The Event

Chapter 1

He was still getting used to walking upright with the costume on. Though there was some degree of temperature control and hydration in the suit itself, its very nature — part nanoflesh and part optical illusion — became uncomfortable after only a few hours. Still, in order to prepare for his mission, he felt it best to wear it as much as possible, even when he was on the ship.

When he passed through the barrier to the bridge, the Master Guard was waiting for him. “You still have time to change your mind.”

“I know where you stand on this. We didn’t come this far just to leave. I will present to the other Specialists as planned. Are they assembled?”

Making his frustration obvious, the Master Guard replied, “Yes, they’re waiting in the auditorium. But I’m asking you again to listen to reason.”

“Your reasons were presented to the Council along with mine, and my view prevailed. Your job now is to help ensure the security and success of this mission, not to undermine it.”

They continued to walk through the enormous room to another barrier. The Master Guard passed through it first and into the auditorium. He took a place in the front while his superior walked on to the impromptu stage to speak.

“Specialists, we all know why we are here,” he began. “We have arrived at the culmination of decades of research and development. Our discovery many years ago captured our imaginations and inspired us. Though our first contact won’t be under ideal conditions, we are obligated nonetheless to make that contact and make our intentions understood. I recommend you activate your costumes now so that you can experience the rest of this presentation as one of them. You will need to communicate and move effectively, and the more time you spend in their form, the easier it will become to do just that.”

Within seconds, most of the room’s guests had altered their physical forms. Only the guards remained unchanged.
“Yes! Good!” he said, attempting a smile. “You each have selected a name that reflects the culture you represent in this form. This should help those you encounter feel more comfortable. I have selected the name Robert.”
He heard them laugh, and after a pause, he indicated that he found it funny as well. Then he held up a hand to regain their attention.

“You are Specialists, an elite group. You have been assigned your territories, studied volumes of data across multiple fields, and worked incredibly hard in a relatively short amount of time to earn your title.” He looked across the diverse faces and felt the excitement building in himself and in the others. “So let us review the details again and make any adjustments before we begin this difficult task.”

 

Chapter 2

In addition to downing energy drinks and squeezing a stress ball in alternating hands, Jordan Media had also developed a habit of running his fingers through his hair to help stay awake through the night shift at the Bennington, Kansas cargo airport.

He felt a few strands sticking up from his head and was trying to flatten them down when he saw movement in his peripheral vision. He looked toward the glass entryway of the single-building county airport and saw his day shift replacement, Oscar Parks. Jordan gave him the just-a-minute finger, then gathered his stuff and headed to the entrance. With the quick insert of an oddly-shaped key, the doors slid open wide and the two young men wordlessly fist-bumped as they passed each other.

Jordan immediately squinted, as much from the crisp breeze in his eyes as from the sun. He turned to face away from both the light and the wind, walking backward through the parking lot and regarding the long silhouette he cast. He began making shadow letters. Both arms over his head like a V. Crossing them to make an X. An O with his head in the middle of it. Y. M. C. A. He was feeling silly, but there was no one around to see him at this hour.
He stood in the nearly-empty parking lot for a moment, looking at the building and thinking about the two years he’d been working in it. He had originally taken the job to stay close to home for a while, expecting to move on to something else once he felt his parents would be okay without him. After the first few months, though, Jordan had learned two things about himself: he enjoyed working alone and he had trouble making big changes. So at the age of twenty-one, he was still living with his mom and dad, and still making a night guard’s salary.

He turned back around to face his dusty red 1988 Chevy Nova. It wasn’t much, but it was all his for $900. There was no air conditioning – a fact that didn’t matter for much of the year – and the original mechanical odometer had been stuck at 186,282 and four-tenths since about a week after he drove it off the lot. But the transmission was in good shape, it got nearly thirty miles to the gallon, and it rode surprisingly smoothly. Over the past few months, Jordan had put some money into it to upgrade the stereo system and replace the driver’s seat cloth, which a previous owner had liberally decorated with cigarette burns.

He pulled a 9mm Smith & Wesson from his holster, released the clip into his jacket pocket and stored the empty gun, holster, and a Taser in the trunk before getting into the car. The engine started reliably on the first turn of the key, and Jordan backed out of his parking space to head for the airport exit. Instead of going south toward home, he decided to turn north and drive to town.

“Town” in these parts meant Minneapolis. Billed as a “dynamic and growing Kansas community” on much of their advertising material, Minneapolis was in reality a far cry from its Minnesota namesake, with only twice the population of Bennington.

It was, though, the home of Lady’s Diner.

At 6:11 am, it was still dark outside. Jordan pulled into the parking lot of Lady’s with an empty stomach and a ten-dollar bill in his pocket. Even in the bustling town of Minneapolis, Kansas, most people didn’t lock their cars, and as Jordan got out, he even noticed that the car next to his had its keys dangling from the driver’s side visor.
A set of small bells tinkled as he opened the glass door to the diner, and again when it shut behind him. He walked past the jukebox near the entrance and took a seat at the long counter, across from the kitchen’s pass-through window.

“Mornin’ sweetie,” said a round-faced redhead behind the bar.

“Mornin’ Lady. Chilly out there. Afraid we’ll get early snow.”

“Better not. Jerry still has almost three hundred acres left. I told him to use the larger chisel plow, but he won’t spend the extra money on the diesel.”

“We mostly finished last Wednesday. Pa thinks we’ll be hit next week. Weather report shows a front in the Pacific that could dip down and get us.”

“That’d just about figure.”

There was a pause in the conversation that would have been awkward between two people who didn’t know each other well, but neither saw the point in rehashing the farming failures of the past year. The glance they exchanged was enough to recall the severe drought, the meager yields, the invasive pests. Why not an early blizzard to finish things off?

After a moment, Lady spoke again. “So you know what you want this morning, Jo?”

“You and my folks are the only people who seem to have trouble calling me Jordan.”

She smiled. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure they chose a name ahead of time that would work for either a boy or a girl. Practical people don’t have time to fret over baby names, right? Jo, Jordan. Does it really matter?” She tilted her head and made a sarcastic frowny-smiley face that was her trademark.

Jordan shook his head and smiled. “I’ll take two eggs over medium, two slices of white toast, heavy on the butter and...” he sat with his mouth pursed in a thoughtful way. “Bacon, please.”

“You got it. To drink?”

“Just water.”

“Plain ol’ water?”

“Cut the price of your OJ in half, and I might get a glass once in a while.”

“Well, you just tell your parents to plant citrus next year and we’ll all get cheap OJ.”

“Mmmm. Kansas orange juice. Look out, Florida.”

Lady giggled. She took a few steps to the kitchen pass-through and read off the order in a way that sounded nothing at all like what Jordan had said; diner folks spoke their own language, and Jordan knew almost none of it. She then hung up the ticket for her son Sam, the diner’s cook for the past twenty years. Wiping his brow on his sleeve, Sam grabbed the ticket from the other side of the pass-through. Like his mom, he had thick, bright red hair which, when out of a hair net, touched his shoulders. He was a nice man and damn good at his job, but everyone knew Lady was the social one. Sam was happy to remain hidden in the kitchen. 
 The other regulars started to come in, either on their way to work or, like Jordan, finishing night shifts somewhere. Lady set out fresh utensils neatly wrapped in sturdy paper napkins (Jordan had once heard her call them “rollups”, the only diner lingo he remembered), and Jordan grabbed the newspaper left behind by the previous occupant of his seat. He checked the date – it was well known that the same paper could float around Lady’s Diner for weeks at a time – and was pleased to discover it was this morning’s.

CHIEFS STILL UNDEFEATED!

It wasn’t quite the font size reserved for declarations of war, but it was a bit disproportionate to the importance of the news, Jordan thought. The story below the massive headline sang the praises of this year’s rookie quarterback who had led the team to an 8-0 midseason start. Having already caught up on sports news at the job overnight, Jordan continued to browse through the paper.

Troubles between and within various Middle Eastern countries dominated the next several pages, interrupted occasionally by stories of threats of nuclear war from North Korea, continuing civil war in Sudan, wildfires in Australia, deadly floods in Bangladesh and economic problems pretty much everywhere else. These places and their problems were far away from Kansas, and though Jordan was more interested in international events than most of his neighbors, he was not unlike them in that he didn’t feel particularly connected to news from other lands. So he continued to skim casually through the stories, waiting for his breakfast, until one particular headline grabbed his attention.

Norwegian Seed Vault Robbed

Jordan started to read the story, then flipped quickly to find the page it continued on — a gimmick that he realized was the template for all the annoying internet articles that make the viewer click “Next” to finish something that easily could have fit on one screen.

Without looking up from the paper he said, “Hey, Lady. You see this?”

Lady was at the other end of the counter. When Jordan lifted his head and spotted her, she held up her pen, showing him she was taking an order. When she was done, she called out the order to Sam, hung the ticket on the clip, put the order pad back in her front apron pocket, and walked over to Jordan.

“What’s up? Can’t you see I’m busy here?” She winked.

“Sorry. But there’s a story here about the Norwegian seed vault.”

“The one your farm’s wheat seeds are in?”

“Yes. They had a burglary this week.”

Lady scrunched up her face. “Burglary? Isn’t the place buried under the North Pole or something?”

Jordan managed a grin. “That’s the thing. It’s – ”

“Order up!” Sam set three plates on the window and promptly disappeared back to the griddle.

Lady turned away from Jordan. “Hold up, love. I’ll be back.”

Jordan double-checked the article to make sure he had read correctly. Lady came back over to him.
“It’s a giant seed vault, right?” she asked.

“Yes. It’s on Spitsbergen Island, about 800 miles from the North Pole.”

“I remember! You talked endlessly about that place as a boy. Everyone was excited about having something from our community shipped there.”

“That was the year Pa grew a-hundred-and-fifty acres of the old Turkey Wheat cultivar, a Hard Red Winter Wheat. No one had really farmed it in decades. He sent a bunch to a stone mill that supplied fancy bakeries, and then some of the seed was sent to the Kansas seed bank. The USDA shipped it to Svalbard from there.”

“You wanted to go there so bad.”

Jordan cringed a bit, remembering the obsession that had ignited his desire to travel, a desire that was extinguished in the worst of ways.

“And you say it was robbed?” Lady interrupted his sudden self-pity.

“Yes, ma’am. Someone went to a Norwegian mountain island close to the North Pole, went four hundred feet above sea level and four hundred feet into the rock to get to a vault — and all it contains are seeds that are available in other places anyway. There’s nothing special about them.”

“Then why were all those seeds sent there in the first place?”

“The vault stores seeds from all over the world in case of a global disaster.”

Lady gasped playfully. “Well, then you know what that means, don’t you?”

“What?”

“Must be time for a global disaster!” She partially covered her mouth in a mock whisper. “My money’s on North Korea.”

Jordan shook his head, laughing.

“Order up!” Sam called from the window.

“That’ll be you, love.” Lady took three comically exaggerated steps backward, looking at Jordan the whole time with a silly grin on her face. She turned only her torso, grabbed the plates from the pass-through, turned and took three steps back to the counter to serve Jordan. He raised his eyebrows, smirking at her with a look of amusement. Lady slid over the salt and pepper shakers along with a bottle of Tabasco. A pitcher appeared seemingly from nowhere, and she refreshed his glass of water. Jordan didn’t know if anyone could still actually love their job after doing it for twenty years, but he had to believe Lady still very much enjoyed hers.
“Thanks, crazy Lady.”

She curtseyed. Jordan raised his voice and looked toward the kitchen. “Thanks, Sam!” Sam raised one thick, freckled arm in acknowledgement, made a peace sign, and disappeared again.

Lady gently slapped the counter in front of Jordan’s plate. “Alright, Detective Jo, I’ll let you figure out The Mystery of the Missing Seeds over your nice hot breakfast. I’ve gotta feed some people.”
Mouth full of bacon, Jordan nodded and grunted.

* * *

By 6:55 he was back in the car and heading to the farm, seeing a lot more activity on the road than there had been just a short while ago. Jordan loved that his part of the country was full of early birds, busy with the ways of farming and everything related to it. Still, he knew that what was on the road didn’t really deserve use of the word traffic, and it only took him about fifteen minutes to get home.

He idled down the long gravel driveway until he got to his parking spot near the trickle that was still Sand Creek, under a large eastern cottonwood. Over eighty feet tall with an enormous trunk, the tree provided wonderful shade for a car without air conditioning during hot Kansas summers. With the drought, however, it had been a few years since Jordan had seen the tree sporting a full complement of green. At this time of year, it should have had some buttery gold leaves left on its branches, but even those had dropped more than a month ago, before fall had even really begun. It was just too dry.

Jordan got out of the car and looked up at the cloudless sky. His dad was right: it even smelled like winter already.
He heard footsteps in the gravel.

“Morning, boy! How’d work go?”

“It’s a paycheck.”

“It is that.” Stephen Media was only forty-eight, but nearly all gray on top. He leaned on the rake he held with his right hand and studied his son for a moment. Jordan popped the trunk to retrieve his things.

“Ma’s got some coffee brewed. We figured you must have stopped for breakfast already.”

Jordan took his gun, holster and Taser, then pulled a few leaves from the trunk and dropped them on the ground. “Yeah. Went to see Lady. She wanted me to tell you to grow oranges.”

“Oranges? I think the gas fumes from that grill are finally getting to her.”

Jordan laughed. “It’s a long story. Oh! And I have another story for you.” He closed the trunk.

Stephen raised his silvery eyebrows and tilted his head back slightly.

“Today’s newspaper was at Lady’s, and I – ”

“Well that right there is worth reporting. Today’s newspaper at Lady’s?”

“I know, right? But listen. I was flipping through it and saw a weird story. There was a burglary at the Svalbard Global Seed Bank.”

Jordan could see the surprise on his dad’s deeply lined face. His playful smile faded and his brow furrowed.

“What? The place is a fortress if ever there’s been one.”

“One of the depositors came to make a withdrawal, and when they opened their container, half the seeds were missing.”

Stephen’s face relaxed. “Ah. Must have just been a bad count when they shipped it.”

“No. They called some other depositors to come look at theirs and they were all missing half their deposits as well. The article said that over the next few days, all the others are going to be opened and inspected.”

Stephen looked upward at nothing in particular, as if the answer might be written in the sky. “Who the hell could have stolen anything from that place? And why? It doesn’t make sense.”

“They didn’t say. It sounds like everyone from the reporters to the vault employees to the police are totally stumped.”

“The planning it would take to get in and out of that place unnoticed wouldn’t even be remotely worth the effort,” Stephen said. “The seeds don’t really have value to anyone other than the people who own them. And even they have more of the same seeds anyway.”

“Maybe it’s like computer hacking. The thrill of knowing you did it is the prize.”

“Could be. In any event, I reckon we’ll be hearing more about this in the days to come.”

Jordan yawned. “Think I’ll skip the coffee and hit the hay, Pa.”

“Speaking of hay, you can join me at noon for lunch and then help us out.”

“Okay,” he yawned again. “I’ll set the alarm for 11:59.”

“You’re a funny boy.” Stephen waved the business end of the rake at Jordan, who scrambled quickly up four rickety wooden steps to the wrap around porch.

He opened the screen door to the side entrance. It closed quietly behind him on a pneumatic hinge and the aroma of his mother’s kitchen filled his nose. Butter was the first thing he smelled, as it was the foundation of nearly everything that happened in this room. The scents of coffee, sausage and toasted biscuits hung in the air as well. Catherine wasn’t there, but Jordan knew where she’d be, and he knew he’d need to leave her alone for now.
He walked around the left side of the dining table, into the living room and up the staircase. At the top and to the right was his bathroom. Jordan removed his work clothes, careful to hang up the Taser and the empty pistol on a rack he’d made just for that purpose. He washed his hands and face and decided to skip brushing his teeth until after he woke up.

Directly across the hall was his bedroom. He closed the door behind him, moved across the sturdy but creaky wooden floor and flopped onto his bed. His mother had already drawn the shades tight for him so the room was dark enough to sleep. In the little light that remained, he could still see the many unframed posters on the walls around him. Looking at them one by one had the same effect for him as counting sheep. The Eiffel Tower. The Colosseum. The Great Wall. Mount Fuji. The Taj Mahal. Ayers Rock. The Great Barrier Reef. Petra. The Pyramids. Mt. Kilimanjaro. Victoria Falls. The Statue of Christ the Redeemer. Machu Picchu. His plan had long been to visit each of them and then come home to replace the posters with his own photos. The posters had been there for eight years. His Nikon DSLR sat on his dresser. Not a single photograph of his own graced the walls.

“Goodnight,” he whispered. And then he was asleep.