Dulce Base (The Dulce Files Book 1)

by Greg Strandberg

  All around them the teams from Blue Lake were moving about, more than two dozen men now. There was Eddie and Stan helping with the crashed UFO, and Stu doing mop-up work inside the tunnel to see what technology and information could be gleaned.

  Fred and his team had come back just minutes after Turn had shot that third Gray from the UFO outside the tunnel entrance. They’d reported that there’d been no more Grays, but quite a bit of equipment, testing areas, and most surprisingly, a few vats.

  “Those were just supposed to be at Dulce,” Ellis had said upon first hearing the news shortly after his arrival and initial debriefing of the men.

  “There was supposed to be a lot of things,” Carl had replied to him, “but ’75 kind of changed all that.”

  Ellis didn’t like to hear that, but then he often didn’t like to hear the truth. He needed to hear it, though, and in this case the astronaut was right.

  “Listen,” Ellis said, a frown coming to his face, “you men have done a good job tonight, a rough job, but one that needed to be done. Now let’s get you back on that chopper and back to base.”

  The men nodded and were soon filing into the Puma a short distance away, a different one than had been drenched in Frank’s blood.

  “Well, what’dya think?” Carl said to Ellis when the men had gone and they were alone in small army of military personnel, scientific geniuses and quite a few crack – and crack-shot – researchers.

  Ellis took in a deep breath. “I think we need these men storming Dulce, and as soon as possible.”

  “You’re not worried they’re not ready, especially the ones that didn’t go tonight?”

  “They’re ready,” Ellis said, turning to look at the helicopter as it rose up into the air and then started over the tree line to be swallowed from sight, “the question is, how ready for them are the Grays?”

  “Not to mention the Reptilians as well.”

  “Don’t remind me,” Ellis groaned, “if they’ve managed to multiply as much as we–“

  “Commander!”

  Both Ellis and Carl spun around to face the cave once again, and saw Stu rushing up to them, his usual white lab coat fluttering behind him as he ran.

  “We’ve found something,” he said when he’d reached them, “we’ve found something big.”

  “Big as in size or big as–”

  “Both,” Stu said, “and in a few different ways – why don’t you both come back inside the cave…although we really should stop thinking of it that way.”

  “Oh?” Carl said. “How should we be thinking about it?”

  “Perhaps as a shipping port.”

  15 – Discoveries

  Ellis and Carl followed Stu down the last of the tunnel, past the area where the men had dodged out of the way of the UFO, and then around the next bend and to the hangar, for that’s all you could really describe it as.

  “Damn it’s big,” Ellis said when they got to the entrance, “how the hell’d they build this right under our noses?”

  “They seem to be doing a lot of things right under our noses,” Stu said, “come on – let me show you.”

  The two men had little choice as the astronaut and scientist started forward, into the hangar. It was a good forty feet to the ceiling and nearly a hundred yards from one wall to the next as they walked through the center of the thing.

  “It only goes fifty yards further into the mountain,” Stu said as they walked past what looked to be marked-off ‘parking spots, was all Ellis could think of them as, each totally made up of strips of lights embedded into the metal floor.

  “What’s that door up ahead lead to?” Carl asked, pointing at the only real features on the far wall, now just a couple dozen yards ahead of them.

  “It’s not a door, not like any kind we know or saw at Dulce,” Stu replied, “but it does lead somewhere.”

  “Where?” Ellis said.

  Stu walked on the last few yards without saying anything, and then they were at the door, and he turned to them and smiled.

  “The real hangar, that’s what it leads to.”

  ~~~

  “Holy…”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought when I first saw it,” Stu smiled, looking from the craft to Ellis and back again, “we figure it’s more than 100,000 square feet.”

  Ellis didn’t doubt it, not for one second. The huge UFO mothership – what else could it be? – was at least the size of three football fields in length and probably three-quarters of one in width. It was a serious ship, meant to travel between galaxies, but also meant to hold a lot. Beside him, Carl seemed to have read his mind.

  “What are they transporting in it – have you been inside?”

  Stu nodded. “My team just got it open, I went in, and that’s when I came running out to you.”

  “What is–”

  Stu raised his hand, cutting-off Ellis’s words.

  “Just come.”

  ~~~

  Stu hit the button beside the door and the two double-doors slid open. Ellis and Carl’s eyes went wide. There before them were row upon row of vats, all aligned orderly, and each holding...something.

  “What’s in there?” Ellis said. “Please Stu, don’t tell me that’s what I think it is.”

  “It is,” the astronaut replied, “they’ve broken all aspects of the treaty.”

  Ellis agreed and would have nodded had he not been in so much shock. There before him were the large glass vats he’d first seen deep down on Levels 5 and 6 of Dulce the last time he’d been there, in ’75, the dreaded Hall of Horrors and Nightmare Hall. Inside they held human body parts, organs and fluids. There were also cow parts, from the many farm mutilations that happened each year, most of which went unreported. The Grays needed the stuff, needed the human and animal essences to live, to continue their race.

  The Grays didn’t eat, but instead ‘fed’ off of human and animal vital fluids by rubbing a kind of ‘liquid protein’ formula or slurry onto their bodies, which was then absorbed through the skin. This biological slurry mixture was mixed with hydrogen peroxide, something that oxygenated the slurry and eliminated bacteria. Like reptiles which shed their skins, this ‘waste’ was typically excreted back through the skin. It was those skin excretions which were responsible for the different color hues the Grays sometimes took on, which ranged from gray-white to grey-brown to gray-green to grey-blue. Aside from feeding off human and animal proteins and fluids, they also allegedly fed off the ‘life energy,’ the ‘vital essence’ or ‘soul energy’ of humans, as did other Reptilian species…like it was some kind of recreational drug, almost. And when a human has had that energy and essence taken from them – like many of the humans no doubt imprisoned in Dulce at that very moment had – then they appeared as programmed ‘drones,’ ‘lifeless’ and ‘emotionless’ to those that observed them.

  It was those subsistence methods that really rubbed humans the wrong way, however. They required human blood and other biological substances to survive, although every indication suggested that they originally didn’t ‘require’ human blood, but once having used it they since acquired a taste for it, if you will, and considered it a ‘vital’ substance. This went far beyond just mere physical hunger, since the Grays tended to feed off the human life-energies resident within human blood plasma, in what may be considered a vampire-like type of hunger for human vital fluids. In extreme circumstances they could subsist on other, animal fluids…namely cattle.

  The Grays were the ones involved in the cattle mutilations, absorbing certain substances from parts of the animals, parts that stabilized them during the cloning process. These substances could then be placed under the tongue to give sustenance and stability for some time. It’s a substance that came from certain mucus membranes, such as the lips, nose, genitals, rectum and other organs, so there’s always more.

  The Grays were beginning to stockpile canisters and vats in which animal and human organs floated, along with a greenish-liquid to hold the parts in susp
ension. The Grays swam in the mixture, absorbing the nutrients through their skin. But those tanks were few in number, and all in Dulce. Now the three men were standing and staring at row upon row of them, each filled with human and animal parts, yet not a single one holding a living creature.

  “How many do you think there are?” Carl asked after they’d stood there in silence for a few moments, just staring out at the ungodly sight and thinking upon the Grays and their insidious ways.

  “Hundreds, maybe thousands,” Stu said. “This is obviously some kind of transport ship or ferry, one I’ve no doubt is intended to supply the larger mothership stationed around Mercury.”

  “So their numbers are increasing then,” Ellis said, looking over at Stu for some kind of confirmation. The astronaut and physicist nodded, and Ellis shook his head. “Damn it – it wasn’t supposed to be like this! When Ike signed that treaty in ’53 it was supposed to be a few abductions, a few tests, just what they needed to stay alive.”

  “It won’t be the first time a president was lied to,” Carl said beside him.

  “I figure it had to have started after the incident in ’75,” Stu said, speaking quickly before the obvious frustration Ellis was feeling could manifest itself in harsh words. “After that they probably figured the cat was out of the bag, at least in regard to U.S-Gray relations, and they notched-up their harvesting.”

  “Harvesting,” Carl scoffed, “that’s one way to put it!”

  “I’d rather use that term than describe the process of stealing these women’s innocence, robbing them of their humanity, and turning them into some other life form entirely…and don’t think for a second that women aren’t being used more than men now.”

  “How do you know?’ Ellis asked. It was well-known even back in the ‘50s that the Grays were experimenting on women a lot more than men, but had that increased further?

  “Let’s just call it a hunch for now,” Stu said, “but one that I think I’ll be able to prove shortly…that is if you let me into Dulce.”

  “Whoa, Stu!” Ellis said. “You know full-well we need your expertise here on the surface.”

  “And out of danger’s way,” Carl added.

  “You need me in that base,” Stu protested as he shook his head and crossed his arms in front of himself. “You have no idea what could be down there, no idea what kind of weaponry or gadgets or technology could kill you in flash, or aid you beyond your wildest beliefs.”

  “I hear Carter’s looking for a new speech writer,” Carl said, looking over at Ellis.

  “Oh, c’mon!” Stu nearly shouted, and both Ellis and Carl fell into laughter.

  “Alright, Stu,” Ellis finally said when he’d pulled himself together, “we’ll let you in – but on one condition!”

  “Which is?”

  “That you don’t come in until the top level is secured.”

  “And the lower levels as well,” Carl added, and Ellis nodded.

  “The lower levels,” Stu did shout this time, “you’ve got to be kidding! How are you going to secure those lower levels?”

  “We’re working on a plan now,” Ellis said while giving a frown to Carl.

  “And we’re not getting too far on it standing here and flapping our gums,” Carl replied. “Let’s get back to Blue Lake and leave you here, Stu, to reverse-engineer this sucker.”

  Stu smiled for the first time that day. “Oh, now that’s something I’ve been looking forward to!”

  16 – Drawing Lines

  Blue Lake

  Wednesday, May 23, 1979

  “What the hell just happened back there?”

  Turn slammed his helmet down on the floor and it bounced against the opposite wall, the steel clanging around the room.

  “Take it easy,” Robbie said, “we just got hit by the Psy’s, that’s all.”

  “The…’Psy’s’?”

  Across the room Tommy shook his head and muttered something under his breath, and that just made Turn want to punch someone’s lights out even more. David must have noticed this, for he spoke up.

  “He means Psychics,” he said, giving Tommy a nasty glare, although that just resulted in the hard-headed soldier smacking his hand into his fist and looking tough. David brushed it off with a scoff and looked back to Turn. “They’ve wiped out hundreds of us that way…maybe thousands.”

  “Thousands?” Turn said quietly.

  “Oh, don’t be all melodramatic,” Robbie said with a laugh. “Turn, they’re not as dangerous or as powerful as you might believe, they’d want you to believe, or,” he looked around a bit and then lowered his voice before pointing up toward the surface, “they’d want you to believe.”

  “Don’t give me that horseshit,” Tommy said, pounding his bunk for good measure, something that caused it to skitter across the hard concrete floor a bit, “if those aliens wanted to wipe us out they could, any moment, any way.”

  “Then why aren’t we dead?” David said.

  Tommy scoffed. “They’re toyin’ with us.”

  “Yeah, toyin’ with us,” Robbie mocked, “and I guess that’s why we just wiped out a whole nest of ‘em in Montana and plan to wipe out a base worth here in New Mexico, huh?”

  “A nest?” Turn laughed. “Give me a break – we killed seven Grays, nothing more than a drop in the bucket.”

  “Drop in the…I’m sorry, but can someone please explain what Turn means?”

  Tommy looked over at Fred and shook his head then laughed.

  “Ah, hell,” he said, “I’ll explain it, but I can guarantee you’re not going to like it.”

  Fred nodded.

  “Alright, here goes. The Grays abduct humans and animals in order to acquire the bodily fluids they need to survive. They implant small devices near the brain which potentially gives them total control and monitoring capability, ensuring once a host is taken, it can always be taken again.”

  “Like collaring a dog,” Robbie laughed.

  “These devices are very difficult to detect,” Tommy continued. “When we’ve analyzed the devices the best our experts have been able to come up with is that they use some sort of crystalline technology combined with molecular circuitry, and together these ride on the resonant emissions of the brain and the various fields of the human in question. Information is entrained on the brain waves and each and every time we’ve attempted to remove the implants it’s resulted in the death of the human that we’re trying to save.”

  “This is usually due in part to the fact that the implants are attached to major nerve centers, and once attached the nerve tissues grow in and around the implant essentially making the implant a part of the nervous system,” David said, standing up for a moment. “When relatively unsophisticated medical procedures are used in an attempt to remove the implants, major nerve centers are damaged as a result, causing severe injury or even death.

  “Who do they take most?” Fred asked.

  “I can tell you that the most common abductees are petite women in their early twenties or early thirties, dark haired boys between five to nine, small to medium size men in their mid-twenties to mid-forties,” Jerry said with a sigh from across the room, as if he was saying something he’d rather not. “But, let me stress that there are all types of people being held against their will in the Dulce Base! There are tall heavy men and women, teenagers, elderly folks and very young girls in the cages and the vats. I only mention the most common age-size are the small young men and petite women. The boys are favored because at that age their bodies are rapidly growing, and their atomic material is adaptable in the transfer chamber. The young small women are frequently very fertile. The men are used for sperm. I have no idea why they prefer small to average size men.”

  Fred’s face lost a bit of color. “Jesus!”

  “Yeah, but don’t you think it’s funny that none of the briefings we had over the past week or so have mentioned why the Grays are here, why they broke that treaty, and why we need to get back into that base so bad?”
Lewie said from across the room.

  “You know why,” Tommy said, looking over at him with narrowed eyes and in the calmest voice Turn had heard him use yet.

  “Don’t be–”

  Lewie was cutoff as Carl suddenly strolled into the room.

  “Listen up, men,” he said, coming to a rest just inside the door, his hands behind his back, and seemingly oblivious to what they’d just been talking about, or at least acting that way, “we’ve got new orders already.”

  “What?” David nearly shouted. “How could that–”

  Carl raised his arm and David fell quiet.

  “After that attack last night we’re not taking any chances and we’re not letting them change up their defensive or offensive capability – we’re going in.”

  He looked over and gave Tommy a stern look, but the hard-headed soldier wisely held his tongue. Carl glanced around the room at the others, nodded, then turned to leave. “Be ready to move soon,” he said, then was gone.

  17 – Different Views

  Blue Lake

  Thursday, May 24, 1979

  Turn rushed to the door in the white storage tank, the gravel crunching under the heels of his boots. He reached it faster than he’d ever run before, and it surprised him. He often had no idea his legs could do what they could, but he wasn’t going to gloat over it now – he whipped his hand down and grasped the doorknob and turned and…nothing – it was locked.

  “Shit!” he said, then looked back over his shoulder. It was then that the flash gun hit him and he vaporized into a fine black powder, one that started to blow away on the wind.

  BEEP!

  The buzzer sounded, indicating the simulation was over, and a moment later the virtual reality goggles lifted off Turn’s head.

  “Second time,” the soldier manning the sim-chamber said as he set the goggles down on the table next to the dentist’s chair Turn was sitting in – it was technically called the V-Chair, but technicalities didn’t usually fly too well at Blue Lake.