We've Seen the Enemy Page 15

  A phrase the council had said stuck in Timothy’s mind. “History has proven that humans need a soul shattering experience to motivate them to make soul searching decisions. Many souls have been shattered. Make the right decision, Mr. Grey.”

  Both the council and the President unofficially endorsed his plan and urged him to act. The President recognized full well that his term as President meant little if the nation he presided over was on the brink of extinction.

  Although Mr. Grey privately refused their request, they still assigned him a large group of well trained body guards and placed Mr. Grey and his wife in an unofficial ‘safe house’, a small fortress located down a very long dirt road near an abandoned national park in Maine, completely remote from anything and connected to the world only through an electronic link.

  His public (and private) refusal to take on that role, coupled with strategic propaganda helped convince the world that he was the right man for the job. An earth wide emotional and unwavering plea finally led him to reluctantly accept the position and the title but with conditions.

  He insisted on being called simply ‘Mr. Grey’, or ‘Tom’ in social gatherings, which endeared him to almost everyone. He also made it clear that he would remain in his position for eleven and one-half years, the time he needed to bring about the reality of his dream, after which he would step down and allow the world to choose its type of representation and elect its leaders.

  Next he presented a detailed outline of his plans that would be implemented during the course of those eleven years, showing positive and negative effects and withholding nothing from the people. He insisted on a vote of acceptance for the overall plan before he would take office, with a minimum endorsement of 75%. Humanity, overwhelmed by his honesty and candor, came in with an overall vote of 92% with 96% of the population voting. The celebration lasted over 10 days, but Mr. Grey didn’t participate. He had already started work.

  Timothy noted that The Plan wasn’t accepted by all. As the segments were implemented according to schedule, the more difficult aspects caused no small resentment among a relatively small group that had voted in favor of it only a short time before. This resentment intensified until an underground movement was formed, created to destabilize the very plan they had voted for.

  Timothy saw Mr. Grey’s family killed one by one, and he also saw attacks made on his person. When he concentrated on the attacks, the instruction unit gave him specific details of the events that occurred one night, three years into his term.

  A sleeper agent posing as a security guard that had been employed for two years was activated, and he attacked and killed Mr. Grey’s two grown children while they slept. He then went into the bedroom where Mrs. Grey was sleeping, having gone to bed before her husband. Mr. Grey came in just as the assassin was about to cut her throat, and Timothy saw Mr. Grey turn from a mild and quiet accountant into a determined, unstoppable force. The attacker turned on Mr. Grey as his wife Evelyn woke up, and Mr. Grey grabbed the only thing he had at hand, a vase. In the darkness, the intruder misjudged his distance and Mr. Grey smashed the vase directly into the intruder’s mouth, causing fragments to enter his throat. In a panic, the intruder drew a gun and shot at the World Leader, smashing his left shoulder with the bullet.

  Timothy saw Mr. Grey pause momentarily, at which moment his wife grabbed the intruder’s hair and yanked back as hard as she could. He wheeled to confront her, and Mr. Grey, now totally out of control, reached forward and grabbed the intruder hard in the face with his good hand and dug into his eyes as strongly as he could. The intruder screamed and his gun went off while Mr. Grey literally tore him off his feet. Mr. Grey felt mush in his hands, but continued to tear into the intruder’s face without thinking of the gun in the intruder’s hand. The intruder, who had dropped the gun as he was being attacked was now completely terrorized, trying everything possible to get out of the World Leader’s hands as he choked on the vase fragments.

  Meanwhile, Evelyn had by this time grabbed the night table lamp stand and drove it as hard as she could into the intruder’s mouth. The light bulb exploded as it was rammed down the intruder’s mouth, and Timothy saw Mr. Grey and the intruder shudder with the shock of the still plugged in lamp stand, until Mr. Grey let go. They both heard a gurgling scream which shortened out into silence within a few moments.

  Timothy stood there transfixed by the horrible affair, but continued watching Mr. Grey and how he reacted to the situation. By this time he had turned on the lights in the bedroom and had hobbled over to the intruder now lying still on the floor. He saw the shredded face, with both eyes torn apart, and the lacerations around the lips from the vase. The intruder, who was unconscious and choking on glass, was left where he fell. Mr. Grey looked at his wife, now slumped on the floor, and saw blood staining her dress. He held the intruder’s gun in his hand while he pressed a button near the headboard, calling the outer security agents in. They had been completely ignorant of the events that had just occurred.

  Timothy learned that this event was a pivotal point in Mr. Grey’s term as World Leader. Their serious injuries, the death of their children, the courage he showed in defending what was important to him, and the fact that all this had been recorded by surveillance cameras and leaked to the press ended up solidifying his support to the populace. People all over the world had gotten tired of this sort of attack, and many had gone through it themselves. To see someone stand up to this, fight back and actually win, won him admiration even from enemies, who had previously called him a physical weakling.

  He had been interviewed numerous times over this event. One particular question stuck to the minds of the viewers, and his answer did more for him in five seconds than any propaganda could. The interviewer had asked, “Why didn’t you pull the trigger? Did you not feel justified?”

  Mr. Grey thought carefully before answering. “If I had pulled the trigger, I would have gone against the people.”

  “How so? Your life was in danger.”

  “At the time I had the gun in my hand, it no longer was. If I had killed him, I would have ignored the very laws and principles I laid down, the very same ones humanity voted for. Ignoring them would mean I was ignoring you, and everyone else. I would no longer be fit to serve as World Leader.”

  “So, this would be something akin to the benefit of the people, over the benefit of the one.”

  “That’s what this is all about. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  After that, there was nothing that they could do to stop him. The underground group was given a chance to support what they had voted for, and those that refused were charged and convicted of treason against the human race, the most serious crime anyone could commit and punishable by death. The World Court decided that the intruder did not deserve to be remembered and his name was erased from all records. He was executed as John Doe. Meanwhile, Mr. Grey continued with the plan, and his wife stood resolutely by his side until his death by natural causes.

  Mr. Grey had started out as a mild and humble accountant and turned into an unstoppable force that, under his benevolent dictatorship, stabilized the Earth’s finances and brought peace to a shattered and lost humanity. His common goal of a ‘One world, One people, One economy’, his ability to persuade through reason and common sense, and his quick action against those that had set themselves up on the side of anarchy made The Plan a reality. Timothy saw a tired multitude, sick and hungry, turning now to Mr. Grey for leadership and trusting in his every decision.

  He also saw this outstanding person continue mild mannered, taking action only when it bettered mankind. His vision was far sighted, but within eleven years, and just before his death, the world was once again prospering and unitedly making plans to send human explorers into space and beyond. The military technology that made war so lethal was now being modified to make exploration effective. With a One Government, there was no need for war.

  Just after this momentous point, Timothy saw an alien ship crash land a
lmost dead center in New Washington, narrowly missing the New White House. The year was now 2036, and stability was a reality. The existence of this ship shocked the world because it simply couldn’t be denied. Although the aliens inside were dead, the effect this ship caused on the human population was worldwide and immediate.

  Everyone wanted to know where it had come from, why it crashed, and its purpose. Pictures of the dead, ant-like aliens inside surfaced within days, but it took months to understand the biological computer inside and decipher its contents.

  Eventually a team of top notch scientists organized by the now public World Alliance Council, the precursor ruling party after the death of Mr. Grey, revealed some startling key facts. The alien craft was surprisingly simple, but their intent was not.

  It became clear that this ship had an unusual drive that could traverse long distances in a short period of time. It was also obvious that the ship was a scout. As they studied the information, the objective of these aliens became clear.

  At the same time, a brilliant but autistic engineer and mathematician called Jonathan Diaz showed up on the scene. As an idiot-savant, his family kept him out of the public eye, until one unfortunate event made him world known.

  His wealthy but shy parents had enrolled him in a private school that catered to children with specific disabilities, and within days his ability to solve complex mathematical problems had become obvious. A professor took Jonathan under his wing and tutored him for the next six years. To everyone who knew them, it had appeared as if this professor had become a second father figure, one that the family trusted implicitly. Unfortunately, an already troubled and uncommunicative Jonathan turned even more so, becoming totally absorbed in his own mathematical world as he lived with the professor.

  It shocked his parents when, on leaving the house one Sunday morning to go to church, they saw a cold, wet and crying Jonathan standing at their front door waiting for them to open it. Why he had left the professor was something no one could figure out. Jonathan was unable to communicate the reason and the professor hadn’t even noticed that he had left, which left the Diaz family very upset. How he got home was another enigma, and yet there he was.

  For the next six months, Jonathan worked away in their backyard, asking for and receiving one item after another that he would ask for. The items he chose appeared to be random – he asked for things from various catalogues, roamed through the local junkyard, took parts from vacuum cleaners, toasters, refrigerators and other objects, all of which drove his parents crazy.

  The professor had come numerous times to visit, but Jonathan became so upset whenever he saw the professor that the parents had to ask him to not come again. In the meantime, the object Jonathan was constructing was taking shape, though no one knew what it was.

  One morning Jonathan’s mother Mary was turning on the dishwasher when the lights dimmed suddenly and a noticeable hum was heard from the electrical circuits in the house. A moment later all the lights blew out. Mary figured it to be a power surge and knew that Jonathan was afraid of the dark, so she went looking for him but he was nowhere to be found. Panicking, she finally looked into the backyard and gasped in astonishment. In place of machinery, transformers, capacitors and so on was one large sphere measuring about 20 meters across with a perfectly mirrored surface. Mary called her husband at work in a panic, and then called the police.

  Once they all arrived, they inspected the sphere and noticed that it perfectly matched the contour of the ground, down to the individual blades of grass. They could pull out a blade that seemed imbedded in the mirrored surface, but they couldn’t put it back in once it was pulled out.

  Mary was now crying uncontrollably as she worried about Jonathan, and Jonathan’s father Pedro paced back and forth. He knew this object was somehow related to his son’s disappearance. It was on his pacing that he discovered overturned grass, which led to his finding a thick power cable buried in the ground coming from the direction of the house to the sphere. As he tried to dig where the sphere met the ground, it would immediately expand to fill the void, acting somewhat like liquid filling a cup.

  Pedro followed the cable to the house and saw that it by-passed the breaker box and tapped directly into the grid. He called an electrician.

  At this point a quick thinking police officer called an engineer friend of his working on a contract for WASA, the World Aeronautic Space Association. He arrived just in time. The electrician, unknown to the police officers or the engineer, cut the power to the house and the sphere collapsed in on itself to reveal a frightened Jonathan Diaz whimpering in his seat amid a mass of equipment.

  It had taken weeks, but Jonathan’s frenzy to build a machine he devised in his head was finally understood. He was trying to find a way to protect himself.

  He continued working on mathematics and engineering, except that now he had a team of ‘handlers’ - engineers, mathematicians and hundreds of support workers helping him out in a high security building in a secret government compound. Jonathan liked the security, and he particularly enjoyed the freedom to do anything he wanted. His parents had made sure the government understood that stipulation clearly.

  Mr. Grey came to visit him personally shortly before his own death to thank him for his contribution to society and to assure him that all would be done to keep him safe. Jonathan understood very little of what Mr. Grey said, and he sat there fidgeting quietly throughout his speech. About halfway through, Jonathan wrote something on the notepad he always carried with him, and when the World Leader concluded he handed it over. In the middle was one line of a scribbled formula, and Jonathan, for the first time in his life, looked at someone straight in the eyes. As he looked at Mr. Grey, he said, “Important!” and closed Mr. Grey’s hand around the paper.

  Although no one at the time could understand that formula or the context behind it, through his work he devised other formulas that led to Zero-Point energy harvesting. This breakthrough led to jumps through quantum space and provided the energy for shield creation and sustainability. It took a massive worldwide team of engineers years to follow his proofs and bring his mathematics to reality, but eventually they did, and these designs gave impetus to the spirit of space colonization, exploration and world defense. What would have taken centuries to do was accomplished in less then two decades. More importantly, his inventions, coupled with technology taken from the crashed alien ship advanced human technology to the point that it surpassed that of the aliens, giving them what they hoped would be a lead in whatever might be coming their way. They didn’t have long to wait.

  A World Library was set up by people grouped under a new term, The Technologists. This library was made accessible to all approved students and scientists that held the common goal as originally agreed to by humanity, and it electronically housed all the information, tests, studies, papers and scientific notes gathered by all the Technologists in their fields. It also included all the data accumulated by Jonathan Diaz’s team, as well as the information gathered from the alien ship’s computer. This incredible amount of information was the basis for the technology race that had begun, and it was now fueled on human pride, curiosity, and the threat of an alien attack. Each language group excelled at some facet of this technological advancement and took pride in what they added to the World Library. The relatively open source was built on the premise that secrets are never secrets for long, and that secrets themselves ultimately benefit no one. It obviously worked. Humanity had never before been so fired up.

  At this point HAL spoke up without stopping the instruction unit.

  “Timothy, please note the following point that I highlighted for the both of you. It concerns an attempt to use the information in the library for an evil cause.”

  When Timothy’s attention focused on this minor point, the Teaching Unit expanded the event.

  Certain colonists on Mars had declared their colony an independent state, much to the derision of the rest of humanity. The few took advantage and monopo
lized their stolen position of power, breaking the vow they had given before heading out. The Council refused to deal with terrorists, and continuing to trade with the colony provided advantages for both groups.

  After a few years had passed, a container ship on the round trip from Mars carrying a cargo of helium 3 docked with World Orbital, a repair and assembly facility in Low Earth Orbit, and one of its sensors registered a small radiation leak.

  Coincidentally, a docking station attendant that had spent most of her early morning tossing and turning in bed finally gave up and decided to go to work early. She caught the amber radiation warning light just as it lighted up. Having nothing else to do, she suited up and entered the container ship, and after inspecting its cargo found a small yield nuclear bomb normally used for sub-crust robotic mining actively counting away to detonation with only twenty seven minutes to go. The bomb was defused, but it was obvious that some had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure the bomb detonated at the busiest time.

  Once the news got out, anger towards the rebellious group spread like wildfire among almost everyone on Earth. The first Interplanetary Space Combat Unit was formed, Intel was gathered, the World Court assembled, and the colonists involved were allowed to defend themselves. As soon as the decision was rendered, the already waiting ISCU delivered a series of precise strikes that ended the group’s ambitious plans once and for all.

  Timothy understood what it was HAL was trying to say, but didn’t comment. He continued to see the colonization of the outer planets and the cooperation between nations on Earth defense, space exploration, earth sciences and in energy, food and medicine.

  In the meantime, work continued on the alien ship. A new science called exobiology had been formed and centered around the study of alien physiognomy. Their first specimens, the ants, were well known, but few had heard of a second group of twenty-eight smaller aliens initially mistaken as vermin.