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The Outside Lomcovak Club presents:

Black Project
by Steve Mansfield-Devine

( SAMPLE )

WebVivant Press www.webvivantpress.com

Also by Steve Mansfield-Devine: Lady Caine Digital Edition - First published 2011 Copyright Steve Mansfield-Devine 2011 The right of Steve Mansfield-Devine to be identified as the author has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the Author. This book may not be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without the prior written consent of the Author. Published by WebVivant Press www.webvivantpress.com This sample edition is based on the Digital Edition, ISBN: 978-1-908708-00-7 To read the latest news from the world of UFOs, unexplained phenomena, conspiracies and general high strangeness, as well as Dick Kennedys blog, visit: Weekly World Inquisitor www.weeklyworldinquisitor.com

Would you like the full version of this book? Visit the WebVivant Press website to order a copy of the print edition or the Kindle or Apple iBooks e-book versions of this book, and check out our other titles. www.webvivantpress.com/blackproject.html www.webvivantpress.com

For Trish

Pulvis et umbra sumus

 Part 1: Golgotha

Chapter 1: All the way to the scene of the accident

t was the other side of the door, unformed but intent, manifested by his own fear of it. It burned but was dark. The whole room was black except for the light that sneaked under the door. There was no sound, no sensation other than his epileptic heart. Night, he thought, still night. A weight descended on him, pressed on his whole body, forced him down into the mattress. He couldnt move his head, could barely move his eyes. He was aware of another light now, outside the window, hovering. Its beams slashed down through the blinds. And then he was buried under a new and greater darkness as shadows filled his vision and he knew for certain, understood with a conviction beyond sense, that it was inside the room. He tried not to breathe, not to give any sign of existence, while all the time he knew that it had found him and was his alone, that the world no longer existed outside of the two of them. The weight increased. A boundless form covered him, intimately close, yet he could not turn to face it, could only feel its warmth. His skin prickled from its unnatural proximity. He shed his corporeal weight, felt himself lifted by an attractive force. Words erupted inside his head, indecipherable messages and furtive whispers. Sensation flushed through him now, a power that centred in his loins. He felt himself touched in a way that was both special and inappropriate. Then it spoke with a voice not unlike a mans, hot in his ear. Is this what you want? Is this what you want, boy? He wanted to curl up, to fade away, but his body remained hopelessly rigid. At last, he managed to close his eyes. There was a womans voice, just as close. Is this what you want? Is this what you want, sir? Ill have to report it. Its the law. And another mans voice: Thats all over now, its all over, its finished. Dick opened his eyes. It was Monday morning. The Department of Homeland Security spokesman explained that the mandatory reporting by libraries is simply no longer necessary. Another voice, with static.
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The system was being heavily abused. Librarians were using paper records instead of computers and tearing up the records at the end of every day. Now that every book has a chip, we dont need to know what people are taking out of the libraries. We can tell what theyre reading just by sitting outside in the street and scanning their houses. Isnt that an invasion of privacy? How can protecting people against terrorism be an invasion of privacy? Is saving the lives of millions of Americans an invasion of privacy? You need to get your priorities sorted, fella. Dick switched off the radio. He stared at the ceiling of his trailer and wiped tears from his eyes. *** Sally didnt like the sound of the right engine. Shed salvaged it from a DC-3 that had run short of luck on a drug run into the Keys. On every flight for the past month she had watched it with deep misgiving. It ran fine. It was just the sound she didnt like. She sensed a new vibration in the tired metal of her C-47. In more than twenty years of flying this plane, Sally had accommodated every creak, groan and rattle. Its many pulses, its twitches and spasms, were wired straight into her central nervous system. She could tell when it wasnt happy. Where The whimper came from Craven. Sallys passenger was folded into the co-pilots seat, his large, sharply angled frame finding no comfortable fit in the cramped cockpit. Where are we, please? Sally squinted hard to filter out the scratches on the C-47s windshield. They were laced across the Plexiglass like spider webs. It was still early in the day and as California slipped behind them, Sally found herself staring full into the sun. Where ? Dammit! What does the gimmick say? Craven peered at a device duct-taped to the instrument panel. Its given up completely now. Just says no satellites. Sally sighed. Well, no great loss. The damn thing gets its information from satellites that belong to well, you know who. She looked through her side window at the ground. They were high, far too high to see individual people. The pleasure she took from this couldnt take her mind off the problem. Is that a bad thing? asked Craven. He peered at the box again, tapped it, then shoved his hands back under his thighs and squirmed in his seat. Cant be good, said Sally. And sit still, Sparky. I need to think. The names Craven.
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I already told you about that. Sally hated hauling soft cargo. She should have been making this journey alone, deadheading to Chicago, no load, no deadline. Already, she wanted to rewind the day. At dawn, Sally had stood on the airfields deserted ramp in a state of anticipatory rapture. The breeze was light but building, and rolled unhindered across the field. Sally liked the openness of airfields. They were places where the insistent world was kept at bay. This was going to be a long flight. She had arrived at the airfield early, wanting the crisp, dense air under her wings for the initial climb that would take her into the sanctuary of the unpopulated sky. She unzipped her leather flying jacket. Underneath she wore only a thin t-shirt and shoulder-holster. She shivered as the cool air penetrated. The breeze flicked her bobbed blonde hair gently about her face. Sally tilted her head back, face to the sun, closed her eyes and sought that state of ecstatic nothingness she found so rarely on the ground. She heard footsteps and a flutter and opened her eyes. The windsock showed that the breeze had freshened. Headwind, she thought, and smiled. Oh well, you can fight me all the way, it wont stop me. The lineman called hello, let her into the office and five minutes later the phone rang. He handed Sally the receiver. It was her boss, Lulu, saying to expect a passenger. Male or female? asked Sally. Male. His name is You know better than that, boss. Lulu chuckled. Sorry hon. Whys your cell not working? I ditched it. How will I know him? Hell be like all the others. Sally watched the passengers arrival through the office window. He fell from a black BMW with tinted windows whose driver then scorched his way down the road as if afraid of what hed left behind. Sally walked outside, dropped her flight bag on the ground, crossed her arms and said nothing as the man levered himself up, dusted himself down and then approached. He wore an expensive but crumpled dark suit, white shirt, no tie. Sally guessed that he had just passed fifty and was not taking it well. He had no luggage. All he carried was a mobile phone which he now waved at her like a form of ID. You Lulus pilot? Sally took a breath, cocked her head a little, examined his appearance now that he was close enough to see her do it. She said nothing. Im Craven.
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I dont care. I was told to contact Lulu by Youre here. Thats all I need to know. Well be leaving soon. Thats all you need to know. He looked around the airfield. From where they stood, they could see only a handful of aircraft a few single-engine trainers, a JetRanger helicopter owned by a local TV station, a cropduster and a small corporate jet. Sally knew he couldnt see her plane. She always parked as far from the FBO as possible, preferably out of sight of nearby roads. Which ones ours? Which one do you want? I can fly any of them. He searched her face. Then his gaze roamed further abroad, down her body and back up again. He shrugged his shoulders and smiled. Yeah, I bet you can. So what other services do you provide? Sally picked up her flightbag. Sometimes I kill people. Cravens smile flickered off, then returned, though less certain. I bet I can figure out how. I doubt it. So, you want to fly or do you just want to stare? I aint decided yet. Please yourself. Sally turned and walked towards a large hangar. She heard him scurry after her. Finally he caught up. She glanced sideways to find him bouncing beside her like a puppy. Didnt mean anything by it, he said. Its just that when Lulu told me her chief pilot was a woman well, I expected something more More what? Dyke-ey. Sorry to disappoint you. Oh, believe me, Im enjoying every minute. Sally stopped and faced Craven. How well do you know Lulu? Pretty well. We were in business for a short while, back in Then you know what our business is like. You and I are about to spend several hours together in a very small space. You do anything even remotely inappropriate and Ill jettison your sorry ass like so much blue ice, clear? Roger captain. Craven snapped his hand up in a salute. They passed the hangar, rounded the corner and the aircraft loomed above them. Craven stumbled, stopped. His gaze darted around searching for alternatives, paused hopefully at the corporate jet, then settled, unwillingly, on the beast before them. In spite of its sleek, Art Deco lines, the aircraft was brutally utilitarian. It sat on the tarmac with its nose raised pugnaciously in the air. The metal skin
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showed traces of red paint but was otherwise a dull, indefinable colour. As Sally and Craven stood beneath the nose, they could see the faint remains of a design painted on the side of the fuselage, just below the cockpit window the ghost of a face and illegible writing. It seemed to have been scrubbed clean, as if in a hasty attempt at disguise. What is this? said Craven. A fucking museum piece? Sally kicked one of the huge tyres Built in World War Two, she said. First mission was to drop parachutists over Normandy. Since then, its had a hard life. Military transport. Used by an airline in South America. Hauled freight in Africa and India. Lulu bought it in nineteen well, a while back, anyway. Its been my home and office ever since. Its a piece of fucking junk. Im not getting in that. Sally ignored him. She was thinking of the many happy years the aircraft had served as a flying whorehouse the flagship of Lulus fleet. Sallys job was to transport the girls to places in the world in need of relief remote areas of Alaska, isolated towns in the Amazonian jungle, many parts of Germany and all of Nebraska. During the hours of business, she bounced rowdy clients and banked the takings. It was a good, steady job. And then, without warning, they were out of business. The FBI investigation and Senate Committee had both disintegrated in chaos when Lulu threatened to publish her client database on her website, but their reputation was too damaged. Times have changed, sweetheart, Lulu had said. I guess were back in the charter business. Sally had ripped out the mirrors, sleeper compartments, velour sofas and crushed velvet wall coverings. She dismantled the bar, took down the curtains and pulled out the hidden video cameras. But she left the secret gun cabinet untouched. This is the haulage truck of the air, she said to Craven. It aint pretty, but then we dont do pretty work. They ducked under the wing and came up by the rear cargo door, which was open with a set of steps in place. The lineman was already there. He handed Sally some papers. Flight plans filed. I did a walk-round, too. Sally smiled at him. Thanks Dale. But I already did the pre-flight. Dale blushed, stuck his hands in his pockets, hunched his shoulders and stared at his feet. See you in a few weeks, said Sally. Maybe. Oh. Yeah. Right. Dale shuffled a couple of steps back, waved a hand at her and ambled away. Sally watched him for a moment, the smile still on her face. Then she bounced up the steps into the aircraft, turned and held out a hand for Craven. He licked his lips, waved her hand away and started up. His foot slipped from the metal step and he banged his forehead on the lower sill of the door. Sally held out her hand again and Craven took it.
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Since that point, Craven had been largely silent and still, except for a whimper when the first engine grumbled into life and another when the aircraft broke from the ground. From time to time, Sally had to check that he was still conscious, only to find him staring fixedly ahead. Now Craven had started to twitch in his seat. Finally, the thought that had been thrashing around in his mind broke surface. You think the Government would feed false information from navigation satellites? he asked. That theyd, like, lie about where you are? Sally sighed. Do you doubt it? The military has always reserved the right to downgrade the signal. Its pretty obvious what they mean by that. But why? Why would they do that? Sally looked him in the eyes. Tell me, in general details only, why are you on this plane? Craven fidgeted, looked out the window, pursed his lips. Because people are looking for me. Sally laughed. She meant it as an insult. Well, its good that you know that because it means that you can do something about it, right? Now pour me some coffee. As Craven uncapped the Thermos flask, Sally tapped the whiskey compass and watched with a heavy heart as it slowly oscillated between north and south. She looked again through the windshield, as though she might find the cause. Craven also turned his head to stare at the ground through his side window. You know where we are, right? he said. Sure, said Sally, To within a state or two. She caught his expression. Just kidding. I never rely on machines. Dead reckoning and a good map are all I need. She looked down at the sectional chart on her lap. A blue chinagraph line marked the course of their first couple of hours of flight. That line ended at the point where Sally first realized the navigation systems were acting strangely. She wasnt even certain about that point. In her mind she drew a circle, knowing that they had to be somewhere inside it. It was a large circle and it was filled with nothing but mountains and desert. It was bisected by a cross-hatched line, magenta on one side, blue on the other. She frowned. That meant they were either in a Military Operations Area or a restricted zone. She wasnt happy with either. Sally peered through the windshield once more, half-expecting to see fighters diving to attack them. Keep a look-out, she told Craven. There could be some traffic here and we are most definitely VFR now. She nodded to indicate the radio. Ten minutes before it had crackled strangely and then fallen silent. Sally had already cancelled her flight plan once they cleared San Franciscos controlled airspace. The sky was severe clear, blue to the horizon.
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She had no need of help from air traffic controllers. She decided to fly under visual flight rules so that she could deviate from the route as the whim took her. She hadnt even requested flight following. She didnt want anyone any man sitting in a darkened radar room keeping tabs on her movements. She still didnt regret that decision. Not yet. Sally knew from experience that you were never so lost as when you were lost in an aircraft. There is no possibility of stopping, of rooting yourself to the spot to take stock or wait for other forces to take effect. There is no idling in the hope of a happy accident or fortuitous coincidence. You are your own world ceaselessly moving into an unknown and perhaps dangerous relationship with the world below. Sally took stock. Compass acting weirdly, failed radio, GPS not picking up satellites. She thought about setting the transponder to code 7600, to alert any watching radar operator that she had radio failure or even use 7700 to indicate an emergency. But that would have delivered her into the hands of others, would have consigned her fate to the indifferent decisions of government employees. And besides, she wasnt sure the transponder was working either. She had set the direction indicator to match the compass early in the flight, but there was no telling how much the gyro had precessed without a reliable compass to check it against every now and then. At least the weather had stayed fine just a little haze now as the day burned on. Sally ran her eye along the track shed drawn on the chart and tried to match the pictures of the mountains to the scenery passing below them. But she couldnt recall if the pictures of mountains on the chart the pretty tessellations of peaks and valleys were meant to be an accurate portrayal of the planets undulations or just some creative cartographers way of saying some mountains here. She scanned the contours and fractured shards of the ground, its peppering of vegetation, the random deviations of rivers, and could determine absolutely no purpose in any of it. This aspect of the landscape had always worried her. Even when she flew over towns and cities she was unnerved by the irregularity of roads and buildings, parking lots and parks. Sally didnt care for this lack of discipline. That was why she liked to fly. There was nowhere on earth as pure as the sky. I think theres something out there, said Craven. His voice was strained. I cant make out if its a plane, or what it is. Its kinda like a light He stared from his side window. Whatever Craven had seen was hidden from Sally by his head. Could be someone with a landing light on, said Sally. Some people do that to make themselves visible, especially on days like this, when the skys so bright. Or it might be a high-visibility strobe. Is the light flashing? No, its steady. White. Doesnt seem to be getting any closer.
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Could be the sun reflecting off a window or polished metal panel. Sometimes you can see reflections like that for a hundred miles. Keep watching. Keep your head still. Does it appear to be moving relative to your window? Craven placed a fingertip on the window and stared silently for a while. Then he rubbed the palms of his hands along his thighs and pushed his hands back under his legs. Nope. Seems to be stationery. Sally rocked forwards and back trying to see around Cravens head. Craven moved too, back and forth, constantly in her way. Whats it mean? he said. Is it hovering? What the hells going on? It means were on converging paths, said Sally. So the important thing is, is he coming towards us or going away? Cant tell. Damnedest thing. Seems to be staying put. Aint getting any bigger or any smaller. Why is that? Its weird. Not so strange, said Sally. She wanted to calm him. She didnt need unpredictable behaviour inside the aircraft. When two aircraft are on collision course, the other plane always appears tiny, right up until the last second, when it kinda zooms up at you. Its like it has suddenly accelerated, but its just a visual trick. Thats why people often never seen the plane that hits them. Well I can sure as shit see this one. Lights always seem bigger than Sally sensed her words werent helping. Whats happening now? Still there. Same as wait a minute. Holy shit! The cockpit exploded with light and noise and the plane heaved under them. Sallys vision blurred and her head span as the aircraft bucked, fell, twisted, shook. She hauled on the yoke, then realized she didnt know which way was up. She screamed with anger, yelled at herself, FFA! FFA! The windshield was filled with mountains but the attitude indicator showed nearly level, inverted flight. Tumbled, she thought. She pulled back the power levers, released pressure on the yoke for a moment, then applied back pressure steadily. She felt her body pick up weight, her bowels sag and turn to ice, felt the pressure in her neck and eyes as the g-force mounted. Not too much, she gasped. Dont want to pull the wings off. The ground slid down the windshield and now she saw the tops of mountains and blue sky. She released the pressure on the yoke and brought the power back up. They were straight and level again. Sally wiped the sweat from her brow, breathed deeply, blew out slowly and looked at Craven. His eyes were shut tight, his face white and damp, his hands clasped together and pushed hard between his thighs. He rocked back and forth slowly emitting something between a groan and an incantation.
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Sally was aware of the speed of her heart. Her head throbbed and her hands shook. She rubbed her eyes and scanned the sky. You see him? she asked. She was disappointed by the wavering of her voice. She sought comfort in altitude and put the plane into a cruise climb. Craven grunted. Sally saw that his eyes were still closed. What the fuck was it? she asked. A fighter? The sky was empty. They were alone. Sally made an adjustment to the throttles to cancel the beat of the props. A scan of the instruments told her that all the systems that had been operating before the incident were still working. She could see no damage to the aircraft. Oil, fuel and hydraulic pressures were in the green. The compass still turned uselessly and the GPS still read no satellites. Sally knew that their stall and near-spin would have made the directional gyro totally untrustworthy. She wondered if there were degrees of being lost. If there were, they were more lost than ever. Came out of nowhere. Cravens voice was weak, almost inaudible in the rattle and hum of the cockpit. Like a missile. Like a fucking missile. His eyes opened wide. Do you think they were shooting at us? Did you see a missile? No. Just light. Lots of light. It was so fast one minute just a speck, then it seemed so big. Filled the sky. Sally thought about this. It wasnt a missile. Whatever it was, it missed us, but it had enough of a wake vortex to spin this plane on its back. But didnt seem much like a plane either. Cravens face adopted a sheepish look, as though he was embarrassed by what he was about to say. Do you um you know, think it might have been a What? A UFO? Sally tried to keep the cynicism out of her voice. Well. It was an object of some kind. It was flying. And we dont know what it was, so The right engine coughed, then ran smooth. Then it coughed again. And again. Sally rechecked the gauges. Fuel pressure to the right engine was falling. Craven shot a terrified glance at the engine then at Sally. If that engine fails, can we fly on the other one? All the way to the scene of the accident, recited Sally, though the old joke gave her no comfort. She tapped the fuel pressure gauge. It made no difference. She looked at the ground and saw only the hard slopes of mountains and boulder-strewn desert. She checked their altitude. They were up to nearly twelve thousand feet. But Sallys best guess was that the highest peaks of the terrain below had climbed to around ten thousand. With just
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two thousand feet to play with, they would be on the ground very soon if the engine gave up. She tapped the fuel gauge again and the right engine stopped. Shit! For a second she looked blankly at the gauge, trying to work out why tapping it had killed the engine. Then she came to her senses, stood hard on the left rudder pedal, pushed the power for the left engine full forward, feathered the right prop, checked that the hydraulic lever was set to the good engine and that its shutters were set to trail. She turned off the fuel supply to the dead engine and switched off the boost pump. She then selected the right wings fuel tank to feed the left engine. She wound in rudder trim to take the pressure off her left foot. What are you doing? squeaked Craven. Landing, snapped Sally. She double-checked the chart, but knew before she looked that there were no airfields, no towns, not even a road in her imaginary circle. She also knew she had little choice about landing. In the thin air of the Sierras, they wouldnt be able to maintain altitude on one engine not in an aircraft this old and this tired. She scanned urgently for somewhere flat enough, clear enough and close enough to give them a fighting chance. A ridge loomed before them. It was slowly moving down the windshield, so Sally was sure they would clear it. The left engine roared in her ear. Part of her attention was now tuned to any signs it might give of trouble. She glimpsed the vertical speed indicator. They were going down at a hundred feet a minute. Not too bad, she thought. Maybe twenty minutes flying time. Gives us a range of as much as thirty miles more if the land falls away the other side of this ridge. Ahead, the ridge was closer and higher than it had seemed a moment ago. She searched hopefully for a plateau, even a wide enough trail. There was nothing. And then, as the ragged line of the ridgetop dropped slowly below the nose, something emerged indistinctly in the haze beyond. In the fractured chaos of the landscape, Sally discerned an unnatural geometry. My god, she said. Is that what I think it is? *** Kate MacMillan didnt want the meeting. It came to her out of nowhere, like most of the things she feared. You have an interesting past, the recruiter said. He was a small man, ferret-faced, wearing a cheap suit and a tie he could not have chosen himself. Hed been waiting for Kate in a tiny, bare room whose only window was whitewashed. Kate refused to sit at first, but when he spoke those words she grasped for a chair. In what way interesting? she replied. She took care to adopt a neutral tone.
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The recruiter waited until Kate was fully seated. He seemed to take an interest in the way she crossed her legs. Interesting in that there seems to be so little of it on record. He waved his hand over a dossier on the desk in front of him, a flourish that would have been more at home in a magic show. I mean, youve had a full career for someone of your age at least, for what it says is your age in these documents. He gave her a crooked smirk. Kate wasnt sure if it was malicious, gallant or conspiratorial. But there isnt a lot of detail. I mean, like who actually employed you or what you worked on. Kate realised she was leaning forward, as though to catch his words. She sat back, pushed her glasses into place with a fingertip, looked at the window as though able to see through it. The work I do is highly classified. The fact that Im here should have been the clue. The recruiter nodded his head in a knowing way. Kate guessed it was a bluff. Dont get me wrong, said the recruiter, Im impressed Im not trying to impress you. I dont need to impress you. Well yes, I know. I understand how these things work. The fact that there is no record of a Kate MacMillan from Rats Nest, Ohio He let that hang in the air. No high school, stuff like I changed my name. she said, and thought, is it time to change again? She hoped not. MacMillan was the first name she had chosen herself. You got married? I didnt Look at my clearance. Thats all you need to know. Kate glanced around the room. Like most at this base, it was barren and functional. There was no furniture other than the two chairs they now used either side of a plain, metal desk. Kate fought a tremor of panic. She spent far too many days in rooms like this. She calculated the number of steps to the door. Do you always wear those dark glasses? Theres nothing in the file about that. Kate flipped up the shades attached to her spectacles. She saw nothing she hadnt seen before and flipped them down again. The recruiter appeared to make up his mind. Well, Im really just a messenger. The fact that I could dig up so little about you and yet youre so highly recommended Take that as a warning. Kate sat up stiffer. So, you have a message for me? An offer. Im told your task here, whatever it is, is nearly done? Thats classified. Whatever. There was a note of irritation in the recruiters voice now,
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which was exactly what Kate wanted to hear. Ive been sent here to tell you to present you with a proposition. A proposition? Are you hoping to hire me or fuck me? Kate watched the recruiters eyes. They flickered in confusion, as though confronted with a genuine choice. He continued with a note of disappointment. The job, if you want it, starts in a few weeks. It would help if I knew what it was. I cant tell you. Because you dont know. Ive been told to tell you that it needs the skills you have and would result in a considerable increase in pay, rank I dont care and security rating. Kate drummed her fingers on her knee. Can you tell me where it is? No. But it doesnt matter because that couldnt affect your decision. Even if I told you, you wouldnt have heard of it. You cant be sure. Yes I can. Even knowing about it is enough to put you in jail, unless you work there. Do you work there? Well, no. Neither do I, yet. So that makes two of us who know about it and dont work there. Are we going to jail? We dont know about it. In fact, all we know for sure is that we dont know about it. We know theres something not to know about. The recruiter shook his head. This isnt getting us anywhere. Except maybe jail. Kate ran a hand through her hair. It was brunette again, nearly black, though much shorter than she liked. I guess its pointless asking you anything about the programme. Of course. They sat in silence for a moment. Kate couldnt stop thinking about that additional security rating. So lets recap. You cant tell me what the job is, where it is, what it involves, who its for. Do we know how long it will last? Nope. But it involves a very high security rating. The highest. Youve heard of Q-Clearance? Kate nodded, waved her hand dismissively. Well, this is thirty-eight levels above that. Maybe more. Kate couldnt suppress her chuckle. The recruiter carried on without
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acknowledging it. And theres one other thing. Once youre there wherever there is you cant leave til the jobs done. Kate recrossed her legs and unnecessarily smoothed down the fabric of her jeans along her thigh. She did this several times as she mulled over what shed heard, then stopped when she noticed the recruiter following her actions too closely. One thing I want to be sure about, she said. Given that you wont give me any information, youll forgive me if Im a little suspicious. Yes? This is official, isnt it? The recruiter looked around to indicate the building in which they sat. Not everyone can get into this facility, you know. Thats why I approached you here and not He waved a hand vaguely to indicate the wider world. Not out in the ordinary world. Like at your home. Kate couldnt remember the last time her home could have been called ordinary. So Ill be working for my country. Arent we all? Kate turned and stared again at the whitewashed window. How do I let you know? The recruiter pushed a business card over to her. It was blank but for a hand-written number. Call this any time in the next week. After that itll be too late. You only have to say yes or no. Nothing else, not even your name, especially not your name, and dont make any reference to this conversation. And there is one other thing. I dont know what it means, but I understand it has something to do with the person who recommended you. Its a message. Say hi from Doctor Aircool. It was as though a dead man had spoken. Kate stood abruptly. The recruiter shot upwards too and tipped over his chair. While he righted it, Kate stalked out of the room and towards her office. She kept glancing at the card with its hand-scrawled number. Could he have written it? She thought it looked a little like his writing. Kate was still looking at the card when she walked into her office. She had a vague impression that it was too dark for mid-afternoon. There was an unpleasant smell, too. She looked up knowing she would see the security chief. He was a big man, mostly fat and sweat, and had a habit of sitting on the edge of her desk, next to her keyboard, so that he could lean over Kate without having to bear the full weight of his body on his short and underused legs. Over the past three months, the time Kate had worked at this facility, he had managed to leave a dark, permanent stain on the desk. Kate had replaced her mouse mat four times.
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The security chief had drawn the blind covering the window overlooking the corridor. Kate opened it and left the door ajar. Shut it, growled the chief. Kate ignored him. She sat in a visitors chair rather than have to squeeze between the chief and the window to get to her desk. Something I can do for you? The chief looked over her desk. Sure is a tidy office. If n I didnt know better, Id swear no-one worked here. Kate checked the desk and saw that the pen holder had been moved. The chief stood. His legs wobbled a little as they took his full weight. Theres something about you that aint quite right, he sneered. Every time Kate had heard this speech she knew she would be looking for a new job. Something always came up. It was like a miracle. But Kate didnt like relying on miracles. This time, she thought, turning the recruiters card over in her hand, maybe itll be a little easier. She dropped her hands into her lap, making sure the card was covered. The chief came around the desk, and stabbed a pudgy finger at Kate. I know all about security, about clearances, compartmentalization an all that shit. But I never did much like your credentials. Today, I have to let in some fairy fucking weasel whose name Im not allowed to know sos he can see you about something thats none of my goddamn business and when I try to do my job and check with the people whove supplied his clearance Im told to shut the fuck up and act like he aint even here. Youre doing a great job. The chief s face turned red. Never you mind what kinda job Im doing. Its what youre up to You know my work is classified, said Kate. She looked down, brushed her jeans again. Above your level. That aint what Im talking about. The chief stood more erect and hitched up his trousers. Ive been doing all kinds of research into you, ever since you came here. In case you aint noticed, this is a highly secure facility. If I didnt follow up my little suspicions I wouldnt be much of a security chief, now would I? I dont care what kind of security chief you want to be. Now would you leave? I have work to do and you cant be in the room while I do it. You dont want to know what I found out? Kates throat was tighter when she spoke. You found out nothing because its all classified. The chief sniffed. Maybe. Maybe so. That is, if you only go through official channels, the channels youre supposed to use. But I used to be a cop and I knew a lot of people reporters, private dicks who know how to put together a picture using other sources. Sometimes you can take all the gaps in
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someones life and putting together the gaps produces an interesting picture. Then theres police records, newspaper cuttings, youd be amazed at whats available. Kate tried to look bored. She was too afraid to speak. She knew this day had been coming. You really think your security clearances will save you? said the chief. This time there was something in his tone and the vagueness of what he was saying that gave Kate hope. Hes on a fishing trip, she thought. Kate stood. She put her hands behind her back. The chief moved closer pushing before him a cloud of body odour. Kate regretted having stood up. You havent the faintest idea what youre talking about, she said. The chief stabbed his finger at her again, but seemed for a moment unable to talk. That little fucking weasel, that really got my goat. You think youre such a bigshot. Walking round wearing them shades all the goddamn time, like some fuckin rock star. Well, I just heard from an old buddy of mine, works in the public records office for Eureka, Nevada Oh shit, thought Kate, Eureka. an he says hes sending some stuff over that he knows Im gonna find interesting. And if its what I think it is, you can kiss goodbye to your security rating, to your job and maybe to your liberty. They locked eyes. For Kate, the world fell silent. She was aware only of the card that she turned over and over in her hand. *** Dick Kennedy stopped writing, baffled by what hed just heard. He looked up at his interviewee and watched for signs of sincerity. Madonna? he asked. Yes, New Madonna, said the old woman. She stroked the crucifix hanging from her skinny neck and gazed heavenwards. He said Id be the New Madonna. Dick watched the womans arthritic hands attempt to pick up her mug of cocoa. She gave up, dropped a straw into the mug and leaned forward to suck noisily. Shed removed her teeth earlier makes it easier to talk, shed claimed. Are you entirely sure thats what he said? asked Dick. The woman sat back and wiped her lips with her sleeve. I couldnt hardly mistake it, she croaked. He werent moren a yard away. And he said this while you were tied up? asked Dick. No, no, no. While he was tying me up, goddammit! She scratched at her cheek. Dead skin dropped into the cocoa. Dont you listen? Dick jotted down the words tying me up just under the words three-foot
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high. He was still unsure about New Madonna and was reluctant to commit the idea to paper just yet. As UFO reporter for the Weekly World Inquisitor, Dick felt an obligation to weed out the wilder claims of his interviewees. It wasnt always easy. The woman coughed again, hacking wetly with no attempt to cover her mouth. To distract himself, Dick re-read his notes. They started with her tale of financial hardships, her ambiguous feelings about her father, her less ambiguous feelings about her late husband, her years spent with no-one but the hogs and the dog. And then came the lights in the sky. From that point, Dick had ticked off the standard details. Weird light humming sound animals wailing couldnt move felt a presence huge eyes touched me There were some unusual particulars, too. The humming had turned to a loud crackling. The weird light had flashed in a white blaze so strong that the old woman said it nearly made her pass out. And then there was the smell. Like my ol mans socks, shed said, may he rot in hell. Dick wasnt surprised by such embellishments. Everyone deviated from the script to some degree. He had trouble reading on, though. What followed were the details of her close encounter. The woman had been extraordinarily frank about what the three-foot high creatures had done to her. She said it was against her will, but as she described the touching and the probing, Dick had the sensation that she was enjoying the attention, then and now. And he wasnt the first person shed told. Dick first heard about her ordeal from her neighbours Perhaps if you come listen to her, shell stop talking about it, goddammit, said the anonymous caller. You write about that kinda shit, right? The next day, the same person called back, and then put the old woman herself on the phone. She seemed strangely indifferent at first, but soon agreed that Dick could come out and interview her. But get here early, and I mean early goddammit. I got the hogs to take care of. You can stay at my cousins place the night before. He got hisself a motel. It had been a long drive. Her directions were good at first. Take ninetythree north outta Wells. Turn east just after Thousand Springs. If n you make Contact, you gone too far. But as the landscape fell empty, the instructions became more vague. Just hug the hill, and take the safe track and finally follow your instinct. Aint but one way. The motel was a lonely outpost of desolation close to the Utah border, hemmed in closely on all sides by absolutely nothing. It had only the one room. When he checked in, the owner said, do you want TV?. Dick said yes. The owner went into a back room and came out staggering under the weight of an ancient TV set. He accompanied Dick to his room, set up the TV and spent an hour adjusting the indoor aerial. Finally satisfied with the
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picture, he collapsed into the only armchair. Through the fuzz and white noise, Dick realized they were watching an evangelist. I think Id rather Aint but the one station, said the owner. They watched the preacher for two hours. Dick didnt mind. The owner helped him crush the bugs. The following morning Dick arrived at the womans farm at six in the morning. He didnt see any hogs and preferred not to ask why. Finally, the woman hacked up something and spat it into the bucket by the side of her moth-eaten armchair. It was the only furniture in the shack. Dick shifted his weight on the upturned orange crate that was his seat. Well, he said, I guess that about covers it. You aint asked me about my future as the New Madonna. No, said Dick. I havent. He took a deep breath and instantly regretted it. The smell of cat piss brought tears to his eyes. Hows um hows that gonna go? The woman slumped back in her chair. Suddenly she seemed even older than the seventy-five years to which shed confessed. I dont know, dammit, she murmured. They didnt say. She looked around the shack. Wheres my damn dog? Dick was confused. You said they I said what? Dick couldnt bring himself to repeat her story. He tried a different tack. Wouldnt being the New Madonna wouldnt that involve, you know, being a Bein what, goddammit? Well, sort of I mean a virgin? She spat again, missed the bucket. Virgin? You believe in all that virgin crap? Dont fool me for one goddamn minute. I aint no blushin maiden. I tol you what they done to me. The little fellas. Didnt I tell you what they done to me? Yes, snapped Dick, hoping to stop the old woman from repeating herself. She leaned forward and examined him closely. You ever had anythin like that done to you? Dick stared at his notebook. There were still tears in his eyes. Well um its hard to say. I er, that is, Im afraid that maybe I havent. Sounds like you aint so sure. Its not a matter Dick didnt like this switch of focus. So, does being the New Madonna mean theres going be a second coming of Christ? He might as well have slapped the old woman. She sat bolt upright, her eyes wide. Well, fuck me all ways til Sunday, she snapped. You think they meant that Madonna?
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The sharp tang of ammonia stayed in Dicks nostrils for most of the drive home. That, and the low sun, made his eyes water. Still some way from Reno, he quit I-80, took smaller and smaller roads. Finally, he turned his old Volkswagen on to a neglected dirt road. The track skirted the edges of a military reserve marked by little more than the occasional rusted signpost. The road itself wasnt on any map. It hadnt been used much since the silver mine played out and not at all after the camel ranch shut down the last property along this trail to fall into the dust. The ruts played hell with the suspension of his Karmann Ghia and Dick was worried that the low-slung car might ground out. He told himself he was taking this road to avoid traffic. There were no other cars on the road because it went nowhere. In truth, he needed to deal with his disappointment, and already the solitude was having its palliative effect. He stopped the car near to where another track joined this one. He got out and walked over to a sign riveted to a metal post that leaned noticeably to the west. He didnt need to read it, but rehearsed its text in his mind as he approached. Silver River Radar Range, it said. Government Property. Strictly NO access to unauthorized personnel. Use of deadly force authorized. There was more, in smaller type, made illegible by rust, sun and erosion. Dick knew from other signs hed seen that the small print probably listed the laws that allowed the authorities to exclude citizens from the thousands of acres of land that stretched to, and beyond, the mountains. Within a few steps, the dust that still hadnt settled from his arrival turned his black t-shirt and jeans a pale grey. It stuck to his arms and face. Dick wiped his eyes and looked wistfully down the track, trying to imagine what fabulous secrets and undreamt wonders might be concealed by the haze and the distant mountains. He knew, just knew, that down that track lay answers so incredible that he couldnt even formulate the questions. He reached out to touch the sign. It bit him. Shit! Dick shook his hand to dull the tingling left by the static shock. Why me? he thought. Spooky place, huh? said the voice. Dick turned, without much surprise at first. Instead, confusion came on him slowly with the piecemeal realization that he had heard no other car, that there was no vehicle other than his own Karmann Ghia in sight, and that he and this sudden stranger were tens of miles from the nearest travelled road. He didnt much care for the look of the stranger, either. His face had decades of careless travel behind it. He was sunburned and road-filthy so that his age could not be more precisely determined than mature. His eyes seemed uneasy yet without a glimmer of apparent consciousness. A ring of yellowish hair clung to his mahogany skull. He was dressed in army-surplus fatigues and carried a backpack that hung strangely loose, as though empty.
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Dick found it sinister that someone would wear an empty backpack in the middle of the desert. When he spoke, his face seemed to smile but betrayed no trace of thought. Miles from anywhere, said the stranger, the kind of place you wouldnt expect to find another living you know Soul? Right. The strangers face burst into a conspiratorial smile which didnt make Dick feel any easier. And they take the trouble to put up a sign. Its like they were expecting us. You into you know Dick wanted this man to leave. They were two people alone in thousands of acres of wilderness and Dick felt crowded. The last thing he wanted was to have to finish a strangers sentences. He stared at the newcomer, hoping to appear irritated without being unfriendly. The silence wrapped around the two of them. Dick could hardly breathe. Finally, he could take it no more. What? Into what? The stranger raised his eyebrows and swept his hand around to indicate their surroundings, as if this were explanation enough. What is it? said Dick. What is it you want to know? You know, dude. Like UFOs an shit. This was too much of a coincidence. Dick carried out another, more careful scrutiny of the mans appearance looking for clues he might have missed before. At first, Dick had thought the mans face had been weatherbeaten into a mask of premature decrepitude. Now, as he looked closer, he wondered if it wasnt so premature. Do you? said the stranger. What? You know like believe in, you know UFOs? Right. Dick sighed. Id like to. Well if you want to, why dont you? Its not that easy, said Dick, but hed noticed the strangers focus had shifted. His eyes were now on the sky and for the first time his expression conveyed the sense that he was thinking. You hear that? Dick followed his gaze before realizing the man had asked about a sound. Dick got it straight away. An aircraft. Piston-engined. Sounds to me like Wasp radials, said the stranger. Dick didnt have time to process this before the man added, there she is and pointed to the sky. It took Dick a few seconds before he spotted it. Hed expected a clear airplane shape. Instead, it was much smaller than he thought it should be from the noise, little more than a speck at first. As he stared, he began to make
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out some shape, a little detail. It was a twin-engine transport, and even at this distance it looked something like a museum piece. Weird, said his unwanted companion. After a few seconds of silence Dick felt compelled to ask, Whats weird? The scruffy man looked at Dick as if surprised by this question. He nodded into the air. That plane. Thats a C-47, I reckon. World War Two airplane. To see it out here its like you know Dick was beginning to catch on and wasted no time in asking, Its like what? Its like were in some kinda weird time warp, man. They both looked up again at the aircraft, this time with renewed interest. Dick recognized the shape now from his boyhood days of building models. A Douglas DC-3 Dakota. He screwed up his eyes to try to suck as much detail from the scene as possible. He stared so hard that the sudden burst of light was like a flashbulb going off in his face. Shit! he screamed. Spots danced before his eyes. As they cleared, he saw that the old plane was now tumbling like a shot bird. Dick froze, nauseous. He was about to watch people die. The aircraft struggled, fought against the force dragging it towards the desert. Finally the gyrations stopped and the plane eased back into normal flight. Its engines roared. It staggered away from them, soon fading into the haze, heading for the distant mountains. Dick breathed out and slumped to the ground. The stranger joined him, sitting cross-legged, but without once taking his eyes off the sky. That light, said the stranger. It was like a like a Like an explosion, said Dick. Like a streak of light, said the stranger. Like a missile. A brilliant flash. It was so bright. Really bright. Really incredibly bright. And it seemed to dance about. Did you see those weird movements it made? Yeah. Like a missile. But what was it? They stared at each other in silence. They both knew what they wanted to say. Neither one wanted to be first. Dick sniffed. Well, we really cant say for sure what it was, he said, disappointing himself. We cant identify it. The stranger assumed a knowing expression. Thats right, he said. But we can say for sure that we couldnt identify it. As he finished, he gave his head a small backward tilt like a lawyer delivering the killer fact at the end of his summation. Did you you know What?
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Like, hear anything? Dick took stock of the already fading sensations of the past couple of minutes. There was something there, he thought, something hiding, unprocessed, in some corner of his memory. Maybe, he said. A sound, said the stranger. Like a Yes! Dick had it now. A kind of tearing sound. A sort of boom. Or maybe a crack. Like ripping cloth. Crackling. Yes, said Dick. Ripping. And the plane, that DC-3 C-47. Yes, a Dakota. They mulled this over in silence again. Dick drew random patterns in the desert dust with his finger. When he stopped, he noticed they were all triangles. He took his notebook from his pocket, glanced at his watch and noted the time. Then a vague unease made him look at his watch again. It had stopped. You got the time? Dick asked the stranger. The man looked at his wrist. There was no watch. Ahh Never mind. Dick added a question mark to the noted time. Then he tried to reconstruct the key points of the event they had just witnessed, making notes as he went, until something filtered into his consciousness. He looked up. Sniffed. You smell anything? he asked the stranger. The stranger shrugged. I got a bad you know Its well, its like cheese. The stranger sniffed the air. Nope. Nothing. Sorry. Dick went back to his notes until the stranger spoke again. We got company. Dick turned and stood in one motion, which made his head swim a little. When he steadied himself he saw a white Bronco coming straight at them along the road that led from the prohibited area. Camo-dudes, said Dicks companion. He seemed comfortable with this explanation. The Bronco stopped about fifty yards away. The passengers door opened and a soldier in camouflage fatigues stepped out. At first, Dick thought he was signalling to them. Then he realized the soldier was holding a pair of binoculars. Maybe we should, you know, split, man, said the stranger. I hear those guys arent too friendly.
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Dick was rooted to the spot. This was an encounter with the black world. He didnt want to waste it, however much it made his head spin. The soldier reached back inside the car and drew from it a long, dark, metallic object. Holy fuck! said the stranger. Beat it, man! Get outta here. He stumbled away, then ran down the public road, deeper into the desert. What is it? yelled Dick. The soldier pointed the object straight at him now. Whats he got? Run, man, run! cried the stranger. Its a fucking camera.

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Chapter 2: Bang the wiener

Gooooooood mornin paranoids! This is Speedy Hell on K-U-C-K Wacko Radio with a big freaky hello to all you spooks, psychos, schizoids, abductees, messiahs and aliens and no, Jos, Im not talking about you. This morning were really gonna Kuck-ass with a world exclusive interview with Larry McDivett. And I know youre saying who the Kuck is Larry McDivett? Well you ignorant assholes, Stoker McDivett was on board a warship when it was teletransported in the infamous Philadelphia Experiment. Yep, that ship. Hell be telling us how it feels to have your atoms pulled apart and put back together. And you think that was bad? Poor old Larry tells us how he was subjected to hours of naval lovin by his shipmates. Seems they were driven to a lust-crazed frenzy by the militarys secret ray. Dont believe me? You will. You always do. But first, in our problem spot well be asking, can you get Aids from alien probes? Later well talk with a CIA mindcontrol sex slave about the lighter side of her work. And in the careers hour well be answering the questions, what qualifications do you need to be an Illuminati and where do you send your rsum? *** ick always detected the smell of the office, a pungent mlange of burned coffee and photocopier ozone, about a second before pushing open the door. It was enough to make him hesitate, so that he never managed to push the door open quite far enough to walk through. Sometimes the spring fought back and the door would hit him in the face. Sometimes half of him would get through but his shoulder bag would jam in the gap. And sometimes he would have to stop and redouble his efforts, pushing with both hands. The only thing he could rely on was that there would always be someone in the reception area to watch and snigger. Today, as on most days, it was Petal, the Weekly World Inquisitors receptionist and bouncer. She sat behind a counter rescued from a sex shop. When it was installed, Petal discovered a number of weapons concealed in special compartments. Over the past few months, she had added a considerable number of her own, ranging from vintage shuriken to a number of cunningly adapted sex aids that were also found in the counter. Above Petal was a banner with the magazines name and, below that, a string of laser-printed sheets, taped together, that displayed the publications current slogan. It was: We never waste time in seeking the truth. It had just changed from If its out there, we believe it, but that had been abandoned after a lawsuit threat from Fox Studios.
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Two years earlier, Petal had been outed by the magazine in a major feature Sapho celebs and the Vegas vag lickers about a ring of lesbian hookers who specialized in servicing celebrities. Petal tried to sue, assuming that everyone else mentioned in the article would do the same. No-one else had read it. She got the receptionists job in an out-of-court settlement that included a signed photograph of Sharon Stone and a printed apology for the use of the phrase pug-faced troll. Pass! she snapped. As he rummaged in his pockets, Dick tried to calculate how many times she had seen him walk into this office. He failed, but he found the crumpled piece of card and showed it to Petal. She snatched it from his hand and made a performance out of sneering at what she found on it. Says here youre five foot ten, but you aint an inch over five-eight, I reckon. Shed read this pass nearly as many times as shed seen it. Dick tried to grab it back but she was too fast. She gave him a friendless smile. And by the way, you really look like shit. Dont forget tomorrow. Oh, right, he blustered. Uh-huh. Petal narrowed her eyes. You aint got a clue what Im talking about, have ya? Yes, yes, sure New passes, she said. You gotta have all that stuff done. This was news to Dick. Stuff? Photos. Fingerprints. Eye scans. All that shit. Were going biometric. She chuckled. Seems that even shitty little magazines are terrorist targets now. She narrowed her eyes at Dick. Or terrorists. She threw Dicks pass back at him and he was grateful to catch it. It hit him with the impetus of a medicine ball, spinning Dick around on the spot. It was all he could do to remain on his feet. The room rocked back and forth as Dicks eyes wobbled painfully in their sockets. He leaned against a wall, caught his breath. He heard Petal snigger. Gee thanks, I really enjoyed the little dance. Dick suffered vertigo whenever he encountered implacable authority or the power of the unknown. His doctor had told him the problem was imaginary. His Chinese doctor said it was blocked chi in the neck and sold him a bag of spices from which Dick had to make an undrinkable tea. And his holistic naturopath had prescribed a long and intensive course of McTimoney, flower essence therapy, homeopathic resonance treatment, Bowen technique and Hopi ear candling. Dick had run out of money before the third session. Instead, hed learned to live with dizziness. Dick used both hands to push open the door to the main office. As he passed through he caught his reflection in the glass. He had recently turned thirty but, like a bad premonition, the reflection showed a man of fifty and one who hadnt taken care of himself. Chronic exhaustion and the hangover
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that always followed vertigo gave his face a grey veil of apparent gravitas. But below, at a level Dick hoped only he could see, lay the expression of a haunted gerbil. He read defeat in that face. Well fuck that, he thought. Nothings going to defeat me today. It was the first time in a long time hed been excited about coming to work. The office resembled a fort. Scattered throughout the open plan space were ramparts and battlements formed from piles of magazines, newspapers, press releases, files, writs, unread review copies of books (which had nevertheless been reviewed), DVDs and other detritus unidentifiable under the dust, all stacked to tottering heights. Over the years, some had collapsed, spilling across unused desks, the old broken photocopier and the floor. Every now and then a pile would give way in a sudden avalanche and bury a computer or a sleeping sub-editor. There were rumours that the cookery correspondent had disappeared that way. The centre of the office the Keep, as Dick thought of it was stacked so high with junk that, from the door, Dick couldnt see his cubicle. He always experienced a moment of anxiety that it might not be there. Dick shuddered. He had a constant fear of fire. All we need is some ball lightning, he thought, or for a sub to spontaneously combust. He put his head down and started across the office, tensed for the attacks. They shot across his path as he wound through the random pattern of desks and filing cabinets. Yo, Kennedy! Howdya make out last night. Any close encounters? Hey, ET! Gotta message for ya. Phone home! It never got any better. As UFO reporter he was used to this kind of abuse. At first it had been a disappointment to get it from his own colleagues, but later he saw that it was inevitable. He was the only journalist on the paper to actually research and investigate stories. For the rest of them, their work took place in a bar, their stories gestated over lunchtime cocktails and written in an alcoholic haze in the afternoon. But Dick never went to the bar. His head already span too much. He rounded the Keep and issued a small sigh of relief that his desk was there and had not been wiped clean. Nor was it surrounded by cops or skimasked soldiers. There were no official letters on the desk, no crime-scene tape, no men in black suits or white smocks, no snarling dogs, not even an accountant with his final pay packet. It had been a month since the incident in the desert and Dick had watched carefully for signs of surveillance or portents of his imminent termination. Either they were very, very good, he surmised, or he was in the clear. He found the latter hard to believe. He slumped into his chair, in a cubicle tucked snugly between the Keep and the office wall, a place of refuge, hidden from the other staff. It was his
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own space. One weekend, maybe two months before, Dick had sneaked into the office at the weekend and painted his cubicle walls black. On his desk was the new issue of the Inquisitor. He picked it up, held it over the trash can but couldnt let it drop for fear of being seen. There was always at least one of his stories in every issue, stories that started off as his. This time there were three and one of them had made the cover. So had the black-and-white picture of Dick they insisted on running with his stories. It made him look like an escaped convict. Dick slumped in his chair. He flicked randomly through the magazine, letting several pages turn at once, but the magazine fell open naturally at the centre spread and Dick could not avert his eyes fast enough. It was the story of another lonely farm widow. A week after their interview, the New Madonna had called him and said, You should talk to my cousin in Tuscarora. Why? Dick asked. Because they done her too. He made another long drive. He coaxed the aged cousin into giving up the important details of her sighting. It hadnt been her idea to talk to him, and Dick knew from long experience that those who had brushed against the terrifying power of the unknown were invariably willing to talk but always held something back. Their tales of fear and pain left him dissatisfied and he couldnt shake the conviction that they were lying not in what they said but in what they didnt say. Give me more, he would think, you know something I need to know. And at the same time he understood from their faces that they were giving as much as they dared. So it was as Dick listened to the old woman for hours as her tale wound around the truth Dick knew to be there, while never quite touching it. Then he wrote her story of isolation and abuse, of poverty and neglect. Dick forced himself to look at the article. Aliens screwed my cows! screamed the headline. A sub-head read: Calf born with two heads and weird glowing eyes. The art desk had re-used the two-headed calf photo that, to Dicks certain knowledge, had been used at least four times in the past year. This time they had retouched the eyes so that they had slit pupils and appeared luminescent. They also ran the picture of the woman that Dick had taken. The sadness that he thought hed captured so well now looked like a touch of madness. Dick didnt bother reading the text of the article. There wouldnt be a single word of his in it. It was always this way. Dick reported the truth. The Inquisitor published lies. No, thought Dick, not lies. There was a purpose to lies. After the editors had savaged his copy, all that was left was mere sensation.
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He continued to flip and he couldnt suppress a small thrill of triumph at the sight of his other two stories. Now this, he thought, is more like it. He had written them on a day of unprecedented freedom, a liberty hed never known before in his time at the Inquisitor. Dick thought of that day as a freak occurrence, like a wormhole in space or a shower of frogs. Like many miraculous moments, it depended on a confluence of conditions. First, it had to happen on press day, so there was little time for anyone to check Dicks stories before the presses rolled. That happened once a month. Next, it required that all the other members of the Inquisitors editorial staff be absent from the office while Dick wrote the stories. That happened every day between noon and at least two, maybe three. And finally, it demanded that, even when the team returned from lunch, they were so drunk that no-one would sober up sufficiently to read Dicks stories. With careers built on working lunches, the Inquisitors subs, deputy editor and editor had an astonishing ability to function, at least at some reptilian-brain level, even when they couldnt stand, and it was this that had always thwarted Dicks ambitions. On the day it happened, Dick had a premonition that the necessary conditions might at last have coincided. It was press day. There were holes in the magazine: law suits issued on behalf of a TV celebrity, a Hollywood stunt poodle and the Church of the Latter Day Saints had resulted in two articles being pulled at the last minute. And the Green Parrot, a bar opposite the Inquisitors offices on the outskirts of Reno, was re-opening that very lunchtime. A year before, the bar had been gutted by fire after a raid by a Department of Homeland Security assault team. Now, thanks to the compensation money, it was opening its doors again with more brands of beer, more strippers and a fifty per cent journalist discount. Lunchtime came. Unusually, Dick did not skulk behind the Keep. As the rest of the team shut down their computers, put on their jackets and checked their wallets in preparation for lunch, Dick hung around them hoping for a commission. It came. Two holes, Kennedy, said Robin, the editor. Fill em. The office was empty. The magazine would go to press at six. And the journalist discount meant that no-one would return until five at the earliest. Perhaps they would never return: the Green Parrot known to everyone, for no apparent reason, as the Walking Clusterfuck had that reputation. Dick was ecstatic. He had twenty-seven column inches at his mercy. And no story. His sense of triumph vanished. He couldnt bring himself to write about the New Madonna, or any of the other events of that strange day. The plane, the bright light, the Camo-dudes
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 it was all still too fearful. The story had drifted around in his mind, its details impossible to grasp, veiled from reason by the stark, terrifying conviction that, at some point, he had come face to face with the darkly obscured forces of another dimension. And there was another conviction that at some other point that day hed been lied to. Could he accept what hed seen? Did he believe what hed heard? Were his memories of that days events to be trusted? Then the phone rang. Another of the days coincidences was about to fall into place. Could I please speak with Dick Kennedy? A young mans voice. Speaking. Hed been on holiday in Reno, he said. He lost most of his next years tuition money at Circus, Circus, decided to drop out of college, and in a state of euphoria made an impromptu hike into the desert. Worked my way down to Groom Lake. Wanted to take a look at Dreamland, you know Area 51. Right. And? It was just like a smudge in the heat haze, really. Nothin special. So I made my way back up the state again. Camped out at night, thought I might see something, dont know what, but never really expected that I would. And then it happened. Dick started writing. Fast. This man was off the script. What happened? Just lights, really. I was taking a piss behind some old advertising hoarding. God knows what it was doing there. It was, like, the middle of nowhere. Middle of the night, too. And there were these lights. Three lights. So I guess the well, whatever it was, was triangular. Triangular? Youre sure? Cant be sure. The well, lets call it a craft, it was dark, I mean black, probably. I could only see the lights. Does it matter? Dick chuckled. If it doesnt matter to you, thats good. Hows that? Once UFOs were saucers. Then there were cigar-shaped objects. Now theyre triangular. Most people like to go with whatevers in fashion. They want you to believe them, so they say what everyone else is saying. Like aliens used to be green and now theyre mostly grey, aside from the Nordics and the reptilians. Hey, I didnt see any aliens. Are you just going to twist my words? No, no. Sorry. Please, tell me about the lights.
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Well okay. They just did these amazing movements, you know? Gyrations, stops, turns. Amazing. And there was this weird ripping noise Ripping? Did you say ripping? Are you going to tell me thats fashionable? No, but ripping is good. And then there was this incredible burst of light. Really bright. Really white. Knocked me on my ass. And, well, thats kinda it. I mean, Im sorry, you know, that I dont have anything more detailed or whatever. They were just lights in the sky, an all, so I couldnt say how big they were or how high. Thats unusual, said Dick. Say what? Normally people claim that the lights zoomed miles into the sky far above the altitudes of normal airplanes. But you cant tell when its just lights in the night. Could be five hundred feet, could be fifty thousand. Exactly! Dick bounced in his chair as he scribbled his notes. And are you going to tell me that the motions of the lights were beyond the capabilities of any known aircraft? How the fuck would I know? There was an edge of irritation in the young mans voice now. Seriously, dont put words in my mouth. Are you just gonna make shit up like usual or are you interested in my story? No, no, Im only going to write what you told me. Its just that well thats the kind of thing people usually say. Theyre full oshit. Theyre just trying to impress you. I know, sighed Dick. I know. I just saw what I saw. And its wonderful. Do you have any idea where you were? You have a map? Wait. Dick unpinned a map of Nevada from his cubicle wall. Across the swirling yellows and browns of its topography hed marked a rash of red dots and circles representing mysterious occurrences, nearly all within the past year. The dots represented specific sightings. He drew rings where the event, or the witness, was less reliable. In the month leading up to the young mans call, the rash had grown furiously, in some places effacing the names of smaller towns. The young man gave Dick a map reference. Then he gave him a radius. Somewhere in that circle, he said. Sorry I cant be more specific. I didnt care too much about where I was. Didnt seem to matter at the time. The thing is, I was there and so was whatever it was. Doesnt matter, said Dick. Exactly. His finger traced the mark hed just
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made on the map. He already sensed it represented a key piece in a puzzle he couldnt see. Dicks first draft of the story ran to a thousand words. Even as he hacked this down to fill the space that allowed for only three hundred, he felt he was finally injecting something of value into the magazine. It was honest no little green men, no glowing eyes, no aura, no scales or horns, no sexual deviance and just the usual complement of heads. Once hed finished writing, Dick looked again at the new circle on the map and how it fitted with the others. He searched for a pattern or a message. He tried to interpret the dots and rings as automatic writing in an alien language. Maybe its like an autostereogram, he thought. He rocked back and forth, his eyes unfocused. And suddenly a shape, solid in three dimensions, terrifying in its precision and beauty, snapped into focus. It formed a series of undulating rings like frozen ripples. And at their centre Dick squinted hard right at the epicentre lay an area of completely empty desert. That must be it, he thought. If Im going to find anything its going to be in a place exactly like that. Thats when the chief sub re-appeared. He tottered to his desk. Got to get this fucker to bed, he drooled. He sat at his desk and squinted at the messages on his screen. You get that shit written? he yelled at Dick. The art editor also staggered in. Dick thought for a moment that hed changed into an Hawaiian shirt, and then realized he was covered in vomit. He also sat and squinted. We got any shit for these holes? Neither of them looked at Dick. We got one, said the chief sub. Itll fill the little un. Now he finally turned to Dick. What else? Dick shrugged. He knew he still couldnt write about the New Madonna. Besides, it was too similar to the story of her cousin. I dont know, he said. The chief sub stared wildly at him. Dick didnt know if he was surprised, angry or on the verge of a minor fit. Fer fucksakes. Make something up. I er The chief sub smacked his hand on the table, the shock of which nearly tipped him off his chair. Once hed steadied himself, he seemed a little calmer. Youre always writing about this UFO crap, he said. Abductions. Lil fellas feelin up grandmas. Any o that stuff ever happen to you? His eyebrows arched uncontrollably high. The effort of bringing them back down took the last of his strength, and with a feeble wake me up when its writ he slumped to the floor and fell fast asleep. The art editor had already passed out. And so it was that Dick, his elation ebbed, tired, depressed and under pressure, felt moved to write about his own experiences. He wrote about the strange disappearance of his father, how his mother could not even bear to say his fathers name right until the day she died, allegedly gunned down
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by a disgruntled kindergarten teacher in a sushi bar massacre. I was never entirely happy with that story, wrote Dick, and to this day I treat her death as unexplained. He wrote of the night fears and strange lights, of how it felt to be helpless in the grip of dark, shapeless forces, of unspeakable sensations and unnameable guilt. And when hed finished, hed written five thousand words. He needed five hundred. Dick hacked away. The final story told only of shadows and paralysis. He closed the magazine. His own story, and that of the young man, had made it into the issue without molestation. That was good enough. It would get him fired if the editor ever read the magazine. But that was unlikely. Dick took down the map again and tried to make the shape reappear. Hed practiced the technique on autostereograms hed found on the web and had become adept at unfocusing. But today it wouldnt work. Never mind, he consoled himself, I know where the centre is. The point is, its something. Its something real. Now he had another hole to fill, for the next issue. He decided to look again at his notes for the New Madonna. Dick pulled a laptop computer from his shoulder bag and placed it on the desk next to a ring of carbon-impregnated elastic which he now pulled on to his wrist like a bracelet. A long wire ran from the fabric to an earthed metal plate screwed to his desk. Dick suffered from a rare condition that conventional science denied even existed. He carried a strange and highly fluctuating electrical charge. Sometimes it waned and he could live a normal life. Other times he could power light bulbs with just his fingertips and blow fuses by walking into a room. Just lately, his potential had been low, but he took no chances. He had already wrecked too many computers. He switched on his laptop and the companys desktop machine. He made a point of not keeping anything important on the computer at work. Dick suspected it of sending information about his files and his web-surfing habits, maybe even copies of his emails, to the head office of the software vendor. Maybe the Government. While the computers woke up, Dick tuned in to the sound of Wacko Radio which played constantly in the office, like background radiation. The magazine stole many of its stories from the station, which in turn stole many of its stories from the magazine. Some tales had been recycled and mangled so many times that they had eventually mutated back to their original forms, provoking regular lawsuits for copyright infringement, none of which ever came to court. The magazine and radio station were both owned by the same corporation. This morning, Dick recognized the bare bones of one his own stories now issuing from the speakers, although unknown origin had evolved into alien
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vampire and elderly had become blood-sucking. There were many other changes, but Dick no longer cared to listen. Two beeps announced the readiness of his computers. He logged in on the laptop, selected a file, decrypted it and copied it to a memory stick. He then inserted the stick into the desktop machine and copied the file to its hard drive. The office machines were equipped with a wireless network but Dick didnt trust it: you never knew who else could read your transmissions. The file contained his notes for the New Madonna story. It took him less than fifteen minutes to hack out a short piece, though he didnt hold much hope for it. It was too similar to the story in the current issue, especially as Dick had excised all the New Madonna references. He emailed it with a covering note to the chief sub, Dave. As if to witness the impact of the emails arrival, Dick scooted back in his chair to peer around the keep. Dave sat three desks away, his feet resting on a pulled-out drawer, reading The Boys Book of Bizarre Murders. Dick knew that at least one story from the book, suitably mutilated for copyright reasons, would end up as their lead feature that month. In spite of its title, the Weekly World Inquisitor was a monthly magazine. Daves computer pinged to announce the arrival of the email. At first, there was no reaction. Then he sprang upright and pulled forward his keyboard. That meant he would be getting ready for the editorial conference planned for later that morning. To kill time, Dick rolled himself back to his desk and fired up his web browser. The net was Dicks domain, his promised land and his personal hell. Everything eventually turns up on the web, he believed, and that must include the truth. If only he could find it. Dick spent hours each day exploring sites devoted to aliens, conspiracies, weird science, whistleblowers and political renegades. He wandered down many dark alleys following theories about Church of England hit squads and Princess Diana, complex links between the United Nations, Swiss banks and the assassination of Elvis by US Government mind-control slaves, and the demolition of the Twin Towers by rogue Fox News presenters. He downloaded fuzzy pictures of UFO fly-bys in Mexico, alien autopsies in Russia and black helicopters in Wisconsin. Using fake identities, he joined in discussions about government cover-ups and alien abductions. And all of this made him uneasy. Theres something sinister here, he thought. If only I could put my finger on it. He followed every link, no matter how unpromising. Today he found himself at a site run by the Peoples Republik of Amerika. They were somewhere in Nevada, they said, and that proximity made Dick uncomfortable. Page after page contained the same tired rants about government, taxes and gun control,
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the same reconstituted urban myths, the same dreary, recycled fantasies that Dick had seen a thousand times. The pages were littered with pictures of young men trying to look tough in combat fatigues and mullets, and photos of topless babes firing AK-47s. The Peoples Republik of Amerika claimed to be a militia supporting freedom of the individual and the inalienable right to bear arms, avoid taxes and shoot Jews, Blacks, bankers and well, it was a long list. Dick had seen this kind of Internet-peddled hate so often he was no longer shocked by it. Worse, he was no longer interested in it. Some of the stories were hard to read. The background of each page was a tiled repetition of the militias logo. At its centre was a black triangle and from each point, mandala-like, radiated a black jackboot. Subtle, thought Dick. This design was held in a white circle on a red background. As a logo, it was striking, but the sites designer had rendered it as a low-resolution graphic, jagged and coarse, and on Dicks screen it was repeated at least twenty times, its rapid changes from white to black to red making the text above it all but indecipherable at times. Trying to read the articles gave Dick a headache and he had almost given up when he spotted a section called freedom fighters with links to other militias, gun dealers, CS gas manufacturers, outdoor clothing retailers, dating agencies and a number of UFO-related websites, including one that intrigued him. He clicked on it and waited for the page to load. Dick found himself looking at the avuncular face of William H Carpenter, beaming with an expression that transmitted friendliness and just the right amount of lethal determination. He was groomed like a presidential candidate, and the photographer had used a kicker light to catch the shine on Carpenters silver hair, so that it glowed as a ring around his head. It was an image of supreme confidence. Carpenter was a star in the world of government conspiracy and alien visitation. His conferences were always packed, his books sold in the millions and his DVDs were in shops around the globe. While he had never proposed an original theory or presented original data, he had ensured himself the maximum market by adopting a simple approach to the stories and ideas of others: he used them all. He combined and recycled every myth, every conspiracy, every tale no matter how tall, every theory no matter how bizarre, every allegation no matter how discredited, and he pumped them out in an endless series of books and lectures that simply reworked them in different combinations. It made him immune to criticism. His publications contained a riposte to every argument. No matter that these responses were themselves often contradictory he had so many of them that they smothered critics with their weight and relentlessness.
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Dick looked on Carpenters face with a mixture of desire and hatred. This man is dangerous, he thought. This man peddles lies. But this man has connections and he might just know something. The fact that he had arrived at Carpenters site via the Peoples Republik of Amerika was a little disturbing. Dick scanned Carpenters site for a link back to the militia but found none. Theyre just fans, I guess, he thought. His computer binged. He checked his email in-tray and his heart skipped a beat. The from line was blank. Via an anonymous remailer, Dick thought, or maybe from a super-hacker who knows how to cover his tracks, or could it be something more sinister? His mouse finger trembled as he poised the cursor over the in-tray. He took a deep breath and clicked. The message flowered on to his screen. I have followed your recent stories in the Inquisitor with interest, it said. Perhaps if you are attending the NonConvention this week, we could meet? Dick skipped to the end of the message for a name. There was none. How will I know you? he thought. He went back to the start and read on. How will you know me? it said. Youll know. We have things we need to discuss, knowledge we need to share. There was more, but just then the phone rang. Dick picked it up and mumbled a greeting. Did you get my email? asked a calm, sonorous voice. Its been nearly an hour since I sent it. I thought maybe something was wrong, that something had prevented its arrival. Or, perhaps, that something had happened to you. Did you get it? Dick sat rigid in his chair, frightened and more profoundly thrilled than at any point in his life. Yes, he squeaked. *** Kate Macmillan dropped on to the bench. The memorial rose like an insulting finger before her. She was in the central square of Federal Plaza, almost exactly at the spot where the bomb had been placed. How long ago was that? A year? No. More like two. Time distorted horribly each time she changed lives. Much of the past was unavailable to her. It was too dangerous. It was a place she had to deny to herself as much as to others. Thats why she never revisited old haunts. Until now. Until she came to sit in this concrete acre and stare at a memorial to her own defeat. That day, that memorialized day, had been much like this one. The sky cloudless, bright and empty. A featureless motel a long way from anywhere she should have been. A knot in her stomach. When Kate woke on that day, two years ago, she had shed sleep completely
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with the opening of her eyes. Even before her feet hit the curled linoleum of the motel room, she felt the first rush of adrenalin. This is it, she thought. She made herself think it. It was not something she could feel. She had left the curtains open, and the low sun made her eyes stream. Kate put on her spectacles and flipped down the shades. She took a deep breath, ran her fingers through her hair. It was getting too long. And it was the wrong shade of blonde. It would have to stay that way awhile, she knew. Though maybe not much longer. Today, she thought, youre mine. After showering, she sat at the breakfast bar. She had the TV on loud, detuned to white noise, just in case. For luck, she made a final trip through the file she had simply marked Bastard. It was fat with papers copies of letters to state and federal agencies, their evasive replies, court depositions, witness statements and affidavits, credit card receipts, bank statements and utility bills the incidental detritus of a life. But not her life at least, not hers alone. The name that passed through these papers like a virus was that of the man she was trying to find John D Schlesinger, her husband. Finally, she believed, the haystack was about to surrender up its needle. Kate picked a letter from the top of the pile and reread it. It was the first letter she had received from any government organisation that even hinted at admitting that John D Schlesinger existed. It didnt say that exactly, but it did say that if Kate presented herself at the federal offices, at the George Washington Center, at precisely 10:00am, she would be given sight of documents that would substantially aid her search. These documents could not leave the building, it said, but she might be allowed to copy parts of them, for a nominal fee. Kate checked her watch. It was 6:15. She dressed as slowly as she could. In place of her habitual black t-shirt and faded jeans she wore a white blouse and pale blue skirt suit. She applied make-up, expertly configuring herself using colours and patterns she reserved for official occasions. She only ever used mirrors close up, to check the details. But as she stepped back Kate caught a rare glimpse of herself as a whole. She seemed to have changed again. How much was due to time and how much to deception? She sat in a Dunkin Donuts watching the early morning ghosts buy their breakfasts. They all seemed to be waiting for the day to become more substantial. She sipped four coffees and nibbled three Iced Sprinkles before deciding she might as well find the offices, even if it meant being early. Her hand shook so badly she could hardly put the key in the lock of her rental car. As she pulled from the parking lot, she glanced again at her watch. It was 6:55. Instead of heading for the downtown business district, Kate pointed the car out of town, to kill time. She drove at random through the outskirts
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of the city and soon found herself lost in an industrial zone. She pulled up at a deserted intersection to get her bearings. She stared full into the sun. East, she thought. Kate sifted her memory to divine which direction she had travelled to get here. She remembered the sun in her face, the sun through the passenger side window sometimes but couldnt once remember the sun at her back. North-east, she thought, Ive got to head south-west to get back into the city. She turned the car around. Pretty soon, though, she found that the roads werent quite laid out on the regular grid shed assumed. They had turns, sometimes subtle, sometimes sharp, often ending dead at locked gates, and the buildings, though little more than shells, were enough to hide the low sun. Within minutes, Kate was back at her starting point, or somewhere that looked very much like it. This time she headed north and soon twisted and turned again. Her heart sank as she pulled up at an intersection. It cant be the same one, she thought, it mustnt be the same one. Kate pulled the car into the driveway of a factory whose gates were heavily chained and padlocked. She craned her neck forward, nose close to the windscreen, to read a sign just inside the gates. Revere Riding Clothes, it said. For the ride of a lifetime. And below that, No Vacancies. Tenuously attached to the bottom of the sign was another, smaller placard that directed all enquiries about the company and its products to a phone number in Mumbai. Kate pulled out a map and found the industrial zone. From where she sat, she couldnt see any street signs, so she climbed out of the car. It was quiet no cars, no trucks, no sound of machinery. Signs told her she was on the corner of Prosperity Drive and Global Boulevard. She could make out the locked gates of another six factories. The stillness unnerved her. It felt like a trap. As she walked back to the car, a wave rolled over her, a pulse in the air like an echo of a bodys final heartbeat. She put it down to nerves. Kate mapped a route back into the centre of the city. As she rolled down the main highway, she found herself craving the sound of a human voice. She turned on the radio and punched through the stations. Each of the pretuned settings produced only static, sometimes with the faintest trace of voices, like dying echoes. She tuned manually and found a local news broadcast. She soon entered living parts of the city. As she approached the centre, her mind filled with the forthcoming interview. She pushed the noise from the radio aside. It was the voice she wanted, not the information. So she nearly missed the report altogether. arent saying what caused the explosion, or how many people are hurt. One policeman on the scene said he was hoping for the best given that the bomb had gone off before people started arriving for work. Another said hed interviewed
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witnesses who claimed seeing someone, quote, foreign-looking, unquote, leaving the scene in a hurry just before the blast. Kate stared at the radio as if its appearance might divulge extra information. Where? she thought. A major catastrophe could easily snarl up traffic for miles, prevent her getting to the George Washington Center. and in case you are just tuning in, we have received reports that the George Washington Center has been completely destroyed by a large explosion. There are no reports of casualties. She pulled to the side of the road, killed the engine, sat very, very still. Its him, she thought. He did this. And she knew that wasnt true, but that it was as good as the truth. She tensed, gripped the steering wheel to ride out a wave of panic, stared ahead through the windscreen, attempted to focus on her immediate future. The wave broke leaving her calm, cold, furious. She fired up, hit the gas. The main streets would be barred by now, she guessed, strung with police tape and patrolled by cops. As she drove, foot flat to the floor, Kate stole glances at the map in her left hand. She brought it up to windscreen level so that she could flick her gaze between the map and the rapidly unravelling road ahead. She soon had a route via back streets to what she now assumed was a pile of rubble holding, beneath its smouldering bricks, the secrets for which she longed. She abandoned the car three blocks from the blast zone. It was exactly as she expected, except that the air was thick with brick dust. No smoke though. No fire. The bomb had been relatively small, just enough to cause the building to shake itself to pieces. Four sub-contractors would later be tried for building code violations. All would be acquitted on technicalities relating to documents lost in the explosion. Her mind blank with anger and frustration, Kate threw herself on to the wrecked building. It was littered with documents, most of them torn, some still fluttering slowly to earth as a thick bureaucratic confetti. She grabbed every piece of paper, scanning words in the hope that she would recognize some relevance to herself. She scrabbled around the rubble, tearing at bricks, lumps of concrete and fractured glass with her bare hands. Blood seeped from multiple cuts and grazes. The more documents she scanned, the more her panic grew. She had no idea what the bureaucrat had found. She had no idea what words it contained. Somewhere in this pile of fractured government lay an answer but she had no idea what form it took. Finally, stilled by fatigue, she stood atop the rubble, one unread scrap of paper in her right hand, a fat paperback book in her left, its pages curled and blackened at the edges. Tears rolled down her face. Are you okay miss? The voice was robotic, unnatural. Kate wiped the
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tears away and focused. She noticed now that the bomb site was surrounded by fire trucks and police cars. The area had been delineated with police tape, just as shed imagined, but with her alone on the inside. Across the mountain of bricks, she saw a small gaggle of men in uniforms lined up against the tape like spectators, all looking at her with expressions of concern, one holding a bullhorn to his mouth. Are you injured? he asked in the strained voice people use when trying not to shout into amplifying devices. Kate shook her head, although she felt it was a lie. She allowed herself to be led to an ambulance where a paramedic gave her a cursory examination before declaring her out of danger. A policeman approached. Whats that, maam? He nodded at the paper in her hand. Kate looked at it for the first time. Ive no idea, she said. I found it. She glanced quickly at it before handing it to the police officer. It was covered in a strange, squiggly writing, entirely foreign. The police officer dropped the scrap of paper into an evidence bag. He did the same with the book, and it was only when he pried it gently from her grip that Kate saw it was a copy of the Country Almanac. Given the snowstorm of documents that surrounded them, the policemans actions struck Kate as funny, though she was too shattered to laugh. Kate was taken to hospital. By sheer luck, the whole federal building area had been empty. Even the janitors were found playing poker in the basement of a building two blocks away. Kates scratches were the only injuries sustained. She stared blankly ahead as the doctor cleaned and dressed her wounds. When he left, a police officer approached Kate accompanied by a man in civilian clothes bearing a dark and aggressive scowl. The policeman held out the evidence bag containing the scrap of paper with the strange writing. Do you know what this says? he asked. No, said Kate. The officer now held out another bag containing the almanac. Is this yours? No, said Kate. The sinister man pushed the cop aside. Is Katherine Minkoff your real name? Of course. Do you know what we can do to you if youre lying? Kate looked at him without emotion or expression. You cant do anything to me, she said. Im one of the few people you cant touch. Some people can, but not you. Over the next few days, Kate had to work hard to avoid becoming a celebrity. Her name appeared in newspapers and magazines, but not one news
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photographer or cameraman managed to capture her likeness. The FBI called in language experts who identified the writing on the paper as Snafuristani. The almanac, they said, was part of the terrorists research material. They found the section on government buildings had the corners of the pages turned down. According to the FBI quoted faithfully and in full by local and national newspapers, TV networks, radio talkshow hosts and bloggers Kate had uncovered vital evidence of a terrorist plot to attack government buildings across the country. There was a short-lived effort to promote Kate as a hero, but without pictures the story died quickly. Within three months, US war planes had bombed key targets in Snafuristan using new satellite-guided Liberty missiles. These allowed the planes to release their munitions from a long distance in this case over Italy well out of the range of enemy fire, from Snafuristanis or from those in a dozen or so neighbouring countries, all of whom liked to fire at American planes. The biggest problem had been programming the missiles: there were no US military databases that included Snafuristan and military planners had to do some rapid coding to meet the Presidents deadline of liberating the oppressed people of Snafuristan by Christmas. In three months of bombing, the US Air Force claimed to have destroyed seventeen terrorist training camps, over a dozen munitions dumps, and the headquarters of three organisations affiliated to al-Qaeda. Eventually, the French Government pushed a resolution through the UN that allowed blue-helmeted peace-keepers to enter the country. They found that the countrys sixteen medieval castles recently restored in an attempt to create a tourist industry had been flattened. No-one had died in those raids, but there were casualties at the new Club Med complex, the main post office, several builders yards and the principal railway station. The UN organisations couldnt agree how many people had died and the USAF observers whod accompanied them, for bomb damage assessment, released a statement saying that they never comment on non-specific collateral damage. Almost a year after the bombing, someone remembered that there had been a Snafuristani food-stall on the ground floor of the bombed building. The piece of paper found by Kate was re-examined and found to be part of a menu. The word that one expert had previously translated as detonator was now reassessed by the same expert to mean tahini sauce. At about the same time, police stopped a male Caucasian, aged around forty-five and originally from Ft Lauderdale, Florida, as he arrived on the outskirts of Flint, Michigan. He was driving his Mercedes van in an erratic manner. It was filled with nearly two tonnes of fertilizer-based explosive. Hed driven all the way from Florida, he said, to shove this up the ass of that fat, pinko, American-hating, Snafuri-loving, commie TV celebrity and blow him all to hell.
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The Floridian quickly confessed to the bombing that had robbed Kate of her moment of revelation. Incensed at his failure to cause greater mayhem, and at what he referred to as inadequate TV coverage of the buildings destruction, hed decided to try again. Buildings are for suckers, he said at his arraignment. You wanna make a statement in this country, you wanna make people feel loss, you gotta go for a celebrity. At his trial it emerged that the bomber was formerly a director of an athletic support manufacturer that had relocated its factories to Venezuela in order to reduce workers wages from five dollars an hour to fifty cents. The move had been his idea and hed received a forty per cent wage rise and massive stock options for his innovation. A few months later, the company realized it could make even bigger savings by doing the same with its executives, and had moved the head office to Caracas too. He was out of a job and the stock was tanking. The government department that had given the company several million dollars worth of tax breaks to make the move had been based in the building that once stood where Kate now sat and brooded. She stood and walked over to the monument. The plaque set into its base had corroded badly, the writing embossed into the metal now barely readable. Kate ran her fingertips along the text and deciphered it. To commemorate the potential loss of American life by those foreign to our way of liberty and justice it said, and it was signed by the President. Kate remembered the controversy. The design for the monument had been ambitious a soaring stainless steel spike, curving thirty metres into the air, describing the exact path taken by an incoming Liberty missile. The contract had been given to a subsidiary of the company formerly run by the current US Vice President. Once it had safely deposited the six-figure fee in an offshore bank, it had converted the plans from metres to feet more economical and more American and replaced the budgeted stainless steel with concrete, which they sourced from Bulgaria. About a week before Kate came to sit on this bench, the top fifteen feet of the spike had fallen away and killed two Iraqi tourists. Now Kate was back at this place, among the partly rebuilt government offices, still searching for information, and once again with the prospect of a tiny opening into the dark world of her husband. This time, the invitation from the government clerk had been even less promising, but at least it was a response. Kate brushed her hands together to clean them and steeled herself to enter the building. *** Dick paid little attention to the editorial conference. His mind was still on the telephone conversation. Something for you, the caller had said, very strange very secret very dangerous. Almost every word the caller had uttered
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made chills run down Dicks spine. Government conspiracy secret files eye witnesses Robin, the Inquisitors editor, called them into the ten oclock meeting at just before noon. Lets make this fast, he said. Im dying of thirst here and I want to get to lunch. The staff trooped into Robins office. Dick took a corner seat and hunched down. Okay, so whatve we got? said Robin. Dave, the deputy editor, consulted his list. Well, we could lead on Backfrom-the-dead rabbi takes photos of heaven. We got art? Working on it. Art room are comping some stills from the Ten Commandments movie and Jerrys holiday snaps from his honeymoon in Hawaii. He took photos on his honeymoon? Yup. Palm-fringed beaches, big waves, that sort of stuff. Well, I guess that gives us something for the problem page too. Surf-crazed hubby abandons new bride? That kind of thing. Try to get wet suits in there. What else? Ghost story? Religious nuts? End times? Bills come up with phantom priest prophesies Armageddon showdown for TV evangelists. So I guess that covers all three. And weve got crop circle cures childs cancer. The rest is the usual fat person trapped in home, battling neighbours, Big Foot stuff. Good. Make sure the shut-in is really huge this time. The last one looked just like a normal super-sized lard-ass. How about our regulars? New Jersey Miracle Girl grows extra arms. New limbs give apocalyptic message in sign language. Not bad. Yeah, we started with a new head, but the art department complained that the picture would be too tricky. I mean, do you use the same face, another face ? Screw the art department. They got a problem with extra heads they can work at National Geographic. What about ChimpMan? Hes escaped again No, no, no. For fucks sake, hes supposed to be in a maximum security, ultra-secret government laboratory, not a goddamned summer camp. He cant keep escaping. Come up with something better. And see if you can give it a money angle. We havent got enough in this issue to appeal to the readers greed impulse. How about ChimpMan develops ability to predict lottery, something like that. Any alien stories?
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Dave looked at his list again with an expression that spoke of hopelessness. Well he drawled hesitantly. I guess we got Dicks piece. The woman who saw the UFO. Just saw it? Nah. Bunch o lights, little guys. But pretty much the same story we started with last issue. He handed Robin a print-out of the story. Robin scanned it quickly. He sighed. Says she didnt really see em. Shadows. Just fuckin shadows. Weird feelings. No shit. Shes a sad old bat living in the bush. That aint no use to us. Im getting tired of UFO stories without little green men. Dont bring me a story without little green men. Grey, said Dick, quietly. What? Theyre grey. These days. The art editor scowled. I dont want little grey men, he snapped. If I wanted little grey men Id work on a finance magazine fer fucksakes. This is a colour magazine. Make em green, yellow, even one hunnerd per cent fuckin magenta, but not grey. Dick slid further into his seat and looked at the floor so as not to catch anyones eye. Robin waved his hand to interrupt. They do anything? he asked. Nope, said Dave. Nothin much. Ran around a bit. They fuck her? Maybe. Its vague, the way Dick wrote it. Fuck her dog? Nope. She got a dog? There was silence. Dick risked a peek at the others and realized they were all looking expectantly at him. He pulled himself up in the chair. Um yes. Yes she has. Had. A German Okay, snapped Robin. So we make them fuck the dog. Make it a dachshund. So how about Teen Aliens in Wiener Gang Bang as a headline? Great. Dick heard the blood pounding in his temples. They were going to trash his story again. It wasnt much of a story, to be honest, but what hed written was true and might mean something. And yet, once more, he was going to have to sit back while these morons turned it into frat-level garbage. Before he knew what he was doing, Dick had sat up straight and his mouth was open. You know what Jung said about UFOs? Dick had his head high now. He took in the astonished faces. Now was his chance to fill these blank minds
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with something of substance. He took a deep breath and started to speak again. He said Young? snapped Robin. You mean Neil Young the rockstar? Isnt he dead? Daves face brightened. Hey, we could use that. Dead rocker issues warning from beyond the grave watch the skies for alien invasion. We could give it a War-on-Drugs slant you know, aging hippy tells kids to keep their heads clear so theyll be alert for the signs. We havent had a good drug rant in a while. Dick slumped again. Okay, said Robin, work it up. So. Whats our BVM this issue. We got the Blessed Virgin Mary caught on a security video, shoplifting in a mini-mart in lets see He checked his notes. Charlotte, North Carolina. Who gives a fuck about North Carolina? The only stories we run from that state are bigots and baccy. If it aint about the Klan supporting charities or the miraculous effects of nicotine, we steer clear. We dont want to risk the tobacco companies pulling their advertising again. Move it to, ah, Oklahoma. Christ knows they need a visit from the BVM. Anything ugly? We got the shut-in. But now I think about it, its in Maine, so well have to find a local lensman to get pictures. You mean its real? Damn. Still, no point wasting good money on snaps. Weve got pictures of other shut-ins and they all look the same two tons of blubber with a babys head. Hey! That gives me an idea. Silence. Robin drummed his fingers on his lips as he worked through the idea. The baby shut-in. Woman gets pregnant. Its a big foetus I mean huge. Doctors are getting worried about how shell give birth. Nine months are up and the fat bastard yeah, make it a bastard the fat bastard refuses to come out. All attempts to induce it fail. They would operate. Oh yeah. Unless unless the mothers a Mormon. This is good. The baby carries on getting bigger and bigger, sucking the energy out of its mother. Finally she dies splits in half, right down the middle, and the baby rolls out after three years. Three year gestation. Thats like an elephant. Thats it, The Elephant Baby. The Mormon Elephant Baby. Better. Robin slapped his hands on the desk signalling the end of main business. Any Homeland Security advisories today? Dave consulted a thick file. Yeah, this came in about ten minutes ago.
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It says to avoid making references of any kind to the entire Cuba area, to make sure that we refer to anyone arrested by US forces in foreign countries as terrorists or insurgents they got really pissed at the London Guardian last week for adding the word suspected. Also, they would prefer that when it comes to stuff like protesting, trial-by-jury and, you know, all that civil liberties shit, we should avoid using the words right or rights. Apparently privilege is sort-of okay but they prefer concession or benefit. We should also try to replace foreign with non-American or un-American wherever possible as in, I drive an un-American car? Thats it. Oh yeah, and activist should be replaced with agitator, insurgent or the usual terrorist. We can live with all that. Anything else? Yeah. They say here uh, where is it? Oh yeah. It has been noted that some publications are still referring to US citizens when the correct term is US stakeholder or Stakeholder in America, which should be printed in bold. Furthermore, people from other countries should not be referred to as citizens or nationals but simply as non-Americans. Or un-Americans? They dont say. Theres one other thing. You might have seen the story in the dailies about World Onlines new premier service. Dave held up a copy of a newspaper. Nope. Well, its been coming for some time. Basically, theyre now going to charge content providers that means websites like ours a fee to get guaranteed fast delivery to WOLs subscribers. So? Robin didnt much care for the Inquisitors website. He was a dyedin-the-wool print journalist. For him, the ephemeral nature of pixels on a screen robbed a story of its authority. His motto was: If you cant read it on the crapper, it aint worth shit. It means that if we dont subscribe to the service, WOLs customers wont be able to reach our website. Thats blackmail, said Dick. Its censorship. Watch your language, boy, snapped Robin. Its market forces. But theyre already charging their customers to go online. If they charge the websites too Dave threw him a shut-up glare. Robin tapped on the desk in deep reflection. He flicked a glance at Dick, who was sitting as low as the seat would allow. You know, Ive been thinking about this piece of Dicks. Dick looked at Robin with just a glimmer of hope. Robin tapped his pencil on the printout of Dicks story and looked back at
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Dave. Weve had a whole lot of alien stuff just recently. Weve already got the my boyfriends got two dicks and says hes from Venus story in the agony column. He dropped his pencil into a desk tidy. But we aint had angels in a while. Change all mentions of aliens to angels. Change dazzling light to celestial light. We could make loud humming into angelic chorus. Thatll work. Get to it. You got any problem with that, Kennedy? Dick felt weak, barely able to lift his head. Why should I? he grumbled. Robin narrowed his eyes in contemplation. Youre Jewish, arent you? Half-Jewish, said Dick, staring at his lap. Which half? Mothers side. Robins face brightened. Then that makes you Jewish. Still, I guess the Jews got angels too, dont they? Dick shrugged. Robin reclined in his chair, head tilted back, eyes shut. Okay, everyone get the fuck outta here. Not you Kennedy, I want a word. Dick closed his eyes. His head span. He wanted to vomit. The others rose and filed out of the door, Dave last. As he was about to close the door, he stopped and looked at Robin. These angels. You still want em to bang the wiener? Robin chuckled but didnt open his eyes. Youre a sick man, he said. *** Kate noted with nothing more than resignation that the windowless room displayed not a single distinguishing feature no pictures, no posters, no photographs of family or office parties, no postcards from colleagues, no noticeboard, not even a list of emergency procedures or fire exits. The walls were plain white and unblemished. Kate sat opposite the clerk across a desk that was unnaturally tidy. On it was a keyboard, a mouse and an oldfashioned CRT monitor with a slightly bulging screen. The screen surround held no Post-It notes, no hastily-scribbled phone numbers or passwords. And it was switched off. Kate wondered if it was actually connected to any kind of computer and, if not, what purpose it fulfilled. She focused on the small man who now picked up the only other object on the table a dossier. Like the room, the man offered no distinguishing features. You are Kate MacMillan? he asked. I er Dammit, she thought, I should be better at this by now. Yes, she said, of course.
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The clerk gave a smile entirely without humour. You dont seem very sure. I never got used to using my married name. She gave him a flicker of a smile. It was all she could spare. The clerk sniffed and looked again at the dossier. We got the information you requested, maam. He looked dubiously at the sheaf of papers in his hand and showed no signs of wanting to hand them over. Or rather, we kinda didnt. Kate shifted in her seat. The hard plastic made her sweat. As she moved, she noticed the tiny TV camera in the corner of the office. A piece of tape had been placed across the red recording light but had since dried out and fallen aside. The light was on. Kate focused on the clerk again. You searched on the name and other details I gave you? Yes. And you came up with the documents in your hand? Well yes. These documents relate to a he scanned the form stapled to the first sheet. Kate could see it was her Freedom of Information Act request. a John D Schlesinger. Federal agent of a, um, classified nature. Date of birth I know what I asked for. Kate was already tired. There was a particular fatigue that came over her in rooms like this. Today it had started as soon as she entered the building and grew while she was having her fingerprints and iris scanned and her bag searched. By the time shed been photographed and shown into this room, her entire body was numb, cold. She had asked the clerk to leave the door open, but hed refused. Well, the thing is, he droned on, according to this information, that is there is no such person. You have a dossier there Yep. to say he doesnt exist? Thats about the size of it. Kate sighed. Automatically she pulled the marriage certificate from the thick folder that was on her lap and held it up for the clerk to see. He does exist, she said. Im carrying out this investigation on behalf of a client. I have full power of attorney. My client is married to him. I need to find him so that she can divorce the slippery bastard. The clerk scanned the certificate without reading. Thats very interesting, maam. Im sure your friend is, as you say, married to a John D Schlesinger. But he never worked for the Government. The social security number you gave us doesnt exist, and we can find no social security number for anyone
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of that name and date of birth. The other information you provided, the marriage certificate, savings accounts, credit cards and so on they all turned out to be false. False? How The clerk waved her silent. Inaccurate in some way. Untraceable or unattributable or well, false. It says so right here. He fanned the sheaf of papers. Kate reached for the documents. Let me see. The clerk held them back. Im sorry, you cant see this. Kate slapped her hand on the desk. Thats my information. Thats material I requested under the Freedom of Information Act. The clerk remained implacable. Thats right, maam. And under that act, this information has indeed been released by the government agencies holding it. However, in accordance with last years Denial of Sensitive Data to Terrorists Act, this information, while in the public domain, may not be transmitted to foreign nationals, naturalized US citizens of foreign birth, members of proscribed organisations, people suspected of being members of proscribed organisations, members of organisations currently under investigation and which may be proscribed in the future, felons, people currently under investigation by federal or state agencies, people suspected of being under investigation by federal or state agencies, or any other unauthorized personnel. Or the spouses, life partners, business partners, family members or known associates of the aforementioned. He attempted a feeble smile. As you can see, the information is free, just not free to go anywhere it wants. Kate didnt return his smile. What can I see? The clerk held up the documents and flicked through them slowly so that she could see that every page was heavily disfigured with thick black lines. Words, paragraphs and sometimes whole pages were rendered unreadable. The clerk moved through the fifteen or twenty pages too fast for Kate to catch much, except for the words does not exist on page three and more chillingly the phrase is no longer towards the end. Kate then noticed another document the clerk had left on the desk. This had a different letterhead and a short paragraph of text. Whats that? Ah, said the clerk, smiling. This one is different. Then he added with some degree of fanfare, Its from the CIA! I want to read it. Kate reached for the document. The clerk quickly scooped it up and sat back. Ill read it to you. I think that would be okay in this case because its not a released document as such, but the CIAs response to your request.
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Kate sighed, fell back in the chair and listened while the clerk recited, The CIA has conducted an exhaustive search for the documents you requested. However, the CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or non-existence of records responsive to your request. Such information unless it has been officially acknowledged would be classified for reasons of national security under Executive Order 12958. The fact of the existence or non-existence of such records would also relate directly to information concerning intelligence sources and records. Kate locked eyes with the clerk. If you cant find that information, its because it has been suppressed. He was working on highly classified operations. For heavens sake, he was Was what, maam? Kate stared in frustration at the bureaucrat. Oh hell. She held her hand across her eyes and sighed. What he did thats classified information and you dont have clearance. But he doesnt exist, so clearance cant be a problem. But he does exist. Kate dropped her hand and stared levelly at the clerk. The Government knows he exists but because of what he was working on theyre saying he doesnt. But you know about this. Well yes. In spite of it being highly secret. I have a very high level of clearance. The clerk looked perplexed and glanced again at the notes. Not according to Theres information about me in there? Are you saying that you investigate the person who requests information? No, Im not saying that. But its true. I couldnt say. But there is information about me in there? That, as far as I am aware, you have only a very low grade of security clearance, consistent with your defence-related work at your current employer. Thats because Thats because the clearance is so high that I cant even tell you its name, thought Kate. Thats because Im involved with something Yes? I cant say, dammit! Then Im very sorry. Kate shook her head. So am I.
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She felt herself draw inwards. The man sitting just a couple of metres away might as well have been in another room. She had nothing to say to him now. He didnt seem to notice her withdrawal. He tapped a pen on the dossier. You know, something doesnt seem quite right here, he said, mostly to himself. He glanced up at Kate. Why do you want this information? Kate knew the tone. A passive response from her now would only encourage him to pursue a very dangerous train of thought. Screw it, she muttered. Ive told you as much as you need to know and youve told me nothing. She stood, snapped shut her purse and picked up her jacket. The clerk stood too. Theres just the matter of the fee? Kate stood still and stared at him. Fee? For what? The search fee. Its already overdue because of the trouble we had finding you. Comes to he found another slip of paper. Kate could see that it was headed Department of the Air Force and carried the USAF seal. Three hundred and eighty-five dollars and sixty-two cents. A personal cheque will be fine. Im afraid we dont take credit cards. How very last century. Im afraid I must insist You say this man doesnt exist? Not as such. Then how can you charge me for information about him? The clerk looked again at the bill. If you dont pay, in seven days we will issue a warrant. Kate threw a smile at the clerk, but with some effort. In a week she said, but then faltered. Ill be She didnt want to think about this. Ill be where not even you could find me. *** Robin, the Weekly World Inquisitors editor, leaned back in his executive chair and smiled at Dick. Tell me Kennedy, do you like your job? Dick stared at the floor. Yes, I er, yes. Of course. Robin snapped upright and dropped the smile. He picked up a letter opener, shaped like a Star Wars light sabre, and aimed it at Dick. Well Ill be honest with you son, you just aint hacking it. You think that Im a stupid man, right? Dicks instinct was always to agree with his boss, but he felt he was being ambushed. Well Well maybe I am but I know how to use a web browser and I know how to watch TV and I can see whats happening here. You can?
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Damn straight. Robins expression softened and he leaned back again, toying thoughtfully with the letter opener. We live in a world of fear, Kennedy, and thats okay. Fear is real, it keeps us on our toes, stops us getting slack or complacent. You think I give diddly shit about the UFO stuff you love so much, but youre wrong. I care about it a great deal. I need it, and so does the magazine, but were missing a trick here. Theres more UFO stuff than ever on TV, in newspapers He stabbed his desk with the light sabre. It broke. Hell, just last night I watched some middle-age guy, just a Joe Sixpack like you and me on a TV chat show talking about the alien probes hed taken up the ass on a regular basis ever since Betise got into the White House. Course, one look at the lame-o and you could see he wasnt getting any, but the point is he got his five minutes of air time. And theres more of this stuff every day. Were losing out. We should be at the leading edge of this wave and all weve got is loony farmers with horny dogs. They didnt touch her dog. Get with the programme, son. Robin threw the broken light sabre across the room. It landed on a pile of others, in various colours Our readers arent gonna care that some hayseeds poodle got gang-banged. We need more. We need stuff thats gonna hit them where they live and where they work. We need to re-evaluate. Retool the whole UFO side of things. Some of this stuff is just too weird. It doesnt connect. Its all true, said Dick, everything I write. These weird old ladies and horny old men? Giant bugs an lizards an shit? I dont write about giant bugs. Ive seen em in the magazine. Its not what And lizards? I write the truth. At least, my stories are true in that the people who tell them to me believe them to be true. How does that make them true? Dont you believe in anything? Dick relished the fleeting appearance of confusion on Robins face. When, after a moments silence, that confusion seemed to slide into anger, Dicks enjoyment ended. I just meant Do your job, Kennedy. We all have mortgages and alimonies and car payments. Thats the truth that matters to me. So what is it you want? I want fear. I want to scare the shit out of em. You want me to make up exaggerated stories about alien abductions to exploit peoples paranoia.
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Now youre talking like a journalist. Robin pulled another light sabre from his desk drawer, waved it at Dick. This is a time of heightened national security. Were at war, boy, were always at war, so the fear is out there already. We just help people confront it. And people are afraid now like theyve never been before at least, not since the Cuban Missile Crisis. And look what people were doing with UFO stories back then. That was one of the golden periods of UFOs, am I wrong? No. Good. So no more of these pissant little tales of scared old ladies. Give me something big, something thatll scare the shit out of the readers. Whatve you got coming up? Dick thought of the pattern, the rings pulsing out from a spot of empty desert. He knew his editor would never understand. He struggled to come up with an offering. Finally, he thought of his web surfing that morning. I thought Id get in touch with William H Carpenter That slippery son of a bitch! The bastard still owes us money for advertising. And he got us into trouble with some of those ads. What kind of trouble? Never mind. I think weve still got lawsuits out against the fucker and vicey versy. Any contact could be a big problem, legally speaking. Besides, you wont get any stories out of him he keeps them all for his books. You stay well away from him. Got it? Yessir. Oh, and another thing. Petal tells me you had an interesting phone call this morning. She was listening? Its her job. The NSA cant do it all. Theres a rule now that companies have to monitor their own phone calls. I never heard of a law like that. It aint a law, you dimwit. Hell, you could never pass a law like that. All those wet-pants liberals in the Senate would be having hissy fits. No, its just guidelines. Sno big deal. Companies have been doing it for years on customer service and sales calls. All that for training and security purposes your call may be monitored or recorded shit. Well, now weve just expanded that to all calls. And no warning message. Right. Cant we get into trouble for not having the message? Look. The Government says were responsible if terrorists use our telecommunications facilities. Thats reasonable aint it? No problem with a
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law like that. Keeps us all safe. And in that case, whos not going to listen in? Anyway, who was it you were talking to? I dont know, he didnt give a name? Youve no idea? No. Well, you let me know the second you find out. The very second. And theres one last thing? Yes? Youre fired. Once weeks notice. Now find a story thatll make me hire you back. *** Kate slumped back on the bench, hands crossed on her lap, shoulders hunched forward. She stared at the ground, dimly aware that people now moved around her, wraith-like and silent, fragile and unreachable. What did I expect? She trembled a little. She stared again at the memorial to the bombing, but it only stirred her anger. How much more of this shit can I take? This moment, this mood, this state of non-existence traced back to one careless act. Kate was still in college then, working for her doctorate. John was there too, showing no signs of studying, being offhandedly precise in not talking about himself. Kate found that refreshing in a man. It should have been a sign. There was no clear transition. At some point she realized he was no longer studying whatever it was she thought he might be studying politics, shed sometimes presumed, or maybe history. He seemed to know about chemistry and electronics. He started talking about work and the job, but for whom he never said. It was always just the customer and sometimes the firm. The job took him away at unpredictable moments, brought him back with equal surprise. She decided to dump him. She left it too late. Dammit! She punched the seat of the bench and the pain diverted her attention from the memory and the if only that always followed. She tried not to think about it. This was a skill she had developed. She labelled it The Incident, wrapped it up in euphemism, never looked on it directly. Back then, John had remained calm. This is my kind of shit, hed said. Welcome to my world. The police and the FBI had little more than an imperfect description. While they hunted for her, John took Kate to a house in Atlantic City, a suburban shell in a neat and frictionless neighbourhood The house was fully furnished, though not expensively or to her taste. There were reproduction
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paintings on the walls and rows of paperback books stacked neatly on shelves. Kate pulled out a few at random. All were book club editions of classics, their spines uncreased and the pages stiff. There were DVDs, too, still in their shrinkwrap. No flowers or plants. Nothing living. The kitchen was wellequipped and everything spotless, not a burn, scratch or stain on any of the pots and pans. It was as though no human presence had ever passed through this place. Kate felt she had changed dimensions, was now trapped in some form of simulation, a replica world. John left the same evening. Youll be safe here, he said. Ive got stuff to do. Ill get this sorted. Kate spent that night watching 2001, kicking dents in the woodwork and making scuffs on the floor. The next morning, there was a box of food on the front porch with a note that said, Dont go out. John returned two days later. Kate was ready. What, precisely, is it you do? she asked him. He seemed to take this as a compliment. Well, good morning to you too, sweetheart. She asked again. She asked a different way. She kept pushing and the more aggressive her questions became the more he seemed to enjoy deflecting them. Im an illusionist, he said finally. I make people look the wrong way. I make things seem to be what theyre not. People see the magic. You lie. Its not lying. Its figuring out what people are inclined to believe. Then we conjure it for them. We? Who do you make these illusions for? John looked more serious. Not me, sweetheart. Us. Ive got you a job. But theres one small detail. You have a new name now. Kate opened her mouth to speak and had no idea what to say. All the complaints she could marshal, all the questions she might ask, all the objections that would once have seemed reasonable, already belonged to an earlier existence. Its perfect, said John. Its for a defence contractor in California. Youll have a very high level security clearance. Small team, secure facility, total secrecy. No-one outside the community can get to you. Youre way beyond the reach of regular cops. FBI even. And everyone inside the community will assume that youre squeaky clean, because you have to be. Except I took care of it. Just have a little faith, will ya? There were things to organize, he said. Weve got to lock this down tight. It might take days, even weeks.
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It took months. At first, Kate had little more to do than watch the world beyond the walls, the world of ordinary people living ordinary lives. She watched it move away from her, continuing its journey, abandoning her to the shadows. To pass the time, John bought Kate an old VW Beetle. Belongs to an excolleague, he said. Youre an engineer. See if you can get it running. Kate dismantled the car, every piece of it. She loved its simplicity. She cleaned and repaired and improved where she could. And then she started to rebuild it, always with a growing sense of unease at the prospect of finishing. John also brought her a laptop computer he said had fallen off his employers inventory. Kate reformatted the disk, installed Linux and leeched on to the neighbours wi-fi. She taught herself programming, networking and security. She never sent or received mail. And then the job started. They abandoned the house overnight, left the VW on blocks in the garage, pulled the hard disk from the computer and smashed it, dropping the pieces along the way as they drove to California. Well get you a new one when we get there, said John. They lived in married officer quarters, part of a USAF facility tucked into a remote corner of an airbase which she never left. What stopped her going insane was the work. It was challenging, absorbing. Kate designed a guidance system for the Liberty missile that allowed it to fly accurately to the target along a continuously changing curve that was difficult for anti-missile systems to predict. This is a real breakthrough, said her boss. Its a shame no-one will ever get to hear about it. John was rarely there. When he did turn up, he looked increasingly tired and said increasingly less. Until the day he said, Marry me. Is this part of your plan? asked Kate. Its the right thing to do. Maybe we overreacted. Trust me. I know this stuff. One day soon after, the security chief at work walked into her office, shut the door behind him and leaned on it. Theres something about you I dont like, he said. Kate sighed. She briefly scanned his corpulent body and porcine features. Why did they always have to look like that? Theres plenty about you I dont like, she replied. Within a week, Kate had changed state, name and job again. And they were married. Get used to it, John told her. Besides, its no bad thing. It sucks, said Kate. How can I build a career, get to do the work I want,
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when I cant create a track record, when I keep having to start from scratch each time? John chuckled. That isnt how it works, he said. Whenever you make one of these changes, everything youve done stays on your resume, more or less. You just dont give details. There are people who well, lets just say your credentials are assured. Just tell anyone who asks that everything else is classified. Thatll impress the hell out of them. If they try checking for themselves, theyll run into a blank wall. Thatll impress them even more. Only people worthy of the highest trust would have such secret pasts. The only people on this planet who know the whole truth are in this room. And were going to keep it very safe. He waved a metal box before her. This is your past life, he said, may it rest in peace. They buried the box in the crawlspace under their house. In it were Kates real birth certificate, passport and all the other documents that confirmed her genuine existence. There were police and FBI reports into the Incident that John had obtained and would not let her read, but which he said could prove useful in a pinch. Get a good lawyer on to these and, with the right amount of twisting and bribing and media coverage well, you never know. And there was security camera video, burned on to a DVD. Kate didnt get to see that either, but John seemed to think it was worth keeping, if were really in a jam. Over the next few years, whenever they changed names or homes, they would disinter the box and add to its contents whatever documents they had for the life that was being retired. Then, with a solemnity that Kate would have found risible, if she hadnt been so scared, they would once more lay her past to rest. There were times when Kate found herself ready to give up, moments of despair when she was prepared to throw herself on the mercy of a world that seemed increasingly distant. All she sought was permission to rejoin that world, to be a person with a real name. One day, she found herself down in the crawlspace. It was like every other crawlspace in every other home theyd had, empty apart from one small grave. Kate hesitated slightly before plunging the spade into the ground. What if the evidence proved too feeble? Was she putting herself in danger by trying to go back? Would she be endangering the people who had helped John create her new existence? How would they respond with anger? With violence? What about her employers and the Government, for that matter? How would they react to finding that a trusted employee with a high security rating was an impostor and a fugitive from justice?
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Her hand shook a little as she held the spade just above the ground. As long as I pretend to be someone Im not, I will never be safe, she thought, and she plunged the spade into the earth. It took a little while to find the box. She had to dig seven holes, wondering, as she did, whether her memory was really that faulty or if John had moved the damn thing. Finally, metal hit metal. She hauled the box from its grave and as she did so she knew her hopes were dashed. It was too light, too light by far. When she opened it, she found the box contained nothing but a scrap of paper carrying a single word in Johns barely legible handwriting. It said: Sorry. Back in the living room, nursing a large scotch, Kate rehearsed what she would say when he next showed his face. She wasnt going to ask, she was going to demand, to threaten. She wanted those documents, that video. As she perfected her speech in her head, a nagging doubt took shape. Kate crossed to her writing desk, woke up her laptop computer and scanned through the entries in her diary. She was shocked to find that John had been away for nearly three months. As though summoned by the force of her anger, he phoned a few days later. Just called to say goodbye, he said. I need to talk with you cant. Got to go. Its over with us. Sorry and all that, but Im into something now well, you know how it is. I just wanted to say fuck, what can I say? I cant There are others watching. Theyll help. Youve got to treat me as missing presumed dead. Id prefer dead presumed dead. But hed already gone. Since then, shed changed name, place and job twice. The jobs had just happened, came out of nowhere with identity changes attached. She had never been told why or how. Her real identity had almost vanished now. Thinking of the past exhausted Kate. It took an effort to retain it, as though it would vanish without a constant supply of energy. Perhaps thats why she had become a thief. It didnt look much a plain manila folder containing twenty or so pages. She had no idea what might happen when it was found to be missing. Or if it would be missed. The prospect of random mayhem excited her. And it had been so easy. As the clerk showed her out of the building, he was stopped by a co-worker in the open plan offices. He put down his dossier on a table where there was already another, slightly thicker folder with an identical cover. While the clerk helped his colleague with her computer, Kate planted her own folder on top of his. She glanced up to check if shed been spotted and stared straight into the
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eyes of a rough-looking young man wearing a greasy John Deere baseball cap. He smiled malignly at her but made no effort to move or speak. Kate knew her furtive glance must have signalled her guilt, but she had no choice now. She decided to pretend nothing had happened. The clerk had stopped talking to his colleague and they both faced Kate with those fixed expressions people use when they are about to exert their authority and dont want to be seen enjoying it. The colleague held a document that was dreadfully familiar to Kate. It was a standard government form a print-out of a database search. On the form was an image of her iris. There seems to be um an anomaly, said the clerk. He took the form from his colleague and glanced at it. Our standard identity check has or rather it hasnt Well? It seems to have some problems. Your records seem somewhat, well, unavailable. Not my problem, said Kate. She snatched up her folder and the dossier in one quick movement. The clerk grabbed the other dossier, frowned and was about to open it when Kate snapped, Now dont you think youve wasted enough of my time? She stalked towards the exit, her back muscles tight. It was the first time Kate had stolen anything, and here she was with a secret government file on her lap, sitting right outside the building where shed stolen it. She couldnt quite make up her mind whether she was angry or stupid. Enveloped in her confusion, Kate didnt see the young man until he sat down beside her. She carried out a fast but practiced assessment. Above medium height. Fit, with a prison-yard hardness to the body. Stubble. Earring. Face too creased for his age. Skin sun-tarnished over the course of years. Sunken eyes. Cheap clothes, not too clean. And yes, a John Deere baseball cap, filthy. Finally, she knew shed looked too long. Got the full description, maam? asked the man. Maybe a southern accent. Maybe Michigan. Kate wasnt too good with accents, or geography. She looked away and was about to stand. They trust you but I don, he said. Kate stared at him openly now. Who trusts me? The man turned to look at her. He smiled. The missing teeth didnt reassure her. I know about you. You a flake. You one o them god-pissed liberals. I want you to know, you bein watched. He poked a finger at her. This bizniss, this is too important. I hear you bin asking questions about your ex-hubby. Husband, corrected Kate, then realized her mistake. The files nearly slipped from her lap. She caught them just in time. Not mine. And hell
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only be ex when we find the son-of-a-bitch and shoot him. She stood now, but couldnt quite walk away. If this man was a threat, she wanted to know how much. Well, anyhow, that aint good. You should leave well alone, if you know whats good for me? The young man appeared confused by the theft of his speech. He frowned and struggled with the next line. Yeah, he said. Who wrote that little routine of yours? asked Kate. Or did you get it from a movie? I, er The man suddenly sat up straight. Its mine. Well you must be very proud. The young man nodded reflectively. Well, I guess I said what I wanted to say. You in trouble, lady. I got friends in places, he nodded, apparently unconsciously, towards the building Kate had just left, who let me know stuff. You bin asking questions you shouldnt, an I do believe he nodded to the files in Kates hands, that you may be in possession of stuff that aint rightly yourn. Thats okay. Its just govmint shit. But you wanna watch out for those light fingers, lady. They might jus get you inna trouble. Kate laughed. You dont seem so very dangerous. Oh, believe me lady, Im dangerous. And I have to take your word for that, do I? The young man nodded, then stood. Okay, well He appeared to have run out of script. Have a nice day. He held out his hand. Kate shook it. You too. *** It was almost midnight by the time the last light of civilization had disappeared in Dicks rear-view mirror. He wound his gasping Karmann Ghia around the base of a mountain into the black night. The normally aspirated engine struggled a little in these high altitudes. The car had been built in 1974, one of the last to come off the Karmann Ghia production line, and it had never been modified since. Every part of the engine was original, nursed by Dick. There were no parts of the car he didnt understand, no sensors or obscure electronics, no black boxes or computers, no part he couldnt fix himself. And he loved the Ghias curvy, Porsche-like lines. He called her Marilyn. He drove automatically, taking his time, not pushing the car too hard because there were no surprises ahead, no anxiety of what he was about to confront. Pure darkness. No moon and no clouds. Dicks night vision was suppressed by the back-scatter from dust caught by his headlights, but he knew that
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within minutes of stopping and immersing himself in that enveloping night he would exchange the glare of this world for the pure and ancient bedazzlement of the stars. He drove into the desert every time he had a bad day at work, every time he faced the stark truth that his life did not belong to him, that he was a commodity, a corporate asset to be used and, if necessary, used up. His anger was crowded by the image of the Camo-dude holding the camera. Dick was possessive about his face. What were they doing with that image? What assumptions were they making? What conclusions were they reaching? Dick reached over to the passenger seat, switched off his mobile phone, pressed a button and let its battery fall to the floor. Now he was into the real desert, a place of high strangeness where the laws of mankind and the limitations of mens minds broke down. This was a place where Dick believed he might finally be subject to the transcendent power of the inexplicable. This was a place where terms like UFO and conspiracy became meaningless, where the truth was unavoidable because the only truth that mattered was what was right before your eyes and what you could conjure from your own mind. For years he had travelled to places where others had been changed for life by what they had encountered in the skies, in their homes, sometimes in their beds. Finally, he had moved to Nevada and lobbied for the magazine job because it put him in prime position, weirdness central, ground zero of the numinous. He had charted the steady increase in local reports of bizarre sightings. To Dick, the Nevada desert was the cathedral of modern supernature and his hope that he would one day experience a phenomenon beyond the mundane never wavered for a moment. It wasnt celebrity he sought, nor power. Would he even tell anyone what hed seen? Only if it were of national importance, he told himself. Only if what Id seen were too important to keep to myself. As he drove, he began to tremble with anticipation. To calm his nerves, he turned on the radio, hoping to hear the news. As usual, hed just missed it, catching just the dying words of the presenter. said the decision to place armed school marshals in kindergartens was a measured response and a significant step forward in combating the threat of terrorism. Its not the threat they want to combat, Dick thought. The radio spat out an urgent jingle, a station ident and then a brief moment of pregnant silence followed by voices that Dick recognized as sports commentators. With all this going on, Hank, youd imagine the President would be hard at
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work in the White House. But I hear hes taking another holiday the sixth this year. Well, not quite a holiday Jerry. Hes attending his quarterly religious retreat at the Carpenter Salvation Center in Nevada. Isnt that where he goes to dry out? I believe its a package-type deal, Jerry. A kind of god n rehab thing. Well Hank, I know that if I stopped drinking, Id sure as hell see god. You got that right Jerry. Amen and back to sports Dick leaned forward and switched off the radio. As he sat back again, his heart jumped when he caught sight of a bright object in the rear-view mirror. Its moving dammit! Its following me. Then his pulse settled. Venus. Just Venus, dancing in the mirror in time to the vibrations of the car and his own unconscious shifts in position. Oldest story in the book. Dick turned off the main highway on to a dirt track. It led to a rarely-used gliding strip on the edge of Lake Winnemucca. Several UFO spotters had reported strange lights here recently. It was a risk driving down an unmade track at night. A boulder seen too late could easily take out a wheel. A small price, thought Dick. He pulled into the parking lot of the airfield. It was just a ragged rectangle cleared of boulders and if he hadnt known where to find it and if he werent so adapted to the gloom, he would have driven right by. He could see the shack used by the pilots, on slightly higher ground, only as a straight-sided gap in the pattern of the stars. Some nights he stopped here, sitting out on the airstrip, away from the building because he wanted nothing to do with earthly artefacts Tonight he kept driving, across the parking area, past the shack, on to another, smaller track. Hed been shown it by a local man who had experienced something unearthly out on the playa. Its an old pioneer track. You can still see the ruts from the wagon wheels, the guy had claimed. The night was so dark, Dick knew when hed hit the surface of the playa only when the ride smoothed out. Now he was on the lake heading for its centre. In wet periods, in winter, the mud could turn to mush. Between spring and fall it baked to a surface as hard as asphalt. It had been, Dick recalled reading, more than a century since the lake had held water. He came here during the day, too, when he could get away. He liked to sit on the playa and squint, turning the heat haze into rippling water. Sometimes a breeze would carry the faint echoes of sixteen-wheelers hauling sheet rock or gypsum down Route 447 and Dick would hear them as phantom surf. Then he would drive as fast as his nerves would allow. From time to time, hed relax in his seat, tilt back his head, eyes shut, press down on the accelerator
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and take his hands from the wheel, relishing the fear that was almost erotic in its wantonness. Hed imagine himself traversing the Sea of Tranquillity or the mapless plains of Mars, with frontiers in every direction. He must have done this a dozen times on separate occasions. The last time, perhaps a year ago, he had actually fallen asleep. He woke only when a massive jolt pulled him upright. The car fishtailed sickeningly. Dick braked hard and gripped the steering wheel, for support more than control. When hed stopped, Dick climbed out and noticed the rear fender was bent and hanging at a strange angle. He leaned on the car, shaking. His gaze tracked back across the flat surface, the bright horizon broken by a shape that his mind worked hard to resolve. Finally, he saw it was another car, its driver similarly leaning against its side. They must have been the only two cars within a thousand square miles. Dick waved and the two men walked towards each other. As they met, Dick held out his hand. The other man slightly built like Dick and of around the same age shook it. You okay? asked Dick. Yeah. You have your eyes shut too? Yeah. Hows your car? Just a dent. Yours? Same. Now closer, Dick had a better look at the other mans car and recognized its outline. The realization made Dick uneasy. Is that a Karmann Ghia? Yeah. What year? Seventy four. Last year they made em. Whats your ? Sorry, pal. I gotta get back to work. I guess we forget about this, right? Right. No harm done. Tonight, as soon as he was sure he was far from anything, he let the car coast to a halt. He took a blanket from the back seat, lay on the cooling ground and waited for the trembling to subside. He did his best to empty his mind, to turn himself into the perfect receptor, a passive sensor tuned to any stimulation that might arrive from the heavens. He looked upwards, into a sky so black it seemed to absorb his gaze. His eyes roamed across the ancient symbols of the constellations searching for new data and new interpretations. Hed never learned their names, never acquired the ability to recognize the patterns in their apparently random distribution. What difference did it make? It wasnt where visitors came from that was important but the fact of their coming.
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While his muscles relaxed, a new energy with its own urgency began to drive his consciousness. He had the sense of a looming deadline. He knew that he would soon be fighting sleep and at that point his search would be ended for another day. So Dick peered hard into the sky, willing the darkness between the stars to move and take form. And then, he saw something. In the blackness, a deeper blackness moved. He leapt to his feet, head tilted back. His heart skipped. Its its something, he thought. For one sweet moment Dick was lifted, light on his feet, head swimming. His heart thumped with joy. His eyes brimmed with tears. Its its Nothing, you asshole. Dick slumped. His shoulders hunched. His feet hurt with the weight of his defeated body. He hung his head as his intellect kept up its attack, bludgeoning him with his own common sense. Youve just been staring too hard. Your eyes are tired. You only saw something because you want to see something. Its an optical artefact. Dust on the lens. Autokinesis. Just your imagination. Get a life. Dicks rational mind had always been the mortal enemy of his dreams. As he walked back to the car, he fumed. If only I wasnt so fucking smart.

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Chapter 3: MJ-13

ate tried the door of the motel office and found it locked. The glass of the door was obscured by stickers and signs, leaving just a few small gaps through which she peered, hoping to get a glimpse of the manager. The office itself was dark, even though it was already past nine oclock in the morning. Kate stepped back, and thats when she noticed the hand-scrawled sign that said, Gone. Back at some point. She returned to her room. Inside, she pulled back the curtains from the rooms single window which gave her a fine view of the motels boundary fence, just three metres from her door a four-metre high steel barrier, painted white and topped with razor wire. Kate had been meaning to ask the manager about the motels resemblance to a fortified compound, but aside from the night shed checked in, she hadnt managed to find him. Kate dropped a small suitcase on to the bed and started to pack. The suitcase was new. All the clothes that went into the case were new, still wrapped. Her old clothes were already in a dumpster. She picked up a box file that contained the only truly personal items she had left and began her ritual selection. She pulled out photographs of people whose names she could no longer remember reliably, photographs of places and events she could no longer recall, letters from people whose faces she could not conjure. She was disciplined, brutal with her past. It was a weight she could not easily carry. There was little left in the box. A few pictures of friends from college, retained not because of her fondness for them but simply as a reminder that she was once connected to the real world. And there were pictures of John, kept by Kate in a spirit of voodoo. She transferred the retained photographs to an envelope, then crushed the box file. She made a note to dump that later. She burned the rejected photos and letters one by one in an ashtray. Then she pulverized the ashes and flushed them down the toilet. Back in the bedroom, Kate dismantled her laptop computer. She had already deep-erased all the files, overwriting each bit of data ten times with zeros. She took apart the hard disk and scratched each platter, then used a hammer. She had no drill. She planned to drop the platters in different garbage bins on her route to the airport. Kate picked up the stolen dossier from the bedside table, meaning to put it in the case, then hesitated. She flicked through some of its pages hoping, perhaps, to spot something she had missed earlier. It was unlikely she had spent much of the night combing through the documents. They contained almost nothing of interest. What little was not blacked
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out was obfuscated by obscure acronyms, oblique references and a civil service language that expounded at length on very little. Kate had to satisfy her hunger for knowledge with little more than crumbs, for even the brief fragments that appeared to contain actual information were of indefinite age and told her things she knew already. Except for two items. Kate wasnt sure she was meant to see the first. The words came at the end of a solid bar of black ink where the censor had wielded his felt-tip. As the black line approached the end of the line, it weakened and faded, as though it lacked resolve. Finally, it decayed to ragged strands of grey with enough gaps to betray the shapes of the letters beneath. At a quick glance, no words could be read. But the hour that Kate had dedicated to the study of just this section of the page had rewarded her with two words Operation Aircooled. Coincidence, perhaps, but it was a confluence of unsatisfied curiosity and accidental data that she could not ignore. The other detail was a single noun orphaned at the top of a page that otherwise contained only a boilerplate confidentiality warning. She had no idea which final paragraph of which previous page this word was intended to complete the pages in the file were incomplete and disordered. The words isolation, she assumed, was the cause of its escape from the censors attentions because, if it had been seen, it would surely have been eliminated. And thats because it said spacecraft. Kate dropped the file in her suitcase, then took it out again. This time she used a metal wastebin to burn the report, page by page. Then her own file on John. Again, she mashed and flushed the remains. She was soon packed. For the next two hours she wiped down the room, cleaned every surface, checked for shed hair, washed the plastic beaker that held her toothbrush. Then she emptied the suitcase and repacked, checking that no item, other than the envelope of pictures, had belonged to any of her previous lives. She was left with a pen that she was not sure belonged to her. She left her room, walked across the motel parking lot to a row of trash cans near the padlocked pool area. Kate used her t-shirt to wipe clean the surface of the pen, then dropped it in one of the trash cans. When Kate returned to her room, she stared at the open suitcase. It was half-empty. She closed it. After a final check of the room, Kate took the bag to her rental car, parked in another lot on the far side of the motel compound. As she opened the door, she felt a faint lift of relief as she realized she would be rid of the car that day. Kate had never liked white cars. And the tinted windows gave a dull, edgeof-the-storm tinge to even bright days. When she arrived at the airport, Kate knew, she would leave behind this car forever.
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*** Dick Kennedy walked into the main hall. It was crowded and hot, but there wasnt the usual thick rumble of noise he associated with conventions, just a general sussurus, ebbing and flowing. It was a few minutes before Dick adjusted to the way everyone spoke in whispers. At the far end of the hall hung a giant banner. Welcome to the NonConvention it said, and then in smaller type, The worlds premier forum for the unexplained, the inexplicable and the downright suspicious. Dick came every year. He couldnt resist the wave of anticipation that grew during the months leading up to the show. Hed see the ads in Unix, UFO and sci-fi magazines, spot the furtive, coded messages on certain, littleknown IRC channels, ride out the flame wars in Usenet newsgroups where the organizers would argue about venues and dates, where theyd splinter apart, launch rival events and finally come together. The NonConvention was always held at the Silver Sands casino in Reno on the last weekend in May. Dick came in the hope that, among the professional conspiracy theorists and self-promoting abductees, there might be one person with some truth to share. With a quick scan Dick confirmed that the format was unchanged. Most stands were populated by young men who looked as though they had failed to graduate from community college computing courses. They wore t-shirts with humorous slogans or demonic images. Many had beards, most wore glasses, all held cans of cola or Red Bull. Behind several tables, authors skulked behind unsigned copies of their books. Dick recognized most of them by sight, but one new face caught his eye. He had a hangover pallor, a tight, lipless mouth pulled into a permanent sneer and his clothes were, even by the standards of the current crowd, spectacularly crumpled. Behind him a sagging banner boasted the title of his UFO book and proclaimed him Nigel Monsignor Britains Fox Mulder. Dick wondered if his demeanour might be explained by the vandalism to the banner, where someone had scored through the second part of the phrase and had written Englands Scooby Doo. Dick edged his way towards Monsignors stand. Although the hall was crowded, he found it remarkably easy to move through the throng. The huddled groups shuffled out of his way as though afraid of contact. As he approached the authors desk, Dick switched into a tangential trajectory, avoiding eye contact with Monsignor. Finally, he sidled up to the stand and, as surreptitiously as possible, slid a press release from the desk. Dick turned his back on the stand and read. Monsignor, it claimed, used to serve in the Royal Navy. Although his official role was managing the distribution of beverages and condiments to
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Navy facilities around the country, Monsignor claimed this was largely as a cover for his true function as the UKs chief alien hunter. With full access to the British Governments most highly classified files, only Monsignor knows the true extent of alien activity in Europe, the release burbled on. You know, you could just talk to me instead of reading that, said a voice behind Dicks back. He turned to find Monsignor standing just the other side of the table. Hi, said Dick. He shook Monsignors hand. The author snapped backwards with a look of alarm. Dick had barely felt the spark of electricity, but he knew from experience that it was worse for others. Its just static, he said. Monsignor sat again, rubbed one hand with the other. Dick felt a need to keep things moving. I guess were in the same business. Im UFO reporter for the Weekly World Inquisitor. That pile of cr Monsignor squinted at Dick and mulled something over. Your, er, magazine has quite a large circulation hasnt it? I guess. Im not sure You know, Monsignor smiled, the serialization rights for my book are still available. Oh well If you like, you could take me to dinner tonight and we could discuss it. Well, I couldnt I could only let you have a chapter or two. Or do you want me to write a special feature for you? Id be happy to do that you know, for your standard rates as long as I could mention the book. Yes. Um. The book. Yes. Whats it about exactly? Monsignor sat back in his seat and narrowed his eyes. You havent read the book? Well, no You were going to serialize it without knowing whats in it? Well, no. No? Dick took a deep breath. Look, I dont want to serialize the book. I dont I mean, I cant make decisions like that. I just well, you know, I thought we could talk, exchange ideas and information. It sounds like you have some real data all that top-secret stuff. And you want this information for free? Dick couldnt quite grasp what Monsignor meant by this. I well, maybe we could exchange, you know, stories. Ive built up quite a file Yes, I know. Two-headed calves and the ChimpMan.
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Are you a regular reader? Monsignor glared. Dick held out his hand again. It was just a thought. Fuck you. Dick stumbled backwards, away from the stand, span around and walked as fast as he could to the far side of the hall. It took a few minutes to pull himself together. Remember why youre here, he told himself. He rose on tiptoe and scanned the hall. He had no idea what he was searching for. How will I know you? he muttered to himself, and the line from the message ran through his head in reply. Youll know. He couldnt put out a page either. I never use names in email or on the phone, the contact had explained. Not even false ones. Dick had been impressed by this level of caution. He felt hed let himself down when he pressed for a name. Call me MJ-13, the contact had finally relented. Dick waded back into the crowd. He was aiming for a large structure in the centre of the hall. It looked like a miniature Eiffel Tower with a satellite TV disk at the top. The banner hung on its side read: ReptiliNet Cellular Communications System. If theyre out there, why not give them a call?. The tower made an obvious rendezvous point. But every time Dick made towards it, the murmuring crowd pulled him, like an undertow, in another direction. Finally he found himself jammed tight against a trestle table. Behind it sat a small young man who wore the dark look of a tortured poet, thick-framed glasses and a tweed jacket over a t-shirt on which Dick could just make out the word Echelon. The desk between him and Dick was bare. Dick accidentally caught the young mans eye. He thought he should say something. What are you exhibiting? he asked. Exhibiting? What do you mean by exhibiting? But Dicks hand swept across the table. Youre here Were all here, the young man scowled. Thats why were here. You understand? Dick frowned. Yes, he lied. The two men stared at each other while the chittering sound washed around them. Why are you here? asked Dick eventually. The young mans eyes flashed open briefly. Why do you ask? I dont know Dick was suddenly sure of the young mans identity. Are you MJ-13? The young mans face registered shock, but Dick wasnt sure if it was recognition or fear. The young man glanced nervously around. Dont use names like that, he said. Dick narrowed his eyes. He hoped his expression might convey both
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mutual conspiracy and cautious assessment. You recognize the name? he asked. Recognition isnt important, said the young man. Its a matter of information. I know too much already. It wont take much more to convince them to kill me. Dick felt he was losing the thread now. Who? What? Who are they? Depends. Which ones do you mean? I Dick had run out of questions. The young man suddenly started at something behind Dick. He stood quickly. Excuse me, he said. I have to go. He almost knocked over the table as he bulldozed into the crowd that quickly hid him. Dick span around and tried to locate the source of the young mans fear, but could see nothing suspicious, just clumps of dark-frowned people, their heads leaned together, their eyes never meeting, hands over their mouths, muttering. Are you Dick Kennedy? A tall, lean man with salt-and-pepper hair and a rich tan held out his hand. Dick studied the hand, not sure what he expected to find there. It was empty. Dick put out his own hand and they shook. There was no spark. He looked up at the newcomers face and was momentarily dazzled by a brilliant haze of cleanliness. Im William Carpenter, said the man. My god, said Dick, you are. Carpenter smiled in a way that was both off-hand and intense. The world rocked sideways. Dick keeled backwards, put a hand on a marble pillar to support himself. The pillar buckled. It was paper, part of a display about the Ancient Alien Civilization of Cambay. Dick caught himself, straightened his knees. Sorry about that MJ-13 nonsense, said Carpenter. His expression had changed to warm bemusement. Just my way of having a bit of fun. He held up a copy of the Weekly World Inquisitor. It was the current issue. Dick winced at the picture of the two-headed calf. Carpenter noticed. Dont worry son. I understand the need for hyperbole. It may seem crass sometimes, but we must shock people out of their complacency. I think were allowed a little artistic license in light of the important work we are doing. Carpenter looked at the cover of the magazine. Although, I seem to think Ive seen this little fella before. He smiled at Dick and chuckled indulgently before assuming a more serious expression. There were details in your story about the old woman that intrigued me. The lights. But more importantly, the sounds and smells. Well the next issue Dick was going to tell him about the New
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Madonna, and then remembered how the deputy editor was planning to mangle it. Yes? Nothing. Its just that I have had other reports recently, with similar details. Most interesting. I have the impression that you are more serious in your endeavours than one might at first assume. This publication, for all its populist crowd-pleasing, contains a real kernel of verisimilitude, does it not? Dicks head stabilised. This was William Carpenter, fraud and opportunist. And yet, alive, in the flesh, he seemed to be just like a man. I have followed your work, said Carpenter, and I believe I have seen in it a subtext that you dare not write, a knowledge that you cannot confess. Is this not so? Dick nodded enthusiastically. He was about to speak when something distracted them both. Nearby, a short, unwashed young man, whose I grok the Gimp t-shirt had ridden above his belly and whose haphazardly cut hair was now pasted flat to his head with sweat, was using a stubby finger to poke the hollow chest of a preternaturally thin youth. The thin mans t-shirt bore a picture of ChimpMan and the slogan umount /dev/pres. Carpenter watched them with undisguised contempt, then scanned the convention hall. How low we have fallen, he sighed. Barely one pure feature to be found among the lot of them. He clamped a hand on Dicks shoulder. You are different. Dick couldnt work out if this was a question or a statement. He chose silence. The skinny mans voice rose in volume. You just dont get it, man. Deep Space Nine is way more realistic than Next Generation. Some of the stuff they did in that was just stupid. The fat man responded by beating the thin man with a rolled-up copy of Fortean Times. You know, said Carpenter, I dont think we belong here. Shall we adjourn to a nearby coffee shop and discuss weightier matters? Carpenter headed for the exit. Dick recovered the ability to move and followed him. As they approached the main doors, Dick spotted the young man who had exited so abruptly at the mention of MJ-13. He now crouched by the exit casting rapid, feral glances at everyone entering and leaving. When he spotted Dick, his eyes widened. When he saw Carpenter, he shot to his feet and out of the door. As Dick and Carpenter passed through the doors, Dick thought he sensed some kind of commotion. Outside, a group had gathered in a cluster, their bodies like unfocused stick figures in the blurry brilliance of the light. Dick
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shielded his eyes and saw that they had accreted around a dark shape on the ground. Dick looked away but not before he had perceived, on the shapes disarranged clothing, the word Echelon. Dicks averted gaze settled on a NonConvention minibus whose driver stood in the open doorway of the vehicle and wept. Did you hear the breaks squeal? said one of the crowd. Bus mustve been going real fast. The brakes didnt squeal, said another. I heard tyres squeal, though. Many voices started up now. No sound. It was silent, man. Really weird. Killed outright. Never knew what hit him. I heard him cry out something. Dont know what it was. Do you think hes still alive? Several heads shook knowingly. So, they finally got him. Right. Poor bastard. I guess now well never know who he was. A hand gripped Dicks upper arm. I think we should make ourselves scarce. *** Kate picked up the glass and wondered if there was an official number of margaritas one could drink before airline cabin staff would stop you from boarding. There are all kinds of rules like that, she mused. Her entire life, she felt, was controlled by laws and rules she knew nothing about. I get through life by chance, she thought. If I obey rules, its by accident. Which ones am I breaking now? She downed the drink in one go. Her flight into Las Vegas had been early. She had time to kill. She sat near one of the huge windows that had once looked over rows of aircraft parking spots and their attendant jetways, and used to give a perfect view of airliners taking off and landing. Kate loved to watch aircraft and speculate on the people inside. What drove them to be on that plane? Were they arriving in hope or fleeing in fear? Kate had no such thoughts today. Two months before, acting on a new security directive from Washington, the airport management had painted the outside of the windows white. This new translucence cast a soft, indiscriminate light over the room. As noticed there were no shadows: every tiny detail of every part of the bar, every speck of dirt, every stain and dent, was revealed in full. Over the bar hung a massive TV monitor. There was another above Kates head and several more scattered around the bar. More screens were embedded under thick glass panels in the floor and the ceiling. The table on which Kate
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rested her glass was itself a screen. They all showed the same rolling adverts, interrupted occasionally by rapid bursts of network news. There was nowhere Kate could look without being forcibly informed. She felt overloaded with data. She signalled the waiter for another margarita. Why am I doing this? she thought. Maybe she should get a different flight, assume her real name, get back to the real world, take whatever was coming. At least it would be honest. Her drink arrived. The waiter snatched her fifty-dollar bill and left with a sneer. Kates attention became detached, then settled on a news story coming from the TVs. And just in from the Department of Homeland Security. The alert status has been reduced from red to orange. The threat level was raised to red last Tuesday as a result of what a Department spokesman called credible threats from a reliable source. It now appears that the Department mistook a TV broadcast of the Arabic version of The Weakest Link, shown on Al Jazeera, as a terrorist training video. As a side note, the Department of Homeland Security has denied accusations by unAmerican agitators that it has reduced the number of threat levels. The same spokesman said last night, quote, weve only ever had orange and red. Thats all we need. The indecision faded. Perhaps Kate wasnt so far outside the world. Perhaps the world was joining her. This wasnt the moment to make her fears conspicuous. She stood and started for the bar. Half-way, she met the waiter returning with her change from the fifty. He dropped it into her outstretched hand with an expression that said, this tip had better be good. Without counting it, Kate dropped the money into her purse and walked away. In the centre of the concourse was an information desk staffed by two young, blonde women with unbearably white teeth which they now turned on Kate. Kate flipped up her shades, hoping this would be taken as a friendly gesture, but the glare of the teeth forced her to flip them down again. I was told to report here. Im booked on a flight but its not on the departure board. Its not exactly a scheduled flight. Whats the destination? asked the taller of the two women. I cant tell you, Im afraid. The eyes of the taller one flickered slightly and she now seemed to need an effort to keep her smile. Yes maam. Would you mind just placing your index finger on this machine? Kate eyed the fingerprint scanner but made no effort to comply. I just want some information on where to board my flight. Are you chipped? Chipped?
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Its all the rage. Helps us help you. No. Oh well, alrighty, its pretty new. Not really official yet. The tall blonde pressed a button on the edge of her desk. Kate had the sensation that her photograph had just been taken. The blonde smiled: Its not a scheduled flight, you say, you cant tell us the destination and its not on the big board, is that right maam? As the taller one spoke, the shorter one had backed away and picked up a telephone handset. Kate heard her mutter the word security. No, its not on the board. Its with EG&G. The two blonde women froze. Their eyes went wide. Then, as the shorter one snapped never mind! into the telephone and put it down, the taller one hissed at Kate, Dont say that! Not in here! Say what? Without answering, the taller one came out from behind the desk and grabbed Kates arm. You have orders? she hissed. Kate reached in her bag and began to remove a sealed document that had been delivered by Marine Corps messenger that morning. The blonde put a hand on Kates, stopped her from retrieving the document. Thats fine. You can show that to the people at the gate. She marched Kate across the concourse towards a tall, heavily-built man sitting on an electric cart. For some reason, Kate had noticed this man earlier, when shed first arrived. That had been hours before and he was still in exactly the same place. The tall blonde pushed Kate on to the cart and whispered to the driver, One for the Ranch. The man nodded sleepily and said to Kate, hold on tight. *** All the way into work that morning Dick had mulled over Carpenters offer. When they couldnt find anywhere private to talk near the convention centre, Carpenter had said, You know, this is futile. Why dont you come out to my facility. Hed said it in such a way that the quote marks were clearly audible. Its a bit of a trek, Im afraid, but well be able to talk properly and I think youll find the experience interesting. Dick had heard of Carpenters compound. By all accounts it was a cross between a media complex and an armed camp, somewhere beyond Pyramid Lake, or maybe it was south, near Fallon reports were unreliable. Wherever it was, Carpenter used it as a safe haven from which to run his media empire. It was strictly invitation-only. Visiting would be an interesting experience, for sure, but Dick wasnt comfortable with the idea of being stuck miles
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from anywhere, especially as he would be going there in one of Carpenters helicopters. Dick preferred to be able to make his own way, however long the drive, but Carpenter had insisted. You dont know where it is, hed smiled indulgently, and Im not going to tell you. Now, when should I send the helo? As Dick pushed through the door into the Inquisitors reception area, he had his pass ready in his hand. He flashed it at Petal, the receptionist, without looking at her, and moved quickly and purposefully to the door to the magazines office. He already had the door open when he heard her voice. Not in there, dipshit. Through the other one. Dick turned around slowly and found her pointing to a door on the opposite side of the reception area. Dick had never been through that door. As far as he knew, there was nothing beyond the offices had belonged to a failed software company that had sold anti-spam utilities. A while back, its CEO was found floating face-down in a koi pond in St Petersburg. Dick stared stupidly at the receptionist who just scowled back. He crossed to the door and opened it nervously, feeling as though he was entering dangerous new territory. It took him two attempts to get through it. On the other side was a large space probably around the size of the Inquisitors main office but devoid of furniture, or much else besides a scattering of litter and old coffee cups, a few kettle leads and unplugged phones. In one corner there was a screened area. In the opposite corner huddled the staff of the Inquisitor, rubbing their left upper arms. Dave, the deputy editor, nodded for Dick to approach. Whats happening? asked Dick. He wasnt sure he wanted the answer. Biometrics, said Dave. He stared dubiously at his arm as though it were an alien growth. He looked back at Dick. Weve been approved. We have? By who? The Government, you asshole. All journalists have been approved. He rubbed his arm again and grimaced. Its supposed to make us safer. I forget how. I dont Your turn. Dave pointed to the opposite corner. Behind the screens, Dick found a nurse pecking at the keys of a laptop computer. It was connected to a number of machines, one of which Dick recognized as a fingerprint scanner. The nurse looked up. You Kennedy? Dick nodded. Get your jacket off and your left sleeve rolled up. Dick complied. He couldnt think what else to do. Without knowing what was going on he couldnt assess the implications of resisting.
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For the first time, the nurse looked Dick in the face. She examined him quizzically. Do I know you from somewhere? N-no. I dont think Something She switched her attention to the computer, stabbed the touchpad with her finger and hit keys. Dick couldnt see the screen clearly, but it looked as though she was paging through pictures of faces, only some of which were conventional mugshots. The nurse shook her head gently and tutted with frustration. I thought Finally, she gave the machine one final stab and turned back to Dick. Screw it. She pointed at a chair. Sit here, put your face into this machine and look into the light. For some reason, the machine a metal frame with a cup-like chin rest made Dick think of rats. He did as she said. Keep your eyes open, look at the dot, said the nurse. A light dimly flashed. Stand up. What was Iris and retina scans. Give me your right hand. Why? Fingerprints. Dick left his hands dangling at his sides. But I havent done anything. Not yet. Maybe you will one day, and we need to be ready. Or maybe we just need to eliminate you. The nurse grabbed one of his hands and pressed his forefinger on the scanner. You know, from our investigations. She hit a key on the computer and the machine beeped. Who are you? She repeated the scan with the next finger. LR-Ident. Its a shot in the arm. The machine beeped. Dick felt light-headed. What is? Another finger. Another beep. Just our company motto. Then youre not the Government? Next finger. Beep. Were a contractor. We provide a fully outsourced systems integration capability leveraging the synergies of a multi-discipline enterprise. By the time were through with you, every law enforcement officer, government official, customs officer, hospital administrator, social security clerk, car rental er She had run out of fingers. We need to do the next bit. Drop your pants. Dick was confused. He wondered if hed heard right. Im sorry ? Drop your pants. I need to measure penis size. Dick clawed unwillingly at his belt buckle. Pe ? But how does that help identify people. I mean, its kinda variable, isnt it? The nurse sneered a little. In my that is, studies show that under stress
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conditions, penis size remains remarkably consistent. She pulled something that looked like a micrometer gauge from her bag. Then Dick noticed a moments hesitation, the merest glimmer of irresolution in her eyes. Is this official? he asked. The nurse froze. Its its not entirely mandatory. Dick retightened his belt. Well I certainly Save it! The nurse dropped the micrometer back into the bag, took out a swab and looked at Dicks mouth. Open! Dick opened his mouth and the nurse poked around with the swab. Then she dropped it into a glass phial. Thats for DNA? Well arent you a clever boy. All of this stuff is going into the database on journalists? Journalists? The nurse practically spat out the word. Whats so goddamned special about journalists? She reached once more into the bag and took out a device that looked like a weird gun, maybe like one of those ray guns from 1950s sci-fi movies, or a glue gun, or one of those gun-like soldering irons. Dick realized that, no matter how many similes he invented, he couldnt put this off much longer. He shuffled forward. A kind of dread curiosity made him want to see what else might be in the bag. The nurse picked up a small plastic phial with Dicks name on the label. Inside was an object about the size of a fat grain of rice. She opened the phial and eased the chip on to her palm. She placed it into a small machine connected to the computer, punched some keys, then removed the chip again. While she was doing this, Dick noticed maybe a hundred other chips scattered loosely on the bottom of the open bag. Ready. Dick looked up and found the nurse staring impassively at him, the chip-gun pointed at him, the chip itself poised in the fingers of her other hand, ready to load. Come on mister. We aint got all day. Ive got a presentation at Speedo-Mart in thirty minutes. The nurse leaned forward and jerked the gun at Dick to emphasize the point. Dick instinctively flinched. His hand flew up and smacked the nurse on the forehead. She snapped backwards in surprise and dropped both gun and chip into the case. Dick sprang forward and rummaged in the case. The nurse pulled him out of the way. Ive got it, Ive got it. In one fluid, practiced movement, she snapped the chip into the gun, stabbed the gun against Dicks arm and pulled the trigger. Dick was too astonished to feel much pain. The nurse gave him a mirthless smile. Welcome to the New American Century, big boy. ***
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William H Carpenter reached out a hand and gently laid it on the layer of grease covering Tim McVinnys hair. One small part of Carpenters spirit the part most often displayed on posters and in videos praised himself for this small act of charity. The rest of him recoiled in terror from the unhygienic young man seated before him. McVinny gazed up at Carpenter like a puppy that had just been kicked. He had removed his sunglasses, but it seemed to Carpenter that their shadow remained over his eyes. That was a real shit detail, you know? McVinny wiped his nose aggressively on his sleeve. He looked more sad than angry. You know how much I hate bein in govmint buildings. One o these days I aint comin out. Carpenter patted him again, this time on the shoulder. Dont worry my boy. I suspect that the next time you enter a government building, no-one will be coming out. He walked across the room to gaze out at the view. A militiaman was operating a large hand pump, connected by hose to a fiftygallon drum on the back of a pickup truck. Another hose from the pump snaked down into the ground just outside the shower block. Carpenter assumed the septic tanks had filled again. He wrinkled his nose with disgust. The militiaman had most of the buttons of his uniform jacket undone. Now, tell me, did it go as we expected? Couldnt tell. The guy took her into a room. She came out with a face like a mutilated cow. You can skip the colourful similes. What else? Nuthin. Thats it? Carpenter rounded on McVinny. Thats your report? That is not the standard of work I expect. Do you know what risks we took getting you into that building? McVinny sat up straighter and his expression of misery was replaced by defiance. Jus who the hell is this guy that arranged all that, anyhow? You doin bizniss with govmint agents now? Carpenter tapped his fingertips against his leg. Our mission requires flexibility and the readiness to make sacrifices. In the pursuit of a greater good, I am prepared, as you should be prepared, to utilize whatever avenues of opportunity we find. In fact, the man who arranged your clearances is about to arrive. McVinny started. A govmint man here? In the compound? Goddamn! Calm down. Carpenter walked back to his desk and sat in the leather executive chair. There are government men and there are government men. This is someone you should meet. Hes being very supportive of our organisation and is of great value to us. Please keep your mind open. Open for what?
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A small, wiry man entered the room wearing a friendly smile. McVinny stared wildly at the newcomer, then hissed to Carpenter, But hes Yes, I know, whispered Carpenter. Be good enough not to mention it, would you? The stranger looked around the room disinterestedly, then seemed to notice McVinny. Hi there, he said and held out his hand. McVinny gazed at the hand as though checking it for anthrax. He looked at Carpenter then back at the new man. Who the fuck are you? he snapped. The new man let his hand drop. His smile remained, though a little more forced now. Just call me Spook, he said. *** Dick rubbed his arm. It ached every time he thought about the RFID chip now nestled under his skin. He had no idea what information it was broadcasting, or who might be reading it. His muscles were deadened by this hard, alien intrusion. It was like a disfigurement he could never hide. He felt oddly ashamed. He gazed out from his armchair, the only furniture on the rough porch hed built in front of his trailer. Dick had salvaged the wood from the handful of collapsed clapboard buildings that had once been a home of sorts in this otherwise empty gully. Every week he added a little to the porch, which was now larger than the trailer. He painted the sun-bleached wood black, to cut the glare from the sun, and had erected a bug screen along the full perimeter. The porch now completely hid the trailer itself a sleek, once-silver Airstream built sometime in the 1950s. It had already been on blocks a long time when Dick bought it. Its metal was dulled and dented. He had no idea where the wheels were. He wasnt unhappy that the trailer was hidden. Any visitor that might stumble up the track would see only dereliction. It sat in a dusty valley at the end of a rutted track. Only one thing brought people purposefully to this place. Thirty yards from Dicks trailer, centred among the ruined farm buildings, was a booster station for cable TV and telephone lines that ran from Reno, fifty miles away. A small, windowless building, built of brick, roofed with solar panels and surrounded by a fence topped with razorwire, it connected ranches and whorehouses, scattered widely throughout the desert, with the rest of the world. Dick sometimes tried to imagine what was travelling along the cables that ran through that building what lies and pleas and misconceptions were given an injection of energy as they passed by his home. The station was of little use to him: on the rare occasion that an engineer arrived to carry out some work, Dick would gather his courage, and his money, in the hope of
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bribing the engineer to hook him up. He had no idea why hed never been able to go through with it. Instead, Dick relied on his own solar panels, a small generator and two large satellite dishes, carefully concealed behind the trailer. One dish sucked down TV channels more than Dick had ever cared to count, very few of which he ever watched. The other gave him a broadband Internet connection. From his porch, Dick could see very little. The desert rose around the trailer like an earthwork. It protected him against the wind, sometimes. In any case, he preferred to gaze upwards, although tonight the sky was overcast. Dick rubbed his arm again. He was convinced the soreness was spreading. To take his mind off what this might mean, he moved inside the trailer and fired up the TV. Every week at this time, Dick watched They Came for Me! on one of his cable channels. It was a masochistic act. He told himself it was a professional duty. He chose not to think much about it beyond that. The format was always the same: an overexcited host, a stupefied member of the public, clearly more overwhelmed by being on TV than by being abducted by aliens. The show recreated the event with cheap effects. Its investigation made much use of words like forensic and analysis. They found nothing but believed everything. Porn for paranoids, thought Dick. Then he thought again about Carpenter. He wondered why hed accepted the invitation, and as soon as he posed the question he knew the answer. Carpenter had said, If you can be at Stead airfield tomorrow at nine, Ill send a helicopter for you. It was the thought of being sent a helicopter that had done it. Dick forced his attention back to the TV show just in time to hear the abductee say, they told me they had something important to convey to the human race, and that I had been chosen to deliver their message. I just wish Id written the damn thing down now, but I know it was important. Dick sighed, shook his head sadly and tried to ignore the dark, unwelcome part of his soul that screamed, Its true! To drown out this voice, Dick channel-surfed. He skipped the news networks. He never watched news on the TV if he could avoid it. Never read the papers. The truth, he figured, would reach him by some other means. But he was stopped in his tracks by the face of President Jack Betise. It was the smile that had stayed Dicks hand on the remote. It was a smile of pure certainty, that allowed no space for contradiction. It was a smile in which the mind played no part. It was a smile of undiluted malice and Betises piggyeyed face was focusing it deep into Dicks soul. Betise and an interviewer sat in armchairs in what Dick took at first to be the Oval Office. There was something wrong, though, something uneasy about the scene, something that gave Dick the same melancholic fear he got
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from watching the Twilight Zone. Dick craned forward. Its the window, he thought. Theres something wrong with the window. The view beyond the glass was blurred, out of focus and yet somehow familiar. Dick strained harder. Need more depth of field, dammit. And then he saw it, and what he saw made his mind spin: instead of trees and manicured lawns and Washington traffic, Dick thought he could make out scrubby, haze-obscured mountains. He rubbed his eyes, moved closer to the TV set. His complete attention was focused on that view. He longed to walk up to the windows, fling them open and crane forward to take in every detail. His eyes ached. By now, he was so close to the TV set that the image started to fracture into dots. Dick slumped back against the sofa, defeated. The image was too vague for him to be certain, but it looked an awful lot like Nevada. Dicks attention drifted back to the people talking. The interviewer had adopted the concerned-yet-understanding expression that TV journalists use when they are about to venture into a controversial area yet want to reassure the interviewee that theres really no need to be annoyed, forthcoming or honest. After briefly consulting his clipboard, as if to say I didnt want to ask this, but its on the list, he reluctantly eased out the question. Weve seen a drop on the US stock markets over the past week that isnt exactly another crash, but several analysts have voiced concerns over the current market trends. Theyre saying it feels like two-thousand-eight again. Do you feel their concerns are justified? Betise seemed pleased with the question. Before answering, though, he exerted a visible effort to replace his smile with a look of earnest paternalism. Everyone should be concerned. And what they should be concerned about is global terrorism. The interviewer looked disappointed. Betise added a frown of weary responsibility to his expression. Terrorists want us to be afraid, he said. They want nervousness in the business markets. They want stock markets to fall so that ordinary, law-abiding Americans, like you and me, will suffer as a result of reductions in our portfolio values. We must keep up the fight against terror, so that true Americans, free Americans the world over retain the liberty to invest. The interviewer tapped a pen against his clipboard. Isnt the terrorism thing kinda, you know I mean, havent we got beyond that? We cant allow that to happen. Who? We the people. Its too important. The interviewer appeared keen to move on. There seems to be a reluctance to invest when theres an atmosphere of gloom caused by the rising unemployment figures, a record national debt and the continued outsourcing
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of American jobs to places like India, Iraq, Iran and Wales. Do you think there is something we can all do to create a new spirit of optimism in America? Betise shook a fist in the air. Absolutely. We must be vigilant. We must be on our guard. We must watch everyone at all times to ensure that terrorists can never strike again as they have before. This is a country that cherishes freedom freedom of the individual and of the individual stakeholder. We have fought hard for it and we will never stop fighting. We have established a set of values envied throughout the world and we will not let a small group of evil men erode those values. So I would ask every man, woman and child to be alert. Watch for deviant behaviour. Ask yourself, is that man doing something that no true American would do? If so, report it at once. He sat back and shifted into his reflective expression. You know Betise patted his knee and stared at the floor philosophically. Then he looked at the interviewer and smirked. This was always a clue that he was about to say something that his speechwriters had labelled profound or quotable. I know in my heart that every decent person in this wonderful country of ours has a natural abhorrence of the abnormal. I want to make this a safe place for normal people. The interviewer looked genuinely puzzled. Isnt it a safe place already? Its true that there continue to be terrorist attacks around the world, and one German politician recently said that the present atmosphere of fear and violence has made him think fondly of the nineteen-seventies. And yet here in the US, anti-terrorist laws have been used mainly against serial killers and gun-spree wackos traditional American crimes and not one of these people has had any proven connection with terrorist organisations The President smiled indulgently. Jerry, Im not saying the terrorists arent smart, which is why we have to be vigilant. And I think the fact that the US has not been hit by major terrorist outrages in the past few years is proof that our policies and our methods are working. The interviewer now looked alarmed by his own inability to stop asking questions. But some critics of your administration, argue that the terrorist threat to the US was never as great as you claimed and that what threat there was has greatly diminished thanks to the work of the UN and the fact that dissident organisations have, in many cases, achieved their major aims, often through negotiation. Betise scowled. Theyre out there, believe me. And in a form never previously seen. Im telling ya, Jerry, we face new threats, terrible threats of a kind you cant possibly imagine. A kind you wouldnt have thought possible. We cannot afford to drop our guard now. In fact, I think the time is right to increase our our our grip on the nations security, to tighten our hold on freedom.
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Theres an election coming up. Do you think your successor, of whichever party, will continue this focus on terror? I feel it is my god-given duty to pursue this war against the heathen murderers, Jerry, against these forces alien to our culture. I intend to see it through to the end. But youre in the final year of your second term, which means that you wont be able to continue this effort as president. Were working on that, Jerry. Trust me. *** Spook watched through the window as McVinny loped across the parade ground towards the mess hall. That boy certainly is a handful, he said over his shoulder to Carpenter. Hes a moron, said Carpenter. But there are some tasks that require a lack of imagination and an ignorance of facts. Spook turned to face the older man. He discovered that Carpenter had crept up behind him and now stood uncomfortably close. He did that kind of thing a lot and Spook assumed it was because it allowed him to tower over people. Not for the first time, Spook had to crane his neck back to look Carpenter in the face. Not for the first time, it annoyed the crap out of him. I thought your mission in life was to enlighten and reveal the truth to all. Carpenter bestowed an avuncular smile on Spook. I really dont appreciate having my lifes work reduced to snappy catchphrases. As an African-American, Im sure you understand the offense that can be caused by stereotyping. I generally just call myself an American. Theres often a large gap between what we call ourselves and what we are. And what are you? Carpenters left eye twitched. What I am is beyond your comprehension. But to work: hows everything at Golgotha? Spook checked his annoyance. He was pretty sure it wasnt showing. There may be scheduling issues. He sidestepped Carpenter and walked to the other side of the office. As he spoke, he scanned a collection of pictures on the wall. Theres a lot more we need to learn about the article. Theres so much we simply dont understand. This is technology way beyond anything were used to. So we need to work on our below-the-line activities and then use the article when its ready. Is this a new picture of you with Betise? A few things had changed in the office. Carpenter had replaced some of the pictures of himself embracing film stars with other pictures of himself with newer celebrities. Attention to detail, thought Spook. There were some new framed letters and certificates, most of them expressions of appreciation from gun manufacturers. And there were at least three new photographs of
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Carpenter with President Betise. One of them appeared to have been taken during Betises only known trip outside of the Continental USA when he opened the Freedom Museum in Guantanamo Bay. If the article isnt ready, said Carpenter, then we cannot proceed. There are all kinds of ways we can do this. But we had a plan. I still have a plan. Does it still include me? Spook turned and faced Carpenter with a smile. Nothing has really changed. Carpenter sat in his executive chair. He arranged items on his desk. What about the new person? Did I tell you about that? Dont you tell me everything? Spook laughed. Its in hand. She arrives this afternoon She? Spook assessed how much more to give him. Shes intelligent, attractive. Shell go down a storm on TV. TV has its limitations. Is that what your plan hinges on? Among other things. It will get the attention we need. It didnt work with George Scintilla. People just dismissed him as a weirdo fantasist. Hes getting plenty of time on TV, but only in late-night shows for geeks and insomniacs. Hes a side-show freak. Dont you make some of those shows? Thats not the point. I learned a lot from Scintilla, said Spook. Just having someone claim to have worked in a top-secret facility and to have a background on secret projects isnt enough. Its far better if theyve actually done those things. With Scintilla, once people started questioning his credentials, we had to be creative. It didnt help that he made up shit of his own. Thats why I had to come up with the story that there was no evidence of his background in classified Air Force projects because it had been erased by the Government. It was so feeble that I was almost ashamed of it. Of course, the UFO and conspiracy nuts bought it. But this time we need to convince a far less credulous audience. And you think this new woman ? I know. Trust me. Carpenter appeared to mull this over as he stood, ambled across the office and plucked from the wall the picture of himself and Betise that Spook had noticed. He looked at the picture but his focus seemed to be elsewhere and he gently fanned the frame through the air as he spoke. The article, as you call it as you know, I prefer craft is completely
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central to our plans. Without it we will not achieve the effect we seek. I know the importance of an unambiguous demonstration. The people must be brought to the truth. Their eyes must be opened. They must be allowed to witness. And for that we need the craft. Well have to do what we can. We have time constraints. The election? Exactly. Those are your limitations, not mine. The truth will set people free, no matter which president is oppressing them at the time. When this president goes away so does this programme. Carpenters hand stopped fanning. You cant be serious. What you have at Golgotha stop calling it that. What you have there is not yours. Its not the private property of your organisation or even your Government. Its not some asset you can simply dispose of. It belongs to mankind. It is the embodiment of a truth the whole world must acknowledge. Spook wagged a finger. It doesnt exist. If we screw this up, or if I believe this project is in danger of failing, it will never have existed. You cant do that. You dont have the right. I have a duty. To whom? Spook glared at Carpenter. He had been careless. He should not have let the discussion get to this point. To my country. Who do you answer to? Carpenter held himself erect and radiated victory. To a far higher authority. He softened his expression a little. Lets not argue. Lets simply ensure that this works. How can we even contemplate failure? Now, what do you have for me? Spook stood motionless for a minute. Then he picked up a briefcase he had left near the door, snapped it open and pulled a bunch of papers from it. He dropped them on a desk near Carpenter. Thats for the first stage. There are maps with points marked and an itinerary. Have your people in the positions marked, make sure they have their video cameras and this time, dammit, make sure they have the batteries charged. Carpenter sniffed and idly leafed through the documents. And what will they see this time? Theyll see what they see. The craft itself? Are you ready to put your part of the plan into action? I hardly know what the plan is.
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I figured you probably have plans of your own. You said the craft isnt ready. Not ready for the big event. I think theres a way we can use it in the meantime build up to it. Carpenter pondered this for a moment. Very well. Let me walk you back to the airfield. They left the office and walked down a steel-lined corridor. As they passed an open door, Spook glanced into the room and saw what appeared to be a black, heavily padded dentists chair. Alongside it was a rack of electronic gear, but otherwise no equipment or instruments. The floor was painted a restful mauve and the lights were set low. Spook walked in and noticed that the ceiling was a white dome. A device on the equipment rack projected gently turning stars onto the surface of the dome and the walls. Whats this room? he said. I havent seen this before. Its a new venture. There was caution in Carpenters voice. Its a prototype for a service we hope to have up and running in time for the Christmas season. For a little under five hundred dollars, including state taxes, we arrange to have you abducted by aliens. Spook span around and searched Carpenters face for signs of irony. Youre joking. Not at all. I think its going to be very popular, both with people who believe they have been abducted before, most of whom appear to have found the experience highly, shall we say, stimulating, as well as self-endorsing Meaning? Being chosen by aliens makes them special. This way they get to be special as often as they like, so long as their credit is good. And we feel it will also attract people who have so far been passed over by our little grey friends and want to join the club, as it were. Were calling it Ultimate Contact. Cute. Carpenter winced. I think its appropriate. So how does it work? You dress up some kid as a Grey, pump the customers full of drugs, a few weird sound effects and a light show? Please. This is serious work, not a ride at Disneyland. Carpenter picked up what looked like a cyclists helmet with wires attached. Our approach is a technological one. Its based on advanced research into sleep paralysis and temporal lobe seizure. You think up this shit yourself? Carpenter dropped the helmet with a bang. Im sorry you find our efforts here so Wait. Is this why you wanted that research?
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Carpenter picked up the helmet again. Our agreement was no questions asked. Temporal lobe seizure. Results in hallucinations, brought on by overstimulation of parts of the brain. You feel weightless, there are pleasing sensations, you may even have the sense of leaving your body. Thats correct, said Carpenter. Its also very common to believe that there is some kind of presence, some entity, nearby. And to feel that you are being in some way molested, being pulled or prodded Having a probe shoved up your ass. Carpenter stiffened. If you like. There are visual sensations too rather like a dream, but somehow more real, more intense. And sexual arousal is very common. I had no idea you wanted that information for a commercial venture. Spook placed his briefcase on the floor and examined the chair more carefully. But you cant wait around for the customer to have a seizure all by themselves. Carpenter waved the helmet. We use this. It zaps electromagnetic waves across the temporal lobes to induce a mild form of the seizure. I didnt give you that. No. The helmet itself is our own invention. Were lucky to have a young man here who created the system for us. A former research student. Psychology? No. Carpenter coughed. Actually, he was a mechanical engineering student at UCLA. In his spare time he was looking for a method to induce hallucinations legally. He had some scheme to sell do-it-yourself seizure kits through small ads in Rolling Stone. Fortunately, we got to him first. Youre making my classified research available to some frat boy? Most of it is public domain now anyway. So thats it? You put on the helmet, flick a switch and meet ET? Not quite. The temporal lobe seizure is an important element. We think its probably the main phenomenon underlying many so-called abduction experiences. But by itself it doesnt paint the full picture. We also use a mild drug cocktail to induce sleep paralysis. Thats where you go kind of rigid when youre dreaming so that your legs and arms dont actually do all the walking and gesticulating that youre dreaming about. Carpenter looked impressed, then concerned. How much research have you done? Did you give us everything? Spook walked around the chair, leaned on the head rest. Sleep paralysis is a bit like the temporal lobe seizure, isnt it? I mean, youre paralyzed, feel as though youre being pressed down, cant get your breath, and again theres a feeling of a nearby presence.
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Carpenter put down the helmet, took a few steps across the room, watching the stars, then turned to Spook again. Something like a quarter of all people get it at least once in their lives. Some experience it many times. It can be frightening. The feeling of a presence has led to many of our most persistent myths. People in South-East Asia refer to the Grey Ghost. In Newfoundland its the Old Hag. There are demons that will render you inert in order to rape you in the night Incubus and succubus. And fairies that abduct people or change babies. Spook moved to the equipment rack. The tray on which the helmet rested also held some hypodermic syringes and serum bottles. Spook read the labels. L-Dopa. Dopamine. I gave you this too. The information, I mean. You gave us some. Not enough. Helps people see connections, perceive meanings where there are none. I would have expected you to mention its use in the treatment of Parkinsons. Your knowledge is surprisingly wide-ranging. I try to keep up. Well, anyway, dopamine has been a key suspect in supernatural phenomena for some time. Its a natural product in the brain. We just boost the levels a bit. So how do you get the aliens into the act? The third and final part of the service. As the subject is coming out of the drugs and recovering from the seizure, we give them another burst. This triggers a phenomenon where certain processes normally associated with sleep take place in the conscious brain. REM intrusion. Carpenter looked at Spook warily. Why do I get the impression that you know all this already? Maybe youre psychic. Carpenter showed no signs of being amused. Anyway, because dream-like activities take place in parts of the brain normally associated with conscious processes, the mind gives them more weight, is inclined to believe in them as genuine. Weve tied this in with techniques inspired by the work of Benjamin Libet. He suggested that there is a time-lag of about half a second between something happening and it entering our consciousness. Were not aware of it because of a process called subjective antedating. It occurred to us, what if we could get to that information during that half second, tap into it. Thats what we do here. With the drugs weve developed weve slowed that process, created a gap of six or seven seconds. These subjects are actually experiencing the world as it was several seconds ago. But not the real world, you understand. The world we feed them through these devices, through visual and audio cues.
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We overlay their sensory data with images, sounds, smells of our choosing. Because they are processed as real data, the brain accepts them as genuine. These people believe absolutely in what we feed them. Wouldnt hypnosis be easier? We tried it. Its effective in some cases, for reinforcement. The right suggestion here and there nothing overt, we dont even have to mention aliens and then their minds go to work to make sense of everything that has just happened. Weve all seen sci-fi movies. Weve all heard about aliens and abductions. The ideas and images are already present in every one of us. And, of course, being abducted by aliens is what they came here to do. But its variable. Some people are more susceptible than others. Some will concoct an entire abduction scenario with almost no prompting. Others prove to be virtually immune to suggestion, even to the hypnosis itself. Our way is more effective, more consistent. Would you like to try? Thanks, but Ill stick to the Discovery channel. Spook picked up the helmet, saw there was a control knob on the back. Have you tried it? Weve had great success with some of our test subjects. Bums and students, mainly. Dispensable people, anyway. Carpenter approached Spook, took the helmet from him and laid in on the tray. The more imaginative the subject, the easier it is for their minds to construct the abduction scenario as they come out of the paralysis stage. You know, psychological research carried out on abductees has found that they tend to have above-average imaginations. Spook moved away. He circled the chair trailing a hand across the leather. When do you start selling it? Already have. Weve done some telesales and direct mail, using our own mailing databases and some bought-in lists from cable TV shopping channels, sex-aid mail-order retailers, weight-loss programmes and hobbyist stores. Id have thought lists of attendees from UFO and Trekkie conventions would have been more appropriate. Too unreliable. The people who attend those things tend to be either very paranoid or suffer from arrested development. Either way they think its cute to give false names and addresses and the lists are virtually worthless. You cant trust a database in which over thirty per cent of the people are called Data. In any case, were pleased with the response were getting. Next week we start advertising Weekly World Inquisitor, Hard Core Crime, Phreaky Phenomena and the Washington Post. Spook nodded. Nice choice. Weirdos, wackos, feds and politicians. Youll make a fortune. But doesnt this I mean isnt this betraying your beliefs? We have to raise funds to support our work. Its also a good cover. If you commercialize something, no-one will suspect you have a genuine
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commitment to it. And I hope it will attract real abductees from whom we will be able to learn a great deal Before you put them in the chair. Right. They may be able to help us in our real work. Spook nodded and patted the chair. He turned, snatched up his briefcase and walked out of the room, keeping up a fast pace, talking to Carpenter over his shoulder. I hope youre not getting distracted. I need you fully focused on this project. You have to be able to move fast when the article is ready. Spook still couldnt see Carpenter, who was panting a little in his efforts to keep up. Even through the shortness of breath, Spook thought he detected a note of imperiousness in Carpenters words. Its not the craft that must be ready, he said. Its us.

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 About the author

Steve Mansfield-Devine is a writer, journalist, photographer and ethical hacker. He has written all his life, usually for money, often because he just cant help himself. He has been a professional journalist for nearly three decades and his work has appeared in national dailies and magazines of a bewildering variety. He currently specialises in information and IT security and is a Certified Ethical Hacker. A qualified pilot, he also spends an abnormal amount of his spare time obsessing about flying, and is the author/photographer of three non-fiction aviation books.

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