The Russian tips his crewcut head, “Real enough. Except, it was no flying saucer. That’s part of the myth. Did the spacecraft you found back home look like a flying teacup? No. It looked like the functional spacecraft it was.”
“You also know about our wreck?” wonders Chief.
Another shrug. “We can guess. After all, we shot down so many. Us and the Chinese. Oh, to be sure, the Indians, Pakistanis and even the Iranians shot down a few, too. The rest of the world, that part of it in the American camp, including the English… nothing. Not a round fired. They drank the Kool-Aid too long ago to betray their bug-eyed overlords.”
“Wait a minute here,” protests Chief. “You’re saying we were all in cahoots with… them?”
“Yes. And no. Not willingly, of course. Just the same, though. Yes.” When we momentarily stop following him, variously stunned, outraged or simply dumbfounded, he turns to placate us with another supplicating gesture. “Aw… don’t feel bad for yourselves, my American comrades! It could not be helped! We know this, and have known it for years! Please. Continue. Just this way, and many questions I will answer. Please.”
Reluctantly, we push ourselves forward. Our footsteps echo along the austere, institutional corridor, while our shadows flitter and dance for the uncertain buzz of fluorescent lights.
“What you called the ‘cold war’, in my country we call the ‘war for earth’. Have you never questioned why your country has been continually gearing for a massive, global conflict since the Great Patriotic War… what you call World War Two? Think about the technology you have pioneered during the intervening years. Electron microscopes. Computers. Optical communications. Missiles. Spaceflight. Teflon.” The Russian laughs heartily, “You think human beings really went from horse-drawn carriages to your Space Shuttle in eighty years without help? Lots of help! Lots of alien help!”
“But… but… why?” stammers The Engineer.
The Russian shrugs and continues marching along without hesitation. “Why not? When I was a boy, I used to ask my father the same endless question. Why? Why? Why? He was a good man. He answered as many times as his nerves could stand. Then he simply replied, because. Because. Because. When he came to that point, I knew the conversation had ended. I had exhausted his supply of answers. To your question, then, my answer must be simply, because. Because they can do it? Because they want to do it? Because they must do it? You choose.”
I ask, “And the rest of the world?”
Another shrug. “For some reason we cannot comprehend, they chose this country. Your people. The bugs made first contact in 1929. Are you familiar with that year? You should be.”
“The stock market crashed. It was the beginning of the Great Depression.”
“Good! Very good! At first, your government engaged the cover-up to prevent that sort of thing from happening over and over again as they encountered more and more of the spacecraft with their not-so-little green men.” Before him, that bend in the corridor approaches with each staccato footstep, “You all probably believe we fought The Great Patriotic War to stop nationalist aspirations. The Nazis. The Tojos. Not true. These were the first global attempts to respond to your one-sided acquisition of alien technology. The rest of the world’s nations attempted to band together to create a unified front to oppose the alien influence growing from your country. Obviously, they failed. Sort of. Only the Communist east resisted, perhaps only because we were so isolated and backwards then, the Chinese and we Soviets. We drank the Kool-Aid, too. For a while. Then we learned the truth during the war. Stalin was a bloodthirsty bastard, but he was clever, too. He saved us.”
“Yeah, right,” grunts Chief, “he saved your people by shuffling millions of you into his gulags and shooting millions more in the backs of their heads!”
“So,” enthuses our newfound Russian friend, “you know the history lessons. Brainwashing! All of it! Please, take no offense, big man. You can’t help yourself. It’s all you know. The truth is more complicated. True, he murdered millions and imprisoned millions more. And for the same reasons you know. He suspected them of western influence. Of course, now you begin to realize he wasn’t simply referring to capitalist influences. Rather, he suspected them of alien corruptions. Those he suspected of being fully compromised, he promptly executed. The rest, he held until he could prove or disprove his suspicions. Since this has never been an easy prospect, however, many of them died before their time came. Oh, well. Such is life. It is a hard thing, because it is a hard war. Aren’t they all?”
“I got you there,” grouses Chief. “You say all our technology is reverse-engineered from alien artifacts? Yeah, well… you people use that same technology! You were once on your way to the moon, and you tried to build your own space shuttle. It was almost a direct copy of ours!”
“Ah, the Buran. Right.” The Russian chuckles, “What a joke! Please understand, my friends. Your version of the truth is not all lies. Most of it is, in fact, the truth. The real truth. They changed just enough of it to keep you all in line. Not all of it. Sure, Stalin built an effective intelligence apparatus that infiltrated your so-called industrial military complex from the start, even before the 1929 contact. This is how we got the A-Bomb. The Hydrogen Bomb. The Neutron Bomb. And much more. Including the Buran. After all, we had to survive. Somehow.” Here, he raises his hands, palms upward, without turning around. “How could we hope to fight what you saw back there with steam engines and bolt-action rifles?”
“Wait just a minute, here,” complains The Engineer. When he stops, we all stop and turn to face him, The Russian, too. “You claim you stole their technology through your networks of spies in the same breath that you use to tell us the rest of the world has remained alien-free? That doesn’t make sense!”
“Ah, you are upset. Understandable! Completely understandable.” The Russian’s gruff features soften. “I cannot blame you for putting words onto my tongue, as you say, but do try to keep up, if you can. Time is short. By now, Post-Terminus, you must at least believe something is not right with the world. This is apparent, even to Americans. Use that known event as a stepping-stone along the pathway to the truth. The real truth. And get there as quickly as you can.”
I concur, “He’s right, of course. After Terminus, we should doubt less and listen more, I think.”
“Nothing can be worse than what we’ve already seen…,” mumbles The Kid, his eyes blinking harshly, “…than what we’ve done.”
“When you say the rest of the world has remained alien-free, you are wrong. Everywhere you Americans are successful, you bring them with you. Consider what you know of the world. According to your own history books, the entire planet is aligned in two camps. You, and the rest of us. My country. China. Iran. Pakistan. All the countries I mentioned earlier have long resisted American domination of the world. Your country always taught you this resistance stemmed from economic, political, and theological differences. Now you know better. Sure, we human beings rarely agree on everything, but I think we might have all agreed we would be better off as Earthmen, rather than slaves to bugs.
“Here, again, you forced words onto my tongue. You make the mistake of assuming your country is in… as you called it, cahoots? Cahoots with the aliens. Not so. You never had a choice. Not really. As an example, one of many, recall your Joseph Kennedy. He favored the Nazis, at least at first. Why? His oldest son and namesake, a man who assuredly would have been one of your presidents, died in a mysterious explosion during a training exercise during The Great Patriotic War. His next heir apparent, assassinated. And the one after that. Truth be told, by the time the baton rolled down to Teddy, he didn’t want it. He lacked the resolve of his older siblings, or perhaps he was smarter. All of these things are connected. That connection is a familial understanding of the truth, and an unstated intention to resist it. They were not sufficiently cautious, however. They spoke one too many times to one too many untrustworthy associates.
“No, your government was never in
‘cahoots’ with the bugs. Not directly. Sure, certain aspects of it, certain individuals and agencies of it, knew and complied, but the vast majority simply believe the same way you all believe and for the same reasons.
“In fact, we think the bugs don’t really care one way or another.” When we remain unconvinced, The Russian sucks his tongue for a moment, clearly struggling for an apt analogy. Then he tries, “Think of it this way. How do you feel about cockroaches? Hmm? You are not overly concerned for them, but you don’t want them in the house, if you can help it. You interact with them only to the extent that you must do so to avoid unpleasantness, and not because you fear them or you need them.”
“If we’re cockroaches, why pass advanced technology to us?” I ask not because I doubt, but simply because I want to know.
“Advanced technology,” scoffs The Russian. “While we don’t know which star the bugs call home, we do know a few things about the cosmos. For example, the nearest star to Earth is a binary system called Centauri. Those two stars are approximately four and a half light years away. Via standard rocket power, travel there would require several thousand years. Using theoretical propulsion systems drawn from our most realistic science fiction scenarios, the voyage would require decades, at the least. Centuries, more likely. How has our development of Teflon helped?”
When we shuffle our feet, yet remain for the most part unconvinced, he tries again, “Maybe a better insight can be gained by remembering our own Earthly history. What does a more advanced human culture do when it first encounters a less advanced culture that could make trouble and interfere with their intended exploitation of it? When your people first traded with American aborigines, for example, you exchanged harmless trinkets with them. Beads. Ribbons. Perhaps a steel knife blade or two. They obtained firearms only by occasionally using their flint weapons to ambush your hapless ancestors to murder and steal from them. You certainly never gave away muskets, repeating rifles, revolvers or Gatlin guns. If you had, this would still be the land of Apaches, Comanches and the Blackfoot. Yes?”
One by one, we nod, accepting his thesis, if only for the moment. He turns to continue on his way, leading us forward again, and we see the right-angle turn looms only meters away now.
Directed at his back, I query, “Is that what Russian troops are doing underneath Area-51? Ambushing the interlopers with stone-tipped arrows?”
The Russian tips his head ruefully to one side, “Oh, the conflict has gone much further than that, by now. After nearly a century of global guerilla warfare, we have learned a thing or two about our opponents. For many reasons, my previous comparison of human beings to cockroaches was wrong. It made the point at the time, but now I will use it to make another point. When it comes to their experience with humanity, they have learned much to their misfortune that we are not cockroaches. Perhaps more accurately, we might refer to ourselves as army ants. Numerous. Highly organized. Territorial. And, above all else, violent.
“Fortunately for us, we think the bugs are none of these things.” Once more, he stops in the middle of the hallway. That left turn lingers at his back.
I review, “So you’re saying they are few, disorganized, non-territorial, and non-violent?”
“Some of that. They are organized, at least. Indeed, they seem to devote their most threatening technology to communications and intelligence collection. Our greatest difficulty is the concealment of our intentions, plans and preparations, because our enemy has an uncanny ability to anticipate our every action.” He presses a lopsided grin to his face. “In most of your science fiction movie plots, human beings defeat the sinister aliens for their lack of emotion or their inflexible reliance on logic. The truth of this conflict is a bit different. Apparently, the one thing they can’t wrap their considerable intellect around… the one thing about our kind that they find completely… alien, if you will pardon my word play… is our individuality. Like obscene insects, they are all connected via some invisible capacity to network their thoughts. At all times, each is intimately aware of what the other is thinking and doing. This allows them to work and, more importantly to our cause, attack and defend themselves as a single creature.”
“A superorganism,” I whisper.
“What’s that you say?”
“It’s a biological term. It refers to any mass of individuals that act as a single organism. A superorganism. Ants. Bees. Termites. Slime molds. That kind of thing. We know of a few mammalian examples, too. Mole rats come to mind.”
“Yes,” agrees The Russian, “this is the idea. As you say, they act as a superorganism. It’s not much of a weakness. Really, it’s more of a strength. Nevertheless, like any strength, it offers certain flaws, which we can exploit. Occasionally, they make mistakes. This place… this Area-51… is one such mistake. Your American leaders attempted to erase all knowledge of it from the general populace, and they have been consistently surprised by the fact that the very attempt to do so often achieves the opposite effect. Simply by claiming it doesn’t exist, they pique the curiosity. We human beings naturally conclude it must exist, by virtue of the lie.”
He pauses. He smiles. His hands extend to make that familiar gesture of supplication.
The Girl’s left hand strays to the pommel of her big knife. Chief’s right hand flexes inside his pocket around one of his knuckledusters. While The Engineer fondles his collapsible baton, The Kid his icepicks, and The Guide his garrote.
Chief asks the question occupying all our minds, “What’s waiting for us around the bend?”
The Russian’s sly grin broadens. “Nothing to fear, I assure you, though you might have found it most… alarming… without my long introduction.”
“You didn’t answer the question,” I pontificate, shifting my flashlight from my right hand to my left.
“Russians. Chinese. Iranians. A few Pakis. That’s it.”
“That’s all?” demands an incredulous Engineer sarcastically.
Our host spreads his gesture of supplication a bit wider, “Had you stumbled onto them without knowing what you now know, what might you conclude?”
“I see.” Moving cautiously past The Russian to peer around the corner, I am disappointed to confront more hallway. Another door. “Down there?” I ask.
“Yes.” He turns to address me, as my companions press close. “We make preparations to trade our flint-tipped arrows for one of their repeating rifles. So to speak.”
“A spacecraft?”
“Yes.”
“The one back in the hangar?”
“Yes,” supplies the Russian, “because it is a blend of human and alien technology, a leftover from before Terminus. The Americans used it to monitor the rest of the world and, occasionally, drop kinetic weapons on it. From space. We call them earthquake bombs.”
“You’re going to bomb the aliens?”
He starts down the last fifty meters of corridor toward the final doorway, concluding, “No… not exactly. By now, we cannot hope to dislodge them from our planet this way.”
“You tried that already,” I guess, “and Terminus was the result.”
Chagrined and somewhat apologetic, The Russian hedges, “Before I answer, my American friends, let me tell you how the entire world suffered from that abomination. None of us escaped it. As you know.”
“But you caused it,” growls Chief, “you and all your pals!”
“Yes,” replies The Russian cautiously, “and no. We believe they had always planned to implement that assault, sooner or later. We simply tried to prevent it while we still had time.”
“Tried,” I supply, “and failed.”
“Obviously. This is how we know any attempt to drive them from Earth is doomed to failure before it starts.”
“What? They can do worse than Terminus?” mumbles The Kid unhappily.
“In fact, as far as we can determine, that any of us survived the event must have been, to them, a surprising failure. Another oversight chalked up to their clonal, collectivist mindse
t. Naturally, we fear another attempt, and we are certain none of us will survive next time, for all their hasty reformulation of the technique.”
By now, he stands before the final barricade. We can hear a low murmur and rumble of continual activity transpiring beyond the double doors. Gratefully, we learn these are human voices and human footsteps, rather than the clatter-clack of alien exoskeletons.
When he pushes open the door, we see a large chamber strewn with oddly familiar equipment and foreign uniformed personnel. Those nearest the doors pause their work to turn and stare, but only for a second. Then they are back to work, their hands moving furiously, though with great deliberation.
“This,” announces The Russian, “is humanity’s last gasp. We are nose-up in the quicksand and desperately reaching for a rope. This is that rope.”
“Are they…,” hedges Chief, “…are they bombs? Atomic bombs?”
Black, conical devices dot the room, each surrounded by a small team of technicians and equipment. From my experience with museums, I vaguely recognize those geometric shapes. For several long seconds, I struggle to order my thoughts, arrange my memories, and name them. “MRVs.” Pronounced ‘mervs’.
The Russian smiles, “Now you get it. In fact, these are hydrogen bombs. Three hundred of them. Each offering a ten-megaton yield.”
Leading us deeper into the bustling chamber, he pauses to allow our observation of one and the preparations underway to configure and arm it. I note it rests on a convenient cart, a sort of pallet lift. This one, they have apparently completely prepared, because they close and refasten a small data port inset into its base as they begin clearing their gear. One of the Iranian technicians positions herself behind the cart and then groans to push it forward past us, into the aisle.
Following her sedately, we ultimately arrive at a loading area, where they have begun bundling the warheads in groups of six, each grouping stacked atop another larger cart. By now, a small train of these wheeled sledges awaits final transport through a set of double-doors that penetrate into the hangar hidden behind the wall to our left.
Terminus: A Novella of the Apocalypse Page 13