by Tom DeLonge
“What’s there?” he said. “What do you need to see?”
“I don’t know,” she said, opting for honesty. “Something someone put there a long time ago. By someone I trust. But it’s vital. And I think your Morat and his friends want to get there too. You said it’s not near the modern base, right? So we wouldn’t be seeing anything we weren’t supposed to see.”
Regis snorted derisively. “Lady, we’re all seeing stuff we’re not supposed to tonight.”
He wasn’t agreeing, but she pretended he was.
“So let’s go,” she said. “You need us to help understand what you find there. And if there’s nothing, we’ll go quietly.”
She saw the way he looked down, trying to decide what to do. And then he looked up, his face full of decision.
“Get in,” he said.
60
ALAN
Dreamland, Nevada
“CAN YOU HEAR ME, PHOENIX?” ASKED RIORDAN AS soon as the hatch closed. He sounded nervous, which, under the circumstances, wasn’t surprising.
Alan wasn’t nervous. He was scared shitless.
The disk was just large enough to stand up in. There was a single chair that might have been ripped out of an F-16, mounted in the center, with a railing, its surface flattened into a semicircular console ten-inches high, ringing the command seat, save where the exterior hatch opened. The metal—if it was metal—was curiously violet and blue, like fine tempered steel, except that the color seemed somehow integral to the material. It was marked with symbols, some like letters, others like tiny pictograms. One—a kind of curl like a backwards C or the flourish of a treble clef—might have been a stylized wave. One resembled a pair of arrows. Another, a sun.
None of them meant anything to Alan.
There were no windows or viewer screens of any kind. No buttons, toggles or joysticks.
It was absurd. Of course it was. Even if such a thing could fly—which seemed unlikely—there was no way he could possibly learn how to control it. In any other situation it would have been comic, a gag set up by the tech crew to see just how gullible their pilots might be.
But there was nothing funny about it. The three remaining Locusts were already up, trying to make a difference in a fight that would almost certainly cost them their lives and perhaps a whole lot more. They needed Alan up there, which meant that if this thing really could fly, he needed it to do so immediately.
“This is Standpipe,” said Riordan’s voice. “You there, Phoenix?” The sound came from speakers in what Alan decided to call the canopy above the chair. It was, like the rest of the craft, a low-glare, silver color, the cockpit an odd combination of ultra-high tech and jerry-rigged improvisations patched together by the hangar crew.
“I’m here, Standpipe,” said Alan. “For what that’s worth.”
“You in the chair?”
“Yeah. Belted in, right?”
He heard Riordan hesitate. “Sure,” he said, like he had any idea one way or the other.
Alan swallowed and checked the seat harness.
“Now put your hands on the command panel, palms down,” said Riordan.
“I can’t see out,” said Alan, his heart racing. “If this thing starts moving, I won’t know where it’s going or …”
“Just put your hands on the console.”
“Where?” he asked, studying the symbols etched into the odd metal.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Alan spread his fingers and lowered them to the console surface, half-expecting it to be hot. It wasn’t. It was cool and smooth, like stainless steel or brushed nickel, but as soon as his hands were in place, he felt the ship wake up.
That was the phrase in his head. It was bizarre, but that was what it felt like, as if the disk had been slumbering, but now it was alert and ready. The console bar seemed to ripple, a wave of bluish light pulsing softly through it, around the chair, and somehow into the entire disk. The metal glowed for a second—closer to gold than bronze—and Alan felt it move. It rose, he was sure of it, and settled into a steady hover a few inches from the ground, with the faintest hum of energy.
“That’s it,” said Riordan into the radio. “Looking good. Now push out of the hangar and into the open air.”
“How?” asked Alan.
“Just … think it.”
“What?”
“Focus on what you want and don’t take your hands off the console.”
“This is nuts,” said Alan, who was started to sweat. He was making light of it, but he was scared. “Even if I could move it, I wouldn’t do it blind like this.”
“Swipe your hand along the surface away from you.”
“Which hand?”
“Doesn’t matter. Just do it.”
Alan did so. And suddenly he was in the hangar with Riordan and three other techs watching warily. He was still sitting in the chair, but the metal disk around him was gone. It was like the dreams he’d had when he was a boy.
“What the hell?” he muttered. “What happened?”
“What do you mean?” asked Riordan.
Alan turned to him and made a face.
“What does it goddamned look like?” he said.
“Same as before,” said Riordan, not looking at him. “Can you see us?”
“Of course I can see you. The goddamned ship is gone.”
“No, Major, it’s not. You’re just seeing through it.”
Alan swallowed back his disbelief. It wasn’t like the disk was now glass. The outer shell of the disk was just gone. But when he reached out and touched it, he felt the same density and texture as before, though the hull was now invisible.
“Now try moving it forward,” said Riordan.
Alan brought his eyes front and considered the open hangar door and the night air beyond. He wasn’t ready, but there was no time to waste.
Mentally, he pressed forward, like he was giving his car a little gas with his right foot. The image helped. The disk moved out, slow and steady, gliding through the air perhaps a foot off the ground. It was like a fairground ride, exposed to the air on all sides, though he felt no breeze through the globe’s transparent walls, and he was moving it with his mind.
“Whoa,” he said.
“Controls are all mental,” said Riordan, stepping up to the disk and looking it over critically. “The different symbols bring different systems online, but we just don’t know much about them. You’ll have to experiment and use your instinct. But you seem to have a gift for it.”
“Meaning what?”
“The disk has already done more for you than it has for anyone during our tests.”
In other circumstances that might have been a satisfying feeling. Right now it just meant that no one on the ground would be able to offer meaningful guidance once he was up.
“Weapons?” he asked.
“The one that looks like a curvy X, we think.”
“Think?”
“Never tested,” said Riordan. “I’m sorry, Phoenix. We’re way out of our depth here.”
“So even if I can find the bogeys, I might not be able to do anything about them?” said Alan. He didn’t wait for Riordan to answer. “Okay. I get it. I just needed to say it. I guess we’ll see.”
“I’m sorry, Phoenix,” said Riordan. “I wish there was more I could tell you.”
“Don’t apologize, Standpipe,” said Alan, feeling some of his own dread drain away, as if the technology was siphoning it right out of him. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
And then, in the instant that he imagined it, he was soaring skyward, rocketing up into the black Nevada night without a sound, the heavens all around him, and only the seat and the floor it was welded could break the illusion that he was flying under his own power.
“Navigation,” he said to himself. “Radar. Need to find where they are.”
And then there was a kind of map, curved as if rolled out on a screen that matched the interior of the disk, and there were small lights moving
around on the map. Ships. He stared at them and felt the saucer shift direction, streaking through the thin layer of cloud and out, still climbing, to where the remaining Locusts were engaging the arrowheads and Morat.
That seemed unavoidable. The man who had pretended to be his friend would be out there, looking to shoot him down.
“Well,” Alan mused aloud, his heart slowing as if by force of his own determination. “Let’s see how they handle … whatever the hell this is.”
61
JENNIFER
37° 16’ 35”N and 115° 45’ 19”W, Nevada
JENNIFER AND TIMIKA SCRUNCHED TOGETHER IN THE back of the open-topped Humvee. On her left, a young soldier in desert camo utilities watched her unashamedly, his automatic held so that its muzzle pointed out into the darkness, but ready, she thought, to turn on them if they posed any kind of threat. Timika said nothing. They were both cautious of the soldiers with their guns, but Jennifer thought her new friend seemed wary to the point of hostility.
For their part, the soldiers seemed unsure of what they were doing. The man called Regis was clearly in charge, but Jennifer had seen the two younger men exchange a quick glance when Regis had permitted this jaunt into the desert, east of the main base. After a few minutes driving on an overgrown track that hadn’t been a real road for years, the driver turned to Regis and said, “You think this is right, sir?”
It could have been a check on directions, phrased to avoid any hint of insubordination, but it seemed more than that.
Regis did not speak for a moment. Finally he said, “Yes, Airman, I do,” without looking at the driver, who gave him a tiny nod and then focused on the road ahead.
There was no warning that they were approaching their destination. One moment they were barreling through the rocky desert, and the next, they stopped on Regis’ orders, but there was no change in the landscape, which was flat and featureless in the dark. Regis climbed out, his sidearm drawn, a powerful flashlight in his free hand. Its light bounced and flashed dizzyingly along the pink rock and gravel, but there were no trees, no shrubs or cacti more than a couple of feet high, and no buildings. The difference between the road and the surrounding ground was negligible. If she hadn’t seen the lines on the Google Earth view from far overhead, she might not have known there was a road there at all.
Regis scowled at the ground, then shot a look back at the Humvee where the rest of them sat patiently.
“Get out and look,” he shouted. “Corporal Simmons, there are spare flashlights in the tool bin.”
Moments later, the corporal had slapped a heavy 500 Lumen Surefire into Jennifer’s open hand and, when she met his eyes, she saw his fractional shrug.
Your party, not mine.
She switched the light on and turned it down to the red earth. Straw-colored weeds poked improbably up from the baked dirt, but the longer she walked, the less there was to see. Maybe Timika had it wrong. Or the journal, in which she put so much store, was just a clever hoax. Or maybe it was real, but the information in it was badly out of date. That seemed likely. Whatever had once been on this spot, it had long since been turned over to the coyotes and rattlesnakes, assuming even they found value in so desolate a place.
“Here!”
It was Timika. She was standing fifty yards to Jennifer’s right, shining her light on what looked like a concrete rim, rising a few inches above the desert floor. Jogging to her, Jennifer saw that the rust-stained concrete framed a single manhole cover, like what one might find on a storm drain, rusted now to match the orange and red of the desert dust. There was a central handle, folded down, but there were also four large and ancient bolts close to the rim.
“Get the toolbox,” said Regis. The soldier who’d given her the flashlight hustled back to the Humvee and returned a moment later with a set of socket wrenches. He squatted down and fitted a couple before deciding which to use on the old iron bolts.
The first came off quickly, but the second needed the encouragement of an impact driver before it budged. It took five minutes to get the last two out, Regis checking his watch and his radio irritably at the delay, occasionally gazing up at the sky over the base with what Jennifer took to be apprehension. It took two men to lift the manhole cover free. They set it on its rim, then let it drop flat on the earth. It landed with the soft, deep chime of a large bell, and for a moment everyone waited, as if something ceremonial were happening.
The hole was a concrete shaft, with rungs set in the wall all the way down. The rungs were dull with age, but showed no sign of rust, and apart from a single crack that spider-webbed through the concrete, the great tube looked almost new. Jennifer leaned over and shone her flashlight down to the concrete floor, perhaps twenty feet below. There was a passage that moved away from the ladder, but from where she stood, she couldn’t see how far back it went or what sort of shape it was in.
“I’ll go,” said Timika, dropping to her hands and knees to step to the topmost rung.
“I’ll go first, Miss … Mars,” said Regis. “This is still a military facility.”
“One you didn’t know was here,” Timika shot back. She had already got one foot onto the ladder.
“That’s not relevant,” said Regis.
“Officer Regis?”
Regis turned. It was the corporal.
“What?”
“Did you call for back up?”
“No. Why?” said Regis, tense again.
“Two vehicles coming in from the southeast,” said the corporal, handing him a pair of night vision binoculars.
Jennifer could hear them, could even see them, two vehicles driving without their headlights on. She’d bet good money they were the same vehicles that had been looking to pick up Timika in the desert.
“Miss Mars,” said Sgt. Regis, still looking through the NVGs, tracking the incoming cars. “Go down the ladder and stay there until I come get you. You too, Miss Quinn.”
The change which came over the two other soldiers was electric. They went from merely present to alert and hostile in the blink of an eye. Both readied their rifles, one dropping to his knees, the other running over to the cover of the Humvee. Timika dropped out of sight, and Jennifer, momentarily paralyzed with a new sense of dread, could do nothing but watch the approaching vehicles as they emerged from the darkness.
62
ALAN
US airspace over Nevada
THE SILVER DISK SPED FASTER, PUNCHING THROUGH THE cloud deck at 20,000 feet and into the clear night sky above. Alan felt like he was perched on the top of a skyscraper, all his attention focused on absolute control of the craft. Every wobble, every deviation or hesitation in its flight plan depended on his mind and his unflickering concentration.
It was exhausting.
No matter how he turned or angled the ship, his body experienced no sense of motion or torque, and the chair remained level and still, as if he were at the center of some great gyroscope, but in his head, he saw each shift in trajectory and acceleration, as if he were a living computer, consciously, deliberately firing neurons, steering the unearthly vehicle as if it had merged with his own muscle and bone.
“Uploading attack locations,” said Riordan’s voice. “The first is at F.E. Warren Air Force Base near Cheyenne, Wyoming. Silos are spread over to Colorado and Nebraska too, so we’ll have to take them one at a time, beginning with the main base. See it?”
Alan’s eyes picked up the blinking symbol in the air to his right. Mentally, he clicked it, and it opened, scattering maps and data across his field of view.
“Too much,” he snapped as the disk kicked and shifted in his head.
“Sorry. It takes some getting used to.”
“Except that we don’t have time for that,” said Alan, fighting down his anxiety and irritation. His feelings were impacting the disk’s performance. He could sense it. He took a deep breath and waited as the ship gradually settled into steady, level flight heading northeast. Only then did he relax enough to squeeze his eyes
closed for a second, blinking the sweat away, and taking a long, steadying breath. He wasn’t sure how long he could keep this up.
He had no idea how fast he was moving. It felt fast—very fast—though how he knew that, he couldn’t say. His body was utterly still, hands still spread over the console, arms and torso rigid with concentration. But he felt the ship’s speed in his head. Mach five? Six? More? He could feel the calculations at the edge of his perception, waiting for him to demand they be made and relayed to him, but he couldn’t take any more information in. It was, as he had told Riordan, already too much.
And suddenly he was there, forcing the disk to slow its approach as he tried to take in what he was seeing.
Feeling, more like.
Yes. He wasn’t actually looking at the silos on the ground or plotting the way Jackson’s Locust was playing hit and run with the three arrowhead craft that had stationed themselves above the missile silos, and he certainly wasn’t seeing the curious pulses of energy they were using to disrupt the missiles’ arming systems, but he felt it, all of it, like waves of data in his head. Whatever sensor array the disk used, it was feeding directly into his mind, and he read it all intuitively, like identifying texture or heat with his fingers. It was overwhelming. He closed his eyes to shut out the merely visual distractions of the sky and the earth below as he sent the disk tearing through its intercept cycle onto the unsuspecting ships.
The ground below him was dark as the sky, but he saw Jackson’s Locust immediately as it arced and wove a rapid spiral away from two of the silvery arrowheads. One of them gave chase, matching the Locust for pace and agility, but Jackson executed a deft spin move and caught his pursuer in a stream of laser fire that lit up the night with stabbing lines of red. The arrowhead corkscrewed away, but one great delta wing was carved by the laser, and it dropped heavily, smoking.
Alan felt a wave of elation pulse from him into the craft, as if he were supercharging its engines, and he pulled up so he could survey the scene. The other two arrowheads had left the missile silo below and were sweeping towards Jackson with deadly speed. Uncertainly, Alan inched one hand toward the symbol for his weapons systems and braced himself for another tsunami of information.