“I think so. I mean, yes. It is I. I’m Brackish Okun.”
“You’re absolutely sure?” the guy asked, seemingly amused.
“I was just, in there reading this”—he glanced down at the page—“this math book. So, you said something about a job? What company are you with?”
The gentleman quickly invented a name, then asked if they could step inside, suggesting that Okun’s friends might come back another time.
“Right, good idea.” But when he opened the door, he found the room empty. He crossed to the open window in time to see the last Mother jump from the trellis to the flower bed, then sprint away into the night.
“Very cool. I have a fire escape. What was your name again?”
“Dworkin. Sam Dworkin.”
Okun offered him the best seat in the house, a beanbag chair, but Dworkin sat down on the unmade bed instead. He looked around the room, dismayed. The cluttered cubicle was a riot of overflowing bookshelves, home-built electronic equipment, and Okun’s personal belongings. The ceiling was wallpapered with music posters and schematic drawings. The old man looked a little older once he was inside and seated on the bed. “You’re not exactly who I was expecting to meet.”
Okun didn’t understand.
“Westinghouse Science Student of the Year, National Junior Science Foundation Merit Scholar, eight hundred in math on the SATs. I suppose I expected somebody a little more… square.”
“I guess I don’t look like my resume,” Okun chuckled.
They talked for a while about the pranks Okun and his crew had pulled off, some of the independent engineering projects he’d built—both the failures and the successes. They tossed around a few theories about how such a brainiac could be finishing college with such low grades and finally arrived at a conclusion: Okun was most motivated when there were obstacles in his path, when what he wanted to build or find was off-limits. Both of them made silent mental notes to remember that tidbit.
Then the guy got down to business. “Mr. Okun, do you believe in Extraterrestrial Biological Entities? Martians? UFOs?”
So that’s what this is all about. Okun quickly came to the conclusion that his visitor must be some fruit loop from one of those clubs devoted to the study of flying saucers. Feeling considerably more relaxed now that he was sure the guy wasn’t a narc, he explained what he believed. “It’s all bull, man; it’s all made up by people who haven’t got anything better to do. Flying saucers, little men from distant galaxies—puleeeez, it’s physically impossible. Check it out: Einstein figured out the cosmic speed limit is 286,000 miles per second, the speed of light. Nothing can move faster than that. Now, light from the nearest star where there is even a remote chance of life takes something like a hundred years to get to earth, so, even if you assume that spacemen could travel at the speed of light, which they can’t, you’re still looking at a trip of hundreds or even tens of thousands of years to get from Planet X to Pasadena.” When he was finished with his lecture, he scrutinized his visitor. “Why? Do you?”
The guy only smiled again, asking, “Where do you see yourself working in five years?”
“I dunno. Probably in some company lab, maybe Westinghouse. I’ve got an interview with them next month and hopefully they’ll be able to understand some of my ideas about electromagnetics and superconductivity.”
“Superconductors. That’s a cutting-edge field of research. They’re doing some of that over at the Los Alamos labs. Do you know about the centripetal magnet accelerator? That’s the kind of equipment a fellow like you should be using.”
Okun, nodding, quickly imagined all the mischief he could do with a machine like that. “Of course I’d love to play around with one of those puppies, but that’s all government work, so I don’t feel that’s realistic for me right now,” he said, brushing his hair off one shoulder.
“What if I told you there was a position available with my company that would afford the right person access not only to the centripetal accelerator, but to the entire network of labs at Sandia and Los Alamos?”
“Wowwee! Who do you work for, God?”
The man chuckled. “That’s actually not a bad guess. What if I could prove to you that flying saucers really do exist? Would you be interested in working on a project like that?”
Okun just grinned. This after-hours job interview was beginning to smell like a practical joke.
“What if I told you,” Dworkin went on, tapping his breast pocket, “that I’m carrying photographs which show an actual flying saucer?”
“You’re kidding, right? Did the Mothers put you up to this?”
The man ignored the question. “I’d like to show you these photographs, but before I can do that, I’d need something from you.”
This guy is a phenomenal actor, Okun thought. Repressing a smile, he asked what he would need.
“Your solemn commitment not to tell a soul about the photos and what they show.”
Okun straightened up and looked at the man through his bloodshot eyes. Deadpan serious, he said, “I swear it.”
Satisfied with this response, the man produced an envelope and handed it over to his grinning host. One look at the first photo was enough to melt the smile off Okun’s face. It showed a team of scientists in lab smocks lined up for a group portrait in front of what appeared to be a badly damaged flying saucer. The ship looked to have a wingspan similar to a fighter jet’s, but it was disk-shaped and looked considerably more menacing than anything he’d seen before. The photograph itself, black-and-white, seemed to be several years old.
“I’m kneeling in the front row,” the old man pointed out, “third from the left.” Sure enough, it was the same face fifteen or twenty years younger. The corner of an airplane hangar showed on one side of the snapshot, and a couple of uniformed soldiers patrolled the background.
The second photo showed what looked like a cockpit. A pair of tall, arching structures, chairs of some kind, were set before two windows, with an instrument panel below them. The third picture was a close-up of one of the instruments lifted out of the console by a pair of men’s hands. Instead of wires, it looked like veins connecting the instrument to the console.
Dworkin waited patiently as Okun went back over the pictures, comparing them, looking, almost desperately, for some evidence that this was indeed a prank. Then, with a stunned expression on his face, Okun looked up at the man, and asked, “What is this? Where were these taken?”
With a gentle smile, Dworkin reached across and took the photos back. “I’ve said too much already. Of course, if you accept, everything will be explained.”
“OK, I accept.”
The old guy laughed. “Let’s wait until you’re in a more lucid frame of mind. Think it over. There are drawbacks. You’d have to leave your family and your friends, the hours are long, and you and your coworkers might not have much in common. Please remember the promise you made. Don’t discuss these pictures with your friends, your professors, with your mother, with anybody.”
The man got up, leaving a non-nodding Brackish in a state of confusion. As he was about to exit, Okun called after him.
“Hey, wait up a sec. How am I going to find you again?”
Dworkin couldn’t resist. “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”
*
Three weeks later, Brackish was at home proudly examining his diploma alongside his mother, Saylene. His new employer had arranged for him to take his final exams a month before the semester ended, and Okun had done something he rarely did under normal circumstances: he studied for every class, not just the ones he was interested in. He’d done well on the tests, raising his grade-point average and earning himself a bachelor’s degree. But there wouldn’t be any time to sit around enjoying this accomplishment. His suitcases were packed and standing by the front door. A young government agent had arrived with an attaché case full of papers, legal documents whereby Okun would sign away his personal freedom in exchange for coming aboard the project. The three
of them—Brackish, Saylene, and the man in the expensive suit—sat down at the kitchen table and began wading through the paperwork. Technically, he was being hired by several different entities, each requiring a separate set of applications, background information forms, insurance waivers, tax schedules, retirement plan agreements, and loyalty oaths. At first, Brackish read through each document carefully, asking questions about each one. But as they continued to materialize in thick stacks from the man’s briefcase, his caution wore down. Toward the end, Brackish was John Hancocking everything the man laid in front of him without a single question.
Saylene didn’t understand why everything had to be so hush-hush. All her son could tell her was that it was an engineering job with the government, and that there was a good reason why it had to be kept secret. But the one thing she understood all too clearly was that she wouldn’t get to see her boy for five full years—the length of his contract. He would be allowed to phone home on the first Sunday of each month, and that was it. He was the only family she had left, and she would miss him. Her eyes were already swollen from crying, and she felt the tears rising again when the man announced they had arrived at the last document. His name was Radecker, and she had taken an instant dislike to him. He was too young, too polished, too full of himself and he was taking her boy away from her.
“This is a copy of the Federal Espionage Act,” he explained, dropping separate copies in front of each Okun as casually as if he were delivering the monthly phone bill. “Basically, all this says is that you can be prosecuted if you tell anyone about what you know about the project. You should know that the minimum penalty for violating this law is a year in a federal penitentiary.”
“Heavy!” Okun sounded impressed. “What’s the maximum penalty?”
“Have you ever heard of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg?”
“Oh. Heavier than I thought.” Brackish gulped, hesitant to sign something that could land him in the electric chair.
“Don’t worry. Just think twice before you go selling any information to the Russians.” Radecker grinned.
Nodding, Okun scribbled his name at the bottom of the page.
Radecker turned to Saylene. “Whenever someone asks about your son, you tell them he’s taken a job as a safety inspector with the Bechtel Corporation. This job requires him to travel around the world, so you don’t know where he is at any given time. Sign here.” Reluctantly, she did as she was told.
Then the agent packed up all the documents and told the family, “I’ll give you a moment to say goodbye. I’ll be outside in the car.”
Brackish and Saylene smiled at one another, both calm on the outside, as waves of feeling crested and crashed inside. They spent their last five minutes together crying and hugging. When Radecker tooted the horn outside, Okun looked down at his mom and promised her he’d come back as soon as he could. It was a promise he would keep, however briefly.
3
ARRIVAL AT AREA 51
Life got sweeter and sweeter for Okun. When Radecker told him where they were headed, he had prepared himself for a long ride in the car, but instead they went to Burbank Airport and signed in at the desk of a small cargo transport company, SwiftAir. He’d only flown twice before, once to Chicago when he’d won the Westinghouse competition, and once to New York, for a whirlwind weekend in the Big Apple.
Today they lifted off in a small twin-engine Cessna. Once they got out over the desert, the captain invited him to come up and sit in the cockpit. It was a warm spring day, and, as soon as they left LA’s smog behind, the view was superb. Okun pressed his nose against the glass and imagined spotting a crashed UFO. He felt lucky. Radecker had told him they were headed for “a very important laboratory near Las Vegas.” Based on what the old man had told him three weeks earlier in his dorm room, he assumed that meant one of the national labs in New Mexico; Visions of sparkling equipment and gleaming multistory buildings danced in his head.
It was a Thursday, and Okun wondered what the Mothers, sitting through Professor Frankel’s theoretical physics lecture, were thinking about his sudden disappearance. He would see if there was a way to sneak a postcard out to them once he got settled.
“There she is,” the pilot announced forty minutes into the flight, “Lost Wages, Nevada.” Okun had only a moment to study the narrow city built up along both sides of a highway before the plane banked north. A few minutes later, the pilot turned and called back to Radecker over the noise of the engines, “We’re coming up to the Nellis Range perimeter, sir.”
Okun looked down and saw they were flying over a double fence, one inside the other. I hope this isn’t where we’re headed. The pilot flew over a decent-sized military base, a cluster of a hundred or so buildings and a dozen hangars, but kept going. As Okun’s heart began to sink in disappointment, the pilot pointed to a sharp hill rising a thousand feet off the desert floor, and said, “Wheelbarrow Peak.” At the base of this, hill was a dry lake bed with a pair of landing strips that formed a big X across the cotton-colored sand. Near the center of the X stood a single airplane hangar and a few dozen small buildings. When Okun realized this was where they were going to land, he immediately marched back and piled into the seat next to Radecker.
“Man, tell me this isn’t where we’re going, man.”
Radecker, who was just as disturbed by what he saw out the window as Okun was, said nothing. Two days ago, before leaving Washington, he’d asked around and learned that Area 51 was “a backwater facility.” But the dusty collection of weathered buildings he saw from the plane didn’t even deserve the name backwater. It was more like tiny-scuzzy-pond-water about nine million miles from where the action was. This wasn’t a promotion; it was exile.
As the plane came in for its landing, they could see that most of the buildings were boarded-up shacks, the sleeping quarters of some long-departed army. A large 51 was painted in black on the doors of the corrugated-steel airplane hangar, before which a contingent of perhaps twenty-five people stood waiting to greet the new arrivals. A pair of antiaircraft guns stood guard over either end of this dusty little ghost town.
“Welcome, gentlemen. I’m Lieutenant Ellsworth,” rasped the man who opened the plane’s passenger door for them. “I’ll be responsible for your security while you’re here. My instructions are to escort you directly to the labs and try to answer any questions you might have.” Soldiers came forward and helped unload the luggage and other cargo. Ellsworth’s tough-customer face was obscured by reflective sunglasses and a baseball cap with a Groom Lake patch sewn on the front. As they marched across the warm tarmac, he explained that the base was under twenty-four-hour guard, and that someone would always be stationed at the phones in case there was any emergency. Everyone who worked in the underground lab was free to come topside whenever he wished, but, for security reasons, would the gentlemen please refrain from fraternizing with the soldiers. When they arrived at the hangar doors, they were met by a group of elderly gentlemen whom Ellsworth introduced as the scientific staff. There were four of them, all about seventy years old, dressed in lab coats and sporting beards. “This is Dr. Freiling, Dr. Cibatutto, Dr. Lenel, and I believe you already know Dr. Dworkin.”
Sure enough, standing there with the same avuncular smile Okun recognized from the interview in his dorm room, was Sam Dworkin. Standing next to the sun-darkened soldiers, the quartet of aging scientists looked extremely pale. After a round of handshakes and hellos, the party moved inside.
The hangar was empty except for a few jeeps. They came to a stairwell and began to descend the stairs in silence. Four flights down, it felt like they were preparing to enter an excavated tomb, and Okun could feel himself getting claustrophobic. He took comfort in the sight of telex cables and phone lines snaking up the bare concrete walls of the stairwell. Finally, after six steep flights of steps, they came to a set of heavy steel doors. Okun and Radecker both noticed that these could be bolted closed from the outside.
Okun stopped walking and raised his ha
nd in the air. “I have a question.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Is it just me, or is this whole situation starting to feel like an Edgar Allen Poe story? You aren’t planning on locking us inside those doors, are you?” Okun chuckled nervously, hoping the others would chuckle with him.
Ellsworth answered mirthlessly. “The doors are never locked, sir. The bolts are there just in case there’s an emergency.”
“Has there ever been one?”
“Not yet.” Ellsworth handed Okun’s suitcases over to him. “This is as far as I go. I’m not allowed inside the lab.”
“Except in case of emergency,” one of the scientists added.
*
Inside, each of the four elderly scientists carried a crate of new supplies that had been left by the door and led the new arrivals into a long, dimly lit room. Every few paces they moved into a pool of light cast by the lamps mounted on the ceiling. Although half of the lightbulbs had died, Okun and Radecker could see the room stretching out to the length of a football field. Other than a few hundred crates and dusty filing cabinets, it was empty.
“Don’t mind this mess,” Dr. Cibatutto told them in what was left of his Italian accent. “It’s only a storage area for obsolete equipment and a lot of old documents nobody cares about. Someday we’ll clean it up, and put in a bowlin galley.”
“Put in a what?” Okun asked.
“A bowling alley,” repeated Cibatutto, shortest and plumpest of the scientists, enunciating carefully.
“This way, gentlemen.” Dworkin turned into one hallway, then another, leading them into the most often used room in this top-secret government lab: the kitchen. In contrast to the murky light and cobwebs of the entrance hall, this room was brightly lit and tastefully decorated. A long table with picnic benches was elegantly set for six diners.
“We take turns cooking down here and, over the years, we’ve developed into rather adequate chefs, but none finer than Signor Cibatutto,” Dworkin told them, setting down the crate he’d carried in. “And, in honor of your arrival, he has prepared one of his most mouthwatering specialties.” Cibatutto beamed proudly. “Tonight we’re gonna have a mushroom risotto with salmon and a delicious chicken cacciatore.”
Complete Independence Day Omnibus, The Page 33