Dark Alignment

by David Haskell

  “You’re lucky it was me. Not everyone waits for a hostile to identify herself before launching torpedoes.”

  “I had faith,” Jo quipped. Then she continued more seriously, “I knew they wouldn’t have put just anyone in charge of this situation. Anyway, I brought the package.”

  Dean looked around, expecting her to produce something to hand over. Then it hit him. She’s talking about me. The admiral circled around, looking him over, making him suddenly feel extremely overweight and unkempt. After the wild ride to get here, he had to assume he looked all the worse for wear.

  “What’s this about, then?” she boomed, making him jump. He hoped mostly on the inside, though he knew how obvious his fear must seem.

  “Dr. Dean Eckert,” Jo said, “the man who bucked the trend and found out our little secret. And all by himself, too.”

  “That’s fine, but you could’ve brought him through regular channels like the others.”

  Others?

  The fact that he wasn’t the lone suspect in this bizarre stageplay somehow struck him as a comfort.

  “They say priority, I go priority. That’s the way I roll,” Jo replied with pride. Dean wondered if she’d just been looking to show off, using that submersible gadget instead of whatever regular channels there might be. But he didn’t say so.

  The admiral asked no further questions, just made a dismissive cluck sound as she looked back at Dean.

  “Follow me,” she commanded.

  He complied. They’d only moved a couple of steps when he realized Jo wasn’t moving. He gave her a head jerk, trying to get her to move, already. He wasn’t sure what she was trying to accomplish, but he had no doubt this admiral lady wouldn’t like it.

  The woman gave Jo a withering stare, but she held her ground. “The keys,” she demanded, holding out her an opened palm to emphasize the demand.

  This elicited a smile, surprisingly enough. “Your…car will be perfectly safe with my people,” she said, a touch of sickly sweet in her voice. Imposing in more ways than one.

  “I’m sure that’s true,” Jo said, “but even so,”—she beckoned towards herself, a clear if non-verbal demand—“I’ll take the keys, please.”

  The admiral looked ready to protest, then her face went steely and she handed them over. “Follow me.”

  Jo went along, protesting no further. Eckert wondered whether ‘the keys’ were for accessing the docking bay, or perhaps some way to extricate the car. Or a failsafe switch to blow it all up. Anything seemed possible, though he had little time to wonder further as they hurried down the corridors into the belly of this incredible, undersea beast.

  7.

  “I can tell from your expressions you’re wondering what the hell is going on,” the man at the front of the room was explaining, “…don’t worry, we’ll answer all your questions. But first you need to read and sign the paperwork provided. Standard non-disclosure forms, boilerplate mostly—”

  “Excuse me,”—Dean put a hand in the air—“but what’s this part about military conscription?”

  “Yes, I was about to explain that…” The leader seemed put off, but in Dean’s defense a half-dozen other hands lowered simultaneously. After a moment’s hesitation, the man shrugged and said, “I realize this isn’t the sort of thing you’d normally come across, never mind sign, especially without knowing all the details. For now, let’s put those aside and just sign the nondisclosures. After that I can tell you more.”

  It took several minutes for everyone to read, then sign the paperwork. Dean carefully set the military items aside so he wouldn’t mark it accidentally, then grudgingly signed the rest. He was no stranger to legalese, and this was all pretty standard stuff as far as proprietary information was concerned. Being that they were deep inside a secret base, pretty much everything in sight was proprietary, secret, and otherwise impossible to reveal. He really couldn’t blame them for a little CYA. Even so, he was dying to know what could possibly entice them to bring so many civilians down here. Something to do with climate change, maybe?

  Once finished with the papers, Dean looked around the room. With a start, he realized he knew several of the men, though only one by name. Thomas Eckert. No relation, that just happened to be the reason for the clear recollection. Chair of astrophysical science at Princeton, though his staunch advocacy for climate change amelioration was perhaps more recognizable to the lay person. Dean knew him well in both capacities, although the two had never spoken directly. He tried to offer a wave, but the man was absorbed in the same red tape as most everybody else in the room.

  The rest were familiar either from scientific conferences, or else the occasional television appearance. Dean himself had been on the air from time to time, whenever an expert opinion was called for. He assumed the others were of similar stature, close to a dozen men of various nationalities—no women in the mix, still a rare breed in the sciences—mostly in their 40’s and 50’s, with a weathered affect and lack of fashion that marked their trade.

  “Thank you,” the leader announced, gathering up the documents, “I appreciate your cooperation.”

  He sounded relieved, almost as if he’d been expecting a revolt. Come to think of it, Dean had to wonder what the hell the man could really do if all these people they’d dragged in from far and wide refused to sign. What could they do, send out for more highly trained experts? The pool couldn’t be that large to begin with.

  “Now, the first order of business—you have been brought here on a matter of urgency, on a mission critical to the survival of the human race.”

  The leftover chatter and cross-talk died away like startled crickets, and a dead silence hung over the room. One of the light fixtures buzzed above them, and far below came the chugging of heavy machinery, but that was all.

  * * *

  They spent the better part of the afternoon in briefings, the first of which delivered by the man who’d demanded their written cooperation, then a steady parade of military and scientific types. They were filled in on planetary events of concern, and why they were completely out of the ordinary. Most of the men present were already aware of these odd circumstances—scientists had been discussing the troubling possibilities ever since the first reports hit the wires—but now, for the first time, these puzzle pieces were being laid out in a row. It seemed their reason for being in such an odd venue was in order to solve the problem, though they’d not yet been asked to do anything but listen.

  When it came time to break for dinner, they were ordered not to discuss the topics-at-hand. The way their handler put it, they were to observe ‘radio silence’ outside of the working sessions. One of them made to protest, but was quickly silenced when the rule was pointed out in one of the documents they’d all signed. To Dean it seemed rather ridiculous, all this cloak and dagger crap, but he imagined it was the military way.

  The food was horrible. While the military folks surrounding them ate with gusto, Dean’s group merely picked at their plates. With their reason for being here off-limits, the gathered researchers were finally able to do some introductions in these more casual surroundings. The din of surrounding conversations gave them enough cover to feel comfortable chatting about themselves.

  Amid the handshakes and the ‘didn’t we meet at’s?’, Dean recognized two more familiar names he was able to put to faces. Besides Professor Eckert, there was Professor Francine Walfish from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. The foremost authority on string theory as applied to astrophysics, or ‘matching the monumentally large with the infinitesimally small’ as she was known to explain to layman audiences.

  There was also Heinrich Eggars, currently fellowed at U.C. Berkeley. A leading pioneer in quantum computing, Eggars spent most of his youth growing up behind the iron curtain. He entertained the group at dinner with a story about solving computer puzzles on paper at an early age, given the lack of computers in those days.

  “I asked Father Christmas year in and year out for a worki
ng machine on which to test my results, but alas he never delivered more than a textbook on the subject. Looking back, I realize he’d given me the greatest gift imaginable, as my passion was ignited even further when I was finally able to boot up for the first time.”

  The rest of the scientists were of a similar pedigree, and Dean found himself at ease with this group. Far more than with the regular denizens of this incomprehensible lair, at least. And yet the scientists spent relatively little time together, and even less in a social setting. For the most part, they were separated and tasked with explaining their findings to the base officials—many of whom held degrees in the sciences or engineering themselves, so they were quick studies. It wasn’t so much a think-tank experiment, then, but more of a crash course the scientists were delivering to the military. None of them were particularly comfortable with it, but they’d been given little choice.

  Dean had little idea what the others were doing with base personnel. He could only guess that they were summing up their findings the way he was. Every time a new admiral or general showed up—they seemed to be on a constant rotation—he would be asked to start again, at square one, explaining the physics behind his theories, and more to the point, what sort of real-world applications might come into play.

  “So you’re telling me it interacts with normal matter, then?” asked the latest brass-heavy questioner. “It can be contained? Channeled?”

  “It’s not that simple.” Dean replied, an answer he’d given ad nauseam. “It’ll interact, sure, but containing it is another matter. It might be temporarily re-directed, but dealing with it here is like trying to funnel ocean water by fanning the foam. We’re too far from the source to make any sort of a permanent adjustment.”

  “What about in space?”

  “Theoretically, that would work. But we’d have to be pretty far out to compensate for the gravitational effects of the planet itself.”

  “But if we were to get out there, and channel it from there, we could influence the paths it takes down here, couldn’t we? Direct it to some other landmass, for instance?”

  This gave Dean pause. Why on Earth would they want to direct it anywhere but away? Even into the ocean would make more sense, assuming Dean could figure out the formula for water interaction.

  “You mean to the south pole or something?” Dean hoped the suggestion would provide an out for the highly-decorated soldier he was briefing.

  “Well, yes. Or another continent, perhaps. Say Asia.”

  Jesus. “I’m afraid I don’t know what that would accomplish. You wouldn’t be saving any lives, you’d only be trading some for others. That’s not what we want…right?”

  “Right. I’m just thinking through scenarios here. Of course the preferred course of action would be to eliminate it completely.” He cleared his throat, paused a moment, then launched into a different line of questioning. “What about normal gravity then? What sort of interactions can we expect based on, say, the path of the moon, or the tides?”

  They’d already been over this several times, but Dean played along. “The Earth’s influence is relatively stronger, of course, but there could be fluctuations in the gravimetric effect based on position and tidal cycle. And even the influence of other planets and the sun itself, minor though their effect may be, needs to be factored into our calculations…”

  Dean was cognizant of the fact that they were fishing, trying to cajole him into offering extra information. He had already decided to flatly reject participation in attempts to harness the effect, never mind weaponize it. He had twice refused to elaborate on weaponization already, and this was the third time it had come up. Both prior lines of questioning veered from mitigation theory into redirection, then finally into blatantly asking how to aim the thing. It was obvious these were coordinating their efforts. Then they’d apologized, claiming they were just asking out of curiosity. But he knew there was more to it. He longed to discuss it with his peers, but the nondisclosure directive was clear. Disclosure of classified information—technically all the information contained in all the briefing sessions—was punishable by lengthy prison sentences and, even more frightening, alternative disciplinary considerations.

  * * *

  By his second day, Dean Eckert was no longer so impressed with the base. Indeed, it was fast losing its luster. Being confined and surrounded quickly got to a person, even one as averse to the outdoors as Dean was. At this point, he’d kill for a breath of fresh air, or even a bit of exercise, so long as it wasn’t a stationary, stale-aired workout station.

  But the worst of it was the endless, repetitive interviews they kept putting him through. It seemed as though he’d done at least a dozen since arrival, and now they were happening at a faster rate, and more intrusive as well. And now this colonel, who looked oddly familiar somehow, was asking the kinds of questions normally reserved for police interrogations. Thoroughly tired of answering such invasive queries, he’d lost all interest in cooperation. All he wanted to do at this point was go home.

  “Do I know you from somewhere, by the way?” Dean ventured, an honest question with friendly intentions.

  The colonel looked up. “No,” he replied, “we’ve never met.”

  The answer didn’t satisfy Dean. “You look familiar…”

  “I have that kind of face. Medical conditions?”

  “Yours or mine?” Dean said, trying to lighten the mood. When that got no reaction, he quickly added, “No. No medical conditions.”

  “Childhood diseases?”

  “Measles, I guess. No social diseases, though, unless that’d get me out of army duty,” he said in a dry deadpan, trying again to add a touch of levity to the proceedings.

  “Any phobias?” the colonel droned, acting as if he hadn’t heard the crack. “Physical trauma? Accidents, anything like that?”

  “You mean besides being paranoid about drowning in a deep-sea army base?”

  The colonel merely frowned, scratching something on his clipboard.

  “That’s just a joke. You don’t have to write it down.”

  “Just a joke,” the colonel repeated, still writing. “It’s navy, though.”

  “Come again?”

  “A navy base,” he said, pointing his pen around their surroundings, “although technically it’s joint-ops.”

  “Right. Are you sure we’ve never met?”

  “So you’re afraid of drowning then?”

  Geez. This guy, he thought. “No, it was just a joke, I said.”

  “Choking? Breathing trouble? Asthma on your record? We can check you know.”

  Jesus. “No! None of that. Now listen, I’ve been cooperative, but to be brutally honest I don’t think I really fit in with this crowd down here. My research doesn’t match up with any of those other guys, and I wasn’t exactly recruited, so I don’t see why—”

  “We’re looking for alternative opinions, Doctor Eckert. That’s why you’re here.”

  “Well, what if I don’t want to be?”

  He regretted the snotty tone, but a man could only take so much tedium. He figured he’d had his fill for a year, at least.

  “Once we’ve got your findings on record, and the finalists are selected for the mission, I’m sure they’ll see you safely back home. For now, if you’ll just cooperate a little longer, we can all get this over with.”

  The colonel leaned forward, piercing eyes meeting Dean’s in a show of intimidation that was, Dean had to admit, remarkably effective. “As you say, there are plenty of other scientists here who do want to participate.” With a curt flick of the wrist, he repositioned the pen over the clipboard and stared Dean down even more forcefully, as if daring him to object.

  “Well,” Dean said, becoming aware that he’d shrunk back in his seat a good six inches during the exchange, “okay, then. I’m happy to cooperate.” He softened his tone word by word, but dared to voice one more minor protest, “It’s just the grilling is getting a little much.”