I have got to get off my bosses shit list, Jack grumbled to himself. He slowed the black sedan, looking for his exit.
"Look, look, look," James Walker hooted from the backseat of the sedan. "I see it." He pointed out the front window.
You could see it, just barely, the razor thin line of the cable, dropping from the station far above. "Just wait til we get closer," Jack said. "You'll see it's actually pretty thick."
James's excited chatter was exacerbating Jack's headache, but it wasn't the cause. Next to him in the front seat, Dana Walker was rifling through her purse, yet again. There was the pill bottle, yet again. One, or was it two, little white pills, down the hatch. How many could you take before it was an overdose?
Dana had claimed to be terrified of flying at the Norfolk airport. Three of the little white pills had gone down her throat before take off, along with a liberal number of dramamine. Both bottles came out again and again on the five hour flight to Denver.
A cynical part of Jack's mind said that Dana doped up and sleepy was better than listening to her life story over and over. He knew parts of it by heart, the traumatic bits anyway. She seemed to have no end to them, stories of how her husband mistreated her, followed quickly by how much she missed him. How her parents mistreated her, the doctor didn't understand her, and on and on.
But even that was still better than discussing politics. She ranted for over an hour about these "consortium types" and "what was Cheyenne thinking?"
He had hoped that now that they were on the ground she'd stop taking the pills and start sobering up a bit. No such luck.
The gate station was at the west end of town, nestled up into the mountains. As they took highway six up towards Indian Gulch, a dilapidated tour bus pulled up alongside them. It was filled with olive complected faces and dark hair. Of the nearly six thousand Shoshone indians living at Fort Hall reservation, a solid half had chosen to abandon Earth and try their luck with the Consortium. The numbers were skewed along age lines, over eighty percent of those under thirty were going.
The line darting up into the sky grew bigger until they could see the ground station itself. An area some five hundred meters wide was sectioned off by a tall fence topped in barb wire.
There was a round building in the center of the land. The cable looked like a pole this close up, rising up out of the center of the building and shooting up out of sight. As they approached a round two story elevator dropped into view. It slowed as it approached the tower.
"Cool!" James squawked.
Dana gulped and reached for her purse.
"It's perfectly safe," Jack said.
"So they say," Mackenzie grumbled from the back seat. Like her grandmother, Mackenzie was mistrustful of these new outsiders.
"They use them all the time," Jack said.
"Have you ever been on one?" the girl challenged.
"No," he admitted, "but I've been up on their base ship. I trust their technology."
Jack waited in line behind the bus. When he got to the gate he flashed his State Department ID and they were waved inside. They made it inside without incident.
The entrance could have easily passed for an airport anywhere. There was a wide lobby covered in benches. A huge clock dominated one wall. A list of arrivals and departures from the spaceport at the top of the station flashed on a screen. There was a ticket counter, they'd be let on, but in the future citizens would pay a small fee to go up or down. The outer lobby encircled the building, with tall windows looking out over the city of Denver. Inward the lobby narrowed to a number of small passageways, bordered with shops on both sides. Joint management meant that a consortium juice stand stood next to a Starbucks.
Dana froze in the outer lobby. Jack turned and looked at her.
"I can't," she said, her eyes wild. "I just can't."
Barry Sheffield, one of Jack's coworkers at the State Department, was making for them. "Is there a problem?" he asked.
"I can't go up that thing," Dana declared loudly. Her pill bottle rattled in her hands as she shook out three more pills and downed them quickly. "It's crazy." She turned towards the kids. "We can't go up there. It isn't safe."
"Grandma!" Mackenzie barked at her. "Mom's up there."
"I'm going up," James declared defiantly.
Jack shared a look with Barry and rolled his eyes. Barry drew him aside. "It's been like this since I picked them up in Norfolk," Jack hissed.
"Dude," Barry replied, "you gotta get off the boss's shit list."
Barry broke apart and approached Dana and the kids. "Okay, here's what we're going to do," He commanded. "I got my counter part, Badu down here now. We'll watch Miss Walker. You take the kids up with Zeta. Sound fair?"
Jack mouthed a thank you as he led the kids towards the inner waiting area. He could hear Dana's voice rising and Barry saying, "Come'on Ma'am lets get you something to drink, make you feel better. It's going to be okay."
To their right a long line of Native Americans were coming in, duffel bags, back packs and in some cases, boxes in their hands. Some perhaps, would send for the rest of their things when they'd gotten settled. Others, perhaps this was all they owned, or was worth taking.
"Oh my god, an alien," James yelled, pointing. Zeta was waiting for them up ahead. To Jack she had become a normal part of his world. Now he saw her again with fresh eyes. She was humanoid, with bluish skin with numerous short appendages hanging from her chin. She was a head shorter than Jack. She wore a blue shirt in a patterned batik with gold fringe. She greeted James with a shy smile.
"That's Zeta, my counter part on the diplomatic team. We work together. I can introduce you." Now that grandma was corralled, Jack found he could enjoy James' enthusiasm for this first trip to the station. He hoped it was the beginning of many such trips for the boy.