One Minute to Midnight (34 page)

"You have been identified as human and
may pass the bridge to Astrid." She smiled.

Jared could hear the rising shouts of
many angry giants behind him, and quickly pressed the button. The
bridge responded and began to spin on the rotating column. When it
stopped at his feet, he ran across the hundred yard long platform
just as the first of a horde of giants were beginning to appear out
of the frozen wasteland behind him. Facing one giant had been scary
enough, but the fracas between Jared and the first giant had
awakened the entire clan, and there were hundreds of them bearing
down on the bridge now and they were crossing. Jared could hear the
woman's voice once more as his feet touched the green grass on the
Astrid side of the chasm.
"Planetary defense system engaged. Non-human entities have been
detected on the bridge to Astrid. They will now be eliminated." She
said.

An electric field covered the bridge,
shocking the giants standing on it, frying some in their tracks,
and sending others over the side screaming into the chasm. The
bridge began to rotate once more, cutting off access to the hostile
giants. Blasts from the defense satellites began to rain down on
the giants from space, blowing some to pieces, decapitating others.
Some only lost legs and arms. The embattled furry giants began to
fire their crossbows across the chasm, one of them ripping through
Jared's suit at the thigh. He turned and continued to run. The
blasting became less frequent, and Jared walked into the human city
alone. The buildings were constructed of marble and glass, with
gold-lined windows and streetlamps. Jared walked over to one of the
lamps and scratched the post with his knife.

"Solid gold? This post alone would set
me up for life back home."

The tower was standing in the center
of the city, a steel masterpiece covered in black glass. It was
larger than his imagination could conceive, and the tallest part
disappeared into a layer of clouds near the stratosphere. Nothing
moved. Were all of the humans really dead on this planet? How had
humanity come this far out into space, and were other planets
inhabited with human life? Jared wanted to get home more than
anything, and in his mind, the tower held his freedom, so he ran
down a cobblestone street, his boots echoing against the stillness
of abandoned structures. The air was warmer in Astrid than on the
glacier, and he began to sweat as his feet carried him onward. The
tower was closer. He noticed that the street was lined with little
shops and apartment buildings that seemed to be frozen in time. The
windows shined, the street was free of debris and weeds, and the
entire city gleamed as if it were brand new.
"Hello?!" Jared screamed as he ran. "Is anybody here?" The tower
was less than a football field away and he could clearly see the
steps leading up to a set of double doors.

To his left, down an adjacent street,
he witnessed an amazing spectacle. A team of robots was moving in
unison, performing various janitorial tasks. Some were spraying for
weeds, while others polished windows, and large robots resembling
trash trucks vacuumed the streets.

"This city is on autopilot." Jared
said to himself. A tall and skinny robot turned to look Jared's
way, and he could see the green beacon on the robot’s head turn to
red for an instant, and then back to green. It looked away and
began to clean once more. "I guess I passed."
He approached the stairs, ran up, and as he got close to the doors
they opened for him.

"Welcome to the Tower of Gehen, where
we proudly retain the world's largest records of humanity, genome
evolution, and space exploration. Come inside and take a tour." A
friendly woman's voice chimed.
Inside, there was a large reception area furnished with leather
couches and Adirondack chairs, with flat screen televisions
displaying images of children playing, nature films, and movie
previews. On the walls hung portraits of men and women wearing
space that were remarkably similar in design to the one Jared wore.
He walked down the wall of hanging portraits as an unseen voice
narrated the names of various astronauts and their career
accomplishments, and stopped abruptly at a portrait of
himself.

"Here is the portrait of Jared
Talbert, one of Atlantia's most distinguished combat pilots, and
space explorers. Captain Talbert displayed great heroism when he
rescued a colony of Atlantians on the planet Earth when their
continent sunk into Earth's ocean. Over fifty percent of the
population was saved and returned home by Captain Talbert and his
fleet. We are in his debt." The voice finished.

"Maybe that's why the satellites
stopped firing. Reincarnation?" Jared whispered. He didn’t have an
answer, but it felt strange.

Jared backed into a leather chair
facing the wall of portraits and sat down hard. He felt the room
spin a bit as his mind processed what he had seen. Suddenly,
explosions from outside rocked the city, shaking the floor beneath
his feet. He could see giants battling with the cleaning robots,
and more satellite fire rained down from above.

"Persistent bastards." He had to move,
and his only escape was upward.

Jared noticed an elevator
bank behind the reception area and ran over to it, ignoring the
fighting outside. As he approached, the doors opened to the
elevator closest to him and he got in. A panel on the right wall
contained a digital flat screen about twelve inches wide and six
inches tall. The screen displayed a diagram of the building and
gave him options to press. The most interesting buttons were for
what appeared to be a spaceport near the top of the building. There
were designations for twenty hangars, and so with a shrug, he
pressed the button that read
Hangar
Eighteen
. Without a sound, he was off and
looking through elevator windows at the ground far below, and the
approaching horde of giants. Though their numbers had been reduced,
at least a hundred of them were still fighting their way to the
tower. A moment later, they were gone and Jared saw only white
fluffy clouds as his elevator whooshed at lightning speed toward
his destination.

"Hangar eighteen is approaching,
Captain Talbert. Here you will see the most experimental spacecraft
Atlantia scientists have ever built." A female voice told him. The
building knew who he was but that did not comfort him. He felt as
if he was in a living monument to the long dead.

The doors opened, and
inside the hangar stretched down for as far as his eyes could see.
It was vast and did indeed have many hovering wonders. If they
still worked, he might still have a chance to get home.
"Oh my God!" Jared was face-to-hull with an exact replica
the
USS Rapier
.
He ran over to it, and as he did the ramp descended. He walked
inside and took the Captain’s chair.

Onboard lights flickered to life, and
one of the blast doors in the hangar began to lower.

"Cabin pressurization normal. You are
ready for spaceflight. Enjoy your ride, Captain Talbert." Said a
male voice.

Jared was excited to have been given
another chance, and as he floated out of the window of the
seven-mile high tower, he waved goodbye to the planet Atlantia,
turned his ship toward the stars, and shot into the cosmos. He was
headed home.

call workshop

Dianne makes the cold call of a
lifetime.

Dianne Trainer arrived early at
the coffee shop on a sunny fall morning in Charlotte, North
Carolina. She was a tall, attractive blonde in her mid-thirties,
who stood almost six feet tall and resembled a fashion model. She
was reserved, and that often caused people to think she was a snob,
but she just did not know how to relate to most of her
contemporaries. Dianne's other team members had not yet arrived, so
she went to the counter and ordered a cup of dark roast coffee and
a bagel with honey nut cream cheese. After paying, she sat outside
to feel the cool breeze on her face as she ate her warm bagel and
sipped from her coffee cup. She opened her laptop and connected to
the coffee shop Wi-Fi to check emails while waiting for the others.
The purpose of their meeting was to call people on a list of names
they had compiled, and find out if the recipient had any interest
in knowing more about their business. If recipient did express
interest, then the appointment would be booked for a face-to-face
meeting with two team members and the prospective business partner
at a public location, or their house. Dianne had never made calls
to anyone she did not know for anything other than to have her
plumbing fixed, so she was nervous about the entire
affair.

Her team assured her that they had
all experienced during this their first time cold calling people,
and it would fade as she got used to it. Besides, this was going to
be a round-robin call workshop anyway. One person calls, and then
another, and another, as they go around the table, either setting
appointments, or leaving messages for callbacks. She took a long,
nervous, deep breath. For a brief moment she thought about leaving,
and then Pearl Johnson, one of her team, pulled up beside Dianne's
car.
Too late. Damn!
She would have to go through with it and combat her worst
fears, which were judgment from strangers, and their rejections.
Pearl got out of her car and waved at Dianne. Pearl was pretty,
with an almond complexion, and soft skin from years of preservation
with natural makeup and skin cream. She had been a cheerleader in
high school, and was that kind of perky girl that made Dianne want
to slap someone. Dianne sat there with her caffeinated beverage and
felt her muscles tighten with nervous energy. Seeing Pearl made
everything seem very real and scary. Her presence destroyed any
hunger Dianne had been feeling, and the bagel was abandoned after
one bite was taken out of the side.

"
Dianne! Hey,
girl!
"
Pearl
chirped.

"
Hi Pearl, just
checking emails. How you doin’ this morning?
"
Dianne said. She hoped her voice had sounded
normal.

"
Good! I’m just going
to go inside and get myself some tea. Tina and Bobby are on their
way and then we can get started. Don’t worry about a thing. Most of
these calls go to voicemail in the morning anyway, and when the
people you leave a message for call you back, it’s much easier than
the initial call. You’ll see.
"
Pearl went inside to order, and Tina and Bobby pulled up in
their Range Rover.

Tina had been a short order cook, and Bobby an
advertising executive before the two became network marketing
business owners, and now they were both retired and living the good
life. They had earned so much money that making cold calls had
become more of a hobby than a necessity, and although they were
always very friendly and a great couple, Dianne always felt a
little intimidated by their success. When Tina walked over to where
Dianne was, she leaned over and gave her a warm embrace. Bobby did
the same, and they both sat down. Tina was the definition of grace,
and was so beautiful that when she took the stage at major business
events, people stopped what they were doing just to listen to her.
Bobby had the good looks of a high school quarterback and the
smooth facial features to go along with it. He may have been in his
forties, but Dianne could not tell, and thought it was rude to ask.
She had recently left her twenties behind and was sitting on thirty
pretty hard. Dianne knew that when she was earning what they did,
she would return the favor of coming to call workshops for her
team. They were, after all, in this together, and for anyone to
succeed, they all needed to be.

After some initial chatting and
catching up they got the workshop started out of respect for
everyone’s time. Tina volunteered to go first, Bobby second, Pearl
third, and if she felt comfortable, Dianne could go last or pass
her turn until the next time. Tina brought out a journal where she
kept her list of names and opened the book to a page somewhere in
the middle. She knew Dianne had never done this before and looked
up from her journal.
    
"
Just
listen to what we do and you’ll catch on quickly. Remember, this is
not rocket science, so if you get flustered on a call, don’t worry
about it. No one’s going to die if you forget your name, or
theirs.
"
Tina smiled. She
picked up her phone and dialed a number. Several seconds went by as
the other three watched her.

"Hello, Don Baker? My name is Tina Shall, and
I have your business card here. I see that you're in the textile
industry. Can you tell me a little about your business?" Tina said.
She smiled, and nodded at what the man on the other end was saying.
After a few moments she took control of the call again.

"That's very interesting. I'm a business owner
in the area, too. I have an internet brokerage business, and I
think we might be able to help each other. I help textile companies
increase their bottom line. I'd like to meet with you for about
twenty minutes someday this week to show you a quick overview of
the concept." She paused a moment to allow that to sink
in.