Phobos: Mayan Fear (4 page)

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If we go on the way we are, we may not get through the next century at all. When there is a clear danger in the headlights, common sense says hit the brakes, but scientists often want to keep the foot hard down on the accelerator pedal.

—MARVIN MINSKY, PHD

MANALAPAN, FLORIDA

MAY 1, 2047

T
he palatial mansion of Lilith Mabus, widow of the late billionaire Lucien Mabus, stretches along a private ocean lot in Manalapan, a small island town just north of Boynton Beach, Florida. The thirty-one room, three-story home features a seaside swimming pool complete with waterfall and swim-up bar, two tennis courts, a fitness center, a 1,200-square-foot grand salon illuminated by a six-thousand-pound crystal chandelier imported from a nineteenth-century French chateau, an observatory dome, and an eight-car garage, its floors paved in Saturnia marble. Each of the six bedroom suites has its own balcony facing the Atlantic, the mansion’s windows self-cleaning, made with a thin metal oxide coating electrified to help rainwater to wash away loose particles. A small NiCE electrical station is located on the northern grounds, harnessing power from the sun and wind.

The newest addition to the oceanside luxury home is a configuration of satellite dishes situated in a concrete bunker on the south lawn. The receivers allow Lilith Mabus and her intel team to pirate a network of Pentagon surveillance satellites from the convenience of her home office, though “officially” they merely provide MTI’s CEO the means of communicating with a fleet of space planes owned and operated by her subsidiary company, Project H.O.P.E.

The origins of America’s space program can be traced back to the first Cold War, when the conflicting ideologies of the United States and the Soviet Union blossomed into a full-fledged race into space. President John F. Kennedy raised the bar in 1961 by setting a goal to land an American astronaut safely on the moon—a goal that was accomplished on July 20, 1969.

For the four decades that followed, space exploration floundered.

Part of the problem was a lack of clearly defined goals, exacerbated by President Nixon’s decision to hinge NASA’s future on the space shuttle—a nonexploratory Earth-orbiting vehicle hampered with design flaws that would lead to the fatal
Challenger
and
Columbia
disasters. With the rest of the outdated fleet reserved for “shuttle duty” to and from the International Space Station (yet another Earth-orbiting tortoise), the public’s interest in the space program waned.

What NASA officials never knew was that all lunar missions had been permanently scrubbed as part of a top-secret directive that dated back to the Lyndon Johnson era. It was not until 2029 that a private company would break the military industrial complex’s stranglehold on space exploration, the revolt led by a billionaire’s son hell-bent on his own self destruction.

Lucien Mabus was born with a platinum spoon in his mouth. The only child of defense contractor Peter Mabus and his late wife, Carolyn, Lucien was raised by private tutors and athletic trainers for much of his childhood while his father mounted a political campaign to challenge the incumbent President Ennis Chaney for the White House. Bitter over losing the 2016 election, Mabus sought other avenues to rid the country of its leader. He was eventually “sanctioned” by the Gabriel twins’ bodyguards after hiring an assassin to kill Jacob and Immanuel.

In shock over his father’s murder, Lucien Mabus spent what remained of his teen years under the watchful eye of an uncle, who preferred to keep his defiant nephew confined to rehab centers rather than deal with the boy’s ongoing drug and alcohol addictions. Lucien celebrated his emancipation on his eighteenth birthday by leaving his halfway house and tossing his court-appointed guardian out of his father’s home. The family fortune now his, Lucien would pacify his angst with the self-abuse that comes from a lifestyle dependent on immediate gratification.

Six years, two bad marriages, and a four-month jail sentence later, Lucien found himself in the company of Lilith Aurelia. The mocha-skinned dominatrix became his obsession, her ruthless ambition sweeping him along like a raging river. Born into poverty, Lilith sought the kind of power enjoyed by society’s new elite—pathological globalists who were slowly and steadfastly manipulating the international powers into a one world government.

To be a player in the New World Order required a niche, and Lilith would find it in Project H.O.P.E.

Humans for One Planet Earth was a space program conceived in 2016 by a group of former astronauts, design engineers, and rocket scientists who had left NASA because of the agency’s “good ol’ boy” policies. Unlike other private space companies who were in the business of launching satellites, H.O.P.E. wanted to pioneer the space tourism industry, their team having completed designs for a new passenger vehicle that could take off horizontally like a jet, rise to its maximum turbojet altitude, then use boosters to rocket the plane into space. Once in orbit, the paying public would enjoy twelve hours of zero gravity and a lifetime of memories.

All H.O.P.E. needed was a major investor.

At the urging of his fiancée, Lucien Mabus struck a partnership with H.O.P.E.’s directors, taking over the company as majority shareholder. On December 15, 2029, the world’s first “space bus” took off down its new fifteen-thousand-foot runway at the Kennedy Space Center. Onboard were 120 VIPs, including key stockholders, political dignitaries, members of the media, Lucien and Lilith, and a crew of twelve. Nothing real or imagined could have prepared these civilians for the magic of space. The flight was smooth, the accommodations first-class, and the views both humbling and inspirational. Midway through the trip, Lucien and Lilith were married, the couple consummating their wedding vows in their honeymoon berth in zero gravity, becoming the first official members of the 22,000-mile-high club.

They would not be the last. Within a few months, H.O.P.E. was shuttling four space buses a week at a cost of $100,000 per ticket. Even with its high price tag, there was still a fourteen-month waiting list. Three more planes were quickly added to the fleet, with plans announced for Space Port 1, the first space hotel designed to accommodate the paying public. When a lunar shuttle was included in the brochure, the Defense Department stepped in, declaring the moon off-limits.

Lucien was furious. Maybe the New World Order could control his freedoms on Earth, but nobody owned the moon. A high-priced law firm was engaged, lawsuits threatened.

Lilith charted her own course around the gauntlet, rendezvousing in secrecy with President John Zwawa.

A week before his twenty-sixth birthday, Lucien Mabus died of heart failure, an ailment his physician blamed on a decade of alcohol and drug abuse. Weeks after the funeral, Mabus Tech’s new female CEO was granted access to Golden Fleece, a top-secret space program overseen by NASA’s Dave Mohr.

Three months later, reports began to circulate that Lilith was pregnant. Devlin Mabus was born eleven months after Lucien’s death, confirming suspicions that the boy’s mother had been having an affair. Popular consensus around the District of Columbia was that President Zwawa had been the man who had sired the white-haired, blue-eyed infant.

They were wrong.

The black limousine follows its police escort north along scenic State Road, A1A, turning into the gated drive of the Mabus estate.

President Heather Stuart exits the vehicle, the auburn-haired Democrat escorted by her chief of staff, Ken Mulder, and National Security Advisor Donald Engle. Ignoring the bell and intercom, the 280-pound Engle bangs his fist several times against the double oak doors. Waits. Then knocks again.

Mulder casts a perturbed look at the president. “Is this some kind of game they’re playing?”

The second female president of the United States and the first homosexual ever to reach the executive branch nods. “It’s poker, Ken. Make no mistake, they’re watching and evaluating our responses.”

Mulder glances up at the surveillance camera. “Poker’s a game of chance. I prefer chess.”

The door opens, revealing a putty-complexioned man in his late sixties. His short-cropped hair is mouse gray and curly, his matching piggish eyes heavy behind rose-colored spectacles. Barefoot, he is dressed in a paisley Hawaiian shirt and matching Bermuda shorts, his narrow lips sucking on a pacifier bong.

Donald Engle casts a wide shadow over the doorway. “Lilith Mabus?”

A buzzed smile creases into a giggle behind the portable cannabis device, freed by manicured fingers. “No, big man, I’m Lilith’s personal assistant. Benjamin Merchant, at your service. Y’all come in, we’ve been expecting you.” The accent is a southern Alabama drawl, laced with saccharine.

Merchant leads them through the grand entrance, the floors polished onyx marble, the bay windows at the rear of the house revealing the pool, its invisible lines melding perfectly into the azure shades of the Atlantic Ocean.

“May I say, Madam President, that finally meeting you is quite an honor. I’m a flamer myself. Probably stems from my upbringing. Did your Catholic priest fondle you, too?”

Heather Stuart’s face flushes pink. “No, he most certainly did not.”

“Yeah, I suppose they restrict themselves to little boys. What about the nuns?” Moving past a sweeping oak staircase in a drug-induced saunter, he leads them to a matching set of interior doors. “The lady of the house is inside. Go on in while I fetch us something to drink.”

Ken Mulder waits for the annoying man to leave before opening the door.

The study is a thousand-square-foot pentagon-shaped chamber, its walls paneled in rich mahogany, its high arched ceiling crisscrossed by teakwood beams. A matching desk houses a wraparound computer station featuring a 270-degree plasma screen. On the other side of the room is a sitting area—three leather sofas and two bamboo chairs forming a square.

Seated on the middle sofa is Lilith Mabus. Brilliant turquoise eyes gaze up to greet them, the Hunahpu-blue radiance exuding the luminescence of a cat’s nocturnal eyes. Wavy raven hair flows like ivy down her black kimono, the sheer fabric pressed against her breasts.

More startling—the mocha-skinned thirty-four-year-old goddess’s lower body is nude beneath the hip-length kimono. With her bare feet propped on the coffee table, Lilith is clearly flaunting her sex, daring her guests to look.

Mulder’s and Engle’s eyes widen. President Stuart merely shakes her head.

The man-eater smiles. “Welcome to the oral office, Madam President.”

“Cute. But my last name’s not Zwawa and this isn’t a social call, so if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, I don’t mind a bit. You’re the one who requested a face to face, and I find formal wear too conforming. You can have a seat, or stand there gawking, it’s up to you.”

Heather Stuart motions to her two cabinet members. The two men share the sofa catty-corner to Lilith’s, the president selecting a bamboo chair directly in front of their host.

Lilith leans over to the wide-bodied national security advisor and winks. “What’s wrong, Donald? Don’t trust yourself? You never averted your eyes when I used to visit John in the West Wing.”

“You weren’t naked, Lilith.”

“Ah, but you were imagining me naked, weren’t you, Donald? The way you used to ogle my cleavage … the way you inspected my ass every time I crossed the room. Tell me, was I good in bed?”

“What?”

“When you masturbated later that night … was I good in bed?”

“That’s enough!” The president turns to her national security advisor. “Brief her.”

Donald Engle positions his attaché case on the coffee table next to Lilith’s bare feet and opens it, revealing a holographic projector. “The report you’re about to see has been classified UMBRA, beyond top secret. Reveal its contents and you will be subjected to arrest.”

“How exciting.”

Engle activates the device, causing a 360-degree aerial video of Yellowstone National Park to bloom above the sitting area. “While Yellowstone National Park is known for its geysers and hot springs, to scientists it represents a ticking time bomb of Mother Nature, packing the explosive force of ten thousand Mount St. Helenses. Buried five miles beneath the surface, fueling those geysers and hot springs, is a coneless supervolcano, more commonly referred to as a caldera.”

The image changes, converting to an animated color-coded thermal display revealing a massive subterranean magma pocket. “There are actually three calderas buried beneath Yellowstone. The largest and most lethal of these triplets is 112 miles across and 48 miles wide, encompassing nearly the entire park.

“Yellowstone has erupted three times in Earth’s history, the first event occurring 2.1 million years ago, the second 1.2 million years ago, the last 630,000 years ago. The eruptions unleashed a combined six thousand cubic miles of debris, the ejection of lava causing the tops of the volcanoes to collapse, forming these three massive depressions.”