The End of the Beginning

“Good morning, William,” an electronic voice rang out. His bedroom blinds automatically opened wide, allowing the morning sunlight to gradually wake him. “It is 8:00 a.m. on Friday, March 26, 2027. The weather outside is a warm eighty-three degrees Fahrenheit and there is a sixty percent chance of afternoon showers….” The voice droned on as the day’s weather forecast, time, date, and base events were projected onto the glass wall. It also reminded him of his appointment in an hour. Outside, the sky was a lovely blue with a few rain showers in the distance over the ocean to the east beyond the great warehouses.

Rubbing his eyes, William got up and began to venture around the bedroom until he reached the bathroom. That was the best sleep he had ever had. Voices from the forest did not reach him. After showering and shaving in a space no bigger than a commercial airliner bathroom, he got dressed in an outfit from his closet, provided by UNIRO.

It was his casual on-base uniform that had similar pants to the ones Roger and Andrew were wearing when they picked him up back in Alberta, mostly white with a lot of pockets and straps for tools and clips. William’s were a little different, though. They had two pairs of royal blue horizontal stripes circling the pants above and below his knees with a royal blue knee patch in between. His tight-fitting long sleeve shirt was very comfortable and mirrored the design of the pants. On its sleeves by the shoulder area was UNIRO’s seal and under it some lettering that said Subgroup 1, Search and Rescue Squadron 3. On the shirt’s left breast was his name and rank on a white Velcro patch.

Over this long-sleeved shirt came a light white and blue zip-up jacket. The upper sleeves of the jacket sported UNIRO’s seal. Another Velcro patch with his name and rank was on his left jacket breast pocket.

To top things off, literally, he donned a white beret with a royal blue trim and a small UNIRO seal. A trademark of the elite in war, this time dawned for the elite in peace. William finally slipped his sleeve over his med-bracelet, got some pre-stocked orange juice, made sure his earpiece was in firmly, straightened his new uniform in front of the mirror, overlooked his new shaven face, grabbed his glass tablet and left his quarters eager to explore the base.

As he was leaving his building, his glass tablet beeped loudly. It was 9:00 a.m. Right on time, a vehicle identical to the one Roger and Andrew had had the day before, quietly drove up to the curb. A young woman, late-twenties, was driving it. She quickly got out and ran around the front to the sidewalk. She stood to attention. William found her fairly attractive which made him anxious. He hadn’t spoken to a woman, especially one this pretty in, well, he actually couldn’t remember.

“Captain William Emerson?” she asked nervously loud.

“Yes.”

“Rescue Officer Nancy Lewis, sir. I’m a base systems analyst under UNIRO Engineering Corps. I’ve been assigned to you as your administrative aid. It’s an honor. I read about your efforts in Korea and I must say, you were the one to inspire me to join UNIRO, even though you were no longer around. I mean… when you… I - ” William was a little overwhelmed by the introduction. He was still a little shaky about everything so far, out of touch with military formalities and ranks within UNIRO. Nancy seemed to be a little overwhelmed herself though.

“At, uh, at ease, uh, Rescue Officer…” he said looking at her rank, stopping her. “You’re here to pick me up then?”

“Right. Ah. Yes sir,” Nancy affirmed. “Base Commander Hammond has requested you meet with her in an hour.”

“In regards to…?” William asked.

“I am not aware, sir. Sorry. Please, come with me.”

“What did they say about me while I was… away?”

The question seemed to catch Nancy off guard. “Sir?”

“When I was… lost, I guess. In the six years after the war. What did they say about me? Must have been something good for you to be inspired and join this place.”

Nancy brushed aside a fallen piece of hair on her face in embarrassment. “I just chose to listen to the good, sir. There was a lot of good, but also a lot of questions. Some things said weren’t so good. But people can be mean when they don’t understand. I’m sure you had your reasons for leaving. It doesn’t matter anymore, though, because you’re here now. That’s all that matters.” “Thank you, Rescue Officer. Is that an appropriate way to address you? Rescue Officer? I’m sorry, got a lot to learn.”

“Rescue Officer is fine, sir,” Nancy grinned.

“Well, we best be going, yeah?” William said.

“Oh. Yes, of course. Please get in. I will take you to Umoja Tower.”

And with that, they drove off.

By 9:20 a.m., they were entering a three-story parking structure near the base of Umoja Tower in the BLOC Section. William could feel his med-bracelet working, gently pulsating on the underside of his wrist, delivering the medical concoctions he needed to keep his mind straight as it sensed him growing uneasy. Nancy plugged her vehicle into an electric charging station and then showed William to the garage elevator.

From the garage, they walked down a wide wooded path and then out into the huge V-shaped plaza in front of the tower. Rows and rows of young royal palms lined it. Hundreds of people were walking all around with glass tablets, talking to seemingly no one on earpieces, or staring at their smart glove screens. Some people were in groups wearing hard hats, ready to go on tours of areas of the base still under construction, while others were alone in the shade on benches, made from recycled newspaper.

Most wore UNIRO uniforms similar to William’s and Nancy’s; others wore business suits. An array of cargo bicycles and tricycles zoomed in between, taking daily goods and transporting personnel around the section. Facilities crews were caring for some of the new trees, which were still being held up by wooden supports, fixing smart sprinkler systems, and removing dead branches with electric trimmers.

All of this bordered a great boulevard running from northeast to southwest at the open end of the V-shaped plaza, the opening of which, like the tower, faced southeast. The plaza narrowed as it neared the tower. The large reflecting pool in the shape of an elongated pentagon dominated this narrowing area with its three flagpoles rising from its center. The pool was only three feet deep and the water within it was perfectly still. One could see right to the shiny tile bottom.

Two grassy hills began to follow the plaza on either side of it until they rose up to become the base of the tower, where two immense white concrete buttresses anchored the building to bedrock. Two more did the same on the opposite side of the structure. Protruding from the tower base, two stories above the floor of the plaza, was a freestanding overhang that looked to have offices within its glass walls. It came 265 feet out over the plaza and stopped just before the end of the pentagon reflecting pool, casting a heavy shadow over the main entrance of Umoja Tower as it itself narrowed to a rounded edge. Nancy pointed up to this rounded edge.

“That’s where the base commander’s office is,” she said.

Standing tall and proud in the afternoon sun, Umoja Tower rose into the sky, blending into it like a tall white cloud. Long glass windows straddled the white façade with outcroppings of vegetation boxes that had bushes and vines hanging from them, swaying briskly in the wind twenty-five stories up. Satellite dishes and antennas along the truss that clung to the southwest-facing wall of the building all the way to the roof looked much bigger now from down below.

As they walked under the overhang, some people caught sight of William and stared, even taking pictures and asking for his autograph. Nancy shooed them away every chance she got.

Inside the tower’s central atrium were even more people: busy climbing stairs, riding glass elevators, standing on escalators. Tall and pyramid-shaped, the atrium went up five stories and had vegetation dangling downward on its inward sloping walls filled with small flowering plants that gave the open space an aroma of nature. Pink LED lights were shining onto them, helping them to grow in the lack of sunlight, since they were inside. Most of the walls were in full bloom, which, along with the lights, gave the white painted atrium area quite a bit of color.

Nancy looked at her glass tag and said, “Hmmm, we have some time before your meeting. Come on, let me show you something.”

After clearing the security checkpoint to enter the building, the two proceeded across the atrium’s ground floor and into a roomy elevator. In order to enter the elevator, Nancy used her glass tag, slipping it into a small slot next to the elevator door. An iris scanner finished the process and the door opened. Once inside an electronic voice rang out and asked for their floor.

Nancy politely said, “Sublevel two, please.”

William did not even feel the elevator start to move, and it seemed that as soon as the door closed, it opened again. Nancy gave an enthusiastic chuckle, which sounded much louder in the confines of the elevator than it normally should have.

“Maglev elevator,” she said. “Very cool.”

William just nodded. They entered into a series of white tunnels with spacious side rooms, meeting areas, videoconference rooms, and lounges with vines growing on the walls and ceilings. This intricate maze made William feel like it was never ending.

After turning corner after corner and going through the labyrinth, they were met with yet another security checkpoint. Behind this checkpoint were two large glass doors. Once cleared, they passed through the automatic sliding doors and into a long room barely big enough to fit a dozen people. A hissing sound filled the floor area of the room as the doors closed behind them. Simultaneously, a blacklight glow switched on making their mostly white uniforms burst into a fluorescent radiance.

“What’s that sound?” asked William, feeling apprehensive.

“This room is the airlock that separates the command center from the outside world. Air is being pumped in so that we equalize with the command center’s positive pressure. Air can only be let out, not in. Your ears will pop soon. A great defense against potential pathogens or any other would be chemical, biological, and radiological contaminants. In fact, the whole command center is on its own air filtration system completely separate from the rest of the building. It’s underground down here in case something happens on the surface. This section of the base has been raised fifty feet above sea level so we can have these underground structures; otherwise, being in Florida, we’d be swimming.” “And the light?”

“The glow show is a disinfection method called ultraviolet germicidal irradiation. UV light at short wavelengths is a very effective killer of nasty microorganisms.”

The hissing stopped as William’s ears popped and the lights returned to normal.

“You’re kind of a geek, aren’t you, Rescue Officer?” William asked with a grin. He immediately found himself feeling extremely awkward. The grin slid off his face as he glanced over at Nancy. He shouldn’t have said that. He’d meant it as a compliment but he wasn’t so sure she’d see it that way.

“Yes, sir, I am,” admitted Nancy, shrinking her head into her shoulders. “That’s not a bad thing, is it?”

Thank God. He could clarify himself.

“No, no, absolutely not,” he rushed to say. “Geeks are good.”

Nancy looked up. “Geeks are smart and to be a hero, you gotta be smart,” he continued. “People think you’ve gotta have guts or a lot of adrenaline or testosterone or something to be a hero. That’s not true. You have to be able to know what no one else knows, see what no one else sees and hear what no one else hears. No, the world doesn’t need more brawn, it needs more brains, like you.” Nancy tried to hide a subtle blush so she looked down and away.

“Well, in here is a geek’s paradise. What we’re about to step into is a utopia.”

Two doors on the opposite side of the room from which they entered opened swiftly and revealed the base’s humming command center.

William’s eyes opened as he gazed around the room. The command center was huge, some 200 feet across and thirty feet high, and teaming with technology and expertise. Each section of the octagon-shaped room was broken into an area that had a specific task, whether it be monitoring base infrastructure, global communications, technical support for environmental protection, or even overseeing geoengineering projects. No space was wasted in this underground cavern of glass computer screens and LED lighting. Fifteen rows’ deep worth of consoles and workstations followed the contours of the octagon all the way around.

On the walls were projections of data from every corner of the globe. Local weather reports, thermal signatures, rainfall patterns, political unrest, aircraft whereabouts, shipping lanes, space weather, even individual road conditions in far-off places, like Siberia, were on display on the dark concrete walls the size of small movie theater screens. All this data, as Nancy explained, was being transmitted via laser from UNIRO’s Phoenix 5 satellite network in orbit above the struggling Earth.

Launched with the help of private space companies, no part of the planet could not be seen under the thirty bus-sized satellites’ field of view, each one scanning areas the size of Australia every few hours with each new pass.

Each row of computers and workstations was manned by as many as twenty people, all wearing headsets and smart gloves and sitting upon contemporary chairs with webbed backs gliding on wheels over smooth, dark blue-carpeted floors.

An elevated octagon shaped projector platform, fenced in by handrails, held a piece of technology that so far rivaled anything William had seen. At the dead center of the room was a holographic globe about thirty feet in diameter resting over this platform. Storm systems swirled over green continents and areas of concern were highlighted and zoomed in on the globe’s translucent surface. Using their smart gloves, technicians could effectively grab the globe with hand gesture technology, and move it to the desired geographical location. Everything was being displayed in real time but could be rewound if necessary.

Every person was engrossed in their work. Most of the command center appeared to be focused on a situation developing near Lima, Peru. A 7.8 magnitude earthquake had struck the city three days earlier, and the response appeared to be adequate at best without UNIRO. Thousands were trapped or missing, hundreds already dead. It was a sobering reminder of the need for this organization and its international power.

Nancy took William to the center of the octagon, just under the holographic globe. William only noticed this now that he was standing directly underneath it, but above the globe was a grated platform in the shape of an octagon with more computer consoles and technicians looking down over the northern hemisphere of the globe through an open space in the platform’s center. Extending out from this upper platform were small bridges connected to the ceiling via steel struts. Each bridge ran to the outer eight wall points of the octagon and then descended to the floor with spiral staircases.

“You people just build the biggest damn things,” William said in amazement, his mouth agape as he stared up at the ceiling. He had meant for only Nancy to hear him but a voice from the platform above called down to him.

“We do indeed, Captain Emerson. If we didn’t, no one would take us seriously. Isn’t it ironic that people fighting for perhaps the most important things of all, the very air we smell, the very water we taste, have always been taken the least seriously? Not anymore.” William looked up to see who had responded to him. The top of the octagon command center, where the voice originated from, was darker than the rest of the room. Appearing out of the shadowed platform above were first two hands grasping the platforms handrail, then a discernible figure, an older woman, in her fifties at least. Nancy immediately recognized her and stood to attention so William did the same.

“Commander,” Nancy said.

Commander! William stood a little taller, a little straighter, and stared off into space until he was addressed. Chin up, chest out, shoulders back, stomach in. That’s what you were supposed to do.

“At ease. Rescue Officer Lewis, always a pleasure,” she said coldly. A British accent pierced her speech, making her that much more daunting.

“Commander,” Nancy choked, looking at the floor.

“Look up when addressing your superiors, Rescue Officer Lewis. What are you doing here? My appointment with Captain Emerson is not due to begin for another fifteen minutes… in my office... upstairs.”

Hammond eyed William with disdain.

Nancy looked up to the bridge. “Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am. I thought that perhaps the captain might want to check out the commander center. See how everything works. It’s amazing in here.”

“Amazingly busy, Rescue Officer Lewis, and not in need of two more bloody unnecessary people, especially when one is only a trainee. There will be plenty of time later for sightseeing. He can check it out once he has graduated from basic training. He is here to meet with me, not go around sticking his nose into everything.” “Ah, ma’am - ”

“You’re dismissed, Lewis. I’ll take Emerson to my office myself.”

“Good luck, Captain,” Nancy murmured, putting a quick hand on his shoulder as she sped away.

“Emerson!” screeched Hammond, removing one hand at a time from the railing as she began walking down the bridge.

“Yes, ma’am,” jumped William.

“Follow me. We have much to talk about.”