Plot Line

by Alton Gansky

  “Quick and unexpected,” Ray said.

  “Yes, I understand.” Devlin was dressed in a suit. There he stood, surrounded by desert darkness, on a deserted airstrip wearing a three-piece suit. Ray might have laughed if he hadn’t felt so adrift. “I hate doing business this way, Ray, but such is the nature of my work. Secrets piled upon secrets. I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Just where is . . . here?” Ray watched as the co-pilot walked up the small stairs and disappeared into the Lear.

  “We better step away. Don’t want to stand too close to the engines. They make a terrible racket.” Devlin picked up Ray’s things and moved from the jet.

  “They’re leaving us here? Stranding us in the desert?”

  “We’re not stranded, Ray. Follow me, please.”

  “Where?”

  “There.” Devlin nodded. “That building.”

  In the distance stood a wood structure the size of a small barn. It’s siding was irregular and worn. It looked as if it had been there since before World War II.

  Devlin moved forward, walking briskly, his back turned to the Lear. Ray jogged a few steps to catch up. “I don’t mean to seem ungrateful, but I’m a little uneasy here. Camping isn’t my style.”

  Devlin laughed lightly. “Not my style, either.” He said no more.

  The inside of the building looked as ramshackle as the exterior. A Coleman battery powered lantern waited for them just inside one of the two creaky doors at the front of the structure. The lamp was lit. Apparently, Devlin had been waiting in the old barn.

  “Would you mind picking up the light? My hands seem to be full.”

  Ray reached down and took the lantern by the handle and raised it, holding it at arms length as if it gave off a noxious odor. The lantern emitted a stark white light; casting shadows on the walls that were ten times larger than the objects that cast them. Dust covered the floor; spider webs hung like tattered drapes from split and twisted rafters. The air was warm and smelled of dry rot. Ray thought he heard the shrill squeal of a rat. His discomfort grew.

  “I apologize for the surroundings.” Devlin said as he walked the length of the barn, leading Ray to the back wall. He set the duffle bag and computer case next to a packing crate. “Things will become clear in a few moments.” He reached inside his coat and for a breathless moment, Ray thought the man was going for a gun. Instead, he removed a white handkerchief and wiped his hands. He was a fastidious man who seemed uncomfortable surrounded by so much dirt and disarray.

  “I must admit I’m a little uncomfortable with all this.”

  “I imagine. I have a story to tell you and I need you to listen to all of it. Afterward, I’ll answer all the questions I can.” He looked around the barn. “I wish I could offer you a chair or some refreshment, but what you see is all we have for the moment.”

  Ray set the lantern on a wood packing crate near the center of the barn. On the side panels of the crate were stenciled the words: John Deere.

  Devlin nodded. “What I am about to tell you is classified. If you reveal or repeat any of this information, you can be arrested and tried for treason. Is that clear?”

  “Yes. We’ve had this discussion before.”

  “So we have. So we have.” Devlin took a deep breath. “Have you ever heard the old saying, ‘Truth is stranger than fiction’?”

  Ray nodded. He didn’t like the way this was beginning.

  “It’s true,” Devlin continued. “It’s more true than even your fertile mind can imagine.”

  The cavern was sixty-eight degrees. Its temperature never varied except in rooms and labs with equipment that shed heat. Despite the relative coolness, Colin was sweating profusely. The exertion of sliding his feet along the iron waste pipe, and knowing armed guards were nearby, made him perspire as if he had run a mile in August. But there were other problems, problems in his head. He could feel them. They were there, like stray cats scratching at the door of a house. They wanted in—all the way in.

  “Yea . . . though . . . I walk . . . through the shadow . . .” he whispered, his words oozing around the small flash light he held in his mouth. He had a little farther to go. He had to hold on, hold on to the straps that held the pipe, and hold on to his sanity. If he could get to the elevator shaft, he could make his way to the roof of the cab by squeezing between the metal rails upon which the elevator rode. From there he would have access to the emergency ladder that hung inside the shaft just to the side of the cab’s path. It would take every ounce of strength he had, but he could then climb the ladder to the surface, and make egress through an escape panel. The escape panel was there for the same reason the ladder was. The elevator was the only way out of the subterranean base. If it were to fail or be sabotaged, then base personnel would need another way out. Only those who worked in the base and carried the necessary high-level clearance, knew of the emergency exit. Colin was one such person.

  His head hurt, his brain blazed. They pressed, and pressed and pressed. Tears ran in rivulets down his face. He bit on the metal flashlight case so hard he thought his teeth would shatter. Pausing at one of the straps he had to step around, Colin leaned forward and pressed his head into the thin, flat metal until he could feel it dig into his skin.

  “Yea, though I walk . . . Leave me alone! Please, please, leave me alone.”

  Colin sobbed.

  Ray blinked rapidly, as if by doing so he could make sense of what he had just been told.

  “I see you’re astonished,” Devlin said. He hadn’t moved from his standing position since beginning the account.

  “I’m astonished,” Ray replied. He shook his head. “I specialize in fiction. I’ve spent most of my life reading it and writing it, but if I were to put on paper what you just told me, no editor would publish it.”

  “That’s not our goal. Just the opposite in fact.”

  “If I’ve heard you correctly, this Dr. Colin Rind . . . Rend . . .”

  “Rehnquist.”

  “This Dr. Colin Rehnquist may have gone crazy, fled the base and is planning to reveal a story about aliens . . . extraterrestrials being held at some secret underground base. Do I have it right?”

  “Close. The aliens are not held at the base. They are there of their own freewill.”

  Ray shook his head again. “You don’t need me. Who would believe such a story? He’d end up in a mental hospital in less than a week.”

  “That’s not a chance we can take,” Devlin said. “We must have plans in place for every contingency. We must have a reasonable story to disseminate. The best possible outcome is that Dr. Rehnquist is found and helped.”

  “Helped?”

  “That’s the correct word, Ray. We’re not evil men. This is not television where the government is the bad guy out to hurt the innocent citizen, quite the contrary. We do what we do because we love our country and care about its citizens.”

  Ray was unmoved by the patriotic speech, but he had signed on to do the very thing Devlin was asking: fabricate a fiction so real it would be perceived as fact. “I need to know everything this Rehnquist might say,” Ray said after a moment’s silence.

  “I’m limited in what I can tell you. I’ve probably told you too much already, but I can’t see a way around it.”

  “I can’t do a good job without the facts. I need to know as much as you can tell.”

  “You’ve heard enough.”

  Ray sighed and rubbed his weary eyes. “Where do I work?” He glanced around the decrepit barn. “I certainly can’t work here.”

  Devlin smiled and reached into his pants pocket removing a small, black plastic device. The object reminded Ray of a keyless remote used to lock and unlock car doors. Devlin pressed a button on the device. A soft sliding sound came from the back wall of the barn. Light, dim and yellow, poured from a vertical slit in the wall. The opening widened until it was large enough to drive a truck through. The inside of the barn glowed with the flood of illumination. Ray squinted reflexively and raised
a hand to shield his eyes.

  A dark figure moved in the light cutting a silhouette from the brilliance. Although Ray could see no detail, he could see enough to know the man carried a weapon, what he assumed to be an automatic rifle. Another dark figure joined the man. It took a moment for Ray to realize it was Devlin. He had moved into the opening.

  “Coming?” Devlin asked innocently.

  Against his intuition, Ray walked into the light.

  Eight

  “As you were, Sergeant,” Devlin said to the soldier who stood in the newly opened doorway. He and Ray walked through the opening in the wall. “No need to frighten our guest.” The guard lowered his weapon. Ray could see he was standing in what looked to be a small room with no windows.

  “Wear this.” Devlin handed Ray a plastic badge. “The facility monitors your presence. Someone knows where you are at all times. Remove the badge and it will be assumed you’re up to no good. That’s not an assumption you want made. It’s . . . unhealthy.”

  Addressing the sentry, Devlin said, “May I?” and held out his hand. The soldier removed a key from his pocket, unlocked a drawer on the desk and removed a small handgun, extending it grip first to Devlin. “Thank you.”

  “You carry a gun in situations like this?” Ray asked.

  “I always carry a gun.” Devlin nodded at the guard who removed a black remote key identical to the one Devlin had used earlier. At the press of a button, doors at the back of the room slid open in near silence revealing an ordinary looking elevator.

  Devlin led the way and Ray followed. Once inside the elevator cab, Devlin said firmly, “Devlin Chambers, floor eight with guest.”

  A mechanical voice replied: “Devlin Chambers with guest, floor eight, recognized.”

  “State your first and last name,” Devlin said to Ray, “and say ‘floor eight.’”

  Ray complied. The elevator began to descend.

  Sweat poured from Colin’s face, dripping from the tip of his nose and flooding his eyes with stinging salt. His brain burned as if someone had stuck his head in a microwave. The arches of his feet hurt from standing on the waste pipe, his legs cramped in tight knots. His knees shook and threatened to give way. Colin inhaled deeply commanding his mind to settle and his body to behave, but they would not listen. With one hand holding onto a series of metal conduits near his head, the tortured scientist clutched at his hair.

  “Go away,” he whispered. “Oh, please go away. You don’t need me. You don’t want me.”

  The burning in his brain continued.

  “Must escape.” He willed his tremulous legs to take another step. He was less than five meters from the elevator shaft. Just six normal steps away, but his steps weren’t normal. Every movement required that he ignore the blaze in his brain and the pain in his muscles long enough to lift his foot. If he could make it there, then he stood a chance. He doubted he would have enough strength to climb the emergency ladder one floor, let alone eight, but he had to try. The die was now cast; there would be no turning back, no reversing the course he charted. If he could get in the elevator shaft, he could find a place to rest. After a few minutes of inactivity, he could start his ascent up the metal ladder he knew was attached to the sidewall.

  The guards would never think of looking for him there. No one in their right mind would hide in an elevator shaft. They would assume it was too dangerous. Most people think the elevator cab fills the whole shaft like a piston fills a cylinder, but Colin knew how wrong the assumption was. His father had worked for one of the largest elevator manufactures in the country, and Colin had worked summers for the firm, traveling with repairmen to fix problems, replace parts, or perform simple maintenance. There was plenty of room on two sides of the shaft. Builders often ran conduit and pipes in the passage. Even with the elevator operating a man could stand inside—if he were knowledgeable and careful enough.

  One step. Pain. Two steps. Burning. Three steps. Nausea.

  Colin pushed on, pausing between steps to suck in dry cavern air. His jaw ached from holding the flashlight with his teeth. More sweat trickled into his irritated eyes.

  There was a sound, a familiar sound. Colin froze. The elevator was descending. A moment of hope flickered in the darkness of his despair. If he could get to the shaft after the elevator had finished its descent, then maybe he could quietly step on the roof of the cab. Once there he could wait until someone took the elevator to the top. It might be hours before that happened, maybe even a full day, but he could wait. He could gather his strength, calm himself. It was too much to hope for, but it was the best hope he had.

  The fire in his brain raged.

  Another uniformed guard, thinner than the first but with broad shoulders and thick arms, waited for Devlin when the elevator doors separated.

  “Sir, the general wants to see you at the lab immediately,” the soldier said.

  “Is there a problem?” Ray saw Devlin tense.

  “I wouldn’t know, sir. My orders are to escort you to the lab.”

  Devlin nodded at Ray. “Mr. Beeman is not cleared for that area of the base.”

  The sentry looked from one man to the other, clearly in a quandary. If he followed his orders to the letter, he would escort Devlin to the lab, but would leave Ray unattended—something not acceptable in a secured base. After a moment of thought, he removed a small radio from his belt and spoke into it. A line ran from the radio to the guard’s ear. He touched the earpiece as he listened. Then he spoke: “I’m to stay here with Mr. Beeman. You’re to proceed immediately to the laboratory.”

  Devlin nodded then said to Ray. “You stay here. I won’t be long. When I get back, we can get to work.”

  Ray watched as Devlin marched away.

  Voices. At first, Colin thought they were in his head like the others, but these were real, audible and played in his ears, not just in his brain. It made sense. The elevator had just arrived. People would be on the elevator. Of course there would be voices. Colin chastised himself for his failing logic. Thinking was more difficult. Unbidden images floated in his mind like the specters in a haunted house. His breathing was more erratic, his body soaked with salty perspiration. His palms were wet. His knees shook. His feet cramped.

  Things spun wildly.

  “Hold on,” he told himself. “It will pass. It will pass.” But it wasn’t passing. The vertigo intensified. He slammed his eyes shut and commanded himself to calm. Nausea rose in his throat. The tension, the fear, the physical exertion was taking its toll. The real fault he knew was beyond the physical strain—it was them! THEM!

  “Not now,” he whispered around the flashlight he held in his mouth. “I’m so close. Not when freedom is within reach.”

  Colin squeezed the support strap in his right hand until he could no longer feel his fingers. The metal gouged its way into his tender flesh.

  His legs were shaking and his knees drained of strength. Voices screamed in his head. Colors, dark and ugly, splashed on his mind.

  “No. No, please, no—”

  Colin Rehnquist fell.

  Ray heard the crash and saw the body fall, but it took a full moment for him to process what he had just seen. A man dressed in a dirty white lab coat, had just fallen through the suspended ceiling panels and landed hard on the guard that had met them as they stepped from the elevator.

  Confusion paralyzed Ray.

  The man in the lab coat had dropped like a meteorite. He fell in a cascade of broken ceiling tiles that littered the ground. Ray took a step back. Before him lay two men, the guard on the floor, the other man on the guard. The sentry groaned and tried to move, but the man on top was faster. The soldier’s body had broken his fall. Scampering to his feet, the man looked around in a panic, taking in the situation. He saw the guard, and then he saw the guard’s gun. He went for it. A second later, the man held the military issue 9mm pistol in a shaking hand. He pointed its muzzle at Ray.

  Ray took another step back. The man looked as if he had been pressed
through a meat grinder. Blood trickled from gouges in his scalp and forehead. Sweat mixed with the blood, streaking the man’s face. There was terror in his eyes.

  “Who are you?” The man’s voice was tremulous, his eyes wide and fierce.

  “Easy, buddy.” Ray raised his hands. “I’m just a guest here.”

  “There are no guests here. You’re with them, aren’t you?”

  Ray’s startled mind struggled to put the puzzle pieces together. The man before him must be Dr. Colin Rehnquist. Who else could it be?

  “I’m just a writer, that’s all.”

  “Writer? I don’t believe it. I’m not stupid.”

  “No one said you were stupid. I’m just a guy they brought in to write about whatever it is that goes on here.”

  “You don’t know what goes on?”

  “Not really.” Ray swallowed hard. At least Rehnquist was talking and not shooting.

  The guard groaned. He had been lying on his stomach, unconscious. Now he was attempting to push himself up onto his hands and knees. Rehnquist glanced back and forth between Ray and the unsteady guard. Then with a surprising burst of speed, Rehnquist brought the grip of the gun down on the back of the man’s head. He crumpled into a motionless heap. The sound of it sickened Ray.

  Rehnquist paused looking surprised at his own actions. He then raised the gun, pointing it at Ray’s chest. Ray was sure he was about to die.

  A loud noise filled the corridor and Ray jumped instinctively. The sound rose and fell in a piercing ululation. An alarm sounded, its tones echoing off the walls and floor.

  A stream of obscenities poured from Rehnquist’s mouth. “They’ve seen me.” Without hesitation, Rehnquist charged forward, the gun in his outstretched hand. Ray recoiled but not before the barrel was pressed under his chin.

  “Open the elevator.” Rehnquist’s voice carried a hint of madness.