2084 The End of Days (28 page)

Jill felt her voice start to break.

“We-ell, ah-h – och, Ewan it can wait till ah see you –“

Ewan detected that Jill was close to tears and he felt that it was better if she got the problem off her chest now.

“It’s okay Jill – whatever it is, you can tell me.”

“It’s just that – um – ah got ma email result on ma application for the emigration programme today. Ewan – ah’ve only made the second tier reserve list, which puts tens and tens of thousands of people in front of me. My chances of going to Mars are pretty slim. Oh God, Ewan, ah’m going to lose y-you!”

Jill burst into tears and Ewan attempted to console her.

“Look Jill, if you’re not going to Mars, then I’m not going either. Do you think I would leave you behind?”

Jill took a deep breath and composed herself.

“No way, Ewan. You fully deserve to go. It was you who identified Schenkler in the first place. From that knowledge mankind at least hopes to save twenty five thousand and you deserve to be one of them. Anyway – we need your kind on Mars to identify the next rogue comet and help work towards pushing man further out into deep space. Ultimately, if we don’t eventually get out of this solar system then we are all doomed!”

In Houston Ewan was shaking his head and he spoke through an emotionally constricting throat.

“Okay, Jill, I’ll think about it and we’ll talk more when you fly back to Houston. Looking on the bright side, at least you are on one of the reserve lists. There are billions of men and women who are not on any of the immigration lists for Mars. So let’s not completely write off your chances just yet.”

*

Earthdate: 12:00 Monday September 20, 2083 CST

It was the start of a new working week but all normal work around the globe was suspended as billions of people were glued to their 3DTVs. Everyone gathered together to watch the televised feeds coming down from Alpha Base showing the Oceanus fleet of twenty five spaceships pushing off slowly at first, one by one, until they were far enough out of Earth’s gravitational pull to fire up their fusion drives. Jack Crossan had detailed fleet command to his old second-in-command Xi Xhu Pan. Jack would command the second fleet departing in February 2084. The ships carried the first wave of 10,000 young men and women and with their departure also went the hopes and dreams of the billions left behind. Each ship was cheered off enthusiastically by the billions of viewers as it was filmed passing close by Alpha Base. Jill reported the momentous event in human history from the
Sky News office in Houston and she was hoarse and exhausted by the time the twenty fifth and last Oceanus had blasted off and disappeared from the screenshots heading out towards Mars. She stoically finished her report as viewers looked into the empty blackness of space still on their screens.

“Today the hostile Red Planet somehow feels a more hospitable place to be.”

Immediately after finishing reporting at around three in the afternoon Jill grabbed an air-taxi and headed for the nearby City Hall a few blocks away in downtown Houston. On the way there she tried to fix up her make-up and take the tired look out of her eyes with fresh mascara and a helping of bronzer. As she stumbled up the steps of City Hall she saw Jack Crossan in full Space Commander’s uniform waiting there for her in the atrium. He looked slightly disheveled and unshaven as he gave her a weary wave.

“God’s sake, Jack. You look about as bad as ah feel.”

“Ah am done in, Jill. Ah have been training the crews for those twenty five ships up there without hardly a break for the last few months. Ah only have a coupla days off then it is back onto training for the final fleet. By the time ah’m finished ah will hardly be fit to command a paper boat never mind an Oceanus spaceship.”

Jill laughed.

“Ah’m knackered too, Jack. Ah feel that ah’ve been reporting non-stop for weeks. Is everybody here?”

“Ah think so –“

Jill tried to straighten out Jack’s tie and brushed off his uniform.

“My God, Jack. We don’t exactly look like the best man and the best maid, do we?”

They pressed on into City Hall which was packed full of various wedding parties all keen to tie the knot before that fateful date with Armageddon. As they entered the Function Hall Lex and Irene ushered Jack and Jill to join them quickly in front with the impatiently waiting Registrar. Seated behind the happy couple were many of Lex and Irene’s family, friends and colleagues from NASA. They included Jimmy Soderline, Aaron Eckler, Beth O’Donnell, Ari Schenkler, Ewan Sinclair and Gary Mackintosh. Even Lars and Freda Nilstrom, Lex’s former in-laws, had flown in from Dallas to celebrate the wedding. Later at the intimate reception Jill and Ewan sat hand in hand listening to the various wedding speeches. Ewan lent across and whispered in Jill’s ear.

“Jill, you know I love you so much. Why don’t you and I get married too, before everything comes crashing to an end?”

“Ewan, ah love you too. But ah will only marry you under one condition.”

“What condition, Jill?”

“Ah will only marry you if and when we both get safely to Mars.”

Ewan gazed at Jill, perplexed.

“But you made me promise to take my place on the Oceanus fleet even if you don’t make it out the reserve list. That might mean that you may never be my wife –“

Jill brushed Ewan’s cheek with the softest of touches.

“Well then, ah don’t propose to tie you down as a would-be widower here on Earth, when you might have to find a new wife on Mars. We can only hope for some divine intervention which will see us both walk down the aisle in Capitol Base.”

“But, Jill –“

“No buts, that’s the way it’s got to be!”

They were then raised to their feet along with the other guests as Lars Nilstrom raised his glass.

“Ah give you a toast – the bride and groom.”

“THE BRIDE AND GROOM!”

Chapter 21

Earthdate: 09:30 Wednesday January 5, 2084 GMT

G
ary Mackintosh groaned aloud with the pounding pain in his head. The whole world had been celebrating this New Year like there was no tomorrow, mainly because there
was
literally no tomorrow. Gary had been drinking hard since Hogmanay but it was more to drown his sorrows than to celebrate and he had awakened in the fog of a deep black depression. He had made a lot of money through his work on the computing projects to transfer the E2MSN to Mars Control and the NOAHSARK database. Both of these projects were now almost complete. He only had some peripheral work to see them to final stage sign off, which had left him feeling a bit redundant. There was also some strange information that he had stumbled on that left him feeling confused and depressed. It was something he had meant to speak to Ewan about but had not found the right moment. Virtually all his money and the stock portfolio that he had built since his school days had been transferred into Martian commodity stocks on the NYSE. His intention had been to transfer his stock holdings to Ewan, the lost love of his life, shortly before Ewan was to set off for Mars next month. He felt that if he left his stock transfer until the last possible minute, probably a few days before 28 February, when Ewan was scheduled to blast off with the last Oceanus fleet, then he would make an absolute killing. However, on 30 December, following some devastating meteor showers from the tip of Schenkler’s tail, there was a stock market crash. Martian stocks crashed spectacularly, along with most other Earth-bound commodities. Gary had urgently called his stockbroker in order to sell his stocks. However, when he eventually got a hold of him, Gary was told that his stocks had been wiped out and that he was now virtually broke. All he had left was about $14,700 in the bank and an open return ticket from Houston to London Heathrow. He had bought the flight ticket to fly home and celebrate the New Year with his family and friends in Glasgow for the last time. His last few days in Glasgow had been spent in an almost drunken stupor, which had not helped his depression one bit. Last night his old Glasgow University mates poured him on to the Glasgow Central to London Euston train to head for his return flight to Houston from Heathrow. Gary held his thumping head in his hands and tried to focus his eyes when he began to realise he was in a first-class sleeper compartment. He noticed that the train was stationary. He looked at his watch, 09:32. Must be in Euston by now, he thought. Gary drew up the closed blind on the window and looked out onto a chilly frost-covered platform. However, he was perplexed when the station signs did not read Euston but instead read Carlisle, still 300 miles north of London! He noticed that there were quite a few cold-looking passengers milling around on the platform. Still dressed in his clothes from the previous evening, Gary grabbed his travel bag and staggered out onto the platform, immediately noticing a railwayman in uniform.

“Hey, mate, what the hell’s goin’ on? How’re we no’ in London yet?”

“Sorry, sir, but there’s been a meteor strike on the main line at Penrith. They say it’s practically wiped out the whole town.”

The news momentarily snapped Gary out of his hangover.

“Bloody hell! Does that mean we’re stuck here?”

“They’re looking at sending the train back up to Edinburgh and diverting it down the East Coast, but at the moment there is no timescale for this happening.”

The black wave of depression again clouded Gary’s brain.

“Aw, fuck this! Are there no any trains runnin’ out of this God forsaken place, man?”

The railwayman, who was a Carlisle local, looked scathingly at Gary and with a slight sarcastic sneer in his voice, he spoke back.

“There is a train on Platform 1 leaving for Grange-over-Sands in two minutes. It’s over there – maybe the sea air will do you some good, sonny!”

Gary had no time or inclination to pick a fight with the man, so he just took off across the concourse and jumped onto the small local train. As the train began to wind its way around the Cumbrian coast in increasingly sleety conditions, with the snow-covered mountains of the Lake District on his left and the icy-grey Irish Sea on his right, he began to wonder what in God’s name he was doing. Grange-over-Sands? He had never even heard of the place. Oh well, it will have to do, he thought, who will miss me anyway? About half an hour later he alighted at the small old-fashioned and slightly dilapidated seaside town to be met by a biting sleet-laden wind coming off the freezing sea. He quickly checked in to the first B&B which had a vacancy sign showing, situated close by the railway station. After grabbing a tasteless greasy breakfast which did not sit well in his ailing stomach, he decided to go for a walk. The sleet had gone off but the biting westerly wind caused him to head inland in an easterly direction away from the sea and he found himself walking along a deserted country road with tall pine woods lining either side. Looking to the north-east he could see a pall of blackish smoke rising into the sky and he guessed that it was from the town of Penrith still burning after the meteor strike. Gary had been walking for about an hour when he came into a small hamlet, which consisted of a few cottages, a café and a small rundown church. Gary was freezing by this time and he stepped into the warm café and ordered some tea and scones. He must have been sitting morosely for some time as the waitress sidled over and absently wiped his table.

“Something got you down, lad?”

“What-t?”

“Is it all to do with this comet thing?”

“Ah don’t know, aye well, sort of –“

The waitress put a gentle hand on Gary’s shoulder.

“Don’t you worry, lad, the man upstairs will sort it all out in the end.”

“Och, ah was brought up a Catholic but ah don’t really believe in God.”

“In the end we’ll all believe, mark my words.”

Gary sat for a few more minutes finishing off his pot of tea, then he paid and tipped the waitress, who gave him a knowing smile as he stepped back out into the village street. Across the road he spotted the little old and slightly decrepit church. He was about to turn around for the walk back to Grange-over-Sands when he somehow felt compelled to walk over to the church. The door creaked loudly when he pushed it open. Gary had not been to church since he was a wee boy in the Sunday school at St Margaret Mary’s. The church was empty and hollow-sounding as he walked down the aisle towards the altar. He sat in one of the pews near the front and he quickly glanced around. He was completely alone in the musty old church and he felt cut off from the rest of the world. Involuntarily, Gary felt his body to begin spasmodically trembling, not from the cold, but from raw fear. Subconsciously, his hands came together and he looked upwards to the rafters and for the first time in his life he really began praying to God.

“You there Big Man?”

Gary’s voice echoed and bounced around the bare walls of the empty church.

“Maybe not. Ah probably don’t merit your attention anyway. You’ve got bigger fish to fry than me at present, haven’t you? There’s billions of us wanting answers from you an’ that’s a pretty tall order to meet, even for you God.”

The church remained silent and Gary’s head sunk onto his clasped hands resting on the pew in front of him. He listened quietly for a few moments, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. Then he spoke again, raising his voice a notch or two.

“Ah don’t know what you want me to do God! Do you want me to finish it now? Ah’ve lost everything that ah worked for anyway, so what’s the point of goin’ on? Do you want me to walk up that mountain out there an’ throw myself off, or walk back to the sea an’ throw myself in or just fling myself under a train? Maybe you’ll be saying that ah’ll be with you in less than five months anyhow. But why don’t we both just finish it here and now? Eh, God, what do you say?”

Gary peered around seeing only emptiness and cold. Silence. He jumped to his feet and raised his arms aloft, in a cruciform position.

“FUCK SAKE, GOD! Just one word. Yes? No? Just one sign. That’s all ah’m askin’ for –“

He slumped back onto the seat of the pew and unconsciously back into the prayer position. He wept profusely. Tears blinded him and mucus streamed out of his nose and mouth.

“Ah’m sorry, God, ah am so sorry. Ah have no right to ask you for anything. Please can you forgive me?”

There was no crack of thunder. There was no blinding light from heaven. There was no heavenly choir of angels, nor any booming voice from above. However, as Gary wiped the tears and snot away he slowly felt a distinct change come over him. He felt the black heavy fog in his brain lift away and a warm calming feeling spread throughout his body. When the warmth had spread from his head down to his toes he was left with a feeling of peace. All his inner demons had been exorcised and he never felt better in his life. He looked to the rafters and mouthed, thank you God. Coming out the church gate he looked across at the café and the waitress was standing outside having an e-cig break. Gary shouted across to her with a broad smile on his face, pointing skyward as he walked briskly back towards Grange-over-Sands and back to finishing off his projects in Houston.

“The man upstairs has sorted it out for me.”

The broadly smiling waitress waved him enthusiastically off down the
road.

“Told you he would, lad!”

When he got back to the B&B he quickly checked out and when he went to the train station he found that there was a diversionary train to Lancaster leaving in half an hour which would get him back on to the main line to London. He had been unable to get a signal on his cell in Grange-over-Sands. It had probably been disrupted by the meteor strike at Penrith. However, his cell was fully functioning when he arrived in the old fortified town of Lancaster and he put a call through to Ewan in Houston. It was still early morning in Houston but Ewan’s face appeared on screen almost immediately. Before he could speak Ewan was blurting at him excitedly.

“Jesus, Gary – you don’t know how good it is to hear from you. Thank God you are alright.”

“Alright? Well ah sure ah’m alright now. Why?”

“We’ve all seen the meteor strike hitting Penrith on the news over here and we thought the worst because we hadn’t heard from you. There was a sleeper train from Scotland going through Penrith at the time and it has been obliterated. You’re dad Frank has been bombarding me with calls all morning to see if I had heard from you.”

Gary looked at his cell. Twenty six missed calls.

“Jeez, Ewan, ah’m sorry. My life kinda got diverted for a while in more ways than one. Ah guess ah must have been on the sleeper behind the one that got hit. But it’s just to say ah’m okay now. Back on track so to speak an’ ah’m heading back to Houston ASAP. Ah’ll get off the line an’ call my family right now.”

“Okay, Gary. Look forward to seeing you back, mate.”

“Oh, by the way Ewan – there’s something ah’ve found in NOAHSARK that I need to speak to you about –
one day
. But it’ll keep for now.”

*

Earthdate: 11:20 Saturday January 8, 2084 EST

It was a bitingly sharp frosty Virginian morning with a crystal clear blue sky as the three cowboys rode across the stubbled bare fields, a-whoopin’ and a-hollerin’. Jack Crossan was happier than he had been in years as he and his two young sons Milner and Jack Junior galloped over the top fields of his Lexington ranch. The State of Virginia had never looked so beautiful. Even the sight of the half-moon high in the pale blue winter sky with the now clearly visible Schenkler comet lower on the moon’s left seemed somehow strangely beautiful. Jack thought, how paradoxically magnificent in its cosmic beauty but catastrophic in its final outcome. What the Big Bang can create the Big Bang can destroy. However, today was not about destructive thoughts but about the joy of being alive. Jack had recently come to a sort of reconciliation with Peggy Sue and like most countries around the world, schools had been shut down since Christmas, for good in most cases. Peggy Sue’s partner Justin Smythe had also been given a month’s leave from the RAF, part of the peace dividend brought about by the onset of Armageddon. Jack had invited his two sons, Peggy Sue and Justin out to spend the holiday on the ranch. Jack had managed to engineer two weeks off from his gruelling schedule of training for the new astronaut teams and also preparing himself for his own upcoming flight of the last Oceanus scheduled for 28 February, just eight short weeks away. It was likely that when he went back to the programme at Houston, Jack would never see his two boys alive again. But for now Jack was determined to enjoy his last few days with Milner and Junior. They pulled up their panting horses next to the woods on the western edge of the ranch, which was verged with frost rimed rye grass. They let the horses rest and feed on the grass and Jack put his arms lovingly around his sons shoulders.

“Wow, guys, that was fun, huh?”

His youngest son Jack Junior excitedly agreed with a slightly English accent which made Jack wince a little.

“That was really great dad – we’ve not had much chance to ride in Cucklington. Too much going to school and loads of homework.”

Milner quipped boyishly, still retaining his Virginian accent.

“Yeah, pop, it’s great we don’t need to go back to school again, ain’t it!”

“No it ain’t Milner – education is one of the greatest gifts that we can ever get –“

Jack pointed up to the comet.

“- without education and knowledge we would never have known what we do about Schenkler and –“

Jack let his sentence hang unfinished. Milner sort of finished it for his father.

“Are we gonna die, pop? Mom says that we are all gonna die.”

Jack pulled the three horses closer together. He pushed back the boys’ cowboy hats and ruffled their hair.

“We’re all gonna die one day.”

Milner and Junior’s eyes filled up and they bravely fought back tears. Jack lifted their chins up.