THE ARK

Day 940

He walked across the flight line to the waiting Army staff car; by the time he got there, he was cold and wet. Colonel Matt Fitch was completely disgusted with himself. Here he was being summoned to the Pentagon to provide an update on the work he and his team were doing, and he was going to walk in there looking like a drowned rat.

He dropped into the back seat of the staff car and tried to relax. As he sat, he could feel the moisture as it seeped through the clothing. All because he was too careless to check the weather report for Washington DC before he left home.

As the driver worked his way through the busy noontime traffic, Matt’s mind again wondered back to the question that had nagged him since he was summoned to the Pentagon. After all the years of work on this project, no one had ever shown anything more than a mild curiosity at the work he and the team were doing at the Arizona facility. Now, unexpectedly, he is being ordered to report to the Pentagon to give a more in-depth report.

Probably some recently appointed one star wants to start digging into the project. Someone must have accidentally come across their latest success report and wants in on it now that it is showing real progress, he figured.

Or possibly, someone is all worked up over there having been a fatality. There were always a few like that. They will get all upset because someone died and never consider the fact that the death was the fault of the victim. Those types would completely miss the success that the rest of the project had, and they often tended to make a whole lot of noise. Before you knew it people believed that there were evil experiments going on in the Army that were killing innocent people.

The Colonel forced himself to calm down, he had been getting quite angry just thinking about those issues, better to wait and see what is really going on. By the time he had calmed down, they were arriving at the Pentagon. As he got out of the car, he was again aware of his wet and less than perfect appearance.

As he entered, he was met by a US Army Major. “Sir, I’ve been asked to escort you to your meeting.”

“Well, I certainly wasn’t expecting an escort, please lead on Major. I’ve been here only twice before and I don’t have any idea where I’m going,” replied Fitch

“Colonel, I’ve been assigned here for two years now and I often can’t find my way around this maze,” replied the Major

When they arrived at the conference room eight minutes later, the Major said; “They will be with you in just a few minutes sir,” and with that, he was gone.

The conference room was quite large; there was a large bar with a mirror at one end. At the other end was all the needed equipment needed for video conferences. The conference table in the center was large and appeared to be made of mahogany. There were twelve leather chairs surrounding the table.

Colonel Fitch set his briefcase on the table and went to the mirror by the bar, to see if there was anything he could do for his disheveled appearance.

As he was finishing the door opened and in came General Lee Draper. The General saw Fitch by the bar and immediately said, “Don’t you think it’s a bit early for a drink Colonel?”

From the look on the General’s face, it was clear he was at least half-joking. But the shock of seeing one of the Army highest ranking officers walk through the door caused Fitch to stare incredulously just the same.

“Relax Colonel, get your butt over here and have a seat. I have only twenty minutes to get you up to speed and then we have a conference call to make,” said General Draper with a slight smile on his face

Fitch was quickly seated across from the General. The look of confusion obvious on his face

“Colonel, I’ve read your reports and I find the whole project fascinating. However, I need some straight answers now. We’ll let you know what we can as we progress. But for now I need a clear picture of where this Sleeper Project is and where it needs to go,” explained the General

“Yes, sir. Have you seen the report that I filed two months ago?” asked Fitch

“Yes, that’s why it was decided to get you involved. No games Colonel. Was this as successful an experiment as your report makes it sound?” asked General Draper

“Absolutely sir. In fact probably more so. As far as I’m concerned the fatality is irrelevant to determining the success of the test.

“Also, while there were some extremely minor hardware issues, these have been addressed with the hardware vendors and those failures helped prove that our fault tolerance was up to speed. Since submitting that report, we’ve just about finished analyzing the massive amounts of data that was automatically recorded during the tests and there are absolutely no other new issues to report. The sleep project is a success, far more so than we had even hoped for,” said Finch

The General could clearly hear the pride in Fitch’s voice as he spoke. Good reason too thought the General, what they were doing out in the desert was fantastic.

“Good, that’s what I was hoping to hear. What else is needed for you to go live with this?” The General asked.

There was a definite pause before Fitch responded, “Go live? I guess that depends on what you’re looking to do sir. The only application of this technology, that we can come up with, is for long-term space flight. Or possibly to sleep people with specific diseases until cures are found.”

The General answered, “Let’s say hypothetically, I wanted to take a group of people and sleep them, completely unsupervised for up to twenty years. What would that take?”

Fitch rapidly answered, “With a few minor modifications we could do it now, as long as we could sleep them in our current facility.”

“How many sleepers can you do in your current facility?” questioned the General

“We are currently setup to do twelve at any one time, if needed we could add half a dozen more units, but that would take some time,” answered the Colonel

“No, that won’t work,” started General Draper while shaking his head, “If we provided you with a suitable environment and all the manpower and funding you needed, how long would it take for to be set up and ready to sleep about one hundred thousand people or more for twenty years?”

“One hundred thousand!” began Fitch. The question completely threw him. The logistics alone were inconceivable. “If the facility was large enough and had enough power, and was ready for us to start work on today, we might be ready in about five to ten years.”

As Fitch said this, he could see the displeasure on the Generals face.

“Sir, if I had a better idea as to what you need I could give you more accurate answers,” Fitch said

“Ok Colonel,” Draper said after a pause. He then slid a small black notebook binder to him. The first thing Fitch saw was the TOP SECRET in large red letters. “You’re not to discuss this with anyone. I don’t pretend to understand the scientific part of this, in fact, the folks at NASA don’t understand it either, but it seems that in less than three years some blasted comet is going to irradiate the Earth’s atmosphere. The radiation levels will be high enough to kill almost anything on the planet.” As the general spoke, he saw Colonel Fitch’s mouth drop open and the color drain from his face at the same time.

“We are working this problem from several angles. The data has been confirmed, it’s coming here. The chances of us stopping the comet or altering its path are about a million to one. Underground bunkers are a possibility; the problem is that everyone would need to stay in them for at least ten years probably more like twenty.

“Of course there is no way to get more than a very small percentage of the people into them; still it’s better than nothing. Your sleeper program is a great possibility. But even if we could get the one hundred thousand units ready we’re still talking about saving less than one out of every four thousand people in this country.”

Fitch could feel the mix of mild dizziness and mild nausea, he quietly asked. “Sir please tell me this a hypothetical scenario.”

”No Colonel, this is as real as it gets.”

Fitch stood and walked over the bar. “In response to your earlier question sir, I no longer think it’s too early for a drink, what can I get you?”

“Scotch,” was all the General said.

Fitch was quickly heading back with two glasses. As he returned he said. “Sir, from what I remember a comet is mostly ice. I don’t remember radiation as being a normal concern with comets.”

“Apparently that’s true. There is something very unusual about this thing, and we don’t have any clear answers.”

After a long pause, Colonel Fitch continued. “Sir, there is no way we can sleep a significant number of people for that amount of time. The power requirements are large and while we might be able to work up a small nuke reactor to run automatically for a while. There is no way we can do this on a large scale; it just isn’t feasible without an awful lot more time.”

“Alright Colonel, what can you offer?” Draper asked.

“Sir, I’m still processing all this. I’m sorry, but I need a few hours to work through the details and come up with something,” Colonel Fitch apologetically said.

“I understand, it took me a good week for this to settle in so I could think straight. Unfortunately, that isn’t possible right now. We have a conference call to make,” said the General, as he reached the keyboard in front of him and activated the camera at the end of the room. The small red light on the front of the camera blinked on, as the camera turned to face them

Fitch was starting to ask the General about the conference call when he heard a familiar voice come out of the speaker on the table. “Good afternoon, General Draper, I assume that’s Colonel Fitch with you.”

Fitch looked up with alarm at the video conference monitor and was staring at the face of President Daniel Anson.