Disclosing the Secret

by Vincent Amato

  Pouring through the avalanche of images and concepts that flowed through his thoughts, Jake’s mind felt like it was weightlifting. He was still reeling from what the visitor had laid out before him.

  Jake felt a physical yearning to change the subject. The severity of what had been shared had been taken to heart; he had literally felt and breathed the information engulfing him.

  I think I prefer talking, Jake told himself.

  A moment passed. Slowly, Jake looked up at the creature, fighting to build his confidence. “Can I see your ship?”

  CHAPTER 73

  “Jake is a very clever boy.”

  Dr. Charles Reilly was seated in Mark’s living room examining the business card with his name handwritten on the front and the single word Shift written on the back. Across the room Natasha and Mark watched on with confused expressions.

  The scientist sensed the next question coming. “This is a code.”

  “Code?” Natasha’s voice cracked, and she now looked increasingly puzzled.

  “If you had been detained and searched by the government,” Reilly went on, “not even our cryptographic algorithms would have broken this code, as they’re programmed to search out patterns, not colors.”

  Natasha and Mark exchanged a glance, still unsure of what the scientist was talking about.

  “Shift is a code?” Mark asked.

  “No, not Shift on its own.” Reilly held up the card. “Shift written in red.”

  There was a long silence, and the scientist sensed that Mark and Natasha were lost.

  “When light is omitted from a star in motion, its wavelength is stretched out. The faster the motion, the longer the wavelength. And as its wavelength changes, so too does its color.”

  Mark nodded blankly.

  “As its wavelength increases, it’s said to become ‘redder,’ or shifted to the red end of the visible spectrum.”

  “Redshift?” Natasha offered.

  “It was the redshift in the light observed by Edwin Hubble that led to his discovery that all galaxies appeared to be moving away from each other. If all galaxies were moving away from each other, then once upon a time all galaxies must have originated from a single point in space.”

  “The Big Bang?” Mark asked.

  “Precisely,” Reilly confirmed. “It was redshift that proved there was indeed a moment of creation.”

  “But it doesn’t necessarily prove there was a creator,” Mark countered.

  “No, it doesn’t.” Charles gave a patient smile. “But isn’t it interesting that the three of us are now all together speaking of God.”

  Natasha’s eyes flicked up to Mark’s, then to Dr. Reilly. “We stopped at a church when we were on the run. He didn’t tell me why.”

  Dr. Reilly’s smile grew wider. “Now what would be the odds of the three of us having a conversation that would lead to the creation event soon after you recently visited a church?”

  “He left something there!” Mark blurted out. “He knew that the two of you would work it out, and wanted you both to find it because he knew something was going to happen to him!”

  The words wrenched at Natasha’s stomach. She glanced away, unable to face the two men.

  The scientist’s expression grew to one of concern. “Indeed. But I don’t think it would be safe.”

  Without a word, Natasha left the room.

  Mark turned toward Charles with a look of despair, realizing he hadn’t chosen his words wisely.

  Reilly’s words grew sombre. “I think we both know what is waiting at the church. But she needs to find somewhere safe to lie low until we decide what to do with it. Perhaps out of town with a friend.”

  *

  Mark found Natasha DeMorea sitting on a bench in the backyard. Her tear-soaked eyes shone with loss and anguish.

  He felt a fresh wave of remorse. “I’m sorry.”

  She looked at him as if he had slapped her in the face.

  Mark cleared his throat, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. “Look, he’s not like the rest of us. He has the mind of a mathematician, the curiosity of a scientist and the soul of an artist.”

  Natasha’s eyes were now streaming; she looked away and covered her mouth, as if to muffle a silent cry.

  Hesitantly, he sat beside her. “I’ve known Jake a long time. When we were in high school, we had this gym teacher who used to make the kids line up on either side of the basketball court. We played this game where he placed a big heavy medicine ball in the center of the basketball court, then called out the name of one kid from either side of the court. The ball weighed a tonne – it was a test of strength. The first kid to drag the heavy medicine ball to their side of the court won.”

  Natasha remained silent, looking away.

  “Then one day,” Mark continued, “the teacher decided to be a smartass. She called out every person from each team. It was chaos; there were 40 teenage boys wrestling each other, trying to drag this huge heavy ball to their side of the court. I was on Jake’s team, and we were about to lose. The other team had the strongest kid in our year. He managed to pick up the heavy ball and carry it to his side; he was inches away from winning. Then I couldn’t believe my eyes: Jake rammed him head on, picked him and the ball up over his shoulders, and used him to plough through all the other kids to our side of the court. We won.”

  Natasha was drying her eyes. He gently laid a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  Mark’s voice was determined. “My point is, ever since that day in gym class I’ve witnessed him do things that defy human ability…again and again. Wherever he is, he’ll find some way to make it back. Of that I’m certain.”

  CHAPTER 74

  Jake Marcel swallowed his remaining fear as he followed the extraterrestrial entity through the curved corridor. He observed that the creature was barely five feet tall, and yet the corridor was tall enough to give generous headroom to the largest of human basketball players. There was still no discernible source of light despite the glow that bathed the silver walls and ceiling of the corridor.

  He tried hard not to stare at the entity now walking beside him. The creature’s movement as it walked were efficient and elegant; it moved with an incorporeal weightlessness.

  Jake could barely contain the burning question he had come to ask: “The crashed spacecraft my grandfather found?”

  “A CONVEYANCE COURIERING SYNTHENTIC BIOLOGICAL ENTITIES NOT OF OUR RACE,” was the response.

  Images again flooded Jake’s mind. In the years 1946 to 1953 there were five cases where extraterrestrial ships crashed on the surface of the earth. In the crash colloquially dubbed the ‘Roswell Incident’ there was not one alien ship involved but two, which collided and crashed in different parts of the land in the west of North America.

  Earth’s magnetic field is not stable; it’s subject to cyclical variations with unpredictable eddy currents and vortexes even under favorable conditions. Whenever a conveyance powered by magnetic drives was engulfed in a strong field fluctuation, then the repelling field from the ship could no longer align itself correctly and the craft glided uncontrollably on its path.

  In the 1947 case, one of the ships was caught in an electrical atmospheric fluctuation causing it to collide with another ship. The cause for the magnetic fluctuation was an electrical disturbance brought about by a weather event.

  “If you’ve been studying us…can you help us?” Jake ventured to ask, his true meaning wrapped in the emotion that accompanied the words.

  “WE HAVE CONVEYED WARNINGS ABOUT UNKIND INTELLIGENCES.”

  Jake’s mind intently swirled with images of the 2002 Hampshire crop circle, accompanied by an image of an alien being not too dissimilar from the creature now leading him along the curved corridor.

  So it was a warning, Jake realized.

  The ET species depicted in the crop circle, the species that entered into a treaty with the US Government, is in peril.

  An ancient species at a cellular level, they suffer from a
genetic condition whereby the information stored in the nucleolus of their cells can no longer be readily accessed; they have lost their natural ability to replicate and regenerate.

  To combat this condition they had advanced their medical technology to be able to grow their own artificial tissue and replace their defective organs with synthesized substitutes.

  Over eons they had become artificial shadows of their former selves. Genetically, breaks in their DNA were common among their species – genes from various compatible species in addition to artificial genes were used to attempt to fill the gaps in their DNA strings.

  So much of themselves has been replaced that they are no longer naturally born organisms. Instead, they are organic machines grown from synthesized materials. Knowledge and intellect is transferred to their synthetically grown brains; however, they have lost the ability to feel emotions.

  As a result they are fully functional organic cybernetic organisms, but are incapable of feelings and emotions as humans do. They no longer feel alive as humans do.

  The reason they are interested in human genetics is that Homo sapiens DNA is a compatible match to their own. They are harvesting intact DNA strings from humans and compatible earth animals to splice with their own in an effort to repair their broken strings. They are attempting to undo the species’ wide genetic degradation caused by many millennia of cloning.

  The abductions, Jake thought with a gasp.

  The ET species interested in the genome of Homo sapiens are the same beings that met with Eisenhower in 1954 and signed a treaty with the US Government that would give them access to non-terrestrial technology. The agreement was for the visitors to move in the skies unhindered and to have access to a small portion of the human herd for their genetic study and needs, with the returned humans to have no living memory of the event.

  In return the US Government would have access to off-world technology for study and adaption to terrestrial applications. The Eisenhower administration didn’t know it at the time but the visitors ignored the terms of the agreement, hence the warning about ‘unkind intelligences’ depicted in the crop circle.

  The extraterrestrial species knew Homo sapiens to be simple-minded creatures; they gave false information about the workings of their advanced technology and thus received more out of the exchange than the humans did. They were well aware that humans would lack the scientific understanding of the technology which they were given.

  Jake shuddered, recalling Dr. Reilly’s account of the 1954 Eisenhower meeting.

  They never told us the complete truth.

  Jake kept pace with the being by his side as he was led around the curved corridor. Similar to the room Jake had woken up in, the walls were silver and featureless without any corners, giving the impression of being moulded from a single piece of metal.

  Jake had a thousand questions he wanted to ask. “But what about our wars, can you help…?”

  Before Jake could finish, his mind was again rocked by entering thoughts. “WE ARE NOT GOING TO STEP IN TO BREAK UP YOUR QUARRELS LIKE A PARENT WITH THEIR CHILDREN.”

  The subtext was profound. Humans need to learn from their own mistakes and care for their planet. Only until they can demonstrate that they can care for their environment and each other will they be invited to join the cosmic community.

  From the visitors’ point of view, it was the misleading explanations that some religions espoused about the meaning of mankind’s life that had been a disruptive influence, leading to bloodshed and wars on earth for thousands of years. There has been no greater loss of life on earth than that caused by persecution in the name of religion. The element of fear had been used all too often to control the population, preventing humans from developing and realizing their place in the cosmic community.

  The visitor didn’t need to explain. Humans tend to shrink the reality of the world they live in down to their daily routines and material possessions. Human cultural evolution restricts them from gaining an understanding of the universe in which they exist.

  Jake knew that proof of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe would be a paradigm shift, forcing humans to look up from their petty skirmishes over land and religions. Humans would no longer see themselves as a collective of nations, skin colors and religions, but for the first time look past their differences and regard themselves as members of a single species in a universe teeming with life.

  It would no longer be a question of whether or not extraterrestrials exist, but whether or not humans are ready to believe.

  Jake took a tremulous breath. “Can you give me something to take back, so I can prove once and for all there is more to our universe than just ourselves and our petty differences?”

  For the first time the creature leading Jake turned to meet him with his large eyes. The effect was hypnotic; its impossibly dark cat-like pupils seemed to peer directly into Jake’s soul. They were the peaceful eyes of a deep philosophical thinker studying Jake with quizzical indifference.

  The answer was in his mind in an instant.

  The cosmic law of interplanetary contact is that the free will of any species may never be infringed on. This natural law is intended to prevent one race from interfering with the evolution of another.

  If a species were to achieve advanced knowledge too early in its development, it may not utilize such knowledge wisely, leading to avoidable catastrophes. This is the situation humans now face, having discovered the secrets of atomic science without the maturity to control it. Such knowledge has already been applied to destructive purposes in the form of atomic weaponry.

  Mankind’s technical advancements have always far outweighed its social development. To supply technical information to a developing species beyond its grasp of knowledge is a breach of this natural law. It would increase the gap between humans’ intellectual development and their almost non-existent social development, as mankind would rather play with their rovers on Mars than assist the third of the planet’s population that lives in poverty.

  Jake Marcel could only stare as his mind swirled with the barrage of incoming images and thoughts.

  If Jake were to take back with him something from the visitors’ craft, it would not be long before its underlying technology was reverse-engineered into a terrestrial application that would profit the possessing nation, or worse still, be developed into a weapon that could result in self-destruction.

  Homo sapiens are at a stage of development when every increase in knowledge is dangerous because of humanity’s insane thirst for dominance and power. Thus aiding the destructive tendency of humanity’s scientific pursuits is not permitted.

  A complete change in mankind’s thinking is necessary before humanity would be allowed access to more advanced technology. Outside help beyond earth’s skies could only be possible when humans, a warring race, give up their hunger for dominance, power and materialism.

  The current generation of humans have the potential to take the next step in their evolution, but their growth as a civilization is stunted by the greed of the very powerful few who influence their governments, and keep humanity dependent on their current energy sources.

  Jake understood instantly: Oil.

  It is unfortunate that the few elite within the human race are able to hinder the development of abundant clean energy.

  Humanity’s next big step is to overcome this dependency on petrochemical energy, as mankind’s grasp of physics is now starting to understand the nature of the universe, and how to create new energy sources.

  They now approached a closed door, on the right of the curved corridor. The being leading Jake slowed and stopped short to face the closed entrance. The change in pace pulled Jake from his cyclone of thoughts.

  Studying the closed passageway, Jake glanced back at his interstellar host. “So, where exactly are we?”

  CHAPTER 75

  “He’s gone!” Natasha sobbed into her phone.

  She was riding in the back of a taxi leaving a voicemail mes
sage.

  “Jake has disappeared. Jack, when you get this message call me. I’m coming to your parents’ house.”

  The last half-hour had been a blur. Natasha had taken Dr. Reilly’s advice to find somewhere safe to lie low for a while. Now on route to her best friend’s parents’ house, the iconic Las Vegas city skyline had long since disappeared over the horizon. Ahead of her was open desert knotted with ridges and bridges crossing ravines.

  She questioned whether seeking refuge with her friend’s parents was in fact the right thing to do. Would I be dragging them into this as well?

  Natasha tried to gather her thoughts. The government had been able to somehow find her when she and Jackie were in the downtown cafe. And what information could they possibly be able to learn from her other than Jake’s whereabouts. What could they possibly want with her when they were there to also witness Jake disappear?

  She endured a sharp pang of loss as the image of Jake going over the cliff again played in her mind. Natasha was still disturbed by the agent in black asking if she knew where Jake had gotten to.

  Where could he be?

  The sensation of the taxi suddenly slowing down snapped her back to the present.

  Leaning forward between the two front seats, she peered beyond the halted cars ahead to see what the commotion was.

  The taxi driver sensed her apprehension. “It’s not an accident. Looks like a roadblock of some sort, police are checking all cars for some reason. A bridge is a stupid place to do it.”

  Natasha didn’t hear the driver dive into a diatribe about the police causing more delays than necessary by blocking the bridge. A crushing fear gripped her as she looked down at her cell phone.

  The revelation crashed like a wave: My phone signal!

  The taxi hadn’t yet come to a complete stop when Natasha leaped from the slow moving vehicle. Finding her feet, she broke into a frantic sprint back toward the bridge entrance.