Chapter 5: The Two Shall Meet

[Earth, Mar 17, 2080, 18:15 GMT]

        "President Aguillar, President Aguillar, the transport to Edwards Air Force Base will be ready to go in about 15 minutes, estimated trip time should be 2 hours barring unforeseen atmospheric conditions.", an aide spoke into President Aguillar's ear. President Melinda Aguillar, only the 3rd female and second Hispanic President in the United State's history. She, a woman of principle, somehow managing to hold on to office during a time of such social despair and corporate corruption. It was a small miracle she was even elected 4 years ago, a foregone conclusion that another corporate toadie would win the office. But now it seemed like the elites were ready to depose her, she was flagging in the polls, and her party barely had any seats in the Congress. All her reforms seemed stymied, stuck in Committee Hell as the corporate ciphers parceled out more and more gifts and perks for their real employers.

President Aguillar was having her mind being pulled in 10 different directions right now. News was slow to get out because of the exact nature of the phenomenon, but eventually the entire Internet would be burning up with the news. "Alright, give me the low down on what's going on, I just got wind from Edwards that a pillar of... something... just appeared 115 miles off the coast of my second largest city. We need to get the story from Edwards Air Force Base as soon as possible, before we are completely overtaken by rumor-mongering on the Internet and other supposed sources."

The aide complied as quickly as he could. "Well Madame President, it appears that there is a pillar of unknown energy, as best they could describe it, approximately 115 miles due West from Los Angeles. As far as they can tell, there is no real radiation or anything emerging from this pillar; just seems to be... there."

"Have they gotten a solid story out of the pilot who first observed this phenomenon?", Aguillar then asked.

"Well, apparently the pilot is a bit frazzled from being so close; Probably the shock of something so strange. But he did give visual confirmation, and apparently there is more to this thing than our cameras as they are can pick up," the aide replied.

"Hrm, Tell the higher ups at the base to keep the pilot away from any press or even other members of the base, I need him and his AI to go over what they experienced and formulate a story, and then I want all the high-ranking personnel at the base in the briefing with me. I want every possible angle on this story before we begin issuing press releases,” Aguillar then ordered.

The transport, which looked like a flying wedge, landed near the White House. It was going to be a tense 2 hour trip.

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        The briefing room was very large and spacious. The commanders of the base sat along one side of the large table/holo-projector. The President, Chief of Staff, and Secretary of Defense sat along the other side along with aides and recording drones. All along the walls were various displays; maps displaying where all the current hotspots were, where aid missions had to be conducted, and ominously, at least they thought, a indigo-blue dot 115 mi west of Los Angeles, the location of the anomaly. Ethan Hartford, the man who first saw the anomaly, was sitting in a what otherwise would have been a very comfortable chair, but made uncomfortable as it seemed like every important person in the world was staring at him right now.

"Let us begin then." President Aguillar began, the accumulated pollution from outside and the stress of running a nation for the last 3 years turning her brown hair a dirty gray color. "Now, Airman First Class Ethan Hartford, you have been credited with being the first living entity to make visual contact with the anomaly. You have already been checked by medical staff and are showing no signs of any kind of radiation poisoning we can detect. This is consistent with your plane's AI, 'Sally' I believe you named 'her', detecting no discernable change in radiation outside of the perimeter of the anomaly. Also, as you know, the only recording device that produced clear discernable pictures of the insider of the perimeter was the color chemical camera installed. We have reviewed these photos already, and frankly we are absolutely gob-smacked by what we see. Therefore we wanted a firsthand account of what you witnessed."

Ethan then started his account: "Well, as you well know from my flight data, I first pulled into a circular holding pattern after observing a strange patch of perfectly still water in the ocean exactly where the pillar, I mean anomaly, stands now. At that point, I saw a deep indigo outline extend into a virtually infinite 'screen' going upward to the atmosphere and downward to the ocean floor. This screen, I believe the best way I could describe it would be like an aurora, but instead of  bright colors, it was like the very night sky decided that mid-morning was a good time to appear. At that point I could see the images of a landscape appear, as I believe your photographs would bear out. This landscape seemed, I do not know how to describe this but I will try, both natural and unnatural. It seemed partially constructed and not, and the colors seemed almost like a painting; whether oil, digital, or water I cannot really tell. If I recall correctly, I remember initially calling it a 'storybook', like I was looking at illustrations or an animation made for children."

"So, if we put all of this together, it's almost as if God or something just decided Los Angeles needed a TV Break and decided to show old children's cartoons on giant supernatural projector,” Secretary of Defense Richardson chimed in. He was a cynical Caucasian man of 65, someone who had seen far too many people die and was trying to get from day to day without the whole world catching on fire.

"Hrm, as snide as that remark sounds, Richardson, honestly I cannot come up with a better explanation,”  Master Sergeant Thomas chimed in, wondering if his subordinate was going to be thrown in the brig for going stark-raving loony.

"I am glad I saw the pictures before we had this briefing, otherwise I would thought this entire base had suddenly come down with a mass delusion. I may be a cynical bastard but when I see something in black and white, or in Technicolor as it were, it is what it is,” Richardson said, seemingly going against every cynical and jaded bone in his body.

"Honestly Secretary Richardson I wouldn't have expected to hear that from you. Usually the old-grizzled war vets are the last to come around in strange situations like this,” Aguillar said jokingly, trying to break down some of the tension.

"Like I said Madame President, I may be cynical but I don't deny what my own eyes are seeing,” Richardson replied.

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[Earth, Mar 17, 2080, 16:40 CST]

        Andre settled into his chair at his apartment. Given the fact he was currently without any significant other, it was just a 1 room deal. A bed, a kitchenette, a bathroom, and a computer terminal in his living space. A tad cramped but he eventually just started calling it cozy. Most of the single people really couldn't ask for anything else, it was hard to get any space for anything anymore, it seemed like most of the ground not already built up with foundations would turn to putty the second you try to put a house or apartment complex on it. He put on a headset, one of the older models without the eye visors. He was fairly old fashioned in the fact that he preferred the projector displays instead of the goggle displays. He also still had a keyboard, one of those models with the dynamic displays though, his grandfather taught him how to type while he was still alive.

"I wonder what he would have thought about everyone having one of these dynamic display keyboards, I remember him telling me that those things were just a novelty for those who had too much cash and not enough sense back in his day." He fired up his machine for full use, the computers these days almost never were turned off, you had to always be on alert for an evacuation or some other major news. "Hrm, let's see here, death, war, famine, pestilence, death, death, homelessness, more death, giant indigo pillar appears out of nowhere near Los Angeles in the middle of the ocean, un..., what?", he mentally scrolled backwards through the top news stories. "What in the... how... huh?", he began to stammer, seeing the pictures but it honestly not clicking in his head what he should or shouldn't be looking at. "Ok seriously April Fools is not but 2 weeks away and they couldn't hold off on this story, honestly?"

As he was preparing to go into a full-blown monologue to himself about the stupidity of April Fool’s Day in this day and age, an irrepressibly cheery, female voice chirped up, sending him a neural message, the equivalent of a private message on some chat service. "A-CHAN, A-CHAAAAN, AO-CHAN ARE YOU THERE!"

Andre responded with a bit of mirth in his voice, he did like hearing from the voice coming through his message service. "Oh wow you still call me Ao-Chan; not even formally dating yet and you're already coming up with pet names for me."

Then an image appeared on his screen, it was a Japanese woman, not a day over 20, but it seemed like she was permanently stuck at age 16 in her head. "Ahh but BlueDragon, you know how much I like calling you Ao-Chan, and it's not like you ever tell me to stop anyway."

Her name was Kyoko Isegawa, she was sitting at her own terminal, it was strange how much alike they were, except she was a little better dressed up for the occasion so to speak.

"Man the condition the world is in and you're still that chipper, then again your people seem to have decided if we're going down we're going down with a smile,” Andre remarked, finding her relentless optimism infectious to some extent.

"Well Ao-chan, it's certainly better than being a grouch all the time, gotta find the little things to be happy about, at least that seems to be the way we think over here,” Kyoko replied, with a sudden wisdom that belied her irrepressibly cheery demeanor.

"Man it's funny how you go from being the archetype Genki Girl in an anime to being a refined young woman... and then right back to Genki Girl like it never happened,” Andre said sarcastically, he knew he mentioned this before.

"Well that's just how things are, you know that. If I can't get excited when something good happens, then what is the point really?" Kyoko said, seemingly batting her eyes at the guy across the screen from her.

"And talking to me is a good thing for you, heh, you know I actually appreciate that sentiment, little miss Mido-Chan,” Andre said, seeing if he could get a rise out of her with that remark.

Kyoko's screen name was MidoriHana, claiming she picked it because she loved pretty much anything to do with plants. What she also liked was when Andre decided to play along with the semi-relationship they had going on halfway across the globe. "Ohh ooh, you know how much I love it when you call me that. It's like we really got something going you know!" She even went as far blowing him a kiss through the screen.

She then returned to the subject at hand. "Oh did you hear, I heard this really big, well, something showed up in the ocean near one LA."

Andre replied while leaning back in his chair, as he looked up over the holo-screen searching for any insect that might have breached his apartment walls. "Yeah I just saw that story in my newsfeed, I honestly thought it was some idiot trying to get a jump on April Fool's Day, but I know the way you prank and the fact you saw it too kinda makes it seem more legit to me.”

Where he lived, the insect population seemed to be at constant war with the human population for dominance, although it seems like an armistice had been reached some time ago with a no-crawl zone being enforced by cleaning drones.

"Anyway, they say that there is something behind that veil but the only way to see it is to take one of those really, really old cameras or just get close enough to look at it with your own eyes,” Kyoko mentioned, clearly having read the Japanese press's account of the story before Andre even thought to look at the American one.

Andre had just started reading the American news reports on the anomaly now. "Hrm, veil, I thought they said that thing something more... opaque?"

"Well that's if you want to use a digital camera or look at a Sat-Feed. Apparently all our modern cameras are useless against their SUPER KEKKAI, " Kyoko said with a dramatic flair, mimicking one of the many anime they watched together.

"Heh Mido, you make it sound like there is someone or something behind the curtain...," Andre said half-jokingly, he knew that girl might seem like a ditz sometimes but she had some damn good insight.

"I dunno you think one of our governments or some company would just make a big blue and purple aurora just appear out of nowhere with no kind of announcement?" Kyoko said, trying to gain favor for her line of thought. "Hey what if it's aliens, that'd be AWESOME!"

Andre replied with a bit of dourness in his voice. Anytime he had to think of a publicity stunt by a Dome Citizen it made him sick to his stomach. "I don't think any government would bother to do something like this; and if some Dome idiot thought this was a good idea, he would have telegraphed it so he could brag about it afterwards."

"Look, I don't want to push the idea that it's aliens... but seriously, a big pillar of light out of nowhere. Gotta be aliens...", Kyoko perked up.

"Honestly, either way that went I think it would be for the better," Andre said, actually answering the girl's question like it was serious.

Kyoko then prattled off all the different forms the aliens could take. The classic little green men, maybe cute little alien robots, maybe even living blobs of jelly. Andre just chuckled, but in the back of his head he thought, "You know, maybe having a close encounter is just what this world needs."

They went on like this for a few more hours, at least long enough to watch the amazing color change in the pillar of light once the Sun set over the East Pacific.

"Oh wow, look at all the colors, it's like the aurora knows what colors to turn depending on if day or night", Kyoko said, marveling at the new nature of the light show.

"Yeah, I must say it is just... amazing, I never knew you could mix cyan, turquoise, azure blue and it looks like a sorta faded purplish pink like that.", Andre said, just staring at the now 24/7 live video feed being set up.

"You know what it looks like to me now that think about it?"

"A lighthouse, it's like a lighthouse showing us where safe harbor is in the this global storm we find ourselves trapped in."

"Wow, I... that is exactly was I was gonna say. Ok maybe not exactly but, yeah, a lighthouse in a storm, that's what I'm thinking of too."

"Something huge is about to go down Midori, I can just feel it, and I think anyone else watching this can feel it too."

Andre was not alone in his sentiments, all across the world, people stood transfixed to this aura. The European Union, Chinese Federation, Russian, Japanese, British, South African, Arabian, Brazilian governments scrambled to get whatever information they could get out of the American government. News stations, for the first time it seems in decades, had to cover legitimate news that wasn't some company's new product or some place in the world going up in flames. Anyone with access to a Holo-Projector or the Internet saw it, and those who didn't, would soon know of what lay behind the Aurora anyway.

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        The President was sound asleep in her residence, husband and children, a son of 16 and a daughter of 9, in another room asleep. Suddenly a voice appeared in her dream. Followed by a figure of many colors, many shades of blue, green, and violet wearing a white dress.

"Madame President Melinda Aguillar, I am vision of one of the rulers from the world behind the Aurora that appeared before your city today. I wish to address your people and inform them of our existence and begin dialogue with your many nations. A letter detailing the date of my arrival shall be delivered to once you awaken from this message." Celestia's projection told the President, who then immediately catapulted awake.

"Just what in the hell was that? Ugh... I have to stop taking those sedatives before I go to sleep, the doctors keep telling me they mess with my head,” Pres. Aguillar remarked to herself, before she looked down and noticed the scroll lying in her lap on top of her bed covers. Suddenly the flash went off in her head, as she scrambled and opened the scroll, to see the letter written in perfect English, with a handwriting that could only be considered divine.

"This communiqué comes directly from one of the rulers of the beings that live beyond the Aurora Barrier. We have observed that your military and science divisions have already noticed our barrier and we therefore feel it is comfortable to initiate dialogue with you and your people. We do understand you are not the ruler of your entire global population; however, we feel it is in our interest to appear in order to explain who exactly you are dealing with. Therefore we request a formal gathering of global dignitaries at your place of residence in six (6) days at noon of your residence's time. If you accept, then I will send similar communiqués to the other major global leaders, as best we can estimate, in order to prevent any misunderstandings or scheduling conflicts. However, if you refuse my request, then I shall simply appear without warning at a time and place of my choosing, and leave you and your world's governments to deal with the aftermath. I trust you to make an amicable decision.

Sincerely:  Princess Celestia, Avatar of the Sun

Co-Ruler of the Realm of Equestria

P.S.: We would not advise having any human attempt to penetrate the Aurora, especially in any vehicle. The results might not be, how we shall say, pleasant.

-- Princess Luna, Avatar of the Moon

Co-Ruler of the Realm of Equestria