by Tom DeLonge
He hadn’t known what to expect, but the boredom surprised him. That was as much irony as Dreamland was going to give him.
Though he saw several other men undergoing similar instruction, he talked to no one but his instructors, who merely gave him lists of the day’s tasks and took his written work in without comment. He didn’t even know if they read it. The base was owned and operated by the Air Force, but it was compartmentalized and spread over a large area in separate units between which there was no traffic. While he occasionally glimpsed jets in the sky over to the northwest, he interacted with no Air Force personnel at all. The base guards were a separate security force and everyone else was CIA. Hatcher met him for dinner every night but kept the talk small: sports, mainly. And barbecue. Hatcher was a nut for barbecue.
“No politics, religion, or military intel,” he said, the first time they sat down together.
Alan abided by the rules for as long as he could, until one night, he had to ask.
“That craft we saw when I first arrived,” he asked Hatcher. “What was it?”
They were eating dinner, just the two of them in a canteen the size of warehouse: lobster and filet mignon, flown in from Vegas.
“You want to know if it was a flying saucer,” Hatcher clarified.
Alan had been avoiding the term, even in his own mind. It was too loaded with impossible things, with craziness and zealotry. The problem was that the term fit all too well. The craft had been roughly saucer shaped, twenty feet across and windowless. It was bare metal, like brushed nickel or aluminum, and showed no lights except the large, central one on the underside which seemed to be its source of propulsion. The disk bulged upwards in the middle but was otherwise unmarked, so it was impossible to be sure if it was rotating or not. And it was flying, though not in any way Alan could recognize or make sense of.
He said nothing, pretending to be too busy chewing to answer directly, though Hatcher, who recognized the moment for what it was, just smiled.
“Yes,” he said simply. “It was a flying saucer.”
“So that means it’s …” He searched for a word, one perhaps even more insane than flying saucer. “Alien?” he said at last.
Alan wasn’t sure what he had expected from Hatcher, but the CIA man’s laugh—which in other circumstances might have been scornfully dismissive—came as a welcome relief.
“Made in the USA,” he said. “By people like you and me.”
“But how?” said Alan. “I’ve been in aviation all my adult life, and I’ve never even heard of anything that looked or moved like that.”
Hatcher grinned. “Because it’s secret, Alan.”
He didn’t say it, but dumbass was implied.
“Okay,” said Alan. “Why?”
“It’s how we keep our edge,” said Hatcher. “And this is a test facility. The R&D section here—a subdivision of a major commercial aerospace manufacturer whose sole client is the US government—is called Possum Plant. Ask me why.”
“Why?”
“Because they are really good at playing dead when people get too close. These are secret machines, Alan, but they are ours.”
“So why not show the world we have them, and stop any potential enemies in their tracks?”
“Like I said,” answered Hatcher, spearing a hunk of steak with his fork. “We are a test facility. You know how long it took to get the U2 operational? Or the Blackbird? Wouldn’t make sense to show our hand to the world before we had everything in working order, would it?”
“But I saw one of these things in Afghanistan,” said Alan. “That’s why I’m here. You took a chance on me because I’d already seen one.”
“And because you’re a damn fine pilot,” said Hatcher.
“But my point,” Alan pressed on, refusing to be deflected by the compliment, “is that one of those ships showed up and interfered with my mission. Right?”
Hatcher considered whether or not to answer this before nodding. “It would seem so,” he said.
“So someone else has … whatever the hell those ships are, yeah? Someone other than the ordinary people of the USA who built the one I saw last week.”
“We’re entering classified territory again,” said Hatcher, putting down his knife and fork.
“You’re telling me a bunch of Afghan insurgents have access to aviation technology so advanced that our own country doesn’t know it exists?”
“Of course not,” said Hatcher.
“So?”
“So, think it through.”
Alan frowned. “Someone else is supplying them, or interceding on their behalf.”
Hatcher didn’t deny it, returning his gaze to his plate and continuing his meal in silence.
“But who would have that kind of tech?”
Hatcher said nothing.
“They would also have an interest in either destabilizing the region,” Alan continued, thinking aloud, “or of undermining US interests in the area.”
Still Hatcher said nothing.
“And the technology the ground team at Safid Kuh went in to recover was connected to the development of these same craft, or you wouldn’t have brought Morat out here with me. Which means we’re in some kind of secret arms race.”
At last Hatcher spoke. “You haven’t figured out who we’re dealing with, but you’ve answered your first question.”
“Which was?”
“Why are we keeping the program secret? Because we aren’t the only ones involved. Secrecy, like information, is currency. It’s power, and it has to be protected at all costs. All arms races are secret, until they’re not.”
Alan digested this.
“The Russians,” he said. “It has to be. Or the Chinese.”
“You have room for dessert?” said Hatcher, as if they had been discussing the weather. “The chef does an excellent crème brûlée.”
Alan opened his mouth to say more, but the CIA man raised one index finger, eyes on his plate. The conversation was over.
DREAMLAND WAS QUIET AT NIGHT, SO QUIET THAT ALAN was unsure how many people were based there from one day to the next. He knew that a lot of the staff were bussed in daily, though he was not allowed to speak to them, and that regulations concerning leaving one’s designated area—even one’s quarters—were strictly enforced. Sometimes it felt like he was alone, the sole worker surrounded by security teams who had nothing else to do but watch him.
His lodging was a prefabricated trailer that sported an AC unit that sounded like a jet engine. At first, he assumed this was just because the device was working at maximum capacity to counter the extreme Nevada heat, but then he was summoned to one of the base’s office complexes and noticed something strange. The décor was coolly, nondescriptly professional, and the windowless interior might have passed for the halls and offices of a major New York law firm, but the carpeted halls featured trim black wall-mounted speakers generating a soft, white noise hiss. It was a counter-surveillance mechanism. Even the most sophisticated listening devices would struggle to cut through the static. Maybe his air conditioner had been designed with the same secondary function in mind.
In his trailer, he read, listened to music or played video games—there was no Internet to connect him with the cyberworld off base—until summoned. Then he was escorted to wherever he would spend the bulk of the day, flashing his badge and scanning his palm print at every door, breaking for meals in the DFAC, which was invariably deserted except for whoever was serving him his gastronomic treat for the day. He turned in his dinner requests the night before, amusing himself by challenging the cooks with exotic dishes he had only read about. So far he had tried wild boar with roasted chestnuts and truffles, duck à l’orange and—just for devilment—vegan shepherd’s pie. He hadn’t tripped them up yet, though after the shepherd’s pie, he’d asked for a rib eye steak, cooked rare, which might have been the greatest thing he ever tasted. He spent ninety minutes a day in the well-appointed gym while he waited for someone to tell him what
the hell he was doing here.
The second week was spent in classes—again, by himself—being instructed on the nature of the craft he would be flying. Alan privately nicknamed his instructor Professor Beaker, after the Muppet. Half of what Alan was told comprised nodules of information coherent in their own right, but not clearly connected to each other, so that he felt he was learning about individual systems, the purpose of which remained a mystery. The other half was just techno-babble, and though he was good at parroting it back, it meant little to him.
The craft itself, according to its data manual, was triangular and was named the Astra-TR3B, “but we just call it the Locust,” said Beaker with a smile. He was proud to be connected to it. The Locust had control layouts unlike those used in any aircraft he had ever seen, controls that were not just unfamiliar but counterintuitive to anyone with a basic sense of aviation or aerospace physics.
“… which is why you can’t think of space and time as separate entities,” Professor Beaker was saying. “Is that clear, Major?”
Alan had to fight the urge to laugh. Clear? It was, to him, gibberish. It meant nothing. But did he understand the words themselves? Sure.
“Absolutely, professor,” he said.
“You don’t need to call me that,” said Professor Beaker, looking slightly puzzled, before turning back to the diagram he had scribbled on the white board. “So you see the curvature in Space-Time can be exploited by applying, as it were, pressure here and here.” He tapped the diagram and then noted Alan’s raised hand. “Yes, Major?”
“So this is what?” said Alan. He tried not to sound skeptical. “Warp drive?”
Professor Beaker blinked like a baby bird in the sun, scowled, then finally smiled. It looked like it took real effort.
“Good one,” he said. “It’s good to keep a sense of humor. Warp drive. Very good, Major.”
He smiled wider, as if he had made a joke. Alan appreciated that Professor Beaker was trying to help him, in his way. They just didn’t speak the same language or, Alan thought ruefully, inhabit the same version of reality.
“We’ll break for lunch,” said Beaker. “Then we’ll begin work on the Locust’s weapon systems.”
“Yes,” said Alan, sitting up. “I was wondering about that. I can’t make sense out of these design specs. There’s no nose cannon?”
Again, Beaker’s bird-like blink indicated he was unsure if Alan was trying to be funny. “Nose cannon?” said Beaker, as if he had never heard the words before.
“Right.”
“Lasers,” said Beaker, as if nothing could be more obvious. “In 1956 the pilot of a Grumman F11F-1 Tiger traveling at the speed of sound shot itself down when its speed allowed it to accidentally fly into the path of its own slowing bullets. We’ve been a little wary of conventional weapons for superfast aircraft ever since.”
“So,” said Alan, “we’ve got lasers.”
Beaker smiled vaguely. “Nothing faster than light, is there? I’m sorry—was not that in the briefing?”
Alan, who had been staring in stunned silence, rallied.
“Not in those precise terms,” he managed.
He was glad when lunch break arrived. He’d crossed over into a world that didn’t make any real sense, however much everyone behaved as if it did. That sense stayed with him throughout the afternoon briefings. He listened, he studied, he aced his quizzes, but he felt like the only sober one at a party where everyone else was drunk or high.
Lasers?
It was nuts.
That night, he told Hatcher he was getting restless, that he didn’t know what he was doing there, and that he was starting to think they had made a serious mistake.
“We’ll see if you feel that way tomorrow,” said Hatcher. “You’ve completed the first phase of your training.”
So Beaker had given him a passing grade after all.
“What happens tomorrow?” Alan asked, unconvinced. He didn’t see how he’d been “training” for anything.
“Brave new world,” said Hatcher.
ALAN SLEPT LITTLE THAT NIGHT. WHEN HATCHER CAME for him the next morning, he’d been up and dressed for almost two hours.
“We’re flying today?” he asked. It seemed like a long time since he’d been in a cockpit.
“Good morning to you too, Major,” said Hatcher. “And no. Today we’re in simulators.”
Alan’s heart sank. He was tired of being treated like a rookie.
“Is that really necessary?” he said. “I’ve racked up thousands of hours in the air. Are these ships so different that I have to start over?”
“Yes,” said Hatcher, simply.
Outside was a yellow school bus with blacked-out windows and a driver in shades who verified their IDs before setting off without a word.
“Where are we going?” asked Alan.
“You ask too many questions,” said Hatcher. “We’re going to another part of the base. A separate, restricted part.”
“I thought the whole area was restricted.”
“There are levels. Where we’re going is classified as S-4, Papoose Lake, south of the mountains. You’ll be spending a lot of time there, and you won’t be discussing it with anyone. Ever. Clear?”
“Crystal.”
The bus rumbled over what felt like a dirt road. Alan could see nothing but the occasional bleed of white Nevada sunlight through scratches in the blacked-out windows.
When they stopped and got out, the terrain looked much as it had. Dry, pale ground, and another evaporated lake bed at the base of a wall of cliffs, utterly desolate, without any sign of human habitation, until they approached the cliff face, turned into a shaded alcove, and came to a door with a keypad. Alan did a double take. From a few feet away, the door was nearly invisible.
“Avert your eyes,” said Hatcher, casual, but not messing around. Alan did so.
Inside, they walked down cool, white-noised corridors, stopping at security doors that looked like they belonged in a submarine, sliding open only after Hatcher had entered codes and a palm print. Alan said nothing, oscillating between annoyance and a swelling sense of excitement.
Planes were planes. They had their varying quirks and capabilities, and it made sense that pilots specialized in particular models as a result, but at its core, flying was flying. He knew—in his very bones—the essential elements of thrust and lift, of banking, acceleration, G-force, pitch, roll … you name it. It was a part of him. Who was Hatcher kidding with all this cloak-and-dagger teasing?
The CIA man walked him to a locker-room, opened one of the steel wall cabinets, and dragged out a flight suit not so very different from what Alan had worn over the mountains of Afghanistan. He dressed and Hatcher stood by, watching like a critical parent, poised to offer help or criticism. Alan welcomed neither.
When he was ready, they proceeded through another door, and Hatcher nodded towards a familiar dark-eyed man standing at a console, dressed in a matching flight suit.
“You already know Mr. Morat.”
Alan didn’t bother concealing his surprise.
“I didn’t know you were a pilot,” he said, assuming the man was here to monitor the simulator while Alan was inside.
“I’m many things,” said Morat with a flat smile, “including your tutor for the day. I’ll be monitoring your progress today and will be in constant radio contact.”
“I’ll be fine,” said Alan, needled.
“No doubt,” said Morat. “Through there.”
He nodded towards another door.
“You ready?” asked Hatcher.
“For a simulator?” asked Alan, trying to keep the edge out of his voice. “Absolutely.”
“Good,” he said, smiling his slim, private smile that suggested he knew something Alan didn’t. “Follow Mr. Morat’s lead, and don’t try to run before you can walk.”
“Yes, sir,” said Alan, eyes level, face impassive.
“And don’t worry if it doesn’t come to you right away,” H
atcher added.
Alan didn’t trust himself to say anything. He managed a curt nod and turned to Morat as the door to the simulator slid open with a pneumatic hiss.
He hesitated in the doorway. The room was large and unremarkable, save for the simulator that sat in the center like a giant spider, trailing cables and air hoses leading to various monitoring stations. Alan put on his helmet and scaled the gantry, waiting as the steel panel in front of him folded down on the hydraulics providing motion simulation. The simulators he was familiar with had high definition flat screens and speaker arrays, recreating the sights and sounds of being inside a plane, but the experience of flying, the tug in your gut, the sense of gravitational rightness or wrongness as you banked, turned and climbed, all came from the hydraulics.
But he’d never seen this model before. Assuming it was state of the art, he felt a tingle of anticipation. There was that Dutch simulator he’d read about called Desdemona that was supposed to be able to generate something like 3.5 Gs. That would be pretty cool. Maybe this would have the same capabilities.
His first response, as he stepped inside the simulator cockpit and closed the door behind him, was disappointment. The Martin-Baker ejection seat could have come straight out of an F-16. It was only as he climbed in that the strangeness of the controls struck him. The jets he knew had HOTAS systems, with all the significant control mounted on either the stick in his right hand or the throttle quadrant in his left. Here, the thrust control lever was on his right hand armrest, and on the left, there was a red sphere sitting in a cradle.