The Seed and the Satellite

The three rapid knocks signalled trouble.

"Not now," the man said from behind the desk, his voice sharp and serious but not angry. Then, immediately, three more knocks followed, their rapid hollow rasp indicating the anxiety of the messenger.

"What?" the man yelled out.

"Mister Rush," the timid voice called out from the hallway. The caller pressed the button twice, commanding the door to open, but was twice rejected.

"Jesus Christ," Mister Rush said. He had forgotten to press mute on this phone, and the lead engineer on the other end heard his blasphemous curse.

"Is everything alright, Zevon?" the voice said over the phone. But Zevon Rush didn't answer the engineer. Instead, he rose and quickly crossed the room and typed a numeric code into a sleek keypad of brushed chrome. The door opened. Preston, Rush's pale-faced assistant, was waiting on the other side. He was sweating and seemed even paler and more distraught than usual.

"Well?" Zevon Rush spat. "Come on out with it."

"Sir, we need your help at the launch bay. There seems to be a critical error that only you can fix."

"Now? Does this have to happen right now, at this moment?"

"I... I...." Preston searched for the words, scanned the hallway for some help. He looked as if he was going to cry.

"Oh, alright, dry it up. Let's head down there."

—

The first part of the trick – "planting the seed," as they called it – was really the easiest part. The janitor, whose name patch introduced him as Larry, simply carried the lethal device in his pocket, and on an otherwise meaningless Tuesday night, slipped it into the rear USB slot of the IT Director's computer. Like everything Larry did at the Senator Johnson E. Fiske Laboratory, his actions were caught on camera. But that was fine. To anyone watching it would appear the clumsy and apparently dumb janitor carelessly knocked something from the computer while mopping, and he simply replaced it the best he knew how.

The authorities could scan Larry's life and history with everything they had, but there would be nothing to find. A drivers license and voter ID, maybe a utility bill or two. But nothing online, no digital footprint, and certainly no criminal record. Perhaps there would be no records at all for Larry, if that was indeed his real name (and it most certainly was not). He existed without a discernible past, present, or much of a future. Even so, there would be an investigation into him, as they would review footage going back years. And even so, there would be nothing for them to find, whoever they were. For the events that would sprout from Larry's little planted seed would not bear fruit for many days, weeks, months, or perhaps years down the road, and the ways and means for getting there was the secret of but one man alone.

In the end, Larry was just a pawn in a game he couldn't possibly understand or even comprehend. And while valuable in every aspect of the game, everybody knows that a pawns' greatest value is that it is expendable.

—

Detective Ray Hansen stared blankly at the dual computer screens arranged between overflowing stacks of files and papers and scrolled lifelessly through pages and pages of reports. Reports of police, staff, engineers, crowd witnesses, government investigators, private investigators, agency investigators, insurance investigators, amateur internet investigators. There were statements, logs, blueprints, videos, testimonies, interviews, affidavits, memos, inquiries, investigations, and investigations of investigations. There was so much sheer data and in so many formats that the Bureau commandeered an entire wing of the Hart Building downtown and dedicated it to the Zevon Rush investigation. But even with all the data, all the resources, all the leads and departments and personnel and agents… there was not even one single clue that could help them explain the disappearance of Mister Rush, who, were he located physically on the planet, would be the specie's richest man.

Ray chewed the plastic tip of a gas station mini-cigar. What started out as such a promising investigation... "simple" was the world he actually used to both the President and the press... had turned out to be nothing more than a frustrating dead-end of an attempt, and it would likely cost him his career.

"Damnit to hell," he said out loud, sliding open a desk drawer. He removed the screwdriver, jimmied the window, leaned out, and lit his cigar. And doing that, he felt free.

—

"Yes'm, me and my boy Raymond was down sorta near the bend yonder in the creek, sweeping the sand beach for treasures with the metal detector."

The reporter, a sweet, All-American type in heavy-duty rain gear listened eagerly to the gentleman's story, hoping he would soon get to the point about the rocket launch.

"Yes sir, wow. Thank you for that. But if you could, please tell us about what you saw next, with the rocket."

"Mm, yeah. Well there she was, the rocket, sitting there in her cradle like she'd done all week, and then all of a suddenly folks were yellin' and screamin' and runnin', and the computer man's voice on the radio started in with the countdown. He said 10… 9… 8… 7… 6… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… blast off! And I'll be damned if she didn't too, boy!"

"So that was it, then? The rocket launched."

"It sure as hell did. And boy, I couldn't believe it. A rocket launch sure ain't something you see every day around here."

"Okay, and what happened next?"

"Well it got hotter'n hell all of a sudden from the flames and whatnot, and the fumes floatin' over gave the air a bit of a chemical kinda smell. Raymond got a little sick, but I'm used to them kinds of things. I worked at the factory most of my life."

"Hey Amy," a voice said into her earpiece. "My sources are saying it was a satellite and not a rocket. I repeat a satellite not a rocket. Model MC-31. Over."

"Copy that." Amy turned again to the satellite launch eye witness in his camouflage overalls. "The studio is telling me it wasn't a rocket. It was a satellite."

"So it wasn't a rocket??"

—

Dwight Preeztl, the newly-hired Department intern, had an inspiring idea, a moment of absolute genius. The idea - and he was surprised it took him this long to consider it - was to take the mass of digital and digitized data he was forced with arranging, run it through an Ai program, and simply see what it could come up with. And why not? He thought. Well, the "official" policy was no Ai use due to the terms and conditions of the companies regarding classified data.

"But no, seriously," he said out loud to himself. "Why the hell not?"

Dwight quickly sealed the remaining half of his second PBJ into a dollar store plastic baggie, downed his fruit punch, washed his hands in the employee kitchen sink (with complete disregard for the No Hand Washing sign), wiped them dry on his navy trousers, and returned to his cubicle.

Upon waking his computer from sleep mode, he entered his 22-digit password, completed the thumbprint and retinal scan, and entered the six-digit code sent to his phone. These steps allowed him access to the top-secret national intelligence database they used to investigate crimes that reached the highest levels of national security. However, the documents he was after were not located in this database. No, what he was after – the Rush Debacle files, as they were known - were a full two extra security layers deeper than he had legitimate access to. But no bother. He had watched over Detective Hansen's shoulder as he clumsily keyed in his own passwords; and fortunately, they were easy to remember. Petname_birthyear_! for one and petname_birthyear_$ for the other.

A satisfying digital click designed to sound like the lock of a safe bolting shut alerted Dwight that he was safely inside the sacred Rush Debacle database. He worked for hours to copy and paste terabytes of data into a single document, then uploaded it to the forbidden Ai website. After a few clicks, his ancient desktop whizzed and whirred, and a noisy fan began blowing out heat like a blowdryer. The intense blast added to Dwight's nervousness and he felt his skin burning. Glancing around the sprawling office he noticed that no one watched, no one cared. But even he could not have been prepared for what the Ai revealed. Trembling, he hit the Ctrl + P command, and the obedient printer jumped into action.

Then, at the same moment, an alert blared on his phone that he forgot to silence. Nervously, he minimized the page on his computer and brought up something else to try and look busy with officially-approved work. No one was watching. No one cared.

Dwight checked his phone and was relieved to see the alert was simply a notification from the Petspi app. The message was delivering the important news that his cat, Fluffles, had finished her evening dinner, had drunk 3.4 oz of water in the six hours he had been gone, and had pooped and peed entirely within the borders of her litter box.

—

"But… it wasn't even ready to launch."

"I know it wasn't ready to launch. I basically built the damn thing.

"Then why did it launch? And how?"

"The hell if I know!"

"I think it's important we get it back, don't you?"

"What exactly do you think I'm trying to do?"

"I don't know… get it back?"

"Yes, you idiot. I'm trying to get it back."

"Well what seems to be the problem?"

"The problem, Brad, is that someone unknown to us has hijacked the control modules, and the inner command system is no longer responding to my instructions."

"So someone else is controlling it then?"

"Obviously."

"And we don't know who."

"Correct."

"And Mister Rush is inside?"

"Yes."

"And the satellite is going to Mars?"

"That's what is appears."

"What's it going to do once it gets there?"

"Do you think I know?"

"But that was never the plan. Going to Mars."

"Well… now it is."

—

The control module was different than any that R. Breitenbush had ever worked with.

"This one here," Tyson explained. "Controls the left intake quadrant release valve. And this one," he wiggled a black plastic joystick. "Is the right. They's special to this particular unit."

"Got it."

"I assume you can land the craft unassisted?"

R. Breitenbush felt an itch in his throat. He had never actually landed a craft in real life, only in simulation. And in these weather conditions… it was definitely risky.

"Yes sir," he said, and felt the sweat beading up on his neck. "I'm absolutely confident."

"Alright, good. Don't worry too much about the passengers."

Tyson ate the last of his lab-grown chicken wings. He carefully wiped the buffalo sauce from his chin with a wet wipe and then his mouth and fingers.

"I'm'a go down and check on the preparations for the torture chamber."

—

Sir Norbert Nordstrom casted three graceful, perfect casts in a row - one to the underside of a mid-sized boulder, one to a break in the riffling current over a shallow sand bar, and one to a tiny opening between downed tree limbs near the shore. He was delighted with his pinpoint casting but disgusted with his catching, or rather, lack thereof.

"Why is the river so low?" Sir asked his butler whose duty that day was to ensure the river was appropriately managed for Sir's fishing pleasure. The butler checked his notes before responding, as accuracy in word was his utmost concern.

"It says here that, according to the State Hydrologist, waters were needed downstream for the farms to grow their food."

"Our food."

"Yes sir, our food."

"But I told you I wanted the water at 3.6m specifically."

"Ah, yes sir, but…."

Sir Norbert's phone rang and he quit listening to the butler, as his long-winded answer was of no importance anyways. Sir was perturbed three-fold: once for his orders being disobeyed, once for not catching a single fish, and once more for his phone ringing. He checked the screen and the incoming call.

"Bloody fucking great," he said, then answered. "You called me while I'm fishing. What?"

The voice on the other line was frantic and loud, and the butler could hear the inaudible words even above the gurgle of the river.

"They did what?" Sir Norbert said after some thirty seconds of nonstop talking by the caller. Then, "Who authorized that?" More frantic talking. Finally, and with an ultimate finality: "You had better bloody damn well stop them and have them wait right where they bloody are. You hear me? Nobody bloody moves until I say so!"

Sir Norbert threw the phone towards the butler - not at him per se - but close enough in his general direction to cause a scare.

"Well?" Norbert shouted. "Don't just stand there. Start the helicopter you bloody idiot!"

—

"Yes, but these really are not the same. You're talking about day. I've been talking about nighttime."

"That's not helping things."

"I can't help it if you can't see it. What if he wakes up?"

"We can compromise."

"No, we can't. I can't."

"Sure you can."

"See? This is what I'm talking about."

"Well, why not just take his helmet off anyways? It's not breaking the policies if the policy is not there to be broken."

"I don't think you understand. This Policy and Procedures manual… it's what my job, and therefore my life, depends on."

"Fine then. I'll do it."

—

Dr. Gravely adjusted the sticky focus lens on the projector, bringing his slideshow presentation into focus. He licked his left thumb and tried to clean a smudge on the lens, but his effort only worked to make it worse. By this time, the twelve men and women in attendance had grown impatient. An aggressive cough resounded from one audience member, a sigh from another.

"Alright, well," Dr. Gravely said in defeat. "This will just have to do. Can everyone at least read what's on the screen?"

No one responded because no one cared what was on the screen.

"Okay, nevermind the damned screen. Suffice it to say that the subject has escaped."

—

Anton's Nyd.Ra.AR-sealed night vision face mask chaffed his neck, adding blisters onto blisters from back-to-back-to-back perimeter patrols. So many perimeter patrols. Perimeter patrols for days. The sting of sweat seeping into open wounds was a constant reminder for him, an apt metaphor for the reason and purpose behind the job they were doing: to purge the evil enemy anywhere they found them and eradicate their very existence. But this was just background hum for Anton. Like the ever so slight static that constantly hissed from the tiny speaker inside his ear, thoughts of reason and purpose and searing neck pain stayed tucked away below the surface, stored and filed away by the subconscious to be dealt with at a later time and place. Later, when there was even time for thought. Because there is time for thought and there is time for action. In Anton's world, those two times rarely overlapped.

"Come in Captain. This is Ginger. Over" a voice said into his ear. Anton pressed a small button on his belt. "This is the Captain. Go ahead. Over."

"Captain, Agent L'Orang has alerted me of possible enemy combatants on the upper deck platform of the southeastern quadrant sixteen clicks from unit headquarters. Over."

"Did you say combatants, plural? Over."

"That is correct, sir. High-value targets. Over."

Captain Anton checked his watch, then his compass. For a brief moment, he thought and allowed himself to think before responding. How the hell were there multiple combatants? It just didn't make sense.

"Go ahead and sound the alarm after a slow ten count. I'm afraid we have no choice. Over."

"Just say when. Over."

Captain Anton checked the chamber of his rifle to ensure it was loaded. But that was only out of habit. Of course it was loaded.

"When."

—

The subject was running like in a dream. Like when you're in a dream and you're running, but you don't know why and you don't know where you're running to or what you're running from. You are just running, and that's really all that matters at the moment. Running is your existence, so you simply become running.

It's like breathing. You never really know you're breathing until you're told to pay attention to it. Then, suddenly, that's all you're doing is just breathing. Then, before so long, maybe you realize that's all there is to do, both in this life and the one after it and the one after that one. In all the realms and all the ways of life and living, breath is all that exists. But even then, the question must be asked: Is it?

—

All the newspapers printed the same headlines, the same stories, the same half-truths. Unconfirmed military involvement. Speculation of force. Potential catastrophe upon landing. Generic escapes were made. No mention of hijacked systems or organizational failures. No specific malfeasants to blame. But only a few outsiders knew how it really went down, and those people were fired, disgraced, or quietly erased. The gruesome details were simply not fit for print.

Conspiracies are good for business. But truths? Truths are for the janitors.

---

"Hey kid, better grab a mop. They always leave this kind of shit for us to clean up."

The new guy did as he was told. Mop, rinse, repeat. Mop, rinse, repeat.