2084 The End of Days (8 page)

Three months later in August 2067 Jack got the call to say that Maria had been found as if asleep beside Xavier. She had died of a heart attack in her sleep. Maria’s parents requested that he stay away from the funeral in San Antonio. They could not bear him to be at their beautiful Maria’s burial. On the day of the funeral Jack sat for hours in an electri-bus shelter at Silver Springs Metro Station weeping uncontrollably for Maria. Maria’s parents filed a petition in San Antonio County Court for custody of Isabella and Xavier. Jack phoned Xavier Senior and told him for their sake and Maria’s memory that he would not drag them through the courts. Xavier told Jack that he would never see Isabella and Xavier Junior again if he signed the papers.

“Just get the damn papers to me, Xavier, and I’ll sign them.”

One rainy night in October 2067 he arrived back home to Silver Springs on his Harley Davidson air-bike from a briefing at the Pentagon to find a yellow electri-cab sitting on the street outside his house. He watched as Peggy Sue got out carrying a well-wrapped bundle. She walked hesitantly over to him through the increasingly heavy rain and stretched the bundle towards him. The rain poured down their faces like tears of the past washing away their sins.

“Jack, this is your son Milner.”

Jack looked at the boy and he thought, well this is one son I
can
see and I better not mess it up this time .

“Jack, ah heard from Dan Kowalski about Maria. Ah – am – so – so - sorry. Ah don’t know what else to say?”

Maybe Jack could escape the pull of the black hole. Maybe the man might just take his finger off the trigger, just maybe.

“You’d better come in out the rain, Peggy Sue.”

Jack and Peggy Sue married in a registry office in DC in June 2068 and Vance Mulcahey was Jack’s ‘wing man’ for a second time. Peggy Sue truly loved Jack and Jack tried his best to reciprocate. She was patient with him and somehow she knew within her heart that she needed to give her ‘fly boy’ the time and the space to really get to know her and hopefully, in time, to be able to love her back. In some ways that is what Jack did – take the time and the space. In 2070, with the development and growth of the joint UN outreach to the Red Planet now in full swing, Jack was accepted on to the NASA space programme. At last he was the genuine Southern Boy astronaut from Virginia that he had dreamed of being. During his astronautic training period at Cape Canaveral, with the big money rolling in, he and Peggy Sue bought the small dairy farm down in Lexington. The Southern Boy was home again but this time he was on the right side of the tracks. Peggy Sue showed a great flair for managing the farm when Jack was working at the Cape and she found no problem in overseeing the two dairymen that they employed. On 5 February 2073, just months before his first trip out to Mars as a junior astronaut on the brand new Oceanus, Jack Junior was born. It was round about that time that Jack began to feel something more than friendship and companionship with Peggy Sue. Although, now eight years later, he still had not gotten around to telling her yet that he loved her. Suddenly, his intercom crackled to life.

“Jack, zis is da vifteen minoots call for you up on da Bridge. Okay, Jack?”

The sound of the rough-spoken Russian cosmonaut Viktor Tomazschenko startled Jack back to the here and now in his bunk, making him drop the trashy book on the floor. He pressed the button beside his left ear and spoke into the microphone.

“Thanks, Viktor, roger that and out.”

Chapter 6

Earthdate: 10:01 Friday February 7, 2081 GMT

S
he looked nervously at the brass engraved plate on the door in front of her which read:-

ANGELA K. MORTIMER

SENIOR EXECUTIVE OFFICER

HUMAN FERTILISATION & EMBRYOLOGY DEPARTMENT

Angela Mortimer had been on holiday for a week with her partner in Dubai. Marcie hated these pen-pushing managers within the NHS that she had to kow-tow down to in terms of departmental policy, resources, planning and finances. She was a doctor and felt much more comfortable in the field of medical matters and scientific laboratory work than having to deal with budgets and policies and responsibility statements and performance reviews. God, they bored the pants off her. Marcie was at her happiest when she worked among her Petri dishes and ultra-zoom electron microscopes. However, Angela was now back sporting a tan and Marcie needed to tell her boss about the issue that had been worrying her over the last few days. She tapped the door quietly, somehow, hoping that the flights from Dubai had been disrupted.

“Come in!”

No such luck on the flights, thought Marcie. She slowly stuck her head around Angela Mortimer’s door.

“Dr Venters, come in, come in. Sit down. I was hoping to see you this morning…”

As Marcie sat down in front of her boss she thought she had detected an air of sarcasm from Angela, but then these administrative managers always came across to Marcie that way. She noted Angela had indeed picked up a deep brown tan from the Gulf trip or that there was also a hint of fake spray-on tan. Marcie also noted with surprise that Angela had what looked incongruously like a newspaper in front of her. Two things struck Marcie about the oddity of the situation. Firstly, after a week’s holiday she would have expected to see Angela catching up with the backlog of paperwork in her in tray, but, even stranger, it had been years since Marcie had actually seen a printed newspaper. Everyone in the UK read the Bloids on their iTabs nowadays!

“Did you have a great holiday, Angela? Dubai, wasn’t it?”

Angela flashed angry black eyes at Marcie as she spun the newspaper around to face the geneticist.

“It is a bloody distant memory now, Dr Venters! I happened to pick this little souvenir up in Dubai –“

Marcie had been so taken aback by Angela’s immediate outburst that the printed words just seemed to swirl before her eyes. She thought she recognised some of it as being printed in Arabic, but she stumbled to say anything cogent.

“What? I don’t un-der-sta-and, Angela?”

Angela Mortimer stabbed her beautifully manicured bright red-polished index finger viciously on to the newspaper, hissing low at Marcie between her clenched laser-whitened teeth.

“Well, please allow me to explain, Dr Venters. This is an English-language copy of last week’s Al Jazirah newspaper. Unfortunately, many of our poor Arab Muslim cousins cannot afford to purchase expensive iTabs to digest their daily news -”

Marcie knew that Angela was having a dig at her knowing she was Jewish but she gritted her teeth and said nothing in reply.

“- I just happened to buy it for some light reading on the beach in front of the 6 Star Burj Al Arab Hotel, where I was trying to enjoy my holiday. Of course, the first thing I see on the front page is this poisonous article by some journalist called, eh – El Kharroubi - berating St Bart’s and the presentation you gave last week! He has compared my department to some sort of 21
st
Century Auschwitz and that you are the Todesengel of St Bartholemew’s! What in hell happened when I wasn’t here?”

“Angela, that man was extremely rude to me in front of many of my fellow professionals!”

“Professional - you call yourself professional! I have made enquiries this morning and from what I hear you stormed out of that presentation. If you had been professional you would have stayed and headed off this Kharroubi fellow with reason and logic.”

Marcie felt the anger rising within her, the rims of her eyes forcing back tears.

“You want me to reason and logic with that Arab? I could not. He compared me with that beast Mengele. My forebears were butchered at the hands of that perverse Nazi bastard. No way would I try and reason with that!”

“Okay, okay, Marcie, let’s both calm down. Sometimes I think that is your problem. In the lab you are focussed and emotionless. But take you out of your comfort zone and, well, sometimes you become erratic and emotional.”

Marcie sucked in a deep breath to calm herself.

“I am always emotional about my work. And like you – I am a woman -”

“Agreed, Marcie, I am a woman. But I try to keep my emotions for when I am outside my work. I just ask that you also try to do the same. Let us just hope that this Al Jazirah thing just dies away quietly. Now what had you come to see me about?”

Marcie swallowed hard and thought that her next staement was not going to help matters.

“Well, you see, Angela, the thing is this – I have misplaced my memory stick. The one I was using at the presentation. I cannot find it anywhere -”

“Do you not have a copy of the presentation on your main computer?”

“Yes, but –“

Angela cut Marcie off.

“Well what’s the problem? It’s just a small stationery item. Just indent the stores for a new one!”

“I’ve already done that. It’s not that –“

Angela was getting frustrated and agitated again. She thought to herself, Venters thinks I’m some sort of stationery clerk.

“Well, Dr Venters, what exactly is the problem?”

Marcie swallowed even harder this time.

“It’s just that, em, you see, Angela – my workload on this Superstore DNA project has been such that I have been doing a lot of work at home lately –“

I’m now the Payroll Manager, Angela thought and interrupted again with her bitter sarcastic tone.

“And I commend you for that, Dr Venters. As you know your management contract does not allow for overtime payments. Any additional work is taken into consideration at the time of your Performance Appraisal –“

Marcie snapped back.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Angela, I’m not talking about money here! There was more than just the presentation on that memory stick!”

Marcie could almost see her boss’s mind whirr into gear and a dawning realisation come into Angela Mortimer’s widening eyes. Angela’s tan / fake tan went several shades paler than when Marcie first entered her office.

“What
was
on that stick?”

“Just about everything vital to the development of the project was on it. The list of proposed sites worldwide, detailed plans for the extensions required on site, laboratory design and layout - DNA collection and screening processes – need I go on?”

“Dr Venters, I don’t believe this. What the hell did I come back from holiday for? This has put your job on the line – my fucking job on the line. If that info fell into the wrong hands – Web Leaks, Christian Pro-Life groups, heaven forbid, terrorists even –“

“Oh, wait a minute, Angela, you’re taking it a bit too far –“

“I’ll take it too far alright – where’s the last time you saw that memory stick?”

Marcie thought hard.

“I’m not sure? I think it may still have been in the auditorium computer when I rushed out of the presentation.”

“Oh, it just keeps getting better –“

Angela snatched up her phone and pretended to talk to her secretary next door.

“Hi, Julia - Angela here - can you please book me on the next flight back to Dubai? Better still, can you send up hospital security and send me off to the nearest bloody nut farm!”

Angela crashed the phone back down on the receiver and slapped her head into her hands. Marcie just stood and watched and perversely thought who was the one being emotional at work now? Angela raised her head and spoke slowly and deliberately.

“We may never get that data back but we are going to try. However, I do not want you crashing about like a bull in a china shop and inadvertently raising someone’s misguided interest in this matter. What you are going to do is give my secretary Julia the list of everyone who was present at your wonderful little show and she will write to all of them with an innocuous little request for the tiny unimportant little stick’s return. Is that clear?”

Marcie felt drained and was in no mood to argue.

“Yes - absolutely clear.”

Angela Mortimer lowered her head and waved Marcie out.

“Can you go now, Dr Venters, I badly need a strong coffee.”

*

Earthdate: 10:30 Friday February 7, 2081 GMT

In the Times central London office, Jill Geeson and Ruthie Venters were sitting at Jill’s workstation. Both girls were in upbeat moods, especially Jill. Two things had lifted her spirits. Firstly, Buckley said he was reasonably interested in the ‘Schenkler comet’ story, so long as her source’s information was rock solid. Secondly, she and Khan had spoken again on the phone and had agreed to have a cooling off period of separation. The only thing Khan had requested was that he could pick up a few clothes and things from the flat at Kew. Jill agreed, but asked him to get his stuff while she was out at work as she could not face another confrontation at this point in time. Khan had agreed, saying that it suited him that way and that he would be in touch in a couple of weeks. Jill and Ruthie were doing a final run-through on the interview with Alfie ‘Dinky’ Budge down at Tilbury Docks. After Jill had rushed away from Ewan and Gary she managed to get on the Tube and it was running fine, but when she changed on to the London Overground railway it was badly screwed up by a broken down train at Purfleet. By the time that Jill had arrived at the derelict warehouses just off the run-down area at Ferry Road she found Ruthie standing waiting there on her own. Dinky Budge had long gone. Jill felt sick to her stomach and disconsolate, because Alfie, knowing of Jill’s high-profile standing within the field of investigative journalism, had stated that he was only prepared to speak to Jill and Jill alone. She apologised to Ruthie for screwing it up. Ruthie just replied as calm as a cucumber.

“Don’t worry, Jill. I just told him that I was Jill Geeson. Alfie didn’t even ask for any identification and he obviously doesn’t know you from Adam – or is that Eve – or Ruthie for that matter -.”

Ruthie, smiling broadly, held up her tiny micro-recorder and a Manila folder.

“Dinky sang like a budgie and I think we’ve got a great exposé in this little thing here. He confirmed that the quarter mill is in his Swiss account and
that he will be flying out for an extended holiday to ‘don’t ask no questions and I’ll tell you no lies’ land, wherever that is? So when the story on his boss Nesto Petrianni’s dirty deeds hits the front page - Alfie will be nowhere to be seen. He has also provided an extensive dossier full of papers and invoices and disks full of incriminating evidence that the police are just going to love to get their hands on. Voila!”

Jill smiled a huge smile of relief.

“God, Ruthie, ta loads for covering my arse!”

“Look, Jill, I’m just so pleased to be in the game now and you’ve helped me get there big-time. As far as Buckley is concerned it
was
Jill Geeson that conducted the interview -”

Ruthie switched her polite upstate New York accent and tried to imitate Jill’s Glaswegian accent.

“Ah even tried tae use that hellish Glesga accent o’ yours, Jill.”

Jill laughed out loud.

“Oh please tell me ah don’t sound anythin’ like that!”

So now Jill and Ruthie were sitting in the Times office putting the Dinky Budge exposé to bed for tomorrow’s front page. Jill had allowed Ruthie a lot of leeway on the writing up of the piece and she was really impressed with Ruthie’s gutsy determined journalistic style. Jill had agreed that the article would show both their names in the by-line and Ruthie was over the Moon. Jill was keen to put it to bed by lunchtime as she had planned to meet Ewan and Gary back at the Euston iCafé at 2 o’clock, although she now also knew that she could trust Ruthie to iron out any last minute changes. Jill’s mobile rang and she saw it was Ewan’s photo on the screen.

“Hi, Ewan -”

Ewan hesitated.

“Um, hi, Jill –“

Jill could not make him out very well as it was very noisy in the background.

“What’s that noise? Is that the train?”

“No, Jill, it’s a helijet. Gary and I have just taken off from Edinburgh Helipad. But –“

“Okay, Ewan, we still on for two then -?”

“Look, Jill, the thing is this – something new has come up. We are actually heading for -”

The helijet must have been taking off as Jill could not make out what Ewan said.

“Ewan, you cut out there. Where are you going?”

“Islay, Jill –“

“Islay - what the hell’s there? What about our meeting, Ewan? Ah’ve gone out on a limb with Buckley on this ‘cos you’re a friend!”

“I know, Jill, I really appreciate that. But I’m following up a new lead on the comet. Gary and I just need another couple of days –“

Jill was mildly irritated, but Ruthie had put her in such a good mood, that she laughed and joked back to Ewan.

“Okay, Ewan, but don’t come back to me unless your news from Islay is
earth-shattering!”