“No,” Ellis says. “They couldn’t find a code to crack. So, either it’s a clever ruse made to make you think it’s code, or it’s a code that no one else on the planet is currently using. Because, believe me, if it was in use by anyone else, and I mean anyone, then my guys would know about it.”
“Well,” I say, pocketing the drive. “Thanks for checking.” I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed. But part of me expected this. Ellis had been my last attempt to find meaning in the flash drive, and now that door had closed.
Ellis nods, taking another sip of his drink. “Do you know who Molly reminds me of? The way you describe her in the book, I mean.”
“No,” I say, surprised by the sudden change in the topic.
“Do you remember Jane?” Ellis asks.
I blink, thrown by his question. I search my memory for a Jane that we would have both known, or any Jane for that matter. “Who are you talking about?”
“Remember that road trip we took up to Big Bear the, uh, the weekend that Vance…”
“Of course,” I say, nodding.
Ellis lean forward. “There was this funny thing that happened on the road trip when we were driving up there. We were stopped by a cop, and then Vance’s friend told the cop that pulled us over that there was an escaped convict who tried to catch a ride with us, and that’s why we were speeding. A total lie, of course, but that cop bought it, hook, line, and sinker!” Ellis guffaws, slapping the table with his meaty hand. “That was Jane.”
I stare at Ellis, feeling a growing sense of unease as his laughter fades and his face grows serious. “I forgot her name,” I say. “But I remember meeting her. Why?”
“The way you describe Molly in the book… it reminded me of Jane… that’s all.”
“I don’t think they were alike at all,” I say, feeling defensive.
“If you say so,” Ellis says with a shrug.
I look away, thinking. A memory nags at me of Molly, on the night she disappeared, sharing a story with Congressman Boyle about how we met. “The funny thing is, Molly knew that story too, word for word, and I don’t think I’d ever told it to her before. She’d never met any of you, except for Longdale. So how the hell did she know that? She even knew the punch line.”
“You must have told her at some point.”
I shake my head. “To make it even weirder, she was telling this story like she was the one in the car. Like she was this girl Jane. And now here you are, telling me that Molly reminds you of Jane.”
“That is strange,” Ellis says, while staring at me with a distant look in his eyes, as if he’s suddenly become lost in some other thought.
I lean forward, feeling a heat grow in my chest. “Is Molly alive?” I ask. “Have you been in contact with her?”
Ellis holds his hands up. “If I had any better evidence of her being alive then you already have, then trust me, James, you would know.”
Two peculiarities about his answer itch at my consciousness. He said he had no “better” evidence of her being alive than I did. But why say “better”? Did he have other evidence that I wasn't aware of? And his lack of response to my second question stands out. Instead of pursuing this further, I choose to file it away. I regard him a moment, and then let out a sigh, sinking back into my chair. “Sorry, I’m starting to sound like one of those conspiracy nuts that you have on your show.”
Ellis snorts out a laugh. “You’d be a terrible guest.”
“Why?” I ask, feeling oddly offended.
“Because your story sounds too true.”
“Too true? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Sure it does,” Ellis says with a shrug. “Compare true life to the movies. The movies are always much neater. Characters have singular motives and clear goals. One event leads neatly to the next. Story arcs have a sort of symmetry to them; you begin where you end. But true life is never like that. People—real people—merely float along from one day to the next. We try to imbibe meaning into things, but to what avail? If real life was like the movies, then there would be no need for therapists. Because, as we know from films, revelations and true fulfillment are found in things as simple as an offhand comment, a passing image, or a sudden memory. So whenever I get a caller whose story is just a little too neat, I know it’s not true. But I keep them on the air. Why? Because people love a good story. We love the stories we hear to be filled with meaning and clarity. We want our stories to make sense of our world, not to deconstruct it and tear it apart. But the story you tell in your book? Of believing she is alive, despite all evidence, and then seeing her in the flesh on 10/18, just after the attack on the Sears Tower, only to have her turn and run from you… my god! Where’s the meaning there? Where’s the arc? There’s nothing nice and neat about that. Because that’s how life works.” Ellis looks away, his eyes distant. “And it’s nothing like the movies.”
“So you believe what I say in the book?”
“Of course I do,” Ellis says. “I probably believe it more than you do.”
“I see what you’re doing,” I say.
“What’s that?” Ellis asks.
I hold up the flash drive. “Are you telling me I’m looking for too much meaning in this?”
Ellis shakes his head. “Not at all.”
“Help me figure this all out. Why the hell would I get this on the night that Molly disappeared, only to have it lead nowhere?”
“Ah,” Ellis takes another sip of his virgin Margarita. “And that’s the real reason why you came to me. Oh, I’m not stupid. A well connected man like yourself could have called up any number of tech experts who—well, they wouldn’t have as good of contacts as I have, but they certainly could have told you the same thing. Instead, you came to me for the same kind of meaning I offer to my ‘conspiracy nuts.’ Well, I’m sorry. I can’t help you there.”
“Why not?” I ask, feeling anger rising in me.
“I told you, real life doesn’t work that way. Look, if I knew what the purpose of my life was, what the mysteries I’ve seen all mean, do you think I would be sitting in a bunker in the desert every night, listening to weirdos prattle on about how they were raped by aliens last Christmas, or how the space race never failed and we actually made it to the moon, or that Bill Clinton was shot because the jihadists wanted the oil crisis to continue? That last one is probably true, by the way. Regardless, if I talked to you the way I talked to them, I wouldn’t be doing you any good.”
“You admit that you’re not doing them any good?”
“I give them fiction and they like it. And whenever I put something true on the air that’s when the angry callers come on. So I will tell you what I almost never say on my show. I’m sure you’re telling the truth, but you may never know what it means. As much as you search, as many questions as you ask, the truth will always, always be out of your… out of your reach.” He looks away and, for a moment, almost seems to choke back a tear. Ellis coughs into a napkin and then checks his watch. “I’m sorry, I really should be going. I have a show to do tonight.”
Ellis looks for the waitress, waves her over, and then turns to me, eyes twinkling as a sly smile spreads across his face “Do you want to come hear it?”
“And spend all night listening to those crazies?” I take in a breath. “Why the hell not?”
“From the high desert of Southern California, in an undisclosed bunker west of Palm Springs and just a few dozen clicks from the greatest mystery zone of these fair, fifty states—yes, ladies and gentlemen, that would be the little known to many but well known to us, the mystery spot for the ages, Station 22, otherwise known as the Los Angeles Station, but better known to the residents of Southern California as the Riverside Air Force Base—to all of you, from the Virgin Islands to the Arctic North, and on the Internet across the world, from whenever you are and wherever you hail, good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. I am your host, E. F. Claymore. And you, my friends, are the select few. The open minded. The wide-eyed
and the fully awake. To you I say welcome to Night Terrors.
“Tonight we will be talking about one of my favorite topics in the world. My own personal mecca, you may say. Or, as others might put it, the windmills I am doomed to tilt against. That, of course, is time travel.
“Now this was not originally the topic of this lovely Saturday evening, but a chance encounter with a friend inspired me to bring back this favorite topic of ours. So what we will do tonight is hear from you, the real time travelers among us. The bold voyagers from distance pasts and unknown futures. Tell us your tales. Spin us your yarns. And we will listen to all you have to say.
“Of course, I am not suggesting that every caller who rings in tonight will be an actual time traveler. But doesn't it stand to reason, that if time travel does exist at some point in our future, then there would be visitors among us? Right now? Maybe even listening to this show tonight? You know who you are, and you know the number to call. But in case you didn’t get it yet, the number is—”
“Good evening, E. F. Thanks for having me on. My name is Craig, and I’m a long-time listener and first-time caller. I’m calling with a very interesting story to share. When I was a young man, I was visited by an older version of myself.”
“Your older self from the future that came to meet you?”
“That’s right.”
“And how did you know that it was you?”
“That’s a very good question, E. F. I think it would have to be my nose. I have a very prominent nose with a sharp ridge and a mole just below the right nostril. If you saw me, you would never forget this nose. And, I’m telling you, the kids in middle school sure didn’t let me forget it either.”
“This visitor, he had the same nose?”
“That’s right.”
“So tell me, Craig. What did your older self say to you? Did you have questions for yourself? Any pieces of advice? Any hints of the future?”
“It was really odd, E. F. I mean, you think that I would want to give myself some piece of advice. What stocks to buy or who would win the world series in 1990. That sort of thing.”
“Right, those would be valuable pieces of information.”
“I know, but my older self, all he wanted to do was ask me about, well, my life. How my day was going. Who I had talked to. That sort of thing.”
“It seems to me, Craig, that he wanted to have an emotional connection with you, with his past.”
“Have you heard of that trick that therapists use where they have you pretend that they are talking to you at a younger age so that you can ask questions of your younger self.”
“Yes, I’ve heard of that.”
“It was a bit like that.”
“That would be one hell of a therapy session.”
“Well, it must have been for him. For me, it was just this odd conversation with a strange, forty-year-old man who climbed in through my window one night when I was eight.”
“And he didn’t reveal himself as an older you.”
“No, and in fact, I didn’t even realize it until much later.”
“And it was the nose that clued you in.”
“It was the nose.”
“Well, it's a good thing it was your older self and not some stranger!”
“Ha! Yes, good thing!”
“And with that smooth jazz of DJ Aquarius, we take another break. At the top of the hour, a bona fide PhD, Doctor John Tillerson from Princeton will be on to talk about real time travel. How about that? This is the real deal, folks. See you on the other side.”
“A tunnel, you say?”
“That’s right, E. F. It was exactly like going through a tunnel. At one moment I was exploring this cave in the woods near our campground, and in the next moment I was on a snowy mountaintop. God, it must have been twenty below.”
“And what were you wearing when you found yourself on this mountaintop, Michael?”
“Jeans and a T-shirt!”
“You would have gotten frostbite!”
“I almost did! I was stumbling around on this mountaintop, thinking that I was going to die, and a moment later I was back in this cave. When I made it back to my wife, I was sick and shaking. She drove me to the emergency room, and what do you think they diagnosed me with?”
“Frostbite?”
“Frostbite and altitude sickness.”
“Tell me, Michael, what makes you think this was time travel. It sounds an awful lot like teleportation to me.”
“Because of the two men that I saw.”
“What did they look like?”
“One was tall and looked Western. He could have been American or British, I had no idea. And the other was dark-skinned and looked Asian.”
“And what was different about these men?”
“They were mountain climbers, but the gear they were wearing was strange. They looked like Air Force pilots more than anything else—it didn’t look like modern climbing gear at all. I began researching climbing gear and at first I couldn’t find anything like it. That is, until I stumbled across a photograph of Sir Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa, Tenzing. I swear on my life, E. F. , they were the same men.”
“You’re telling me, Michael, that you were transported through space and time to witness Sir Edmund Hillary and his Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing’s famous 1963 climbing of Mt. Everest?”
“I absolutely am.”
“Hello, Robert. You’re on the air.”
“Faithful listener, here. I have a question about the similarities between your 1978 film and the conspiracy theories surrounding the Cedar Springs Dam.”
“Of course, Robert. What’s your question?”
“In your 1982 film Time Patrol—which, by the way, Ray Brenner was brilliant in as Agent Rommell—there is this moment, just before the time tunneling devices cause the subterranean lair to collapse, when Brenner turns to his partner and says, ‘none of this will be remembered.’ Since we all know that your own conspiracy theories about the dam collapse inspired the film, is this your way of telling the audience that the United States Government will never reveal the truth about the collapse of the Cedar Springs Dam? I’ll take my answer off the air.”
“Insightful question, Robert. And you’re absolutely right. That line Time Patrol is a reference to the government’s need to deny, bury, and obfuscate the truth about all of their secret programs, The Los Angeles Station underneath the Cedar Springs Dam being no exception. Now, we know the existence of this Station because of those brave, anonymous whistle blowers who have called in over the years. We also know the construction of the Riverside Air Force Base in the land destroyed by the dam collapse was done in an effort to cordon off this area and make it inaccessible to those of us who would seek to know the truth. But as the Bard has written, ‘the truth will win out.’ So, in that sense, I am a bit more optimistic than Ray Brenner’s character, Agent Rommell, but knowing the government’s organization in the way that he knows it, it is absolutely consistent with his character, to utter those words in the final act of the film.
“Thank you for your call, Robert. It’s always wonderful to speak to a fan of the film.”
February 13
A thudding beat overlaid with erratic synthesizers marks the end of the show. I glance at the clock on the wall. It’s 2 A.M. Ellis leans back in his chair, the metal frame creaking under his bulk. He takes off his studio headphones and turns to look at me.
“Well? What do you think?”
It had been four hours—a marathon session for any radio host. We had only spoken briefly during the commercial breaks, and this was the first time he had asked my opinion of the show. I fold my arms and look around at the studio walls, covered in pictures of Ellis shaking hands and smiling with dozens of celebrities and politicians. “It looks like you’ve done well for someone who is fine with letting people lie on the air.”
Ellis waves a hand dismissively. “Despite our comparative audience sizes, I still don’t make a tenth of what Rush Limbaugh does,
and the pictures are purely for my own ego. And you completely misunderstood my point from our conversation at dinner. Do I believe every person that calls in? No, of course not. But I’m willing to give them all a fair shake at having their story told. Isn’t that what we all want, in the end?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I guess that’s your area of expertise.”
Ellis throws his hands out in a reconciliatory gesture. “Oh, don’t take it personally. I’ve had more conversations with people who call me a charlatan, a clown, or a crackpot than I’d care to recount.” Ellis leans forward. “But I’d love to know what you think I am.”
Hot anger surges through me. “You really believe the things you put in that movie?”
Ellis lets out a long sigh. “It’s not that simple.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? You either believe it or you don’t.”
“Jim, if you would just hear me out.”
“No—one of your speeches about truth and fiction isn’t going to cut it here.”
“That’s not what I was going to say.”
“Our friends died in that accident.”
“I know.”
“Vance died.”
“Yes, I know.”
“And Aleisha, and… Jane.”
“Goddamnit, I know! I know! I know!”
“What were you going to say, then?”
“That…” Ellis looks away.
“No more bullshit, Ellis. Just say it.”
“I was going to say, that there is the reality we experience and then there are the fictions that we tell ourselves, and somewhere in between the two is the truth.”
“No more bullshit,” I repeat.
“Okay, okay, okay!” Ellis throws his hands up again. “There are things I saw that weekend that I can’t explain. I was with Vance, and Aleisha, and Jane when they… disappeared, and if I tried to tell you what I saw… I’m telling you, Jim, you wouldn’t believe a word of it.”
“So you put it in that movie. Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“I put some of it in there, yes.” Ellis says.
Incursion: Book Three of The Recursion Event Saga Page 12
