The Six Million

"The people of Earth do not deserve those who have achieved the greatest success. They will be removed from this planet to a New Earth, containing all that they have earned and more - and those of you who remain behind will be left with what is here."

-The Others

As I was sitting in my cubicle, starting up my early morning web browsing before settling into my actual work, I still couldn't believe what I was reading. I quickly became engrossed in the quest for more information, running searches and repetitively checking all the news sites that I usually browsed when I needed a break from cranking out code. No one had ever heard of these mysterious Others before the events of the night before. All we knew about them was the message they left behind - like a ransom note left by kidnappers who offered no terms... and no hope for the return of the people they had taken.

News on what had happened was leaking out in bits and pieces, but the information flow slowed somewhat by the empty leadership slots in the big media outlets. Every network anchorman, producer, pundit - even a few of the big name print reporters were now missing. Still, enough news was leaking through that the big picture was starting to become clearer. All of our top politicians and CEOs, our highest paid professionals and business men of almost every stripe, even our star performers and athletes, had been removed in a single instant.

As mesmerized as I was by what I was reading on my computer, after a time it seemed that new information was getting sparse - and it was becoming hard to ignore the rising chatter of the people around me. So, I took a break from the computer screen and stood up to check on my coworkers.

The fractured gray plain of right angles, aluminum and cloth formed by the tops of the cubicle walls was dotted by the prairie dogging heads of engineers and administrators. Instead of hiding below them, isolating themselves to come to individual grips with myriad technical issues, they were rising above them to look for feedback from the people around them on one incomprehensible event. It was just too much to take in alone.

"Can you believe it? I mean, this doesn't make any sense, does it?" Tom's face was a mask of shock and disbelief. Like me, he hadn't heard anything about this until he had arrived this morning at work.

Across the aisle I could hear Mythri trying doggedly to contact her father. He was a senior executive in our company, and they could not locate him at the foreign office where he was visiting. I went into her cubicle and asked her if I could do anything to help.

"What can be done? He is gone like so many others, and who knows where," she said before picking up the phone to make yet another call. The question of getting time off work (she was in my team at the time) wasn't raised by either of us. We both knew that no one was really going to be working today, whether they chose to stay here or they went back home.

Still, a few of us chose to stay, having nothing that we could really accomplish at home even if we weren't really getting much done here. Anyway, the TV networks seemed to be in too much disarray to be very informative - as was clear from the inane babble coming from the TVs that were set up in a few of the conference rooms.

Later in the day I was somewhat surprised to receive an email from Chan, my department chief, asking to meet about some urgent company business. Were there people here who were actually thinking about work? I made my way across the crowded maze of the third floor to his cubicle. His workspace was just a little larger than mine - our company tried to maintain an egalitarian image within the ranks.

He asked me how I was holding up, and how my team seemed to be doing in all of this weirdness. I said I was fine - I didn't really know any of the missing people personally so it was a bit abstract for me - and I warned him that Mythri had gone home for the day to be with her family in the wake of her father's disappearance. Chan listened with concern before moving on to business. Then he told me that our division chief appeared to be missing along with just about everyone else in the company who was general manager or higher. Chan had been communicating with some of the other mid-level managers, and somehow a decision was made that he would take over for the division chief until the missing leaders were found again, or until permanent replacements were somehow established.

I was a little taken aback that managers like my boss, who I had been friends with for years, could be working towards replacing the missing people so soon. It seemed callous to me; but then, I was only a step or two above the lowest rung on the corporate ladder, so I didn't really know what it felt like to feel responsible to more than the few members on my small team.

Toward the end of our chat, he got to the point. He leaned over, hand on one knee, and looked me in the eye for a moment. "And so, I'm going to need someone to run my old department for a while. Do you think you can fill in for now?"

I thought about it for a moment. I wondered if I was the one he was asking just because I happened to stay in the office that day. I also thought about all the people in my department who would be cast adrift if there was no on to take the helm, and I replied "sure, I think I can do that."

"Can you believe such cheap science fiction bullshit? I mean, how many times have they done the old 'duplicate Earth on the other side of the sun' plot line?" Tom took a hefty bite out of his hamburger before smiling and adding in, "I'm telling you dude, these aliens have no imagination."

"Nope, seems not." I said between forkfuls of my cafeteria meatloaf. It was a little bland before I added a couple of little packages of pepper, but it was comfort food for disturbing times - same as finding a tiny bit of humor in a situation that was otherwise far too strange to contemplate.

Days after "The Great Disappearance," astronomers all over the world were searching the skys, looking for clues to the disappearance of the missing six million. Six million was now are best estimate on how many of Earth's greatest had gone missing that night. People were missing from all over the world, but the USA took a bigger hit than most - with almost a million people missing just in this country alone.

Anyway, it took eight or nine days for some junior scientist at NASA to finally push through the idea of using cameras on one of the Mars space probes to look in places that the Earth bound telescopes couldn't. What they found was an Earth sized planet on the other side of the Sun from Earth, running in almost exactly the same orbit. It was hard to get a great image with the resolution of the camera on the tiny Mars lander, but it was blue and white and brown like Earth, so the people at NASA decided to call it New Earth - hoping that it was the new home of our missing people.

"Still, it's good news," said Mythri from across the table. "At least we now have an idea where my father and all of those other people must have gone. I mean, why go to the trouble of creating a brand new planet - an undertaking we can't even imagine, if they weren't going to make it a new home for the six million? After all, they deserve at least as much as they once had here. Otherwise, why leave that message?"

Our little lunch group of four had little to say to that, since we all knew it was much more than a theoretical question to Mythri. Her father, who had come here from India 28 years ago and who worked his way up to near the top of the company, was one of the people who had been taken. We all knew him and liked him, and none of us like the idea of him or any of the others being stuck in some alien hell hole (or just being vaporized into nothingness).

"So," I said. "Now that they are planning to boost one of our communication satellites into solar orbit between the planets, I'm sure we'll be hearing from them soon. I mean, the greatest minds from our planet - who are now presumably on the new planet - should be able to scrape a transmitter together so we can chat. I'll bet your father could just about do it by himself, if he had to."

"Yes," Mythri said bravely, her dark brown eyes staring fixedly at her vegetarian sandwich. "I'm sure I'll be hearing from him soon."

"I wouldn't mind if all those missing actors and actresses beamed over some new television shows while they're at it," said James, breaking an awkward silence. "All they have on TV right now is reruns - and football season has been canned too since all the players are gone." James was a sports fan in the pure couch potato sense of the word, and his doughy physique showed it.

"Well, I guess we could catch up on our reading for a while - or even, god forbid, play some sports yourself or something," Tom needled. Tom was at least moderately fit, being something of a biking enthusiast. "Anyway, I heard the big studios are reorganizing to put out some new shows soon. Who knows, they might not completely suck. They'll be different, anyway."

Looking to further stir the pot I said "And I've heard that they are going to have a regular basketball season, so you can at least look forward to that."

This wound up James to the proper tightness, and his gears were now in full spin "You've got to be kidding me. Basketball without any players, coaches, or managers good enough to actually be in the old NBA. What a thrill..."

I left the table to endure James' rant in my absence as I took my tray back up to the disposal belt. I needed to leave lunch early to catch up on my new workload as department head. Now that I was in charge of fifty some people, I felt like everyone was depending on me, and I didn't want to let them down. So, I was working a lot of extra hours.

My boss Chan was working even harder than I was. He was not only learning the ropes to do his job as our new division chief, he was meeting with some of the other new chiefs to figure out how to fill the vacancy in leadership from VP on up. It was a crazy time, and I wondered if all of us spur of the moment replacements could really fill the bill.

It was roughly another week before they reopened the stock market, which had remained closed since the day of the great disappearance. It was hard to say whether the lengthy closure had been to avoid a panic, or if it was just because they couldn't figure out who was supposed to give the order to open in the absence of all the big players.

The panicked sellers, who had been bottled up for the past month, managed to take our stock down by more than half its value, but fortunately the bargain hunters eventually swooped in to stop the bleeding. To be honest, the net loss was less than I expected. I guess since most people had returned to their jobs and an interim government was now in place, at least some people were feeling that normalcy would eventually be possible.

A few months later, I was having lunch out with Mythri when I asked how she was doing financially. I guess I should mention at this point that we had grown closer since the day the others had whisked away her father and the rest of the six million, and we were going out to lunch together a couple of times a week now. I liked her a lot, and I think she was beginning to feel about me much the same way I felt about her.

Still, we were moving very slow - maybe because we were so swamped at work, or maybe because we came from such different cultures and were trying to figure out the middle ground.

"Well," she said. "I can't say I'm doing badly - I inherited a lot of my father's stock, even though he is alive and well on New Earth, thank heaven. It is still worth quite a bit, regardless of whether or not the stock price has really recovered yet. I'm only sorry that I will have to pay the transference tax on it - that is not going to be very nice."

"Heh..." I smiled at her. "Those of us who have no relatives on New Earth should thank you. That tax is going to pay a huge part of the national debt and help us get on our feet again - even if it is maybe unfair to the heirs such as you and your siblings."

"I can't really say if it is unfair or not," she replied. "After all, it would seem that my father has all that he had earned before and more, so it is hard to say that he and his family has been short changed. Still, it seems so strange, you know?"

I could see the concern in her dark brown eyes, even as she tried to keep up a good front. So, I reached across the table and put my hand over hers. It was the first time I had ever held her hand, and though I had done it rather automatically I was now a little nervous about it, but when I watched her smile back at me and I knew I had been right.

When I returned to the office and finally stopped thinking about holding Mythri's hand, I began to think about what we now knew about New Earth.

Just a few weeks before, NASA had re-established contact with the missing six million via a satellite that had been boosted into a new orbit around the sun. It was an amazing feat of "duct tape and bailing wire" engineering, but I will leave that story for another storyteller. As soon as the satellite got in transmission range, our scientists began to piece together information from their senior counterparts - who had been transmitting from New Earth since soon after they arrived.

The alien Others, who had technology beyond our comprehension (and who seemed to use these powers in an incredibly arbitrary fashion), had created a duplicate of Earth on the other side of the sun. It was the same as our own planet in practically every way - even down to the electronic charges that held the data in the duplicated computers.

There were only two major differences in this New Earth: First, the people had not been duplicated to allow room for the people who would be moved there from the Old Earth. Second, the Others had made an almost endless number of very small changes to prepare the new Earth for its much smaller population. For instance, the zoos and private homes of New Earth were emptied of domesticated animals so they would not cruelly starve without their caretakers. Also, anything that would have, left on its own, eventually caught fire or blown up was put into a safer state where it would not need monitoring. Even the cars and the planes that ordinarily would have littered the skys on any given day were tucked safely away in their garages and hangers for later use.

In a single instant, the six million had found themselves transported to this New Earth - where they not only had duplicates of the possessions they had owned and the businesses that they had controlled back on Old Earth; but every house, every store, every oil well, and every dollar in each and every bank was now theirs and theirs alone. It seemed they had been well and truly rewarded for the success they had had when they lived back here.

The mood on New Earth seemed to be hopeful, not least because they had finally made contact with the people they had left behind. And so it was possible for Mythri to be happy for her father, and this made me happy for her.

We did hear that they were having some trouble with the electric power grid - and there were also some problems with the water supply and communications. Without all of the workers who kept these systems up and running, everything was in the process of shutting down. But we knew that the best and brightest of American were over there, and that they would figure it out. So at the time we were quite envious of their new situation, and many of us would have been glad to be in there shoes

"Wow, I still can't believe you guys are getting married," Tom said, shaking his head in good humor.

"Well, we've been going out for over a year now. You can't really be all that surprised," I said as I shook both their hands.

James and Tom were still my best friends in the company, even though I had recently moved two buildings east to take on a position as co-chair of the division. So, I called them together for lunch at the cafeteria to tell them the news before I started spreading it around.

"I don't know where you are even going to find the time, dude. You've been working like a maniac since you started moving up," Tom said as he arranged the plates and utensils on his tray.

"Well, I've had to give up on TV pretty much, but I don't think I miss it. Of course, it helps if you're not a huge football addict like some people."

"Hey, the new guys aren't half bad, you know." James interjected. "I mean, you're missing out. I don't know if they're as good as the guys that got carted off to New Earth, but it's still entertaining. Plus, these guys are really grateful to get to play, you know?" James paused to take another bite of his burrito and took a couple of chews before continuing. "And I kind of like the fact that you don't know who is going to be the new big player yet. It adds a little bit of suspense."

While inspecting my lasagna, I added "Well, I don't really watch sports much, but the stuff I have been watching on TV - when I can find the time - doesn't really seem that bad. I mean, it's not as slick maybe, but I think some of it might actually be more original. It's like when the old guard was cleared out, the new guard had a chance to bring in some new ideas." I stopped talking for a moment as I wondered where they find noodles that were this thick and spongy - blech.

Then I thought for a moment on how things were going in the company. It seemed like the new leaders had didn't have any more trouble coming up with good ideas than the old leaders did - it was just a different group of people now had a voice. Although, it did seem like the new top managers were a little more likely to fall into some ditches that the old, experienced managers probably would have avoided. As for my own management experience, I found if you just listened to the workers, kept the agenda on track, and made the occasional tough decision, that things tended to turn out.

Anyway, I was young and rising and in love, so what else really mattered?

I would have liked to give myself the luxury of a long lunch to catch up with the friends I had been neglecting for so long, but but today's executive staff meeting was going to be about reestablishing communications with prior executive staff members on New Earth, and I didn't want to miss it. Even though we had been on our own for more than a year, I still liked the idea of getting some advice now and then from the wise old men who used to be in charge.

What I learned in the briefing that day had me shaking my head in discouragement.

On New Earth, in New America, the greatest of the great leaders had quickly drawn up plans to bring the stalled infrastructure of society back to life again. They calculated that if just so many people went to work here, and a few others took on a task over there, and so on, that the power and the water and the phone lines could all be started flowing again.

Unfortunately, since most of the New America citizens had a rich stock of money and material goods, it was hard to arrange incentives for anyone to do all the work that was required for the common good. The great heads of state (who had been moved to New America en masse) tried to institute laws and special orders to get the work done, but with no cops or soldiers to enforce the laws, no one there really paid much attention.

Meanwhile, all of the fresh food that had been stocked up in the grocery stores had long since gone bad, and the few canned goods that had been sitting in the consumer pipeline also eventually ran out. So, many of the New Americans were being forced to grow their own food. They were starting up small farms in places where the water was easily available (but not in California, since the giant aqueducts which watered the naturally arid central valley was not operating).

A few enterprising people had restarted some of the oil wells and refineries so they could trade the fuel that they produced for food. In turn, broader forms of trade were beginning to appear, and there were a few people who were getting by on skills like performing simple repair work or providing medical care (New Earth had almost half of the doctors that used to be on Old Earth - and practically all of the high paid specialists).

However, the call was very limited for any sort of work beyond that required to fill people's most basic needs. Ironically, in a situation where money, capital, and special expertise were in almost unlimited supply, plain labor was now the thing which was in greatest demand.

Certainly, as much some of us would have liked their advice, it didn't look like we were going to be able to set up any kind of collaboration with the old CEO and executive staff on New Earth - they were far too busy just getting by where they were.

Anyway, I frankly felt like we could do it on our own. My only worries at this point were for the people who were stuck on the other side of the sun. After all, my future father-in-law was over there somewhere. I knew he could get by. He was a very intelligent man, and moreover he was a hard worker. I only felt badly that his special skills were wasted in a world that mostly needed common laborers.

Mythri and I got married as planned, and while I knew that deep in their hearts Mythri's family would have preferred that she had found a nice Indian boy, they never let that effect the way that they accepted our marriage. As for my family, they were longtime liberals with no particularly strong religious or cultural identification, and they knew a good catch when they saw one.

Mythri and I lived very well off of my division chief salary now that she was home with our first baby. Materially, we had nice things, and we could easily afford to hire other people to take care of our yard, clean the house, and watch the children when we wanted to get out on our own.

I guess I had found that I was pretty good at climbing up through the gaps that were vacated by the missing executive managers. I hardly know myself how I did it, because I'm really only marginally more talented than my peers (if at all). I wondered sometimes if my old bosses had been as surprised at their own success as I was. Like me, I'm sure a few of them suspected that people rise to the top because corporations can't exist without someone to coordinate the work of everyone else - whether that someone was extraordinarily talented or not.

Our one big concern was for Mythri's father. Once the American government on New Earth had finally managed to establish a voucher based tax system, they were able to hire workers to restart the shutdown infrastructure. So, after doing some farming for a time, Mythri's father was one of the people helping to get the New Earth communication systems back on line. In turn, this system was eventually hooked into the communication satellites that orbited between New Earth and Old Earth, and this enabled limited person to person communications via a kind of email.

The first email to us from Mythri's father told us that he was working quite hard, but living in reasonable comfort. However, when he later transmitted his picture to us we noticed immediately that his clothes were old and ragged. Undoubtedly this was because the Asian sweatshops that had produced them had no equivalent on New Earth, so the people there had to mostly make do with what they could scrounge from the abandoned malls, or pay outrageous prices for a former millionaire to make them something new. This was our first evidence that the people on New Earth lived better back when they were on Old Earth. Not only were manufactured goods getting to be in short supply, we knew it would be almost impossible to find luxury services like the restaurant food or the household help that my wife and I enjoyed on a regular basis.

Moreover, Mythri and I were getting worried about what would happen to her father as he got older. The able bodied were already working hard to feed themselves and their families (although since young women were a rather small minority among the six million, new families were not too common). And so, retirees who would have had lives of leisure and the finest quality care on Old Earth were destined to live in a strange form of poverty on New Earth - with beautiful homes to live in, but no one to take care of their needs.

It was only the second message ever received from the unfathomable, alien Others, and I read it with a rising dread as I took in its implications. By now, almost everyone knew how the six million people on New Earth were living - and while the average person might feel that life there was not so bad, those of us who had taken over their vacated seats of wealth and power - with our nannies and our extravagant vacations and our hopes for an easy retirement - found little to envy in their situation.