The Man Who Owned Earth

Ten.

The countdown echoed through the pod. Jett grinned.

Nine.

He thought of the protestors that morning with the ridiculous signs. “Own the Earth. Bleed the Earth. Bleed the Stars. Avarice Can’t Save Us.”

Eight.

I’m the only thing that can save you Jett thought to himself. You destroyed the planet and I go to make sure you have a future. A little gratitude should be in order.

Seven.

Project EoF [Edge of Forever] was ahead of schedule. The colonization of the moon would be complete in six months. Economic production in space was already lightening the environmental load on Earth.

Six.

The main engine ignited. The pod started to tremble.

Five.

News flashed across the pod’s inboard screen. The Congolese wanted to renegotiate the price of coltan. Never.

Four.

A hurricane was set to decimate Savannah, Georgia tomorrow. Category Six. The humanitarian wing was on it.

Three.

Jett leaned back in his chair and took in a deep breath. Today was no day for coltan or hurricanes. Today was a day for a spacewalk.

A man needed to remind himself.

Two.

The pod started to shake. Main thrusters started to engage.

One.

Take off! Jett felt the pod thrust up in the sky as the awesome power of lift-off melded him into his seat. “Yeehaw!” he yelled to himself with all the voice he could muster. No matter how many times he did this, it never got old. He was Captain Kirk combined with Henry Ford and he would save all that there is.

For the next five minutes and forty-five seconds, Jett felt the exhilaration of battling the force of gravity. It was better than sex, better than money, better than power, better than anything. Here he didn’t face off with other humans, he faced off against the forces of nature themselves. And he won.

Jett felt the escalating joy as the shuttle rose. His mental climax came right as the pod broke through the atmosphere and he looked out into the vast expanse of the black.

Jett unbuckled himself. Weightlessness took hold. He floated a little way above his seat. This was the greatest feeling.

He was free from all his burdens.

Jett grabbed on to a round steel handle and shifted his body towards the main window as the pod stabilized in orbit around the Earth. Jett stared back at the planet that for all intents and purposes he owned.

It had gotten worse in the last six months since he had been here. The polar ice caps looked to be about three-quarters their previous size. The islands once known as the Bahamas were completely gone. London didn’t seem to be far behind. Water had engulfed most of the major coastlines, visibly shrinking the landmass. Spots of green were fewer and fewer. The western half of what used to be the United States had a red glow about it.

No matter, Jett thought, he would save it.

Knock. Knock. Knock, knock.

There was that strange knocking sound again. Jett heard it on every trip. Astronauts heard it since the beginning of space exploration. It seemed to Jett he would never be rid of it.

Knock, knock, knock.

Jett floated around the shuttle and grabbed his helmet, securing it around his head. He took a few deep breaths. Oxygen levels were good.

Knock, knock, knock.

Jett floated out of the main pod, closing the doors behind him. He then clasped his extension cable to the anchor point and proceeded to the exit hatch.

Knock, knock, knock, knock.

Jett made it to the exit hatch.

There was a form on the other side. It was a person in a spacesuit.

How was this possible?

Knock, knock, knock.

It couldn’t be that person making noise Jett thought. Space is a vacuum. There is no noise. Besides, that person couldn’t be real. Or could they? Where could they have floated from? The space station? Edge of Forever? They can’t float off the moon.

Knock, knock, knock, knock.

Jett shook his head. He had to know. He made his way towards the hatch and opened it to the inside. To Jett’s amazement, his fellow astronaut was real. The person just fell to the floor even with the vacuum of space tugging. They were stuck to the ground. Jett yanked the person’s feet out of the way and forced the space hatch closed.

The body was still. The spacesuit was not like anything Jett had seen before. It was a purplish hue and seemed to be magnetized? It took Jett some minutes to pull the strange space visitor through the hatch doors into the main pod.

Jett placed the visitor straight in front of him and removed his own helmet first, securely fastening it to the back of his seat. Then Jett struggled with the purple helmet of the being in front of him. Eventually, with his right index finger, Jett felt a small button. He pushed it and the helmet started to float to the top of the pod. Jett slowly grabbed it before it could float away and forced the helmet downwards. It suddenly magnetized and attached itself to the vacant co-pilot seat.

Jett turned to face his visitor. The visitor was human, an old man with a deeply creased face and wild white hair. Jett thought the man looked like a rabid alpaca. A heart-shaped locket was attached to a gold chain around the spaceman’s neck. The gold of the locket gleamed in the dark little pod. The locket floated up from around the man’s neck. Jett placed his hand around it.

Suddenly the man’s eyes shot open. He stared at Jett with what Jett thought was surprise mixed with insanity. The spaceman’s right arm instinctively moved to hit the gravity activation button on the side panel. Suddenly, gravity was activated, and both men fell to the floor. Jett still clung to the heart-shaped locket.

The spaceman flung his arms up, knocking Jett backward and regaining control over the locket. Jet fell back a foot or so, lying on the bottom of the pod as he stared at the wild old spaceman.

“Where did you come from?” Jett mustered the words.

The wild old spaceman stared for a long minute before he replied. “Hickory. Dickory. Dock. Why did you run out the clock?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Jett shot back.

The old spaceman pushed himself up off the floor so he stood over Jett. “Primacy. Pleasure and pain. Why do you destroy them again?”

Jett finally pushed himself up off the floor and squared himself towards his obviously insane visitor. “What’s your name?”

The spaceman curiously cocked his head to the side. “Dantes,” he smiled. “Or Spock, you clever little peacock. Coltan. Congo and cane. How do you save them from the rain?”

Jett sighed again. This obviously wasn’t working. Still, the suit this man was wearing was unlike any other. There had to be some technology contained within it. Perhaps it had come from his rivals and if so, he now had a splendid opportunity in front of him. “Dantes it is then. Unless you’d really prefer Spock.”

Dantes smiled and took two steps forward, placing him and Jett toe to toe. The heart-shaped locket caught Jett’s eye once again and he felt an uncontrollable urge to point at it. “May……I see it?” Jett stammered.

Dantes laughed. “Taxes. You never paid them.”

Jett looked up at him confused. “Why would I?”

“The common good.”

Jett laughed this time. “And who determines the common good?”

“The people.”

“And the people determined I should be their savior,” Jett replied.

“You are building a utopia correct?” Dantes asked.

“That is correct. There, on the moon, and my utopia will save the planet and humanity.”

“The planet you helped destroy?”

“I’m fighting to save it,” Jett snarled.

“Too little, too late,” Dantes sighed. “What will your utopia be like?”

Jett puffed his chest out. “Beautiful. We’re taking the best parts of humanity. The culture, the kindness, the love…the equality, and creating a utopia in space. A utopia that will give us time to heal our own planet. A utopia that will….”

Dantes raised his right hand, cutting Jett off. “This, from a man who made his fortune by creating such greed that it forced his managers to force his workers to shit in bags to make quotas? Utopia?” Dantes laughed hysterically. “Hickory, Dickory, Dock. Your utopia is a crock.”

Just then Dantes charged forward like a bull, easily shoving Jett out of the way on his way to the console. “Primacy, pleasure, and pain. I will show you again.”

“What are you doing?” Jett screamed, as Dantes madly hit keystrokes on the console. Suddenly the pod spun around. Dantes hit the thrusters. They were going away from Earth. “Where are you taking us!?” Jett screamed.

“Space,” Dantes smiled. “The final frontier.” The force of the thrusters got stronger. Jett looked out the viewer, he could only see what he thought was a sliver of complete blackness with no light, nothing. They flew into it.

Then, everything went dark.

He woke on the ground. Jett was tangled up in sheets of metal. He could hear wires and cables cracking electricity over him as he pushed himself up from the debris and rubbed his hands over his spacesuit. It wasn’t pierced or punctured. How did the pod get destroyed but yet he was in perfect tact? One in a million Jett supposed.

Jett exited the rubble, looking around for the crazy old man that had crashed them, yet he saw nothing. He wondered who the man was, where he had come from and how he got them here. Perhaps it had all been a dream. Jett undid his spacesuit, discarding it all to the ground and leaving him in a plain, grayish-blue jumpsuit.

He stepped away from the crash site, only to notice the heart-shaped locket that Dantes had on his neck before. Jett scooped it up. As he did, he looked through the mist of the bright orange sky that was surrounding him, and over on a log, he spied Dantes, looking out across what only could be described as a muddy pond. Jett felt compelled to walk over to him.

Jett choked on the heated smoke of the air the whole way. This could not be Earth he thought to himself. Where had the crazy, mysterious spaceman taken them?

As Jett approached, Dantes looked up. “Here lies the Colorado River,” he said.

“This is Earth?” Jett asked, shaking his head. “It can’t be.”

“But it is. Fires, fires all around. Nobody can live, above the ground.”

“Where are we?” Jett paused. “When are we?”

Dantes laughed. “Why were you so greedy?”

“Greedy?” Jett asked. “I just did what I was supposed to do. What anyone would do in my place.”

Dantes stood. “No. Not anyone.”

“You act like all this is my fault. I’m just one man.”

“One man to save the world. But many to destroy it?” Dantes scoffed. “Many to destroy, many to save. But power has a price. Haven’t you read Spider-Man?”

“With great power….”

“Comes great responsibility.”

“That’s what I was doing,” Jett said. “That’s what the Edge of Forever is, was, it's me helping humanity save themselves….”

Dantes stepped forward and placed his hand on Jett’s face. “You have to make things right here before you look to the stars.”

Dantes stared into his eyes for a moment and then stepped back. He walked away.

“Where are you going?” Jett yelled after him.

“People shouldn’t have to shit in bags!” Dantes yelled back.

Jett stared through the mist as the crazy old man disappeared. Then he investigated his hand and noticed the heart-shaped locket.

He opened it and saw a picture inside.

Jett wept.