The Healing

The blueish rays from the rising sun hit him in the eyes and startled him awake.

“Damn, I miss curtains...” he muttered to himself.

Jayson rolled off of the make-shift mattress and pulled from his pocket the charred piece of wood from his former home, and made another scratch in his tattered notebook. One thousand two hundred twenty-eight days, nearly three and a half years since that dreadful day. That leaves only 28 days before the end of the world, he thought.

He looked back at Xiomara and listened to her slight snoring, and watched her chest rise and fall with each breath. She showed her masterful leadership skills during the teleconference with guerilla leaders from around the world. It lasted until just a couple of hours ago, but everybody knows their part and is ready to make this happen.

Jayson’s thoughts then turned to his family. They were all scattered the day the world changed. Mom was at the Lab, and Dad was on a flight from Los Angeles. Dad probably went without feeling a thing. Hopefully, the plane didn’t crash but quickly incinerated in the air. Dad never really believed mom; She told him not to fly that day, and he ignored her, and now he is dead. Jayson’s siblings; he hadn’t heard from them since that day and has no idea if they lived or died. With those thoughts, a lump formed in his throat. But there was no time for sadness. "Time to wake up Xiomara and get to the business of the day," Jayson whispered to himself.

***

Almost five years ago, Dr. Jonathan Halperin, formerly employed by NASA, announced on CNN that the newly discovered Comet Sergey12 was heading on a collision course with earth. Hundreds of scientists around the world had double-checked his calculations. Still, U.S. President Doyle had refused to allow NASA to officially disclose the finding, even to the point of threatening criminal prosecution for anybody who revealed the discovery. Still, some things are just too important to keep a secret. So Dr. Halperin risked his life and freedom to warn the world of the impending collision. Unfortunately, there was only a year and a half to prepare for this terrible cosmic event.

Lacking government support, Halperin assembled a small but brilliant team of trusted advisors in preparation for collision day that would help him work secretly on any possible solution to either avoiding the collision or mitigating the damage. Mom was his right-hand man - or woman if you prefer. They had known each other since University and had remained in touch. Mom is a brilliant mathematician and physicist. Her part-time passion was astronomy, and that combination of skills and interests, along with her well-known political distaste for President Doyle and his anti-scientific policies, made her a most trusted confidant and team member. Three mechanical engineers, two rocket scientists, a computer hacker, and a cryptocurrency expert rounded out the team’s core.

About a month before the announcement, Dr. Halperin asked Jayson to contact 15 of the world’s most prominent and forward-thinking billionaires, including three of them who had already established space exploration companies. He trusted Jayson as he had watched the boy his whole life and into adulthood, but more importantly, Jayson had skills and connections.

“This is not going to be an easy task.” stated Halperin, “You can’t just call these billionaires up on the phone. You must contact them in complete secrecy, and the US government can’t know about our plans.” Jayson agreed and was willing to do anything for this man he so admired.

Jayson contacted Xiomara, a woman he briefly dated while serving in the army. One of the few female members of the Army Special Forces, she is an absolute badass, even working briefly for the CIA. She was a highly decorated veteran of many operations throughout Latin America, the middle east and Europe, and even some in Southern Asia. Her caramel skin tone, dark eyes, thick eyebrows, and ambiguous looks obscured her Mexican heritage enough to permit her to assimilate into any culture. It also helped that she was fluent in 5 languages. She was a real warrior, more competent than most, and very strategic. Jayson loves her, but she is too aloof to get seriously involved with any man.

An idealist at heart, Xiomara jumped at the opportunity to save the world. She promptly began her plans to contact all 15 billionaires and arrange with them a meeting in the jungles of Guatemala a month before Dr. Halperin was to make his announcement of Earth’s collision with the comet.

Seven of the 15 billionaires were on board immediately. They quickly committed the whole of their wealth to save the world. A middle-east billionaire refused to help. So Xiomara shot him in the head. She didn’t want to, but she could not risk him talking to Doyle about this plan. The upside of that murder was that she could tell the reluctant ones what would happen if they didn’t agree to help. They magically agreed.

Fortunately, the international intrigue of one billionaire’s assassination was a good diversion for all the media outlets not to notice 14 billionaires flying into Guatemala.

The meeting went as well as expected. You can’t put 14 strong personalities in a room without them fighting for dominance. But in the end, each of them realized that their financial fortunes were useless if the world became uninhabitable.

Once Halperin defied the US President and announced the impending comet crash, President Doyle had the attorney general direct the FBI to charge him with Treason against the United States. Doyle then rammed through legislation allowing the NSA and CIA to spy on all American citizens to track down what he called the “Cabal of World Destruction.”

The group immediately named themselves CWD for the irony of owning their designation as criminals.

The CWD distributed the team members into various locations for security purposes and decided to use old fashion messengers to transmit files they needed instead of using the internet. It was slower but more secure.

Jayson outfitted each messenger with a piece of jewelry that had a hidden compartment to hide microchips that could have data recorded on them. Jayson gave Xiomara the heart-shaped pendant that his grandmother had when she was a child. He put a small photo of himself in the locket and hid the microchip behind the photograph. He gave others items like analog watches with the movements removed or ear-piercing studs with a large enough space behind the earlobe to contain the microchip. The idea was only to use low-tech old-style jewelry. Nobody was allowed to use smartwatches or anything that might look computerized.

***

But that is all history now. Halperin was right; Doyle was wrong.

When the comet hit the earth, it just glanced off the atmosphere, slowing the earth’s orbit around the sun. Consequently, the world gradually moved closer and closer to the sun as the Earth’s orbit tightened into an ever-smaller ellipse.

The CWD devised a plan to repair the world not long after the comet hit. Mom worked with the rocket engineers and figured out a way to increase the speed of the earth’s orbit to slow the descent towards the sun. If it didn’t work, our earthly home would become uninhabitable.

The most critical job was up to Jayson and Xiomara. They are taking Mom’s final calculations to NORAD to communicate with 1800 rocket sites worldwide. A precisely sequenced launching of over 2,500 missiles and rockets would create enough shift in the earth’s rotation to speed up the orbit and put it back to a more sustainable orbital path around the sun. It is not a perfect solution, but the Earth would not continue to plunge towards the sun, and humanity won’t go extinct.

There had been significant defections in the U.S. military after the comet hit. Xiomara was able to recruit nearly 500 special ops warriors from various military branches to assault NORAD. But not all military defected; some were highly loyal to President Doyle, so there would surely be resistance.

“Jayson, get in the jeep!” Xiomara commanded. Wow! Jayson thought. Ten minutes ago asleep, and now, all full of energy and yelling commands. We were on our way to meet up with the CWD warriors.

They assembled all the warriors just before dusk that evening. Xiomara checked in with the platoon leaders and reviewed everybody’s roles. Rations, water, etc. There were 24 hours to breach NORAD, take it over, and enter the coordinates and codes to launch the operation “Save the F’in’ world.” No paramilitary operation will ever be more important than this one.

Xiomara stood on a rock above the little canyon where all were camped and began speaking.

“You will be hailed as saviors! They will make statues in your honor, they will name their babies after you, and your stories of triumph will be immortalized for centuries to come.

“Let every warrior among us know that their contribution is for the good of humankind. Some will die early, and some will die later. Your brothers and sisters will know of your sacrifice on behalf of humanity. There is no greater love than to lay down your life for your fellow humans! I could not be more humbled than to serve at your side and share the honor of your bravery and courage. We shall be successful, and we shall overcome! HooRah!“

***

Approaching the entrance to NORAD, they encountered resistance an entire 5 miles before the gates. This was going to be a real slog. Luckily the billionaire backers had bought the most sophisticated weapons and technology to defeat any military defenses standing in the way.

Six hours later, they reached the gates to the mountainside bunker. Thanks to the hacker, they had gained the codes to open the gates. Unexpectedly, as they tried to open it, it didn’t work. Jayson was furious. He didn’t have to cool the disposition of Xiomara. She called up a young soldier named Mark. Mark was not merely a physical warrior like the others; he had a brilliant analytical mind. He figured out how to short circuit the doors, and then they used the brute force of missiles to bust them down. Not pretty, and another two hours down, but progress! Somebody had dropped the ball, but improvising was how she survived all those years in special ops.

They entered, and with only a hundred warriors left, they took over the command of NORAD.

At the appointed hour, Jayson went to work. First, he gently kissed Xiomara on her cheek and removed the locket from her neck. Then, he removed the microchip and uploaded the data into the computers. Now the wait for the precise hour prescribed by mom’s calculations.

***

After three hours, a couple of warriors got impatient. The all-day battle had frayed their minds, and they tried to attack Jayson. In defending him, Xiomara was stabbed just below her left collarbone and was bleeding profusely. Jayson could hardly breathe. He was beside himself with rage. He had an overwhelming desire to kill the man that stabbed Xiomara.

Xi called Jayson to her side. She whispered in his ear that maybe if they all survived, they could try and rekindle a romantic relationship.

That is what he needed to hear. Maybe Xi was just playing him, or perhaps it was her genuine desire. He didn’t care; it gave him hope.

It took every ounce of self-control that Jayson had to focus on his job to hit the appropriate buttons precisely in sequence and on time. He did it all while peering through the tears in his eyes.

Within half an hour, everybody felt the earth shudder as the rockets were in the process of changing the Earth’s orbit. It was a massive worldwide earthquake. Hopefully, mom’s plan was working. Hopefully, they lived to know if it did.