by Lee Baldwin
Shackleford keeps his expression calm, knowing he can be seen by the others. The best thing is to buy time. And his mind swims with mad desire for the woman whose face occupies his computer display, the woman who waits on his living room sofa.
“General, everyone,” Shackleford says smoothly, “let me rejoin my team. We have other pending breakthroughs and will notify you of results as they are unveiled.”
“Thank you Martin,” Solberg says on the link, “Ms. Kutsenova, everyone. We will reconvene at an appropriate time.”
Shackleford terminates the video conference, slams his laptop closed. He’s pulling off his shirt as he turns toward the hallway, in his ears the rapid beat of her footsteps on the stairs. As she runs to him, Marina has already removed her slacks. She shrugs her buttoned jacket away, leaving her in only panties and a lavender T-shirt that drapes the words Goddess Culture over her full breasts. She helps him off with his clothes, begins wrapping a braided rope around his wrist. Shackleford has dreamt of this day.
About that Vortex
William Exley and Veronica duLac are in a UAV briefing room at Nevada’s Creech AFB. Wing Commander Colonel Bob Reed is at the front, using a laser pointer on a large LCD panel to indicate key features of the Pentagon courtyard. The twelve Reaper crew, with IT and communication systems specialists, watch with set faces.
“This view is in microwave frequencies, enhanced by the Shackleford detector. You can clearly see a whorl of stress lines converging at a point near Wedge Three. Fortunately it is high on the pseudo-surface of the field, near the top. A team of scientists headed by Shackleford presented calculations that say we can penetrate this area with standard munitions. The Joint Chiefs now believe we can launch a JDAM into that vortex and do damage to the portal field generator at the other end.”
“Sir, question.” One of the Reaper pilots at the back.
“Yes, Davidson?”
“What evidence are they showing us that this is actually a transit portal?”
Reed draws a breath. “Yesterday the FBI had in custody the young woman who appeared in the courtyard with the intruder. She stayed in the courtyard originally for two days, then abruptly vanished. She did not walk away, she did not take a single step, she did not twitch her nose. She disappeared and returned two hours later. Yesterday, she vanished again and returned today, directly from FBI custody.
“And consider the objects that have appeared in the courtyard. We have seen photos of a canvas gazebo with colored flags, a round table laid out with a continental breakfast. That gazebo remained in the courtyard nearly four hours, while three of the intrusion team had breakfast. Then it vanished.”
“So…”
Colonel Reed looks around the room. “I sense a certain level of disbelief. Ladies and gentlemen, that disbelief is shared throughout senior command. What we are saying is that she somehow was transported instantly between California and Virginia. That event, aside from the scientific data and vector representations such as this one, is what leads scientists to postulate a transit portal of unknown origin.”
Reed surveys the room, waiting for questions. Exley’s hand is already up.
“Colonel, could you comment on the fact that a fully operational airborne laser fired on two persons in the courtyard and failed to do any damage? How is this consistent with a transit portal, as opposed to a force field, or something else?”
“Best I can tell you, ladies and gentlemen, is that our top scientists have it sorted out. Far beyond the pay grade of those present, including myself.” The Colonel surveys the room. No more hands go up.
Reed’s laptop pings. He pauses to read the new message. When he looks up, his face is grave.
“The Joint Chiefs have ordered us to deploy a nuclear device at the Pentagon, the B63G guided bomb.” The silence in the room sings with tension. Colonel Reed lets out a long breath. “Alright. The mission of this team is to target a major munition directly at the location of the vortex whorl, the navel, as it’s being termed. Contrary to your intuition, I imagine, since it was contrary to mine at first, the blast will not be released in the locality of the Pentagon itself. It will travel through the portal and deliver energy at the source of the field, where the generating equipment must be located. It is our best calculation that this will permanently close the portal.”
Exley glances at Veronica, who cuts guarded eyes to him quick and then away. No one sees. They are to deliver the heaviest weapon the Reapers carry, the B63 nuke. If the scientists are not correct, a nuclear explosion over the building will wipe out not only the Pentagon, but neighboring Arlington National Cemetery, everything from the far banks of the Potomac to Georgetown, Washington. In the five mile radius around the location live and work 300,000 people, about ten percent of whom are employed at the Pentagon directly. If the portal does not absorb the blast, everything in the radius will be wiped, the Potomac will flood the crater. Exley grits his teeth. We are going nuclear on the Pentagon based on a scientist’s untested theory? Nuke my father’s grave?
“Sir?” Exley’s hand is up.
“Yes, Mr. Truck with Wings.” A ripple of tense laughter follows the impromptu nickname.
Exley grins self-consciously. “How many Reapers will be on the mission, and will all carry the B63?”
“This is compartmented information. Primary Reaper crews will receive that info on the weight and balance report after the birds are fueled. Relief crews will receive that briefing just prior to rotating in. There will be no discussion among crews during the mission, on base or off. Now, are there any other questions?”
A Posse of Priests
The United States Pentagon's five facades are known as the Mall Terrace, the River Terrace, the Concourse Entrance where the Metro station is located, the South Parking Entrance, and the Heliport Entrance. In the hour before dawn, five RockMeBaby Luxo Strato-liners with clearance to park before those entrances arrive at the Jefferson-Davis highway underpass checkpoint, carrying one hundred sixty-two Roman Catholic priests, each trained in the art of demonic exorcism. All wear long black robes over their dark suits, floppy hats. Each has a satchel of useful items, and a supply of holy water.
These priests count more than eighty-one thousand successful exorcisms among them. Their cases range from a girl with severe acne on the soles of her feet to a twenty-three year old Cambridge student with bleached, bleeding skin and long nails, who in his demonic rapture ate a small dog while howling piteously, ‘sorry mother.’
Father Gary Tilton is among them, nervous, excited, as prepared as any can be. The only one who has met the young woman who has actual knowledge of the manifestation, Tilton has been sought out by others for his observations about her. He has recounted his visit, his experience of her frozen bedroom, her calm gravity, dozens of times. As such he is the only priest in the convocation directly connected to any part of this. Until late last night, the others had received their information primarily from YouTube and the Carson Johnny Show.
During the midnight auditorium briefing led by General Solberg and the psychologist Arnold Friedman, the priests were shown numerous photographs and videos of the being that has occupied the Pentagon courtyard for a week now. Friedman, not a Catholic, spent most of his lecture on certain aspects of psychology having to do with mass hallucination or psychotic hypnosis. Tilton was most interested in Friedman’s discussion of the contagious laughter epidemics.
In the auditorium, the priests see photos of the Pentagon with the enormous shadow draped across half an acre, gruesome images of Annetka’s facial skin stapled to her living room wall, photos of peeled skeletons in the singer’s Park Avenue flat and a similar scene in the home of a Malibu film star. They learn of more recent crimes, over a dozen multiple homicides where skeletons stripped of all flesh and a macabre gumbo of remains are the iconic signature. As the victim count approaches 100, only one witness has been identified.
The priests hear official confirmation of news items previously learned through inform
al public channels, reports of mass hallucinations, first in Virginia and California, now spreading across the country. Tilton is rocked by images of a young blonde woman in the grip of a leather-scaled, winged dragon, and more shocking still, later views of the same person sitting amiably on a courtyard bench in the company of a tall and handsomely-dressed man. It appears they are having an amicable though contentious discussion. At one point the girl reclines on the bench with her head in the man’s lap. Outwardly easy and fraternal, this unrushed conversation takes place in a language unspoken on Earth in forty-seven hundred years. Homeland Security isn’t getting a word of it. The girl appears sleepy. At the time of these photos, she’d been in the courtyard for three days.
Tilton is incredulous at the images. Such a sweet, normal young woman. Did she enter into that situation knowingly? Had his warning come too late? His eyes close in prayer.
Solberg is uncomfortable about these revelations to civilians, he considers the information top secret. But he recognizes that the best military and academic minds having wrestled with the visitor and attendant effects for many days are no closer to a clear understanding, let alone a workable solution. All ideas are on the table, including those of that rabid dog Shackleford, advocating a theatre nuke set down in the courtyard itself. Solberg cringes. The man is a slovenly dresser and spews when excited. His newest team member, the MIT physics professor Kutsenova, has lately imparted clarity and respectability to the team. But can she modulate Shackleford’s bellicose views? Solberg is also uncomfortable about certain high-level meetings that have gone on without him.
It takes an hour for the Pentagon police and Homeland Security agents to clear the holy Fathers through the checkpoint, no matter that they were pre-screened at another location, accompanied by security personnel onboard, and provided RFID tags to wear around their necks. At long last the buses are released to motor beneath the overpass, drive sedately toward their preordained entrances. Quiet now within plush rolling comfort, each priest in his own silence scans the deserted scene, seeking above the building ahead for any sign, the slightest detail. Even at a distance the Pentagon is massive, a bleak stone fortress that squats heavily over the land.
The five buses stop at their designated entrance locations around the vast office building, midway along each of the five sides. The priests file into open-sided awning tents strung with microphones. Loudspeakers aim directly at the stone walls. A colorful dawn is breaking. Priests on the east faces of the giant edifice are silently awed by a golden sunrise. Fingering beads, many occupy themselves in prayer.
As the sun climbs higher, those on the west side of the building experience firsthand the long shadow that falls across the parking lot, stretching nearly to I-395. Like Friedman and others before them, they are perplexed to find nothing in the sky to cast such a shadow. Something indeed blocks the sun, but is invisible to the eye.
The priests know that multiple possessions are possible, that a demon can migrate from one person to another. Aside from that there is a fundamental difficulty. Exorcism is about the encounter of a demon with a possessed soul, the unwilling takeover by an unclean spirit. But here the possession is not of a person, and nothing in the training of exorcists by the Vicar of Rome prepares them for this. The plan, which most have agreed to, is to regard the possessed soul as Mother Earth herself. Their exorcism is framed as ridding the entire world of Satan. The priests are on new ground.
They have a careful strategy. Aside from the cadre of exorcist priests here in person, every exorcist from each of the Church’s 3000 worldwide dioceses will be with them on closed circuit video, and will likewise pray for the cleanliness and health of Mother Earth. Tens of thousands of other priests, along with many devout Catholics will do likewise, for as long as it takes.
Beginning now.
Baptism is the most basic exorcism, and these priests and their brothers worldwide are prepared with thousands of gallons of holy water to sprinkle on plants and trees, on animals and people, on anything that walks upon, touches or owes its life to the Earth, and on the soils of Mother Earth herself.
The loudspeakers are ready. The Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, an anointed Cardinal, steps to his microphone beneath the awning near the helipad, the rising sun behind him, and spends a few moments in silent prayer. Around the Pentagon, the priests stand beneath suspended microphones in the five awning tents, ready to add their voices. The Bishop lifts high a gleaming silver cross. At this moment, all priests raise their own crosses, facing the building walls. From the loudspeakers comes the Archbishop’s incantation.
“Ecce crucem Domini.” Behold the cross of the Lord. The priests echo the chant repeatedly in unison, a call and response taking on a rhythmic feel. Their voices reverberate from hard stone.
After ten minutes the chanting ceases, echoes whisper away. Each priest kneels and presses the hem of his robe to the ground, holding one hand on his head. Typical behavior of demons is they will try to hide, making the exorcist’s task therefore to coax, invite the unclean things to show themselves, to expose and expel them. The priests sprinkle from their canteens holy water upon the ground. After all priests have risen to their feet, crosses and crucifixes held aloft, the Archbishop continues.
“What is your name?” The voice firm and strong from the loudspeakers. The assembled priests echo the stern command.
There is no answer.
“Are you alone or are others with you here?” The amplified echoes die to silence.
“When did you enter the Earth?”
The ritual proceeds thus through the long morning.
Workout
Late in the night at a fitness center near Tule Springs, Nevada, three dozen miles from the runways of Creech, William Exley and Veronica duLac run on side by side treadmills, looking out tall windows into a dark parking lot that holds two cars besides their own. Through reflections in the glass, each can read the other’s facial expression as they run. Both pilots for the last hour appear to be in concentration on the stages of their workout.
The pair have seldom met outside of their duties at the RPV command center. Their visit this night is rare, nearly wordless, the hi, how are ya kind of thing walking from locker room to treadmill. But their private conversation has continued at a steady pace. Their talk is composed of a language known only to the two of them, an amalgam of American Sign, facial expressions, glances, the occasional word, grunt or laugh. Worked out over the last 21 months in the command module of Reaper Six, they communicate fluently in silence.
This private lingo came about due an accustomed paranoia, and to the fact that both realize their every word while on duty, and perhaps off, is recorded and evaluated. It was also prompted by personal feelings that have grown between them. Typical of workplace romances, where the parties understand the details, the stresses and pleasures of the life, their chosen work, Veronica and William also share a particular love of nature, wildlife and books, passing many e-books and hardbound volumes between them. Fiction, science fiction, the lives of accomplished people from musicians to pilots.
In a daring move, Exley, as they walked to their cars one morning after a mission, handed Veronica a book about the human brain. He referred to a paragraph on a certain page with no expression. When she looked at the page later, there was a note on a small piece of paper tucked into the crease: I hope we can talk.
Veronica’s immediate reaction was to destroy the tiny scrap, with trembling fingers examine the entire book for anything else. There was nothing. She was a pissed at her crew chief. It was an enormous risk. Still, over the next week, they found a way to bump into each other randomly at a bookstore. Their brief meeting included a whispered exchange and hungry embrace back in the stacks. It was then the sign language began.
Exley, married and with two young boys, found in Veronica a woman who is dedicated, serious, and beneath her professional surface enormously loving and warm. Veronica, divorced the last three years, saw in William a l
oyal Air Force officer devoted to family and respectful of duty, honor, and country. And a smile that crinkles his eyes when he laughs.
The coded, silent convo between William Exley and Veronica duLac this night goes something like this:
i am afraid
so am i
your wife, what does she say?
i tell her not to believe the news - doesn’t help – the boys are excited, they think it’s a movie
they are fun at that age
yes
what about this mission
the munitions scare me
terrified
nuke the citadel unreal
unreal
can we
mission – duty – we must
i’ll be there for you – with you
damn I want us to talk – somewhere sometime
yes yes time is short
if there was only a way
thinking hard as I can
same
told myself i wouldn’t say this
yes?
feelings for you
shock and pleasure – what a lovely thing to know
hope i’m not out of order
you are the most adjusted man I know
what about the whales
it was a transmission – coded information
what are they telling us?
i cannot imagine
veronica this is serious
?
what is going down - serious
armed guards on us 24/7 after today – wanted at least one chance
thank you
serving with you a privilege – knowing you a blessing
true for me as well
something else is serious
?
me and you
the best feeling I have known