The Day The Oil Stopped Burning, Chapter 1: Leland

Jack Saffell was looking forward to catching some perch that afternoon. He had not been out on Lake Leelanau for nearly 10 years and he had an incredible desire for some fresh perch filets red skin potatoes and sweet corn. Of course any of the above in late august in northern Michigan would qualify as a gourmet meal on its own. The difference in gastric adventures among his particular crowd between summer and mid winter was profound with summer offering up a plethora of every edible delight imaginable and winter often reducing one to cream of mushroom soup on toast.

Perch was far and away his favorite fish. Tuna, dolphin, grouper, even sword fish, in fact any saltwater marine species just could not hold a toothpick to fresh perch fillets fried in oil and butter, dusted with drakes. His friend Jimmy in Key West always claimed that raw tuna was god’s gift to the taste buds but then Jimmy was once rumored to have served fried cat fool patties with Margaritas to guests and claimed they were his famous crab cakes.

After 5 years of dealing with the meat headed shit bags in Washington D.C. He was totally ready to spend a little time fishing, eating, drinking and sleeping, the latter of which he had found sorely lacking in the last five years.
Sleep came a bit hard as one learned the intricacies of the so called Potomac colonoscopy. The most important thing a government need do is maintain the appearance of upholding the law, especially when they're breaking it. After a year or so in his job as an environmental lobbyist his naiveté had given way to recognition of reality, which in turn gave way to apathy, which in turn gave way to downright anger, which in turn lead to his being asked to leave in a manner of speaking. Being a hero just because it is the right thing to do was not really his gig so he was willing to take his leave of the city well before the shit storm blew in from the Atlantic.

And so, here he was, back in northern Michigan. The year was 2032 and Jack was just 32 years old. In fact he was born on January first of 2000 at 12:00. 01.01 AM. Of the 4,100,000 people born in the US in 2000, 7.8 were born in the first minute of the new millennium. Considering that 1.3 of those were born in the first ten seconds, it would appear that Jack was the first child born in the United States in the third millennium AD. There's really no way of knowing but people had always assumed Jack was actually the first child born to the new millennium in the entire universe. Of course that was before we had realized we were not alone in the universe. Best anyone had ever calculated the "eggheads", as they were derogatorily known, numbered over 2300 trillion on at least 16 different planets. Compared to our mere 7 billion at the turn of the century, it was fair to guess that quite a few eggheads came into existence before Jack had in those first few seconds of the new millennium, but of course, at the time we were clueless of their existence. Since 2016 when earth had first experienced a visit from the eggheads, our technology development had taken an exponential leap forward. By this point most every new baby was enhanced. Several chips in the old Frontal lobe and a manipulation of the first thirty or so embryonic stem cells in the blastocist to reverse the human aging process could do wonders. A few injections of preprogrammed nanobots to fight infection, transform malignant and mutant cells into productive ones, and totally enhance muscle growth could do the rest.

He found it amazing that in his sweet short life humans had gone from mostly sick, rather weak, intellectually challenged creatures with a life span of about eighty years to quite the opposite with a lifespan that although yet untested, may prove to be two, maybe three hundred years.

While Jack was a "natural" as unenhanced humans were called he was born with certain “special powers". His intellect was equal to that of the enhanced with an approximately 200 million calculations per millisecond speed and a memory of over 400 thousand gigabytes. This although was not his real gift. His real gift was a spot-on telepathic ability to know exactly what people were thinking and were going to do. It was not that he could read their minds per say, but he could just sense their intentions and reactions. Also his physical condition was superior and physical activity kept him in excellent shape.

Jack's talents proved quite useful during his somewhat idealistic youth, but now things had changed and he was just looking forward to some peaceful fishing and a bit of his second love which was drinking. Of course a butt load of "safe" alternative drugs had made their way through the proverbial FDA pipeline, but Jack had rather preferred the good old booze.

Jack reached for his Zebco in the shed of the old family cottage on Lake Leelanau. He had had this rod and reel since his sixth birthday and it remained his favorite rig for Perch fishing. Next, his tackle box, also an oldie passed on from his father and grandfather. Then, he strolled down to the dock and into his 1929 Old town dingy with the three HP Johnson Seahorse outboard. The 1959 Johnson was just for show. It was still perfectly operable however the gasoline needed to operate it was unobtainable. Jack had mounted a small electric which although rather low-tech at the time still managed to run on a three inch by 6 inch battery which remained charged simply by the molecular movement within the water. He only had to motor a few hundred yards to "the snags", two cedar trees in 16 feet of water which had been there since the first damn was built in 1869. Amazing how a Cedar tree won't rot after one hundred and sixty three years underwater. The tops were about 4 feet under the surface and were hard to pick out if you didn't know exactly where to look, however he could probably have made it there asleep. He had actually pondered if the old dingy could just gravitate to this spot, what with the several thousand times it had been there, and the cells in wood having a sort of memory and the molecules in white cedar having a certain attraction to one another.

With his three hook rig and minnows for bait it was only a matter of minutes till he had a bucket of twelve to fourteen inch Perch. The Perch population was one of the few species that the department of natural resources had not totally messed with, and it is entirely possible that that was the reason for their success as a species. Recent human history had proven that basically every bright idea some bureaucrat biologist came up with, and convinced the government to act on, had a dozen or more unintended consequences, mostly bad. Of course, trying to mitigate the negative consequences just produced more of them, and on down the vicious cycle of human natural intervention and blundering we go.

It was clear to him after his years of frustration in D.C. That the eggheads had it right when they planted the seeds of life on earth six hundred million years ago, as they had done on thousands of planets through the universe, and just left it alone. Let evolution do its thing, and let the higher evolved spices learn from their mistakes. Perch had made their niche in the evolutionary food chain being relatively little guys, and were doing just find in spite of man's help and now he intended to consume as many as he could eat along with the aforementioned redskins and sweet corn. He had pulled out a bottle of forty fifth parallel wine he had stashed under the cottage ten years ago. The wine industry had been one of the agricultural and environmental success stories in his home county of Leelanau. The soil and climate becoming better and better as a result of climate change which in northern Michigan was becoming generally warmer with the appropriate precipitation. The French pretty much shot their own foot off when they started the genetic modification of certain grape species to combat the climate chance in their neighborhood. The result of this exercise being a disaster and pretty much eliminating the wine industry in France in a matter of a few years. Similar results were experienced in Brazil, Chili, Italy, and California to one degree or another and these days only the Aussies and Michiganders could grow a decent grape and make a decent wine. As always, Kentucky and Tennessee remained on top with respect to making "brown wine" which was his default favorite.

Climate change had become a non-issue what with the energy technology that the eggheads had bestowed on our civilization in the nick of time. In fact, that, along with the renewed interest by humans in nuclear weapons and their increasing willingness to deploy them was the main reason for the visit, and ultimate intervention by the eggheads. He could barely blame them for wanting to preserve what had taken six hundred million years to evolve. It seemed like long time to him however the eggheads had a totally different concept of time having been around for trillions of years and having life spans that nobody really understood but were a least ten thousand years. The only way we understood this is that the same guys that came around to visit in ancient Egypt and Mesoamerica were here again. Even though we were now utilizing Co2 free technology, it was still going to take quite a few decades for our atmosphere to straighten out and we were stuck with the present weather patterns for quite some time to come.

He heard a car coming down the long drive back to the cottage and figured it must be Annie G. Her real name was Annie Jean Gallagher but he had always called her Annie G. They had grown up together and had spent a lot of time together till he took the job in D.C. and she took an internship with Robert Ballard through the Institute for Archaeological Oceanography. This was kind of a dream come true gig for a budding, young, highly intelligent, highly motivated marine biologist. It had been five years since they had seen each other and he was excited as hell. They had stayed in touch, emailed, skyped or talked on the phone every couple weeks, but for a time they had been soul mates, and he harbored a pretty deep seeded desire to rekindle the ol' flame as it were.

She still drove the battery powered 2020 Subaru she had bought used eight years ago when the both finished Grad school at U of M. The car had definitely seen some better days, but Annie looked outstanding. “Holy shit…. Does she look good” Jack thought to himself. The Kayak, mountain bike, and kite board on top of the Subi were more than a subtle hint as to her lifestyle and her body was all the proof one needed to see that see stayed in great shape. She had always had a beautiful face with a sort of impish smile that turned up a bit more on the right side than the left and gave her a look of mischief, at least in his mind.
Dark hair pulled back, dark eyes, and a medium to dark complexion. Of course she had spent most of her life outside and the sun had given her a permanent-tan. Most people these days tended to avoid sun exposure at all cost since medical technology hadn't quite figured out how to make our skin last as long as the rest of our human bodies were expected to last. Turns out that reverse engineering the human brain was not the last hurdle in our quest for immortality; keeping the skin from getting thin, brittle, withered and deteriorated was. Jack and Annie both figured, "what the hell" the sun just felt to damn good on the skin to deprive one of this simple pleasure. They both knew that our biological evolution had been combined with and overtaken by our technological evolution back when man first used fire and that at this rate the need for an actual biological body would be obsolete before their skin gave out (or so they hoped). The eggheads had evolved past the need for any physical constraint such as a biological body billions of years ago. Of course they could, and did, present themselves as physical beings. They could also enjoy any physical stimulus or pleasure; however their concept of such things as pleasure was way beyond our comprehension. On the brief encounters with humans they preferred to present themselves as a mostly human form in something of a hologram and utilizing the same sound wave/ language communication system we humans use. Even though a tremendous amount of knowledge, information, and technological advancement had been experienced at an incredible and exponential rate due to the eggheads, and people were due to live two or three times longer as a result, they still hadn't taught us how to exist without our biological bodies yet. Jack assumed they probably intended to save that one till we got a bit more advanced....... like maybe a few hundred million more years.

He had just poured wine, brought the water to a boil and had the perch dusted with Drakes seasoning and ready to toss in the pan. He met her at the back screen door with glass in hand. "Whaooo baby..... Do you look great" were his first words. "You’re not looking too bad yourself Jackie boy". "By the way, I have been living on a boat for the past twenty two months and have not gotten laid in as long, so if you haven't put that fish on yet.....DONT".

The perch turned out to delicious as he had expected and the last sweet corn cob was tossed into the fire around midnight. "Wow, I really didn't expect that" Jack said, with his best convincing lobbyist voice. "Yea, maybe not, but I could sure as hell tell that's just exactly what you were hoping for. Maybe not till after the fish, which were incredible by the way, but still just what you were hoping for". "You know, even though I'm the one with the supposed telepathic connection, you always seem to know just what the hell I'm thinking. I'm telling you, I could get hit by a beer truck this minute and die a happy man. Ten hours of sleep and I'll consider it the perfect day". Ten minutes later, they were both asleep like spoons on the sleeping porch and didn't move for ten hours.

The term frustration could barley describe his overall experience in our nation’s Capitol. So much shit was changing so fast and basic laws of physics were no longer laws and if there is one thing that Washington has natural resistance to...its change. So, at 12:00.01.01 AM, January 1, 2016 when the eggheads first made their presents known, everything changed....everything changed a lot! Exactly one year later every drop of oil in the world, every lump of coal, and every cubic centimeter of natural gas was rendered useless in a matter of seconds. In their first overt intervention in nearly ten thousand years, the eggheads apparently figured we were worthy of a little figurative kick in the ass so along with giving humanity a few tips like cold fusion, and the ability to convert a two second UV ray exposure into two hundred thousand megawatts of electric power, they also changed the molecular structure of every combustible fossil fuel by a couple particles we didn't even know existed and made it all about as worthless a fart in an outhouse. Nice trade, however the dip sticks in D.C. that owed their souls to the major energy interests were quite literally pooping in their pants. This overall atmosphere was a total heyday for the environmental interests, but all the positive results and requisite drastic change for the better, still didn't make working in that environment any easier. What you had was a bunch of scared shitless, unscrupulous politicians because they realized that the intellectually enhanced youth were going to outsmart them all out of their phony baloney jobs in a few short years and being suddenly shown up by aliens made them look like a bunch of monkeys fucking a football. With ten years into it, things were still a total clusterfuck, not to mention the evangelical shit bomb. Every organized religion in the world was freaking out because their God actually turned out to be a highly evolved species that had planted seeds of life around the universe six hundred million years ago. One no longer needed the middle man. The guys in Rome with the funny hats that had held the monopoly on communication with "the big guy" for three thousand years had just lost their corner on the market. Same thing with the Muslims, the Protestants, the Lutherans, the Jews, the Hindus, and all the various cults that professed to have the exclusive pipeline to the higher power in the universe and extracted money from it's followers to gain access to that pipeline. When the eggheads showed up and saved our proverbial asses, they pretty much explained how things went down over the last six hundred million years, and rendered the practice of organized religion rather obsolete not to mention, stupid.

The only real active roll the eggheads took in the natural evolution of earth was when they had to take out the dinosaurs. Mammals were always intended to evolve to a higher status, but before they could take hold and develop a larger brain and finally the neocortex which was the exclusive development of the Homo sapiens spices a few molecules of DNA sort of went haywire and the next thing you know dinosaurs are taking over everything. A well directed asteroid gave us a sort of reboot and the mammals’ ultimately took their place in the evolutionary line and the rest as they say is history.

They woke up refreshed and after a little morning delight and a pot of dark French roast hit the road for a little cruse around the county. Jack just wanted to take a drive on some back roads and let his mind wander. The last few months in D.C. had put his brain into such knots that he felt the only way to untie it was to relax and let it untie itself. He wondered if the kids that had enhancement procedures could get an algorithm that taught itself how to relax the same way a couple shots of tequila could relax him. He was glad to be out of the tornado that was brewing. He had been sucked up into this shit before and it was only by his unique power to see what was coming that he got out. In less than three months was the presidential election. President Kelly was expected to earn reelection but the house and senate were anyone's guess and a lot of incumbents were looking at the unemployment line. Twelve year old kids had a better grasp of global economic conditions, not to mention physics, science, and mathematics which had progressed rapidly since1/1/16.

Even though by almost every measure life was better for every human on earth since 2016, the world still had no shortage of luddites who would deny technology beneficial to humanity in favor of their own personal interests or bizarre personal beliefs. The same zealots and extremists who were never satisfied with simply maintaining religious freedom for themselves, but insisted that the rest of humanity agree with their way of thinking were still alive and kicking even though an overwhelming preponderance of evidence to the contrary had been dumped in their laps. The apparent separation of church and state that the United States had grappled with for all its two hundred and fifty six years had been put to the test in the extreme back in 2016. A mere ten months after our first contact with the eggheads and after the historic second term of America's first African American President Barak Obama the Unites States did an abrupt one hundred and eighty degree turn and elected the most religious, social conservative , evangelical administration in history. President Santorum and Vice President Bachman had spent the better part of their term denying the very existence of the eggheads and attempting to stifle every shred of benevolent technology they were willing to grant us. This finally became the overwhelming reason for the egghead’s manipulation of the molecular structure of all carbon dioxide emitting, combustible carbon based fossil fuels, thus rendering them all non combustible. It was clear to Jack that the eggheads were far to advanced to bother arguing the benefits of technology which was several million years outdated to them but was advanced enough to put humanity a hundred years ahead and basically save our planet. Santorum and his administration were idiotic enough to present an argument so the eggheads simply eliminated any other options. Jack also realized that the eggheads had no interest whatsoever in micromanaging the planet earth and had probably just made their existence known in order to keep humanity from destroying its own home. Jack figured folks should be a bit grateful for still having a planet and getting a huge boost in health, lifespan, quality of life and happiness as a nice byproduct, but his life as an environmentalist and lobbyist had lead him to regard mankind as basically akin to the Coco bird and willing to shit in its own nest.

The next twelve years had produced a bit more cooperation and positive movement in the direction of new technology which was producing a better environment and healthy, longer, and generally happier lives for most of humanity. The positive results of reworking the world’s infrastructure on the global economy had most developed economies embracing change. Another little trick the eggheads taught us was instantaneous water desalination at no cost and producing clean energy as a byproduct, thus providing almost instant agricultural turnaround for many developing and under developed countries. President Dr. Sarah Jane Kelly had been progressive with regard to taking full advantage of all the technology gleaned from the eggheads, and implemented a full court press on all levels of research which was producing almost daily innovation. Unfortunately, the United States government, as well as many others, still harbored those who would attempt to reverse much of this advancement. Dr. Kelly was a hands down favored candidate for reelection, but she was not without enemies.

After a drive "around the horn" as a drive around the north point of Leelanau County was called, Jack and Annie stopped at a bar in the town of Omena called “Knot just a Bar". He ordered a Dos Eques and a shot of Patron tequila with a lime and a walleye sandwich. She ordered a glass of Pinot Grie from a local vineyard and an order of fried cauliflower. They had spent the better part of the morning just reminiscing old times and catching up on each other’s adventures over the last six years. Annie knew Jack well enough to sense his tension and could not help but notice what many would refer to as burn out. "So, what do you think the bone heads are going to come up with this time" she asked him referring to the upcoming election. "You know, it's getting harder and harder to figure that shit out......even for me". "The best I can figure, the trad's are going to lose some seats, and that will probably be a positive, but the signals are getting pretty muddy, so really, I just can't tell". The "Trad's" or Traditionalists as the social conservative / tea party segment of the former Republican Party had come to be known were still in resistance to full implementation of new technology and were still in support of research trying to reverse the molecular manipulation of fossil fuels so we could use up remaining reserves. Tremendous amounts of money were at stake since we still had huge reserves of oil, coal, and natural gas and a whole bunch of machinery and technology that could still run on the stuff which was otherwise useless.

As they sat on the deck overlooking Omena Bay they could see half a dozen boats moored just off the public beach. "You know, I haven't been sailing in over five years" Jack said "we should call Geno and see if we can take the Leading Lady out tomorrow". Geno was an old friend of Jacks who owned an old C&C 39 sailboat. She had been Geno's dads’ boat and Jack and Geno had grown up sailing her all over the Great Lakes. She was a thirty nine footer built in 1972 right about the time all boat manufactures were making the switch from wood construction to fiberglass. At the time they really didn't know how much fiberglass to use in the hull construction, what with it being a rather new technology so they just used a lot. The result in this case being a really stout boat that could take a beating, sail fast, and last a long time. She had come with a Universal Atomic Four, 30 horse power, gas engine, but in 2017 Geno replaced it with an electric power plant that utilized deep cycle hydrogen technology and was constantly charged with a solar panel the size of a postage stamp. It had cost him a couple grand at the time but he could now cruse anywhere in the world without having to fill up the tank. Nowadays you could get a much more efficient setup for next to nothing. Egghead energy technology was so efficient it had effectively taken all the profit out of the energy industry. Jack saw this as a good thing, however quite a few douche bag energy industry executives probably thought differently.

“Well call him” Annie said “looks like the breeze is filling in a bit from the North West, and I haven’t seen Geno in years”. “I bet he’s out on the big lake on a day like today anyway”. Jack touched his right temple and said “dial Geno” a second later Geno picked up “what the fuck man where the hell are you”. “Annie and I are just sitting here in the Omena bar sippin a cold one”. “You are fucking kidding me! You’re here”? “Yea, just got in yesterday. Already went out to the cottage, caught some perchies, had a dozen for din with redskins and some of sonny’s sweet corn from the old veggie stand and Annie came over to join me. And dude…guess what”. “I Don’t know….what”.. “She just logged an eleven week gig on a NASA research vessel and was horny as hell”. “Oh, you fucking dog…..you didn’t”..”Sure did pal. All night bone-a-thon. Finally had to eat the perch around midnight”. “Oh, you are a total dog…so, how’s she looking”? “Beautiful as ever my man”. “So, I am here, working my ass off, and you call to tell me that you are back in the county for the first time in 6 years, got laid all night long, and now you guys are sitting in the Omena Bar getting fucked up…..is that about it”? “Yea, that’s about it. Oh, and yea, we want to go sailing”….” Fuck off loser”…”Come on man; we really want to see your ugly mug”. “Ok, I’ll get done here around three and meet you guys at the boat. Tell Annie she’s lowering her standards by sleeping with a bum like you”. “Awesome man, see you there”.

Jack took a swig and said “He’s gonna meet us at three. Oh..And he said you must have raised your standards. Not sure what he’s talking about”. “I’m sure you don’t you butt head” she replied. “No idea sweetheart” he said as he downed the Patron and took a bite of lime. After lunch and a few more rounds they headed south through Peshawbestown to Suttons Bay. Peshawbestown was the home of the Grant Traverse band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians. It was an official reservation albeit a pretty small one. Nevertheless, it dated back to sometime between 1860 when the first white guys established communities in North Port and Omena and 1880 when most all the Civil War angst had cleared (in the north anyway) and the wholesale screwing of the native Americans resumed in earnest. Geno’s dad, who was affectionately known as “The Geeze” had said that Peshawbestown use to be a total dump and all the Native Americans were in total poverty. They use to go buy smoked chub, whitefish and trout fillets from the Indians because back in the 1970s the Federal Government outlawed the use of large mesh gill nets in commercial fishing. This action seriously reduced the catch, which was probably the idea, but the Indians got pissed cause they claimed fishing rights had been bestowed them in Treaty of Washington, signed in 1836. The whole deal went to the Michigan Supreme Court and the Native Americans won their fishing rights back in 1979. Since they were the only guys who could use gill nets they were raking in the fish and selling it way cheaper than the other commercial fishing operations run by whites in Leland, Frankfort and Charlevoix. The non Indian fishermen were always pretty pissed about the whole thing, but Geeze had told them that the Peshawbestown population had been so screwed for so long they deserved a break. By the time Jack was born, the native America fortune had changed dramatically. In the 1980, they figured out that the reservation status qualified as a sovereign entity and as such was not subject to state gambling laws so they built a bingo palace. Then they built a casino. Of course this got tested in the courts as well but ultimately the Native Americans won and Indian gambling was off and running. Next was a really, really big casino, which was still in operation and had the usual hundred or so cars in the parking lot at one in the afternoon as Jack and Annie drove by. “You want to stop in and see if Susan’s working today” Jack asked. “To fucking depressing for me” was the reply. He had to admit; it was a pretty fucking depressing sight watching the diehard gamblers at the tables drinking and playing black jack at one in the afternoon on a beautiful summer day. “I just want to run in and see if she there” he said as he pulled in. Susan was an old friend of his dads who had got him involved in politics. She had always been involved in some issue or serving in some local political position. She was an environmentalist and a total activist in that regard. It was pretty clear that Jack was interested in environmental studies early on and Susan had recognized his extraordinary abilities just as early. As is the case for anyone with a passionate cause, Susan was acutely aware of the need for secession planning and she saw Jack as the “chosen one” perfectly suited to carry the torch. It had not quite dawned on him that she might be a bit disappointed to hear that he had bailed from D.C. His eyes took a while to adjust from the bright afternoon sun to the super dark interior of the black jack room and he bumped into table number one on his way around the corner. “Breaking in a new set of feet” he recognized Susan’s voice. “Shit, I can’t see a fucking thing” he said. “lovely to see you too Sweetie” she said. “Come here and give me a hug my sweet boy…what the hell are you doing here”? “I figured I better come back from D.C. and check to see if you’re still alive you old hose bag”. “I love you too sweetie”. His eyes had started to adjust so that at least he could see and outline. He gave Susan a big bear hug. She had been a black jack dealer at the casino for as long as he had been alive, but now she was the pit boss. “So, what’s up with all the Washington dick heads” she asked. “They ever gonna get their heads out of their asses and realize that the Global Energy Cooperation Act (GECA) is a fucking no-brainer”? “Usual shit, the pres is pushing hard. I had two dozen meeting in three days before I left just to get the guys in Ways and Means from killing the fucker”. “Oh Jackie boy, you are still my hero. Can’t you use your voodoo shit on then and determine how it’s gonna go”? “Yea, that’s the problem, I DID, and what I got scared the shit out of me. I got a vibe from the chair of the People for Proper and Peaceful Energy Production (PPPEP) and I didn’t like what I felt. This numb nut actually claims to have a formula to reverse the fossil fuel non combustion conversion and might have the support in the house to start production. What an unbelievable shortsighted ignoramus”. “That’s what I love about you Jack…no need to sugarcoat…so, what are you going to do”? “Well I’m sure as fuck not going to hang around here in the dark and play black jack, Annie’s in the car”. “What the hell you still doing here talking to a bag like me. Get you ass back out with that young lady. How is she anyway”. “Looking good as ever” Jack said with a somewhat evil grin. “Are you too back together”? “Since last night” Jack smiled. “Better treat her right this time Jackie boy”. “Yea, Yea, I hear ya….Hey I gotta run, I just wanted see if you were here and say hi. I hope I'll be around for a while, kinda feel like I got to chill for a while. Let’s get together this week and I’ll fill you in on the whole bizarre story. It’s totally fucking unbelievable.” You got it Jackie Boy. Thanks for stopping by, good to see you”.

“How’s she doing” Annie asked as Jack got in the Subi. “She looks pretty good for and eighty year old”. Susan had once had MS which had been cured ten years ago through embryonic stem cell research, but had done some nerve damage that was probably going to take a few more years of research to figure out. Even when research had a breakthrough it usually took a while for the biotech industry to bring things to scale not to mention the FDA process which in the Santorum era proved to be the worst impediment to progress and caused the death and suffering of millions that might have otherwise been cured. This was the kind of shit that drove Jack nuts and it was the same kind of shit that he feared was happening again. Since President Dr. Sarah Jane Kelly had won election in ’28 the NIH had been granted permission to continue research involving somatic cell nuclear transfer. Due to the conservative push back by the “trads” this potential life saving research went largely unexplored; at least to the extent that there were no deliverable results until we got another little gem from the eggheads. When they showed us how to enucleate a human egg and fertilize it with a somatic cell from someone else; the rest was easy. We just let that egg grow in the petri dish for five days then extract the embryonic stem cells from the inner cell mass and create an embryonic stem cell line by putting them in the right nutrient and letting them divide. After six months, if they had not differenceated or mutated in any way, the stem cell line was good to go. The cool thing is that the embryonic stem cells in the line have the same DNA as the person who donated the somatic (skin) cell. Since scientists had long since learned how to prompt stem cells into any of the two hundreds and forty different cells in the human body, they would have an infinite supply of replacement cells for anything that went wrong. Since the replacement cells would have the same DNA as the donor there was no rejection. The only real reason this had been resisted is that all the super conservative bone headed trads were afraid simply because this is also called cloning. Jack often found it hard to believe some of the backward superstitious bullshit that people used to believe in and actually passed as religious faith.

Susan had gotten new undamaged mylam cells injected. Mylem is basically the nerve lining that gets damaged in MS and causes the nervous system to short circuit, so with a new supply of nerve lining cells with her own DNA marker her whole nervous system was able to repair itself and if anything decided to go haywire again, she had a supply of more cells to do more repair. The only bummer in her case was that entire sections of nerve had died as a result of having no lining for so long and we didn’t quite have the technology to do the complete rebuild yet. Still, she probably had an extra twenty years of pretty healthy, happy living that would not have happened otherwise. As Jacks old mentor, thinking of her had often kept him “in the fight” as they say. Although he did his lobbying for the environmental interests, and didn’t have the expertise in biotech, he did work hand in hand with a lot of guys who had a lot of genetic, nanotech, and biotech expertise and they were usually on the same page.

“Let’s get some supplies and head down to the boat. Geno will be there in about an hour so we should be prefect”. Then pulled into the Merc to buy beer ice and munchies, and headed down to the Leland Harbor where the Leading Lady was moored in Slip number 21. “Holy shit, I can’t believe you guys are actually here. How the hell are you”? Geno had already untied dock lines, had the main sail half raised and was pushing “the Lady” out of the slip. “Throw the shit in the cooler and give me a hand here” he yelled. “Aren’t you going to start her up and motor out of the harbor” Annie G asked, although it was apparent that was not what Geno had in mind. “Na, I try and just sail her out if it’s not blowing stink”……”saves on gas” he said with the deep infectious laugh Geno had when he told an old joke that only amused him. Like Jack, Geno was a bit on the nostalgic side. They both embraced change and new technology especially when it was designed and used to save and improve lives. They also realized that the eggheads had granted us technological advancements that would have otherwise taken decades or even centuries to come up with and we were defiantly getting a snowball effect. Jack, with his higher than usual intellect was able to rather easily master new technologies and use them to his benefit; even so, he and Geno liked to pretend like they were old fashion, shunning modern conveniences in lieu of “the old way of doing things” as the Geeze use to say. Thus, the old Johnson outboard just for show on Jacks dingy, and Geno’s propensity for pushing his sailboat out of the slip and sailing out of the harbor when he had a perfectly good, electric, clean, engine to motor out of the harbor with if he wanted to. Besides, Geno liked to be a show off some times, and sailing a thirty nine foot sail boat out of that harbor in any kind of wind was impressive. “Hey, hop on quick brother”. Geno already had the main raised the rest of the way, and the north west wind was catching the sail as Geno turned the helm to port and they picked up speed. “Hey Annie G roll that jib out , will ya”. As she undid the furling line, Jack tugged hard on the port jib sheet and out she rolled. Jack gave a half dozen wraps on the port primary winch, clicked in a winch handle and started to grind as he handed the sheet to Annie G to tail for him. Within thirty seconds they were trimmed in and sailing on starboard tack at full speed right toward the breakwall. “I guess we better gibe before we smash into the rocks”. “Gibe Ho” he yelled and swung the helm hard to port. The boom came across, Jack undid the port jib sheet, Annie G took up on the Starboard jib sheet, the sails filled again and wham, back up to eight knots and heading right for the mouth of the harbor. “Well, just like riding a bike, I always say”. “Yea,…. not to fucking bad, considering we haven’t sailed together in 5 years”. “Hand me a beer” They all cracked a beer and had about thirty five seconds to slam them before they were at the harbor mouth and had to gibe back to starboard before going on the beach. “Where are we going? South Manitou anyone”? Geno asked. “Let’s go to the south end of North Manitou” said Jack. “It’s a perfect beam reach with twenty knots of breeze and I want to feel The Lady stretch her legs and run for a while”. “North Manitou it is” said Geno. Jack loved to feel the helm of a sailboat in his hand, especially the Leading Lady and especially in a good stiff breeze. Within seconds he was in what Annie G called a “magic moment” kind of like a trance with a smile on his face and a freeing of any anxiety from his mind. Jack and Geno had grown up seeing that “magic moment” face on Geno’s dad, the Geeze. They had spent 4 months a year sailing all over lakes Michigan, Huron, and Superior and no matter what the weather or how many miles they had in front or behind them, Geeze always had a look of total serenity on his face as soon as he took the helm. Geno had always said it was because that’s when he felt closest to God. Of course a lot of people’s concept of God had changed since we learned about the eggheads, but Geno had always thought of god as simply some collective form of higher power in the universe and that recognition, of it and gratitude toward it along with kindness and tolerance toward other humans was the extent of a spiritual life. As it turns out, he had it figured just about right. His dad, the Geeze, probably followed a bit more of a Christian belief but had taught Geno and Jack to practice tolerance above all else. Jack really didn’t understand all the hubbub since it seemed to him that the eggheads were in fact a benevolent, omnipotent, superior being (actually, a whole lot of superior beings, but there did seem to be some network or connectivity between all 2300 trillion of them) that did plant the seeds of life on earth, and even though they didn’t seem to micro manage our planet, they did seem to love us and care enough to save our asses from extinction. To Jack, this seemed to be more or less the definition of God he had heard over and over. He figured people should be happy to have a God that was pretty much as people had imagined for ten thousand years finally make an appearance and validate everybody’s beliefs, instead of being freaked out because they couldn’t claim exclusive ownership anymore. Basically, he thought religious zealots were ignorant douche bags.

Jack fell into his “magic moment” at the helm. Geno and Annie G sat on the high side catching up on what had been happening in their lives in the last five years. “I can’t believe Ballard is really an asshole” Geno said. “He always seemed like such a cool guy on those discovery channel things. Remember watching that thing about how he found the Titanic… like, twenty years before we were born. Man I thought that guy was cool…how old is he anyway…like ninety”? “More like a hundred by now” Annie G said “He’s been getting treatments for a long time now, so the fucker will probably live another fifty years”. “And yea, he’s a real fuckwad, always hitting on the twenty year old interns…of which I was one…a knee to the fucking nads put a quick kibosh on his tit feeling routine, but still…what a low life.” “wow, I never figured him for a lecher…So how was your last gig on that NOAA research vessel”? “oh that gig was awesome; two hundred foot steel trawler, just tricked out, every toy in the book… for an MB that is”. “MB” Geno asked”. “Sorry sweetie, marine biologist ….we’re all MBs for short” ´”Yea, so what do you call the enviro guys like Jack before he got the lobby gig”? “We call um GTs for Green Turds”. “So, what in the world is Jack doing back here anyway”? “Beats me, I just got back a couple days ago. I was staying with some friends in Traverse City and was about to call you and come on out to the county when I got a call from Jack yesterday”. “Yea, so you came right out and screwed his brains out”. “What can I say, I was horney and he bribed me with perch. I always was a sucker for fresh fish”. “Hey, I had some awesome whitefish on the grill last night”. “Well, if you would have called me first...……it could have been you”. The thought gave Geno a bit of a twinge; Annie G was looking good as ever and they had been lovers off and on in the past. “That’s the story of my life, a day too late”.

"You know we could just harden up a few degrees and head over to Fayette". Fayette was a ghost town on the west side of Lake Michigan in Big Bay De Noc. It was a tiny crescent shaped natural harbor about three quarters of the way down the west side of the Garden Peninsula of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It was settled as an iron smelting station in 1867. It was in close sailing distance from the port of Escanaba where the iron ore from the Upper Peninsula's mines was loaded. It held the required hardwood forest for charcoal and had plenty of the required limestone. It was a perfect natural harbor which offered protection for the many sailing and early steam vessels which hauled in the ore and left with the smelted pig iron on its way to the steel mills in Gary Indiana. There was no overland access to Fayette, however the community had grown in short order with smelting plant workers and families, shop keepers, saloon keepers, blacksmiths, doctors, and all the different people that make up a community. The community grew and thrived for twenty years when technology changed and the mills in Gary were suddenly able to process the ore from scratch and rendered the smelting process unnecessary. Within two years, Fayette was a ghost town. Even today the Garden Peninsula is sparsely populated and basically has about a twenty lineal miles of paved road in an area of around twenty four hundred square miles.

Geno and Jack had sailed to Fayette numerous times, usually in September or October when it was empty and desolate. It was almost eerie sailing into a desolate empty ghost town in early autumn and they both loved it. There was nothing within twenty miles except Shirley’s Port Bar about three miles down the road. Geeze had first taken Geno and Jack there when they were weathered in by a massive storm out of the south that blew forty knots plus, rained sideways, and had fifteen foot waves rolling up Green Bay. They walked to Shirley’s in the rain and got totally shit faced. They considered it totally cool since they were just sixteen and Geeze had to sweet talk Shirley into serving them by convincing her that after two days stuck in a boat in Fayette with these boys he was going ape shit and needed to get trashed and he really didn't see any harm in the boys joining him; otherwise they might get board and ditch him. Shirley said that she hadn't seen a law man except for the Game Warden in years. It was commonly understood that being the Game Warden in the Garden Peninsula was by far the most dangerous job in law enforcement. You just don't tell a "Yopper" when, where, what or whether he can hunt. Shirley figured as long as they didn't have a car to crash, there wasn't much harm in letting the boys get hosed. They spent the day drinking beer, and tequila, eating burgers, watching football and playing pool. The next day jack and Geno couldn't move because they were so fucking hung-over. Geeze told them to drink a beer."Liquid wheat germ....better than orange juice" was one of his favorite sayings. They felt pretty darn lucky since the weather was still shitty and Geeze wasn't going to made then head out. Sailing south in those conditions would have been a barf-o-Rama, and instead they got to stay in their bunks all day and nurse their massive hangovers. Geeze let them do just about whatever they wanted most of the time, but he was totally unsympathetic when it came to the effects of the day after.

“Hey Jack, you still alive back there? Annie G and I want to go to Fayette". "That'll take all night and we don't have our stuff". “What the hell do you need, I got a butt load of food and booze on board, I got blankets and pillows, and I got a bunch of extra cloths and rain gear". "What about ice? We got enough ice"? “Yea, we got plenty of ice, besides, I put in a new fridge/ freezer unit that runs on solar....we're all set". "What about drugs...got any drugs". "Does a bear shit in the woods and use small fury animals as toilet paper"? "You boys are sick" Annie G said. "Ok" said Jack” we're in"........"Right, Annie G"? "Right you are Jackie boy".

Jack turned the wheel to starboard by about twenty degrees and leveled out at a compass course of 290 degrees WNW. They had sailed across the Big Lake enough times that he didn’t need to look at the charts. Most pleasure vessels these days had a GPS system that was fully integrated into all the boat systems and had a projected readout that could be viewed anywhere on the boat. Geno had intentionally not upgraded his navigation systems preferring to rely on the dead reckoning the Geeze had taught him and Jack, and taking an occasional glance at the old 1990s GPS map below at the Nav Station. Just another one of those “old fashion” things he liked to do even though technology had make it unnecessary.

The paradox of the fact that Jack was a crusader against those who obstinately resisted the life improving technologies granted us by the eggheads, while shunning many technologies in favor of doing things “the old fashion way” did not go unnoticed by Geno. It is likely that it did not go unnoticed by Jack ether. Of course they both saw the difference between trashing the planet or depriving humans of life saving advancements and denying oneself of simple time and labor saving conveniences.

“So you guys wanna go to Fayette hun?” Jack asked. “You know, it’s still a bit early in the season; probably be some other boats there”. “I don’t care, I want to go see if Shirley is still there” said Geno. “I think after that, we should head to Beaver Island……What da ya think”? “Absofuckinglootly” said Jack. “Since we are going to be sailing for the next twelve hours, I guess I’ll take a little snooze and rest up for the night watch. What time you want me back up to relieve you” Jack asked. “I’ll take her till twenty two hundred hours, then we’ll do 2 hour shifts”…..”Sound good”? “Yup, see ya then”. Jack went below to crash up in the V berth. Geno felt a bit of disappointment when Annie G followed him below, But sucked it up and said “hey, you guys better set me up with a sandwich, and my evening bourbon totty". Geno did like his bourbon. Annie G made him a ham and swiss sandwich and a bourbon on the rocks with a lemon twist. “Here you go honey” she said as she set the drink down and gave him a kiss of the cheek. “Don’t get too lonely”.

Autopilot was a convenience that latterly every other boat had and that Geno had refused to install. He said that getting a machine to drive your sailboat defeated the whole purpose of sailing in the first place. In his mind, sailing really was not about getting to any particular destination as much as it was about the journey. He said the same thing about life, and that was why he loved sailing so much. The downside of this attitude was that someone had to be at the helm all the time and right now it was him as Jack and Annie G were below snuggling together. He considered getting the sails trimmed perfectly and tying the helm off which allowed The Lady to sail herself as long as the wind didn’t go berserk, but then he figured three was always a crowd so he just enjoyed the sunset and sipped his bourbon.