Pulling The Dragon's Tail (44 page)

“It’s Ryker,” responded the voice in a rich
baritone.

Nate opened the door and Ryker rushed in. He was
breathing heavily and he wore no hat.

“Have a seat,” offered Campbell. “What’s the
matter?”

Ryker sat down on the couch, his long legs
reaching nearly across to the chair opposite him.

“Where’s your hat?” inquired Thatcher.

“Heck, I don’t know,” mumbled Ryker, touching
his short, curly brown hair, which was now tousled up in a gritty
mess, sweat dripping down from his forehead. “Um, guess it musta
blown off. It was my favorite bushwalker; had it for years. But I
can’t go back and look for it. It’s too late for that,” he shook
his head. “We got more important business.”

“Are you okay?” asked Es.

“Well, um…no,” replied Ryker. “The Council
punished me. They suspended my membership pending my completion of
the punishment.”

“And what’s the punishment?” asked Nate.

“I can’t leave here for a year; no trips. They
won’t allow me to patrol the western frontier. And I have to
re-take the History and Patriotism class, the one everyone takes to
become a full-fledged member of Four. I practically wrote the damn
thing.”

“So is that all bad?” asked Thatcher.

“They might as well put me in jail! Hey!” he
exclaimed, slapping his hands on his knees. “Did I hear right? You
want to leave tonight?”

“Either you have hi-tech transhuman hearing or
someone’s been listening at the door,” Campbell said with a sparkle
in her eyes.

“You folks make it easy. The window’s wide
open.”

Nate quickly closed it.

“Anyway,” continued Ryker, “I can get you to the
border tonight. Where does the plane meet you?”

“That’s very generous of you, Ryker,” said Es.
“The hyperjet will meet us at an airfield just outside the border
of Four at 5:30 a.m.”

“But you’re not supposed to leave Four” said
Nate.

“The damn Council doesn’t control me!” he said
vehemently. “All I need is my car.”

Thirty minutes later, they piled into Ryker’s
Cadillac. He revved it up and it sped out of the B & B’s
parking lot.

“How does it feel to go hatless?” asked
Thatcher.

“Darn well feels naked,” he remarked, “but kinda
good. Consider me your courier tonight, rather than your host.”
Then he pulled another hat out of a sack beneath the seat. He
slapped a bright red newsboy on his head. Even in the darkness it
lit up the car.

“Way to go, Ryker,” laughed Nate.

He smiled broadly, flashing his toothy grin.
“Bought it after I saw that woman fawning over Thatcher’s hat. This
is the best darn courier job I’ve ever had.”

They traveled on in silence, the car quietly
speeding southeastward down the broad, desolated highway. Ryker
glanced around, frequently checking the rearview mirror. The
wildness of the eastern portion of Four rushed by them, the
half-moon illuminating the sky.

“You seem nervous,” observed Es.

Ryker’s only response was, “Hmmm.” Then he
gunned the old Cadillac even faster.

But soon Ryker couldn’t help himself from
playing tour guide again. As large hydroponic farming operations
passed them by in the moonlight, he explained the intricacies of
farming with such little water. “It’s what has saved the Midwest
from becoming another dust bowl. Plus, it’s just plain better for
the environment. Yield per acre is up over the traditional methods
that wasted so much water and drained our aquifers.”

As they came within sight of the eastern
boundary of Four, Ryker remarked, “I don’t know why they post a
sentry around the clock way out here. It’s not like Red Dawn or
those other fanatics who inhabit McVeigh are gonna bother us
here.”

“Did you ever think that Four posts a sentry out
here to also keep the good elements in?” pondered Campbell.

The usually gregarious Ryker fell momentarily
silent
. They’re not keeping me in any longer
. “Es, where’d
you say the plane is meetin’ y’all.?

“I have just gotten through. They are unable to
come to the local airport just outside of Four at the designated
time. We’ll have to rendezvous with them in central Kansas, about
300 kilometers from here.”

The sentry post gate, lights aglow, could be
seen in the flat prairie land two kilometers ahead.

“I’m not stopping,” announced Ryker. “It’s past
midnight, I have half a tank of hydrogen hybrid, and besides, I
want to take you there.”

“Whoa, good buddy,” said Thatcher. “Sure you’ve
thought about all this?”

The sentry post was coming closer. The guard
noted the approaching vehicle and flagged them down. But instead of
slowing, Ryker gunned the engine and the car leaped forward. Like a
perfect gentleman, he leaned out of his window. As Ryker passed the
astonished guard, he tipped his hat.

The gate broke in two like a toothpick.

“Yee haw!” he yelled.

“I take it that this is a little bit against
protocol,” observed Nate wryly.

Ryker removed his hat and leaned out the window,
feeling the air rush across his hair. “The decision’s been made,”
he finally said. “If I go back now, I’ll be expelled anyway.”

“How long have you lived at Four?” wondered
Thatcher.

“Seventeen years.”

“Have you really thought this through?” queried
the therapist Campbell.

“It’s been a’coming,” he said flatly.

“So what’ll you do?” asked Nate, wondering how
someone like Ryker integrates back into the regular world after an
extended stay in an intentional community.

“Experience the freedom to be me, to use
technology if I damn well feel like it! But first, I’m coming with
you!”

Es and Nate looked each other squarely in the
eyes.

The transhuman spoke first. “His sharpshooter
skills could prove invaluable.”

“We could very well be in some dangerous
situations,” Nate said.

Ryker smiled broadly. “Why do you think I liked
the western outpost so much? I sure as hell found regular life at
Four boring. Danger—bring it on!”

A few hours later found Nate and colleagues,
including Ryker Tobias, aboard a hyperjet. Their destination was
the coast of Bermuda. Nate and Campbell sat at the rear of the
craft. Ryker and Thatcher were asleep. Es of course was piloting
the plane. Dugan sat beside her.

With a bit of free time, Nate was again tuned
into a download of the conclusions of the recently released GDSP
report. Familiar yet distant faces filled his dataport glasses. The
GDSP team had been his truest friends in the world until he became
ill. After many previous interruptions, Dr. Inigo Mateus was
concluding:

…
If
we do not significantly
alter the political, economic and environmental imbalances by the
year 2076, +/- three years, then the threshold will have been
irrevocably crossed. Planet Earth will endure massive and sustained
ecological and environmental changes, most notably an ice age which
will start in northern Europe and spread throughout the northern
hemisphere. Of course, that is only the beginning.

For hundreds and perhaps thousands of years,
we will have to survive on a much colder and more hostile planet.
Millions of years of evolutionary development have imbued us with a
conscience for caring about our neighbor’s welfare and the courage
to work hard for a better tomorrow. If we fail to prevent the
End-Date from occurring, we pray that humanity will yet find a way
to endure in a much more hostile environment. We risk sacrificing
our pinnacle of achievement—modern civilization—and even our very
existence as a species, if we fail to cooperate with each other in
a post End-Date world.

I am Inigo Mateus, Ph.D., Computer
Scientist, along with Reid Herschberger, PhD., Research Scientist,
Jeon Yoon, M.D., Biologist, Demetrius Zandee, Ph.D., Research
Scientist, and Frances Englewood, M.D., Psychobiologist .

We again dedicate this report to two of our
founding members who are no longer active on the team: Maurice
Emmerick, Ph.D., Chairperson Emeritus, and Theresa Zealand, Ph.D,
Research Scientist Emeritus. Wherever you are, your indomitable
spirits still energize us daily to carry out your mission.

He glanced away from his eyeglasses monitor and
right into the eager eyes of Campbell.

“Come on,” cajoled Nate. “You’ve got a look that
says, ‘I’ve got a secret and I want to tell someone.’”

Smiling sweetly, Campbell replied, “Oh, it’s
more like I’ve discovered
your
last secret.”

His eyes opened wide. “Oh?” Then he sighed and
looked deep into her probing eyes.
Maybe she does know. So
what’ll I tell her? Maybe it’s finally time.

She sighed. “You were one of the members of the
original Global Diversity and Sustainability Project research
team—the chairperson—weren’t you?” she asked, her eyes searching
his.

His lips quivered slightly, but Nate couldn’t
force any response. Instead, he smiled slightly and nodded.

“You are, or were, Maurice Emmerick,” she said
with a sense of triumph.

Nate cleared his throat and found his voice.
“Well, with four guys and three women and ethnic diversities in the
group, the process of elimination must’ve helped you. And a quick
Net search would show Reid alive and kicking, and keeping one step
ahead of governments that tried to shut down his latest report.
That would leave “crazy Maurice” now, wouldn’t it?”

Campbell’s sense of triumph quickly turned to
chagrin. “If I’d any idea who you really were in my office, I
would’ve done
anything
to prevent your re-hospitalization.
I’m so sorry.”

“No, it’s okay,” he reassured her. “The silver
lining is it led me to you and Es and Thatcher and Ryker. It’s
okay. So…how’d you piece it together?”

“I’ve been reviewing data from your Ellis stay
and—”

“And your RVT scans of me.”

Campbell grew beet red. “It was that obvious,
huh?” She glanced outside, watching the jagged shoreline of North
Carolina give way to deep ocean blue. “On the one hand, it appeared
that all your secrets had been revealed. On the other, I had a
hunch that there was more.”

“What? You trusted your gut instead of hard
scientific evidence?” he teased.

“Perhaps a little of both,” she replied. “I had
to explain this strange obsession of yours about the End-Date. And
a key piece of evidence was something you muttered at Ellis,
something about “cyber sleuth.” That’s an old,
old
term for
the technology that later became CLUES. Most of those patient data
bases were destroyed, but luckily I’d rescued some from a deleted
file. The other night I accessed them. Your brain scan seamlessly
matched a patient named Monte P from 2040. I know that to be the
infamous alias for Emmerick, the brilliant scientist from End-Date
fame who went crazy.”

“Wow!” Someone had finally said it, touching his
innermost pain. Tears welled up and he fought them back. Gently
blinking them back, Nate reached for her outstretched hand and
clasped it. Words congealed on his lips. “Tabloids had it right. I
was
crazy, flat out psychotic. I’ve never felt so lonely, so
desperate, so…”

“Vulnerable?”

“Yeah,” he nodded.

“Nate.” She gripped his hand more tightly. “I
can’t think of anyone more at the nexus of media hounding,
speculation, innuendo than you—except maybe for my grandpa. It’s no
wonder that…you broke.”

“Yeah.” He licked his lips, trying to moisten a
mouth suddenly gone dry. “Never talked to
anyone.”

“Then don’t. Not yet. It’s still locked up
pretty tight.”

Letting go of her hand, he slid down in his seat
and glanced up at the ceiling. Breathing deeply, he said, “Well,
maybe I could.”

“If you’re open, I’m listening.”

“I don’t want a counselor.”

“I mean as your friend.”

“I think…I’d like that.” A smile started slowly
then spread from ear to ear. “In fact, I’ll make that a promise to
you.”

The plane hit some mild turbulence, jarring them
against their seat belts.

“First, you’ll have to promise me to get back
safe and sound.” Worry lines creased her face.

Nate thought she’d never looked so old or so
weary. He reflected on his own surreptitious research about
Campbell and Dr. Hilliard. “That goes for you too.”

“Oh, and speaking of that,” Campbell asked, “you
and Dugan have been talking about Option 16Z. Anything to do with
the End-Date?”

“Sure! Why not spill
all
the beans.
Option 16Z has
everything
to do with the End-Date. It all
started three years ago when Dugan and I discovered the End-Date
was much closer than previous projections.”

“How much?”

“Closer. The monitoring stations in both the
Pacific and Atlantic indicated a rapid slowdown of thermohaline
circulation. That means the warm tropical water from the south is
having more difficulty getting to the northern latitudes. The
northern latitudes depend on those warm waters, sliding on top of
the oceans, for their temperate summers and to prevent
devastatingly cold winters. The cycle is completed when the colder
water, which is denser, tracks back southward. The Atlantic trough
cycle of downwelling and upwelling has become much more unstable.
If the trough shuts down, we’re in trouble. It is the single most
important barometer in my assertion that the End-Date is just
around the corner.”

“That’ll take the wind out of anyone’s sails,”
concluded a somber Campbell.

“So Dugan and I,” continued Nate, “started
looking at all sorts of wild theories related to meteorological,
sociological, psychological, and political parameters that helped
us arrive at the End-Date forecast. What if the Pope declared he
was an atheist? What if actual alien artifacts related to the SETI
communication in 2048 were uncovered? Humans haven’t completed the
necessary environmental steps to push back the End-Date. The hard
science data indicated that our environment was not changing fast
enough to post-pone the predicted global catastrophe. That left me
to calculate
human reactions
to large scale events. Could
that spur us stubborn humans to implement the environmental steps
to move the End-Date back?”