Damned Lies!

by Dennis Liggio

  In the middle of nowhere you find strange things. I bet no one even knew about half the things on the road in the middle of nowhere. Lacking a flashlight, my eyes had to adapt to the moonlight, welcoming the rare light on the road. So I tripped and stumbled when I found the boot. Lying on the shoulder of the road was a single leather boot, old and unhappy. Not a cowboy boot, just a lone brown boot of creased and bent leather. Not two boots, mind you. I glanced around and could not find the companion piece of footwear, just the sole boot. Stretching the bounds of my curiosity, I reached inside, hoping not for some danger like a scorpion or a venomous snake who had curled into the boot like an old mother with countless children. No, there was nothing harmful, if you discount the funky smell which emanated from inside. Instead I found what seemed like a torn scrap of paper. Later when I finally had light, I discovered that it was a well-worn ten dollar bill. Lucky break for me. That elevated my road funds, including my lucky John F Kennedy half-dollar, to $10.50. I wasn’t going to buy any bridges anytime soon, but maybe I could buy a meal if I found civilization.

  You know what's as good as walking? Standing. I walked for what felt like hours and got nowhere. The only thing that happened was it got closer to morning. When the sun rose, I could see that there was an endless expanse in all directions. I could see nothing. I began to wonder if I was in some Omega Man scenario – oh, no, the old man had returned me to my world, but years later after a plague wiped out humanity and I am the last man – dum dum DUM! Yet here I was on a paved, well-kept road, as if cars went down it and a government maintained it. Even if it were a Planet of the Apes scenario[8], the apes wouldn’t drive cars, they’d ride around on those horses in their studded black leather. A car, even though more efficient, is not very imposing when you’re enslaving another intelligent race. Riding horseback in badass leather gives you that ruthless intimidation you so desire.

  Not that I saw a car. Even if they had been driving by me all night, completely anonymous like ghost headlights shooting by, it would be more comforting. At least I'd know there were people. I also wouldn't blame them for not stopping. In the middle of the night with no real illumination, they wouldn't see me until they were passing me at sixty miles per hour.

  But as the morning light rose, I decided I would just stand there. Me, the lone figure standing by the side of the road, trying to hitch a ride from the complete lack of cars passing this route. By that point I was so tired that I wanted to stop walking. But I was paranoid about laying down: the moment I laid down and closed my eyes, a car would rush by and fail to see me. So I stood.

  And waited.

  And waited some more.

  When I finally saw the dot on the horizon, shimmering in the bleed of the asphalt, I didn't believe it. I figured it was a mirage. When you hope and expect so long and so deeply, when you're getting ready to fall down, your mind plays tricks with you. Then you get so used to discounting the tricks that you start discounting reality when it is in front of your eyes. So for the whole minute or two that the white truck drove towards me, I thought it was a delusion. A heatstroke and starvation induced illusion, fueled by my most desperate hopes.

  I still thought it was a mirage up until the moment it came to a stop in front of me, the door opened, and the man said, "Boy, what are you doing way out here?"

  I opened my mouth and stared, but said nothing.

  "Boy, get in the truck already before you catch even more of the crazy."

  Without even a word, I complied and climbed in. His truck wasn't a huge truck you see on the road, it was more like a bigger moving truck. No logo. White but caked with dust and dirt. I slid into the dark gray interior and basked in the joy that was air conditioning.

  He waved me over with a wand connected to a box. It ticked a little, but not overly so. He looked at the display, then nodded, and tossed it behind him.

  As he kicked the truck into gear, he asked, "Boy, are you some sort of mute?"

  "N-no," I said, then immediately grabbed at my throat, not realizing how gravelly my voice sounded or that it hurt to talk.

  "Have this," he said, handing me a bottle of water. "The name's Rick," he said, putting out his hand to shake but still keeping his eyes on the road.

  I shook his hand, took a drink, and told him my name. I had not realized how thirsty I was until half the bottle was gone.

  "Boy, what in Hell's name were you doing out here?" he said. He had an accent, something twangy, but not overly so.

  "I got lost," I said.

  He turned to me with a frown and a raised eyebrow before turning back to the road. "I don't even know how you got this lost. This whole area is government land for miles around. There ain't a town for near fifty miles."

  No town for a long way, a complete lack of nothing, government area, then his device. I suddenly had a very bad thought.

  "I-is this some sort of nuclear test site?" I asked nervously. "Was that a Geiger counter you read me with?"

  "Yep, it was a Geiger counter," he said, "but no, this ain't a test site."

  "What is it then? What's this land for?"

  "Technically, it's classified," he said. "But truth be told, it's just storage. Ain't nothin' active been going on for a while."

  "Classified?" I said. Hey, look at me! I finally found a way to compromise state secrets! "Am I in trouble?"

  "You done anything that you should be in trouble for, boy?"

  I paused. "No," I said.

  "Then you ain't in no trouble, boy," he said. "Good that you thought about it, though. Can't trust a man who calls his conscience clean without thinking about it. But I ain't gonna turn you in for trespassing, especially since it's clear you didn't even know you were doing it."

  I looked him over. Rick was older, maybe fifties, sixties, his hair beginning to go white. He wore a dark blue baseball cap and sunglasses. His short sleeved shirt had his name on it and looked more like a mechanic's shirt.

  "You don't look like the government," I said, adding on quickly, "if you don't mind me saying so."

  "You think everyone in the government looks like the FBI, suits and such? The government employs many sorts of people, from top brass down to independent contractors. Ultimately, things need to get done and the government needs the people that do the job. The people who do it ain't typically G-men. They're regular people with specific skills like me and you. Never thought about that, huh?"

  "No, I guess not," I said.

  My stomach rumbled. The water had satisfied my thirst, so it moved onto the next highest priority.

  His eyes didn't leave the road. "Open up the glove box, there's a cinnamon roll."

  True to his words, there was a cinnamon roll wrapped in plastic. I unwrapped it and began eating it. "Thank you," I mumbled with a mouth full of crumbs.

  "It ain't high class even for a cinnamon roll, since it's out of a vending machine, but I have a feelin' that you ain't discriminating right now."

  After eating, my immediate needs were sated. I moved on to my next set of needs. "So will you be able to drop me somewhere? Like at a real town?"

  He chuckled. "What, did you think I was going to let you out by the side of the road somewhere else in the middle of nowhere?"

  "Well, I mean... I guess you could..." After my current track record, I'd be happy if he didn't betray me and turn evil. I could deal with being dropped off harmlessly.

  "Boy, I don't know who you've been hanging out with. Of course I'll be taking you somewhere. Thing is, I have some things to get done first. You caught me goin' somewhere rather than comin' back. We're almost there, so you'll have to come with me until I head back home."

  "Well, where are we going?" I asked. "Wait... classified, right?"

  He chuckled again. "Not exactly classified. The location is classified, but the things inside it? They're technically declassified, but they might as well be top secret."

  "What do you mean?"

  He gave me a look and a smile. "Everything where we're goin' is declass
ified. But I challenge anyone to find any of the declassified documents where they're actually mentioned. Let's just say that the documentation has been misplaced. Systematically misplaced."

  "Someone purposely lost it?" I asked.

  "I ain't sayin' that for sure," he said with a wink, "only that you'd be surprised how documents on specific topics are coincidentally missing."

  "That's... That's..." I started.

  "That's our government," he said.

  "That's brilliant!" I finished. He looked at me strangely. "I mean, of course I don't like facts and truth not being available to people. But that's awesome. Legally everything is public. But if you can't actually find anything, it might as well be top secret. And then everyone can deny they're keeping anything secret! That's hilariously clever!"

  He shook his head. "I have a sinking feeling that you're destined for a job in the intelligence industry."

  We came to a stop in front of a lone building in the middle of nowhere. It looked like a small aircraft hangar. It had lights on the outside of the structure and had seen better days. A barbed wire fence surrounded the hanger, but the fence was kept closed with a simple chain and padlock.

  Rick got out and unlocked the fence and opened the hangar doors, then drove the truck inside. The wheels clunked onto metal inside the hangar. He asked me to stay inside the truck while he got out again. He closed the hangar doors behind us, leaving us in a weak light from a few interior lights.

  I looked around the hangar. There really wasn't anything else in there. Some trash cans, a bucket, a broom, a tool cabinet. Either the government was way poorer than I thought, or he was dropping off stuff from his truck. I considered that maybe they were storing invisible objects in the hangar. That would explain the low security. Nobody could steal what they could not see. I looked around for Wonder Woman's invisible jet.

  He walked to a short metal railing to the left of the truck. He turned to smile at me and punched a green button on the railing.

  I felt the truck lurch and nearly jumped out of my seat. I watched as the truck and the floor around us started to descend. We were on an elevator! Rick climbed back in the truck as the platform moved downwards and forwards at a diagonal angle from the ground above.

  "Pretty nice, huh?" he said with a smile.

  "I was getting worried that this was the worst secret government facility ever," I said.

  "Trust me," he said. "You're going to see some stuff you won't believe. And you're going to be the first new person to see some of this stuff in a decade."

  Mechanical Gods

  August, 1994 - Classified

  The elevator travelled downwards for nearly twenty minutes. There was no radio, so it was mostly small talk and stories about long elevator rides. We arrived in a large cavernous space. However, I could barely see anything, as we had only the headlights from the truck and lamps on the railing.

  "Come on out of the car, you need to see this," said Rick.

  We got out and he flipped a switch on the railing. In a rolling sequence, lights turned on all over the cavern. I saw that the ceiling was at least five hundred feet high. Scaffolding and catwalks surrounded and networked the cavern. But the highlight were two figures.

  At first glance, you might think they were pieces of large machinery or large statues like the Colossus of Rhodes. Not quite human-like at first glance, the illusion that they were merely machinery was enhanced by the fact that they stood straight up, arms flat against their sides. They did not have features like men, but were more like suits of armor, with plating, joints, and riveting. Their shoulders were covered with large pauldrons and large guns. But they were not just large tanks or artillery, as they had five-fingered gauntlets and feet like men.

  What stood before me were two giant robots.

  They were not exact duplicates of each other. One was clearly taller than the other. The large one was probably three hundred feet tall. It was blockier and had more square angles and rectangular shapes. Built almost like a skyscraper, it had a massive rack of missiles on its chest and large cannons resting on its shoulders.

  The other was the sports car to the other's skyscraper. Shorter, maybe two hundred and fifty feet tall, it had more curved lines to its design. I knew just by looking at it that this must be the faster and more maneuverable of the two. Instead of heavier cannons, it had more chest plating and its guns were attached to its wrists. On its shoulders were smaller racks of missiles.

  They were both painted in combinations of red, white, and blue without it being too obvious that they were pretty much large mechanized American flags.

  "Ain't they something?" said Rick, looking up at them with a smile. "The big one's Lincoln, the little one's the Patriot, but we've always called him Big Pat."

  "Big Pat?" I said. "Even though he's the short one?"

  "Reverse nickname, son. I think that subtlety is lost on your generation."

  "W-what are they?" I said, in awe.

  "Robots," he said simply.

  "I know that. I mean, who made them? What were they for? Why are there robots? WHY HAVE I NEVER HEARD OF THESE BEFORE?" I wiped the drool off my chin.

  "Well, official response has always been To Protect America, but I'm sure you grasp how vague that really is. There's lots of ways to protect America, each for a different sort of threat."

  "What threat were these for?"

  "That's really the thing," he said. "While they managed to convince someone to get them funding, the exact threat these were made for was never quite written down. Some said aliens. Some said foreign powers. I know there were some that wanted to have them to battle gigantic monsters that rose up from the sea."

  "Giant monsters from the sea?" I asked. "Has America ever been threatened with those?"

  "No, of course not. But it was the Seventies and Godzilla movies were quite popular, so that was an idea. I think ultimately the reason they were built was the Cold War arms race."

  "Wait," I asked, "did the Russians have giant robots too?" I imagined a gigantic robotic Lenin that opened his mouth to shoot flames.

  "No, or at least, not as far as anyone knew. Thing was, we had the idea of giant mechanized soldiers. Which means someone else could have had the idea too. So we weren't about to get caught with our pants down when a hostile robot popped up on the coast. We had to meet such a threat head on."

  "Then how come we never used them?" I asked. "This seems the sort of thing we'd want to show off to our enemies and strike fear into them, or at least get them to see how awesome we are. I know I would take the first opportunity to ride out on the battlefield, anthem blaring, a fifty foot flag waving from these gods." I looked back up at the robots, still in awe.

  "Well, the thing is, against conventional weapons, they have limits. As much as they look like men, they're still vehicles. Enough tanks, missiles, mortar, etc and they'd go down just like any armor unit. Which still would make them useful, 'cause they're durable, way more than anything out there. But they're loud and couldn't sneak up on a damn thing, nor are they easily air dropped. You can see them coming from miles away. So it would have been too easy for the enemy to be ready with enough firepower; by the time they reached the battlefield, the enemy knew to focus everything on them. And that's a morale problem. Generals ain't so enthusiastic to see walking three hundred foot symbols of the country torn apart in front of their troops. Kinda kills troop morale and improves the enemy's."

  "I could see that," I said.

  "So they've been here, pretty much untouched since the Seventies, save for an upgrade in the Eighties. Not that an upgrade changed much"

  "What happened in the Eighties?"

  "Computers," he said. "Someone in the DOD got the idea that these things needed computers, so they came out here and put computers in them. Walked them around in a square mile for a week to make sure the computers worked. Then put them back down here to never be used again. Never saw those guys again either."

  "So the government just mothballed
them? Not even a USO show or anything?"

  "The government has a way of hiding failures, particularly those of their predecessors. These two were very expensive, and nobody wanted to explain to the public about two incredibly costly robots that were never used."

  "That unfortunately makes too much sense," I said sadly. "How do you know all about them?"

  He grinned. "I was one of the technicians on the project. Oh, I didn't design them or anything like that, but I helped build them and calibrate them. Lincoln and Big Pat are two of my oldest friends."

  "But like, why are you here now?"

  "Maintenance," he said. "Once every few months, the government asks me to come out here, boot up their systems, run a full diagnostic, oil their joints, just make sure they work. Then I shut them all down, lock the place up and go home."

  "But why?" I asked. "It seems like if they wanted to retire these things, they would have. Just store them away somewhere, claim top men are working on it, let them rust into oblivion."

  "Nearest I can figure it, it's money again. They spent so much on these, they don't want to completely mothball them and write off the expense. If they're ready for some unlikely conflict, they're still an operating asset. Operating budget is fluid, while written off projects go somewhere else." He paused and smiled at me. "Son-in-law is an accountant, picked up a thing or two."

  "But they're probably paying more money in your salary and the electricity for this place! They're throwing away more money to delay taking the loss. That makes no sense."

  He grinned again. "I agree with you. But since it's my salary, I'm not going to be the one to point that out to them."

  I got to pilot a giant robot.

  Are you jealous?

  Okay, I'll admit that I didn't get to do anything really cool in it. I didn't get to fight a Godzilla-sized monster in a breakable city. I didn't fight off an alien invasion. I didn't get to fire off the cluster missiles, use the plasma cannons, or fire off any ordnance. I did not get to use rocket punch or form blazing sword. I didn't even get to take the robot out of the hangar for a spin. But I did get to pilot a giant robot for a few shining minutes.