The Book of Ralph Read online

  Published 2016 by Medallion Press, Inc.,

  4222 Meridian Pkwy., Suite 110, Aurora, IL 60504

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  is a registered trademark of Medallion Press, Inc.

  If you purchase this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  Copyright © 2016 by Christopher Steinsvold

  Cover design by Michal Wlos

  Interior design by James Tampa

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress

  EPUB ISBN 9781942546375

  For Marie-Juliette

  I

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  I was at home in Washington, DC, when the solar eclipse occurred on January 28, 2021. At the totality of the eclipse, a message appeared on the moon. I watched through a digital camera rigged with a solar filter to protect my eyes. When those three words appeared on the lunar surface, I closed my eyes and shook my head.

  The message was in plain English, but I couldn’t process it. I kept peeking through my camera at it and turning away. I did a quick virus scan on my camera, but it was fine. In the end, I looked directly at the eclipse. As a scientist, this is embarrassing. Everyone knows you don’t look into a solar eclipse, but like everyone else, I couldn’t resist.

  I stupidly looked through the camera again. I stupidly looked at the moon again. I collapsed on my ass and stared.

  ‘DRINK DIET COKE’ was writ bright across the moon.

  The crimson letters across the blackness of the eclipse looked simply satanic. After the eclipse passed, the bright, grey glow of the moon made it seem more natural and professional, though there was no trademark symbol.

  It would remain visible for a little over a year.

  ‘DRINK DIET COKE’

  It was the perfect message, and it did what it was intended to do.

  Six hours after the advertisement appeared, Coca-Cola sent out press releases to every major news outlet on the planet. They denied all responsibility. All of it.

  Like any normal person, I thought they were completely full of shit—lying to shield themselves from the worst implosion in the history of advertising. And like any normal person, I wanted to break something.

  Within 24 hours, arsonists destroyed the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Liaoning, China, the largest bottling plant on the planet. The local police stood by and watched. Within 48 hours, rioters demolished bottling plants in Bangladesh, Libya, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Texas. #OccupyCoke was the dominant trend on Twitter, and humans around the planet used all social media available to protest the beverage-industrial complex.

  Three days later, just as I’d been doing every day since, I was watching cable news. My phone rang right when CNN had a breaking news report: North Korea threatened to attack the moon with a nuclear missile. When I stopped chuckling, I picked up the phone.

  “Markus?” It was my old friend in Congress, Bill Paterson, a former trial attorney.

  “Bill, haven’t heard your voice in a while. What’s going on?”

  “A lot, actually. As you’ve probably heard, Coca-Cola is still denying responsibility for their own advertisement,” he said, sighing with disbelief, “and so we’re putting together a rather large investigation team. We need someone to lead the forensic side of it. I’ve been making a case for you, and when we took a preliminary vote, you won.”

  “I’m not a forensic scientist.”

  “Markus, are you tired? We’re not investigating a murder on the street. We’re investigating something that happened on the moon.”

  “But you’re not sending a forensic team to the moon.”

  “No one’s going to the moon,” he said. “I’m sure there’s plenty of evidence here on Earth, somewhere.”

  “Why me?” I asked, looking out the window at the lunar ad.

  “Well, you’re certainly qualified.”

  “Thanks, but there are others more qualified.”

  “Markus, you’re a fucking rocket scientist.”

  “I prefer ‘fucking aerospace engineer.’”

  I was a rocket scientist, but after joining NASA, I realized they weren’t interested in building new rockets, because of funding, and I spent my time rechecking someone else’s calculations. I considered leaving, so NASA appealed to another interest I had studied passionately: climate studies. They offered me the head of NASA’s climate studies division, and I took it gladly. My colleagues saw it as a backward career move, but, for me, saving the Earth from environmental destruction was a dignified intellectual thrill.

  “We both know I’ve been focusing on climate studies, so why me?”

  He paused. “It’s because of your falling out with NASA.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  With a hushed tone he said, “Markus, no one here is saying it publicly, but everyone thinks NASA must have played a role. They had to be complicit in this. How could anyone put a huge advertisement on the moon without NASA knowing?”

  “And since I got fired from NASA, that makes me trustworthy?”

  “Precisely.”

  Four years prior, I saw the funding for my climate studies research sliced in half so that NASA could create a new research division, dedicated to SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Sea levels and carbon dioxide levels were rising, and NASA wanted to appease the public by searching for little green men. Dipshit SETI sympathizers acted as if finding a microbe on Mars was more important than saving the Earth’s environment.

  In a rather heated disagreement about this with the head of NASA, I took a globe of the Earth and smashed it through his office window. He fired me. Newspapers labeled me ‘the mad scientist,’ and I was lucky to get a part-time position as a professor after the negative attention.

  “How do you think they did it?” Bill asked.

  “You mean, how did they engineer the lunar ad?”

  “Yes.”

  “I . . . I have no idea.”

  There were many solid reasons against funding SETI projects, and I was happy to present them to my colleagues at NASA, but my real motivation was not rational. The truth is I had a fear of aliens—I hated them.

  I feared the aliens of popular imagination, the cold, grey ones: the humorless aliens with tall, oval heads, dull, skinny bodies, and dead black eyes. There were years of nightmares—as a child, my parents subtracted from my allowance the extra cost of keeping my light on at night.

  Most of all, I feared we would become them.

  Within me was a strange horror of humans evolving into purely self-interested, unemotional, and science-obsessed monsters—with no true love of laughter, art, or one another. In my dreams, aliens were cynical demons who coldly raped the Earth. At times, my fears were so strong and nightmares so visceral—I prayed to God for humans to be alone in the universe.

  “I’ll do it,” I told him.

  “I want you to be sure about this.”

  I smiled. “You’re discouraging me?”

  “No, but you must know what we’re up against.”

  “Stop being a politician—what are you getting at
?”

  “Right this second, I’m being your friend. You do know President Shepherd was a former executive for Coca-Cola . . .”

  Cindy Shepherd, the newly inaugurated U.S. president, was doomed by the controversy. As the former head of public relations for Coca-Cola, she was a primary player in every conspiracy theory available. For the year to come, gun sales and death threats against the president would increase above tenfold.

  “Powerful forces are in play,” he said, “and if the executive branch is involved—”

  “Okay. I get it. Thanks for the warning, but stop being a friend. I want to do this.”

  “Good, but let’s be clear what you’ll do. Mainly, we want you to double-check any evidence we find. There must be plans or engineering schematics for the lunar ad somewhere, and we want you as the final judge. People will trust you, and with that in mind, I have to say, you’ll be the public face of this investigation—the poster boy. And don’t worry about the legal part of the investigation; we’re covering that.”

  To be completely clear, our investigation was a criminal investigation. Back in 1967, the U.S. signed on to the Outer Space Treaty of the United Nations. If a corporation did anything on the moon without authorization from the government, it would violate the treaty. And, by Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, treaties must be respected as law.

  “I’ve got federal judges calling me, practically begging me to request search warrants for Coca-Cola’s headquarters—our probable cause is written on the fucking moon. But we have to act fast. They may start destroying evidence.”

  “If they’re responsible, we’ll find evidence. Someone will talk.”

  “What do you mean ‘if’?” Bill said, laughing.

  The next day, I, Markus West, was named ‘chief scientist’ of the congressionally sponsored forensic investigation into the lunar advertisement.

  A week after the appearance of the lunar ad, the top executives at Coca-Cola faced the members of our congressional committee. It was televised, and the room was overfull with spectators and journalists. To his credit, the CEO of Coca-Cola, Carlos Heisenberg, appeared without any legal representation. Though well dressed, he was not well groomed—he clearly needed sleep and a shave, and there were rumors he was intoxicated. On his turn to talk, he brazenly pulled out a can of Diet Coke from his satchel, opened it, and noisily sipped as the crowd gasped.

  “Do you maintain that you have no clue how this happened?” Bill Paterson asked.

  “Yes,” Heisenberg stated flatly. The New York Times said this was less credible than the seven tobacco CEOs who swore, before Congress in 1994, that nicotine was not addictive.

  “An advertisement for your product suddenly shows up on the moon, and you really expect people to believe that Coca-Cola is not responsible?”

  Heisenberg let out his breath and dipped his head. “You tell me, how could my company, as wealthy as it is, have the resources to do something like this? I cannot tell you how offensive it is, the very idea that Coca-Cola is somehow responsible.”

  “You’re offended?”

  “Congressman Paterson, before this, Coca-Cola was the most popular soft drink in the world . . . hell . . . Even Osama Bin Laden drank Coca-Cola. But since this so-called ‘advertisement’ showed up, our sales and stock have suffered dramatically, several of our factories have been destroyed, and my colleagues and I receive death threats daily. From my perspective, it’s more likely a competitor or perhaps a communist conspiracy is responsible,” he said and paused to take another sip from his Diet Coke. “For all I know, aliens did it.”

  Everyone laughed.

  By the next week, mid-February, our investigation invaded Coca-Cola headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. Walking into the main building through a throng of journalists and cheering protesters, my forensic team followed an army of FBI agents wielding the most permissive search warrants ever granted. Bill Paterson wanted me to be the public face of the investigation, and, as it turned out, the media did too.

  I don’t know if it was southern hospitality, or subterfuge, but Coca-Cola headquarters was eager to supply our forensic team with free drinks. Soon after, a journalist photographed me through a window drinking a can of Diet Coke. By the next day, that photo graced the cover of the New York Post with the headline, ‘COLLABORATOR?’

  Consequently, I ordered everyone on the team to stop drinking any soda whatsoever. Within hours, my demand was leaked to the press. The next day, there was an ugly photo of me on the cover of the New York Post under the headline, ‘SODA NAZI—NO SODA FOR YOU!’

  After that, the FBI threatened jail time and fines for anyone caught leaking any info to the press. The leaks stopped. Ultimately, our investigation ended sooner than expected, and I would announce our results at a press conference in October.

  While the world waited for us, it was changing.

  In March, the Cuban government began mass production of crimson-tinted eyeglasses. The glasses were an attempt to prevent citizens from seeing the crimson letters of the lunar ad and were required for going outdoors. They didn’t work very well, but Cuban glasses became globally popular when Hollywood celebrities started wearing them. I owned a pair myself.

  On May 1, the state of Washington banned all billboards, and many other states soon followed. An impressive development, but not new, as bans on billboards had already existed for decades in Vermont, Hawaii, Alaska, and Maine.

  Untrue theories flourished. People imagined the advertisement was either being projected by lasers or somehow burnt into the moon by lasers. If you asked where these lasers came from, they would say ‘satellites.’ No satellites. No lasers.

  While naïve explanations were easy to debunk, it was unclear what the correct theory was. By all accounts, the advertisement went from nonexistent, to appearing all at once.

  In July, courtesy of NASA, we had forensic access to satellites orbiting the moon. We learned nothing. Our experts in computer forensics found trace evidence suggesting the lunar satellites were hacked, but they couldn’t explain how it was relevant.

  In August, an anthropologist exploring the Amazon found an isolated indigenous group profoundly affected by the lunar ad. They believed the advertisement was a cryptic message from a god. They tattooed ‘DRINK DIET COKE’ on their bodies, faces, and animals. The group was friendly enough to be studied, but only after the anthropologist was forcibly tattooed. Later, he would sue Coca-Cola for the tattoo on his forehead. This lawsuit was one among thousands claiming Coca-Cola’s liability for damages.

  The most common lawsuit involved whiplash—from a car crash or from double taking too quickly when seeing the ad for the first time. Several thousand people sued Coca-Cola for retinal damage from staring directly into the eclipse. Homeowners with beachfront property formed a class action lawsuit, arguing that the lunar advertisement ruined their view and devalued their home. Moon worshipping Wiccans filed suit as well.

  All of these lawsuits were waiting on our investigation.

  On October 12, eight and a half months after the lunar ad appeared, the commission held a press conference in Washington, DC. I stood at a small podium in front of the television cameras and reporters, while members of the congressional committee sat behind me, stiff in their suits. After a long introductory statement detailing the efforts of our investigation, I said the sentence that branded me forever.

  “In conclusion, our investigation has found no evidence that Coca-Cola is responsible for the lunar advertisement,” I said as gasps and nervous laughter sputtered across curious faces.

  “Your investigation is over?” a reporter asked loudly from the back of the room.

  “The investigation is over. Yes.”

  “Why end your investigation? Isn’t it possible that with more time and effort, you might uncover something?” another asked.

  “Our search warrants only covered Coca-Cola headquarters in Atlanta, and they’ve expired. We’ve searched through millions of e-mails, phone records, and internal
memos. We’ve interviewed thousands of employees, from executives to janitors, and no one—”

  “Just to be extremely clear,” a reporter said, “you’re saying Coca-Cola is not responsible for the Diet Coke advertisement on the moon, right?”

  “As far as the evidence is concerned, that’s correct.”

  “So, then, who’s responsible?”

  “Our job was only to determine whether Coca-Cola was responsible.”

  “But who is responsible?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Dr. West, do you really expect people to believe that Coca-Cola is not responsible?”

  Everyone laughed.

  Two weeks after the press conference, our summary report appeared in print for the public. The Lunar Advertisement Commission’s report was a 924-page testament to our own ignorance, and it appeared nine months after the lunar advertisement, coinciding with the greatest spike ever in newborn deliveries—maternity wards were overflowing globally.

  I doubt any of these children were given my first name. Random pedestrians called me ‘sellout’ and ‘traitor.’ Restaurants openly refused me service. Friends and colleagues didn’t return my calls, and I had no family to talk to. I couldn’t read the news without seeing my name, so I stopped reading it.

  Once, someone threw a baseball, but mostly people threw rocks, through my windows in the middle of the night. It was difficult to fall asleep, and it was difficult to stay asleep. I refused to see a therapist out of pride and drank a bottle of red wine every night, rarely leaving home.

  Then, one morning in January, I woke up laughing. Maybe there was a dream I didn’t remember, but I thought I knew the greatest joke in the world.

  “Shut the fuck up down there,” my upstairs neighbor yelled as he stomped the floor.

  The joke was an absurd epiphany, and I was laughing so hard I must have been laughing in my sleep. The thought, the joke, was that somehow aliens were responsible for the lunar advertisement.

  I kept this thought to myself.

  That morning I scoured the Internet. Many people speculated that aliens were responsible for the lunar ad. Typically, these people also wrote about Freemasons, the Illuminati, Jews, Nazis, lizard people, Satan, and the Denver International Airport.