The sky was brilliant blue and sunlight filtered through the trees and splashed across the windows of the autonomous. Celeste smiled as she watched the hillside villas glide past. It had been a dizzying few months; the school was already showing the level of results she had expected; she had been asked to address the governor’s commission on education; she was getting noticed by media; and she had fallen into the Marked Action Committee, a group suggested to her by her Telmara account. She felt very at home among influential business people who shared the marker.
Celeste did not like to throw her weight around but she felt like it was her duty to focus MAC’s attention beyond their boutique wineries toward the county’s pressing issues: the slums that had sprung-up along the shoreline had to be cleaned-up—the county couldn’t allow abandoned homes to attract undesirables; and the public school system needed to get with the program—if The Woodley School worked in one trial, it would work in others.
There were important things to be done. A way of life needed to be preserved, she had told them. The group of them had laughed and pointed their wine goblets in her direction. “You’re the one to do it,” someone said, and then they cheered and toasted her. “Don’t be so smug,” she had jokingly fired-back. “I’m making all of you work with me on this.”
Now her autonomous wound its way along a levee road leading to the compound’s main gate. “Go up and meet him,” her friend had said. “If you want to accomplish anything, you need him on your side.” The auton passed through the gate and climbed a moderately steep road to the crest of the island. From there, it followed a lane through the manicured gardens and stopped in front of a tall portico. Celeste stepped out.
“Do you have mud shoes with you?” came the question from behind her. Celeste turned to see Kellogg trundling across the lawn toward her, then looked down at her Italian pumps. “The grass is a little damp from the fog, last night” he continued. “It’s such a beautiful day I wanted to show you around the art. Come with me.”
He led Celeste toward a hillock which, as they neared it, revealed a ten-foot-wide incision into its heart. The incision led to a brutalist modern library with windows overlooking Sausalito and the Golden Gate Bridge. Celeste was dumbstruck for a moment. Seeing her expression, Kellogg chortled. “This is my office… and where I keep the spare shoes.”
He found her a comfortable pair and together they walked down a path. “You seem to be an energetic type,” Kellogg offered. “In a short period of time, you’ve accomplished quite a lot—the school, the commissions, and some very effective fundraising.”
Celeste smiled. “I’m inspired by where we live. Someone needs to care for it. I’ve always been a doer.” They had followed the path down a gentle slope to a glade, in the middle of which sat a 50-ton rusted steel cube. Celeste stopped in her tracks. “Why it’s beautiful. It’s like nature made the space for it.”
Kellogg grinned. “I worked with the artist to find the site, plot the path of the sun. He’s a Spanish artist. I always admired Serra and probably would have bought one of his pieces. Instead, I chose this up-and-comer because I wanted something custom to the site.”
“Well done.”
“Thank you,” he said with a nod of his head. “There’s more.” A hundred paces farther, they came upon a stainless steel and stained glass tower amid the trees. It stood tall and strong and colorful in abstract impersonation of the adjacent redwoods. He turned to Celeste as she looked up at the structure, “What’s next, Celeste? A busy person like you gets bored without a challenge.”
“I’m considering running for county government. It needs new thinking. I could bring that and bring others with me.” Consciously, she fingered the pin on her jacket lapel. “If I run, I’d like to have your support.”
“I’m impressed by what you’ve done. I looked closely at how you sidestepped the school board and built your academy. I think you might be able to shake up the sleepy attitudes, here in the county. But why just this county? If you could multiply the influence you’ve wielded here, you could redirect Marked families across the country.” He reached out and took Celeste’s arm. “Come. We’ll continue our conversation over tea in the Rothko Cottage. Would you consider my thoughts on your candidacy?”
Celeste smiled. “As if you need to ask.” For a moment, she entertained thoughts of Lucius Kellogg backing her in a bid for national office, then reined herself in.
Kellogg led her across the lawn to a modernist block of a building with three walls of floor-to-ceiling glass overlooking Angel Island and San Francisco. To call it a cottage was a complete misnomer; it was stark and bold, not at all cozy. Inside, on the single concrete wall that anchored the glass cube, hung three Mark Rothko paintings. Kellogg led Celeste into the large main room and excused himself to heat water for tea.
When he returned, he saw Celeste reverently entranced by the blocks of color. “They stir your emotions, don’t they?” he observed. “They transcend intellectualism and reach directly into your soul.”
Celeste remained fixated on the paintings. “I’ve only seen them in museums.”
Kellogg chuckled. “You might be able to tell that I don’t enjoy art in the company of the multitudes.” He handed a hot cup of tea to Celeste. “Do you like milk?”
“No I’m fine without.”
Kellogg took a sip from his cup. “I looked at Rothko’s work for quite a long time before I realized what it had found in my soul.”
For the first time since she had entered the room, Celeste looked away from the art to her host.
“Nearly every piece tells the story—the struggle—of humanity: the division, the separation of a whole into factions; the rising of one over the other or others; the messy, uneven borderline in-between, where factions cooperate or confront each other. Each field of color has richness and vibrancy; not pure color by any means, but a vibrant blend of complimentary hues that make it stand out against contrasting fields.”
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Celeste considered this description, and her response. He had revealed something of himself, and she was wary of reaching a conclusion that might offend him. “You sound like an art major, Mr. Kellogg.”
Kellogg motioned to a pair of bright red Womb Chairs, “Sit down, Celeste. I have some thoughts on your candidacy.”
Celeste smiled, eased herself into the embrace of the chair, and looked with anticipation at Kellogg, who was flanked on one side by a panoramic view of some of the most valuable land in the country and, on the other, by three priceless masterworks.
“As I said earlier, I have watched your string of achievements. I have also observed your reactions today. I think you would make an impressive county supervisor.”
Celeste let the compliment distract her for just a moment. “Thank you, Mr. Kellogg.”
“But I do not think you should run.”
“How so?”
“Politics is part theater, part tic-tac-toe. Any advantage is momentary and two players with any intelligence will always play to a draw. As a result, nothing of substance is ever achieved by government.”
“But I can’t just…”
He held up his hand. “Hear me out. What impressed me about you is that you accomplished quite a bit while staying in the background. You had the idea, then got everyone else to do the heavy lifting. And, when you needed to, you hurdled the bureaucracy. No, Celeste, why waste your skills as one voice in a roomful of politicians? What could you accomplish? You might get a few sidewalks built or send some squatters running to another part of the country. I wasn’t giving idle commentary earlier when I said that you could change the nation if you could replicate your influence here. Wouldn’t you like to see The Woodley School thrive on a national scale?”
Celeste’s chest tightened. It was exactly what she wanted. “I had thought about that. As a County Supervisor, I wanted to use The Woodley School as a model for public education.”
“Forget the public schools, Celeste. Don’t waste your time. Focus on people who can throw any amount of money your way in order to get their child into a prestigious university. Your model for education could transform the next generation of leadership—I mean business, research, national security—all of it could focus on leveraging the intelligence of an ancient, advanced civilization. The Woodley School could easily become a nationwide private institution. I’d begin with a campus in Alexandria, then dot the landscape from New York City up to Boston.”
Celeste stammered, “That would be a dream, but even I never thought of an institution on that scale. Just the financing alone…”
Kellogg guffawed. “Come Celeste, you know you aren’t the timid type. I would not be talking to you if I weren’t prepared to seed your expansion. Imagine being personally responsible for creating the next generation of leaders, all with the genetic variant you share in your DNA.”
Celeste imagined herself in an auditorium, gazing out over an expanse of young geniuses—all of them in her image of a perfect community.
Kellogg calmly observed the spinning of Celeste’s planets. “I’ll have someone at my Marked venture firm, Twin Sisters, contact you.”
...
Patrick sat down in a swivel chair opposite the Administrator’s desk. “Go right in,” his assistant had said. “He’ll be with you in a second.” While he waited, Patrick took in the view over the trees toward the Pacific. To be honest, the view wasn’t particularly attractive; the hills to the west were plastered with tiny, suburban, cookie-cutter houses that became more and more expensive as they neared the high sea level mark; but the view was considered scenic according to the Southern California aesthetic. Patrick preferred his view through the trees in Pasadena. Sharp came in and sat at his desk. “What did you want to see me about?”
Patrick swiveled, “I’ve been thinking about the crew selection for the next mission.”
Sharp parried, “I think we’re close to the final line-up.”
“Nasri?”
“She’s not on it, although I know she’d like to be. The whole crew is Marked. Any one of them will be able to use the headpieces.”
Patrick looked earnestly across the desk at Sharp. “That’s the reason I’m here. I’m worried. How do we know? We’re assuming that the headpieces work on Nasri because she’s Marked.”
“It’s a good assumption. We pretty much proved it with Dunlap and Colin.”
“But what if it wasn’t because she is Marked? What if there was some other factor that makes the stones work for her and no one else? It’s weird, but what if she’s some special bloodline that goes back in Martian history?”
“You mean… John Carter?” Sharp blurted in mock surprise, then, cynically, “You know you’re blowing it out your butt, Pat.”
“But that’s my point. It is far-fetched, but a couple of years ago, finding a civilization on Mars was far-fetched.”
“The mission we’ve defined is the next logical step. Chances are, everything will work as planned. We’ll still end up with a permanent base on Mars.”
“But think of the difference. One scenario, without Nasri, we seal and pressurize and set-up life support and CO2 conversion. The other scenario, with Nasri, we have a chance at restarting the city infrastructure. Who knows what she might be able to do? There’s a power source we could tap into. The Martians had oxygen generation efficient enough to fill the city with air. If she could start that, we could inhabit the entire space, not just a few connected rooms. Oh, and there’s a third scenario: we send a crew all the way to Mars and Mr. Avatar doesn’t make an appearance for them; and they aren’t able to figure out how the city worked or what the rest of the civilization was like. That would be embarrassing when the next budget cycle starts. NASA might want to put Nasri on the next mission—as a safety net.”
“She’d be an outlier—not part of the unit.”
“Her best value is not being part of the unit. She should be out on her own, chasing down leads that only she has the background to follow. And if it turns out that the whole crew can use the headpieces, so much the better. But if they can’t…” Patrick shrugged.
“No one’s ever flown two missions in sequence. The radiation. She’d probably never fly again.”
“I think she’d take that risk.”
Sharp scowled at him. “Get out of here, Pat. Stop thinking.”
Patrick left the office. He had achieved what he set out to achieve. Sharp never would have thought of the possibility that Nasri held a special key to the City. He would have plowed ahead following the logic that Marked equals being able to use the headpiece. Patrick grinned, Z was getting through to him: NASA wasn’t dealing with rocks from another planet, but with an ancient, advanced civilization. Hopefully, that would open the door for Z to join the mission. Unfortunately, he didn’t feel so great about sending Z away.