Gavin's Journey Home

By S L Hendrickson

The Earth is not dead. It just can’t support all its inhabitants anymore. Gavin is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. He starts making a film about diverting water from the Great Lakes and how it has not increased food production. The public is being told that the media mogul Delgado is financing the first colonization of Mars. He asks Gavin to journey to New Earth using alien technology and where humans have been taken there for centuries. Most of the people on New Earth think that God brought them there. He will find the truth is much more remarkable and disturbing. Will Gavin return to Earth and help humanity avoid extinction or stay with the woman he loves?

• Language: English
• Publisher: S L Hendrickson
• Release date: May 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005868277

S L Hendrickson

After serving in the Army, I earned a B.A. Degree. I've worked many different jobs: Security Guard, Printing Press Operator, and Loan Processor. I know write full time mostly erotic fiction also science fiction. Sometimes I combine the two. I live and write in Phoenix, Arizona.

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GAVIN’S JOURNEY HOME

Steven Hendrickson

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2022 All Rights Reserved

ALL THE CHARACTERS ARE OVER THE AGE OF 18

The dark cloud of dust was blowing in from the parched Midwest. New York City was brown because the dust stuck to everything. The delivery truck was making good time because most of the abandoned cars had been removed from the freeway. The driver took the exit and went by the burned-out grocery store from the food riots two years ago. All grocery stores were closed since FEMA had taken over food distribution for the entire country. The driver drove up the narrow street taking off the mirrors on two cars. Parking was allowed on only one side of the street, but there was no enforcement of the regulations. The priority of the police force was dealing with escalating domestic violence. Many cars were not moved in months because of the price of fuel. The driver looked at the numbers on the two-story brick apartments while weaving between the cars. There was no place to pull over when he found the address, so he stopped and put on the flashers. He picked up the sawed-off shotgun and put the strap around his neck. It hung down in front of his chest. Twice, mobs tried to hijack the food boxes he was delivering. He jumped out with an envelope. A car was behind the truck, and the driver was blowing the horn. He brandished the shotgun, and they stopped. When Gavin came out with his bags, the driver looked at the mailboxes’ names.

Who are you looking for?

McKay.

That’s me.

He handed him the envelope and then the tracking device.

Put your thumb on the screen.

Gavin’s face and name appeared on the small screen. The driver hit the horn before the driver got to the truck. He pointed the double-barrel shotgun at the driver and said, Do we have a problem here?

The driver didn’t say anything but took his hands off the steering wheel.

I didn’t think so, he said, lowering the gun.

Gavin looked at the envelope. He wasn’t expecting a delivery. He moved into the shade provided by the small overhang above the front door. In the last five years, global warming kicked in with a vengeance. It was December, and it was ninety degrees. The air conditioning had to run year-round. In the past decade, the global average temperature rose almost three degrees. The Earth was not dead, but it could not support most of its inhabitants. Gavin thought that would be the opening sequence, black background, and large white letters. As he waited for Self-Drive, the film was building in his mind. He would do the voice-over. Even though he wanted to put someone to work, the budget for the film only covered some of the travel expenses.

If there were people outside, they would see a small, thin man looking like he may be going on a Safari in the beige cargo pants and pilot shirt. Even though he was only thirty-eight, working all day outside was getting more difficult each year. He looked up and down the street, and it was empty. In his childhood, grownups would be going back and forth to work at all hours of the day. Children would play in the streets on every nice day. They would play baseball and yell ‘car’ when one came down the street. Today the sidewalks were empty and covered with brown dust, fine as talcum powder. Everyone was an indoor species; therefore, media entertainment was more important than ever. His television package had over a thousand channels, and more than ten new movies were added every day from countries all over the world.

A little electric car pulled up. He hated them but didn’t want to think about how insane the oil industry had become because the price of gasoline fluctuated by the hour. The price at the pump could go from ten to twenty dollars a gallon and could change several times a day. There was a period of hyperinflation where algorithms controlled everything, goods and services changed to market demands in milliseconds.

He opened the envelope, took out a report, shoved it in his bag, and threw the envelope in the trash bin by the door. There was no trunk, so he squeezed into the back seat with the camera, sound equipment, and shoulder bag. He missed cabs because the drivers could be real characters. Even the Uber drivers who existed for a while could have some exciting stories, but there were over twenty rideshare companies and bidding wars. Now, Self-Drive had most of the business. He sat still while his face was scanned.

It is a pleasure to serve you today, Mr. Mckay. We will arrive at the airport in twenty-two minutes.

Can you go faster? There is a dust storm coming, and I’m afraid my flight will be canceled.

We will do our best. I see from your profile you are a filmmaker.

I make documentaries, audio off.

He wasn’t interested in having a conversation with a computer. With his light hair and deep, green eyes, he had one of those faces that people seemed to remember. As an investigative reporter for a television station for three years, there was a lot of time in front of a camera, but he never felt comfortable; he was always uneasy about his appearance and felt more at home behind the camera. The years were not kind. His tan face had deep lines from working outside and thought that he looked like either an oil rig or a construction worker.

In college, he made the first documentary. There was a scholarship from CNN of fifty thousand dollars. Death in the Fields was a film about how securing the border by completing the wall had been devastating on the farms in California because getting workers from Mexico was almost impossible. There was a guest-worker program, but the paperwork that had to be completed was time-consuming, and it was up to the farmer to prove that the workers weren’t criminals in Mexico. It could take several years to get a legal work visa. Even a minor traffic ticket would stop people who just wanted to come to the United States and make a living. The few that made it got a living wage, but the shortage of labor was so severe many of the crops died in the field, and eventually, many farms stopped planting fruits and vegetables, opting for crops that could be harvested by machine. It was bad business to grow a crop if there was no one to harvest it. The tariffs imposed by former President Carnes made produce from South America so expensive a hamburger with lettuce and tomato cost the same as a steak.

The contract on the current assignment with PBS was just twenty-five percent of royalties. He hoped it could also be sold to the History and the Smithsonian Channel. It was a film about how the great pipeline taking water from the Great Lakes to the heartland did not increase food production.

He pulled a muscle, trying to get the phone out of his pocket in the cramped seat. He was strong once, but now the muscles strained at the slightest little movement. In front of him was a television screen, and the news showed President Winters dedicating the third desalination plant. She said that it wouldn’t be long before Napa Valley was again an agricultural region. He looked at the clock on his phone. It was going to be close. The intern was meeting him at the airport. To take his mind off the fact that if he missed the flight, he would never get another interview with President Carnes, he took out the report. On the first page was: Interview with Clarence Yellow Horse Begay.

He thumbed through it, and the last page contained names and initials:

President:

Secretary Homeland Security:

Director: CIA

Director: FBI

Director: NASA

The initials were in different ink. He ran his finger over them and felt the indentations. They were original.

Begay, he mumbled. That name was so familiar. Search, he said, and the screen went blank, and then ten of the most popular search engines appeared. Google wasn’t in the top ten, but he still liked using it.

Google.

The main menu came up.

Clarence Begay.

Begay appeared on the screen, and then a three-minute video showing his life, animation of the accident, Carnes in the White House signing an executive order for a National Day of Mourning, part of the funeral, and the congressional investigation into Space Habitats. He died while constructing a base on the moon. He was a Mohawk Indian, and his ancestors had been steelworkers on the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building. His funeral was broadcasted worldwide, and President Carnes did the eulogy. Later, the company refused to pay his wife and three children any of the insurance money because they claimed he didn’t follow safety procedures. The safety line snapped, and he went into space. Begay always pushed everything to the limit. He was almost at the end of his shift, so there were less than five minutes of air left in the suit, and rescue was impossible. There was a Lander, but that could only blast up, in an emergency, to the resupply ship that came every week. They were building a habitat that was designed for a hundred people. By the time the three-year accident investigation was completed, it was year five of the worldwide downturn. Politicians in Washington preferred Downturn instead of Depression, but it made the one in 29’ seem like a holiday. Carnes intervened and got the family a twenty-five thousand settlement. The company collected on a million-dollar insurance policy. It was one of few highlights of his administration that many people thought was the most corrupt in history. The information Gavin wanted finally came up. The report was dated seven years after he died. The date had to be a mistake, but then he started reading.

DAY 1

I: Please state your name.

C: Clarence Yellow Horse Begay. You can just call me Cal; everyone does.

I: Thank you, Ca. Do you know what year it is?

C: No, when can I go home?

I: I’m just here to interview you and make a report.

C: Who do you work for?

I: I’m an assistant to the president.

C: Who is the president?

I: Maxwell Carnes.

C: Never heard of him. How long have I been gone?

I: You’ve been gone seven years.

C: What about my family?

I: I don’t have that information.

C: I want to go home.

I: Maybe something will be arranged later.

C: I want to go today.

I: There are so many questions that need to be answered. Where did you go?

C: To a planet like Earth.

I: How many other people were there?

C: Had to be a lot, but I didn’t see everyone. There were groups that lived in different places.

When he arrived at the airport, there were fifteen minutes left. Gavin folded the report to the page he was on and shoved it into the shoulder bag. Passengers weren’t required to arrive hours before their flight anymore. American Airlines was the only carrier still operating with one flight from New York to Chicago each week. The city in the sky that once had thousands of flights, and over two million inhabitants had less than ten flights a day in the whole country. Since he flew regularly, he was already prescreened and given special identification. There was too much gear to keep reading and the bags had to be scanned, then there was the face-recognition process. The TSA along with many other government agencies had been cut because the government had been reduced by two-thirds. The airlines were responsible for security. Once at the gate, he continued reading.

I: How did they all get there?

C: Like me, they were about to die and were saved.

I: Saved by who?

C: The people there called them the Providers. They built the Go-bots, at least that’s what I called them because they were always going twenty-four, seven. I saw three different types; one had wheels the other two had tracks. Each one had six arms, and they could be changed so they could do different tasks. They weren’t very smart. It took a while to program them, not very user-friendly, but they could perform routine things. They dug a well and were helping to build huts. There were always two. They were replaced when the moon was full.

I: How did the Go-bots get there?

C: They came in a shuttlecraft just big enough for them. So, there must have been a larger ship in orbit.

I: Did you see the beings that built them?

C: No. I tried to get them to take me to the Providers, but they weren’t programmed for that. Twice I got on the shuttlecraft, but it wouldn’t take off until I got off. It wasn’t until I broke one that they got the message, and then I told them to take me home.

I: Tell me how you got here?

C: I sure could use something to eat, a double cheeseburger, fries, and a cold beer.

I: I will bring you something.

C: Where am I exactly?

I: You’re in Kansas. Don’t you remember how you got here?

C: After disabling one of them another craft landed. A different one came out that looked almost human with a head and just two legs and arms. It shot me with a dart right in the chest. I was ready to meet the Great Spirit, but I woke up in the hospital.

I: You are at Fort Riley. I will see about the food.

C: No burgers? Is this chicken? I told myself that when I got back to Earth, I would get the biggest, greasiest burger I could get.

I: That's the best I could do. Tell me more about this planet.

C: Why don’t you tell me how I got here?

I: You were found unconscious in a wheat field by a farmer. You were inside a capsule similar to the Mercury Spacecraft set down by a parachute. Because you were wearing a spacesuit, he called NASA. They called the local sheriff, and he brought you to a hospital, and then you were transferred to