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  Burt panned his pointer finger across the crowd.

  “Let me assure you, that if you aren’t able to convince your people that all will be fine, there will be chaos. It will be you who they’ll look at, either as the savior of your nation or the one to blame for its internal strife.

  “To help all of you, I’ll spend the next couple of hours talking about what Doctor Holmes has discovered. I’ll go into the physics involved, and I’m going to ask for no debate on the possibility of it working or not. I’ll have you know I watched a prototype in action. It works. End of debate.”

  Before anyone could object, Burt leaned even closer to the microphone, emphasizing his next statement with a somewhat ominous tone.

  “If you have a clarifying question, ask it—but I won’t accept anyone slowing this process down for the rest. We don’t have the time. All of our lives are at stake. If you’re unable to control yourself, you’ll be ejected with a prepared summary of the proceedings sent to the head of your government. Am I understood?”

  A hand was raised in the middle of the third row, and Burt motioned for the man who raised it to speak.

  “Excuse me, Doctor Radcliffe,” he said. “I’m not a physicist like many of you, so I won’t pretend to grasp what you’re about to discuss. However, I’m a climatologist and an oceanographic research fellow. After the mechanics of the solution are discussed, will we then cover the preparations? That’s hopefully where I might have thoughts on some things that could be worthy of discussion.”

  Letting out a breath that Burt didn’t realize he was holding, he felt the tension leak out of him. He gave the man a smile. “Yes, of course. We’ll most certainly get into the practical matters afterwards. I’ll be here as long as it takes for us to discuss things. I simply want all of you to at least have a glimmer of understanding of the solution whenever things do go public.”

  Burt glanced at the clock on the wall. A warm feeling of accomplishment flushed through him. He’d secretly anticipated a much longer time spent arguing.

  “I started this talk by saying that science can occasionally be turned on its head. Well, that’s exactly what Doctor Holmes has done.

  “Think about this, the concept of negative mass, gravity isolation, and movement beyond the speed of light. Folks, what had been the world of science fiction has shifted hard into scientific fact. Just like the concept of aether, or the origins of our oceans, so much of what we’d assumed has been flipped on its head. It's an exciting, yet terrifying time to study humanity’s place in the universe.”

  Burt attached a portable microphone to his shirt and rolled up his sleeves. Turning to the front of the auditorium, he grabbed a dry-erase marker from a tray running along the bottom of a tremendous whiteboard and began drawing what would end up being the image of the Earth, along with a network of space elevators surrounding its equator.

  “Let’s begin with the details of what we’ll experience when the Warp Ring is activated, and then move on to the theories that led to the solution.”

  ###

  Sitting on the sofa in the Oval Office, Margaret studied the security report as a device in the ceiling projected the holographic image of the Secretary of Defense’s face hovering in the middle of the room. His gravelly voice reverberated through hidden speakers.

  “Madam President, we believe that the terrorist cells have almost no communication with each other and are receiving signals from a central authority.”

  “I got that from this report, Walter. What’s this about very-low-frequency signals and a terrorist communications network?”

  Margaret watched the hologram of Walter as he flipped a page on his copy of the report and cleared his throat. “Our lab folks out of USACIL managed to extract an implant from one of the dead terrorists. They’ve determined that the implant was a fairly sophisticated form of wide-frequency receiver.” The Secretary of Defense picked up another set of papers and began reading from them. “The receiver is no larger than a grain of rice, yet was coded to use the body’s electrical pathways as both an antenna and a power source. The receiver is capable of detecting spread spectrum signals, and by virtue of being embedded against the subject’s tympanic membrane, it’s able to translate the signals into auditory stimulus. The receiver is designed to support both broadcast as well as targeted signaling.”

  Margaret stared at the ghost-like image of the former General, hovering four feet off the ground, and pressed her lips together in thought. “So in other words, we’ve got terrorists with implants sitting on their ear drums that can receive what is in effect global terrorist chatter as well as messages directed to them?”

  “Yes, ma’am, that seems to be the case. Pretty advanced technology, if you ask me.”

  “You’re not suggesting a nation-state is backing these assholes, are you?”

  “No, ma’am, I have no evidence of that as of yet. But the CIA might have different thoughts on the matter.”

  “Okay, what else have you got on the terrorists?”

  “In all of the captured suspects, we’ve found a common identifying mark somewhere on their body. A tattoo of an hourglass. We don’t yet know its significance, and in interrogations, none of these people were willing to say anything. We’re running the image through our systems to see if there’s anything we can make out of it.”

  Flipping to the last page of the report, Margaret came upon a computer sketch of a suspect that she immediately recognized. “Okay, what about our albino friend? What’s the story?”

  “At the home of one of the terrorist suspects, one of our teams managed to extract a DNA sample from a handwritten letter that had originated in a small town in southern Romania. With our latest DNA analysis computers, we were able to reconstruct the facial structure. Obviously age, hairstyle, and any acquired scars aren’t represented, but the image was immediately earmarked for further analysis by our intelligence folks.”

  Margaret leaned forward on the sofa and studied the image. The hologram showed a rotating headshot of the suspect, his white skin, fine eyebrows, and white hair with a slightly receding hairline. It sent a shiver down her spine. “He certainly looks like our guy from those intercepted video transmissions. Do we know anything about him? Is he the ringleader or just a mouthpiece? Can the DNA computers give us fingerprints?”

  “I asked the same questions. We don’t yet know who this guy is, or what his role is with the terrorists. As to the fingerprints, I was told that DNA won’t dictate a person’s exact fingerprints, so that’s a dead end.”

  Setting the report on the sofa cushion, Margaret rubbed her eyes and gazed at the hovering image of her Secretary of Defense.

  “Anything else?”

  “No, ma’am. All five branches of the military have teams supporting local police forces in each and every one of our territories. We’re managing to keep a cap on these terrorists domestically, and per your orders, we have special operations troops seeking the source. For now, that’s about it on that front.”

  “Walter, just be aware, we’re going to have to continue drawing on the military to maintain order, especially on the coasts.”

  “Understood.”

  “Thanks, Walter. Dismissed.”

  The video feed cut off and Margaret sank back onto the sofa, her mind racing.

  Raking her hands through her blonde hair, the president turned toward her Chief of Staff who’d been sitting in the corner of the room, listening.

  “Doug, get the DOJ on the line. I need to figure a way to legally start jamming all aerial communications that these terrorists might be using. That means radio stations and such might end up getting cut off, and I don’t need the ACLU or Congress up my ass over this. We’re going to have to start using drastic measures to take control over this situation.”

  The old man pushed his glasses higher up on the bridge of his nose and nodded. “I’ll make some calls and try to set something up for later this afternoon.”

  Mar
garet rubbed her fingers on her temples, fighting the nausea that threatened to make her lose her breakfast.

  With worry gnawing at her gut, she murmured to herself, “Is what I’m about to do going to save us or destroy us?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  At the first-ever closed joint session of Congress, there were absolutely no spectators or non-essential personnel in the public galleries or the chambers themselves. All that was said was done so under the confidentiality accorded to matters of national security. Burt had just finished talking nonstop for nearly an hour, and his nerves were frayed.

  He waited as a few of the 535 of the nation’s elected leaders awkwardly shuffled out of what looked like wooden pews in an old church: not the kind of seats he’d have expected in one of the grandest of the capitol’s buildings.

  As some senators and congressmen organized themselves into lines behind the microphones that had been placed there for the question and answer session, Burt pulled in a deep breath and knew he was going to get some oddball questions. After all, none of these people were scientists.

  When he’d disclosed the threat of the black hole, the crowd had immediately reacted, and Burt realized that many of them hadn’t been briefed on Indigo. During Burt’s speech, the Speaker of the House had used that damned gavel of his at least a half-dozen times to restore order to the chambers.

  Suddenly, the chambers quieted, and the attendees turned as the president made her entrance. Unlike in public forums, or when she gave the State of the Union, she strode briskly past the rows of pews and the politicians lined up at the microphones. She hustled quickly to the front of the chambers and took a seat not more than ten feet from Burt.

  There was no glad-handing or sucking up by the politicians, no formal announcements of her presence by the Speaker or Sergeant at Arms. It all left Burt feeling a bit uneasy. This was definitely not how things had run when he’d watched State of the Union speeches on TV in the past.

  Margaret gave him a reassuring wink, and the Speaker of the House leaned forward from the row directly behind him. “Are you ready for questions, Doctor Radcliffe?”

  Burt nodded. The Speaker banged his gavel three times and spoke loudly into his microphone. “Members of Congress, I expect decorum to be maintained, and with that, Doctor Burt Radcliffe, the President’s Chief Science Advisor and Director of NASA’s Near Earth Object program, is ready for your questions. The Speaker recognizes Representative Young from the great state of Vermont.”

  “Doctor Radcliffe,” a female voice broadcast through the chamber, and Burt’s gaze fell on the elderly black woman standing in front of one of the three microphones. “If this black hole is so small, how do we know that it will even hit us? Isn’t there a chance that it could just pass us by without a problem?”

  “Excellent question,” Burt said, acknowledging her with a nod. “It may be hard to imagine that something only a few miles wide could have such a devastating effect, but let me explain it in this way. We are currently ninety-three million miles away from the sun, yet its gravity is strong enough to keep our planet locked in orbit. There are planets much further away, in excess of a billion miles into space, that are similarly influenced by our sun, and locked into orbit due to the effect of the Sun’s gravity.

  “Imagine that this black hole has nearly three-quarters of the mass of our sun. The same mass as an entire star packed into a very tiny package. So if it helps you imagine it, what would you think would happen if another star wandered through the solar system?”

  Burt paused briefly for effect, allowing the visual to sink in. “Chaos would be what happens. Not only does this black hole have the same gravitational influence as any other star, imagine that this thing is rotating like a top. But it’s rotating faster than you could ever imagine. What would happen if a star that was spinning like a top came barreling through our solar system?”

  Burt jabbed his finger at the audience and said, “I’ll tell you. There are two fundamental possibilities. Anything that got too close would get sucked into the black hole and be destroyed. The other option is that anything caught in its wake would almost certainly be flung into interstellar space, where it would quickly freeze, and that includes our planet. I cannot assure you with absolute certainty which we’ll encounter, but it will be one or the other.

  “So to specifically answer your question, we don’t need to be hit for this black hole to be a problem. It’s already a problem. I didn’t cover this in my earlier talk, but we already are dealing with uncomfortable questions coming from astronomers who’ve not been disclosed on the nature of this disaster. Saturn, which is much closer to the black hole, has already been knocked from its orbit. In fact, we’re all already being affected. The trajectory of our orbit around the sun has bulged outward a bit. It’s as if a tug of war is taking place between the sun and this primordial threat we call a black hole. Unfortunately, it’s a war with no winners if we do nothing about it.”

  The chamber remained deathly quiet for a few seconds before the Speaker announced, “The Speaker recognizes Senator Hoffman from the great state of Connecticut.”

  Burt panned his gaze toward a tall, dark-haired man on the far-left side of the chamber. The man’s sandpapery voice broadcast throughout the chambers as he spoke, “Doctor Radcliffe, I’m the chair of the appropriations committee. I’ve been asking this question repeatedly and have gotten absolutely no responses from the administration. I hope you can shed some light on this. It seems to me that the funding for this grand solution you’ve talked about has never passed through Congress. Your doom and gloom speech has certainly implied that there’s a need for such a thing, yet I know that the funding requests for such emergency measures still need to go through Congress.” The man’s voice took a deeper, more aggressive tone. “Damn it, man, Congress has a responsibility of oversight. Especially with building projects of this scale. Your organization is supposed to advise us and receive consent before going off and doing these things. These things need to be evaluated for merit and prioritization. I demand an explanation, and a promise that such things will not continue without following due process.”

  Burt tilted his head at the politician; he couldn’t feel anything but a sense of bewilderment. “Excuse me, Mister Hoffman—”

  “Senator Hoffman, thank you very much. I’m an elected member of the United States Senate.”

  “Fine. As to funding requests, you’ll need to take that up with the director of NASA, my direct boss, or with the president, my other direct boss. However, considering the situation we’re all in, are you seriously asking us to get priorities from your committee? Have you evaluate the merit?” Burt barked out a laugh. “Excuse me, but how many on your committee are experts in astrophysics? How many of you are acknowledged experts in materials science or astronomy? How—”

  “Doctor Radcliffe, this is not a joking matter. We will be consulted and fulfill our elected obligations, or we’ll cut off funding for your program. And none of us want that to happen.”

  Immediately a loud murmur rippled through the chamber, as people argued amongst themselves. The Speaker banged his gavel and yelled, “Order! I’ll have order!”

  Burt blinked at the congressman. The man’s words had left him dumbstruck.

  Suddenly, Burt felt a tap on his right shoulder, and was surprised to see the President Hager standing next to him, a frown on her face. She covered the microphone with her hand, leaned closer, and whispered, “I had a feeling this would happen. Other countries have been going through similar issues. It’s fine.” She motioned for Burt to take the seat she’d just vacated, glanced behind her, and nodded.

  The Speaker hammered the gavel with such ferocity that Burt wouldn’t have been surprised if the thing had broken in half.

  “Members of Congress, I have the high privilege and distinct honor of presenting to you, the President of the United States.”

  Margaret tapped at the microphone and turned her attention to S
enator Hoffman. “Mister Hoffman—”

  “Madam President, it’s—”

  “Shut up, you imbecile.” Margaret glanced at the woman next to the podium and whispered, “Turn off their mics.”

  “When I was privileged to be elected President,” she continued, “I knew what I was getting into. Sure, there’d be lots of kissing babies, pardoning turkeys, and signing bills. There’d certainly be a crisis here and there. There would be the occasional natural catastrophe, there would most certainly be fights with Congress over silly things. But let’s face it, this job never came with the expectation of having to worry about the annihilation of the human race.

  “None of us could have foreseen such an event, and most certainly the Framers of the Constitution wouldn’t have written down instructions for dealing with such a cataclysmic scenario in a hidden, for Presidential eyes only envelope.

  “However, they did anticipate the need for strong leadership in times of rebellion, invasion, or when public safety required it. They knew that the responsibility inevitably would end up having to lie on one person’s shoulders. And that would be the President.

  “Senator Hoffman’s insane desire to mix politics into the survival of the human race is an example of where a leader must just cut through the horseshit and eliminate barriers for those who can truly help, like Doctor Radcliffe.

  “Given that, I have absolutely no other choice but to assert, as is my right, article 1 section 9 of the Constitution. I am as of this moment suspending the writ of habeas corpus and declaring martial law.”

  Burt stared wide-eyed as the doors to the chambers opened and dozens of armed soldiers streamed in and began stationing themselves along the walls. He glanced at the president and noticed her strong, determined expression. She had known something like this would happen, and had planned for it.