Phase Shift (38 page)

Keynote speakers were not
the only items on the itinerary. Several breakout sessions would
also be scheduled, in which small groups of participants each would
tackle a different, impending environmental disaster. Each room
would draft a solution, steps necessary for all in attendance if
the ensuing disaster were to be avoided. In a risky move, we
implored people
not
to attend if they were not willing to take the suggestions
outlined for each scenario to heart.

The invitations went out.

Over the next few weeks the responses
trickled in. I had to contact a few key invitees myself when it
became apparent they weren't going to reply on their own. Few of
these were in the affirmative. Nevertheless, our guest list
continued to grow.

At present time the Saving the Worlds
Symposium is exactly one week away. On this evening, I quickly get
tired of channel-surfing and convince Palmer to build a fire in the
living room fireplace. Once more we begin to speak of Symposium.
After a while I excuse myself to get my Symposium Planning Kit, a
large cardboard box in which I keep all items pertaining to
Symposium. Because it’s fun to review, and I'm a little compulsive
when it comes to planning, I take out the returned invitation
folder and begin to spread the responses out on the floor in front
of me.

"Sting declined," I tell Palmer, probably
for the ninth or tenth time since I received his RSVP.

"But Bono's still coming, right?"

I nod.

"Too bad we couldn't get him to speak." This
lament has been expressed before, by each of us in turn. Truth is,
none of us thought of asking him until it was too late.

"Cameron Diaz, Jamie Oliver, Daryl
Hannah—"

"So far as I know the celebrity role call
hasn't changed, Moll. You've read it to me so many times already, I
almost know it by rote," Palmer teases.

"You know, celebrities are Pied Pipers for
paparazzi—"

"Which means good press, I get it—America's
royal family."

"The royal family declined, by the way." He
looks at me as if he's forgotten we had the gall to invite them in
the first place. "Late RSVP."

"Is this the politician list?" He picks up
another set of papers. He reads the roll unnecessarily—I've already
committed it to memory. "The Liberal party's sending
representatives. Party leaders are coming for Tories, NDP and Green
parties.

"Twenty or so senators from various nearby
states, and from a variety of political parties, and...a party of
representatives from the White House." He purses his lips and nods.
"Impressive."

"Thanks," I say, doubting his sincerity and
grab the list from his hand.

"Who's left?" he asks.

"Some activist groups: Greenpeace, World
Wildlife Foundation, Friends of the Earth, Earthroots, NAFTA, and a
number of smaller, Ontario green groups—"

"Don't forget The Metro Zoo and Science
Centre and representatives from virtually every university in the
province."

"Them too." I find another list. "Okay:
Press. Virtually every local station's sending a reporting team or
at the very least, a videographer."

"How many guests at last count?"

"One-hundred-and-twenty-three from Earth and
another forty-two from Gaia."

"Forty-two!"

"Their list keeps growing every time Reyes
comes by."

"And you've confirmed the venue? They've
made the necessary green adjustments?"

We review the "green" list which includes
replacing every light-bulb in plain sight with energy efficient
ones. When we're done, we review the menu and agenda.

"I can't believe this is actually going to
happen, that we're actually going to pull this off." I gather the
papers into small piles with Palmer's help. When we're done, he
shimmies close to me and strokes my hair.

"Not we—you. You're going to pull this off,
Moll." He smiles at me. "It's the Molly Saves the Worlds
Symposium."

"How do you think it would look if I got
that on a T-shirt?" I turn away from him to close the box. As I
stroke the lid, the reality of the situation hits me like a wave
and I feel like I'm drowning. Over one-hundred people converging to
discuss the environment, important people agreeing to work toward
saving the environment. And forty Gaian wild-cards.

"I'm scared, Palmer," I tell him, barely a
whisper.

"Molly?" he asks, and he takes my hand.

I can't speak. All I can think about is the
look on Goren's face and the faces of his men when I expose their
tightly-knit circle and their precious Gaia Corporation.

"What's wrong?" he asks.

"What are we trying to do here? I mean, have
you thought about what we're really trying to do here?"

"We're making people aware of the state of
the environment, trying to kick their butts into action. The Powers
That Be have to realize that doing nothing about the situation is
just as bad as contributing to it." He strokes my cheek with his
free hand to brush away a tear that's fallen. "If they know we're
going to follow up, publish our results, they might be more
inclined to get off their asses and do something about it."

"And what about the political climate on
Gaia?"

"I don't give a damn about the political
climate on Gaia and quite frankly, that's none of our business," he
says.

"But it is our business, don't you see? We
plan on exposing Goren's duplicity at Symposium which is almost as
good as overthrowing their government."

"Don't you think you're exaggerating a bit,
Moll?" He switches positions on the floor. "At best you're like the
guy who exposed Clinton's sex scandal. And what happened there?
Clinton admitted he was in the wrong. He took some bad press but
finished his term. People forgave him the transgression and he
stayed in office, and whoever it was who first reported on the
scandal faded into obscurity."

"So you're saying it won't
matter. Politics on Gaia will remain
status quo
."

He nods. "For a little while, yeah. Until
it's had a chance to sink in.

"Clinton didn't survive another election.
Maybe Goren won't either—"

"Gaian officials aren't elected—"

"It doesn't matter. Once people have thought
about it, once Reyes's friends have had a chance to leak some more
information, something might happen.

"My point is you're just disseminating
information at Symposium. It's up to the Gaians what to do with
it."

I look to the floor and shake my head. Hot
tears blink from my eyes.

"Look: what you're doing is monumental in
its scope, in the effort and the energy and the bravery you're
expending on this project. Look at what you've done, Moll. The
Saving the Worlds Symposium is yours. When people look back at it,
they'll admire your work for the sheer scope of your guest list, if
for nothing else." He laughs. He's trying to make light of the
situation, hoping I'll forget my fear.

"And then I'll fade into obscurity like the
guy who exposed Clinton."

"That's the spirit!" He
stands and carries my planning kit to my desk. I linger alone in
the living room for a few moments, still drowning under the weight
of the situation. If politics on Gaia
do
change, if Goren is eventually
overthrown, it will be because of me, because of what I do or say
at Symposium. While I'd like nothing more than to see Goren behind
bars or his title stripped to Second Prefect or banished to the Inf
Sector, or whatever punishment a breech in the integrity of The
Pact might warrant, I can’t forget that I'm not untouchable, none
of us are. Goren and his men possess the technology to find us at
will. They could shift to Earth in secret anytime and anywhere and
harm us (or worse), and shift back undetected. They possess the
security I crave more and more with each day of Symposium's
approach.

It is Saving the Worlds Symposium day in the
GTA. Palmer and I arranged for a room overnight so we could be on
site when the preparations began. The dining hall is set and meal
preparations have begun. We're watching the sound check underway in
the auditorium. They told me to stay close so they could get a
reading on my voice.

Palmer taps my arm and points to a group of
men standing in the far corner of the auditorium. One of them talks
into his shirtsleeve.

"Men in Black," I say.

He nods. "Homeland Security," he says. He
nods at another group of men wearing black suits with pencil-legged
pants, narrow black ties, and close cropped hair. "CSIS," he says.
"And look over there." He pivots me by the elbow and points to
another group of men dressed almost identically to the first two
groups. "MI6," he says.

British intelligence? "Cool," I say in awe
of the attention we've garnered.

"Very cool," Palmer confirms. "You did it,
Moll. You made this happen. You brought the world together to save
it."

"No," I say, "we brought the worlds
together."

"Very cool," he says again.

Palmer slips away to make a few phone calls
while I wait for my turn at sound check. The place is jumping.
People buzz around arranging flowers, moving chairs on the stage,
or checking lights. I sit near the back of the theatre, watching
the activity. At some point my eyes close and I doze.

"Professor McBride?" a man says into the
microphone on the stage waking me. Then, muted, "Can someone find
Professor McBride?" he says to someone off stage and returns to the
microphone which screams a chorus of loud feedback. "Professor
McBride?" he says again.

I stand and wave my hand at him.

"Ready for a sound check soon, Professor.
Don't go too far."

I give him the thumbs up and plop back into
my seat.

"Hello, Molly," someone says from behind me.
Josef Schliemann. I recognize his silken croon before I turn to
face him.

"You scared me," I say. It's a little
unnerving to find out someone's been lurking in silence behind you
when you thought you were alone. "How long have you been sitting
there?"

"This symposium cannot continue, Molly," he
tells me, face and voice devoid of expression.

"Are you okay, Josef? Because you're
starting to freak me out."

"I'm fine. And so will you be. And Paulie.
All you have to do is reconsider what you plan on doing here
today."

"I don't know what you're talking about,
Josef. You've known what Reyes and I have planned from the
beginning. Why the sudden cold feet?"

He raises the hem of his shirt to reveal a
gun. It's smaller than I thought a gun would be, though heavy and
awkward when he handles it. He leaves it exposed long enough to let
its icy, metallic necromancy nibble away at my confidence. When he
judges I've received his message, he hides it with his hand.

"What are you, crazy? Secret service from
practically every country that has a secret service is here in this
room. What do you think would happen if they knew you had a gun?
You'd never get out of this room." My voice sounds surprisingly
calm. Popular culture tells you to be frantic at the mere sight of
the weapon, but it's not like that in real life. The onslaught of
fear brought about by being held at gunpoint is one of slow
realization, like tiny fingers scratching away at the edge of
bravado.

"Five minutes, Professor McBride," the man
on stage says into the microphone.

My eyes remain fixed on Schliemann’s and I
say nothing in response.

"Professor McBride?" he says again. It feels
good to know he's monitoring my whereabouts. It's like someone's
got my back.

"Give them the thumbs up like you did
before," Schliemann says. "Like nothing's wrong."

I can't take my eyes off Schliemann. His
eyes, warm and playful when we first met, have grown stony. In a
single motion, he cocks the hammer on the gun without lifting it
from his lap and fear gains some headway.

I swallow the lump that's formed in my
throat. Loathe to turn my back on Schliemann, I nevertheless manage
to give the thumbs up to the man on the stage.

"The integrity of The Pact must be
maintained at all costs," Schliemann says.

"Christ, you sound like that radical Goren."
I do a little half-turn in my seat so I can face him fully as I
speak. "What the hell do you think this day’s about if it’s not to
maintain the integrity of The Pact?"

"You sad little thing. You have no idea, do
you? You're so busy with this save the world crap you have no idea
what this is really all about. Do you have any idea how different
Earth and Gaia really are? Do you know how much knowledge and
technology is available on both sides? And it's there for the
taking, there for someone like me to broker both knowledge and
technology on both sides. Enough there to make me a wealthy man."
There's something about a gun which makes the holder think his
target won't survive long enough to repeat what he says. As a
consequence, the holder of the gun tends to espouse all sorts of
truths.

"You bastard, you're the one who has no
idea," I say to the sellout. "Do you have any idea what today's
about? What it's truly about? The prefects have a theory about
what's been going on. They think Gaia's the original world. Gaia
was cloned when the meteor hit, creating Earth, an exact duplicate.
Gaia was knocked out of phase, but over time the phase has been
returning to normal. When it does, Gaia will be the dominant one
and Earth will suffer. When the worlds collide, Earth will be more
heavily hit with casualties than Gaia, if it survives at all. If we
don't stop this now, or at least slow it down, the results will
bring new meaning to the word 'cataclysm'."

"And this cataclysm of which you speak. When
will it happen?"