"Creators" - That was how the aliens that came intruding introduced themselves.
Initially, the inhabitants of Zombie World thought that there was an asteroid that was on a collision course with Earth. "We normal working cla.s.s were never supposed to learn the whole story until the s.p.a.ce agencies were pressured to tell the entire truth from their side." Derek began his story while he stroked the sleeping alpaca on his lap.
What seemed like a defect in their numbers when their probe was on their way to Ura.n.u.s, the Indian s.p.a.ce Research Organisation (ISRO) spotted way too many anomalies of the incoming debris and the subsequent loss of their probe.
Afterwards, the Russian s.p.a.ce Agency (Roscosmos) who had a probe near the area was annihilated as well, sparking a debate if the asteroid was even more significant than antic.i.p.ated. With highly advanced scanners and cooperation between the Chinese National s.p.a.ce Agency (CNSA) and the American s.p.a.ce Agency (NASA), they finally had a glimpse how large the incoming rock would be, and the probability of its projected pathway hitting Earth was higher than previously predicted.
With those findings, NASA and the other s.p.a.ce agencies, as well as astrophysicists, were rus.h.i.+ng to calculate a method to either defend Earth or escape from the planet. Some of the agencies proposed to do both under the veil of secrecy and disguise of a possible upcoming war between the Chinese and Americans.
They used the war pretext to lie to people and using it as justification for building additional underground bunkers, producing a superweapon that seemingly appeared to aim at each other"s throat but all of this was just a hoax to prevent the anxiety of the entire world.
It was surprising that the Chinese and American governments had been able to get together without too much conflict and manage on that plan unilaterally.
However, the war construction efforts also lead to the prelude of a pressurising s.p.a.ce race. With the seven major continents secretly cooperating with each other, the countries of the other five s.p.a.ce agencies had already begun building s.p.a.ce shuttles and fuel rockets at record time.
Some of the most vocal critics who did now know much only fuelled more distrust among the people that were involved in it. But the rest of the world remained in their uncaring state and went on with business as usual.
Derek was part of that.
He thought it was absurd that everyone was preparing to fight another meaningless war, but work had to go on, so he could only hope and pray that it did not happen.
The leaders, on the other hand, may have understood that it was dangerous to dangle the "War" card, but it was the fastest way to get budget approvals from the unsuspecting politicians that were not involved in it. Only the highest level of command and a few select individuals were supposed to know the truth as they prepared their way to destroy the meteor.
Derek, at the time had not known what was actually happening behind the scenes. It wasn"t until a whistleblower decided that enough was enough and leaked it to the ma.s.ses via the internet.
That snitch was, unfortunately, a genius in the use of technology, rendering all the database to be open to the ma.s.ses. Even the government top dogs in security defences were unable to stop it nor curb the information leak.
There the war pretext was officially over, and the leaders of various countries like China and the USA finally revealed the true reason.
As expected, it caused a full blown panic to the entire world, and it led to severe unrest in many countries. The military had to enter to a.s.sist the police in the riots, and that was roughly about a hundred days before viable military plans could be taken into action to reduce the size of the meteor coming down on them.
People started to buy their ways into the bunkers which the countries had specifically made if their Plan A (Destruction of the Meteor) or if Plan B did not go as scheduled. (Which was lifting people into s.p.a.ce and to the moon base which the Chinese and Russians had expedited in their construction of it.)
"Multiple rocket shuttles had already been sent to s.p.a.ce in order to preserve seeds of life as well as the soil needed for the growth of viable plants should the worst case happen in the scenario where the asteroid manages to destroy the entire planet." Derek reiterated the plans to Weslie while showing her how rockets and such looked like via Jin"s internet access. Some other stuff he had to explain with just words and hope that the scholar"s imagination was vivid enough.
"But…since you said that you met with these creators, all these plans your leaders created were all for nought?" Weslie asked with sadness in her tone, and Derek nodded his head heavily.
"Our plan to destroy the meteor failed. Considering that we have no telemetry or imagery of the process and based on the sensors on the rockets, we know that we failed since we lost signal far sooner than it should have reached it." Derek vaguely recalled the live broadcast on TV while everyone antic.i.p.ated the news.
Thus, Plan B was initiated and selected elites who were grudgingly approved by the ma.s.s population to be sent up into s.p.a.ce, allowing them to survive while the rest had to stay in the bunkers and hoped for the best.
However, an hour even before the first scheduled shuttle was able to lift off, there was already chatter of bad news in the social media. Eventually, the official press stated that the meteor was moving faster than antic.i.p.ated.
That was sufficient to cause even greater unrest throughout the world, and the governments had already been contemplating through a live conference to use all their ma.s.s destruction capabilities to destroy the meteor, reducing it into minor debris.
""At the very least, it would give Mankind some fighting chance to live through it. The rest will be remembered"…I always hated that line. How the h.e.l.l can they dictate who may survive and who can"t?" Derek, at the time, had realised and detested how the small number elites perpetually made all the decisions for the rest of the world.
And that was when he too took part in the ongoing unrest, apparently minutes before the extinction of humankind.