Adopted Son (22 page)

Dear Mr. Miller,

Although your academic qualifications are indeed excellent, we regret that we cannot accept you at this time. Please understand that Georgetown University receives far more applications than there are slots available, and many candidates with impressive credentials must be turned down. We wish you luck in your academic career and appreciate you considering Georgetown University.

Sincerely,

Anna Chong,

Admissions Director

Tom was headed back to the house for lunch when he spotted his son standing by the road, kicking the mailbox post furiously. His heart saddened a little because he understood what that behavior symbolized. He veered off course and came down the driveway to meet his son. “You snap that thing I’m gonna make you dig a new post hole,” he said lightheartedly. It was a joke really. The mailbox post was a four by four. There was no way that Jim’s anemic little legs could have even chipped the paint.

“It’s not fair Dad. It’s totally not fair.” He held up the letter from the admissions board.

“Which one is that?” the father said.

“Georgetown. That makes five for five.”

“You know boy, I have to admit, I’m a bit relieved about that one. Do you have any idea how much those fancy private schools cost?” He chuckled, hoping to lighten the mood a little. It didn’t work, Jim went back to pummeling the mailbox post. “Ok, ok, bad joke,” Tom said, grabbing the child’s shoulders to calm him down. “You can’t get too discouraged by this Jim, those schools you’ve picked are all hard to get into. There’s a lot of boys out there that’re a lot more qualified.”

“That’s crap Dad total crap!” shouted the child. “I’m qualified as hell! I got a 1580 on my SATs, I passed all the AP tests. I did everything. And I did it without the help of those morons at Tyler High. But none of that matters. All they care about is this damn HS.” He held out his scrawny arm. He raised his fist as if he was about to swing at his own elbow. He wanted to knock himself out of his own skin, to beat his own genetic structure until he was normal. But he couldn’t hurt his genes, he couldn’t hurt the aliens that did this to him, he couldn’t hurt the scared, inbred bigots that wouldn’t give him a chance. He could only hurt himself, and he was smart enough to see that there was no logic in that. He lowered his fist and burst out crying. He smothered himself into his father’s chest. “It’s not fair, it just ain’t fair,” he could be heard to whisper between the sobs.

Tom rubbed his hand over his son’s bald, rubbery skull. “Crying about it ain’t gonna do one damn bit of good. We’ll find another way. It’ll get worked out.”

“What other way? I can’t go to State. They’ve passed a resolution keeping kids like me out. All I had left was the private schools. I figured that the ones up north wouldn’t be so closed-minded, but I was wrong.”

“Listen son,” Tom said. He grabbed Jim by the shoulders and looked him in the eye. He had to bend over a bit to do it, but this was important. “If I learned one thing from a life of farming, it’s this. There ain’t no one gonna give you nothing. You’ve got to take what you want. Sitting here crying about it ain’t gonna do no good for nobody. If you want to change things then you’re gonna have to get in their face and make them change things. You’ve got to fight your own battles now. Your mother taught you well, you’re smart and strong. You’ve got to come up with a plan. You’ve got to figure out what you want, and then you’ve got to get it. If there are people in your way you’ve got to move them. Don’t take nothing sitting down. That’s what I’ve learned.”

“You don’t like the way things are, then change them. You got a problem getting into school, then do something about it. You got a congressman, write him a letter. Call some TV stations and see if they’ll do a story. There’s probably half a dozen kids in Tyler County with your exact same problem. Find out what they’re doing about it. It’s time to grow up Jim. Grow up and stand up for yourself.”

Jim was strangely refreshed by his father’s words. He had never though of himself as someone who acts, only as someone who is acted upon. But Dad was right. There were things that he could do. He didn’t have to take this lying down. He had stayed out of school and away from town most of his life because he felt small and vulnerable. It was so comforting to be small and vulnerable and helpless. But that wasn’t going to get him anywhere. Tom had read the stories about how other oppressed people struggled to be free. He had always hoped that someday someone would take that struggle up for him. Now he realized that the only one who was going to fight for Jim Miller was Jim Miller himself. A newfound sense of purpose came over him. He dried his tears with his sleeve. “I guess you’re right Dad. I can stand up for myself. I’m not going to let them get away with this.”

“Good. Now clean yourself up a bit.” They started walking up the hill to the farmhouse. “If your Mom sees you like that she’s gonna think I’ve been beating you.” The two Millers chuckled as they made their way towards lunch.

Arecibo Radio Observatory, Puerto Rico. August 6
^th
, 25 years to the day that alien missiles first entered Earth’s atmosphere.

Lights are blinking. That’s all they do here, blink. Day in and day out the large bank of supercomputers sits and processes, waits, listens, and processes. The only outward sign of all this computation was a series of green, blinking lights. Jeff Hanson sits in front of the lights and waits. It is hot today, and even though there is air conditioning to keep the computers from overheating, the heat outside is still subliminally present. Jeff is sweating through his old, blue T-shirt. He has long since regretted his choice of internships. At first he thought that this would be a cool assignment; foreign travel, the chance to find aliens, to play with the most powerful telescope on the planet. But instead it has proved a disappointment. With all of the internal processing, all that happened was that some lights blinked on and off. Soon the summer would be over and he could head back to the States, back to easy access to fast food and the self-indulgent lifestyle of the graduate student. He sighed deeply and looked at his watch. It would be almost three more hours before Dr. Steinman would show up to relieve him. Jeff sat and waited. He fingered the remains of his lunch, looking for any more edible scraps that he might have missed.

At exactly 11:24 am local time, one of the computer banks began to whir and twitch. The blinking green light started to move quickly and in a regular pattern. Jeff had been working at the telescope long enough to know that an unusual data packet was being received. Usually it was just a spurious signal from a satellite or random static, but he had little else to do so he turned on the monitor. It took several seconds to warm up, at first you could hear the static, then slowly the screen grew bright and the channel listing appeared. Jeff scanned down the row of numbers until he found the frequency that was picking something up. It was an unusually bright signal, which meant that it was almost undoubtedly a satellite, random static wasn’t that powerful. He tuned the display to the frequency and examined the waveform on the oscilloscope. It was a very clear signal. He rolled his chair over to another bank of computers and began typing away on the satellite finder. He ran the coordinates of all the known satellites against the position of the telescope. Nothing matched up. Was it a spy satellite? That wouldn’t make sense, since usually stealth satellites didn’t broadcast their location. He swerved the chair back around to the processing bank. The oscilloscope was still vibrating away. Jeff stared at the signal for almost a minute, not knowing what to do. Finally he grabbed his headphones off the table and unplugged them from the cassette deck. With some apprehension he put them over his ears and held the plug up to the oscilloscope’s output port. Although most parts of his mind were telling him that this was probably nothing, some small area cautioned him to take the time to remember this moment exactly. He plugged in the headphones and listened, wide-eyed and slack-jawed.

He listened to the signal over and over again for several minutes. He checked the storage banks to make sure that the channel was being saved to disk. Then he picked up the outmoded black phone that served as Arecibo’s link to the rest of the world. “Dr. Steinman?” Jeff said when someone answered. “I think that you’d better come out here right now.”

That evening, in the Oval Office of the White House, Washington, DC

“...We interrupt this regularly scheduled broadcast to bring you a message from the President of the United States....”

The screen goes blank for a second. It then opens on a wide angle shot of the Oval Office. Sitting at the desk is President Potter. He has a concerned yet reassuring look on his face. Like all politicians he has the rare ability to both import the gravity of a situation while at the same time reducing the viewer’s anxiety. Bill Potter’s been practicing that look in the mirror for years.

The camera closes in on the President. He speaks, “Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I have historic news to bring you today. No doubt you’ve already heard rumors on many newscasts, but I want to give you a straightforward telling of the facts as we now know them.”

“Approximately eight hours ago, researchers at the radio telescope in Arecibo Puerto Rico recorded a signal. In the last several hours, other radio telescopes have been focused on the location and it has been confirmed. The signal is strong and it continues to repeat over and over again. We have ruled out all terrestrial sources of interference, and we must make the preliminary conclusion that the signal is alien in origin.”

“It appears that the signal is coming from a somewhere in the Pleiades Cluster. The repeating message is being broadcast in English, and in a frequency commonly used by Earth radio stations, which strongly suggests that the signal was meant for us and us alone to hear. It is only one sentence long. The message says, and I quote, ‘Prepare children, your Father is coming.’ That is all it says. There have been many rumors spread about, and many people have been going off half-cocked. I can assure you that these are the only words in the message. Currently, scientists are attempting to pinpoint the exact location of origin of the signal, and to determine if further information has been coded into the carrier wave. More details will be forthcoming in several days time.”

“The fact that this signal is being received at this time should not come as much of a surprise to anyone at this juncture. Vice-President Johnston revealed to the world that an apparently alien craft did crash in New Mexico in 1947. The alien HS virus is another indication that alien life was out there somewhere. However, this is a significant day in several respects. For the first time we can confirm that there actually is currently an intelligent presence in outer space that is actively trying to contact us. Second, we finally have a location to focus on. The aliens are from the Pleiades. And third, we know that they are coming. When they arrive, either peacefully or with malice, our world will change. Our lifestyles will change. This is a scary thing to think about, but it is a fact and it must be dealt with in a logical and rational manner.”

“Already, an emergency session of the United Nations is meeting to discuss consequences of this momentous event. The United States will lend full support to any Security Council resolutions on this matter. Second, I am issuing an executive order to double to current level of funding for both military and scientific research. We’ve had the crashed alien craft for a long time now. We will continue to decode its secrets and use the technology we recover to defend ourselves if necessary.” His face became ghoulishly serious all of a sudden. “We look forward to peaceful relations with our alien visitors, but let there be no debate; I speak for all Americans when I say that we will fight an invasion to the last man.”

“Finally, I must plead with you to remain calm at this time. I have received reports from all over the country of panicked people being involved in acts of violence towards sufferers of HS. This is unacceptable. We have a system of laws in this country that is designed to protect all of our citizens, including ones who may carry alien DNA. I urge you to allow the military and the police to handle this problem. Random mob violence will not make the situation better. I empathize with you. I understand your frustration and your feeling of helplessness. I understand how you, you Real Americans, want to do something, anything, to protect this great country of ours. But anarchy in the streets will not help anyone. I urge all of you to return to your homes. I have advised the governors to call out their National Guard units to maintain the peace. Looting, rioting, and other antisocial acts will not be tolerated.” His face once again became pleasant. “Please return to your homes and know that tomorrow the sun will still rise, people will still go to work, and the American way of life will still be in place. Thank you for your cooperation. Good night.”

The President looks down at some papers as the camera pans back. Then there is another second of blank screen, which is soon replaced by a news anchorman. “That was the President of the United States with a historic message. Once again, let me report that an extraterrestrial radio signal has been confirmed...”

At the same time, at the Monmouth Orphanage for the Treatment of Handel’s Syndrome, 4
^th
floor dormitory.

By the time he was in his early teens, Franklin Trinity had become an astute student of politics. He always took an intense interest in what the President and other national leaders had to say about HS. He would have been fascinated in the President’s speech that night if he had been able to listen. He was busy with other things. The President’s speech didn’t present any surprises to the American people, they already knew all about the events in Puerto Rico that morning. It had been on the news all day long. Pundits had been on TV all afternoon discussing and rediscussing the message. What did it mean? Why did they send it? When were they coming? The overall consensus was that the message was meant as a wake up call to the HS youngsters telling them that their true parents were coming. That they should take up arms and rebel against the human authorities and prepare the planet for invasion. That’s what the talking heads on the news channels felt anyway.