Oh, Christ, it’s 4:19 AM: why is the phone ringing? Hello; hello, come on, seriously: dead air, who calls at four and says nothing, hello, I hear someone breathing. I can’t deal with this, okay, I’m hanging up, do not call back. Shit. “No, William, sorry, don’t hang up,” is the labored response on the other end, I look at the phone and it’s Daniel. “William, they know, they know, I don’t know how they found out, but they did, I tried to reach Rem, warn him.” That’s it, the phone drops and that’s all he says, then just silence. I yell into the phone to Daniel, who knows, what do they know, who, what are you talking about?

There is no response, Daniel is in D.C., D.C. to Vancouver, what time is it there, like one? It hits me instantly: I know exactly what happened. They must have thought Daniel was the source of the file.

Call Rem, Tokyo is 17 hours ahead, give or take, shit, call him and tell him what? Maybe he already knows, maybe it’s too late already and they got to him. We knew this could happen, but there is no way I took it seriously, no way. I was never supposed to figure this shit out, no one was: when theoretical science becomes a reality, no one wants it publicized, it was never supposed to be discovered.

Information is the highest currency that increases its value based on proof; there is nothing of greater value on Earth today. That’s why in my world, no one works in total secrecy; ha, who does, someone is always watching. They watch us at work, home, and when we travel; surveillance is constant. I knew it but never believed it, I never believed any of this; killing us will not be my silence. We are in so much trouble.

We all talked about a bug-out plan, off-grid identities, burner phones, travel cash, and new identities as a joke; we thought it sounded cool, edgy and intense. We each had a separate plan and kept if from each other. If they actually killed Daniel, then it’s more real than I could have imagined. It also means I was right.

It was just a matter of time, anyway: how would NASA, JAXA, and the CSA hide it, RFSA, ha, when they find out, there will be nowhere to hide unless they already know what the United States did and the election hack was payback. There are too many eyes on the sky, all the signs were there waiting, like any discovery, just waiting to break through our lawyers of ignorance, our sense of owning the planet and universe: the human ego is the perfect self-destruction mechanism. The signs are always there. Pluto no longer a planet, it will be destined to be a moon for Venus: Saturn losing its rings should have been the biggest give away. It’s coming and now the secret is out.

My plan is to get to Santiago, meet up with Sebastian, and go dark. I need to get my backup files to a safe place and get my media pack sent. Call an Uber and go. Funny how a plan was made for everything except what the three of us were going to do with the discovery. We even planned for getting caught, but not killed.

While clearing customs, all I can think about is Daniel and Rem, and the information I left with Dale Wright, a reporter from CTV that I hope I can trust. He has known me for years, press conferences and media events; if anything happens to me or he doesn’t hear from me in three days, he is okay to go public with the file. Man, what a shitstorm when he does.

Waiting to board feels like a lifetime. “Hey.” I jump clear out of my skin, shit, I am spun around and am face to face with Rem.

This is an instant eternity, reliving my entire past in a microsecond, my mind processes everything from the content of every thought I ever had to the contents of the hard drive and flash drives in my bag. I hold my breath, not knowing what is coming next.

For me, it started with my data analysis from deep space, it looks like the imagery from the lander confirms some of the images returned from the Russian lander from ‘96 that I was able to uncover, but the official reports are that Rosaviakosmos, like two others before it in 1971, all failed, but the U.S. hack shows the mission didn’t fail, not even close, it revealed everything, the Russians beat them to Mars.

This was just the start; I didn’t sleep for a month, then I slowly brought the other two in as I uncovered more. There is so much data still streaming in from so many Russian “failed missions” as well as the ones they acknowledge as successes, and the images clearly show that Mars was home.

Below the surface, all the traces of life are frozen in time; Mars failed, we failed Mars and left. We left Mars for Earth. The real mission is a reboot of the planet, and at the same time, we are looking to conquer Venus. The evil plan doesn’t stop there. My research revealed that there is a strategy in place to force climate change and vegetation to grow on these planets thanks in part to the sulfur plume research I did as my dissertation and carried over to planetary atmospheric applications. Nature provides all answers.

The plan; we introduce forced vegetation and bacteria over time, and by numbers, we can overwhelm the existing atmosphere and increase oxygen and create a planet where we can breathe. The intergalactic information highway was strung into outer space decades ago and is still fully operational. The satellite station waypoints are there to guide us and send and receive information and photos.

The ones in power that control technology control everything. What they were creating was the greatest leap of faith imaginable. Area 51 was created to work most of this out. Our past is the alien invasion. The brains behind conception will never live to see it completed.

We are now at a point where it is all possible; living in environments that no one would ever think possible only means we need to change the way we think. The answers have always been there; it takes someone to just look and realize that organisms take in some chemicals and expel others; in the right combination, other life has a chance.

But the clock is ticking.

We know that time is not on our side: as Andromeda approaches, it will have a severe and negative impact on our solar system, it already has and Pluto is the first victim. The list will grow. Knowledge is powerful and alarming; I now know that the issues we are having in our cities all over the entire planet is history repeating itself; history is there to teach us so that we can choose not to repeat it.

There is no plan to end the social issues that we face. We have created them and controlled them before. We are scraping off the millions of years of Mars history to learn what we already know; it is sad and a ridiculous pursuit. World hunger, disease, and homelessness all have answers we are ignoring as we look to the other planets to call home. We cure very little and invest even less in Earth, knowing that it may be a temporary home; the answers and cures will travel to the next worlds as we migrate across the universe. We will sacrifice the billions to secure the success of the trillions of humans that will be able to expand and explore beyond anyone’s imagination.

That is the real plan and the tip of the polar ice cap that is hidden in my bag.

Looking into Rem’s eyes reveals nothing until he speaks. “God, William, I didn’t expect to ever see you again. Do whatever you need to get safe, they all know and I may have been followed.” Rem is obviously frightened as he continues, “I got a call from Daniel and that was it; my evacuation plan was on, they killed him and I have no idea who is looking for us so you know what to do, we never saw each other, get safe and stay dark.” I only have time to hug him and wish him well on his journey and he is gone, invisible in the crowd as I walk slowly backwards down the loading ramp.

It’s done: I will be a memory and start a new life in Chile, and in three days, when Dale doesn’t hear from me, he will open the package and have to decide the fate of the world.