by P A Vasey
“Colleen, we need to bring Dr Morgan completely up to date with what we know about the crater.” I frowned at him but before I could speak he continued, “Kate, you need to be fully in the loop with all aspects of this, especially if you’re coming along for the ride.”
“Who says I want to?” I challenged.
But I was definitely on board. For a billion reasons.
Stillman turned the laptop my way. She clicked onto a file that opened up a set of photographs of atomic explosions, some black and white but mostly colour, dating from the 1950’s onwards. She minimised it to the corner of the screen and pulled up a file. She started scrolling through pages of data all green background and black words and numbers arranged into dates and columns, until she found the one she wanted. She reached out and froze the screen, and pointed with her pen, tapping the screen. “There. That one.”
I squinted, wishing I’d brought my reading glasses. Holland returned, drink in hand, and took his glasses out from his shirt pocket where they had been precariously hanging from a button. He pushed them up his nose and sat down next to me. I looked covetingly at them for a second, and then turned back to the laptop.
The heading at the top of the screen read:
PROJECT PLOUGHSHARE
There followed two pages of data columns. I scanned through them for a few seconds, but soon got lost in the river of information. I looked at Stillman and raised my eyebrows. “So, what am I looking for?”
She pointed at the screen. “Each column contains the data from every nuclear test at this site between 1952 and 1971. They were all done as part of a program called Project Ploughshare.”
“Strange name.”
“Not really. Ploughshare was the US governmental term for the development of nuclear explosives for peaceful construction purposes. It was the program to develop what they called Peaceful Nuclear Explosions or ‘PNEs.”
Holland leaned back and put his hands behind his head. “Peaceful uses of the atomic bomb… almost an oxymoron.”
Hubert nodded wryly, saying nothing.
Stillman continued, “Well, according to the official record this involved rock blasting, mining, making tunnels - that sort of thing. Says here there were thirty tests in this area over the course of a decade or so, but by then the environmentalists were getting antsy and the number of high profile demonstrations snowballed which eventually closed the program.”
“I remember that,” I said. “There was a lot of bad publicity, and that NASA astronomer guy took part.”
“Yes, Carl Sagan,” said Stillman.
I nodded. “So, which of these tests produced our crater?”
Stillman scrolled down the page until she stopped at a line:
STORAX/SEDAN: NTS/shaft/crater/1450ft/Classified/100Kt
“This is our baby. An underground detonation from 1953. The depth of the blast was almost one and half thousand feet under the desert floor, and it was designed to produce a large cavern that could then be evaluated for tunnelling viability. Tunnelling through mountains, I guess.” She highlighted the right hand column with the mouse. “The yield was approximately one hundred kilotons of TNT. That’s more than ten times the energy produced by the Hiroshima A-bomb.”
Hubert looked at me. “Kate, what’s odd about all of this is the absence of any eyewitness reporting of this detonation…”
“… And yet there are pages and pages of accounts documenting the other ones,” finished Stillman. “Most versions talk about explosions blowing the top off the shaft, and producing a cap which often collapsed, producing a crater or cavern.”
She relinquished the mouse somewhat reluctantly, and I double-clicked pictures of the detonations and their aftermath. Nuclear fireballs and hellish mushroom clouds spiralling into the stratosphere of a clear blue Nevada sky. Craters, difficult to size accurately as there were no surrounding trees or other vegetation to give it some scale. Groups of observers dressed in Army fatigues staring into the distance without any radiation protection or goggles.
“The Department of Energy estimated that more than three hundred megacuries of radioactivity remained in the local environment at the end of the nineties when they stopped testing,” said Holland. “This is one of the most radioactively contaminated locations in the United States. But according to the team on site, this particular crater isn’t radioactive at all.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “How can there be no radioactivity?”
Holland lowered his chin and wiggled his eyebrows at me, “There is this ‘classified’ section…”
Hubert’s eyes hooded. “What’s classified appears to be the actual type of atomic weapon used,” he said. “You know, plutonium, or whatever.”
“And that information is provided for all the other tests, but not for this one,” said Holland. “So, basically we’ve no idea what produced this particular crater.” He took a large drink of what smelled to me like brandy.
“Shit,” I said looking alarmed. “Isn’t that kind of an important starting point?”
Hubert looked pointedly at Holland. “So Mike, I want this to be your priority. Get another team on site at the crater, A-SAP. You’re the point man. Security, electronics and detectors. Whatever you need. Set up mobile office and labs. Once you’re active, start round the clock surveillance of the crater and the cavern.”
Holland nodded, stood up and downed the rest of his drink. Hubert turned to Stillman. “Colleen, that site is to be isolated and sealed off. Get local PD to assist.”
“Roger that.” She pulled out her mobile and started tapping out numbers, but Hubert hadn’t finished. “We need to get the specs for the bomb that produced that crater. I want you to find out if any of the scientific team involved are still active. Or even alive. Contact whoever’s currently the chief of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and use my clearance. Don’t take any shit either. This is all pre-1980 so it’ll certainly come under the Freedom of Information Act. Then get more Agents to Indian Springs and personally link up with Holland and his team on site. Report back to me when you’re there.”
“Hang on,” I said, a light bulb going off in my head. “When we were in Lindstrom’s house. Adam said, and I quote: ‘Corey Lindstrom is the only progeny of Augustine Lindstrom’. That’s it!” I sat back with the air of Hercule Poirot, having just solved a murder. “He was looking for a bunch of files. We need to look up Augustine Lindstrom.” I squeezed my eyes closed and forced myself to think. The pieces were there and I just needed to fit them together but my thoughts were sluggish, and I felt like I was treading through treacle.
Stillman looked at Hubert, puzzled. “I don’t remember seeing that name in the database.”
“Must have been classified, or deleted,” said Hubert. “So that’s where you can start looking. Kate, is there anything else you can tell us?”
“He mentioned SETI,” I said, slowly, looking up.
“SETI?” said Holland. “What can he want with that place?”
“Adam said SETI’s ‘welcome from earth’ message was received by the aliens.” I shook my head, “Or at least I think that’s what he meant.”
“So what?” said Holland with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Is he going to use the transmitter to contact the other aliens? Give them directions?”
I looked at him. “I think that’s exactly what he’s going to do.”
Holland pulled a face. “I don’t think that would work. The distances involved are too vast.”
“We should assume that’s a possibility,” Stillman interrupted, looking at me. “We need to evaluate all leads, right?”
I smiled at her, grateful for the support. Hubert called over to the NASA scientists. “I want you two to go back to Lindstrom’s house and secure all those diaries and notes. Then make sure you get them to the crater where Dr Holland will be setting up his team. Get to it.”
The scientists nodded, and stood up in sync with Holland.
Hubert checked his watch and looked at
Stillman, then Holland. “If we’re right, we’ve got twenty hours or so before the anomaly appears again. Alert the local PD at SETI and get everyone out of bed and lock that place down. Tonight.”
Holland started to walk away, but stopped and turned. “If he survived the crash, we have to assume that Adam Benedict - or the alien - now has access to these data.”
Hubert looked grim. “I know. But SETI is about four hundred miles from where the helicopter went down. If he’s heading there, it’s going to take him some time. I’ll put out an APB so the Highway Patrol can ID him if he steals a car.”
Stillman sat back down and turned to Hubert. “We should fly to SETI, check out the transmitter. Mike’s team can lock down the crater.”
Hubert contemplated this for a second and then nodded. Holland turned on his heel and almost sprinted out of the dining room.
I leaned back in my chair, and picked up the photo of Adam. He looked so human, so normal on the outside. On the inside, anything but human. I slowly shook my head and flicked the photo back onto the table. Alright, so inside he was a mass of what – transistors and electronics? What were any of us inside, other than an organic soup of tubes and fluids and ugliness? Wasn’t it our mind, our consciousness, which makes us human?
I touched Hubert’s arm. “Adam’s the key to this. He’s still one of us. We need him on our side. I know what I felt from him, and it was real. He’s still human.”
“Maybe at first,” said Stillman.
I looked at her. “What do you mean?”
She glanced sideways at Hubert who looked at me through lidded eyes. “Why do you think there were so many LAPD and SWAT at that house, Kate, and how did they get there so fast? A routine panic alarm was set off and half the county’s emergency response teams arrive within a few minutes?”
I hadn’t thought about it but in retrospect, he was right. “You knew that Adam Benedict was there, didn’t you?”
“Yes. When the local police and paramedics arrived to clean up the mess outside the bar where he assaulted those soldiers, one of the paramedics ID’d him from the night in your emergency room. The barman gave the police officers your address.”
I stared at him silently.
“Sheriff Woods sent a MP, and four police officers to your house that night, Kate.”
I closed my eyes. So it hadn’t been a coincidence that Richard Jackson had turned up on my doorstep. I should have known. I was about to say so, when Stillman leaned forwards and put a hand on my knee.
“Those four policemen were killed, Kate. Murdered. Their bodies were ripped apart. They never had a chance to discharge their firearms.”
I felt numb. “Adam told me his memory of that event had been wiped.”
Stillman gave a snort, and Hubert also looked at me disbelievingly. There was an uneasy silence, and then he stood up and pulled out his cell phone. He punched a few numbers and spoke tersely into it before snapping it off again. He shrugged back into his jacket and made for the door.
“The jet’s waiting. Let’s go”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Airborne, Heading for Mountain View, CA
The FBI’s Gulfstream jet cruised at thirty thousand feet at just over five hundred miles per hour with no discernible turbulence and minimal noise from its two rear mounted jet engines. I leaned back and looked out the window, seeing the full moon and a couple of wispy clouds in the inky blackness of the sky. All that was left of the day was a chalky mauve sky, and even as I watched that faded into a stygian darkness as the stars took over the heavens. I tried to pick out a constellation or two, but the reflections from within the cabin were too bright.
I was sitting in a comfortable leather recliner opposite Hubert, who was tapping away at a computer touchscreen on his knee. On the other side of the aircraft sat Colleen Stillman, in front of another large touchscreen display and keyboard. She appeared engrossed in moving objects and icons around various locations on an electronic map. There was a polished wooden table between us on which were scattered the photos and scans of Adam Benedict.
Or whatever he was now.
I’d been served a cup of piping hot tea by an agent now doubling up as flight crew, who had then disappeared to the back of the aircraft where two other agents were camped. It was a peculiar brew, sweet and herby, and I pictured dipping a couple of biscuits in and watching them melt before eating. I took a sip, savouring its sweetness, and closed my eyes.
“Memories,” I murmured.
“Excuse me?”
My eyes flicked open to see Hubert appraising me with a raised eyebrow. I took another drink before replying.
“I was thinking of how Adam pushed his thoughts into my mind. He’d wanted me to feel his emotions - confusion, apprehension, fear and loneliness – and see the world through his eyes. He’d wanted me to experience his memories, to make me understand that he was still a human being, with a traumatic past and an even more traumatic present. And then he’d opened up my memory vault, which’d been locked down for decades. The memories he showed me - I’d suppressed them for almost all of my adult life – were basically of my father beating the shit out of my mother.”
Hubert closed his laptop and folded his hands on the lid. “Did you ask Adam to release these memories?”
“Yes. And that’s the thing. He was quite apologetic and I really felt that he was sad for me. He tried to comfort me. This from a man who had recently discovered the body of his murdered wife, a man who had also died in an inexplicable event and somehow had been revived, or whatever we want to call it. Despite all that, he wanted to be there for me. He wanted to comfort me… he… he knew about my daughter. My mother…”
Hubert just nodded, and waited patiently for me to continue. I felt the tears stinging my eyes, and I subconsciously started wringing my hands, scratching the dirt under my nails. Suddenly, and uncontrollably, grief surged through me and my breathing increased, ragged and jerky as if my diaphragm was twitching from an electrical current. I buried my head in my hands and I could picture the tiny grave, the grey skies and constant drizzle, feel the cold wind. I’m kneeling in mud, sobbing and wailing while everyone’s trying to comfort me, a mixture of sympathy and horror on their faces.
“For months afterwards I was empty of hope. I struggled to fill the void with anything meaningful or worthwhile. Then the drinking started, and there was no one to tell me to lay off, to tell me that I’d had enough. I left the Chicago ER but that meant days alone in my apartment, with the bottle for company, and it believe me it wasn’t a good friend.”
I felt a hand on my knee and saw that Stillman had left her seat and was squatting next to me. She wrapped her arms around me and I cried, the kind of desolate, ferocious sobbing that only death and loss can produce. I have no idea how long I cried, but eventually the shuddering of my shoulders calmed down and Stillman released me but remained by my side. She handed me a bunch of napkins and I dabbed my puffy eyes dry, and wiped away the snot that had dribbled down over my lips and chin. I looked over at Hubert and he gave me a kindly smile.
Stillman reached over and picked up the radiograph of the Adam-shaped receptacle for Adam’s consciousness and the mind of a predatory, homicidal alien.
“Adam’s in there,” she said. “Trapped, and with God-knows what alien creature calling the shots. He’s alone, trying to reconnect with his own memories, his own past, and trying to figure out how he fits in the world.”
Hubert looked earnestly at me. “Your companionship, the connection you made, might have been an attempt to retain his disappearing humanity.”
I felt a gnawing hole growing in my stomach. “And with me gone, he’s lost that. He has nothing to relate to.”
The rest of the flight took place in relative silence as Hubert and Stillman tip-tapped on their screens and I dozed on and off. After about half an hour or so, there was a change in the engine noise, and we started to descend. Hubert closed down his laptop and put it away in a steel briefcase. He gestured to
one of the agents who brought him a glass of water garnished with a lemon, which he sniffed before sipping. He noticed me watching him and smiled, leaning back in his chair.
“Kate, have you heard of the Fermi paradox?”
“No,” I said, but I was very glad of the change of subject.
He had his fingers steepled and was now looking over my head like a schoolmaster about to deliver a lecture. “Fermi was a physicist who made a compelling argument that we - humans - are probably alone in the universe. The argument goes that there are billions of stars in the galaxy, many much older than earth and many with a high probability of having earth-like planets. If some of these planets developed intelligent life, and then if interstellar travel was developed by just one such intelligent species, then the galaxy could have been - and should have been - traversed and colonised in about a million years or so.”
“So, hence the paradox,” Stillman chipped in. “Where are all the aliens? We should have been visited by them many times over.”
“Indeed,” said Hubert. “Their absence could mean that extra-terrestrial life is extremely rare. NASA has been listening to the void between the stars for years and there’ve been no signals detected. It’s awfully quiet out there.”
“And yet they’re here,” I said softly.
Hubert leaned forward and looked intently at me. “One answer to the Fermi paradox may be that our preconceptions of the ubiquity of intelligence in the galaxy is wrong. Perhaps some restriction imposed by astrophysics and biology makes life very rare, and that the rise of advanced intelligence is only a recent event.”
“Recent in cosmic terms, of course,” finished Stillman.
“Perhaps,” said Hubert, “we’re at the beginning of history. What if humanity and these aliens are the only two intelligent civilisations that have arisen in the universe so far? In separate galaxies, far removed from each other. So Fermi’s paradox is solved, at least for their galaxy because they not only traversed it, they colonised it.”