The President and her chief advisors, along with other top scientific and military leaders were packed into the Situation Room below the White House. The purpose of this briefing was to allocate fuel and resource to repositioning the Sahara geosynchronous station. Unlike the eight Leo stations rapidly orbiting Earth a dozen times a day, at a distance of only about three hundred miles from the surface, Phoenix always shadowed Kansas at a tenth of the distance to the moon, or roughly twenty two thousand miles.
The Leos were a testament to Man's misguided beliefs about the dynamic comings and goings of a space faring human race, expanding into the cosmos. Only one of the eight Leos was now manned at any given time, based on the now infrequent missions, which mainly consisted of people and materials returning from the far side moon base.
"At issue Madame President, is the sanctity of humanity," declared Lola, the only attendee not physically present but the main instigator of the briefing.
"What are you talking about," whined Dalton Yang, President Amanda Carmelo's chief of staff.
"You had better listen carefully," warned General Avery Balanson, a confidant and believer in Lola's special capabilities.
"Well I would expect that from you. You and your cave project," shot back Dalton with a hint of disdain.
"I'm with Avery on this," jumped in General Bud Haley.
"Of course you are. You are in favor of anything involving your fleet of tin cans up there," Dalton continued his combative counter attacks. He was of the mind that science was behind the decline of the Earth. Ascendency to him was the ultimate technological farce. Carmelo still kept him at her side because he did represent a majority view at this point, and he was highly efficient and fiercely loyal.
"Young man. To you, I'm nothing more than a dead woman. Someday, you may have the opportunity to join me. But more likely, your life will be cut short. You will have just enough time to realize your mistake before you suffocate on ozone. If you think I'm trying to frighten you, you're right."
"You're talking about something we can't even detect. This gamma ray burst. If it's going to hit us in only two years, then why can't we see it yet?" A few people in the room were thankful for the question, one that they also couldn't quite grasp but were too afraid of revealing any weakness by asking. Most people in the room just looked at Dalton, amazed that he held the position he did, so lacking as he was in a basic understanding of nature.
"Dalton, please leave the room," said Carmelo calm but firm.
"But, she said,"...
"Now!" Dalton, red faced, veins in his forehead bulging, gathered his notebook and exited. Most of the room breathed a sigh of relief. A few were disappointed, now robbed of the chance to get an answer the question they and Dalton shared. For her part, The President was not apologetic, nor embarrassed. As with most leaders, her sociopathic tendencies were handy in these situations. "Shall we get on with it?"
"All I'm asking is that we deliver some extra fuel to Sahara and reposition her temporarily, and then return her to the geo synch position at a later date. It requires no additional launch. It can all be handled with the resources we now have in orbit."
"Thank you Lola. Bud, is that your understanding?"
"Yes ma'am. It's not a big undertaking. The orbit Lola has suggested is a no man's land, nothing even remotely near that altitude. About three thousand miles."
How high are the Leos?" Inquired the President.
"About three hundred miles. So we would deploy the Runabout from Leo Three, with fuel. It would deploy to Sahara, currently at about twenty three thousand miles out, then return to Leo Six. The whole thing would take three days."
"Then what about Sahara?" Carmelo pressed.
"By then, we would have transferred all vital information and human uploads to Sahara. I will handle the repositioning to three thousand," said Lola. "I need to get out of the direct line of sight of the moon. It will also take the brunt of the burst, the reflected light could cause damage to Phoenix."
One of the generals still grappling with light speed concepts, couldn't hold his tongue any longer. "And why are moving to three thousand? I am no rocket scientist, but I am guessing that Sahara will then no longer be stationary. And that's what you want?" The question rang credible and relatively well informed, more than the dim general could have hoped for.
"Yes," answered Lola, no longer one to tire physically but mentally still hesitant to suffer fools.
Now emboldened, the terse response didn't sit well with the general, who was privately looking for an education. "You want the thing at three thousand, but how in the hell will you know where it's gonna be? You might be sittin' over China when this death ray comes a callin'." Last ounce of credibility now spent, the room was silent, supposedly in hopes that Lola would field the question. She didn't. The silence persisted and the general shifted uneasily in his chair. Unlike the time he had farted in the situation room, where no one knew who to blame, he was now exposed and left dangling. He reddened.
Compassionately, President Carmelo finally broke the silence. "I'm sure Lola knows what she's doing. General, if you still feel uncomfortable, why don't you follow up with her after the meeting."
"Let me say one thing in response to the general's question. The fact that Sahara will be orbiting nearly seven times a day, implies quite a high velocity. It suggests that the knowledge of when the burst will hit is known very precisely. I can't explain to you why I know the time so precisely. All I can tell you is that I have never been so certain of anything in my life. You can be skeptical. You can demand the real data, all of the things that science teaches us to do. In this particular case, you would be sorely mistaken to follow that path. You will be paying with your life and the lives of all those who follow you. I don't care if you are skeptical. That's fine. But please cover your bets. The cost and the difficulty, is minimal."
"Okay, I've heard enough. As much as I really do harbor skepticism, I will allow this exercise to go forward. And the caves and the tunnels. I guess we are tee minus a little less than two years. Soon we will know, one way or the other. Of course I speak for all of us when I say that I hope you are wrong. But as you say. Let's cover our bets." With that, the madame president concluded the meeting and they set about to reposition the satellite and discreetly finish the underground caves.
Lola and in fact all of humanity was fortunate to have Sahara, a relatively new, unmanned global data center. It was a practical effort to deal with the immense amount of computing energy required in a digital world. The built-in, tenth of a second delay was more than compensated by the massive parallel direct transmission technologies developed to allow this computing and storage behemoth to sit in its remote location, sucking up vast quantities of sunshine and burning nuclear fuel, then radiating nearly all of that energy back to space at lower frequencies. It was an ideal entropy machine. But it saved immense amounts of thermal radiation on earth, which was now an even bigger problem than high energy consumption.
Sahara used a combination of high efficiency, multi junction GaAs solar arrays, capable of generating nearly seven hundred watts per square meter in space, and a cumulative generation of one point five terawatts across one hundred and fifty, ten gigawatt Thorium reactors. The solar array was essentially just an emergency backup, to bridge any service intervals related to reactor downtime, as it only amounted to several megawatts of power.
Two decades earlier, when the government had to initiate de-privatization, the new combined entity that was formerly Microsoft, Google, Amazon and IBM among others, was tasked with the development of this station. It was originally conceptualized by JPL much earlier. But efforts to forge private partnerships dragged on and made progress slow and the outcome uncertain. But eventually, this and other mega projects to rescue the environment were no longer considered optional. So, massive public support handed private enterprise over to government control and this began a range of initiatives, from enclosed megacities to sustainable agriculture, and of course the Sahara project.
*****
Avery Balanson made his final descent into Oasis, the deepest, most sophisticated shelter ever made . This time he would not likely be returning to the surface. Avery was a firm believer in Lola and her insights. And he knew that her bridge to the future offered most of humanity a way forward. But the shelter was another way. And it wouldn't preclude the other option, assuming Sahara survived. But Avery wanted to go to old fashioned way, off into the sunset, if that were possible. If not, he would live out his days underground. But at least he would still be human.
Balanson had an important directive. If Sahara didn't make it, then all of humanity would rest with him, to rebuild, to find the surface once again and come back from near extinction. In order not to be tempted, he never uplinked. Lola agreed that it was wise to not do it, else he would feel the possibility and the yearning for an eternal, pain free life.
On the way down, his team toured the shallow spaces, the transitional caves that would allow humanity to step toward the sunlight once more. These spaces were structurally secure and linked by tunnels, but undeveloped. It was to be determined later what fitments and infrastructure would be needed in these spaces. They had the abundance of engineered materials, equipment, tools and know how to do whatever they would need.
Balanson's team of several hundred, was to stay below for several months prior to "G Day" and learn how to live there, fix what needed fixing and define the routines, safety and security that would be needed, once thousands started to descend. Meanwhile, surface crews streamed materials and supplies downward nonstop, day and night. Thirty years of supplies for five thousand people was an immense logistical task. And many items such as dozens of large format 3D printers and the raw materials to feed them, consumed all of their capacity and strained the limits of the immense elevators.
Of the five thousand eventually headed below, only a fraction of them were aware of it, even at this late stage. It would be presented soon, as something like a vacation, a tour into the marvels of human accomplishment. An exciting week below for those lucky enough to have been chosen seemingly at random. But not to worry. More would have their chance in the future. These were the essential lies that were needed to prevent panic and unnecessary, premature deaths.
Lola was thankful and understanding for the fact that even the small number of people "in the know", did not have a strong enough conviction in her proclamation of doom, to secretly alert family members. A process that would quickly proliferate the story. It was out there, on the fringes, meaning that there were those sharing the secrets. But it was not considered credible, mere quackery, confined to lunatics and the easily misled.
Following detours to see the other spaces, Balanson and his team finally reached the bottom. Those detours took a few hours, as the locations of the several shallow spaces were quite spread apart. Traveling rapidly over the smooth concrete tunnel floors in electric vehicles made it possible to complete the exercise in just a long morning. Now they had arrived in the main logistics hall, through which both residents and materials would flow. It was roughly the size and shape of a football field, with a high, domed ceiling and excellent lighting. It felt almost like daylight, which was uplifting to Avery, since he knew it would be a long time until he saw real sunshine again, if ever.
Once settled in, this large hall would be an open space where people could walk. In fact, there was a track surrounding the center area which would serve those wanting to run or walk. The lights felt like sunshine because they were solar simulators and would support vitamin D synthesis and plant growth. It was impressive but by no means the largest or most impressive open space. There was another, many times larger, designated mainly for agriculture, but also giving home to a select group of animals and birds, along with wild plants and a waterworks that provided a small lake and a network of streams and ponds. It was a well conceived, miniaturized ecosystem.
The same setup had been constructed hastily, five years earlier topside and tested and evaluated with various configurations and species, but using the same artificial light and water systems. After some fine tuning, a workable solution was defined and implemented below. It was Avery's choice to go straight to the "farm" and see how real it felt. As he stepped into it, he squinted a bit and took out his sunglasses.
"Wow! This is incredible. What do you think people?" His staff and handlers affirmed their positive views with thumbs and comments. "I can't believe this. It's really great. I can hardly tell the difference. There's even a breeze. And the smells." After climbing onto an area of higher ground and surveying the lake and forest and the farming plots, Avery signaled everyone to move on.
They took electric carts through wide, long corridors. These in particular were off limits to the public. There were large water pipes on one side, and along the opposite wall were large electrical conduits. There were frequent steel gratings on the floor, every twenty meters or so. These were access points to the sewer system running below. The hum of large pumps and other equipment could be heard as they sped down the tunnel toward the aquifer, near which were several, two hundred megawatt Thorium reactors for redundancy.
I'm addition to the aquifer tapping station, there was a water purification plant, a chiller plant to draw away the heat from the habitation areas of the shelter, and a water treatment facility. There was also a massive water storage container. If the aquifer water supply were to become contaminated, they could immediately switch to the emergency supply while engineering developed a method of how to treat the water.
Following the completion of the tour, Avery hosted a party with the entire set up crew of a few hundred engineers, technicians, farmers, arborists, animal experts and many other key scientific personnel and construction people. "General, we want you to be one of the first to try this." A large man in overalls and another with a dark tan presented Balanson with a large frosty glass of beer. "We grew the barley and hops right here. This is our first batch so it might need some improvements. But we think it's pretty darn good." Balanson was sitting at a table, under a shade tree with the sounds of a creek flowing near bye. He caught sight of a Monarch butterfly dancing in the breeze near a stand of milkweeds. He drew the cold beer through his lips, smacked and exhaled with surprise and delight.
"Pretty good? Are you kidding me? Bob, give these guys a medal." They all laughed. Avery suddenly, for the first time felt at ease and completely convinced that his choice had been the right one.
*****
Sahara station opened the large bay doors to its receiving dock. Minutes earlier the Runabout touched the large net, just outside the doors and the frame holding the net closed in around the small vessel. Once the doors were fully open, the frame and the net, with the vessel trapped inside, all retracted into the loading bay. This system prevented any possibility of damage to either vessel and held the Runabout away from walls and other equipment in the bay. Weightlessness rendered the Runabout difficult to control in close quarters and this system eliminated the need for complicated docking mechanisms which also limited the size of items that could be transferred to and from Sahara.
The Runabout was unmanned. At this point, Lola had a staff of thousands now aboard Sahara and capable of operating all the systems and equipment aboard. This particular shipment was the balance of the Thorium fuel that was stored on LEO One station. Other shipments still due to arrive included spare parts for the computers, spare parts for robotics and a host of other spare parts and tools that would allow Sahara to maintain itself, absent the presence of humans.
There were to be about a dozen humans aboard initially, that would perform any tasks still beyond the scope of current automation. These were career astronauts and engineers who had no belief whatsoever that the end of days was near. But Lola set a condition that any of these workers that wanted to be a part of this project, had to upload and recalibrate every day. None of them objected. They were used to cumbersome procedures. Working in space was never about rushing things, taking chances or flying by the seat of one's pants.
Sahara was already repositioned in its new medium orbit, and rapidly touring the globe over six times daily. It was now tee minus seven days. The uploads of new people was luckily still at a fevered pitch, and sadly, suicides were still on the rise, even among those not uploaded. Lola had handed off all of the responsibility of Sahara to her team, and she was now entirely focused on the recruitment down below, trying to get as many uploaded as possible. With labs now operating in twelve locations, the throughput was thousands a day. But it had been too little, too late. Lola estimated best case, thirty two million, A mere third of one percent of humanity.
The world waited, curiously amused, mostly doubtful, Lola the latest incarnation of Nostradamus, merely dinner table conversation along with other topics like why did Carmelo refuse to run for a second term, when she would have won easily. Now, there was a new President. Apart from still believing that the Earth would continue to support humanity, he was a complete GRB denier. A capitalist wanting to privatize again. Fittingly, his inaugural address was to be on the eve of Armageddon. Sadly, there would probably not be enough time to even tell him, "I told you so."