The E Utopia Project (7 page)
At first he thought that this
was purely a case of discrimination against ethnic minorities. The population
of the neighborhood was predominantly Hispanic and African American. Many
residents of Manchester regarded this as a case of ethnic cleansing. But the
more Frankson looked at the matter was the more he began to see it less as a
racial issue. Negroes and Hispanics worked in the oil companies even though
they knew that the companies were pouring toxins into the homes of fellow
Negroes and fellow Hispanics. The country even had a black president for eight
years but he did nothing to help the black residents of Manchester.
People, whether black or
white, were the same. They cared more about making profits and getting jobs
than they cared about the environment. The ruling class only cared about
pleasing the capitalists who funded their election campaigns. Frankson found it
ironic that the very same government that sent him to the Middle East to kill
people for their oil didn’t care whether he was gassed to death at home in the
name of oil.
Although he knew that he and
his organization were fighting a lost cause, Frankson continued campaigning.
His noise reached the IGM, which offered to fund People against Pollution. But
even with the support of IGM, Frankson and his comrades achieved nothing in
their quest to stop smokestacks from pouring noxious gases into their
neighborhood.
After funding him for two
years, IGM’s Executive Council called Frankson for a meeting.
Sara paced about her office, mentally
going through the draft of her UN speech, imagining the reaction of world
leaders to her extraterrestrial theory. She walked back to her chair and
resumed watching satellite images coming from NASA. She zoomed on a storm that
was building over the Indian Ocean, and watched clouds whirling into a spiral.
All of a sudden, the livestream stopped and showed an apparent playback. Sara logged
onto the ESA site and zoomed the storm, eager to see how it was progressing.
She wished the storm would move to land and ease the effects of the drought. She
watched the storm for three minutes before she realized that the channel was also
repeating one clip. What was happening? This was supposed to be real time. She logged
onto a privately owned satellite imagery company and was astonished to note
that it was also replaying a clip of the storm. She tried five more privately
owned satellite imagery companies and, to her shock, they were all repeating playbacks
of the storm. She logged back onto NASA. The federal agency was still playing
back a clip of the storm.
She had no trouble getting
livestreams of other parts of the globe. The problem was only limited to the
storm and the areas around it.
Maybe NASA, ESA and the
privately owned companies use one satellite to cover that part of the Indian
Ocean
, she thought. That was the only
logical explanation. She opened her browser and searched the internet for shared
Earth observation satellites. NASA and ESA shared some satellites, and only two
of the privately owned companies shared satellites. So why was it that all eight
channels were not livestreaming this particular part of the globe? This was too
much to be a coincidence. Someone didn’t want the world to know what was
happening in that area right now. Perhaps the extraterrestrial beings
responsible for El Monstruo had the technology to jam satellites.
She had to find out what was being
concealed from the world. The only way to find out was to deploy drones in that
area. GEMA had drones stationed in Kenya and she had to send them to the Indian
Ocean without delay if she wanted to find out what was going on. She had the
feeling that the thing that was being concealed was not in the ocean but in the
sky above it.
She phoned the head of GEMA’s
Central African Drones Unit.
“How are you, ma’am,” a voice
rasped from the other end of the line.
“Fine, Andreas. I need you to
send at least three drones to the Indian Ocean.”
“The Indian Ocean?” Andreas said
with disbelief. GEMA used its Central African drones to monitor the region’s
forests. They had never used the drones to monitor oceans.
“Yes, Andreas. I want you to
send six drones to scan an area of ten kilometer radius around the area the 29.3°
S, 53.5° E. I want the drones to take pictures of anything they see flying in
the sky, natural or man-made.”
“Can you please repeat the
coordinates, ma’am?”
“29.3° S, 53.5° E.”
“Roger that, ma’am.”
“Andreas, how long do you
think it will take you to get the drones to the area?”
“The drones will take off as
soon as we get clearance from Kenya Civil Aviation Authority. I think they’ll
arrive at the location in less than one and a half hours.”
“I want the drones to scan
the area for the whole week.”
“Okay, ma’am. The drones can
stay in air for twenty-eight hours, so I will launch another six drones tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Andreas.”
She sprang to her feet and
rushed to Wong’s office. The little Chinese man raised his eyes from his
computer and looked at her with bored eyes.
“Wong, I stumbled upon a
startling discovery.”
“What is it this time? Did
you find out the skin color of the aliens who are stealing our oxygen?”
“Something is happening over the
Indian Ocean at this very moment. All eight satellite imagery channels are not
showing real-time images of one particular area in the Indian Ocean. I think something
jammed their satellites to conceal a nefarious activity that is happening in
the region.”
“And what could be that
nefarious activity?” Wong snorted. “Come on, Sara. This is getting—”
“Wong, listen to me. Right
now NASA, ESA and the six privately owned companies with Earth observation
satellites are not showing real-time images of one place in the Indian Ocean.
You can check it out for yourself if you doubt me.”
“Most of these privately owned
companies are licensed with the US government. ESA belongs to US allies. Maybe
the US government is carrying out a secret operation in the region and maybe
they asked the companies to stop livestreaming the region.”
“A military operation? I
don’t think so. There is calm in that region and no government in that part of
the world poses a military threat to the US.”
“Listen, Sara. If these space
agencies and companies really wanted to cover something up, they wouldn’t have
replayed a video clip. They would have simply pasted a previously taken picture
on top of the spot that they wanted to cover up. Replaying a short video clip
won’t cover up anything. On the contrary, it actually draws attention to that
area.”
“You’re right,” Sara
concurred. “Replaying a video would be the dumbest thing to do if they wanted
to cover up something but why are they doing it?”
“I don’t know why the agencies
and companies are doing what you say they’re doing but I know it’s nothing to
do with El Monstruo. Why would the agencies and companies want to help aliens
destroy our home planet? The directors and the staff of these agencies and companies
live here on Earth and they’ll all die if the atmosphere loses all of its
oxygen.”
“Maybe the aliens are
controlling their minds or maybe the aliens hacked into the systems of these
companies and are tampering with the images to cover up something.”
“Sara, wake up. Stop
dreaming. Listen to yourself. You’re talking about aliens and mind control.
Soon you’ll be talking about shapeshifting. We don’t know where oxygen is going
but that shouldn’t turn us into dreamers.”
“Maybe I’m dreaming but I ain’t
taking any chances,” Sara said obstinately. “I think something is happening above
the Indian Ocean and I’m going to find out the truth. I sent drones to scan the
area.”
“I think you are wasting time
and resources. In fact, you’re worsening the situation because your drones are needlessly
burning fuel and releasing greenhouse gases.”
“There’s a big chance that
I’m wrong. But there’s also the slight chance that I’m right and at this
juncture we need to look at all possibilities.”
Wong snickered. “Fine. Let me
help you develop this alien theory of yours. Perhaps just as we humans have a
taste for carbonated drinks, the aliens have a taste for oxygenated drinks and
they’re using the oxygen they’re stealing from us to oxygenate their drinks.”
He tilted his head, and looked at Sara with the corners of his eyes. “Or perhaps
oxygen is actually poisonous to the aliens and they’re using it as a chemical
weapon in a big war on their home planet.”
“You think El Monstruo is
funny?”
“No, I think your solutions
to El Monstruo are funny.”
Sara returned to her office.
When she looked at images coming from NASA, she discovered that the agency was
now showing real-time images of the diminishing storm. She logged onto the
other sites and wasn’t surprised to see them livestreaming the storm.
Whatever
was happening in that area is over,
she thought, sucking her thumb.
She paged Nzue and the
Gabonese came at once. She struggled for calm as she told him what she had
found out.
“So you think NASA, ESA and six
privately owned satellite imagery companies are involved in some wicked scheme,”
Nzue said thoughtfully. “What common interest would draw them together? The
privately owned companies are competitors and it will take something remarkable
to bring them together.”
“Maybe someone is coercing
them.”
“Who could have the power to
coerce a United States federal agency and an agency belonging to the European Union?”
Nzue asked.
“I don’t know but I believe
that this is all somehow linked to El Monstruo.”
“Linked how?”
“I don’t know,” Sara said
with a shrug.
Nzue thoughtfully squeezed
the tip of his nose with his thumb and index finger. “You could be onto
something. El Monstruo is a big mystery and we have to explore all
possibilities if we hope to overcome the disaster.”
“Did you have a look at my
draft?”
“I’m still going through it.”
“Thanks, Nzue. You can go
back to your office. I’ll call you if I need anything.”
Nzue left and Sara resumed
watching satellite images, only taking her eyes from her computer when her
phone rang. “Hello.”
“Ma’am, the drones are now in
the location.”
“Thank you, Andreas,” she
said, wishing the drones had arrived earlier.
She spent the whole day
watching satellite images, hoping to find another anomaly in the images coming
from Earth observation satellites.
At exactly half past three,
she left her office and drove her car out of GEMA Headquarters. She was about
to pass the shopping center when she remembered she needed some groceries. She drove
into the shopping center and parked in the almost empty parking area. She
disembarked from the car without her breathing machine because she knew the
shops were all air-conditioned. She scooted into the largest supermarket.
Only a year ago, the
supermarket had a dairy section, a butcher and a poultry section. She picked
some soya mince for her dog and two packs of tofu for herself before she walked
to the greens section. She did the shopping on autopilot. Her mind was
preoccupied with the strange discovery she had stumbled upon today. She had the
feeling that if she figured out what the puzzling behavior of the space
agencies and satellite imagery companies meant, she could save the world.
She mechanically pushed the
cart to the till. Her chest constricted when she saw a tall, athletic man
pushing a shopping cart toward the same till. He was wearing a cycling helmet, a
T-shirt and a pair of khaki shorts, his breathing machine slung on his neck.
“Sara,” he said.
“Hi George,” she said, trying
her best to appear unfazed.
“It’s been a long time since
I last saw you in flesh. I’ve seen lots of you on TV busy trying to save the
world. I listened to quite a few of your UN speeches. They were all quite
impressive.”
“Thanks. It was nice bumping
into you, George,” Sara said without turning back. “I’ve got to run.”
“See you, Sara.”
She pushed the cart to the
till, desperate to get away from George. She had told herself that she was over
him but one look at him had told her that he still owned a big chunk of her
heart. Her preoccupation with solving the environmental disaster facing the
world had helped her forget about him and she had assumed she was over him.
“Good afternoon,” the teenage
sales clerk said.
“Afternoon,” Sara said anxiously.
From the corner of her eye, she could see George going to the next till. Sara
sucked her thumb, willing the teenage sales clerk to hasten. She wanted to get
out of the supermarket before George because she knew if he got out first, he
would wait for her outside.
Resisting the urge to look at
George, Sara stared impatiently at the sales clerk. To her dismay, the sales
clerks finished saving her and George at the same instant. She quickly pushed
her shopping cart to the exit, desperate to beat George to the door. He had
broken her heart and she wanted to be as far away from him as possible. Images
of the time she caught him with his ex-girlfriend in his arms came to her mind
unbidden. George had told her he hated Kyla, his ex. He said he wanted nothing
to do with Kyla after catching her having a threesome with two of his friends. Sara
was shattered to see him and his ex holding each other as if their lives
depended on it. She retreated in tears and left them to their carnal business. Kayla
and George were so engrossed in each other that neither of them saw her.
Sara had walked only four
meters outside the supermarket when she heard running footsteps behind her. She
turned and saw George flying toward her. He knocked her down in a rugby tackle
and she tumbled to the pavement, bruising her elbows. He pinned her to the
ground with all his might. She was about to scream when she heard the sound of
gunfire.
“Keep low, Sara. Don’t raise
your head. Follow me.”
He rolled behind three large
concrete flower vases. The flowers had been put on the shopping centre more for
utility than for their beauty. People were more interested in the oxygen the
flowers produced when they photosynthesized than in their colorful petals.
“What’s happening?” she squeaked.
“You tell me. Why is that
gunman trying to kill you?”
“What gunman? I think there
is a mistake.”
