The Dreamfields

by Kevin Wayne Jeter

  “Uff.” The shopkeeper was red in the face as he heaved the box onto the counter. “Here we go,” he said after a moment of labored breathing. “Let’s see now . . .”

  Ralph leaned forward and watched the man shuffle the thick, squarish magazines about. The covers had all faded into pastels while the edges of the pages had darkened into a dirty brown.

  “I think it had a picture of some kind of birds on it.” The shopkeeper frowned in concentration. “Or was it two deer standing in a forest? No, this is it. This is the one.” He held the copy up between them. A cactus blooming with yellow flowers was on its cover. The shopkeeper leafed through it, stopped, and folded it open upon itself. “Look at that.”

  He took the magazine from the shopkeeper’s hands and read the article’s title. I WAS THERE—WHEN THE ATOMIC AGE WAS BORN!

  His eyes quickly scanned the text but caught at nothing. “Can I borrow this?” he said, looking up at the shopkeeper.

  “Eh, keep it.” The man made a little pushing motion with his palm. “I only save ’em because I’m too lazy to throw ’em away.”

  “Hey, thanks.” Gripping the magazine, Ralph turned and ran from the store.

  When he got back to his apartment on the base he dropped onto the couch and started to read the article. It only took a few minutes to devour.

  The article’s author had been one of the scientists who had worked in 1942 to create the world’s first nuclear pile—CP-1, or Chicago Pile Number One. In typical Reader’s Digest prose, he described the construction, supervised by Enrico Fermi, of the twenty-four-foot diameter sphere from graphite bricks and uranium metal and oxides, and the work crews—University of Chicago graduate students—smearing their faces with the greasy dark stuff and catching their fingers between the heavy bricks.

  As a safety measure— Ralph leaned forward, reading the scientist’s words intently— we constructed a “zip rod.” This was a wooden rod running through the pile with strips of cadmium metal tacked to it. Cadmium, the best of neutron sponges, would put out any atomic conflagration that got out of hand. The rod had to be pulled out of the pile by a rope before the nuclear reaction could begin; release the rope and it would zip back into the pile, quenching the neutron activity.

  The article ended with Fermi and the rest going on to glory, choirs of radiation counters clattering softly in the background, and the Atomic Age dawning its harsh light over the world.

  So what’s that got to do with anything? thought Ralph, laying the magazine down on the couch. Its pages fluttered shut. He couldn’t see any connection between the Metallurgical Project and Operation Dreamwatch. But why did they tear out the pages from the encyclopedia in the Rec hall and round up the ones in Norden? He shook his head, once again feeling weighed down with conjectures that baffled and led nowhere.

  Operation Dreamwatch had, he saw now with dismay, generated its own darkness. Sliding over the earth the mysteries bred and multiplied: mysteries that went unanswered, their carcinogens festering until this new inescapable universe had the face of the dreamfield’s slithergadee—malignant and inexplicable. And we just huddle together and cower, thought Ralph, remembering—bitterly—the night Michael Stimmitz had died. But nothing will ever come to lift us out of this place.

  He got up, went into the bedroom and pulled open one of the bureau drawers. There, where he’d hidden it beneath layers of underwear and socks, was the tape of Bach cantatas that Michael Stimmitz had left for him. It seemed centuries ago. And I still don’t know, thought Ralph, what he was trying to tell me with it.

  In a spasm of anger he plucked the clear plastic reel from the box and threw it against the wall. It bounced to the floor and wobbled around in circles, spinning the mute tape out into a tangled mass.

  He inhaled deeply to calm himself but expanded the hollowness he felt growing inside. From the bottom of the tape box, he took the square booklet containing the notes and translations for the cantatas. There were no more secret messages scribbled in its margins now than there had been the first time he had looked through it. So what’s the point? he thought, closing his eyes and running his hand over the booklet’s slick paper cover.

  He frowned and opened his eyes. His fingers had touched something—or had they? Turning the booklet to the light, he watched his hand brush across the cover, then stop at the same point he had felt before. A slight indentation, invisible to the eyes, ran around the edges of the capital letter “B” of Bach’s name, as though some-one—Stimmitz?—had carefully outlined it with a dry ballpoint pen or something.

  B? thought Ralph. His hand moved down the cover, brushing across it until his fingers felt another incised letter—an “O” in the conductor’s name.

  There were only two more letters with indented outlines, for a total of four. So that’s the message Stimmitz left, thought Ralph. There was no need for guessing or deciphering. The four letters spelled BOMB.

  Bomb? wondered Ralph, but only for a moment. His mind sorted out the right connections. Spencer got the two things garbled. The Metallurgical Project— and the Manhattan District, that’s what it was called. A long-forgotten fragment of some college lecture came back to him. The Manhattan District was the name for the group of army engineers who constructed the first atomic bomb. The image of a mushroom-shaped cloud blotted out his vision for a moment. Then he could see again. Not everything was explained but enough was.

  The Thronsen Home was the closest construction to the gigantic desert military installation, the home base of the plasma jet bombers whose trails laced the sky every night. What if—the thoughts went through Ralph’s mind like electric currents—what if the Thronsen Home wasn’t just part of a harmless mental health program for juvenile delinquents?

  What if the supposed therapy was a front for the creation of a nuclear device powerful enough to incinerate the whole area, military bases included? It didn’t seem any less likely to Ralph than any other possible explanation. Perhaps Muehlenfeldt was from another star. Perhaps similar “therapy” programs had been set up for the USSR’s wayward children. China, too? Possibly. Anybody—or thing—ingenious enough to devise a cover-up as elaborate as Operation Dreamwatch could figure out a way to accomplish what it wanted anywhere else as well. And after the Earth’s major military bases were destroyed, would the invasion force that Muehlenfeldt had preceded come at last?

  For a few seconds the elaborate explanation that had built itself in Ralph’s mind like an instantaneous coral reef trembled, fragile under the weight of everyday logic. Then it solidified, hard as rock. Who cares if it’s weird? he thought. A kind of desperate hilarity washed through him. Who cares if it sounds like science fiction? When the world becomes science fictional, then only science fiction will explain the world. He dropped the booklet, got his coat from the closet, and ran out of the apartment without closing the door behind him.

  The base vehicles—two jeeps and a small truck, with OPWATCH stencilled on their sides—were kept parked behind the administration building. Ralph quickly looked inside each in turn, but none of the keys were in the ignitions as he’d been hoping. He stood for a moment with his hands braced against the door of one of the jeeps, wondering where the keys would be kept. The base commander’s office? That seemed likeliest.

  Quietly he went to the side of the building, then stooped down and duck-walked beneath the window of the commander’s office. For a while he waited and listened, but heard no voices or shuffling of papers. He raised himself up and peeked over the sill, hoping the commander was out to lunch away from his desk. The office was empty as far as he could see, the commander’s chair vacant and pushed away from the desk.

  Operation Dreamwatch had certainly been cheated by whomever had gotten the contract for the window screens. As everyone in the base apartments knew, the wire mesh could be easily pulled loose from the metal frames. In a few seconds Ralph had a triangular flap loose from one corner, large enough to crawl through. He landed on his hands and feet behind the desk. When he sto
od up he felt something hard and cold press itself behind his left ear.

  “Don’t move, Metric,” came Commander Stiles’s voice. “Or you know what’ll happen.”

  Suddenly he couldn’t swallow, though he wanted to very much. He stared at the distant blank wall and closed door on the other side of the desk, and listened to a faint roaring sound—his bloodstream—grow louder in the room’s silence.

  “I’m going to take the gun away from your head,” said the commander evenly. “Then I want you to go and sit down in the chair on the other side of the desk. I’ll be aiming at your heart.”

  The cold circle of pressure against his skull ceased. Without turning to look back, Ralph walked slowly around the desk and sat down in the smaller chair on the other side. Then he looked up.

  The gun, a fixed point in space, didn’t waver as Commander Stiles lowered himself into his own chair. It remained outstretched in his hand, pointing its dark metal snout at Ralph’s chest. Their eyes met over the weapon between them.

  “Metric.” The commander shook his head slowly, the seams in his face shifting in amusement. “Very irrational of you to come back here to the base. Just as if we haven’t had you under suspicion for a long time. Didn’t you think we’d keep an eye on anyone your friend Stimmitz was spending so much time with? I watched you looking through the jeeps outside. I even know all about your little adventures in L.A.—I was told about them as soon as I had reported that you had shown up here. So nothing you’ve done has really been very clever, has it?”

  Ralph’s voice moved like a rasp through his dried throat. “No,” he said. “I guess not.”

  The commander sighed. “I’m afraid Senator Muehlenfeldt has run out of patience with you. Frankly, he’s been hesitant to use, uh, harsh methods to find out what you know, because of what happened with the other Beta group member that was questioned. But we know what to expect now, so the danger caused by an explosion can be limited to just yourself. The worst that can happen—except to you, of course—is that we won’t get any info out of you at all.”

  “Stiles.” Ralph felt dizzy looking at the other’s impassive face. “Do you know what’s going on? Do you know what they’re doing here? What they’re going to do?”

  “Come, come,” said the commander mildly. “Of course not. Moral persuasion is of little use here, I’m afraid. I’m too much of a professional to be concerned about the purpose of the whole thing. Everyone who works for Muehlenfeldt is a professional.”

  The room’s contents glowed as adrenaline pumped into Ralph’s blood.

  He had gleaned enough from Stiles’s mysterious references to formulate a plan. “In that case,” he said, leaning forward, his voice taut, “I’ll just have to set off my device right now and take you with me.” He reached with careful drama for one ear.

  The commander dropped the gun and pushed himself frantically away from the desk. His chair toppled backward as Ralph dove head first over the desk and collided with his chest.

  Stiles’s arms scrabbled weakly at the carpet as he lay dazed and gasping beside the overturned chair. Ralph reached back to the desk and picked up the gun. He pointed it at the commander but the trigger didn’t budge.

  The older man was raising himself, up on one arm and Ralph still hadn’t found how to release the safety on the gun. He threw it by its barrel at the commander’s skull, producing a loud crack and a groan from Stiles before he slumped back down and lay without moving.

  The keys were in the desk’s top drawer. He stuffed all the sets into his pockets and climbed back out through the torn screen. In less than a minute he had matched one of the key sets to the ignition of one of the jeeps and started it with a roar that did much to satisfy and quiet his trembling limbs. He backed away from the building, then threw it into first and headed for the base’s gate. Kathy and Goodell, walking on the path from the apartments to the Rec hall, leaped out of his way, then watched with open mouths as the cloud of dust churned towards the highway.

  Chapter 14

  The wind blowing through the open jeep seemed to clear his thoughts and give him a sense of purpose. Las Vegas, he said to himself. There should be an FBI office there. Somebody who’ll listen, and he able to do something. He pressed the accelerator harder against the jeep’s floorboard. The decision was already firm within him that, no matter what happened, he’d get Sarah away from whatever it was that claimed to be her father.

  Miles of straight or gently curving road passed between the flanks of the dunes on either side, glaring fiercely in the afternoon sun. He found a pair of metal-rimmed sunglasses in the dashboard cubbyhole and put them on. The dark lenses reduced the rearview mirror from a rectangle of burning reflection to the visible awareness of the road piling up behind him. There was someone following him.

  He studied the mirror, glancing at the road briefly to keep from going off on the shoulder. The figure behind him was a motorcyclist. He could make out the sleek black fairing that transformed the cycle into a bullet shape, and—was he imagining it or could he really make out so much detail?—the tinted, blank face shield of the rider’s helmet as he bent low over the handlebars.

  The distance between Ralph and his pursuer was slowly growing less, the figure becoming perceptibly larger in the rearview mirror.

  Must be one of Muehlenfeldt’s men, thought Ralph. He’ll be on me before too long. The jeep was already pushed to its limit, at a speed much less than that of the motorcycle behind.

  Signs flashed by at the side of the highway. The road would soon divide into two, one branch heading north and the other continuing on to Vegas.

  Maybe, thought Ralph, maybe . . .

  When he came to the fork in the highway he took the northward branch, the jeep’s tires squealing as he arced through the start of a long currving section running behind a low rubble-faced bluff. He caught a quick glimpse of the motorcyclist taking the same turn behind him, before the bend in the highway brought the bluff between them.

  As soon as he was sure he was blocked from his pursuer’s vision, Ralph hit the brakes, trying not to skid and leave any telltale black marks on the asphalt. He lost control for a moment and felt the jeep’s rear end slide out from beneath him. When the vehicle came to a stop it was sitting cross-wise in the lane, pointed towards the flat desert beyond the side of the road.

  Without turning the steering wheel, he dropped the jeep into first gear, trod on the accelerator, and lurched forward. The jeep rolled off the edge of the asphalt, then plunged down a steep bank of loose rock and dirt. The rear wheels spat small rocks into the air as the jeep careened sickeningly downwards. Ralph clung to the jittering wheel.

  The jeep came to the bottom of the slope and hit the level desert floor with a whump that bounced Ralph from the seat. The engine choked and died but he made no movement to start it again. Instead, he listened, hearing at first only the slight clatter of pebbles dislodged and rolling down the slope. Then came the growling roar of the motorcycle, diminished by the distance to the highway above. It grew louder, peaked in a snarl, then dopplered away, following the curve of the highway.

  Ralph started up the jeep and accelerated across the sand, cutting across the interval of desert towards the other branch of the highway. It would be a while, he knew from his memory of the area, before the northbound branch would straighten out far enough away from the bluff for the motorcyclist to see that his quarry had eluded him. By then Ralph should have gained a sizable lead on the route to Vegas. He sped up, the jeep bouncing over the rock-strewn desert. It was, he knew, only a temporary reprieve.

  * * *

  It was over sooner than he expected. Out on the dark road, with nothing in sight but moonlit dunes and brush, the jeep’s engine sputtered, coughed, ran steady for a few seconds, then sputtered again and died. For the first time Ralph looked at the little circular fuel gauge on the dashboard. The tiny needle was set hard against the EMPTY mark.

  He sat staring at the dial for nearly a minute, stunned. He marvel
led dismally. Whatever you overlook is just what shoots you down.

  With an effort he pulled his mind from the edge of the pit gaping before him. He switched off the headlights, then got down from the driver’s seat and stood away from the jeep. In the dim moonlight it squatted silently on its knobby tires. No longer an ally of his or even neutral, but gone over now to the other side—Muehlenfeldt’s universe.

  Wait a minute, thought Ralph. He circled around behind the jeep and found a set of dangling straps beside the spare wheel, but not the fuel can.

  Carefully, not daring to expect anything, he leaned over the side of the jeep and probed the dark interior with his hands. Behind the seat he found the fuel can. He lifted it out and heard a cheering gurgle. Not full, but at least a few inches of gasoline sloshed back and forth inside the container.

  When the jeep’s engine was spinning again, Ralph let out the clutch and started picking up speed. Enough, enough, he breathed to the twin cones of light racing over the road ahead. Make it enough to get to where I can get some more.

  Anxious miles ticked off on the odometer, until finally the miraculous occurred. A tiny store with a single antique gas pump appeared, nestled in the angle where a smaller road joined the highway. Ralph brought the jeep to a halt beside the pump and jumped out.

  The hose’s nozzle was padlocked tight to the side of the pump. He tugged futilely at it for a moment, swore, then let go of it and ran to the store. A single fly-specked light bulb dangled beneath the battered soft drink sign, illuminating the screen door. He jerked it open, found the wooden one behind it locked, and began pounding on it. “Hey!” he shouted. “Wake up in there!” The door rattled on its hinges as he kicked it.

  Through the window on one side he saw a light switch on in the store’s depths. A few moments later the door swung open, revealing a stooped figure in striped pajamas. The old man’s wizened head was hairless except for the gray stubble on his receding chin. His eyes widened at the sight of Ralph.