The E Utopia Project (34 page)

Frankson pulled Akeela and
kissed her passionately.

“What was that for?” she
asked.

“That was for nothing. I
don’t need a special reason to kiss my beautiful wife, do I?” He smiled and
held her hands. He had never been so happy in his life. He had been worried war
would break out between the Earth’s powers and the E Utopian space force before
the evacuation of his chosen ones. He could see she was pained by her brother’s
refusal to come to E Utopia. He wanted to be with her during this difficult
time but he had to return to Base. The E Utopia pioneers had resumed the
milking operation after suspending it for two months to concentrate on the
evacuation of the chosen ones.

“Darling, my leave ends
today. I’m heading back to Base tomorrow. Soon the operation will be over and
I’ll be spending more time with you and Primrose.”

“What is it that you do in
the operation?”

“We’re looking for new
planets,” he lied. He couldn’t tell her that the operation involved taking
oxygen from Earth. He knew she would never forgive him for killing her brother
and the rest of Earth’s inhabitants. All E Utopian pioneers had been told that the
oxygen harvesting operation was classified and he hoped that none of the
pioneers would tell their chosen ones about the operation. The chosen ones now
made more than ninety percent of E Utopia’s population and they could rebel if
they realized what the pioneers had done.

“Aren’t you content with this
planet?”

“We’re looking for planets to
mine for minerals that we need here.” To change the subject of conversation, he
asked, “How was Environmental Science class?”

“I love it! It’s kind of weird
being in the same class with Primrose. It makes me feel young. It’s like becoming
a teenager again.”

“Tell your teenage male
classmates that I’ll kick their asses if they hit on you.”

She laughed. “Somebody is
jealous.”

“Baby, you’re so beautiful
that they’ll mistake you for a teenager and will try to lay their hands on you.
But I’ve a strategy to prevent that.”

“What strategy?”

“I’ll tell Primrose to tell
the whole class that you’re her mom.”

“Devious son of a bitch.”

“I’m glad you like your
Environmental Science class. I feared you’d hate it. People have a tendency to
dislike compulsory things.” He put his hands on her lap and looked her in the
eye. “Listen, honey... I know you’re worried about your brother and I’ll do my
best to bring him here. The President is on Earth. I sent him a message telling
him the situation with your brother. I asked him to add your brother’s in-laws
on the list. I told him that the matter is causing a lot of sadness in my
family. It will take a day for the message to reach our space station in the Solar
System. The station will email the message to the President. Let’s just hope
that the President will agree to my request.”

“Thank you, Andrew,” she said
with tears in her eyes. “Thank you for thinking about my brother.”

“Your brother and I have had
our differences, darling. But I’ll do my best to bring him here because he’s
your brother. I hate seeing you unhappy.”

She hugged him. “Thank you.
I’ll pray for the President to agree to your request. I don’t understand why
the government of E Utopia didn’t take in more refugees from Earth. This planet
is bigger than Earth.”

“It costs a lot of money to
bring people from space. Besides, the environment of this planet is still too
fragile to withstand a huge population boom. Maybe in future, when the
environment is more stable, the government will decide to take in more people.
Where’s Primrose?”

“The last time I saw her she
was with your sister. The two have taken to this planet like ducks to water.”

* * *

“Your dad and I used to be
worried that you’d marry one of those punks you used to date. But you did much
more than we expected of you. You married the President of this wonderful
planet and you’re now the First Lady. I had little respect for most of the
things you did but you saved your family from perishing on Earth.”

Jennifer looked at her
mother. “You’re welcome, mom.”

“When you joined the green
movement, I thought it was just another excuse for not looking for a job,”
Sheryl Ladley said with an affectionate gray-eyed gaze at her daughter. “I’m
sorry I doubted you, Jennifer.”

“Mom, that belongs to the
past. You didn’t mean any harm. The good thing is that we’re all here and we’re
alive.”

Sheryl’s eyes moved around
the expansive living room. “I still can’t believe that my daughter now leaves
in a palace. It’s like a fairytale.”

“I feel like that too, mom. I
feel like I’m living in the pages of a fairytale book.”

Sheryl’s eyes swept around
the room for the umpteenth time. “A palace with no paintings or wooden
furniture, but a palace nonetheless.”

“We don’t have trees for
wood. But even when we have thick woodlands, I don’t think we’ll have a big
timber industry on this planet. We’ll only cut trees when it’s absolutely
necessary. We won’t cut trees to make unnecessary ornaments. How’s dad?”

“Your dad is fine. He’s gone
to work. He found a job in the sewage and water department. They’re doing some
plumbing in the new housing units.”

“Good for him,” Sara said,
smiling as she imagined her father with a wrench and a hammer in his hands. “He’s
found something to keep him busy. He hates sitting idle.”

“Your dad loves his
Environmental Science class.”

“What about you, mom? Do you
love your Environmental Science class?”

“No. I just go because it’s
compulsory.”

“Mom, you should take your
class seriously,” Jennifer said with a reproachful tone. “It’ll help you
understand why you should follow the planet’s strict environmental laws. It’ll
help you become a good citizen who won’t be a menace to our environment.”

“It’s a noble idea but I know
almost everything that they teach us in the class.”

“Think of it as a refresher
course, mom.”

“I’ll try that approach.” Sheryl
took a step toward Jennifer. “What’s happening between you and Teresa? I’ve
never seen you two together since we arrived here. I asked her about it and she
told me that you fell out when she said some mean things to you. She said she’s
sorry.”

“It’s too late for her
apologies now,” Jennifer deadpanned. She missed Teresa but she couldn’t let her
get away with calling her a mean gold-digging bitch.

“Teresa was your best friend,”
Sheryl said sternly. “You can’t dump your friends because you’re now the First
Lady of E Utopia.”

“Being First Lady of EU has nothing
to do with my break up with Teresa,” Jennifer said. “Being the President’s wife
hasn’t changed me, mom. I’m still the person I was before I became Sam Cruz’s
wife.”

“Honey, I never approved of
your friendship with Teresa. But I think it’s wrong for you to dump her just
like that.”

“I didn’t dump her, mom. She
dumped me.”

“Can you tell me what
happened between the two of you?”

“The evacuations from Earth
were done in order of seniority. They began evacuating the chosen ones of senior
space force officers and high-ranking government officials. When the
evacuations began, I was only an ensign like Teresa but Sam gave me the
privilege to have fifteen of my chosen ones among the first people to be
evacuated from Earth.” Jennifer stifled a sob. “Can you imagine it, mom. I had
the opportunity to save fifteen people and I put Teresa’s parents on the list
of fifteen, at the expense of some of my own close relatives. But her parents
refused to come because they didn’t want to leave their folks on Earth. When she
saw you here, she accused me of abandoning her parents. I tried to tell her
that her parents refused to come but she said I was a mean, gold-digging whore.”

“But the ushers take videos
of the chosen ones who refuse to come here. Did you show her the video
recording that showed her parents’ response to your invitation?”

“She refused to see the
video.”

“But her parents did come later
when they received her invitation. I’m sure they told her what happened.”

“Of course they told her what
happened,” she said as impassively as she could. “That’s why she’s saying she’s
sorry. I can’t forgive her. I left out my own relatives to accomodate her
parents but she called me a mean bitch.”

“Swallow your pride,
Jennifer,” Shirley said. “I know you need Teresa. She said she’s sorry. Go talk
to her.”

“Even if I wanted to, it’s
impossible for me to talk to her. Sam doesn’t allow me to travel without
bodyguards. If I go to Teresa’s residence in a motorcade, she’ll think I’m
trying to show off.”

“You can ask her to come
here. I saw her yesterday and she said she’ll be leaving the day after
tomorrow. She’s been assigned to a spaceship”

“Do you think she’ll come if
I invite her here?” Jennifer crooned.

“She’ll come. Let me talk to
her.”

“Thanks, mom.”

* * *

She was crouching, talking
to her twins.

“Mommy!” they chorused.
“We can’t breathe.”

She checked their
breathing machines. The batteries of the machines were full. She also began to
feel breathless, but when she checked her machine, she found out that it had
enough power. Then why were they suffocating? Before she could do anything, her
twins collapsed.

“No!” she screamed.

“Sara!” George said with
alarm. “Are you okay?”

She opened her eyes. Her
heart was thumping and she was panting as though she had been sprinting. “I’m fine.
Just a bad dream about El Monstruo. What time is it?”

George took his phone from
the dressing table. “The nightmare beat the alarm by just over an hour,” he
said. “It’s twenty-one minutes to six.”

“Let me catch some more
sleep,” she said groggily.

“And let me bath and make you
some breakfast.”

“That’s music to my ears.
Don’t forget that I’m three-in-one. I’ll need to take some of your delicious
cooking to work.”

“How can I forget that there
are four of us now?”

When he left the bedroom, she
looked at the ceiling, willing sleep to take her. The dream had upset her so
much that she couldn’t fall asleep even though her eyes were heavy with sleep.
How would the world be like when she birthed her twins? She had advocated for
population control as a means to reduce the strain on the world’s natural
resources and her detractors would surely call her a hypocrite when they saw
her twins. However, she wasn’t overly concerned about being called a hypocrite.
The mockery that she received when she publicized her extraterrestrial theory
had made her skin thick. She was worried about the consequences of losing the
battle against El Monstruo. If the world failed to find a way to end the
disaster, her children would never know what it is like to live in a normal
world. They would never know what it is like to breathe fresh air.

When the alarm rang she got
out of bed and went to the bathroom for a quick shower. She returned to the
bedroom and put on fresh clothes. Her mouth watered in anticipation of the
breakfast that awaited her in the kitchen. George was a great cook. He could
make tasty meals even with the limited ingredients that were currently
available on the market. He had a dozen ways to cook tofu and now that in vitro
meat was now available on the market, George could come up with hundreds of
recipes. The thought of tasting today’s breakfast recipe temporarily took her
mind away from her worries.

“What’s on the menu today?”

“I made some chicken pork
pies,” he said.

“Chicken pork pies?”

“Yes. With the available
ingredients, that’s the closest we can get to eggs and bacon.”

Sara tasted the chicken pork
pie, which George had made from in vitro chicken and in vitro beef. Like
everything that George cooked, it tasted great.

“You should open a
restaurant, honey,” Sara mumbled through a mouthful of pie.

“That has always been my
dream. Maybe I’ll open one when all this is over.”

Sara’s phone rang. One look
at the phone’s LCD sent her heart racing.

“Tim, I hope you’ve got good
news for me.”

“I think I do. Sara, this is
big. They trained the NRO’s satellites on those two locations and they captured
pictures of fleets of spaceships entering the atmosphere and gliding in circles
like vultures for over half an hour. It’s not clear whether these ships belong
to humans or aliens but they come from outer space.”

“I think the space agencies
and satellite imagery companies that have been covering up for these ships have
an idea about the identity of the ships’ owners.” The natural reaction would
have been for Sara to be happy that she had been proven right. But the
vindication of her theory gave her no joy. The world was probably facing an
alien invasion and she was going to bring her twins right into the middle of a
human-alien war. “So what’s the plan from the Pentagon?”