The Fact of the Moon Is Stranger Than Most Dreams

by Palmer, Jacob

  “Hey, what are you doing out there? You taking a shit?” Kenner yelled from the vicinity of the truck.

  “We’re on the edge of a giant crater,” Abram yelled back.

  “What?”

  “Come check it out. Careful, there’s a fence.”

  They looked into the blue-black fifty-thousand-year-old crater, a bowl of moonlight. There was a time when the land was a sweeping sea of golden grass dotted with lumbering herds of woolly mam-moths. The meteorite that caused the scar was 160 feet across, roughly the size of the Arc de Triomphe. When the sphinx in Egypt was constructed, a few isolated pockets of woolly mammoths remained on Earth. In roughly one million years, the meteor crater would have eroded away to a very slight depres-sion. All human-made glass objects would have decomposed as well. The sphinx and even the Great Pyramids would have eroded well into unrecognizability. Even on the moon, all human footprints would have disappeared due to the creeping effect of the solar wind. Abram and Kenner knew nothing of this, of course. Were as oblivious as the mammoths had been before the fiery impact. Abram suggested they climb down into the crater with his camera, but he immediately thought better of the idea, and they returned to the truck and sped back through the dust, out onto the highway, returning to the frail, pa-per-thin human world.

  The next morning, they ate breakfast at the small diner adjacent to their cheap motel. Abram had a plate of scrambled eggs, french fries, and toast, with orange juice and tea. Kenner ate dried organic mango slices out of a paper bag in his backpack. He hesitantly ordered a mug of hot water, sniffed at it, thought about it, and then added a generous pinch of pink salt from a vial in his shirt pocket and sipped gingerly. It was 10:00 a.m., and they were both dazed but enthusiastic.

  “So it’s a straight shot about two hours out of Kingman to Parsons Field,” Abram said, chewing, holding his phone aloft and nearer the window in hopes of gaining better reception.

  “Cool. You sleep alright?”

  “I guess. It took me forever to fall asleep. I think my room was haunted. I slept with the light on.”

  Kenner laughed.

  “I’m serious. You have me paranoid about the memory card stuff. Last night in bed, I felt like I was being watched.”

  “You probably are!” Kenner said before taking a long, loud sip of his hot salt water. “Do you have the memory card on you?”

  “Sure, I always keep it in my pocket. My good luck charm.”

  “Let me see it for a second. I want to try something.”

  Kenner slid his battered, filthy laptop out of his backpack. It was covered in skate stickers, and duct tape held the battery in place. “I downloaded a program years ago for sending and decrypting peer-to-peer messages. It’s called Opal Micro. It got shut down by the government right after it came out. It has a document decryption tool. I think maybe the files on the memory card aren’t corrupted. I think they want you to think that, but actually they’re encrypted somehow. That’s my guess any-way.”

  “Sure, give it a shot.”

  “Okay, it’ll take a minute.”

  The cheap laptop fan whirred loudly as code cascaded down the screen.

  “So what’s the story on this first place we’re visiting?” Kenner asked.

  “No story . . . Well, I guess kind of a story,” Abram said, shoveling eggs into his already full mouth and smiling.

  “Alright? Lay it on me.”

  “You know Jack Parsons? He was the inventor of modern rocketry in the forties. Started the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Was also involved in the occult. Pals with Aleister Crowley.”

  “Yeah, I’ve read some stuff.”

  “You know about the Babalon Working?”

  “What was that?” Kenner said.

  “Parsons and L. Ron Hubbard held a series of magic rituals out in the desert to conjure some kind of interdimensional gateway.”

  “Well, what happened?”

  “They claimed they were successful.”

  “Successful?”

  “It’s not clear. They were both evasive about it afterward. Parsons blew himself up in a lab acci-dent a few years later.”

  “What year were the rituals?” Kenner asked intensely, signaling the elderly waitress for more hot water.

  “Uhm . . . 1946, I think. I had just finished reading a giant book about Parsons when I got fired from the artist-in-residence gig. That’s how I know all this shit. The occult stuff was really more of a footnote, but I knew you’d be into it.”

  “Well, 1947 was the year of the first modern UFO sighting, by a pilot up in Washington State,” Kenner rattled off while checking the ancient, noisy laptop’s progress. “And after that, UFO sightings became pretty much a regular thing. Maybe they did open up a gateway out in the desert.”

  “I think 1947 was also the year Sandoz introduced LSD as a psychiatric drug. A lot of wild stuff was going on,” Abram said distractedly, watching a police cruiser enter the parking lot.

  “Don’t forget all the nuclear testing going on out here in the desert around that same time,” Ken-ner said, finishing his dried mangos and wadding the paper bag. “It’s probably all connected.”

  “Yeah, or not. Who knows? Anyway, those magical ceremonies supposedly happened at this first spot we’re going to. Parsons had a research lab and airfield built there. It was abandoned shortly after his death.”

  “What?” Kenner said, staring at Abram wide-eyed. “So we’re going to the interdimensional gate-way?”

  “Don’t get too excited. I read there’s barely even anything out there today. Just some dilapidated old airplane hangars and a mostly buried runway. It was nearly eighty years ago.”

  “Then why do you want to take pictures there?”

  “I don’t know. It’s pretty close to the highway, and I just finished that book on Parsons and rocket-ry. Plus, there aren’t really any good photos of it online, surprisingly, just pixelated old satellite photos. I feel a weird duty to document it, make it real again.”

  “Why aren’t there any new satellite photos?”

  “There are a lot of low-res areas out in the desert. Arizona and New Mexico are a patchwork of blind spots for whatever reason. How’s the decryption going?”

  “Looks like it’s almost done. I think it’s working. It’s a lot more files than it seemed at first, right?”

  “The tension builds. Should we wait here until it’s done, just in case we have to plug your com-puter in?”

  “Nah, let’s bounce. I have a power bank in the truck with some juice left.”

  ***

  “Alright, it looks like we may be able to read the files. Partially, at least. They’re still defi-nitely glitched out, but some coherent text came through,” Abram said, resting the hot, grimy laptop on his lap.

  “Yeah, baby! Read it to me.”

  They sped along empty Interstate 40, weaving slightly as Kenner excitedly adjusted in his seat and turned down the music. The desert beyond their tinted, air-conditioned world seemed to pause and listen.

  “The files look like someone took photos with their phone of scanned photocopies displayed on a computer screen. Picture of a picture of a picture. Looks like the files on the computer were being viewed through some proprietary file browser. A logo in the corner. Pixelated when I zoom in. I think it says NRO? I’ll read you what I can make out.”

  Subject: Project Supra Et Ultra, Subproject 3

  1.) Subproject 3 is being set up as a means to continue the present work . . . eneral field of f . . . memory implantation via sample neuroplasmosis medium or similar agent at Chantilly, VA, holding cen-ter and SFCA test group until 11 September 2024.

  2.) This project will include a continuation of the study of a biochemical, neurophysiological, sociological, and clinical psychiatric aspects of . . . related to JB-II8, such as DMT-A. Detailed proposal is attached. The principal investigators will contin . . .

  1.1) The project was initiated on 7 October 2012 and is being managed in compliance with the NIDS guide
lines for the management of human subjects.

  1.2) Subproject 3 is being set up as a means to continue the present work . . . eneral field.

  4.) There will be an attempt to develop a method to measure the concentration of JB-II8 in plasma by the measurement of radioisotope (R)2+ released from the protein. This method will also be used for the analysis of the concentration of JB-II8 in blood, urine, cerebrospinal . . .

  “The rest is pixelated. Looks like maybe a signature down at the bottom? What do you think so far?” Abram asked.

  “Memory implantation? That’s pretty interesting. Supra Et Ultra? Like MK-Ultra. Government mind control stuff, most likely. Talking about LSD and 1947 earlier, the MK-Ultra program was respon-sible for bringing LSD to America. In the 1950s, they bought up the entire world’s supply of LSD at the time and began secretly dosing people in hospitals and prisons and schools and stuff. They accidentally created the 1960s counterculture, or they did it on purpose. I go back and forth. It was all about mind control, though. It was a continuation of experiments that happened in Nazi concentration camps. Hell, they even hired a bunch of the Nazis to help them figure it all out. Real evil shit. They tried to destroy all the files about it in the 1970s, but a few survived. Maybe this is like a leaked file from a new MK-Ultra program?”

  “Yeah, I doubt it. If anything, this memory card is probably a hoax.”

  “Why would that girl slip it to you, crying, if it’s just a hoax?”

  “Maybe she was acting. Maybe she wasn’t in on it. How about this? Maybe she had just been fired and found a memory card that some smartass left lying around as a prank. Or it’s part of some goofy live-action role-playing shit. Tech people love that. The HR woman thought it was real, and classified, and slipped it to me in what she considered a final ‘fuck you’ to the company that just fired her?”

  “Or it’s totally legit,” Kenner said, staring at Abram, veering onto the shoulder and then back onto the road.

  “What’s legit? So far it isn’t anything,” Abram said. “Can’t read this page . . . Okay, I can just read the corner of this one. Says NRO again, like a logo. I’m going to look that up on my phone while I still have a signal. NRO. National Reconnaissance Office.”

  “It makes sense they’d be involved with a satellite company,” Kenner said, barely containing his excitement.

  “Says here NRO is considered, along with the CIA, NSA, FBI, and DHS, to be one of the big five U.S. intelligence agencies. I’ve never even heard of it.”

  “I think maybe I’ve heard of it,” Kenner said, fidgeting with the AC control.

  Abram continued reading. “‘It designs, builds, and operates the reconnaissance satellites of the U.S. federal government and provides satellite intelligence to several government agencies . . . A 2015 bipartisan commission report described the NRO as having by far the largest budget of any intelligence agency. Headquartered in Chantilly, Virginia.’ That explains the mention on the first page. ‘The NRO operates ground stations around the world that collect and distribute intelligence gathered from recon-naissance satellites.’ This is interesting. ‘NRO’s technology is likely more advanced than its civilian equivalents. In the 1970s, the NRO had satellites and software that were capable of determining the exact dimensions of a tank gun. In 2019, the agency donated two space telescopes to NASA. Despite be-ing stored unused for a decade, the instruments were far superior to the then state-of-the-art James Webb Space Telescope.’”

  “Okay, so we just have to figure out what spy satellites have to do with implanted memories and biochemical neuroplasmosis shit,” Kenner said.

  “This page is weird. It’s mostly glitched, but I can just make out the top line.”

  “What does it say?”

  “‘Cephalopod Artificial Neural Net Interface.’”

  “Cephalopod?” Kenner said, “Like an octopus?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Maybe it’s a project codename.”

  “Hmm, maybe. Can’t read this page . . . Can’t read this page . . . Last file. I can read the last line of text. It's just an address- 7281 Mt. Hamilton Road . . . and, I just lost phone service. Your phone work-ing?”

  “Nope. We’re invisible now. Ghosts wandering the desert, looking for the octopus.”

  They sat in mute contemplation. Vultures circled above, like slow, black bundles of rags.

  “Well?” Abram said, finally closing the struggling laptop.

  “I think we should keep working on those files. Maybe we can get more information.”

  “I doubt it. I’m shocked we were able to read as much as we were.”

  “All I know is we’re going straight to that fucking Mount Hamilton address when we’re done with your little photo project,” Kenner said, laughing, beating his fist on the steering wheel. “U.S. 93 South. This is our exit, right?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Take this exit.”

  5

  Edie awoke from her nap, disoriented. She stumbled to the kitchen, kicking books out of the way. She cleared a path around a pile of costumes: a Marie Antoinette wig, a tentacled octopus head-piece. Gray ash danced in a sunbeam in the inaccessible concrete lightwell outside the kitchen window. How long had she been asleep? Longer than she had intended. She ate a frozen mango cube and a few potato chips and drank water from a thrift-store mug printed with two cartoon mice on a swing. She went back to the empty bed and checked her phone for a new text from Abram. Nothing. They usually stayed in near-constant communication, but she and Abram had come to an agreement that this was a special occasion, celebratory, and he would probably have spotty phone coverage at best out in the middle of nowhere. Because they were both on the low-income plan, their coverage was sparse nearly everywhere outside of San Francisco proper.

  Edie sat at the kitchen table and read a line from an open book by Baudrillard: “‘We live in a cul-ture of fragmentary sensations, eclectic nostalgia, disposable simulations, and promiscuous superficiali-ty, in which the traditionally valued qualities of depth, coherence, meaning, originality, and authentici-ty are evacuated or dissolved amid the random swirl of empty signals.’” She turned her phone over and rubbed her eyes, yawning.

  We’ve stalled out, she thought. There’s nothing new or good anymore, just in-cremental improvements on what came before.

  It was hot, and she wished she could open the window but instead went to the bathroom, splashed water on her face, and returned to sit on the edge of the bed, leaning over the air-purifier fan. She scrolled on her phone. Air quality a little better tomorrow. She went back through and idly reread the last texts between her and Abram. She texted a few friends. Nothing important. She considered pulling out the VR from under the bed and finishing her game from earlier but took note of the time, sighed, took a long hit from her pink, ornate faux-Victorian pipe, and crept back into an easy sleep. Her sleeping brain and her thoughts comprised electrons, protons, and neutrons, just like everything else. A computer, a black hole, a tree, a phone: all built from arrangements of electrons, protons, and neutrons. Theoretically, you could build anything from anything else.

  6

  An orange light cut through the crack between the blackout curtains. A mouse inched around the corner and behind a large baroque mirror leaning against the wall. It sat and watched the rising and falling shape of breathing from the bed above while cleaning its ears. The gathering of mir-rored silver mylar balloons on the ceiling shifted in the wind from the purifier. One balloon dropped slowly from the ceiling and stopped timidly a few inches from the floor. The mouse approached the bal-loon and could see its own elongated reflection in the dim light. Its eyes were large black pools, empty and infinite. A high-pitched noise sounded, and the balloon lifted back to the ceiling to join the other metallic balloons, vibrating and squeaking against each other. The mouse, startled, disappeared behind the mirror, down the short hallway, and silently through the small hole under the kitchen cabinet.

  Edie awoke to her alarm, checking her phone again for messages. None, just a cale
ndar remind-er—her interview session next door at the church. Edie collected stories from homeless children from area family shelters as part of an art project. She worked predominantly with the African American church on the corner, which served as a family shelter every night after seven when not shut down due to viral outbreaks. Edie compiled the personal mythologies of each child, the stories they told them-selves to make sense of the chaotic world they found themselves locked within. Edie came from less-than-ideal circumstances herself, and the project consumed her emotionally, burned through her like a penance paid to a world she had ruthlessly escaped. In some sense, the work repelled her but also dis-tracted her from the boredom and loneliness that followed her always and in spite of everything.

  Edie returned to the article on her phone, reading aloud. “‘And so art is everywhere, since artifice is at the very heart of reality. And so art is dead, not only because its critical transcendence is gone, but because reality itself, entirely impregnated by an aesthetic which is inseparable from its own structure, has been confused with its own image. Reality no longer has the time to take on the appearance of reali-ty. It no longer even surpasses fiction: it captures every dream even before it takes on the appearance of a dream.’”

  Walking and reading, she stubbed her toe on the baroque mirror and fell theatrically onto the large pile of costumes on the floor, writhing in pain.

  “Goddammit, Abram. That fucking mirror . . .”

  Abram had dragged the mirror from a mansion a few blocks away. After the first economic col-lapse and before the reformation, widespread looting consumed the city as mobs on bicycles kicked down the doors of Russian oligarchs’ vacation homes. As a result, the have-nots of San Francisco sud-denly had apartments full of obscene luxury items. Listless twenty-somethings walked the streets in ill-fitting Armani suits. Edie had a closet full of mismatched and modified designer clothes, most turned into elaborate costumes. She performed, in costume, in vacant shop windows in the city, an initiative brought about through the Arts Commission that brought her and Abram a few extra dollars. Edie al-ways had an eye on a new hustle. More than half of the population of San Francisco didn’t work at all and instead made do off the meager universal basic income that had rolled out only a few years before.