Microsoft word trail o.., p.10
Hole in the Sky, page 10
“Rats off a sinking ship,” laughs the gum chewer.
That earns an unimpressed look from me.
“Our mission is to observe the descent of this object using a specialized sensor package. If it’s an impact, this becomes a humanitarian mission. But if it’s something else…then we’re it, gentlemen. We will be representing the United States government during its first contact with a nonhuman intelligence.”
“You’re saying first contact, like this is aliens—really for real aliens?” says Carpenter. “Where is that intel coming from?”
“The Man Downstairs,” I say, and I’m satisfied to see the gum chewer finally drop that shit-eating grin. “You’re JSOC, cleared for this mission. This is an MD mandate. Do you understand what that means?”
The total lack of expression on his face indicates he does indeed.
Out the window, I can see a few other Chinooks in the distance, noses tilted down as we all speed toward the epicenter. And while I clocked it the second I stumbled inside, I finally acknowledge the large black hardcase resting on a heavy wooden pallet, securely strapped down in the center of the cargo bay and plastered with warning signs.
“Let’s discuss,” I say.
Newsome catches my gaze and nods at the crate.
“This is our fail-safe, soldiers,” says Newsome. “It’s a big fucking bomb. Consider it an insurance plan.”
Studying the plastic hardcase, I run a few scenarios through my mind while we soar toward our destination.
Depending on the material it’s made of, a natural interstellar object this size would flare through the atmosphere—possibly breaking into thousands of pieces. The larger impacts would send immediate shock waves through the ground, causing earthquakes to echo around the planet’s interior and launching plumes of atomized earth miles up into the atmosphere. The expanding shock waves would wipe out anything on the ground within a ten-mile radius in the first few seconds, and the ash and dust would likely bring down any nearby aircraft.
But if it’s not a natural object—if it really is a UAP…then we have no idea what to expect. There could be a need to obliterate this area and everything in it with this device—a large-yield, nonnuclear explosive that is half antipersonnel bomb and half “bunker buster” munition. Similar in principle to the Vietnam-era “Daisy Cutter” explosives used to sterilize large areas of heavily wooded rainforest—this thing channels its energy down and out, leaving behind a gaping crater with nothing alive inside it.
A quick way to eradicate the landing zone of a hostile entity.
For now, we seem to be maintaining a wide radius around the estimated epicenter. It appears to be an unremarkable series of lumpy hills, located just on the southern side of the Arkansas River. The snakelike curves of the brownish river are already winking up at us as we enter a circular holding pattern.
Somewhere in our solar system, an object is coming down from heliopause. Although the NASA folks urged us to consider this a space rock and to plan for that eventuality, I’m having a hard time imagining how an asteroid could buzz our farthermost spacecraft, send a bunch of coded messages to our scientists, and then accelerate to an insane speed to intercept Earth’s orbit and hit this specific spot—the same spot where instances of unexplained sightings have been skyrocketing for weeks.
Too many coincidences, too fast.
“Any update on the estimated time of impact?” I ask Newsome.
“Not yet,” he says. “All I know is if it lands, we land. If it hits, we run.”
“And which mission do you prefer?” I ask.
The captain just cocks a grin at me and shrugs.
Part III
Impact
Star map and Earth map, they were really the same. Because what’s on the Earth is in the stars, and what’s in the stars is on the Earth.
—Stanley Looking Horse (1985)
17
Evacuate
THE MAN DOWNSTAIRS // Undisclosed Location
Impact, T-Minus 1 Hour
I’ve never seen the Pattern act like this. Not in the decade-plus I’ve spent logging my days alone in this basement headquarters. I mean, frankly, being stuck down here has always been a pretty bummer outcome.
But I do it. I’ve always done it. I never even complained.
Only a few days of vacation a year. They think I don’t notice the guys in suits and earpieces watching me lay my towel out on the beach. But I do notice it. The same as I notice the civilians staring at the ridiculous paleness of my skin, at how I blink in the sunlight like I’ve never seen it before.
And to think I used to surf.
Now I look like a guy who never comes out of the basement because I am a guy who never comes out of the basement.
But I never felt trapped.
Never once.
The Pattern has never been my friend…not exactly. More like a little brother—so little that his words come out jumbled in his enthusiasm, half of what he says not making any sense, stuttering and hopping with more excitement than rationality.
It would almost be cute if it weren’t constantly bending the laws of physics.
Now it feels different, like there’s something crawling under my skin. This new voice in the Pattern. Getting stronger.
There are no more silly fixations on the density of ice crust on some random planetoid. Or the traffic patterns of motorbikes in Algiers. Coronal mass ejections are the least of my worries now.
The randomness—the childlike innocence of the Pattern—has evaporated. It’s been replaced by something more sentient. More aware.
I just think of it as the Entity now.
And here’s what I believe: this thing out there is looking for minds like ours. The web of human consciousness forms some kind of…ecosystem for it. That’s why I can hear echoes of its thoughts in the Pattern. Our awareness of the world is creating a habitable zone for this creature.
The Entity lives and breathes our thoughts.
I haven’t told the suits about my theory—although I know they read my journal. Even if I begged, they’d never let me walk out of here during a crisis. Much less run. No, we’ll be down here together until the end.
But for the first time in my career, I feel trapped.
I feel scared.
…a still lake of black vitriol.
Warmth seeps into stone. The turtle returns. Our seven sisters, dancing, laughing. Descendants who have forgotten their ancestors. A wild and torn land. A chaos of dreaming.
Minds beckon. The cold catalyst of my awakening. A void crossed.
This keystone—an ancient agreement.
Threads of thought fall like lost strands of silk. I smell my own lifeblood. The static buzz of nourishment grows in the deep darkness, in the skies above, crawling the mounds…
INTELLIGENCE MANDATE—FULL CIVILIAN EVACUATION IN ONE-HUNDRED-MILE RADIUS OF PREDICTED IMPACT ZONE. DISPATCH AERIAL OBSERVATION WITH MULTIPLE BACKUPS. DEPLOY GROUND ASSAULT FORCES TO MONITOR FIRST CONTACT. NO ASSUMPTION OF FRIENDLY CONTACT. NO ASSUMPTIONS AT ALL.
—MD
18
All My Relatives
JIM HARDGRAY // Spiro, Oklahoma
Impact, T-Minus Zero
When your ancestors speak, it’s smart to listen. Problem is that you can’t always understand what they’re trying to say. I’m staring at my own knuckles rising like mountain ridges over the steering wheel, trying to ignore what’s happening in the sky and cursing myself for not listening better. Swinging the wheel, I skid the work truck I stole over the dusty metal cow-catcher at the mouth of our trailer park and realize I wasn’t the only one not listening.
There’s a few of us dumbasses still here.
A handful of my neighbors are standing out in their yards, heads back and eyes searching the sky. Even old Miss Houston up the street is slumped over in her wheelchair out front, mouth carped open. The ones who didn’t run are gathered together, staring up in silent awe with their hair blowing and shivering in the wind. In the distance, I hear the violence of military helicopter blades beating down from behind cloud cover.
I shake my head and look to Tawn.
“People are crazy,” she says.
Most of these people have tornado shelters in their backyards, sitting empty while they stare up like deer caught in headlights.
The sky is in the kind of state that makes my shoulders tense and my breath short. Black clouds roll, throwing shadows across each other, the whole churning mess painted in rays of yellow light from the sun still shining up above it all. A static charge clings to the atmosphere—lightning bolts itching to come down. I slam on the brakes in my driveway and can’t even hear the tires grind over the howling wind.
It’s all come up on us so fast.
What’s over my head right now is crazier than any thunderstorm I ever saw tumbling across the plains. This is something out of the Creator’s very own primordial playbook. It’s something that was maybe meant to happen in the world before men existed, or maybe after we’re all gone.
I throw the truck into park and open my door.
Tawny and I step into the driveway under flitting shadows. The keening of the wind seems to be dropping below our hearing and then going up past it—into the range reserved for dogs, and angels.
I’m running for the porch when I feel a tug on my sleeve.
“Dad? Dad!” shouts Tawny, pointing at the sky. “Are they tornadoes?”
Stripes like dark rivers are twisting across the clouds high above, left and right, swaying, casting impossibly big shadows across the landscape.
“I don’t know,” I say, and it comes out a groan. She puts her mouth next to my ear. Digs fingers into my neck as she shouts with panic in her voice.
“They look like legs, Dad. Like long, long legs. Like something is walking!”
I try to look again. But my mind doesn’t want to see it. Instead, I focus on the task at hand: the tornado cellar, supplies.
Blinking hard, I pull Tawny’s face down to mine. Stare into her eyes until they’re focused on me.
“Don’t look at it,” I say. “We have to go.”
I hold the door open for Tawny. She ducks under my arm and into the trailer, and I catch a glimpse of my daughter’s long dark hair. For a split second, I see her as she once was—a grinning brown bundle of muscle, wrapped in pink footie pajamas. My breath sighs and I feel my knees trying to sag out from under me.
“Be quick. Grab what you need,” I say. “Meet me out back.”
The single-wide trailer is shivering on its haunches, the overgrown lawn tickling the bottom siding like waves tasting the prow of a ship. Inside, drapes are fluttering as the wind wheezes in and out through every loose gap.
It won’t be long before the whole thing comes apart.
Flinging open the refrigerator, I fill a paper grocery bag with food and then hunt around until I find an old plastic milk jug to fill with water.
“I got the kitchen,” I call. “You grab a change of clothes—”
I’m interrupted by a gust of wind and a loud slam.
Looking up, we both see the door at the end of the hallway at the same time. The wind has blown it wide open. Before I can snap my eyes shut, I see everything. Inside, there is a small unmade bed. There is a messy pile of clothes. There are other things I can’t bear to comprehend. Small, colorful things. Covered in dust.
Tawny turns to me in shock, tears already welling in her eyes.
“His room?” she asks.
I gather the paper bag to my chest and head for the back door.
“You kept Sammy’s room!?” she shouts at my back.
Truth is, I didn’t have the strength to open that door. The toys and games and clothes that live in that bedroom are gone forever, but they still haven’t left. I always told myself I was getting ready to go back and deal with it. Soon enough, when I felt stronger. Someday, but not today.
Never today.
On the back porch, I turn to face Tawny, braids whipping my face numb in the howling wind.
“We have got to go!” I shout. “Now.”
Tawny is staring at me in a way I don’t like, her jaw clenched.
“Now!” I repeat.
Reluctantly, she follows me out back.
In the yard, we both stop one last time. Somehow, I know that whatever is going to happen is going to happen now. Whatever is coming is coming now. My brain can hardly make sense of the sight up there in the sky.
It is an…illumination.
A brilliant pinprick of white light, guttering like a road flare. Descending slow through swirling clouds. It feels almost holy. Pure.
And it’s falling down to us so very slow.
I turn to see my daughter’s tear-streaked face, profile brightly outlined in the glare, the shadows of my blowing hair playing over her cheeks. At her hip, there is an absence where a little boy once stood.
In that strange light from above, I can see the soft curve of her jawline as though she were still a baby in my arms; in her hard black eyes, I can see her as a strong woman in her prime; and in the sharp crow’s peak on her forehead, I can somehow see my daughter as an elder, steeped in wisdom.
When I blink my eyes to clear them, I realize she is crying hard.
It’s the pure, panicked weeping of a little girl. I throw my free arm around her and lift her up onto my hip. She is way too big for this, but I am running with everything I’ve got. My daughter’s face is warm on my neck.
“I’m sorry,” she’s saying.
I put my lips to her ear and speak over the wind.
“It’s okay,” I say, pulling her toward the backyard. “We’re gonna be okay.”
We reach a rectangle of concrete breaching up from the dirt, sprouting a thick metal snorkel hooked in a U shape. A metal door lies over it, heavy and gleaming, like the lid of a sarcophagus. A piece of wire cable runs to a cinder-block counterweight hanging beside it, swinging in the wind.
With a groan, I set Tawny down and wrench the door open. I lay the bag of groceries into the cool dark mouth of the cellar. Turn to Tawny.
Her eyes are aimed at the sky again, unfocused, leaking tears.
“We’re gonna die,” she says out loud, although I only read it on her lips.
Shadows are circling around us as that brilliant light lowers from the sky. The world is going black-and-white. Every leaf and twig and gouge in the concrete is painted in vivid, surreal detail. The echoes of the light are etched on my retinas.
“Don’t look at that,” I urge, pulling her down inside with me. “Come where it’s safe.”
The door nearly takes off my fingers when I manage to slam it shut against the raging storm. My daughter and I huddle in the sudden darkness and quiet of the tornado shelter, eyes adjusting. Above me, that bright dot of light is illuminating the edges of the cellar door. It looks to me like somebody is welding us in from the outside.
Tawny shoves a small, hand-cranked emergency radio against my chest. I’m out here a couple times a season, and my hands find the knobs from memory. The radio spits fuzz and static as I roll the dial, until a faint voice emerges.
“…large unknown object spotted near Spiro. Folks advised to stay indoors until storm ends. Reports that National Guard has been dispatched to oversee evacuations. Repeating. The predicted trajectory indicates the object will impact a populated area of eastern Oklahoma. More information will be forthcoming as we hear more. In the meantime, stay indoors…”
The cellar door is quivering and rattling in the chaos. On the other side, the pure white light fades to a bloody ruby color. It seems to be seeping in around the edges. Clumps of dirt spatter over the metal door like rainfall, with an occasional hunk of larger debris clanging off my trailer.
Tawny’s voice is loud and raw in the dim light.
“Why?” she says. “Why is his room still there?”
“Because I never opened the door,” I say.
“It’s been two years.”
“I know.”
Two years of that closed door staring at me from the end of the hall.
Rust has feathered the edges of the cellar door over my head. Each time the wind slams it, a waterfall of rust particles cascades down. The metal is crumbling and the gaps are widening. The pulsating, bloody light from outside soothes my tired eyes.
What’s out there? What’s making that light?
Time seems to slip forward—just a few minutes, or maybe an hour. Then I realize dogs are barking again. I can hear faint voices.
“Listen,” I say. “I think it’s over.”
“You lied to me,” whispers Tawny.
“It missed us,” I say. “It must have missed us.”
Tawny squeezes past me, up a few damp steps to the cellar door. She presses her back against the metal. Her face is swimming in violet light as she speaks.
“You lied to me,” she says again, bracing herself against the door.
“No, honey,” I say. “No, I wouldn’t.”
Tawny pushes up against the metal door, bright light flooding in.
“You said you weren’t broken.”
Hinges creak and the pulley squeals as the cinder block lowers, helping counterbalance the weight of this slab of metal. As the door falls all the way open, the wire snaps and the cinder block crashes to the ground, startling us both.
We climb the crumbling steps and look out.
Rain clouds tumble over the plains out past the fence line. The hills out there are shining and slick under lightning-kissed rain. And something new has arrived.
