The End of the Beginning

William biked over to the nearest dining hall, his mind drenched in thought. He wrestled to understand the meaning behind the crumpled piece of paper. Who were these traitors? Did they even exist? Could Samir just be playing some sick joke to get himself thrown out of UNIRO? Sergey did say he really didn’t want to be here… Darker thoughts soon found their way in though. Traitors...

“Suspicion is beginning to grow among some in UNIRO. I can only hold off those suspicions for so long. I need more information from you so I can finish this…”

Hammond. The warehouse conversation…

Toronto. She said the name Toronto, before the attack happened. She knew. She knew it was going to happen. She knew Terra Nova was going to commit the atrocity. She knew and didn’t say anything. Traitor… “Captain!”

William realized he was staring across his team’s table. They were all looking at him. Mario had been the one that called him.

“Sir?” said the Italian.

William put down his cookie. “Hmm. Oh, yeah, sorry, Niccolo, sorry. You caught me daydreaming. Did you ask me something?”

Rescue Officer Mario Niccolo very much enjoyed the little things about life and was most happy in the Italian hillsides where he had grown up. William found the man’s excitement for the day’s simple pleasures, like that of John’s, made him a person you just wanted to be around.

“I asked what made you join UNIRO, sir,” Niccolo smiled.

“Oh. Well, the job opportunity kind of just rolled up to my porch one day. Don’t worry about me though. Ask someone else. I want to hear your stories,” William said. He looked across the table. “Uh, hey, ah… Rescue Officer Mambiri, why’d you join?” “Dahhh, noooo, Bossman, nooo. No fair. We have all already told our stories of devotion to UNIRO, except you. I proudly told my story while you were busy studying your cookies. Now come on!” wailed Rescue Officer Simba Mambiri who only seemed to call William by the name of boss. No matter what he was told to say all that came out was a big booming “Boss” from his dark lips. “Ah come on, Boss, tell us, before our first real rescue, yeah.” “Yeah, what made you join, sir?” asked Rescue Officer Heather Philips, the teams designated medic.

“Fine. Fine,” William said, raising his hands in relent. He thought for a moment, ridding his head of Hammond and Samir for the good of the moment. He dared not say to his team the condition he was in when he was found, barrel to his mouth. He didn’t want his reason to join UNIRO being only to escape suicide. “Umm, I joined to ensure that a difference in the world wasn’t only attempted, but ensured.” Everyone gently bobbed their heads.

“Deep Boss, deep,” said Simba.

“That was better than what Fortin said,” snorted Amanda.

“What was wrong with my answer?” asked French Rescue Officer Gaspard Fortin. “My answer was genuine poetry, Miller.”

“Poetry?” huffed Amanda. “I call that desperation.”

“What did you say, Fortin?” asked William, grinning.

Gaspard opened his mouth to answer but Amanda spoke for him. “He said he joined UNIRO to find a lover on some romantic rescue mission, get married, have four kids, and then retire after being base commander for a few years.” Vinny toasted a glass. “Good luck with that, Fortin.”

“I dream big,” said Gaspard. “We are supposed to dream big here.”

“Fortin,” snapped Amanda, “we are here for a higher purpose. We are here to fight climate change and rescue people, not be leaders of universe.”

“Oohhh, my God please, no more talk of climate change and global warming. I’ve had enough of it!” said Gaspard, rolling his head. “Just doom and gloom these last few weeks in class. Doom and gloom. No ice. No polar bears. No more coffee. No more meat.” “I feel you on that last one, Fortin,” said Vinny, sighing.

“Agreed,” said William.

“Hey, it’s important to talk about, Fortin! Not talking about it got us our jobs,” reminded Amanda. She hated when people saw climate change as nothing to think about. She was twenty-four and had just finished a meteorology degree. She loved weather and climate. Growing up in the Great Plains, she often storm chased instead of attending school parties, social gatherings, and dates.

“And look, it’s gotten all of us happily employed,” Gaspard said sarcastically. “Thank you, sins of man. Our job security is fantastic and will be for quite a while.” “Come on, you know it’s a problem or else you wouldn’t be here,” contested Amanda.

“Hey,” responded Gaspard, “you don’t have to tell me, weather woman. My country actually follows its emissions targets unlike someone’s. Didn’t America back out of the Paris Agreement?” “Listen, sensible US leadership on climate change policies took a little break there for four years. But we’re back now. It was only because of that Cheeto, Mr. - ”

“My country has a carbon tax on emissions from all the bad stuff, which goes into funding for renewable energy installations,” bragged Gaspard. “We also banned fracking over fifteen years ago, something your country hasn’t even begun to think about. It’s all your politicians, divided and squabbling about who is right, who is wrong, who is more American, who is more pro-business, who is more conservative. God forbid one says they would like to save a few molecules of carbon from reaching the atmosphere or save a few trees they are criminalized as socialist, anti-capitalist, or communist. Whatever happened to just wanting to do the right thing? ” “Look, you’re right,” conceded Amanda. “Our troubles totally stem from political gridlock, especially with the only known national political party that doesn’t except the science of human induced climate change. You don’t know how frustrating it made me growing up. And now, when I see politicians giving false information on science trying to uphold their own interest and their money it just infuriates me, knowing how wrong they are. It’s dangerous and freaking ridiculous. It was a slap in the face to my entire degree, all 50,000 dollars of it…” Amanda widened her eyes and shook her hands next to her face.

“They use pseudoscience, word plays and one-liners to beat down the scientist that have worked for years to develop their theories and findings; only to be broken by a, by a, by a single news headline. It’s disgusting. Our money goes from science and education to meaningless defense projects and fossil fuel subsidies.” Her fork shot up, its spokes pointing across the table.

“Why the hell do we still fund nukes, someone please tell me that, especially after Korea?”

Amanda lowered the fork slowly and smiled with embarrassment for her outburst. She was a passionate person.

“Sorry,” she said quietly, “I digress. Science has been polarized in America; a subject for debate, not truth as it should be. Red, white, and blue don’t make green when mixed together I’m afraid.” “Well,” said Vinny, “I think the tree hugger award goes to Miller hands down, eh?”

“Proud of it,” Amanda huffed. “America isn’t the biggest problem though. You two are,” she said, pointing to Vinny and Rescue Officer Dao Jinping.

“Us two? What’s wrong with us two?” asked Vinny, a short diehard Canucks fan and former firefighter from Vancouver, British Columbia that had moved to Florida some years earlier to look after his elderly parents.

“Yeah, you two. Your two countries pollute like farting cows on laxatives.”

The table laughed.

“Eh, name calling much,” said Vinny, looking playfully hurt. “I’ll have you know that British Columbia is the greatest providence there is when it comes to being environmentally friendly. The mountains outside Vancouver heal any sickness with one breath. Guaranteed.” “One breath, huh?” chuckled Heather. “Maybe we can bottle some and sell it.”

“Umm, what about the Northern Gateway Pipeline, heard of that?” Amanda barked.

“That was canceled,” interjected Gaspard. “Trudeau put a ban on all tanker traffic in British Columbia Basically killed it.”

“Hot and smart,” smiled Heather.

“Yeah! Ha!” Vinny said. “What now, Miller?” ”

Amanda threw herself back in her chair. “Two words. Tar. Sands.”

“My government looks after the singlehandedly most beautiful piece of territory in the world. I don’t care what anyone says about that. We keep it as clean as a proper ax blade. You can get high off the smell of pine. The beauty instilled in me a love for the environment. I mean, look at me now; I fight for little cute pandas and birds!” Simba laughed. “Mckay, the only thing you fight for are goals because your hockey team sucks. I looked up their record. Football, man, that’s what you should be rooting for, not this hockey. Just oversized figure skaters man. Football has real goals with real balls, not tiny rubber hamburgers. It’s too warm anyways to play it now I hear.” “For the hundredth time, they made the playoffs last year, Mambiri! They are called pucks, not hamburgers. And they play indoors, where it’s never warm!”

“I played hockey once when I was five,” reminisced Paul. “I broke my two front teeth on the first play. Never did it again. I switched to badminton instead.”

Dao offered his calculated thinking as he pushed his green peas away from his steamed carrots. They could not be touching. “Your countries do not see a problem and therefore in their minds there is no problem. The Chinese do. My government now looks at the environment as an economic necessity that needs to be kept in balance. Extortion and neglect of our environment has ruined areas of my country. Smog still troubles my home in Guangdong. One only realizes they are breathing when they can no longer breathe.” “Man,” said Vinny, “people at this table know how to get deep. How come I can’t do that?”

Amanda raised her eyebrows at him.

Vinny pointed his knife. “Don’t answer that.”

“Well that’s why we got those air sucker things heading out there soon to help with that next month,” noted Mario. “Should start to help.”

“What do you mean our countries don’t see it? We see the problems everywhere,” retaliated Amanda.

“Yes, but to varying degrees. The effects of climate change in America and Canada and even Europe still do not compare to that in smaller, less developed nations. Some countries may even theoretically benefit from such changes. Russia is an excellent example. Because of Arctic sea ice loss, shipping can use the Northeast Passage to cut down on travel time and allows for more oil reserves to be accessed. It makes perfect sense for such a petro-state, run by oligarchs, to invoke a strategy of hidden political denial.” Dao took a sip of tea.

“You know, people are bad at not believing what they do not see, especially over the long term. China turned around so quickly because people could see and feel the consequences. Our air and water are troubled. Island nations in the Pacific, places in Africa, South America, and the Middle East all face worsening effects faster then you are which makes them act quicker. People don’t like being uncomfortable for very long, so they change, but only when they have to, not when they want to.” “China has turned around? The country is still the biggest polluter on the planet by far. Satellite images consistently show air pollution drifting east into the Pacific,” said Gaspard.

“It takes a big ship time to stop,” said Dao, “but eventually they do. One can make it slow down faster though by lightening its load, which is what China is doing very aggressively. Our renewable energy funding is second to none. Like China, we are all on big ships; some of us just started stopping sooner than others.” “Yeah, everyone must stop but all the superpowers should have done it first as an example.”

Everyone looked down the table at the voice of Rescue Officer Abeo Lawal, an outspoken man who had worked for Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency but was fired after repeated cry-wolfs involving oil spills off the coast in the Gulf of Guinea; until it actually happened when at which point he was given his job back. Instead of taking it, he joined UNIRO. Abeo crossed his arms.

“It’s the little guys that started talking that made everyone else listen. The superpowers should be paying for all this. I do not agree with the one percent rule. Why do all the giants not pay the price for the damage they have done? They did it all first. For decades, I watched my people suffer in the Niger Delta at the expense of the rich that shelter in the superpowers; digging till their hands could go no further into land that was not meant for them to touch. More oil spills into the delta than all the oil spilled in the Deepwater Horizon blowout. If you walk there, the land is black and burned and the smell is too much for many. The people that live there don’t remember a time when they didn’t see oil sheens from birth. Who should pay for all of that, my country? The Ogoni people who call the delta home? Hmm? No! It should be the leaders of the world and the CEO’s that run them.” “It can’t be just them Lawal, it has to be everyone because we have all done something wrong,” said Amanda. “All are responsible, that’s why UNIRO was made; so that everyone has an opportunity to contribute making things right.” “Is it to little to late though?” said Abeo cynically.

“Never,” affirmed Mario.

“Ye-Yes. Never,” said Seong. “I-I-I never would ha-have joined if I thought it was to-to-to late for anything.”

Abeo put his head down. “I forgot what it was like to be around optimist. I realize now I have missed it. I hope you are all right, I really do. We don’t have much time. The violence in my country only increases. And now, we have Terra Nova. A hotter world equals hotter tempers. You want real world evidence, just ask Sergeant Horbert. I bet she knows.” Abeo pointed to Vega who was drinking a glass of water at the other end of the table, not participating in the conversation. Vega reached the bottom of her glass and saw that everyone was looking at her through it. She put her glass down, not really wanting to talk.

“Violence, Rescue Officer Lawal,” she tonelessly said, “is something that my country has always lived with. Violence will always find its way to us. My people accept it and live with it. First it was the Holocaust, then it was a six-day war, assassinations at an Olympics, then it was the Arab Spring, and now it is climate change. It makes no difference what it is. Israel will always find violence, or rather, violence always finds Israel.” Vega got up to go refill her glass of water. No one really spoke until she returned, as if waiting for a sequel to her first thoughts.

“This,” she said putting her full glass of water in the middle of the table, “is what we fight over now.”

“It’s true,” said Gaspard. He used to be a mechanical engineer who worked on Mediterranean desalination projects. “Water scarcity has become a major source of conflict throughout the Middle East. Many blame drought for the Syrian Civil War and Iraqi chaos. Haven’t recovered since. The region would be nothing without water. Israel is in competition with Jordan, Lebanon, and the Palestinians, who don’t have a great relationship in the first place, over the Jordan River. ISIS extremists blew up the Tabqa Dam on the Euphrates in Syria in 2021 to keep water flowing through to Iraq. Turkey and Cyprus threatened war a few years ago over the canceling of a water pipeline to the island, which has almost no reserves left. I was supposed to work on that project. The French can build.” “Didn’t you guys try and build the Panama Canal… and fail?” smirked Vinny.

“When water goes scarce,” Gaspard lectured, ignoring Vinny, “in a place where it already was it leads to crop failures, which can lead to economic distress and migrations that lead to other social systems becoming strained. Unemployment and economic dislocation follow and people become upset. People expect to see action to combat the problems but when you combine all those troubles with shady regimes you can get social unrest. It’s all a vicious feedback loop that can ultimately end in war.” “Well, I hope we can break that loop… Rescue Officer.” Vega gulped down her full glass and then banged it on the table in front of Gaspard, then left.

Simba got up and stood over Gaspard after a few seconds of silence. “Oooohhhh, Mini-boss lady has it in for you, Fortin. You should have kept your mouth shut. You know she could kick your French fry ass across the base. I heard she was a member of Unit 669.” “Wh-What is Unit 669?” asked Seong. Most everyone else had the same question.

“Unit 669,” explained William, “is the Israeli’s elite heliborne medevac extraction unit. They are the best. UNIRO even based some of its training methods off of what 669 do. They are trained in special forces tactics and in addition to being comfortable in the air they make for great ground soldiers. She probably has more rescue training than all of us combined.” “Nonsense Boss, you’re the best here. I’m sure Mini-boss is great to but none of us can say we have done what you have done.”

“Well, thanks,” William sighed. “But you don’t want to have done what I have done and I hope none of you ever have to.”

“But if we do, Boss, we will be ready. Isn’t that right, guys?”

Each of the team offered their agreement. William’s eyes actually got a little watery. He realized something right then and there. After years of being alone and scared, he now finally had something he had been yearning for after so long… a family. When he thought about tomorrow he did not fear it because he would not be alone. He had ever more reason to fight now.

Letting out a long, sore moan, William stretched out his legs under the table. A bandage on his forehead marked where the barbed wire had cut him earlier in the day and both his shoulders were bruised from aerial tunnel crawling. But he would take it all and more to finally feel the way he was feeling now. Happy.

“To us,” said William, raising his glass of lemonade.

“May we rise together, fight together, and should fate see it, die together,” nodded Mario.

“Hear, hear!” cried Paul.

“I’ll drink forever to that creed,” said Vinny.

They all toasted.

“Captain,” asked Amanda, look back and forth down the table. “Where are the Mamedov brothers?”