NEW WORLD TRILOGY (Trilogy Title) (28 page)

• • •

Nineteen days after arriving at the villa: 8:06 a.m.

During a quiet breakfast of Samuel's favourite kind of Chinese noodles, they hear a car pull up in the driveway.  Immediately apprehensive, Yanyan tries to stay calm, not knowing what to think and not wanting to get her hopes up too high or let her fear show for that matter.  Before she gets a chance to respond, though, Samuel jumps up and races towards the front door; Yanyan then does the same.  They come to a stop on the veranda, stand side by side and watch as Sascha gets out of the car and walks around to greet them.  "Is anyone else here?" she asks nervously, looking around the villa almost hopefully.

Yanyan shakes her head.

"Is anyone else coming?" asks Samuel.

Sascha bends down and hugs him.  "Probably not, honey."

They walk inside silently and Yanyan serves up another bowl of noodles, which Sascha barely touches as she's so exhausted after having travelled for two weeks with little rest while taking her long and circuitous route.  After a quiet few minutes, Sascha promises to fill them in on the details after she's slept, excuses herself and goes to her bedroom, where she sleeps deeply for the rest of the day, relieved that she's made it and on the verge of allowing herself to accept and begin mourning the likelihood that Ikaros is already dead, a process that would have been abruptly cut short fifteen days ago had she allowed herself access to the mainstream media.

• • •

Gradually coming to terms with their situation, over the following years, they settled into a way of life that was isolated and relatively self-sufficient, only visiting the local villages for necessary supplies that had been used up, weren't held in the storeroom to begin with, or couldn't be produced on the property.

Two days after arriving, Sascha reconnected with the Laboratory Network and began, with Yanyan, managing the challenges and difficulties associated with their programme, which kept them busy most days for the years ahead.  In their spare time, they took turns to encourage Samuel's interests and facilitate his learning the best they could; being naturally curious and not having much else to do, Samuel happily spent a lot of his time studying, but soon developed a special interest in conducting experiments in the lab and developing technologies in the workshop, which convinced Sascha and Yanyan that they should gradually induct him into the R&D programme and expose him to the growing knowledge base of the network.  Upon doing so, he immediately felt a strong sense of purpose, and being intrigued by what they were doing and had already achieved, by the time he turned sixteen, Samuel had contributed to the programme in novel and valuable ways that not only surprised but also gained the respect of his peers.  This allowed him to have greater input into the direction of the programme, and, over the following years, he worked relentlessly, meticulously, and creatively with other members of the network on several significant and projects.

Chapter 25

Despite feeling relieved in some respects to have been so isolated in the mountains during the long years they spent there, Sascha, Yanyan and Samuel still tried to keep up to date with what was going on in the outside world the best they could, noticing morbidly that most things seemed only to worsen.  The Western European Union was further reduced to merely five core countries, including Germany and Switzerland, but membership seemed almost meaningless to most people.  Throughout Europe, regardless of membership, the social situation deteriorated to the point that the police states with their inadequate resources and personnel were unable to cope with the diversity and density of domestic disturbances and disruptions, resorting to a number of simplistic fear and intimidation tactics in what proved to be an unsuccessful attempt to keep the hard-core subversive and insurgent elements in the population at bay.

The continuing instability of the economies of Europe and the social pressures that resulted were reflective of a broader trend around the world.  By 2070, more countries than ever before were dealing with large-scale and often multiple internal conflicts including civil wars, endemic terrorism, guerrilla actions, riots, general social disorder and antisocial conduct, and spiralling crime rates due to a broadening extension of poverty, inequality and a lack of opportunity.

Exacerbating and even leading to much of this were the further sea-level rises of 14.2 meters, the increase in the average temperature of 4.7 degrees Celsius for the century to date, and the problematic shifts in climatic conditions that resulted: the cessation of the Gulf Stream in 2058, for example, re-routed the oceans' currents and dramatically changed the weather patterns around the world, sending England and much of Europe plummeting into a much colder condition with extended and more severe winters.  All these caused fundamental disruptions and changes to the way the world operated and resulted in nearly a hundred million deaths in the first few years following 2058 — this was largely due to food shortages, inadequate resource provision, and economic turmoil.  By 2070, the death toll had risen to more than 850 million.  Still, life went on almost as usual for all those 'lucky' enough to be still contained within the fewer-and-more-'isolated'-than-ever urban enclaves of 'civilisation,' some of which were the high-density urban 'islands' maintained by massive dykes in the form of residential building structures that had been put in place in a small number of vulnerable cities to keep at bay the water levels that had since risen above the surrounding metropolitan areas.

Disturbingly, still unbeknown to the world's general population was the fact that, by this time, nearly twenty million people were living sumptuously in space, looking across at the world from orbit and allowing the beauty of the view from a distance to obfuscate the suffering and the details of dire conditions on the surface — evidently, this was a welcome relief for many of the space-dwellers. 

What was reported to the general population near the end of 2070, however, was that the world's leading governments, institutions and corporations would soon attend the 4th Annual Earth Summit, which, for the first time, was to be held in orbit and was supposedly going to be by far the largest gathering of its kind in space to date.  This was the kind of announcement that The Global Domination Corporation's Laboratory Network had been waiting for, but all agreed that the short notice would push them to their limits.  As a result, on accepting the challenge, they worked around the clock in extended shifts in order to create a workable plan and make all the necessary technical preparations required to execute it.  Meanwhile, they had to decide collectively who their primary public relations representative would be — Sascha and Yanyan thought that one particular candidate was obvious, as did the overwhelming majority of the other network members.

• • •

Berne, Switzerland: April 22, 2071

Only having been to Berne once since arriving in the mountains all those years ago, Samuel is weary but intrigued by the sights, sounds and smells of the city, things that he's almost forgotten about taking for granted while living in Berlin.  He steps out of a small café onto the sidewalk after filling in time and attempting to blend in by having a strong coffee and a piece of tiramisu — a delicate treat he's never really considered before — and makes his way to the spaceport terminal, which is situated just near the centre of town and is always heavily guarded by the military.

• • •

Relatively more peaceful than other European cities, Berne was selected years ago as one of the five locations in Europe to have a spaceport, which partly influenced Ikaros and Sascha to buy the villa nearby.  The small size of Berne and its population — which was capped at 250,000 in 2040 with an additional limit of 25,000 tourists at a time — in combination with the relative stability in Switzerland, made the management and safety of the spaceport more viable, a judgement that has proven to be wise over the years of its operation.

• • •

After lining up for just ten minutes to show his falsified passport and get a fingerprint and iris scan — all of which cause no problems for him only because the Laboratory Network has put so much time and energy into developing a number of identity protection technologies — Samuel walks through into the transfer area, where he files onto a train that takes him to the space ferry resting at the base of flexible and stretchable tubing that rises straight up through the atmosphere and is attached to a non-orbiting spaceport in the thermosphere roughly 320 kilometers above the surface.

Despite the imposing nature and the initial expense of the technology, the space-ferrying system has provided a cost effective means of quickly transporting large numbers of people into space.  This is enabled by the expansive solar power farms located around each of the spaceports, from which electricity is transmitted down through the conductive fibres of the tubing to the ferries, where it's stored in launch batteries and is also used on demand by the ferries' maglev and arcjet propulsion systems.  Being cylindrical with tapered ends and eight stories in height, the ferries are aerodynamic and have a large carrying capacity of up to one thousand passengers and a considerable amount of cargo, but usually only baggage and certain perishable items and sundries.  This is not the only means by which cargo is transported into space, though: fleets of massive, cylindrical balloons take between one and two days to haul the majority of the large and heavy loads required for the infrastructure development projects, and have done so for many years.

From his window seat on the fourth floor, Samuel watches calmly as the ferry rises steadily above Berne, almost immediately showing its city limits and the nearby countryside.  As they rise high enough and while he still has time, he tries to spot the mountains around their villa in the distance and thinks that he has a pretty good idea of its approximate location, even though the view from such heights is slightly disorienting.  The ferry then moves into the thick layer of winter cloud, blocking the panorama below.

Soon emerging above the cloud, he and many of the other first-time passengers look out at the aerial scenery with anticipation; they don't have to wait long for the blue hues to start noticeably shifting towards the darkness of space while the curvature of Earth and the layer of atmosphere that surrounds it steadily become more pronounced.

After ascending for twenty-five minutes, the ferry docks at the central hub of the spaceport and passengers alight from exits on their respective levels; from this location, they are able to take orbital tours or visit one or more of the publicly acknowledged space stations in the limited network.

Mixed among the passengers are those returning to, or about to join, the space colonies.  In a seamless system of divisions, partitions, and entry and exit points, space tourists have remained unaware of this elaborate operation since inception: they simply return to the surface at the end of the their stay of a maximum of two days and nights, at which time they are accompanied by more space colonists who are able to travel as they please to any of the twenty spaceports and visit the safe cities and surrounding recreational areas below that have been secured and are rigorously kept in pristine condition for their leisure.  The operation has been able to avoid arousing suspicions partly because it's common knowledge that space tourists have the privilege of travelling to any port around the world they wish but also because, although inflows of travellers have been, at times, less than the outflows, the flux is kept to a minimum and controlled through a complex quota system, the data from which is also hidden from the view of all the employees, businesses, and authorities that aren't in the secretive loop.

Emanating from the hub of the spaceport are seven long spokes, each of which have fifteen well-used docking gates; this allows a constant stream of shuttles to come and go throughout the twenty-four-hour-a-day operation of the facility.  Samuel strolls down one of the walkways towards gate twelve, watching the groups of people sitting in the waiting areas and lining up to board their respective shuttles.  He joins the end of one queue but doesn't have to wait long before it's his turn to show his boarding pass and be greeted onto the craft by over-polite flight attendants, one of whom directs him to a window seat that has a large and imposing view of Earth just beyond.  He makes himself comfortable and waits patiently, knowing that it's only a thirty-minute trip to their destination, which includes a more-than-full orbit of the planet for their pleasure.  They are scheduled to stopover for an overnight tour of the International Space Research Centre (ISRC), the largest publicly known space station and a primary research facility that's popular with the tourists.

Chapter 26

Forty minutes later

In the foyer of the Grand Space Hotel aboard the ISRC, Samuel stands looking out at the view of Earth through the enormous windows lined with eight marble pillars while one of the receptionists checks him in.  A few minutes later he opens the door to his suite, which, along with the other five hundred and ninety-nine, has a constant view of Earth.  Although he has the opportunity to go on a tour of the station and participate in a range of touristy activities, Samuel has chosen not to as his interests evidently lie elsewhere.  He walks up to the windows and watches patiently while the sun rises on the Pacific islands and the line that splits night and day moves steadily across the ocean towards its next targets.  After several minutes, he glances at his watch, then waits some more.