspecting fools thought it would.
He stood, looked at the team of generals, colonels, majors, enlisted personnel, professors from the University, and one mysterious young lady, and his mind went completely blank.
Heather didn’t immediately notice, but she saw a concerned look on Susan’s face.
“I . . .”
The entire team waited, and tried to remain calm and respectful.
“I . . . I’m sorry . . . I seem to have . . . I don’t know . . . I seem to have forgotten . . . maybe I should sit down . . .”
A rumble began until Heather stood and raised a hand. “While Mister To-kamra takes a break, I’ll summarize what I know. Most of you heard the radio endorsements that Chris, Larry, Betty, and Tanya put together. A couple of you were absent when we played those, Sarah has the tapes. Last week, while we were on vacation, Chris and Betty did their first video endorsement, and we’ll get a copy of that as soon as the editing is done. Sam is scheduled to do his first . . .”
“Oh my God,” Harold To-kamra said from his seat, staring into space and paying no attention to Heather.
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Heather nodded to Susan, and the two of them converged on the chief editor’s chair and knelt down.
“I just realized . . .”
Sarah knelt down with them and whispered, “Medic?”
Susan shook her head.
“Oh my God, my grandchildren!” the stricken chief editor lamented.
“What’s going to happen to my grandchildren?”
On a hunch, Sarah touched the man’s trembling hand. After a moment of hesitation, he grabbed it and held on tightly, all the while gazing into space.
“But . . . even if it’s true . . . it shouldn’t affect them!”
Heather struggled to make a decision, and glanced around at the concerned faces of generals, colonels, and professors, but realized the situation didn’t allow the luxury of a conference. “Our research tells us . . . the collapse may come sooner than the authors predict . . . by twenty or thirty years.”
Harold To-kamra looked at Heather with wild, frightened eyes. “I saw fires, scorching heat and withered crops, and my grandchildren starving in their prime. Please tell me that’s not going to happen . . .”
Heather looked into his eyes and saw the pain of suddenly understanding that the message in the book he had published was not about something that would happen in the distant future, or to strange people in some far-away land, but to his own flesh and blood, right here in their homeland.
After a long break, a slice of apple pie, and a glass of cold milk, Harold To-kamra managed to regain his composure. He asked to speak to the team again.
“I came here to tell you . . . a bunch of bullshit. You deserve better. And I’m going to give you better. I just . . . don’t have anything prepared yet, so you’ll have to bear with me.”
Many members of the team nodded with sympathy. No one looked angry.
“I saw my grandchildren in a scorched land unable to produce any food. It was this land. I just need to ask you, to your faces, if you truly know this is coming.”
“No one can know the future,” Doctor Bo-leden the philosopher answered
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from his seat, “in the same way we know the past or the present. But we study the forces at work in the present that will shape the future. We take into account the track record of every technique we use. We especially look for those tendencies that several different forecasting methods all predict. We analyze everything from multiple points of view, which is why this team is highly inter-disciplinary. We do not know, but we do believe that a future WE
DO NOT WANT is right around the corner, and yes, it probably includes extreme droughts and other unusual weather that will cause a collapse of commercial agriculture and massive starvation.”
Harold To-kamra stared at the philosopher for a long moment, then looked around the room and saw well-known scientists and high-ranking military officers agreeing with nods. He swallowed before trying to speak again. “And . . . this book . . . will help change that?”
“We do not know that either,” Doctor Ko-silma the chemist answered, “but it’s the best thing we’ve found, so far, and was researched and written independently of this team. That counts for a lot in the world of science.”
The chief editor looked around again, and saw the same verification from everyone.
“I need some time to think,” he eventually said, “and I need to make some changes . . . some improvements . . . to the publicity that was planned for the book. Can I come back in . . . a week?”
Heather stood. “What’s on our schedule, Sarah?”
She opened a binder. “Yes, a week from today would be fine.”
The chief editor looked around like a lost puppy for another moment, then whispered, “Thank you.”
Harold To-kamra was so anxious to work on his publicity plans that he declined their offer of lunch, and was back in a blind transport by eleven o’clock. After a break to see him off, the security lamp was switched on and the team reconvened.
With a wrinkled brow, General Bo-seklin stood. “Anyone care to speculate on what happened today?”
Doctor Po-selem the physicist raised his hand. “When I joined this team, seven and a half years ago, you wouldn’t have caught me dead saying what I’m
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about to say.”
Most of the team chuckled or smiled.
“I think that today we witnessed a little bit of divine intervention.”
