The Alien Manifesto

  * * *

  The Navajo Room was indeed lovely, with its high vaulted ceilings and elegant furniture, Native American artworks everywhere, the place emanating a feeling of warmth and security. And we were all, of course, security conscious. Hacker and I both scanned the room for aud and vid bugs, and there were none. There were a few other guests at the far end of the restaurant; the tourists were starting to return to Sedona’s most beautiful resort.

  Our group was noisy, excited, enthusiastic. This was somewhat surprising, considering that in just a few days our home planet was going to be sent back in time—the most significant Black Swan Event in our history, to say the least. I suspected, as did Leela and Jill, that Nebula Jones had planted some positive attitudes in our minds, as well as Hacker’s and Greta’s, when he brought us back from our synaptic derangement.

  But we also had plenty to celebrate: We had brought down the frightful monster most recently known as Big Mama Lakshmi; we had ripped the heart out of Black Swan Galactic and destroyed the organization which came close to destroying the world. Jill was safe and sound, rescued from certain death with the help of Nebula Jones. Our little group had been to the brink and back, returning to our beloved Sedona with barely a scratch.

  Still…We all knew, except for Benny Bravo, that our two ETs intended to carry out their plans, regardless of the fact that the two biggest threats to our survival had been deleted. The world situation was more dire than ever. And our little group would play a major role in sending the world, our precious civilization, with all of its chaos and mayhem, its murderous and suicidal ways, into the past. For a second chance.

  Hacker and Greta had been handed a nearly impossible assignment: Create a worldwide multimedia, multilingual network for Nebula Jones in less than two days. “So what did you guys come up with?” I asked our computer geniuses. “Did you solve the unsolvable?”

  “You tell me, Mr. Mindreader!” snapped Hacker. “What are we thinking? Let us usher in a new paradigm in communication.” He was testy, he was joking, and he was serious, all at the same time. I looked at Leela and Jill, and they nodded their OK. Benny simply rolled his eyes.

  I went for it. “Okay, smarties, here goes.” I scanned both their minds. Hacker the joker was trying to focus on women’s bare feet and other female body parts, in a futile attempt to throw me off, but I went two layers deeper and got what I was looking for. Greta was more serious, and laid out their whole planned scenario in a nanosecond.

  “Got it, Greta. Hacker, get real. Nebula Jones planned to broadcast his Manifesto worldwide in forty-eight hours. So for you, the heat was on. You and Greta tried everything in the Hacker’s Handbook, but finally decided to drop your search for the perfect algorithm. You wanted to try something else. But what? And where? Time was not on your side.”

  “Right,” said Greta. “Hacker said, ‘If only we could hack into the alien satellite. It’s got to have everything we need to pull this off. If only….’ Then, for some unknown reason, I decided to take my shoes off. My feet were hot. And stinky. Hacker encouraged me to take ’em off. Naughty boy. In one shoe there was a small piece of rolled up paper I hadn’t been aware of before. On this paper were several lines of code and number combinations that didn’t make any sense.”

  Hacker broke in. “I had an intuitive feeling that Jones had planted the note in her shoe and that it had something to do with the satellite. You three are not the only intuitives around here, you know. I entered the code on a secret military website I hacked into a few months ago, sent the code into space via a military surveillance satellite, and sure enough—”

  “Bingo!” I rudely interrupted. “The alien satellite’s scanner grabbed your code and invited you into its central processor. Bingo again! A blinking cursor! You typed in the numbers from Greta’s note and gained access to at least a section of the satellite’s huge processing power, and—”

  “Fucker,” snarled Hacker, half under his breath. “So this satellite has, no kiddin’, must be trillions of exobytes of memory. And unlimited processing power; it must get energy from the sun, or something. Gazillions of calculations a nanosecond. Plus a beautiful interface, full 3-D video, everything in English, easy to navigate, and….”

  “Hacker figured it all out,” said Greta. “Our Mr. Jones will be on every communications medium in every little corner of the planet. His Manifesto even will be delivered in native languages and dialects, thanks to the satellite’s universal translator.”

  “It looks so elegant!” added Leela, who had done some mind scanning of her own. She saw the outline for the whole program via Greta’s short-term memory. “So Nebula Jones will be on every kind of TV, in movie theaters and holo houses, all over the Internet, on mobile phones and wrist receivers, on every kind of hand-held device, everything wireless, on planes and trains and ships and—”

  “—and even in the most remote villages in the poorest places on Earth via holo projections and delivered to people who’ve got brain and eye implants with vid-aud receivers!” finished Jill, who had been scanning Leela. “This is amazing! And you two wrote the code to make this happen?”

  “Of course we did,” boasted Hacker, the former programmer. “This is nothing.”

  “Piece of cake,” added Greta. “Which reminds me: I’m starving. Where is that waiter? We got these menus ten minutes ago!”

  “I wonder if there will be any advance notice of his speech?” I wondered out loud. “Knowing Nebula Jones and his behavior patterns, he’ll probably just suddenly appear on the media and start talking and you won’t be able to turn him off. Do you guys think the people of Earth are ready for this? I doubt it.”

  I looked over at Benny, who had been watching this whole show with wide-eyed amusement. Soon, I would need to fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle. To cushion the shock. To prepare my old friend for the coming Moment of Truth.

  Our waiter showed up in that moment. At least he looked like a waiter, with shiny black pants and clunky black shoes and bow tie and starched white shirt. He was tall and thin with a hint of a moustache and wore a little badge that said EDUARDO, Portugal.

  “Good evening. How are you? I will be your waiter this evening. Are you ready to order? Our special tonight is Beef Wellington au jus. We also have vegetarian and vegan dishes.”

  It’s Nebula Jones, I flashed to Leela and Jill.

  Got it. Don’t say anything yet, Marty. It was Leela.

  Jill: He says there will be no advance notice of his speech. He says tell your government everything, what to expect.

  What followed seemed to happen on two levels. First, Nebula Jones was feeding us —the psi trio, Leela, Jill, and I— little packets of information via the psi channel, filling in information gaps. At the same time we discussed the menu and ordered our food. I loved how my mind could absorb data from the alien and file it away while maintaining a parallel existence on the ordinary, real-time continuum.

  You will need this information in the very near future to inform your comrades and to answer their questions, flashed Nebula Jones. And of course to advance our mission.

  We ordered a very expensive bottle of Pinot Noir from California, worth every penny, but of course everything was on the house. Benny Bravo, who had been very silent but attentive during our dinner conversation, ordered two bottles of very pricey Mexican beer.

  As we finished dinner, our waiter was replaced by a very efficient and slightly effeminate busboy who hovered around the table, snatching our plates as soon as we emptied them. “Feenished?” he would say, long after the plate had been confiscated. “Feenished? More agua?”

  “Who is this dude?” complained Hacker as the busboy clumsily serviced our table.

  “It’s gotta be Cosmo Kincaid,” I said, “here to keep an eye on us.”

  “Jesus,” said Hacker. “He looks like he just snuck across the border.”

  Cosmo Kincai
d did look loosely put together, squeezed into an ill-fitting modified tuxedo complete with black tie, unkempt hair, wild moustache. He wore a huge name tag that said PEDRO, Mexico City.

  Benny tried to strike up a conversation in Spanish with Pedro/Cosmo, but the alien simply threw up his hands, scooped up six empty plates, and walked away, briskly.

  After dinner, Leela and Jill talked about the report they were going to deliver to the State Department.

  “We’ve decided to tell them everything, even the stuff about Nebula Jones and Big Mama and the whole thing that happened in New Mexico. Plus Jill getting kidnapped, her jump to the chopper, the spaceship that exploded, everything.” Leela said this with a sigh of resignation.

  “Why did the rocket explode?” asked Greta. “That fuel mix had already been tested. It should have worked.”

  “It was just a malfunction,” answered Leela, calling on the information supplied minutes ago by Nebula Jones. “The fuel was a very volatile mix. The nuclear element made it very unstable. So…ka-boom! We’re just lucky that Jill escaped it with her precious hide intact.”

  “So what does our government think about all this psychic stuff?” probed Hacker. “Will they believe it? That Jill could teleport from a spaceship back to the Earth? That some super-being has big plans for our planet?”

  “I think Madame Secretary of State knows a lot already,” offered Jill. “Except some of that stuff we talked about on the bus,” she said cautiously, glancing quickly at Benny Bravo. We all knew she was talking about the black hole, a subject which Benny was not privy to. Yet. It wasn’t that we didn’t trust Benny; Leela didn’t want to risk a leak to the public, the press, or the politicians.

  “Does the president know anything?” asked Greta.

  “The president has been in a secret underground bunker, along with her closest aides and her cabinet and her family since this whole crisis started months ago,” said Jill. “She has been monitoring the world situation via a secure TV network and basically running the country from her bunker. My sources tell me that she has been left out of the loop on some of the major issues because the Secretary of State is on top of the big picture.”

  Nobody questioned Jill or her sources on this information; she sounded so authoritative that it was accepted as fact.

  We finished dinner. Cosmo Kincaid, in his immigrant persona, cleared away the dishes and served us coffee. Nebula Jones, in waiter drag, came by to thank us for our business and to present us with a bill which said simply “gratis.”

  We returned to our suites and to our assignments. Benny elected to return to his house to watch a holo movie on his new home unit, which he had bought cheap from a looter at the beginning of the crisis. Before he left, I slipped him ten hundred dollar bills. He was still on my payroll, unofficially. Soon, money wouldn’t mean much anyway. I told Benny that I would fill him in on some important details. Soon. He grinned and gave me a big hug.

  I joined Leela and Jill to help them put together their report for the State Department. It was nearly midnight when we finished; we would check it over in the morning and transmit it to the Secretary, with a cc to the President of the United States.

  What we didn’t mention in the report, figuring that Nebula Jones would be covering the subject soon enough, was the imminent future of Planet Earth: To be dropped unceremoniously into a sentient black hole, and sent back into the past.

  The mood in our suite was somber as we worked on the report. It felt to us like life on Earth was winding down. Together we decided—silently, in psi mode—to take a chance and go for the wormhole option. The black hole option was not for us, not for three telepaths whose psi powers might never develop on Planet Earth 2.0.

  It was after midnight when we finally tumbled into bed. We three were exhausted, too tired for sex. Actually, sex seemed inappropriate. It had been a long day, a very long day. We cuddled up together, naked, in the king size bed. We played in each other’s dreams. It was better than sex.

  Almost.

  34 The Point of No Return

  “Greetings, citizens of Planet Earth! Do not be alarmed. Please listen closely to what I am about to tell you. Your planet is in a great deal of difficulty right now. There is a crisis, planet-wide. This crisis only grows worse as the days and months and years go by. Soon this crisis will affect not just you and the planet you occupy, but other nearby planets and moons and suns as well.

  “Something must be done. And done soon. This is an emergency situation.” (Pause for effect.)

  “Allow me to introduce myself. I am a visitor from far, far away. I traveled to your planet in a way that is beyond your most advanced technology and is difficult to explain. My Earth friends call me Nebula Jones. My colleague, the lady seated behind me, is called Cosmo Kincaid. We come from an organization that monitors the health of this galaxy.”

  “Dude’s looking pretty good, eh?” said Hacker. “Not even using a teleprompter.”

  We had gathered at Hacker’s spacious home in West Sedona to watch the show; several shows simultaneously, in fact. His huge wall unit delivered a crisp 3-D picture of the main action, the Nebula Jones speech. There were several other monitors stacked around the room, each delivering a picture, some with sound, of other locations around the world, depicting in real time the public’s reaction to the alien’s declaration. Large crowds were gathered in Hyde Park, London; Red Square, Moscow; Tiananmen Square, Beijing; Times Square, New York; Berlin; Paris; Delhi; Copenhagen; Oslo; Baghdad; Tokyo. All of the planet’s major cities. The public was not pleased.

  These transmissions were from myriad cameras on the orbiting alien satellite, delivering streaming video and still photo slideshows as it circled our planet in low Earth orbit at more than seventeen thousand miles per hour. This public reaction data was being transmitted exclusively to Hacker’s receivers, thanks to a program the computer genius and Greta had quickly written and because all other communications on the planet were preempted.

  “He’s kinda handsome now, isn’t he?” offered Jill, breaking the somber mood, referring to Nebula Jones. “In a Walter Cronkite kind of way. Seems very trustworthy.”

  “Love his ladyfriend, too,” said Leela. “Madame Cosmo. She is so demure. In an early Hillary Clinton kind of way. Powerful, yet controlled.”

  “Drag queen,” muttered Hacker. “The bitch is a friggin’ drag queen.”

  Nebula Jones had morphed into yet another persona, a tall, distinguished gentleman with graying hair; he wore a pinstripe suit and a stylish red power tie. Cosmo Kincaid, who we had seen previously as a white dove and a Mexican busboy, had morphed into a woman, wearing a modest gray pantsuit with a white scarf at the throat, short brown hair, low heels. Hands folded primly in her lap, she stared intently at her fellow alien, Nancy Reagan style.

  “The number one problem on the Earth today is too many people,” continued Nebula Jones. “Your planet’s resources are vanishing fast, and yet the people of Earth continue to produce new people, babies, at astounding rates, sometimes in competitions between the races and the religions. Your oceans are dying; drinkable water is nonexistent in many places; millions, maybe billions of your people are starving or malnourished; your air and water grow ever more toxic.

  “Earthlings! Wake up! You have all been poisoned by your priests and politicians, by your childish religions, by your corrupt leaders, by your dishonest media! You are obsessed with killing each other. You have not advanced beyond the tribal rituals and practices of your distant ancestors. At this moment several neighboring nations are at war with each other. Some of those nations possess nuclear weapons. One nuclear weapon has already been fired and several more are just on the verge of being delivered by ballistic missiles.”

  “Wow. Sounds like ol’ Nebby is just getting warmed up,” said Leela.

  “Yeah, this is one hell of a scolding for the human race,” added Jill.

  “Fi
ne, but where does he go from here?” I asked. “Do you think all those peasants in all those desperate villages in Africa and India and China and Mexico know what the hell he’s talking about? Can they relate to global warming or rising ocean levels or hybrid cars? Get serious!”

  “Hey, guys, check out these other monitors,” said Hacker. “Use your wireless headphones for the sound. You can dial in lots of channels from the headset. Check it out, there are riots breaking out all over the place. People are freaking out. I was afraid of this.”

  “The Earth has reached a point of no return,” continued the alien, oblivious to the chaos erupting around the planet. We had no idea where he was transmitting from; he could have been on his orbiting satellite, he could have been on the moon, or he could have been in a suite at the Holiday Inn in Scottsdale. “The damage done to your planet by humans is irreversible. Already the fruits of your ignorance and greed and selfishness are obvious. Already super tornadoes and hurricanes and ultra-violent earthquakes and volcanoes are devastating your planet and killing and uprooting millions of people. This is just the beginning.”

  “Jesus,” said Hacker, “why don’t we just cash in our chips and go live on that nice Black Swan space station? I hear there are a lot of vacancies there now.”

  “Check the monitors,” I said, “speaking of Jesus. People in America are out in the streets, dancing and crying and begging for the Rapture to begin.”

  “Because of the violent and suicidal nature of the human race,” continued the alien, “and because of the certainty of global thermonuclear war on Planet Earth, and this war’s effect on neighboring celestial bodies, it is necessary for my associates and myself to make some, ah, technical adjustments to the Earth’s, uh, trajectory.”

  “This is it, folks,” said Greta fearfully. “I wonder how far he’s going to go with it. I don’t think those peasant farmers in China are going to like the idea of being dropped into a black hole. All they’re worried about is the rice crop surviving the coming typhoons. The greed-pigs of Wall Street probably won’t like the idea either.”

  “Howzat?” asked Benny Bravo, who had been silent up to now. “Drop who into what black hole?”

  “There is nothing to fear,” said the alien in a reassuring voice. “You will not feel a thing. Once the technical adjustments have been made, all of you will be more safe, more secure, and better off. We are giving the people of Earth a second chance. We hope you will use the opportunity to live more peaceful, more intelligent lives, and to treat your home, your planet Earth, and your fellow Earthlings, with more respect.

  “For now, good night, and good luck.”

  The giant wall monitor went dark. In Hacker’s living room, no one said a word for several minutes. Benny was the first to break the silence.

  “That was pretty heavy-duty stuff, dudes and dudettes. I wonder how de peoples of Earth are gonna handle de news of a ‘technical adjustment.’ And de big black hole, no? What’s up wid dat? Yo, Hacker, can we check out de news feeds yet?”

  “Yeah, Benny, stand by. When Señor Alien pre-empted all of the communications on the planet, he left behind some dust on the wires and the airwaves. Okay, here’s a live feed from Times Square.”

  Standing in front of a surging, angry, and confused mob, John Coulter, ace reporter for GSN, the Global Satellite Network, had to shout to be heard. “…and we have just witnessed one of the greatest hoaxes in human history! After pre-empting every audio and video transmission on Earth, an unknown person believed to be the head of the Black Swan Galactic organization severely chastised the human race and threatened to send us all to hell! The president says the person will be tracked down and arrested, or shot on sight if necessary. She said…”

  “The head of Black Swan!” I exploded. “What kind of bullshit spin is that? And they say it’s a hoax?!”

  “That’s the bullshit media,” said Hacker. “Look at these headlines on the Web.” He punched up the Google headlines and they filled his giant video monitor, even more stark and frightening because of the scale.

  HOAX! Stunt reminds analysts of Orson Welles’ Martians scare in 1938

  Head of Black Swan Galactic punks the world with fake dire warning

  U.S. president dispatches troops, FBI to find alien terrorist

  “So our friend Mr. Jones is a terrorist and a wanted man!” said Leela. “And an alien terrorist at that! I hope he knows what he’s doing. And that he’s got a good hideout.”

  “And I hope you have a good hideout, my friends,” said a disembodied voice. It was the voice of Nebula Jones’ latest incarnation, the dapper gentleman who had just informed the world of the changes to come. And then the alien himself appeared in the middle of Hacker’s living room, tall and stately in his pinstripe suit, looking like he had just stepped out of the TV studio.

  “It’s the alien!” gasped Greta.

  “Holy shit!” bellowed Hacker.

  “Mierda! No fucking way!” exclaimed Benny Bravo.

  “Relax, kids, it’s just a hologram,” said Leela. “Pretty good one, too, but the image is a little frayed around the edges. Take a closer look.”

  Jill and I also knew it at about the same time. We had scanned the image of the alien and found it had no substance. Nevertheless, the alien—his holo image, anyway—was there for a good reason.

  “Qué la chinga, hombre!” said Benny Bravo, talking directly at the holo image. “What you mean, our ‘hideout,’ Señor Alien?”

  “Please listen carefully, my human friends,” said the image of Nebula Jones calmly. “The, ah, unexpected has happened. There has been a leak. Somehow the information about the black hole has reached the top levels of your American government. They are very upset about it. In fact, they are mobilizing right now to find all of you and bring you to CIA headquarters to question you about my whereabouts. They are prepared to use enhanced interrogation techniques—as you would say, torture—and drugs, if necessary, to extract the information they seek.”

  We were all aghast. After getting over the initial shock, we started firing questions at the holo image of Nebula Jones. Benny Bravo was the most perplexed of us all, since he was just now learning of the black hole adventure to come. We had withheld the information from him to prevent a leak—he might have been picked up by the cops and subjected to the latest “truth” techniques. That hadn’t happened. Obviously, the leak had come from somewhere else.

  “What is the source of the leak?” I asked. Not that it mattered. A leak is a leak. And we all seemed to be in imminent danger of being dragged into a mess that was not of our making.

  “I suspect that it was the three Dakinis traveling in the front of our bus,” said the alien in his holo form. “Although they were in a trance, their subconscious minds absorbed some of our conversation about the sentient black hole. After they were taken into custody at the Black Swan ranch, they were turned over to your government’s interrogation specialists. Eventually they were given powerful truth drugs to find out what was stored in their minds. The rest, as they say, is history.”

  “Please tell us, Mr. Jones, how you know what went on in the president’s totally secure conference room in her underground bunker,” asked Jill. “How the decision was made to hunt us down and probe around in our minds.”

  Jill was sarcastic but polite, but I knew that she was seething beneath the surface. As was I. And Leela. None of us felt like being fugitives, on the run from the United States government. Which seemed to be our immediate future.

  “You have heard of the fly on the wall?” asked the alien. “Cosmo Kincaid managed to dispatch one of his toys to the underground conference room. It was in the form of a small insect, nearly invisible, but equipped with an audio recording and transmitting device. Thus, I know exactly what was said in that room and by whom. Your American secretary of defense is quite the belligerent fellow, is he not? His solution to the black hole question was to
deliver nuclear warheads via ballistic missiles to all of America’s enemies. And to any other nation that might represent a threat to America’s dominance.”

  “What is the fucking black hole question, amigos?” demanded Benny Bravo. He was growing increasingly paranoid. “Just what the fuck are you talking about?”

  Benny had a right to know, but not at that moment. “Later, Benny,” I said. “I’ll tell you everything in a little while. Let’s figure out how we’re gonna get out of here, if our government plans to hunt us down like escaped convicts.”

  Hacker, of course, was furious. He was practically foaming at the mouth. “You effin’ alien asshole! How could you have fucked this up so badly? You and your stupid computer models! What have you done? How are you gonna get us out of this?”

  “Please relax, Mr. Hacker. You certainly have some anger issues. Right now, great focus is needed. Listen to me. In less than twenty-four hours, our sentient black hole will be at its closest possible distance to earth. At that moment, I will send a signal to activate the program that will, in effect, drop Planet Earth into the black hole. This action will take place from the highest point in the state of Arizona, the top of your Mount Humphries.”

  “Yes, but—” began Leela, but the alien cut her off.

  “I would like all of you to be with me at the critical moment, the Singularity. It will be an amazing experience, a front row seat in the history of your planet. Three of you will be with me: Miss Greta, Mr. Hack, Mr. Bravo.

  “The other three have chosen a different path: to jump approximately one thousand or so years into an unknown future, via wormhole. You are the gamblers. Hopefully, when we reach the event horizon, the outer edge of the black hole, a wormhole will be created. You three, Jill, Leela, Marty, will step into a portal and travel through the wormhole into the next millennium.”

  “But how do we get—” said Jill, before Nebula Jones interrupted again. A sense of urgency filled the room.

  “No more questions, please,” said Nebula Jones. “Sitting behind this house right now is a small aircraft which will deliver the six of you to the nearby village of Flagstaff. It is a kind of helicopter, which runs on electricity and is virtually silent and invisible to radar and other detection devices. It seats six humans and one small pilot. The aircraft will deliver you to the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, where you can watch for the imminent arrival of our black hole, although it is basically invisible. You will see its approach through the powerful Lowell telescopes as a timewave moving through space.”

  “But—” I began. I wanted to know where we would have dinner and spend the night and sleep. Out of old habits, old insecurities, I guess.

  “We have friends at Lowell who are waiting to greet you. You will be provided with sleeping quarters and you can even order pizza, if you wish.” I was sure the alien had chuckled briefly with this statement, having obviously read my thoughts.

  “The next morning the aircraft will deliver you to the peak of Mount Humphries, which is just outside of Flagstaff. There I will meet you and if you have any last-minute questions, and if there is time to spare, I will be happy to answer them. When you arrive at Lowell, a counseling session with Miss Kincaid will be available.”

  “Señor Alien, por favor,” protested Benny Bravo. “I need to go home and get my toothbrush, my leather jacket, my, you know, my drugs. A change of clothes. Some condoms. You know.”

  “There is no time to get anything,” said the holo image of Nebula Jones. “You all must board the aircraft within five minutes or the authorities will capture you. They are on the way here now. Once at Lowell, everything you need will be provided. All you need for the Singularity is the clothes on your backs. Now, go.”

  The holographic image of the alien disappeared abruptly. Without a word, we dashed outside to Hacker’s spacious back yard. Our escape vehicle was parked there, humming quietly, bathed in an eerie green glow. It looked like a sleek, futuristic, silver helicopter. Both side doors were open. It had two rows of three seats each, plus a miniature pilot’s seat, which was occupied by a small-scale version of “Miss Kincaid.” We piled in wordlessly, Leela and Jill and I in the front row and Hacker and Greta and Benny in the back row.

  We all tingled with the excitement of the moment. I could feel our friends in the back seat, hearts pounding, minds racing. Leela and Jill were meditating, in a state of no-mind. I had trouble quieting my own busy mind. The doors slid shut. The aircraft shot straight up into the air and whooshed off silently toward Flagstaff, twenty-six miles away by car, probably ten minutes away in our silver spaceship. The floor of the craft was transparent and we could see the lights of Sedona below, slowly receding into the darkness.

  We all figured that in a minute or two Hacker’s house would be swarming with troops and police and snarling dogs and men in suits, looking for us or evidence of where we might be.

  Too late. We were gone. Real, real gone.

  35 Transition

  It was early evening when our silver helicraft landed silently on the leafy grounds of Lowell Observatory, located on a hilltop overlooking Flagstaff on a street called Mars Hill Road. The observatory’s mission: to seek out new galaxies, new star systems, new planets that might be teeming with life. The planet Pluto was discovered by an astronomer from Lowell in 1930. Now, the campus where we landed was primarily for tourists. The best telescopes were kept at a research facility on a mesa twenty miles away.

  No complaints from our little group, however. We were all glad to find a sanctuary where we could rest and prepare ourselves for the upcoming events which would change the course of, what…everything? The observatory had been closed for weeks, but two staff members were on hand to help us find our way around. Nebula Jones had made sure we were well taken care of. Even the observatory’s most awesome instrument of celestial exploration, the ninety-six inch Perkins telescope, somehow had been moved from the mesa to the Mars Hill campus so we could watch the approach of our sentient black hole.

  “I suggest you wait awhile, until the skies are totally dark,” suggested Annie, one of our caretakers. “Then maybe you can see the waves in space created by your so-called black hole.” She said this with a smug smile that suggested she didn’t believe a word of it.

  “So-called?” I said. “I know black holes are invisible, but—”

  Hold it right there, Marty, flashed Leela. She doesn’t know about the sentient black hole, or what’s going to happen to Planet Earth. She and her fellow caretaker think we are just special guests of somebody important. Nebula Jones has probably planted some fake data in their minds.

  They had installed us in two of the residential cabins on the Lowell campus, segregated by our destinations: Hacker, Greta, and Benny, destined to be sent back in time with the rest of humanity; and Leela, Jill, and I, ready to be launched into the future via wormhole. While Annie and her partner Stella prepared dinner for us, Cosmo Kincaid, who had morphed into a sexy blonde wearing a short skirt, black stockings, and low-cut top, led us to a meeting room in the main hall.

  Cosmo sat in a leather armchair and crossed her shapely legs. “The room is clean of bugs,” she said in a surprisingly deep voice. “Now, this is a Q and A session as well as a therapy session. If any of you have any questions about what is going to happen to Planet Earth, or any anxieties, doubts, misgivings, what have you, about where you are going, now is the time to address those issues. Yes, Mr. Hack?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got a question, Ms. Kincaid.” He laid heavily on the “Ms.,” making it resonate like an insect sound. “What guarantee do we have that this is gonna work? I mean, a real black hole absorbs light and everything else and nothing ever comes out. What will happen to all the sentient beings on Earth? All the matter, all the—”

  “The fundamental law of conservation of information states that no information can be lost,” said Cosmo. “It only changes form. Look at all life fo
rms on Earth as information. Nothing will be lost, including your minds, your memories, your individual storehouses of information and knowledge. Except, of course, the period between the Singularity and the moment in Earth year nineteen ninety when you resume your lives in the past. That time period will simply be deleted. Does that make sense?”

  Hacker shook his head in a definite NO. Greta was crying softly, tears running down her cheeks. Benny Bravo looked out the window. He might have been in a state of shock, or maybe he still didn’t get what was about to happen to the human race. Leela and Jill and I were all tuned in to fantasies about what our future would be like.

  “Okay, look at it another way. Matter never disappears, it is transformed into energy. All of you, all life forms, will be transformed into pure light beings for a nanosecond or two while Uncle Albert—that’s what we call our sentient black hole— processes the data and adjusts the space-time continuum. You will then be restored to your human form at the designated point in time, in the past, as decided by our supercomputer. None of you will have any idea that this has taken place. You will simply continue your lives as if nothing has happened.”

  I tried scanning the mind of Ms. Kincaid; there was nothing there—no thoughts, no memories, no cerebral cortex. In other words, no mind. I felt Jill and Leela probing around in the alien’s skull. We looked at each other and nodded. There were no secrets lurking in that pretty blond head that would affect our future.

  “I’ve heard that wormholes don’t really exist, that they are just theoretical algorithms,” said Jill, sounding brilliant. “Have you ever used one for a jump into the future?”

  “Only once,” said Cosmo Kincaid. “But allow me to quote your NASA on the subject: ‘A wormhole is a theoretical opening in space-time that one could use to travel to far away places very quickly.’ In other words, a wormhole acts as a shortcut or tunnel through space and time. You see—”

  “That’s just great,” interrupted Jill, irritated and impatient. “But you didn’t answer my question. Can it really work? Can the wormhole really take us into the future? And what about your ‘only once?’ What happened on that one?”

  “Ah, that one,” sighed the alien. “A very lovely couple, humanoids from a planet orbiting the star KY Cigni, a beautiful green planet similar to Earth called Sigma Six. Unfortunately, we weren’t prepared for the consequences, so the subjects were instantly incinerated by the radiation passing through the throat of the wormhole.

  “We have learned from that experience, so now we are only allowing entities such as yourself, and Mr. and Mrs. Powers, entities who possess psychic abilities and can form an electromagnetic field to protect you from radiation, to attempt to pass through our wormholes.”

  “Attempt…?” said Leela. “Attempt to pass, you said. This wormhole business is sounding riskier by the minute. By the way, if we make it through the radiation and pass through the wormhole, what kind of future are we getting into?”

  “The future has infinite possibilities, as you know,” said the alien. “There are many variables; there are no guarantees about which future or futures you may encounter. You will basically be traveling via the Tenth Dimension, where all possibilities are contained. We hope you will land somewhere around the year three thousand on Planet Earth. However, the outcome for you is entirely unpredictable.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Benny Bravo finally spoke up, panic in his voice, his kitschy accent gone. Earlier, Benny had received a crash course in black holes from Hacker. He had also learned from Greta the alien plan to send the Earth and its residents back in time to save, potentially, the entire Milky Way galaxy. On these matters he was at least philosophical, although he did have trouble accepting the Tiffany Tattlebaum linchpin thesis.

  “Whoa, Señorita Alien!” he cried. “What happens to all the shit that happened between Tiffany what’s-’er-name doin’ her thing in the White House and right now? Do we have to do it again, the same shit? What kinda changes we gotta go through? How can one zoftig shaineh maidel make so much difference? Maybe you could arrange that I could shtup her in the next life?”

  “One thing at a time, please, Mr. Bravo,” said Cosmo Kincaid patiently. “First, none of you will remember this time or any of the time after Miss Tattlebaum’s White House adventures. All of history will be changed. For one thing, in the next version of Planet Earth, you will have a different president in the year 2000. This will have a huge impact. There will be no terrorist attack on the United States. There will be no needless wars. The global environmental disaster will be avoided, as will the global economic collapse. And so on and so forth. The human race will be given a second chance.

  “For most of your species, your day-to-day lives will not change much from what has already taken place. Except the Earth will be a more people-friendly place. A sort of calm will settle over your planet. Ancient tribal rivalries and feuds will be resolved. Greed will be scorned. Precious resources will be shared. Anxieties will dissipate. More people will meditate and renounce your planet’s childish, toxic religions.

  “In short, the people of Earth will be more relaxed and more tolerant of others and more loving. Most importantly, the looming ecocide will be avoided.” She paused and looked around at our little group. “Any more questions?”

  “That’s a pretty optimistic forecast, Miss Kincaid,” I said, “given humanity’s past performance and our basic human nature.”

  “Yah,” growled Hacker, “it’s a bunch of bullshit, all right. Humans have to eventually fuck everything up, no matter how good they’ve got it. Do a quick study of our history, Ms. Kincaid, then get real.”

  Our Q&A session was devolving into a bickerfest, so I popped a question to bring us back to the present. “This is kind of a change of subject, Cosmo, but can you tell us what happened to the rest of the Black Swan organization? And also, what has happened, and what will happen, to Big Mama Lakshmi….”

  “Black Swan has been effectively closed down. All of its leaders, and most of its operatives around the world, as well as the members of The Brotherhood, the enforcement arm, all are in custody. The Black Swan space station has been disabled; its occupants will join the rest of humanity in your transition.

  “Lakshmi is presently in a psychiatric hospital lockup ward in Santa Fe, having completely lost touch with reality. She has also suffered some organ failure since I withdrew my presence from her body. What of her future? Her life in the new version of Planet Earth could take totally different twists and turns. She might be a Catholic nun the next time around. Or a housewife. She might have a career at Wal-Mart.”

  Cosmo Kincaid looked around again, scanning our faces. Now silence filled the small, stuffy room. There was nothing left to say. Hacker and Greta closed their eyes, acceptance of the situation settling their minds. Benny covered his face with his hands, sobbing softly. Leela, Jill, and I were wild with excitement, although we kept it a secret out of respect for our friends. The future! Our three minds locked together in a kind of cerebral orgasm, triggering cascades of endorphins and sending gallons of dopamine to our brains’ pleasure centers. We grinned lopsided, stony grins at each other.

  “Your dinner will be served in just a minute or two,” said Cosmo Kincaid. “After that we can all try to track Uncle Albert with the Perkins telescope. Uncle Albert arrives at eight a.m., so you will be awakened at dawn and picked up by our helicraft at seven-thirty a.m. Nebula Jones will meet you at the top of Mount Humphries minutes later.

  “The top of the mountain is very rocky and contains many boulders, but there is a small cleared area where you will assemble and prepare for your transition. On this clearing Nebula Jones will create two portals: one, leading to the black hole, for those going back to the past; the other, leading to the wormhole, for those going to the future. I suggest you get a good night’s sleep. Special music has been provided in each cabin to help you achieve a restful and
peaceful slumber.”

  Our dinners were great, prepared to order for each of us. Hacker looked like a condemned man enjoying his last meal. Benny had matzo ball soup spiked with salsa. Greta picked at her cobb salad. My two psi girlfriends and I, all vegans by now, feasted on our Tofu Wellington dish, topped off with a fine white wine from the South of France. Celebration was in the air—for the three of us, at least. We looked forward to the new adventure with wild anticipation.

  Somehow we managed to sleep, naked, curled up in a tight little ball, with lucky me in the middle.