Chapter 47

“It’s a long story,” Peggy Lee said.  “It’s my life story actually, but I’ll keep it short.  My father was Norman Englebrook, one of the soldiers on your list of fallen patriots in the mess hall.  He was transferred here in 2068.  My mother and brother and I lived in Fresno, in the family quarters – back when they had family quarters.  I was seven years old.  My father was a great man.  He always tried to do his best by Ian and me.  Then–”

            “Wait, Ian’s your brother?” Graham asked. 

            “Yes, that’s right.  He helped raise me when my mom got depressed.  He has always been there for me – helping me and watching over me.  I hate him, don’t get me wrong, but I love him too.”

            “Wow, I guess there’s a whole world of stuff I don’t know you.”

            “Sorry about that.  In any case, after a year here on the Platform and six months at Headquarters, my father caught the Silver Slayer.  It happened on a Thursday.  His Hazmat suit – the old kind – was compromised while he was doing some maintenance on a filtration unit.  We were expecting him the following Saturday for a weekend visit.  We had a barbeque planned.  He died quickly.  We never saw him again.”

            “I’m so sorry, Peggy Lee,” Graham responded.  “But that’s no reason to blow the whole place up, is it?  It was an accident, right?”

            “There were some theories about that, actually.  Some of the other wives in Fresno told us that they had heard that my father had discovered something about the operations that had to be kept a secret.  Ian still believes that he was murdered by the Army to keep him quiet.”

            “Quiet about what?”

            “First let me tell you that I’ve researched this issue more thoroughly than anyone else in the world, and I don’t think that the rumors are true.  But conspiracy theorists – and you don’t have to dig deep to find these people – say that the government created the mold and spread it throughout San Francisco.  They say that it was a scheme to wrestle control of the water production facilities away from XHS and to clear the Bay Area of all inhabitants.  That way the government could run the facilities full time.  They saw it as the sacrifice of a few for the betterment of many.  I don’t believe it, but I did for a long time.

            “Anyway, after the funeral, my mother packed us up and took us away from California.  We moved around a lot after my dad’s death, trying to find a place that made sense, but my mother got depressed and Ian got angry, and no place seemed like the right place for us.  Eventually, we ended up in Georgia living with some family.  Those were peaceful years for me.”

            “Yeah, you mentioned Georgia in the planetarium.”

            “If I could go back to any time in my life, those precious few years would be it.  But then, Georgia, like the rest of the southern states, began experiencing prolonged droughts.  The government pumped the aquifers dry, trying to keep the citizens alive.  After just a few years in Georgia, we knew that we were going to have to go.  So, my mom packed us up again, and we moved to Alaska.  I was thirteen.  We snuck across the border – back when that was still possible – and lived there illegally.  It was dangerous, but worth it.  Alaska, it seemed, had endless water resources.  By that point, my mother and Ian had begun to attend Movement meetings on a regular basis.”

            “You mean the MER, I assume.”

            “Yes.  After a few months in Alaska, we were welcomed into a MER militia camp.  There was a school there and a church and pretty much everything that a normal town would have.  The only real difference was that we were all being trained to rise up to defend the Earth, which in MER terminology translates into – to put it simplistically – eliminating all of humanity.

            “My mother and brother took great solace in the mission.  And I guess, as a teenager, I did too.  We were taught that our father would still be alive if it were not for the geo-engineers and climate manipulators.  We were told that the U.S. Army was a parasite striving to deplete every bit of life out of the natural system before finally reducing the Earth to a molten mass of nothingness.

            “My brother and I were part of a new class of MER soldiers.  We were encouraged to return to society and become invisible.  We were told that we would be called on when the time was right.  When we were old enough to go to college, we went, just like normal kids.  MER provided us with scholarships and new identities:  Ian Englebrook and his sister, Peggy Lee, became Mr. Ian Patten, Jr. and Ms. Peggy Lee Swenson.  They taught us how to fit in – what to say in political conversations, how to fly under the radar, what not to profess no matter what the company.  Ian left home before me.  And then, I joined him a couple of years later at the University of Alaska.  I studied journalism and graduated with honors.  I got a job.  Ian did not do so well and eventually dropped out. 

            “Right about that time, the Alaskan Secession Wars began.  I got my first assignment, which took me to the front lines.  Ian insisted on coming with me to protect me.  He saved my life a couple of times during our time out there.  That’s how he became my hologramographer.  We’ve been together ever since, working as a reporter and hologramographer, publishing our work, building an unimpeachable reputation, and all the while, waiting for a call from MER.”

            “So, then what happened?” Graham asked.  “That was a long time ago.”

            “I was just getting to that.  So a few months ago, I got this assignment from my editor – to come out here and do the interview with you.  We reported it, as usual, to MER through our handler.  About a week later, we received a message that we were being called on to carry out a mission.  We began to meet with a MER team who brought us all of the equipment, taught us about the bombs, and gave us the facilities’ blueprints and other information.  I was reluctant at first.  I told them that I had a great life going and that I didn’t want to throw it all away.  But then they started tapping into my memories of my father and my own repressed reservoir of hatred and suspicion.  They began making me watch images of the destruction that humans have caused throughout the world – dying animals, swaths of ancient forests decimated in a few short years, ocean shorelines piled high with rotting marine life.  They showed me pictures from the times before the Crisis – rainforests and rivers, fish spawning and birds soaring.  All of the glorious stuff that we all miss.  They told me that our mission was like coming across an injured animal in the forest.  You know ‘the kindest thing to do is to kill the animal and put it out of its misery.’  Only, we are, or I should say, humanity is the injured animal in MER’s philosophy.

“Ian was enthusiastic from the outset and worked me over for days until finally I agreed to do it.  As I look back on it all, I think I’d been susceptible to their brainwashing when I was young.  Then, when they started at it again, I was an easy target.  Part of me knew this mission was wrong, but that part got buried by anger, confusion, and love of Ian, my family . . . and the anguish I still feel over the death of my father.  Some things you can never quite get over in life.  So after a couple weeks of training, I was gung-ho.”

            “So you’re not going to take any of the blame?” Graham asked.  “You were a victim in all this?  Is that how you see it?”

            “No,” she said, shaking her head.  “I don’t know how I see it right now.  I guess – how can I say this – I guess I still think MER’s overall plan has some validity.  I still think that as soon as humans are gone, nature can start the process of returning to a state of balance – it can begin to heal itself.  We had our chance, and we blew it.  Maybe, we just need to get out of the way now.  Many notable scientists agree that the world would be more habitable, ironically enough, if human beings no longer lived here.  Once we are gone, the natural processes – those that originally created the rich diversity of life that used to roam the planet – will commence again.  New beings will evolve.  They won’t be like us, but then would we want them to be?

“Anyway, that’s what I believe.  That’s not the brainwashing talking.  That’s me.  I’ve spent my lifetime thinking about these issues, and I promise you that I’m not ill-informed.  But, tonight, when it got right down to it, I couldn’t, myself, be the direct instrument of so much human misery and suffering.  I mean, I know that it’s going to happen soon enough, so I would’ve just been hastening the inevitable.  But I just couldn’t live with it . . . or die with is on my conscious. 

“Don’t get me wrong,” she continued.  “It’s not like I had an epiphany that perhaps we can solve all of the world’s problems if we just stick it out a bit longer.  We won’t fix it because we can’t – the planet has gone way beyond its tipping point.  It’s all devastation and desolation from here on out.  Anybody who says anything different is just deceiving himself and anyone else who is stupid enough to listen.  But, standing there, arming that bomb in the Brain Room, I felt the weight of history pressing down on me.  I was about to become one of the single biggest mass murderers of all time.  I lost my nerve, and I knew that I couldn’t go through with it.” 

Graham hung his head.  “I hate everything,” he whispered.  “I hate it all.”

Chapter 46

After he finished addressing the soldiers in the dining hall, Graham went back to his quarters to clean up.  As he showered, he pulled small bits of dried blood from the hair around his ears.  His nostrils too were filled with clotted blood.  He blew his nose into his hands and salty, bright blood began to pour anew from his nose.  The water at his feet turned red, then eventually it became pink, and finally after about ten minutes, it ran clear again. The bathroom filled with thick steam, which Graham breathed in.  His shoulder was sore from the fall, and his rib still hurt from Ian’s boot to the solarplexis, but otherwise he was physically no worse for wear. 

After he got out of the shower, he realized that it was nearly midnight.  He did not know what to do.  Surprisingly, he did not feel tired.  He wanted to talk to someone about what had happened – only one person came to mind. 

He left his quarters and went down to the holding cells.  As he passed holding cell A, he took a look inside through the small window in the door.  Ian was lying on his side on a narrow bed, facing the wall.  He will go to prison for a very long time, Graham thought – probably for life, whatever that meant now.  There were many people like Ian – people who felt guilty about being human, ashamed of humanity’s central role in the pending destruction of life on earth.  In fact, almost everyone Graham had ever talked to about the future of the planet felt a deep-seated (sometimes deeply repressed, but still present) sadness of some form or another, but people like Ian turned that sadness into anger, self-loathing, and an overriding hatred of the human race. 

Graham could partially understand Ian’s feelings.  He felt angry every time he read a scientific article updating apocalyptic predictions of skyrocketing heat and rapidly disappearing species.  He, however, viewed present humans as caught in a trap – a trap laid years before by the selfish desires and lack of foresight of many generations of people.  The culprits are all long gone now, but they left a legacy that will last forever.  Every person alive now simply had the misfortune of being born during the last few decades of life on Earth.  Ian’s fury was understandable.  Graham, however, could not justify his desire to punish Earth’s current population for humanity’s past sins.  Graham thought:  aren’t we all suffering enough as it is? 

He then walked down the hall and looked into holding cell B.  Peggy Lee was sitting on a chair next to the bed, looking blankly at the door.  She immediately noticed Graham’s face in the window.  She waved and motioned for him to come in.  He opened the door with his recovered pass card and stuck his head into the cell. 

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Tired, confused . . . but relieved somehow – relieved that it’s all over, I guess.  I don’t know.”  She cast her eyes downward, and he could see that she was aching inside.  “Won’t you please come in here for a second?” she asked. 

“Mind if I sit down?” he asked as he entered the room.

“Please do.  I have a lot of things I want to tell you.”

He sat down on the edge of the bed, rested his elbows on his knees, and leaned forward.  His clasped hands were only inches away from her knee.  “Well?”

“First, I want you to know that I didn’t think that our operation was going to go down like that.  The plan did not involve killing anybody . . . well, at least not directly, I guess that would be more accurate.  But when we got to the Brain Room, Ian decided he wanted the two soldiers to be killed in the blast.  He said that he wanted to see their blood – their “guilt-ridden” blood, as he called it – splattered all over the room.  So he was going to tether them to the console where my bomb was placed.  He said they deserved it.

“Just before pulling the hoods over their heads, I looked into the soldiers’ faces.  They were so frightened, and their eyes screamed at me for mercy.  I put the hoods on so that I wouldn’t have to look at them anymore, but as I prepped the bomb, I couldn’t get their young faces out of my mind.

“Before we came here, I of course understood that taking out the water production facilities would result in casualties in Southern California.  But all that death was somehow theoretical, like I was reading about an event in the past.  Death was the ultimate goal of the operation, but it didn’t seem real to me.  When I looked into those soldiers’ eyes, however, I realized that I just couldn’t go through with it.  Something major shifted inside of me.  I guess the gravity of the situation finally hit me full force.  I read a story recently about poor children in Los Angeles who only get a small amount of water each day from the local water dispensation office because most of their ration had been sold into the black market.  Further, it told of families that desperately pool their water together and carefully distribute every drop so that some members of the family – the children usually – will survive, while others voluntarily risk becoming dehydrated, drying up, and dying.  As I attached wires on the bomb, I wondered how bad it would get if we succeeded in disabling the facilities.  How much suffering would there be? 

“And then, I thought ‘Who the hell am I to decide who should live and who should die?’  My beliefs are but a whisper in this tempest.  Soon we will all be gone.  And there is nothing to be done about it, so . . . .”

“So, you decided not to blow up the Brain Room,” Graham said. 

“Exactly.  I knew in an instant that I just couldn’t go through with it.  I didn’t want to go down as a mass murderer.  It was, is, and always will be the actions and decisions of men before us that caused this disaster – those ignorant, naive, greedy people who muddied our atmosphere, changed the ocean currents, and eliminated the rains.  They did it,” she said forcefully, her voice rising with emotion, “those idiotic fools smiling contentedly in their graves, not the poor souls who now inhabit this rapidly disintegrating planet – this hot death row of humanity.  They ignored the warning signs.  They continued their antiquated, destructive ways long after it was clear that they were upsetting the balance.  They did it for profit, for self-aggrandizement – they did it to add more cars, more helicopters, more castles, more of everything to their fiefdoms.  They knew what was happening at the end of the last century.  They just avoided reality and pushed forward, burning coal and oil, driving, driving, driving – littering the skies above with imperceptible poisons, all the while sealing our miserable fates, their own grandchildren and great grandchildren.  And what is our fate, you ask:  to watch in the mirror as humanity’s face grows gaunt, sallow, and lifeless, in other words, to stand witness to our own extermination.”

“So then what did you do?” Graham asked.   

“I walked over to Ian and told him that I was having second thoughts.  He looked at me with such a strange, distant look in his eyes.  I think he was weighing in his mind whether it would be easier to break my neck right then, or to intimidate me into continuing to help him set up the bombs.  I guess he chose the latter.  He told me that there was no room for second thoughts and to get back to work.  He’s got a lot of anger, and he scares me – always has – so I stopped talking.  As I armed the bomb, I was trying to think of a way to sabotage the plan and get Ian out of the way, but he was watching my every move.  Then you showed up, and I had hope.”

Graham nodded.

“So you saved me,” she whispered.  “You saved my soul.”  She grabbed his hands in hers, her fingers warm on his skin.  He felt a jolt of desire charge up his arms.  Despite everything he was still crazy about her.  He looked into her face.  She no longer exuded that energy that he had noticed throughout her visit.  She was exhausted and broken now, but he still could not help himself.  Even her betrayal could not extinguish his feelings for her.  His anger was gone.  He wanted to run away with her, but he knew that there was nowhere they could run.  There was no way off of the Platform without detection.  He still loved her, but having her was now more impossible than ever. 

“Why did you plan it in the first place?” he asked, replacing her hands in her own lap.  He still wanted answers.  “And why did Ian say ‘Do it for Dad’?”  Graham needed to know what she was holding inside.  There had to be something there – something important.

Chapter 45

The wire cutters clicked softly – almost without a sound.

“We’re all still here, right?” Private Eckstrom said.  “Looks like you made the right call, Colonel!  The timer is off.  The bomb’s diffused.”

Graham continued to look into Peggy Lee’s eyes.  She looked so small now, like a balloon slowly losing air.  Her shoulders sagged; he thought she might collapse.  Her eyes were resolute, however, as she mouthed the words “I am so very sorry,” and then said to the soldier, “Same wires for the other bomb.”

Private Eckstrom nodded, walked over to the bomb that was attached to the servers, and quickly disarmed it.  “All clear!”

“Good work, soldier,” Graham said as he released Peggy Lee.  “Now, take Ms. Swenson down to Holding Cell B and make sure that she has everything that she needs to be comfortable.  Then meet me in the dining hall for the debriefing.  Afterwards, we will reassign stations and shifts and start the long process of getting this mess cleaned up as quickly as possible.”

##

Graham left the Brain Room and walked to the dining hall.  Approximately twenty soldiers stood in a group near the waterfall, waiting for him.  When he emerged, the soldiers all cheered.  Charley rushed over to him and shook his hand.  “Good job, Graham.  So we’re safe now, right?”

“Yes, the bombs are diffused.”

“That’s great, sir!  Did you hear that, men, the facilities are secured!”  The soldiers clapped and hollered. 

“You did it,” Charley said, turning back to Graham.  “They got the Battery Station, sure, but that’s small potatoes compared to the Brain Room.  Hell of a job in there, Colonel.  Hey, by the way, here’s your pass card.  I recovered it off of that monster Ian.  Man, he’s a brute, eh?  He was still giving us some trouble down in the holding cell.  But we took care of it.”

“Thanks again for showing up just in the nick of time.  I’m afraid of what would have happened had you not been there.”

“All in a day’s work, right?  I think that I might have scraped some of the skin off of my right hip getting around that corner, but I needed to lose a few pounds anyway – easier than dieting!”

“Yeah, well, like I said, I’m sure glad you got through.”  Graham didn’t feel like laughing or celebrating.  He just had to get through this confab without breaking down.  Then he would have a chance to catch his breath and figure out what it all meant.  “Now, is everyone here?  I’d like to get started.” 

“Looks like a full house, chief.  Private Eckstrom just arrived.  Take it away.”   

Graham stood in front of the small crowd, cleared his throat, and then began to explain what had happened.  He skipped over his plans with Peggy Lee to see the stars and Charley’s seeking out wine for them.  And of course, he skipped the kiss.  He detailed the destruction in the Battery Station and then talked about the fight, emphasizing Charley’s last minute heroics.  He did not know exactly what to say about Peggy Lee.  She had helped save the Brain Room, but she was responsible for the destruction of the Battery Station.  Instead of going into great detail, he simply said that she had a change of heart and had turned against Ian in the end.  

 At the end of the debriefing, Graham announced that almost everything would go back to the normal schedule.  He ordered a replacement shift of soldiers to take over for the soldiers who had been tied up in the Brain Room.  He figured they deserved the rest of the night off.  Then he told them that the boat for the mainland would leave the Platform at the scheduled time the following morning – only now with two prisoners in the place of two honored guests.

Chapter 44

Graham backed away slowly, pulling Peggy Lee back along with him. 

“Where are you running to?” Ian said.  “You like to back yourself into corners, I guess, right?  But this time there’s no way out.”

When Ian was just a few yards away from Graham and Peggy Lee, Charley slipped out from his hiding place and began walking silently towards him.  As he approached, he said, in a calm, restrained tone, “Hey buddy, you looking for a fight?”

Ian spun around.  Before he could utter a word or defend himself, Charley landed a solid blow to his left eye.  Graham sprung from the corner and threw himself at the back of Ian’s knees, knocking the giant to the ground.  Ian fell onto his injured shoulder, twisting and howling with pain.  Then Charley jumped on top of Ian and struck him powerfully on the jaw.  Ian rolled onto his stomach to try to protect himself.  Charley grabbed his one good arm, wrenched it up behind his back, and pinned him to the ground.  Graham held his legs.

“Alright, I got him,” Charley said.

“You can handle him?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I’ll untie the soldiers, and we can secure him with those straps.”

“Hurry though.  This ox is even stronger than he looks.”

Graham ran over and pulled the gags out of the soldiers’ mouths and untied them.  “You guys are techies, right?  Go figure out how to get those doors open.  Break into the emergency protocol and see what you can do,” Graham ordered.

Peggy Lee sat down on the floor, put her head in her hands, and began to sob.  Graham and Charley bound Ian’s good arm to his feet.  He lay there silently, like a roped calf, spitting blood onto the floor. 

“Peggy Lee, are we in immediate danger from those bombs?” Graham asked.

She shook her head.  Then she said, “We have about half an hour before the back-up detonators are activated.  Then, you will have fifteen more minutes before they go off.”

Charley stepped over to Peggy Lee.  “I need to restrain you as well.  You are under military arrest.”

“Don’t bother her,” Graham replied.  “She’s not going to try anything now.  When we get those doors open we’ll take them both to the holding cells, but there’s no need to bind her hands.”

“If you say so, boss.”

“I say so.”

##

Within five minutes, the two techie soldiers had managed to get the doors open.  All of the soldiers on the Platform burst into the room ready for a fight. 

“Stand down,” Graham ordered.  “Now, do any of you have explosives experience?  We need to deactivate these bombs.” 

One of the escort soldiers from the boat stepped forward.  “I used to tinker a lot with electronics when I was a kid.  I could probably help.”

“What’s your name again?” Graham asked.

“Private Eckstrom, sir.”

“Anyone else?”

The room was silent.  Then, Peggy Lee stood up and said, “I want to help too.  I know the bombs.  They’re very sophisticated.  You cannot move them because any motion will cause premature detonation.  If you cut the wrong wire or pull any circuit boards, they’ll blow.  You need my help if you’re going to have any chance of disarming those bombs.”

Graham turned and looked hard at her.  “Why would I trust you?”

“Because I helped you stop Ian.”

“Okay, but why did you do that?  Your mission was clearly to destroy the facilities.”

“I changed my mind, okay?  I helped you, not him.  That should be enough.  Let’s just deactivate the bombs, okay?”

“As I see it, I don’t really have much choice.  Okay everyone clear the room, except for Peggy Lee and Private Eckstrom.  Charley, take a couple of soldiers and escort Ian to holding cell A.  The rest of you, get down to the dining hall, where I will debrief you when we’re finished here.”

“You’re staying too?” Charley asked.

Graham nodded as he grabbed a toolbox from one of the soldiers.  “Now go!”

The room emptied quickly.  Graham, Peggy Lee, and Private Eckstrom walked over to the bomb attached to the central console.  Peggy Lee pointed to a green wire and a blue wire, “Cut those two simultaneously.”

“Are you sure?” Graham asked.

“Yes, I studied these bombs for months getting ready for today.”

“What do you think, soldier?” Graham asked.

“Looks plausible to me.  The better question is how sure are you that you can trust this terrorist?  Because if she’s wrong . . . .”

Graham turned and took Peggy Lee by the shoulders.  “Look at me, damn it,” he said.

Her beautiful, blue-gray eyes came immediately into focus on his.  Tears streaked her face and her bottom lip quivered, but her eyes were steady and clear.  He wondered what she saw when she looked at him.  Her eyes seemed to be pleading with him for forgiveness, but he could not be sure.  He wasn’t even sure if she wanted to live or die.  He knew now that she was lost in this deteriorating world – that her convictions had dissolved into nothing.  She had managed to maintain a polished presentation to the outside world, but what lay inside was dark and wrought with confusion.  Something in her sorrowful gaze, however, assured him that she did not want to hurt him.  She nodded just once, and Graham made the call. 

Without taking his eyes off of hers, he ordered the soldier to cut the wires.  If he was wrong and the room exploded, at least the last thing that he would see would be beautiful – strange, frightening, frail, and complicated, but also extremely beautiful.

“Alright, sir, I hope you know what you’re doing,” Private Eckstrom said.

They all took a deep breath.