American Elsewhere

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  Naturally, this is quite ridiculous. I have requested to have Mr. Helm removed from my staff, as any responsible project leader would. But, since the mishap with the lens occurred before Mr. Helm’s impending departure, you must understand that I have reasons to suspect him in what happened. I do not find it at all surprising that some minds cannot bear the burden of the tasks that have been laid upon our shoulders, especially considering the manner in which they were laid upon our shoulders. Though I am sure you know this, our lives are solitary and highly disciplined, receiving little return or reward day after day, and though we and the rest of the staff enjoy our time in the constructed village, it often feels as if civilization is worlds away. Which, I suppose, it is.

  The next issue, and the one I feel is most unfortunate, concerns Dr. Bintly, whom I have always considered a very reliable and respectable scientist (I would not have him on my staff otherwise, but even by my standards he is most excellent), and thus I find his actions a cause for deep regret. While he has never voiced any concerns about the lens, or the nature of our work, despite its frustrating and often elusive nature, there were two events that I feel almost suggest a break with reality. I am very sympathetic to Dr. Bintly, and I understand that, again, our isolation and seclusion here, along with the nature of our work, will naturally have some pretty dire repercussions on the state of one’s mental health (I myself am not above such maladies, and have even taken up meditation to remedy it, which I cannot recommend highly enough), but even so I cannot allow him to pass from suspicion.

  The first event occurred over half a year ago (I cannot recall the date) on a very late evening spent in the chamber, going over some statistical models that were not behaving as we had forecasted. Mr. Helm was not present—it was only Dr. Bintly, Dr. Alvarez, and myself. Dr. Alvarez and I left Dr. Bintly alone for a brief period to perambulate about the offices while we reconsidered the nature of our problem, and we later returned with some possibly fertile ground (which proved quite fertile indeed, I am happy to say). But we heard Dr. Bintly talking quite agitatedly within the chamber. We looked in and found him flipping through the statistical models, angrily discussing their contents aloud, even castigating his imaginary audience for not knowing what he was talking about, when they (I do recall that he later referred to them as “they”) knew quite well what he meant as they’d all been talking about it for the past four hours. Dr. Alvarez interjected from the door, and Dr. Bintly looked up, surprised, and asked how we’d gotten “over there” so quickly, and why we had changed clothes. Dr. Alvarez and I were quite confused by his comments, and reminded him that we’d only gone on a quick walk, and had not changed clothes at all, which caused Dr. Bintly to stare into the far side of the room with a puzzled look on his face as if expecting to see someone there. When no one appeared, he seemed quite disturbed, and he chose to retire for the evening, which we all agreed was the smart thing to do.

  This situation was much more distressing. I had been meditating on the mesa top, as is part of my morning ritual, and I descended to find Dr. Bintly shouting at Dr. Alvarez with considerable alarm and volume. This attracted the attention of the other workers, who began to mutter and mill about as I suppose such people do. Yet when he saw me, coming down the stairs in my robe, he stared and almost fainted. We took him to the medical room straightaway.

  Dr. Bintly was most reluctant to discuss the matter. Dr. Alvarez privately informed me that he had come running out of the chamber shouting that I, personally, was in trouble. So agitated was Dr. Bintly that he was unable to articulate the precise nature of my trouble, but I assure you I was not in any trouble, having been sitting atop the mesa doing breathing exercises at the time.

  Eventually we were able to extract the truth from him, or the truth he was willing to give us. He claimed he’d been working on the lens data feeds when suddenly the chamber filled up with a great shouting. He was so astonished he leaped up and saw—and here I do pity him—me, Richard Coburn, standing in the chamber in ragged clothes, sporting a full beard, shouting the word plank over and over again. Then he claims I abruptly vanished.

  But this does not compare to his later actions, which, if I took them at all seriously, would be quite upsetting for me. For it seems he had been hiding

  It is quite sad to see that Dr. Bintly’s mind has been so affected by our work. I have put through a request for transfer for him, and though I am dispirited by these developments I do not regret my actions. Moving him away from the facility—perhaps only for a time, as his contributions are so valuable—will aid his mental health enormously.

  Dr. Alvarez, however, remains my most trusted and valuable colleague. I am aware she had issues with our work in the past (she is a little too devoted to details, I feel, and often misses the forest for the leaves) but these have been resolved and in recent months she has been more dedicated to our researches than ever. I say this because I am very aware that, since Dr. Alvarez is the one who was directly involved with the incident, the most suspicion will inevitably fall on her. But as she has no history of erratic behavior, unlike her other two colleagues, and since the nature of her involvement was so incidental (I presume you have seen the film), I cannot imagine that she had any intentional hand in what happened.

  The facts are simple:

  On Monday evening, Dr. Alvarez did a final check on the lens equipment. This is standard operating procedure for us, after which we always lock up the chamber.

  Approximately four minutes into her check, she began to shut down the recording equipment.

  Not long after that, the power flow to the lens abruptly spiked. This we know due to the electrical monitoring systems I insisted be installed (which we now all agree was quite wise). The duration of the spike was a little over forty seconds.

  Three seconds into this spike, the lens plates rotated a full twenty-three degrees, clockwise. Then they stopped.

  The spike persisted for another nine seconds. Then it ended.

  And this, really, is all we know, which is not much. There is a lot of hoopla going on about the data outputs, and though what was recorded does suggest something very close to suspended bruising, But we obviously cannot trust it because it occurred during what honestly seems to be either equipment malfunction (unlikely) or sabotage (in my opinion, much more likely).

  There is also the position of the plates. While a reenactment of the incident does suggest that the plates rotated to point toward Dr. Alvarez’s position in the chamber, I do not lend this development much credence. It does not stir any suspicion or concern in my mind. The position of the plates has so far proven coincidental to any success at suspended bruising.

  What concerns me most—as it must also concern you—is

  However, none of this can be proven to any satisfactory degree.

  Dr. Alvarez remains an exceptional scientist—possibly, except for myself, the most exceptional one I have ever known—and she herself did not register anything out of the ordinary during her time in the chamber. Due to the nature of the lens, she did not even hear it rotate. And she did not notice anything during the time that, per the reports, suspended bruising was achieved. Though there was some concern she had been exposed to but totally ridiculous. I also have no reason to believe she was involved in the change in the lens.

  To be frank, the behavior of the lens can only lead me to think it was the result of external control. I am not sure if either Dr. Bintly or Mr. Helm has the means of setting up this sort of control. But the sequence of events—power, rotation, data output—does not seem accidental. Someone, somehow, was controlling the lens.

  I have requested your security teams examine and interrogate the facility staff in detail as a result. I am quite eager to hear what they will find.

  INVESTIGATION INTO DISAPPEARANCE OF LAURA ALVAREZ

  TAPED INTERVIEW c10.36-aB

  CONDUCTED BY CHIEF OF STAFF MICHAEL DERN

  SUBJECT: ERIC BINTLY

  DECEMBER 14TH, 1975

  MICHAE
L DERN [CLEARS THROAT]: This interview is the first of the staff-conducted investigation into the disappearance of Laura Alvarez. It’s, uh, important to note that, as of right now, this interview is not… officially sanctioned. Our instructions are still forthcoming. For now, we’ve been told to sit tight, but I figured that we… well, we needed to do something now, to prepare ahead of time, so no one got the idea that we were preparing statements.

  ERIC BINTLY: So how do they know this isn’t a prepared statement right now?

  MICHAEL DERN: I think it’s likely they’ll understand we haven’t had the time to prepare anything.

  ERIC BINTLY: How do they know that? These aren’t the most understanding guys in the world, am I wrong? Are we just promising them that we’re making it right after she left?

  MICHAEL DERN: You know you’re on tape, right?

  ERIC BINTLY: Yeah, yeah. But how do they even know when she left?

  MICHAEL DERN: Eric, I’m going to level with you right now and say that… they have a lot more ways of keeping track of things out here than you’d expect.

  ERIC BINTLY: Like what?

  [SILENCE]

  ERIC BINTLY: Cameras? Mikes?

  [SILENCE]

  ERIC BINTLY: Jesus Christ.

  MICHAEL DERN: Let’s just start from the top. Start from your return from your…

  ERIC BINTLY: From my vacation?

  MICHAEL DERN: Sure, let’s call it that.

  ERIC BINTLY: Well… it wasn’t that long ago, but… things had obviously changed. We’d made huge advances. They had, I mean. I hadn’t been there for it. They’d actually simulated bruising several—

  MICHAEL DERN: No, Eric, what they want to know about is Laura. Tell them just about her. Just Laura.

  ERIC BINTLY: Okay, okay. Let me think. Now… now, there were marked differences in how she, uh, acted since when I left and when I came back. I was only gone a couple of weeks. But I could tell… something was off. Something was wrong, I guess. She was… [PAUSE] Can I ask you something, Mike?

  MICHAEL DERN: Me? Sure, I guess.

  ERIC BINTLY: Did you… think I went crazy?

  MICHAEL DERN: I’m sorry?

  ERIC BINTLY: When they sent me away. Did you think I’d had a, a psychotic break? Because I don’t. I wasn’t sure at first, but now I am.

  MICHAEL DERN: That’s not really what we’re asking about.

  ERIC BINTLY: Yeah, but, see, it kind of is. You think Laura’s disappearance is an aberration. You think it’s unusual behavior. But I’m not so sure it is. Maybe it’s something else.

  MICHAEL DERN: So you think it’s perfectly reasonable to just jump in your car, with no preparation at all, and leave, all the way out here in the desert?

  ERIC BINTLY: I’m not saying it’s reasonable. I’m saying… there might be other factors at play. Listen, Mike, I know that, on paper, I am a wildly untrustworthy witness. I am an untouchable, really. I’m here solely because Dick likes me, and I know it. But… that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.

  MICHAEL DERN: Wrong about what?

  ERIC BINTLY: About the lens. About what it does.

  MICHAEL DERN: I know what the lens does.

  ERIC BINTLY: You know what it does on paper. But it does more than that.

  MICHAEL DERN: For God’s sakes. You sound like Steven.

  ERIC BINTLY: And maybe we should have listened to Steven. I mean, he had problems with it well before all this happened. Before I… left. Before Laura.

  MICHAEL DERN: Okay. Fine. Keep telling me about Laura. What was different about her?

  ERIC BINTLY: Well, she used to be… to look quite… vivacious. There was an aliveness to her. You know? She used to run laps around the mesa like it was nothing. But when I saw her again, she looked unhealthy. She looked tired. Like something was being pulled out of her.

  MICHAEL DERN: That was noted. We did two physicals, nothing showed up.

  ERIC BINTLY: Right, and you attributed it to exhaustion. Which is a rational thing to do. But Dick was working just the same amount, right? And he didn’t look that exhausted. And yeah, yeah, maybe it was all the meditation and the green tea. Jasmine green tea. But I don’t think so.

  MICHAEL DERN: So what was it?

  ERIC BINTLY: I wasn’t sure. I’m still not sure. But sometimes while I was talking to her, she’d suddenly look to the side, like she’d seen something, but nothing was there. Or she’d wince, like she’d just heard something loud or grating, right in her ear. It was like… me.

  MICHAEL DERN: Like you?

  ERIC BINTLY: Yeah. Like how I was. That was why you all thought I was crazy. Because I… saw things.

  MICHAEL DERN: You said you saw the members of the research team in random places throughout the facility.

  ERIC BINTLY: Yeah. I saw them. And we thought it was a hallucination. I did, too. But maybe not.

  [SILENCE]

  ERIC BINTLY: And maybe Laura was seeing and hearing things, too. Things that were actually there.

  MICHAEL DERN: But things only she could see. Right. I’m gonna go ahead and remind you, one more time, that you are on tape.

  ERIC BINTLY: I didn’t just see staff, you know. There were some things I… I didn’t tell you.

  [SILENCE]

  ERIC BINTLY: So that makes me wonder—what did Laura see?

  MICHAEL DERN: Are you serious?

  [SILENCE]

  MICHAEL DERN: You saw this, and you didn’t tell us?

  [SILENCE]

  MICHAEL DERN: It’s really… it is so irresponsible that you were… that you withheld things from us, Eric. You were in danger, you should have told us everything.

  ERIC BINTLY: I know. But I didn’t want it to be real.

  MICHAEL DERN: Want what to be real?

  ERIC BINTLY: Well, it’s like you said. I saw the lab crew, and I saw them in different places… but in different sets of clothing, at different ages. I didn’t tell you that. Like, I saw you and Dick walking around, examining the facility, but you had hair, Mike, and I swear Dick had like half the wrinkles he has now. I saw Laura, and she looked about five years older, but she was filthy, dressed in a tank top and cargo shorts, and she was carrying around a fucking gun, for whatever reason. And I saw myself. When I didn’t need glasses. Just doing whatever. Paperwork. Smoking. And once I saw…

  MICHAEL DERN: Saw what?

  [SILENCE]

  MICHAEL DERN: Saw what, Eric?

  ERIC BINTLY: I saw you. And Dick. And a lot of the other staff. Screaming. The walls were shaking. And the floor and ceiling were cracking. Lights going out. And someone said… “There’s something up there.”

  [SILENCE]

  MICHAEL DERN: What did he… do you mean?

  ERIC BINTLY: I don’t know. But… I thought he meant that there was something on top of the building. The mesa, I mean. I don’t know.

  [SILENCE]

  MICHAEL DERN: Jesus Christ. Why didn’t you say any of this?

  ERIC BINTLY: Because I wanted to come back. Because I wanted to keep working. But now I know I shouldn’t have. When I saw what Laura was doing… well, why tell you this. I’m sure you have it on film.

  MICHAEL DERN: Have what?

  ERIC BINTLY: What she was doing with the lens.

  MICHAEL DERN: We don’t… [PAPER RUSTLING] I don’t, uh, think we have any recorded examples of any… uh, misbehavior with the lens.

  ERIC BINTLY: You don’t? At all?

  MICHAEL DERN: No.

  ERIC BINTLY: Well… I swear, she would just do it for an hour or something…

  MICHAEL DERN: Do what?

  ERIC BINTLY: Just… stare into them. She would just stare into the lens plates. With her nose about an inch away. Like she was transfixed. I caught her several times. That was when I really knew something was wrong.

  MICHAEL DERN: I don’t have any… God. I don’t have that at all.

  ERIC BINTLY: Then I guess she was screwing with the records.

  MICHAEL DERN: She couldn’t.

  ERIC B
INTLY: Well, she did, or someone did. I think I found her like that at least three times. And each time I caught her, there was something wrong with her eyes. It was like there was something else in there.

  MICHAEL DERN: What do you mean?

  ERIC BINTLY: I wasn’t sure until I stopped her, on the day she left. The day she just jumped in her car and started driving east. Before that, I stopped her in the hall and asked what was wrong, because she looked troubled, and she stopped and looked at me and… it was like… it’s impossible to describe. It’s like there was someone else in there. In her head. Someone who wasn’t Laura at all.

  MICHAEL DERN: I’m going to just say, once more, with feeling, that you are on tape.

  ERIC BINTLY: I know.

  MICHAEL DERN: A tape that will be heard by important people.

  ERIC BINTLY: I know. And I also know what I saw. I’m telling you, she didn’t know me, Mike. Total lack of recognition. She wasn’t sure who or maybe even what I was. And there was this shivering, or wriggling, all in her corneas, as if behind her eyes there was nothing but worms…

  [SILENCE]

  ERIC BINTLY: I let her go. I was so unnerved, I let her go. I shouldn’t have done that.

  [SILENCE]

  MICHAEL DERN: No. You shouldn’t have.

  ERIC BINTLY: The lens does something, Mike. I’m sure of it. It pushes at the boundaries of things. I remember Dick once said the way it transports is like a kid throwing a ball up through one skylight so it comes down through another skylight a couple of walls away. And that just stuck in my head.