Phase Shift (42 page)

He wanted to know if I was able to do my
speech. I assured him I was. He kissed me on the forehead and I
took my place behind the dais.

Josef and Praetner were taken to a room in
the convention centre for questioning before the guests arrived.
When Goren finally showed up, he and his entourage were detained
and put in the same room as the others. By the time the police had
gotten around to questioning them, everyone had disappeared but
Josef. A search of the building proved fruitless. Unable to figure
out how a half-dozen, handcuffed men were able to vanish from a
locked room, the policemen shrugged their shoulders and scratched
their heads and pinned Josef as the mastermind. But in the absence
of a gun and my absolute affirmation it was Praetner responsible
for my injuries, the police couldn't charge Josef and he was soon
set free.

Having escaped from custody on Earth, Goren,
Praetner,
et al
arrived on Gaia to a cadre of Enforcers
instructed to detain them until they could be interviewed. Motar
Prefect's old friend, Malaron Tinker was contacted and offered
absolution for his part in the debacle should he agree to
manufacture additional phase shift modulator implants, one for each
member of Goren's Inner Clerisy Circle in order to secure them to
Gaia and end their phase shifting proclivities for good. According
to Reyes, it took some restraining, but eventually, all were
implanted, including Goren and Praetner. Convinced they were no
longer a threat to Earth, all were released save Praetner, whose
body could not resolve the fact it had two conflicting modulators
within it. Loman Praetner, a.k.a. Loman Prefect, was buried the
next day with little fanfare.

Goren was stripped of his First Prefect
title and banished from the Prefecture to the Infrastructure
sector. Reyes lost track of him shortly thereafter and could no
longer report on what happened to him.

The media reported GaiaCorp Company CEO
Loman Praetner had abandoned the company and had most likely left
the country taking with him much of the company's finances. A
government auditor came in and the province wound up appropriating
the company and buying out its shareholders. Beyond that, all the
public knew was that GaiaCorp was involved in developing cheap
modes of greener power, such as solar and wind. The government
announced it would continue GaiaCorp's research and development,
and shortly share the fruits of their labour with the public.

We followed up with the politicians as
promised. The Americans failed to commit to paper anything with
definite timelines or specific reductions. Some pledged to increase
funding for research into cleaner-burning fuel and vehicles, while
others agreed to look into renewable power sources. Ontario dipped
its toes in the water but stopped short of taking a full-body
plunge. The government pledged to shut down its coal power plants
within four years and build more nuclear plants to compensate. How
could they not understand that nuclear anything is an accident
waiting to happen? Slowly it began to offer rebates for more
efficient vehicles and houses, but not enough to make the
conversion sexy enough to entice the bulk of the general populace.
The city mandated the switch to fluorescent bulbs, limited our
trash, and insisted each home compost and recycle its waste. The
fact Ontario and other governments were only willing to put forth
Band-Aid solutions was infuriating.

Life pretty much returned to normal for
Palmer and me except I now lived the life of a minor celebrity in
and around the university community. Films of my lectures,
especially if there were even the slightest reference to Gaia,
began to appear on the Internet. In fact, a whole Gaian sub-culture
began to form online, from videos of people, reputedly from Gaia,
vanishing into thin air (some of them actually looked real), to
strange objects hawked on E-Bay.

My lectures were overcrowded at best to the
detriment of registered students. Palmer was forced to hire extra
security as a result. Their orders were that no one be allowed
entrance without a valid timetable and student card. To say Palmer
wasn't happy at the wrinkle this put in his budget would be an
understatement.

One day, shortly after security had been
hired, during a full-house lecture, I noticed a registered student
standing at the back of the class which pissed me off to no end.
There should be empty seats in each of my classes, in fact, there
should be quite a few of them. I stopped my lecture cold, cleared
my throat and said, "This lecture is a closed proceeding. If you
are not registered, please leave."

No one moved. A flash of light was my only
response.

"I didn't give my permission to be
photographed," I said.

A man suddenly stood up, almost dead centre
of the lecture hall and said, quite loudly, "Ms. McBride, is it
true you hired a homeless man to play the part of Reyes
Prefect?"

Outraged, first at the intrusion, next at
the interruption and lastly by the sheer gall of what he was
implying, I couldn't find the words to retaliate.

"Ms. McBride?" He paused and I glared at
him. "Ms. McBride, is it true this whole Gaia thing was a hoax
perpetrated to drum up enrollment in your department and make your
husband look good?"

"That, sir, is a sexist remark," I tell him,
finding my voice. "I assure you, if I were to have gone to such
trouble to perpetuate a hoax of this magnitude it would be to make
myself look good." There was some laughter which broke the silence
in the auditorium. I had regained the upper-hand in the attack
which made me feel confident, strong.

"Ms. McBride, how—"

"I'm sorry, but you must leave now. All of
you. If you aren't registered, please leave before security
arrives." A few stood and made their way out of the auditorium as I
called for security on the campus phone.

By the time security had arrived, enough
people had filed out, the audience was once more peppered with
empty seats and I had continued my lecture.

Eventually, my fifteen minutes was up and we
let the additional security go. I don't miss the flash bulbs going
off as I try to eat my morning cereal or sneak out for the paper
while wearing my pajamas. I like that when the phone rings, there's
a better than average chance I'll know the person on the other end.
Every once in a while I'll hear news stories about another
greenhouse gas reducing initiative by our government or by another
elsewhere in the world and I cluck my tongue and shake my head at
the futility of it all. Why can't they see it's not enough in order
to survive? In order for the human race to survive?

I often find myself looking out my office
window, or sitting on the porch out back, wondering about Reyes, if
he's still Mexus's lead First Prefect, or if, like Goren, he's
already been deposed by the next leader. I hope Reyes's
initiative—an outright ban on terraforming and deliberate phase
shifting—will be enough to avert Cataclysm. I wonder if dramatic
changes on one side are really enough to stave off the demise of
both worlds.

As for me? Most days I just sit around and
wait—for the semester to end, for spring to arrive so we can begin
this year's archaeological excavations, for the fall term when I
enter the Doctoral program. But mostly, I wait for Cataclysm. Can
you feel it? It's coming. Don't worry. At the rate we're going, it
shouldn't be long now.

Elise Abram, English teacher and former
archaeologist, has been writing for as long as she can remember,
but it wasn’t until she was asked to teach Writer’s Craft in 2001
that she began to write seriously. Her first novel, THE GUARDIAN
was partially published as a Twitter novel a few summers back (and
may be accessed at @RKLOGYprof). Nearly ten years after its
inception Abram decided it was time to stop shopping around with
traditional publication houses and publish PHASE SHIFT on her
own.

Abram has published several scholarly
articles in archaeology journals and magazines. In 2010 she won
first place the Newmarket/Aurora District’s Community Living Poetry
Contest. She also successfully completed Nanowrimo 2012, with her
young adult novel, THE REVENANT, which she hopes to publish by the
end of 2013.

Other publications by Elise Abram to date
include novellas THE MUMMY WORE COMBAT BOOTS and THROWAWAY CHILD,
both featuring Molly McBride and Palmer Richardson. Both are
available for download at kobobooks.com and amazon.com. Other
samples of Abram’s writing are available on her website,
http://www.eliseabram.com.