The E Utopia Project (9 page)

“What do we do now?” Sara
asked.

“Let’s walk along the interstate
and look for a ride before it gets dark. I have a feeling that when it gets
dark, the people looking for you will send a whole battalion in search of us.”

Sara nodded. She trusted his
judgment. He was a soldier who had survived Taliban attacks in the Afghan
campaign. He knew how to deal with this kind of situation.

“It’s my turn to breathe,” he
said.

She gave him the machine.

“Are we going to go to your
place?” she asked.

“No. It’s possible that the
assassins now know that I’m the one who’s helping you.  But one thing is for
sure; there is no way they will know about my uncle, Martin.”

Sara’s face broke into a
grin. “Is Uncle Martin still around?”

“Yes, he’s as strong as ever.
He will be delighted to see you.”

“I will be delighted to see
him too. It’s been ages since I last saw Uncle Martin.”

“Why didn’t you visit him,
Sara?” George rebuked. “Uncle Martin loves you. Breaking up with me shouldn’t
mean breaking up with my uncle.”

Sara wanted to shout that it
was George who broke up with her, but she shut her mouth when she realized she
was too tired to argue. Now she had to focus all her energy on escaping the
predators who wanted to kill her.

“Your turn,” he said, taking
off the breathing machine. “I almost forgot that I’m supposed to share the
machine with you. I hope you won’t accuse me of trying to suffocate you. You’re
in a hell of an accusatory mood today.”

They remained five meters inside
the woods and walked parallel to the interstate.

“A truck is coming,” George
said. “Take off the machine and ask the driver to stop. They usually stop for
beautiful ladies.”

Sara blushed. It was a long
time since George called her beautiful. He always kissed her after calling her
beautiful. Thinking of his kisses, her mouth watered.

Tearing off the breathing
machine, she ran out of the woods and he jogged after her. The driver of the
truck pulled the brakes when he saw her but he hesitated when he saw George. He
drove past them and stopped thirty meters away when he saw their desperation in
the view mirror.

They ran to the truck.

The driver popped his head
out through the window and looked at them for seconds before he said, “Where
are you heading?”

“Sprague, sir.”

“Get in. I’m going all the
way to the West Coast.”

He opened the door. Sara was
the first to get in. George lazily followed her in, careful not to scare the
driver.

“Captain Donald to his
unauthorized passengers,” the driver said with a laugh. “Fasten your seat belts.
We’re taking off.”

George and Sara politely
laughed. The driver laughed, pleased with his wit.

“Is everything okay with you
guys?” he asked when he saw how deeply George breathed. “I can see you just
have one breathing machine.”

“Mine malfunctioned and I
threw it away. I’ll buy one when I get to the nearest shops.”

“That’s about ten kilometers
away. Since we now have three pairs of lungs in here, I guess I’ve to adjust
the air conditioner.”

* * *

One of the three launching
sites at the Columbus commercial spaceport in New Mexico’s Desert was a hive of
activity.  Unlike most privately owned spaceports in the United States, the Columbus
Spaceport had not been developed from former NASA or former military
installations. Cruz & Sons Inc bought land from the federal government in
New Mexico’s desert and immediately began construction.  After getting license
from the Federal Aviation Administration, Cruz & Sons Inc wasted no time
setting up a vertical launch system capable of launching medium class rockets.
Now this eleven square kilometer stretch of land that had been deemed useless
by the government now boasted of two vertical launch systems and two runways
for airplanes and horizontal-takeoff spacecraft. It was by far the busiest
privately owned spaceport in the country. Unlike most spaceports, whose
activities were restricted to space tourism, the Columbus Spaceport’s main
function was carrying equipment and supplies to Cruz’s space station, Eureka.
Most privately owned space companies showed no interest in non-lucrative
scientific space expeditions, preferring to concentrate solely on space
tourism. Many people wondered why Cruz & Sons wasted so much money building
Eureka Research Space Station. Critics of Cruz & Sons pointed to the fact
that the corporation hadn’t made a single important discovery since its
subsidiary, Eureka Space Company, began its space scientific expeditions a
decade ago.

This lack of judgment on the
part of Cruz & Sons didn’t surprise many in the business world. Sam Cruz,
the president of the corporation wasn’t known for his business acumen. He was
more interested in enhancing his public image than in making money. Sam Cruz
made more donations than anyone else in the corporate world and he supported
conservationist movements which mostly consisted of people who became
environmental activists for the sole purpose of getting funding from him. It was
now known throughout the world that if you made noise about preserving the
natural environment, you stood a big chance of getting funding from Sam Cruz’s
International Green Movement.

This penchant for playing the
philanthropist and environmentalist had seen Sam Cruz slide down the Forbes
list. His business advisors had tried their best to make him see sense but it
was to no avail. When he inherited Cruz & Sons Inc, he owned eighty percent
of the corporation but now he owned hundred percent after distraught minority
shareholders gladly sold him their shares.

Six years after setting up
the Columbus Spaceport, Sam Cruz announced plans to build spaceports in Bolivia
and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Despite advice from his business advisors,
who questioned the logic behind building spaceports in Third World countries
when all space tourists came from the First World, Sam Cruz set up the
spaceports. The governments of the two countries, which were beneficiaries of Sam
Cruz’s aid under the International Green Movement’s Sustainable Development
Initiative, gladly offered him land for the construction of the spaceports. The
two governments were delighted that Cruz & Sons Inc wanted to invest in
their countries. Naturally, the Bolivian and Congolese public praised their
governments for bringing foreign investment into the two countries.

Among Sam Cruz’s other noted
white elephants were the zoos that he established to “save endangered species.”
People could enter the zoos and see the animals for free, which meant that Sam
Cruz didn’t get anything other than publicity from the investment. Now with El
Monstruo devastating the world, the costs of running the zoos were high. Not
only did Sam Cruz have to feed the animals, but he also had to cater for their
oxygen needs.

The world’s business
community ridiculed Sam Cruz, but the world’s common people saw him as a
superhero who fought for the preservation of the environment. If people of the
world were to be asked to elect someone to become the governor of Earth, they
would surely elect Sam Cruz. He was good-looking in a superheroish,
square-jawed, athletic way, and his unassuming public manners were endearing.
He had spent billions of dollars in the environmental cause and he and his
movement had won many awards, which included a record six US Environment Leadership
Awards. But in spite of that, he never bragged about his achievements, and
whenever he made speeches, he spoke as if the common man in the street was his
equal partner in the fight to protect the environment.

Today Cruz himself was at Columbus
Spaceport inspecting operations. Everyone, from the guards and janitors to the
director, tried to look as conscientious as they could in the presence of the
billionaire. The Spaceport Director walked behind Sam Cruz like a lieutenant following
a general during an inspection of military barracks.

“What’s that stuff?” Sam Cruz
asked, pointing at boxes that were being offloaded from trucks.

“Frozen embryos, sir.”
replied Matt Spencer, the spaceport director. He was a bespectacled
twenty-eight-year-old with a prematurely balding head. If he was an actor, his
geeky appearance would have landed him numerous roles as a genius. And he was quite
a genius as those who knew him would testify.

“Did you send any live big
cats into Space?”

“We sent three female leopard
cubs,” Matt said.

“Why didn’t you send lions?”
Cruz asked. Lions were his favorite cats.

“We decided not to send live
lions or live tigers because they eat more than leopards. We will only send
frozen lion and tiger embryos. The female leopards will play surrogate to all
our big cat embryos when the time comes.”

Cruz nodded.

“What about sperm banks?”
Cruz asked.

“We’re collecting sperm
samples of as many animals as we can.”

“Good.” He had ordered the
creation of sperm banks to increase the gene pool of E Utopia’s fauna. “When is
the next launch?”

“We got FAA clearance to make
a launch tomorrow.”

Sam Cruz’s phone rang. He
frowned when he listened to the caller. “What do you mean she escaped? If you
can’t take care of a woman, how can I expect you to take care of a planet?”

Cruz cut the call and sped to
his limousine in a huff.

* * *

It was early morning when George
and Sara arrived at Uncle Martin’s cabin on the shores of Lake Sprague. The
lake had shrunk because of the drought, making the lakeside cabin appear as if
it had drifted away from the lake. The peacefulness of the place had a calming
effect on Sara. She felt safe here, as if the attempt on her life had taken
place on another continent.

The truck driver had enjoyed
their company. Sara and George bantered with him and laughed at his jokes
throughout the way. He couldn’t help feeling sad when they disembarked, but his
eyes lit when Sara gave him a hundred dollar note, which he accepted with
half-hearted protest.

The morning was very cold. Sara
resisted the urge to huddle against George for warmth. There were times when
huddling against him was the most natural thing in the world and those times now
belonged to the dustbin of history.

Uncle Martin’s “cabin” was
actually a four-bedroomed house with two bathrooms and an attached two-car
garage. The place also had a private boat launch.

A German shepherd barked at
them when they approached the cabin but its barking turned into soft whimpering
sounds of delight when it recognized George. It trotted toward him and pawed
him in between growling at Sara.

“Hunter, come here my boy,”
he said, putting both hands on the dog’s neck. Sara remembered her dog when she
saw the breathing-machine-clad German shepherd.

“Oh my God!” she exclaimed, covering
her mouth with her hands.

“What?”

“Snoopy is alone!”

“Dammit, Sara. You scared me.
I thought you saw someone pointing a gun at us.”

“My dog will suffocate when
the batteries of his breathing machine run out.”

“How long do you think his
batteries will last?”

“He carries a big battery
pack that can last a day and a half. His breathing machine’s exhaust
automatically opens to dump carbon when it’s full. It has a solar charger but
that can only help him if he stays in the sun long enough.”

“Let’s hope he stays in the
sun long enough,” George said, though he knew that with the afternoon heat, it
was unlikely that the dog would bask in the sun.

The noise woke George’s uncle.
The old man peered at the visitors through the window and rushed for his breathing
machine when he recognized George’s unmistakable languid gait. Fumbling with
his breathing machine, he opened the door. He beamed at his nephew, the
breathing machine forgotten in his hands.

“George!” the old man said
effusively. “What a surprise. Just what I needed to start my day!”

“Uncle Martin! Sorry for
waking you up so early.”

The old man wanted to run
toward George and Sara but he turned and walked back into the house when he
realized he was getting asphyxiated. He breathlessly hobbled into the house and
took deep gasps of the oxygen-rich indoor air, impatiently waited for the
visitors to enter.

George took off his breathing
machine and hugged the old man. “How are you, Uncle Martin?”

“I’m fine, son.”

The old man got delirious
when Sara removed her breathing machine. “God, it’s you, Sara! I knew you and
George would get back together.” He pushed George away and, with agility that
belied his age, he pounced on Sara and embraced her. “I’m glad to see you with
George. I always told him he made a mistake when he let you go.”

“It’s good to see you, Uncle Martin,”
Sara purred, marveling at the old man’s resemblance to George.

The old man ushered them to
seats. “You look like you slept on the road. What happened to your car?”

“We didn’t come by car.”