Chapter 2:
Ron Smith
was in the office of The Environmental Alliance Group (EAG) at the corner of K
street and Capitol in Washington D.C. "Where the hell is Saffell" he
yelled at ear piercing volume. "Sir, I believe he has taken a leave of
absents and headed to someplace in Michigan" answered a twenty two year
old intern named Sam Marley. “what the fuck, everybody around here just takes
off whenever they feel like it? Gee, did it ever occur to anybody that we have
a fucking emergency going on around here? I'm really, really not in the mood to
singlehandedly save the whole fucking world at the moment..... Like, maybe I
could use a little bit of help....would that be TOO much to ask........would
it"?.." Michigan, what the hell is he doing in Michigan? I thought we
were through clearing up after those shit head auto industry guys ten years
ago? Don't we have all that UAW bull shit out of the way? I thought We finally
got Ford, GM, and all the rust belt Japs and Korians on board with new tech
years ago. I thought they were all retooled and in full swing with the no Co2
thing"? "I believe you are correct with all that sir, however, I
believe Jack is nowhere near the Detroit area", Answered Marley. It had
long been assumed by anyone that was not from the mid west that the term
"Michigan" meant "Detroit" or at least that south east
corner of the state that made up the old industrial rust belt corridor that had
churned out millions of cars and trucks during the last one hundred and thirty
years. It was beyond the imagination of an east or west coaster that only five
percent of Michigan was an industrial waist land and that the rest of the state
was really quite nice. In fact, few people realized that the northern half of
the state was quite possibly one of the most beautiful places on earth.
“Well, I
don't give a shit where he is....get his fucking lazy ass back here! We’ve got
a disaster brewing here". "On it sir" Marley barked.
Sam Marley
had actually been frantically trying to contact Jack for two days now and he
had absolutely no idea how to get in touch with him. Since the turn of the
century, the world had become much smaller and flatter and these days if a
person wanted to, he could stay in communication just about anywhere. The
problem was if someone didn't want to stay in communication they could still go
incognito. A lot of the current PE (post egghead) generation as they were
known, had location devices implanted as part of a total brain-nerve system
enhancement along with nano sized chips for increased data storage, faster
computation speed and so on. In the sixteen years since egghead technology
introduction, this and other enhancement procedures had become the rage and
there were big bucks to be made from the guys who got in on the ground floor.
The "location feature" was a big money maker since it was old
technology, dirt cheap stuff and an easy sell to parents who were getting their
kids enhanced because they would always know where their kids were, and the
poor kids couldn't turn it off.
Sam was glad
to have avoided that particular unpleasant embarrassment of youth but figured
that at the present rate of achievement by the first PE generation kids who
were just turning 14, fooling one's parents was going to be child's play.....
He chuckled at his own pun and pondered what things would be like in a few
short years when everyone under 25 would twice as smart as everyone over 25.
He swung
into the office of Jane Keen who was the office manager and always pretended to
be just a receptionist and secretary, but who in reality knew more about
everything that was going on in their office (and D.C. in general) than almost
anyone else. "Hi Jane, know how I can get a hold of Jack". "Not
unless he wants you to....boss blowing a gasket?" Jane replied.
"What's that mean anyway....blowing a gasket". It occurred to Jane
that at twenty two years old, he had been only six years old when the last gas
powered internal combustion engine was in general commercial use and that not
knowing what a gasket was did not seem that odd. "Oh, just an old fashion
way of saying he's throwing a shit fit ".”We'll, if I don't get Jack
Saffell back to this office, I'm going to be buried in it".
Sam caught
the Metro over to Jack's D.C. Apartment. Jack had a couple of handprints
programmed into the security system in case of emergency and Sam's was one of
them. Sam had only been with the organization for eight months as an intern but
Jack, gifted with super acute perception, found that he could trust Sam, and
trust was a rare commodity in the world of politics. Sam had no sooner turned
on jacks residential data systems when he sensed a message. It was personalized
to Sam's brain frequency and coded so Sam touching his temple made a copy to
decipher later. Neuroscience and recent reverse engineering of the human brain
had reviled a certain brain wave frequency that was as unique as a human
fingerprint. A nano sized microchip had been developed which was implantable
into ones temple and could utilize their personal frequency as somewhat of a
phone number or email address. This procedure was basically like getting ones
ear pierced and was FDA approved at any AT&T, Apple or Verizon retail
outlet. Also while not anything like the surgically enhanced, it did add a
couple thousand gig memory and boost the regular calculations per second brain
capacity by about ten times. It was possible to personalize digital messages as
well as communications to someone's personal brain frequency. Basically, people
now had everything a smart phone did plus a hundred times more data and storage
plus a unique access code in a microscopic chip emplaned in their scull.
Sam entered
his apartment and imminently went for his data control station and downloaded
Jack's message. "Hey Sammy here is the deal. I had to get outta dodge
...like now man! Sorry I couldn't fill you guys in but there was not much
opportunity before I needed to vaminous. I got a visit from some PPPEP types
who were not intending to take me dancing if you catch my drift. Anyway, I
guess the intention was to make me nervous, but I didn't need my ESP to realize
that these guys would just as soon put me in the big sleep as look at me. I
figured I had better chill for a while and figure out our next move instead of
ending up dead. If you are actually listening to this than the shit must be
hitting the fan. Not many people know where I am but if you really have a
meltdown going on than you can contact me by using my personal frequency
response code and leaving a message, I'll know it's you and I will get a hold
of you ASAP". Sam immediately followed Jack's instructions. "Hey
Jack, it's Sam, I really need you to call me. Ron is freaking out and the shit
is really hitting the fan. I'm not totally up on what's going on, above my pay
grade I guess, but Ron wants you here big time."
Ron Smith
was Jacks boss at The Environmental Alliance Group which was basically a
Washington D.C. think tank that did environmental research and represented
various environmental and scientific interests. They had always maintained a
strong Government relations department and Jack with his high intelligence and
keen instincts had long since proven to be their most valuable asset. Ron was a
totally animated over the top kind of guy who pretty much exaggerated
everything out of proportion. He also happened to be very smart and extremely
good at his job, which basically consisted of making people agree with him.
Jack was the antithesis of Ron being of somewhat calm demeanor and they made a
killer team. They could play "good cop bad cop" on most any
legislator and usually get their way......Or at least walk away with some sort
of compromise situation, which was a victory in D.C. terms. Ron was seventy
seven years old and had been in the political game in one form or another since
he graduated from Harvard law school in 1982. Along the way he had gotten
degrees in economics, political science (which he always considered oxymoronic)
environmental engineering and an MBA. He had lived in D.C. Since Ronald Reagan
was President and knew every single soul in the entire city. Ron was known as a
straight shooter and generally played by the rules, however it was universally
accepted that you did not want Ron Smith pissed off at you. Jack had accepted a
job offer from EAG right out of U of M grad school mostly because of Ron. He
had worked in the Reagan administration as an environmental advisor, spent four
years on president Clinton's counsel of economic advisors, worked as a
political lobbyist for major oil interests and started several major heavy
weight D.C. Consulting firms. At the start of the new millennium Ron spent
several years involved in research studying the effects of climate change.
Considering that Ron's expertise included macro economic and political behavior
including environmental impact, this research defiantly got his attention. The
more he learned the more concerned he became until finally all his effort and
resource became concentrated on the single cause of mitigating the damage he
knew was happening as a result of vast carbon dioxide emission. It's not like
he cared to play the blame game he just wanted to do whatever was possible to
reverse, or at least lesson, the adverse consequences whether environmental,
economical, or social. Up until the point that science began to recognize that
a combination of burning fossil fuels, industrial scale agriculture, and global
deforestation was causing a massive increase in Co2 in the atmosphere there
really was no one to blame. After all, mankind had benefitted beyond
imagination from the industrial revolution, and large scale agriculture. It is
hard to blame a country or regional society for clearing land to produce lumber
to sell and promote agriculture. The short term benefits to society in
bolstering the economy and feeding it's citizens is hard to argue with,
especially when weighted against some -might happen-in the future-supposed
disaster- that may or may not happen due to global warming. Ron certainly
understood that the blame, if you could call it that, was universal as well as
immaterial. The important thing was that what was occurring now, be universal
accepted, and that every measure be taken to reverse the process and mitigate
the effects. This was where Ron saw plenty of blame and a vast assortment of
villains. At the turn of the millennium trillions of dollars were at stake
since just about every aspect of the economy of the developed world evolved
around fossil fuels. Basically all our energy, transportation, industrial capacity,
food production, and construction industries involved humongous consumption
(burning) of fossil fuels in the form of coal, natural gas, or one of the
various distillates of petroleum. Ron hardly expected these extremely powerful,
very rich, and influential interests to just fold up shop and go away in the
interest of averting environmental disaster sometime in the future. The irony
that he once lobbied for and promoted the interests of the petroleum industry
did not go unnoticed to Ron. In the next decade most conservative Republican
lawmakers denied the validity of climate change and its disastrous
consequences. Even in the beginning of the second decade of twenty first
century the political will in the United States to effect any meaningful measures
to ward off the eventual disastrous effects of continued Co2 emissions were
pretty much nonexistent. In two thousand and ten Ron had formed the
Environmental Alliance Group, a think tank for the research, study, and
desimination of data involving all aspects of climate change. He started by
funding a host of research projects and collecting data on the effects of
climate change as well as exploring various alternative energy initiatives. Dr.
Charles Watson PHD, a leading scientist and highly recognized expert in the
field of climatology and environmental physics at MIT had been trying to
increase awareness of the dangers to politicians, media, and the general public
for at least ten years. He had followed the work of Ron Smith and when he
learned of Ron's new organization he knew he had to be part of it. He had
brought a half dozen researchers, scientists, and experts with him and in short
order the EAG had become a formidable organization. Along with research and
data accumulation they established a strong grass roots advocacy network and
lobbying effort for climate change mitigation and other environmental
interests. By 2032, The EAG was a global organization with several hundred of
the absolute brightest minds in the world on its payroll. Jack had taken the
job in late 2025 as a D.C. lobbyist and due to his extraordinary abilities he
quickly became very close to Ron and Ron loved him like a son.
By the year
2016 most of the worlds scientific community accepted the fact that Co2
molecules per cubic centimeter in the atmosphere had doubled in the last
hundred years and that it was causing a very real green house effect. They also
realized that this global green house effect was heating up the planet. Most of
the world population, including a preponderance of leaders and politicians from
the developed nations agreed on these two things, but that was where the
agreement ended. Most scientists believed that the increase in Co2 was man made
the overwhelming evidence being polar ice core samples showing that atmospheric
Co2 levels had been relatively constant for the past ten thousand years till a
hundred years ago when the industrial revolution went into full swing and we
burned everything in the ground to keep it going. They also seemed to agree
that while no one could predict the ultimate outcome, the overall effect was
going to be negative in every respect. The problem was that many political
leaders were not on board with these two most important points. The reason of
course, was money and lots of it. It was simply not in the U.S. industrial
corporate interest to move away from the status quo and most politicians are
loth to buck the system when money is involved.
Two thousand
and sixteen was a monumental turning point in the history of the human race. On
January 1, 2016 the entire world was shocked to learn that an alien
intelligence had made its presents known to the leaders of the one hundred and
ninety six independent countries in the world. This "first encounter"
was was also experienced by the United Nations during its first ever Global
Climate Change Conference. The one hundred and ninety three members of the
United Nations in 2016 were all in attendance along with over a thousand of the
worlds top scientists.
This
encounter, while understandably making quite a global splash and pretty much
occupying all news media for several weeks, still was not the kind of thing
that had been portrayed in science fiction books and movies for years. There
had not been the appearance of some "space ship", no big hub-bub over
aliens landing, in fact there was very little disruption and the whole thing
seemed rather anticlimactic. The "Eggheads" actually referred to
themselves as ecohedanosphearic entities. They had literally outgrown their
biological surroundings Trillions of years ago and were comprised of
information and energy, at least that was the basic explanation within the
constricts of our human understanding at the time. Their chosen method of
communication with humanity was through human looking holographic entities that
behaved and communicated exactly like humans but could materialize or
dematerialize as needed. This in it self was an impressive trick and went a
great distance in adding to the legitimacy of their message as well as
validating that they were what they said they were. Hard to argue with a guy
who can disappear and reappear at will. The first contact with them was
experienced simultaneously throughout the world by world leaders, scientists,
and all the ambassadors, staff and research teams attending the afore mentioned
Global Climate Chance Conference and the message was clear.......stop burning
fossil fuels! Earth had finally reached a turning point, which if passed, would
be catastrophic and irreversible. Humanity had now been discussing climate
change and fossil fuel consumption for twenty six years with no real
substantive solution or change in behavior. The earths atmosphere simply could
not withstand the continued Co2 build up and the negative consequences were
creating a feed back loop that was ultamitly going to render earth
uninhabitable.
Ron, Dr
Watson, and half a dozen representatives from the EAG were attending the Global
Climate Change Conference durning the first encounter. Unbeknownst to Ron and
his team there was already a world wide freak out going on since at 0:00 GMT
before the conference, the eggheads had momentarily interrupted all global
government communications with a brief message announcing their intention to
make contact with humanity at the afore mentioned conference and with the
majority of world leaders at 12:00 GMT which was 08:00 EST in New York City,
right when the GCCC was scheduled to commence. Needless to say, the pervious
twelve hours had been a mixture of panic, confusion, fear, and anticipation
among governments, militaries, and scientific communities around the world. Of
course the major world powers, the U.S. included, were having a total, secret,
massive melt down because something, somehow had hacked their most secured
communication and information systems. Regardless of the message, government
agencies, and especially the military, are predisposed to panic when they
suspect they are under attack, so at this moment it was fair to say that the
world powers were a bit on edge.
No sooner
had Ron and his team taken their seats and the conference called to order than
a group of three men were introduced at the protium. In hindsight Ron was
surprised at how casual it all seemed. It was almost surreal that all the
worlds leading diplomats and scientists were sitting and listening to
aliens.....no panicking crowds running around screaming.....no utter
calamities......just entities beyond our comprehension explaining the solutions
to our carbon emissions problems in a calm nonchalant manner at the United
Nations Global Climate Change Conference. Ron was equally surprised at his own
reaction. The two major thoughts that ran through his head were ....."This
is so fucking cool" ....and..."This changes EVERYTHING". The men
addressed the conference for less than an hour; the message amounting to a list
of bullet points that basically went like this:
* They are
ecohedanosphearic entities; a highly evolved spices who's basic evolution
started in a manner similar to that of Earth's. They have evolved over a time
frame that in earth metrics would be around one hundred and twenty six trillion
years.
* They had
conducted a "project" six hundreds million years ago. Seeds of biological
life as we understand it had been planted on thousands of planets throughout
the universe and the resulting evolution of life on earth was one of the
outcomes.
* Their
intention, and hope was for the evolution of intelligent beings, however they did
not intend to micro manage the evolutionary environment, but rather let life
evolve and observe the results. , Humans had evolved to a point at which our
technological evolution was becoming exponential and we were on the "fast
track" to becoming one of the advanced spices and as such, we were being
offered the technology required to keep from destroying ourselves.
* They had
compiled the information necessary to provide humanity a vast variety of energy
technologies and alternatives. Among these were, the abilities to harvest
limitless energy from solar, natural molecular movement and spontaneous nuclear
fusion with out radiation.
* All of
this information which also included hundreds of "gifts" in the form
of advancements in biotech, nano tech, chemistry, engineering, physics,
biology...both terrestrial and marine (humanity still didn't know anythingabout
what was below the surface of the oceans) was available to everyone in the
world and was already uploaded on the World Wide Web.
* The final,
yet extremely important, point of their message was that in one year, all
fossil fuels would become non combustable and thus useless! They had used
technology which was simple to them to put into effect a molecular chain
reaction that would result in a molecular, irreversible change in the
composition of all combustable fossil fuels. Basically, mankind had a year to
get it's collective shit together, and scale up the technology that had been
gifted to us.
"Holy
shit, this is unbelievable" said Ron grasping what an understatement he
had just made. "Looks as if we might have some serious work ahead of us.
Charlie, what do you think"? "Well, I suppose we should start
downloading this tech data and see if anything these guys have for us is in
anyway compadable with stuff we have been working on. Might give us a bit of a
head start if there's even the least bit of synergy with any of our
concepts". Dr Linh Chang followed Dr Watson's comment. "It's
possible, of course that these aliens would utilize concepts that are at least
within our ability to understand and actually produce. I mean, what's the use
of granting us technology that's way to far advanced for us to ever
realize". "Good point Linh, sure would be cool if those alien types
perfected one of the ideas we've come up with but couldn't make work". Dr
Watson was drooling at the thought. Nothing gave him greater joy than
validation of one of his theories. "Boy would I love to get to scale up
one of our rejected ideas and shove it down the throat of that numb nuts Senator
Bates and his ignorant, research wannabe minions". "I'm with you
there Chuck, lets get back to the lab and see what we got". Ron was at the
wheel of their battery operated suburban and turned to Dan Stout, his head
government relations guy at the time and asked. "So Dan, lets suppose for
a moment that what we just saw and heard was for real....and let's suppose that
this technology there're giving us is the real deal ....and maybe, we can help
make it all happen....right...and, well.....any chance we can crack the social
conservative hard line and get some support for any of this stuff"."
Yea about the time that pigs can fly outta my ass" was Dan's reply. "
Well, I guess we'd best get them flying then". Ron had no illusion about
the kind of negative repercussions that were about to start reverberating
through the global power structure. "Of course you guys realize what the
hell is going on here..I mean, this is the biggest god dam game changer in the
history of humanity....and even though we all know that we might have just been
given the chance to save our planet and help humanity in every conceivable
way....a lot of the guys in power are not going to be happy. Lets face it...if
there is a way to fuck this up....they'll find it". Dan agreed whole heartily;
" Unfortunately Ron, I suspect you are right on the money. I've been
working D.C., Moscow, Beijing, London, Berlin, Tel Aviv, Aiyadh, Dubai, and
Mexico City for twenty years now, and at least half of the Senators,
Congressmen, Administration officials, PMs, Monarchs, Princes, Diplomats,
Ambassadors, and Dictators have their hand deep in the proverbial oil cookie
jar. It's going to be darn near impossible pull them off that fossil fuel
umbilical cord until disaster sets in.....and from what I heard today from
those aliens, or whatever the fuck they are, that's just what's gonna happen if
every country in the whole dam world doesn't get their shit together......now
that is one scary fucking proposition". " let's just see where things
are when we get back to the office.. I'm guessing its a shit storm
already".
That was
2016, and now sixteen years later there was still a lot of shit brewing. Most
of the speculation by Ron, Dan, Dr.s Watson and Chang had proven to be
accurate. The Environmental Alliance Group had been useful in the research and
product development arena . They also played a role in advocating for the
requisite changes in Government policy. Dan Stout had been killed in a plane
crash in 2022. Aviation without fossil fuel proved to be a challenge and the
era of new technology did witness some negative effects. "Change ain't
easy. If it was, we'd be out of a job" was what Ron always said, but
losing Dan was pretty hard on him. It turned out that some of the ideas Dr.
Watson had conceived in the field of solar energy capture had been amazingly
close to the technology that the eggheads had given us. Had they been a bit
more lucky and been able to get past proof of concept, they might have made a
butt load of money just getting patients on the technology. There was no money
to be made on patients since the eggheads had made all their technology
universally available, but there was most assuredly money to be made by
producing and selling alternative energy sources through the world.
Unfortunately, everyone involved in producing energy the old way had less
motive to make any change to the status quo; no matter that it be for the
better.
Some
countries faired better than others. At first the U.S. didn't prove to be too
receptive and was slow to embrace the changes required....not only to
thrive....but to survive. A vast number of Americans were simply scared.
Suddenly realizing that we are not alone in the universe. Suddenly realizing
that the higher power in the universe that people referred to as God, had just
shown up and granted us a miracle. Suddenly realizing that we had to actually
change our behavior and our beliefs. If there is one thing that people are
afraid of...its change. It is funny how people of every different religious
faith had spent three thousand years trying to convince others of the existence
of a universal higher power, based on various books and stories, yet refused to
accept that very higher power now that it had made an appearance. As history
has shown, U.S. citizens have always been a bit fickle and the progressive
majority that had elected the first African American president to his second
term were no where to be found in the 2016 elections; replaced it seemed by an
extreme social conservative faction who's agenda included a total and
unequivocal denile of the appearance and very existence of the alien life form
that had visited earth and bestowed upon us the tremendous gifts of clean
renewable energy, food production, advancements in every sector of science and
medicine, in fact the gift of life itself. Why a society would reject something
that was clearly so beneficial is mysterious but then hindsight is twenty
twenty. Politicians at every level were beholden to special interest of every
kind, all of which had everything to gain from the status quo and everything to
lose from progressive change. The lobbying influence of these special interest
(especially energy) was overwhelming as was the influence exerted by the
Catholic Church, the Evangelical Christian right and every other religious
group who stood to lose power.
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