Head Astronomer Doctor Roger Fergusson, called Rodge by just about everyone now, pulls his five year old jeep into the car park outside the annex to the Mt Singtel radio telescope.
The wheels made their usual disconcerting crunch as he steered into his designated parking spot, right outside the main entrance to the Axell Corporate Astronomical Research Offices. As he killed the engine and reached across to retrieve his briefcase he once again wondered who the genius was who thought loose white pebbles were a suitable surface for a car park. "Oh well," he thought "at least my parking space is just outside the office." Not that there was a shortage of parking now after the cutbacks.
The annex was a large grey demountable building, set on steel stumps three steps from the ground and right next to the main telescope. During the privatisation trend a decade ago, Axell Corporation had purchased the facility from the University and they opted to convert the temporary office building into an annex to the main research lab. Before privatisation, Rodge had been the University's Head of Science Operations, then after privatisation, the Mt Singtel Head Astronomer, and had overseen the successful transition from University Faculty to Commercial Research Unit. He often thought that if he was honest with himself, his pride and joy, was probably just a tax minimisation scheme for the corporation. However, his unit was well regarded internationally, had scored a famous mathematician and had produced some world class pure science.
"Ah Autumn," he mused "my favourite time of year." He looked back to where the on-duty security guards were throwing rocks at the Keep-Out signs hanging on the chain wire security fence and chuckled. The observatory was a good hour drive from the city and nothing ever happened out here. The early morning mountain air was still and in the shadow of the array's alpha dish, it was quite chilly, hinting at the winter to come.
The foyer was still dark as he swiped his way in. Being the first there, he keyed the alarm at the main keypad, flicked the lights on and unlocked his office. Rodge felt content. He actually treasured this first hour before the rest of the staff started wandering in, it allowed him to be productive, or not, depending on his mood. But it was quiet and no-one bothered him for a decision or an opinion, or with any of the hundred other annoying requests. Since their Project had entered the data analysis stage, start times were more flexible and most of his staff opted for sleeping-in. He booted his terminal and while waiting for it to start, glanced at the framed certificates and citations on his office wall. It had been a long road from university, the grudging acceptance of his highly controversial doctoral dissertation, to tenure with the Axell Corp deep space research faculty at the Mt Singtel radio telescope facility.
For the previous three years, his team at Singtel had been collecting and analysing data from a very small section of space. The focus of their study was an area on the same arm of the galactic spiral as our sun, but further out from the galactic centre. Some unusual radio signals had been detected from this region twenty years ago. However, as with so much astronomical research, the amount of data collected far exceeds the means to analyse it, so it was hardly surprising it's taken this long to become a research item.
The team under Axell Corp patronage, had spent the previous three years studying this anomaly and comparing historic and up-to-date data from the visible and radio spectrums, from Hubble and the COBE satellite as well as the Mt Singtel array. Now they just needed to make sense of it all. That thought made Rodge chuckle to himself as he loaded the latest data set and began processing the first of a sequence of algorithms.
Early analysis of the data had produced some unexpected figures and, as his major focus, Rodge had undertaken the task of understanding what those results may mean. He had also assigned two distinguished astrophysicists to the task. Both Dr Gundar Singh and Dr Lei Yoi had more than fifty years experience between them in astronomical mathematics and were highly regarded by their peers.
Rodge and his team had started by analysing the initial data from twenty years ago, it was quite detailed considering the technology of the time, but something about those figures perplexed the team. The data initially indicated that within the study arc, and at an enormous distance, was, what the team believed to be a pulsar. The radio pulses were very faint and it had been previously been concluded by the scientific community that there was probably not a pulsar within the research arc. The consensus at that time was that the data actually indicated a reflection from a pulsar or other radio source well outside the study area. The new data collected within the last three years by the Singtel team did nothing to clarify the mystery, was there or was there not a pulsar within the study area? This mystery was what Rodge and his team hoped to resolve.
Their new data set from the current sequence of the elusive radio pulses with the background signals filtered out was ready so Rodge initiated a comparison scan against all the previous pulse data sets. Almost immediately the, by now expected, variation to the historical signal became obvious. As with all scans against earlier samples of the signal, there was an almost imperceptible but predictable increase in both frequency and strength of the radiation pulses. He added the results of the scan to the queue for the next analytic process, pushed back his chair and headed to the kitchen to make a coffee.
Taking his mug, he grabbed a couple of stale cookies from the jar on the fridge and wandered out to the front of the building. He was still sitting on the stainless steel park bench, absorbed in his pulsar problem, when Gundar and Lei materialised out of Gundar's new electric limousine. Dr Gundar Singh was independently wealthy, having inherited his parents successful real estate business, but he was also an acclaimed author of popular science books in his own right. One of his most popular science books had spawned an award winning TV series making him a celebrity of the nerd set.
As usual, with their arrival, Gundar and Lei proved to be the vanguard for the rest of the staff. While Rodge exchanged morning pleasantries with them, other vehicles crunched, with various levels of aggression, into their respective parking bays. The chatter of the younger staff, graduates and undergraduate interns, signalled the end of introspection time for Rodge, so he followed the crowd back into the observatory, flicking the cold dregs from his mug onto the white gravel in front of his car. Pouring another coffee and liberating a couple more cookies, Rodge dropped resignedly into his swivel chair and stared hopefully at his monitors.
The process Rodge had set running, analysed and sequenced the pulsar data and then extrapolated the results forward by another thousand years. The process had finished graphing the results for the next hundred years by the time Rodge returned, and showed an exponential increase in the strength of gamma radiation with only a linear increase in frequency. These results were simply not possible if the radiation was originating from a pulsar outside the study arc. The results were also not what should be expected from a pulsar within the study arc but as distant as all the other data indicated it was.
"Crap!" Rodge exclaimed loudly. Hearing this, Lei poked her head around from her own office and with an enquiring look asked if he was ok. Rodge beckoned her in and flicked a quick instant message for Gundar to join them. While waiting for Gundar, Rodge indicated the slowly growing graph on the monitor.
"That is impossible," exclaimed Lei.
"What is?" asked Gundar as he pushed past Lei. "Oh, oh dear," he observed "that is not supposed to happen, we must have made a mistake with the algorithm."
"Well, I suppose we had better all take a look at the coding and find where we went wrong," Rodge informed his team "at least before the Astronomical Society finds out and burns us at the stake," he added with a touch of bitterness.
"Shit," swore Gundar under his breath.
"Damn, we spent years on that code," moaned Lei. Then, being fully aware of Rodge's run-ins with the establishment, they each mumbled something that sounded a bit like agreements but were probably expletives, and headed back to their own offices.
Before scrapping the analysis, Rodge saved the progress, along with copies of the graphs, then on a whim, cycled through the available graphing functions, taking screen shots of each graph. He then terminated the process and opened the source code in the editor and began the laborious task of analysing, line by line, each routine. On his second monitor, Rodge opened the mathematical engine to test each individual algorithm before manually confirming the results on his hand-held graphing calculator. Down the hall the others were doing much the same.
After a couple of hours, Rodge saved his work for the last time for the day, raided the kitchen again and drained the dregs of the coffee pot into his mug. He returned to his computer and began casually flicking through the screen shots he had made of the various graphs. One of the graphs caught his eye, something about it just didn't look right, well it actually did look right, even though the original data was wrong. The scatter seemed to indicate the source of the radiation was considerably closer than the thousands of light years it should have shown. Wondering what this could mean, Rodge loaded the default test data set and restarted the original algorithm, but sent the output to an alternate graphing function based on distance not time.
He reset the variables for distance to start at one hundred light years and increase by one thousand light years for each run of the test data set. After fifty iterations, he quickly scanned the output and from the results, he chose the timespan that most closely matched the results obtained from the real data. He reset the simulation to start at the same point but to increase in fifty light year increments, then started it running. This time the simulation was going to take much longer so he let it run, he turned off his monitors, walked out and locked his office. He notified the others he was off for the night and asked had they found any discrepancies in the coding. Lei looked up with a worried look and stated that she did not have anything to report, Gundar just waved over his shoulder but did not take his eyes from his monitor.
It was early for him and the freeway had not yet become congested, so it was not even dark when he turned into his driveway. As early as it was, the driveway and front yard were already full of cars. Elle, Rodge's wife, had only just arrived home from the hospital after pulling a double shift. Elle was the Chief ER Surgeon, but even she had to double up at times to cover for staff shortages. As Rodge dropped his keys in the bowl near the door, Elle was trying to extract the girls from their phones or tablets to help with the chores.
Pausing to greet Rodge with a "You're early dear" and a kiss, she nodded toward their daughters and pleaded "Do something with them please."
Jean, their eldest was finishing her Master's Degree at university and her sister, Mary, was in her last year of a Bachelor's Degree of History, majoring in Medieval Warfare. While they may look very similar, and in their blondness were unmistakably sisters, their personalities couldn't have been more different. Jean had obtained High Distinctions in her theoretical quantum physics subjects, while Mary was as physical as Jean was academic. Mary was fit and tough and had already achieved her Instructor's qualifications in the Israeli martial art, Krav Maga. She was also well on her way to mastering English Quarter Staff fighting. In spite of their differences, the girls were great friends and when they had overlapping free time, hung out and clubbed together, and unbeknown to their parents, occasionally even shared boyfriends.
Rodge was dragged away from his preoccupation with work's errant results and into their normal happy, rowdy family time as all hands busied themselves with preparations for the evening meal. The family chatter around the kitchen allowed everyone to vent happily about their work day.
Jean launched into a story about the lecture she attended during the morning, and how it had descended into a shouting match between some of the supporters of the Quantum Standard Theory and a couple of supporters of an alternate theory. Mary asked about the dissenting theory and Jean described their proposal that photons actually travelled in a helical path around its direction of travel rather than in a straight line. While Mary may be more interested in the physical arts than in pure science, she was however no less intelligent than Jean and immediately grasped the concept.
"Well that would describe the wave particle dichotomy," she observed. "What about you dad? Have you discovered your missing pulsar yet?" she asked her father.
"Not yet, but we are getting closer," he mumbled dismissively and pulled out his chair to sit for dinner. "What about you?" he threw back at her.
"Well college was a drag and I broke a stick in the gym," she replied. "You would think the faculty would just buy better quality quarter staffs."
Ella chimed in with, "When you lot are finished trying to one-up each other, what about my day?"
"Hey mum/dear how was your day at work?" the three of them all chanted in unison.
"It was good," Elle replied flatly with a blank face as she started to eat her dinner, not saying anything else. After a few seconds when everyone began to laugh and talk all at once, Rodge finally felt relaxed, comfortable and content in the bosom of his family. Little did he know it was to be the last time for a long time he could feel that way.
The next morning Rodge arrived at the observatory early as usual, interrupting the security guards playing baseball with the white rocks and what looked like a packing case plank. He let himself in and skipping his usual coffee headed straight to the computer. He flicked his monitors on and as the graphs from the over night analysis appeared, interest gave way to confusion and disbelief. There on the screen was a clear linear progression representing the power of radiation pulses over a simulated period of two hundred million years. The graphs showed periods of sixty million years with very low power pulses, only increasing in value slowly, then followed by intervals of a hundred years or so where exponential increases in power, spike to the extreme levels. It was disturbing that the graph most closely representing the real observed data, was the simulation for a radiation source only one hundred light years away. Rodge felt a chill roll over his body, he was uncertain what the simulation could mean but he was positive it couldn't be good. Any thoughts he had that this discovery could lead to a Nobel Prize faded in a feeling of dread.
To give himself time to gather his thoughts he brewed a coffee, raided the cookie jar and retreated to his contemplation spot on the bench next to the front steps. He had barely reached a decision on what to try next as Gundar arrived in his Tesla. Lei was not with him and in response to his raised eyebrow, Gundar reported that she called him to say she would be up later, as she had an appointment with the school principal.
"Ahh," responded Rodge. It was well known that Lei's only son, Kai, was a bit of a handful at home and at school, and was frequently in strife with the teachers. Kai's behaviour had deteriorated after his father, an Army Engineer, was killed by IED during the Middle East War a couple of years ago.
Rodge explained to Gundar that he was working on the original data to check the cleanliness of the data stream and to see if there were any possible errors in the filtering algorithms. He asked Gundar to continue to validate the processing code against the test data. It was important they identified the cause of the unexpected results before publication. The astronomical community were brutal when erroneous research results were published.
Back in his office, Rodge reloaded the test data and reset the parameters for a timespan beginning half a billion years in the past through to the same in the future. He set the source distances starting at ten light years away, at ten light year intervals up to one hundred light years and set the simulation running. As the simulation would tie his computer up for the next ten hours, he retrieved the spare laptop from the now vacant receptionist's desk, greeted Lei as she came in, and returned to his office. He turned his attention to analysing the real data stream, taking the rest of the day to confirm the integrity of their recorded data.
Later that night at home, he confided to Elle that he was really worried about what he was on the verge of discovering. He was careful to not let on what he suspected the results meant, but his tone and manner worried Elle. She tried to say the appropriate words, but both of them knew that only time would resolve the puzzle.
The next morning Rodge interrupted another stone fight as he drove unchallenged through the security gates and pulled up at the front door. Once again he went straight to his office and studied the graphs. This simulation revealed even more disturbing results than the rough one yesterday. It showed a regular oscillation of radiation levels over the study period with sudden extremely high radiation spikes four hundred million years ago, two hundred million years ago, around the present time, and in two hundred million years time.
Rodge compared the results from the simulation with the observed data. The results from Rodge's test data matched the results from the observed data when the source of the radiation was located within a distance of fifty five light years. Rodge traced the radiation level oscillations and the intensity of the radiation at the peaks took him by surprise. If the radiation spikes were a real event, those levels of gamma and x-ray radiation would subject the earth to an extinction event.
He was still standing, staring in horror at the monitor when Lei poked her head in to let him know she was in. Seeing his ashen face, she called for Gundar to join them and slipped into the office to look at Rodge's screens. It took a few minutes for her to realise what she was looking at, then just as Gundar entered, she gasped in understanding and grasped Rodge's arm, crying, "No, that can't be true."
Gundar recognised the implications much faster and dropped heavily into Rodge's swivel chair. "Fuck fuck fuck, this must be wrong!" he exclaimed.
After a few minutes of silence, Rodge shook himself from the mood and closed the office door. Turning to the others, "We must keep this to ourselves until we completely understand what we are looking at."
Gundar reported woodenly that he could not find any errors in the algorithms, Lei backed him in this, reporting that she could not fault their original code. Rodge showed them the results of his data cleansing and that they were also clean with no errors. The three of them sat in silence for about ten minutes when Lei said, "Let's call it a day and start again tomorrow."
Rodge agreed, but insisted on setting the simulation off again with real data but using the same parameters. "Maybe there is a discrepancy that will show up with the real data," he said.
After initialising the simulation, he again turned his monitors off, locked the office door and hung the Do-Not-Clean sign on the door handle. He informed one of the duty astronomers, that if anyone asked, they were on a business excursion, and left. The three of them then converged on their local bar and ordered large whiskeys. They sat at a back table sipping their drinks for a while until Gundar broke the silence with "Fuck, who would have thought hey, the end of the world." "Fuck," the others echoed.
The spell broken, they began to brainstorm possible ways to mitigate the damage, or even ways to save the planet. Their solutions became sillier the drunker they became until Rodge reported that he had better go home. He dug out his cellphone and was about to call a taxi, when it rang in his hand. Startled, he nearly dropped it but did manage to catch and answer it. It was Jean, she was on her way home from university and had spotted his Jeep outside the bar. He quickly seconded her to drive him home, stating he would pick the car up in the morning. Jean replied that as Mary was with her, she could take the Jeep home for him, for a fee of course. Taking his leave, Rodge headed out to the car park to meet the girls.
"So, what is the occasion?" asked Jean. "Isn't it a bit early in the week for hitting the booze?"
"Just getting ready for the end of the world," Rodge replied, eliciting a laugh from his daughter. "No, just having a drink after a hard couple of days," he elaborated and Jean accepted this without any further questioning. At home, he had to undergo the same interrogation from both Elle and Mary, but luckily, the same explanation seemed to allay the 'Gestapo' while dinner was consumed with the usual family banter.
Later as they were getting ready for bed Elle confronted Rodge with, "Ok, now what is really going on?"
After an attempt to stall, Rodge settled in to explain to his wife the horrific future he suspected his research revealed. Elle sat there in silence for a few minutes, then asked quietly "Are you sure?"
"Fucking looks like it," Rodge muttered defeated. "Fuckin' looks like it." They both sat in silence for a few more minutes, then Elle got up and went down to the sitting room, returning with a couple of straight whiskeys.
After they sat, finished their drinks again in silence, Elle spoke up firmly "Well you just have to get back and find a way out of this, you are the scientist."
"But," started Rodge.
"No buts, just do it, fuck you, you have to find a solution," cried Elle as she sagged back into Rodge's arms. As they fell asleep, Rodge thought unconvincingly to himself, "There has to be a mistake."
Over the next two weeks, the trio tested every theory, every variation on the data. With each iteration the results coalesced more and more around the original result in ever increasing levels of precision. By the end of the second week, it was obvious that the earth would be bathed in lethal levels of X-rays and Gamma rays for a period of twenty to thirty hours in precisely fourteen years and three months. This event will not only kill most, if not all large life on the planet, but the EMP would permanently destroy any existing electric and electronic equipment.
Sitting in the bar after work again, as the three of them had been want to do lately, Rodge stated frankly, "Well we're fucked, what do we do now?"
"I think we need to look at ways of surviving this event to see if we can save as many as possible." Lei replied ruefully, and continued that she had always hated the current arrangement of deck chairs. On that cheerful note, they agreed to start late in the morning and to at least devise a strategy for dealing with the knowledge they had.
That night after the girls had wandered off to their own spaces, Rodge and Elle settled into the now routine conversation about the future. Rodge explained that he, Gunda and Lei had come to the realisation that it really was going to happen and that they would now start looking for ways to protect the world. He told her that he thought they should now, if not make the findings public, at least tell the authorities.
Elle thought about this for a while then interrupted Rodge's monologue with, "You can't tell anyone, at least not yet, it will create a lot of civil disorder and there are enough fuck-tards out there as it is. You can't be giving them and others, what would amount to, permission to create chaos. It would be impossible to maintain civilisation for such a long time."
"What about the government?" Rodge asked.
"Well as it is in the middle of the Primaries, you could get lucky and just be locked up rather than be disappeared to shut you up," she replied only half jokingly.
"I guess you are right," he conceded, "I hope the others haven't told anyone else. I think we are fucked," he concluded as they headed for the bedroom. At least, he observed, this disaster has revived our love life as he thought about their almost desperate love making in recent times.
The next morning Rodge rolled into his car park just after 09.00hrs to find the others already there. He called them to his office and was relieved to find that they had also arrived at the same conclusion about revealing their discovery. By mutual agreement they set about researching ways to protect life and civilisation from the coming apocalypse.
As pressing as the end of the world was, life and administration goes on and a gentle knocking on the office door brought all of them out of their discussion and back to the present. "Yes William?" called Rodge, as the observatory's administrator poked his head around the door.
"Rodge, you hadn't forgotten the visit this afternoon have you?" he asked, chiding his boss.
"What visit?" Rodge began, then, "Shit shit shit," as he remembered the visit by the Board of Directors. At least it wasn't a review this time, they had survived that during the sale from the University to Axell Corp. Luckily at the time, the owner of Axell Corp, Mike Axell, had been impressed by the team and interested in their research.
"Thanks William," Rodge eventually got out, "we will be ready, how long have we got?"
"About two hours," was the answer. "Ok team, let's keep this as low key as possible and only focus on the confirmation of the existence of a new pulsar and not how close it is, any questions to that effect are to be deflected with a not-sure-yet, etc."
Lei spoke up, "I'll get William to take them on the grand tour out to the array again, and we will distract them with some pretty pictures from the Hubble and James Webb telescopes. A slide show on the large screen in the foyer should do it." It took nearly the full two hours to get everyone prepped for the visit and there was just enough time to enjoy a coffee before the first of the limos pulled into the car park.
Rodge was still adjusting his tie when he welcomed the Chairman to the observatory. The chairman introduced Rodge to each member of the Board as they were released from their respective limos by uniformed chauffeurs. Rodge in his turn introduced the dozen dignitaries to the observatory team. Just as Lei was directing William to escort the Board on an inspection of the nearest dish, a veteran Mustang convertible roared through the gate. In an excellent display of driving skill, it slid noisily into a neat park next to the last limo.
The driver, in his late forties, of medium height, mildly overweight, casually dressed and sporting a full head of wavy brown hair, with a well groomed scruffy three day growth, climbed out old-school without opening the door and walked confidently toward the group.
The Chairman exclaimed, "Well good afternoon Mr Axell, this is a surprise."
"Nonsense Ian, I wouldn't miss a trip to my favourite hobby," he responded. "Go ahead, I'll catch up," he directed to William as he reached out to shake Rodge's hand. "Hi Rodge, I can call you that?" he asked. Rodge, slightly taken aback answered in the affirmative as he took the offered hand. Not letting go, Mr Axell steered Rodge away from the crowd toward the boundary fence. "Go ahead," he called over his shoulder to the Board, "I just want a word with my Head Astronomer."
Once they were well out of earshot of the other staff and the receding tour group, Mike Axell turned to Rodge and asked with a look of intense concentration, "Ok Roger, what is this secret discovery you and your team are so worried about?" Totally taken by surprise, Rodge looked around wildly for support, but his team were all out of sight, the security guards were uncharacteristically at their post and looking all official, and the drivers were at the other end of the car park having a smoke.
"Well," stuttered Rodge "It's nothing really Mr Axell," he stated, sounding unconvincing even to himself.
"Look call me Mike," Mr Axell said gently "I know it isn't nothing, well when my three brightest scientists suddenly begin holding secretive meetings at the back of their local, rather than in the office boardroom, I begin to worry."
"How do you know that?" stammered Rodge, confusion clouding his thoughts.
"This observatory is my private hobby, and it cost, nay, costs a lot of money to maintain," Mike replied. "Of course I keep a very close eye on what you guys are working on." "Warning bells went off a couple of months ago when you three started working behind locked doors and having secretive meetings, what was I supposed to think? Don't worry, I haven't revealed what I suspect and my operatives are extremely loyal."
"Well," said Rodge composing himself, "You had better come with me," as he started walking toward the observatory. Mike headed to the kitchen to raid the fridge while Rodge went straight to his office. Once in his office, he summoned Gundar and as Lei was still with the Board's inspection tour she was left out. Explaining to a shocked Gundar, Rodge had to endure a burst of righteous outrage from him for being spied upon, followed by a "Well what next?" as Gundar slumped into a chair.
"Well you tell me what next," stated Mike as he pushed into the office and commandeered Rodge's chair. He casually flicked Rodge's computer into life and blithely entered Rodge's password to open up his desktop.
"What the!" exclaimed Rodge indignantly. "How do you know my password?"
"You do know what I do for a living don't you?" asked Mike. "Hacking you guys is child's play. Besides, someone has to protect my investment from Chinese hackers. Now what do you have to show me?"
Mike's face hardened in concentration as they explained their discovery, fielding and dismissing all of the alternative explanations offered by Mike. Rodge was impressed by the speed that Mike absorbed the information and the quality and feasibility of his questions and opinions. By the time they had exhausted the subject and demonstrated the algorithms and processes for analysing the observed data, Lei had joined them.
She reported that the Board members were impressed by the Institute's research, especially the space photographs. They were disappointed that Mike hadn't joined them, but were satisfied that the Observatory was performing admirably. William was overseeing their departure with a promise to email copies of the space photos optimised for their computer backgrounds.
Mike then turned to them and asked "Well what can we do to mitigate the effects of this event?" Gundar explained that that was what they were working on now. "Ok, keep me informed by secure email and keep this totally secret, do not under any circumstance tell anyone in government or we will lose everything and civilisation will collapse well before the radiation reaches us if that lot finds out."
"You keep up the research and try to pin down the date and duration as well as ideas on how to survive this. I will organise a committee of experts that I trust, you guys are in that as well." Mike then gave Rodge his secure phone number and email as he made his departure. "I will be in touch," he said as he climbed into his Mustang and backed out. With a spin of his wheels and a satisfying rattle of stones against the wall of the Observatory, he accelerated past the ineffectual security guards, with a wave.
"Well fuck me," swore Lei. "What was that all about?"
"He has been spying on us and knew we had found something big," stated Rodge. "The Board visit was just an excuse for him to come here without raising questions. Well we have our instructions anyway, but that is it for the day I'd say. Did those fuckers leave any beer in the fridge?"
"Fuck it, first I'm going to change my password," muttered Gundar.
"Good idea," agreed the other two. "Fucking smart arse billionaire hackers."
Over the next month, the team concentrated on increasing the precision of their predictions while also researching ideas for surviving the end of the world. On the issue of surviving-the-apocalypse, Elle contributed with her extensive knowledge on the effects of radiation disease, how much, and what type of exposure a human can withstand and expect to survive.
Having the responsibility for keeping the secret taken out of his hands, certainly allowed Rodge to enjoy the banter within his family again, a fact that was not lost on his girls. While preparing dinner, they were listening to Elle rant on about a feral incident she witnessed on her way home. She had been appalled by a very public confrontation between an obviously drugged up street junky and a group of juvenile gang members.
"They are all so stupid, so unintelligent, it is enough to make you wish for the asteroid," she said. Then the realisation of what she had said hit her, but her shocked expression only elicited laughter from the girls.
"Don't worry mum, I won't dob you in to the PC police," said Mary, totally misreading the reason for her mother's shocked look.
Composing herself, Elle dished up dinner and they all settled in to enjoy a large serving of roast. In the background, a current affairs reporter interviewed a scientist advocating calorie based rationing systems as a solution to global obesity. Midway through the meal Rodge's phone rang, this was so unusual, he asked the table if he could take it and went to his study to answer it.
It was Mike, he apologised for the timing, but requested Rodge bring his team to Axell Corp headquarters in New York next Monday to meet with Mike's Apocalypse Response and Security Enterprise Committee.
"I couldn't help it, the devil made me say it," responded Mike when Rodge pointed out the acronym. "Could you please do up a nice presentation for the committee. Outline your research and your conclusions etc, now these guys are not dummies and can be fully trusted, so you can go in hard. If your presentation opens the meeting, they will have some idea what they are there for."
Back at the table, Rodge announced he was off on a trip to New York next week, did anyone want to come? "The rooms are on the company," he announced. Elle was disappointed she could not go as her roster didn't allow for that time off, the girls however were both very excited to go. "You will be on your own a lot as I will be in meetings most of the time," Rodge explained.
"Aww," echoed both girls insincerely. "That is too bad, can we have money instead?"
"Arr whatever," sighed Rodge resignedly as he tackled what was left of his cold roast.
Rodge lounged back in his seat and chuckled to himself when he thought of his daughters reaction to traveling Economy while he and his two colleagues travelled Business. Well actually, Gundar had upgraded himself and his wife to First Class. Lei, in the seat closest to Rodge heard him, and guessing the reason, called him a terrible, uncaring father. This made Rodge laugh out loud and make a comment about his spoilt brats deserving all they got.
"Anyway aren't they getting a week free in New York courtesy of my wallet?"
The five and a half hour flight from San Francisco to New York, with its enforced idleness, was just the quiet time Rodge needed to review the situation and go over his presentation. He woke to the ding of the fasten your seatbelt sign, shook the cobwebs out and sighed with the realisation that he had actually slept most of the trip.
"So much for using the quiet time to practice my presentation," he grumbled to himself.
After navigating the now normal airport security measures they retrieved their luggage and headed toward nearest the shuttle stop. Before they reached the terminal exit, they were intercepted by a uniformed limo driver who reported to Rodge that Mr Axell sent his compliments. This certainly reduced the hassle, however there wasn't enough room for the families, so Rodge placed a maxi-cab on his credit card and instructed it to follow the Limo to the hotel. It was getting dark by the time they reached the hotel so by consensus they agreed to wash up and all meet in the restaurant for dinner.
Before following the others to the lifts, Rodge asked the front desk to make a reservation in the restaurant for the party. The Concierge informed him that all of their hotel expenses, even those of the families, were taken care of by Axell Corp. Smiling, Rodge headed to the lifts. "Big mistake," he vocalized quietly "Big mistake," and was still chuckling as he stepped out of the lift and headed to check out the mini-bar.
Early next morning, the three astronomers met in the foyer to find the limo driver chatting to one of the security guards, and twenty minutes later they were at the Axell Corp tower being greeted by Mike Axell himself. He directed them to the coffee bar then ushered them upstairs to the Axell Corp boardroom. Gundar propped so suddenly as he entered the boardroom that Lei ran into him spilling her coffee. she looked up and stopped in the middle of a curse when she realised that the boardroom was full of people all looking expectantly toward the door. As Rodge and Lei pushed Gundar into the room the whole room erupted into applause.
Mike shoved through the three, waving his hands in the air to call for silence, "yes, I'd like you all to welcome Doctors Roger Fergusson, Lei Yoi and Gundar Singh."
The room broke into applause again. When it had subsided, Mike called everyone to take their seats and directed the three to the top of the table. Behind Rodge, a huge LED screen dominated the conference room wall and in front of it, a lectern with all the connections required to drive the screen. During the introductions, one of the attendants tapped Rodge on the shoulder and requested his tablet. Rodge passed it over and the attendant connected it to the lectern.
Mike remained standing and after fiddling with his lapel microphone, he spoke to the room. "Ladies and Gentlemen, you have all been recently made aware of an existential threat to humanity and you all have vowed to retain that information in the strictest confidentiality, thank you. Now that you are all in the same room, you may have deduced from your diverse occupations that we are gathered here to try to map a way out of this dilemma."
"Now," continued Mike "before I introduce everyone present, we will start with a presentation on the discovery of the threat and reveal some details of the actual nature of the threat." At his gesture, Rodge stood and moved to the lectern.
Mike introduced him, "People, I would like you to welcome Dr Rodge Fergusson to the floor." As he was welcomed by the polite clapping, Rodge swiped his tablet to life and as his first slide appeared on the screen behind him, an expectant silence fell over the room. Rodge introduced the presentation by explaining the reason they were studying that particular region of space. He showed some spectacular photography from the space telescopes then built the story through to the suspected calculation errors.
At this point he asked Gundar to describe their efforts to disprove the results they were getting and the dawning realisation that their only error was assuming the pulsar was too distant to be a threat. Rodge then described the recursive calculations that increased the accuracy of the results with every pass. A precision that led to a 99.99% probability that the end of the world as we know it would actually occur on 21 November in just under eleven years time. Rodge then called Lei to the lectern to explain the exact nature of the forces that would wipe most animal life from the surface of the earth.
After Lei had finished, Rodge asked if there were any questions. The room sat for minutes in stunned silence staring at the final slide showing a doomsday clock counting down to disaster. After about fifteen minutes of fielding questions, Mike called a halt for refreshments. He called a timely reminder to not discuss the situation outside the room, directed everyone to the anti chamber where a lavish spread waited. Rodge collected a large coffee and a couple of pastries and wandered back into the boardroom to check his phone for missed messages but was dismayed to find that there was no signal.
Admiring the view across the Hudson, he noticed a small device connected to the lower corner of the glass. Turning to one of the attendants, he pointed to the device and raised an eyebrow in question.
"Anti-listening protection," the attendant replied with a smile that told Rodge the man was employed for something more than replacing dirty glasses. The lack of signal on his phone explained, Rodge returned to the anti chamber where his phone signal returned. He had a missed message from Elle but none from the girls.
"I wonder what damage they are doing to my savings?" he muttered to himself as he retrieved the last donut.
When everyone had reseated, Mike signalled for some quiet and when he had the floor began with, "Well now ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you all and then we can get down to business." Mike began with the first person sitting to his right. "Our first guest here to my right is General McGowan, as you all know, he was the Commander in Chief and master strategist in the successful destruction of the Caliphate, and more importantly the successful rehabilitation of the region, he has rightly been credited with bringing a lasting peace to that area of the Middle East. He is an expert on fractured societies and what can be done to rebuild those societies."
Mike held his hand up to forestall the starting applause and continued on to the middle-aged lady next to the General. "Next may I introduce Professor June Marburg, she is one of the worlds leading experts on Greek and Roman civilisation, including normal civil and rural life in those empires."
"Beside June," Mike continued "is Gordan Levi, an expert on medieval farming techniques, along with his colleague, Doctor Susan Edwards, an expert on medieval warfare, specialising in Saxon and Viking warfare."
Mike completed the introduction of each member present, only occasionally checking his notes to ensure he had their credentials correct. At the conclusion of the introductions, it was clear to Rodge that the assembly included experts in just about every field of human endeavour, including agriculture, medicine, construction, geography, computer science and warfare, both modern and historical.
"Right ladies and gentlemen," Mike addressed his stunned audience, "You are the experts in your own fields, and you now recognise the perilous situation we are in, so I have asked you here to work together, to combine your expertise in figuring out our options for ..." Mike let the sentence hang, walked over to the water jug and poured himself a glass of water. By the time he returned to the lectern, the anxious murmuring was rising in volume and pitch.
"Ok", called Mike "I won't make you break into small groups, this is way too serious for that." He paused then continued "What I propose is that Axell Corp funds you all to take a sabbatical for six months. I require each of you to produce a thesis on what you believe we can and should accomplish to protect human life on the planet. Feel free to collaborate and communicate with each other if your solution needs the expertise of someone else in this group."
"Please think about it over lunch and we will continue this discussion after the break. By the way, I shouldn't need to emphasise the importance of not revealing, to anyone outside this group, what you have learned. If it gets out, the breakdown of civilisation will be so complete, that there will be no chance of enacting any plan."
"Oh and that includes the Government."
On cue, an attendant announced that lunch was served in the restaurant, and guided them to a lift to the award winning Axell Restaurant on the mezzanine floor. There was a large sign in the foyer stating that the restaurant was closed for the next couple of days, so there were no impediments to the delegates discussing the situation over lunch. Rodge found himself sharing a table with a construction engineer and an expert in radiation containment from the nuclear energy sector. He fielded many more questions about his discovery and learnt a lot about the protection required to survive the radiation from the Pulsar. Bob, the engineer added that although it would be possible to build a refuge capable of keeping the radiation out, it would be expensive and very hard to hide.
After lunch, a long and noisy session ensued, with many of the delegates being more concerned about the financial aspects of Mike's proposal than solving the problem before them. By the culmination of the day's proceedings, however, all the delegates agreed to accept Mike's proposal, and become temporary employees of Axell Corp. It was settled that Mike would release a statement saying that Axell Corp had convened a high level think-tank to explore the feasibility of setting up a sustainable human colony on Mars. This ruse seemed reasonable as a lot of the challenges were the same and was entirely feasible with NASA's renewed focus on Mars. It also had the advantage of being so "ho-hum" that the mainstream press would ignore it after the first couple of days and the fringe press had enough alien conspiracies of its own, to be bothered.
Each delegate would be supplied with a secure computer and the Bio and contact details of all other delegates. They also agreed to attend progress meetings each month at Axell Tower. The next meeting was scheduled in two days to give the delegates time to prepare their draft proposals. Each expert was expected to address the meeting with their initial thoughts and make suggestions to where they believed research should be directed. The astronomers having already thrown their pitch now had a couple of free days to enjoy New York.
Back at the hotel, Rodge called Jean to see if the girls wanted to meet in his suite for drinks, both of them being too young to drink down in the bar. After a bit of background shouting, she said they would be there in ten minutes, and they were, though Mary's hair was still wet.
"I've been in the pool," she replied to Rodge's raised eye brow. "They have a very posh lap pool in the third floor gym, and a fancy bar with a poser's pool on the roof."
"Hmmm," replied Rodge suspecting hanky panky, but refrained from vocalising his suspicions. "Well," he asked as he handed the girls glasses and small bottles of sparkling wine, "What did you get up to today?"
"Wait," he said "let's get mum in on this," and he dialled Elle's number and placed the phone on speaker mode onto the coffee table between them.
The girls excitedly recounted their adventures, from a rather expensive carriage ride through Central Park, to lunch in Times Square and shopping and shopping and more shopping. Elle pressed them to describe what they had bought and, as Rodge's eyes glazed over, they went on to describe in detail all the clothes they had bought. Eventually Elle asked Rodge about his day and as the girls were still there, he towed the party line by describing the seminar for setting up the Martian colonisation think-tank. Elle took the hint, and even showed some genuine interest when he rattled off some of the delegates' names and occupations.
"Well something might come of this then," she stated cryptically. Rodge agreed and promised to give her all the details when they got home. At this the girls both gave exaggerated yawns and stated that they wanted to be left out of that.
"This might even work," Rodge said to himself as he drained his beer.
Next morning, after a rather too-large breakfast in the restaurant, Rodge and the girls flagged a taxi down and directed it to the One World Freedom Tower. This was going to be a day of cultural tourism and Rodge was determined to show the girls some of the highlights and low points of "our civilisation". They might not appreciate it now, he mused, but soon enough it will mean a great deal to them.
After an exciting visit to the top of the tower and a very sobering pilgrimage through the September 11 Museum they took a taxi to Greenwich Village where they enjoyed lunch at a small classy restaurant. Over lunch, the girls asked their dad if he remembered the September 11 attacks. Rodge explained that, as a young child, his parents were very worried by the event and that this had made him very afraid at the time. He also explained how events of the time shaped the country and the world for the next four decades, and even now casts a shadow over international relations. After lunch they walked the High Line and then toured the Intrepid museum and enjoyed a noisy walk back to the hotel.
Elle hadn't been forgotten and was regaled throughout the day with text messages and photographs from her three tourists. Back at the hotel, they all agreed that it had been a great family day, and even though mum had been an absent observer the phone calls and text messages ensured she was included in spirit at least. Rodge passed on dinner. After a day of restaurant meals, street snacks and coffees, he felt he had eaten enough for one day, but he did make plans for breakfast with the girls. After such a full day with his daughters, he realised another day with them would be pushing the friendship so they all agreed that tomorrow was to be a day for individual exploration.
During breakfast, Rodge tried to draw the girls out about their plans for the day. Jean reported that she was going to see a Broadway Show.
"Which one?" asked Rodge and Mary together.
"Not sure," she answered "depends what is starting when I get there."
"Lame!" exclaimed Mary.
"Whatever, as if you'd know anything about culture," retorted Jean. "Anyway, you seem coy about what you are up to."
"Wouldn't you like to know." replied Mary evasively.
"Well," announced Rodge. "Since you two are getting argumentative, I have a walk in the park waiting for me."
"Avoid the horse carriages," the girls both said together.
"Those poor horses," cried Jean. "It is so cruel, I didn't know until we went on one."
"And so overpriced," added Mary.
"I have no intention of adding to their misery," responded Rodge "I just want to enjoy the park as it is, and veg out a bit before having to get back into it tomorrow. You two be careful and don't get scammed or mugged, stay where there are people. Keep in contact and see you later this afternoon."
Rodge walked briskly through the morning cool to Columbus Circle, past where the hawkers and street food vendors were still setting up their stalls and into Central Park. He spent a quiet couple of hours wandering the walkways, occasionally purchasing a drink or snack from a stall, all the while taking in the beauty of this oasis of green. Lunchtime found him lining up for a table at the café near the Sheep Meadow. Once he gained a table under an umbrella, he ordered a large coffee and a sandwich, then digging in his backpack, he extracted his tablet to research as he ate.
When his coffee arrived, he was rather bemused to find it presented in a small cereal bowl with no handle. "What the fuck," he muttered to himself. "Has the world really gone that mad?" However his sandwich was so delicious, it more than made up for the strange coffee cup.
Pushing his plate out of the way, he searched the Net for any research papers on the number of people needed for any new colony to ensure a viable long term population. It had become obvious to Rodge, that even the undeniable talent and accumulated knowledge of Mike's committee was not going to be able to save everyone. Rodge was equally sure that this realisation had already occurred to those tasked with finding a solution. With a heavy heart, he packed his tablet away and ordered a beer. Rodge spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on a park bench and watching the flow of humanity enjoying the park, while trying not to think about their fate.
It was beginning to darken by the time he decided to head back, he stood, stretched his stiff muscles and walked slowly in the direction of the hotel. The night life was just starting to stir on the streets as young and old alike, dressed for partying, hurried in all directions rushing to their favourite night spots. The bright coloured lights and advertising screens may have given the city a party atmosphere, but Rodge could only feel an overwhelming sadness as he traversed the crowded streets. Back at the hotel, he texted the girls, targeted the mini bar and called Elle.
Next morning he met the astronomers for breakfast after which they adjourned to the foyer, to where the limo driver was waiting. At Axell Tower, Rodge and Lei accepted a coffee on the way into the Boardroom and Rodge supplemented his breakfast with a handful of pastries while Gundar, spotting a mathematician he knew, left to join her. The room quickly filled with coffee carrying delegates and by the time Mike arrived, everyone was there. Rodge suspected that Mike had been keeping an eye on the room and had delayed his arrival until everyone was present.
"Well," he began "we have had a few interesting preliminary thoughts on our dilemma so without further stuffing around, I call on Dr Singh to kick things off."
At this, Rodge raised an eyebrow at Gundar and received a wink and slight smile in reply. Gundar took the lectern and began by outlining again, the nature of the radiation expected to wash over the earth. Then he again explained the catastrophic damage this radiation and accompanying EMP will cause. His graphic description of the horrific deaths expected and the destruction of electrical equipment except EMP hardened military equipment shocked those present. He dwelt at depth on the engineering challenges of providing effective protection and spoke to the absolute impossibility of protecting all, or even a reasonable proportion, of the earth's population. Even protecting a very small proportion of the population would be unimaginably expensive and impossible socially as those not protected would destroy any sanctuaries in their effort to get in.
Then he observed quietly, that even if some of the population were saved, they would not be prepared for life in the post apocalypse world devastated by radiation and with no working technology.
"In this situation, I think we are facing the end of humanity," Gundar reported "unless," then he paused. "Unless, we commit to saving a relatively small selection of suitably prepared and provisioned people. If we establish protective sanctuaries, fully self sufficient with resources for living in a pre-industrial land, then we may have a chance at survival."
"This would only be possible," he continued "if the rest of the world remains oblivious to the coming disaster and the numbers protected are above the minimum required to avoid inbreeding." He paused to let this sink in then concluded with "My research shows that we would need to protect at least 4,500 people of mixed ages and skill sets. And roughly 2000 of these will need to be fertile members on the younger side of their breeding age." After delivering the last sentence almost as a challenge, Gundar returned to his seat as the room sat in silence.
The day proceeded with delegate after delegate reporting at almost similar conclusions, especially about the need to keep the apocalypse secret. The consensus was that both the general population and the political class must be kept oblivious to the threat if there was to be any hope at all that even a small number of people could be saved.
The day ended with a resolution to select and prepare 5000 people for life in the Middle Ages and to develop the means to protect them from the radiation. Mike also announced that Axell Corp was preparing a press announcement on the Mars deception for release on the following Monday. Each member of the conference was then handed a list of talking points to use if they were approached by the press. Mike then reminded them that their secure computers would be delivered during the next week. He stressed again that anything written on unsecured computers or sent by unencrypted email must only refer to the Mars expedition, and any mention of radiation was forbidden.
After the conference dinner, Rodge, Gundar and Lei were delivered back to the hotel by their limo driver. Before making their farewell to the driver, Lei asked him about his regular job with Axell Corp.
"Ma'am I can only say that I provide a security service to Mr Axell personally," was the reply.
"Well thank you for looking after us so well," Lei said "I hope you have a good rest of the night." The astronomers made their parting at the lifts and Rodge dialled his daughters' number and went in search of the contents of the mini bar.
Both Jean and Mary materialised at his door within minutes, both busting to tell him something. Rodge gestured to the mini bar and settled into one of the lounge chairs. "Well what is it? he asked.
Jean began "Mum called, I have received an offer to an Internship at the RIHC," she looked at Rodge expectantly.
Rodge looked blankly back at her, "What is a RIHC?"
"Philistine!" she exclaimed in exasperation. "It is the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider," she explained. "Only the second most powerful collider in the world, and I have the chance to work there on the quark-gluon plasma research."
"Oh'" said Rodge in a deadpan voice, "my bad, I should have known that, I was only talking to Dr Nguin from RIHC today."
"You what?" Jean almost shouted. "How, Why, What sort of conference was that?" She asked.
"A very high level one," replied Rodge evasively. "Will you be working with Dr Nguin?" he asked.
"I doubt that a lowly intern would get to work at that level, but I hope to someday," she replied.
"Well he is a very nice man," Rodge informed her "but he does have an eye for the ladies, so be careful," he informed her, this time with a wink.
Turning to Mary, "Now what is eating you?" he asked.
"It is so exciting," she said "I have enlisted in the Marines."
"What," choked Rodge. "What the fuck?" he spluttered through a coughing fit. "How could you do that, I mean, you are too young."
"Well I am too young to go into action, if that is what you mean," she said measuredly. "But what I mean is, once I finish my College Degree at the end of the year I will be eligible to be accepted into the OCS program at Quantico, if I pass that, I will get to be a Marine Officer."
"Oh, I see," a relieved Rodge sighed. "So we have six months to change your mind then."
"No way, I can't wait," was the reply.
"Well we'll see what mum says then, shall we?" replied Rodge. "Now bugger off I want to sleep and we have a long flight home tomorrow."
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The meeting room was surprisingly bright and modern for a room with no windows. The seven committee members were seated down the length of the table to the left of the chairman who understandably sat at the head of the table. The Chairman was a uniformed General and his committee consisted of two serious looking middle-aged men also in forces uniforms, two severely dressed forty-something females, and three even older men, wearing suits.
Sitting in the only chair on the other side of the table was a rather nervous twenty five year old woman with the unfortunately non-corporate name of Charlie Williams. Charlie was employed by the NSA as an intelligence analyst monitoring domestic corporate activities. Newly promoted, this was her first time presenting the monthly report to the Board and she was more than a little overawed by the serious formality of the meeting. As electronic devices were not permitted on this level of the NSA headquarters, she checked her written notes, and gaining confidence with each report, she quickly ran through the previous month's issues of interest. She presented a summary of current investigations, rating those perceived as warranting serious attention, to those her section believed just needed noting.
On completion of her report she paused, bracing for the inevitable difficult questions. She successfully fielded some rather complex questions from the suited accountant-types and justified her team's analysis of a particular weapons manufacturing corporation with powerful friends in the senate. Charlie was feeling her confidence return when one of the females looked up from her notes, removed her glasses and fixed Charlie with an industrial strength glare.
"Ms Williams, you mention at the end there, unusual activity with the Axell Corporation, please elaborate on what you mean by unusual activity, how did it come to your attention and why do you think it is worthy of noting?"
Charlie responded, "A couple of months ago, our liaison officer from the Secret Service notified us of a couple of out of character transactions involving both the Axell Corporation and Mike Axell himself. Apparently shortly after an impromptu Axell board meeting at Mt Singtel radio telescope, an Axell subsidiary, the corporation acquired an active security company. By active I mean it has active military contracts in the Middle East and is licensed to purchase modern military weapons."
"The corporation already wholly owns a weapons research and manufacturing plant with licences to manufacture and export both European and US designed personal and mounted weapons. This connection is what has aroused our interest. There is no evidence, nor is there any suggestion of wrong doing at this time as the Corporation's behaviour has to date, been surprisingly good. As neither the Board nor the management has changed, we are not expecting any real threat, just noting the situation that is all."
The chairman asked the board "Do we accept the report, are the proposed actions appropriate? And on the last item, do we believe that there is any further action, other than noting, that we need to take on Axell?"
On a show of hands, Charlie's report was accepted and she was released. She fled as gracefully as she could, glad her first attendance at the dreaded NSA monthly report had been less harrowing than she had been led to expect.