[Tuesday 07:00 AM – Los Angeles]
The phone next to the bed rang and Lynne reached over to pick it up.
“What is it, Tonya?” she panted.
“How’d you know it was me?” Tonya asked.
“Who else would call at a time like this?” Lynne said, still trying to catch her breath while Daisuke nibbled on her shoulders and neck.
“Are you still going at it?” Tonya asked, “It’s been hours. Never mind, you need to wrap it up. There’s a situation that cannot wait, even for good dick.”
“It must be bad for you to say something like that,” Lynne said, her mood ruined, “I’ll be down in a minute.” She hung up the phone.
“Sorry, lover. Reality intrudes,” Lynne said sliding out of bed, “Next month? In Tanlyn?”
“Yes. I’ll finish up the paperwork in Japan, then fly back to the US,” he answered, admiring Lynne’s body as she tried to squeeze back into the dress.
“Screw this!” she said, throwing the dress to the floor in frustration.
“I’d love to if you just come back over here,” Daisuke laughed.
She shot him a look and then grabbed his tuxedo pants and pulled them on. She tied them up using his belt and then grabbed his shirt.
“I’m taking your clothes. You can either try to wear the dress or buy some new ones,” she said, slipping her feet into the heels. “I gotta go. See you soon.”
---
Tonya stood by the elevator as Lynne exited, “Interesting look. The heels clash with the tux though. Where is your dress?”
“I couldn’t get back into it, so I left it,” Lynne said heading for the hotel doors. “How did you know which room we were in?”
“I have my ways,” Tonya said.
“You bribed someone, didn’t you?” Lynne surmised.
“Bribery is such a negative term. I prefer Monetary Encouragement of Action, myself,” Tonya said. “By the way, did you leave him anything to wear?”
A limousine pulled up and the valet opened the door. “The dress,” Lynne said as she stepped into the car.
“That I would pay to see,” Tonya laughed, following Lynne into the limo.
"The airport," Lynne instructed the driver before raising the privacy glass.
“What’s so important that you have to interrupt my pleasure?” Lynne asked, feigning irritation. She knew Tonya would not have done so without good cause.
Tonya flipped on the television embedded into the limousine's wall. The media was in a tizzy over the CME and had experts from all over discussing the disastrous ramifications from the event.
“Oh?” Lynne said, not impressed.
“William says it is much more than what they’ve released. He needs you to contact Pete to have someone called ‘wiz-kid’ sent to Offutt. Evidently, William believes this guy can shed some light on the situation.”
“Gal,” Lynne said absently.
“What?” Tonya stopped.
“The wiz-kid is a woman. The daughter of two BARD scientists,” Lynne explained.
“I don’t understand,” Tonya said, “How is a member of the research department going to be of any use about a space issue?”
Lynne stared at Tonya, noting the bags under her eyes. “You haven’t slept, have you?” Then she smelled Tonya’s breath. “Liquor, too? No wonder you’re slow this morning.”
“I was bored, okay?” Tonya said, “I wasn’t sure how long he would keep you occupied so I didn’t want to get a room only to have you want to leave ten minutes later.”
Lynn smiled. “He’s much better than ten minutes. We’d still be going if you hadn’t called.”
“No one likes a show off,” Tonya stuck out her tongue.
“Take a nap. I’ve got to call Peter, this probably won’t be pleasant,” Lynne said.
---
The phone on Principal Peter Stone’s desk rang, and he groaned and ran a hand over his balding head, “Hello?”
“Peter, it’s Lynne,” came the voice from the other end.
“What do you want?” he asked shortly.
“Is that any way to speak to your older sister?” she asked.
“If it’s you, then yes. What do you want this time,” Peter pressed.
“Have you been watching the news?” Lynne asked.
“A little. I’m quite busy here, you know. Running a facility isn’t a job for slackers,” he snarked.
“William is at STRATCOM. There’s a situation related to the current news cycle and he needs your wiz-kid there at STRATCOM, ASAP.”
“Why didn’t he call me himself?” Peter asked.
“He made the request through Tonya, not me. They’ve sequestered everyone there until this is resolved. The same will apply to your girl. Let her know that. William is securing security clearances already. Have her go to the Air National Guard post there outside TanLyn. They’ll fly her straight to Offutt. This is important. Pete. Don’t put people’s lives at stake to spite me.”
“You’re the spiteful one of the family, remember? I’ll talk to Grace and make the request,” he said.
“No, Pete. You misunderstand. I’m ordering her to go there as a member of TEMPLAR. Am I clear?”
“Crystal,” Peter said as he hung up on Lynne mid-word, not giving her any more time to belittle him.
He picked up the phone again and dialed the school receptionist.
“Please have Ms. McBride report to my office immediately. Also, secure a substitute teacher for her classes for the next couple of weeks. Thanks.”
He put the receiver back into the cradle, and set his computer’s internet browser to a news site.
“’Do I watch the news’? As if I have the time – HOLY SHIT!” he said, nearly rocking over his chair.
---
Lynne looked at the phone, “He hung up on me!”
“You were being a bit of a bitch,” Tonya said from her pseudo-napping state without opening her eyes. “Why do you and him always have to fight?”
“Just go back to sleep and mind your own business,” Lynne ordered.
“You are my business. Always remember that,” Tonya said, going back to sleep.
Lynne’s phone made a beep and she fidgeted with it until she determined the cause. As she read, her head drooped.
She opened the window between the cab and passenger cabin and waited for the driver to lower the volume on the radio, “Change of plans. Take us to this address,” she said handing him the phone, “But stop somewhere along the way and pick us up something for breakfast. Our destination is a few hours away and I don’t want to deal with this hungry.”
“Understood,” he said trying to hand the phone back but Lynne had closed the glass leaving it in his care.
“Just keep it,” she said, knowing that he couldn’t hear her. “Damned thing is more of a hindrance than a help. I swear we got more done in the days of the telegraph.”
“No, you just didn’t know about the things that were going on back then,” Tonya said from her doze.
“Do you ever sleep?” Lynne asked.
“I multitask,” Tonya mumbled.
[Tuesday 08:45AM – USSTRATCOM]
William groggily opened his eye to hear a loud banging on the door to the room. He looked at the watch on his wrist to see that he had only been sleeping thirty minutes.
“Aw, come on!” he yelled at the door, “Thirty minutes?!”
“Sir! I’m sorry, Sir! But it’s happened again and you’ve been ordered to Operations immediately,” said the voice.
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William was instantly awake and bolted past the startled soldier. He blasted past the security desk without stopping and burst into operations. Four security officers entered after him, intent on apprehending him.
“Leave him be!” barked General Hartford loud enough that the four men visibly recoiled, “I ordered him here immediately. I’ll take responsibility.”
They saluted and left.
William looked at the screen to see that the flare activity between the five remaining distortions had already exceeded the scale of the previous event.
“Scale?” he barked.
“Just crossed into X scale, Sir!” came the report.
William looked at Alice, her eyes showing bags larger than he’d ever seen on her before. “Any word on the first CME?”
“It’s only been a half hour,” she snapped, “So, no.”
Realizing her tone, she apologized, “Sorry, William. I know you’ve had less than the rest of us.”
“Don’t mention it,” he said, focusing on the screen.
“How long has this been going on?” he asked.
“Just over five minutes, sir.”
“Going by the last one, this should blow any time,” William mused.
“Just crossed X-4 flare activity, sir. Projected Earth contact in twenty minutes.”
William checked his cell only to see no service.
“Check the broadcast --” he started.
“Sir, radio and television signals went dark for the Mediterranean and Indian subcontinent regions five minutes ago. Austral-Asia is experiencing difficulties for the last fifteen.”
“Cell signal is blocked in here, Bill,” said Frank.
“That explains it,” William said, ignoring the use of the shortened name.
They all held their collective breaths for the ninety seconds it took for the CME to occur.
“Peaked at X-7 flare activity. CME magnitude unknown at this time.”
Suddenly, the screen went dark and William started to protest. “Satellite has been occluded by the moon. Re-acquisition of imagery in two hours,” said a voice over the speakers.
William grabbed a pad of sticky notes and pen off of an analyst’s desk and scribbled some names on it. He peeled the top page off and tossed the pad and pen back to the analyst.
“Here,” he thrust the note at Alice. “The first name is the most critical. She’s at the academy in Tanlyn, Missouri. She’s a genius at this stuff. Far above me. The others would be of great help but not critical. Two are in the Midwest, and the rest on the coasts.”
“We’ll take care of it,” Alice assured him.
“I’m going to try to get two hours. Wake me then, unless the world is ending.”
[Tuesday 2:45pm – Location Unknown]
A man sat in a garden, reclining against a rocky outcropping on a grassy bluff, leisurely eating an apple. At the top of the low hill was the apple tree from which he had taken his snack; it was laden with ripe fruit. In other parts of the garden, there were trees of many kinds, with some overflowing with fruit while others had none.
The sound of a heavy door closing in the distance echoed through the garden. A few moments later, a satyr approached the man holding a piece of paper.
“I figured you would be here,” the satyr said without preamble, “An urgent notice,” He handed the note to the man.
The man read the note and crumpled the paper while rising to his feet. A moment later, the paper dissolved in his hand with a barely audible hissing sound. The man opened his fist and the ashen remains of the paper fell to the ground.
“Send missives to the other Council Members to meet immediately,” he said to the satyr as he surveyed the room.
The room was huge. The ceiling above was at least 75 feet high and a multitude of light fixtures hung from it. The walls were far enough away that they could not be seen through the vegetation that had been planted there. As he followed the satyr down a gravel path toward the door, it became obvious that the room was several hundred feet to a side. In several places, great stone pillars covered in various vines towered from the floor to the ceiling. A bee buzzed past the man’s face.
After a few seconds of walking, the two reached the heavy metal door to the room. With a heave, the satyr opened the door and a rush of cooler air swept into the room. The hallway outside the room was lit more like a regular office environment than the bright sunlight of the garden, giving it a somewhat dark feel despite being well-lit. As they stepped into the hallway, the door behind them swung shut with a loud thud.
The corridor was hewn from raw stone and wide enough for several people to walk side by side and for forklifts to pass without incident. The two men walked in silence down the long corridor, occasionally passing a door similar to the one they had just left. Next to each door was a metal plaque indicating the purpose of the room. One was labeled as 'Dry Grains' and contained a large room used for growing wheat and corn. The door across from it had a plaque reading 'Wet Grains', signaling the growing of rice and other vegetation that required marshy conditions. A woman emerged from the Dry Grains room, and the man spotted a prairie dragon inside busily fanning the stalks with her wings.
“Oh, hello, Governor,” said the woman in a British accent, startled that someone was outside the door. “Pleasant day, isn’t it?” she said, rushing down the hallway without waiting for an answer, hurriedly scribbling notes on a clipboard.
“Prairie dragons are just so industrious!” said the satyr approvingly.
A bit further along were plaques indicating the raising of small food animals, as well as rooms labeled for the processing of the food.
As they walked down the subtly curving, sloping corridor, they reached a large cargo elevator at the end of the corridor, marked with the number 127. The elevator doors were open, and they both entered, choosing different floors. The satyr chose floor 52, while the man chose LL1. The doors closed slowly, and the elevator began its descent at an extremely slow speed.
“I will await the communications in my office,” the man said.
“Very good, sir,” the satyr replied. “I will notify the other council members, then I need to head to GeoThermal. A new generator was just retrieved from the ocean floor by the sea dragons, and I need to verify that it is the correct one.”
The man laughed, “If it isn’t, how do you propose to return it? It technically didn’t exist on the cargo freighter that ‘accidentally’ dropped it overboard en route to their destination; and I don’t think that our money can be returned since the transaction ‘never happened.’”
The satyr made a face. “Still. One needs to stay on top of these things. Our energy use is climbing and without the extra capacity, operations will suffer. If the wrong model was sent, steps will have to be taken.”
The man was shaking his head humorously. “You’re too much, my friend. The supplier has never let us down. Don’t start getting itchy for kneecapping someone just yet.”
The satyr chuckled. “Violence isn’t in my nature --”
The man sputtered in disbelief of what he had just heard.
“Casting aspersions?” The satyr laughed, “Who is the one hiding at the bottom of the ocean so that Bahamut can’t find him? Hmmm?”
The man laughed. “I do miss the surface sometimes. It’s been about 200 years since we left Constantinople --”
“It’s called Istanbul now,” the satyr interjected.
“-- to handle that pesky Chosen invasion attempt,” he finished.
“And it ended up being finished by your father and the other Elders on Eroka. Sending that contingent of black dragons through the Chosen’s portal was a stroke of genius,” The satyr said admiringly.
The man had a look of disdain. “Luck, more likely. To this day, I wonder how they were prepared for the portal’s opening.”
“What does it matter? The Chosen were crushed,” the satyr said.
“But Tané escaped through,” the man said, “After taking the head of my grandson.”
“She was separated from her dragon thanks to your rage at that murder. That’s a guaranteed death. A slow, agonizing death. For both of them.”
“Not for her, I wager,” the man said. “Eroka is extraordinarily dangerous for dragons, it’s instantly lethal for a puny human. I doubt she survived the plummet from the portal to the ground without her dragon to fly her down.”
“I wonder how long it took for him to die,” the satyr mused.
“When we separated, we were both on the verge of death,” the man said, rubbing his chest where there were missing ribs over his heart. “Even though he was a Great Dragon, without his mate, his death was assured.”
“If he hadn’t been a Great Dragon, he could have never defeated your grandson, much less a powerful mage such as yourself,” the satyr confidently opined.
“Powerful mage? So it was you that started that rumor?” the man asked.
The satyr bowed with a flourish. “At your service.”
“I always wondered about that, but never had the inclination to waste the effort to look into it. I’m not a ‘mage’ and have no ‘magic.’ I simply have a talent for collecting and controlling the energies of this planet, the same as many others,” the man explained.
“Yes, that is so. But look at how many conflicts that rumor prevented over all those centuries,” the satyr smirked.
The elevator stopped and the Satyr departed.
---
It only took 30 minutes for all of the indicators above each of the speakers to light up.
“Thank you all for getting in contact with me so quickly,” he started.
“I am not pleased to have my morning routine disrupted. I was forced to come here without grooming,” said an angry female voice from the speaker labeled ‘Australia’.
“I apologize, madam,” said the man.
“Aha! So now we know that one of us is a woman,” said a male voice from the speaker labeled ‘Asia’.
“Oh, that’s right,” the man said. “After all of this time, I had forgotten that you people only hear scrambled voices and have no idea who each other are.”
“Oh, we have our suspicions,” said another male voice from Africa, “And now we have another clue.”
“However, we don’t know from which region our esteemed female colleague hails,” said a sultry voice from South America.
“Enough with the guessing games,” the man said, “The Renewal has started.”
“Is that so?” came responses from several speakers.
“Yes, we have confirmation that the pair for Australia have met, and that another happened shortly after. Though we do not have a location for that one.”
“It was here,” said the African speaker.
“You’re sure?” The man asked.
“Positive. Steps are already in motion,” Africa said.
“For the others, the second is in Africa,” the man announced. “As a reminder, a bounty of two million US dollars is offered for the termination of any member of the pairing. Three million for the termination of both.”
“I have a client offering 50 million US dollars for the live capture and delivery of the human member, and 100 million US dollars for the live capture and delivery of the dragon. Each,” the Australian speaker said.
“This is rather irregular,” the man said, almost divulging the offerer by ending with ‘Madam,’ again, “Council policy has always been the termination of at least one of the pair members.”
“I assure you that the human member will not live long after delivery,” the Australian speaker said. “The client just needs to verify some theories while the specimen is still alive. Afterward, the corpse will be of great scientific use.”
“I see,” said the man. “Then, the Council will act as an intermediary if any would like to take on the offer. As usual, each of you are responsible for your region, but all may attempt operations anywhere they please. This office will forward any received information about this matter to everyone here. That will be all.”
The lights rapidly went out except for Africa.
“I would like to submit my notice that the African contingent will accept the capture offer,” the voice said before the light extinguished.
The man sat for a few minutes gathering his thoughts. “So what’s that woman up to now?” he mused before slapping the intercom button.
“Yes, sir?” came the Satyr’s voice over the phone’s speakers.
“Make sure that all intel on this gets forwarded to each region. Also, a rather large live capture bounty has been offered. Make sure to collect the bounty prize money and put it into escrow. We will be the intermediary.”
“Is that wise? Capturing dragons is dangerous business,” the Satyr said.
The man smiled. “I’m fully aware of that.”
The satyr chuckled at the irony of the statement. “As you wish.”