The pair walked together in silence across town to the Artemis building. They both sensed an awkward emotional moment on the roof, and neither wanted to bring it up now. Silence seemed to be the best option. When they arrived at the Black tower, Elliot held the door for Sarah, and they went inside. The attendant at the reception desk directed them to room 742, and to use the elevator at the end of the lobby. They rode the elevator to the 7th floor, and got off. The hall down which they walked felt as if it grew smaller the further they walked. When they finally arrived at 742, they were both feeling a little claustrophobic.
Sarah pushed the door open, and they walked into the room. It was a large room, with a long oval table sitting in the middle. About two dozen metal chairs surrounded the table. Elliot was amazed by the table. It was made of wood. Wood was so rarely used since the Travesty, due to the small number of trees that actually grew anymore. The wooden table only made the room more intimidating. The ceiling was two stories high, with pendants hanging from the ceiling above each spot around the table, casting a dim circle of light. The effect was to make each seat around the table feel like an interrogation seat. The rest of the room was dimly lit from half-dome lights around the perimeter. There were no windows in this room, so the dim light was all there was to illuminate the room. The path from the door to the table was lit by small lights installed into the carpeted floor.
Elliot led Sarah down the path to the table, where they took two seats next to each other. They looked around the table. At the end furthest from the door sat a man in a Dark suit, with a white shirt, and a thin black tie. He wore a pin depicting the North American flag on his lapel. He looked to be in his early 40’s. His hair was an earthy red hue, and his skin was very fair. Next to him was an overweight middle-aged man, wearing a short-sleeved button down shirt. His black hair was receding up his scalp, currently about half-way to fully bald. He compensated for this with a thick goatee. He looked uncomfortable as he sat in his chair, like a spring coiled and ready to jump at the slightest provocation. Next to him was a young blonde-haired woman. She looked to be a few years older than Elliot, with soft features, pale green eyes, and a slim figure. She wore a brown suit, with thin yellow pinstripes, and a yellow buttoned blouse, with a ruffled collar. She sat confidently at the table, directly across from Elliot. In the corner of the room furthest from the door stood two men, who could have been twins. They wore identical suits to the man at the head of the table, with the matching lapel pins. Unlike the man at the table, they both had dark hair, cropped short, and looked to be in their mid-thirties. The both wore darkened glasses, and each had an earpiece snaking over the back of his left ear. They stood with their backs to the wall, showing no emotion.
Elliot looked up to see a man about his age walk into the room. He had dark skin, being obviously of African descent. His head was shaved clean. He wore a red t-shirt under a black sport coat, and a pair of dark blue jeans. He was built muscularly, and looked very tough. He sat at the end of the table opposite the man in the suit. As he sat, the man in the suit nodded to a young woman standing next to the door. She left the room, closing the door behind her. The man in the suit looked around at the people sitting at the table. He looked over at the twins and gave them a nod. The twins walked across the room to the door, and stood on either side of the door. The man in the suit turned back to the table. His eyes travelled from person to person at the table as he spoke.
“You all know that you have been chosen to take part in the Artemis program of space exploration. I am here to tell you that this was a necessary lie that you were told in order to keep certain things secret. The program you have been asked to join is related to Artemis, but is not Artemis. You need to know that this program is vital to the survival of humans, and is undertaken at a very high cost to those ends. You also need to know that this program is dangerous, and there are a lot of unknowns. It’s possible that you could give your life in service to this program, and so we are giving you all one last opportunity to back out of this. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you more about the program we are asking you to join until you have fully committed. If you choose to leave this room now, you will be escorted out of the building, and you are free to resume your normal life. We do require absolute secrecy of what I have already told you, and any failure to keep this secrecy will be met with severe consequences. Would any of you like to leave here now?”
The man in the suit sat back in his chair, as if to release the others in the room from their obligations. Sarah looked over at Elliot, and he gave her a nervous smile. She smiled back and whispered into his ear, “I’m staying.” Elliot felt his heart drop into his stomach as he heard that, it was a signal to him that he had his own decision to make. If Sarah walked out, he could have followed easily, and had someone with whom he could relate. But with Sarah staying, the decision became that much more difficult. He saw the overweight man sweating and stirring in his chair. He stood up, mumbled an apology to the man in the suit and staggered towards the door. One of the twins opened the door for him, and a third twin was waiting outside the room to escort the man out of the building. As the door came to rest in the jamb, Elliot felt his foot step off the cliff into the abyss. He didn’t know how the decision was made in his head, but he didn’t get up, and now he knew he could not. He was now committed to this program, whatever it was.
The man in the suit smiled, “Good, the four of you are the brave ones. You will help assure the survival of our species, and it will all start right now. From here forward, you are the Homestead team, ladies and gentlemen, if you will follow my colleagues, we will head to our facility to commence your training.”
He motioned to the twins, and they Walked to the table. One of them said, in a smooth deep voice, “If you folks will just follow us, it’s a short walk away.” The twins walked back to the corner where they stood before the meeting began. As they approached, a panel on the wall slid sideways to reveal a well-lit white hallway.
The team walked into the hallway, and Elliot could see that it was slightly sloping downward. There were several other hallways and doors leading to the sides of the passage, and Elliot could not tell how the twins knew to turn down certain halls. After a few turns, they arrived at a door. The twin who had spoken entered a code into a number pad on the wall, and put his eye to a lens. The lens scanned his eye, and the door opened. He turned to the team and in the smooth voice said, “If you could each please look into this lens so we can verify your identity. Just a safety precaution, I’m sure you understand.”
Elliot was the second to scan his eye, after the twin. He placed his eye to the lens, and saw a red beam sweep across his eye, and then back. A computer voice spoke, Identity confirmed, Elliot Adams, please proceed. Elliot stepped through the door into the small room, followed shortly by Sarah, and the muscular African man, and finally, the second twin. The door closed behind him, and Elliot had a sinking feeling in his gut. He assumed this was his nerves coming back into play again. He had thought he was past that now, resigned to his decision, so he wasn’t sure why he was getting this fluttering feeling in his stomach. He started to notice a humming noise coming from beyond the walls of the room, and realized at that point that the room was moving, which was causing him to feel the way he was feeling. He paid attention to the acceleration, and sensed that they were moving downward very fast. How far down have we gone? We started on the 7th floor, are we below ground level now? How many levels below ground? How far down can we go?
Just then he felt the elevator begin to slow. It came to a gradual stop, and the door slid open in front of them. The hallway in front of them was the same clean white as the previous hallway. The twins led the team out of the elevator, and down the hallway. The smooth-voiced twin punched another code into a number pad in the wall, and again scanned his eye. He invited all the team members to do the same again. The door next to the keypad opened, revealing a very basic room, gray walls, gray table with folding chairs, and a slate on the wall, with a piece of yellow chalk in a tray below it. “This is where we leave you guys, welcome to Homestead, good luck with the training.”
With that, the twins turned around and left the way they had come. The door was left slightly open, as if to tempt the four team members to make a run for it. The room was very sterile, not the type of room you would expect when you show up for your first day of a secret government program. The table was made from inexpensive polymers, not the elaborate wood of the table in 742. The chairs too were cheap. The slate on the wall was a sharp contrast from the monitors and displays seen throughout the Artemis building lobby. Everybody was looking at each other, trying to size their teammates up. Sarah was the first to speak.
“I’m Sarah Angler, I work with atmospheric studies and atmospheric manipulation.”
The muscular man spoke with a gentle voice which was unexpected from such a large man, “Garst Jasper, aviation engineer, pilot as they used to say.”
“My name is Priscilla Faust, I’m a computer engineer, I work with communications technology too.”
Elliot was last, “Elliot Adams, I’m in atmospheric studies with Sarah, my specialty is the relationship between plant life and the composition of atmosphere. Do any of you have any idea of what’s going on?”
“Not a clue,” Garst replied, “I was recruited to be a pilot for the Artemis program, so that was what I was expecting. But all this sneaking around and secret passages is a little too much spy novel for me, I’d prefer to just do my job and not ask questions.”
“I think it’s exciting,” Priscilla beamed, “I’ve always loved uncertainty. I like to be uncomfortable, not know what’s coming, it’s a thrill. Plus, it's nice to be important.”
The conversation was interrupted by a short old man walking into the room. He had a slightly protruding belly, and a bushy mustache. His hair was whispy and messed up. The hair on the left side of his head stood out like a wing. He wore a tan cardigan sweater over a white turtle-neck shirt. His pants were too long and too tight for his short, stout legs. He carried a small briefcase in his left hand, and a pair of glasses in his right. He set the briefcase down on a chair next to the slate, and put the glasses on his face, before writing Albrick Hunter in large round letters on the slate. He turned around to face the group, and looked at each one giving a small nod after examining each, and a quiet “uh huh” after he was satisfied with all four. His voice crackled from his throat as he addressed the team.
“I see Mister Babbit chose not to join us. It’s a shame, but no matter, he was not essential. I suppose you are all wondering why you’re here, in this dingy room in the sub-sub-sub basement of the Artemis building here in New Washington. I suppose you’re wondering what Homestead is, which you have no doubt heard mentioned several times in the past few minutes. I also suppose you’re wondering who I am. I hope to answer all these questions for you, but I will start with the easiest. I am Albrick Hunter, and I am the director of the Homestead project. You are here because you are all experts in your field, without immediate families to make you cautious, and you fit the profiles we needed for inclusion in Homestead. And the last question is somewhat more difficult for me to explain, so I will do so by telling you a short story."
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