14 - Trouble in Paradise

“How the hell did North Korea get its hands on a nuclear bomb?” Christina sat down, satisfied at this telling contribution to how they were going to sort this mess out.

“Actually Christina,” The Orb said, “North Korea’s nuclear capability is not a mystery to the intelligence services of the major military powers. They have even tested underwater delivery systems. The question is: how are they going to mask the fact that they put it there?’”

“I don’t understand,” Gail said. “Surely a nuclear explosion would remove all trace of any evidence?”

“Yes and no. A nuclear device carries many signatures after it detonates. Most detectible is the abundance of lead isotopes which, if correctly analyzed, can trace the origin of the material used to make the fission container. So whilst such an explosion would undoubtedly remove all evidence of the device’s journey to its point of detonation, the actual detonation releases a new set of evidence. This is, admittedly much harder to detect and analyze. But certainly the government of the United States of America has the ability, and so does The People’s Republic of China.”

“You can just call them the USA and China,” Nathan said.

“Yes, of course. My apologies, on Orbic we are used formal titles. I will try to be more succinct in the future. The point is that North Korea does not need to worry about masking the signature of the bomb, since it is not one of theirs.”

“It isn’t?” Christina said. “Please don’t tell me this is going to be a case of ‘One of Our Nukes is Missing’?”

“You are not far wrong,” The Orb said. “In the USA’s history of manufacturing nuclear weapons, they are all accounted for, except one.”

Christina groaned, and slapped her forehead.

“How did we lose a nuclear bomb?” Gail said.

The ‘we’ wasn’t lost on Christina. She wondered if, as the only one hundred percent American at the table, Gail felt protective about her homeland’s nuclear possessions.

The Orb rose, and the table glowed as a series of black and white pictures appeared. One showed the wing of a plane, which was plainly not right; a single jet engine hung at an appalling angle, and the whole wing itself seemed to sag as if designed to tilt, which Christina assumed it wasn’t. Another photo showed a man holding a military-style flying helmet. “I guess that’s the pilot,” she said.

“Yes,” The Orb replied. “Colonel Howard Richardson, United States Air Force. This picture was taken in 1958, shortly after he landed his damaged aircraft. It had collided with a US fighter off America’s east coast. Colonel Richardson was only able to make it back to land because he ejected the Mark 15 nuclear bomb he was carrying into the sea. It is a well documented incident, but the bomb was never recovered despite extensive searches. However what is not known is that the bomb was recovered by North Korea within twenty four hours of being ditched, and they have been using it as a template for their nuclear program ever since. Now, for various reasons, the North Korea government has decided to employ the weapon in this desperate tactic.”

“Desperate?” Gail said. “You’re implying that something has changed in North Korea?”

“Very perceptive Gail. North Korea has been the subject of trade embargoes by the US and EU for many years. This has gradually strangled a country that was already isolationist to begin with. Now the standard of living has dropped to a level that natural forces, for example severe winters brought on by global warming, cause millions of people to starve. The government, despite putting on a stoic face both to the West and its Chinese cousin, cannot stay in power indefinitely. Sooner or later the population will revolt, and those in power fear this more than they fear the West. This plan has been hatching for some years, whilst the USA’s military and intelligence forces have been focused elsewhere. Despite warnings from South Korea, which keeps a close eye on its neighbor, the USA has been happy to let North Korea wait until it has more time to deal with the problem. But time has run out, for North Korea’s leadership is desperate. It is their opinion, and I calculate they have an eighty-four percent chance of being right, that with China and the USA fully engaged in conflict, they can invade South Korea unopposed and subsume its natural resources, technology, and population under a benevolent dictatorship.”

“Benevolent, meaning terrifying?” Nathan asked.

“Not at all. Do not make the mistake of believing that the North Koreans are stupid. They may not be as technologically advanced as the West, but they are clever and good at planning. They know the value of South Korea. They know that its people will not submit to an absolute dictatorship, and also that their own people cannot be immediately mixed with the South’s population. So they are planning to create a partitioned country, along the lines of what China did when Hong Kong was returned to them by the United Kingdom. Gradually, over a number of years, the two populations will be mixed back together. It will be similar to what happened when East and West Germany were reunified.”

Nathan leaned back with his hands clasped tightly. “So we have to avert what looks like becoming a Third World War.”

Christina was about to call for a reality check when her phone beeped to tell her she’d received a text. She’d assumed that underground in the Cavern the cell reception would be about as bad as it was at school (i.e., terrible). But when she fished her phone out of her jacket she discovered that she not only had full signal, but the elusive ‘+’ sign indicated that she could stream high-speed, UHD video.

The Orb anticipated her question. “I have installed antennas running to the surface through natural fissures in the rock strata. They will not appear on any detection system known to your world’s level of technology, and your phones’ signals cannot be traced to this location. As far as the network providers are concerned, you are at Nathan’s house.”

The text was from Christina’s mother, who wanted to know if she was coming home for dinner. As if word-triggered, her stomach announced its vacant state. 

“I guess that’s lunch,” Nathan said. 

Christina looked around, more in hope than expectation. The Cavern, despite containing several interesting but unrecognizable devices, didn’t have anything resembling a kitchen. Perhaps she was going to have to eat the emergency pack of (urgh) dried fruit that her father made her keep in her jacket for just such an emergency. Well, not exactly just such an emergency. He had presumably never anticipated her being hungry two kilometers underground, in an alien’s lair.

“Nathan has been educating me on the style and requirements of food for your age group,” The Orb said.

“Yessss.” Christina leaned forward.

“Will pizza and soft drinks suffice?” 

“Right on,” Christina said. “But just milk for me please, ice cold if possible.”

Christina looked at Gail, who was grinning broadly.

“What?” Christina asked defensively.

“Nothing.” Gail’s smile widened further.

Suddenly Christina was aware of the most deliciously familiar smell: baked dough, simmered tomatoes, and melting cheese. She felt something by her right elbow, and almost jumped out of her seat as she looked down and saw a large tray next to her. It contained three large, variety pizza slices, a can of Coke, a bottle of water, and a glass of milk with drops of moisture giving an indication of its drinking temperature. But what amazed her more than the fastest pizza delivery on the planet, was the fact that under the tray there was nothing at all. She bent down to check, being careful not to knock off the tray’s scrumptious contents. Nope, it was just floating there. She pushed down on the tray lightly. It gave a little, then stopped and returned to the level when she took her finger off it. “Magic carpet tray?” she asked The Orb.

“Anti-gravity system,” it said matter-of-factly.

“Right.” Christina helped herself to the Hawaiian pizza, which she knew was hers since neither Gail nor Nathan could stand cooked pineapple. Without waiting for the others, she took a large bite. “Mmmmmm.” She closed her eyes in appreciation. The Orb was an alien from another planet, who could do unbelievable things and, in addition, could bake a mean pizza. It would make someone a great husband one day. She grabbed her milk, and the tray moved off to serve the others. Once empty, it zoomed away into the darkness. None of them spoke as they ate. 

After eating his pizza, and wiping sauce from the corners of his mouth, Nathan drank some water and looked around. “So, back to the plan.” He looked at The Orb. “I assume that you have some sort of stealth strike in mind. Lasering the bomb from orbit, or something equally James Bond?”

“That would work, however the United States already has an orbiting laser capable of cutting through to the bomb’s depth. And China already has a system sensitive enough to detect it. So it is probable that this would lead to an escalation of tensions, even to possible war between them.”

“What about tunneling underneath it from here?” Gail said.

“The distance between here and PyeongChang is considerable. By my calculations, even if I started now the time required to complete tunneling would miss the scheduled firing time by approximately one days and nine hours.”

“Damn,” Nathan said. “So you can’t hit it from above, and you can’t get it from below. Where does that leave us?”

The Orb chimed a chord that made Christina’s toes tingle pleasantly. 

“Fortunately,” it said, “the bomb’s tunnel is only one hundred and fifteen meters from the surface. I believe the option with the greatest chance of success is for waldos to excavate down to the tunnel. Once there, they can remove the bomb and transport it to the surface for onward transmission.”

“What’s a waldo?” Christina whispered to Nathan. He shook his head slightly. 

The Orb said, “You might consider it an extension of me. Except much smaller, and more maneuverable.” 

“Oh, ok then.” Christina said, with more confidence than she felt. 

 “A percentage of the waldos would remain behind as explosive devices.” The Orb rotated in Nathan’s direction. “Once the bomb has been removed from the area, Nathan will activate the explosive waldos. Their detonation will destroy the entire tunnel and make the mined shaft look like a sink hole. This will cover up their entry, and preclude any investigation by either North or South Korea.”

“Why do I need to activate the explosives?” Nathan asked.

“An act of willful destruction, not related to self defense or the protection of one of this team, is something that I am precluded from doing,” The Orb replied. “The bomb will need to come to the site above my Cavern. Once there, I will dispose of it.”

“How?” Nathan asked. “It’s not like you can flush it down the toilet.”

“I will use a gravitational slingshot to send the bomb into a descending solar trajectory,” The Orb replied nonchalantly. “It will be consumed by the sun’s corona. You may be interested to know that this will have the added benefit of extending your sun’s lifespan by a nanosecond.”

“Oh,” Nathan said. “And that needs to happen here?”

“Yes,” The Orb replied. “Only here can I generate enough energy to send an object of that mass out of the Earth’s gravity.”

“I guess if you think about it, it’s kind of like sending it home.” Nathan smiled, and so did Gail.

For Christina this was still too surreal. She looked at her friends, at the faces she knew so well. Nathan’s she had known forever it seemed. His cute (yes, she thought of him as ‘cute’) face, teetered on becoming the man he would transform into: the furrowed brow; the eyes so bright that some girl, some day, would fall into them and be happy to drown there for the rest of her life. Then Gail, whom she felt like she had known for several lifetimes. The person she would want behind her in the trust test, where you toppled backwards believing that your partner wouldn’t let you crash to the floor.

Perhaps, Christina decided, being part of a team with your best friends, aided by an alien Orb with God-like powers, trying to prevent a world crisis, was one kick-a*s way to close-out your teenage years. Still, she knew that even in football matches strategy was a fluid concept. “Do we have a backup plan in case this doesn’t work?” 

The Orb jiggled. “I calculate that this plan is the only viable option with any chance of success,” it said evasively. 

Gail said, “The waldos mean we can do this without anyone dying, right?”

To be fair, The Orb didn’t try to sugar-coat it. “I estimate that casualties will be less than one hundred people. These will be from the scientific and military teams working on the bomb. Many will be executed following the loss of the bomb, and the tunnel’s detonation. The North Korean government will not tolerate failure and will react accordingly, not least because it will suspect sabotage. I am sorry, I wish I could say that it will not happen, but I believe that it is inevitable.”

Gail stood up with her fists balled. “I am not,” she said with real spite, “good with that. Wipe my memory and find someone else if you want, but I’m not going along with it.”

          *************

“What do you mean you can’t agree with the plan?” Christina scowled at Gail, who she thought was being obtuse.

Gail stood up and backed away. “I…I don’t want anyone to die because of me.”

Christina stood too, and advanced towards Gail holding her hand out. “Look, I understand that. None of us wants anyone to die, but what choice do we have? We can’t let North Korea detonate a nuclear bomb and kill millions of people.”

Gail started to cry. 

• “Oh for heaven’s sake!” Something Christina’s mother had said sprouted in her memory, “Once the words are out of your mouth, you can’t take them back young lady.” The memory wilted as Christina remembered that this had been promoted by her calling her mother a troll after getting grounded. She still didn’t understand why staying out past curfew, to party with a couple of boys from the football team, was a ground-able offense. She slinked further forward, fully extending her arm. Gail pushed it away.

“You don’t understand.” Gail’s voice hiccuped in-between sobs. 

They were in one of the Cavern’s extension caves. The Orb had called the caves ‘private areas’, and assured them that they were sound-proof. Christina hoped this was true, since what was going on here was not anything she wanted washed in public; even if the ‘public’ in question was only Nathan and The Orb. She could feel anger rising inside her. Action was what was needed. Doing things, making a strategy then executing it. This was part of her sporting life, and she did it automatically most of the time, always looking for a way to win. Sometimes she lost of course; it was part of the game, what made it exciting. The mantra ‘no pain, no gain’ was something she understood, it raised her up. Sacrifice was not optional, it was what you had to risk in order to achieve what you wanted. If a hundred people had to be sacrificed to save a million, that was a factor she could live with. She would have no problem looking at her reflection in the mirror, and knowing that she had done the right thing.

Christina retreated and sat back on one of the two beds that extruded from the cave’s wall. The bed’s surface was covered in what looked like tiny nails. She touched one. It felt hard and cold, like something you’d hammer into a wall to hang that crass family portrait on. Yet the first time she’d sat on the bed she’d squirmed and giggled. It was more comfortable than the bed she’d slept in when her parents had taken her to a fine, Italian villa: all cushions, velvet and ornate bathrooms. Now she wished she could transport herself and Gail there. Have some wine, some relaxing food, and perhaps a night-swim in the infinity pool. 

Gail was leaving.

“Wait,” Christina yelled. “Look I’m sorry. Please can we talk this over?”

Gail turned. 

Tears were running down each side of Gail’s nose. Christina fought the urge to walk over and wipe them. Gail walked back to stand in front of her. Even sitting down, Christina only had to incline her head slightly to look into Gail’s swimming eyes.

“You don’t want to talk,” Gail said accusingly. “You want to kill. You agreed to this plan without thinking about the people who’ll die because of it.”

“Might die, not will. We don’t know for certain�"“

Gail’s hand chopped down. “You know as well as I do what their chances are. Their government will have their heads, possibly literally. You can’t believe there’s a chance they’ll survive?”

Christina found nothing interesting to study on the wall opposite her, so moved to picking that unidentified black substance under thumbnail. 

“Well?” Gail moved her legs apart, and folded her arms. 

“They might get out with a jail sentence,” Christina mumbled.

“Riiiight, and that’s your justification for going along with this?”

Christina stood up. The lights in the cave brightened to eradicate the shadow she had begun to cast over Gail. Christina put both hands on the sides of Gail’s crossed arms. Her touch pinged a static charge, as if joy had flicked a switch in her heart. “Can’t we agree to disagree?”

Gail flinched back. “You uncaring b***h,” she shouted.

Christina’s mouth dropped open. Not in the ‘OMG’ sense, but in a way that left her soul free to vacate the premises should it so desire. Her passion rose like a shield to defend her. She slapped Gail.

The sound her palm made on Gail’s face was bitter, as if Christina’s skin disapproved of her reaction. The cave’s acoustics conspired against her, and the snap of impact sounded like a stick fractured over a bent knee. Christina stared at her hand, which hung in mid-air like a child caught stealing from a candy shop, hand half-way from a bulging pocket. She looked up and saw a sad, scarlet welt appear on the left side of Gail’s face. 

“I’m so sorry,” Christina said, her voice dripping with remorse. “I wish I could take it back, I do. Please believe me.” Gail stared at her. Christina saw in her friend’s eyes the disbelief she felt in herself. How could she hit the one person she wanted to protect? What had this situation done to her? 

Gail’s hand came up to her face at a funereal pace. She touched the impact zone tentatively with one finger, as if testing for an internal injury. “I thought you were someone different.” Gail paused as if the pain of contact was just reaching her. A fresh tear slid down her face. “I think I hate you right now.” 

Gail could not have cleaved Christina’s heart more readily than if she had wielded Excalibur and riven it. Those words oozed a poison designed to wither Christina’s feelings and fertilize another emotion, something anti-love. For Gail to imply that Christina was some two-faced chameleon, who might not care about anything, was more than she could bear. “Who do you think I am?” Christina forced each syllable out with effort.

Gail removed her finger from her face, revealing the hand-shaped welt now fully formed there. “I’m leaving now. If you want to be responsible for the death of those people, you go right ahead. I won’t be a part of it.” She rubbed her eyes, looked at the dampness on the tops of her hands then wiped them on her alabaster sweater.

Christina felt that she was losing something vital to her being. She could feel Gail slipping away, like a captain on the deck of a docked ship being pulled by a tsunami out to sea; futile to resist the inexorable tug of the ocean, watching the mooring ropes ping apart strand by strand. This was not part of the plan. She, Christina Jensen, was not bad and Gail was her special friend, her…her vital part… s**t what was she? Could she move into that dark, spectral house and flood light into it? Scare off the demons who laughed at her every time she dreamt about Gail. “Who’d want to be with a towering lummox like you?” they’d shout from behind shuttered windows. Christina would shake her fist at them, but that only made them chortle louder. It was time to storm that fortress.

Christina took a deep breath. “You can’t hate me, because I l-“

Gail punched her.

Probably she’d aimed at Christina’s nose but, like a boxer with bad timing, had connected embarrassingly too low. Christina felt the force as Gail’s petite knuckles connect squarely with her jaw through the insufficient protection of her skin. 

“Ow!” Christina yelped, and instinctively brought her hand up to rub the sore heat suddenly radiating out. She imagined her chin having a Gail’s fist-shaped dent in it. But that wasn’t the end of it. What Christina had thought was a sole retaliation turned out to be the beginning of a full assault. Gail kicked her in her left shin, which felt like a hot poker had been lanced on the front of her leg. 

“Stop, please,” Christina said, as she hopped on one leg. Gail pushed her. She timbered back onto the bed, which soaked up the impact with quiet industry. She looked up at Gail, who had her fists raised in what Christina recognized as a good replica of a boxing stance. 

“Stand up and fight,” Gail screamed. “I’ll take you down. I’m not scared of you.”

Christina held up her hand and scooched back towards the wall. The closest Gail would come to taking her down would be to jump on her back and then push against the ceiling. Christina had kilos, centimeters and a brown belt in judo on her friend. That was game, set, and match.

“Calm down.” Christina recognized a ‘seeing red’ scenario when she saw one. She’d had them herself at times during matches, but was always able to re-channel the anger into her game, it helped fuel her. She was a natural target for the opposition, so she anticipated it and dealt with it. The best way to get even was to win. But this she had not predicted: this contention, this disharmony. There was no winning solution here. Christina saw it in Gail’s face; the red mist turning into a molten rain. Gail’s eyebrows furrowed like a bridge collapsing in the middle, and the sides of her mouth stretched as if elastic were pulling them from each side. She’s going to really lose it now, Christina thought. Gail’s fists bunched, and her posture went rigid like a cat ready to pounce. 

Christina realized that drastic action was called for; a preemptive strike, a disarming tactic. There was only one thing for it. She moved fast, using muscles conditioned by training and reflexes that could not be bought. With one movement she was through Gail’s defenses, barging stiff arms with shoulders broad enough to carry the weight of feelings beguiled since she had first seen Gail. 

Christina grabbed both sides of Gail’s head; too roughly, but the situation did not call for deftness. This was an ‘all hands to battle stations’ emergency. Before she could think, since thinking before doing was not one of her strongpoints, she kissed Gail. It was a sloppy kiss as kisses went. She was off target, but she made sure to keep her tongue firmly out of the discussion. Still it felt joyous, like the first taste of some long-promised dainty whose sweetness surpassed expectations; a delicious sugar-rush of mother’s milk mixed with candy-floss. But, like the subsequent trip to the dentist, the pleasure was rinsed away as Gail pulled back, and Christina saw a mixture of shock and denial in her face.

“H…how dare you!” Gail’s hand wiped her lips, as if awful slime had been smeared there. 

Christina, who wanted nothing more than to repeat the exercise with more accurate contemplation, tried to smile. In her mind this came out as, look baby, I’ve wanted to do that for ages and now seemed like as good a time as any. This was done in a cool manner, like Bogart delivering a line. The affect on Gail, sadly, appeared to be more Terminator than Casablanca.

Christina said, “Errr…” She realized this did not sum up how she felt. Gail, she supposed, had been raised to be a ‘proper lady’ in the Labradoodle environs of Boston’s suburbs. Whereas Christina, whose parents really had given her too much free reign (although to be fair she hadn’t given them much choice), was quite receptive to feelings that varied from the norm. She wasn’t normal, not physically, not outwardly. So it seemed quite natural to her that she might not conform inside either. She had reconciled this after Gail Knitter had strayed into her heart. Perhaps this wasn’t the time to get into this after all. “Sorry, it just sort of slipped out,” she said, as if she’d burped at a dinner party. 

Gail blushed, which meant that the undamaged side of her face now matched its twin. Then she turned and stormed out of the cave.

It felt like the air, in sympathy with Gail, had decided to leave a vacuum for Christina to contemplate. She stared at the spot Gail had vacated, caught between action and inaction like a metro passenger eyeing a bank note lying tantalizingly beyond long-open doors. She moved forward, stopped, started again, then finally stopped. She had nothing to say, nothing to defend herself with. This was an argument she could not win. 

Damn cats, she thought, why can’t they stay in their bags?