Microsoft word trail o.., p.4
Hole in the Sky, page 4
I don’t have time to question how it can be real.
We duck together as a pair of horns rear back and thrust through the space where we cower. The blast of a thousand small bodies blows over our heads. I can feel the heat of their little breasts, the stinging thwap of tiny wings over my ears. Their chirping is a roar. Their feathers are sandpaper.
A baptism by birds.
And then it’s over. I’m on my knees, wet grass soaking through my jeans. One arm around my daughter’s bony shoulders.
“Holy shit,” says Tawny, shrugging me off. Laughing.
The birds have gone, disappearing up into the sky in all directions.
I shake my head and force myself to let go of my daughter. A real strange feeling is settling in around my eyes. It’s hard to express. There is something in the water out here. Something in the sky. Past the sky.
“What the heck were they thinking?” asks Tawny. “That was crazy.”
“Uktena, Tawny,” I say. “A messenger.”
“Okay, Jim. Right. And what’d the little birdies just tell us?”
Tawny is flicking dots of bird crap off her sleeves. Holding out long strands of her black hair and checking to make sure they’re clean. An uncharacteristic smile is lodged in the corner of her mouth.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t remember what it’s supposed to mean. Just…things are changing.”
“Well, no shit,” she says.
I flash my best stern-dad look about the cussing. She rolls her eyes.
“I mean, more than that, Tawn. Things are changing. Can’t you almost taste it? The animals are acting strange. I don’t know.”
“Maybe it’s the fracking,” says Tawny.
“Maybe so.”
I turn to my daughter, and I feel a sudden urgency I can’t explain. A throbbing siren in my mind. Telling me one thing.
“Tawny,” I say. “Let’s get the hell down off this mound. Right now.”
6
Always On
MIKAYLA JOHNSON // NASA Johnson Space Center
Detection, +2 Days
I should have known Nix was learning the whole time. Of course, the little machine that sits on my face would never think to stop, would it? Always watching and listening, even when I didn’t think it was.
Especially then.
I thought I was so smart to notice the plasma density perturbations in our Voyager data. But come to find out I didn’t know shit. And now that I have actually figured out some shit, I almost wished I hadn’t.
It was Nix who was paying attention. Friggin’ Nix—a pair of bulky augmented reality glasses that I bought and modified myself.
Most of the time I keep Nix pushed up on my forehead. My hair is fluffy as it wants to be, especially when I have it in buns. I like how the frames sit high up so the solid plastic blocks my peripheral vision. It lets me concentrate on coding. Like being in my own little world while I’m typing rapid-fire.
I don’t like a lot of sensory stimuli.
So, it helps to keep my head down. Like, literally. I’ve memorized the texture of every floor surface in the building. Entryway. Fake ceramic tile. Glossy, smooth. Loud. Upper hallways are the same. Luckily, the cubicle farms have a thin, mealy brown carpet. Nice and quiet. And I love, love, love how the cold air blasts over the white tiles in high-speed computing. Where I live, way over in the astrophysics lab we call the Outpost, there’s just a quiet, calming gray quartzite.
There aren’t a lot of us in this lab. And this far out on the edge of campus, the only sounds are the breathing of the building’s ventilation systems. Or maybe somebody mowing outside triple-paned windows.
It’s a big reason why I took this job and stuck with it.
But yeah, the Nix glasses. NASA security let me use it only because they had to—I lied and told them it’s a disability aid, like crutches or a retinal implant. It’s just that instead of fixing a physical deficit, the glasses are supposed to help me with social interactions.
I mean, I could train myself to pay more attention to humans, but I’m just too lazy. Everybody has priorities, I guess.
I depend on Nix to quickly identify other people by their faces, mainly. It also helps me sort out the emotional meaning behind all those rows of off-white calcium and lumps of lipstick-stained flesh. Nix will find a pair of eyes and gauge the direction of the pupils. Or calculate the angles between facial muscles as they stretch and collapse in conversation.
Neat stuff.
Over time, Nix got pretty specialized on the people around me. My coworkers. My roommates. The people in my apartment building. Shit, even people who deliver takeout. I don’t usually keep the audio on, so it can show me only little text annotations about the people around me—whether they’re happy, concerned, confused…helping make sense of all the boring social stuff.
But here in the glow of my monitors, that sneaky old Nix has been watching and listening—running pattern recognition on every aspect of my little work world. NASA would’ve never allowed it if they knew the machine wasn’t just learning faces.
I guess I have made a few custom modifications.
For example, I trained Nix to rate attractiveness, so it could give a heads-up if a person was good-looking. I taught it to memorize all the boring-ass facts that people say about themselves. And I taught it my own customized categories of facial expressions, like: desperately-uncomfortable; I-don’t-believe-you-but-I-think-you’re-funny; and just-saw-an-adorable-cat-on-the-Internet.
Even though it was working on my social life, Nix wasn’t always helpful. Last week I ran into my coworkers and Nix threw a bunch of annotated information across my vision when they asked me to join them for lunch.
“I would,” I said, reading the notes. “But Dave clearly needs-to-take-a-dump.”
Four or five new annotations popped up—uncomfortable. Then Dave’s chair is screeching back and he’s duck-walking across the cafeteria. Jesus, I didn’t know anybody’s cheeks could get that red.
Nix was learning all the time—including while I had it pushed up onto my forehead, or while it was lying forgotten on its desk charger. Watching me while I was hunched over the control console going through screen after screen of microlensing data. It was even paying attention while I analyzed those Voyager plasma densities.
It found the patterns.
When I came back from lunch today and slid Nix down over my eyes, it showed me more than just how a large object passed through heliopause. It had stitched the plasma densities together into a story of something else. Somehow, words and instructions were hidden in the numbers. A pattern of information collected from fifteen billion miles away, but sitting there as sure as if you had said it to my face.
See, the movement of the object shows up in the density information.
Whatever was out there…it carefully modified its location, moving in a specific pattern that would alter our plasma density records in a specific way—sending an intentional message, hidden in the data.
It looked like backdoor code to me, so I let Nix try to compile it.
Pattern recognized. Propose pattern match.
On the Nix augmented reality glasses, in the corner of my eye, where it normally told me if somebody was smiling-politely-but-ready-to-leave…different words popped up, with a cursor blinking after them:
“HELLO, MIKAYLA.”
My blood pressure went out like the tide, and I plopped into my office chair. Nobody else was back from lunch yet, so I allowed myself a loud curse. Then I gripped my Nix glasses in both hands and leaned over the desk, closing my face off from the world, on the verge of hyperventilating. I could smell my own cherry lip gloss while I spoke into the desktop.
“Nix? Is that you?” I asked. “Holy shit. Holy, holy fucking shit.”
There was a pause, and then another word appeared in the corner of my eye.
“VOLUME.”
With shaking hands, I reached up and slid a finger over the glasses frame just in front of my right ear. The volume control slid up, and I pressed my forehead back down against the cool table. Squeezing my eyes shut, I waited until I heard the smooth, synthetic voice whispering in my ear.
“They’re coming for you.”
7
Economy Class
GAVIN CLARK // Butte, Montana
Detection, +3 Days
The phenomena are accelerating. No doubt about it. The data don’t lie.
I’m balancing a government-issued laptop on the flimsy tray table in front of me while I peck out the report for my last visit—already on my way to the next. There used to be weeks back at the home office between field visits. Then there were days. This time, I’m not even flying back to D.C. at all.
Another day, another plane ride. Another sore back.
Uncle Sam claims to be on a tight budget. In reality, my bosses are terrified of looking wasteful when the inevitable congressional oversight committee scrutinizes how much we’ve spent. We’re the only department officially tasked by the Pentagon to investigate and categorize UAPs. It’s only a matter of time before the public asks why they’re paying for some guy to fly around the world chasing after little green men.
That means economy class for me, and no upgrades.
This morning I’m crammed into a window seat, my hair still smelling like cheap hotel shampoo, headed to the next site. Moving from the Atlantic coast toward the center of the country—Montana, this time.
More specifically, I’m making a last-minute rendezvous with a commercial protective services freight truck designed to carry obfuscated Department of Defense matériel across the country. Usually, that means classified armaments, ammunitions, or vehicles. This time, it means something else entirely.
Northern Command tracked an anomalous impact near the Canadian border, and scrambled someone to pick it up before the Canadians could get involved. The closest available national guardsman was called up from the 639 Quartermaster Supply Company in Kalispell, Montana, and assigned to drive the rented semitruck and its cargo five hundred miles across the state. National Guard normally reports to the governor, but we federalized this mission to maintain operational security.
Now I’m on my way to take a peek at the wreckage.
I honestly have no idea what’s under the black-tarped package that’s been cruising south for the past couple of days. Whatever the thing is—the government wants another pair of eyes on it. And the Pentagon would rather those eyes belong to one of their own, rather than some weekend warrior who’s probably already told his wife and kids about it.
No wife. No kids. That’s how you get a job like this.
In the last several days, reports have been piling up. Civilian eyewitnesses have been spotting UAPs all across the country. But in particular over the central landmass of North America. More importantly, military contacts have been exponentially increasing.
Not only have there been sightings, but there have been reported interactions. You combine that with the last mandate from the Man Downstairs, and it’s a busy day to be the guy in charge of investigating emerging weapons. I’m trying to focus on the report at hand and not on the growing implication.
The MD is never wrong—and he told us to prepare for first contact.
But the gist I’m picking up from my deputy director is that first contact could mean a lot of things. And whatever it turns out to be—we’ll need as much up-front reconnaissance as possible. There are a lot of ways to respond to this scenario, and most of them involve guns.
The U.S. military is an organization designed to strategically project force to accomplish diplomatic goals. In other words, they think of force as just another tool in the tool belt to be applied in any negotiation—and the U.S. military doesn’t like to make concessions.
As we prepare to land, I put away my laptop and rest the side of my forehead against the cold plastic curve of the plane’s fuselage. I’m staring at clouds through a half-lidded window shutter while the thrumming of the plane’s engines lulls me to sleep.
I’m half dreaming of what Lieutenant Marconi described. From an emerging weapons perspective, it was a greatly advanced version of the same unmanned platforms he’d been studying for months. Something that knew intuitively how to join his formation, had the same or better weapons and flight capabilities. If it was on our side, it would be like a dream come true.
And don’t forget that playful attitude.
The finesse required to apply a pattern of force upward from below the ocean surface, through the canopy of a moving aircraft, through a flight suit, and to nudge our man just hard enough to bruise a pattern into his skin?
It’s possible but not possible. Not with what we have.
My thoughts run through the permutations of potential origins. It could be an independent genius, a commercial enterprise, a foreign state, or—I might as well say it—something else…
I open my eyes to try and ignore the thought. And as they focus, it comes into view outside. A golden ball of metal, dipping up out of the clouds just behind the wing. It’s tumbling slow, moving at the exact speed as our plane. It emerges from cloud cover, the sunlight glinting off wrinkles in the metal as it slowly turns.
Then it’s gone.
Startled, I bang my forehead on the plastic. I blink my eyes and shake my head, ignoring the stares from the old lady sitting next to me. The runway is already rising up to meet us, tires shrieking on tarmac.
Glancing around the plane, I don’t see anybody else reacting.
It’s got to be in my head. That’s the highest-probability explanation. But as the passengers line up to disembark, I hear a little girl telling a story to her bemused mom. It’s about a golden ball that can fly in the air.
Mom shoots me a look. Kids, right?
Shouldering my bag, I shove my way down the stair ramp and take a hard left straight across the tarmac. A sign reads Bert Mooney International Airport, and based on a quick look around I’m guessing the “international” part of the title is just for show. My destination is a private hangar about a hundred yards away.
I don’t even have to flash any credentials. The baggage handlers ignore me as I walk along the outside of the single terminal and toward a cluster of rusty hangars. The private airstrip alongside the official airport isn’t much more than a stripe of weedy pavement. A few old Cessnas are chained up outside a small administrative building. Air traffic control is manned by whoever happens to be hanging around the lounge inside.
I don’t bother knocking.
It smells like three-day-old coffee and aftershave inside the sun-beaten lounge area. As I enter, a group of old men stop their conversation and turn to nod at me. They seem friendly enough. Three overweight old guys in cowboy hats, clutching paper coffee cups with gouty fingers and sizing me up.
An old man with a mustache dipped in nicotine speaks first.
“Nice suit,” he says. “You’ll be looking for Echo hangar. The green one with the red door…and the soldier outside it.”
I look out a dusty window with a sill coated in dead flies. The hangar is right there, but I decide to stay back a second. It’s impossible to guess the level of gossip that three old men can get up to over coffee on a morning like this, but I’m going to try.
“Thanks very much,” I say. “Your country appreciates it.”
“Oh, it’s no problem sharing some space,” says mustache. “Anything I can do for Uncle Sam. But I was wondering?”
I cock my head, and his friend with a cane cuts in.
“You mind sharing a little bit about what’s out there?” asks the cane. “We got a little bet going that them Chinese must have left a chunka something behind. But Russ here, why, he’s got other, crazier ideas.”
Russ looks up at me expectantly, clearly a man with access to the Internet.
The Cessna 172 outside must belong to mustache, shoved unceremoniously out of his hangar along with a couple of beat-up old rolling toolboxes and anything else he had stored inside.
I don’t imagine the guardsman would have taken no for an answer.
With a reassuring grin for the old fellas, I decide to tell them the truth.
“Won’t know until I see,” I say. “You guys have a good morning.”
As it turns out, the statement is even more true than I anticipated.
I’m halfway across the parking lot to the hangar when my contact strides up to greet me. He is a national guardsman in full uniform, probably in his mid-fifties. His face is haggard, wet hazel eyes staring at me over cheeks lined with fatigue. I keep crunching over the concrete in flimsy dress shoes as I take his hand for a firm shake.
“Look, uh, sir,” he says. “It’s the damnedest thing. You’re not gonna believe me.”
I walk past him to the hangar door.
“You’d be surprised,” I say.
The guardsman rushes to catch up.
“No, you don’t understand,” he says, opening the door for me.
The metal door slaps open against the wall, and I enter the vast interior of a dimly lit airplane hangar. I smell a comforting mix of spray insulation, engine grease, and airplane fuel. The commercial freight truck is parked in the middle of the room with its trailer still attached. On the back of the trailer, I can see a half dozen heavy-duty ratchets lying limp across a deflated piece of tarp.
“It’s not here anymore,” says the guardsman.
I turn to look at him, the irritation clear on my face. He’s got his cap in his hand, speaking fast. He won’t look me in the eyes.
“Nobody took it. Nobody came in or out. Nobody saw a damned thing. It must have happened half an hour ago. It had to have. That’s the only time I took my eyes off it,” he says. “While I was taking a quick nap right here in this room.”
