The Siren Project

by Renneberg, Stephen

  He stole a look over his shoulder. The sky was empty, the Apache hadn't yet cleared the ridge and for a moment had lost sight of them. He banked toward Gila Bend, using the long ridge running north to south to conceal their movements. Mitch knew he had to conserve what altitude he had left, to put the greatest distance between them and the Apache. Every shudder, every movement, he balanced for speed and distance. A minute passed and still the gunship didn’t appear. Mitch guessed the pilots were searching for the wreckage of the glider, not believing it could have escaped its wild dive. He gingerly followed the contours of the cliff as it curved slowly west and south, wringing every bit of lift he could from the thermals that swirled up the southern rock face. When the glider rose in an updraft, he drifted out away from the cliff and circled twice, gaining altitude, before slipping away to the south again.

  “What . . . happened?” Christa stammered weakly.

  “They lit us up with something that shorted out the electrical system, and you,” Mitch replied, stealing a quick look back. Her face was a sickly white, but her eyes were focused.

  “Is there a sick bag back here?”

  “Not on this flight,” he said, hoping she wouldn't need it. “Keep checking behind us. It won’t take them long to figure out we’re not dead.”

  Christa looked back along the rough cliff walls. which flashed past only feet from the wing tip. The blue of the sky was broken only by a distant wisp of white cloud, but no helicopter was in sight. “It’s clear behind us.”

  Mitch eased the glider out into clear air, thinking they might have escaped, when a black object appeared above them, tucked into a tight curve and dropped in behind them.

  “Now we’re cooked!” Mitch declared as the Apache closed on them, bringing guns to bear. He pushed the stick forward sharply, diving the glider as a double stream of tracer cut the air above the canopy. “That’s our luck gone! They won’t miss twice.”

  The Apache flew above them, banked, then side slipped towards their tail. Christa craned her neck to see the pilot, sensing the distance. “Get closer!”

  “What!” he exclaimed, confused.

  “We have to get closer. I can’t reach them from here!” She yelled, never taking her eyes off the two helo pilot’s black helmets.

  Mitch checked the gunship's position and course, then pulled the stick back, hard to port, lifting the nose and banking, gaining a little height as he bled speed. The Apache reached its firing position, but Mitch’s maneuver had the glider circling out from the cliff, turning back toward the north, just out of reach. He banked sharply back toward the cliff as the Apache turned while hovering, swinging its 30 millimeter chain gun toward the fragile glider. The glider came around fast, as the pilot swiveled the nose mounted turret toward his prey. Christa leaned forward, staring past Mitch intently, trying to steady her nerves and fighting the furious pounding inside her head from the directed energy weapon’s attack.

  “Which one is the pilot, left or right?” she yelled.

  “I don’t know.”

  Christa took a deep breath, held it for several seconds as she forced the deceptive thought into the pilot’s mind. The Apache finished rotating mid air, its automatic cannon aimed directly toward the glider, then its tail dropped, pointing the cannon skyward as it fired. Tracer blasted the air close to the glider’s perspex canopy, then the gunship slipped backwards. Mitch pushed the stick hard to starboard, dropping the wing and circling away from the cliff. The chopper pilot threw off his confusion and attempted to level his aircraft, but the tail rotor clipped the cliff face behind, and sheared off. The Apache shuddered for a moment, hung in mid air as if surprised by its fate, then spun out of control. Halfway down the cliff, the main rotor hit the rock wall and tore part of the engine mounting free. The helicopter lurched sideways and collided with the cliff face, exploding in flames. The burning wreckage bounced off the cliff face as it fell, scattering burning aviation fuel through the air in a grotesque fireball. When it hit the rocks at the base of the cliff, it exploded and disintegrated into a hundred fiery pieces.

  Mitch circled in the updraft above the flames below as a plume of black smoke began to rise toward them. “Ouch!” He winced, then glanced back at Christa. “I’d hate to steal your car parking space.”

  Christa rested her head on her forearm, against the back of Mitch's seat, eyes closed and sobbing.

  “Sorry, bad joke,” he said gently.

  “I felt his terror, all the way down, until he died. I was so close to his mind.”

  “What did you . . . do?”

  “I made him see the glider much closer than it was, made him think we were going to collide.”

  “That’s why he pulled back? A reflex action.”

  Christa glanced at the flaming wreckage below, then looked away. “He didn’t die until the bottom. He was . . . terribly burned by the time they hit. I . . . I can still hear his screams in my head.” She sobbed uncontrollably.

  “Christa, they were going to kill us. You had no choice.”

  “You don’t know what it’s like.”

  Mitch set the glider back on its southward course, looking for the next thermal. “I’ve done some hard things, I–”

  “No! You don’t understand. You never knew how the other person felt, when they knew they were going to die. You weren’t attuned to that person. You didn’t feel their pain, their terror. You can never know! No one ever knows what it’s like to die, until they actually die. No one except me. I know. Now . . . I know.”

  It was something that had never occurred to him. She was right. He never knew his enemy’s pain, his enemy’s moment of death, from their perspective.

  Mitch circled the glider through the thermals, gaining altitude, then turned south for the long slow glide back to the airstrip. All through the return flight, Christa remained submerged in a deep silence, struggling to forget the screams of the burning helicopter pilot etched forever in her mind.

  * * * *

  Mitch placed his crude rectangular map of the Sincom facility on the hotel room table. It was based on the digital photographs they'd taken from the glider, which were now displayed on the notebook computer sitting beside the map. He turned to the laptop and selected a photograph of the perimeter fences and the silver metal towers equipped with a sophisticated array of sensors at each corner.

  “What do you make of that?” he asked.

  Gunter zoomed the image in on one of the towers. “Motion sensors for day, heat sensors for night. And these are security cameras.” He pointed to a blunt bulbous object mounted on a rotating turret. “Hmm . . . this is unusual.”

  “More of their high tech Star Wars crap?” Mouse suggested.

  Gunter switched to another image of a guard tower, taken closer and from a different angle. “Could be. We should assume electrical equipment will be useless anywhere near these devices.”

  “It’s small enough to be camouflaged out near the radiation fence,” Mitch said. “Maybe that’s what disabled our car.”

  “And what tried to shoot down the glider,” Christa added.

  “What is interesting about those towers,” Gunter said, “Is that they are unmanned.”

  Mitch switched to a photograph of the western line of double perimeter fences, broken by a pair of remotely controlled, motorized gates. A rectangular camera housing stood on a metal pole observing the perimeter fence. “The gates are also unmanned.” He then selected an image of a low concrete building near the inner gate. Thick dark glass was inset in each wall, providing an unobstructed view of the gates and the western half of the facility. The bullet proof windows were horizontal slits, overhung by several feet of concrete. “This is a bunker, not a gate house.” On top was a low cylindrical concrete structure encircled by a narrow firing slit. “And this has to be a gun emplacement. Anyone trying to force their way in there, won't live to tell about it.”

  “It is large enough for a multi-barreled weapon,” Gunter said, “Possibly a chain gun.”
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  “A chain gun!” Mouse said nervously.

  “They seem well funded,” Mitch said, “So we should assume they have the best of everything. Radar guided firing systems, depleted uranium ammo, every conceivable sensor.”

  “Energy weapons, helicopter gunships and robot chain guns!” Mouse exclaimed, shaking his head. “Am I the only one who thinks this is a really bad idea?”

  Mitch selected another image, this time of the main building, long and wide, with windows on the northern face, but few on the relatively featureless eastern side. The building took up almost half the site. The northern two thirds of the structure’s roof was low and flat, while the southern third rose high above the rest, and was covered in a tangled maze of pipes. “Any guesses what these pipes are for?”

  Gunter zoomed the computer image until it began to pixilate. “These are heavy duty pipes. Too thick to be electrical conduits, too much insulation for wires. They look like something you would see in an oil refinery.” He traced the pipes to their source on the western side of the building, where the pipe maze fed into the roof. “They come out of the building here, on the left. We should investigate that area.”

  Mouse looked perplexed. “I admire your optimism, but time for a reality check guys. That isn’t a corporate laboratory with second rate domestic security. That’s a triple A, prime grade, big brother, secret military shoot on sight, death trap. Who knows what kind of weird shit they have? Stuff we’ve never even heard of. Not to mention the tank killing robot gun covering the gates. It’s a fortress.”

  “It's the Maginot Line,” Mitch countered.

  “The what?”

  “World War Two French fortifications. The French sat in them, and the Germans bypassed them. France fell in six weeks. Nothing is invulnerable. All we have to do is find a way around their Maginot Line.”

  “Oh, I see ... Luke! You're going to blow up the Death Star.”

  “I'm at least going to peek at the plans.”

  “Do you know how many wing men died before Luke blew up the Death Star?” Mouse looked horrified. “And we know who the expendable wing man is!” He pointed to himself. “I don't want to be Red Five. Let the damn Death Star win!”

  Mitch suppressed a smile, then indicated another section of his map. “Over here, we have several tall buildings, with exhaust fans in the roof, large sliding doors and paved access roads.” He brought up the corresponding photograph on the laptop's screen. “My guess is they're warehouses.” The next picture was of a large square building beside a concrete apron. He dropped the photo on a square he'd drawn on the map. “This is the hanger and helipad, minus one helo. Probably more choppers inside.”

  Christa lowered her eyes as the memory of an agonized scream flashed through her mind.

  “That’s another thing,” Mouse declared. “The downed chopper. Don’t you think they’ll be on full alert now?”

  “Maybe,” Mitch conceded. “If they check the wreckage, it will look like pilot error. There are no bullet holes in the chopper, so they’ll know we didn’t shoot it down. For all they know, the glider crashed and they haven’t found the wreckage yet.”

  “And maybe they’ll call out the National Guard, just in case we did shoot it down.”

  “Unlikely. That would attract too much attention.”

  “What if they have a battalion of marines up there?” Mouse demanded.

  “They don’t,” Christa said with certainty.

  “How do you know?” Mouse asked.

  “They have a manpower problem.”

  “What are you talking about? They’ve out gunned us every time we’ve come up against them.”

  Christa pointed to Mitch's map, indicating the guard towers, the sensors and the robot chain gun. “It's all automated.”

  “Ya,” Gunter said. “They have money and advanced technology, but the number of unconditioned people we’ve encountered is small.”

  “That's right!” Mitch said. “McNamara, the general, the senator and a few renegade special forces types, plus the technical people doing the conditioning.”

  “The old man and his tow truck,” Gunter said.

  “And Cousin Floyd,” Christa added.

  “Were the helicopter pilots conditioned?” Gunter asked.

  “I didn’t have time to register them.”

  “It's not exactly an army,” Mitch said. “There'd be wall to wall guards protecting this place, if it was legal.”

  “Like Area 51,” Mouse said. “No one can get near that place. The aliens insisted if they were going to help the military, they had to be protected.”

  “We drove right up to the outer fence,” Mitch said. “No guards to get rid of us, none of the usual heavy handed military BS, just signs warning us about radiation and a bunch of old cow bones. It’s a con.”

  “For most people,” Christa said, “It’d be enough.”

  “For those who are not frightened by the deception,” Gunter said, “The area defense system disables their cars, and they are tricked into leaving by Ackerman.”

  “Exactly,” Mitch said. “So if they’re using deception to hide their presence rather than force, it’s because that’s all they’ve got. If they had a battalion of marines, they’d damn well use them.”

  “The loss of the helicopter pilots was probably more disastrous, than losing the helicopter,” Gunter said

  “This is an illegal, covert operation,” Mitch said. “That's why they have to keep the number of people who know what's going on to as few as possible.” He selected an image of a two story L-shaped building with windows evenly spaced along the walls and a small swimming pool placed in the corner of the L. A man floated in the blue water of the pool, soaking up the hot Arizona sun. “This looks like the accommodation block. It’s a safe bet the base personnel are housed here. The question is, how many?”

  Gunter counted the windows. “That building could house fifty to one hundred people.”

  “If most are scientific and technical people,” Mitch said, “The security force guarding the installation is small. That’s a weakness.”

  “We don’t exactly have an infantry division backing us up,” Mouse said.

  “No, but we have this.” Mitch switched to a picture of a white satellite dish sitting atop a low building.

  “How does that help us?”

  “Don’t you remember? We know what it’s looking at, and we know how to look back.”

  “The spook in the sky!” Mouse pulled the crumpled piece of paper from his wallet, containing the satellite access code. “Or should I say, Mouse Zero One, my personal satellite.”

  Mitch chuckled. “You use the NSA satellite to take down their automated defenses, from the inside. It’s the one direction they won’t expect an attack from.”

  “I'll need a satellite dish.”

  “We’ll steal one. Maricopa is big enough for a local TV station. They’ll have what we need.”

  Christa looked puzzled. “Do you really think you can hijack a NSA satellite? Won’t they miss it?”

  “It'll take them a while to figure out what happened. By then, we’ll give it back.”

  “I want to keep it!” Mouse declared. “I’ve always wanted my own satellite!”

  “So we borrow the satellite, then what?” Gunter asked.

  “We play hide and seek with Sincom One. Only we cheat.”

  * * * *

  She dreamt of flames, swirling, biting, searing, and of falling helplessly through space toward onrushing boulders that never drew close. The scream sounded in her mind, then in her ears.

  “Christa!” Mitch shook her awake.

  She opened her eyes, realizing she'd been screaming through the nightmare. Mitch held his gun in one hand and shook her shoulder gently with the other, while the look of concern subsided from his face.

  “I’m okay,” she whispered, sitting up. “Bad dream.”

  He pocketed his gun, relaxing. “When I heard you scream, I thought . . .”

 
She breathed deeply, calming herself. “Sorry. I’m having trouble detaching myself from . . . today.”

  Mitch glanced at the door, which he'd forced open, tearing it from the architrave. “Looks like I made a mess of your door.”

  “At least I know doors can’t keep you out,” she said, breaking into a whimsical smile.

  “Can I get you something? Coffee?”

  “A coffee would be nice, now that I’m awake.”

  “You can take my room. The lock still works on my door.” He pushed the door closed on his way to the coffee making facilities.

  “Was I loud?”

  “Well, you didn’t wake Mouse. And Gunter could sleep through an earthquake.” He emptied coffee satchels into two cups. “I was still awake.”

  “So you came charging in here with all guns blazing. My hero.” She feigned swooning.

  “Careful, or next time I hear you scream, I’ll just roll over and go back to sleep.”