Dedication

November 17, 2306

Moon Base Gamma

President’s Personal Quarters

Even after fifteen years, Tim Li couldn’t believe that he was the president of all of humanity. He stood up from his desk and looked out the thick windows overlooking landing pad one. Wearing a tee shirt and sweatpants, he preferred comfort to formality, even as president. Sighing deeply, he thought, It’s time. Isn’t it? There was nobody else in the room. And yet, he heard the response in his mind clear as day. Yes, you can’t hide it any longer, it’s time for the last contact. However, you know my feelings; humanity isn’t ready. Tim sighed deeply and spoke aloud, addressing the artificial intelligence communications system connected to all of humanity. “Helix?”

“Yes Mr. President?” Tim shuddered, he still didn’t like being called that.

“Are they all ready?”

“Yes sir.”

“I’ll be there right away.” After he said that, there was a chime acknowledging what he said. He continued to stare out the window. A small military cruiser took off and turned toward him, he wished for a moment that it would open fire and take away his regrets.

The ship in question refused to open fire on the president’s quarters. He sighed and turned around toward the job he didn’t feel like he deserved. Leaning forward, he started the process to fix the biggest regret of his life.

Originally built as a military training base, the walls were gray painted with color coded numbers and letters indicating where in the building you were. Periodically, a map was painted onto the wall. As he walked down the hallways of Moon Base Gamma, he was on autopilot. This was effectively his home, and he didn’t even have to look at the mapping numbers on the wall to know where he was. Each door he encountered turned green and slid open just before he reached it. Until one slid open and revealed a large conference room.

President’s Cabinet Room

Sitting around a large round table were the seven entities he trusted most. He took the eighth seat at the table. Fifteen years ago, each of these people played a key role in uniting humanity after a species level civil war.

“Before we begin,” Tim started, “I just wanted to say—“

“Happy Birthday!” The person who spoke up was a woman in her mid-sixties, although she looked young for her age. She had long blonde hair and gray eyes and wore a long black dress.

A younger woman with auburn hair and blue eyes waved her hand a dispelled some magic, revealing a large birthday cake in the middle of the table. Everyone around the table cheered.

Tim rolled his eyes as the older woman started cutting the cake and passing out slices. “I just wanted to say, regardless of the eventual outcome of my speech tonight, working with you all over the last thirty years to push humanity forward has been remarkable.”

Each of them around the table looked down. They knew what was coming next. “You know I’m going to present them a choice.” You can’t do it, you need to be more firm. The voice echoed in his head. “Allorien, I can do it. I will do it. And you’re here at the table with us. Speak.”

A very pale skinned being in elaborate white robes looked up at him. They were around 5 foot two inches in height and their features were human like but had much longer form lines and long white hair. The most significant differences between the Crysix race and humanity were that the Crysix had no mouth, but had a perfectly circular blue halo. Allorien’s halo spun creating waves in the air and from those waves sound emanated. The voice was raspy, even after twenty years, they were still learning how to simulate human speech. “You shouldn’t do it. You are not the first human to try to advance humanity with the knowledge from our species. They’ve all ended up discredited, or dead.”

“I have to trust humanity.” He responded. “You each have stood by me. Gwen,” he looked over at the younger woman who had the cake hidden with her magic. “Thank you. For truly convincing me that it wasn’t my fault.” She nodded at him and a soft chime sounded. “Yes Helix?”

“I’m sorry to interrupt. You should see this news item.” They each focused toward the center of the table, a circular projection presented itself with a news broadcast. “In a shocking development, a section of President Li’s speech for this evening was released to the media.” The long red hair of the reporter shifted as she turned to her counterpart. “Jonathon, what do you think this means?”

“Well, Dana, what we know is that this was not intentionally released. This was clearly a leak from the Li administration, there is no way they would have released this.” Tim scoffed, and everyone around the table looked at him. The male reporter continued, “The most popular democratically elected leader in the history of humanity intends to take responsibility for a massive breach of trust and step down, calling for a special election to replace him in four weeks. While we don’t know exactly what this breach of trust is, his approval rating has dropped from ninety-six percent to thirty-four percent just in the hour since the release of this document. It’s a massive blow to the Li Administration.”

“You released it, didn’t you?” The voice came from an older man who had yet to speak.

“Jaedon, you know me too well. Yes, I did.” President Li responded.

“Tim, why would you do that?” A younger man dressed in reds and grays with dusty brown hair asked next.

The president smiled. “It was the right thing to do, Jamie.”

“Was it, though? Will it matter?” Another younger man, spoke up, wearing all black with longer black hair.

“My good Samuel, you know me the best of all. It doesn’t matter if it matters.” They all turned their attention back to the news broadcast.

The female anchor Dana continued, “With us, we have political correspondent Mia Lindroth to help us answer what’s going on. Mia, what do you think?”

“Well, Dana, the fact that we have a snap Helix query that went out and showed such a dip in the polls clearly indicates that the administration should be concerned. The lasting effects will be determined by what President Li says tonight. We must remember that this is only a couple of sentences released from what will probably be a multiple page speech. The actual cause of this breach of trust could range anywhere from mild corruption to intentionally misleading the public or intentionally ignoring the right option in a situation.”

“That sounds terrible, Mia.” Jonathon spoke up.

“It is. However, we must remember that President Li has been shown so far to be an amazingly honest, forthright and compassionate leader. This is extremely out of character for him. It is quite possible someone from his administration leaked this section of this speech intentionally, so everyone will hear this part first. If we hear this first and then have that in mind when listening to the rest, the revelation of this breach of trust may not actually be so bad.”

Dana spoke up because someone had to ask, and they had completely lost Jonathon, “I’m confused, why would he want to release this?”

“We live in a very fast news cycle now. It’s already an hour and fifteen minutes since the leak. Seventy-five percent of humanity has probably already heard the quote, thanks to Helix. This is clearly the bad news, and bad news always gets signal boosted the most. By getting it out of the way, he’s now allowing everyone to focus on, and signal boost, whatever the good news that is government has to say as a part of the speech.”

“Helix, turn it off.” Tim stepped in. It clicked off instantly. “Mia, is very intelligent. That’s precisely what I did.”

“So, what is it you want out of this?” An older man spoke up, the last of the people around the table, he wore a primarily blue suit and had a lapel pin of Pluto’s astronomical symbol.

The President laughed. “Andrew, you should know by now. I only ever want the same thing. I want to provide humanity with all the information I can and let them make the best choice they can make for the future of our people. And so far, when I’ve done that, there has been no escape from this job.”

Allorien’s raspy voice was the next to speak up. “If your story is anything like the other humans we’ve influenced over the years, you will be free of this job soon.”

Tim looked at each one of his trusted advisors across the table. “If that’s the case, I accept it. I can’t, in good conscious, keep this secret anymore.”

The older woman spoke up again, “That is why humanity trusts you.”