

Wheels in the Sky

or

The 10,000

by

John Eider

Copyright 2018

Smashwords Edition
Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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T-Minus 10 – The Announcement

Chapter 1 – Harmony Base

In the very near future...

Deep beneath the Earth, there was a thrum. Philip Bradford lay back on the bunk in his cabin and listened. He liked to think it was the sound of the planet itself, its molten core moving and rumbling, beneath the brittle skin of rock upon which all life lived. Or almost all life, for in three or four distant, far-flung places around the globe, tiny teams of researchers burrowed deep beneath the ground in the name of science.

In one of these 'deep research' stations, Bradford lived. He was not a scientist, not even a part of a research team. Instead, he had elected, for his own reasons, to live a mile beneath the ground, and had petitioned the Government of the United States to be allowed to do so.

So, Bradford lay back and listened to the thrum... and then it changed, barely perceptibly, to a different tone. Only someone who had been concentrating on it would have noticed; and it broke the illusion: the thrum had never been the Earth, which, that deep within the rock, was as silent as the tomb. It had been the generators and equipment of the scientists with whom Bradford shared his subterranean space – it was only a personal fantasy that the sound had been the groaning of the planet far within.

Years before, when he had been a young boy growing up in California, Bradford had been standing at the kitchen door of his family home, looking out at the Sacramento evening, when the sky had appeared to change its shade of blue. He'd been a sensitive boy, aware of objects and their fields; and that night, standing by the open door, seeing the sky change colour, he quite calmly wondered whether he had lost his mind?

Only over time did he think that all sorts of things could have altered his perception of the brightness of the sky: a light going on in a neighbour's garden, a moment of light-headedness in himself, even blinking. Perception was a funny thing, and natural objects could be seen entirely differently for all kinds of reasons. But still, he had not forgotten that night: it acted as a totem of his fallibility, a reminder that our perception of nature could not be relied upon, and that his mind's coherence was far from certain – he could lose it as easily as a million others had lost theirs.

And Bradford remembered that boyhood sensation now, now that the thrum had changed.

He had already been distracted from his writing that morning, hence why he had gone for a lie down. Now he hadn't typed a word for two hours, and had made it through to lunch time. Lunch was good, because it was a justifiable break – no writer could be criticised for needing to eat. Though Bradford knew it was a ruse, that he was looking for any reason not to write, and that 'deep down' (he chuckled at his own internal joke) he was verging on a crisis.

He remembered so clearly the first time he had come down to the base. He had seen it featured on the television news – scientists beavering away a mile below – and it had struck him as something entirely new to his experience. It made him sit up in excitement; and as a man in his fifties who had travelled and seen the world, there was not much left that could do that.

Between his novels, he also wrote occasional pieces for a certain broadsheet paper, The Herald, and he reported his discovery to his Editor eagerly,

'They're building an underground science base,' he had declaimed over the telephone. 'It's the only place on Earth – or under the Earth – that they can find a certain type of particle, one that can pass through any matter. All the normal particles are blocked by the wall of rock around them, you see. It only leaves the one particle they're interested in; and once they find it, then there could be all sorts of scientific breakthroughs.

'The Government is spending billions on it, and I bet the public hardly even know it's there! And it's not just that – it's the thing itself, the fact of it, of what it must be like to work and live so far beneath the ground. You have to get me down there.'

The Editor had agreed; and true to his word, a pass with Bradford's name on it was soon waiting at the newspaper offices. Bradford couldn't wait.

Like a boy running eagerly towards a funfair ride, it was left to those around him to call him back and worry for his safety,

'A mile beneath the ground, you say?' 'What if the lift breaks?' 'What if you get crushed?'

But he waved these fears away, even goaded his friends with sarcastic responses,

'Well, I could be crushed to death in someone's cellar tomorrow if the building fell on top of me, you can't be any more crushed the further down you go.'

He didn't care if they were worried, he laughed it off – he was as high as a kite with excitement for his visit.

He travelled there alone. His flight from Los Angeles brought him into Lincoln, Nebraska. From there, a much smaller plane arrived at a distant rural airport; and then he was driven for five hours in the base's supply truck,

'You a scientist then?' asked the driver.

'No, I'm a writer. I'm covering the base for The Herald.'

'You ever been underground before?'

'No, you?' Bradford's own question to the driver had struck him as stupid the moment it left his lips – after all, here was a man who attended the base daily. But his answer caught Bradford off guard,

'Me, underground? Nah, you wouldn't catch me down there. I leave my goods at the door, and get off out of there,' he laughed. 'I'm not risking my life in some cage lift. I've got a wife and kids to get home for. You got any yourself?'

'No,' answered Bradford, and turned his gaze to the white-blown landscape they were passing through in the huge Ford truck. The air had been chill that day, as though the sky were emptying and blowing grey dust over the sparse grass and fenceposts.

'How long till we get there?' he asked.

It would be several more hours.
Chapter 2 – The Rock

Once arriving at the base, there was a sense of apparent anti-climax. The upmost part of world's most advanced science centre was barely distinguishable from any local farm warehouse: oblong, featureless, blown by that same grey dust.

Bradford was greeted, not by a welcoming committee, but by the regular technician meeting the supply truck.

After greeting Bradford, he noticed his guest's non-plussed expression,

'It's not much to look at, is it?' he laughed at the visitor's face. 'And it's not very much more glamorous "downstairs",' as Bradford would get used to people terming the base itself.

Bradford struggled for his words,

'But that isn't the point, is it? It's not what the base looks like. It's the fact of it, the geography, the distance below.'

The technician smiled, which Bradford took to show a shared understanding.

Other men appeared by the truck to take the supplies in, and the driver left as swiftly as intended. Bradford, ever the sentimentalist, even waved him goodbye.

'Don't worry,' laughed the chipper technician. 'He'll be driving you back home tomorrow.'

Once inside the warehouse, Bradford was issued with a hard hat with attached ear protectors, and some basic instructions, which he laughed off,

'Keep your hands inside the car, I know!'

The lift itself was a cube cage some three yards square. Squeezing in beside the cling-wrapped pallets and crates, the men began their descent.

It was in that 'cage lift' that Bradford felt his first fear. It wasn't the weight of the rocks they were passing through that fazed him, their 'instant crushability', as he would write it in his subsequent article. It was that, as the open platform descended through the unsheathed chasm, for minute after slow minute, Bradford saw the eons and millennia of human existence... forget that, of the Earth's existence, rolling past him in reverse.

He wondered: before the shaft had been cut for the long-exhausted silver mine, whose space the base now occupied, when had been the last time that any creature's eyes had laid sight upon the ground they were, at each second, intersecting?

The technician must have mistaken Bradford's awe for apprehension, and sought to break the monotony,

'So, you'll be writing on the research?'

Bradford paused, before answering,

'I'm not so scientific, more creative.'

The guide laughed again, 'You're a "creative" one all right.'

Bradford was reminded that, to many people, that word was not always a compliment. The descent went on for many minutes, and didn't speed up throughout.

'Is it as quick coming back up?' he asked sarcastically.

'Just about. If someone has a panic attack down there, then the endless ascent can make it worse – we have to knock them out. Sedate them, you know? I don't mean literally!'

'That's reassuring,' uttered Bradford, as he thought of seeing dinosaur skulls leering out at him from the passing strata.

Thankfully, once they found the floor of the shaft, he didn't instantly require to see the open air again. Instead, they calmly opened the gates and stepped out into the strangest environment.

Bradford's first words were, 'There is no sky.'

The technician laughed, 'The main chamber can seem like that, can't it. The arc lights point down, not up, so you can't see the ceiling.'

'And what is the ceiling?'

'Unfinished rock. This was a working space – anything the miners didn't need to smooth off, they didn't.'

What the huge lamps did show seemed like an outdoor scene on a rocky outcrop at night; and also like some weird illuminated crime scene in an industrial complex: self-assembled oblong cabins, in singles and multiples, piled up on top of each other, in some places three high; buzzing generators surrounded by reams of heavy cables; and other 'rooms' that resembled the Apollo landing craft, metallic in construction, fitted with riveted portholes of thick clear plastic, and clad in golden foil.

'You don't want to go near those,' he was instructed.

'Top secret, eh?' asked Bradford.

'No, you're just as likely to get an electric shock as to freeze your hand solid in liquid nitrogen.'

'So, they are your famous experiments?'

'Some of them, though not the big dogs. They're buried even further away along the old mine shafts.'

'That makes sense,' mused Bradford, 'if the purpose is to have the least disturbance possible.'

'You really get this, don't you?' marvelled the technician.

'And others don't?'

'Between you and me, we've had politicians down here, checking up on where their funding's being spent, who haven't known one end of a Bunsen burner from the other.'

He concluded, 'But you seem to understand the need for isolation.'

The technician didn't mean the words in the way that Bradford took them, but he was not to forget them.
Chapter 3 – The Decision

The rest of the underground visit passed by in a mood of beguiled excitement and a blur of explanations and introductions. Bradford even had one of his books presented to him to be signed. He ate with the staff, and slept alone in a visitors' dormitory, placed spookily away from the main hall along a barely lit shaft.

Along that narrow tunnel the ceiling was lower than in the main area, only just above his head, for he was quite tall. And Bradford found he wasn't scared – lying in his bed, he knew that just outside the dimensions of his small white man-made chamber, the rock was there, surrounding him, cosseting him.

Before sleep, alone in the tunnel, with the station almost silent, he stepped out through the door to stand on the ancient strata in his bare feet. He touched the natural wall beside him, and looked up those few inches to the tapered roof. He found that, even closed in like that, he felt no fear of the rock falling, or of him being crushed or, perhaps worse, being trapped down there alive – why should he fear? The old miners had known what they were doing. If the roof was going to fall, it would have done so many years ago.

In the Earth's crust all around him he saw not something heavy and about to break, but instead the oldest thing that he had ever known. The plates hadn't moved for millennia, and he had a total certainty that they weren't about to do so now.

He went back inside his flimsy plastic chamber and lay down, and it was the best night's sleep he could remember.

The next morning, eating breakfast in the largest cabin, with everyone sitting along two trestle tables, he had made up his mind. The previous day he had been mostly talking with the younger staff, recording their enthusiasm. The chiefs had been meeting in one of the offices for most of the afternoon. Though it was one of those to whom he would need to speak now.

He looked around for his guide from the previous day, then went over and asked,

'Morning, so I'm off soon but I haven't spoken to any of your senior scientists yet.'

'Well, our Director's not here this week – she spends half her time up-top. But you can speak to our Research Lead. That's him there.'

The conversation took two minutes at the breakfast table, as the heavy-set man munched through a tomato and egg toasted sandwich. After mouth-full introductions, Bradford made his pitch, perhaps the last brave thing he would do for a while,

'Sir, you've clearly got the space down here, and the quiet is a Godsend for a writer. I won't be cut off from the world – you have cables running up to ground, you have the Internet, you have food brought down each day. And, if I could keep that room along the tunnel, then I can't imagine the books I could write.'

By now, the listener had finished his mouthful, and asked,

'But, wouldn't it be lonely if you're not used to it?'

'I'd have food, a roof, my laptop. Some would say a writer doesn't, indeed shouldn't, need anything else.'

'Well,' pondered the Research Lead, before resuming his sandwich, 'I'll have to check with the Director.'

Bradford's Herald article was a huge success, though friends were worried at his follow-up plan, asking,

'But how long for?'

'Three months; six.'

'All that time underground?'

'But I can't tell you how restful it is. And after these past couple of years...'

'I know, with Martha and little Jack.'

'I've hardly written a thing. This could get me back on track.'

'But,' the friend implored, 'aren't you going to miss people? Aren't they going to miss you?'

Bradford pondered, before finding the words to say what he hadn't yet said out loud to himself,

'Maybe if I still had a wife... though that was nearly three years ago now; and as for Jack, well, I expect I'll see as little of him living underground as I do in LA.'

'I get it.'

'And I'll be on email, and you can call. And you can always come and visit!'

The friend did not appreciate this last remark, but at least it broke the mood before they hugged and parted.

And so it was done. A week later, Bradford was back on the plane to Nebraska; back on the supplies delivery truck, back on the endless elevator, and back to sleeping soundly for the first time in years.
Chapter 4 – News of the Ten-Thousand

Eight months on, and Bradford sat down for lunch.

'How's The Mole?' asked one of the others at the canteen table.

'Distracted,' he answered.

After so many months, they were getting well used to each other.

'Well, this will get your attention.'

Although there was a Wi-Fi hotspot within the underground base, the print-sheet daily papers that came down with their supplies were a physical reminder of 'life upstairs'. Bradford read its headline, as he did most days, but rarely with such electric enthusiasm:

AGREEMENT MADE FOR SPACE STATION PLAN

'What is this?' he asked his lunch companion, a scientist at the base.

'Haven't you been following the story?'

'Maybe the bunny hasn't been taking the papers down the rabbit hole to him?' joked someone, referring to Bradford's quiet nook off the main chamber.

'What he means,' interrupted a friendlier voice, giving the previous speaker a stern look, 'is that perhaps the story hadn't reached far beyond the scientific journals before this week.'

The friendly voice was Edward Ferrarin PhD, astrophysicist and researcher into the gravitational echoes of the early universe. Several of the gold-clad machines were expressly his. He also played a mean hand of Texas hold 'em, though didn't possess the granite visage to really push his advantage home around the card table. This was what Bradford liked best about his new-found friend: that, for all his talents, he was still too soft for the competitive world – he had to find other ways to get on.

The conversation, though, was passing Bradford by.

'Another station?' he asked rhetorically. In a sudden mix of emotions, he pushed the story away without hardly reading it. 'I'm sorry, Ted. This might turn on you techies in your line of work, but I think the rest of us know what we're getting out of space by now: weird ant experiments, a few TV satellites getting fixed, astronauts cartwheeling in Zero G listening to Bob Marley. I wasn't part of the Apollo generation, I've never been excited by space.'

Ted just looked at Bradford in comedy contempt, but answered in a laughing voice,

'You haven't read the story at all, have you. This isn't just any station, it's "The Station". The Big One.'

'How big?'

'Ten thousand people, big.'

Bradford was the boy again, staring out into space through the mile of rock above him. Only now it wasn't changing shades of deep blue, instead there was a little gleaming light crossing the night sky in a silent arc.

'I lied earlier. I loved space.'

'As did we all,' said Ted, regaining faith in his friend.

'I lost it, though, when it became so reduced, when we knew we wouldn't all be rocketing around Mars and living on Venus. We even retired the Space Shuttle. And there's just a handful of men alive who've walked on the Moon.'

'Well, this could be it, Bradford.'

The pair ate in silence, each thinking furiously. Bradford looked up and down the trestle table, knowing that every one of them was thinking the same thing – how do I get up there?

The cautious look on Ted's face suggested that the thought had occurred to him too. After they had finished, even before they'd had a second cup of coffee, he ushered Bradford around a corner in the rock, and whispered,

'Listen, Brad, you've only just seen the story, but I've been thinking about it all morning.'

'And there was I thinking you had the world's most complex machinery to keep your eye on.'

'Not any more, not if they build this thing.' Ted stabbed a finger at the paper he hadn't been able to let go of, taking it everywhere with him. He gestured to the base around them, 'All this will seem like a Radio Shack kiddies' science kit once Adam's launched.'

'Adam?'

'That's a suggestion that's been made for the name: a new start, the Garden of Eden. It's going to be full of vegetation, a floating hot house.'

'My, my.'

'And it will be a fantastic opportunity for science,' continued Ted. 'The trouble is, the expectation will be matched by demand. Being an astronaut has been a minority pursuit up till now, with only the very best believing they had a chance. There's been a few hundred of them ever – you've more chance of winning Olympic gold. Now, every Tom, Dick and Harry will fancy their chances of getting among a catchment of ten thousand!'

'The trouble also,' added Bradford, 'is that there are still well over ten thousand exceptional people on Earth. Though they'll need your skills, Ted, that's a given. Don't you go worrying about that.'

But Ted just looked at Bradford, before asking,

'Really? You're going to make this about me? As if you're not every bit as desperate to get up there yourself?'

'But... what hope for a washed-up writer who hasn't had a hit for years?'

Ted nearly gagged, before blurting,

'Are you joking? Your piece about the base has increased our Internet traffic by a factor of a thousand, and requests to visit have sky-rocketed.'

'But that's about you guys, not me – I only wrote what I saw.'

'And you conveyed your enthusiasm, what writer can do more than that?'

Ted tried a new tack,

'Bradford, don't you read your own press?' (The look on his face clearly suggested he didn't.) 'You're a cultural icon, Bradford: the world-famous author who chose to forsake that world and live underground.'

'And do they know that this "world-famous author" can barely write a word these days?'

'Well, maybe that's what eight months underground can do to you? You know that the rest of us are limited to two weeks at a stretch? There's a thriving town out by the airport – bars, hotels where staff spend their off-weeks, people jetting in and out for family trips. There's a crèche up there, wives and husbands. We have a whale of a time.

'You should come up-top, Bradford.' But then some small frustration snapped in Ted, 'Ah, but then you'd lose your mystique, your Subterranean Ennui. Isn't it now all about how long you can bear it down here without breaking?'

'That's not it. That's not it at all.' And Bradford's face displayed a fear he hadn't shared, not even to Ted.
Chapter 5 – The Archetypal American Family

Bobby made his way over to his Uncle Thomas's. He only lived along the street, and in their quiet suburb there was hardly any traffic. He was clutching the newspaper, and burst in... to find the old man crying.

Bobby was too young to understand, only ten, though that felt very old for one so young. He didn't know how to respond, so he only offered, quietly and confusedly, the line he had prepared to give much more excitedly,

'Thomas, Thomas, it's in the paper, everything you said. They're going into space!'

But all the old man said was, 'Can you ask your mother if there's room for me at dinner?'

This excited Bobby, as it meant that he would get to spend the evening with his favourite person.

At the door as he left, Bobby paused though, confused by that point. He asked Thomas,

'But why do you always ask, Thomas? You know Mom always lets you come.'

And the old man answered, 'Common courtesy, Bobby, your mother deserves no less.'

Thomas wasn't related to the family; but in the absence of a grandparent within a hundred miles, he had become a de facto Granddad to the little boy. He would wow Bobby with models of planes and spaceships and rocket cars. He would bring out old books with yellow, crackling covers; and rolled-up blueprints in long tubes, plans for homes and offices and railroad stations that were never built.

'This is what they thought the future would look like,' he would explain. Which confused Bobby, as the buildings in the pictures seemed so much more exciting than those he saw on visits into town; and the cars, with their rocket-engines and bubble-top canopies and candy colour paint-jobs could easily have out-raced the boring cubes and oblongs that he saw out of his back window when he travelled with his parents on the freeway. The cars in Thomas's pictures looked like they were going at one-hundred miles an hour even standing still.

'People were excited back then,' the old man would say. 'There was something new to aim for.'

And Bobby was too young to question where the models and the drawings came from, or why someone would have kept them for so long, or how lucky he was to have Thomas to show them to him. It could not occur to one so young that not every boy had a family friend with all this interesting stuff.

'They're going to build it in a decade,' said Bobby's father that evening after they had eaten.

'Kennedy's promise,' remarked Thomas, and the adults shared a silence of deep acknowledgement.

'You can go in it, Dad!' shouted Bobby.

To which the thirty-something laughed,

'By the time that thing's built I'll be ready for my rocking chair.'

'But you said ten years,' asked the confused boy.

'On Government contracts? – more like twenty-five,' and the men snickered. His mother just gave them a look.

'Lazy workmen, more like,' she said, getting up to collect the plates. 'Thank Goodness half the world can get a job done. Tell a women a baby's coming in nine months, and she can't push that deadline back.'

To Bobby, this sounded a little like his mother had been angry. Though the others didn't respond as such; and a moment later, when Thomas offered to help her with the plates, she smiled kindly as she told him to, 'Stay right there, you're our guest.'

In his young mind, Bobby was reminded of something he had heard on TV and which he had been trying to apply to his parent's behaviour. In his most upright voice, he asked,

'Mom, was that a... joke?'

All three adults burst out laughing,

'Look at your serious little face,' his mother remarked, leaning down to him. 'Come on and help me cut the pie.'
T-Minus 7 – Three Years Later

Chapter 6 – Officer Lato

Officer Lato was getting tired of it now. After a morning of escorting criminals in and out of the town courthouse, he had pulled up beside the advertising hoarding on Route Twenty in his Dodge police cruiser, and was hoping for a peaceful hour – Mayweather, Texas could look after itself awhile.

Had he wanted the action of a police chase, he would have parked up behind the advertisement, and so caught the drivers out as they unknowingly sped past him; but today he thought the sight of the Black and White upon the crest of the hill would be deterrent enough.

His partner, Thompson, was sitting beside him – they weren't even bothering with the speed gun yet – give the drivers an hour to get used to their presence and see if any got cocky.

Already, though, the radio receiver was crackling with the familiar female voice of their dispatcher,

'Officers requested at the new factory plant. Please copy. Officers requested...'

'That's just along Twenty,' offered Thompson needlessly. They all knew where the town's current hot spot was situated – they had been called out there often enough in recent months.

'Ask her what's up,' instructed Lato, still reclining in his seat for the time being.

'This is Thompson, what's happening?'

'Hello, Officer. Good to hear from you,' the dispatcher offered mordantly. 'The usual: fifteen or so kids outside the gates.'

'Where's Hernandez?' asked Thompson. 'He can handle that.'

'There's been an injury, and a car window shattered, so the caller said.'

'That's new,' said Lato, finally rousing himself. 'Tell her we're on our way.'

Mayweather was not a large town, though it had doubled in size those past three years. A parcel of land had been bought up by the Government, and a factory soon established. There was nothing too unusual in that – Mayweather's nearest neighbour had a plant producing concrete for the highways, and the town next along made farm machinery. Though, after that, the similarities ended.

As they drove, Thompson said the thing he always said when they headed to that same destination,

'The place is secretive though, isn't it?'

'No more so than anywhere that wants to keep snoopers' noses out.'

'But no-one comes in or out of there...'

'Well, they must have done so this time if a car got smashed.'

'...except for those black buses. Its workers sleep within the grounds, they say. No one knows them locally. Even the guys who constructed it were bussed in...'

Lato just smiled and continued his driving.

'...and now we have another demonstration: we don't know who, we don't know why.'

'Well, we can guess.'

'But we shouldn't have to guess, should we. We're the police, they should tell us these things.'

Lato couldn't help but enjoy his colleague's grumping.

'You know,' concluded Thompson, who Lato thought only got really interesting when he was angry, 'It would help us out a mighty lot if they even told us what they were making there.'

'We know what they're making there,' said Lato, as he drove at fair speed along the dead-straight road. 'Those protestors tell us, if no one else does.'

The high wire fencing soon approached, and Lato pulled over.

'Nah, they're just guessing,' said Thompson, as the men got out a distance away and observed the scene a moment. 'And who believes this space stuff anyway?'

Lato looked at the same placards with the same slogans he had been seeing more and more since the big announcement of the plant being built:

SPACE FOR ALL!

DON'T CROWD OUR SPACE!

CROPS, NOT CORPS.!

If the top two gave the hint as to what the plant was involved in, then the third suggested what the protestors' beef was with the whole endeavour.

The two rows of razor wire ran for a mile alongside the empty road, a stretch of tarmac along which, Lato imagined, little else of note had ever occurred. A hundred yards back behind the wire, shivering under heat-haze, were the slate-grey, featureless buildings and warehouses where the action happened – whatever that action was, exactly. So far, not even the most fervent of protestors had attempted to break through to these. And just as well, as Lato didn't think they'd get very far.

The officers began to walk toward the gate. The old familiar sight fulfilled itself as they neared: the ragtag gang of protestors, in their mix of colourful slogan shirts, combat shorts, and sometimes home-made costumes: there was only one green alien that day, though at least three Apollo-era astronauts in bubble-helmets.

'How the hell are they surviving in this sun?' asked Thompson, with a curse in his voice.

'Never underestimate a true believer,' answered Lato with a smirk in his.

Behind the disordered band were the two huts just within the wire that formed the gateposts; and beside them the same two large men, always visible, with their rifles, also always visible.

Something was different this time, though. Under the baking sun, a car's bodywork gleamed. It seemed to be stuck between the outer and inner-rows of cutthroat chicken-wire, and between the two huts. As the officers neared, they saw the damage,

'It's not only the windscreen,' said Thompson, suddenly steeling himself.

'The side windows have gone,' grimaced Lato, 'and the bodywork's wrecked.'

'A Lincoln Town Car,' said Thompson. 'They're often armoured... if we are talking Government...'

Parking a distance away had been a tactic to get an overview, before the officers themselves were mobbed. Now that opportunity was over, and the men sped up.

'Well, you know what the Sheriff always says...' began Lato.

'That every placard is a two-by-four in disguise?'

'You've learnt well, my boy. Hands on holsters.'

The two groups hit at speed, though only to shout at each other. A stern elderly couple were usually present among the younger protestors, apparently the organisers, though this time only the wife was stood there. Lato looked quickly, and saw her husband sat lolling in the sun, resting against the wire, holding his hand to his bloodied head.

'Officer, officer,' called the woman. 'Look what they did!'

But Lato pushed forward to the fence, to shout at the nearest man behind it.

'Hey, guard! Has an ambulance been called?'

'Sir, our client's car was damaged as he tried to leave. We need you to clear the gates so he can...'

'There's an old man down here. Has an ambulance been called?'

'Sir, we need you to...'

'Call an ambulance, now!'

'Sir, we're bringing a car through. We need you to clear the gates.'

Through the wire, Lato fixed the guard in his gaze, and roared,

'You call an ambulance now, or I swear, I'm coming through this wire and arresting you. And you try stopping me like you stopped him,' he pointed to the man on the ground, 'and I'll put you in the County Hospital before I put you in the cells.'
Chapter 7 – Demo

The guard retreated to his hut, without a word or gesture. Thompson leaned in to whisper,

'Boss, why? You know I'd call it in on my radio.' (Which he already had.)

Lato glared, 'Because I wanted to see him do it.'

The conclusion to the stand-off had brought a great cheer and roar from the protestors; but the scene was still volatile. Lato hadn't finished yet. As Thompson checked up on the injured man, Lato looked around for the wife; though she found him first, exclaiming,

'Officer, officer. You see what they've done? We want them arrested. They got out of that car and they beat him.'

Lato fixed her in a glare only slightly less severe than that which he had given the guard,

'Madam, and what was your husband doing vandalising... vandalising the car in the first place?'

Though she didn't answer. She turned to anyone who'd listen, declaring, 'We've got proof. We know what they did.'

Lato looked around himself. Thompson, his attention diverted from the old man, was at that moment holding back two street fighters attempting to make their point known, though he suspected that neither would succeed. And they weren't the only ones in the crowd who might be handy in a fight.

Lato turned back to the woman, turning her to him by her shoulders. He whispered,

'You're the ring leaders here, right? You and your husband? You organised this? The rest of them are just narked off college kids, give them anything to shout about and they're happy; but for you pair, it's political.'

'Well, isn't it political? What they're doing here?'

'We don't know what they're doing here, no one does!'

But she only raised her eyebrows at the officer's naivety. She spoke then in a tone that shocked him, almost spitting,

'Get that blue out of your eyes, officer. You know what they're doing, everyone does. Look up "Sigmundsonn", see what they make around the world: gyroscopes, precision instruments. So, what need has anyone of those things around here, except...' she pointed up at the clear blue sky.

'And the issue isn't Government,' she sneered, 'it isn't even corporations making billions.' She leant in so close that Lato could feel the moisture of her breath, as she almost pleaded, 'It's the billionaires!'

Lato was on the back foot now – what was all this? He should have followed the rumours, he should have looked the company up before now, it was true. Instead, he still knew nothing about them. But right now, the situation needed solving.

'Oh, don't worry, officer,' continued the woman. 'We've got it all on film. You missed quite a fight,' she said with relish. Lato looked up to see two of the costumed spacemen. Upon closer inspection, their uniforms were ripped, and one was leaning decidedly groggily.

'Officer,' repeated a flat voice through the fence. 'We're bringing a car through, we need you to clear the gates...'

Thompson bumped against Lato, as his two protestors proved their rowdiness...

Elsewhere, a chant started up...

A girl in blue jeans and pink shirt was spinning around to get it all on camera...

The guard at the gatepost implored him with his eyes...

The witch-like woman gave him a look that made the air between them curdle...

Beneath the beating sun, it was in danger of becoming too much. Lato breathed, and thought...

A thing the Sheriff had always taught him was: to take a moment out in the eye of the storm. 'Don't let yourself be caught up in effects,' he'd say. 'Arrest a dozen people, and what have you achieved? Nothing, they'll just be more narked the next week. Take a moment, find the cause.'

Lato's father hadn't thought his son was very bright, barely clever enough for the simplest uniformed duty. He had fulfilled his father's slim expectations in early jobs; until he found himself, in every sense, at Police Academy. At last he had found a role in which he could excel. He had become a police officer, his proudest achievement, even become a mentor to young officers. And now, here he was, thinking laterally in the middle of a street fight.

He remembered the Sheriff's words, and considered to himself: the cause of the disturbance wasn't the factory, or what they did there, not even that their guards had hit out at an old man. The cause was what had prompted the protestors to attack the car.

Most of the crowd had a temper, Lato could see, but they had kept it under check in the demonstrations up till then. What was different that day?

'Officer, officer,' called someone, tugging at his shoulder...

Elsewhere, an ambulance's sirens could just be heard...

Suddenly he saw it. He spoke quietly to the woman,

'You have a camera here today. You're not just protesting, that hasn't made a difference in all the months you've been coming here. You wanted propaganda. You wanted film of them attacking you; and an old man to boot. You've got all these young fellows here, and your husband went in first?' Lato gave a look of disgust, as the woman's confidence momentarily wavered.

He concluded, 'Well, you can have your film – that's your business. But, you have your people step back right now, or we take that camera and we smash the hard drive.'

With barely an instruction, the woman gave a couple of nods... and the protestors parted like the Red Sea for Moses. A new blacked-out Lincoln rumbled up to the barrier, and the occupants quickly switched from the damaged one. Moments later, the hesitant guards opened the electric gates, and the car trundled past with barely a whisper.

'Now, gather up,' instructed Lato. 'You're finished for the day.' And the protestors were quite happy to oblige. The ambulance passed the Lincoln on the road as it arrived, and soon the old man was taken away also.

As his wife climbed up into the back of the white and orange vehicle to travel with her husband, she gave Lato a smug look, as if to say, 'I knew you were on our side.'

Lato looked away.

'So, what was all that about?' asked Thompson afterwards.

'You didn't lose faith in me, did you?' asked Lato, returned to his usually dry self.

'Never; though you took a minute to decide what to do.'

'You had your money on me calling in the National Guard?'

'I'm glad you didn't. These idiots would have had their case all over the news.'

'You picked up on that too? Come on, we've earned our couple of hours on traffic duty.'

It didn't make sense to him, though.

That evening, Lato did look up Sigmundsonn Corp. on his son's computer.

'The "Corp." comes from their incorporation into American law,' he read out loud, '"thus allowing them to operate on US soil and bid for Government contracts."'

'What are you reading?' asked his wife, amazed, as she came into the room. There was a 'ball game about to start, and she brought a bowl of nachos which she placed on the table before them.

'It's those protestors today,' he answered. 'They've got me thinking.'

'What about?'

'About the new plant along the road, what they're doing there, who's in charge.'

'Who is in charge?'

'I don't know! But they said something about "Billionaires".'

'Well, you've got to be rich, haven't you, to own a place that big.'

He stayed silent in thought, which wasn't like him.

'Why today though?' she said kindly. 'You've been breaking up demos outside there for months now.'

'But it was so weird there today, love. There was something going on.'

'You usually say protestors are all hot air.'

'Yeah, usually they are. Which makes it annoying that I think they might be on to something this time.'
Chapter 8 – Meeting with the Director

'You know, Bradford, when you first requested to come down here to do your writing, it never occurred to me that you'd never leave.'

The Director of Harmony Base was a genial woman. She sat behind the desk in her bright white 'inside' room that, with its modern professional appearance, and but for its lack of windows, could have been anywhere on the surface of the Earth.

Bradford thought hard, before answering her question,

'I can't honestly tell you that that was my original intention.'

'But, looking at your psych reports, then the warning signs were there four years ago.'

'But what can a doctor tell you, really?'

'In your case, quite a lot!' She then recited certain lines that she had highlighted from the report,

'"The subject displays a tendency to withdraw to places of safety rather than to explore new horizons", "They display a nervousness surrounding everyday personal interactions, that has increased throughout their time at Harmony Base," and, "While below the Earth, the subject has suffered a breakdown of their abilities to function in a normalised interactive human environment. However stressful they may have found life above-ground, and however welcoming a 'hidey-hole' (their phrase) the Base may have represented to them, prolonged isolation from those trigger-factors is only eroding such skills in these areas as they already possessed."

'He goes on, "The analogy might be that of a person squinting from the sun, finding shadow to hide in, but the light then appearing even brighter when they eventually emerge from that shade; or of someone finding conversation too quick to follow, so withdrawing from it, though only slowing down further the longer that they spend in silence."

'Heavy stuff, Bradford, I'm sure you'll agree.'

She paused before reading the conclusion in full,

'"The subject has used Harmony Base as an artistic retreat of sorts, and as a subject for their writing in itself – their early pieces submitted to the Herald newspaper make for fascinating reading. However, they have also, perhaps above and beyond all other purposes, used the Base as a means to avoid the common currency of human relationships and face-to-face meetings.

'"Were I dealing with a person so isolated above-ground, I would immediately prescribe a routine of weekly therapy, along with home-visits by someone sent to accompany them to those sessions. The travel would prove a daunting challenge to such a subject – leaving their place of safety to get to the sessions would require this support, and would be a part of the therapy in itself.

'"However, in the case of someone now effectively trapped hundreds of metres below ground, and out of the reach of regular medical attention, then the situation is made that much more acute. The physical distance proves both a false-reassurance to the subject, and a barrier that might require physical force to help them overcome.

'"After nearly four years below ground, the urgency of the situation cannot be overstated, and cannot be deflected by the urbane offhand manner and witty ripostes of the subject. There is a very real risk, if the subject is allowed to decide upon their own course of action going forwards, of them choosing never to leave Harmony Base and, indeed, to remain below ground until their death."'

The Base Director gasped after reading it all.

'"Until their death,"' she repeated. 'In other words,' she summarised, 'you're not talking your way out of this one, Mister!'

Bradford was stunned, he said nothing till asked.

'So, what do you make of all that?'

'As I say, what can doctors tell you?'

'Gah! Try harder.'

'That I've waited my whole life for someone to find me so interesting.'

'It's not interest!' the Director almost shouted. 'He's scared you're going to die down here. Die down here!'

'Not on your watch, eh?' offered Bradford sarcastically, then instantly regretted it.

She answered, 'I think you know that that is garbage, and personally offensive.'

'I'm sorry.'

'I know you are.' She got her breath. 'But what are we to do?'

He didn't have an answer, and so she got the rest of her frustrations off her chest,

'Oh, I was a fool not to see it, Bradford. I thought it was a bit of fun at first, a publicity coup for the Base; and, well, maybe a bit of me was keen to meet such a distinguished writer and be a part of their latest project. Was there vanity there? Did I enjoy being a part of something that someone like yourself found so interesting?

'I don't know. But I do know that we let your special status get in the way of expecting you to follow the same rules as every other soul down here. We didn't treat you the same.

'You welcomed the isolation, it was the reason you were here. Perhaps we felt that a truly creative person might foster that feeling to draw out your masterpieces, and that you might manage such emotion better than the rest of us. Was there something of the logic of the parent who doesn't let their child do drugs, but who trusts their favourite singer not to give themselves an overdose?

'There's more in the report,' she went on.

'Please, you've made your point.'

'No, I don't mean it like that,' she explained, and she smiled sympathetically, before going on. 'It says, "The subject has developed a belief", and he quotes your own words from your last interview with him, "that 'I may as well live on my own as no one else would have me.'" The Doctor mentions your wife, and your son, and that you didn't think it mattered whether you were above the ground or not, as you didn't think you'd get to see him anyway.

'I can help you, Philip. We can find a lawyer, a family court...'

But Bradford waved her away,

'I can't think like that.'

'But, is that a part of why you stay down here? So you don't have to face that... separation, or have to do something about it?'

'She didn't want me to see him, she moved their home to Paris!'

'But you were jet-set people when you were married – I confess, I read of you in celebrity magazines. I bet you moved cities yourself often. Oh, I'm not trying to tell you off, Bradford. I'm worried for you. Your buddy Ted is too – don't worry, I only asked him briefly, he didn't give away any of your secrets. But you know you're going to lose him, don't you? He's already started working with the space program; and when they start construction, he'll want to be there.'

Bradford was quiet again, and the meeting was winding itself up. The Director concluded,

'I was busy, I was away from here a lot. We should have spoken sooner, I'm sorry for that. You squinted in the sun, you hid in the shadow – but you can't remain there.'

'We don't make art in public!' offered Bradford as a final tantrum. She answered,

'But you're not making it down here either, are you?'
Chapter 9 – Preparations for the Speech

The car pulled up outside the vast, modern conference centre.

'This place is huge,' said Molly.

'It has to be,' responded Zak, 'with the audience we're expecting.'

'Professor Page,' greeted the woman who had come out to meet their car.

'Thank you.' He introduced Molly as they stepped out, 'And this is Doctor Zubecker, my assistant.'

'We're so glad to welcome you both to Copernicus Campus,' she offered in a lilting Southern drawl.

'I haven't been back to UCLA since this was built,' said Zak as they were led inside. The building was of the new 'Organic Style' and suggested to Zak an enormous seashell made of caramel.

'But where more fitting for the talk we are to have?' asked their guide.

'Indeed. And – I have to ask – are there many reporters?'

'Oh yes,' she answered excitedly. 'We've had quite a job keeping them all in their designated areas! Our security has had to be beefed up. But then, doesn't that always seem to be the way with your "Grand Project"? Everyone seems so excited with what you have to say. In fact, I wonder if it wouldn't help us in our efforts to assist your party if we could have some idea of the speech you're going to give?'

'Thank you,' was all he offered as they reached the foyer of the building. 'You're already being more than helpful. Perhaps you could assist us, though, by showing Doctor Zubecker to the stage to make our preparations; and I wonder, is there somewhere I can work undisturbed?'

'Of course,' answered the woman, robbed of her preview. She summoned her own assistant, and the guests were ferried off to their differing destinations.

Molly stood at the lectern after loading up the teleprompter. 'My fellow Americans,' she intoned in comic booming tones; and listened as the reverberations echoed back from the circular walls and ceiling that enclosed her. Also in the giant seashell were several thousand empty seats, every one of which would be filled that evening.

'They're wonderful acoustics, aren't they?' Their greeter from earlier was standing almost unseen at the side of the stage. 'I didn't get a chance to talk to you properly before. I'm Nicole Evans, representing the Faculty.'

'Hello, Nicole. Molly. I apologise, we're so busy that we don't always have a chance to make proper acquaintances.'

Molly was polite, but she braced for what was coming. She made herself look busy, and kept up the act as the woman stepped up to the stage,

'Impressive, isn't it?' said Nicole, looking about herself. 'You ought to see it when it's full. Of course, you will later. It's so exciting. Seeing you two here, getting to hear the speech in person later – well, I just don't know! I feel like a hat-check girl meeting Elvis.'

Molly laughed; though Nicole pressed the point home in the down-home Americana accent of hers,

'Oh, you act coy, but don't tell me you don't feel it. You must do, everywhere you go. And you being so young and all. You've done well to hold such a role at your tender age.'

'I'm thirty-six,' answered Molly.

'My my, you wear it well. I would have pegged you a decade under that.'

'Don't worry,' smiled Molly, 'my mother keeps me well aware of my biological clock.'

'So, you put career first then?'

Molly was tiring of the fake-friendship. She was nearly done on stage anyway. Picking up some unneeded microphone cables, and turning to leave the elevated area, she offered boldly,

'You know what? It was never even a decision.'

'Same here. And, do you know what? I absolutely love it!'

Molly smiled, she couldn't help it.

'I envy your life though...' added her guide.

Here we go again, thought Molly, another stab at information.

'...to be part of such a project...'

At that point, something snapped in Molly, and she answered,

'Do you know what? I can't tell you about it. I can't tell anyone. If NASA haven't given out the info, it's because we don't have it yet. Or because we can't share it, which is the same difference, as I'm not going to jail for it.'

'Well, I don't know that there's call for such a tone...'

'Well, there is, when everywhere I go I've got people trying to be my friend in the hope of getting some scoop!'

Clutching her cables, Molly was set to bustle off – but something paused her, and she stopped, turned, and added,

'And you think you envy my great life? Well, I'm a doctor myself. I could be making a real difference somewhere. I've spent years at university. And I didn't do all that work to be ferrying around behind some man setting up his microphones for him.'

She concluded,

'You think you're meeting Elvis? Well, if Zak is Elvis, then I'm Charlie Hodge.'

At this Nicole burst out laughing, asking,

'So you have that album too?'

'It's Mom's favourite,' offered Molly, suddenly embarrassed at how she'd spoken.

'And, do you know what?' asked the older woman in her homely tones. 'I might know a little of what you were just speaking of. I never made it to NASA, but I was the prize winner for my year, at this University, right here,' she gestured with her arms, beyond the new building, to the college outside. 'And yet, here I am as meeter-and-greeter for the succession of famous speakers who make in onto this stage.

'My girl, if you're handing Elvis his drinks and towels, then I'm the one handing them to you. You're Charlie Hodge? Then I'm Charlie Hodge's Charlie Hodge.

'Look after yourself, dear, and watch out if the crowd gets too heavy.'
Chapter 10 – At Lunchtime

After preparations, Molly got to lunch late. With her temporary canteen pass, she stood with her full tray and hoped so much to see one person. The room was large but almost empty... and then she saw her.

'Ms Evans.' She asked, 'you don't mind if I sit with you?'

Molly didn't honestly think the woman would refuse her, and she was rewarded for her trust.

'Of course, dear. Though we could each have a fifty-seater table to ourselves if we wanted, it's so quiet around here.'

'Isn't it just.'

'Well, it's all the extra security your visit has brought down on us – regular lessons have been cancelled for the day, all staff and students kept away, unless they won the campus lottery for one of our allocated seats.

'And I told you, it's Nicole.'

'Nicole, look,' began Molly. 'I wanted to say sorry – I couldn't bear to not see you again to apologise for earlier.'

Nicole raised a hand, and offered in that comforting voice of hers,

'There's no need, dear. And I was as much to blame. I don't know why I was pestering for information. I know that you can't tell me; and I'm an adult, I can wait a few more hours.'

'You were just excited,' said Molly, 'like we all are. I don't know why I acted so...'

'I do, you told it straight enough.'

'But to snap like that...'

Nicole reasoned, 'Perhaps a good snap was just what you needed? And didn't it clear the air?'

This cheered Molly; though she was still in self-immolation mode,

'And now I'm babbling on like this... I'm really quite level-headed, honestly. I just feel that I can talk to you. And, in my role, with all the secrecy, then I have so few opportunities.'

In the cafeteria, Molly and Nicole did talk.

'So, you were saying about your studies,' asked Molly. 'How did you get here?'

'I came up through a scholarship, all the way from a little school in Galveston, Texas. And yourself?'

Molly was almost embarrassed,

'Ivy League parents, Ivy League big brother. What else was I going to do?'

'But we both ended up at the same place – so to speak. And was space always your field?'

Molly laughed at last,

'Actually no, I hadn't thought of it until the new project began three years ago and they were asking for research volunteers. NASA were taking everyone on back then, and I needed a job.'

'Yes, I remember – we lost quite a few good people.'

'And your field?'

'I got my doctorate in Microbial Studies,' remarked Nicole, 'microscopic lifeforms.'

'Oh, wow.'

'Though now the focus is on nanotech – you've heard of that? It's tiny machines in the bloodstream – man-made microbes, if you will. Or "woman-made" in my case,' and she laughed.

'Fascinating.' And it did fascinate Molly to hear that soft Texan drawl, like a mom of five asking who wanted lemonade, flip onto subjects of high technology. She didn't think someone from Texas wouldn't know of such things any less than anyone from anywhere else would, it was just something in the juxtaposition of tone and content. The older woman continued,

'And I get to do that work for around three days a week.'

'When you're not meeter-and-greeter?' Molly risked the joke, and was again rewarded with Nicole's response.

'Or Faculty Co-ordinator, to give that work its proper title.'

'While the men do their scientific work for all five days?'

Nicole smiled the wry smile of a woman who had been around long enough to learn a bit about human nature.

'Oh, I don't blame them, not really. Do you want to know my take on it? That these are men raised by their mothers and looked after by their wives, and they need the same at work. Academia encourages the compulsive and the absent-minded, the ones who'll leave a pile of papers next to a coffee pot, electric fans at the edges of desks. The women can't bear the mess of it, and end up becoming their assistants and faculty administrators – their work wives.'

Nicole continued, 'Now, you've told me enough to suggest that we're both professional women who, by dint of being women, are pushed into front-of-house roles.'

'While the men get on with the serious work?' suggested Molly.

'It can sure seem like it,' agreed Nicole. 'I don't know if men are inherently incapable, or whether they choose to be and know a woman will pick things up.'

'That's so right,' agreed Molly. 'I work for NASA, yes, a great employer, but I'm just a pretty face there. I'd quit tomorrow for a research position that paid half as well.'

Nicole gave her a look that intrigued Molly, before saying,

'Well, don't do that just yet. I do have another question – not asking any secrets of you, but something practical.'

'Fire away.'

'I know that you must get a lot of crank letters coming into your organisation about space; but if a person had a serious idea for the new station, then who would they put it to?'
Chapter 11 – The Speech

'Ladies, Gentlemen and Fellows of this fine institution. Thank you. I am Professor Zak Page, of the National Aeronautics and Space Organisation and the International Space Agency; and I am here today to talk about the New International Space Station Project, sometimes also referred to as the Universal Space Station.

'The intentions for this station were set out by President Kent three years ago, and we have been working by those intentions since that day. You will remember that he wished it to be completed within a decade. His target is now only seven years away.

'Before I begin in earnest – and I am aware of the expectations resting on this speech – I want to say that I do intend to offer as many solid facts as possible; and so, the first of those: I can confirm to those listening today, in this room and around the world, that we are on target for that deadline.'

There were gasps through the room – not only at the scale of that achievement, but of the wonder of what those clever people were doing in space.

'There will be people living in our station within President Kent's decade.'

He soaked up the applause.

'Maybe not the ten-thousand – transporting such a number will take time in itself – but those who will enable the ten-thousand. Living, thriving on their own.'

The applause continued for several seconds more. He let it die down, before embracing broader concerns,

'We have been accused of secrecy, in the media and at large. This is not the case; or at least not intentionally so. By which I mean, there is pressure enough in our task as it is – it is further complicated by those who are opposed to our project and wish to see it changed or even ended; and also, paradoxically, by those who love it too much.

'These are our most fervent believers, and biggest supporters. But I hope they understand that it can work against us to be pushed to proceed at an even quicker rate than we already are, and to have elements of this grand project revealed while they are still at an early or undecided stage. It is a bittersweet duty of all of us involved, to be continually refusing to talk on the topic which is most exciting to us, when asked by those who are the most excited by it.'

He said this with a smile, and it did raise a smattering of laughter.

'But I trust it will all be worth it in the end. And, it was precisely to feed this need for information that this speech was arranged, to, in a unified and knowledgeable – and, on my behalf, hopefully coherent – way, share with you and the watching world, all that can be said at this time.'

'Tell us what you're doing then!' shouted someone from the floor. In such formal surroundings this was the equivalent of a call to 'Get on with it!'

'Very well,' continued Zak. 'Here are the details, as they stand.

'The original brief was given to us in private, only hours after the President's public speech. It was for a new manned space station to be planned, constructed, and made operational within the decade. This station was to be larger than any current or previous station by a factor of several thousand. As was widely reported at the time, it was to have a staff, or crew, or population, depending on how you look at it, of ten-thousand. Even now, those numbers are astounding.

'From the start, the scheme had two broad briefs, that were – and remain – both mutually supportive and conflicting:

'Firstly, the station was intended to be able to sustain this sizeable host of people. These weren't merely to be thought of as a "crew", who for myself, as a previous planner of space missions, I would always have wanted to have kept as small in number as possible – think of a Space Shuttle, or Apollo capsule: the more people you have, the more room you need for them, and fuel to carry them, and air for them to breathe.

'Instead, the intention was for the station to hold as many people as possible, and for them to live there as citizens, with the station as their home.

'Furthermore, in this vision, the intention was for those on the station to be self-sufficient, sustained by themselves to the highest degree, eventually one-hundred percent so, through the principle of the solar greenhouse – I trust that that principle is self-explanatory enough to not need going into in great detail here; though, of course, I will answer questions for an hour after this talk.

'In short, though, it is the idea that in an environment with access to pure sunlight all day, and maybe even all night, properly irrigated, and where the atmosphere could be controlled to the tiniest degree, we might produce crops at a phenomenal rate. The science seems obvious enough to be relied upon. However, there has yet to be an artificial environment large enough for this to be tested.

'Though there was also a second brief. This echoed the first, in wishing to take advantage of the principle of the solar greenhouse. Though, in this case, it was hoped that the capacity of crops produced could be so high that there would be enough to transport back to Earth to ease the food crisis in that way.

'In this scenario, then the ideal population of the station would rest not on how many people it could house but on how many would be required to run the crop growing at the optimal level, and without people's housing or welfare taking over space station real estate that could be used for growing and producing.

'So, here was our first critical choice: were we making a dormitory in space for its own support, a prototype for much larger stations that could, in themselves, relieve the much-discussed Population Problem? Or were we using the hoped-for productivity of unbroken sunlight and a controlled environment to make an orbital food factory, supplying an Earth that was increasingly running out of space to grow what it needed, for populations who were growing fast and moving onto former agricultural land?

'As you can imagine, both the scale and the undecidedness of the project at that point were overwhelming. We were practical people, who had made the satellites and probes that supported our scientific knowledge, exploration, and communications in the modern world. Though still there were many who buckled beneath the new challenge.

'All this was only three short years ago, it feels a lifetime. At the time, I was a mission planner for satellite launches, though was soon co-opted to this project. Therefore, I was fortunate to be in those meetings from the beginning. And, of course, the first decision we had to make was: which of those conflicting visions was, not so much the more desirable, as the more practicable? Maximum crew sustainability, or maximum crop production? Working for the station's own population, or for those back home?

'This question, though, soon answered itself – the biggest problem, and the highest risk, in space is transportation – leavings, arrivals, separations, dockings. Launch, gravity, no gravity, all those firing thrusters for orbital adjustments; and finally, maintaining structural integrity upon Earth atmospheric re-entry.

'Even with the many schemes imagined by our team, and with over a century of science fiction novels to be inspired by, no reliable and efficient means could be found in our current technology for shipping tons and tons of crops back down to Earth. In fact, the calculations we came up with placed it among the least efficient means of feeding the population imaginable, not to mention, the most expensive.'

'Boo,' came a chorus of voices; followed by shushing from those who didn't share their views. Zak realised he had used a wrong word.

'To clarify, when I use the word "expensive", I mean in terms of the resources available to us, and to those on the station, which are of course limited. Financially, regarding this project, a minimum of public money has been allocated – I'm sure even those of you who want the project to be wholly public owned wouldn't want good works here on Earth to have their funding rerouted.'

But it didn't matter, there were more boos anyway.

'Well, we can talk about that at the end. But, to continue the presentation...'
Chapter 12 – Questions & Answers

At the conclusion of the talk, Zak opened it up to the floor, with Nicole and other functionaries ferrying microphones to the selected speakers, who asked their questions in turn.

'Thank you, Michigan Journal – Professor Page, the theories of your project are indeed fascinating. Though where will you find the materials for such a large object? How will you make the dream concrete?'

Zak would ponder each question before answering, and opened with a joke,

'Well, "concrete" is the apposite phrase, as that is the material we plan to use.'

There was a clamour from the audience, which he quelled,

'And I can guess your second question – how will we get that much concrete into space, and where will it all come from? Well, I can tell you...'

At that moment, two women and two men, sitting midway back in the hall, stood and began unfurling a banner that they must have been hiding beneath one of their coats. Their leader's voice was loud enough to hear without a microphone when he spoke,

'We represent the Lunar Protection League – you are about to say, Mr Page, that you won't need to take concrete up from the Earth... get your hands off me!'

'Let him speak!' called Zak to the security guards, who did eventually step back a foot.

'Thank you. As I was saying...' complained the man, rather forgetting that he was himself in the middle of interrupting someone, '...you were about to say that you won't need to take concrete up from the Earth, Mr Page, because you won't be taking it from the Earth – you will in fact be taking it from the Moon!'

From the stage, Zak waved a hand,

'Okay, I do need to interrupt you now, because that wasn't what I was going to say. It is true, the concrete won't come from the Earth... but instead from captured asteroids. This is rock already found in space and so which removes the requirement of mining and carrying it up through gravity. This will spare the Earth the harm of mining and of losing its resources.'

He went on, 'Of how we will capture these asteroids, well, those of you who follow space news closely may know that we already have a craft in preparation capable of precise manoeuvrability and of carrying heavy loads – the Drum, soon to be in orbit around the Earth collecting space debris from the popular satellite paths.

'This craft will be repurposed to the gathering of close-passing asteroids, then bringing its prize to the construction rig already being planned for permanent Earth orbit. In time a sister ship will join the Drum, to increase the rate of capture.

'Next question, please?'

'Thank you, San Francisco Tribune – the pressure group All Nations Represented were protesting in our city last month. Their aim, for those of the audience who haven't heard of them, is to ensure that citizens of all regions of the Earth, rather than just those of the leading space nations, get to participate in your program – which is indeed little less than the next chapter of Humanity. What can you tell us, Professor Page, of your policies to ensure that this does happen?'

Zak had to consider this one carefully,

'Thank you for your thoughtful question. It is, of course, vital that all of humanity feels a part of this project and that everyone can share in its dream. And I can tell you from my own personal experience, that working at NASA and the ISA, I meet people from all around the world every day – you should have no fear that this will be some American and European club.'

'But is it not the case, Professor, that up to now almost all of those who've been in space have come from only forty of the world's over two-hundred nations?'

'Well, opportunities for space travel have traditionally been very much more limited than they are now to become. There have been barely five-hundred people ever in space – this new station will house twenty times that at one stroke. And at the same time, the complexity and variety of tasks on the new station will require very many more skills and specialisations than the essential "space skills" that, say, the USA, Russia, China, India and Europe have pioneered until now.'

'But still, is there nothing in place to ensure that the make-up of the station matches that of the Earth?'

'We are equal opportunities employers with staff from around the world.'

'So, no?'

'Next question, please?'

'Colfax Advertiser – can you confirm the speculation that the foreign firm Sigmundsonn have won the contract to be the major tech supplier for the base?'

'We have a number of large contractors, and details of their contracts can't always be revealed under corporate law. Thank you, next?'

'Lone Star Tribune – following on from the previous question, there is a factory plant in our state that is rumoured to belong to Sigmundsonn. The site has been a running sore of dissent and protest that has severely tested the mettle of our local law enforcement.'

'Sorry,' asked Zak, slightly condescendingly, 'are you asking if people should be allowed to demonstrate, or whether you want the firm closed down? If you're asking about our support for the right to protest, then ask our Lunar friends over here, they haven't been removed from the hall, have they.'

'We will not be co-opted!' shouted the leader of the Lunar Protection League, to general derision.

'Delaware Herald – these crew of ten-thousand – will they have political representation?'

'I can honestly say that that question has not been asked before, I have no idea.'

'You've not considered it?'

'We're scientists, sir, not social theorists.'

'Well, to offer some alternatives: would they be like, say, the crew of an oil rig, or military serving abroad, whose legal homes – and so their votes – are still in the countries they had left? Or, given the fact that you talk of the station as being "their home", then would a structure and a legislature need to be constructed aboard your new vessel?'

'As I say, I've had no time to contemplate that. Keeping the thing airtight feels the higher priority. Next, please?'

'New International Times – what will be the model for the economy of the space station? Will money be present, or will it be an anarchist-syndicalist collective?'

'A what...? Sorry, I might need a thesaurus before I can answer that one. Next?'

'The Equine and Veterinary Gazette – how will the animals on the station be treated, and how will they be taken up there?'

'I'll ask my staff to forward that question to the relevant team, though I don't expect they will have a plan in place as yet.'

'There is dreadful cruelty on Earth.'

'You're referring to the meat industry? Then I expect the answer you want will come once we've finalise the crew's dietary requirements.'

'So, the decision won't be based on the animals' requirements?'

'Madam, it is not my intention to build the first charnel house in space. Next?'

'Hello, I represent the Humanities Department of this fine University whose hall we are talking in. As one professor to another, I have to say, sir, that if you've been able in these three years to form the physical plans for the station, then I'm surprised that more of that time has not been spent considering the human aspect.'

'My fellow Professor,' answered Zak, 'if I could convey to you the hours, days, and nights that have been spent working exhaustively on utterly essential aspects of this future station. However, I can't help wondering whether the areas you're asking about might not, in pure space-survival terms, be considered as secondary.'

The room erupted at Zak's answer.
Chapter 13 – Spatial Justice

Given the response to the previous question, Zak picked the most sensible-looking journalist for the next.

'Tallahassee Acrobat – forgive me if I appear to digress, for my question is rather a long one to explain – you seem to be saying that the station will not be a ship with a crew as such. Rather, we might need to start to think of it as a landmass, a town, where presumably people have both a job but are also a resident and can enjoy the same governmental rights. So, in the event of a crew member losing their "job" but remaining as a "resident", will there be a welfare system on the station?'

'Er, well, of course, a person, once up on the station, may choose not to remain at their task, or have a career change, or – much less likely, I'm sure – not prove adequate in their role. These are all possibilities. Though the beds in the station will be more like quarters, not private spaces to be hired or rented. Every soul aboard will have food. And even if they wanted to leave, then there'd be room for them until they did.'

The questions came thick and fast:

'What of marriage and children among the crew?'

'Well, there will already be couples and families going up because the one partner is essential. The quarters are intended to be flexible; and should couples break up, or all or some of a family wish to leave, then we will make sure that all have somewhere to stay until a space can be found on the next available shuttle.'

'But how can you be sure there will be space for them?'

'We're building the largest artificial landscape in human history – I think there'll be room.'

'So they'll be sleeping outside?'

'There is no outside – outside is outer space!'

The questions kept coming. Zak was soon losing touch of who was asking what, or of who was next to speak:

'What will happen if, as the result of a romantic separation, an "inessential" partner – apologies for the indelicate phrase, but I'm continuing your logical thought – wants to continue to live up there? To put my question another way: quite apart from their importance to the station, does anyone accepted into the program have a right to remain within it?'

Zak answered as reasonably as possible, despite a growing panic that this was not his territory or the talk he had wanted to have,

'As with any society, some jobs will be more essential than others. Many couples move town for one of their work, and then the other finds a job in the area they move to. There will be lots to do up there – but honestly, if we're getting to the level of machine operators and hay gatherers, then there are very few employees on Earth who could not find something they could do on the station.'

This brought a rash of standing questioners – he picked just one,

'So, following your logic, a person with no employment skills beyond those of a "machine operator or hay gatherer" could be employed up there, though could only be selected to be so by dint of being married to a more senior figure on the base, a scientist or technician? Doesn't that rather militate against manual workers on Earth – who might be just as skilled as those selected to be among the crew – but who happen not to have found such a profitable love match?'

Zak let his frustration slip,

'Sir, there isn't a country or a state in the world that doesn't have an immigration policy. If these irk you so much, then I suggest you direct your query to a country you live in and not to one that is yet to exist!'

'But doesn't this smack of nepotism?'

'You mean for the unskilled partners of truly essential technicians who will keep this rig in orbit? So you're saying that you'd rather take a random applicant of no special merit to this project, while leaving behind the loving husband or wife of someone of huge significance to the space station's continued existence?'

'Not one or the other,' argued the questioner, 'but in a batch of ten-thousand there must surely be spaces.'

'So, would you have a worldwide labourer lottery? Next?'

'Talking of labourers, Professor Page, apart from the concrete from the asteroids, there will surely be many raw materials needed from Earth. Many of the world's mines are sited in poorer countries, and their workers are routinely exploited and exposed to terrible dangers. Can you confirm that NASA has a policy of protecting worker's rights and not contracting sites with such a poor record?'

'You want the labourers of the world involved, but not what they dig up? Next?'

'And what about disabled people, or those suffering anxiety or depression? Will there be room for them in space? Or will they be stigmatised all over again, just as they are on Earth?'

'Please, please. Why would you think that? And to all of you with more... social concerns, there's really no need for such tension here. No one is being ignored. You don't need to bring these fears to the table.'

Zak took a deep breath. The responses of support and criticism were getting louder and, to his ears, began to resemble those of a game show. He was starting to fear the response to almost every utterance he made. He was well short of his hour, but he had had enough, and he began what he hoped might serve as a summation,

'You ask, how we can be fair in our selection policies? I tell you, we will be fair wherever there is not a critical need.

'You ask me, how can all be included? I answer, that we will move heaven and earth so that no one is excluded.

'You ask, how do we know that there will be space for everyone living up there, whatever their unique situation? To use an old phrase, we will make do and mend. We will have faith in our resilience – a faith that people seem to have lost in themselves, let alone in us.

'Some of you may be new to the area of space exploration. Astronauts up till now have had to make do with limited accommodation, small bunks, shared facilities, a lack of privacy. Sometimes they barely have the room to move. This is due to the constraints of what is achievable in craft that are on the very edge of science and physics.

'Throughout the Space Age, people have accepted these things as a small price to pay for the privilege of being a part of one of the most exciting things that humans have ever done.

'What we seem to have here tonight, though, is the realm of the social colliding with the realm of space. The same issues that exercise the public policy forums of Earth are being transposed onto the area of orbital exploration, where there has never been a call or a need for them before.

'Yes, there will be tough choices. Yes, many millions of people who long to visit the station will be unable. Life is tough, physics tougher, and humans frailest of all.

'I think, for this project to succeed, then the very real differences between our ideal world and the real one have to be accepted. And perhaps then, when the world in our eyes is not full of victims and villains, we can all get along and enjoy the amazing things that are happening to us in this miraculous age.'

A man with an earpiece stepped up onto the stage to whisper in Zak's ear. He left again and Zak concluded,

'And I think that is a good point at which to leave it for tonight. Thank you all again for listening and for your perceptive questions. Goodnight.'

To a chorus of cheers, boos, and final shouted questions, Professor Page exited the stage.
Chapter 14 – After the Speech

After nearly two hours, the presentation and the questioning were over. By that time, even the most fervent supporters of space were flagging and in need of a restroom break.

At the back of the hall, two of the many journalists lucky enough to get in, now rushed out during the applause and derision to write up their copy.

'Let's hope at least one of our recorders had the battery life for the whole speech,' said the man. His name was Robert and he was speaking to his colleague on the Herald, Sandile, who also happened to be his girlfriend.

'They'll be putting the whole thing online in an hour anyway,' she replied to reassure him, who, in the heat of a story, could be tetchy.

'An hour?' he answered. 'This will be old news in an hour – I want to beat the others to the chase!'

In the foyer, they found a bench and sat down. He flipped a laptop from his backpack, and opened it up,

'Let's compare notes.'

Both had been scribbling in shorthand, and she began her narration as he typed,

'Right, so we started with the two competing theories, and which one won and why.'

Robert clattered out the bullet-points before he started the article proper. Sandile continued,

'And that they are on target for the decade deadline.'

'Right, right.'

'But it's so sad, isn't it?'

He stopped typing, and looked up to her, asking,

'Where did he say that?'

'Well, he didn't say it as such, but... if the logic is that frequent comings and goings from the station are too resource-heavy and too dangerous, then the implication is that the alternative is self-sufficiency.'

'Yes?'

'Then the crew will be up there in space, on their lonesome, with hardly any contact. Ten thousand people... Even with a bigger-than-ever new space shuttle, that could carry, say, one-hundred passengers and their life's belongings, that's still a hundred shuttle launches just to fill the station – and, by any statistical degree, two or three of those won't make it.'

'So, there will be tragedy before they even begin,' said Robert, with the relish of a film fan at a disaster movie.

'It would take years to get up to the full population,' continued Sandile, 'and journeys back and forth after that would be expensive and dangerous and strictly limited.'

'Keep going, this is great,' he encouraged as he typed with furious speed. 'I knew there was a reason why I kept you around.'

'So, it's not my devastatingly good looks?'

'Those as well,' he added and winked. 'Keep talking.'

So she did, trying to channel her mood,

'Well, it would be like the old days on the galleons – a person sailing to Australia or America would be saying goodbye to their family forever.'

The journalistic impulse had been triggered in Robert,

'Well, girl, you know what you're implying – that this experiment will be all nervy and exciting, until it's launched... and then the people on it will realise they'll never see their mother again.

'And not only that,' he continued, giving Sandile a stark and cautious look. 'If you're right about the number of shuttle launches needed to fill or empty this station, then there are no lifeboats on this Titanic.'

She mused over their new theme, never being as bold as her boyfriend,

'I can go away and think about it. It might be for a different article for a different day.'

'No, no. What are you talking about?' He bore the excited look of a lottery winner. 'This is our angle – we've just pushed the narrative on six months!'

Behind the lectern, a weary Zak stepped off stage to meet an expectant Molly – and her new best friend.

'Thank you, Molly,' he said as she handed him a towel and a bottle of water. Had he not been so exhausted he might have spotted the two women smirking secretly. Instead he turned to Nicole and asked,

'So, Doctor Evans, what did you think?'

'Very well done, Professor Page.'

'You don't think I lost my rag at the end?'

'No, they were coming at you from all angles.'

'And did I answer all your questions?'

'Oh yes, though I think you raised a hundred more.'

'You're not alone in that – that Q&A could have gone on forever if I hadn't set a limit.'

Zak was troubled, though; Molly could tell.

'What's up?' she asked.

'Well, all that booing at the end. I was expecting the technical questions, but not the political ones. I mean, is that how people think?'

'The students have been having their meetings,' offered Nicole.

'But do they honestly believe that we can select the demographic of the intake to match that of the whole of the Earth in miniature?'

'"All Nations Represented" is a slogan I've heard more and more.'

Molly suggested, 'I expect they're worried that rich, white America will make it a rich, white crew.'

'What, when India run our computing, and Argentina our raw resources?' Zak was bamboozled by the prospect, 'Well, I really can't imagine the complexity of it.'

'If you'll forgive me saying, Professor Page,' began Nicole, 'perhaps you really have been so committed to your work that you haven't caught the news so often? People shout like this at every issue nowadays, not just space.'

'"Committed to my work," you say? Head buried in the sand, you mean?'
Chapter 15 – The Voice of the Nation

After exchanging numbers with Molly, Nicole headed home from campus. She could have slept over on the pull-out sofa in her office; though she lived only twenty minutes from work.

Now she was on the road after a long, long day, and the radio was burbling away in the background. Everywhere in America had a talk station. As a girl she'd criss-crossed Texas curled up on the bench seat of her father's truck, and the sound of mild static and muffled voices still filled her with that warm feeling of movement and security.

Some on campus thought the call-in hosts were far too raucous in their opinions; though Nicole only laughed, and told them that they should try growing up listening to Baptist preachers on a four-hour drive – after that, almost anyone could sound liberal.

So, she listened to the talk station often, usually only half paying attention. Though this evening was the first time her own work had been the subject of the show. With as much focus as she could muster, she listened:

'Okay, and we're back. Thank you, Tonia, for the weather. You guys out there in the San Andreas, be sure to look out for those thunderstorms. Now, welcome back to another hour of our thoughts and your opinions on the issues you want to talk about. Don't turn that dial! Be sure to get yourself heard! You know our number by now – we give it out often enough. Here's your chance to have your say on the stories that matter.

'And tonight, well, there's only one of those. As you heard in the headlines, just now, in our own City of Angels, Professor Zak Page of NASA has delivered his long-awaited update on the progress of the Universal Space Program. So, what is its unique selling point? The USP of the USP, you might say? Well, we will have our very own science correspondent with us later in the hour to cover those angles.

'However, details in that area still feel scarce. And, from the first reports we're getting from the floor of the conference hall, it seems as though the focus was more on the social side of life for those who will be living in the heavens, while the rest of us ponder on their arcing trajectory from "down here" on little old Earth.

'So, let's ask ourselves, what do we think of that?

'Okay, "Space for All", "Every Nation Represented", we hear a lot of these protests on the news – do we hear anything else lately? But I have to ask – do the people of, I don't know, Burma, or Chad, or Somalia, have a burning desire for space? Or is this something that only liberals from rich countries are worrying about? Is this another example of the self-immolation of the political left? Hating their parents, hating themselves, hating their own countries for being successful? Wanting any other place to succeed but America?

'And, okay okay, of course, there can be bright kids anywhere. So, let's accept that there are a handful of students, even in the countries we mentioned, who long for this and, hell, are as worthy as anyone else to get up there. Well, good luck to them! But I can tell you, folks, that however "Universal" this station is cracked up to be, it will be you and I, my friends, American taxpayers, bankrolling this thing, not the people of Chad or Burma. At the same time, there are a million American men, women and children dreaming of space right now who will never get there.

'I will never get there, my producer Todd will never get there – don't look at me that way, Todd, it's nothing personal. And, as you, our audience listening tonight will know full-well in your heart of hearts, most of you will never get there.

'Yet, just to salve the world's wounds and have our conscience cleared, there are calls to draft citizens from countries that will offer next-to-nothing materially or scientifically to this station's construction.

'So, let me give you my five cents: getting to be involved in a project like this is not a right, it's not even fair. It's an accident – not of birth or wealth or privilege – but of having the right skills at the right time. And, I'm sorry, but if a war-torn, hell-bound country someplace can't gather itself to build a university for its brightest stars then I don't see a way that we can help them get there. Lord knows, we've tried often enough. What's America's foreign aid budget this year, Todd? Todd says thirty-billion dollars – thirty-billion dollars!

'Now, let me tell you one stark fact: if this space station has a chance of succeeding, then it needs the very best people. No ifs, no buts. If these are American, hire American. If they're not American, then don't hire American. I can accept that. But hire the very best!

'There is no room up there for political correctness. That can come later – if it has to come at all – when there are several stations safely operating.

'Though these second and third and fourth stations won't be as famous, will they? These won't occupy the news like Adam does – are we allowed to officially call it that yet? – And that's what these protestors love most, isn't it, getting themselves on the news.

'Oh, and they'd forget this cause in a week if something new came along. Just like they did with whatever they were protesting for before this space station. What about workers' rights on Earth now? We haven't heard a peep out of you on that one for months. What about the rainforests? What about Occupy Wall Street, eh? What about police brutality? What about the poor? Are there still poor people in America? You seem to have forgotten about them pretty quick!

'Okay, okay. Todd's telling me I'm getting het up. Well, these people do get me het up! I could...

'Okay, focus. Let's get our breath. Back on track now. So, let's spin this question around. Let's ask the liberals this: if we accept that thirty-billion dollars a year is as much as we can give to help the world, that it's really unreasonable to imagine that any one nation could give any more to help pull others up to our level; then what fairer system is there of picking the crew – globally – than on talent and talent alone, without consideration of anyone's origins?

'For all this talk of quotas for each nation, then whatever happened to meritocracy? That's what I want to know. What happened to judging everyone equally, without reference to their background? Hire the best regardless and you'll always succeed, that's the American way. But what we have here isn't blindness to difference, it's ultra-awareness. This isn't not caring what country someone comes from, it's making it the first question that we ask them on their application forms...

'Well, you've heard me shout my mouth off for long enough, so now it's your turn. Have your say, don't be shy. Now, who's our first caller?'

Nicole had heard enough of people 'having their say' for one day. She turned the dial and switched to a classical station.
Chapter 16 – Back in New York

Sandile took a couple of days off after posting their story and returning to New York with Robert.

'So, what is the social model here?' she asked in an opinion piece for her paper's weekend edition. 'We have had almost a week now to absorb Professor Page's speech – to wring it out and hang it on the line; to push it, pull it and tear it to pieces. And, boy, has it been torn to pieces.

'The accusation of being "Social Justice Warriors" is one that has been thrown at the staff of this paper over the years. Though I don't think we have anything on the new mood that is developing.

'After his speech on the new space station, I hung around the campus and caught Professor Page the next morning; and I was lucky enough to get a few words. Tired and off-duty, he told me,

'"Do you know what makes me sad? That there are so many brilliant people, technical people making this happen, perhaps the most amazing thing we have ever undertaken. But they didn't ask a question about that."

'I was there, dear reader. I know what he means. His questioners, for the most part, weren't interested in the technology, or the imagination, or the blind hope of space.

'Instead, bizarrely, they looked only for anyone they thought was disadvantaged or somehow wronged by the project, and hit out on these people's behalf. The questioners weren't even the "disadvantaged" themselves, but others purporting to speak in their name: people who were entitled, emboldened, in positions of power in politics or academia or the media, who had a voice and had no fear of it not being heard.

'Meanwhile, we have no idea if there are actually any overseas applicants being rejected – though, given Professor Page's open approach, then I really can't imagine it. Nor can we know yet if disabled people are feeling left out; or, if they are, that they aren't wise enough to accept that if a life-limiting condition stops you boarding a space shuttle, then that isn't the fault of NASA or anyone else.

'What else was raised that night? Oh yes, could there really be a couple who divorce on the station and want to come home? Of course there could be; but they don't exist yet and won't for several years! And, as the Professor asked his listeners at the lectern, couldn't we trust ourselves that we have the capability and resources and simple decency to manage and to care for those caught up in this, and any other, human eventuality?

'So, what were Professor Page's questioners, and the anti-space protestors we see more and more of in the news, interested in? Not the station itself, that's for sure – they barely asked a question of its structure or its hopes or possibilities; of future stations, of space exploration, or life among the stars. Absent from their minds was human wonder.

'What do they want? Instead, they look for ways that someone somewhere suffers, perhaps in ways that don't yet exist. It is an entirely negative way of thinking. Joyless too, in its maudlin voice and pained expression. In any other walk of life but politics or news, we would immediately recognise such speakers as unhappy.

'They have no appreciation of the fact that if we don't have answers for these questions yet, or ever will have, then perhaps that is only the nature of the universe and what we can presently manage.

'In finding the victims of the space station, or of any other part of public life, they are only finding proxies for their own pain. They are saying, "I'm from a safe country and from a good family, but I'm suffering alongside these third-world miners, these homeless, these disabled, these divorcees." Yet they don't truly care about the miners or the homeless or anyone else, they care only for themselves.

'And this isn't even selfish attention-seeking, it's because they're injured. They are effectively saying, "Can't you see how cruel the world is? Can't you see how much I care?" These are the protests of the person who is suffering inside, in their minds the worst of any of them.

'So, should such voices be discounted? No, but recognised for what they are. They are a new phenomenon in our group psychology, a symptom in themselves. It has been noted by more knowledgeable writers than I, how, although our individual impulses can be scattershot, on the larger scale society has a mood, and decides like a person would.

'In the brain of a society then, these protest voices are the fears, the angers, the neural static that occur in the minds of each of us. (Though what it must it be like to personally embody such a voice, I shudder to think.) Yet we cannot let them dictate to us, as the psychiatric patient cannot let their neuroses consume them. Instead, we have to find the positive, adventurous, excitable voices and hold on to those.

'Professor Page has been having one hell of a week in the media; though he is one such positive voice. I hold fast to the Professor, and wish him Godspeed.

'To the stars!'

'Hard stuff,' offered her Editor upon receiving the copy.

'I think it has to be,' she said.

'Hard on the space station's critics. They won't thank you for pitying them.'

'But they could derail this thing. Doesn't every generation need some forward motion? Concorde cancelled, liners decommissioned – why aren't we allowed the hope our parents had?'

'Parents' was a literary flourish – the Editor was closer to the age of Sandile's family than her own; though he felt the same pang.

She went on, secretly as in love with her own voice as were the protestors she lamented,

'How many years has it been since the quest for exploration has been replaced by consolidation, cheaper fares, package holidays? People travel more and more, but not to anywhere new. We turn inward, we turn miserable, we turn scared. We jump at every shadow. Outward is our hope.'

'Good stuff,' he muttered. 'Get me a paragraph of that to finish with, and we might have an article.'
T-Minus 6 – The Year of Anger

Chapter 17 – The Mole

'So the Director tore a strip off you, eh?' After more than a month above ground, Ted was catching up with his old friend. Though Bradford wouldn't answer. Ted pushed on,

'Might be good though, eh? I mean, once you're up there. Get to see the little one again?'

'She's living in Paris now.'

'Oh, sorry, I thought it was a little boy. My mis...'

'No, my wife... my former wife. He's nine, he goes where she goes.'

'Of course, of course.' Ted was beginning to wish he hadn't bothered. Though he had got Bradford talking at least, who continued,

'He's doing well in school, apparently – not so little now though. My old books are selling well, I hear, and she gets half of them.'

'I'm sorry.'

'So how was your trip?'

Ted answered gingerly, as he wasn't sure that Bradford would want to know. But he had asked, so he went on,

'Well, I'm pretty sure they'll want to keep me at NASA; though whether it gets me aboard...'

'They want you on the project, though?'

'This station will need gyroscopes, and lots of them, and someone to watch over them.'

'And you the gravitational physicist... Well done, my friend. Even if you go no further than Langley, you'll be part of something amazing.'

'Thank you, yes. Though it won't be Langley.'

'No?'

'No, some new place out of Texas. Keep it under your hat though.'

'Of course. So, NASA – have you told the boss?' Bradford nodded in the direction of the Director's office.

'Oh yeah, she knew where I was going. She's been there herself. I think she's always known she's going to lose a whole slice of people.'

'The top slice.'

'America needs us, Bradford. I say that without ego. I've never felt so patriotic.'

Bradford stirred, for he had felt such a feeling himself when considering the space station. Perhaps this prompted Ted to ask,

'And you know, it's not too late for you to make your pitch.'

Bradford just looked down and held his head in his hands. Ted went on,

'But remember our enthusiasm, Bradford, the first day we heard the news?'

'How can I, Ted? Look around you!'

'But you've got more chance than me of making it. You've said yourself, your books still sell. You're lauded, Bradford, don't you read your own press? Imagine the story if The Mole emerges from his hole to ascend to the heavens.'

'It could be spun that way, couldn't it?'

'It could.'

'Oh, but I can't, Ted. I just can't.'

Ted feared his friend was fit to cry.

'Okay, then don't make it all in one leap. Let's break it into little pieces.'

'Like what?'

'Well, I think you need to find a therapist.'

'I've got a doctor and he hates me.'

'No, not that quack. Someone you can talk to, there are loads. My wife can find you someone in the town, there's a whole street of them doing assessments for us guys spending time down here away from our families.'

'Okay.'

'Great, I'll phone her tonight. And there's your writing – the papers are going to need someone to cover all this space stuff.'

'They already have people.'

'Though none as famous as you, Bradford. Isn't there anyone you used to write for? You need an agent.'

'I lost my last one. She wouldn't see me.'

'Yes, it's probably something to do with you living a mile within the Earth's Crust.'

'The things people hold against us,' joked Bradford, and the pair giggled like schoolboys.

Though the doubts soon returned.

'But I'm no astronaut, Ted. And it's too late to teach me.'

His friend only shook his head,

'You haven't been reading the scientific articles like I have. It's not going to be about piloting and space walks. For most of us, it will be about living in this huge community. They're not looking for the ten-thousand best spacemen. It's going to be the ten best in a thousand different fields.'

'Well, Ted, you must be within the ten best in your field.'

'I'd like to think so.' He leaned in to whisper, 'The trouble is, so does everyone else in this base.'

And Bradford smiled again, and tried to hold it.
Chapter 18 – Café Conflict

'"CROPS, NOT CORPS.!"'

'Eh?'

'You know, they have the grammar wrong,' said Sandile.

Robert laughed, 'It's nice of you to worry about the wording of their placard the moment before they hit someone over the head with it.'

The pair were sitting in a café by the window, looking out onto the street. She went on,

'I mean, "Corps.!" doesn't need the period before the explanation mark, it's not a contraction.'

'But it is, it's short for "corporation".'

'Then it's the wrong word, it should be "corp." – "corps" are a section of the army.'

He reasoned, 'Then they're using it as a contracted plural – "corps." for "corporations".'

She worked it out in her head then said,

'God, you are clever.'

'Someone has to be.' He winked, and continued to stare out at the street.

Robert was closest to the window. Beneath his shades and hat and held-up newspaper, he was hardly visible.

'No one will spot you, looking like that,' said Sandile.

'The shades are for my eyes,' he explained.

'Oh course they are,' she offered sarcastically; before adding, 'Though I understand. It must be hard being seen in public, what with all of your fans wanting a photo with you.'

'You're just jealous of all my female fan-mail.'

'They all love you, they hate me.'

'That's why they told John Lennon to pretend he wasn't married.'

'God, I almost wish our articles hadn't been so popular.'

'We can't help being brilliant,' he reasoned. 'Anyway, it's not about avoiding people. It's about not wanting my personal recognition to hold us back in reporting this story. I can't have secret meetings with protest group leaders with a trail of English grad students hanging on my coat tails.'

'And what a series of meetings they've been,' she cooed. 'The Editor can't believe his luck in landing you.'

'Landing "us" – we're a team.'

And she almost believed him. She turned her head to see what was happening,

'Well, there's certainly a crowd,' she noted. 'Your source was right. Are they doing anything yet?'

'Not yet. They're only the vanilla, the raspberry sauce are on their way.'

She laughed as she was sipping her hot chocolate, blowing froth over the table and her companion.

'It's their code,' he explained, brushing a foam bubble from his sleeve. 'Every demo starts with the leafleteers, the singers and the placard bearers. They're the innocent vanilla. Only then creep in the awkward squad, when the crowd are too large for the police to keep a watch over and the barriers start breaking down. They're the raspberry sauce, because their sole intention is to draw blood from somewhere, their own or someone else's.'

'Why?'

'Well, that's what makes the headlines.'

'Where did you learn all this?'

'When I met with the Earth Resistance leaders last month.'

'You didn't put that in your article.'

'Not everything is on the record.'

'Did you tell the police?'

He didn't answer; though his silence on the issue told her that he hadn't. Instead he explained his case,

'An artist has to stay aloof sometimes, we have to listen to both sides.'

'Tell each you're on their side, more like.'

Again, the conspiratorial smile. He surmised,

'You know, sometimes I can't tell whether even you are on my side or not.'

'Oh, Robert. With all you've done for me, I'm in your corner forever.'

And he surprised himself by believing her, despite her sarky tone.

Suddenly the volume outside rose. By now Sandile had pulled her chair around the table and was watching every moment also,

'So, are these the "Keep Space Organic" crowd?

'No, that was last week, after the "Every Nation Represented" march past the UN building.

'So, what are these?'

'Well, I'm not sure that I should say...'

She took the sunglasses off his nose, and stared him right in the eyes.

'Okay, okay,' he conceded. 'Well, you'll see soon enough. These are the anti-capitalists.'

'Hence "Crops, Not Corps."?'

'Kind of. Though, from my interview, I got the sense they'd moved on from that, and now they couldn't give a damn about the crops.'

'Just "No to the Corps." then?'

'Something like that. These are the same types who've been picketing the Stock Exchange for years, who smash the offices of oil companies drilling in Alaska.'

'You hang out with the nicest people.' She asked, 'So why here and why now?'

'They didn't say exactly; though I think it's something to do with Claude Yanner, you know, the industrialist?'

'My God, that's his building we're looking at opposite.'

'How do you know that?'

'I've been covering this city for six years now; for the paper, and before that on my blog. He's a fixture at every society function, with the fashion models of the world on his arm. So, why on earth him?'

'The group had some ropey Xeroxed document from somewhere,' recalled Robert. 'It said that he was part of it; that he had bought that Swedish firm who are making the components.'

'Sigmundsonn?'

'Yeah, and that he funded their new factory in Texas.'

'That's interesting.' She jotted herself a note to look it up when she was back at the office.

'The Government have left it up to him, they reckon. God knows why. Earth Resistance are trying to force a public admission.'

'By attacking his building, then, they're smoking him out,' she stated matter-of-factly. She felt so serious all of a sudden. 'I've missed all this. I'm meant to be a reporter. I've been on Lifestyle for too long.'

'Well, the story's yours after today. I've been too visible, I'm going into retreat.'

'Back down your student trails to Mexico?'

'No, the Editor's weekend ranch in California. I need to get this book written.'

'Well, that's news.' She wondered: so, was their relationship not a factor in things at all?

Suddenly a riot was happening. A six-wheeled armoured car pulled up alongside the protestors, its tyres screeching. The numbers of the crowd swelled toward the front of the Yanner Building, pushing everyone – trouble-makers, peaceful protestors, and police – along the side-road the café was situated on. People sitting outside were knocked to the ground and trampled. Staff ran out to help them, as others locked the doors behind them.

'Get away from the glass!' shouted a barista at Sandile and Robert, as a chair hit the picture window right in the centre and bounced off. All three were stunned, but instantly resumed their scramble to get away, just as a second chair flew straight through it.
Chapter 19 – The Sad Letter

The next day the world read of the death of Robert Garrison.

The news reached Harmony Base soon after.

'First blood,' said one of the breakfast companions.

'It was always going to happen,' said another.

'I've read every word that pair have written for a year,' said Bradford. The others at the table were saddened, though he only hardened. 'He clearly had sources, he was the one who knew.'

Leaving his sausage and eggs half-eaten, Bradford did something few people anywhere in the world could have done, let alone among those living a mile underground, and went to call directly the Editor's Office of a New York newspaper.

'Mr Bradford,' stammered the member of staff who answered.

'It's terrible news. You must all be in shock over there, my condolences.'

'Thank you, yes. I can get the Editor for you...'

'No need, I know he must be busy. Just tell him: I want to write a piece about Robert. Someone has to, and you can't ask his girl to do it.'

'She's with her family.'

'The best place. So, is it the same email address?'

'I'll get the...'

'No, please don't...'

Despite his protests, the man fetched his boss anyway,

'Bradford,' said the Editor. 'It means so much that you called. I guess it must be doubly hard for you in your... predicament.'

Bradford caught sight of himself a minute. A chronic agoraphobic, five years lost, making such a call – no wonder the Editor would be caught by surprise, pleasantly so in any other circumstances. Bradford wondered afresh at the nature of his illness, and noticed how it wasn't so complete and absolute as it sometimes seemed. A change of mood and situation, and something of his old boldness could come back from nowhere.

But the Editor was doing the talking,

'You know, hardly a day goes by when I don't think of you down there, and wonder, "Would he want to do something...? If I suggested it...?"'

'But we don't always keep in touch, do we?' said Bradford. 'People, I mean.'

'No, we don't... and then a thing like this happens to catch us all off guard. Listen, write your piece, send it over. And I promise you, when all this is over, I'm coming down there, and I'm bringing a bottle of Napoleon brandy with me.'

The article appeared in the next day's Herald:

'Two days ago, the Universal Space Station took its first victim. We had expected casualties, of course: no previous move into space has been without danger, nor any grand construction project without tragedy – bridges, railway tunnels – and I don't believe that any of us thought that there would not be life lost somewhere across the many launches into space or amid the base's physical construction.

'Though I cannot be the only one aghast that it happened in New York.

'And Fate's choice of victim is ironic too, as Robert Garrison had given voice to the opponents of the station as few others had. He was a reporter for the Herald, and had been among the most prominent writers covering the station. Indeed, he had met with many of the groups whose protesting had become the most vicious. Other papers and reporters wouldn't follow him into these groups – consequently, he had drawn criticism for giving voice to people who some considered no more than terrorists. And we can only speculate that this hard-won foreknowledge led him to be at the scene of the protest that day.

'Although he may have worn the urban uniform of the New York hack, beneath those modern threads beat the heart of a hero hailing from more noble times. A hero who would not cease from mental fight, nor let his sword sleep in his hand. A hero who saw danger before him, and rushed right in.

'Every reporter takes a risk each time they engage a dangerous figure or enter a violent scene. I myself have been to war zones, worn protective vests. Yet, how shocked the press still are when one of our number is struck down. Do we imagine a United Nations armoured car confers a veil of sanctity around us, or that a riot squad policeman standing beside us is an angel sent from Heaven?

'Our business is a numbers game, and today it fell on black.

'But there is something to be talked of in the nature of protest itself.

'For years now, I believe, as a society, we have had a blasé attitude to protest violence. I include myself in that – I can watch it for hours on the rolling news; and, I admit, I enjoy it. There is something primal in a demo, something confrontational, of a kind we don't see often now in modern life outside of sports.

'Any Internet search brings footage of protestors in the capitals of the Western nations: attacking police officers, hurling smoke canisters and home-made grenades, tearing up street signs and forming other makeshift weapons, and smashing windows with an abandon only otherwise found in the most destructive video games.

'(For the record, it was a window in the café they were sheltering in that broke and fell in upon Robert and a colleague from his paper, they also being badly injured.)

'So, let's play a thought experiment: let's take for granted that a government is corrupt, that a policy will harm more people than it helps, that a corporation is poisoning a river. People want something stopped and are prepared to demonstrate against it. At what point is even the most legitimate protest going too far?

'The answer is simple: every time it goes beyond common law.

'Just because a person is hidden in a mob, and because a policeman is wearing protective gear, does not justify that person taking their frustration out on that officer.

'And yet, we clearly accept that people are angry. Even Robert Garrison's voicing for the voiceless didn't relieve that tension at all.

'So, what can we do, as writers or otherwise, to heal this wound? Not get into the head of every troublesome protestor, that's for certain. These are adults who must take responsibility for their own actions. They enjoy the violence, that is their guilty secret, as watching them is sometimes mine.

'No, all we can do it take their shouted accusations and hold them to the light.

'"But," you may say reading this, "are not the journalists of the world already doing this?"

'Evidently not enough. All around us still are intrigue and untruth. Nowhere are we seeing clarity.

'So, that is the cause behind which we must charge our shoulders. Efforts must be redoubled. If for no other reason than to remember Robert's spirit, and to honour it with our own endeavours.

'The job starts today!'

And at the bottom of the piece, shocking Bradford as much as anyone else when he got his copy of the Herald, were added these words:

'And so, every week on this day I will be authoring a new column: one filtering and summing up the current news about the new space station, its critics, and its agents on Earth.'

'The wily old devil.'

'Is that the Editor's trick on you, Bradford?' asked Ted.

'It looks like I'm going to be earning that Napoleon brandy.'
Chapter 20 – The Offer

'Right,' said the Sheriff as the last of his officers arrived for Day Duty. 'Shiff, you're on the desk. Thomson, Hernandez, you're on patrol.'

'Not me, boss?' asked Lato.

'No, you're with me.'

'He's retiring,' stated Thomson to Lato as they left for the car park; Thompson heading to the patrol car, Lato to wait by the Sheriff's black unmarked saloon.

'Another of your predictions?' queried Lato.

'And he wants you as Sheriff.'

Lato was amazed at Thompson's certainty. The younger officer as good as held a hand out to congratulate him on his success. Though Lato was more circumspect. He told Thompson,

'All it means is you're boss of the Black and White today. Look after the kid.'

'"The kid"? He's just come back from Iraq; I'm counting on him to protect me!' And with that Thompson and Hernandez left.

'With me,' said the Sheriff as he arrived outside, and he and Lato got into the car.

'Where are we headed?' asked Lato. They had travelled silently along the town's main highway for several minutes, and there was an unreadable atmosphere in the car.

'Okay,' began the Sheriff, 'I'm not allowed to tell you much before we get there. I just want you to know, that whatever happens, it wasn't my idea and I don't want it.'

What was going on? Lato hadn't ever seen the Sheriff like this. He groped for answers, and Thompson's theory came back to mind,

'They're forcing you out, boss?'

'Not me, you!'

By now Lato was terrified. Not in the way a policeman often could be – faced with a criminal, a weapon, a siege – but for his job, his pay, his housing payments. He could only imagine the look on his wife's face when he told her the news.

The Sheriff quickly clarified, 'Not "forced out", moved on. You've been headhunted, boy. And I'm not pleased at losing you.'

This made Lato feel only marginally less apprehensive. Though, for all his loyalty to the Sheriff, and his sadness at their partnership apparently coming to an end, he couldn't deny a bead of excitement now running down his spine.

He was bursting for answers. Thankfully he hadn't long to wait. The Sheriff pulled up outside the town's newest hotel, a glass and steel construction straight out of the Chicago banking district, and entirely inconsiderate to the town's architectural legacy.

'You're here for the meeting,' said the maître d' at the hotel's front desk, telling, not asking. 'Follow me,' he instructed, and the two men did so. Lato noticed the Sheriff was only showing mild discomfort, as opposed to the surprise still flowing through his own veins; and so Lato wondered: had his superior followed this route before? They were shown into a darkened room containing only one man, and the doors were closed behind them.

'I've ordered coffee. Come, sit.' The man stood to greet them, and Lato instantly recognised him – how could he not with his shock of thick brown hair, wide moustache, broad shoulders, and six foot-plus height? The only thing missing was his trademark Stetson hat, which he evidently dispensed with indoors. Lato's knees nearly gave way. What the hell was happening here?

The man spoke entirely to Lato as the three placed themselves in the deep leather sofas,

'How do you take it?'

'Black,' he answered.

'Same for me,' said their host, in a voice that was both chummy and direct; an attempt, some in the media had speculated, to retain an outdoors authenticity in the airless corporate world.

Despite the cups and pot being right between them, a maid then issued silently from the shadows to pour the drinks. As she did so, the host began in earnest,

'Hello Officer, I'm Claude Yanner. You might have seen me on the television. My show is very popular. I don't crave the limelight, but I do crave the money, and so it comes with the territory. You get me?' (Lato smiled.) 'It can make it awkward when people meet me for the first time, but don't be, I'm just like anyone else. Put yourself at ease.'

'Thank you, I'll try.'

'So, to business – thank you, dear – she's a good girl, isn't she? I ask for her every time I'm here. I own this hotel, you see. In fact, the whole chain. But that's by-the-by. Officer Lato, you've guessed I'm offering you a job, but it's not in hotel management. Lord above, I have enough unemployed overeducates begging to fill those posts for me. No, I have a vacancy much harder to fill. And one for which I feel you may be the best candidate I've seen in several months of looking.'

'Mr Yanner,' began Lato, his head spinning. 'What...?'

But Yanner raised his hand, 'All in good time.' He chuckled, 'It will take some explaining!'

He quickly turned to Lato's current boss,

'Sheriff, you signed the forms last time?' (The man nodded.) 'So you know that anything said in this room...?' He turned back to Lato, 'I'm letting your Sheriff hear this as a courtesy, I know you share a strong work-bond. Trust me when I say that I respect that – all of law enforcement, totally; which makes it doubly hard to take you from a post I know you fill so well, and from a destiny that I imagine you had all worked out – that you would continue to be the loyal Officer, before holding the Sheriff's post yourself someday.

'But, let me tell you,' Yanner suddenly went serious, 'that what I'm asking you to do is so much more important.' He grinned, 'But, I've teased you enough. Details!'
Chapter 21 – How to Get Things Done

In the private room, with its black sofas and steel chrome furniture, Lato was about to burst; while the Sheriff beside him looked fit to collapse. Their host, Claude Yanner, started in earnest, sipping his coffee.

'I should begin by saying that, like your Sheriff, you will be asked to sign a form before you leave that forbids you ever sharing any of this outside.'

Lato nodded.

'Then, to business: Now, you know about my buildings and my television show. Let me tell you something about me that you might not know. President Joe – a great man, a really great man – has charged me with running a great deal of the new space station program. He considered that much of the day-to-day work of the project was going to fall to heavy industry, and he didn't think that there was the experience of business matters in his cabinet. Put frankly, he didn't think it would ever get built with his own public servants in charge and with Government committees pulling everything apart.

'"Claude," he told me, "Claude, they're all ex-interns and college kids. They've never run a shop, they've never built a business, they've never even manned a lunch counter! They've never made anything with their bare hands."

'Now, Boss Joe, he loves Government, and more importantly, he loves his country, God Bless America...'

'God Bless America,' echoed the two listeners.

'...though he won't get this done with lawyers-turned-senators from New England and former youth workers from Arkansas. Wonderful and vital people though I'm sure they are. They just don't have the skill-set for this project.'

Yanner paused and flinched and slightly grimaced as he built up to his next point. He seemed to be lamenting as he said,

'You see, gentlemen, there's a certain canniness in business, that Government just lacks nowadays. "Street smarts", we used to call it in the building trade; and when we were hiring a foreman for a site we could spot it a mile away: the kind of man – or woman, we love women – who could see through the excuses if a cement truck was late three days straight, or if a certain worker kept calling in sick.

'It's about seeing when someone's laughing at you; and I won't have people laugh at me, never. My foreman would cancel that cement truck, hire their competitor firm across town; they would keep their workers on a day contract till they knew they were reliable. But I – and President Joe – couldn't trust a modern government to make these kinds of decisions.'

He grimaced again, before sipping his coffee, and continuing,

'It's human nature, and you see that in business, when money's tight, when deadlines come up at you. I think government is about seeing the best in people these days. I mean, that's good, that's kind...'

He seemed to be in danger of defeating his own argument, and changed tack,

'...but the old ones were wily – can you imagine FDR or LBJ getting welshed on a deal? Never! But these current kids?

'And so President Joe, he turned to me. I can manage a project, budget for billions, and get results, and get them on time! I've been responsible for some of the largest capital constructions this country has ever seen. I build and manage hotels and malls that fill half a city block! And what is a space station but a gigantic building? It needs a business brain, and business toughness.

'Now, I have to work in secret, because a lot of people don't like that decision. A lot of people protest. They want space to be pure, and virtuous, and "untainted" by what they see to be the grubbiness of business. Do you share that belief, officer? No, no, I don't think you do.'

Lato was given no time to add his views, as Yanner continued,

'I see business as beautiful. My buildings are beautiful. We get things done, like a huge engine for good. We employ people. We build the world. What do these protestors build? They camp outside the White House saying, "Government Must Change!" or live in a tent outside Wall Street, chanting, "Business Must Change!"

'So, how is that going to change business? Change how? Change to what? What do they want it to do? They bring no knowledge, they offer no solutions. They expect the answers to come from the people they're picketing! Do they want Wall Street to go away for a think, come out a week later, and offer this tent-dweller a solution? One that somehow answers all of the questions that that one protestor has had in their head, but can't solve, or even express, for themselves?

'Oh, but they don't need to have answers, they say. They're just "raising awareness". Well, "awareness" means media, and that gives their game away, doesn't it? They're just after the attention...'
Chapter 22 – A Golden Ticket

A voice came from the shadows of the hotel suite to silence the verbose businessman, which Lato guessed was not the waitress. Yanner waved it away, but refocussed, stating,

'We've met before, Officer Lato, though you may not know it. I was in the black Lincoln outside the Sigmundsonn plant – yes, that is the name of the company that owns it. I can tell you that here. We were recording everything that happened that day at the gate, and I heard the woman talking to you, telling you what she and her husband had discovered – expressing herself rather better than our security guard, I might add. It was turning nasty out there, and you saw what we were up against.

'But you calmed the protestors; and, more importantly, you calmed our security, as they're the ones with guns, and we did not need "that" happening. I don't need any more gorillas, I have enough of them on every door of every property I own. I need someone who will stop these scenes from starting in the first place, and dispersing them just as quickly when they do.'

The man paused, and so Lato risked a question,

'Can I ask, sir, is this concern after the man died?'

The news was still fresh in people's minds, and, if nothing else, Robert Garrison had died right outside a Yanner building.

The man himself appeared genuinely remorseful for a moment,

'I didn't want that, I never wanted that.'

The advisory voice came from the sidelines again, and Yanner waved it away, his head tilted and facing downward, grumbling,

'I know, I know,' he said to the invisible man. 'You and your "legal definitions". I'm not saying I "caused it" caused it. But they were outside my building, because of me, and they were angrier than ever, and the police were caught off-guard. And if I can have a man who's watching out for this stuff, who's wherever I am before I am, with an eye on every doorway and street corner, then it might not happen again.

'Now, officer, I'm not asking for preferential treatment with the law. I never have. I only want a fair deal. I don't want to close these protests down. But when they break the law like they do, every single time, people are going to get hurt. They hate me, fair enough, they hate what I do. But they're not going through their senator or lobbying their mayor. They're blocking legal activity, and, it is my firm belief, are suffering from some kind of temper-tantrum against a parent figure; and in the process only wanting to get themselves on television.

'I need a man to stop this madness. Now, you won't get a better offer, never in your life. And, more than that, when this thing is built and I'm on it, you will need to be too...'

Lato listened but did not hear, his mind raced to catch up. "This thing" – Yanner meant the station, he meant the space station.

'...Yourself and your wife, and your two children, and, hell, let's say another two more before the launch date – you're only young – will be among the ten-thousand, guaranteed.'

Whatever else the excitement and the merits (and not forgetting the likely financial rewards) of the new job, this last pitch zoned into a schoolboy excitement that Lato would never have been able to refuse. Something broke in him, he became giddy, he was glad he was sitting down. He was not a church-going man, had never been particularly moved by the spirit on the rare occasions he had been dragged along by his wife to Sunday service. And so, not in his life before had he felt such an arrow of destiny. And it was true, he would never have such an offer again. He had no choice. Without even pausing to be allowed to call his wife, he blurted,

'I'll do it, sir.'

'Great,' said Yanner quite matter-of-factly, moving swiftly on with arrangements. 'Your family won't see so much of you these next few years, especially if I'm out of town. They'll move to the Yanner Building, where my family live, and where I spend most of my time, so that will be where you will spend most of yours. Also, the compensation package will be quite exemplary, I can assure you.'

The glint in the eye of a man who clearly loved money was very assuring to Lato. Yanner turned to Lato's colleague and concluded,

'And thank you, Sheriff. I know how you must feel to lose such a good man. Be assured that your loss is America's gain. Our country needs me to do my job, and I can't do it without your man doing his.' He stood to leave and the man from the shadows emerged, opening a leather portfolio case.

'I'll see you in a couple of days. I'll leave you with Laughton.'

And that was that, on the day that Holden Lato's life changed.
Chapter 23 – A Ghost in the Underworld

There was a knock on the door of Bradford's cabin. He looked up to see a Foreman grinning,

'Look sharp, Shakespeare,' he said, which had always been his attempt at humour with their resident writer. 'You've got a visitor.'

Bradford grinned, 'The Editor! He came. But why hadn't he called ahead?'

Here the Foreman guffawed, then added conspiratorially, even admiringly,

'A word to the wise, buddy – this ain't your Editor.' He offered no more information as he skipped off.

Bradford was too excited at his mystery visitor to worry about making himself "look sharp", and instead folded up the loose papers of his next article, and headed through his tunnel to the main hall and the cage at the foot of the lift shaft. There, among the men unloading crates, and white-coated professionals leafing through their post, was a young woman dressed all in black. Her dark hair was pulled back in a bun, and her face was as pale as a ghost in the chamber's half-light.

He was mesmerised.

'Mr Bradford?'

'Yes?' he stammered out.

'I'm Sandile Thornbury. I liked what you wrote about my boyfriend. Is there somewhere we could talk?'

On the way back to his cabin, Bradford didn't know what to say, so fell back on the obvious,

'How do you find it down here?'

'It's a little Spartan,' she answered as she walked beside him in her court shoes over uneven ground. 'But that's to be expected, I suppose.' On closer inspection, her outfit was a charcoal-black dress, with the tiniest hat to match. He hadn't noticed her headwear initially, what with it being almost the same shade as her dark hair. She gave the impression of having come straight from the funeral. He needed to get back to his cabin before he could relax, so in the meantime blathered on,

'I mean the distance below. Some people don't like it, they fear the weight of rock could slip and crush them.'

'But that's absurd,' she answered logically, and a little harshly. 'These rocks have been here for millennia, why would they move now? If anything, I feel assurance, as though surrounded and protected.'

'Yes, that was my first feeling,' he agreed. Before cautioning, 'Though it can form a dependence.'

'There's no fear of that – I have to go back up this evening. I have a flight.'

'Back to New York?' he asked as they entered the cabin. He offered her a canvas fold-out chair.

'Thank you.' She sat down. 'Actually, Connecticut, to see relations. They've been worrying about me. I come from an old family, Mr Bradford, though I was something of a lost child. My wild years in New York hadn't settled down, and they were fit to give me up. Yet somewhere, in all of this that's happened, I've been re-accepted, forgiven even. I wasn't married to Robert, though now I fill the role of grieving widow, and it becomes my job to reassure others that I'm managing. Does that make sense?'

'They worry for you.'

'Yes, and only I, at the centre, know that I'm surviving. Isn't that odd?'

'Grief is natural. Maybe those who know someone best take longer to get over the shock, so grieving starts later? Maybe by the time you're done with reassuring others then you can begin?'

'And they say you don't write novels any more, what a loss that is. It's funny. Within an hour of the news of Robert's death, two black dresses were delivered to my apartment – from my mother, you understand, always having her priorities right, not letting feelings get in the way of propriety – sorry, is that irredeemably harsh? She was helping, I know, in the only way she could.

'Two dresses, one with sleeves, one without. Though I can only wear the sleeved one, Mr Bradford, because of my arm. The plate glass, it slices like a knife. I could feel it in slow motion, and I didn't care. Because he was right in front of me.'

Bradford leant forward in his chair, and touched the sleeve of what he judged to be the uninjured arm.

'Miss Thornbury, I'm honoured that you paid me this visit. And I'm so glad if my words brought you some comfort...'

'But that isn't all of it,' she declared, startling Bradford into silence.
Chapter 24 – Underground Discussion

'Robert loved the demos, he went along to them as others do football games.'

Sandile had been carrying a slim black case. Now she passed it over to Bradford,

'These were what I found on Robert's desk – the rest was in a locked drawer, and that belongs to his family now. It's what he was working on; why we were at the café that day. Everything about the station, and Sigmundsonn, and Yanner.'

'Yanner?'

'He's building it for the President. It's all so secret, the largest Government contract in history.'

Bradford was bewildered, asking,

'But I thought Robert was only covering the demonstrations, talking to the groups?'

'He was. Some of his transcripts are here, made from memory, of meetings he was never allowed to record. Some of it will make your toes curl – only a tenth of it was published, most wasn't even shown to the paper.'

'But why?'

'Because he wanted to keep in with the groups, and follow the story through to the end. And not only that. These were violent people, there was fear there.'

'So, that's not the story, the violence of the groups?'

She gestured to the folder,

'Have a read of what they say they are up against before you judge them too harshly. I'm not sure it's all on one side.'

Bradford held the folder he had been given, but didn't open it yet. It seemed impersonal to do so in the company of the woman who was in mourning for the author of the papers it contained.

Sandile moved the topic on,

'Your article. I loved your words, but was confused.'

'Oh?'

'Forgive me, I mean no criticism. But you spoke of efforts being redoubled. What "efforts" can you "redouble" all the way down here?'

'I've considered that myself,' he answered. 'You know, I'm not just hiding. I have a condition, it's medical. I have a doctor and everything.'

'I understand. It's only that, I don't know what I can do myself, in my situation; and I wondered, if there had been anything that you had been able to do, then maybe I could do that too, and it would help me?

'You see, Mr Bradford, I can't carry on as I was up there. I'm known everywhere I go; and I don't want to turn up at every place like the martyred fiancée.'

'I can imagine, that sounds awful.'

'I have a private investigator, someone separate from the paper. She's good at hunting things down. She's worked for me before, she could go so far along the road for me. But what could I do then, what could I write, how could I write it?' She put her pale face in her birdlike hands and cried. Bradford hadn't touched a woman in five years, but he moved forward and held her, and they stayed that way for several minutes.

'Thank you,' she began after they had parted. 'I don't know what I'm asking of you, Mr Bradford.'

'You don't need to know yet. None of us do.'

'I suppose I hoped you'd be kind, and you are.'

'Thank you.'

'And there is one thing.'

'Anything?'

'Robert's papers – I can't read them now. Would you do it for me?'

'Of course.'

'There's a parcel in the lift as well. It's tapes, and a player for them. Robert, he was... he interviewed dozens of them, probably the ones throwing chairs through our window; though, of course, they always claim they only lashed out if provoked.'

She summed up,

'I think we need to know if there is anything in it, their anger. Is there corruption?'

'Of course.'

'Thank you, Mr Bradford.'

'And please, just Bradford, it's what they all call me.'

'Thank you, Bradford.'

He had to think a moment. He tried to reassure her by saying,

'I know what to look for – I was a journalist once.'

'Me too,' she said half-smiling.

He noted the past-tense, and wondered if she really meant it? Though she concluded,

'Now I only want what my family want for me. They will keep me, let me grieve, and in a year or two I can marry, maybe even be loved. But, I have to do this first.'

For the first time she had smiled, yet it was self-deprecating, caught in the act of giving up.

She rose to leave,

'I have visits to make, a trip to London. You keep the folder, and we'll talk when I get back?'

'Talk? How?'

'Here is my email address.' She handed him a card, her own, not the paper's. 'Send me something so I have yours.'

'I will.'

'And you'll be staying down here?' she asked. To which he nodded. She ended with, 'You know the line by John Shedd? "A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for."' She placed a hand on his arm, and rose to leave; and he was as proud as Punch to receive a peck on the cheek as she did so.

Bradford was so stunned by everything, that he neglected for a moment to rise himself to walk her back. He followed her and caught her up, and waved as she boarded the waiting lift. And around them was something of an audience, all trying their best not to look.
Chapter 25 – The World on its Head

Before Nicole knew it, six months had passed, and a winter – such as they were on the West Coast – had swept across Los Angeles barely noticed. And still she and Molly had not been in touch.

A girl from Texas, Nicole doubted she would survive anywhere that suffered snow. Though, as weather warnings for the East Coast were relayed on the national news channels, she thought of her young friend back at NASA in Langley, and the snows they could have in Virginia.

As certain as Nicole had been on the day of the Zak's speech, now she doubted herself. Had her instant friendship with Molly been just one of those flashes in the pan? Like the colleague you spoke to on the training day, but then went back to different offices? Or the guy you had the night of your life with, but never saw again?

Nicole shuddered at that last recollection, but soon got her thoughts back on track. No, with Molly it was a simple thing that happened all the time: a best friend made in one phase of life who didn't translate to another. And sometimes such a phase could be measured in minutes, let alone days. And a phase-change had occurred, make no mistake, such had been the ferocity of transformation that had swept over campus since Zak and Molly had flown in that day and tipped the world on its head.

On the radio, as Nicole drove into work, her old favourite over the airwaves was off on another tangent, and she let his words sweep over her as she drove the route she knew by heart:

'So, we read in the news again this morning that protests have continued for a seventh day in what is now becoming known as "The Battle of New York".

'This, I may remind you, is a full week after the Herald journalist Robert Garrison was killed in the first hours of street violence that first day. Now, we here at this station are generally no fans of the Herald and their comrades in the liberal press. But, people, a death is a death. This man was only trying to tell a story, and that story bit back.

'Admittedly, these protests can be chaotic. News can take time to filter through. Perhaps they hadn't known right away that someone had died? But I promise you this, they would have known by the second day; and the third day; and the seventh.

'So, what drives them on? There is a protestor interviewed in the Herald today – anonymously, obviously, without the courage to stand up for their own actions. He says – I'm guessing it's a he, I hope we haven't hardened as a society to the point where a woman thinks like this. I'll probably get complaints for saying that, but I make no apologies, it's how I was raised, by good people in the eyes of the Lord. "He" says, and I quote,

'"I won't stop, we can't let them stop us. People die in every battle."

'Well, our Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross. Is this modern America? They seem to have co-opted even Robert Garrison as a martyr to their cause, quite forgetting the role that their own violence played in his death.

'And it's getting bigger. A police source, also in this morning's Herald, which has covered the story as diligently as you would expect, I'll give them that, says the permanent encampment of tents and rough sleepers outside the Yanner Building now numbers two-thousand souls. Two-thousand!

'If you don't take a morning paper, then I urge you to turn on the rolling news – all the stations will be playing the helicopter footage – and take a look at this encampment. It stretches the length of a city block, filling the entire street from the buildings on one side to those on the other. Every inch of highway and both sidewalks are lost beneath a rubbish tip of cardboard, plastic sheeting, half-collapsing tents and filthy sleeping bags and sheets.

'And the people are no cleaner, let me tell you. Some haven't bathed for a week; their clothes are covered in street dirt. Every window along both sides of the street has been smashed and has people living in the shopfronts. Yanner's own deli and his wife's jewellery boutique, both in the ground level of his building, are wrecked, and the jewellery looted, no doubt.

Police have cordoned off both ends; though they have also had to cordon-off sympathy protests in adjoining streets. This is leaving crossroads in the centre of New York as embattled police squares, like something from the Battle of Waterloo. Look it up, look at how the soldiers would back into a square, a gun pointing out at every angle.

'And these squares at each end of the protest are as penned-in as the protestors. They are having to be fed from windows above the street. The police are bringing in food and water and care workers and relief-officers down ladders; ladders, down to ground level.

'The protestors are copying them. Food, clothes, sleeping bags, all are being thrown down. Police are in each building, evacuating the lower floors and keeping protestors out of as much of them as possible. But the people are still coming. Every day more and more are getting into the buildings – even from Yanner's side – and being dropped out of the lower floors by these new squatters or by friendly residents, to join the throng below.

'They can't all be local. Even New York would miss two-thousand students and workers. And let me tell you, these people really hate the police. They really hate them. The chanting and the graffiti, I can't repeat it here. Two-thousand of our brightest and best, living in cardboard boxes, giving up on college and losing their jobs. Where do they all come from?'

'Of course, this leaves the place in gridlock. I shudder at the millions lost to business.'

And so the story rumbled on, the speaker as uncomprehending as his listeners...
Chapter 26 – College Lockdown

Nicole had to admit, the scene when she arrived at campus caught her off guard. For all the talk of other protests in the country, she wasn't expecting what she saw at the college gates. Security had to hold people back just for her to edge her car to the booth.

'What's happening?' she asked the guard, a man she greeted every morning.

'It's this thing in New York, ma'am. It's like a rock concert. And if they can't get there, then they're just setting up in their own town. It's the same all over. And we have students missing – we've got families calling asking if they're here. I can only guess they've gone there too.'

She recognised faces in the crowd, but not their anger, the contorted shapes their young features were being pulled into.

Once inside, she thought again of Molly: if it's bad here, she imagined, then what would it be like at NASA? She recognised her subconscious had been telling her something all morning, and she put it off no longer and made the call.

Perhaps expectedly, Molly was not available; but within the hour she called back,

'Molly,' answered Nicole, as she picked up the phone and heard her friend's voice long before she thought she would do. 'The switchboard said you were uncontactable today.'

'That's what they say if we're working on the project.'

Nicole soon clocked on to the joy in Molly's voice, and asked,

'You've got a proper job?'

'Yep.'

'Working on the new rockets?'

Molly couldn't properly say, but her silence gave away what soon became the worst kept secret between the two of them.

'And Zak too?'

'Hmm, how can I put this?' answered Molly. 'You haven't seen him on TV much since that speech, no?'

'You mean they might have transferred him to a role that made better use of his talents?'

'That would be sensible,' agreed Molly. 'I'm so sorry I haven't got back in touch.'

'Me too.'

'And I'm glad you called.'

'Well, I was worried about you, what with these protests everywhere.'

'You have them on campus?'

'Yes, though they must be worse for you – you're building this thing.'

But Molly brushed off Nicole's fears,

'Don't forget, in our town they're split with the CIA. God knows what they've got to do with it, but half of the protestors are there.'

'Well, it's all tied in, isn't it,' answered Nicole. 'They're angry with anyone related to the station or to Government.'

Molly became thoughtful, casting back to their first meeting,

'I was so rude to you that day – you only wanted to talk about the station. You were only as excited about it as we were. But, you know, however I behaved at first, I think I saw an opportunity to share with you, Nic. Do you get me?' She laughed down the line, 'Listen to me babble on, I used work in the media team of the Government's biggest department, and I can't put it any better.'

Nicole smiled, 'You don't need to, love. You've just made my day.'

'Come out to Langley. You're qualified, I'll get you visitor's clearance.'

And it was the best offer that Nicole had had for months.
Chapter 27 – First Day on the Job

Lato looked down at the crowd scene below, from a balcony on the fifth floor of the Yanner Building. He listened to the voices, calls and sirens, and felt the scene was as much alive in the air above the street as in the melee itself.

'It's a good job you don't mind heights,' joked a man in the room behind him. Like Lato, he was dressed from neck to toe in a uniform that might have been classifiable as Corporate Bodyguard Black.

'I have to lean over the balcony,' he told the man. 'I can't see anything from behind the glass.'

'Well, watch they don't start firing at you.'

'No one's firing.'

'Not yet.'

Lato heard a click he recognised, and turned to face the man,

'You think you need that?'

He finished loading and locking his pistol, and answered,

'New orders, whenever Big Cheese is on the premises.'

'He must know you call him that.'

The guard laughed, 'I think he likes it.' He saw Lato still looking at the gun, and offered jokingly, 'Well, I'll look after my job, and you look after yours.' He came to the patio doors to half-join Lato on the balcony. He gestured to the gridlocked streets below, 'Jeez, crowd control, and first day on the job you've got that.'

He put his gun away, patted Lato on the shoulder, and left.

Lato didn't react to the joke – it was nothing less than what he was thinking to himself. He had flown in from Texas the evening before, and seen the news at the airport. On the plane, the captain had announced over the loud speaker certain districts for tourists to avoid. Lato had known at that moment that whatever Yanner had hired him for, the stakes were raised now; the rules had been redrawn; the game had changed – pick your own metaphor.

He felt like a peacetime appointee arriving after war had been declared.

'He doesn't need a crowd control advisor,' he muttered to himself on the balcony, 'he needs an army.'

Yanner had already moved his family from their home, and Lato was only glad he hadn't moved his own in yet – if they ever would.

He also wasn't thinking straight: as, for the guard to have had his gun with him, meant that Big Cheese was...

'How's it looking down there?'

'Sir, I didn't know that you were back in the building.' He pulled his earpiece out on its curling cable, and realised it was dead.

'The batteries can go on those things,' advised the big man. 'We'll get you a new one. Anyway, come in from there a minute, I want to talk to you... actually, stay, I'll join you.'

'Sir, is that wise?' The question came from a voice in the shadows before Lato had been able to voice it himself. He realised that Yanner had those armed guards everywhere.

Yanner just patted down the fear with a hand gesture, and came to sit on a clear plastic chair on the balcony beside Lato.

'He's right, though, sir,' added Lato. 'If they see you up here you could become a focus.'

Again, the patting away, 'They won't see us all the way up here. So, how's it looking?'

As Lato considered how to put it, the background of whistles, calls and police loudhailers carried on oblivious to the pair's presence five levels above.

'Lost for words, I'll bet?' asked Yanner. 'I've never seen a thing like it in all the years... Or, maybe there are other things on your mind?'

'Sir, whatever you brought me here to do...'

Yanner just smiled a big smile. Lato continued,

'I can leave quietly, sir. I'll send back your very generous retainer, we haven't spent any of it. The Sheriff will have me back, I'm sure. Maybe you can put in a word? It's all I ask. I'm sorry, sir.'

Yanner only gave his favourite patting-down-trouble gesture again, and smiled a contented smile. He explained,

'It's on the news that my family have left. "Evacuated" is the term I heard them use. What circumstance can lead a family to be "evacuated" from their home, do you think? Flood? Tornado? Forest fire? All Acts of God, and this.' He pointed over the parapet, 'You couldn't have saved us from this any more than you could from a hurricane.'

Lato allowed himself to relax an inch. Things were moving in the right way. He may still lose his job, but it would be on good terms. Yanner would understand. The Big Cheese continued, suddenly renewing his smile,

'Though, you may not know that you've already helped me once today.'

'Oh?'

'Oh, indeed! But you did. When you came here yesterday night, and I showed you a bit of the place, you asked about the entrances and exits; how to get in and out. And as I told you, I reminded myself of the tunnel we'd had put into the underground carpark when we built this place, the one that comes out a block away.

'My guys were all set to get a fleet of choppers in this morning to get the family out – imagine the scene, how angry that would have made them downstairs – I don't want my kids seeing that out of helicopter windows.

'But I remembered the tunnel, and so they slipped out of there in a couple of unmarked four-by-fours, onto a quiet street not two minutes from that bedlam outside.

'You see, Lato, I'm thinking like you. You're having an effect. And anyway, you're not going anywhere. I need you.'

'Oh?'

'"Oh" again? What, is that your favourite word today? Put your tongue back in your mouth. It's not just the wife and kids I'm moving. I'm taking everything out of here. It's no place to run a business, and I need quiet.'

'Until the protest's over?'

'No, until we're "up there".' And for the first time, Yanner's hands gestured up instead of down.
Chapter 28 – Virginia in the Fall

'At last, we're getting something done.'

These had been Nicole's first words as Molly showed her her work. Nicole had gone through all the clearance stages before she had arrived; and her new pass had worked perfectly as she followed her friend through each increasingly secure entrance. Now she was in the area classified as Top Secret... and she felt like she was home.

'It's good to be back in a lab coat and goggles,' she said, smiling.

'Too many years meeting and greeting?' asked Molly, who already knew the answer. 'Let me show you the rooms.'

The facility was open-plan and collegiate, formed of brown-brick buildings broken up with trees and grassy areas. Nicole felt it was like being back on college campus. Only, not many campuses had two-storey-high golf-ball-shaped structures at one end and an even taller shiny-silver wind tunnel at the other.

The area Molly took them to was an oblong building of long rooms with floor-to-ceiling glass windows, built around a quad of grass.

'It's very open,' noted Nicole.

'You expected it to be more secretive?' asked Molly, jokingly – she was enjoying showing her friend around. 'Our thinking is that, once you're through the perimeter, then we want to make it as relaxed an atmosphere as possible.'

'That's where ideas flow best,' she agreed.

On the ground floor of the building was a corridor with doors leading off.

'There are the rooms in which each team works,' explained Molly. 'On the floor above are the larger research and construction rooms, where things actually get built!

'Come on, let me show you around.'

Nicole wished the security guard 'Good day' as they used their passes to get through the first door they came to. Molly was in her element here,

'Let me introduce you to Ted.'

Once inside, a jovial, round-bodied man approached them, with his lab coat open to reveal a chunky sweater. Molly announced,

'This is Doctor Edward Ferrarin, Head of Gravitational Science for the Universal Space Station. And Ted, this is Doctor Nicole Evans, Microbiologist, Nanotechnologist, and Faculty Co-ordinator at the University of California, Los Angeles.'

'Oh, please,' she demurred, 'that makes me sound so grand.'

'Pleased to meet you, Doctor.'

'Nicole, I insist.'

'Then please call me Ted. And you need no introduction in these rooms. You announced Zak on stage for his famous speech, after all. I must have watched that tape through a hundred times. I often put it on just to annoy him when he's on campus.'

Molly laughed, confirming, 'Professor Page isn't here today.'

'Oh, that's a shame,' answered Nicole. 'He's doing something equally important though, I'm sure.'

'He's in Europe actually...' began Molly.

'Teaching the Italians how to eat spaghetti.'

'Ted!' she snapped.

'Is he always like this?' asked Nicole.

'Only with everyone he meets.'

Nicole looked again at the jumper beneath his white coat, asking,

'Are you feeling the cold, Doctor?'

'After living at the Centre of the Earth, everywhere is cold. It's the molten core, you see. And don't let this deathly–white pallor put you off – it comes with never seeing the sun.'

Nicole gave a queried look, before the other two laughed. Molly explained,

'What he means is, he was seconded here from the Harmony Project in Nebraska.'

He added, 'Though, if this thing does launch me into space, then I'm not sure it's a "secondment" I could ever be recalled from.'

The women laughed again. Nicole turned serious, though, asking,

'So... you were down there with Philip Bradford?'

Ted matched her tone to answer her,

'Yes, I was... I still am down there, technically. You've followed his story in the newspapers? Bradford is a friend. Though I must admit, at present, I have no way to help him.'

'It's so sad.'

'His new column has reminded people that he's down there, and every so often someone writes a piece. This week someone wrote that he remained "The most celebrated case of mental illness in America today."'

'And how's he doing?'

'Well, I think he's okay, but he always has been with me. I see him when I can, I still have projects running down there.'

Molly tried to bring the tone up,

'You notice, Nicole, how Ted uses every opportunity to remind us of how busy he is?'

'Well,' explained the man, 'I won't deny the fact that I have two jobs; three, if you count Harmony Base. You see, Nicole, my work here is twofold:

'A part of it is to study how people live under artificial gravity; when they dip in and out of it for years of their lives; and, most interestingly, if there was a failure of that system.'

'A failure? What kind?'

'Well, if the stabilisers or the gyroscopes malfunctioned or broke down; if gravity began to decrease by one percent a year, or increase by the same amount. The kind of problems we never have on Earth! Imagine if our station's artificial gravity failed and took a year to fix, a decade. How would people live? Would they float around, get used to walking in ten-foot paces? Can you imagine that, Nicole, if you were up there?

'And not only the people – what about their crops. Would they be ten foot tall? Would they fall over? Would they die?

'And that's only my first job!'
Chapter 29 – Wheel in the Sky

'Don't get him started,' joked Molly. 'He loves explaining this stuff.'

'Not at all,' answered Nicole. 'It's important; and I like to listen to a person who is interested in their work.'

'Even better then!' laughed Ted. 'So, the second part of my role is involved with studying the way in which the materials we use for the station will endure under the constant strain of the pressure we are going to be putting them under.

'You see, we're using the wheel model. Our station...'

'Adam?' asked Nicole.

'Yes, I guess it's safe to call it that amongst ourselves now – though don't breathe a word of it off-campus. Essentially, Adam will be a giant wheel. The hub will remain as a fixed point, while the tyre will spin around it, fixed to it by four spokes.

'By spinning the wheel up to a high-enough velocity, we'll be forcing the "tyre" of the wheel to push out from the hub at a pitch that generates the equivalent of one gravitational unit – what racing drivers call "One G".'

'So it will feel like walking on Earth?' asked Nicole.

'For the body, yes. Though the visuals might take a little getting used to.'

Molly giggled in a way that suggested there was nothing really for the future residents of the station to worry about, but Nicole was deeply curious now.

Ted went on,

'You've seen the film, "2001"? Where he's jogging around in a circle with the floor rising up behind him? It will be just like that, though massively larger.'

'Like someone running through the tyre?'

He grimaced,

'Yes. Though I admit, I don't like the whole "bicycle wheel" metaphor beyond explaining the overall shape of the station. Tyres are black rubber and enclosed, whereas our torus...'

'That's a doughnut, to you and me,' added Molly, in jest, as she was sure Nicole would know.

'...will be much shallower in curve, and be completely open above. Perhaps think of it as a huge connected hammock spinning all the way around a tree. Or one of those fairground rides where the cars swing outwards.'

'But there'll still be a roof?'

'Oh, yes – made of a very, very strong plastic, held in a web-like frame to allow flexibility. Though, theoretically, even if there weren't a roof, at One G, a lot of the atmosphere would still be "held down", so no worries there of instant doom if a panel breaks.'

'Very good,' said Nicola, gathering herself. 'So, what's your orbit?'

'I'm impressed,' replied Ted. 'I didn't think this was your field?'

'It isn't, but I need a working model in my head.'

'You might be surprised how many never ask... Anyway, it's a geostationary orbit twenty-two-thousand miles above the same fixed point on the equator. Though the station will spin in its daily orbit of the Earth in such a way that one flat side of the wheel will always be facing the Sun. Then a further small booster correction every few days will ensure it stays facing the Sun as the Earth goes through its own yearlong circuit around the Solar System's central axis.

'You see, it's important that one side of the wheel always faces its primary light source – because a series of enormous mirrors circling its hub will angle sunlight continually at right angles through the transparent roof. It's a simple solution to a geometric puzzle, and the only model we have to ensure unbroken sunlight within the torus.

'You're with me so far?'

'I think so,' said Nicole. 'So, the station is spinning within itself to generate its own gravity; as well as spinning around the Earth each day to stay in orbit. But... won't that leave the station on the dark side of the Earth for the whole time that the country it's above will be under cover of night?'

'An excellent observation,' agreed Ted. 'First of all, though, not quite, just as the tallest mountain will be last to feel the Sun's rays in the evening and first to see them each morning. But, essentially, yes – the station will have night.'

'And you've found no way around that? To boost crop productivity, I mean?'

He considered,

'Well, there is one very complicated orbit, where the station spins around the Earth in a circuit that covers each pole; so a person standing on the Sun – with amazing eyesight and impervious to heat, no doubt – would see the station circling the Earth the whole way around from above, like a halo.

'Though that would require several large booster corrections just to get it into orbit. For such a heavy structure, we've judged it isn't worth the risk.'

He quietened a moment. Nicole detected a change of tone coming, as he resumed,

'And there is one further option; though it's more for future stations, I think, once people are used to the idea.'

'Ted,' cautioned Molly.

'What? Your friend's a scientist, isn't she? She's good to hear this.'

'But she's also a person – she might not want to.'

'Hear what?' Nicole couldn't help but ask.

'That we leave Earth out of the equation – drop each station off, in effect, into a very slow orbit of its own around the Sun.'

The thought stunned Nicole,

'They really would be on their own,' she considered, 'waiting a year for Earth to come back around.'

'It would be longer than that,' admitted Ted. 'An object not clinging to Earth's gravity would be using the Sun's, just as the Earth does; and even if we threw them a bit further out than our own orbit, they still wouldn't be able to travel very much slower than us – it would be years until we chased them around and caught them back up.

'Though there's no need to worry.' He suddenly brightened.

'Why's that?'

'Because we could launch them in the opposite direction – so we'd see them every six months. Imagine it, Nicole – a whole string of solar stations, each spinning back past us twice a year. Do you reckon your grandchildren could live with that?'

Nicole reflected,

'It still makes me think of that article in the Herald, of how many shuttles it will take to fill each station.'

'Yes, she's a perceptive girl, that one.'

'Ted,' chided Molly.

'Okay, "Perceptive woman." But still, we weren't hoping for that level of detail to come out so soon – let people dream awhile, before they contemplate the space and distance. We might need a generation used to space before we're comfortable with not having Earth right beside us.'

'Though, even then it could only be a visual comfort.' Nicole recalled, 'As the article explained, even stationed right beside Earth, there could be no rescue bid, no method of getting all the people down.'

'I think we'll need a very serious generation of people,' said Molly, in a way that struck the other two as being mature for one of her youthful appearance.

Ted regained his initial theme,

'So, anyway, yes, a station spinning that quickly within itself continually, while absorbing the pushes and pulls of Earth and lunar gravity, and notwithstanding the many small corrections it will need – that will take a toll even on our stellar concrete.'

'It's a lot of pressure for an object to be under for pretty much the entire length of its existence,' added Molly.

'But,' asked Nicole, 'isn't the whole of Earth under that much pressure all the time?'

'Asked like a true scientist,' noted Ted. 'Yes it is; and every building and bridge and tunnel that we build exists under that same pressure. Though the essential difference is that, in Earth's case, it is gravity pulling everything down towards the mass of the planet; while our station will be trying its best to pull itself apart.

'The worst-case scenario,' he continued, 'is that the "tyre" breaks up and is flung out into space without a safety net. A breach in the torus would be fatal for thousands.'

'I see why it has to be so chilled-out around here,' said Nicole. 'People die in your business.'

'Yes, they do,' he agreed. 'Even those who make it through their mission must have always been prepared for it... it hangs around them. Apollo knew this, the Shuttle crews, those who came home and those who didn't.'
Chapter 30 – Dust and Disease

After leaving Doctor Ted to his work, the women moved through the different rooms of the building. Nicole was agog: the details tossed away by Molly knocked her out,

'Propulsion – that's where they're designing the Saturn Six.

'Orientation and Acclimatisation have moved out – they need a larger building now. They're starting with a hundred applicants, and then moving on from there.'

'A hundred?' asked Nicole. 'And how many had you had there before?'

'Well, how many astronauts have we ever needed at one time before?

'Life Support... are struggling, though don't spread that around. It's a new model.'

'You've lost me,' pleaded Nicole, feeling every bit the older scientist from a previous generation. They were standing in an empty corridor whose windows were lined on the outside with budding shrubs, so they were free to talk.

'I'm sorry,' said Molly. 'It must be a little overwhelming to see it all new in one day.' She leant in, 'In a nutshell, every mission we've ever had before, they either took what supplies they needed with them, or there was some small facility on their ship or station for reusing air or water. But, this is the solar greenhouse – we're talking about a mini-ecosystem up there, and it hasn't been done before.'

'The crops?' asked Nicole.

'Yes; and yet the Cultivation team are a mile away at a different research facility. So, it takes a web chat for them to talk to Life Support or Gravitation. It's a mess, and they're going to need to fix it,' added Molly as an aside.

'Come on, let's get coffee.'

At the table over hot drinks, Molly continued the virtual tour,

'We've had four rockets go up so far. One of those carried the asteroid catcher; the others were parts of frame for the rig.

'The rig?'

'A steel cube frame a hundred meters on each side. It's where we'll cast each piece of concrete before fitting it to the ever-growing wheel, which will be taking shape right beside it.'

'That's what Commander MacCallum is overseeing?'

'Yes, the International Space Station is in orbit nearby and controlling operations from a visual distance.'

'Wow.' Nicole looked around her, 'Meanwhile, you're doing your work in an equally impressive environment down here.'

'Though don't get too used to it,' warned Molly. 'We're moving out, apparently.'

'Moving out of NASA?'

'Yes, to a brand-new facility.'

Nicole remembered what she'd seen rumoured in the papers,

'It's not that place out in T...?'

But Molly raised a hand to stop her, explaining,

'Even we're not meant to know. All we've been told is we are getting the best facility in the world.'

'Even though you've already got it here?'

'These aren't normal times, Nic. We're not even sure who we're taking orders from right now.'

Molly's tone shocked Nicole – she hadn't heard her speak like that before. Though Molly quickly changed the subject,

'So, anyway, talking of secrets, you've been keeping me on tenterhooks for months now.'

'Me? How?' answered Nicole in faux bemusement.

'One of the first things you said to me on the day of the speech was that you had an idea for the station.'

'Oh, that.' Nicole, for all her years and experience, went shy. 'Well, it was just a silly idea; and with all your clever people here, then I'm sure if it was any good it would have been thought of already.'

'Then, let's double check. Come on, out with it.'

'Well,' began Nicole, awkwardly at first, but soon getting into it, 'back when I worked in microbiology, I spent a year working in Africa helping with disease prevention.

'A lot of the problem there was containment – they hadn't the facilities to keep the sick from the healthy. People were all in the same room or out in the open air. So, we found a way of using disinfected nets, that let the air through but stopped a lot of germs. We would hang one across a room or around someone's bed, and, I mean, it wasn't perfect, but it seemed to make a difference.

'Anyway, when I heard about the basic plans for your space station, those days came back to mind. I mean, this "tyre" of the wheel – it's one single space, isn't it – no one wants floor-to-ceiling partitions chopping off the landscape all the way up to an artificial sky.

'And, I guess, it's one air conditioning system, one water filtration system...?'

Nicole could have gone on to explain how, if a bug got into either one of those vital systems, then such a set-up would seem almost custom-made to spread it evenly across the station's atmosphere; furthermore, how this could be just as deadly to human survival if it were a fungus or disease attacking the plants that the station lived on; and that, in such a single huge environment sharing the same air, then something as simple as those disinfected nets hung across the landscape at strategic points might be about as successful a tool as any at combating that scenario.

However, Nicole didn't need to add these points, as her friend was already right there with her.

Nicole would not forget the look on Molly's face. For two minutes this young genius in the making, a woman who would surely become a future leader in the space station hierarchy, worked through the logic like an early-days room-sized IBM computer forming rocket trajectories.

Nicole knew one thing right off – that her idea wasn't redundant, and that NASA had not come up with it already. And a second notion formed within her – that for her young friend and her colleagues to have been caught out like that would surely confuse and challenge such a bright young thinker as Doctor Molly Zubecker.

Eventually, Molly slurped her coffee and put the cup down on the saucer with a clatter,

'Come on,' she urged Nicole, 'we need to speak to Doctor Ted.'
Chapter 31 – We Go Where the Protestors Go

'I don't get it.'

'You don't get what?' asked Lato.

'Why are there no protestors here?'

The questioner was Chuck, the hired gun Lato had come to know the best among Yanner's staff.

'That is an interesting question,' replied Lato. And it was one that he had been asking himself for weeks now.

That night, the pair of them were stationed in the foyer of the same smart hotel where Lato had had his interview seemingly years before. The hotel's restaurant and bar were full of Yanner employees blowing off steam; the rooms above were mostly let to those same people. Through the glass doors of the foyer, Lato saw the streets were almost empty, but for the odd couple, or party of merrymakers, returning home. It was just too quiet.

Lato let Chuck narrate his own thoughts for him,

'I mean. It's well known that Yanner owns the plant here; and has moved his kids from New York; and owns this chain of hotels. Anyone could guess that he and his family are up on the top floor right now. So, where are the crowds? Where are the police barricades?'

'We had some once, out at the plant,' remembered Lato, 'before the wall went up and the security got stronger.'

'Yeah, the same dozen we still get now,' declared Chuck. 'I could greet them all by name. By next week they'll be inviting me and the wife home for casserole.'

Lato smiled at his young colleague, offering,

'Well, if they don't invite you, come over to ours. Melissa's always glad to have you.'

'She's a great cook,' said Chuck from experience. 'Proper hometown Texan.'

'I'm just glad we didn't sell the house.'

'Yeah,' laughed Chuck, 'how long did you last in New York? A week?' He smiled, though the humour soon turned serious,

'I just hope we both still have a job come next week. Come on, Lato, you're the expert. What's going on? Why were we in that block-wide crowd-scene a month ago... and now here we are, chilling out on leather sofas looking out onto an empty downtown street?'

Lato could no longer dodge the question. He answered it with another question,

'Is it really as simple as the protestors not wanting to come out to the country?'

'You mean, too far from their lattes and salad bars?'

'Or too far from the media... how often do we see a camera truck outside here, Chuck?'

'Not too often.'

'No, sir. We don't.'

'So, you reckon they are the lazy ones? The news stations?'

'Maybe.'

'And the protestors only go where they'll be seen protesting?'

'A wiser man than me might not disagree.'

'Get off the fence, Lato.' Chuck sat up in his chair. 'You hate the protestors like I do.'

Lato didn't answer, though. Instead he reasoned,

'Yanner isn't daft. Do you think it's the first time he's built anything controversial? He knew where to site it, that's all I'm saying. Now, come on. In twenty minutes we're off shift; I'll buy you a beer.'
T-Minus 5 – The Year of Loss

Chapter 32 – Bobby's Last Day

The dream had never died for Bobby, though it hadn't ever become any more than that. Even after the death of his best friend two years earlier, he still ate up every morsel of news about the space station.

Now, though, he was nearing sixteen years old. On the last day of the school term, he sat with his mother in the office of his form tutor.

The teacher asked,

'So, you've chosen not to stay on for High School after your birthday?'

'He doesn't like the lessons,' answered his mother.

'Robert, you see how big this decision is? Not many firms take a man without a High School Diploma.'

Here his mother smiled at last, a smile of blessed relief,

'His aunt works for a job agency. He'll be busy, at least.'

'Well, that is a comfort,' offered the man. 'Though, Robert – Bobby – do you really want a life of mowing lawns, moving houses, shifting boxes?'

Bobby half-shrugged his shoulders, half-mouthing, 'Aw, I don't know.'

The teacher was perplexed,

'Bobby, I don't ever like a student to leave like this. To go without your Diploma is classified a failure, and I and the school are judged as such. Though, that isn't my main concern. It is to do with life choices. There are a hundred roads that may now never open up for you, roads you don't even know you'd want to go down.'

The teacher was getting nothing from the boy. He wound things up.

'Of course, you can change your mind at any time, come back to adult classes and get your Equivalency Certificate. Mrs Esher, I'd like it noted that your son has been a fine boy in my class – a team player, kind and fair and helpful. These skills, I'm sure, will help him in his personal affairs; I also hope professionally.' He stood and put his hand out across the desk.

'I wish you well, Robert,' and they shook.

'Well, say goodbye to the place,' said his mother once they were outside. Though Bobby left without deep feelings. She watched him slope along the pavement beside her, and a tiny voice almost wanted to shout out – 'You heard your teacher in there? You understand what he said?' Though she couldn't bring herself to be annoyed with the most precious person in her world. She was still half-spare with worry,

'You'd better hope that Danielle has something for you.' Though she knew her sister would have – that was the problem; she always had a dozen low-paid, low-prospect short-term vacancies to fill. The sort of job that finding your way unaided to the firm's front door was qualification enough for. In a world full of graduates with rising wage demands, it was a growing market. Now her son would be its latest recruit.

Though she tried to brighten, and announced,

'Now, the day I graduated my father bought me doughnuts. So, come on, I'm buying us doughnuts.' And the pair could smile awhile.
Chapter 33 – The Garrison Papers

'You're back!' cheered the men unloading the Harmony Base lift.

'Only for a week,' replied Ted Ferrarin, 'and then maybe not again for a while.'

Bradford heard the commotion and his friend's voice, though was too shy to go out and disturb their greeting.

Soon enough, though, Ted found his way to his friend's cabin,

'Knock, knock,' he voiced as he peered in through the door from the dark tunnel.

He found Bradford surrounded by paperwork and open notebooks, some full of writing in his own distinctive hand, others written by other people.

After a moment it clicked,

'These were the papers of the journalist who died?'

'Ahem,' confirmed Bradford. 'Robert Garrison of the Herald, as delivered to me by his bereaved fiancée, Miss Sandile Thornbury of that same paper.'

'Oh yes, that's not a day this base will forget easily. She was beautiful.'

'She was indeed.'

'So, is there anything in it?' asked Ted, not able to come too far across the busy floor. 'Or just the usual anti-everything pap?'

'From the protest groups, you mean? I'd have been inclined to think the same,' his friend lamented. 'Though after reading every word of it, I'm beginning to wonder.'

'Then, do "they" know you have it?'

'Who?'

'Whoever it names. Yanner, Kent? They're the rumours, aren't they?'

Bradford felt a chill go down his spine.

'I didn't mean to scare you, buddy,' offered Ted.

'No, no, they are mentioned. And don't worry, I know what I'm getting myself into.'

'You know best.' Ted was almost set to leave his friend to it for a bit, and catch up with him properly at lunch. But then Bradford opened up,

'The fact is that there is something in the papers, and I need Sandile back, though I know I won't get her.' Bradford exhaled, 'The next stage is the investigation, which has almost got lost behind the wild protests.'

'So, what is in the folder?' asked Ted.

'You've got time?'

'I've got all week,' he answered cheerily.

'Well... Robert's thing was getting the groups to talk, people who normally wouldn't open up to outsiders. Most of this is transcripts; though I've tried to summarise them where I can.'

Bradford pointed to his own notebooks, then went on,

'There's the usual social justice brigade, who turn out for everything. But here's a harder core, who come from Occupy Wall Street, Anonymous, real anarchists and hacktivists. They hide their tracks; most other journos don't even know the new groups exist. But they orchestrate the protests and Robert got in with them. There's stuff in here that will make your hair curl, Mr Ferrarin. Stuff about the Government.'

'I thought it was social issues that caused the trouble?'

'Forget it! For these guys, the issue is nothing less than the future of the human race. We've moved past Earth, so goes their theory, the place is overcrowded and polluted and too much trouble to fix up. Space is where we will develop and grow, where we have the best chance of air and light and resources. The art will be made up there, the discoveries.

'What we're talking here is the world's most expensive real estate by a factor of a million. Robert had a report from Earth ethnologists.' Bradford waved the half-inch-thick ream of bound paper.

'You've read all that?' asked Ted.

'I've had months to do nothing but read it. The planet's overcrowding will get worse – these space stations are about our best bet, and not many will make it onto them. And so, the groups are saying, who does get on, and who controls the admissions, are effectively deciding on the future of...'

'...the human race,' concluded Ted.

'Nothing less, my friend.'

'An evolutionary bottle-neck.'

'I knew you'd understand,' said Bradford. 'Only, for the first time in our planet's evolution, it won't be a comet or a plague that decides which creatures make it into the future, but a tiny number of our fellow men.'

Ted shook his head, explaining,

'Look, I see what you're getting at, Bradford. But this station, and each of them that follow, are only ever going to be staffed by our brightest and best.'

'But the groups would say, "Whose interpretation of brightest and best?"'

'Ah,' began Ted in a rare streak of cynicism, 'You mean they fancy getting up on there themselves?'

'Oddly enough, the groups are split. Some don't seem to want the station happening at all, they don't want the resources "wasted"; while others can't wait to get up there – we're all kids at heart, dreaming of space ships.'

Bradford added, 'Though I'm beginning to wonder – was Robert keeping in with these groups in case they won the fight, and he got his ticket that way?'

He rustled through his papers, and went on,

'Some of these are hardcore anti-business figures, downright Commies really.'

'That'll get Senator Joe spinning in his grave.'

'We might need him back,' joked Bradford without mirth. 'These groups see the station as a chance to finish what Lenin tried and failed at. The great social revolution; and they've only been buoyed by your colleague Zak not being able to answer questions on the social make-up of the new station – whether there'll be local democracy, civil rights. To the revolutionary, looking across the Earth at its solid governments and failed revolutions, this new territory is a gleaming opportunity to "get it right this time".

'And there's a more down-to-earth aspect too, if you'll forgive the pun, that I think will be our way to proceed with the story.'

'Some good news at last! What's that?'

'Well, there's another strand of protest, concerned with Government actions and trying to block them by due process. There are things we should have seen that just haven't happened. A lot of it's quite startling; like, you know that every public spending project has to go before Congress, Senate, Committees?'

'Yes, yes,' remembered Ted, 'I've been through enough of them – Treasury, Environmental Health, Worker's Rights.'

'Then, did you know that the Universal Space Station has not been called to answer at one single public hearing?'

'Well, now you come to mention it...'

'Or rather, it may have been called to attend, but has never been compelled to, and so hasn't.

'President Kent's own Press Secretary even dodged the question when he was asked it directly – the one time anyone has tried. However, when a request for information was followed up in writing, the White House had to respond. They came out with a cryptic statement declaring that, "Public scrutiny processes applicable to public-owned projects are not applicable in this case."'

'Wait, did you just say it isn't publicly owned?'

'Not in some key legal sense.'

Ted rubbed his forehead with his hand. Any hopes of a light catch-up conversation had ended quickly. He asked,

'And why was Robert the only one reporting this?'

'Perhaps the editors of the papers are all hoping for a golden ticket too,' answered Bradford, 'and not only for them, but for their families, their grandkids, their bloodline. An evolutionary future. That's a powerful draw, as powerful as any in our history – a ticket to the future!'

'You're beginning to sound like one of them.'

'Sorry, Ted. I don't mean it cynically. I just have to get to the root of what they're thinking. Any faction of these groups could spill over into terrorism. There is such anger here.'

He paused for breath, and regrouped,

'I was asked to complete Robert's work. I can't let it be for nothing.'

Ted surprised Bradford with his reply,

'Then, if someone has to do this, I'm glad it's you.'

Bradford was stunned, 'Why me?'

'Because you're sensible, and because you understand, and because your piece about Robert moved me and a lot of other people. But, if you do this, you have to promise me that we keep it a secret until we know what's happening.'

And Bradford promised he would.
Chapter 34 – Cynthia

Ms Mason, Licensed Private Investigator, Cynthia to friends, worked out of a small office in the Borough of Brooklyn, within the Port of New York. Apart from herself, in the office there was only a desk, a two-seat sofa, a bargain flat-screen television, and a steel filing cabinet. The TV and the sofa were new, and the old desktop PC and landline phone were now long gone. However, the room was much the same as it had been twenty years before when she had taken up the lease.

A laptop computer she now always kept with her, and her mobile phone the same. Even the metal cabinet was almost empty these days; yet the room still had three locks on the door.

From her desk was seen her only concession to taste and beauty – a view out over the great docks of New York, a reminder of the workers of her adopted city; for she was a country girl at heart. And on a clear day she could even see the Statue of Liberty.

In her simple office she could work without distraction, though she might only be there one day a week, if the job required.

This day, though, she had needed to sit quietly at her desk and ponder on the view outside; as she had received a new commission, and an exceptional one at that.
Chapter 35 – A Hand to Hold

'Bradford, call for you!'

The writer looked up from his papers. At that moment he was on the floor on all fours surrounded by them. Having had Ted there the previous week had helped, but even he had had to leave again.

There was just too much for Bradford to ever get in order: Robert's field notes from numberless political meetings, demos and briefings; Xeroxed Government memos he wasn't sure he was supposed to be seeing; legal transcripts of hearings into public disturbances or protests lodged against the space station project, some of which had gone on for days; snippets of everything Robert had had published those past six years.

And then there were further snippets – compiled by Robert and Sandile – of leaks and tit-bits, unfounded and/or libellous, and so not able to be carried in the Herald. These the couple had published anonymously in other places, so as to make a point, or gain a reaction or a retraction from somebody, or to push an argument onward, or just to cause trouble. The difficulty was, that after-the-fact and without context, it was near impossible for Bradford to piece together what had been intended by each anonymous time-bomb.

Worst of all, though, were the endless rambling transcripts of interviews with borderline-psychotic group leaders and anti-space fanatics, who had focussed their desires and compulsions on the space station project, as they would have done with many other causes before that, undoubtedly.

These papers, though, only partially matched the cassettes that Sandile had also left him. To work through them required many hours of Bradford sitting in his Spartan cabin, under artificial light, or listening in the dark corridor outside his room's plastic walls. As, all the while, these vain and dangerous men played out their fantasy-politics and retribution daydreams for Robert's eager tape recorder. Sometimes the voices were garbled or hysterical, sometimes with the hyena-laughing of their cronies emphasising every point, and sometimes spoken in the dazed torpor of the obviously drugged.

Bradford wondered: what was Robert's story going to be? The station; or the people who became obsessed with it?

Bradford felt among them now, one of their breed: he had spent months, off and on, with these papers around him, without help, guidance, balance, grounding. Thanksgiving was a blur, Christmas had just flown. New Year he noticed three days later.

Living underground, day and night became the reading of a digital clock; then Bradford put the clock in a cupboard, as he didn't need the distraction. He needed help – but where could a secretary be found a mile underground? The pressure became dreadful. All he knew was that it wasn't helping his mental health.

'Bradford! Are you there?'

He had already forgotten the call waiting for him, in the space of a few moments. Was he losing his mind over this story?

His knees creaked as he got up from the cool floor. Shambling into the main hall, he took the handset with a nod and barely an awareness of the chamber. It was just as well he didn't focus on what was going on around him, as one workman whispered to another, 'And he looks a fricking mess.'

'Hello?' he asked the handset.

'Mr Bradford?'

'Yes?'

'Ms Mason. How goes it?'

'I'm sorry?' he offered with a lack of recognition. 'I hear a lot of names in my profession.' That answer may have been true of his days as a journalist or author, but it was so far removed from his current situation as to feel like a lie. However, if this 'Ms Mason' recognised this then she didn't call him out on it. Instead she let him ask,

'Have we met?'

The answer came like a lungful of air to a drowning man,

'We have a mutual friend, Sandile Thornbury. She's been in Europe longer than she thought, and emailed me to suggest that I help you to complete her story.'

'Yes, yes,' he gulped eagerly. 'They gave me so much material! Are you coming down to help?'

The answer wasn't what he hoped,

'That isn't how I like to work. I prefer to be the feet on the ground, let others do the background, and the writing. I only met Sandile on three occasions in all the time we worked together.'

Again, the past tense in regard to Sandile's journalistic career. Bradford noticed this, even with everything else that was going on.

Ms Mason's words might not have been what he had wanted to hear, but they proved a temporary setback, as she continued,

'I know what you mean, though. God bless him, but Robert could be a data-hoarder. Granted, it might all come in useful, though it carries its own weight, no?'

Bradford almost collapsed in the phone booth – someone who understood! Here was the voice of an angel. She continued,

'Sandile could feel the same – he didn't tell her everything, but I could help her with it.'

'How?'

'With practical solutions. Action solves everything, Mr Bradford.'

'A mystic would say, that it is only when we are still that we can know ourselves.'

'Well, I've never solved a story from the top of a mountain in Tibet.'

'Who pays for you?' he asked, suddenly worried for his bank balance.

'The paper – I have a rolling contract. You work for them too, so that makes us work buddies! Now, you go and have a sleep, and I'll phone again tomorrow.'

And he did, and he slept like a baby.
Chapter 36 – It's a Hell of a Town

'Tell me everything,' Cynthia asked Bradford when she called again as promised. Refreshed from his sleep, it all poured out.

She worked by lists; and following their talk, she needed to notate. On a blank computer document, she wrote three names, from her memory of the conversation and from the shorthand notes she'd made:

– Pres. Kent

– Prof. Zak

– Yanner

Against the first name she added, 'Breaking the Commander in Chief. The hardest nut to crack in the country.'

Against the middle one she noted, 'But what does he really know? Plus: the public loves NASA, they don't want to read if they're corrupt.'

Against the third she concluded, 'The most powerful and visible businessman in the country – this is who I'm left with!'

'Hell of a choice,' she said out loud. She saved the file as 'Wheels in the Sky', which was how she thought of the station spinning away up in the heavens, beyond the blue envelope of our own sky. In her document she then typed a paragraph, as if like a diary entry, writing out loud,

'I once heard a writer talk of how he "made the personal political", i.e. had a single character suffer the consequences of a government policy.

'The problem with this space story is that it is all "too big", "too political". And the people involved are the biggest cheeses in the land. I need to go the other way, I need the figures on the ground. I need to make "the political personal".'

She wrote three more names on her page, this time of places:

– Washington

– New York

– Texas Plant?

For Washington, she wrote, 'Too secure, too cynical, too practised at evading reporters – even the coffee shops and newspaper vendors see us a mile off. No messy edges!'

For New York, she wrote, 'Not much better than Washington, though the riots are very, very messy.' And a quote by Andrew Loog Oldham, '"The time in the trenches is the time."'

She left the last one blank for now, flipped her computer shut and left.

Downtown, the streets were bustling and normal on that sunny morning; until Cynthia came upon the demonstrations. What had started as a random protest the year before, had solidified around the death of Robert Garrison to become a human gridlock that still incapacitated whole areas of the town. Though winter had taken its toll on numbers, with many leaving to find home or shelter, come spring and the same streets that had begun to clear and repair themselves were again under siege.

Meanwhile, on the first and most focal block, that running beneath the now-infamous Yanner Building, there was a protest that had taken great pride in never being broken – fires and coverings had been erected, and much food and winter clothing hurled down by well-wishers, despite the police's best advice. 'Don't Feed the Animals' had been the caption of one particularly mordant newspaper cartoon; this after people had frozen to death.

However, what with the time that had passed, and with new stories to entertain the public, the protests old and new were now barely being reported on.

As she approached, Cynthia sensed an outer ring of quiet, as cars were diverted away and business were shuttered closed. This lasted for a block all around the disturbances. With a blue-uniformed officer on every corner, it could have been a public holiday, or preparations for a marathon or Thanksgiving parade about to come past.

She nodded to the officers, only needing to briefly flash her press card.

'Boring work, eh?' she said to one, who seemed desperate for anyone to talk to.

'You're telling me. If you're here, does that mean that you're expecting something to happen?' he asked very expectantly.

'Sorry, buddy,' she answered, 'I just thought I'd come down and see it for myself.'

'Then you want to go two blocks that-a-way,' he gestured with an arm, the way policemen did all around the world, directing traffic or people.

'Thank you,' she offered, and went off as instructed.

Soon on her journey, however, the false calm broke. Around the corner a glass bottle flew across Cynthia's path and shattered against a wall. She stepped back a moment, then could not resist a peek. No more than five yards ahead of her were twenty officers in riot gear, nearly all with their backs to her. Beyond them was an entire city block, four traffic-lanes and two sidewalks wide, of placard wavers, sit-in protestors, shouters, gesturers, and presumably those who once came along for the day and found themselves barricaded in.

'Step away, ma'am,' she was instructed by the one officer watching the others' backs.

A show of her press card let her stay, but she kept a cool distance.

'Is that the Yanner Building?' she asked, not certain of its exact location.

'No, ma'am, that's a block further south – there's no way through to there. This block went out in sympathy, and ended up just as bad.'

The officer's words made it sound to Cynthia as if it were the residents of that block themselves out on the street, and not the several hundred demonstrators she was seeing, who hadn't been able to fit into the road outside of Yanner's building and so pitched up next door.

The air was still and warm that day; though the slightest breeze wafted over, bringing a smell of bad clothes and disinfectant.

'How are they living?' she asked.

'Like animals!' came the reply. 'We try and give them stuff, they smash it up or throw it back.'

'But can they get out?'

'We try and let them, but they just attack us. Some are pulled up into the buildings, but most just want to stay.'

'Why, though?' she asked, partly as a journalist and partly as a human being.

'Because this is the battle of their times. It's what a lot of them have waited for – an enemy worth fighting.'

He added, 'I think they want people to die here – it's mania.'

She took a couple of photos – a sideline for the paper – then waved the officer good day.

Though, as she left, he shouted,

'And you know the stupid thing? He's not even in town.'

'How do you know?' she asked, stopping in her tracks.

'Because when all this started we had a standing order to look out for his car – we haven't had it repeated for five months.'
Chapter 37 – Gap-Years

'So, he's gone,' muttered Cynthia to herself as she walked off from the police cordon. 'Typical – the rest of us get stuck here, while the rich get helicoptered out.'

Though it left her with another question to answer: 'So, where is Yanner? And when was he last seen?'

Before she could work it out, though, she had another place to go to first.

Oddly enough, the side-road with the café was unaffected, the place where the trouble had all started. It felt as though both sides had known to stay well clear. Now, Cynthia stood outside the long-vacated venue, with its boarded-up window and wilting flowers, and paid her respects. She hadn't known Robert directly, but had admired his work; and of course, she was suffering for Sandile.

The café was still closed, like almost every local business; and after a moment she moved on to find her third port of call.

She got out her phone – thankfully the signal was still working – there would have been a riot on top of a riot were the networks to be crashed by the police. She accessed the social media account of an acquaintance of hers. This girl, the daughter of a friend, was somewhere in the Yanner street blockades; and thankfully, as a youngster, she had posted many photos.

Looking at them afresh, Cynthia cursed her local knowledge of these exact streets; but she spotted a small green building in one picture that she was sure she'd walked past before.

Getting there would take her right around to the other side of the demo, though. This was no small feat in a city under gridlock. Between the buildings, and the road-blocks, and the waved arms telling her, 'You can't go down there!' every step in one direction was countered by another one sideways.

So often was she having to show her press pass, eventually she simply put it on a ribbon around her neck. After twenty minutes' walking, though, and barely seeing a soul beyond officers and occasional tourists, the extent of the closedown was brought home to her.

Before coming home to America, Cynthia had worked as a war reporter. Well, more of a researcher really, the girl who found hotel rooms in smashed cities for camera crews. Now, those days came back to her quite quickly, in two different ways.

Firstly, she remembered the fear of her mother when she left, and for every day her daughter wasn't safe at home. Cynthia remembered that time bitter-sweetly now, knowing the upset she had caused. But recently at last her family could laugh about it, her father even calling it her 'Advanced gap year!'

She had needed adventure, a break from home and town and, hell, even civilisation; replacing it with something primal, life and death. Without World Wars or conscription, then the young in the West didn't get that anymore, unless they went out looking for it. She had gone to Kosovo and Afghanistan and Iraq, for nearly six years in total, to find it for herself – while today's young could take a spring break in New York, where, waiting for them, were streets without shelter or bedding or sanitation; where their need for anarchy was supplied by lines of armoured police officers to hit at at any time of day or night.

And then there was the second thing that came to her mind – that this city, with its closed-off streets, and air of panic, and glimpses of distant violence as she crossed each city block, felt like a foreign city, a war-torn city, an embattled city. Older reporters would talk about the LA Riots of the Nineties, or even those across the country in the Sixties; but Cynthia had only known her adopted city as endangered and fragmented as this once before; and that was an experience that no New Yorker would ever need to have explained to them.
Chapter 38 – The Street with the Green Building

Cynthia had soon found the street she thought she needed, and raised the photo on her phone to compare. There was the building, there the angle – her friend's daughter was in there somewhere.

Ahead of her was another cordon of the type she had already seen that day. This one, though, had a fever about it. Here were no chatty officers; but shouts of, 'Get back! Get back!' There was the smell of burning, and smoke lingered above.

Elsewhere, a stillness remained – these buildings went so high up; was there anybody in them? But now the sound of heavy engines could be heard reverberating along the narrow canyons of New York.

'I need to find this girl!' she shouted over the background-din of the protesting crowd – they could tell that something was coming.

The police just glared, and got back to their duty.

All of a sudden, the volume of the engines increased hugely, and four vast green trucks came around a corner to park across what was, in 'peacetime', a busy city intersection.

Troops without markings leapt down in order, forming armed lines behind the chaotic police ranks.

Soon a senior figure, in a green round cap and not a helmet, appeared on the roof of the nearest truck. He had a loudhailer, and begun without greeting,

'Protestors, this street contains an electrical substation that supports a hospital and a water pumping station. It is essential that we have access to this substation. The police will back away, and you can leave orderly; however, whether you leave or not, we will be securing this street.'

Cynthia shook her head at the wording – were they daring the protestors to challenge them? She herself had backed away into a doorway. The army hadn't seen her, and she fumbled with her phone to start recording from around a tight corner. Instinct should have seen her run, but she stayed behind to film.

As announced, the police suddenly pulled back to each side. The protestors nearest to them didn't know what to do. They were told they could flee, but in front of them was now a row of armed soldiers. A couple bolted, left or right. When the soldiers held formation, this emboldened others to do the same. Among them was her friend's daughter, praise be, without possessions, clutching a girlfriend's hand.

Soon about half of the street had scarpered, leaving behind them a mess of filthy sleeping bags, broken tents, and food debris. The police sneered at them as they ran past, dirt-streaked and rained-upon.

The other half, though, came forward through the mess, and stared down the army – the police were steering clear, they wanted no part of this.

Nor did Cynthia. Though still she was filming – nobody had spotted her around her corner. The stand-off built. The afternoon had suddenly seemed dark, and now the crossroads was cast in deep shadow from the looming city blocks.

It was all set for a bloodbath. Cynthia had seen such scenes before, knew the signs: the look in people's eyes of, 'Come on then, just do it.'

But then it didn't happen. Instead, the senior figure on the roof of the truck, climbed down and got in, as the driver fired up the big engine. Two other trucks beside it also fired up, leaving only one in position. The line of soldiers broke, and the three trucks simply started driving side by side down the street, at moderate speed.

Even one-to-one against armed soldiers, the hardcore had been relishing the fight; but taking on a truck? They moved back slowly at first, before turning, running, falling over the tents and piles of rubbish, slipping on old clothes, and food thrown down from the buildings and smearing the street.

The trucks were only going ten miles an hour, though this was a lot for a human to keep up with, and on such an obstacle course. Once a truck arrived at each hindrance, though, it merely crushed it beneath its large tyres, or brushed it aside with its hefty fenders. Some protestors dodged to the sides, and waited for them to pass. This was a narrower street than some around it, and they were very wide vehicles, but it was still just possible to side-step them.

There was little fight left in the demonstrators now – it was as though the state would kill you on the highway, like an auto collision, a real, ugly, unheroic, unglamorous death. This brought home the danger, and had them fleeing for their homes.

Once the trucks had passed, those pressed against the sides of the buildings ran back to Cynthia's end of the street, eyed the re-formed line of soldiers – again they didn't flinch – even shared a look of horror with the equally baffled police, then fled.

Was anyone crushed? What was happening? Cynthia could just see maybe a dozen of the toughest nuts were facing the trucks as they advanced, still staring down the drivers and throwing all they could find in their way. One truck exploded into flames from a Molotov cocktail, but it just drove through the flames without even its paint being blackened.

What would happen when the final protestors met the police at the far end of the street, she wondered, with the trucks still bearing down on them? Cynthia couldn't see. She couldn't break cover to chase the vehicles – she would surely lose her phone and be arrested, if not get caught up in the melee.

Then she looked across the road, and saw a young police officer staring right at her. She realised she had turned with her phone and was now filming him! He made an urgent patting-down gesture, and she quickly lowered the camera. The engine of the fourth truck fired up, and, without instruction, the remaining soldiers gathered themselves back up into it.

While all this was going on, Cynthia turned back to the officer. Now he was waving to his right. She looked along the shadowed, deserted street that led off in that direction. There she saw, just a minute's run away, was a civic area, food stalls and entertainments, life as normal, totally unaffected by civil unrest! 'The army would never chase you there,' was what he was suggesting.

She put her phone away, mouthed 'Thank you,' and, while the army were distracted, broke cover and ran.
Chapter 39 – Fallout

When she got to the busy corner, Cynthia leaned against a wall, drew breath, and dared to peek around the building she was resting against. No one was following her. At one point her phone had bounced out of her pocket, and only now she dared to study the parts it had broken into. It looked as though she'd lost the battery, and the screen was smashed. Though that didn't bother her so much.

She quickly found a payphone – there were still such things in New York City – and called her Editor,

'They were just driving at them,' she explained.

'What, like running them down?'

'More like rounding them up, though I didn't hear the trucks slow down at all.'

'Well, stay where you are. We'll get your phone picked up. You did well to film it.'

'But you're got to blur the policeman's face,' she implored, 'he helped me get away.'

'He also stood by and let this happen,' considered the Editor.

'More to the point,' she asked, 'why was it only me there – by accident – covering it?'

'You're a big girl, Cyn. Don't get grumpy. You know we don't have the resources to cover a story once it's gotten old. Even one in our own city.'

'But it was because there was no one there that they could do this.' She breathed deeply, still out of puff. 'You need someone down here right now, or I reckon they'll go through each street in turn.'

'And they said they were doing it to secure an electrical substation?'

'The soldiers all drove off, and there were no engineers with them. Could you check out if there even is a substation there?'

'Leave it with us. Though we'll be busy.'

'Oh?'

'Well, if they are doing this under Presidential Order...'

'How do you know it's a Presidential Order?'

He emphasised, 'Because Washington haven't given a Defence press briefing in a week, so it's not them.'

'Defence?' she queried. 'But that's overseas.'

'No, we've only ever known it overseas. If it's on our shores and it's bad enough, then the Generals are in on it. Who do you think normally calls out the National Guard?'

She left a silence. She had been so used to bad governments overseas that she couldn't believe that there was one in America now. And Kent had been such a bland President, only Space had ever fired him. Her boss asked,

'What were you there for anyway?'

She hesitated, but had to tell him,

'I might be working with Philip Bradford.'

'Sandile gave him Robert's notes – it all clicks. Who else would she trust with them? I thought we'd lost that work forever. Well, that puts you on the payroll, girl. I know you like your independence, but this is too big. Full expenses, no other projects, you hear?'

'That was the plan.'

'Of course it was, because you know this is the only game in town.'

Cynthia did know it, and the camera-phone footage was too important not to have handed it in. But this put her under pressure now – the whole paper would know what she was doing; and having a boss meant that she was under orders to get results.

He asked,

'So you were there as his eyes and ears?'

'Yes, basic prep.'

'And what did you learn?'

'Oh yes.' She'd almost forgotten her scoop. 'That Yanner left New York, five months gone. Did we know that?'

'Well, he always comes and goes. Now you mention it though... Janice, Janice!' she heard him bellow the name across the office of the woman Cynthia knew to be the Herald's Entertainments reporter. 'Claude Yanner, have you seen him around lately? Film premiers, charity dinners?' He came back to Cynthia, 'Janice hasn't seen him either.'

'Can we track his plane?' she asked.

'"We" can't.' Then he added with a smile in his voice, 'Though our guy at La Guardia can.'

'Do I have to, boss?'

'Yes. Get on it. This is our mission now, all hands to the pump.'
Chapter 40 – Traffic

Cynthia was getting bored of New York now. She didn't love the place too much that day. She also felt that she already knew where Yanner was, and that it would be so much easier once she got there – and all the while she was missing her chance. But she had to make sure first.

She'd lost her contacts with her phone, but rang the paper's switchboard and was soon put through to the airport.

'Hello, is Fred Taylor there, in Air Traffic Control?'

'Yes, who's calling?'

'Personal call.'

'Putting you through.'

'This is Fred Taylor,' issued the familiar voice.

'Fred...'

'Cynthia... long time, no hear?'

'Well, you know, busy, busy.'

'But not too busy for a call to your old mate Fred, eh? You know,' he resumed, changing tone, 'you never did get back to me about that date you promised.'

'Well, I'm not sure I ever "promised".'

'Hey, fair is fair. I...' he paused and started again, lowering his voice, 'I tracked Marine One all over the country for you that week last year, when you wanted to know which "leading industry figure" it had been that Kent had made that steel deal with.'

'Yes, you did.'

'And you figured it out, based on my data.'

'Yes, we did.'

'I know you did, I read it in your paper.'

'And you were fairly recompensed...'

His voice rose again, 'But that wasn't all that was promised...'

Jesus, was she really having to do this?

'Look, Fred. I'm seeing someone now. It just wouldn't feel right.'

'Oh.'

The dejection was palpable, she hadn't meant to crush him.

'Do you love him?'

'Yes,' she lied, as there was no 'him' to love, or a 'her' for that matter – she sailed a solo voyage, whether or not by choice.

'Well, of course, I wouldn't want to...'

'Step on anyone's toes.'

'No, no.'

'Though you could still earn my undying respect,' she joked, 'if that's any good to ya?'

Within an hour, the name came through to that same phone-box. A chastened and almost beatific Fred spoke slowly and evenly, his voice full of joy for the fascinating facts he was to disclose, told to the woman whom he seemed to respect even more now for not having to worry about getting a date with,

'You were right about the time period in which he left New York,' began Fred, 'and it was for Fort Worth.'

'I knew it,' said Cynthia.

'But not the airport – it was the Joint Reserve Base. That's an Air Force base, Cynthia. A civil aircraft, a private jet, no less, being allowed to use an Air Force base – no queuing, no bag-checks. What strings is this guy pulling?'

'Maybe we'll find out. And has he been back?'

Here Fred paused for effect, before announcing,

'Not only has he not been back to New York, but his plane hasn't pinged on the grid in five months!'

'Thank you, Fred.'

Cynthia rang off. She got her laptop out, and added to her document, as a reminder and a prompt to herself:

– What are my memories of Texas?
Chapter 41 – Checking-In

The partnership soon fell into a regular routine: Cynthia would call Bradford every morning or evening, before or after her day's activities; meanwhile, Bradford would try to do his work in more regular hours.

The next day's call began briskly,

'I haven't long, I'm about to board a flight to Texas.'

'What? Already? Why?'

'I told you, Mr Bradford. Practical action.'

'But Texas?'

'You've been studying the background?'

He racked his brains, then remembered,

'There was a demo there, two years ago. A new factory people thought was connected?'

'Not just that. I spoke to people in New York before leaving. It isn't popularly known yet, but Yanner isn't in New York. He flew to Texas months ago and hasn't been back.'

'Good, good. So, you're travelling under an assumed name?'

'No, my own. I'm not registered as a threat by anyone in the security services – I've had that checked out by a contact of mine – and a false name only gets found out eventually. Though I am there under false pretences – as a rep for a marketing company. I have the business brochure and everything.'

'You are a loss to their industry.'

'Honestly, I tried to read the brochure for familiarity; and if selling advertising space was really my job, then I don't think I'd last a day without screaming. What a relief it is to talk to you and get back to the real.'

'So, when will you call next?'

'When I have something to tell you, or on the third day – that's my limit there.'

'Good, I'll hear from you soon.' And Bradford went away to think.
Chapter 42 – Motel Convo

It had been a long day already. After arriving at Fort Worth Airport in the morning, Cynthia had hired a car and reached the small town of Mayweather around lunchtime. Then on to her place to stay...

A brief Internet search before heading out had revealed two decent-sized hotels in the town – she had studied the information on the websites for each:

One was a Global Guest, though she didn't like that chain too much to begin with – far too sterile and airless, she never slept well there. They'd also ask for every form of identification on the planet, and want to charge it all to a card and email her the receipt. Such things were standard in the world of business travel and company accounts, where half the guests weren't paying for themselves to begin with. Though they were never helpful to the agent eager to arrive out of nowhere and then to disappear into the shadows just as easily.

Much more amenable, she sensed, would be the Welcome Rest Hotel, a seemingly independent establishment. Whereas Global Guest seemed to be so new to the town that there was hardly any online information specific to that newest branch, the opposite was true of the Welcome Rest. It appeared to Cynthia to pre-date the Internet Age, with its website being an afterthought constructed by those unproficient in the new technology. A single scrolling page offered photos of the venue and its rooms, and the basic information of an address and telephone number, declaring that, 'Our loyal staff are waiting to receive your booking, for stays short and long.'

The Welcome Rest received Cynthia's very short booking in person at the front desk, not even asking for a credit card. Though, of course she gave her name, for the first time in the town – which for Cynthia was always a marker in an investigation, and served as a psychological starting gun. Now she was on countdown.

It turned out to be the friendly venue that Cynthia had hoped for. The receptionist was the daughter of the owning family, mid-thirties, guessed Cynthia, and happy with her lot in life,

'My husband and I run the place now,' she explained in easy chatter. 'And yourself?'

Cynthia was already in the business dress that would be her only cover,

'A conference,' she explained, 'in Dallas. Though I've stayed on a couple of days, I've always wanted to see the real Texas.'

'Well, the area around here is certainly very "real".'

'Oh?'

'Just make sure you stay on the main roads. You can get lost out there for days.'

Cynthia had certainly passed long stretches of scrub and wilderness on her drive there, the kind of landscape that rural folk could walk across without fear, but which threw city dwellers into a tailspin, too used to seeing direction signs at every corner. The woman continued,

'Seriously, though, the Native American Museum is very good. And I can draw a couple of scenic drives out on that map of yours, if you liked.'

Cynthia was keen to let her, though for the first time felt a pang of wishing she really was there for sightseeing.

'And you've got competition I see, since I was last in town.'

If the receptionist was bothered about the new hotel, she didn't show it in her demeanour, and was happy to explain,

'It's mostly there for the new plant, though. And pretty much all of those who stayed here before still do so. It even brings us business – we had a very well-to-do couple in here this morning, after the Global Guest didn't have a room for them.'

'So they're busy?'

'Always, it looks like. At least every time I drive past!' Then she turned serious, 'Though I wouldn't ask too many questions around town.'

'Oh?'

'Before it was built, my father asked for the planning application from the Town Council – you know, to size up the opposition. It was very hush hush. They hardly told him a thing. At first we worried; but the way it's turned out, it's been fine. Shall I ask Rob to bring your bags?'

'No, I've only this one with me.'

Cynthia wished the receptionist well, and went on up to her room. Once settled in, though, something puzzled Cynthia about the hotel she hadn't chosen. Mayweather was a tiny town – on her web search she had had to zoom down to the lowest level to see it on the Internet map. And already there were branches of the Global Guest in Dallas and Austin, so why also place one there also?

She sent a text to her Editor, simply asking, 'Global Guest???'

He came back with one word, 'Yanner.'
Chapter 43 – High Dining

Lato looked out through the grey-tinted floor-to-ceiling windows of the hotel restaurant, and wondered whether that thick, sound-proof – some said bullet-proof – glass represented the division between where he was now and where he had come from. Outside was the real Texas, inside was a sterilised, perma-shadowed, air-conditioned, twenty-four-hour-buffet version of life. It wasn't even like the New York building he had been at for such a short time – that had been bright and airy, retail money through and through.

Chuck was sat eating beside him. Lato started,

'It was three or four years ago they broke ground on this place.'

'It takes a while to build a hotel, I guess,' he noted between mouthfuls.

'So, we're accepting that the big guy built it before it was known he owned Sigmundsonn, and years before he told any of us he'd be running things from this town?'

'He's not daft,' answered Chuck, with more certainty. 'Thinking that far ahead – it's a skill.'

'It is that,' offered Lato, in a way that could have been read either way. He asked, 'But is it a skill for business, or for planning others' lives years ahead of what he's publicly admitted?'

'Keep it down, eh.'

'A skill for assuming the allocation of vast amounts of public funds half a decade before the fact?'

'Jesus, Lato. You'll get us canned talking like that. Where's all this coming from anyway?'

Though Lato didn't answer. Instead, he looked at his barely-started meal, and asked Chuck,

'How's yours going down?'

'Yeah, good. It's potato salad, like my Ma used to make.'

'And does it taste like your Ma used to make it?'

'Not really.'

'Well, I've been eating buffet for four days now. I could kill for a steak.'

And then the strangest thing happened: the authentic Texas appeared right there in that weird shaded room. At the salad counter of the buffet, a true voice sung out as it asked,

'Dear, is there a grill in this restaurant?'

The young woman answered without answering,

'We have Thai beef, black bean pork, and marinated chicken.'

After some thought, the diner decided, 'I'll have the chicken. And can I have that with barbeque sauce?'

'We have thousand island dressing, soy sauce, satay, sweet and sour, English mustard, French mustard, mayonnaise, and our own variety of mustard mayonnaise.'

'Well, you didn't buy those at the local store, eh?'

The attendant answered the query with an earnestness that would have placed her in good stead were the owner of the hotel in earshot,

'No, madam. We have them all imported. Our chain feel it's important to offer our international business customers the same variety of global flavours at whichever of our locations they are staying around the world.'

'Just nothing that the residents of this state might recognise as a square meal?'

Lato watched the woman as she ordered: her reactions, her expressions, her quiet disquiet at the offerings of the 'world buffet' – here was the kind of woman he recognised from his own town. She was his people, and as lost in this environment as he was.

He barrelled over, offering,

'My buddy swears by the potato salad.'

'Do I look like a woman who wants potato salad?'

He smiled, as she looked across the busy tables, offering,

'Won't you join me and my friend?'

'Thank you.' She called over to another woman, loading her plate high, 'Molly, we're over here.'

Molly nodded back.

'Look, Chuck,' said Lato as they arrived, 'another authentic Texan.'

'Wow, that's my second in... how long?' the younger man joked, throwing his napkin on his plate. 'I'm a New Yorker, me. I could take or leave this place, no offence. Too much desert. Well, I'll have to love you and leave you – I'm needed up on...' He grinned at nearly giving away a secret. 'You guys enjoy your evening.'

Molly passed Chuck as he left the table, with a heaving plate that belied her slim figure, saying,

'I'll take this upstairs – I have those reports to go through.'

And so Nicole found herself alone with this younger man.

'So, what part of town are you from?' he asked her.

'Galveston...'

'We used to go to the coast when I was a kid.'

'...via UCLA.'

'So, you're an academic?'

'I don't look like one?' she joked.

'No, I just couldn't place you in this crowd.'

'I'm sorry, I'm in a silly mood. I'm probably light headed – I haven't eaten since this morning. So, where are you from?'

He looked out through the window,

'Right out there.'

'This is your home town?'

'Yes, though it must have been a week since I stepped outside.'

'That's awful.'

'I go where he goes, and he hasn't left either...' Lato paused himself as Chuck had done. He was still getting used to how top secrecy could kill almost any conversation.

'Don't worry,' she offered to resume things, 'I can say about as much about my job as you can about yours.' She saw his discomfort, and brought the talk back around to her food, 'Look at this – there's four bites of chicken on this skewer.'

'How do they survive on it?' he asked rhetorically.

'Oh, I see the type all the time at science conferences and hotels – they eat like birds, then work it off all evening at the gym. It's not for me. "The international business customer",' she repeated from her conversation with the assistant at the buffet, 'is a placeless creature. I wonder if they even have homes?'

'Well, I certainly hadn't seen them in town before this crew blew in,' he advised.

'Aren't you one of them then?' she joked.

'Ha, I suppose so. Only for this last year though – I used to be in the Sheriff's.'

'You must hate being cooped up then.' She let her stomach do the talking, 'I think your colleague said that he's the one on duty now. Do you know somewhere we can get a steak?'
Chapter 44 – Mitchell's Bar

Cynthia Mason finally sat down around eight pm on her first day of reconnaissance, which she had mostly spent walking and driving around the town. She chose about the only place of interest that she hadn't scouted yet: Mitchell's Bar.

Twice or three times she had passed it; and each time it had had a different cast of cars and trucks outside. This was clearly a lively venue and the place to go in town.

Inside the large wooden room, she bought a coffee and picked a table in a raised area near the rear, above the eye-line of the pool players and those craning their necks watching sports from televisions hung over the bar. The soundtrack was the universal patois of bar-rooms: easy joking among buddies, half-meant curses over sporting contests going wrong, chat-up lines offered to barmaids who had heard it all before, and all soothed away by sweet, sweet Country and Western at low volume.

Business travel was her cover, though Cynthia considered the laptop a bit too much for such a venue. Instead, she jotted her notes down in longhand, while the recollections were still fresh. With her prospectus open beside her as a social prop, she wrote in thin black pen on a spiral-bound notebook:

– No public access to Sigmundsonn/Yanner plant. Black buses arriving, unmarked, surely owned by company or privately hired. Boarding them likely to be highly controlled.

– It turns out he owns the town's biggest hotel, also the newest of the two – 'Global Guest'. Black buses were parked outside there also, suggesting this is the other end of the line. It seems the obvious place for out-of-town employees to stay. So...

– Possible path of investigation – is he charging the tax payer for the use of one of his own businesses by the other?

– Yanner Hotel has a bar and restaurant on the ground floor.

– In casual clothes, made two strolls past this venue. It seems to be where his people also spend their evenings. Two black-suited men lounging in the lobby at all times. Hardly any locals entering, they prefer a bar called Mitchell's closer to the town centre.

– Yanner plant and hotel are becoming key in my mind.

– Everywhere I've been I've tried to spark up conversation on these two places, though nothing doing – I couldn't judge if townsfolk are keeping quiet for their better interests, or whether just bored of it. It could simply be that, for most here, Sigmundsonn/Yanner doesn't touch their lives.

– So far – I've only gained some first-hand detail for the article.

– (Oddly missing from the town, I've seen no visible press all day).

This last point was certainly true. Her scoop that Yanner had left New York months ago had only been released that morning, but still... had no one else caught up with the fact that he was here in Mayweather? Or was it the same effect that had seen her be the only reporter on the scene when the New York demos were being cleared? Were people simply getting bored of the story? Had an actress somewhere left her boyfriend; or a politician got in a mess eating jelly at a children's party? Had some other photo opportunity stolen the front page?

Cynthia didn't know, but still, the press silence spooked her. Like a global tennis match, the world had turned its heads to face the action at the other end of the court.

She nodded to the couple next to her to watch her things, and went away to make a call.

She was of a generation of reporters old enough to still note the location of the public telephone when she entered a building, should she later need it.

She walked to the booth at the end of the bar, slotted in the coins, and waited for her new partner to be called to the line,

'I don't have long,' she began without greeting.

'Then give it to me,' asked Bradford, now also up to speed with their professional arrangement.

'So, I've spun past the Sigmundsonn plant twice in my hire car – never stopping, never slowing down. It's vast, Bradford. Easily big enough for whatever we think they may be building there. On the second trip I passed a row of builders' trucks and cement mixers coming the other way, so the chances are that they are expanding further still.

'As for the front gate, there is now a hundred yards of concrete six foot tall, set ten feet back from the road, with two raised guard posts looking out over it, and two entrances with sliding steel gates.'

'They've been reinforcing.'

'They have. Protests are minimal there now. Because, what can you shout at a wall?'

'Please tell me you're not going to try and get inside there?'

'Please, Mr Bradford. In this garish skirt-suit I may have lost my style but not my wits. The weakness isn't in the plant; it's that most of those who work there live and socialise in town. That's where I need to focus. I've barely started my research. I've given myself another day to reconnoitre, and then that last evening to work; and then I get out. That's my estimate, based on many years of experience.'

'You be careful.'

'I will.'
Chapter 45 – People-Watching

What the Welcome Rest Hotel was to the Global Guest, so Mitchell's was to its 'world buffet' restaurant. Where the Yanner-owned hotel felt on the outskirts, distant to the town and the lives of the people who lived there, Mitchell's, like the Welcome Rest, was in the centre and full of human warmth.

Cynthia ordered a toasted sandwich – she could only bear to eat lightly at this level of professional concentration – and observed: she could people-watch at a place like that all day long.

In one corner were some men who she guessed to be construction workers chilling out after coming off-shift. She guessed that any builders in town would be working on the huge new plant; but she didn't want to start a fight wading in amongst those guys, who were probably earning more than they ever had done before, under the caveat of heavy non-disclosure contracts.

The couple sitting by her were quiet, respectable, but laughing a little as they unwound after a long day. Around the pool table were white-collar guys, maybe from the Town Hall or a local lawyers' office. They were looking over at three girls in party dresses. What the women had planned for a Friday evening out was anyone's guess; though the white collars would hope it involved them. The girls were looking back and shaking empty cocktail glasses, so Cynthia smiled as she guessed their luck was in.

Into the bar then came a couple who stood out. They were not a romantic couple – there was no hand-holding or guiding arms around the waist. Yet they were firm friends, clearly, laughing heartily and trusting each other. She was late-forties, he younger; she in business dress, but he in the corporate black of security – Cynthia could sense it a mile off.

Although there were other professionals in the bar, these were the only two who Cynthia considered might be Yanner's people. The others might have been wearing a tie, but with a knitted jumper over it; a woman might be wearing a skirt suit, but of the bright colours of a bank teller or travel agent's front-desk. These pair, though, were money: Los Angeles, New York.

The woman had a genuineness about her – Cynthia could not define this quality, but as an investigator of many years' standing, she had become adept at spotting it. Under Cynthia's apparently casual gaze, this new subject had none of the forced, slightly manic air of some office women. Instead, she had clearly lived a life. She had laughter lines – always the best sign – and was entirely at ease in the local bar.

To be fair, so was the man she was with. For him, though, being in the bar seemed more of a relief. And there was his stocky build, which could give a man confidence; and the suit, which would instantly raise him in many women's opinions.

This couple were the lead of the night; but Cynthia could go nowhere with it. 'She' would be the best bet, but it would be impossible with 'him' there.

Cynthia continued to watch them as if in passing: their mood was friendly, occasionally awkward, but still with no shoulder-touching or brushes against the leg. New friends then, among the people brought by Yanner from all over America. Though ones who fancied something of the real experience of Mayweather, Texas.

After an hour of watching the pair eat steaks, Cynthia paid her bill and headed home.

She got back to her hotel after midnight, after another drive around town. Though she didn't sleep. Instead, she added to her notes from earlier:

– For Tomorrow – in the morning, enter the Yanner hotel (it doesn't even have a name outside) and book a table for dinner.

– Note – be in professional dress for this!

– Afternoon, hit the library and newspaper archive – no need for cover story here, unless I think Yanner has also bought the state library system!

– My Objective?

– Still unknown. Maybe only to have enough witnesses available. If there is a secret, it will only come from speaking to one of them.
Chapter 46 – Ships in Harbours, Again

Bradford had never been so popular. Where once the postbag rarely troubled him, now he was getting fan letters every day. When the morning papers came down, his colleagues were there to read his latest article. And each time the phone line rang out from its open booth beside the lift-shaft, there was a buzz of expectation among the residents of Harmony Base,

'Is this another of his women?'

'Are we going to see The Mole come out of his hole?'

Bradford could just about hear the clattering of the old-fashioned phone bell from his cabin, and had even begun edging out into the tunnel, anticipating the hollered words, 'It's for you, Bradford!' It was getting to be an almost fifty/fifty split of calls between himself and everyone else down there. And this latest call again proved to be one of his.

'Where are you, Casanova?' called the tech who had happened to answer this one.

'Right here,' answered Bradford as he bounded into the main hall. He gave the others a look, though, as he sank as deeply as possible into the cowled booth to speak into the handset.

'Congratulations on your footage,' said Bradford, not even needing to check it was her. 'The world needed to see that.'

'Thanks,' she answered. 'I took it at the New York demos; but our Editor wanted to hold onto it until we'd confirmed that Yanner had moved his business operations out of New York – he thought the two stories together would make a bigger splash.'

'And they did.' Bradford was agog with admiration for the new friend he'd never seen, and also worry. He added,

'Though it looked pretty dangerous.'

'Yes, those protestors could have easily gone under the trucks.'

'No, I meant for you!'

'Thanks. I dropped my phone, though the paper always has some techies there for damaged cameras.'

'What of the damaged cameramen though? Who puts them back together?'

She answered with a smile in her voice,

'I knew a guy who got shot once. He said, "My arm can heal; but what about my shirt?"'

After a moment's silence, she began in earnest,

'Bradford, when I took on this job, I took the precaution of looking up the basics of your condition. Agoraphobics seek a sanctuary. They fear the dangers that might lurk outside, yes?'

'Something like that.'

'They also find situations where a person might even choose to risk their own security as fundamentally untenable, yes?'

'Again, something like.'

'So, you appreciate how almost every part of my job will trouble you? There seems a point when an individual has to trust the world, trust the people in it, that they're not intent on harming us. This is dangerous, though, especially for the more... fragile of us, because only life-experience earns the kind of intuition that can guide us safely. And someone who has kept themselves away won't have that experience.

'When Sandile first mentioned working with you, she said, "A ship in harbour is safe..."'

'"...but that is not what ships are built for",' he remembered. 'Yes, she shared that with me also.'

'You obviously had social intuition in your earlier life, Bradford, and you could find it again, I'm sure; though at present your compass is skewed.

'So,' she concluded, 'in terms of my activities above-ground, you have to trust in me, not let the space between my phone calls be filled with your imagined terrors.'

'I'll try,' he said.
Chapter 47 – Ms Mason, Under Her Own Name

The next day, Cynthia again dressed as she considered a bright, enthusiastic marketing executive might, and drove in her hire car to the black glass hotel. She parked up, painted on a huge smile, and strolled in. She smiled at the receptionist from across the room, a pretty girl with black permed hair; then at the dark-suited man caught off-guard on the sofas. He was blonde and thick-set, quite youthful-looking. He quickly pulled a newspaper over the table to cover whatever he had been reading – though Cynthia was unusually sharp-eyed, and knew a guns and bullets magazine when she saw one.

Keep smiling, she thought to herself; and walked to the woman at the desk.

'Hello, is it possible to book a table in your restaurant for this evening?'

The woman went from bored to uncertain to surprised, like a statue that had just had the dust shaken off.

'Yes, of course.'

She looked around on her desk for the right form. It seemed to Cynthia as if she was having to remember the procedure.

'In whose name?'

'Ms Mason.'

'For what time?'

'Seven?'

The woman's eyes flickered to the man on the couch, and then back, still sparkling with surprise and excitement, and wanting to be sure she was doing the right thing.

'And for how many?'

'Just myself.'

'And contact details, if we need to get in touch?'

'I'm at the Welcome Rest, in town. You know it?'

She nodded eagerly. Cynthia pushed the conversation envelope,

'I've always stopped at the Welcome Rest, I didn't know there was another hotel.'

'No, we're quite new,' the woman stammered.

'But now I know that this is here...'

'Yes, we're much more luxurious.'

'I'll say. And I'm glad you have a table for tonight – you looked so busy when I walked past yesterday evening.'

Though the woman was so occupied with the form that she didn't answer, only asking,

'It was just yourself?'

'Yes, please.'

'So,' the receptionist was finally able to ask sociably, 'what brings you to town?'

The woman's eyes flickered to the man on the sofa again.

Another man, tall and dark, then appeared at the inside door to the lobby and said to the one sitting down,

'He's leaving. His car's around the back.' He looked up and saw Cynthia.

For a moment the four of them were trapped in an uneasy silence. Soon the sitting man got up, and went to leave. Cynthia knew she must leave too.

'Thank you,' she said to the receptionist, and headed out directly.

'See you tonight,' called the woman, as though calling out to the only friend she had in the world.

The poignancy in that voice killed Cynthia, though she had too much else to think about.

She knew what she had to do next – she drove straight back to the Welcome Rest, changed into casuals, packed her bag, settled her bill, said goodbye to the kind manageress, and drove a mile from the premises.

The encounter brought another call to Bradford.

'Jesus, can you leave the line free for anyone else?' asked the grumpy engineer who passed the phone on to him on this occasion. Though Bradford ignored him as Cynthia began,

'I got lucky. He's living there in his hotel, or at least stayed there last night.'

'Who is?' he asked, not yet up to speed.

'Yanner!'

'He saw you?'

'No, his security.'

'What?'

'I got really lucky,' she continued, breathless down the phone line. 'I got a visual on one of Yanner's bodyguards, and he seemed to be in charge.'

'Good God,' said Bradford. 'You didn't get too close, did you?'

'I was booking the meal at the hotel...'

'Oh no.'

'...and he announced, "He's leaving. His car's around the back." That had to mean Yanner. So we know he's living there.'

'So, you were standing at the front desk as the guard came in? He'd have had just as clear a view of you.'

'It was always a risk,' she reasoned.

'What details did you have to give for the reservation?'

'My name and my hotel.'

'Your real name and hotel?'

'I told you, lies get found out sooner.'

'Good God,' he repeated. He was fretting now. 'You can't make that appointment.'

'I know, I won't make the dinner date, don't worry.'

'And you need to be out of your hotel before they miss you when you don't turn up at Yanner's place tonight. In fact, get out now, before they check up on you.'

'I already have done. I'm in my car. There's just a couple of things I need to do, and I'll...'

'No,' he shouted, 'you've got to get out now.'

'Bradford, they're not going to do anything to an unarmed woman. I need to push this.'

'Are you sure about that? There's something weird going on in that town. I wish I could be up there...'

He stopped himself, feeling that there was absolutely no real reason why he couldn't have been up there. His was an invisible illness, whose limitations he sometimes had to justify even to himself.

'Bradford,' she offered half-jokingly to reassure him, 'Yanner's an industrialist. He's not a gangster, is he? Unless I've missed something? So what exactly are we getting scared of here?'

'I don't know,' he explained, feeling pathetic. 'I just have this growing feeling. And it isn't just being down here, and it isn't just my condition. I'm worried for you, Cynthia.'

'Well, don't be,' she answered, with more emotion that she wanted to offer in her guise of hard-bitten journo. She resumed the conversation, in gentle tones, despite the subject matter,

'Bradford, I'm already burned on this story. The guard saw me – I won't get this close again. A man like that won't forget, he'll clock me any time I'm seen anywhere where he and Yanner are. This is my only chance to work for you. And then I will be gone, I promise.'

'But...' he began.

'Don't worry. Two hours in the library, and I'm out of here.'

'Be safe,' he offered to the handset.

Though she had already gone.

'Everything all right, Chief?' asked the engineer. His mood had softened after hearing Bradford's plaintive pleas towards a woman it was obvious he cared for. 'There's a fresh pot of coffee in the canteen.'

Bradford said no more, but, for the first time in a while, he did join the others for a drink.
Chapter 48 – Big Box Stores

'Cashco are hiring.'

Christie's heart sank at her sister's first offering,

'Really, is that the best you can do? For your own nephew? He isn't some slack-jaw from the labour line.' She didn't care that the boy was in the room, she wanted him to know the logistics of his future.

Danielle instead addressed Bobby directly,

'Well, at least you'll be at the same site your father worked on for all those years. Maybe it will be a blessing? Ford Engine Division closes and a Cashco opens.

'Ford make their engines in Argentina now.'

'Yes, Bobby, they do. They don't need an Engine Division here anymore – a generation too late for us though, sadly.'

'I don't think I'd have liked it.'

'No, I don't think you would have, all those oily nuts and bolts. Wouldn't you rather be with shoppers and deliveries, and have lots going on around you?'

'See the future she's found for you?' offered Christie, not able to keep the frustration out of her voice.

Though Bobby was still happy, asking his mother,

'And maybe Aunt Dani will find something for Dad too?'

'Well, she hasn't done for all these three years now, has she.'

And Bobby had no answer for that.
Chapter 49 – Cynthia Remembers

As she hung up the public phone, and turned towards her car, Cynthia said,

'I've seen him before!'

She said this to herself, out loud, in the street. 'I've seen him before. The guard who spoke in the foyer – he was the man in Mitchell's Bar last night. Him being there meant I couldn't talk to the woman. How the hell hadn't I remembered that the moment I saw him in the hotel?'

Since seeing him that second time, she had had other things to think about: primarily to get back to her hotel and get out of there as soon as possible. But still she beat herself up for being so lax.

One recognition brought several others flooding forth, she saying to herself,

'And I've seen him other places.'

Though she needed to confirm that.

Outside, with the situation over and her mind not on alert, the thoughts kept on coming: the way the guard had looked at her when he walked into the hotel reception that morning had been blank, neutral – so, he hadn't spotted her in Mitchell's the night before. Cynthia realised now how lucky she had been – if he had clocked her watching him and his companion at the bar, or had she even walked straight into the pair of them by accident... then her mission might already have been over.

So, much for her to think on. Though she had work to do... First was the Mayweather State Library. She had phoned Bradford from a booth just outside – she had a prepaid mobile with her, to replace her smashed smartphone, but was loath to use it. Now she checked the car was locked, with her belongings in the boot, and went to walk inside the building and ask for copies of the local paper going back five years.

'What's your field of interest?' asked the assistant as they walked to the microfiche machines.

Cynthia decided to break cover, marketing conventions be damned,

'I'm interested in the new factory: when it was built, what it's for, or any notable occurrence there.'

She was taking a risk, but not much of one. In her career, Cynthia had noticed that, if a subject was interesting enough to draw her to a town, then the people there would likely be crying out to have their chance to share their thoughts on it too.

She got lucky – the gleam of conspiracy lit up in the assistant's eyes. She paused by the machines, and began in a whisper,

'Well, you know what they say about it, don't you?'

'And what's that?'

'That they're building the space station there, piece by piece.'

'I'd heard that rumour.'

'And...' she leaned in close to whisper, 'my cousin's been doing some maintenance up on the fence.'

'Oh?'

'And he swears he saw Claude Yanner himself go past him in a blacked-out limousine. Though, he couldn't say so publicly, because they sign a dozen forms before they're allowed anywhere near there.'

'Then it's good he kept it a secret,' said Cynthia with true sincerity.

'So,' the woman asked, as though Cynthia could ever know, 'do you think he really is him?'

Cynthia had to remind herself that, to a lot of people, Yanner was a television personality before anything else. She smiled and answered,

'Why don't you show me those old papers, and I'll see what I think.'

The library was a small municipal facility on the edge of town. Modern in design, its large square windows were fitted with blinds to protect against the sun that crept around to Cynthia's side of the building as the afternoon wore on.

Her plan had been to read up on the scuffle that had broken out at the Sigmundsonn plant a few years earlier, and which had ended up in the national news. That had been the first occasion to fix the plant in the wider public's consciousness. Now, though, she had a new impetus to do so.

She found the story on the date she had expected, two or three days before the news had found its way to the Herald and they had run their syndicated piece.

And there, in the local front-page photo of the disturbance, was a tall, handsome police officer that she had seen before.

She printed out the page, though it gave her nothing new. Spinning through the leaves of the paper, a few weeks before that she found a picture of the Mayweather Sheriff's Department, the lawgiver and his men receiving an honour. There he was again, her tall man, and below them their names. She matched names to faces, from left to right, and settled on Thompson... no, that was the man beside him. Hers was Lato, Officer Lato.

'Even your local paper doesn't cover the plant much,' said Cynthia, as she passed the desk on her way out.

'No, it's mostly news from town. That's what people like to see. So,' she called out too loudly, then resumed in quieter tones, 'did you find anything?'

'Only rumours,' she replied, and shook her head. Then she had an idea, 'Though, you couldn't tell me where Officer Lato drinks?'
Chapter 50 – The Last Evening

The town had a swimming baths. Cynthia bought a ticket, but only showered and changed. Her clipped auburn hair hardly offered many options for helping her fit in, though she had jeans with her, and that afternoon she had bought a matching shirt. 'I look like a rodeo champ,' she had muttered to the mirror of the store's changing rooms, and had quickly changed to a less-blue version of the same, violet denim with embroidery. Now she was about to face the world in that same outfit, declaring,

'Here goes nothing.'

Cynthia hadn't lied to Bradford at the time of their call, though since recognising Lato she had changed her plans. There would be another visit before she left town.

She had to eat, that was how she justified the risk to herself. Cynthia went back to the same bar at the same time as on the evening before, and like before, sat right at the back. She had nowhere else to be, and no hotel room to go back to. She had decided she would sleep in her car a good fifteen miles out of town, and wouldn't fly back from Dallas/Fort Worth.

She sipped a drink for nerves and enjoyed the food again; and, at last, she saw a familiar face – the woman from the night before. Though this time she was alone: she sat down at a table, and when the waitress came, she didn't wait but ordered right away. The waitress then brought over one drink and one set of cutlery.

She was alone, Cynthia was sure, she wasn't waiting for her friend. She didn't look to the door in expectation for the full thirty seconds that it took for Cynthia to decide to act – it was one of those chances that simply couldn't be missed.

The role of the investigator could involve a certain cynicism. Sometimes a person had to be approached with lies. This built a terrible foundation for the future of the relationship; but Cynthia could justify this to herself when the person was heavily suspected of wrongdoing. It became less clear-cut with the middlemen and women, those she had to work through to get to the culprit. This woman was one such person 'in the way'.

Cynthia walked to the bar with a menu, and waited at the nearest point to the woman's table.

'I still don't know what to go for,' she muttered to herself within the woman's earshot, and making sure she got her attention. 'What did you plump for, if you don't mind my asking?'

The friendliness Cynthia had counted on shone through, and the woman smiled and answered,

'My dear, what else is there to go for in Texas but rib-eye steak? Though you don't need to order at the bar, they'll come to your table.'

'Oh, I spend time in England,' answered Cynthia, not untruthfully, 'you can sit all day in one of their pubs and no one comes to serve you.'

'I've never been,' answered the woman.

'I travel quite a bit. Work, you know.'

'Me too.'

'Oh? You sound like a local,' observed Cynthia.

'Would you believe that my work has brought me right back home?'

Cynthia left a pause, hoping, hoping, hoping. And then it came,

'If you're eating alone too, why don't you join me?'

'Thank you, I will.'

Cynthia quickly went to collect her drink from her original table, and came back and sat down.

'I'm Cynthia, by the way,' she offered after ordering her own steak – the waitress thankfully didn't mention the food Cynthia had already been eating at her own table.

'Nicole,' answered the hometown girl.

'Very pleased to meet you.'

Cynthia decided that innocent over-enthusiasm was the way to progress, open questions that went a little too far, and forced the other to say more than they might want to in order not to offend,

'So, where are you working?' she launched in with.

'I'm an engineer,' answered Nicole.

'In what field?'

'I have fingers in many pies. Most recently I've been teaching. Yourself?'

Cynthia found herself momentarily sidestepped,

'Sales,' she offered, appearing slightly startled. She blathered to cover it though, 'Sorry, it's just I don't like to say. It brings a glaze over people's eyes.'

'In my experience,' offered Nicole wisely, 'people love to be sold the things they already "want", there's no work in that. It's the things we "need" but never love – mowers, cleaners – where the salesperson earns their money.'

'Well, I sell places on marketing courses, so maybe you're onto something there.'

The women smiled, getting on famously. Cynthia almost wished that they could have been friends. But years of cynicism poured their concrete over that small flower. Not to mention that the male companion could still appear at any moment. She went back in for the kill, over-earnestly asking,

'So, I guess if you're an engineer, then you must be at that new plant outside of town? What are you making there? I saw the construction trucks passing me the whole way up here.'

Nicole's own food had just arrived, and she prodded her steak with her folk, almost tenderly, in anticipation, before putting the utensil down. She fixed Cynthia with the sweetest smile, and said softly,

'I don't know who you are, or why you're asking, but I think you know that I can't answer that.'

A lesser soul might have quivered at being caught out so soon, and at the awkward situation that it left them in. But Cynthia was a pro. She answered,

'Then why isn't that drink of yours all over my face?'

'It still might be.' Nicole retook her cutlery, and cut her first piece of steak, before holding it in front of her. 'But I'm also hungry. I've waited all day for this steak; and the one thing you'll get out of me about my work is that the food is lousy.' She breathed the aroma of the steak, before popping it in her mouth and savouring.

Cynthia noted,

'You're clever, you'd be NASA then...'

'What, you heard me speak and thought I'd be some hometown hayseed?'

This was Nicole's first display of anger. Cynthia could play hardball too, though, and pretended not to hear her, only continuing her question,

'...or former NASA. What exactly are you now? What name is on your payslip: Sigmundsonn? Yanner Corp.?'

Nicole cut another piece, and didn't answer.

Cynthia's steak arrived then, though she didn't touch it. She asked Nicole,

'You haven't told me why I'm still here.'

She answered between mouthfuls,

'Maybe because I've never been headhunted before. And maybe because you don't seem the usual type of reporter that I see on television dramas. Oh, that's it: you recognise me from when I introduced Professor Page on stage before his famous speech?' (Cynthia hadn't, though it explained why she thought she had known her from somewhere.) 'Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, lady. But he and his people hardly spoke to me that day. I probably know less of the bigger picture than you do.

'Now, I'm doing better in my career than I've ever done, on the most important thing I've ever worked on. I will not be risking that for five lines of newsprint. And I will be reporting this conversation as soon as I get back.'

'You might.'

'I will. I know the Head of Security personally.'

The women stared at each other, with Nicole not sure if she'd already said too much, still eating as the other meal went cold.

Cynthia felt quite cheery though, all of a sudden asking,

'Do you know what I think? I think that you're intrigued. As you say, conversations like this don't happen very often. They offer an interlude of drama, of the unexpected and unknown. It makes you feel important, you want to know where it leads; and you wonder what I've got on your company.'

'Maybe.'

'I'll be honest.' Cynthia wiped her mouth, despite not touching her food. She put her hands on the table, about to get up. 'I don't want to get you into trouble; and I don't think the science is the problem. It's to do with why your project hasn't been before Congress or the Senate in its lifetime,' (for Bradford had been feeding her such info) 'or why the public don't know who owns the largest item of public expenditure since the Hoover Dam! And maybe this as well: why am I the only reporter in this town?'

'Because people don't know that Yanner's down here y...'

Cynthia saw Nicole's sudden fear. She reassured her, 'It's okay. That story broke in New York already.'

'Then get out of here, before I tell you something that I shouldn't.'

Cynthia rose, though couldn't resist one last small offering, perhaps in honour of the friendship that could now never occur,

'And I didn't choose you because I thought you were dumb; I chose you because I thought you seemed a good person.'

'Just another word for gullible?' asked Nicole rhetorically. Though she was smiling as she said it.

Cynthia put her money down for her food, and left... and walked straight into a dark black suit.

'Whoa, sorry there,' the man began. 'Pardon me.' Then looked over Cynthia's shoulder to address Nicole,

'I made it after all – emergency averted. Oh, you've ordered?' he asked, seeing the two steaks.

Cynthia was caught in the situation. 'No problem,' she offered quietly, and started on her way to the door. It was a full two seconds later when the man asked after her,

'So, you chose to eat here instead?'

'You know each other?' asked Nicole, still sitting at the table. 'So, that's who you were after?'

'What,' asked the man, 'so "you" both know each other too?'

'She was just leaving,' said Nicole, unable to keep the fear from her voice.

Cynthia stopped and turned to face the man, and went to speak...
Chapter 51 – Cynthia's Breakthrough

'Phone call for you,' shouted one of the techs down the corridor to Bradford's cabin that evening.

He looked left and right as he entered the increasingly deserted central chamber. Who was he looking out for? He wasn't sure. Though he needn't have worried, as the place was often empty those days, what with the focus turned increasingly towards space. The machines and experiments burbled away as ever, maintained by a skeleton crew, but he wondered whether, without leadership or inspiration, they would not be updated and would slowly fall behind the times, out of relevance, usefulness?

He approached the phone bank, again looking for who was around him – though again there was no one.

'Yes, hello?' he asked.

'Mr Bradford.'

'Ms Mason. Oh, thank God.'

'Are you all right?' she asked.

'Me? I've been worried about you!'

'But are you okay, in yourself?'

'Yes, fine, why?'

'You sound a little distracted.'

'No, why should I?'

'No reason,' she lied to her friend who sounded almost manic down the line. 'Can you talk?'

'Yes.'

'Good. Listen.'

'You've left town?' he asked.

'No, I found another lead.'

'You're still there?'

'Yes, but nothing can happen to me.'

'You need to leave.'

'I am, right now. That's why I'm calling from just outside town before I start my drive in earnest.'

'Good, good.'

'But I think I've made a breakthrough.'

'You didn't run into this security guard again?' he asked, his tension ramping up.

She giggled, 'Yes I did, quite literally – his name's Lato, by the way. In a former life he was the policeman in the news footage from the Texas demo. And he has a friend in NASA, a middle-aged Texan called Nicole. Apparently she introduced Zak Page on stage for his famous speech from UCLA, if you wanted to look them both up; though I admit I missed that connection too at first.'

'That's understandable, with so much going on.' Bradford quickly jotted down the names and reference details on a pad kept by the phone. 'You spoke?'

'Not for long, and not too productively...'

'Oh no.'

'...which is only par for the course in my line of work. I strike out more often than the Mets have been lately.'

The silence on the line, which greeted this reference to the current form of a popular sporting team, brought her quickly to her senses,

'Sorry, baseball's probably not your thing down there, eh? Anyway, they're bad enough this season to make you want to turncoat to the Yankees.

'But, that's by the by. Bradford, listen.'

'You sound giddy with excitement.'

'I think I am. But listen. We know this thing with Kent and Yanner stinks. Kent gave it up to Yanner, who bought Sigmundsonn, who built the secret factory, and who, by the time the station is built, will probably only be an arm of Yanner Corp. What are the odds that it's Yanner's name we see plastered all across the world's greatest technological achievement when it launches?

'Am I happy about this?' she asked rhetorically. 'Are you? Are the public? Probably not. Though you've been reporting as much in your column for months now; and the protestors are shouting it out from every city centre on any given day; and still no movement. Perhaps people are too used to big companies? Perhaps they don't remember a time before the same six stores had the same goods on the same shelves of the same big boxes in every town and city in the land? Perhaps that doesn't bother the young as it does those of our generation, Mr Bradford, who can just about recall a high street of hand-painted signs and unique names in every town?

'And then we have Claude Yanner himself, a man who only seems to live in people's minds through the TV and the newspapers and the collective imagination; so much so that the idea of him actually occupying a space somewhere – sleeping, washing, eating – feels surreal. To the extent that people hadn't noticed that he hadn't visited the building they were protesting outside of for five months. They hadn't even bother to check. It didn't matter that he wasn't there, he's always somewhere, everywhere always, like a vapour!

'And, as for the government corruption angle; well, are people just sick of hearing it now? Those who want to do so are already out protesting; while the rest of us just mumble about "Them all being as bad as each other," and turnout goes down a little at each election.

'So, what are we going to do to break this story open wide?'

'Is this a rhetorical question too?' asked Bradford; before Cynthia continued, in her light-headed vein,

'Now, I'm going to say two words to you, Mr Bradford – Al Capone.'

'Al Capone?'

'And two more – tax returns.'

'Tax returns!'

'You remember that that was how they finally got him? A wonderful piece of lateral thinking, the key to his downfall.

'Now, you're the reporter, not me, Mr Bradford, and bear in mind I have no access to anyone's actual public contributions – cracking the Internal Revenue Service isn't worth my liberty; but I think, in a parallel sense, I have Yanner's "tax returns". His kryptonite, to use another metaphor.'

'Go on,' urged Bradford, enthralled.

'It didn't occur to me at first – I left my brief conversation with Mr Lato with a flea in my ear, and something of a verbal threat lingering. It wasn't till I was safely in my car that I realised he may have given me something measured in rubies.

'I'm afraid I lost my temper a little bit, Mr Bradford. I didn't plan to talk to him, but he came into the bar and recognised me, and I couldn't get away with it. I didn't know him to trust him, so had to take the risk. It was a public place, so I caused a row to draw attention, maybe play the threatened woman angle, and hope a gentleman would step up to guard my honour and let me get away – cynical, I know, and it wasn't necessary in the end. But I was scared, Mr Bradford, scared.'

Bradford noticed she had fallen back into repeatedly calling him Mr. Not only that, but she sounded high as a kite.

She must have sensed this herself, and explained,

'I'm breathless, sorry, I can get like this when the dog sees the rabbit.

'Anyhow, a barman stepped up when he noticed the scene. When I sensed that I could leave and that Lato wouldn't follow me, that our brief meeting was ending, I lashed out with, "So what did Yanner pay Kent for all of this? And what's he paying you?"

'And I think I piqued Lato's pride, Mr Bradford, and he gave the game away. He faced me, and said quietly,

'"I'm not doing this for the money, or to get my kids on the station. I'm doing it because I believe in America."

'Of course, a moment later he was threatening to set the dogs on me, so to speak. But once I was outside, his words came back to me. I had a tape recorder running in my pocket, so I've checked it since – and he definitely uses that exact phrase: "or to get my kids on the station".

'I think this is the key to it, Mr Bradford. It's Robert's old theory of the "golden ticket". This is how Yanner's buying people off, keeping them silent, avoiding Senate committees or scrutinising journalists. And maybe, by putting Yanner in charge of it all, then President Kent has been promised in return to get himself and his family aboard.

'I've only had time to do a bit of mental arithmetic: if this is Yanner's prize to others, then he's obviously putting himself on there. He has four children by three different wives, so that's six spaces for him presently at least. And you can imagine the legal nightmare if he didn't also allow his exes on board?

'Lato, I learnt in passing from the woman at the library, is married with a third child on the way... I think she thought I wanted to make a play for him – I reckon she would have done herself, if she had thought there was half a chance.'

'Cynthia,' urged Bradford, '"the breakthrough".'

'Yes, sorry. So, that's thirteen spaces on the station between the two of them. Or, more than a full one-tenth of one percent of the new station's population; none of whom, we can speculate, will be skilled in any astronautical way. And that's only counting those two. Think of all the legislators and company chiefs and other notable figures Yanner must need in his pocket for a thing like this.'

'Jesus,' said Bradford. 'We could be talking hundreds.'

'Very easily. Which puts us into the full single-digit range of percentage of total station population.'

She let the line go silent, knowing her friend needed time to reach the same conclusion she had. Eventually he did so,

'All the families in America, hoping for their son or daughter to be top of their class and earn a place on there...'

But the investigator couldn't linger long,

'I have to leave Texas in the morning – Lato will report back to his boss, and I'll be persona non-grata.'

'Not tomorrow, now!'

'I will, I promise. Though, if this thing pans out, then I couldn't have had a more successful trip.'

'What next?'

'Lato didn't consent to being recorded, so I don't think we ought to use it.'

'No.'

'Though I don't think his words would be enough by themselves anyway. They're just a breadcrumb to follow. I have only one fact to learn now. And I will call you with it in time for this week's column.'

'Thank you, Ms Mason.'

'Thank you, Mr Bradford.'

She rang off, leaving Bradford smiling again, and still holding the warm phone close to his chest.

He was stunned. Had this level of insight been what Sandile had been banking on when she offered Bradford her researcher? Had Cynthia performed such twists and turns for her before? All Bradford knew was that Ms Mason had transformed the story for him, turned it from a bag of random research into what would sell. She had found the human angle; and it was only up to Bradford now to honour it with a fitting article.

Though he would need to go away and think, and sleep, and wait for Cynthia's next call.
Chapter 52 – Encounter

Cynthia came to her senses in a quiet, darkened room. There was no clock ticking or digital display visible, no window showing her the Sun or Moon or stars. A panic gripped her: where was she? When was she?

– I was driving home! she recalled suddenly.

Though how many hours ago had that been? And how far had she got? And how had that delivered her here?

– I've been drugged, she thought.

Then a shooting pain in her arm and a throbbing in her forehead suggested otherwise.

'Those airbags can be tough, huh?'

It was a man's voice, seemingly casual and unhurried even when discussing something so important.

'I hope you're not too uncomfortable.'

It was a familiar voice, ubiquitous, she might even say. In her stupor she almost called out, Are you God? Though later was so glad she didn't – she didn't need its owner getting even bigger ideas.

'The people here are good, good people. They'll treat you well.'

It was a well-known voice, one that the people of America heard on television every week. Warm, homely, but also tough. Like a favourite granddad, but one who would set you right if you misbehaved.

'You know who I am?'

'Claude Yanner,' she managed. Even trying to move her mouth was like chewing treacle.

'And you are Ms Cynthia Mason. You used your own name in my town – I can respect that. You wouldn't believe the deceit some people go through to get to me. You're freelance, my people tell me. Most often working for the Herald, though with your name kept off the pages – now, that is sneaky. You know Philip Bradford, then? A fascinating man. I'd love to meet him someday.'

'You should go down and visit,' she managed.

To which he laughed, 'Oh, I'm not sure my insurance would allow it. You know how much I'm worth?'

Though she wouldn't get drawn. Instead she asked, 'Where am I?'

'Harris Methodist Hospital, Stephensville. Just a little way south of where you were meeting with my people yesterday.'

'Yesterday?'

'It's the early hours – you haven't been out long. It seems you didn't follow the road signs though: "Don't Drive Tired!"'

'And you... here...?'

'Oh, it's all very innocent. You were unconscious when they brought you here. They found a notebook with my name in it, and contacted my people to find out if we knew you. So here I am. All very innocent,' he repeated. 'Just a visitor, checking up on my visitor. You did visit me, right? Or at least my hotel? It's a shame you didn't keep your dinner date, you might have seen me down there. We could have talked. You could have asked me what it was you were burning to know.

'But instead you pestered my staff, who probably wouldn't know anyway – I don't share a lot of stuff, Ms Mason, even with those I trust.'

She caught another voice murmuring from outside of her foggy visual range.

'Yes, yes,' chided Yanner, before turning back to Cynthia,

'That's my lawyer,' he explained. 'He follows me everywhere. That's how important this is, Ms Mason. Every part of my day has to be witnessed – well not every part... I don't think Minka would be too happy with that, eh?' He chuckled to himself, and turned to his hidden lawyer, 'Minka wouldn't be too happy with that, eh? Eh? You perched there in the corner of the bedroom, "witnessing"?'

Yanner cracked himself up with his comic image, though in Cynthia's unfit state, the lawyer's response went unobserved. After a few seconds Yanner's humour settled down, and he went on,

'That's my lawyer,' he repeated. 'He's a witness. To ward off lawsuits, you understand. They can't say, "He said this", "He said that" without a counter-affidavit and a lot of red tape; I mean a lot of legal paperwork, Ms Mason. A hell of a lot...'

The voice 'off camera' came again; again Yanner shut them up, 'What do you mean, I'm threatening her? I'm not threatening her. I'm keeping three yards' distance at all times. We're just talking, aren't we, Ms Mason.'

Cynthia could just hear the lawyer saying, 'She's not in a fit state.'

'And what, are you a medical doctor now?' retorted Yanner. 'Is that what I pay you for, Doctor Feelgood? You hear that, Ms Mason? I thought I was getting Perry Mason, and I ended up with Quincy.'

Cynthia faded out a moment, and when she woke, Yanner's face was bearing down on her from the side of the bed, a foot above her own. The thick hair, the thicker moustache, the warm brown eyes.

'Good, good. You're back with us,' he muttered, and moved slowly back to his chair. 'I thought we'd lost you for the evening. That would have been a wasted trip, when we have so much to talk about.'

'Please speak up, sir,' called the lawyer, who could barely see his employer through the curtains that were pulled half-way around the bed. 'I can't provide legal witness if I'm not party to your every word.'

He shouted back, 'I'm saying that it's lucky for Ms Mason that the hospital was so near. You hear me, Cynthia? You hear what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, I think she hears me loud and clear.'

He patted her on the leg through the bedsheets, 'Yeah, you're a good girl, Cynthia, you're a good girl.' He sat back into his chair. 'So, we just need to talk about how this is going to happen.' He carried on the casual tone as if they were parents discussing their children's hockey team. Though he dropped the volume a notch, when he offered,

'You know, in the old days, we would catch a guy leaving town and he'd still have his typewriter in the trunk of the car. It made things so much easier.

'Though, I'm guessing that whatever you think you've learnt, you've already sent to your paper. And I'm pretty sure you won't tell me what that was. So, now it comes down to it, perhaps there's not so much for us to talk about here.'

He half-went to rise, then paused and sat back down and continued quietly,

'You see, that's a problem, with being as powerful as I am.' He whispered in a tone of shared confidence. 'I could do absolutely anything I wanted to. If he wasn't there, of course.' He nodded over his shoulder to his hidden aide, and then gave a warm chuckle as though he were showing Cynthia a YouTube clip of his grandchildren singing a Christmas song.

He looked at the room around him, changing his theme,

'This is a fine establishment, my company helped build it – we help build most of everything, I'm sure you know. I made sure you got the best room, the very best. We found your health insurance card in the car with you, so you're covered. But just the basics, mind. The rest is on your AmEx., and that's ok, because I want you to have that pinch, Cynthia, I want you to remember this.

'So you rest up,' he said with seeming sympathy, 'it's all being paid for – enjoy the extras.'

Even in her baffled state, Cynthia could just about discern what was happening. And seeing Yanner's eyes close up, she could see that he appreciated it too. The fact that he was making his pitch to an injured woman in a hospital bed didn't seem to register – perhaps that was a compliment to her, suggesting he believed that she belonged to his same world of movers and shakers; and that such trifles as being hospitalised wouldn't faze such a person.

And he was right, it didn't. He went on, again using words that could be heard as intimidation but for his tone,

'Oh, I should say, I'm sorry but they tell me your car's a wreck. They'll never fix it. You won't be driving out of here. And, I hope you have your motor insurance with you too, as the city will be billing you personally for the fence that you went through. And, let me tell you,' he chuckled, 'these cities don't bill cheap...'

Was that how he talked to everyone, she wondered. Everything a transaction, everyone a winner or loser, a bull or bear, toasted for a killing or mocked for a loss?

Perhaps he only valued having someone to talk to awhile who he considered interesting, or even just a break from the norm? He went on,

'...though you just lie back and relax and recover. And you might need the rest. They couldn't find a driver's licence, it must have gone right out of the window when you crashed, so the police will be here in the morning. And, did I hear them say something about a broken liquor bottle in the back seat?'

Cynthia snapped. She tried to fight the ether elephant that sat on her chest; though, beneath the tight sheets, her protest became no more than a screwed-up face and the body movement of a grumpy caterpillar.

'Relax, I'm joking,' offered Yanner as he turned away. 'You know that, don't you? You know that?' Though he didn't seem too perturbed as to whether she knew it or not.

'Well, goodbye, Ms Mason.' He patted her on the leg once more. 'I don't think we'll be seeing you again.'

Yanner left, presumably taking his lawyer with him; though, as Cynthia fought sleep but inevitably succumbed, she had the awful feeling of still being watched in the room.
Chapter 53 – The One Big Store that Sells Everything

'It's opening so soon? But they've barely started building it.'

'They use steel frames and panels, it's all constructed off-site.'

'It took them three years to take down the Ford plant.'

The sisters were talking of the new Cashco store.

'I used to like the mall,' remembered Christie, 'till JC Penney closed. Now there's not much there.'

'It's the way of the world,' announced Danielle with the air of a woman who knew such things. 'You went from years ago lots of little stores in their own buildings, to fewer, bigger stores in one building, to now one big store that sells everything.'

'That does seem to be the manner of it.'

'Think of it this way – Cashco are keeping our town on the map – they're saying that we are as important an anywhere else.'

Christie tried her best to be convinced. Danielle went on,

'And I want to say, Sis, don't worry. You're doing really well. Bobby will soon be settled, and then you can relax. Leave it all to me.'

Danielle knew her sister's trigger-points, but felt the need right then to venture into ground not often crossed by them, as she continued,

'You see, Christie, I know those two blows came together for the boy, and so sudden: the loss of Thomas; and his father's...'

Danielle didn't need to complete the sentence. And she was so relieved when Christie responded in kind,

'It wasn't only him losing his job, it was the man he became after – despondent, up all night, asleep all day, never there for his son. And all I think of, each and every day, is that I don't want there to be a third blow for Bobby – his mother becoming some vulture taking it all out on him.'

She cried suddenly, 'Look at my hair, look at my dress!'

Dannielle took her in her arms,

'You're a great mother, you hear me? You couldn't do more for the boy. But now it's my turn – I won't put him in the warehouse or the loading bay: Cashco have tons of front-facing roles. These are only days or evenings, never nights. He'll be shelf-stacking or tills, or even supervising if he has a gift for it – I've seen people bloom with the right employer.

'He'll be paying you housekeeping, you'll have an earner back. And you can go and see him every day.'

Christie's voice quivered,

'You're sure they'll take him?'

'Darling, these people need a whole store staffing in three weeks.'

Now Christie really was convinced. But her sister had opened a door, and she wanted to talk,

'It was Thomas's fault – he filled the boy's head with dreams. I don't think Bobby ever realised how fortunate he was to have a friend like that...'

'Wasn't he an artist or something?'

'And the rest! A historian, a museum owner at some point. I think Bobby thought that every child had a friend like Thomas, who could feed him all those rocket cars and space ships.'

'He was a lucky boy, Christie...'

'Though was he, Danielle? Was he? Wasn't Thomas showing the boy a future he could never have? How can we and his teachers and the job market ever compete? He's been in a fantasy ever since.'

'Well, this might not make up for it, but there is something else.' Danielle suddenly had a new glint in her eyes atop her natural exuberance. 'I almost forgot to tell you, what with everything else going on: Cashco are about to announce a huge campaign related to the space station. Bobby loves it, doesn't he?'

'Yes, yes, he still does.'

'Well, there'll be space-themed food, toys, a clothing line. Bobby will be great at sharing that enthusiasm.'

And for the first time in a while, Christie sat back in her chair feeling something akin to happiness.
Chapter 54 – Texas Night-time Radio / Magic Flight

'...Like any zealot, the protestor imagines that deep down everyone would want to be just like them. And the only reason people don't know this about themselves is because society and repressive childhoods have brainwashed them. But, start year-zero, and the truth can flow. You know, just like it did in Cambodia after they killed all the teachers, and sent the professionals to be re-educated digging rice fields in labour camps.

'God, spare us from these people.

'Yet they present bright faces, and declare, "But it's a blank canvas, a new start."

'It's why they descend on African villages to turn them into "organic cooperatives" – they want to nip capitalism in the bud before it's had a chance to "ruin" everything, like they think it has ruined their own countries. You know, the places with shops and governments and airports. Then they're amazed when the villagers say, "You have Mercedes, we want Mercedes. You have Nike, we want Nike."

'And these jumped up twerps, who have had everything easy all their lives – I've never met a poor protestor – say to the villagers, "No, you can't have those things, you have to be the society we wish our great-great-grandparents had been."

'I ask you. Humans are humans are humans. We want nice things, we're not all twisted up inside like these social justice warriors, flinching at our own desires, ashamed of our history. Why do these mind-benders keep thinking they can change our behaviour by fair means or foul...?'

Cynthia woke to the sound of radio voices, and the unmistakable sensation of being in a moving car.

'Have a sip of water,' said the driver, in soft Texan tones, 'you'll be dehydrated.'

Cynthia opened her eyes to see the Sun rising through the car's wide windows. She took the offered bottle, and drank; as Nicole turned the radio down, and asked,

'You're going to end this for all of us, aren't you?'

'Then why are you helping me get away?'

'Because we don't do things like this in America, last time I checked.'

Cynthia left silence to speak for her and to honour Nicole's words. Though the woman who, despite it all, had somehow become her friend, added,

'And because Lato's police buddies found a phone with you in your car. So, whatever you were going to tell, you've been busy telling. And anyway, I couldn't have stuck it out in that black compound in the desert much longer. It's not a patch on Langley. I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but give me back Los Angeles. At least they know how to eat.'

Cynthia, still groggy, and so more open than usual, asked sensitively,

'Though won't you lose your spot?'

Something clicked in Nicole. She asked,

'So that was it? And Lato gave the game away, I suppose, talking about his kids. For the record, we were never guaranteed a space – us scientists, I mean – unless the system that we worked on would need constant input. A lot of things could be monitored from Earth, you see.'

Nicole's tone hardened, 'But not for Claude Yanner, it seems. Hell, I'll tell you something else, between us two – I don't know why I trust you, you must have a kind face. Anyway, the wheel of the station was to be divided into the four quarters – only on the map, you understand, not a physical divide: there would be airflow throughout the system, which was where my ideas were going to come in – but enough of that. The architects had three quarters of it all mapped out – houses, schools, transport hubs, all tucked along the sides; and down the centre, miles and miles of fields for crops. I have to say, if I have one regret, it's that I won't see those fields, just for a day, on their first harvest...'

After a moment she continued, 'Only, one quarter of the land was never allocated. Every plan had it blank, "To Be Assigned", was all it read. Every time we asked, it would be, "Well, we don't know what life will be like up there yet, do we. We don't know if we'll need more of this, or more of that."

'Well, it all makes sense now, doesn't it? They were always going to need a ton of land for Yanner and the people he was promising places to – I mean, if his security guard was getting rewarded, then so was everyone higher than him in the chain. And they were going to be some rich people. They would want a certain quality of life, they'd want golf courses and country clubs, and they wouldn't want to be rubbing shoulders with the farmers in their grubby overalls.

'Though,' she concluded, 'I guess you knew all this already.'

'Barely,' answered Cynthia truthfully. In fact, she'd only had her first insight the previous night.

'Well, I've had a chance to think it through while you've been sleeping.'

Somehow, this mention of sleep brought Cynthia back to clear consciousness,

'How long for?' she asked. 'Where are we?'

'Half-way to Austin – you were heading out this way when you crashed; so I figured you didn't want to fly out from Fort Worth.'

'He knows the military there.'

'Well, you've no fear on that score,' said Nicole, sharply but without criticism. 'My brother's a soldier, and he wouldn't hold for Yanner's tricks any more than you or I would.'

'That's reassuring,' said Cynthia. The blow to the head had made her want things to be simpler, and people more trustworthy. She needed easy answers and trusting friends. It was a nice feeling – she vowed to try and remember it after she recovered.

'So, where do you want to go?' asked Nicole.

'Is there a big town nearer than Austin?'

'There's Temple, though it doesn't have an airport; or not the kind of airport you need.'

'But I can fly from there?'

Nicole laughed, 'If you mean it has planes, then yes! You could charter a Cessna out of there, sure.'

'Then Temple, please. Their Government Offices.'
Chapter 55 – The Bombshell

News from Space

T-Minus Five Years and Counting

By Philip Bradford

Dear friends of the Universal Space Station, welcome to our weekly column. Monday must have been a shock to you all. It was a shock to me. Colleagues at the Herald and myself had indeed been investigating a potential nepotism story in the allocation of places upon the new space station for some days. Finally, by the end of last week we were confident that we had the proof. We had intended to run the story in this column today; however, when our Editor saw it, he decided it was too important to hold back. Furthermore, he placed it on the front page.

It is always an honour for a journalistic team to earn the headline slot. Though not many stories have filled me with such sadness even as I tasted the joy of their success.

It is now three days later, and I doubt if I have read and heard and viewed so many newspapers and news broadcasts before as I have in this time. Earth, not just America, is alive to this story in a way that has taken us by surprise. Yes, we could have hoped it would have made an impact. Though I think even the jaded 'seen it all' staff of the Herald have been taken aback.

And so, this column becomes a commentary on the unfolding crisis.

To recap: to date, our researchers have identified two-hundred-and-forty-five names of interest on the provisional staffing list – more accurately, the 'Crew Manifest' – of the USS Adam*.

These names of interest are all either: directors of the firms managing the project; national or local politicians or officials, either overseeing the project or whose authority had been required for the project to be approved; members of Claude Yanner's own household staff; and – as those listed were never going to live up there alone – over one-hundred-and-seventy children and spouses of those already mentioned.

In short, they've been giving away places on the space station like tickets to the Super Bowl. And there can't be a family in the land, whose bright son or daughter dreams of one day making it into space, who won't be mortified to read these figures.

And the list may yet grow. Of the stated final figure of ten-thousand places, a surprising five-thousand-and-twenty-three are already provisionally allocated. These include such luminaries as Professor Zak Page of NASA, and gravitational physicist Doctor Edward Ferrarin, my illustrious friend here at Harmony Base, Nebraska, (Go, Ted!) and many others whose skills make them essential candidates.

However, there are some names for whom little or nothing is listed in the public record. Perhaps they are technicians, not-known outside their professional circles, though nonetheless essential? Or are these further friends and family of the rich and famous, whose link has yet to be uncovered?

And there are anonymous placeholders on the list, with codenames that we are yet to decipher – I have an uneasy feeling of what these may portend to. Background checks on so many names will take us further days to complete. However, there are already many questions for NASA and the Government to answer.

Perhaps most bafflingly, this information, when we went to look for it, was freely available. Dear reader, you can download it for yourself** from the website of the Office of the Federal Chief Information Officer of the United States. Though our researcher wasn't even aware of this at the time. They merely went into their nearest Government Office, where a helpful clerk printed off the whole five-thousand-plus names and handed them over the counter in a copier paper box!

And, most extraordinarily, given the controversial nature of the list, no effort had been made to hide it. Someone somewhere had compiled it, and they or someone else had then posted it online. We have to ask: at any point did anyone read what they were typing? They didn't even need a detailed knowledge of space to have spotted shocking details – the names of several prominent public figures are present, not especially known for their endeavours in the field of space exploration.

Perhaps these names did jump out at the handlers of the list, but they did nothing? Or they reported it, and their superiors did nothing? Though, if either of these scenarios were the case, then how was there not a leak, as there always is with such things; a tip-off to a paper or news station of what the list contained?

We have to ask: why even publish it in the first place? I can only imagine that a decision was made that it was better to put the names out, but not to tell anyone that the list was there, in the hope that no one thought to look. Better this, perhaps, than to later be accused of keeping it secret. Though, the moment anyone did ask, then the game was up.

Or was it simply that, in the idealistic and scientific and somewhat utopian world of NASA, no harm was felt in publishing the list; nor, in some wide-eyed, space-fuelled innocence, was any whiff of scandal identified within it?

Gah! Who can say? Maybe it was a little of all of these things? I know, I know – such situations can occur in the sometimes-batty hothouse of government administration. Thankfully, however, we followed our noses, especially our key investigator, who, for the purposes of their work, prefers not to be credited publicly. We knew it was big because of our own gut reactions – that is always the kicker for a writer: if it doesn't work for you then it won't for anyone else. Thankfully, our noses didn't let us down.

So, where does this leave us? At the time of writing, the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives is preparing impeachment proceedings against the President. No American could write such words lightly; and trust me when I say I feel each keystroke of that sentence as a slab of granite falling. The House will presumable allege the simplest and most fundamental corruption – that of selling favours to officials and business folk. And, as the editorial columns of this paper have been pointing out all week, President Kent appears to have nowhere to go. He is due to make a televised statement this evening; and I, for one, cannot wait.

Question marks already hang over the billionaire businessman Claude Yanner; a man who, it has emerged over recent months, appears now to be almost single-handedly running the space station program. So, if Kent falls, will Yanner be taken down too?

I have to ask – how did something so beautiful and bright and exciting come to this? Is this simply how things get built in the modern world? I just don't buy that, I really don't.

However, it is important that we don't lose faith. It is easy to look only at the negatives around the station – riots, casualties, and now this new setback. But all the while, even as we speak, Commander MacCallum is up there aboard the existing International Space Station, slowly and methodically directing the work to construct its bigger brother. We wish him Godspeed.

Because, right now, he probably feels as miserable as we do; and misery loves company.

*As a side-note, this 'Crew Manifest' document seems to be the first confirmation that the name Adam has been officially selected for the new space station. Though, who decided this, and how long ago, remain a mystery.

**Since writing the first draft of this column, the 'Crew Manifest' document – indeed, the entire website of the Office of the Federal Chief Information Officer of the United States – has been taken offline. However, the document had already been downloaded and saved by us. A complete list of the names is being prepared for our paper's website, appearing later this week.

This is not only a logistical task – five-thousand-plus is a lot of names – but also a legal challenge. There are many names as yet unidentified, and we need to ensure nothing sensitive or personal is published. However, we look forward to your help in putting faces to them all.
Chapter 56 – Dream Again

Lato was sick to his stomach. He had been all week. Four days of this, and no change. It was now Thursday morning, and it had been the same since the front page of Monday's Herald had come over the wire late on Sunday night. Lato and the other guards had been standing outside their boss's office door ever since, while Yanner made the same phone calls to the same people shouting the same things in the same near-maniacal manner.

'Jeez, how old is that guy?' asked one of the guards passing in the corridor. 'And he can still go on like that?'

'I'm surprised he doesn't burst a blood vessel,' joked another.

How quickly discipline had fallen, thought Lato, as the others passed to leave him in his unhappy duty. Though he wasn't free to laugh as his colleagues were. He alone bore secret shame, as he knew in his heart that he had been the one to cause it all.

He had regretted his words the moment he had said them: he had let slip to that woman – surely a reporter, then – that his children were going on the space station. It had been a passing comment, a moment of frustration. And then, only days later, the list of crew members was being pulled apart in the Herald.

Thankfully, in all the shouted calls – that Lato couldn't help but overhear – never had his boss been asking, 'Who tipped them off?' or 'Who had been the leak?' The data had turned out to be so ridiculously easy to get hold of, that the notion of someone needing to be given the idea to go and look for it hadn't occurred to Yanner. Instead, he raved about 'incompetence' and 'idiots' and 'This is why the government can't be left with anything'.

Lato had also read that famous issue of the Herald himself, as soon as he had got off duty. The woman he had spoken to – Cindy? Cynthia something? – must have been the researcher who 'prefers not to be credited publicly'. Lato had been so relieved to read that, and to find no reference to any specific conversation with a Yanner employee.

And so, as every hour passed, he felt safer.

His concern now became: after the President's speech that evening, would he still have a job?

Though even that fear had receded – the Sheriff would surely have him back. Though, after months away, would he be behind Thompson in the pecking-order now? That would be a bitter pill to swallow.
Chapter 57 – President Resignation Pt. 1

'My fellow Americans, and citizens of the World. This is the last time I will speak to you as President. I have handed in my resignation, to become active at midnight tonight, Eastern Time – that is in around two hours. After that, I will offer myself freely to whatever legal process the courts decide upon. Until then, however, I am protected by Executive Privilege, and so am free to talk openly to you this evening. This will be my last chance to do so, and so I will be candid.

'Adam, as we now call it: the Earth needed this station – it needs many of them, this was only to have been the first. Though, like any pioneer journey, the first would be the hardest. It was essential to be done... it was as simple as that, and I will go to my grave knowing it. This evening, however, I will try and share with you my thinking.

'There is a lot of speculation on the reasons behind my enthusiasm. Firstly, it was to ease the simple problem of overpopulation. These may not be the world's best-known statistics, so allow me a moment to elucidate. In Nineteen-Seventy-Four the global population was estimated at four-billion; by Two-Thousand-and-Eleven is was seven-billion – a nearly two-fold increase in half of a person's lifetime. Furthermore, within the next few decades – again, within many of our lifetimes – that figure has been projected to be as high as eleven-billion.

'However, Adam wasn't only a question of trying to move some of the excess population to an overspill. It doesn't take a scientist or mathematician to calculate that even a crew of ten-thousand would make no dent in a global population of seven-billion and rising. An eventual program of a hundred stations the size of Adam would "only" hold one million; which sounds an enormous number, but is only one percent of one percent of the projected future population of all of us on the planet.

'And it wasn't only a case of over-demand on land and resources, it was a serious question: in the crush and chaos of such high population numbers, could human progress actually roll back? At the very least, would we lack the space and resources to develop the solutions for the problems we were in? We might be caught in a bind like that for centuries.

'So, that was a big part of the plan for the space station – for it to be a leader of science, and a guiding light toward a solution in itself. Earth might not be cured, but the station would exist.

'The moment I considered a space ship, then space itself opened up to me. I allowed myself to dream, as I had as a boy, of space and freedom and looking down on the Earth, with our planet and its problems being far away.

'Once my decision was made, though, then a new question formed. I thought of how a small community off-Earth might be made calmer than those on-Earth. After all, it would have the same nationalities and religions, and memories of the old animosities and border-disputes going on below. How could I bring out our bright-mindedness, and leave behind our warlike side? For all my idealism, I was not naive. Indeed, I was quite cynical. I looked at global trends and population maps, and I realised the answer was inherent in the scheme itself:

'Countries of high scientific achievement tended to be the calmest and most civil. But which came first, the calm or the achievement? Ultimately, it didn't matter. Whichever was the chicken and whichever the egg, we needed science for the station... so maybe calm would follow?

'Let's be open – we're talking here of secular nations, where civic life comes first. There would be room for religion up there, of course – who would ever wish to bar it from a person? But the work of the station would be prime – necessarily so, as that work was, in part, involved in keeping the station intact and keeping everyone aboard it alive – no impulse but a scientific one could be granted primacy aboard such a vessel.

'And just saying those words felt such a great relief, like a gulp of clear air, in a world where we have grown used to tripping over our tongues for fear of causing offence. We try so hard, but offence comes anyway among those already baring anger, and using whatever cloak of propriety to justify it. And, perhaps the station in itself was a secret way of saying this too – for what stronger challenge to God than to set up camp in His Heavens?

'I love science, I always have; and I have no greater admiration than for those who pursue it. Science requires no faith, it offers its own proof. Science won't ask us to kill, indeed it has saved billions. Science offers us no Heaven but that which we build on Earth; or Off-Earth, in the stars.
Chapter 58 – Presidential Resignation Pt. 2

'Now, there may be those listening to this who believe I'm talking in the grand scale to move the focus away from my individual questionable activities. Fear not, any judgement you wish to see levelled against me will be heard in the coming months – those will be your hours, but these are mine.

'You want to know why I did what I'm accused of doing? Let me tell you – those accusations carry custodial penalties measured in the decades, long beyond the years I have left on this planet. Right now there are guards behind the door to the Oval Office; but they can't touch me yet, not for these two hours. And so I will tell it all to the best of my ability, without fear, for I cannot be punished further.

'So, to apply myself to the main question:

'When I became President, I understood the nature of the nation I was inheriting. I knew from the outset, that when I proposed my plan there would be opposition, anger, protest – we had had this with every other public institution and initiative, so why not even more so with the most prominent project in human history? Though, when it came, I was stunned at how strong that voice was.

'Even before the station's crew selection process began, there were calls for percentage population representation across every demographic slicing model you could imagine. "All Nations Represented" became an early slogan, without there ever having been a policy of any nation being excluded. There were calls to limit the involvement of private companies, and at the same time for public money not to be spent – try working that one out. There were fears for the mistreatment of animals on the station, before we even knew whether they could be transported up there.

'We began to drown in a babel of voices.

'I've moved in civic circles now for thirty years. So let an old man share a moment's wisdom. In my experience, people who believe very strongly in political correctness seem less interested in what an institution is, or what it does, than that it satisfies some inner need in themselves. The function of the institution – whether it actually does its job – becomes less important than that the protestor can live peacefully with an image of that institution in their mind; that it doesn't trouble them, doesn't do anything "ideologically unsound" in their presence.

'And let me tell you, friends: to live like that is to never get anything done.

'It is a need, and like any human need, it is never satisfied. I doubt that there are many among us who would want women's rights, say, or gay rights rolled back, or for anyone to be excluded when it comes to basics like applying for work or housing. But the protests don't stop with these. As the world becomes more accepting, and the areas inducted into the mainstream grow larger, so it is as though the rent-a-protestor – forgive the expression – needs to find ever smaller and less-defined causes to champion.

'Soon it is not enough just to say that people won't be discriminated against, it becomes the case that legislation must be created guaranteeing everyone in every sense representation in whatever field can be occupied in society... you can chase that rabbit down a thousand holes and you will never catch it.

'As the biggest game in town, the space station became the focus of almost every protestor. And it began to be that we were getting more news coverage of the public demonstrations and media discussion on the social issues, than on the fact that we were building the greatest newest thing since the Great Wall of China. This new Giza Pyramid would soon be orbiting our planet with the first off-world community numbering more than half-a-dozen trained pilots. Ten-thousand souls entering the cosmos, the first branching-off in human history... and people only listened to their fears. When did we become so cowardly?

'So yes, from the moment that the station was announced, there were protests everywhere. Before a person went into space, there were fears for those people's rights. The voices became a crowding mass. I understand it – they saw the station as "A New Start" – though I was the one charged with building it.

'I looked to the business world with envy. There, a company could put up fences, work behind them, and have complete autonomy until a project was completed and they could unveil it to the world.

'At this point I made two or three key decisions: firstly, that I would keep the project as close to myself as possible, and away from the rest of Government. I would use NASA – beloved, entrusted, exciting NASA – to handle the entire PR from the perspective of science, discovery and exploration; while doing all I could to keep at bay the endless round of scrutiny, hearings, and committees that could have held the project up for years. These would only have brought ever more details out, to be grabbed hold of by the protectors and used as fuel for their fire.

'Secondly, that I would use that secrecy to hand the project almost entirely over to businesses that could get it done; and, whatever they asked to get it done, I would give them.

'Of course, the Crew Manifest is what has brought us here. Believe it or not, it had never occurred to me to offer spaces on the station as rewards – I was thinking only in terms of financial incentives. Though it turned out that the hardest business people are also little boys and girls at heart. For all their steely resolve around the conference table, at some point their eyes would light up, and they would ask, "If I dropped this billion-dollar clause, could you get me up there?"

'Before I knew it, half the billionaire playboys and female CEOs on the East and West coasts were calling me with blank cheques, whether they were working on the project or not. However, even then, I knew that space onboard was limited, and that the vast majority of places would need to go farmers and crew. You could say that this was my conscience, my "not-entirely-selling-out". Though, by the letter of the law, selling even one space was one too many, and I accept the consequences.

'Among the first people I reached out to was Claude Yanner. He was an obvious fit – a construction magnate, who had made some of the largest buildings in the world; a man with a record for getting things done; and who had immense personal resources: I knew that he could build a new launch pad or tech centre at the drop of a hat, right out of his own pocketbook. This would instantly save time, and also save getting investors or public expenditure committees involved. Again, I was making tough decisions.

'I was also aware of other aspects of his reputation. Many of the Government committees I was trying to avoid had already been trying to pin him down, sometimes for decades. He moves vast amounts of money all around the world, is dealing with unions and officials on a day-to-day basis, over projects with incredibly tight deadlines. I'm not naive enough to think that lines are not being blurred at times, that wheels are not being greased. And, trust me, he knows the game – he'll be laughing at me saying this. There's nothing here that isn't already a publicly made allegation.

'And I found I had no problem with that. Talking generally, you don't get to do what he has done while also always being a nice guy – it just doesn't happen. That's what you pay the image guys for later once you've made it big, but it isn't how you start in his business. And it seemed to me the only way to get this space station built, in an America today riven with social issues and public protest.
Chapter 59 – Presidential Resignation Pt. 3

'So, I turned to Claude Yanner, among others, and they took the reins and have done us proud. For the record, documents will be shown, signed by myself, accepting all responsibility for my decisions, and absolving any others of guilt. And I was right to do so – more was done in five years than Government might have achieved in twenty. You think that I'm exaggerating? I could show you public projects that have sat in committee for a generation, held back by hearing after hearing, by appeal after appeal, every party consulted and every possible risk assessed.

'This move into space, the normalising of off-world life, was quite clearly the work of our generation. It was the only game in town. To get it built, I made a decision, and now I live with it. From highest office, I fall the furthest. If you will forgive me one last feeling of ego, before I leave to die behind bars, I will only note that I am not a sacrificial pawn, but a sacrificial king – somehow, we win our game even after checkmate. You still get to keep the station!

'Meanwhile, outside of this building and many others like it, at this moment a good proportion of our brightest and best are engaged, not in furthering the legacy of our great nation – and, as the world's largest nation, therefore the legacy of the world – but instead choose to hit at it, complain about it, tag their names on it, score cheap laughs off it. These are children dressed as adults, and beneath our consideration.

'I'm sorry, I go too far, I take that last line back. Though my anger feels understandable: we are trying to build a wheel in the sky, they want only to jam the spokes. Wouldn't any past generation have put their shoulders full-square behind such an endeavour? Alas, it is my curse to be born to lead in an age where the young fight against us and not with us. They do not wish to be a part of this nation's legacy, the ones who would take it on and fulfil it in their turn.

'Yet, I shake no fist at them. I don't even wish to force their hand. Yes, I have been angry. Yes, I have been bitter. Yes, I may regret some of these words. But I am also calm, as calm as I had hoped to be when this day came, as I always knew it would. Hence, perhaps, my readiness for this moment and for this speech – it's like I always knew I would have to make it.

'I did think, however, that I might have got further. Even in my cynicism, I misjudged the pitch of protest and the sustained efforts of those making it. The station is still only half-way along its timeline of construction. I had hoped to get it to a point where so much of it had been built that to stop would have been totally impractical, and even untenable in the minds of people whose appetite had been so whetted.

'As it is, the shell of the station has yet to be completed. And I do sense that its eventual construction now hangs in the balance. This is an uncertainty I didn't expected to feel while making this speech, and it is the only element that causes me disquiet – it leaves my legacy unassured, even as I am led away to shame.

'I will leave you then with only this fact – I have left you with the start of a legacy, I got it further along than many others would have. It is up to you now whether you continue it.

'And with that, I am done. Thank you for listening, and keep your faith. You are the finest country in the world. As I concluded my fateful speech five years ago, "I commend my plan to the House."

'Goodnight, and let's all of us bless America.'
T-Minus Cancelled

Chapter 60 – The Empty Town Pt. 1

That morning, Sandile woke, and it was as though a sickness had passed. The room she was staying in faced east, and the sun poured in. She woke, and didn't think of Robert. Of course, she always thought of him; but for the first time since he died, she didn't suffer the remembrance of his death all over again upon waking, watery-eyed from the innocence of sleep.

She showered, and put two dresses out on the bed. For the first time in months, she didn't choose the black. She lifted red roses on cream, and whispered, 'Forgive me,' to her lover. Though she knew that he wouldn't have thought that there was anything to apologise for.

The night before, she had eaten with the friends that she was staying with, as she had done each night since she had been there. They were former LA journalists, retired to a small town near San Francisco to run its local paper. They had let her stay for as long as she needed; and she valued it, freshly back from Europe after seeing every relative, but not wanting New York, not just yet. Would she want it again? She didn't know.

When she went downstairs to make breakfast, there was a note on the kitchen unit:

– Both gone to work, see you for dinner. Big day!

'Huh, odd,' she muttered, as she poured juice, cold from the fridge. Neither of them worked full time anymore, and never both together. 'And what's the "big day"?' she asked herself. If there was one-percent journalist left in her, it reached for the television remote. She did what she had rarely done in months, and turned on the news...

'Presidential Resignation', read the on-screen headline.

'They hadn't told me,' she whispered. 'Two journalists, during the biggest news week since Watergate, and they hadn't said a word. Because Robert died in the protests that brought the President down.' She placed her glass on the unit, and smiled at a photo of the family on the wall beside her, hugging the children who had long since left home.

It also made her realise the state that she had been in.

It was too nice a day to stay in, no matter the circumstances. Interestingly, though, the one-percent journalist in her also ruled her feet that morning. From the sunny sidewalk, she was soon looking across at the gates of a mid-sized factory. 'Associated Products', declared the small blue sign, giving nothing away.

Two weeks earlier, her host had first brought her to that spot. He had been keen to show her the local sights, though had rushed her past this street. Like many an American institution, Associated Products had been besieged by both protestors and police, 'The Belligerent and the Bellicose', as her friends had later declared from their paper's front page, when she saw a copy in the local store.

However, the gates, once so heavily guarded, now stood open; though no trucks were passing through them.

'Where are today's deliveries?' she asked the listless guard, boiling in short tan sleeves.

'We've already had the memo,' he answered. 'All Government work suspended.'

Beside the open gates, she saw what was left of the protestors. Two weeks earlier, though she only had glimpsed them, they had seemed as angry a mob as all the others in America. Sandile would have feared for her safety around them mere hours earlier. Now they stood against a wall without shadow, packing up their flags and placards. They looked like a scout troop putting away their tents. Police and guards weren't bothering with them either – they were the very definition of a spent force.

As if on cue, at that moment her friend bounded around the corner, clutching a camera – it still looked like a camera, but was as digital as they came. His chin wore a grey beard these days; and it fell almost to the sidewalk as he saw his brittle, grieving friend standing there before him.

'It's okay,' she said, smiling to reassure him. 'I feel much better today, like coming out of the fog.'

'Well, what a relief,' he said with genuine affection. 'You haven't been yourself.'

And straight away they were talking shop,

'So, Associated Products were working for Sigmundsonn?' she asked, entirely out of the loop.

'Sigmundsonn?' he answered. 'I'm not sure that a company of that name even exists anymore. Though, if we're talking Claude Yanner, then no.'

'The protestors must have thought they were,' she declared, watching the remnants of the small crowd. She remembered now their chanting from her previous visit, the memories coming back as though having been trapped beneath a heavy blanket, 'Don't sell space! Don't sell space!'

Her friend only smiled,

'Don't go telling anyone,' he whispered, 'but the fact is, the firm make radar guns for the police – which they have to keep a secret, for entirely different reasons – if their technology got out, then ways to spot or evade the speed traps would be all over the Internet.'

He continued, 'But the crowd only heard the words "Government contract" and "Not for public disclosure" and put two and two together to make five.'

'They believed anything?'

He shook his head more in humour than sorrow,

'It's like every town needed somewhere to protest, their location to join in. They saw New York, and NASA...'

'Was it really that bad?'

Her friend chuckled paternally, 'You have been away.'

'So they weren't involved at all? But the guard said their work has been halted.'

He offered sadly, 'Right now, I doubt if there's a Government contract in the country that isn't being picked over by a committee somewhere.'

He took a couple of snaps of the protestors packing away, and asked her,

'Can I walk you?'

'No, I'm fine,' she answered. 'I'll see you back for dinner?'

'Of course, though be careful. There are still angry people around.'

'I will,' she said to reassure him; and he left with his photos.
Chapter 61 – Besieged

The phone rang early in the employment bureau. Danielle picked it up, and it was her sister. Though she hardly recognised the voice, contorted as it was with panic and fear, and underlined by other voices – calls, shouts – and bangs on the door.

'What have you done?' screamed Christie.

'What? What's happened?'

'What have you done to him? What have you got him involved in?'

'I... I really don't...' Danielle was dumbfounded.

'Turn on the news. Turn on the news!'

Danielle did so, and was amazed to find the first thing that she saw to be her sister's house, a live broadcast from the road outside, though not as she had ever seen it before – the home was besieged, as many other places had been lately, though this time by reporters.

From the elevation, Danielle guessed that the camera had been set atop a neighbour's roof. From that odd angle, she noticed that the shingles needed painting – they had been neglected since her brother-in-law's extended lay-off.

Danielle couldn't speak, though that was no problem when Christie had so much to say to her,

'They were going to send him into space! His name was on that list, Dani, some kind of staff promotion...'

Christie's voice broke off, as Danielle heard a man's voice down the line, muffled as though talking through the front door, asking loudly, 'Let us tell your story, we'll pay twenty thou., exclusive.' 'Thirty, thirty,' shouted another voice, presumably through the same letterbox. 'Get off. Get off, I had her first,' called the first man, and they faded out into grunts and groans – Danielle hoped that they were beating the hell out of each other. A deeper, more authoritative voice was overheard through the door, 'Mrs Esher, how does your son feel about losing his place on the station?'

'He didn't know he had a place on the station! Not until you lot came here to trample all over us!'

'Chris, Chris,' called Danielle down the line. 'Don't talk to them. Call the police.'

'They're here! They're letting them do this!'

Danielle turned back to the TV screen, and indeed spotted two Black and Whites amid the throng, parked alongside the lawn, but not stopping journalists – and possibly anyone else who fancied it – from accessing the family's driveway and approaching the door.

'I'm on my way,' she said, calmly.

'I don't want you here!' answered Christie. 'You brought this on us!'

'You don't mean that.'

'Don't I?'

'Step away from the door at least,' offered Danielle, 'don't let them hear what you're saying.'

Christie didn't answer, and the line stayed silent for a while; though the background noise did recede as Christie must have moved to a back room.

'How's Bobby?' asked his aunt.

'He's upstairs,' answered his mother. 'He can't go to work in this.'

On Danielle's television screen, a female news reporter had appeared between the camera and the crowd, summarising the events,

'For those just joining us, let me recap the extraordinary scenes we have been witnessing here outside this family home just outside Michigan. A home just like any other; and yet not like any other! For, it has emerged that one of its occupants, a Mr Robert Esher, was named in the infamous "Crew Manifest" for the Universal Space Station, and so had won himself a ticket on, what one commentator last night called, "The greatest fun-ride in the galaxy!"'

'Jesus,' whispered Danielle to herself, forgetting she was holding the phone.

'I doubt that even he could help us now,' quipped Christie. She had calmed down and was speaking quietly. The news report went on,

'The family have remained inside the home, and so no comment has been gained from them. However, Mr Esher's employer, the big box retailer Cashco, have offered us this written statement.' – she held a document up to the camera, too far away for the audience to read it, before summarising it for them – 'They begin by admitting regret that the list was leaked in the way it has been; before going on to say that the scheme had been a part of a company promotion, wherein there would have been three Cashco stores opened on the station! And staffed by existing Cashco employees cherry-picked from Earth stores!

'They admit, however, that the scheme is now under review; as is the extensive corporate sponsorship the company were offering to the project. We can only guess at the multi-millions that this sponsorship must have entailed to have secured such an extensive partnership, and wonder at the damage this may make to Claude Yanner's plans.'

'It's all become a part of his bloody reality TV career,' muttered Danielle over the line; though Christie didn't reply. The reporter was still talking,

'As I say, we have had no word from the family, and so we can only speculate as to the heartbreak Mr Esher must be feeling at having had such an opportunity offered to him; and now, as it seems, being cruelly snatched away...'

Danielle turned the screen to mute.

'I didn't know,' she said down the phone, just as colleagues began banging noisily at her office door.

'It's Bobby!' they called through the partition.

'I'm on it!' she shouted at them, before returning to the phone in a calmer mood.

'I know you didn't know,' answered Christie. 'You wouldn't have kept the smile off your face, for one thing. He was going into space, Dani!'

Who speculated, 'I suppose they discounted all the married staff first, and then those with children, then those over a certain age...'

'I'd have lost him forever,' said his mother.

'Well, now you've got him forever. And we need to use this, Chris.'

'What? How?'

'I know a security firm – they'll be outside your place in half an hour. As will I. And then we'll pick a paper, and earn a year's salary out of this.'

'What?' asked her sister. 'Sell all our secrets?'

'What secrets?' answered Danielle. 'None of us knew a thing about it till an hour ago!'
Chapter 62 – Victory

Sandile stood on the street alone now. The sun was beating down, and the concrete of the factory before her glowed chalky yellow. She watched the protestors packing up, and felt like a sad voyeur; or a relieved voyeur – it was finally ending, as all things must when they have gone on for too long. Now she thought about this protest, and New York, and all the others she and Robert had covered, and it was coming clear.

It hadn't been political differences that had fuelled them, not social divisions – none of the protestors had been in poverty nor felt part of a minority. Instead it had seemed as though something feral had built up between them and whoever stood in their way: the government, the police, even these factory guards; to the point where she and other reporters had seen into the eyes of men and women who could have killed – she had covered crime, she had seen such eyes in courtrooms and execution booths. She knew of what she was speaking.

She remembered that she was a reporter, and that the protestors were the story, and that their packing up was a new angle. Though she didn't want to talk to them that day, for many different reasons: she hadn't liked them, hadn't liked their anger, their happiness to employ violence. Her healed arm twinged – these were the people in New York that day; if not in body then in spirit.

The Battle of New York had turned out to be one in a series of disturbances, with each trying to trump the last in terms of ferocity. Not only Robert had died – there had been three policemen in Des Moines, a Sigmundsonn official caught in a mob after a meeting in Washington; some outlets still even played the video of the elderly protestor half-beaten in Texas, that self-appointed martyr. Though few who knew the story had much sympathy for him.

And what had it all been over? Had Yanner done anything to insult them beyond being himself? Had the President's 'crimes' caused anybody any more harm than allowing what was, indisputably, the most popular action in modern American civil life, to get further than even many of the station's supporters had hoped it could ever get?

Ultimately, what had been America's crime? To dare to dream, and to scare others with their vast ambition?

'If so, then bring it on a hundred times over,' she said out loud... though no one was listening. Everyone was wrapped up in their own small world.

The guards chewed gum, the odd onlooker glanced over as they passed by. The straggling supporters of a victorious cause packed up their boxes like naughty girls and boys sent home from school. In their moment of victory, had they seen themselves?

Sandile gave them one more look, in their black shirts and vests on that scorching day – how different from the candy-coloured outfits at the start of the protests – and she wondered what lives and jobs were they returning to? Glass-washer in a bar, clerk in a copy shop? Probably better paid than that: more connected, closer to the worlds of government and media and big business that they claimed to hate – writers, public servants, freelance journalists, even wannabe-renegade Wall Street types, she was willing to bet, making a killing while telling themselves they were bringing things down from the inside.

There was suddenly a voice,

'Well, you won, yeah? This is what you wanted, wasn't it?'

It was a woman, in a blue factory shirt matching the sign of Associated Products, shouting from behind Sandile. On the other side of the street, two men in dark T-shirts, their hair and skin and clothes weathered over months of sleeping out on picket lines, looked up from their tasks with blank faces.

'You're packing up, yeah?' the woman went on. 'You're going home now? Well, we all are, we've got no work now. So thanks, and screw you!'

There was no comeback from the men in their black shirts on that bright day.
Chapter 63 – Back on Campus / The Day After Space

It was a glorious summer's day, 'The Day After Space' was the Herald's headline.

Nicole was back at the College that week. The call had come through the night before that classes were suspended. Still, she dressed for work that morning – what else was there to do?

As she turned her car's ignition, so the radio turned on to what she'd been listening to the evening before. Her favourite commentator was on – how many hours a day had that guy been working just lately? Though his tone was different now: angry, but not bitterly so. Lost, like a boy can be, a teenage boy,

'Well, you got your wish.'

This threw Nicole – usually his strength was connecting with his listeners, but today he was obviously talking directly to the protestors.

'You don't need to worry now, no one will be harmed in space. No one will be discriminated against in space. Because none of us are going there.

'No "bad people" will be making any money in space. No "nasty" politician, who's spent years of his life campaigning for the station, will be outed in the papers for wanting his family with him when he goes up there for the rest of his days. There's no need to worry about it, because it isn't happening.

'Because none of us are going. None of us.'

Nicole drove for another twenty minutes, and the station played dead air for all that time.

At the gate, she was startled to see it without a human barrier. She smiled at her friendly guard, as she cruised up to him and wound her window down, just like she always used to. He smiled back, laughing,

'Those weeds have cleared up a treat, eh Miss?'

'They have that,' she replied, not sure if she was happy or sad about it.

'And, who knows,' he winked, 'there might even be a rare flower sprouting here or there.'

He gave Nicole the strangest look as her window went back up and she drove through the gate.

Inside, the atmosphere was odd – there was life on campus, though everything was still.

'Who died?' she asked the empty parking lot, as she got out and looked around herself.

There was one person there though, clearly waiting for her. Nicole breathed slowly before approaching the girl, with her long hair tied, her books clutched tight – the very picture of studiousness.

'You're off the course, Kathleen. Your parents got the letter six weeks ago.'

'I want to come back. I'll re-take the year.'

Nicole almost answered, 'A girl as bright as you doesn't need to do that.' But she restrained herself, not wanting to give her former pupil an easy ride. Instead, she answered,

'I'm surprised they let you back on campus.'

'Steve did, just this far, to wait for you.'

Nicole smiled – so this was his 'rare flower'? Though she had to be tough, replying,

'I'm surprised he had time for an ex-protestor.'

'I never caused him trouble,' she pleaded.

'No, only someone just like him in someone else's city, yes?'

The girl's pigtails quivered, her arms clutched her books even tighter. To Nicole, her Sophomore student looked about thirteen years old.

Quickly, Kathleen issued an apology,

'And I'm sorry about space and everything. I... I know it meant a lot to you...'

It was Nicole's turn to quiver, with rage. Suddenly this one young woman was everything that had stomped across her dreams. And for the first time since the President's speech, she went to say something mean,

'It's too nice a day for long sleeves,' she began, noticing the white blouse that wrapped itself around the books. 'What's the betting...' But here Nicole did stop herself. Suddenly she didn't care to check for any of the markings the groups had given themselves. The girl might be proud of them, might regret them all her life. They might remind her of her finest times; but, if she had been old enough to take herself across the country and face down police officers, then she was old enough to take responsibility for her actions and their consequences. That was the life lesson. And anyway, there wasn't anything that Nicole could say that Kathleen's mother wouldn't already have given her much worse.

Nicole gestured to the books,

'Well, you won't need those. There are no classes today.'

Kathleen looked up, not sure if this was good or bad.

'But there's a hell of a lot of tidying to do. Throw them in the back of the car, and give me a hand?'
Chapter 64 – Breakdown

Bradford's phone was ringing. And it really had become his phone – hardly a call that came through to it now wasn't for him; amid the journalists and police and protest group leaders, and often simply fans. He had always been available, of course – Harmony Base was well known and contactable – but some threshold had broken with the 'Crew Manifest' story, and he was now as famous as he'd ever been in his pre-underground career.

'It's ringing again,' called a man.

'Leave it off the hook!' called another.

Bradford had taken to sitting in the entrance to his tunnel, so often was he being called. But he couldn't face them anymore.

'Answer it for me?' he asked one of the others.

'He's not at home,' answered the man down the line – then burst into giggles at his unintended joke.

Bradford was crumbling. The phone rang again right away. The man ignored it, looking at Bradford instead, and saying, in that gruff tone men can have when they care about a person, but need to do all they can to hide it,

'You need to make a call yourself – to the doctor.'

Instead, Bradford scrambled up off the rocky ground where he was resting, over to the phone and pulled the cable right out of the junction box.

'Hey, that's our emergency line!'

It sparked, and must have triggered something else in the loom of cabling that ran behind the booth.

'Oh hell, he's tripped the fuses!'

The lights went from cold-white to red emergency bulbs, and various background hums reduced in tone.

'He's killed the experiments!' shouted someone.

Bradford's feet stumbled as they caught the loose rock of the floor. His sudden movement caught the man with a start; but before he could call or reach out, Bradford was gone. He hadn't moved so quickly in years. He dashed down his own corridor, but was moving far too rapidly to stop for his cabin. Instead, he went further, down past where the lights became fewer and the air staler. He ran over dust that puffed up at each footfall like a man on the Moon. At some point he knew there was a gate. He found it, and pushed and pulled – and, amazingly to him, not only the gate but its entire metal and chicken-wire partition came loose from one of the rough walls, enough for him to easily pass through.

Rusted bolts and brackets jingled as they hit the floor. For the first time, Bradford paused. This was a point beyond all help which he was heading into, beyond light and air and institutional responsibility and insurance liability. It would be only him and the mine shafts, unmapped and uncharted in their vertical falls. There would be no rescue, he was sure; no other resident of Harmony Base, Nebraska would be prepared to risk their life to find him. He passed the awkward gate, and ran on.

'Bradford,' he heard called after him as he ran. 'Come back! Don't be an ass!'

But still he ran. The lights followed him at first, but then a wall caught his arm, and he realised the angle has changed slightly. As he went further on, so the shafts of red emergency glow were increasingly cut off.

Years of living underground had made him good at shadows. He kept on running full speed. The shaft was sloping downward, downward, a minute increase in the scheme of things – he was already one mile down! – but it added to the sense of getting further, further away from everybody and everything. He longed for it.

'Bradford!' came the call again – oh my, he thought, they were still coming for him! He stumbled, fell, caught his fall. The muscles in his legs were jelly. He passed junctions, side-tunnels. He went left down one passageway, then right along the next, down, down into the lost depths of the Earth, as he heard his name roared after him one last time, 'Bradford!' echoing down the chambers through the dark from ever further away.
Chapter 65 – The Empty Town Pt. 2

Sandile looked away from the yellow concrete factory, and moved on. She walked the streets that morning, stunned. It was warm, she was wearing bright colours, no one knew she was in mourning. Though, mourning for what at that moment, she couldn't rightly have told you.

The roads seemed empty – had people given themselves the morning off? Time to rest, to lament, to hold their children close, and to explain what they had heard the lady say on the morning news; and tell them that, of course, they would still get to visit space someday.

In the town square, a grocery store had a newspaper board outside:

– KENT RESIGNS;

– SPACE "UNCERTAIN"

The quote 'Uncertain' had come from a White House spokeswoman in the wake of the resignation, a blameless member of the outgoing staff who knew no more. Nor would any more be known until a new President was elected, and the damage assessed, and a new policy formed.

'VeePee don't want it,' said a man who saw Sandile standing reading the sign. 'He says the people wouldn't trust him, that he's also tainted.'

'But this is the time for a Vice President to prove themselves,' she answered.

The man just shrugged and moved on.

Around the quiet square she walked. The grass was neat, the pavements perfectly straight around a raised circle of benches facing the flagpole. She didn't notice at first that there was no flag – not half-mast, not anything.

'Perhaps they didn't know what to do with it?' she asked out loud.

She noticed the first car to come past for a while, before it slowed down behind her. She turned to see a man winding down his window,

'Any news?' he asked her.

'You've got the radio,' she answered, trying to smile, 'you know more than me.'

'I've just sent my staff home. You're the first person I've seen since getting back to town.'

'You work on the project?' she asked. It barely felt like breaking a secret any more to ask.

He shook his head,

'No, I just couldn't open up the office today. I didn't have the heart.

'I think we might be neighbours,' he added.

'I'm a guest, but maybe.' And indeed, he did seem familiar from her friends' street.

The pair of them remained there together, his still car purring. Neither seemed to want to speak but both enjoyed the company.

'It brings people together,' she said eventually.

'Things like this always do,' he replied.

'I bet Kennedy felt like this.'

Her words startled her the second after saying them, and she jumped, fearing the man's response. After all, she was taking the name of America's patron saint in vain. But the man only smiled sadly,

'I know, everywhere's so quiet.'

'I suppose we struggle for words at such a time,' she blathered. 'And me, a journalist!'

'I knew I recognised you,' said the man. 'Let me park up.'

They bought sandwiches from the grocery store, 'Made on the Premises', and walked a little way into town. A TV played in a shop window.

'Look, the sound is on,' she noticed, 'like when people used to gather around them in the old days.'

Though only two old men were watching the newscaster and interviewees talking quickly over events,

'God, don't these people ever stop?' asked the first old man.

'But the politicians have no backing now,' replied his friend. 'Look at the world, it's like a home with noisy kids where the parents have said, "Okay, you hate us that much? Then we'll go!"'

'And now we're the children, standing around scared and alone.'

'Might all be part of growing up though, eh?'

'It might be that, my friend. It might be that.'

As Sandile and her partner were about to move on, a talking head on the television gathered itself to declare,

'We can now exist in a stasis of ideological perfection... only, never breathe.'

They walked on. He bought a newspaper from an automated machine, and scanned the headlines, before folding it beneath his arm. After crossing a small bridge, they turned off the road and sat by the little river it served. It nestled in a band of green between two rows of houses, a piece of land they couldn't build on. It wasn't picturesque as such, not a tourist spot, but there were benches, and the grass and the sun and the burble of the water made it good to sit down beside.

'"A city with no children in it",' he said suddenly.

'Sorry?' she asked.

'This.' He raised his arms. 'It reminds me of the song. Where is everyone?'

It was her turn to be philosophical,

'I used to have a theory: that we're like a person, aren't we, a country? And all our voices are that person's thoughts, jostling, competing. There are voices that are hopeful, and there are those that are scared. And we decide which thoughts win out over others when we vote, or when the nation's mood changes. And none of us is really in charge of anything.'

'You should jot that down for your next piece.'

'Oh, I don't write any more. I leave it to others better than me.'

'It's not about talent, it's about need.'

'Then, I don't need it any more. Thank you, you've just helped me realise. I mean, I'd thought to retire, but now I know.'

'Fair enough.'

There was still no one around. Looking about himself, he said,

'I like this mood, I want to nurture it. Though I sense it isn't healthy in the long run.'

She laughed spontaneously at his odd insight,

'Where did that come from?' she asked.

'I don't know, it's just how I think,' he answered. 'I don't usually share my thoughts. I must trust you.'

'Or maybe it's just this day?'

'Yeah, maybe.'

She left her bench and moved to the grass beside it, and lay down. He followed and joined her, enjoying the warmth of the earth on his back.

'So, what do you think will happen?' she asked.

'I think they'll park it for now.'

'Park a space station?' she joked. 'Is there a bay big enough?'

'Are you making fun of me?' he asked, light-heartedly.

'No,' she answered, and nudged him in the ribs. 'Go on.'

'Okay, well, they'll park the plans for now, while it's toxic – no politician will want their name against it. But we can't unbuild it, and do we want to? Aren't we longing for it now?'

'So, you think we'll get there?' she asked, on that strange morning, surrounded by warm grass and still houses and silent roads, lying back, staring upwards into the endless blue.

'Yeah, we'll get there,' he answered. And she knew he was right.

The End

