The End of the Beginning
Chapter 18: Who is She

William entered the building through automated, supermarket-style doors and was met with a commotion of hundreds of UNIRO personnel and construction workers. Inside, the dining hall was huge, capable of holding at least 2,000 people, with high ceilings and an upper deck running along the walls around a central indoor forest. Just to the left of the entrance was an open gallery of diverse international cuisine, appealing to the vast number of ethnic groups working as UNIRO personnel.

Hydroponic systems of tomato and bananas, even lemons, were hanging over the food lines within arm’s reach free for anyone. Misters kept the produce fresh, giving the buffet lines a natural smell. The small pine forest, left over from the original wooded coastal areas the base was built over, rose up through the laminated brown floor, transplanted in realistic AstroTurf and cared for through smart irrigation systems and soft violet light near their branches. On open fire grills, veggie burgers, vegetables, and fish were being cooked. Also up for grabs was an assortment of 3D printed pizzas.

“Good call, Doc” William said as he looked around. “I was starving and didn’t even know it.”

“Yeah, this place will do that to you,” John finished chewing on some tuna sushi. He cleared his throat and then said, “Get some bugs. They’re good. Lots of protein.”

“Did you say bugs? You want me to eat some bugs?” William said, looking disgusted as he downed what was left of a vegetable wrap packed together with rice paper.

John held a grilled cricket kabob with green peppers and onions in William’s face.

“Yeah, why not?” he said with a mischievous grin. “They’re good! I promise.”

“Uh-huh,” William said. “In that buffet over there, is there any, umm, red meat? Pork perhaps? I don’t remember seeing any.”

“Nope.”

“No…?”

“Nope,” John said with a smile. “NASA helped UNIRO develop its menus based of their Mars expedition plans. Cool, I know. They combined healthy with sustainability. UNIRO needs to quickly and easily grow the things it needs with the least amount of effort and resources so that we can focus on growing as much as we can for our rescue missions. Unfortunately, red meat doesn’t fit the bill. I guess it’s a compromise of the times. Many retailers are turning to synthetic meats. Raising cattle is expensive nowadays, too much water and land is needed. Instead, UNIRO grows protein-heavy crops like soybeans and uses insects, fish, chicken, even guinea pigs for our meats.” “Guinea pigs…”

“Since all our focus basically goes to veggies, we keep our produce rolling. We grow fast-cycle plants like lettuce, radishes, cucumbers, carrots, and tomatoes. Then you got your high carbohydrate crops like sweet potatoes, wheat, and our prize crop, rice! All the rice. So much rice, Will,” he said with wide eyes. “But it works and people seem to get used it.” William did not know how this made him feel; he loved a good steak.

“This place is going to turn me into a vegetarian? Should have stayed in Canada.”

“So,” John said, leaning in, “tell me about what the commander said. I’ve been dying to know. What were you going to show her?”

William tried to hold back a smug smile but failed. John took a bite out of a cricket, never taking his eyes behind his glasses off of William.

“I dared her.”

“You dared her. What the heck does that mean?”

“Well, understandably, she thought I may be more trouble than I’m actually worth so she straight-up asked me why she should keep me here. Honestly, I didn’t know what to say. I started to sweat and panic and I thought I might, I thought might - ” “Have another panic attack,” finished the curious John.

“Yeah, one of those. But I held it together and I just said let me do my work so I could basically just show her why she should keep me. Then I dared her to keep me.”

John’s eyes grew as wide as grapefruits and his grin a banana.

“You said I dare you? Like, literally?”

“Yes.”

“Wow… Brave.”

“Yeah, Hammond said the same thing,” said William, playing with his food and taking a bite of his wrap. “The chip on her shoulder seems larger than one of the warehouses.” “Ha, look who’s talking,” John crunched down on a cricket. “You two are actually quite alike.”

“Please don’t say that. I was never that much of an asshole.”

“I’m serious,” John said. “Listen. You wanted to know about her; here you go.

“Hammond lived in London with her family, a distinguished military family, mind you. Some of them died in the 2005 London bombings on board a subway train. As a result, she joined the British Army and was in Afghanistan by ’07. Earned a few medals there for pulling a group of soldiers out of a burning, bombed-out building, then returns home after three tours in 2014. By this time, she’s a major in the army.” “What about Korea?” William asked.

“A few years go by, then 2020 rolls around and just like us, the Brits were deployed to the South. Now she’s a lieutenant colonel and leads her own regiment, 3,000 soldiers. Like she told you, she was in Ulsan readying to move on to the DMZ and enter the North when they got word that bombs were coming. Her and her men were in the downtown area at ground zero. With no other adequate shelter and time running out, they blew their way into a subway tunnel being built and rushed in.” “They didn’t make it, did they?” asked William sullenly, putting down his food. John shook his head.

“Over 3,000 went into that tunnel, and only 178 came out, Hammond being one of them. See, even though the tunnel saved her and a few others, it collapsed under the blast pressure from above and buried most of her regiment. They held out over a week down there while rescue teams waited for the surface to cool down ’cause it was so hot. Water from a broken main and MREs kept them alive under her leadership. Like you, she was promoted after Korea and came home a hero. She stayed in the military and returned to Korea to help with the reunification process for another three years; then she got asked to do this.” “And I cowered in a forest…”

“Don’t start beating yourself up, Will. There is a difference in these situations. The commander emerged from that tunnel with a few cuts and bruises. You emerged with a lot of broken things, including your back, a vital piece of body infrastructure. I was your doctor, I know. All that I can say is that it was better you didn’t go back into theatre. You had your reasons for leaving and she had her reasons for staying. You handled the aftermath the only way you knew how at the time and she handled it the way she knew how. All that matters now is that you’re healed and you’re here. Okay?” “Yeah. You’re right,” said William, coming around. “I’m going to go get some ice cream.”

“Excellent idea.”

“Is it made out of celery?” William joked.

“No, that wouldn’t taste good at all,” John said. He waited until William had started walking away to call out again. “It’s made out of corn!”

“Great,” William muttered as he walked towards the ice cream bar.

He grabbed a small biodegradable cup made from hemp and began scooping some vanilla ice cream from a freezer within one of the buffet counters. As the cold air from the freezer touched his hands… Ice cream was our last meal. We laughed as the storm outside raged. I was excited because I never had had such sweets that early in the morning before. My grandmother tapped my nose with her spoon. I remember her face, smiling at my joy, turning to horror as she watched a branch from behind me smash through our kitchen window with a… Crash! William huffed as he turned around. Someone had dropped their plate, shattering it. His med-bracelet was vibrating, as were William’s hands. He dropped the ice cream scooper, closed the sliding freezer door, and tried to collect himself.

“Just let it go…” William muttered to himself. “Accept it. Accept it…”

After a minute or two, William made his way back to John at their table, trying to appear as if nothing had happened. Not that John would’ve noticed anything anyways. He was too busy listening to a message in his earpiece. William also noticed his glass tag was beeping red.

“Will, I’m sorry,” John said, hanging up the call. “I have to go. All senior staff are being called to the command center. There has been some kind of terrorist attack at an oil refinery in India.” “Really?”

“Yeah,” said John putting on his jacket. “Sounds big too. I’ll call you later. Dinner tonight?”

“Umm, yeah. Sure,” stammered William as John ran past him.

“I’ll take you on a tour of the warehouses tomorrow!”

William gave John a quick thumbs up and watched as John walked out the front doors of the dining hall. He got up and headed towards the exit as well.

On his way out of the dining hall, William was looking down at his glass tag, trying to replace his way back home, when he ran into someone.

“I’m so sorry, sir,” William said, holding his arm out. “I wasn’t paying attention and I - ”

“That’s okay, amigo,” said the man he had hit, brushing off his shoulder.

William saw the man pause as he studied William’s face. He was in his early forties. His figure was slim but his body had clear definition through his white and black ISAF apparel. The man’s straight black hair looked purposefully messy as it draped over his forehead. His brown eyes were deep and his face had a facial hair shadow across broad cheeks and chin. A handgun was in a thigh hostel on his left leg and a radio was clipped onto his white jacket near its zipper over a tight black undershirt.

“It’s you,” the man pointed at William. “Wow, it’s really you.”

“I’m sorry,” William said, “do I know you?”

“Ah, lo siento, señor,” said the man. “My name is Patrick Marcos Hernandez, chief of security here at Base Tranquility.”

William tensed up a little. Hernandez noticed.

“Oh wow, I’m so sorry sir. I will be more careful next time - ”

“A man of your historical stature need not apologize,” Hernandez bowed his head. “It is a pleasure.”

“Oh, please sir, I…”

“Humble in greatness. I should have expected. The distinction of a true hero. I’m sure UNIRO is very proud to have you, Captain.”

“Yeah, well, umm… The base commander didn’t have too kind of words for me earlier today.”

Hernandez waved a hand across his face. “Pssh, nonsense. Your career and abilities are not to be underestimated.” He then wrapped an arm over William’s shoulders. “Off the record, that woman could learn a thing or two from you. She fled to the dirt. You fled to the sky when those bombs fell. Hammond can be cold. She doesn’t know what she’s got in you. If I were her, I’d want fifty more of you.” William put his head down in appreciation. “Chief, I… Thank you.”

“De nada.”

William rubbed his nose as Hernandez unwrapped his arm, “So, as chief of security, you lead ISAF here, right?”

“Yes, indeed. Greatest private security force in history at your service.”

“You know, to be honest, me and my Air Force buddies used to make fun of firms like yours when we were all in Korea. We never thought a hired gun could be as good or loyal as a head strong service volunteer.” Hernandez smiled. His teeth were the whitest William had ever seen. “An understandable preconception. Too often corporations have failed their stakeholders over greed, lies, and scam, perhaps made even worse in our line of work when the breeding of such sins results in the loss of the innocent, who paid for the basic God given right of protection. ISAF, I assure you, is different. My men and women, like those of UNIRO, share the common belief that this organization must work or there will be nothing left to protect at all. If ISAF fails, Captain, we fail the world.” “I like the way you talk, Chief,” William chuckled. “Perhaps you should be leading this base.”

“No, no,” waved Hernandez. “That is a job for someone with the passion of the world behind them, someone like you, I believe.”

“Me?!”

“Sí. I fully expect you to be sitting in Hammond’s chair one day.”

William smiled. Then, he noticed a red beeping around Hernandez’s neck. It was his glass tag. It glowed just as John’s did.

“Um, sir, your glass tag is - ”

“Ah, of course. Thank you for reminding me, Captain. I must be going. I am going to be late.”

“Senior staff meeting right?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“A friend of mine is on senior staff. I was with him when he got the same call. Terrorist attack.”

“Yes.”

“ISIS?”

“Worse,” said Hernandez shaking his head. “Terra Nova.”

“Who?”

“Come by my office sometime. We can talk more then. I would love to become more acquainted, Captain.” Hernandez tapped his right hand on his forehead and then held it out as he began hurrying away. “Until then, amigo.” To the west, the sun was setting in fantastic fashion. Layers of cirrus and low stratus clouds showcased pinks, yellows, and even golds that made the sky look like a seething blast furnace. Construction crews, working under light towers, were laying water pipes next to the road William was being transported on, readying to take desalinated seawater deeper into the BLOC Section’s housing and recreation areas. They shouted to each other in a language that was either Spanish or Portuguese.

It’s been said that Rome was not built in day, but it seemed like this base was. These workers were certainly not abiding by that phrase. William noticed this about many people working here. Most of them, around eighty percent, he figured, were young, under the age of thirty-five; each one displaying a sense of urgency and motivation that was as electric as the conduit they were installing.

All of these personnel used their youth and spirit to see that the world they would grow up in, lives that they would lead after their days in UNIRO, would be plentiful and without fear. They wanted to be the ones to take their future back from an unpredictable and crumbling world their elders’ narrow-minded practices had formed through gridlocked ignorance in decades past. They saw what was happening and wanted new results.

Researching on his glass tablet in the taxi, William discovered that voluntary signups for joining UNIRO were full and an innovative labor program had been instituted so that the tremendous amounts of workers needed to build the organization’s infrastructure could be found. An enormous guest-worker program was established with the founding of UNIRO. It tapped predominantly into the poverty prone Global South that allowed legal temporary migration of people looking for work and skill with the International Labor Organization acting as a watchdog agency, ensuring transparency and fair wages. Hundreds of thousands of jobs were opened with the construction of the bases. Adamant workers from Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Venezuela, Nigeria, Indonesia, Yemen, Uganda, Mexico, Cuba, Ghana, Rwanda, Haiti, even Somalia, flocked to the opportunities. Host countries took them in, fed them, held social programs, and trained them, adding to host economies and, eventually, with their new-found knowledge, the economies of their native homes back in the Global South once they returned. Renewable energy systems, infrastructure retooling, ecosystem resuscitation; skills that were all learned by the previously unskilled.

This “drop everything and move” mentality had not been seen among countries since World War II. After seeing that a global threat was upon them, the Allies converted factories and industrial sites overnight into war machines for building tanks, jeeps, and battleships. Metal was taken from junkyards and rubber from tires, even food rations of meat began - anything to serve the cause of the Allies. Economy and industry re-tasked to become an agent of change, to fight a threat that was every bit as overbearing to what the world was facing now.

Taking lessons from the “greatest generation,” mobilization with the urgency of war had been initiated to fight the threat of total ecological, and hence societal, collapse. Boeing was producing rescue aircraft. Siemens was 3D printing wind turbine blades. Tesla was organizing battery storage systems. Ironically, Shell was generating hydrogen. Nestle was engineering longer lasting non-cocoa based chocolate for climate refugees. Lenovo was hammering out processors. Haier assembled base appliances. Maersk was donating thousands of used shipping containers. IBM had designed the bases supercomputers. Hyundai made the bulldozers, Rolls Royce the hydrogen jet engines, private space companies the satellites and their launches, Mercedes the dump trucks, Suntech the solar panels, and the Global South provided a majority of the labor. Everyone contributed to the funds.

All nine bases and more were nearing completion after only four years of construction. Nothing but beach and wetlands had been where the base now stood. Nearby Titusville and Daytona Beach were now boomtowns, flourishing from current base business and previously established social programs for the laborers. And central Florida, besides the Cape, now had one of the world’s unique treasures.

A competition to see who would finish their base first had sprung up among the different bases’ work crews. Tranquility was second in the race, behind Base Defiant in Mumbai, India. The race was on and the prize was nothing less than the safety of the planet itself - and the right to host the opening ceremony for the grand inauguration of UNIRO in June. This privilege would be chosen in a month, when a better picture of who would be finished first would appear, allowing world governments time to begin planning the feat of sending their leaders all together for the celebration.

William had ventured back to the seawall. It was now night. Out here, in what seemed to be in the middle of ocean, was a peace unlike William had ever known. He normally hated the ocean. but now, in the company of the base, he felt at ease. He felt home.

He turned around and looked back in towards the harbor, leaning his back on the handrail. The access road was drenched in amber light emanating from LED’s in the handrails. It had something to do with sea turtles. Lights from the Port Section reflected on the harbor water. Distant announcements over loudspeakers carried well over the water through the salty air, reaching William’s ears with ease.

The base was alive. William listened to its various calls and the sounds it made. He looked out over at the skeletal network of reinforced concrete and steel interlaced with a marrow of bio-based plastics and graphene lattices to hold it strong. Nerves of subterranean fiber optic cables leading to the brain sent terabytes worth of information on how its body was fairing, sensing pain on its runways or an itch in its energy output. All of the base’s systems had a healthy appetite for clean energy and water, so it naturally had a digestive system that fed off the wind, sun, and waves.

Acting as the liver, the desalination plant purified water and a heart of warehouses supplied the world with its new blood, giving life through transfusions of equipment and goods. Muscles of aircraft, vehicles, and ships helped the base to move its might at will. Finally, there were the cells, the people that lived and worked at the base allowing its function. ISAF security personnel were the bases skin cells, protecting it from potential hostile invaders. Technicians in the command center worked as brain cells, disseminating and storing information until it was needed; learning and making memories. Rescuers were white blood cells, defending from danger and keeping others safe. An act of biomimicry, the replication of nature in the best of what the environment had been doing for eons. It was just as William saw himself, a last chance for life in a world surrounded in death.

From behind, a gust of wind jarred William from his thinking, knocking his beret off. He chuckled at the wind.

“Don’t suppose that was you saying hello,” he said softly to the air. “I’ll try and make you guys proud. I’ll try…”